Question:
What makes the Executive Effectiveness process of Dimension
Five Consultants so productive?
Answer:
High speed, incisive and insightful counsel which receptive
clients use as life-changing and career-building paving
stones.
PAVING STONES
Executive
Effectiveness Process
Dimension Five Consultants, Inc.
The impact of the executive development process
of Dimension Five Consultants, Executive Integrity,
can be predicted by client response. Insights provided
to participants through our Executive Integrity process
can become paving stones. Incisive observations and
recommendations build bridges to the future for receptive
clients. Each stone reflects experienced–based
counsel, directed toward enhanced productivity. Issues
and circumstances vary; however, 8000 client responses,
over twenty-four years, follow a pattern.
First, there are the stone throwers. These individuals
are presented with insights, which are provided to them
in the form of solid observations, concerns and suggestions.
These bricks and stones are delivered quickly and directly,
and can be eye-opening, sometimes jarring, to the recipient.
Certain people feel that this forthrightness is intrusive,
painful, irrelevant and a waste of time. These participants,
disturbed by the approach or the content, or both, elect
to throw the paving bricks of advice and counsel right
back into the lap of the provider. These people want
no part of this development approach. They oppose the
process and desire to exit the program as quickly as
possible.
What these individuals typically want is feedback that
provides reassuring confirmation of their current power
and effectiveness. Challenges to their self-perception
are met with resistance as they reject certain paving
stones of insight. They nonverbally and verbally communicate
a desire to fire back the stones with a vengeance. However,
what generally prevents a stronger reaction to the process
is their concern about their organizational position.
Even so, they throw the insights and recommendations
back, consistently defending their own greater wisdom
about leadership, listening, interpersonal ease and
organizational impact. They gain very little.
Second, there are the wall-builders. These clients
are more passive, appearing to accept each stone of
counsel. They nod knowingly, appreciatively and smile,
all the while searching for non-confrontational ways
to side-step any accountability for changing behavior.
Brick by brick and paving stone by insightful paving
stone, they erect their wall of resistance and their
avoidance techniques can be exhausting. What they seek
is political survival while minimizing either learning
or transformation.
They are curious, but they reject genuine connections
to change. They are looking for metrics to give their
analytical minds the opportunity to rationalize the
status quo and maintain their own comfort zone. The
wall-building approach allows for the appearance of
engagement, without embracing the value of feedback
or the motivation that can emerge from practical insights.
Typically, these individuals like wearing the uniform
of power and responsibility, yet are unwilling to internalize
the disciplines required to function as role models,
measured by integrity-centered decision-making. Creating
fewer waves than the stone throwers, they manage to
side-step engagement with the process, avoid growth
and risk their own careers by erecting a protective
wall with the very paving stones that might have helped
them to improve.
Third, there are integrity-centered career-builders.
These are leaders who thrive on learning and seek input
and advice. Incisive and insightful counsel provides
them with paving stones which they utilize to build
their future. They know that recognizing their own vulnerabilities
can be significant in leveraging their other talents.
Criticism is welcomed as a building block. Feedback
that offers challenge is embraced as a further confirmation
that continuous improvement is the only sure path to
success in a highly competitive world. Building this
pathway to increased productivity often requires paving
stones provided by counselors, mentors and caring colleagues.
Those who embrace wisdom with responsiveness are better
able to leverage relationships with actions which are
the stepping stones to success. Like iron ore that must
go through the purifying fires of heat as it makes its
way to becoming a refined life-sustaining mechanism
of a pacemaker, so too must the aspiring world-class
executive be willing to accept the challenges for growth
that create and sustain leadership excellence!
One wise advisor reminded us that our clients do not
care how much we know until they know how much we care.
When the supportive atmosphere is clear, then participants
know that Dimension Five’s Executive Effectiveness
process is intended only to assist those who select
its counsel. When clients understand how important it
is to be the best that they can be; then, and sometimes
only then, are the most valuable and incisive insights
leveraged. Change and growth begin with listening.
