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November, 2006
U.S. Library of Congress ISSN 1549-893X

Welcome to Leadership Hand™, a monthly e-newsletter
focusing on the softer side of leadership
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1. Three Keys to Improving Performance: Part III

Structure of Interpretation

In Parts I and II of this trilogy, I wrote about James Flaherty's model (described in his book, Coaching for Excellence) for assessing a leader's ability to achieve a desired outcome. Flaherty's model involves looking through three lenses:

  • Commitment,
  • Competence, and the
  • Structure you've created to support achieving your goal or maintaining its achievement (Structure of Interpretation)

What Flaherty calls "structure of interpretation" is the way you see the world, and the way you see it at a particular moment, and the meaning you bring to what you see. This scaffolding determines the action you take that supports (or doesn't support) achieving or maintaining your goal.

Travis Twomey, a coach trainer for Success Unlimited Network® says that the "structure of interpretation" could be renamed "The Way I See Things." Here are two examples:

  • An executive believes engendering commitment and loyalty from her employees is something she does well, no matter what size organization she leads. Over the course of her career through many challenging situations, she has received feedback supporting this belief. The past year, despite the turbulence, has been no different. When she walks into a room where employees are alarmed at recent changes in the market she…

  • A high potential believes he always has to watch his back at work-people just aren't trustworthy. His supervisor had recently talked with him about his withholding of information from his team members. This rattled him greatly. With a new baby on the way, he was counting on a bonus, and he had wanted to be considered for a promotion. The conversation with his supervisor made him think that he'd lost his chance at that promotion. Later that week, he walked by his supervisor's office where she was meeting with the head of HR. Both dropped their voices. He immediately assumed…

Imagine each of the above examples separately and the actions you might take if this were "The Way I See Things." Clearly, your structure of interpretation--the way you see things--determines the actions you take.

When the actions aren't effective (and you've already considered the commitment and competence aspects of achieving your goal), a change in the way you see things is invaluable.

Here are some steps you can take for greater insight into and for shifting The Way You See Things:

  1. Reverse Engineer. If you want a different behavior set and have identified those behaviors, how would you be seeing things if you were able to engage in these behaviors? What slight shift would you be willing to take toward seeing things this way?

  2. Craft an open-ended question that challenges the way you see things, and for at least a month, reflect upon that question at the end of the day or the week. An example might be, "This situation is stopping me from behaving the way I want to. How am I seeing the situation? How is this view limiting me from behaving differently in this situation?"

To a New Way of Seeing Things!

Beth Hand

© Copyright 2007, Beth Hand. Beth Hand, MBA helps leaders increase their effectiveness and satisfaction, now and for the future. She can be reached at (+1) 703.820.8074 or via her website www.leadershiphand.com.

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