Today has been an exciting day at In Flow HQ. We’ve had a planning and strategy session devoted to looking towards the future. It’s been really illuminating and one thing it has made me reconsider is my “role” within the business. As an entrepreneur and business owner it’s easy to want (and sometime need) to be involved in every little detail. However, today brought home to me how important it is to identify where you should take the lead and where you should give others the spotlight in order to improve the company’s performance.
The idea of “inhabiting a role” is something I would previously only have associated with my career as an actor but the more I think about it, the more I see how applicable it is to all aspects of life. In business in particular I think the way in which we think about our “role” can have huge implications on our performance.
In reality we each have many different versions of ourselves. There is a very different version of Dominic when I am at home with my wife and daughter to the version of Dominic who turns up to serious negotiations. It is another Dominic again who takes the lead in the training room and even that version of Dominic adapts to the needs and energy of the delegates.
When we think of our “work role” then, imagine the impact if instead of just thinking about Key Competencies, Responsibilities and Duties we thought about which parts of ourselves we needed to “turn up” and which parts we needed to “turn down” in order to achieve our goals. What would happen if we consistently brought the version of ourselves that was most perfectly suited to the tasks at hand to the office with us every morning?
As any good actor will tell you, the process of creating a character begins with awareness. The actor needs to understand their own “character” before they can adapt and inhabit another. In the world of business then, our task is to develop a greater self-awareness in order to allow us to be flexible in our approach to the challenges that we face. Begin to notice your behaviour and you are half way to changing it. Once you know the options at your disposable you can then be much more targeted in how you deploy them!
What version of yourself would you benefit from bringing to work tomorrow morning in order to best fulfil your role? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Keep shining!
Dominic