We all know that leadership requires ‘deep relationships’.
How can you motivate someone and improve their performance if you don’t know anything about them?

The simple answer is that you can’t.

The reason for this is that people are not logical – we are not machines. We behave in accordance with how we feel and how we think.
If we believe that a person has our best interests at heart, we give them permission to challenge and push us. If we don’t feel that they have our best interests at heart – the reality is, when things get tough, we disengage.
When I was placed in command of a new troop of Marines in the Corps, the first thing I would do is interview each of them. I would ask them the following questions:
  • Where did you grow up?
  • Where do you spend your weekends?
  • What motivates you?
  • What do you want to specialise in?
  • What do you want out of your career in the Corps?
This helped me to understand what they wanted to do. If they didn’t know the answers, I could work towards helping them find out but at least I had a starting point from which to support and develop them as individuals.
When I left the Corps, I was given some excellent advice which builds on this practice.
If you are going to start leading a team – make it easier for them by giving them the ‘Roadmap to You’.

Prepare the following presentation and give it to everyone that reports to you – and maybe even their direct reports if you think it is appropriate.
Start with your background…
  • Where did you grow up?
  • Where did you go to school?
  • What does your family background look like?
Then move on to tell them about your career…
  • Where did you start – why?
  • Why did you move to various positions? What did you learn with each move?
Then tell them about you…
  • What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses?
  • What interests and excites you and what bores you?
  • What are your values?
  • What irritates you? E.g. if you hate it when people arrive late to meetings, tell them that at the start. Don’t wait till ‘they get it wrong’ and you have to correct them.
Then – now this is the secret sauce – tell them what you are ‘working on from a personal perspective’.
What are you trying to do to improve yourself?
Then, ask them to hold you to account for a behaviour that you are trying to change.
What happens if you do something like this?

You will demonstrate tremendous humility – you are sharing with your team that you’re a ‘work in progress’ and that’s okay – because in reality everyone is. You don’t have all the answers and you’re not perfect so you are not expecting them to be.
You’re also making it clear from the outset that you know yourself. This type of consistency makes it easy for your people to ‘manage up’.
It sets expectations from the start and makes it easy for them to perform under your leadership.
The next step is to take each person out for a coffee and ask them the same questions. Build a deeper relationship with the person by asking them about their personal history.
  • What is important to them?
  • What drives and motivates them?
  • What do they want out of life and how can you support that aspiration?
How would you feel if your Boss did that with you? Would this kind of thing engage you?
Maybe, maybe not – but at least you know they’ve made an effort to find out about you and how they can help you – has anyone you’ve worked for ever done that before?