Motivational Minute #10 How Big Is Your Chair

Excerpt from my upcoming book

#10 How Big Is Your Chair?

How To Determine When It's Time To Make A Change

People grow. Chairs grow. Rarely do they ever grow at the same time or at the same pace.

What chair do you occupy now? Your chair is determined by your position in your occupation. Technicians occupy technical chairs while accounting people sit in the accounting chairs.

Knowingly or not, you are constantly evaluating your chair. Have your capabilities grown beyond the position you're in now? Or, has it outgrown you?

There are three options:

· your chair is the right size (the rarest situation)

· your chair is too small (because you've outgrown it)

· your chair is too big (your position has outgrown you)

This is a healthy exercise: it keeps you focusing on your growth and the growth of the chair you're occupying. The chair is rarely the right size for the person sitting in it. So, what are individuals to do and what are leaders and managers to do?

Keep in mind, there is usually nothing wrong with the chair and nothing wrong with the individual; it's just that the situation has changed and the fit is no longer what it was.

For The Individual

If Your Chair Is Too Big

The demands of your position have grown. Perhaps the demands of your profession have grown. If new technologies have become the New Normal in your profession and you're still trying to do things the same old way, your chair is too big.

If your organization is changing because of growth or downsizing, more demands may be placed on the person in your chair than were ever expected before. Are you up to those demands?

If your chair is too big, you have two choices: grow up or move on.

This is a great time to grow. In a down economy, more efficiencies are needed and one of the ways to increase efficiency is to have the same number of people handling more tasks. What else could you be doing? Would new technologies, processes or principles help you be more effective and grow in your current chair?

Move outside your comfort zone and outside the box. Develop a New Normal for your chair, put together a proposal for why your approach would be better than the status quo and then sell your idea to your organization. If you do not receive the positive response you want, take the feedback constructively and use it as a roadmap for improving your position.

Think you may need to move on? See the ideas in the next section.

If Your Chair Is Too Small

When your experience, education and performance indicate that you have outgrown your chair, you have two options: Move On or Resize the Chair.

Using the ideas above, develop a proposal for your organization showing why a better-qualified person like you is right for this position when the position has more responsibility and more accountability. Perhaps others in the organization are not aware that your position could be contributing more to the bottom line if it were resized.

If resizing is not an option, it is probably time to move on. There are several critical factors for you to consider when evaluating this option:

1. Go to, not from. Don't leave a position because you want to leave; make the change a positive one by knowing that you are going to an opportunity that is better for you.

2. Are you a builder or a runner? Builders take a position from one level to another. If that's you, find a position you can grow, an opportunity you can make better with your expertise and ability. If you're a runner, find an enticing position that you can run more smoothly than it is currently being run. Are you someone who can "fine-tune the familiar" and make a position work better (a runner) or do you prefer to redefine and improve an existing position (a builder)? A person who excels at one will be dissatisfied in the other position and will soon find their chair to be the wrong size again.

3. Follow your trajectory. Look back and take an inventory of the events on your path to success. What is this leading to? What is the most logical next step for you? What do your confidants think would be the next best step?

4. Are you more "corporate" or more "entrepreneurial"? Would you rather help the little guy grow or are you better suited for the major leagues?

For The Organization

Do you have people in chairs that are the wrong size for them? Most companies do. Maybe you've been focusing on having "the right people on the bus" but without thinking through their capabilities in their position, the seat they occupy.

You have options. If their chair is too big for them, consider a development plan. After all, it is usually less expensive and disruptive to upgrade than to replace them. If their chair is too small, consider adding responsibilities that will enlarge the chair.

In either case, here are some considerations:

1. Rethink your organization chart. Is the current organizational structure still the best one for taking your organization forward? What positions can be combined with others, can be eliminated or do some new ones need to be created?

2. Use Kaizen and other Lean processes. There are better ways of doing almost everything; this may be the best time to research some alternatives.

All chairs are musical chairs. Employees can leave at any time and you are free to remove chairs at any time. Your markets, industry, competitors and technology are changing. When times are good it is easy to sit in our chairs and listen to the music. So, turn on the up-tempo music, remove a chair and see what happens.

Is your chair the right size?

What changes do you need to make?

Remember: If you're occupying a chair that does not fit you are harming two people: yourself and the person who would fit that position.

Vistage/TEC Chairs

Consider forwarding this to your members

Help your Members find greater efficiencies and new business models by changing the chairs in their organizations. Consider using this article as a springboard for conversations in your one-to-ones.

Chuck Reaves, CSP, CPAE, CSO
SaleSSuiteS
770.965.5595

CONTACT:

Chuck@ChuckReaves.com