Friday 23 December 2011

Model success from the top (a “know your map” influence tool how-to)

This post provides guidance on how to apply the "Model success from the top" influence tool from the "Know Your Map" chapter of the book Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance (read more here), including specific steps, examples and templates.  All content in this post has been created by me, using the title of this influence tool as a starting point only (the book provides anecdotes and context, not detailed how-to steps as outlined here).

What?
Study how other successful, high achieving individuals reached their goals and apply whatever was successful about their approach to yours. Look for people who are at the top of their game in an industry, sector or discipline that you are targeting and seek to learn what worked and what did not work for them, so that you can emulate their successes and avoid the pitfalls that they fell into.

Why?
You can save a lot of time and effort by learning from other highly successful individuals. In some cases they may have taken some specific actions that you can copy directly; in others they may have just had a particular attitude or set of behaviours that made the difference. Whatever it is that made them successful, why not see if the same thing can make you successful too?

How?
Modelling success from the top does not have to involve a formal “study” of anyone – it can just be achieved by keeping your eyes and ears open when working with great people and making sure you learn from them.

However, if you are to dedicate some time and effort to learning from the best in a more formal way, there are several key ways to do this:
  • Study a famous highly successful person through research;
  • Study a famous highly successful person by directly reaching out to them; or
  • Study someone that you already know, who is highly successful in a relevant area of their lives or career.
Whichever of the above you choose, there are several basic steps that you need to go through to do this:
  1. Identify the person or persons that you intend to study. They must be successful in a way that is directly relevant to you;
  2. Define a structure for studying their success e.g. categories of behaviour, capabilities or outcomes to look at how they performed in each. Ideally this structure should be aligned to the categories that you have used to define your own objectives;
  3. Plan your research: how are you going to do it e.g. what books, websites or other sources are you going to target, how are you going to get in contact with them, how will you document and analyse the information you gather?
  4. Conduct the review in line with your plan;
  5. Analyse the results and work out how your findings can be applied to your own life;
  6. Apply the lessons that you have learned!
There are a few other alternative approaches in addition to this:
  • Read lots of biographies and autobiographies of people who you want to learn from and make sure you continuously look for ways to apply their ideas and approaches to your own life;
  • Read lot of self help books that contain case studies and anecdotal examples from other successful people;
  • Find a successful person to be your mentor (a longer term relationship than this one-off exercise).

An example
You will find examples of where you have done this in everyday life, because we model our behaviour on the behaviour of others often without even realising that we're doing it. This can be in relation to everything from your accent, picked up from your parents and friends, to the way that you deal with setbacks in your life.

The key difference that this “influence tool” advocates is that you take control over who you are influenced by and how, including what it is about others that you allow yourself to be influenced by and what you will not allow.

An example from my work life is a programme manager that I worked for several years ago who I still use as a model for how programmes should be run. Not only did he implement a range of programme management tools that are widely recognised as “best practice”, but he did so in a pragmatic way that demonstrated how they should be used for maximum effect. He focused on getting the best out of the people that were working for him, on coordination and alignment of activities, on clarity of status and communication. It was a great experience to work for him and on every project that I have been on since, I think back to what he did and what he would have done to make sure that I deliver to the best of my ability.

Also, in my experience the most valuable behavioural lesson that I have taken away from successful people is the very high standards of integrity and quality that these highly successful live by. I have seen that a person's attitude and principles and the way in which they consistently live their lives in line with these values is often the most important factor in their success.

An exercise
As a really simple way to get started, try filling in the table below.
You can add as many rows as you wish, for all of the people that you feel that you can learn from. The columns in the table cover:
  • WHO
    This column is for the name of the person you will model your success on. These people can be world leading superstars but don't need to be: they can be anyone who has any behavioural trait or success that you want to learn from and model, no matter how humble their backgrounds.
  • LESSONSThis column is for a list of the lessons that you will take from the life and achievements of the person that you have chosen to model your success on. When filling in the lessons column, try to be as specific as possible about what it was that they did to achieve their successes. Don't focus on environmental things that were outside of their control such as their upbringing – instead look at what decisions they made, how they dealt with setbacks and mistakes, what specific actions they took that you could copy, how they behaved from day to day that worked well for them. If you chose them due to one particular success in their life, focus on things that led to that success.
  • ACTIONSThis column is for capturing a list of things you will do to take action on the lessons learned by the individual you are learning from. You can list as many actions here as you like - just make sure that your actions are as specific as possible: ideally include in your list things that you can do today; things you can change about your behaviour from this moment forwards; specific people you will talk to, things you will do and deliver. The more specific and immediate your actions are, the more likely you will be able to implement them and the quicker you will see the positive effects of making those changes.

WHO
Successful Person
LESSONS
What made them successful?
ACTIONS
What can you do to apply their lessons to your life?
























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