The Workplace Coach

Simon Sinek’s book The Infinite Game about developing a long-term mindset for your organisation. The focus being less about the P&L statement for the year, and more about having a vision for the type of legacy company that you will be leaving for the next two or three generations. As managers of people we could take a thing or two away from this concept. 

If my approach to managing people is that my people are going to be around for a long time, and that I am going to be managing them for the next 10 or 20 years, then I might act differently towards them than I would if I thought they are only going to be working here for the next 12 months or so. A long term or ‘infinite’ approach is going to have a dramatically different feel than a short term or ‘finite’ approach. 

Ideally, I want to be creating a culture in my team that makes my people feel like they wouldn’t mind sticking around for the long term. An environment where they feel they are contributing in a meaningful way, where they are valued and appreciated, where they can grow and learn and mess up without fearing for their job. 

Several interesting things start happening when people think of their role as permanent or long term, rather than as a short term stepping stone to somewhere else. In the same way as a long-term tenant might want to plant a garden, your people will begin to develop a sense of belonging, become more invested in the company, more committed to the long-term vision and wanting to be a part of it.

It is such a simple concept but so many managers, perhaps feeling pressure from above around immediate results, seem to have a short-term mindset.  They see their people as disposable, replaceable resources that need to be squeezed as hard as possible in the short time that they are going to be in the team.  If someone drops the ball or comes off the boil, then they will need to be ‘fixed’, punished or replaced. The expectation is that people won’t stick around for long.  Ironically, our expectations often become our reality. 

Or sometimes the issue is that the manager’s short-term mindset is because the manager themself doesn’t intend to stick around.  They might see their role as just a temporary situation before their next promotion.   The trouble here is that the team will very clearly sense that the manager is not fully committed, not in it for the long run, and “If you don’t care about me, then why should I care about you?” If the manager isn’t 100% in then it’s unlikely that the team will be 100% in either.

So that is the challenge for you in the weeks and months ahead. Look to develop a mindset that you are sticking around for an extended period of time, assume that your people are doing the same, and then act accordingly.  A long-term approach will influence your every interaction with your team, your every business decision, and put your anxiety levels over short-term results into perspective.  I’m not saying that both you and the team don’t need to be performing at peak levels, what I am saying is that a long-term mindset creates an environment where your people actually want to do their best.

This not a carrot or stick scenario.  This is more of a “let us plant carrots together, so that one day we might eat carrot cake together” scenario.  

The Workplace Coach