{"id":960,"date":"2012-02-27T05:00:55","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T13:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/markccrowley.com\/?p=960"},"modified":"2012-02-27T05:00:55","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T13:00:55","slug":"960","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-wmplo.xyz\/mark-c-divi5\/960\/","title":{"rendered":"Aim High!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"Goldfish\u201cHigh achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.\u201d
\n<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0American inventor,\u00a0<\/em>Charles F. Kettering<\/p>\n

Occasionally when I\u2019m writing my blog posts, I feel compelled to re-state what may not always be obvious: the idea of Leading From The Heart is anything but a touchy-feely leadership approach.<\/p>\n

Instead, the premise is this: \u00a0If you are extremely vigilant in selecting the most talented and ideally suited employees, understand and fully support their career and growth ambitions, and routinely honor their efforts and achievements \u2013 you will have a highly motivated and capable team on your hands.<\/p>\n

Even better, you will have a team of people who are collectively capable of accomplishing extraordinary things.\u00a0 So when you Lead From The Heart, you inherently prepare your team to aim very high with respect to the goals and expectations you set.<\/p>\n

Let me illustrate.<\/p>\n

Several years ago when I was a Retail Banking Regional Manager overseeing 26 bank branches, our company used a modified profit and loss statement to measure branch effectiveness. Branches earned revenue for the products they sold (e.g. loans, checking accounts etc.) and were charged for their payroll.\u00a0 \u201cNet profit\u201d was the bottom-line measure.<\/p>\n

One November, the bank informed Regional Managers that the coming year\u2019s monthly net profit goal would be $10,000.\u00a0 This was a target many branches would struggle to meet.<\/p>\n

In December, I took my management team on a retreat and announced the New Year\u2019s target of $10,000 while insisting that we <\/em>should aim higher.\u00a0 Now, no one ever wants their goals raised beyond what their company sets for them, but I appealed to my team\u2019s skill and motivation in challenging them to shoot for $14,000 \u2013 40% beyond what the rest of the company was targeting!<\/p>\n

I asked them to return to their branches and build a plan (that I would review and approve) that would get each of their teams to at least $14,000 in monthly profit.<\/p>\n

To be honest, some of the managers bristled at my higher ambitions.\u00a0 But every one of them soon returned with a plan \u2013 that they believed was achievable \u2013 which would result in meeting the higher target.\u00a0 Several of them told me that once they played with the numbers and saw what it would take to hit $14,000, their own beliefs of what was achievable changed.<\/p>\n

Keeping in mind that the managers benefited through pay and other rewards for their higher-than-average performance, they were ecstatic when January\u2019s regional net income average exceeded $17,000.\u00a0 Comparatively, the company average that month came in well under<\/em> the $10,000 target.<\/p>\n

As the year went on, many of the managers raised their own expectations of themselves and of their own teams, and set increasingly higher goals.\u00a0 Some branches soon were hitting $20,000 in net profit on a monthly basis \u2013 and this region went on to lead the entire bank of nearly 4,000 branches for the next three consecutive years.<\/p>\n

I wrote extensively about this team in Lead From The Heart<\/em> and my experience with them taught me this:<\/p>\n

When I cared deeply about them, found every way possible to foster their growth and development and routinely expressed genuine gratitude for the work they did, extraordinary performance was my reward as their leader.<\/p>\n

The Lead From The Heart bottom-line: When you as the leader believe in and follow through on the things that help your employees thrive, they will naturally and instinctively excel.<\/p>\n

We encourage you to share these blogs with friends and colleagues! \u00a0If you would like to receive them directly, please sign up here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cHigh achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0American inventor,\u00a0Charles F. Kettering Occasionally when I\u2019m writing my blog posts, I feel compelled to re-state what may not always be obvious: the idea of Leading From The Heart is anything but a touchy-feely leadership approach. Instead, the premise is this: \u00a0If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,16],"tags":[39,80,88,109,133,166,168,197,230],"class_list":["post-960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heartleadershipinpractice","category-leadership","category-wisdomefromotherauthors","tag-business","tag-excellence","tag-goal-setting","tag-human-performance","tag-leadership-skills","tag-productivity","tag-profit","tag-success","tag-well-being"],"yoast_head":"\nAim High! - Mark C. 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