Mr. Gidley wasn’t trying to teach us anything about leadership on the first day of high school math class.
In fact, he was just having a good laugh.
And it WAS funny.
He found a way to get a bunch of really smart kids to give really dumb answers to a really simple question.
I wonder, though. Would it have been possible to do the opposite?
Would it be possible to get really average kids to give really smart answers?
Because that’s the essence of what it means to be an influential leader.
You have to get your people (whether they’re smart and talented, or merely average or worse) to produce results.
But how do you do that?
Do you try to influence them to be more talented? More creative? More innovative? More intelligent? More productive?
Do you introduce more metrics and accountability?
Listen, trying to make people produce better results by attempting to influence them to “be better” is kinda silly.
You can’t influence things like their talent level or their intelligence.
So, maybe the key to getting great results from an average team is to influence the CONTEXT surrounding their work.
But can your team’s final results improve simply by putting their work environment into a new context?
It’s actually impossible.
…to do it any other way.
Don’t attempt to influence their talent. Instead, influence how they see their work.