By Teri Hill, C1 Contributor
Last year at SXSW an Austin, Texas based company, Digital Touch, premiered an interactive table application for restaurants and bars.
Picture sitting down at your favorite watering hole with a clear table top, no novel-like menu; instead a screen that appears beckoning your food and beverage selection. Technology is advancing so fast it begs the question – what are you doing to stay relevant?
The beginning of 2014 is another opportunity to take inventory and take action. Reflect on the last year – what were your successes and disappointments? What lessons from the past will help you adjust into 2014? What might you need to stop, start, or continue doing to stay effective? Where do you need to adapt and adjust? To help you along below are five things you can do today as a leader to ensure you are staying relevant and effective:
Ask why. Instead of assuming you know why people are engaged and working for you ask them what is most important to them in their day-to-day job. Why are they working for or with you?
Why are your COs with you? What is the value you bring to them, or they to you? This question is eye-opening, especially if you are working to identify what you can do for your officers. Check out this potent TED Talk from popular author Simon Sinek for more on the power of WHY.
Recall the sage words of Sun Tzu quoted in the Art of War for Executives: “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” Understand the dynamics of your industry. What is changing? Do any of the practices you discover make sense for you to adopt? Keep your friends close by aligning with a group of seasoned professionals to help guide you, check your assumptions, and keep you from feeling “lonely at the top.” As John Maxwell, prolific leadership author and writer likes to say: “All of us are smarter than one of us.”
Embrace flexibility. Be a lifelong learner. Seek to expand your own capabilities. If you are asking others who work for you to learn and grow, you must demonstrate integrity by learning and growing yourself. Seek new ways to tackle issues. Align yourself with other learners.
Network. Who you know and the quality of your ongoing relationships define you. Let your network help you grow your business and expand your knowledge of what is happening outside the walls of your life. Seek to understand others and give first in your network before you expect others to give to you.
Be aware of your abilities. How do others see you? We exist in a world with four distinct generations of people with varying values, communication practices, and expectations of the workplace. Learn more about how to be relevant to those who you need to influence most. Ask your employees and supervisors what are your top strengths and opportunities for growth. None of us can grow in a vacuum. We must seek feedback from others and use that to adjust our image and retool our brand.