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6 Steps To Thoughtfully Ruthless Success

Managers are often called on to help employees get through personal difficulties connected with the job. It isn’t fun, but it’s often necessary.
What is often overlooked is the fact that managers themselves can fall victim to problems related to the job. Those struggles can often have consequences that are farther-reaching than those of the people they supervise.

In her book “Thoughtfully Ruthless,” Val Wright warns of a downward spiral of gloom, when failure to achieve a goal, in any part of life, leads to misery. Wright suggests the Thoughtfully Ruthless Success Loop to prevent or remove the cycle and drive the necessary change. It has the following six steps:

* Build awareness. Have absolute clarity about what is necessary to change and why.
* Define today’s and tomorrow’s positions. Know exactly what the starting point and destination are.
* Align priorities and accountabilities. This is the highest failure point. Those who can influence the change need to be committed and have it as a high priority against every other potential distraction.
* Identify accelerators and decelerators. Consider these as well as what conditions, triggers, situations or people speed up or hamper and ability to achieve goals.
* Remember dramatic dialogue. Use a manager, mentor or coach to provoke, diagnose and reflect.
* Reinforce change. Change efforts fail when there is no reward or positive confirmation at the end.