Builders Training Resource - Developing Flexibility

Enter your name and e-mail to receive our Free Report:

"Competitive Advantage: Six Steps to Selling More

Homes Through Competitive Analysis"

Click here for our e-mail policy

Developing Flexibility

I am an avid fan of LinkedIn , the business networking site. LinkedIn has a section where professionals share their expertise by asking and answering questions.

An important question about flexibility came up and I thought I would share my answer. I believe flexibility is an importnat management skill and it is not employed in the workplace as much as it should (could) be.

Question:

Can you share with me how you are practically thinking "flexibility" at work?
Do you need to accomodate a multi-generational workforce? How do you think “flexibility”? What are the strategies and tools involved in creating a more flexible approach to the multi-generational workforce? How do you make sure that you’re asking the right people the right questions? How, when and why do you choose different methods?

My Answer...

It is quite natural for people to employ patterns of thinking and behavior that work for them without realizing that these patterns may not work for all situations and individuals (particularly in multi-generational groups). This reliance on favored patterns leads to rigidity.

A great mentor of mine, Robert Dilts, stated that effective performance requires having a range of possibilities before you begin. This "range of possibilities" is how I define flexibility.

So, what are some of the ways to creating a more flexible approach? Here's some ideas:

1. Maintain an attitude of curiosity. This will help you stay open to other points of view
2. Listen. Steven Covey had the right idea when he said, "seek first to understand, then to be understood."
3. Adopt the mindset of the "Other". In other words, act as if you are the other person, imagining what they might be thinking or feeling in a particular situation. It gives you a much different perspective.
4. Avoid dictating only one path to an outcome. There are many different routes to a result, yours is probably a good one, but there are others.
5. The questions to ask are, "How have you done this in the past?", "How else do you think we can do this?", "What are some alternatives to achieving this?".
6. Some excellent methods available for developing flexibility come from the field of Quality. You'll find many interesting and useful strategies (along with recommended contexts) in a number of websites devoted to the quality field. probably the best known is PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) which embraces flexibility as a method for achieving results.

Hope these thoughts are useful for you.