Building The New Currency of Success

Are you satisficing, or optimizing?

Nobel Lauriate Herbert Simon coined the word satisficing to describe doing what is adequate, rather than optimizing (doing ones best).

Satisficing can make us feel good, it can produce short term results, but satisficing cannot and will not create the foundation of innovation, action-ability, accountability, values alignment, communication, collaboration, effectiveness and leadership that can keep us moving forward.

Nor will a focus on over achievement, perfectionism to the detriment of the quality of our lives, our relationships, our workplaces, our society help us build, maintain and sustain the human qualities, skills, potential and values that we need to drive a better human, personal and business bottom line.

The facts speak for themselves. While U.S. productivity statistics are at an all time high, U.S. corporations spend in excess of $10 billion a year on executive stress related emotional and physical illness, addictions, burn outs, brown outs, absenteeism, presenteeism, and the general workplace stress tab to industry exceeds $300 billion a year. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization forecasts that STRESS WILL BE THE MAJOR CAUSE OF DISABILITY by the year 2020. And, the human statistics, the quality of life statistics are just as jarring.

CLEARLY, optimizing human potential, demands a whole new focus. A focus that can help us maximize our strengths, while also using the changes, challenges, stressors, even failures we face in our lives and our work to build the high emotional intelligence, enhanced focus, purpose, life, leadership and communication strengths that are the new currency of success.

While material incentives are important, they cannot change the fact that the speed of life, the speed of work, the speed of competition and change are unprecedented in human history. And, material incentives have done very little to solve the problem of a pandemic of stress that is the greatest threat to sustainable economic and social well being.

We need to create learning organizations, but we also need to create living organizations where vertical and horizontal communication are encouraged. Organizations where employees who show promise, or those who are stuck in stasis are given the benefit of excellent coaching. Coaching that will help the executive or manager achieve goals that are agreed upon between the coach, coachee(s) and the organization, while also enjoying the confidentiality of the coach-coachee relationship. Optimizing potential means keeping our eye on the objectives, the goals, the results, and not the process between coach and coachee.

How do we start? We start right where we are, with the relentless determination to not satisfice, but to optimize our own potential, and the potential of those we lead. We start with CEOs and C-Suite executives who are ready to enhance their emotional intelligence, life, leadership and communication strengths in a forum of confidentiality, a safe place from personal and political agendas. We start with managers in the middle of the organization who recognize the importance of being coached to develop these critical strengths, want to do more that satisfice, and will benefit from a safe haven where they can learn to maximize strengths and transform stressors into the new currency of success in their lives and their work.

Described by clients as a coach, confidant, sounding board, crisis manager and success guide, Irene Becker is the Chief Success Officer of Just Coach It, a professional coaching firm dedicated to helping smart, fast, forward thinkers build the new currency of success in their lives, their leadership and their work. See http://www.justcoachit.com

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House Mold Problems