What’s stopping you from making a game-changing impact?

Baiju Solanki’s mission is to push leaders to unlock their inherent potential. With a degree in psychology and a Masters in sports psychology, he spent five years in academia before moving into corporate sales and eventually starting his own coaching and training business in 2007. 

“My main focus over the last 15 years”, says Baiju, “has been working with leaders, CEOs and entrepreneurs to help them achieve their potential – irrespective of their industry”. From bricklayers to solicitors, scaffolders to accountants, he specialises in helping individuals make a game-changing impact in their world. 

He covered this topic in his recent Vistage webinar on February 14th. We caught up with Baiju to learn where business leaders could be going wrong, behaviours they may need to change or develop, and frameworks that can help. 

Watch the webinar in full here.

Where are business leaders going wrong? 

“Within a corporate organisation, the assumption is that the product that you offer is great”, says Baiju. “There’s also an assumption that most of the processes and systems you need to be able to deliver the product are more or less in place”. 

The thing that makes the real difference, he says, is people: and getting the best out of your people is a three-part process. 

“The first is having clarity about what success looks like”, he begins. If there’s a misalignment between what you believe success looks like and what your team believes success looks like, achieving success will be a struggle. 

The second is ensuring that everyone is aligned in terms of values to be able to deliver that success. The third is accountability – creating a culture of accountability where nobody feels micromanaged, everyone feels empowered, and everybody has the same end game. 

Baiju uses football as an example. “In football, everybody knows that success comes from scoring more goals”, he explains. “In the changing room, they’re not sitting there saying that they need to score more goals, as that’s a given. Instead, they talk about the game plan, strategy, the role of each individual player in dealing with adversity on the pitch”. 

When the team leaves the pitch, they want to be sure that the only reason they lost is that the other team is better – not because they didn’t follow their game plan and execute. 

“Sometimes in business that’s not what success looks like”, he says. “It’s not as clear. That’s why you need all those other things in place.”

The importance of capacity and communication

“The two things I look at within an organisation are: do you understand someone’s capacity, and are you in communication?” explains Baiju. 

He describes how people communicate a lot without actually being in communication – and when they aren’t in communication, you can’t possibly hold someone accountable to set tasks. 

“The work I do looks at someone’s competence and confidence”, he says. “This directly impacts understanding their capacity and communication. If you manage someone’s capacity so they can perform at their best 80% of the time AND you’re in communication when things happen that hinder that progress, you’re going to get high performance.”

Three frameworks to power you forward

“As humans, we have this tirade of excuses in our pockets”, says Baiju. As a result, people will commit to something – but then we will compensate for their excuses as a way of showing that we are kind, considerate and understanding. 

The first framework that Baiju covered in his Vistage session involved eliminating excuses from team members in terms of delivering on goals. 

The second, meanwhile, covered how to set up an accountability conversation. “It’s like in sales”, he says. “In sales, people think it’s all about the close. It’s never about the close. It’s about how you set up the conversation to ensure that the close happens. This framework is about setting up a conversation with a team member that ensures accountability, that guarantees that they will deliver the right thing at the right time without excuses for why it didn’t happen.”

The third framework ensures that you, as a leader, stay disciplined in your efforts. “You might feel like you’ve done lots but at the end of the day, you feel like you’ve actually achieved nothing”, says Baiju. “So how can you make sure you win every single day?”

Missed the webinar? Don’t worry…

If you missed Baiju’s webinar on “How To Make A Game-Changing Impact” on February 14th, don’t worry. If you’re a CEO, leader or entrepreneur who is looking for actionable insights and strategies to help you make a game-changing impact, the webinar is now online for you to enjoy in full. 

“People who are in your team look to you as an example”, ends Baiju. “Sometimes we want people to do what we say, not what we do. However, most people will actually mirror what you do, not necessarily what you say.”

He highlights the importance of setting a professional standard – and living, breathing and maintaining that standard. “It’s all about being professional in your behaviours”, he concludes. “And professionalism isn’t about getting paid for something – it’s about how you show up.”

Click here for the full webinar.

0 views