When working with teams and organisations’, I love to observe the cultures that prevail and operate on a day to day basis. On a regular basis, I observe cultures that are high performing, dysfunctional and all others in-between.
As outlined in our previous blogs, there are many attributes of an organisation that create a high performance culture. However, there is one simple yet crucial element that I have observed within these high performing teams. This element is simply the differentiation in mindset existing in a team’s individual members. This mindset holds the ability to be able to differentiate between a handout and hand up.
To understand each, we recognize that an employee with a handout mentality focuses on the following:
- What am I receiving as a team member?
- Where is my next entitlement?
- Where is my next piece of training or development?
- This organisation exists to provide a job for me, security and keep me safe.
- I am entitled to this coaching, support and if it is not provided,I will refuse any discretionary effort into the organisation.
Unfortunately, this mindset and approach is toxic and prohibits both the employee and organisation from thriving and growing into a high performance culture.
A mindset of a hand up mentality within an individual/team focus lies around:
- How I can help and support myself, team and organisation to deliver outstanding outcomes?
- How can I step up, help the team, myself and drive outcomes?
- I put my hand up and be proactive.
- I drive my own career.
- No one owes me anything and I take personal responsibility for what I do, how I respond and how I deliver outcomes.
This hand up approach allows team members to feed off each other to successfully deliver high performance for their organisations and clients.
Whilst a simple concept, this is a crucial key to the empowerment and development of not only an employee, but in reaching an organisations goals and potential. The hand up concept drives an empowerment culture that is far more energising than the handout concept draining a team, organisation and clients’ energy.
