Why I Called The Business Creating Edge!
Why I Called The Business Creating Edge!
I find it’s an apt description of how I’ve enjoyed being a leader & watching other leaders over my career.
To always challenge the status quo, not accept where you are but to always look for new opportunities to improve or change the game – to create edge.
Personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed help people reach heights they didn’t know they could.
Coaching people to get the absolute best out of themselves & reach their potential.
It takes more than encouragement.
It takes a combination of a strong people skill orientation, understanding individuals & then challenging the way that you have always done things – creating a bit of edge.
Two quotes have always resonated with me throughout my career & life.
The first is from Henry Ford that everyone will be familiar with:
‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got’
It’s so true & if you don’t challenge the status quo, guess what happens?
The 2nd was from a conference I attended in Las Vegas in 1998:
‘If you’re not making dust, you’re eating it’
Again, if you aren’t leading the way & making a difference, you are getting left behind – I have always loved that quote
Creating Edge is not about treading water!
If you make a conscious effort to focus on aspects of our daily work & leadership that you know will make a positive difference to ourselves & your team – that must be a positive!!
Rather than continuing to let everything stay as it is & impact you either subconsciously or even consciously – you must look at how you can make a difference on today’s activities & leadership styles – you need to create edge.
Now I need to be honest Creating Edge is not something that I made up.
It was something introduced to me as part of a leadership model of a company that I worked for over a number of years.
The leadership model had a North/South alignment which was Set Direction in the north & Drive Results in the south.
Quite self-explanatory – Set Direction of where you want to go & then Drive Results to get there.
Most people in any organisation would understand that very easily & find it quite natural to lead with Set Direction & Drive Results.
But, for myself, it was always the West/East direction that fascinated & appealed to me the most.
It was much more people orientated than financial oriented & I felt this was where the real leadership starts – where leaders can make a massive difference.
In the West direction you had Liberate Potential.
Liberate potential was excellent terminology for releasing the power of the team. Provide the team with the opportunity to reach their potential by removing some of the barriers around them & coaching to release their full potential – to liberate potential.
Liberating potential was always top of my agenda for teams. Providing the environment for individuals & the team to flourish. Creating the ability for team members to succeed with whatever they set their mind to.
It was always the east direction of the leadership model that fascinated me – Create Edge.
I love the concept of challenging the status quo & looking at how to do things differently.
We have a natural ability as humans to accept the way that things are – “if it’s not broken don’t fix it” approach.
Often, we don’t know if it’s broken or not broken because we are routinely involved in something, it might not be perfect, it functions – but without anyone really challenging the status quo how do you really know.
It’s what makes Create Edge exciting & it’s why we called the business Creating Edge.
Because we want to challenge the status quo.
We want to challenge leaders to look at the way they do things & provide the best opportunity to look at their actions differently.
To challenge activities, they conduct today, that clearly affect performance.
To enhance their people skills so they can lead teams in an increasingly positive direction.
Unless you can provide that challenge, unless you can create the edge & provide solutions that work you will stay the same.
That’s exactly what I’ve set out to achieve with Creating Edge.
Build courses that provide leaders with solutions to raise the bar on performance & people skills to help shape team culture.
Collaborative tools, email & chats use an extraordinary amount of people’s time yet if you don’t address the time & cost challenge associated with messaging it will get worse – you must create edge.
Everyone accepts that smartphones have been a fantastic productivity tool in the modern working environment. Yet today overuse & even smartphone addiction are severely stressing people & their ability to perform – you need to create edge.
Meetings will never be perfect.
From downright boring to highly productive & everything in between if you aren’t optimising every element of a meeting, you waste a lot of time & money – so who’s creating the edge?
We let distractions affect our daily activities without taking control. In practice you let people & technologies get away with distracting us – who is creating the edge?
Recognition is one of the most cost effective & brilliant tools to connect with team members, yet few leaders do it successfully – how can you create edge?
We all know communication is a critical part of being a leader but not everyone is great at it – who is providing the tools & who’s creating the edge on communication?
You see so many people who are technically brilliant at their role get promoted generally on the back of their brilliant technical expertise.
If they’re leading teams, shouldn’t their people skills be the number 1 priority? If nobody is helping them tackle leadership differently, they will follow what they have always known, what they have experienced – who is creating the edge?
We love the concept of challenging the status quo & providing people with new opportunities for growth.
Providing them with a ray of light to be able to progress with a positively different approach.
That’s why I loved that part of the leadership model – Create Edge & that’s why we called the company Creating Edge.
It’s exactly what I will provide to leaders & HR professionals.
The opportunity to save time & money as well as shape team culture in key areas of performance by reviewing the skills for leaders & teams on topics that heavily impact us today.
Topics you need to change by Creating Edge.
The opportunity to make step changes in your leaders & teams people skills to reframe the way you lead & work together to shape team culture. Creating Edge in people skills.
I look forward to working with leaders & HR professionals to challenge the status quo & create edge in performance & people skills!
#creatingedge #teamculture #performance #people #productivity #leadership
