In today’s minisode, we continue the Think Like a CEO series and in part 3, we’re going to look at how to build confidence in your people.

Chief, I want to start with what I believe to be one of the biggest problems in both sport and business. And I have seen this over and over and over again.

1. Misdiagnosed performance issues

One of the scourges in leadership is misdiagnosis of performance issues.

People talk about not having the right capability, but it's a personality issue. “This person has gone as far as they can in business.” You know what? They simply lack the skills. I think that we can be really hard on ourselves and on our people when it's actually not that necessary. Misdiagnosis of performance issues is something we can fix with just a little bit of clear thinking.

At Chief Maker we use a framework – a Skills Matrix – to follow the Technical, Tactical, Physical, Mental, and Social skills. When you have all these in play, confidence builds.

I heard a metaphor once used to describe confidence. Imagine that you're sitting on a stool and it's only got two legs. As a result, when you sit on it, it's really tippy. The confidence is not strong. You add another leg, and all of a sudden, it starts to get more stable. And every time you add one more support to that stool, it gets more and more and more solid. And that is how confidence builds. 

Think about any sport that you've ever played, any music you've ever played. Think about when you built your initial professional skill set. That might be finance, it could be marketing, operations, it could be law, it could be coding. The first time you did it, you really lacked any sense of flow. It was clunky. And then you built more skill over time and you built up to more and more bigger challenges.

So the first thing I want you to think about when it comes to building the confidence of your people is to do a proper analysis of where they're at in relation to their level or role. For example, if you have an up-and-coming member of your marketing team and now they've gone up a level, the breadth of their role has now increased. There's a whole lot more technical understanding they are required to get, and it's starting to look like they're lacking confidence at work.

This is where we pause and ask ourselves, “What is the root cause of their lack of confidence?” Is it skill-based? Is it a process or framework issue? Is it a mindset issue?

2. Correct diagnosis of confidence issues

Those of you who have followed Chief Maker will know we use a model called MPS: Mindset, Process, Skill. Sit down with that person in your team and ask them which part of the job they are not feeling confident about. Really break it down. Is it the leadership part, the routines, is it leading a team that you have no technical expertise in, is it the difficult conversations part?

Unfortunately, as humans, we tend to take one element of our performance and generalise for the whole. For example, let’s say we're not great at having difficult conversations. We then can think that we're not great leaders, which is simply not true. It is better to focus on the bits that will build confidence across all elements of our role.

So get the person you’re working with (you’re a coach too, remember that, Chief!) to put their role on the table and ask them to rate how confident they feel in each element, such as the technical, operational, leadership, commercial or the people parts.

When you've done that, you'll immediately have found that there are some parts where they're just really comfortable and confident, but there are other parts where they aren’t. Then isolate those ones and ask yourself or ask them, what is sitting behind that lack of confidence. Is it a mindset thing? Is it a process thing or is it a core skill thing?

For example, they say that public speaking is a really tough piece. That’s fine, because it can be fixed with understanding that there is a skill to control your state through proper breath control. Or maybe it is a mindset they can overcome through talking to just one person in the audience. Or it could be pitch and tone of voice using metaphor.

3. Proper treatment for lack of confidence

The key here now is to break the diagnosis down and start adding the skills. Over time, their confidence builds and what they'll find is that because they're in a more confident space, that will start to seep into other areas of their leadership.

Remember, the best diagnosers in the world are doctors. And when they get the diagnosis wrong, the plan and medicines prescribed won't actually help the underlying condition.

So, as leaders, when we are helping individuals, we want to make sure that we are bang on with what the root cause is. If we diagnose the lack of confidence effectively, we can accurately treat each of the ones that lack confidence. Then we can follow the Chief Maker P2R2 Model: Prepare, Perform, Recover, Review.

We must remember, Chief, it’s a process to get them to move past their confidence issues. Get them prepared, get them practising the new skill, then reviewing it, then repeat it so that they get better and better.

If we go back to the public speaking example, we can use the public speaking process and framework to start applying that to their team meetings. So they could start leading every single team meeting with just four or five people and start doing that with a level of confidence. Then we lift it up a level and we start increasing the size of the challenge so they can get better and better and build those confidence support structures.

So, Chief, that is the way to help systematically and accurately build confidence in your people. Remember, skills pay the bills, and if you can diagnose the gaps correctly, and coach your people accordingly, you will help build them up systematically over time. And you will enjoy the benefits of just watching your people grow and thrive, and they will never forget that you did that for them.

Deal hope,

Greg