One of the toughest leadership challenges is knowing when and specifically how to address situations that call for compromise. Many times as a leader of a company or organization you assume the responsibility to make changes in policy, products, services, employment of co-workers and/or introducing anything new into the entity. Right? But what happens when someone you respect and go to for support… indicates that YOU are not an easy person to compromise with…rather most times your style is:  “Let’s Go My Way… or You Can Find The Highway!”

So with these thoughts in mind… do some personal sole-searching and think about your adaption to or resistance to COMPROMISE??

Well good or bad… right or wrong… during my professional career I followed a “BETTER-WAY” Compromising practice. What does this really mean?  In practice, my position regarding change and/or new ventures with co-workers/partnership personnel… was that if you have a “BETTER-WAY” concept or methodology than the one “on-the-table”… then compromises could take place. So if someone came to me and said they have a better plan/idea to go forward with… and here it is… we would discuss the option and decide if it would be a better growth opportunity than what I had in mind.  COMPROMISE??

As the leader, everyone was aware of my “BETTER-WAY” Compromising practice and understood that my ideas and suggestions came from a wider view of where the Agency was… where it could be and thereby respected my positions on progress.  However, in the longer term… my group also accepted that many of their cooperative compromises may occur during implementation times as the decision actions began to occur. So in a unique way “BETTER-WAY” Compromising became our own version of continuous improvement.

Therefore the suggestion via this week’s TRIPLE III TIME message is to have your own “BETTER-WAY” Compromising policy as a guide for you and for your group.  Therefore, no one gets an automatic “NO” for their ideas or suggestions but understands that they must first show a BETTER-WAY to improve an initiative…and then show professional patience for it’s acceptance and support.