Buoyancy – The Difference It Makes

When is the last time you felt light? Was it when you were floating in water? How did that feel? Did it require much skill and if so which ones? What did the feeling of lightness make available to you? Let’s think about skills and buoyancy as they will inform us of the nuances of business and life.

The Big 8

Top recruiting firms understand assessing skills beyond floating. One group called Lominger, now owned by Korn Ferry, identified 67 competencies that highlight what an employer may be looking for in a new hire. These skills could also be looked at as areas to develop in employees. Some include Action Oriented, Business Acumen, Customer Focus, Learning On The Fly, Managing & Measuring Work, Negotiating and Understanding Others. 

A very useful exercise to do prior to hiring someone is to take the 67 competencies and have members of your team independently identify what 10 skills are Must Haves and which 10 are Nice To Haves. Then get together, discuss differences in views, and align on what you are looking for before your search begins. I have done this many times in my career and it works!

Note, when seeking a top executive, however, focus on finding talent with what Lominger calls “The Big 8”. A truly extraordinary executive will have the following eight skills: Dealing with Ambiguity, Creativity, Innovation Management, Strategic Agility, Planning, Motivating Others, Building Effective Teams and Managing Vision & Purpose. It is extremely rare to find these in one individual so this is aspirational. Still, these are the skills top executives consistently go to work on developing and mastering.

Like Foam On A Wave

To be sure, on the path to mastery of these skills there are rising and falling tides. Sometimes much progress is made and feet never touch the ground. Other times, no progress, just stuck in the mud with no way of swimming forward.

You want to be buoyant so you can move. But there are three types of buoyancy: neutral, negative and positive. You don’t want to be neutral – neither rising or sinking. You don’t want to be negative by sitting at the bottom. Guess where you want to be? Positive. That’s where you float at the top of the surface. Now what does it take to exhibit positive buoyancy – floating at the top? Lightness and perseverance.

Winter Time

In developing yourself and your business, you have to first stay afloat at the top. Then, if you want to learn how to Build Effective Teams, start doing it. Practice. Get good at it. Develop that skill daily.

Increase your capacity to recover quickly from difficulties by taking action and accepting what you get. Stay light and soon you’ll say, “Oh...boy, and see – the difference it makes!”

Here's to you and your awesome future.

Until then, keep your feet on the board and keep riding your wave!

Robert J. Khoury

CEO Agile Rainmakers