Success Fundamentals: A Top CEO Shares her Must-Do’s

Meet Kim Anson…

As she shares her Success Fundamentals. A former General Manager of two of Sydney’s most well known Local Government Organisations and now the CEO of Elton Consulting, Kim Anson has had wide ranging experience in getting the best from people across all sectors over her long and successful career. She is a leader who is enormously respected by everyone who has worked with her and she certainly knows how to get great results! Kim is a leader who has created many other leaders.

“Great Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” – Tom Peters

The following is an extract from an interview Sandra Wood conducted with Kim Anson during a Great Managers MasterClass.

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Sandra:

There was quite a bit of feedback, Kim, from the six people that I spoke with, about your ability to build your teams. So, what are your top tips for getting the best from your team?

Success Fundamentals Top Tips

Kim:

I think it’s really important to understand your team and it’s also good if you can genuinely care about them. It’s important to get good at being able to step into their shoes, see things from their perspective… value their difference. I really value people who are different from me and so I think sending that message really helps to get the best out of people.

And understanding, caring, and believing in them. Not in that “rah-rah” way that I talked about before, but in a very solid way which comes about because you know what they can do and you can help them believe in themselves.

I have a big belief that being consistent and calm helps you get the best from your team. It doesn’t mean that you can’t reflect your passion, but just staying consistent and calm helps people to perform their best.

What else do I lookout for?

I’m always on the lookout for how I can add value to the team. Listening to them very carefully. Thinking about, “What’s a small tip or a small bit of input that I can give that then helps them get on with their next thing so that I’m not a block to them moving along?”

Another thing I do is never let people tell you a problem without at least having one idea about a solution. Don’t let them come to you in a helpless state, unless they’re stressed. In which case I say if people are totally stressed then you just help them in whatever way you need to help them get out of the fog.

But generally speaking it’s really good to encourage a team member to come to you with both problems and solutions. It’s like, “Here’s the problem and I’m thinking that this might work, and can I toss it around with you…?” That way they’re not just going to be in a passive relationship with you. They’re going to be really actively developing their own skills and then you can add value to that and then that’s what’s going to help get the best out of them.

Sandra:

If there were just two tips that you said to the audience today, “You’ve really got to do this,” what are your must-dos from those suggestions you’ve just talked about?

Success Fundamentals MUST DO’s

Kim:

I think that believing in people is really, really important, so that’s one, and the second one for me is being consistent and calm. I honestly think that makes a huge difference.

Sandra:

Yeah, I do too and I think it links back to what we were talking about earlier with the brain. The brain just does not work optimally when we’re stressed or when we’re in that really pacey place and our brain’s scrambled.

Kim:

Yeah, that’s right. I’ve seen that. I can look back over 40 years of working with people and I just feel like that consistency and calmness just helps people’s brains and their emotions really settle and stops the panic and then they can come up with the best ways forward.

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