When Jamie took on the leadership of a team of colleagues in her accounting firm, she was given a thorough briefing by her predecessor-in-role about each member of her team. She used this briefing to decide on her initial strategy for managing the team and members of the team.

She knew that her predecessor saw one member of the team (John) as a poor performer. He had described John as lazy and told Jamie how often he’d had to check that John had completed his work. Although she listened carefully to this diagnosis, Jamie made a note to be curious and to reach her own conclusions.

Initially, Jamie observed how meticulous John was in his work. His clients spoke highly of him and Jamie observed how he completed his work on time and to a high standard. She was increasingly mystified by her predecessor’s observations. About two months after she took on her leadership role, however, she had a letter from a client who had asked John to complete a piece of work. The client had not heard from John and he hadn’t received the help he’d asked for.

Jamie decided to share the letter with John and ask for his observations. As John talked, Jamie observed changes to his body language and wondered what they signified. She decided to ask him straight out. John told her that when he’d received the letter from the client he’d looked at his diary and realised he couldn’t do the work on time and meet his other client commitments. He’d used the team’s allocation system to ask for help and the work had been passed to another colleague. It was his understanding that the work was in someone else’s hands. At the same time, this wasn’t the first time he’d been hit with a surprise of this sort.

Jamie decided to look into the way the allocation system was working and discovered a political issue of which she’d been unaware. The person responsible for tracking the flow of work through the department and re-allocating work when necessary had made a number of errors over time. She learned that her predecessor had been aware of this and chosen to turn a blind eye. Jamie decided it was time to stop focussing on John and to start focusing on the wider context in which he was working.

Whilst Jamie’s approach looks straightforward on the surface, she did something that many people overlook – at times if not all the time – by remaining curious, inviting new information and adjusting her approach in the light of new information. The results of her efforts were a number of changes to a system which just wasn’t working.

Here are some questions to help you to identify the extent to which you are curious, inviting new information and adjusting your approach in the light of what you learn:

• How open are you to new information about the effectiveness of your approach, including feedback about others’ perceptions?
• In what ways do you proactively seek out new information?
• To what extent do you build in ways to get feedback as part of planning your approach?
• How willing are you to make adjustments to your approach in the light of new information?
• In what ways has your willingness to seek information and adjust your approach contributed to your effectiveness, happiness and well-being and over what period?

What additional questions would you offer in relation to making adjustments en route?