{"id":320,"date":"2015-07-12T08:19:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T08:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/?p=320"},"modified":"2021-06-09T08:22:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T08:22:30","slug":"fifty-shades-of-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/07\/12\/fifty-shades-of-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifty Shades of Red"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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During my rafting trip along the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon we covered 225 miles. Along the way, there were many things that I expected \u2013 and there were things that were an absolute revelation to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first revelation was the importance of the Canyon\u2019s geology together with the mesmerising beauty of its different coloured layers, complicated by the constant zigzag of equally evocative fault lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The whole of the journey was through Arizona, which I already knew came from the Spanish \u201cArid zona\u201d \u2013 what I didn\u2019t know was that the name Colorado comes from the Spanish for \u201cColour red\u201d.  And the River was red \u2013 in places. It was also many shades of red and many other colours besides. Every morning when I awoke, being only a few yards away, it was both easy and fascinating to check on what nature\u2019s paint palette had created overnight \u2013 as its colour often changed from how it was the previous evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Its colour depended on the part of the river we were on, the amount of rain that had fallen, the waterfalls, side canyons, washes and creeks that were feeding into it, and the speed of the river (the CFS \u2013 Cubic Feet per Second) to name four. Look at these pictures of its different colours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very bright blue water is the Little Colorado River \u2013 a counterpoint to the usually murky waters of the Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also came to appreciate that the colour was one of the aspects of the river that the guides used in assessing how it would be for our rafting that day. It helped them to decide how they were going to work with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As I lay be the river one morning, mesmerised by its beauty and power, I started to think about how the Colorado was very like a team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the face of it, the same river passes through the same route every day.  A traveller would think like that at their peril. A good river guide treats it as a different river every day, and recognises its changes during the day. And this is what a great manager does with their team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A poor manager sees the same team coming to work every day, whilst a great manager doesn\u2019t have the same team coming to work every day. A great manager has individuals coming to work who will be different every day \u2013 and so the team will be too. The great manager notices those differences and manages accordingly \u2013 like a great river guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the Harvard Business Review,<\/a> Marcus Buckingham highlights his findings from research that started with a survey of 80,000 managers conducted through the Gallup Organization and then continued for two years with in-depth studies of a few top performers.  Buckingham found, \u201c\u2026 that while there are as many styles of management as there are managers, there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it. Average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess. The difference? In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. \u2026 In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can\u2019t play if you don\u2019t know how each piece moves. More important, you won\u2019t win if you don\u2019t think carefully about how you move the pieces. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Generally, people leave managers, not organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cThe Value of a Good Manager\u201d,<\/a> Peter Drucker itemises the four foundations that employees look for in managers. They are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n