Tuesday night my family and I went to see Jimmy Buffett. I have enjoyed his music for many years, I've read his books, and I've been to a concert in the past as well. Why do I blog all of this? because, Jimmy is one of my heroes. As I reflected on the concert, I thought about what I have learned from Jimmy - and why he is a hero of mine.
Here are six things that I learned, or relearned from Jimmy this week.
The Power of Passion. Jimmy Buffett loves what he does. From the stage to the trip to points around the world that was chronicled on video during the show - he loves his work. When people love what they do, others are drawn to that passion - in this case 24,000 plus, a sellout for the 21st consecutive year in Indianapolis (are you kidding me, sellouts for 21 straight years?). What are you passionate about?
The Value of Purpose. Jimmy has purposefully created a life that allows him to use his skills and strengths to the fullest - singing, songwriting, writing, marketing, and many other things. His purpose also allows him to create space for his interests outside of his work - surfing, fishing, and flying among them. If you want a picture of this purpose, read the words to one of my favorite of his songs - Schoolboy Heart. These are the words of person who knows who he is and why he is on planet earth. What is your purpose?
The Need for a Plan. He's 61. He's been touring for who-knows-how long. I'm sure he doesn't need to tour, or do many of the other things he does. His tour gets shorter every year, and yet, at the end of the show, he told us, I'll see you next year. And you could tell he meant it. What is your plan?
The Importance of Personalization. Jimmy knows his Customers, and talked to us like he knew it throughout the show. He mentioned a variety of things about the state, the crowd, the earthquake a few months ago and more. This wasn't just, "if it's Tuesday I must be in Indiana," it was our show on our night. When we personalize and customize for our Clients they will notice. How do you personalize your work or your Clients and Customers?
The Perfection of Play. I had tshirts made several years ago that say, "Make Work Play" (the first five commenters to this post will get tshirt, by the way!) Jimmy doesn't need the shirt, he lives it. How (and how often) do you play at work?
The Sound of Paean - Paean is defined as a song of praise. Jimmy certainly can sing, this is obvious. What is less obvious is that he showers his praise on his Customers (in this case the audience). He is grateful. He is thankful. When we sing praises to and for those we serve, and approach our work and lives with a spirit of gratefulness, we will always be happier, healthier and more successful. How grateful are you?
Oh, and he is also VERY good at what he does. In part because of these other five points, but we can't leave that one out either!
There are more lessons, these are just five. Hopefully one or more of these resonate for you, whether you like Jimmy's music or not.
If you want a complimentary tshirt, you must be one of the first five commenters!
Authors Carmine Coyote, Peter Vajda, and John Fletcher of Slow Leadership offer interesting and challenging articles to help readers think through issues and find ways to enjoy life and work to the fullest.
They believe "slow leaders" are only slow in making decisions or jumping to conclusions and that it's essential to think more clearly and make better choices, free from today's obsession with meeting unrealistic, short-term expectations.
This post is the 2nd in their "Become a Slow Leader" series. I think it's a great lesson.
Courage can build a leadership style to be proud of on Slow Leadership (January 24, 2008)
When things get rough — as now — beware of cowards, mixed messages, and macho managers
Tough times sort out the true leaders from those who wear the clothes but have nothing beneath them. Leaders lead; mere administrators, whatever their job titles, panic. Worst of all, fair-weather bosses infected by Hamburger Management send people mixed messages. In today's atmosphere of frantic competition and short-term focus, mixed messages caused by "macho" management can make bad situations far worse and leave a business wide open to crushing problems. It's time we recognized that moral courage is often a truer test of leadership than mere quarterly results.
If nothing else has results from our boom and collapse economy, it ought surely to make everyone aware of how many supposed leaders are nothing of the kind; and the ease with which such executives, under pressure to "deliver the goods or else," cross the line from tough business practice to dishonesty and fraud.
A few past offenders have been caught and punished, but that doesn't mean the underlying problems have been cured.
Attention! The 2008 Best of Leadership Blogs competition is shutting down at the end of today, Eastern Time! That means you only have one more chance to cast your vote if you haven't already. We don't want anyone missing out on the opportunity to help their favorite blogger vie for the title, so vote now.
It's been a great competition and we thank those that have participated and been active followers. Keep an eye out for the announcement of the winner here next Monday, August 4.
My friend and project management expert Jim Brosseau just published his latest issue of the Clarrus Compendium, and he talks about an important distinction in team performance.
Here is how it begins . . .
In many shops, I have seen situations where one person (or perhaps a few, but it is always a minority) appears to be getting in the way, and the perception is that they need to be sent on their way for the good of the team. While this actually is true in some cases, I think that more often than not it is more a case of failing to appreciate what others bring to the table.
The measurement of personal productivity is a powerful tool, but can be wielded in dysfunctional ways. It is possible to measure the amount of new code that a developer produces over a period of time, or the number of defects found by a tester, and these are great measures for the individual to use as a basis for estimates of future work. In the context of the team, though, there is a strong tendency to start comparisons. Alice produces more code than Bob, so is Alice better? Bob finds more defects than Cindy, so is Bob better? By this sort of measure of productivity, most executives would be seen as highly unproductive (unless of course we measured the amount of time they spent facing their Blackberries or iPhones). We need to go well beyond the surface.
Best of Blogs: All Things Workplace by Steve Roesler
Posted at 3:59 PM on
Steve Roesler's says his blog All Things Workplace is designed to "teach smart people practical ways to become extraordinary." He leads the Roesler Group, an organization effectiveness firm that specializes in communication training and development by emphasizing improving systems, relationships and large-scale change. Steve also is the co-author of The Age of Conversation.
Among other things Steve creates leadership programs, prepares executives for presentations, mediates conflicts among high-level executives, and leads CEO selection processes for NYSE companies. Steve was once a Drill Instructor in the Army, a musician and singer, and he's been involved in broadcasting for more than 30 years. All of this combined with his deep interest in the global nature of business makes for an interesting – and often fun – take on leadership.
Here's a passionate look at leadership from Steve:
Try Talent, Passion and Purpose by Steve Roesler (March 13, 2008)
The Passion discussion started on February 26th as a result of Phil Gerbyshak's "Wow" Factor article (Phil, I hope you've found some of those "Wow" people by now).
Since then, the discussion about passion and work has been passionate.
Why?
I'm sure there are as many individual reasons as there are individuals. These are mine:
1. Passion is, by definition, an emotional word.
2. A significant portion of the population is not wired to inherently associate the words passion and work. That doesn't mean those folks don't care about work, aren't enthusiastic, or don't excel in their chosen fields. It's just that the two words create dissonance when used in the same phrase.
When Tim Russert passed away a few weeks back, I considered posting about it, but didn't. I had a connection to Tim. He spoke at the Purdue Ag Alumni Fish Fry when I was President of that organization. This meant that I had the chance to each lunch with him, visit a bit, and have my copy of Big Russ and Me signed.
I don't really have anything to add to all of the tributes given to Tim, other than to say as a viewer, a reader, and as a person who had the chance to meet and observe him up close, I am sad he isn't with us.
I believe that many people learned much from him. If we all learned to be a bit more prepared, a bit more childlike and a bit better in building and maintaining relationships - all things we can learn from Tim's life - then we would all be more successful, productive and happy.
Steve Farber says just like wearing spandex doesn't make you a cyclist or looking at the world through Oakley sunglasses doesn't make you a snowboarder, printing 'leader' on your business card doesn't make you lead. Steve, the best-selling author of The Radical Leap and The Radical Edge and the Extreme Leadership blog, says – among other things – "real leaders take us places we've never been, turn nothing into something and change the pieces of the world they touch for the better."
Steve has a passion for coaching and inspiring extreme leadership at all levels. In addition to consulting, speaking and writing about extreme leadership, Steve also is the co-founding director of The Center for Social Profit Leadership and sits on the board for Up With People.
Here's a great post from Steve on being greater than yourself:
Your GTY Project by Steve Farber (June 19, 2008)
The essence of the principle of Greater Than Yourself (GTY) is this:
Your own greatness as a leader (or in just about any other role, for that matter) lies, paradoxically, in your ability to cause others to be greater than yourself.
You could argue that this is just the right way for one decent human being to act towards another, and I'd whole-heartedly agree, but let's set altruism aside for a moment.
Is there a personal payoff for you? A benefit other than a warm, toasty feeling in your chest?
Oh, yeah.
Consider this: If you get a reputation for being the one who elevates people, for being the one who gives freely to others at work, and, as a result, for turning out superstar after superstar, what’s going to happen?
Five Ways to Overcome Boredom at Work - and Anywhere Else
Posted at 10:09 AM on Friday, July 25, 2008
I recently heard that July is Anti-boredom month which got me thinking about boredom. While I rarely if ever experience it myself, I know it can be a problem for people and even impacts the workplace (solitaire on the computer anyone?). All that pondering led me to write to this ...
"I'm bored" is a phrase parents often hear, especially as summer vacation from school moves past the four week mark. Kids who couldn't wait to get out of school, suddenly find themselves bored with the very thing that been looking forward to for months.
Yet boredom is felt by more than just children. Consider these statistics:
- 55 percent of all US employees were found to be 'not engaged' in their work in a Gallup Survey reported in the Washington Post (10 August 2005).
- 24 percent of office employees surveyed by Office Angels claimed that boredom caused them to rethink their career and look for alternative jobs (reported in The Guardian, 20 January 2003).
- A third of Britons claim to be bored at work for most of the day (DDI survey Faking It, 2004).
- Nearly 45 percent of hiring experts in a 1998 survey said firms lost top workers because they were bored with their jobs (Steinauer, 1999).
A Definition
Dictionary.com defines boredom as: "the state of being bored: tedium; ennui." Perhaps as instructive are the synonyms (dullness, doldrums, weariness) and the antonyms (excitement, diversion, amusement).
Boredom is often described as feeling tired, weary or unengaged. Some components of boredom include:
Fatigue
Dissatisfaction
Anxiety
Irritability
Clearly if we or others are experiencing feelings of boredom at work (the research says that if you aren’t bored someone you work with is), this will have a negative impact on retention, job satisfaction, work quality and overall productivity.
Solutions
Consider these solutions a partial list - there are many other specific solutions, especially if you consider boredom outside of work. But acting on even one of these steps can have a significant, perhaps permanent, impact on boredom and its associated problems. Additionally, consider the specific ideas mentioned that you can employ as a leader to help others apply that idea.
Look for Meaning. When you know how your work matters to other people (internal and external Clients, your team, perhaps even society at large) you are less likely to be disengaged or bored. As an individual, look for ways to understand how your work matters. As a leader, make sure people see a clear linkage between their work and the team, department and organizational goals. Help people put a face on their Clients. Give people work they see as making a difference. When people see how what they do impacts others positively, boredom will be greatly reduced, if not eliminated.
Be curious. Active minds are less likely to be bored. When we are actively curious our minds will keep moving! As a leader you can encourage curiosity and creativity by giving people some latitude in their job responsibilities and expectations. Give people time and resources to work on special projects of interest to them and that match with their natural skills.
Make it memorable. When tasks seem mundane, ordinary or routine, boredom can gain a foothold. Find ways to make your work more memorable by readjusting your routine or trying something new. Try your work in a new location or from a new perspective. As a leader allow some flexibility in this area if possible. Encourage your team to try for a new record, to work with different people or to spice up their work or work environment in other ways.
Take action. Boredom often is partnered with feeling tired or lethargic. The best cure for the blahs is to take action! Get started on a new goal, take a step on an existing goal or learn something new. As you take action on anything, boredom will recede. As leaders provide or help people set meaningful and challenging goals, boredom will subside too. If people on your team can get their work done in less than their full allotment of hours, challenge them with something extra that is meaningful both to those people and to your organizational objectives. This could be an exciting project, a learning opportunity, mentoring a new colleague, anything really as long as the person is excited to be doing it and not feeling like you’re just adding more work.
Focus on others. Boredom rarely sets in when you are focused on someone other than yourself. Think of things you can do to make a difference in the lives of others. In your personal life that could be serving as a volunteer or doing something for a neighbor, friend or family member. At work it could be as simple as offering to help on a project. As a leader, it can be as simple as encouraging people to help others. Recognize too that as you help people see more meaning in their work, you are helping them take the focus off of themselves as well.
Even if you don't often experience boredom personally, adding more of these solutions into your work will elevate your attitude and improve your productivity. Consider the leadership ideas as ways that you can help others, regardless of your role and relationship to them.
Potential Pointer: Boredom can have a massive impact on job satisfaction, energy and productivity. Decrease boredom by proactively reducing its causes - make work more meaningful, be curious, make work memorable, take action and focus on the needs of others.
What Should the Presidential Candidates Be Reading?
Posted at 6:13 AM on
I share my thoughts on this topic, and give a list of five books, on the blog for Remarkable Leadership. If you are interested in my list, and sharing your own, you can read the post here.
Best of Blogs: Peronal Leadership Insight by Rhett Laubach
Posted at 3:48 AM on
Personal Leadership Insight is one of Rhett Laubach's two blogs. Rhett is an author, speaker, coach and trainer and the founder of YourNextSpeaker.
He says Personal Leadership Insight is about finding meaning as a leader in your private and public life and focuses on helping leaders develop the ability to positively influence people and situations to create value and growth.
One of the things I like about Rhett is that he offers thoughts for student leaders. Not only students of leadership (like you and me), but student leaders on campuses and in school building across the country (in fact these future leaders are a major part of Rhett's writing and his business). Rhett wrote this post in March geared toward student leaders, but I think it applies to every single one of us (you could easily take student out of the title):
Vision: Three Giant Leaps Every Great Student Leader Takes by Rhett Laubach (March 4, 2008)
Everyone knows great student leaders live life differently than the average Joe. However, not everyone knows how they do it. The three giant jumps is about a few of those differences. These are three very large leaps highly-effective student leaders make in their personal and social development that allow them to make a difference in their world and the world around them.
Before we look at the jumps, let's examine the structure.
Each jump has three elements:
1. The starting place 2. The ending place 3. The leap from one to the other.
All three are critical components of that particular leadership lesson. However, the leap itself is where the magic lives.
Best of Blogs: LeaderTalk by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
Posted at 2:49 PM on Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Leadership Challenge blog - also called LeaderTalk - highlights themes from Jim Kouzes' and Barry Posner's best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge. Jim and Barry have collaborated on more than a dozen other books and are preeminent researchers, award-winning writers and sought after teachers.
Their philosophy (similar to ours) is that "leadership is everyone's business." They say more than ever there is a need for people from every walk of life to seize opportunities that lead to greatness; for leaders to inspire people to dream, participate and persevere. Jim and Barry wrote the The Leadership Challenge, their other books and their blog to inspire people to take the initiative and make a difference.
Here's a great post from Jim about leading during times of adversity.
Adversity Introduces Us to Ourselves by Jim Kouzes (May 13, 2008)
The economy is in a foul mood, and it's not being nice to anyone. You can be an eighty-year old banking icon or high-tech startup with ink still wet on the incorporation papers, and this market is going to mess with you. In my last three phone calls with clients, I have heard stories about layoffs of hundreds of middle managers, declining sales in retail stores, and no upward mobility in the firm "for the first time in our history." And on all these calls I have been asked if I might share some thoughts about what leaders can do to keep people engaged and inspired in times like these.
The calls bring to mind a comment made by John McDonnell, former CEO of McDonnell Douglas, when that company was going through its struggles before eventually merging with Boeing. "Adversity introduces you to yourself," he said, reflecting upon what that struggle had brought for him. And another thought from Randy Melville whom we interviewed when he was with Pepsi. Quoting his Princeton University basketball coach, Pete Carril, Randy said, "Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it." Challenges, difficulties, setbacks, adversities…they are all familiar sights on the leadership landscape. And one of the things that they cause us to do is to come face-to-face with ourselves. They are a rather harsh way of reminding us of what's important, what we value, and where we want to go.
Leaders are no strangers to challenges. In fact, exemplary leaders thrive on them. Here are a few tips on what you can do as a leader to enable others to learn to thrive as well.
October 5, 1956. Don Larsen pitches the only perfect game in Major League Baseball's postseason history.
July 18, 1976. Nadia Comaneci scores the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics competition.
Though both reached perfection (as defined by the parameters of their sport); neither athlete stopped competing after achieving perfection. Quite the contrary, both continued to work and practice to master their crafts.
Perfection isn't something often achieved in life or business. Even Six Sigma processes don't claim perfection as the target, but rather something less than 3.4 defects per million occurrences.
And while perfection is seldom achievable, it can still be your goal. Whatever your starting point, hopefully your organizational and personal goals include continue to improve and continuing to optimize the processes that drive your business (and personal) results.
This article isn't about tools or techniques to help with process optimization, instead it's about the reality of the journey of process improvement and optimization, and perhaps the biggest obstacle you face on that journey.
Complacency.
Almost everyone faces or feels complacent at some time. And the longer an organization has worked to improve processes, and the more success they have achieved, the more likely this obstacle will become a problem. Leaders must acknowledge, face and overcome the comfort zone success creates and the complacency that comes with it.
Once you recognize that complacency (in any of its forms) could be a challenge, it is important to diagnose which type of complacency you are facing.
The Five Faces of Complacency
Complacency will be found in one of more of the following attitudes or behavior patterns.
Champions. Champions are looking at the process and the competition and singing "We are the Champions!" The prevailing attitude often is that once you reach number one, there is no more need for growth. Even a cursory historical view of champions in sports shows the fallacy of this mindset. More directly, let's look at industry.
Of the twelve stocks that composed the original Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) only General Electric remains - and many of the remaining eleven stocks aren't in existence in any form. Clearly employees and leaders of those other eleven companies would have had the "right" to consider themselves Champions, and yet look at their fate. Of the current 30 stocks composing the DJIA, 8 have been added (which means 8 have been removed!) within the last ten years.
The message is clear. If the complacency of being the Champion invades your thinking, not only are you unlikely to continue to engage earnestly in process improvement and optimization, but your supremacy is in peril.
Resigned. Some people think this is "as good as it gets." Even when people look at how far they have come and see the progress that has been made they still believe that they have gotten all the improvement that is possible. They become resigned to the fact and a certain "what's the use" attitude prevails - even when shown data that supports room for growth.
This face of complacency can show up in two forms: "we've done all we can do" or "we'll never be as good as [insert the name of company or competitor here]". Either way, this feeling keeps people from engaging in process improvement activities because, in their mind, there's no point since the effort won't produce the desired results.
Comfortable. You know what it feels like to be comfortable - whether on a beach chair or in your job. When you are comfortable, you don't really want anything to change. Life is good. Profits are fine. Results continue to be comfortable.
When you feel this way, your comfort zone becomes your only beacon. After all, why would you want to improve/change things, when you are so comfortable?
Tired. Maybe the climb to the current level of performance has been long and arduous. Maybe the process improvement has cost jobs or created other changes that weren't seen as completely positive. How willing are you to hop into a car for a several hundred mile drive after just driving 400 miles? When great physical, mental and emotional energy has been exerted to get to where you are, you naturally can be tired. And when you are tired, your energy and appetite for more exertion is sapped.
Teams and individuals can get tired, and when leaders push for the next rung of improvement too quickly, fatigue can be a problem. Unfortunately, fatigue also can be misdiagnosed as the final face of complacency.
Lazy. It is easier to stay the course, not change the process, and let things work the way they are. Even when there is an occasional bobble or problem, it is typically viewed as easier to stay the course than to work to improve the process. When people are seeing the world this way, it will be hard to generate energy or action towards continued process improvement/optimization.
An important side note here: Just because people are feeling lazy or not wanting to exert effort at this particular time on this particular issue, doesn't make them "lazy" all of the time. Be careful with this label, both verbally and in your internal judgment.
These are distinct mindsets and can be diagnosed separately, but remember that one person could be afflicted by more than one of them. And, one of these mindsets may be the prevalent concern for your team or organization, it is not likely that everyone within the group is feeling the same way. Rather, it's very likely that you'll be facing all of them within the same team or organization at the same time.
Your challenge as a leader is to identify the form(s) of complacency you are dealing with and to create a plan for overcoming each. Let's explore the tools you can use to do just that.
Tools For Overcoming Complacency
Fortunately the tools for dealing with the five faces of complacency are clear and well defined.
Recognition. You must first come to understand the sources of the resistance people have to continued process improvement. Resistance can be passive or active, and/or spoken or silent. Using the five faces described above can give you language and a way to understand the sources of resistance you are seeing. Use your skills of questioning, listening and observation to attempt to determine people’s reasons for concern or disengagement.
Acknowledgement. While you may not see the world they way others do (i.e. they may feel they are champions, but you see things differently), their perception is their reality. So, trying to convince people of a new perspective by simply telling them they are wrong, or see things incorrectly, isn't likely to create your intended persuasive result. Rather, let them know you understand their perspective, even if you don't agree with it. Acknowledge their position as a jumping off point for further discussion.
Conversation. You will not be successful in dealing with or overcoming the various forms of complacency by creating a masterful PowerPoint presentation. Even the best PowerPoint slides imply one-way communication. To understand and overcome the resistance of complacency, you must create dialogue. Listen to people's points of view and come to new agreements based on a mutual understanding of each perspective.
Shared Vision. Perhaps the most powerful way to overcome complacency is to keep a clear picture of a desired future in front of everyone. Regardless if the previous vision of success has been reached, when you keep people focused on a vision of a future state that benefits them, they will overcome their own fatigue, arrogance, resignation and more. Notice that the idea here is a shared vision; simply stating the vision from your (or the company's or the stockholder's) perspective isn't enough.
Why. People who are tired, lazy, too comfortable or feeling like champions tend to focus on the how's and the what's. They focus on what actions have to be taken next and they typically don't want to take those actions for a variety of reasons (depending on the mindset). In order to overcome a how and what focus, you must place people's view on the why. When you can help people create a compelling why, they will be ready to move forward, regardless of the how's and what's. Remember that the most compelling why's will be focused on the people themselves and the greater good. Consider questions like, how will this process improvement improve the lives of our Customers or impact the communities we live in?
Costs of Change. People see inherent risks in continuing to change and improve. When you can openly discuss their concerns and risks, you can help people overcome those fears and/or eliminate the risks. Understand their costs of change and you can then help change their perspective.
As you think about the faces of complacency and consider the tools available to you, you will quickly see what combination of tools will work best for the individual or group with whom you're working. Remember, though, that it always begins with recognition, acknowledgement and conversation.
The Final Goal
If your goal is to continue to improve and to continue to chase the elusive perfection, then you must keep people free of the complacency that will naturally set in. This challenge ultimately can be stated that you want people to be content (pleased with their progress to date, engaged and enjoying their work), but not satisfied (recognizing that there is always another rung on the ladder of improvement and success).
When you can keep this balanced view of content, but not satisfied (first for yourself and then for those you lead), you will have successfully met and tamed the five faces of complacency and provided a major leap forward in your quest for process optimization.
Potential Pointer: Complacency is the hidden enemy of improvement. For individuals and organizations to overcome this enemy, we must be content with our present conditions, but not satisfied with where we are.
Is it art? Is it a visual summary of a piece of writing? Is it a cool web play toy?
Yes!
It's all of these things, and regardless of how you see it, I believe Wordle has merit and is worthy of my recommendation. Wordle.net is a website that allows you to create something like what you see above from a piece of text. It takes the words from your text (the one of above is from my other post today) and creates this cloud of words. The words used most in the text appear larger.
You have a variety of ways to change your visual creation, including colors, shapes and a vertical or horizontal orientation. You will find samples on the Wordle homepage, and you can view many more in the site's gallery.
Check it out and give it a try. If you come up with a creative use for Wordle, let me know!
For anyone who follows leadership and management, Tom Peters really needs no introduction. Major publications (like Fortune and the Economist) has called Tom the "uber-guru" of management and the inventor of the enormous "management guru industry." Others have gone on to say "we live in a Tom Peters world."
Tom has always remained true to his core that an organization's people, Customers and values are the basic drivers behind all success. However, he also was one of the first to champion creating products and services for the women's market, point out the global business dominance of the boomer+ market, operational excellence in healthcare and many more.
I've read Tom's work since In Search of Excellence in the mid 80's, and so I'm proud that his blog is on this list. The reality is though that no leadership blog contest would be complete without Dispatches from the World of Work. Here's just a sample from his world:
More on Indifference from Tom by Tom Peters (April 10, 2007)
Darci, from her Comment: "... and pursue my passion. It was a leap of faith and there was no safety net to catch me if I failed."
Darci, here's the way I look at it. We all "fail" in the end. "Fail" as in finish, finito, die. (I am not talking religion here—we may indeed go to a better world, or a worse one, but we will not be amidst this one.) So if, to quote an old joke, "We might as well go for it, boys, none of us is going to get out alive": Well, then, to me, the only ... TRUE FAILURE ... is a failure to ... Engage Fully, 100% of the time.
(My casual reading of Aristotle, and I'm no student of philosophy, is that, for instance, "happiness" is complete engagement, not some bemused state; "leisure" is an opportunity to grow in new ways, not a chance to veg out; etc.)
And another thing: Indifference makes you sloppy, sloppy in general. You can call it "studied indifference," or "purposeful indifference," or whatever you want, but if your goal is stupefaction on the job, it'll spread like a virus—even to home life.
We are ending the third week of the 2008 Best of Blogs competition and my goodness has the competition heated up. :) You must have paid close attention to our last update and started following and voting for our finalists. The votes have come to an astonishing 1109 - rising quickly from last week's 348 votes.
If you have been paying attention, you will notice that the leaders have switched up a bit.
Thanks to all of you for your interest in the competition and for supporting our finalists. We hope that you have had the opportunity to learn from these fine leaders and continue to do so after the competition concludes, which by the way is coming up fast. Vote here if you haven't yet.
Michael McKinney is the president of LeadershipNow where they believe leadership is everyone's business and that we need people of all ages and backgrounds to take part. His blog – Leading Blog – won our first Best of Leadership Blogs competition last summer.
Michael says leaders think different. They see the world differently. And that we all possess the capacity of leadership, but only those who cultivate it will ever become truly effective leaders. (I couldn't agree more!)
Michael adds to the blog regularly, but I would like to share one of his posts from last summer (July 2007) that I think is really interesting.
The Importance of Competence by Michael McKinney (July 18, 2007)
Competence alone can't make a leader, but it can undo one. While inaction is a prime problem facing many organizations (and individuals for that matter), there's the very real possibility that one is doing the wrong thing. An incompetent leader has almost unlimited opportunities to be ineffective. Knowing what to do—professional competence—is vital.
Being competent doesn't mean that a leader knows how to do everything, but rather that they know what to do and how to get it done. Even the most brilliant leader who tries to go it on their own is setting themselves up for failure. A good leader will know where their strengths and weaknesses lie and thus know what kind of expertise they will need to surround themselves with.
While many "leaders" are often selected for their competence alone, competence is something different from character or leadership competence, and should not be confused.
Lisa Haneberg is a professional management and leadership trainer, coach and consultant. She's also the bestselling author of many books including Focus Like a Laser Beam, H.I.M.M.: (High Impact Middle Management): Solutions for Today's Busy Managers, Organizational Development Basics, Coaching Basics and several short e-books.
One of Lisa's four blogs is Management Craft which focuses on management and leadership - two of her stated passions (she is also passionate about the Southwest and the perfect chicken nacho). Lisa calls her business blog Management Craft because she thinks of management and leadership as a craft; a practice we hone and develop over time.
On Lisa's site she re-posted the most popular piece on leadership she's written to date (it gets hit every day even though it was written three years ago). Here's an excerpt from that February 2005 post (she continues to write great things about leadership and management, but this is one of Lisa's - and her readers - favorites):
Leadership is Just One Thing by Lisa Haneberg (February 12, 2005)
About a week ago, I offered my perspective on the differences between Leadership and Management. You can read this post here. I don't often write about leadership, but I have been thinking about how I would articulate leadership.
When we say someone is a great leader, we often are saying he or she is a great leader, manager, and coach. When I peel away the management and coaching elements, I see what is pure leadership.
Leadership is just one thing.
Leadership is like the horseradish in the sauce I make for raw oysters. It's like the wasabi in my sushi. It's the lime leaves in my Panang curry. It's the Bombay in my martini.
It's something special that makes a big difference. So what's the one thing?
When we deomonstrate leaderhsip, we exude a proactive thrust. It's about taking the initiative to make things better.
When exploring the concepts of change with workshop participants, I usually begin by asking people "write down the first six words or phrases that you think of when I say the word change."
Having done this many times I have heard a variety of responses. But never have I heard the response "Peter Brady" until this week.
When I asked why Peter Brady came to her mind (ok, the whole group wanted to know), Carrie responded. I thought of the song the Brady kids sang on The Brady Bunch when Peter's voice was changing.
So, at the first opportunity I went to YouTube looking for the clip, which I found.
I share this because it makes me smile, and because in a sappy sort of way the message in the song is helpful to us as we think about change of any sort. In caser you resisted the urge to watch the clip, the lyrics say in part:
"When it's time to change, it's time to rearrange - who you are into what you're gonna be."
Sometimes we iniate a change, and sometimes a change is thrust upon us. In either case, a part of our success with it is to recognize, and hopefully embrace how the change will impact us. If we take the Brady's approach we'll take a proactive role in using the change to improve ourselves and our results.
The 2008 Best of Leadership Blog competition is well under way ending its second week today. Our finalists have done an outstanding job promoting the competition on their various sites and encouraging many of you to vote - about 348 to be exact.
Now would be a great time to take a look at our finalist's blogs because they are producing some of their best work - all in the spirit of competition. After taking a look at each contestant, make sure you cast your vote here if you haven't done so already.
The competition is heating up and our finalists really need your help in pushing them to the top. Thanks for supporting the contest with your votes!
Larry, Michelle and George had been friends a long time. They met in college, and though they each went to work in different organizations, they committed to getting together once a year to discuss their careers, opportunities and challenges. Over the years they had each risen to senior leadership roles within their organizations. At their most recent annual retreat the topic of team commitment came up.
As it turned out, they were as puzzled after their conversation as they had been before they began. Why? Because they all believed that team commitment was important, and they all felt they had it, and yet the performance of their teams weren't as strong as they hoped for or felt was possible.
Listen in to part of their conversation . . .
Larry knew something wasn't connecting for his team in terms of productivity, but wasn't sure just what. "If anything, we have great team commitment. People understand the organizational goals and have truly bought into that direction. It's clear from their words and actions that they are committed to our organizational goals. And yet, something is still missing. I'm not sure what it is."
Michelle said, "We're missing something in the productivity area as well, but my team is committed too. They are staunchly proud of the team - in fact they wave the team banner regularly - I'm surprised they haven't had t-shirts made! They believe in the team's role, they know that what they do is important, and like I said, man, are they proud!"
George concluded the comments of the trio. "My team is tremendously committed to each other. They are supportive, give each other great feedback and are always looking out for each other - more so than any other team I've ever seen. With all this commitment I'm baffled why they aren't more successful!"
The conversation continued along a similar vein, with no real conclusions, until the next morning at breakfast.
The Morning Aha
At breakfast, Michelle said, "I was thinking about our team commitment conversation last night, and I woke up this morning with an idea! I think we do all have committed teams - but they aren't committed to the same things. I think what we really need is a combination of the three types of commitments each of our teams have! Look at it this way . . ."
Michelle then drew three concurrent circles. In the inner circle she wrote "Commitment to Each Other." In the middle circle's area she wrote "Commitment to the Team." And in the outer circle she wrote "Commitment to the Organization."
With this picture the group discussed the idea at great length and how to build the two types of commitment their teams didn't have. They also decided to talk in a couple of months about their progress.
The Three Circles
Commitment is critically important to team success. Of course there are other factors for success (like relationships, clear goals and more), but commitment is one that often is overlooked. More specifically, teams need three forms of commitment to be most successful:
1. Commitment to each other and each other's success. Teams that are comprised of individuals that actively support, believe in and care about the success of each other will be more successful. This type of commitment promotes the comfortable shifting of duties and responsibilities among team members as necessary and allows teams to have less stress and higher productivity.
2. Commitment to their team and the team's success. Team pride and commitment is important to ultimate success. The commitment that arises from a team that understands their role and relishes achieving it is hard to undervalue. Teams with this type of commitment will overcome long odds due to their strength and unity and willingness to band together to get through a tough situation. Why? Because they see the effort as worth it for the good of the team.
3. Commitment to the organization and organizational goals. When teams see their work as supporting valuable and important organizational pursuits, this type of commitment is strengthened. This can't be built without a clear understanding of company direction and goals, but with those in place this commitment can grow. Like the internal team commitment, this manifests in organizational pride and a clear sense of obligation to the greater good.
Thinking about each of these separately as a team leader or a team member will help you determine where gaps might be. Hopefully your team has high marks in each area. If not, this list gives you a place to start in building higher levels of commitment in the areas that might be lacking.
Potential Pointer: The important team commitments include commitment to the organization, the team and each other. The stronger and more balanced these commitments are, the more successful and productive any team will be.
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be More Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini
Posted at 11:02 AM on
I've been looking forward to this book for some time. You see Cialdini's book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (read my recommendation) is one of my favorite books of all time, and so when I found out he was writing another, I was excited!
I loved the first book because it talked about fascinating studies of social and behavioral science and it applied them to our ability (and inability) to influence others. The book was full of great ideas, was fascinating and fun to read.
All of the same things can be said about this new book. If anything, Yes! is more practical, with specific examples of how each lesson can be applied in a wide variety of situations.
I will say that the book is a bit like candy - not because it is full of empty mental calories - quite the opposite is true. But like candy, I can only eat so much at one time! The book is filled with highlights and notes - and I know I will read it again (and again) and reference it often. I did find it better to read in smaller chunks, because it generated so much thought and so many ideas!
The book stands alone, but I believe it is even more interesting when you can connect it to the earlier seminal work of Influence. If you want to more successful in influencing and persuading others - as a leader, manager, marketing or sales professional or even a parent - you want to read this book.
Don Frederiksen is not a published author, trainer, consultant or speaker. Don is an IT professional with 20+ years of leadership experience. As a Business Intelligence Architect for Pearson VUE, he leads quietly. As a self-described "student of leadership" he seeks to understand, and practice how teams can effectively collaborate to solve difficult challenges. Lead Quietly is dedicated to the study of quiet leaders who do the right thing with quiet, behind-the-scenes actions, not public heroism.
On May 4, Don wrote this great piece on leadership and perfectionism:
Be a good leader. Be incomplete. Don't be perfect, don't even try. There is evidence that the best leaders are distinctly far from perfect and simply incomplete.
Woohoo. When I look at my personal skills, this is the best news I've heard in some time.
An article in the July 2007 volume of the Harvard Business Review caught my attention this past week as I continue my exploration of collaboration and leadership. In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, is the collaborative work of a group of authors MIT that includes Peter Senge, author of the previously cited business classic, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization.
The article resonated with me from the first read of the summary tag line:"No leader is perfect. The best ones don't try to be - they concentrate on honing their strengths and find others who can make up for their limitations."
Don states that it is time to stop visualizing the complete leader as a person at the top who has all the answers. He goes on to say that leaders shouldn't even try to fill the gap.
If you have never heard of the amazing TED Conferences or watched a TEDTalk, you need to. (What is TED? It is easier for you to read that here.)
Thanks to my friend Angela Maiers, today I learned about a short video produced by TED that is a mashup of parts of the top ten TEDTalks to date (here is her post).
As a learner, leader, human being, click on this link and watch this short video. You will learn something worth learning.
Best of Blogs: Leadership Made Simple by Ed Oakley
Posted at 3:35 PM on
Ed Oakley writes Leadership Made Simple. Ed's blog - or as he calls it the Periodic Journal of Leadership Tips - is a little different than many leadership blogs because it also makes use of video along with his writings.
Ed posts a video in addition to a 'traditional' blog post in any of about 10 categories. His videos are engaging and interesting; and his posts typically generate comments.
Here's an example of Ed's style from June 8, 2008. Make sure to follow the link to get to Ed's journal to see the video:
Leadership Development: Effective and Easy Performance Reviews
This is the third in the series of videos in our Leadership Development Experiment. This one is focused on accomplishing Performance Evaluations, Assessments, Appraisals or Reviews easily and effectively. It focuses on bringing out the best in the employee, while making it easy for you to do.
Our perspective is that if Performance Appraisals are easy AND effective, you'll do them more often - resulting in even more performance improvement.
Chances are, especially if you are from the United States, that when you read the title "the pursuit of" you thought of the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
These lovely words came from the pen of Thomas Jefferson and are a part of the U.S. Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.
As our use of language changes though, the original meaning of that phrase has been lost. When Jefferson wrote "the pursuit of happiness" he meant something similar to "the practice of happiness."
Think about the whole phrase this way - "life, liberty and the practice of happiness."
We have life, we have liberty (in the case of the Declaration, they were declaring it), and we can have happiness. Jefferson's readers would have clearly understood that happiness wasn't something to aspire to, but something to practice, or be.
As I think about this concept I recognize that we spend much of our time in pursuit, when what we really need to do is practice what we want.
For example, it wouldn't be enough to be in pursuit of an Olympic Gold Medal, you know the only way to get there is to practice. This may seem very obvious for the kinds of skills already associated with practice (like an Olympic sport), but consider other things more relevant to your personal and professional life.
Don't pursue good communication skills, practice them.Don't pursue creativity, practice the skills of creativity.Don't pursue learning, practice learning from everyday situations.
And . . .
Don't pursue happiness, practice happiness.
When you focus on practice, you are doing the things you desire. You are both living in the present and, through the practice, progressing towards the things you are pursuing.
The problem with the pursuit is that you can easily lose track of the experience of living and you may not enjoy the prize when you get there! Rather than focusing solely on the pursuit, when you practice you are living what you are pursuing.
In other words, would you rather pursue happiness or be happy?
When considered in this light it seems obvious which choice makes more sense!
When you pursue, you:
Chase
Run toward
Reach for
Focus on the future situation
When you practice, you:
Have
Do
Be
Learn
Grow
Focus on today
While goals (and their pursuit) are important, I encourage you to consider a more active approach than simply pursuing something. I encourage you to practice it. I urge you to do it today
Making the choice to practice will help you achieve more of what you have previously pursued than any other single action.
Potential Pointer: Stop thinking about pursuing, and begin thinking about practicing. As you practice what you desire you will enjoy the present and likely achieve what you desire more effortlessly as well.
This book isn't for everyone, just those who complain or know someone who does!
Seriously, we all complain and some complaining can be useful and productive. This parable by Jon Gordon of The Energy Bus fame (here is my recommendation of that book) helps sort the good from the bad.
The parable follows the life of Hope, a single mom and HR Director of EZ Tech, as she tries to improve her family life and the negative culture of her company. Through an engaging and fast-moving story, she discovers for herself and by extension for the company the tools to reduce complaining and create a more positive culture.
The book borrows some concepts from The Energy Bus which will make readers of that book smile, but won't negatively impact a reader who is unfamiliar with this earlier book.
Since complaining is prevalent in almost everyone's life, I believe this book provides direction to help us all complain less.
When you order your copy now, you can get some special bonuses - all of these bonuses should leave you with nothing to complain about!
Thanks to you – and our Blue Ribbon Panel – we're excited to announce the 10 nominees for the 2008 Best Leadership Blog contest. We scoured the web, took your nominees and then had our panel narrow the field and one of the 10 contenders will be 'crowned' winner:
I hope you will check out all 10 sites, and then vote for your favorite. Voting is open through July 31, and the winner will be announced here and in my newsletter on August 4.
Choose wisely – you can only vote once!
If you're unfamiliar with these bloggers, I'm excited to introduce them to you through the contest. Plus, throughout the month, I'll be hosting a guest post from each of our finalists and posting regular u
