Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential
Issue 6.45 - November 9, 2009 ISSN: 15516571

In Kevin's Own Words

Leadership Lessons from the Berlin Wall

In 1961 the East German government built the Berlin wall to stop the flow of people into West Germany. Over time, the wall did more than stop the flow of people. It became a powerful symbol of oppression and stopped the flow of ideas and freedom.

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.

This historic change opened the flow of people, and again became an equally powerful symbol of change, creativity and a return to greater freedoms.

Both the building and tearing down of the wall are powerful metaphors for leaders. Many leaders put up walls to "protect" or "isolate" themselves from those they lead. While it may not be as intentional as the Berlin wall, it will likely be as obvious and limiting to those you lead.

Walls You May Have Erected

Have you put up walls through your words or actions that reduce or limit any of the following?

• Trust. Are the levels of trust in your organization and on your team where you would like them to be?
• Communication. While communication is always a challenge, do you find yourself able to clearly communicate with your team, and do they communicate freely with you?
• Openness. Are you comfortable in sharing your concerns genuinely and do people share them with you in return?
• Creativity/Ideas. Do you hear great ideas from your team regularly?
• Engagement. Are people onboard, enrolled and moving forward towards their goals and the goals of the team?
• Attitude. Is the attitude of the organization healthy and where you would like it to be?

Your answers to these questions hopefully will be quite instructive.

If you find gaps when answering them, recognize that you as a leader play a role in each of them. If any fall short of where you would like them to be (or where the organization needs them to be for maximum success), get some feedback from others and build a plan to begin tearing down those walls or barriers.

When the Walls Come Tumbling Down

Your walls likely are less obvious than the Berlin wall, and the changes that come with tearing them down may not occur as quickly, but believe me, as you identify your personal walls and begin tearing them down, you will begin to observe new results.

Regardless of the nature of the wall you have built, tearing it down will result in:

• Improved working relationships
• Greater respect and credibility for you
• Better problem solving
• Greater organizational and individual productivity
• Increased employee retention
• Higher morale
• Better Customer service
• Fewer frustrations
• Lower organizational stress
• Greater results

When the Berlin wall fell, the world changed. As you identify the walls you have erected and subsequently knock them down, your world will change too - and change for the better.

Potential Pointer:  When you take the time to determine the walls you have created (as a leader, as an employee, as a spouse, as a parent…), you can begin the process of systematically tearing them down. It will take time and effort. It may be painful. But, your efforts to tear down the walls will be richly rewarded.

The walls we create are often subtle and multi-faceted. Leaders who recognize this also realize the need for an ongoing personal learning process to help them continue to become a more effective leader. One way many leaders do that is by participating in The Remarkable Leadership Learning System - a one skill at a time, one month at a time approach to becoming a more confident and successful leader. Kevin wants to give you $748.25 worth of leadership development resources, including two complimentary months of that unique system, in his Most Remarkable Free Leadership Gift Ever. Check it out.

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Kevin's Recommends

Five Ways to Keep People Focused on Their Goals

On December 4th, I am delivering a one-hour teleseminar on helping teams and individuals focus on their goals more successfully. This article/recommendation previews one small part of what you will learn and be able to apply after participating in the teleseminar. Sign up now!

Goals, whether formally stated or not, are critical to all organizational success. We (hopefully) all have over-arching organizational goals; but on a more practical and immediately applicable level, we have project goals, productivity goals, quality goals, developmental goals, and the list could go on.

Setting effective goals is the focus of countless resources (drop by your favorite bookstore, run a search on Amazon.com, look on your personal bookshelf if you're unsure about that). One way to improve your leadership skills will be to improve your ability to help team members set effective goals. And if your team doesn't have goals established right now … setting effective, meaningful goals needs to be your first task. Then, you need to help keep your team focused on those goals once they exist. Here are five practical tips for keeping people focused on their goals:

Remove distractions. People are busy (like you haven't noticed). They have lots to do and many things on their mind. The first, and perhaps obvious thing, you can do as a leader is remove distractions. How? You do that by continuing to communicate about, ask about, talk about and align your communication with their goals. It is easier to stay focused when there are fewer competing messages. As a leader you can focus on your communication and conversation as one important way to reduce distractions.

Review regularly. How often do you review your goals? How often do you encourage others to review theirs? Unless your answer is daily, you have room for improvement here! As a leader you can do any number of things to review regularly. You can review goals with your team as a part of regular meetings. You can place key goals in emails. You can ask people to provide updates on their goals, and more. Think about your specific situation and you will come up with a variety of ways to make reviewing possible (and not monotonous). The real challenge, then, is to actually do it!

Support through action. It is hard to maintain focus on a goal if you don't see how the goal can actually be achieved or how you'll find time to actually work on it. You can help people focus on their goals by providing tangible support to them - including time, space and resources. Help people carve out time from the schedule to work on their goals. Find people, information or tools that might help them achieve their goals more rapidly. These tangible actions will help people focus on and achieve their goals.

See the success. People lose focus when they don't feel like they can make it and when they lose sight of the goal. This step goes far beyond reminding people of the goal - rather, it's about helping your team visualize the goal in real and vivid ways. It is also about helping them see themselves on the path to success. Help them do more than remember, help them actually see the success in their mind's eye. When they have that picture, it will be much easier to maintain focus.

Show your belief. If you really believe in someone's ability to reach his or her goal and demonstrate your belief - it will be much easier for them to focus. Given that, here are three important questions about belief: Do you really believe in that person's ability to succeed? If not, why not? And if so, are you showing through your words (and actions, see above) that you do? Making sure that people know you care and believe in them will help them remove large subconscious barriers to their focus and achievement. (And if you don't believe in them, there are bigger questions to be asked, but that's for another article!)

As a leader you (hopefully) want people to reach their goals. And in order for any of us to reach goals, we must be able to maintain our focus on those goals. You do have the ability to help people find and maintain that focus!

Interested in more in-depth discussion on these topics - and more? Join me for our December teleseminar.

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