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4 Things Every Parent Must Know About Teen Friends

Posted by on October 2, 2015

There may be no more scarier time in life than trying to get through the teenager years. The short term pain of watching them fail for the long term gain of building character is brutal. One of the most powerful forces in their lives are friends and you need to be on your game:

“How do you let your teenagers go but at the same time keep them safe? After all, it’s tough being their age these days. Teens are growing up in a world that worships freedom to do what you want, rejects responsibility, and provides many ways for them to do both.”

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7 Things Healthy Teams Check At The Door

Posted by on September 30, 2015

Teams can be messy, for after all we are dealing with up to 10 totally different people all with personalities and agendas. You have to define some clear expectations about how people treat each other that will allow healthy conflict and build necessary trust. Ron Edmondson does a good job with trying to eliminate some things:

“I think healthy teams are intentionally created, so wherever I serve I’m consistently trying to make our environment better. Over the years, I’ve learned some things will not develop healthy teams. Many times it’s as much about what we don’t have on our team as what we do have.”

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Delegation That Really Works

Posted by on September 28, 2015

There is tremendous confusion in leadership circles today about when to be Directive if ever. When should you use Collaboration and how does that impact how decisions are made? Finally, we all know we should be Delegating more but what we don’t know is how it should work.

One the one extreme we give someone a project responsibility and never check on the status again. The other tendency is to still micro-manage and in reality all that is delegated is the work, not the responsibility.

I have developed 4 simple steps over the years that seem to produce great results. Every situation is different and will require varying degrees of these steps but they are solid.

RESEARCH: When I start a project, I am wanting to evaluate a leaders capability on this subject. I will ask them to do some detailed work on the topic. Some times I give direction and sometimes I intentionally don’t.

The outcome I want to see is how thorough they are, how much they grasp the content and what recommendations would they make moving forward. Fail here and there is no more delegation on this subject, but impress here and I have a project leader.

2. PROGRESS: You must avoid both mistakes of too many conversations with the project leader or not enough. It’s not fair to them for you to watch every move they make but nothing is worse than lots of work and it totally fails in meeting expectations because you did not communicate well.

So what you must do is to build feedback loops into the process. They could be on the one hand standing weekly meetings or on the other the use of some project management software like Basecamp. Bottom line for the leader you can’t just walk away.

3. AGREEMENT: Now the project is in the final stages ready for execution. One more final touch point for ensuring alignment with stated outcomes is necessary. Your are looking for the win-win outcome here.

Then fully execute the project and just be available for troubleshooting as needed. By now its 90% theirs and delegation is serving its intended purpose.

4. EVALUATION: Most people don’t want to spend the time to complete this most necessary step. You first must determine the effectiveness of the project. Do we want to kill it, change it or scale it for the future?

In addition we have invested a lot of leadership development capital in this leader. They need to hear what they did well and just as importantly how can they continue to improve their leadership capacity.

Delegation is a great leadership tool and everyday you as a leader should be asking yourself: What am I doing that someone else should be doing for me and even more important how am I intentionally developing new leaders?

Categories: Delegation Leadership Development | Comments Off on Delegation That Really Works

Toxic Myths About Leadership

Posted by on September 25, 2015

I will never forget when I read Good To Great by Jim Collins for the first time. There were so many myths that he destroyed about leadership in that book. The one that was the most meaningful to me was that effective leaders had to be charismatic extroverts because that was the culture I developed in as a leader. Ron Edmondson takes that one on and several others:

“One thing I learned in obtaining a master’s in leadership is defining leadership is difficult. John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence.” I love a simple definition. Simple works. Its effective and communicates. Still, I have observed leadership is often not easy to define as a few simple words.”

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The Top 5 Time Management Mistakes

Posted by on September 23, 2015

There is a big difference between prioritizing your schedule and scheduling your priorities. Time management in reality is not about when you do tasks but how you lead your life. Lisa Evans has some challenging thoughts:

“We’d all like to use our time better, which is why I enjoyed reading Lisa Evans’s recent post on The Top 5 Time Management Mistakes You’re Making. She pointed out several woes that I know I am guilty of, from underestimating the amount of time tasks will take to not managing distractions.”

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Tips For Being A Morning Person

Posted by on September 21, 2015

This is a subject to me that is a lot like exercise. I hate thinking about it ahead of time but I believe that it was a great idea once its over. I love to sleep in just like most normal people but the cost is simply too high. This post by Stephanie Vozza is both practical and full of great ideas:

“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day,” said 19th-century social reformer Henry Ward Beecher, and a couple of centuries later, the sentiment still holds true. A great morning can set the tone for a great day, while a bad morning can make us want to give up and go back to bed.”

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7 Things Leaders Do That Drive Their Team Nuts

Posted by on September 18, 2015

If leaders give the impression they only want to hear the good news and its obvious they don’t like conflict then teams suffer. Many times team members fail and make mistakes only to have the team rescue the project. However, when leaders make mistakes sometimes its hard to pull victory out of defeat by Carey Nieuwhof:

“If you lead, you are more than aware of the incredible responsibility you have toward others. Leadership, by definition, is not a solo sport. You’re leading others, and how you do it ultimately determines how effective you are as a leader. It also means you need to become exceptionally self-aware of your weaknesses.”

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4 Common Mistakes In Goal Setting

Posted by on September 17, 2015

If goal setting is so simple why do so many of us never reach them? Even though the methods may differ, the common principle is to state clearly what the outcome is you want to reach. I am always looking for new techniques and this post by David Whitt is very helpful:

“Performance expert John Hester identifies four common mistakes that managers make when they set goals for employees in the latest issue of Ignite! The negative result is poor or misaligned performance, accountability issues, blame and resentment—not to mention countless hours spent reviewing tasks and redoing work.”

Real Collaboration Or Total Confusion

Posted by on September 8, 2015

Working through teams is a hot topic and the idea of collaboration has been around for a long time. Certainly no one wants to go back to the bad old days of a few top down decision makers meeting in private and then telling the whole organization what to do. Surely with all the emphasis on involving everyone on your leadership team those old habits have finally died. Not really, they are alive and well.

Effective teams are honest with each other and deal with conflict in a healthy way. They value the combined strengths and gifts of the team over the limited skills of the few. Some leaders though are still playing the game of valuing everyone on the team publicly but in reality privately they are not willing to pay the price to build a strong consensus.

There are several clear indicators that will let you know that the leader is not all in on collaboration:

Lots of talk but no real decisions. At some point in time in the meeting everyone realizes that the impression of listening to everyone has really become how can we end this meeting without making a decision.
Overvaluing the input of everyone. In every team environment depending upon the subject some people on the team will clearly have more knowledge and experience. When leaders spend an equal amount of time hearing from everyone, they value the acceptance of the people more than the effectiveness of the team.
Making unnecessary assignments. This is a classic delaying strategy by the leader to avoid the realities of the team moving toward a consensus decision. It sounds a lot like collaboration but in reality its organizational constipation.
Meetings with selected individuals. When a leader does not like the potential direction of the team, they will meet ahead of time with certain individuals to ensure their opinion will be expressed by others. These team members will do the dirty work while the leader can remain above the conflict.
Giving passive approval. Finally, when it is obvious that the collective team is moving toward a consensus decision to move forward, the leader will give passive approval. The right words get said but in reality the leader is living to fight another day and has no intention of supporting the groups decision.

If you really don’t want your teams to help you make the decisions then just tell them. They have plenty of other work to do and they hate playing the game.

Categories: Leadership Development Teamwork | Comments Off on Real Collaboration Or Total Confusion

Good Goals Are Smart Goals

Posted by on September 7, 2015

You have heard it said that if you don’t measure it then it really does not matter. There is a tremendous amount of truth in that statement. But the reality is that you can’t just throw out a percentage number you want to grow your revenue next year it must be realistic. These principles by Ken Blanchard will work in any context:

“Although most managers agree with the importance of setting goals, many do not take the time to clearly develop goals with their people. As a result, people tend to get caught in the “activity trap,” where they become busy doing things, but not necessarily the right things. In his book Leading at a Higher Level, business author Ken Blanchard recommends that managers set SMART goals with their people. SMART is an acronym for the most important factors to remember in setting quality goals>”

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