Category Archive: Career Development

What To Do When You Are Stuck

Posted by on May 7, 2009

When some people face dramatic change they choose to live in denial as if this is not really happening to me.  On the other extreme others know the change is real to the point of becoming emotionally depressed about their new state of life.

The common sometimes fatal result of both of these mindsets is the paralysis of inactivity.  We don’t want to get out of bed, go to work or even talk with anyone.

We must, as Jim Collins said of effective leadership in Good to Great, be willing to confront the brutal facts that sometimes I cannot return to my life the way it used to be.

I must assume personal responsibility to change myself first and start leading myself by making good daily decisions before my life can begin to turn around in different direction.  The only way to do that is to do what you can with what you have right where you are and do it today with all your heart.

Change always produces movement.  If we let it this movement can be downward and very destructive.  The only way to stop this negative cycle is to start doing the simple things that you are able to do right now that will allow you to accomplish something good today.

You must get on offense and use the power of movement produced by activity to turn your life in a new positive direction.  You must take some risk today by raising your sails and doing the clear things you know need to be done before you can ever feel the movement produced by the wind taking you to a better place.

 

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Good People Are Everything

Posted by on May 5, 2009

A few years ago Mark DeMoss wrote a great book called The Little Red Book of Wisdom.  He shares the personal and professional core values that helped him develop one the most successful Public Relations firms in the country.

Just as Jim Collins did in Good to Great and Jack Welch in Winning he drives home the most important asset for any organization are the people who work there.  He states in one chapter, “the implication is that in business, how you treat your people trumps what you do with your clients, schedules, output, and spreadsheets.”

He believes there are four major motivators in attracting and retaining the best of the best.

1.       The first is mission—People need to totally buy in to the big thing your company is all about.

2.      The second is a good leader—Not the smartest or the brightest but someone who knows where they want the organization to go and has the character to lead.

3.      The third motivator is corporate culture—This aspect is especially important to the next generation workforce because they must have an environment that is participatory and not highly directive.

4.      The forth factor is compensation and benefits—This goes way beyond the basics to giving special recognition to best people who over time earn up to six weeks of paid leave and a $10,000 bonus.

For years everyone thought the most important decisions a leader had to make was What their organization needed to do in the area of products and marketing.  Now the focus has shifted to Who are the people on your team.  Get the right people and they will help you define the What, How, When and Where.

 

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Leadership Demands Authenticity

Posted by on May 1, 2009

There are many generational issues that have to be resolved between the Baby Boomer generation of existing leaders and the Next Generation workforce that is coming onto the scene.  The old positional power model of simply telling everyone what to do and they automatically follow with no desire for involvement in the process is gone.

Potentially the single greatest leadership quality new leaders are looking for from those in positions of responsibility is authenticity.  They place a high value on working with people that are real and genuine compared to others who like to play mind games.

A leader must know who they are personally and what they believe are the core values for themselves and the organizations they lead.  Then when the hard decisions must be made and there are many of them today, everyone on the team will trust their motives instead of questioning them.

Jack Welch placed a very high value on authenticity for his top leadership team.  In his book Winning he wrote, “Leaders can’t have an iota of fakeness.  They have to know themselves-so that they can be straight with the world, energize followers, and lead with the authority born of authenticity.”

There is nothing better at the end of a long day than to look back and know that all your actions were consistent with your character.  No more playing games just keeping it real.

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Promises We Make

Posted by on April 30, 2009

We all struggle with the commitments we make either to ourselves about eating a healthier diet or to someone else about something we said we would do and simply forgot. When we want to take our commitment to the next level we start making promises.

A promise is defined as a declaration that something will or will not be done and there is assurance given and an expectation created.  Promises should be reserved for the top priorities and the people we care about the most.

One promise we should all be willing to make to the people that matter is that I will carefully listen to what you have to say.  As Stephen Covey said in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People we should first seek to understand the other person before we ask to be understood.

Our motives are no longer to show how smart we are, win the argument or avoid pain.  We sincerely want to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling to the point we acknowledge their value as a person.

Listening involves time and a willingness to be patient until we have embraced all that the other person wanted to share.  Think of at least one person in your life today that you really care about and make a promise that I will lay down my agenda for the benefit of someone else.

Are you listening?

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I Incorporated

Posted by on April 29, 2009

Many of us have some type of leadership responsibility at work.  We are involved in setting goals, identifying priorities, problem solving and even casting vision.  Over the years we develop a skill set that enables us to do all of these things and more.

There is a lot of culture shift taking place in the corporate world from the old days of working with one company your entire career to now almost viewing yourself as a free agent always looking for best situation. 

There are many good aspects to this new reality and some that are not.  This shift in expectations should never excuse us from coming to work every day and performing with excellence regardless of how long we stay in one place.

The important truth for all of us to realize is that we are The Leader and The C.E.O. of our own life.  We have a responsibility to lead ourselves before we can effectively add value to other people.

We need to take this same skill set that has served us well at work and start applying the same disciplines at home.

 What are the priorities and goals that you have for your life that are based on your core values?

Are they written down and do you evaluate your progress just like you would on any project at work?

 Do you have a vision for where you want your personal life to be in one, two, and even five years down the road?

Someone has well said, you will be the same person five years from now that you are today except for two things, the books you read and the people you know.  That is great advice for any new C.E.O. including you.

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The Window and The Mirror

Posted by on April 28, 2009

I have always been an Alabama football fan since the days of Coach Bryant.  One of the things I always appreciated about him was when we lost a game he always took the responsibility in the press conference and never cast blame toward the players or officials.

According to Jim Collins in his best seller Good to Great all great leaders do the very same thing.  His team noticed this pattern in all of the very successful leaders and they called it the window and the mirror effect.

All great leaders would look out the window and give credit to other people and not themselves when things were going well.  At the same time, they would look in the mirror to assume responsibility for failure and never blame bad luck or someone else when things went poorly.

The comparison companies did just the opposite.  These leaders would look out the window to blame someone or something when they experienced negative results.  When they did get it right they would look admiringly in the mirror and take all the credit with great fanfare.

We all need to apply this lesson on a personal level.  It is always easy to justify our bad behavior when we can use what someone else said or did to hurt us as an excuse.  Assuming personal responsibility for our attitudes, words and actions is the first major step in becoming a leader who is driven by character and not by the fading recognition of the crowd.

 

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Leadership Demands Courage

Posted by on April 27, 2009

A legend from India tells about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat.   That resolved his fear until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog.  The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger—so , once again, the magician changed him into what he feared.

But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help.  “I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.”

Courage is defined as the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger and pain without fear.  In the economic environment we find ourselves in today there are many things that we could choose to fear.

What we desperately need today are leaders who possess the character to make the hard calls that will help us move through this crisis and into a brighter future.  In this day when the pace of change seems to be moving at the speed of light there will seem to be a new danger around every corner.

When Jim Collins describes the type of leaders that led their organization to greatness they possessed two key qualities.  They are individuals with extreme personal humility and an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long term results, no matter how difficult.

Great leaders are certainly human but on the inside they possess the heart of a lion and not of a mouse.

 

 

 

 

 

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Three Critical Questions For Leading Change

Posted by on April 22, 2009

 

I want to tell you a simple story that illustrates  what every leader must do to lead their team or entire organization through the change process.  You are the leader of a team that has been involved in an outward bound teambuilding session for two weeks.

Your team is out in open and you are eating your lunch on the ground.  The weather conditions are changing and you are monitoring the situation on weather radio.

In first scenario you as team leader say to your team in stern voice get up and follow me right now.  A few people respond but the majority stay in place.  Now you raise your voice and yell I said come with me.

The second scenario you say as the leader we are going to move.  Here is the plan, we are going to stand up together at the same time and form a single file column and make sure no one runs or gets left behind.  The group is very hesitant to get up and it takes time to get everyone in a line and progress is slow.

The third scenario is you say to team there is a tornado less than five minutes from here, follow me to that brick building and we will all be safe.  Everyone moves and no one is hurt.

In the first situation the leader tried to use positional power which almost never works anymore especially with next generation workforce.  The second scene was perfect example of trying to manage the change process instead of leading.  The major reason most change initiatives fail is they are over managed and under led.

The bottom line for me is this based on our simple little story.  Leaders always need to answer three questions when they want an individual or an entire organization to change.  What is the Problem?  How are we going to Solve it?  Why is this important to You?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Five Keys in Setting Goals

Posted by on April 17, 2009

All of us have experienced the frustration that comes from really wanting to accomplish something important and thinking we are really committed to it only to realize several months later it did not happen.  When I evaluate personally and professionally where the breakdown occurs it usually centers on the disciplines involved in effective goal setting.

These are the five critical things I have learned over the years:

1.      Write it down—if it is not important enough to write down in your personal planner or enter into your cell phone list then it will almost always never get done.

 

2.      Check your resources—do you realistically have the time, energy, knowledge, skills and commitment to make this happen?

 

3.      Make it clear—you must be very specific about what you want to accomplish.  It cannot be I want to lose weight; it needs to be twenty pounds over next six months.

 

4.      Develop your plan—strategy is the realistic intersection of resources and commitment.  There is a big difference in walking twenty minutes five days week and training for marathon.

 

5.      Evaluate your progress—this is where the rubber hits the road.  Do it often until you know you have sustainable momentum and most important celebrate every win.

 

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Leading Change

Posted by on April 15, 2009

The greatest mistake organizations make during difficult times like we are currently experiencing is to try to manage change rather than leading the process.  Sometimes survival is the only critical issue and then you do whatever you have to do to stay alive.

Most of time though we look very short term and develop a bunker mentality that’s only goal is to ride out this storm until things get better.  This means of course reducing expenses through personnel reductions , delays in capital investment, marketing and of course training and development.  Especially, all those bad trips and conferences that congress is railing about.

Leading change recognizes the brutal facts that the fundamentals of global economics have been permanently changed.  Effective leaders will use the urgency and severity of this current cycle to reposition their entire organizational culture for success in the 21st Century and beyond.  The future is incredibly positive for all those who are willing to embrace it.  No going back!

 

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