27 Apr
photo of clocks; time mastery
[email protected] Leadership

7 Moments

The difference between average and excellent is, literally a matter of moments.—Lee J. Colan

Not only are we advocates of continual learning, we actively live (and pursue it)! One aspect of this includes reading and listening to the ideas of others.

Lee J. Colan wrote 7 Moments …That Define Excellent Leaders; we’d like to share some of his ideas that are both simple yet powerful.

The 7 MOMENTS ARE:

#1 A Moment To Commit – Think Excellence, Create A Compelling Cause, Secure Your Foundation

#2 A Moment To Plan – Set A Vision, Know and Optimize Your Sweet Spot

#3 A Moment To Act – Check Your Focus, Treasure Your Resources, Make Real-Time Decisions

#4 A Moment To Connect – Look Beyond Your Staff, Cultivate Your Network, Ritualize Your Team

#5 A Moment To Invest – Inspire Future Leaders, Live Your Legacy, Exercise Your Brain

#6 A Moment To Change – Delight In Discomfort, Know Fear, Multiply Your Power Of One

#7  A Moment To Conquer – Move Through Adversity, Take Your Stand, Secure Your Foundation

Excellent leaders don’t limit defining key moments for themselves, they also provide opportunities for their team to create their own defining moments. AND, they provide feedback and guidance that adds to levels of excellence.

How are you helping others define their “key moments”?
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Click to read A LEADER WITH A VISION 

We Are Never The Same After Experiencing A Defining Moment-Lee. J. Colan

 

20 Apr
[email protected] Blog, Leadership

Continual Learners

It’s hard to find a work environment that provides the space, dialogue and discipline to grow.–Ursala Liff

What do you think of when you hear the term “continual learner”? Do you think it applies to only you, or does it include a commitment for helping others increase their skill-set?

Assuming your answer is that both are required, the next question is “what are you doing to help yourself, others, and your organization evolve, thrive and continually learn?”

Ms. Liff feels that what is lacking in the work environment is the commitment “that I will help you grow if you will help me grow”.

She provides 4 ideas for supporting continual learning:

  • Get clear on your vision and stop the blame game

Ms. Liff feels too many senior leaders complain about their people, yet are not clear about the direction and strategy for the organization, or the roles people play.

  • Human beings can’t change that fast

She also shares that it’s not uncommon to find teams who are supporting 20+ strategic initiatives at one time and suffer from fatigue/burn out.

She feels organizations function best when they focus on 2-3 initiatives that have clearly defined and measurable goals.

  • Slack (or the productivity tool du jour) doesn’t solve the mindshare problem

It’s been stated that 40-70% of our work time is spent on unimportant activities. We need to clearly understand our priorities, allocate resources accordingly, and focus on individual and organizational growth.

  • Do less, think and feel more

Leaders complain they don’t have enough people who can think strategically. We don’t want to only “execute”, we want to encourage differences! Healthy conflicts and discussions will create new ideas and energize people.

Being successful and valued requires more than just being productive – we must make a commitment to continually hone our skills and enable others to do the same!

Are you committed?

Leaders Are Continual Learners

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.–John Fitzgerald Kennedy

13 Apr
[email protected] Blog, Interpersonal Skills, Leadership

Conflict – Is It Productive?

Your response to conflict situations is entirely in your own control.

We talk a lot about conflict in the workplace.  Why? It’s reality. The next question: Is it productive? You bet! Problems arise when the conflict is not handled in a healthy, honoring way.

We’ve previously shared Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann’s 5 modes of conflict: COMPETING, ACCOMMODATING, AVOIDING, COLLABORATING and COMPROMISING.

All modes serve a purpose; what’s important is using the most effective mode to address the conflict at hand.

Conflict can be complex. Besides utilizing the most effective style, we need to understand our emotions and triggers as well as understand the behaviors of those we’re interacting with. It’s also a priority that we curb our destructive behaviors.

Enter Wiley. Many of you are familiar with the DiSC styles (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness). Wiley is currently developing a tool to improve self-awareness around conflict behaviors.

The awareness will include our natural preference to engage versus restrain from conflict, examples of how each DiSC style is likely to influence conflict, and our tendencies to engage in both productive and destructive behaviors (with solutions for maximizing the “productive” and minimizing the “destructive”).

We are currently participating in the beta testing, look forward to learning even more, and can’t wait to be able to share it with you!

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Conflict: Address, Avoid, or Leverage?

For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.  Margaret Heffernan

06 Apr
[email protected] Leadership

People Pleasers

When pleasing people becomes a goal, we seldom lead people into what is best and are led more by opinions of others than by vision.—Ron Edmondson

If you hear someone being called a “people pleaser” how do you interpret that? Do you consider it to be a compliment, or do you view it as a negative?

We guess it boils down to “why”. Many articles say people pleasers simply want to be liked and they have an over-whelming need to be accepted.

Others say people do it because they lack the courage to put themselves first, they want to avoid uncomfortable situations, and they are unable to deliver tough messages.

7 Casualties Of People Pleasers by Ron Edmondson

  1. No one is really ever satisfied – It’s not possible to please everyone all of the time
  2. Tension mounts among the team – People pleasing pits people against one another
  3. Disloyalty is rampant – People-pleasers say what people want to hear more than what needs to be said
  4. Burnout is common – Trying to please everyone is tiring!
  5. Frustration abounds – People-pleasing leads to fractured teams and fragmented visions
  6. Mediocrity reigns – In an effort to please everyone, the team compromises and no one is happy
  7. Visions stall – Visions are intended to take us places and this requires change. Change is often met with resistance, and it’s hard for the people pleasers to keep everyone happy

As leaders, how hard is it for you to make tough decisions that won’t please everyone? Remembering that all behaviors and actions must support our vision helps.

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FEAR – A Barrier To Success – Click for more 

I CAN’T TELL YOU THE KEY TO SUCCESS, BUT THE KEY TO FAILURE IS TRYING TO PLEASE EVERYONE.—Ed Sheeran