The Dip
A good friend of mine exposed me to the writings of Seth Godin. He is an expert on new marketing and the use of the internet with one of the most read blogs on the web.
The Dip is a book about knowing when to quit and on the other hand when to stick it out. Every new project, job, relationship and hobby start out exciting and fun but at some point the newness wears off and the reality of how hard it really is sinks in.
A Dip is a temporary setback that you can overcome if you stick it out and do not quit. The other extreme is a cul-de-sac which is a situation that you should quit as soon as you know this is not what you need to be doing.
How do you know the difference? Great question. The key to me involves passion and excellence.
If you are not passionate about what you are doing then that is a clear sign that you are probably in a cul-de-sac. To be able to break through all the problems we all face everyday requires a burning desire to do something you know that really makes a difference.
The other criteria require total transparent honesty with self. You must evaluate if the product you are offering to the market is the quality that would make people want to participate in what you are doing.
If it is then you have every reason to hope that over time other people will hear about what you are doing and will buy in and even tell their network about your services. The book is all about knowing when to quit the wrong stuff and stick it out with the right.
Listening
The key area that is lacking for most leaders as they face the highly participative team dynamics that exist today is people skills. All executive coaching research clearly points to this reality and most leaders have major blind spots when it comes to this truth and that is why it can destroy team morale and productivity.
Of all the people skills that show up on most lists of inappropriate behavior poor listening goes to the top in all current studies. Marshall Goldsmith calls it the most passive aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
All of us catch ourselves thinking about what we want to say rather than really concentrating on what the other person is communicating. Stephen Covey made seeking to understand the other person a priority before you seek to be understood as one of his 7 habits of highly effective people.
We must understand that listening is not a passive behavior. It requires several active disciplines to be successful.
We can clarify what someone has said by restating what we heard and what we think they meant. We can explore by asking additional questions about what has been said. Then we can seek confirmation from the person that is what they intended to convey.
Once you are confident you have fully understood what the other person is saying then you must take a moment to think before you speak. Make sure your response is not coming across as defensive or attacking the other person regardless of whether you agree with them or not.
Delegation
One of the best ways to leverage your leadership influence is to delegate as much work as possible to competent team members. At the start of every day you should ask yourself is there anything that needs to be done that I can give to someone else with the appropriate investment of my time?
In the Industrial age model of leadership the leaders made all of the decisions about priorities and strategies and the team was responsible only for execution. This resulted in very little delegation and significantly reduced productivity.
In this type of environment the leader would walk into the meeting and tell the group this is the new program for the fall and hear are your individual assignments, are there any questions?
In the Information age of leadership the leaders still make the decisions about priorities but delegate the development of the strategies and execution to the team. This is a major improvement and gets everyone into the game.
This meeting would involve the leader saying to the team, this is a program that we are considering for the fall, what do you think?
In the new Idea age the leader is willing to delegate the setting of priorities, strategies and execution with reserving the right to make the final decision on all recommendations from team. A meeting would include the leader saying to the team what are your recommendations for programs for the fall and why?
The need for and the type of delegation is changing dramatically in the last twenty years. In the past the leader was suppose to know all the answers to all the questions. Today they need to know how to ask the right questions and the team is responsible for the answers.
Three Critical Questions For Leading Change
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?
Leading Change
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!
Execution
It is amazing to me how all of the most respected people in the field of leadership are so consistently saying the same things about the most important things that all organizations need to be doing. It really started when Steven Covey wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People followed by Jim Collins Good to Great and now every bestselling book on leadership prioritizes the same factors.
Execution is a great read by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. They define execution as the discipline of getting things done.
They start with the number one issue of the day the personal character of the leader. If you are not able to execute your own personal priorities then you will never be able to establish execution as a priority for your organization.
In the spirit of Good to Great they insist that the leader must never delegate their most important responsibility of getting the right people on the team. This factor more than any other will determine if you r people can consistently move beyond creative development and project planning to actually get the job done.
The next priority is to create a culture of discipline where execution is valued. A great insight is that we don’t think ourselves into a new way of acting, we act ourselves into a new way of thinking. Translation, at some point in time we need to stop talking about the problem and start doing something to solve it.
Finally, after the leader has set clear goals and priorities you must evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy. Then it is extremely important to reward the doers who are actually getting the job done and this will move execution to the top of your leadership core values.
The Window and The Mirror
Filed under: Core Values, Leadership Callling, Personal Development, Servant Leader
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.
Definition of Balanced Life
Filed under: Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Marriage, Parenting, Personal Development, Time Management
All of us feel like we have too many things to do and not enough time to do them. We have priorities in many different areas: our career, family, relationships, entertainment, faith and own personal life. We also fulfill many roles as employees, fathers, husbands, wives, mothers, and friends just to name a few.
Somehow we have developed this concept that true happiness and success comes when all of these areas and roles are in perfect balance. It is as if they all have equal percentages of our time, energy and passion.
Realistically we all know that is an impossible goal to accomplish. Our career alone demands a ever growing disproportionate amount of our time and if you have a newborn child in your house all bets are off including time to sleep.
To me a balanced life means that all of these areas as well as our different roles will constantly be changing in the amount of resources they demand. The critical factor is not to let anything that is important in your life be totally neglected to the point that you are now failing in that area because all of the other things have drained you to the point you have nothing left to give.
When you reach that point and we all do from time to time we must reprioritize our lives so that everything important gets its slot on our calendars. This will mean that something else will have to get less or be eliminated all together.
Believe it or not sometimes we need to not go to the new latest and greatest parenting conference and just stay at home and play with our children. Life can be crazy and its demands will change with each new day.
When you have the character and courage to assume the responsibility of leading your total life you will make sure that nothing major falls through the cracks. Enjoy your day!!
Goals vs. Desires
Filed under: Core Values, Leadership Callling, Personal Development
Many times we put a tremendous amount of emotional energy and effort into something only to realize that nothing has changed. We are worn out with all the work and feel very empty because we are not getting any positive results.
The core problem most of the time when this happens in my life is when I confuse goals and desires. A desire is something I want to happen but in the end have no control over the outcome. On the other hand a goal is something I want or need and do have direct control over the outcome.
For example you could have a relationship that you care about deeply but no matter how hard you try the other person seems to be unresponsive. Even though my motives may be right when my methods center around trying to change the other person I have taken a desire and turned it into a goal.
In relationships the only goal that I should ever have is to change myself. In doing that it may indeed have a positive impact on the other person but that must remain a desire and never become a goal.
We hit the wall when we are working on things over which we have no control and that drains us. Even worse it keeps us from doing the very things we can control and that discourages us.
This principle applies both to our personal and professional lives. None of us has the responsibility to solve the global recession but we do have control over our own character.
The old axiom of do what you can with what you have right where you are is a great place to start.
Timing Is Everything
Filed under: Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Personal Development
In many situations leaders know what needs to be done to move forward and even how it should be done but they fail on the when it should be done question. If you try to put a major change initiative in place that is really needed but the climate for change is not urgent then a very good idea is going to die and the organization will continue to fail.
In John Maxwell’s book on The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership he talks about the Law of Timing. According to Maxwell great leaders recognize that when to lead is as important as what to do and where to go. Every time a leader makes a move, there are really only four outcomes that can result:
1. The wrong action at the wrong time leads to disaster.
2. The right action at the wrong time brings resistance.
3. The wrong action at the right time is a mistake.
4. The right action at the right time results in success.
Timing is also very important in our personal lives when we are faced with a major decision or even a relationship issue that needs to be resolved. Sometimes because we think we are right about something that gives us a blank check on saying something to the other person whenever we want.
We must say the right thing in the right way but most important at the right time. When our teenagers come home with very bad test score in tears, it is probably not the right time for the thirty minute lecture on WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO STUDY!!!!