Pull The Trigger
Filed under: Crisis Management, Leadership Callling, Leading Change, Personnel Development
There may be nothing harder to do as a leader than make the decision to terminate an employee. To be honest we feel to some degree we have failed and that is hard to accept.
This is especially true if we hired the person in the first place. Not only have they failed but now our performance as a leader may be in question also. We cannot let our own emotional need for personal success stand in the way of doing what is right for the organization.
There are three critical things that I must do as a leader before I feel that my responsibility has been completed prior to any termination. The first is to provide clear expectations of what is required in their job description. It is impossible for someone to meet your expectations if they have not been clearly communicated early and often.
The second important thing is to make sure the person has had adequate training and resources to complete their job successfully. It is not fair to ask someone to grow a particular area and not give them the financial and manpower assets they need to be effective.
The last issue for me is a comprehensive and ongoing feedback system that lets a person know exactly where they stand in the area of performance. It is not right to see someone make mistakes day after day and stick your head in the sand hoping it will go away only to drop a bomb on them at annual review or even worse an unexpected termination. If you do not have the leadership skills to positively confront someone about what they are doing wrong then you may be the one in the wrong job and not them.
If you have done all of these three things well and given this person every opportunity to improve and they don’t then you should feel no guilt or sense of failure. Never obsess on the five to ten percent of your staff that may need to go every year. What is extremely important is to remember the ninety to ninety five percent who are doing their jobs well and are watching to see if you have the character as their leader to pull the trigger.
Coaching
Filed under: Core Values, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Personal Development, Personnel Development, Servant Leader
If you need help in making some major decisions in your life coaching may be exactly what you need. There are many types of coaches available from executive, life, fitness and even spiritual.
The one major thing you need to understand about coaching is that it is not counseling or therapy. The major focus will not be your past and the things that have gone wrong but the future and how you want it to look.
Great coaches don’t have the answers to all your questions. Their role is to help you by knowing how to ask the right questions so you can see why you may be stuck and what your options are as you move forward.
A coach might ask, What is the one major area in your life you would like to change that would improve your life? Then, What do you want that area to look like six months from now? Finally, What do you need to do this week to start closing that gap?
Another important aspect of coaching is accountability. It really helps when you have someone who is on your side and offers the necessary what do you want to accomplish before our next time together type questions.
With this accountability comes encouragement that reminds you of what you said you wanted to do to change your life and gives you the confidence that you can make it happen.
My experience in using a coach was incredible. So what are you waiting for give them a no charge to you first call and see if it feels like a good fit.
Promises We Make
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Personal Development
This is the forth in a series of ten posts on promises we should be willing to make to the people that matter the most in our lives. A promise goes beyond a mere commitment to do something it carries the clear expectation that we are going to pay the price to do what we said we would do.
The first promise was I will sincerely listen to what you have to say. Really listening to someone without a personal agenda communicates to them that they have value in your life and that you sincerely care.
The second promise was I will always tell you the truth. Without this there can be no basis of trust, just ask Elizabeth Edwards how painful that can be.
The third promise is I will apologize when I am wrong. When someone sincerely and genuinely apologizes we know two things. They are willing to humble themselves and they want to restore their relationship with us because we still matter to them.
The forth promise is I will forgive you when you hurt me. There can be no lasting peace in any relationship without the power of forgiveness. This is even more critical when someone has come to us and sincerely apologized they are asking without saying it will you please forgive me?
Forgiveness does not mean that we have the ability to forget what has happened to us but it does mean that we no longer hold that offense against the other person. This will allow us to learn from the past and not force us to continue to live in it will all its negative memories.
The key thing about giving someone else forgiveness is that you must first have received it yourself. You may only see your percentage of the responsibility at twenty percent but you must assume responsibility to seek forgiveness for your part before you can move on and release the other person.
This is a promise worth making to the people you care about the most in your life.
The Power Of Momentum
Filed under: Crisis Management, Leadership Callling, Leading Change, Personal Development, Time Management
There are very few things more difficult to deal with in your personal or professional life than a loss of momentum. It can be brought on by some major tragedy or a series of small compromises over a very long period of time.
Eventually we get to a place where we start worrying about things outside our control and that drains us of what little emotional energy we have left. Also because we are so focused on the negative we stop doing the things we should and can do and that brings even more despair.
The only way to break this cycle is to start doing what you can do and build some small daily wins into your life. This principle works with individuals as well as organizations.
With every small win comes movement and that generates confidence that things are finally headed in the right direction. When we regain our confidence then we attempt even more things that product even bigger wins and the power of the momentum begins to put the wind back in our sails.
It is very ironic that when we get to the places of greatest difficulty in our lives it is the very smallest of things that can break the downward cycle. We are desperately searching for the big answer that is going to solve all our problems when the solution was right in front of us all the time.
The good news is that the power of momentum works in a positive way to an even greater degree than it does toward the negative. When you repeatedly do what you can do daily the positive flow of your life moves you beyond all the negative issues that may still be there but now they are in the proper perspective.
Clock Building Not Time Telling
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Leading Change, Personnel Development, Servant Leader
The days of all decisions being made solely at the top with a few people involved are fading fast. Throughout the Industrial Age of leadership during the last half of 20th century this was the only model of leadership. The overwhelming percentage of the workforce was for the most part simply telling time based on the clear instructions that were given for them to follow.
Today we are leading from an Information and Idea Age model of leadership. The entire development process has been delegated to various teams so that everyone who can contribute will be involved. In essence people are now being asked to help build the clock.
Most people think the changing role of the top executives is by far the most dramatic shift that has occurred. In a sense of scope that may be true. Key leaders today do not have to know all the answers to all the questions they only need to know what are the right questions to ask?
There primary responsibility today is to make sure they have the best possible people on their team because the quality and success of the clocks they are making will determine the future success of the entire organization.
The most dramatic shift in leadership today certainly from a standpoint of scale is not at the top but in the middle of organizations. There is a big difference in telling time compared to building clocks. Today people are daily being asked what do you think and what would you recommend?
Many organizations are caught in the middle of this transition and seem to be stuck. The problem could be that you are asking people who only know how to tell time to build clocks and they are not capable of making that change. Don’t give up on clock building just find the right people who know how to build great clocks and you will be fine.
Big Hairy Audacious Goals
Filed under: Goal Setting, Leadership Callling, Leading Change
There has always been a delicate balance in goal setting between what can be done and what could be done. Goals should be realistic and achievable but they also must be courageous and challenging. Safe is not good enough anymore and we must be willing to take risks that stretch us outside our comfort zone to achieve greatness.
I absolutely love this quote that is extremely timely in our current environment, “Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much no suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt, 1899
When President Kennedy said in the early 60’s we are going to land a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of this decade the overwhelmingly majority of people thought he had lost his mind, and yet we did it.
The world has changed dramatically in the last decade. The power of technology and the globalization of all the world economies are driving change in unprecedented ways that no one could have imagined either just a few years ago. When this recession is over we are never going back to the ways things used to be.
What goals are you setting for yourself and your organization that are commensurate for the challenges that lie ahead in the 21st century? They must be big hairy and audacious if they are going to lead to outstanding performance.
Networking
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Personnel Development, Servant Leader
The old mindset was your success depends upon how many people you know. Today the most important thing is how many people are you helping.
The focus has shifted to some degree because of the culture created through the use of social media. The motivating factor behind most people is how can I help others be successful by giving them information that will be helpful.
It is just as important to be willing to ask other people for help as well. A true network works then because of the dynamics created because of mutual need. This in essence is the difference between someone being merely a contact in your database compared with a person in your life.
Make no mistake; serious business is taking place here. However, that is a natural result of working with people you like and respect and not using other people to get what I want.
Never Eat Alone is a great book written by Keith Ferrazzi. He hates what he calls networking jerks. If you don’t want to come across as one here are few things he says you must never do:
Don’t schmooze
Don’t rely on the currency of gossip
Don’t come to the party empty-handed
Don’t treat those under you poorly
Be transparent
Don’t be too efficient
What we can do is to have a desire to genuinely add value to other people and by doing so knowing we will have made a difference.
The Importance of Knowing Life Purpose
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Marriage, Personal Development, Time Management
In a day when our calendars are beyond full and yet our lives seem to be empty something has gone wrong. We in many cases have assumed because we are busy the things we are doing must be important.
We clearly have shifted the focus from being as a person to doing and what we are able to accomplish. Technology has helped us in many cases simply to do the wrong things faster.
The great paradoxes of our time have been summed up well by the Dalai Lama:
“We have more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees, but less sense…more knowledge but less judgment.
More experts, but more problems.
More medicines, but less healthiness.
We have been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We build more computers to hold more information that produce more copies than ever before, but have less communication.
We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods but weak digestion.
It is a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.”
For many of us we have been living the script for our lives that were given to us by someone else; parents, peers, friends or the culture we live in. The time has come for us to have the courage to say no and the passion to write our own.
Team Operating Principles
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Personnel Development, Servant Leader
The first thing I look for in putting together any team is the right chemistry for the particular task at hand. If the team is responsible for completing a construction project I need expertise and great project managers. When the assignment is to create a new vision statement I want very creative people that are willing to think outside the box.
One of the best books on team building is The Performance Factor by Pat MacMillan. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Team Resources Inc. an international consulting firm specializing in organizational and team development.
Regardless of the team dynamics and the task assignments there should be some guiding principles that give direction to all teams. The following list from MacMillan is the best one I have found and creates an environment of mutual respect that drives participation and performance:
1. We are open and honest with one another.
2. We treat each other with dignity and respect.
3. We listen to and respect each other’s ideas and opinions.
4. We hold confidences.
5. We honor our commitments.
6. We support and invest in each other’s development.
7. We routinely critique our processes.
8. We have fun.
If the team leader can model and get everyone to buy into these principles then the potential for a great outcome has dramatically increased. When teams often break down it has very little to do with the task at hand but with the way members communicate and relate to each other.
My Boss Does Not Get It
I spoke this week at an annual conference for the utility industry on the subject of change. The major takeaway was that when this recession cycle is over we are never going back to the way things used to be.
The world has permanently changed the way we live and especially the way we work. The power of technology and the globalization of world economies are driving change in an unprecedented way.
At the end of both my presentations we had a question and answer session. The dominant question from everyone was what do you do when you know change needs to occur but your boss either does not see the need or simply will not give up on the status quo?
The first thing you must do is to continue to respectfully continue to tell the truth. The moment you give up and become a yes man you have stopped doing your job.
The second thing you must do is check your motives. At the end of the day if I have tried to be helpful and share my perspective in the right way then I can go home knowing I did it right.
The third thing is to realize that it is not in your job description to change your boss any more than it is to change your mate at home. When we hit the wall is when we assume responsibility that was not given to us and become frustrated when the people above us don’t seem to get it.
After several months of respectfully communicating what you see from your perspective and nothing seems to be changing and you get the impression that they don’t want to hear it anymore. The you must realize that in the end you will either change the corporate culture you are working in or if you stay too long it will change you.
When I have reached this point the change that needs to occur is not in my boss but where I am working. I will not settle for a paycheck becasue the world is in a mess and I want to make a difference.