Archive - Leadership RSS Feed

Stop Worrying and Start Living

May 18, 2010 in Business, Health and Wellness, Leadership with 6 Comments

Stop Worrying and Start Living 300x300 Stop Worrying and Start LivingI have come to realize that people on a fast paced “career track” often burn the candle at both ends. I should know, I was once one of these people and I thank God that it didn’t take me very long (oh about 10 years or so) to figure out that I needed to change a few things in my life. These fast paced individuals are programmed to believe that if they work harder and longer, that they can eventually get ahead, solve the problem, or close the account. But let’s face it…none of these things will happen if you’re exhausted.

One of Dale Carnegie‘s bestselling books,How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, is about stress management. In fact, based on quite extensive research that I did, it was the first book written specifically on the subject. Mr. Carnegie wrote it because he was sick and tired of stressing out everyday over his position in life and wanted to put a stop to it. So he looked very closely at what it was he was worrying about, how it affected him, and came up with a method on how to stop it.

One of the first realizations was that stress and worry cause fatigue. So Carnegie’s strategies for combating include this very simple technique: lie down for an hour before dinner. He translated those hours into the course of a lifetime to get the technique called “5,467 times more effective” than a cocktail.

Today it seems that it’s even harder to find a free hour. But we are able to, and can adapt. Find the time to take a break, even if it’s for only 20 minutes. It will suffice. You’ll be amazed at the wonders it will do for your stamina and your overall peace of mind.

It’s Not Hard To Judge

May 16, 2010 in Business, Leadership with 15 Comments

Contructive Criticism 300x168 Its Not Hard To JudgeIt’s hard for us not to be judgmental, and very rarely will anybody succeed in avoiding it completely. However, most rash judgments are wrong. If you think about the last time you heard somebody talking about a person that you know, while very well knowing that what you are hearing was either misinterpreted or just wrong.

I recently read a report that was written by psychologists Arnold and Clifford Lazarus. Based on their studies, they noticed that when somebody starts being judgmental, it’s probably best to walk away from the conversation. If you can legitimately come to somebody’s defense, then it’s certainly a goof thing to do. But, when people are judgmental, it’s very unlikely that they are willing to listen to anybody anyway… so you then need to realize that you’re probably wasting your breath.

If an organized discussion devolves into a judgmental talk, whether it’s about somebody in particular, another organization or another organization’s product or service… it is your obligation to redirect the discussion because the conversation is just simply wasting everybody’s time.

Now, on the other hand, there are times when discussing the qualities and values of another organization’s product(s) or service(s) is important. But the discussion needs to stick to the facts– such as how their product s and services have impacted the industry and it’s customers, employees, and/or investors. Things such as “the color of the competitor’s product, how simple it is to maintain, and how it’s value is important” are all ways that can be used to be critical and constructive, so that choosing one of the above mentioned gives you the ability to make an informed decision.

We’ve all been in similar situations where it’s easy to judge. I’m curious to know how you handle these situations. What works best for you?

Dreamers, Visionaries, and Idealists.

May 15, 2010 in Health and Wellness, Leadership with 18 Comments

idealist Dreamers, Visionaries, and Idealists. If you consider yourself to be one or more of the above mentioned in the title of this post, then I think it’s safe to say that we all have one thing in common. We have identified that we want something in the world to change, and we listen to our inner voice to find a way to do it. I recently started to read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich again and started to analyze the habits of the of about 500 successful businessmen. After in which, realized a shocking conclusion. Successful people are the individuals that have the ability to tap into their very own unconscious mind through an very intense level of focus, thus allowing for a very free flowing thought process to occur. These people are able to look outside the box, discover and invent products and services that never existed, apply them in such a way that the real world can gladly prosper from them!

Our unconscious mind is an untapped storage bank that is full of all kinds of information. We get an inkling of how powerful it is when we get gut feelings or experience hunches. Hunches are the answers to questions that we pose to our inner voice. Something that I found is that we do not want to dismiss our hunches as crazy concepts. Instead, we want to ponder about them, look at them from every angle possible, to be open minded to all the possibilities that they offer.

Our inner voice is active and available to us every day and every night. We can’t consciously control it, but we can steer it in the right direction. By positioning words, ideas, concepts, and/or feelings into our internal thoughts, we can give ourselves the ability to access our subconscious and reap the rewarding benefits.

Top 150 Leadership and Management Blogs

April 11, 2010 in Leadership with 18 Comments

Top 150 Management Leadership Blogs Top 150 Leadership and Management BlogsThe other day I was reviewing the blog’s analytics using W3Counter stats. While I was scrolling through the sources in which direct traffic to this site, I stumbled upon the site NOOP. After visiting the site I learn that NOOP is contributed to by a gentleman named Jurgen Appelo, a Business Unit Manager at Sociotoco and a CIO at ISM eCompany. Jurgen is more commonly known as a writer, speaker, developer, entrepreneur, manager, blogger, reader, dreamer, leader, freethinker, and… “The Dutch Guy”. He recently put together a list of the best management and leadership blogs in the world. While I scrolled down this list I see some very familiar names. Names that are of industry leaders that are compiled of men and women from all over the world. After scrolling through most of the list, I almost choked on my lunch when I saw my name along with this blog listed towards the bottom! Never in a million years did I ever think I would be surrounded by so many great leaders and wonderful people. It is an absolute privilege and honor to be on this list!

Four Basic Skills of Leadership

March 3, 2010 in Leadership with 38 Comments

leadership basics 300x169 Four Basic Skills of LeadershipThe skills of leadership need to address each of the key elements which make up the ‘problem space’ of leadership: (a) oneself, (b) one’s relationship with one’s collaborators, (c) the system in which one is acting and (d) the goals to be achieved by oneself and one’s collaborators in that system. This entry will cover a numerous skills addressing these various elements of leadership: self skills, relational skills, strategic thinking skills, and systemic thinking skills.

Self skills are how the leader handles himself or herself in a particular situation. Self skills allow the leader to choose the most appropriate attitude, state-of-mind, focus, etc., with which to enter a situation. In a way, self skills are the steps by which the leader leads himself or herself.

Relational skills have to do with the ability to recognize, encourage, and communicate with other people. They result in the ability to enter another person’s model of the perceived world or perceptual space, establish rapport and guide that person to recognize problems and objectives. Since leaders must reach their dreams and accomplish their goals through their influence upon others, relational skills are one of the most important aspects of leadership.

Strategic thinking skills are necessary in order to define and achieve specific goals and objectives. Strategic thinking involves the ability to identify a relevant desired state, assess the starting state, and then establish and navigate the appropriate path of transition states required to reach the desired state. A key element of effective strategic thinking is determining which team members and tasks will most efficiently and effectively influence and move the present state in the direction of the desired state.

Systemic thinking skills are used by the leader to identify and understand the problem space in which the leader, his or her collaborators and the organization is operating. Systemic thinking is at the root of effective “solution creation” and the ability to create functional teams. The ability to think systemically in a practical and firm way is probably the most definitive sign of maturity in a leader.

Do you apply any of the four leadership skills in your life? If so, I’d love to hear about it!

Group vs. Team

March 3, 2010 in Leadership with 13 Comments

group vs. team Group vs. TeamGroups of people have been around since as long as I’ve been around… and then some; human nature draws people to one another. Group behavior ranges from encouraging to chaotic, from adversity to success. Many managers are fine with group performance. For me, though, it is increasingly obvious that groups that experience the highest output are those that have bonded into a team.

I believe that the main determining factor between a group and a team is their point of reference to one another. A group is two or more people working in proximity, each doing his or her own thing to accomplish a goal.

A team shares the same goal. Its work is dependent upon each team member for the final results. Take for example some of the curriculum at the International Leadership Conference. While it’s a group of people with different accountabilities… one laying out materials, one proofing, another editing, another administering tasks… none is successful without the other. The final product, whether it’s a book, a CD or a slide presentation, cannot be completed without the team’s integration of talent.

A leader’s job is all about getting results. You do that by building your team, individual talent upon individual talent. You balance the multiple needs, recognizing one and minimizing another to incorporate them into a unit. Taking care of your associates with an organic focus is what makes the team strong.

Developing individual team members so they compensate for and support one another makes them a team. As individuals improve, the team improves. The result of moving among your roles of coaching, mentoring and counseling is what your team produces… productivity and job satisfaction.

Ask people today what motivates them to join one organization over another and a top response is to be able to work with the team. Integrating your individual associates into the team requires the same skilled approaches for me. Shared values, common goals, constant rewards and satisfaction take a group and shape it into a top-performing team.

Make your team world class!

Leadership Alignment

February 16, 2010 in Leadership with 18 Comments

leadership alignment 212x300 Leadership AlignmentToday, it seems that many processes that are related to organizational development, management, and leadership are undergoing an insightful change for a number of great reasons. History shows us that in the past several decades, companies have continued to become more and more complex. This complexity is a function of changes in both the internal organization of companies, as well as their external environment. This greater than ever complexity has given rise to a generation of problems that were not present in the customary organization of the past.

The changes in technology, production methods, the workplace over the past several decades, and the optional space of people working within corporate organizations has grown larger and larger. Especially in technologically intensive areas, people have become highly trained experts who must use their own judgment to make technical decisions (which managers themselves are not always qualified to make). Employees can no longer be viewed as ‘laborers’ doing a specific behavioral task who need to be controlled and watched over. As a result, the skills and demands of valuable management and leadership have also become more complex and refined.

Managers and leaders can no longer be successful by mere decision making or delegating orders based on their title or rank in the corporate hierarchy, rather they must recruit the ‘co-operation ‘ and willing involvement of their collaborators in order to most proficiently and successfully accomplish jobs and tasks. In order to avoid conflicts and assure peak performance, managers must rely more on such processes as persuasion and negotiation as opposed to the processes of command or directives. In other words, as the ‘discretionary space’ of employees increases, the focus of the manager shifts from managing time, tasks and situations, to managing relationships, policy and procedure. Thus, the primary focus in effective leadership and management is moving from the content aspect to the process aspect. Additionally, the increasing globalization of business requires a whole different concept of management and organizational learning.

The world is the company arena. Differences in cultural belief, behavior patterns and values must be respected and incorporated into the daily thinking and activity of managers at all levels. How do you approach this with your team?

Destroy Bureaucracy!

February 11, 2010 in Leadership with 23 Comments

destroy bureaucracy 300x202 Destroy Bureaucracy!I’ve always hated bureaucracy.  To me, bureaucracy is the enemy. Bureaucracy means waste, slow decision making, unnecessary approvals, and all the other things that kill an organization’s competitive spirit.  I’ve spent many years battling bureaucracy, trying to rid any company I’ve worked with of anything that would make it less competitive.

I feel that ridding any company of bureaucracy is everybody’s job. Over the years, I’ve urged all of my co-workers and employees to “fight it, kick it.”  That’s why “disdaining bureaucracy” became such an important part of my first organization’s shared values (the list of behaviors that were expected of all SFS /Alloy Software employees).

When a young intern asked me what he should do when he encounters bureaucracy in a large corporation, with a smile, I advised him to “get a hand grenade…and blow it up” (figuratively, of course).  Again, I feel that it is everyone’s job to at least try to rid any organization of wasteful bureaucracy.

But isn’t that easier said than done?  Yes, even organizations that do a good job of eliminating this cancerous element can’t kill it permanently.  That’s why I’ve referred to bureaucracy as “the Dracula of institutional behavior,” because it had a way of rising from the dead every few years and sucking the life out of what ever is left.

Anything that you can do to simplify, remove complexity and formality, and make the organization more responsive and agile, will reduce bureaucracy:

Drop unnecessary work: Most organizations have far too manyrules, approvals, and forms. Work with colleagues to figure out whichof these old ways of doing things can be either eliminated orimproved.

Work with colleagues to streamline decision making: If it takes an organization a week to make a decision, the process needs to be simplified. If no one can remember why your organization does something a certain way, chances are that it is more complicated than it needs to be.

Make your workplace more informal: Send handwritten notes instead of memos (I love handwritten notes, and it is “Geoff,” not“Mr. Snyder”), keep meetings conversational (rather than formal and rigid), and encourage dialogue up and down and the entire organization.

Page 8 of 10« First...«678910»