Six Energizing Ways to Let Go and Start Again

Let go of the past

After establishing goals and vision the most important thing you can do to create your future is letting go of the past.

Let go of past successes. Sure, gain confidence from the idea that you can succeed. However, don’t rest on past success.

Let go of past failures. Sure, get wiser from your failures. However, fear of failing is a ball-n-chain.

More letting go suggestions.

Let go of independence and embrace inter-dependence. Lone rangers are alone and alone ain’t no fun. Open up to your spouse, a trusted colleague, mentor, or coach.

Let go of creating a public image. You’re wasting valuable creativity and emotional energy by faking it. Just be you. I’m not suggesting you be the ugly you, the mean, angry you. Be the best you and acknowledge to yourself and a few friends that you have a dark side.

Let go of a low view. Your success in 2011 is more about people and less about projects. Your personal vision is too low if it’s about promotions, achievements, and projects. Give yourself to others.

Finally, let go of self-doubt. Believe you matter because you do.

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What success-enhancing suggestions can you offer leaders?

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Don’t miss: “Creating Your New Future“

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5 Surprising Ways to Inspire Others

You make a difference by helping others make a difference.

Here’s how:

Stop fixing. If your passion for excellence and success drives you to constantly fix people, stop fixing. Do you think people are inspired by being fixed? I don’t think so.

Express unrequested good.  Rather than fixing all the time, inspire others by looking them in the eye and quietly saying something good about them.

When was the last time you said a good word?  No fanfare, no expectations, no manipulation, just said it. For an added kick, leave them slack-jawed by walking away when you’re done. Tell them you believe in them and then stop talking. Shhh! Silence drives the point home.

Support success – don’t punish it. Some years back I wrote a grant. Sadly, the result was longer hours and work on weekends. At the same time, my regular responsibilities suffered.  In that situation, the more I did the more I had to do and the less I did well. For someone with a passion to succeed, it was a frustrating downward spiral. I finally went to my boss and had grant writing removed from my responsibilities. Imagine the uninspired awkwardness of shifting from a “can do” to a “won’t do” orientation.

Be predictable. Your people are hamstrung when your unpredictable behaviors create egg-shell environments. The only thing unpredictability creates is fear and self-protection, a waste of emotional energy.

Reject conformity. In my opinion, “professional conformity” makes hypocrites of most. It requires you to replace the real you with a fake “professional” you. In addition, demanding that everyone dress and act “professionally” is a ploy that creates conformity, establishes control, and drains inspiration. People aren’t made with cookie cutters. Conformity doesn’t inspire.

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How can leaders inspire others to make a difference?

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If you liked this article, I think you’ll enjoy this popular post: “Finding the Sweet Spot.”

Finding the Sweet Spot

 

Open Leadership – the Failure Imperative

Few things are more powerful than a successful failure. Michel de Montaigne wisely said, “There are defeats more triumphant than victories.” Your good failures make you, your bad failures break you.

Seneca said, “Failure changes for the better, success for the worse.” He’s right if your failures humble your spirit and open your mind.

Charlene Li explains, “I’m convinced that a key part of being an open leader is your ability to deal with failure… By mastering failure you create an environment where risk-taking is encouraged and recovery from failure becomes a skill that everyone in the organization possesses.”

Developing resilience in the face of failure

1. Acknowledge failure happens.
2. Encourage dialog.
3. Separate the person from the failure.
4. Learn from mistakes.

Creating a structure that succeeds through failure

1. Conduct post-mortems.
2. Before risk-taking, prepare with worst-case scenarios.
3. Build in open response and acknowledgement of failures. Create a “culture that sustains a positive attitude toward failure.
4. Prepare for the personal cost of failure by creating a support structures.

Two more successful-failure tips

1. Spend more time discussing what you’ll do next than what you did wrong.
2. Identify risk-taking and successful-failure training needs.

Failure and Social Media

Social Media is your friend if you’re prepared for and open with your failures. On the other hand, if you hide your failures, you’ll fail.

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Other posted based on Li’s book:

Open Leadership

Open Leadership – Some Sanity

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Which successful-failure strategies do you find most relevant or useful?

What successful-failure strategies would you add to Li’s suggestions?

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Related posts:

Adjusting Course

Better to Celebrate Failure than rule it out!

Open Leadership – Some Sanity

Openness is central to the integration of social media with leadership and business.

I had one leader skeptically say, “Let’s see what happens three years from now,” as if social media was going away like a fad or bad dream. I say, “bad dream,” because I think large, top down, command and control organizations are scrambling like cock roaches under the glare that openness creates. In so doing, they are missing opportunity.

In many cases, command and control business cultures require secrecy and fear. Secrecy creates fear and fear motivates underlings to lie by telling top-dogs what they want to hear.

Openness undermines secrecy, diminishes fear, and nurtures trust.

How Open – Some sanity about Social Media

Social Media hasn’t ended the basic idea that business exists to add value to customers and constituents in ways that generate profit. Drucker put it this way, “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

The power and relevance of Social Media depends on alignment with the purpose of business.

Openness for the sake of openness is weak, foolish, and ineffective. Additionally, openness isn’t a magic genie that cures your leadership problems, creates world peace, and generates unending wealth. If you aren’t careful, it actually creates problems.

Charlene Li

Charlene Li explains the four strategic objectives that openness can achieve.

1. Learning. First and foremost, organizations know that they must learn from employees, customers, and partners before they can do anything else.
2. Dialog. Communications – both internal and external – transforms a relationship from that of shouting out one way messages to a dialog, between equals. Along the way people become more engaged.
3. Support. People both inside and outside the organization need support at different times – ranging from pre-sale to post-sale.
4. Innovating. Creativity needs to be fostered, but both inside and outside the organization.

Tomorrow: Open Leadership – the Failure Imperative

Yesterday’s post: Open Leadership

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What can openness do for you or your organization?

What should organizations NOT be open about?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

Open Leadership

“Power to the People,” by John Lenon was released nearly 30 years ago. It’s coming true today.

When power is viewed as a zero sum game, empowering one group disempowers another. Furthermore, power for one destabilizes others. In my opinion, viewing power as a zero sum game is the main reason top-down, command and control organizations are afraid of social media.

Charlene Li’s book, Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead, begins with, “Why Giving Up Control Is Inevitable.”

“Business leaders are terrified about the power of social technologies, but they are also intrigued and excited about the opportunities,” (Open Leadership, p. 7). My experience includes another group of leaders, the ones whose eyes glaze over when the topic of social media comes up. I feel like saying to this group, “Give it up, the 8-track isn’t coming back.”

Li’s book is foundational for anyone interested in leading in a world radically changed by social media. Notice the past tense, “changed.” It’s true, social media is changing the world. More importantly, with over 10% of the world’s population on Facebook, it’s already profoundly changed the way we think about communication and relationships.

In view of social media tools that radically empower customers and employees, Li offers five rules that govern how new relationships work in the business world.

1. Respect that your customers and employees have power.
2. Share constantly to build trust.
3. Nurture curiosity and humility. (In leaders and managers)
4. Hold openness accountable.  Explain the extent and limits of openness. List consequences when social media is misused.
5. Forgive failure. “Things go wrong all the time in relationships and the healthiest ones move on from them, …”

More from “Open Leadership,” tomorrow…

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Which of Li’s 5 rules do you find most challenging or exciting?

How do you see social media changing leadership?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

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Related Post: Open Leadership – Some Sanity

Spotting Blind Spots

You don’t see you like others see you.

Blind spots are things that others easily see in us but we don’t or won’t see in ourselves.

If statements like, “You’re just like your mother?” surprise and irritate you, you have blind spots.

I think everyone has them.  People tell me one of my blind spots is an ability to bowl people over without trying.  But, I don’t see it.

Spotting Blind Spots

One source of blind spots comes from over estimating your positive traits and under estimating your “less” positive traits.

Additionally, confident people may tend to project legitimate confidence into illegitimate “omni-confidence.”   This happens in our house when I think I know how to cook!

And here’s a third potential source of blind spots, taking greater responsibility for successes than for failures.

Finally, you have blind spots because others see your behaviors but not your heart. You feel one thing but your behaviors are interpreted another way.

Whatever the cause, we all have
blind spots that obstruct our highest success.

There’s the rub. Your blind spots are a disconnect between the real you and the perceived you. They frustrate you, irritate others, and hinder your effectiveness and success.

Getting the most from blind spots

You can open your eyes to blind spots by accepting what others say about you. Here’s an awkward idea, there’s a glimmer of truth in the way others describe you. Ouch! Let others see what you can’t. It’s awkward because you don’t see it.

You can intentionally shine a light on blind spots by asking trusted friends and advisors, “What’s hindering my success?” If you do ask, don’t make excuses. Just listen.

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What other ways can we shine a light on our blind spots?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  It’s always practical and brief.

Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

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If you’re serious about dealing with blind spots, these posts may help. You can read each one in about 90 seconds.

Withhold "I" say "you"

Improvisational Listening

6 Ways to project the right image

How not to drive others nuts

The key to recruiting volunteers

One motivated volunteer is worth 10 that aren’t.

People volunteer for personal reasons, not organizational reasons. — If you work in the nonprofit sector, you might want to read that again. — Successful recruiting efforts focus first on the motivations and talents of potential volunteers and then on organizational mission and vision.

First, talk to them about them, and then talk to them about you. Your goal is finding alignment between personal and organizational values, mission, and vision.

Begin by explaining what you give them not what they give you.

You provide opportunities to learn new skills, channels for giving back, and richness of life. You give them an opportunity to matter. If you don’t, close the doors because your organization doesn’t matter.

Before recruiting volunteers know the answer to this basic question. “Why do volunteers share their time, talent, and treasure with your organization?”

After you understanding potential volunteers, always lead with organizational mission and vision. Don’t focus on tasks, focus on vision. Don’t say, “I’d like you to man the front desk on Monday’s.” Do say, “I think you can help us change the lives of troubled teens in our community.”

If you can’t clearly articulate your mission and vision in compelling ways, you aren’t ready to recruit volunteers.

Compelling vision establishes your true North and fires passions to charge off in that direction.

Convincing people to perform tasks doesn’t create dedicated volunteers. Connecting values, mission and vision does.

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How can nonprofits effectively recruit volunteers?

Beating skeptics

Every leader faces skeptics. It’s normal, in some cases healthy. You build bridges to skeptics when you:

Get to the point

I’m skeptical of people that never get to the point. It feels like they are setting me up. Declare your intent up front and then state your case after.

Don’t belittle yourself or hog the spotlight

I’m skeptical of people that belittle their own contribution. Reject false humility and graciously accept praise. When people praise you try saying, “It feels great to add value.” Or say, “It’s great to lead a talented team.”

On the other hand, hogging glory violates trust and demoralizes others. In addition, stealing the spotlight creates work cultures where skeptical employees “pay you back” by withholding information, creating and spreading rumors, and give lack luster performances. Hogging glory fuels skepticism.

When others toot your horn, just say thanks.

Listen or don’t ask

Don’t ask questions unless you want answers. It’s not polite to ask questions just to be polite. It makes others feel manipulated, disrespected, and belittled. It fuels skepticism.

Demonstrate competence – acknowledge incompetence

Until you’ve demonstrated character and competence, skepticism is healthy.

Character alone doesn’t build trust. Covey puts it this way, “… competence is as vital to trust as character.” For example, my plumber is honest. I trust him to install a new shower. However, he’s not competent to give my car a tune-up. You answer skeptics with character and competence.

On the other hand, I feel better about you when you honestly let me know what you can’t do. For example, the nonprofit sector is filled with passionate, vision-driven leaders. However, a passionate, vision-driven leader that lacks economic skill can bankrupt an organization. You validate and build bridges to skeptics when you acknowledge, expose, provide for, and openly work on your inadequacies.

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How can leaders deal with skeptics?

People are frustrating?

“Have you tried to ‘fix’ anybody lately?”

One of life’s biggest frustrations is other people. Am I right? People just don’t behave, perform, or have the attitudes you want them to have.

Who can we change?

John G Miller author of, QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, gave me a swift kick in the pants by saying what we already know. The only person I can change is me.

I think we’re addicted to focusing on others and excusing ourselves. Miller asks groups all over the world, “What’s the one thing you would change to improve the effectiveness of your organization?” He’s never had anyone say, “Me.” It’s always someone or something else.

Personal happiness and personal freedom begin when we stop excusing ourselves and begin taking personal responsibility.

What we can do

Although we can’t “fix” others, we can encourage, coach, teach, delegate to, correct, comfort, and in other ways create a platform for another’s success.

However, people change from the inside-out, not from the outside-in. In my experience, people resist us when they feel we are trying to change them. On the other hand they welcome us when they believe we accept them.

Winners

When I reviewed QBQ!, John Miller offered to sign and send 12 of his books to randomly selected individuals that left comments.  I put everyone’s name in a Tupperware bowl and my lovely wife drew the following names.

Winners of QBQ! The Question Behind the Question:

• Jean Radeztsky
• Ajay Gupta
• Paula Kiger
• Paul Bartel

Winners of Flipping the Switch

• Jnstruck (Jim)
• Bobby
• Pastor Mario De Leó
• Harry Colegrove

Winners of Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make your Organization Exceptional

• Jeffrey L
• Ashley Musick
• Elena Patrice
• Andrea

I’m sending you folks an email so I can get your snail mail address. Congratulations!

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What are the behaviors and attitudes “people fixers” exhibit?

Connecting the good with the bad

One well timed conversation can change a person’s life.

Last night I had a conversation with a young leader hungry to have an impact. Here’s a way you can approach these critical conversations.

Get clarity on their desire to lead. You can ask, “Do you see yourself filling leadership roles in our organization?” When they respond, “Yes,” affirm their desire.

Explore their strengths and weaknesses. The second question is crucial. I suggest you ask two questions at once. “What behaviors and qualities will enhance your leadership and what qualities and behaviors will hinder your success?” I like asking both questions at once because everyone knows the negative question follows the positive.

Affirm their positive qualities and behaviors by explaining their practical benefit and positive potential.

How to transition to the negative without being a downer?

Use their positive qualities as a foundation to discuss behaviors that need improvement. For example, the person I chatted with last night indicated they were goal oriented. I opened the “you need improvement” part of the conversation by saying, “A goal oriented person may walk on others, is that true of you?” Without hesitation, they responded, “Yes.” Now you can begin crafting strategies that strengthen their weaknesses.

You can say, “You’ll go further if you …”

Leadership development includes enhancing strengths and strengthening weaknesses. Connecting strengths with weakness creates an affirming environment that lowers defensiveness and maximizes success.

An added leadership development resource:

Since publishing, “Influence Over a Cup of Coffee,” I’ve encountered  K. Scott Derrick. He coined the expression, “Flash Mentoring.” If you’re committed to develop leaders, I believe you’ll benefit from visiting the Flash Mentoring website.

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What strategies and techniques to you use in your leadership development activities?