Choosing Heat

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Life grows cold when you feel alone.
Find someone who keeps you warm.

Relationships make or break us.

Everyone grows, develops, and succeeds in the context of relationship.

Why alone:

Feeling alone comes from choosing the cold.

1. Devaluing the centrality of relationships.
2. Refusing to help or support others. Stop expecting everyone to adapt to you. Adapt to others.
3. Pulling away and closing out. You’ve chosen safety over relationship. Walls propagate the cold.
4. Arrogantly believing everything depends on you.

Two proverbs:

“If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.”

But here’s another, opposite, proverb:

“Two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone?”

Nothing is colder than feeling alone. Find someone to lie down with, but don’t choose a dog with fleas.

Lie with those who:

1. Aren’t like you.
2. Kick people in the pants. Apathy is easy.
3. Speak and act humbly.
4. Push for excellence and give second chances. Look for compassion not mediocrity.
5. Share their journey. Do they share personal stories of success and failure? How do they talk about their mistakes? Don’t lie with fakers.
6. Give of themselves.
7. Speak with candor. Those who say what you want to hear are driven by self-interest.
8. Dream for themselves and others.
9. Energize rather than drain.
10. Earn your respect and respect you.

Bonus: Lie with those who receive as well as give.

Choosing heat:

Leaders on their own are individual contributors,
doomed to fail.

1. Make relationship building a priority.
2. Choose to fuel fires. Be a person who energizes others. Like Bob Burg says, “Be a go-giver.”
3. Choose to open yourself to others. Some will step in. A few will lie down. All warm relationships require vulnerability.

Why is it hard for leaders to build sustaining relationships?

How must leaders change in order for them to enjoy heat-making relationships?

Quickly and Simply Transform All Meetings

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If you could only get back the time you gave to boring, ineffective, useless meetings!

Meetings give the impression something’s getting done when usually it isn’t.

There’s too much talking in meeting
because people aren’t focused on doing.

One rule transforms every meeting from ineffective to effective.

Rule one:

Mercilessly cut everything that isn’t connected to action.

Three functions of rule one:

Every agenda item must do at least one of three things:

1. Enhance efficiency – improve action.
2. Generate assignments – create action.
3. Stop ineffectiveness and/or inefficiency – prevent action.

Guidelines for rule one:

1. All “information-giving” must clearly inform action. Always explain the connection to doing.
2. Determine options for action, when you’re problem solving and innovating, then give assignments.
3. Don’t spend so much time improving things you haven’t done yet. Do something; improve as you go.
4. Explore what isn’t working and improve it or end it. Organizations that don’t end ineffectiveness and inefficiency eventually become paralyzed beasts.

General guidelines:

1. Shorten the length of time one person is allowed to talk.
2. All presentations must be clearly relevant to action. If it’s not relevant to action, it’s irrelevant.
3. Create short slots of time for agenda items. “We have ten minutes to find three potential improvements for employee training,” for example.
4. Before ending meetings, always ask, “Who has assignments and what are they? What’s the timeline.?”

One exception to rule one:

Take a few minutes to share what’s going on in life outside work. Give people time to connect if you expect them to connect. Use a portion of your meeting to strengthening relationships within the team.

What would transform the meetings you attend or lead?

How to Generate Enthusiasm with Assessments

Those who don’t enjoy measuring results, don’t enjoy achievement.

Unmeasured results don’t matter.

Hitting baseballs reminded me that effective assessments increase enthusiasm, concentration, and satisfaction.

The visit:

Dahliah, Asher, and Abram, three of our grandkids, are spending the week with us.

Asher, our seven year old grandson, is a sports fanatic. Yesterday, while in his red Phillies baseball jersey, I spent an hour hitting baseballs to him. He’s pretty good, if I must say so. He loves diving to make spectacular catches.

Poor performance:

His throwing, on the other hand, is inconsistent. Sometimes the ball has a mind of its own. Asher didn’t like seeing Poppi chasing after his inaccurate throws so I gave him a few throwing tips. Things got better but I could tell he still wasn’t happy.

Define winning.
Measure results.
Reward achievement.

The assessment:

“Hey Ash,” I said, “If Poppi doesn’t have to move to get the ball, when you throw it back, it’s a 10. But every step I take to get the ball is a point off.” His energy and attitude immediately lifted.

I took three steps to retrieve his next throw. Before I could announce his score, he called out, “That’s a seven.”

“Not bad,” I said. He smiled. Determination to get a ten gleamed on his face.

As his throws continued, he earned a few tens and everything from zero to nine. Curiously, after a perfect throw,  he called out, “Four.”

“Four?” I asked.

He said, “That’s four tens in a row.” He’d been keeping track of his achievement.

Enthusiasm requires:

1. Clear pictures of winning.
2. Measurable results that matter.
3. Transparent, unbiased assessments.
4. Immediate feedback.
5. Belief that excellence is possible.

Bonus: Challenging and supportive environments.

What factors make assessments effective? Ineffective?

Hear Stephen M.R. Covey sharing his personal journey into the Speed of Trust. 

Ten Ways to Complain Successfully

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Complainers, within organizations, are swamps of despair that drag down and demotivate. They feel good pointing out bad.

Lazy bums point fingers and pull down.
Building up is courageous, hard work.

I’m complaining about complainers.

Fearful:

Some complainers are cowards who complain around issues. Fix their complaint and they have another. They’re never happy because they won’t say what’s really bothering them. Coward-complainers love sounding compassionate and selfless. They say, “I’m concerned about …”

Ask:

1. Will fixing this satisfy your issue?
2. Is there something else bothering you?
3. How will you participate in solutions?

Chronic:

Persistent complainers are dark-cloud, energy drainers, who are happy being unhappy. Every organization suffers these pockets of misery. They blame.

Helping:

Improving and tweaking the work of others often feels like complaining. They aren’t really complaining they’re “helping.” Improvements suggest not good enough. They improve from a distance.

Baby:

Immature complainers whine when they don’t get their own way. They have one objective, personal comfort. What’s good for organizations or others doesn’t fit their world. Others adapt, they don’t.

Successful complainers:

1. Ask permission.
2. Honor progress and effort.
3. Identify specific improvements. Complain optimistically. Never complain if you aren’t looking for specific steps forward.
4. Choose small. One achievable improvement is worth more than a million great suggestions that can’t be done. Actionable suggestions are harder than dreams.
5. Participate in solutions.
6. Practice flexibility. Eagerly make personal adjustments.
7. Build cultures of excellence. Complaints are part of pursuing excellence.
8. Keep complaint buckets empty. Make complaining part of meetings. Ask, “What isn’t working?”
9. Focus on processes and procedures more than people. Complaining about people gains momentum like pecking on weak chickens in the pen. Stop focusing on who to blame.
10. Show respect.

Bonus: Successful complainers make things better.

What types of complainers live within organizations?

What are the components of a useful complaint?

Learn how to build trust in low-trust environments on June 12.

When Passion Makes Fools of Leaders

Passion drives blinded leaders to repeat self-defeating behaviors.

The danger of passion is it blinds sincere leaders.

Passion for their strengths blinds you to their weaknesses.

If you could just get them doing what you think they should do, their weaknesses or immaturity won’t matter. Sadly, some weaknesses destroy strengths.

1. Great vision; crummy planning ability.
2. Technical skill; no people skill.
3. Strong on toughness; weak on tenderness.

Passion for their potential blinds you to their present passion.

Never get so excited about what you want them to do that you lose sight of what they want to do. You think they’re falling short. They don’t. Help them reach their dream don’t impose yours.

Passion closes minds.
Passion keeps you doing the same ineffective things.

Foolish Passion:

1. Repeated frustrations point to foolish passion. Passion-driven frustrations are the result of doing the same ineffective thing with more determination.
2. Repeated topics point to foolish passion. How many times will you bring up the same problem before you realize you need a new approach?
3. Repeated disappointments point to foolish passion. When will you just say it’s not working?

Repeated frustrations say passion has gone wrong.
Keep passion; change strategy and technique.

Stop circling the same tree! Ask:

1. What am I really trying to accomplish? Redefine and clarify success.
2. What should I stop? Stopping is harder than starting. You’re falling short because you’re repeating things that don’t work.
3. What would new leaders do? Invite new eyes to look at the situation. If what you’re doing isn’t working, try something else. Start small but do something different.

Have you seen passion make fools of leaders?

How can leaders manage their passion?

Fuel for the Journey

Leading drains.

Obligations weigh down. Expectations from others deplete. Dissatisfaction with yourself – the worst downer of all – saps energy. Add the problem of critics with personal agendas and you have a vigor-draining vortex.

Neglected obligation:

Your vitality is your responsibility.

1. Think of leading as serving. Serving – being useful to others – energizes. Who doesn’t feel great after being helpful? Tip: Focus energy on people who welcome and respect service.
2. Let, even invite, others to help you. Lone-ranger-leaders die broken and alone. Tip: The need to appear like you have it all together is one reason you’re falling apart.
3. Listen to your energy gauge. Do more things that enhance vitality and fewer that drain.
4. Fuel others by understanding what fills their tank. Successful leaders monitor the energy levels of others. Watch their eyes light up and ask, “What generated so much enthusiasm?” Tip: Feeling understood increases vitality.
5. Be still. Vitality finds you when you’re quiet.

Bonus: Accept people for who they are not who you wish they were.

Personally:

I’m often asked, “How do you write every day? Where do the ideas come from?”

I usually respond,

“I put more in my cup than I pour out.”

I read and discuss leadership every day. Useful leadership books, not only inform, they help me think my own thoughts. All great books help us think our own thoughts. Most of my books have my scribbled notes all through though them.

Every week I have conversations with the world’s leadership experts, scholars, teachers, and authors. A few are selfish self-promoters. The vast majority, however, are generous servants who want to matter by making a difference. They fill my cup.

Related:

“Finding Vitality” – From a conversation with Francis Hesselbein

“Vitality: Collisions between Stability and Instability” – A look at vitality from an organizational point of view

What fuels your vitality?

How do you find vitality when it’s lost?

Fuel your journey by listening to the journey of Stephen M.R. Covey:

Simple Isn’t Simple

Any fool can create complex.

Complexity leads to confusion.

Confusion leads to uncertainty.

Uncertainty produces cowardice.

Cowards never take meaningful action.

Simplicity:

Longfellow said, “… in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

John Maxwell said, “The leaders job is reducing rather than adding to complexity.” (Chick-fil-A Leadercast 2013)

Lousy leaders confuse – exceptional leaders clarify.

All successful leaders clarify by creating simplicity.

Challenge:

The challenge with finding simplicity is it sounds simple and easy. But, John Maxwell rightly indicates the path to simplicity always encounters complexity. Cloudy and confused always precedes clear and simple. Expect it.

If you haven’t felt confusion, you haven’t found simplicity.

Out of the fog:

Courageously create confusion by pressing for clarity. It’s the only path to simplicity.

“I’m not sure,” always precedes, “That’s it!”

Andy Stanley said, “If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you’re going to have a hard time doing it.” (Chick-fil-A Leadercast 2013)

Make simplicity your day-to-day strategy. Complexity and it’s partner confusion are inevitable, apart from intervention.

Make simplicity your operational priority. Ask:

1. Can we explain this in common, understandable language?
2. What’s confusing?
3. How are we more clear? (Great after conversations) Don’t ask, “Are we more clear?” If you can’t explain it, you haven’t found it.
4. Have we included those closest to the action in this decision?
5. Where are we fearful? (Complexity and fear are bedfellows)
6. After meetings ask, “Where are the points of highest clarity?”
7. How are we creating strategic confusion – confusion that occurs on the path to simplicity?

Bonus: Ask obvious, simple questions like, “What are we doing?”

Simple project:

Andy Stanley said the best thing he did, when he was a young leader, was create one sentence job descriptions for himself and his team.

Write a simple – one sentence – job description that captures the essences of your job. Live that sentence everyday.

Note: Special thanks to the Chick-fil-A Leadercast team for inviting me to this years event.

How can you make simplicity your mantra?

What are the essential steps on the path to simplicity?

When Celebrating Demotivates

Teams who don’t celebrate wins don’t appreciate gains, respect progress, or honor effort. But…

Teams who celebrate half-wins end up not winning at all.

I’m a huge fan of celebrating progress. But celebrate too soon, too frequently, or too much, and you end up not finishing.

Think how far you have to go - NOT
how far you’ve come – when projects are half done.

University of Chicago psychologists Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach studied the impact of focusing on how far you’ve come (to-date thinking) versus how far you have to go (to-go thinking)?

To-go thinking motivates finishing.

“Great Finishers force themselves to stay focused on the goal, and never congratulate themselves on a job half-done.” Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson in HBR: How to Become a Great Finisher. I asked Dr. Halvorson about her observation and she told me the story of Mr. 85%.

“I sometimes tell this story about my husband because it drives me crazy – I call him “Mr. 85%” because that’s about how much he does of any project around the house before he stops, pats himself on the back for getting that far, and wanders off to do something else.  He is a little too pleased with himself for doing most of it, and he stops looking at the finish line.” (Shared with permission)

Application:

1. Encourage to-go thinking. The next time you pat someone on the back for progress toward an incomplete goal, end with, “What’s next, or, How long before you’re done.”
2. Ask, “How far do you have to go?”
3. Don’t ask, “How much is done?”
4. Define wins clearly so you know when to celebrate. Life is a journey but projects get done.
5. Celebrate done-jobs.

I love encouraging people for their progress. But, to-go thinking helps people finish strong.

How can leaders motivate teams when projects are half done?

I asked for input on to-date vs. to-go thinking on Facebook. (5/7/2013)

Dr. Halvorson is co-author of the new book, “Focus.”

Confronting Toxicity

Average leaders feel successful when they get things done.

Exceptional leaders feel successful when they build exceptional places to work.

Average leaders fix and do. Exceptional leaders build.

You begin thinking leadership is all about results but come to learn it’s about the way we treat each other. Results matter, but how you achieve results matters more. “Results only” is the formula for toxicity.

When all that matters are the numbers,
eventually, people don’t matter.

Great places to work are about the way things get done.

How not what:

Exceptional leaders focus on how.

1. How are we connecting?
2. How do we support each other?
3. How does the team feel?
4. How is respect expressed?

Exceptional leaders define “the way” things get done. Courageous leaders challenge back-stabbing and office politics, for example. They say, “That’s not the way we do things around here.”

Evaluate:

Organizations that neglect how things get done become lousy places to work. Frankly, soft-skills are hard. When was the last time you worked on:

1. Breaking silos. People in other departments aren’t the enemy.
2. Confronting rudeness, anger, or disrespect.
3. Creating cross-functional connections.
4. Good manners.
5. Compassionate interactions.
6. Morale.
7. Happiness. Organizations that don’t work on happiness end up unhappy.

Action:

The next time colleagues put each other down, step in and say, “We don’t do that around here.”

Toxic environments are the result of tolerating toxicity.

What you won’t tolerate is only part of the picture. Define and model what you expect, as well. Courageous leader define the “way we do things around here.”

Finally, act decisively to honor or punish. Terminate unrepentant jerks and reward kindness, for example.

Courageously:

1. Define the way you do things.
2. Hire people who fit.
3. Fire people who don’t fit.
4. Reward desired behaviors even if they don’t deliver results directly.

Success is more than what gets done, it’s how things get done, too.

How can leaders define “the way we do things?”

How would you build a connected organization?

Top Ten Qualities of Exceptional Leaders

Fitting in is the formula for mediocrity. Average is safe, boring, and deadly.

I’ve been rubbing elbows with outstanding leaders from organizations on the Great Place to Work list of exceptional companies. Excellence electrifies the air at their annual conference.

Outstanding leaders live by bold principles.

Exceptional leaders courageously declare themselves.

I’m hearing things like:

• Values driven employees solve problems without direction from management.
• Take better care of your employees than anyone else.
• Love builds better companies than fear.
• One great person is more productive than three good people.
• Let people pick their own colleagues. We love group interviews. (In regard to the hiring process)
• We interview prospective employees six or seven times. Many quit before the process is done.
• We have 7,000 employees and don’t have an HR department.
• The stronger the culture the more open you can become.
• Anonymity breeds irresponsibility. (On giving anonymous feedback)
• CEO’s drive organizational culture. (More so in smaller organizations)

Exceptional leaders:

1. Courageously declare themselves.
2. Embrace bold principles.
3. Live authentically.
4. Pursue exceptional.
5. Expect others to rise to challenges.
6. Practice rigorous accountability.
7. Don’t make exceptions for themselves.
8. Believe in uncomfortable transparency.
9. Love their organizations.
10. Put people first.

An observation:

Some organizations reward fitting in and punish standing out. Exceptional leaders, on the other hand, make fitting in dangerous.

You can’t fit in if you plan to stand out.

Follow Great Place to Work on Twitter: @GPTW_US (Highly recommended)

List: 100 Best Companies to Work For

What qualities do you see in exceptional leaders?

What bold principles guide your leadership?