Category:

Leadership

BlogLeadership

Wasting Time

by Ron Potter

This concept was brought to me by my favorite author, Shane Parrish, through his farnamstreetblog.com.

It’s a review of the book “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” by Arnold Bennett.

While I believe this fits into today’s issues, Bennett wrote this book in 1910.

This is one of the things written about in 1910:

The 1910s were a time of great change in American industry. The managerial side of industry was growing and American corporations were reorganizing and becoming more efficient. Technology was available to make corporations run more smoothly and increase production.

A few of the things happening in 2020:

The 2020s are a time of great change in American industry. The managerial side of industry is shrinking and American corporations are being forced to reorganize and become more efficient. Technology is available to make corporations run more smoothly, increase productivity, and help teams run virtually.

What are you doing with your time?

Shane pulls out a few quotes from Bennett’s book.

You cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow, it is kept from you.

Remember: You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.

So, what are you doing with your time?

One of our blogs a couple of weeks ago included the following quote:

Executives who were bracing for a months-long disruption are now thinking in terms of years. Their job has changed from riding it out to reinventing.

Reinventing

Our work-life is changing.  You may have been “bracing for a months-long disruption” to your work life.  But now we’re starting to think in terms of years, or maybe even forever.

How are you spending your time?  Another quote that Shane pulls from Bennett’s book says:

Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on such-and-such a sum…but I have never seen an essay ‘how to live on 24 hours a day.’ Yet it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time, you can obtain money-usually. But…you cannot buy yourself a minute more time.

You cannot buy yourself a minute more time!  Bennett makes another statement:

The supply of time is truly a daily miracle. You wake up in the morning and lo! your purse is magically filled with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours.

It’s a miracle!  Every day you wake up with a new 24 hours that are yours!

Don’t Waste Time

Even though you have a new 24 hours every day, the time that you waste will never be recovered.  Again, Bennett says:

You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.

Do you put the highest urgency on your time?

Don’t Be Busy

I’m not talking about being “busy.”  I was once told that the word ‘busy’ is represented by two symbols in the Japanese language.  The first symbol represents “people.”  The second symbol represents “destroyer.”  Therefore, a translation of the Japanese symbols for busy is “people-destroyer.”

Being busy is not productive.  Consciously deciding what to do with the time that we have is productive.  In fact, the word “decide” means to consciously figure out what not to do.

Don’t be busy.  Decide what you are not going to spend your time on and then consciously spend it on the things that are important. Those things should include (but not be limited to):

  • Health
  • Pleasure
  • Family
  • Your immortal soul
  • Reinventing yourself

Reinvent Yourself

Just don’t be busy!  Reinvent yourself!

Bennett says “You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.”

We all have excuses for not taking the time to reinvent ourselves.

  • Too Young – not enough experience
  • Too Old – can’t change my habits
  • Too Poor – no resources available
  • Too Rich – need to “protect” the wealth
  • Too Secure – if I change I might fail.  I’ll lose my security

What’s your excuse for not reinventing yourself?  Believe me, the world is moving much too fast not to reinvent yourself!

My father’s generation didn’t have the urgency.  The country was rebuilding after WWII and he was riding the wave.

My generation has needed to reinvent a few times.  I went from engineer to micro-computer entrepreneur to executive coach/consultant to animator.

My kid’s generations have moved even faster as the world changes around them.

My oldest grandson graduated from high school this year and I’m already watching him reinvent himself as he goes.

Time is Limited

24 new hours a day is a great gift.  But it’s easy to waste 10 minutes here or 2 hours there.  Its right use is the highest urgency.

Don’t be busy.  Reinvent yourself.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Perspective

by Ron Potter

We’ve talked a lot about perspective lately.  Then I saw a short video by Barry Hall II.  I thought it was great and decided to make this a short blog by sharing.

Barry started with a video of a person spray painting some graffiti on a building that said

 

Just Do Nothing

That’s often a perspective that people take.  They think “If I ignore it, it will go away.  Just do nothing.”

Problems don’t go away.  Innovation doesn’t happen.  Nothing good comes from a perspective of “Just do nothing.”

His next frame was another person painting more graffiti on the wall around the corner that says

 

It is Impossible

Of all the possible perspectives, I may have seen this one the most often.  It’s just not possible.  If this is your perspective than there is no reason to try.  There is no reason to search for alternative perspectives.  Innovation will never happen.  It’s more than being difficult, it’s the belief that it’s impossible.

His final frame steps back at an angle so that both walls can be seen at the same time (an entirely new perspective).  Now the viewer sees a much different message than was provided by the first two sketches.

 

 

Just Do It, Nothing is Impossible

Step back, take a look at your situation from a different perspective and new possibilities might be seen.

The next time you’re faced with a difficult situation, listen.  What are you hearing?

  • Just Do Nothing
  • It is Impossible

More importantly, don’t just listen to voices outside your own head.  Pay attention to what you’re saying to yourself.  Do you start with Do Nothing or It’s Impossible?  It’s OK that we start there.  I think it’s part of our human nature.  But don’t leave it there!

Start thinking about how you could do things differently.  What perspective would be entirely new?

There are a few books that can help on this front.

Just do it, nothing is impossible.

 

 

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Success

by Ron Potter

From the time we were little, we became aware of IQ.  I first remember becoming aware of it in about the sixth grade.  That means I was ten or eleven.

And right from the start, it became a competition.  If I had a higher IQ than you did, I was headed for greater success in my life.

IQ and Success

However, no correlation has ever been found between IQ and success.  Some with high IQ’s experience no success.  Others with moderate or even below average IQ’s experience high levels of success.  No correlation has ever been found!

So why do we place so much emphasis on IQ?

  • Because there’s a test!
  • It’s easy to measure.
  • It’s easy to demonstrate.
  • It’s easy for others to spot.

All of these can point toward high IQ.  None of them will guarantee success.

EQ

On the other hand, EQ (Emotional Quotient) has been demonstrated as being completely correlated with success.

So if there is so much correlation with EQ and none with IQ, why don’t we hear more about EQ?

  • It’s the “soft” skill.
  • It’s difficult or even impossible to measure.
  • It’s easy to demonstrate.
  • It’s easy for others to spot.

Notice that the last two are the same as IQ.  They’re both easy to demonstrate and spot.

EQ is hard to measure but it’s easy to spot.  The question is, how does it look different than IQ?

Let’s take a look at what are considered the elements of EQ.

One of the early books was written by Daniel Goleman titled Emotional Intelligence.  Since that initial book, written in 2009, something approaching thirty books have been written on the subject.

Let’s take a quick look at the elements identified in that initial book.

  • Self Awareness
  • Self-Regulation
  • Motivation
  • Empathy
  • Social Skills

Self Awareness

The ability to know one’s emotions: strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and goals and recognize their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.

This element of self-awareness is listed first among the five.  I believe it gets that rank because of it’s dependency on many of the other elements and requires the trait of humility which is listed as the first element of great leadership in my book “Trust Me”.

Strengths and weaknesses are also dependent on feedback from others.  The Johari Window describes this map.  Your strengths and weaknesses usually fall in “The Blind Self” window.  This window contains things you don’t know about yourself but others do know about you.  The only way to “open” that window is to ask for, listen to, and honestly process feedback from others.

Self Regulation

Involves controlling or redirecting one’s disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.

What are the disruptive emotions?  Let’s start with the ancient “Seven Deadly Sins”.  Broadly speaking, the seven deadly sins function as ethical guidelines.  The seven deadly sins include:

Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, and Sloth

It may be better to think about the counter to each of those words

  • Humility – Pride
  • Kindness – Envy
  • Temperance – Gluttony
  • Chastity – Lust
  • Patience – Anger
  • Charity – Greed
  • Diligence – Sloth

Motivation

Being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.

Many people make it to the top of the organization because they are hyper-competitive.  Being motivated towards a great goal appeals to people much more than being competitive or beating someone.

I worked with a sales manager that may have been the most competitive person I ever met.  He won everything!  At first, the corporation thought this guy was superman.  But then the clients started to leave and go elsewhere.  When I talked with the clients they said, “This guy has a need to win everything.  We may have just given in to the greatest of demands but that’s not enough for him.  He has to win even the smallest of issues!  We’re going elsewhere.  He has destroyed our relationship.”

Empathy

Considering other people’s feelings especially when making decisions.

There’s a scene in the movie “You’ve got mail” between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  Tom Hanks’s character owns a large bookstore and he’s just put Meg Ryan’s character out of business at her small, neighborhood bookstore.  When Meg finds out who he is, she goes ballistic.  In the middle of the rant, Tom moves back a few steps, puts up his hands, and says “It was only business.”  What he’s saying here is that business is by the numbers only.  It’s never about emotions.  Wrong!

Every time I’ve coached a leadership team to consider the emotions involved in a decision, not just the numbers, they’ve made a better decision.  Empathy is good for business.

Social Skills

Managing relationships to move people in the desired direction.

This is not about manipulation.  The human mind can detect manipulation quickly.  This is about getting buy-in.  This is about people wanting to go to the destination that you’re talking about.  People don’t buy ideas or concepts based on logic.  They buy things based on emotion.  They justify the purchase based on logic.

Years ago we were purchasing a small basic car for my wife for local transportation.  While they were bringing a car to the front for her to look at, the salesperson and I were drooling over a corvette in the showroom.  My wife finally said “I see no logical reason to buy a corvette.  After a few seconds of blank stares, we both said “What’s your point.  NO ONE buys a corvette for logical reasons.  They’re all purchased based on emotions!”

Marketing people learned this a long time ago.   Our purchases are based on emotions, not logic.  Even ideas.  We don’t buy into an idea unless it captures us emotionally.

EQ vs IQ

To improve your IQ, read.  To improve your EQ, build relationships, know who you are, where you’re going, and get people emotionally excited to join you in your journey.

 

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Increasing Skills Doesn’t Make a Good Leader

by Ron Potter

The thought behind this blog was from an article on Entrepreneur.com.  Here is the list they developed as they talked about increasing leadership skills.  I agree with the list but the short paragraph after each one is based on my learning and experiences.

Trust is not automatic

Many leaders believe they are leaders because of their position or accomplishments.  Neither one makes you a good leader.  In fact, many people in the position of power on the corporate ladder are there because of their accomplishments.  For the most part, corporations aren’t very good at measuring leadership skills, but they’re very good at measuring accomplishments.  Accomplishments are seen and identified and can be checked off on a spreadsheet.  Leadership is a long-term game.  The rewards of great leadership may be seen in the short term, but will really happen over the long-term.

Kindness is underrated

The article identifies this as conscious kindness.  It shows or demonstrates how members of the team should treat each other.  I would also suggest that it goes beyond team members.  This can make a huge difference with customer-facing people.  Kindness sets a cultural standard that can be seen and experienced throughout the corporation.

I was playing golf with a group of friends and we were visiting a new course for the first time.  Our experience can be summed up as rudeness.  The clerk behind the counter was rude.  The starter was rude.  The rangers were rude.  We found out later that the course had been built by a wealthy person who considered it his private course and outside players were considered as intrusions.  The course is no longer in existence.

A word of caution.  Many people view kindness as never saying a “disparaging” word.  There is an old song titled Home on the Range recorded by many artists including John Denver, the muppets, and others.  Two lines of the lyrics are

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

Having uncloudy skies all day can be wonderful but will also create many long term problems.  Rain is often needed.  Seldom hearing a discouraging word can also be wonderful but will also create long-term problems.  Honest criticism is often needed.  The interesting part is that criticism can be done in a very kind way with some practice.

I once worked with a leader who was certainly the “non-discouraging” type.  He was one of the kindest people I had ever met.  But his team would say to me, “I just wish I knew where I stand!”  When I asked for an explanation, they would say, “Our leader is so nice that I never hear one word of criticism.  That can’t be realistic.  “I just wish I knew where I stand.”

Be kind in your honesty.

Words are meaningless

Over the last several years I’ve been asked what I think of one President or another.  After figuring how to answer that question with kind honesty, I settled on the following approach.

I always say:  Watch what he does rather than listen to what he says.  This is another way of stating the old adage, “Action speaks louder than words.”

Again, some personal experience with another leader.  She would always say what she thought the recipient wanted to hear, regardless of what actions she would later take.  She thought it was kindness.  The people who worked for her saw it as a reason not to trust what she said.

Status quo is safe

IBM has lost much of the luster that it once had.  But during the years when I was dealing with IT departments, there was a saying that “Purchasing IBM equipment is always safe.”  Meaning that they could tell their leader that they had purchased IBM and the leaders would assume the best decision had been made.  Or at the very minimum, they would not criticize or fire the IT person for making the IBM decision.  It was safe!  It just wasn’t very innovative.

Power trips happen

As a father, I never wanted to resort to the words “Because I said so!” with my children.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how many times I violated that goal.  Power trips do happen, but in my book “Trust Me” the number one trait of trusted leaders is humility.  People know if it was a momentary power trip or a built-in trait.  Avoid power trips if you can.  Honestly apologize if they do happen.

Not everyone stays

One CEO I worked with said, “So you’ll show me who to fire from my current team?”  My answer was NO.  If you turn into a trustworthy leader, change the team and culture to match, people will self-select out.  People who don’t want to make the effort to follow the guidelines identified above, won’t stay.  They will seek an environment that allows them to ignore the guidelines above.

Look at each of the guidelines above.  How are you doing?  Each one takes discipline, growth, and a true belief that these traits will make a wonderful leader.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Performance vs Trust

by Ron Potter

Those are not my words.  Those were spoken by Simon Sinek.  If you have not discovered Mr. Sinek, look up his website.  I read him and Share Parrish more than any other blog writers out there.

Navy Seals

Simon talks about working with Navy Seals.  Navy Seals are probably the highest-performing teams on the planet.  In his work with Seals, he asked, “How do you choose the guys that make it to Seal Team 6?” Seal Team 6 is the best of the best.  The Seals drew the following graph:

Leader or Teammate

Nobody wanted someone from the lower left: Low Performer and Low Trust.

Everyone wanted someone from the upper right: High Performer and High Trust.

When Simon asked them which type of person they want as a leader or teammate, they all said they would prefer someone on the right side of the chart than the best performer who had low trust.

Keep in mind that these are the highest-performing teams in the world.  But they would select Trust over Performance when it came to a leader or a teammate.

Corporations Have it Backward

In my thirty-plus years dealing with corporations and corporate reviews, they have all been heavily weighted toward the left side of the chart.  They graded and promoted people based on their performance rather than the trust they exhibited or expected.  It’s interesting to note that the Navy Seals termed that upper-left leader or teammate as toxic!  Regardless of high performance, if the person wasn’t trustworthy, they were toxic.

Performance Reviews

Why do corporate reviews focus so much on high performance rather than high trust?  I’m sure there are many reasons but the two that I see as most prevalent are:

  1. Corporations often want high performance (get the job done now) over anything else.  Part of the reason is that public corporations have bowed to quarterly reporting.  If the return isn’t better that quarter, the leadership is often called on the carpet by Wall Street and the Investors.  They don’t want to be in that position.  Therefore, they promote people who produce high results, regardless of the internal costs.  Remember that the Navy Seals labeled them as toxic.
  2. It’s easier to measure performance than trust.  With performance, it’s easy to check the box.  Was the goal met or exceeded?  Was it done on or ahead of schedule?  Easy to measure and identify.
    Does the person generate trust within their team?  Hard to predict.  The results may not show up for a long time.  Corporate leaders want results this quarter, not three years from now.

Trust Builds Long-Term Performance

I’ve worked with a few leaders who ranked high on the trust scale.  There are more stories, but two that come to mind include one leader who I worked with about a decade ago.  Three members of his team are now CEOs of three different companies.  He built trust!

Another CEO I worked with started two companies and built leadership teams that now run or are high-ranking leaders in several corporations.

Both of these leaders (and there are a few more) built leadership teams based on trust.  That doesn’t mean they ignored performance, but trust ranked higher when it came to evaluations.

Visit Simon Sinek’s youtube talking about Performance vs Trust.  Then evaluate what kind of leader or teammate you happen to be.  Then think about the type of leader or team you want to be a part of.  If you don’t like the answer to either of those questions, make a change!  If you’re the kind of person that believes outperforming everyone is what will make a difference in your life, you’re in for a shock.  You’ll end up very lonely.

If you’re the kind of person who exudes and promotes trust, you’ll find yourself much loved!

Lonely or loved.  You make the choice.

5 comments
1 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Deep Work in Isolation

by Ron Potter

I seldom do a quick follow up after a recent blog but the next couple of blogs have been triggered by reader feedback.

Recently many readers commented on the blog post titled “Coronavirus and Deep Work”.  In that post, I recommended that you not waste this forced time at home.  Use some of it to sit quietly and think deep thoughts.  We seldom get a chance to do that during our former work life even though it is much needed.  I referred to Cal Newton’s book Deep Work where he goes into much more detail.

Isolation Advice

Then today—April 17—I was reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Coronavirus Lockdown Lessons from Antarctica.” The article looks at many of the scientific teams that populate Antarctica during the wintertime and are completely isolated.  They focus on one team in particular from Norway that works at the Troll station.

“On a recent evening, Troll’s six-person team put together a list of advice for those struggling with extended lockdowns.

    • Give people space…folks have to be allowed time on their own to read books, listen to music, watch television.
    • Don’t let problems linger and get bigger—talk about it from the start.
    • Stay active, and even if you are in a small place, move furniture and get fit.
    • Take a deep breath, this is a time to be curious”

Curiosity

I think curiosity is the foundation piece to deep work.  Wikipedia says

Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.”

Development and Learning

Notice that curiosity is heavily associated with development and learning.  I once had a friend who was fond of saying “as long as you’re like the little kid pulling his wagon up the hill, you’re doing fine.  But as soon as you stop exerting the effort to get up that hill and you sit down in your wagon to rest, you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the hill”

Reflection

I think the first thing to be curious about is yourself.  Socrates is quoted as saying “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”  I’ll give Socrates a pass because he was alive about 400 years before Jesus but the Bible says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Even if you don’t hold to the Christian faith, let’s put those two concepts together.  What they are really saying is that you must know who you are and how you fit into this life and humanity as a whole.  That doesn’t come easily.  A complete lack of this reflection is a sign of Psychopathy.  Just a few of the symptoms of Psychopathy include: Grandiose sense of self-worth, lack of remorse, guilt, or empathy.  Lack of long-term goals.  None of these symptoms show signs of self-reflection.  Start with yourself.

Notice that not having long-term goals is one of the signs associated with lack of self-reflection.  Where are you going?  What does the end of your journey look like?  What do you want to be remembered for?  These issues and others are not part of our busy lives, they are reached only by deep, reflective thought.

Opportunity

You’ve been handed an opportunity.  Don’t waste it!

  • What kind of person do you want to be?
  • How will you become a great leader?
  • What will make you an outstanding team member?
  • What is that thing inside you that you always wanted to learn or explore?

Build it into your routine.  Find a quiet place and a quiet time at least several times per week.  Force yourself to go quiet and think about these things.  You’ll come out the other end a better person.

0 comments
1 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

“Soft” Skills Win

by Ron Potter

Start with skills

An article in the Wall Street Journal was written with and about Bob Funk, founder of Express Employment Professionals and former chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank.  Mr. Funk makes his living by matching people who want jobs with employers who need good employees.

When Mr. Fund talks about the interview process he starts with what most employees think of as the Hard Skills.

Hard skills and experience, he says, are only half the equation, and not the important half.  “So many people do not realize how important the soft skills are to unlocking job opportunity,”

Mr. Funk offers a quote from a boss he had over 50 years ago.  “There’s a person for every job and a job for every person.  That’s still true.”

Try before you buy

Most of the companies he works for are small and medium-size companies with fewer than 250 employees and he places most of his workers in part-time positions.  But over 60% of them go on to be full-time employees.

Hard skills and experience are only half of the equation and not the important half.  (Italics are mine).  Soft skills are the important part of unlocking job opportunities!

Soft skills rule

Mr. Funk found that the top five skills that employers look for are:

  1. Attitude
  2. Work ethic/Integrity
  3. Communication
  4. Culture fit
  5. Critical thinking

While Mr. Funk concedes that education is vital, the most important thing for most people is the ability to be trained.  And while I agree with Mr. Funk on this issue I don’t believe he gives enough credit to that ability to be trained with people of education.

Higher Education

So many of today’s graduates from major universities have been convinced that their degree from that particular institute has taught them everything they need to know to be successful.  I’m a graduate of the University of Michigan Engineering school and for a period of time recruited new hires from that institute.  What I discovered was that it didn’t make any difference which university the candidate graduated from.  What made the difference was number 5 on the list above, the ability to think critically that made the biggest difference between potential employees.

Learning is what’s important

As a consultant, I once ran an old exercise that didn’t produce any results.  When I asked my client why the effort fell flat they said they got the most out of sessions where I was sharing what I was learning.  My own learning produced the best results for my clients.  I believe that a college education gives you the opportunity to start learning.  Showing up to work every day assuming you’re there to share what you already know will get you nowhere.  Showing up to work every day ready to learn will show an eagerness to learn, which will carry you a long way.

 

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Optimism Leads to Success

by Ron Potter

A recent quote about Warren Buffet said:

Your success didn’t lead to optimism, your optimism lead to your success.”

Optimism

Wikipedia defines optimism as “A mental attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcomes of some specific endeavor will be positive, favorable, and desirable.”

Notice that it says a mental attitude.  In simple terms, pilots are interested in altitude and attitude.  Altitude refers to how high you are.  How much you have achieved.  Some measure of success (money, position, title).

Attitude is a reference to the natural horizon.  Are you pointed up, down, left-leaning or right-leaning?

Success to Optimism

If your optimism depends on success, you’ll soon realize that success is fickle.  One change regardless of the cause can change your success overnight.

  • Markets change – talk to Polaroid or VHS producers.
  • Appetites change – ask package food companies
  • Fashion changes – ask Henry Ford about auto colors.  He is reported to have said, “They can have any color they want as long as it’s black.”
  • Disruption– ask companies about competitors coming out with new products that eat into margins of successful products

The point here is that “success” can change very rapidly and have nothing to do with your actions.  If your optimism depends on success, it will change as rapidly.

Optimism to Success

On the other hand, if you tend to be an optimistic person, that seems to withstand external success and failure.  I’ve had three different successful careers.  Upon graduation from engineering school, I had a “successful” career working with wonderful teams building large projects.  Some of them approaching a billion dollars in their construction budget.

Then one day I was introduced to my first pc.  This was before Microsoft,  IBM, and Apple.  And yet I felt that this little box was about to change our lives.  I spent the next ten years with a “successful” career in the software development business.

Then I took on the career that I felt I had been headed for all my life.  I became an external coach focused on Teams, Leadership and Culture.  I spent nearly thirty wonderful years in that career.

You were just lucky

Along the way, many people would tell me that I was just lucky.  I guess they just chose to ignore those times when I went broke pursuing those careers.  They seem to ignore the hard work and difficulties that I overcame to achieve my “success.”  But there were those few that understood the hard work and heartaches that I was going through during those tough times.  One colleague whom I had not seen in person for many years asked me how I was doing.  When I answered with a simple “OK”, his reaction was that I must be really down.  He explained that I had always been one of the most optimistic persons he had ever known so if I was simply doing “OK” I must really be down.

Your success didn’t lead to optimism, your optimism lead to your success

Times were indeed difficult.  But I was always optimistic.  It may just be me but I’ve noticed through the years that I don’t even care to be around people who are pessimistic.  They’re just downers in my mind.  Times were always difficult in one way or another.  But being optimistic vs pessimistic is a choice.  Chose Optimistic.  It makes life much easier along the way.

0 comments
1 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogCultureLeadershipTeam

Team Leadership Culture

by Ron Potter

Over this last year, we’ve spent time and detail defining the Team and Culture sections of Team, Leadership, and Culture.

Our Monday blogs have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of years looking at the Leadership elements from my book Trust Me.  Let’s wrap up this section with a summary of the three elements.

 

Team First (Sort of)

As I’ve said in the past, I believe Teams should be worked on first followed by Leadership than Culture.

However, the overlap between Team and Leadership makes it very difficult to do them in order.

You’ll notice from the matrix above that there is a great deal of overlap between the Team and Leadership columns.  It seems as if you can’t accomplish one without the other.  I believe this is true!

The first element of the Team list includes “Truth”.  However, you won’t have the reputation of a “truthful” person if there is no humility, compassion or integrity.

Respect requires humility, development, and commitment from the Leadership list.  Neither one of these overlapping issues is restricted to the three that I mentioned for each one.  There are elements in all eight of the Leadership outline that are required in one or more of the Team outline.  Essentially, you can’t have one without the other.

Next Steps

Start by focusing on each of the first two outlines, Team and Leadership.

With the Leadership list, become much more self-aware and get some straight feedback from a trusted advisor, coach, or partner.

For the Team list, it will require the entire team to be made aware of the four elements and do some honest grading in each of the categories.  In our next blog, I’m going to introduce you to an app called GPS4Teams that will help you accomplish this goal.

Culture

The Culture section follows work on Team and Leadership.  Until you’ve improved to a very high level on the Team and Leadership aspects, any efforts at improving Culture tends to fall on deaf ears.

A friend and I were discussing why some cultures last (the Mayo brothers died decades ago but the culture at the Mayo Clinic seems to continue).  In identifying those companies where the culture doesn’t last, we always came back to elements of Team and Leadership that either changed or were lacking over the years.  You can’t build a great culture without first building great teams and leaders.

Emotional Quotient

Many people feel a high IQ is sufficient for solving problems.  The interesting thing is that there has never been any correlation found between high IQ and success.

What has been well documented is the correlation between high EQ and success.

Emotional Quotient can be divided into two components, Personal Competence and Social Competence.  You’ll see the Personal Competence of self-awareness, self-regulation and self-motivation relating to Leadership.  The Social Competence of social awareness and social skills relate to building Team.

Team and Leadership = Success

This correlation tells us that success requires great teams, great leadership leading to great culture.

Get started on your success today.  There’s nothing mysterious about the process.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadershipTeam

Team and Leadership: Summary

by Ron Potter

Over the last several weeks we have been reviewing and expanding on the elements of a great team in our Thursday blog.  At the same time, our Monday blog has been exploring more detail on the elements of great leadership.  These are the first two legs of our Team Leadership Culture (TLC) model.

In general I believe it’s important to build a great team before working on leadership skills but in reality, it’s difficult to accomplish one without the other.  In many cases, they are tightly coupled and interdependent.

Today let’s review the elements of team and leadership and see how they fit together.

Elements of Team

Truth – Respect – Elegance – Commitment

Elements of Leadership

Humility – Development – Commitment – Focus
Compassion – Integrity – Peacemaking – Endurance

Interdependence

Let’s start with the elements of Team and look at the interdependence, overlap, and alignment with the Leadership elements.

Truth => Humility – Integrity – Peacemaking

To build a great team, members must be truthful with each other.  Truthfulness requires Humility, Integrity, and Peacemaking from the Leadership Skill List.

Humility

Humility has been misunderstood and misused in recent years.  Often people think of “turning the other cheek” or even being a “doormat” in order to be humble.  The original meaning of the word meant great power under complete control.  Humility doesn’t mean you’re powerless.  In fact quite the opposite.  It means that you have tremendous power.  Enough power to crush your opposition.  But when you’re humble, you choose not to use that power in a destructive way but to use the power for intense learning and curiosity.  Humble people may be the most powerful people in the room but are focused on individual and team learning through curiosity.  Humble people assume the other person may know something they don’t or have a very different perspective that’s worth learning.

Integrity

Integer also comes from the same root as integer.  It means whole, complete, sound and even incorruptible.  A person of high integrity is the same, complete, whole person no matter where they are or who they are with.  You can always trust they are and will be the same and say the same thing no matter what.  This is essential for the Truth required on teams as well as Commitment.  If you can’t trust that someone is genuine and has integrity, it’s difficult to get at the truth or sustain commitment.

Peacemaking

Peacemaking is also a word that we’ll see associated with Truth and Commitment.  Peacemaking is not the absence of conflict and different opinions.  Peacemaking understands that differences of opinion is natural for human-beings but has figured out a way to work through the differences and conflicts in a healthy productive way.

Respect => Humility, Development, Compassion and Integrity

Building and maintain respect with a team requires a leadership style built on humility, development, compassion, and integrity.

It’s important to note here that when I use the word leadership, I don’t mean the identified leader of the team.  I have observed people of all ranks and positions being leaders.  True leadership comes from your actions, not your position.

Humility and Integrity

We talked about humility and integrity in the Truth section above.  The same issues apply to Respect.

Development

From my book “Trust Me” development is described as “Leaders who accept the truth and train others to seize the benefits of adversity, loss, and change.  Growing people and giving them opportunities is one of the best ways to show respect.

Compassion

There have been a few clients through the years that didn’t believe compassion had anything to do with business.  In their minds, business was logical and should be dispassionate.

I’ve often used an old adage to counter that thinking:  “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care!”

When people feel like you care for them as a human being first, they feel trusted and respected.

Elegance => Commitment, Focus, Peacemaking

Commitment and Focus

I’ve combined these two but they do go together in many ways.  It requires a firm and aligned grip on the goal and purpose of the team to accomplish the required tasks in the simplest way with the least amount of friction.  Make the goals and purpose clear and then make sure everyone is committed.  This will eliminate much of the territorial behavior that happens with teams.

Focus is under attack more than any point in history.  All of our modern devices are determined to capture our focus thereby scattering our attention.  Our own egos also drive us to accomplish more things and be in more places than necessary or even possible.  Staying focused on the goal and purpose is the only way to keep things Elegant.

Peacemaking

Peacemaking was discussed above.  In making sure that things are accomplished in the simplest way possible, it will take a great deal of peacemaking to settle territorial disputes.

Commitment => Commitment, Peacemaking, Endurance

Commitment and Peacemaking

These two were also discussed above.  In terms of Team Commitment, it will take a strong commitment to the goal and purpose of the team.  It will also take a great Peacemaking/Decision-Making process.  Our earlier blog on Team Commitment talks about the process that provides a win-win environment which is essential to reach full commitment.

Endurance

I used the TREC (Truth, Respect, Elegance, Commitment) acronym because it looks and sounds like the word TREK.  A TREK is described as a long arduous journey.  Especially one involving difficulties and complex organization.  Building a great team is a long arduous journey.  It takes great leadership to deal with the difficulties and complex organizations.

Team and Leadership

That’s the summary of the first two elements of TLC, Team Leadership Culture.

  1. Build a great team
  2. Development great leadership skills
  3. Create the culture to achieve the goals and purpose

The Rest of the Year Adventure

Over the next several months we will be talking about Culture, the third leg of TLC.  We’ll be doing this in our Thursday morning blog posts.  Our Monday blogs have been dedicated to the Leadership aspect of TLC.  For the rest of this year, we’ll be using Monday’s to blog about things that provoke some thought.  These usually come from my daily experiences in life, what I observe in the world, an article or book that makes a point that I think should be shared.  They won’t happen like clockwork every Monday morning but simply when something strikes me as worthwhile.  Stay tuned.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

You can lead a horse to water but he doesn’t know your resume.

by Ron Potter

I know, the actual quote says “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”  The essence of the proverb is that you can give someone an opportunity but you can’t force them to take it.

I’ve had a couple of horse-related experiences lately that got me thinking.

Equestrians

I have two granddaughters who are both equestrians.  I was watching one granddaughter take her horse through the paces in the arena and then cleaning and grooming him afterward.  During my time in the arena, I watched as she guided the horse through different patterns and speeds.  What amazed me was that I couldn’t discern what she was doing to get the horse to speed up, slow down, turn left or right.  It was almost as if the horse knew what to do and she was just along for the ride.

After her ride, she was washing, cooling down and grooming her horse.  Once again, I was amazed to see this petite young woman work around this half-ton animal with no concern for getting kicked, shoved or bitten.  You could see the complete trust between them.  So that was my first clue.  Trust!

After she released her horse to the pasture, I asked her how she got the horse to work through the different maneuvers without doing much in the saddle.  Her answer was simple.  “I just shift my weight and the horse knows that I want to do.”  Trust and understanding!

Dallas the Leadership Horse

An article appeared in the Wall Street Journal titled “How Dallas the Leadership Horse Glues Teams Back Together.”

The article was about a company called WorkHorse that hosts team-building workshops.  One story was of a team that was given the assignment to get the horses to move into a pre-defined circle in a certain amount of time.  After no success and with just three minutes to go in the exercise, one of the team members dispensed with the pleasantries, walked up to Dallas the Leadership Horse and began scolding him.  “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do!” she said.  Then she leaned against him and started pushing.

Kristen de Marco who founded WorkHorse, says she’s seen this scenario play out before.  “Under pressure, some humans resort to treating equines like recalcitrant office workers, issuing orders, making threats, dangling incentives, even shoving them.  None of it works.”

She says that horses can sense when a stranger’s energy doesn’t feel genuine, or fails to line up with their body language, or conveys something other than trust and respect.  If you’re bossy, overconfident or inauthentic, horses just tune you out.  “They can’t read your resume.  They only care about who you are in the moment.”

Leadership and Teams

The bold emphasis in the previous paragraph is mine.  But look at the words.

  • Under pressure
  • Genuine
  • Trust and Respect
  • Who you are in the moment

They can’t read your resume!  They only care who you are in the moment.

This blog post was supposed to be a break from the Team outline that we’ve been working on since the first of the year.  But it seems to have fallen right back in step with the lessons we’ve been learning along the way.

Who are you in the moment? Genuine?  Authentic?  Trusting?  Respectful?

How are you treating the other person in the moment?  Being genuine and respectful is the only means by which leadership and teamwork are successful.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
BlogLeadership

Enduring Leadership

by Ron Potter

A.B. Meldrum once said,

Bear in mind, if you are going to amount to anything, that your success does not depend upon the brilliancy and the impetuosity with which you take hold, but upon the ever lasting and sanctified bull-doggedness with which you hang on after you have taken hold.”

Most of my clients would probably never hire me if I told them it was going to take five years to complete the major changes we talk about at the beginning of many of my consulting assignments. At one high-tech company, after three years of intensive effort to develop a new leadership style and corporate culture, the leadership team asked me to evaluate how they were doing. I asked them to rank their “completeness” in each of several major change categories. Overall, they ranked themselves at about 60 percent. I admitted that if they had asked me at the beginning of the process how long it was going to take, I would have estimated five years—so 60 percent after three years was just about right.

One strong leader whom I’m working with now took over an assignment three years ago in one of America’s largest corporations. When he was hired he was actually identified as the “change agent” that the company needed. Needed, maybe, but certainly not wanted. After three years of struggling with the internal practices of the company, he has finally assembled a leadership team that should be able to carry out the many changes that are needed to meet the firm’s looming challenges. I can recall many one-on-one conversations with him over the last three years when he wondered if he had the energy to keep going and whether it would be worth it in the end. But he has endured. I believe he will pick the fruit of an enduring company.

A leader needs to understand that he or she may quite naturally have an easy time focusing on the future or on how the future will look when certain projects, tasks, or goals are completed. Others within their teams may not be able to clearly or easily see the future, or they may be naturally pessimistic about anything involving the future. A leader needs the persistence to bring these people along—they are valuable to the team’s overall balance. They may simply need the leader to either ask them questions to propel them into the future or help them visualize steps to the future outcome.

Bringing an organization along also involves being particularly effective during times of change. Many on the team will naturally resist change, so leaders need to humbly and calmly coax people along to the new direction or vision.

Throughout the history of man, the greatest achievements have been accomplished by leaders having an against-all-odds tenacity. The unshakable convictions of the rightness of their causes have kept adventurers, explorers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries going despite overwhelming difficulty and fierce competition. They were and continue to be persistent, holding fast to their beliefs and moving the idea or the organization forward.

That’s the path to building an enduring organization.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts