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Archive for the ‘ Leadership ’ Category
Are You Trainable?
Well of course you are!
But do you welcome the opportunities as they arise?
Having our minds stretched makes a bit room for more information, but that doesn’t often happen for many of us because stretching hurts. Here are some simple steps to make the most of each learning opportunity.
Remember that Significant Learning Opportunities… Click here for the rest of the post, as Jim Fay calls them, are often wrapped up in times we’d rather avoid…accidents, failures, broken relationships…but if we allow those times to be something we simply survive, we never harvest the lesson and allow ourselves to grow from them.
Look for some of the most significant opportunities to come from people who irritate you. The thing that irritates you in them is likely a strong trait you carry as well (we’ll get into all the egoesque theory in that another day…feel free to use egoesque…I kind of like it). Turn off your filter and listen to understand.
In a horrible moment, don’t say something chirpy like, “Boy, oh boy are we going to look back and laugh at what we learned today!” People
Course Correcting Conversations
It’s Family Friday. Today, I’m thinking about an important communication skill for creating positive culture at work and at home. In both places, it’s not our ability to outline a vision or articulate expected behaviors that counts as much of our skill in keeping everyone motivated and on track to fulfill that mission.
How do you have those difficult conversations? How do you guide without micromanagement? How do you get rid of the bathwater and keep the baby safe? (Sorry, but that metaphor always generates images of wet, airborne infants that are somewhat disturbing!) I’ve talked before about the dangers of over correction… Click here for the rest of the post, but what happens when corrective measures have to be taken?
Here are some simple strategies. See what you think.
First, identify and consistently communicate the criteria for behavior. It pains me to overhear parents walking into a big event with a child saying, “remember what we talked about…” or a supervisor to an employee saying, “I know you won’t let me down on this, Jane,” as he or she receives a huge assignment.
People will respond
What Makes a Star Performer?
… Click here for the rest of the post
For at least 12 years, the same man has served as the crosswalk guard at an intersection between our middle school and high school. I am sure there must have been days he was sick, or had a replacement, but I don’t recall ever seeing anyone else at that corner.
He’s always seemed “older”, yet he hasn’t visibly aged in the12 years I’ve been passing his corner. He rarely smiles. He doesn’t wave at all the passing cars. He’ll occasionally wave back, but not often.
In the early years of taking my boys and their friends to school, it used to be my personal challenge to make him smile back at me. But usually, he remained focused on the traffic and the students…you know…doing his job. I don’t know that keeping middle school students safe and orderly requires a cheerful countenance.
It’s interesting how we rate work.
I have personally championed movements to “hire friendly people” and I’m really great at teaching people the benefits of positive engagement. But tell me, would this stoic-looking man who has taken his post
What You See is What You Get!
… Click here for the rest of the post
My top ten thoughts moving into the new year…
If what you see is bleak and discouraging, fix it. It will take work and patience…a lot of it. Sometimes your efforts don’t pay off in the ways you expect or as quickly as you’d like. This used to be less of a surprise to people, but then we became a society conditioned for immediate gratification and ease of operation. So make this a year for less whining and more working.
If you want to see more kindness, more love, more patience…then practice it. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted wishing a situation would improve without first working to improve myself. See number one.
If you don’t like what you see everyday and option number one isn’t working, see it differently. Maybe you’ve conditioned yourself to focus on the negative in a situation or a soul. Changing your perspective may even mean you see another person’s view. (Yikes…that sounds so uncomfortable and awkward. And what if it means I wasn’t completely right?) So go find a new view.
Created Any Good Misunderstandings Lately?
… Click here for the rest of the post
“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw
You speak. You write. You’ve communicated. But were you understood?
What if you weren’t? What if the enthusiastic response you anticipate instead is an awkward silence? What if you continue to have a gap between intention and implementation?
There are times when we know we’ve been misunderstood. Those are the fortunate times, because we can respond. But what response will clarify, calm and clear the way for more effective action?
When you’ve been misunderstood,
Do Not
Repeat yourself. It worked so well the first time, why not just use the same message over and over? Surely it will break through eventually? No, but eventually, everyone will nod their heads in agreement simply to get you to shut up.
Belittle. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear.” Meaning…you idiot, anyone can understand this! If the message has left someone confused, it is less about their inability to understand and more about your ability to be understood. If you don’t need buy-in; don’t want to
Swing Chair Saturday–Live Less Critically
Why do we call it “defending our opinion?”
Is someone going to take it away from us? Is the mere challenge to our established convictions enough to make us take up strategic positions as we batten down the hatches of our mind?
I’ve been thinking a great deal about civility lately. It is, after all, one of my key topics… Click here for the rest of the post, and a fundamental component of communication structures that allow people to engage and flourish. I’m also working on a keynote to share with some college students in August on the topic.
I want to challenge those college freshman to think differently about the discourse in which opinions are shared. I believe our nation, and particularly its political system, is no longer about nurturing an exchange of ideas but is instead about the freedom to mindlessly insult and argue.
Now here’s the thing. I really like to argue and I’m pretty good at it. Sometimes, I like to argue in a healthy “here’s my point, there’s your point…ah ha…so here’s a bigger, better point” kind of way. Other times, it’s
Family Friday–Dad’s Wisdom
What misery do you think you can no longer endure? What heartache, financial burden, or hard time is sucking the life out of you?
I’ll bet your parents or your grandparents would like to tell you to suck it up and soldier on.
Actually, my parents never used terms like suck it up. But my Mom did tell me, at a time in my life when I was at my most miserable, that it was time to bloom where I was planted…which I think is pretty much the same thing.
Perhaps you’re busy trying to build a life your parents didn’t have. Or maybe you’re trying to prove your parents wrong. Whatever. I hope you get over that long enough to see the value in what they can teach you.
My Dad is always a popular subject on the Bloomin’ Blog.
Following the post written last year called Find Your Way Forward… Click here for the rest of the post, a corporate executive with a company in Florida for which I’d dearly love to consult wrote me a simple email, “I’d like to hear more stories about
What Do You Fear?
I think fearfulness is the root of all our mistakes and errors in human judgement. You may say it’s greed, but even greed can be categorized as the fear of not having enough or not having it all.
It may seem that I am advocating fearlessness.
That’s not it.
What I am advocating is awareness.
When you know your weaknesses, you can recognize the situations in which they might sabotage you. When you know what it is you fear, you can do the same.
Because I have a very limited fear of failure…almost zero (it’s a bit freakish, really) I thought of my self as somewhat immune to fear. Then, in a moment of raw personal exposure with my Vistage… Click here for the rest of the post group, my Vistage Chair asked me,
“What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of failing?”
I explained that I truly wasn’t. He began rummaging through is papers as he continued,
“Then what? Everyone is afraid of something. Everyone has at least one of the four fatal fears.” And he showed me this list…
FOUR FATAL FEARS
Failure
Rejection
Emotional