Major in attitude

During a business unit review, I commented to the manager that her department had really improved. She enthusiastically responded, "Whatever you ask me to do, I am going to do my best to get it done." What a great attitude!

I can work with anyone that has a great attitude and help him or her to be successful. Poor attitudes are like hard crusty soil – it is very difficult to get anything to take root and grow. Weeds seem to do well.

Regardless of the level of education, ability or natural talents, the positive attitude will always outperform.

We should start a university with only one course; Developing a positive attitude.

This should be the only prerequisite.

Major in attitude

I will never forget

I am trying to imagine the experience of fighting in a war, having to focus all my energy, every hour of every day for months / years, trying to preserve my life.

I am trying to imagine what it would be like to have a family member in war, on the other side of the world, aware that I may never see them again alive.

I am trying to imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one in war.

The truth is that I could never fully comprehend what any of this would be like. I am thankful that others have gone before me to provide the freedoms and privileges that I enjoy today.

I will however, never forget, because I know that history forgotten is almost certain to repeat itself.

Those who have fought and currently fight for our freedom deserve the highest honour that any of us can provide. Never take the freedoms that you enjoy for granted. This is how we honour and show our appreciation.

I will never forget

Mess up, Fess up, Dress up

On a 10 point scale, if you do everything right all the time – the highest level of customer satisfaction you will achieve is a 7 or 8. However, if you screw up, admit it, and make it right, you jump up to a 9 or 10.

Knowing this makes us welcome complaints and energizes problem solving.

Therefore, dropping the ball can be a fantastic opportunity.

Messing up and pretending that you didn't is one of the best ways to destroy a relationship.

Mess up, Fess up, Dress up

How fragile is your day

I overheard a college as he answered his phone.

"How are you?" he asks the caller.

"Why is that?" I overhear next but with a tone of concern indicating that the caller advised his day was not going so well.

"Really?" he questions with both concern and disbelief, but then quickly adds this next question, which I will never forget;

"Are you really going to let that define your day?"

It's actually a choice.

How fragile is your day

You are who your customer says you are

. . . not who you think you are.

Think for a moment about how the customers of the enterprise that you own or work in would describe it. (Name of enterprise) is ______, represents ______, and does ______ really well but does not do ______ very well at all.

Now compare this to what your enterprise seeks to be – the mission or purpose of the organization. It seems to me that if the two match – what you are trying to be and the perception of your customer – the organization is highly successful. Of course, the opposite is also true. The world does not view companies such as BP & GM in the way that they planned.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Walt Disney, Wal-mart are all examples of successful organizations that actually look like they purposed to be (according to their mission statements).

This is elementary . . . except in failing organizations. Hmmm, perhaps this is the reason for their failure.

You are who your customer says you are

Strange messages

Have you seen an email "out of office attendant" message that reads along these lines?

"Sorry I didn't get your message . . . on vacation until . . . I will have only limited access to email, etc," (italics mine).

First, why would someone be sorry for not seeing a message while on vacation?

Second, why do people feel guilty for having only limited access to email while on vacation? Doesn't this builds an expectation that they are actually going to respond to a message, only a little later than usual. Therefore, vacation simply means emails are answered but with a delay?

What would happen if you didn't answer a single message while on vacation? What if the people sending you email had to make a decision on their own?

Consider this out of office message: "On vacation. Make a decision. You will most likely make the right one. If you do screw up – great! We always learn best from our mistakes."

How about this one: "On vacation. When I get back I will be deleting every email in my inbox. If your message was really important please send to me again when I return."

What if you actually did this [deleted the messages]? Bet you would have a great first day back from vacation.

Strange messages

One of the best leaders I had the opportunity to work with

Her expectations were clear – everyone on the team understood. She was firm. She also knew everyone as if her own children and cared for them deeply. She worked alongside her team; coaching them in a way that no would ever consider it coaching. She would never ask anyone to do anything that she would not do herself.

The product / outcome:

Virtually no turnover – other than which would be considered favourable. New hires that did not fit the culture of the business unit left in a short period of time, on their own – they just didn't fit.

Extremely low absenteeism; If someone had to be absent, it was understood that they would find a replacement for themselves. This expectation was accepted willingly as being a part of the team.

Readily and enthusiastically contributed to the greater team outside of the business unit.

Every member of her team was devoted to her.

Highly successful business unit – consistently within the top 5 of the entire organization.

She was a tremendous supporter and positive influence of any superior for whom she worked. I was fortunate to be one of them.

Thank you Donna for demonstrating so clearly what a great leader looks like.

One of the best leaders I had the opportunity to work with

There is no one capable

I must say that I am frustrated when I hear the phrase "there is no one capable," referring to succession – moving into a management role. Actually, it is not frustration – I'm angry. When someone says this, what they mean is: no one is smart enough, capable enough or good enough to do what they do." That is simply arrogance gone to seed! Far too many people put themselves up on a pedestal when given a title.

So I ask, "What I hear you saying is that among the many members on your team, not one of these people are capable of moving into a management position?" "What about this person (name)?"

"They don't want it," is the reply.

Hmmm, the manager works constantly, rarely takes time off, does not freely share information and continually complains showing frustration about their job and their role. I think I understand; if this [preceding sentence] is what a manager has to do, why would anyone, in his or her right mind, want to do that?

Everyone and anyone is capable of becoming a great leader. The only exception would be due to a mental illness (extremely small portion of the population).

Good leaders always develop talent- often unintentionally.

There is no one capable

Accomplishing Autopilot

Autopilot sounds great, but easier said than done. Create a system (s) that eliminates interruptions, enabling me and my entire organization to be exponentially more productive? Sounds like some sort of pipe dream – the stuff of high-sounding books . . . or blog posts.

Perhaps we should start here:

Just because I am the leader, does not mean that I am not the smartest person in my organization. Others are just as, and possibly more capable of making decisions than I am.

With this understanding, start addressing each situation. Each time you are called upon to make a decision, consider if the person asking could have made that decision on their own. Start asking them what they would advise, or "what would you do?" type of questions, to encourage critical thinking and build your comfort and trust in their abilities.

Then, extend the authority.

"From this point forward, you do not need to call me for decisions related to . . ."

"I trust you ability to make the right decision in these situations."

Repeat as often as required until you have opened up your time to lead more effectively; to think, coach, challenge, train, influence and inspire. Your people and your organization will thank you. So will your family.

Accomplishing Autopilot

Autopilot

Modern day sophisticated aircraft have the ability to fly and land without any pilot intervention. They are able to do this through the use of systems commonly referred to as autopilot, which can actually fly an aircraft better than a human, generate better fuel economy and land in foggy conditions with zero visibility.

The benefits of autopilot in an aircraft are many: increased situational awareness, more resources available for airspace surveillance, reduced crew workload and fatigue levels, improved accuracy, efficiency and reduced costs. Autopilot creates exponential increases in productivity in the airline industry.

Leaders create systems of autopilot for similar benefits within their organization. This is always in the form of extending responsibility and authority or empowering people to make decisions and deal with virtually any situation. Effective leaders find ways to reduce the need for their presence and intervention, measuring success in this pursuit by reduced interruptions. They become increasingly irrelevant by enabling others to take care of the business.

Autopilot allows the pilot to take a break, even leave to cockpit, without worrying about the path of the aircraft. If you are overwhelmed and find it hard to take a break and catch your breath, I suggest that you begin working on automating your business.

Autopilot

Finding the good

We need to catch people doing things right. What is right? Is it perfection? If you get 80% on a test – is that right? Is it good even though it is not perfect? What if the usual was 55%, but today the score improved to 70%; is that good? I think most would offer praise, which of course would be the right thing to do. If you were critical of the missed marks in these examples, you probably shouldn't be reading this blog.

The weird thing is that in the workplace, we do criticize in the gap between right and perfection. Instead of recognizing what is good, or right, we magnify the areas that are less than perfect. The reasoning: calling that which is not perfect, "good," is not doing my job. If my boss knew that I was providing positive recognition for this, that is less than perfect, he would think I don't understand the standard.

The reality: it will never be perfect!

If you recognize everything, or every part that is right (good), those that did the work will try harder than ever to bring the remaining parts to good, usually without you ever having to mention them. They will just want more of that praise and will work harder than ever to receive it.

Not being able to find something good says more about you the leader than it does about anyone else.

Finding the good

Intentional Influence

If leadership is "intentional influence," which it is, what separates great leadership from poor?

Influence, is often unintentional; setting a bad example. True leadership is intentional; done on purpose, not by accident. Therefore, there is no separation between good or poor within the word "intentional" in our definition.

It is the "influence" part where we find either remarkable or abysmal leadership, or varying degrees between.

Great leaders can describe their influence with these words: persuade, empower, inspire, encourage, win over, stimulate.

Poor leaders are identified by these descriptions: control, pressure, manipulate, power, command, and threaten.

If you were to reflect personally on your past 24 hours of leadership, which description most accurately matches your behaviour? Your influence impacts every person that you come in contact with; at work, at play, your family. It includes those around you that you never even speak to: at the grocery store, your neighbours or other drivers sharing the same road as you.

Someone is always watching what you are doing. Hopefully you are always showing the example that you intend.

Intentional Influence

How do YOU measure success?

What makes you successful? What I mean is, how do you measure success? At the end of the process, year, term, month, life, etc. how will you know if you have been successful. Think about that for a moment for the current year – how would you answer that question?

Not that it would ever be declared, but for some this is measured by just getting by, successfully navigating the week in order to get to the weekend, keeping the job, being able to retire, or just actually waking up in the morning. Posing this question to others might bring the answer that they think everyone wants to hear; good marks, good results, financial independence, but they have not put a great deal of thought into it and really don't own the goal.

I suppose what I am really talking about is goal / objective setting. When traveling, a destination is set and then the path to arrive at that destination is determined. This seems obvious if you are traveling, yet very few people actually do this in life. Why? I think we tend to make it too complicated. I am not one for sitting down to plan and write out my life goals – short, mid and long term – only to forget about it and only refer back to it when I read or hear someone say that I should have planned goals. I do have these, on paper and I know where they are – but I have not looked at them for well over a year.

Those who know what success looks like, for them, form a picture in their mind's eye of what that success looks like. When asked, they communicate with an "it looks like" phrase that anyone can picture as explained to them.

"Every leader in my organization will have identified and developed talent throughout their team, creating multiple successors for every management position in their business unit."

"We will become a people factory for the rest of the organization – building capacity among our team – measuring ourselves by the number of successful candidates we have developed and promoted."

"Obtain a beautiful home with a picturesque view, which I can go outside and hear nothing but solitude – the birds, and the wind in the trees."

Can you see, in your mind's eye, those pictures of success?

How do YOU measure success?

You must become irrelevant

The manager couldn't take vacation, actually, it was hard for him to even get a day off. Taking a day off was almost not worth the trouble considering the chaos that would meet him upon his return.

Have you worked for a leader that hoards information and authority? One that selectively releases information – keeps everyone on a need to know basis? How did they make you feel?

What about you, are you the brains behind the entire operation? Are you the source of all knowledge that causes everyone to have to come to you for answers? Does your phone ring constantly with people calling for simple answers to easy questions? Do you believe that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself?

This next statement is going to be quite difficult for some to hear; the individual described above is insecure. They believe that they establish their own personal importance and relevance by how much more they know, and how much more decision making power they hold, compared to their subordinates.

For great leaders, the opposite is true; success is determined when you become irrelevant and no longer needed. They become dispensable.

You must become irrelevant

Busy work

If we are not careful, the busy-work will end up ruling our agenda and lives. Busy-work is all that stuff that comes at you continuously that seems to demand your attention. Questions, projects, problems, email messages, meetings, conference calls, can all be examples. Stephen Covey called it urgent but not important. It has been referred to as fire-fighting and being stuck in the weeds.

This past week I found the pull from the busy work particularly strong. Perhaps it was a worldwide phenomenon this week because Seth Godin wrote about this in a blog post today titled Incoming, in which he provided some brutal honesty on how electronic messaging controls us. While I have not completely tamed the busy work monster, I took some steps to beat it back. The main one was actually the simplest – I turned off every alert, ring, vibrate and alarm that went off when I received an email message. Do I really need to be made aware every time I receive a new message? Is an email message more important than anything else I am doing that I should stop and read it? Think of it this way; do you stop conversation with someone whenever someone else walks up or interrupts you? I hope not.

The key to avoiding the trap of busy work is to keep focused on what you are trying to accomplish. Imagine what excellence looks like. Imagine what it looks like when you have accomplished your goals – when it is done. Now, focus on the work that gets you to that goal and push away, divert, delegate and even ignore the busy work. Simple? Yes. I think we need to return to simple.

On another note: a real problem for most is that they have not imagined what excellence looks like – they have never pictured the end – and is the reason why busy-work controls so many.

Busy work

“Make me” or “Make me want to”

I believe that leadership can be segregated into two basic styles / categories: make me, or make me want to.

The make me style focuses on telling people what to do, how to do it and when to do it. It is dictation / dictatorship. It can be effective in accomplishing goals, but will never empower individuals to strive for more or greater results. Leadership that falls in this camp must continuously apply their authority and influence in order to maintain results. Results end the moment the pressure disappears.

The make me want to style focuses on explaining the reason why – the rationale behind what we are trying to accomplish. It is inspirational and leads to exponential growth of the what, or desired results and goals.

The differences between these two camps are much more significant than we typically realize. I like the analogy of communism to capitalism, where the make me model is communism, and the make me want to is capitalism. History has perfectly demonstrated the oppressive and destructive consequences of communism and the limitless possibilities of capitalism.

I once had a boss tell me to "do it or he would find someone else that will." Definitely make me.

I have also had the opportunity to work with many leaders that provided guidance and direction with heavy emphasis on the explanation of why, but focused most of their energy on recognition of ideas, effort and results. They all made me want to!

We can't always pick our leaders and if you find yourself under the leadership of a make me leader, it does not have to be hopeless. Move beyond his or her dictation by discovering the why behind what you are being commanded to do. It is virtually impossible to do something with any passion for which you do not understand the purpose. Ask questions; seek to understand why you are doing what you are doing. Then, motivated by this inspiring knowledge, exceed the desired result or goals. Go beyond what is expected – or dictated. You just may find yourself going beyond that person that is doing the dictating.

“Make me” or “Make me want to”

Are you going to re-enforce that behaviour?

I was sitting beside a college while he was reading his email. He nudges me with his elbow to get me to look at a message from one of his managers and with pride says, "Look at that quick response!" He was proud of the quick reaction of his manager and wanted to brag a little about it. It is a natural tendency to feel good when our people perform well and to want others to know about it.

He seemed to be moving on to other messages, so I asked him how he was going to re-enforce that behaviour.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You are clearly happy with what he has done, so don't you want to recognize it so that it is repeated?" I clarified.

He immediately started to type an enthusiastic reply to the original message while reading aloud his positive, complimentary words as he typed.

I realize that this is really quite basic, but at the same time, it is often overlooked. The premise of the book "Whale Done!," (Authors: Ken Blanchard, Thad Lacinak, Chuck Tompkins, Jim Ballard) is that we will achieve desired performance more rapidly if we only reward good performance and completely ignore bad or negative behaviour.

I'll bring it home for illustration. If my daughter helps around the house, I provide positive recognition. If she does not, I say nothing and do not show any disapproval. I focus my attention on her subjects with good marks, and completely ignore those that are not satisfactory.

I have to admit that this is hard, primarily because of the way we are taught. The world generally does not work like this. You aren't pulled over by a police officer and rewarded because they were driving the speed limit.

If . . . when, we spend the majority of our time catching people doing things right, I believe that we will achieve performance and results beyond what we even thought was possible.

Which behaviours have you been re-enforcing?

Are you going to re-enforce that behaviour?

Go-around managers

They are focused! They find a way to get it done. Obtaining results is the only thing that matters. At first glance this may seem desirable and sound like someone you might want to have on your team and in your organization. It could and it may, but it also describes the "Go-around manager."

Go-around managers, go around. They skip one, two, three and sometimes more levels of hierarchy to get something done. They live by the motto "if you want something done right - you have to do it yourself." Go-around managers deal with symptoms and use band-aids vs. working at the root with permanent solutions.

It looks like:

• Senior executive sending communication directly to the front line with a specific request rather than communicating vision through their direct reports and encouraging innovation and ingenuity.
  
• Managers continuously going around supervisors to get things done out of frustration because the supervisors are not getting them done.
  

This approach may get results, in the short term. However, it does nothing to solve problems long term and counteracts leadership development. Leaders inspire and influence others to obtain the desired results.

Your go-around managers may be getting good results, but when they leave, and everybody eventually leaves, those results stop.

Leaders develop leaders. Go-around managers do not.

Go-around managers

You tend to get what you expect

We generally receive what we expect. In other words are expectations are usually met.

If you expected 2009 to be a terrible year – it probably was.

If you expect your kid's marks to be low – they likely are.

If you expect results to be low . . . you get the point.

Expectations are not always what we communicate directly – with our words, but rather implied by what is between the words and through our actions.

If I say that I think the economic outlook is bright, but pull back spending in every area, my actions are exposing what I really think.

If I tell you that I think you are managing well and doing a good job, but continue to hold back authority and responsibility – what am I really saying?

The good news in all of this is that it works both ways. If I expect the good and the positive, I will tend to get it. If I expect my team to improve their performance and results, they will raise the level of their game to meet my expectations. If I expect any individual team member to rise to their greatest potential – they will.

It is impossible to fake it. They (expectations) are impossible to hide. So how do you change them?

It is a change in what you believe . . . and that is a big part of who you are.

You tend to get what you expect