Loyalty

A friend has asked me to speak on any topic of my choosing: the topic I thought would be interesting is my perspective on “Reasons Why Leaders Fail.”

After 20+ years of working, I have seen many situations where leaders have ended up leaving the organization.  One important reason is they don’t know how to instill loyalty.

Jack Welch had a great saying: that to instill loyalty, you needed to take care of  “heart, mind, and wallet.”  Heart was people believing in you, mind was people agreeing with you, and wallet is pretty self explanatory.

Too often I see leaders who assume loyalty without taking care of these three things, only to be disappointed.

I’ll post the other reasons once I hold my session. Have a great weekend!

The Power of Daily Habits

We underestimate the power of good daily habits.  Yes, it might feel good to do whatever you want to do, when you want to do it.  To push the harder decisions down the road (“I’ll diet/save/workout/spend time with family tomorrow”).

But the reality is that good daily habits are more likely to get you to the place you want to be instead of depending on the “once in a lifetime” event to fix what might not be working in your life.

So imagine who you want to be 20 years from now. What will you be doing, who are the people you want to be with? What do you want your normal day to be like? With that in mind, make sure every thing you do today gets you closer, and do the same thing tomorrow.

Life is usual about basic blocking and tackling. It’s rarely won by the Hail Mary pass.

Being Too Good A Poker Player

I recently caught up with a young woman I’m mentoring: she was concerned that she was repeating her past. She had switched roles, and saw some of the same indications of what stalled her before.

Our conversation focused on that she’s very hard to read. She’s quiet, introverted, soft spoken naturally. But sometimes that gets in the way of people knowing you. And that gets in the way of people knowing what you’re capable of. Continue reading →

What To Do?

It’s hard to get the right balance between power and attractiveness, but you need both to be a good leader. You need enough power to be credible, enough attractiveness so that others want to help you:

If you’ve been told you’re too abrupt, too results oriented, sometimes “pointy elbowed”, it helps to introduce changes like the following:

  1. Ask people what they think. Not everything should be a command from you. Solicit other people’s feedback and consider it.
  2. Sit forward, and nod as the speaker makes eye contact with you. You are quietly saying “I’m with you, I agree, I support you.”
  3. Make inclusive summary statements: “It sounds like we’ve agreed to do x, not sure about y, and definitely won’t do z.  Does that sound right?”

If you’ve been told you’re too nice, lack gravitas, senior folks aren’t sure you can make the tough decision:

  1. Don’t give in all the time. If someone counters you, but you know you’re right, stick to your guns. I often say “At the end of the day it’s your decision, but I don’t agree.”
  2. Don’t telegraph agreement before you need to. Some folks agree with everything that comes out of my mouth as I’m saying it. That’s not what I want: I want to know when you really agree with me, and when you don’t.
  3. When it’s a tough decision, make it. Don’t shy away from it, don’t kick the can down the road. Doing the right thing almost always means making the tough decision.

Responding to Feedback

So it’s that time of the year when you’re going to receive feedback.  You should have the conversation about 1) your business goals, and 2) your personal development goals.

So the business goal discussion is a pretty straightforward conversation. Less straightforward is the personal development one.

Here’s what you should be thinking about:

  1. How did you do? What were the areas of development you wanted to improve on this year? It’s not a long list: 1-3 is fine. But you should check with your manager whether or not you 1) stayed the same, 2) got worse, or 3) got better.
  2. Cause and effect: it’s not enough to just know you got “better at communicating.” Ask what was different. You want to know what behavior changes moved the needle so you can keep doing it.
  3. Talk about expectations for the next year: this is only one chapter in a long book: what do you want to work on next year?  What would that mean for you (e.g. areas where you need to improve) , and what would that mean for your manager (finding you a mentor, giving you broader scope)?

I never took advantage of the year end discussions the way I should have. Don’t make my mistake.

A Powerful Thing

Someone recently said something to me that struck me as really powerful.

“I don’t have a lot of debt, so I have choices and options.”

You have seen my other posts where I talk about defining your anchor value, and the power of compounding, especially when you are young. In a world where a lot is out of your control, the one thing you absolutely control is what to say yes and no to. The culmination of many small decisions can add up to whether or not you can make a statement like the above. So be mindful on what it is you want and what defines enough for you.

Be A Better Writer

I am ruthless as an editor. If you put a presentation in front of me, I will try to edit it until it is (in my mind) a precisely written thing of beauty.

A blog I like, The Minimalists, focus on minimalism in general….including writing. I like their 11 things to focus on, but in particular:

“Writing is 30% composition, 70% editing.”  The goal here is to use as few words as possible without the reader needing to ask questions. Too often, we use too many words to try and explain something….which only confuses the reader. We often pick the wrong word when precision matters, we omit the words we need to clarify.

Be ruthless when you write. Cross out every unnecessary word. Put it away, and look at it again. See where the gaps are: where you might lose people because you’re not clear. Rewrite it so it’s clearer.

The best presentations are the ones where you’re doing a minimum of explaining.