#9

December 18th, 2009

What will change your life?  What will bring you popularity, riches, success, and fame?  What is the “secret,” the “magic bullet,” the one thing to transform your life?

Have you noticed people who succeed long-term, tend to make others feel important – and they do it sincerely.  As a result, other people want to help them.  Think about the successful people you know (and admire).  Don’t they make you feel important when you are around them?

The challenge?  People are different.  What makes one person feel important, may not work for someone else.

Get to know your people; get to know your customers.  Get interested in them.  The attention you give them will make them feel important.  AND, you’ll know what else you can do to create an environment where they feel appreciated – to feed (what William James, the father of modern psychology called) their craving to feel appreciated.

While it doesn’t guarantee international fame, money, and power, it does guarantee richer relationships, increased influence, and becoming the person people want to know and want to help.

By the way, principle #9 from Dale Carnegie’s bestseller “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is – Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.  Try it.  It works.

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The Foundation of Leadership

November 2nd, 2009

James Kouzes, co-author of “The Leadership Challenge” distills the foundation of successful leadership to credibility.

Credibility creates trust.  To be trusted, we must be trustworthy.  We may admire what others have; we may respect what they do.  However, we will not trust them until we feel we know who they are.

Credibility comes from what we do consistently – under pressure and over the long term.  Leaders remain consistent.  Leaders stay true to their values.

If you’ve been leading people for any length of time, they know what you value.  If it differs significantly from what you’ve been saying, you are killing your own credibility and eroding your own leadership foundation.

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Why Do We Do It?

September 11th, 2009

We are goal directed beings.  We’re always accomplishing something.  Which means there is always a reason for what we do. Getting a glass of water, getting drunk; talking about our faith, telling a lie; starting a business, selling a business, or any of millions of possible choices, there’s always a reason why.

Usually, we don’t examine that reason – we don’t even think about it.  We don’t do things intentionally.

But, what if we always understood the intent behind our actions?  Would we make better choices?  I think so.

The implications could be life changing – couldn’t they?

That’s one reason why writing our goals and reviewing them regularly is so powerful.  These two actions identify and reinforce our framework  and helps guide the selection of what we do daily.  Subconsciously, we make better choices.  Better choices yield better results.

Writing and reviewing our goals creates a direction for us and frees us from the need to constantly examine the reason behind every action.  So, I guess goal-setting is a life skill and a time management skill.

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Franchise Players

August 11th, 2009

I was talking with a friend of mine, today.  While he might disavow this, he embodies EXCELLENCE.  He executes well, is supremely competent, operates from impeccable integrity, is well-known and well-respected in his field, and – I say this with all sincerity - is amazingly humble. 

In less than 9 months, he has had significant positive impact on the growth of his company’s bottom line – in a down economy.

He is a “franchise” player.

We love the ”franchise” player.  They work longer and harder, need less attention, solve more problems, and raise the bar for everyone (who wants to play in their league).

The problem?   “Franchise” players present a different leadership/management challenge.  While we don’t have to discipline them, we do have to discipline ourselves. 

Give them all they can handle, but not all we want them to handle.

Otherwise, we risk losing them – to our competition, or to burn out.  In either case, our organization will be worse off.

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Everyone’s Got a Story

August 8th, 2009

I was at a Dale Carnegie Course graduation this week.

One of the graduates was talking about what he gained from his twelve weeks in the program.  His realization – everyone’s got a story.

We often (usually?) make judgements about others based solely upon what we see.  It’s like looking through a keyhole in the front door of a mansion and claiming to know where everything – rooms, paintings, tapestries, furniture, silverware, closets, beds, linen, etc. – is inside.  We can’t even see the entire front hallway.

Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested you.”  It’s amazing, when we strive to “Become genuinely interested in other people” (principle #4), they do become genuinely interesting to us.

The hard part is getting past our own initial judgement, so we can at least open the door and see the hallway.

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Group Lessons

August 6th, 2009

After my five “introductory” lessons, I was a golfer.

I could “slap” the ball down the fairway accurately enough to shoot in the mid-90’s.  Yes, it was all arms and shoulders.  And, yes, by the end of the round, I was worn out.

A couple of years later, feeling the urge to improve, I signed up for group lessons with Chuck Campbell (a 70-year old American playing professionally on the senior circuit in Japan).

As Chuck began changing my swing, my scores went from the mid-90’s to a high of 127.  I remember my boss’s comment one day, “You have no idea what’s going to happen when you hit that ball, do you?”  And, he was right.  Later that day, I accidently hit the ball directly at him.  By the way, he was standing about 40 yards away, 90 degrees off my line of aim, and directly behind me – the ball went between my legs.

But, I stuck with it.  (Heck, I couldn’t get much worse.)

Shortly afterwards, my scores began to change.  Within a couple of weeks of my 127-stroke “high” score, my game began to change dramatically – my average dropped into the mid-80’s.

I was hitting the ball further, straighter, and with less effort.

The difference was group lessons.

When Chuck was standing next to me, watching my swing, I forced myself to do all the things I knew were right.  So, what he saw was NOT what I normally did.  When he walked away to work with someone else, I’d relax and do what I normally did.

Chuck watched me when he was “working” with someone else.  So, he was able to correct what I was actually doing.

When you coach your people, are you coaching their “best” behavior or do you catch them unawares so you can correct what they are really doing?

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Fool Me Once

August 5th, 2009

China regulates internet access; Iran shuts down cellphone service.  Why?  Limiting (their) public(‘s) access to “unapproved” information helps maintain their regimes in power.

Lawyers respond to requests for information by inundating their opponents with mounds of paperwork.  Buried deep is the exculpatory evidence needed by the defense.

Access to information can be limited by its absence or by its burial in overwhelming amounts of data.

So, we look for “filters” to help us make sense out of our daily data oceans and convert them to information we can use to make good decisions.  These filters have tremendous power to influence our points of view.

Sales, marketing, news – they all help filter information for us – and influence our viewpoint.  The key?

Understand everyone has an agenda.  When we keep that in mind, we may be fooled once – not twice.

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Manipulation -v- Motivation

August 4th, 2009

In our management program, Leadership Training for Managers, we delve into the difference between manipulation and motivation.

One key difference – the results produced by engaging, long-term, in one behavior or the other.  Manipulation, over time, leads to resentment and compliance; motivation leads to cooperation.

The challenge is to determine which we engage in most often.  It’s made more difficult because the ultimate arbiter is the other person.  All we have to go on is our own perspective.

So, how do you determine if you’re manipulating?  Actually, it’s pretty simple.

If you think you’re manipulating, you are.

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End Construction

August 2nd, 2009

Recently, I came to one of the many US highway areas “under construction.”

At 1:00 am, the maze of orange cones, orange barrels, flashing lights, concrete barriers and reflective tape was very noticeable in the pitch black.  What was not noticeable?  The entrance to the labyrinth.  I’m sure the traffic engineer who designed this knew exactly how traffic was supposed to navigate through it.  But, it’s not intuitively obvious at 75…. errrr at 65 miles per hour.

I slowed to a crawl, found the entrance, and breathed a sigh of relief when I finally saw the “end construction” sign several miles later.

What’s it like for your prospect navigating through your company’s sales process; or your customer navigating your customer service process; or maybe one of your employees navigating some new software or procedure?

Just because it’s obvious to you (the builder) doesn’t mean it’s obvious, friendly, or easy to anyone else.  While we can rush right through it, they need to slow down, get their bearings and at least see the entrance.

When your sales, customer service, and human resource professionals try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view, they’ll be more able to reassure, guide, and build trust with with your prospects, customers, and employees

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Laughingstock no longer

July 30th, 2009

How does one ship go from a laughingstock to winning the Battle “E” in twelve months?  (And then winning the next cycle.)

Imagine a car race between 14 Ford Mustangs.  For eighteen months, they race around the same track.   And, only one car wins.

The US Navy “race” is called the Battle Efficiency Award (the Battle “E”).  For eighteen months, US Navy ships compete against other ships just like them. The ships are nearly identical; the officers and crews have similar levels of experience and expertise.

Each ship goes through a bunch of inspections (supply, gunnery, engineering, navigation, damage control, communication, etc.), in addition to assessments of operational readiness, responsiveness, administration and so on.  At the end of eighteen months, a winner is selected based, in large measure, on these results.

One particular ship was the laughingstock of the waterfront.  Not only had it recently failed a major engineering operational inspection, it took six separate attempts, over a two-week period, to successfully leave port for a five-day transit along the coast.

So how was it twelve months later, this ship won the Battle “E”?

Leadership – and it wasn’t the Commanding Officer.  It was “TJ” – the new CHENG (CHief ENGineer).

He called the engineering department together and told us he knew how we could pass the re-inspection.  He told us he’d successfully passed this inspection with six separate engineering departments.  It would take hard work and long hours, and, if we did as instructed, we would pass.

He didn’t promise extra pay, extra time off, world peace, or the end of global warming.  He treated us like adults – and we responded as adults.

Did we work hard?  Oh, yeah.

Did we pass our next inspection?  With one of the highest grades on record, at the time.

The momentum from that success carried on for the next three years.

When your organization is experiencing tough times, don’t be afraid to trust your people. Be honest with them.  They’ll appreciate it, and you can expect they’ll work harder to ensure you (and they) succeed.

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