I Like Crescendos - Thoughts on Managing Based on Vibe

I was walking a 10K yesterday and relied on my iPod to keep my going at a good pace. I have several play lists set up for exercising with peppier songs. I noticed, however, that when I was hurting or needing more uumph (it was hot and humid) that I skipped the perfectly fine peppy songs in favor of songs with big drama and fuller sound.

I like crescendos. In fact, I like crescendos in all aspects of life and work.

I would be happy doing most any type of work as long as it offered the opportunity to create some boom, some wow, some big moments.

This is the vibe I prefer in all aspects of my life and those managing me can get my best work by ensuring I have the chance to experience crescendos.

We all have a preferred vibe and it is a unique thing. Management books suggest that managers ought to get to know each employee's goals and talents. And this is important to know. But I also think we should learn the vibe that fuels their engagement.

Start by thinking about the vibe that you prefer. Then share this with your team and ask them to share theirs. Examples will help clarify what you are asking.

Think about why people leave their jobs (bad manager, I know, but there is always more to it). Often it just does not fuel them. They leave a perfectly great job for an unknown but great sounding job that they hope will feel different to them. What if you could help their current job feel better?

Post written by http://www.managementcraft.com

The 7 Failures That Will Make You a Better Leader

“Success Covers a Multitude of Blunders”.

That was a famous quote from George Bernard Shaw, and it has always stuck with me throughout my career as a leader and executive.

What it ultimately told me was yes, I was going to fail – multiple times. But if I was truly determined to overcome, or “cover” them, I absolutely needed to learn from every failure, and leverage that accumulated learning into success.

In so many ways, I’ve grown to appreciate my failures – as counterintuitive as that may seem.    Because I now know if I just let them go, without reflection, then they were doomed to be repeated.

There are 7 failures that I believe bring the best improvement opportunities:

• Failure to Prioritize – Many a bad decision has come from our lack of perspective on the importance of one thing over another. The key learning here is to fully grasp the concept of “opportunity cost” – the cost of NOT doing something in favor of something else.
• Failure to Decide – If the buck is going to stop with us, then we need the courage to make timely decisions, regardless of consensus or the lack of 100% of the information needed to make them.  We learn that more often than not, it’s better to “do something” then let fear and inertia overtake us.
• Failure to Progress – When a target is reached, the bar must be raised. And when that target is hit, it must be raised again. And again.  Complacency is a state that HAS to be avoided, at all costs, and the ultimate learning here is that continuous improvement is an essential focus of any enterprise.
• Failure to Praise – Great talent needs to be nurtured and retained, in a manner that goes well beyond the paychecks and bonuses.    These lessons come hard, after the loss of individuals who felt unappreciated and undervalued.  We learn that humans need to hear those simple words – “You did a great job”.
• Failure to Trust – When first taking on a leadership role, there’s always a strong “pull” to be involved in every decision, or to want to “sign off” on literally every dollar spent or contract signed.  Until we learn that trust is an essential part of great leadership, we are doomed to overwork and a huge misapplication of time and talent.
• Failure to Mediate – Every organization will have conflicts, whether it is person to person, or department to department.  Successful leaders learn that stepping into the breach to resolve them, rather than standing back or ignoring them, can avoid even bigger problems down the road, and build influence throughout an organization.
• Failure to Fire – Nobody likes to fire anybody.   It’s one of the toughest things a leader will ever do.  But when you know in your gut it’s time to cut the cord, cut it.  Don’t wait.  Your gut will usually be right.  The failures here are a lesson to the heart – it can’t get in the way of these decisions (but it certainly can come into play in the manner in which it is handled).

Remember this lesson from the baseball diamond:  You don’t have to bat 1,000% to be successful, but when you swing and miss, get out of the box, think, and then learn before you step back in and hit that home run.

Lead well!

Post written by Terry Starbucker

HOW LEADERSHIP AT HOME AFFECTS THE REST OF LIFE

Have you ever heard—or asked—questions like these at work? “Who dropped the ball?” “Why can’t that department do its job right?” “When will we find good people?”

These questions lead us into the dangerous traps of blame, victim thinking, and procrastination—ones that leaders work hard to avoid while on the job.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/jhorrocks

But what if the person asking these questions was also a parent and later returned to their family, asking: “Who made the mess in here?” “Why won’t he ever listen to me?” “When will my spouse help out more?”

Once again, they’ve slipped into a same dangerous trap—but now at home. And in doing so, this mom or dad has taught their child to ask lousy questions such as: “Why aren’t my friends nicer to me?” “When will my teacher give me a break?” “Who’s going to pay for my college?”

Then, the child becomes an adult and finds employment. Soon this person can be found at the water cooler huddle, whispering: “Who’s going to solve the problem?” “Why do we have to go through all this change?” “When is someone going to train me?”

And the problems of blame, victim thinking, and procrastination remain deeply embedded in our society, while a lack of personal accountability persists in our world.

Is it possible that when people at work blame and whine, it’s because they were taught to do so at home? And that these dangerous ways of acting and thinking were modeled for them—by mom and dad?!

Leadership begins at home. Until Mom and Dad choose to practice personal accountability in their lives, not much will change—anywhere.

The working parent who laments the degeneration of society while complaining that younger employees “lack work ethic” fails to understand this: Societal problems, which include all the problems found within our organizations, are rooted in the family.

The unaccountable parent who goes to work and criticizes others for acting entitled, fails to ask, “Am I creating entitled children at home?”

The mom or dad who fails to lead exclaims, “The finger-pointing in our world is a terrible thing!” but does not look inward with the question, “Am I raising children who blame their teachers when they get a poor grade?”

And then there is the parent who asks, “When will my daughter start getting her homework done on time?” but models procrastination at home with the words, “I’ll do it later.”

Parents who are leaders know this: Modeling is the most powerful of all teachers. Dads and moms who accept the mantle of home leadership accept that they—not sports stars, pop culture icons, or Hollywood celebrities—are the role models for their kids.

These are “no excuses” parents. They don’t blame the famous for the “poor example that they set” and would never employ the grand parental excuse: “My child didn’t turn out as I’d hoped, because he got in with the wrong crowd.”

Leadership at home is captured in this statement: My child is a product of my parenting.Any other view of parenting is irresponsible folly. Excuse-making is never part of a leader’s world.

Moms and dads who really grasp that victim thinking is a disease spread from parents to kids—that blame is taught and caught, and that procrastination is learned—know what will happen should they fail to fulfill their job at home.

It is no surprise that we’ll reap a weak workplace where salespeople whine, “I missed my sales goal because our pricing is too high!”, employees lament, “Why doesn’t management do more for us?”, and colleagues point fingers, saying, “Nobody cared about the project as much as I did.”

My wife, Karen, and I have seven children ages thirteen to twenty-nine—six girls and one boy. The youngest three (all girls) are adopted.

Here’s what we believe: Parenting is a learned skill. It’s a developed capability that responsible parents purposely strive to acquire.

Understanding the critical nature of parenting, moms and dads who are leaders ask what we call “The Question Behind the Question,” or “QBQ.” Here are some QBQs that parents who lead ask:

• “How can I be a more effective at home?”
• “What can I do today to set a better example for my child?”
• “How can I learn new parenting skills?”

This is leadership. This is personal accountability. And it all begins at home.

Written by John G. Miller http://qbq.com/