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

4 Habits of World-Class Speakers

1. Practice, Practice, Practice

The best way to learn how to speak in public…is to speak in public!

Get as much stage time as you can.

The best speakers are the ones who got up on stage every time they could, made mistakes, learned from their mistakes, and then continued learning.

 2. Get Feedback

After your speech or presentation, get feedback from your audience members. Ask them for points of improvement. They will give you ideas on how to make your speech/presentation more effective.

 3. Record and Review

You can’t learn from your mistakes unless you know what your mistakes are.

I highly recommend investing in a video-camera. Buy one of the flip-cameras so that you can carry it to your presentations and record your speech.

After your presentation, review your performance: first, watch your performance with the sound turned off and analyze your body language. Are the gestures and stage movement appropriate and purposeful? Are there any repetitive and distracting gestures you could cut out?

Next, review your presentation by closing your eyes and paying careful attention to your voice. Do you have an appropriate tone, pitch, pace?

Finally, watch your presentation with both the sound and the video to see how both the visual and audio elements fit together.

As you go through this process, write down notes about what areas you can improve on next time.

 4. Learn from the Best

The most common element of the World’s Best Speakers is that they learned from the best.

If you want to be the best, you’ve got to learn from the best.

Get coaching. Read great blogs on public speaking. Read books on the art of public speaking and apply the principles you learn.

Keep speaking up, and be sure to subscribe to the blog for more tools, techniques and processes to help you become a world-class speaker.

Written by Akash