Thoughts on Your Personal and Professional Success in the New Year
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leading Change, Performance, Professional Growth
Hang out with really smart people and teams and some great lessons can’t help but rub off on you.
I was truly gifted in 2011 to gain access to and work with and support some remarkable professionals across a number of different market segments…from high tech to professional services to manufacturing, and I learned something with every engagement and encounter.
Here are Six Lessons Learned that Can Help Us All in the New Year:
1. It’s Critical to Think Deeply About Your Business: Strategy still counts. The strongest teams/firms I observed are the ones who took the time to step-back and evaluate their situation and rethink their futures. And then back all of that lofty thinking with action, learning and adaptation.
Call it what you want…I call it strategy work…and done right…asking and answering tough questions and then backing the ideas with key hypotheses and experiments is the corporate equivalent of a continuous fitness program.
2. Operational Myopia Guarantees Mediocrity (or worse): Conversely, the firms and teams mired in the muck struggled to get beyond the endless operational discussions and move towards the tough questions that help assess the current state and begin to identify options for the future. Yeah, everyone needs to make sales in the here and now. We all know that. Adding in the work of thinking about and adapting your business in pursuit of better serving customers, finding new customers, extending into larger growth areas or more attractive categories takes that extra level of discipline that separates the big winners from everyone else.
3. Leadership Counts. More than ever…and not just at the top. High performance firms have an unrelenting focus on developing people who can think critically, lead others to challenge convention and stimulate people to provide their best results. And given the past decade or so of leadership failures, people are quick to sniff out and mentally discard the disingenuous leaders. If you are leading others, you need to bring your “A” game, and the game isn’t about you…it’s about everyone else and what you can do for them!
4. Behold The Rise of the Integrator Leader: individual contributors who embrace the role of integrator…bringing together disparate groups and resources to solve problems are the future formal leaders in organizations. We are all well served to view our own roles through the filter of the new integrator leader. Build your network(s) internally and externally and learn to connect networks in pursuit of solving problems.
5. Diversity is a Strategic Asset to Build Competitive Advantage: While we predictably and annoyingly gravitate to those who act, think (and yes, look) like us, the true opportunity for greatness is in bringing together people of disparate backgrounds, ethnicities and ages and setting them loose to change something significant. The best leaders get this. The rest are still mired in the misguided thinking from another century.
6. If You’re Not Learning, You are Failing. Learning is more important than ever. The top performing professionals are learning everyday in the workplace (through experimentation), are pushing themselves personally to continue to grow in their respective fields, are filling classrooms and demanding more from an old and mostly broken educational system, and leveraging technology and unparalleled access to information to expand their thinking. There are no time-outs allowed when it comes to gaining and applying new knowledge.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The short form:
Strategy isn’t a four letter word. We all need to find ways to break out of the day-to-day crunch to assess and learn and plan. Leadership skills are more critical than ever…and the best and most powerful leaders might not have people reporting to them. Diversity isn’t just an H.R. initiative, and if you aren’t learning every single day, you’re moving backwards at an accelerating pace.
May 2012 be a year of learning, growth and professional success.
Best of Management Excellence: Trying Not to Fail is Not the Same as Striving for Success
Filed under: Leadership, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders
This post is excerpted from my collection: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. There’s a definite difference between focusing on not failing versus striving for success.
When we focus on not failing, fear rents most of the space in our mind, and we see monsters in need of slaying everywhere we turn. We lose track of the original vision that propelled our actions, and the sheer act of working becomes at best a passionless exercise and at worst, drudgery.
Lousy Leaders Thrive on Your Misery:
Sadly, many leaders provide fuel for the “don’t fail” machine through their actions. Show me a project team or functional group that exhibit all of the energy and passion of a collection of late-night television zombies, and I’ll guarantee there’s one or more tyrannical, micro-managing leaders at the source of the dysfunction.
The Scarlet “F
The “don’t fail” disease isn’t limited to the corporate world. I know small business owners and solopreneurs who have stepped into this gooey emotional muck during the past few years of economic unpleasantness. Instead of lessons-learned and fuel for problem solving and innovation, setbacks are worn for all to see as Scarlet F’s, where F stands for failure. Of course, what they forget is that no one can really see the Scarlet F’s unless they go out of their way to project them through their attitudes.
You Own Your Attitude:
Striving not to fail is like walking up to take your turn at bat when the only thought running through your mind is, “don’t strike out.” The last two words, “strike out” are all that you remember as you flail wildly at everything thrown your way.
If you’re caught up in an environment where an evil leader holds court, remember that you still own your attitude. While it’s not easy to escape the fog of uncertainty and doubt created by these characters, it’s unlikely that their attempts at mind control can survive in a pitched battle against your own good attitude.
If you are your own boss and you feel weighted down and exposed by the scarlet F’s you believe you are carrying around with you, it’s critical to rediscover the feelings of excitement, hope and opportunity that likely propelled you off on your own in the first place.
Rediscover or Reset Your Sense of Purpose:
Somewhere buried beneath the baggage and stress of the past few years, you had a sense of purpose that fueled your efforts. Whether it was providing for others or an intense desire to change the world, it’s important to scrape off the muck and recall that sense of greater mission.
Of course, we change over time, and what fueled us at one phase of life may not be so relevant at another stage. I know many people who have recharged their lives and their work as professionals by resetting their sense of purpose from a focus on success to an emphasis on making a difference for someone or some group.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
It’s easy to focus on failure. It’s a lot more fun, it’s a lot healthier and it darned well is a lot more inspiring to rationalize our efforts and actions and combat our demons in the context of our bigger purpose.
Those who focus on success see victory around every corner. They view obstacles and setbacks as minor challenges to be overcome on a longer journey towards something worthwhile.
No one can take away your sense of purpose, unless you let them. Focus your gaze clearly on the bigger picture and longer term, take a deep breath and then take the first step forward. You’ll quickly remember that steps taken with a purpose in mind are effortless.
Now, keep moving.
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Art Petty is a developer of leaders and a strategy consultant. Art frequently speaks on leadership and management, and his work is reflected in two books (Practical Lessons in Leadership and Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development) and over 1-million words published at The Management Excellence blog. You can reach Art via e-mail to learn more about his leadership development and management consulting services.
Best of Management Excellence: An Effective Leader’s Resolutions are Calendar Blind
This post is excerpted from my collection: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. As we head into the new year, it’s important to recognize that for the most effective leaders, every day is New Year’s Day.
I’m as guilty as the next person of finding the impending resetting of the calendar a cathartic cleansing, where the failures of the past year are suddenly washed away and replaced by the empty and unknown space filled with promise and time stretching out in front of us. There is something remarkably powerful and alluring about the chance to start-over, right wrongs and vow to do things right the next time around.
Resolutions start out as good intentions early in a new year and often end up as regrets later. At some point during the year, we cross a threshold where we mentally give up on the resolutions for now and resolve to succeed next year.
Full disclosure, I live in Chicago, where the saying “wait till next year” (Cubs) is slightly more commonplace than, “vote early and vote often.” Waiting until next year is a part of the genetic make-up for anyone born north of Adams Street.
Real Time Resolutions Are Performance Fuel for Effective Leaders:
As a leader, you cannot afford to fall victim to the boom and bust cycle of annual resolutions. Rather, your challenge is a daily one, requiring you to manage your practices and habits in a program of perpetual self-improvement. Of course, identifying the right improvements requires you to have a real-time feedback system and the ability to keep your ego in check while as objectively as possible processing the daily evidence on your own performance.
While the simple act of even contemplating the need to improve requires a great degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence on the part of the leader, remember, we are talking about effective leaders. Ineffective leaders are blind, deaf and dumb to these issues.
Eight Key Questions to Resolve About Your Own Leadership Practices:
1. How am I positively and negatively impacting the performance of my team members?
2. What are people telling me (directly and indirectly) about my performance?
3. Are people comfortable offering suggestions on how I can help?
4. How do people respond to me? Do they shrink or grow in my presence?
5. What is the quality of my various interactions? Are we tackling or skirting the tough issues?
6. Do people treat me with deference or respect?
7. Do my practices stimulate creativity or drive compliance?
8. Are there new ideas and suggestions for improvements flowing from the team?
Armed with insights and feedback, the effective leader strives to improve his/her performance daily, creating a kind of Leader’s Muscle Memory where good habits become ingrained and second nature and bad habits are constantly exercised away.
Rather than annual resolutions to improve, the time for reflection is during the drive or plane trip home, at night before going to sleep or in the morning armed with that fresh promise of a new day…not dissimilar from the promise of the new year.
Effective leaders operate with a constant sense of renewal, driven by an intense desire to succeed and to help others succeed. While not every effective leader thinks in the exact language and terms of the questions above, they do think in terms of the same issues. What’s working? What’s not? What can I do better?
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The great news about being a leader is that you control the ability to do the right things every day. Every encounter provides the opportunity to improve. No more “wait until next year” for you. Your next year is right now and every minute thereafter. Resolve to use those minutes wisely and leave no regret in your leadership wake.
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Art Petty is a developer of leaders and a strategy consultant. Art frequently speaks on leadership and management, and his work is reflected in two books (Practical Lessons in Leadership and Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development) and over 1-million words published at The Management Excellence blog. You can reach Art via e-mail to learn more about his leadership development and management consulting services.
The Joys of the Season
With my sincere thanks for your readership during this past year, I wish you nothing but the best during the holidays and for the new year. I’m taking some time with family and look forward to renewing our pursuit of management and leadership excellence in 2012!
A Leadership Christmas Carol-Bah Humbug to These Leaders
Given the state of things in our world, perhaps for just one season, Dickens’ ghosts can shift their attention away from Scrooge and focus on a few of those truly deserving characters hiding in positions of leadership inside our organizations and governmental institutions.
May these questionable characters (the alleged leaders, not the ghosts) gain a deeper understanding of the pain and suffering they’ve needlessly created during their time in the leadership realm. For those who see the error of their ways, perhaps it’s not too late.
For those who do not, well, we all know the story. May the weight from their chains grow heavier and increasingly burdensome as they forge their links one lousy leadership event at a time.
Scheduled for the Holiday Haunting List:
-Micro-Managers who consistently smother the spark of creativity everywhere they go.
-The My-Way or the Highway Leaders who never met an idea of their own they didn’t fall in love with and then ram down people’s throats.
-The Monologue Leaders who prattle on endlessly with orders and commands and just don’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion.
-Color Challenged Leaders-I: leaders who see gray in the face of black and white ethical issues.
-Color and Difference Challenged Leaders-II: those who make decisions about people for any reason other than focusing on qualifications and capabilities. Leadership must be color and difference blind.
-Leaders who squander public trust in pursuit of their own selfish goals. Oddly, many of these characters end up as governors in my home state of Illinois.
-Forgetful Leaders...particularly those who misplace a billion dollars give or take a few hundred million. (That’s you, John Corzine.)
-Elected Leaders who betray our trust by not solving problems..all in the name of ideology. Congress, anyone?
-The “I’s” Have it Leaders: those who use the personal pronoun “I” excessively. In particular, a certain President.
-Dump-Truck Leaders-anyone who backs up the feedback dump truck once a year and unloads everything on his people in one big load.
-The I Can Fix You Leaders-everyone who focuses on fixing us, not on promoting our development.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The list is growing long and the Ghosts of Leadership Past, Present and Future only have so much time to work their magic. May their efforts bear fruit as we look to the new year and a long list of problems in need of the best our society and our firms have to offer.
And yes, for those that don’t get it…Bah Humbug.
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Want More? Check out Art Petty’s latest book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. Created for fast-moving and highly motivated professionals and leaders, Leadership Caffeine offers more than 80 short, idea-packed essays for the critical leadership and professional development situations in your life. Ideal for leadership discussion groups. A great holiday gift for the professionals in your life!
- Single and Kindle copies on Amazon.
- Group and Volume orders, visit Marathon Books for the best service.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement or to inquire about being a guest on The Leadership Caffeine podcast.
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