Lessons Learned and Joy Gained While Writing 500 Posts on Leadership and Management

December 2, 2010 By 14 Comments

Several years ago, I set out to ride 1,000 miles in my limited spare time during a hot Chicago summer. It took me until October to complete the deal, and the sheer anticipation of the accomplishment served as a powerful driver.  Of course, all along I had visions of that final leg including the cheering crowds and the glass of champagne, much like the final ride down the Champs Elysees at the end of the Tour De France.

What, No Champagne?

Needless to say, there was no Champagne, and the only cheers that I received were from my wife and my one son who I convinced to ride with me on the last mile. We counted down the blocks on the odometer and stopped to commemorate the spot where my goal was achieved. And then we rode home and I cut the lawn.

The reality of that endeavor was that it helped me get in great shape, provided a remarkable outlet for stress and became a core part of my life during that one season. The last mile was never the real driver…it was of course the journey and the effort and sweat and adventure of getting there and the satisfaction of completing the journey.

Much like that season of bike riding, for some time now, I noticed my blog post counter moving ever closer towards the 500 mark recently, and this post is in fact number 500 for me at this site.

While I never set out to blog with any numeric goal in mind, somewhere during the past three years, what started as an experiment has become a part of me; an involuntary reflex, much like breathing. When I started this management and leadership writing odyssey, I had no idea what a profound impact it would have on me as a person and as a professional.

Treasures Gained Along the Way to 500 Posts:

  • The new friends and colleagues I’ve met during the journey are priceless to me. I am truly honored to have met and to regularly carry on discussions with some remarkably intelligent, kind and passionate leadership and management thinkers and writers.  I learn from you every day. Thank you!
  • The act of writing is no longer something that is discretionary in my life. I’m incapable of reading or talking or listening and observing without wanting to translate ideas and insights into words here on the blog.  Many of my friends are familiar with my frequent interjection into conversations, “That would make a great post. May I write about it?”  Hey, I cannot help it if I see and hear blog posts in just about every conversation.
  • The personal/professional development benefits have been tremendous. In order to write, one has to study, learn, reflect and synthesize ideas and alternative viewpoints. While I cannot quantify the impact that this effort has had on me intellectually or practically, I perceive that I’ve worked hard to develop myself, and the discipline of writing fueled the development.
  • My learning style has changed…or, perhaps emerged. As Drucker highlighted, some individuals learn by reading, some by writing, some by talking, some by listening. I most definitely learn through the act of writing.
  • I now recognize that writing is darned hard work. I recognize how difficult it truly is to develop competence as a writer. I also recognize how far I have to go in this area. I’m well on my way to my 10,000 hours of deliberate practice and hopefully, some modicum of confidence. Now for the editing and proofing part!
  • Making even a small difference in someone’s life makes this worthwhile. The ultimate reward for this type of lonely effort comes in the many, many notes that I’ve received over time from individuals offering that something in a post made a difference for them, either at work or in their personal lives. The occasional impact…helping someone along the way is why we do this.

Renewal of My Blogging Vows:

I’ve been consistent in describing my intentions with this work from day one, and I’m comfortable that they are still relevant and important…at least for me.  My vows include:

  • Strive to offer ideas and insights that promote effective, ethical and values-based leadership practices.
  • Push the envelope on management practices and management thinking. In my own small way, I want to help find the way forward for leaders and for organizations, in what is a fascinating and complex new world.
  • Contribute to the development of a new generation of effective leaders.
  • Plant seeds of ideas to foster change and improvement and to help people realize that they can be the difference makers in their organizations.
  • Have a lot of fun during this journey.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Unlike my bike-riding endeavor, I have no preconceived idea on how many posts I will write. It may be five more or five thousand more.  We’ll have to see how long it takes me to run out of ideas.

Thanks for your readership and for keeping me honest  and true to my blogging vows!

Yours most sincerely in leadership and management innovation,

Art

Filed Under: Career, Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth, Values Tagged With: , , ,

Mid-Career Professional-It's Time to Push Out of Your Technology Comfort Zone

January 18, 2010 By 2 Comments

Help!It’s easy to step out of sync with the modern world and find yourself lost in a sea of terms, tools and technologies that are foreign and even intimidating.

I’m working with more and more mid-life individuals interested in reinventing themselves in new careers, and I’m finding that a fair number of them are wholly unaware of or just plain frightened of the ever-increasing array of tools and media for networking, communicating, learning and collaborating.

I empathize with these individuals a great deal.  If you’ve been laboring somewhere in mid-management for the past few years and you’ve become accustomed to the tools of your job, chances are you’ve not been pushed to understand and embrace the new methods for connecting and communicating.

You’re to be excused for the moment if you find Twitter silly.  After all, who wants to know what you’ve had for dinner.  And what’s the big deal with blogging?  I hear you when you are quick to indicate that no one cares what you have to say.  And why would you share your Rolodex of contacts with the world on something like LinkedIn?

Yes, I empathize with you, and now you must get to work!

WAKE UP!

In this most competitive of all environments, it is easy to become technology road kill somewhere on your journey to oblivion. Everything about this world is different now as compared to when you graduated college.  If your degree date doesn’t have a 2 as the first digit, chances are you are technologically obsolete.

While I am by no means a technology whiz kid, as a 48 year-old professional, I’ve forced myself to learn a host of technologies that I now incorporate in my practice everyday.  Two years ago, I wondered what blogging was all about, and I’ve been thrilled to reach thousands daily at my Management Excellence blog.

Two years ago I wondered how anyone could have a good education experience in an on-line setting.  I’ve now taught on-line courses at the MBA and undergraduate levels and recently launched this site and business, Building Better Leaders, to offer on-line professional skills development blended with personalized mentoring.

I’ve met some of the greatest professionals of my career via blogging and twitter, and I’ve learned that the old world of marketing along with old style marketers now belong to the ages.

If I can manage a good part of my professional life from my iPhone and engage thousands daily via a variety of social networking tools, you can certainly bring your skills and knowledge up to speed.

Some Guidance on Joining the Modern Era

  • Find some favorite blogs and discover RSS and feed readers. Don’t know where to look for a blog?  Visit Alltop.com and Guy Kawasaki will help you.
  • Got something to say?  Sign up for a free wordpress or blogger blog and experiment.
  • Get a twitter account, but don’t sign up and then do nothing. You have to build a profile, seek out people that share your interests and engage them in discussion.  I know people that signed up and then gave up because nothing happened.  Of course, they didn’t put anything into making something happen and the outcome was predictable.
  • Build a professional profile on LinkedIn and help past colleagues and customers find you.  Learn how to use the power of LinkedIn for professional networking and brand building.  Again, you have to provide input to get output.
  • Sign up for an on-line course and learn how to use the tools of a Learning Management System and the benefits of adding the vast resources of the web in real time to the learning experience.
  • Sign up for a Building Better Leaders course and discover the power of on-line learning plus professional mentoring! (Shameless plug, but it’s true!)
  • Buy and use a PDA or mobile phone with the ability to access the internet and to take advantage of applications.  Hint: they’re not just phones anymore.  They are pocket computers.
  • Buy a Mac and discover how enjoyable and powerful and stress free the digital experience truly is.

The Bottom Line for Now

If you are fearful, take baby steps on the above and build your confidence.  Beware of the potential for the wrong technical activities to suck you into the black hole where time moves on but you don’t. Focus on gaining new skills to help advance your education, build your brand or network your way into a new job. And in the process, you’ll enjoy almost catching up to your kids!

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Fresh Voices: Two Posts that Can Improve Your Day and Your Life

June 18, 2009 By 2 Comments

Still reeling from my losing battle with the apologetic sales rep from Big Telco, I went searching for solace and inspiration from the many great writers that I follow. Two posts from two professionals in very different fields stood out as particularly thought provoking and inspiring.

Grab Control of the Negative Beliefs and Perceptions that Are Holding You Back!

The first, “How to Do (Almost) Anything and Feel Good Doing It,” is from Mary Jaksch of the Goodlife Zen blog. I featured one of Mary’s posts in an earlier Fresh Voices column a few weeks back, and I’ve made it a priority to keep current with her work.

As you might gather from the titles of the post and blog, Mary offers up inspirational and thoughtful content intended to motivate and encourage. In a world filled with an over-abundance of bad news and seemingly unconquerable challenges, we can all use a good dose of what Mary has to offer.

This “How to” post offers up some outstanding and thought-provoking ideas on grabbing control of our negative beliefs and preconceptions to start focusing on thinking and doing the right things. Mary offers a nice roadmap and some great advice for dealing with our demons, establishing goals and moving one step at a time towards those goals.

While you might be rolling  your eyes, thinking, “I’ve heard this all before,” I know more than a few people that are struggling in their personal and professional lives that will benefit from having Mary as a guide.

The Self-Development Power of Blogging:

The second post is entitled “9 Hidden Benefits of Blogging” and comes from someone that I hold in high regard, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame. John is the author of the great book, Duct Tape Marketing and he runs a successful business, website and coaching network that share that same name.

Note from Art: if you are in business, the book is a must-read and his website is chock full of remarkable resources and suggestions.

While one might think that the topic of blogging is old news, I still find that a good number of friends and family and way too many professionals that I encounter (all non-bloggers) either don’t understand the medium or don’t see the value of participating. Sadly, many of these individuals have some great insights to offer and the world would be well served by hearing from them. Many have lumped blogging into that uncomfortable category of something that people do in pursuit of over-night riches and instant internet fame. Those perceptions are very wrong.

John eloquently and convincingly highlights the professional and personal benefits that have accrued to him from a sustained approach to writing about marketing and business. This has turned out to be a powerful self-development tool for John as it has for me and can be for you.

John’s “9 Benefits” very effectively make the case that there is a great deal to be gained from challenging yourself to think big, write diligently and convincingly and sustain the effort over a period of time, whether you are doing it for an audience of 1 or 1 million.

–

Thanks to Mary and John for the great, thought-provoking and motivating posts!

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Performance, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Mind Your Knowledge Gap: Why Social Media is Essential to Your Career

March 13, 2009 By 10 Comments

This is a wake-up call to my mid to late 30 to 40 something (and older) contemporaries.  It’s time to figure out what all the noise is about social media and how to leverage it for yourself, your career and your organization.

It’s not going away.  It may change and morph, but there’s a whole new world of conversations and interactions going on and if you are not plugged in, you are tuned out and wandering aimlessly.

Do You Tweet?

If I had $100 for every conversation that included something like (with a tone of disdain), “Twitter sounds ridiculous.  Why do I want to know that someone is taking a shower or what they ate for breakfast,” I would be well on my way to recovering a few losses in my 401K. 

I’m two months new to Twitter and amazed at the quality of the conversations and the number of great professionals that I’ve met.  I’m also flabbergasted to think about the conversations, resources and talented professionals that I was missing out on prior to joining. 

Are You LinkedIn?

Or another exchange that I had with a brilliant and talented and dear friend the other day, “I only signed up for LinkedIn because I was looking for someone.  I hope this isn’t a mistake.” 

Sigh. Instead of a mistake, in the right hands, this is a remarkably powerful research tool and the most efficient way to-date to connect with and maintain a dialogue with former and current colleagues.  The only mistake is not to take advantage of it.

Thought About Marketing Lately?

I chat with many experienced marketing professionals that still view their jobs and their profession through the eyes of individuals that grew up and never left the teaching and prevailing wisdom of the 80’s. 

Meanwhile, Seth Godin (Tribes) and Guy Kawaskai (Reality Check) and David Meerman Scott (World Wide Rave) and others are serving up powerful arguments that the processes of reaching people, building visibility, building brands and establishing credibility are all different.   

The Younger Generation, Blogging and On-Line Learning:

As the MySpace/Facebook generation asserts itself in the workforce (see my post: In Hopeful Praise of the Millennials), the relevance of old approaches of working, leading and promoting will fade into history. 

In my own case, a mere two years ago, I wasn’t certain about blogging and the prospective value from the time it would take in my daily schedule.  Now, I’m a raving advocate for the medium as a means of establishing a dialogue with sharp people and for building your brand. The time commitment is down to less than one hour several times per week.  I’m also curious about what’s next.

I am an education junkie (and passionate about great universities and great educators) and love the chance to bring a heavy dose of pragmatism into my MBA classrooms.  I  was slightly cynical about the potential of on-line education and wondered what all of the noise was about. In following the old adage, “if you want to learn something, sign up to teach it,” I did.  Three times. 

Once you rethink and acclimate to the communication dynamics, the potential to integrate on-line and live education is remarkable.  In my hybrid class (one week face to face the next on-line) in Project Management this past winter, the on-line portion provided the ability to research and share perspectives much broader and deeper than any I’ve ever witnessed in a straight classroom setting.

The Bottom-Line For Now:

I’ll be back on this topic sometime soon. 

My advice to you or for your doubting colleagues is to show them the networking and research power of social media.  Highlight examples of brand-building and thought leadership development that cost nothing but time.  Showcase the savings from eliminating many interruption-marketing techniques in favor of the new approaches.  Invite them to Twitter and show them how to filter out the noise and focus on connecting with the many, many sharp people.

There are no silver bullets in life or business, but there are sure-fire ways to fail.  One of the best is to start acting like some of our parents and avoid what we don’t understand.  

Hey, by the way, join me on Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn.  The conversations are great. 

Now, if I could just figure out what all of the fuss is about Facebook.  I just don’t get it…

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Crisis Leadership, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Feeling the Economic Deep Freeze? Ten Actions that You Can Take to Thaw Out and Combat Your Blues

January 15, 2009 By 2 Comments

The thermometer here in Chicago this morning indicates that it is -12 degrees outside.  Fahrenheit.  That’s cold.  We get a deep freeze like this every winter, and it gives the local newscasters something to blather about for the few days that the world here looks like a scene from the movie, Dr. Zhivago.

As the economy continues to crumble around us, one of the common themes that I am hearing from people at all levels and in all forms of positions and professions is that they “don’t know what to do.”  Much like the weather outside, people are frozen in place.  Fear will do that, and it’s definitely not healthy.

The best way that I know to combat fear and unfreeze your mind from the “what might happen” or “what just happened” mentality is to start moving by taking action. Actions generate energy, push out the negative emotions and provide hope.

Here’s my randomly generated and in no specific order list of 10 ideas for anyone seeking to thaw-out and start moving forward in spite of the sub-zero headwinds.  This list is good for anyone…employed or unemployed.  I’ll be back in a future post on things to do in the workplace while the rest of your colleagues are frozen in fear.

1.  Don’t Preoccupy on the News-it’s mostly bad. It’s amazing how traumatizing it can be to have the “nattering nabobs of negativity” (thanks, Spiro Agnew) blathering on incessantly about how bad things are and how much worse they might be in the coming months.  Turn it off.

2.  Update your professional resume/cv

This seemingly onerous task feels great once you get going.  For many, the resume is a core marketing tool, and the intellectual effort of thinking through where/how you created value for your organizations serves to remind you that you do have something good to offer prospective employers.

Get help with this task if you need it.  Ask colleagues and former managers to review a draft and provide you with ideas and feedback.  Use my recent posts: Marketing Yourself, The Irreverent Opinions of a Resume Hobbyist and Marketing Yourself Part II: Defining Your Professional Value Proposition to jump-start your process.

3.  Jump-start your networking activities.

For business professionals, LinkedIn is a great tool to facilitate this task.  Creating your LinkedIn profile is a natural part of the resume update process, and developing your list of former and current colleagues will help you recognize how many people you know.  Not everyone is on LinkedIn however, so don’t restrict your communication activities to just those that you find in this environment.  (For those of you out there that would like to connect, click here to go to my profile and send me a note with your invite.  If you are new to this tool, I will be happy to offer my two cents worth on using it effectively.)

Remember that networking works best if you give more than you get, so carry this philosophy forward by helping others connect with colleagues in your network that might offer help. Start reaching out and connecting with people.  Most actually appreciate the contact.

4.  Read or listen to something by Seth Godin.  Seth is a popular marketing author and guru, and every time I read or listen to Seth, he reminds me that many of our most ingrained patterns of thinking are just plain obsolete.  Spend some time with Seth and stretch your brain a bit.

A great starting place is the recent podcast: Seth Godin Thinks You’re Boring, that Seth conducted with another of my favorite and provocative gurus, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. Seth and John help you make sense out of some powerful new approaches to thinking about the world, about marketing yourself and about competing in this environment.  He’s got a new book out: Tribes, We Need You to Lead Us, and I expect to finish it this weekend.

5.  Do something physical.  Hit the gym, chop some wood, clean the basement, paint a room, or do anything else that gets you moving. (Yep, that too.)  You will feel better.

6.  After doing something physical, start a blog. I’ll agree with Seth here.  I don’t care if there are 190 million blogs worldwide.  The act of setting up a blog and the discipline imposed by writing and publishing regularly will change you for the better.  Drop me a note if you want some ideas on getting started.

7.  Figure out how to leverage Twitter for business purposes and send me a note. OK, this one is a bit self-serving, but I am new to Twitter and while I find it exciting and fascinating and socially very cool, I have not yet cracked the code on this popular new form of communication.  Join and let’s “follow” each other and see where this thing takes us.

8. Sign up for that class that you’ve put off or get going on the degree. Tough times are a great time to get to work on improving your skills and advancing your education.  There’s nothing on TV you can’t record, you shouldn’t be Twittering and blogging more than a few minutes a day, so evenings are a great time to be in class or on-line in a class.

9.  Volunteer. Someone in your community needs help. Your school, your library, your church or the many shelters and nonprofits.

10.  Connect with people in person. Limit your time on the computer and increase your face time with real people.  It’s too easy to sit behind the screen in this world.  Find a networking group, join or start a book club, attend an occasional seminar.  Push away from the keyboard.

The  Bottom-Line for Now:

Do something.  Anything.  Stop worrying, start taking action and success will breed success.  Maybe my list will prompt some ideas of your own.  If that happens, remember to share.  Pay it forward.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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