Why Leaders Are Learners – Part 3

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Rich Leaders and Learners

Tim Sanders was the third speaker at the L2:Learn-Lead event on October 10, 2014. Tim was the “Maverick CEO” of a company called NetMinds and is a former Yahoo executive and a noted author and speaker.

Tim’s emphasis was on People-Centric Tools for Leadership. Here are some notes from his talk at L2.

Talking about purpose, he remembered a book he read titled Working the Room by Nick Morgan. Nick said that the only reason for giving a speech was to change the world.

If you don’t want to change the world, then get off the stage. -Nick Morgan

Success is not a destination, it is a direction: FORWARD.

The Modern Leader Needs to be Able to Lead With

A Clear Mind

To Unclutter and Clear Your Mind

Reduce your sources of information. Own the first 45 minutes of your day and avoid email and social media. Spend the time in devotion and reflecting on someone who helped you in the past and think of someone who will help you.
Create a culture in the workplace that is upbeat and hopeful and action-oriented. Remember that culture is a conversation about how we do things around here.
A Clear Mind is an educated mind. READ DAILY books and periodicals of significance that help you grow.
Remember if you let your calendar get full you will be an ineffective leader. You need time to think; to be curious.

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, it killed the competition. -Sam Walton

A Creative Tendency

Most issues in a company are design issues, not people issues and need creative solutions
He has found that highly successful salespeople have creative projects within their life.
- Creativity = Problem Solving
Make NEW mistakes
Trust people
Policy is the scar tissue of an organization.

If you have to rely on policy, you need a corporate cultural change.

A Compassionate Way

You can only effectively lead those you love.
Treat everyone like family

Mentorship is a program of highly effective leaders, not HR

Learn to listen without power – give empathy

What I like about Tim Sanders is that I believe he “gets it”. Tim has learned that motivating through fear, dismissal, and non-emotional focus just doesn’t work for any extended period of time. Either people burn out or they become totally disengaged.

Work is personal.

You can’t spend 1/3 or more of your day in one place and not have it be personal. As a result, the rest of our lives are influenced by what happens at work and what happens at work is influenced by what’s happening in the rest of our lives.

If you want to create sustainable productivity and empowering employee engagement, as a leader you must spend time learning about your people. Their hopes, their dreams, their fears. You don’t have to solve their problems, in fact if you do then you are doing them a disservice; but you do have to know where they are and what’s going through their minds.

That’s how a modern leader achieves success.

What do you think? Is there a “fine line” between relational leading and task-orientation? What would be your two-word theme for how you lead?

Nurture The Success Around You

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The Animal Nature of Nurture

One of the benefits of living in Central Florida is all the attractions around here. One of the attractions, of course, is Sea World. Sherry and I love to watch the animal trainers work with the animals at Sea World. It’s really interesting how they can do so well with it. There seems to be a very special relationship with the animal and many a trainer will tell you exactly that.

Recently I discovered how they are able to work with them so effectively. When an animal trainer is going to work extensively with an animal, it is critical during a developmental time that the trainer spend one-on-one time with the animal.

They will feed the animal
They make physical contact
They talk to the animal and encourage it.

This nurturing, one-on-one time allows the animal and the trainer to build reciprocal trust. The reciprocal trust and the nurturing that allow the trainer and animal to be able to work together effectively and safely.

The Human Nature of Nurture

As humans, we aren’t any different. We need nurturing ourselves.

We are all desperate for people to recognize that we are significant
We want them to recognize that we have an impact.
We want them to encourage us
We want them to guide us.

We all need that.

Giving Nurture

The flip side is that we all have the ability to nurture other people, it doesn’t come out naturally. It has to be intentional and it has to be developed over time.

Why would I want to bother to do that in a business environment or as a leader?

When we are able to nurture people, we are able to connect with people. When we can connect with people, we can build our influence with them. When you can build our influence, then you can help them get the most out of themselves. That’s what we want to able to do as a leader or businessperson: get the most out of others.

[snaptweet]”People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”[/snaptweet]
John Maxwell

Here’s some things you can do to build those nurturing relationships:

COMMIT TO PEOPLE – you have to be committed to their development. It doesn’t mean you are an enabler, it doesn’t mean that you take over their lives; it simply means that you provide the circumstances and that you are committed to helping them help themselves if they are willing to take the steps to go in the right direction.
BELIEVE IN PEOPLE – If you don’t believe that they can become better or that they can achieve greater things, then you are not going to be able to get anything out of them because that belief will show through. Whether you believe they are worthless or believe they are worthwhile, it will show through in everything you do.
GIVE WITH NO CONDITIONS – Pour yourself into them and do it without setting any conditions. A lot of people thing that giving is a reciprocal thing; I do something for you and you do something for me. No conditions here. Go in and pour yourself into them simply because you want to see them get the best out of themselves. You will benefit in the long-run but you can’t go into it with the expectation of a tradeoff because there isn’t necessarily going to be one.

Four Steps to Building Teams with Inclusion

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Potatoes and People

Here’s a cool exercise you can use with your team or your company. I learned this with leader training we use for Boy Scouts.

You are going to buy a bag of potatoes (or gather rocks) and call your team or company together.
Hand each of them a potato (make a very solemn occasion of it. adds to the fun!)
Send everyone off by themselves for a couple of minutes and tell them to examine their potato and notice all of its unique characteristics.
When they gather back, you are going to ask each of them to introduce their potato to rest of the group. They can have a lot of fun with this – make up names and give it personality – and that’s all part of it.
After everyone has introduced their potato to the group, collect all the potatoes back in a bag and them randomly redistribute them. Then challenge everyone to find their unique potato.

It will be a lot of fun, but they will also learn something about Diversity and Inclusion.

Using Both Diversity and Inclusion

We hear a lot about Diversity and Inclusion these days but they don’t naturally go together in most organizations.

Diversity is all about recognizing and celebrating the differences in each of us. No two potatoes are exactly alike; they have different shapes, different sizes, different textures and skin colors, and even the placement of the eyes.

Inclusion means I can two or more potatoes together and even though each is a different size and shape and color; when I put them together they make a tasty meal. With inclusion in the workplace, we take the differences in each of us; the different skills sets and strengths, different backgrounds and attitudes, and we learn how we combine them together to be most productive for the team or the organization.

Many organizations practice diversity (mostly as a public relations mandate) but don’t practice inclusion. That’s a waste. It’s a waste of human resources, financial resources, and time.

Why spend the money hiring and training someone you aren’t going to make an integral part of the whole?

When we practice both diversity AND inclusion, then we have produced a team that is productive, effective, and profitable.

So here’s four ways to create your inclusive and productive team:

CONNECT WITH YOUR TEAM MEMBERS – As a leader, it’s very important that you connect with each person and get to know them well enough to understand their goals and their dreams. What they like to do and what they don’t like to do. Where they see themselves fitting in to the whole. A lot of times they may very well be right.
IDENTIFY STRENGTHS – Start with an assessment. There are lots of great ones out there, free and fee-based. If you’re not sure, give me a call and I’ll help. The important thing is you want to identify those strengths because that’s what we are looking to use. You don’t want to worry about weaknesses except in terms of how we can compliment that.
BUILD A STRENGTHS-BASED TEAM – Build your team based on the strengths of each person complimenting the weaknesses of other team members.
FOSTER CONTINUOUS GROWTH – You want to build a mindset in your team for continuous growth and improvement of their strengths. Continuous personal growth allows them to take the strengths that they have and making them stronger. They will be more effective for the organization, they are going to be happier as a result, your teams are going to be more cohesive and more productive and you are going to see the results in your bottom-line.

Zombie Nation Revisited – Engagement is the Cure!

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Are You in a Zombie Workplace?

Okay, it’s a little dramatic but it also brings to light a growing trend in the business world today.

Crashing economies, cutbacks, layoffs, and uncertainty leads people to become less engaged in the workplace.

Last year, I wrote about a Forbes magazine article that quotes a Gallup survey stating that over 70% of U.S. workers are less engaged in the workplace.

70%!

If that doesn’t shock you, it should! If you are a small business owner with employees, it should also scare you.

Your Business is in Danger

As a business owner, you are especially vulnerable to the consequences of dis-engaged employees. Teams grow divisive; managers treat employees badly; employees treat each other and customers badly; office theft goes up; productivity goes down drastically.

These people come and they go, they do the 9 to 5, they grow through the motions and do the minimum work to get by, and are not fully engaged.

Everyone loses.

LEADERS are to blame.

Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership -John Maxwell

Six Rules of Engagement

If you are a leader in your environment, here’s some things you can do to fix that and help prevent the zombification of yourself or your employees.

KNOW YOUR SELF – Too many times, people don’t realize THEY are the problem. You have probably worked for a leader who blames lazy employees, ethnic, racial, or generational cultures, bad economies, and a myriad of other reasons for why things aren’t going well. If you are a leader and your people aren’t following, YOU are the problem. Fix it.
GROW YOUR SELF – This is how you fix it. You can’t change them, you cannot change things like the economy or anything else beyond your control. What you can do is change YOU. Learn to become more optimistic, learn to develop the characteristics that you are seeking in employees. When I was a manager, I used to brag about how I made a point of hiring people better and smarter than me. That was so wrong. I couldn’t possibly do it. You attract what you are, not what you wish. If YOU grow, you’ll find yourself getting the kind of people you desire.
KNOW YOUR PEOPLE– Connect with them. It’s through relationships that people build trust, respect, and more like they are a part of things when they feel connected with you. When you can answer the three questions everyone asks in virtually ANY kind of relationship, then you can connect and influence them and they will become engaged. The three questions you must answer are:
- Do you CARE for ME?
- Can you HELP ME?
- Can I TRUST YOU?
FOCUS ON THE STRENGTHS – Yours and the people you work with. Focus on how you can best use the strengths they have to compensate for your weaknesses and help accomplish the company’s goals. That’s what a TEAM is all about.
REWARD THE BEHAVIORS YOU WANT – Not a lot of people do this. They spend more time rewarding they don’t like, but you want to spend time rewarding the behaviors you desire. Empower people, trust people, encourage people to accomplish the things you want them to do.
TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION – when necessary; which is not the same as impulsive action. Don’t react impulsively, take the time to think about the appropriate response and then take the action now. People will respect you more for taking considered, decisive immediate action than if you hem and haw or you are impulsive.

What are some ways you have seen organizations engage their employees?

Why Pollyanna Was Right – Positive Thinking

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How to Get Better Ideas

Who gets better ideas, the positive person or the negative person? A traditional saying is that “necessity is the mother of invention”; in other words, great ideas are spurred by need. On the surface, that seems negative but actually the opposite is true. Taking action happens from a positive attitude. The negative attitude simply sees the need but the positive attitude not only sees the need but also believes fully that there is a solution if they only look long enough and hard enough to find it. The negative person gives up, the positive person gives more.

I also believe BETTER ideas come from a positive attitude. The positive thinker is outward focused and sees possibilities in every situation. This ignites the thinking processes that want to find not just the easiest way but the best way and they will look at multiple options; not rejecting anything until they determine which will work best. The negative thinker looks for the easy way out, doubting that anything will work and why not choose the path of least resistance. This concept is born out in research, as I noted in yesterdays blog, Bouncing Back. The positive person is simply in a better position to see options and make the most effective choice. They are also more likely to execute it, which after all is the point. No solution works if you don’t implement it. Earlier in the week I mentioned a quote by Zig Ziglar that applies so well here:

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”

Pollyanna Was Right

Many people use the term Pollyanna-ish to denote an idea or person who seems to be unreasonably positive. This is based on the book and movie Pollyanna about a girl who goes to live with a relative in a town that is struggling and her constant positive outlook befriends everyone in town. Many see Pollyanna’s attitude as almost a head in the sand, ignore the bad things and look at the good things attitude and see it as non-productive and certainly not results oriented. So typically, referring to something as Pollyanna-ish is meant to be a derogatory term. I think the opposite is true. It’s not ignoring the situation, it’s simply refusing to accept it as final. It is always seeing possibilities. Being a Star Trek fan, I have to try and fit in a quote here from James T. Kirk (paraphrased a bit):

“I don’t believe in a no win scenario. I like to think there are always possibilities.”

A positive attitude allows you to reach high and overcome odds, it allows you to look for and see the best in people instead of the worst. It also means you EXPECT the best from people and not the worst. When you expect the best and make that clear in the way you treat people, most will go out of their way to live up to your expectation. Will some disappoint you and break your heart? Sure, it’s inevitable. But it is still better than expecting the worst in everyone else, treating them accordingly, and never being surprised or disappointed. Expecting the worst in others brings out the worst in you. Expecting the best in yourself and others creates a world of potential and possibilities that the worst can never bring you.

Think about your employees or colleagues in the workplace. Do you expect the best from them? Do you show that by treating them with respect, by giving them YOUR best? Do you make your expectations clear? How do you support them? Encourage them? Equip them? As soon as you believe in possibilities and show that daily, they will too and it will show as they strive to constantly meet your expectations.

Action Plan

Apply the thought “always possibilities” to a particular problem you are facing.
Think about how you can give your best to your employees or colleagues. Determine your first step and do it.
How can you communicate your expectations without being aggressive or offensive?