Learning the Key to Success

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New World Order

There’s no doubt about it, we live in a complex world. And in this global economy it is important to be flexible; to be able to quickly respond to the changing demands of our society and our economy. Adapt to change or else. It’s the reality of the new economy – grow or die.

There is nothing in between.

The Learning Organization

The best way we grow is through continual learning. Peter Senge, in his book The Fifth Discipline, advanced the principal of the Learning Organization. Basically, a learning organization is one that engages all the members of the organization in continual learning. They recognize that as everyone learns, the opportunities grow through greater knowledge and capability. These companies invest in their people to move them and the organization forward.

Benefits of the Learning Organization

The result is a more empowered organization, one that is flexible enough to adapt, developing a mindset of creative solutions; it’s been proven that the more we learn the more creative we become. Employees collaborate more, there is improved employee morale, they are more productive, and you create an ongoing legacy, so that when the inevitable happens and someone moves on to another role, there is someone ready to step up into that role.

[snaptweet]Sustained success and profitability come from intentional continual learning. There is no substitute or shortcut.[/snaptweet]

How do we get started on becoming the learning organization we desire to be?

Just think DIME:

DAILY – Growth has to occur on a daily basis. I often talk about being a 1%er and this is what it is all about, growing yourself by just 1% a day. That doesn’t sound like much, but over time it compounds and at the end of a year you have grown yourself over 365%. As the saying goes, by the mile its a trial but by the inch its a cinch. This does not necessarily have to be formal learning every time. It could be something as simple as having the team reflect back on the day and talk about lessons learned.

INTENTIONAL – Too many times we chase the next SHINY OBJECT; the seminar announced in a mailing, a book or video someone recommended we get, without really knowing whether it meets our needs or the needs of the organization. Chasing the shiny object is not a growth plan, its a random series of events. We have to be more intentional about choosing the growth path that best meets our immediate needs.

MISTAKES – Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Give your employees permission to go out and make mistakes without fear of punishment. It is from our mistakes where we are going to learn some of our best lessons about how to move forward.

ENGAGED – Get engaged with this learning process. Encourage your employees to engage with one another so that not only do they learn from their mistakes but also from the mistakes of others. This can significantly shorten the learning curve and allows us to move forward at a much quicker pace to become the dynamic learning organization that is prepared for the future.

How are you learning? How often? How do you determine what you have learned? Share your comments below.

Discover Passion: Sing or Cry

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Hitting the Wall

Do you find yourself, or someone you work with, becoming a clock watcher? You know, waiting for the hands of the clock to point to quitting time so you can hurry out the door and do something exciting.

Why Do You Do What You Do?

It’s been said in various forms that runners run, writers write, teachers teach, and speakers speak. And they do it because they have a passion for doing it. They can’t imagine doing anything else. They can’t imagine not having that as a part of their lives.

You may remember the scene from the movie, Sister Act 2, starring Whoopie Goldberg. She is dressed as a nun and talking to Rita, a girl who is the best singer in the choir. Rita has quit, pretending like she didn’t care, even though it is quite obvious she loves to sing. Whoopie tells her “If you wake up in the morning, and you can’t think of anything but singing, then you should be a singer, girl!”

It’s passion.

Passion provides clarity, it helps us discern direction, and it fuels our actions. When we are passionate about something, we feel compelled to act towards it. The more that passion builds, the more we feel compelled to take action.

The opposite effect is, one that I have seen too many times in too many organizations, is people becoming passion-less. They have absolutely no passion for what they are doing and they become like the walking dead. In fact, John Maxwell said that passionless people ARE dead, they just haven’t made it official yet.

So remember this:

[snaptweet]No matter what your formula for success is, if it doesn’t factor in passion, it just doesn’t add up.[/snaptweet]

So how you discover or re-awaken that passion?

WHAT MAKES YOU SING, WHAT MAKES YOU CRY – Look at your daily or weekly activities. You will find your passion in either the things that make you shout for joy when you do them or the things the tug at your heart so much that you feel compelled to action. You will discover the little nuggets of passion inside these things.
WHAT’S THE END RESULT YOU DESIRE – What do you want to accomplish? In a business environment, that doesn’t mean job description or corporate objectives. It means what is the end result, what do you really want to see happen here?
For example, for me what I want to see happen is that I manage to inspire people and businesses to engage in continual, daily growth so that they become the best that they can be; they can realize their potential and become more effective and more profitable at what they do. And that drives me to do what I do.
WHAT CAN YOU LET GO OF TO DO MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO DO – While it’s true that passion fuels action, it’s also true that action fuels passion. The more you do those things you enjoy doing or feel compelled to do, the more your passion builds for them and the more effective you are going to become.

What about you? Share here how you feel about what you do and how you build your passion.

Six Keys to Happiness and 24 Hours of Happy

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Cuz I’m Happy!

You have mostly certainly heard it and perhaps seen it. The song from the movie Despicable Me 2 called Happy.

The song from Pharrell Williams became enormously popular. The video went viral on the Internet and there is actually a 24 hour music video web site called 24hoursofhappy.com. Go there and watch at any time of day or night. The site automatically detects your local time and cues up and plays a video of someone dancing and li

p syncing to the song. Different person and different surroundings depending on the time of day. It’s a neat little diversion.

What Makes Happy

When I ask people what they really want in life or in business, I hear a lot of the standard replies. “I’d like a better career”, “I’d like to make more money” (hear that one a lot), a better car, a better house, sometimes it’s even “if only I could find the person of my dreams”.

We have a tendency to assign our happiness out to other things and other people as if someone else or something else is responsible for our happiness.

Even when we know, or think we know, what we really need to be happy we let other things get in the way. We live in a world of instant gratification and so we sometimes take what’s right in front of us instead of what we really want or need to find our happiness.

Zig Ziglar said it best,

[snaptweet]The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want right now.[/snaptweet]

It’s Your Job

We have to take responsibility for our happiness. We need to take the necessary actions to achieve that happiness.

[snaptweet]Happiness comes in your reaction to the circumstances, not the circumstances themselves.[/snaptweet]

Work towards the happiness that you truly desire.

Take Responsibility for Your Happiness – Don’t try to delegate your happiness out to someone or something else. You and you alone are the determinant for your happiness.
Set the Right Priorities to Move Towards Happiness – We let things of the day interfere but when we understand what our priorities are, then that helps us make the decisions to stay on target and moving in the right direction. It creates focus.
Be Positive in Your Daily Outlook – Things happen every day that can be potentially negative. The positive thinker tries to find the good or benefit in every situation. It’s not sticking your head in the sand, it is simply refusing to anguish over what we don’t have and work with what we do have to create the best possible scenario.
Make Gratitude a Daily Practice – There is both research and anecdotal data suggesting again and again that a regular dose of gratitude leads to a happier life. In the face of all that, we often fail to show gratitude for what we have, instead focusing on what we don’t have. Each day, for thirty days, write down at least one thing for which you are grateful. It must be a different thing each day. That will build the habit of gratitude thinking.
Nurture Relationships – Happiness is built when we are in relationship with other people. Not one of us on the earth is built to be a hermit! We are made for relationships. That does not necessarily mean romantic relationships, but valuable friendships and even acquaintances that build us up and care for us.
Be in the Moment – Focus on the now. When we look back at what was or spend too much time hoping tomorrow is better, we fail to appreciate or fully leverage the moment we have right now. Wherever you are, be there with your heart, mind, and soul.

So, what’s your action plan? How are you going to move towards happiness? Share your thoughts here.

Listen Up! Leading Through Better Listening

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Talking is Not Listening

Have you ever been involved in a conversation and then 10 seconds later you couldn’t remember what they said or even if what they said was significant? It’s not uncommon; in fact, it happens to all of us on a regular basis every day. We hear, but we don’t really listen with the intent to understand or attach any significance to what is going on. But a little active listening can go a long way towards building successful relationships.

One of the biggest hurdles we have in communicating with others is when we fool ourselves into thinking that communication has actually taken place. We talk and we talk; we are pretty sure that we have gotten through, mostly because we have made sure we got our say in. And then we may listen – or more accurately we hear but we don’t really listen because we are busy formulating our response or we have simply moved on to the point we want to make.

Stephen Covey once observed that

most people don’t listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.

Our Own Agenda

Too often we are concerned with our own agenda than we are with achieving any kind of understanding in a communication.

As leaders, one of the most important things we do; whether we are a leader in the workplace, a leader in the community, or a even a leader in our home, one of the most important things we do is listen to others to achieve understanding. When we do that, we can help others reach their goals. When we help others reach their goals, then our goals become possible as well.

[snaptweet]Nothing shows love, respect, and esteem more than a careful listening ear. When we listen with others, we treat them with esteem and we able to achieve more because we build better relationships.[/snaptweet]

So here’s a few things that will help you become a more active listener today and achieve better results:

LOOK AT THE SPEAKER – I’m easily distracted and will be engaged in conversation while looking at a computer screen or something in the distance that has caught my eye. You need to take the time to focus on the person and you can do that easiest when you are looking at them.
DECIDE NOT TO REPLY IMMEDIATELY – Often we are too busy formulating a response to really hear what is being said. By deciding not make an immediate response, you free yourself up to listen and understand.
KEEP YOUR EMOTIONS IN CHECK – Once our emotions take over we often shut down and we are too busy reacting emotionally to really hear what is being said. The more you control that, the more you can listen to really understand before you respond.
ASK QUESTIONS – Even if you think you know what they are going to say, asking questions can help clarify things.
PROVIDE FEEDBACK TO UNDERSTAND – Paraphrase what the speaker has said and put it in your own words to ensure that there is shared meaning. If you got it wrong they will correct you and if you got right they will confirm it.

Chances are you have a meeting or will interact with someone today. Pick one activity to work on; for example, focus on looking at the speaker and dropping distractions. See how it works. How did it work for you?

Is Your Success Recipe Balanced?

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Recipe Disaster

One of the things I like to do to relax is cook. A couple of years ago I decided to make a special treat for everyone and I wanted to make a Caramel Flan for dessert. Now I had never made one before and so I had to find a recipe and follow it closely. One of the ingredients in the recipe was one cap (capfull) of Vanilla Extract. Well, I misread the recipe and thought it said one cup of Vanilla Extract. I thought that was extraordinary but the recipe must be right. So I had to run to store and buy more vanilla and added one cup of Vanilla Extract to the mix.

Well, as you may guess, the result was horrible. The smell and taste of the vanilla was so overpowering that no one could eat it and we had to throw it out!

I had the right ingredients but I didn’t have them in the right balance.

Seeking Balance

As an entrepreneur, as a small businessman, and as a leader we make those choices for balance on a daily basis. We recognize the importance of balance but it is very hard to achieve.

We need to keep things in perspective and understand first of all that you are never going to achieve perfect balance in our lives. There are always going to be things that happen daily that tip the scale one way or the other. No matter how good our plans are, life will get in the way of our quest to achieve balance.

What’s important to us is progress, not perfection.

Right Ingredients, Right Mix

A key to making progress is having the right ingredients in the right mixture.

The right skills in the right quantities
The right knowledge and information we need to make good decisions
The right spirtual foundation
The right team members around us
The right environment

Again, understand it will be a continual struggle. We want progress and not perfection. You will make balance choices each day and the scales will tip first to one side and then the other. The real balance is in the choices of how we spend our time and where it is most important to spend it now. Being consistent with those choices will help move us towards balance.

[snaptweet]

Don’t try to balance your life; work, home, church, community, friends. Instead, try to be consistent. Consistency seeks its own balance.

[/snaptweet]

Here’s a few things that will help you along towards making progress on achieving balance:

Establish priorities in advance – when your priorities are clear, decisions about where to spend your time become easier.
Gather an effective team – Without the support of people around you, you tend to view yourself as indispensable. When you do that, leaving work becomes harder to do. A good team gives you confidence.
Seek wise counsel to give you perspective – We all need someone to take our blinders off and see other points of view.
Find an accountability partner – Someone to help hold your responsible for your commitments. Someone who is preferably not your spouse or business partner.