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Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Leadership

An Organizational Attitude Checkup

It happens often – this is just a recent example.

I was leading a workshop with leaders across an organization, and the question came up about attitude. Specifically, I was asked several questions that, paraphrased, were basically this:

I have some attitude issues on my team – how can I improve the attitude of my team?

In the discussion of this issue in the group, I noticed a lot of discussion about “those people” and “the whiners and complainers.” Please know that I’m not picking on this group. They are smart folks who are serious about becoming more effective leaders.

I too get tired of whiners and complainers. These people are energy-draining, but this isn’t just an issue of being pleasant or comfortable.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

We know that when people are whining, complaining, disgruntled, frustrated, and cynical, they can’t possibly be as productive (or happy) as they could be. And we know that their attitude and thinking is like a virus – it is easily caught by those around them.

How much of this virus is present in your organization, on your team, and in your office? In other words, how prevalent is this virus in your workplace?

And more importantly, is this the virus you are spreading?

If any negativity exists at all, what you are doing to combat it, lessen its impact, or exterminate it completely?

Because it all starts with you.

If you don’t think or believe that it starts with you, then I would bet a big check that you are probably spreading the wrong virus (whether you know it or not).

If you take your role as a leader seriously, you must think about your attitude regularly. I know that we are all human – mistakes happen and bad things come to pass. Many things occur that frustrate us, and perhaps make it easier for us to be in a foul mood.

Yet, if you want to lead in the best possible way, you need to keep that stuff to yourself. Or find a place (away from your team) to share it. An occasional burst of venting - identified as such to those around you - may be OK. It can actually help others to see you as human. But as a leader, you must refrain from ongoing complaining, harping, whining, etc. It is not only a detriment to you, but will be spread throughout your team faster than you can imagine.

Bluntly put, if you don’t have the attitude on your team that you want, look in the mirror. Your example is what people are watching. And any chance you have of giving others feedback on their attitude will be pretty ineffective if you aren’t living what you are asking them to live.

If you don’t like whiners, make sure you aren’t one before lamenting about the problem.

Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

A Fail Safe Formula For Success

The area of a circle? ∏r2.

Translating Fahrenheit to Celsius? Take the Fahrenheit temperature, subtract 32, multiply by 5, and then divide by 9.

We have learned all sorts of formulas in school. The beauty of these formulas is the certainty they provide. We know that if we know the formula and have the correct inputs, we can compute the correct answer. Presumably, as adults we are using these formulas to solve a problem and move us towards something we desire.

Our weekly newsletter is called Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential (if you don’t subscribe, join us here and get a free gift). Because of this, people often ask how they can do that, and how they can help those they coach and lead do that as well – translate their potential into results. The answer is a broad one, yet I have striven to give a good partial starting point for an answer – with a formula.

This formula will help us because if we can identify the inputs and use the formula correctly, we can improve our performance, and provide greater service to others, as we reach towards our potential. This also becomes a crucial formula you can use as a coach to help others reach their potential too.

The Inputs

The inputs to this formula are:

Results – The endpoint of the efforts – our reality, based on the formula.
Expectations – Those things we expect of ourselves.
Beliefs – What we believe to be true about ourselves, our skills, abilities and potential, and our world.
Actions – The behaviors we exhibit and the things we do.

Here is how these factors interact: Expectations build beliefs. Beliefs drive actions. Actions create results.

The Formula

So let’s turn this interaction into a formula: EBA=R

As written, it looks like it is a formula that uses multiplication. In a way it does – if you have a zero in any of the first three inputs, there will be no change to your results. However as we all learned in math class, in multiplication you can complete the formula by multiplying the factors in any order – that isn’t the case in our formula – in this case it all starts with expectations. In other words, the multiplication must be done in order to make sense.

Anything Else?

This formula works all of the time, but if you want new or different results, you have to change the expectations part of the formula (or raise that number) to start building the new results you want.

But I know, because you are reading this article, you have that desire, so we can move onward …

An Example

Let’s say that I see a friend and they tell me they just ran a 10K race. I tell myself, I could do that – I expect that I am capable of running a 10K race. The more I think about this race, telling myself that I could do that, the more I believe my thoughts. My belief and expectations begin to create an excitement which leads me to start running. Even when I realize how out of shape I am, my expectation and belief pushes me to run a little more every day.

Along with my running, I do some other things – I ask other runners about their preparation plans, I pick up a book at the store or library to learn more about running technique, I ask the knowledgeable sales person in the store about the proper shoes to buy.

Expectations and belief fueled action, and now the action is reinforcing the belief as well. My running expectation has snowballed! I build a plan to compete in a specific 10K race and then complete it.

At the start of this process, when I put this expectation into my mind, my body wasn’t capable of making the 10K – maybe it wasn’t capable of making it to the mailbox! But the potential was there latent, waiting to be unleashed. I unleashed the potential by having positive expectations which created belief which fueled action which led to me crossing the finish line of the 10K race.

EBA=R.

Be Aware …

It is important to note that this formula works for any expectation – positive and uplifting, or negative and cynical, so be careful what you expect.

It is equally important to recognize that you can use the formula to help others unleash their potential as well. Your positive expectations and encouragement of them will help generate their own expectations, which allow the formula to work. In fact this formula is critical to your success as a coach of others.

In Closing

If we fervently expect something will happen, then we develop a belief, a true expectancy about that event or circumstance. When we believe, we will take action on those beliefs. And the right action, as we all know is required to create new results. EBA=R.

Use this formula for yourself. Set your expectations higher! Reinforce those expectations by thinking about them regularly. If you couple that with true belief, you are on your way.

Why not start today?

photo credit: stuartpilbrow via photopin cc

Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

Dealing with Toxic Attitudes

A few weeks ago I was driving down the road and was searching the radio for a new station. It stopped and a hit from my kidhood came across the airwaves.

“One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch girl . . .” (If you are old enough to remember the Osmonds and this song, it is now stuck in your head and I’m sorry. If you don’t know the song, here is a link to it if you are curious)

And after hearing it, I began thinking about the premise for my new teleseminar – One Poisoned Apple . . . Transform Toxic Attitudes and Keep Negativity from Infecting Your Workplace. If we do it right, the single bad apple of attitude doesn’t have to spoil the whole team or department. But if we don’t do it right, bad attitude can spread quickly.

Because the truth is that attitude is a contagion in any group of people. And if we aren’t spreading the one we want, we may end up with a rampant negative attitude virus on our hands.

Debbie Downer. Negative Ned. Gloria Gossip. Tom Troublemaker.

If you have someone whose behavior could earn them that nickname and you don’t know how to help them get past it, or if wonder what you would do if you had some of these behaviors, join me on July 17 at 1:30 ET as we talk about the causes of these behaviors, how to coach people through them, and much more.

If you struggle with these types of behavior in your organization, and don’t want it to spread, join us – you will leave inspired and with practical tools to help you create the attitude you want in your organization.

You can get a complete description and registration information here.

Coaching & Developing Others, Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

The Core of Accountability

People often want to talk to me about accountability, and how to create more of it (mostly, that part of the conversation is about other people). Today’s quotation is a favorite of mine, and helps us put all of this in proper perspective.

Questions to Ponder

– What can I do?

– What have I got?

– How might my results be different if I followed this admonition?

Action Steps

1. Survey your current situation, thinking about the opportunities surrounding you.

2. Notice challenges, but focus on what you can do, not what you can’t.

3. Do something (anything).

My Thoughts

We all get dealt situations and circumstances. They might not always be what we wished for or even feel we deserve.

That’s life.

If we follow the advice of the 26th President though, we will get better results, regardless of our circumstances. If you follow the action steps above, you will stay out of a victim mentality, and focus on what you can do – and there is always something you can do. Being accountable means realizing that there is always something you can do. Yes, there are many things we can’t control, but we might be able to influence nearly everything around us. Taking that approach gives you a much better chance of success.

Look at what you can do, then do it.

Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

Communication Lessons From the Sony Walkman

This week in 1979 the Sony Walkman was introduced. Sony’s fortunes boomed. It changed the way we listen to music. And all these years later there are lessons we can learn from this ground breaking product.

No this isn’t a marketing post, or a cultural post, this is all about communication – and what we are (too often) missing.

The Walkman provided the first mobile way to have a truly personal listening experience. The combination of a small package, headphones and lightweight cassette tapes allowed people to take their music (and audio) everywhere, and tune out the world around them.

And the recording industry took notice. A wider variety of music became available, and producers of educational materials created more and more audio learning materials (including lectures, “books on tape” and more) to feed the hunger of the Walkman.

With such a powerful and game changing tool, one would think that all of these factors and innovations would lead to better communication, but 34 years later, one could argue that less true communication is happening than ever. While it isn’t the “fault” of Sony and its Walkman, there are factors that point to tools like it contributing to the demise of communication effectiveness.

People can’t listen if they are somewhere else. I am reminded of this often as I drive with my children (14 and 21) in the back seat of the car. I can talk to them. They are physically there, but communication can’t happen because the ear buds/headphones in their ears mean they are really somewhere else. This of course isn’t a phenomenon of just my kids – but of our culture. Just because people are in the room, doesn’t mean they are listening; yet often we assume they are. “I don’t understand, I told them in the meeting,” is the siren song for passing the communication responsibility off to the listener – and we know it doesn’t work that way.

People are more distracted – and less able to focus than ever. Because of the awesome tools at our disposal, we have more things to be distracted by than ever, but this point goes far beyond that. Because we are so used to putting things in our ears to listen to – we have more trouble than ever focusing when our ears are open. The headphones take us away with the music or message, but without them we are subjected to the cacophony around us, and we are less skilled at focusing on one message at a time.

Just because it is recorded, doesn’t mean people will listen (or understand). Speakers, trainers and educational providers thought the Walkman was the ticket to increased learning. Then they thought the same with the CD, and the MP3 player. Just because you create the message, doesn’t mean people will hear the message – even if they buy it, and even if they hit the play button.

The audio recording isn’t the full communication anyway. The Walkman gave easy access to audio communication anywhere, yet audio alone limits our ability to communicate. We all know that it is easier to communicate face to face than over the phone – the spoken word alone doesn’t always communicate our message. The Walkman seduced us to thinking that a recording would do it all for us – and the remnants of that belief are everywhere.

One way communication is limited. This is an obvious statement, and the Walkman wasn’t designed to create two way conversations, yet because it so powerfully and easily impacted one-way communication, we sometimes forgot this (very) important point. Which leads to the next point . . .

Asynchronous communication is more limited than we realize. We live in a world with so many tools for communication – many of them that separate the time and space between a message being sent and a message being received. While these tools are very helpful to us in many ways, we often live with the mirage that communication has occurred. Don’t believe me? How often have you said, or heard things like: “I sent them the email” or “Everyone just needs to watch the video we produced” or “I texted them”? Asynchronous, all.

….

While this post may seem cynical so far, all of these facts can be turned around individually if not culturally. If you want to be a more effective communicator, read on . . .

It all starts with something we all know, but too often, as proven by our actions, we forget.

True communication isn’t (just) about sending a message – however well prepared and carefully crafted. True communication doesn’t happen in a vacuum – it requires engagement in some way by the receiver. True communication is message sent, and message received.

The Walkman gave us a tool for sending and receiving, but we gave it and its electronic cousins too much credit and got lazy in our communication.

The best thing you can do as a communicator is focus on getting your message received. Check for understanding more often. Ask more questions. Focus on how you can engage the listener at a deeper level. Make the communication relevant and meaningful to them. Doing those things will make all the difference.

Put on your iPod (the Walkman’s great granddaughter), listen to some soft music and think about how you can become a more effective communicator. Then take out your ear buds and practice your “message received” skills – because message sent isn’t enough.

Coaching & Developing Others, Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

Do You Have a Hero?

Did you have a hero as a kid?

Do you have one now?

I’m guessing you had one as a kid, and at some level I am hoping you have one (or more) now. I’m not talking heroes in the sense of “worshiping the ground they walk on” – but heroes in the sense of people you look up to because of characteristics, traits, or skills that you wish you had a bit more of.

A healthy appreciation of the skills of others is a great source of learning, as today’s quotation so elegantly reminds us.

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” – Voltaire

Questions to Ponder

– Who do I look up to?

– What did/do I appreciate about them?

– What can I learn from them to help me reach my goals?

Action Steps

1. Spend time identifying the traits you appreciate about one of your “heroes.”

2. Determine why having more of that trait or skill would benefit you.

3. Observe them carefully to learn how to apply the trait or skill.

4. Practice!

5. If possible, talk to them directly about it, ask for coaching and say thank you.

My Thoughts

One of the most powerful ways we can learn is through observing and learning others. There are risks associated with the worshiping part, and challenges when we get defeated or deflated because we feel like “I can never be as good as they are.” I call this the comparison trap and I have written about it before.

As long as we avoid the trap, there is much power in observing and learning from others. The five simple steps above, applied consistently will help you grow in any area of your life – and faster than you might imagine. The steps don’t just have to be used with a hero, but with anyone whom you appreciate in any particular area of life. The goal isn’t to be perfect (they aren’t, anyway) and the goal isn’t to become a mini version of your hero. Rather, the goal is to uncover your best self by learning from the example of others.

Coaching & Developing Others, Leadership

The Truth About Attitude

Most everyone would say that attitude is important – even those who would admit theirs isn’t as positive as it could be.

And most people who know me would say that I am a pretty upbeat, and positive person. In fact, some have said I was as positive as anyone they’ve known (and I was even called Pollyanna once).

Given the general world view, and the general consensus of MY world view, this might seem like a strange or obvious lesson to share. Actually, though, perhaps because my inclination is towards the positive, this post is even more valuable and instructive.

You see I write this post not because of my predisposition towards a positive attitude, but because of my observations in working with individuals, teams and organizations over that last 25+ years. Those observations lead to these four truths about attitude.

Attitude is a habit. Habits are things we do without thinking – natural responses. In most cases our attitude is like that – we have a positive or negative attitude based on our recurring habits, not based on anything else.

Attitude is highly valued. Ask any successful business owner or leader and they will tell you. While attitude can be learned, they would rather teach technical skills than attitude. Those who have a positive attitude alone are valuable. Those who have technical expertise AND a solid positive attitude can change the world.

Attitude affects everything. Your attitude impacts your performance, the performance of those around you, your ability to lead, your health, your confidence . . . I could go on, but I hope you get my point.

Attitude is a choice. This one is the most important. Regardless of your habits. Regardless of your circumstances. We can choose our attitude. And the choices we make will affect everything else (as the other truths tell us).

This is one of the most valuable things I have learned in my business – If you want to be more effective, productive and successful, choose an more positive, proactive attitude.

And for more resources, join me July 17 for my teleseminar, Just One Poisoned Apple…Transform Toxic Attitudes and Keep Negativity from Infecting Your Workplace. I’ll give you practical techniques and skills to transform the toxic attitudes in your team or at your workplace – resulting in productive, positive and valuable employees. Learn more and register here.

Coaching & Developing Others, Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Leadership, Organizational Leadership

Five Ways to “Romance” Your Long Term Customers

Last week, I gave you a metaphor to consider – the idea that we romance Clients or Customers to get them (like a first few dates), but after they are Clients, we tend to focus less attention on them (like 10 years after the wedding).

If you want to avoid this tendency, both personally and organizationally, here are five ideas to get you started. You will come up with additional ideas yourself as you read. Let’s not waste any more time. . .

Listen more. No distractions, no agendas. Just listen. No next sales pitch, no sharing your plans. Just listen. People are truly listened to so rarely that when you do, it will stand out (that’s one reason why you do it early on in a relationship). Recognize that you may not know everything about their business and situation. Close your mouth, open your ears, and listen to your Customers.

Respond quicker. Quick – which phone calls and emails do you respond to first . . . the new (or potential) Customers, or the long term ones? While we likely want to be responding quickly to all of them, if your honest answer was “the new ones,” you might want to re-think that. Can you tell if someone is taking you for granted, even just a little? Yep, so can your Customers.

Say thank you. Just like your Mom taught you. You are grateful for their business, right? Think it, say it, and mean it.

Find other ways to help them. When you know their business and needs better, there are likely other ways you can help them; referrals you can make, connections you can forge. Don’t make these all about making another dollar. Make it all about the Customer and their success.

Find ways to delight them. After all, isn’t delight what you are trying to achieve in the dating process? Isn’t that the goal – to become such the obvious choice that they wouldn’t want to pick anyone else? While all of the four suggestions above may actually provide a sense of delight in and of themselves, think about what else you could do. Could you occasionally send a small gift of thanks? Could you offer a special bonus to them? Could you provide a service at no (or low) cost? Could you offer them first option at new services? Could you provide them with a sneak peek of what is new? You could do most if not all of these things, and 100 more, “just because.” Yet, you likely don’t.

I hope you see the power in these suggestions – that simply deciding to focus on your Customers and letting them know they matter to you is the first step towards greater Customer retention and better (and better) Customer relationships.

As a leader, start applying these ideas, and expecting them of your team. The results might be more immediate and broad reaching than you realize.

Leadership, Personal & Professional Development, Teamwork & Collaboration

A Forgotten Ingredient to Creative Success

This coming month, members of the Remarkable Leadership Learning System will be focused building their creativity skills. These are of course important skills for leaders to possess – both for them personally and to support the creative ideas of the rest of their team.

Think about it this way – as leaders, we are trying to help our teams achieve new goals and reach new targets. We are constantly attempting to produce more at higher quality and greater profits. All of this implies that we must do things new ways, because, as Einstein famously stated, doing the same things and expecting new results is insanity.

So as leaders, whether we have thought about it this way or not, we must be creative and we must encourage our team to think creatively if we want to reach our goals.

Hopefully this is leading you to ask this question . . . so how do I help people (including myself) be more creative?

The question is a big one, and I couldn’t possibly answer it completely here – but I can talk about one piece of the puzzle that is overlooked. It is a piece that anyone can apply and there are things anyone can do immediately to improve their creative output.

But first, a story.

In 1948 George de Mestral took his dog for a walk in the woods. When they returned, the dog’s coat and George’s pants were covered with burrs. As an amateur inventor, George took the burr off his pant leg and examined it under a microscope. He quickly saw all of the small hooks that enabled the seed-bearing burr to cling tightly to the tiny loops in the fabric of his pants.

From that experience, and much trial and error, we now have Velcro.

What is missing from most people’s conception of creativity is raw experience.

Steve Jobs said, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences.”

If creativity is connecting things, the more things we have to connect to, the more fodder for creativity that we have.

So how can we use this insight to create new ideas in our workplaces every day?

Here are five ways to get started.

Give people time to make connections. Connections take time – so create that time. One of the big mistakes that leaders make is to put people in a sterile conference room and expect them to come up with brilliant ideas, on demand. Why not give people time to let their brains work on the problem, by explaining/defining the situation and then asking the question below . . .

Search for connections. When solving a problem or looking for creative ideas, ask people what this situation reminds them of in their life experiences. This strategy opens people up to more than focusing on the specifics of the problem and let’s their brains search for those connections – and it is OK if they come from really strange places – the goal here is the resulting idea, not to analyze where the connection came from.

Create connections. While you are trying to solve a particular problem, keep that idea at the front of your mind. Consciously look for connections between everything you are doing, watching, and reading to your problem. When you put your problem front and center in your mind and consciously look, you might be surprised at the connections you find. But to super-charge this idea in the short and long term, make sure you are doing the final piece of this puzzle . . .

Create new connections. This is the meta idea of this article. If creativity is about making connections, then to be more creative we need to experience more diverse things. Sitting on the couch watching TV every night won’t cut it; nor will reading the same magazines, attending the same conferences, and talking to the same people at work. Make it your strategy to consistently put new inputs in your life experience. After all, if George and his dog don’t go for a walk in the woods, we still might not have Velcro.

There is more that could be said about these steps and that doesn’t need to stop you! I’ve given you the outline and basis for these steps, and now you have permission to realize the creative potential that exists inside of your existing life experiences.

The cool thing about this list is that none of it costs you (or anyone) any money, it is available to everyone, and it is even fun. Let’s see…free, easy and fun – that sounds like the start of a great strategy to me!

Coaching & Developing Others, Leadership, Personal & Professional Development

The Truth About Accountability

I love today’s quote, so I am going to get right to it. Read it carefully. Read it twice.

“Ask more from yourself! This is the real key. Ask what you can do to help. Ask what you have to offer. Ask what you can contribute. Ask how you can serve. Ask yourself how you can do more. Ask your spouse how you could be more helpful, loving or kind.”

– Larry Winget, speaker and author

Questions to Ponder

– What can I do now?

– How can I contribute?

– How can I lead with personal accountability?

Action Steps

1. Expect more of yourself today.

2. Ask yourself the questions above each day for the next week.

My Thoughts

Several conversations I had this week concerned accountability. The interesting thing about most of these conversations is that the focus on how to get other people do be more accountable (or trying to understand why others aren’t). As I listen to people lament and ask, I want to hold a mirror up to their face and ask, how can you contribute? What can you do? How can you change the situation?

This is exactly Larry’s message.

Remember that we have more ability, capability, and potential than we realize, and usually, we have more influence than we give ourselves credit for. None of this will materialize until we take responsibility.

Take it.

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