Don’t Catch the Vapors

Don’t Catch the Vapors - Bad meetings aren’t hard to recognize and the results feel even worse. They’re unfocused, resistant to participation, consumed with a single idea, or saturated with indecision and insecurity. What are these vapors I reference - Answer me this how much time is wasted on meetings weekly 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%?

I have a conference call…and while we are on these critical calls we multi-task and miss the areas of contribution then you hang up and uncertain of what you committed to do during the meeting – therefore perpetuating the vicious cycle.

Sometimes I walk out of meetings and think to myself..."I can never get that hour back in my life". Meaningless meetings cause other problems, too, like the “concussion effect.” That’s when people leave a meeting drained, dazed and confused, instead of excited about the work they’ve just discussed, everyone is exhausted  - “Vapors”.

Run meetings where participants actually participate - consider alternatives, solve problems, make decisions, or assess mistakes and successes to further the divisions or group’s overall improvement. Focus on daily operations or on strategy. Separate the two, since strategy often gets neglected because it doesn’t seem urgent. Shorter, more regular meetings on operations and initiatives will keep focus.

I use a phrase constantly, “it is all about the pre-game”, and its focused on being prepared for anything.  This is about being prepared to contribute during a meeting - what do you need to do differently?  Take responsibility and commit to participate and surpass the expectations of the meeting planner.  One other suggestion is when you get a meeting notice why not make recommendations to control mood, drive desired behaviors, and create focus around knowledge sharing and collaboration.  These motivational elements will build momentum and drive towards outcomes. 

Get out of the vapor and focus on meaningful interactions that move people forward.

Breaking Bad - Squash Silos & Tribalism

Breaking the Silos & Tribalism – Big surprise silos exist, so what can we do about it? there are nuances of personalities, defensive plays, insecurities and operational inefficiencies. Rather than boiling the ocean of industrial psychology, six sigma and leadership skills, let's think about the problems it creates - restricted knowledge flow, diminished creative power, reduced outside focus and enabled hiding places that conceal real problems. 

"Breaking down silos… requires looking inside yourself and asking whether your mindset plays a part in propping up the silos.”

Eliminating silos isn’t easy. Target specific groups, and even people within those departments, to help you dismantle barriers, streamline goals, and make improvements.  Let’s get out in front through dialogue and direct conversations with other regional or national leaders.

Consider your own organization - The ultimate goals align, high-level, but methods vary. What if they teamed up with the leadership team to talk about what “stakeholders”, really want and how to accomplish it? Figure out what activities would make the biggest difference and highest impact in your day-to-day work. Call a meeting to air your differences honestly and to learn a few good things about each other. Then, face the problems individually and focus of the perfect remediation. Skip the details at first. Instead, find common ground for what might happen if you work together. Ask provocative questions and choose one project as a test run.

If you can’t get everyone together, try your own “influence plan”, none of the planning tools in the world will help you achieve your vision if all you do is shuffle around the same old tasks and approaches.

Considerations for your personal and leadership brand (as a leader help drive this individually), by finding people inside the organization to persuade. Get to know them personally and to understand them at work. Your influence will grow. As you share information, your work will become more effective and trust is established – hint this aligned with our effectiveness in storytelling.

Overthinking, Leadership and Curiosity

I think there is a tendency to overestimate and overthink the moment we are living in.  The pace of change in everything we do is faster than it used to be and we are often overwhelmed by what everything means. How can we balance multiple expectations and meaning across different stakeholders and priorities? 

Personal leadership is focused on five key elements:

• Simplify, simplify, simplify

• Improve discovery

• Seek out clarity through curiosity

• Balance transactional support with innovative value delivery.

• Be, and work with people that are interested and interesting.

Leadership and personal leadership is a fluid process of influence, enabling value creation through simplification, discovery, curiosity and commitment.

Strategic Mindset and Goals

A strategy is not a strategy unless it creates action.  Organizationally a strategy is different from vision, mission, goals, priorities, and plans. It is the result of choices stakeholders make, on where to play and how to win, to create long-term sustainable value. 

How can a strategic mindset help focus your actions?  Every year goals are documented and thought about for a brief period of time.  A strategic mindset helps to shape your goals and actions but more importantly it creates a certain level of creativity.

Challenge convention of what will change versus what will not change.  Ask yourself in terms of your stakeholders what you will do differently in supporting them this coming year.  You can start by asking what needs to be different then proceed on identifying where you need to change.

What is your strategy? Apply to your daily outlook on your professional and personal life.

Attitude is Everything, Crush Negativity by Thinking!

Personal Brand – Attitude is Everything

Attitude is everything in how you shape your character and personal brand.  How does your personal brand impact the organization, individuals and yourself?  Discover your own potential for leadership. There is so much literature on branding, brand you and other aspects of personal branding out in the web sphere, but I recently found one statement that clearly articulates personal branding in one sentence. I found the biography of Margaret Thatcher interesting in her development as an individual and leader.  One of her many quotes relate to your personal brand and your attitude.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become”.

I have used the statement moving from “complaint to commitment”, so much of today’s business climate and corporate culture is based on who care more about feelings than they do about attitude, thoughts and ideas.  Create a learning environment that moves past mediocrity and focuses on the commitment of thinking, new ideas and positivity. 

When You Can Control or Influence the Negativity

When you can control or influence the situation, use a systematic problem-solving process with the affected employees to improve the identified areas of negativity or complaint. Do this as quickly as you can to determine that negativity exists.

·         Identify any aspects of the situation that you can impact including providing feedback in your organization about the negative impact that is occurring. Sometimes you can influence an issue or a decision if you practice personal, professional courage and speak your mind.

·         Listen, listen, listen. Often people just need a sounding board. Be visible and available to staff. Proactively schedule group discussion sessions, town meetings, "lunches with the manager," or one-on-one blocks of time.

·         Challenge pessimistic thinking and negative beliefs about people, the organization, and the work area. Don't let negative, false statements go unchallenged. If the statements are true, provide the rationale, the corporate thinking, and the events that are responsible for the negative circumstances. Share everything you know about a situation to build trust with the workforce – take the emotion out and drive with facts.

·         Ask open-ended questions to determine the cause, and the scope of the negative feelings or reaction. Maybe it's not as bad as people think; maybe their interpretation of events is faulty. Helping people identify exactly what they feel negatively about is the first step in solving the problem. You can't solve a fog of unhappiness. Help people create options, feel included, and feel part of the communication and problem solving.  

If the negativity emanates from an individual, as a manager or performance leader you can:

·         Inform the employee about the negative impact their negativity is having on co-workers and the department.

·         Take the emotion out of it and use fact - use specific examples that describe behaviors the employee can do something about.

·         Avoid becoming defensive. Don’t take the employee’s negative words or attitude personally.

·         Focus on creating solutions. Don’t focus on everything that is wrong and negative; focus instead on creative options for positive morale. If the person is unwilling to hold this discussion, and you feel you have fairly heard her out, end the discussion.

·         Focus on the positive aspects and contributions the individual brings to the work setting, not the negativity. Help the employee build their self-image and capacity to contribute.

How is your Personal Brand contributing - Recognize Your Potential Part in the Negativity Cycle

·         Know yourself well enough to recognize internally when you are becoming negative.

·         Become aware of work situations in which you typically find yourself becoming defensive or negative. Because you are aware of them, try to recognize when you are reacting and avoid your typical negative reaction.  

·         Take a time-out or walk away by yourself when you have dealt with a stressful situation.

·         Spend some time alone thinking every day about the positive aspects of your work and life. You don't want to spend all of your time focused on negative thinking. If there is nothing positive to think about, examine the life and the brand you are choosing to create.

·         Learn to grow and create a learning environment. Focus on the big picture; don't get bogged down in the day-to-day.

As I have stated in other posts, “control is an illusion”. Recognize that the only thing you are truly in charge of is how you choose to react to and in any situation.  How are you going to breakthrough the clutter of negativity and let your personal brand shine with optimism?

Not So Happy with Happy with Average?

Leadership has often been governed by the aspect of control.  Good leaders elevate their personal brand through influence.  Control is an illusion that elusive for people seeking dominance over a situation.  Influence requires education, empathy and motivation. 

My leadership brand is focused on pushing people to achieve goals they did not think were possible – both as an individual and a group.  This drive emanates from my passion to break through the norms and desire to work with only the best.   The way I characterize the best people and you know this as well…to work with people that are interested and interesting.

The people that are happy with average invest their passions in other aspects of their lives.  I have been using the term “transactional” more than I should over the past two years, but ultimately it relates back to the concept of being happy with average and the acceptance of mediocrity.  Leaders and people of influence need to exude their personal brands to squelch mediocrity and drive people to achieve extraordinary things. I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people, you don’t have to coddle them.  When you change the culture through your personal brand and leadership style – influence can surpass your own expectations. By expecting your friends, peers, direct report to do great things, you can get them to do great things – it is all in the attitude and perceptions of your brand.

Managers I have spoken with in multiple organizations over the past several years bear witness to the proliferation of mediocrity. Managers are so polite that mediocre people feel comfortable sticking around – something that I call a country club atmosphere.  This is not about being abusive in your management style, but to shape your personal and leadership brand based on influence.

Answer some of these questions:

• What does your personal brand stand for as a leader?
• Do you recognize that every interaction you have either builds or erodes your personal brand?
• Are you skeptical of your own ideas?
• Do you surround yourself with skeptical people to push your own thinking?
• Can you simultaneously look at the big picture and also sweat the details?
• What behaviors do you need to add to your personal brand arsenal to become an influential leader?

Push yourself with passion and focus and watch your personal brand flourish as a leader. In most of life’s endeavors, characteristics like passion, persistence and self-discipline are much more important than “just checking the box”.  Learn to loathe mediocrity by pushing yourself with a no limits mindset.

A Connected World means A Connected You

A Connected World means A Connected You

It’s no secret that social media is intuitive, global, interactive and most importantly real-time.  Based on this context it is changing behaviors with consumers, individuals and groups spanning personal, government, business, consumer and social networks.  With the power of the real-time communication affecting behaviors there is an overwhelming case for how your personal brand is being fueled.

People need to seize the social media social for five reasons.

• Virtual advocacy of your own brand, driving authentic messages 24/7
• One stop shop - Increases the speed of connection simultaneously with friends, peers, professionals, customers, and the broader public.
• Real-time mean increasing your speed to market on your brand presence.
• Low-cost and low barrier to entry - build your personal brand, communicating who you and what you stand for are both within your personal and professional networks.
• Transparency – Allows you to define who you and consistently shape you brand by providing a platform to learn from instant information, transparency and sometimes brutal feedback.

Branding, Engagement & Learning – Foundation to your Brand

Social media (as defined by social media website Wikipedia) are “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.”

Now that you understand the benefits of developing a social media presence, where should you start?

It helps to look at the two areas of social media activity when building your personal brand—personal and professional. Additionally building your brand through key messages; engagement on key topics that drive your brand and learning from feedback and key themes in how you present yourself.

To formulate your personal brand’s social media strategy, you need to answer the following sets of questions:

• Are your goals personal, professional, or both?
• Do you have similar views or different views between how you want to present yourself in the two areas?  
• Think about the three areas of social media: branding, engagement, and learning, what you are hoping to achieve in each?
• What are the characteristics of your brand will drive authenticity?

The answers to these questions can help you choose the right combination of content, platforms and channels decide how much time to devote to each to build you brand.  Social is about connections, meaningful and relevant connections so continuity is important to fueling your brand.  Once you start you must continue the virtual advocacy of your brand.  Breakthrough the clutter and make a name for yourself.