After watching the TED video in class, I wanted to research more about how better to motivate people by not just throwing money at them and calling it a day. I want to find new ways to motivate people to perform at their best, while keeping their sanity. I have a personal example of this. I have noticed a dramatic difference in a friend when he moved from one place of employment to another. The first place, everything was about money and using it as a motivator. He was miserable there because he just went there, did his work, for a paycheck. The new place, it is a much more fun environment and he is constantly praised and told how great it is to have him working there. He feels like he matters at this new place and he is more happy at work and has become more productive than ever.
I found a interesting article at Forbes.com that helps point out areas and way to make your employees productive and motivated without resorting to huge cash bonuses.
"Recent studies by David Rock, an executive coach, and Jeffry Schwartz, a neuroscientist, have identified several motivators that influence behavior more effectively than money. For one, people want to elevate their status. Organizations often assume that the only way to raise an employee's status is by a promotion, but status can be enhanced in many less costly ways. The perception of status increases significantly whenever people are given credible informal praise for daily tasks rather than waiting for annual results.
People are also motivated by having autonomy, but more money doesn't often equal greater perceived autonomy. In fact, you usually have to give up autonomy to rise up the compensation ladder. The real heart of autonomy as a motivator, however, rests with the perception that you are executing your own decisions without a lot of oversight or rules, which is hardly common in the corporate world today.
Similarly, feelings of relatedness and fairness are motivators. They are determined more by informal interactions, social networks and daily perceptions than by money or formal promotions.
This is not to suggest that money doesn't motivate. Certainly it encourages self-serving materialism. But those who rely on money as their sole or primary motivator are on perilous terrain, particularly if they ignore other more powerful and emotional sources of human motivation.
A few years ago we did research with elite military units that included the Navy Seals, the Green Berets and the Marines. Not surprisingly, we found that money is not what motivates an emotional commitment to such groups. We also learned that pride in daily training exercises was almost as important a motivational force as pride in the unit. And the Marines spend 75% of their military life in training exercises.
The Marines' boot camp takes 12 weeks while other services take 8. Those 12 weeks are devoted to exercises designed to inculcate the Corps' emotional values of honor, courage and commitment. During that arduous period, recruits are required to do all kinds of anxiety-producing things like leap off high towers, swim in deep water with full backpack burdens and run miles up and down hills.
Their drill instructors are master motivators whom they initially hate and fear. Before long those instructors become aspirational role models who breed respect, courage and commitment. A drill instructor is up at the crack of dawn before his recruits, works into the night preparing for the next day and changes his uniform several times a day. (He always looks the part of a Marine leader.)
To understand the emotional commitment that drill instructors engender, we conducted a focus group discussion with some eight recruits 10 weeks into their program. One of them was a young woman about 5 feet tall who weighed less than 100 pounds. She looked a bit out of place to us, so at one point we asked her what had attracted her to the Corps. Her impassioned reply remains a permanent fixture in our memory: "Gentlemen, the Marines make me shine -- every single day!" That is pride in one's work at its best, with money irrelevant."
I completely agree with her quote. Money can only go so far, but personal achievement and a sense of importance can last a lifetime. Money comes and goes fast and it feels like a rat race. Money causes people to be narrow-minded and forget what is really important in life. I want to work for a company that knows how important it is to encourage and praise their employees.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
How to Run a Successful Business
With graduation rapidly approaching, I have been wondering about having my own business. Not like a franchise, but a real business that is my own. I am not sure what the business would be, most likely something involving the automotive industry. I know how to start a small business because I already did in the past, twice actually. Once, was with my Dad, he became a broker, thus he started his own realty company. The second time was starting up a catering company with my sister, in which I ran every financial aspect and managed all of the staff. What I am looking for is how to be more successful when running a business. I constantly want to improve, and when you own your own business, you want to do everything necessary to make sure the company grows big and fast. While researching ideas and tips, I came across an article that discussed Sam Walton's book, ""Running a Successful Company: Ten Rules that Worked for Me." I remember hearing about this book and that many business owner are using his steps from the book. Here is an excerpt:
"Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.
Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.
Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.
Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, they'll know you really don't consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.
Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option
will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.
Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"
Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
Rule 8: Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.
Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer — we've ranked No. 1 in our industry
for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.
Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long."
These rule make complete sense to me and I believe that these are not all impossible to master. I want to make my business great and having these steps and rules in place, I know it can succeed!
Read more at PowerHomeBiz.com
"Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you — like a fever.
Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations. Remain a corporation and retain control if you like, but behave as a servant leader in your partnership. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It's the single best thing we ever did.
Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs. If things get stale, cross-pollinate; have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged. Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.
Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they'll understand. The more they understand, the more they'll care. Once they care, there's no stopping them. If you don't trust your associates to know what's going on, they'll know you really don't consider them partners. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.
Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option
will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune.
Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some humor in your failures. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm — always. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt. All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think, and it really fools competition. "Why should we take those cornballs at Wal-Mart seriously?"
Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines — the ones who actually talk to the customer — are the only ones who really know what's going on out there. You'd better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
Rule 8: Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses — apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: "Satisfaction Guaranteed." They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.
Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running — long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation's largest retailer — we've ranked No. 1 in our industry
for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.
Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long."
These rule make complete sense to me and I believe that these are not all impossible to master. I want to make my business great and having these steps and rules in place, I know it can succeed!
Read more at PowerHomeBiz.com
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Top 5 Tips from Management Pros!
I like to learn from people who have experience, seasoned experience in a subject. When learning something new, there is no one better to ask than the top staff on how to do a project or how the workplace functions. I recently found these tips on the management forums.
"Here's a list of Ten Top Tips:
* (M) Consult, consult, consult.
* (A) You are managing people, not projects or product development or customer service or any other departmental mission. People are complicated and messy. They aren't machines any more than you are; they won't be the same every day, no matter how much you'd like them to be. So stay alert to what's going on with them.
* (K) For the first couple of days, sit down and get to know your staff. Find out what they do, what their goals are, what they like to do in their free time, etc. Several years ago, I watched a new manager start with a company and for the first month or so, didn't talk to any of his staff. A month later, he wondered why people were handing in their two week notices.
Get to know your staff!!
* (R) Learn how to deal with problem or resentful employees. I was promoted into my position over a longer-term employee. She was made my assistant. (Before everyone raises the sexism issue, I was the ONLY male manager and was promoted on performance.) She had a great deal of resentment and worked against me at every turn. After floundering around for a while, I finally took her into the office and calmly explained the facts of life to her, that I was the manager and if she couldn't work with me one of us would be leaving and it wouldn't be me. She straightened out after that and we eventually developed a good relationship.
Avoid re-inventing the wheel. Everything doesn't require your unique hand-print. Some things probably work just fine already. Also don't think or act like you know everything, nothing breeds resentment more than arrogance. You may be smart, but there's always someone smarter.
* (MC) You are responsible for everything that happens in your scope of authority. Don't ever think that just because you may not be doing the actual work, you are not responsible---you *are*. Unless you are comfortable with this basic fact, management is *not* for you.
The rewards come at a price. You will have to make decisions that will benefit the company as well as your staff....and quite often they are in direct conflict with each other. (You cannot be all things to all people....)
You do have a right to be human. Just because you are now management, does not mean that you can (or should) throw emotion out the window.
Laugh with your people....let them know that you are not a humorless troll.
Be honest with your people...you expect the same from them. Even if it's bad news, honesty does help lessen the blow.
Defend your people! They will reward you with their loyalty."
Find this and more at the Management Forum ofAbout.com
"Here's a list of Ten Top Tips:
* (M) Consult, consult, consult.
* (A) You are managing people, not projects or product development or customer service or any other departmental mission. People are complicated and messy. They aren't machines any more than you are; they won't be the same every day, no matter how much you'd like them to be. So stay alert to what's going on with them.
* (K) For the first couple of days, sit down and get to know your staff. Find out what they do, what their goals are, what they like to do in their free time, etc. Several years ago, I watched a new manager start with a company and for the first month or so, didn't talk to any of his staff. A month later, he wondered why people were handing in their two week notices.
Get to know your staff!!
* (R) Learn how to deal with problem or resentful employees. I was promoted into my position over a longer-term employee. She was made my assistant. (Before everyone raises the sexism issue, I was the ONLY male manager and was promoted on performance.) She had a great deal of resentment and worked against me at every turn. After floundering around for a while, I finally took her into the office and calmly explained the facts of life to her, that I was the manager and if she couldn't work with me one of us would be leaving and it wouldn't be me. She straightened out after that and we eventually developed a good relationship.
Avoid re-inventing the wheel. Everything doesn't require your unique hand-print. Some things probably work just fine already. Also don't think or act like you know everything, nothing breeds resentment more than arrogance. You may be smart, but there's always someone smarter.
* (MC) You are responsible for everything that happens in your scope of authority. Don't ever think that just because you may not be doing the actual work, you are not responsible---you *are*. Unless you are comfortable with this basic fact, management is *not* for you.
The rewards come at a price. You will have to make decisions that will benefit the company as well as your staff....and quite often they are in direct conflict with each other. (You cannot be all things to all people....)
You do have a right to be human. Just because you are now management, does not mean that you can (or should) throw emotion out the window.
Laugh with your people....let them know that you are not a humorless troll.
Be honest with your people...you expect the same from them. Even if it's bad news, honesty does help lessen the blow.
Defend your people! They will reward you with their loyalty."
Find this and more at the Management Forum ofAbout.com
Thursday, March 25, 2010
5 Logical Action-Steps of Highly Creative Leaders!
I found this article very interesting and have seen rare leaders utilize similar actions. I want to be like them and use my creativity to be a better leader and help those follow my lead learn the same skills to be leaders themselves. I want to be more creative more often and this article has been helpful to me seeing how i can do that.
"How many times have you wondered why you are unable to "think-out-of-the-box" more often?
We are all products of our environment and our backgrounds usually prevent us from viewing situations with the unique eyes of our personal experience.
However, the leaders who think "out-of-the-proverbial-box" do so by incorporating what I like to see as a, Strategically Wise Synergistic Process of Creation.
These creative thinkers apply their own kinds of action-oriented logic to problems to help them find new wisdom, discover opportunities or see the facts in different ways.
In a word, truly creative types act differently, in ways that we'll call "Logical Action-Steps".
Logical Action-Step One: Achieve Understanding not Mere Reasoning
You want to find the basic or underlying meanings of the problems facing your group.
You could reason-out what is happening, by using your linear thinking skills to negotiate, analyze or plan your response.
For instance, you could notice that it is more chilly, by 15 degrees, this evening than it was yesterday at this same time which is certainly a reasonable observation.
Your could use your reasoning prowess to remember the cooling trend of last month's temperatures and conclude that it was windier and the skies much clearer [of clouds] for most of last night and today - therefore you would assume that it was those factors which contributed to a colder night tonight than it was last night.
Creative thinkers would aggressively investigate the weather by:
- intensely searching for answers,
- through disillusioning or transforming their pre-conceptions,
- looking within, around and beneath the conditions,
- recognizing and deeply understanding their core assumptions about the weather
Logical Action-Step Two: Seek The Strategist's Viewpoint
If you're like most knowledge-workers, you probably have a fairly extensive network of friends, colleagues, and associates. Your social network has been built over time through your individual experiences, efforts and encounters.
Strategists release the latent energies of their social networks through collaborative inquiries into finding new solutions, handling challenges and exploiting opportunities for transformation.
Thus by being the strategist you actively look for ways to create, leverage and extend synergy throughout your group.
You would want to set-up an environment or atmosphere of synergism where your team interacts and has processes or policies which encourage interactions in such a way so that the total impact of the group's efforts adds up to be more than the mere sum of their individual contributions.
Logical Action-Step Three: Engage in First-Person Research
Creative leaders make it a point to evaluate the progress of their own personal development - such as, the stages of growth and the legitimacy of each stage, they also assess their behavior and preferences.
Do you regularly or completely write down or record your thoughts, feelings and ideas? How much effort do you devote to keeping a journal, a diary or notes on your inner self?
Are you the type of person who looks for and analyzes the contradictory desires inside yourself or do you tend to notice a distinction between your desires and intentions?
What do you use to practice consciousness development or strengthening activities? In what ways do you structure your time to engage in meditation, martial arts, crafts or improvisational theater kinds of activities?
Logical Action-Step Four: Empower Their Shifts To Change
You can add power to your group through practicing techniques which enable people to discover the ideas, approaches and solutions hidden within them.
Effective leaders transform interpersonal activities into creative exercises. They orient their followers to focus on reflecting, learning, thinking, questioning, resolving, creating, discussing, debriefing, playing and interacting.
You would involve and join your stakeholders - partners, associates, peers, suppliers, constituents and others who might a part or vested interest in your venture - to build a shared vision with as broad a group of your stakeholders as possible.
Logical Action-Step Five: Capitalize on Wise Synergism
Perhaps you have heard of the principle of master-mind - it's where two or more people harmonize their thinking around a specific project or problem for the express purpose of forming a mind that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Great inventors and leaders like Thomas Edison, George Washington, Alfred Nobel and many others used their master-mind groups to generate fantastic innovations, policies and achievements for all humankind.
You can leverage the collaborative activities of your team through the strategist's approach to leadership. You can expand the time horizon of your strategies to encompass a range from 3 to 21 years.
The benefits that strategic leaders provide is that their groups enjoy opportunities to:
- Share their reflections on your mission and vision
- Openly disclosure, support and confront any differences between the organization's and their personal values
- Conduct corporate and personal performance appraisals
- Creatively resolve paradoxes or contradictions in productivity versus inquiry, autonomy versus control, and quality versus quantity
- Interactively develop self-amending and self-correcting structures
------------------------------------------------------------
You can multiply your creativity and creative leadership skills just by applying these strategies to all of your problems, situations and decisions.
Experts in psychology, management and organizational sciences call these strategies, "action-logic" - their studies reveal that professionals generally fall into one of three different behavioral categories:
1) Reactive - 5%
2) Preventive - 85%
3) Creative - 10%
This article has described the "creative" forms of action-logic - by using these strategies people will be moved to call you an "individualist", a "strategist" or a "magician"!
"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a "transformer" in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader." Stephen R. Covey
Are you ready to leverage, empower and energize your creative leadership? Are you willing to be that catalyst, agent of change or provocateur who inspires others to contribute to the growth of your organization?
Ensure the success of your "Strategically Wise Synergistic Process of Creation" with these 5 "Logical Action Steps" -your teammates and organization will be so glad you did."
Read more at ezineArticles.com
"How many times have you wondered why you are unable to "think-out-of-the-box" more often?
We are all products of our environment and our backgrounds usually prevent us from viewing situations with the unique eyes of our personal experience.
However, the leaders who think "out-of-the-proverbial-box" do so by incorporating what I like to see as a, Strategically Wise Synergistic Process of Creation.
These creative thinkers apply their own kinds of action-oriented logic to problems to help them find new wisdom, discover opportunities or see the facts in different ways.
In a word, truly creative types act differently, in ways that we'll call "Logical Action-Steps".
Logical Action-Step One: Achieve Understanding not Mere Reasoning
You want to find the basic or underlying meanings of the problems facing your group.
You could reason-out what is happening, by using your linear thinking skills to negotiate, analyze or plan your response.
For instance, you could notice that it is more chilly, by 15 degrees, this evening than it was yesterday at this same time which is certainly a reasonable observation.
Your could use your reasoning prowess to remember the cooling trend of last month's temperatures and conclude that it was windier and the skies much clearer [of clouds] for most of last night and today - therefore you would assume that it was those factors which contributed to a colder night tonight than it was last night.
Creative thinkers would aggressively investigate the weather by:
- intensely searching for answers,
- through disillusioning or transforming their pre-conceptions,
- looking within, around and beneath the conditions,
- recognizing and deeply understanding their core assumptions about the weather
Logical Action-Step Two: Seek The Strategist's Viewpoint
If you're like most knowledge-workers, you probably have a fairly extensive network of friends, colleagues, and associates. Your social network has been built over time through your individual experiences, efforts and encounters.
Strategists release the latent energies of their social networks through collaborative inquiries into finding new solutions, handling challenges and exploiting opportunities for transformation.
Thus by being the strategist you actively look for ways to create, leverage and extend synergy throughout your group.
You would want to set-up an environment or atmosphere of synergism where your team interacts and has processes or policies which encourage interactions in such a way so that the total impact of the group's efforts adds up to be more than the mere sum of their individual contributions.
Logical Action-Step Three: Engage in First-Person Research
Creative leaders make it a point to evaluate the progress of their own personal development - such as, the stages of growth and the legitimacy of each stage, they also assess their behavior and preferences.
Do you regularly or completely write down or record your thoughts, feelings and ideas? How much effort do you devote to keeping a journal, a diary or notes on your inner self?
Are you the type of person who looks for and analyzes the contradictory desires inside yourself or do you tend to notice a distinction between your desires and intentions?
What do you use to practice consciousness development or strengthening activities? In what ways do you structure your time to engage in meditation, martial arts, crafts or improvisational theater kinds of activities?
Logical Action-Step Four: Empower Their Shifts To Change
You can add power to your group through practicing techniques which enable people to discover the ideas, approaches and solutions hidden within them.
Effective leaders transform interpersonal activities into creative exercises. They orient their followers to focus on reflecting, learning, thinking, questioning, resolving, creating, discussing, debriefing, playing and interacting.
You would involve and join your stakeholders - partners, associates, peers, suppliers, constituents and others who might a part or vested interest in your venture - to build a shared vision with as broad a group of your stakeholders as possible.
Logical Action-Step Five: Capitalize on Wise Synergism
Perhaps you have heard of the principle of master-mind - it's where two or more people harmonize their thinking around a specific project or problem for the express purpose of forming a mind that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Great inventors and leaders like Thomas Edison, George Washington, Alfred Nobel and many others used their master-mind groups to generate fantastic innovations, policies and achievements for all humankind.
You can leverage the collaborative activities of your team through the strategist's approach to leadership. You can expand the time horizon of your strategies to encompass a range from 3 to 21 years.
The benefits that strategic leaders provide is that their groups enjoy opportunities to:
- Share their reflections on your mission and vision
- Openly disclosure, support and confront any differences between the organization's and their personal values
- Conduct corporate and personal performance appraisals
- Creatively resolve paradoxes or contradictions in productivity versus inquiry, autonomy versus control, and quality versus quantity
- Interactively develop self-amending and self-correcting structures
------------------------------------------------------------
You can multiply your creativity and creative leadership skills just by applying these strategies to all of your problems, situations and decisions.
Experts in psychology, management and organizational sciences call these strategies, "action-logic" - their studies reveal that professionals generally fall into one of three different behavioral categories:
1) Reactive - 5%
2) Preventive - 85%
3) Creative - 10%
This article has described the "creative" forms of action-logic - by using these strategies people will be moved to call you an "individualist", a "strategist" or a "magician"!
"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a "transformer" in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader." Stephen R. Covey
Are you ready to leverage, empower and energize your creative leadership? Are you willing to be that catalyst, agent of change or provocateur who inspires others to contribute to the growth of your organization?
Ensure the success of your "Strategically Wise Synergistic Process of Creation" with these 5 "Logical Action Steps" -your teammates and organization will be so glad you did."
Read more at ezineArticles.com
Monday, March 22, 2010
Leaders vs Managers
What is the difference between management and leadership? It is a question that has been asked more than once and also answered in different ways. The biggest difference between managers and leaders is the way they motivate the people who work or follow them, and this sets the tone for most other aspects of what they do.
Many people, by the way, are both. They have management jobs, but they realize that you cannot buy hearts, especially to follow them down a difficult path, and so act as leaders too.
Managers have subordinates
By definition, managers have subordinates - unless their title is honorary and given as a mark of seniority, in which case the title is a misnomer and their power over others is other than formal authority.
Authoritarian, transactional style
Managers have a position of authority vested in them by the company, and their subordinates work for them and largely do as they are told. Management style is transactional, in that the manager tells the subordinate what to do, and the subordinate does this not because they are a blind robot, but because they have been promised a reward (at minimum their salary) for doing so.
Work focus
Managers are paid to get things done (they are subordinates too), often within tight constraints of time and money. They thus naturally pass on this work focus to their subordinates.
Seek comfort
An interesting research finding about managers is that they tend to come from stable home backgrounds and led relatively normal and comfortable lives. This leads them to be relatively risk-averse and they will seek to avoid conflict where possible. In terms of people, they generally like to run a 'happy ship'.
Leaders have followers
Leaders do not have subordinates - at least not when they are leading. Many organizational leaders do have subordinates, but only because they are also managers. But when they want to lead, they have to give up formal authoritarian control, because to lead is to have followers, and following is always a voluntary activity.
Charismatic, transformational style
Telling people what to do does not inspire them to follow you. You have to appeal to them, showing how following them will lead to their hearts' desire. They must want to follow you enough to stop what they are doing and perhaps walk into danger and situations that they would not normally consider risking.
Leaders with a stronger charisma find it easier to attract people to their cause. As a part of their persuasion they typically promise transformational benefits, such that their followers will not just receive extrinsic rewards but will somehow become better people.
People focus
Although many leaders have a charismatic style to some extent, this does not require a loud personality. They are always good with people, and quiet styles that give credit to others (and takes blame on themselves) are very effective at creating the loyalty that great leaders engender.
Although leaders are good with people, this does not mean they are friendly with them. In order to keep the mystique of leadership, they often retain a degree of separation and aloofness.
This does not mean that leaders do not pay attention to tasks - in fact they are often very achievement-focused. What they do realize, however, is the importance of enthusing others to work towards their vision.
Seek risk
In the same study that showed managers as risk-averse, leaders appeared as risk-seeking, although they are not blind thrill-seekers. When pursuing their vision, they consider it natural to encounter problems and hurdles that must be overcome along the way. They are thus comfortable with risk and will see routes that others avoid as potential opportunities for advantage and will happily break rules in order to get things done.
A surprising number of these leaders had some form of handicap in their lives which they had to overcome. Some had traumatic childhoods, some had problems such as dyslexia, others were shorter than average. This perhaps taught them the independence of mind that is needed to go out on a limb and not worry about what others are thinking about you.
In summary
This table summarizes the above (and more) and gives a sense of the differences between being a leader and being a manager. This is, of course, an illustrative characterization, and there is a whole spectrum between either ends of these scales along which each role can range. And many people lead and manage at the same time, and so may display a combination of behaviors.
Read more at ChangingMinds.org
Many people, by the way, are both. They have management jobs, but they realize that you cannot buy hearts, especially to follow them down a difficult path, and so act as leaders too.
Managers have subordinates
By definition, managers have subordinates - unless their title is honorary and given as a mark of seniority, in which case the title is a misnomer and their power over others is other than formal authority.
Authoritarian, transactional style
Managers have a position of authority vested in them by the company, and their subordinates work for them and largely do as they are told. Management style is transactional, in that the manager tells the subordinate what to do, and the subordinate does this not because they are a blind robot, but because they have been promised a reward (at minimum their salary) for doing so.
Work focus
Managers are paid to get things done (they are subordinates too), often within tight constraints of time and money. They thus naturally pass on this work focus to their subordinates.
Seek comfort
An interesting research finding about managers is that they tend to come from stable home backgrounds and led relatively normal and comfortable lives. This leads them to be relatively risk-averse and they will seek to avoid conflict where possible. In terms of people, they generally like to run a 'happy ship'.
Leaders have followers
Leaders do not have subordinates - at least not when they are leading. Many organizational leaders do have subordinates, but only because they are also managers. But when they want to lead, they have to give up formal authoritarian control, because to lead is to have followers, and following is always a voluntary activity.
Charismatic, transformational style
Telling people what to do does not inspire them to follow you. You have to appeal to them, showing how following them will lead to their hearts' desire. They must want to follow you enough to stop what they are doing and perhaps walk into danger and situations that they would not normally consider risking.
Leaders with a stronger charisma find it easier to attract people to their cause. As a part of their persuasion they typically promise transformational benefits, such that their followers will not just receive extrinsic rewards but will somehow become better people.
People focus
Although many leaders have a charismatic style to some extent, this does not require a loud personality. They are always good with people, and quiet styles that give credit to others (and takes blame on themselves) are very effective at creating the loyalty that great leaders engender.
Although leaders are good with people, this does not mean they are friendly with them. In order to keep the mystique of leadership, they often retain a degree of separation and aloofness.
This does not mean that leaders do not pay attention to tasks - in fact they are often very achievement-focused. What they do realize, however, is the importance of enthusing others to work towards their vision.
Seek risk
In the same study that showed managers as risk-averse, leaders appeared as risk-seeking, although they are not blind thrill-seekers. When pursuing their vision, they consider it natural to encounter problems and hurdles that must be overcome along the way. They are thus comfortable with risk and will see routes that others avoid as potential opportunities for advantage and will happily break rules in order to get things done.
A surprising number of these leaders had some form of handicap in their lives which they had to overcome. Some had traumatic childhoods, some had problems such as dyslexia, others were shorter than average. This perhaps taught them the independence of mind that is needed to go out on a limb and not worry about what others are thinking about you.
In summary
This table summarizes the above (and more) and gives a sense of the differences between being a leader and being a manager. This is, of course, an illustrative characterization, and there is a whole spectrum between either ends of these scales along which each role can range. And many people lead and manage at the same time, and so may display a combination of behaviors.
Read more at ChangingMinds.org
Monday, March 1, 2010
Creating Leaders
Recently I read an article about how leadership is actually something you decide on based on some factors. The interview for the article was with Robert Jeffrey Sternberg. He is a former IBM professor of psychology and education at Yale University and president of the American Psychological Association. Many things in the article I agree with and want to convey to others. These statements make sense to me and they should make sense to you, if not, please comment below and I will do the best I can to explain.
The WICS system is an acronym for creating leaders. WICS is an acronym for "wisdom, intelligence, creativity synthesized." The basic idea behind it is that leadership is not something you are born with and is not an inherited trait. It's something you decide to do. Good leadership is a decision that builds on a combination--a synthesis--of wisdom, intelligence and creativity. According to this view, there are two differentiable elements that are really important. The first is skills and the other is attitude. To be a good leader you have to know how to do things, but attitude is at least as important or more important. The way you think about problems and your attitude toward those problems is as essential as your ability to solve them.
When you take a leadership role, whether as chairman of a corporation or as a leader in your family, you need ideas. You need creative skills and attitudes to come up with those ideas. You need analytical skills and attitudes to decide whether they are good ideas. You need practical skills and attitudes to put them into practice and to persuade people to listen to you. And finally you need wisdom to balance the effects of your ideas on yourself, others and institutions, in both the short and long term.
When we talk about creativity, we're talking about ideas that are novel, that are good and that are appropriate for the task you need to do. With creativity, with intelligence and with wisdom there's always a big decision. The big decision with creativity is to defy the crowd. It's to buy low and sell high in the world of ideas. A creative person is someone who decides to produce ideas, to support ideas that go against the crowd, and that is like buying low, doing the opposite of what other people are doing. Then you sell high. Once people are persuaded of the value of your idea, you sell it and move on to the next idea.
Successful intelligence is the ability to attain your goals in life within your sociocultural context by capitalizing on your strengths and correcting or compensating for your weaknesses, and by selecting and shaping your environments. It basically gives you your ability to do what you want to do in your life. Creative ability is coming up with ideas; analytical ability is seeing if they're good ideas; and practical ability is making them work. The big decision is just to use your intelligence to achieve success in your life by your own standards.
Successful leadership requires one more element as well, wisdom. You can be creatively, analytically and practically intelligent, but if you aren't also wise, it all goes sour. Wisdom is about the positive use of knowledge and the positive use of skills. It basically helps you integrate the other aspects of WICS, the application of successful intelligence, creativity and experience toward the attainment of a common good, through a balance of intrapersonal, interpersonal and extrapersonal interests. It means that you balance your own interests with the interests of other people and the interests of higher-order things--which could be your institution, your country, God, whatever--over the shorter and long term. You care about long-term outcomes for your organization or your society as much as you do about short-term goals. You achieve this through the mediation of values like reciprocity, honesty and sincerity as you act to balance adaptation to environments with selection and shaping of them. Some of the time you change yourself to fit the environment; some of the time you change the environment to fit you. Some of the time you just get out.
In summation, WICS means using elements of your intelligence to succeed in life, and part of that is defying the crowd creatively when necessary so as to achieve a common good for all. It's a synthesis of intelligence, creativity and wisdom. WICS provides a useful model for leadership, but the most important thing to remember is that good leadership is in a large part a decision. It's something you can decide to do; something we can all decide to do. It's something I hope you do decide to do.
Read more here at Forbes.com
The WICS system is an acronym for creating leaders. WICS is an acronym for "wisdom, intelligence, creativity synthesized." The basic idea behind it is that leadership is not something you are born with and is not an inherited trait. It's something you decide to do. Good leadership is a decision that builds on a combination--a synthesis--of wisdom, intelligence and creativity. According to this view, there are two differentiable elements that are really important. The first is skills and the other is attitude. To be a good leader you have to know how to do things, but attitude is at least as important or more important. The way you think about problems and your attitude toward those problems is as essential as your ability to solve them.
When you take a leadership role, whether as chairman of a corporation or as a leader in your family, you need ideas. You need creative skills and attitudes to come up with those ideas. You need analytical skills and attitudes to decide whether they are good ideas. You need practical skills and attitudes to put them into practice and to persuade people to listen to you. And finally you need wisdom to balance the effects of your ideas on yourself, others and institutions, in both the short and long term.
When we talk about creativity, we're talking about ideas that are novel, that are good and that are appropriate for the task you need to do. With creativity, with intelligence and with wisdom there's always a big decision. The big decision with creativity is to defy the crowd. It's to buy low and sell high in the world of ideas. A creative person is someone who decides to produce ideas, to support ideas that go against the crowd, and that is like buying low, doing the opposite of what other people are doing. Then you sell high. Once people are persuaded of the value of your idea, you sell it and move on to the next idea.
Successful intelligence is the ability to attain your goals in life within your sociocultural context by capitalizing on your strengths and correcting or compensating for your weaknesses, and by selecting and shaping your environments. It basically gives you your ability to do what you want to do in your life. Creative ability is coming up with ideas; analytical ability is seeing if they're good ideas; and practical ability is making them work. The big decision is just to use your intelligence to achieve success in your life by your own standards.
Successful leadership requires one more element as well, wisdom. You can be creatively, analytically and practically intelligent, but if you aren't also wise, it all goes sour. Wisdom is about the positive use of knowledge and the positive use of skills. It basically helps you integrate the other aspects of WICS, the application of successful intelligence, creativity and experience toward the attainment of a common good, through a balance of intrapersonal, interpersonal and extrapersonal interests. It means that you balance your own interests with the interests of other people and the interests of higher-order things--which could be your institution, your country, God, whatever--over the shorter and long term. You care about long-term outcomes for your organization or your society as much as you do about short-term goals. You achieve this through the mediation of values like reciprocity, honesty and sincerity as you act to balance adaptation to environments with selection and shaping of them. Some of the time you change yourself to fit the environment; some of the time you change the environment to fit you. Some of the time you just get out.
In summation, WICS means using elements of your intelligence to succeed in life, and part of that is defying the crowd creatively when necessary so as to achieve a common good for all. It's a synthesis of intelligence, creativity and wisdom. WICS provides a useful model for leadership, but the most important thing to remember is that good leadership is in a large part a decision. It's something you can decide to do; something we can all decide to do. It's something I hope you do decide to do.
Read more here at Forbes.com
How to Tame Difficult Employees
Being a manager, being a leader, one must be able to handle troublesome employees. This article describes how to deal with problematic underlings and how to use your experienced to grow and be a stronger person. Being a leader also means being able to handle the followers.
All managers will have to deal with difficult employees during their careers. First, there will always be difficult employees. Second, it's your job as the manager to deal with them. If you don't deal the problem, it will only get worse.
Why Are Difficult Employees Like That?
Difficult employees are that way simply because it is a behavior that has worked for them in the past. They may not know any other behavior or they may choose this behavior when they think it will be most effective. You will be successful in dealing with difficult employees only to the extent that you can make these undesirable behaviors no longer effective for them. In many ways, it's like dealing with children. If every times a child screams, its parents give it candy, what will the child do when it wants candy? It will scream, of course. The same is true for the employee who "blows up" whenever anyone disagrees with him. When he does that people stop disagreeing with him and he thinks he has won.
How Can A Manager Deal With Difficult Employees
* Evaluate
It is important when dealing with difficult employees to act quickly. Often you will need to act almost immediately to neutralize a dangerous situation. However, it is always appropriate to think before you act. Clearly if an employee comes to work with a gun, you will need to act more quickly than when someone complains that another employee is always taking credit for her work. In either case, take the appropriate amount of time to evaluate the situation before you act. You don't want to make it worse.
Recognize that most employees can be "difficult" from time to time. This can be caused by stress on the job or away from it. Some employees are difficult more often than others. It is not always your least-productive employees who are difficult. So take a moment to evaluate each situation for the unique situation it is.
* Do your homework
Always act on facts. Don't base your actions on gossip or rumor. The person spreading the gossip is a difficult employee in their own way. If you have not seen the inappropriate behavior yourself, look into it. Ask the people reportedly involved. Collect all the facts you can before you act.
Don't use the fact that you haven't seen the inappropriate behavior as an excuse to delay doing something. It is important to act promptly.
Make sure you aren't part of the problem. It will be much more difficult to remain calm and impartial in confronting the difficult behavior if you are partly responsible. If that's the case, be sure you acknowledge your role in it, at least to yourself.
* Develop a plan
You're a manager. You know the value of planning. This situation is no different. You need to plan the timing of the confrontation. You need to select a quiet, private place where you won't be interrupted. You need to decide whether you need to have others, like an HR representative, present in the meeting. Plan the confrontation and then make it happen.
When you have prepared, it is time to act. You do not need to act impulsively, but you must act quickly. The longer an inappropriate behavior is allowed to continue, the harder it will be to change it or stop it.
* Confront the problem
Don't put it off. It may not be pleasant, but it's an important part of your job. It will not "fix itself". It can only get worse. You have planned this confrontation. Now you need to execute.
* Deal with the behavior, not the person
Your goal is to develop a solution, not to "win". Focus on the inappropriate behavior; don't attack the person.
Use "I" statements like "I need everybody on the team here on time so we can meet our goals" rather than "you" statements like "you are always late".
Don't assume the inappropriate behavior is caused by negative intent. It may be from fear, confusion, lack of motivation, personal problems, etc.
Give the other person a chance to develop a solution to the problem. They are more likely to "own" the solution if they are at least partially responsible for developing it.
* Try to draw out the reasons behind the behavior
As you talk with the difficult employee, actively listen to what they say. Stay calm and stay positive, but remain impartial and non-judgmental. Ask leading questions that can't be answered in one or two words. Don't interrupt.
When you do respond to the difficult employee, remain calm. Summarize back to them what they just said, "so what I understand you are saying is", so they know you are actually listening to them.
If you can find out from the difficult employee what the real source of the inappropriate behavior is, you have a much better chance of finding a solution.
Sometimes these confrontations will go smoothly, or at least rapidly, to a conclusion. Other times it will require several sessions to resolve the problem.
* Repeat as necessary
Minor problems, like being late for work, you may be able to resolve with a simple chat in your office with the employee. An office bully, who has used that behavior successfully since elementary school, may need more than one confrontation before a solution can be reached. Be patient. Don't always expect instant results. Aim for continuous improvement rather than trying to achieve instant success.
* Know when you are in over your head
Sometimes the underlying issue with a difficult employee will be beyond your capabilities. The employee may have psychological problems that require professional help, for example. Learn when to keep trying and when to refer the employee to others for more specialized help. Your company may have an EAP or you may need to use resources from the community.
* Know when you are at the end
While the goals is always to reach a mutually acceptable solution that resolves the difficult employees inappropriate behavior and keeps your team at full strength, sometimes that is not possible. When you reach an impasse and the employee is not willing to change his or her behavior then you need to begin terminations procedures in accordance with your company's policies.
Coming to a Solution
The desired result from confronting a difficult employee's inappropriate behavior is an agreed upon solution. You know that this inappropriate behavior will continue unless you and the employee agree on a solution. The employee needs to know what is inappropriate about their behavior and they also need to know what is appropriate behavior. The need for a manager to communicate clearly is always high. It is especially important in these situations. Make very sure the employee understands the requirements and the consequences.
Read more at About.com
All managers will have to deal with difficult employees during their careers. First, there will always be difficult employees. Second, it's your job as the manager to deal with them. If you don't deal the problem, it will only get worse.
Why Are Difficult Employees Like That?
Difficult employees are that way simply because it is a behavior that has worked for them in the past. They may not know any other behavior or they may choose this behavior when they think it will be most effective. You will be successful in dealing with difficult employees only to the extent that you can make these undesirable behaviors no longer effective for them. In many ways, it's like dealing with children. If every times a child screams, its parents give it candy, what will the child do when it wants candy? It will scream, of course. The same is true for the employee who "blows up" whenever anyone disagrees with him. When he does that people stop disagreeing with him and he thinks he has won.
How Can A Manager Deal With Difficult Employees
* Evaluate
It is important when dealing with difficult employees to act quickly. Often you will need to act almost immediately to neutralize a dangerous situation. However, it is always appropriate to think before you act. Clearly if an employee comes to work with a gun, you will need to act more quickly than when someone complains that another employee is always taking credit for her work. In either case, take the appropriate amount of time to evaluate the situation before you act. You don't want to make it worse.
Recognize that most employees can be "difficult" from time to time. This can be caused by stress on the job or away from it. Some employees are difficult more often than others. It is not always your least-productive employees who are difficult. So take a moment to evaluate each situation for the unique situation it is.
* Do your homework
Always act on facts. Don't base your actions on gossip or rumor. The person spreading the gossip is a difficult employee in their own way. If you have not seen the inappropriate behavior yourself, look into it. Ask the people reportedly involved. Collect all the facts you can before you act.
Don't use the fact that you haven't seen the inappropriate behavior as an excuse to delay doing something. It is important to act promptly.
Make sure you aren't part of the problem. It will be much more difficult to remain calm and impartial in confronting the difficult behavior if you are partly responsible. If that's the case, be sure you acknowledge your role in it, at least to yourself.
* Develop a plan
You're a manager. You know the value of planning. This situation is no different. You need to plan the timing of the confrontation. You need to select a quiet, private place where you won't be interrupted. You need to decide whether you need to have others, like an HR representative, present in the meeting. Plan the confrontation and then make it happen.
When you have prepared, it is time to act. You do not need to act impulsively, but you must act quickly. The longer an inappropriate behavior is allowed to continue, the harder it will be to change it or stop it.
* Confront the problem
Don't put it off. It may not be pleasant, but it's an important part of your job. It will not "fix itself". It can only get worse. You have planned this confrontation. Now you need to execute.
* Deal with the behavior, not the person
Your goal is to develop a solution, not to "win". Focus on the inappropriate behavior; don't attack the person.
Use "I" statements like "I need everybody on the team here on time so we can meet our goals" rather than "you" statements like "you are always late".
Don't assume the inappropriate behavior is caused by negative intent. It may be from fear, confusion, lack of motivation, personal problems, etc.
Give the other person a chance to develop a solution to the problem. They are more likely to "own" the solution if they are at least partially responsible for developing it.
* Try to draw out the reasons behind the behavior
As you talk with the difficult employee, actively listen to what they say. Stay calm and stay positive, but remain impartial and non-judgmental. Ask leading questions that can't be answered in one or two words. Don't interrupt.
When you do respond to the difficult employee, remain calm. Summarize back to them what they just said, "so what I understand you are saying is", so they know you are actually listening to them.
If you can find out from the difficult employee what the real source of the inappropriate behavior is, you have a much better chance of finding a solution.
Sometimes these confrontations will go smoothly, or at least rapidly, to a conclusion. Other times it will require several sessions to resolve the problem.
* Repeat as necessary
Minor problems, like being late for work, you may be able to resolve with a simple chat in your office with the employee. An office bully, who has used that behavior successfully since elementary school, may need more than one confrontation before a solution can be reached. Be patient. Don't always expect instant results. Aim for continuous improvement rather than trying to achieve instant success.
* Know when you are in over your head
Sometimes the underlying issue with a difficult employee will be beyond your capabilities. The employee may have psychological problems that require professional help, for example. Learn when to keep trying and when to refer the employee to others for more specialized help. Your company may have an EAP or you may need to use resources from the community.
* Know when you are at the end
While the goals is always to reach a mutually acceptable solution that resolves the difficult employees inappropriate behavior and keeps your team at full strength, sometimes that is not possible. When you reach an impasse and the employee is not willing to change his or her behavior then you need to begin terminations procedures in accordance with your company's policies.
Coming to a Solution
The desired result from confronting a difficult employee's inappropriate behavior is an agreed upon solution. You know that this inappropriate behavior will continue unless you and the employee agree on a solution. The employee needs to know what is inappropriate about their behavior and they also need to know what is appropriate behavior. The need for a manager to communicate clearly is always high. It is especially important in these situations. Make very sure the employee understands the requirements and the consequences.
Read more at About.com
Monday, February 15, 2010
Why is it important to me to be a leader?
Everyone expresses leadership and being on top of the world, but what are their reasons? Many say money, power,or control but the reason why I want to lead others is because I know what they need to do. I want to be a leader because that is the position where I feel the most comfortable. I trust myself as a leader because I want to help others improve and I want to make things as efficient at possible. I have been in leadership positions many times and that is where I shine as an individual and as a team player at the same time. I drop all bias' and attitudes and focus on everyone and how we can succeed as a team. I do not see myself as on top of a pedestal when placed in the leader position but as the tactical advisor and organizer of the group.
I become a totally different person when people are depending on me to guide them and push them forward. I feel comfortable in the leadership role because that is who I am. I work best when others put trust in me. I will do anything to protect the trust my team members put in me. They trust me to lead the group into the right direction for success and I can not let them down. That is another pressure that leaders face, the pressure of trust. When becoming a leader, you must remember that you are not a leader to make more money or have more power, but to protect and utilize the trust your team members put in you.
I read an article originally by Johanna Rothman, Agile's 2009 Conference Chair. She has been helping teams, managers and organizations move to agile approaches for their projects and project portfolios.
"Is there such a thing as team trust? If so, why do you need it?
When team members have interdependent commitments, you want them to trust each other. Daughter #2, who's a senior in high school has been working on several "teams" with other seniors this year, doesn't trust her team.
"I know that I'll have to take up the slack when they don't do what they said they would do," has been her slogan all year. If that's your approach, you don't have team trust.
In Solomon's Building Trust in Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life, he says that there are prerequisites to trust:
* Deliver what you promise to deliver
* Be consistent in your actions and reactions
* Make integrity a cornerstone of your work
* Be willing to discuss, influence, and negotiate.
* Trust in yourself and your colleagues
Whether or not you have a real team, how do you create a trusting relationship with each person? First, start with yourself.
Do you always deliver what you promise to deliver?
If you can't, why not? I've met many team leads who thought they could do the same amount of work as a team lead that they could do as an individual contributor without any overall commitment to the team.
Are you consistent in your actions and reactions?
Yes, you can become angry. No, you can't beat the table, say nasty thing to people or have other out-of-band reactions and still have trust.
Do you ever feel as if you have to swallow your professional integrity?
You might need to reframe what you think integrity is. Early in my career, I cared very much about the quality of the released product. I still care, and I realize that sometimes there are business decisions that trump actual quality. I now care very much about providing information about technical debt to the people who make the final decision.
Are you willing to discuss issues?
New team leads are particularly prone to "I would have done it this way, why didn't you?" syndrome. That's fine to say that to yourself. And, you need to discuss, influence, negotiate, and not tell people what to do.
Now, you can trust in yourself.
And, you can extend trust to your colleagues.
Trust is something people earn, by showing they are trustworthy. Prove yourself, to yourself, your team, your management. Then you can start building a trusting relationship with others."
Read more at 5Whys
I become a totally different person when people are depending on me to guide them and push them forward. I feel comfortable in the leadership role because that is who I am. I work best when others put trust in me. I will do anything to protect the trust my team members put in me. They trust me to lead the group into the right direction for success and I can not let them down. That is another pressure that leaders face, the pressure of trust. When becoming a leader, you must remember that you are not a leader to make more money or have more power, but to protect and utilize the trust your team members put in you.
I read an article originally by Johanna Rothman, Agile's 2009 Conference Chair. She has been helping teams, managers and organizations move to agile approaches for their projects and project portfolios.
"Is there such a thing as team trust? If so, why do you need it?
When team members have interdependent commitments, you want them to trust each other. Daughter #2, who's a senior in high school has been working on several "teams" with other seniors this year, doesn't trust her team.
"I know that I'll have to take up the slack when they don't do what they said they would do," has been her slogan all year. If that's your approach, you don't have team trust.
In Solomon's Building Trust in Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life, he says that there are prerequisites to trust:
* Deliver what you promise to deliver
* Be consistent in your actions and reactions
* Make integrity a cornerstone of your work
* Be willing to discuss, influence, and negotiate.
* Trust in yourself and your colleagues
Whether or not you have a real team, how do you create a trusting relationship with each person? First, start with yourself.
Do you always deliver what you promise to deliver?
If you can't, why not? I've met many team leads who thought they could do the same amount of work as a team lead that they could do as an individual contributor without any overall commitment to the team.
Are you consistent in your actions and reactions?
Yes, you can become angry. No, you can't beat the table, say nasty thing to people or have other out-of-band reactions and still have trust.
Do you ever feel as if you have to swallow your professional integrity?
You might need to reframe what you think integrity is. Early in my career, I cared very much about the quality of the released product. I still care, and I realize that sometimes there are business decisions that trump actual quality. I now care very much about providing information about technical debt to the people who make the final decision.
Are you willing to discuss issues?
New team leads are particularly prone to "I would have done it this way, why didn't you?" syndrome. That's fine to say that to yourself. And, you need to discuss, influence, negotiate, and not tell people what to do.
Now, you can trust in yourself.
And, you can extend trust to your colleagues.
Trust is something people earn, by showing they are trustworthy. Prove yourself, to yourself, your team, your management. Then you can start building a trusting relationship with others."
Read more at 5Whys
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Unconventional Leader
Once you are a leader, what now? For some people, this is it, you are done and there is nothing to do but watch the gears run and poke at them every now and then. But for some, it is only the beginning. For these unconventional leaders sitting in the Ivory Tower is not for them. Unconventional leaders who sometimes deviate from their original roadmap. They have unconventional thinking and imagination that they use for their organization to succeed. Their unconventional wisdom puts a new spin on leadership. A new model for professional achievement is needed in our 21st Century economy. It requires discarding many of our traditional notions about how to succeed.
Here are seven tips to What Makes a Great Leader:
1. See the big picture: Great leaders are able to see the big picture and make sure that their entire company sees it as well. This includes having employees knowing the company’s vision and long-term outlook.
The idea of “seeing the big picture” gives clarity and direction in knowing where you are leading your company and your employees. This requires the fact that your actions must be aligned with your business goals.
2. Make sound decisions: An essential requirement needs to be effective leaders who have very good decision making skills, even the unconventional leaders. This is to ensure that strategically sound decisions are made to result in positive outcomes for the company. Unconventional leaders have the confidence and know how to take risks in their decisions and making them pay off.
3. Keep cool under pressure: A great leader never lets their team see them sweat. Ranting and raving is not a sign of even a good manager. In times of crisis, employees typically look to their company leader to remain calm under pressure and handle the situation.
An unconventional leader is going to respond to situations in a different manner than conventional leaders. From what I have observed, when it comes to situations where leaders react or respond to situations, they handle the current situation and the crisis ends with nothing gained except how a situation was handled at that moment. On the other hand, when an unconventional leader handles the same situation, they deal with the situation and implement policies and procedures to make sure the situation is not repeated. As a result, the conventional leader and their employees go back to the same management policies and procedures as before the firefighting took place. Where as the unconventional leader and their organization is able to grow from this experience.
These great leaders know how to handle pressure. Having the know how to recognize a pressured situation, control their emotions, and move their company forward is within their toolbox of talents.
4. Know good people skills: Most people want to be effective in their work. Effective unconventional leaders go beyond making sure that their employees are supported. They assist in developing their employees; they inspire their employees by telling them the company’s compelling vision, and then ask the employees to contribute to this vision; they are catalysts with the ability to initiate and lead and manage the company to new directions when it is appropriate to do so; and they use and have all of their employees master their own Emotional Intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management). In return, the leader and their employees experience their contributions in improved growth, teamwork, company vision, job satisfaction, and profitability.
In an unconventional organization, the company’s leader, in most cases, give praise to all employees. They would find a way to give all employees recognition for any and every task performed. This way the leader makes everyone feel good about themselves and for working in a company that cares about them.
5. Adapt quickly to new situations: Since change is a constant, unconventional leaders know they need to change their entire organization to reflect new applications for their products and services, and they are able to shift gears quickly in the direction where they take their company and where their company now needs to go. In order to adapt to new situations, the unconventional leader is open to change and to new directions; the unconventional leader embraces new thoughts and ideas. In order to adapt to new situations, new strategies need to be put in place.
6. Keep positive optimism: When you produce positive results, it is due to the positive actions you use and portray. In staying positive and bringing out the best in themselves, unconventional leaders also tap into their employees and employee resources in order to reach their maximum potential from their organization and stay ahead of others.
A great leader encourages their team to perform no matter the odds. The leader is the positive force that keeps everyone motivated to win. As a business leader, your company leadership should include a positive attitude that will affect you and your employees.
Dana Lightman, Ph.D. stated that power optimists are valuable because of the following:
Proactive = Goal Achievers
• Open-Minded = Innovative Thinkers
• Well-Informed = Opportunity Seeking
• Evolving = Continuous Learners
• Resilient = Adaptable Change Agent
This is where unconventional leaders go beyond the basics. They use every one of these values to their full advantage, and then they do it, succeeding in what they want to do.
7. Learn constantly: Besides being fast learners, unconventional leaders are open to continuous learning from a variety of sources, especially from those who have already been in the trenches of leadership. They study leadership which they believe is an essential part of lifelong learning. These other experiences and challenges help maximize their leadership impact.
In summary, many unconventional leaders, who are down-to-earth mavericks, sometimes feel that are reinventing their company in order to be a trail blazer as they bring their unique perspectives to life. It sets the stage for how your company can move forward with thinking and strategizing a little off center from where you are currently. The challenge for the leader is to both implement changes to their organization and work through the above seven tips with their employees.
Follow these seven tips of “What Makes A Great (Unconventional) Leader” and see how your company can do better in its thinking and as a result, gain a competitive edge. As your focus needs to shift slightly with the paradigm shift changes in management, so to does your company’s strategies and thoughts of using the talent of your employees for a more productive workplace!
Here are seven tips to What Makes a Great Leader:
1. See the big picture: Great leaders are able to see the big picture and make sure that their entire company sees it as well. This includes having employees knowing the company’s vision and long-term outlook.
The idea of “seeing the big picture” gives clarity and direction in knowing where you are leading your company and your employees. This requires the fact that your actions must be aligned with your business goals.
2. Make sound decisions: An essential requirement needs to be effective leaders who have very good decision making skills, even the unconventional leaders. This is to ensure that strategically sound decisions are made to result in positive outcomes for the company. Unconventional leaders have the confidence and know how to take risks in their decisions and making them pay off.
3. Keep cool under pressure: A great leader never lets their team see them sweat. Ranting and raving is not a sign of even a good manager. In times of crisis, employees typically look to their company leader to remain calm under pressure and handle the situation.
An unconventional leader is going to respond to situations in a different manner than conventional leaders. From what I have observed, when it comes to situations where leaders react or respond to situations, they handle the current situation and the crisis ends with nothing gained except how a situation was handled at that moment. On the other hand, when an unconventional leader handles the same situation, they deal with the situation and implement policies and procedures to make sure the situation is not repeated. As a result, the conventional leader and their employees go back to the same management policies and procedures as before the firefighting took place. Where as the unconventional leader and their organization is able to grow from this experience.
These great leaders know how to handle pressure. Having the know how to recognize a pressured situation, control their emotions, and move their company forward is within their toolbox of talents.
4. Know good people skills: Most people want to be effective in their work. Effective unconventional leaders go beyond making sure that their employees are supported. They assist in developing their employees; they inspire their employees by telling them the company’s compelling vision, and then ask the employees to contribute to this vision; they are catalysts with the ability to initiate and lead and manage the company to new directions when it is appropriate to do so; and they use and have all of their employees master their own Emotional Intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management). In return, the leader and their employees experience their contributions in improved growth, teamwork, company vision, job satisfaction, and profitability.
In an unconventional organization, the company’s leader, in most cases, give praise to all employees. They would find a way to give all employees recognition for any and every task performed. This way the leader makes everyone feel good about themselves and for working in a company that cares about them.
5. Adapt quickly to new situations: Since change is a constant, unconventional leaders know they need to change their entire organization to reflect new applications for their products and services, and they are able to shift gears quickly in the direction where they take their company and where their company now needs to go. In order to adapt to new situations, the unconventional leader is open to change and to new directions; the unconventional leader embraces new thoughts and ideas. In order to adapt to new situations, new strategies need to be put in place.
6. Keep positive optimism: When you produce positive results, it is due to the positive actions you use and portray. In staying positive and bringing out the best in themselves, unconventional leaders also tap into their employees and employee resources in order to reach their maximum potential from their organization and stay ahead of others.
A great leader encourages their team to perform no matter the odds. The leader is the positive force that keeps everyone motivated to win. As a business leader, your company leadership should include a positive attitude that will affect you and your employees.
Dana Lightman, Ph.D. stated that power optimists are valuable because of the following:
Proactive = Goal Achievers
• Open-Minded = Innovative Thinkers
• Well-Informed = Opportunity Seeking
• Evolving = Continuous Learners
• Resilient = Adaptable Change Agent
This is where unconventional leaders go beyond the basics. They use every one of these values to their full advantage, and then they do it, succeeding in what they want to do.
7. Learn constantly: Besides being fast learners, unconventional leaders are open to continuous learning from a variety of sources, especially from those who have already been in the trenches of leadership. They study leadership which they believe is an essential part of lifelong learning. These other experiences and challenges help maximize their leadership impact.
In summary, many unconventional leaders, who are down-to-earth mavericks, sometimes feel that are reinventing their company in order to be a trail blazer as they bring their unique perspectives to life. It sets the stage for how your company can move forward with thinking and strategizing a little off center from where you are currently. The challenge for the leader is to both implement changes to their organization and work through the above seven tips with their employees.
Follow these seven tips of “What Makes A Great (Unconventional) Leader” and see how your company can do better in its thinking and as a result, gain a competitive edge. As your focus needs to shift slightly with the paradigm shift changes in management, so to does your company’s strategies and thoughts of using the talent of your employees for a more productive workplace!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
What Kind of Leader Are You?
Again i am discussing leadership in this post because I find it important. I have attended many leadership conferences and panels. I want to take the knowledge I have learned and apply it to not only help myself, but to benefit others. Here we will take what we have learned in the previous post to figure out what type of leader you are.
The five factors (Imposing Context, Having Conviction, Making and Taking Risks, Generating Critical Mass, and Challenging and Changing the status quo)are the elements that make up leaders. In order to determine what kind of leader you are, let us look at the seven different types of leaders.
The Transformational Leader
Leaders who show strength in all five leadership behaviors are those who are able to transform the commitment levels of those around them. They have deep conviction about goals; determination to execute plans and are prepared to go against conventional wisdom.
The Enforcer
These are leaders who act in ways characterized by cautious optimism and a drive to make sure specific objectives are achieved. They display strong belief in what they are doing and commitment to stay the course, but tend to limit options and avoid taking action where risk is associated.
The Deal Maker
These leaders attract followers largely because of their energy and excitement for anything new. They thrive on change and frequently break the mold. In the business world, they often rise to prominence on the back of their reputation for the deals they pull off, but can be bored easily and have little regard for sustaining the performance of their efforts after initial success is achieved.
The Administrator
These leaders are strategic executors who are clear in what needs to be achieved and ruthlessly follow through. They are autocratic in approach, letting nothing stand in the way of achieving the overall objective, and are likely to prefer detailed and rigorous project plans, constant monitoring and updating, and tight control over resources and people.
The Visonary
These leaders inspire people to dream of greatness but fail to follow through. They have all the qualities of the transformational leader, including their ability to elevate ambition, but are weak at generating critical mass.
The Serial Entrepreneur
These leaders are imaginative, but calculating, gamblers. They display huge energy and commitment and sweep people along with them because they make seemingly impossible challenges achievable. They care deeply about their legacy but struggle to articulate the wider context of their decisions in a way that's meaningful to their followers.
The Spin Doctor
These leaders seem to be everything a leader should be, but their behavior is inconsistent and self-serving - they have underdeveloped conviction. What distinguishes these leaders most is their ability to convincingly argue the case, any case, and justify the change to followers.
If, none of these seem to fit you exactly or maybe you think you might be more than one of the seven types of leaders, you are not alone. I am still developing my leadership style and I jump from style to style in order to find my place and where I feel I am the most comfortable. The type of leadership you display also depends on the company you are working for.
So what kind of leader do you think you are? Let me know by posting in the comments below! ^_^
The five factors (Imposing Context, Having Conviction, Making and Taking Risks, Generating Critical Mass, and Challenging and Changing the status quo)are the elements that make up leaders. In order to determine what kind of leader you are, let us look at the seven different types of leaders.
The Transformational Leader
Leaders who show strength in all five leadership behaviors are those who are able to transform the commitment levels of those around them. They have deep conviction about goals; determination to execute plans and are prepared to go against conventional wisdom.
The Enforcer
These are leaders who act in ways characterized by cautious optimism and a drive to make sure specific objectives are achieved. They display strong belief in what they are doing and commitment to stay the course, but tend to limit options and avoid taking action where risk is associated.
The Deal Maker
These leaders attract followers largely because of their energy and excitement for anything new. They thrive on change and frequently break the mold. In the business world, they often rise to prominence on the back of their reputation for the deals they pull off, but can be bored easily and have little regard for sustaining the performance of their efforts after initial success is achieved.
The Administrator
These leaders are strategic executors who are clear in what needs to be achieved and ruthlessly follow through. They are autocratic in approach, letting nothing stand in the way of achieving the overall objective, and are likely to prefer detailed and rigorous project plans, constant monitoring and updating, and tight control over resources and people.
The Visonary
These leaders inspire people to dream of greatness but fail to follow through. They have all the qualities of the transformational leader, including their ability to elevate ambition, but are weak at generating critical mass.
The Serial Entrepreneur
These leaders are imaginative, but calculating, gamblers. They display huge energy and commitment and sweep people along with them because they make seemingly impossible challenges achievable. They care deeply about their legacy but struggle to articulate the wider context of their decisions in a way that's meaningful to their followers.
The Spin Doctor
These leaders seem to be everything a leader should be, but their behavior is inconsistent and self-serving - they have underdeveloped conviction. What distinguishes these leaders most is their ability to convincingly argue the case, any case, and justify the change to followers.
If, none of these seem to fit you exactly or maybe you think you might be more than one of the seven types of leaders, you are not alone. I am still developing my leadership style and I jump from style to style in order to find my place and where I feel I am the most comfortable. The type of leadership you display also depends on the company you are working for.
So what kind of leader do you think you are? Let me know by posting in the comments below! ^_^
What is a Leader?
Ok we all know leaders, the enthusiastic go-getters, but there are actually many types of leaders. I have met many people and have traveled to many different places and have noticed this. There are many different elements that make up different types of leaders and they are all based on 5 factors:
The 5 Factors:
Impose Context
As a leader, your role is to cut out the clutter and impose context by concentrating people's attention on what matters most. This means providing a clear sense of direction; outlining what the key goals are; and distinguishing between the day-to-day actions that are important and those that are not.
Have Conviction
Leaders believe in what they are doing. It is this deep personal conviction and the ability to communicate it to others that vests them with their authority, attracts energy and mitigates uncertainty. Having a clear view of what you aim to achieve will help guide your decisions, inspire people to follow you, overcome obstacles, give you the courage to stand your ground and build confidence in your people.
Make and Take Risks
Leaders break rules - it's their job. As a leader you must make and take risks by understanding what opportunities exist, or can be created, and then converting them into results. Doing so allows you to: pre-empt otherwise hidden risks that might damage the enterprise; take advantage of windows for success in the present or future; create new, better ways of doing things; and develop yourself and others through exposure to new situations.
Generate Critical Mass
As a leader, you must generate critical mass by turning knowledge into action and influencing people in a way that: channels their energy into the appropriate activities; mobilizes them to work together in a coordinated way; creates a culture of human development; and makes things happen.
Challenge and Change
Leaders do not rest on their laurels. As a leader, you must challenge and change the status quo by experimenting and creating excitement in order to grab people's attention, energize your followers, take competitors by surprise and jolt your people out of accepting things as they are.
These 5 factors are vital to developing yourself as a leader. The are what distinguish you from everyone else in the group. Even if you already are a leader, work on these 5 factors and see where you need improvement.
The 5 Factors:
Impose Context
As a leader, your role is to cut out the clutter and impose context by concentrating people's attention on what matters most. This means providing a clear sense of direction; outlining what the key goals are; and distinguishing between the day-to-day actions that are important and those that are not.
Have Conviction
Leaders believe in what they are doing. It is this deep personal conviction and the ability to communicate it to others that vests them with their authority, attracts energy and mitigates uncertainty. Having a clear view of what you aim to achieve will help guide your decisions, inspire people to follow you, overcome obstacles, give you the courage to stand your ground and build confidence in your people.
Make and Take Risks
Leaders break rules - it's their job. As a leader you must make and take risks by understanding what opportunities exist, or can be created, and then converting them into results. Doing so allows you to: pre-empt otherwise hidden risks that might damage the enterprise; take advantage of windows for success in the present or future; create new, better ways of doing things; and develop yourself and others through exposure to new situations.
Generate Critical Mass
As a leader, you must generate critical mass by turning knowledge into action and influencing people in a way that: channels their energy into the appropriate activities; mobilizes them to work together in a coordinated way; creates a culture of human development; and makes things happen.
Challenge and Change
Leaders do not rest on their laurels. As a leader, you must challenge and change the status quo by experimenting and creating excitement in order to grab people's attention, energize your followers, take competitors by surprise and jolt your people out of accepting things as they are.
These 5 factors are vital to developing yourself as a leader. The are what distinguish you from everyone else in the group. Even if you already are a leader, work on these 5 factors and see where you need improvement.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Me, Myself, and I
Oh how i hate introductions on the first week of school. No one ever remembers who you are, they are just busy judging you based on what you say about yourself. To the listener, they are wondering, "Hmm is this someone who I can get along with? Or are they wackier than a bed bug?" I have been going to Grand Valley since 2002...so i have done many, many introductions and they are always the same. What is my name, major, and an interesting fact...Maybe i am bitter about it because the number of times i have done an introduction or is it because no matter what you say, no one remembers your name. They tend to just remember the fact...like the girl who got bit by a Zebra. I do not know her name but i just know the fact. I have met many, many people here and there and it is rare that i can remember a name, that is why i'm not a fan of introductions, because they are a waste of time.
Again i have been going to GVSU for 8 years now and am now a uber-senior. "Uber-senior" is a new class of student that is still an undergrad yet more than just a super-senior. I originally wanted to be a Veterinarian, but i tried for 3 years and it did not work out. I'm stubborn, thus i did not give up until i was about to get kicked out. I re-evaluated what i wanted to do and decided that i should do what i am good at. I found out that i am good at selling things by working at Walgreens and setting regional records for "suggestive selling." Thus, i am now in business now looking to graduate in a year.
I am fluent in Japanese and love the language and culture. I am well educated in East Asian culture and business. I wanted to go to Japan but i just do not have the funding and I will just have to keep watching Anime and Japanese dramas for my J-fix.
I am the Treasurer of the Otaku no Anime club and a board member for the past 5 years of the largest free anime convention in North America, JAFAX. I am a member of many, many other clubs at this time but i currently do not have the time to attend the meetings this semester.
I like gaming, alot. I am mainly a PC gamer (my consoles kept getting stolen). I grew up in a gaming family with a big brother who supported us in learning new systems and games. I am a lvl 80 Blood Elf Rogue. That is my current World of Warcraft character, i have 32 different characters on 19 different servers. I have been playing WoW since a month after it was originally released in 2004. I also play Aion, L4D2, The Sims 2&3, Tomb Raider games, Age of Empires games, Fallout 3, and more which can all be seen on my Xfire profile.
I also like auto racing. If it has wheels and goes fast, i am a fan. NASCAR, NHRA, F1, WRC, and WoO. I recently got into World of Outlaws (WoO) because of my bestfriend who is the top graphic artist in the industry and my job shadowing last summer. I totally love it and know and have met many of drivers in the industry.
I want to improve myself in my selling and marketing techniques because I have a chance to enter the industry upon graduation. I want to learn new things and methods to get people to buy things. I am actually fascinated with convincing people that something is worth what i want for them. Like, how can i convince someone that this pencil is worth $5? I see them as goals.
I am very open-minded and look to share my ideas and experiences with others who do not have the opportunity to explore the world how it truly is. I have been through much more than a normal person should go through and i have learned much from my experiences. Having a uber-strict father from India and a Dutch free-spirited mother, i have been through the wringer and back.
So that is me in a nutshell, for now...
Again i have been going to GVSU for 8 years now and am now a uber-senior. "Uber-senior" is a new class of student that is still an undergrad yet more than just a super-senior. I originally wanted to be a Veterinarian, but i tried for 3 years and it did not work out. I'm stubborn, thus i did not give up until i was about to get kicked out. I re-evaluated what i wanted to do and decided that i should do what i am good at. I found out that i am good at selling things by working at Walgreens and setting regional records for "suggestive selling." Thus, i am now in business now looking to graduate in a year.
I am fluent in Japanese and love the language and culture. I am well educated in East Asian culture and business. I wanted to go to Japan but i just do not have the funding and I will just have to keep watching Anime and Japanese dramas for my J-fix.
I am the Treasurer of the Otaku no Anime club and a board member for the past 5 years of the largest free anime convention in North America, JAFAX. I am a member of many, many other clubs at this time but i currently do not have the time to attend the meetings this semester.
I like gaming, alot. I am mainly a PC gamer (my consoles kept getting stolen). I grew up in a gaming family with a big brother who supported us in learning new systems and games. I am a lvl 80 Blood Elf Rogue. That is my current World of Warcraft character, i have 32 different characters on 19 different servers. I have been playing WoW since a month after it was originally released in 2004. I also play Aion, L4D2, The Sims 2&3, Tomb Raider games, Age of Empires games, Fallout 3, and more which can all be seen on my Xfire profile.
I also like auto racing. If it has wheels and goes fast, i am a fan. NASCAR, NHRA, F1, WRC, and WoO. I recently got into World of Outlaws (WoO) because of my bestfriend who is the top graphic artist in the industry and my job shadowing last summer. I totally love it and know and have met many of drivers in the industry.
I want to improve myself in my selling and marketing techniques because I have a chance to enter the industry upon graduation. I want to learn new things and methods to get people to buy things. I am actually fascinated with convincing people that something is worth what i want for them. Like, how can i convince someone that this pencil is worth $5? I see them as goals.
I am very open-minded and look to share my ideas and experiences with others who do not have the opportunity to explore the world how it truly is. I have been through much more than a normal person should go through and i have learned much from my experiences. Having a uber-strict father from India and a Dutch free-spirited mother, i have been through the wringer and back.
So that is me in a nutshell, for now...
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