by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Planning
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 14 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: When creating your business vision, keep these points in mind
— From Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell
Walt Disney came up with his business vision after taking his two daughters to an amusement park. In there, he was captivated by the carousel. However, when it came to a stop, “he observed shabby horses with cracked and chipped paint. And he noticed that only the horses on the outside row moved up and down. The others stood lifeless bolted to the floor.”
This disappointment is what inspired him to create his business vision of “an amusement park where the illusion didn’t evaporate, where children and adults could enjoy a carnival atmosphere without the seedy side that accompanies some circuses or traveling carnivals.” From there, Disneyland was born and the rest is history.
As a leader, it is very important that you, too, create your business vision. John Maxwell, leadership guru and author of Leadership 101, says, “Vision leads the leader. It paints the target. It sparks and fuels the fire within, and draws him forward. It is also the fire lighter for others who follow that leader.”
To create a successful business vision, keep in mind the following points:
Vision starts within. “You can’t buy, beg, or borrow vision. It has to come from the inside… If you lack vision, look inside yourself. Draw on your natural gifts and desires. Look to your calling if you have one.”
The author says that, as you look within for your vision, you must listen to several voices:
The inner voice. “Do you know your life’s mission? What stirs your heart? What do you dream about? If what you’re pursuing doesn’t come from a desire within—from the very depths of who you are and what you believe—you will not be able to accomplish it.”
The unhappy voice. “Discontent with the status quo is a great catalyst for vision. Are you on complacent cruise control? Or do you find yourself itching to change your world?”
The successful voice. “Nobody can accomplish great things alone. To fulfill a big vision, you need a good team. But you also need good advice from someone who is ahead of you in the leadership journey. If you want to lead others to greatness, find a mentor. Do you have an adviser who can help you sharpen your vision?”
And this last voice is essential if you’re having a hard time coming up with a vision of your own. Maxwell suggests hooking up with a leader whose vision resonates with you. If you can’t come up with your vision yet, but you are in alignment with someone else’s vision, perhaps, for the time being, the best thing you can do is to help out and learn as much as you can from this other leader. That way, when you have created your own business vision, you will know how to execute.
Vision draws on your history. “Vision isn’t some mystical quality that comes out of a vacuum, as some people seem to believe. It grows from a leader’s past and the history of the people around him.” Look at the story of Disney and many other leaders; it was connecting the dots of past events to their present capabilities that lead them to create their vision.
Vision meets others’ needs. “True vision is far-reaching. It goes beyond what one individual can accomplish. And if it has real value, it does more than just include others; it adds value to them. If you have a vision that doesn’t serve others, it’s probably too small.”
Run your vision by a small group of trusted friends and ask for their feedback. They will come up with ideas and twists that would have never occurred to you. Take what works and discard the rest, and you will be able to broaden your vision to add more value to those whom you will serve.
Vision helps you gather resources. “One of the most valuable benefits of vision is that it acts like a magnet—attracting, challenging, and uniting people. It also rallies finances and other resources. The greater the vision, the more winners it has the potential to attract. The more challenging the vision, the harder the participants fight to achieve it.”
ACTION
TODAY: Do you have a business vision? This can indeed mean that you are starting a business, but not necessarily. It means that you have a vision for yourself in business, whichever path you decide to follow, whether your own, or as an employee for a company whose business vision resonates with you. If you don’t have one, give some thought to the points above and create one. Remember this awesome quote by Rosabeth Moss Kanter: “A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.”
FUTURE: As you grow in life and business, make a point of revising your vision from time to time. Your vision must be exciting and relevant to the stage you’re in, and it’s also important to make sure it continues to lead you to where you want to go.
Know someone who would like this post? Please share! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Time
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 48 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Top 5 Barriers to Teamwork
— From Equipping 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell
Our culture loves the myth of the self-made man or woman. We applaud and admire the story of the lone entrepreneur who builds an empire.
But the truth is that nobody reaches the top by themselves. Everyone gets help along the way.
John C. Maxwell, leadership guru and author of Equipping 101, challenges us to think of one act of genuine significance in the history of humankind that was performed by a lone human being. “No matter what you name, you will find that a team of people was involved.”
Teamwork is not necessarily seen—or even considered so—when it comes from an external source and not directly within the immediate circle, such as funding, government licenses and permits, outsourcing help, or any kind of metaphorical push along the way that gets the person unstuck and moving in the right direction.
Yet it’s important to recognize that no man is an island and that any worthwhile feat requires teamwork. As the author’s famous quote and title of another one of his books says, “Teamwork makes the dream work.” And he goes on to provide a list of the benefits of teamwork:
- Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas and energy than would an individual.
- Teams maximize a leader’s potential and minimize her weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are more exposed in individuals
- Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal, thus devising several alternatives for each situation.
- Teams share the credits for victories and the blame for losses. This fosters genuine humility and authentic community.
- Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal.
- Teams can simply do more than an individual.
But we already knew this… right? So, why are we so adamant and hardheaded about doing things by ourselves?
Maxwell thinks there are four main barriers to teamwork, and he shares them with us.
Barriers to teamwork
Barrier 1: Ego. “Few people are fond of admitting they can’t do everything, yet that is a reality of life. There are no supermen or superwomen. So the question is not whether you can do everything by yourself; it’s how soon you’re going to realize you can’t.”
Barrier 2: Insecurity. “Only secure leaders give power to others… insecure leaders usually fail to build teams because of one of two reasons: Either they want to maintain control over everything for which they are responsible, or they fear being replaced by someone more capable. In either case, leaders who fail to promote teamwork undermine their own potential and erode the best efforts of the people with whom they work.”
Barrier 3: Naiveté. “[Some people] naively underestimate the difficulty of achieving big things. As a result, they try to go it alone.”
Barrier 4: Temperament. “Some people aren’t very outgoing and simply don’t think in terms of team building and equipping. As they face challenges, it never occurs to them to enlist others to achieve something… But whether or not you’re naturally inclined to be part of a team is really irrelevant. If you do everything alone and never partner with other people, you create huge barriers to your own potential.”
And besides these four ones from Maxwell, I’d like to add a fifth barrier that I’ve come across:
Barrier 5: Time (perceived lack of). Some people (read: me… #notproud) are so pressed for time in general, that we think bringing someone on board—or even outsourcing—is going to take a lot of time due to the time and effort involved in training the new person. Eventually, we come to realize that the time and effort in training will be well worth it, as it will be a small investment up front, in comparison to the return in the form of help that we need, the freedom to take that off our plates, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing it’s being done (and done well!).
ACTION
TODAY: Are you trying to work on something where you’d be better off enlisting the help of others? I’ve learned that almost everything can be optimized, automated, or outsourced (thanks, Ari Meisel!) Which one of the barriers is holding you back? What steps do you need to take to overcome it?
FUTURE: What are your big, hairy and audacious goals? If you break them down into doable chunks, where could you use some help? Keep in mind that help is not just for the things you don’t know how to do or can’t do, but also (and especially!) for the ones that you do very well and should not be doing (not the best use of your time).
Know someone who is battling with these barriers to teamwork? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 7 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: The 10 Es of great customer service
— From Woo, Wow, and Win: Service Design, Strategy, and the Art of Customer Delight by Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O’Connell
As we get closer to Thanksgiving here in the U.S., I’ve been seeing more and more offers from retailers who have started their Black Friday sales early this year.
Thinking how much people like to buy stuff, I was surprised recently when I read, “people derive more happiness from new experiences—a day by the sea, a night at the opera—than from new things.”
It makes perfect sense in light of the fact that “the pleasure of a new object diminishes over time (as every child knows on December 26), while the pleasure of experience grows (as every adult knows, enjoying those warm holiday memories).”
So, knowing this, how can we create great customer service and a memorable experience, no matter how big or small a product or service we sell?
The answer for designing great service that is delivered expertly, according to Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O’Connell, authors of Woo, Wow and Win, is to find “alignment among your strategic goals, your customer’s wants and needs, and what actually happens between you.”
And that alignment is a function of the following 10 E’s working together:
1. Empathy: “Developing products, services and experiences from the customer’s point of view; taking full account of how your customers use and interact with you.”
2. Expectation: “Ensuring that customers know what to expect from their interaction with you.”
3. Emotion: “Knowing the emotions your customer brings to your relationship, and guiding customers to a satisfied feeling about working with you.”
4. Elegance: “Providing offers that are clean, simple, easy to work with, and complete—nothing superfluous, nothing omitted.”
5. Engagement: “Communicating with customers—and they with you—at every point of contact, to understand their experience and how to improve it.”
6. Execution: “Reliably meeting all the expectations you have set.”
7. Engineering: “Possessing technical excellence (for example, compared to peers, but also general business standards) and eliminating waste of materials, time and effort, so that no extraneous effort is necessary on the part of you or your customer.”
8. Economics: “Pricing your services appropriately, so that the customer gets value for money and you the profit you expect.”
9. Experimentation: “Building processes for improvement and innovation into the daily work of your business; developing capabilities to develop and roll out new offerings.”
10. Equivalence: “Managing the customer, your team, and partner organizations so that you, the seller/service provider, are satisfied too.”
As you can see, the first five Es are focused on the customer’s side of the equation, and the last five ones are focused mostly on you.
These elements come together to create a system to build great customer service. But, “To what end?” the authors asked an expert in service design.
The answer?
Relationships. The goal of great customer service is to build a relationship with the customer; otherwise it’s merely a transaction.
“It is difficult to think of a transaction between a buyer and a seller that cannot be made more valuable to both parties by adding at least the possibility of a relationship beyond the transaction itself.”
What’s an instance of great customer service that you have received where you were happy to create a relationship with the seller? Please let me know here in the comments, I always love to hear these kinds of stories!
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the role you play in selling your products/services. How many Es can you apply toward creating great customer service in your business?
FUTURE: Study the customer’s journey and look at every touch point. What kind of relationship would you want to build (or strengthen) with your customers?
Want to build great customer service? Please share this post with your colleagues so that all of you can be in alignment: Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 10 Tips from Seth Godin on how to be remarkable
— From Seth Godin’s blog post titled “How to be remarkable,” (in turn from Godin’s post on The Guardian).
I’ve always enjoyed Seth Godin’s definition of remarkable: in a nutshell, something to make a remark about.
And as I was looking for that specific quote for a project of mine, I came across this great post and news article that Godin posted over a decade ago, that is as valid today as it was back then.
I’ll leave the whole piece below for you. Enjoy it – it’s remarkable! 😉
How to be remarkable
You’re either boring or you stand out. You’re either invisible or remarkable. And, all your life, everyone has been pushing you to fit in. All your life you’re told to keep your head down, work hard, don’t make waves and get it done. What rubbish. Here, in 10 easy steps, is how to grow. How to stand out. How to get noticed, make a difference and have a shot at the big time.
1.Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won’t do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit.
2.Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you’re average, and average is for losers.
3. Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.
4. Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it’s practically a requirement. People in first place, those considered the best in the world, these are the folks that get what they want. Rock stars have groupies because they’re stars, not because they’re good looking.
5. Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn’t always matter which edge, more that you’re at (or beyond) the edge.
6. Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don’t. So what? Most people are ostriches, heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway. Your goal isn’t to please everyone. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.
7. If it’s in a manual, if it’s the accepted wisdom, if you can find it in a Dummies book, then guess what? It’s boring, not remarkable. Part of what it takes to do something remarkable is to do something first and best. Roger Bannister was remarkable. The next guy, the guy who broke Bannister’s record wasn’t. He was just faster … but it doesn’t matter.
8. It’s not really as frightening as it seems. They keep the masses in line by threatening them (us) with all manner of horrible outcomes if we dare to step out of line. But who loses their jobs at the mass layoffs? Who has trouble finding a new gig? Not the remarkable minority, that’s for sure.
9. If you put it on a T-shirt, would people wear it? No use being remarkable at something that people don’t care about. Not ALL people, mind you, just a few. A few people insanely focused on what you do is far far better than thousands of people who might be mildly interested, right?
10. What’s fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. While you might be remarkable for a time, if you don’t reinvest and reinvent, you won’t be for long. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.
“But wait!” I hear you say. “My boss won’t let me. I want to do something great, but she won’t let me.”
This is, of course, nonsense. Your boss won’t let you because what you’re really asking is: “May I do something silly and fun and, if it doesn’t work, will you take the blame – but if it does work, I get the credit?” What would you say to an offer like that?
The alternative sounds scary, but I don’t think it is. The alternative is to just be remarkable. Go all the way to the edge. Not in a big thing, perhaps, but in a little one. Find some area where you have a tiny bit of authority and run with it. After you succeed, you’ll discover you’ve got more leeway for next time. And if you fail? Don’t worry. Your organisation secretly wants employees willing to push hard even if it means failing every so often.
And when? When should you start being remarkable? How’s this: if you don’t start tomorrow, you’re not really serious. Tomorrow night by midnight or don’t bother. You’re too talented to sit around waiting for the perfect moment. Go start.
ACTION
TODAY: Start today at being remarkable! Start small, where you are and with what you have.
FUTURE: Keep this tip sheet handy and frequently refer to it. Start the habit of becoming remarkable in little things first, as Godin suggests, and then run with larger projects! Rinse and repeat.
Know someone who is remarkable? Please share this post with them! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 54 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leaders take initiative
— From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
A trait in leaders is that they always take initiative. In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, leadership guru John C. Maxwell pointed out that it is a leader’s responsibility to initiate a connection with his or her followers.
Yet, “that’s not the only area where leaders must show initiative,” says Maxwell. “They must always look for opportunities and be ready to take action.”
Maxwell is a genius when it comes to distilling the characteristics of every aspect of leadership. And in this case, his brilliance comes through again in The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, with four qualities that he believes enable leaders to take initiative and make things happen.
1. Leaders know what they want. Clarity and vision are the keys here. Maxwell points to Napoleon Hill who said that the starting point of all achievement is desire. “If you are going to be an effective leader, you’ve got to know what you want [and where you’re going]. That’s the only way you’ll recognize opportunity when it comes.”
2. Leaders push themselves to act. “There’s an old saying, ‘You can if you will.’ Initiators don’t wait for other people to motivate them. They know it is their responsibility to push themselves beyond their comfort zone. And they make it a regular practice.”
3. Leaders take more risks. “When leaders know what they want and can push themselves to act, they still have one more hurdle. That’s willingness to take risks. Proactive people always take risks. But one of the reasons good leaders are willing to take risks is that they recognize there is a price for not initiating too.” Maxwell shares a quote from President John F. Kennedy:
“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
4. Leaders make more mistakes. “The good news for initiators is that they make things happen. The bad news is that they make lots of mistakes. […] Even though initiating leaders experience more failure, they don’t let it bother them. The greater the potential, the greater their chance for failure. […] If you want to achieve great things as a leader, you must be willing to initiate and put yourself on the line.”
As Maxwell reflects on these traits, he asks, “When was the last time you initiated something significant in your life?” I’ll leave you with that thought to ponder today and a quote by former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca who said, “Even the right decision is the wrong decision if it is made too late.”
Where do you need to jump-start your initiative?
ACTION
TODAY: Think about something that you’ve wanted to do for some time but have been putting it off. Why is that? Analyze your mindset and determine why you’re hesitant. Ask why five times so that you can get to the bottom of it and take initiative today—even if it’s just a tiny little step—towards making it happen.
FUTURE: Opportunity is everywhere. That is a wonderful thing, but it can also be overwhelming. Cultivate a mindset of discernment so that you can take initiative and act only on those opportunities in which you can succeed. That’s where your time and efforts will be rewarded.
Know someone who is constantly taking initiative? Please share this post with that person, he or she deserves recognition for being an initiator, hats off! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 21 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: ASAP is stressful, use it wisely
— From REWORK: Change the way you work forever by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The post on being conscious about the language we use left me thinking about other words and sayings that have become common—but shouldn’t be.
One of those is ASAP or As Soon As Possible.
ASAP is stressful because it always denotes urgency. ASAP means drop everything and pay attention to this.
I get stressed out—and know a lot of people who do too—when colleagues used ASAP liberally, like salt on their food. That’s why I loved what Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson say about it in their awesome book Rework:
ASAP is poison.
Stop saying ASAP. We get it. It’s implied. Everyone wants things done as soon as they can be done.
When you turn into one of these people who adds ASAP to the end of every request, you’re saying everything is high priority. And when everything is high priority, nothing is. (Funny how everything is a top priority until you actually have to prioritize things.)
ASAP is inflationary. It devalues any request that doesn’t say ASAP. Before you know it, the only way to get anything done is by putting the ASAP sticker on it.
Most things just don’t warrant that kind of hysteria. If a task doesn’t get done this very instant, nobody is going to die. Nobody is going to lose their job. It won’t cost the company a ton of money. What it will do is create artificial stress, which leads to burnout and worse.
So reserve your use of emergency language for true emergencies. The kind where there are direct, measurable consequences to inaction. For everything else, chill out.
What other words or phrases have you come across that you’d like to veto from our language? Let me know in the comments here and I’ll write a post about it!
ACTION
TODAY: The authors are right in saying, “When everything is high priority, nothing is.” Take a moment to prioritize your schedule today and for the rest of the week so that you’re not telling yourself “ASAP” unconsciously and operating under unneeded stress!
FUTURE: Do you know someone who operates in ASAP mode all the time? Grab a cup of coffee with that person, and share your willingness to work as a team, but be candid in mentioning that seeing ASAP so often is very stressful and thus underproductive. Set up a system to work together that will (1) ensure you get the projects on time, and (2) enable you to know when projects are really urgent to devote your whole attention to them. I’ve found that a cup of coffee works wonders for most things: it creates bonds of friendship, better understanding among colleagues, and much willingness to work together (and have coffee again in a future).
Help someone get out of ASAP mode by sharing this post via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Mindset, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 27 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Compare well if you’re going to compare to others
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
If you’re going to compare to others, compare well, was the wise counsel that M.J. Ryan—leading expert on change and human fulfillment, and author of Habit Changers—gave to a young business owner who was in her twenties, and who was complaining about “not being ‘as far along’ on the success path as her peers.”
Ryan says that this is a very common feeling: “We look around, rank ourselves on some invisible scale of achievement, and usually find ourselves wanting. There’s always someone who’s done more, made more money, gotten more glory, no matter our age and stage.”
And despite what the experts say that we should not compare ourselves to others, Ryan points out that is impossible. “Part of what our prefrontal cortex exists to do is take in information and compare that to conclusions and judgments it has previously made.”
Ryan suggests not battling this tendency of our brain to compare ourselves to others but instead, as she told her young client, “be sure to compare well.”
I think this compare well mantra can serve us all. Ryan recalls the conversation:
“What do you mean [compare well]?” [The client] asked. “Well,” [Ryan] said, “What does success look like to you?” She had her answer immediately: “Being my own boss, having the freedom to do things when and how I want.” “So when you compare your situation to others given those criteria, what do you notice?” [Ryan] replied. “I’ve already got what I want!” [The client] exclaimed! “I’ve been so busy comparing myself against a yardstick I’m not even interested in that I didn’t even notice the success I’ve created.”
Going forward, since we will all compare, it behooves us to compare well. This way, as the author mentions, we will be in alignment with the success we truly want and comparing ourselves by the measurements we truly value.
ACTION
TODAY: Who have you been comparing yourself to? Decide instead to compare well: Ask yourself the two questions that Ryan asked her client: What does success look like to you? So, when you compare your situation to others given those criteria, what do you notice? Your answers will be revealing: (1) they’ll make you grateful for getting clarity and for being where you are; (2) they’ll set you in alignment with your definition of success; and (3) they’ll point you towards the path you must follow to achieve (or to continue to attain) the success you want.
FUTURE: Remember that if you are going to compare anyway, you must compare well! There is no need to compare someone’s sizzle reel (especially from social media) to your everyday life. Don’t let that deceive you or bring you down: we all make our best effort to look great online. Compare yourself well and only to yourself as you move in the direction of your goals.
Know someone who would like this post? Please share: Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Celebration, Collaboration, Growth, Leadership, Mindset
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Gary Vee’s philosophy on leadership
— From #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness by Gary Vaynerchuk
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been poring over all the leadership books I own, working on distilling some of the most important lessons on leadership for a keynote that I’ll be giving this month to a Fortune 500 Company.
This has been a super fun endeavor, and a titanic one at that, because I could talk about this topic for hours without end, and I only have one hour. Yes, 60 minutes, Q&A included. The time has become a beautiful constraint as it has forced me to focus only on the key points and pick the most relevant stories. The presentation is going to be awesome!
I will be sharing with you tidbits of my talk as future posts. Yet, in the meantime, I wanted to share with you today this excerpt about Gary Vee’s philosophy on leadership. It comes from Gary Vaynerchuck’s (“Gary Vee”) book called #AskGaryVee. Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur that I deeply admire and respect, and I hope you enjoy reading his take on leadership as much as I do.
Cheers!
My philosophy on leadership is very simple: Everything in business stems from the top, whether you’re the boss of two people in a three-person team or the head of a Fortune 500 Company. And everything that happens in a company is 100 percent the CEO’s fault. After all, the CEO is the person who puts people into a position to make good or bad decisions. It’s no accident that when some companies change their CEO they go from winners to losers or vice versa. It may be the most important variable for success in running a business.
Being a leader today is a greater challenge than ever because of social media. It has completely changed the nature of the job. You used to be able to—no, leaders were expected to talk from the top of a mountain. You’d make your proclamation and not worry much about hearing anything back, certainly not in real time. But now that our communication channels have given everyone a voice, whatever you say from on high may invite a reaction. You might get it in-house, or you might get it from the masses. […]
The only effective way to truly lead is to practice and model the behavior you want to see in others. […] I know my team is watching me. I can’t tell them to go the extra mile if I’m not willing to do it myself. If the DNA from any business stems from the top, the top has to ensure that its values, beliefs, and attitudes trickle down to shape the culture and encourage a productive, innovative, creative, and even happy environment.
One hallmark of a good leader is to ask questions. It’s the best way to show your team you recognize they’re more than just cogs in a wheel. “Hey, how are things going?” “How’s the new baby?” “What are you excited about lately?” “Do you have any ideas you’d like to discuss?” It’s also the best way to solve problems. Don’t ever start offering solutions before asking tons of questions: “Why are we two weeks behind?” “What do you think is the issue?” “What do you need?” And then for God’s sake, listen. Be compassionate. Be fair. Hire people who embody those characteristics, too. Celebrate successes, and when you have to reprimand, hark back to all the times you screwed up and remember that those mistakes have everything to do with who you are today. Great leaders aren’t born, they’re made.
[…] Look in the mirror and think about what you do well and how you could do even better. Leadership needs to be a big pillar in your development…
ACTION
TODAY: Think of the way in which you lead: yourself and others. In which areas are you awesome and in which do you need improvement? Ask the people that you lead for feedback, they will tell you where you’re strong and where you’re not.
FUTURE: Be intentional about your leadership and values on a daily basis: put the work into becoming the leader you want to be, so that others will want to follow you. Preach by example.
Know someone who rocks as a leader? Please share this post! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 6 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: What’s the difference between performance goals and learning goals?
— From Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success–and Won’t Let You Fail by Keith Ferrazzi.
When setting goals, it’s important to understand the difference between performance goals and learning goals. “Not knowing the difference can harm the way you think about the future,” says Keith Ferrazzi, author of Who’s Got Your Back.
“Certain goals, known as ‘performance goals,’ imply a finite result, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow… far more important is developing a process and a roadmap that help you achieve that income in a given time. In other words, you should be thinking about the rainbow, not just the pot of gold.”
The process and the roadmap that the author is referring to are the learning goals. And when setting goals he recommends having both types.
Performance goals are the goals that we normally think of: specific outcomes such as losing 10 pounds, getting a new job, traveling to Hawaii, getting married, etc.
Learning goals “emphasize acquiring new skills and knowledge to push and expand your skills and career forward.” Learning goals are key to accomplish our performance goals.
Here are a few examples that the author offers to make even clearer the distinction between these two goals:
| PERFORMANCE GOAL |
LEARNING GOAL |
| Lose 10 pounds |
Learn to cook healthier meals |
| Increase Web traffic by 50 percent |
Find five new marketing tactics |
| Boost sales 10 percent |
Learn how to hone your best pitch |
Ferrazzi goes on to say that “performance goals can be motivating [but the] flip side is that, set inappropriately, they can be intimidating and sometimes debilitating when we fall short.”
Josh Kaufman, author of The Personal MBA states a similar thought in this post.
Kaufman says that when we set performance goals that are not directly under the control of our efforts we may become terribly disappointed if something happens that prevents us from attaining our goal.
For instance, he notes that if we set a performance goal of losing 20 pounds, and something happens that makes our weight fluctuate on any given day, we might feel very frustrated. Instead, if we make our performance goal something that we can indeed control, such as 30 minutes of exercise every day, we can then be satisfied with the outcome once we’ve performed the task(s) needed to fulfill our goals.
Further—and this is probably the most important thing to take away from today’s idea—Ferrazzi says, “With learning goals, failure is an impossibility.” He explains:
In the course of creating and carrying out your goals, of course you are going to make some mistakes. It’s part of learning. No one with ambitious career or life plans gets ahead without experiencing glitches and setbacks. […] But once you switch your attention to learning goals, the whole idea of “failure” starts to make less sense.
When you are constantly learning from everything you do, failure ceases to be an option.
With learning goals, since you are learning, putting into action, tweaking and adjusting to make the outcome better, and repeating often, you are naturally moving into the direction of your performance goal with actions that are under your control. That is why I love it when the author says that failure is an impossibility—it truly is!
ACTION
TODAY: What performance goal are you working towards where you’ve had mixed or variable success? Examine what you are doing and determine what learning goals and actions under your control you need to add to the mix so that you can get the results you desire.
FUTURE: When setting goals in the future, create the habit of doing so incorporating performance goals that you can control and learning goals that will make it impossible to fail.
Know someone who could benefit from reading this post? Please share it! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Celebration, Creativity, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools, Wellbeing
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Sharing accomplishments on social media? Be generous, authentic and enthusiastic
— From The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want by Dave Kerpen
In The Art of People, Dave Kerpen recalls sharing accomplishments via social media and the reactions from his friends:
“So excited! We won the WOMMIE award for word of mouth marketing excellence for the second year in a row!”
After this announcement, a casual friend of Kerpen sent him the following private message: “Enough already, Dave! I know you won an award or two, I know you’re excited about it all, but stop shoving all this self-promotion in our faces!”
That message stung “probably because there was some truth to it,” says Kerpen. His company had just won the award for the second year in a row, and he was very happy about it and had been sharing accomplishments (this and others) “proudly and liberally” on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Very likely, the person that messaged him saw the posts on all three networks and got tired of it.
Kerpen remembers being upset and confused. “I was genuinely proud of our work and wanted to share the good news… On the other hand, I certainly didn’t want to get attention for being an egomaniacal braggart.”
He took the feedback to heart. “[He developed] a more modest attitude toward posting to social media… [being] humble, grateful and not overly self-promotional in [his] social media updates.”
In the meantime, unknown to Kerpen, the word humblebrag was being added to the Dictionary to describe exactly what he had started to do when sharing accomplishments.
So, when the following year his company won the WOMMIE Award again, he posted: “So honored and humbled to have received the WOMMIE Award for the 3rd year in a row! Thanks to the whole team @Likeablemedia!”
And to this post, came a different reaction from another one of Kerpen’s friends: “Dude, what’s with the humblebrag? Just gloat man, no need to fake being humble when you are dominating the award circuit!”
Kerpen was exasperated: “It seemed that no matter what I did, I couldn’t share my joy about accomplishments without offending some people.” The author goes on to say, “The problem with sharing accomplishments on social media… is there is no tone or body language to help convey your meaning, and that means it’s very easy for people to lose the context and not get your intention right.”
So, what to do? Does this mean no more sharing accomplishments? Never ever?
For Kerpen, the answer to that question is no, with two important caveats:
1. Be unafraid but as authentic (noncontrived) as possible in sharing accomplishments on social media.
2. Heap lots of authentic praise on others via social media as well.
The first point is simple: You’re going to be judged by people no matter what, so just be your authentic self and stand behind that authenticity no matter what people may say.
The second point is important too: Be quick to praise others in social media (and face-to-face). Authentic praise and compliments make people feel good, help them feel more comfortable in sharing their accomplishments, and, most important, show the world that you’re not all about yourself and are just as apt to sing another person’s praises as your own.
And the author sets out a challenge for us: “Scroll through your social media news feeds looking for opportunities to praise, congratulate, and promote others: your friends, colleagues, and followers. Be generous in retweeting people. Promote the heck out of everyone.”
My take on this?
As long as you are sharing your accomplishments with generosity, gratitude, authenticity and enthusiasm, your true friends and the people that love you are going to be genuinely happy and excited for you. And if you return the favor in sharing that excitement and congratulating people on their accomplishments and important milestones, everybody wins and we make this world a happier and better place.
ACTION
TODAY: What do you have to celebrate today? Big win or small win, share what makes your heart smile! Your circles will be very happy for you, and if you tag me on social media (Facebook, Twitter) I will be delighted to read about your accomplishment and happy to share!
FUTURE: Kerpen, a master of social media suggests the following: “Take a look at your last twenty social media updates and do a quick audit. How much are you promoting yourself versus promoting others? Ideally, you want to strike a balance of no more than 30 percent promoting yourself and at least 70 percent promoting others. […] Audit your next twenty social media updates and compare them with the previous twenty. Have you helped people see you as someone willing to praise others and unafraid to share his or her own accomplishments?”
And speaking of sharing… please do! Email, Facebook or Twitter.
