Do You Have Leadership Double-Vision? Should You?

When it comes to getting things done, culture can have a huge impact not only on how well the team performs, but how likely it is that our teammates will stick around to do it again.  So, what do we do when we sense that our team’s culture is heading straight for the edge of a cliff?  Here are eleven ideas for how we can make a culture course correction with our teams.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full post:  Culture Course Correction:  11 Ways to Avoid Going Over the Cliff
• Here’s a link to Daniel Pink’s book  Drive:  The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• Take a quick leadership “I” test for a sense of how you may be inadvertently sabotaging your team’s culture:  The Leadership Eye Test:  A Simple Checkup for Your Team’s Health
• Culture is shaped very powerfully by what we do when things go wrong.  Here are two inspiring stories about leaders who got it right:  How to Build Culture One Test at a Time
• For more ideas about how to strengthen your team culture through ritual, consider:  Team Rituals:  35 Pretty Good Ideas to Strengthen Your Culture
   

Quotable:

“Water the plans you want to grow.”
- Stephen Covey

“A sense of autonomy has a powerful effect on individual performance and attitude.”
- Daniel Pink

“It’s hard to build a team if you make teammates fight for the same resources.”
- Ken Downer

Related posts: 

How to Build Team Culture One Test at a Time

Micromanagement:  7 Signs You’re a Micromanager and What to Do About It

How to Build Team Culture One Test at a Time

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If we hope to develop high-performing teams, increasing engagement is always at the top of our to-do list.  But sometimes in our efforts to lead, we can get in our own way, and hinder the very thing we are trying to encourage.  Two brief interactions that went very differently illustrate how this can happen, and what we can do if we are serious about increasing engagement on our teams.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full post: Increasing Engagement – How to Get People to Open Up
• Find out more about Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends & Influence People or get the book here:  Win Friends
• Here’s a link to a free copy of Dr. Gordon’s study:  The Difference Between Feeling Defensive and Feeling Understood. 
  
  

Quotable:

“When people feel defensive, they want to strike out; when they feel understood, they want to reach out.  When people feel defensive, they want to do something to the other person; when they feel understood, they want to do something for the other person.”
- Dr. Ronal Gordon

“I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiment of others.
- Benjamin Franklin

 “Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.”
- Lord Chesterfield, to his son

Related posts: 

Culture Course Correction:  11 Ways to Avoid Going over the Cliff

Courage to Lead:  Re-looking the Role of Courage in Leadership

Bad vs. Good:  Why Does the Bad Seem to Outweigh the Good?

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 Most people know that a marathon is 26.2 miles long.  Successful runners also know that it’s a mistake to focus solely on that distance.  Smart leaders can benefit from similar thinking.  Whatever marathon we are running with our teams, to get to that distant goal, it’s not the finish line we should focus on, it’s the 18th mile.  Here’s why. 

Notes and Resources: 

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full post:The 18th Mile: It’s Not the Finish Line Leaders Should Focus On
• When it comes to clearly defining the problem we are trying to solve, this post can help, and demonstrates why it’s so important to invest the time to do this part right:  What’s the Problem:  Problem-Solving Lessons-Learned from Moneyball.
   
• Team culture is critically important in helping us make it through the 18th mile.  Here’s more on how to build one that will go the distance:  How to Build Team Culture From the Ground Up
• The study of fund raisers is described in this paper prepared by Ashley V. Whillans from the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia
• My post Beat the Hamster Wheel – 5 Ways to Keep Going When You’d Rather Not has several ways to help you and your team persevere.
   

Quotable:

“Expecting and preparing for things to become difficult is the first step to overcoming them.”
- Ken Downer
 
“The presence of an obstacle doesn’t necessarily mean we’re on the wrong path, just that we need to be more creative and resourceful to continue forward.”
- Ken Downer
 

 “The true team players emerge at the 18th mile.  Pay attention to who they are, value them, encourage them, support them; they are not always who we thought they were.”
- Ken Downer
 

Related posts:
How Serving Can Make You a Better Leader
Type 2 Fun: The Secret to Achieving Your Goals
Spotlight the Support
 

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On a recent sub-zero day on a frozen lake in central Minnesota, I got a chance to witness great team leadership in action.  It was a crash course in what leading winning teams is all about.  Here’s what the experience was like, and five key lessons from the leaders themselves that we can all use in leading our own teams.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full post:Leading Winning Teams: 5 Leadership Lessons from Mushers
• A great article posted on LinkedIn by Aaron Phillips goes even farther into detail with his conversations with several of the mushers featured in this podcast.
• If you are interested in a deeper dive into the interface between mushing and leadership, an hour well-spent would be with the Always in Pursuit podcast interview with 5x Iditarod champion musher Dallas Seavey, hosted by Mike Burke, an exceptional leader in his own right. 

Quotable:

“I have to figure out how to make each dog reach its best potential.”
- Libby Riddles, first woman to win the Iditarod

“They’re a great team because I eat beans and rice and they eat steak and eggs.
 - Iditarod musher Lance Mackay

“Good leaders do not secure their position by making others less confident. 
 - Caroline Blair-Smith, Musher

“It is not what the challenge is, it’s how the team handles the challenge.”
- Dallas Seavey, 5-Time Iditarod Champion

“My job is to make sure these dogs succeed.  The race portion will take care of itself.”
- Dallas Seavey

Related posts: 

How to Respond to Crisis: Four Steps for Leaders

Positive Feedback – Catch them Doing Something Right

Rapid Deliberation: 7 Ways to Hit the Target While Under Stress

Stay connected with Rapidstart Leadership

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When we’re trying to influence people to choose an option we favor, we can be tempted to only talk about the reasons why they should.  But according to something called the Blemishing Effect, it may actually be in our best interests to point out why they shouldn’t, too.  Here’s why.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full postThe Blemishing Effect: Why Selling Perfection Can be Self-Defeating
• Dan Pink’s To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others is full of great insights about the ways we influence each other.
• The blemishing effect works best when people don’t want to invest a lot of energy into making a decision, and only when the negative “blemish” comes after all the positive information.
    

Related posts: 

Influencing the Decision: How to Transition from Doer to Decider

Hyperbolic Discounting and 7 Ways to Prevent Self-Sabotage

How to Build Influence: Go From Gofer to Go-To with These 3 Simple Steps

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One of the many challenges we face as leaders is where to spend our time and energy.  Recently I came across an insightful analogy that can help us approach this problem.  It has to do with having a kind of leadership double-vision.

 Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full pos tDo You Have Leadership Double-Vision? Should You?
• The Essential Wooden by John Wooden and Steve Jamison is a great read full of insightful, practical leadership wisdom.
• Another great leadership read is Wooden on Leadership – more practical leadership wisdom woven into longer form stories about Wooden’s challenges and successes as a coach and leader.
• For more about the hazards of micromanaging, check out 7 Signs You’re a Micromanager and What to Do About It
   

Quotable: 

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”  - Stephen Covey

“If we are to devote time to any task, no matter how mundane, we should make sure that time is well-invested.”  - Ken Downer

“Wooden’s focus on the details of every practice brought his team to the point that when the big games came around, he did not worry about the outcome.  He allowed the score to take care of itself.   - Ken Downer

Related posts: 

Book Notes – Wooden on Leadership: Think Small

The Leadership Eye Test: A Simple Checkup for Your Team’s Health

Visionary Leadership: When Social Proof Fails

Stay connected with Rapidstart Leadership

• Visit the site at https://www.rapidstartleadership.com/
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How do we convince ourselves to do something we’d rather not?

It’s cold and raining outside, but I’m supposed to go for a training run today.  I really don’t want to.  To get myself out the door, here are the kinds of things that go through my head, and ways we can all think about approaching any difficult task that we’d really rather not do.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full pos tRunning in the Rain: What to Think About When You Think About Quitting
• Type 1 fun is an activity that is fun in the moment, like a rollercoaster ride; Type 2 fun is more fun when looking back on it, like a tough workout.  It’s “fun when it’s done.”
• For more ideas on how to set and achieve your goals, check out my Goal Mastery Course; the first several lessons are free.

Quotable: 

“Our will is a kind of muscle, and it’s times like these when we can either train it to grow stronger, or allow it to atrophy.”  - Ken Downer

“When it comes to willpower, winning today’s battle will make it easier to win the one tomorrow.”  - Ken Downer

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only poor clothing choices.”  - Outdoorsman’s adage

“The first step to growth is accepting discomfort.”  - Ken Downer

“The impediment to action advances action.  What stands in the way becomes the way.”  - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Related posts: 

Beat the Hamster Wheel: 5 Ways to Keep Going When You’d Rather Not

Type 2 Fun: The Secret to Achieving Your Goals

Where Did Everybody Go? 23 Ways to Stick With Your Goals

Stay connected with Rapidstart Leadership

• Visit the site at https://www.rapidstartleadership.com/
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As ever, with the approach of the New Year, there is talk of reflection.  Extracting the lessons-learned from the past year and using them as we look forward is a great path to continued growth.  But few are the people who will actually sit down and do it.  One reason may be that there is no owner’s manual to guide the process.  With that in mind, here are some ideas for how to go about reflecting on the year gone by so that the year ahead is as good as we can make it.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full postReflecting Back on the Year Ahead – 11 Ways to Make Your Reflection Session Pay Off
• Why use pen and paper?  It gets us away from the screen, it triggers a different way of thinking, and it results in a tangible, concrete artifact we are more likely to remember. 
• Here are the domains for reflecting that Donald Latumahina suggests, along with some questions in each we can ask ourselves:
• Material
   
  • Have we been able to reduce debt, add to savings, and spend wisely?
  • What is the next career step, and how are we progressing towards it?  
  • Are we in control of our possessions, or are they in control of us?
• Spiritual
   
  • Do we feel fulfilled? Why or why not? 
  • Whatever our belief set, how well are we practicing its precepts?  
  • What about meditation or reflective reading?  
  • What would our obituary say if it only covered the past year – what reasons have we given others to say we were a good person?
• Physical
   
  • What do we do to stay healthy? 
  • How often do we exercise, and is that adequate?  
  • How could we be more active even without a formal program?  
  • Is the food we eat helping or hurting our efforts to reach fitness goals, or to lead a healthy life?  
  • Do we get enough sleep?
• Social
   
  • How would we rate the quality of our key relationships with spouse, family, and friends? 
  • What could we do to improve them?  
  • Have we made new friends in the past year?  
  • How well did we stay connected to old ones?  
  • Do all our friends look just like us, or could we stand to have a little more variety in interests, background, and culture?

Quotable: 

“Explore thyself.  Herin are demanded the eye and the nerve.”  - Henry David Thoreau

“Often, it’s not the hail-Mary pass but the slow and steady plodding that lead to our eventual success..”  - Ken Downer

“Maybe the best way to start the new year is by thanking the people who helped us get through the old one.”  - Ken Downer

Related posts: 

6 Powerful Ways Leaders Reflect, and how Reflection Makes Your Team Great

The After Action Review: A Leader’s Guide

No Car, No Phone, No Clue: 10 Life Lessons from a Treasure Hunt

Stay connected with Rapidstart Leadership

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Thanks for listening, and Lead On!

What do jet engines and work teams have in common?  If either generate too much heat, they will self-destruct.  Aeronautical engineers found a surprising way to adapt their engines so they could handle more heat and operate at higher capacities.  Today we’ll look at three ways to apply their approach to leadership, and boost our own team performance.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full postBoosting Team Performance: 3 Ways to Make Your Team’s Engine More Powerful
• Simon Winchester’s book The perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World is a fascinating look into man’s pursuit of the ultra-precise.
• My Book Notes on Jim Collins’ Good to Great looks at the leadership behind the truly great companies; these people are not at all what you might expect as leaders.
   

Quotable: 

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”  - Harvey S. Firestone

“Cool deliberation followed by determined action is the key to success in leadership.”  - Ken Downer

“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.”  - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Related posts: 

Rapid Deliberation: 7 Ways to Hit the Target While Under Stress

Delegation, Part 2: What to Delegate?

Who’s Your Second? Are We Really Leading, or Just in Charge?

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When telling people what we need done, how do we strike the balance between being overly prescriptive, and recklessly lax? How can we be sure what we want in the beginning will be what we get at the end?  A story I read recently involving a frozen lake, a pack of wolves, and a canoe full of beer can serve as a helpful guide in helping us master the art of delegation.

Notes and Resources:

• Prefer to read?  Here’s the full post Delegate Better: Three Ways to Get the Results You Want
• This example of poor delegation comes from Farley Mowat’s book Never Cry Wolf.  It is both very amusing, and an eye-opening look at how we can be blinded, often willfully, by our own prejudices.   It was also made into a movie, but I don’t recommend it.
• For a deeper look into the possibility that we may have become micromanagers, check out Micromanagement: 7 Signs You’re a Micromanager and What to Do About It
• This post on Set and Forget Leadership in another take on delegation and how to avoid getting burned when handing off a task to someone else.
   

Quotable: 

“Getting better at delegation means putting more energy into the start of the process.”  - Ken Downer

“Never tell people how to do things.  Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”  - General George S. Patton

“Leaders strive to unlock the potential contained between other people’s ears.”  - Ken Downer

Related posts: 

How To Delegate, Part 1: Why?

Delegation, Part 2: What to Delegate?

Delegation, Part 3: Who, How to Delegate?

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Thanks for listening, and Lead On!