Posts Tagged leadership
what would you do with 8 hours a week?
image by steve.grosbois, flickr artist
you work for 32 hours from monday through thursday. you wake up on friday morning with an extra spring in your step, looking forward to the upcoming weekend. but today isn’t your ‘normal’ friday; today is different.
instead of working on client deliverables, or manning the grill at a local restaurant, or waiting tables down at the pub, you get 8 hours to do whatever you’d like to do.
what would you do with it?
would you start work on that big idea you’ve always had? would you enroll in a culinary course in your area? would you learn how to brew your own beer? … or would you play farmville on facebook? or sleep in until noon? or drink some free cold ones that your friends bring you out back behind the bar?
if you’re an employer, why not give your employees 8 hours a week and see what they do with it? trust me, you’ll recognize the ones who are worthwhile and the ones who aren’t very quickly.
then, invest heavily in the ones that are because they’re going to take your organization places. they’re natural born world-shakers.
the crystal merchant
image by michael seljos, flickr artist
two years ago when i was laid off, a good friend of mine visited and gave me a book to read. that book was paulo coelho’s the alchemist. it’s a great tale about a shepherd who gives up the life he knows in search of a lost treasure.
at that time in my life, it was a story that i needed to hear. now, two years later, i find myself re-reading it to remember the book’s lessons, and hopefully to learn a few new ones along the way. while it’s easy to be wrapped up in the story of the main character and his journey, the secondary characters hold lessons just as important, like the lessons learned from the crystal merchant.
in the alchemist, santiago takes up a job with a merchant, cleaning the crystal in his shop. with his help, the merchant — who had run his shop in the same exact spot for 30 years — begins to earn more business. it’s when santiago begins to propose some changes to the shop to help increase business even more that we gain a better understanding of the merchant.
on knee-jerk reactions
things don’t always go as you had planned. something at some point will happen which throws off your expectations. no project is without it’s problems challenges (sorry, in the consulting world we don’t like the word ‘problem’ because it has a negative connotation to it) — but before you institute solutions, you absolutely have to think about how it will affect the entire dynamic.
the problem with knee-jerk reactions is that they are generally conceived by the “fight or flight” portion of our brains; the portion of our brains that doesn’t consider impacts beyond the immediate situation. so while the reaction might be good for you right now in diffusing the situation or mitigating the issue, it may end up having negative impacts down the line.
fight the urge to make those knee-jerk reactions. your task, your project, your business is far too important to hinge its future on a decision made without just deliberation. before you make a decision on how to solve your next challenge, ask yourself two simple questions: “have i gathered multiple points of view?” and “have i really given good thought to this?”
how do you measure leadership?
it’s easy to measure one’s proficiency in a technical skill (how many widgets you build, how many lines of code you’ve written), and it’s easy to count training courses and seminars to show how you’ve been ‘growing’ as a person and learning new things. we know how to find experts. we look for collegiate degrees. we look for years of experience in a given field. they may not exactly be great means of quantifying an ‘expert’ but they’re certainly given weight by many people.
but how do you measure leadership?
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showing appreciation: not just a manager’s role
image by foreverdigital, flickr artist
i’m not sure exactly what my favorite part of hockey is. as a goaltender (in my younger years), i have to admit that few things get me going more than a glove save on a 2-on-1 breakaway. i can still appreciate a fine dangle, however.
i can tell you with conviction, however, that one of the best moments is the celebration when a player scores a goal. the unbridled passion, the camaraderie, everything great about the sport of hockey comes through in one moment shared by 5 players on the ice (sometimes more). it’s one single moment that embodies all of what hockey is about.
teamwork.
always plan on success
image by csitscenter, flickr collection
i was in a meeting recently with a senior associate in my firm, and spent the vast amount of the 4 hours we had together furiously taking notes. unfortunately i couldn’t write as fast as he was talking, so i ended up not capturing all of the information that was there for the taking. for the most part, the vast majority of the time was spent discussing our earned value management capabilities at booz allen. we did talk some about business in general and building capabilities that can grow and expand, and it was from this discussion that my largest, boldest, “even used a highlighter on it” note came from. he said something to me that made a lot of sense:
always plan on success.
it’s a great quote. you may mistakingly take it as an inspirational message, but that’s not at all what he intended. it was actually meant to scare us, and remind us that we need to be prepared to succeed. to be successful in business, it’s not enough to have a good idea. even having passion and being a hard worker isn’t enough. when you’re trying to stand up or start up something brand new, you have to have certain things in place to handle the change in environment. nothing can kill a good idea quite like being unprepared to succeed. if you aren’t ready to expand with the business, you’ll undoubtedly experience growing pains – much like wearing a shoe that’s two sizes too small.
do it, and let them see you do it
image from Crashmaster007, flickr artist
it’s easy to tell people what to do or what’s expected of them, but leading by example says a lot about who you are as a person, not just as a leader.
when you’re a leader, one thing you expect from your team or organization is accountability. you expect your people to embrace their roles, take ownership of their tasks, and ensure that their work is done when it needs to be, at a level of quality that will positively represent your organization. if you expect that from your people — shouldn’t you expect that from yourself as well?
everything that you expect from your people, you should be willing to do yourself. work hard, and let people see you working hard. be prepared for different situations, and let people see you prepare. you should do what you expect the people following you to do, and you should let them see you do it. it’s inspirational, it forges trust, it sets a good example.
you can’t tell your people, “stop working so hard and take time for yourself,” and send emails at 1:00a on a weekday or 9:30p on a weekend. it seems more like a challenge to work harder than a sincere concern about work-life balance.
so as a leader — when you make a promise, or institute new rules, or try to change habits — it’s best if you start with yourself.
leading by example says a lot about who you are. what are your actions saying about you?
the worst words you can ever hear
“well, we can’t [blank]. but keep thinking about these things and bringing them up.”
if you hear those words in your job — leave it.
i’m not joking. those are quite possibly the worst words that you could ever hear from your manager. those words say, “we’re not committed to diverse viewpoints.” they say, “we’re not committed to rewarding people for good work.” and worst of all, they say, “we’re not committed to being agile. we don’t like change.”
you don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t want to change. find a new job while you still have one. in your interview process with any new, potential employers, be sure to ask “how do you solve problems?” and “i have big ideas. if i wanted to change things, what kind of resistance would i face?”
you need to feel free to make the changes you see fit, and you need to have leadership that will allow you to change the world… even if it’s their world.
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