For more, see: http://blogs.reuters.com/jack-and-suzy-welch/2012/02/24/jeremy-lin-lessons-from-the-linsanity
Monday, February 27, 2012
Positive Leadership: Allow Talent to Flourish
For more, see: http://blogs.reuters.com/jack-and-suzy-welch/2012/02/24/jeremy-lin-lessons-from-the-linsanity
Friday, February 24, 2012
Positive Leadership: Lessons from Linsanity
In the US today, Jeremy Lin is the man-of-the-moment, the
new New York Knick Rock Star. Lin’s face is everywhere. The Knicks point guard
has taken the world by storm. He has led the Knicks to a winning record since
he became a starter. His highlights
include hitting a game-winning 3 pointer at the buzzer to beat the Toronto
Raptors and nationally televised wins over Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles
Lakers and the defending champion Dallas Mavericks. During this time Lin became
the first NBA player to score at least 20 points and have seven assists in each
of his first five starts. Ever.
But here’s the part of the story that bothers us: Many in
the media are portraying Jeremy Lin as an “overnight LINsation,” as ESPN put
it.
Let’s look at what Lin’s “overnight” really looked like.
Lin said he dreamed of playing in the NBA as a child.
There’s a You Tube of 6 year-old Jeremy Lin showing off his dribbling skills.
The product of two 5-foot-6 engineers, most laughed when he laid out his career
choice.
As a high school senior, he led Palo Alto (CA) High School
to a state championship over nationally ranked #1 Mater Dei High School. His
coach was quoted as saying that the school was so well known for its academics
that when the players returned with the trophy, they were reminded “how well
the robotics club” had done the same week.
Lin sent out 25 DVDs and resumes to colleges, yet received
no college scholarship offers – not even from Stanford, which was less than a
mile from Lin’s High School! He chose to play basketball for Harvard. Ivy
League schools offer no athletic scholarships.
In his junior year Lin was the only NCAA Division 1 player
to rank in the top ten in his conference in scoring, rebounding, assists,
steals, blocked shots, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and
three-point shot percentage.
Lin’s name was not called in the 2010 NBA draft.
He signed with his hometown favourite, Golden State Warriors
but spent most of the 2010 season on the inactive list.
Three times that year he was sent down to the developmental
league then called back up to the Warriors.
He finished his rookie season
averaging 2.6 points per game playing in 29 games for the Warriors.
Lin sought the advice of coaches on his weaknesses, then
hired a shooting coach during the off season and worked hard to improve his
shot.
On the first day of the 2011 training camp the Warriors
waived Lin. The Houston Rockets claimed him off waivers three days later.
Lin played seven minutes in two pre-season games for the
Rockets. The Rockets waived Lin on Christmas Eve.
On December 27th the Knicks signed Lin as a back-up. Three
weeks later, he was sent back to the developmental league.
On January 23rd Lin was called back up by the Knicks.
On February 4th Lin had 25 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists
in a victory over the Nets.
Then the LINsanity started!
Look how long it took Jeremy Lin to become an “overnight”
success. Look at that roller coaster of emotions. No scholarship offers? Not
drafted? Cut on Christmas Eve? Yes, Lin admitted to crying. Yes, Lin admits
that he thought about quitting.
The Roman philosopher Seneca once stated, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
The problem is most of us see a guy like Lin and focus on
the eye-popping lightning storm of his success. We don’t want to look at the
ugly, monotonous, boring dust storm that was his preparation.
The second part of the Jeremy Lin story that inspires us is
that he kept fighting and working until he found the right situation for his
talents. He had to land in the right environment with the right coach to become
a “sensation.” Mike D’Antoni was indeed the right coach to use the skill set
that Lin had, but it took timing and misfortune of having stars Carmelo Anthony
and Amar’e Stoudemire out for Lin to be given room to operate in his own style.
Ironically, people are now wondering if superstar Anthony is the one that can
fit in with the formerly unknown Jeremy Lin.
The lessons from Jeremy Lin’s story are many. Believe…
Persevere... Practice… Improve… Believe… Persevere… Practice… Improve…
And in the end you have to find the right place, the right
time, the right environment, the right coach that will allow you to unleash
your greatest potential.
So if you are not there keep searching, because only you can find the place and the people that set you on your path to success!
So if you are not there keep searching, because only you can find the place and the people that set you on your path to success!
Story time is over, now this is about you as a leader.
Who is your Jeremy Lin?
Who on your team have you “decided” on? We are not talking about your high potential person on that list in the
succession plan. We are talking about your
third stringer, the person that you “know” will always be a marginal performer.
What do you really know?
Have you given them reins and a chance to perform?
Or are you stifling them with your assessment of their
potential?
Jeremy Lin is a basketball player. He has, and is, working hard at his
craft. He certainly hasn’t given up or
felt sorry for himself, but this story is as much about coaches and scouts and
leaders as is it about Jeremy.
The best leaders look for and see the potential in their
team members. If you don’t see it, you
won’t give people an opportunity to use it, develop it, and move towards that
potential.
Do you see third string guards or Jeremy Lins?
Be careful what you look for, you are very likely to find
it.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Positive Leadership: It's All About Winning
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Positive Leadership: Our Response to Winning and Losing
Only one team wins the 6 Nations.
For each player on the winning team after the game there is
a player on the other team going home disappointed without the joy of victory.
Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.
Sometimes we win the account, the game, the job promotion,
the award and sometimes we lose the very thing we want most.
Winning matters. Losing matters. But in life what matters
most is what we do with our wins and losses.
When we win do we become complacent or stay humble and
hungry?
People often say that success breeds success but often it
breeds complacency. After a win people think they can just show up and achieve
the same result, forgetting the effort, determination and mindset it took to
achieve the win.
To continue winning it's essential to turn the euphoria of
winning into a fire of burning desire that fuels your continuous improvement,
passion, and quest for excellence.
Even more important than what we do after our wins is how we
respond to our losses.
Do we give up or come back stronger?
Do we allow the loss to act like a cancer that eats away at
us for the rest of our life or do we turn it into a learning opportunity that
leads to our healthy growth?
Everyone loses but the key is to make the LOSS stand for
something.
LOSS (Learning
Opportunity, Stay Strong)
When we lose we ask what we can learn from this loss and how
we can improve because of it. Then we stay strong and work harder to come back
and try to win.
This leads to more wins in the future...and also eventually
more loses...and more learning opportunities and opportunities to stay strong
and develop our character.
Through this process of winning and losing we learn the
greatest lesson of all:
No matter how hard we work and
how much we improve there will be times when we experience the worst of defeats
instead of the greatest of victories. But ultimately life is about more than
winning or losing. It’s about the lessons we learn, the character and strength
we build and the people we become along the way.
Whether we win the big game or not, when we realise this we
will surely be a winner in the game of life!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Positive Leadership: Making Informal Mentoring Work
Here are eight steps to follow in making an informal leadership
mentoring programme work:
Step #1: Identify
one or two specific leadership skills you feel that you could improve through
mentoring. Is it your ability to make strategic decisions in a quick and
decisive manner? Is it your ability to recognise and develop talent to improve
the success of your department and yourself? Something else?
Step #2: Now
assess what style of leadership is best suited to you. (As you know, not
everyone leads in the same way.) Are you more collaborative as a leader,
working through consensus? Or are you a decisive type of leader who makes the
decisions and motivates others to follow those decisions?
Step #3:
Determine whether you want a mentor who mirrors your leadership style so that
you can improve upon how you lead…or decide if finding a mentor with a
different leadership style might challenge you more and help you grow as a
leader by adding new dimensions to your own personal style.
Step #4: Consider
the type of person you want as a mentor. For informal mentoring to work, you
have to have focus. The first three steps have provided you with this focus.
But the other important component needed is the relationship aspect. Think
about the personal qualities and/or communication styles that you respond to.
Do you want a mentor who is more sociable than business-like? Or one who is
more of a thinker than a doer? Perhaps you respond better to warmth and
friendliness rather than someone who is more aloof, despite his or her success.
Step #5: Now make
a list of potential leaders who you may want to approach as mentors. These
people could be in your company, but they could also be elsewhere, such as an
alumni organisation or networking group. Don’t forget to ask colleagues for
recommendations as well. An important point: this may be obvious, but it's worth
saying: only put leaders with proven track records on your list.
Step #6: Approach
and interview the candidates. Have a conversation with at least three of the
leaders on your list to evaluate if the person would be the right fit for you.
Approaching potential mentors and eventually asking "the winner" to
be your mentor are the hardest steps in the process. Remember, it's how you
approach the person that makes all the difference.
Here's one strategy for doing just that:
• Make contact via phone or email
introducing yourself and indicating that you are working on self-improvement in
the area of leadership and that you would welcome input from an experienced
leader who has been successful in this area. Would this person have 30 minutes
or so to have a discussion with you on your goals and how best to approach
these? Maybe you could do this over lunch, as you would also like to thank that
person for his or her time.
• If you feel the person might
indeed be a good fit, ask him or her (at the end of the meeting) if you could
stay in touch with any follow-up questions. The person's response – and HOW he
or she responds – will be a good indicator as to whether your assessment is on
target. Does the person sound welcoming and enthusiastic about staying in
touch? Or does the person sound noncommittal?
• Send a handwritten thank you
note. In a pinch, an email will do, but nothing beats a personal note of
thanks. (Note: you should still send a thank you, even if you've ruled the
person out as mentor.)
Step #7: Decide
and ask. After interviewing several candidates, you are now ready to ask the
person you think is best if he or she will be your informal mentor. Before you
do this, it’s important for you to be prepared to specifically state what
you're looking for and how you want the relationship to work. Since you’ve
already had one or more conversations, your prospect has an idea of what you're
seeking, but now be clear and as specific as possible. In addition, you should
be prepared to discuss setting some guidelines for your mentoring relationship.
Here are some to consider:
• How often will you meet? Weekly
is ideal, and once a month is the recommended minimum.
• Will your meetings take place
face-to-face, over the phone, through Skype, or combination of these?
• How will you approach
confidential issues?
• How will you communicate to one
another if something isn’t working in the relationship?
• How long do you want to meet
before you re-assess the need to continue or end the relationship? Note: in
formal mentoring programs, the relationship typically lasts nine months to one
year. We suggest a minimum of four to six months for an informal relationship.
• Discuss concerns you both have
about engaging in this type of relationship.
Step #8: When
your chosen mentor has agreed to the informal mentoring relationship, then
congratulate yourself for finding someone who will be strategically important
to your career and to your growth as a leader. To succeed, make sure you keep
to the guidelines you’ve agreed to in Step # 7.
Here's to your leadership success!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Positive Leadership: Why Do People Succeed?
Why do people succeed? Is it because they're smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success.
1. Passion - Do it for love, not money
2. Work - Nothing comes easily, but be a ‘workafrolic’ not a workaholic
3. Good - Become really good at what you do
4. Focus - Centre your attention on one thing
5. Push - Drive yourself mentally and physically
6. Serve - Offer other people something of value
7. Ideas - Listen, be curious, problem solve and make connections
8. Persist - The number one reason for success
Friday, February 17, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Positive Leadership: Learning from Olympians
How can we learn from our athletes currently preparing for
the Olympic Games?
By exploring 5 of the core principles these elite performers
work to in the world of sport, we can translate these into practical strategies
for success in the world of work.
Have a clear vision
of where you want to go
Successful sports teams have a specific moment in time when
they want to achieve their goals. Usually in business we have to deliver
consistently great performances throughout the year in order to achieve our
strategic goals. So how do we do this?
Making sure we understand the overall vision of the
organisation is vital, as well as agreeing clearly defined goals for ourselves
which align with these strategic goals and help us to develop as individuals.
The challenge here is to make the time to re-visit these goals on a regular
basis and review our performances in the context of these goals throughout the
year.
Focus on what really
matters
Elite sports men and women will ask the question of every
process or action they take, will this add value? Will doing this make me jump
higher, run faster, throw further?
Once you have total clarity on your goals and where you are
going, the key then is to ensure that you focus your time and energies on
activities that are congruent with those goals. How good are you at saying no
to demands on your time which do not ultimately contribute to the performance
indicators you have in place? How well do we prioritise our time to deal with
tasks which we may not enjoy so much but which are critical to achieving our
goals?
Another key phrase from sport, “Control the Controllables” relates to this concept too. Once you
have clarity on what really matters and the ability to stick to that, it’s also
really helpful to be realistic about what’s in your sphere of influence and
work hard to avoid getting bogged down on the things you can’t make an impact
on.
Work to strengths
Maximise what you’re great at and ensure your players are in
the right positions. This practice of constantly analysing core strengths and
moving the team around accordingly is second nature within sport.
In business we potentially have less flexibility to be able
to adjust our roles and responsibilities every week. But, just having a regular
review of your strengths can mean that putting yourself forward for projects,
secondments or just covering a colleague's work provides you with great
opportunities to maximise your performance and maintain your motivation.
Do things differently
Only by innovating and challenging the norm can you gain a
competitive advantage in sport and business. Look at Dick Fosbury and his
controversial innovation in the high jump, which led to the adoption of the
'Fosbury Flop' as the accepted technique to enable an athlete to jump as high
as humanly possible. Hard to imagine now that before Fosbury competitors used
to scissor jump over the bar!
In the commercial world this openness to doing things
differently is of course equally vital. It’s easy to get stuck in routines and
be blocked by the “we’ve always done it this way” mindset. Fresh thinking generates great new ways of
doing things, and builds engagement and motivation at the same time.
Lead from the front
Whether it’s Usain Bolt’s trademark strut, the quiet
authority of Steve Redgrave or the sheer grit of Kelly Holmes, the persona we
project has a huge impact on those around us.
A simple code to live by is to always model best practice.
Set the tone with your own brand, your communication, your body language and
each one of your interactions. Constantly ask yourself what impact your
behaviour and language is having on others, and focus on making it a positive
and inspirational one.
With 6 months to the games, Team GB is close to realising
their potential, and the great news is that these lessons from their endeavours
can be applied directly to our roles and our teams. By emulating these high
performance traits you can ensure you produce gold medal winning performances.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Real Test of a Leader
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Elevator Pitch
Here is a simple and quick (less than 60 second) ‘elevator pitch’ template
that will work for most products and services, if it is delivered with passion!
“We sell [product/service deliverable] to [market niche] who
want [unmet market need]. Unlike [competition], we [differentiation].”
All you have to do is fill in the brackets and you have the
essence of an elevator pitch!
For more, see: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2012/01/great-startups-can-hook-investor-in-60.html
Monday, February 13, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Positive Leadership: Expectations
The best golfers in the world experience the same things you
do. It is important that they stick to the process and plan that they put
together for success. When expectations get ahead of their own present
preparation, it opens the door for frustration and anger. That becomes the
expectations spiral that results in struggling and poor performance.
To get out of the expectations spiral, focus on today and
what you can control. Commit to your own process. Replace expectations with
demands – demands focus on your investment and actions. Expectations involve
results, so by committing to demands, you are investing in your process.
Enjoy the read!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Positive Leadership: Routine is a Key to Winning
Iain Percy
Team GB Olympic Gold Medal Sailor
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Positive Leadership: Resilience
Because we always make mistakes and always will, one of the
most important qualities for business success is resilience—the ability to
bounce back from failure, to turn around a bad situation, to profit from your
mistakes.
Point One: Those who persevere win. Be resilient and welcome
failure. That’s how you become a better businessperson.
Point Two: You learn by refusing to make excuses and looking
inside yourself for the reason things have gone wrong.
Point Three: Focus and discipline are more important than
identifying opportunities, but they have to be balanced with flexibility.
Point Four: The solutions are seldom right in front of you.
You need to learn how to spot them out of the corner of your eye.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Positive Leadership: What A Lovely Suit You're Wearing, Emperor
Warning: If you're opening this blog in a good mood, and
you want to stay in it, you may want to skip this post and scroll right down to the bonus bits!
Of
course, were you to block out the negative, you'd be acting in a way that Bob
Sutton probably wouldn't find surprising.
In a recent blog post, the Stanford
management professor opines that leaders can be more easily swayed by positive
feedback than by reality.
Sutton synthesises several recent studies to show how
flattery can lead to an inflated self-assessment and distract leaders from
what's actually happening on the ground.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Positive Leadership: A Checklist for Leadership Action
Monday, February 06, 2012
Positive Leadership: Restoring Trust in Corporate Leadership
Positive Leadership ceo, Graham Watson writes in The CA Magazine about the importance of restoring trust in corporate leadership.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Positive Leadership: What Makes Ben Ainslie a Winner?
GB Olympic sailing manager Stephen Park agrees: "Ben is considerate and thoughtful onshore, people see him as a gentle giant.
"When he's afloat, in his environment, he's a different
animal. He's absolutely driven and determined and nothing is going to get in
his way to win. That's what you need to do if you're going to win time after
time after time."
Ainslie himself says of his sailing attitude: "When
you're racing you're there to win and be successful. If you don't care any more
you're not a sailor, you're not a racer and you shouldn't be doing it. It is a
competition."
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Positive Leadership: Your Job as a Leader
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Role of Business
We have a fundamental belief that the role of business is to
make the world a better place.
Jim Stengel, former Chief Marketing Officer of Proctor & Gamble and the author of Grow uses the expression "improving the lives of the
people a business serves.” He has teamed with data crunchers Millward Brown to
produce the “Stengel 50” – a ranking of 50 companies that have exponentially
improved their profits by dedicating themselves to improving the lives of
customers. Win-Win. His top 50 have generated a traditional ROI of 400% better
than S&P.
For more, see: http://millwardbrown.com/Sites/Brand_Ideal/The_Study.aspx
Monday, January 30, 2012
Positive Leadership: Being Average is No Use
In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average
job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over.
Being average just won’t earn you what it used to.
It can’t when so many more
employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign
labour, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius.
Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution
that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is
over.
There will always be change — new jobs, new products, new
services. But the one thing we know for sure is that with each advance in
globalisation and the I.T. revolution, the best jobs will require workers to
have more and better education to make themselves above average.
By way of
illustration, here are the latest unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labour
Statistics for Americans over 25 years old: those with less than a high school
degree, 13.8 per cent; those with a high school degree and no college, 8.7 per
cent; those with some college or associate degree, 7.7 per cent; and those with
bachelor’s degree or higher, 4.1 per cent.
In a world where average is officially over, there are many
things we need to do to buttress employment, but nothing would be more
important than passing some kind of Recovery Act for the 21st century that ensures that every Briton has access to
post-secondary school education.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Positive Leadership: Follow Your Instincts
Q. If you were
teaching a class to business school students, what lessons would you impart to
them?
A. Follow your instincts. If your instincts for the job are
good, you will be successful. If your instincts are bad, it’s the wrong job and
you should get out early and try something else. Textbook learning can take you
only so far. It can give you tools that will help you analyse things. But don’t
do it the way other C.E.O.’s that you read about have done it. Don’t follow the
case studies if your instinct tells you otherwise.
The great leaders, I think, are people who were smart enough
to gather all of the tools that they needed, all the information, all the peer
mentoring that they could get and then just tucked that away somewhere as extra
fuel and followed their instincts to do what they had a passion for, what they
thought they knew how to do.
Too often, leaders fail because someone told them they can’t
do it. If you don’t know what you can’t do, then you may well achieve it. That
is so important. Look at our great companies. Almost all of them shouldn’t have
succeeded the way they did. Often it’s accidental, opportunistic, it’s luck,
it’s something else. But it’s being open to falling into that success. And you
can see it in some of our most innovative companies.
As soon as you get overly tied to the lessons you were
taught in business school or elsewhere, I think you’re going to start doing it
the way it’s been done in the past. And then you’re going to have a company
that’s like those that existed in the past. You’re not going to see that new
technologies could offer possibilities that no one has even thought of. You
have to be willing to go into a room and say, “Why can’t this happen?” And then
have someone look at you and say, “That’s the dumbest question anybody ever asked.”
Even though you are the C.E.O., you have to allow and
encourage that kind of feedback. Because you can sink a company if you come in
with a load of ideas and innovation and creativity that’s bigger than the
company can carry. So you’ve got to have people coming back and saying, “We
know that,” or “We understand where you’re going with it, but it’s not
something we can do at this point.”
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