See the Opening and 'Go For It'!

"I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time."

— Jack London

See the Opening and 'Go For It'!

Oops!! - BP chief apologises for 'I'd like my life back' comment

Under-fire BP chief executive Tony Hayward issued an apology yesterday for saying in an interview that he would "like my life back," as a massive oil spill wreaks devastation along the Gulf coast.

"I made a hurtful and thoughtless comment on Sunday when I said that 'I wanted my life back,'" Hayward said in a post to BP America's Facebook page.

"When I read that recently, I was appalled. I apologise, especially to the families of the 11 men who lost their lives in this tragic accident," he said.

Eleven rig workers aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling platform were killed when it exploded on April 20, sinking two days later into the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, according to US government estimates, at least 20 million gallons have leaked into the waters.

Despite BP's efforts to cap the flow, thick crude continues to ooze into the Gulf of Mexico's fragile wetlands and once-pristine tourist beaches, killing wildlife and their habitats and destroying the local fishing and tourism-based economy.

"Those words don't represent how I feel about this tragedy, and certainly don't represent the hearts of the people of BP -- many of whom live and work in the Gulf -- who are doing everything they can to make things right," Hayward said in the post.

"My first priority is doing all we can to restore the lives of the people of the Gulf region and their families -- to restore their lives, not mine."

Oops!! - BP chief apologises for 'I'd like my life back' comment

The Difference Between Business Champions and Sporting Champions

The way we define the “Champion” level for the clients with whom we work makes it a lot easier to become a “champion” in the business or non-profit world than it is in the sports world.

Becoming a Champion on the sports field requires a team or an individual to come out on top in a physical competition, for example Phil Mickelson, the 2010 Masters Golf Champion had to beat out a field of 95 other golfers over a four-day competition.

However, defining a “Champion” in the business and non-profit world is much easier. It comes down to measuring yourself against the absolutely best you can be.

When we first engage an organisational leader we find many measure themselves extremely low on our 'Champion Organisations scale'. The scale works as follows:

Imagine your organisation is a sports team and today is the first day of pre-season training. Your vision and goal is to get the Cup Final – or whatever is your ‘Championship Game’ equivalent.

On a scale of 1-5, one means you are just starting out and must begin to build your Champion Organisation, and a 5 means you are absolutely guaranteed to make it to your Championship Game.

Try it:

1        2       3       4       5

Next – What are the 3 most important areas of your organisation that, if you were to improve them over the next 3-6 months, you would significantly improve your Champion Organisation score and get greater top line or bottom line results?

1.
2.
3.

Have fun with the exercise. You may even want to pass it around to others in your organisation and learn whether you are all on the same page. If you are not, then you know you have some work to do! 

The Difference Between Business Champions and Sporting Champions

The Scoreboard Can't Tell You Everything

This interview with Bill Carter, partner in and founder of Fuse, a youth marketing agency, was featured in The New York Times:

‘Q. Talk about early leadership lessons for you.

A. I grew up in Maryland, in an area where lacrosse was the dominant sport. And I happened to go to a high school that was the dominant program in the country, and it was run by a coach named Joe McFadden. I don’t remember losing more than three games in all of high school. I was in this culture of winning, where all the coaches, the players, the kids in that high school and the administrators expected us to win.

I was recruited to play lacrosse in college by a very sort of mediocre team at the time — Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. And again, by sheer luck, the day before I was to go on campus as a freshman, I received a letter in the mail that the lacrosse coach had retired, and a new coach was coming, named Hank Janczyk. He’s still there 20-something years later. And today, he’s one of the top lacrosse coaches of all time.

Again, there was this culture of winning, this expectation that every practice was going to be unbelievably competitive. Every game was judged not only on whether we won or lost and what the score was, but on how we played. And I think that has definitely carried over, not only the expectation of winning and creating a business culture about winning, but also about whether it was the best that we were capable of doing, not just based on the outcome.

I think about that a lot in the context of our business now, about when we go into a new business pitch. If we win, I still evaluate the pitch and whether it was the best portrayal of who we are, or whether we won for some other reason. And I think about that at times when we lose new business pitches or don’t do an exceptionally good job for a client in the client’s eyes. I can still look at that and evaluate it based on factors other than the final result.

Q. Let’s go back to these lacrosse coaches you mentioned. Can you elaborate on how they affected your leadership style at Fuse?

A. My high school coach had a unique style for that age group. He had a very sort of business approach. 

There were very good players, there were mediocre players and there were players who probably were not very good and that were not going to get a lot of playing time. And he was very sort of matter-of-fact about it. The best players played. The mediocre players maybe got a little bit of time, but it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart. It was because somebody needed a rest. And the players of lesser ability just simply didn’t play.

It was about rewarding the best players, regardless of how they had sort of achieved that. Just because he saw somebody working really hard in practice, that didn’t mean anything when it came time to play in a game.

And I learned something from that. I think working hard is great. You can log a lot of hours in the office. You can do a lot of extra work. But if the partners at our agency and the directors who run our business groups don’t think that someone’s ready to be put in a position to give a client presentation or be in a new business pitch, they’re not going to be there. And it has nothing, really, to do with what we believe about the person or their effort level. It just has to do with choosing the best people in our office to put in those positions.

When my college coach arrived, his job was to change the mediocre culture of the team, and then literally change the makeup of the team. He said very directly: “There are going to be major changes now that I’m here, and those major changes are going to come in the form of the makeup of the team, because I’m out there recruiting. And frankly, I’m recruiting players that are better than the players in this room.”

That was a tough thing to hear, but he was very honest. And the reason he did it — it wasn’t to be spiteful in any way — was to essentially say: “So, if you plan to be here, you’ve got to get better. You’ve got to get better every day in practice. You’ve got to prove in games that you deserve to be here.” And he was right.

And so I watched a culture change over those four years from mediocrity to this expectation of winning. A lot of that had to do with the recruiting practices, which I can directly tie to our own hiring practices. If you want to make the team better, you go get better players. And where were the better players from? They were from high schools that won, from their high school coaches that instilled a culture of winning, from schools that were, frankly, more competitive.

So I think about that when we recruit people. You want to be better? Go get people who are at organisations that are, at least in a particular function, better than what you have now.’

For more, see - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/jobs/18corner.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

The Scoreboard Can't Tell You Everything

The Importance of linking Job Descriptions to Corporate Strategy

Recent research from the US shows that companies that fail to take action to regularly link jobs to strategy often are more than twice as likely to have flat or declining revenues:

• 68% of respondents to the survey who strongly agree that there is a clear link between their job and corporate strategy report that their company is growing revenue, while just 39% of those that strongly disagree report revenue growth.
• Just 27% of respondents who strongly agree that there is a clear link between their job and corporate strategy report that revenues are flat or declining, while 57% of respondents who strongly disagree note that revenues are flat or declining.

For more, see - http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/05/yoga-fistbumps-and-other-leade.html

The Importance of linking Job Descriptions to Corporate Strategy

Jose Mourinho and Leadership

‘Many people work hard, but not well. You must create good leadership with the players, which is an accepted leadership, not leadership by power or status. You must create a positive atmosphere and make everyone feel part of the group.’ Jose Mourinho

Fitness coach Rui Faria, who has worked alongside Mourinho at Porto, Chelsea and Inter, says: ‘Every other top coach says they work hard and they prepare better than anyone else, but they can't make what Mourinho does. Everything he does is better. He works harder than anyone else. He knows everything about every player and every game.’

Jose Mourinho and Leadership

Increase your Self-Awareness to become a Better Leader

Too many leaders think they are adept at everything. Self-aware leaders know that they can't possibly have the skills and knowledge to do it all. Instead, they are dynamic, adaptable, and emotionally intelligent.

Here are three ways to build your own self-awareness:

1. Observe your own performance. Take note of the areas you excel in and those that need improvement. Share these observations with your team.
2. Know what you don't know. Accept that there are areas you have little expertise in. Seek out a team member who can help you fill in the gaps.
3. Monitor your impact on others. Because so much of our work is about relationships, knowing how you affect others is a critical leadership skill. Manage your emotional responses and look for cues that you're building relationships, not destroying them.

Increase your Self-Awareness to become a Better Leader

Leadership

Leadership

Are you Feared or Respected as a Leader?

CEOs; are you feared or respected?  How do you tell if your employees respect you or fear you?

A Team of Yes-men: Feared CEOs either surround themselves with like-minded people, or train people to share their views in a vacuum. Either way they lose…Great CEOs value the opinions of their team whether or not said views happen to be in concurrence with their own beliefs. 

Lack of Interaction: Along the lines of number one above, if executives, management, and staff don’t proactively seek your advice and input then you have a respect problem. They either don’t value your contributions, or they know from experience that you’ll treat their inquiry in a belittling fashion. Over time, many fear-based CEOs unknowingly train their team to think: “Why even try if there is no upside? The boss will never go for that.”

Lack of Feedback: If as a CEO you don’t subject yourself to a 360 review process, then you are not earnestly looking for personal growth and development opportunities. Let’s say that you do utilise a 360 review…if all the responses are positive it is much more likely because you are feared and are thus the recipient of insincere flattery than because you are perfect.

Revolving Door: If you either can’t attract or retain tier-one talent, you are not an effective leader who has earned the respect and loyalty of your team…In fact, upon closer examination you’ll find that you probably don’t have a team. Sad but true…real talent won’t be attracted to, or remain engaged with leaders who operate on fear-based tactics.

Poor Performance:  CEOs who have the respect of their team will outperform those that don’t. CEOs who attempt to use command and control tactics without the necessary underpinnings of real leadership principles will simply not do well. If your organisation is not thriving and growing, then the first thing that should occur is a long look in the mirror…Begin your triage by first evaluating your leadership qualities or the lack thereof.

Ask yourself the following question: If your employees held an election today, would you be re-elected as CEO by a landslide, or would you be voted out? Bottom line…what is rightfully earned and freely given (respect) will always outlast what is imprudently acquired for the wrong reasons (the bully tactics of fear-based control).

Are you Feared or Respected as a Leader?

Do Leaders in Your Organisation have the Skills to Lead Change?

The 2010 edition of the Ashridge Management Index: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century indicates that whilst most managers (71%) describe a positive leadership environment within their organisations, only 41% of those surveyed believe leaders in their organisation are developed to lead change well, and just over half state that they feel leaders in their organisation have the necessary skills to lead change.

The report also highlights that 83% of respondents are managing or working in cross-functional and virtual teams. This shift in the way that teams are put together is becoming more commonplace. Although, fewer than half of those surveyed felt that their organisation provides sufficient support for virtual working. For those working in the public sector this figure is just 33%.

Additionally, just over half of those surveyed say that top leaders in their organisation do not spend sufficient time communicating with staff. In spite of the fact that business is aware of the importance of communication, this figure has not changed since 2004.

Do Leaders in Your Organisation have the Skills to Lead Change?

Control the Controllables

Do you ever feel like events in your life have drifted out of control? 

Some days, it's easy to feel that way. No matter how diligently you set goals, visualise results, and affirm a positive outcome, every once in a while your life is going to feel as if it's gone a little crazy. Carefully laid plans go up in smoke - sometimes quite literally. People you counted on, bail out on you. A health or family crisis strikes. An earthquake or volcano puts you back to square one. Suddenly you feel as if you're completely off course, out of control, and lost at sea. 

At times like this, there are a few things it may help you to remember. First of all, no one can control every aspect of his or her life, and adversity comes to all of us, no matter how moral we are, and no matter how good our attitude is. Bad things happen to good people all the time.  

Second, it's important to realise that there is one and only one thing in life that is completely within your power to control, and that is your response to what happens to you. 

When you find yourself overcome with feelings of fear, helplessness, doom and gloom, you can put the brakes on these feelings by gently but firmly choosing to shift the focus of the thoughts that are running through your mind.

Your feelings are a direct result of the thoughts you think, and setting aside some time every morning and evening for positive visualisation, affirmation, or guided meditation is a highly effective way of getting these thoughts back under your control again. Try it. 

Control the Controllables

Values Based Leadership

Steve Newberry, CEO of Lam Research Corporation, gives a keynote presentation based on his model of leadership. Newberry is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Harvard Graduate School of Business. He has more than 25 years of management and leadership experience in the high-tech industry. 

Values Based Leadership

What Is Your Leadership Brand?

A leadership brand tells people what is distinctive about you as a leader and communicates what you have to offer.

Summarising your brand in a statement is a useful and often enlightening task.

First, answer two important questions:

1. What do you want to be known for?
2. What results do you want to achieve in the next 12 months?

Take these two answers and put them into the following statement: I want to be known for ______ so that I can deliver ______.

Once you have your statement, be sure that you are living up to it. Ask others for input on whether you are achieving your goals and whether they see your leadership brand in the same way you do.

For more, see - http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/define_your_personal_leadershi.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-MANAGEMENT_TIP-_-MAY_2010-_-MTOD0524&referral=00203

What Is Your Leadership Brand?

A Winner's Philosophy

Dave Brailsford is British Cycling's performance director and the general manager of Team Sky.

His presiding philosophy is that a sports practitioner simply needs to be the best they can be and then everything else will follow.

"You can't do better than your best," he says. "So what we have to do is ensure that every single rider performs at the absolute best of their ability. If that ability is going to be good enough then fantastic, but if it is not, it's not."

"I think people always see the reasons why they can't win," he says. "I have always been someone who thinks why can't I? I think 'why can't I' has been my sort of guiding philosophy.

For more, see - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/7734030/Dave-Brailsford-leads-Team-Skys-search-for-a-British-winner-in-the-Tour-de-France.html

A Winner's Philosophy

Excellence Under Pressure

Excellence Under Pressure is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• UNDER PRESSURE, WE HAVE MORE TIME THAN WE FEEL WE HAVE – USE IT AS A CATALYST FOR ACTION RATHER THAN A CATALYST FOR PANIC
• HOPING FOR THE BEST OR RELYING ON LUCK INDUCES STRESS – MANAGE IT BY ADEQUATE PLANNING
• PREPARE AND PRACTICE -  REDUCE RISK BY CONTROLLING AND MASTERING AS MANY VARIABLES AS POSSIBLE
• STICK TO WHAT WORKS – CRITICAL SITUATIONS ARE NOT TIMES TO TRY OUT NEW TECHNIQUES AND TACTICS
• RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO RETREAT – REVIEW TACTICS, STICK TO THE BASICS, REVERT TO TRIED AND TESTED PLAN B OR C
• YOU CAN ONLY DO YOUR BEST – MAKE SURE YOU DO

Excellence Under Pressure

Summer Reading

Here are some books worth reading this summer:

On leadership:

• Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business by Ranjay Gulati – organizing for customer-focus, based on 600 in-person interviews
• Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World by John Hope Bryant – straight talk from founder of Operation Hope, leader on financial literacy for everyone

Personal Development:

The books below are to enhance your development as a leader and a human being.

• Ethics for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama – brilliant insights into the nature of humanity and how society should develop
• Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition; Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman – developing your EQ, not just your IQ
• On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis – classic book  on leadership by the world’s best leadership scholar
• Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner – on the developing of our minds, tailored to our unique ways of approaching life
• The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life by Emmet Fox – the spiritual classic on the greatest sermon ever delivered – and the most relevant to our 21^st century lives
• The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders by Max Anderson and Peter Escher – about the need for business leaders to have a professional oath comparable to medical doctors and lawyers.

Summer Reading

Character

Character is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• CHARACTER MAKES TRUST POSSIBLE - TRUST MAKES LEADERSHIP POSSIBLE
• LIVING AND LEADING BY THE RULES
• THE INTEGRAL STRENGTH THAT ENABLES THE RIGHT THING TO BE DONE, REGARDLESS OF ADVERSITY
• WORK TO BECOME WORTH FOLLOWING

Character

Visualisation Techniques

How do athletes, and others who take performance very seriously, bring out the best in themselves?

Athletes began to use leading-edge techniques like mental rehearsal and focused concentration years before the general public had even heard of them. In the early days, we weren't sure then how these techniques worked, but we knew they did. Jack Nicklaus, for example, said that he would "watch a movie" in his head before each shot.

These days, thanks to many researchers, we know more. Researchers at the University of Texas monitored people's brain activities as they performed various body movements and also as they imagined performing the movements. They found that the actual physical movement consistently involved the interaction of several specific areas of the brain. Imagining the movement activated those same areas of the brain. In other words, mental rehearsal of an action puts the mind through a neural workout that is very much like the real thing. 

So whether you're trying to break your own personal best record in a sport or sell a new car to an ambivalent customer, mental rehearsal, or visualisation, can help you prepare for peak performance by walking you through successful strategies and potential pitfalls.  

Visualisation Techniques

Hard Work

Hard Work is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR WORK – IT IS THE PRICE OF SUCCESS
• MUCH CAN BE DONE IF WE ARE ALWAYS WORKING
• EFFECTIVE LEADERS PAY MORE ATTENTION TO PRODUCTION THAN PROMOTION – THEY GET THINGS DONE

Hard Work

Visualising the Finish Line

Visualisation techniques can help you become a better manager of your time.

Sometimes, the hardest part of a job is getting started. You've made your list of things to do. You are very clear about which tasks are "High Priority" and which are not. You know what job to do first, but somehow, you just never get started. You may divert yourself by starting less important tasks, or you may simply procrastinate until you've put so much pressure on yourself you "have to" begin. And with that much pressure on, the chances are you won't do your best work.

Next time you find yourself in this kind of a situation, try using visualisation to help you out. Visualise yourself completing the task. Vividly picture in your mind how good it will feel, what your rewards will be, how smoothly and confidently you will see the job through to the end.

Feel the satisfaction of a job well done. Feel the efficacy and sense of competency you will be generating in yourself. See exactly what it will look and feel like when the task is completed. Do this with your full concentration over and over. You will find it useful, and once started, a project tends to develop its own momentum.

You'll move forward much more quickly if you visualise the end-result before you start. Try it. Take charge of your time and your energy and enjoy the rewards that you'll earn. 

Visualising the Finish Line

Confidence & Poise

Confidence and Poise are values of Positive Leadership.


This means:

• CONFIDENT LEADERS ACCEPT WHERE THEY’RE AT, BUT THEY’RE NOT SATISFIED IN STAYING THERE – THEY ARE SECURE ENOUGH TO KEEP GROWING
• RECOGNISING YOUR OWN STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS ALLOWS THE DESIGN OF STRONG TEAMS WHO CAN COMPLEMENT YOUR OWN ABILITIES
• LEADERS WITH CONFIDENCE ACCEPT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING A LEADER
• LEADERS PROJECT POISE AND UNSHAKEABLE CONFIDENCE EVEN WHEN NOT SUPPORTED BY OTHERS
• LEADERS READILY SHARE CREDIT AND GIVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR VISIBILITY TO OTHERS

Confidence & Poise

Philosophy of Life

Do you have a philosophy of life, for yourself? Could you describe your philosophy to someone else, in 25 words or less? 

We were talking with a group of business leaders recently, and we asked the group to raise their hands, if they had a philosophy of life. Everybody raised their hands. Then we asked them if they could write it down in 25 words or less. Only two hands went up. Surprised? We were not.

You see, while each of us probably does have a core philosophy to live by, very few of us could describe it to another person. We don't take the time to write it down. Words, whether on paper or in an electronic file, put substance to our beliefs. The words provide a touchstone that we can go back to, when life presents us with difficulties.

Our behaviour, every day, is a reflection of our beliefs. It is the way human beings are built. No matter what we might say, it is our actions that reflect our core beliefs, our philosophy of living. Everything that we do flows from this philosophy. If it doesn't, that is where stress and anxiety can be found.

Now you may ask, "If I write down my philosophy, what happens if things change, if I change? Do I doggedly follow my 'philosophy'?" That's the beauty of writing things down - the words can be crossed out, erased, and re-written! We are all going to change over time, as we learn the lessons that living teaches us.

So, we will ask this again: Do you have a philosophy of life? Can you describe it in 25 words or less? This weekend, we challenge you to find some quiet time for yourself, and to create your own philosophy - and write it down. 

Philosophy of Life

Judgement

Judgement is one of the values of Positive Leadership.


This means:

• DECISION MAKING IS PART SCIENCE, PART ART.  JUDGEMENT DETERMINES THE RATIO
• ADAPTING YOUR DECISION MAKING APPROACH TO SUIT THE TIME AVAILABLE AND THE CRITICALITY OF THE DECISION
• STAKEHOLDER SENSITIVITY = TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE IMPACT OF DECISIONS ON STAKEHOLDERS AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY
• STAYING TUNED TO THE RISKS LINKED TO DECISIONS -  ALLOWING FOR MID-COURSE CORRECTIONS

Judgement

A Leader's Values Are Always 'On The Clock'

 

Andy Murray is the Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X and an industry pioneer in the new advertising discipline of shopper marketing. 

You're Always on the Clock from The Soderquist Center on Vimeo.

A Leader's Values Are Always 'On The Clock'