Positive Leadership: The Power of 'Thank You!'

Thank You!

There are two powerful words every leader needs to learn, know and use daily.  It doesn’t matter whether you lead a group of 2 or 200, these two words will change your team and the culture of your organisation.

When you express these words, generosity flows.  When you fail to use these words, it can send a negative message.  Its absence says, “I can accomplish the vision without you.  You don’t necessarily matter.  You are not essential.”

A leader is only as good as her people.  Just like a great coach is only as good as his players.  Do your players know you appreciate them?  Do they know without them nothing gets accomplished?

Thank you can change your team.  It can change the way your people come to work every day.  Your success is built on the hard work of others.  That’s a fact.  It’s true for every leader.

Are you grateful for their contribution and efforts? More important, do they know it?

Thank you helps a leader create a generous and grateful culture.  Everyone wants to be appreciated.  Everyone wants to know they matter.  Anyone can issue a salary cheque.  People want to know they make a difference.

Leaders set the tone and culture of an organisation.  If you want to have a generous and grateful culture, learn to say thank you often.  It’s free and has a huge ROI.

People don’t read minds.  If you don’t tell them they are appreciated, they may assume you don’t.  True or not, it carries a negative impact.

Five Simple Ways to Say Thank You

1. Details count.  Be specific with your thank you.  If you want impact, it’s in the details.  Don’t be vague and generic.  Be specific as to what they did and how it impacted the team, department or organisation.  Let them know you are grateful for their contribution and effort.

2. Let the public know.  When you give a “thank you” and praise in public, you create loyalty.  Your team will go through a wall for you.  Bragg about them in public and mean it.  It can have more impact than a monetary reward.

3. Be true and authentic.  If the “thank you” is not sincere, it doesn’t matter.  It has to be honest.  It can’t be over used and fake.  People will see through unauthentic praise.  It will have a negative impact.

4. Write it down.  People love to get encouraging notes.  Keep blank note cards in your desk or close by.  Every week, write someone on your team a thank you note.  Take a few minutes and write out a note.  Be specific and let them know what they did, how hard they work and what it means to the organisation.

5. Equal opportunity.  Your “thank you’s” need to reach the front lines.  The people who create and impact the bottom line.  Go deep down the organisational chart with the thank you.  It’s not just for high-level employees.  Practice equal opportunity praise.  Everyone makes a difference and helps you achieve your vision.  Let all of them know it.

There is tremendous power in thank you.  Create a culture of generosity and gratitude.  You are only as good as your people. They need to know it!

Positive Leadership: The Power of 'Thank You!'

Positive Leadership: What We Can Do To Help You

Positive Leadership Limited 2013 from Graham Watson

Positive Leadership: What We Can Do To Help You

Positive Leadership: The Ultimate Measure of a Man

Positive Leadership: The Ultimate Measure of a Man

Positive Leadership: Illusions of Success

Positive Leadership: Illusions of Success

Positive Leadership: Success Secrets

'Show up, speak up, look up, team up, dont give up, lift others up.'

From the power of presence to the power of voice, leadership expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter describes how to navigate through the process of making a difference in the world.

Harvard professor Kanter describes lining up partnerships, managing the miserable middles of change, and sharing success with others. She tells stories of great leaders and ordinary people who use the six success factors to show up, speak up, look up, team up, never give up, and lift others up. This is an up-lifting talk.

Leadership Expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at the Harvard Business School, Chair and Director of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative, and author of SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies CreateInnovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good.

Positive Leadership: Success Secrets

Positive Leadership: Counting Back

New Zealand scientist and an all-round disruptor, Sir Ray Avery, has a unique approach to keeping himself on track and motivated - he counts down how many days he has left on the planet to ensure that he makes the most out of life.

“I’ve got about 5,625 days to live,” the 65-year old told an audience of entrepreneurs recently. “When you’re born, you’re born with 30,000 days. That’s it. The best strategic planning I can give to you is to think about that… Every day I do a chart on what I’ve achieved and where I want to be. And it makes you scary-as-shit clever.”

Most of us don’t like to think about ‘the end’, but the idea of a reverse engineered calendar means that instead of having x amount of days left, we have x amount of days to fill with life.  An inspirational thought.

Positive Leadership: Counting Back

Positive Leadership: Why Leadership Matters

It matters because it shows that you really care.

It matters because you lead with a sense of purpose.

It matters because trust connects and enables you to make a difference.

It matters because you inspire and teach.

It matters because you drive out fear and believe in a great future.

It matters because failure is ok.

It matters because you don’t treat people like a number; you treat them like you want to be treated.

It matters because you know you don’t have all the answers.

It matters because people follow you (the leader) first and the vision second.  Who you are matters.  Your character and integrity count!

It matters because those who are willing to work hard will stand out.

It matters because positive choices trump negative voices.

Positive Leadership: Why Leadership Matters

Positive Leadership: My One Word

Positive Leadership: My One Word

Positive Leadership: Motivation to Succeed

A great video from our friend Scott Savor. Some of the best lessons and words of wisdom from successful people all over the world!

Success leaves footprints...follow them!!!!

Positive Leadership: Motivation to Succeed

Positive Leadership: What is Required to Produce Innovative Leaders?

Innovations result from unique ways of looking at problems that produce original solutions. 

However, because research and innovation require long time frames, the pressure on business-unit leaders to produce near-term success often results in funds being shifted from innovative projects to product development and product extensions. Large organisations that are heavily dependent on previous successes frequently squeeze out innovative ideas and the innovators who create them. Not infrequently, the most innovative ideas run into significant difficulties in their infancy and get killed or underfunded in favour of high-profitability development projects.

To overcome these pitfalls, organisations need innovative leaders at the top willing to sacrifice near-term financial results to support their innovators through success and failure. The characteristics of great innovative leaders are dramatically different from traditional business managers. 

Here are five essential qualities they must have to lead innovation:

Passion for innovation. Innovative leaders not only have to appreciate the benefits of innovation, they need a deep passion for innovations that benefit customers. Just approving funds for innovation is insufficient. Leaders must make innovation an essential part of the company's culture and growth strategy.

A long-term perspective. Most investors think three years is "long-term," but that won't yield genuine innovation. Major innovations can change entire markets as the iPod and iTunes did, but they take time to perfect products and gain adoption by mainstream users. Leaders cannot stop and start innovation projects as if they were marketing expenses; they must support innovation regardless of the company's near-term prospects.

The courage to fail and learn from failure. The risks of innovation are well known, but many leaders aren't willing to be associated with its failures. However, there is a great deal to be learned from why an innovation has failed, as this enhanced understanding can lead to the greatest breakthroughs.

Deep engagement with the innovators. Innovative leaders must be highly engaged with their innovation teams: asking questions, probing for potential problems, and looking for ways to accelerate projects and broaden their impact. That's what HP's founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard did by wandering around HP's labs and challenging innovators.

Willingness to tolerate mavericks and defend them from middle management. The best innovators are rule-breakers and mavericks who don't fit the corporate mould and are threatening to middle managers following more typical management approaches. That's why innovative leaders must protect their maverick's projects, budgets, and careers rather than forcing them into traditional management positions.

How can companies develop innovative leaders capable of ascending to top management? They need to identify these emerging leaders and then give them their most challenging projects, while protecting them from failures and organisational conflicts.

Positive Leadership: What is Required to Produce Innovative Leaders?

Positive Leadership: True Leaders

Positive Leadership: True Leaders

Positive Leadership: Irrational Optimism

In Bounce, Matthew Syed quotes Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, one of the most successful football (soccer) coaches in the English Premier League, on how athletes must approach competition:

'To perform to your maximum you have to teach yourself to believe with an intensity that goes way beyond logical justification. No top performer has lacked this capacity for irrational optimism; no sportsman has played to his potential without the ability to remove doubt from his mind.'

Positive Leadership: Irrational Optimism

Positive Leadership: How to Train Your Brain to Stay Focused

As a businessperson, you have a lot on your plate. Staying focused can be tough with a constant stream of employees, clients, emails, and phone calls demanding your attention. Amid the noise, understanding your brain’s limitations and working around them can improve your focus and increase your productivity.

Our brains are finely attuned to distraction, so today's digital environment makes it especially hard to focus. "Distractions signal that something has changed," says David Rock, co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Your Brain at Work. "A distraction is an alert he says, 'Orient your attention here now; this could be dangerous.'" The brain's reaction is automatic and virtually unstoppable.

While multitasking is an important skill, it also has a downside. "It reduces our intelligence, literally dropping our IQ," Rock says. "We make mistakes, miss subtle cues and fly off the handle when we shouldn't, or spell things wrong."

To make matters worse, distraction feels great. "Your brain's reward circuit lights up when you multitask,” Rock says, meaning that you get an emotional high when you're doing a lot at once.

Ultimately, the goal is not constant focus, but a short period of distraction-free time every day. "Twenty minutes a day of deep focus could be transformative," Rock says.

Try these three tips to help you become more focused and productive:

1. Do creative work first. Typically, we do mindless work first and build up to the toughest tasks. That drains your energy and lowers your focus. "An hour into doing your work, you've got a lot less capacity than (at the beginning)," Rock says. "Every decision we make tires the brain."

In order to focus effectively, reverse the order. Check off the tasks that require creativity or concentration first thing in the morning, and then move on to easier work, like deleting emails or scheduling meetings, later in the day.

2. Allocate your time deliberately. By studying thousands of people, Rock found that we are truly focused for an average of only six hours per week. "You want to be really diligent with what you put into those hours," he says.

Most people focus best in the morning or late at night, and Rock's studies show that 90% of people do their best thinking outside the office. Notice where and when you focus best, then allocate your toughest tasks for those moments.

3. Train your mind like a muscle. When multitasking is the norm, your brain quickly adapts. You lose the ability to focus as distraction becomes a habit. "We've trained our brains to be unfocused," Rock says.

Practice concentration by turning off all distractions and committing your attention to a single task. Start small, maybe five minutes per day, and work up to larger chunks of time. If you find your mind wandering, just return to the task at hand. "It’s just like getting fit," Rock says. "You have to build the muscle to be focused."

Positive Leadership: How to Train Your Brain to Stay Focused

Positive Leadership: The Leader is There to Enable Others to Flourish

The Rev. Nicky Gumbel , Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton (the largest Anglican church in the UK) and a former barrister, tweeted his take on leadership as his opening to 2013 (@nickygumbel). 

This is a pin-the-on-the-wall-and-look-at-it-every-morning checklist.

•             L ove

•             E ncouragement

•             A uthenticity

•             D aring

•             E nthusiasm

•             R espect

•             S ervice

•             H ope

•             I ntegrity

•             P erseverance

Ancient scripture wisdom repackaged for the modern age. The Rev. Nicky is known internationally for developing the Alpha Course – the most popular introduction to Christianity course in the world. He has been described as a natural leader – confident but self-effacing holiness.

New areas of leadership study – Servant Leadership and Authentic Leadership – emphasise a deep sense of morality in the leader, and a concern for the welfare of others that is greater than the desire to self promote. The leader is there to enable others to flourish.

Positive Leadership: The Leader is There to Enable Others to Flourish

Positive Leadership: Our Youth Must Be Ready to Lead

Colin L. Powell was appointed Secretary of State by George W. Bush on January 20, 2001, after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He served for four years, leaving the position on January 26, 2005. He was the first African-American to serve as Secretary of State.

Positive Leadership: Our Youth Must Be Ready to Lead

Positive Leadership: What Makes Us Truly Happy?

Jennifer Aaker, General Atlantic professor of marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, discusses her research into what makes us truly happy, and how our concept of happiness changes as we age.

Positive Leadership: What Makes Us Truly Happy?

Positive Leadership: Getting to Self Mastery

Here are some reasons why you may not be managing yourself well:

·         You are comfortable and we all tend to stay with what is comfortable

·         You don’t know what else is possible

·         You don’t know that there are other ways to do what you are doing

·         You may be getting energy (and possibly identity!) from being stressed and overworked.

Now let’s put you on the path to better self-management.

1. Clarify your personal goals. Many of us lose sight of these as we get immersed in rush of day-to-day life. Do your personal goals complement your business goals? Asking yourself this question will root out any dissonance between these two areas of your life. And remember, you do have two areas; professional and personal. If they are not in harmony, determine whether the business goals can be re-oriented or modified to support what you would like to achieve personally.

2. What role do you want to have? Imagine yourself three or four years from now. Think about who you want to be. What role do you want to have in the business? Thinking about what you want in the future can give you great insights into what strategies you may need to put in place now.

3. Look at how you are actually spending your time. This is where the rubber meets the road. If you really are true to yourself when you do this exercise you will learn a lot about where the potential lies for making changes. How are you really spending your time?

Break your day down into at least half hour slots and write down exactly what you do in each 30 minutes. Imagine that you are on a diet and your doctor has asked you to keep an honest food journal, to reveal your major calorie intake times of the day. This is what you want for your time journal.

This is your life. Be conscious of how you are living it.

There is never a better time than right now for planning to do things differently. Take charge of yourself and your business by choosing a direction that allows you to meet both your personal and business goals, and still retain your sanity!

Positive Leadership: Getting to Self Mastery

Positive Leadership: Overcoming Presentation Fears

Here are some helpful and real life tips and techniques for working with nervousness while presenting.

Positive Leadership: Overcoming Presentation Fears

Positive Leadership: A Fool With A Plan Can Beat A Genius With No Plan

Legendary US investor, oil entrepreneur and billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently gave a TED talk at his alma mater, Oklahoma State University, and in about 16 minutes gave the audience his 10 Big Leadership Rules:

• Have a good work ethic
• Make a plan
• Look for big things
• Take advice from smart people
• Make your case in 3 minutes or less
• Don’t be afraid to make a decision
• Embrace change
• Don’t cheat
• Have patience
• Be generous

Positive Leadership: A Fool With A Plan Can Beat A Genius With No Plan

Positive Leadership: What Kind of Leader Are You?

Positive Leadership: What Kind of Leader Are You?

Positive Leadership: Steve Jobs on Saying No!

Two segments in the video below are worth watching.  The first is Steve Jobs explaining his philosophy.

The second is him responding to a question about why they cut OpenDoc.  The interesting observation is that OpenDoc was probably better than anything else at some things.  That, by itself, wasn't enough.  It had to be part of a larger vision or it had to go.

He ends with a great observation about how you have to let the vision dictate the technology and not the other way around. 

An excellent example of predicting success!

Positive Leadership: Steve Jobs on Saying No!

Positive Leadership: Chase Your Dreams!

In his TED Talk, former investment banker turned amateur speed skater, Kevin Jagger, shares his story and his passion for the pursuit of competing.

The financial crisis of 2008 taught Kevin that results are not all they are cracked up to be and one must enjoy the daily pursuits that life presents. It’s not about floating through life with your eyes set on your next vacation, salary or bonus. It’s about springing out of bed and facing the day’s challenges head on–knowing that life’s little battles, if fought hard, will lead to something great. Don’t count the days, make the days count.

McGill University (Canada) alumnus, Kevin Jagger is a former investment banker and media professional who, after watching the 2010 Olympic Games in his hometown Vancouver, decided to take a break from the corporate world and get into high performance sports. Kevin chose long track speed skating as his pursuit–because it’s the only sport he could physically do and wanted to pursue.

Having never tried the sport before, he quit his job and moved to Calgary, Alberta to train full time at Canada’s National training centre. Kevin has maintained a blog since day 1 called Long Track Long Shot, which chronicles his journey from a slightly pudgy cubicle dweller to competing on the Canada Cup circuit–and hopefully one day taking a shot at representing Canada in the Olympics.

Kevin’s blog and highly engaged social media platforms have attracted plenty of attention to his story well beyond the speed skating community, which has resulted in a strong financial support base allowing him to pursue his dream. Recently, Kevin launched a new online sponsorship resource, www.PodiumPlatform.com , that aims to share his experiences successfully connecting with the corporate world to help other amateur athletes do the same and improve their own financial standing.

Take a look at his video and try to learn from Kevin’s experiences.

Positive Leadership: Chase Your Dreams!

Positive Leadership: A Broken Body isn’t a Broken Person

Janine Shepherd is a walking paraplegic; she is also a pilot and aerobatics instructor, as well as a motivational speaker and author.

A champion cross country skier in training for the winter Olympics, Janine’s life changed forever when she was hit by a truck during a bicycle ride in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Doctors did not expect her to survive and, when she did, they warned her that she would never walk again.

Janine focused intently for years on healing both her broken body and crushed morale. A turning point came watching small planes flying overhead. She decided: “If I can’t walk, I’ll fly.” While still in a full body cast, Janine was lifted into an aircraft for her first flight. Within a year she had her private pilot’s license. Later, she earned her commercial pilot’s license and instructor’s rating. Janine recently served on the board of Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and became its youngest -- and only -- female director. 

Janine is the patron of the Australasian Spinal Research Trust and is committed to helping find a cure for spinal cord injury in the near future. In the meantime, she seeks to inspire those coping with physical disability. She is the author of five books, including The Gift of Acceptance and Never Tell Me Never. And while doctors told her after her accident that she would never have children, she now is a mother of three.

 

Positive Leadership: A Broken Body isn’t a Broken Person

Positive Leadership : Talent is Everywhere

You should watch this short clip — not because it’s a remarkable story (which it is) or because it will make your eyes well up (which it might), but because it’s a good reminder of two basic facts we tend to overlook:

1) Respecting and caring for the tools of your skill — what some educators call “the enchantment of everyday objects” — ignites powerful motivation

2) Talent is everywhere.

Positive Leadership : Talent is Everywhere