Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Positive Leadership: Why We Lie
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Positive Leadership: Improving Your Return On Luck
Monday, July 09, 2012
Positive Leadership: Training for Mental Toughness
It is no surprise that it takes stamina and mental toughness
to be successful in small business. The truly challenging part is achieving
this level over an extended period of time. However, the way a person chooses
to think will really control the way they behave. Having the right mental focus
will lead to more successful business outcomes in the long term.
Here are some thoughts on how to train for this mental
toughness on your way to becoming a peak business performer.
1. Focus on solutions.
Within 60 seconds of when top-performing people are faced with adversity,
they replace the negative thinking with solution-focused thoughts. Research shows
that people who have "Relentless Solution Focus” (RSF) are proven to live
longer, be happier, and to be significantly more successful. If you fail, cheer
the darkness for a minute. Have a pity party if you want, but then focus on the
solution. Fortunately, everybody can be retrained to focus on the solutions not
the problems.
2. Seek to control
only what you can. (This is very difficult to do in practice.) The only
thing we can control is how we deal with the past and what we do in the future.
Learn what you can, but then take action to get another chance at a successful
outcome.
3. Find one thing you
can do differently to make the situation better. Top performers force
themselves to control what they can control, which is how they deal with
adversity. This is difficult, because humans are biologically built to have
problem-centric thought (PCT). In other words, we have a tendency to focus
first on the problems not the solutions.
4. Keep a success
log. Ask yourself what three things did you do well today? Take credit for
success, since it can be a barrier against future discouragement. Ask yourself what one thing you can improve
and how you can achieve it.
5. Practice the
100-second mental workout. Here is a
100-second workout that can make every businessperson a better performer. First,
take a 6-second breath to centre yourself, hold it for 2 seconds, and then
breathe out for 7 seconds. The purpose of this is to control the pressure and put
you in a position where the mind will work as an asset instead of a liability. Step
two is to repeat a personal mantra; something that really focuses you on who
you are, your strengths and what you’re capable of achieving. The third step in
the mental workout is a personal highlight reel. This is a visualisation of
where you want to be in five years and what you want to accomplish in the next
24 hours. Think about the actions you need to take today to get this done.
What steps have you taken to increase your mental toughness
in order to become a peak business performer?
Saturday, July 07, 2012
Positive Leadership: Winning at the Olympics
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has posted an epic
music video for the official song of the London 2012 Olympics.
English rock band Muse wrote the song, titled “Survival,”
specifically for the games. The track is a perfect anthem for the Olympics, but
it’s the video that really gets us excited.
The video opens with a reverse highlight reel of the Summer
Olympics, beginning in 2008 and going back to the start of the modern games. It is a perfect introduction to winning at the Olympics.
Friday, July 06, 2012
Positive Leadership: Maintaining a Winning Approach
Strategy, understanding the competition and strong technical
talent are keys to success in any competitive sport. However, in basketball,
when the momentum can shift at any moment, an intense uncertainty exists
throughout the entire game. In this context, the team’s abilities to adapt to
constant change and operate in unstable environments are decisive factors for
winning. The same holds true for business leaders in today’s uncertain business
environment.
Here are some other lessons that can be gleaned from one of
the most successful sports coaches in history and a best-selling author on
leadership, Mike Krzyzewski, the head coach of the Duke University men’s basketball
team.
Use symbols and
images to create a frame of reference
Business leaders often invest heavily in developing a vision
that addresses all of the environment’s complexities. But often the concepts
are wordy and by the time they traverse from the executive suite into the rest
of the organisation, they can become lost, mistranslated and ineffective.
A hallmark of Krzyzewski’s leadership is his use of symbols
and images to effectively communicate vision and ideas that stick. The right
image can be a powerful tool for conveying complex ideas in a way that is easy
for the team to understand. That understanding can then empower the team to act
accordingly.
Two images that he uses are the fist and the wheel.
To create understanding of team identity, Krzyzewski uses
the symbol of the five fingers coming together to form a fist. The symbol
simply, but effectively, describes the unique strengths each individual brings
to the game and the incredible power that results when they come together as a
team.
To illustrate the structure of the organisation, he uses the
image of the wheel. Traditionally, the spokes only connect to the centre (in
this case the coach) of the wheel. In Krzyzewski’s wheel, the spokes also
connect to each other, resulting in greater stability so that even in the
absence of the centre or a missing spoke, the wheel remains intact. His organisation
has a higher degree of stability, mutual awareness, and support because its
members understand that their community is defined as much by the collective
strengths and connectivity of its members as it is by the leader.
Provide focus and
priorities
Even with a clear vision and set of stellar strategies, organisations
can remain overwhelmed by the amount of work required to achieve the end goal.
Without focus, members can be paralysed into inactivity or mobilised into a
host of actions that generate little return.
Although the Duke team’s endgame is winning the national
championship, in every practice the focus is solely on the next game. This is
regardless of the opponent. Players are expected to bring their best to and
treat each game as if it were the championship game. That focus helps the team
hone in on and develop the requisite skills needed to win that next game. As
the season progresses and number of games grows, the team builds the
discipline, mentality and capacity to adapt to any situation.
Help members
understand where they fit into the big picture
In a dynamic business environment, decisions often do not
have time to go up and down a chain of command. Members need to be able to act
in the moment in a way that is synchronous with the other parts of the organisation
and in support of each other. Being successful requires that members understand
where and how they fit into the big picture.
A key way that Krzyzewski creates an adaptive communal
organisation is by providing clarity around players’ roles and reaffirming each
individual’s importance to the team.
A few years ago, when Duke’s star player J.J. Redick was
asked how it felt to be the primary scorer for the team, his response was,
“It’s my job.” He understood his role not as the star, but as helping to create
a winning team. Another player’s role may be to pass the ball. The team also
has several walk-on players whose role is to train.
Krzyzewski helps each player, whether a star shooter or a
walk-on, understand his role in the context of the overall team. By doing so,
he fosters an even greater sense of community because all the members see their
individual value to the team, as well as the value of their teammates. This
also played out at the 2008 Beijing Olympics when Krzyzewski was able lead the
United States to a gold medal by moulding a group of high-scoring NBA
superstars into a cohesive team in which players understood their roles.
For leaders operating in today’s complex global environment,
adopting these lessons can give their organisations the necessary competitive
edge.
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Importance of Values Based Leadership
No matter how big a company gets, it needs to be prepared to
change course if the environment calls for it.
That was the message
from Tim Brown, President and CEO of Nestlé Canada during a presentation at the Richard Ivey School of Business recently for the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership MBA
Leadership speaker series.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Path to Peak Performance
Everyone can 'shine'!
Positive Leadership: Barclays, Values and Integrity
Positive Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the Barclays Scandal
In advance of today’s UK Treasury Select Committee hearing
and the expected further fall-out from the Barclays scandal, we believe there
is value in stepping back and thinking about the key leadership lessons
emerging so far.
According to the Financial Times, Bob Diamond (ex Barclays
CEO) gave a lecture last year in which he stressed the importance of culture in
establishing an ethos of trust and integrity. “Culture is difficult to define,”
he explained, “but for me the evidence of culture is how people behave when no
one is watching.”
In our view, recent events highlight three significant
leadership lessons, which have broad impact:
• As well
as developing good leaders, Boards need to focus on stopping, or at least
slowing down, bad leaders.
• Stakeholders
should beware of the superstar CEO. Often, he gets a great deal of press
attention, he writes a book, his remuneration goes up, but the performance of
his company ultimately goes down.
• It is
important to focus on a leader’s character attributes when hiring and
understand how he copes when faced with high-stress situations.
The framework provided by our Values of Positive Leadership™
offers a solution to these challenges.
Such an approach enables business strategy and corporate transactions to
be executed successfully, thereby delivering optimum results in situations of
high pressure.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Monday, July 02, 2012
Positive Leadership: Bankers Need A Moral Compass
This extract from a recent editorial in the Financial Times highlights the continued appalling state of the UK banking sector and the need for wholesale change in leadership. British bankers really do need a moral compass!
‘The Barclays affair may lack the spice of some recent
banking scandals, involving as it does the rather dry “crime” of misreporting
interest rates. But few have shone such an unsparing light on the rotten heart
of the financial system……..What is shocking is the casual way in which this con was
perpetrated, and how few checks were in place to stop it. The messages swapped
between traders – with their promises to reward fiddled figures with bottles of
champagne – breathe an easy sense of entitlement. They also speak volumes about
the rotten culture at Barclays. Bob Diamond, the bank’s chief executive, gave a
lecture last year in which he stressed the importance of culture in
establishing an ethos of trust and integrity. “Culture is difficult to define,”
he explained, “but for me the evidence of culture is how people behave when no
one is watching.” Well, now we know.’
For the full article, see:
Friday, June 29, 2012
Positive Leadership: Great Mentors
Most of us can identify at least one person, sometimes more,
who has served us as a valued mentor.
This is or was an individual whose fundamental function was to help
us–the newcomer–into an organisation, a profession or the world. Mentors are traditionally accomplished
individuals with extensive knowledge and experience in their field who play a
supportive role in overseeing and encouraging the development of less
experienced, knowledgeable individuals with the expressed purpose of
facilitating a mentee’s personal and professional development.
There are several mentor characteristics that form the
foundation for establishing and exercising an effective mentoring
relationship. Rather than behaviours
displayed, these qualities are personal traits and intentions possessed and
displayed by the mentor. Because a
mentor becomes much more that a ‘career coach’–something more akin to a trusted
friend and confidant–the quality of the mentor’s character becomes a primary
issue as does their purposes for choosing to mentor.
Before one can enter the role of a mentor, this person must
be someone with a very high degree of credibility. A mentee is not likely going
to pay much heed to someone who lacks credibility in the areas for which they
seek mentoring. Credibility may come
from a significant amount of experience, a reputation for achieving outstanding
results, having extensive and current knowledge of the field, and being known
as an active learner as demonstrated by reading, attendance at seminars,
continued coursework, professional memberships, and the like.
A second critical characteristic is integrity. For a mentee to form a bond of trust and
respect, a mentor must adhere to codes of both personal and professional
ethics. Honesty and accuracy of
information are hallmarks of a relationship that serves a mentee well. A mentor is often required to inform a mentee
of things the mentee may not want to hear.
But if the mentee believes the mentor has their best interest at heart
and is a person of integrity, the information will be received as it was
intended.
A third quality shared by effective mentors is the
perspectives they hold of their roles as mentors. Effective mentors see the primary purpose of
a mentoring relationship as assisting mentees in becoming competent,
contributing members of a society or profession. Therefore, effective mentors interact with
mentees in ways intended to inspire mentees to want to become better–both as
people and professionals.To this end, effective mentors offer support and guidance to
their mentees’ attempts to set stretch goals.
This may require the mentor to make the mentee feel secure enough to
take appropriate risks in order to achieve goals, gain needed experience, or
develop important professional skills.
In many cases, this means giving mentees the confidence to rise above
their inner doubts and fears.
Finally, effect mentors will often present opportunities and
challenges for mentees that they may not have had on their own. In doing so, mentors provide the means for
mentees to take action toward achieving their goals, gain necessary experience
to understand the significance of the role demands of a professional, and begin
to build a resume of skills and accomplishments that will serve the mentee as
they build their professional career.
Research provides strong evidence that there are a myriad of
benefits accrued, not only by the mentee, but the mentor as well. Potential
benefits derived by a mentor from an effective mentoring relationship include:
a) increased social status in the organisation, b) improved job performance c)
significant personal learning, and d) quality social interaction and
satisfaction. But to achieve the
benefits of an effective mentoring relationship, one must first possess the
requisite traits and qualities that will serve as the foundation for good
mentoring.
Do you have what it takes?
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Positive Leadership: What Great CEO's Do Well
The "best of the best" CEO’s tend to share the
following eight core beliefs:
1. Business is an
ecosystem, not a battlefield.
Average bosses see business as a conflict between companies,
departments and groups. They build huge armies of "troops" to order
about, demonise competitors as "enemies," and treat customers as
"territory" to be conquered.
Extraordinary bosses see business as a symbiosis where the
most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. They naturally create
teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with
other companies, customers ... and even competitors.
2. A company is a
community, not a machine.
Average bosses consider their company to be a machine with
employees as cogs. They create rigid structures with rigid rules and then try
to maintain control by "pulling levers" and "steering the
ship."
Extraordinary bosses see their company as a collection of
individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. They inspire
employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to
the community–and company–at large.
3. Management is
service, not control.
Average bosses want employees to do exactly what they're
told. They're hyper-aware of anything that smacks of insubordination and create
environments where individual initiative is squelched by the "wait and see
what the boss says" mentality.
Extraordinary bosses set a general direction and then commit
themselves to obtaining the resources that their employees need to get the job
done. They push decision making downward, allowing teams form their own rules
and intervening only in emergencies.
4. My employees are
my peers, not my children.
Average bosses see employees as inferior, immature beings that
simply can't be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. Employees
take their cues from this attitude, expend energy on looking busy and covering
their behinds.
Extraordinary bosses treat every employee as if he or she
were the most important person in the firm. Excellence is expected everywhere,
from the loading dock to the boardroom. As a result, employees at all levels
take charge of their own destinies.
5. Motivation comes
from vision, not from fear.
Average bosses see fear--of getting fired, of ridicule, of
loss of privilege--as a crucial way to motivate people. As a result, employees and managers alike
become paralysed and unable to make risky decisions.
Extraordinary bosses inspire people to see a better future
and how they'll be a part of it. As a
result, employees work harder because they believe in the organisation's goals,
truly enjoy what they're doing and (of course) know they'll share in the rewards.
6. Change equals
growth, not pain.
Average bosses see change as both complicated and
threatening, something to be endured only when a firm is in desperate shape.
They subconsciously torpedo change ... until it's too late.
Extraordinary bosses see change as an inevitable part of
life. While they don't value change for its own sake, they know that success is
only possible if employees and organisation embrace new ideas and new ways of
doing business.
7. Technology offers
empowerment, not automation.
Average bosses adhere to the old IT-centric view that
technology is primarily a way to strengthen management control and increase
predictability. They install centralised computer systems that dehumanise and
antagonise employees.
Extraordinary bosses see technology as a way to free human
beings to be creative and to build better relationships. They adapt their
back-office systems to the tools, like smartphones and tablets, which people
actually want to use.
8. Work should be
fun, not mere toil.
Average bosses buy into the notion that work is, at best, a
necessary evil. They fully expect employees to resent having to work, and
therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressors and their
employees as victims. Everyone then behaves accordingly.
Extraordinary bosses see work as something that should be
inherently enjoyable–and believe therefore that the most important job of
manager is, as far as possible, to put people in jobs that can and will make
them truly happy.
Positive Leadership: You Don't Get to Choose the Role You Play
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Positive Leadership: Act Like an Optimist
Try it! But not just once...try it again and again and again until it becomes a habit. Then this "simple trick" will stop being a trick and become a part of who you are.
Here's to your success!
Monday, June 25, 2012
Positive Leadership: Visualisation as a Tool for Peak Performance
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. 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. Peter
Fox and his colleagues 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.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Power of Pause
Shriver was California's trailblazing First Lady from 2003
to 2010. Her work is driven by her belief that all of us have the ability to be
what she calls Architects of Change -- people who see a problem in their own
life or the community around them, then step out of their comfort zone and do
what it takes to create the solution.
Excerpts from the USC Annenberg School of Communication 2012
Commencement Address by Maria Shriver:
"But today, I have one wish for you. Before you go out
and press that fast forward button, I'm hoping - I'm praying - that you'll have
the courage to first press the pause button."
"That's right: the pause button. I hope if you learn
anything from me today, you learn and remember -- The Power of the Pause."
"Pausing allows you to take a beat -- to take a breath
in your life. As everybody else is rushing around like a lunatic out there, I
dare you to do the opposite."
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Positive Leadership: Controlling Your Mind Through Positive Intelligence
Daniel Goleman made a compelling and accurate case nearly
two decades ago that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) was more important to
leadership effectiveness and performance than IQ. But most attempts at
increasing EQ have resulted only in temporary improvements. The reason is that
a more foundational and core intelligence has been ignored, which is a
pre-cursor to high EQ, namely Positive Intelligence (PQ). Without a solid PQ
foundation, many of our attempts at improvements fail due to
self-sabotage.
Your mind is your best friend, but it is also your worst
enemy, involved in self-sabotage. To illustrate, when your mind tells you that
you should prepare for tomorrow’s important meeting, it is acting as your
friend, causing positive action. When it wakes you up at 3:00 a.m. anxious
about the meeting and warning you for the hundredth time about the many
consequences of failing, it is acting as your enemy; it is simply exhausting
your mental resources without any redeeming value. No friend would do that.
Your PQ is the percentage of time your mind is serving you
as opposed to sabotaging you. For example, a PQ of 75 means that your mind is
serving you 75% of the time and sabotaging you about 25% of the time.
Compelling evidence from a synthesis of research in psychology, neuroscience,
and organisational science shows that with higher PQ teams and professionals
ranging from leaders to salespeople perform 30-35% better on average. What’s
more, they report being far happier and less stressed.
In this video, author and Stanford lecturer Shirzad Chamine introduces
Positive Intelligence. He shows how your Positive Intelligence score or PQ
dramatically affects both your performance and personal fulfilment. He reveals
the 10 Saboteurs that are our hidden internal enemies and how to combat them.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Positive Leadership: The Power of Teamwork
Monday, June 18, 2012
Positive Leadership: With Hard Work Anyone Can Be Brilliant!
In this presentation to design and illustration students
from the University of Cumbria, England, Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of
Saatchi & Saatchi talks about the great importance of creative design
solutions and the challenge to create a future that is: Vibrant, Unreal, Crazy
and Astounding.
As one student said to him after the presentation: ‘….thank you
for ……making me realise that there is no reason at all that with hard work, I can’t
be brilliant.’
Here is his presentation: http://www.saatchikevin.com/Dance_To_The_Music
Friday, June 15, 2012
Positive Leadership: Anything Is Possible!
Arthur Boorman was a disabled veteran of the Gulf War for 15
years, and was told by his doctors that he would never be able to walk on his
own, ever again.
His story is proof, that we cannot place limits on what we
are capable of doing, because we often do not know our own potential.
Do not waste any time thinking you are stuck - you can take
control over your life, and change it faster than you might think.
Hopefully this story can inspire you to follow your dreams -
whatever they may be.
Anything is Possible!
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