Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching

A Mahalo 3by3: Appreciation, Gratitude, Thankfulness

Differences? Or overflowing abundance of everything good …

4 words, including Mahalo, for when we have thankfulness as a way of living we feel blessedly rich. To have such an outlook is to feel a very sweet kind of contentment, don’t you think?

I took my cues from the dictionary for the definitions I share with you below, however I added to them with what I know of these things as Mahalo, my Hawaiian value of living in thankfulness.

APPRECIATION: Know.

From Webster - To value justly. Recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and things.

Within Mahalo - Know how much you have at this very moment. Understand how unique you are, and stand tall. Realize there is no one else who is the person you are. To live in appreciation for the richness that makes your life so precious is to simply live in celebration of your sense of self. Take nothing in this day of your life for granted. Take exceptional care of the aloha within you, for it is the breath of your life.

GRATITUDE: Become.

From Webster - The state of being grateful; thankfulness.

Within Mahalo - Become all you are capable of being, by using all your gifts, each and every one of them. Grow into every crevice of your capacity, filling it with worthiness. Test your limits joyfully, and with confidence palena ‘ole (without boundaries). Seek to complete yourself physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. In doing so, you acknowledge who you are in a manner which appreciates what others have done for you. You create prosperity and abundance so you will have more to give.

THANKFULNESS: Share.

From Webster - Aware and appreciative of a benefit; and expressive of gratitude.

Within Mahalo - Share of who you are with the utmost respect for those who complete your life. Say “mahalo” or “thank you” often. Speak of your appreciation of others, and it will soften the tone of your voice, giving it both humility, and fullness. People need to hear words spoken from your aloha, and in speaking them you offer a generous gift. Use your own gifts to reveal those which exist in others all around you.

Truth be told, it has been a somewhat challenging week. Now that Friday is here I am eager to remember that Mahalo is our Ho‘ohana this month, looking forward to the promise of the weekend with growing pleasure, ready to savor those good things in my life I may not have had complete focus on these past few days.

I wish such a weekend for you too.

MWA3P; my October Action Cycle

I am rereading Stephen Covey’s First Things First. This is one of the blurbs in the front matter of the book:

“I hate time management systems. Do lists, day planners, and breathing-by-objective systems give me the hives.

But I love First Things First — Covey and the Merrills’ approach to making your life meaningful and successful on purpose. The subtitle tells it all, ‘To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy.’ That’s making your life work instead of making work your life. Super!”
— Ron Zemke, coauthor of Service America and Sustaining Knock Your Socks Off Service

I agree and disagree with Mr. Zemke. I agree in that I too love First Things First, and reading it again has been a sort of homecoming for me. I disagree (slightly) in that I’ve never hated time management systems, I’ve been captivated by them.

Much as I like to explain that ‘time management’ is a kind of misnomer, I’ve always been fascinated with the organization and systems part of the concept, and I’ve sunk a small fortune (and BIG amounts of time) into playing and experimenting with every planner to catch my fancy. Paper, digital, cosmically star-aligned … you name it: I’ve probably tried it or at least checked it out enough to consider myself an unofficial, self-proclaimed expert on them (whatever ‘expert’ means.)

The reason my fascinated continued? I’m still looking for one that works.

3by3 on Motivation, Responsibility and Accountability

When I ask managers, “What is it you want most from your employees?” there is one answer that always gets voiced with the early responses, and after it has been spoken aloud it gets the most agreement: No one thereafter can think of what they want more.

“I want my staff to be more motivated and take personal responsibility for their jobs. I don’t want to babysit anymore.”

Motivation

In my stack to read is a book that was written by one of our Ho‘ohana Community members, Norm Crouse. It’s called Motivation is an Inside Job. I haven’t read Norm’s book yet (and I will Norm!) but for me his title pretty much says it all, for I agree, motivation is an inside job. A person’s desire for doing something is nine tenths of the deal: you can’t motivate someone to do something they have no desire to do.

That part is pretty logical, and you’ve probably heard about Jim Collins’ Good to Great analogy of an organization as a bus: Get the right people on the bus and get them in the right seats (I call it Ho‘ohana :) If they are the right people your mission will light their fire and fuel the whole bus.

Take another look at that Energy Flow of Kuleana I shared with you yesterday: People who are self-motivated willingly accept responsibility. They take initiative, actively seeking the opportunity to do so: they want to be engaged. Finding that opportunity will create energy and excitement for them.

Responsibility

I believe that responsibility is very much like motivation: it’s personal and self-driven. The responsibility a person has accepted for something is strongest when fulfilling the obligation connected to it satisfies their personal values. They take ownership for it easily, and they feel emotionally connected to it. When you are a responsible, loving parent, no one has to tell you to accept responsibility for your kids. When you love your job, no one has to tell you to take responsibility for doing it.

We’re probably in agreement so far. Now comes the responsibility part I really want to talk about: your responsibility for great management.

What I’ve noticed that managers seem to miss about this is a clear perspective on what their own role as managers is, versus that of the babysitter they claim they don’t want to be.

Managers must learn to be better enablers: they need to shine a brighter light on an employee’s options, and when that employee sees an option as an opportunity, the manager needs to give it to them — translation: delegate it well, and delegate it completely. In doing so you enlarge that employee’s capacity for accepting responsibility and accountability. Go back to the energy flow: not only do you get them excited and re-energized about what they do, you give them an incredible gift.

Accountability

Accountability comes with ownership. No personal ownership, no personal accountability.

Incomplete ownership = incomplete accountability.

Incomplete accountability = loopholes and excuses all over the place.

If you want someone to take full accountability for something, you need to delegate it to them completely, with full freedom, support, and authority to get the job done. They need to feel they are trusted and empowered.

Then you can hold them accountable.

Stop waiting and be proactive. Get original.

Time and time again I find that managers are waiting. They are waiting for employees to take initiative, just do it, and ask for more responsibility.

Employees are waiting because they cautious. They are very conscious of their implied or understood circle of influence. They don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, least of all their manager’s.

Stop waiting, for everyone’s time is getting wasted. Start the ball rolling. And managers: Being the movers and shakers of the status quo is your responsibility.

Find out what your employees feel they are responsible for, then say “Great!” Voice your support and give them the tools they need to get the job done. Give them complete ownership, and hold them accountable.

You know what? You probably won’t have to. They’ll hold themselves accountable, for the sweetest promise kept is the promise one makes to one’s self.

Related Links:
Lisa Haneberg did a review of Norm Crouse’s book, Motivation is an Inside Job on Management Craft.
This is Norm’s Blog.
Jim Collin’s Site: Great site, wish he had a blog and a feed.

Related Posts:
Your Responsibilities: Joy or Clutter? A helpful exercise is offered here.
The Energy Flow of Kuleana (Responsibility). And how managers can tap into it.

Tags: Kuleana. Motivation. Responsibility. Accountability. Proactivity.

Only today …05-05-05

This is not your normal day!

I noticed this once-in-a-lifetime (once in a century?) occurrence would happen on our alarm clocks, watches, car radios, datebooks, calendars, notes, letters, emails ... and more today because I wrote way too many 05-04-05’s in my checkbook yesterday … time to declutter my bill paying again and reconsider those things I have been thinking of as necessities when they really aren’t.

Just for fun to mark the day, how can we commemorate these three sets of zeros and fives?

This is a great day to make things happen instead of letting them happen to you.

0 — Pay 0 bills today. Leave that cash in the bank to gain what piddling interest it can for another day. If you’re going to spend money today, do it in a more meaningful way. For example,

5 — At your coffee place this morning, buy 5 muffins to go with your cappuccino. You drink the cappuccino, but pass out the 5 muffins to people who have none as you make your way back out the door. You’ll feel all warm inside (and not just from the cappuccino.) In fact, take those muffins to work and you could get 5 kisses :-)

0 — Be sure you do not speak a single harsh or unkind word today. On the contrary,

5 — Give 5 genuinely sincere, from the heart compliments to 5 different people. “You really look nice today.” “I’m very impressed; you did such a good job helping me out with this.” “This must be one of the best meals I’ve ever tasted.” “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” “Wow. You’ve made my day.”

0 — Don’t be late—at all.

5 — In fact, be at least 5 minutes early whereever you may be expected to meet someone. Ho‘omāka‘ika‘i (go visiting): If you talk story with 5 different people today you’ll have a pretty magnificent day.

That’s a start. 

How can you add to my list and make this a day that is really worth remembering?

Give us your ideas in the comments!

This day will never come again for you, make it count!

Tags: To Do Lists. Dates. Ideas.

Reinvention, Tradition, and Circle of Influence.

There is a firestorm going on with the Carnival of the Capitalists today.

I’d clicked over to pick up the new link for the week for our Ho‘ohana Community Online listing (what I’m talking about is here) and read this:

Welcome to this week's Carnival of the Capitalists, which is my privilege to host for the second time.

I've just come back from a week's skiing in Austria to find over 50 excellent entries in the carnival's mail box. While I've duly read and mulled over each of them, I can't help thinking that it's a daunting task for you, the reader, to give all these great bloggers the attention they deserve in one mega-session.

So I've unilaterally decided to break with tradition slightly and publish one batch today and another on Wednesday. Sorry if you hate the idea, but if I've made your life a little easier, I'm pleased. Either way, leave a comment below or drop me an email (russell AT mobhappy DOT com) and let me know what you think, so other hosts can take board your feedback.

Well, so far the more vocal customers are not happy with Russell’s break from tradition. You can click over there and read the comment string: There are some lessons in customer focus and marketing to be learned there. This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists.

I’m pointing it out to you because while Russell may have had very good intent with his decision, one’s circle of influence is something we who wish to reinvent must be aware of, and be realistic about. There is so much we can all do within our own Kuleana first: Start there, and do it well so that you will have a grand stage from which to launch your future efforts as your circle of influence grows with each success.

In our Reinvention Forum, Wayne had talked about involving everyone concerned in reinvention decisions, and his article is well worth another read when framed in this real-time case study over at Russell’s Mobile Technology Weblog.
Wayne Hurlbert on Reinvention: Whole Business Marketing.

There are two different customers involved here, the authors who submit their articles each week, and those who read them (which includes many in the first group as well.) Let’s think about this:

What kind of reinvention could Russell have done instead that would make the Carnival fresh this week, but not break from tradition in such an alarming way for so many? What do you think?

Related posts:
Working within your Circle of Influence.
The Reinvention Forum Index.
I’ve written about the Carnival two other times:
Carnival of the Capitalists.
So far, I subscribed to 3 new blogs this morning.

Tags: Reinvention. Tradition. Customer Focus. Circle of Influence.

Muses, Mentors and Self-Talk

Dave has an interesting post at WizSpeak today called Imaginary Counsel with his solution to choosing good mentors. It reminded me of an exercise written up in Soar with Your Strengths about reflecting on your Personal Board of Directors (page 128 if you have the paperback).

Closer to home and more recently, it reminded me of yesterday afternoon. Multi-tasking at its finest:
I’m sitting in a comfortable canvas slingback chair, out in the Hawaiian sun, overlooking the Konawaena ballpark where my son’s team is playing baseball in a high school pre-season tournament. In between innings and tourney game breaks I’m finishing my reading of Marcus Buckingham’s new book, and writing pages and pages in a legal pad about whatever pops in my head. My husband is there with me, but sitting next to him is another dad, and so of course they are having the verbal warfare of armchair quarterbacks (what do you call guys like that in baseball?) and so as far as he’s concerned, I’m not even there. My son hits a triple, Marcus Buckingham says something profound, I write in a flash of inspiration. The afternoon is my short taste of pure bliss.

At one point my husband looks over at me and says, “Who are you talking to?”

“What?”

“Your lips are moving, and there’s no sound coming out, but you have this look on your face like you’re having a conversation with someone.”

And I was. I was talking to Marcus Buckingham about something I just read in his book. He doesn’t know it, and I’ve never met the man, but he’s become somewhat of a mentor for me because I love the way he thinks. However at this point I’ve read virtually everything he’s written, I’ve heard him speak, I’ve read his interviews, and I’m now brave enough to debate him — even if it’s in my own head.

I have discovered how very powerful self-talk is, and I’ve learned to use it well. It’s also great for coaching — I teach others how to actually do it to their benefit. It’s great for managing: I coach managers to actually see when their employees are caught up in positive versus negative self-talk as an exercise in building a) their empathy, and b) their skill in intercepting those coaching opportunities they can have with their own staff.

Here’s a tip for you: the best place to actually see this happening for people is when you’re conducting a meeting and they are reacting to what you’ve said. This is something I love about giving my speeches to smaller groups and conducting trainings: People have this false sense of invisibility when they are in an audience, and they have no idea how much non-verbal feedback they are giving me. And I’m not shy about swooping in, “Okay, I see those wheels turning, talk to me: Don’t take and accept what I just said at face value, talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Muses, mentors, and self-talk: Great tools, all three of them. Be sure you use them.

Tag: muses. mentors. self_talk.

The 3 R’s in Business: ROI, ROR, and ROA.

Remember that old school chant of Reading ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic? Well folks, we’ve grown up, and the 3 R’s we need to focus on today are ROI, ROR, and ROA. These are the 3 R’s that good Business Plans are made of.

Like many business owners, these are the weeks of the year that I tend to focus a good portion of my attentions on the soundness of my Business Plan, for the income tax man cometh. When you make the transition to self-employment, you quickly learn to look at dollars in the new light of realized personal profit versus saved-and-stashed paycheck. However over the years I’ve also learned that balancing bank ledgers are only one measurement, and I can’t neglect the others. I now look for a return from all my efforts, and there are three different kinds of return I look for:

ROI — Return on Investments
ROR — Return on Relationships
ROA — Return on Attention

Let’s look at these one at a time.

ROI: Return on Investments
In the business model I have for SLC there is little to no overhead, yet ROI is still a big part of the picture. For Return on Investment is about more than just dollars invested — it’s about dollars and “sense.” Where is my business sense directed, and how much time do I spend working on my business versus in it?

In a presentation I did recently, the question of “paying dues” came up in the Q&A that followed, and its a concept I no longer have any patience for. The most pricey investment I make is with my time, and just logging it in anything that’s not meaningful, fulfilling, or somehow rewarding just isn’t good enough — not for me, or for anyone who works with me.

Time, effort, energy and focus are tangible concepts for me, and all are investments from which I expect a quantifiable return.

ROR: Return on Relationships
For all their intricacies and complexities, I look at both managing and leading through a very narrow lens when it comes to business. For me, pure and simple, both management and leadership are about working with people. To work with people well, you need to excel at cultivating good relationships. Please don’t think of relationships as the warm and fuzzies of the work world — the quality of your personal and professional relationships matters, and it matters big time.

In Soar With Your Strengths, Clifton and Nelson wrote,

“The fabric of our lives is constructed person by person. As our relationships increase, we benefit geometrically: Our lives become richer, and we expand our strengths through others.”

Relationships in the workplace are vitally important to the health of that workplace: the stronger your relationships the more self-assured you will be, and self-assurance drives performance. Strong relationships with others are built on commitments, and commitments honored builds trust. The more trust you engender, the more attention you will keep, which brings us to the next R.

ROA: Return on Attention
If I had to single out the one business “discipline” I’ve scrambled to learn more about in recent years, it would be marketing — and I still study it, and play with it daily. What I’ve learned about marketing can be reduced to this: Attention is an extremely valuable and very scarce commodity. When someone gives it to you, you better be able to deliver and make it worth their while, so that they in turn will want to make their own Investments and Relationships work with you. So in my business model I take a look at ROA from both directions, as receiver and as giver:

As Giver: Who and what is getting my attention, and should they have it? What are they doing to keep it? What kind of return do I expect to get from them?

As Receiver: Who is giving me their attention, and how am I continually earning that right? What is the “attention expectation” of all those who are the stakeholders in my business, e.g. there is a difference between the attention expectation of my customers and guests, and that of my ‘Ohana in Business.

Attention is also something that comes in varying degrees: the larger the degree of attention you are given, the larger the return you can expect. For instance, when you knock on the boss’s door and say, “Have you got a minute?” does he or she stop what they are doing and give you their full attention, or do they just momentarily lift their eyes, then continue with what they may be doing, and off-handedly say, “go ahead, I’m listening.” Either way, you know what degree of attention they are willing to give to you.

ROI, ROR, and ROA. Three places in which I look for solid, quantifiable returns in my business plan.

How about you? Have you reinvented your Business Plan in a way that I can learn more from?

Let’s talk story.

Related posts:
Get into a new habit: Working wide awake.
More on your Relationship ROI.

Tag: business_plans. ROI. ROR. ROA. 

The 3 Sins of Management.

In the coaching I do with managers, I’ve found that there are three different pitfalls that constantly rear their ugly heads. I’ve come to call them the 3 Mortal Sins of Management.

One has to do with tripping yourself up in basic good supervision.

Another has to do with the way we revere the truth.

And the last has to do with keeping the working environment dynamic.

Let’s talk about them one at a time.

1. Tacit Approval

As a manager, you give someone your “tacit approval” when you do not take action on some transgression they know you are aware of. Confronting the staff involved, and following up when correction and disciplinary action are necessary, is critical within your role as Keeper of High Performance Expectations --- for everyone, fair and square.

As unpleasant as it may be to deal with these things, eliminating any trace of tacit approval in the workplace is one of the reasons managers are needed: it’s one of the key reasons why self-directed work teams have not been able to exist totally on their own in most businesses. Managers are the ones who treat those playing foul tactfully but consistently, conducting themselves with distinction as they treat others with dignity and respect (ho‘ohanohano) while firmly, assuredly correcting and guiding their better behavior. Great managers groom talent: they do not ignore the opportunities they have to do so.

Managers must learn when it’s best to take care of staff issues individually versus collectively, and they must be the ones to discover all root causes, but they must, must, must take action and not look away. If you don’t deal with things as they happen, the message you silently give is that it’s okay as long as you don’t get caught, or that mediocrity is okay until it gets chronic. Then you end up doing crisis management because situations have festered and gotten far worse. At the very least, you allow the onset of apathy.

2. Lies of Omission

This is one of those coaching lessons you get a lot of aha! moments in when you are a parent as well as a manager. With both my children and my employees I took care to teach them that a lie not spoken aloud is still a lie, and it still hurts someone or something in some way.

I would much rather deal with a big ugly truth than a small white lie, and I did my very best to cultivate a safe atmosphere wherein my children and my employees would give it to me straight no matter how awful a situation may be. I want to know what I must deal with --- or what we must deal with --- as soon as possible. No matter what it is, it is always far easier to deal with something that is out in the open and exposed in all its ugliness. Lies are never totally hidden and tucked away: in some way they affect someone’s health and spirit. Living with lies will kill a person’s ability to completely share their own aloha with others.

The positive flip side of this is that knowledge --- any knowledge --- is empowering and transformational. I’ve come to think of knowledge as food: food for mind, heart and soul. Learning inspires us, and when we “come to know” something and we seek better solutions, we can give birth to creativity. At the very least, we create new energy.

Three things for managers: first, openly talk about lies of omission with your staff, hang it in the air and inculcate it into the language of your company. Second, seize personal responsibility for creating a safe atmosphere where anyone can talk to you about anything without fear of repercussion (tip: start with the Daily 5 Minutes). Third, lead by example, and admit when you’re wrong and need a better truth yourself. Apologize when you should.

3. Automatic Pilot

A car left on cruise control will ultimately run off the road or out of gas. Same thing happens to any process in a business that is left on automatic pilot. Great managers learn to love this question: “Tell me again - why is it that we do it this way?”

You can fill in these blanks with a whole myriad of systems and processes in your company:
Why is this paperwork so necessary when we __________ ?
Are we absolutely sure that this is the best solution for __________ ?
Have we ever tried to __________ when we do this?
How long have we been __________ this way?
When was the last time we put __________ back out to bid?
Why are we replacing __________ instead of reinventing __________ in the company?
Word association: red tape and bureaucracy for us, equals __________ ?

Why does it have to be this way?

It probably doesn’t. It probably shouldn’t. Create, innovate, change: just try something new and surprise yourself. Surprise everyone. Pull the plug and turn off the life support: Actively heal.

Tag: management. tacit approval. lies. auto pilot. supervision.

3 great questions you can use to Delegate Better.

You never know what you can learn by watching Oprah.

Two days ago I went on a cleaning binge and flipped on the TV for some background noise. Great timing: there was Oprah, with two closet organization/fashion gurus, helping her clean the clutter by addressing the emotional connections she had to her stuff.

Well, I didn’t get all my cleaning done. As she so easily can do, Oprah hooked me in and I watched the whole show. But what a great take-away:

The closet gurus turned out to be Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo from a company they call Visual Therapy. They propose you ask yourself three questions when sorting stuff in yes and no piles:

Do I love this?

Does this look flattering on me?

Does this project the image I want to portray?

Since then, in less than two short days, I’ve used the same three questions in helping two different managers with delegating job tasks: tasks that deep down they know they should not be doing.  These are job tasks they can teach and empower someone else to do, but don’t, because they have some kind of emotional attachment to them.

You’ve got to try this: it works wonders. Think of something you do a lot of every day, and could probably delegate to someone else, and ask yourself:

Do I love this?          

Rosa-speak: Is this a part of my Ho‘ohana, the work I do with passion, or am I really doing it for another reason?

Does this look flattering on me, or will it look more flattering on someone else?

Rosa-speak:  If I could step outside myself, and watch the job I’m doing, am I managing with aloha? If you are a manager, it doesn’t get more flattering than that.

Does this project the image I want to portray?

Rosa-speak: Is this a task I am keeping when I ‘Imi ola, seek my best-possible life at work? Or will it continue to bog me down, and keep me from being a great manager who empowers others, helping them ‘Imi ola too?

When you manage with aloha, delegation is the gift of empowerment. Delegate well, and you allow others into your circle of influence. In doing so, you achieve two things:

1. First, you offer your faith, trust, and confidence to someone else, letting them know you feel they are capable of greater things with both your words and your actions.

2. Second, you open up your own capacity to embrace newness or additional growth yourself.

That’s actually two gifts, isn’t it.