May
07

Power in a New Role

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Have you taken on a new role recently and are you still getting comfortable with the power that goes with it? Anytime any of us takes on a new and higher level of responsibility in the organization, we step into a new level of power. And unless we use the power that we have, it becomes the power that we had.

Here’s how that plays out. You’ve recently been promoted to director where instead of managing just one team of five, you’re now responsible for the work of 25 under three direct reports. You know how to manage. You’ve been doing that successfully for some time. But what’s different about managing your old team of five individuals and your new team with a hoard of people under them? Probably not much as far as management skill is concerned, but everything as far as your leadership goes. And a main perception of your leadership is how you manage the relationships, old and new, now that you’ve risen up.

As you all know, once you hit a certain level — and I’m using the director level as an example, but this can apply to any promotion — all eyes are on you to see how you’ll handle the power that goes with the new responsibilities. How you establish or re-establish your power relationships with your new peers, old peers, and the senior management who’s watching and evaluating you is a key skill. It’s a skill that a lot of people are missing and approach the new role as though it’s business as usual. It’s not. Relationships have changed, and you’ve only got about 100 days, or just about 3 months to show that you’ve got what it takes to lead at this level.

Four Relationships to Consider

New Manager
One of the things your manager will be looking for, consciously or not, is how you manage your new and old relationships. Are you hanging onto your old buddies at the lower level and not cultivating new relationships at your new peer level, even with those peers who aren’t in your group? Are you continuing to defer idea generation and decision making in meetings with your new peers long after you’ve taken on your new role? Are you using your new peers as a sounding board for your solutions to current problems or are you relying on your peers to solve problems for you? Keep in mind, your manager is looking at this and is forming opinions of you based on this.

Old Manager
You used to report to a director who’s now your peer — a long-standing relationship that needs to be reestablished on your new level. You’re peers now so you need to be sure you stop deferring to him or her or going to her/him continuously for advice. It’s now time to make decisions on your own. You’re equals. Act that way.

New Peer Group
These are the people who, until you got promoted, were a level above you — your manager’s peers and friends. Now you’re one of them. That means you need to start mixing with them. Get to know them on a peer level. Have lunch with them. During the first 60-90 days you can ask their advice about the work and the challenges for you at this level. But after that, you should be involving yourself in a more equal exchange — a give and take of advice.  If, beyond the three-month mark you still want continued help with the challenges of leading at your new level, get in with a group of directors outside of your company either through an association or with a structured mastermind group. With a trusted group outside of your company, you can take the issues and challenges of the role to them for advice.

Old Peer Group
Many of your old peer group may be reporting to you. Of course, if you’re at the director level, this isn’t the first time you’ve had the challenge of managing people who were once your peers. The one thing to keep in mind, though at this level is that you’re now privy to much higher-level information that you can’t pass on to them. And by explicitly letting them know that, you’re setting up new relationships. Again, it’s no longer business as usual. There will be some who might balk at this. Who might be jealous that you got the job and they didn’t. Remain on the best terms with them, but on your terms, not theirs. As they see you sharing some, but not all the information you’ve got, as they see you building relationships at your own new level, they’ll begin to get the picture that things have changed.

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It can be tough on the way up. But it also can be a grand experience. Keep building the relationships in front of you, maintaining the changing relationships behind you, be consistent with how you do this, and enjoy the ride.

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Mar
29

Does Happiness at Work Matter?

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According to abundant research on the topic, yes it does.

But what does happiness look like? And are we the ones who have to create a pleasant environment for others at work, or can we just leave that up to each person to figure out how do that entirely on their own? If we are leaders, the answer is that we have a responsibility both to ourselves and to those who work for us to create an environment where people can thrive, where employees matter. And in doing so, productivity will soar.

Recent Research Findings

Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath in their January-February 2012 Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, Creating Sustainable Performance identified two factors that constitute thrive: vitality and learning. Learning is the act of being involved with challenging activities where new and useful knowledge is both gained and applied. Vitality is the “sense of being alive, passionate, and excited.” The authors explain that when individuals get the message that the work that they do is meaningful and makes a difference to the organization they’re in, vitality ignites. And it’s infectious. The two must occur in combination – a learning environment where people have the opportunity to gain and use their knowledge with challenging assignments, and an appreciative environment where people are valued for the results they deliver on, and not just with salary bumps and promotions, but in other ways as well.

Here are the stats on the studies that Spreitzer and Porath conducted with colleagues from the Ross School of Business’s Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan. Those who fit their description of thriving had 16% better overall performance as reported by their managers, 125% less burnout than their peers (as self-reported), were 32% more committed to the organization, and 46% more satisfied with their jobs.

We can imagine that the marriage of learning and vitality would result in higher engagement and thus translate to increases in productivity, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and of course, the bottom line. A 2011 study by DIRECTV in their Home Services division saw a 13-point increase in employee engagement over 2010, a 27% decrease in employee turnover, and a 5% improvement in customer satisfaction. All this because DIRECTV put their focus on developing people practices, dignity and respect, and a superior level of employee care. In other words, they set out to put practices in place that clearly demonstrated that employees matter. And it paid off.

A Small Change Can Make a Big Difference

The continuing research shows that unless you and those who work for you are in an uplifted mood at work, productivity will never be what you would hope it would be. While DIRECTV made this a priority across all of Home Services, there are things we as leaders can do in our own back yard even without a company-wide effort – although that would be the ideal place to begin. But rather than wait until your organization takes the lead, you can do some things right now.

  • Notice and acknowledge people. Smile or nod when you walk by them.
  • Become curious and interested in others. Start by saying hello to people when you see them. Or ask them how their day is going.
  • Encourage your people to connect face-to-face more often. That is, once a day walk over to someone with a message instead of emailing it. Use the video on WebEx more often for those who aren’t co-located.
  • Once a quarter have a team lunch.
  • Comment on people’s work frequently and genuinely. Mention a good comment a person made at the last meeting; thank a person for bringing something to you or for going that extra mile.
  • Send thank you notes or thank you emails.

Psychologist Ed Diener was quoted in the HBR article, The Science Behind the Smile and referred to the long-term happiness effect of a number of small, pleasant experiences rather than the happiness felt from the infrequent big event like achieving a significant milestone, winning a client, etc. He said: “How good your experiences are doesn’t matter nearly as much as how many good experiences you have.“ What Diener is referring to, and what you can bring into the workplace, is having several pleasant things happen each day – each of which can be small, such as a smile that you give or get, a good laugh with a co-worker, a thank you to someone for getting something to you as expected, or a specific acknowledgment to individual employees about something well done. All these make the difference in sustained happiness, not the occasional one-time big event that supplies only short-term jubilation.

Years ago the term “don’t sweat the small stuff” emerged and reminded us not to let the petty annoyances in life get the best of us. We may have gotten so skilled at disregarding those minor irks that we also might have let go of taking a moment to recognize and appreciate the small joys in life that give us a boost. Why not put that back into our everyday interactions. It might make the difference in helping your employees to thrive.

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Feb
15

No Trust, No Followers

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Why Should Anyone Be Led By You was a popular book by Goffee and Jones in 2006, and it still is. The book generated lots of buzz, articles, and several leadership programs with that question as the opener. Leaders everywhere started scrambling to figure out what they had to do to get people to line up behind them – a search many of us have been on for most of our leadership careers in the hope that we’d eventually discover just the right mix of leadership skills that would give us that winning formula.

It’s been a daunting task, mostly because of the massive amounts of information on leading that exists today. In fact, there have been well over 1000 studies conducted on leadership just in the last 50 years alone. Yet, not even one has given a definitive picture of which characteristics define great leadership. In preparing for this post I looked up ‘leadership traits’ on the web and it took a quarter of a second for Google to come up with 2.4 million hits. On page 1 alone there were titles such as, 5 Traits of Great Leaders, Top 10 Leadership Qualities, 15 Traits of Great Leaders (surprise, yes there are more than 5), The Hidden Qualities of Great Leaders (no number, just a bunch of paragraphs philosophizing about leadership). It’s little wonder that as managers we’re not always sure where to put our energies to increase the likelihood that we’ll have willing and engaged followers.

Leadership and Trust

But there IS something. And it turns out to be pretty simple. It’s trust. Sure, we have to have a vision, a plan, and the know-how to make the vision a reality. But without engendering trust for us as leaders in those who are in the pit doing the work, we get compliance and nothing more.

Alan VanderMolen, the President and CEO of Global Practices at Edelman, the world’s largest independently owned public relations firm, summed it up best in an interview in January discussing Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer, their 12th annual global survey of trust in business and government.  VanderMolen commented that there are two kinds of drivers of trust in business and both are required for leaders to have the”license to lead”: operational drivers and social drivers. The operational drivers are “basic entry” into the trust field. That is, doing what it takes to deliver solid financial returns, having competent senior leadership in place, appearing regularly on the most admired companies list. The study shows that globally, the business sector scores well on these operational drivers of trust.

But it’s on several social drivers where Edelman’s trust data show that business is missing consistently. Among those social drivers are: engages with stakeholders (this includes employees), treats employees well, is transparent and open with information, and communicates frequently and honestly. So the people aspects of management, when done well, are what further delineate trust and presumably, cause others to want to follow.

Finally, in an HBR article by Bill George, Peter Sims, et al, Discovering Your Authentic Leadership, the authors state that over the past several years – and this article was written five years ago – “people have developed a deep distrust of leaders.” Given that the Edelman Trust Barometer of 2012 still shows that this distrust is a factor, it’s time to do something radically different. Build trust and be conscious of doing it.

Credibility, Commitment, Consistency

With information gleaned from both the Edelman and HBR article data, and Bill George and Peter Sims’ discussion of authentic leadership, there appear to be three areas that are natural trust builders, and that in turn energize and motivate people to follow. They are credibility, commitment, and consistency.

Leadership-on-the-Go®

Just today I started leading a year-long management webinar series, Leadership-on-the-Go®. Simple ways we can enhance credibility (authenticity in leading), show commitment (to the vision and to those who work for us), and demonstrate consistency (in what we say and what we do) were the first session’s topics.

If you’d like to access the WebEx, full article, and the action guide with suggestions for what you can do starting now to increase the trust factor in the way that you lead, you can join us in the Series. We meet monthly, via WebEx for 45 minutes. If you miss a session, the library of recordings, articles, and action guides is always available.  Our next topic on March 21, from 9:05-9:50 Pacific is, Get What You Expect (and more) from Your Team.

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Jan
26

Avoiding the Mistakes of Fallen Executives

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In early January, Eric Jackson in his blog on Forbes.com was applying the seven habits of spectacularly unsuccessful executives that had first appeared in Sydney Finkelstein’s 2004 book, Why Smart Executives Fail to recent events.

I was prompted to take a second look at Jackson’s article when this past Sunday Research in Motion (RIM), the developer of the once nearly ubiquitous corporate BlackBerry, witnessed the exit of co-founders and co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie after 28 years at the helm (both remain on the Board). They were replaced by Thorsten Heins, the company’s COO since 2007.  I was curious to see which, if any, of the seven habits Lazaridis and Balsillie might have fallen prey to in these last couple of years that could have contributed to the company’s stunning slide.

What’s Been Happening at RIM

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, with its security, messaging, and general ease of use had clearly been a leader with its innovative technology.  But apparently RIM has lost its edge and here’s how far it’s fallen. On Tuesday, January 24, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that RIM’s shares had dropped 8.5 percent the day before, and another 5 percent that day, and that shares had slid a whopping 75 percent since this same time a year ago.  And Heins told investors on a conference call on January 24 the he doesn’t see a need for “drastic change.” “Jim and Mike’s strategy of not sacrificing long-term value for short-term gain is the right one,” Heins said. “I share that value.” 

WHAT? Why would a company like RIM that’s been in steep decline for the past year losing share to the likes of iPhone and Androids not wake up to the call that we, the customers, prefer touch screens and apps people! Who cares about the security (corporations still do, but the Droid marketplace will likely outrun them on that as well), ease of texting, and the scroll ball? (Honestly, I haven’t touched a BlackBerry in 2 years so I don’t even know how they operate anymore).  You just have to wonder if Research in Motion is becoming RIS — Research in Stagnation.

A View from the Past

What could be going on with the leaders at RIM?  Before I answer that, I’ll revisit what happened to CEO Ken Olsen and the once dominant Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Maynard, MA. 

In the ‘60s and early ‘70s DEC had filled a market hungry for affordable minicomputers in a world of IBM mainframes.  DEC was pre-eminent in the industry until it made the ghastly mistake in the mid 1970s of not getting on the new microcomputer train. Olsen wouldn’t have it.  In fact, he was said to have scoffed at the thought of it.  But in the early ‘80s Olsen changed his mind after the successful introduction of IBM’s PC.  Unfortunately DEC’s late entry, plus their insular view with, most notably, proprietary and expensive technology and floppies, left them in last place. They never made the comeback and were eventually acquired by Compac in 1998 after years of decline.

‘Habits’ that Create the Downfall

DEC’s Olsen and quite possibly RIM’s Lazaridis, Balsillie, and now Heins may be suffering from at least two of Finkelstein’s seven habits that failing leaders exhibit:  Habit #1: They see themselves and their companies as dominating the Market, and Habit # 6: They stubbornly rely on what’s worked for them in the past. With the first habit, the CEOs were/are likely wearing blinders – not seeing what’s actually happening beyond what’s in front of their noses.  The second habit is tied to the first – if it worked before, it surely will work again. True if nothing else changes. But since we live in a world where everything is always changing, a mindset like that severely narrows the ability to see and act on threats.

What’s the Message Here?

The message for us as leaders is clear.  That whether we’re comfortable with this or not, practically nothing remains the same. Just about everything in the work world is in flux.  Because of that, being on the alert for what’s shifting, whether it’s market, product, or business knowledge or leadership skills, and taking deliberate action before we’re swiftly replaced by something or someone that’s newer, smarter or faster is a step we shouldn’t avoid.

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Jan
13

Oh no, change? There may be a way to make it easier.

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This past Monday I was driving to a client site and listening to KQED, the local NPR station, when a brief interview with BJ Fogg, head of Stanford’s Persuasive Tech Lab, talking about “tiny habits” caught my attention. First off, the word “tiny” seemed way too small. I favor words like “big challenge” “stretch” “go where you’ve never gone before” (thank you Gene Roddenberry  / Star Trek), but I was intrigued enough to keep listening.

The tiny habits concept is to start small and build from there. Hard to imagine that one foot in front of the other will actually get me where I want to be. Yet even though it’s seemingly much slower than I’m comfortable with, it is movement.

There is merit to what Fogg is talking about because it’s sustained change, not the quick-and-dirty-do-anything-now approach that has minimal staying power. It’s more about building up the muscle so that whatever you’re wanting to change becomes more and more familiar over time, and therefore is far more likely to have a life span longer than a fly’s.

And that’s what Fogg is talking about….starting, moving, and getting used to what it feels like to BE the change. It reminded me of two situations: once when this tiny habits approach worked for me (before Fogg was talking about it) and  another time when easing into the change had an astounding effect.

The first was several years ago when I wanted to start exercising more. I knew that an all-out launch into an exercise regimen would be dead in the water before I got off the ground, so I chose another approach. My commitment was to exercise for 5 minutes a day. Friends laughed – and still do – about that crazy way to start a program. “It’s nothing,” one of my friends boldly said. “Really?” I replied. ANYTHING is better than nothing. And so I started. And after a while it built up. These days I speed walk (injured my knee so can’t run anymore) at least 5x a week for an hour. And I put on some serious mileage. Yup, 5 minutes a day was how it all started.

The “easing into it” methodology was for my first triathlon. Although I could swim, I was sure that drowning was in my future and that I’d never have the stamina to go the distance. My first step was to buy a bathing cap. I tried it on every day for at least week and checked myself out in the mirror to see what a “real swimmer” looks like. Next phase was to go to the pool and watch the swimmers. I did that from the hot tub for, oh, I don’t know, two or three weeks. And then I hit the pool, at first swimming the back stroke so that I wouldn’t need to see how deep the water actually was. To cut the story short, I kept at it, did what I set out to do, and obviously am still alive to talk about it.

So thank you BJ Fogg for putting out the concept of tiny habits. And yes, those baby steps, with enough patience for those of us who thrive on excelling immediately, actually do work.

If you’re interested, get into one of BJ Fogg’s groups and take a few steps yourself toward making a change, and that includes not just personal change, but career change and professional leadership skill-building as well.

 

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Jan
01

Forget about resolutions for 2012! Go with a theme and intentions instead.

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I find that making resolutions at the start of the year – or anytime, for that matter – isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. In the rush to be a member of that resolution-making in-group, I’ve made firm commitments in the past on January 1 such as  “I’m going to get more fit.” And then I spend the rest of the year beating myself up for having joined yet another fitness club only to watch myself toss money out the window because of my spotty attendance. Fortunately, I don’t do that anymore.

For clients resolutions have been more like, “Do whatever it takes to finally get my career where I want it to be,” “Land a job in the perfect company, ” “Get that promotion I’ve had my eye on,” “Lose 10 pounds,” “Take my family on that well-deserved vacation that we actually enjoy!”

Promises Made, Promises Lost

We make those promises. And in the moment, we’re determined to make them happen. But then in a few hours, days, or weeks when all hell breaks loose in the rest of our busy lives, we notice that we’ve forgotten about keeping up with the pledge. And then we spend the rest of the year mentally battering ourselves because we didn’t follow through.

I’ve given up on making resolutions altogether. After all, when I think about the word as a verb – to resolve – it sounds like a lot of struggle. And why keep pushing the rock uphill? Who am I? Sisyphus?  Instead, I set a theme for the year and then a few intentions around that theme.

Here’s the process that I developed and use every year for the past 12 at the Annual Intentions Event.

Decide on a Theme

Your theme is your focus for the year. It can be anything from business growth to personal rejuvenation to smart financial decision-making to being known for a special talent that you want to demonstrate or that you’d like to acquire. Themes sound like this, “This is the year of… “ or “This is the year for…”  They can also be more personalized and stated as, “This is my year for…” Here are a few examples:

This is my year for “…going where I’ve never gone before.” “…being deliberate.” “…being smart about money.” “…adding joy to my every-day life.” “…taking center stage.” “…family and fun.” “…getting my life in order.” “…making a difference in my community.” “…moving up in my career.” “…taking the stress out of life.”

Test out several themes before you commit to one. But stick with one. Your mental energy is best directed when you have only one theme, and possibly two if one is personal and one is professional.

Come Up with a Few Intentions

Intentions are your aims for the year and the realization of one or more visions or pictures of the future that you have for yourself. They are both aspirational and inspirational. Aspirational in that they’re clear statements of what you’re moving toward, and inspirational in that when you read them your energy level raises significantly.  To get at your intentions, answer the question, “What do I intend for myself this year?” Another way to consider this question is to ask the more familiar, “What are my goals for this year?”

I recommend using the word intentions rather than goals because for many the word goals can imply struggle. With intentions, there should be no struggle; you write them down, read them regularly, post them where you can see them often, tell people, and then watch how fast you take directed action to make them happen.  Keep in mind that there should be an ease associated with your actions, and not the feeling of struggle as you claw your way to where you’re headed which is often the feeling associated with “achieving” goals.

Choose no more than 3 to 4 intentions for the year. As you craft them, you can start with the statement, “In 2012 I’ll have….” and write in the result you’re intending for yourself. Here are a few sample intentions:

In 2012 I will have “…reached my income goal. “ “…launched my new business venture.” “…gotten the promotion I’m after.” “…taken the career leap I’ve been thinking about.”

It might seem like one or more of your intentions isn’t directly related to your theme. For example, if your theme for the year is “adding joy to my every-day life,” and one of your intentions is “I reach my income goal,” the connection may not be apparent. But if in the past you’ve worked day and night to achieve an income level, leaving everyone and everything that matters to you in 2nd, 3rd or 4th place and joyless as a result, then this year, as you strive to reach your income goal, you could approach it with the intention of enjoying every aspect of it vs. having it bog you down. When you approach it this way, that would be adding joy to your everyday life – consistent with your theme.

Hope you find this process useful. Let me know either here or on the LeaderXpress Facebook page.

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Dec
15

If You Want a YES, First Know Why You’d Get a NO

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How many times has your boss or other key leader turned a request of yours down? If it’s too many to count, then the information here about why you get turned down will give you an edge next time in getting them to say yes.

I run an international webinar on influence, teach the topic at U.C. Berkeley’s extension program in the Management and Leadership track, and have a book coming out at the end of this year on the topic. What I have seen over the years as I’ve coached leaders on how to be influential in their organizations  is that when you want to get a “yes” to whatever it is that you’re asking, it’s a must to figure out in advance why the decision maker might say no and then bolster your proposal so that a “no” becomes a non-issue.

Think about why you say no to people when their seemingly rock-solid requests fall flat. It’s likely because a specific need or concern of yours isn’t being addressed in the proposal and because of that there’s no immediate motivation for you to give them the “yes” that they’re hoping for. The same holds for when you’re influencing others. So when you take the time to ask yourself, “Why would she say no?” and then adjust your influence proposal relative to that, you enter the realm of master influencer.

Top 10 Reasons Why Leaders Say No

Here are the 10 top reasons why leaders reject whatever you’re asking for and each one can be an influence showstopper. This isn’t a Dave Letterman list where #1 is the top vote getter.  They’re all important.

1: They don’t feel the pain. Does your proposal relieve a burden, solve a problem, or improve a difficult situation for the leader or for others in their organization? And does that leader care enough about relieving that pain to say yes to what you’re asking? People are more likely to agree to spend time, energy, and money on proposals that are aimed at solving an immediate and pressing problem, issue or situation. So if yours doesn’t, you lose.

2: The focus is just on you. One mistake many of us make when influencing is that we focus the proposal on our own needs (“If you give me this, it’ll help me to…”) and not the needs of the leader. If your proposal is aimed at removing pain only for you, recast it so that it speaks to a problem or burden that will be relieved for the leader or the organization instead.

3: The end result isn’t clear. You’re not specific enough about what the positive end result will be. Along with citing the pain and how your solution will remove or reduce it for the decision maker, you must also be specific about what the positive end result will be.

4: The business need isn’t apparent. Your influence proposal isn’t linked to an obvious business need or the back-up data supporting that business need may be absent. For those influence situations where an obvious business need exists, link your influence proposal to it. Include back-up data relevant to that business requirement.

5: It’s not their top priority. Just because you have evidence indicating that something is a business imperative doesn’t mean that it will leap to the top of anyone else’s priority list. Priority setting or resetting is generally a strategic influence initiative that requires a multi-phased influence plan that includes help from key opinion leaders to sway the decision makers. If you’re not getting people lined up to help you get tough proposals through, start doing that now.

6: They don’t want to lose. No one likes to lose.  If a leader believes that she or he will lose something such as control, power, status, resources, etc. by agreeing to what you’re asking of them, you’ll get turned down. Where a decision maker’s need is to maintain or even gain more of what they don’t want to lose, they are more likely to say yes when your proposal shows that no loss will take place.

7: There’s too much risk involved. When what you’re asking carries a high risk to the decision makers or their organization, you can expect to be turned down. Here’s what decision makers might say. “This is an excellent idea, but if we throw our resources behind it, we’ll risk falling behind on our own deliverables.” Or, “There’s no guarantee that your proposal will work.” Or, “The last time we did something like this, it failed miserably and we looked like fools.” Make sure your proposal comes with a convincingly solid plan, backed by important others and supported by data and facts that all but eliminate the perceived risks.

8: You’re not willing to reciprocate. There are those who expect reciprocity no matter what you’re asking them to do, while others simply appreciate an exchange when it’s offered. In the first instance, the decision maker may be the type who has a requirement, spoken or not, that you offer something in return whether what you’re asking of them is big or small. In the second instance, there is no expectation of exchange, but offering something in return may be welcomed and appreciated. Your being aware of the reciprocity factor is what’s essential. When you want someone to do something for you, you must be willing to do something for them in return, possibly of equal or greater value, even if they never ask you to.

9: They lack confidence or trust in you. When you, your predecessor, your team, or your department have not met a decision maker’s expectations in the past, or when a decision maker isn’t convinced that you can meet their expectations now, you have your influence work cut out for you. In these situations your influence plan should include ways that bolster the decision maker’s assurance that you can deliver. Be prepared to show proof of your track record, and come in with a solid, well-planned-out process for achieving the result. To put yourself in an even better position, ask one or two highly-respected opinion leaders to vouch for your work.

10: They’ve got a personal agenda. You put together a strategic influence plan that had support from opinion leaders. Your presentation covered areas important to the decision maker. You did an outstanding job walking the decision maker through each step of your proposal. Yet you were turned down. Why? It’s quite possible that there is a personal agenda that you will never know about. For some decision makers a main driver is to get their own needs met. And while a business need also is important, if your proposal isn’t in line with the decision maker’s personal agenda you will be turned down. Whenever you can, find out what’s most important to the decision maker and focus your proposal on satisfying that need.

A few minutes of thinking ahead goes a long way. Before you go off to influence anyone keep in mind what I suggested above. Ask yourself, “Why would this decision maker say no?” and get your answers to their concerns ready in advance.

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Nov
28

Do We Suffer from a Gratitude Deficit Disorder?

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If so, there’s a cure.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Howie Jacobson, a Fast Company expert blogger used a term, Gratitude Deficit Disorder, or GDD, which, I believe he’s the author of, to describe what he says we seem to be lacking a great deal of. We go on ad nauseum about how what’s not working, about who’s not up to par, and how life should be different, and leave out all the glory about what actually is good and great in life. I’ve been known to do some of that myself. And maybe you have too. We’re all likely a bit guilty of it, some more than others.

But what struck me most is how much we’re all “hungry for genuine appreciation” as Jacobson put it, yet we either don’t give or get back all that much gratitude that’s meaningful. His suggestion? Make a short list of people we’re grateful to/for and get a plan together for how to let them know.

At the start of every year for the past 11 I’ve run an Intentions Event where the pre-work is to close out the year in order to have a clean slate — or as clean as any of us can make it — for the next 12 months. Included in that pre-work is an Appreciation exercise that’s somewhat similar to what Jacobson recommends. It’s amazing how good it feels to send a note or call those on the list. It opens up a whole new world for the coming year.

I’ll post the exercise in mid-December for any of you who may want to take it on before rushing into 2012 clinging to a few not so savory memories that you could let go of.

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Oct
30

A Female-Dominated Workplace Won’t Fix Everything – Anne Kreamer – Harvard Business Review

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Anne Kreamer, in her brief yet content-rich HBR blog discusses workplace gender differences from a neuroscience/emotional intelligence perspective. Refreshing and far more advanced than the old John Gray Mars-Venus divide which I found rather simplistic and narrow. A Female-Dominated Workplace Won't Fix Everything – Anne Kreamer – Harvard Business Review.

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Oct
26

Be Your Own Leader

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Steve_Jobs_Author_Matthew_Yohe Yes, be your own leader was the clear message in yesterday’s on-line Bloomberg Businessweek tech article: Apple’s Jobs Told Cook Not to Ask ‘What Would Steve Do?’ Not that we should never consider the path that someone else might take. At times, thinking about how others might approach something gives us useful information.

But being ourselves, which means capitalizing on who we are and not taking on some wanna-be version of someone else, is the advice I resonated with. Risky. We’ll likely make a few enemies. But in the end, probably more rewarding than not.

There will never be another Steve Jobs, just like there will never be an exact copy of any one of us. So I’m taking a cue from Jobs to make the most of what’s unique about me that I haven’t already put into play and run with it.

On a related note, I saw the segment on 60 Minutes this past Sunday (October 23) on how the iPad has enabled many with severe autism to come out of the darkness and finally be able to express themselves. This thanks to Jobs’ willingness to be himself, warts and all.

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