It’s what you do with it

I have been doing training for the last sixteen years and I have encountered all kinds of participants. Trainers are always charged with making the training practical and helping the organization get a return on investment. However, I have seen sessions that worked for some people and didn’t work at all for others. I have seen people walk away from a session that I thought was weak, but they got a lot out of it.

I truly believe that in the business of learning, it’s what you do with it that counts. It doesn’t matter whether you have fancy handouts, multimedia slide shows, games or quizzes. What matters is whether the participants engage with the learning and decide to put it to use.

I have seen very bright people who glossed over the material and barely did any of the assignments at work. I have also seen people who seemed average at first, but really decided to put some effort into their practice and started to blossom over time.

Leadership, like any other skill can be taught and learned. Over my years of working with leaders I have seen many people grow in their leadership ability and I have seen others who think they are already there and have better things to do with their time. It’s been my experience that those who have put effort into consciously and continuously improving their leadership skills have reaped the benefits of having employees who respect them more and are eager to work for them to produce whatever it is they do.

I believe the old adage that it’s not what you’ve got that’s important, it’s what you do with it.

 

Because I knew you

I just returned home from seeing Wicked and I am haunted by the last song between Glinda (the Good Witch) and Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West). These two unlikely friends since school years sing, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” It is a simple, but profound thought. Who do you know that has made you a better person? And more importantly, who can say that of you?

As leaders, we have a distinct privilege of being a person who mentors and teaches. We can be someone who builds or someone who tears down confidence, competence, and self-esteem. As parents, friends, and spouses, we also have the same opportunity.

We owe our lives and who we are to those around us who took us under their wing, who taught us when we needed to learn, who let us fail yet caught us before we fell too far, and gave us their love and admiration so we could become someone to do it for others.

I stand here today because of my family, my teachers, my husband, my children, my former bosses, my direct reports, my clients, and my friends. Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

 

Adding Value

I was reading John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership to prepare for a coaching session with a client last week and I got reinvigorated by his Law of Addition.  He said we add value to others when we 1) truly value others, 2) make ourselves more valuable to others, 3) know and relate to what others value, and 4) do things that God values.

Maxwell is a proponent of servant leadership. People follow you when they believe in you. Why should someone believe in you? One reason is that you believe in them. You have to give it to get it. People need to feel they are valued by you and if you don’t do this first step, you won’t get a chance to do the other three.

I think we have an opportunity today to help people help themselves by showing them we value their ability.  As another client told me last week, we usually have everything we need to do what is right, but we need someone to believe in us and ask us the right questions so we have confidence in ourselves. Helping someone be the best they can be should be our highest priority as leaders as well as individuals. Whether it be our children, our spouses, our friends, our coworkers, or our bosses. By adding value to others, we make ourselves more valuable as well. Leaders with exceptional followers are always in demand.

 

Self-awareness

The first competency in Goleman’s emotional intelligence book Primal Leadership is Self-Awareness. This means you are aware of your own emotions and what causes them. It means having a realistic self-assessment of your own strengths and limitations.

This sounds easier than it often is. We almost always have a blindspot when it comes to ourselves. It is sometimes hard to be fully aware of what is really causing our anger, frustration, or loss of confidence. We kid ourselves into thinking it is someone else’s fault or someone else “made us feel…”

I have many times seen leaders who do not realize their role in how others respond to them. While blaming others they have failed to look in the mirror to ask what they could do differently to get a different response. As Dr. Phil is often quoted, “How’s that working for you?”

 

Emotional Intelligence

Since I’ve been reading Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman I have been reflecting on people I have worked with and their levels of emotional intelligence.

Goleman reports that his research shows that the more complex your job is, the more you need to have emotional intelligence competencies. He makes the point that having emotional intelligence does not just mean “being nice” to others. It is being empathic, motivated, and aware of how your behavior is affecting others. It is also being able to effectively confront others about their poor behavior when necessary without destroying their self-esteem.

I have seen very competent executives who have very little emotional intelligence and it usually comes back to bite them. Goleman says that emotional intelligence can be learned and I agree, but you have to want to learn it–just like any other competency or skill. I have worked with people who think emotional intelligence is just a bunch of mushy stuff for the weak and I have worked with people who have a healthy dose of emotional intelligence already. The big difference I see is in how the people who report to them relate to them.

The people with emotional intelligence usually earn the respect of others because they are willing to listen and learn. They are less about ego and more about serving and raising the power of others as well as themselves so the organization can succeed. They have a personal touch that encourages others to get onboard.

People without emotional intelligence find working with others more difficult. They blame others for not getting things done, but aren’t able to get people to open up and discuss the obstacles freely. Subordinates are not sure where they stand and loyalty is lacking.

I’m going to write more about this topic, but that’s enough to get started. Let me know your thoughts on emotional intelligence.

 

Are you listening?

Listening is so hard to do these days! It seems we are all in such a hurry to communicate. Even I find myself interrupting people when I know I shouldn’t. In this respect, email and texting does give you the chance to get your whole thought out before someone jumps in.

I find it particularly difficult on the telephone to know when it is ok to talk. On the telephone you don’t have body language to tell you if the person is just taking a breath or if they are done with their thought.  Like many people, if I am in a hurry or am excited about something, I start talking if there is even a slight breath on the other side. Or worse, if I want to stop the other person from telling me a long story because I already know or have a solution or whatever. I find myself doing this more personally than professionally, because I try harder to be patient with clients and colleagues. So, what’s up with that?

Shouldn’t I give the same courtesy to family and friends? Duh! I think the difference in personal conversations is that give and take casual relationship and we don’t think about how well we’re listening vs. getting our point across. Either way, interrupting says my agenda and thoughts are more important than yours and that clearly says I’m not listening to your thoughts to understand. I am taking the challenge to be a better listener and a non-interrupter everywhere. What about you?

 

Being a Good Role Model

In John Maxwell’s book, Developing The Leader In You, he says, “Remember, we teach what we know, we reproduce what we are.” I found this a very interesting twist on the “Do as I say, not as I do.”

As leaders, how often do we hold ourselves to a different standard than our employees? Do you think they hold us to the same standard? As a consultant I often hear the complaint, “Why can’t they…” No matter what the subject or the audience, people always wonder why others don’t perform in a certain way.

I wonder if the answer isn’t as simple as the above quote. If we acted in a way that shows how we want others to perform and we reinforced it, how much more likely are we to get what we want?

I was at a Wal-mart Neighborhood grocery store yesterday and the elderly lady checking my groceries was dressed so strikingly different that I had to comment on how she raised the level of class in the store that evening. She had on a nice sweater, pearls, a pearl bracelet and pearl earrings. Her makeup was impeccable and she politely commented as she scanned the items. Another young lady at the register next to us was dressed in a baggy t-shirt and baggy pants. I wonder whether each of them thought the other was dressed inappropriately. It would be interesting to note if over time any change is made in either of their style of dress to be more like the other. I also wonder what the store management has to say about it. I didn’t see how the store manager was dressed.

 

Supporting continuous improvement

I have spent the last three days in certification training for a program called Measurable Management designed by Robin Byrne, who started it in the UK and has brought it to the US.  Measurable Management is a program for leaders to develop and support a culture of continuous improvement for carrying out their strategic initiatives. I think organizations today must have even more awareness of the importance of continuous improvement. In a tightly competitive environment, we must all do more with less as efficiently as possible.

What makes me excited about Measurable Management is that it blends the relationship side of leading with the operations side of finding improvement opportunities in every nook and cranny of the organization. The program fosters empowerment and engagement at all levels when the management is legitimately held responsible for finding and supporting ways to do business more effectively.

Too often in times like this it becomes all about cutting costs, but it should really be more about being efficient with what you have. That usually leads to cost reduction and longer term profitability. True innovation comes from taking ideas of what could be and turning them into realities.

I am looking forward to delivering this program to clients and working with them to improve their ability to deliver value added services to their customers. You can find out more about this unique program by going to www.measurablemanagement.com or by contacting me.

 

The worth of values

I was just reading Engagement is Not Enough by Keith Ayers and he was making a point that when organizations put their values above everything else, that profits tend to follow. However, when organizations put profit above everything else, values do not necessarily follow.

I have long held the belief that the more a person’s personal values are aligned with the organization for which they work, the higher their job satisfaction and the more engaged they are in the work. When a person’s values are compromised for the gain of money, we get what we now have in our economy. There were a ton of people who found ways around the system to make more money and massaged the system to make more money and stood on the backs of others to make more money. Ultimately when the sand started to shift at the bottom, the top also fell, taking the rest of us with it.

Last weekend my husband and I went to a local barn that an individual had built so that local amateur musicians could come every Saturday night and play music for people to listen, dance, and share fellowship in a clean atmosphere. It was an intergenerational group with grandfathers and granddaughters dancing, teenagers, oldsters, and everyone having a good time. This has been going on for 20 years or more, but it was the last night because some personal items had been stolen and the owner was shutting it down.

I hope that as we rebuild our organizations to the finest America can offer that we rebuild them according to the values that made our country great–hard work, honesty, integrity, and a concern for our fellow man. After all, we are all in this together.

 

Happy May Day

It’s May Day, or May 1st. I remember this was a much bigger thing when I was growing up. We would pick flowers or make a little sack of candy and leave it on the doorstep of a friend, ring the doorbell and run. Of course, they would be lurking by the front door to run out and catch you so you had to run fast. Those were simple days of fun and few worries because kids just didn’t get involved in all the grown-up stuff like today.

Actually, I think today it is the grown-ups who are trying to keep up with the kids. They are leading the technology revolution while we are struggling to figure out what to do. I just signed up for Twitter today. Not sure what I will do with it, but I definitely won’t be making entries every 2 minutes. However, I am interested to see what pops up as people follow me and we are able to share ideas. When I started my business sixteen years ago, I wasn’t sure what it would ultimately look like but I knew for sure that I wanted to be a resource to others. Therefore, I named my business Anderson Resources. I pride myself on being able to provide useful resources to others as well as point people to resources they need other than me. I like to share ideas and discuss new fields of thought.

So, let’s twitter away(@andersoncat) or just follow my blog, but let’s stay in touch.