Get your attitude right! Yes, the last couple of years have been rugged! They have been rugged for everyone. So, get over it and start thinking like a leader. Concentrate on what is possible rather than why you can’t accomplish your goals.
Get your team’s attitude right! Identify everyone on your team with an attitude challenge and give them 30 days to make it right (it actually only takes a moment). Sure there are challenges but they are either on the team or not, they are either thinking about solutions or challenges.
Hire the best people for the job! If you are not matching behaviors, competencies and talents for each job you will suffer the consequences later. Stop drooling over resumes and interviews! Benchmark every job. Assess every candidate before falling in love with them during the interview, then match the assessment to the job. This will take all the emotion out of the hiring/promotion process and produce vastly superior results with far less turnover.
Hire slow and fire fast! If someone you hire or promote isn’t cutting it, you’ll know in 90 days or less. Don’t let your mistakes linger. Act on it. Step up and move on.
Get rid of all the micro-managers! Not only are they annoying but they are stifling creativity, motivation, morale, innovation and the development of future leaders. They may produce short-term results but it will be at the expense of the future of your organization.
Apply the Rule of 3! Have every person in your organization outline the top 3 tasks they need to complete in the next 30, 60 and 90 days that will contribute to achieving the organization’s mission and goals. Focus relentlessly on these 3 tasks and monitor, measure and celebrate the successes. Don’t let anything interfere with the accomplishment of these 3 tasks.
Stop doing those time-wasting performance reviews 2X per year! Have a 15 minute conversation with every employee every 30 days to check in on the progress on the Rule of 3. Focus on:What is working?
Why is it working?
What is the ideal?
What is not working?
What is needed?
What is the plan?
Ask your employees how you can help them achieve their 3 tasks, rather than telling them what to do.
Apply generous recognition! An authentic and heart-felt “Thank You” will keep most employees far more engaged for longer than you might think.
Love the employees and customers you have! Just for the next 30 days spend more time loving the employees and customers you have than trying to attract new ones.
Spend some time considering the culture you have created. Is it positive or negative? Do people lead or wait to be lead? Is the focus on solutions or challenges? Are you developing future leaders or mindless followers? Are people excited about the challenges or do they dread going to work?
However you answer these questions, ask yourself the same 6 questions as in #7 above.
What is working?
Why is it working?
What is the ideal?
What is not working?
What is needed?
What is the plan?
Developing a Contagious, high performance culture is not nearly as complicated as you might think. One thing we know for sure is that it can’t be done sporadically. Talking about your ideal culture and leadership once a quarter at the all employee meeting or once a year at the annual conference doesn’t cut it. Leadership development is an ongoing process, every day, every week, every month. Create an ongoing leadership conversation that every employee is allowed to participate in and you’ll build a productive, high energy culture that serves as a strong foundation for your future.
Have you ever thought about the power of the watermelon seed?
This tiny little seed has the power of creating a fruit that is 200,000 times its weight. It draws whatever nutrients it needs from the dirt and sun and colors a unique spherical, almost psychedelic rind by smearing various tones of green, and then creates a white rind inside and within that a crunchy, juicy succulent red center, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of yet another fruit that’s 200,000 times its weight. If an itsey, bitsey teeney, weeney seed can draw that much power from a handful of dirt, imagine what we can do.
Sometimes we get in the rut of thinking that we need more of something to grow, to be better, to be happier or more successful. We know, from working with people from all over the world, that we have all we need to be 200,000 times more that we are today. We have the power of the watermelon seed to create a magnificently unique and outstanding individual.
Here’s a way to get started. Get a handful of dirt and put it at your desk and know you have everything you need to be truly great!
Many employees are feeling ignored, under valued and under appreciated. There is no big surprise here. Over the past three years many executives have systematically pulled in the reins, focused on survival and left themselves precious little time for engaging with our most important asset — our people.
At the end of the day that activity, engaging with employees, may well be the most important leadership activity of all. Yet, in our busyness we just don’t get around to it. Here is a coaching tip for handling our most important job responsibility.
1. Engage with 1 employee every day. Make it a priority. Schedule it. Ron Johnson, Senior Vice President of Apple and the chief architect of Apple’s outrageously successful retail operation makes it a habit to speak with one store manager everyday during his early morning exercise program.
2. Set everything else aside, be present to the conversation and be sure to practice listening.
3. Have a real 2-3 minute conversation.
4. At the end of the conversation recap what you heard the employee say and how much you appreciate them.
At the end of the month notice how great you feel, how happy your employees are and how energized they have become.
Here’s a passage from Today We Are Rich just released by author Tim Sanders on how to use words that will project confidence – a key to leading others.
“Stop using tentative words; they hedge conversation to the point of being meaningless. The unconfident person talks with qualifiers and commits to very little. Tentative words include maybe, perhaps, might, somehow, allegedly, no offense, just saying, should, ……, and so on.
“If you want to project confidence, say what you believe, and say it directly. You’ll find that once the namby-pamby words are gone, confident statements remain.
Too many so-called leaders spend their days looking for mistakes. How much fun can that be?
Try catching people doing great things and then recognize them. It’s more fun and will help you create an organization of hi-performance contagious leaders.
Practice catching your folks doing great things for 21 days and let us know the results. You’ll be amazed!
The greatest breakthroughs happen after major breakdowns.
Leadership bench strength will be a huge factor in the coming recovery. Those organizations that build strong benches will win. Every other organization will either lose of barely hold on. Allowing your leaders to take risks, try, and even fail on occasion will build strength from real experience. Micro-managing will build weakness.
How’s your bench strength?
Gives us your comments so we can all benefit and build strong teams.
I witnessed something remarkable recently. After delivering the opening keynote speech for First American Equipment Leasing’s annual sales kick-off meeting, the Chairman and co-founder, delivered his state of the company address.
I have seen and heard these hundreds of times. The Chairman/CEO runs through the results from the previous year, acknowledges a few folks, talks about how important the upcoming year is and tells the audience they are the “best team in the league” and “together we deliver a huge years this year”.
That was only part of what the Chairman of First American did. After the review and the projections for the year he came down from the platform, among the people. Then, he asked if they could have a candid conversation. He went back to 2008 and reviewed 6-8 goals that had been outlined for the next 3 years. He asked the group for their candid opinion on what had been done well, which areas they had missed the mark on and which were not worth pursuing at all.
As the opinions and comments began to come forward he did not try to defend, convince or persuade. He actually listened. He noted what was being said, asking others if they agreed. An actual dialogue ensued the likes I have rarely seen. As the outsider in the room I was totally impressed while at the same time being somewhat envious. I had always wanted to work for or with a company like this.
The Chairman admitted that neither he nor the executive leadership team had all the answers and that the company was only as good as the great people in the room. As I looked around the room I could not help but notice a confidence, a belief, a commitment, an attitude of pride and determination. Each person, in their way, seemed focused on what they could do to help the company take on its mission for 2011. This is a company with a goal to revolutionize an industry. Now, that’s a big goal! Creating ownership in that vision is the first step to making it happen. The Chairman accomplished both, in my mind, in a 30 minute session. It was a pleasure to watch a revolution in the making.
It all started when he did not presume to know it all.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. Franco Graceffa is our contagious leader this week.
Those who have heard us speak probably know about our friend and his restaurant, Dolce Vita, in the North End of Boston, Ma. Franco is our hero for exemplifying the concept of CUEing, creating unforgettable experiences. He does it in spades and because of that his restaurant has been around for years while other ordinary restaurants just come and go. He knows the experience is not just the food and clean linen but creating a feeling, an emotional connection with his customers so they feel they belong, that they are family.
Franco is a leader. He knows that to be distinctive, to be unforgettable, to treat each guest with enthusiasm and joy for seeing them again. He hadn’t seen us for years yet……..A kiss on each cheek (for John too) and a warm “Ai, YAi, YAi (or something like that) you guys look like movie stars.”
Now how would that make YOU feel?
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
It is amazing how much energy we spend in criticizing and whining about our bosses.
So much so that by judging by the large percentage of posts on the web, one would bet that every boss out there is an idiot, a dysfunctional jerk, an out-of-touch loser, or simply craps.
Of course we understand that the only way to improve someone’s management and behavior is to observe what that person is doing wrong; however, the majority of posts and comments are written in such a way that confirms their only goal is to whine, very much like a child complaining about how mean dad or mom are without actually grasping the point.
Well, it is about time for all of us to grasp this:
If you behave like a victim, bathed in self-pity, or act as if you deserve better, you are in for something bad, and you may end up getting fired or seriously harming your career.
In order to avoid this creepy scenario, here’s a lousy boss’s reality check:
- Confront your boss face to face and you will lose
No matter how mistaken your boss is and how bad he may look in a given situation, he can, and probably will, fire you if you challenge him directly.
- You do have a choice, make it
This is a free country, and if you don’t agree with your boss’s character, you can quit.
“But, I love my job and most importantly, I need it!”… Ahhh! Then, put your pride aside and exercise your patience.
It is your choice.
Equally, you can go over your boss to HR, but it may end badly for you. Remember that your boss may be highly respected in the company.
- What if the problem is you?
Have you observed your behavior towards your job and boss?
Maybe your boss has a lot to say about your attitude and performance too, because if something is certain in the business world, it is that lousy employees are out there in the millions.
So, observe yourself and your actions at work before acting emotionally. Remember that when something about someone else bothers you deeply it is because that something lives inside you as well.
- There are only so many bridges one can burn
When you’re young, you don’t consider that the choices you make and your behavior will follow you later.
If you burn all your bridges, at some point you won’t be able to cross anywhere. Sure, you will have no boss, but also no job!
What’s the point then? The point is you DON’T go against a lousy boss.
Of course all of us, even the best leadership speaker and coach, have had crappy bosses, and we understand what an employee who is exposed to such a boss feels like, but this is no excuse for acting without a clear perspective, because it can only get worse for you.
If it gets truly unbearable, exercise your right to choose, and quit.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. Franco Graceffa is our contagious leader this week.
It is amazing how much energy we spend in criticizing and whining about our bosses. 
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