September 25, 2017

                                  Weekly Kick:  Our decisions Matter!

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Good morning everyone!

 

It's important to give people the opportunity and room to make mistakes and learn from them.  There can be great value in doing this!  At the same time, we can come to the point where we don't take our decisions as seriously as we need to and so don't necessarily put the thought and care into them.  Over the last two weeks I've been listening to a podcast about the first world war.  Fascinating to see that people are people, even over the course of 100 years, we are very similar.

 

One of the areas that intrigues me is the thread that runs through every one of these podcasts: the role leaders played in how the war started, in how it worked out on a daily basis, and how it played out over 4 years.   I was reminded of something this weekend: Our decisions matter.  They can matter a lot, and have long term results - good or bad.   Like I said, we need to be able to make mistakes and learn from them, that's one of the ways we get better.  But we also need to remember that we're not making decisions in a bubble, we are affecting other people, not just ourselves, or a "company". 

 

The company we lead is made up of people.  A company is not a bank account, not a building, not an inanimate object - a company is its people.  People make the difference, and people all have their own hopes and dreams, ambitions, families, needs, wants, insecurities, strengths and weaknesses.  Companies are people.   And our decisions, as leaders, affect these people.  Our decisions matter.  In WW1, several times, millions of young men died in single battles.  Often the leadership made terrible decisions to keep sending these young people directly into the face of machine gun fire, without any hope of success or survival.  This was really bad leadership!  Obviously!!

 

But what about you and me?  How do our decisions from last week, and the decisions we'll make this week affect others?  Sometimes these decisions have lasting consequences.  We might not kill anybody, like some of the generals in WW1 did, but we can affect other people's ability to provide for their families, pay their bills, and reach their own career goals.  As leaders, we can't be afraid to get help when we need it, take the time to do some research, or spend the effort making sure we have things organized before we start work for the week (or day).  Sometimes a bit more effort on our part helps make everyone else significantly more successful at what they'll accomplish! 

 

Who said leadership was easy?  Fulfilling - sometimes.  Impactful - often.  Easy - never!  But ALWAYS important!

 

Have a great day!  Todd

 

 

                                               October 2, 2017

                         Weekly Kick: Sliding around the corners!

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Good Morning Everyone!

 

    Last week I was teaching my son to drive my truck.  It was on a dirt road, far from any traffic, and he did good for his age.  The trail was dry, there was no traffic and it was daytime.  In other words, conditions were perfect.  Still, for an 11 year old, he did great - and much to my satisfaction wanted to go faster than I let him!

 

    As we traded places and I turned from the dirt trail onto the gravel road, I gave the truck a bit more throttle, just enough to make the back end slide around the corner.  Jaxon asked if I would teach him to drive like that, and I think my reply caught him off guard.  I told him I would definitely teach him how to slide around corners.  To an 11 year old, that doesn't sound like something a dad would say.  Here's why I told him I would make sure to teach him, and his sister, how to deliberately cause a vehicle to slide and skid around a corner.  It's easy to drive when conditions are good.  What is most important is to know how to respond when conditions suck.  When there's ice and snow and a truck starts to slide without any warning, that's when it matters that we know how to control a sliding vehicle.  If we know how to make a vehicle slide, what it feels like, and how to keep it under control when conditions are good, we will react automatically when it starts to slide when we don't expect it.  Avoiding the possibility just makes us vulnerable.

 

    The same principle holds true for leading others.  We can't be content to lead as if every day will be sunshine and roses.....the hard times do come.  It's not hard to look like a great leader when things are easy, times are good, and there's lots of excess work to do.  When great leadership shows itself is when things get tough, when we don't know what could come next, and it feels like all bets are off as far as what challenges we will face next.  THIS is when good leadership matters the most.

 

    Are we the leader who will inspire those we lead to dig deeper?  Do we inspire confidence among those we lead?  Can we control our own fears while helping others deal with theirs?  These are things that the good leaders do.  Am I a "fair-weather" leader, or am I ready for the unexpected "skids" life brings along?  Look ahead, see what challenges might be coming your way, then plan for how you will react.  Almost anybody can lead in the good times, but we can choose to be ready to lead well in the tough times too!  What kind of leader are we?  It's our choice.  Let's practice sliding around the corners today, so that we're ready for the real challenges that could come tomorrow.

 

Have a great week!  Todd

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                                                  October 9, 2017

                                   Weekly Kick:  Leading with your butt!

 

 

Good Morning!  This morning felt painful.  I got up earlier than usual because there were some specific things I needed to get done before 6:00.  When the alarm went at 3:30 did I feel like getting out of bed?  Not a chance!  It's amazing how good a bed can feel at that time of day.  So how did I do it?  I led with my butt.

 

Here's what I mean - we don't always feel like doing the things that we need to do the most.  But, we don't have to wait until we feel like doing it, in fact we can't wait till we feel like doing some things, we just need to do them.  My head might not be ready but my butt needs to get moving to get my head there.  Just physically starting something, even when it's not something we want to do, will start the process of getting it done.

 

When I get my butt moving, my head will soon follow.  If I need to have a meeting I've been dreading, if there's a cold call I need to make that really doesn't appeal to me a lot, I just need to start physically dialing the number.  I like people, generally, but making cold calls for sales is not always something I look forward to, or find easy.  Often, the only way to make them happen is NOT to wait for my mind to tell me that cold calls are a good idea.  No, usually, I just need to physically start moving in getting them done...dialing a phone number, or driving to the business I need to contact.  My butt leads the way, not always my head.

 

What do you need to get done this week that you maybe aren't looking forward to?  The things that you really don't enjoy a lot?  People you need to talk with who are potentially jerks?  Here's how you make sure those things get done this week......LEAD WITH YOUR BUTT!  Good luck, and enjoy accomplishing the tough things this week!

 

Todd

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                                                 October 16, 2017

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                                 Weekly Kick: Dealing with what's inside!

 

 

Good Morning!

 

One of the things I find relaxing is going for a drive in the country.  I live in the city, but I love driving in the country, there's few distractions, little traffic and lots to see.  Over the years I've been curious about a certain acreage 10 minutes out of town.  Someone started to build it, got to the stage of lockup (sheeting, doors and windows) and then stopped.  For at least 8 years I've watched this house, waiting for someone to care enough to finish it.

 

Well, nobody did.  The house wrap tore and blew off, the osb got weathered and grey, and it started to look like one of those old abandoned rural houses we've all seen.  A potentially great house neglected and wasted.  Until two weeks ago!  All of a sudden, there was new siding on the house, a wire fence was put up and a gate installed.  A new metal roof was put over the greying osb sheeting.  Now it looks like a new house!  But here's the problem, they just ignored any of the water and other damage that had occurred to the structure.  You can't see what's underneath anymore, but it's still there.  It's just hidden!  That's sad!

 

Yet, that's what we so often can be tempted to do as leaders - gloss over the real issues to come up with a quick fix.  Sometimes the things that need changing aren't a quick fix, or an easy fix, and don't have a silver bullet.  If we are looking for the simple, easy solutions to our challenges, we might look like we know what we're doing, but underneath, the same mess is still there.

 

Effectively communicating with those we lead, setting them up to succeed, effective processes, accountability, setting clear expectations, using conflict to improve relationships and effectiveness, and setting a clear vision - are all key things a leader needs to take care of if we're going to see lasting results!  All of the things just listed are not easy and don't have a silver bullet to fix them - they need us to be deliberate enough, stubborn enough, care enough, and to continually learn enough to be able to bring the changes that need to happen. 

 

Anybody can look good short term, but to build a highly productive and effective team or organization takes hard, deliberate work from the leader over the long term.  But here's the motivation:  the results will be long term too!  We won't have to worry about whether someone is going to notice that we've just covered up some of our weaknesses because we'll have dealt with them!   This is the kind of team I want to lead, and so do you!  Good!  Because it's up to us, the leaders, to create that team!   Let's do the hard things, the things that might be easy to cover up, but carry so much potential to make us great or terrible!  Replace the sheeting, don't just cover it up! 

 

Have a great week! 

 

 

                                                October 23, 2017

 

                                   Weekly Kick: Is Balance a Fallacy?  

 

 

Good Morning!

 

This past weekend I had the chance to watch a number of young families with small children and it reminded me of how much fun it is when children start to walk.  With my own kids, the fun part usually lasted for 5 minutes before I was wishing they hadn't learned to walk because now they were trying to get into everything and were harder to catch!    Watching children learn to walk is beneficial for an adult.  Why?  Because we forget how we do it.  Walking becomes so second nature to us that we forget the steps (no pun intended) involved in  walking.  We begin to believe that walking well is all about balance, when in fact it's all about being off balance and using this momentum to get where we want to go.

 

If someone is perfectly balanced on two legs, what are they doing?  They are standing.  They aren't walking, they're standing still.  In order to move, we have to be off balance and lean into that unbalance, or else it's just called standing still.  Standing can be a good thing, at the right time.  But it sucks if we want to move from one place to another.  If we want to get somewhere, we need to walk.  We need to be off balance.

 

"Work-life balance" is a term that has been thrown around the last ten years without much understanding of what it means.  Usually we take it to mean that there's never a time when our personal life takes a back seat to work, and conversely, that our work never suffers because of our personal life.   Does this work well?  It does if we are in a position where our job doesn't depend on us being productive, or creating high quality results, or our personal lives are utterly boring and don't need us.  But for most of us, the idea of being totally balanced all the time just doesn't work.

 

There are times we will need to focus more on our personal lives - sick child, spouse, parent, etc - and there are times where our roles at work will need us to give more than we normally do. Being balanced doesn't mean that we're never off balance.  It needs to be a constant shifting from one "leg" to the other, just like walking.   This is how we move forward.  Am I standing still, either in my career or in my personal life?  Maybe I'm too balanced.  Maybe I need to shift my focus for a while, to one area of life or the other.  (without neglecting the other - because this is called falling)

 

Are we walking or are we standing still?  When we stop focusing on remaining totally balanced, we start to move ahead.  Good luck!

 

Have a great week!  Todd