Category Archives: self-awareness

Emotions are Contagious

Posted on May 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

There’s a joke I used to tell my Scouts around the campfire, when it was late and that youngest ones had turned in:

Emotions are contagious, even on a pirate shipThere was a pirate captain who, when attacked by the British Navy, called for his cabin boy to bring him his red vest. The captain fought bravely and his men, following his example, repulsed the Royal Navy ship trying to arrest (and then inevitably hang) them.

The cabin boy was curious but hadn’t worked up the courage to ask the captain why he called for a red vest when they were under attack. It seemed odd to the boy that a change of clothing be at the top of the captain’s mind at such a time.

The next time they were attacked, this time by three Royal Navy ships, the captain called for his red jacket. Again, he and his men fought bravely and barely managed to escape. The cabin boy couldn’t hold himself back any longer.

“Captain, sir, if you please. Whenever we’ve been attacked you’ve called for your red vest. The last time we fought off three ships, but not until you donned your red jacket, sir.”

“Yes, that’s right.”, replied the captain, “And you want to know why?”

“Yes sir, if I may.”

“Well, whenever there’s a chance I may be injured in a skirmish, I don my red vest or jacket so that the men won’t know if I’m injured and bleeding. That way they won’t lose heart no matter how dire our situation, and fight on.”

The cabin boy nodded and smiled, because he know knew how the captain inspired his men. “I want to be as brave as the captain one day.”, he thought to himself.

The next day six ships of the line came over the horizon, spotted the their ship, and made sail to catch the dread pirate.

“Shall I bring your red vest, sir?”, the cabin boy asked.

“No.”, said the captain.

“Shall I bring your red jacket, sir?”, the cabin boy asked again.

“No.”, said the captain.

“Then what shall I do, sir?”, the cabin boy asked a last time.

“Bring me my brown pants.”

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Posted in behaviour, communications, influencing, leadership, self-awareness, teamwork

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Factual Feedback

Posted on January 14, 2013 | Leave a comment
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/5321479548/

Just the facts, ma’am

It’s often easy to mix up what somebody does with how we feel about it. If you find yourself using vague descriptions (“attitude problem”, “lazy”, “creepy”, “top performer”, “A player”), then dig deeper about he or she did that made you feel that way. What are the facials expressions, body language, tone of voice, words used, or work product – both quality and timeliness – that caused you to draw that conclusion.

For example: “Paula, when you keep interrupting John during our staff meetings, it comes across as rude and disrespectful. Do you think you can do that differently next time?”

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Posted in behaviour, communications, developing staff, engagement, feedback, influencing, leadership, outstanding managers, performance appraisal, relationships, self-awareness

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On the Importance of Trust and Relationships

Posted on January 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

Trust and relationhipsHere’s an article I wrote for RESULTS.com on discovering the importance of trust and relationships in business (and life). Enjoy!

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Posted in developing staff, effectiveness, execution, influencing, leadership, relationships, self-awareness, teamwork

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One Discovery, Two Decisions

Posted on September 16, 2012 | 2 Comments

The best part of my job is working with, sharing, inspiring and being inspired by passionate, smart people. It turns my crank. I am lucky to have this life. I try to stop and be grateful when as often as I can.

I had one of those moments last week at breakfast with the Design4Change agency, Patricia Derbyshire of Mount Royal University, and Earnest Barbaric the social media strategist. Clarity came while we were talking marketing and career choices.

I believe we all have one discover and two choices we all have to make to gain mastery, be fulfilled, and be engaged in our work and our lives. There are things we all need to do in order to be successful in life, no matter how we define success. Here’s what I think those things are:

Discover What You’re Good At

This is one of those simple but not always easy to carry out concepts. It takes thought, focus, and self-awareness. We all enjoy something, we can all be good at something, we all need to master something. Being good and being recognized by others as being good, is the difference between thriving and merely surviving.

What are you good at? What makes time fly, leaves you energized instead of drained, or is fun for you? If you can’t think of anything, or you don’t get to do it very often, maybe it’s time for a change? Life is too short and hard already to spend it doing something that eats your soul instead of feeding it.

Figure out what that thing is, then  figure out how to make a living at it.

Choose Who You’re Going to Work With

Maslow got it wrong. The “social” need of his hierarchy is just as important as food and shelter.

People matter, and who you surround yourself with matters. Choose your friends and co-workers carefully. The biggest influence on a child’s life? Not their parents, but their friends. Want to raise good kids? Choose their friends  carefully.

Business success depends on the people you choose to hire (or not). Don’t waste your time with somebody who you wouldn’t enthusiastically rehire. It’s not worth it.

Choose to Keep Learning

You can learn and adapt by trial and error, or you can learn from others. Darwin didn’t say that survival would go to the fittest. He said it would go to the most adaptable. Those that learn also adapt and survive.

Get into the habit of reading, learning, and always always always trying to find ways to simplify and do things better. You could do it by trial and error, on your own, but that doesn’t seem very efficient does it?

I believe that these are the simple things that outstanding managers (and successful human beings) do well.

Question for the Comments:
What are the lifetime habits that help you succeed?

Other articles you may find interesting:
Eight Career Rules For My Teenage Daughter
Following Your Passion
Getting the Job You Want by Talking to the Right People

Bernie works as a leadership and business coach, consultant, and facilitator. He believes there are simple things outstanding leaders do well, and that not to do anything about bad leadership once you know about it is abuse. Check out what he does with RESULTS.com

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Posted in leadership, learning, life-long learning, networking, relationships, selecting talent, self development, self improvement, self-awareness, your career

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The Tragedy of the Welder

Posted on September 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

welders

This week my RESULTS.com post, titled the Tragedy of the Welder. It’s a good read. Check it out.

Bernie works as a leadership and business coach, consultant, and facilitator. He believes there are simple things outstanding leaders do well, and that not to do anything about bad leadership once you know about it is abuse. Check out what he does with RESULTS.com

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Posted in behaviour, change, coaching, communications, developing staff, engagement, execution, leadership, life-long learning, motivating, outstanding managers, relationships, selecting talent, self-awareness

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Stop Interrupting Yourself

Posted on June 24, 2012 | 2 Comments

I love working with new clients. There are simple things that outstanding managers and leaders do well, and introducing a new client to those simple (but not always easy) things pays off so quickly. I don’t even want to charge them for it. But of course I still do.

Last week I introduced some time-management concepts to a group of front-line managers at a construction company. Of course their biggest personal challenge is having enough hours in the day to react to everything be instantly available to everybody all the time.

Now when I say it that way it doesn’t sound very appealing. Re-framing our work day in these terms gives us a different perspective, and maybe even an “Aha! No wonder my head feels like it’s exploding with this feeling of being constantly overwhelmed!” Now we can shift our perspective.

The Power of Interruptions

In “The Mythical Man Month”, published in 1975, Frederick Brooks talks about how programmers are more efficient, correct, and productive when they can close their doors, transfer their phones, and focus on their work. Even a 30-second interruption from a single phone call would mean they would have to spend the next 15 minutes getting their state of mind back to where they were before they were interrupted.

Those four phone calls you answered in the last hour? That’s why you didn’t get that report / estimate / article done.

The Power of Being Focused

For one particular manager, that shift was simply reducing office noise. By asking his office peers to close their door when they were having meetings (or closing his own door), turning off his email notifications, and not answering his phone for an hour (he still kept an eye on who was calling, just in case it was a client), he was able to get done in that hour what usually took him two.

We use “courtesy flags” in our office when the noise gets out of control. We like to have fun, but that’s not always appropriate when somebody is on the phone with a client and they can’t carry on a normal conversation. It’s a simple pendant on a straw that gets waved when somebody needs things to calm down. It works well.

A Minute a Day

Here’s the interesting bit. One hour saved in a day doesn’t seem like that much. But if our construction manager does that every day he’ll have 200 extra hours in a year. That’s five weeks. Maybe he won’t have to come in on the weekends any more. That’s not a small shift any more. That’s a huge shift. For him personally, for his family, and for the company. He’s better rested, better energized, and working harder when he is there.

Even small changes, continually applied, add up. It’s like the power of compounded interested. Finding even a minute a week, over 52 weeks, isn’t just 52 minutes. It’s 23 hours: 1 minute the first week, 2 the second week, and so on.

That’s the part I love, making my clients eyes go wide when they realize how small changes sometimes have huge impacts. In this case not continually allowing ourselves to be interrupted. It’s doing the basics right. Being focused. It’s sharpening the axe before cutting down the tree. Being productive and working on what we want to work on.

Your Actions:

If you’re a fireman, you’re exempt from this question:

Is there something you can do to stop being interrupted at work when you need to focus? What’s the worst thing that will happen if you don’t answer your phone or every text right away every time? What can you do to build at least some uninterrupted time into your daily routine?

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Posted in continuous improvement, effeciency, effectiveness, focus, multi-tasking, self development, self improvement, self-awareness, single-tracking

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Outstanding Entrepreneurs Do This Well

Posted on May 20, 2012 | 1 Comment

Are you getting sucked back into the daily drama, details, and problem solving that you (supposedly) hired others to take care of? Are you unable to pull your head out of the minutia of running a business to think about where that business needs to go next? Are you reacting to daily and hourly crises instead of being “proactive”?

Sprinter and Rabbits

If you’re a successful entrepreneur, you probably have a strong bias towards action. You’re a doer, a decider, the action gal. It’s a big part of why you’re successful. Like a fast running sprinter, or the hard to catch rabbit, you move fast..

A sprinter runs so fast and so hard they leave everybody else behind in the parking lot. That’s good if you’re ahead of your competition. If you’re leading a business it may be a problem.

If everybody else is still trying to figure out where the finish line is when you’ve already crossed it, then you’re not really being a leader. The idea of leadership is to get everybody across the finish line as quickly as possible. Not just you.

The rabbit is also fast. A rabbit who is trying to evade a coyote will zig-zag and change direction quickly. Also not a bad thing if you’re taking advantage of opportunities and can change direction quickly to stay ahead of your competitors.

This doesn’t mean your staff knows which way you’re going next, or if they’ll be able to keep up. It may seem to them that they’re chasing a crazy rabbit who keeps changing its mind.

If Nobody Else Can Keep Up, Maybe They Aren’t the Problem

Your bias to action comes with a blind spot, sometimes. Making sure the team understands where you’re going next as a company. This helps them make decisions that line up with the company strategy (so you don’t have to), or anticipate where they need to be next. You may be frustrated that people don’t seem to get it, or keep up, or have the same excitement or energy or engagement as you. But they’re frustrated with you too.

They’re frustrated because you’ve left them behind, or they’re tired of chasing your zig-zagging rabbit backside. They can’t see the stuff you, the leader, can see.  And you’ve taken off without sharing what’s happening in your brain. So what are they supposed to do next? You could hire mind-readers, but my wife isn’t available.

You’ve lost your staff. As an entrepreneur or leader you can’t do it all yourself, and you’ve learned (hopefully) how to delegate and supervise. This frees you up to do what you do best: Create and discover new opportunities, get out in front of emerging markets, anticipate changes, hire the right people.

You may keep getting sucked back into the daily drama, details, and problem solving that you hired others to take care of because you keep running away without telling them where the finish line is.

You Need Them, They Need You

You do have to recognize that people can’t read your mind. People don’t know what you know, and they certainly don’t know what you’re thinking. Changes in speed and direction need energy, especially for the non-rabbits.

Those  detail guys and gals sometimes drive you nuts, but they keep you out of trouble. Worker bees get the mundane but important things done every day. The ones that are effective and efficient and complete because they take their time and think things through. And drive you crazy because they can never decide anything without you.

Maybe you can’t slow down to their speed, and maybe they can’t accelerate to yours. But you can meet them halfway.

What You Can Do

* Think a little more

Sit on your new ideas before throwing them out, and expecting people to understand what they’re supposed to do next. Not every idea you have is a good one, so don’t overwhelm the detail guys and gals with stuff that’s not going to happen because you change your mind tomorrow

* Over-communicate.

Keep your message simple and repeat it constantly. If you can’t explain what your company does and who its customers are in a way an eighth grader can understand, then it’s not simple enough.

* Listen more than you talk

Close the loop and listen as intently to your internal staff as you do your customers. You listen to your customers, right? This will tell you if your message is getting through, and having the desired effect. Adjust as necessary.

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Posted in coaching, communications, conflict, delegation, developing staff, engagement, execution, leadership, listening, mentoring, motivating, self-awareness, teamwork

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Stay Calm and Carry On

Posted on May 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Photo by Shayne Kaye. Used under the Creative Common Attribution license.

Sometimes things happen you can’t plan for. Like riding your bike up the back of a bear. My trainer says she didn’t see the bear until she was on top of it. Literally, with her mountain bike.

She came around the corner, peddling furiously, looking over her shoulder and trying to stay ahead of the Scout troop following her. Scouting in Calgary has many advantages. Access to the mountains and wildlife are some of them.

The bear was sitting in the middle of the single track, facing uphill. The way she told us the story at the training workshop, she didn’t understand what had happened until the bear turned to look over its shoulder at her. It’s one of those “no sh*t, there I was” stories that’s funny only later when you’re telling it around the campfire.

She backed down slowly, keeping herself between the mother bear and cubs and the Scouts. By hand signals and whispering they got back to the last branch in the trail and took a different route.

That’s the kind of leadership I prefer. Calm, competent, cool. There are many things that could have gone wrong with this scenario, and any drama on the leader’s part wouldn’t have helped.

What do I mean by drama? In an already emotionally laden and potentially dangerous scenario adding more emotion is drama. If she’d screamed, or panicked, or froze, or attacked, things could have gone very horribly wrong.

Worst places to work? One sign is when your day depends on the boss’s mood. “Better keep your head down. Ian is in a foul mood because the budget is due.” Managers and executives need to control and manage their emotions instead of letting their emotions manage them.

Be enthusiastic, be positive, have fun. All good. But if you’re angry, or yelling, or throwing things, or even quietly calling people names now you’re either out of control or you’re a bully. Now you’re a “boss-hole”. Not inspirational nor effective in the long run.

It’s a simple thing outstanding managers do well – keep calm, be consistent.

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Posted in behaviour, conflict, emotional intelligence, influencing, leadership, outstanding managers, relationships, self-awareness

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Your Profile Is Not An Excuse

Posted on April 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’m a fairly detailed, action-oriented kind of guy. In fact, if you look at my DISC profile, I’m about as far away from the “people” side of the chart as you can get. But it’s not an excuse for me to be a jerk.

What it is an opportunity for me to understand how other people see me, and how might sometimes need to change my behaviour to be more effective in working with other people. Notice how I said “change my behaviour”.

Sometimes people seem to think that learning about communication styles and behavioural profiles is  to learn how to manipulate people. The question they’re trying to answer is “How do I make other people do what I want?” The answer is “You don’t.”

What you can do is understand how and when changing your own behaviour makes you a more effective leader, team member, or follower. Where your own blind spots might be. To understand that it’s not always personal, or about you, or about them being a jerk, a liar, a bully, or a milk toast. Their perception of the world is different.

Stated more accurately, your perspective of the world is different from theirs. “They”, people who see the world differently, are in the majority. It’s not up to them to change.

I’m never going to be a Brian Mulroney or a Bill Clinton, with my own personal charismatic-reality-distortion-field. But I can learn to sit up straight, smile, speak clearly, and look people in the eye when I talk to them. In fact, I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job at that, and it’s made me better and more effective in my job.

What are your blind spots? How can you meet the rest of the world half way?

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Posted in behaviour, change, communications, emotional intelligence, influencing, relationships, self improvement, self-awareness, teamwork

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When Blind-Spots Surprise Us

Posted on April 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Katherine Spitzer first woman to run the Boston Marathon 1967

The universe is conspiring against me. Well, not really against. It’s conspiring on my behalf to take me to the next adjacent possibility. It’s tapped me on the forehead and made clear that I need to step up my game, especially about how I speak about women. Please let me explain.

Last week I was listening to a ManagerTools podcast on ethics, where two former West Pointers and now successful consultants were talking about the code of ethics they adopted at the academy:

“I will not lie, steal, cheat, nor tolerate those who do”.

With events in popular culture, the news, and politics, I decided to adopt a new personal honour code:

“I will not lie, steal, cheat, hate, nor tolerate those who do.”

Then I realized this week, while working with a woman CEO of a construction company, twice I used the term “girl” to describe an adult woman. Doh! Seems I have some work to do. I don’t think I do this maliciously, or trying to control others. At least that isn’t my intent, but I realize now it will sure come across that way.

I don’t want to be just another guy talking about women in the workplace. So how do I link my purported values to my behaviour? How does what I believe translate to how I am in the world. How are my words and action perceived by and impact others?

This is the work I do with business owners every day – how do we translate how we want to impact the world into everyday actions that take the company in the right direction? What is really going on? It often comes down to doing the basics well and consistently. In my case, dropping the use of “girl” to refer to adult women. Small changes often make the biggest difference. Especially when they allow us to make bigger changes.

Then I ran across an articles about  Katherine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. That’s her in the picture above running the first time 45 year ago this April. One of her cadre is body-checking a race official attempting to throw her out of “his” race. Katherine ran the race herself. Nobody carried her. That’s what she wanted, I imagine: the opportunity to run, to test herself, to do her best. Just like most of us.

It’s not enough to just give somebody an opportunity, job, or place, then stand by and watch them fail. In order to be leaders, in order for management to be a force for positive change in the world, sometimes we have to get up off our asses and run interference. Call bullies on their bullying. Deliberately solicit every opinion. Not tolerate poor behaviour. Let others lead. Which is what leaders are supposed to be doing when we’re “building teams”.

So I’m going to watch my language better, do some more volunteer one-on-one mentoring, and try to figure out how deep this blind-spot of mine goes. My little circle to start with. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Researching and writing this article has only made me realize how far I might have to go.

Who’s with me? What are you going to do to “lead”? What’s your blind spot?

 

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Posted in behaviour, change, emotional intelligence, self development, self improvement, self-awareness, teamwork

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