Cultivating Leaders
Herding Cats
Have you ever led a meeting where you felt that participants’ minds were somewhere else? Maybe another galaxy?
Of course not. I’m sure your meetings are scintillating.
Read this, just in case.
By investing just a few minutes at the beginning of any meeting, you can greatly improve the results AND enhance teamwork and relationships. [Read more...]
Just Say No to “Fruitcake Praise”
Great leaders know how to praise in ways that leave people feeling truly seen and appreciated.
Not-so-great leaders may praise people, yet leave them feeling misunderstood, and even demotivated.
Wondering how your praise habits stack up against the best?
Watch this short video and in roughly 5 minutes, you’ll have all the information you need to begin inspiring anyone you meet. Plus, you’ll find out what holiday fruitcake has to do with motivating others.
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Are you in the zone? You know..that place where you feel energized. Where you like going to work, where you feel a sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, and gratitude. If you’re not living there, how far away are you? Around the block? Next County? Neighboring planet? For managers, how would your employees answer?
When we ask program participants and clients about times when they felt in the zone, nearly all can name one. Barely anyone claims to there now. And survey research supports this observation. According to a Gallup poll, more than 70 percent of people are disengaged from their job.
There are several key ingredients to peak performance. Knowing them can make it easier to diagnose what’s missing.
Recipe at-a-Glance: One part S (Strengths) to four parts P (Passion, Purpose, Preferences, Progress).
One Part ‘S’
1. Strengths:
In every peak moment, you will find that you are doing what you do best. Strengths may be learned skills or innate abilities. Either way, they are things that you excel at. Sometimes it’s hard to notice your own strength because it comes easily to you. What comes easily to you – public speaking, playing music, interpersonal skills, listening, remembering and using data – is terrifyingly difficult for others. Where you exhibit grace, others stumble or exert more effort for the same or less outcomes.
Ways to determine strengths:
Four Parts P [Read more...]
Instant Improvement?
This week I accompanied my husband to his Lasik (vision correction) surgery. It took me back 13 years to my own Lasik experience. Back then, I entered the Laser Eye Center building dependent on thick glasses. Less than 24 hours later, I had 20/15 vision. In less than a day, I went from being unable to read a giant digital clock since age 7, to reading the ingredients on a shampoo bottle.
It got me thinking, if only all development was so quick and noticeable. But that kind of drastic improvement is rare (not to mention expensive and risky).
In the absence of sudden conversions, we’re often blind to our own progress until someone comments, “Hey, have you lost a few pounds?” or “You seem happier.” or “You’re listening better.” One group-coaching participant recently said to a peer, “You seem calmer in meetings.” She didn’t fully appreciate this new way of being until he named it. At the program’s end, she said that his comment was one of the most memorable and affirming moments. When others notice, our improvement becomes more real.
Reflecting Brilliance
Over the course of a few months with a coach, participants re-invent themselves gradually but certainly. One of the most important things a coach does is hold up the mirror and acknowledge real changes.
One of the greatest gifts we can give others–colleagues, friends, family– [Read more...]
Tiger Parenting
As if we parents needed more reason to worry about how we might be ruining our children, Amy Chua comes along and writes Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Why Chinese Mothers are Superior). Her very restrictive parenting methods got her mixed results: one daughter on stage at Carnegie Hall, another so resentful she would have divorced her mother if she could.
Dr. Mac Hicks. offers a great analysis that helped assuage my angst (a bit). According to Hicks, one of the key problems with this approach: “The Tiger Mother philosophy is blind to the concept of individual differences.”
In a recent client conversation, it struck me that management theory shares much in common with the Tiger Mother approach to motivation.
After receiving an onslaught of criticism, Chua admits that she was not attuned to her daughters’ uniqueness. In subsequent interviews, Chua explains that A-grades are not what Chinese parenting is about; rather, they help children be the best they can be. Surely a noble goal.
Tiger Management
Tiger Managers are not bad people. They just aren’t very effective motivators. While they may want to bring out the best in their employees, their methods leave employees discouraged and potentially resentful.
You already know what the worst Tiger Managers look like. They enforce strict policies, treat people uniformly with little regard for individual preferences or strengths, micromanage, and are quick to find fault.
Yet, some Tiger Management behaviors are less obvious.
Here are just a few ways that well-meaning companies and managers crush souls: [Read more...]
Conversations for Brilliance
Tools to Help You Inspire
Extraordinary Results
From Yourself and Others
