Mike Figliuolo – Page 82 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

Great Leaders Live Balanced Lives

January 30, 2012 /6 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

The following is an excerpt from One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (you can get your copy here). This post focuses on having a balanced life and the importance of keeping things in perspective. If you’re burned out, you’re worthless. Here’s an example of how I keep myself in balance and the obvious question to you is “how do you keep yourself in balance?” It is easy to get wrapped up in your work. If you have chosen your profession well, you are darn good at what you do and take a great deal of satisfaction away from doing it well. Unfortunately it is easy to forget that there are other people out there who want some of your time. Your family and friends need your attention. There are also other passions worth pursuing outside the office. Taking part in activities you enjoy will keep you centered and add meaning and fulfillment to your life. Unless you have a mechanism to tear yourself away from the office you might find yourself trapped in the mindset of “I’ll do (insert enjoyable thing here) this weekend when I’m off work” or “I’ll do that when I retire” or “I’ll get to that someday.” Someone who reads my blog shared a great maxim on this point: “Someday is not a day of the week.” We would all do well to keep this in mind and act accordingly. My great-grandfather adopted a quote as his maxim to remind him to live life. He always said “Enjoy life now because you’ll be a long time dead.” He did not coin the phrase but he used it frequently. The saying has made its way through a few generations of my family as something we say on a semi-regular basis. Regardless of […]

Get Out of B.E.D. And Alter Your Outcomes

January 26, 2012 /4 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Marty Stanley, author of Get Out of B.E.D. and the newest member of the thoughtLEADERS team. “We got it done, but it was ugly,” the manager said, shaking his head in disbelief. Miscommunications, lack of communication, an inexperienced team leader and management on vacation resulted in cost over-runs exceeding $50,000, delayed implementation and loss of customer respect and confidence. The manager lamented that this was not an unusual experience. It happened more often than he wanted to admit. We’ve all experienced these “ugly” scenarios at one time or another. But it seems that there’s a breeding ground for ugly outcomes in many organizations. People are going a hundred miles an hour, multi-tasking and taking on more as a result of reduced staffs. People are trying to cope with downsized environments and a sluggish economy. The demands and expectations are high and resources and clear communication are often scarce. A lot of things can slip through the cracks in this kind of culture. Being in B.E.D. is the Breeding Ground An environment like this can become toxic and counter productive. When a workplace is in B.E.D. (Blame, Excuses and Denial), people often react impulsively with each misstep, and more mistakes happen. Mistakes are like rabbits… they multiply! No wonder things turn out “ugly.”

How Leaders Can Overcome Resistance to Change

January 23, 2012 /9 Comments/in Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Nobody likes change (other than David Bowie… “ch-ch-ch-changes!” Good luck getting that song out of your head). I know if you do anything that changes my routine in the morning, my whole day is whacked. We hate change. Heck, most of us hate getting change at the grocery store because all those coins just weigh down our pockets and purses. As a leader, though, your job is to get others to want to change. Getting other leaders to open up to change is hard. You have to help them understand what’s in it for them, because invariably you are changing something in their very comfortable lives. They are not going to like you when you do that. They are going to resist and find every reason to point out that your conclusions and recommendations for change are wrong. If you want change to happen, you have got to help others understand that change is in their best interest. Show them you are trying to drive metrics they care about (I will dive into an example here in a minute). Help them understand that they stand to benefit from the changes you are recommending. Here’s an example of what I mean:

A Better Way to Communicate

January 19, 2012 /6 Comments/in Books, Communications, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by bestselling author Seth Kahan. It’s an excerpt from his book Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out. You can learn more about him and his book at the end of the post. In 1996 I was working on my first large-scale change initiative at the World Bank. I was part of the small team that won international recognition for the World Bank’s Knowledge Management (KM) effort. Working on this program was like driving on a racetrack that was changing its course while you steer: the course and the environment were always changing, but we made incredible progress. In two years we went from an unfunded idea in a back room to $60 million in annual allocations, from no resources or incentives to every staff member receiving two weeks to dedicate to KM as well as having a component of their annual evaluation dedicated to it, from no recognition to international awards. To make this happen we had to answer questions like these: – How do you penetrate the conflicting demands and mental clutter that are part of everyday business life in the twenty-first century? – How do you penetrate the assorted messages the media constantly bombard everyone with? – After you have gotten through this confusion, how do you get people’s attention? – Once you have their attention, what do you do with it to get people engaged, involved, and contributing? – How do you coordinate this activity when you have no formal authority? We were able to answer these questions, and we were highly successful as a result. But, it took a major reframe of the way we communicate. To illustrate, let’s first look at the prevailing misunderstanding of how communication works, and then I will show you a much better […]

4 Keys for Successful Project Leadership

January 16, 2012 /12 Comments/in Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

We always talk about project management but rarely discuss project leadership. There’s a difference. Leaders play a critical role in setting the conditions for a team to successfully manage a project. If you focus on the following four key roles you can play on a project as the project leader you’ll dramatically improve the odds of project success. More important, you’ll create a culture where your team members trust you and know you’re doing everything you can to help them succeed. In creating the right culture, you’ll boost morale, reduce turnover, improve productivity, and generally have a team that wins more often (and not in the Charlie Sheen “winning” way…). So here goes – here are four things you need to focus on as a leader to create an environment for project success.

12 Most Consequential Books for a New Leader

January 11, 2012 /38 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by David Dye – COO of Colorado UpLift. You can learn more about him at the end of the post. And check out #11… You may have heard that leaders take responsibility for their own growth, but with thousands of leadership and management books to choose from, where do you begin? You want resources that help you today, that you can immediately apply, and that build a strong foundation for your future leadership development. To help you get started, I’ve put together a list of the 12 most consequential books for a new leader: 1. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High The book in the #1 slot doesn’t even have leadership in the title? No, but it does feature a skill so rare and yet so vitally critical to effective leadership that it fully deserves to be at the top of the list. Effective leaders are able to build relationships while discussing the most difficult subjects and Crucial Conversations by Patterson, et al helps you do exactly that. 2. The Leadership Challenge Kouzes and Posner make the case that leadership is influence and that effective leadership relies on your credibility. What sets The Leadership Challenge apart is its focus on five leadership practices through which you grow your influence and credibility. These five practices are easily understood and can be learned by anyone willing to do the work.

If You Want to be More Productive Just Do Less Work

January 9, 2012 /4 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

You work too hard. You do too much. Want to be more productive? Just do less work. I know you’re probably scratching your head right now wondering how to not get fired by taking this recommendation. The truth is you’ll probably be on your way to a promotion if you pull this off correctly. Here’s how it works: we work on a lot of stupid crap that no one is ever going to look at let alone use. Being more productive all boils down to not doing said stupid crap. What kind of stupid crap am I talking about? How about those bajillion Excel reports you and your team generate every month? Those “latest best estimates” that are time stamped by the hour to let folks know which version you’re working from. Those weekly or monthly status updates that are 68 pages of the equivalent of PowerPoint water boarding. How about the 9,000 cc emails you send or receive every month? That stupid crap. “Oh no! We can’t stop cranking those things out! They’re ever so valuable! And 80% of my job responsibilities center around turning out such value added deliverables that create synergies across the enterprise!” Barf. Let’s really evaluate this “work” you do and create a plan to stop doing it.

The Power of Declarations: Winston Churchill and Leaders Today

January 4, 2012 /5 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest post is by Lyn Boyer (no, that’s not her to the left – that’s Winston Churchill). You can read more about Lyn and her new book at the end of the post. Here’s Lyn: In the darkest days of World War II, families in England huddled around their radios to listen to the inspiring words of Winston Churchill. Britain stood virtually alone against the powerful Luftwaffe that dropped thousands of bombs during the night raids of the Blitz. On June 4, 1940 after the Dunkirk Evacuation, which removed over 338,000 British, French and Belgian soldiers from the threat of the German army, Churchill delivered perhaps his most famous and stirring speech. “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…” These are perhaps the most famous words of his most famous speech. They represent a powerful declaration that provided hope and encouragement during a time of overwhelming fear and hardship.

12 New Year’s Resolutions for a Less Idiotic World

January 3, 2012 /17 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Do you guys realize how freakin’ dumb we are as a planet? Seriously. We’ve become an idiocracy. I’d like to propose a few ideas in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions. I’m not out to change the world overnight. I’m just asking us to make it incrementally less moronic. If we all do our part, perhaps our children will actually have a chance of living during an era where IQ scores exceed the number of days Kim Kardashian was married because that trend line is currently headed in the opposite direction. I’d also love to read your resolutions. Please add them in the comments section. Maybe we can start a global movement (hey, a guy can dream, right?). The resolutions below aren’t extremely difficult either. I invite you to add them to your list and ask your friends and coworkers to do the same. Some of you are asking “why 12?” Because. That’s all. It’s the number that hit me as I was writing this and then I backed into some logical B.S. to rationalize it that there are 12 months in a year so there’s one for each month. Not everything I write makes sense. Deal with it. So here they are – 12 resolutions for a less idiotic world:

Why You Must Answer the “So What?”

December 29, 2011 /0 Comments/in Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

To end the year, I’m sharing a super-wayback post that started it all. This is the first post ever written for the thoughtLEADERS Blog back in 2007. It’s just as relevant today as it was then. The perspective herein is at the very core of our Structured Thought & Communications course. If you’d like to help your organization build these skills, drop us a line to discuss running the course for your team. So here’s the wayback (and more info about the orangutan is at the end of the post)… So what? We’ve all been there – sitting through that dreadfully long presentation full of facts, figures, and complex analyses only to leave an hour later wondering “so what?” So what do we do now? What was the point of that? What was the conclusion? We’ve all heard about “tricks and tips” to engage the audience: use props, tell stories, and use flashy PowerPoint. The list goes on. The problem is, if the audience doesn’t “get” your recommendation or personally care about it, no number of tricks can help. Unfortunately as presenters, we often fail to define that key “so what” before we create our presentation. This ultimately leaves our audience wondering what our point was. Fortunately, this problem is easy to avoid. Doing so requires you to identify your “core idea” well in advance of doing any analysis or creating charts. This core idea is the one thought you want your audience to remember. It is the “what should we do and why should we do it?” recommendation that captures their attention and gives them a compelling reason to act.

How to Eliminate the Word No from Your Vocabulary

December 26, 2011 /4 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

I hate the word “no.” I hate saying it. I hate hearing it. It’s very unproductive. Believe it or not, you can eliminate it from your vocabulary and replace it with two simple words that can make all the difference in how you’re perceived and how much people want to work with you. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Eikenberry (author of From Bud to Boss) for over an hour on this topic. Today I’ll provide an excerpt of that conversation and at the end of the post I’ll provide you with a link for the actual audio file of our conversation. Here’s the discussion Kevin and I had around two of the most powerful words you can use to replace “no” in your vocabulary. It’s another excerpt from my conversation with Kevin (previously Kevin and I discussed a leader’s role in process improvement – you can read that post here and we also covered how you can avoid scope creep – read that one here). Kevin Eikenberry: Let’s talk about us as leaders. We have got a lot of stuff going on. How do we as leaders stay focused on what we are trying to achieve and not be the source of the problem? How can we stay focused and be the best support to process improvement efforts? Mike Figliuolo: One of the most important things that I have learned is the ability to say no. I am not saying I am good at it, I just know that it’s important. That said, we as leaders can be much more effective in that regard.

What Dying Taught Me About Decision Making

December 21, 2011 /2 Comments/in Books, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

My tank blew up. I died. It was pretty ugly. Stop freaking out Mom. I’m alive. This isn’t some creepy posthumous blog post or something. In the process of dying, I learned a great deal about decision making. I learned the value in making decisions quickly and how even bad decisions can be good decisions in the end. While dying wasn’t very much fun, the insights it provided me have been valuable ever since I died. Now, I’m not asking you to die to learn lessons about decision making. I am, however, asking you to read the story of my death and learn about a new way to look at decisions. I want to share some thoughts with you on how you can learn the value of bad decisions and the potential cost of not making a decision at all. I recently wrote a post on dying and decision making. The post is an excerpt from One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. The excerpt is posted in its entirety on SmartBlog on Leadership. You can read the full post by CLICKING HERE. I hope you enjoy it. Also, if you’ve never heard of SmartBrief or SmartBlog, you need to. It’s a wonderful source of content delivered to your inbox every day. The stories are all filtered and they have great abstracts written so you can quickly decide what to read (and what not to). There are briefs for all interests: leadership, small business, career, entrepreneur… you get the picture. Head over to SmartBrief.com and get yours now. – If you’re serious about improving your leadership skills, grab yourself a copy of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. There are plenty of suggestions in there for how you can lead your […]