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Is Your Team Built to Last?
Our teams are under tremendous pressure. That pressure creates stress which diminishes performance. You can build a more resilient team through some simple leadership behaviors. Today’s post is by Jon Wortmann, thoughtLEADERS instructor and author of Hijacked by Your Brain. He’s our primary instructor for our Building Leadership Resilience course. Let’s imagine that you are in a unique position. Your team has the talent it needs. Your organization has a strategy that continues to work with a plan that will adapt to your competitor’s actions. You have enough cash to handle the changes in your markets. Your team is ready to work hard and the energy in your offices has never been better. There’s only one question left to answer: is your team built to last? The problem with our global economy, political uncertainty, and reactive media is that too many of us are living at our edges. We work hard. Our kids’ schedules make us look like our schedules are calm. We play a lot. We travel constantly. We are on our phones frenetically. This means that our brains are always paying attention to something—until they can’t. In the hot seats of Humvees looking for IEDs or the turrets of tanks, our service men and women rotate out every half hour to 90 minutes. Most of us can only concentrate for 40 minutes at a time, but we expect our teams to start early with staff meetings, handle conference calls on international schedules, and respond to emails at all hours. Our brains are not built for the constant stimulation. So how do we stay focused and mentally healthy when our expectations of ourselves and our teams to produce keep us under constant pressure? Give people freedom Your ideal schedule may not match the people on your team. In […]
How clear is your organization’s mission and vision?
Our reader poll today asks: How clear is your organization’s mission and vision? Crystal clear: It’s direct, differentiated and inspiring. 20.36% Very clear: I generally know where we’re headed. 30.17% Clear: Even if it is a little generic and uninspiring. 28.42% Not clear: I’m not sure where we’re really headed. 12.28% Opaque: We don’t have an articulated direction. 8.77% Setting a clear vision. Half of respondents know their organization’s mission and vision and find it very clear and generally compelling. For the other 50%, even though many stated their vision and mission are clear, it lacks inspiration and for the remainder it’s not clear at all. People want to share a higher purpose. It connects their efforts to something larger than them and gives meaning to their work. Invest the time in crafting a clear, compelling mission and vision statement. Eliminate the buzzwords. Make it short, memorable, and inspiring. Repeat it constantly and make it ubiquitous across the organization. Sharing it once isn’t enough. Once people see how their work connects to what the organization is trying to achieve, it helps them take action without direction and can generate more passion for their work. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
How would you describe the mindset of the majority of the leaders in your organization?
Our reader poll today asks: How would you describe the mindset of the majority of the leaders in your organization? They’re always willing to put the organization’s well-being ahead of their own interests 27.68% They mostly put the organization first but sometimes act selfishly 40.22% They’re often self-centered and occasionally put the organization first 21.77% They always come first before the organization’s interests no matter what 10.33% Organization first… mostly… While about 70% of you report leaders in your organization either always or mostly put the organization’s interests ahead of their own, an alarming 30% of you said those leaders are putting their interests ahead of the organization’s. Such behavior is catastrophic. People see it happen and then emulate that behavior because the mindset is “well if they’re taking care of themselves first, they’re not taking care of me so I have to take care of myself.” Before you know it, no one in the organization is doing right by the organization and everything crumbles. So what can you do? A few things. First, remind people of your organization’s values. If they’re not prominent, make them top of mind. Second, when you see self-interested behavior, ask questions to clarify why the behavior is the right choice for the organization. People generally know when they’re doing something wrong or selfish. Third, lead by example. When you put the organization first, people know it and they emulate those behaviors too. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
Are You Becoming a Leadership Dinosaur?
Leadership is a skill that requires constant practice. The world changes and brings new challenges every day. How can you ensure you’re staying fresh as a leader and not going the way of the dinosaur? Leadership abilities can grow stale and out of date. While most leaders have good intentions, and want to do a great job, the early excitement for the position can quickly turn into frustration from the demands. Leadership isn’t for the faint of heart, and it isn’t ‘learned’ once you’ve attended a leadership conference. It is a challenging skill that must evolve with your personal growth and a changing workforce. Make a choice to be the leader who is continually growing and maturing in leadership abilities and new skills for leading the team. This podcast will provide insight on whether you might be going the way of the leadership dinosaur and how you can turn that around. Here at thoughtLEADERS, I’m fortunate to work with some incredibly bright people. Maureen Metcalf is one of them. She recently discussed the topic of staying fresh as a leader with Steve Caldwell at Manager Mojo. They got together on his podcast to discuss how to keep yourself from going the way of the dinosaur. Listen to the podcast here:
Which best describes your organization?
Our reader poll today asks: Which best describes your organization? We are meticulous planners, and things always run smoothly 4.41% We plan well but have an occasional crisis 48.74% We try to plan, but crises tend to run our lives 34.59% There’s no planning, and we’re in perpetual crisis 12.26% Crisis of the day. Almost half of respondents report living from crisis to crisis. Many of these crises are likely avoidable either through better planning or more effective decision making. Pausing occasionally to look into the future and plan for possible scenarios can help you be ready to react when a crisis comes up or, better yet, figure out ways to minimize the likelihood of a crisis by making different decisions today. Many crises are also likely self-inflicted. Making decisions without fully playing out their ramifications in the future can result in these situations. A little bit of planning goes a long way. Sure, it’s hard to carve out time to do it but consider the tradeoff of not doing it is a crisis down the road that will consume much more time and energy than the planning itself would. A regular strategic pause and plan mindset can help you avoid crises and reduce the amount of stress your organization deals with every day. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
Choosing a Decision-Making Style
Learn the four decision-making styles and the factors that influence which style will be best for your situation. When you make decisions, there are four decision-making styles that you can use. There’s an autocratic style, a participatory one, a democratic style, and a consensus-based decision-making style. Your choice of which of those four styles to use is driven by two factors. The first factor is the urgency of making the decision. From low urgency (you’ve got plenty of time to make the call) to high urgency (we need a decision right now). The second dimension to consider is the size or impact of the decision, from small decisions that won’t have a large impact to big decisions that are going to have a huge impact. As you look at which style of decision-making to use, you need to consider both of these dimensions.
The Three R’s of Conflict Resolution
Conflict is an ever-present part of life. The more comfortable you are with dealing with it, the more effectively you can resolve it. Conflict resolution requires you to know the three R’s – recognize conflict, respond to conflict, and resolve the conflict. Today’s post is by Jon Wortmann, thoughtLEADERS principal and author of Hijacked by Your Brain. He’s our primary instructor for our Conflict Resolution course. The meeting had been going so well until Josh brought up the org chart—again. The firm had made some changes recently and he didn’t like the new structure. The room went still. Kate, the most senior leader in the room, spoke up. “Josh, let’s finish our planning and we can talk about structure later.” “I am talking about planning,” Josh said. “How can we plan the roll-out if we don’t know how our new structure will execute it?” Josh was a pro at reframing any issue to bring up his agenda. If he weren’t such a talented designer, he would not have lasted this long. What should Kate say next? Conflict is like the weather. No matter how many good days you have in a row, eventually it will rain. And as rain is essential to the earth, conflict is actually crucial for every team and organization. The conflict Josh is creating may feel pointless, even manipulative. Well handled, it can be the kind of moment every leader and manager welcomes. It is better to see frustration and resolve it than have it buried. Teammates that hide their true impressions don’t engage real problem solving. Open conflict resolved consistently builds trust. What Kate says next will either be a reaction based on the stress conflict causes, or it can be an intentional, practiced approach. The fear of conflict doesn’t come from our apprehension about […]
How do you handle making decisions during times of uncertainty?
Our reader poll today asks: How do you handle making decisions during times of uncertainty? I wait until the uncertainty is resolved, then make my decision 0.80% I proceed cautiously and gather as much info as I can before deciding 40.96% I make a decision based on the best info I have, then adjust and react later 58.24% A caution on caution. While the majority of respondents favor an act/learn/adjust approach to decision making, a substantive portion of you like to be cautious and gather as much info as you can before making a decision. Typically people do this with an eye toward reducing or eliminating risk. The more information you gather, the less risk you have, right? Not really. While that works in theory, you must realize that new sources of uncertainty and risk are being added to the system every day so your efforts to reduce it through information gathering are meaningless beyond a certain point. You can never eliminate all uncertainty. Consider trying the act/learn/adjust approach. Make smaller decisions faster and adjust them as the world plays itself out. Because the cost of inaction can be just as high as acting without proper information. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!