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Training Your Inner Matrix for Career Success
Train your Inner Matrix to improve personal mastery in leadership, increase your potential for money and happiness, and enhance personal growth and development. Today’s post is by Joey Klein, CEO of Inner Matrix Systems and author of the new book The Inner Matrix: Leveraging the Art & Science of Personal Mastery to Create Real Life Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Whether you are seeking personal mastery in leadership, hoping to sharpen your skills in conflict resolution, or looking to take your career to the next level, understanding the relationship between your emotions and the actions you take is key. Nick didn’t expect to be fired from his job, but when his boss broke the news, Nick did not react in the way you might expect. He didn’t wallow in self-pity or unworthiness. He didn’t decide he was a failure or a loser. He didn’t ask the seemingly obvious questions like, “What am I going to do now? How will I provide for my family? How can I possibly go on?” On the contrary, Nick walked out of his boss’s office feeling like a new man—excited and exhilarated by the prospect of new opportunities. What was Nick’s secret? In the months leading up to the day he was let go from his job, Nick had been training his emotional state to align with his desired outcomes. In other words, Nick had been honing his Inner Matrix. What is the Inner Matrix? Simply put, your Inner Matrix is your unique set of emotion and thought patterns that drive your actions. We all react to the people and events in our lives from an emotional state. The emotional states in which we are living create stories that drive the actions we take in response to those people and events. For example, […]
Where is your organization in terms of its current employee growth trajectory?
Our reader poll today asks: Where is your organization in terms of its current employee growth trajectory? We’re in hyper-growth mode and hiring tons of people 11.26% We’re steadily growing at a reasonable pace 36.80% We’re staying even with departures pretty much equaling arrivals 32.47% We’re shrinking slightly 16.88% We’re rapidly reducing our workforce 2.59% Is growth coming? On balance, the majority of you are staying flat or even contracting a bit in terms of headcount but there’s a strong segment demonstrating growth. There are obviously cautions in all directions. For those of you who are staying even, be sure your benefits and the way you take care of your people stays ahead of attrition. Growing companies will poach your dissatisfied employees if you’re not careful. For those contracting, be wary of cutting too deep because when an upswing happens or an opportunity presents itself, you may not be in a position to take advantage of it. For those of you growing, don’t get too excited and let your hiring get ahead of your growth. One contraction could cause your business to screech to a halt and cause emergency reductions. Whether you’re growing or shrinking, the advice is the same – think longer term and make choices that best position you for steady, continuous growth and profitability. – 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!
When to Use a Cross-Functional Team
Learn about the types of situations that call for a cross-functional team. Cross-functional teams should be built when a project has a defined scope, the scope impacts multiple functional areas, and when the expertise required to successfully complete the project is not available only in the group leading the project. Scope determines which functions are or are not impacted. Without a clearly defined scope statement, it’s going to be hard to gather resources since people can claim they have higher priorities and their area isn’t in scope. With a well-defined scope, it becomes clear whether or not you need a cross-functional team. If the scope calls for skills your team lacks or requires working with other groups, you’re going to have to build a cross-functional team. It’s rare for a team to have all the support functions and perspectives it needs for every project it works on. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples. I was working on a major technology replacement. This required technology changes. It had telephony impacts. This project was going to change our financial reporting. It would have impacts on our call center, on our associates and their workflows. It was going to change the associate desktops. It was going to fundamentally alter our operations. We needed a big cross-functional team in that situation. I had another project where I ran a strategy and analysis team. We were going to make changes to the commissions we paid to some of our external agency partners. We own this function. We own the call center. We had the agency management function. The reporting was already built, so there would be no changes there. We didn’t have any technology changes we needed to make. We did not need a cross-functional team in that situation since we had all the resources we needed to make those changes. The easiest way to determine if you need a cross-functional […]
The Ten Stories Great Leaders Tell
Leadership isn’t just about standing up and speaking, it’s about weaving a story so compelling to bring everyone along the journey with you. Today’s post is by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS principal and author of the new book The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell. (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Good leaders ask, “How do I tell better stories?” Great leaders ask, “What stories do I need to tell?” Does that mean how you tell a leadership story doesn’t matter? Of course not. But if you tell an irrelevant or unimportant or self-serving story, it doesn’t matter how well you tell it. The story is more important than the delivery. And while great leaders need hundreds of stories, not all stories are equally important. I’ve interviewed over 300 CEOs, leaders, and executives in 25 countries around the world about their use of storytelling in business. Here’s my conclusion about the most important ten stories any leader needs to be able to tell at a moment’s notice: ONE: Where we came from (our founding story) – Nobody ever quit their job and started a company for a boring reason. Find that reason for your company’s founder and tell that story. It will infect everyone with the same sense of purpose and passion. TWO: Why we can’t stay here (a case-for-change story) – Human beings are creatures of habit. Change is an unwelcome visitor. This story provides the rationale for why change is needed and a real human reason to care.
How do you handle team members who have little aspiration for advancing their careers?
Our reader poll today asks: How do you handle team members who have little aspiration for advancing their careers? I let them do their thing as long as they’re performing in the role 61.25% I show them the benefits of growing their careers and hope they latch on 28.68% I push them into roles of greater responsibility to drive their growth 8.78% I have no idea how to handle those situations 1.29% Educate on Growth. Most of you indicate you’re okay with letting your team members plug along doing their thing and not advancing their careers if they don’t have those aspirations. But ask yourself if you truly know that they don’t want to advance or if you’re making that assumption on their behalf because they’ve never asked about it. If it’s the latter, you might be doing them a disservice. Many people don’t know how to effectively ask about career paths and advancement. Some feel it’s risky and might seem disloyal to ask about moving into other roles that aren’t on your team. They might worry about repercussions from a request like that. Some more junior employees may not understand they have a role in advocating for their advancement and figure “well, when I’m ready, the boss will approach me.” If you’re making the assumption that they don’t want to advance, I’d suggest you validate that with a candid conversation. Who knows – you may have the next rising star on your team but they simply don’t know how to get started with advancing their career. – 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!). […]
What is a Cross-Functional Team?
Learn what a cross-functional team is and why they can be so rewarding to manage. Imagine an orchestra made up of nothing but trumpets. Imagine a baseball team of all catchers. Imagine a medical team that’s nothing but radiologists. Those aren’t good situations. A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. It can include people from finance, marketing, operations and HR, and other key functional areas. Employees from different levels usually participate on a cross-functional team. The team might include frontline operators, managers and directors, and you may have analysts and project managers on the team. There may be other job families involved. These teams can also include people from outside the organization like suppliers, customers, or consultants.
Seven Strategies to Manage a Micro-Manager
Everyone has horror stories about a micro-managing boss. Here are a few strategies to manage your micro-manager. Today’s post is by Victor Prince, a principal here at thoughtLEADERS. If you work long enough, you will have a micro-managing boss. They think they know your job better than you do. Maybe they had your job before they got promoted to management. They focus on how you do your job instead of on the results you produce. They think that because you are doing your job differently than they would, you must be doing it incorrectly. Micro-management is a big driver of dissatisfaction and attrition in the workplace. Here are 7 strategies to manage a micromanaging manager. Diagnose the Situation – Is your boss micro-managing others or just you? It is important to understand whether you are being singled out or if you are just one of many victims. If they micro-manage others too, it’s probably them, not you. But if you are the only one being micro-managed, it might be you and it is worth figuring out why. Perhaps your boss is just more interested in your job than others. Or perhaps, they think you need closer scrutiny. If your boss’s micro-management is due to problems with your performance, you need to surface that discussion with them and address that head on.
How comfortable is your organization with making decisions in the face of uncertainty?
Our reader poll today asks: How comfortable is your organization with making decisions in the face of uncertainty? Very: Uncertainty doesn’t deter us at all from taking action now 24.22% Somewhat: We tend to try to resolve big uncertainties before acting 39.91% Not very: We’re really hesitant to act until we have a clear picture 27.80% Not at all: We won’t act until the vast majority of the uncertainty has been resolved 8.07% Uncertainty is always certain. 35% of you respond that your organization is pretty hesitant to act until uncertainty surrounding a decision is resolved and another 40% of you are somewhat hesitant. In theory it makes sense that we should wait to make decisions until uncertainty is resolved. In reality, the trap is that new sources of uncertainty emerge every day. You will never have complete resolution of uncertainty. Given that, it’s incumbent upon the leader to act based on the best information available, and, when new information comes to light, possibly make a different decision. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t try to resolve uncertainty before deciding. Just realize when you’re reaching that point of equilibrium at which every element of uncertainty you resolve, an equal amount of new uncertainty enters the equation. Once you get there, make a decision and move forward. – 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!