Leaders are faced with two conflicting needs. The first is to act with a deep confidence in their abilities and the strategies they are implementing. This allows them to pursue audacious goals and persevere when faced with adversity. The second is to be aware of their vulnerabilities and the need for a healthy dose of self-doubt. This allows them to see themselves and their situations accurately — avoiding, in particular, the hazards of over-confidence and excessive optimism. Those who fail to do so run the risk of having blindspots — which are the unrecognized weaknesses or threats that have the potential to harm a leader and his or her company.
Savvy leaders understand that blindspots, while they vary in severity and are different for each individual, are not the exception — instead, they “come with the territory.” The question then becomes: How do I surface and address the blindspots that matter? One way is to ask the right questions in the right way. Here are some guidelines for identifying blindspots:
1. Avoid yes-or-no questions.Closed-end questions (those that can answered yes or no) are efficient, but don’t surface information that may be critical to understanding a potential weakness or threat. Questions are called open-ended when they allow for a variety of responses and provoke a fuller discussion. For example, a closed-end question might be, “Are you going to deliver your business plan this year?” while an open-ended question is, “Tell me about the risks you face in delivering your plan and the actions you are taking to mitigate them?”
2. Don’t lead the witness. Hard-charging leaders often push to confirm their own assumptions about what is occurring in a given situation and often want to move quickly to a plan of action. This can result in questions that are really statements, such as, “Doesn’t this mean that we don’t have a problem with compliance in this area and can move forward as planned?” These types of questions, particularly when posed by those in positions of power, often prevent contrary points of view and necessary data from surfacing.
Achieving your goals is all about taking tangible steps every day. If you change your time horizon and ask yourself six simple questions, you’ll find you’re achieving your goals more rapidly than you ever thought possible.
I met an eighty-eight-year-old man named Orville at my health club. I first noticed him one afternoon while checking in at the front desk. He was stumbling along behind me. There was no way this man, slowly shuffling along the path to the gym, was going to do any kind of meaningful workout! Orville patiently moved, inch by inch, into the weight-training area, picked up some dumbbells, and, with an audible grunt, started his routine.
One day I happened to see Orville out of the corner of my eye, stepping onto one of the treadmills. I was across the room, and he was already reaching for the start button. Too far away to help him, I just stood there and watched. As the treadmill came to life, Orville took one small step, and then another. The machine picked up speed, but miraculously, so did his legs. Within a minute, he hit full stride, running like a man half his age!
At this point the reality of the situation dawned on me. Orville’s problem was not with his legs, it was with his vision. He couldn’t see where he was going. Though Orville did nothing to cause his vision problem, it is a powerful example of how limited we are when we lack clarity and vision.
How often do leaders and employees lack clarity in their communication, and as a result, drive forward ambiguous goals?
I think 90 days is the best timeframe for most goals. A year is too long – see how few people keep New Year’s Resolutions? Twenty-one days is too short for most real change. However, in 90 days, I was able to lose 33 pounds! And I’ve seen people triple their sales in 90 days. That’s why I like the 90-Day Quick Plan. It is a strategy for clarifying how you are going to achieve your most vital goals.
Pick an area of your business or personal life that you’d like to address, and then ask six questions. Don’t wait to start because the plan should take less than thirty minutes to create. All you need to do is ask and answer these six questions:
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/20220627-Number-Six.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-06-27 08:00:092022-06-27 05:25:036 Steps to Achieving Your Goals in 90 Days
If you’re not mindful of the direction your life is headed, you might end up somewhere you’re unhappy with. Be deliberate and intentional about where you’re headed. Answer this set of four questions to get a better sense of your direction.
We all face crossroads moments in our lives and careers, those times when we feel compelled to change direction. Those choice points most often arise because we feel inspired to embark on a new adventure or we’re desperate to change the situation we’re in. One of my biggest choice points came seventeen years ago, when I realized that if I didn’t change the bus I was riding on, I might not even be around to have a life and a career.
At the time, I was in my late thirties. I was running my own coaching and consulting practice, starting a new women’s leadership company, and I was going to graduate school, consistently working seventy to eighty weeks. I was employed as a consultant on a change management project for a division of Fortune 500 Company, partnering with a Vice President named Ellen to help to “humanize” her organization. Ellen and I had developed a close friendship over the two years we’d worked together on the project. She’d become a corporate mentor to me and I, an informal coach to her.
One day in late September, Ellen and I met for lunch. She was reeling from her performance review earlier that morning that hadn’t gone well. Working 24/7 with little support, Ellen had single-handedly attempted to change the culture of her organization. Her efforts threatened her boss and some of the senior leadership team as their hierarchical and dictatorial approach to power was exposed and beginning to break down.
I’d never seen Ellen look so hopeless or physically drained. She was sweating profusely and was having a difficult time focusing on our conversation. Led by my concern for her well-being, I told Ellen how concerned I was about her health, then proceeded to tear a piece of paper off the top of the tablecloth and wrote, “Rx for Ellen. Take 3 days off, leave your cell phone at home, and go to a monastery and rest.” Ellen read the note, wadded up the paper, shoved it her purse and said, “Stop worrying about me, Donna, I’m fine! I don’t want to discuss this anymore!”
I paid the check and we said goodbye. Although I knew something was terribly wrong, I had no idea it would be the last conversation I’d ever have with Ellen. Read more
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/20220620-Two-Buses.jpg?fit=1920%2C1281&ssl=112811920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-06-20 13:34:322022-06-20 13:33:34Be Careful Which Bus You Get On: Having a Fulfilling Life and Career
Creativity is a skill that can be built like any other. Understanding your passion and challenging the voices in your head that say “no” are a great way to start.
Maybe it’s disingenuous to say that each of us has the potential to be a creative genius. Gifts of personality are dispensed in varied measures at birth. Humans are tangled balls of social conditioning, reactions to environment, and serendipity. Life isn’t fair. Luck plays a part. We’ve all heard someone say, “I was in the right place at the right time” or “I never get lucky.”
As far as creativity is concerned, most people believe you’ve either got it or you don’t. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard someone say wistfully, “I’m not creative.” When I hear a statement like that, I think to myself, “No one has ever shown you where to begin.”
Because the fact is, creativity, like any skill, can be cultivated. It takes a healthy combination of self-knowledge and stamina.
Athletes have an advantage: prescribed methods of building stamina, because physical prowess is revered by our culture. Hire a personal trainer and you’ll start with a series of exercises done repetitively – gradually adding reps as the body gains strength. Exercise is specific, varied, and involves what’s called cross training. One day a session of running to work cardio. Next time? Yoga to maximize flexibility. A steady, balanced program of activity keeps the human machine functioning at its optimal level.
So what about the rest of us? How can we engage creatively with what we care about – whether it’s a job or an avocation? And just as important – how can we identify what works against building creative stamina in every aspect of our lives?
I teach artists how to build stamina through what I call “creativity strength training” but the fact is, the lessons apply to everyone.
Here are three aspects of thinking more creatively each of us can embrace.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220523-Painted-Hands.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-05-23 08:00:092022-05-23 03:41:21Building Creative Stamina: Three Keys to Strength Training for Adults
Executive presence is an element of leadership that’s easy to recognize but difficult to develop, but might be the difference in your career progressing forward.
Executive presence is an element of leadership that’s easy to recognize but difficult to develop. In fact, in a recent study by the Center for Talent Innovation, it was found that feedback on executive presence is often contradictory and confusing and that 81% of those who are instructed to improve their executive presence are unclear on how to act on it.
For instance, can you relate to any of the situations below?
You have been passed up for a promotion—even though your record demonstrates that you’re smart enough and capable enough. No one can put a finger on exactly what the issue is, but it’s enough to hold you back.
Your boss or someone higher on the food chain has mentioned to you that, “you might consider improving your executive presence.” You walk away thinking to yourself, ok, now what?
You’re a manager with a team member who you know has the capability to shine but is struggling to find their voice.
Having spent the last 20 years helping executives develop executive presence, I have found the process to be something that people (regardless of gender, industry, country, and culture) struggle to understand and develop.
Stories are a great way to connect with your customer. They can make the ordinary product or service you’re selling extraordinary by adding richness and experience to the sale.
In May of 2015, my wife Lisa convinced me to attend a juried art fair with her at Coney Island in Cincinnati, Ohio. As an artist herself, she has a sophisticated appreciation for fine art that I don’t. She can spend hours on end lazily drifting from one booth to the next, studying each piece and talking to the artists about their inspiration, medium, and techniques. Me, I just like to look at the pictures.
As the day dragged on, we arrived at the booth of Chris Gug (pronounced “Goog”), a photographer known for his awe-inspiring images of marine life. His gallery is full of breathtaking underwater shots of anemones, corals, sea turtles, and whales. On a mission to find a piece for our boys’ bathroom at home, Lisa eyed a picture that, to me, looked about as out of place as a pig in the ocean.
It was a picture of a pig in the ocean.
She described it as inspired genius—a cute little baby piglet, up to its nostrils in salt water, snout covered with sand, dog-paddling its way straight into the camera lens.
I thought it was a picture of a pig in the ocean.
I asked the artist what on Earth that pig was doing in the ocean. And that’s when the magic started.
Gug explained that the picture was taken in the Caribbean, just off the beach of an uninhabited Bahamian island officially named Big Major Cay. He told us that years ago, a local entrepreneur brought a drove of pigs to the island to raise for bacon. Gug went on:
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220502-Pig-Bahamas.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-05-02 08:00:252022-05-02 04:56:41What We All Need to Learn About Sales – From a Pig
Emotions are the core of all human beings but not managing them properly might be what is keeping your team from achieving the most efficiency in their day.
Today’s post is by Jon Wortmann, thoughtLEADERS instructor.
How much time is strong emotion wasting in your office? You know the routine: someone says something in a meeting, someone else flies off the handle. The meeting is effectively over. Or someone gets pissed about an email and starts talking to everyone in the office about how awful the sender is. The time spent cleaning up the spin cycle is exhausting and a drain. Or perhaps the most wasteful: people get angry and simply stop contributing.
Strong emotion is inevitable in our digital, global world. So many of us are working harder, longer, and at all hours of the day. The stress level running through our veins is higher than it used to be from the first moments we wake. Complicating the demands are the interruptions. Multiple screens, communication channels, open offices, and the expectation to respond instantly are literally driving us mad. Studies of interruption by Gloria Mark of UC Irvine show that when people are interrupted, they work faster. Here’s the problem she also discovered: They get more stressed too. The stress causes us to get stuck in an emotionally reactive place, and most of us don’t know what to do next.
I wrote my most recent book, What Keeps Leaders Up At Night, on a barstool at my kitchen counter. The day I started chapter 3, a chapter about stress, my neighbor started construction on her house. When I say “construction,” I mean a complete demolition that started at 5 AM and continued well into the night. The contractors enjoyed screaming profanities as loud as they could, blasting music, and doing the loudest possible work either very early in the morning or really late at night. The screaming. The hammering. The noise!
After a week, I was living in a state of chronic agitation, “grrrr-ing” throughout the day, not sleeping well at night, anticipating being awoken by a jackhammer or drill that would feel like it was inside my brain. My concentration and thinking were so shot that I couldn’t think, let alone write. In hindsight, I probably should have gone elsewhere to work, but I couldn’t think clearly. I was stuck in a state of stress-induced stupidity and mired in rage. My state of existence became a stream of fragmented grunts and groans. I lacked the brainpower to change the situation, to think: “Go to a coffee shop or your office, Nicole.” The deadline for chapter 3 was fast approaching.
Prolonged, chronic stress often causes relative stupidity. Today’s business environment is saturated with “low-grade fevers:” financial problems, overwork, job dissatisfaction, jackhammers, drills, information overload and a host of other issues. Amazingly enough, though our brains are capable of dealing with sudden acute stress, they don’t fare so well with chronic stress, i.e., the endless little yipping Chihuahuas that prompt what psychologists call the long-term fight/flight response.
Our stress response triggers hormone secretion (especially mood-altering cortisol) and the perceptions of a given threat determine the type and amount of hormones the endocrine system will dispense. A steady bombardment of blinking lights, phone beeps, email alerts, and personal/professional obligations build up a chemical cocktail that keeps our bodies in a constant state of edginess, impairing memory, thinking and learning. Left unnoticed or ignored, this condition increases the odds that you will end up with serious mental and/or physical health problems, or in my case, pure stupidity.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20220404-Stressed-Woman-at-Laptop.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-04-04 08:00:592022-04-04 00:45:38The Role Stress Plays in Stupidity
Getting your buyers to tell stories can give you insight into how to sell to them more effectively. Here are five ways to get your buyers to tell you their stories.
Your first objective in a sales call shouldn’t be to tell any of your stories. It should be to get the buyer to tell you their stories. If you don’t hear their stories first, how will you know which of your stories to tell?
You wouldn’t trust a doctor who wrote you a prescription without listening to you explain your problem, would you? Of course not. Then why would a buyer accept the recommendation of a salesperson who did the same thing?
And if you’re unsure about what kind of stories you should want to hear from your prospects, here are the three most productive ones you should be asking for:
A personal story – so you can get to know them better
A story about their biggest problem – so you’ll know what kind of help they need
A story about how their favorite supplier became their favorite supplier – so you can become their favorite supplier
Now, getting your buyers to talk is easy. Getting them to tell you stories requires a little more work. And you should want them to actually tell you stories not just talk, and for many of the same reasons why you should be telling stories to them:
It’ll help you relax and listen better
It’ll help you build a better relationship with them
It’ll help you better remember what they say, plus
When the story they tell is about the problem they’re facing, it helps you understand the context so you’ll have a better idea of the opportunity you’re up against.
So, here are five tactics being used by successful salespeople to get their buyers to tell stories:
Shut Up and Listen
That’s probably the most obvious but underutilized tactic to get stories out of buyers. Human beings abhor silence in a conversation like nature abhors a vacuum. We’re desperate to fill the void with something. So, if you can resist the temptation for that something to be your voice, you have a near certain chance of that something being the buyer’s voice.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220328-What-is-Your-Story-Sign.jpg?fit=1920%2C1440&ssl=114401920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-03-28 08:00:272022-03-28 04:46:375 Ways to Get Buyers to Tell Stories to Help You Close the Deal
Train your Inner Matrix to improve personal mastery in leadership, increase your potential for money and happiness, and enhance personal growth and development.
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, when Beth was a little girl, her mother gave her cookies when she was feeling sad or scared. Now, as an adult, Beth associates cookies with comfort and safety. When she is feeling sad or scared, Beth reaches for the Oreos. Her emotional state drives her actions. And we can take it a step further. Beth believes she is overweight and out of shape. She’s been trying to cut back on sugar, so the action of reaching for the cookies triggers the emotion of shame which tells the story, “I can’t stop myself from eating the cookies; therefore, I’m a weak person; therefore, I’m a bad person.” Those thoughts fuel the emotions of sadness, or even fear, which in turn drive the desire to eat more cookies. Beth is caught in an emotion loop. The good news is, with training and practice, Beth’s Inner Matrix can be reconfigured and she can activate a new, more positive emotion loop.
Let’s go back to our friend, Nick (a real person, but not his real name). Nick had been considering a career change but he wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. He knew he wanted to make more money, work with people he enjoyed being around, and to be part of an expansive culture. All things that his current job did not offer. Rather than hammering out a thousand applications to a thousand different companies, hoping to land on something that matched his criteria, Nick decided to create the conditions within himself that would attract the outcome he was looking for. He started by defining the emotional state from which he would operate. For Nick, that emotion was inspiration. He thought about all of the positive results he wanted to cultivate for himself. He wrote them down, he imagined them, and he trained the emotion of inspiration as it pertained to his job. Day after day, he started coming into work feeling more inspired, more energetic, and more passionate. These new emotions were not part of the culture in which he was currently working. And so, the fateful day came when he was called into the boss’s office. Nick was presented with a fact: You are no longer employed. But because of his training, Nick was able to avoid telling himself the story that he was a failure. Instead he told himself the story of an opportunity to make his life better, that losing this job was a sign that better things are coming. His emotional state was aligned with the outcomes he was choosing to create. He had attuned his Inner Matrix to achieve the results he desired.
Whether you are looking to advance your career or improve performance in your current job, you too can train yourself to create any outcome in three simple steps: 1. Recognize the patterns in your Inner Matrix that are creating less than optimal results. 2. Stop those patterns. 3. Train new patterns that align with your desired results.
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!
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220321-Worker-by-Window.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-03-21 08:00:472022-03-22 17:18:48Training Your Inner Matrix for Career Success
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. Read more
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220314-Book.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-03-14 08:00:322022-03-14 04:07:28The Ten Stories Great Leaders Tell
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.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220306-Point-at-Laptop.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-03-07 08:00:062022-03-06 22:52:10Seven Strategies to Manage a Micro-Manager
