Ideas-to-Action

14 Words that will Change Your Life

Please.

Thank you.

I was wrong.

Forgive me.

I forgive you.

I love you.

The "Best Idea Ever"

I met the most amazing person earlier this week.  Jennifer Hale is a true expert in organizational development, leadership development, facilitation, and coaching.  Her joy and passion for helping people improve their lives and organizations radiates from her facial expressions, to the words she uses, to how she engages with people individually and as a group.  She has the unique ability to leave people in a better place than where they started.

In one of our training conversations this week, she told us about the "best idea ever".  I have thought about this idea, done some of it mentally, but never put the pen to paper. 

Life is about relationships.  We know that networking is critically important (both personally and professionally), but we often don't take the time to prioritize and invest in the relationships we want to build.  Now, we have technology like LinkedIn and Facebook to keep engaged with a variety of people who enter our lives, but...

Do you have your Top 20 list? 

Have you identified (i.e. written down on paper) the top 20 people who you want to build relationships with?  Notice, I did not say get something from (like a job recommendation or a work contract).  These are people that you are truly interested in and want to build a relationship that has 1) mutual enjoyment, 2) respect, 3) shared experiences, 4) trust, and 5) reciprocity (signs of a solid relationship from John Maxwell's "Talent is Never Enough").

You will find that your Top 20 will change over time.  Some people who were in the Top 20 will fall out, some will be added.  Always be open to new relationships.

For some people, getting to 20 is hard...stop reading right now, take 3 minutes and simply write down the Top 10 people that you want to develop deeper relationships with.  Was it who you expected?  Was it hard to find 10?  Who did you have to trade-off to get your top 10?  What are you doing today to invest in those relationships?  Do you have a plan to build the relationship?  Are your actions effective?  What could you do different?

One thought that was going through my mind as Jennifer was facilitating this week is that some people seem to treat the number of connections on LinkedIn as a "badge of honor" while others treat individuals with great honor and value.  We love to make connections through current technology.  They are easy and fast.  LinkedIn and Facebook are good tools to connect people, but then we must individually decide if we want to invest time and effort with specific people to build solid relationships.  We must take time to have conversations, not simply link to each other in the digital world.

How are you approaching networking and relationship building?  Are you investing in building solid relationships or simply created an on-line Rolodex?  Who is in your Top 20?

Jennifer, thanks for the spark...

Courageous Leadership

I am currently reading John Maxwell's new book "Talent is Never Enough".  First, I am a big fan of Maxwell's work (my disclaimer).  Second, I am really enjoying this read.  I particularly like his list about courageous leadership (pg 164)...

Courageous Leadership Simply Means I've Developed:

1. Convictions that are stronger than my fears.
2. Vision that is clearer than my doubts.
3. Spiritual sensitivity that is louder than popular opinion.
4. Self-esteem that is deeper than self protection.
5. Appreciation for discipline that is greater than my desire for leisure.
6. Dissatisfaction that is more forceful than the status quo.
7. Poise that is more unshakable than panic.
8. Risk taking that is stronger than safety seeking.
9. Right actions that are more robust than rationalization.
10. A desire to see potential reached more than to see people appeased.

Powerful.  Courageous.

Decrease in unsatisifed customers?

I am sitting here watching the news (or what is supposed to be news) and keep hearing about this poll and that poll regarding the different presidential candidates.  It reminded me of this quote from Evan Esar,

"Statistics: the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions."

While it is almost humorous to watch the political pollsters argue over a few percentage points, we don't have that type of latitude in our organizations.  Data is the lifeblood for making sound business decisions.  Decisions that could lead to business growth and job creation or decisions that could lead to business decline and headcount reductions.  The data needs to be accurate and precise, and communicated in a way that it clearly represents the facts (or true truth).

I once heard heard some analysts talking about increases in customer attrition rates and they jokingly defined it as "a decrease in unsatisfied customers".

Please be careful how you collect data and communicate information.

...and speaking of pursuing your passion...

Maxine Clark has a great passion behind Build-a-Bear.  This story in BusinessWeek online is a wonderful little reminder about the joy you can receive (and help others create) by pursuing your passion.

I particularly like her closing comments:

Finally, you should always allow yourself to dream—and dream big—it's only through such thinking that great things happen. Don't limit yourself because you don't think your dream is attainable. You must start by believing you can truly achieve whatever you set your mind to, no matter how big it might seem. Not dreaming big enough is one of the biggest mistakes you can make—if you can't see your dream, how do you expect others to?

I have always been a strong proponent of dreaming big...or making your goals hilarious.

Doing

Hello everyone!  I am back from my unintended 6-week sabbatical.  What started as a simple delay in blog writing to "do" some work led to re-prioritization (my to do list was already long when I woke up in the morning) which ultimately led to procrastination (as I got a chance to take a breather).  Thanks for hanging with me during this time away.  Also, thanks to my friend Mark for holding me accountable to my blog commitment.

This has been a great 6-week journey of learning for me, particularly around the concept of "doing".  "Do" is a critical step in the knowledge building process.  "Do" is a key part of the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle, aka the Shewhart cycle or Deming cycle.  "Do" is where work is performed to execute the ideas and hypothesis defined during "Plan".  There is no substitute for "doing".

However, I have talked to many people that get stuck "doing".  They wake up each day, go to work, do the job, then get paid every other Friday.  They have a good job.  They are competent, hard workers, and the boss loves them.  Life is satisfying. 

Sounds like a great gig...here's the problem:  The world is constantly changing and we must spend time growing, developing, learning something new, and continuously improving our skills and knowledge.  Today's highly sought after skill is tomorrow's entry level position (or outsource opportunity).  We must actively manage our growth and career to continuously move up the value contribution curve.  It is about finding and pursing your passion with every ounce of vigor you have.  It is about growing yourself and helping to grow others.

Early in my career I was told that I had a choice to 1) live to work or 2) work to live.  I have come to believe that is the desperate choice of desperate people who have not found or do not pursue their passion.  A few weeks ago I was asked about the most critical characteristic I look for when hiring someone.  For me, it is easy:  passion.  A person with passion is determined, pursues excellence, is willing to learn.  Skills can be learned, but passion is fundamental to growth and adding value.  Pursuing passion nullifies the desperate choice of desperate people.

If you are struggling in the rut of "doing" and desire more, here are some questions to ponder:

• How much of your time is spent "going through the motions" of your job? 
• What have you done in the last month to grow your knowledge and skills? 
• How much protected time do you set aside each month for professional development? 
• Who is your mentor? 
• Who are you mentoring?
• What excites you?
• What do you want to do next?
• What type of work environment do you want in the next few years?
• What do you love?  and...What do you hate?

"Doing" is important, but if you find yourself trying to answer the question of "live to work or work to live", make up your mind that you don't have to make a choice.  Instead, vigorously pursue your passion and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Create an Atmosphere of Innovation

In our ongoing series on business innovation, Clay Richardson and I just posted a new column on BP Trends.  In previous columns we explored creating value through customer-centric innovation and creating agility through disciplined, collaborative business process management (BPM).  This month we turn our attention to the human side of innovation and present a conversation about things you can begin doing today to  create an atmosphere of innovation in your organizations.

Read more about 1) stimulating creativity, 2) setting hilarious goals, 3) making your box bigger, and 4) executing faster...

We hope you enjoy the column.  Oh, and feel free to come back here and give us your thoughts.

Quickest Way to Develop Leadership Skills

I am a strong believer that leadership can be learned.  While you may be born with personality traits that can help you be an effective leader, most of the skills are learned and honed through years of "doing leadership". 

The Problem:  Companies (generally) do a poor job of developing leaders.  Yes, your company may have the requisite training classes that you attend as part of your development plan...then you go back to your day job with little ability to hone the skills you learned because of the scope of your current position.  Also, companies tend to be reactive, focusing leadership training on individuals only after they have attained a level of management responsibility.  (Sidebar: leadership in companies tends to get attributed to the organization chart.  Whoever is at the top of the pyramid is the leader.  Don't confuse positional management responsibility with the ability to lead people and organizations.)

The Solution:  What you can do to develop your ability to lead people and organizations:

1. Check your motivation.  It is OK to be ambitious, seeking and desiring leadership.  Your leadership ambition should to serve others.  Selfish ambition is wrong - don't seek great things for yourself.  If you believe leadership is getting others to serve you, then you will always fall short.
2. Find problems to solve. Your company is full of problems that people don't want to touch.  Seek out high risk problems and volunteer to solve them.  Do this as a special project, outside the scope of your day job and, preferably, for an executive that is not your current manager.  Build a coalition of volunteers across your company (not just in your work group) that are willing to tackle the tough issue.
3. Lead volunteer organizations or projects.  Look outside your company and get involved in community, charitable, religious, or other local organizations.  It is one thing to manage people that work for you (i.e. get a paycheck from you), but it is entirely different to lead people who volunteer their time and talents.  Personally, I think this is the best way to develop and hone leadership skills and develop people acumen because the people serving with you can walk away at anytime.  Employees must do the work.  Volunteers don't have to serve.
4. Spend more time doing.  There is no substitute for doing, but "do" with a focus on application of what you learned, predicting outcomes, studying the results, and making plans for next actions (hmm, sounds like a PDSA cycle).  Grab a good leadership book (John Maxwell has a bunch of them), do a little reading, then build and execute a plan to develop a specific leadership skill.
5. Get a mentor.  A key skill of leaders is to reproduce leaders.  Leadership training is best suited for one-on-one relationships.  Leaders are produced one by one, not mass manufactured from a top-tier MBA program or a company leadership training program.  A good leader will take time to instruct, enlighten, discipline, and nurture an aspiring leader on an individual basis.  Find one.  Get engaged.

There is nothing holding you back from quickly developing the skills and preparing the opportunities to lead.  What actions are you taking today to build your leadership skills?

"Change" is meaningless

The "change" word seems to be everywhere.  Barack Obama seems to be making a lot of headway touting "change" (not a political endorsement).  While the word "change" may play well in during the political season, "change" by itself is meaningless in our personal and business lives.

Here is the problem:  Change does not mean improvement. 

Associates in Process Improvement have a simple and straightforward model that I have found useful to frame improvements in my personal life and business life.  The model is based on 3 questions:

1. What are we trying to accomplish? (Set aims)
2. How will we know change is an improvement? (Establish measures)
3. What change can we make that will result in improvement? (Select changes)

It seems so simple...and it is.  But, it is also very powerful.  Powerful enough that the Institute for Healthcare Improvement uses it as their base improvement model in their 5 Million Lives Campaign.

Peter Kim recently posted his resolutions for 2008.  He did a great job of identifying what he wants to accomplish (be more green, lose weight, save more money), identifying key measures to determine if he actually improves, and creating some hypotheses about what he can do to make an improvement.  He is also searching for expert knowledge (see his green resolution) on other ways to make an improvement.  There is no substitute for expert knowledge.

As you move forward into 2008, making resolutions and vows to change something about your life, I encourage you to move beyond the desire to change and take real action to improve.  Use the 3 questions to frame your improvement, then start testing your changes to see what works and does not work.

Remember, improvement requires making changes, but not all changes result in improvement....

Don't just change.  Improve.

Key Principles for Business Transformation

I am fortunate enough to attend and speak at the IIR BPM Conference this week.  There has been a tremendous amount of good information exchanged at the conference and I am very happy to see that BPM is making the transition from IT organizations to business organizations.  However, one thing that seems to be missing is the importance of leadership and guiding human change.  The more I learn about the difficulty leaders face to manage and improve their organizations, the more I appreciate the value of Deming's 14 Points as key principles to transform business:

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
11. a) Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership. b) Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
12. a) Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to joy of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. b) Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to joy of workmanship. This means abolishment of the annual merit rating and of management by objective.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

No, the 14 Points are not prescriptive.  They don't give you the how to guide for business transformation.  There is not a formula.  But they do give great guiding principles so you can make transformation real for your own organization.