Enough is Enough – Outrage in Action

Most of us have had enough of bad behavior, bad people and a bad turn for the worse in our country.  From entitled children to nut cases that kill aged priests, the gamut of insanity is spread fairly evenly across the spectrum of – who gives a crap to the world is coming to an end.

Being outraged is not enough to effect any type of change at all.  Putting outrage in action makes the difference – and below I give you three ways to do just that.  Sure, there are others, but consider this a good start.

Grow a Pair

Not long ago I was waiting in a doctor’s office lobby waiting for an appointment.  While there a nicely dressed elderly woman entered, checked in and took a seat.  I smiled and said hello and we exchanged greetings.  A moment later, a young man and a much younger woman (girl) entered with a baby.  They two took a seat – but as if there was nobody else present and they were in a townie bar or at a NASCAR race they began in dropping the “F” bomb like Halloween candy.  At first I was surprised – but quickly grew angry when I noticed the effect their terrible language was having on the kind elderly lady.

I did all I could do.  I rose and walked to where they were seated and politely asked then to reframe from the bad language in the presence of a lady, nodding to my new friend.  As one would expect they were not happy that I called them out – but they did stop swearing at least while I was present and in the end that is all I wanted.

Here is the point – you know the right things to do and say and recognize when the wrong things are being said and done.  Say something.  You might have to dig down deep to do it, mostly because we have become so tolerant of bad behavior and vulgarity, but what needs to be said, needs to be said.  Grow a Pair.

2.  Change you – I read recently that the faults we find in others are likely the faults that exist in ourselves.  It is an interesting thing to consider when meditating and may reveal a lot about you – what you tolerate and what you don’t, and what needs to change.

When you realize you’re not perfect, and you are not, take time to make a change in the direction of kindness and love.  Understanding and patience.  The first change I recommend is to change the words you use.  There is a lot of data to back this up, but we know that the worlds we use, are actually heard by our brain and used as facts in processing and creating our reality.  Change your thoughts.  Change you.

3.  Help a neighbor – The reason the world is full of hate is because many of us, that is most of us, do nothing to create love in our worlds.  There are literally thousands of ways you could begin to make a difference, but I recommend helping a neighbor.  Look around where you live.  Is there someone close by that is having a hard time getting by?  Are there elderly people near by that might need your help with their lawn – or just a new friend to chat with.

If 270 Million poeple in America decided today to do something nice for a neighbor our world would be instantly changed.  Of course, if one one did, it would begin to change the world, and at least one person.

Finally . . . .

Somethings that need to be said . . . .

• Drug dealers should go to jail for a very long time.
• Children should be taught that it’s not having what you want, it is wanting what you have, and
• Change begins with you – right now – today – with someone close by that can not pay you back.

We’ll talk more.

Enough is Enough – Time to be Outraged (and act).

I’m shocked at what I see happening in the world.  From terrorism to drug dealing to entitled children, the fabric of society is falling apart.  And it is falling apart for one reason – one reason alone.  Tolerance.  Dig into some examples:

The democratic party is preparing to nominate Hillary Clinton as their candidate and based on some odds makers she will very likely become president.  Only a brief and shallow look at her history shows she has engaged in criminal activity from inside trading to lying to congress.  She holds the responsibility for the death of an American ambassador and three others – yet skirts around it and asks, “What does it matter?”  She compromised our national security by illegally and against all security sense and rules set up a server in her mansion.

Just a few days ago a 19 year old killed 8 people at a shopping mall in Munich.  During the shooting an eye-witness who self identifies as a Muslim says she heard him yelling, “alllah ‘akbar”, but within hours we are told that he was just a violent teenager, not a religious extremist terrorist.  The eye-witness accounts have disappeared from the news reporting.

Recently I heard Ernie Chambers, a fringe democratic state senator in Nebraska, call for leniency for drug dealers.  He thought the sentences imposed where too long, and drug dealing was a victimless crime.  Apparently Ernie has not spent any time looking at before and after photos of kids that got turned on to meth by his victimless crime dealers.

It’s time to be outraged.

We need to set aside our partisanship for a time and call something what it is.

• Terrorism is terrorism – and it needs to be dealt with directly and harshly – by the police, the public, elected officials, friends and families of these nuts, everyone.
• Hillary Clinton, had she been in politics only 40 years ago would have been indicted by her own party, much less the Republicans.  The political landscape needs to be cleansed of criminals and asswipes.
• Drug dealers need to not only go to prison for a long time – they and their families should be made to pay restitution for the long term effects of their drug crimes.

I could go on, but the idea is this, it’s time to be outraged.  Outraged at letting men use the ladies room, at the president and his wife taking $40,000,000 vacations in Spain, at children manipulating their parents with their misplaced entitlements, with congress doing nothing to stop the madness in government even though they have the awareness and power.

We got to where we are today because we were tolerant – tolerant of everything.  Now we have become tolerant of perverts, terrorists and known criminals.

Screw tolerance – TIME TO BE OUTRAGED.

(STAND BY WITH THE LIST OF THINGS TO DO TO CAHNGE – BEFORE IT IS TO LATE)

Take Stock – Keep a Long View

It is interesting to me to listen to people talk about their goals and accomplishments.  The common theme is always where they are in the moment – or what got done in the last week or so.  For them, and most of us, most of the time, this approach leads to a less than favorable appreciation for the fruits of our labor.

The reason for this is pretty obvious – when we are looking at life long growth and objectives, even a good week had very little overall progress.  None of this is a new flash to anyone, I’m sure, but the effects of it can be devastating.  If we define our success by the progress in the last 24 hours, the last sales call, or the most recent personal interaction, we are not going to hold out a great deal of hope for a bright future.

I started a new job about a year and half ago here in Nebraska.  Like all new jobs I was overwhelmed at first.  My first few months I tried to cull through what looked important and understand what was important.  In short order I narrowed down what success would look like for the team and poured myself and the resources available to me and the team into those items.

Day to day there were more disappointments than successes.  I found out who knew what they were doing, and who only acted like they did. I also discovered who got things done and those that made excuses.  Through this time I had few good days, mostly bad days, and seldom made any real progress on things that needed attention.

Without going into the details of my work, suffice it to say we had pages of work I would consider “past due”.  Things that could have and should have been done, but for good and bad reasons was left incomplete.  The past tolerated inaction.

Jumping to today, the team has completed nearly everything that was past due, finished all critical work, prioritizes new work well and completes it within agreed upon timeframes, and all routine work for 2016 was done months ago.

Even with that said, if you look to a single day this last week, it looked a lot like a single day last year.  But if you look back at where we were, and consider where we are now, you see considerable progress.  There is a secret here:

• When talking to the team about what you’ve accomplished, take the long view.
• When talking to the team about what you can get done today, tomorrow, or next week, take the short view.

The long view keeps everyone in the game – there is no losing hope when you count progress over time.  Morale never suffers, everyone keeps their perspective and progress is made over time.

The short view is the secret to having something to count in the long view.  You might not have the ability to do everything today – for lack of resources like parts and pieces or people – but there are things we can do.  And what we can do is where the focus should be.  And that’s your job – to keep the short term focus on what you can do.

There is more to this – like talent, priorities and setting boundaries and timelines, but that will follow in future posts.  Suffice it to say that progress is best measured in the long view.

We’ll talk more.

 

If you look for the Worst, you’ll find it . . .

The quote to the right is a screen shot our of the book, “The One Thing” by Gary Keller.  If you have not read it you should.  It is a masterful work full of truth and wisdom with actionable steps to accomplish great things.

This entry is not about Keller though, or about his book, but a concept that I have spoken about a number of times in my work on strengths, particularly with supervisors in health care.

You get what you look for.  Nothing to earth shattering there until you take it apart a little and begin playing it out in your life and work.  Let’s do just that.

Leading People

People are messy.  Irritating.  Unpredictable.  People are a pain in the ass much of the time.  When you need them the most they show up late.  They even leave early without telling anyone.  Some people gossip and run down the organization while drawing a substantial sum for the services they provide.  Yes, people are definitely messy.

If any of this sounds or feels familiar you have likely lead a team of people on a quest for fun and profit.  And all of the traits described and more oozed out while moving to an outcome important to you, them and those you serve.  Welcome to the real world.

People are also kind.  Generous. Funny and open hearted.  They raise families, cut their grass, attend church and help out the Boy Scouts.   They drop off their daughters at soccer, and cut their elderly neighbors lawns when it’s hot.

How can the same human being occupy the same skin and bones at the same time?  Easy.  They are both people at one time, and likely a lot more.  Each person is the accumulated perception of what each of us chooses to see.  If we see someone as helpful and kind – they will be.  If we see them as bitchy and gossiping – they will be that too.

The point is if you look for the best in the people who work for you, you’ll find it.  If you look for the worst – well, shit, you’ll find that too.  I’m not saying you can manipulate people into being who you want, but I am saying you can choose to see others talents and strengths instead of their faults and weaknesses.  It is a choice.

Living Life

The same concept applies in all of life.  The wife that looks for the worst in her husband will find it and it will define him to her.  The children that whine about how they’re raised will remember their childhood as dysfunctional (funny all the photos of when they were children were full of smiling faces and fun times – I often wonder when the so called terrible childhoods occurred).

It’s the same in traffics, waiting in line at the post office, or watching  your sons swim meet.  What we look for is what we see.  So, with all that said, the point is pretty clear – we create our own reality.  We choose how to process people and situations and those choices add up to who we are.

The Damage We Cause

If the harm we caused by how we saw the world was isolate to us alone, it would be not big deal.  But it isn’t.  When we see the worst in others, it not only effects us, but them.  They either begin to live up to the expectation of being substandard, or they fight back.  Neither being very good options for creating a team or building a strong family.

We’ll talk more.

 

The Basics: Step 3 – Coming Alive

I read a great book recently which was titled, “The Rise of Superman” by Steven Cotler and would include it in my top ten books of all time.  There is a quote from the book that is a fitting entry point for this chapter.

Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.

In the first two steps you discovered who you are, and what you’ve done.  You’ve looked back in time for the best in yourself and your accomplishments and made some important discoveries.  Not least of which is that what made you great when you were in high school, also made you great in graduate school – or your first job or first business.

The first two steps almost seem unneccesary for those of you that are terribly self aware and self honest about your talents and successes.  For the rest of us, working from a list is necessary to understand and act on step 3.  It is time to come alive.

But How Did This Happen

This is an important side trip before we get to where we’re going.  If you have had all of those success, and they have always been there, and the act of doing them was so satisfying how in the world did you end up where you are?  The short answer is “who cares”.  The long answer is “who the hell cares”.

What I’m saying here is to just not think about it.  It doesn’t matter because you’re not going back to re-live your life or change any past choices.  Here you are – now more aware – but here none the less.

Coming Alive

Knowing who you are and what you love to do and are successful at is like having a bank account full of cash.  You don’t benefit from the account until you start righting checks – and you don’t benefit from your talents, and successes, and awareness until you use it with purpose- and that is “on purpose”.

I don’t know what you love to do and have done well with passion all of your life, but I do know that no matter what it is there is always a way to leverage it the benefit of yourself and others.  And as usual, it is pretty easy to begin.

Review Step 2 and choose one item of the list.  Maybe you have always been a great trainer or presenter – it has been something has made you come alive your entire life and you know doing it will give you the same feeling and effect.

Take 20 minutes a day researching a topic that you’re passionate about – maybe it is politics, or antiques, or NASCAR – choose something that trips your trigger.  After collecting data – tons of data – from what you learned into an organized format with your 20 minutes a day, organize it into a presentation that makes sense.  When you have something that feels like about 50% of what you want to talk about, find some folks to tell it too.  Your local Chamber of Commerce has lists of social and professional organizations that are always looking for speakers or trainers and they would love to have you present.  Schedule a few and get started.

Maybe you like to organize things – volunteer at the Goodwill and help put clothes out.  Perhaps you like to decorate homes – take a class and begin helping your friends.  Painting?  Brick laying?  Just get started.

What About Work?

Forget work for a while and think about life.  I am keenly aware that part of life is work and having talent and not using to benefit yourself or your employer can be a waste of your time, but the point is to come alive – not just come alive at work.

The point is you need to figure out and act on what makes you come alive.  It can mean a promotion, starting a business or spending a year on the space station – more likely however it will mean being a better and more passionate parent, friend and member of your community.

Time to come alive.

We’ll talk more.

Go!

The Basics: Step 2 – What Did You Do?

If you started this series from the beginning you’ve already had quite a journey.  You had to set aside the nonsense about success you’ve been spoon fed for years, and taken a trip back in time to list the successes that made you come alive.

Although the steps are few, and easy enough to understand, it is important that I ask you to reflect on the work you did on Step 1.  Sure, you can always go back to it, but what you listed as successes will be a spring board to the final two steps.  If you would rate your effort on Step 1 as an 8 or less on a 1-10 scale, go back and spend some more time getting it right and as complete as you can.

Step 2 – What did you do?

Now it’s time to take a new look at your lists and scribbles of the things that you consider successes, and when you did them came alive.

1.  Using a separate sheet of paper for each success and write down what you did to make the success a reality.

2.  When you write down what you did to achieve the success be specific.  How long did you prepare?  What did you enjoy most about the preparation?  Who else was there and what did they do?  Did you work with others, or did they serve as coaches or independently?  Was you contribution physical?  Analytical?  Did you rely on your ability to build and nurture relationships?

3.  When you have a list of characteristics for the success that made you come alive, make an inventory of the talents, skills and characteristics that led to your past greatness.  You’ll have a lot of multiples – so keep a tally.  It might show something like, “being analytical” ten or fifteen times.  If public speaking or training others showed up it is pretty likely that it showed throughout your entire life. It’s the same singlemindedness that helped you win tennis trophies in junior high, that made you the leading scorer on your over 30 rugby team.

The end game here is this.  What made you successful at 15 is making your successful at 45.  You’re doing the same things in different contexts.  I find it interesting to see the face of people who discover these things when in reality they have been right under their noses all along.

Follow the steps – find the commonality that has been following you your entire life and prepare for Step 3.

It’s almost time to come alive.  Stay the course.

We’ll talk more.

 

 

The Basics: Step 1 – Who Are You?

I started this series with some ctiicism for the “Success Industry” and I stand by my word.  Almost all of you have read or heard has little or no value in helping you achieve your best in life.  The reason is because almost all the crap that you read or hear advises you to be someone other than who you are, be like the author or someone they know who was successful, and that’s the rub.

In the last entry I gave you an overview of three steps that, if followed well, will lead to the best you in your life, the greatest outcomes you’ve ever achieved and using nothing but the best of who you are right now and have been.

Step 1 in the previous entry suggested that you take time to discover who you are by looking back at what you accomplished.  Now it’s time to put steps to doing that all by yourself.

1.  With a clean sheet of paper write down your age from 5 to your current age along the left margin, leaving a few lines between each number.

2.  Next to each number jot down some basic facts.  Where you went to school or worked.  The name of your best friend at that time.  What you did for fun or recreation. List the role models you looked up to, teachers, bosses, parents, etc.

3.  Think of what you did during that time that made you come alive.  At age five it could have been winning the t-ball trophy at the Y, or finishing your first marathon at age 18.  Take time to write in details – projects that worked out for you.  Teams you played or served on that succeeded.  Don’t be shy – use more paper if needed.

You have to do this exercise to understand the impact.  Once you begin concentrating on a time period of your life you are going to be in those moments in your mind and you’re going to remember things you have not thought of for some time.  If you have a time in your life that doesn’t jar your memory, talk to friends and family to uncover successes.

The point of this is to list your life time successes.  You’ve had them, and others were around and benefits, but the most important thing is that you’ll discover that throughout your life you have had times, sometimes just flashes, of success and brilliance.

You have, in your life, come alive.

That’s enough for now.  Make your list – take time and be complete.

More to come.

Go!

It’s about the Basics

A lot of people are spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to be successful.  You see it on blog posts, Twitter feeds and management advice from every corner.  “4 Rules for Success”, “The 7 Things All Success People Do”, and on and on.  I take a different look at success and would love to know what you think.

Looking for success, to my mind, does not exist in what we do in the future, but understanding the results of what we have done in the past.  Let’s take that apart.

I don’t know most of you personally, but I know something about you. I know that you have made it to this point of your life and in the process of the day to day you have done somethings that have led to occasional success in one way or another.  You’ve got promoted – won a trophy – raised great kids – or earned a degree with honors, or at least excelled at some class above and beyond others.

Even with all of those successes behind us, we spend a lot of time looking for secrets or shortcuts that will help us be better and more successful.  There are reasons for this, but in the end it really doesn’t matter what we should do – but understand what we did do, and how to do it again – but in a bigger way.

I call this process in a seminar I have done, “Defining Moments”, but since we do not have four hours together to talk about and make personal discoveries about you, here is the short version.

The Basics is a state of mind that looks for the best in yourself, in the result of the actions of your life and applying the process you have experienced success in to the things you want to achieve.

Step 1

Who are you?  I don’t want to know your title or the company you work for, but who you are as the result of your efforts.  You’ve done stuff – trained for and finished a marathon maybe?  Aced AP physics in high school, or successfully grown award-winning roses.  You’ve done things in your life that meant something to you and others.  If you need help understanding this try to remember when you were most satisfied in your life.  When were you so fired up and proud of your achievements you were most alive.

This is who you are.  You are successful when you are most alive.

Step 2

When you understand and embrace who you are, that is really who you are, you are ready to begin to understand the outcome.  What you accomplished is a part of you, a definition of who you are.  Look back at your successes and take them apart.  Understand with honesty what you actually did to achieve those results.  Were there steps you followed?  Did you have a coach who gave you confidence and encouraged you?  Did you lead others or organize and execute on the details.  Every success or accomplishment you achieved required that you did some things.

This is what you’ve done.  You’ve risen up and nailed it.

Step 3

Do it again.  Knowing you have and can come alive, and know what you did to be the best of the best, do it again.  I’m not suggesting earning a second Eagle Scout, or trying out for a high school play, but I suggesting that what you did achieve greatness once will work again.  The definition of your future success really begins here – with what you have succeeded at already and applying those characteristics of life to the what life demands from you.

This is where you’re going.  Apply the tools you’ve used to the challenges of the future.

Forget the steps of success, the secrets, or habits that have made others come alive.  Come alive with a keen awareness of your successes by applying them to goals worthy of you.

Return to the Basics and Live.

More to come.

 

They tell you the GOALS, but not the steps.

Executive teams are great at strategy.  In my time serving hospitals I have yet to run into a team of “O’s” that don’t know what needs to be done and why it is important.  Great strategy is the launching point for a great organization or department or group or team.

A launching point is just that, the beginning of a great journey.  I read recently in the book, “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson that after lift off the Apollo missions made constant course corrections – small adjustments by the guidance systems to keep the craft on course for the moon.

Think of your upper leaders as the rocket designers.  They design the gear to make the trip – provide the resources and staffing and ultimately get it to the launch pad.  After lift off – the real heavy lifting – there is work to do.  And all the work and all the efforts by all the people in the “system” make the launch a success by carrying out the mission and achieving the objective.

It is the same with your organization and mine.  For example our senior leadership has decided that “An Engaged Culture” is necessary to a highly functioning business.  This is strategy at it’s best – it is a priority and we all know it.  There could be dozens of things which could have been chosen – but they weren’t.  Our objective is an engaged culture.

As many of you are aware I have a strong propensity for letting people lead with their strengths.  Set the goal and let them go after it using the tools that are most natural in the leader.  In this case it is important to understand that creating an engaged culture is a relatively new phenomenon – and the “old guard” didn’t think about it much if at all.  Hence the point of this article – we all know the outcomes, but we don’t know how to get their.

So embrace the strategy and own it – but put in place thoughts, words and deeds to make it a reality.  Here are some good ideas to get you started on your engaged culture:

• Get to know your team well.  Not just what they do, but who they are. Learn family names, interests and hobbies – in as much as they want to share.
• Celebrate with them – small and big things.  A thank you note for a job well done, to a BBQ for the guy who’s son earned his Eagle Scout.  Make what is important to them important to you.
• Set specific goals and talk about what they can do to reach them.  This sounds pretty obvious, but most people never look at goals after setting them.  Talking about goals with your folks will inspire them to reach and exceed expectations.
• Adjust to their needs.  Some people want to start early – others want long lunches, and so on.  Some people have a favorite type of work, others like the variety of what the day brings.  Find out what they want and deliver it.
• Weed out the toads.  The only feedback I have ever gotten when a low performers has left any team I managed from the rest of the team was, “What took you so long?”  More on this later – but the toads bring everyone down.

These are a starting a point and items you can get your head around.  You can add things like meals, parties, contests, mascots, and others, but at the end of the day you need to know what to do to create a great culture to live out and achieve it.

Lead with your strengths and you will change the world.

GO!

Commanders Intent

Some time ago I read a great book written by two brothers, Dan and Chip Heath, titled “Made to Stick”.  The book has a lot of great information and is fun to read and I recommend it to anyone looking to add or sharpen the tools in their management toolbox.

The idea is that there were characteristics about success and each letter of the word ‘success’ stood for one of those characteristics.  S stood for simple – The E for emotional and so on.  Even though there is a lot written about success and achieving it, the Heath Brothers know what they’re talking about.

In the book there is an example given which uses the planning arm of the US Military that I enjoyed and remembered and think you will find value in it.

The head of planning for the military told the authors in an interview that planning, although necessary, did little to secure victory in battle.  “No plan survives contact with the enemy,” he’s quote as saying, and this little tidbit is an interesting quote that we should keep in mind as we move ahead.

The story goes on to talk about the form that is used to communicate an order.  At the very top of the form is a section titled, “Commanders Intent”.  Following it are strategies, tactics, resources and other information thought to be vital to a successful mission.  That may be true, but the section with “Commanders Intent” is purposefully at the top and in plain sight – and for a reason.

The officer in charge is expected to adjust as the enemy responds drawing on new strategies and tactics, personnel and equipment to achieve the objective – but at the end of the day all that really mattered in the order is the objective – the “Commanders Intent”.  This strategy is well-known to be the difference in success and failure in the hedgerows of Europe in WW II.  American leaders were able to make decisions and adjust to circumstances quickly based on what they saw on the field.  German officers had to run every change or decision up the chain of command for approval before acting on them.

So, what’s the point?  If the US Military, which spends literally Trillions of dollars each year on defense, concedes that front line leaders need the flexibility to work off plan as long as they are working toward an objective to be successful – why do most organizations create structures that hamstring their leaders to fit decisions within a plan created by teams that have little or no specific knowledge of the issues or problems at the front line?

So try this:

• Create a plan and include the front line leaders.
• Clearly and unambiguously state the intention or outcome that equals success.
• Turn your team loose to win battle after battle in the quest for great profits, a stronger brand, or a safer and more engaged team at work.

Lead with your strengths and you will change the world.

Go!