How do you want to life your life? Develop a Personal Vision

I have blogged many times about the concept of personal vision and Meaningful Constructive Living. Now a thought leader and professor of Ethics at Harvard Business School, discusses his new book and explains why it’s essential to develop ethical principles, a moral compass and commitments that you follow 100% of the time. He discusses how to make a difference in your life and how to evaluate where you are measuring up to this life purpose. For more, read his article, How Will You Measure Your Life? from Harvard Business School. Clay Christensen has for many years been talking about ethics in business, so don’t miss this insightful conversation on developing a purpose to live and be judge by.

 

Winning from Within: To be experienced as a “sticky presenter” learn about “thin slicing” concept and other ideas.

 

You will gain tremendous credibility, become much more believable, facilitate your audience understanding and engagement if you look one audience member in the eyes and provide a clear, concise and compelling message. Instead of leaving audience members shaking their heads and saying to their neighbor “I don’t have any idea what he just said.”  “Experts” who use jargon and acronomes to communicate bold ideas generally leave audience members in the dark, disinterested and bored.

Malcolm Gladwell touches on this phenomenon in his book, Blink. He talks about “thin-slicing,” or “the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience.” He explains how too much or too complicated slides can cloud an individual’s ability to accurately analyze a situation, and how an excellent communicator needs to be concise and clear in presenting their message or suffer the I don’t care what you are saying reaction. In other words, mini-impressions do count. And although you never get a second chance to make a first impression, you do get a chance to make your next presentation understandable and clear to your audience. It will help you build your credibility and connection with the audience.

Three Other Strategies for “winning from within”:

Capture your audience’s attention. Think about one of your favorite presenters? What style or techniques did they use draw you in — humor, tangibles, relevance, emotions, surprise, or something else? Think about how you could incorporate strategies and techniques into your next important presentation.

Convey a clear and compelling message. Consider the key message for your audience. What do you want to try and convey to engage and connect with them, and how are you going to use your connection with audience members to generate curiosity and aqttention? How are you going to frame the message to make your point sticky and meet the audience needs? Now, think about your own messaging — what is the most critical takeaway you would like the audience to understand and receive? How might you deliver your message to ensure your audience walks away with this understanding and commitment to take action?

Focus on differentiation. Think about what distinguishes the best communicators from the rest. How does the speaker use his presentation to connect with people in a unique way? What sets you apart from other speakers? How can you stick and highlight your distinctive message?

When you combine these three elements, you’ve got the potential for a persuasive “hotspot.” The key is having these components ready so that you can recall them under the pressure of giving a speech or presentation. To access these elements on the spot will require mental toughness and calmness. For example, the best presenters are always prepared to connect with the audience by thinking quickly on their feet and changing their address to fit the needs of the moment. Similarly, the best leaders often are not those who provide the most data, or speak the loudest or longest but are those who speak in a memorable and inspiring way over and over again.

Our world is filled with noise, information, distractions and rules; so having someone’s undivided attention — even for 60 seconds — is an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted. If you can use those 60 seconds to capture their attention, deliver your message, and distinguish yourself from others, you’re likely to be heard, understood, and remembered. What presenter  wouldn’t want that? Remember: never let the rules over-rule your common sense and intuition as a communicator. 

Want to Bring a Wow experience to your next Presentation? Be Passionate and Mentally Tough

” Concentration and mental toughness provide confidence and are the difference between a boring presentation and a WOW experience for the audience.” MW Hardwick, Presentation Coach

Design with Purpose and Deliver with Confidence.

What matters to you is shown by your passion. Your passion will draw others to your cause. Emotional words and message are more important in hooking people and generating a contagion. Meaningful purpose gathers extraordinary support. The right idea—framed in emotion—grows exponentially through social media and word of mouth advocacy. Checkout how, The Dragonfly Effect, encouraged a social media project 100k Cheeks, to raise awareness and increase the number of people enrolled in the International Bone Marrow Registry.

If you isolate one thing about high achievers that has put them at the pinnacle of success above anything and everything else, it is the ability to communicate and connect with confidence and openness to audience members. I call this constellation of factors the mental toughness factor.

Call it mental toughness, confidence, courage–it is the profound ability to stay
in connected and overcome obstacles in the face of taking risks, challenges, loss, and adversity.
This new knowledge will empower you to perform at the top of your game because relevant information + knowledge = confidence and power, because 90% of success as a presenter is belief in yourself and mental toughness.
That’s why you owe it to yourself to take the next step to build your confidence and character as a public speaker. Try out these techniques and I assure you that your next speech will not be boring.

Want to craft your own free MBA type Learning–Don’t miss this series on Excellence by Tom Peter’s

Want to participate in your own custom designed MBA course in Excellence don’t miss this series by Tom Peter’s one of the top ten consultants in business since Peter Drucker.

” In the 30 years since the publication of In Search of Excellence, I’ve given 2,500+ presentations on organizational and personal excellence. For the last two+ years I’ve been pulling those 30 years of materials together. Throughout 2012, we will release, one part every two weeks, essentially “the best of”—a heavily annotated, 23-part mega-“presentation” titled “Excellence. Now.” This video gives you a preview. Use this material as you wish and please “steal” all you want! —Tom Peters

Check this one out on | # 5 Strategic Listening

“IN-effective  Leaders talk, EFFECTIVE leaders LISTEN. “Strategic Listening” is arguably the #1 competitive advantage”.

Daily Quote and Reflection: Jeremy Lin Lesson of Luck– “Always be Ready”

Quotes:

“Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success”. Henry Ford

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning” Thomas Edison

Reflection:

The Jeremy Lin story is a story about preparation, luck and a desperate coach taking a chance on someone. You can call this luck or the “stars and moon” aligning for someone. What you can’t deny is that Lin was ready when the opportunity presented itself.  Jeremy Lin was hiding in plain sight but was overlooked by the so-called recruiting experts and numerous NBA coaches. Why did this happen? It could be inflexible definitions of what talent looks like, stereotype thinking or just plain stupidly on the so-called experts part.  I wonder how many people have suffered this experience and gave up or didn’t get the chance to show their stuff. This story will probably level off but is a testimony to the above quotes: always be ready–know your strengths and refine your skills, find someone who will give you a chance and find the system where you can show case your talents.  This story is about sports but could easily be said about other performing arts and professions. It is also about “lady luck” when the opportunity comes your way be ready to take the risk to do your best.

Seven Ways to Improve Mental Toughness

So what is mental toughness? It can be defined as the ability to access and maintain focus and determination to complete a course of action despite complexity, distractions, difficulties or unknown consequences. Some say it is the will to never give-up or quit. So the question is: Can “mental toughness” (MT) be taught or is innate? Let’s look at the sports world where MT is often used to describe super stars. Many athletes and coaches think, MT is an innate quality or talent that you are born with and they believe it can’t be taught or learned because it is a part of your DNA or it isn’t. According to this school of thought mental toughness is usually something you’re born with and is reinforced early in life by your parents and environment. These authorities believe it’s hard to take a sensitive “mommies boy” and make him “tough” no matter what you do. This obviously is the nature vs. nuture argument. The nurture position states that people can be shaped and learn from different experiences, modeling and teaching. ” Mental Toughness is a state of mind, not a fact. No matter how much or how little stress we feel before any public performance from speeches to shooting to hitting the winning foul shot we are always just doing what we’re doing, simply living this one moment of our lives to the best of our ability. So MT is the ability to use anxiety and fear to drive positive expectations, energy and action. ”  Dr. Mark W. Hardwick, Communications Coach  . Winning seems so easy and natural for the Nadal’s and Feder’s of the tennis world. And in other sports too. But the real secret seems to be mental preparedness and toughness.  The perception that winning is easy we know is false but it does look like their work is play. Many of us chalk it up to the person’s is naturally talent and short change mental rehearsal and practice. Applications for staying focused and being mentally tough in difficult performance situations or under stress: Practicing Mental Toughness techniques prior to your performance will help handling more stress during the performance. Below see some tools of how to create a mental set and rituals of   Mental Toughness state:

1. Be your own best supporter and critic. Shutout distractions and negative self-talk

2. Be clear, concise and committed to meeting your goal or target for the activity.

3. Believe fully in your ability and strength to execute effectively, so you can  naturally perform the task at hand.

4. Be prepared to relax and refocus on your goal when things go wrong during an interaction or performance. Learn to center yourself through deep breathing and use of relaxation tools.

5. Don’t try to hard to be accepted or worry about the outcome of your communication.

6. Learn to control your anxiety and nervousness by using a mental re-focus tool–When your self-critic pops up just say–STOP. The inner voice helps us to re-focus and exert self-control by enhancing our ability to restrain our negative impulses.  When we are in stressful situations like giving a speech we worry about the situation and it’s consequences. These worries are usually verbal in nature and are especially problematic for tasks that rely heavily on speaking and in the moment thinking and reasoning skills. So to be quick on your feet find a way to knock the fears away so that you can be mentally tough and perform at your best.

7. Be optimistic. Love the challenge of the moment and learn to accept whatever comes by focusing on process rather than techniques or fear of making mistakes. By learning to “look on the bright side,” of challenges and seeing stressful situations as opportunities for growth, you increase the likelihood of producing a positive mental and physical state.  This positive mental state leads to a chain of biochemical events that mobilize the brain and the body to cope more effectively with the situation.  A positive reaction to stress can then lead to what some have labeled  the challenge response, which counteracts the fear of failure and need to be perfect.

Case study on Creating a Vision, Purpose and Strategic Execution for an Organization

An inspiring vision is what motivates all of us. We want to know that we are working toward something that makes a difference and is meaningful. This organizational principle motivates and sustains  every  person within your organization, from the cleaning personnel to safety engineer and human resources staff and partners or CEO. That is the real job of an inspiring and effective leader — to offer a purpose, vision and execution plan that makes a difference. This alignment is not easy to achieve but it is the key difference between being a manager and a transformation and  empowering leader.  Organizations need selfless leaders who WALK  THE TALK about ethics, socially responsible business practices and humanistic values.

People also need to know that you, as a leader, are in touch with practical solutions and the reality of creating solutions to complex problems. One such organization over the last ten years under the direction of a transforming leader has been IBM. I recommend that you read about Sam Palmisano retired as CEO of IBM on Dec. 31, 2011. His tenure is a model of a pragmatic visionary who renewed  a floundering and stuck organization. Warren Buffett said one of the reasons he recently bought 10.7 billion of IBM stock is because Palamisano “delivers big time”.  See http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/18/sam-palmisano-ibm/

 

Attention Women: Want more Career Success Learn this Little Secret

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice”. Steve Jobs

Don’t miss this inspiring story about self-confidence and its impact on how we evaluate our potential to be successful. Ginny Rommety became IBM’s new chief executive and during that process told an interesting story on assertiveness and false humility. “  spoke about a point early in her career when she was offered a promotion she initially turned down because of fear of failure and underestimating her achievements and belief in her abilities. Encouraged by her husband’s question : “Do you think a man would have ever done that?” She reapply and got the promotion. Lesson learned — to be self-confident on the outside ( fake it) even when she felt self-critical on the inside.

What is it about women’s self-confidence that holds them back from self-promotion. There is a small change in thinking that  could have a major impact on women’s careers. What is this secret weapon that women don’t understand that could mean faster promotions, higher salaries, better jobs, and more meaningful career?  Find out this secret women are afraid to use and men overuse. Jodi Glickman provides an interesting argument in the HBR blog on this confidence issue for women. She talks about confidence as a recognition of accomplishments and a numbers game. I am not sure that this lack of self-promotion and confidence can be solved by her solution, but I do know it would be better for all of us if women had the opportunity to identify their strengths and then learn how to assert those strengths to receive the recognition they deserve.  Remember what the John Wooden, famous coach of UCLA,  said: “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”  John Wooden  

 

New Leadership Model for 21st Century–Get started now “Walk the The Talk” of Strategic Action

Strategic Action Leader–Risk Taker not just talker. 

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes… Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action”.

Peter Drucker  Happiness is seeking a balance between pleasure, commitment and meaning – a sense of purpose in one’s life. Happy managers will find it useful to apply this thinking to themselves, and to the people they manage. This final quote again echoes this fundamental philosophy of “The Happy Manager”. Drucker argued that the critical question we should all ask ourselves is not:

“How can I achieve?” but “What can I contribute?”

Read more:http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/peter_drucker.html#ixzz1hNvBOJX6Peter Drucker

One thing you need to be as a leader is the ability to take strategic action with limited information. In other words you must be a risk taker. One of the most often overlooked aspects of leadership is the need for pursuit. Great leaders are never satisfied with traditional practice, static thinking, conventional wisdom, or common performance. In fact, the best leaders are simply uncomfortable with anything that embraces the status quo.  The new leader is always imaginative, focused on quality, truthful, and aware of what’s next, of what to do in times of rapid  change and how to produce value and results by being of service to others

So now let us examine –what it means to “walk the talk ” of leadership. I’ll examine the value of being a strategic action leader. Here’s the thing – pursuit leads to visible “walking the talk”. What you  act on will determine  your journey , the people you meet and connect with,, the character you display and ultimately, what your happiness and fulfillment in life. Having a mindset focused on strategic action is critical to leadership that lacking this one quality can be costly. The manner, method, and motivation behind any action is what sets truly great leaders apart from the masses. If you want to become a great leader, become a strategic action leader no matter what position you occupy in the organization.

A failure to embrace opportunities and be action orientated is to a follower. A leader’s failure to act relegates you to the routine and status quo. Your failure to take initiative leaves you stuck  with the present situation.  Your failure to be action orientated  subjects you  to be marked as expendable and of little value to the organization. Let me put this as simply as I can – you cannot attain what you do not act on.

Smart leaders understand it’s not just enough to have a vision of where the organization is going, but action and risk must be a part of it. Action must be   consistent,  focused, assertive and thoughtful. You must take action on the right situation at the right time to the right people by weighing risks and upside potential.  Perhaps most of all, the best action is thoughtful and strategic. Agility and building coalitions to accomplish your goals are the cornerstones of leadership.  Leadership at the core is highly dependent on collaborative,  inclusiveness and transparency. The greatest strength of leaders is the ability to leverage resources and relationships.

I also want to caution you against trivial pursuits – don’t confuse leadership and strategic actions with tactics.  Outcomes are clearly important, but as a leader, it’s what happens after the outcome that you need to be in pursuit of. Pursue discovery, seek dissenting opinions, develop your ability unlearn what you have learned by embracing how much you don’t know, and find the kind of vision that truly does see around corners. Knowing what not to act on is just as important as knowing what to do and when to do it.

It’s important to keep in mind that nothing tells the world more about a leader than what they do. – that which you do not what you say is who you are as a leader.  If your message to your organization you value talent, but don’t treat people well and don’t spend time developing the talent and rewarding them, then I would suggest you are a hypocrite  Put simply, you can speak  all you like, but your actions will ultimately reveal what you truly value.

What’s been the best thing you’ve done as a leader of others’ this year? When and where have you “walked the talk” of an action leader either at work, in the community or with your family? Based on that personal evaluation what do you commit to differently in 2010?

Want to be creative like Steve Jobs?–Learn how to be Inner-directed and simplify execution.

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice”. Steve Jobs

Harvard did a six-year study on creative people. One of the big things they learned was that creative people do what’s called the Association Principle which means they associate and connect ideas from different fields and they apply those ideas to their field in simple and uncomplicated ways.

Steve Jobs was doing this his entire life. He once said  that a person who has a broad set of experiences can often see things that others miss. What he meant is he pursued a lot of interests that had nothing to do with computers or technology. For example, being happy leads to a more enrich life ground in purpose and creates impact music, films and design of Apple’s retail stores.

“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.’ And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very beginning. And we always will.” —Steve Jobs

Kick-start your creativity being an observer of life and learn to see ideas ( Law of Association) that can help you in your profession.

The reason why that came to him was that when he was 19, he dropped out of college and took courses he really wanted to take—like calligraphy. His parents were like, ‘Steve, we really want you to go to college.’ From what I understand, his parents were pretty upset about the decision [to drop out], but Steve said, ‘You know, I’m bored with these mandatory classes. I want to take classes that I’m interested in.’

This curiosity applies to everything—the way you live your life, the way you run your business. A lot of people forget that in 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, it was only a few months away from bankruptcy. The first thing he did was streamlined and simplified their product line. He said, ‘You have to put your A team on every product.’ You can’t put your A team on every product when you have 300 products. At the time, they had something like 300 products or 300 iterations of products.

Within two years he streamlined that to 10 products. To this day you can actually take all of Apple’s products and put them on a small coffee table, which is pretty extraordinary for a huge and profitable company. ‘Innovation,’ he said, ‘is saying no to 1,000 things,’ so you can really focus on what matters. He already told us the secret to innovation. We don’t have to guess.

Our future depends on our ability to cultivate imagination, creativity and innovation, to foster social and economic growth, and improve our quality of life. So my question to you is–How can you become more creative in your business so as to simplify and make a difference with distinction like Steve Jobs did?

Daily Question and Reflection:: In Public Speaking–What’s more important: content or delivery skills?

What is more important content or delivery style?

Reflection. Of course they are both important elements of influencing others.  Yet I would say that content is more important because it is providing the audience with value in exchange for their precious time. If you don’t have anything meaning to say don’t waste their time. On the other hand brilliant content only gets traction because of an engaging and inspiring speaker. Poor delivery = bored and disinterested audience.. Some of the greatest ideas are obscured and not brought to light because the presenter did not connect to the audience or lacked credibility during delivery. It’s much rarer to hear about a great content-free delivery. Style and charisma alone can get you far, but will eventually lead to little motivation to change points of view and action taken in support of the cause or idea.

 

Exercise on Interpersonal Conflict: How to control frustrations and anger to solve problems

 

“If we don’t change the direction we are going, we are likely to end up where we are heading.” – Chinese Proverb

Of the three basic emotions that lead to poor productivity and interpersonal flare-ups —disappointment, frustration and fear—frustration leading to anger is the most destructive. Your particular situation may involve enormous frustrations and disappointments with others or yourself.  (“I needed to find better ways to handle Danny’s tantrums before I create a never-ending battle of the wills.” Darn him for always having a melt down when I need his cooperation.”) or enormous self-anger (“Why, why, why can’t I be a better Dad when things are not going well with the kids; m expected reaction just raises the temperature and sets him off. I really hurt our relationship when I get anger.” Whatever the proportions, some feel frustrated guilty but resist letting the situation escalate to anger, shouting and demanding; others acknowledge their frustration and inability to handle the situation but feel “stuck” in same old patterns.. Most of these regrets get you stuck in unproductive perseverance.

Considering frustration and anger separately makes both more useful. Right now, think of something or someone you are frustrated with… With that situation or person in mind, finish this sentence: “I’m frustrated that __________.” Repeat the exercise until you run out of frustrations and things related to that person or situation. For example, if you are  frustrated with a building contractor not finishing on time or making major errors on the project, you might say, “I’m frustrated and extremely disappointed that I have to stay on top of every piece of this remodeling project or it doesn’t get done on budget or in a timely manner. I’m angry that I chose such an incompetent builder and that this project is taking up all my time and energy. ” So this first exercise gets at the root causes for the frustrations.

Now that you have fully itemized the causes for the frustrations make another list of possible solutions needed to be implemented to solve the causes. In this part 2 of the exercise begin each sentence with the phrase, “I’m frustrated and angry at ________ because________ and I want to resolve this by _____________” For example, “I’m angry at Bill, the builder,  because of the cost and time over runs and I want to solve this by instituting a daily meeting to set priorities and action items for completion. To ensure we stay on task I am immediately bringing in a new supervisor for the project.” I’m sad about the need for this tight structure and supervision and the finger-pointing and blame game that has been going on” Write down the solution based  on your identification of the causes for the frustrations and anger about the personnel and situation.

Underneath frustrations is the feeling of disappointment when looking back at what we could have done. It does have a piece of self-loathing. Also, anger for what took place or is still happening. Try learning the lessons the experience is teaching you now rather than looking back and obsessively contemplating what could have been. Reflecting on Warren Buffet’s view of looking back may help you put frustrations and disappointments in perspective–”I never look back. I figure there is so much to look forward to that there is no sense thinking of what I might have done. It just doesn’t make any difference. You can only live life forward.”  So as you think about your frustrations right now–If you had the opportunity for a “do over” what would you do differently? What can you do now to correct the situation or put the project back on track?

Finally, remember that you need to focus on living and working fully and intensely in the present, with minimal infringement from the past failures or miscues to solve this problem and improve productively and enable others on the team to do their best work.

Daily Quote and Reflection: Two Heroes of Leadership

 

Quotes:

“Management cannot provide a man with self-respect, or with the respect of his fellows, or with the satisfaction of needs for self-fulfillment. We can create the conditions such that he is encouraged and enabled to seek such satisfactions for himself, or we can thwart him by failing to create those conditions.” Douglas McGregor  From: The Human Side of Enterprise

"Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult. " Warren Bennis

Reflections: I have always admired and respected Dr. Bennis and his insights on Leadership. I was first introduced to his works during graduate school and have made an effort to read his articles in the HBR. I especially like two of his books The Invented Life and Reflections on Leadership and Change. As far as I am concerned Dr. Bennis  along with his mentor Douglas McGregor (1906–1964)  a professor at the MIT School of Management  and president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954 developed and fathered a lack luster literature on management and leadership ( ultimately after 27+ books) make this into a growing and robust academic field of Management and Leadership Science.  Dr. Bennis, in the early 60′s,  challenged the prevailing wisdom about Leadership as a command and control function belonging only to CEO’s and other top position in the organization by showing that humanistic, democratic-style leaders are better suited to dealing with the complexity and change that characterize the leadership environment. His viewpoint that Leadership always started with self-awareness as always been a guiding point for me in the many leadership positions  I have been fortunate enough to occupy.

Challenge by Choice: In your field of endeavor who are the leaders and mentors that you have learned from and how have they influenced your life?

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Quote and Reflection–Secret to Living a No Regrets Life.

Quote :ay call yours Sons,” he would tell my three brothers and me, “don’t worry about whether you’re better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can become. You have control over that; the other you don’t.” Time spent comparing myself to others, he cautioned, was time wasted. “Johnny, work hard to get as good as you can get,” he’d say. “Do that and you will be a success. Do less and you have fallen short.”John Wooden, UCLA Basketball coach ON Leadership

Reflection: What are the barriers in your life that keep you from doing your best? How can I find the energy and enthusiasm to keep doing my best?

Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success was one of the first models I learned in studying about how to develop leaders. His model has  stood the the test of time. I still remember his personal mission statement: - Making the Most of Oneself by being true to yourself and helping others,.