Leadership is a Process

Leadership is a journey, not a destination.
It is a marathon, not a sprint.
It is a process, not an outcome.
~ John Donahoe, president of eBay

What is it that you are passionate enough about that you are willing to lead.  Our world and our communities need people who are courageous enough to lead.  I am not talking about running for a political office or becoming the President of the PTA.  Instead I am talking about leading something that you are passionate about.  Be a leader on a project for a local community organizations that helps provide for a need in your community.  Be a leader for your son or daughter by being involved in their activities, don't be the parent who drops them off and runs.  Be a leader for a group of people who have the hobby or interest, take the initiative to pick up the phone at get two or more of you together.

Why don't we take a leadership role more often?  Are we afraid that we might make a mistake or "fail".  It takes courage to lead, and you may not have a 100% success ratio.  It does not matter if it is perfect or not, because others will still appreciate your effort. Without your leadership they would not have had the opportunities you provided through your actions.  Leadership is about courage, the willingness to see a need and take action "towards" a goal.  That is right it is action "towards" a goal.  You may or may not complete the goal exactly like you envisioned it, but you will have taken action.  You will learn from your leadership position and be able to achieve even more the next time you lead.

Leadership is a process!  Do not limit sharing your leadership and passion by entering into it think it has to be done completely right the first time.  Perfectionism kills progress. Pick something you care about and make a difference today.

Book Review - The Lemonade War

The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, this is a great book for youth to read about business. There are so many great lessons to be learned for this book. The Lemonade War is started because a brother and sister who have been very close, have some common misunderstandings about the other persons motives.

There are pertinent lessons about budgeting, profit margins, marketing & advertising, value added service, location and franchising. Really all of these issues are discussed with a kids perspective.

There is also a great bases for a discussion about business ethics. The motivations of the youth change as the book progresses and you see a progression through their motives, common to what you see in some business people. Things deteriorate until they get to the point that the ends justifies the means, and winning becomes so important that they will do anything for the win.

If you have kids and you want to have a great discussion about business - I highly recommend this book.

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Book Review - The Shark and the Goldfish by Jon Gordon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jon Gordon continues to deliver great guides to leading a life through unique stories that make his books a true pleasure to read.  I think that his work on the The Shark and the Goldfish is simply amazing.  Jon really condenses so many tested approaches to maintaining a positive attitude, event in difficult time, in such a short, quick read.

I really appreciate that Jon addresses "Abundance Theory".  All the politicians and news media try to drive just the opposite into our heads every day.  Jon also addresses the fact that there is "No Substitute for Hard Work", which I think that so many people have forgotten prior to the financial crisis last fall.  That is what really got us into this mess was people trying to take shortcuts to riches.

My biggest take away from this book is to "Be Humble and Be Hungry."

Get a copy of this in your hands, I promise that you will devour it and be motivated to maintain a positive attitude on life.

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Be an Agent of Change

We all struggle with change.  I am guilty of being happy with the status quo.  While I enjoy analyzing a system or process and finding methods to improve it, to make it more effective, I am always reminding myself not to fall into the trap of saying  “If it is not broke, don’t fix it.”  As a leader in my organization I have a responsibility to make continual improvement in the processes and service that we deliver to our customer.  If I stop looking for ways to improve our company, our movement, then I am starting the process of decline.
 
In his book Tribes, Seth Godin shares an amazing analogy about making the choice about being a person who is happy with the status quo or being someone who wants to initiate change.  Seth shares:
 
A thermostat is far more valuable than a thermometer.
 
The thermometer reveals that something is broken.  The thermometer is an indicator, our canary in the coal mine.  Thermometer tell us when were spending too much or gaining market share or not answering the phone quickly enough.  Organizations are filled with human thermometers.  They can criticize or point out or just whine.
 
The thermostat, on the other hand, manages to change the environment in sync with the outside world.  Every organization needs at least one thermostat.  These are leaders who can create change in response to the outside world, and do it consistently over time.
 

WOW!  How great is that.

The world is filled with thermometers, you are probably thinking of a couple right now.  You know the people, the ones who are always judging and complaining about how things are without being willing to take action to make a difference.  Thermometers always find the problems but are unable to find a solution.
 
Image yourself being a thermostat.  You are always aware of the environment you do business in. You see the ups and downs, the opportunities and the challenges.  What makes you unique is that you take action.  You turn on the heat to take corrective action or to initiate change.  You are making choices to take action that will result in improving the environment you do business in. 
 
When we are willing to be an agent or change in our organization, we succeed in reaching Peak Achievement Today.

Maintain Forward Focus – Lessons from Mountain Biking #2

Today’s post is my second post in a series on lessons learned from mountain biking. In an earlier post I discussed the need to focus on where you want to go, to pick the path and focus on the “line” that you want to travel. Remember not to focus on all the obstacles you do not want to hit because they are irrelevant, you are not going to go there. Once you have practiced this skill you are ready for the next aspect of focus which is maintaining a forward focus.

When I started mountain biking I found that my focus was on where my tire was going now. I looked over the front of my handle bars and down at the ground directly in front of my tire to choose my line and steer into the clear path. To become an even more successful rider I had to learn to truly have a forward focus.

In mountain biking this means that you move your focal point forward so that you are looking ahead on the trail, selecting the path that you will travel in the next 5 to 15 seconds depending on your speed. You then let your well conditioned brain take charge to guide your body to take the right movements to take you there. This forward focus allows you to prepare for the trail ahead, to change your gears as necessary and to take appropriate coarse corrections as needed.

Think about your typical day. Are you focused on the interruptions and “emergencies” that pop up every day of our life? Do you feel as if you never have time to do what it is that you really want to do in your business? If you are then you are most likely focusing on the few inches right in front of your tire.

The challenge there fore is to force your focus further away from that front edge of your tire. This is something that takes time to make a new habit. You gradually move that focus further away from where you are right now. You can first focus on where you want to be at the end of the day, then where do you want to be at the end of the week, month, and year and so on. You have to allow yourself the opportunity to view your course of action and allow your mind to take you where you are focusing.

When you are going down a mountain trails that is only as wide as your shoulders at 25 to 30 miles per hour you do not have any other option than to move your focal point forward, and to trust your training and conditioning to take you where you want to go. Life is frequently moving much faster than a mountain biker so we have to push our focus further out if we are going to achieve Peak Achievement Today.

Book Review - Tribes: We Need You to Lead US

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very thought provoking books with great wisdom about taking leadership in groups and situations with leadership voids. I enjoyed many of the concepts and ideas related to the use of emerging technologies. There are groups of people with the same common interests that are now finding each other because of these new technologies, but do not know how to organize. This book has inspired me to take actions on several different action items to provide leadership to groups I work with and in. I am really glad that I read this book and think it is an important way to look at leadership in our society today.

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Take a “Time Out” Before You React

What do Joe Wilson, Serena Williams and Kayne West all have in common?  They have all made the mistake in the last week of not exercising one of the most powerful options we have as human beings.  We each possess the unique ability to choose how we react to the events that affect us every day in our lives.  Each of these three famous individuals have chosen to react to an event in their lives in a way that has embarrassed them, cost them personal respect in their respective arenas, and have acted in a way that has hurt others in doing so.

One of the most important lessons we can learn is to take control of the moment between an event that happens to us and when we react.  Our brains are powerful tools if we train them to pause and choose.  That is right; it all comes down to creating a moment of time, a pause in reacting, between the event and our reaction to it.  Once we create a moment of time to think about how we are going to react to a situation, we will almost always make a better decision than if we react right away.

Joe Wilson blamed his outburst calling President Obama a lire, on the power of “his emotions” getting the better of him.  Our emotions affect the choices we make and can sometime seem very powerful, but we still have to make a choice to stand up in a joint session of Congress and disrespect the President of the United States.  I believe that if Joe took one or two seconds to think about the choice he was making he would certainly have chosen not to have to apologize for his action, be the talk of every news network and to have a resolution passed in the same congress reprimanding his behavior.

So what can cause us average human beings the same kind of issues.  Well how about that email that you received today where the person writing the email was accusatory, shared bad information and best of all carbon copied it to their entire address book.  What is your first response?  Do you want to jump on your key board and tell them how things really are and point out how “stupid” they actually are?  You know if that email goes unanswered to that entire distribution list without a quick rebuttal from you everything in it is bound to come true.

I say take a deep breath, wait an hour; wait till after lunch; you may even want to wait until tomorrow before formulating your response.  I learned in First Aid Merit Badge that unless the person is not breathing, their heart isn’t beating and they are not bleeding to death – you have time to evaluate the situation and make a good decision. By giving ourselves time to think it over, let our emotions settle down, maybe event seek the input of a mentor or trusted confidant (my wife always provides me with good perspective) we will make a better choice of how we react.

Serena was “in the moment” and ended up with three days of coverage of a 12 second obscenity filled tirade.  Who knows what Kayne West was thinking he was going to prove, but I am sure that he enjoyed being called out on (as he should have been) the season opener of the new Jay Leno show. The highest viewer ratings since the finale of America Idol, that's over 17 million people.

Take time to make your choice.  Time brings things into perspective, and if your can consciously work on taking time to think about your reactions your life will be fuller and you will be able to achieve at your own Peak Achievement levels.

Focus On Where You Want to Go

As an avid mountain biker I have learned that the most important skill is to focus on where you want to go, not on the rock that you want to avoid.  This is one of the reasons that I like mountain biking as much as I do.  When I am out on the trail I have to let go of all the other things that are going on in my life and focus on the here and now.  I can not be distracted because to avoid ending up with dented helmets and a broken collar bone I have to focus on the “line” or path that I want my bike to travel.

Sometimes the path you need your tire to take is just barely larger than tire it self, and when you are riding along at 20 miles per hour you really do not have a lot of time to think.  Once I learned to focus on the path I needed to travel I became a stronger mountain biker and found that I was much less likely to hits the rocks that I needed to avoid. The opposite is still true, every time that I focus on the obstacle that is in my way I hit it.  These are not usually glancing blows, but straight on collisions with the items that I new I needed to avoid.

This same theory is true in life.  I have found that I have to focus on the path that I want to travel and not on all the obstacles or hurdles that stand in between me and where I want to be.  Our minds are extremely powerful machines and when we focus on the goal or objective we want to achieve, our minds will work faster than we can think to help take us there.  Many of the obstacles we hit along the way could be avoided if we focused on the path we want to take, or at least their impact on our trajectory towards achievement could be minimized.

Now I still hit rocks when I ride my bike, and I usually have at lease one good crash a year. This is just like the project or goal that has challenges you need to overcome, they will always be there.  A strong focus will make sure that you get to the desired outcome with a minimum about of pain.

Book Review - Creating Magic

You Too Can Create Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney by Lee Cockerell

rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best comprehensive business leadership books I have read in the last year. Lee Cockerell shares his experience as a leader at Disney on every topic from hiring, inspiring,training, leading with character and much more.

Most of us have probably visited a Disney resort in the past and remember some sort of magical moment we had on that trip. Now you can make the same type of "Magic" happen for your customers by using some of these tips and concepts shared directly from a true Disney leader.

This is one of those books that if you could truly implement a handful of the suggestions demonstrated here into your workplace you can lead your team to great results. This book is designed for leaders of people not just managers.


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Rituals Provide a Foundation for Success

Have you ever watched Tiger Woods golf, or a star baseball player step up to bat. You will notice that they both have a ritual they follow as they get ready to take that next shot, or swing at that next 90 mile per hour fast ball. They have trained their body to perform a series of events in preparation to make the next big play of their game.

What are the rituals in your life? Do you have strategies that lead you to have greater success in your everyday life? In Jon Gordon's book titled Energy Addict - 101 Physical, Mental & Spiritual Way to Energize Your Life he states:

"...rituals are the key to turning our goals into reality - or chaos into concrete action. Rituals help us create positive habits that will become our foundation in a crazy world."

I have been thinking about this concept for the last couple of days and feel that this is really an important statement. When I look back at my times of peak performance I realize that this performance was achieved because I had a commitment to a goal that developed rituals that I performed every day. We each performed a ritual this morning as we woke up and got ready to go to work. Think about it, you have a "routine" in the bathroom and you have your routine with the kids to get them out the door on time for school. Life is filled with rituals.

So ask yourself what are your rituals that you performed today?
Are these rituals leading you to your peak performance or are they holding you back?

It is critical that we match our rituals to our goals and work to strengthen the habits that will lead us to the level of achievement we want to have in life. If our rituals are not constructed to lead us towards what we want, we feel stress in our lives and an inner conflict. The great news of the day is that we can chose our rituals, we can change rituals that are not helping us achieve our goals and build or strengthen the rituals that will help us reach our Peak Achievement.

Book Review - The No Complaining Rule

The No Complaining Rule: Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work by Jon Gordon

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Well I really liked reading this book after completing the "Energy Bus". I am definitely on board with both of these books and plan to implement them into my life, home and business. I think when Jon got to the end of the book he pulled the pieces together very nicely, and if you really study the plan it will direct you back to key sections in the book to remember and plan your own implementation.



Be sure to visit his web site as well. I think that the posters, discussion guides and other items that he provides are very helpful and make bringing these practices into the work place much easier.



If you don't like this book, remember that there is "No Complaining". :)


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