Showing posts with label Leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leadership. Show all posts

How to Stay Calm in a Crisis

When a crisis hits your business, you have to put aside fear, anger, and anxiety to tackle it with level-headed leadership. That's a tall order when the stakes are high. But learning to stay calm in a crisis will inspire confidence among your employees and empower you to find effective solutions quickly.

In stressful times, most people either let negative feelings spiral out of control or push them under the rug, but neither method works. "The worst thing you can do is suppress your feelings," says Allison Troy, a psychologist at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. who studies emotion regulation.

Still, that doesn't mean you should let them get the best of you. Strong leaders acknowledge their feelings and manage them without losing sight of what's most important -- fixing the problem, fast.

To stay calm in a crisis and lead your team through the fire, try these three strategies:

1. Look at the problem like an outsider. 

The best way to diffuse an emotional situation is to get some distance from the problem. "Distance helps you see the big picture," says Ethan Kross, director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at University of Michigan. "You can think more clearly when you're not caught up in the details."

As a business leader, you will always be at the center of the problem, so you'll need to trick your brain into thinking you have more distance than you do. To do that, pretend that a peer has come to you for advice about the situation. What would you ask them? What advice would you give? How would you encourage them to handle it? By shifting your perspective, you'll see potential solutions with much more clarity.

2. Remember past obstacles you overcame.

When you run your own business, you'll inevitably face crises with serious consequences. That pressure can cause overwhelming anxiety, fueled by fear and self-doubt that compromise your ability to lead effectively.

"If you feel like you don't have the resources to handle the situation, convince yourself that you do," Troy says. Counter negative thoughts with specific memories of past crises that you overcame, and tell yourself that you can tackle this too. Like the pep talk a coach might give a football team at halftime, it's a reminder that you have the strength and skill to succeed.

3. Take action. 

In a crisis, there's no use dwelling on things you can't change -- that only increases anxiety. Focus on what you can do and get started. "Do something active [to solve the problem], even if you're not sure it will pay off," Troy says.

Start by identifying which parts of the problem you can control, then find one action you can take immediately. Even small actions, such as calling someone for advice, will make you feel productive and keep your anxiety in check.


Nadia Goodman is a freelance writer in Brooklyn, NY. She is a former editor at YouBeauty.com, where she wrote about the psychology of health and beauty. She earned a B.A. in English from Northwestern University and an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University. Visit her website, nadiagoodman.com. 

 

Source : www.entrepreneur.com

There’s a Proven Link Between Effective Leadership and Getting Enough Sleep

By:   
  • Nick van Dam
  • Els van der Helm
In our hyper-connected, 24/7 world, many of us are losing sleep — literally. Our own survey of more than 180 business leaders found that four out of 10 (43%) say they do not get enough sleep at least four nights a week. Such sleep deficiencies can undermine important forms of leadership behavior and eventually hurt financial performance. This article will explore the link between sleep and leadership before discussing solutions that can improve both individual well-being and organizational efficiency and effectiveness.

The link between sleep and organizational leadership

The last part of our brain to evolve was the neocortex, responsible for functions such as sensory perception, motor commands, and language. The frontal part of the neocortex, the prefrontal cortex, directs what psychologists call executive functioning, including all the higher-order cognitive processes, such as problem solving, reasoning, organizing, inhibition, planning, and executing plans. These processes help us get things done.

It’s long been known that all leadership behavior relies on at least one (and often more than one) of these executive functions, and therefore, in particular, on the prefrontal cortex. Neuroscientists know that although other brain areas can cope relatively well with too little sleep, the prefrontal cortex cannot. Basic visual and motor skills deteriorate when people are deprived of sleep, but not nearly to the same extent as higher-order mental skills.

Previous McKinsey research has highlighted a strong correlation between leadership performance and organizational health, itself a strong predictor of a robust bottom line. In a separate study of 81 organizations and 189,000 people around the world, we found that four types of leadership behavior are most commonly associated with high-quality executive teams: operating with a strong orientation to results, solving problems effectively, seeking out different perspectives, and supporting others. What’s striking in all four cases is the proven link between sleep and effective leadership.

Operating with a strong orientation to results. To do this well, it’s important to focus and avoid distractions while at the same time seeing the bigger picture — that is, whether your company is heading in the right direction. Sleep deprivation impairs the ability to focus attention selectively: Research shows that after roughly 17 to 19 hours of wakefulness (say, at 11 PM or 1 AM for someone who got up at 6 AM), individual performance on a range of tasks is equivalent to that of a person with a blood alcohol level of 0.05%. That’s the legal drinking limit in many countries. After roughly 20 hours of wakefulness (2 AM), this same person’s performance equals that of someone with a blood alcohol level of 0.1%, which meets the legal definition of drunk in the United States.

Solving problems effectively. Sleep is beneficial for a host of cognitive functions that help us solve problems effectively, including insight, pattern recognition, and the ability to come up with innovative and creative ideas. One study has shown that a good night’s sleep leads to new insights: participants who enjoyed one were twice as likely to discover a hidden shortcut in a task as those who didn’t. Likewise, an afternoon nap has been found to aid creative problem solving: subjects who took a nap after struggling on a video game problem were almost twice as likely to solve it as subjects who had remained awake. Other research has established that creative thinking is especially likely to take place during dream sleep, enhancing the integration of unassociated information and promoting creative solutions.

Seeking out different perspectives. A wealth of scientific studies have highlighted the impact of sleep on all three stages of the learning process: before learning, to encode new information; after learning, in the consolidation stage, when the brain forms new connections; and before remembering, to retrieve information from memory. These processes are critical to the ability to seek, encode, and consolidate different perspectives. Another important consideration is the ability to weigh the relative significance of different inputs accurately, to avoid tunnel vision, and to reduce cognitive bias. Sleep has been shown to improve decision making in such situations — in tasks that mimic real life, for instance, which require integrating multiple emotional responses. Science supports the commonly heard advice that rather than making an important decision or sending a sensitive email late at night, you should sleep on it.

Supporting others. To help other people, you must first understand them. Doing so may require interpreting the emotions on their faces or their tone of voice. But in a sleep-deprived state, your brain is more likely to misinterpret these cues and overreact to emotional events, and you tend to express your feelings in a more negative manner and tone of voice. Recent studies have shown that people who have not had enough sleep are less likely to fully trust someone else. Another experiment has demonstrated that employees feel less engaged with their work when their leaders have had a bad night of sleep.

What organizations can do

How can organizations improve the quality and efficiency of sleep to ensure that their leaders attain — or recapture — the highest performance levels? At McKinsey, we’ve been working on this issue with our own colleagues as well as with business leaders (look here for a deeper examination of the problem and solutions). Among our recommendations are these two:
  • Develop training programs focused on increasing awareness and creating long-lasting behavioral change. Our experience is that blended learning programs on the importance of sleep can have a positive effect on well-being.
  • Evaluate and rework company policies to ensure that they encourage — or at least don’t discourage — a good night’s sleep. Look at policies covering travel, email (e.g., blackout time on email, after which no emails can be sent), team working (creating tag teams that enable employees to hand work to each other across time zones), work-time limits (setting limits on hours or creating blackout periods), mandatory work-free vacations, predictable time off, napping rooms, and smart technology that improves sleep management.
As we are the first to admit, our own people do not always practice what we preach. In any case, certain types of organizations cannot implement these ideas without an accompanying change in the underlying culture.

Beyond having more rested and therefore more effective leaders, another argument for focusing on sleep is that it prevents burnout in leaders. A recent Harvard Medical School study of senior leaders found that 96% percent reported experiencing at least some degree of burnout. One-third described their condition as extreme. There is now a large body of evidence on the bi-directional relationship between sleep and stress: a lack of sleep creates heightened emotional reactivity, and the experience of stress results in worse quality of sleep. In addition, poor sleep has been found to be a major predictor of reduced engagement at work. It’s time for organizations to find ways of countering the employee churn, lost productivity, and increased health care costs resulting from insufficient sleep.


Nick van Dam is McKinsey’s global chief learning officer, a principal in its Amsterdam office, and a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Nyenrode Business University. He’s also the author of You! The positive force in change. 

Els van der Helm is a sleep specialist in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office. Her training programs, research, and consulting help companies and individuals improve their effectiveness, engagement and health through improved sleep. She has authored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters based on her sleep research at both Harvard Medical School and the University of California Berkeley.

https://hbr.org

Importance of Developing Leadership Skills


By: Ryan May
 What makes a good leader? The answer varies widely depending on who you ask, with researchers disagreeing on the critical components that go into the most effective corporate chief. But there are traits they do agree on, including personality components and acquired skills. Some believe even the situation for leadership itself has a bearing on the effectiveness of the leader.

Important Leadership Skills

  • Commitment, resolve and perseverance – driving every aspect of the organization toward a singular unified purpose.
  • Risk-taking – breaking conventions and developing new products and services to establish marketplace dominance (and possibly even create a unique market).
  • Planning – though a leader typically doesn’t get too involved in the details, he or she must orchestrate a high-level plan that drives everyone toward the unified goal.
  • Motivating – an effective leader must be able to encourage contributions from the entire organization, navigating the specific motivators of each individual or group to push the right buttons and inspire employees at every level to achieve not only their personal best but the best for the organization as a whole.
  • Communication skills that rely on active listening – far more than just being able to speak and write persuasively, leadership communication skills incite others to work toward the stated goal in line with the path the leader has chosen.
  • Possessing or obtaining the skills required to successfully achieve business goals – bringing a unique knowledge set to the table or acquiring it personally or through employees and other subordinates.

What Makes These Individual Skills So Important?

First, a distinction needs to be made: the difference between a leader and a manager. A leader is someone who does the right thing, whereas a manager does things right. Or to put it another way, management is an occupation, leadership is a calling.
 
As addressed in the list above, this calling demands a unique vision for success and the tools necessary to communicate and implement that vision. The leader must possess a set of clearly-defined convictions and the daring and skill to translate their vision into a reality. This is why many people believe, as seen in What Motivates True Leaders, that the most successful development of leadership skills takes place when the leader is geared toward the development of individuals or social constructs. This foundation creates a drive and a passion that many believe cannot be replicated or faked in situations where the leader is concerned solely with financial returns.
With effective leadership, all participants within the organization are confident someone they know is working towards the greater good, both on their behalf personally and that of the company, as well as the larger impact created by the specific product or service. And within this system, one of the most critical elements to success is a leader in whom they can place their trust. That’s because true leadership is about taking people to places they would not or could not go on their own. And achieving that level of loyalty and dedication is next to impossible without the genuine allegiance inspired by true leadership skills.

Source:  http://www.businessdictionary.com

Management vs. Leadership



By:  Leo Sun
 
Management and leadership skills are often regarded as one and the same to many businesses. While the two inherently share many similar characteristics, they differ in that not all managers are leaders, but all leaders are managers. They are complementary qualities inexorably linked to each other, and any attempt to extricate one from the other is impossible. Whereas the manager exists to plan, organize and coordinate, a leader serves to inspire and motivate. Militarily speaking, a manager is the battlefield general while the leader is the commander-in-chief.

Qualities of a Manager


A manager is considered a copy of the leader, responsible for communicating the rules and philosophies of the company to individual employees, and insuring that they abide by them. For a manager, his or her relationships with employees are determined by a hierarchical management system, and rarely through personal ones. They are responsible for maintaining the day to day operations of the company so the cogs of the operation stay well-oiled. Managers are generally more concerned with the quarterly bottom line, and will often base decisions based on these calculations. Good managers are often considered “good soldiers” in that they rarely question the decisions of the higher echelons of the company, and only serve to enforce the execution of its policies.

Qualities of a Leader


In contrast, a leader focuses on interpersonal relationships with other important contacts in other companies, as well as promoting promising individuals within the company to foster innovation. A leader bases his or her decisions on reports from department heads to assess the entire company’s situation, and future strategies. A true leader will also be willing to ignore the company’s quarterly bottom line for several quarters – much to the chagrin of shareholders – and make investments for a long-range growth perspective. A leader is considered a “fearless innovator” in that he or she challenges the status quo and is unafraid to take high risks in search of high rewards, for customers, employees and shareholders alike.
Comparison Between Managers and Leaders

It is said that a manager asks “how” and “when”, whereas a leader asks “what” and why”. In many professions, managers and leaders assume the same role. However, if a leader of a business simply manages a company – rather than challenge its true potential – then it will likely fall behind its industry peers. Likewise, if managers overstep their bounds and attempt to revolt against the company, then they may soon find themselves out of the job. In some cases, where micromanagement is essential to maximize efficiency, nurture skills and keep employees organized, strong managers are an absolute necessity to prevent high turnover rates and the “brain drain” of a skilled workforce. A good leader will also stay in the front line of battle, and be familiar with every aspect of the company, leading through inspiration rather than coercing through hierarchical control. A perfect manager who attains the status of a true leader will be able to lead people effectively and draw on the correct strengths and knowledge of every key individual in the company. Many managers will struggle for their entire careers and never attain this, but a skilled few will evolve into true leaders.

Source :  http://www.businessdictionary.com

4 Things Leaders Get Wrong About Creativity

BY: Kimberly Weisul

Design theory and branding professor Natalie Nixon says the reason we don't see more creativity in business is that most leaders don't have any idea what it is.

atalie Nixon is determined to bring more creativity to business. But that's an uphill battle--especially considering that most business leaders don't really know what creativity is, she says.

Nixon, the director of the strategic design MBA program at Philadelphia University, visited the Inc. offices recently to chat about creativity, strategic design--and how entrepreneurs can learn from jazz musicians. Below are edited highlights from our discussion, as Nixon explains the four things that leaders botch when it comes to creativity.

Creativity is a practice. It requires structure.

I love the modern dancer Twyla Tharp. In her book The Creative Habit, she demystifies creativity.

There actually is not a lot that's sexy or froufrou about creativity. The reason we don't see more creativity in business is that people don't really understand what creativity is.
The best way to explain creativity is that it's a chaordic system. That's a term coined by Dee Hock, the former CEO of Visa. A chaord really combines elements of chaos and order. It's a brilliant way of explaining creativity. Creativity requires structure. We need that structure so we know what we can rebound off of.

Think of jazz musicians. They know music theory, they practice religiously, they know chord progressions. They have moments in which they share in a cathartic way with other people, but there's a lot that goes on backstage that's very disciplined and requires a lot of rigor.

What do we get wrong about creativity? We think it's, "Do what you feel like," when actually, it's a practice that has to be embedded into the culture of the organization. There has to be a deliberate, distinctive choice to allow people to bring that creativity to work.

Your people are already creative--just not at work.

What if the leadership of an organization really encouraged people to employ the creative practice that they are using in their outside of work? People might think it's unrelated, but it's not. What if we really encouraged people to share, to ask, "How do you do that?" Perhaps there are some best practices we can build on from the creative work that you do in the kitchen or that you do on weekends. Even if you think it's frilly.

If we unpack that, if we analyze what's behind getting good at baking or knitting or dance, we'll find a system behind it that can be relevant and helpful, and that can be embedded into the work.

Creativity is uncomfortable.

Jerry Hirshberg, founder of Nissan's first U.S. design studio, came up with a whole principle of creative abrasion. He found that the more interesting insights happen when you actually allow people with really diverse backgrounds, skill sets, and aptitudes to come together.

We think of friction as bad. But friction is energy. If we can channel that energy and suspend judgment, we can make progress.

Creativity isn't learned. It's uncovered.

We're a bit more hardwired to be creative than we might give ourselves credit for.
Nursery school kids are very creative. They ask a lot questions. They prototype. They're not afraid to work with one cluster of people and then move and work with another cluster of people. They embrace the creative abrasion. There's a lot in us that is attuned to creativity. Unfortunately, in our more traditional educational systems, that creativity gets drummed out of us.

Source: www.inc.com

 

How to Motivate an Underperforming Employee

BY Will Yakowicz

Experts weigh in on the right way to coach a subpar worker and when it's time to cut your losses.

It's your job to motivate the troops, but what about the stragglers? Many leaders believe we're all adults, so if some employees aren't keeping up, ultimately you must fire them.

Before the problem gets to that point though, are you putting in the right effort to get your weaker employees up to par? Amy Gallo, a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, interviewed experts on how to correctly motivate those underperformers. Check out her suggestions below.

Address the problem head-on

If an employee is faring poorly, don't wait to talk to him or her. Joseph Weintraub, a professor of management and organizational behavior at Babson College and co-author of The Coaching Manager: Developing Top Talent in Business, tells HBR that performance issues are too often ignored by management. "Most performance problems aren't dealt with directly," he says. "More often, instead of taking action, the manager will transfer the person somewhere else or let him stay put without doing anything."

Weintraub says that underperformance is like an infection. You have to treat it and help it heal, or else it will spread. Jean-François Manzoni, a professor of management at INSEAD and co-author of The Set-Up-to-Fail Syndrome: How Good Managers Cause Great People to Fail, tells HBR that ignoring the problem is poor management: "Never allow underperformance to fester on your team. It's rare that these situations resolve themselves. It'll just get worse. You'll become more and more irritated and that's going to show and make the person uncomfortable."

Find the root cause

If your employee is a bad fit for the job, that's on you. If he lacks the necessary skills, that's on you too. These causes for underperformance can be fixed with training. There also might be a misunderstanding of your expectations. You need to look at how you and the employee are jointly responsible. "You may have contributed to the negative situation," Manzoni says. "After all, it's rare that it's all the subordinate's fault just as it's rare that it's all the boss's." You both need to make changes, so figure out what's causing the issue.

Make sure you are objective

It's important to make sure you are not approaching the matter with a bias. If the employee's mistakes are angering you, tap your managers to contribute to a review of the person's work. Manzoni tells HBR that you might ask your managers in confidence: "I'm worried that my frustration may be clouding my judgment. All I can see are the mistakes he's making. I want to make an honest effort to see what I'm missing." Try to find facts that will prove there's either a communication problem, systemic issue, or a need for proper training.

Start a conversation

Now that you have collected unbiased information, it's time to talk with the underperformer. Tell him or her what you have observed, how their actions are affecting the team and company, and stress that you're available to help. Manzoni says you should tell the employee that you realize there are performance issues, that you know he or she can do better, and ask for ideas on how the issue can improve. Weintraub says not to put them on the spot--brainstorm with them and give them a few days to think on it and come up with a plan.

Coach the employee and lay out the plan

If the employee is not interested in being coached, then there's nothing you can do to change their performance and it's decision time. "If someone says, 'I am who I am' or implies that they're not going to change, then you've got to make a decision whether you can live with the issue and at what cost," Weintraub says. But if they are willing to learn and change, it's time for a plan. This is the time to get the specific improvements and goals down on paper and detail how to achieve them. Agree on measurable actions and start tracking their progress. Don't let the employee overextend herself. Be realistic with the goals and make sure you give ample time. "Everyone needs time to change and maybe learn or acquire new skills," Weintraub says.

Follow up and monitor progress

You need to follow up with the employee. All your work will be for nothing unless you monitor their progress. Ask them if they have a superior they trust who can help track their work and report to you confidentially. "It says I want this to work and I want you to feel comfortable; I'm not going to sneak around your back," Weintraub says.

Take action if needed

After all this work, if there are no improvements, it's time to change your demeanor. If the employee starts to take advantage of your kindness, mentoring, and coaching, you can't stand for it. "At some point you leave coaching and get into the consequences speech. You might say, 'Let me be very clear that this is the third time this has happened and since your behavior hasn't changed, I need to explain the consequences,'" Weintraub says. Don't let your ego into this, however. Take any disciplinary action seriously. "When you fire somebody, it not only affects that person, but also you, the firm, and everybody around you," Manzoni says.

Reward them for changes

If the employee turns their performance around, you should reward them. Don't leave them feeling like the ax is ready to drop on their neck. "At some point, if the non-performer has improved, be sure to take them off the death spiral," Weintraub says. "You want a team that can make mistakes and learn from them."

 Source: www.inc.com

9 Ways to Become a Better Leader


Good Leaders Persuade. They Don't Manipulate.


By: Harrison Monarth
From the moment we were born, we have been weaned and schooled in the art and science of manipulation. So much so, in fact, that we hardly recognize it anymore, both as targets and purveyors of manipulative influence.

It doesn’t take a cynic to admit that such ploys surround us at every turn, from a daily onslaught of advertising messages to organizational politics to a looming performance review. Our lives run on some combination of contingent consequence and tantalizing reward, the latter often simply being the avoidance of pain (obeying the law to sidestep a tax audit, for example).

 To escape this vicious circle of doomed cause and effect of a manipulative management style -- doomed, because it inevitably leads to a downward spiral of disloyalty and mistrust -- you need to understand the difference between manipulation and the eminently finer art of influence through persuasion.

Manipulation is, by definition, a form of persuasion, in that the avoidance of negative consequences does indeed serve the needs of the target audience. “You get to keep your job” is one such tried-and-true example of a manipulative management strategy, one that becomes an effective enough response to anyone bothering to ask, “What’s in it for me?”

But the key difference between manipulation and persuasion, one that differentiates successful cultures from fractured ones, is that manipulation is almost always a short-term strategy, destined to self-destruct unless even stronger forms of manipulation are employed moving forward.

With manipulation, neither party, manipulator nor manipulated, benefit over the long term. Sure, in the short term, a manipulative strategy may yield the kind of results, which, in the mind of the manipulator, justify the means. But if that’s your modus operandi, consider changing it in favor of ethical influencing methods that build respect for you instead of corroding it.

Manipulation is all about getting someone to do something for you, rather than influencing them because of something that’s in it for them. The magic pill of the art of persuasion, conversely, is to get others to take action for themselves, and in a direction that serves the needs of the persuader. In other words, a win-win proposition. Where manipulation is inwardly focused, persuasion is an outward, connecting approach to exerting influence.

The fundamental element and criterion of effective and ethical persuasion is trust. Manipulators are heard, but persuaders are believed because they are trusted. Without trust, an audience only hears on one level: What are the consequences of either compliance or apathy? With trust, an audience cares about what they hear, they give the message every chance to be meaningful on multiple levels -- their own and the manager’s.

Trust is the mortar that builds teamwork, while manipulation is the jackhammer that tears it down.


 Manipulation is destined to expose itself as such, and quickly breeds contempt when the reality of it kicks in. People who are manipulated try to find ways to survive, sometimes to get even, and those goals rarely align with the shared goals of the team. They react with fear, rather than with passion.

It's always preferable to persuade from within a win-win context, an approach that will pay dividends long after the task or project window has passed.

Only with an understanding of the difference between influence through manipulation and influence through persuasion can we then recognize it in our own experience, both on the receiving and dispensing end. Look out for these things:
  • Is the incoming information (or outgoing if you are the sender of the data) based on solid reasoning, or the fact that someone (perhaps you) is carrying a big metaphorical stick?
  • Are emotions being appealed to, and is that emotion fear or positive anticipation?
  • Are there alternatives on the table? To what degree is the recipient (perhaps you) being given latitude to choose a path, and is the path of least resistance the optimal choice given the consequences?
  • What does the presenter gain from the logical choice? What does the other party gain? Who wins here, and at what cost?
  • Do you trust the source of the information or choice being presented to you? Or if you are the sender, why should you be trusted as such a source?
Once you made the shift from someone who influences through manipulation to one who influences through persuasion, your leadership upside becomes unlimited. In the end, those who rely on manipulation often seem to find themselves in that position.
Reprinted with permission from Executive Presence by Harrison Monarth. Copyright 2014. McGraw-Hill.

 Source:www.entrepreneur.com

5 Common Questions Leaders Should Never Ask

By: Warren Berger

Questioning is undoubtedly a valuable leadership tool. Asking the right questions can help business leaders to anticipate changes, seize opportunities, and move their organizations in new directions.

But how you question is critical. Questions can be great for engaging and motivating people , but they can just as easily be used to confront or blame, and can shift the mood from positive to negative. “We live in the world our questions create,” says David Cooperrider, a professor at Case Western Reserve University and a pioneer of “Appreciative Inquiry,” which holds that questions focusing on strengths and using positive language are far more useful to organizations than questions with a negative focus.

So what are some specific questions to avoid? Based on conversations with Cooperrider and several other leadership experts for my recent book, here are five examples of very common questions leaders may ask that can have the unintended effect of leading people in the wrong direction. With simple tweaks, the same questions can be used to engage people, rather than discourage them.

“What’s the problem?” Company leaders may often find themselves asking this question or some variation of it. “What’s the problem, what’s going wrong, what is broken, what is our biggest threat — that is, unfortunately, the starting point of 80 percent of meetings in management,” Cooperrider says. But he maintains that if a company leader asks questions that are focused on problems and weaknesses, then the organization overall will tend to be fixated on that — rather than focusing on strengths and opportunities. Instead of inquiring about what’s gone wrong or focusing on “the problem,” it’s better to use positive questions geared to leveraging strengths and achieving goals: What are we doing well and how might we build upon that? What is the ideal outcome and how do we get closer to that?

“Whose fault is it?” This question focuses attention on finding a scapegoat when in reality, there is usually plenty of blame to go around for any failure or problem. Keith Yamashita of the SY Partners consultancy says that when leaders ask about fault, they’re often trying to shift blame away from themselves. A better approach would be to ask, How can we work together to shore up any weaknesses? That identifies weak links and areas in need of improvement without focusing too much on blame.

“Why don’t you do it this way?” This question may seem like a mere suggestion, but when asked by a leader, it’s truly a leading question — a way of imposing your ways on others. (Even worse: When this question is asked after the fact, as in Why didn’t you do it this way? Now it’s also second-guessing.) The leadership expert Mary Jo Asmus with Aspire Collaborative Services says, “Asking leading questions such as How about if you do it this way? is just a stealth form of control.” She maintains that if a leader has hired well, he/she “shouldn’t have to control how the work gets done.” Better to allow people to figure out their own ideas and approaches, though you can sometimes help them along by asking, How were you thinking of doing it? What do you have in mind?

“Haven’t we tried this already?” Another, equally bad way of asking this is, Why do you think this would work when it hasn’t worked before? It’s not that a leader shouldn’t raise questions about proposed strategies — especially if something similar has been tried previously — but the tone is important. Phil Kessler of Vistage International, a leadership group for chief executives, points out that this version of the question comes off as condescending and even defeatist. It seems to suggest that everything has been thought of already, and that because something was tried once and didn’t work, it should never be considered again. This fails to recognize that some ideas may have come up short in the past because of bad timing or poor execution, not because the idea itself was wrong. Better to ask, If we tried this now, what would be different this time — and how might that change the results?

“What’s our iPad?” The consultant Dev Patnaik of Jump Associates notes that some version of this question tends to be asked when a panicked boss reacts to a competitor introducing a hot new product. The leader turns to his or her staff and asks, in effect, Why haven’t you come up with something like that? Get cracking! The problem is, this question is leading people to be followers—to think that their job is to imitate what the other guy is doing, as quickly as possible. Rather than put it in those imitative terms, it’s better to ask questions like: Why is our competitor having success with this product? What need is it satisfying? How might we use our particular strengths to do an even better job of meeting customers’ needs?

Looking beyond this list of specific questions, there are other tests you can use to assess whether the question on the tip of your tongue is a good one. In general, a leader should avoid questions “asked in a spirit of advocacy instead of inquiry,” says Tim Ogilvie of the management consultancy Peer Insight. Steer clear of questions “that come across like a parent talking to a child,” says Vistage’s Kessler. And lastly, Dan Rockwell of the blog Leadership Freak adds, “Never ask a question if you don’t want an answer.”

Source: HBR Blog Network

6 Words Your Employees Say That Will Kill Your Business

BY: Scott Elser

 Listening for the telltale signs of "status quo management" is the key to moving your business forward.

"We've always done it this way."


Of all the things people say in business, this is the one that gets under my skin the most.   Other variations include "this is how the client wants it" and "that's just the way we do things." Each of these is literally someone telling you they are either too dumb to think of ways to make things better, or too lazy to try.

Think about the times you've heard these phrases, or worse yet, said them yourself. Their only result is to immediately shut down any possibility of innovation and creativity; improvements of product and process are instantly dead--along with any culture of creativity.

What's the impact of "status quo management"? When I took over a client several years ago, I was told they absolutely loved the agency. However, only a week into the job, my first meeting with the CMO began with the ominous statement that she would be putting the business out to review. Fortunately, I was able to buy the time to fix things, but for a few moments, I wondered what I had just stepped into, and how everything I had been told could be so completely wrong.

At the working level, the agency's relationship was extremely close; so close that it eventually became part of the problem. Rather than pushing the client, the agency had simply become an extension of the client's team. Missing was any healthy tension, innovation and reinvention. While the day-to-day clients were happy that we made things easy, at the senior-level, there was a clear recognition that a serious problem existed.

Diagnosing this was actually remarkably simple. At every turn, I kept hearing from my own team, "we've always done it this way." I'd push them again and again to make certain that everything they were doing made sense. Often, people would agree with me that it didn't, but they'd finish their sentence with "this is how the client wants it." Everyone was working so hard trying to give the clients exactly what they asked for, that they stopped thinking about what actually was being done, and what purpose it might be serving.

Fixing this culture was also remarkably easy, though, I'm sure, very uncomfortable for most of the team. Every time I heard people utter "status quo management" terms, I would dig deeper and push harder. Symbolically, I started fining people a dollar "every time they used one of the above statements. After only a few times of going back/returning to the client with a better solution, and finding them not only receptive, but grateful, people began to get the message.
Constant reinvention is absolutely essential to the long-term success of any business, and the time to push convention is when things are going well. Reward those who are looking to constantly improve, and always be on the lookout for the nefarious catchphrases of "status quo management."

Source: www.inc.com

8 Ways to Undermine Yourself as a Leader

BY: Josh Linkner

 There's only one way to find them out.

As entrepreneurs, we spend a lot of time honing our leadership style and working to ensure our teams are motivated to work with us. There are countless resources to improve on various attributes you utilize both in and out of the office, but there's less information readily available on pitfalls to avoid.
You might think you're doing a good job. But here's a list of how you might be undermining yourself.

1. Violate trust. 

This goes beyond straightforward lying, which should be a fairly obvious point. You can lose all-important team members' trust by not doing what you say. Don't make promises you can't keep--big or small.

2. Be a selfish leader instead of a servant leader. 

Your goal is to elevate your team and celebrate each person's victories, not your own. Put employees' needs before your own and do everything in your power to help them help themselves. If you spend your day celebrating yourself, you'll not only stall your team's progress, but also become extremely unpopular--and fast.

3. Lack focus and flip-flop on priorities. 

Your mission should be simple and straightforward for your team to follow and accomplish. If you're not clear on goals and a clear-cut prioritized path to complete them, how should you expect anyone to achieve anything? Figure out a plan--for this week, this month, this quarter, and this year. For that plan, establish the key objectives and the mini-goals each person is responsible for realizing.

4. Be user 'unfriendly.'

I recently wrote a blog about user-friendly products and their leadership counterparts. If you're not accessible or kindhearted, or if people have to jump through hoops to reach you for a brief moment, it's inevitable that you'll leave a bad taste with someone. When you're a user-friendly leader, you'll constantly surprise people and leave them with a positive impression, rather than a dogmatic, negative one.

5. Deal in fantasy instead of science. 

Don't get me wrong: Vision is crucial. You need to have an end goal and believe in it strongly. However, that vision requires execution to make it a reality. You need to track progress obsessively with metrics so you're able to make real-time adjustments and tweaks. Without this, you're just a used-car salesman spinning the wheels of everyone you meet.

6. Lack passion and creativity. 

If you expect your team members to be evangelical about what you've set out to achieve, you need to be a beacon with your passion, bursting from every pore. If you want your team members to think outside the box, why are you coloring inside the lines? If you're ho-hum, your team will generate equally ho-hum results. Allow them to unleash their own creativity by setting yours free.

7. Play checkers instead of chess. 

As a leader, you need to think a few moves down the board, just like a chess player. We all should be doing the jobs we want, not the jobs we have. Help your team members decipher a sales target's strategy or what the board of directors will say at the next proposal. Continuously drive the group forward and do so yourself--otherwise you're just playing checkers, which I'm sure you can do in your sleep.

8. Act as if it's just about what you say. 

This is the easiest method of all in a downward spiral toward undermining yourself. This is a trap--by phrasing things nicely, you might think it's enough. However, in reality, it's about how you make other people feel. In 10 years, nobody will remember what you said day to day, but rather the overall impression you've left on someone. One of our vice presidents at DVP, Ted Serbinski, recently sent our administrative assistants a surprise: personalized gift boxes--one for the woman's precious dog with treats and toys and a training manual, and to the other, gourmet food items for the woman herself with attention and care to her allergen-specific needs. Years from now, they won't necessarily remember the meeting they scheduled for Ted or the calls they made on his behalf, but rather the fact that he went out of his way to do something kind, simply to show his appreciation for them.

What have you done today, this week, or this month to show your gratitude? The difference between being polite or pleasant and completely making someone's day doesn't require much more effort--but it makes all the difference. That gap is what will separate you as a great leader, versus the sea of merely good ones. What legacy will you leave?

Source: www.inc.com

 

7 Things Great Communicators Never Do

BY Jessica Stillman

 
Is no one listening to what you have to say? Maybe you're guilty of one of these "seven deadly sins of speaking."

As a business owner, you should count your voice as one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. With nothing more complicated that your words, you can close sales, negotiate deals, motivate employees, and clinch investment. But with great impact comes great danger. Anything that can radically improve your fortunes when employed well can also profoundly undermine your effectiveness when used poorly.

So what are the ways we most often go astray when communicating? That was the topic of a quick but enlightening TED talk by author and The Sound Agency founder Julian Treasure. In it, he outlines the ways poor communicators end up alienating their listeners and eroding the power of their voices.
Want to be a great communicator able to use your voice to change others' behavior? Avoid his "seven deadly sins of speaking."

Gossip

Gossip may have its uses, bonding teams and shaming slackers into better performance, but if you want to come across as a powerful speaker, avoid it. People aren't dumb, Treasure points out: "We know perfectly well the person gossiping, five minutes later, will be gossiping about us."

Judging

Some people think that speaking powerfully is about being right and convincing the other person of that fact, but truly great communicators know that arguments are rarely won by bombarding the other party with evidence. Telling people they're wrong or bad is actually a lousy way to get them to change. If you want to be a great communicator, avoid triggering other people's defensiveness. "It's very hard to listen to somebody if you know you're being judged and found wanting at the same time," Treasure says.

Negativity

This one doesn't need much explanation. A few run-ins with the dismal guy in the office--the one who's guaranteed to respond to "how's it going?" with doom and gloom--is enough to convince most of us of the people-repelling power of negativity. Don't be that guy.

Complaining

The twin sister of negativity, complaining might offer more immediate pleasure than pure negativity (who hasn't enjoyed a bit of a communal moan now and again?), but Treasure points out that, over time, repeated complaining is bad not only for your effectiveness as a communicator but also the collective mood. "Complaining is viral misery," he says.

Excuses

When the going gets tough, certain coworkers will just throw you (or someone else) under the bus to save themselves. "Some people have a 'blame thrower.' They just pass it on to everybody else and don't take responsibility for their actions," Treasure says. Having the strength to own your mistakes is a great way to win the respect of others.

Exaggeration

Ahem, startup folks, this one may be for you. Sure, you need to project confidence and sell others on your business, but going overboard with your positivity can backfire. "It demeans our language, actually," Treasure says. Don't be the person whose language others have to continuously mentally discount: "Oh, he said it was awesome? Must mean it's mildly positive."
And, of course, if you take this too far, it becomes simple lying, which just about everyone agrees will do very little to convince others you're worth listening to.

Dogmatism

Treasure defines this deadly speaking sin as "the confusion of facts with opinions." Bombard others with your opinions packaged in the certainty of truths and they'll quickly realize you're either deliberately misleading them or that there's no room for conversation. And they'll tune out.
Check out the complete 10-minute talk to find out not only about sins to avoid but also Treasure's four cornerstones of truly powerful communication.

Source: www.inc.com

4 Ways to Behave to Boost Your Employees' Performance

BY: Will Yakowicz
To make your workers more engaged, more satisfied at work, and more likely to stay at your company--try adopting these sustainable work practices.

Every company wants to drive sustainable high performance from employees. But many leaders make the mistake of not starting with themselves.

As a leader, what is say is important. But it's what you do that is mirrored by your employees. If you want your employees to perform at a high level and not burn out, you better take on sustainable work behavior on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level.

The sad truth is that many bosses practice unsustainable work behavior--leading to stressed and unhappy employees who are distracted by their search for their next job. According to a Harvard Business Review study, only 25 percent of 19,000 employees from around the world said their leaders model sustainable work practices.

The good news? Those 4,750 employees were 55 percent more engaged, 77 percent percent more satisfied at work--and 1.15 times more likely to stay at the company, Tony Schwartz, the president and CEO of The Energy Project, and Christine Porath, an associate professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, write in HBR. The icing on the cake is that those employees also reported more than twice the level of trust in their leaders.
This shouldn't be surprising. Schwartz and Porath point to anthropologist Lionel Tiger's study that found the average baboon looks at the alpha male every 20 to 30 seconds for guidance. "In a classic study, the anthropologist Lionel Tiger found that the average baboon looks at the alpha male once every 20 to 30 seconds, for guidance. Human beings aren’t much different. We look to those with the most power in any given situation for cues about what is acceptable behavior and what is not," the duo writes.

Check out more results from the study below and find out what other behaviors you should be modeling.

Encourage vacation. Take one yourself.

Do you encourage your employees to take lunch out of the office, take short breaks, and go on vacation? You need to do all of those things, too. It's not just so they work harder, more efficiently, and line your company's pockets with more revenue. It's to ensure they are less likely to quit. "Sure enough, employees in our study were 1.1 times more likely to stay with an organization if they had bosses who actively encouraged them to take breaks during the workday and use their vacation days, and if they modeled these behaviors themselves," Schwartz and Porath write.

Don't email over the weekend.

If you email late at night and over the weekend, what kind of message do you think that sends to your employees? Even if you say explicitly "I don't expect a reply over the weekend," what do you think someone under your employ is going to do? "But once again, their behavior speaks louder than their words. When leaders feel compelled to write emails at all hours, we encourage them to park them in their draft folders and push the send button during working hours," Schwartz and Porath write. During office hours do you expect an automatic reply? It's important for everyone to have some time to concentrate on their work without distraction. "Sure enough, only 21 percent of our respondents said they were regularly able to focus on one thing at a time and only 18 percent said they allocated sacrosanct time to creative and strategic thinking."

Show appreciation.

Employees have emotional needs that need to be met at work. If you do not recognize and appreciate your subordinates, they'll leave you and get it somewhere else. "Our findings strongly confirmed the adage that 'people don't leave organizations, they leave leaders.' When employees in our study felt valued by their leaders, for example, they were 1.3 times more likely to stay with the company," the duo writes.

Communicate your company's mission and purpose.

Is all this work for nothing other than to buy you and your family a beach house? Schwartz and Porath found that leaders need to fulfill employee's spiritual level too. Only 36 percent of the duo's respondents said they felt their work had meaning and significance. But those who did were three times as likely to stay with their companies. "Only 22 percent reported having a leader who 'communicates a vision that is clear, consistent, and inspiring. Those who did, however, reported 65 percent higher engagement, 82 percent higher job satisfaction, and a 1.3 times greater likelihood to stay with the organization," they write.

Source: www.inc.com

3 Warning Signs of Horrible, No Good, Really Terrible Bosses

BY: John Brandon

The really bad ones have these traits. Look for them in in the workplace.

Leadership is often an act of desperation. You are desperate to lead people, to solve problems, to push a company forward. In this desperate act, there's often a tendency to rely on old ways of thinking--your personality, upbringing, and even your mental condition sometimes rise to the surface and are exacerbated by the circumstances. Struggle a little with anger? In the stress of managing people, you might become even angrier. Tend to worry about personal finances at home? If you're dealing with much larger sums at work, you might have mini-meltdowns about money.

And, honestly, that's OK. If you are leading a company, it's important to know how your education, background, tendencies, and personality ticks will all become challenges for you as you lead--they will all raise their ugly heads, one head at a time.

Yet, the really horrible bosses, the ones who are hated by everyone, the ones we all despise intensely, go to another level of extreme. Their heads are really ugly. Personal problems and personality disorders compound even further in the workplace. Here's how.

1. They always get angry to compensate for a lack of know-how

Anger is not an effective management tool, but few of us are immune to it. It's just another emotion, like joy or sorrow. In some cases, getting angry about something is OK, if it shows your employees that you care about something enough to get a little worked up.

The really horrible bosses? They use anger to compensate for a lack of knowledge, when they feel they are losing control of the situation, as a sad-sack motivational technique, and when they want to get their way. Anger is not a reaction to a given situation; it's a tool horrible bosses use because they don't know about all of the other tools, like setting achievable milestones or giving employees the freedom to explore new ideas. A horrible boss always uses anger because it's the fastest, easiest, dumbest technique.

2. They won't let their staff take the credit

A good boss knows when to dole out praise. Part of the human condition is that we all need encouragement, and we also tend to like people more when they give it to us. When you name the No. 1 quality of a good boss, it's probably that he or she is encouraging.

Horrible bosses never give out praise; they only criticize. And there's a root cause. If you praise someone at work, it means you are admitting the employee did a good job--and you didn't.

Let's say it's a big customer acquisition for the company, and Sue deserves most of the credit. If the boss withholds that praise, it's because he or she doesn't want to acknowledge the company needs Sue or that she is an asset. A horrible boss carries the weight of the world on his shoulders--by himself and without any help. A good boss knows it is a team effort and will easily share the load and the glory.

3. They are constantly nitpicking about money

What is it about a horrible boss when it comes to finances in a startup? They rail and vent about expenses constantly, warn you about going over budget, whine when a customer pulls out of a contract--it's all about the green stuff. But here's the problem. Life is short.

There are many other rewards in business besides making money (really--there is!). Ask anyone who has invented something really amazing about what gave him or her lasting satisfaction and it will probably not have anything to do with a bank account. The person will say something about helping people, or achieving notoriety, or even just making a lasting mark on the world. Sure, he or she might be driving a BMW at the time, but the best leaders and managers in business know that true happiness and joy comes from relationships, innovative thinking, tackling big-picture issues, and resolving problems.

Horrible bosses? They are pretty shallow. And immature. And testy about the balance sheet. They are driven to succeed at all costs, and they will see you as merely a means to an end, a way to rake in more cash even if it means yelling, cursing, getting angry, throwing a big fit, and even firing you on a whim. Stand in the way of their financial success and they will kick you under a bus so fast you won't see the wheel rims.

Source: www.inc.com

Accomplish Great Things at Any Age

BY Lolly Daskal

Here are 41 reasons to get out there and make it happen, no matter how young or old you are.

Many of us think that to be successful, you have to be at the right place, the right circumstance and the right age.

But we can learn from those who have come before us, who achieved at every age and in every circumstance of life:

At 5, Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin.
At 6, Shirley Temple starred in "Bright Eyes." (After her career as a child star ended, she became a diplomat.)
At 12, Anne Frank wrote her wartime diary.
At 13, Magnus Carlsen became the second-youngest grandmaster in the history of chess.
At 14, Nadia Comăneci became the first female gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic event.
At 15, years old Tenzin Gyatso was recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama.
At 17, Pele led Brazil to a World Cup victory.
At 19, Elvis Presley became a superstar and was later known as "The King"
At 20, John Lennon performed at his first concert as a Beatle.
At 22, Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the Berlin Olympics.
At 23, Beethoven was already known as a piano virtuoso.
At 24, Isaac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, setting the foundations for classical mechanics.
At 25, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile.
At 26, Albert Einstein wrote the theory of relativity.
At 28, Michelangelo created his sculptures David and The Pietà.
At 29, Alexander the Great had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world.
At 30, J.K. Rowling finished the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
At 31, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
At 32, Oprah Winfrey launched her first talk show.
At 33, Edmund Hillary became one of the first two people confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest.
At 34, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.
At 35, Marie Curie (along with her husband, Pierre Curie) was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics.
At 36, Wilbur Wright, together with his brother Orville, built the world's first successful airplane.
At 37, Vincent Van Gogh died virtually unknown after creating the paintings that would later establish him as a major artist.
At 38, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
At 40, Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
At 41, Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Americas.
At 42, Rosa Parks refused to obey a bus driver's order to give up her seat.
At 43, John F. Kennedy became the 35th president of the United States.
At 45, Henry Ford manufactured the first Model T automobile.
At 46, Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games.
At 50, Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species.
At 51, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.
At 52, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th president Of the United States.
At 53, Ray Kroc bought the McDonalds franchise, which then comprised eight restaurants.
At 54, Theodore Geisel wrote The Cat in the Hat under the pen name Dr. Seuss.
At 57, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III successfully crash-landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River with no fatalities.
At 61, Colonel Harland Sanders granted the first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.
At 62, J.R.R. Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings.
At 69, Ronald Reagan became the 40th president of the United States (and the oldest to date).
At 70, Jack LaLanne--handcuffed and shackled--towed 70 rowboats for a mile against strong winds and currents.
At 75, Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.
Whether you're blessed with the energy of youth or the wisdom of age, whatever your circumstance, you can make success happen. The time to get started is now.

Follow Lolly on Linkedin or Twitter and her blog at www.lollydaskal.com
Source: www.inc.com

 

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