Most of us love being known as extraordinary, as being capable of producing great results. Most of us also have at least one or two areas of our businesses and lives in which we’re not reliable for coming through on… Read More »7 Steps To Extraordinary Performance
Whether you’re in business for yourself, leading an organization or performing a role inside one, there are ways to make a real impact and then ways to, well, not. However, when you’re in business for yourself, there tends to be… Read More »7 Steps to A Mediocre Microbusiness
First: I am not in the business of career coaching. Now, there have been many times when I examined my career, and many more when I have been with others through that journey. I have enjoyed the process, as have the people with whom I have shared the experience. We have produced the intended results. In every case, as I see it, the career that will be most satisfying will be one that occurs as a natural self-expression. And yet, for many people, the inquiry into what they really want to be doing has been a long and fruitless one.
I have worked through the following process with at least two dozen people and we have found it valuable. Ultimately, what we are looking for has two parts: first, find that thing that you so can’t help but do that sometimes your friends wish you could; and second, figure out who wants to pay you well for doing that.
A valuable frame of reference is that there are many job searches that are not career searches, and it is good to know the difference. If someone needs a job, then they need a job. A job pays bills and supports life. Sometimes, looking for the perfect career is not the wise move. Sometimes one simply needs a job. Now, it won’t hurt a person to go through this process even if all they need is a job. Getting a job doesn’t mean that pursuing a career cannot be done, it is just that a job is often something needed with urgency, and this process is not that. A career choice can take time and it seems it is best done when urgency is not a factor.
There are two primary inquiries here. The first is the following greatness and passion exercise. The second is described below that and involves looking at the job market.
Are the meetings you’re participating in productive? How do you know?
From the halls of corporate giants all the way down to the co-working spaces and coffee shops of startups and micro-businesses, a popular refrain can be heard: “Meetings are a waste of time”. Is that you? Well, most of the time, you’re right. They are. But that doesn’t say something about “meetings” as a whole, it only says something about the ones you’ve been having.
Meetings can be highly productive, crucial in fact, and even enjoyable. So, what makes a meeting (or any less formalized conversation, for that matter) “productive”?
As I’ve worked with clients and associates to create a foundation for high performance, it is often our approach to deal first with the areas that, upon investigation and evaluation, are clearly lacking integrity (in the dictionary sense of integrity: being whole and complete). In our model, integrity for an individual boils down to one’s word being whole and complete, and it is often easiest to start that inquiry by addressing the already-apparent areas: where are you not doing what you said you’d do, what you know to do and/or what the people around you could expect you to do? Usually, discovering what’s missing in these areas doesn’t take a lot of looking, as we are often already aware of many of them and yet still aren’t in action.
Certainly, taking this route of starting with what we already know is lacking can be very productive and, whether we see things that were missing that we weren’t already aware of or we get some new insight into the impact that our lack of integrity has had, can produce large shifts in performance through very simple, “small” actions. However, in many cases the “stuckness” persists and the actions remain undone. Why is this?
Let’s start where you are. Your organization is meeting expectations. Clearly what you do works. You have a track record of producing reliable results and growing at a rate that is satisfactory. You know how to do many things that when combined, produce predictable results. You sell an acceptable amount of product or service, deliver it at an acceptable quality of service and do so at a margin that works. This demonstrates a sensible approach and solid management. Without both, this would not be possible. This represents an excellent foundation for true high performance with two caveats. First, A solid reliable organization cannot make dramatic shifts, what we call breakthroughs, without recognizing that breakthrough performance does not come from what we already know. Second, leaders must be willing to commit to getting somewhere specific. Without a known destination it is possible to do lots of great work, but it is not possible to correct our course. Predictable breakthroughs happen only when we know where we are going and they happen in an environment where we are willing to work with the unknown as well as the known.
Read More »From Here To Breakthrough (for organizations with a foundation of success)
Over the past 18 years I have worked with clients and colleagues on literally hundreds of projects. I have done so in the context of Leadership Development, Training, Consulting or Coaching. I have been told that for most organizations, the cost of such development work has been thought of as HR cost, an investment in their people and as such an overhead issue. In my experience, this is an error. In my opinion, organizations get the greatest value when their retained support is focused on and committed to producing specific results that make a difference to the organization at the bottom line. This applies equally to corporate organizations and non-governmental organizations, (NGO’s). My suggestion: do not ever hire anyone to train or coach the leadership of your company who will not agree to be responsible for the results that are produced as a result of said engagement. There is such a thing as a consulting engagement where what you are asking for is nothing more than opinion and advice. Even in this case, what will be the outcomes if you follow that advice? A consultant who will not commit is not worth retaining.
There are runners. And then there’s me.
Though I understand fully the possible benefits of running, and have many times over the years set out on a regimen, I’ve never carried it out for more than a couple weeks and, in fact, have never run more than a mile at once—and I’ve only run a mile one time. That’s my track record over the past couple decades.
In less than eight weeks (on May 3), I will participate in, and complete, a 5K. So, the question is: What’s required (and what am I doing) to fulfill on a commitment to an outcome that seems extraordinary given what my past says is likely?
Read More »Winning The Race To A New (and Extraordinary) Result
(Disclaimer: This is not “The Truth”. This is a possible view, and it is my view. Though what is presented in my blogs bears true in my experience and is corroborated by modern science, I am presenting it simply as a possible view that may provide you some value in fulfilling on what you’re committed to in your business and life. Take it or leave it.)
“The future is bleak.”
“The future is bright.”
Which one of these statements best fits your thoughts about your future?
Here’s the rub: either way, you’re wrong. There is no future.
Well, there’s no future as in a real future. “The future” is but a concept. Or, said another way, the future only exists in our language—our speaking, and our thoughts and mental images. There is no real, fixed future out there waiting for you to enter it; there’s only a predicted future that you’ve created (or that your brain has created), a projection based purely out of your past. Actually even the past that your future is based on is a construct—an assembled pattern of selected and inaccurate memories of distorted and incomplete perceptions, arranged and experienced in a way that the brain thinks best to ensure your continued survival.
I am sure we have all experienced that one deal that was done on a handshake, and ultimately became the deal “from hell” that turned into a money pit. Perhaps it was as simple as a customer signing your proposal that might have the innocuous wording of “we strive to make our customers happy,” yet it turns into “scope creep” (because the customer never became happy) and you wind up spending more time, effort and resources than what you were paid (if you were paid at all). Many of us have also experienced a deal making process that included so many provisions for every possible scenario, that crafting the agreement became an obstacle to getting the deal done.
So, what do you do? Do you try to have a 30-page contract that contemplates every terrible scenario (and risk scaring off your customers with an over-reaching agreement) or do you leave out critical issues and risk that an agreement casually entered into will cost you more than it is worth? Sometimes, well thought out agreements of only a few pages can do the trick; addressing the critical needs of both parties and outlining a process for revision that works for all.
Read More »Don’t Kill The Deal By Pursuing “The Perfect Contract”