Leadership + Management Training and Tips

The Cancer of Corporate America…Do you have it?

rkhoss — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:00:07 +0000

Wherever there are people, the disease lurks; waiting to ‘eat at’ it’s next victim.

…I can’t believe that THEY were promoted, everyone knows that THEY are incompetent…

…It’s clear now what is needed to advance in this organization, certainly not drive, dependability, and producing results…

…those were my ideas and presentations that got THEM promoted. It should have been ME…

…of all the Leadership styles to reward, I would have never picked THAT one, Not only do THEY lack Leadership, THEY are a terrible Manager…

I can’t remember where I heard these quotes, but it certainly wasn’t from my experience…

So when this happens to you; what are you feeling?

Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival. This rival may or may not know that he or she is perceived as a threat.
Envy is a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another’s advantages, success, possessions, etc.
or BOTH

Knowing what your feeling, is the first step in protecting yourself from the Corporate Cancer that can destroy even the best leaders.

Just like any other corporate problem you have faced in your past, you have to break it down in order to find the root cause so you can begin to apply treatments to the source…

Have I reached my Peter Principle?
Am I not as valuable as I thought I was?
Or was your Boss just Gracious to a Peer, and I’m just Envious?

Anyone CAN do it, but everyone DOESN’T

rkhoss — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:00:53 +0000

Look at most successful people and you may find yourself saying,

‘that’s not so special, I could have done that…’.

The truth is your probably right. However, the difference is that THEY actually DID something about it.

So now that you have set some GOALS; what have you put in place to make sure you’re working to achieve those goals?

Remember, Anyone CAN do it, but everyone DOESN’T or WON’T invest the effort needed to be successful.

I manage my goals in a similar way as I Manage My Time .

It’s really quite simple, ANYONE CAN DO IT! Here’s what works for me…

I believe it has to be simple for it to actually work. If it’s too much trouble, at least for me, I won’t do it. ACTION is the Key!

Keep your Goals ‘IN YOUR FACE’. If you don’t, you can easily get off focus and find yourself doing activities that are NOT aligned to your Goals.
Keep them clearly defined and achievable. If your not accomplishing smaller goals, you won’t be motivated to keep going. You need to have those small, quick wins to keep you on track.
Be disciplined and hold yourself accountable. If your not strong enough in this area, find someone to partner with to help keep you accountable and motivated. If your GOALS were established correctly, they should reflect your desires of your HEART. In that case, your Goal related activity should not be a burden, but easy to follow since they are your Passion. If this is not the case, then go back and adjust your Goals, they probably aren’t what YOU want but what SOMEONE ELSE wants for You.

I have created an entry in my Calendar (I use Outlook) for 10:00pm each Day and made it a recurring event for 29 Days. Each day, or every couple of days, I review my goals and Journal in my event how I’m progressing. On DAY 30 I take that Goal with it’s Journal Entries from the past month, reflect on my progress, then CREATE a NEW GOAL ENTRY for the Next 30 Days. This keeps my Goals current and achievable. I try to make sure they are activity based, achievable in 30 - 60 Days and pointing toward my Ultimate Goals.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an ULTIMATE Goal. In most cases I don’t. But this activity will lead you further ahead and OPEN new opportunities for you that you may not have even considered as an ultimate destination.

Ask any successful person, they never in their Wildest Dreams ever imagined it would grow this BIG or be this SUCCESSFUL!!!

Remember, ‘Nothing happens until something Moves…’ (Albert Einstein)

Good Luck! YOU CAN DO IT!!!

Driving in the Fast Lane…or taking the Exit Ramp?

rkhoss — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 04:00:38 +0000

Do you ever ask yourself what you are doing and where are you going? Or have you been asked by others:

What do you want to do when you grow up?
What do you see yourself doing in 5 years?
How do you plan to get there?

The list can go on and on… I know I have heard these all my life. For me it’s difficult to answer because I have always enjoyed where I was at the time. Maybe because I look to be content no matter where I am, or to look at life as a journey, not a destination.

If you’re like me, you’re handling your career like Driving in the Fast Lane. I’m going no where special, but I’m getting there fast… But ask any expert and you’ll see they all agree on one thing…

Yep!!! You have to have Specific Written Goals.

“The greatest thing in life is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.” Oliver Wendall Holmes

“Before you can score, you must first have a goal.” Anonymous

“If you don’t know where you are going in life, you’re liable to wind up someplace else.” Yogi Berra

“Aim at nothing and you’ll probably hit it.” Anonymous

“I really don’t know what I want from life, but I’m pretty sure it ain’t what I’ve got.” Alfred E. Newman

After 32 years of business experience you’d think I would have lived what I learned more consistently. Well, you’re wrong. At times even the best Leaders out there are JUST LIKE YOU. That’s because you have the potential to be a Great Leader. Just take some of the simple advice of Great Leaders of the past.

Step 1 - Get a GOAL!

You’re probably telling yourself that you have tried to do this in the past and can’t seem to get it done. Check this out if you’re having trouble Getting Started.

Step 2 - Do Step 1 until you Get a Goal.

Here are some simple steps to help make your Goal Setting More Successful:

Start easy and small, just start
Make your goals Achievable and Measurable
Find someone else to help keep you accountable
Don’t plan too far out. Just get pointed in the Right Direction.

Well it’s been almost 6 months since our last post… Why? You ask?

That’s right, it wasn’t a Goal and it Fell off our Radar Screen since Life is Busy!!!

“There are Always REASONS for not meeting your Goals or Deadlines, just NO EXCUSE!!!”.

Today I created written goals and I’m off to my Destination again. Have you ever tried to Google Directions without putting in a Starting Address and Destination… you get my point.

If you need some help with writing your goals, let me suggest identifying these categories:

Business/Financial
Family
Social
Physical
Spiritual
Mental

Keep in mind that you ‘Balance’ your goals across the 6 categories. The goals need to compliment each other not compete.

Like I said before, don’t worry about looking too far out. As you progress and meet your mini-goals, new opportunities will appear giving you many options to change your course; often options you didn’t know were possible.

So take an exit ramp, not for the purpose of quitting, but to redirect your direction to ‘Stay on Course’. Don’t just go through the motions and ‘Drive Along’. Plot your course and don’t miss your Exit Ramp.

You can Do it. You Are Born To WIN!

Interview with Penelope Trunk

mincus — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:19:00 +0000

The Brazen Careerist herself, Penelope Trunk, was nice enough to take some time out of her day to do a quick interview with us.

Through her blog and her new book - Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, Penelope doles out tips to navigate through the beast that is corporate life for a new generation of workers.

Allen: On your blog, you mention that your book is about how the current generation has ushered in a new workplace. What do you think the biggest change has been between the old and new generations?

Penelope: The old generation assumed that you pay your dues, and you get to live a fulfilling life at the end of your career. The new generation does not see any point to putting off this fulfillment. It used to be that if you paid your dues to a big company, you would have a secure job for your whole life, and a pension for retirement. Today no job is secure, and pensions are nonexistent for young workers, so the workplace is more about the moment. Young workers today want to get something good right now in exchange for the work they do.

Older generations could be wowed with money — especially when they were young: Work long hours in exchange for a big paycheck, for example. Today young workers are not nearly as motivated as money. Personal growth and flexible hours are more important than money.

What do you think is the most important action this new generation can take to be prepared to transition into leadership roles?

This generation will remake the idea of leadership. In the past, it has been centralized and hierarchical. That won’t fly in the new workplace. Gen Y doesn’t operate like that, and Gen X doesn’t want to be tethered to the insane 100-hour weeks of the typical senior leadership roles. So the idea of leaderhsip will have to become less centralized so more people can share in it. The best way to prepare for this is to figure out what work you are best at doing, because it’s in that area that you can be a leader when the baby boomer’s start moving out of the way.

What can we do to integrate your articles and tips into our daily work life? How do we avoid just falling back into our old routines, or how do we remember to lead when the world is on fire.

Just remember to lead yourself. Be true to yourself. Be honest about your goals and your aspirations and your failings. The bottom line of everything I write is: Know yourself. It’s a process, and the great thing about a career is it’s another way to get to know yourself. Great leaders have a great sense of self.

As your site and book are named, you often say brazen things that todays corporate climate frowns on. Do you see the new generation becoming more or less PC or where do you see this trend going in the future with the generational changes that will accelerate over the next 10 years?

Politically correct is an adjective from the baby boomer’s. They realized that discrimination is much wider than what they fought for in the civil rights movement. They wanted to do more. So they started policing language because discrimination is so language based. But young people today have grown up in such a different climate — and most young people in the US will be racially mixed some time soon (I can’t remember when). So political correctness is much more natural to a generation that did not grow up with separate drinking fountains for black kids. I don’t think political correctness will be an issue once the baby boomers stop writing about it.

I have interviewed Robert Fuller about his rankism movement — the idea that everyone deserves respect, no matter what their rank in life is. And I have interviewed Bob Sutton about his book that chronicles his research about people who are jerks. Both Fuller and Sutton seem to me to be talking about what comes after political correctness. It’s respect. The idea that you should treat everyone nicely. This is something that is really ingrained in young people — everyone gets to play on soccer teams, not just the stars. All kids get to go to school, even the disabled. This is the first generation to live like that.

You often mention the use of stories to create lasting impressions, for example during interviews or networking. The internet in general, and blogging specifically lend themselves to these mini personal stories to brand together people and concepts. How can people learn this skill to help them advance their career?

This is a great question. My mom is always sending me emails about how I am revealing too much on my blog and she is worried that I’ll lose all my readers.

When it comes to blogging, you cannot tell good stories about yourself if you are concerned about never looking bad. To tell good stories about yourself you have to be authentic. Everyone has days when they are so sad that they can’t get out of bed. Everyone has days when they thought they would never succeed. The trick is to tell stories about yourself that reveal both your strengths and your weaknesses. We all have both. You can’t portray a whole person on a blog without both sides of yourself.

March 05, 2007 Speedlinking

mincus — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 11:45:57 +0000

Not that many people have trouble determining this on their own, but Guy Kawasaki gives some hard fast rules for determining if Your Boss is an Asshole.
Maybe all the reason why you should Be a mentor, starting now - Learn now how to give back the knowledge you have to your peers and keep doing it throughout your career.
Morning Edition’s workplace consultant, Ben Dattner, talks about Workplace Woes: The Team-Building Retreat. He points out that many offsite team-building exercises actually are promoting competitive, individual wins instead of collaboration and team building (Although paint-ball does sound like fun…)
And CNN talks with Eric Schmidt and gets more detail about Google’s 10% time and what “Don’t Be Evil” really helps to accomplish

U.S. Anti-Terrorism efforts are run by Managers

mincus — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:00:44 +0000

Movie Plot Threats

The current U.S. efforts to fight terrorism are an unwinnable battle. The majority of effort, money, and planning is spent trying to protect against “Movie Plot Threats.” The problem with this mindset though, is that there will always be a different easier method to attack, a different avenue, or a loophole.

For example - Liquids are banned because they are dangerous, but thrown into a big container directly next to where the line queues. Even odder is that small containers of liquids are safe as long as they are in a zip lock bag. These efforts are pure security theater, no one is one bit safer because of these solutions.

Many organizations have these same issues and there are many parallels between these policies and how groups are managed.

Managers fail to see outside of their scope

When managers are handed a problem, they work within the frame of that problem to find a solution. They make decisions that will protect them if something goes wrong, instead of making the right decision of the whole.

This is what is happening in the U.S. government now. The solutions that they are coming up with, are “solutions” to yesterdays threats with no apparent thought to the bigger picture or focus where they could have an impact and truly make people safer.

Things Leaders Do

On the other hand, leaders see problems as a subset of larger issues and ask “why” until they get to the root cause. They align these solutions to the overall vision.

For instance, they would see the futility in chasing these threats that are moving targets and focus on solutions that would help regardless of how the country is attacked. Recruiting and training more First responders - who are of utmost importance in any disaster. Improving relations/conditions in other countries and not wantonly attacking other countries and creating breeding grounds for exactly what they are attempting to protect against.

Is this your organization?

You are handed problems everyday in your job, do you solve the issue as quickly as possible to only move on to the next? Or are you actively working towards solving the root causes of the issues in your organization?

This is the harder path, because these larger problems are often outside of your immediate circle of influence. They take longer to solve, but they opportunities that are begging for you to take the lead on. When you take the problems and projects that are doomed to failure or that no one wants to touch, you become invaluable. You, and the people that you lead become the group that senior leadership comes to when something must be done right.

When do you stop being Told what to DO?

rkhoss — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 04:00:29 +0000

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. –Peter Drucker

Who tells your boss what to do?

It has always amazed me that in every position I have worked in my past, employees always have the same response to that question - Who tells your boss what to do? Their boss!

When I ask the same question up the Table of Organization, they give the Ouroborosish like response all the way up -

Position in Organization	Who Tells them What to Do
Subject Matter Expert (SME) or Technician	Lead or Manager
Lead	Manager
Manager	Director
Director	Vice President (VP)
Vice President (VP)	Chief Executive Office (CEO)
Chief Executive Office (CEO)	Board of Directors
Board of Directors	Stock Holders / Consumers / Customers

Nobody tells Leaders what to do

I love to see the shock on their faces when I tell them that Leaders are not told what to do! Leaders see (and work with others to find) efficiencies, problems, and solutions before they become fires. They spread their leadership. They know what their bosses are looking for and provide it before they are asked for it because they understand the vision.

So if your working your way into Management/Leadership, when do you stop being told what to do and change from being an Employee to becoming a LEADER?

You don’t become a Director, and then start becoming a Leader. Just like any job, you get a job only because your skills and experience will ensure that you will be successful in that Job. Once you’re in your new job, you should begin to work on learning the next level There is no better time to begin than now, when being a leader sticks out even more.

Leadership is the fast track to being promotable

Position in Organization	Skill Set
Chief Executive Office (CEO)	Leader
Vice President (VP)	Leader
Board of Directors	Leader
Director	Leader
Manager	Manager
Lead	Manager
Subject Matter Expert (SME) or Technician	Have to Decide if you want to be a Manager or remain in a Technical Role

As you can see, Leaders rise higher than Managers in an organization. So the sooner you develop Leadership Skills the more promotable you become. Managers usually can only Manage people in their technical area. Leaders have skill sets that make them successful in any area, because those skills are transferable.

Remember, Managers are EVERYWHERE! But leaders are hard to come by. Great Leaders are even more scarce, so keep on developing yourself and you will stand out in a crowd!

Leadership, Passion, and Starbucks

mincus — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 12:21:03 +0000

NPR’s Marketplace has a great interview with Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks up on their site.

What stuck me most about the interview was his passion about what he was doing. How fully he believed in his goal.

It’s worth taking a step back and thinking about it during your day. What are you doing right now that you feel that passion for? As a leader, who around you are you helping to build that passion in?

It’s so easy to fall into the day to day activities of “work” that without using your leadership skills, you can forget who is in control of your life.

If you don’t have that passion yet, what a great day today is to start.

Supervisors are HISTORY; Are Managers next on the extinction list?

rkhoss — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:00:13 +0000

Remember Supervisors? People tasked to “watch” others work… They have almost completely faded away or at least for most industries have… and for good reason. How unproductive!

Just as Supervisors have been replaced in the last decade by either Managers or empowering Employees, I believe Managers are next to go…

Managers will always be needed, but Leaders will be what organizations, like yours, are LOOKING FOR! If your company is hiring people from outside, it’s because they can’t find LEADERSHIP from within…

Take a look at how skill sets change as you progress up a ‘Chain of Command’ or ‘Table of Organization (T.O.)’. Where are you in your Organization and where do you desire to go to? Do you have the proper Skill Set ratio, and if not, what are you doing to change that?

Position in Organization	Skill set Spread
Chief Executive Office (CEO)	Leadership: 100 % Technical: 0 %
Vice President (VP)	Leadership: 80 % Technical: 20 %
Director	Leadership: 60 % Technical: 40 %
Manager	Leadership: 40 % Technical: 60 %
Lead	Leadership: 20 % Technical: 80 %
Subject Matter Expert (SME) or Technician	Leadership: 0 % Technical: 100 %

Everyone may want to rise to the ‘TOP’, but remember somewhere in your career, the Peter Principle may step in.

Here is a simple and quick Test from Leadership IQ, to help you see how you measure up. Take the Test

So, when do you begin to CHANGE from a Manager to a Leader?

January 12, 2007 Speedlinking

mincus — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 04:00:22 +0000

The first two from this weeks links are all about “tricking” yourself into doing what you really want. Some great techniques on how to accomplish what you set out to do from these great blogs -

Steve Pavlina gives some great ways to achieve your goals by improving your character. The simple technique he writes about can really help to get past problems. What would a person with more X do in my situation?
Small things matter more than you think. Carmine from Slow Leadership shows how lots of little decisions are “often the key to acting on the bigger choices you want to make about your life.”
A particular favorite of mine, because so many in the tech world fall into this trap and avoiding it is a great way to stand out by avoiding it - In Oh why won’t they ever learn? Mike Schaffner talks about the trap of becoming annoyed at users because they fail to learn the “obvious.” (Love the new name of your blog!)
And Business Week wraps it up with some more great ideas about running effective meetings. I love the idea of projecting the meeting notes on a wall during the meeting. But, as Penelope Trunk pointed out in our effective meeting ideas, the trick isn’t how to run a great meeting - it’s getting people to use the “great meeting” techniques in the meetings!