Accelerate Results – Now and in the Future

My early career years were tough. As newly hired entry level managers with Procter & Gamble, we were given tremendous responsibility -- and we were expected to deliver! Most of my colleagues seemed to excel under that pressure. Not me. By about my 5th year with the company, I doubted my ability to reach the next level and I was worn out from the constant struggle to meet the new stretch goals. In year six, I took an opportunity to transfer within the company to a very different role in a different division. In this role, I had the opportunity to work with the senior leaders of the Laundry and Fabric Care business. I facilitated their leadership team meetings, ran the Strategic Planning process, spent much 1-1 time doing what I later learned was ‘Executive Coaching’ and marveling at the discovery through this work, that we all struggle with some level of self-doubt. Some of us are better at masking it than others.

I flourished in this new role and environment. Within a short period of time I was promoted and I started researching my discovery of the impact of negative self-talk and how that manifests in our culture.

A Strengths-based Approach

About that time, there was research coming out, based on work done by Martin Seligman, who is considered the Grandfather of Positive Psychology (University of Pennsylvania). Gallup had recently published Now, Discover Your Strengths (M. Buckingham and D. Clifton), which debunked the myth that our greatest area for growth is in improving our weaknesses. That was fascinating to me!

Instead, our greatest opportunity for growth and delivering exponential results (in addition to greater confidence and true joy) is in working to develop our strengths.

Later, Malcolm Gladwell’s research indicated that it takes 10,000 hours of disciplined practice to achieve greatness in a particular discipline.

Unfortunately, in our culture, it’s easy to stay focused on our weaknesses. We gleefully point out other people’s weaknesses – often not to their face of course, that would be rude! And we confidently put together a list of our own. Some of us willingly share those with others and some prefer self-torture. Many do both. That doesn’t do any good.

What I learned is that you, me, your staff, and everyone else has amazing strengths: skills you’ve built over years of growing your business; qualities and characteristics that are inherent to who you are, that come naturally in special situations and in your everyday life. The thing that makes your performance in those strength areas really special and unique is your willingness and commitment to identify, acknowledge, and develop those very strengths. They don’t become amazing on their own. Look at Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Steve Jobs. They all developed their strengths with hours of disciplined practice. Why not you? If you invest in developing your strengths and your staff’s strengths, you will transform your business, your culture and their lives.

What about weaknesses?

So what if your staff (or even you?) have weaknesses? Should you ignore them? No. Mitigate them. Make their impact on your business and life inconsequential.

Now, if you have an employee in a role where his weaknesses are truly holding him and the company back, you may need to make a change in his role and/or responsibilities or you may ultimately discover he’s not a fit for your company. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have strengths! It simply means the fit isn’t right. Allocate roles and responsibilities with strengths in mind and you’ll find your results and engagement soar.

Get started:

1. Identify your greatest strengths and then note the ones you most enjoy using. If you are stumped, think about the feedback people consistently give you.
2. Take a look at your team. What strengths do they have that are underdeveloped or underutilized?
3. Invest in an assessment to highlight and validate their strengths. Strengthsfinders is web-based and for $10, you can get a list of your top 5 from their set of strengths . If you want a competency-based leadership or management assessment, contact us for more information.
4. Invest in developing their strengths. Look for ways to re-allocate roles to better align strengths and responsibilities to maximize results.
5. Begin your 10,000 hours of disciplined practice to expand your impact using those strengths. So, if you want to be a better decision-maker, for example, figure out how you can leverage your strengths to do that.

This is a pretty seamless way to get your team engaged and performing at their best, which means your business is on the cusp of something big! I can’t wait to hear what you will accomplish by shifting to a strengths based approach in your business! Drop me a note and let me know how it worked for you!

Creating New Rituals and Habits

Happy New Year! Many of us make resolutions for healthy habits this time of year, but really any time you make a life change – such as getting a new job, having a baby or retiring – is the perfect opportunity to reassess not just your daily routine, but also your regular habits and rituals. What changes do you want to make in your life? What has worked well for you and what might you like to be different? Now is the time to decide: Do you want to sleep in until 7am? Do you want to cook healthy meals? Work out before lunch instead of 5:15am? Do you want to buy tickets to the theater for a Wednesday night because you don’t have to worry about the alarm clock waking you on Thursday morning? Do you want to take a class at the community college that meets from 2pm to 4pm on Mondays? Or do you want to create a habit for reading, journaling, walking, biking, coffee with friends?

Decide what habits and rituals you want and then set up a place to do it. Ensure your tools of the trade are handy and then build the time into your schedule using a trigger that indicates when it’s time to do it. For instance, if you want to read your Bible every day, create a place to read, put your bible and any other tools in that space (reading glasses, a pointer, a coaster for your cup of coffee), and then build the trigger into your schedule. If you want to read right after you make your morning cup of joe, that’s your trigger. This year, as my schedule changed, I set a resolution to write in my journal every day. I created a space at a table in my home office, placed my journal, reading glasses and pen on the table, and my trigger alerts me to journal right before I head downstairs for breakfast. If you want to eat healthy meals, where will you find or create those meals? What tools do you need to do it well? What will trigger you to create or find those meals instead of the traditional fast food you’ve been relying upon?

You don’t need a life change to create healthy good habits. Pick something small and get started today.

Good luck!

Ditch Your New Year’s Resolutions… And Create a Very Successful 2015

As we prepare to close out 2014 and begin 2015, most of us are starting to think about new year’s resolutions. 2014 is nearly gone and we get a fresh clean slate in 2015. It is a good time to step back from your business and re-assess: How did you do this year? Did you hit your profit and revenue goals? Did you execute against your strategic plan? Did you have a strategic plan? It’s so easy to get so caught up in the day to day activities of running a business only to find yourself at the end of yet another year. Those goals you laid out…still untouched. Those aspirations you had for what life would look like…still aspirations. You can vow that next year will be different, but studies show that if you don’t DO something different, build new habits into your schedule and routine, that within a few short weeks – it will be back to ‘business as usual’.

So let’s agree to make 2015 different.

Building a Sustainable Habit

To build a sustainable habit, there are several factors that need to be addressed. You must:

1. Identify your new habit. Duh… but without this critical step, you won’t build one. Let’s agree to spend just 15 minutes each day week working ON your business. That’s less than 5% of your day. Surely you can carve that out in order to build profit, revenue and value into your organization.
2. Have an emotionally compelling reason to build the habit. Building a new habit is hard. If there is no emotionally compelling reason, you won’t stick with it. My emotionally compelling reason to do a daily business review is that it will ensure I invest in and on my business. Fifteen minutes each day, 5 days each week gives me over 60 hours/year to focus on my business. That’s a week and a half each year. I think that’s a terrific investment, but if I don’t build the habit, at best I do it in spurts.
3. Find a natural time in your daily routine to add your habit that triggers you to do the habit. I add daily business focus to my daily routine right after I brush my teeth every morning. Brushing my teeth becomes a cue to do the new behavior.
4. Determine how you are going to do the new habit. What exactly will it look like, feel like? I start with a review of my overall goals for the year, then my goals for the week that feed that. Then I put some time into moving one focus area forward. It could be building an action plan, organizing a meeting, mapping out a new strategy, etc…
5. Identify a place to do the new habit. If you are starting a daily business review, where will you sit? Setting a location ensures a place for your habit, and when you are in the destination, you are more likely to trigger the habit. I carved out a space in my home office to do my daily business review. When I look at the space, I am reminded of the value of that activity.
6. Set up the tools you will need to do your new habit and set them up in the place you will do the habit. What will you need at your fingertips? For my business review, I need my business goals and priorities, and my weekly work plan. I also need my laptop, journal, pens, and stickies. As I am focused ON the business, I recognize additional activities that need to be done IN the business so I keep stickies handy to jot them down. That helps me stay focused.
7. Imagine yourself doing it right. Walk yourself through mentally how you look, feel when you are doing it well. I imagine myself sitting at my home office desk doing good quality thinking and planning and starting my day with a focus and intentionality I can be proud of.
8. Find a habit-forming partner who will do this process with you. Their new habit may be different than yours, but the accountability and support of having a buddy who is as committed to implementing their new habit as you are to implementing yours can further enhance your likelihood of making it stick.

What one new habit can revolutionize your business?

Take 15 minutes today to figure out what new habit you can build into your routine that will make 2015 a breakthrough year for you and your company, then go through these steps and design your new habit forming system.

May you have a joyful and prosperous 2015.