10 Principles of Personal Leadership

Image courtesy of Todd Clarke

I was recently working with some of my retail clients on ‘showrooming’ and leadership, and was reminded of some of the great principles Howard Behar spoke of in his 2009 book, “It’s Not About the Coffee.”

Whether you have read the book or have yet to read it, I would highly recommend picking up a copy. Following are just a few reasons I found to be highly beneficial:

• It’s practical, not just theoretical
• It’s actionable, not just anecdotal
• The focus is on People, not Product
• The principles are timeless
• Those you lead will benefit

Following is an excerpt from his book on the 10 Principles of Personal Leadership that I thought would benefit those looking to improve their own leadership.

10 Principles of Personal Leadership

1. Know Who You Are: Wear One Hat
2. Know Why You’re Here: Do It Because It’s Right, Not Because It’s Right for Your Resume
3. Think Independently: The Person Who Sweeps the Floor Should Choose the Broom
4. Build Trust: Care, like You Really Mean It
5. Listen for the Truth: The Walls Talk
6. Be Accountable: Only the Truth Sounds like the Truth
7. Take Action: Think Like a Person of Action, and Act like a Person of Thought
8. Face Challenge: We Are Human Beings First
9. Practice Leadership: The Big Noise and the Still, Small Voice
10. Dare to Dream: Say “Yes,” the Most Powerful Word in the World

[Download printable PDF versions of The 10 Principles of Personal Leadership (annotated) and the Checklist for Individuals, Leaders, and Coaches].

Does anyone remember your corporate vision?

After laboring with your leadership team to set a compelling vision for 2013, the chances are, your staff won’t even remember it only 30 days into the new year.

Don’t believe me? Take this simple test:

Ask 3 staff members about your current vision.

Be prepared for the results you will likely find.

For those that found that all three remembered the vision with clarity, you are part of a rare few. This would suggest that you already know the success was not due to a catchy, compelling headline, nor was it because you were so engaging in your delivery of the vision. Both may have been true, but were not the reason.

Most, on the other hand, fell into the broader category of the ‘forgotten vision.’ Following are a few steps to take before it’s too late and your staff forgets you even spoke about the vision. Before doing so, let’s make sure the reasons are clear for why this is often forgotten so soon after being delivered.

The Forgotten Vision

Last October, I was invited to conduct a Vision & Strategic Planning workshop at a conference in Chicago for leaders from all over the country. The preliminary surveys of the audience members showed that most had led and/or participated in vision setting exercises with an even larger number showing the vision had no measurable impact on their year-end results. Here are a few of the most common reasons cited for the vision failing to make an impact:

From leader’s perspective:

Nobody remembered the vision
They didn’t buy into the vision

From staff’s perspective:

The vision failed to connect with staff
The vision is an exercise leaders do

Do any of those reasons look or sound familiar to you? What is interesting is that both, in the workshop and in working with other leaders in this area, is that most believe they need help with vision casting, believing that they just needed a better story or a better way to tell the story. While I do give some guidance and attention to that part in my workshops, my primary emphasis is on vision execution.

Two Steps to a Vision Remembered

When you reflect upon the vision setting exercises you have been engaged with, you are likely to remember the sense of relief you had when you finally completed the vision. Most see this process as putting in the hard work up front whereas all that is left is to deliver the vision to the team and expect the results. I have significantly oversimplified how most actually go about this, but the truth of the matter is that people too often place inappropriate emphasis on the front end of vision casting and little to no work in executing the vision.

The truth is that the vision casting is the easiest part of the process. The harder part is in distilling the vision down into executable actions that connect directly to each team member’s behaviors. The second part is in having specific, measurable evidence of where the vision is being carried out for each staff member to call and reinforce further behaviors. Here is a closer look at these two steps.

As the leader, you know the pressures you experience to get things done with fewer resources. Your staff feels these same pressures, just in differing degrees. Therefore, if you feel that you don’t have time to take these steps to carry out the vision, how likely is it that your staff will naturally commit to carrying out the vision along with their other responsibilities? They won’t! Without you taking these aforementioned steps, they will simply see the vision as an interruption to getting their regular work done. Their everyday responsibilities [as they define them] will win out every time. That is, unless you define and connect the two, then consistently reinforce those behaviors. Is your vision worth the investment?

Leadership Lesson from X Games

Talent Alone is not Enough

January 27, 2013 marks the first time an athlete has ever achieved a six-peat…six consecutive gold medal performances…in the winter X Games. Tucker Hibbert did so in remarkable fashion in the Snowmobile Sno-Cross event Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t his talent alone that won the finals for him. The X Game analysts were quick to point out that this was one of the most experienced and capable field of champions they have ever seen.

What they did point to as the differentiator, rightfully so, was his preparation. You see, in between the semi-finals and finals, Tucker chose to spend his time walking the course to evaluate how the snow conditions had changed. He also spent time evaluating where the shadows were falling on the course along with identifying the intended lines he would take. It turns out that he was the only competitor that did so.

Assimilating all of that information resulted in his selection of starting lane (afforded to him because of his semi-final finish), which was counter-intuitive to where most others wanted to start from. By the time they all completed the first lap, Tucker was in the lead and on his game plan. More than half way through the race, conditions continued to change as the shadows continued to shift and the snow conditions on the track worsened.

Lap 9, Tucker was jolted by hitting a rough patch in his originally chosen line. He adjusted his line to his plan B approach by the time he reached that same rough section on lap 10 and continued to put distance between himself and the second place competitor. Six laps later, he had finished the race creating a phenomenal 13 seconds of distance between his next closest competitor.

The Mark of Effective Leadership is Reflected in Their Preparation

Tucker prepared in a way that his competitors failed to do. In fact, all things being equal, each of the competitors had the opportunity to win with similar experience, equipment and conditions. Yet, it came down to Tucker’s preparation that enabled him to respond asymmetrically to an otherwise, equal playing field. Tucker clearly had an advantage over his competition. An advantage also available to each of his competitors, but they declined, instead relying upon their own experience to see them through.

For leaders, you can certainly attest to the pressure to perform while leading your team to do the same. With the level of responsibilities a leader typically carries, the tendency can be to approach business as just another day. merely showing up and reacting to whatever the next day has in store. This is certainly no way to lead, and definitely not a recipe for intentional, predictable and repeatable success.

So how can you tell if you have fallen into this trap? Ask yourself these questions:

If these questions have exposed some vulnerabilities in your daily approach, you are not alone. Be encouraged as you have taken the first step to acknowledge complacency. Complacency threatens all of us if we don’t intentionally disrupt our own status quo. Here are three steps to help you prepare differently, much like Tucker had done for his record performance. After all, wouldn’t we all like to succeed in intentional, predictable, repeatable ways as Tucker did?

3 Ways Effective Leaders Prepare Differently

Intentionality. Evaluating ever-changing conditions in the business environment requires being prepared for anything. This includes anticipating problems before they happen, and even planning how you will respond to the unanticipated. To have this ability, the leader will need to take intentional steps and set aside time to address these areas. Action: Schedule this into your calendar to address consistently and frequently. This needs to become an habitual routine.
Predictability. After you begin intentionally looking for ways to be better prepared, you will begin to see patterns. These patterns often come in the forms of team member behavior that leads to lesser performance, complacent reactions of competitors, or even economic rhythms that you can predict and address now that you see them. Action: Practice predicting outcomes privately. Start developing this capability and pay attention to predictions and what surprised you along the way before you go public.
Repeatability. When you have devoted the time to be intentional, others begin to notice your seemingly innate ability to predict outcomes and that you are well-prepared, you will find that repeatable successes happen with much greater frequency. This makes you an invaluable asset and resource to your team and your organization. Action: Look for ways to repeat your success without relying on repeating the same exact actions. Life usually doesn’t work that way. But for the effective leader that knows how to succeed repeatedly, do as Babe Ruth did and call your shots before they happen. Then make good on it by developing your intentionality and predictability muscles.

The most meaningful things in life take time to develop. Effective leadership is one of those meaningful areas worthy of pursuing. But it’s up to you. What will you choose? What will you do differently today, that will make a noticeable difference in what you and your teams do tomorrow?

1 Easy Step to Shorter Meetings

Problem: Habitual Thinking About Time
Think about a meeting you typically schedule for your team. How long do you schedule for the meeting? For sake of discussion, let’s assume it is an hour-long meeting. Is an hour really needed, or is scheduling an hour just a habit in thinking about time in 30-60 minute increments?

We have become accustomed to increments of time that are rounded off…and most often, rounded up to greater increments of time. For example, consider human behavior with New Year’s resolutions.

What is normally considered a goal, becomes a resolution because it was set on or around January 1. Then most people stick with it for as long as they can…typically a couple weeks…then say to themselves, “I will try harder next year.”

While we are accustomed to think habitually in terms of year-long resolutions, when what is really needed are week-long or even day-long resolutions. Why wait a whole year to make adjustments to what didn’t work after a few weeks.

Shorten your time increments. Similarly, when we schedule meetings, we tend to look in 60 minute blocks of time, when what really may be needed is 45 minutes or perhaps even 20.

Solution: Plan for Less

To Meeting Organizers – Reduce meeting time by 25% or more.Before scheduling your next meeting, first be a responsible organizer and do the following:

Ensure there are clear decision points
Communicate to all necessary attendees in advance of meeting
Determine how much time you think will be needed for the meeting
Then recognize you are thinking about time in traditional ways and reduce the time by at least 25%

This is counter-intuitive, but you will be amazed at how properly prepared attendees that know the meeting time is short, will focus in on the essential decision points. Longer meeting times suggest to the participants, that there is plenty of time, so settle in and pace yourself.

To meeting participants – Plan to leave early.
For your next scheduled meeting, let the meeting organizer know that you will have to step out [25% of the meeting] early (i.e., leave 45 minutes into an hour-long meeting).

Ask the meeting organizer to cover the key points while you are there
Identify a colleague to get a recap for the last 15 minutes missed
Congratulate yourself for taking intentional steps to reinvest valuable time
Recognize this is a short-term solution, so address it at the root by sharing these tips with others

I understand this is not possible for all meetings, particularly meetings that your supervisor called. In those instances, what you can do is share the concept you read here. Let them know these methods have increased staff productivity levels in excess of 25%. What supervisor would not be a fan of that?

This really works and puts valuable time back in your day, especially when you attend or hold multiple meetings each day. The result? Spend less time talking about what you will do and more time actually doing it.

Please share your successes in employing this technique. Also, if you have a favorite way to reduce meeting times…or meetings altogether, we’d love to hear about them.

Success in Sales Has an Expiration Date

One of life’s unfortunate realities is that succeeding once does not mean succeeding always. As we are all aware, “success” has a shelf life…or an expiration date, if you will.

We all want it, and most work hard to get it…often times with failures along the way, and when we finally achieve the success we were after, we are brought back to the reality that this will not last forever, nor ensure success with our next endeavor. For the repeatedly successful person, that means we have to replenish our successes. The more frequently, the better.

Given that this website is dedicated to the creation of intentional, repeatable successes, I am typically less concerned with or enamored by a person’s initial success. I am more curious about what creates repeatable successes.

I have listed below a few characteristics of those that have consistently demonstrated their ability to repeat success in all areas of their life:

Learner – They have huge appetites to take in as many points of meaningful data, philosophies, best practices as possible to better inform and guide their decisions
Distiller – They not only take in data, but assimilate and distill information in ways that can be dispensed at will
Distributor – With much collected wisdom…from both success and failure…they share freely with others
Conduit – They serve as a collection point for information, knowledge, wisdom
Filter – Despite seemingly endless supplies of wisdom & knowledge, they filter out noise for themselves & others
Reasoner – They have a unique ability to mentally process complex lines of thinking
Disciplined – Through constant practice and refinement, they rehearse the behaviors that produce the greatest benefits in their personal and professional lives
Curious – By nature…or practice, they have a genuine curiosity, tending to do more asking than talking
Decisive – Decisions are made more readily, not despite the many inputs, but because of the consistent practice of collecting inputs
Observer – One other key attribute is they careful observe why success does or does not occur, so they know with surgical precision, which behaviors to repeat and which to avoid

Again, this is not an exhaustive list of characteristics and traits, but rather some of the most common attributes I have observed over the years from all walks of life. This includes both those in which I have worked and consulted as well as those, whose stories have been shared in biographies, autobiographies, or other.

What have you observed from those in which you have worked or observed that are intentionally and repeatedly successful? Which attribute is your favorite?

Do You Have the Right Decision Strategy?

As a business professional who has dedicated my career to identifying the behaviors that create intentional, repeatable results…or what I call Succeeding on Purpose, there is one area I see commonly connected with poor business results. That is in the area of decision strategy.

More specifically, this refers to the tendency of professionals to make decisions based upon current, unexpected results they encounter. On the other hand, those that consistently create intentional, repeatable successes expect occasional ‘losses’ and remain committed to their time-tested strategies and processes to guide their decision-making when a loss occurs.

Reams of materials have been written correlating successful companies with excellent decision-making processes, so no need to add to the contributions of legends like Jim Collins and Ram Charan. My aim is to provoke thinking around your own decision strategies and test how well they are working for you.

In Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, he discusses how at one point he took up the game of poker and studied it intently to learn how to master the principles. Following is an excerpt from his learning experience:

One of the key points Tony drives at is that adjusting the bet based on an individual hand is a losing strategy because it is reactive. That type of short-term thinking often compromises longer-term results. Rather, it is better to be disciplined in making the right decision where the odds of winning are more favorable in the long run.

What does your decision strategy look like?

The principles that Tony articulated in his book are excellent, but as you may have perceived, if you don’t have the right decision strategy, then remaining disciplined to the wrong strategy and process can commit you to failure. That said, it is important to note that simply reacting to results is most typically the approach with the ‘poorest odds of winning.’

Not convinced? Consider it from this perspective – Imagine starting an exercise program. You know there are a myriad of exercises that can bring results, but you need to stick to the program in order to see results. If you simply use a mirror, which represents current circumstances and results, as the primary feedback of your results, you will likely react in the wrong ways based on what you see. That is simply because the mirror does not reflect the long-term results of what you are working towards. It merely reflects your present reality, and for many, they don’t like their present day reality. So they react to do something differently, thus disrupting any momentum that may have started to build.

How do I know if I have the right decision strategy?

As a basic litmus test to know if you have the right strategy, ask yourself this question…When I see things getting off track, how do I respond?

If your first response is to review your strategy for misalignment or derailment, that is an excellent sign. On the other hand, if you more typically find yourself reacting to circumstances or unexpected results (e.g., Missed a monthly sales goal, weak marketing campaign response rate, etc.), without orienting to your strategy to calibrate what you are seeing in your present reality, you may respond prematurely and even inappropriately.

For example, I recently saw an organization struggling to recover from sales declines in one of its areas by switching strategies to start offering aggressive discounts to bolster sales for the current month. The results? Cannibalization of future customers. Sales from future months were borrowed for the current month’s performance result. My understanding is that the organization has yet to recover from the short-term decisions made many months earlier.

How do you respond when unexpected results occur in your business? Are you betting based on winning or losing the individual hand, or are you betting on the process that delivers success in the long-term?