Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Be A Manager Who Makes Decisions

2012-01-26T20:37:00.001-06:00

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a "wrong" decision. These managers don't necessarily request needless data, but simply just never decide.

Successful managers gather the data from their employees, make any truly necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision...knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white "right or "wrong," but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision.

4 Words You Should Never Say To A Customer

2012-01-25T21:46:00.001-06:00

Author Harvey MacKay wrote the following spot-on advice awhile back in his column in the Kansas City Business Journal. He wisely points out that all employees at every level should never use these four words in front of a client/customer for both obvious and perhaps not so obvious reasons:

Can't -- As in, "We can't do that." "We can't meet that deadline." Unless you honestly cannot produce and then be honest and help them find another vendor.
Busy -- As in, "I'll call you when I'm not so busy." "I'm really busy right now." The word "busy" gives your customer the impression they are a low priority.
Safe -- As in, "Let's play it safe." Customers typically want to engage in calculated risks versus playing it safe.
Fear -- As in, "I fear that we may be moving too fast." That tells your customer you haven't done your homework. MacKay writes, "Common sense, thorough research and sound advice should allay your fears to a reasonable level."

Take a moment. Are you absolutely sure every employee in sales, production, operations, marketing, etc., is not using these words, even inadvertently, in front of your customers?

Thanks for the important reminder, Harvey MacKay!

10 Tips For How To Be A Healthier Leader

2012-01-25T06:33:00.001-06:00

If you're like many leaders, you're "too busy" to exercise on a regular basis. And, you don't give yourself time to renew and refresh. Truth is, there are ways to fit exercise and healthful habits into your busy day that will pay off in dividends.

From Experience Life magazine, here are 10 tips for how to fit even just moments into your day (at work, on the road and at home) to help you become more healthful:

Make a plan to exercise. Include exercise times, even if they are just in 10-minute increments, on your calendar.
Find time to exercise and build on that time. Start off by walking for five minutes at lunch and add to that every few days until you've worked up to 30 minutes every few lunch hours.
Limit screen time. Set a timer for how long you'll watch TV or surf the Net. Then, use the time you aren't in front of a screen to exercise.
When you are watching TV, do squats, pushups, lunges, yoga poses and crunches.
Think positive. Psychologists suggest that you replace "I am too busy to work out" thinking with "I choose to make myself a priority."
Hold a "walking meeting" where your group walks together instead of sits in a meeting room. This can be particularly beneficial for brainstorming meetings.
Work out when you're traveling. Pack a jump rope. Do push-ups and crunches in your hotel room. Use the hotel's gym. Ask the hotel if they have guest passes or discounted rates at a nearby health club.
Exercise first thing in the morning. Don't let a long day end with "no time to exercise."
Wear a pedometer. By age 60, most people are down to about 4,500 steps a day. Your goal should be to walk 10,000 steps per day.

Negotiate a discounted rate for you and your employees at a gym near your office building. And then use the facility and encourage your employees to do the same.

I participate in 5K runs throughout the year. They give me a goal to continually improve my times. My entry fees go to support local nonprofit organizations. And, to prepare for each race, I have to schedule times during the preceding weeks to practice and exercise.

REI Sets The Example For Creating And Living Core Values

2012-01-22T10:36:00.001-06:00

Are you a leader who is struggling with how to write your company's core values?

You can learn from Recreational Equipment Incorporated, better known as REI -- an outdoor gear and apparel co-op. As described in Amy Lyman's new book, The Trustworthy Leader, REI concisely articulates its core values in this series of statements:

Authenticity -- We are true to the outdoors.
Quality -- We provide trustworthy products and services
Service -- We serve others with expertise and enthusiasm.
Respect -- We listen and learn form each other.
Integrity -- We live by a code of rock-solid ethics, honesty, and decency.
Balance -- We encourage each other to enjoy all aspects of life.

"The words contained in the values are not much different from those found in the value statements of any organization. So what makes it different at REI? The people at REI actively seek to live out their values," explains Lyman.

Good To Great -- Still A Must-Read For Leaders

2012-01-22T10:26:00.000-06:00

Near the top of virtually every list you'll see of the best leadership books, you'll find Good To Great, by Jim Collins.

The book, five years in the making, and published in 2001, addresses the all-important question of: Can a good company become a great company, and if so, how?
Some of the lessons from the book are:

"Leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted."
"Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights."
"Good-to-great companies use technology as an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it."
"Engage in dialogue and debate."
Good-to-great companies are those who have the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.

Good To Great's lessons are for entrepreneurs running small businesses, for CEOs of large businesses, and for leaders and managers within businesses at all management levels.

The five years of research that Collins and a team conducted to prep for the book consisted of examining 1,435 U.S., publicly traded companies and their performance over 40 years. The book focuses on 11 good-to-great companies.

How To Know When You Need An Executive Coach

2012-01-22T07:31:00.000-06:00

More business leaders today are turning to executive coaches to help them become:

more personally fulfilled with their contributions
more effective with direct reports, peers and other executives
better able to coach their team members
more flexible in challenging situations

Susan C. Gatton, a Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX-based executive coach, has worked with a many leaders and she says that if you answer "yes" to any of the following ten situations, you are a likely candidate for executive coaching:

I need an objective sounding board.
I know some things are not working as well as they should. I don't know what to do to change the situation.
I want to go to the next level. I'm ready. Why am I not being promoted?
Work has taken over my life. How do I make my family a priority?
I may be over my head with these new responsibilities.
My 360 degree feedback had several surprises.
I've never interacted with the Board of Directors before. I don't know what to expect.
I need more visibility and don't know how to get it.
I avoid social situations. I don't do well with the small talk.
I have a strong feeling I am not hearing the whole story from my direct reports.

Executive coaching programs often take six months to one year to complete and include both in-person and via phone conversations and meetings. You can use a coach in your area or from another state (you'll likely use video conferencing or web conferencing for your "in-person" meetings).

In a recent interview, Gatton explained why building relationships is important to help someone to become a better leader. She said, "The higher you go in an organization the more crucial building relationships becomes. The picture is bigger at the top and the focus shifts from what is good for a team or department to what is beneficial for the company. Leaders need to collaborate with their peers to remove obstacles for their team and to get buy in for what the company needs to be successful."

"At times," she continued, "leaders want to implement an initiative that affects a multitude of functional areas. Without strategic alliances, it will be a no-win undertaking. Individuals will become territorial--creating an adversarial situation."

During Gatton's nearly 30 years in business, she's found several areas that continuously surface for leaders to become more effective or for potential leaders to shorten the learning curve as they climb up the ladder. She said those include:

A thorough understanding of the company's financial picture
A broad perspective of the business from a variety of hands-on experiences
Highly effective interpersonal communications skills
Exceptional presentation and public speaking skills
Extraordinary ability to lead

7 Ways To Be A Collaborative Workplace Leader

2012-01-21T07:36:00.001-06:00

Edward M. Marshall's book, Transforming The Way We Work -- The Power Of The Collaborative Workplace, remains relevant today, more than a decade after Marshall wrote it.

Particularly useful is the book's section that teaches readers how to be a collaborative leader.

Marshall says that there are seven different, important roles and responsibilities of collaborative leaders when leading teams, and those leaders should select the appropriate style to meet the team's needs.

The seven roles are:

The leader as sponsor -- You provide strategic direction, boundaries and coaching for the team. You also monitor progress and ensure integrity in the team's operating processes.
The leader as facilitator -- You ensure that meetings, team dynamics, and interpersonal relationships function effectively. You also ensure internal coordination of activities among team members.
The leader as coach -- You provide support and guidance and you serve as a sounding board.
The leader as change agent/catalyst -- You hold team members accountable, make the unpopular decisions, energize the group to action and enable breakthroughs where possible.
The leader as healer -- You play the role of the mediator and serve as the catalyst to bring people together.
The leader as member -- You serve as part of the team, taking full responsibility for the success of the team and actively participate in the team's activities.
The leader as manager/administrator -- You serve in a traditional role of tackling the daily administrative responsibilities, processes, and systems essential to managing the boundaries within the larger organization or key stakeholders.

Within any collaborate workplace, leaders will find themselves fulfilling all seven of these roles at different times, and sometimes fulfilling a combination of the seven styles at the same time, while working with work groups and teams.

Four years after Marshall wrote, Transforming The Way We Work, he penned, Building Trust At the Speed Of Change. Marshall won an award for excellence in organization development from the American Society for Training and Development. He holds degrees from Claremont McKenna College, Syracuse University and the University of North Carolina.

What 3,129 Hiring Managers Like To See In A Resume

2012-01-19T20:15:00.001-06:00

If you are a leader looking for a new job, pick up a copy of Tony Beshara's new book, The Job Search Solution, and pay particular attention to what Beshara discovered when 3,129 hiring managers and interviewing authorities answered his survey about resumes (pages 67 and 68 of the book).

What these hiring authorities who ranged from first-line hiring managers to CEO's told him was this:

What they like in a resume:

Reverse chronological order.
Names of companies that the person has worked for and a clear indication of what the companies do.
Clear, concise articulation of skills and experience.
Direct evidence of success.
Written by the candidate (not professionally written)
Easy-to-read format
Pertinent information that relates to the job being filled.
Clearly stated experience that relates to the opening.
Stability.
No more than two pages.

And what they don't like in a resume are the following:

Functional resumes.
Objectives and Summaries at the beginning of a resume.
Longer than a page and a half, or at most two pages.
Long, unclear descriptions of the present or previous job.
Grammar, Spelling, or punctuation mistakes.
No factual achievements.
Mention of anything before college.
Written by a resume service.
Written by copying the published job description.
Fluff, generic competencies like "dynamic leader," "excellent communications skills," "effective listener," etc.

What Does A Business Owner Need To Know When Hiring A Marketing Leader?

2012-01-15T10:16:00.007-06:00

Welcome Debbie Laskey to my blog!

With 15 years of marketing experience and an MBA Degree, Debbie developed her marketing expertise while working in the high-tech industry, the Consumer Marketing Department at Disneyland Paris in France, the non-profit arena, and the insurance industry.

Currently, Debbie is a brand marketing and social media consultant to small businesses and nonprofits in California.

I met Debbie a few years ago while we worked together on a training committee for MicroMentor, a nonprofit that connects small business owners with business mentors.

Debbie and I recently discussed what business owners should look for when hiring marketing leaders, and highlights are provided below.

Eric: What personality traits are ideal for a marketing leader?

Debbie Laskey: First, marketing is not sales. I say this because, while the two areas must work in tandem if both departments exist in a company, sales people have very different personalities than those in marketing.

People who sell cars or real estate focus completely on the sale. Most people who work in marketing focus on the entire customer lifecycle from prospecting to building relationships to creating a sale to building repeat business. Therefore, marketing professionals need to be patient, flexible, high-energy, and dedicated.

From a business perspective, the best marketing professionals are innovative, open-minded, adaptable, and enjoy working with all types of people. From a management perspective, the best marketing leaders are those who have managed both small and large teams, possess excellent communication skills, served as leaders in the past, and worked in a variety of industries.

Eric: What’s the best professional background for a marketing leader?

Debbie Laskey: Talented marketing leaders can go from one industry to another with fast ramp-up time. Since experience and education are critical, a person who has worked as a marketing leader in one industry can apply what he/she has learned – both initiatives that worked and those that didn’t – and can easily market anything ranging from widgets to professional services. Naturally, there will be differences in the B2C, B2B, and nonprofit arenas, but marketing leaders can quickly study the competitive landscape, target market, value proposition, and then recommend viable marketing campaigns.

Eric: What should be discussed during the interview process when searching for a marketing leader?

Debbie Laskey: Since a marketing leader should be an important member of a company’s leadership team, the hiring process should allow sufficient time for both parties to get to know each other.

Several members of the company should interview the top candidates, and questions should focus on realistic situations to determine how the candidates will approach the development of marketing campaigns and how to increase business opportunities for the company.

It is an insult to ask questions such as, “If you were a bug, which one would you be?” or “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” These questions range from the ridiculous to those that demand canned responses. The reality is that no one will hire a candidate who can list three weaknesses. Besides, if someone is a good interviewer, he/she can easily determine strengths and weaknesses without having to ask.

Since the best interviews are conversations, rather than interrogations, focus on realistic marketing scenarios such as, “If we were going to implement a social media campaign, which social media channels would you emphasize and why?” or “If we were going to implement a mobile marketing initiative for the spring quarter, how would you create your plan?”

Also, ask for details about previous marketing successes – and watch how the candidate explains the successes. Is he/she enthusiastic or bored? Does he/she take ownership of the campaign? Also, ask about marketing campaigns that might not have yielded the expected results. Ask the candidate to explain why and watch body language. Does he/she take ownership for the lack of results?

If the candidate said he/she managed others, one way to confirm the accuracy of that fact is by asking how he/she rewarded or thanked a subordinate for performing excellent work. Again, watch how the candidate answers and be on the look-out for enthusiasm or discomfort.

Eric: How should you measure the performance of a newly-hired marketing leader after 30 days, 90 days, and one year?

Debbie Laskey: When a new person joins the team as the marketing leader, there is often a lot to learn about the company, its competitive advantage, its target market, and its competitors. Therefore, a good marketing professional will spend time creating a marketing audit, which reflects on the external marketing environment (customers and competition), the internal marketing environment (company resources including staff, budgets, product portfolio, new products, pricing, distribution, and market share), and evaluates all previous marketing initiatives.

It is critical to understand previous marketing activities, what worked, and what did not work in order to create a new marketing plan that will yield more successful results.

If a company does not want the new marketing leader to analyze previous initiatives, that is a clue that the company does not want to undertake any serious marketing initiatives. Walk to the door and leave – no, run – the job is not a fit and will just cause frustration. But if the company’s leaders genuinely want to improve their business and implement new marketing initiatives, they will welcome a detailed marketing audit.

Based on timing and priorities, an audit may take one-to-three months.

In addition, a new marketing leader should speak with all department leaders to gain detailed understandings of their departments and how they will work in tandem with the marketing department.

There may also be a need to hire additional marketing staff – that may take place during a marketing leader’s first six-to-twelve months.

But the bottom line is that the new marketing leader and the business owner must agree on the marketing leader’s overall objectives for all timeframes – they must be on the same page for success to result.

Eric: Where can a business owner learn more about marketing?

Debbie Laskey: Here are some excellent online marketing resources:

http://www.chiefmarketer.com

http://www.cmo.com

http://www.mashable.com

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com

You may follow Debbie on Twitter (www.twitter.com/DebbieLaskeyMBA), Google+ (http://www.gplus.to/dlmba), or on her Blog (http://debbielaskey.blogspot.com).

Today's Leadership Lesson: Information Sharing

2012-01-15T06:57:00.000-06:00

Information sharing practices that rest on a leader's sense of honor, practice of inclusion, and respect for followership distinguish the greater success of Trustworthy Leaders from those leaders who simply stop at doing what is practical, like sending out lots of email or posting and abundance of company notices.

From Amy Lyman's new book, The Trustworthy Leader

Leveraging the Power of Trust to Transform Your Organization

Honor MLK By Volunteering Or Leading A Team To Volunteer

2012-01-14T07:50:00.000-06:00

As the nation honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 16, volunteer or make the decision to volunteer in your community. King routinely asked “What are you doing for others,” and January 16th is the ideal day to ask yourself that question.

The federal holiday was first observed 25 years ago and in 1994 Congress designated it as a National Day of Service, inspired by King’s words, “everybody can be great because anybody can serve.”

You can turn to Volunteer Match to find volunteer opportunities right in your neighborhood or nearby surrounding area. Visit the web site, type in your zip code, and you will be presented with a variety of organizations seeking volunteers.

And, if you are a leader in the workplace, encourage your team members to volunteer in the community as individuals. Or, organize team volunteer afternoons or evenings for your employees.

Leaders: Tips For How To Reach Your Goals

2012-01-12T07:05:00.001-06:00

Social psychologist, Heidi Grant Halvorson, wrote Succeed to help you understand how goals work, what tends to go wrong, and what you can do to reach your goals or to help others reach theirs.

Because many of us may soon start struggling to fulfill our New Year's Resolutions (goals), Halvorson's book, packed with the findings from her own research, along with the most useful tips from academic journals and handbooks, is a timely read.

In her 260-page book, Halvorson covers:

• How to set a goal that you will pursue even in the face of adversity.
• How to avoid the kind of positive thinking that makes people fail.
• How to create an environment that will help you win.

"Setting goals is important," said Halvorson, "But that's not the whole story. Because how you set your goals--the way you think about whatever it is you want to do, and how you will get there--is every bit as important."

Halvorson recommends:
• Making your goal as specific as possible.
• Making your goal difficult, while still being realistic.
• Being sure you don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal.
• Making sure you think about both the wonderful things that will happen if you succeed and the obstacles that stand in your way.
• Filling your environment with reminders and triggers that will keep your unconscious mind working toward your goal, even when your conscious mind is distracted by other things.
• Remembering why the goal is important to you. Also, choosing prevention goals, focusing on what you could lose if you fail.

She also said that, "One of the most important things you can do to reach any difficult goal is know when to ask for and accept help."

And, if you are a team leader or business leader and you have the task of trying to get other people to adopt the goals assigned to them, Halvorson suggests you:

• Try giving your employee or team member a sense of personal control. It helps when people can choose from several options--even a choice between two goals is still a choice.
• Keep in mind that people are motivated to achieve a goal only when they feel it has value and when the value is clear. So, have your employees participate in decision making and goal setting.
• Ask employees to commit publicly to reaching a goal. That will increase their motivation.

Halvorson stresses that it's vitally important that employees understand the rationale behind goals given to them by their leaders. They need to know how to answer:

• Why is the goal worth pursing?
• How will I benefit from it?

"Remember that people are motivated to achieve a goal only when they feel it has value. When the value is clear, you'll have fewer problems getting people on board and fully committed to succeed," explained Halvorson.

Perhaps most important, Succeed, drives home the fact that persistence is key when working to reach a goal.

• Persistence comes more easily when a person believes more in effort and the effort to get better, rather than believing in ability.

I appreciate Halvorson sending me a complimentary copy of her book. It's a good read.

Are You Really Connecting With Your Customers?

2012-01-11T20:00:00.001-06:00

Here are some key questions to ask yourself about how to connect with your customers in today's digital age:

Are we making it easy for customers to find us in their digital lives?
Do we offer services and content to customers on their schedule, not ours?
Do our Web services run well on any browser, smartphone, or digital interface?
Can our customers use their phones and mobile devices to find us, learn about us and pay us?
Are we responding to customers online in a timely manner?
Are we giving our biggest supporters the opportunity to connect with us and champion our business online?
Has the conversation among our customers become a vital part of our business?

Depending on how you answer these questions, you may need to also ask yourself these questions as well:

What assumptions about our business do we need to reconsider?
How does our culture need to change?
What new skills and capacities do we need to foster?

According to author David L. Rogers, "to thrive in our digital age, businesses need to reimagine our customers: not as a mass of isolated individual actors but as networks--with each customer as a node linking and dynamically interacting with each other and with us."

In Roger's book, The Network Is Your Customer, he offers delves deeply into five strategies for how to thrive in a digital age:

Access
Engage
Customize
Connect
Collaborate

Today's customers, explains Rogers, seek to:

Freely access digital data, content and interaction as quickly, easily and flexibly as possible.
Engage with digital content that is sensory, interactive, and relevant to their needs.
Customize their experiences by choosing and modifying a wide assortment of information, products and services.
Connect with one another by sharing their ideas and opinions in text, videos, and social links.
Collaborate on collective projects and goals through open platforms.

Because of these new customer behaviors, Rogers suggests businesses may need to form new units within their companies to have dedicated teams for:

Interacting with customers using Facebook, Twitter or discussion forums.
Capturing, assessing and directing ideas from customers in order to feed them into product innovation and business process improvement.
Generating regular content for customer networks that is neither traditional advertising nor traditional public relations.

Rogers' book is ideal for all businesses and nonprofits and includes more than 100 case studies that I found interesting and thought-provoking in the advance copy he sent me.

5 Reasons To Do An Employee Survey

2012-01-10T21:43:00.001-06:00

Business leaders who wonder whether they should conduct an employee survey should think about these five good reasons for conducting surveys, as recommended by John Kador and Katherine J. Armstrong in their book, Perfect Phrases for Writing Employee Surveys:

1. To discover what employees are thinking and doing – in a nonthreatening survey environment. You will learn what motivates employees and what is important to them.
2. To prioritize the organization’s actions based on objective results – rather than relying on subjective information or your best guesses.
3. To provide a benchmark – or a snapshot of your employees and their attitudes at a certain point of time that you can then compare to future surveys to spot trends.
4. To communicate the importance of key topics to employees – by communicating with employees the survey results that shows your organization is listening to employees.
5. To collect the combined brainpower and ideas of the workforce – that sometimes cannot be accessed without a survey. The knowledge you learn will likely improve your decision making and allow you to seize opportunities.

Kador and Armstrong caution leaders to NOT do employee surveys:

1. To sell employees on an idea — by using a survey to guide employees down a path to a specified conclusion.
2. To solve problems in one easy step — because a survey is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Because, a survey isolated from other communications and actions could be more detrimental than helpful. Remember, surveys generate expectations.

Do You Practice Open Leadership?

2012-01-09T21:16:00.000-06:00

Open Leadership author Charlene Li reminds leaders to periodically ask themselves these "open leadership skills assessment" questions:

Do I seek out and listen to different points of view?
Do I make myself available to people at all levels of the organization?
Do I actively manage how I am authentic?
Do I encourage people to share information?
Do I publicly admit when I am wrong?
Do I update people regularly?
Do I take the time to explain how decisions are being made?

Thanks for these great questions, Charlene!

David Grossman's Five Steps To Thrive eBook -- Communication Primer For Leaders

2012-01-08T17:50:00.000-06:00

The former director of communications for McDonald's, David Grossman, now a leading consultant, speaker and author offers a free eBook about how to communicate effectively.

Titled, The Leader Differential: Five Steps To Thrive (Not Just Survive), it's ideal for any leader or manager who wants to brush up on his/her communication skills.

I particularly like the parts about:

How much information is enough information to communicate
How to choose the best communication channel
How to manage your company's rumor mill

David explained to me that his eBook is for any leader. He said, "I've seen the traps discussed and the strategies to overcome them work irrespective of the economy, industry, leader's tenure or personality/style."

David has worked with Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Virgin Atlantic, and is the president and founder of The Grossman Group in Chicago, IL.

Poor communication within a company leads to more workplace theft, more injuries, more turnover and an overall disengaged employee base according to David.

I also like his powerful statement that from David:
"Everything you say or do or don't say or don't do communicates something"

How To Identify A Leader During Interviews

2012-01-07T07:54:00.002-06:00

The next time you are interviewing a candidate and you want to access their leadership skills, consider asking the candidate these questions:

What personal qualities define you as a leader? Describe a situation when these qualities helped you lead others.
Give an example of when you demonstrated good leadership.
What is the toughest group from which you've had to get cooperation?
Have you ever had difficulty getting others to accept your ideas? What was your approach? Did it work?
Describe a situation in which you had to change your leadership style to achieve the goal?
One leadership skill is the ability to accommodate different views in the workplace, regardless of what they are. What have you done to foster a wide number of views in your work environment?

Thanks to Sharon Armstrong, author of The Essential HR Handbook, for these helpful questions!

Never Say These 4 Words To A Customer

2012-01-06T21:09:00.001-06:00

Author Harvey MacKay wrote the following spot-on advice in a column in the Kansas City Business Journal. He wisely points out that all employees at every level should never use these four words in front of a client/customer for both obvious and perhaps not so obvious reasons:

Can't -- As in, "We can't do that." "We can't meet that deadline." Unless you honestly cannot produce and then be honest and help them find another vendor.
Busy -- As in, "I'll call you when I'm not so busy." "I'm really busy right now." The word "busy" gives your customer the impression they are a low priority.
Safe -- As in, "Let's play it safe." Customers typically want to engage in calculated risks versus playing it safe.
Fear -- As in, "I fear that we may be moving too fast." That tells your customer you haven't done your homework. MacKay writes, "Common sense, thorough research and sound advice should allay your fears to a reasonable level."

Leaders: 6 Ways To Jump Start Your Business

2012-01-06T06:17:00.000-06:00

As a leader in your business, try these six ideas to give your business a jump-start:

Ask for ideas from employees in all parts of your business. Don't ask for ideas only from your product development or marketing departments.
Be sure all employees clearly understand your vision and the mission of your business.
Brainstorm ways to take advantage of your strengths.
Determine how to overcome your business' weaknesses.
Choose which opportunities you will prioritize to help keep everyone focused on a common goal.
Celebrate your successes regularly and encourage learning from your mistakes.

Top 5 Factors That Drive Employee Loyalty

2012-01-04T20:47:00.001-06:00

A survey by the Society for Human Resource Management shows that job security is what matters most to employees. And, having that job security helps to keep employees loyal. Okay, that's really not too surprising during these times of high unemployment.

Next on the list is benefits. The unstable economy, coupled with rising health care costs, make employer offered benefits more important than ever.

Third on the top five list is an employee's opportunity to use his/her skills. When employees feel good about their jobs and their abilities, and clearly know they are contributing to their organization they remain engaged and loyal.

In fourth place is an organization's financial stability.

Compensation came in fifth on the top five list. Employee pay often is not the most important driver for employee retention. Despite study after study that shows pay is not the top reason employees stay with a company, research results like these often surprise workplace leaders.
In summary, the top five employee loyalty drivers are:

Job Security
Benefits
Opportunities To Use Skills
Organization's Financial Stability
Compensation

Leaders, be sure you are doing everything possible to let your employees have opportunities to use their skills to make a meaningful difference. This is a key factor that drives employee loyalty, and it's one you may have the most control over during a tough economy!

To learn more about employee retention and the reasons employees decide to leave an organization, read Overland Park, KS author Leigh Branham's book, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave.

5 Questions To Ask Your Employees During Performance Reviews

2012-01-04T20:28:00.001-06:00

Here are five important questions you, as a manager and leader, should ask during employee performance reviews:

What have I done to help - or hinder - your job performance?
What can I do in the next review period to help you achieve/improve?
What conditions here enable you - or make it hard - to do your best work?
What do you want most from your job?
How can I help you reach your career goals?

I bet most employees have never heard most of these questions from their supervisors on a consistent basis.
Thanks to Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell for these questions -- just some of their great advice from their book, The Essential HR Handbook.

How To Start Your 2012 As A Leader

2012-01-04T06:21:00.000-06:00

I heard this advice quoted awhile back and wanted to share it. It's from William Arthur Ward, one of America's most quoted writers of inspirational maxims:

Do more than belong: participate.
Do more than care: help.
Do more than believe: practice.
Do more than be fair: be kind.
Do more than forgive: forget.
Do more than dream: work.

All great advice for leaders and managers as we start 2012.

What Southwest Airlines Taught Us This Year

2011-12-28T08:20:00.000-06:00

Southwest Airlines celebrated its 40th this year and was kind enough to share in its in-flight magazine 40 lessons it learned since 1971. The lessons provide good tips for business leaders.

If you missed the full list, here are some of the highlights:

Invent your own culture and put a top person in charge of it.
A crisis can contain the germ of a big idea.
Simplicity has value. For Southwest, simplicity means using 737s for most of its fleet, which makes maintenance more cost-effective and allows more efficient training for flight crews and ground crews.
Remember your chief mission.
Take your business, not yourself, seriously.
Put the worker first. For Southwest, that meant being the first U.S. airline to offer a profit-sharing plan, in 1974. Employees now own 13 percent of the airline.
The web ain't cool, it's a tool. Southwest was the first U.S. airline to establish a home page. By 2010, Southwest.com boasted more unique visitors than any other airline, and ranked as the second largest travel site.
Get Green. That means for Southwest embracing conservation.
Manage permanence. Southwest knows what not to change, even when it's managing change.
Keep the idea simple enough to draw on a napkin.
Never rest on your laurels.
It's about customer service, not scalability.
Promote from within.
Recognize your luck.

One can learn a lot of Southwest! Thank You!

Be Verbal About Being Thankful

2011-12-18T21:52:00.000-06:00

You and your team may not hit your revenue or profit goals this year. Or, perhaps your organization won't accomplish all its goals during this tough economic year. But, as a leader, you likely still have plenty to be thankful for in 2011.

So, be thankful. And, most important, verbalize your thanks!

Take time during the rest of the year to smile and say "Thank You" to:

Your employees who took pay reductions.
Your customers who still did business with you, even though they had tight budgets.
Your vendors that worked with you on pricing and terms.
Your partner businesses that banded together with you like never before.
Your team that helped you think of ways to reduce expenses and repackage your services to drive sales.
Your co-workers and peers who encouraged you to hang in there.
Your team that put in more hours and tackled additional duties beyond their job descriptions.
Your former employees for all they did for you before you had to exit them from your company due to revenue shortfalls.

The Roles Of A Coach And A Mentor

2011-12-18T10:30:00.000-06:00

Author Kristi Hedges, in her new book, The Power of Presence, provides these explanations of the roles of a coach and of a mentor and how they differ from each other:

The Coach shows empathy through a mixture of tough love and strong support. The coach is not afraid to push you because she sees the best in you. This leader has a good sense of what's going on in the rest of your life and isn't afraid to mention it as it relates to your performance and potential.

The Mentor makes you feel that your success is always top of mind. Mentors have your back to guide you along in your career. They will act as a confidante as you hash through ideas and won't hold it against you as your iterate. Because they have done well, they operate from a point of helping others do the same.

Year-end Advice For Leaders From Lynn Flinn

2011-12-17T10:16:00.001-06:00

Last year, Lynn Flinn of EWF International in Tulsa, OK wrote the following in her business' newsletter. It's so powerful I wanted to bring it back again this year as 2011 comes to a close.

So, here goes...Lynn's year-end advice for leaders:

• Do something that you are afraid to do. Run through the fear rather than running away from it.

• Take a personal risk. Tell someone something you've always wished you'd said to them.

• Write a note to someone who inspires you but probably doesn't know it.

• Pick one characteristic about yourself that you'd like to change and earnestly work on changing it. It is really hard to change a behavior, but it is possible if you are aware, patient and persistent in making a change.

• Realize when you are not engaged and re-engage. Turn off the television, turn off the cell phone, and pay attention to the people around you.

• Smile and talk to strangers that you meet. It is amazing how much shorter a long line feels when you are talking to someone versus focusing on how long the line is.

• Meditate, pray, relax, exercise, hike, laugh or whatever brings you peace. Some people say they are just too busy to do these things, but taking time for self-renewal shows self-awareness, not selfishness.

• Take a trip somewhere that you've never been. It could even be a place you've never visited in your home town. How many experiences have you overlooked in your own town, because you just keep going to the same familiar places?

• Do something meaningful for a non-profit organization. Volunteers are the lifeblood of non-profit organizations. If everyone volunteers a few hours a week, think how much non-profits can accomplish.

• Don't get stuck in the same old routine. Shake it up and do something different. Something as simple as taking a different route to work or going someplace new for lunch makes life a little more interesting.

Thanks Lynn for this great end-of-the-year advice.

EWF International provides professionally facilitated peer advisory groups for women business owners and executives.

Does Your Nonprofit Produce Results That Are Sufficiently Outstanding?

2011-12-14T20:48:00.001-06:00

If you lead a nonprofit organization, the one hour it will take you to read Peter F. Drucker's book, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, will be well worth it.

This book may fundamentally change the way you work and lead your organization.

Perhaps one of most challenging questions Drucker asks the reader is:

"Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area?"

Because, Drucker argues that need alone does not justify continuing. Nor does tradition, if your results are not sufficiently outstanding.

If you volunteer for a nonprofit or are seeking employment at a nonprofit, this book is also an insightful and inspiring read.

How To Determine What Motivates Your Employee

2011-12-13T21:58:00.000-06:00

When you meet with your employee during her annual performance appraisal take time to determine what motivates her when it comes to her career development. Motivation changes over time and changes depending on where the individual is in her career.

So, to determine what motives her, author Paul Falcone recommends you ask her to rank-order her priorities in terms of the following six guidelines:

If you had to chose two categories from the following six, which would you say hold the most significance to you career-wise?

1. Career progression through the ranks and opportunities for promotion and advancement.
2. Lateral assumption of increased job responsibilities and skill building (e.g. rotational assignments).
3. Acquisition of new technical skills (typically requiring outside training and certification).
4. Development of stronger leadership, managerial, or administrative skills.
5. Work-life balance.
6. Money and other forms of compensation.

Then, do your best to match her next year's goals and objectives with projects, duties, assignments, activities, actions tied to what motivates her most.

You'll find many more helpful tips in Falcone's new book, 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals.

Note: Thanks to the book publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Leadership Skills: Be Decisive; Find The Truth; Send A Thank You Note

2011-12-11T10:51:00.003-06:00

Be decisive

A manager who can't make a decision or who can't make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager's team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a "wrong" decision. These managers don't necessarily request needless data, but simply just never made a decision.

Successful managers (true leaders) gather the data from their employees, make any necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision...knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white "right or "wrong," but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers also know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision.

Find The Truth

If you're a parent of two children you already know that when the two are fighting and child #1 tells you what happened, you then ask child #2 what happened, and most often the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two children have told you.

Surprisingly, many managers, even when they are parents, don't use this parenting "discovery" skill in the workplace. Instead, they often listen to only one side of a situation. Whether it is because of lack of interest or lack of time, they don't proactively seek out the other side of the story.

The unfortunate result is those managers form incorrect perceptions that can often lead to poor decisions and/or directives.

So, the next time two employees are at odds, or when one department complains about another department within your organization, take the time to listen to all sides of the situation to discover the truth that's in the middle.

Send A Written Thank You Note

Nearly all employees want to do both a good job and please their supervisor. When they succeed, send them a thank you for a job well done.

A short note (handwritten is particularly good) thanking them for a good job is extremely powerful. Particularly for new employees on your team. Or, for employees new to the workforce and early in their careers.

Include in your note a sentence regarding what they did especially well and how their specific action made a positive impact. Remember, be as specific as possible in what you write.

Be sure to send your note soon after the job was completed. If you wait too long (more than a week), the note will lose its impact.

Send your note in a way it can be easily saved by your employee. Even employees who have been on your team for a long time will likely save your note.

Finally, reserve your sending thank you notes for the big jobs, large projects, extra special work. If you send thank you notes too often they'll lose their effect.

Why Giving Praise Doesn't Work

2011-12-10T06:35:00.001-06:00

There is an important difference between giving your employees positive feedback and giving them praise.

Positive feedback focuses on the specifics of job performance. Praise, often one-or two-sentence statements, such as “Keep up the good work,” without positive feedback leaves employees with empty feelings.

Worse yet, without positive feedback, employees feel no sense that they are appreciated as individual talents with specific desires to learn and grow on the job and in their careers, reports Nicholas Nigro, author of, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book.

So, skip the praise and give positive feedback that is more uplifting to your employees because it goes to the heart of their job performance and what they actually do.

An example of positive feedback is:

“Bob, your communications skills have dramatically improved over the past couple of months. The report that you just prepared for me was thorough and concise. I appreciate all the work you’ve put into it, as do your team members.”

The Top 20 Leadership Books: What To Give First To A New Manager

2011-12-06T19:49:00.004-06:00

Eighteen months ago, I posted the question “What’s The First Leadership Book You Would Give To a New Manager?” within the discussion forum for the LinkedIn group Linked 2 Leadership.

That question generated 603 comments and 690 recommendations. Some people suggested more than one book. Some during the course of the 18 months made the same book recommendations a couple times. And, the group discussion continues to be one of the most active still today.

In early November 2011, group member Len White graciously culled through the comments using his company’s Symphony Content Analysis Software that assists with the organization, analysis, and reporting of themes contained in text data.

And here are the results:

· 412 different/unique books were recommended

· The Top 20 recommended books, collectively, received 250 of the total recommendations

· Two authors – Stephen R. Covey and John C. Maxwell each have two books in the Top 20

· Group members recommended other things instead of giving a book about leadership to a new manager, such as:

o Interviewing everyone in the company with whom they will directly work

o Giving a book about management first

o Mentoring the person for a period of time before recommending a leadership book

And, unlike a question about “What is Your Favorite Leadership Book,” the question this time asked what is the first book you would give to a new manager.

The Top 20 Books are:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey
Leadership and Self-Deception – Arbinger Institute
The One Minute Manager – Kenneth H. Blanchard
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – John C. Maxwell
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni
First Break All the Rules – Marcus Buckingham
The Leadership Challenge – Jim Kouzes
The First 90 Days – Michael Watkins
How to Win Friends and Influence People– Dale Carnegie
Good to Great – Jim Collins
It’s Your Ship – Michael Abrashoff
The Speed of Trust – Stephen R. Covey
Developing the Leader Within You – John C. Maxwell
Who Moved My Cheese – Spencer Johnson
Don’t Bring it to Work – Sylvia Lafair
Leaders Without Borders – Doug Dickerson
Leadership and the One Minute Manager – Kenneth H. Blanchard
On Becoming a Leader – Warren Bennis
The Anatomy of Peace – Arbinger Institute
The Art of Possibility – Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander

Within the Top 35 list of the book recommendations, you’ll find four more John C. Maxwell books, including:

· The 360 Degree Leader

· Developing the Leaders Around You

· Failing Forward

· Leadership 101

The authors and leadership book publishers most discussed within the group forum have been:

· Dale Carnegie

· Jim Collins

· Jim Kouzes

· John C. Maxwell

· Kenneth H. Blanchard

· Marcus Buckingham

· Michael Watkins

· Patrick Lencioni

· Stephen R. Covey

· Arbinger Institute

Group discussion participants are clearly inspired by a wide variety of books – biographies, autobiographies, books backed by research and academia, books made famous by the popular press, books by motivation speakers, and books by professionals eager to share their personal and professional leadership success stories, tips and suggestions.

Finally, the book I recommended, The Leadership Test, by Timothy R. Clark made it within the Top 35.

Thanks to all the group members who made recommendations and to Tom Schulte, Executive Director of Linked 2 Leadership, and the owner and moderator for the LinkedIn group, Linked 2 Leadership, which has 19,678 members.

Note: Symphony Content Analysis Software is designed and published by Active Java.

New Book For Work-From-Home Employees

2011-12-03T07:08:00.002-06:00

About 42 million people -- roughly one-third of the U.S. workforce -- work from home at least one or two days a week.

If you are a leader of work-from-home employees, share the new book, There's No Place Like Working From Home, with them. Share it particularly with an employee new to working from his or her home.

Author Elaine Quinn wrote the book after working as a consultant for 10 years with small business owners who struggled with organization, time management, workflow processes, productivity and related challenges.

The techniques Quinn teaches small home-based business owners also apply to work-from-home employees of large organizations.

"Poor organizational and time management skills are among the top ten reasons small businesses and work-from-home employees fail," said Quinn. "And being disorganized can cost business owners and corporations lost revenue, wasted time, professional embarrassment, damaged relationships, and missed opportunities."

There’s No Place Like Working From Home includes chapters on:

Making your workspace work for you
Conquering computer challenges
Staying motivated
Setting goals and priorities
Managing your time
Creating the optimum work/life balance

Prior to founding her consulting business in 2001, Quinn held sales and management positions with various Fortune 100 companies in the pharmaceutical industry where she developed strong skills in productivity and problem-solving.

Time To Select Your New Year's Resolutions

2011-11-29T19:19:00.001-06:00

Lose weight. Exercise more. Stop smoking. Read more. Shop less. Volunteer.

Okay, so you're likely already working on selecting your New Year's resolution for your personal life. But, have you identified your New Year's resolution for your workplace life?

If not, and you want to be a more effective leader for your team at work in 2012, select one or more of these 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders:

Don't micromanage
Don't be a bottleneck
Focus on outcomes, not minutiae
Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes
Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times
Conduct annual risk reviews
Be courageous, quick and fair
Talk more about values more than rules
Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance
Constantly challenge your team to do better
Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own
Err on the side of taking action
Communicate clearly and often
Be visible
Eliminate the cause of a mistake
View every problem as an opportunity to grow
Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting
Praise when compliments are earned
Be decisive
Say "thank you" and sincerely mean it
Send written thank you notes
Listen carefully and don't multi-task while listening
Teach something new to your team
Show respect for all team members
Follow through when you promise to do something
Allow prudent autonomy
Respond to questions quickly and fully
Return e-mails and phone calls promptly
Give credit where credit is due
Take an interest in your employees and their personal milestone events
Mix praise with constructive feedback for how to make improvement
Learn the names of your team members even if your team numbers in the hundreds
Foster mutual commitment
Admit your mistakes
Remove nonperformers
Give feedback in a timely manner and make it individualized and specific
Hire to complement, not to duplicate
Volunteer within your community and allow your employees to volunteer
Promote excellent customer service both internally and externally
Show trust
Encourage peer coaching
Encourage individualism and welcome input
Share third-party compliments about your employees with your employees
Be willing to change your decisions
Be a good role model
Be humble
Explain each person's relevance
End every meeting with a follow-up To Do list
Explain the process and the reason for the decisions you make
Read leadership books to learn
Set clear goals and objectives
Reward the doers
Know yourself
Use job descriptions
Encourage personal growth and promote training, mentoring and external education
Share bad news, not only good news
Start meetings on time
Discipline in private
Seek guidance when you don't have the answer
Tailor your motivation techniques
Support mentoring - both informal and formal mentoring
Don't interrupt
Ask questions to clarify
Don't delay tough conversations
Have an open door policy
Dig deep within your organization for ideas on how to improve processes, policies and procedures
Do annual written performance appraisals
Insist on realism
Explain how a change will impact employees' feelings before, during and after the change is implemented
Have face-to-face interaction as often as possible

9 Tips For Delivering Excellent Customer Service This Holiday Season

2011-11-19T11:55:00.001-06:00

Leading a customer service team? Have the team members use these 9 tips for delivering excellent customer service this holiday shopping season:

Rely on winning words and soothing phrases. A simple but sincere “Thanks for your patience” or “I’m listening” can go a long way toward defusing a holiday shopper’s frustration, anxiety, or panic. Develop a repertoire of short, easy to remember phrases around issues that are important to customers. Practice until the words come naturally.
Communicate with silence. Remaining silent while your customers are talking is a basic courtesy, and nodding tells them you’re listening and understanding what you hear. An occasional “uh huh” or “I see” tells them you’re still listening without interrupting.
Make customers feel seen. Making eye contact acknowledges that you see your customers as individuals. But there’s a balance to be struck here: staring can make your customers uncomfortable, too. Also keep in mind that eye contact is governed by specific cultural rules. A good rule to follow is to give as much as you get.
Never underestimate the value of a sincere thank you. Thanking customers when they offer comments or suggestions says that you value their opinion. Thanking customers for complaining says that you value their loyalty. Customers who tell you they are unhappy are giving you a second chance. And that’s quite a gift.
Use the well-placed “I’m Sorry.” Don’t assume that you’re not allowed to say “I’m sorry” when a snafu occurs. Actually, a sincere apology delivered in a timely and professional manner often heads off potential further problems. When you show your willingness to make sure your customers receive what they expect to receive, you relieve them of the need to even think about starting an argument.
Never deny a customer’s problem. Problems are an undeniable part of the hectic, stressful holiday shopping season. And problems exist when the customer says they do. You can’t wish a problem away because it is something no reasonable person would be upset about, because it’s not your fault, or even because the customer made a mistake.
Fix the person first. Real problem solving cannot happen until the issues are out on the table. And that requires getting past a customer’s emotional reaction. Breaking through the icy calm defenses of an upset customer is just as important as coaxing a “raging red” customer out of a temper tantrum.
Listen and then probe for information. Customers, particularly upset customers, don’t always explain everything clearly or completely. Ask questions about anything you may not understand or need clarified. Then, when you feel you have identified and clearly grasped the problem, repeat it back to the customer for confirmation.
Ask the customer for problem-solving help. Involving customers in generating solutions not only starts to rebuild the relationship, it gives them the feeling that your business really is interested in satisfying their needs. You’ll find that most customers bring a sense of fair play with them and will often expect far less than you’d think.

These tips are adapted from the book, Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, Fifth Edition by Performance Research Associates, Inc., Edited by Ann Thomas and Jill Applegate.

9 Times When You Should Thank Customers

2011-11-12T09:02:00.002-06:00

In your leadership role, it's vital that your team members know how to deliver excellent customer service. "Knock Your Socks Off" type service as book editor Ann Thomas and Jill Applegate would say.

Part of delivering excellent customer service is saying Thank You to your customers and knowing when to say Thank You.

Thomas and Applegate recommend telling your customers Thank You during at least these nine situations:

When they do business with you...every time.
When they compliment you (or your company)
When they offer you comments or suggestions
When they try one of your new products or services
When they recommend you to a friend
When they are patient...and even when they are not so patient
When they help you to serve them better
When they complain to you
When they make you smile

You and your team members can say thank you:

Verbally
In writing (and don't underestimate the power of personal notes via snail mail)
With a small, tasteful, appropriate gift

How To Make An Effective Team Even Stronger

2011-11-12T08:49:00.001-06:00

High-functioning and effective teams can disagree and still produce excellent products and results. Team members can also disagree and still care about each other. And, they can challenge each other to think differently.

Best-selling leadership book authors Scott J. Allen and Mitchell Kusy recommend that leaders ask seven tough questions of their teams to help maximize their results. Here are those questions to ask each team member:

What are some obstacles affecting this team?
What are opportunities we could take advantage of that we have been largely ignoring?
Where can you take greater ownership on this team?
Where have you let this team down?
Compared to other teams with which you are familiar, how are we doing?
When was the last time you complimented the team or one of its members?
How open are you to giving direct feedback to team members?

Book Review: Lead With Purpose

2011-11-08T22:24:00.000-06:00

“Purpose is the why behind everything within an organization,” says author John Baldoni, of the new book, Lead With Purpose. It hits the brick and mortar and online book stores this week.

Baldoni also believes that it is up to leaders to make certain that organizational purpose is understood and acted upon. And, to harness the talents of their employees, leaders must recognize their responsibility to instill purpose in the workplace.

Other recommendations include:

Make purpose a central focus
Instill purpose in others
Make employees comfortable with ambiguity
Turn good intentions into great results
Make it safe to fail (as well as prevail)
Develop the next generation

According to Baldoni, purpose forms the backbone of what an organization exists to do; upon which you can build vision and mission.

To define an organization’s purpose, you must ask three questions:

1. What is our vision — that is, what do we want to become?

2. What is our mission — that is, what do we do now?

3. What are our values–that is, what are the behaviors we expect of ourselves?

Some of my other favorite observations from the book are these two:

We follow leaders not because they bring us down, but because they lift our spirits with their attitude, words, and examples.
No job is complete without a review. Look at what went right as well as what went wrong. Understand that failure is not grounds for dismissal.

Lead With Purpose draws on extensive research, field work and interviews with dozens of organizational leaders. It also includes the results of an exclusive 2010 leadership survey conducted for the American Management Association (AMA) by NFI Research.

Baldoni is a recognized leadership educator, coach and speaker, and the author of Lead by Example and Lead Your Boss.

Note: Thanks to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of Lead With Purpose.

Leadership Lessons From Abraham Lincoln

2011-11-06T08:24:00.000-06:00

Did Abraham Lincoln really say, "Get out of the office and circulate among the troops," back in 1861?

He did. But, not in those exact words. What he said, according to author Donald T. Phillips, is this:

"His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself, and allows nobody to see him; and by which he does not know what is going on in the very matter he is dealing with."

Lincoln made this statement when describing his reason for relieving Gen. John C. Fremont from his command in Missouri (September 9, 1861).

Phillips writes that for Lincoln, casual contact with his subordinates was as important as formal gatherings, if not more so.

Phillips, includes many more leadership lessons from Lincoln in his fascinating book, Lincoln on Leadership, where Phillips presents 15 of Lincoln's leadership statements in today's vernacular.

Another leadership lesson from Lincoln is to:

Influence people through conversation and storytelling

Phillips explains that Lincoln had a strategy that emphasized the role of stories as powerful motivational tools that spread loyalty, commitment, and enthusiasm. Stories are important because they are memorable. They teach. Employees learn largely by stories and not mounds of data.

Other lessons from the book include:

Wage only one war at a time
Encourage risk-taking while providing job security
Avoid issuing orders--instead request, imply, or make suggestions

Improve And Grow Your Leaders

2011-11-06T08:01:00.001-06:00

"If you want to improve an organization, improve its leaders. If you want to grow an organization, grow its leaders. When you increase the number of leaders you have and you make the leaders you have better, the potential of the organization increases greatly."

These are great recommendations from Maxwell's newest book, and more specifically from the sections of his book on the importance of developing your employees:

People Development Empowers Others to Fulfill Their Leadership Responsibilities
People Development Empowers the Leader to Lead Larger

70 Ways To Be A Better Leader

2011-11-05T07:26:00.002-05:00

The list below is a good list for learning how to be a better leader when you don't have a lot of time to read books about leadership.

And, if you've been a leader for a long time, how about taking a few minutes to run through the list and scoring yourself on how well you carry out each leadership skill?

1. Don't micromanage
2. Don't be a bottleneck
3. Focus on outcomes, not minutiae
4. Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes
5. Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times
6. Conduct annual risk reviews
7. Be courageous, quick and fair
8. Talk more about values more than rules
9. Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance
10. Constantly challenge your team to do better
11. Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own
12. Err on the side of taking action
13. Communicate clearly and often
14. Be visible
15. Eliminate the cause of a mistake
16. View every problem as an opportunity to grow
17. Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting
18. Praise when compliments are earned
19. Be decisive
20. Say "thank you" and sincerely mean it
21. Send written thank you notes
22. Listen carefully and don't multi-task while listening
23. Teach something new to your team
24. Show respect for all team members
25. Follow through when you promise to do something
26. Allow prudent autonomy
27. Respond to questions quickly and fully
28. Return e-mails and phone calls promptly
29. Give credit where credit is due
30. Take an interest in your employees and their personal milestone events
31. Mix praise with constructive feedback for how to make improvement
32. Learn the names of your team members even if your team numbers in the hundreds
33. Foster mutual commitment
34. Admit your mistakes
35. Remove nonperformers
36. Give feedback in a timely manner and make it individualized and specific
37. Hire to complement, not to duplicate
38. Volunteer within your community and allow your employees to volunteer
39. Promote excellent customer service both internally and externally
40. Show trust
41. Encourage peer coaching
42. Encourage individualism and welcome input
43. Share third-party compliments about your employees with your employees
44. Be willing to change your decisions
45. Be a good role model
46. Be humble
47. Explain each person's relevance
48. End every meeting with a follow-up To Do list
49. Explain the process and the reason for the decisions you make
50. Read leadership books to learn
51. Set clear goals and objectives
52. Reward the doers
53. Know yourself
54. Use job descriptions
55. Encourage personal growth and promote training, mentoring and external education
56. Share bad news, not only good news
57. Start meetings on time
58. Discipline in private
59. Seek guidance when you don't have the answer
60. Tailor your motivation techniques
61. Support mentoring - both informal and formal mentoring
62. Don't interrupt
63. Ask questions to clarify
64. Don't delay tough conversations
65. Have an open door policy
66. Dig deep within your organization for ideas on how to improve processes, policies and procedures
67. Do annual written performance appraisals
68. Insist on realism
69. Explain how a change will impact employees' feelings before, during and after the change is implemented
70. Have face-to-face interaction as often as possible

5 Ways To Get More Ideas From Your Employees

2011-11-04T07:45:00.001-05:00

Your employees have lots of ideas. So, be sure you provide the forums and mechanisms for your employees to share their ideas with you.

Hold at least a few brainstorming sessions each year, as well.
And, when you are brainstorming with your employees, try these five tips:

Encourage ALL ideas.
Don't evaluate or criticize ideas when they are first suggested.
Ask for wild ideas. Often, the craziest ideas end up being the most useful.
Shoot for quantity not quality during brainstorming.
Encourage everyone to offer new combinations and improvements of old ideas.

Lead By Setting A Good Example

2011-10-29T09:10:00.001-05:00

There is nothing more powerful for a leader to do than to lead by setting a good example.

So, here are 15 things you can do to be an effective and successful leader:

1. Praise when compliments are earned.
2. Be decisive.
3. Say “Thank You” and sincerely mean it.
4. Communicate clearly.
5. Listen carefully.
6. Teach something new to your team members.
7. Word hard and lend a hand when deadlines are tight.
8. Show respect for everyone on your team.
9. Follow through when you promise to do something.
10. Allow learning to happen when mistakes are made.
11. Allow prudent autonomy.
12. Respond to questions quickly and fully.
13. Return e-mail and phone calls promptly.
14. Take an interest in your employees and their important personal milestone events.
15. Give credit where credit is due.

And, last but not least, be humble!

Steve Jobs: Simplifying, Perfecting, Timing

2011-10-25T06:24:00.001-05:00

Interesting observation about Steve Jobs from Bloomberg's Business Week magazine:

"People credit him as an inventor akin to Edison, but his real genius was seizing upon existing concepts, simplifying and perfecting them, and then putting them forward at exactly at the right moment."

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

2011-10-24T16:08:00.001-05:00

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership.

In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader:

Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team.
Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.
Leadership is action, not position.
When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other.
If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad.
Good leaders must embrace both care and candor.
People buy into the leader, then the vision.
Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for bringing out the best in the team.
Progress comes only from taking risks and making mistakes.
Leaders are measured by the caliber of leaders they develop, not the caliber of their own leadership.

Southwest Airline's Core

2011-10-16T14:08:00.001-05:00

I always look forward to my flights on Southwest Airlines. That's because I get to read Gary Kelly's (Chairman, President and CEO) monthly column in the airline's in-flight magazine.

This month, Kelly speaks to Southwest's Core, a core of values and company culture principles that leaders should emulate. Kelly explains:

Southwest is a company of people.
We hire great people who have a passion for serving others.
We give them the freedom to be themselves and to take care of our customers.
We treat our employees like family.
We treat our customers like guests in our home.
Our guiding principle is, above all else, The Golden Rule

Quotes And Wisdom From Steve Jobs

2011-10-16T12:46:00.000-05:00

Be sure to check out the October 10, 2011 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, where you'll find an entire 66-page issue that takes you through the entire life of Jobs in what they describe as a biography of a boundary-breaking thinker and endlessly astute businessman.

What got me hooked on the issue are the following quotes of wisdom and leadership from Jobs that the magazine features as its intro into its impressive retrospective issue:

There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
The only way to be satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.
Don't be trapped by dogma.
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.
It's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
Don't settle.
Things don't have to change the world to be important.
Stay hungry.

Today's Thought For Leaders

2011-10-09T09:45:00.001-05:00

"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience" -- Archibald MacLeish

Book Review: The Enemy Of Engagement

2011-10-05T20:47:00.006-05:00

"Frustration in the workplace is a silent killer," claim authors Mark Royal and Tom Agnew in their terrific new book, The Enemy of Engagement, coming out this month from Amacom.

Further, "in an organizational context, frustration is not as simple as failing to get something you want. Rather, it involves the inability to succeed in your role due to organizational barriers or the inability to bring the bulk of your individual talents, skills, and abilities to your job."

Royal and Agnew further explain that a staggering number of highly motivated, engaged, and loyal employees quit trying--or quit, period---because they feel frustrated.

And what's causing all that frustration? It's lack of enablement.

According to Royal and Agnew, as employees grow in experience in their roles, they begin to focus less on learning the ropes and more on achieving desired results. In the process, they are increasingly confronted with enablement constraints that limit their ability to get their jobs done effectively.

And, the employees who are frustrated are not the demotivated and disengaged employees who simply don't care enough about organizational success to become deeply frustrated.

In the book, you'll learn how to enable employees, including these techniques:

Put them in optimized roles that leverage their skills and abilities
Give them the tools, technology, information, and a supportive environment
Get out of their way
Don't introduce procedural barriers
Don't dilute their focus
Don't consume their energy with tasks that don't add value

Much of the book discusses how engagement and why it's imperative employees can be engaged so they feel they are contributing in a positive way to something larger them themselves. And Royal and Agnew build the case for why both enablement AND engagement are critical.

That's because, according to the authors' research:

Companies that both engage and enable employees demonstrate total reduction in voluntary turnover by 54 percent.
Engaged employees are 10 percent more likely to exceed performance expectations, but highly engaged and enabled employees are 50 percent more likely to outperform expectations.

Finally, you'll find a solid list of to-do's for positioning motivated employees to succeed and for enhancing employee enablement as the authors provide expert guidance related to:

Performance management
Authority and empowerment
Resources
Training
Collaboration
Work, structure and process

If you are leading an organization where your employees are not engaged and not enabled, The Enemy of Engagement is a must-read book for you. Don't let your employees be part of these findings by various Hay Group surveys (cited by the authors) where they found that:

30 percent of employees indicate that they do not have enough authority to carry out their jobs effectively.
Nearly one-third of employees do not feel that their managers encourage them to come up with new and better ways of doing things.
One-third of employees report that they do not have the resources and information they need to do their jobs well.
Nearly half of employees do not feel that their teams receive high-quality support from other teams within their organizations.
Nearly 45 percent of employees report that their organizations are insufficiently innovative in using new technologies or creative approaches to improve internal effectiveness.

Note: Thank you to Amacom for sending me an advance copy of this book.

How To Talk About Poor Performance With An Employee

2011-10-03T07:13:00.001-05:00

As a leader, the time will come when you will have to speak with an employee about his or her poor performance. Here are six steps that will guide you through that process:

Tell him what performance is in need of change and be specific.
Tell him how his actions negatively affect the team.
Let the discussion sink in.
Set expectations of performance improvement and timeframe, and get his agreement on the desired outcome.
Remind him that he is a valuable part of the team and that you have confidence his performance will improve.
Don't rehash the discussion later. You made your point. Give him to make his improvement.

Have Your Customers Help You Write Your Strategic Plan

2011-09-29T06:24:00.002-05:00

Mike Brown, the founder of the Kansas City, MO company called, The Brainzooming Group, encourages business leaders to solicit feedback from their customers when creating a strategic plan.
Brown once wrote in Smart Companies Thinking Bigger magazine, that you should “ask a group of current, former and potential customers the following questions:"

If you’re a current or former customer, why did you start using us?
What have we done in the past to make your biggest challenges more difficult?
If you still use us, why do you continue to do so?
If you don’t use us currently, what are some of the reasons why you don’t?

“These questions are designed to allow your customers to share their perspectives and opinions openly, not rate performance on a numerical scale,” explained Brown.
He explained that the answers to the questions will provide you valuable insight into:

Your current strengths and weaknesses
Opportunities to more successfully help your customers
Potential challenges from not fully meeting customer expectations

Mike Brown is the author of the ebook, Taking the NO Out of InNOvation, a guide to breaking through personal challenges to living a more creative and innovation-oriented life.

How To Help Your Team Provide Excellent Customer Service

2011-09-28T21:55:00.004-05:00

My favorite takeaways from Renee Evenson's newest book, Customer Service Management Training 101, are her tips for how to teach employees to effectively interact with customers:

Make a good first impression by smiling, making eye contact, maintaining an open and relaxed demeanor and keeping facial expressions friendly.
Project a positive attitude by being helpful, interested, trustworthy, reassuring, respectful and reliable.
Communicate effectively by listening completely, using correct grammar, asking the right questions and making each customer feel valued.
Build relationships by finding the best solution to any problems, and making sure each customer is satisfied.

Then, as the leader, ensure your team knows when they should escalate situations to your attention.

Break Out From Predictability

2011-09-28T21:06:00.002-05:00

Inspirational leadership wisdom today came from Bahram Akradi, the CEO of Life Time Fitness.

From that health club's monthly fitness magazine, Experience Life, Akradi says:

Once we get comfortable in our habitual patterns, we may fail to notice when they have outworn their useful purpose, or when new alternatives might serve us better.
Once you've encountered a second way of seeing things, you're more likely to entertain the possibility of a third and fourth way, too.
Do something that makes you just a little bit uncomfortable--and that renders you a little more awake.

Thanks Akradi for encouraging us to break out from predictability.

How To Assess Your Organization's Risk Using The 5Cs

2011-09-24T10:53:00.000-05:00

Within the first 100 days as a new leader in an organization, you'll want to assess your organization's risk.

Authors George Bradt, Jayme A. Clark and Jorge Pedraza, in their book, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan (third edition due out on October 10), suggest you do your assessment using the 5Cs:

Customers: First line, customer chain, end users, influencers
Collaborators: Suppliers, allies, government/community leaders
Capabilities: Human, operational, financial, technical, key assets
Competitors: Direct, indirect, potential
Conditions: Social/demographic, political/government/regulatory, economic, market

Use a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) as you examine each category if that helps.

Leaders: How To Maximize A Team's Effectiveness

2011-09-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

High-functioning teams can disagree and still produce excellent products and results. Team members can also disagree and still care about each other. And, they can challenge each other to think differently.

Best-selling leadership book authors Scott J. Allen and Mitchell Kusy recommend that leaders ask seven tough questions of their teams to help maximize their results. Here are those questions to ask each team member:

What are some obstacles affecting this team?
What are opportunities we could take advantage of that we have been largely ignoring?
Where can you take greater ownership on this team?
Where have you let this team down?
Compared to other teams with which you are familiar, how are we doing?
When was the last time you complimented the team or one of its members?
How open are you to giving direct feedback to team members?

The Most Common Ways Leaders Use LinkedIn

2011-09-18T11:29:00.000-05:00

According to market-research firm Lab42, top-level executives use LinkedIn the most for industry networking, while middle management individuals use the social network mostly for keeping in touch.

The more experienced professionals, versus entry-level professionals, use LinkedIn for:

Demonstrating thought leadership and expertise
Promoting their businesses
Conducting market research
Winning new business

LinkedIn has more than 100 million members in more than 200 countries, on all seven continents.

A full recap of Lab42's findings (conducted in July 2011) are in the October issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

A few tips for leaders:

Participate in LinkedIn groups that cater to your target market to engage in conversation.
Seek out groups with lots of activity rather than lots of members.

Note that you can also now add your volunteer activities to your LinkedIn profile. Here's how:

Open up your LinkedIn account
Click on Profile
Click on Edit Profile
Click on Add Sections
Add the names of organizations you support and fill in the spaces to designate where you volunteer

Your First 100 Days As A Leader Will Make Or Break You

2011-09-17T17:30:00.005-05:00

There are seven major onboarding land mines that you are likely to come across as a new leader and there are specific points in the first 100 days where you are most likely to encounter them, explain authors:

George Brant
Jayme A. Check
Jorge Pedraza

in their new third edition of, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan, in bookstores and online on October 10.

Ill-prepared, without a plan, and lacking proper onboarding, the land mines will get you. And, if you miss one or more of the critical tasks that must be accomplished in your first 100 days, you'll likely fail.

The book is packed with:

Examples and case studies
Action plans
Tools, techniques and tricks of the trade

The authors also explain why you need to start even before your official first day on the job. For example:

Cultural engagement is extremely important in a successful transition; and it is essential that you know what your cultural engagement plan will be before walking in the door for Day One.
A new leader's role begins as soon as you are an acknowledged candidate for the job. Everything you do and say and don't do and don't say will send powerful signals, starting well before you even walk in the door on Day One.

By Day 30 share with your team:

Mission -- Why here, why exist, what business are we in?
Vision -- Future picture - what we want to become; where we are going.
Values -- Believes and moral principles that guide attitudes, decisions, and actions.
Objectives -- Broadly defined, qualitative performance requirements.
Goals -- The quantitative measures of the objectives that define success.
Strategies -- Broad choices around how the team will achieve its objectives.
Plans -- The most important projects and initiatives that will bring each strategy to fruition.

By Day 60:

Overinvest in early wins to build team confidence.

This must-read book for anyone in a new leadership role also includes:

A new approach called BRAVE on how to engage hearts and minds in the intended culture.
A 100-Hour Action Plan for crisis situations.

Note: Thanks to the authors for sending me an advance copy of their book.

How To Write Your Introduction For Your Speech

2011-09-17T16:34:00.000-05:00

If you are a leader who struggles writing introductions for your speeches, try these tips from Quick Study Academic (BarCharts, Inc.):

Prepare the audience to listen to your speech.
Start with a statement that will grab your audience's attention to draw them into your speech.

Ask a rhetorical question that does not require an answer. Or, tell a good story. Or, state something that will surprise your audience. Perhaps surprise them with an amazing statistic.

Be sure your speech will be significant. Motivate them to listen by telling them the reason the topic is relevant to their lives.
Tell the audience why you are qualified to give the speech to build your credibility.
State a thesis statement; a single declarative statement capsuling the central idea of the specific purpose of your speech.
Provide a preview by listing each of the main points you will cover in your speech. Your preview can be combined with your thesis statement if you wish.

Memorize your introduction so you can maintain eye contact with your audience your entire introduction.

And, then, once into the body of your speech and if you use graphics or charts, remember that:

Bar charts compare one item to another
Line graphs show change over time
Pie charts compare percentages

Answers To 5 Most Pressing Communications Challenges Leaders Face

2011-09-14T21:21:00.003-05:00

Leadership communications expert David Grossman recently answered what I believe are some of the most pressing communications challenges leaders face today:

How to present to a diverse employee audience with a single presentation
How often a leader should communicate
What's the best way to deliver bad news
How to be sure employees receive a consistent message when leaders must rely on middle managers to deliver it
How to effectively communicate via e-mail versus phone

David's answers, published in his blog today on his website, are straight-forward, practical and actionable. And, that's what I like most about David's approach -- in his books, on his blog and via his speaking engagements.

Thanks David!

Quote For Aspiring Leaders

2011-09-10T18:25:00.000-05:00

"It isn't where you came from; it's where you are going that counts" -- Ella Fitzgerald

The Difference Between A Mission And A Vision

2011-09-10T17:59:00.002-05:00

Here's a good definition of the difference between a mission and a vision by leadership book authors George Bradt, Jayme A. Check and Jorge Pedraza:

Mission - A mission guides what people do every day. It informs what roles need to exist in the organization.
Vision - A vision is the picture of future success. It helps define areas where the organization needs to be best in class and helps keep everyone aware of the essence of the company.

How Not To Run A Meeting

2011-09-10T17:52:00.002-05:00

At the next meeting you lead, don't:

Hold it if the meeting will seem unnecessary to your participants.
Allow attendees to use their PDAs/laptops for personal reasons.
Let participants interrupt each other.
Go beyond your scheduled time.

Those don'ts are the biggest meeting pet peeves according to an Accountemps survey of 1,000 senior managers, as recently reported in USA Today.

Instead, ensure you are doing these techniques to ensure you hold effective meetings:

Limit attendance. Include only decision makers and key implementors.
Use an agenda. Give each topic a time limit. Ask your staff to help set the agenda so they'll know the meeting will be relevant.
Make sure attendees know at the meeting's beginning the benefit of why they are in the meeting.
Create a not-on-the agenda list of topics that will be tabled for after the meeting or for another meeting.
Set immediate deadlines for carrying out all decisions that are made during the meeting.
Start your meetings on time, and don't cut into employee's personal time at lunch or after work.

Leadership Quote

2011-09-05T09:09:00.000-05:00

This quote from James Varrichio is inspiring:

"Motivated by achieving the impossible honorably."

How Will You Be Remembered As A Leader?

2011-09-05T05:50:00.001-05:00

As a leader, you likely have asked yourself, "How do I want to be remembered as a leader?"

But, perhaps the more important question is, "How will I be remembered as a leader?" The answer to that question is likely going to be based on the valuable lessons you shared with those you led, among other things.

The Kansas City Star newspaper last year wrote a story about Marion Laboratories and its 60th anniversary. In its heyday, Marion had 3,400 employees with sales of nearly $1 billion and in 1989 merged with Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Ewing Kauffman, fondly known as Mr. K, led Marion during its peak, and is remembered as one of the most effective, influential leaders ever in the Kansas City area.

Former employees quoted in the newspaper article remember Mr. Kauffman as a leader who shared these lessons with them:

"You can do anything you want if you set your mind to it and if you study your competition."
"You can't be afraid of trying something"
"Treat people the way you want to be treated."
"Those that produce should share in the profits."
"It doesn't really matter if you have all the money in the world because you can only eat so much lobster and drink so much champagne. But what you cannot do is get back the day you just lived. So celebrate every day, live life to the fullest, and be thankful for those with whom you work and love."

What lessons will you leave behind? Will the way you be remembered match the way you want to be remembered as a leader?

Finally, keep in mind that how you handle yourself during your final months and weeks in power will have a large influence on how you are remembered. As reported in a recent issue of Harvard Business Review, research by the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman suggests that influence will be determinative.

Your employees will pay particular attention to how you interact with your successor -- judging whether your congratulations are authentic, your body language is positive, etc. Your graceful exit will only help color your legacy.

Leadership Digital

2011-09-03T08:24:00.001-05:00

If you haven't visited LeadershipDigital recently, do so today. The aggregator website that launched earlier this year now gives you access to more than 50 bloggers who write about leadership and management, including:

Harvard Business Review
The Leadership Advisor
Women On Business
Great Leadership
N2Growth
CEO Blog
C-Level Strategies
Managing Leadership
Women's Leadership Exchange
Coaching Tip
....and you'll also find the postings of my blog, Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

You can subscribe to receive a daily or weekly/monthly eNewsletter that delivers the best, update-to-date content to your e-mail inbox.

I spend hours on the site and with the eNewsletters benefitting from the wealth of content.

Why Leaders Should Support Volunteer Programs In The Workplace

2011-09-03T07:44:00.000-05:00

If you are a workplace leader who supports a volunteer program at your business, you already know that by encouraging employees to give back to the community you are:

building teamwork
motivating employees
attracting new hires

In fact, job seekers much prefer companies that have a strong volunteer program. And, a growing number of businesses are rewarding employees who volunteer by giving them extra vacation time and other incentives.

Fortunately, throughout the country there are hundreds of volunteer opportunities where employees can contribute individually, or where leaders can organize teams of employees to volunteer together on a routine and scheduled basis.

You can find organizations in need of volunteers by visiting the website, Volunteer Match, and typing in your zip code. You'll be presented a list of nearby volunteer opportunities.

And, if you are a leader in the workforce, take note of the 2010 research that VolunteerMatch.org and United Healthcare published.

They found compelling evidence that volunteering not only enhances volunteers' physical and mental health, but also strengthens relationships between employers and employees.

Some highlights of the findings from the VolunteerMatch.org and United Healthcare research show that:

68% of those who volunteer in the past year report that volunteering made them feel physically healthier.
29% of volunteers who suffer from a chronic condition say that volunteering has helped them manage their chronic illness.
89% of volunteers agree that volunteering improved their sense of well-being.
73% of volunteers feel that volunteering lowered their stress levels.
92% of volunteers agree that volunteering enriches their sense of purpose in life.

So, encourage employees to volunteer. Organize groups of employees to volunteer after work or on the weekends. Consider rewarding employees with incentives or extra vacation time in exchange for their volunteer hours.

Effective Listening Traits

2011-08-29T21:39:00.001-05:00

In a couple weeks, AMACOM, a division of the American Management Association, will release Michelle Tillis Lederman's new book, The 11 Laws of Likability. I'm nearly finished reading the advance copy AMACOM sent me and will post a book review soon.

In the meantime, here are some great reminders from Lederman's book on listening -- what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener:

Do:

Maintain eye contact
Limit your talking
Focus on the speaker
Ask questions
Manage your emotions
Listen with your eyes and ears
Listen for ideas and opportunities
Remain open to the conversation
Confirm understanding, paraphrase
Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile)
Ignore distractions

Don't:

Interrupt
Show signs of impatience
Judge or argue mentally
Multitask during a conversation
Project your ideas
Think about what to say next
Have expectations or preconceived ideas
Become defensive or assume you are being attacked
Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language
Listen with biases or closed to new ideas
Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

Foster Mutual Commitment

2011-08-29T07:13:00.001-05:00

I read the following in a group discussion forum on LinkedIn awhile back and want to share this good advice about leading from writer Joseph Marzano:

"Great leaders:

clearly and constantly remind people of their mutual common mission
keep people and resources pointed in the right direction on the right things
are personally known for what they expect and will do.

It's all about mutual commitment, given and returned."

Nicely said, Mr. Marzano!

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

2011-08-27T14:16:00.002-05:00

Insecure managers hog the credit for a job well done. Or, they hide the credit and don't give credit where credit is due. These managers are afraid to let their employees be in the limelight.

Secure and successful managers talk up their employees, highlighting the good performance they've done, and are eager to give credit where credit is due. They promote their staff to their supervisor and to others within their organization.

Successful managers know that they look good when their employees look good.

Giving credit where credit is due is a sign of a manager who is wise and confident. It's a sign of a manager who demonstrates good leadership skills. So, when your employees excel, allow them to take the spotlight.

How To Use E-mail Effectively In Your Company

2011-08-21T07:58:00.000-05:00

Here are some wise guidelines that Verizon Wireless has used to promote effective, efficient and responsible e-mail use within its company. You can find these guidelines in the new book, Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?, written by Denny F. Strigl, former CEO and President of Verizon Wireless.

E-mail should bring closure to work, not create more work.
Before you write an e-mail, ask yourself if calling or visiting the recipient will bring better communication.
Keep e-mails short. Make your point in just the subject line or the space in the preview pane.
Don't assume other people are staring at their screens, waiting for your e-mail.
If just one person needs information or clarification, don't send your e-mail to a group.
Never send e-mail when you're angry.
Assume anything you put in writing will be leaked to the press or to your competitors.
Stay accountable. Sending an e-mail doesn't transfer responsibility.
E-mail is never an acceptable excuse for not getting something done. If you need a reply to an e-mail before you can do your job, get the information another way.
Don't spend more than five minutes dealing with an e-mail. When you go over this limit, stop and make a phone call.
Don't judge how much you've accomplished by how many e-mails you've sent.

Good Coach Versus Bad Coach: What To Do. What Not To Do.

2011-08-19T16:30:00.001-05:00

Former Verizon Wireless CEO, Denny F. Strigl offers these tips for how to be a good coach to an employee. He explains that good coaches help performers by:

Keeping them focused.
Giving them objective, helpful feedback.
Acting as a sounding board for new approaches.
Identifying blind spots that may be holding the performer back.
Reinforcing key values, principles, and behaviors that improve performance.
Recognizing positive behavior and performance.
Providing encouragement after setbacks and failures
Setting "stretch" goals.
Acting as an accountability partner.

Strigl believes that some managers fail in their coaching roles because they:

View coaching as babysitting.
See coaching as only correcting performance.
Don't spend enough time with their employees.
Are reluctant to criticize.
Have social relationships with their employees.
Have a "sink-or-swim" philosophy.
Believe coaching is not helpful or meaningful.

"Coaching may actually save time by preventing extensive retraining or intervention to get a failing employee back on track or keep the person from falling off course in the first place," explains Strigl in his new book, Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?

Every conversation you have with an employee has the potential to be a coaching conversation!

Don't Delay The Tough Conversation

2011-08-18T06:23:00.001-05:00

If you have an employee who needs to improve his/her performance don't delay the tough conversation with them.

If you don't address the issue right now, the employee has little chance to improve and you'll only get more frustrated.

Most employees want to do a good job. Sometimes they just don't know they aren't performing up to the required standards.

Waiting until the employee's annual performance appraisal to have the tough conversation is unhealthy for you and the employee. So, address the issue now.

Sit down with your employee in a private setting.
Look them in the eye.
First, tell them what they do well.
Thank them for that good work.
Then, tell them where they need to improve.
Be clear.
Be precise.
Ask them if they understand, and ask them if they need any help from you on how to do a better job.

Explain to them that your taking the time to have the tough conversation means you care about them. You want them to do better. You believe they can do better. Explain that if you hadn't had the conversation they would not have had a clear understanding about where they were deficient. And, they would not have had a chance to improve.

Have that tough conversation today. Don't postpone it. Don't let a poor performer make you so mad that over time you end up not wanting them on your team.

Management According To Thomas Teal

2011-08-16T17:51:00.001-05:00

Some words of wisdom from author Thomas Teal:

Integrity in management means:

being responsible

communicating clearly

keeping promises

being an honest broker

avoiding hidden agendas

knowing oneself

Great managers serve two masters; one organizational, one moral.

Managing is not a series of mechanical tasks but a set of human interactions.

One reason for the scarcity of managerial greatness is that in educating and training managers, we focus too much on technical proficiency and too little on character.

You can find more advice and expertise from Teal in his book, First Person: Tales of Management Courage and Tenacity (Harvard Business School Press, 1996)

Words Of Leadership And Management Wisdom From John P. Kotter

2011-08-14T19:36:00.001-05:00

Here are some words of wisdom from a 1990 Harvard Business Review article by John P. Kotter:

Leadership complements management; it doesn't replace it.
Management controls people by pushing them in the right direction; leadership motivates them by satisfying basic human needs.
Strong leadership with weak management is no better, and sometimes actually worse, than the reverse. The real challenge is to combine strong leadership and strong management and use each to balance the other.

Today's Leadership Quotes

2011-08-13T07:18:00.001-05:00

The enduring truth remains that a leader's integrity is the true measure of greatness.
Putting stewardship above self-interest is an act of leadership.
Leadership is based on influence-through-persuasion at the front end, combined with accountability at the back end.
Leadership is the process of influencing volunteers to accomplish good things.

Note: Thanks for these valuable insights, Timothy R. Clark, Ph.D., author of The Leadership Test.

Book Review: The Elephant In The Room

2011-08-12T18:05:00.002-05:00

Diana McLain Smith's new book, The Elephant in the Room, explains how relationships make or break the success of leaders and organizations.

It's not a light right. For those who really want to understand relationships, however, this book, based on Smith's clinical research and a wealth of in-depth observational studies, is both insightful and worth the effort.

Smith explains that when people click or clash, we typically chalk it up to chemistry and leave it at that. But, she knows there are many dynamics within that relationship that need understanding by a leader to create success.

In fact, she says it's possible to identify and analyze the seemingly mysterious ingredients that go into the makings of a relationship. And, given the right tools, it's possible to understand what happens when a relationship forms, and then to actually anticipate what might happen next. That anticipation is critical, claims Smith.

Smith also shows readers how all relationships evolve over a series of stages, as people adapt to each other and the circumstances around them. She then demonstrates how to see, map and change the informal side of a relationship so it grows stronger, not weaker, over time.

Finally, a key point in the book is that:

to improve a relationship, you need to focus on changing the relationship, not just yourself or the other person.

Are You A Leader Who Can Say You're Sorry?

2011-08-12T17:44:00.001-05:00

One of the most difficult words for anyone, leaders included, to say is, "sorry."

Yet, the time will likely come when that's the word you need to say. Research shows that apologizing in a heartfelt way can help you reduce stress and alleviate guilt.

In the position of needing to apologize? Do this:

Apologize immediately. Say you are sorry.
Take responsibility for the situation.
Acknowledge the offense.
Ask forgiveness with a promise that it won't happen again.
Offer restitution whenever possible.

And, should your apology go unaccepted, most experts say forgive yourself and move on.

Note: Thanks to St. Joseph Medical Center in Kansas City, MO for this sound advice.

Thanks For Two Years: From Eric Jacobson

2011-08-11T21:59:00.000-05:00

Two years ago tomorrow, I started this blog to share tips and ideas for how to be a more effective leader and manager.

Thank you for your loyal readership, your suggestions for topics to cover, and for tweeting the posts you find more useful.

Eric Jacobson
www.ericjacobsonblog.com
Overland Park, KS (Kansas City, MO)

Do You Practice TRX's 'P' In Its FACEUP Values At Your Company?

2011-08-10T18:58:00.001-05:00

At TRX in San Francisco, about 10 percent of employees' performance evaluations cover how they live the company's values, expressed by the acronym FACEUP.

The P is for physical and TRX takes that seriously. As recently reported in Inc. magazine, at the start of each year, supervisors ask their reports to set personal athletic objectives.

The goals can be dunk a basketball or do 10 perfect pushups or run a 5K. Goals are not formally tracked, but come evaluation time, employees report back in on whether they accomplished their goals.

TRX said most employees have no problem embodying the P in FACEUP. The company's other values are:

F = Fun
A = Authentic
C = Competitive
E = Effective
U = United

TRX claims that employees who have fallen off the exercise bandwagon really appreciate the physical goal setting process, and whatever peer pressure may develop ends up being inspiring to employees.

Bottom line: fit, healthy employees save a company money.

Listen Well And Do Exit Interviews

2011-08-09T22:20:00.002-05:00

Knowing why an employee leaves your company can help you to reduce your employee turnover rate.

That's because you can use the reasons a departing employee provides to gather information about processes, people and departments that might need some redirection to correct situations that may have contributed to the employee's reasons for leaving.
So, do an exit interview whenever possible with each departing employee. Ask each person:

Why they are leaving
What they liked about their job
What they would have changed about their job
How they felt about the cooperation level among co-workers
How they felt about communication and interaction with co-workers
Whether they received the necessary training to do their job
Whether they received frequent coaching and balanced feedback from their supervisor
Would they recommend a friend apply for work at your company
How they felt about their pay
How they would describe the morale in the company and in their department
What they would change about their department and the company
Whether they received the necessary information to perform their job effectively

You can find other great advice about exit interviews in the book, The Essential HR Handbook, written by Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell. The book is a quick and handy resource for any leader, manager or Human Resource professional.

Do You Practice Open Leadership?

2011-08-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

Open Leadership author Charlene Li reminds leaders to periodically ask themselves these "open leadership skills assessment" questions:

Do I seek out and listen to different points of view?
Do I make myself available to people at all levels of the organization?
Do I actively manage how I am authentic?
Do I encourage people to share information?
Do I publicly admit when I am wrong?
Do I update people regularly?
Do I take the time to explain how decisions are being made?

Thanks for these great questions, Charlene!

What Disgruntled Exiting Employees Mean To Your Business

2011-08-08T20:43:00.000-05:00

New research by Corporate Executive Board Co. reveals that more than three-quarters of departing employees say they wouldn't recommend their employer to others.

That percentage, based on exit surveys of more than 4,300 employees from 80 companies, is up from the 42% of employees who in 2008 said they wouldn't recommend their employer.

Most of the 80 companies had more than $2 billion in annual revenues, so perhaps the 2011 percentage would be lower had smaller companies been surveyed. But, the message is wake-up call, and the situation is one that could affect companies' recruiting efforts, since prospective employees often trust former employees the most when choosing where to work.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, some companies are proactively engaging their alumni by sending them employee publications and inviting them to contribute to their company blogs and social media sites. That may help to maintain a positive relationship after the employee leaves.

However, what are these companies doing before their employees leave? Are they doing everything possible to keep them satisfied, engaged, challenged, trained and rewarded?

According to Leigh Branham, founder and CEO of the Overland Park, KS company Keeping The People, he explains that employees leave for seven main reasons, and money isn't among the seven:

The job or workplace was not as expected
Mismatch between job and person
Too little coaching and feedback
Too few growth and advancement opportunities
Feeling devalued and unrecognized
Stress from overwork and work-life balance
Loss of trust and confidence in senior leaders

Is your company falling short in any of these areas?

New Book Shows Executive Coaches How To Work With Leaders

2011-08-06T20:41:00.004-05:00

Five New York City-based executive coaches and trainers have banded together to write the new book, Becoming An Exceptional Executive Coach.

Although the book is intended to give all coaches at whatever level fresh ideas about how to improve their skills, it also provides business leaders interesting in hiring a coach an inside look at what to expect from an executive coach.

Some of the most interesting sections of the book are:

Understanding adult change and growth through theories that apply to coaching
Typical phases of executive coaching
Specific topics that are usually addressed in a standard coaching contract
Building trust, honesty, caring and credibility with the person you are coaching
Guidelines for the first coaching session
Suggestions for structuring ongoing coaching sessions
Questions to address when creating a development plan for your client
Bringing closure to the coaching process

The authors are:

Michael H. Frisch
Robert J. Lee
Karen L. Metzger
Jeremy Robinson
Judy Rosemarin

They firmly believe that executive coaches achieve results by facilitating client discovery.

The book also explains that senior leaders generally do not get to their positions because they are reflective or even conceptual. And, senior leaders often do not want to give up whatever set of skills and behaviors got them to their current level.

Therefore, the authors recommend that when building credibility with senior-level managers, coaches should avoid:

too much introspection
abstraction
or critiquing past habits

Additionally, senior leaders are apt to treat coaches as consultants, so mission creep needs to be monitored. Most leaders, however, really value a coach's observations and perspectives as a counterbalance to the isolation of their executive roles.

Helping coaches to be the best they can be is important to the authors because they explain that the quality of the coach-client relationship is the most important ingredient under the coach's control in the client's progress and change.

The book features:

engaging case studies of actual coaching challenges
sample coaching documents
a variety of useful tools
self-assessment questions

Today's Quotes For Leaders

2011-08-06T09:48:00.001-05:00

I really like these motivating and inspiring quotes from the September 2011 issue of Men's Health magazine:

The best way to predict the future is to invent it -- Alan Kay

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty -- Winston Churchill

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody -- Bill Cosby

The greatest accomplishment is not in never failing, but in rising again after you fall -- Vince Lombardi

The Difference Between Positive Feedback Versus Praise

2011-08-06T09:42:00.000-05:00

How To Avoid These 8 Employee Evaluation Pitfalls

2011-08-05T19:57:00.000-05:00

You'll learn how to avoid eight performance evaluation pitfalls in what I think is the best chapter of the book "The Essential HR Handbook," written by Sharon Armstrong and Barbara Mitchell.

If you are a leader and it's time to conduct an employee evaluation, Armstrong and Mitchell caution you to watch for these pitfalls when making your evaluation:

Clustering everyone in the middle performance-rating categories
Overlooking flaws or exaggerating the achievements of favored employees
Excusing substandard performance or behavior because it is widespread
Letting one characteristic - positive or negative - affect your overall assessment
Rating someone based on the company he or she keeps
Rating someone based on a grudge you are holding
Rating someone based on a short time period instead of the entire evaluation period
Rating everyone high, to make you look good

There's other great information in this 250-page book that is valuable for any manager, and especially good for managers who are new in their leadership position.

When Armstrong isn't writing books, she's reading. One of her favorite books is "The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave," written by Leigh Branham of the company Keeping The People, Inc., based in Overland Park, KS.

Today's Leadership Quote

2011-08-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in a world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it." -- David Beckham

Use this quote to inspire you to lead change in your organization!

What Leaders Can Learn From "The Power Of Your Past"

2011-08-01T19:45:00.000-05:00

The Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Training and Development recently voted John P. Schuster as trainer of the year. He's the author of the book:

The Power of Your Past

Schuster contends that a leader's past is the biggest, most accessible and most under-utilized resource for making positive change.

In The Power of Your Past, Schuster provides:

Stories of those who have experienced transformative results through embracing their own professional and personal pasts.

He is also the author of four other books that concentrate on creating better leaders, better people, and better organizations.

Schuster has been quoted by media sources from Shape Magazine to Investors’ Business Daily and the Washington Post. He earned his CSP, Certified Speaking Professional, the highest designation awarded by the National Speakers Association in 1988.

Book Review: The Leadership Test

2011-07-31T09:28:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite books about leadership asks its readers five powerful questions, putting aspiring leaders to the ultimate test of what it takes to be a true leader. The best thing about this book is that if you pass the test you can skip reading many of the mountains of other leadership books on the market today.

The book is Timothy R. Clark's The Leadership Test and it forces you to do some valuable soul searching.

Don't be fooled by the book's conversational writing style and story-telling approach, or by its compact 100-page size that you'll read through in less than an hour. Because, the message is powerful and the test is revealing.

That test, which comes at the end of the book, consists of five questions, each important -- and successfully passing each becomes a collective must to ensure leadership success. Once taken, the test is your personalized assessment that you can use to chart your course for becoming a better leader.

Clark told me that overwhelmingly, most people struggle with question four in the test, "Take The Oath."

In the book's introduction, Clark states, "all too often we see leaders intoxicated with power, thirsting for adulation, vaunting themselves as if we were lucky to have them." He says, "This type of leader leaves remains of indulgence, greed and corruption." A true leader leaves a legacy.

For less than $10 and an hour of your time, read "The Leadership Test." Make it the next leadership book you read. And, pass the test!

Timothy R. Clark, Ph.D. earned a doctorate from Oxford University, was a Fulbright and British Research Scholar, a former first-team Academic All-American football player at Brigham Young University, and is the CEO of TRCLARK LLC.

10 Tips For Engaging Your Employees

2011-07-26T21:55:00.000-05:00

Here are 10 tips for how to maximize employee involvement:

Have active ways to listen to your employees.
Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want.
Share information about customer satisfaction with employees.
Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability.
Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues.
Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small.
Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea.
Train!
For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges.
Conduct meetings around specific issues and brainstorm solutions.

"Involving people in the business is the most effective way to produce an organization in which people know more, care more, and do the right things," said Edward Lawler III, Professor, University of Southern California, as quoted in the book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees, by author Bob Nelson.

Four Critical Questions To Ask During Exit Interviews

2011-07-10T20:44:00.001-05:00

As a leader, it's critical that you understand the real reasons employees leave your company. To do that, you need to ask specific questions that may not be ones you currently include in your exit interviews.

Fortunately, Richard Finnegan, shares in his book, Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, four key questions you should include in your exit interviews:

Why did you decide to leave us?
Of all the things you've told me, what is the top thing that caused you to resign?
It's great that you've found such a good opportunity, but why did you look?
What one thing could we have done that would have caused you to stay?

Your goal is to learn the most important leave reason rather than learn which three or five things contributed to your employee's decision to leave. The four questions above will help you learn the most important reason.

Leaders: What Will Matter

2011-07-10T08:10:00.001-05:00

I heard the What Will Matter poem yesterday by Michael Josephson and believe it should be read by every leader who wants to unselfishly serve and to lead with character.

I've highlighted in bold my favorite parts of the poem:

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.