As a Leader, are you making Toast-a-Phones or are you making sense?

In our wondrous technological age, it appears we can do almost anything. In fact, I bet if someone was so inclined, they could manufacture a toaster with cell phone functionality built in. After all, they make refrigerators with TVs on the door, don’t they? This has me thinking out loud that, yes, you can make a toast-a-phone, but why would you? In other words, when making important leadership decisions about future products and services, just because you can do a thing does that mean you should?

Obviously, I am still thinking a lot about how important clarity is on a personal, team, and organizational level. Now don’t get me wrong, I am totally for innovation and pushing boundaries. In fact, I was so impressed by what Elon Musk and his SpaceX team did recently, that I looked on their website do see if they had any leadership development positions available (and they did!). If you do not know what I am talking about, just check out the YouTube link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c

The point being is that SpaceX has the intellectual and creative horsepower to do almost anything, but they focus on ONE THING – the reinvigoration of space exploration and the commercial, technological, and human benefits such endeavors produce. The problem, however, is that too many industries and organizations dilute their efforts by chasing products and services that lack clarity or just do not make sense.

For instance, in my primary industry of higher education, I have personally witnessed the struggle of smaller colleges as they try to be all things to all people in the hopes they will grow or even survive. What usually happens is that staff, faculty, and resources get stretched so thin or the original mission creeps so far that the institution becomes unrecognizable. There are countless examples in business as well. A great case in point is the computer manufacturer that goes out of business because they produced a dizzying array of machines and unsustainable product lines that became confusing thus unattractive to the consumer. Compare that to Apple which will only bring enough products to market that can fit on a single six-foot table. At one time, however, that was not always the case. Apple learned that focusing on a few products and doing them well made more sense that producing too many products of poorer quality and capability.

So, how do we avoid the toast-a-phone trap? When faced with the opportunity or inclination to produce a new product or service or branch off a new subsidiary or acclimation, evaluate the pros/cons of doing so by the following criteria of whether or not the new endeavor is:

ON MISSION – does this new effort align with your core mission and values? Does it represent a dramatic departure of what you made you successful in the first place? Would it require you to compromise your core values? Would it conflict with or have a negative impact on a healthy workplace culture?

ON POINT – does the product or service even make sense coming from your organization or would people be scratching their heads and wonder why are you or your organization is even doing that? To this day I still cannot figure out why a stick and ball sports equipment company thought they could make motorcycles. Luckily, Harley Davidson still exists but the AMF Sports Equipment company that at one-time owned Harley Davidson no longer does. You have to understand that if you are known as an industry leader for creating and delivering a quality product or service, then why would you jeopardize your brand promise, brand identity, and brand ambassadors?

ON DEMAND – is there even a demand for this new product or service? Does it truly meet a need or are you trying to create one? Have you done due diligence to determine if there is someone or some entity out there that is already doing it better and faster than you could ever do?

ON SCHEDULE – is this new endeavor timely in terms of its introduction or are you just playing catch-up? Challenger brands can be successful, but the learning and resource curve is significant. Is the demand sustainable or will it fade; thus, is it worth tooling up to meet what could be only a temporary demand or marketplace fad. Just look in your closets and cupboards and see how many things are there that you just had to have but now would be embarrassed to let people know you spent good money on them. I am thinking parachute pants here! What was I thinking? Not that I could ever fit in them, but I am hoping they come back in style just for the EBAY opportunity!

Recently I have been trying out a new Here to There Mapping tool that I have used with several different types of organizations that helps organizations and teams obtain clarity in their status and aspirations. The results and feedback I am getting is that it has been very helpful. You can find it in my workbook publication called Do Out Loud: Mapping Your Leadership Platform, available on Amazon.com. I would also love to talk to you more about leading your organization through this interactive and team engaging process on-site.

The quickest path to obscurity is to attempt to become all things to all people.

It is my belief that the quickest path to obscurity is to attempt to become all things to all people. There is just one of you and that is what the world needs most. We do not a bunch of carbon copies of someone or something else. What you make, do, or provide is unique and there are more than enough clients or customers out there that will value what you do and how you do it. Just like Elon Musk and SpaceX taught us recently, when you focus on what you truly want to do and want to be the best at it, the sky is no longer the limit!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact. Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

For more information on the John Maxwell Team, please visit

http://www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/williamfaulkner/

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

In Leading Teams, Sometimes We Have to Unsaddle that Unicorn We’ve Been Riding!

I am generally a positive person. I also believe that positivity is a desirable attribute of effective leaders. But every once in awhile, it can just be annoying for our team members or those we lead! This has me thinking out loud that leaders need to discern when we need to be more empathetic and less enthusiastic. In other words, sometimes we need to unsaddle that Unicorn we’ve been riding through Rainbow Candy Land and respond to the real difficulties are team members may be facing!

Again, it is important to point out that effective leadership requires us to be hopeful and encouraging to those we lead. There is nothing worse than being lead by a negative person. Kouzes and Posner, authors of the Leadership Challenge, share that one of the most important roles of a leader is to keep hope alive. Hope is the impact multiplier that helps survivors, teams, and entire nations endure incredible hardships and disappointments.

The point I am trying to make, however, is that team members sometimes need authentic leadership that recognizes that things are not always OK, at least at the moment. As a leader with perhaps a few more years of experience with such things, you know that in your heart of hears that things will eventually work out but that may not be what a team member needs to hear when they suffer a huge disappointment, lose a big account, or could not make a patient better. When this happens, they need your support and empathy more so than just simple platitudes.

I have experienced this in my own leadership practice in that as a leader who was a level or two removed from a negative situation that a staff member was facing, that I would not feel the sting of such situations or incidents the front-line staff member may have experienced. This could involve anything from a particularly ugly encounter with a dissatisfied customer or when an event fell apart because a vendor or vendors did not meet their obligations. What to me was just a hiccup compared to the big picture was at that time professionally and personally devastating to my team member. Eventually I learned that they did not want to hear a “just walk it off” or “it will all work out” response. They needed more from me. And if this sounds familiar to you, your own team members will need more from you.

To help your team members when things go wrong for them, I recommend the following:

Listen Actively – if the situation is not immediately dire and does not require your direct intervention, I found the best thing to do is to actively and deeply listen to the team member as they describe the situation to you. Of course, this requires you to have already created culture of trust and safety where the team member knows they can share such information without fear of censure or over reaction on your part. Just listen to the staff person and encourage them to talk it out in terms of what happened.

Demonstrate Empathy – when a team member has experienced a setback, it is important for them to know they are not the first one to have experienced problems. If you have experienced a similar negative situation before, share that you felt much the same way when it happened to you as they do now since it has happened to them. Recognize that bad things sometimes happen outside of our control. It does not mean that the team member should not feel disappointment, but they may start to feel better if they are not alone in their reactions to what happened. There is no such thing as a perfect leader but if you try to present yourself as one who never experienced a setback or made a mistake, then I believe it will limit your capacity to connect with that team member on an authentic level.

Deconstruct Quickly – as you and the team member continue to discuss what is troubling them, I highly recommend you use the situation as a teaching tool that will aid in their development. If the situation was due to some ineffective actions or inactions on their part, then deconstruct the incident as to what they did well or what they could have done better to prevent the situation from occurring again. Such a discussion will also allow you to determine severity of the issue and whether or not the team member in question is salvageable. If the situation the team member experienced was not of their making and could not have been foreseen, then the vector of your conversation should be more on how they can better respond when things come off the rails and build up their resilience and better coping/response strategies in the future.

Limit the Scope – Dr. Paul Seligman, one of the purveyors of Positive Psychology, proposed how a person’s views the world and their ability to control what happens to them will impact their responses to when bad things happen. Accordingly, the goal is to develop what he calls a more internal locus of control. Essentially, as an authentic leader, it is important that you let the team member know the following:

• This Setback is not Permanent – this will pass, and the sting of the disappointment or setback will wear off. I often share the 24-Hour Rule proposed by leadership expert John Maxwell. He shares that when he experiences a loss or setback, he gives himself only 24 hours to moan and groan about it but then gets back on track!
• The Setback is not Everything – sometimes we believe that is something is not going well in one part of our life, then it extends to all areas of our life. Encourage your team member to compartmentalize the negative situation to just that aspect of that work and life and not to extend its impact to others.
• The Setback is not You – just because something bad happened or you made an error, it does not reflect on your overall competence and character. I know this will sound weird but to be honest, I much rather have a team member who was personally struggling with a professional disappointment versus one who simply did not care. In fact, I would often share that very observation with them. I would tell them it demonstrated they cared deeply about their work and those that they served.

Problem Solve Responsively – when a bad situation or setback has occurred with a team member, it is important that you work with them to determine the scope of the situation or damaged caused and determine how they will repair the damage or minimize negative impacts on others. Whether fully or partially their fault or not, it is important to make sure the team member does not “walk away” from the issue and let those higher up the leadership food chain deal with the fallout. The team member involved will have key insights as to how to prevent such situations from occurring again as well as they need to develop their own capacities to respond effectively to challenging situations.

At the end of the day, our responsibility as leaders is to multiply other leaders. Eventually, your direct reports will have to help one of their own team members recover from disappointments and setbacks. As I would often tell my student leaders, I wish every day is a great day, but the reality is that every now and then one day is really going to stink. How they respond when that day happens will speak volumes about their character and commitment to becoming a leader of integrity.

Again, I still believe that as leaders, we should be positive and hopeful. Such a perspective comes a little easier for those of us who have “been there and done that” more times than we care to think about! It does, however, provide us with perspective and a maturity in our leadership that allows us to be resilient and strong in both good and bad times. When working with younger and emerging influencers, however, it is important to keep in mind that setbacks can appear so much more acute due to their lack of life experience. They need you to understand and to respond to the reality of their situation. When that happens, what they really want from us to get off that mythical horse and just walk alongside them for awhile!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact. I am also pleased to announce the launch of my first book, Leading Out Loud: Strategies for Raising Your Leadership Voice! available on Amazon.com. Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

For more information on the John Maxwell Team, please visit

http://www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/williamfaulkner/

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Establish Personal Clarity in 3 Sentences.

I am on a “Clarity Kick” these days. I have become convinced that the primary reason why organizations, businesses, universities, communities, etc. struggle is due to lack of clarity on purpose and intention. I also believe the reason individuals struggle is due to lack of clarity in their own lives in terms of their life mission, purpose, and aspiration. This has got me thinking out loud about how we, as individuals, can get clear on why we are here and what we are intended to do!

Obviously, it is my belief that the reason we are walking around on the planet is for a specific reason. As humans, we were designed for a specific role and purpose. When we stray from that purpose, we experience confusion and misalignment with the universe (pretty dramatic, huh?). Seriously, when we struggle to become what we think we should be as opposed to what we were meant to be, we as leaders and individuals lack focus and fulfillment. We waste time pursuing roles and things that we think will make us happy only to learn that is not the case.

When viewed from the leadership lens, this lack of focus and clarity not only impacts us personally, but those we lead corporately. There is nothing more frustrating than to follow someone who is inconsistent in their beliefs, decision making, values, and intentions. When we do not have clarity, we are susceptible to the “cause or priority of the month club”! Instead of being clear on what our intentions are, we just bandwagon on every new topic and pop culture trend. Granted, some new issues do deserve our attention but when doing so, we need to make sure they align with our consistent and clear values and purpose.

So how can we gain more clarity on what we are here to do? I suggest creating three short sentences that answer the following questions:

What are you best at?

This captures your strengths. Leadership experts constantly remind us that we should work to our strengths versus our weaknesses. Your strengths are your areas of giftedness and trust me, you have been given many gifts and talents. If you are not sure what those are, focus on what you like to do and have had the most success doing. Ask colleagues to share with you what they see as your greatest gifts. I bet they will tell you things that you never expected.

What do you value?

This captures who and what you are on a foundational level. Sincerely ask yourself what is that you truly value in life, your work, your relationships, etc. It is impossible to live into your purpose in life if the way you are living your life is contrary to what you truly believe is important. Break free of what the trap of caring what the people around you think you should value, you do you in terms of what you really care about.

What do you want to be known for?

Finally, this question provides clarity on your aspirations. It does not speak to fame or notoriety; however, it speaks to what you want others to say, think, or believe about you. In other words, if your life was made into a movie, what do you want it to portray about you? How would it capture how you treat others? What personal accomplishments would it document?

I have been thinking a lot about these questions and here where is landed. In short, I was placed on this planet to:

1. Solve worthy problems.
2. Learn to teach valuable lessons.
3. Insure the success of others.

Listen, I know such reflection is not part of our daily routine and there is no Siri or Alexa App that will do this for you (yet!). All I can say is that when you focus on what you ARE versus what you DO, it changes your entire perspective. It makes your work more meaningful. It makes your conversations richer. It makes your relationships more intentional. If helps your life make sense!

You were designed to make an impact in this world and you were created to make things better. I encourage you to capture personal clarity in 3 sentences. I would love to hear from you in terms of where this reflection leads you. Please send me a short email at bill@outloudinc.com and let me know how this goes. Once you do create clarity, then ACT upon your thoughts on a daily basis!

As always if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would invite you to email me or to visit my website below and see if any of the training or coaching experiences I offer can provide an impact. I am also pleased to announce the launch of my first book, Leading Out Loud: Strategies for Raising Your Leadership Voice! available on Amazon.com. Also, as a bonus, if you go to my Out Loud Strategies website (www.outloudinc.com) and enter your contact information, I will send you a FREE guide to establishing a mentoring initiative program in your organization! Such an initiative would be critical to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Principal Consultant – Out Loud Strategies

Independent Coach, Speaker, and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team ^TM

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com

For more information on the John Maxwell Team, please visit

http://www.johncmaxwellgroup.com/williamfaulkner/

Feel free to “LIKE” our FB Page www.facebook.com/outloudinc