Paying Tribute - A Leader’s Imperative.

This week, there will be a celebration of the life and legacy of two leaders who have had a significant impact on my life and the lives of countless other professionals. These individuals were my major professors in graduate school who taught me not only important content lessons but life lessons as well. This got me thinking out loud that as leaders, we need to make it a priority to recognize and honor those leaders who invested in us to help makes us the leaders we are today. 

Just think about. I would bet you did not automatically become the great leader you are today overnight! Sometime, somewhere along the way, someone poured their life into yours. They sacrificed their time and energy to insure we were equipped to face the personal and professional challenges they just knew we would someday face. I would further wager they did so without expectation of reciprocation or personal reward. They just did it because that was just the kind of person they were in the first place. In light of that, here is what I consider the value in personally honoring and recognizing those who added value to you:

First, in doing so, it reminds you of what they taught you. The lessons they taught you then are just as valid today. 

Second, it grounds and humbles you back to a time when you did not know as much as you think you did but were pushed to do more than you ever thought you could!

Third, it encourages you to pay it forward to the next generation of leaders and use these high impact people as an instructional example of how you can do this for someone else.

Finally, one of the greatest gifts you can give someone is the gift of relevance and significance. As we age it is normal to wonder what our efforts mean. Do our lives count? Did we give more than we took? Are we making our little corner of the world better? Actually telling someone they did all that and then some will be incredibly fulfilling to both them and you. 

So find that teacher, coach, professor, former boss, minister, etc. on Facebook or in person. Make it your leadership priority this week to tell them the impact they made or are making in your life. 

To conclude, it is with the highest admiration, the deepest of respect, and the most positive of regards that I honor Dr. Roger Winston and Dr. Ted Miller - thank you gentlemen for helping me realize my potential and discover my purpose. 

As always, if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would love to hear from you. 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 in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Co-Founder – Out Loud Strategies

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

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

www.outloudinc.com

www.facebook.com/outloudinc

To Build Your Enterprise You Have to Build Capacities!

Have you ever purchased a new car (or a new used one) and you’re all excited. You get to play with all the options and technology that your previous car didn’t have. Then all of a sudden you notice buttons or tabs that do not do anything. You realize then these “faux buttons” are for equipment you do not have – seat warmers, headlight washers, in-dash expresso machines, etc. Now after I got over my disappointment, this got me thinking out loud about a key leadership lesson.

Now stick with me here, but in the same way all cars do not come equipped with all the options, staff and team members (not to mention leaders) rarely come completely factory equipped – there is always room for more optional equipment! Since that is the case, as leaders, it is our responsibility to further equip people for their own sake but for the sake of your enterprise. 

In past blogs, I have shared the sobering statistics from Gallup regarding employee engagement. Essentially only about 20 to 30 percent of staff of any given organization are producing a high levels. The remaining 80 to 70 percent or nominally engaged, or worse, actively disengaged. Just think about what this translates to in hard currency! Not only are paying someone to operate at a lower capacity, that means critical work is not getting done, sales calls are not occurring, and customer support response is slow if not at all. In light of that, soft skills don’t seem so soft or optional anymore do they?

Leadership and personal effectiveness expert, John Maxwell, in his book Equipping 101 (part of the R.E.A.L. Leadership series) reminds us that “success for leaders can be defined as the maximum utilization of the abilities of others". Since that is the case, YOU have to build those abilities or capacities by DESIGN because rarely will they develop by DEFAULT. John goes on to suggest some strategies for equipping others more effectively. Here are just a few:

• ASK for increased effort – why should we expect others to produce at high levels if they do not know what those expectations are?
• DEMONSTRATE your commitment to everyone on your team by investing your time, energy, effort, and emotions in them
• ARTICULATE what the goals and metrics for success are. In other words, let everyone know what it means to WIN!
• DEVELOP others. Yes, this means training and growth experiences. This can include training for specific tasks and processes, technology training, sales training, and, my favorite, leadership training.
• EMPOWER others to then accomplish what you have asked them to do.
• Then hold everyone, including you, ACCOUNTABLE for the results.

Now, not everyone on your team may respond or respond to a much higher level, but if anything, it will get them thinking about what more could be done. It will raise their awareness of current performance versus their potential. This will also demonstrate that this MATTERS to you.

As always, if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would love to hear from you. 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 in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Co-Founder – Out Loud Strategies

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

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

www.outloudinc.com

www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Pursue the Possible Instead of Just the Probable!

Symphony conductor and author Benjamin Zander, encourages us to live in “a state of possibility”. Too many times I see people limit their own opportunities and ambitions. Instead of seeking the possible, they settle for the probable. This got me thinking out loud about these two words and the tragic consequences of pursuing one over the other. Consider how much more fulfilled our lives are or could be when we stretch beyond what we think we can already (i.e. probably) do as opposed when we take a leap into the unknown (i.e. possibility) of what we discover we can do?! Now pay attention to my word choice here. I am not using the term “impossible”, rather the term “possible” because possible infers reachable and attainable though not necessarily easy!

Granted, we see news stories every day offering living proof how individuals and organizations have overcome incredible odds to achieve financial, athletic, scientific, or social success. The reason why this happens is that they choose to ignore or change their own limiting beliefs and at least try! If you think about it, the more we push the envelope of the possible the more we accomplish what was once thought as impossible! History (and Lifetime movies!) backs me up on this every time!

Here is the difference between the two mindsets of possible and probable:

Probable = 

Safe

Predictable

Limiting

Knowable

Inevitable

Possible = 

Risky

Surprising

Unrestrained

Unfathomable

Avoidable

What I am encouraging you to do is just live more in the realm of possibilities. You will rarely outperform their own self-image or self-limiting beliefs so just give it a try, put forth some extra effort, stretch your mind, body, and soul just a little more. Take a leap of faith every now and then. I will bet you will find yourself accomplishing more than you ever thought you could and pushing the needle more in the possible direction and away from the impossible!

As always, if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would love to hear from you. 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 in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Co-Founder – Out Loud Strategies

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

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

www.outloudinc.com

www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Impactful Interruptions?

Most leaders dislike being interrupted. We have lots to do and a short time to get it all done. What if, however, you turned the paradigm around and come to think of most interruptions as the best part of your day? This is the intriguing premise of a great book I am reading by Douglas Conant, President and CEO of Campbell Soup, and strategy consultant Mette Norgaard called Touch Points.

I am just in the first few chapters but it has really got me thinking about loud about their assertion that when people and situations interrupt our work, instead of becoming frustrated, we use them as high impact moments. We can use them to:

• Re-Connect with our team and colleagues
• Create an opportunity to remind others and ourselves of why we do what we do
• Make a visitor feel welcome
• Make someone (especially the most entry level or new staff member) feel valued
• Increase our own abilities to problem solve WITH vs FOR
• Practice flexible thinking

If you think about it, that is where the real work of leadership happens. Not really in writing reports and “brokering” emails (you know, where we forward, reply all, etc. to the people who really need to see and read the email before it ever got to you!). Leadership shows its best face in those frequent, unplanned and unscripted interactions we have with others. 

Now granted, this can be controlled if you really have to focus for a while by simply closing your office door or just not responding to phones or emails for a bit. You may also want to consider how you set your daily agenda. For instance, completing focus and time intensive tasks early so that the afternoons are open for interruptions!

Come to think of it, maybe it would be beneficial to create our own interruptions! Sometimes called Leadership by Walking Around, just getting out of our own office and just checking IN (verses checking UP – big difference there!) on folks will allow for a more authentic conversation versus the ones we often get in the regular departmental or 1:1 meetings.

I challenge you (and of course myself!) to determine how you view interruptions. What emotions do they create and how do you normally respond? Based upon that, what could you change and how could you use interruptions to leverage an opportunity to pursue what is really important!

I would be open to any interruptions from you! As always, if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would love to hear from you. 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 in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Co-Founder – Out Loud Strategies

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

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

www.outloudinc.com

www.facebook.com/outloudinc

Bus thrower, advocate from heck, and other really annoying meeting behaviors!

I go to a lot of meetings. I mean a lot! So if you are like me you pretty much have a Ph.D. in meeting attendance, I started thinking out loud about certain meeting behaviors that as leaders, we should avoid in ourselves and definitely not encourage in others. Here is a list of a few.

The bus thrower-under:

I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a meeting discussing perhaps a more contentious issue when all of a sudden someone will say. “I am not throwing anyone under the bus, but . . . “ It’s that “but” that drives me nuts because as soon as you say you are NOT, YOU ARE! SERIOUSLY, YOU MOST ASSUREDLY ARE! In fact when you do it again and again, you become the Olympic bus thrower-under! The point is this, just saying you are “not” doing so does not absolve you from the responsibility or REALLY doing so! In the end, it is nothing but toxic behavior because once the statement is made about someone (more than likely not in the meeting!) it cannot be unsaid and stays out there.

The Solution: Engage in what author Dr. Tim Elmore calls reverse gossip. In other words talking positively about someone behind their back!

The devil’s advocate:

This is another really annoying meeting role someone takes on. There you are as a group about to reach consensus on an important decision then all of a sudden you hear this “I don’t mean to be the devil’s advocate here but …” Again, with the “buts”! Here someone is just trying to derail all the hard work that just occurred, usually in an effort to make them seem more relevant or to steer the group back to his or her point of view.  

The Solution: Next time you hear someone say this, respond the way I was taught by Paul Martinelli, President of John Maxwell Team. Paul encourages us to say simply “Then Don’t”. Paul can be a little direct at times! Seriously, if you don’t want to do or be something, then   just    don’t’!

The point disguised as a question asker:

I know you can think of many other irritating (a.k.a. counter-productive) meeting behaviors but the last one I will leave you with this the point or agenda disguised as a question asker. Here, someone who does not want to appear as negative or not a team player will ask a question or a series of questions that does not really contain a request for information but rather a point or agenda they wish to express in stealth mode.

The Solution: Sometimes when this occurs, I will ask, “Is that a question or a statement, either is fine, just let me know.”

Obviously I am attempting to have some fun with this but is important as leaders that we are modeling healthy, productive meeting behaviors. As author Dr. Henry Cloud reminds us, cultures are created by what the leader allows or creates.

If you have other annoying meeting behaviors you want to share, I would love to hear from you. Maybe I will post them on my twitter feed – if that will not be too annoying!

As always, if I can help you and the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I would love to hear from you. 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 in order to add value to your organization!

Yours in Leadership,

Bill Faulkner

Co-Founder – Out Loud Strategies

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

Email = bill@outloudinc.com

www.outloudinc.com

www.facebook.com/outloudinc