Lonnie Pacelli's Blog, page 26

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Your North Star – Creating a Practical and Sustainable Purpose Statement

The Scenario: Jake is sitting alone in his luxury penthouse overlooking Central Park.
Jake looks down at his scribbled notes from his doctor visit. Cancer stage 4… too late for chemo… weeks to months left.Jake’s wife left 20 years ago after his affair. She’s since remarried and cut off all contact with him.Jake tries to call his kids, but neither picks up. They won’t talk to him and haven’t since the divorce.After Jake retired from his job as CEO, the coworkers he thought were his friends stopped calling.Jake takes out a pen and paper and writes “My Legacy” at the top.Jake stares at the blank page, pen ready to write, mind unable to come up with anything.The Message: You may know a Jake, someone who is in their later years, and unable to point to anything significant other than his or her career and its financial fruits. For some, this may be their definition of contentment. In my years of experience, though, I’ve seen way too many people look back on their lives with regret; not acknowledging those things that are really important earlier in life.

It’s not too late to avoid being a Jake. It takes defining a practical and sustainable purpose statement--the north star that guides your actions. Then living it.

Not sure where to start? I’ve created a contentment assessment to help you think through areas in your life that are most important to you. It helps you develop a practical and sustainable purpose statement to guide you when to say yes to some things and no to others. Get started by downloading the assessment and doing the following:
Acknowledge and understand each of the nine contentment areas:Career Contentment - How content you are in your current and future career potentialFamily Contentment - How content you are with your family lifeHealth Contentment - How content you are in your physical and mental healthFriendship Contentment - How content you are with relationships built and maintained with friends and loved onesFinancial Contentment - How content you are in your current and future financial statusLeisure Contentment - How content you are with quality time spent on leisurely activitiesSpiritual Contentment - How content you are with your spiritual lifeGiving Contentment - How content you are with your pay-it-forward givingLegacy Contentment - How content you are with the legacy you are leaving behind should you die todayAssess how important each of these contentment areas is to you.For areas that are extremely or very important, define your contentment goal and what you need to do to achieve it.Construct your purpose statement based on extremely or very important areas like: “Have a fulfilling and sustainable career with fair and equitable compensation BUT not at the cost of friendships, leisure, and life experiences.”Hold yourself accountable (or work with an accountability partner).The Consequences:  By not taking intentional action to define your purpose statement your consequences could include:
Time/priorities imbalance: Things you think are important don’t get the attention they need.Burnout: Too much work at the expense of other areas isn’t sustainable.Relationship neglect: Other people in your life don’t get the attention they need/deserve.
The Next Steps: 
Download and complete the contentment assessment.Create your purpose statement.Be patient with yourself; it may take some reflection time to come up with a statement that energizes you.Live it, even if you need an accountability partner to do it.

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Scaling Up – 13 Principles to Scale Your “Leader of Leaders” Influence

The Scenario: 
Greg gets promoted to a “leader of leaders” position.Greg assumes that he will have to increase his hours, so adopts 60-hour weeks.Greg doesn’t scale up his leadership style and still works as if he’s leading a small team.Greg’s direct reports grow increasingly frustrated with his inconsistent leadership style of sometimes micromanaging, sometimes ignoring, sometimes doing things others can do, or sometimes creating fire-drills to get deliverables done.Greg’s manager sees him not getting things done and puts more pressure on Greg.Greg steps it up to 80-hour weeks.Greg’s direct reports start leaving, citing Greg as an ineffective leader.Greg’s manager signs Greg up for a class on how to scale as a leader. Greg doesn’t go because he’s too busy.Greg’s family grows increasingly frustrated with his not being present and part of the family.Greg puts on ten pounds due to poor eating habits and lack of exercise.Greg’s manager makes the difficult but needed decision to demote Greg.
The Message: The above scenario may be unfamiliar to some, but to others it might mean replacing Greg’s name with their own. Scaling up as a leader doesn’t have to mean longer hours and greater sacrifice. It does mean that the leader needs to adopt some new habits and adjust expectations of both himself and others to sustain as a leader.

To effectively and sustainably scale up as a leader of leaders, consider which of these 13 principles you need to embrace:
Embrace that your job is more about seeking clarity, setting direction, and driving decisions versus being a doer.Embrace that your world is about choices; what to do and what not to do. Sometimes your alternatives are good and bad, but many times your alternatives are worse and worser. You will find yourself at times choosing least-worst alternatives.Embrace that not everyone will agree with every decision you make; your job is to ensure they understand the “why” behind each decision and can respect it.Embrace the concept of intentional empowerment and think in terms of empowering others to solve problems, providing guidance, being clear on due dates, and establishing a follow-up rhythm. Empowerment is not set-it-and-forget-it or errand-running.Embrace that your to-do list will not only contain things you need to do, but also follow-ups with others on things you have empowered them to own (see #4).Embrace that you will need to be deliberate about scheduling nonwork time--friendship, leisure, and life commitments--and treating them with the same importance as work commitments.Embrace that to succeed in scaling up you will need a leadership team you trust to get things done and with members who can grow to take your job in the future.Embrace that holding others accountable is not just for your leadership team and those in your organization but is also about peers and senior leaders.Embrace that others may do things differently than you. Your job is to align on the what and advise on the how, unless there is some legal or policy reason to be prescriptive on the how.Embrace that being sustainable doesn’t mean you never have to sprint or re-prioritize work and personal life; it just means that you don’t chronically do it and try to sprint a marathon.Embrace that you will always be genuinely seeking and candidly sharing wisdom. It’s your responsibility as a leader to not only grow yourself, but others as well.Embrace that others in the organization don’t want to hear that you’re nervous; they want to hear that you’re focused. Others are drawn to the calm and prescriptive one in the room when everyone else is freaking out. You may not always know all the steps to get out of a crisis, but you should always know what success looks like and what needs to be done next.Embrace that it’s lonely at the top. You need a safe, trusted advisor to help you grapple with issues who can affirm when you’re right and advise when you’re wrong.
The Consequences: 
By not taking intentional action to scale your leader of leaders influence your consequences can include:
Burnout – You try to do too much on your own and chronically burn the midnight oil working to get it all done.Reduced employee satisfaction – Your leaders won’t feel trusted to own problems and do their job.Late or missed deliverables – Trying to do too much on your own means more things are likely to be missed because of too many balls in the air that you can’t catch.
The Next Steps: Review the 13 principles to embrace.
Decide which top three you need to work on.Review your plan with an accountability partner.Work on the three for three months until you’ve developed good habits, then choose the next three, and so on. 
Lonnie Pacelli | Building Thriving Leaders™ | See me on  Amazon

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Seven Tips to Fostering a Follow-Up Culture

As a young manager I was on a particularly difficult assignment that had attention all the way up to the CEO of the company. The executive leading the project was a very seasoned and intentional leader who executed as well as anyone I’ve ever seen drive a crisis initiative. His ability to stay on top of the work was like nothing like I’d ever seen from other leaders in the organization. During my annual review with him, I asked what he saw as a crucial attribute of a successful leader. Without missing a beat, he gave me two words which continue to shape me as a leader: follow up.

Through the years I’ve seen how follow-up (or lack thereof) contributed to a team’s ability to successfully deliver results. Organizations that have follow-up in their DNA simply execute more friction-free than those who don’t. The leader stays better aligned with the work happening in the organization, and the followers better understand and execute to the leader’s expectations. I’ve seen it in my own experience as a leader. As my leadership skills matured and my follow-up ability became more autonomic, I saw first-hand how we were able to get things done more effectively. I also saw another benefit--my timely follow-up behavior reduced the number and magnitude of crises I had to deal with. I was more on top of what was happening, was better in sync with the team, and more engaged when the team needed my help to get something done.Fostering a follow-up culture isn’t difficult to do, it just takes discipline. Get the ball rolling by instituting these seven follow-up tips:Be known as a follow-up fiend – Simply put, when people know you follow up on commitments, they’re more likely to do what they agreed to. Be consistent and timely with follow-ups and do it every time. Followers know those leaders who follow up and those who don’t and are more likely to shirk responsibility if their leader’s follow-up is inconsistent or absent.Establish a follow-up cadence – In my article Intentional Empowerment I talk about the importance of a follow-up cadence when empowering someone to own solving a problem. A deliberate follow-up frequency is crucial to ensuring that you as the leader stay abreast of progress, as well as being available if your help is needed. Make sure you set an appropriate frequency, establish clear expectations on what will be done in each follow-up meeting, and that you live up to the follow-up commitment.Establish singular points of follow-up ownership – Follow-ups assigned to “the team” mean no one owns it and it’s less likely to get done. Ensure any follow-ups you give have a clear, singular owner who can be held accountable for delivery.Get them to summarize the what and when – At the end of a meeting if there are follow-up actions required, ask the accountable person to send you an email describing the follow-up action and when it will be done by. Asking them to do it better ensures an understanding and agreement as to the follow-up action and due date. After you get the email, copy it into your calendar on the follow-up due date for you to do then follow-up either in-person or by email.Acknowledge actions – Great follow-up leaders treat follow-up actions as important and followers want to feel their work wasn’t done in vain. When someone follows up on an action you requested, don’t just be silent. Even a quick “Thank you for following up” response tells your followers that their work was important enough for you to take the time to act upon it.Be real – If a follow-up was well-done, say so. If it wasn’t, say so. Creating a follow-up culture means you encourage good behavior and correct bad behavior. Be courageous and direct with both encouraging and correcting.Walk the talk – The best leaders who drive accountability through follow-up do what they say they’ll do when they say they’ll do it. They do it not only for their leaders but also for their followers. When followers can rely on their leader to live up to a commitment, it not only sets the example of follow-up, but also speaks volumes as to the leader’s integrity.There’s simply no reason not to establish and foster a follow-up culture. Just take the time to make it top-of-mind and instill the importance of it to your team.
Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
See his books on Amazon.

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I Wasn’t Expecting This! Five Tips for Mastering Expectation Alignment

Some time back I was the executive sponsor responsible for developing a facility strategy for a new line of business. I empowered one of my project managers to develop the strategy which we would jointly present to our management. We both had visions of what we expected in the strategy but I didn’t ensure our points of view meshed.. My project manager was very competent in her job; however mind-reading was not one of her skills. The day before we were due to present the strategy, I did a walk-through with her. It wasn’t anything like I envisioned, and I knew the strategy in its current state wouldn’t be well received by our management. We went through a fire drill to get the strategy to a state where I thought it would be better received. We survived the review with our management, but it didn’t go nearly as well as it could have gone, and we went through a lot of pain (including a sleepless night) to rework the strategy.
I don’t fault the project manager one bit for the misstep. It was totally on me that the strategy wasn’t what I was thinking because I didn’t ensure our expectations were aligned at the outset. I also didn’t put checkpoints in place along the way to ensure we stayed aligned. It cost us not only in additional work but in relationship trust. I blew it.

My story unfortunately is just one of many I’ve seen and experienced through the years where expectations were misaligned. Due to my experiences I’ve become manic about setting and aligning expectations, so much so that when I get misaligned it’s like being punched in the gut. It’s at the leader’s feet to ensure clear expectation alignment when empowering someone to get something done. Those leaders who just expect someone to ask the right questions on the what, who and when of getting something done are just asking for frustration and rework. This is a “measure-twice-cut-once” application; a little extra work up front to ensure alignment can save a lot of downstream pain.
Need help to better define and stay aligned on expectations? Consider the following five tips:

Be crisp on the what, who and when – Expectation alignment starts with an intentional understanding of what needs to be done, who needs to do it, and when it needs to be done by. Be specific, including specific dates and named owners. Also take time to understand other’s expectations and drive getting to a common vision.Wireframe the deliverable – For a more complex deliverable it may be worthwhile to wireframe out what the deliverable needs to look like, whether it be a table of contents, a picture, or some other means that brings clarity to what “done” looks like.Take regular checkpoints – Develop an agreed-upon follow-up rhythm to ensure that deliverable progress is on track and any deviations can be caught early. See my article on Fostering a Follow-Up Culture for more.Outline clear actions if there is a deviation to the deliverable – It’s certainly possible for there to be a deviation to the deliverable whether it be content, date, or some other factor. Ensure clear agreement exists among stakeholders as to how changes will be communicated, what decisions the deliverable owner can make, and what requires agreement among the stakeholders.Articulate the consequences of misaligned expectations – When expectations do get misaligned, be clear on both the business impact and how stakeholders are impacted. For example, misaligned expectations may mean a date slip which might impact downstream activities. Being clear about the consequence helps keep everyone aligned on the importance of producing a timely desired result.
As leaders, it is your job to take the lead on clearly aligning expectations for delivery. In this “measure-twice-cut-once” approach, well defined expectation alignment means less execution friction. Your team needs it.
Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
See his books on Amazon.

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Nailing That Interview

So you're browsing LinkedIn or reading the classifieds and you see the job of your dreams staring you right in the face.  You brush up your resume, write a killer cover letter and send it in sealed with a kiss and a prayer.  A week later, someone from HR calls telling you they'd like you to come in for an interview.  Wahoo!!! So the hard part is over, now you've got the hard part left.  To help you nail the interview and be sitting pretty in the job you've always wanted, keep these nuggets tucked in your bonnet:
Be sure you’re qualified to do the job – do research about the job and ensure you can truly do it. Shooting the moon on a job you aren’t qualified to do is just setting you up for failure.

Be super-prepared – know the company, the products, and the current news events.

Be early – better you wait in the lobby for 15 minutes than show up five or ten minutes late.
Actively listen to the interviewer – Let the interviewer ask questions completely and ensure you understand the question before responding. Don’t cut him or her off.

Be very concise – avoid rambling in your responses and ensure each word you speak contributes to the value of your answer. Also don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”.
Follow up with something useful – Rather than just sending a “thank you” email to the interviewer, follow up with some research or some additional thinking on a topic you discussed in the interview. Start showing your value to the organization right from the interview by helping the interviewer with some problem he or she is struggling with.

Be hyper-responsive - send your follow-up email within 24 hours of the interview; same day if possible. Also ensure that you respond to any follow-up questions very promptly.Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
See his books on Amazon.