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5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 24, 2016

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Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Workplace Culture a Deal Breaker for Many Employees by Anna Patty

Employees rank workplace culture as a decisive factor when seeking a new job and more than half believe it is misrepresented by future employers in their job interviews, a survey has found.

When asked to rank what was more important, 29 per cent of employees said pay and the remaining 71 per cent chose a cultural aspect of work including flexibility (19 per cent), performance review (18 per cent), teamwork (13 per cent), ethical standards (13 per cent) and social activities (8 per cent).

The vast majority (96 per cent) believe cultural fit is an important factor when weighing up career options.

My Comment: The most desirable talent for your team are also the ones with the most flexibility and options. Creating a culture that aligns with your organization’s values, outputs, and the type of people you need to succeed probably isn’t written in your job description anywhere – and yet it’s a hallmark of great leaders and managers.

One aspect of this article bears additional emphasis: be upfront with your candidates about the culture. If its tough, say so. Use it as a attractive differentiator if you have to (eg: “We’ve found that only dedicated and highly competent people thrive in this culture.”) – but don’t lie, shade, or misrepresent the truth here. You just diminish your own credibility and make it more likely the person will leave.

How to Start a Conversation You’re Dreading by Joel Garfinkle at SmartBrief

When you manage people, sooner or later you are in a position where you need to have a conversation that you’d just rather not have.

We’ve all been there – something has gone awry, there’s an interpersonal conflict, someone isn’t performing well or an incident has occurred that can’t go undiscussed. It’s easy to make up excuses or reasons to avoid — it was an isolated incident, the person knows what the problem is, someone else is going to discuss it with them, the already feel bad enough, etc.

My Comment: As an executive, when I’m promoting someone into a position with greater responsibility for people, the number one skill I look for is the ability to have tough conversations well. None of us are born knowing how to do this well. The good news is, you can learn. Garfinkle gives you steps to get started right away.

In Winning Well Chapter 7 we give you a step-by-step conversation guide to help you address performance issues, hold each other accountable, and inspire greater performance. Want to go deeper? Shari Harley’s book How to Say Anything to Anyone is a fantastic resource to help you grow in this arena.

Leadership Is About Doing by Steve Keating

Leadership is more about what you’re doing today than it is about what you did yesterday.

You may have done lots of great things yesterday that helped you earn your leadership position. Having a leadership position however does not make you a leader. Even being a great leader yesterday does not ensure you’re a great leader today.

You never “arrive” as a leader because the leadership journey never stops. Great leaders know that since their people are always evolving that they must evolve as well. They are constantly learning, always growing and perpetually looking for new ways to help their people succeed.

My Comment: The essence of leadership is simple: by working together we can have a better tomorrow. Keating captures this forward-looking aspect of leadership well. Leadership isn’t a place you arrive. It’s not something you are or achieved. It’s something you do. One of my favorite lines in this article: “If you were to go on trial this week, charged with being a leader, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

How to Be Bold and Make Tough Decisions by LaRae Quy at SmartBrief

FBI agents working knotty and sophisticated cases such as those involving terrorism, cybercrime or counterintelligence need to be bold so they can make tough but smart decisions.

As the world has become more complex, the focus of FBI investigations has evolved from hunting bank robbers like John Dillinger and mobsters like Al Capone to better address the current threats to American lives.

It’s no secret that business and life are not as simple as they were, either. Executives, business owners and entrepreneurs need to take a bold stand and make tough decisions to overcome strong competition and market upheavals.

My Comment: In my experience, there’s a strange paradox with bold decision-making. Often, the people who are most reflective and do some of the best thinking on a topic are the least likely to be bold or make a tough decision. If you struggle to be bold or make tough decisions, Quy gives you some tips to help you move past the fear of getting it wrong and open yourself to the process of getting it right and moving forward.

7 Things Your High-Performing Employees Long to Hear You Say by Karin Hurt

These are all real statements I’ve heard in the last few weeks:

“Oh we don’t worry about observing our high-performing call center reps. We just focus on the ones who are struggling.”

“John doesn’t really need a training and development plan like everyone else, he’s got his job nailed.”

“Well, he’s a bit a rough around the edges, but we don’t say anything. He’s so good at his job, we’re afraid to tick him off.”

“Oh Sally’s good. She loves what she does. Thank God for her. She just likes to be left alone to do her thing.”

I get it. Your high-performing employees never seem like the MIT. (Most Important Thing). They’ve got it. You can count on them. They don’t appear to want your help. They don’t complain. You’ve got other fish to fry…

My Comment: My Winning Well co-author, Karin Hurt, addresses an all-too-common management problem: ignoring top performers. Remember: you get more of what you encourage and celebrate, less of what you criticize or ignore. Don’t ignore those top performers. Use the phrases and principles Hurt gives you to ensure your top 20% continue to create that 80% of value.

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

 

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Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

How to Lead When It Looks Impossible | David Dye’s Engage! | October 2016

How to Lead When It Looks Impossible

Facing the Impossible

“We have to go up that? No way!” Karin shook her head and sighed. We were 13, 500 feet above sea level, had been hiking for three hours, and Karin looked discouraged. She lives in Maryland, and her body had not yet acclimated to the altitude.

Karin was looking at the summit of Mt. Bierstadt, a 14,065 foot mountain in Colorado. From where we stood, the summit looked like a jumble of boulders. Already fatigued and gasping for air, it looked impossible.

Maybe you can identify. Are you facing a leadership challenge that looks impossible?

Do you have a difficult conversation that you’re not sure can go well?
A strategic objective that looks out of reach?
A screaming need to innovate, but you’re not sure how?

You’re not alone. Every leader faces the seeming impossible future. In fact, that’s what leadership is all about: looking at your team and telling them that something they can’t see right now is possible and that together, we can do it.

Find the Next Step

Despite her sea-level lungs protesting the seeming impossible final approach, Karin and I continued up the mountain. But we chose our steps carefully.

Amid the jumble of broken, shifting boulders we looked for cairns. Sometimes in the mountains you can’t see an obvious trail – it might be covered in rocks or snow. A cairn is a pile of rocks that marks the trail when it would otherwise be hard to find.

We made the next cairn our goal. Not the summit, just the next trail marker.

In Winning Well we talk about the power of confidence bursts – focus on only one key behavior for a day. Encourage, celebrate, and repeat. Let people see the results for themselves. You don’t have to change everything in one massive leap. Small steps, with celebration and reinforcement along the way, will get you there.

Whatever challenge you face, how can you break it up into smaller pieces? You may not have any idea how to achieve the whole thing – that’s okay. What is the next step? If you’re not sure what the next step might be, your next step is to find someone to talk to who might know.

When there’s no clear path from here to there…look for the cairn. The pile of rocks: a signpost left by those who have gone before.

As we walked from one cairn to the next, the impossible became possible. In fact, a path started to emerge from the jumbled rock. We discovered the ground where hikers before us had passed. This trail had been completely hidden until we were on top of it!

What had looked like an impossible pile of boulders from a distance opened up into a path even a child could follow (and some did!)

 

When you take the first steps into your challenge, you may not see the path open up right away. It make take a while to find it. Keep looking for that next step. Keep moving. Find the people who can help.

 

Your Turn

What is your biggest leadership challenge right now? What is the one next step you can take to get closer?

Do you need to set a first appointment?
Do you need to talk with your team and acknowledge the tough facts?
Do you need to find someone to talk with who has been there before? Take that next step today and be the leader you want your boss to be!

 

Be the leader you want your boss to be,

David Dye

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Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 17, 2016

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them

across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

How to Deal with Psychopaths and Toxic People: 5 Proven Secrets by Eric Barker

I know what some people are thinking: I’m never going to deal with psychopaths. This is just more sensational clickbait junk.

Wrong. The experts are betting you probably encounter a psychopath every day. In fact, a lot of what you think you know about psychopaths is very wrong.

Yes, psychopaths are more likely to be in jail than most people — but the majority of them aren’t. There’s a whole class of people who don’t have a conscience or feel empathy, and in all likelihood you deal with at least one all the time.

And they probably make your life miserable. They’re “subclinical psychopaths.”

My Comment: The ranks of our business leaders include quite a few people who fit this description. Part of your success and well-being includes knowing how to navigate these toxic personalities. If you haven’t encountered one yet, you probably just didn’t know it. In addition to navigating around them, I invite you to think about these characteristics when you promote people: pay attention to both what they do and how they do it. Don’t give responsibility to people who work hard at gaming the score, not playing the game.

Tips On How to Reduce Stress and Boost Workplace Wellbeing by Andrea Beattie

With more than 80 percent of workers assessing their workplace as high stress, employee wellbeing programs are on the rise — but a resilience expert has warned that some do more harm than good.

CEO of The Resilience Institute (Australia) Stuart Taylor said the Institute’s study of 16,261 workers across 250 organisations showed more than 12,500 regarded their working environment as one of high stress, which contributed to absenteeism and reduced productivity.

The Building Resilience white paper also showed employees surveyed also suffered from worry (31 percent), chronic stress symptoms (23 percent) and distress (36 percent).

My Comment: There is certainly a theme in this week’s top articles. This is a time of year when the initial enthusiasm of the work year gives way to the stress of unforeseen complications, irritating co-workers, and competing priorities. However, many sources of job stress are avoidable and you can improve conditions for your team by paying attention to the factors Beattie addresses.

Genuine Concern for Staff Well-Being is the Most Powerful Motivator by Samantha Jones

Ask ‘what’s the most important asset in your business? and the answer is invariably a pretty trite ‘our people’. A more revealing question is ‘as a business, do you behave every day as though your people are your most important asset?’ – it’s this that will prompt a bit of soul searching.

My Comment: The suggestions in this article go far beyond simplistic concern for staff well-being. They include a range of Winning Well leadership behaviors that ensure your people are set up to be successful and increase the likelihood that they become brand ambassadors who are more energized and productive.

Why Expressing Gratitude Through Our Leadership Matters by Tanveer Naseer

more than simply being a nice thing to do, expressing gratitude through our leadership has been shown to have a tangible impact on the overall productivity of our employees, if not also on the level of commitment they bring to the work they do.

For the past several years, Dr. Adam Grant and Dr. Francesca Gino have been studying how expressions of gratitude impact prosocial behaviour and fuel motivational drive, and one study in particular provides some interesting insights for leaders on the benefits of expressing gratitude to those under our care.

My Comment: While gratitude is a fundamental relationship practice, Naseer’s reflection during the Canadian celebration of Thanksgiving reminds leaders about the productivity power of saying thank you. Particularly important is his reminder that none of us succeeds or thrives in isolation. We need each other in order to succeed.

I remind leaders that everyone is a volunteer – they choose the energy, creativity, and commitment level to every task. When remember that they’re choosing, every bit of work becomes a gift. There is so much to be grateful for!

7 Do’s and Don’ts for Getting the Most from the Smartest People in the Building by Dan Rockwell

Isolated leaders are the dumbest people in the building.

A nameplate on the door and a title after your name doesn’t make you smarter than people with dirt under their fingernails.

Disconnected leaders – seduced by position and perks – don’t get it.

My Comment: If you’re wondering who Rockwell thinks are the smartest people in the building – it’s frontline leaders. If you’re an executive or middle manager, use his tips to get the information you need to make the best decisions and, consequently, you’ll encourage and energize your frontline leaders. If you are a frontline leader, look at Rockwell’s article as a primer in how to be most effective influencing decisions made at other levels.

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 17, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 10, 2016

 

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Why You Over-Manage, Under-Manage, and Sometimes Do Both by Jesse Lyn Stoner

Let’s face it, when you delegate, the buck still stops with you. You’re still accountable for any screw-ups. When the stakes are high, no wonder you think you need to be front and center, to direct things and over-manage.

Even when the stakes aren’t high, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself than take the time to explain it, especially when it’s difficult for them to understand what you want.

And to be honest, it can be more fun and interesting to roll up your sleeves and run the show than to deal with strategy, capacity building, and other big picture issues where it’s not so easy to see the results of your efforts.

But watching everyone so closely can wear you out. It’s simply not possible to consistently be involved in everything that’s happening. There are other demands on your time, and there aren’t enough hours in the day. There are times they simply have do their jobs without you.

So you back off. But inevitably something goes wrong. And you are forced to step back in. You are trapped on a see-saw. You over-manage, under-manage, and sometimes do both. The problem is… you’re driving your team nuts…

My Comment: One of the tougher lessons I ever learned as a manager is that my time was best spent doing the things only I could do. That’s where you wan to put your time, but it takes trust and time to help your team grow to where they can take care of their responsibilities and you’re able to support them, rather than over or under-managing, as Stoner describes.

Leadership and Behavior: Mastering the Mechanics of Reason and Emotion by Julia Sperling & David Schwartz of McKinsey, Interviewing Eric Maskin

The confluence of economics, psychology, game theory, and neuroscience has opened new vistas—not just on how people think and behave, but also on how organizations function. Over the past two decades, academic insight and real-world experience have demonstrated, beyond much doubt, that when companies channel their competitive and collaborative instincts, embrace diversity, and recognize the needs and emotions of their employees, they can reap dividends in performance.

My Comment: In Winning Well we discuss how effective leaders focus on both results and relationships in all they do. If you’ve ever tried to make a leadership decision purely on logic or only by emotion, you’ve probably experienced challenges – these decisions usually aren’t very popular and don’t have buy-in. This interview takes an in-depth look at the role your emotions play in your rational decision-making. In short, humans use both reason and emotion – more than simultaneously…they aren’t two parallel tracks, but, in fact, are intertwined. You need both to lead effectively.

13 Ways Leaders Can Build a Coaching Culture at Work by Forbes Coaches Council

Building a coaching culture in the workplace better positions companies to grow and nurture talent. But what exactly is a “coaching culture,” and how can leaders make this part of their everyday environment?

A coaching culture simply means supporting your employees so that they learn new skills and become greater assets to the company. A management culture that emphasizes training, regular feedback, and opportunities for growth creates a more engaged and energized workforce.

My Comment: In my work with thousands of leaders across industries, one of the most misunderstood (and often non-existent) skills I’ve seen is the ability to coach employees. I’ve seen managers consistently do one of the following:

Get frustrated and say things like “why can’t they just do their jobs!?” or
Jump in with solutions (and the employee doesn’t learn anything)
Tell employees “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution!” (Which is fine if the employee knows how to develop a solution – but if they don’t, coaching is the in-between step.)

Creating a culture of support and coaching is critical to your team’s success. The thirteen steps in this article will help you get there.

The Culture of Silence Around Mental Health In the Workplace Must End by Ann Robinson

The mental health of the UK workforce is in a grim state, according to a major new survey. More than three quarters of the 20,000 workers aged 16- to 64 who took part said they had experienced symptoms of poor mental health, and nearly two thirds of those with mental health problems felt work was a factor.

The study (pdf), published on 4 October by charity Business In The Community (BITC), in partnership with YouGov, also found a shocking lack of employer awareness and responsiveness. More than half of the employees who disclosed their symptoms of poor mental health said their employers took no action. A minority of managers (22%) surveyed said that they’d had training in spotting and supporting employees who are struggling, and most managers (63%) said they felt obliged to put the interests of their organisation above the wellbeing of team members.

But that is obviously a false dichotomy. You don’t need to be a business guru to see that maintaining physical and mental wellbeing in the workforce is an essential prerequisite to growing a healthy and sustainable business.

My Comment: While this article specifically discusses circumstances in the United Kingdom, the issues Robinson describes are also quite common in the United States and beyond.

The culture of silence around mental health in the workplace is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem. Despite one in four people experiencing mental health challenges, stigma persists and people who suffer from depression (or worse) are often scared to be honest about their experience. While it’s also true that not every job is appropriate for every person, I hope to see the day where mental health is treated similarly to pancreatic health or bone health or any other kind of health. In short, where we talk about health. Period.

Enough Ethics by Seth Godin

Most companies seek to be more profitable.

They seek to increase their Key Performance Indicators. More referrals, more satisfaction, more loyalty. They seek to increase their market share, their dividends, their stock price.

But ethics?

In fact, most companies strive to be just ethical enough…

My Comment: Godin asks a provocative question: What if being more ethical was the most important key performance indicator?

Think about it for a moment…did you immediately wonder if it’s possible to be profitable or have the impact you want to have while also having the utmost ethical standards? Too often, we see these as tradeoffs. They aren’t. But they are opportunities to think creatively, to market differently, and make the world a better place. Are you up for that? (I sure hope so!)

Disclosure: My daughter, Averie, has started a clothing company founded on the premise that clothes can be ethically sourced at every step in the supply chain. So I might be a bit biased on this one… For more about her company, check out: http://casaflordesigns.com/

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5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 3, 2016

 

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Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

I Blame Blame… by Niel Nickolaisen

I blame blame for creating toxic workplace cultures. Sadly, there is plenty of blame to go around for blaming. Here is my case against blame.

Let’s assume that something goes wrong. In a perfect world, nothing ever goes wrong but in an uncertain, complex, fast-paced and subject-to-the-influence-of-humans world, sometimes something goes wrong. If, when something goes wrong, we blame someone, that person focuses on either defending themselves or shifting blame to someone or something else. With the focus now on defense or blame-shifting, we do not focus on finding and fixing the process issues that really created the problem. And processes are the cause of the vast majority of all problems.

My Comment: I’ve seen this cycle of blame cripple organizations. Nickolaisen gets to an important bottom line in this important article: “A blame-free culture creates a great place to work and thrive.”

Winning Well leaders don’t waste energy and talent assigning blame. They understand that the past is useful to instruct and ask “What can we learn? How will we improve? How will we do this next time?”

Do Employees Really Know What’s Expected of Them? By Brandon Rigoni and Bailey Nelson at Gallup

Only about half of all workers strongly indicate that they know what is expected of them at work. Expectations — or a lack thereof — have the power to make or break worker engagement. Even if employees feel energized and motivated, those who lack clear expectations and spend too much time working on the wrong things can’t advance key initiatives to create value for an organization.

My Comment: In every program I ever deliver, I emphasize the need for leaders to ensure clear expectations – mutually understood, shared commitments based on a clear definition of what success looks like. In my experience working with thousands of managers across industries, this is the foundation of ninety percent of the performance problems you’ll encounter. You always make sense to you, but you rarely make as much sense to others as you think you do.

The good news is that a few simple practices can radically improve clarity, save you tons of time, and improve employee engagement. Start by checking for understanding. Eg: “Let’s make sure we’re all on the same page. Let’s review the three priorities for this quarter and how we’re going to meet them.” Once you hear it from your team, you know that they know. Until then…it’s anyone’s guess.

Company Culture Tips from the Best Places to Work by Aj Agrawal

A happy employee is a productive employee. And we all know what increased productivity leads to: a better bottom line. According to Great Places to Work companies with an excellent work culture outperform their competitors on the stock market by nearly two-times. Employees are well aware of their value in the marketplace and expect a superior company culture along with other more traditional benefits like salary, insurance, and vacation time.

Just how do you create a company culture that will not only attract the best employees but retain them as well?

Here are three popular companies that employees are dying to work for and why…

My Comment: Two of the companies featured are tech companies and one is a grocer. The characteristics that make these great places to work are things you may be able to emulate. While not every employer can offer flexible work hours, there are often other ways to empower your people. As you read through these characteristics, consider how you can leverage the principle – not their specific version of it.

Put Passion Into Your Pocket When You Argue by John Baldoni

Passion may hurt you more than help you in your next argument.

That’s a conclusion of new research into persuasion by a pair of university academics and reported by Shankar Vedantam of NPR. Passion, often highly prized by leaders, may actually work against that leader if he or she is trying to reach out to someone who may not agree with them.

My Comment: This research makes intuitive sense as you think about your own experiences. Covery summarized it well: seek first to understand, then to be understood. Beginning an argument from a place of passion virtually eliminates the chance that you’ll find common ground or be able to persuade another person.

The Secret Weapon in Deconstructing Unconscious Bias in the Workplace by Elizabeth Borges

Companies must not stop at simply bringing the right people in the door. To truly reap the benefits of diversity, companies must actively build inclusive cultures where employees from all backgrounds can be successful. Tech companies and social critics alike agree that companies with inclusive cultures are more innovative, more agile and higher-performing.

My Comment: Leaders who don’t draw on the rich strengths, perspectives, and experiences of all people inherently put themselves at a disadvantage. If you’re struggling with diversity and inclusion, I invite you to start by eliminating one word from your vocabulary: ‘tolerance.’ No one wants to be tolerated. Focus on empathy, understanding, and appreciation. Borges shares the incredible power of cognitive empathy – self-awareness and emotional connection that lead to action. Don’t let the words scare you off if you’re not familiar with them – Borges gives you the specifics you need to build these habits in your life and leadership.

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Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of September 26, 2016

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Employee Engagement Isn’t a Sprint, It’s a Marathon by Mila D’Antonio on 1to1 Media

A new report from HBR and Strativity Group shows how many change management initiatives fail because companies are paying lip service to employee engagement.

Peter F. Drucker said, “Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.”

The results of a recent study on change initiatives echo Drucker’s statement. “Business Change: From Disruptor to Differentiator,” from Harvard Business Review and Strativity Group, reveals that most organizations struggle with change with an astounding 91 percent saying change initiatives have failed in their organizations in the past. Only 3 percent of respondents reported that their change initiatives meet their intended goals 100 percent of the time.

My Comment: I’m not surprised by these findings – they match my observation and experience. I’ve seen many senior leaders talk about employee engagement and honestly believe their people are engaged, when it’s not remotely the case. Even worse are those who launch initiatives and conduct surveys, but then do nothing in response (or, even worse, punish their employees for their forthright answers – and yes, I’ve seen it happen).

D’Antonio shares several reasons why engagement initiatives fail and what you can do about them. #3 is particularly vital: frontline ownership.

Does Your Corporate Culture Support the Organizational Strategy You Need? By Jason Wingard at Huffington Post

Aligning culture with strategy can, of course, go right or wrong for a company. Some of the most successful companies have built their fortunes on the integrity of their unique work environment. Corporations such as Google and GE are representative examples. Other organizations can lose sight of the big picture and allow inappropriate systems, values, and attitudes to develop. As an example, it was recently revealed that Wells Fargo employees created phantom accounts to make stringent sales quotas, and overcharged customers in the process. This is clearly an example of culture gone askew. How did the bank’s results-driven culture supercede the legal implications of employee actions? Did the bank’s leadership consider all facets in its mission statement and strategy? How did the bank’s operational processes, leadership, and informal norms allow the culture to stray away from the ethical? Questions of company culture should come under great scrutiny in situations like this.

My Comment: It is somewhat surprising how often organizational culture conflicts with what the organization is supposed to do. For example, I’ve seen this more than once in human service organizations where a passion for the mission is spun into cultures that are inhumane. In Winning Well we discuss how focusing on the score, not the fundamental ‘game’ behaviors can corrupt your culture.

Wingard offers an in-depth look at how different cultures can reinforce the results you’re trying to achieve.

The Power of Play at Work by Great Work Cultures

Imagine a workplace where people are allowed to play and even better encouraged to play. Believe it or not, that is what is happening in some organizations. Look at Google, all employees have access to and can play during their workday. They have all sorts of activities like bowling, meditation, wall climbing, volleyball and more. Facebook, LinkedIn and Ideo also provide opportunities for play time at work, anything from ping-pong to arcade games and a few take it one step further by instilling a culture of play. These fun activities are not just for lunch, employees can get up and go play when they get tired of working on a project or answering emails.

Most think of play at work as a distraction, — inappropriate or simply a waste of time. The paradigm of play is that it’s seen as taking time away from “real work.” Just think, what if what we thought work could benefit from play? What if, the opposite of play isn’t work, but rather boredom?

My Comment: I once had an executive ask, in all seriousness: “Why are those people laughing in the break room?”

Apparently, he believed that serious work demanded solemnity at all times. I thought that was sad – play, fun, laughter: these don’t just rejuvenate the soul, they also energize and make us more productive, creative, and connected. We devote an entire chapter in Winning Well to how to have productive fun that builds your team and gets results.

7 Ways to Help Fix Poor Communication in the Workplace by David Grossman

When leaders call us for help with any type of communication, our first step is to understand what’s going on. We need to assess the audience and current state to identify key issues or opportunities before making recommendations.

Typically, this involves using some type of communications measurement tool or method to guide our solution. And we often hear, “We already know our communication is poor, why measure?”

My Comment: Grossman takes a quantitative measurement-based approach to improving organizational communication. All seven steps recommended here are calls for measurement. I’m curious how they would measure successful communication.

Our first recommendation in Winning Well is to consistently ‘close the loop’ with a ‘check for understanding’. Did the person receive what you intended to send? If not, clarify and try again.

This is How to Be More Assertive: 3 Powerful Secrets from Research by Eric Barker

You don’t want to fight. You don’t want to be hassled. You don’t want to disappoint them. It’s easier to just nod and give them what they want.

But later you feel frustrated, trapped and depressed because you’re not getting what you need and you spend all your time serving others. Ever felt this way? We all have.

My Comment: Assertive communication is a hallmark of effective leaders and Barker does an excellent job pulling together the research that will help you to get there. I highly recommend this one.

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5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of September 19, 2016

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

How to Talk Politics at Work Without Alienating People by David Maxfield, Joseph Grenny, Candace Bertotti, and Chase McMilan at Harvard Business Review

Lunch seems pretty tame until your boss announces, “Build a wall, and deport them all! Who is with me?” or “Only lunatics want assault weapons – we should ban them all tomorrow!”

An awkward silence descends as your boss awaits your confirmation. Here’s the problem: you vehemently disagree, but you love your job and your colleagues, including your boss. You also worry that staying silent will be interpreted as agreement.

It’s always been risky to voice your political views and, in today’s polarized environment, it’s become practically taboo…

My Comment: It’s no surprise that in the middle of a contentious US presidential race an article about talking politics at work would be so popular. The authors do a great job of laying out what respectful dialogue looks like – not only for political discussions, but for a whole range of additional topics. I highly recommend reading and using these skills! (and be careful about ‘self-evident’ pronouncements that put your employees in an awkward place).

Criticism, Boundaries, and Useful Feedback by Jesse Lyn Stoner at Seapoint Center for Collaborative Leadership

Larry was clearly angry. Carl had used his tools (again) without asking, and even worse, hadn’t returned them (again). Larry told me he had given Carl some “tough feedback.”

He told Carl that he was self-centered and insensitive, and in the future he needed to ask for permission before borrowing anything.

He was surprised and indignant that Carl got angry with him.

Larry didn’t understand that telling Carl off is not “giving feedback.” It’s simply criticism. Setting boundaries around what Carl can borrow is a reasonable thing to do. But that’s not “feedback” either…

My Comment: These situations are common in nearly every workplace. Learning how to create healthy boundaries for yourself and how to deliver useful feedback (hint: there’s no such thing as ‘constructive criticism’ – criticism is meant to take down, not build up) are vital skills that will set you apart from most leaders. Stoner shares nine steps that are spot on to help you be effective with useful feedback.

Radical Candor – The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss by Kim Scott

The single most important thing a boss can do, Scott has learned, is focus on guidance: giving it, receiving it, and encouraging it. Guidance, which is fundamentally just praise and criticism, is usually called “feedback,” but feedback is screechy and makes us want to put our hands over our ears. Guidance is something most of us long for.

At First Round’s recent CEO Summit, Scott shared a simple tool for ensuring that your team gets the right kind of guidance — a tool she calls ‘radical candor…

My Comment: On the heel’s of Stoner’s article, and also on the subject of feedback, Scott’s approach to candor aligns with the Winning Well model of results and relationships. She charts whether or not you challenge directly and whether or not you care personally – with the most effective leaders doing both. The good news is that these are both skills you can learn, even if they don’t come naturally. Scott is quite direct (as you would hope) and says, “I would argue that criticizing your employees when they screw up is not just your job, it’s actually your moral obligation.” For those who take the idea of ‘criticism’ very negatively, check out the article – it’s not about tearing someone down. As we say in Winning Well – if you don’t give someone the guidance they need, you’re not doing them any favors. In fact, you’re hurting them.

Attenuating attrition: How leaders can create a sticky situation by Julie Winkle Giulioni on SmartBrief

As I led a recent session with regional executives within a global organization, the conversation turned to retention — or more accurately, attrition.

The most senior leaders lamented their powerlessness over the dynamic facing them. They described a talent market that valued a level of progression, compensation and benefits that exceeded what was expected — or accommodated — anywhere else in the world. And they expressed their frustration that global corporate standards for consistency tied their hands when it came to being able to take action locally to retain their high-value employees.

My Comment: In a recent discussion with a manufacturing CEO, he discussed how he wants to use the scarcity of talent as a competitive advantage for his business by creating a place people want to work and stay. Giulioni paves the way and suggests that managers who focus on the ‘big 3’ retention factors of compensation, benefits, and promotions are missing huge opportunities to create an environment where employees want to work. She gives you a laundry list of the highest value attributes you can cultivate to create a team that sticks around.

A 3 Step System to Come Our Smarter After Failure by Dan Rockwell

It’s not enough to say, “I screwed up.” A 3 step system to come out smarter after failure…

My Comment: Many years ago a leader in my life told me: “Everyone makes mistakes. The key is to not repeat the same mistakes.” Rockwell gives you a short and sweet process to ensure you get the most value from your mistakes and come out smarter, wiser, and more effective.

 

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When You Have Go Back to Go Forward | David Dye’s Engage! | September 2016

When You Have Go Back to Go Forward

I held my breath as the rocks beneath my feet started to slide.

One small rock, the size of my fist, tumbled down the mountain, bouncing hundreds of feet before it came to a stop.

I sat down on a boulder, sighed, and said aloud what I’d been thinking for last twenty minutes: I was lost.

Lost

Two weeks ago I summited my twenty-fourth 14,000-foot mountain: Huron Peak. After a challenging trail with snow and ice, it was a beautiful summit and a gorgeous day. Clouds filled the valleys on one side, diffracting the light and making for fantastic photographs.

When it was time to descend, I waited ten minutes after everyone else left the summit. I enjoyed a few moments of picturesque solitude and started down.

Within a few minutes though, I recognized that the landmarks were different. The trail I’d come up was packed with snow. This trail was indistinct and disappeared into sun-warmed rocks – not a flake of snow to be seen.

“No problem” I thought, “I’ll just traverse around the mountain and pick up the trail as I head down (I really didn’t want to go back up – I was tired.) But as I continued down and around – I ran into a deep crevasse with steep rock faces. There was no way back to the trail I’d come up.

As I looked around, I realized whatever ‘trail’ I had been following had completely disappeared. I took another tentative step and that’s when the loose rock started to slide. If I kept going, I risked broken bones, or worse.

What To Do When You Can’t Go Forward

What do you do when you know you can’t keep going the direction you’ve been going?

Maybe the project didn’t work out the way you thought it would. Perhaps you worked from poor information. Maybe you screwed up and don’t like how you’ve behaving. Or maybe the environment has changed and your current path no longer serves you and your team.

What do you do now?

As I sat on that boulder, taking stock of the situation, I came to a tough conclusion: the only chance I had to find the trail and get home under my own power was to climb back up to the top of the mountain.

I turned around and looked up. There was no trail – just 750 feet of loose, jagged, menacing rock.

It was the only way. To go forward, I would have to go back.

How to Go Back to Go Forward

Going back is unpleasant. Whether you made a mistake, worked from bad information, made a poor choice, or face a changed environment, it takes strength and character to go back. Here are seven ways to help you go back to go forward:

1) No BS Analysis

Commit to obtaining and facing the truth. The hard truth, the unpleasant truth, but the truth. Don’t let diaper genie feedback interfere with your ability to get the information you need to make good decisions.

The reason I’d got lost in the first place was because I didn’t confront the facts as they were – I made up my own to match my preference. Have the courage to deal with reality as it is, not as you wish it to be.

Have the courage to deal with reality as it is, not as you wish it to be. (Click to Tweet)

2) Stop

This might be the most difficult step. For most leaders, this goes contrary to everything you know about success. Even so, when you’re lost, the best thing you can do is stop moving. Stop getting more lost.

If you’re digging yourself a hole – stop digging. If you walk into a room where a faucet is running and flooding everything – turn off the faucet.

In business, this can mean practicing creative destruction: intentionally stop working on a project that no longer benefits the team, the customer, or your bottom line. Too many leaders keep working on fruitless tasks because of inertia – it’s actually easier to keep doing what you’re doing, even when it clearly doesn’t work.

In other situations, to stop might mean you admit you’ve screwed up or acted poorly. In yet other situations, it might not be a project or a mistake, but actions and behaviors that were good at one time, but aren’t serving you now. Consider a ‘stop doing’ list.

(For more, check out this video. Can’t view? Click HERE.)

3) List Your Assets

As I sat on the boulder, I inventoried my remaining water, food, mobile phone battery strength, first aid kit, map, clothing, and sunscreen. If I were to get stuck or injured, I needed to know exactly what resources I had to work with.

4) Determine Where You Want to Be

Be clear about your destination. Not where you’ll end up if you continue on this road, but where you honestly want to get. What business results? What quality of life? What culture and team atmosphere do you want to create?

5) Determine Where You Are

Admitting where you are now takes courage. Hopefully you’ve already figured this out when you committed to No BS Analysis. If not, get feedback, get the data, and figure out where you are now.

I had to pull out an old fashioned map and work with a compass until I knew exactly where I was compared to where I wanted to be.

6) Take the Next Step in the Right Direction

These steps can be challenging. It may mean you have to admit to your team or organization that what you were doing wasn’t working. Many leaders hate to do this – but here’s the thing: your people already knew it wasn’t working.

You look smart, confident, and strong when you own up to it and get everyone moving in a better direction.

7) Evaluate

As you get moving again, pay careful attention to ensure you’re on the path you intend to travel. Are your KPIs moving in the right direction? What are your key success metrics? Be sure you’re heading in the right direction before you accelerate again.

Once you’ve got distance from the wrong direction, reflect on what that situation had to teach you. Was there a good reason you went down the wrong trail? Or was there a way you can avoid that in the future? What would you do differently next time (if anything – some wrong turns are to be expected if you’re moving!)

Obviously, I made it back safely. I’ve never summited the same peak twice on the same day…but I was never as glad to see a trail as when I found the right one.

Remember: sometimes you have to back to go forward. There’s no shame in acknowledging it’s not working. Commit to face real facts, stop doing what doesn’t work, and find the new way forward.

Be the leader you want your boss to be,

David Dye

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5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of September 5, 2016

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

The Great Leadership Cop Out: Why “That’s Just Who I am” is Derailing Your Results by Karin Hurt at Let’s Grow Leaders

Sam knew something was wrong. It just wasn’t fun anymore. The creativity and enthusiasm had drained from the company. Decisions took forever. Managers were finding it harder than ever to recruit and retain talent. Sam had hired me to help him crack the code.

As I pulled up to Sam’s office, I knew he’d be unhappy with my recommendation–which involved a serious look in the mirror at his own leadership behaviors. His reaction was disappointing, but highly predictable– based on what I’d heard from his team.

“Karin I’m 48 years old. That’s just who I am. Let’s talk about the real issues here. I can’t change. Give me something else.”

“Sam, I’ve got a whole list of something elses–actions that I know will improve the bottom line. But none of those are the MIT (Winning Well for the Most Important Thing)…

My Comment: You always have a right to ‘be you’ – the thing is, insisting on your style when it doesn’t work for other people is self-defeating. I’ve seen so many leaders fall into this trap of thinking that they either can’t change or shouldn’t have to. The reality is: you don’t have to…but you won’t be as effective as if can be when you choose behaviors that cultivate the motivation of your team. My Winning Well co-author, Karin Hurt, gives great examples and solutions for this leadership pitfall.

7 Questions to Ease the Pain of Giving Negative Feedback by Dan Rockwell at The Leadership Freak

One negative feedback session – done well – has more positive impact than a hundred pats on the back.

My Comment: The ability to share negative feedback in a positive, healthy way is a hallmark of excellent leaders. Rockwell offers seven excellent questions to help you with delivering negative feedback. These aren’t the questions you would expect…they are questions you should ask yourself first. An excellent list!

Why Your Leadership Instincts Are Wrong by Mary Kelly, PhD, US Navy (Ret) at Productive Leaders

I was talking with a Dad of one of the kids on my Little League team the other day about his children. He is struggling because he wants to give his children a wonderful childhood, but he wants them to be generous and appreciate what they receive. He doesn’t want to raise self-centered adults. He wants his children to be successful in what they are doing now and successful when they are older. He and his wife are arguing because they disagree about how much they should let the kids do on their own, where they as parents need to step in to make it easier on the kids, how to protect the kids from being hurt, as well as the other aspects of what constitutes good parenting.

Do you give your kids the answers or do you have them look it up? Do you help with homework by giving them the answers because it goes faster, or do you encourage them to work through the problems? Do you catch your kids every time they stumble, or do you let them fall so they can pick themselves back up?

Our instinct, of course, is to make it easier on those we care about. That might be exactly the wrong approach.

My Comment: My audience members frequently tell me that one of the reasons they don’t delegate more often is because they’re worried about overwhelming their team members. While I respect their desire not to crush their people, the flip side of this behavior is that it can inadvertently keep people from growing and experiencing all their potential Kelly’s advice is spot on.

Clearing Out the Clutter by David J. Greer

Clutter is a fact in all of our lives. We recently had to say good bye to our long-time Honda Odyssey Van whose second transmission gave up. We scrapped the van, but its summer tires have been sitting along the side of our house since January. I finally made the commitment to get them out, photograph them, and put them for sale on Craigslist.

The problem with clutter is that it drags at us draining away some of our limited energy…

My Comment: Greer is a coach for entrepreneurs, but whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, his advice is vital. There are different types of clutter that impact your effectiveness and if you want to lead well, you’ll want to address these types of clutter: physical, mental, and people.

3 Reasons to Listen to Those Pesky Millennials by David Dye

My article at the Huffington Post on the benefits your younger employees can contribute to your team was popular this week. Ignore them to the detriment of your team, your productivity, and your bottom line.

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A Leadership Mistake You Don’t Have to Make

By now you’ve certainly heard about the $600 EpiPens and the uproar about the price increase.

I can’t say with any certainty what a fair price would be for these devices. What I can say is that from a leadership perspective, the price isn’t the issue.

I was very disappointed to read the Mylan CEO’s response to the uproar.

She blamed the healthcare system’s complexity and lack of transparent pricing. While I’m sure nearly everyone in the United States would agree that the system stinks, she’s the CEO of a pharmaceutical company – blaming the system isn’t leadership. Every decision you make helps create the world where you, your team, and all of our children will live.

She goes on to say, “I am running a business. I am a for-profit business. I am not hiding from that.”

Profit is not a magic wand that absolves you of responsibility for your decisions.

This is the most concerning statement I’ve heard her make (and she’s far from the only one who says these things). Don’t get me wrong – your business needs to make a profit or it won’t exist tomorrow. Results matter.

But profit is not a magic wand that absolves you of responsibility for your decisions. Leaders who put business results above humanity aren’t Winning Well. In fact, they end up using people – their employees, their partners, and their customers.

This is the same reasoning used by infamous ‘leaders’ who have committed atrocities in the name of religious or political values. It doesn’t matter if you are a nonprofit that puts your mission above basic human values – using any decent value as a blank check to do whatever you want is a guaranteed path to losing your soul.

One sure way to avoid falling into this trap:  focus on the and…

Cultivate internal values of confidence and humility. Focus on results and healthy human relationships. Run your business decisions through those filters and you’ll be on stable ground – that leads to sustainable, breakthrough results.

In short…

Be the leader you want your boss to be.

-David Dye

PS: Take the Winning Well online assessment (use company code: Trailblaze) to discover your leadership strengths and how you can sustain great results over time – without losing your soul!

Creative Commons Photo by Stusic

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Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582