April 29, 2014 by 2 Comments

3 Ways to Stop Being Lonely at the Top

If you are, or ever have been involved in a leadership capacity, you may relate to feeling lonely. It’s not a simple social-disconnect loneliness, it’s more about carrying a weight of responsibility that you feel the people around you can’t relate to.

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Worse than unrelatable, at times it would be impossible – even inappropriate – to share your concerns with the people you lead. These concerns may be about the business at hand and include potentially negative impacts to your employees and/or others that they are connected with, such as the need for corporate downsizing or behavioral correction.

Delivering loneliness in epic proportion, is the fear of vulnerability and weakness – especially  Please Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
February 6, 2013 by 2 Comments

Resilience…as a process

Published in SaskBusiness, December 2012…

It is well known that organizations need to be healthy in three key areas: resources (skills and tools), systems (processes and procedures), and culture (values, behaviors and practices).

It is logical that those who tend to their culture through nurturing practices benefit from having engaged employees. A healthy culture provides a platform in which individuals’ creativity and energy can flow freely. This enables the development of cultivated relationships from which synergy can arise…a synergy that in turn brings forth innovations, which infuse all the key areas mentioned above.

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If synergy is so logical and beneficial, why do so few achieve it? I am coming to believe that it is simple: it takes work. However, simple is not to be confused with “easy”, for we humans are complex creatures. Still, whatever our mission, we will accomplish it with greater impact, sustainability…and ease, when  Please Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
September 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Defining Statement

A while back I attended an all-day presentation titled “Grow Your Business”. The speaker arrived here from Minneapolis with many helpful reminders as to the various disciplines and tools that can make or break any business. One of the key statements he made was this: “No one in business fails or quits due to lack of Commitment or Conviction, but rather due to a lack of Clarity, Congruency and Consistency.”

At first I felt I should argue that a lack of commitment can bring failure, but as I looked around the room, I doubted that anyone in the audience would demonstrate this within their business life, so I let it go. The speaker went on to say that the most important tool available to anyone in business, for the purposes of achieving communications, marketing and promotions impact, is the “defining statement”. Ok…now I am really listening, I even leaned forward in my seat; this is starting to resonate with passion, purpose…and calibration! I knew that this would ultimately be similar to the exercise of developing a “13-second elevator speech”, but something about the title “defining statement” was intriguing to me.

 Please Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Culture, Leadership, Other, Values Tagged With: , , ,
June 17, 2012 by 2 Comments

Vision: Fuel for Passion

Seasons come and go, and in them we ebb and flow…and that’s the end of poetry for this blog article.  🙂

I had a friend recently describe how she was lacking passion for anything of late. She described a season of “going through the motions” with little motivation. I found myself instantly pointing to vision as the culprit.

Vision leads to passion…or not. It depends on what we see. If we go to our work with a (even subconscious) view of having little change through our efforts, then why would we need passion?However, if we see great things happening as a result of our involvement, passion flows powerfully.

Let me mix in a metaphor: Boxing. Apparently if a boxer is to be successful, he/she must punch “through” the target…not simply hit it. They must see past the surface, and punch through for power and impact.

Maybe this is where we get hung up with passion. We see the surface of what we are dealing with, and it looks like not much changes. We need eyes to see past the surface to the depth of the change that could be…and aim for that. If we can get a glimpse of that level of impact, we can sense achievement (in boxing: victory!)…which lifts our passion to engage!

This principle does not just end with us as individuals. As we lead others, we must also be aware of opportunities to help them see the impact of what they are doing…the change that is happening below the surface, otherwise they suffer as we do in depleting passion.

What would it take to discover what you do not presently see? How might it feel to live with greater passion for your day?

 

Filed Under: Employee Engagement, Leadership, Team Tagged With: , , ,