Summer Leadership Tune-Up

In the Western part of the planet, summer has arrived and as we embark on this season, vacation plans come to mind. It feels less stressed this time of year and perhaps I may sound like a buzzkill but it's always dangerous as we could let up on our work when we're not off to enjoy adventures with friends and families and sunshine.

But if you are planning a road trip this summer, you will ensure your vehicles get a once over. It's also a chance to put your leadership performance on the hoist once in a while to ensure everything is in working order.

If you want to check your alignment, see below:

1 - Do you know what you believe?
2 - Will you dedicate a minimum of 25% of your time helping others?
3 - Can you keep a truly open mind?
4 - How will you ensure you have ample think time?
5 - Are you fair and do you care about the people on your team?
6 - Could you identify one personal interest of each team member?
7 - Have you clearly outlined and documented your goals?
8 - Do you encourage an open collaborative co-creative environment?
9 - Do you have trouble asking for help?
10 - Are you sure you know what each person on your team believes?
11 - Can you articulate to others what success looks like to you?
12 - Are you bringing and having fun?

Now let's hit the road!
__________________________________________________________________

It's Time to Winterize

As you do every year to ready our vehicles for the impending season change, it’s wise to put your leadership performance up on the hoist once in a while to ensure everything is working well. Work can get busy and increased pressure to the bottom line can become the only focus. If you move your focus away from your people, trouble is ahead.

If you want to check your leadership alignment, see below:

1 - Do you know what you believe?
2 - Will you dedicate a minimum of 25% of your time helping others?
3 - Can you keep a truly open mind?
4 - How will you ensure you have ample think time?
5 - Are you fair and do you care about the people on your team?
6 - Could you identify one personal interest of each team member?
7 - Have you clearly outlined and documented your goals?
8 - Do you encourage an open collaborative co-creative environment?
9 - Do you have trouble asking for help?
10 - Are you sure you know what each person on your team believes?
11 - Can you articulate to others what success looks like to you?
12 - Are you bringing and having fun?

Let's grab some snacks and hit the road!
__________________________________________________________________

Your 12-Point Inspection

As you do every few thousand miles with your car, it’s good to put your leadership performance up on the hoist once in a while to ensure everything is working well.

Work can get busy and increased pressure to the bottom line can become the only focus. But if you want to see an immediate drop in revenue, stop caring about the people around you. If you want to check your leadership alignment, see below.

1 - Do you know what you believe?
2 - Will you dedicate a minimum of 25% of your time helping others?
3 - Can you keep a truly open mind?
4 - How will you ensure you have ample think time?
5 - Are you fair and do you care about the people on your team?
6 - Could you identify one personal interest of each team member?
7 - Have you clearly outlined and documented your goals?
8 - Do you encourage an open collaborative co-creative environment?
9 - Do you have trouble asking for help?
10 - Are you sure you know what each person on your team believes?
11 - Can you articulate to others what success looks like to you?
12 - Are you bringing and having fun?

Let's get back on the road.

Kneale Mann

borescope

We Don't Always Know

The ascent of leadership within your career and business is a complex journey. It would be simple to look back at when you got a raise or promotion and called those the rungs on the ladder. When you look a bit deeper, they may not have been your growth spots.

Since we aren’t machines nor are our teammates, coworkers and fellow stakeholders, we need to keep a keen eye on human elements and interaction. So if we pause for moment and look at those times in our career where we felt hampered perhaps in a restricted environment, were those possible learning opportunities or obstacles?

Two-Way Leader

I remember early in my career, I was intimidated by leadership. I was the kid who swept the floor (sometimes literally) while others in more important positions made all the decisions. But as I grew through a career of hard work, setbacks and victories, with some hindsight it's clear my “bosses” didn’t have all the answers. In fact, the good ones were secure in that fact. They were learning too. They needed the team’s help to grow and we made mistakes together.

If you feel you need to be strong, even when you aren’t sure, then you may be setting yourself up for future problems. If you think you may appear weak if you need help, trouble may be imminent.

The enterprise can be an overwhelming place at times and there is little allowance to pause when the pressures of the day need our attention. But we need to keep trying to find think time to grow. And asking for help is a sign of strength.

Even the brightest among us don't have all the answers.

Kneale Mann

freeimages

Limited Time Offer

Often you will meet people in large cities who grew up in a rural setting. Once in awhile, after years of bustle in an urban area, someone will opt for a quieter lifestyle with a bit more elbow room. Green grass would replace concrete and climbing the corporate ladder may be your way to the hay loft.

We spend about 30% of our lives sleeping, another 30% working, about 10-20% consuming entertainment, add another 5% for eating and 5% getting ready – which includes dressing and showering and ironing and primping and pressing and let’s lob in another 5% for traffic. Feel free to adjust that number according to your situation.

Finite Time Available

So we are booked 85-90% of the time. We have 10-15% left over to follow our dreams, have uninterrupted thought, read a novel, relax, contemplate navels. That 30% chunk taken by that work thing seems pretty important, doesn’t it?

The notion of think time is completely foreign to most companies. This is where you are in your office or sitting quietly in a space and you are not in a meeting or online or answering emails or doing busy work. You are thinking, creating, solving. How better could you do your gig with time blocked off every day just to think?

Image. Create. Share. Digest. Implement. 

The idea that teams could put titles away and collaborate freely is something still rather rare. Real collaboration, not we value your opinion so we can then show you why we didn’t pick it. No passive aggressive fearful ego laden managerial yelling style – collaboration. Respectful teamwork.

Now imagine you are the manager, the owner, perhaps you are already. What does it look like? You are overseeing 30% of people’s entire lives. Sure they will move on, have several careers, but you are the curator of one third of their existence while they are working with you.

Or perhaps it's just about the bottom line. ;-)

Kneale Mann

image credit: FAQs
original post: Jun 2010

Internal Social Networking

Making the Quantum Leap

Four years ago, I saw The Secret. I watched the first half with eyes rolling and arms folded but the second half taking notes. I thought the production values were bad and the theory far-fetched. But it was one of those moments where I decided to take the leap of faith.

I did not read the book. The film is a bit cheesy but if you've seen it you know it's about quantum physics. If you think positive thoughts, make positive changes and move in a positive direction, positive stuff will happen. The opposite is true and seems to happen twice as fast. But, it’s easier said than done to just think good thoughts and turn your life around. It is why most think it's a bunch of crap and give up proving the point.

Conviction and Perspective

If you’re in a bad place, it’s tough to sit on your living room floor, smile and imagine your life in a better place. The human mind has a glitch where negative seems to flow easier than positive. But something crucial is missing from simply having good thoughts and that would be something called action.

I was embarking on a new business four years ago and was pumped after reading more material about quantum physics but I allowed momentum to slow down. Happy thoughts can be extinguished by self-doubt which morphs into inaction. It is completely self-inflicted and time wasting. If you've been there, it can feel like you're walking through wet sand. Colleagues and friends can say nice things but you can't seem to shake it.

There is no Time

During the work day, there is little or no time to examine our feelings, find significant think time or measure how closer we are to our goals and dreams. We create distractions and wrap them up in badges of honor called 'busy'.

Running a business is hectic work and a keen eye must remain fixated on revenue. To many, realizing personal potential becomes secondary to making the quarter. We spend more waking hours at work than at home. But we don't seem to spend much time, if any, finding how those relationships can positively affect the experience.

Schedule the Time

Perhaps to start, you find an hour a week where you and your team get together and have an open and honest talk about each other rather than a client emergency or project deadline. Skip one of those agonizing status meetings where you dissect every current project to the point of nausea and spend it on each other's development. Perhaps it’s too touchy feely for some people at work but this is not to suggest tears and hugs are requisite. But it can unearth monumental ideas for growth.

Waste of Time

The antiquated notion of the annual review is a complete waste of time. We need to work in real-time. We need to listen to each other. We need to pay closer attention to that desire in our gut and share it with others. If they don't want to hear it, perhaps they aren't suited to be our teammates.

Many owners and managers will think it is lunacy. There's work to be done. There is no time for feelings and bonding. You and I have interacted with companies that have horrible internal customer service and ones where the people actually like being there. And we know which ones will get our return business.

Digital channels have proven we have the desire to connect and share with people all over the world. Are we doing the same within our organizations?

knealemann | how can I help?

image credit: gdargaud

Punch The Clock

Often you will meet people in large cities who grew up in a rural setting. Once in awhile, after years of bustle in an urban area, someone will opt for a quieter lifestyle with a bit more elbow room.

Green grass would replace concrete and climbing the corporate ladder may be your way to the hay loft.

We spend about 30% of our lives sleeping, another 30% working, about 10-20% consuming entertainment, add another 5% for eating and 5% getting ready – which includes dressing and showering and ironing and primping and pressing and let’s lob in another 5% for traffic. Feel free to adjust that number according to your situation.

So we are booked 85-90% of the time. We have 10-15% left over to follow our dreams, have uninterrupted thought, read a novel, relax, contemplate navels.

That 30% chunk taken by that work thing seems pretty important, doesn’t it?

The notion of think time is completely foreign to most companies. This is where you are in your office or sitting quietly in a space and you are not in a meeting or online or answering emails or doing busy work. You are thinking, creating, solving. How better could you do your gig with time blocked off every day just to think?

The idea that teams could put titles away and collaborate freely is something still rather rare. Real collaboration, not we value your opinion so we can then show you why we didn’t pick it. No passive aggressive fearful ego laden managerial yelling style – collaboration. Respectful teamwork.

Now imagine you are the manager, the owner, perhaps you are already. What does it look like? You are overseeing 30% of people’s entire lives. Sure they will move on, have several careers, but you are the curator of one third of their existence while they are working with you. Or is it just about the bottom line?

Do you think we could take some of that time for dreams and thought – as part of our work experience – with each other?

@knealemann
Helping you integrate all you do with all you do.

photo credit: