Leadership And Life Tips

Here are some of my favorite leadership and life tips and advice from William Arthur Ward, one of America's most quoted writers of inspirational maxims:

• Do more than belong: participate.
• Do more than care: help.
• Do more than believe: practice.
• Do more than be fair: be kind.
• Do more than forgive: forget.
• Do more than dream: work.

Today's Three Leadership Skill-Building Tips

Be |Dsecisive

A manager who can't make a decision or who can't make a timely decision will frustrate his/her employees. Equally bad, a lack of decision will impede the progress of the manager's team.

Some managers make endless requests for data as a way to postpone their having to make a decision. Employees end up spinning in circles, slicing and dicing the information far beyond what is truly needed for the manager to make a decision.

Some managers are simply afraid to make a decision in fear of making a "wrong" decision. These managers don't necessarily request needless data, but simply just never made a decision.

Successful managers (true leaders) gather the data from their employees, make any necessary follow-up requests (probing beyond what their employee may have researched/gathered on their own), and then make their decision...knowing that in virtually all cases most decisions are not black and white "right or "wrong," but are the best decisions made at that time for the current circumstances.

Good managers also know that most decisions can be tweaked along the way as their teams carry out their tasks impacted by the decision. 

Find The Truth

If you're a parent of two children you already know that when the two are fighting and child #1 tells you what happened, you then ask child #2 what happened, and most often the truth is somewhere in the middle of what the two children have told you.

Surprisingly, many managers, even when they are parents, don't use this parenting "discovery" skill in the workplace. Instead, they often listen to only one side of a situation. Whether it is because of lack of interest or lack of time, they don't proactively seek out the other side of the story.

The unfortunate result is those managers form incorrect perceptions that can often lead to poor decisions and/or directives.

So, the next time two employees are at odds, or when one department complains about another department within your organization, take the time to listen to all sides of the situation to discover the truth that's in the middle. 

Send A Written Thank You Note

Nearly all employees want to do both a good job and please their supervisor. When they succeed, send them a thank you for a job well done.

A short note (handwritten is particularly good) thanking them for a good job is extremely powerful. Particularly for new employees on your team. Or, for employees new to the workforce and early in their careers.

Include in your note a sentence regarding what they did especially well and how their specific action made a positive impact. Remember, be as specific as possible in what you write.

Be sure to send your note soon after the job was completed. If you wait too long (more than a week), the note will lose its impact.

Send your note in a way it can be easily saved by your employee. Even employees who have been on your team for a long time will likely save your note.

Finally, reserve your sending thank you notes for the big jobs, large projects, extra special work. If you send thank you notes too often they'll lose their effect.

The Three Things Every Mission Statement Must Reflect

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement.

Author Peter F. Drucker provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization:"

Every mission statement has to reflect three things:

• Opportunities
• Competence
• Commitment

In other words, he explains:

• What is our purpose?
• Why do we do what we do?
• What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for?

How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

Lead With Purpose By John Baldoni

“Purpose is the why behind everything within an organization,” says author John Baldoni, of the book, Lead With Purpose.

Baldoni also believes that it is up to leaders to make certain that organizational purpose is understood and acted upon. And, to harness the talents of their employees, leaders must recognize their responsibility to instill purpose in the workplace.

Other recommendations include:

• Make purpose a central focus
• Instill purpose in others
• Make employees comfortable with ambiguity
• Turn good intentions into great results
• Make it safe to fail (as well as prevail)
• Develop the next generation

According to Baldoni, purpose forms the backbone of what an organization exists to do; upon which you can build vision and mission.

To define an organization’s purpose, you must ask three questions:

1. What is our vision — that is, what do we want to become?

2. What is our mission — that is, what do we do now?

3. What are our values–that is, what are the behaviors we expect of ourselves?

Some of my other favorite observations from the book are these two:

• We follow leaders not because they bring us down, but because they lift our spirits with their attitude, words, and examples.
• No job is complete without a review. Look at what went right as well as what went wrong. Understand that failure is not grounds for dismissal.

Lead With Purpose draws on extensive research, field work and interviews with dozens of organizational leaders. It also includes the results of an exclusive 2010 leadership survey conducted for the American Management Association (AMA) by NFI Research.

Baldoni is a recognized leadership educator, coach and speaker, and the author of Lead by Example and Lead Your Boss.

How To Lead By Using The 10 Elements Of Dignity

In their book, Millennials Who Manage, authors Chip Espinoza and Joel Schwarzbart, quote Donna Hicks's explanation about how dignity is different from respect.

• Dignity is different from respect in that it is not based on how people perform, what they can do for us, or their likability. Dignity is a feeling of inherent value and worth.

Therefore, Espinoza and Schwarzbart recommend that leaders treat those they are leading with dignity and follow Hick's 10 Essential Elements of Dignity:

1. Acceptance of Identity - Approach people as being neither inferior nor superior to you. Assume that others have integrity.
2. Inclusion - Make others feel that they belong, whatever the relationship.
3. Safety - Put people at ease at two levels: physically, so they feel safe from bodily harm, and psychologically, so they feel safe from being humiliated.
4. Acknowledgment - Give people your full attention by listening, hearing, validating, and responding to their concerns, feelings, and experiences.
5. Recognition - Validate others for their talents, hard work, thoughtfulness and help. Be generous with praise and show appreciation and gratitude to others for their contributions and ideas.
6. Fairness - Treat people justly, with equality, and in an evenhanded way.
7. Benefit of Doubt - Treat people as trustworthy. Start with the premise that others have good motives and are acting with integrity.
8. Understanding - Believe that what others think matters. Give them a chance to explain and express their points of view. Actively listen in order to understand them.
9. Independence - Encourage people to act on their own behalf so that they feel in control of their lives and experience a sense of hope and possibility.
10. Accountability - Take responsibility for your actions. If you have violated the dignity of another person, apologize. Make a commitment to change your hurtful behaviors.

How To Make Small Changes To Achieve Extraordinary Results

“Making small changes to reach big goals is the answer,” says entrepreneur and bestselling author Michael Alden in his new book, 5% MORE: Making Small Changes To Achieve Extraordinary Results. “If you just put 5% more effort into any aspect of your life, you will not only achieve your goals, you will surpass them,” he explains. The book will be available in late August.

“Far too often, people become paralyzed when they want to improve their lives, because the effort to reach their goals seems overwhelming,” adds Alden. “Or the opposite occurs. They decide to dive into something one hundred percent, but then quickly lose steam.”

Therefore, Alden demonstrates that long-lasting success is based on small increases in effort. “Five percent is almost unnoticeable in terms of effort—but it accrues quickly, with each step boosting the baseline,” he declares.

Although much of Alden’s advice is based on personal experience, observation, and common sense, he is careful to discuss the studies and research that support his ideas throughout the book. 

Michael Alden

Some of his advice for entrepreneurs and business owners includes:

Spend 5% more time with your current customers: It is much smarter to spend a little more time with your current customers than to chase new “leads.” Your customers have already decided to buy from you. The key is to make sure that they are satisfied -- or better, yet, delighted with your product or service.

Increase product/service prices by 5%: Don’t be afraid to increase your prices. People will pay slightly more, if you are providing something that adds value to their lives. 

Increase results by 5%: Stop focusing on activities, and focus on results instead. Looking at how to increase results, even by a small amount, will help you identify and eliminate actions that waste time.

Do something 5% differently than your competitors: Be a little more creative and think a little bit harder than your competitors. Whether it is going the extra mile in customer service, or offering a product that's just slightly better than that of your competitors, makes the difference in winning sales.

Motivate your team to give 5% More: Your business will never grow, if your team keeps doing the same thing over and over again. Invest 5% more in training and supporting them, so that they can do the best job possible.

Alden is the founder and CEO of Blue Vase Marketing, a multi-million dollar marketing firm that has been ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private firms in America. Alden is also a recipient of SmartCEO Magazine’s 2016 Future 50 Award. His first book, Ask More, Get More, was a national bestseller.  For more information, visit his website.

The 10 Questions Leaders Should Ask

Here are 10 important questions business leaders should ask, according to Ken Blanchard and Garry Ridge, authors of Helping People Win At Work:

1. Does my business have a clear, meaningful, and easily understood vision/mission?
2. Do I have the right people in the right seats on the bus?
3. Do I have a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal), and have I communicated it to my employees?
4. Are my values driving the behavior I want in my organization?
5. Am I creating a culture that increases employee engagement?
6. Am I cultivating a spirit of internal and external learning?
7. Do my employees know what an A looks like, and am I supporting them to get that A?
8. Are our products/services creating lasting, positive memories for our customers?
9. Do I have the best, most timely data and information to help my business make good decisions?
10. Are our key performance indicators the right ones, and are we measuring what matters?

And, one more questions to ask is:

• Do we celebrate success?

How To Write Anything

Ever wondered about the do's and don'ts of writing a:

• Business Apology
• Letter of Recommendation
• Job Advertisement
• Interview Follow-up
• Press Release
• Executive Summary
• Collection Letter
• Resignation Letter

...then, the book, How To Write Anything: A Complete Guide is for you.

This 596-page book not only provides you examples and templates for all types of writing you do at work, but also, and most important, provides you do's and don'ts for each writing situation.

Author Laura Brown provides 200 how-to entries and easy-to-use models organized into three comprehensive sections on writing for:

• Work
• School (research paper, book review, internship letter)
• Your Personal Life (i.e. get-well note, baby shower invitation, complaint letter)

Best of all, her advice is Internet-savvy, because she provides you advice for choosing the most appropriate medium for your message:  email or pen and paper.

Brown has more than 25 years' experience providing training and coaching in business writing. She's also taught composition and literature at Columbia University.

This is a book you can use for a lifetime -- during your schooling, career and everyday living.

How To Create SMART Goals

Too often, businesses don't have clearly defined goals and even less often specific plans to reach those goals.

When you set a goal for your business, be sure it is SMART:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-related

Share that goal with your employees, so they understand all of the five attributes of the goal.

And then for your plan (sometimes called "program"), keep these tips in mind:

• Realistically assess the obstacles and resources involved and then create a strategy for navigating that reality.  For me this year, that meant adjusting my race schedule this summer to accommodate a nagging hamstring injury.
• Plan for more than just willpower.  Instead, plan by taking into consideration your business environment, your employees' schedules and workload, and everyone's accountability so that all these factors will work together to support you to achieve your goal.

John C. Maxwell Leadership Quotes

Here are some of my favorites quotes from John C. Maxwell's book, The 5 Levels of Leadership -- a book I believe should be a must-read for any workplace/organizational leader:

1. Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team.
2. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.
3. Leadership is action, not position.
4. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other.
5. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad.
6. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor.
7. People buy into the leader, then the vision.
8. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for bringing out the best in the team.
9. Progress comes only from taking risks and making mistakes.
10. Leaders are measured by the caliber of leaders they develop, not the caliber of their own leadership.

How To Know When Work Is Right For You

In Brian Tracy's book, Find Your Balance Point, he shares this helpful list of the seven indicators of the right work for you and the career where you will feel fully engaged and where you will be the happiest in serving other people:

1. The right work for you is something that you really enjoy doing; something that you love to do.
2. The right work for you is easy for you to learn and easy to do. In many cases, you learned it automatically, without thought or effort.
3. You love learning more and more about the work if it is the right work for you.
4. When you are engrossed in this work, the hours fly past. You forget what time it is, and later you are surprised to see how much time has passed.
5. The right work for you gives you energy when you are doing it. You can spend hours at this work, often forgetting to eat.
6. If it is the right work for you, you want to be excellent at it, and you are constantly striving to learn and improve in that area.
7. If it is the right work for you, you admire the top people in your field, the ones who are recognized as excellent, and you want to be around them and learn from them.

Leading Through Language

Communication expert Bart Egnal reveals why jargon is so prevalent in the workplace, and why it usually undermines those who use it, in his book, Leading Through Language.

Step by step, Egnal demonstrates how effective leaders reject fuzzy terminology in favor of the language of leadership. And, by language of leadership, he means using language that clearly and powerfully brings ideas to life for the audience.

The book has two parts. The first part examines why jargon exists and discusses its implications for leaders.The second part teaches how to use language that conveys ideas with energy, clarity, and conviction.

Egnal also explains that before you think about language you need to adopt a leader's mindset using these six principles:

1. Begin with vision. You must define the vision as a possibility that others can embrace or aspire to fulfill.Yet, it must be concrete enough that people can grasp it as something clear and achievable.
2. Define your own conviction. When you speak from a place of conviction, your language becomes personal, authentic, and powerful.
3. Move from information to inspiration. The number one reason speakers fair to inspire their audiences is that they focus on information rather than ideas. Leadership is not based on transferring information; it is based on transforming people.
4. Be courageous. You must be ready to deliver ideas that challenge your listeners to adopt new approaches.
5. Make it an everyday process. When you think about leading in every interaction, you will not reserve the language of leadership for "command performance."
6. Be audience-centric. You must engage your audience by showing them what's in it for them.

Finally, Egnal shares this good advice from Anna Tudela, Vice President at Goldcorp:

• Eliminate "minimizing" modifiers that so many of us use without realizing it. These modifiers undermine your ability to project confidence.

So, avoid these modifiers:

• Just
• Sort of
• A bit
• Perhaps
• Probably
• I think
• I'd guess
• We might
• It could

Egnal is President and Chief Executive Offer of The Humphrey Group, a global firm focused on building leadership communication skills.

Six Tips For How To Get Feedback

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear. 

“Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the book, Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.

As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work.

Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy

1.      Don’t forget to ask:  One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve.

2.      Make sure you listen:  Remember, getting feedback is about improving your performance, not turning it into a “you versus them” mentality. Your reaction is critical. Do not rationalize the feedback or explain it away. Do not blame others or get angry. If you react in any of those ways, you are less apt to get accurate feedback from that person again. All too often, people let feedback that is given with positive intentions spiral into a negative situation by reacting destructively.

3.      Ask clarifying questions:  If feedback surprises you, it may be a matter of miscommunication or misperception, and asking questions will give you a clearer picture. Staying clearheaded enough to ask questions and listen to specific suggestions will help you understand the full scope of the feedback and ways that you need to take action to improve.  

4.      Take time to digest:  This is especially important if the feedback is difficult to hear. Taking time to digest and process before you respond helps you react constructively. Say something like “Thank you for the feedback,” and schedule a later time to follow up. Then, you can come back with additional clarifying questions and a plan to change and improve.

5.      Don’t just look to bosses for feedback:  Some of the best and most insightful feedback will come from colleagues and direct reports. These are the people who get to see and interact with you the most. Instead of relying solely on guidance from a supervisor, ask colleagues and direct reports to provide feedback, because they may spot potential problems before you or your boss would notice. Seeking feedback from people in other departments lets you hear different perspectives from people focused on other sides of the business.

6.      Get feedback through observation:  Learning from your successes and failures is a kind of feedback that helps you change your course of action. Consider the example of a speaker who notices people looking confused or inattentive and uses that feedback to change his approach and recapture their attention.

How To Be A More Creative Thinker

From the book, Leading With Strategic Thinking, by Aaron K. Olson and B. Keith Simerson, here are six ways the authors suggest for stimulating your creative thinking:

1. Engage in communities, conferences, or reading outside your typical area of expertise.
2. Set aside time in your week that doesn't involve completing routine tasks.
3. Visit places where you will encounter unfamiliar people, cultures, or ideas.
4. Spend time with coworkers in your organization with different roles.
5. Debate commonly held ideas or question assumptions about your work or business.
6. Imagine a situation in which you (or your organization) could no longer work the same way -- what would you do?

Debbie Laskey's Expert Insights On Marketing and Leadership

Debbie Laskey is one of my go-to experts when I seek advice about a number of business topics, including marketing, social media, and nonprofit marketing and leadership. 

So, it's my privilege to share today some of Debbie's insights on all these topics. However, before you read the answers to my questions to Debbie, we'll set the stage with her background:

• Debbie has an MBA Degree and 17 years of marketing experience in the high-tech industry, Consumer Marketing Department at Disneyland Paris in France, insurance industry, and nonprofit sector. She’s created and implemented successful marketing and branding initiatives for nonprofits including the Foundation for the Junior Blind, Exceptional Children’s Foundation, League of Women Voters of Los Angeles, and Brides for Good; and in the B2B financial sector for an insurance company and CPA firm. 
• Currently, she works with the Nonprofit Communications and Media Network and Special Olympics Southern California. 
• She’s served as a judge for the Web Marketing Association’s annual web award competition since 2002, and been recognized as one of the "Top 100 Branding Experts" to follow on Twitter @DebbieLaskeyMBA.
• Her website is www.brandingandmore.net.

Question: For a nonprofit that has a limited marketing budget and that is thinly staffed, what are the couple or few things you recommend they do for their marketing plan?

Debbie:  Too often, small and medium nonprofits have communications plans. If they do, they need to enter the 21st century and understand that the communications specialty is just one aspect of an overall marketing plan. There's public relations, media outreach, advertising, content marketing, website development, social media, tradeshows, special events, webinars, corporate collateral, internal communications, partnerships, and more. Therefore, if a nonprofit uses the term "communications," it not only limits its outreach but shows that it has not joined the modern era.

That said, nonprofits that have to do more with less should have a written marketing plan. Once strategies are written down, it's amazing to see who can take on various tasks. There might be a member of another department that, with appropriate training, could take on the social media role. Someone in accounting might be a fit to be a blogger. Also, a marketing plan is important because it is a living, breathing document that evolves over time, so it is meant to change.

So, after the marketing plan is written, it must be shared with all departments and team members. In the social era, social media should be part of the marketing outreach because many potential donors will learn about a nonprofit via its Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram page. If there is no digital footprint, the potential donor will question the nonprofit's validity. Also, nonprofits with limited budgets and small staffs should research strategic partnerships. There might be other nonprofits or corporate sponsors that would be good fits for special events or other forms of outreach.

Question: What is the difference you have seen in the leaders at for-profit versus not-for-profit organizations who you have worked for and with? Why are there these differences?

Debbie:  Nonprofit leaders are constrained by small budgets and limited staff. But the excuse that "we've always done it this way" should be swept out with yesterday's trash. Just look at how Facebook and YouTube have changed marketing. Leaders in the nonprofit arena should think like their counterparts in the for-profit arena:

• Leaders must be open to listening, really listening to the experts throughout the organization 
• Leaders must be open to trying new ideas
• Leaders must be open to all forms of metrics - not just the obvious ones 

Question: In addition to having a website, what is the single best social media channel a business should use if they can only choose one? And, why do you recommend this channel?

Debbie:  In today's visual world, Instagram is the standout social platform to provide photos and quick videos. Nonprofits and businesses can create pages and utilize hashtags for a variety of content and easily engage their audiences. My favorite accounts are Sherwin Williams, Tiffany & Co, ABC7LA, Oreo, American Cancer Society, Make A Wish America, and the Empire State Building.

Question: Please finish the following two sentences:

Debbie:  I would like to complete the following two sentences based on conversations with marketing colleagues across the country - these are the two most common responses:

• My best supervisor...provided the tools for me to do my job and then got out of the way.
• My worst supervisor... micromanaged, ultimately doing my job for me. 

Question:  When interviewing for a job, what do you do to determine if the leader of the company/organization is a person you believe you would like to work for?

Debbie:  I always ask some key questions, and the responses speak volumes. They are:

• Where do you see the company/nonprofit in five years? Too often, people will simply say, "That's a good question" and not answer it. No answer shows that they have no vision, thus, not a good fit.
• What are three things you've seen change or improve since you joined the company/nonprofit? This shows a person's history with an employer.
• What makes your flame grow? In other words, what is the person passionate about? I like to know what makes the person tick before joining a team.

Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from Heather Coleman Voss' Instagram page:

"When I talk to managers, I get the feeling they are important. When I talk to leaders, I get the feeling I am important." -Alexander Den Heijer

Thank you Debbie. I am always learning from you!

How To Be A Change Leader

The Art of Change Leadership demystifies the psychology behind our reactions to change and offers a powerful collection of tools to inspire individual and collective transformation quickly and more effectively, explains author of the book, Cheryl Cran.

The book teaches you how to:

• Leverage your current technical knowledge to increase the rate of innovation.
• Use the cycle of change to foresee and handle change-related issues affecting yourself, others, and business.
• Raise your emotional intelligence to match your IQ.
• Guide "change" initiatives with repeatable success by using the reliable three-step change model.

Cran also explains the differences between a Change Manager and a Change Leader.

For example:

• A Change Manager creates a plan, directs projects and people to achieve a goal. In contrast, a Change Leader sets the compelling vision; tells a story that includes the hero's journey for each person involved.

In addition, a Change Leader does the following:

• Provides a project timeline while creating celebration milestones.
• Connects personally with individuals to "onboard" them to the changes and provides the framework for how the changes will happen.
• Courageously leads the changes without falter while being open and honest about his or her own fears and challenges along the change journey.
• Constantly looks to provide added value to the team members by customizing feedback, providing resources and support.
• Welcomes disruptions and leverages them into new creative solution opportunities for self and for the team.
• Willingly shares power with others with a depth of confidence and without having the need to protect ego or CYA.
• Sees the role of a change leader as a facilitator of intelligence and not as the keeper of all knowledge and power.

Cran is the CEO of Evolutionary Business Solutions, Inc.

Ten Questions A Superboss Should Ask

Here are ten questions (or bundles of questions) you should ask yourself to ensure you are thinking and acting like a superboss. These are from Sydney Finkelstein's new book, Superbosses.

1. Do you have a specific vision for your work that energizes you, and that you use to energize and inspire your team?
2. How often do people leave your team to accept a bigger offer elsewhere? What's that like when it happens?
3. Do you push your reports to meet only the formal goals set for the team, or are there other goals that employees sometimes also strive to achieve?
4. How do you go about questioning your own assumptions about the business? How do you get your team to do the same about their own assumptions?
5. How do you balance the need to delegate responsibilities to team members with the need to provide hands-on coaching to them? How much time do you usually spend coaching employees?
6. When promoting employees, do you ever put them into challenging jobs where they potentially might fail? If so, how do you manage the potential risk? And what happens if they do fail?
7. How much affection or connection do members of your team feel with one another? Do people tend to spend time out of the office socializing? What is the balance of competition and collaboration on the team?
8. Do you continue to stay in touch with employees who have left to work elsewhere?
9. Have any former employees of yours gone on to have particularly noteworthy careers, either within your organization or elsewhere? If so, how many? 
10. What is the culture like in your team with respect to how much energy you devote to nurturing or developing individuals versus getting the job done?

Abraham Lincoln On Trust

"Trust. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln.

The Golden Rules Of Effective Communication

Here are the 12 golden rules of effective communication from Paul Falcone, as highlighted in his book, 2600 Phrases for Setting Effective Performance Goals.

Always remember to:

1. Recognize achievements and accomplishments often.
2. Celebrate success.
3. Deliver bad news quickly, constructively, and in a spirit of professional development.
4. Praise in public, censure in private.
5. Assume responsibility for problems when things go wrong, and provide immediate praise and recognition to others when things go right.
6. Create a work environment based on inclusiveness, welcoming others' suggestions and points of view.
7. Listen actively, making sure that your people feel heard and understood and have a voice in terms of offering positive suggestions in the office or on the shop floor.
8. Share information openly (to the extent possible) so that staff members understand the Why behind your reasoning and can ask appropriate questions as they continue along in their own path of career development and learning.
9. Remember that thankfulness and appreciation are the two most important values you can share with our employees and teach them to live by: make them the core foundation of your culture.
10. Put others' needs ahead of your own and expect them to respond in kind (a.k.a. "selfless leadership," otherwise known as "servant leadership").
11. When dealing with others' shortcomings, always err on the side of compassion.
12. Solicit ongoing feedback and suggestions form your team in terms of how you could do things differently, thereby stimulating creativity and innovation.

Embrace Change To Grow

Change is inevitable. Change is good.  Help your employees and team learn to embrace change.

Here are some solid insights from Dr. Rodger Dean Duncan's (Liberty, Missouri) book, Change-friendly Leadership -- How to Transform Good Intentions into  Great Performance:

• The kind of behavior change that results in lasting (sustainable) change must accommodate people's feelings--feelings that involve trust, confidence, passion, and all those other intangible but very real things that make us human.
• It's often the stress that people resist, not the change itself.
• Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights (Pauline R. Kezer).
• A transformational leader focuses primarily on initiating and "managing" change.  He/she influences people to improve, to stretch, and to redefine what's possible.
• It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change (Charles Darwin).
• Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

Higher Education IT Trends: 2016

Note: this is cross-posted at the Simon Fraser University site.

As part of my duties as President of CUCCIO I am expected to give the President’s report to the Annual General Meeting. At the June meeting my talk included some observations about trends and changes in higher education IT I have seen in the past year. Several folks have asked me to share these ideas so I wrote this blog post as a summary of the speech.

1.      Cloud computing isn’t a big deal

Cloud computing is simply a fact of life and we are dealing with it. Every organization has its own approaches and strategies that suit the uniqueness of their institutions and legislative domains. From Dalhousie University’s fascinating cloud first strategy to SFU’s cloud consumer and provider strategy, every university is dealing with it.

2.      Security is compelling and demanding and ubiquitous

The recent ransomware attack at the UofC has raised the profile of IT security in a jarring and shocking manner. Not only was the university forced to pay an embarrassing ransom, but more importantly, all their IT systems were shut down for 10 full days which has an immeasurable fiscal impact. Universities can no longer hide behind the veil of academic freedom to continue to justify a network security blanket that resembles cheesecloth.

3.      IT isn’t a cost, it’s an investment

Conversations with President’s, Provosts, VPs of Finance, and Research VPs are reflecting a new perspective of IT. In the past the conversation about IT was typically all about the cost. Now the conversation is changing; we are talking about how to extract value from the investment in IT. These are investments helping the university achieve educational, academic, research, and community objectives.

4.      Social media is no longer special, it’s just media

We are now talking about a digital experience, not just a learning experience for our students. We are creating digital strategies that engage our stakeholders and integrate new media changes into everything happening on campus. From a media perspective, traditional IT is like a millstone around the neck of media innovation. “Social” media is no longer unique – it is the media.

5.      Benchmarking is community building

A number of universities across Canada participate in a benchmarking initiative. This sharing of IT data exposes our strengths and weaknesses in a measurable manner. The act of sharing such sensitive data requires an unusual level of community trust. Emerging from this trust is a stronger community of shared interests. If I see a similar school with interesting metrics I can simply pick up the phone and to ask what they are doing and how they are doing it. The ability to compare and contact is priceless, and it builds a stronger and healthier higher education IT community.

6.      IT used to provide technology with a service component; now IT provides service with a technology component.

Our clients don’t want technology; they want the service delivered by the technology. The entire emphasis of our information systems organizations has clearly shifted from technology to services. We are becoming client-centric and the shift to out-sourcing (cloud computing) is accelerating that change. In a more cloud oriented world, we do increasingly less with baseline technology and we become integrators of a basket of services from a wide variety of providers.

7.      There is no such thing as IT strategy

IT departments expend a lot of energy developing technology strategies. Nobody cares. Much to IT’s chagrin, they are discovering that IT staff are the only folks in the institution reading the strategy. Today, real IT strategy is part and parcel of the fabric of the university strategy. The best IT strategies are the ones embedded into the university strategic plan.

As we wrap up the current academic year and entering into the summer months, we have the opportunity to reflect on these trends and think about how we should respond to them effectively. I look forward to a new academic year with more changes and a new series of ever-changing IT trends.

..

Managing The Millennials

The second edition of Managing the Millennials is out now and is an important read. Because, in 2015, Millennials comprised 35 percent of the workforce--nearly 54 million workers. And, by 2020, one in three adults will be a Millennial, and then by 2025, three of four workers will be from the Millennial generation.

Further, according to the book's co-author Chip Espinoza, more than 60 percent of employers say that they are experiencing tension between employees from different generations--more than 70 percent of older employees are dismissive of younger workers' abilities. And, 50 percent of younger employees are dismissive of the abilities of their older coworkers.

In this latest updated edition of the original 2009 book, the authors include new research and new real-world examples to assist you in:

• Making the most informed decisions on getting the most from twenty-something employees.
• Executing solutions to the most common obstacles to younger workers engaging and learning from the people who manage them.
• Enhancing your skills as a job coach with practical tips and hands-on tools for coaching Millennials, 

You'll also learn about the nine points of tension that result from clashing value systems in a cross-generational management context and nine competencies required to mitigate each counterproductive disconnect.

This week, Espionza kindly answered the following questions for me:

Chip Espinoza, PhD

Question: Thinking about the reaction to your first edition six years ago, what reaction from readers pleased you most? And, what reaction/feedback surprised you most?

Espinoza: I was most pleased that people commented that it was a solution-based approach to managing the next generation and not just a conversation about Millennials. They also appreciated the theoretical framework that was laid out for the discussion. Perhaps the greatest compliment is that people said they immediately applied the competencies in their management approach and experienced instant results. I was surprised that parents of Millennials would write me and thank me for helping them better understand their Millennial children.

Question: It seems that a lot has been written about Millennials in the workplace. Is this unusual? Or do you believe, with each generation a lot was written about that generation's fit in the workplace?

Espinoza: You can see the concept of a generation in ancient literature but the study of generations (or age cohorts) is traced to German sociologist Karl Mannheim who put forth generation as a sociological construct in the late 1920's.

The conversation about emerging age cohorts is the result of what Norman Ryder referred to as demographic metabolism, “Society persists despite the mortality of its individual members, through processes of demographic metabolism and particularly the annual infusion of birth cohorts. These may pose a threat to stability but they also provide the opportunity for societal transformation.”

So no, the conversation about successive generations is not unusual. What is unusual is that you have what was the largest generation (Baby Boomers) giving way to the new largest generation ever—the Millennials. Group norm theory suggests the largest group gets to set the agenda, make the rules, and sanction those who do not comply. Baby Boomers have set the workplace agenda for three decades. GenX was not a big enough generation to challenge the Baby Boomers’ ways (perhaps with the exception of casual Friday and telecommuting). The sheer size of the Millennial generation has accentuated tension over workplace values, behaviors, and expectations. In addition, GenX has waited for Baby Boomers to retire and are now witnessing their younger work siblings promoted to equal or greater positions with less experience. As a result, I do believe more has been written (the good, the bad, and the ugly) about the Millennial age cohort.

Question: Generally speaking, do you believe Millennials appreciate all that is being written about their fit in the workplace? 

Espinoza: In fairness to Millennials, it is important to note that it has been argued that a generation does not see its uniqueness until after age thirty. It would be a rarity to see a Builder, Baby Boomer, or GenX’er who resented being labeled as a member of a generation. A cohort’s mature identity is achieved through a newly found freedom of self-definition.

Early on in my research Millennials appeared to be amused with all of the attention. As a result of being the largest age cohort ever and growing up in affirming environments, Millennials are used to attention. Prior to work life, it is mostly positive attention.

Recently, there has been growing Millennial fatigue with all that is being written about them. You can see it in Millennial blogs, article comment sections, and pushing back at work.

I experience Millennials to be quite self-aware. They understand some of the attention (positive and negative) they receive is warranted. Perhaps not due to their own values and behaviors, but those of their peers. Whether Millennials want to be written about or not is irrelevant. They are the biggest generation and they are always going to be written about and marketed to. Much of what is written is hyperbole. My advice to Millennials is to not be reactionary.

Question: Having studied Millennials for so long, what do you believe is the single most understood thing about this generation?

Espinoza: They have high expectations—of the schools they attend, the organizations they work for, the nonprofits they volunteer in, the merchants where they shop, the candidates for whom they vote, and the speed at which their careers move. They believe they can make a difference and I do too!

Espinoza, PhD, is an academic director of Organizational Psychology and Nonprofit Leadership at Concordia University Irvine. Economic Times recently named him a top 15 thought leader on the future of work. Mick Ukleja, PhD is the book's co-author.

Thank you to the book's publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Breaking The Trust Barrier

"Teamwork is literally a matter of live and death for the members of the US Air Force Thunderbirds," explains Colonel JV Venable (USAF, Ret) and former Top Gun (USAF's Fighter Weapons School) instructor for the Thunderbirds.

"Overcoming the barrier of trust to fly less than an arm's length away from another jet moving 500 miles per hours at 400 feet off the ground is no small challenge," he adds. "Creating trust like that on a team requires a predictable, repeatable process that the Thunderbird instructors have been refining for more than half a century."

Venable shares that process in his new book, Breaking the Trust Barrier: How Leaders Close the Gaps for High Performance.

JV Venable

Not only will you read plenty of true, inspirational stories, but also, you'll gain repeatable, step-by-step processes that are measurable and implementable, and that can be adapted to fit virtually any situation or scenario.

• The trust building process begins with an individual's desire for commitment from you and ends with his or her trust in you. 

Building trust also includes risk. "Trust is the willingness to put yourself or your team at risk with the belief that another will follow through with a task, in a role, or with a mission. Expressions of trust that lack an element of risk are merely expressions," explains Venable

In his book, Venable also provides training advice regarding the four important elements in addressing teamwork:

• Gaps
• Commitment
• Engagement
• Trust

He also covers;

• Passion
• Confidence
• Respect
• Integrity
• Empowerment

Thank you to the book publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

How To Be A Catalyst Leader

"Catalyst leaders represent the gold standard -- energetic, supportive, forward-thinking mentors who spark action in others," explain Tacy M. Byham and Richard S. Wellins, authors of the new book, Your First Leadership Job -- How Catalyst Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others.

More specifically, the authors share that a catalyst leader:

• Asks and listens
• Fosters innovation
• Provides balanced feedback
• Builds trust
• Focuses on people's potential
• Collaborates and networks
• Empowers others
• Encourages development
• Energizes and mobilizes
• Aligns actions with strategy

In the book, you'll learn how catalyst leaders bring out the best in people. They do that by, among other actions, by:

• Encouraging the person to try new things.
• Giving the person input on things that affect him/her.
• Allowing the person to safely learn through failure, so they can take appropriate risks.
• Taking the time to find out what motivates the person.

The authors also cover the following topics in the book:

• How to build trust and ownership
• How to be authentic
• How to delegate 
• How to nurture business relationships
• How to become an adviser

Your First Leadership Job is certainly a good book for a first-time leader, but it's also equally relevant for any leader who wants to become that gold standard catalyst leader.