What 'Corporate Culture' Really Means, And Why So Many Companies Don't Get It

by Jane Watson, Talent Vanguard via @bi_contributors

While completing my undergrad in Anthro, I was President of the students’ Anthropology Society. (Yep, I was that cool). So, you’ll understand that the topic of organizational culture is of particular interest to me.

And organizational culture is having its HR moment right now…articles, blog posts, seminars- everyone seems to be talking about culture!

That’s why it’s especially unfortunate that we are so sloppy when it comes to what we mean by 'culture'.

Prescriptions for how we can change our organization’s culture are tossed around like recipes, with barely a mention of what we mean when we say ‘culture’. This is not just about semantics. It’s actually really important: sloppy thinking leads to sloppy actions, and frankly, that’s reflected in too much of the current discourse about organizational culture. As a profession that still struggles with gaining the credibility we deserve, HR simply can’t afford to be so imprecise about something we claim is so important.

So, What is Culture?

Well, that’s a question that continues to be open to debate, but let’s not get existential. For our purposes we can draw on some key concepts from the social sciences that can be used as tools in thinking about what we mean by ‘organizational culture’:

1. Culture is enacted: that is, culture is continuously created by every member of your organization, through their day-to-day participation in the organization. It’s dynamic, shared, crowd-sourced; not static and unchanging.
2. Culture is “how we do things here”.  It provides members with (largely unspoken) rules for how they should behave to gain and maintain social ‘membership’ in the organization.
3. Culture is manifested in a variety of ways, including:

• Language –shared words or labels your organization uses for things.
• Rituals – such as Town Hall meetings, the summer BBQ, award ceremonies etc
• Dress code  – how people are expected to dress in the course of doing their work
• Symbols – the meaning attached to corporate symbols
• Decision making – how important organizational decisions are made and communicated
• Conflict resolution – how conflicts are expected to be handled- discussed or avoided?
• Status- who is recognized and esteemed, both formally and informally?

So, to summarize, this is (to some degree) a circular process: culture, or “the way we do things around here”, is created collectively by an organization’s members, whose actions are then guided by the shared culture, and by acting in accordance with the culture they further legitimize and reinforce it.

What Culture is Not:

1. It’s not your employer brand: that’s a targeted, tailored message for an audience. Your organization’s culture is not necessarily what you say your organization’s culture is.
2. Culture is not monolithic. It’s dynamic, it’s crowdsourced. It’s not something you take out of a box and sell to your employees during orientation. They (and you) are creating and recreating it every day.
3. Because culture is transmitting from, to, and between the members of your organization every day (not from one central point), it’s actually quite difficult to change culture without a critical mass of people consistently ‘transmitting’ the new culture.

Why It’s REALLY Important That We Lose the Sloppy ‘Culture’ Thinking

I keep seeing blog posts, articles, webinars and presentations directed at HR people that use the word  ‘culture’ to mean a whole variety of superficial, simple things that are not culture. These articles are often advancing  the idea that culture can and should be changed to give an organization a competitive advantage, increase engagement, decrease turnover, etc. etc.

But this sloppy thinking about what culture is means that prescriptions based upon that thinking are at best half-baked, and sometimes total nonsense (sorry, but I don’t think that’s an exaggeration). If HR is going to claim (or be handed) yet another mantle, that of ‘Organizational Culture expert’, then we need to do much, much better at defining what culture is, what it is not, and to think critically about why, if and how organizational culture change efforts should be undertaken.

Let’s Avoid This Sloppy Thinking About Culture!

This is a handful of the sloppiest ideas that are floating around out there like bad viruses. Avoid the sloppy!

1. Culture Must be Homogenous Across the Organization

I’ve read stuff that takes as its underlying premise that an organization’s culture needs to be uniform across the entire workforce in order for leaders to effectively change, harness and use culture as an advantage.

Warning:  If you are employed in a place where the culture is uniform across the entire workforce, I regret to inform you that you are not part of an organization, you are a part of a cult. Don’t drink that glass of Kool-aid! Don’t marry Tom Cruise! Just pack your bag and get out now. And then repeat after me: culture is not uniform, it is not monolithic, because organizations are made up of human beings, not robots.

Nor should you want your organization’s culture to be uniform:

“We’re an innovative technology company with a culture that rewards entrepreneurial risk-takers. Our whole finance team really embraces the culture- three of them went to jail last week!”

Internal inconsistencies and subcultures exist within any culture- and usually that’s okay. The sub-culture in a department or team encourages identification amongst members of that team, it can bind groups together, and it’s often adaptive for that particular group, given the demands and constraints of their specialized function.

2. Having a Team Building or Social Event is a Great way to Change Culture

Oh boy, where to start with this one….

Warning:  Sending your employees on a team-building social event will not change your culture any more than sending the Amish to a movie will change theirs. Social events can (theoretically anyway) impact morale and team dynamics, but that is not the same thing as culture!  Culture is not so superficial that a couple of events can create any kind of lasting, strategic change.

And frankly, if your CEO thinks it’s a good idea to spend a bunch of cash on social events as a strategy to produce the vaguely defined outcome of ‘culture change’ , you have bigger problems than your organizational culture…

3. HR Can Change an Organization’s Culture

I wish this one were true, but it is definitely not. Just like employee engagement, retention and a host of other initiatives that (for better or worse) get handed to HR, we cannot hope to implement culture change alone. Because culture is enacted, dynamic and crowd-sourced, culture change should be thought of less like surgery, and more like conducting an orchestra, where the players are creating something together. You can’t just unilaterally change culture; you need your ‘players’ to willingly start playing a new tune.

What's Vistage All About?

An Alternative to New Year’s Resolutions

By Greg Giesen

What’s wrong with New Year’s resolutions? Is it because the word “resolution” has become associated with superficial, lofty goals that fade almost as quickly as our hangover from the New Year’s Eve celebration? Or could it be that there is simply no time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s to do any serious goal-setting—given all the holiday parties, family obligations, and end-of-the-year work deadlines that must be met?

The answer is “yes” to both. The fact is New Year’s resolutions are a joke because we don’t take the time to do a thorough process of reflecting, assessing, transitioning, and goal setting. Instead, we latch on to any central theme that has been bothering us as of late and turn that into some sort of half-hearted resolution. Is it no wonder that 80 percent of people who make resolutions on the 1^st of January fall off the wagon by Valentine’s Day, according to Marti Hope Gonzales, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota.

So what’s the alternative, you ask?

Let me answer that in two ways.

Your first alternative would be to turn the resolution process into a commitment process. This would require carving out some quality solo time to complete my complimentary workbook, New Years Resolutions That Stick!. The workbook comes with 30 thought-provoking questions about this past year and 30 thought-provoking questions about this upcoming year. This tested New Year’s process will help you come up with meaningful goals for 2013 as result of a thorough analysis of 2012. For your free workbook, go towww.greggiesen.com or click on the link above.

The second alternative is to follow the 4-Step process below; no downloads or workbook required.

Step 1:  Take some “me” time and reflect upon these questions about this past year.  Be sure to write down your responses.

1. What were your four biggest personal highlights and why?
2. What were your four biggest professional highlights and why?
3. What did you learn most about yourself this past year?
4. What were some of your biggest challenges and how did you handle them?
5. What, if any, regrets do you have?

Step 2:  Take some “me” time and reflect upon these questions about this upcoming year.  Be sure to write down your responses.

1. Based on this past year, what’s the best advice you could give yourself for 2013 and why?
2. What’s one thing you’d like to change most about yourself?
3. What unfinished business, if any, do you need to complete in 2013? What would that look like?
4. What could possibly prevent you from creating the year ahead that you truly desire? Is there anything you could be doing now to set yourself up to succeed? If so, what would that be?
5. In a year from now, what do you want to be able to say about this upcoming year in retrospect? What do you need to do to make that happen?

Step 3:  Based on your insights from steps 1 & 2, identify all the things you are willing to commit to doing in the three areas below:

What I will continue to do in 2013:

What I will stop doing in 2013:

What I will start doing in 2013:

Step 4:  For any goal or commitment to be successful, it is critical that you enroll others in your process; be it by sharing your insights and results from Step 3 or by doing this 4-step process together. Either way, select an accountability partner and share with them what you learned from Steps 1 & 2 and what you are willing to commit to in Step 3.

Lastly, I recommend creating a quarterly process for reviewing your commitments instead of the annual process. Our lives change so much on a day-to-day basis that goals and commitments can lose their meaning if not regularly checked and updated. This means getting together with your accountability partner four times. Are you up for that?

In conclusion, every year of your life is essentially a chapter in your own autobiography. Make your life a best seller by capturing as much as you can from each and every year. It will not only give you a greater sense of self, but it will undoubtedly make each successive year that much better.

Aren’t you worth it?

7 Steps to Regaining Your Focus

BY JANE PORTER via @entrepeneur

Daphne Vandergrift Elizalde had been running her Newport Beach, Calif., art consulting business for 12 years when she decided to start a second company. For this lifelong multitasker, running two businesses didn't seem too daunting

 

image credit: Shutterstock

But after she founded her customized chocolates business in 2010, juggling multiple tasks seemed more distracting than productive. Taking a phone call while also working on a packaging design, for example, meant she either focused too little on the conversation or had to go back and double check her work.

Elizalde finally decided to quit multitasking. When she began thinking of other unfinished tasks, she no longer tried to juggle multiple things, but instead jotted down whatever came to mind and returned to it later. “Cutting out that multitasking is very hard in the beginning,” she says, “but it makes a world of difference.”

As a small-business owner, you can spend entire workdays jumping from one task to the next. To help you cope, try these seven ways to regain your focus in as little as 60 seconds.

1) Remind yourself why you’re in business.
You may lose focus if you fixate on negative thoughts about your work -- email is overwhelming; there's not enough time; no end is in sight. If you’re unfocused because of such distracting feelings, take a minute to redirect your mind by reminding yourself what made you get into business in the first place, says Ruth Klein, a Santa Monica, Calif., productivity coach who worked with Elizalde. You might think of three work-related things you’re grateful for or read a client testimonial to motivate you, she says.

2) List your top priorities.
Sometimes, you may have trouble focusing because it’s hard to decide what you ought to do first. In such instances, take a minute to write down your top priorities or tasks for the day, says Andrew Goliszek, author of 60 Second Stress Management: The Quickest Way to Relax and Ease Anxiety (New Horizon Press, 2004). “You can always look at that to do list, and it will get you back on track. It shows you concretely what you need to do.”

3) Synchronize your breath and body.
When you close your eyes for a minute and concentrate on the sound and feeling of your breath, you re-energize the body with oxygen, says Joel Levey, cofounder of Wisdom at Work, a Seattle-based productivity training consulting firm. Take a minute to coordinate your breath with a word or movement. For example, you can mentally say the word “here” with each inhale and “now” with each exhale, Levey says. You also can lift your arms overhead with each inhale and lower them with each exhale. When you match your breath with a word or movement, “you are synchronizing the frontal lobes of the brain that help you focus, the motor cortex that controls movement and the speech centers of the brain,” Levey says.

4) Drink a glass of water.
It may sound simple, but if you’re having difficulty staying on task, pause and drink eight ounces of water. While your impulse might be to grab a cup of coffee, too much caffeine can leave you frazzled. Try water instead. Not only will getting up to pour yourself a glass force you to change your thought process, it also will keep you hydrated, which makes you more alert, Klein says.

5) Download an awareness chime app for your smartphone.
Some smartphone apps can help you refocus by sounding an awareness chime at random times throughout the day, Levey says. Some examples include Insight Timer for $2 and ZenChimes, which is free. As an alternative, Levey suggests snapping your fingers as a mental trigger. “Just to have those little auditory pings throughout the day will remind you to get into focus,” he says.

6) Clear your desk -- and mind.
When your desk is cluttered, your mind can be cluttered, too. If you’re feeling unfocused, take a look around your workspace to see if papers are piled up everywhere. If so, Klein suggests placing everything on your desk in a box and putting it out of sight. "When we see a lot of papers and things piled up, we immediately go into anxiety,” she says. "If it's out of sight, it's out of mind." At the end of the day, spend half an hour organizing what’s in your box so you know what your next priority will be.

7) Place a distinctive object on your desk.
While it's important to keep your workspace free of distracting clutter, it can be useful to place an object on your desk that triggers you to refocus, Levey says. It could be something as simple as a flower, a candle or even a can of beans. By associating the object with the need to stay on task, you will be reminded to get back to work each time you look at it.

How to Have Successful One-to-One Meetings

There is no more important conversation for a leader than a one to one

I am a big believer in the power of one-to-one meetings with those we work with.  In Vistage, my favorite times of the month are the opportunities to sit down with my members, uninterrupted  and process through issues, brainstorm and even allow them to vent!  This article by Clay Parcells is well written and provides a great roadmap to effective one-to-ones in your business life.  I've added some resources, books and articles at the end of the post.

"How to have Successful One-to-Ones"

As a leader, are you having regular one-on-one meetings with your staff and direct reports?  These are regularly scheduled meetings with each and every one of your direct reports where you sit down and talk.  One-on-one meetings are an opportunity for the leader to LEAD.

It is your opportunity to inspire, influence, motivate, coach, listen, solve problems, make decisions, and create an environment where employees feel energized. You can’t do this with email.  If you lead and manage a team remotely, try to have a face-to-face monthly or quarterly as you conduct the majority of your conversations over the phone. As a leader, it is critical for you to be able to have open and honest conversations with your staff about their jobs, their performance, conflicts and development opportunities.

I’m amazed at the number of leaders who don’t schedule these one-on-one meetings as well as those who do and frequently cancel them due to other pressing issues.  As a leader what are you demonstrating to your employees? Frankly, that they are not important.  I understand that one-on-one meetings take time and sometimes, very pressing company or client issues come up that may require you to cancel your meeting.   However, those situations should be few and far between. 

Why do some leaders fail to schedule regular one-on-one meetings or don’t commit to those that are scheduled?  For some, it may be that they don’t know any better.  This is often the case for newly appointed managers or leaders.  Perhaps they had poor role model or no role model at all.  Or they don’t understand the value of them.  I hate to say it but some don’t enjoy talking face to face with their employees.  It is uncomfortable for them to address conflict, performance issues, to listen without judgment, and to discuss developmental opportunities. If that is the case for you, I recommend you go back to being an individual contributor because leadership is about inspiring, influencing and developing your staff.

Here are some practical tips in having effective one-on-one meetings with your team.

1.         Have scheduled one-on-one meetings and never miss them.

Consistently schedule one-on-one meetings for the same time each week. This develops the habit for you and your direct reports.  Set an agenda and be flexible about what each of your direct reports wants and needs from you during this meeting.  Remember this meeting is to help them.  In today’s high-pressure environment the success of your team depends on the individuals in your team being successful. The purpose of a one-on-one meeting is to provide your direct report with the information to do his/her job and about providing you with the information you need to help him/her do his job.

I would argue that one-on-one meetings should be the single most important meeting in your calendar and should never be cancelled.  However, that is not always possible. If you need to cancel a one-on-one meeting, reschedule it as soon as possible after the original booking, or even better, before. This shows your commitment to your staff and demonstrates that they are important.  Habitually cancelling one-on-one meetings undermines their usefulness and can disenfranchise your direct reports.

2.         Create a safe environment.

One-on-one meetings should be primarily about accurate status for the leader/manager, and continuous improvement for the employee. In order to get the maximum benefit from the one-on-one meeting you must create a non-threatening meeting environment.

Provide constructive feedback/coaching on how to prevent issues from recurring as well as what they are doing well. Try not to play the blame game. Accountability and responsibility are key; but if you start with the blame game, your direct reports may close down, and then you won’t get the information you need until it is too late to fix it.

If you need to have a performance discussion or discipline a direct report, set up a time separate from the one-on-one meeting time to discuss disciplinary or performance issues.

3.         Eliminate all interruptions.

This is your time with your direct report. Turn off your Blackberry or put it on vibrate and place it in your pocket and ignore it.  Move the computer screen away and forward your phone if you can.  As the leader you want to get maximum productivity out of your one-on-one meetings, you need to make your direct report feel like for a specified period of time they have your undivided attention. This means absolutely no interruptions. Close your door or find a private conference room if your office is a cubicle.

4.         How to schedule your one-on-one meetings.

When should you schedule your one-on-one meetings?  A good suggestion is that one-on-one meetings should be one half hour, once a week.  The best answer is whenever fits best in your schedule and the schedule of your direct reports. Personally, I have always preferred to have my one-on-one meetings on Monday or early in the week. The reason I liked Monday’s is because it gave me lots of time to work on and resolve any action items they came up that were my responsibility and it’s the start of the week. 

I would schedule these not on Monday morning since everyone just got back from a long and hopefully restful weekend.  Look at your schedule and see when primarily most of your meetings are set up.  Usually most meetings that you attend are between 10 AM and 4:00 PM, leaving the times early in the day free  to use for one-on-one meetings. 

5.         How best to prepare.

Your preparation for a one-on-one meeting should begin the second that the previous meeting for your direct report ends. You may want to keep a computer file or personal folder for each direct report and whenever you think of something you need to talk to them about in the next meeting, make a note in the folder.

Create an agenda for your one-on-one meetings and make sure your directs have some input on the format and items to discuss.  Remember both you and your employees should clearly articulate your expectations for these meetings.

A suggested format may include the following categories:

·      Accomplishments & status – a list of current projects, or sales with one or two sentences describing progress and status on each. Identify what roadblocks are preventing the projects and sales from moving forward.

·      To do – a high-level to-do list of what you would like to accomplish in the next week.

·      Areas to develop – areas of development and what activities you have undertaken to develop in those areas.

·      Quarterly goal tracking – Whether you establish goals monthly, quarterly or yearly, you and your direct reports should be making steady progress toward fulfilling those goals.

6.         What should the format look like?

Time is precious so use it effectively.  All you need is 30 minutes for these update meetings.  Therefore you can divide the meetings into thirds. One-third for your direct report to discuss their stuff on the agenda; one-third for you to pass on information that you think may be of value to your direct report, discuss items of special interest to you and delegate new work; and one-third for assisting the employee with development opportunities.

Remember these are guidelines only. I recall some of my direct report meetings were focused on one or two areas with little spent on the others. The important thing is not to neglect any one of the areas since each are important to the success of your direct report and to the overall success of your one-on-one meetings.

7.         What questions do you have for them and what questions do you want them to ask you?

What questions should you ask?  It depends on the issues you talk about.  But try to use open-ended questions that start with (What, Where, How) and then focus in the areas that are important to you and your direct report. Some additional effective questions include: What obstacles are getting in the way and what can I do as the leader to remove the obstacles; what can you/we do differently next time; what do you need from me; how are you going to approach this; what areas are ahead of schedule; are you on track to meet your deadlines or quota; what will you do differently and what do you think?

Questions you may want your employees to ask you include: What do I need to do to continue to demonstrate my commitment to you as your leader/manager; what should I stop doing that may be getting in the way; what more can I do to support you?

Remember asking questions is extremely important.  So is listening to the answers.  Don’t interrupt and use your active listening skills to really understand where your employees are coming from. 

8.         Your meeting wrap up.

At the end of the meeting be sure that the actions from the meeting are recorded, and review the actions with the direct report so the actions are clearly understood.  Ask the direct report if there is anything else they would like to discuss.

9.         Post-meeting action.

For the one-on-one meetings to be successful what you do after the meeting is at least as important as the meeting itself. Using whatever method you do to track your work; the actions you are responsible for need to be worked on. One of the quickest ways to erode the effectiveness of your one-on-one meetings, and most likely your relationship with your direct reports, is to agree to actions on behalf of your direct reports and not follow up on them.

It is imperative for leaders to have regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with your direct reports.  It is important for their development, and will help to increase their engagement, and their commitment to your vision, to the company’s strategies and goals.  Higher engagement and commitment will lead to greater retention of staff that you want to keep, greater customer satisfaction that will lead to greater revenue growth and profits for the business.

Resources

www.TomCuthbert.com

www.twitter.com/tomcuthbert

Books

Fierce Conversations, Scott

Leadership is an Art, DePree

That’s a Great Question, Bustin

Power Questions, Solbel/Panas

Conversational Capacity, Weber

Articles

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2011/03/03/um-like-college-grads-lack-verbal-skills/

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2995

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnazar/2013/07/23/20-things-20-year-olds-dont-get/

http://www.wcu.edu/academics/campus-academic-resources/writing-center/employees-lack-writing-skills-in-the-workplace.asp

http://www.ere.net/2011/08/08/a-low-turnover-rate-could-mean-that-you-have-ugly-employees/

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/keys-building-effective-communication-workplace-1575.html

Nine Ways Successful People Defeat Stress

by Heidi Grant Halvorson via @HarvardBiz 

Feeling stressed? Of course you are. You have too much on your plate, deadlines are looming, people are counting on you, and to top it all off, you still have holiday shopping to do. You are under a lot of pressure — so much that at times, you suspect the quality of your work suffers for it.

This is life in the modern workplace. It is more or less impossible to be any kind of professional these days and not experience frequent bouts of intense stress. The difference between those who are successful and those who aren't is not whether or not you suffer from stress, but how you deal with it when you do.

In the spirit of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, here are nine scientifically-proven strategies for defeating stress whenever it strikes.

1. Have self-compassion.

Self-compassion is, in essence, cutting yourself some slack. It's being willing to look at your mistakes or failures with kindness and understanding — without harsh criticism or defensiveness.Studies show that people who are self-compassionate are happier, more optimistic, and less anxious and depressed. That's probably not surprising. But here's the kicker: they are moresuccessful, too. Most of us believe that we need to be hard on ourselves to perform at our best, but it turns out that's 100 percent wrong. A dose of self-compassion when things are at their most difficult can reduce your stress and improve your performance, by making it easier to learn from your mistakes. So remember that to err is human, and give yourself a break.

2. Remember the "Big Picture."

Anything you need or want to do can be thought of in more than one way. For instance, "exercising" can be described in Big Picture terms, like "getting healthier" — the why of exercising — or it can be described in more concrete terms, like "running two miles" — the how of exercising. Thinking Big Picture about the work you do can be very energizing in the face of stress and challenge, because you are linking one particular, often small action to a greater meaning or purpose. Something that may not seem important or valuable on its own gets cast in a whole new light. So when staying that extra hour at work at the end of an exhausting day is thought of as "helping my career" rather than "answering emails for 60 more minutes," you'll be much more likely to want to stay put and work hard.

3. Rely on routines.

If I ask you to name the major causes of stress in your work life, you would probably say things like deadlines, a heavy workload, bureaucracy, or your terrible boss. You probably wouldn't say "having to make so many decisions," because most people aren't aware that this is a powerful and pervasive cause of stress in their lives. Every time you make a decision — whether it's about hiring a new employee, about when to schedule a meeting with your supervisor, or about choosing rye or whole wheat for your egg salad sandwich — you create a state of mental tension that is, in fact, stressful. (This is why shopping is so exhausting — it's not the horrible concrete floors, it's all thatdeciding.)

The solution is to reduce the number of decisions you need to make by using routines. If there's something you need to do every day, do it at the same time every day. Have a routine for preparing for your day in the morning, and packing up to go home at night. Simple routines can dramatically reduce your experience of stress. In fact, President Obama, who assuredly knows a great deal about stress, mentioned using this strategy himself in a recent interview:

You need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day... You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia. –President Obama, Vanity Fair

4. Take five (or ten) minutes to do something you find interesting.

If there were something you could add to your car's engine, so that after driving it a hundred miles, you'd end up with more gas in the tank than you started with, wouldn't you use it? Even if nothing like that exists for your car just yet, there is something you can do for yourself that will have the same effect... doing something interesting. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as it interests you.Recent research shows that interest doesn't just keep you going despite fatigue, it actuallyreplenishes your energy. And then that replenished energy flows into whatever you do next.

Keep these two very important points in mind: First, interesting is not the same thing as pleasant, fun, or relaxing (though they are certainly not mutually exclusive.) Taking a lunch break might be relaxing, and if the food is good it will probably be pleasant. But unless you are eating at the hot new molecular gastronomy restaurant, it probably won't be interesting. So it won't replenish your energy.

Second, interesting does not have to mean effortless. The same studies that showed that interest replenished energy showed that it did so even when the interesting task was difficult and required effort. So you actually don't have to "take it easy" to refill your tank.

5. Add where and when to your to-do list.

Do you have a to-do list? (If you have a "Task" bar on the side of your calendar, and you use it, then the answer is "yes.") And do you find that a day or a week (or sometimes longer) will frequently pass by without a single item getting checked off? Stressful, isn't it? What you need is a way to get the things done that you set out to do in a timely manner. What you need is if-then planning (or what psychologists call "implementation intentions").

This particular form of planning is a really powerful way to help you achieve any goal. Nearly 200 studies, on everything from diet and exercise to negotiation and time management, have shown that deciding in advance when and where you will complete a task (e.g., "If it is 4pm, then I will return any phone calls I should return today") can double or triple your chances of actually doing it.

So take the tasks on your to-do list, and add a specific when and where to each. For example, "Remember to call Bob" becomes "If it is Tuesday after lunch, then I'll call Bob." Now that you've created an if-then plan for calling Bob, your unconscious brain will start scanning the environment, searching for the situation in the "if" part of your plan. This enables you to seize the critical moment and make the call, even when you are busy doing other things. And what better way is there to cut down on your stress than crossing things off your to-do list?

6. Use if-thens for positive self-talk.

Another way to combat stress using if-then plans is to direct them at the experience of stress itself, rather than at its causes. Recent studies show that if-then plans can help us to control our emotional responses to situations in which we feel fear, sadness, fatigue, self-doubt, or even disgust. Simply decide what kind of response you would like to have instead of feeling stress, and make a plan that links your desired response to the situations that tend to raise your blood pressure. For instance, "If I see lots of emails in my Inbox, then I will stay calm and relaxed," or, "If a deadline is approaching, then I will keep a cool head."

7. See your work in terms of progress, not perfection

We all approach the goals we pursue with one of two mindsets: what I call the Be-Good mindset, where the focus is on proving that you have a lot of ability and that you already know what you're doing, and the Get-Better mindset, where the focus is on developing your ability and learning new skills. You can think of it as the difference between wanting to show that you are smart versus wanting to get smarter.

When you have a Be-Good mindset, you expect to be able to do everything perfectly right out of the gate, and you constantly (often unconsciously) compare yourself to other people, to see how you "size up." You quickly start to doubt your ability when things don't go smoothly, and this creates a lot of stress and anxiety. Ironically, worrying about your ability makes you much more likely to ultimately fail.

A Get-Better mindset, on the other hand, leads instead to self-comparison and a concern with making progress — how well are you doing today, compared with how you did yesterday, last month, or last year? When you think about what you are doing in terms of learning and improving, accepting that you may make some mistakes along the way, you experience far less stress, and you stay motivated despite the setbacks that might occur.

8. Think about the progress that you've already made.

"Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work." This is what Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer refer to as the Progress Principle — the idea is that it's the "small wins" that keep us going, particularly in the face of stressors.

Psychologically, it's often not whether we've reached our goal, but the rate at which we are closing the gap between where we are now and where we want to end up that determines how we feel. It can be enormously helpful to take a moment and reflect on what you've accomplished so far before turning your attention to the challenges that remain ahead.

9. Know whether optimism or defensive pessimism works for you.

For many of us, it's hard to stay positive when we've got assignments up to our eyeballs. For others, it isn't just hard — it feels wrong. And as it turns out, they are perfectly correct — optimism doesn't work for them.

It is stressful enough to try to juggle as many projects and goals as we do, but we add a layer of stress without realizing it when we try to reach them using strategies that don't feel right — that don't mesh with our own motivational style. So what's your motivational style, and is "staying positive" right for you?

Some people think of their jobs as opportunities for achievement and accomplishment — they have what psychologists call a promotion focus. In the language of economics, promotion focus is all about maximizing gains and avoiding missed opportunities. For others, doing a job well is about security, about not losing the positions they've worked so hard for. This prevention focus places the emphasis on avoiding danger, fulfilling responsibilities, and doing what feel you ought to do. In economic terms, it's about minimizing losses, trying to hang on to what you've got.

Understanding promotion and prevention motivation helps us understand why people can work so differently to reach the same goal. Promotion motivation feels like eagerness — the desire to really go for it — and this eagerness is sustained and enhanced by optimism. Believing that everything is going to work out great is essential for promotion-focused performance. Prevention motivation, on the other hand, feels like vigilance — the need to keep danger at bay — and it is sustained not by optimism, but by a kind of defensive pessimism. In other words, the prevention-minded actually work best when they think about what might go wrong, and what they can do to keep that from happening.

So, do you spend your life pursuing accomplishments and accolades, reaching for the stars? Or are you busy fulfilling your duties and responsibilities — being the person everyone can count on? Start by identifying your focus, and then embrace either the sunny outlook or the hearty skepticism that will reduce your stress and keep you performing at your best.

Put some or all of these strategies for fighting stress, and you will see real changes not only in the workplace, but in every area of your life. With the holidays around the corner, you might want to work on creating a few if-thens for dealing with the relatives, too. "If I'm about to lose my mind, then I'll have some more eggnog," works wonders for me.

The Disconnected Leader

By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

Even though few would dispute the value of being an engaged leader, many still do not practice what they preach. The harsh reality is great numbers of leaders continue to operate in a vacuum by sequestering themselves away in the corner office and attempting to lead from afar.  Trust me when I tell you that being out of touch is never a good position to find yourself in as the CEO. I rarely come across leaders who couldn’t benefit from being more meaningfully engaged on both a broader and deeper basis, and hope that today’s post will encourage you to do just that…ENGAGE.

I have consistently espoused the value of walking the floor (hat tip to Tom Peters –MBWA), dropping in for meetings on an impromptu basis, proactively engaging key stakeholders, and any number of other items that focus on raising your awareness. Don’t think span of control – think span of awareness.

My advice to CEOs, regardless of whether you’re running a start-up or a Fortune 500 company, is to go see things for yourself. I think you’ll find your view of the world will change dramatically when you validate impressions based upon your own observations, as opposed to sole reliance on what you read in a management report, or what you hear third or fourth hand in a meeting. Think about it… when you’re sitting in front of the board, on an analyst call, providing testimony, talking to the media, or speaking at the annual shareholder meeting, wouldn’t it be great to actually know what your talking about as opposed to interpreting what someone else has told you?

So the real question is this – how does a CEO get to the point of being so disconnected from operations that he or she just doesn’t have a clue? The reality is that there are any number of reasons why this can happen, a few of which I’ve noted below:

• The Optimistic CEO: I have met a number of CEOs that simply choose to view the world through rose colored glasses. They will believe what they want to believe regardless of what they hear or what they observe. Even in the worst of times they believe nothing to be insurmountable. While optimism is generally a great quality for a CEO to possess, there is a point at which unbridled optimism can disconnect a person from reality.
• The Arrogant CEO: These CEOs believe they can will their view into reality in spite of circumstances, situations, or events. The arrogant CEO doesn’t value the input of line and staff management. These CEOs see management opinions as inconsequential, unless of course, they happen to be in alignment with their own beliefs and opinions.
• The Unaware CEO: These CEO’s will take any report or piece of information at face value. These CEOs are overly trusting, and often politically naive. They fail to seek clarification, validation, or proof supporting the information they have been fed. This is a very unhealthy state of mind for a CEO hoping to survive over the long haul.
• The Fearful CEO: These chief executives hide in fear of making a mistake, revealing shortcomings or inadequacies, or in an attempt at managing perceptions. CEOs guided by fear often suffer from indecision and analysis paralysis. The worst thing about a fearful CEO, is that executives who refuse to make decisions and take risks will transfer that thinking to others within the organization. Leadership is a contagion – good or bad. Oddly enough, the biggest sign of a fearful leader is when a leader fails to engage. Leaders who avoid personal interaction, or shy away from social media for all the wrong reasons are likely fearful leaders.
• The Disconnected CEO: Unlike CEOs who understand how to leverage time and resources via delegation while remaining connected to management and staff, the disconnected CEO does just the opposite. They have reclusive tendencies which cause them to often completely abdicate responsibility and remain disconnected from management. Sticking one’s head in the sand will not make the circumstances of a particular situation go away, rather that type of thinking will likely on exacerbate the issue.

If you’re a CEO with clouded vision and desire to change the view from the top, it is critical that you maintain open lines of communication through a variety of channels and feedback loops. All good leaders maintain a connection and rapport with both line and staff. Furthermore, savvy CEOs are always working to refine their intuitive senses. A good CEO demands accountability and transparency. They challenge everything of consequence. They understand that acceptance of general statements and ambiguity, or blindness to hidden agendas will only contribute to limiting their vision.

If you’re a CEO and you haven’t personally spoken with your top customers, suppliers, vendors and partners, you’re doing yourself and your company a great injustice. If your CFO handles all communications with your banking relationships, and your Chief Investment Officer handles all of your investor relations, you’re flat out missing the boat. If your CMO is making all of your brand decisions there will be h*ll to pay down the road. Moreover, in today’s litigious and compliance oriented world where the CEO is no longer out of reach, it’s just plain smart to take a more hands on approach. Remember that there is a major difference between delegating and abdicating responsibility. I think President Reagan said it best: “trust but verify.”

Let me be very clear; I’m not suggesting that you become a micro manager or that you stop delegating, I’m simply suggesting you do the job the way it is supposed to be done. Great leaders champion from the front – they are not disengaged invisible executives. As the CEO you are the visionary, influencer, champion, defender, evangelist, and you must have a bias to action. You can be none of these things as a recluse.

Engaged leaders are very visible and very active leaders - they question, listen, assess and react. I can promise you one thing – leaders who don’t have a clear read on the pulse of the organization, won’t have a healty pulse for very long.

Thoughts?

13 Ways to Fix Your Worst Meetings

via @inc

Meetings get a bum rap, especially from Gen-Y founders. What are the youngest entrepreneurs actually doing behind closed conference doors?

 

Reza Estakhrian/Getty

The Young Entrepreneur Council asked 13 successful young entrepreneurs how they keep their start-up staff meetings lively and productive, week in and week out. Here are their best answers. 

1. Simply Stand Up

We have a daily standing meeting, during which each person is actually standing. The meeting typically lasts five or 10 minutes with everyone sharing their progress during the last 24 hours, goals for the next 24 hours, and any obstacles they have. We've found that we all get to the point faster when forced to stand rather than sit.
-- Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh Test Prep

2. Share Your Growth

Pitch a brighter future. Show your colleagues your company's current growth or share some current and future revenue projections. They will get excited and therefore be more productive and proud that they are part of something big.
-- Ak Kurji, Gennex Group

 

3. Prepare the Agenda in Advance

The worst meetings have two characteristics: no agenda and no objectives. Send a meeting agenda to attendees in advance of any meeting. Figure out what topics can be handled outside of the meeting, and also which ones merit more attention based on your team's replies. The benefit? Shorter meetings that provide everyone a sense of accomplishment.
-- Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
 

4. Focus on Focus

Figure out your key points for the meeting and discuss only those. It's amazing how quickly a group can get off topic. Don't silence off-the-wall, fun comments related to the topic at hand, but if someone has something important to say about an unrelated topic, let him or her know there is a time and place for that comment, and this isn't it.
-- Nick Friedman, College Hunks Hauling Junk

5. Stick to Short, Departmental Meetings

I believe in segmenting meetings into departments, and then limiting the meetings to only 30 minutes. Once a week, I spend the last part of the day in half-hour departmental meetings where I meet with each department. We discuss productivity and we define specific goals and agenda.
-- Chad French, PeerFly

6. Host Hangouts, Not Conference Calls

My company is all virtual--everyone works from their own home office al l around the country. To stay connected, we've started using Google+ Hangouts for our weekly team meetings. It's so much more engaging to be able to see everyone on video than just hear voices, and it ensures that everyone stays focused and isn't doing something else while they're pretending to listen!
-- Laura Roeder, LKR

7. Schedule Friday "Beer and Learns"

On Friday afternoons, we hold "Beer & Learns." The subjects include everything: company-wide feedback, focus groups for a new product build, client QA testing, or brainstorm sessions. It's a great way to stay lively and have fun, but still talk strategy.
-- Abby Ross, Blueye Creative

8. Be More Spontaneous

In a flat company structure, opting for more impromptu, rather than planned, meetings keeps things fun and interesting. Everyone gets a break from their current tasks to come together for a session, which can leave them feeling energized and empowered when they return to their work. In turn, this boosts team morale and increases productivity.
-- Nick Reese, Elite Health Blends

9. Blend in the Bonding

I always make it a point to incorporate a team activity into staff meetings. First, it motivates them to want to attend, and the meetings are more productive because of this. Second, it builds a stronger team. Another added benefit is that the meetings usually aren't filled with a bunch of useless discussions. My team wants to provide quality feedback and get the information they need in a short-period of time so they can move on to the fun stuff--we've incorporated picnics, bowling, and even sailing into meetings.
-- Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

10. Experiment With Schedules

One of the best things we've done with our weekly staff meeting was to change it from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. It completely changed the feel of the meeting because on Fridays, we were always talking about what had already happened that week. On Mondays, people were more forward focused and we talked about proactive plans for the week ahead, and we ended up being so much more prepared. This has led me to rethink the timing of several other weekly meetings we have, and increased productivity by a ton.
-- Caitlin McCabe, Real Bullets Branding

11. Determine Action Items

After discussing each item on your meeting agenda, identify action items, point people for those action items, and deadlines for completing those action items. Do this for every item on the agenda when you discuss it. That way, you leave the meeting with a whole new set of productive to-dos and clear direction for who is doing them and when they are getting them done by.
-- Stephanie Kaplan, Her Campus Media

12. Brainstorm With Structure--and Sweets

Set and agenda and stick to your stop time. Brainstorms always spark creativity and enthusiasm in our office. Establishing a framework for the brainstorm keeps them structured and productive. When in doubt, involving candy and good humor never hurts!
-- Melissa Kushner, goods for good

13. Why Meet at All?

We rarely have meetings at TalentEgg. I find that they generally create an unnecessary and unproductive structure around what should just be a quick chat (either virtually or in person). That being said, it's important to spend time together as a team, so every Friday, we have a "numbers and highlights" meeting at the end of the day. Each team member presents their key metric, and something exciting that happened in the week. After everyone is done, we easily roll into random chat about the weekend. It's a great way to get some face time, share important information, and wind down.
-- Lauren Friese, TalentEgg

Take a moment to pray

Along with everyone else in our nation, I was deeply saddened and sickened by the shooting in Connecticut.

Take a moment today to pray.  Consider the teachers, administrators and counselors around the country who will have to deal with questions from young students and concened parents.

My oldest daughter is a first grade teacher.  I am extremely proud of her work, commitment and love for her students.  But there is no way to not have an elevated fear when something like this happens.  Life is not something to be afraid of, but there are tragic realities.  

So hug your child a little tighter, speak a word of encouragement to those teaching our kids and pray for those affected, our children, our teachers and our country.

"I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have trouble and suffering, but have courage--I have conquered the world." John 16:33

Who do you talk to?

No. 1 Marketing Mistake You're Making

by James Archer via @inc

Marketers need to inject a bit of this into their efforts to catch the most customers.

When a company isn't catching enough fish (especially in a tough economy), the CEO's instinct is often to cast a wider net, hire more people to cast nets, or simply cast the net more frequently.

Unfortunately, they seldom consider the most obvious solution: mending the holes in those nets. They apply ever-increasing effort toward something that's just not going to work well because they're missing the real problem.

It's not really their fault, though: it's just a natural consequence of what got them to be CEOs in the first place.

You see, CEOs tend to be quick decision-makers. They're used to reviewing the observable facts of a situation and taking quick and decisive action. Of the four decision modes (Spontaneous, Humanistic, Methodical, and Competitive) they tend to be Competitive. And even if they don't start out that way, the tough realities of being a CEO usually push them in that direction over time.

This fast and logical decision-making style actually puts them at a disadvantage when dealing with consumers. Why? Because consumers typically don't shop like that.

In relatively affluent markets, such as the United States, consumers are driven less by rudimentary needs like features and benefits, and more by psychological needs like affiliation, aspiration, and identity. They make decisions based on the same motivations that many CEOs have actually spent years trying to discipline out of themselves so they could think clearly and be good CEOs.

We all know the companies that consumers get excited about and love to evangelize: Apple, Zappos, Harley-Davidson, etc. These are companies that understand the emotional side of the equation, and build it into their business strategies. From the top down, they acknowledge and embrace how their customers really think, and design their business strategies around it.

On the other hand, a typical small- or medium-sized business does a relatively poor job of this. Because the CEOs are competitive-minded, they try to solve their marketing problem with quantity (hits, clicks, likes, impressions, followers) instead of quality (emotion, inspiration, connection, identity, affiliation). They develop metric-lust, and pursue tactics that fit nicely into a spreadsheet, but aren't really acknowledging the reality of the customer's conscious and sub-conscious behavior.

The result, unfortunately, is an experience that fails to keep the customer around. She sees it, shrugs, and quickly forgets. The short-term marketing tactics get her into the net, but she slips right through the big hole in the bottom.

(If you don't believe me, go check your web stats to see how little time people are spending on your site, how few pages they're visiting, and how many aren't turning into customers.)

To mend your net, you have to create an emotional experience that's so sticky, so engaging, so compelling that they don't want to leave. To compete in a tough market, you have to make your customers feel something.

(And here's a pro tip: your corporate vision statement and generic corporate valuesabout quality, service, integrity, etc., unfortunately won't do it.)

Once you've designed an emotion-focused experience for your customers, your sales and marketing dollars will go further than they ever have before. One dip of the net will land you hundreds of fish, instead of the few you're catching now. Only then does it really make sense to ramp up your net-casting efforts.

You'll have to get out of your comfort zone to do it, though. You can't solve this problem sitting at your desk staring at a spreadsheet, trying to find the logical answer. Go talk to your customers. Figure out what's frustrating them. Learn what gets them excited. And work with your team to brainstorm ways to add layers of real emotion to your business.

Try mending those nets, and see what happens. You'll be glad you did!

Growing Your Business Using Search Marketing

Tuesday, December 11, 2012 from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM (CST) in San Antonio

The growth of online advertising has changed the competitive landscape of business. The days of simply running a Yellow Pages ad or placing ads in newspapers have been replaced by Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. How does your business leverage this new technology? How can you compete in search marketing, local online advertising and ensure your customers find your business?

Ryan Kelly's presentation, "Growing Your Business Using Search Marketing" will answer these questions. You will gain the following insights:

• Get an overview of search marketing basics
• Learn the difference between pay per click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO)
• Gain insights into Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook to promote your business
• Find out how to spy on your competitors and learn about their online activities
• Understand ways to measure the results of your advertising dollars, make every dollar count
• Meet other local CEO's and business owners and enjoy a great networking opportunity

• Bring your online advertising questions for Ryan and take advantage of Q&A time

  Visit tomcuthbert.eventbrite.com to regitster.  
  Email me at tom dot cuthbert at vistage dot com to request the registration password.

5 Ways Leaders Must Build a Family Environment to Achieve Excellence

by Glenn Llopis via @forbes

At a time when organizations are looking for new ways to build high-performance teams, perhaps they should be considering a family approach to business that emphasizes trust and values.  A team work environment where camaraderie means having each other’s back and not judging one another.   A workplace culture that celebrates opportunities, transparency, and  the opinions of all to enrich conversations and diversity of thought.

According to a McKinsey report, one-third of all companies in the S&P 500 index are family-controlled, and many are outperforming their competitors.    A study at Texas A&M further reveals that family-owned businesses beat other firms in revenue and employment growth and have a longer-term view of investment; they’re more stable, and inspire more trust and commitment in their employees.  In fact, the top 10 family-owned businesses – including MARS, Ford, Walmart, Cargill and Koch Industries – collectively generate annual revenues of one trillion dollars.

The success of family-owned businesses runs much deeper during turbulent times.  Because family-owned companies tend to take a much more conservative approach to debt, leverage becomes an advantage.  As noted in the McKinsey report, average family businesses in the U.S. and Western Europe had a debt-to-equity ratio of only 25 percent going into the financial crisis of 2008, compared with 40 percent for non-family firms.

There is clearly something to say about running a business with a family approach.   Not all of them are perfect, but that is not the point. Taking a family approach means establishing a foundation of trust and a cultural promise to unite as one; to perform with purpose and the healthier whole in mind.   In the end, it’s about leadership and the ability to manage the moving parts and sustain momentum.

Here are five ways a leader can build a family environment to achieve excellence in the workplace:

1.     Give Your Team a Sense of Ownership

Too many times, leaders demand that their employees just “do” what they say – and thus don’t give them a sense of belonging to a team.   At a time when employees want to be a part of something meaningful, leaders need to spread the wealth of ownership and with it the responsibility – i.e., apply more accountability to performance.

To build a family environment, make everyone on the team feel as if they are a “board member” in your department.  Establish boundaries, but elevate their sense of purpose. 

2.     Everyone Must Protect One Another

Lead with kindness and intention.   Leadership by fear limits the growth of your employees and the opportunities for achievement.   Treat your employees like family.   Have each other’s back and always help one another improve; talent discovered and used in the right situations can seize opportunities rightly. 

3.     Instill Values to Enable a Trusted Culture

When you can define the standards of performance based on  an understanding of what you, the department and / or the company stands for – it is much easier to establish expectations.   These expectations should be based on a set of core values that everyone can embrace in order to build a trusted culture that is fair with no surprises.   Your team  will operate most efficiently with a clean state of mind knowing that their momentum will not be disrupted with “political road-blocks.” An uninterrupted game plan  means they can focus on results.

4.     Encourage People to Speak-up

Enable people to express their voice and allow their perspectives to be heard.   People shouldn’t feel that they require permission to express their opinions.   The goal is to activate the team, not restrict their participation.   The more people you get involved in the conversation, the more you can benefit from a family environment that embraces differences.    This builds loyalty, grows confidence and solidifies a foundation of trust.    Additionally, the expression of multiple voices allows for the discovery of opportunities previously unseen.

5.     Develop a Succession Plan 

Everyone on the team should be aware of their succession plan.  Be clear in establishing a road-map to get employees excited about the next stage of their careers.  Be transparent with everyone’s plan and allow others to participate in the plan.  With everyone pulling for one another’s success in this family environment, it eliminates traps and cultivates a culture of winning.

Leaders require maturity and trust in themselves to build a family environment.  Those businesses that fail typically are a result of envy, lack of trust and /or  an inability to work together.   Those leaders who can successfully build a family environment in their department will not only achieve more in the short term, but will build a foundation of hard work, determination and perseverance for the long run.

CEOs Don’t Come Pre-Made, Authentic Leadership Has To Be Learned

by Scott Weiss via @techcrunch

“There are a bunch of aggressive, ivy-league-educated, high IQ people working in Bentonville whose careers are going nowhere because they never learned how to connect with other people.” — Lee Scott, (now former) CEO of Walmart, circa 2008

During my short tenure at Cisco, I attended a leadership offsite where Lee Scott was the featured speaker. I certainly knew of Walmart but had never heard of Lee before this meeting. He humbly delivered a powerful hour-long speech on leadership ­­­— without notes or slides, as he paced the stage, hands in pockets. While I’ve heard a lot of leaders speak, I’ve never come away more impressed with how the delivery matched the content.

What struck me the most? That authenticity and humility lead to trust. Trust leads to approachability and open communications. And after listening to Lee for just an hour, he felt familiar and approachable. Honest and fallible. He definitely knew how to be authentic. For others, this may not come so easily.

At the core, coaching authenticity is complicated ­— some might say impossible. Telling someone to be authentic sounds pretty low calorie, especially to a founder plowing through a list of product and operational goals. But it’s important. An approachable and authentic CEO is essential to fostering a high-performance, open communications culture.

About the clearest discussion I’ve seen on authenticity is a paragraph in Jack Welch’s book,Winning:

A person cannot make hard decisions, hold unpopular positions, or stand tall for what he believes unless he knows who he is and feels comfortable in his own skin. I am talking about self-confidence and conviction. These traits make a leader bold and decisive, which is absolutely critical in times where you must act quickly, often without complete information. Just as important, authenticity makes a leader likeable, for lack of a better word. Their realness comes across in the way they communicate and reach people on an emotional level. Their words move them; their message touches something inside. When I was at GE, we would occasionally encounter a very successful executive who just could not be promoted to the next level. In the early days, we would struggle with our reasoning. The person demonstrated the right values and made the numbers, but usually his people did not connect with him. What was wrong? Finally, we figured out that these people always had a certain phoniness about them. They pretended to be something they were not ­­­— more in control, more upbeat, more savvy than they really were. They didn’t sweat. They didn’t cry. They squirmed in their own skin, playing a role of their own inventing. A leader in times of crisis can’t have an iota of fakeness in him. He has to know himself­­ ­— and like himself ­­­— so that he can be straight with the world, energize followers, and lead with the authority born of authenticity.

He absolutely nails it. The passage clearly illuminates the issue, though stops short of giving practical advice. I am often asked by founders and CEOs how to be more approachable or make a personal connection. And of course, while being authentic means something different to everyone — here are a few ways one could start:

Get self-aware. As I mentioned in a previous post (Treating the Dysfunctional CEO), all leaders need feedback. Having an understanding of how others perceive you — through a solid 360-review process — is the crucial first step towards being real. Learn and accept your foibles and faults. Poke fun and work on them out in the open. “I’ll try to keep this short, I know I can be long winded…” etc.

Talk about failures. Nothing helps make a leader more approachable than admitting your struggles, screw-ups and behind-the-scenes thinking on hard calls. If the leader makes this a priority, the whole company will be more open and methodical learning from failure. At IronPort, we used to go through exhaustive post-mortems: customer losses, engineering slips, and misplaced strategies.

Show up to socialize. Have a beer bust on Friday afternoons. Take a team to lunch. Drop in on a late-night networked video game war. (As a newbie, I was slaughtered pretty quickly). Especially if you are naturally an introvert, you must go out of your way to socialize with your team.

Embrace “professional intimacy.” I love this phrase. It describes a leader’s willingness to get personal and talk about life at home or their own career struggles. E.g. “My wife once threw my Blackberry in the toilet… It’s essential to be able to balance home and work before it blows up.”

Nix multi-task listening. It’s one thing to ask someone what they are working on and another to really tune in, give them your full attention and ask follow-up questions. I constantly see bad behavior with executives checking their watch or texts, or looking over a shoulder to see who else is in the room. That’s just phony crap.

Loosen up! This is really about speaking to others as though you really trust them with your thoughts vs. reverting to canned responses or the “company line.” Leaders that can explore the poles of an issue in their own words and off the cuff with employees will gain real trust. This is especially true during all-hands company meetings.

Get good at speaking. As a CEO, if you are a nervous public speaker, you need to practice. Find a coach, do some videotaping and/or try Toastmasters. The goal is to have a marathoner’s heartbeat when speaking to a crowd so as to be natural and comfortable.

Embrace different views. Encourage employees to challenge your decisions and approach. Let everyone know that you are not perfect, you don’t always have the best answer, and sometimes they have better answers.  In some cases, you will get good ideas too. You are obviously the decision maker but embracing different views will improve openness. (Thanks to Yoram at Maxta for this suggestion!)

I leave you with two examples:

Alec Baldwin’s parody of a GE exec on “30 Rock” comes to mind. Yet for all that’s been said, good and bad, about GE…the company does actually have an enduring, high-performing culture for a reason.

And secondly, from what I understand, Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, is the embodiment of an authentic leader. He would fly around and hold informal meetings with groups of employees that would yield all kinds of new innovations.

It’s leaders like Herb and the execs at GE – whom employees actually trust – that inspire ideas, push back, and foster tremendous loyalty.

Scott Weiss is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and the former co-founder and CEO of IronPort Systems, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007. Follow him on his blog or on Twitter. 

What’s All the Fuss About Evernote? Should I Be Using It?

I absolutely love Evernote!  Here is an excellent post from Lifehacker with reasons you too should be using Evernote...

by  Melanie Pinola

Dear Lifehacker,
It seems like everyone is always raving about Evernote, but I don't really understand its appeal. Isn't it just a notes app that other apps do better or simpler? What's makes Evernote so great?

Signed,
Just don't get it

Dear Just,
You're not alone. I think the world might be divided into two groups: Those who love Evernote and those who don't (or, at least, don't understand why so many people love Evernote). Evernote is a cross-platform app that serves many purposes—it can be your digital file cabinet, note-taking tool, daily journal, task or project management system, recipe-keeper, and more. Because it has so many uses and different features, Evernote can both appeal to a lot of people and feel like overkill to others. (Our own Adam Pash has written about why he can't get into apps like Evernote because he prefers apps that do just one thing well.)

Although few other Lifehacker editors use the app, many How I Work guests and Lifehacker readers also love (and I meanlove) Evernote. Heck, I use it myself. We asked our Evernote fans why they loved it so much, and here's what they said.

It's a Universal Inbox: Store Anything You Can Imagine in One Place

Evernote integrates with just about everything. It has browser extensions that allow you to save a web page—in its entirety—in one click for future reference. A dedicated Evernote email address lets you forward emails, tweets, or any other type of content to any of your Evernote notebooks. Also, IFTTT (If This Then That) support means you can automatically send content from other services (e.g., Gmail or Google Reader or Pocket) to your Evernote account. If nothing else, you could use Evernote to archive your digital life.

Evernote can thus serve are your "everything" inbox. Thanks to its cross-platform support (desktop apps, web apps, mobile apps) you really can offload all of your reference materials, ideas, to do tasks, or other digital items to Evernote and never worry about where you've collected all those random bits of information. It's one container to store them all. Evernote's search is good enough that you can retrieve all those docs quickly, but it also has great notebook and tagging organization (more on that in a bit) that really make it stand out.

Jay G. says:

I use Evernote for EVERYTHING. I use it for my daily journal. I use it with IFTTT to save all starred items in Google Reader to save interesting articles for future reference. I scan all donation and other important receipts by scanning and emailing. I use it to organize projects with quotes, ideas, snippets from the web, and typed notes. I use it to store all digital manuals and instructions for various electronics around the home. I also use it to save favorite tweets (again with IFTTT). I use it to store teaching notes, discussion ideas, etc. I use it to reference personal documents, contracts, medical documents, etc.

That's just off the top of my head, but these would be the most common uses. I am a Pastor of a church and I find this tool indispensable.

Chris K. writes:

I use Evernote every day. I'm a consultant and often meet with clients to discuss designs. It may be weeks or months in between meetings. Evernote makes it easy to catch right back up where we left off. By synching between my MAC and my Droid I can even get caught up while I'm waiting in the lobby 5 minutes before a meeting. And I can share the notes with my peers.

Basically, you can dump everything in there—from written or typed notes to photo snapshots or videos to voice recordings—and count on retrieving them later either with the reliable search or your own tagging/notebook organization.

It's Digitizes Your Physical Notes and Backs Them Up in The Cloud

Because of its multi-platform support and OCR feature, Evernote also helps people who just want to go paperless. Mike U. says:

I can answer it simply that it helps the unorganized get organized.
Being an Evernote premium subscriber, I use the additional upload capacity to scan receipts, bills and letters, share household notebooks with my spouse, scan our kids artwork and tag it with date/event/grade. Additionally, I use it as a repository for documentation (read:work) in searchable PDF format.
It is totally the one tool I use every day multiple times a day.

There has been numerous times I've been on a call and needed something like insurance information, and it was easily retrieved, because everything goes into Evernote.

Evernote can quickly turn photos and scanned pics into notes—and also decipher the text in those photos. (The Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine is a nice marriage of the analog and digital.)

It's Great for Task/GTD Management

Productivity consultant Daniel Gold says he uses Evernote as a "life management tool":

It allows me to leverage it as a document management tool to incubate all my reference related materials (both scanned papers and electronic) with my action items. With note linking, I can connect the dots between tasks and reference items. Add in saved searches and I can quickly filter through projects and tasks to focus on what must absolutely go right in order for me to be more productive & successful.

Even though Evernote lacks the typical trappings of a to-do list manager (e.g., reminders and checkboxes), it can be a worthy replacement if you set up a system for using it.

Full size

Evernote templates make it easy to turn Evernote into a project/GTD tool, but perhaps the most thorough GTD Evernote system is previously mentioned The Secret Weapon. TSW takes advantage of some of Evernote's unique features: multiple tags selection (e.g., quickly find: ".Active Project," "2-Next," "@Work") and email integration.

Whether you use a structure like The Secret Weapon with Evernote, Evernote could manage your tasks and projects, thanks to the easy email integration, tagging capabilities, and also notebook sharing (for collaborative project management).

It Rocks for Note-Taking, Whether Simple or Detailed

A lot of people also use Evernote as a note-taking tool and for studying or reading. The app has built-in audio capture support and integrates with tools like the LiveScribe digital pen (great for students and constant meeting attendees).

Personally, I find the note-taking to be a bit slow and cumbersome on Evernote. If I want to just quickly jot a note down, it's not the best tool for the job (except for the fact that it's a great universal inbox, as above). I think this sort of dissatisfaction with easy note-taking and syncing is why a lot of Lifehacker editors have resorted to simpler solutions like using plain text files and Dropbox. (I'm defaulting to index cards.)

Still, Lifehacker reader feedback suggests many of you are also using Evernote not just as a digital file cabinet but as a digital notebooks or notepads. Nathan A., a graduate research student in chemistry at the University of York (UK), uses Evernote as an electronic lab notebook:

Each experiment I do has a dedicated note for it, and on the note I note down the COSHH/risk assessment information, safety procedures, procedures and any references I've used. ... After the experiment, I copy up my observations, measurements etc from the lab book into the Note. This is great as it means I can write my reports with full access to my notes, and easily share a copy with my Academic or the rest of the research group.

It might sound a little laborious, but it ensures a contaminant-free 'paper trail' and it makes writing reports up a whole lot easier.

Matthew B. uses it to quickly note milestones in his son's life. And Zef C. uses Evernote to jot down recipe ingredients.

Many readers said they liked Evernote's ability to not only sync across all devices and organize with tags, but preserve the note creation date. And Grad student Andy K. says Evernote comes in handy when you have to compile multiple media formats into one cohesive format. (Also, did we mention it was free for all this multimedia archiving/recording goodness?)

It Works as a Digital Reference System, Great for Research Work or Archiving Material

I use Evernote as a digital file cabinet and also as a place to offload and organize ideas. The web clipping browser extension works really well (although sometimes it makes me wait longer than I want to). Instead of saving just the URL, like Springpad does, Evernote saves the full article and the URL—which is great for reference purposes. With multiple tags selection and the ability to link notes together, Evernote is the ultimate reference system. As frequent Lifehacker contributor Shep McAllister says, it's great for doing research and highlighting how different things are connected.

It Allows for Multiple Special Notebooks

You could put Evernote to any task that involves archiving, journaling, or otherwise recording information.

Adam R. says:

Evernote is perfect for a beer drinking history of the different microbrews I have had. I include pictures of each bottle or glass of beer along with tasting notes for each one.

I also use it for work items I need with me everywhere I go, including IP addresses, network ID's and server names. Easily searchable and hasn't failed me yet.

Others use Evernote to preserve their:

• Meeting notes
• Client/project notes
• Home contractor phone numbers
• Songs (chords, tablature, etc.)
• Technical knowledgebase
• Travel plans
• Motivational quotes
• Usernames and passwords (I might think twice about that)
• Recipes
• Important (e.g., kids' medical) documents
• Bucket list

There are many other ways to record information, but perhaps really none as feature-rich and universally accessible as Evernote. There are tons of plugins for Evernote too, so you can pretty much mold it to your exact needs.

Those are the main reasons/ways all of us are using Evernote. It's not without its flaws (Alexio R. has a love/hate relationship with the app because of its automatic formatting), but it's like the Swiss Army knife of capture tools.

Love,
Lifehacker

Thanks to everyone who chimed in about their Evernote use!

The Best Business Books of 2012

These 12 books have shaped not only the way we work this year, but how we think and the conversations we're having. Authored by luminaries like Nate Silver, Clay Christensen, and Susan Cain, these delightful-to-read tomes offer insight into the power of vulnerability, habit, social media, and more.

1. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
In Quiet, author Susan Cain argues that introverts are a reservoir of untapped talent--and that progressive managers can create environments in which they thrive.

“Any time people come together in a meeting, we’re not necessarily getting the best ideas," she tells Fast Company, "we’re just getting the ideas of the best talkers.”

Amazon, $15.20.

2. How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth and Karen Dillon
As the author of the disruption-defining Innovator’s Dilemma, Clay Christensen is one of the most esteemed minds in business. In How Will You Measure Your Life?, he and coauthors James Allworth and Karen Dillon investigate what it means to have a fulfilling career, and finds that it is both a focused and open process.

"I believe that we can, in a deliberate way, articulate the kind of people we want to become," he says. "As the rest of life happens to you, you can utilize those things to help you become the kind of person you want to be."

Amazon, $15.98.

3. Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours, by Robert Pozen
Bob Pozen once simultaneously served as president of Fidelity Management, lectured full-time at Harvard Business School, and wrote for the Harvard Business Review--meaning that he’s earned the right to write a book called Extreme Productivity.

"If you want an active schedule," he tells us in an interview about turning career plans into daily actions, "you have to husband your time so you can act on the things that are important."

Amazon, $15.97.

4. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail--but Some Don't, by Nate Silver

Nate Silver has become a bespectacled icon for his prediction prowess--as you might of heard, he called every state of the presidential election (and pulled 20+ percent of the New York Times’ web traffic on election night). But as he observes in The Signal and the Noise, we as a culture have grown forecast obsessed--something all businesses would do well to be aware of.

"We need to stop and admit it: we have a prediction problem," he writes. "We love to predict things--and we aren't very good at it."

Amazon, $16.35.

5. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, by Brené Brown

There's a myth about how entrepreneurs have to be invulnerable. Brené Brown will have none of it.

“If you are alive and in relationship, you do vulnerability,” she tells us. “If you are alive and in relationship and in business, you do it hourly.”

Amazon, $14.72.

6. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explores how habits shape our lives--and how savvy businesses can shape them.

Febreeze, for instance, flopped when it launched as an odor killer, because, as Duhigg says, "the people who needed it, who lived with nine cats, had adapted to (it).” After noticing that people look proud after making their beds--a habit to capitalize on--P&G rebranded the spray as a post-cleaning reward, one that now makes $1 billion a year.

Amazon, $15.88

7. Renegades Write the Rules: How the Digital Royalty Use Social Media to Innovate, by Amy Jo Martin

Amy Jo Martin shares her story on how she got the Rock to become a social media machine in Renegades Write the Rules. In our excerpt she argues for why you need to share your life with your followers--whether you're an an action star or an entrepreneur.

"With more than a billion people using these communication channels," she writes, "you can't afford not to have an active role in the conversation."

Amazon, $15.81

8. Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck: What It Takes to Be an Entrepreneur and Build a Great Business, by Anthony K. Tjan, Richard J. Harrington, Tsun-Yan Hsieh

Business takes courage, observe the authors--but don’t confuse courage with fearlessness.

“Guts-driven entrepreneurs aren’t fearless,” they write in our excerpt, “They just know how to cope with, and maybe even thrive in, uncomfortable environments.”

Amazon, $14.75

9. The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World, by Frans Johansson

In every great career, Frans Johansson writes in The Click Moment, there's a time when talent and luck intersect in a fit of business serendipity.

"If you scratch underneath the glossy exterior of success stories, you're actually going to find that behind those things you're going to find an unexpected meeting, a surprising insight, and that's what's behind most success," he tells us. "It follows then that we should court those types of things."

Amazon, $15.85

10. Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, by Frank Partnoy

When making decisions, Frank Partnoy observes in Wait, you need to be able to understand whether you're operating at a Twitter or glacial pace--two contexts that might be happening simultaneously.

"What really good leaders are able to do is inspire the rest of the team by their knowledge of the granular," Partnoy says, "but also be able to step back from the granular and put together the tectonic pieces that need to be placed together."

Amazon, $16.49

11. The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

Thirty years of research into leadership yields impressive results--like The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, now in its fifth edition. Culled from decades of asking leaders what they're doing when they're in top form, the authors distill leadership to its essence.

"Leaders accept and act on the paradox of power," they write. "You become more powerful when you give your own power away."

Amazon, $19.38

12. 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, by Nilofer Merchant

Social media is a game changer, yes, but it's only part of the larger shift of the Social Era, writes Nilofer Merchant. In our excerpt from 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era, Nilofer sketches out the new paradigm's core principles.

What's at the center of the social era? Connections. "If the industrial era was about building things, the social era is about connecting things, people, and ideas," she writes. "Networks of connected people with shared interests and goals create ways that can produce returns for any company that serves their needs."

Amazon, $3.03

One of the Best Ways to Jumpstart Your Company’s Growth

by Chas Klivans 

Most business observers agree that as a company grows it hits speed-bumps at revenue levels of $5 million, $10 million, $20 million, and $50 million. They also generally agree that most Founders, CEOs, or General Managers fail in their well-meaning efforts to take their companies over these hurdles.

The two conventional approaches to solving this speed bump problem are based on a paradigm that inadvertently solves only 50% of the problem. No wonder getting past it is so difficult. Pure business types will argue that this common phenomenon is rooted in weak departments such as R&D, sales, production, purchasing, or financial control. Organization development thought leaders, on the other hand, ascribe it to sub-standard people management originating in B-level executive talent, compensation plans, or culture. These two traditional approaches usually fall short because CEOs leading real world companies need a unified real world business solution focused on both achieving profit and sales plus organizing people to work better together.

Does Your Company Have Some of These Symptoms?

Recently an Owner, Founder, CEO, and President communicated the following about their respective organization:

• At a $20 million distributor of automobile parts, the eight top managers reported directly to the Owner and he alone knew costs, gross margin, and profitability of the company. Management meetings with all the executives were not held.
• In a $10 million regional residential plumbing repair and maintenance business, the six senior managers reported to the Founder, he alone knew the financials, and he was head of the Purchasing Department. This Founder held occasional town hall meetings but when observed he controlled the sessions with a tight fist.
• In a $4.5 million job shop for the military, the CEO did all the customer bids, all the selling, all the purchasing, and regularly drove unfinished parts to outside contractors for deburring and plating in his own car. This CEO called a managers meeting only during a crisis and then was not present, but had his Office Manager run the meeting.
• In a $50 million company the seven top executives reported to the President. He was also the Sales Manager and Chief Financial Officer. Management meetings were held only when sales were down and during them the President was observed tapping into his Blackberry the entire meeting, even though he sat at the head of the table and led each meeting.

The common thread was that all of these top executives reported they were stuck at one of these revenue speed bumps. These leaders said they had tried everything they could think of, they all felt they had hit the wall. However, all of them still acted like start-up CEOs who got involved in virtually every detail of running the company. I know the fear that results in holding onto this start-up mode of single-handedly pushing the business, because I have done it myself. We are all human.

Going Through the Toll-Gate

Most top leaders need to go through a metaphorical “toll-gate” to successfully navigate the $5 million to $50 million speed bumps which every company faces. The Founder, CEO, or General Manager needs the courage to let go of the familiar cherished leadership style he used to get his start-up company off the ground: pushing it forward mostly by himself.

Starting at the first speed bump of $5 million in revenue and more so with each consecutive speed bump, the daily leadership power dynamic must migrate from inside the CEO’s head to inside the heads of each internal leader. The craft of making a small company into a large company is that the leadership style of the Owner or General Manager evolves from solo pushing to the management team collectively pulling the company forward. In addition, this key ingredient boosts the valuation price strategic and financial buyers will pay for a business, because they know the operations can survive without the top leader.

The CEO needs to shift his thinking so he trusts himself to let go of controlling every part of the business and pivots to the role of larger company CEOs, who understand that their daily responsibility is managing the managers and not being a department head. Unless this power dynamic emerges, executives on the senior team will remain undermanaged and the CEO will continue to hold back company growth.

How to Operationalize Making Your Company Larger

The craft of how the CEO transitions from pushing the business forward to the management team pulling the firm forward includes many components. One important tool, described below, is to look at a company’s infrastructure from four different levels.

At the 20,000 foot level invite superior operating women and men who have spines of steel (that is who built sales and profits at a minimum two to three times the size of your company) and big hearts to look over your shoulder and guide you. This is not something to be learned from a book or lecture. Be prepared to take a highly respectful beating as they observe how you run the business. With great love (in a professional business sense) they will correctly tell you where to go with the company and, equally important, where not to go. They will also keep your management team out of denial.

At the 10,000 foot level, conduct a regular quarterly town hall meeting where everybody in the company gets together. This is a very successful practice even in several billion dollar NYSE companies. Place it on the company calendar so employees expect it. At this meeting, show the attendees the company’s financials and key operating metrics, good, bad, and ugly. They already have an instinctual feel for the numbers so harness this knowledge to your advantage. If concerned with confidentiality, have employees sign a confidentiality statement if they didn’t already do so when they received their employee handbook. For the next quarter, determine five items the team will focus on doing, communicate those items in a written memorandum to all employees, and at the end of each quarter grade yourselves on performance.

At the 5,000 foot level the whole leadership team gets together for a weekly managers meeting to review the prior week’s successes and failures and to set priorities for the coming week. If you are looking for what speeds up the sales and profit engine the most in a business, this is it. If leaders need to travel that week, make it mandatory that they participate by phone or Skype. The ones that resist the most need the meeting the most. Try to keep the meeting to one hour. Most firms hold it on Monday morning.

At ground level, the executive team conducts a daily huddle to review the day’s priorities and deal with any fires that need immediate attention. Hold this meeting first thing in the morning and keep it to half an hour. Just holding this meeting will help you do your job as a larger company CEO, because larger company CEOs do not want secrets and surprises. If you are making a lot of changes or have difficult challenges, your people can feel beaten down. In this case, start the meeting with one piece of good news. If someone is a negative Nancy and says, “I can’t think of any good news,” tell them, “No, you’ve got to come up with some good news.”

This has one other advantage. Most companies have a lot to worry about. It is easy to focus on the fact that you or one of your executives is not where you want them to be. At this meeting, take a moment to celebrate small wins in the business so the atmosphere remains more upbeat than it would otherwise be. Many CEOs are so focused on where they need to go that they do not have the fun they need along the way.

Conclusion

By the time your business has reached $4 to 5 million in revenue it is already too large for you to steer it by yourself and for you to be the sole source of innovation. The power dynamic in your leadership style as the Founder, President, or General Manager needs to change for the organization to grow from a small- or medium-size business into a larger company. This secret sauce enables you to scale up to a larger, more complex enterprise with more moving parts, which need to operate in unison in order to achieve greater wealth creation. The more information you share, the more power the team will have to steer the business with you.

If this is not done, you will drive your management team crazy because the leadership style that worked well for you as a smaller company CEO now hurts your ability to function as a larger company CEO.

Ask yourself this question, “Are you pushing, when your management team needs to be pulling?”

A Great Leader's Year-end Checklist

 by Les McKeown via @inc

The year is almost over. Great leaders know how to tie up loose ends and make sure their employees are happy and ready to move forward.

Salespeople live and die by the annual review. Auditors have built an entire industry around it. For the next month, print and television media will pour out gallons of coverage of the past year in review...

And yet, as leaders we often move from one year to the next with little or no time spent reviewing the year just past from a purely leadership perspective. To help counter that, here's my five-point year-end leadership checklist:
 

 1. Manage the narrative. Every business, division, department, project, group or team ends the year with an often unspoken (but widely accepted) narrative:

-"We blew it."

-"We nailed it."

-"Our customer service team let us down."

-"The first three quarters sucked but the fourth wasn't too bad."

Your mileage will vary. As the leader, it's your job to understand what narrative has taken hold in your team, and to manage it accordingly. 

This isn't the same as PR or spin. Managing the narrative isn't about manipulating what people think, it's about knowing what has taken root in your team's perception and helping the team members understand its importance.

So--as this year closes, what narrative has your group or team subliminally adopted? How accurate is it? Do you need to amplify or clarify any of it? Does it need to be discussed as a group? What lessons can you all learn from the narrative?
 

2. Straighten the angels. Next week, we'll put up the Christmas tree in our house, and as always, the final thing we'll do is to straighten the angel at the top.

Whether you've had your best year ever or the worst year imaginable, some--probably all--of your top performers will have been bent out of shape getting you through it. 

Some of them will have developed less than helpful traits - of arrogance perhaps, or gruffness, or maybe just thoughtlessness. Some will be harboring grudges, or feeling hurt or confused. Others may have been blindsided by events and are finishing the year off their game. One or two may simply be exhausted.

They're your angels. You're their leader. You need to go straighten them out.
 

3. Cull. In the course of any year there's a whole bunch of individual and group dynamics which lose efficacy, and which only you can untether. Practices that have become outdated; policies that no longer work; routines, rituals and habits that now just get in the way; meetings that have lost their purpose.

Ask for nominations of less-than-useful activities from your team, but make the final decision yourself - and make everyone's life simpler by culling those that truly yield no ongoing benefit.  
 

4. Restock. During the year you and your team will undoubtedly have used up one or more of the staples of healthy group interaction: energy, perhaps, or enthusiasm. Maybe as a team you've lost a sense of fun, or maybe you've run short on objectivity or perspective.

Take a moment and think about it. Again, take soundings from your colleagues. One way or another, you don't want to start the new year with one or more of those staples missing from your team's pantry. 

When you've identified which is missing, or has run down to dangerously low levels, think through how to restock in the next 30 days--can you theme the holiday retreat, or your end of year address accordingly? Do you need to give your folks some mentoring, or coaching, or training; or just a rest, or a new perspective?
 

5. Center yourself. Finally, what about you? How have you changed as a leader this year? 

Draw a line down the center of a page, and list on one column your defining characteristics at the start of the year, and on the other, your defining characteristics at the end of the year. How do the two lists differ, if at all?
Ask someone who knows you well to repeat the exercise, from their perspective of you. How similar is their list to yours? 

As you look at the two lists, which characteristic of yours most helped your group or team this year? Which characteristic caused the most trouble? (When you've decided, ask your team if they agree--you may be surprised by how differently they view which characteristics are your strong points and which are weaknesses.)  

Next year, how can you do more of the first characteristic, and less of the second?

The 20-Minute Exercise To Eradicate Negative Thinking

BY KAIHAN KRIPPENDORFF via@fastcompany

Belief is contagious. It wins supporters. It’s self-fulfilling. Here's how to get there when nagging, negative thoughts are holding you back.

After a flurry of emails in response to my blog post on passion, I reached a disheartening realization: Passion is useless if you don’t already believe.

You see, what we can achieve is limited by what we believe. Henry Ford knew this: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.”

So here I was, passionately committed to become the world-class business guru, best-selling author, the speaker who fills stadiums. And yet there was voice telling me, “You can’t do it. Keep trying, trying is fun, but in the end you will fail.”

You’ve probably heard that voice as well.

I’m making progress--my book sales are accelerating, my keynote audiences are growing, and I’m sharing the stage with people like Jack Welch and Robin Sharma--but in the back of my mind the voice pulls the reins: “You can’t do it.”

Great “outthinkers” seem to overcome this voice. Their belief matches their passion. Napoleon believed he was the greatest general of his time and so he was. Steve Jobs believed his people could achieve the impossible, so they did. Richard Branson believed he could win against British Airways, and so he won, even though every airline that tried over the prior three decades failed.

Belief is contagious. It wins supporters. It’s self-fulfilling. As Harvard professor Rosebeth Moss Kanter shows in her book Confidence, the belief you can win creates momentum which improves your chances of winning.

So what do you do when you don’t believe?

Over the past four weeks, I’ve studied books and articles, interviewed entrepreneurs and experts, then assembled it all for you in a simple framework with which you can systematically attack whatever belief is holding you down. Give me 20 minutes. This works.

Fundamentals

1. Beliefs aren’t real. They are mental maps, abstractions of reality, that help us predict a complex world. My son believes good batteries must be cold because I keep ours in the freezer. He believes Santa Claus rides a sleigh.

2. Four anchors form our beliefs (For more, read Why We Believe What We Believe by Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman). 

• Evidence: Something happens (e.g., gifts appear one morning and my mom says they are from Santa Claus)
• Logic: It makes sense, more specifically, it is consistent with our other beliefs (e.g., gifts can’t just appear out of nowhere, my mom and dad were asleep...it must have been Santa)
• Emotion: Strong emotional associations (a 3-year-old’s joy at getting a new choo choo) embed beliefs more indelibly
• Social consensus: We believe more deeply if others believe too (e.g., Maria and Nico and Sofia all say Santa brought them gifts too)

3. We reject what doesn’t fit. Once a belief is formed, we explain away any inconsistent evidence. I saw a documentary in which a young child said to his friends, “Santa came to my house and ate a little bit of a cookie, then he went to Jack’s house and ate a little bit and drank some milk, then to Maria’s and ate some and then...So if he went to ALL of our houses in one night, it must mean--” You are sure he is about to realize Santa can’t be real, but instead he animates excitedly, “Santa must have been really hungry!”

4. Humans need consistency between beliefs, actions, and words. In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini calls this “The Rule of Consistency." This is how beliefs hold us down or lift us up. If you believe you can’t, you start acting and speaking like someone who can’t, so you actually can’t. Interestingly, the relationship also works in reverse: Change your action or words and you can change your beliefs.

The Model

Over a 12-hour flight home from Paraguay, I assembled these principles into a model we can use to deconstruct and replace any belief that holds us down. It is simpler than it looks.

Imagine a hot air balloon being held down by four anchors. The balloon represents the belief holding you down and actions and words this belief influences.

The four anchors represent evidence, logic, emotion, and social consensus. To release the balloon you must replace the offending belief. Do this in five steps:

Step 1: Identify the belief.
Find a belief that is holding you down. Tip: Write down beliefs until you find one that hurts. In my case, “You don’t really have what it takes to be world-class author/speaker/thinker.”

Step 2: Identify the anchors.

• What evidence/events anchor the belief? (my books aren’t on the NYT best-seller list)
• What emotions anchor your belief? (I feel comfort because in not really trying, I know I can’t fail)
• Who around you reinforces this belief (social consensus)? (well-intentioned people who congratulate me on already having achieved the dream)
• What logic locks in this belief; what “dependent beliefs” fit? (wanting to fill a stadium is self-centered, thinking I can offer what people don’t already know is conceited)

Step 3: Pick a new belief.
What alternative belief would be consistent with someone who really achieves your dream? (I am destined to be a best-selling business thinker and speaker.)

Step 4: Release the anchors. 

• Evidence: what alternative evidence supports this new belief? (people pay me lots of money to speak, I’m sharing the stage with some of the biggest business gurus)
• Emotions: what does it feel like to really live this new belief and fulfill your dream? (passion, purpose, having made an impact)
• Social consensus: who can you surround yourself with to support the new belief? (other business gurus and authors)
• Beliefs: how can you replace the “dependent beliefs” identified above? (this is not conceited because it’s about serving others; the best business gurus do it to serve others, not for their ego)

Step 5: Set your course.
Write down five specific things you will do (action) and say (words) that force you to live your new belief.

Completing this process took me 20 minutes and has put me fully in the game, committed and knowing I can win. Would that be worth your time?

Click here for a more detailed workbook. I will also invite you to a free webinar outlining this framework and add you to my newsletter. If you don’t find my newsletter valuable you can unsubscribe with one click.

10 Leadership Practices to Stop Today

by Paul Spiegelman via @inc

If you want to be the best in your industry, you have to get rid of your outdated management style.

You might not feel it day-to-day, but business management is in a major transition.  The old days of command-and-control leadership are fading in favor of what might be better termed a trust-and-track method, in which people are not just told what to do, but why they are doing it.  More formally, we're moving from what was called "transactional" leadership to "transformative" leadership. And there's no turning back.

Business owners certainly have a long way to go, especially in more established companies where old practices die hard.  But you can see increasing evidence that by creating a company with a clear purpose and values, you'll find your employees connect themselves to something bigger, and that increases productivity.  In other words, a culture of engagement leads to greater customer loyalty, and better financial success.

Here's my list of "old school" practices you ought to chuck, and "new school" practices to champion instead:

1. Out: Micro-management, or the need to control every aspect of your company. In: Empowerment, the ability to give your people some rope--even rope to make mistakes without blame.

2. Out: Management by walking around the office; it is no longer enough to be visible. In: Leadership by watching and listening, engaging in conversation, implementing the ideas presented to you, and distributing the results.

3. Out: Pretending you know everything. You don't have all the answers, so why try to make people think you do?  In: Knowing your leadership team members and trusting them. Choose great people who have the right skills and fit the culture.  And get out of the way.

4. Out: No mistakes, or a "no tolerance policy" some still think works. In: Learning from mistakes, or being the first to admit an error.

5. Out: The balance sheet drives the business, and informs all other decisions. In: People drive the business, boosting customer loyalty, and profit.

6. Out: Job competency is sufficient. Do the job asked, and you'll survive. In: Recruit "A" players who will go the extra mile. They're out there.

7. Out: Invest in technology to increase productivity. In: Invest in people.

8. Out: Demand change; be very specific about what you want and when. In: Nurture change; your people can come up with the best ideas and you can give them credit for it.

9. Out: Fried food in the cafeteria. In: Wellness in the workplace.

10. Out: Incentives; pay employees more money and they'll do more. In: Rewards; being valued matters more than money.

So ask yourself which of these out-of-date practices you're still using. There's no time like now to try something new.