One question can help hiring managers, HR leaders, and staffing professionals power through many types of problems, objections, and issues. In this video I walk you through how to use it.
Managing conflict can be so uncomfortable. In this video, I provide a simple tool you can use to help individuals and teams manage conflict more easily.
Many leaders want to be more decisive, but don’t know where to start. This video will show you how.
In addition, be sure to take the Leadership Deficit Test, which is mentioned in the video.
In almost every video game, there are special bonuses that convey advantages, such as more strength or firepower. These powerups can heal injuries, increase supremacy and accelerate a character’s ability to achieve the objectives and win a level or even the entire game.
Real-life powerups are available to leaders who foster interdependent relationships between all parties—managers, employees and co-workers. Interdependence creates a healthy dynamic where each individual does his or her part, versus a dependent relationship where one person, often the manager, shoulders all of the responsibility for making sure tasks are remembered and completed.
Powering up in this fashion requires:
True power as a leader comes not from how a manager wields authority, but in how he or she makes each person powerful by fostering personal responsibility, requiring people to keep doing the next right thing.
A leader need not be brilliant to be effective. Efficient leaders always do three things:
These three behaviors, consistently executed, are the hallmarks of a simply effective leader. The difference between these individuals and those just getting by is the development and utilization of these traits regardless of market conditions.
Companies led in this manner create a culture that workers clamor to buy into and, in turn, they sell more and recruit better as a result of their belief in the organization and the accountability fostered within the system.
All three traits can be learned, honed, improved, and even mastered. Which means, effective versus defective leadership is a choice between continuous improvement or accelerating decline.
Which direction are your actions, or inaction, taking you?
A working strategy that really works is as simple as answering four questions and taking one action. This podcast tells you how to employ the Right Focus, Right Action, Right Now.
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In this new video, I share a commonly unknown area of leadership failure and how to avoid this pitfall.
Like a computer with a well functioning operating system, companies that perform exceptionally well year after year have a well planned Renewable Operating System (ROS). Better than a strategic plan, an ROS creates a better way of doing business with speed, agility, and reduced effort, similar to the powerful processors in today’s technical devices.
The first step I initiate with every leader with whom I work to create an ROS starts with the current “code.” Just like rewriting an entire software program is overly labor intensive and often unnecessary, rewriting how a company does business is often a complete waste of time and resources. Instead, one of four actions, based upon the current circumstances, is the quick and nimble way to go from here to an even more profitable there:
Reboot: A solid plan for running the business was in place, but wasn’t followed. A reboot allows for a fresh chance to work the plan from beginning to end, while also evolving it into an ROS that eliminates the need for future reboots.
Reset: Parts of the previous plan weren’t followed, requiring only a reset on those portions of the plan. Without having to completely start over, momentum continues as the missing elements are integrated into a better, more sustainable operating system.
Reconfigure: The last plan was worked correctly, consistently, and completely, but the result didn’t meet expectations. Without overwriting the entire system, only the elements of the plan that were causing the shortfall need to be reconfigured when developing the ROS.
Redesign: There was no plan and, no surprise, nothing good has come of that. Redesign allows for learning from this oversight, creating an ROS for moving forward based upon what was learned in the process.
Rather than relying on a strategic plan for next year that may end up in the bottom of a drawer, program a fresh approach based upon where you’re at today. By having an operating system that benefits from the lessons of previous successes and failures, you can plan for an even better future.
While the quote “you can’t take it with you” may apply to money and material possessions, managers must require that team members take with them their greatest asset to the job each day—responsibility. Leaders of organizations doing better than others are always insisting on consistent execution, and execution can only happen if everyone does their part, being responsible for their contribution.
For example, take two recruitment companies in the UK working on the same type of growth and improvement initiatives. One is gaining ground faster than the other as a result of a consistent requirement, enforced by leadership, of every person doing what is required each week. Both companies have smart leaders and talented people; one is simply doing better at holding people accountable for following through on what matters most, never accepting excuses and always allowing for improvement.
When it comes to personal responsibility, you not only can, but you must take it with you. This is one of the most important jobs of leaders—requiring that everyone play their part, do their part, or give up their seat to someone who will. Any leaders out there who are not doing this need to either step up or step out and let someone else take over who will do so consistently.
Whoever said that “a failure to plan is a plan to fail” didn’t understand planning. Unless mentally impaired, no one actually plans to fail; what really happens is they fail to take into consideration the one element that kills the chances of any plan succeeding—emotion.
Logic makes people think while it’s emotion that makes them act. All variations of planning, be they strategic plans, project plans, or broader business plans are exercises in logic. Done right, they make perfect sense, and then are deployed by imperfect beings. Good planning always fails when the emotions of leaders and staff prompt them to act based upon those emotions, even when that’s contrary to the plan. For example, how many times has there been a plan to do better at holding people accountable, even firing them faster when warranted. Yet, the emotions that come up when faced with this reality hamper, delay, or even justify why these best laid plans are not followed.
The fourth quarter is the most common time that staffing firms, recruitment agencies, and business of all kinds engage in the yearly strategic planning exercise. This year, account for and include in the plan the fact that emotions are going to come into play many times in the coming year. The joy that you experience, as a result of adequately addressing this element in your planning, will have you experiencing joyful results that will, in no way, hamper any of your plans.