Feedback

Had to give someone feedback today. Feedback must be delivered carefully whether at home, work, or any other place. The key is to make sure feedback is given in a manner not seen as criticism. Key phrases such as "what I saw" or "what I heard". This lets the person receiving the feedback take in a manner separate from what they intended. Avoid saying, "what you did" or "when you did". These phrases put you in the place of interpreting the intent of another. Of course, hopefully receiving the feedback will then let them ask the why. Then you can get into the possible misperceptions created by certain aspects of his/her performance. We all need feedback and delivered with care it will be appreciated and lead to improvement.

Pride

A dangerous thing is pride. Saw it in action today. Pride in past accomplishments led some to be blind to new opportunity to improve for the future.

We should acknowledge and endorse past achievements. History should inform our decisions. Pride about past achievements should not prevent us from being willing to change. It is very likely that what created historical achievements generating our pride was a willingness to disrupt the status quo.

Roles

We all have varying roles to play in this life. Leading or following are often the choices, and to be a good leader at times you have to be a good follower. I don't know how often we talk about the importance of followership. We should. Without followers, leaders won't accomplish much. Still the emphasis following receives is not enough given its importance.

I see leadership over emphasized in such a paralyzing way. We can't all be leaders all the time. It would be like every religion asking for each member to be a saint. The examples of saints are important. They are not representations of what everyone can achieve. If they were, then I suspect we would recognize them as such.

Take time to follow and enjoy the success of others. Let them experience leadership. In this crazy bipolar nation, being the one to step back and make sure things are getting done is important. Congress is a great example of a group of leaders who can accomplish nothing. If they consider practicing followership, as opposed to leadership, well something might get done. Of course for that to happen we would need another thing called, teamship.

Poltiics

It is  getting thick with jargon around here phone calls from DC for both Obama, and Romney.

It is kind of sad that has degenerated from a term about discourse and debate, to a term meaning you have to avoid about an issue as one side or another may take offense. Hence, it is best to avoid talking due to politics. Else, it might mean a simple idea will take longer to get in action or never happen due to "politics".

The remedy probably lies somewhere beyond political races centered on winning towards races centered on ideas and mental models built to solve problems.

Help

Help. Saw someone reach out for it today and it was beautiful.

Pride directs many of us, including me, to say, "No thanks".

Big mistake. If you need help, ask, and to those who respond say, "Thank you".

We are better together, and teams are the sole vehicle to overcome the limits of individual human potential.

Rhythm

How much of what you did today was for yourself, for others, for no other reason than you had to?

We all live life as jugglers. Keeping those balls in the air with appropriate rhythm of toss/catch. Like any juggler, we will have to stop or have a time when we drop one of the balls. The rhythm gets out of sequence, and then we have to restore it.

What establishes the rhythm? The beat, pace, time are all expressions of rhythm. If we are constantly juggling how do we handle things so we can find that critical rhythm in balancing life with work or school?

A great teacher advised me this on the juggling metaphor from Brian Dyson CEO of Coca Cola, that can applied to balancing life with work or school:

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the Air.
You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. 

But the other four Balls - Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.”

 

Leadership

Watched some Gordon  Ramsey tonight. Almost every failing restaurant and hotel he deals with is a failure of leadership.

Leadership failures manifested in one of two directions. Scenario one is the leader not being sufficiently engaged. In this case, the leader is distant and fails to provide the direction and course for the rest of the staff. Scenario two is the leader micromanaging and getting too involved in every aspect of the business. Similarly, the leader fails to lead as she/he can not step back and set the vision for big picture.

This is true in many other instances, as well. So if you feel a lack of direction, step back. Are you failing to lead, if so are you too bogged down in the details or too distant. If you are not the leader, how can help the person who is leading identify where her/his leadership is going wrong.

There can be other failures of leadership, these two are always a good start to eliminate as a cause.