Posted in Leadership, tagged Consequences, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership on November 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »
As we come near the end of our month of focus on “initiative,” how could your life and the lives of others be different if you master the art of taking initiative?
What might that do for your career?
What might that do for your personal life?
I challenge you, today, to make taking initiative a core facet of your leadership journey.
If you don’t, what affect will it have on yourself, others, your organization?
In other words…what do you have to lose? What do you have to gain?
Posted in Leadership, tagged Communication, Goals, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Taking action on November 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Now that you’ve defined your BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal — see yesterday’s post, if this doesn’t make sense to you), spend some time with someone you trust today and share it with them. Ask them for their input on it, and ask them to join you on your quest to go after it (taking the initiative!).
Make note of their thoughts and insights as you discuss it. Then set some time aside, with this person, in several weeks to review the progress you’ve made toward reaching your BHAG.
What are you learning through the process?
How might you have approached it differently?
What help, support, encouragement did you get?
What more did you need?
Posted in Leadership, tagged Change, Dreams, Goals, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Taking action on November 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Last week, I spent a few days with a group of like-minded, growth-oriented people from across the US and Canada. We were talking about our dreams and what it takes to bring them to fruition (it was a lot more profound than this, but simply put, that was the focus). One recurrent theme was “Dream Big.”
Dream Big!
After all, what’s the point of dreaming if you aren’t going to Dream Big?!
And why wouldn’t we dream big within our organizations, as well? Typically, in organizations, we speak of the BHAG — or Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (Thank you, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras), which is a “commitment to challenging, audacious, and often risky goals and projects towards which a visionary company channels its efforts.”
What BHAG would propel your organization forward?
How can you use it to inspire others?
What steps would you need to take to initiate this BHAG?
What will you do, now, to get started?
Posted in Leadership, tagged Communication, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Potential, Taking action on November 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »
A number of years ago, when more and more companies started getting more interested in and involved with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Stewardship, I was working as the Communications Manager for a food processing company. Having been in that position for several years, I had the communication duties well in hand and running smoothly. Looking for some new challenge to take on, I took it upon myself to become the company’s expert in CSR.
To do that, I read all the relevant material, followed the relevant blogs, connected with the experts in the industry who were also studying the topic. I attended conferences and networked with others in the industry responsible for CSR within their respective organization.
The CEO I worked for was pleased that I had taken this initiative, as he recognized the need to do something and didn’t have anyone else assigned to this role. I enjoyed it; it was interesting, I learned a lot, met a lot of bright people working in this area, and was able to guide the company’s position on CSR. The result was the inclusion of a number of key CSR-related initiatives built into the company’s next strategic plan.
I don’t tell you this story as a way to pat myself on the back. I was looking for something new to focus on and the opportunity presented itself. The point is, there are likely a number of issues within any organization that need some attention, focus, and solutions. And, you could be the person to step up and take one or more of them on.
What issue is there in your organization, right now, that no one seems to be dealing with?
What possible solutions can you come up with to deal with it?
What actions can you take to begin the process of moving towards a solution?
What resources will you need?
How will the organization benefit from your taking the initiative in this area?
Posted in Leadership, tagged Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Planning, Relationships, Success on November 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »
It’s hard to believe we are nearing the end of week three of our eleventh month on this Intentional Leadership* journey! If you’ve been along on the journey for any length of time, you’re aware of our Friday ritual; if you’re relatively new, jump in, you might find this useful!
As you head into the weekend, I ask you to consider how you approach your weekends. Many people rush into it with a need for rest, maybe some idea of what they would like to do or get done over the weekend, but often just move through it haphazardly, seeing where the days and hours take them.
As we are focused on becoming more intentional, I encourage you to consider a different approach to weekends (or whatever days are your typical days off!).
How might your life be different if you took a more intentional approach to your time off? What might that impact? Energy levels, relationships, projects?
How might your Monday be different if you took the time over the weekend to prepare for it, in whatever way makes sense for you?
To get you started, here are some questions to ponder:
What do those close to you need from you this weekend?
What do you need from this weekend?
How much time and attention will you allot to rest, projects, fun, relationships, future preparation?
How do you want to feel on Monday? What can you do to prepare for that?
What do you have going on in the coming weeks or months? What can you do now to prepare for that?
However you decide to spend your weekend, I hope it’s intentional!
“See” you Monday!
Posted in Leadership, tagged Focus, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Reflection, Taking action on November 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Spend some time with your journal today. Here’s the exercise:
Identify a long-term project for which you are responsible. Reflect on what you’ve been learning over the past couple of weeks and use those lessons to build a plan for taking initiative with your project. Write it out…
If you already have a plan in place, how can you integrate some of the recent lessons to make adjustments to it?
As this month’s focus is initiative, I must encourage you to take action! What steps can you take in the next couple of days to get started or move to the next level?
What actions could you take now that will smooth the path and make the project easier over time?
How would getting some of the key tasks completed help you to see ahead more clearly?
Posted in Leadership, tagged Consequences, Goals, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Reflection, Taking action on November 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »
We often can learn from the experiences of others, and we should take advantage of those opportunities (do not, however, misinterpret this to mean that you should always wait for someone else to try something new first!). Spend some time reflecting on a time when you observed someone close to you taking initiative in spite of fear.
What was the situation?
How did they handle it?
What was the result?
What did you learn from watching them go through this experience?
Now, think of a situation you are currently faced with in which you need to take initiative and have some fear about moving forward. Get in touch with the person from today’s exercise and tell them the situation you are in. As them for guidance on how they would handle it. Then, spend some time in reflection about what they’ve shared with you. In your journal, note some of the recommendations you think are worth following through on. Consider the risks, implications, consequences, and benefits associated with any of the actions you might take. Then, make a decision about moving forward.
What value did you receive through someone else’s experience? And what value do you place on having them as a trusted confidant?
It’s good to know we have support when faced with significant decisions and challenges, and can deal with them before they grow into something more unmanageable!
Posted in Leadership, tagged Consequences, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Reflection, Taking action on November 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »
When in pursuit of a goal, how do you typically respond to unexpected challenges?
What do you allow to hold you back? The unknown? Fear? Obstacles? Resistance from others?
Think of a time when you took initiative to address an issue and had to drive through an unforeseen obstacle or challenge.
Describe the event, your actions, and the outcomes.
What was the situation?
What actions did you initiate?
What obstacle / challenge did you encounter?
What was your initial reaction?
What actions did you take to address the obstacle and keep moving forward?
What were the results?
What results do you think you would have achieved, had you allowed the obstacle to stop you?
What did you learn from the process?
Posted in Leadership, tagged Change, Consequences, Goals, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Prioritizing, Taking action, Vision on November 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You mist be willing to fire. ~T. Boone Pickens
In the late 1980’s, Paul O’Neill became the first outsider to run Alcoa (aluminum manufacturing). When he took the helm of this highly cyclical manufacturing business, it was having significant difficulty weathering the troughs of its normal cycle.
O’Neill had spent his career up to that point largely as a government civil servant. When he stepped into the CEO role at Alcoa, he did something that seemed totally counterintuitive in business. Rather than focusing on production and finance, as many new CEO’s would do when needing to turn a company around, he focused on what was considered “soft issues”: safety and teamwork.
While Alcoa had the industry’s best safety record at the time, and had been making strides in reducing injury rates each year, O’Neill let his Safety Director know that the only acceptable injury rate was ZERO! His belief was that ”You can’t get safety unless you really understand your processes.” And by diving deep into the work processes in every aspect of the business, the company was able to shed light on all of the behaviors surrounding how people did their work…behaviors that led to high quality and poor quality, behaviors that lead to strong teamwork and no teamwork, behaviors that led to safe work practices and unsafe work practices.
In essence, he set his sights on the one thing that inarguably affected every single person in the operation, and around which everyone shared common ground: Every person should go home from work each night in at least as good of condition as when they arrived for the beginning of their shift. By focusing on this one aspect of their business, they were, in effect, focusing on all aspects of their business. And, by improving performance around safety, the company improved its quality, production times, loss due to waste, financial performance, and customer relations.
The point here is that O’Neill had a vision, strategies to support it, he identified common ground, rallied his employees around the goal, and took initiative not only to set it all in motion, but did it in a very unorthodox manner…and he started down this path on his very first day at work.
The story of Alcoa’s turnaround is used as a case study in many management programs. Here is just one article about it. It’s an interesting read if you have the time.
As we begin our third week of focus on taking initiative, it’s important that we understand this basic concept: Initiative allows a leader to uproot problems before they balloon into crises.* When you are proactive in the short-term, it allows you to also see the big picture.
Think about what’s going on within your team/organization right now. What issue could you deal with now, that will prevent having to put out fires later?
Once you’ve identified the issue(s), think through how you can best approach it, and schedule time to deal with it before it becomes something much bigger.
*From Intentional Leadership booklet, by Giant Impact.
Posted in Leadership, tagged Focus, Initiative, Intentional, Leadership, Planning, Prioritizing, Reflection, Relationships, Taking action on November 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »
What are you discovering this month, with our focus on Initiative? Are you often the initiator or do you wait for others to take the lead?
Will you take initiative on something this weekend that you’ve been putting off?
What do you have planned for your weekend?
I’m looking forward to some rest, some reading, planning for the Igniting Souls Conference next week in Dublin, Ohio, and family time.
As you prepare for your weekend, consider these questions:
Who really need your attention this weekend? You? Family? Friends? People you’ve not yet met?
What really needs your attention this weekend? Is it projects, rest, relaxation…?
What is on your calendar in the coming weeks, and on your mind, that you need to prepare for, set aside time for, think about?
Set yourself up for success and plan for those things…otherwise, all those distractions (aka real life!) will take you off on some detours.
Have a great weekend, and I’ll “see” you Monday!
Leadership & Life Potential, LLC 