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Posts Tagged ‘Planning’

Intentional Leadership — D5, W4, M12 — Belief

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , on December 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It’s hard to believe, but this will be our last daily post on this Intentional Leadership journey. I will, of course, provide a wrap-up of this month’s focus on Belief, tomorrow…but for today, I’d like to walk you through our Friday ritual one last time.

On this day, I am beginning a new coaching engagement with another John Maxwell Certified coach, and will spend some time learning about the goals and challenges of a colleague on an Advisory Board I am part of, with the intent of understanding how I might add value to her and her team in the new year.

I am preparing for a number of upcoming significant events in my life, including fun, travel, visiting distant family, continuing to work with several mentoring participants, and planning my new year. The fun and travel come first, as I will be at the Chris Isaak Concert with my husband tomorrow night, then off to Washington State on Sunday for some time with my family before the holidays. It won’t be all play, however. This is the beauty of working in my passion zone; I can do it from nearly any location on earth (assuming there’s a cell signal and internet access!) at almost any time of day or night, as my creativity does not live by a “work schedule.”

Again, I will spend a significant amount of time in the coming weeks preparing for the coming new year, following deep reflection on the year we are so close to ending.

I can say with absolute honesty, that Belief is the perfect theme for me to end this Intentional Leadership journey. Without belief in myself, my purpose, my passion, and my plan, I would not be here with you at all. While I know there are many challenges and obstacles ahead, I fully belief I am on the right path, doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

I hope you can say the same for yourself. If you can’t, I strongly encourage you to find a coach or a mentor to help you work through the process of discovering what that path is for you, and then developing a plan for going after it!

In the meantime, how will you spend your weekend? With whom will you spend it?

What is vying for your time, attention, and energy?

What do you have in mind for closing out this year and moving into 2014?

Whatever it is, I hope you’re intentional about it.

Thank you for joining me on this journey; it’s been my pleasure. I hope you’ve learned as much as I have and have moved yourself and your team/organization forward in many ways.

I hope you’ll continue to stop in and read. I have a lot on my mind and will continue to be here writing, sharing thoughts, and asking questions…at least once a week.

If you have questions, comments, and/or topics you would like to explore together, I would love to hear them. Use the comment box below or send me an email.

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Intentional Leadership — D5, W4, M11 — Initiative

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , on November 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

And so, we have reached the end of week four of our eleventh month on this Intentional Leadership* journey! It’s time, again, for our Friday ritual; if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know where I’m headed; 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?

I’ve been traveling a bit more than usual the past few weeks, which means I’ve not had as much time to devote to some administrative tasks; that’s caught up with me, so I will spend some time on those tasks this weekend, along with organizing my home office space (purchased a new desk recently, which resulted in a lot of rearranging and reorganizing…not quite done, but making progress and it feels good!).

In addition, I am working my way through a significant, life-changing transition, so have some thinking to do in this area, and some planning, as well — for the coming weeks and for many weeks into the future. I also have some speaking engagements on my calendar, so need to prepare for those audiences.

As usual, family time, exercise time, rest, and reading.

However you decide to spend your weekend, I hope it’s intentional!

“See” you Monday! We will start our twelfth and final month on our Intentional Leadership journey on Monday; watch for Month 11 wrap-up and Month 12 preview over the weekend.

*From the Intentional Leadership booklet by Giant Impact.

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Intentional Leadership — D5, W3, M11 — Initiative

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , 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!

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Intentional Leadership — D5, W2, M11 — Initiative

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , 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!

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Intentional Leadership — M10 Strategy — Wrap-up

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

For the past four weeks, we’ve been focused on Strategy, and now it’s time for this month’s wrap-up. Hard to believe! And we have only two months left on this Intentional Leadership Journey.

In an early blog post, I shared the story of my encounter with a young man working at the MAC counter in a mall I was shopping in. We got to talking and I shared that I had moved to the mid-west from Washington State and he talked about how he hoped to live in Seattle one day, soon. My response was that “hope is not a strategy,” which startled him back to reality, I think. He said he’d never thought about it that way. I asked how he thought he would get to Seattle — realize his dream — if he didn’t have a plan and take some action. We talked for a while longer, and as I left the store I could see the gears in his mind turning and turning…

Without a plan, our dreams will vanish. As a leader, we must be able to develop an actionable strategy for our team’s/organization’s vision to become a reality. And while it’s certainly crucial to your future success, having a strategy isn’t enough. Once you’ve cast the vision and engaged your followers, you must develop the strategy and then move forward to the next step: Execution. Great leaders don’t simply have a plan, they make it happen!*

So what does a sound strategy entail? It needs to be clear enough to give direction and flexible enough so you can adapt to changing conditions and unforeseeable events along your journey. As we’ve discussed, the only constant is change. If you aren’t moving forward — and I mean intentionally moving forward with a destination in mind — you are falling behind; in today’s world, that will result in the demise of your organization.

My mentors have told me — and I share it with my clients, as well — that leaders must deliberately and consistently set aside time to work ON their business, not just stay mired in the daily effort of working IN their business. I encourage my clients to schedule in “think time” as often as they need it — some do it daily, some weekly. Whatever the cadence you need, you need to do it and you need to make it a priority. In fact, I have some clients who have told me that when our coaching or mentoring engagement has concluded, they have maintained what they’ve referred to as the “Sacred Laura Time” (meaning our coaching/mentoring sessions were high priority and not to be messed with) as their thinking time, as they were already in the habit and had trained their colleagues and staff that they were engaged in important work during that time.

Be mindful, as you develop your strategies, to take into account the strengths of your team/organization, and work that knowledge into your plans, which will give you and even stronger chance of success down the road. The best strategies exploit an organization’s finest qualities.* In this way, you can prioritize your limited resources and use them to the most advantage for your organization.

As we conclude this month’s focus on strategy, spend a little time with your journal and reflect on what you’ve learned.

How are you thinking about strategy differently?

What steps do you need to take now to fully engage your organization, leverage their strengths, and propel yourself forward?

Are you disciplined enough to develop and stick to your strategy, even in the face of inconvenient circumstances and conditions?

Your answers to these questions will dictate the nature of your influence in the years ahead.

“See” you tomorrow, when I’ll introduce next month’s topic. In the meantime, have an intentional day.

 

*From the Intentional Leadership book by Giant Impact. 

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Intentional Leadership — D5, W4, M10 — Strategy

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , on October 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Good morning and Happy Friday! It’s been kind of a soothing week here, soft rain…kind of nice, actually. The trees continue to change color, although the rains have caused a lot of leaves to fall, so we have a lot of naked trees, already!

I’ve been thinking about strategy a lot this week, as I suspect we all are, since it’s our area of focus this month. In fact, I spent some time reading about it just yesterday, as I’ve recently completed the StrengthsFinder assessment, and my strongest talent/strength is strategist. The description depicts one who quickly picks up on patterns, envisions the diverse paths one could take, quickly considers the various consequences, culling options all the while, eventually landing on the most effective path to the desired outcome.

It’s a timely concept as I have been working towards a significant transition in my life and it is coming closer…in fact, I’ll be able to share more details with you very soon. As I’m in this “wiggly” space, I am, in fact, very much in a strategizing mind-set. And, as I don’t believe in coincidence, this month’s focus on strategy has been a little more thought provoking for me than some of the other topics we’ve covered to-date.

Having reached this turning point, finally, I intend to “celebrate” this afternoon by treating myself to a scoop of Hershey’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream (it is suspiciously nearly exactly the same as Baskin Robbins’ Peanut Butter and Chocolate…which isn’t available locally!) on my way home…and then we begin the weekend.

As usual, mine will be a mix of work and family time. I need to go back through some bookkeeping (not my strong suit and I’m learning a new system) and make some corrections. We’ve been invited to an “end of summer” party at a friend’s house. Some writing time, some resting time, and yoga. I am also looking more seriously at what’s going on the next couple of months — not just holidays but also end-of-year activities and planning for 2014.

How will you spend your weekend?

What thought have you given to the next 2-1/2 months?

Have you taken an inventory of your accomplishments and your progress-to-date towards your 2013 goals?

What can you do this weekend to prepare yourself for the week and weeks ahead?

What can you do to nurture yourself this weekend?

Who else needs your time and attention?

What have you been putting off that you just finally need to tackle?

However you spend it, I hope it’s intentional!

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Intentional Leadership — D4, W4, M10 — Strategy

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , on October 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

You’ve likely heard me say this at some point, but if we don’t intentionally take time to stop and reflect on our experiences, we merely have a string of experiences in our lives, rather than gaining the wisdom from the lesson. In fact, I encourage everyone I work with to intentionally set time aside for “lessons learned” reflection after completing any significant effort or project. And the lessons are around both what they did well and what didn’t go quite so well, as you see, you can carry forward both kinds of lessons.

As a leader, it’s critical that you do this exercise and analyze past results. Then, consider what measurements you’ve put in place to gauge your ability to execute current and future strategies. Remember to incorporate your lessons learned as you prepare future strategies.

You have the opportunity to integrate strategy as a hallmark of your organization’s culture if you are thoughtful about this practice. You are significantly more likely to be successful in the future if you are able to strategize effectively during your down times, and then it will come as “second nature” during pressure-filled times in your business.

What can you do today, to move your team/organization in the direction of thinking and acting more strategically in all avenues of your business?

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Intentional Leadership — D5, W3, M10 — Strategy

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Good morning and Happy Friday! It’s going to be another beautiful Fall day here in West Virginia, and I will get to enjoy the colors of the changing leaves as I drive to Huntington to help some people work through a communication conflict. I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with these folks a few weeks ago, on a “fact finding” missing of sorts, and I’m confident we will work through the issues and develop some new guidelines for working together moving forward.

It’s really been a great week, filled with opportunities to share the gifts I’ve been given and add value to others in many ways. I spent a few hours with a small group of emerging leaders in the banking industry on Wednesday, teaching a couple of Laws of Growth (awareness and intentionality — my favorites, and truly the foundation for success in my humble opinion!) and a couple of Laws of Leadership (influence and connection). I learned vicariously from a couple of my coaching clients this week, as they discovered some personal truths. I watched John Maxwell’s book launch web cast. And I will soon be teaching Leadership Fundamentals to a couple of new supervisors.  I love what I do…

As I look ahead to the weekend, I have some bookkeeping to catch up on, some writing to do, and yoga, yoga, yoga! I will help my mother-in-law prepare to move into her new home. And I have a great new book to read, John C. Maxwell’s latest — Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn — about learning through adverse times.

What are you up to this weekend?

What do you need to do to take care of yourself?

What attention do the others in your life need from you?

What exciting things do you have coming up next week or in the coming weeks that you need to spend some time preparing for?

How will you feel when you get to and through some significant upcoming event, knowing you thoughtfully and intentionally prepared for it?

Looking forward to “seeing” you Monday.

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Intentional Leadership — D4, W3, M10 — Strategy

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It’s time to take inventory of our assets.

What are the two greatest assets in your organization?

Why are the they greatest assets — what do they enable your organization to do that you wouldn’t be able to if you didn’t have them?

How can you more fully employ them?

When you look at your assets, what gaps are there?

What can you do to fill the gaps?

Be sure to spend some time looking at this from both a short-term and a long-term perspective.

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Intentional Leadership — D5, W2, M10 — Strategy

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 4, 2013| 5 Comments »

Another week gone by…the air is crisp in the mornings, soft in the evenings, and the leaves are turning amazingly beautiful colors. I love this time of year! I hope wherever you are on this Friday morning, you are surrounded by beauty as well.

It’s been a full week for me, with several coaching and mentoring sessions, working on developing some meeting/workshop agendas and materials, and planning for some lessons I will teach next week around self-awareness, intentionality, influence, connection, communication, personal styles, conflict resolution, and relationship building.

I will spend time over the weekend continuing to prepare for those upcoming lessons/workshops, as well as having fun with my family attending a local annual festival. In addition, I need to read John Maxwell’s newest book: Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn. John will officially launch this new book next Thursday, October 10, via two live webcasts (one at 4 PM EDT and one at 9 PM EDT), accompanied by special guests, Dave Ramsey and Nick Vujicic. You are welcome to attend; you don’t want to miss it! Here’s the link (webcast.johnmaxwell.com).

I will be following up on the webcast by offering a Mastermind Group (facilitated in-depth study) on the book, so if you’re interested in joining us, connect with me via comment, email, phone, or Facebook.

Further, my weekend will include some time and focus invested in the three areas of discipline I’ve committed to work on through the Maxwell Plan for Growth: exercise – yoga at least three times per week; writing – a minimum of 15 minutes a day, in addition to this blog; and getting more intentional about budgeting.

What are you doing with your weekend?

Whom do you need to connect with, nurture, spend time with?

What do you need to do to nurture yourself?

What can you do to prepare yourself for a great start to next week?

What can you do to set yourself up for success in the coming weeks and months?

Enjoy your weekend; I hope however you choose to spend it, you’re intentional about it.

“See” you Monday!

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