The practice of a good practice

The practice of a good practice is a practice that we really should practice!

Makes sense right?

It has been well said that you are what you do every day. If you want to change anything, move forward in any way, learn a new skill or implement a new discipline into your life, there simply is no secret formula to do this – it just takes practice!

Think about it like brushing your teeth – how can you break the new behaviour that you desire into something that initially takes just a few minutes, but you can repeatedly do every day until it becomes a habit?

That’s one reason why one-hit training can be so ineffective and the LMI process of working with people over an extended period of weeks and months yields such powerful results. Whether its your own personal productivity, the nitty-gritty of leading and managing people, or the art of leading your organisation, there are dozens of good practises that you could adopt, but only doing it one-at-a-time, over time, with perseverance , will result in lasting change.

 

Communication is the key. It really is!

I was listening on the radio yesterday to a discussion on leadership fuelled by the recent public critique of Ed Miliband by one of his ‘supporters’. The two ‘expert’ guests were Michael Vaughan, ex-England cricket captain, and a senior ex-military leader. Both shared some thoughts about leadership generally and then both concluded that the single most important thing for leading effectively, be it on the sports field or the battle field, was being a good communicator.

We could emphasise this point and bring it closer to home by asking the question, ‘How many of the challenges, mistakes, people problems and periods of wasted time that you experience are the result of poor communication?’ If the parties involved had communicated excellently right from the outset, how much time, money, upset, angst, frustration and general loss in productivity would have been saved?

And yet, working in the field of leadership and management development, its incredible to find that many have had no formal training in communicating effectively and have no ongoing plan to improve communication throughout their organisations, despite the obvious benefits of doing so.

How about setting a communication goal at the start of 2012? 

Could you identify two or three simple ways to improve communication, and a means to track and measure the results? 

Because of the importance of this subject, the LMI programmes are packed with useful lessons and tools on communicating more effectively, should you require any assistance.

Train through the pain

I write this as a dad to three kids aged 7, 6 and 4. They constantly amaze me with their desire to do new things, and their capacity to learn new skills really quickly. There is, however, always a temptation when one of them comes and wants to join in some activity or other that I’m doing. They want to understand what’s happening and to play a meaningful part in it whereas I’m usually thinking that I want to get it done as quick as possible and move onto the next thing.

What I’m beginning to realise though is that there are more and more things that, if I’m prepared to take a bit of extra time and show one of my kids how to do it, and then be patient with them as they learn it and practice it, they will then very happily carry on doing so I don’t have to – result! Cutting the grass may be a thing of the past for me by next summer the way its going!

The same can be true in work – its always easy to think it’ll be quicker to just do it yourself BUT if you take a bit of extra time, maybe there’s a load of things that you could delegate to others and with a bit of initial pain in terms of things taking a little longer to train and coach them up to speed, you’ll find a stack of your time freed up for other things….and maybe end up with more motivated, empowered team members to boot!

To Do Or Not To Do?

How long is your To Do list? I regularly ask people this question, and the record so far is one hundred and thirty four items!

I’ll keep this post very brief, in case your To Do list is also very long! The point is that even if you complete twenty things off a list of fifty or more, you still don’t feel a huge sense of accomplishment because you’ve still got loads to do.

The other problem with a very long list is that it becomes very difficult, and time consuming, to prioritise the items.

I know you can’t just magic away outstanding tasks, but there are some great ways to reduce down that monster list into manageable chunks that ultimately results in greater productivity and much more sense of accomplishment – and those clever research people have long been telling us that when we feel more positive, we do better work!

Priorities really are a priority

I’m sure you are just like me in that you know people whose attitudes vary enormously when it comes to planning, organising, prioritising, scheduling, goal setting and the like. At one end of the scale there are those who plan everything, social life included, to the very n’th degree and for whom to not do so would be unthinkable. The polar opposite position is held by those for who everything is spontaneous, responsive, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants…

I’m sure you get the idea, and you, like me, are probably somewhere in between these two extremes. There is no escaping the fact though that some things ARE more important than others.

Some activities generate you income – others don’t.

Some activities empower, skill and motivate your team – others don’t.

Some activities help foster positive relationships – others don’t.

Success belongs to those who know their priorities, and continually prioritise their priorities, in order to give their best efforts to the most important things. This is massive in business, and perhaps greater still in life generally. Priorities really are a priority.

Yes, but WHY?

Great to get on with things and work hard and persevere…and great when others pull their weight and contribute to the team effort, but without a really strong ‘Why’, that effort and motivation and desire is always likely to wain sooner rather than later, and the job becomes a labour of love and it feels more like an obligation than a passion.

Having said that, it often doesn’t take long just to pause and remember the ‘why’ – the reason that you started out on this journey in the first place, the benefits of hitting that deadline, the impact of making it work – and thus invoke the motivation once again to continue with enthusiasm and energy.

I have small children and they love to ask ‘Why?’ Its easy to become frustrated, but we always get a better result in terms of desired response from them when we take a little time to explain the reason or purpose behind what we’re asking….or even better, to get them to!

Grown ups aren’t a whole lot different. Things can seem very different when we take a few moments to remember the why!

Connected Leadership

I had finished work on that Friday evening and was in the garden firing up the BBQ ready for some good food (if a little charred) and some relaxation outside at the end of a hard-working week. Suddenly from inside the house came a shout, or more of a scream really, and I ran inside immediately, thinking probably that one of the children had hurt themselves. The scene that greeted me was quite unbelievable – I’m sure you saw it just as I did, and can recall immediately the graphic images – the TV had just been turned on and there was the bomb scene in a city somewhere, with my wife and all three of the children looking on in disbelief. This was not Beirut, or Gaza, or even London – this was Oslo, where the government buildings are.

My wife is Norwegian, and my sister-in-law works in one of those buildings. We know that place – and it’s the last place in the world you’d ever expect such scenes to be coming from. Lots can be said, and has been, about those terrible events than unfolded in Norway on Friday 22nd July. One thing that we couldn’t help but be moved, and impressed by, was the conduct of the leaders of the country, who were fantastic and conveyed the grief and pride of the nation. And right in the middle of it all, amidst the masses of gathered people, the King and Queen of Norway were seen milling around, talking with people, and openly weeping with them. That’s great leadership, I thought; connected leadership. They are deeply loved and respected by their people, and it’s easy to see why.

People respond much better when their leaders are engaged with them. It’s an ‘us’ not a ‘them and us’ situation, when it genuinely feels like everyone’s pulling together in the same direction, and that each person, from the most senior to the most junior, is valued for who they are and for the role they play in helping the organisation (or company, or group or nation) succeed. This can take a bit longer perhaps, be a little inconvenient, and occasionally even slightly unsafe, but it’s absolutely worth it for the reward it brings.

1% improvements

Have a great week everybody – and don’t forget to keep an eye out for those potential 1% improvements!

We can often look for massive change in things if we want to get better results, and we can be driven by emotional responses to current situations – “Its completely rubbish!”; “Everything’s got to be different!”

In reality, most of what you do is probably pretty good…but could be just a little bit better. When England won the Rugby World Cup in 2003, head coach Clive Woodward said,

“we didn’t improve one thing by 100%, we improved one hundred things by one per cent.”

The head of the GB cycling team that swept all before them at the Beijing Olympics said almost exactly the same thing.

What 1% changes can you make this week which, with cumulative effect, will make a massive impact?

Say it like it is

A few years ago I attended a leadership seminar at which a retired very senior manager from one of the world’s largest companies was asked what he thought was THE most important thing for leaders to learn in order to be effective. His answer has stayed with me ever since – “do everything you say that you’ll do.”

In a 15 year survey of hundreds of thousands of people on six continents, Kouzes & Posner asked what qualities people most admire in leaders. The top answer, by a distance, was honesty.

Do what you say; be honest. Is good leadership really that simple?

I’ve been talking recently with two different small business owners that are doing really, really well. Both shared with me that one of the reasons their clients tell them they keep coming back for more is that they love the honesty with which they are treated. They always know exactly where they stand, never feel ‘sold to’, and even when mistakes are made, admitted, and professionally rectified, they love that too!

In a world of so much distrust, dishonesty, cover-up,  blaming others and general lack of taking personal responsibility, people love honesty. Consistently practised over time, through good and not-so-good circumstances, its incredibly powerful!

The power of spaced repetition

In the LMI concepts presentation that kicks off every LMI program & workshop, we talk about how success comes from the results you get and results from behaviour. If we stop there, however, and only concentrate on changing behaviour, the effects of what we do will be only short-lived. That’s because what we do is shaped by our attitudes, our attitudes by conditioning, and conditioning is the result of exposure to small amounts of information or small activities repeatedly over time.

I’ve just started using a new email program and was very excited to discover that there is a whole list of keyboard shortcuts that will execute certain functions instead of clicking with the mouse. I love this kind of stuff!  Enthusiastically I set about learning some of these shortcuts, but kept forgetting what they were. Only one way to get these commands learnt and into my subconscious so that they actually start saving me time – spaced repetition!

Now I sit with the shortcuts list window open continually, and refer to it everytime I need to perform a function, and hey presto, some of them are starting to go in and become habit.

Whatever new skill you learn, or new attitude you wish to develop, you have to go through that early painful repetition process until it becomes natural. Only then do you begin to reap the benefits of the investment you made initially to aquire that new knowledge or skill.