I am mid-flight from Minneapolis to Seattle. I am enjoying every minute of this flight. I travel a lot and today was fortunate to get the upgrade – 3A! Certainly makes the flight more enjoyable. Leg room. Hot coffee. Free Wi-Fi. Rock Star style en-route to Seattle! Thank you Delta!
To some degree my excitement for the upgrade was proportionate to my expectation. There was no expectation. If it happens, it happens. That is new.
There was a time in the not so distant past that I expected to be in first class.
Always.
I was entitled.
Not good.
My sense of entitlement made me a less effective leader. Less compassionate. A bit short sighted. Perhaps at times even a bit challenged to connect in a genuine, authentic and meaningful way.
Entitled Leadership is a very common syndrome. It is an occupational hazard. Blend a little talent, tenure, the corner office and country club life that comes with it and it is easy to enter the entitlement zone.
It isn’t really about first class or coach. It is really about the difference between entitlement and appreciation.
The margin of difference between appreciation and entitlement really comes down to awareness, attitude and approach.
Unfortunately, entitled leadership can significantly diminish employee engagement and the passionate connection to the organizational purpose that drives performance.
If you want to be a leader that others want to follow consider this approach:
Expect nothing. Earn everything. Every minute. Everyday.
When you demand that of yourself it is much easier to ask and expect it of others.
Earning ‘followership’ is the mark of leader.
You can’t earn it with tenure or title.
You can earn it through consistent, quality actions.
Appreciate.
3A is nice. It isn’t necessary or all that important.
The journey of discovery toward stopping speeding bullets and leaping tall buildings in a single bound can be rather extraordinary. We’ll see if we can pull it off in 45 minutes!
The journey of discovery toward any worthwhile pursuit is important.
Typically it involves a fair amount of introspection. Most Superhero’s don’t do it for fame and fortune. Typically, it is a higher calling. One filled with meaning and mastery. Passion and purpose.
Everyone has the Superhero inside them. Or is capable of discovering and delivering their very best.
Here are 10 key considerations to aid in tapping into our own passion, purpose and potential:
1. Decide What You Want (and why): This is the hard part. For a caped crusader or mere mortals. The act of decision is important. The best decisions usually include supporting rationale. Examine the what and the why. Once you decide write it down. Be specific. Be intentional. Have a deadline. Want to make President’s Club? Lose 10 lbs? Find a new job? Improve a relationship? Write it down. Give it a deadline. {Tip: make Bold Choices}.
2. Action Plan with Milestones: Build a plan to get what you want. Pay attention to the details. Big things are accomplished in the little moments. Plans helps you focus. Plans help you manage time. Plans help you feel the progress. Plans help you evaluate. Plans help others rally around you. Plans help you maintain the emotional engagement required for big results. Plans help you establish and maintain momentum.
3. Tell Other People: Involve other people you care about. Friends. Family. Have a team. Nobody becomes the best of who they are alone. You need support. You need people holding you accountable. You need allies to champion your cause. {Note: Had I skipped this step I wouldn’t be keynoting this event next week…or any other. The team held me accountable.}
4. Report/Record Activity Against the Action Plan: You need to monitor progress, performance indicators and benchmark against the desired outcome. Hitting the small milestones are signs of progress toward the big goal. Having a record of results helps you stay the course and maintain the emotional commitment among those supporting you.
5. Celebrate: Don’t wait. Celebrate incremental achievement. Progress toward the plan. The milestones matter. Recognize the effort that produces a desired outcome along the way. This is critical for the modern day leader. You’ll get more of what you inspect and recognize!
6. Modify the Plan: The world changes. Life changes. Plans change. Modify, update, adjust, adapt and evolve accordingly. Don’t use the accelerated pace of change as an excuse for not having a plan. For not writing things down and recording progress. For not moving through a process of discovery and decision. Plans change but process is still important.
7. Don’t Quit: Not at the first sign of resistance, setback, mistake, misstep and considerable concern that embarking on this adventure simply wasn’t a a good idea. The resistance is coming. Rejection. Failure. Fear. Doubt. Insecurity. Stress. Anticipate the hard parts. Work through them. {Tip: The Dip is an excellent resource for determining when to quit and when to stay the course. Many people give up on the cusp of a breakthrough).
8. Get Better: Mastery takes time. Hard work. Help. Practice. Most people don’t practice work (hard to do when you are busy working). This makes it hard to improve. The 10,000 Hour Rule in Outliers suggests that the key to extraordinary performance and success is a matter time and practice (20 hours a week for 10 years should just about do it) and doesn’t have as much to do with talent. The good news is we all have exactly the same amount of time and decide how to invest it. Even a little practice can accelerate breakthrough performance.
9. Help Others: The Superhero ethos. Help. It is amazing how much we can improve and evolve through service. It is often when we’ll experience the most profound growth. It is often a catalyst for elevating our own emotional engagement. I see it everyday. The best sellers. The best leaders. The best people I know give first.
10. Have Fun: Enjoy the ride. At the end of the day success = happiness!
I look forward to the event in the hometown next week! MSAE has done a fabulous job building momentum toward next week with a progressive pre-conference promotional initiative (my video prompt included). I may get inspired enough to break out the cape!
I live and love the iLife. In making the transition from Blackberry I became an AT&T customer by default.
I have experienced dropped calls and hit dead zones over the last two years. Just like I am sure everyone else on just about every other network has. It certainly wasn’t enough of a disruption that moved me to explore other service providers. However, had an alternative option been presented to me with incentive and ease of transition I certainly might have made the move. I represent the vast majority of customers (yes, likely your customers and employees). I was reasonably satisfied. Not loyal.
That changed for me last week. AT&T has captured my heart and moved my spirit. I am now part of the Rethink Possible Tribe.
Why? Simple. The human element. The essential, secret ingredient that can turn your customers into the most loyal, fanatical, brand evangelists on the planet. The essential, secret ingredient that can rock your workforce, elevate engagement, accelerate performance and turn culture into a competitive advantage.
It comes down to people and relationships. Particularly people that are engaged and intuitive enough to create a compelling experience.
I spent an evening with AT&T last week. I was hired to keynote a dinner event. The people I met were special. The way they treated me was extremely generous. They were all Brand Ambassadors. They were warm, welcoming, supportive, hospitable and extended themselves beyond measure to ensure I was able to succeed. It wasn’t necessary. It was simply AT&T.
I know them now. I like them now. They have my support. Any my business. I want to work with them again. Whether I do or don’t doesn’t really matter. This brand was humanized for me in a very positive and powerful way. That drives loyalty. It is that simple.
The people are the brand.
Often it isn’t what you do (plenty of other people/companies do what you do just as well as you do it and for just about the same price), but how you do it and who is doing it that makes the moment memorable enough to keep customers (and employees) coming back for more.
Put people first.
Performance and profitability are more likely to follow.
If your people strategy isn’t the #1 priority on the agenda today perhaps it is time to Rethink Possible?
I also did a pre-keynote interview with the gang from JobsInME.com:
When I talk about this topic I talk about my own experience set. I talk about My Generation.
The Millenials dominate this conversation. For good reason. They are about twice the size of my generation and coming of age in a time of accelerated transformation and technological change. They bring a whole new set of expectations about an evolved work experience that is simply going to require organizations to advance work style design.
That is part of the story. Ironically, my generation is incredibly suited to this new world of work. Ferociously independent, adaptive, creative and resourceful, we are prepared to lead through a time of disruptive change. We also like to invent and don’t expect anyone to take care of us. We realized quite some time ago that we would be responsible for our own career trajectory and wouldn’t be relying on a company to mange that for us.
A simple review of some recent leading Gen X business writing and thinking provides an interesting prompt for those clinging on to the traditional corporate structure and hierarchy. Have a look:
It will clearly prove more challenging for traditional companies to optimize and engage a generation of escape artists.
The generations do want many of the same things. But I can tell you both from my own experience set and from the research that we define them quite differently. I’ll shed some light on a few of those differences, the next generation drivers and what to do about them in my dinner keynote tonight at the AT&T Generations & Leadership event.
They asked me to keynote dinner. They asked me if I could be funny. This could be interesting.
“Hey Ryan…what are you up to? We are heading down to South America. Starting it out in Caracas, Venezuela man. Going to be a huge week. Meetings and dinners with some fantastic people. Thought of you and wanted to pull you into the conversation…calling with plenty of notice for you buddy…plane leaves in 48 hours!”
Incoming call.
“Hey Ryan…how are things? Planning to head over to Shanghai in a couple weeks for a 3 or 4 day writing sabbatical and to have a look around. Why don’t you join me? It would be a great time of year to get out, clear the decks and get some real creative energy going!”
I get these kind of phone calls. I have interesting friends with quite an adventurous spirit. This is how they work, build, create, push, evolve, improve. I haven’t always been one to embrace the adventure agenda. I am learning.
I rejected both of these invitations. Immediately. I was resistant. The notion of running off to some far away place to network and write made me uncomfortable. It just didn’t seem like the right way to do meaningful work. I wanted that desk by 7:45 a.m. That familiar place. The office. The place where real work gets done during regular business hours. I was conditioned early and ended up missing out.
A little structure and discipline are necessary for peak performance. So is a healthy dose of the adventurous spirit. The best ideas and breakthrough moments often remain elusive in the safety zone. Being open to experiencing those little stretch moments pushes you learn and grow. The great thing about work today is it doesn’t demand the traditional schedule and structure. We are more free than ever to determine how, when and where we do our very best work. The free agents figured that out and companies are starting to catch up.
Autonomy is a powerful driver for a several of the big time producers I know. These produces are masters at evolved work style design, efficiency and elevated output.
Those trips to Caracas and Shanghai proved to be the genesis for a successful new business venture and the writing of a book. Not bad output from the adventure tour. I was watching from the sidelines.
I will be heading to Caracas, Venezuela this fall for a speaking engagement. Following, I may stop in Peru to do some writing for a couple days. I am looking forward to that adventure.
This week my version of the adventure tour takes me to Eugene, Oregon for our Engage! event and then off to Dallas, Texas for an evening with AT&T .
The notion of intellectual curiosity came up during my keynote last week. In a brief exercise around culture and values a woman in the audience raised the notion of curiosity as a corporate value (she earned a quick $20 spot for her contribution).
Powerful.
We are living and working in a time of accelerating change. Discovery. Reinvention.
Intellectual curiosity and questioning the status quo should be embraced and required among progressive leadership in the approach to business strategy and performance planning.
I used to shudder when I would hear the words, “follow the formula” at work. It seemed so crystal clear to me this was the mantra of an ending era. This time around the previous history was no longer going to predict future performance. This time around there wasn’t a clear pattern. Trend line. Process map. Nope.
We have never been through this before.
We could analyze the previous thirty years of performance against any economic indicator we wanted. Only to draw the same clear and compelling conclusion: it doesn’t really matter.
What was good enough to get us here was clearly not going to get us where we needed to go.
Now we had to invent!
That notion is quite exciting to some. Rather painful to those trying to command and control a compromised position in the marketplace. The curious among us are required for this task. It is a brave new world at work.
Curiosity is a core value of mine. I am naturally drawn to those that question the existing order of things. I have always done a bit of that myself. I wanted to know why. Unfortunately, curiosity runs counter to our conditioning.
We are conditioned at an early age to follow the formula. Not to talk back. Read the instructions. Do what we’re told. Not ask so many questions. Hand in our homework (which lead to my 6 month boycott and subsequent F in Trigonometry class in High School – not my best moment as a Change Agent).
We show up at work and do the same. Don’t talk back. Wait for the instructions. Do what we are told. Don’t ask challenging questions. Hand in our homework.
Unfortunately that is exactly the kind of conditioning that runs counter to what is so necessary to thrive at work today – change, innovation, category disruption.
It also runs counter to the traditional command and control style of leadership.
Today, more open, collaborative, transparent, relational, risk tolerant, even tempered, experiment oriented, humble leaders are better positioned to stimulate the new ideas and disruptive thinking required to advance.
Are you curious?
The enclosed webinar, recorded last week (Engage. Inspire. Empower.) provides some specific ideas and areas of concentration for today’s progressive leader around employee engagement and work style design. In case you missed it.
She walked into the coffee shop this morning right on time. Just like I expected. I had heard a lot about her through our shared network. Many among them prompting us to meet. We had traded notes and connected online. She was reading my blog and provided a summary of some of the cool projects she was initiating to transform the culture of her organization. She has a big job, initiating big change for a big company. We had a lot of good reasons to connect, network and share ideas on people, potential and performance.
As we exchanged pleasantries and eased into the conversation she openly shared that our meeting on this very morning was a bit ironic. After a decade of leadership, contribution, achievement and growth in her organization she was leaving our meeting in the coffee shop to resign from her job. She was resigned to her conviction that it was simply time to move on.
Today was resignation day.
I could sense her anxiety and anticipation. It brought me back to that morning two years ago. To my own personal inflection point. I was naturally interested and invested in our conversation. I wanted to know more. I asked why?
I listened intently as she explained the genesis of her decision and her subsequent journey toward acting upon it. She was clearly well within the confines of the comfort zone. She had a very good career. With a very reputable employer. With a boss she respected and trusted. With a compensation plan and benefits package that provided security for her family. With perhaps no clear, compelling, concrete reason for resigning.
Until a transformational event in her personal life moved her to pay more attention to that whisper. To listen more closely that internal voice. To further explore a new direction with very clear purpose. To acknowledge her fear, doubt, anxiety, discomfort, hesitation and move through it. For an executive A player none of this is as easy as it might seem. She put in the work. She is moving on to pursue her professional passion with clear and compelling purpose. She is inspired. So am I.
She acknowledged that passion was a driving force in her decision. In doing so we talked a bit about how frivolous a passion pursuit can sound to others. How unreasonable. How it can be perceived as even borderline irresponsible.
That word receives its fair amount of scrutiny and criticism. After all, isn’t it only a job?
Not to her. Not to some of the most content, fulfilled, introspective, balanced and evolved people I know. To these people the meaning matters. The attempt to try and find the intersection between the meaning and the money is seemingly worth the risk and sacrifice that come when you dream big.
I thought about her a lot today. I am sure it has been a hard day. Whether the next step is the kitchen table or new career path probably isn’t as significant as the move toward something that simply matters a whole lot more.
A huge loss to this particular organization.
A huge win for my new friend. I think she will find the win really does exist in the choice, change, challenge and chance to try and find the intersection between passion and the paycheck.
Not the outcome.
I have no doubt she is going to enjoy the journey.
Toward the end of last week I was enjoying the sunshine and scenery on Coronado Island. Thursday evening my client/host and I met for a refreshing beverage around sunset. Great place. Great conversation. Great moments.
During that conversation Barry simply asked if there was anything I missed about my previous gig working for a big company. I thought about it. It was easy actually. The thing I miss the most?
My people.
I have managed and lead many people during my professional career. Although, I wasn’t necessarily referring to my direct reports. It was more of a reference to my kind of people. Like minded. Shared values. People on the hustle. Building great relationships. Targeting the competition. Delivering value first. Rocking Shock & Awe campaigns. Stepping up to the podium. Making their number. Up early. After it. Accountable.
The last few sentences might not mean much to the casual reader (my apologies). But I have a feeling a few of “my people” will be smiling. They know. The good stuff is inside them and once it is part of your DNA nobody can ever take it away.
I had a chance to reunite with a few of those people over the course of the last week and it was an absolute pleasure to watch them continue to ascend with passion and purpose. To pass new tests.
It reinforced for me in a very real way the notion that people, passion and performance are the keys to building a culture that becomes a competitive advantage. If you are very disciplined about talent strategy, the way you approach work and the people you work with will become key performance drivers. There is probably nothing more rewarding for an authentic leader to watch people on the team buy in, embrace a philosophy and succeed. Leadership is all about helping others stretch to achieve their potential. Teaching. Coaching. Managing. Mentoring. Service. It involves tough decisions. Honest conversations. Increasingly more transparency. Effective communication. Real, meaningful relationships. Confidence. Trust. Commitment.
When others entrust you to guide and shape their talent it is an awesome responsibility. Embracing the weight of that challenge is incumbent upon today’s effective leader. It is a phenomenal time for emerging leaders to add more value to the business, impact people and accelerate performance by doing the right things. People are hungry for meaning. People want to have input. People want to be invested in and developed. People want to have renewed confidence in the future. People want to contribute to something that matters. People want a better work experience.
The objective of this webinar event will be to provide actionable content that today’s business leader can leverage to improve morale and elevate performance. We will provide a state of the union with the current data set from Modern Survey research related to employee engagement and discuss the implications and agenda necessary for moving forward.
We are doing this because job satisfaction has approached 20 year lows. Because our employee population is overwhelmed, exhausted and unnerved by the sea of change that is today’s new reality. Because productivity and performance declines should be expected unless we adjust our approach to work style design and leadership. Because we can do better.
We will introduce data and trends we believe to be worthy of consideration and hope to contribute to this important conversation in a relevant way. I’ll be teaming up with Modern Survey President, Don MacPherson to deliver our message about what today’s leader can do next Tuesday, at 11:00 a.m. CST. We hope you can join us. Did I mention, it’s free?
Spring is here. After a long Minnesota winter it is very welcome. But that isn’t the season I am most excited about.
Nope. I am ready for Conference Season! The next few months will see associations and corporate teams gather in multiples. From the annual event to the impromptu off site, busy professionals will be getting together to connect, communicate, collaborate and set the course for forward progress in their business. I assume a little fun will be had along the way.
I recall a couple years ago hearing about the conference model dying. The premise being that with emerging technology there would simply be increasingly less need to have a conference style event. That premise didn’t deliver on the promise and as someone who attends 30+ conferences a year there is increasing interest the live event. No doubt, expectations around the experience are on the rise. Quality content and connections are a baseline requirement. But today, people have a real need and desire to come together and share with like minded people. I am fortunate to have two such opportunities this week.
Today, I’ll be in Little Rock talking about Passion & Purpose at the CUPA Southern Region Conference. Then it’s immediately off to the SHRM Talent & Staffing Conference to spend a couple days with a Rock Star community in San Diego. I simply cannot wait to be part of the conversation about the most critical issue facing just about every business as we emerge from this recession: TALENT!
I had an opportunity to have a pre-conference conversation with SHRM about the event. Part of that conversation included some thoughts about how to get the most out of the conference experience as an attendee. My key thought is opt in and participate! Online. Offline. Tweet Up. At breakfast. In the evening. Take it all in! If you leave with 3 key ideas to take action on in the next 100 days (TAN PLAN) and 3 new, meaningful connections then the experience will have been very worthwhile.
If you aren’t able to join in the fun this week our intention is to continue the conversation online (we think it is important). I’ll be teaming up with Don MacPherson of Modern Survey later this month for the Engage – Inspire – Empower webinar event. We’ll explore the latest research and mega trends on Employee Engagement and provide some specific, actionable take away for business leaders. The data alone is worth the price of admission (FREE)! Plan to join us on Tuesday, April 26 at 11:00 am central time (register here). Don’s latest post on the value of values is also well worth the read.
Looking forward to a great season! Hope we connect along the way!
