I read Seth Godin's Tribes a few months ago but something struck me as I was reading some other books for a leadership class I have been taking.

Seth indicates leadership is scarce because people aren't willing to go through the discomfort that is required of a leader.  I have often said that people are messy, having borrowed that from somewhere and someone else. I believe it's a good thing people are messy. It means that everyone is unique and we all have different talents to offer. This also means there will be different challenges to overcome. This is where less capable leaders shy away from true leadership.

Seth goes on to say that the discomfort leaders experience creates the leverage that makes the very endeavor worthwhile, or "if everyone could do it, they would, and it wouldn't be worth much".  It is the effort, the challenge, the rigor, the sacrifice and the humility that it takes to be a leader and are the very reasons we have some darn good one's out there in the world. 

But Seth also believes a lack of discomfort means you aren't reaching your potential as a leader. I would have to clarify that a bit. I have seen many leaders who are uncomfortable giving feedback, firing an employee, or doing something rather "hard" like that in the workplace. Their discomfort is great to the point of avoidance.  This is not the kind of discomfort that Seth is referring to in my opinion. It is the discomfort of thinking about how you will give that feedback to someone, planning your discussion and then actually having the discussion. How that goes with me versus how that goes with the guy in marketing may be very different. The discomfort you feel as a leader in having these conversations means you are stretching yourself to find the best way to make the most of this opportunity.

Do you think leadership is scarce in your organization? I would love to hear your thoughts! Anissa

1.      A cowboy never takes unfair advantage - even of an enemy.

2.      A cowboy never betrays a trust or goes back on his word.

3.      A cowboy always tells the truth.

4.      A cowboy is kind and gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.

5.      A cowboy is free from racial and religious prejudices.

6.      A cowboy is always helpful and lends a hand when someone is in trouble.

7.      A cowboy is always a good worker.

8.      A cowboy respects womanhood, parents and the laws of his nation.

9.      A cowboy is always clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.

10. A cowboy is a patriot to his country.


What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree?

1. You will receive a body.
You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”

4. A lesson is repeated until learned.
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end.
There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. “There” is no better than “here.”
Where your “there” has become “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that will, again, look better than “here.”

7. Others are mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you.
The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. Whether you think you can or can't, in either case you'll be right. Think about it.

11. You will forget all this or you will choose to remember.

12. Should you choose to remember, you will know that with forgiveness, love and trust you will embrace all that is yours. Take your place as a guide and undertake to live your life in absolute abundance, love and adventure.

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do an outsourcing study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16 Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Question: What do these humorous comments suggest about organizational rationality?

source: http://wms-soros.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/NR/rdonlyres/ev27iozk6erc6ifb4batzmje3wlwp7wfokvkf364prtboqx3evhotnh24oz2ltl2l24p27s3ip6r2n/Humour%252eDeadhorses1.pdf

When it comes to courage, how much do you have?  Do you think courage is an absolute - either you have it or you don't? Or do you believe there are gradations to courage?

Author Jerry Harvey tells a story of how members of his extended Texan family decided to drive 40 miles to Abilene for dinner, on a very hot day, in a car with broken air conditioning.  Everyone was miserable.  Later, when they were talking about the situation, each person admitted they had not wanted to make the trip but went along with to please the others.

Harvey refers to this as the Abilene Paradox as a way to describe the tendency of people to not voice their true feelings or thoughts in deference to pleasing others.

How often have you done that? Are you being true to yourself with you do this? Are you showing respect to others when you just try to please them against your own desires?  Doesn't courage mean saying what you think and sharing what's on your mind, even if it means that others may disagree with you?  Isn't it courageous to fight for what you believe and then accepting the responsibility of whatever comes next?

Back to my original questions. When it comes to courage, how much do you have?  Do you think courage is an absolute - either you have it or you don't? Or do you believe there are gradations to courage?  Let me know what you think! Anissa

The Pike Syndrome helps to illustrate the power of conditioning in our thinking and behavior.

In an experiment, a northern pike is placed in one half of a divided glass aquarium, with many minnows on the other side.  The pike is very hungry and tries repeatedly to get to the food, i.e. the minnows. The pike only succeeds in hitting the glass divider, finally learning that it will never get to the minnows.

Later the glass divider is removed from the aquarium.  The pike does not try to attack and eat the minnows because it previously learned that it was unable and impossible.  

When people assume they have complete knowledge of a situation based on past experiences, they are exhibiting the Pike Syndrome, or the "trained capacity that comes from rigid commitment to what was true in the past and a refusal to consider alternatives or different perspectives" (Richard Daft, The Leadership Experience, 2008).

Are you like that pike in your  workplace, thinking the same things based on your past professional experiences, ignoring new ideas, suggestions, theories or concepts?  It's time to be a successful pike. What are you waiting for?

You've failed many times, although you don't remember.

You fell down the first time you tried to walk.

You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim.

Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat?  I know I didn't!

Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also strike out a lot.

Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times but he also hit 714 home runs. 

R.H. Macy failed 7 times before his store in New York caught on. And thank God it did or we wouldn't have that awesome movie to watch each year.

English novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

Don't worry about failure.

Worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.

Author Unknown.

A blind man was brought to the hospital.  He was both depressed and seriously ill.  He shared a room with another man, and one day asked, "What is going on outside?"  The man in the other bed explained in some detail about the sunshine, gusty winds, and the people walking along the sidewalk. 

The next day, the blind man again asked, "Please tell me what is going on outside today."  The roommate responded with a story about the activities in a park across the way, the ducks on the pond, and the people feeding them.  

The third day and each day thereafter for two weeks, the blind man asked about the world outside and the other man answered, describing a different scene.  The blind man enjoyed these talks, and he grew happier learning about the world seen through the window.

Then the blind man's roommate was discharged from the hospital.  A new roommate was wheeled in - a tough-minded businessman who felt terrible, but wanted to get work done.

The next morning, the blind man said, "Will you please tell me what is going on outside?"  The businessman did not feel well, and he didn't want to be bothered to tell stories to a blind man.  So he responded assertively, "What do you mean? I can't see outside. There is no window here. It's only a wall."

The blind man again became depressed, and a few days later he took a turn for a the worse and was moved to intensive care.

Do you open windows to a brighter world for those around you? Or do only see the walls? Anissa

Source of story: based on a story heard at a spiritual service in Santa Fe, New Mexico

As an add-on to yesterday's blog post, I wanted to share a few more questions for you to ponder. These can work in your current situation or in potentially new one.

• Does what I do count? How?
  
• Does what I do make a difference to anybody? How?
  
• Why should I come here?
• Can I be somebody here? Who?
  
• Do I have any rights? What are they? 
• How does coming here add richness to my life?
• Do I learn things here? When? How often?
• Would I show this place to my family? Am I ashamed? Indifferent?
• Would I brag about my company to others? Why or why not?
• Is this place open to my influence? How?
• Are there people here I can trust? How do I know/

With all the news about job losses, many of us are looking for a new job.  As a candidate, what questions are YOU asking when you are on an interview?

You have the right, responsibility really, to ask the people who are interviewing you some tough questions. Even better if the person sitting across from you is your potential new manager.  Some to consider asking are:

• What can I expect from you as a leader?
• Will I reach my potential by working with you? How? (notice it says with, not for)
• Can I entrust my future to you? Why?
• How have you prepared yourself for leadership?
• Describe your feedback and coaching practices.
• What are your guiding principles as a leader?
• Tell me about your style of leadership.
• What will you expect from me in my first 90 days? A year? 

If you aren't asking questions that are direct to the person you are interviewing with, reconsider how you interview. It is important to understand an organization's benefits, their objectives and vision.  It is important to understand the expectations for the role and group you will be working with. But as every business book will freely tell you, a person leaves their manager, not the organization. Meaning, that one relationship takes precedence over all else when it comes to job satisfaction. And if it this truly the case, don't you owe yourself these questions to ensure that the person you are going to be working with is the right fit for you?

Let me know how it goes! Anissa

Questions adapted from 7 Hidden Reasons Why Employees Leave by Branham, Leadership Jazz by Max DePree, Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner.

Beliefs serve many purposes in our quest to grow and live.

They:

• help us to organize the world in meaningful ways
• give us our sense of ourselves
• help us to take action in specific ways
• allow us to accomplish our goals
• help us to regulate the emotional centers of our brain
• allow us to socialize with others
• guide us in our moral and educational pursuits
• heal our bodies and mind

How do your beliefs help you? Hopefully, the above list will help to spark reflection within for your own continued personal development. It's the best way to go! Anissa

Thanks to Andrew Newberg's Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biologic Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth (p.15).

The recession, the erosion of trust in institutions, and other factors are making leadership especially challenging, and the authors of various articles in the April 2009 edition of the Harvard Business Review offer strategies leaders can follow to weather the current crisis.

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin suggests that leaders should hire the best possible people and surround themselves with a team of people who can challenge leaders' thinking and whose strengths can compensate for leaders' shortcomings. Sharing credit with the closest colleagues ensures their full commitment to the leader's vision, while regular communication with the broader public is essential.

Leaders should engage with people who resist change so that they can gain knowledge and change course if they suggest smart adjustments to their initiatives. Dealing with the challenge of retaining and better serving customers during the recession is the focus of several articles, including one recommending that managers resegment their customers based on the observation that some consumers stop spending while others hardly change their behavior unless they become unemployed.

From my perspective, learn as much as you can from others which means surrounding yourself by smarter, more dynamic, diverse, and unique persons. It will raise both yours and their potential and output.  Anissa

I saw an interesting billboard on the way home from work today. It said "his global compass is equality" -- Desmond Tutu. 

What is your global compass? If someone asked you, would you be able to answer immediately or would you need to think about it?  Would you be able to describe it one word or would it be a phrase or a full conversation? Would you feel the need to qualify it?  Would it apply to your life, or just parts of it (i.e. personal vs. professional)?

My global compass is positivity. It is the word that describes my global compass perfectly and has done so for many years now. I can only say I wish I had learned it sooner but since I am the architect of my life, it came along when it was time.

What is your global compass? I would love to know! Anissa

In honor of Pam's new book release, Escape from Cubicle Nation, I wanted to share one of the posts that Guy Kawasaki plugged that is well written. She reprints it in the book, but wanted to share nonetheless. It is an organizational manifesto if you well.

The post hooked me and once she shared that she was writing a book, I was first in line (figuratively) to get a copy of which she signed as well.  The book is just as fantastic as her blog. Check either them out if you get a chance.  Anissa

Please check out my blog for the original post! 

For work, it really wasn't Anissa

Active coaching is a collaborative effort, requiring both parties to be in agreement about goals, an action plan, and approach. The relationship has a basis in working in partnership to achieve mutual satisfaction. Each coaching session is different and one of the greatest assets of working with a coach is being kept accountable for the goals you've set.

Now may not be the right time for you to shell out for a costly coach. But without one, can you afford to remain on your current path? If a coach isn't in your future, share your goals and plans for reaching them with a close friend. Ask your "coach-friend" to regularly check in on your progress and make sure you're meeting milestones.

Remember, the focus is YOU! Anissa

Be still and know God.

Be still and know who you are.

Be still and know what is true.

Be still and know what is success.

Be still and know what is joy.

Be still and know how to listen.

Be still and know how to receive.

Be still and know how to love.

Be still and know.

I would add, simply, Be Still.  Anissa