All posts in Leadership

Learning, Leading and Lasting

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I wanted to give everyone a preview of my new webinar series, “Strategy Execution”.  In researching high-performance organizations I’ve found 3 attributes:

1.  Top Performance Organizations are Learning

Learning is the pathway to continual mastery in any endeavor.  It’s only through learning that we continually re-create ourselves.  A learning organization is one that continually expands it’s capacity to create the future.

What are you learning?

2.  Top Performance Organizations are Leading

One of the most difficult decisions a leader has to make is choosing what they can be great at.  This is a question of focus.  Focus is hard because it eliminates options and holds us responsible.

What can you truely be great at?

3.  Top Performance Organizations are Lasting

As an organization grows it becomes more complex.  The ability to build structure to handle complexity and predict the future is a major attribute of lasting organizations.  Your capacity to grow is directly related to your pain tolerance because no organization can rise above the constraints of it’s leadership.

How much pain are you willing to endure?

Keep Learning, Keep Leading, and Last!  The prize is worth the price!

Why do you need to grow?

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I spent today in Pennsylvania with New Castle Lawn and Landscape and I was asked the question, “Why do I have to grow?”  People normally discover that even though they say they want to grow, they don’t understand the price they have to pay to grow.  There is no growth without change and there is no change without pain.  This is why people usually grow only to their pain tolerance.  Many times I’m called in to assess personal capacity and one of the main questions I ask myself is, “How much pain is this person able to endure?”  Not a fun question, a valuable one to ask ourselves.

The critical reason is summed up in the phrase I call OUT-IN-OUT

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Tips for Communicators

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We are all communicators!  This is how we get things done with other people and your success depends on your ability to get your message through the clutter.  The better you become with your communication, the better your results!

I just finished The Power to Connect.  It’s a great resource for anyone that exchanges ideas and information in order to influence people’s actions (which is every leader I know!).  Here are six key questions to ask yourself before you share your story:

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Elevate Your Influence Through Trust

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Trust is never static.  Everything you do impacts others’ level of trust in you because there is a difference between being trustworthy and being trusted.  How you behave as a leader is always under the microscope, so be very conscious of whether you are building or diminishing trust.

Have you ever mistakenly mistrusted someone who was in fact trustworthy?  A common misconception is that honesty alone breeds trust.  Bridging the trust gap is a marriage of character and skill.  Four elements must be present for trust to increase:

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