Archive for January, 2010
Three Simple Ways to Improve in 2010 January 13 2010 one response
This is the week where the rubber meets the road on all of those grand plans that we have for changing things in the new year. The glow of being out of the office for a week or two has worn off, all of the stories about what you did on the break have been told and now that big bucket of cold reality has been dumped on your head like a bucket of Gatorade. What do you do to keep the momentum going? How do you keep hope alive?
I was thinking about those questions yesterday while doing one of my favorite things. That was working with a fantastic group of corporate leaders in our Next Level Leadership™ group coaching program. Our broad focus yesterday was personal presence which has a lot to do with how you view yourself and how others view you. The folks in the program are high achieving corporate directors who are serious about continuous improvement but who also each have about a ton and a half of stuff on their plate that needs to be accomplished.
You may find yourself saying right now, “I resemble that remark.” Most successful leaders do. You’re successful because you’re committed to getting better and better. Because you’re successful you have a ton of stuff to do which crowds out the plans for improvement you have for this year. How do you handle the competing commitments?
Here are three simple things that I encourage my leadership clients to do that, based on the follow up research we do, make a difference for leaders who want to keep improving.
Video Book Club: Rocket Men January 12 2010 one response
How many leaders does it take to put a man on the moon in less than 10 years? I don’t know the answer to that question but it’s somewhere north of a lot. This week’s video book club feature is Rocket Men
You can buy Rocket Men
Is Winning On Your Calendar? January 11 2010 no responses
The next few weeks are some of my favorites of the year as the NFL playoffs are underway. Highlights from this past weekend include the Ravens ending the Patriots dynasty, the Jets beating the Bengals at home, the Cowboys on a roll and an absolutely crazy high scoring battle between the Cardinals and Packers that ended on a defensive touchdown in over time. As much as I enjoyed the games, what I really appreciate is how some of these coaches motivate their teams.
One vignette was Baltimore coach Jim Harbaugh grabbing a couple of cups of Gatorade from the sideline table as time expired in New England and running on the field to douse some of his winning players. That was a nice twist on the now clichéd routine of the winning coach getting a cooler full of the stuff dumped on his head. The most fun for me as a leadership geek, though, was learning more about how Jets coach Rex Ryan is motivating his team on their unlikely playoff run.
In case you’re not familiar with the situation, Ryan is a rookie coach with a rookie quarterback, Mark Sanchez. The Jets haven’t won a Super Bowl since the Joe Namath era and rarely make the playoffs. In one stretch earlier this year, they lost six out of seven games. So, if you’re Rex Ryan, how do you play it? Do you define success as just making the playoffs? No way. As reported in the New York Times, on the Tuesday before the Jets first playoff game, Ryan gave his team their schedule for the rest of the playoffs. The last item on the calendar was a parade on February 9.
Is Ryan crazy? Like a fox, maybe. Here’s how he explained his approach in a press conference last week:
“I know what our goal is. Our goal is we’re trying to win the thing. That’s our goal. To get to this point and not have that as your ultimate goal, I don’t think you’re going to be successful. I think you have to visualize yourself succeeding and then go out and make it happen. I know that’s my goal.”
Ryan wants his team to visualize themselves blowing right through the Super Bowl and all the way through to the victory parade.
How about you and your team? What does the full and complete picture of success look like? What else can you do to paint that picture for them and make it real? Is winning on your calendar?
How To Keep Your Plates Spinning in 2010 January 8 2010 7 responses
I’m old enough to remember the guys who used to come on The Ed Sullivan Show to spin plates. It was an amazing act. The fast music would start and the guy would get about five bowls spinning on top of sticks and have another eight plates spinning between the sticks. He would be running back and forth spinning one plate while looking out the corner of his eye for the next plate that needed a spin. Just about the time one was ready to crash, he’d give it a spin. That was some great TV. As Ed used to say, “A really big show.” (For a really fun three minute example of what I’m talking about, click on this authorized You Tube link of plate spinner Erich Brenn on the Sullivan show in 1969.)
Plate spinning came to mind earlier this week when I had lunch with a friend and former client who recently took a senior technology executive role with a well known global company. I asked him how it was going and he said, “Remember when I used to talk about my job being like plate spinning? Well, in this job there are enough plates to keep me spinning for years so I’ve decided I’m only going to be spinning about three plates at a time.”
Because his company recently moved their headquarters, my friend and his senior colleagues are building teams of people to take over roles in which the predecessors didn’t make the move. So, it’s almost like a start-up situation and there’s just way more to do than can possibly be done in a given time frame. His situation is not much different than a lot of leaders these days. Most everyone is leading in a do more with less environment. That’s certainly how things were in 2009 and 2010 likely won’t be much different.
So, how do you, as a leader, keep your plates spinning this year? Here are some tips from my expert plate spinning friend:
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word January 6 2010 3 responses
Question: What do former Time Warner CEO, Jerry Levin, former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill and (soon to be former?) Washington Wizard, Gilbert Arenas have in common? Answer: They each have their issues with saying, “I’m sorry.”
Of course, that trait is not unique to them. Elton John recognized it as such a standard characteristic of the human condition that he and his lyricist Bernie Taupin wrote a song about it. Here’s the hook:
It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word
Elton and Bernie were right. It’s pretty absurd how hard it is to say, “I’m sorry.”
Here’s the recap on the three examples mentioned above. As reported in the Financial Times, Jerry Levin apologized on CNBC this week for selling Time Warner to AOL for $164 billion 10 years ago. The operative phrase there is “10 years ago.” I think that qualifies as a little late. A few days earlier the Sunday New York Times ran an article on Sandy Weill and how no business people want to play with him anymore. (The article was titled, “Citi’s Creator, Alone With His Regrets.” )
Now under partial government ownership, Citi is selling off a lot of the businesses that Weill put together as CEO. According to Weill, he feels “incredibly sad” about that but assigns the blame mainly to his hand-picked successor as CEO. Finally, there’s the case of NBA player Gilbert Arenas who thought it was a good idea to bring his handguns to the Washington Wizards locker room. Always the joker, Arenas thought it would be funny to suggest to one of his teammates with whom he was having an argument 
that he select one of the guns and the two of them shoot it out. Strangely, the teammate didn’t see the humor in that and drew his own gun. Fortunately, no shots were fired. For the first four or five days after the story broke, Arenas pretty much blew it off as a big laugh but after an interview with the cops eventually acknowledged that gunplay in the locker room wasn’t such a great idea.
Since it’s hard to go through life without making a mistake, it’s important to know how to say, “I’m sorry.” Those two words are a good starting point but more is needed. Here, then, are some tips on how to apologize:
Something New for 2010: The Video Book Club January 5 2010 3 responses
The new year brings new ideas and approaches to our work. One of mine is to start a video book club on this blog. Here’s the plan. Once a week, I’ll shoot a short (3 minutes or less) video on a leadership book that I like. I’ll usually read a brief excerpt that I think provides food for thought or news you can use for leaders. Like most of my written posts on the blog, I’ll also try to make a connection between the book and what’s going on in the world of leadership.
So, to kick things off, the first book is the Tao Te Ching
Would love to get your feedback and comments here. What do you think of the video book club idea? What books would you recommend for the club? Have you read the Tao Te Ching? If so, what were your takeaways?
If you’d like to purchase a copy of Mitchell’s translation, here’s the link for it on Amazon
Invictus: A Leadership Case Study for Years to Come January 4 2010 8 responses
So one of the wonderful things (for me at least) about the end of year holidays is the opportunity to see a lot of first run movies. This year I saw Avatar (terrific 3D cinematography, weak script), Up in the Air (brilliant rendition of soulless business travel) and Invictus which is the subject of this post.
In case you’re not familiar with it, Invictus is director Clint Eastwood’s portrayal of Nelson Mandela’s first days as president of post-apartheid South Africa and how Mandela used the historically hapless South African Springboks rugby team to bring the country together. When he took office in 1994, Mandela recognized that the Springboks were the passion of white South Africans while black South Africans would cheer for whatever team was playing against the Springboks. As it happened, the 1995 Rugby World Cup was scheduled to take place in South Africa. Embodied by the slogan, “One Team, One Country,” Mandela set the goal of the Springboks winning the World Cup. With Morgan Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as Springboks team captain, Francois Pinnear, this trailer provides a nice overview of the movie.
If you’re a leader or are someone who is working to develop leaders (the two are not mutually exclusive by the way), you have to see this movie. When it comes out on DVD, you have to buy it and then promise yourself you’re going to watch it again at least 2 or 3 times a year. It is simply one of the best case studies I’ve ever seen of how a transformative leader practices his craft. I wish I had taken notes when I saw it, but here’s a quick list of some of the ways in which the movie portrays how Mandela established his leadership as President:
2009′s Greatest Hits January 1 2010 no responses
Happy new year everyone. Having reviewed a lot of the “year in review” retrospectives over the past couple of weeks, it looks like the votes have been counted and 2009 was not a great year. In fact, the “aughts” are getting a lot of votes for worst decade in a long time. So, let’s get on with 2010 and each do what we can to make it a great year.
Let’s also keep some perspective. No year is completely bad or good. It’s a mix. Looking back at last year, one of the things I’m happiest about is some of the great conversations that took place on this blog and the perspectives, ideas and advice we shared with each other. Herewith, with no scientific method used at all, are some of the Next Level blog’s “greatest hits” from 2009. Hope you find something useful here as you look ahead to 2010.
Five Principles for Building a Strong Network: Probably because we all need a strong network, this was the most viewed and commented on post of the year.
Feedback Do’s and Don’ts from American Idol: This was the post that taught me that when you use pop culture as an example, the conversation is going to be about pop culture rather than the point you’re trying to make.
What Leaders Can Learn from Bruce Springsteen: The exception that proves the pop culture rule above. There are a lot of dedicated fans of the Boss who see a lot of leadership qualities in him.
Your Leadership Legacy in One Sentence: Inspired by a Peggy Noonan column, this post was picked up by my Harvard Business blogging buddy John Baldoni and got a lot of hits throughout the year. People seem intrigued by the exercise of summing up what you’re here to do in one sentence.
Amygdala Hijacks, Professor Gates and the Cambridge Police: The arrest of Harvard professor Skip Gates at his own home ended up being one of the stories of the summer especially after President Obama commented on it. I thought there were some things to learn about how to handle emotionally charged situations. (Seems like we had a lot of those in 2009!)
What Leaders Can Learn from Lab Rats – Five Tips for Beating Stress: Research that came out last year showed that lab rats make better decisions when they’re less stressed. Gee, who knew? This post draws some lessons from the rats that we humans can benefit from.
Five Things Alan Mullaly is Doing to Help Ford Win: Ford CEO Alan Mulally is rapidly emerging as one of my heroes. Back in September, I did a little research to come up with a short list of things he’s doing at Ford that I think all leaders should do.
What Leaders Can Learn from Brett Favre About Winning Over a Skeptical Team: Proving the point that no one is perfect (Brett Favre and me included), I wrote this one when the Vikings were 4 and 0 and before Favre started arguing with his coach about whether or not he was coming out of the game. In any case, I think these lessons still stand up for leaders charged with winning over a bunch of skeptics.
Learning What Not to Do from the Leadership of the Washington Redskins: I could easily turn into a sports blogger during football season. There are just so many examples. This post got picked up by a lot of Redskins fan sites and other blogs. It’s the only post I’ve written where several dozen commenters all agreed with me. It also led to an interview with DC’s Fox affiliate that you can see here.
Six Factors That Drive Confidence in Leaders: This is one of several posts that were picked up this year by my friends at SmartBrief on Leadership. It recaps research conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership which offers clear, common sense advice for leaders in any sector.
That’s the list! If there’s something in here that really works for you, I’d love to hear about it. My goal for 2010 is to stimulate more thinking, conversation and action with leadership news you can use. Your feedback is a valuable part of that process. Cheers and best wishes for a fantastic year.
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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