Are You Vulnerable?

Are you vulnerable? Vulnerability is a bad idea in business. When you're vulnerable, the concern is that people can take advantage of you. You don't want to look weak.

My mother is a very open and giving person. Sometimes it appears that people take advantage of her. One time, when a friend seemed to be inappropriately using my mother, I asked her, "why do you let her do that? Don't you know she's taking advantage of you?" My mother's response was "people can't take advantage of you if you let them." I thought that was very profound. In other words, people can take advantage of the unwilling or unknowing. However, if we choose to let people do what they do, no one can say they're taking advantage of us...we're letting it happen.

Back to vulnerability. Relationships are about taking chances. Depending on how deep the relationship determines how open we are. The level of openness has a direct corollary: vulnerability.

If you believe you need to have good, solid relationships with your team members, you will have to open yourself up somewhat. When you do that, you make yourself vulnerable to those team members. You make yourself human. You show yourself to be imperfect and that you have flaws (although, they've probably already picked up on some of your flaws from working with you).

Relationships are risky. There's no doubt about it. However, in order to be the servant leader you want to be, in order to develop a sense of trust with your people, and in order to build a group of committed team members, you have to be vulnerable.

What are other risks to being vulnerable? Can you be too open with your people?

Do Your Team Members Come To You?

In times of stress, trial, or other hardships, who do your team members turn to?

Where I live now, most people have at least one relative who can be considered near by and to whom they might go when they have trouble. That isn't the case for everyone in the world. My family and I lived in Germany for 5 years. Family was 6,000 miles away. When we had stresses in our lives, we had to decide who we should talk to.

If your people are experiencing trouble, do they come to you, as their boss? Do you take the time for your folks? Do they know that you care about them as individuals as well as workers? Is there a personal relationship with each of the people directly under your care? Have you developed a culture and climate in your office that lends it to people reaching out, that lets them know it's OK to talk to the boss?

If your people have trouble, do you want them to come to you?

Smiling

Are you kidding me? Smiling? We're going to write about smiling?

Yes, of course. If you have customers, and all of us do (of one kind or another), then we want our customers to be happy and we want them to WANT to be involved with our business or operation.

When's the time to start smiling? It's when you answer the phone. Customers start making judgements about us, our teams, and our business as soon as they hear a voice (really, it's before that if you do any advertising or they've seen your web site). A voice can definitely convey a smile if we want it to.

The next smile has to be at the front desk. You know, typically the front desk person is the lowest paid in the office, but she or he often has the most important role. This person is the one who can give the first face-to-face smile a customer sees. Your front desk person has to be free to focus on the customers as they come in and should know that a "live" customer is always the first priority over customers on the phone or on email. The front desk person should really be happy to see customers coming in and that's not always easy to do. Maybe the answer is to fake it sometimes if we're not "feeling it", but often we're not that good as actors.

I can go through the list of staff in your office in reference to smiling, but the key is to be smiling all the time. Smiles are infectious and they make other people feel better. They can help our customers feel glad that they chose to come and see us.

I'm smart enough to know that a smile isn't what gets us business...it's bringing value to our customers that gets them in our doors. Still, if we bring value with a poor attitude, then is it really valuable at all? Most people like to be around others who are glad to see them. It's the same with customers.

If smiling isn't a natural expression for you or your people (it's not always for everybody...some people are just serious), then you need to practice and get the team members to help by letting their coworkers know when the smile slips a little.

You may think this is all silly, but I'm deadly serious. Our customers should expect our best and they should get it. To do business with you (unless you're in business based totally on price), they're going to want to receive value and receive it in a positive atmosphere.

So, SMILE!

Failure to Failure

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." ~ Winston Churchill.

There are a million quotes on success and failure. Pretty much all of them refer to how people can't have success without failure, that failure is part of learning and growing. Then, of course, less positive quotes exist, quotes like from the latest season opener of "House, M.D." when House says to his psychiatrist, "Successes only last until someone screws them up. Failures last forever." That's harsh.

I love the Churchill quote. It makes so much sense when things are going well for in people's lives. However, I understand the quote House makes because people can feel that way when they're experiencing tough times.

I think one can argue some validity for either quote...IF a person chooses to accept that kind of attitude. It's really about the attitude and outlook someone adopts.

Since people have choices on what path they will take, why not choose to take the positive one? House's psychiatrist replied to him, "You acknowledge failure and then you move past it."

That's key, too. The doctor didn't say to ignore failure. He said to acknowledge it, think about it, learn from it...and then let it go. Human beings will always make mistakes. That's the nature of being human. The point is to not make the same mistakes, but to grow (so we can make different kinds of mistakes...that's OK...that's a part of life long learning). In that way, people can achieve success.

I'll work on my procrastination when I get around to it.

There's never a better time than now. It's just that procrastinators are likely to put off trying to fix their problems with procrastination.

We know it's a bad habit. We know we shouldn't do it. We know we need to be more productive. So how can we master the procrastination problem?

Perhaps the first step we could take is to figure out what is causing the procrastination. Is it just that we lack self-discipline, in general? If so, that's a way bigger issue than procrastination regarding a particular task. For self-discipline issues, I recommend you read Steve Pavlina's blog series on developing self-discipline. Let's take a look at other reasons we may be putting off handling a task or tasks:

Stress: When we're stressed, we often have a tough time focusing on the tasks we need to accomplish. We need to figure out what's stressing us out so we can remove the stress and get back on track.

Overwhelmed: Similarly to stress, when we have too much to do, we don't keep our eyes on the ball very well. We need to take a breath, step back, and prioritize. Every task hopefully doesn't have to be completed today. We can also take a look to see what tasks we might be able to share with others (you know, teamwork).

Don't understand: Often we procrastinate when we don't know how to do the task and are afraid to ask. Intimidation can get in the way, for sure. We don't want to look stupid. I advise others that you don't look stupid when you ask questions. It's when you don't ask questions and then can't get the job done that you look stupid.

People Issues: Sometimes we procrastinate because whoever we have to partner or coordinate with is someone we don't like, someone we have trouble relating to, or someone who makes us feel uncomfortable. Regardless, someone else is in the way. There's no rule that says we get to like who we work with. Often, dislike or discomfort stems from lack of communication. We need to act like mature professionals and put aside our biases because the other person is probably not going away and the task definitely isn't going away.

Are there other reasons that cause us to fall into the procrastination trap? What do you have to overcome to get tasks completed on time?

3 "People" in the conversation

Yesterday, I was providing some coaching advice specific to how to best communicate with a team member who is not doing what the boss wants. I was explaining that it's very important for the person being coached not to think he or she is being attacked.

The key is to look at such a coaching situation like there are 3 people in the conversation:

• Boss
• Team member
• Action (offense)

During the session, the boss must ensure he or she addresses the "offense" separate from the "offender". Therefore, Suzie is not bad. Instead, what Suzie did or failed to do was bad. When the boss and team member are able to focus on the offense, hopefully, the team member will be able to interact more objectively and progress can be made.

For more information on both situational and ongoing coaching, follow this link to my 5-part series.

A Man of Success

Albert Einstein once said, "Try not to become a man of success but a man of value."

When you are a professional, whether it be in business, in the government, or part of another organization, you are often pushed to be successful at just about any cost. You've seen it. You've seen people so focused on success that it's all they can do, all they can think about.

How do you measure success? Many of us measure from a perspective of:

• Fame
• Fortune
• Power
• Influence

So many times, these measurements are focused almost solely on ourselves. They can be very selfish and self-serving. I think Einstein is saying that the focus of our lives can't be primarily or even mostly about ourselves. It's just that a life focused totally inward seems kind of an empty existence.

I've mentioned it before: most all the motivational speakers out on the circuit today (people like Zig Ziglar) will say you can't be a true success until you've helped people around you be successful. For the majority of people, possessions don't really make them happy, not long-term, anyway. It's the people around us, people we care about, who do that. It's about relationships and being valuable to others.

"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value." In the end, that's where true success lies.

Questions

Voltaire wrote, "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers."

People like to hear themselves talk. People like to be thought of as witty and wise. Some people project the idea that they know everything or most everything...and want to share what they know with you.

What I think about when I read Voltaire's quote is that we all have 2 ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we speak.

I also think about what I was taught when I was a young man: when you encounter someone who has all the answers, walk away. Adding to it, I learned that the time I think I have all the answers, I need to realize I know nothing.

Perhaps Voltaire was talking about being a thoughtful person. Thoughtful people ask great questions, not just a lot of them. The questions they ask show they're thinking and can often make you stop and question your own thought processes or your own views of a problem. Great, thoughtful questions can cut through all the clutter and get to the meat of an issue. They add to the dialog instead of turning attention away from it like poor questions can do.

Do you ask many questions? What kind of questions do you ask? Do they add to the discussion at hand?

Criticism...Embrace it.

I'm on to another post based on a quote that I read and found thought-provoking. Here is today's quote: “To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” ~Elbert Hubbard

None of us likes being criticized. We want people to like us or, at least, to respect us. We often identify our ideas and our work with our self-worth. Therefore, when they are being criticized, it can sometimes make us feel like we're being personally attacked.

What do so many of us do when we're being attacked? We either seek to deflect the attacks or we fight back. Mr. Hubbard's quote seems to be focusing more on the "avoidance" or deflection reaction to criticism.

Criticism, even if it isn't positive, can still be such a positive event for us because it can be a catalyst of change or at least a catalyst of evaluation and circumspection. How can we ever improve if we get no feedback -- positive or otherwise -- about how we're doing? Plus, as Nietzsche said, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger". Criticism, and the growth that can come from it, certainly can make us stronger.

I would much rather be known for looking at my criticisms mostly objectively (even if I do take some of them a little personally) and growing from them, than someone who is so afraid of what others might think that I am either paralyzed into total nothingness, being just a lump of a person, or that I become Yes Man, constantly working to agree with everyone. The result is the same: a lost identity. No, thanks.

What do you think about criticism, even when it is negative? Can it still be useful if it's not as nice as we'd like?

Don't borrow trouble

"The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work." ~ Robert Frost

Companies and other organizations are all rumor mills, aren't they? Some places are better or worse than others. Gossip and rumors are bad, in general, when they hurt others and diminish productivity.

With a bad economy and so many companies and shops struggling to survive, the rumors, gossip, and fear can get really out of hand. How can bosses overcome such negativity as it tries to creep into their teams?

• Don't join in the rumor mongering. Everybody likes to talk. If a manager needs to talk about things on his or her mind, he should speak to a colleague or mentor (bosses don't want to hear it).
• Focus the troops on the affirmative nature of the team or department. Regardless of what's happening on the outside, there ought to be something positive going on with the group.
• Keep the people anchored in the reality of the moment. Don't let them go down the "what if" path. The worst thing to do is "borrow trouble". They don't know what's going to happen in the future and it's a waste of time to trying to figure it out.
• Remind the team that they can't control what's going on around them. What they can control is themselves and how they perform their duties. I tell my team members the same thing I tell myself: "put your head down and work". That's what each of us can control.

What other ways are there to keep team members focused on positive attitudes and productivity, regardless of the situation?

Glass 1/2 Full

Recently, I wrote about how bosses are responsible for the mood of the teams they lead (see post here). Then, the quote that showed up on my blog yesterday (9/19), from Norman Vincent Peale, said: Change your thoughts and you change your world. That quote, from the king of positive thinking, also reminds me of my post "if you wanna be somebody else, change your mind."

It's great to have positive thoughts, read positive ideas, and work to exude a positive attitude. You know what is absolutely priceless? It's having other people on your team who understand and live the "positive" perspective of life.

I was very blessed to work with a person on my last team who was all about the positive. It's not that she was all "Pollyanna" and looked at the world in an unrealistic manner. She just chose to react to both her and the team's situations with a positive outlook most of the time.

Her mantra was "glass 1/2 full, glass 1/2 full" when anyone else on the team responded to situations in a less than positive manner. In fact, my colleague's words and attitude were such a good example, that I've even gotten into the habit of saying "glass 1/2 full" when I encounter negativity.

A positive attitude doesn't fix all the ills of the world or of the situations around us, but it sure can help us cope with them better.

Team Members or Customers...who comes first?

Conventional wisdom in business is that customers come first. Let's face it; if you didn't have customers, you wouldn't have a business, right? Therefore, we make statements like "the customer is always right." I've even told team members that the only "unforgivable" sin, as far as I was concerned...the action that would get them fired immediately, was being rude to a customer.

Lately, I've read that a few organizations out in the business world put their employees ahead of their customers. Now, I have heard about instances in just about any business where really horrible customers were encouraged or invited to find a new store or business to visit. This "putting the employees first" idea is more proactive than letting a customer move on. It sounds like a strategy or basic tenet of that organization.

The justification is that, if you hire properly and have the right culture, along with training, encouraging, challenging, and rewarding your team members, an almost automatic by-product will be an unparalleled customer experience. If companies ensure they have the best teams in the world, then customers will stand in line to do business with them.

That's an interesting thought. I guess I can see that. It's kind of a tangent off what I've always said, "if you take care of your people, then the projects, tasks, and mission take care of themselves."

What do you think? Who comes first: customers or employees?

Culture versus Pay

As I am reading "What's the Secret?" by John DiJulius, an outstanding book on how to provide a world-class customer experience for an organization's patrons, I come across quotes and thoughts that make me think. One quote is "the better the culture, the less pay becomes an issue."

What do you think that means? I think it means that if people work at an organization where they like to be, where they:

• feel good about what they and their company are doing
• know that their bosses are focused on helping them flourish
• are surrounded by positive, professional colleagues

then they are more focused on the positive culture than what their paycheck looks like.

Most people want to believe in something bigger than themselves. Most people want to feel good about what they're doing and about their circumstance. In these instances money, while still important, takes a back seat to how their company and their job make them feel.

Conversely, if someone works at an organization where the culture is very much "dog-eat-dog" and no one cares about the mission or about anybody else, then they'd better be getting top dollar. Otherwise, they'll be looking for the first opportunity to move on to an option that's better and brighter.

What are your thoughts on the quote? What examples can you give of places where culture beats cash hands down?

All Work and No Fun

Don't you love it when a boss makes one of those "encouraging" presentation to the troops? It seems that one of the obligatory bullet points is about having fun: "Work has to be fun!" "One thing we have to be sure we do...is have FUN!" In fact, if workers aren't having fun, they should find another job. Wow, that's such an empty statement. How out of touch or disingenuous are these bosses?

I've never heard one person say "I'm going to fun now" when heading to the office. Work is work and fun is fun. While sometimes they are the same thing (and that's great for those people who feel that way...although one could wonder what the rest of their lives are like if work is the best part of the day), most often they are two very distinct concepts.

While I have trouble with the "work is fun" concept, I do believe we can have fun with our co-workers as well as have rewarding experiences while at the office. I also believe that it's the boss's responsibility to help build an environment where positive events can happen. Two ways I'd like to share are:

1. Do Fun Stuff: I'm not talking about our tasks being fun. You can't count on that. What I am referring to is doing things that will put a smile on the faces of your team:

• Start off your daily huddle, weekly staff meeting, or other event with an activity to get people up and moving. One time, one of our team members made me sing a song because I was called away at the last minute and was "late" for our meeting. I sang "I'm a little teapot" with the motions to go with it. As a boss, you've got to be ready to shed any shred of dignity you have, every once in a while, to show you're human.
• Tell a joke whether it's good or bad (not off-color, though). I used to be known as the Chuck Norris jokester, with a list of really bad jokes that I shared. I can't tell jokes very well and the team heckling me was part of the fun.
• Leave them with a memorable quote. One of my team members always had a quote ready for the end of every meeting. Sometimes they were really memorable and sometimes they weren't, but it was still a positive way to send us back to work.

2. Build on Accomplishments: I always want my team to have a sense of purpose and be proud of what we do. I find it very fulfilling to be part of a team that works hard, meets tough goals, and then gets to see how meeting the goals helps another group or even the entire organization. The key is for the boss to make a big deal about what the team accomplished and let everyone know he or she is proud of them (it's good if you can get your boss to acknowledge the efforts and results, too).

Just like parents telling their kids they love them, bosses can never tell their team members too much that they are winners and that they are proud of them. The key here is to be sincere. If you don't mean it when you praise your people, they'll know.

Am I totally off base about work being fun? What other actions can bosses take to help themselves and their teams have fun at work?

Talent and Hard Work

Eric Zorn, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a piece a while back called "50 Things I've Learned".

One of his top 50 is "in everyday life, most 'talent' is simply hard work in disguise". Don't you think the main point he's trying to make is regarding hard work? "Wow, she's really good!" "Amazing; did you see how much he accomplished?"

Talent can only take you so far, because you still need to get results. Most of the time, getting results means working hard.

So, when it comes down to it, I'd rather have a hard worker with average talent than a talented worker with average drive. What do you think?

Building Work Relationships

As managers and bosses, you have lots of responsibilities, right? You have to worry about P&L, customer service, staffing issues, etc.

I have another responsibility to add to your list: relationships. You are responsible for relationships. In this post, I'm not writing about relationships outside the organization, like with customers or vendors. I'm talking about relationships inside your organization. So, what relationships are you responsible for? I'll mention 3 primary ones for today:

Team Members: You have people working for you, people you need to guide, direct, encourage, teach, etc. It's very hard to do a good job at any of these facets of management without having a positive relationship with your people. Oh, you can be a boss without having much of a relationship with your team, but you want folks who are committed to the group and the mission, not just compliant. A positive relationship is required to have committed people...and it's your responsibility to develop it. I know that relationships are two-way, but you are the boss so the responsibility is yours. See my post on coaching and 1:1 meetings for ways to build team member relationships.

Peers/colleagues: All bosses should be busy (let's assume you all are) and don't have a lot of free time at work. Add to it that, more and more often, people work in less proximity to each other (especially managers). It's very easy to have very little to do with your peers. Maybe you get on conference calls with them periodically or you see them at regional or company meetings, but often there are very few times peers get together. So, how do you develop relationships with other managers, most of whom are not physically near you? Pick up the phone. Make an effort to talk with your colleagues, see how they're doing, ask their input on something you're doing, etc. Teamwork doesn't just have to happen in one branch, team or project group. Teamwork can happen when peers and colleagues have relationships established and then can call on each other when the occasion arises.

Bosses: I know I just mentioned, above, that supervisors are responsible for relationships with their people. I do believe they have the primary responsibility. Still, you're a professional, aren't you? You don't have to wait for your boss to establish communication in order for you to reach out. Find out how you can help him or her be successful. Volunteer to help with a project or item that your boss is working on. Be ready to give your input on an issue (even solicit the opportunity)...check in with your boss to see if he or she is doing OK. There's a good chance that your boss is also challenged in relationships with peers and colleagues and could use a friendly, trustworthy ear. You may have the opportunity to be that resource.

Positive relationships can definitely impact an organization, maybe even being a key factor in its success. As a manager and boss, it's your responsibility to help build and encourage those relationships. What other ways can you think of to build relationships inside an organization?

Life Balance

When I was a young Army officer, I was away from home a lot. When I wasn't in the field, it wasn't uncommon for me to put in 12-14 hours a day at "the office". One day, my wife and I were talking about tasks and priorities. She made the comment, "it's OK, I know we're #2 for you." It was like a dagger in my heart. Now, my wife didn't make that comment in a negative manner at all. She was saying that she knew the service was making its demands and I had to follow them. My wife was accepting that, mostly graciously. I, however, heard those words and knew my life balance was off.

I'd like to say I changed things then and there, but that's not true. My work/life balance has stayed skewed for most of my adult life.

As a boss and supervisor most of my career, I've focused on the mission and my people. I've told myself that was the right thing to do. There have been times when work was practically my whole existence and I put in the hours to prove it. What's wrong with that?

Let's not kid ourselves that all the extra time we put in at work is just about others. I told myself that my military career was a career built on that very thing...but it was just as much or more about me.

I could pontificate on this subject for another hour, but let me leave you with this. It is hard to balance all the priorities we have in our lives. We're almost never going to have a perfect balance. If we have to err on one side, let it be on the side focused on others: our families, our loved ones, and those around us who need help in one way or another.

I'm very much a "it's not a job, it's a way of life" type of guy, but the way of life...well, it really needs to be about service to others.

Service to others...it's not a phrase, it's a way of life.

Getting Down in the Weeds

This is where a lot of managers like to be. If you think of the levels of management as a pyramid, with few jobs the higher up you move, you can see that there are a lot of managers out there who spend a fair amount of time in the bottom or tactical level of supervision.

There's absolutely no problem with that. Businesses need lots of managers at the store/office/center level. A problem can arise when some of the tactical managers get promoted and are required to think at a more strategic level:

• Tactical = how / actions
• Strategic = what, who, why / plans

We, humans, like to "go with what we know" and think tactically most of the time, it seems. It's just that the management pyramid example also works when you think of the division of tactical versus strategic thinking required at a particular management level. If lower level bosses aren't trained and pushed toward strategic thinking (because some people think that way naturally, but most have to be taught), then they tend to continue thinking in tactical terms.

I used to work on a volunteer board of directors, most of whose members had little overall experience or aptitude with strategic thinking. Since it was a volunteer group, no strategic training was in place, and the directors were just called upon to use their best judgement. While their intentions were good and pure, they were often at a loss to think strategically about the vision and direction of the organization. Instead, they got down in the weeds, preferring to spend their time discussing the details of a particular problem (how much a piece of equipment would cost or what it's specifications were, for example). They were going where they were comfortable instead of letting the volunteer managers at the next levels down do what they were supposed to do.

In order to help tactically thinking managers progress to higher-level thought processes, bosses need to expose them to strategic issues, give them good examples of strategic thought, and then encourage them to practice thinking and sharing in those terms. Practice really does make perfect in this instance.

If you're a mid- to high-level manager, where's your level of comfort? Are you primarily a tactical thinker or do you spend more time thinking strategically?

What do you want to be known for?

You've seen it, haven't you? You work with someone who is just naturally talented. Perhaps James is a great speaker and presenter. He can engage a crowd and have them eating out of the palm of his hand. Maybe Tanya is a great writer and thinker. She can churn out emails and documents that leave awe struck with her brain power. Perhaps Joe is a natural leader. His people literally crowd around him because of his magnetism. With all the brains and talent these people have, some of them really struggle with being successful. Why?

Often the reason you see people with such great talent struggle with success is that they're not performing the basics. The examples I mentioned above have so much going for them, yet they fail to:

• Follow up on their commitments
• Arrive at meetings on time...or even at all
• Return phone calls
• Meet deadlines

In a word, they lack credibility. They cannot be counted on. Those around people like this start to say, "wow, that was a great presentation..." and "gosh, that woman's thought process, being able to dig down through all the clutter, is amazing..." Then the people follow up their statements with "...but, he never got back to me on X" or "...but, she failed to follow through on her plans."

You know how to fix it: be disciplined as well as talented. Any number of people can provide you a road map for success. You just need to follow it.

What do you want to be know for? Do you want to be known for your great talent? Do you want to be remembered for your credibility and reliability? Or do you want to be remembered as a "...but, he" or ...but, she"?

It's your choice.

Purposeful management

I like to share with managers who I've trained that they need to manage, do their jobs, and lead people on purpose, not by accident.

I teach about thoughtful management instead of thoughtless doing. I even say I'd rather break the rules on purpose any day, with thought behind my decisions, than just go about my daily routine in a thoughtless manner. I want the managers and their teams to be successful because of their actions, not to just squeak by because of thoughtlessness.

How can one be a purposeful manager?

• Think before you act: Do a quick, cost-benefit analysis and weigh your options, but don't linger. Purposeful managers are decisive.
• Plan: As they say, "failing to plan is the same thing as planning to fail" (sorry, couldn't help myself...had to share it).
• Train and Execute: Ensure you and your team know what they're doing and and then that they follow their training.
• Review: Go back periodically and look at what you and your team has done and not done so you can make corrections moving forward.

I never want to be known as someone who flies by the seat of his pants. As Charles Emerson Winchester, a character from the TV show M*A*S*H, said during one episode: "I do one thing, I do it very well, and then I move on." Ditto to that, Charles, except that we often don't have the luxury of focusing on only one thing at a time. Still, I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to convey here.

What other ways do you know of to manage purposefully?

Servant Leadership...in Reverse

There are those who consider themselves servant leaders. These are leaders who work to help ensure their people flourish and succeed; not the other way around. I definitely subscribe to this type of leadership. If we empower our folks to exceed expectations in the pursuit of the mission, then it will help ensure we succeed, as well.

There is a temptation for some servant leaders to try to be all things to all people, to be larger than life, and to show they can handle anything. This temptation is a dangerous one because no one can do everything. Working with this mindset can overload even the best managers and leaders, potentially causing failure for the individual and the entire team. Teamwork can suffer when service only flows one way.

To be a true servant leader, sometimes you have to let others help you. Sometimes you have to let your aura of power and strength drop and show you are human. When you are in need, whatever that need may be, it's your duty to give others the opportunity to help you. Two-way support, just like two-way communication, is a sign of a healthy relationship between two or more people.

If you're a strong servant leader, then you've modeled what selfless service looks like. Now, give your people the opportunity to practice what they've learned from you, not only on their customers, but on their fellow team members, too...including you.

The Mood is on You

Have you ever heard the saying "if Mama ain't happy, nobody's happy"? Obviously, whoever came up with that saying was indicating that "Mama" affected the mood around the house. If she was upset, everybody was upset. If people weren't upset before they ran into Mama, they would be afterwards.

I do believe it's true, that in the workplace, if the boss isn't happy, nobody's happy. As a manager, do you realize the power that you wield? You set the tone for how the office will operate -- maybe for a particular day or maybe overall.

If you're a manager who wants to have a generally happy workplace for yourself and your people, then you've got to ensure that you project a positive and happy aura as much as possible. Now, it's not reasonable to think that any boss or manager is going to be in a good mood every day or that his or her life will always be hunky-dory. What I am saying is that you need to realize how your actions affect everyone around you in the office.

I guess it's fine to feel however you want to feel, but you owe it to your people -- the people who do the work, complete the mission, and make the operation "operate" -- to act like you're doing OK, to show you have a good handle on whatever situations are going on, and to help them feel they should be comfortable with you in charge. Let's face it, when workers are "down", their productivity suffers.

I challenge you to step back and take a look at yourself. Do you drag into the office in the morning? Do you grouse and complain about your boss or the leadership of the company? Do you whine about how business stinks? Do you just act depressed, in general?

If not, congratulations. Your work environment may be a pretty positive one. If so, STOP IT. Act positive and give your team another chance to be successful and fulfilled.

Great Leaders need to be Winners

Maybe I should restate and say that "Great Leaders need to act like Winners". So what is this all about? Well, one can argue that, to be a great leader, you have to have followers...people who want to follow you.

Let's think about this for a minute. I submit that people like to be involved with the best...the best deals, the best meals, the best gadgets, the best doctors, etc. Can you imagine saying "I go to the 2nd best surgeon around!" People don't want to think they have to settle for 2nd or 3rd choice and even if they realize it, they don't want to admit it and often will move to rectify the situation.

That takes me back to the theme of this post: people like to follow winners. Just like I discussed above, team members don't want to brag about being on the 2nd best team or having a 2nd or 3rd rate boss. Even if it's not a completely accurate belief or assumption, your folks want to follow a winner.

Is this a problem? What if you don't always win? Is that OK? Sure it is. You don't have to win every time to be a winner and definitely not to act like a winner.

This might beg the question, what does a winning leader look like or what traits does a winning leader display? Some traits might be:

• Quiet confidence: You act like you know what you're doing (see my post on this).
• A positive attitude: Need I say more?
• Treating team members like winners: People not only like to follow winners, they want to BE winners, too.
• Managing by influence: Instead of with a heavy hand.

If you act like a winner and treat your people like winners...you most probably are a winner and life's a whole lot better when you come at it from that angle.

What traits do you think a winning leader portrays?

Great Meetings? Planning required

In order to run great meetings, you owe it to yourself and the people involved to properly plan.

Examples of poor planning:

• Interviews: I experienced an interview where it was obvious the interviewer had done no preparation before-hand. The person was not familiar with my resume and had not thought out the interview questions at all.
• Staff Meetings: The boss walks into a staff meeting with no agenda and just says "anybody have anything to talk about?"
• 1:1 Meetings: The boss sits down, looks at you, and says, "what's on your mind?" It's really great that the boss thinks enough of you to ask, but unfortunately that's the agenda for the meeting. Evidently, the boss has other things than you on his or her mind.

As I've stated time and again, I know that most everyone is busy. That's a given. That is also no excuse for wasting other people's time (as well as your own). You don't have time? People have never said management was a 40-hour a week job, have they? That's why you get paid the big bucks...to do what needs to be done, even if it takes a little extra time.

What can you do to properly plan?

• Have an agenda. Add to it as the week goes along. One thing I like to do is add notes to my on-line calendar reminder as the week goes by so I'll have my agenda at least partially thought through before I have to "formally" plan the meeting.
• Formulate your questions. Write them down. Then, when you ask the questions or cover your points, record the responses.
• Come to the meeting ready to participate fully. The chances are that it's your meeting so it would be reasonable to expect you to be engaged.

You and your team need to be focused on the mission, revenue generation, and your customers. When you do pull them away from these areas of focus, you need to ensure you're not wasting their time.

What other ways do you plan that help make your meetings more successful?

Office Gossip: "Interesting"

Office gossip is present within every group, large or small. Hopefully, it's not too pervasive on your own team. We like being in the know, don't we? One can argue that office gossip is benign or hurtful. I would submit, at the very least, that the line between good and evil, when it comes to gossip, is very thin.

I used to work with a very professional person who knew exactly how to deal with gossip when she heard it. Whenever someone started dishing up the dirt and the time came for this person to respond, she would most often say one word: "interesting". She said nothing else. It's the perfect response, isn't it? It just stopped the gossip in its tracks. I mean, what comeback do you have to "interesting"? For the time being, at least, the gossip usually just fizzled out at that point and no one was mad that it had ended. It was just done.

I asked my friend about her response and she said she had learned to fend off gossip like this many years ago and had kept to her mantra ever since.

What responses have you found to be the most effective in stemming office gossip?

Where does world-class service come from?

I've been reading a great book on service called "What's The Secret?" by John DiJulius. His writing has stirred a lot of my thoughts for me and has caused me to reflect a lot on what I believe regarding service. It has also caused me to remember my own experiences with service.

The quote I'm pondering today is "World-class service is not something you deliver. It's a result of something you are."

When I think of this quote, it takes me right back to thinking about the foundation of any organization, good or bad: culture.

OK, so you know that outstanding service is a key component of any successful business. Let's say that you've received feedback from multiple sources that your organization's customer service is sincerely lacking. You're not happy learning about your poor service level and you know it needs to get better right away. What do you do? As a boss or leader, you can't go to your team one day and say, “Listen up, people. Customer Service needs to tighten up right now. You need to start treating our customers better.” Well, you can, but there’s a good chance that your words will fall flat and fail to cause any significant changes to happen. Come on; your service levels probably didn’t become what they are overnight.

So how do you get your people facing the right direction? You need to start by asking yourself where they learned or failed to learn how to provide the outstanding service. You have to start at the beginning. You need to revisit what? You need to revisit the culture.

What is the culture of your team? Take a look at some of the primary components that make up a business culture and you can better answer the question:

Management Style -– Are you a micromanager or a heavy-handed boss? Or do you foster an environment where your people feel empowered to develop new ideas and to “do it their way” (within reason) as they work to fulfill the mission?

Respect -- Do you provide world-class customer service for your employees? Do you treat them with respect? Do they know you value them and their ideas? Do they treat each other with respect? People aren’t going to provide your customers what they’re not receiving, themselves.

Training -- Do your people know your expectations? Can they envision the customer service you seek? Do you have programs in place to teach them how to do their jobs well and provide the level of service that you want?

If you ask yourself the status of any of the above areas for your team, find them wanting and then respond with “I don’t have time to do that or build that”, you’ve already lost. You’re never going to move your team ahead toward providing the world-class service that you want and your customers deserve. Instead, you need to commit to living the culture you want with your people, modeling it just as parents model behavior for their children.

Are there other ways to help ensure your people are providing world-class service to your customers?

Check those personal problems at the door

Personal problems are something that every person has to deal with. Everyone has issues in his or her personal lives that can take up some or all of our free time: kids, relationships, money, health, etc. The rub comes when people start bringing their baggage to work.

For managers, what do you do when your people start bringing their personal problems to work? Your team members are paid to come to work...AND WORK, not sit around whining and complaining about the problems in their lives. They are supposed to focus and be productive. You've seen what it can do to an office or organization:

• Distract from work
• Depress the whole office
• Suck other people into the problems

As bosses, you have every right to expect your folks to focus on their duties while you're paying them. What can you do to keep personal problems from changing the atmosphere at work? You're not a heartless beast who cares nothing for those around you, so what do you do? Some suggestions I've heard are to:

• Set expectations up front (leave your problems at the door)
• Listen (like during 1:1 sessions)
• Help find counseling
• Provide time off, if necessary, to deal with the issues

I have two questions for you:

What other issues are caused by people bringing their personal problems to work?

What ways can bosses help their people while still completing the mission and ensuring customer care doesn't slip?

Don't Underestimate Yourself

I know people like this: people who underestimate themselves. It's really too bad, you know, because it's often only their perception instead of everyone else's reality. Still, people like this are all around us, aren't they?

I have family members, friends, and past colleagues who all struggle with problems of self-confidence. I have, too. It can be fairly debilitating at times, keeping people from trying, allowing them to quit an activity or group, or affecting how they present themselves to others. What's most frustrating about it is that so many people are really good at what they do, but just can't believe it about themselves.

When I was a young teenager, I used to read Sherlock Holmes books. One of the comments Holmes made, that still stays with me, is that it is just as bad to underestimate ourselves as it is to overestimate ourselves. That's really true, isn't it?

Like I said, there were times in my life when I questioned my abilities when I compared myself to others. I had to tell myself, "those other people aren't any better than you. They make mistakes. They fail. They're not any more perfect than you are." Telling myself these things really worked for me. Sometimes I had to tell myself more times than once, but it did work. The trick is to ensure you are doing your best while making statements to yourself like I did.

Another trick you can try is to think about one or two things you do really well, maybe better than most other people, and remind yourself of those things when you're feeling insecure.

Bottom Line: If you can step back for even a moment and look at yourself objectively and you can see you are:

• Prepared
• Practiced
• Poised

then there's no reason whatsoever to be beating yourself up. You can always do better, but so can everyone else around you. As someone told me about a general one time, "he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like me."

What other tricks do you know of to help offset the "underestimation blues"?

What are you building?

As leaders, we should constantly be building. We should be building up our people, we should be building relationships. We should be building on our successes - on what works for our team and our organization. We should be looking at what's not working and see if we can build something positive from whatever is lacking.

What is making me write all this? Well, I guess it's because I read a lot of blogs and that means I read a fair amount of ranting posts...ranting about what we don't like, what we think is wrong with other people or organizations, and what somebody needs to fix. I've even ranted a few times, myself. Ranting is probably cathartic at times, but when you step back and look at it, does ranting get you anywhere long-term?

So, what's our direction? We should ask ourselves that question on a regular basis. What's our direction? Are we moving forward? Are we marking time, stagnant in our work and maybe our lives? Or worse yet, are we moving backward, moving downward away from the positive parts of existence?

Each of us only has so much time on this earth. While we don't need to get maudlin about our lives as we age, it's not something we can just dismiss. At least it shouldn't be. If we're blessed with leadership qualities, we have a responsibility - no - mission to help build whenever we have the chance. People are looking to their leaders for direction and it's up to us to point them in the right way.

What are you building? What's your direction? If you don't know, give it some thought and get moving...forward.

Leaders Never Quit

Leaders never quit? Leaders never quit what?

One of my favorite quotes is from Nathaniel Greene, one of Washington's generals during the American Revolution. He was a self-taught military man, but often thought of as only second to Washington in military talent during that conflict.

OK, the quote: We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.

On the surface, some could look at this quote as another "rah, rah" quote. It's much more than that, though, because of the words in the middle: "...get beat, rise...".

Greene is speaking about failure. He failed. I fail. You fail. We all fail. We all get beat from time to time. Greene is speaking about failure and then overcoming failure to fight again.

For me, the thing that is so inspiring about Nathaniel Greene is that he never quit, even when he wanted to, even when he threatened to. He was totally devoted to his causes and, in the case of America, its freedom.

We're all imperfect human beings. We're all imperfect managers, coaches, and workers. We're all imperfect leaders.

Let's get back to the title of this post: leaders never quit.

What should leaders never quit doing? Leaders should never quit trying to:

• Inspire
• Set a positive example
• Push others to grow
• Have an empathetic spirit
• Be decisive
• Walk the walk
• Properly delegate
• Coach regularly
• Use influence instead of force
• Listen
• Be a servant

Even as imperfect as we are, real leaders never quit. They always try to make themselves and the people around them better.

What other things should leaders never quit doing?