Thursday, November 1, 2012
Born To Make Mistakes
We tie ourselves in knots trying to work out how to both live our lives and run our business.
This comes up nearly every day in speaking with clients I coach.
In this, we are creating our own problem by being our own worst enemy!
Where did we learn to expect our businesses to run perfectly when life does not? Life is full of ups and downs, tries and fails, success and so-called failure.
Read more on this on my website, www.cooadvisors.com
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Signs of a Crippled Leader
I just enjoyed this piece from the Leadership Collaboratory on signs of a crippled leader.
http://linked2leadership.com/2012/03/28/7-signs-confidence-is-fading/
Monica Wofford writes of "Seven Signs your Confidence is Fading". I enjoyed this short piece as it speaks to an area generally not addressed, namely a leader losing confidence.
"Few are willing to discuss the very element that can quickly cripple a leader: Confidence."
7 Signs
1) Focused on Favorite on the Playground
2) Taking Things Personally
3) Getting Defensive
4) The Fear Factor
5) Reacting in Response
6) Quick to Hire, Slow to Fire
7) Too Much Letting Go
As you read through these, you'll find that you've seen most at play at various times in your career but perhaps not come to the conclusion that these are symptoms of a larger issue.
I particularly liked #1, focusing on the favorite. A leader on their game knows that not everyone will like all that they do. Being liked is not the criteria for leading. A good leader needs to be respected first. A leader with declining confidence though may spend more and time and focus on the local favorite as a boost to their own declining sense of confidence and morale. I've seen this one and the symptom was right on the money as an indicator of a larger confidence issue.
http://linked2leadership.com/2012/03/28/7-signs-confidence-is-fading/
Monica Wofford writes of "Seven Signs your Confidence is Fading". I enjoyed this short piece as it speaks to an area generally not addressed, namely a leader losing confidence.
"Few are willing to discuss the very element that can quickly cripple a leader: Confidence."
7 Signs
1) Focused on Favorite on the Playground
2) Taking Things Personally
3) Getting Defensive
4) The Fear Factor
5) Reacting in Response
6) Quick to Hire, Slow to Fire
7) Too Much Letting Go
As you read through these, you'll find that you've seen most at play at various times in your career but perhaps not come to the conclusion that these are symptoms of a larger issue.
I particularly liked #1, focusing on the favorite. A leader on their game knows that not everyone will like all that they do. Being liked is not the criteria for leading. A good leader needs to be respected first. A leader with declining confidence though may spend more and time and focus on the local favorite as a boost to their own declining sense of confidence and morale. I've seen this one and the symptom was right on the money as an indicator of a larger confidence issue.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Hometown Reality Check and Dreaming Big
I recently visited my growing up hometown back in the midwest for a family get together.
Late one night, I went out for a walk in the pleasant night air and found myself walking from the home where I had grown up to the grade school where I spent important, formative years in school.
If you have the opportunity to do the same, I encourage you to. You may well find as did I that along your walk, you meet a number of your dreams and intentions from being a youngster. Some could be from the ball field, some the library, some the park, some the neighbors house with your best friends.
At first, it seemed that some of the dreams had not been met. While I didn't ever want to be a fireman, becoming a renowned scientist was on the list. That didn't become a line I pursued.
As I continued the hometown walk, I realized the obvious, I had pursued dreams, some just different than the earliest ones but no less valid and no less successful.
In fact, some pursuits followed much bigger dreams than ever imagined before. I simply had never reached back into my memory stores to update the tally.
By the end of the hometown walk-about, I felt refreshed and at ease. My present and past much more congruent and without contradiction or feeling of loss that I hadn't become what I thought I wanted to be.
I realized that I had become a much bigger something. I had walked into a much bigger dream.
Leaders need to have dreams not only for their work as leaders but most importantly for their life. It's important to check in with your dreams and update what has and hasn't changed since last viewing.
An effective leader is acting from the strength of the entirety of their life and the strength of dreams pursued whether entirely fulfilled or not is a powerful backing for their action.
Take your walk about reality check and realize how you too have bigger dreams in which you succeed.
Late one night, I went out for a walk in the pleasant night air and found myself walking from the home where I had grown up to the grade school where I spent important, formative years in school.
If you have the opportunity to do the same, I encourage you to. You may well find as did I that along your walk, you meet a number of your dreams and intentions from being a youngster. Some could be from the ball field, some the library, some the park, some the neighbors house with your best friends.
At first, it seemed that some of the dreams had not been met. While I didn't ever want to be a fireman, becoming a renowned scientist was on the list. That didn't become a line I pursued.
As I continued the hometown walk, I realized the obvious, I had pursued dreams, some just different than the earliest ones but no less valid and no less successful.
In fact, some pursuits followed much bigger dreams than ever imagined before. I simply had never reached back into my memory stores to update the tally.
By the end of the hometown walk-about, I felt refreshed and at ease. My present and past much more congruent and without contradiction or feeling of loss that I hadn't become what I thought I wanted to be.
I realized that I had become a much bigger something. I had walked into a much bigger dream.
Leaders need to have dreams not only for their work as leaders but most importantly for their life. It's important to check in with your dreams and update what has and hasn't changed since last viewing.
An effective leader is acting from the strength of the entirety of their life and the strength of dreams pursued whether entirely fulfilled or not is a powerful backing for their action.
Take your walk about reality check and realize how you too have bigger dreams in which you succeed.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Is Extreme Government Makeover Really Extreme?
Last time, we introduced Ken Miller's work called Extreme Government Makeover. Unlike many waste cutters and efficiency improvers, Ken comes from government service. He cut his process improvement teeth working to reduce the waiting lines at the Missouri DMV. After that, he spent a decade on the road as a consultant.
He claims to have learned a great deal about what works and what doesn't from his combined experience in government and as a consultant.
At the root of his approach is his view that most attempts to cut waste out of government are doomed to fail because they focus on exactly the wrong aspect. The cost cutters usually cut the people first because in a service industry, that's the most visible expense.
The problem is the cutting the people doesn't fix the gummed up processes of government. An example here are the long waiting lines at a DMV. Cut down the number of staff and the lines just get longer.
Miller contends that citizens are mostly not wanting reductions in the capacity of government to do good. They want the potholes filled, the license plates renewed, the deeds filled etc. What they want is that this is done more efficiently.
His argument is that you need to change the efficiency approach entirely. Don't bash the government employees as most are hard working and loyal people. Use his approach to fix the processes that don't work and then the costs will reduce and the citizen customers will be more and more happy with their government.
I find the approach refreshing and in line with what Dr. Deming taught in the early days of process improvement work in the 1940's. 94% of the problems are not due to people!
After the approach, I would say that the techniques recommended seem to be mainstream process improvement tools.
If you are interested, read more about Ken Miller on his blog: http://kenmillerblog.info/2009/05/extreme-government-makeover/
He claims to have learned a great deal about what works and what doesn't from his combined experience in government and as a consultant.
At the root of his approach is his view that most attempts to cut waste out of government are doomed to fail because they focus on exactly the wrong aspect. The cost cutters usually cut the people first because in a service industry, that's the most visible expense.
The problem is the cutting the people doesn't fix the gummed up processes of government. An example here are the long waiting lines at a DMV. Cut down the number of staff and the lines just get longer.
Miller contends that citizens are mostly not wanting reductions in the capacity of government to do good. They want the potholes filled, the license plates renewed, the deeds filled etc. What they want is that this is done more efficiently.
His argument is that you need to change the efficiency approach entirely. Don't bash the government employees as most are hard working and loyal people. Use his approach to fix the processes that don't work and then the costs will reduce and the citizen customers will be more and more happy with their government.
I find the approach refreshing and in line with what Dr. Deming taught in the early days of process improvement work in the 1940's. 94% of the problems are not due to people!
After the approach, I would say that the techniques recommended seem to be mainstream process improvement tools.
If you are interested, read more about Ken Miller on his blog: http://kenmillerblog.info/2009/05/extreme-government-makeover/
Monday, October 31, 2011
What's Behind the Buzz about Transforming Government
Most leaders have by now been exposed to a veritable alphabet soup of quality improvement initiiaves. There were Quality Circles, TQM, SQI and CQI; remember those? I do and have even taught them.
Now LEAN and Six-Sigma are the popular intiatives to reduce waste and improve efficiency. LEAN had it’s genesis in the Toyota Production System Kaizen philosophy. This approach has been applied with notable success in an improvement resistant sector, healthcare.
Now we have an increased call to drive waste out of government, to reinvent it, make it more like business and so on.
This is not actually new, news though. Take this quote: "We don't want to get rid of government. We want it to work better and cost less. We want it to make sense." Sounds current, doesn’t it. That’s actually from then Vice President Al Gore.
Many people, when asked, feel there is waste in government and often epitomize this perceptions with the snapshot view of the highway contruction worker leaning on a shovel.
The core question about transforming government is where to begin and that involves identifying the problem which may lack the convenient simplicity of popular sloganism as most lasting problem solving does.
In the next post, we’ll explore views from quadrants as diverse as the 9/11 Commission and the Missouri Drivers’ License Bureau about the state of government.
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