Monthly Archives: June 2010

I am totally indebted to my
good friend Bob
Nicoll
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting,
author of the excellent book “Remember

The Ice” for this Paradigm Shift. I urge you to get a copy of his
book, as it has for many others, it will change your life and success!

A true story… “Don’t run into the road!” the exasperated mother
screeched. Her 7 year old turned his head at his screaming mother as he
ran down the pavement alongside a busy street. As he turned his head his
feet changed direction and he veered straight into the stream of rush
hour traffic. The driver of the SUV slammed the brakes, the taxi
following crunched into the SUVs rear. Broken glass, the terrible sound
of twisting metal and a woman’s piercing scream filled the air. The boy,
glanced behind and steered himself back to the pavement.

Don’t think of buying Bob’s book.

What are you thinking?

Buying Bob’s book!

And please, don’t think of the colour orange.

… was that a bright orange you thought of or a
muted one?

So you want to tell someone to not do this.
(e.g. Don’t run. No talking. No smoking. Don’t forget to reserve your
table.)

Bob’s advice with this is to follow Steven
Covey’s advice in the 7 Habits…

“Start with the end in mind”

What do you want them to do?

Now say that.

One of my personal changes that had a
remarkable effect on my prospective clients contacting me back. I used
to end my emails, “don’t hesitate to contact me…” A common enough
phrase you’ve seen many times. What have I (inadvertently) made them
think?

Yes, that’s right… “hesitate to contact me”.
The complete opposite of my intention.

Many ways you can re-phrase this, I most often
use two:

Contact me when…

Remember to contact me…

And whatever you do, don’t think about signing
up for our  leadership development now.

Great leaders are individuals who have successfully developed (or taken over) a story that appeals to the values of their followers. 

A leader needs to know and understand his or her own values and the values of their followers.

You do not necessarily need to know the detail of their values, but some real knowledge will greatly help you weave the story that will work best.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying “You can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
And that is probably the issue that many leaders face. Each individual in your team, your organization, your community, even your family – has their own set of personally held values and their own hierarchy of those values.

Let’s consider a fairly typical situation, one that I have heard in slight variations many, many times from leaders I have worked with:

“In my team I have 8 direct reports, one person is a real star performer – always hard working, always achieves the goals and targets. One person  is always calling in sick, looks miserable all  day, just about makes the target, one is a real  low performer and  complains about too much work. The rest, are OK. I’ve tried everything but what can I do about these two low performers?”

This informs us several values of the leader.

• That performance or is important for them.
• That to be seen to do hard-work is important.
• That they are not keen on people who look miserable and complain.
• That they value doing something about the situation and are willing to learn.

Whilst you would benefit from more information to be more certain, the leader’s values might map thus:

Leader’s words	Core Values
Performance	Achievement
Hard-work	Achievement
Not complaining/miserable	Hedonism
Desire to help others	Benevolence
Willing to learn personally	Self-direction

For the two “low-performers” – whatever their personal values, it is likely that their own hierarchy of values does not include ‘Achievement’ at such a high level. It may be that ‘Self- direction’ is low also. 

In such situations, the responses I have heard in one-to-one coaching sessions form ‘low-performing’ staff is myriad but most show a core theme when asked about their performance at work.

• Most frequently: “I don’t see/understand why this is so important.” And that’s right; they do not see it or understand it. The leader may not be communicating the value of performance to them.
• Often: “I try to do the job but I don’t ‘have the right support/tools/resources.” This may or may not be accurate and it is the leader’s role (as manager) to ensure that the right resources are available and how to get them and use them. 
• Too often: “There’s nothing wrong with my performance, it’s the market/ environment/ economy/ etc.”  Shifting blame to something outside of one’s personal control is possibly a favourite ‘excuse’ and in my experience and with further probing, this usually relates to either a security value (if I blame someone else, I’ll remain secure), or a hedonistic value (I don’t gain enjoyment from this, or I dislike doing this, and I feel better if I blame someone else for my failure to achieve).

At this point I want to stress that understanding your own values and those of others is NOT about judging the merits of those values. One individual’s values are not better than another person’s values – they may be more aligned with your own and thus you would consider them to be ‘better’, but they have worked well so far for that individual. Once we begin to know and understand another person’s value we can weave our story to appeal to them.

Make your “story” compelling

1. First. What is truly important for you? (work, career and life)
   • Write this down.
2. Second. What is important for your people, customers, suppliers,
   shareholders?
   • Ask them! And write it down.
3. Third line up the lists. Look for the matches and the mismatches.
4. Now write your “story” that is compelling to your audience.
   Communicate your “story” again and again and again and again and
   again… and yes you are saying the same thing over and over and over
   again. Live it, love it, tell it.

Great leaders are individuals who have successfully developed (or taken over) a story that appeals to the values of their followers. 

A leader needs to know and understand his or her own values and the values of their followers.

You do not necessarily need to know the detail of their values, but some real knowledge will greatly help you weave the story that will work best.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying “You can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
And that is probably the issue that many leaders face. Each individual in your team, your organization, your community, even your family – has their own set of personally held values and their own hierarchy of those values.

Let’s consider a fairly typical situation, one that I have heard in slight variations many, many times from leaders I have worked with:

“In my team I have 8 direct reports, one person is a real star performer – always hard working, always achieves the goals and targets. One person  is always calling in sick, looks miserable all  day, just about makes the target, one is a real  low performer and  complains about too much work. The rest, are OK. I’ve tried everything but what can I do about these two low performers?”

This informs us several values of the leader.

• That performance or is important for them.
• That to be seen to do hard-work is important.
• That they are not keen on people who look miserable and complain.
• That they value doing something about the situation and are willing to learn.

Whilst you would benefit from more information to be more certain, the leader’s values might map thus:

Leader’s words	Core Values
Performance	Achievement
Hard-work	Achievement
Not complaining/miserable	Hedonism
Desire to help others	Benevolence
Willing to learn personally	Self-direction

For the two “low-performers” – whatever their personal values, it is likely that their own hierarchy of values does not include ‘Achievement’ at such a high level. It may be that ‘Self- direction’ is low also. 

In such situations, the responses I have heard in one-to-one coaching sessions form ‘low-performing’ staff is myriad but most show a core theme when asked about their performance at work.

• Most frequently: “I don’t see/understand why this is so important.” And that’s right; they do not see it or understand it. The leader may not be communicating the value of performance to them.
• Often: “I try to do the job but I don’t ‘have the right support/tools/resources.” This may or may not be accurate and it is the leader’s role (as manager) to ensure that the right resources are available and how to get them and use them. 
• Too often: “There’s nothing wrong with my performance, it’s the market/ environment/ economy/ etc.”  Shifting blame to something outside of one’s personal control is possibly a favourite ‘excuse’ and in my experience and with further probing, this usually relates to either a security value (if I blame someone else, I’ll remain secure), or a hedonistic value (I don’t gain enjoyment from this, or I dislike doing this, and I feel better if I blame someone else for my failure to achieve).

At this point I want to stress that understanding your own values and those of others is NOT about judging the merits of those values. One individual’s values are not better than another person’s values – they may be more aligned with your own and thus you would consider them to be ‘better’, but they have worked well so far for that individual. Once we begin to know and understand another person’s value we can weave our story to appeal to them.

Make your “story” compelling

1. First. What is truly important for you? (work, career and life)
   • Write this down.
2. Second. What is important for your people, customers, suppliers,
   shareholders?
   • Ask them! And write it down.
3. Third line up the lists. Look for the matches and the mismatches.
4. Now write your “story” that is compelling to your audience.
   Communicate your “story” again and again and again and again and
   again… and yes you are saying the same thing over and over and over
   again. Live it, love it, tell it.