People who speak out tend to be willing to volunteer bold ideas, even if it will put their credibility on the line. If we hold back and play it safe to preserve our credibility, we can make mistakes. I was part of a hiring committee for a non-profit leadership position once. One of the finalists, … Read more
People who are adventurous enjoy the excitement of taking risks and are comfortable with the unknown. Caution is good at times, but not in a visioning phase. Can you name any worthwhile endeavor that didn’t involve some risk? A local community group once had the opportunity to shoot for the moon on raising money and awareness … Read more
People who prioritize the big picture tend to focus on the broad, overall view of an idea or project. The opposite of big picture thinking – obsessing about details – is critical when executing a project, but not when developing vision. I was working with a client on a long-term training plan to solve some problems … Read more
Whether or not you took last week’s suggestion to evaluate your top three and bottom three from a list of possibilities, make sure you start the new year with some sort of review and goal-setting. If you’ve been at your work a long time, you might have a routine and feel like you don’t need … Read more
Sometimes we know we should invest a lot of time in year-end evaluation, but we’re overwhelmed or tired. Here’s an idea to make it both easy and productive: Top Three/Bottom Three Gather your team, or just your calendars, and pick one of these areas: Initiatives Events Projects Customers Clients Weeks Months Pick your top three, … Read more
Last week, I shared some ideas from one of the speakers at the Des Moines Business Record’s “90 Ideas in 90 Minutes”. This week, I’ll do the same with Bob Riley, the CEO of Riley Resource Group, which is an interesting organization in its own right. Here are some of my favorites: Hire disruptors with … Read more
Non-profits often have the challenge we explored last week: constraints. Constraints include lower budgets, impact of economic downturns on funding and volunteer efforts, and cycles driven by major programs. For these reasons, they come up with creative ways to maintain success and engagement. Even if you don’t lead in a non-profit, many of their ideas … Read more
When I was a band teacher, we experienced a staff cut. In 10 years, the department went from 7 teachers serving about 500 students to 5 teachers serving 600. The superintended gave us that left-handed compliment that’s supposed to reassure us while also keeping us quiet: “If anyone could do this, you can. We believe … Read more
I heard a great question from Des Moines business leader Nora Everett of Principal: “How would you put yourself out of business?” Whether you apply it to your entire business, or your team, you can come up with some great improvement ideas from exploring this question. I applied it to my own business and came up with … Read more
Leaders must avoid beginning sentences with, “To be honest…” Why? It sends the message that everything prior to this statement was a lie, or that it wasn’t totally true, and it casts your other communication into a less credible light. It also comes across as gossipy, and a leader mustn’t gossip. But that’s not what … Read more