vision

The Olympics of Dedication

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The Olympics have a way of shining a new light on the meaning of dedication.

The opening ceremonies were comprised of one spectacular vignette after another, with thousands of performers, musicians and athletes knowing exactly where to go and what to do during every minute of their moment in the spotlight. That’s dedication.

Every commercial that runs during the Olympic Games tells the athlete’s tale of foregoing dessert, not watching TV, not skipping a single day’s workout in order to be the best. That’s dedication.

Then there was the Chinese farmer who spent the last two years traveling to London via rickshaw just to see the Olympic games. A little extreme, but yes – that’s dedication.

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Fear and Vision

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Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)

Fear paralyzes; sometimes we allow it to, calling it “caution”. It’s good to be cautious.  Not so good to be paralyzed. Either by over-analysis OR by fear.

(Though, extreme analysis can combat fear; see Freakonomics for the statistics on child restraints…)

A good nugget from Tim Ferriss’s Four-Hour Workweek is this (paraphrased):

The thought of the “worst-case scenario” keeps us from acting, yet the worst-case scenario almost never occurs.

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Can you see okay?

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“Employees want to constantly be better at what they do. If not challenged, they will look for challenges elsewhere.” –Ilya Pozin

As a leader, you have a job to do: lead people (sounds simple enough, right?). Where you lead them requires vision. Knowing your destination makes it possible for you to challenge them in a “directionally appropriate” manner.

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Frame! (kind of a book report)

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The brilliant folks at Manager Tools–specifically, Mark–have recommended this book highly for years.  I read much of it a while ago, and recently picked it up to re-read it.

In 300 words, here’s why it’s worthy of attention; read at least chapters 1, 2, 16, and 20. (Those chapters recommended by Luther College professor Schweizer — it’s the “condensed” version of taking in the whole book, and will take you less than an hour.)

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Effective Leaders get Everyone in the “Right Seat”

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When I read the (rightly) popular Good to Great, I found myself agreeing with nearly everything in principle, but thought that some concepts were a little too idealistic for a small- to mid-sized organization.  Massive businesses, like his examples, have more luxury to move people around, for example.

That’s why I had a touch of a problem with

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Priorities – why I’m not writing a blog post this week…

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I blog for a couple of reasons — mostly to spread the word about positive leadership and its effectiveness to as many people as possible, and make it “real” by providing examples and tools.

Also, I do it to provide a “touchstone” for current and previous clients (although I truly consider “previous” clients to be lifelong clients, and therefore, “current.”)

And, I do it so that potential clients can get to know me – to see if we’d be a good match.

I committed to doing it once per week, on Wednesdays, and I’ve mostly stuck to it.

This week,

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What Three Things Make the Biggest Difference? (Part One)

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It is good to be efficient, yes. It is also good to be comprehensive.

Sometimes, however, those two things don’t work well together.

Since starting this business, most of my work helping groups has been through 4-8 hour workshops.

There is a demand for leadership training that can be delivered in much shorter periods of time, though.

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