It’s All About Purpose

At the start of a busy week, I am reminded of something that Ron Heiftz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky wrote in their book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Harvard Business Press, 2009): “Taking on adaptive challenges is difficult and dangerous work. The only reason we can imagine you would want to do this kind of work is to serve purposes that matter to you deeply.” 

However, busy days can be filled with endless hours of details and minutia that may or may not be very important. Between the e-mail and the voice mail plus the text messages, the thought of serving purposes that really matter may slip by and be forgotten. Therefore, I suggest we all stop in the midst of our busyness and refocus on purpose. 

- What are you doing with your time this week that connects you to what you value?  

- What are the top three issues which you feel are most important to you this week?

- How are you making sure these priorities are not lost in the day to day shuffle?

- What is one thing you can do on a daily basis to make sure you reconnect to purpose?

This week, do not let that which is most important to you get overwhelmed by that which is least important to you.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Dealing With Constant Interruptions - part #2

Interruptions are normal when you are a leader. It comes with the position. People will always be wanting a piece of your time. How you respond to them is your choice. This response will separate the mediocre leaders from the very good ones.

The best leaders I know handle interruptions by doing two simple but challenging things. First, they have a “why” to live for. As Christina Smith, Executive Director of Community Support Advocates, shared many years ago at a From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable: "Our sacrifices need to reflect our priorities." Having a why to live for comes from being very clear about your priorities.

Second, the best leaders I know have a sense of purpose, but understand that with it comes something else. As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote, "Purpose creates a destination.” These leaders know where they are going. This is not an abstract feeling. This is a clear sense of direction.  With the above clarity about priorities, these leaders do not get distracted from what is most important, personally and professionally.

This week, answer these two questions:

What are my priorities, personally and professionally?

What is the destination I am moving toward?

Your answers will be very helpful during the coming weeks and months.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

How Successful People Manage Life - part #2

It had been a fantastic morning and a great strategic dialogue about the importance of excellent customer service when I ended with my concluding remarks. As I explained to the group, there are three keys to being a great leader, namely to regularly “sharpen your saw”, referencing the work of the late Stephen Covey, take care of your families and to keep learning. In that delightful pause before a group takes a break, I saw many heads nodding.

Then, just as I putting away my notes, one of the participants turned to me an asked, “Can I talk to you about the ‘taking care of your families’ part?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Would you like to do this here or in your office?”  

“My office, please.”

So we walked down the hall and stepped into her office. I sat down at the conference table and she sat down on the other side. Someone passing by stuck their head in and asked if they could sit in too.

“Be my guest,” she said pointing to a chair. Within ten minutes, everyone was crowded into the office, listening and sharing.

One thing I have learned about how successful people manage life can be summarized by a comment that Christina Smith, Executive Director of Community Support Advocates in Des Moines, Iowa, made at the Spring 2012 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable. As she explained, “Our sacrifices need to reflect our priorities.”

While on one hand this could be viewed as a simplistic answer, I do not consider this to be the case. What I have learned is that successful people know their priorities. They do this by continually discovering and continually deepening a sense of purpose to their life. These are not immediate gratification people. They know the things that matter to them most. And they routinely evaluate their priorities.

Furthermore, as Clayton M. Christensen, points out in his wonderful article, “How Will You Measure Your Life?”, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2010, once they are clear about their priorities, they then allocate their resources, i.e. personal time, money, energy and talent, to the things and people that in their life connect to their personal purpose or strategy.

The challenge for all leaders is the following question: How well are you allocating your resources to the things that matter the most to you? Successful people do not let themselves experience “commitment creep,” a term that Christensen uses in the aforementioned article. As he explains, successful people do not over-commit. “It is easy to say “yes” to new commitments without reflecting on the long-term costs of honoring the implied promises or the potential conflicts that may develop with existing commitments.” Instead, successful people know the boundaries of a commitment and understand the “exit strategy.” They do not let pleasing others be the sole definition of their success. They also have the courage to undo old commitments, i.e. the classic Jim Collin’s “stop doing” list.

As Donald N. Sull and Dominic Houlder noted in their excellent article, “Do Your Commitments Match Your Convictions?,” Harvard Business Review, January 2005, and I have learned from my own personal journey and by working with many successful people, for every new commitment we take on, we must stop, evaluate and consider to renegotiate other commitments. The goal is to never live in a misaligned manner.

This week I encourage all of us to watch out for commitment creep and to make sure our sacrifices reflect our priorities. These two actions are powerful and transformative.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Busy is the new normal

“Good morning,” I often say when I answer the phone. “How are you today?”

Recently, the most common response is “Busy.” For many executives, it is a feeling and an action all wrapped up in one. The feeling is being full to very overwhelmed. The action is engaged and pushing forward. I have come to the conclusion that busy in the world of leadership is the new normal.

On one hand, I am not too surprised by this frequent response. We live in a society now that measures life by seconds and minutes, calendars and appointments, twitter feeds and text-messages. The more we have the better we are supposedly doing.

Furthermore, some people believe that the more running around we do the better we are as a leader. Managing by wandering around is so 1980’s. Now is the time for speed. The new role model for leadership in this decade is the fast and the furious. Multi-tasking at warp speed is expected by all.

Yet, today, I am thinking about an African quote I recently heard: “Western people have the watches; we have the time.” We forget some days in the midst of our hustle and bustle that watches, cell phones, and text messages do not always make life better. They do not save time. Instead, they absorb it.

This is particularly true as we enter this new month. More and more executives report to me that they are caught up in a reactive problem solving mode. The crisis of the moment consumes all energy. Furthermore, many employees are managing everything up the chain of command. They do not want to take the risk of making a decision and getting blamed for poor results or outcomes. And with many leaders operating at full capacity, there is little time for thoughtful dialogue and meaningful interaction. Most report to me that they just make a decision and rush to the next issue. In short, there is only time for busy.

From my perspective, it is time we reclaim our time as leaders. We need to get out of feeling overwhelmed and back to a feeling of balanced engagement. We need to not live a life so full of appointments and meetings that we can not think thoughtfully and plan gracefully. We need to incorporate into our lives thoughtful reflection and meaningful dialogue. We need to give ourselves permission to recuperate from extended periods of busy and develop a greater degree of resilience. From one who has learned this personally and from one who has seen this happening more and more in executive coaching sessions during the last ninety days, living busy for an extended period of time means living on empty. And empty is does not generate clarity, commitment, buy-in or ownership.

For us to reclaim our time we need to reclaim our perspective. The faster we go the more we become absorbed in the minutia of the moment. Tunnel focus is a reality that comes with busy. It can cause us to miss the greater context and the greater strategic direction of our lives and our organizations.

We must also accept that speed is addictive, busy is numbing, and full is draining. But we can change this. We can lead our lives. We can lead our organizations. We can regain a sense of balanced living. The first step is to no longer accept busy as an acceptable way of living. The second step is to redefine our priorities, especially our definitions of what is urgent and what is important. The third step is to take charge of our calendars and block out time for more in-depth dialogue and reflection. The fourth step is to give ourselves permission to rest when rest is needed.

When asked “How are you?” this week or next, I recommend you find a new answer, one that shares a feeling more than an action. We are, after all, human beings, not just human doings.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates # 319 - 643 - 2257

Organizational ADD

THEME: New Year, More Challenges

FOCUS: Organizational ADD

Monday morning: March 22, 2010

Dear friends,

It is time to prescribe Ritalin to certain organizations as there has been a rise of ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) among many companies and many senior teams. With a complete loss of impulse control, these companies are charging off in a thousand directions and hoping one of them is the right one. Furthermore, with this lack of strategic awareness and focus, they react to every crisis of the moment, missing key information and analysis that could solve these recurring patterns. Finally, they show regular patterns of corporate anxiety or depression. Using an old term, they are “freaked out” by all that is happening. While there are days when even the best of us can feel overwhelmed by the challenges of this current economy, this is not a time for senior executives to be easily distracted or impatient. Instead, we need to have laser focus about a few very important things.

First, now is the time to redefine priorities.

Doing a thousand things poorly does not allow an organization to be productive. Clarity creates the capacity to organize and pay attention to the right stuff. The key is to sit down and figure out what is the right stuff for your organization. When we do not make the time for this level of activity, we enter into a continual cycle of hyperactivity.

Second, we must remember that organizational ADHD is, in part, a reflection of the work place environment.

If leaders create a panic focused work environment where busy is more important than successful, then everyone will just keep moving to avoid being marked as the source of all problems. Instead, we need leaders who clarify expectations and make sure their people have the capacity, i.e. skills and equipment, in order to be successful.

Third, we need to change the diet of all employees.

Rather than feeding them fear, anxiety and so much work they are inundated with more to do than any reasonable or healthy person can ever get done, leaders need to notice that even in the midst of this madding pace of work and change things are getting done. Customers are being served and many are actually being served quite well. Remember: “what you feed, grows.” Now is the time to praise employees for progress. Furthermore, regular encouragement, compassion and kindness are also helpful.

The old adage that “everyone in the company is drinking the Kool-aid” would be helpful if it had a touch of Ritilan. However, given that many companies are merely a reflection of the clarity and behavior at the senior team level, then now is the time to rinse our glasses and start anew. Successful companies always have, and always will need to deal with disturbing data or significant problems. Stuff happens when any group of people come together to make something happen. Rather than freaking out if it is not perfect and then running all over the place, successful people and companies instead routinely pause and regain their sense of balance and perspective. As I regularly tell clients during executive coaching sessions, the faster you go the more you need to regularly slow down and check your direction.

This week, move from being an ADHD oriented organization to a healthier place to work. Redefine priorities, praise progress, and clarify direction. It is much better to do this than pour Ritilan in the morning coffee.

Have an outstanding week,

Geery

Geery Howe, M.A.
Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in
Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change

Morning Star Associates
319 - 643 - 2257