As a mentor at work, I like to checkpoint results.  While I can do area-specific coaching, I tend to take a more holistic approach.  For me, it’s more rewarding to find ways to unleash somebody’s full potential and improve their overall effectiveness.  Aside from checking against specific goals, I use the following frame to gauge progress.

Improvement Frame
Here’s the categories I use:

• Thinking / Feeling
• Situation
• Time / Task Management
• Domain Knowledge
• Strategies / Approaches
• Relationships

Improvement Frame
Here’s a sampling of the questions I use.

Using the Frame

I’ve found this frame very effective for quickly finding areas that need work or to find sticking points.  It’s also very revealing in terms of how much dramatic change there can be.  While situations or circumstances may not change much, I find that changes in strategies and approaches can have a profound impact.  My take on this is that while you can’t always control what’s on your plate, you can control how you eat it.

My Related Posts

• 30 Day Improvement sprints
• The Change Frame
• Guidelines for Structured Reflection
  • Rituals for Results
  • Positive Thinking vs. Positive Action

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from author Michael Michalko.  Michael is one of the most highly acclaimed creativity experts in the world and author of the best sellers Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck, and Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius.

You may not know Richard Cohen. He is the author of Blindsided: Lifting a Life Above Illness: A Reluctant Memoir.  He lives a life defined by illness. He has M.S., is legally blind, has almost no voice, and suffers chronic pain which makes sleeping difficult leaving him constantly exhausted. Two bouts of colon cancer in the past five years have left his intestines in disarray. And though he is currently cancer-free, he still lives with constant discomfort.   

Cohen worked as a producer for CBS until he was physically unable. Being precluded from many activities because of his chronic illness and physical disability initially left him feeling worthless. Friends and relatives encouraged him to seek professional help from psychologists, but he refused. He felt psychologists always focus on what’s wrong with you and explain why you feel worthless.

Cohen realized the inevitable consequences of his illness, but he also realized that he and he alone controlled his destiny. Cohen says, “The one thing that’s always in my control is what is going on in my head. The first thing I did was to think about who I am and how I could prevail.”  By choosing my feelings on a conscious level, I am able to control my mood swings and feel good about myself most of the time. He cultivated a positive attitude toward life by interpreting all of his experiences in a positive way.

He said his life is like standing on a rolling ship. You’re going to slip. You’re going to grab onto things. You’re going to fall. And it’s a constant challenge to get up and push and push yourself to keep going. But in the end, he said, the most exhilarating feeling in the world is getting up and moving forward with a smile.

When you meet people like Richard Cohen you get this vague feeling inside you that you “ought to be” something more. You already know this feeling. We get this feeling when we recognize the thing in others that we long to be. This feeling seems so trivial, so fundamental that we ought to be like that, that we dare not admit it to others. We long to become more alive and creative in our personal and business lives. The feeling for it is the most primitive feeling which a person can have. The feeling for it is as primitive as the feeling for your own well being. The most important lesson that I have learned about life is that we can choose how we live our lives.

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: with purpose or adrift, with joy or with joylessness, with hope or with despair, with humor or with sadness, with a positive outlook or a negative outlook, with pride or with shame, with inspiration or with defeat and with honor or with dishonor. We decide that what makes us significant or insignificant. We decide to be creative or to be indifferent. No matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. In the end, the meaning of our life is decided by what we choose to do or what we refuse to do. And as we decide and choose, so are our destinies formed

- Michael Michalko

Additional Resources

• Creative Thinking (Michael’s Web site)
• Michael’s Amazon Blog
• About Michael Michalko
• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)
• Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck
• Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius

If you know how to use the Six Thinking Hats, you can deal with two very common problems.   The first problem is incomplete thinking.  The second problem is deadlocks in meetings.   I’ve been in way too many deadlock meetings that are absolute energy drains.  I’ve also seen too many ideas fail simply because they didn’t have enough perspective.  Once I discovered Six Thinking Hats, both scenarios became easy to solve.

More Complete Thinking 
In the Six Thinking Hats, each hat represents a different perspective (facts, emotions, critic … etc.)  If you think of the problem as a pie, then each hat or perspective is a slice of the pie.  If you only have the Devil’s advocate, then you’re missing several other perspectives.  By cycling through the hats, you get a more complete view. 

Collaborative Meetings
By using the Six Thinking Hats, you can get everybody thinking about the problem in a collaborative way.  Everybody can put on the same hat at the same time.  The real key here is that rather than circular or deadlock debates, you focus the group on a particular viewpoint at a time. 

This is a similar to writing, then editing vs. editing while your write, or brainstorming, then critiquing vs. critiquing while you brainstorm.  The big difference is that rather than just brainstorming and critiquing, you’re looking at the issue from multiple, specific angles.  On the people side of this technique, you’re letting people wear a different “hat”, in a safe, constructive way.

How To Use the Six Thinking Hats
The approach below is lightweight and low-overhead, but gets you 80% there without requiring everybody to know the details of the Six Thinking Hats.  The key is to list questions that everybody can focus on and cycle through.

Summary of Steps

• Step 1.  List the questions that represent the hats
• Step 2.  Walkthrough each question as a team
• Step 3.  Modify the approach

Step 1.  List the questions that represent the hats
List a set of questions on the whiteboard to represent the hats.  You can do this either at the start of the meeting or when you hit a sticking spot.
Here’s the Six Thinking Hats:

• White Hat - the facts and figures
• Red Hat - the emotional view
• Black Hat - the “devil’s advocate”
• Yellow Hat - the positive side
• Green Hat - the creative side
• Blue Hat - the organizing view

Here’s an example set of questions you can use to represent the hats:

• What are the facts and figures?
• What’s your gut reaction?  How do you feel about this?
• Why can’t we do this?  What prevents us?  What’s the downside?
• How can we do this?
• What are additional opportunities?
• How should we think about this? (what are the metaphors or mental models)

The sequence of the questions can matter.  For example, it wouldn’t make sense to start thinking up solutions before you’ve focused on the problem.

Step 2.  Walkthrough each question as a team
Walkthrough each question as a team.  This is the key.  Rather than debating each other, you’re now collaborating.  You’ll be surprised when suddenly your team’s “Devil’s Advocate” is now showing off their ability to dream up wild solutions that just might work!

Step 3.  Modify the approach.
If it’s not working, change the approach.  For example, you might find that you started with the wrong “hat” or question.  See if switching to another question or hat makes a difference.  The key is to keep this lightweight but effective.

This isn’t a heavy handed approach.  Instead, it’s a subtle shift in strategy from free-for all debate to focusing and coordinating your team’s thinking power in a deliberate way.  This lets everybody get heard as well as really bang on a problem from multiple angles in a teamwork soft of way.

My Related Posts

• Six Thinking Hats
• Cooperative Controversy Over Competitive Controversy
• Five Thinking Styles
• Refuse the Sucker’s Choice

I often here the argument, “if I had more time for this or that, I could …”  Well, unfortunately, having more time doesn’t always mean getting more done.  It doesn’t guarantee getting the right things done either.  The secret to time management isn’t more time management hacks at all.   It’s knowing the vital few keys that really make a difference.

Keys to Time Management
Here’s the keys I’ve found:

• Manage energy, not time.
• Make room for your big rocks.
• Use anticipation to drive versus react.

Manage Energy, Not Time
Sometimes I get more done in an hour than I can sometimes get done in a week.  Why is that?  For me, it’s actually about energy.  There’s only so many hours in a day.  While I can’t make more hours in a day, I can use my energy better.  Sure there’s lots of interesting little time savers, but there’s plenty of time wasters too.  I find the force that makes the most measurable difference is the energy and engagement I bring to the table.   Energy over time is a key concept in the book, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz .  The secret to managing energy is following your passions and playing to your strengths.   Managing strengths to manage your energy is a key concept in Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance , by Marcus Buckingham.

More Information

• Finding Your Key Strengths
• Spend 75 Percent on Your Strengths
• 3 Myths About Strengths and Weaknesses

Make Room for Your Big Rocks
Assuming I have all my energy ready to tackle my day, I need to distinguish between urgent and important.  If I’m only reacting to urgent, then I’m missing out on opportunity to deal with important, whether that’s job impact or personal growth.  The moral of the story is, if I don’t make time for the big rocks, the fillers in my day won’t leave room.  I like Steven Covey’s perspective on urgent vs. important in his book, First Things First .  Here’s a nice summary of the popular Make Room for the Big Rocks story.

More Information

• How To Figure Out What You Really Want
• Know Thy Time
• Consolidate Your Discretionary Time

Use Anticipation to Drive vs. React
Anticipation is a actually a skill that I haven’t worked on as much as I should.  I actually plan to do a 30 Day Improvement Sprint on anticipation, when the time is right.  It’s funny how many recurring things happen each year, that take me by surprise.  Birthdays.  Holidays.  Reviews.  Events.  Geeze!  You’d think I’d see the patterns

Well, I do.  I’ve seen the pattern of me reacting to events I don’t anticipate.  While the corporate ninja expects the unexpected, I also find that with a little anticipation, a stitch in time saves nine.  If I make project plans, and there’s a major event I didn’t account for, I shouldn’t be surprised when suddenly nobody’s around.  At the same time, I’m sure I can find a way to leverage the sudden spurt of energy some folks have right after mid-year discussions.

More information

• Be Aware of the Larger System
• How To Paint a Future Picture
• Step Into Your Future

My Related Posts

• The Zen of Results Free E-Book
• Know Where Your Time Goes
• Personal Productivity Quotes

Are you a goal person or a river person?  Goal people layout a roadmap of goals and set out to achieve them.  River people, on the other hand, go with the flow.  They live for the moment and don’t worry too much about the future.  Neither is good or bad, or right or wrong.  They’re just different approaches for the journey of life.

In the book,Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! , Stephen M. Shapiro writes about goal people and river people.

Key Take Aways

Here’s my key take aways:

• There’s two types of people: goal people and river people.  Earl Nightingale, chairman of Nightingale-conant and personal development leader originally explained there are two types of people: goal people and river people.
• Chuck Frey provides a good perspective on the difference.  Chuck Frey, founder of innovationtools.com explained the difference to Shapiro (below).
• Goals vs. opportunities.  Goal people layout a roadmap of goals.  River people seek out learning opportunities and experiences.
• Achievement vs. experience.  Goal people seek out achievement.  River people seek out experience.
• Future-oriented vs. living in the moment.  Goal people are future oriented.  River people live for the moment.

Goal People
Goal people create a path of goals, objectives and timetables.  Shapiro writes:

Most of us are undoubtedly familiar with goal people.  They are the individuals who write down their objectives and timetables  for reaching them, and then focus on attaining them, one by one.  By laying out a roadmap of future achievements in front of them, goal people give their creative minds a clear set of stimuli to work on.  Their subconscious minds can then go to work incubating ideas and insights that will help them to reach their goals.

River People
River people lead a more unstructured life.  They seek out learning opportunities and experiences.  Shapiro writes:

River People, on the other hand, don’t like to follow such a structured route to success.  They are called river people because they are happiest and most fulfilled when they are wading in a rich river of interest - a subject or profession about which they are very passionate.  While they may not have a concrete plan with measurable goals, rive people are often successful because they are so passionate about their area of interest.  This, in turn, helps them to recognize, breakthrough opportunities that may not even be visible on the mental radar screens of the more narrowly focused goal people.  River people are explorer, continually seeking out learning opportunities and new experiences.  For river people, joy comes from the journey, not from reaching the destination - exactly the opposite of goal people.  From the standpoint of creativity, river people are more likely to benefit from serendipity, because they tend to be more open to new ideas, points of view, and insights than single-minded, focused goal people.

Goal-Free People
Goal-free people choose a life of experience over achievement.  Shapiro writes:

River people are individuals who live life out of experience rather than achievement.  People driven by passion.  These are the goal-free people.  Goal-free people don’t necessarily live a life free from all goals.  They live from from the stranglehold of goals that grips so many people.  They live experientially in each moment.  A life of their design rather than that which society tells them to live.  They have a deep appreciation for what they are today; they avoid worrying about the future.

My Related Posts

• How To Figure Out What You Really Want
• When It’s Cold Shiver, When It’s Hot Sweat
• What You Become By Reaching Your Goals
• Step Into Your Future
• PRIEST for Well-Formed Outcomes
• Productivity Objectives

This post is a consolidation of my lessons learned for 2008.  There’s a lot of lessons.  I tried to keep this as tight as possible, while keeping the fidelity of the insights.  I didn’t want you to have to read every post just to get the lessons, so I put the key points inline with a link to more.  I also organized the posts into key categories: Body, Business, Career, Conflict, Decision Making, Effectiveness, Focus, Goals, Intellectual Horsepower, Leadership, Learning, Life, Productivity, Strengths, and Stress.   This way you can scan for the ones you care about the most. 

I labeled the lessons as memorable, action phrases where possible.  For example,  one of the lessons is “give your best where you have your best to give.”  This makes it easy to remember and recall.  Lessons aren’t any good if you can’t remember them!  I’ve also found that a lot of day-to-day decisions are shaped by the little rules floating around in our heads … everything from “carpe diem!” to “a stitch in time saves nine.”  You can think of these guidelines as tools in your tool belt.  The more tools you have, the more options you have.  The more options you have, the more likely you’ll use the right tool for the job.  I use many of these lessons at work and with my mentees and they work.  Many of them are life changing.  I’m not a fan of blind adoption, so test what works for you.  Enjoy!

Top 10 Insights
I thought it would be helpful to put a shorter list up front before the more exhaustive list.  I picked the lessons that I either use everyday or that were the biggest “ah-ha” or that really change the game for me.

• Adapt, adjust, or avoid situations. Learn how to read situations. Some situations you should just avoid.  Some situations you should adapt yourself, as long as you play to your strengths.  Some situations you should adjust the situation to set yourself up for success.  See The Change Frame.
• Ask questions over make statements.  If you want to get in an argument, make statements.  If you want to avoid arguments, ask questions.
• Character trumps emotion trumps Logic.  Don’t just go for the logical win.  Win the heart and the mind follows.  Build rapport.  Remember the golden rule of “rapport before influence.  Have the right people on your side.   If you win the right pillars first, it’s a domino effect.  It’s part of social influence.  See Character Trumps Emotion Trumps Logic.
• Develop a routine for exceptional thinking.  Create a preperformance routine that creates consistent and dependable thinking.  Work backwards from the end in mind.  Know what it’s like when you’re at your best.  Model from your best experiences.  Success leaves clues.  Turn them into a routine.
  Set time boundaries.  Don’t let yourself take as long as it takes.  Work has a way of filling the available hours. Set a timebox and improve your routine until you can shift gears effectively within your time boundaries.  See Design a Routine for Exceptional Thinking.
• Give your best where you have your best to give.   Design your time to spend most of your time on your strengths.  Limit the time you spend in your weaknesses.   Play to your strengths.  When you play to your strengths, if you get knocked down, it’s easier to get up again.  It’s also how you unleash your best.  See Give Your Best Where You Have Your Best to Give.
• Label what is right with things.  There’s been too much focus on what’s wrong with things.  Find and label what’s right with you.  We all have a deep need to know what’s right with us.  Shift from labeling what’s wrong, to labeling what’s right. See Label What is Right with Things.
• One pitch at a time.  Focus on one pitch at a time.  Hook on to one thing.  Be absorbed in the moment, no matter what’s at stake.  Let results be the by-product of what you’re doing.  Don’t judge yourself while you’re performing.  Don’t rearrange your work; rearrange your focus.  See One Pitch at a Time.
• Spend 75 percent on your strengths.  Very few people spend the majority of their time on their strengths.  Create timeboxes for your non-negotiables.  You’re not your organization’s greatest asset until you spend your time on your strengths.  Activities that you don’t like, hurt less, if you compartmentalize them to a smaller chunk of your day.  See Spend 75 Percent on Your Strengths.
• Ask Solution-focused questions.   Ask things like “how do we make the most of this?” … “what’s the solution?” … “if we knew the solution, what might it be?”  Believe it or not, a lot of folks get stuck unless you add the “if you did know the solution …” or “what might it be?”  See Solution-Focused Questions.
• Use stress to be your best.  It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you make of it.  Distinguish stress from anxiety.  Stress is your body’s response.  Anxiety is your mind’s response.   See Use Stress to Be Your Best.

Body

• Balance your protein, carbohydrates, and fats.   Eat a balance of the three major categories of food (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) at every meal to get the right response from your body.  You also need to be selective about the quality of the foods you choose within each category to get the right hormonal impact. Get the right balance and quality of foods, and your body will produce the appropriate hormonal signals for the next four to six hours.   See A Zone Primer.
• Divide your plate in three.  For 1/3rd of your plate, choose a low-fat protein (chicken or fish.)  For 2/3rds of your plate, choose fibrous carbohydrates (fruits and vegetables.)  See A Zone Primer.
• You’re only as good or bad as your last meal.   Your hormones are readjusted every time you eat a meal or snack, so you’re only as good or as bad as your last meal.  See A Zone Primer.

Business

• Craft your strategy. The core of your strategy is your customers, capital, capabilities and commitments.  Clarify your strategy to identify what you will and will not do.  Craft strategy by addressing the fundamental questions around customers, capital, capabilities, and commitments.  Assess strategy by looking at its coherence, adequacy, and implementation.  Use the right questions to evaluate your strategy more effectively.  Use the SWOT method for assessing adequacy. See Crafting Strategy.
• Plan for minimum profitability over profit maximization.  Know the minimum profitability you need to survive.  Know that the minimum might to meet your objectives might actually be higher than you expected. See How Much Profitability Do You Need.
• The business development process is not static.  Continue to innovate, quantify and orchestrate your business development process.  See The Business Development Process is Not Static.

Career / Work

• 3 answers for the second half of life.  3 options include: 1) Start a Second Career, 2) Develop a Parallel Career, and 3) Become a “social entrepreneur.”   See 3 Answers for the Second Half of Life.
• 3 questions to ask when you interview.  The 3 questions are: 1) What have you done? 2) What do you want to do? and 3) What are you like?  See 3 Interview Questions for Picking the Right People.
• Don’t approach your boss only with problems.  See Fundamental Dos and Don’ts for a Productive Relationship with Your Boss.
• Improve your job satisfaction.  The keys include meaningfulness of work, perceived responsibility, and knowledge of results.  See Improving Job Satisfaction.
• Stick with the Dips that make sense.  Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-De-Sacs to focus your resources.  See Lessons Learned from the Dip.
• Use a development grid to chart out your professional development.  The key functional areas include marketing, sales, finance, human resources, operations, R&D, and information management.  Map out your functional expertise.  Map out the business situations you’ve been in.  For example, Start-up, Turnaround, Realignment, and Sustaining Success are all very different scenarios.
  Use the map to identify strengths and opportunities. See Development Grid.
• Work on your business rather than in it.  Apply the concepts of your current job.  Your business is not your life.  Pretend the business you own or want to own is the prototype.  Ask what consistent value your business can provide.  Create business results that are are systems-dependent.  Build systems to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things.  See Work On Your Business Rather Than In It.

Conflict / Influence

• Agree, Build, and Compare.  To improve building rapport, agree, build, and compare.  Agree – agree when you agree.  Build – build when others leave out key pieces.  Compare – compare when you differ.
  See Agree, Build, and Compare.
• Ask questions over make statements.  If you want to get in an argument, make statements.  If you want to avoid arguments, ask questions.
• Ask What’s In It For You (WIIFY). Ask the question What’s In It For You?  If you’re a marketer, this might come natural for you.  If you’re an engineer, this might feel weird.  It’s about shifting the focus from the thing to the person. If nobody shows up to your meetings, tailor the invite to be explicit about what’s in it for the attendees.
• Character trumps emotion trumps Logic.  Don’t just go for the logical win, build rapport.  Remember the golden rule of “rapport before influence.  Have the right people on your side.   if you win the right pillars first, it’s a domino effect.   See Character Trumps Emotion Trumps Logic.
• Compliment, disarm, and clarify to negotiate more effectively.  Find a way to genuinely compliment.  This helps reduce friction.  Find a way to agree.  This takes the wind out of their sails and helps build rapport.  Clarify and assert what you want.  See How To Negotiate More Effectively.
• Create sticky ideas.  The keys are: 1) simplicity 2) unexpectedness 3) concreteness 4) credibility 5) emotions and 6) stories.  See Six Principles of Sticky Ideas.
• Empathic listening. Listen until the other person “feels” they’ve been heard.  Once they feel heard, they’re more likely to listen to you.  You can do this 1:1 or in a large meeting.  Covey uses an “Indian Talking Stick.”   The person with the stick talks until they feel heard.  A former Softie told me his team used an eraser as “the mutex.”   See Lessons Learned from Stephen Covey.
• Improve your crucial conversations.  Start with Heart - Focus on what you want.  Learn to Look - Look for safety problems and look for your own style under stress.  Make it Safe - Apologize when appropriate, contrast to fix misunderstanding, and find Mutual Purpose.  Master My Stories - Separate fact from story.  STATE My Path - Tell your story, ask for other’s paths and encourage testing.  Explore Other’s Paths - Ask, Mirror, Paraphrase, Prime … Agree, Build, and Compare.  Move to Action - Decide how you’ll decide.  See How To Improve Your Crucial Conversations.
• Past, Present, Future.  The past is about blame.  The present is about values.  The future is about opportunity.  If you’re stuck, try switching tenses to future opportunities.
• Rapport before influence.  This is true whether it’s a presentation, interview … etc.. For example, go to a comedy club and see how the comedian gets the crowd laughing only  after they have rapport.
  Match their style. You don’t have to go overboard, but a little bridge can go along way.  If somebody is visual, could you whiteboard it for them?  If somebody’s detail oriented, can you provide the details?  If somebody needs to hear action, can you turn your ideas into action?
• Start with your audience’s mood.  Start with your audience’s mood.  Sympathy can help build rapport.
  Use rhetorical sympathy to show concern.  You can lead your audience to a new emotion, if you first start with their mood.  See Start With Your Audience’s Mood.
• Use subordinate goals to improve cross-group collaboration. See Superordinate Goals.
• Win the heart, the mind follows.   If their hearts not in it, that’s a problem.  Something is telling them that something is off.  You need to know the concerns.  It could be anything from fear to a lack of trust.   One thing that helps is simply to ask, “what’s the concern.”

Decision Making / Problem Solving

• 4 decision making methods.   Command decisions are made with no involvement.  Consult invite input from others.  Vote discuss options and then call for a vote.  Consensus talk until everyone agrees to one decision.  See 4 Decision Making Methods.
• 4 Types of Problems.  1) Truly Generic (individual occurrence is a symptom, 2) Generic, but Unique for the individual institution, 3) Truly exceptional, truly unique, and 4) Early manifestation of a new generic.  See 4 Types of Problems.
• Consult-and-Decide and Build-Consensus for Making Decisions.  If the decision is likely to be highly divisive — creating winners and losers — then you usually are better off using consult-and-decide and taking the heat.  A build-consensus process will both fail to reach a good outcome and get everyone mad at one another in the process.  Put another way, decisions about sharing losses or pain among a group of people are best made by the leader.  If the decision requires energetic support for implementation from people whose performance you cannot adequately observe and control, then you usually are better off using a build-consensus process.  See Consult-and-Decide and Build-Consensus for Making Decisions.
• Develop disagreement rather than consensus.  Don’t make a decision unless there’s disagreement.
  Disagreement provides alternatives, stimulates the imagination, and helps you break out of preconceived notions.  Understand the alternatives.  Know why people disagree.  Know both sides of the issue.  See Develop Disagreement Rather Than Consensus.
• Develop your intuition.  Develop your intuition by asking yourself “yes” and “no” questions to recognize where your answers come from.  Develop your intuition by remaking old choices.  Pay attention to where your answers come from.  See Develop Your Intuition.
• Resolve conflict by shifting tense.  Many arguments that fail take place in the wrong tense.  Past is blame, present is values, future is choice.  Focus on the future for more productive arguments.  See Conflict Resolution by Shifting Tense.
• Set boundary conditions for effective decisions.   Success is a range or continuum of possibilities.
  Know the boundary conditions for your important decisions.  Know the continuum of what good looks like.  Know the minimum the decision needs to satisfy.  Don’t depend on everything going as planned.
  Know when you need to abandon a decision.  If the decision is a failure from the start, don’t go down that path.   See Boundary Conditions for Effective Decisions.

Effectiveness

• Analyze it over time. Look at the problem or solution over time. Build your temporal skills.  The more you play “what ifs” in the future, the easier it gets to anticipate.
• Ask outcome focused questions.  Ask “outcome questions.”  Use “outcome questions” to move forward and avoid getting stuck in analysis paralysis.  No matter how bad the situation is, there’s always a desired outcome.  Focus on that.  Move away from the problem and towards the solution using “outcome frames” and “outcome questions.”  See Outcome Questions.
• Choose “How” questions over “Why” questions.  Find a way to move forward.  Choose how questions to find a way forward rather than choose why questions and dwell on what’s wrong.  See Choose “How” Questions Over “Why” Questions.
• Confidence comes before success.  See Confidence is Knowing and Going.
• Distinguish between responsibility and authority.  Know whether you influence a decision or own it.  When you don’t have authority, but you need to get results, leverage the model in Influencing without Authority.
• Know the 3 pillars for self-efficacy.  The three pillars are: 1) adopting success strategies 2) enforcing personal discipline 3) building your support system.  See 3 Pillars for Building Self-Efficacy.
• Know the system. Analyze the problem from a system standpoint.  What are the components and subsystems?  What are the inputs and outputs?  Who are the players?   What levers can you pull that make the most impact?  If you don’t know, who does?
• Know the Yerkes-Dodson Human Performance Curve.  Avoid sustaining high-levels of stress beyond your capacity.   See Yerkes-Dodson Human Performance Curve.
• Model the Best.  Learn from the best of the best.   Success leaves clues.  See Lessons Learned from Per.
• The limits to reading faster are your eyes and comprehension.  See The Truth About Speed Reading.
• Think, act, and communicate from the inside out.  Rather than focus on your what’s, focus on your why — the why behind what you do.  When you get knocked down, it’s easier to get up when you have your motivation to lean on.  Know your how.  Your how is your personal success pattern for results.
  Know thyself.  Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is your key to success.  Success leaves clues.  You can use the clues from your past experiences, to build awareness of what works for you.
  See Why Do You Do What You Do?
• Turn chickens into pigs.  A pig’s committed while a chicken’s involved.  Don’t let a chicken have a controlling vote, without turning them into a pig. 
• Use structured reflection.  How do you feel? what’s bothered you so far? What’s one well? What’s gone poorly?  Are you as proactive as you can be?  See Guidelines for Structured Reflection.
• When it’s cold shiver, when it’s hot sweat.  See When It’s Cold Shiver, When It’s Hot Sweat.

Focus  / Mindset

• One pitch at a time.  Focus on one pitch at a time.  Hook on to one thing.  Be absorbed in the moment, no matter what’s at stake.  Let results be the by-product of what you’re doing.  Don’t judge yourself while you’re performing.  Don’t rearrange your work; rearrange your focus.  See One Pitch at a Time.
• Training Mindset and Trusting Mindset.   The Training Mindset is where you analyze your performance as you go.  The Trusting Mindset is where you use your skills, not your head.  Engage in a task so completely that there’s no room left for self-criticism, judgment.  Don’t think about the mechanics of what you’re doing while your performing.  Practice your skills until you can do them without thinking about them.  See Training Mindset vs. Trusting Mindset.

Goals / Motivation

• 3 Outcomes for Today.  See 3 Outcomes for Today.
• Don’t Wait for Inspiration.  Inspiration isn’t something you should count on, but you should be able to leverage it when it happens. The key is to create more opportunities for your inspiration to be unleashed.   Focus on mastering your craft. The key here is to focus on what you control. You have control over your techniques and routines. By improving your techniques and routines, you set yourself up for success.   See Don’t Wait for Inspiration.
• Getting out of a slump.  Low-confidence is a common cause of slumps.  Action helps restore confidence.  Focus on the right steps over focusing on what can go wrong.  See Getting Out of a Slump.
• Objectives are like flight plans.  Turn objectives into specific work.  Effective objectives are like flight plans.  Don’t treat objectives like straightjackets.  See Objectives are Like Flight Plans.
• Use choose-tos over have-tos.  See Choose-Tos Over Have-Tos.
• Choose positive action over positive thinking.  See Positive-Thinking vs. Positive-Action.

Intellectual Horsepower

• Ask solution-focused questions.  Spend 20 percent on the problem and 80 percent on the solution.  Focus attention on the solution.  This doesn’t mean ignore understanding the problem.  It means, that rather than spending 20% of your energy on the solution and 80% on the problem, spend 80% on the solution and 20% on the problem. Stay out of analysis paralysis.  Keep moving forward, learning and adapting rather than sitting in analysis paralysis.  Use questions to get resourceful.  By asking solution-focused questions, you switch your mind into a more resourceful state.  Your brain suddenly starts drawing on all your resources internally and around you to solve the problem.   See Solution-Focused Questions.
• Consider personal invention quotas.  Thomas Edison used personal invention quotas.  See Personal Invention Quotas.
• Develop a routine for exceptional thinking.  Create a preperformance routine that creates consistent and dependable thinking.  Work backwards from the end in mind.  Know what it’s like when you’re at your best.  Model from your best experiences.  Success leaves clues.  Turn them into a routine.
  Set time boundaries.  Don’t let yourself take as long as it takes.  Work has a way of filling the available hours. Set a timebox and improve your routine until you can shift gears effectively within your time boundaries.  See Design a Routine for Exceptional Thinking.
• Use a precision model to avoid language pitfalls. See Precision Model for Avoiding Language Pitfalls.
• Use Solution-focused questions.

Leadership

• Action commitments.  Turn decisions into action commitments.  Actions speak louder than words.  Knowing what to do is not the same as doing what you know.  Get the right owners for the actions.
  Know what the action owners need to be successful and support them.  See Action Commitments.
• Adapt, adjust, or avoid situations. Learn how to read situations. Some situations you should just avoid.  Some situations you should adapt yourself, as long as you play to your strengths.  Some situations you should adjust the situation to set yourself up for success.
• Avoid vicious cycles.  See Avoiding Vicious Cycles.
• Be aware of the larger system.  Map out the system.  Anticipate the resistance.  Know the potential impact of changes in the system.  See Be Aware of the Larger System.
• Build your advice-and-counsel network.  Include technical advisers, cultural interpreters, and political counselors.  See Building Your Advice-and-Counsel Network.
• Consistently build winning teams.  The keys are: 1) build pride in the team 2) appear to be fair 3) build successors 4) beware of ball hogs and 5) understand each individual.  See How to Consistently Build a Winning Team.
• Frame compelling arguments.  Frame compelling arguments by either appealing to reason, core values or a combination.  Core values can include: loyalty, commitment and contribution, individual worth and dignity, and integrity.  See Framing Compelling Arguments.
• Sequence to build momentum.  Build incremental support.  Tackle your most influential critics first.  Know when you’re not the right person.  Don’t get blind-sided by social influence.  Consider an exec sponsor.  See Sequencing to Build Momentum.
• Use action-forcing events to produce results.  Schedule a review is effective for driving people to action.  If you need more action and results, schedule more reviews.  See Action-Forcing Events.

Learning

• Know your learning styles.  Know whether you prefer information to be random or sequential.  Know whether you prefer information to be abstract or concrete.  Know the four styles: 1) Concrete Random 2) Concrete Sequential  3) Abstract Random and 4) Abstract Sequential.  Understand how others process information as well so you can bridge styles.  Concrete - You’re dealing with the here and now and processing information based on what you see, hear, think, feel, and taste.  “It is what it is.”  You want a real example.  Abstract - You’re looking for the patterns.  You’re more cerebral in your analysis.  You’re using your intuition and imagination. “Things aren’t always what they appear to be.”  You abstract from the examples.  Random - You prefer processing chunks in any order.  Sequential - You prefer processing chunks of information in a linear way.  You prefer a plan or set of steps to follow.
  See Concrete, Abstract, Random and Sequential.
• Learn and grow through routines.  Use routines and habits for personal development.  The key is to focus on improvement.  Your set routines are a baseline to improve upon.  Orchestration is a way of doing something habitually.  Your habits need a higher level purpose or they are mechanical and deadening.  Think of improving your routines and habits as mastering your craft.  Leverage your work for personal transformation.  See Learning and Growing Through Routines.
• Improve your recognition and recall.   Chunk it down.  Ask questions. Improve your questions. Write it down.  Revisit the information.  Turn insights into action. See Proven Techniques for Remembering.
• Make everyone your mentor.  You can learn from everyone around you.  Make them your mentor.  Figure out what they are the best at and learn from them.
• Reading is an investment.  See Reading is an Investment.
• SQ3R: Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review.  This is a technique to improve your learning.  Survey each section of a textbook, starting wide then narrowing down on successive passes.  Turn each heading into a question and answer the questions as you read the text.  See Proven Techniques for Remembering.

Life

• Don’t be mediocre.  Mediocrity is not the path.  See Video: The Mindset of a Winner (Seth Godin).
• Life is a bunch of Dips.  Knowing you’re in a Dip is more than half the battle.  Learn to identify Dips and know which ones to lean into and which ones to avoid.  See Lessons Learned from the Dip.
• Life is like skiing.   Just like skiing, the goal is not to get to the bottom of the hill.  It’s to have a bunch of good runs before the sun sets.  See Video: The Mindset of a Winner (Seth Godin).

Productivity / Time Management

• Consolidate your discretionary time.  Figure out how much discretionary time you have.   Baseline your schedule to figure out what time is available that you can move around.  The goal is to batch your discretionary time together so that you have bigger blocks of consecutive work time.  Consolidate your operating work for Mondays and Fridays.  Batch your meetings, reviews, and administrative tasks to Monday and Friday mornings.  Use your power hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for your high priority work.  Focus on moving your big rocks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
  Work from home one day a week.  Consider working at home to consolidate your discretionary time
  See Consolidate Your Discretionary Time.
• Know where your time goes.  To manage your time, you need to know where it goes. Keep a time record. Your memory is wrong.  See Know Where Your Time Goes.
• Personal space.  3 models: 1) the overload model 2) Stress theory and 3) Communication channel.  See Personal Space.
• Use 30 Day Improvement Sprints.  Pick a focus and work it for 30 days.  Use this approach to cycle through things you want to learn or improve throughout the year.  You can think of them as “monthly” improvement sprints and that gives you 12 improvement sprints for the year.  See 30 Day Improvement Sprints.

Strengths

• All appetite, no ability is a hobby.  No ability, all appetite is a hobby.  If you enjoy an activity, you grow from it, and you feel good afterward, but you aren’t effective or successful at it, it’s a hobby, not a strength.  Strengths are where you feel successful, you feel an instinct for it, you grow from it, and you feel a need to keep at it.  Explore activities to find your strengths.  You won’t have a passion to keep giving your best if you’re not improving.  You’ll have a passion to do more of what you’re good at.  That’s how you go from good to great.   See All Appetite, No Ability is a Hobby.
• Give your best where you have your best to give.   Play to your strengths.  When you play to your strengths, if you get knocked down, it’s easier to get up again.  Design your time to spend most of your time on your strengths.  Limit the time you spend in your weaknesses.  See Give Your Best Where You Have Your Best to Give.
• Find your key strengths.  Figure out your five key strengths.  If you know these five key strengths, then you can spend your time in activities that charge you and avoid activities that drain you.  You can find ways to be your best and move towards work where you can excel.   See Finding Your Key Strengths.
• Label what is right with things.  There’s been too much focus on what’s wrong with things.
  The strengths movement is about finding what’s right with things.  Find and label what’s right with you.
  We all have a deep need to know what’s right with us.  Shift from labeling what’s wrong, to labeling what’s right. See Label What is Right with Things.
• Spend 75 percent on your strengths.  Very few people spend the majority of their time on their strengths.  Create timeboxes for your non-negotiables.  You’re not your organization’s greatest asset until you spend your time on your strengths.  Activities that you don’t like, hurt less, if you compartmentalize them to a smaller chunk of your day.  See Spend 75 Percent on Your Strengths.

Stress

• Take a worry break.  Consolidate your problems rather than let them interfere throughout your day.  See Take a Worry Break.
• Use stress to be your best.  It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you make of it.  Distinguish stress from anxiety.  Stress is your body’s response.  Anxiety is your mind’s response.  Practice, practice, practice.  Perceive stress as a good thing.  Use “nerves” to perform better.  Choose the job or make the time.  Choose something to spend more time doing every day or carve out time for what you want to practice.  See Use Stress to Be Your Best.

My Related Posts

• Lessons Learned from Ken Blanchard
• Lessons Learned from Stephen Covey
• Lessons from Jack Canfield
• Lessons Learned from Santa
• Lessons Learned from the Dip
• Lessons Learned from Peaceful Warrior
• Lessons Learned from Per

I’ve been using 30 day improvement sprints as a way to sharpen my skills.  I originally started 30 Day Improvement Sprints a couple years back loosely based on Scrum 30 Day Sprints.  I pick a focus to work on and I commit to improving it for a 30 day timebox.  Committing to 30 days of improvement in a focused area, is easier to swallow than changing for life.  However, improving an area for 30 days, is actually life changing.

With 30 days, persistence and time are on my side.  It’s a big enough time box that I can try different techniques, while building proficiency.  Using 30 days makes working through hurdles easier too.  A lot of the hurdles I hit in my first week, are gone by week 2.  Little improvements each day, add up quickly.  I look back on how many things I tried for a week and stopped thinking I hadn’t made progress.  The trick was, I didn’t get to week 2 to see my results.  Lesson learned!

Why 30 Day Improvement Sprints
Why 30 Day Improvement Sprints?  I get asked this often enough that I think I should distill the keys:

• Because they’re really monthly improvement sprints, I can cycle through 12 themes each year.  It’s ultimately a portfolio of results and a way to test out and learn new things or add extra focus on something I need to improve.
• I can commit to something for 30 days.  Starting something without an end in sight, can be daunting.
• It helps me deal with the now.
• It’s a timebox to deliver value to myself.
• If I only do something ad-hoc now and then, I don’t create an effective technique.  If I do a little each day,
• I find a way to reduce the friction.
• It lets me parking lot things I want to work on.  I can put something on the backburner if I know I have a way to pick it back up.
• It gives me a system to build a portfolio of improvements instead of cling to one-hit wonders here and there.
• If it’s daily, it becomes a habit.  If it’s something I do a few days a week or only for a week, I don’t build a routine.
• It’s a long enough duration to see improvement or change approach.  I wonder how many things I tried in the past for a week, then stopped because I didn’t see improvement?  If I’m not getting results, I have enough buffer to change my approaches or strategies.  Put it another way, 30 days gives me enough buffer to mess up.
• It’s easier to buy into incremental, daily improvement versus big up front improvement or change.
  I’m a sprinter by nature.  While I’ve learned to pace by nurture, I prefer to put my all and do bursts.  It’s when my energy is peak.
• Because my 30 Day Improvement Sprints are so effective for me, I have to resist the urge to bite off too many areas at once.  In general, I try to balance between mind, body, career, financial, and relationships.  My scannable outcome lists help me checkpoint.

If that’s not good enough for you, it might help to know that people like Stephen Covey, Tony Robbins, and Jack Canfield have also had variations of 30 day routines.  In fact, Jack Canfield walked me through a study from NASA that validated that you need an uninterrupted sequence of days for a new habit to sink in.

Making 30 Day Improvement Sprints More Effective
In a previous post on 30 Day Improvement Sprints post, a reader asked, what tips do I have to make 30 days sprints more effective.  Here’s my short list

• Buddy up.  Seriously.  One guy’s hurdle, is another girl’s breeze.
• Don’t beat yourself up.  If at first you don’t succeed, tell yourself you just learned another way how NOT to do something.
• Count your improvements, not your blunders.  It’s a pick you up vs. put you down approach.
• Make each session count.  Keep your sessions short and sweet.   Slow and steady wins the race.
• Focus on your improvement process vs. the result itself.  Make the process your reward.  I enjoy learning again for learning’s sake.      
• If you’re churning, change your approach.  Don’t mistake churn for awkwardness. Growth feels awkward and is a precursor to proficiency.
• Find experts you can model and learn from.  Success leaves clues.  If you can find somebody who does a great job at what you want to do, you have a head start.  I leverage lots of mentors.  I used to just see an amazing pool of people around me.  Now I see an amazing team of coaches.
• Journal your lessons learned.  Each day, reflect on distinctions you made.  What’s one little thing you learned you didn’t know the day before.  You’ll be surprised how simple notes can shine a spotlight on your gains.
• Repetition is your friend.  Remind yourself that repetition is the mother of skill.  World class experts master the fundamentals through repetition and refinement.
• Set your own bar vs. follow others.  Don’t compare yourself to others; compare yourself to you.  Be your personal best.  I remember a point John Wooden made some time ago.  He didn’t think his team should gloat over wins, or beat themselves up over losses.  His point was, if you won, but didn’t play your best, did you really deserve to win? …  If you lost, but you played your personal best, did you really lose?
• Focus on the thinking, feeling and doing.  Sometimes the inner dialogue is more important than what you see or hear.  While something might seem purely physical, sometimes, there’s a lot of self-talk an expert does that might not be obvious.  What do they think about when they perform the technique?  When they mess up, how do they get back in the zone?  What’s their decision tree?  For example, when I do a customer arch and design review, they see me put stuff on a whiteboard.  They hear me ask precise questions.  What they might not know is the matrix of questions and reference examples I draw from.
• Be your own best coach.  Use questions to shape your improvement.   
• Ask for feedback.  Find those you trust to point out things you might otherwise miss. 
• Few problems withstand sustained focus.  There’s a bit of captive genius in everyone that just needs to be uncorked.  30 days of focused improvement seems to be a great way to pop the cork.  I’m finding improvement sprints refreshing because I now have a schedule for exploration.  I can rotate through more interests.  Most importantly, rather than tackle everything all at once, I just wait for my next 30 day focus.  It’s easier to put something aside for the moment, if I know I’ll have a chance to immerse myself in it in the future.  If I enjoyed something so much and I want to continue, I just do another 30 days.

 My Related Posts

• 3 Outcomes for Today
• How To Do Tasks More Efficiently
• The Zen of Results Free E-Book
• Start with Something Simple
• Personal Productivity Quotes

What are 3 great results for today?  That’s the question I ask to bootstrap my day.  As simple as it sounds, I find it’s the most effective way to cut through the fog each day.  There’s a lot of things I can do and there’s lots of activities I’ll be doing, but what are 3 great outcomes for today.  That’s it.

Example
Here’s an example of my 3 outcomes for one of my days right before I left for vacation::

• Ship Beta 2 of my new book (Application Architecture Guide 2.0)
• Publish a post announcement of the book Beta 1
• Draft of Designing Your Architecture

Great is relative.   Value is in the eye of the beholder.  if it’s for you, you have a lot of leeway.  If it’s for other people, your boss, … etc. then you should sanity check what they care about.

Why 3 things?  It forces me to prioritize among a sea of potential results.  Also, I can remember 3 things without writing them down, so throughout my day, I know what I’m working towards.   I can say it in the hall.

If you manage endless to do lists and work on a bunch of stuff but don’t actually get anything done, try focusing on 3 great results each day.  It works.

My Related Posts

• How To Do Tasks More Efficiently
• Solution-Focused Questions
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• The Zen of Results Free E-Book

Here’s my short-list of techniques I use for improving efficiency on a given task:

• Increase the frequency.  If I’m not efficient at something and I need to be, I start doing it more.  A lot more.  Frequency helps me get over resistance.  I also get more chances to learn little things each time that help me improve.  
• Reduce friction.  This is important and goes in hand with increasing the frequency.  When I do something more, I can quickly find the friction points.  For example, I was finding that pictures were piling up on my camera.  The problem was I needed my camera’s cradle to transfer my pics.  When I got my new camera, I could transfer pics through the memory disk without the cradle and the friction was gone.  It was a world of difference.  I pay attention to friction points now in all the recurring tasks I need to do.
• Model the best.  If I look around, I can usually find somebody who’s doing what I want to do, better than I’m doing it.  I learn from them.  For example, when I was doing an improvement sprint on making videos, I learned from colleagues Jason Taylor, Alik Levin, and Alex Mackman, since they were all doing videos for some time and had lessons to share.
• Batch the tasks.  There’s two ways I batch tasks.  First, I gather enough so that when I do them, I’ll learn in a batch.  Second, I look for way to split the work and to batch the workstreams.  For example, when I was working on an improvement sprint for speech to text, I made very little progress if I tried to dictate and edit.  I made much more progress when I dictated in batch, and then edited in batch.  It was a simple shift in strategy, but made a world of difference.

While each technique is useful, I find I improve faster when I’m using them together.  It’s synergy in action, where the sum is better than the parts.

My Related Posts

• The Zen of Results Free E-Book
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spoke at Microsoft earlier this year.  He’s all about empowering people, growing people, and helping everybody get an A.  This post is my notes from the session.

Catch People Doing Something Right, Accentuate the Positive
I’m putting this right up front because Ken said if there was only one thing he could be remembered for, he would want it to be:

“Catch People Doing Something Right, Accentuate the Positive.”

Random Highlights
Here’s a sampling of some of the one-liners and insights from the session:

• The triad is the provider of choice, employer of choice, investment of choice.
• People will compete with you in garages — have the triad.
• Bring your brains to the job vs. kiss up the hierarchy.
• Write the final exam up front.
• Life’s about getting A’s.  Everybody gets A’s.
• The journey of an effective leader starts with self-leadership (who are you)
• None of us is as smart as all of us (the collective brain)
• Don’t ask yes/no questions — ask, what’s one thing we could have done differently to make your experience better?
• Know your rank order values.  Walk your values.  Don’t have too many values.
• Profit is the applause you get for taking care of customers and being a motivating place to work.
• Get customers telling stories about you.
• Who does she work for? a duck or an eagle? Ducks quack excuses.  Eagles soar above the crowd.   Bring your brains to work.
• You got what you got (your team), what are you going to do?
• Help people accomplish goals and have goals tied into the organization.
• Now you have the position, don’t use it (don’t use your position — it’s on loan.)
• All the important stickers went on people (people are the most important asset.)
• Ken’s favorite insight from the movie Ghost - “You can take the love with you.”
• What Ken’s mom taught him — “Don’t act like you’re better than anybody …but don’t let anybody act like they’re better than you.”

Philanthropy is the News Around the World
Ken travels the world and the big news he kept hearing about was the philanthropy.  Specifically, the news was focused on Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.  The fact that Buffet trusts the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help the world sends a powerful message.

4 Keys to Lead at a Higher Level
Ken framed out 4 keys to lead at a higher level:

1. Set your sights on the right target and vision.  Ken reminded us that since Alice didn’t know where she wanted to go, the Chesire cat told her that the direction doesn’t matter.
2. Treat your customers right.  Decide, discover, and deliver.
3. Treat your people right.  If you don’t treat your people right, they won’t take care of your customers (the customers are the only people they can beat up.)
4. Have the right kind of leadership.  Effective leadership starts on the inside.  You don’t own the position, it’s on loan.  Be a servant leader over a self-serving leader.

Decide, Discover and Deliver
To treat your customers right, Ken provided a decide, discover, deliver approach:

• Decide.  Decide what experience you want your customers to have.  For example, one gas station used the “Indianapolis pitstop experience” and had the slogan, “jump to the pump.” 
• Discover.  Listen to what your customers want and see if it makes sense to include their suggestions in your vision.  Don’t ask yes/no questions — ask, what’s one thing we could have done differently to make your experience better?
• Deliver.   To implement your customer service vision, invert the traditional pyramid and empower your people.

Turn the Pyramid Upside Down
Turn the pyramid upside down.  Have your team bring their brains to work vs. kiss up the hierarchy.  Don’t have them be ducks (who just quack excuses why they can’t do this or can’t do that.) Empower them to be eagles who soar above the crowd. 

A Fortunate 500 List According to Ken Blanchard
Ken suggested the idea of a Fortunate 500 list.  A Fortunate 500 Company would have a triple bottom line and be a good citizen in the community.

Customers, Business, Employees (The Triple Bottom Line)
The triple bottom line includes:

1. Provider of choice (customers)
2. Employer of choice (employees)
3. Investment of choice (business)

Ken remarked that profit is the applause you get for taking care of customers and being a motivating place to work.

Organizational Vitality, Employee Passion, Customer Devotion
Ken outlined the keys to organizational vitality:

• Organizational vitality.  Organizational vitality is supported by customer devotion and employee passion (which support each other).  The employees don’t see strategic initiatives in their day to day, so the biggest impact on org vitality is how does their boss threat them and how are they evaluated? (fair/just?)
• Strategic leadership.  Strategic leadership supports org vitality.  Strategic leadership includes vision, culture, and strategic imperatives.
• Organizational leadership.  Organizational leadership supports employee passion and customer devotion.   Organizational leadership includes policies and procedures (indirect relationship on strategy), leader behaviors, and fairness / justice.

From Self-Leadership to Organizational Leadership
The journey of an effective leader starts with self-leadership (who are you) and progresses to organizational leadership:

• Self-leadership (who are you)
• One-to-one leadership
• Team leadership
• Organizational leadership

Ken noted that one of his favorite mantras is — none of us is as smart as all of us.

3 Skills of Situational Leader
Ken identified 3 skills of a situational leader:

1. Diagnosis - figuring our the development level.
2. Flexibility - adapting your leadership style based on the development level.
3. Partnering for performance - helping everybody get A’s. 

The 4 D’s (Development Level)
The four development levels vary by competence and motivation.  If you can identify which development level somebody is in, you can use the right leadership style:

• D1 - Enthusiastic beginner (low competence, high commitment)
• D2 - Disillusioned learner (low competence, low commitment)
• D3 - The capable, but cautious performer (low to some competence, variable commitment)
• D4 - The self-reliant achiever (high competence, high commitment)

4 Leadership Styles
The four leadership styles range from directing to delegating:

• S1 - Directive
• S2 - Coaching
• S3 - Supportive
• S4 - Delegating

Your leadership style varies by how you need to teach skills and provide motivation.   You match your leadership style based on the development level.

More Supporting, Less Delegating
Ken noted that the most common style in tech is delegating (telling folks what to do), but that it only works if you have self-reliant achievers.  He said lots of situations where somebody fails, it’s because the leader didn’t spend enough time supporting.  For example, somebody might be great at sales, but poor at administration and could use more support.

Don’t Be a Seagul
Ken described the seagul type manager:

1. Flies in
2. Makes a lot of noise
3. Dumps on everyone
4. Flies out

Yuck!  Don’t be a seagul.

How to Manage Effectively
Ken gave us a recipe for managing effectively:

1. Teach situational leadership II
2. Agree on goals
3. Agree on level of performance
4. Diagnose development level
5. Agree on appropriate leadership style
6. Follow up on agreements

Leadership vs. Management
When a colleague asked Ken about his thoughts on the difference between leadership and management, he said he doesn’t get involved in the debate.  He doesn’t think management should play 2nd fiddle.

Don’t Rank Employees on a Bell Curve
Ken made a few key points against ranking employees on a bell curve:

• Why screw a certain percentage?
• You don’t hire losers to fill slots.
• Putting your new people at the bottom doesn’t encourage them.

Help Everybody Get A’s
Ken’s recipe for results is:

• Give out the final exam up front
• Teach people answers to get the A’s
• Demonstrate how you’ve helped them get A’s each quarter
• Have an informal formal review each quarter
• A review at the end of the year should be a review — not a surprise.

Share Them With Your Competition
What happens if you give help people get A’s but they don’t get A’s:

• If they’re a good citizen, then help them find the right position.
• If they’re not a good citizen, then share them with your competition.

From self-serving leaders to Servant Leadership
Ken gave us three ways that somebody moves from a self-serving leader to servant-leadership:

1. Near death experience
2. Spiritual awakening
3. Be a role model

Basically it’s life-changing events or by following an example.

Egos Anonymous
There’s two ends of the spectrum with ego issues:

1. False pride
2. Self-doubt / fear

The problem with ego issues is that the world spins around you.  Ken said the key is to put the focus somewhere else.  When you put the focus on something else, the fear goes away.

Ken told us about “Egos Anonymous” meetings.   He said at the meetings, people introduce themselves with “I’m an ego maniac, the last time my ego got in the way …” 

The irony is, everybody wants to go last to be more clever, funnier — and that’s an ego thing.

Bigger Emphasis on Results or Developing People?
Ken pointed out that it’s not an either/or it’s a both/and.  The keys are:

1. Fixing motivation.
2. Fixing capability.

The Secret of Great Leaders
Ken told us the secret of great leaders:

• Values, results and people
• Emphasis on results
• Significant investment in their lives
• Express appreciation

You’re Learning or Dying
Ken told us we’re learning or dying:

• Reinvent continuously.
• How will your resume be different next year?
• Are you learning from mentors?

SERVE - What Great Leaders Know and Do
Ken explained that SERVE is what great leaders know and do:

• See the future.
• Engage and develop others
• Reinvent continuously.
• Value results and relationship.
• Embody the values.

Leadership is Love
Ken told us leadership is love:

• Loving your mission
• Loving your customers
• Loving your people
• Loving yourself — enough to get out of the way so others can be magnificent.

How To Implement the program
Ken said he’s seen remarkable impact when organizations apply the knowledge.  He said there’s three keys:

1. Performance management program (3,4,5x the difference)
2. Situational leadership
3. Final exam.

Wrap Up
At the end of the talk, I met Ken and he signed my copy of The 3 Keys to Empowerment.   What surprised me the most was how down to earth and engaged in the moment he was.   I thanked him for teaching people situational leadership.  I asked him where the II part came from in Situational Leadership II and he told me the story of the split.   I told him it would be great to be able to read stories like that in his blog, if he had one. 

3 Actions
As a habit, I challenge myself to turn what I learn into three things I can apply.  There’s always more I can do, but I start with three.  Here they are:

1. Help everybody get A’s.  I’ll start by diagnose the development levels on my team.  Does somebody on the team need more encouragement or more instruction than they’re getting right now?
2. Figure out how my resume will be different next year.  I used to do this exercise regularly, but it’s been a while.  Flashing forward is a great way to help me choose certain paths over others.
3. Decide, discover, and deliver the right customer experience.  Very practically put, stop asking yes, no questions and start asking, what’s one thing we could have done differently to make your experience better?

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