We have just been though one of the greatest financial crisis in the history of the world.  The world goes further into debt.  Companies struggle to be profitable.  We continue to see the bickering of politicians and watch the business-as-usual with our governments.  The wars in foreign countries continue.   We continue to watch the further disintegration of the family system and family values.  And through all of this, one asks “Where are the leaders?”  What is leadership?  Who is a leader?

Regardless of our position in life, all of us can and should be leaders.  So what is leadership?  “Leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then get others to want to do it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leaders accomplish things by leading.  That is, by guiding and helping other people.  Dictators issue orders, using fear and punishment to command compliance.  Leaders shape people’s opinions and win their enthusiasm, using every available opportunity to send out their message (VISION) and win supporters (Noel Tichy, The Leadership Engine).  Dictators break people down to feel inadequate, incapable, and don’t know much about the value people and their power.

What makes a leader?  A leader has VISION about what needs to be done.  He/she makes changes and helps others to make changes in order to see the VISION through completion.

What is your VISION about leadership?  What is the vision that you have about leading your family, in your community, in your employment, in your religious organization, or in your own personal development? As we talk about vision and change, there are a number of tools that can be used to help lead others towards change:

· Situational Leadership by Paul Hersey & Ken Blanchard (1984)

o Directing

o Coaching

o Supporting

o Delegating

· The Coach by Steven Stowell & Matt Starcevich (1987)

o Be Supportive

o Define the Topic and Needs

o Establish Impact

o Initiate a Plan

o Get a Commitment

o Confront Excuses / Resistance

o Clarify Consequences

o Don’t Give Up

· The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (1989)

o Be Proactive

o Begin with the End in Mind

o Put First Things First

o Think Win/Win

o Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood

o Synergize

o Sharpen the Saw

· Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman (1995)

o Self-awareness

o Self-regulation

o Motivation

o Empathy

o Social Skill/Team Builders

· E’s of Excellence by Curtis Reese (2000)

o Ethic (Work hard and Smart)

o Ego (Strong Ambition to Win)

o Empathy (Meet their needs)

o Empower (Help them to Help Themselves)

o Enthusiasm (Full of Energy)

o Education (Continue to Learn)

o Exercise (Stay Healthy)

o Execute (Put your Plan into Action)

Let’s take a closer look at Curtis Reese’s E’s of Excellence and what they means.  What can you take away from one or more of these areas so that you can be a better leader as you travel down the path of continuous improvement.

· ETHIC

o How committed are we to the task or job at hand when we are at work?

o Do we go beyond company demands?

o Why do our services provide value to our customers?

o Do we work beyond the mark, within the norm or outside the box?

· EGO / AMBITION

o I want to provide the very best service because I want to drive results.

o I want to be a top performer because it is who I am.

o Our services are better because we value our cusomter

o I have quiet confidence because I believe that success is a journey, not a destination.

· EMPATHY

o What are my customers’ needs and how can I help them fulfill those needs?

o How does my customer, family member, religious leader, community leader, view the situation.

o How and in what way do our products/services satisfy our customers’ needs.

o I am aware that a statue has never been set-up to honor a critic and understand the metaphor.

· EMPOWER

o Allow others to help you accomplish your goals

o Compliment everyone around you; make them feel good about their contribution.

o Realize that the sole advantage of power is the ability to do more good.

o Empower your people to make your organization’s services even better by sharing ideas.

· EDUCATION

o Be a general student and always learn.

o Knowledge is POWER!

o The glory of God is intelligence.

o When you stop learning, you stop life itself.

o Don’t learn for the sake of learning, let your knowledge lead to action

o Teach and share your skills with someone else.

· ENTHUSIASM

o Enthusiasm, Energy, and Emotion can all have positive effects on what you do and on the people you come in contact with.

o Even your dog can feel your energy level; be aware of the effect you have on others.

o No one wants to get a “Kick In The Pants,” but it will raise their level of focus and attention.

o Clear your mind of the word “CAN’T.”

· EXERCISE

o Your most important asset is your health.  What do you do to protect your health?

o You buy insurance to cover all your material possessions

o You need a healthy diet and exercise for both the body and the soul.

· EXECUTE

o Live your goals and make your dreams become reality.

o There are three kinds of people:  those who wonder what happened, those who watch what happens, and those who make things happen.  What kind of person are you?  What about the people you lead?

Each one of us has the ability to look like a leader and act like a leader just by making minor improvements in our leadership skills each day.  James Michener, author of “The Tales of the South Pacific,”  wrote; “The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.  He hardly knows which is which.  He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leading others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”

Over the past few months, I have been serving as an assistant coach for my son’s Little League Football team.  It has been a lot of work to teach the boys the techniques of the sport; blocking, tackling, and running.  I have found that the best way to teach children is to have fun while learning.  The other coaches and I use many different games and exercises that force the boys on the team to use their new found skills and the techniques.  Aside from just skill practice, these games and exercises allow us, the coaching staff, to measure their progress.

Many people struggle in the work environment because what they do no longer seems enjoyable, and learning or development just means more work.  When this happens, we become stagnant.  Our personal satisfaction and happiness decreases and, in turn, our success and quality of work falters.  From my perspective, not enough people are making a game out of work.  Consider this quote from the world renowned physicist, Albert Einstein.

“How many people are trapped in their everyday habits, part numb, part frightened, part indifferent?  To have a better life we must keep choosing how we are living.”

While this quote could have many applications, I would like to discuss how it applies to our daily work. If someone is feeling numb, frightened, or indifferent toward their everyday work activity, leaders or coaches can expect this person to also feel unaccountable to results and lacking desire to achieve greater levels of success.

Since it appears that many people in the working world are feeling numb, frightened, or indifferent toward their daily work, I propose that organizations strive harder to make a game out of work by challenging their employees to compete to win. Like the way I coach the football team, leaders can make work more fun and find ways to use metrics and scorecards to measure progress.  With a little fun, leaders can create a winning team that really adds to bottom line results.  Leaders themselves must also have a bottom line mentality as they go about setting exciting and stretch goals for themselves, their departments, and for their team members.  This inner game of work can make a huge impact on what people accomplish.

So, whether you are coaching 20 eight and nine year old boys on a Little League Football team or leading a tenured staff of employees, the concept I’m suggesting is the same.  Make a game out of work; make it fun, rewarding and competitive.  I guarantee you will see improved results.

Part Two: Standing Out at Work

There are employees in the work environment who, like this crab, act in a survival mode. They are worried about being laid-off or given extra assignments and responsibilities, and don’t want to challenge the status quo.  They too, try to blend in and act in fear of change or challenge.  I’m sure you can think of someone just like this right now!  The downside of this scenario is they are quickly passed up when opportunities arise.  Literally, the chances float right by!  What every work environment, and organization for that matter, needs is people who are willing to stick it out through hard times, get noticed, and take risks. While the Decorator Crab can only win from blending in, we can only lose.

While the title of this book intrigued me (only four hours of work a week), I just didn’t get around to reading the best seller until a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fast read and well articulated. I really liked Mr. Ferriss’ first concept that “Time is Money.” For me this view is right on. Too often, we are so busy trying to make a better income, we forget just how much it really costs us. Three main elements in the book caught my attention. I feel they are well worth considering if not incorporating into your life: Elimination, Selective Ignorance, and Outsourcing.

Elimination
As we age, we naturally reach a point where we begin an elimination process in our lives. We not only cut back on material possessions, we also begin to eliminate unfulfilling activities. Mr. Ferris is simply moving this process from the autumn years to the spring years of life.

Selective Ignorance
One person cannot know everything about everything, and yet we all know people who will not, maybe cannot, say, “I don’t know.” Selective Ignorance, according to Ferriss, is the process of deliberately ignoring topics that may not be relevant or will take too much time to explore. I agree that it is important to limit our focus to what we can handle realistically, but it may not always be to our best interest in doing only those things we enjoy. Think about the first time you were on a bicycle; can you honestly say you enjoyed falling off that two wheeled contraption? Yet, today you may be an avid bicyclist.

Outsourcing
Asking others to do jobs that are outside our expertise is a no-brainer. However, I have two main concerns about giving our tasks we consider time wasters, to others. First, outsourcing will not guarantee that what you get will be what you wanted or needed. Simply put, no one sees the world like you do. Second, by giving your time wasters to someone else, are you adding more hours to their work week. You must ask yourself, “What’s the cost? Is your time more valuable than theirs?” Rather than outsourcing time wasters, let’s go back to the concept of Elimination. Get rid of them and make everyone more efficient.

Summary
What concerns me most about Mr. Ferriss’ book is the impression he gives that you should simply stretch the rules of the game to fit your needs so that you can win the prize. Example, early in the book he talks about using loop holes in rules to win an international sports competition. He drastically reduced his water weight to weigh in at a lower weight so later he would outweigh his opponent. And because he didn’t have the skills, he used another loop hole in the rules to win by pushing his opponents off the mat. So, okay, he won the prize. Strategy and tactics aside, what about ethics! What about to the personal satisfaction in acquiring the skill to compete? While winning is important, the pride in developing the skill is often more satisfying.

After observing this interesting part of nature, I realized there were lessons to be learned from the little larvae. When things heat up in the workplace, whether from challenges and obstacles that arise from responsibilities and tasks, or external forces like increased competition, we, like the larvae, must react quickly or perish. Today, businesses and individual contributors face an especially formidable external force, a significant downturn in the economy. Most companies and employees are finding themselves in a “survival of the fittest” state. As businesses tighten expenditures and face this struggling marketplace, complacent employees who simply meet expectations and performance goals will not survive. Rather, those, like the larvae, who throw themselves into their work and commit to excellence will thrive despite the difficult times.

So, I would like to ask this question. Are you prepared and willing to be like the larvae? Committing to excellence is a multi-dimensional concept. While there could be many different steps or approaches to bring individual and organizational performance from mediocrity to superior, I have identified seven:

1. Think strategically and consider the future.
2. Pull together and unite as a team with co-workers.
3. Approach challenges and obstacles with assertiveness and force.
4. Use good judgment and collaborative decision making skills.
5. Increase efficiency and eliminate waste and redundancy.
6. Challenge the status quo and employ creativity and innovation.
7. Keep a positive mind-set and good attitude.

Implementing these techniques and developing these skills will help to ensure continued success and the chance to compete despite challenges and obstacles. If you find yourself wondering where to start, browse through our books or other blog posts. You will find helpful resources on strategic thinking, teamwork, and other business topics. If you need training and development solutions or outside help, we would enjoy disccussing a “committment to excellence” in more detail.