Measuring Success by Mike Myatt

Over the years I’ve come to believe that there is only one sure fire litmus test for measuring leadership success, and to the chagrin of many reading this post, it has little to do with what happens on the job. Today’s post might push a few buttons and test the boundaries of your comfort zone, but if you stick with me, I promise you’ll be glad you did. I’m going to peel back the layers on your personal brand, question your priorities, and quite possibly put a big dent in your carefully crafted professional facade. We’re going to get very personal today – How’s your family life?

If the opening paragraph caused you to wince, then the text that follows is written just for you. If the next sentence seems a little preachy, it’s meant to be. The true test of any leader is not measured by what’s accomplished in their professional life, but rather by what’s accomplished at home. If you’re a well oiled machine at work, but your family is falling apart at the seams – who cares? Let me be blunt – you won’t earn anyone’s respect, at least not the respect of anyone who matters, if your concern for career success overshadows your concern for the well-being of your family.

My advice is simple:
Create a legacy that transcends your career. Having the advantage of the hindsight my gray hair affords me, I can say with great certainty that who you are as a person is infinitely more important than the title you hold at work. There are few things in life as thought provoking as witnessing what by all outward appearances seems to be a successful executive, but as you begin to peel back the layers of their carefully crafted veneer, you quickly come to realize that they are little more than an empty, bitter, and frustrated person. They work their entire career chasing some illusive form of fulfillment only to fade into the sunset with nothing more than an empty lifetime of regrets as their reward.
I’ve simply lived too long to buy into the myth that success in the workplace will create happiness at home. While it makes for a nice sound bite to console those with a guilty conscience, IT IS A LIE. If your business is growing, but your spouse is crying and your children are neglected, it’s time to do a reality check on your priorities. If your secretary respects you, but your spouse doesn’t you have serious issues that need your immediate attention. If you would rather spend time with your online “friends” than with your children, it’s time to pull the ripcord on your internet connection.
Here’s the cold hard truth…if you cheat your family to invest into your career, you and your loved ones will pay a very heavy price. It is simply wrong to value your workplace commitments over your family commitments – moreover it’s not necessary. If your focus is on your family, your career won’t suffer, it will flourish. Get this wrong and not only will your family suffer, but so will you as you someday mourn the loss of what could have been, but cannot be recovered.
If you really want to get to know me, don’t waste time reading my bio or scrutinizing my professional successes and failures, get to know my wife and my children. My best work, the work that I’m most proud of, is the relationship I have with the love of my life whom I’ve been married to for almost three decades, and with my two grown children who now consistently teach me more about life than I taught them. While I’ve had more career success than I probably deserve, I’m just as flawed as anyone reading this post. What I can tell you is that I’ve always made my family a priority. I don’t regret a single second of time I’ve invested in my family, but I’ve lost track of all the regrets I have over time squandered on the job.
You see, everyone creates a legacy – the question is will it be one worth leaving? While a legacy is classically defined as something of significant and/or lasting value that survives its creator, the best legacy is one that can be lived before it is left behind.

The bottom line is this:
If you’re a superstar at work, but a slacker at home you’re not succeeding at anything other than being a disingenuous, ego-centric charlatan. If this describes you, you’re not a leader you are a poser. As a very wise person once said, “don’t waste your time investing in those who won’t be crying at your funeral.”

Source: http://www.business-strategy-innovation.com/wordpress/2010/09/measuring-success/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+business-strategy-innovation+%28Blogging+Innovation%29

Keep your goals for yourself by Derek Sivers

After hitting on a brilliant new life plan, our first instinct is to tell someone, but Derek Sivers says it's better to keep goals secret. He presents research stretching as far back as the 1920s to show why people who talk about their ambitions may be less likely to achieve them.

Rediscovering the why of work

Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey advocates for creating organizations that value teamwork, transparency and trust. (Darden Business School/Darden Business School)

Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/08/31/VI2010083103498.html

Managing Yourself: The Boss as Human Shield by Robert I. Sutton

Good leaders protect their employees from lengthy meetings, meddlesome superiors, and a host of other roadblocks to doing real work.

 

William Coyne headed research and development at 3M—the company behind Ace bandages, Post-it notes, Scotch tape, and other inventions—for over a decade. Shortly after retiring, Coyne spoke to a group of hundreds of executives about innovation at 3M and his own management style. He said he’d started at 3M as a researcher and learned firsthand how well-meaning but nosy executives who proffer too many questions and suggestions can undermine creative work. So when he became head of R&D, he was determined to allow his teams to work for long stretches, unfettered by intrusions from higher-ups. Coyne understood his colleagues’ curiosity; if successful, an R&D project could generate millions in new revenue. But he limited their interference (and his own) because, he said, “After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”

Coyne knew that the performance of his employees—as well as his career and the company’s success—depended on shielding them from threats. This notion that management “buffers” the core work of the company from uncertainty and external perturbations is an old theme in organizational theory, going back at least to James D. Thompson’s 1967 classic Organizations in Action. The best bosses are committed to letting their workers work—whether on creative tasks such as inventing new products or on routine things such as assembling computers, making McDonald’s burgers, or flying planes. They take pride in being human shields, absorbing or deflecting heat from inside and outside the company, doing all manner of boring and silly tasks, and battling idiots and slights that make life harder than necessary on their people.
 Protecting Your People Isn’t Always Practical
As a boss, you can protect your people’s backs in seven ways.

How to Sell an Idea to Your Boss by Roberto Verganti

"My problem is not how to be innovative. My team often comes up with interesting ideas. But when we introduce them to top executives, they always turn them down. How can I convince my boss to invest in our ideas?" The question — asked at the end of a seminar on innovation at a major IT firm — did not surprise me.

One of the hardest challenges for creative people — especially those working in units such as R&D, design, or marketing — is how to win top management's support for their ideas. Many feel that their proposals are killed not because they have poor potential but because their boss simply does not understand them or does not even listen to the presentation. They feel frustrated and dream of working with CEOs like Steve Jobs or Alberto Alessi, who often invest in breakthroughs.

Forget Change Management by Holger Nauheimer

We are living in asynchronous times. There are still a lot of potential clients who haven’t even accepted that their complex projects don’t follow linear patterns. Some have just started to implement change management programmes. On the other side, many, in particular large international companies have gone through myriads of change projects and have experienced that even the smartest change management strategies can’t prevent that 60-80% of those projects fail.

It’s time to change change – forget change management.

Here is my analysis of the crisis of change management:

Ten Principles for Leadership Communication

by Robert P. Gandossy, Hewitt Global Practice Leader for Leadership, Talent, and Employee Engagement

Here are ten principles every great leader should know. Everything communicates. The way programs, policies, tools, and initiatives are designed and delivered communicates more strongly than the marketing and information about them. As a leader, how you act and what you do, communicates more clearly than the words coming out of your mouth. Model the behavior you are looking for from others. Communicate with your employees the way you would like to be communicated with — transparent, open, with respect and trust. And do the things you believe matter. If you focus on employees and customers, so will everyone else. Have a point of view. It's much easier to have consistent communication when you have a clear brand or market-facing value proposition and core values — whatever you want to call it. But whatever you call "it", you better have it. Just be sure it is clear, easy to remember, makes sense for the business, has an element of inspiration, differentiates you as an employer, will hold up for at least ten years, and is everyone's job to live it — and that means you. What you hear is as important as what you say. Communication is a two-way process. Have a number of upward channels and do something with what you hear — and tell people about it. You haven't communicated anything until you have been heard by your audiences. Understand your audience. Take a lesson from the marketers — know the demographics and psychographics of your various audiences and tailor communication messages, content, style, and channels to them. They both end in "tion" but there's a big difference between "information" and "communication". Communication influences thoughts, feelings, and actions. Information simply informs. And how you communicate depends on what you are communicating. If you are trying to engage people, don't use e-mail. Communicate courageously. If you communicate openly and honestly, you will make some mistakes but those mistakes will be better than the bland, sanitized, and uninspiring communications in many companies. And there will be times when you don't have the answer. Admit it. Your employees will understand and will respect your courage and honesty. Both are in short supply. Remember you are competing for attention. Every employee receives hundreds of messages every day. Your message competes with all of them. Each person selects what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Why should employees pay attention to messages from you? If it looks important, it must be important. How you package the communication about programs has a big impact on perceptions of the program itself. Match the packaging to the level of importance. And if you follow up, it must be even more important. Too many executives think once they've communicated, they are done. They couldn't be more wrong. Redundancy matters. Practice. Great communicators practice. A lot. Writers write and rewrite. Great orators like Winston Churchill and more contemporary speakers like Malcolm Gladwell practice and rehearse. Gladwell writes out every word of every speech. They are good at what they do because they work at it. And if you do just one thing, do this: Choose future managers for their communication skills as much as their achievements. Front line managers have the greatest influence over an employee's engagement. Managers who are good communicators get more from their direct reports than managers whose strong skills lie elsewhere. Managers who are good communicators are the insurance policy for keeping the best workers focused, engaged, and productive. Source: http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/NA/en-US/KnowledgeCenter/ArticlesReports/ArticleDetail.aspx?cid=1642&tid=52&stid=6750