Now that vision is out of your head and onto paper or its technological equivalent, what do you do with it? That grand exercise you undertook has yielded fruit and your excitement is palpable. Purpose and mission as well as action steps are the obvious next place to go. But let’s keep this at the 30,000 foot level and recognize the importance and power the vision statement brings. For a solo-prenuer, the next step is …
Did you start your business with a fully formed vision of what you wanted it to be? Most of us don’t. Circumstances such as a loss of a job, relocation or dissatisfaction with a previous position cause us to just take action and launch. Our focus is on “doing” our business, and getting it off the ground rather than what we want the business to “be”. Ready, fire, and then aim (maybe!). The vision (aim) …
Now that vision is out of your head and onto paper or its technological equivalent, what do you do with it? That grand exercise you undertook has yielded fruit and your excitement is palpable. Purpose and mission as well as action steps are the obvious next place to go. But let’s keep this at the 30,000 foot level and recognize the importance and power the vision statement brings. For a solo-prenuer, the next step is …
Creating a vision that you are able to communicate requires space and effort. I find it helpful to have a few tools to get the creative juices flowing. These tools help coax that internal picture (vision) out of my head and become something specific that I move toward every day (purpose). Recently I enjoyed a pleasant reminder of how powerful a written vision can be and it came because of technology. I purchased a Surface …
My work with clients, both personally and professionally, often centers around vision. Some people know exactly what theirs is while many struggle to even define vision. Perhaps that is because we use other words to attempt to describe what is an internal picture. Consider these definitions, courtesy of Merriam Webster: Vision is something that you imagine: a picture that you see in your mind. Purpose is the reason why something is done or used: the …
We are going to broach a tough topic today, that of Vision. It was the first of the steps indicated for Succession Planning in a recent message. It is also the logical place to start when forming or creating your business. “Begin with the end in mind” is the second habit from Stephen R. Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Did you start your business with the end in mind? For a …
The Latin base of communication is communicare, which means to share. To share something, you must hold or know it, and recognize that sharing will benefit you and the other party. It then needs to be presented in a way that others will want to partake or engage. If the other party is not interested or does not know why they should be, the message will fall on deaf ears. This gives us three distinct …
Can you think of a leader who wouldn’t want to be known as an achiever? Most of us – leaders or not – would appreciate that moniker following behind our name. And for the 6 million plus people of the 20 million who have taken the Clifton Strengths® assessment, they can rightly claim the talent of Achiever®. But wait…isn’t “leader” synonymous with “achiever”? Specifically, Achiever® is defined by Gallup as: People especially talented in the …
Provocative, yes? Pull your mind back from the gutter. This is not that type of message! In fact, it is about what we don’t do when others aren’t watching. When we’re not accountable to someone, we can easily slack off. My fitness tracker recently stopped charting my exercise and steps taken. While it did not stop me from doing my early morning workouts, the lack of tracking stopped my extra steps during the day. You …
The topic was risk and its importance to the process of building or creating something. Whether as an entrepreneur or intrapreneur, uncertainty would be part of the formula. As the attendees weighed in with the ways in which they had taken risks, a handful of the 30 or so in attendance shared that the risk they had taken was to leave a six-figure career to become a leadership coach. Leaving the six-figure career was not …
We often desire to get to a state of harmony or balance, where we feel we know what needs to and will happen; that it is knowable, planned and foreseeable. While this may be a possibility for relatively immediate outcomes, most of the time our lives do not look like this. The world around us continues to spin and change – and emphasizes the importance of taking risks in our career. What career risk should …
From our first conversation, I knew that Barbara was the right person to provide me coaching as I entered an executive level position in government. What I came to learn over months of working with her, is that Barbara is as kind and generous as she is smart and motivating. Barbara is able to help one build a grand vision, and where others might see barriers, she helps you find opportunities. The strengths based coaching …
Are you ready for your next best step? I thought I was… until a coaching session revealed a big issue. It was my issue – and nothing that anyone else could fix but me. I hadn’t recognized it until a coach pointed it out to me and it pervaded every area of my life. I Needed to Overcome Hesitation (but I didn’t know it yet). After years of not owning a horse, I now own …
Feedback, feedback, feedback. Sound familiar? Except it is not just for Christmas or any other holiday; feedback is something employees and team members are demanding more and more on any day. Point the finger at overly-involved parents and school and sports programs that provide feedback constantly to the younger generations in our workforce. And only positive feedback some might add! This sea change to more feedback is not simply a cry from the younger generation. …
In a recent workshop on time management a participant shared that he had created blocks of time on his calendar for his various projects. “Time-blocking” helps ensure you actually have time available to get the task done. But it hadn’t worked for this participant. When he got to the time block he didn’t know which project to work on. That is not a time management problem. That is a contribution “I know what is expected …
Act! Act now! Act on the information you’ve received. Asking for feedback requires action, particularly when asked of employees. Consider a few situations. If asking has determined that someone on the bus is not a fit, act now. Moving quickly can preserve the culture and morale of the team. It also increases trust, one of the four attributes of great leadership. It may be hard to believe but relieving the team of a bad fit …
“You mean I need to say it again?” Yes. “Even though we just had our weekly meeting?” Yes. What is so important that I had a client repeat it again and again? In this case, it was the company’s vision. It could also be the mission statement or the firm’s values. It may be a reminder of this quarter’s goals. As mentioned previously, communication is the most common failing in an organization larger than one. …
Waa-waa. Waa waa-waa waa waa. Sound familiar? Perhaps like the teacher or the parents in the Charlie Brown features? Or did you say your significant other? Each one of us has surely thought this at one time or another when someone was speaking. Is this what is being heard in your team meetings and other company communications? How can the vision for the organization be shared if this is all that is heard? There are …
Engaged workforce. Purpose. Accountability. Ownership mentality. Balance. Autonomy. Collaboration. Communication. These are the words heard daily in conversations with business leaders and their employees. Seldom are the words money, pay, compensation, salary heard…from either party. It suggests that we all seek something more than just the paycheck. At a recent presentation, the speaker asked participants to think about a time recently when the participants had felt powerful. After a few quiet moments of reflection, three …
How do you find that greater purpose with your work? Does it require a retreat into the woods for some navel gazing? Does it just appear like a vision? Is there a course you can take? Sounds like a daunting task with few guidelines to help you get there, doesn’t it? Let me offer a hands-on, action-focused way to get you there. As a college student I could not wait to graduate and get to …