Tag Archives: Empower

Can you be liked as a leader?

Jeff Haden wrote a great article recently in INC Magazine, called “6 Habits of Remarkably Likable People.” As I’m currently reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and have been putting a lot into the ”likability” of a person. Controversial thought suggest that, especially for women, the more successful we become, the less we are liked. Below I’ve included Jeff’s thoughts on the six habits of remarkably likable people:

1) They lose the power pose.
Our parents taught us to stand tall, square our shoulders, stride purposefully forward, drop our voice a couple of registers, and shake hands with a firm grip. White that is a great to display of nonverbal self-confidence, it can also seem like you are trying to establish your importance. That makes the “meeting” seem like it’s more about you than it is the other person. Take a look at how Nelson Mandela greets Bill Clinton:

So, the next time you meet someone, relax, step forward, tilt your head towards them slightly, smile, and show that you’re the one who is honored by the introduction. We all like people who like us. If I show you I’m genuinely happy to meet you, you’ll instantly start to like me.

2) They embrace the power of touch.
Nonsexual touch can be very powerful. Touch can influence behavior, increase the chances of compliance, make the person doing the touching seem more attractive and friendly. Go easy, of course: Pat the other person lightly on the upper arm or shoulder. Make it casual and non-threatening. Try this: The next time you walk up behind a person you know, touch them lightly on the shoulder as you go by. I guarantee you’ll feel like a more genuine greeting was exchanged. Touch breaks down natural barriers and decreases the real and perceived distance between you and the other person—a key component in liking and in being liked.

3) They whip out their social jiu-jitsu.
You meet someone. You talk for 15 minutes. You walk away thinking, “Wow, we just had a great conversation. She is awesome.” Then, when you think about it later, you realize you didn’t learn a thing about the other person. Remarkably likeable people are masters at Social Jiu-Jitsu, the ancient art of getting you to talk about yourself without you ever knowing it happened. SJJ masters use their interest, their politeness, and their social graces to cast an immediate spell on you. It’s sounds easy, and it is. Just ask the right questions. Stay open-ended and allow room for description and introspection. Ask how, or why, or who. As soon as you learn a little about someone, ask how they did it. Or why they did it. Or what they liked about it, or what they learned from it, or what you should do if you’re in a similar situation.

3) They whip out something genuine.
Everyone is better than you at something. Let them be better than you. Don’t try to win the “getting to know someone” competition. Try to lose. Be complimentary. Be impressed. Admit a failing or a weakness. You don’t have to disclose your darkest secrets. If the other person says, “We just purchased a larger facility,” say, “That’s awesome. I have to admit I’m jealous. We’ve wanted to move for a couple of years but haven’t been able to put together the financing. How did you pull it off?” Don’t be afraid to show a little vulnerability. People may be (momentarily) impressed by the artificial, but people sincerely like the genuine.

4) They ask for nothing.
You know the moment: You’re having a great conversation, you’re finding things in common… and then bam! Someone plays the networking card. And everything about your interaction changes. Put away the hard-charging, goal-oriented, always-on kind of persona. If you have to ask for something, find a way to help the other person, then ask if you can. Remarkably likeable people focus on what they can do for you—not for themselves.

5) They “close” genuinely.
“Nice to meet you,” you say, nodding once as you part. That’s the standard move, one that is instantly forgettable. Instead go back to the beginning. Shake hands again. Use your free hand to gently touch the other person’s forearm or shoulder. Say, “I am really glad I met you.” Or say, “You know, I really enjoyed talking with you.” Smile: Not that insincere salesperson smile that goes with, “Have a nice day!” but a genuine, appreciative smile. Making a great first impression is important, but so is making a great last impression.

6) They accept it isn’t easy.
All this sounds simple, right? It is. But it’s not easy, especially if you’re shy. The standard, power pose, “Hello, how are you, good to meet you, good seeing you,” shuffle feels a lot safer. But it won’t make people like you. So accept  that it’s hard. Accept that being a little more deferential, a little more genuine, a little more complimentary and a little more vulnerable means putting yourself out there. Accept that at first it will feel risky. But don’t worry: When you help people feel a little better about themselves—which is reason enough—they’ll like you for it.


http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/6-habits-of-remarkably-likeable-people.html?nav=featured

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Success

The further I progress in my career, the more appreciation I have for great leadership. Even great leaders—who seem to naturally just have it all—face a multitude of challenges every day. The Marketing Director of my firm spends her time communicating strategy, helping people through developmental challenges, holding on to excellence in the face of compromise, and just navigating management at the firm. It’s safe to say that the work doesn’t end—even after you get to the top. One of the many things that I admire about the leadership in my department is the willingness and desire to work with the team as an equal. In my experience, I’ve seen leadership executed in two ways: 1) in charge, or 2) not there. For the first time in my career, I’m experiencing a different kind of leadership—a kind where a leader can sit with their team without needing to be in charge, using their  subject matter knowledge the same way as anyone else around the table would. It’s acting as a resource—and just another member of the team.

Les McKeown, author of “Predictable Success” (@lesmckeown) wrote an article recently in INC. about this same topic. He offers some key advice for leaders, which I’ve provided below:

1. Start with something small. Pick a topic that’s controllable. Don’t start with something that bets the ranch. It’ll only make you anxious, and you’ll end up grabbing the reins back when things lurch off kilter.

2. Start with something you’re not passionate about. Find a topic that doesn’t fire you up. Maybe new employee on boarding rather than redesigning the entire company’s branding, for example. Again, you want to be able to take part in the discussion dispassionately.

3. Nominate a leader (and tell them). Put someone else on charge of leading a session on your selected topic. Tell them  everyone in advance, but don’t lobby them. Or tell them how to lead the session. The goal is that you hand over facilitation to someone else, not that they become your glove puppet.

4. Be there. Sit through the entire meeting. Resist the temptation to absent yourself when things get boring or granular. That’s not being a resource, that’s cherry-picking. Everyone else has to work through the detail, and you should, too.

5. Participate. Sitting in stony silence isn’t being a resource any more than dominating the meeting. Participate, which means contributing when you have something to share that will be helpful to the rest of the group, and staying quiet when you don’t.

6. Be comfortable with silence. There is a time for silence, however the point at which everyone expects you to jump in and take over the meeting. Initially everyone will turn to you when a question is asked, or a decision has to be made. Say nothing, not even an explanation of what you’re doing. Jut be quiet, and get comfortable with silence. Let the person you put in charge of the session tease out participation from the rest of the group. If you do it, you’re back in charge.  

7. Take an action point or two. When it comes to mopping up the implementation points and doling out responsibility, take on a few for yourself. And don’t cherry pick the “leadery” stuff. Take some granular, janitor-level action points as well.

8. Resist the temptation to mop up afterward. When the session is over, let things sit as they are. Resist the temptation to email/call/drop in on others and recalibrate the results to reflect what you would have preferred the outcome to be. Do this once and no-one will trust you in a resource role again. They’ll just conclude (rightly) that you’re only pretending.

9. Rinse and repeat. Try it again after a while, this time with something larger, more strategic. Note what works and what doesn’t. Find your own style, you’re own way of “being there”, not just absent or in charge.

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Start-Up Stories

This month’s issue of INC Magazine featured an amazing article, “How I Got Started” which touches on the start-up stories of eight of the world’s most revered entrepreneurs. These defining stories about gambles that paid off, near-fatal screwups, and unexpected acts of grace are truly inspiring. It’s stories like this that reinforce entrepreneurship’s reputation as being thrilling and unpredictable. A few big picture take-aways include:

1. Look for the opportunity no one else sees. – Bobbi Brown
Bobbi credits her grandfather, Papa Sam, for her business savvy. An immigrant from Russia, Sam owned a successful car dealership in Chicago. One day a man came into the dealership with a large shopping bag. None of the salesman would approach him because he looked like he was ‘homeless’. Sam put his arm around the man and said, “How ya doing, Boss?” That homeless-looking man bought two cars that day. He paid in cash, which he was carrying in the shopping bag. Lesson: keep your eyes open, because you never know what’s going to come your way.

2. Embrace your strengths and hire around your weaknesses. – Clive Davis
Clive Davis recalls a time when R&B starting changing and hip-hop and rap were entering the picture. It’s a time when he realized what he, personally, could not do. It’s not about delegating. It’s about realizing that you really need someone else to strengthen your organization and help you foresee trends that yo might overlook. Lesson: It never pays to be a know-it-all.

3. Have the confidence to say no. – Tony Hawk
Tony Hawk learned the hard way that distractions in business can be dangerous. At the start of his business, he hired people who knew what they were doing and was able to step out of the day-to-day grind of the business. In this role, he could provide the oversight needed to run a healthy, successful business. When the business shifted its focus to products outside of the skate world, things took a turn for the worse. The company lost several million trying to sell a high-end denim line. Later, Tony’s partner wanted to start a surfboard brand. It was then that he realized how dangerous it was for the business to lose its focus. Ultimately, Tony bought out his partner and was able to re-focus his attention on the skate industry. A few hard-learned lessons gave Tony the confidence to turn down opportunities that don’t fit the brand. Lesson: it’s easy to lost focus. Don’t.

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A Better To-Do List

I’ve always considered myself disciplined and good at time management; however, there’s always room for improvement. Below are a few tips on how to create and manage a better to-do list:

1. Prioritize your goals.
It’s important to meet deadlines, yes, but the items with the most immediate deadlines should not dominate your workday. Carefully consider which tasks will bring you closer to your most important goals.

2. Eat that frog.
I highly recommend reading, Eat that Frog! by Brian Tracy. It’s a quick read, with some really useful tips on being more productive and managing your time better. The idea is that you tackle the biggest, ugliest frog (task) first. Get it out-of-the-way first. Then move on to other, perhaps smaller, less ugly frogs.

3. Keep your list lean.
By simply eliminating the bottom 20 percent of your to-do list, you can focus on more pressing items. Assuming you have prioritized your goals first, eliminating these items should not negatively affect your productivity or set you back for the day.

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Lessons from Kindergarten

I love this recent post from Naomi Simson about the four business rules we all learned in Kindergarten. I’ve recapped her original post below. I would like to add a fifth rule, that incorporates an adult “nap time.”

One of RedBalloon’s business values is ‘a sense of humor and fun’. I am blessed to come to bound out of bed every day looking forward to my day at work. It strikes me that the basic tenants of encouraging fun and productivity in the workplace, I learnt between the ages of three and five.

If we share everything, play, be curious, hold hands and stick together. My bet is that we’d all manage to stay much more inspired at work and therefore intent on staying.

While this may sound like common sense, it doesn’t hurt to reflect on the simple things in life that made our younger years so much easier than life seems to be today.

Share Everything
When I was an employee in other people’s businesses I regularly heard ‘We need to improve our communication’. RedBalloon has a clearly defined, daily huddle schedule, weekly team meetings, one on ones, monthly company meetings and planning sessions – the agenda has three items, what is working, not working and where are you stopped. A problem shared is a problem halved and in most cases solved. This way the exercise creates stability, cohesion and transparency. It’s better to over communicate and be completely transparent – good news or bad.

Play
Games are really useful tools to keep people focused. We are all young at heart and appealing to this is an easy way to keep engaged.

Be Curious
Look and listen to colleagues and when something amazing happens, celebrate it. We all achieve great things in our roles everyday, yet many fail to acknowledge when we go above and beyond the call of duty. It’s very easy to forget, especially in the current employment market that most people have a choice about where they choose to spend their time.

Recognizing people is actually very straightforward and goes a long way to keep everyone motivated. Whether you opt for peer-to-peer recognition, customer feedback or more traditional management discretion, making sure that you have ample opportunity for formal and reward backed ‘thank you’ and ‘good effort’ celebrations is key to keeping people engaged and happy.

Hold Hands and Stick Together
I always remember the times that I was the newbie – quite often a very nerve-wracking time. The sooner someone feels part of something, connected to their colleagues, the vision of what the business is embracing, the sooner that attachment is possible. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if at three o’clock every afternoon we all sat down to milk and cookies? Whether it is a regular team lunch, beers after work or something more unusual like a group circus lesson, cooking class or hypnosis show, doing something as a group that is totally unrelated to what we do at work allows us to reconnect as human beings. The leveling effect of watching the top sales person get nervous at the trapeze or highly skilled programmer fail to toss a pancake is great for team morale.

“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”


Most of all, Kindergarten was fun. And it’s okay to have fun in business.

The original post can be viewed here:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130117051936-1291685-four-business-rules-i-learnt-in-kindergarten

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What’s your guiding principle?

What’s your guiding principle?
A response from Ping Fu, CEO of Geomagic.

“Bend, not break is a lesson I learned from my Shanghai Papa, who raised me in China and told me about the ‘three friends of winter.’ He taught me the pine tree stays green in the bitter cold, the plum blossom shows its brilliance when it snows and no other thing will smile, and bamboo is flexible and won’t break. He told me, ‘Ping, you must be bamboo.’ During the oppressive years of the Cultural Revolution and throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve found this story to be very comforting, because there were many cases where I needed to bend—but not break.”

Ping Fu co-founded the software firm Geomagic in 1997. Her new memoir, Bend, Not Break, contrasts her persecution in China with her rise in the American tech industry.

 

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What Would Sherlock Do?

While traveling back east for the holidays, I picked up the January 2013 issue of Spirit Magazine. There was an article in the WiseGuide titled, “What Would Sherlock Do?” —a fascinating little piece on how Sherlock Holmes uses the power of deduction, applicable to any scenario. Based on Maria Konnikova’s book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes.” It’s now on the top of my list of books to read. Below is a snapshot:

1. The Crime Scene
When he starts a case, Holmes processes it on a subconscious and conscious level. The takeaway: When facing new obstacles, it’s necessary for us to quiet our minds and focus on the information we’re given before jumping in.

2. The Cane
Rather than assuming it belongs to a country gentleman, Holmes would examine other clues. Our brains like to build stories to solve problems, but there is danger in making snap judgments.

3. The Pretty Lady
When Holmes meets Watson’s budding love interest, he doesn’t let her beauty distract him from the task at hand, which is uncovering information. The lesson here is don’t let your emotions filter the information you receive from a source.

4. The Pipe
When Holmes hits a wall, he takes a break. This primes the mind for the imaginative part of the creative process, which enables you to play out different scenarios in your head.

5. Case Closed
Once you’ve become proficient at something, it’s easy to become complacent. But what separates a true master like Sherlock Holmes from someone who simply reaches a plateau is the pushing of the mind to stay curious.

To purchase this book, check out ”Recommended Books” on my home page. (sidebar to the right).

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Conscious Leadership

Being that it is a New Year, I spent some time over the holidays consciously thinking about how I wanted to improve my life in 2013. My husband and I spent some time talking about our hopes for 2013. We vowed to make it a year of adventure—creating experiences and memories for us and our family. In terms of my career, I spent a lot of time thinking about building teams, collaborating, and how I can bring value to my company. The time allowed me to think consciously about where I am at, where I would like to be, and how I might get there—both personally and professionally.

I began thinking that for many, even those who are very experienced, not much consciousness is applied to leadership. If you ask a roomful of leaders (CEOs, Directors, Principals) how they got where they are today, the top answer is usually “I was lucky.” Not that it’s entirely “luck” but, most of them worked hard, made strong relationships and wound up in the right place at the right time.

Leadership courses use case studies to analyze the performance of successful leaders. These courses can help people develop a set of hard skills that are necessary in being a successful leader. However, the tendency is for these skills to be technical and managerial, while human skills are far harder to teach and pass on. Well-trained managers do not evoke the same response, that a conscious leader can. For some, these skills come more naturally, for others, they do not. Developing these skills requires a certain level of consciousness. Success, practiced consciously, brings value to both the leader and the team that he/she leads.

A recent article that I read, focused on the seven skills that fit a conscious leader, organized into the acronyms LEADERS.

L = Look and listen. Do this with your senses, being an unbiased observer who has not judged anything in advance. Do this with your heart, obeying your truest feelings. Finally, do this with your soul, responding with vision and deep purpose.

E = Emotional bonding. Leading from the soul means going beyond melodrama and crisis mode, getting rid of emotional toxicity to understand the specific needs of your followers.

A = Awareness. This means being aware of the following questions that underlie every challenge: Who am I? What do I want? What does the situation demand? A leader must ask these questions of himself and inspire his team to ask for themselves.

D = Doing. A leader must be action-oriented. In whatever he does he must serve as a role model, held responsible for the promises he has made. This requires persistence but also the ability to view any situation with flexibility and humor.

E = Empowerment. The soul’s power comes from self-awareness, which is responsive to feedback but independent of the good or bad opinion of others. Empowerment isn’t selfish. It raises the status of leader and follower together.

R = Responsibility. This means showing initiative, taking mature risks rather than reckless ones, walking the talk, having integrity, and living up to your inner values. Seen from the level of the soul, a leader’s greatest responsibility is to lead the group on the path of higher consciousness.

S = Synchronicity. This is a mysterious ingredient from the unconscious that all great leaders harness. Synchronicity is the ability to create good luck and find invisible support that carries a leader beyond predicted outcomes to a higher plane. In spiritual terms, synchronicity is the ultimate ability to connect any need with an answer from the soul.

Many of these principles can be applied to how we lead in our homes, amongst our friends, family, and other organizations. Leading doesn’t require that you be in a position of leadership or have a particular title. In fact, to truly lead, people must first be willing to follow you or learn from you. This is humbling and important to remember when you are, perhaps un-expectantly, put in a position of leadership.

You can read the full original article here:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121227230040-75054000-the-conscious-lifestyle-the-soul-of-leadership?goback=%2Enmp_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1&trk=NUS_UNIU_PEOPLE_FOLLOW-img-fllw

Deepak Chopra, MD is the author of more than 70 books with twenty-one New York Times bestsellers and co-author with Rudolph Tanzi of Super Brain: Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-being. (Harmony) and serves as Adjunct Professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, Columbia University.

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A Culture of Sharing

I really enjoyed Daniel Goleman’s article, “Effective Leaders are Effective Storytellers.” This statement is incredibly true. When I think of some commonalities in the effective leaders that I have worked with—one in particular comes to mind: they are all good storytellers! An effective leader and motivator at my current firm, has a background in journalism. She has an incredible ability to take highly technical (sometimes boring) information and craft an engaging story that can resonate with anyone. Her ability to craft a story is an invaluable skill and watching it unfold is inspiring.

Daniel writes, ”Good storytelling is a hallmark of effective leadership. It’s a medium that allows leaders to move others. It also lets others know who the leader is. How the leader thinks and feels.Howard Gardner talks about three kinds of story telling approaches. One is the ordinary story. These are the stories that everybody tells, in this sector, in this domain, in this company, in this school. Then there are the leaders who bring a new twist to these same old stories. There’s also the visionary leader who creates an entirely new story, which makes me think of the role of story telling in innovation and creativity.”

Below is a recap of Howard’s thoughts on how and when leaders might use storytelling techniques to motivate and inspire.

I would want to make a distinction between the role of stories in the actual creative process and then the role of stories as it were, spreading the creation to others. I’m absolutely certain that a very important part of any new invention, whether it’s mechanical or literary or artistic, is a narrative vehicle which helps people relate to that. It helps them understand the ways in which it is complementary to, or consistent with or directly in clash with, what you did before.

I think the most iconoclastic painting in the twentieth century is Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It was so shocking at the time that he kept it under wraps for a decade because almost nobody could handle it. I think the narrative around the introduction of something new is imperative. When it comes to the actual creative process itself, I think that would vary enormously.

If you were working in a science lab and you pick up something that’s askew and you decide rather than ignoring it or throwing it away, you really dig into it, I think you could talk about a narrative in a kind of metaphoric way. Namely how we used to phrase this one way and now we frame it another. It’s an interesting idea to see how far you can push this story angle not just in terms of public presentation and convincing, but actually in terms of creating the new ideas themselves.

In terms of startups, let’s look at Mark Zuckerberg. He probably got the Facebook idea working in his dorm room. We all will think it happened the way it happened in the movie, Social Network, and he didn’t need anybody else for that. Once he began to become an enterprise, then clearly he needed to be able to attract people. He also needed to have direct and indirect leadership qualities to effectively tell his story.

Direct leadership means you know this is the person who is trying to convince you of something, and you look at what he says, how he says it and how they behave. Direct leadership can’t survive the hypocrisy test, because if you push something very strongly in your narrative but every day you’re undoing it in your behavior, then you have Newt Gingrich, who is not very convincing any more because what he calls for is so violated by his own life.

Indirect leadership is simply creating some kind of a symbolic product. It could be a literary work or it could be a mathematical equation. It could even be a computer program which itself is so heretical against the earlier standard that people consciously or unconsciously say “God!” We better pay attention to this. There are some inventions that you don’t need to mobilize anybody else. I mean if you prove Fermat’s Last Theorem and you publish it, the work is done, but if you’re trying to start a corporation, you need the venture capitalists and you need people who you can count on to give you honest feedback.

Entrepreneurs need to be very effective story tellers, because basically it’s a promise of a possibility that they’re selling to people, and they’re mobilizing people around them. If anything, I think this has probably become too important. Namely, if you’re a great story-teller, you have more success than warranted, and if you’re a lousy story-teller you may never get to first base. What I would then say, and I don’t know a venture capitalist personally, to what extent are they smart enough to basically filter out the charisma and look at the idea per se?

The original article can be found here:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121128211835-117825785-effective-leaders-are-effective-storytellers

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Doubling Down on Culture

In a recent interview conducted by Fast Company, co-CEO Neil at Warby Parker, was asked: What’s the biggest lesson you learned in 2012? His response:

We had hired somebody that was smart, that was capable, but we were inundated with orders and his responses to customers were good but not great. It was difficult to get him to change his tone from nice to super-friendly, and we ended up having to let him go. At the end of the day it’s not something you can teach. In the past year we’ve grown to over 100 people. Dave and I can no longer build strong individual relationships with everyone in the organization. So we built a culture interview SWAT team that does 75% of the interviewing process, and we’ve doubled down on culture. We formed a fun committee, started bringing in guest speakers to our weekly happy hour.

When asked how this experience will inform decisions in 2013, Neil said, “In 2013 we’re launching a culture blog, opening a brick-and-mortar store in Soho, and on every employee’s second anniversary, we’ll pay to send them to one of our nonprofit partners. So they can actually see how in Guatemala, they’re training local entrepreneurs to start their own businesses giving eye exams and selling glasses.”

You can read the full article here:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3003076/warby-parker-co-ceo-neil-blumenthal-doubling-down-culture

It’s important to focus on culture within your organization, perhaps especially when working through growing pains. The incentive that Warby Parker has developed which will give 2-year vested employees the opportunity to experience the company’s global impact first hand, is invaluable. Through this experience, employees are likely to come away with a stronger sense of loyalty to WP. It’s a win-win.

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