Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

The Power of One

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

As I write this, I am in Wash­ing­ton DC as a guest of our client and part­ner Chick-fil-A at their annual conference.

The event kicked off last night, with about 3600 of their team mem­bers in atten­dance. It was a pow­er­ful open­ing, with music by Israel Houghton and a great mes­sage by Bill Hybels. Bill is the Sr. Pas­tor of Wil­low Creek Church in Chicago, and he founded the Lead­er­ship Sum­mit which impacts thou­sands of lead­ers every year from around the world.

What struck me last night was the theme. I’m not sure whether Israel and Bill had synched up prior to that night, but their mes­sage was clear.

Each of us can be used to for­ever impact the life of one person.

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Everybody Sells

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

I hate sell­ing!  I don’t know how you guys do it.”

These were the words of a CEO at a lunch meet­ing I attended last year.  This CEO was address­ing the head of her sales force.  It was a casual com­ment, but one that caused me some concern.

I won­dered what could have pro­duced such a strong neg­a­tive reac­tion from this CEO.  Was she think­ing of past inter­ac­tions with sales­peo­ple who were way short of pro­fes­sional?  Could it be that her intro­verted behav­ioral style makes her fear­ful of seem­ing pushy or manipulative?

Regard­less of her rea­sons, I believe my con­cern is well-founded.  There are too many pro­fes­sion­als and lead­ers who have an unhealthy per­spec­tive of what sales is.

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Lean In

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

A few years back, I had the plea­sure of coach­ing one of the most no-nonsense lead­ers I have ever met.  He was known and respected in his orga­ni­za­tion for his direct­ness and can­dor.  He was a bit rough around the edges, but he had a heart of gold.  I found him a bit intim­i­dat­ing at first, but now that I’ve got­ten to know him I wouldn’t hes­i­tate to go to him if I ever have a real need.

Over the years, I spent time with his lead­er­ship team and the thou­sand plus oth­ers that he led.  Fre­quently they would com­ment on how they loved work­ing with him because, while they may not always like what he had to say, they always knew where they stood.

This leader had all sorts of say­ings that went per­fectly with his per­son­al­ity.  One of my favorites was “ I am lean­ing in on this one.”  This meant that he was div­ing head first into the prob­lem.  He knew that busi­ness and life are filled with prob­lems and chal­lenges, which are just wait­ing to be solved and learned from.

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Asset or Advantage?

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Asset or AdvantageLast fall, at the Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence, I gave the open­ing pre­sen­ta­tion.  The topic was cen­tered on best prac­tices for suc­cess in chal­leng­ing times. Ear­lier in the year, as I pre­pared for this pre­sen­ta­tion, I inter­viewed sev­eral clients and friends who serve as lead­ers of large orga­ni­za­tions to iden­tify the most com­mon behav­ioral disciplines. 

Dur­ing my inter­view with a client who is the CEO of a UK based petro­leum addi­tives orga­ni­za­tion, the topic of team came up.  He said that he believes we fall short as lead­ers when we see our teams as an “asset.”  He explained that peo­ple do not want to feel owned, or to have their value sum­ma­rized on a cor­po­rate bal­ance sheet. 

His belief is that our team is more than an asset.  They are our com­pet­i­tive advantage.

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