As an executive coach at Building Champions, I have seen countless breakthroughs with business leaders as the result of them working to improve how they think.
Here are 6 tips for you to improve your thinking.

1. Schedule your thinking time. At Building Champions, we call it ON time. Make sure you have ON time as a non-negotiable discipline in your business plan and your time block.
2. Have a thinking place. In John Maxwell’s book Thinking for a Change, he shares how his best thinking is done in his thinking chair. In fact, this is how John played a role in being our home decorator!
3. Watch less news and garbage. The media thrives by capturing our attention, and unfortunately what captures most of us these days is the negative. Limit yourself to no more than 10 minutes of the news per day and you will know what you need to know. And as far as TV goes, I am a fan of not watching it at all unless I’m watching a good movie from time to time.
4. Read the good stuff. What books will cause you to think and believe better? Read what will stretch your thinking, center you and equip you to live and lead better.
5. Ask those closest to you to call you out when they see you exhibiting bad thinking. This means you must trust a few in your life and on your team enough to be vulnerable with them and ask them for their input on your thinking and actions. This is good accountability.
6. Hire a good coach. I think that one of our greatest opportunities as coaches here at Building Champions is to challenge, encourage and to stretch the thinking of the business leaders who hire us. As I said above, a leader’s thinking directly impacts his leadership capacity.

To improved thinking in the year ahead!

Note: This post is part of a series on Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity.
Step 1: Own Your Role
Step 2: Be Healthy

A healthy leader replicates and attracts healthy followers. And the converse is true as well: an unhealthy leader replicates and attracts those who are unhealthy.
In order to be effective, we as leaders must be healthy in how we think, how we process, how we care for ourselves and those closest to us, how we treat our teams, how we deal with challenges and how we communicate.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you identify where you might be able to improve your health — and ultimately your ability to lead.

1. Do you have daily quiet time to reflect, think and meditate or pray?
2. Do you have margin in your day?
3. Do you regularly eat at your desk or in the car?
4. Do you feel at peace most of the time?
5. Would those around you say that you’re a healthy balance of both truth and grace?
6. 6. Do you communicate in ways that cause others to feel that they must live or perform up to your expectations or do you help them to see what is possible? (Thank you, Ben Zander!)
7. Do you think before you react in times of challenge?
8. Do you bring a calming peace to those around you or do you cause them angst and nervousness?
9. Do you exercise at least three times a week?
10. Is water you drink of choice throughout the day?
11. Are you getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night?
12. Are you experiencing real relational intimacy with those closest to you?
13. Are you finding time to play and recreate?
14. Do you have time in your day where you can easily relax?
15. Do you have plans that you review regularly that help you stay on track and aware of what matters most in your business and your life?
16. Do you feel joy and passion more than you feel unrest and stress?
17. Do you live, love and lead from a foundation of looking for ways to give and add value to those around you more than looking for ways to further promote or protect yourself?

As we come to the close of another year, I challenge you to take time to reflect on these questions. What one or two areas can you identify opportunities to improve in?

Write them down, include them into your Life Plan or Business Plan and please share them with me by commenting on this post. I would love to know how you are going to take steps to being healthier in 2012. I will do the same and know that I have already identified some great opportunities to improve my own health as well.

That’s it for 2011! I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a super New Year!

Note: This post is part of a series on Increasing Your Leadership Capacity.
Step 1: Own Your Role

Cheers,

So, if developing our future leaders is so important, why have so many managers failed to make this a non-negotiable discipline?

I just spent the last two days with a group of roughly 30 managers who oversee the most critical function of a very successful global firm. These are incredibly bright people, and they readily admit that they need to improve in the area of coaching and developing those they lead, which is exactly why we were with them.

About 10% of them conduct regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with their direct reports. They know they should, and many even used to, but they no longer adhere to this best practice.

And I know they are not alone. It is very uncommon today for leaders to place so much value on developing their talent that they commit and allocate scheduled time to make this happen on a monthly basis.

Here are just a few reasons for you to make this non-negotiable if you manage a team and don’t have one– on-ones scheduled monthly.

1. Improved connection with your teammates.

2. More clarity on what they are working on.

3. Increased ability to help them succeed along the way, long before projects are due.

4. Improved communication, which eliminates a ton of wasted time.

5. More time in your month because you eliminate many interruptions.

6. Improved retention of talent. Remember, we have an increased chance of our teammates leaving us if we don’t show them we care about them.

7. Improved decision-making. You will be armed with more data and more confidence knowing that you teammates are making progress on what is most important, and as a result you can make better decisions.

8. A better performing team. What gets inspected gets done.

I guarantee this will improve your leadership influence, your results and your teammate’s careers if you will just make this a non negotiable discipline!

I share this message with you today because I am observing too many leaders operating from their heels — in reactive mode — instead of proactively on the balls of their feet.

Here are three things that must make your calendar in the year ahead:

Thinking

As leaders, we must have time built into our schedules for reflecting, assessing, creating, and planning. We must believe that thinking is a high-payoff discipline that can change the trajectory of our organization.  We must also have the discipline of thinking with others. This means brainstorming, challenging, collaborating, and planning together.

One of our guests yesterday represents one of the nation’s largest banking institutions. He shared that the leadership in his organization has been too busy this past year to reflect and assess strategy. Be careful leaders: if this is not a non-negotiable discipline at all times, we will soon find ourselves far off course. You don’t have time not to think.

Communicating

We must constantly communicate our current reality, vision, progress, and care. Don’t believe the lie that you cannot share your current status on a project if you are behind on it. While you may not have closure or all the information yet, you can communicate what is being done and that progress is being made.

Our teammates want to hear from us. They want to know that they are valued and that they are making a difference. The non-negotiable discipline of regular corporate and individual communication can be a huge difference-maker. Remember, people don’t leave companies, they leave leaders.

Developing

We must be intentional with how we develop the future leaders for our business. This is far too important to be limited to impromptu conversations in the hallway or an annual performance review. Years fly by, and our organization’s future rests on our ability to grow our leadership.

I challenge you to write down three to six leaders who could better serve the organization with some further development. Then, map out how you will intentionally coach or train them in the year ahead.

I am confident that you and your company will benefit if you make these three disciplines truly non negotiable this year.

Our beliefs impact our decisions.

Our decisions impact our actions.

Our actions impact our results.

Our results impact our impact!

Most of us want to positively impact our spouses, kids, teammates, clients, and partners. If we don’t value the discipline of thinking, we are at risk of limiting the impact we can make in all areas of our lives.

Today, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of top performing professionals about how we must continually elevate our thinking. As I said in my post “You Don’t Have Time Not to Think,” too many business leaders have not placed a high enough value on thinking.

At Building Champions, we refer to time set aside for thinking as “On Time,” and we believe it to be a non-negotiable discipline.

Here are five factors we must consider if we want to elevate our thinking.

1. Input - We must be intentional with what we allow into our minds. This means people, reading, coaching, mentoring, and self talk. We continually elevate our thinking by seeking out input that elevates our perspective.

2. Value — We must place a high value on intentional thinking, to the extent that we are committed to no less than 4 hours of On Time per week.

3. Discipline — We prepare for this thinking time by keeping our project files in order. We schedule On Time, and follow through regardless of how we feel. We are just as committed to our On Time as we would be if we were meeting with our most valuable client.

4. Focus — We don’t show up for On Time with an overloaded agenda, emails to answer, or no idea of what we should be thinking about. We choose to focus our On Time by reflecting on the past, thinking through current situations and projects, or envisioning the future. The Core 4 are great tools to focus on during On Time.

5. Methods — There are several methods that can be used for elevated thinking. You can use Mind Mapping, the Six Thinking Hats, the Sticky Note Exercise, Keep-Start-Stop, the Visual Planning tool….. the list goes on. Learn one method at a time, and master it by continually using it to elevate thinking.

My challenge to you is to commit to a plan for elevating your thinking in the year ahead.

Those around you will be impacted powerfully by your commitment!

When a leader loses perspective for too long, it can be terminal.

So what should one do who finds themselves tired, fearful, and confused? Here are 5 suggestions for those of you who might be trapped in this very uncomfortable place right now.

1. Take some time OFF. This may feel like the last thing you can afford to do, but it could be exactly what you need right now. Don’t take a trip — take a vacation.  Unplug and rest. Take some time to sleep, read, exercise, eat right, and connect with those who encourage you. The purpose of this OFF time is to rejuvenate you, not to further drain you.

2. Protect your sacred spaces. iPhones, Blackberries and TVs are incredibly useful tools in our lives, but we must establish boundaries. If we are sitting in bed late at night or first thing in the morning checking Facebook, watching the news, and responding to email, we are living in reactive mode 24/7. We won’t get the rest we need, and we will wake up feeling further behind. Instead, make your late evenings and early mornings a reflective, restful time. Use this time for the things that refresh you. Protect your bedroom as a sacred space, and keep certain times of the day as sacred.

3. Feed the machine. Our bodies will break down over time if not properly cared for. Make your health an A-1 priority. Make healthy meals, daily exercise, plenty of sleep and lots of water a habitual part of each and every day. Don’t take your body for granted, or the machine will break down just when you need it most.

4. Spend time with your cheerleaders. Make sure you find time in your week to spend with people who love you, believe in you, and who truly want to see you at your best. Hopefully this takes place already in your home, with your close friends, and with certain team members. Be mindful of who you invest your time with, and if needed schedule extra time with those who encourage you most.

5. Consult the map daily. Look at the plans and books that guide your direction every morning. Keep your Life Plan, Business Vision, and Business Plan in front of you. If you lose sight of the big picture, the tired, mundane, confused and even fear-filled days will surely follow.

I am confident that one or more of these tactics will help you to get your perspective back. May you be fortified for the battles of your life.

Daniel shares some observations about successful team culture in this follow-up to his recent post, The Monday Morning Huddle.

Like many CEO’s and business leaders today, they are feeling a bit battle-weary. The last three years of economic challenge forced them to make many of the difficult business decisions that many of us faced, including downsizing, cost cutting, and fighting for survival over the short term. Today, they find that they have weathered the worst of the storm, and are now buried with too much business and too much opportunity for their maxed out team.

I know many of you can relate to this story.

In speaking with them today, I noticed that they had stopped doing some of the very things that made them successful during the nine years prior to this economic storm. One of those missing pieces was their weekly team huddle.

As I mentioned in my previous post, How a Big Company Can Feel Small, it is critical for us leaders to communicate during the more challenging times. But this is when most of us feel like communicating least.

During difficult times, we may not be exactly sure what to say. We buy the lie that everybody expects us to have all the answers. The truth is that most of our teammates already know that we don’t have all the answers, and they are hoping that we know that, too!

This group of partners used to have a weekly huddle, and they let that discipline slide. Now, many of them don’t know what is happening in the other departments of this small firm.

One Action Plan I gave to them — and I now share with any of you who need to improve the health of your team — is to have a weekly Monday morning team huddle. Spend 15 to 30 minutes right as the week kicks off to connect, to share victories from the past week, and to discuss what is happening in the week ahead.

The good news for you leaders is that you don’t have to prepare a 16 page presentation. The purpose of the Monday morning huddle is to help your team to be engaged and prepared for the week ahead. Everybody on the team can and should participate. You just need to lead by example, and to facilitate this group action plan.

Your culture and results should improve,

Now, I know that much has been written on the subject of health by those who are far more educated in this arena. But I thought I would share my experiences as a guy who has taken a different approach.

The problem with the “start and stop” rhythm is that this approach is never a good strategy for battle, and that is exactly what maintaining peak health is: a battle.

We can’t win this battle if we focus on it for a few weeks by eating packaged, low-fat, processed foods in pre-subscribed quantities and working out for 20 minutes three times a week….and then toss it all to the wind when our weight goal has been reached or we become frustrated.

Unless we change our thinking, we will not break out of this “start and stop” behavior.

Like my friend, we will look for the next greatest diet. It could be no carbs, just grapefruit, all meat, no meat, fist size, etc….

For any of you who have benefited from these types of diets, I am not saying they are bad. What I am saying is that our thinking must change first if we are going to see our health improve over the long haul.

So, here is a suggestion on how to go from dieting to maintaining good health as a way of life:

Change your “Why.” You may want to get to a certain weight or size, but that is usually not enough to keep you going. You need a more significant “Why.” Perhaps you would love to be able to keep up with your kids when you play together, or you want to add more pain-free years to your life. Maybe you are motivated by what you don’t want, like spending so much time in doctor’s offices, or being the one who holds your family back on vacations, or becoming a burden to those you love.

When it comes down to taking action and making better daily choices, these kinds of reasons are more likely to tug at your heart than the dream of a single-digit dress size.

Identify your Non Negotiable Disciplines. This is critical. My suggestion is that you start with disciplines you can nail at least 80% of the time. Examples of this could be to replace your soda intake with water, or to snack on veggies, fruit and nuts twice a day so you are not as hungry at lunch and dinner. Once you start to build momentum incrementally, you’ll find the bigger changes come more easily.

Find an Exercise Buddy. Who do you know that will commit to walking with you four mornings a week? Who will go for a jog with you every other day at lunch? Who can you hire to teach you how to properly lift weights and stretch? If you can afford to meet with a trainer regularly, it could be one of the greatest investments you make in your life. But whether you hire a trained professional or recruit a friend, you’ll find you have greater success when you’re accountable to another person.

Now, remember my friend who has tried every diet under the sun? His challenge isn’t to start the next great diet or quick fix exercise program to maximize the short bursts of time when he’s focused on his health. It is overcoming the daily drive-through habit and the lack of exercise when the diet stops.

He could be the world’s greatest dieter, but it won’t produce real change without a shift in thinking.

The battle is won when health becomes a lifestyle, not a task to be accomplished.

This is a rich topic, and I welcome your comments and questions!

Waking up running is the norm for many in these crazed times. This daily routine can leave many a leader feeling overwhelmed and tired. It can cause us to live our days craving an escape.

We go about our schedule with mechanical precision, without really being present for days, weeks, or even months. We’re just waiting for the day we can board a plane to the tropics. Then, once the wheels are up and the Mai Tai is in hand, relaxation will finally set in.

It does not need to be this way.

I have a routine that I strive to sustain just about every weekday. I call it my morning vacation. It is my time alone in the early hours, before the rest of my family is awake. It usually lasts anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes and includes some time spent reading the Bible, praying, reflecting, stretching, or meditating. Many mornings, I do my reflection in the hot tub as the sun is rising.

When I follow through with my morning vacation, I find that it impacts how I go through the rest of my day. I am more present, calm, and aware. It equips me for the challenges and opportunities the next 24 hours will hold.

A day that begins well has a higher probability of finishing well.

I think it is a mistake to wake up in chase mode. Morning vacations can radically impact how you lead, serve, and love those in your office and your home. I know many leaders who have similar routines, and they swear by them.

Take a vacation. You deserve it.