Could be habit forming…

These words can often be found on some form of prescription medication. But it is also part of the prescription for our own path to excellence. Habits are often thought of as annoying or a problem but there is another side to habits. There is a hidden power in them. And that power is in their automatic nature. Imagine if we were to take a moment and intentionally build a habit (Of course it has to be something that you can do, which is to say we cannot build a habit out of the weather)

But you should ask yourself “What is the one thing that if I did it every day without fail, would have the biggest impact on my day to day performance?”
Now imagine if you didn’t even have to think about it and it just happened every day? That is the power of habit. We build habits every day – what I want us to consider is what happens if we do it with intention.

Think about the ”what is the one thing…” question above and come up with an answer.

Got it? Good.

Now ask yourself what is the first thing I need to do towards building this skill? The key here is it will be small. Whether it is listening for a phrase, looking for something (specific) or communicating specific items, the key is small, specific, actionable and repeatable.

As soon as you are done reading this email go out and do that action. And each time you enter a new “area” (room, building, section) do it again. Do it until you notice that you are doing that first step without thinking about it. This will take a few days.

Once you have the first step down what then? Look back at the “what is the one thing…” answer again and decide the second step you want to build. Follow that same process again and again until you have built that “one thing” into an automatic habit!

This is a small, easy and impactful way to make changes. It is powerful and can make a huge difference in your life. Imagine what you can do.
Warning, this could be habit forming.

the power of intentional observation

We all talk about managing and leading a lot. Time and time again we talked about the need to observe what is going on being a vital piece of being able to manage and lead.

But I would guess like most people we have not thought much about observing. We go around and we look and see what we see and that is observing …right? Of course it isn’t but it is what we all do most of the time.

But imagine if we went out specifically looking for one thing, one behavior and keyed in on that for 15 minutes. Imagine the feedback and coaching you could give your people with that kind of focus. With those observations you have data to make a change and an improvement. Without you are (pun intended) flying blind.

Observation is a critical component of leading people but it is a skill we do not think about, practice much or try to hone. Take a few moments and practice. Go out and look for triangles. Walk into a room and take 5 minutes and then try to write down everything you remember. Listen for a specific word in a conversation. Look for a specific behavior and see how many times it comes up in 10 minutes.

All of these tools can help us practice become more intentional (and therefore better) observers. And if we can improve our skills at observation, we can get better results from ourselves and our teams. In short, focusing on your observations skills will just make you better. So think about how you want to practice observation, what you would like to track on, and then it is time to get ready, take aim and focus. Happy hunting.

Moments of truth

When we think of a moment of truth we instinctively think of a pivotal moment. An event that makes a huge impact in our lives. We turn over the moment in our head, replay it in our minds, we analyze what happened and ask what might I have done differently?

But I believe that most big moments of truth have a build up to them. There is a pattern of small moments. These smaller moments set up the “big” moment of truth that became so impactful. And when we look at these moments the best thing is it possible to understand how we can improve on them. Especially when compared to the bigger moments.

When we look at our day there are repeatable key moments that we can focus on and make a difference. Of course we do not always look at what the repeatable, smaller moments of truth that we can focus on and impact.

You may see it as the first time you say hello to a team member, or first customers in the door, or any other of 1,000 possible moments of truth. And the more we take care that these are done well the more likely that the bigger breaks go our way also. The little stuff takes care of the big stuff.

So ask yourself about your moments of truth that you face every day. Have you thought about how you should ideally respond each day? Have you thought of the way you would like it to happen? Do you practice it? Do you notice it each day to try and improve over time so that it gets closer to your ideal? And if these are the building blocks of our bigger moments than isn’t the obvious question…shouldn’t we all answer these questions with a yes every day?

The enemy of great?

Most people answer fear of failure. But if you think about fear of failure is the enemy of starting something. Which of course would prevent greatness so that has real truth in it.

But the real enemy of greatness only rears its head once you have started. And that enemy is called “good enough”.

We often stop trying to improve something once we get “good enough” at something. And on some tasks that is fine. But if it is important to your goals, then “good enough” can be a killer. On the things that are important we should look as “good enough” as a milepost on the road that ends at “great” and we should not accept anything less.

We all have a lot to do and the allure of stopping at “good enough” is tempting. Because it is, by definition, good enough. And it is much harder to get from “good enough” to “great” then “just started” to “good enough
Greatness is not an easy trip, but it is an amazing one that we can make together as a team. It takes the willingness to call out this enemy directly by name and recognize that being good can often be limiting factor instead of a leaping point to greatness.

So we must force ourselves to honestly look at our major goals and force ourselves to commit to defeat the enemy that is “good enough”. Refuse to accept it as a destination and commit to watch “good enough” turn into a blur as we pass it on the path “great”. Tough? Yes. Challenging? Yes. Worth it? I think you know the answer.

Greatness… that is where we are going.

Let’s get moving.




Note: Credit to Michael Alloso's great seminar "You on your best day" that posed this insightful question

fault vs. responsible

So here is the situation. Something has gone wrong, and we go looking to see what happened. We search a little and find out what happened. Someone messed up and it was not us. So there are two questions that we should ask ourselves.

1) Who is at fault?
2) Who is responsible?

The first one is easy whoever messed up is at fault. And there should be coaching and correction and possibly even punishment. But the second question is more tricky. Certainly the person who messed up is responsible right? And they are – but they are not the only ones. As managers and leaders we are equally responsible for the situation. A leader is responsible for everything that happens in their world.

We can point the blame to whoever earned it, but the responsibility of the mistake and making it better falls squarely on the shoulders of the leader. End of story. No way out.

That is the challenge and opportunity of the leader. It may be instinct to look elsewhere when something goes wrong and say that it is not your fault. And it may not be … but if you are the leader that does not matter. The problem is yours to fix (the challenge) and the solution is yours to own (the opportunity). And then after we fix the problem we have to always ask ourselves “What did we do to let this happen? What can I as a leader make sure to do so this never happens again?”

The famous cliché on leadership goes “When something goes right the great leader looks out the window to his people; when something goes wrong he looks into the mirror” . As a leader we may not be to blame directly but we are responsible completely. When something goes wrong we can accept this reality and create some great opportunities for growth and improvement or we can hide. And this is how you should want it. So we have this to face almost every day because things go wrong. Next time it does make sure that you look in the mirror and take the responsibility and the opportunity. It is what leaders do.