NOTE: The May blog posts will not be updated this month, but check back soon for new updates.
- How to Lead Without Knowing Everything
This article by Bradley Ann Morgan was published in the Arizona Business Gazette-yahoo.
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- Habits That Sustain Determination
In our work with a nonprofit for reforestation of the USA, we were engaged to help the staff know the difference between motivation and determination. The directors for the program stated that the staff and volunteers had motivation but seemed to lack the ‘staying power’ to achieve the ultimate outcome. Indeed, the long term vision to have domestic farmers see the value in reforestation takes educational sessions along with the actual planting of 18 billion trees. It appeared that some of the organization had tremendous ‘starter behavior’ but dropped out after a few months. Why is it that motivation was not enough to sustain the progress to ensure a viable world for generations to come? It is the difference between enthusiasm and vigor, known to many as determination.
Whether it’s personal goals or specialized results as large as the tree planting program, what are the habits that nourish deterministic behavior? Reflect on the areas below and determine where you may need to cultivate your practices for determination:
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• Declare a commitment, not just an intention & build your life not just as an endless pursuit of activities. Intentions are very much like New Year resolutions. They possess great desire; although, they are never achieved. It’s not that they lack sincerity, but are insufficient for coordinating action for yourself or others. Intention is not enough to change emotional and behavioral patterns either from an individual’s own belief system. Commitments are a crucial element of our lives in building and maintaining meaningful success in relationships, in business, in spiritual development and even, in physical health. Commitments are not only those made internally for imminent achievement; but, also for how we coordinate actions with others. Commitments involve passion and are made from deep concern or alarm. Remember that you are bigger than your job or your chosen profession. Shift your life to focus on something purposeful and meaningful to you, whether it’s reforestation, food harvesting or fundraising for natural disaster recovery. Connect in a deeper way to the world around you and those things you care about.
• Don’t allow baggage from yesterday to creep into today’s efforts. Everyone has some history of relationships, failures, or even estranged family. When you are focusing on the goals of tomorrow, do not attach those stories to the discernment of how you will progress through the events of the present moment. What happened in the past has its place in the past, not today.
• Whatever the goal, keep your focus on the bigger vision. What will change or be the benefits to a larger community could even be a legacy for you. Ask yourself what concept you want to prove or make clear about your concerns such as, demonstrating cultural inclusion or cooperating with other religious groups on holidays.
• Change your relationship with time. Big visions and dreams require determination and perseverance as well as talent. When highway construction forced the closure of Colonel Sanders’ tiny restaurant inside a gas station, he drove around the southern states to other restaurants to cook chicken for them. Ultimately, news of the quality of the chicken spread to other restaurants enabling the Colonel to begin franchising, well after he was 40 years of age! Time becomes not as big an issue when the end result is a service to the community such as, the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute achieved a land lease that enabled the market vendors to set down roots; and, secure a commercial selling locale for the first time in 35 years!
• Associate with positive people, not the nay-sayers that say it can’t be done. Negative people will suck the life out of your ambitions and hopes. Start by engaging and building a substantial support community of like minded friends and colleagues. As the late Christopher Reeve said, “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable; and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” - Leadership that Inspires Others
A Gallup report, ‘The State of the American Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders’, highlights results from the ongoing study of the American workplace from 2010 through 2012. The findings are grim that 75% of current workplace employees are disengaged in their current positions; and, 82% of managers are not a current fit for their jobs as leaders. From studies like this, it’s becoming evident that just attaining the next promotion or next benefit in an organization is not inspiring enough to be meaningful. Consequently, employees just perform or comply not inspiring themselves or others to excel. Where’s the inspiration in our workplaces and from our current leaders to excel in what we do as engaged staff?
Whether you are in an ‘official’ leadership role or a socially appointed leader, we all lead at some point in our personal and professional lives. And as leaders, people follow you because they identified the same level of passion for a cause or project that you did. Perhaps you did not recognize it at that moment, but you inspired others to excel in expanding a community’s outreach, improving an organizational culture, or even, enriching the lives of military veterans.
Both social and eco-planet missions are seeing more leaders who value stability between profit-making and global sustainability. These are the leaders in every country and industry who are capable of rebuilding trust and inspiring others to surpass what has been accepted as mediocre performance.Here are some designs of how to ‘be of service’ and inspire others. Use as many as resonate with you:
• Encourage all staff or colleagues to contribute their thoughts and fervor on specific goals and concerns. The people on your projects or teams need to be courageous in expressing their values and passions. Create an environment where all can be heard without judgment and criticism.
• Leaders who inspire others take risks. These are the people that are not afraid to ‘stand’ for something without monetary gain or status. Think of past leaders that incited movements such as, civil liberties activist Rosa Parks, American Indian Chief Wilma Mankiller, or women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony. All of these inspired others to challenge the current social system and proceed on a journey to a new future. Let others know who has inspired your leadership style.
• In companies where you are fulfilling a leadership position, be certain to be the symbol for your employee’s essentials to the executive staff. It is not uncommon for the C-level management to be unaware of necessities for the front line customer service staff such as, noise reducing headphones or travel apps for the sales engineers. Use your professionalism to gain the best working conditions and tools for those that serve you and the company. Your team will be inspired that they have a champion for their commitment to excellence.
• Inspiration comes from those leaders that do not drive others to achieve a specific outcome. Leaders that share a common vision or ask for commitment to a higher social good inspire others to eliminate roadblocks, making success achievable for all involved.
• Inspiring others gives permission to all to question options, challenge opinions, and turn problems into opportunities. When the fair practice of listening is in place, it is predictable that you will hear the heartfelt values of others. Let yourself listen, not just ‘hear’ the fire in others.When you know you can inspire others, ask yourself:
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• In any leadership role, how will you present a mood of success so that others know you are ready to act?
• What operating standards will you help create for your colleagues and/or teams to keep inspiration high? Do you need to have an offsite day once a month to sustain trust and keep inspiration soaring in the team members? - How to Live in & Appreciate the ‘Now’
It’s excellent to have passionate aspirations or intentions for the coming spring and summer. Intentions or resolutions can be on a personal level or on a larger company effort to satisfy needs such as, better individual health or putting an end to homelessness. Intentions possess great desire; although, they are often never achieved. It’s not that they lack sincerity, but are insufficient for coordinating action for yourself or others. And, with all those long range plans, what happens to living and appreciating the moments of ‘now’?
According to Ellen Langer, a psychologist at Harvard , “Everyone agrees it’s important to live in the moment, but the problem is how. When people are not in the moment, they’re not there to know that they’re not there. Overriding the distraction reflex and awakening to the present takes intentionality and practice.”
We’re not suggesting you abandon goal setting or long range planning. Persistence and determination are personal capacities that bring dreams into meaningful reality. However, as the hallmark of today’s society is multi-tasking, our daily lives have become a frenzy of cell phone use, texting; and possibly driving, concurrently. Since the 1990s, psychologists have conducted experiments on the nature and limits of human multitasking. Overall, these studies have disclosed that people show severe interference when even everyday tasks are performed at the same time, especially if both tasks require sifting and producing action.
As we have become conditioned to this style of living, it can be difficult at first, to remove yourself from the bustle of activity, even for a few minutes. With commitment and practice, you can learn mindfulness to refocus your attention to live and appreciate the present time. Use any of these guidelines to help you:
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• At any instant in your daily routine, stop yourself from doing. Observe what is actually happening, especially if it involves activities that require some physical movement. This can be likened to a Zen-like feeling and way of being. It’s been said that the only two jobs of a Zen monk are sitting zazen (meditation) and sweeping. Cleaning is one of the daily rituals of a Zen monk, one of their most important daily practices. They sweep or rake, and they try to do nothing else. They aren’t thinking about being in a Zen state. The Zen state is the sweeping. The next time you’re doing housework, sorting those office presentation folders, or reviewing email on your Smartphone , try concentrating on the motions of your body. Center your attention on how your hands wipe through the dust on the coffee table or, the motion of your arms as they stack the folders, on the physical sensations. Try being a Zen sweeper.
• Manage outside or public expectations. It is not surprising that many of our chores are performed in response to others’ expectations of us. It is expected that you will sacrifice your time for volunteer work at the elementary school, even after a full work schedule. Start this new year with an scrutiny of all the expectations, even those unspoken, in your daily or weekly life. Determine which ones are meaningful to you and delegate or discard the others. Clarity of choice will help you appreciate the uniqueness of the gifts you have to demonstrate in this life, as well as those of others. And, you will find your feelings of regret or resentment diminish as you are now performing chores as a purposeful choice, not an obligation.
• Reflect on how much time you are living in the past. It is not uncommon to reminisce over past events, particularly if they are connected to exhilaration and joy. However, if you find your only pleasure is in history, you can miss out on feelings of cheerfulness and satisfaction from the next 10 minutes of living. Conversely, this can be also be the result from too much future visioning. Carve out some time each day to be aware of how you present yourself, how others respond to you, and notice the subtle clues coming from your surroundings. All will have an impact on how you conduct yourself the remainder of that very day. - Developing Your Self Sufficiency
Often when you hear the term ‘self sufficiency’, you think of the pioneers that homesteaded the land of the plains. This demonstration can also be termed ‘self sustaining’. These were a group of people that raised almost the entirety of their own food; and, built their farms with the sweat of their physical labor. In the conversations of today, self sufficiency is related to self reliance, independence, autonomy, even self empowerment. You will hear comments such as, “My colleague seems to has some inner resource that helps him cope with our company’s issues.”, or “I wish I could be like my mother. She always trusted her own judgment.” Stories about self sufficiency can be as varied as the life experiences we read about or see on the History channel.
A long time icon of self sufficiency and self assurance is Clint Eastwood. A veteran actor, Clint has stated, “A guy sits in the audience. He’s 25 and scared stiff about what he’s going to do with his life. He wants to be that self sufficient character he sees up there on the screen in my pictures. A confident character who has all the answers, is doubly cool, exists on his own without society or the help of society’s police forces.”
Self sufficiency can still be developed as an adult. Try any of these activities to boost your sense of self sufficiency or self empowerment:
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• When you really want to branch out in a direction, try not to always get others’ opinions. There will be a thousand arguments for your decision and a thousand against. Trust your intuition, putting your insecurities onto the back burner of your mind. If you want to take up fencing at 55, imagine all the positives that will come from your acquired physical abilities, speed, agility, poise, much less assertiveness from the attack posture.
• Give yourself permission to make choices different than your usual way of being. Remember that you don’t always have to have the permission of your community, family, or friends to decide to play summer softball, learn a musical instrument, attend a Zumba dance class, or participate in a college course on movie classics. Setting your own goals and working to achieve them will teach self-reliance and the act of self judgment you may need.