Friday, November 6, 2009
World Class Language
Language offers a framework for meaning. Please think about that powerful idea. We understand the world through words. The words you use determine the way you perceive reality. If you call a stumbling block a “problem” or “a big mess” you will create a different emotional state within you than if you call the issue “an opportunity” or “a challenge that will only make me better.” I have the privilege, as a success coach, to work with many extraordinarily successful people from around the world. One of their core traits of greatness is that the vast majority of them understand the power of the word. They use world-class language. Not only do they refrain from using profanities, but they use the language of passion. They use the language of leadership. They use the language of possibility. They use the language of love.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
COMMUNICATE LIKE A GENIUS
I'm just about to land in Barcelona. Just one week left on this European tour that has taken me from Sweden to Moscow, on to Vilnius and into Sofia, Bulgaria last night for a special event for Piraeus Bank's top institutional clients.
On this flight over the Alps from Vienna, I read a fascinating article about Swedish architect Mia Hagg, one of the key visionaries behind the bird's nest stadium featured in the Beijing Olympics. She spoke of her passion for visiting new countries. Her love of design. And the importance of being an excellent communicator to be successful in business.
Getting good at communicating is like getting good at tennis: the more you practice, the better you'll get. In my work developing the leadership abilities of employees at organizations such as NIKE, GE, FedEx and IBM, I've watched many brilliant communicators in action. Here are 6 of the most common things that uncommonly good communicators do:
1. The tell stories and paint pictures through the words they use.
2. They are interesting and entertaining.
3. They are sincere and authentic.
4. They are able to distill complexity into simplicity.
5. They radiate passion.
6. They listen spectacularly well.
There's zero doubt in my mind that you were made to become a masterful communicator. And by making these 6 traits your default, you'll get to genius in the way you connect quicker than you might imagine.
On this flight over the Alps from Vienna, I read a fascinating article about Swedish architect Mia Hagg, one of the key visionaries behind the bird's nest stadium featured in the Beijing Olympics. She spoke of her passion for visiting new countries. Her love of design. And the importance of being an excellent communicator to be successful in business.
Getting good at communicating is like getting good at tennis: the more you practice, the better you'll get. In my work developing the leadership abilities of employees at organizations such as NIKE, GE, FedEx and IBM, I've watched many brilliant communicators in action. Here are 6 of the most common things that uncommonly good communicators do:
1. The tell stories and paint pictures through the words they use.
2. They are interesting and entertaining.
3. They are sincere and authentic.
4. They are able to distill complexity into simplicity.
5. They radiate passion.
6. They listen spectacularly well.
There's zero doubt in my mind that you were made to become a masterful communicator. And by making these 6 traits your default, you'll get to genius in the way you connect quicker than you might imagine.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Stretch Yourself
Too often, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, doing the same thing the same way over and over every day. But if we are going to live at our absolute best, we should constantly be growing and sharpening our skills. We should strive to learn and grow every single day because when you stop learning, you stop growing. When you stop growing, you stop living.
What are you doing to stretch yourself? What are you doing to improve your skills? Don’t get trapped into thinking that “good enough” is good enough. You are created for more than just average. Today is a new day, and there are new heights for you to climb. Pursue what you love and keep developing that area of your life. Take a class or find a mentor that will help you live skillfully. As you do, you’ll rise up higher and higher.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Qualities of Skillful Leadership
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manger, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.
What's important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.
2) Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3) Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.
4) You've got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a Godlike word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It's when you don't know that you don't know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.
6) Develop humor without folly. That's important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it's okay to be witty, but not silly. It's okay to be fun, but not foolish.
Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I'd like to think it's unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It's fascinating. And I've found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
What's important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.
2) Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3) Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.
4) You've got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a Godlike word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It's when you don't know that you don't know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.
6) Develop humor without folly. That's important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it's okay to be witty, but not silly. It's okay to be fun, but not foolish.
Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I'd like to think it's unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It's fascinating. And I've found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
The Two Choices We Face
Each of us has two distinct choices to make about what we will do with our lives. The first choice we can make is to be less than we have the capacity to be. To earn less. To have less. To read less and think less. To try less and discipline ourselves less. These are the choices that lead to an empty life. These are the choices that, once made, lead to a life of constant apprehension instead of a life of wondrous anticipation.
And the second choice? To do it all! To become all that we can possibly be. To read every book that we possibly can. To earn as much as we possibly can. To give and share as much as we possibly can. To strive and produce and accomplish as much as we possibly can. All of us have the choice.
To do or not to do. To be or not to be. To be all or to be less or to be nothing at all.
Like the tree, it would be a worthy challenge for us all to stretch upward and outward to the full measure of our capabilities. Why not do all that we can, every moment that we can, the best that we can, for as long as we can?
Our ultimate life objective should be to create as much as our talent and ability and desire will permit. To settle for doing less than we could do is to fail in this worthiest of undertakings.
Results are the best measurement of human progress. Not conversation. Not explanation. Not justification. Results! And if our results are less than our potential suggests that they should be, then we must strive to become more today than we were the day before. The greatest rewards are always reserved for those who bring great value to themselves and the world around them as a result of who and what they have become.
And the second choice? To do it all! To become all that we can possibly be. To read every book that we possibly can. To earn as much as we possibly can. To give and share as much as we possibly can. To strive and produce and accomplish as much as we possibly can. All of us have the choice.
To do or not to do. To be or not to be. To be all or to be less or to be nothing at all.
Like the tree, it would be a worthy challenge for us all to stretch upward and outward to the full measure of our capabilities. Why not do all that we can, every moment that we can, the best that we can, for as long as we can?
Our ultimate life objective should be to create as much as our talent and ability and desire will permit. To settle for doing less than we could do is to fail in this worthiest of undertakings.
Results are the best measurement of human progress. Not conversation. Not explanation. Not justification. Results! And if our results are less than our potential suggests that they should be, then we must strive to become more today than we were the day before. The greatest rewards are always reserved for those who bring great value to themselves and the world around them as a result of who and what they have become.
Wherever You Are, Be There
One of the major reasons why we fail to find happiness or to create unique lifestyle is because we have not yet mastered the art of being.
While we are home our thoughts are still absorbed with solving the challenges we face at the office. And when we are at the office we find ourselves worrying about problems at home.
We go through the day without really listening to what others are saying to us. We may be hearing the words, but we aren't absorbing the message.
As we go through the day we find ourselves focusing on past experiences or future possibilities. We are so involved in yesterday and tomorrow that we never even notice that today is slipping by.
We go through the day rather than getting something from the day. We are everywhere at any given moment in time except living in that moment in time.
Lifestyle is learning to be wherever you are. It is developing a unique focus on the current moment, and drawing from it all of the substance and wealth of experience and emotions that it has to offer. Lifestyle is taking time to watch a sunset. Lifestyle is listening to silence. Lifestyle is capturing each moment so that it becomes a new part of what we are and of what we are in the process of becoming. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well.
While we are home our thoughts are still absorbed with solving the challenges we face at the office. And when we are at the office we find ourselves worrying about problems at home.
We go through the day without really listening to what others are saying to us. We may be hearing the words, but we aren't absorbing the message.
As we go through the day we find ourselves focusing on past experiences or future possibilities. We are so involved in yesterday and tomorrow that we never even notice that today is slipping by.
We go through the day rather than getting something from the day. We are everywhere at any given moment in time except living in that moment in time.
Lifestyle is learning to be wherever you are. It is developing a unique focus on the current moment, and drawing from it all of the substance and wealth of experience and emotions that it has to offer. Lifestyle is taking time to watch a sunset. Lifestyle is listening to silence. Lifestyle is capturing each moment so that it becomes a new part of what we are and of what we are in the process of becoming. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Winning
Description and Reviews
Jack Welch knows how to win. During his forty-year career at General Electric, he led the company to year-after-year success around the globe, in multiple markets, against brutal competition. His honest, be-the-best style of management became the gold standard in business, with his relentless focus on people, teamwork, and profits.
Since Welch retired in 2001 as chairman and chief executive officer of GE, he has traveled the world, speaking to more than 250,000 people and answering their questions on dozens of wide-ranging topics.
Inspired by his audiences and their hunger for straightforward guidance, Welch has written both a philosophical and pragmatic book, which is destined to become the bible of business for generations to come. It clearly lays out the answers to the most difficult questions people face both on and off the job.
Welch's objective is to speak to people at every level of an organization, in companies large and small. His audience is everyone from line workers to MBAs, from project managers to senior executives. His goal is to help everyone who has a passion for success.
Welch begins Winning with an introductory section called "Underneath It All," which describes his business philosophy. He explores the importance of values, candor, differentiation, and voice and dignity for all.
The core of Winning is devoted to the real "stuff" of work. This main part of the book is split into three sections. The first looks inside the company, from leadership to picking winners to making change happen. The second section looks outside, at the competition, with chapters on strategy, mergers, and Six Sigma, to name just three. The next section of the book is about managing your career--from finding the right job to achieving work-life balance.
Welch's optimistic, no excuses, get-it-done mind-set is riveting. Packed with personal anecdotes and written in Jack's distinctive no b.s. voice, Winning offers deep insights, original thinking, and solutions to nuts-and-bolts problems that will change the way people think about work.
By dhanasekar
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