Today I’m launching my new site design (thank you Thesis and Jesse Petersen!).   It was just time, given that blog platforms are evolving faster than Twitter is gaining new users (well, maybe not quite that fast).

This “rock” needed to be turned over and examined.   Not because there was something so wrong about how my site looked – it was because I just wanted it to be better.  A little less busy (I hope you agree!).

I had been thinking about looking under rocks for several weeks lately – I always worry about complacency, and it was a perfect analogy for me.   Because there’s always a better way to do something – or a better way to analyze something – or present something.   The minute we think we have it all figured out, all nailed down, and there’s nothing more left to change – that’s the EXACT time we need to think about mixing things up a little.

It’s about trying a new and different perspective – and realizing that you DON’T have all the answers.

This viewpoint was reinforced for me just yesterday when I attended the Audience conference in NYC – Jeremy Shoemaker, better known on the Internet as “Shoemoney“, spoke about how being successful was “about managing time and working hard.”   He made a lot of mistakes along the way, he said, but he kept pushing – talking about those mistakes out in public, and along the way discovering better ways to, in his words, get “skills to pay the bills.”   And now he is quite successful out there- because he was willing to turn over those rocks.

Sometimes you need someone else to do the turning over for you.  Getting a friend, or any objective third party, to tell you how you can do something better, takes a decent amount of courage, especially if you do not take to critique very well.   We recently hired an outside firm at my company to take a look at some of our operations, and sure enough, they looked at some rocks we hadn’t looked under for several years  – and found some things that we could change to make us better.

It always stings a bit when you hear these things – humans do have this little thing called pride, after all  – but if we really want to be successful, and STAY there – we can’t just glide over those stones.

Gotta stop and turn ‘em over.  While it may be pretty ugly under those rocks, and you may have to take a couple of steps back before you start marching over them again, it’s well worth the effort.

Complacency is not our friend.  Never be satisfied, and you’ll have a much better chance of finding lasting success.

In our quest to become great leaders we take on a constant stream of internal battles.   Each and every day we choose our  sides and try to do the right things, with the objective of achieving something great.

There are 10 confrontations in particular that can make or break us, and we need to consistently be on the winning side of every one of them to reach the pinnacle of success.

1. People vs. Process -  It’s as simple as this: a process is only as good as the people executing it.  Focus on the people first, and while you’re at it, make sure your charges truly understand the context and purpose behind the processes.
2. Filtering vs. Push Down – Good leaders know that they need to function as a contextual “filter” for their team when directives and messages come from above.  In trying times or in stressful situations, these messages can be harsh and while that’s something leaders should handle, oftentimes if it is just “pushed down” to the rank and file in the same manner, or worse yet, with a compounded harshness, the messages will be met with anxiety and fear – not exactly the emotions needed to execute well.
3. Trust vs. Fear - Leading by instilling fear, while it can get things done in the short term, simply doesn’t work over the long haul.  Building trust is the much better approach, although it takes a heck of a lot more effort. That’s why the “fear card” tends to stay in the deck even though we know it shouldn’t.  Keep it at the bottom by always thinking of the Golden Rule as you go about your day – it will never lead you astray.
4. Humility vs. Ego - I wrote about this at length back in March – it has to be about THEM, not YOU. It’s the knack of giving the credit to everybody else and blaming yourself.    Channel all of that ambition towards your team, and watch it blossom.
5. Will To Succeed vs. Hope to Survive - It’s all about tone and the words you use when it comes to inspiring your team to get results – one of the biggest distinctions you can make is how you speak and act about the challenges in front of you.  Do you simply “hope” to succeed?  Or do you project a quiet determination that clearly shows you will do whatever it takes to get the job done?  As Sun Tzu said long ago in the Art of War, “An army destined for defeat fights in the hope of winning“.
6. Empathy vs. Detachment - The “old school” of leadership used to warn us that it was a bad thing to get emotionally attached to our teammates and their welfare.  That school is now closed.   We have to understand what’s going on in their hearts and minds  – the better to pinpoint and address performance issues, as well as properly match skills AND personalities to key responsibilities.
7. Big Picture vs. Lost in the Details - A leader needs to frequently step back from the day-to-day details and paint the “big picture”-putting each teammate’s job in the context of the business, and its contribution to overall success.  Teammates need to understand that what they do matters – once they see how they “fit”, they will more easily take ownership of what they do and how they do it.  This makes a huge difference in the overall attitude and energy of the entire group.
8. We vs. They – This may sound overly simplistic, but pronouns matter.   If you use “I” or “they” (meaning your bosses) too much, your team will use “they” or “you” in return.  This sets up a wall between management and the rank-and-file that is very, very hard to knock down.   If you ever want everyone marching to the same drum, put “we” consistently in your vocabulary.
9. Engagement vs. The Ivory Tower -  It’s all too easy to stay behind a desk all day dealing with all the paper, phone calls, and e-mails.  DON’T be held hostage in the Ivory Tower!   Get out in the field – engage with your teammates, roll up your sleeves, talk to customers – especially if there’s distance between you and your actual operations.  If you lose that vital contact with what’s “really going on out there“, your ability to make good decisions will be severely compromised.
10. Leading vs. Managing – This is the big one- the ultimate battle.   The easiest way to make the distinction is just open a dictionary and read the definitions of “manage” and “lead”. Which person do you want to be?   Do you want to “direct and control“, or “show the way“?  Once we realize that it’s much more effective to guide than to control, it really becomes no contest.  We’ve won.  Game over.

….is out there somewhere.

You just need to find it. And in a land of over 100 million blogs, how is that possible?

And besides, blog posts don’t change lives, right?

Wrong.

They can, and they have. I’m living proof of that.

One day in June of 2006, I found my way to a blog written by Liz Strauss called Successful Blog.

I found her by way of a link on someone else’s blogroll (Phil Gerbyshak) – I was just starting my blogging adventure and was just looking around, trying to get comfortable with this new world.

What caught my eye was a post she wrote about how writing a good blog post is like driving a Ferrari.

It was good- written with insight, verve, and moxie- and a very apparent desire to help other people. What’s more, it appeared that Liz just didn’t leave her post on the page and that was it- she invited, and responded to, comments from her readers.

So I commented, she responded, and that’s how I “met” Liz.

Of course, there’s a lot more to this story and how it resulted in a rapid (and still unbelievable) expansion of my known universe and friendships, the birth of SOBCon (a fabulous annual conference in Chicag0) and a long-term business partnership with Liz, but suffice it to say it was that one little post that set it off.

It was the most important blog post I’ll ever read.

And if it happened to me, it can happen to you. Yes, you can change your life by reading a single blog post.

But not just any ol’ blog post. It has to be one that is written in the same manner as Liz-with a little heart thrown in for good measure.

And, it has to be “conversational“- that is, an honest invitation for dialogue. That’s really where the life changing comes in.

Think about it- one way “broadcasts” can be influential, no doubt, and can lead you to a life changing moment down the road, or a revelation of some kind- but they are not life changing in and of themselves. You need to do all the heavy lifting after you read it.

But on a “two-way” blog I’ve described, it’s different. You’ve immediately expanded your circle of relationships, and that’s the catalyst to the life change- the power of those relationships.

So if you want to change your life, find those kind of bloggers and blog posts (you couldn’t go wrong by starting with Liz and Phil, if you haven’t already). You may have to look around a bit, but if you know what you’re looking for, it won’t take long.

Or you can simply put a comment on this post and see what happens. You never know.

What are you waiting for?

Amen to that, Brian! Keep learning, teaching – and making us all better. For in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “the maker of the sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into chaos and old night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight”.

This morning, as I was driving back from Starbucks with my morning latte, I had a vision of sorts.  I had been thinking a lot about writing another post about Social Media, and wondered where I’d draw my inspiration.  Then, it happened……..

A song came on the radio by the 70’s group Supertramp.  And then oddly,  another.  Somebody was trying to tell me something. But I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Intrigued, I arrived home and sat down at my computer and called up several more Supertramp songs.  This group had its heyday 30 years ago, but something about their songs, and the lyrics,  felt contemporary.  Then, I found it.  In the mosaic of their words they were laying out the perfect Social Media strategy!

And 30 years before the genre was even invented, no less.

And what was the strategy, you ask?

Allow me to translate the “Supertramp Strategy”:

You should use Social Media to write your problems down in detail-take them to a higher place. And right! You’re bloody well right. You know you got a right to say (Bloody Well Right). Because remember there’s so much that we need to share. So send a smile and show you care (Give a Little Bit).

But since you are a dreamer, you know you are a dreamer, well can you put your hands in your head (Dreamer), and find great things to write. But be careful, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal, and be mindful of those folks who like to make you feel like you’re
acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable (The Logical Song).

Just be yourself, for you’ll never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery. Take the long way home. (Take the Long Way Home). Live it up, rip it up, why so lazy? Give it out, dish it out, lets go crazy! (Fool’s Overture).

You have to be original – the last thing you want is to hear is “I`ve heard it all before, you`re saying nothing new- I thought I saw a rainbow, but I guess it wasn`t true” (Child of Vision). That would be a bummer.

So don’t be just another nervous wreck, even in the quietest moments while you’re having breakfast in America. Participate in this medium, because if you don’t, it would be the crime of the century!

Pretty brilliant stuff, huh?

But it makes me wonder what other buried treasures I can find in 70’s rock – did Led Zeppelin somehow foresee Facebook on the Stairway to Heaven?   Was Twitter really discovered by Genesis on “Follow You, Follow Me”?    Was “Bennie and the Jets” really Elton John’s prediction of a Web 2.0 society?

This will require much more study, I’m afraid – and a LOT more lattes.

In the meantime, I hope you found the “Supertramp Strategy”……..well, logical. 

Bill Clinton at the World Economic Forum, 10/7/09

This is my second post of observations from the World Business Forum in NYC.   My first post , covering the 1st Day of the conference, tied all the presentations on Leadership into the theme of “sitting tall in the saddle“.

This post continues the thread on Leadership, but from a slightly different direction.   The 2nd Day speakers, particularly in the afternoon sessions, made it clear to me that a lot of effective leadership practice is hiding in plain sight.

That is, sometimes we go too deep in searching for answers.   The best illustration I can offer came from one of the speakers, the CEO of Kraft Foods,  Irene Rosenfeld.

Ms. Rosenfeld has turned Kraft around by simply making some common sense observations, and not necessary digging too deep into what I’m sure was reams and reams of data that showed the arrows pointing downward.

The one in particular that was hiding in plain sight for Kraft?

The food needs to taste good.

I know, you must be saying to yourself – isn’t that just absolutely, positively obvious – they are a food company!

But apparently it wasn’t to the previous management – Rosenfeld discovered that way too many customers really didn’t like their products.

Ooops.

That, of course, has now changed, and the ship has been righted. But not before the discovery of what had been hiding in plain sight.

It’s the use of some good ‘ol common sense that really separates the great from the good.

This was also illustrated by the closing speaker President Bill Clinton.   His speech was peppered with insights as to how he came to many of his tough decisions, and it was interesting how he would “connect the dots” with very basic observations.   For example, when talking about lending money to Mexico, he would speak of being a “Good Neighbor” just as much as he would be dig into the economic and socioeconomic data.

He also was asked about his core Leadership principles – he cited 5:

• Have a vision
• Lay out a strategy
• Get the right people to execute it
• Sell it
• Use your charisma

Nothing very complicated here  – once again, it’s usually all hiding in plain sight.

All too often the “too obvious” gets pushed aside – it can’t be that uncomplicated, could it?  We need more analysis! We need more study! We need more committees!

Nope, we just need common sense leadership.  Be a master of the obvious. You might not be crowned a genius – just as someone who “gets stuff done”.  I’ll take that any day.

I’m part of the “Blogger’s Hub” covering the World Business Forum in New York City, and focus during the morning sessions was on Leadership.  Three well-known speakers, Bill George, Bill Conaty, and Patrick Lencioni, talked about Leadership in the context of crisis, performance, and effective team building.

Their presentations were all very good in their own right (Lencioni in particular was wonderful, and darn funny to boot), but there was a common theme in my mind that bound them together:

A Great Leader Needs to Sit Tall in the Saddle.

There’s so much more to this than “hitting the numbers”.  Just like John Wayne on his horse, leaders need to set the example for all to follow, by doing things like

• Facing reality (George)
• Not taking on the world alone  (George)
• Making sure the team is prepared for the long haul (George)
• Following your True North  (George)
• Showing commitment (Conaty)
• Demonstrating values (Conaty)
• Always telling it like it is (Conaty)
• Balancing passion and compassion (Conaty)
• Over communicating (Lencioni)
• Encouraging truth telling among your charges (Lencioni)
• Promote and enjoy conflict (Lencioni)
• Preach joint accountability (Lencioni)

It takes character, guts, resolve, and yes, even a little swagger to pull all this off.    It can’t be for the faint of heart.

These are the kind of things they don’t teach you at business school.   Each  speaker acknowledged their obviousness, but yet admitted their difficulty.

How can something that looks so simple on paper actually be so hard to just step up and do?

Because in reality, it’s hard.  Unless you can stand tall in that saddle.

Giddy-up!

This week Starbucks launched its new instant coffee,  “VIA”,  to much fanfare.  On two consecutive days, I was handed free samples of the product as I purchased my daily lattes.

I tried both varieties of Colombian and Italian Roast, and they were surprisingly good. Just as good or better than my office’s “by the cup” pod machine.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by what Starbucks and its founder Howard Schultz has done – launched its self-proclaimed “product of last resort”.

According to Eric Felten of the Wall Street Journal, just a few years ago the Starbucks director of research and development uttered that line at a conference – because instant coffee was way “off the target” from the core of its business.

It was a complete and total capitulation to the one powerful thing that had always worked against the Starbucks ideal, especially as it grew by thousands of stores – speed.

Today, fast always wins. This is a society where the concept of “lingering” is rapidly going the way of the dinosaurs.  The Starbucks store, for me, has been quite the laboratory to observe this change over the past 15 years.

I can remember the smell, the music, the zen vibe, and the relaxed “no rush” atmosphere in 1994 when I first made my daily visits. Nobody hovered around the barista like vultures circling their prey.

Today, the music is turned way down.  The lights are brighter and the zen is long gone.  And 9 out of 10 of us are using our handhelds impatiently as we hurry the barista along.  We want our lattes, and we want them now.

From that perspective, I can’t  blame Starbucks for launching this product of last resort – it’s just tapping into our speed culture.  Fast and faster.  I even find myself growing more and more inpatient about waiting for just about anything – even if a Google search takes more than 5 seconds.

Deep down, I don’t want fast to win – so when one of the last bastions of  “the experience rules” throws in the towel, I truly worry about what’s to come.

As I hover around the barista and buy a few packets of VIA.  Life can be such a contradiction……

Columnist Alina Tugend is tired of hearing about “finding our passion” in the workplace.  She wonders if we are falling into a “trap of believing that our work, and indeed our lives, should always be fascinating and all consuming”.

That’s the interesting theme of a piece she wrote this past Sunday in the New York Times that is well worth your time.

It is filled with great little tidbits on how various Professors, Psychologists, and Authors look at job fulfillment, and the role of passion in achieving it.

The point she makes amongst these opinions is that not everything we do in the workplace is going to be “passion-worthy” – there is a lot of routine, boring, and outright unpleasant stuff that happens along the way.  But that shouldn’t stand in our way of a general sense of career enjoyment, or finding some meaning in what we do.

So instead of shooting for all passion & glory, all the time, perhaps there is a more reasoned way to approach it.

One way that made a lot of sense to me in the article was offered by Professor Csikszentmihalyi, and his concept of “flow” – or “a state of complete involvement“.   Put simply, it’s being so absorbed in your work that you lose track of time.

I could completely relate to this – during the part of my career when I was unhappy, I was always looking at the clock – counting the minutes to when I could go home.  These days, where I’m in a job I like, time just totally flies, and there never seems to be enough of it.   So my “flow” is pretty good – not perfect, but good.

Then there’s dopamine.   That’s what gets released in our brain when we accomplish goals – and makes us feel good.  Professor Gary Marcus concludes that “the way to be happy in life is to set a series of achievable goals”.    Fair enough, but the purpose of the goal setting does factor into it – otherwise everybody would be fulfilled in life by winning at video games instead of cracking the genetic code or inventing a new Social Media software.

Finally, there’s “the love of the job”- to Tugend’s point, it’s pretty rare when we absolutely love everything that happens on any given day on the job.    It’s more like a series of trade offs that lead to a generalized good feeling – as she quoted Byron Wolt, “if you love what you do, what you don’t love about it isn’t so bad“.

In the end, Tugend concludes that perhaps searching for passion is “not so bad”- but it has to be infused with a sense of realism that understands that it’s not going to be there all the time.  In fact,  it seems like any way you look at happiness in the workplace, be it through passion, or “flow”, or goal setting, or love, if we can indeed keep our sense of perspective through it all, we don’t need 100% of any of it.

How much DO we need?

Tugend quotes Author Lawler Kang as saying – “if 85 percent of what you’re looking for is there, that’s great“.

85 Percent – that’s sounds about right to me.

Let’s call it the “85% Happiness Solution – Because The World Ain’t Perfect (and Neither Are We)”

Sounds like a pretty half-full way of looking at it, don’t you think?  Thanks Alina for a great article, and the inspiration. 

We were on our way to Portland, Oregon for a vacation.  The flight from Westchester County to Chicago was right on time, and so we had a chance to grab some lunch before our 3:30 flight.

Of course, I had my trusty Blackberry with me, and amongst the vacationing and waiting for the next flight I was also juggling work e-mails and my social media activities, as any 21st Century multitasker would do.

Life was flying by as it always was, and then it was time to get on the plane.

After a fairly orderly (by commercial airline standards) boarding process we strapped on our seat belts and pulled out our reading materials.

We taxied to the main runway as I started to page through a Newsweek magazine. Then, it was our turn to take off, and the engines cranked up. I usually stop what I’m doing at this point but this time I was pretty absorbed in my reading.

Then, something different happened.

At about 120 miles an hour, the pilot decided to abort the takeoff.  He slammed on the brakes.  What followed was the longest 10 seconds of my life.

1 Second - “Uh oh, something’s wrong”

2 Seconds - “We’re stopping – why?”

3 Seconds - “He’s avoiding something”

4 Seconds – “Gosh, I hope he doesn’t hit something”

5 Seconds- “I should brace for impact – do I put my head down?”

6 – 7 Seconds - [life flashes before my eyes]

8  Seconds- “Please don’t hit anything”

9 Seconds - “Let’s get off the runway!”

10 Seconds – [exhales deeply as the plane slows down enough to exit the runway]

Turns out, the pilot got a airspeed indicator malfunction light just as he hit 120 MPH, and made the proper decision to abort the takeoff.

Whew….

What was amazing was how it all seemed to happen in slow motion, and how I seemed to be able to run so many thoughts (and deep ones to boot) through my head.

It was one of those little life wake-up calls that couldn’t have come at a better time.  In 10 seconds I was able to take stock of where I was, what I have done before, and what I want to do in the future.  Mainly because I was darn happy to have a future.

I wondered why I couldn’t just take 10 seconds and do this self assessment when I needed to without the prompting of an event like this.   That’s all  – 10 seconds.  Every now and then when the world is spinning a bit too fast, or the multitasking is getting a little out of hand.

10 Seconds.  Without the dramatics.   Just the thinking.

I think I’ll give that a try next time.

Postscript: After we got off this plane, the airline arranged another plane to take us to Portland.  2 1/2 hours later, we pulled away from the gate on this new plane.  As the engines fired up, I kid you not, the lights in the cabin began to flicker and strobe, like we were in the middle of some kind of “Twilight Zone” episode.   They tried to fix this problem by pulling back to the gate and restarting the plane, but alas, this plane was also not going to take us to Portland.  Finally, on the third try on a third plane, and 5 hours after we were originally supposed to take off, we were on our way to Portland.

Isn’t traveling fun?