Tag Archives: Excellence

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When Risk is too Risky

4 tips for managing risk

When Risk is too Risky

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that (is) changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. — Mark Zuckerberg

When taking a risk is in itself too risky we are in a very bad place. Life is full of risk and there is no avoiding it. We take a risk every time we do something. It is a risk to get out of bed, we could fall and hit our head and suffer terrible injury. Equally, if we manage to get out of bed we could slip and fall in the shower, severely lacerate ourselves shaving, choke while brushing our teeth, trip while putting on our shoes, and so forth and this is all before breakfast.

We are surrounded by risk and it is just part of the human condition. There is a risk of a negative consequence around every thing we do. At any point something could go wrong and the consequences could range from inconsequential to terminal. There is no way to avoid things happening.

There is also equally a chance of a positive outcome from everything we do. We could wake up one morning to find that we have won the lottery, our terminal disease is in remission, our broken relationship has been mended, we are becoming more attractive as we age and our lost dog has returned home. These things can all happen as well and they are just as likely to happen as the bad things. Many good things happen to us every day, but we tend to worry about the bad things and forget about the good things. This is especially true if we are not moving toward excellence in our lives where we have an opportunistic outlook and see risk as a no-lose proposition.

Where we lose our way is when we can only focus on the negative outcomes and exaggerate the likelihood of them becoming our current reality. We then become engaged in a depressing spiral of looking for the bad because we are afraid of the bad and then become over sensitized to the unfortunate things that happen to us every day.

How many times have we commented that after someone points something out to us we see that very thing more often? Perhaps a unique model of car or something unique about a song or something similar. I certainly have noticed that once I am aware of a specific song I hear that song everywhere I go. The reality is that they are not playing that song because I am in the area, it is just that I have been sensitized to that song, and now I am more aware of it playing than I would have been previously.

Do you remember when you first learned to ride a bicycle or taught someone else to ride? I remember seeing a hole in the road as I was learning to ride and the more I focused on that hole, the more I steered my bicycle toward that hole and sure enough, eventually crashed as I drove into the hole. It was almost as if it had a magnetism to it that I could not escape. The reality was that there was over three feet of road on either side of the hole, but because I was so focused on the hole and what would happen if I fell in it, I ended up driving right into it.

It is much the same when we consider risk. If we are focused on the negative branch of what can happen, we will start to look for it and be more aware of it happening in the world around us which will further feed our fears. This cycle can build on itself to the point that we are convinced that bad things are happening to us and we are more likely to cause the negative thing to happen as we subconsciously draw nearer to it.

This can work to our favor just as easily. If we focus on the positive branch of a possible outcome, we will become more aware of it happening in the environment around us and we will start to draw nearer to the possibility that it will happen to us.

Risk is just part of our lives. There is no escaping it and it is not a bad thing. However, if we see risk as a bad thing, it often becomes our reality. We manage risk by placing ourselves in a no-lose situation such as by adopting a journey to excellence. When we embrace change and risk, and view it from the perspective that we are resilient enough to deal with the bad things that might happen and intelligent enough to learn from our experience then there is no way to lose. We set ourselves free from the bondage of worry about things we cannot control and find that the magnetism of the things that go right pulls us to a higher performance and level of satisfaction.

Here are a few suggestions for managing risk:

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Motivated or Lazy?

4 Tips for being a better leader

Motivated or Lazy?


You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership. — Dwight Eisenhower

How do you see people, naturally motivated or lazy? Do you think the average person inherently dislikes work and will avoid it at all cost or do you assume that if people are treated fairly and positively that they will perform at a higher level? The way you answer these questions may tell a lot about how you manage people and the likelihood of your success.

These two different approaches to management are often referred to as Theory X and Theory Y based upon the research of Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In his book titled The Human Side of Enterprise he identified two fundamental models of management contrasting the differences in workforce motivation applied by managers.

Theory X is based on an authoritarian or perhaps more traditional style of management. These managers assume that people are lazy and are not motivated on their own to work. This type of manager sees it as their role to force or coerce the worker to perform work and people are largely viewed as a cost to the business. Managers who subscribe to this approach tend to see people as the following:

  1. The average person is lazy, dislikes work and will avoid it if at all possible.
  2. Most people have to be intimidated, controlled, directed or threatened to get them to work toward organizational goals.
  3. The average person needs to be overseen, will avoid responsibility, is not ambitious and simply seeks security.
  4. Workers will take every opportunity to slack off, will not achieve their potential and require close supervision.

Managers who practice Theory X are often autocratic and controlling and believe they need to drive people to make them do their work. These managers tend to micro-manage, are extremely task oriented and not largely interested in developing relationships with their subordinates. Little effort will be expended toward developing a positive work environment and recognition and appreciation is rarely shown. Workers in this environment tend to be motivated by fear and feel unappreciated.

A significant aspect to Theory X management is that people are the first to blame, not the process. If something is not working as expected it is assumed that the employees are at fault and should be observed, reprimanded and perhaps even have their employment terminated.

Theory Y on the other hand is based on a more enlightened view based on a model of human need for higher order achievement. These managers believe that if workers are treated fairly and positively with respect for them as individuals that they will perform at a higher level. Mangers who subscribe to this approach see people as the following:

  1. People are naturally motivated to achieve as more of their basic needs are met.
  2. People will exercise self-direction and self-control to achieve organizational objectives.
  3. The average person is willing to accept and seek responsibility as part of their quest for self-fulfillment and seeks recognition for accomplishments.
  4. Most people have the capacity for imagination, ingenuity and creativity and produce more when engaging these skills.

Managers who practice Theory Y are often more participative when making decisions. They value input and the results of collective thinking and value relationships. They tend to see and treat people as individuals and encourage each person to fully apply themselves to the situation at hand. These managers tend to empower their people and trust them to do good work. They tend to see employees as important assets to be invested in and important to the business. Employees in these environments tend to feel appreciated, motivated and part of something larger than themselves.

A significant aspect to Theory Y management is that when problems arise the manager and the employee attempt to examine the issue together as a team and examine where both people and process could improve.

Current research and common experience indicates that Theory Y management will lead to better results. People feel that they are part of something larger and are encouraged to achieve more for the benefit of the business and their own self-fulfillment. They are encouraged to engage the more positive side of human behavior and focus more of their energy on accomplishing the mission.

At times there may be a role for Theory X management when in an extreme turnaround situation or something of that nature, but generally this approach produces inferior results. That is not to say that people should not be held accountable for their results. Quite the opposite. However, with appropriate structures in place Theory Y will outperform Theory X on most occasions.

So here are a few tips for being a Theory Y manager:

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Do Our Best Every Time

5 Tips for Doing Our Best

Do Our Best Every Time

The pursuit of excellence leads us on a journey of self-improvement that can be simplified to doing the best we can and doing better with each chance we get. Excellence demands that we fully apply ourselves maximizing the use of our abilities and knowledge and always strive to produce something better than our previous efforts produced.

Our results at first will only be slightly better than the standard of ordinary as we measure our surroundings at the time. With each opportunity to apply our abilities and expand our experiences we move ourselves step-by-step to a higher level of performance. Just like using our muscles in our exercise program, the more they are used the stronger they become. It is the same with our pursuit of excellence. The more we add to our experiences and learn how to more deeply leverage our talents, the greater the outcome we produce.

In doing the best that we can do, we can fully apply ourselves to see what the best we can do really is. If you are like me, there are many times I have given something less that one hundred percent subconsciously on purpose as a guard against failure. My misguided reasoning would go something like, I will give this a good shot, but not really everything I have so that if it fails, I do not have to face the reality that the best I could do was not good enough. This is a trap that does not serve us well. It does not protect us from failure, but in fact creates a greater likelihood of failure. Not doing our best cannot produce our best results. It will at best produce ordinary results.

One of the biggest challenges is to put aside our ”risk buffer” and actually attempt the very best we can do. We often rationalize our ordinary performance by leaving something on the table so that we do not have to deal with the realization that our best effort was not good enough. The problem is if we hold on to that buffer we never really find out what we can do and we lose the opportunity to make larger strides in our progress.

The idea that somehow not doing our best protects us from risk is just an illusion. Anytime we do not do our best we are by definition producing a lower level of output than we are capable of producing. With a lower level of performance we have increased the likelihood that someone else will produce a more effective result than we have and actually increase our exposure to criticism.

In order to pursue excellence we have to put it all on the table every time. We can not leave something behind to protect our ego from the true reality. If as part of our pursuit we position ourselves to learn from every experience doing less than our best because it might not be good enough seems laughable. All that we truly risk when we do our best is dealing with the reality of where we truly are when compared to the ordinary.

However, in the past ordinary results have been good enough. It was safe (so we thought) being good enough as there was always somebody worse and ordinary was good enough. In fact, occasionally good enough was rewarded sufficiently to allow us to believe we were exceeding expectations without having to do all of the work. Compared to someone who is on a journey of excellence, we will be falling behind as the standard continues to be raised. Not giving one hundred percent will become a self-fulfilling formula for mediocracy, leaving us exposed and conditioned to underperforming and overall not driving our personal satisfaction.

We might surprise ourselves that we are more capable than we thought, or discover that we are not much better when fully engaged than when we did not fully apply ourselves. In the worst case at least we know where we stand and in the best case at least we know where we stand. The only difference being our own self-perception, which we control anyway.

There is no other sure path to excellence than to take the risk of doing the best we can do. We are not trying to be perfect, just better than last time, every time.

Here are some tips to be sure we are doing our best:

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Excellence is an Attitude

It is a journey

Excellence is an Attitude

It is a journey

Journey

For many years I have been searching for examples of excellence and the things that lead to excellent results. Through my search I have found that excellence is not something that can be acquired through training, but it is an attitude or way of thinking. Overall it is a journey from where we are to the best we can be in every aspect of our life.

Excellence is not something learned, but a mindset of relentless pursuit. Just understanding something does not by itself change our behaviors. It is the internalization of this knowledge and the resultant change in our approach and actions that puts us on the path of excellence.

That is not to say that we cannot learn about excellence. Quite the opposite. We need to be exposed to the concept of excellence to understand what it looks like and how we think about it. Much of achieving excellence comes from an understanding of quality and setting standards as a personal best and improving with each opportunity to perform.

When we take a look at the basic definitions of a skill versus an attitude we can clearly see the difference and gain more perspective on excellence as an attitude. According to The Merriam Webster dictionary, the simple definition of a skill is: “the ability to do something that comes from training, experience or practice.” They provide a simple definition of attitude as: “a feeling or way of thinking that affects a person’s behavior.”

The pursuit of excellence is something we have to cultivate from inside ourselves. It comes from the point that we find we are no longer satisfied with our results and seek to achieve the best we can in every area of our lives. It starts the moment we finally decide to put it all on the line and see what we are really capable of producing. It is the point that we take away the safety buffer of leaving something on the table and fully applying ourselves to a result that would be better than anything we have ever done before. Discovering and dealing with our shortcomings may be a rude awakening, but it sets the benchmark for doing better next time.

Nobody can give excellence to us and there is not a course we can take to get a degree in excellence. It is only something we can achieve from within ourselves by doing better than we ever have done before. We do not have to be perfect. That standard is unattainable, but we can push ourselves to do the very best we can. It is our own race, others can keep the score but we are the only ones that can measure the satisfaction.

So what are some of the attributes of excellence we can strive for everyday?

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Make Yourself Valuable

It's about relationships

Make Yourself Valuable

Valuable

Everyday it seems there are headlines that jobs are being moved offshore, automated or eliminated. We do not have to look too far in our personal networks to find someone that has been impacted by this trend. Globalization is causing a shift in resource alignment as businesses search for lower costs and larger markets. In addition the United States economy continues to shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy causing a continual restructuring of business resource needs.

With the trend of the commoditization of labor due to a larger global market and the reduced time employees are choosing to stay in their current positions, business is not investing as heavily in career development training as in the past. The Chicago Tribune reported on a study conducted by The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) that “virtually all professional and career benefits tracked in the survey declined between 2010 and 2014.”

The news is not all bad for those of us who pride ourselves on adaptability. As it turns out, many markets for domestic white-collar jobs are growing. Forbes reports “Over the past decade, business services has emerged as easily the largest high-wage sector in the United States, employing 19.1 million people. These are the white-collar jobs that most people believe offer a ladder into the middle class.”

Our challenge is to adapt to this new market. In the service business the relationship of business to its customers has never been more important or valuable than it is today. With the economy shifting to a service-based model and social media redefining the communications model, relationships have greater emphasis than ever before.

Relationships have always been the key to business. Going back as long as commerce has been around, relationships have driven the market. Whether it is the personal referral of a local contractor for home repairs or the corporate connection to other businesses, it is driven by relationships. Even in the age of online shopping, it is often the opinions expressed in the reviews of the buying community that impact the purchase decision.

So what can we do to ensure our marketability in this changing market?

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The Power of Thank You

The Power of Thank You

What if there were two simple words that when said with sincerity would mend broken relationships, open the door for considering opposing views, enhance our health and improve productivity? Would we use those words? What if we found that we could have all of those benefits and it cost us nothing, would it be worth it?

Two of the most powerful words in our vocabulary are thank you. Those two words have a proven healing and motivational power beyond compare and yet they may be the two most underused words in our everyday conversation.

There is a considerable body of study and commentary around this idea. The following are a few pointed examples:

According to a study published in the Harvard Gazette, the group of individuals involved with fundraising that received a visit from a director to thank them for their work placed 50 percent more calls than the group that did not receive an expression of gratitude in the same period.

Science Daily reports that in a study of 468 married individuals, the results indicated that the spousal expression of gratitude was the most significant predictor of marital quality.

The Wall Street Journal reports “Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They’re also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.”

The evidence is clear that the simple expression of gratitude in the form of thank you delivers significant results and yet is is often the most forgotten part of our conversation. When we offer a simple and sincere expression of our gratitude it serves to reinforce that we acknowledge the effort and accomplishments of an individual (or a group) and care about them as individuals.

Human relationships are too complex to be able to provide a simple explanation for how we react to each other. However, it is clear that relaying gratitude through simple expressions such as thank you seems to be a very powerful expression. And get this, it costs us nothing to say thank you. It does not diminish us as a person, in fact a case can be made that it increases our stature. It does not cost us any money, quite the opposite, it tends to increase productivity. It really costs us nothing and we are the direct beneficiaries of maintaining an attitude of gratitude.

So why is thank you so often forgotten? Frankly there is not a good explanation. The most likely excuse is that we become too busy. Everyday we are faced with countless challenges and issues and it seems they never end. Perhaps we become too embroiled in these issues to realize that it is the people around us that actually deal with those issues with and for us. Given the positive power of the use of thank you, this is not a very good excuse.

So here is the magic formula:

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Change, Don’t Let it Happen to You, Be Change

Change, Don’t Let it Happen to You, Be Change

Be Change

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished” — Benjamin Franklin

Change is all around us and it is never going away. All of our lives we have experienced change and as long as we continue to draw a breath, we will experience change.

This past year we have all experienced and continue to experience change. Change in the ways we conduct business, changes in our organization structure, perhaps changes in our position, reporting relationships, personal relationships and circumstances. Certainly we are surrounded by change and a lot of it.

There are really only two ways to react to change. We either embrace it or we reject it. If we embrace the change, then we find ourselves looking forward, developing new relationships, trying to understand how our new environment works, establishing our individual perspective on how we fit into the new world and ultimately, how to thrive in this new set of circumstances.

Alternatively, if we choose to reject the change, we create a never ending anxiety about how we choose not to fit in the new world and watch our new reality spin ever further away from the way it used to be. Not embracing our new reality does not stop the world from changing around us. It just creates a greater distance from where we are to where we need to be.

Consider if we were able to reverse the change, even then things would never be the same. We have new experiences and new ways of thinking that would not allow the past to ever resurface as a new today.

By doing so we are no longer the victim of the change but a living part of the change, looking forward and reestablishing our prior level of comfort. Our choice is to either not let change happen to us or to be part of the change.

Personally, I choose to be part of the change. How about you?  What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Skip Gilbert