Tag Archives: Leadership

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Get Out of Our Own Way for Success

4 Tips for getting out of our own way for success

Get Out of Our Own Way for Success

Have you ever felt like things are just going too good, there must be something bad around the corner? Or things are starting to go well, I’m afraid to change anything because I may mess it up? Or how about, things seem to be stable now, but I know something bad is about to happen? I know at times I have had these thoughts, how about you?

If we are having these thoughts, we need to get them under control. Anticipating that something bad will happen just because nothing bad is happening at the moment is a formula for failure. We are expending energy focusing on things that may (or may not) happen rather than enjoying this moment of success and pouring our energy into creating more success. Sometimes we just need to get out of our own way.

We may find that we are afraid of success. We dream big and develop good plans that are leading to success and then as success approaches, we become apprehensive in accepting the results of our success. As an example, we may have developed a great breakthrough that will significantly improve a critical process at work. As we move forward with implementing our idea, we are overwhelmed with anxiety around the small risk that it will fail. The pressure builds as we realize that we will have to make a number of presentations to the executives to get everyone to follow the new procedure. All of the energy we put into worry is just wasted effort. Our effort will more than likely be successful and our anxieties are usually overblown. We need to maintain the same confidence we had in ourselves at the start of the effort all the way through the end of the effort and things will be just fine.

When we sabotage ourselves we may find our impending success is not as impactful as it could be. We may find that we are pursuing something that will bring success and we either knowingly or subconsciously start doing things that will limit the success. For example, we may be pursuing our big breakthrough project and then stop doing the follow-through on our communications as effectively as we are able, such that the success may not end up being everything we know it could be. Again, our fear that the results may be bigger than we are or may expose our perceived shortcomings causes us to try to diminish the level of success. We are just getting in our own way.

By focusing on the negative possibilities we risk bringing on the negative consequences we are projecting. Much like when learning to ride a bicycle for the first time, we see the hole in the road and are so afraid of hitting it we actually drive right into it. When we become overly focused on the negative, we lose our perspective and end up being drawn into the thing we are trying to avoid.

Basically, we are on a path for success and we get in our own way. The solution is to get out of our own way! The things we do to produce the success are the things we need to do to secure the success. We are more than able to follow-through on our good ideas. The success that comes our way as a result of our hard work is success that we deserve and we should enjoy it. Don’t stop short of the finish line, we are actually about to win the race!

So what can we do to get out of our own way? Here are 4 tips to help us.

1) Be consistent in our approach. Keep going with the things that have brought us this far. Keep going when we are starting to feel the pressure of success.

2) Maintain our confidence. Battle our own insecurities with confidence. Be complete in our preparation for the challenge. If giving a presentation, be sure to take time to develop it and rehearse. Be in the position of knowing the subject better than anyone else and we will have nothing to worry about. We are the expert and it will be apparent that we know what we are talking about.

3) Continue to be bold in our thinking. Bold thoughts put us on this path, bold thoughts brought us this far, bold thoughts will take us across the finish line.

4) Recognize those that helped. Chances are we are not the only ones involved in the success. Be sure to share the success with everyone involved. Do not make the success about us, but make it about everyone who helped and the success will flow back to us.

We did the work, things are looking good, now bring home the success! We deserve it and so do those around us. Be the leader all the way across the finish line, we are winning the race!

Thanks,

Skip Gilbert

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Take Time to Celebrate Success

4 Tips to celebrate success

Take Time to Celebrate Success


The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. — Oprah Winfrey

How did things go last week? Which do you recall more, the successes or the challenges? There were successes, actually many of them. Did you take the the time to enjoy the success or were there too many pending challenges to take time to reflect?

If you are like many of us, the busyness of everyday crowds out our time to reflect on our accomplishments. We are busy in our multi-tasking mindset, trying to manage numerous things at the same time with little extra time. It seems that the only celebration is in the form of relief that something has come off the list of things that need to be done. Accomplishing something just gives us more opportunity to work on the other things demanding our attention.

When we take the time to reflect and consider our accomplishments, we most always find that we are winning. Who would have guessed it? It sure doesn’t feel that way. There are so many things demanding our attention that we do not even realize that we are winning in our battle for success. Most of the things we attempted worked and if we are focused on the right things, actually moved us ahead. We did the work, but didn’t take the time to appreciate the success and enjoy the satisfaction. Yet, achieving satisfaction is one of our biggest drivers toward undertaking an activity in the first place.

Satisfaction is the net reward of success. It is the great feeling that we get when we accomplish something that aligns with our values. It is the big reason we set out to accomplish something in the first place. Work without satisfaction is just a job. Work that provides satisfaction is success. We need to recognize our success to continue to motivate ourselves to achieve more. Not recognizing our success is like winning the game but not looking at the final score on the scoreboard. We have earned the opportunity for the satisfaction, we need to be sure to enjoy it.

The true impact of our celebration is to reinforce our learning. The things we learn from each experience are probably more important than the thing we accomplished. Our learnings go with us forever and the thing we accomplished we leave behind. Taking time to celebrate our success allows us to tie what we learned to our positive emotion of satisfaction and make it available to us as a positive tool for use in the future.

So let’s celebrate! Woo Hoo, we did it! Good for us! When we reflect on last week there were a lot of things that went our way and were accomplished. Large and small, the things we did worked. We held our own in a meeting, everybody got to school on time, we made progress on a big project, we even found time to cut the grass. A lot of things went well thanks to us.

It is important that we reflect on the accomplishments that were important to us. Of course we want to please other people, but if at the root of our activity we are not pleased with ourselves, we will not achieve satisfaction. Don’t be afraid to privately pat ourselves on the back. We deserve it. We do not need to be overly boastful, but we deserve the recognition for the things we accomplished.

We should also offer others the opportunity to celebrate with us. It may surprise us to find that others noticed our accomplishments and are excited for us as well. Who knew they even noticed! We are all pretty busy and just like us, they sometimes just do not have the opportunity to express appreciation.

How about it! When we take time to look at the scoreboard we are actually winning and we have a fan club! How cool is that!

So let’s take a look at some of the things we can do to make sure we celebrate our success. Here are 4 tips that we can use everyday:

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Take Time to Seek Advice

4 Tips for seeking advice

Take Time to Seek Advice

“All of us, at certain moments in our lives, need to take advice and receive help from others.” — Alexis Carrel

There are times when the best thing we can do is to seek advice from someone with more knowledge, wisdom or differing point of view. We do not know everything and we all have flat spots that keep us from having a full perspective on every subject. There are times we need to ask others for their advice so that we can gain more information, sort through the perspectives and come to an informed opinion.

No matter the area of our personal or professional lives, we are always encountering new choices that require additional information to allow us to make a good decision. Whether choosing a new car or making an investment for our retirement or a tough decision at work, we need additional information to form a thoughtful perspective as a basis to make our best decision.

A starting point is often seeking more knowledge. We need more facts and reality-based information to help us know more about the subject and the options. Which are the best products or services, are there alternatives, what do they cost and what benefit do they return? These are just a few examples of the core fact finding that we need to pursue to become more informed on the subject, before moving forward.

The next area to pursue in forming our perspective is to seek the wisdom of others. In this area there are many tools we can use to seek the perspective of others. By examining the feedback others have provided through reviews and comments we can gain the benefit of their opinion. Examples include looking at the ratings and discussions on an Amazon purchase or considering the feedback on Yelp about a restaurant. In addition we can talk to others that have experience with the product or service we may be considering or talk with others that have made the same decision recently.

Before fully forming our own perspective, we should consider the opinions of those with a differing point of view. Consider carefully why others hold a different opinion. Is it a majority or minority opinion? Using the Amazon example, we should carefully consider the advice of the few that gave a lower rating in their feedback. Was their feedback based on actual use while others were commenting on the initial purchase? Was the restaurant review based on actual experience or reflection of the way it used to be? There is real value in understanding the objection as well as the recommendation.

The best people to turn to are people that have traveled this road before. These people have been through some sort of evaluation process and came to a conclusion. If they moved forward with a purchase or entered into an agreement to move forward, they will have a first-hand view of the relative success of their decision. We may not agree with their decision process or even their eventual choice, but we will have another data point from another perspective to base the formation of our perspective.

We need to be prepared to sort through the advice and separate the fact from opinion. Both are good, but we use them in different ways. The facts are the things that actually happened or are directly provable as part of our evaluation, while opinion is the qualitative review of the decision and can vary with the bias and experience of the person providing the feedback. Both are good forms of input and ultimately help paint an accurate portrayal of the opportunity. We just need to be sure that we separate the two in our consideration of the appropriate action to take.

Now that we are more deeply informed, we will need to consider all of the input and synthesize a perspective. Considering the facts, opinions and experiences we will need to decide which point of view best represents our findings. There will be facts that help us understand the full dimensions of our choice and opinions that both support our inclination and challenge it. Ultimately, we will have to make a decision, but now we are at a point of much higher knowledge upon which to base our decision. Having completed our analysis, we can make our decision and know that we made the best decision we could at the time.

So how can we seek advice to improve our decision making? Here are 4 tips for seeking advice:

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Take Time to Process

4 Tips to make time for processing

Take Time to Process

A lot of things happened today, and the day before, and last week, well come to think of it last month as well and we have been really busy. And that is the problem, we have been so busy and inundated with information and events, and we have not had time to process all of it.

By some estimates we see over 5,000 advertisements per day. Some of us receive well over 100 emails per day. Then there are the tweets, text messages, news stories on the Internet, 24 hour cable news and commentaries; some of which we agreed with and other we found unsettling. In addition there were the comments made by friends and acquaintances that we did not fully internalize, then there was that comment from the boss, and that peculiar look from across the room to the comment we made. Wonder what that was about?

That is a lot of communication with a lot of information and that was just today. Each day is similar, from the time we get up to the time we go to bed we are flooded with incoming communications. What is worse we are enabling this flood by maximizing our exposure through the use of our technological devices such as smartphones, tablets, computers, laptops, television, radio, podcasts, video sharing and more. We have communications input devices in front of our faces most of our conscious hours.

Here is another thought, when was the last time we were bored? I mean really bored with nothing to do? We are so addicted to this flood of input that a recent study indicates that some of us would rather receive an electric shock than spend 15 minutes alone with ourselves. We have shortened our span of attention to the point we do not even know what to do when we have a few minutes to ourselves.

We need time to process. When in all of this busyness do we get the time to process all of this input? When do we get the chance to reconcile all of the various conflicting information, or consider the important things that were said or reflect on the things that did not seem to fit with our thinking or understand the strange reaction to something that was said?

And then when do we have the time to deal with the emotions as we start to analyze today’s happenings, when do we purge the things that do not matter and put away the thoughts that we want to keep?

Pretty soon we find that we are not the people we want to be. We are stressed, confused, tired, anxious and impatient. We find ourselves surprised at our own overreaction to what should be minor annoyances and are unnerved at how unprepared we feel for everything.

Processing time is essential to our well being. We need time alone with our own thoughts to think through our experiences and deal with the emotional baggage. Some of our thoughts are helpful for the future and need to be placed in our long-term storage. Others need to be considered and discarded. We need time to live through the emotional replay of the input and deal with the implications. Once the emotions are played out we need time to resolve the outcome into new actions or opinions. We need time to let the bad emotions out and go away. We need time to straighten up our mental house, put things away and to take out the trash.

Some of this can be dealt with by our subconscious while we sleep but there is a portion that we have to process while we are awake. These thoughts cannot be ignored. We are hard-wired to make the connection between our conscious thinking and our subconscious. We can’t solve or let go of problems if we don’t allow ourselves time to think about them.

Our creativity stems from our ability to put new ideas together when we are not processing the past. Our deepest thinking happens when we are able to empty our minds and let it roam through our experiences to help us rationalize our reality and apply new approaches. We have to be able to empty our minds of the inputs we have backlogged to be able to have forward thinking. When we do not provide sufficient time for thinking and processing we are actually lowering our productivity. Our busyness and multi-tasking actually produce less than if we take some time just to process.

So how do we get more time to process? Here are 4 tips to make time for processing:

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Take Time to Listen

4 Tips for better listening

Take Time to Listen

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” — Winston Churchill

Take time to listen to people. It is easy advice and it makes sense and yet seems very hard to incorporate as a habit. We are all very busy and when we get the chance to communicate one-on-one we often find that we are not really listening to the other person, we are just using the time that they are speaking to frame-up our next thought. That is not communication, that is speechmaking. Communication requires that someone is listening.

While stating our opinion and offering advice feels good and is important, there are times when refraining from talking and just pausing to listen can be even more effective and persuasive. Listening without distraction, really listening to the other person can help us better understand the issue being discussed. By taking time to truly listen we also provide space for the other person to provide perspective that may alter our next thought. Additionally, pausing to listen provides the feedback that we value their opinion.

While this seems readily apparent, it is not our common practice. We tend to pause to allow the other person to talk but not process what they are saying and just use the time to formulate our next attack on their perspective. Sometimes we use the filibuster technique of monopolizing the available time for conversation under the belief that if the other person does not get a chance to object, they must agree. Of course, in reality that does not work, it only serves as a barrier to keep the other persons perspective out of the conversation (or should I say monologue). In fact it really sets up conflict as the other person has to battle to get their perspective heard at all.

We will be much more effective leaders and partners if we take the time to listen; really listen. Stop, take a breath, ask a leading question and then listen to what the other person has to say. Chances are we actually value what the other person has to say or we would not have allowed the opportunity for this conversation to take place. We benefit from the perspective of other people, so let the other person talk. We will probably learn something as well as reinforce a give-and-take relationship for future conversations.

Nothing bad is going to happen to us as a result of listening. We can always ignore the advice or feedback if it does not fit. We do not always believe everything we hear, but hearing it does give us the opportunity to evaluate our perspective. There is no downside to being a good listener.

We all could do a better job of listening. Here are some tips for being a better listener:

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Personal Vision

A quick process to create a personal vision statement

Personal Vision

What do we want to be when we grow up? Certainly when we were much younger that was a question we often answered with some type of hero-like image. Firefighter, police officer, nurse, doctor, or other larger than life image that served as a type of super hero to our impressionable minds. As we view ourselves, what is it we want to be? How do we want other people to see us? What drives our satisfaction? What qualities do we hold valuable and what accomplishments will make the biggest difference to us and others?

Our vision sets an image of ourselves in the future having achieved things that seem impossible at the moment. Our vision represents an unconstrained picture of what we want to be without regard to the seemingly impossibility of the achievement at this point. We need to dream big, imagining not only the material aspects of our lives, but relationships, connections, lifestyle and spirituality. We need to imagine the best possible scenario for our everyday existence that pushes all of our positive buttons. This is our “If we can dream it, we can do it” moment, no holds barred in our thinking.

To a large degree it comes down to how do you define success? In all likelihood it is more than the accumulation of material things. History has proven many times over that the accumulation of material things as an end in itself will not be fully satisfying. For many the raw accumulation of wealth without a purpose will not be a satisfier as an end point as well.

Our satisfaction is driven by our achievement for a purpose and our connectedness to the world around us. The old adage is that very few people in their end days say I wish I had spent more time at work. They more typically say I wish I had spent more time with people, family and friends. So our vision must include our total being and not just the material aspects of our existence.

What do we want our life to be like when we get there? There is more to life than just work and achievement, what is the value of the achievement? We need to think about who we will be helping and how those around us are better off as a result of the things we have done. To achieve less will be a hollow victory when we realize that the result was less than the best we could have done. We will be disappointed when we realize the excellence target was missed because we did not fully consider how we impact others and the satisfaction we draw from that accomplishment.

So what does a vision statement do?

  • It describes who/what I want to be in the future (when I grow up)
  • It answers the question, where do I want to be?
  • It paints a picture of what I want to be on some time horizon, say five to ten years
  • It inspires me to be more than what I am today

Now let’s create our personal vision statement.

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There is Nobody Like You

4 practical tips for being you

There is Nobody Like You

“We are perfectly designed to be who we are.” — Skip Gilbert

We are each individual masterful creations, unique in our talents, experiences and our dreams. There is nobody like us and nobody else can fulfill our mission. We are perfectly designed to be who we are. Sometimes we lose track of who we are or why we are here. It is easy to be swept up in the busyness of the days that turn into the busyness of the years and lose track of just how valuable we are. It is easy to be swept into the thinking that we are part of a group and transfer our identity to being a member of that group and not realize the we are fully unique in every way. While the path toward the future may be hazy, the trail we leave is perfectly clear.

Interesting enough, as I look back on my career, I can see that it was in fact a straight path to where I am now. Each piece lined up to facilitate the success of the next step and allowed me to continue on my journey toward excellence.

In hindsight I see that what I learned in one situation I was able to apply to the next and keep my progress moving forward. The path change only facilitated the growth to the point where I am now as a unique individual. Nobody else has been down the path I have been down and nobody has had the same experiences and shares precisely the same talents. As a unique individual I am at the point of being a unique asset to any situation or organization that solicits my assistance.

It is the same of for all of us, we are all unique individuals with a unique set of talents and experiences. Nobody else has the same background or has the exact same history. The perspective we have developed is uniquely our own and that makes us a highly valuable resource overall.

We are on a unique journey and have a unique mission that only we can accomplish. It does not matter what others think is the right path to get to the destination, our path is unique and all our own. It is that uniqueness that leads to our ability to provide a perspective unlike anyone else.

Sometimes we wander off our path and try to be like others, but it is really a wasted effort. They have a unique set of talents and experiences and as a result they have a unique perspective all their own. We can never really think like someone else so to try to do so is just a waste of time. We are pursuing our own destiny and we are the only ones that will be at the destination at the end of our journey.

There will always be someone better than we are. No matter how hard we try, there will always be someone more capable, more experienced with a reputation as a greater authority. There will always be someone who is more attractive, has more money, more outgoing or more talented. It is just the way things are. We will never be the best at anything other than being ourselves.

However, we should never let that stand in our way. Our mission does not require their talents and capabilities, our mission is uniquely designed that only we can fulfill the requirements. There is nobody better at being us than we are.

Now let’s go forward and with the full confidence of our unique value, be ourselves.

Here are some practical steps for being ourselves:

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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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Perform at Our Personal Best

4 tips for achieving our personal best

Perform at Our Personal Best

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence. — Confucius

Do we perform at our personal best everyday? Are we keeping track of our personal best in the areas that matter most to us? Are we familiar with the concept of setting a personal best? These are great questions to ask of ourselves and great food for thought. To perform at our best we need to keep track of our performance so we can celebrate our success and learn from our challenges.

Part of accomplishing our goals is tracking our progress against those goals. As important as it is to create our goals so that we have direction for our activities, it is equally important that we keep track of our progress toward those goals. When we created goals we made sure that they were going to lead us in the right direction and we probably used a technique such as SMART goals to identify them.

If you are not familiar with the SMART goals process, here is a quick overview:

Specific – Exactly what we want to achieve
Measurable – Set a metric that can be tracked
Actionable – Stated to take action like run 3 miles in less than 30 minutes
Realistic – A stretch but not something impossible
Time-bound – Identify a time that it will be accomplished by

Using the SMART technique we will create goals that we can actually use and ensure that we are making progress in our intended direction.

A key part of the SMART goal is making it measurable. With this we are able to understand our starting point and how we are progressing toward accomplishing this goal. Since it is measurable we can track our progress and use that progress as a motivational tool to encourage our performance. We can see if we are succeeding and celebrate our success or challenge ourselves if we are behind in our progress. With this we are able to see how we are progressing and adjust our approach as necessary.

A great technique for measuring our progress is to create a spreadsheet or create a grid on paper that identifies the starting point for our goal and then provides space to update our current status. Using the running example, if my overall goal is to run 3 miles in less than 30 minutes, then I might setup a calendar and write the number of minutes it took me to run the 3 miles each day. I could convert that to a chart if I am analytical in nature and see my progress or I could give myself a star every time I achieved my goal.

Another great technique and a quick way to see how we are doing is to identify our personal best in our tracking log. Our personal best is the best time or highest level of achievement that we have had so far on our journey to our goal. We could circle or highlight it in our log but also just put it on a sticky note or on our desktop as a reminder of our accomplishment to-date. By doing this it gives us a great target for our next attempt.

Our progress will not always be linear meaning that todays performance may not be better than our last attempt. We may be trying some new technique or approach or just not be able to deliver a better performance than our last time every time. It does however give us a target that is just a little better than last time and something obtainable with just a little better performance. Beating our target keeps us motivated and provides the sense of accomplishment that we need to push ourselves into ever better performance.

Here are some practical tips for achieving our personal best: