Tag Archives: Productivity

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Servant Leader

4 Tips for becoming a better Servant-Leader

Servant Leader

“We succeed when we help other succeed.” — Skip Gilbert

Are we leaders or rulers? Do we tell people what to do or do we support the needs of those producing the results? The answer to these questions may very well set the tone for our success or limit our results.

As a leader, when we view the hierarchy of our organization, do we see ourselves at the top or bottom of the pyramid? Do we see ourselves sitting at the top of the chart needing to direct a group that follows our commands or do we see ourselves at the bottom of the chart facilitating the productive accomplishment of our mission? Let me ask this in a different way, are we leading an organization that needs to be told what to do next, or are we enabling the resources in our care to deliver their best performance in accomplishment of our goals? The answer makes a big difference in the type of organization we will build and our ultimate success.

If we see ourselves as the top of the organization and those below us as a necessary means to execute our commands, then we most likely subscribe to an autocratic style of leadership. In this model we typically prefer to have clearly defined tasks and closely monitor the activity and results. We prefer to make the decisions and highly value those that can follow our instructions. We generally leverage our experience and observations to make decisions that are intended to produce the outcomes we desire.

If we see ourselves as sitting at the bottom of an inverted triangle in our organization chart, we most likely view our role as being one of setting a vision, empowering teams or individuals to meet our goals and helping to facilitate their success. In this model we typically see ourselves as a servant-leader, one that sees a world bigger than just ourselves. This model is characterized by seeking a high level of participation in decision-making and delegating the work to those more capable to deliver. We generally benefit from gathering information and experiences from a broader audience to make a more informed decision that has greater buy-in. Having produced a decision, we then see our role as serving those that will execute the work and supporting their needs and efforts.

So which is smarter, a single individual or a the collective wisdom of many perspectives? Who knows the true outcome of a decision better, the people that perform the work or an individual that interjects their perception of the work? In most cases the likelihood of success is enhanced by having greater input into a decision with a larger buy-in to the outcome. In most instances the higher level of participation will yield greater ownership of the decision and better results.

So how does this work? I have finally achieved a level of responsibility and authority to have a larger level of influence in my organization and you are telling me that I now work for them? Exactly!! There is only so much work we can accomplish as an individual. Even with more hands and feet available to do our bidding, they can only accomplish what we instruct them to do and are limited to doing it the way we have instructed it to be done. As a leader, this will quickly become a limiting factor in the ability of our organization to adapt to ever-changing conditions and to overcome obstacles. In addition, we are not being good stewards of our resources by not tapping into their vast knowledge and experience to collectively produce a better result.

This can be really uncomfortable for the truly autocratic-style leader. Being in charge and forcing what seems like better decisions may feel comfortable. However in the end it will be our downfall. Once we run out of ideas and those around us become dependent on us to do their thinking, we will be at the limit of our organization’s capability.

As a smart leader, we are better serving the needs of our organization and our goals when we provide a vision, engage the thinking of our resources and then help them accomplish their work. It does not mean becoming passive in our role or accepting mediocrity as an operating norm. Quite the opposite, it requires an intelligent, engaged and confident leader to operate in this manner. It means setting a vision and clearing the road for our resources. It means involving more people in decision-making and helping to develop their thinking to make better decisions.

Here are 4 tips for being a servant-leader:

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The Path to Success is Paved with Learning

4 Tips for Continual Growth

The Path to Success is Paved with Learning

“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning” — Benjamin Franklin

The world is constantly changing, it has been and always will be. It is also a universal truth that our ability to prosper in a changing environment is dependent on our willingness to continually invest in our personal development through life-long learning. There is no shortcut and at the same time there is no higher return on investment available to us to increase our success, fortunes, and satisfaction. Investing in our ability to adapt and increasing our capability have no downside and for the most part cost us little beyond the work of executing a planned strategy.

We need to continue to grow which means developing our capabilities. When we stop learning we are stuck where we are. The world around us is going to continue to change and advance. If we are not willing to at least keep pace with the change, we will be left behind and just keeping pace with the change will not move us toward our goals. To thrive in a changing environment requires that we are developing our capabilities in a planned direction, with sufficient depth to increase our ability to provide value.

We master change through continuous learning. As an individual and a leader, continuous learning is about upgrading our skills and increasing our knowledge to be able to provide solutions in the future to questions that have not yet been asked. It is about combining our experiences with new ideas to have a better ability to adapt to new or different circumstances. Continuous learning involves viewing every experience as a learning opportunity and updating our understanding with the new information. We subjugate change to a common condition as we add to our knowledge and understanding and then apply our learnings to our environment. The very act of moving forward results in change and we become accustomed to change as a common component of every day life.

Our goals include personal growth. Continuous learning is such an important element in our personal growth and success that we should not leave it to chance. As we develop our annual development plans in alignment with our long-term career goals, it is important to identify specific educational and stretch-assignment opportunities to grow our experience. Ensuring that our goals have specific learning opportunities identified increases our understanding and enhances our capabilities.

The primary purpose of continual learning is to help us enhance our capabilities so that we are more effective in the future than we were in the past. This is the fundamental definition of the pursuit of personal excellence. In order to gain greater satisfaction from the results of our efforts, it is essential that we increase our capability. By investing in ourselves through continuous learning we enable ourselves to deal with future issues more effectively than we do today. We enable our future.

I have provided a framework for pursuing personal excellent in my book EXCELLENCE: You CAN Get There From Here! In the book I have outlined both a system for evaluating our strengths and talents and setting long-term goals and a process for pursuing those goals leading to greater personal success and satisfaction. These processes work together to help us set a direction and utilize continuous learning to maximize our ability to pursue personal excellence. We should not leave something as important as our personal success to the random whims of circumstance. If we are to be successful, we need to plan our success.

Here are 4 tips for achieving continual learning:

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Embrace Who We Are

4 Tips for embracing who we are

Embrace Who We Are

“We are who we are” — Skip Gilbert

Do you ever feel the pressure to be like someone else? At times do you feel like everyone else seems to know more, be brighter, have more experience, or be more capable? Do you feel unsure of your suggestions because other people have differing perspectives? I know these thoughts have crossed my mind at times.

We need to embrace who we are and not try to be someone else. We are a collection of unique experiences, talents and skills. No one else has the same experiences combined with the same things we have learned. No one else has our exact education, social, or work experiences. Nobody has seen all the things we have seen, thought the things we have thought, learned the things we have learned, lived where we have lived, all combined into a single person. It is no wonder we feel like sometimes we don’t fit in. How could we? We are very unique individuals and anyone that tries to push us into a common mold is simply misguided. We are highly valuable and unique resources with a perspective that nobody else has.

Think about yesterday. There was not anyone with us every minute of the day. During that day we experienced new things as well as other things that either reinforced our opinions and perspectives or changed them. From just that one day alone we have a different perspective from anyone else on how the day went.

The path of our life is unique and distinct. We are the only one to have walked down this path. We have a unique set of experiences, molded and shaped by a unique set of circumstances and events. It is a journey that we are on alone, though there may be others with us at various points in time. We have a unique perspective and it is just as valid as anyone else’s. We have not come to our opinions lightly, but by what we have experienced and learned along the way.

Keep in mind that we are all unique people. Everyone around us is on their own journey as well. As a result they have formed their own perspective, based on their unique journey. From their perspective, their opinions and conclusions are just as valid as ours. Here lies the challenge and the opportunity. Each person has a unique set of opinions and conclusions based on their experience that may or may not align with ours or other’s perspective. But to that individual, they are solid conclusions.

As a smart leader, we recognize that everyone is vested in their opinion. We need to be sure to value that diversity and treat those opinions with care. If we need to help change someone’s mind, we should not imply that they are wrong, that would only setup a boundary. To influence a change in opinion we need to offer new information or perspective that will align with the experiences of the other person. We need to approach it carefully, thoughtfully, with respect and allow the other person to assimilate the change into their perspective.

There isn’t anyone else like us and there never will be. We are one of a kind, the only one; the original us. We should take pride in our journey and recognize that our perspectives come from our years of experience and knowledge. We were there for every learning and accomplishment. We know what we know and we should be confident in our ability to contribute.

Each one of us can be a better me. As I point out in the book EXCELLENCE: You CAN Get There From Here!, we are a work in process. When we choose to pursue Excellence, we put ourselves on a path of continuous improvement. We need to create goals, leverage learning opportunities and gain knowledge from those around us. Each one of us can always be a better me.

Here are 4 tips for embracing who we are:

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Focus on Solutions

4 Tips to focus on solutions

Focus on Solutions

Nothing can be done about the past, but the future is ours to mold. — Skip Gilbert

Are your days perfectly in control or are you like the rest of us, surrounded by chaos? For most of us we continually battle against changes in priorities, miscommunications, actions that are not what we expected, and things that require our energy and attention to address. Chaos arrives in our inbox with ongoing frequency, our phone rings with problems or new demands and nothing seems to be going forward as planned. The mounting pressures can become overwhelming and no matter how hard we work, there is not enough time to fix everything. If this describes some of your days, welcome to the crowd.

As our inbox fills with issues we have to make a choice, we can either see these as problems or opportunities for solutions. That choice can have a huge impact on what we do, how we feel and how effective we are. Our choice will set our state of mind and that will dictate our emotional reaction to the situation. If we choose to see the issue as a problem, then we are going to be expending emotional energy reacting to the issue. Emotions such as anger, fear and doubt will take us down a path of worst case scenarios and negative outcomes, all of which require energy. Energy that does nothing to eliminate the issue, only serves to increase our anxiety around the situation.

A better response is to focus on the solution. What is done is done. Nothing can be done about what has happened in the past. Even if the news is something unexpected or unfavorable the fact that you are now dealing with it is as a result of something having happened in the past. Nothing can be done about the past, all we have is now and what we are going to do next. We are better served by focusing on the solution and putting the emotion behind us. It’s part of Emotional Intelligence.

Focusing on the solution allows us to expend our energy on overcoming the issue and getting to a better place. A place that does not include this issue. It puts us in control of our circumstances and makes better use of our energy to resolve the issue. It allows us to logically draw upon our experience and skills with a clarity unencumbered by emotion. We can layout the facts, look at alternative courses of action and find a solution, one that takes us away from this current issue or problem.

Why dwell on the past, what might have happened or what caused us to get to that point? We can address those issues once we get the problem resolved. For now we focus on the solution. We find a way forward and replace our negative emotions with hope and encouragement. We plan a way to make things better and move ahead bringing feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.

It is up to us to set the tone for our own thoughts. We can be the victim and see everything as a problem or we can focus on the solution and resolve the issue. We can wallow in fear and worry or move into accomplishment and satisfaction. It all depends on our choice. I choose to focus on the solution, how about you?

Here are 4 tips to focus on the solution:

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Return on Influence

4 tips for managing our Return on Influence

Return on Influence

“We influence people around us with every interaction” — Skip Gilbert

As a leader our success is measured by our ability to meet our goals and the goals of the business. We either achieve our goals or we don’t. It is a relatively simple exercise to understand our accomplishments and where we stand compared to our expectations. Something that is much more difficult to measure is our effectiveness as a leader. Are we leading by attraction or by command? How many people follow us and do they do so willingly or under duress? Are we producing the maximum results that our teams can deliver or are we holding them back? These are interesting questions and the answers are critical to our continued success.

Ultimately, we lead by influence. As an effective leader we call upon the good sense and imagination of those around us to join in our vision and help move our efforts to a better state of existence. We set a compelling vision, offer practical ways to get started, help our teams see that the future is better than the present and ask them to engage in getting us there. We are rarely able to do this alone or even directly with our own team. We generally need the support of others around us to participate in the effort. Since we cannot do it by ourselves and we need the assistance of others to accomplish it we do it by influence.

There is a term increasingly being recognized in digital marketing called Return on Influence. This term is being constructed to indicate the indirect benefit of exposure in other venues, such as social media to increase traffic on the originator’s site. The idea being that the more others hear positive commentary about a product or service, the more likely they are to seek out the product or service. It is a term of indirect influence rather than a measure of direct advertising.

The concept of Return on Influence is an interesting way of considering our effectiveness as a leader. Since a great deal of our ability to achieve goals is dependent on influencing others to commit their time and energy to our cause, how our influence impacts the results is worth managing. We need the people around us to think positively of our leadership and openly support our efforts to move forward. We need our influence to carry the positive message even when we are not present in the conversation.

We influence people around us with every interaction. Our greeting in the hallway, the expression on our faces when deep in thought, the tone and substance of our email, the words we say, the way we react to things others say, these are all points of influence. As leaders, people are watching us at every moment. They are trying to understand who we are, if we are sincere, and most importantly are we trustworthy. They want to know that their leader is intelligent and well informed as well as human. They are constantly trying to get the measure of us as a person as well as decide if it is safe to follow our lead. This scrutiny just comes with the job. It is part of the pleasure and burden of leading people, especially highly talented people.

The great news is that since we know that we are being observed and our thoughts and actions are influencing their thoughts and behaviors, we can make sure that we are doing the things that help further our ability to lead and achieve our goals. We need to consider our every action and comment through the the eyes of those who are evaluating us as leaders. Even the little things matter.

We have a large influence when we speak in meetings and through our written correspondence. We need to take the time to make sure that the tone we are delivering is the tone we want people to hear. We need to make sure we are prepared and engaged when we participate in these meetings. The behavior we display will quickly be imitated by those around us and will become the norm. We need to make sure that the norm we set is the behavior we want to see.

Interestingly, the informal times we engage with our teams and individual resources may play an even larger part in the effectiveness of our influence. We need to make sure we are pleasant and courteous to those we meet. We need to be engaging and acknowledge other people as we pass. We need to be able to engage in personal conversation, even when we are busy or distracted. We need to be encouraging and recognize the contributions of others, even in the small things. Remember, our ability to achieve great things depends on others to willingly follow us. If they cannot relate to us, they will not give us their very best.

We get our return on this investment as people embrace our vision and invest their own passion and energy into achieving or exceeding our goals. This is where all of the time and effort we spent engaging with others and making sure we set the best example possible has the payoff. This is where the example of Excellence we display comes back multiplied by those around us. This is how we succeed. This is our Return on Influence.

Here are 4 tips for managing our Return on Influence:

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Be Transparent

4 Tips for being more transparent

Be Transparent

“Keeping the destination a secret only makes the journey more challenging” — Skip Gilbert

To be an effective leader we must be transparent in our actions and communications. If we can trust ourselves and be trusted by others, being transparent is a powerful thing. If we are not confident in our leadership skills or do not believe in our people, then this will be a difficult thing for us to do.

To be transparent as a leader has many different meanings, but put simply transparency is consistently behaving in a way that is predictable and authentic. This means no surprises. Transparency is making things clear. Being transparent does not mean being an open book
or telling everything we know. There are some things such as trade secrets, financial disclosures, negotiations and other common sense things that must remain confidential.

We need to disclose all that we can, especially if it impacts our resources or changes our direction. People want to know that their leaders have a direction, have experience with current challenges and have a solution or can describe the path to find one.

Our employees will quickly detect if we are not being fully forthcoming with them. They will conclude that there must be something bad we are hiding from them if we are not openly sharing. This will cause them to lose confidence in the direction and start to distrust the communications they are receiving from their leaders.

We need to share our vision and be prepared to sell the benefits of the future state with our teams. They need to understand where we are going. After all, they are the ones that are going to take us there. Keeping the destination a secret only makes the journey more challenging for others to know if they are doing the right thing.

Trust and transparency go hand-in-hand. Employees seek to sort out what is real and true. They expect their leaders to be forthcoming in sharing where the company is headed and honest about its future. They want transparency so they can understand where they fit in the picture. They first of all want to know how they are personally impacted and then ensure that the changes match with their values.

Transparency is a necessary condition for building trust. When we are not transparent people will fill the gap with their worst fears. In an information vacuum, people assume that it must be bad for them or they would be included in the conversation.

The digital age has changed the levels of transparency that people expect. Consistent transparency is the easiest way to build trust however it does not happen quickly. Email, videos, text messages and other social media can spread perceptions faster than we can redirect them. The only way to stay ahead of that rumor mill is to always be open and consistent in our message and keep the skeptics from dominating the conversation.

The reason some leaders are not transparent is because they believe they will be viewed as less authoritative; they will lose their power, leverage and perceived authority. It is challenging to be a leader and there are times when we may not have all of the information to make a perfect decision. Some managers fear that not being perfect will expose their weaknesses and they hide behind an information vacuum to make sure they are not exposed. None of us are perfect and always right. That is not a realistic expectation and when we are open and transparent, people can see our authenticity. That authenticity actually builds our credibility and makes us a more trustworthy leader in the eyes of those around us.

Employees will enthusiastically follow a leader who demonstrates a true desire to see people succeed. Employees need leaders who want the best for their team members and will do what they can to help employees achieve their goals. We need to show that we are invested in their success and that we are part of the team, not just the people in charge of it.

Effective leaders are confident in themselves, and they project that attitude to those around them. We need to respect the views of others and treat everyone fairly, never speaking negatively about anyone or discouraging them from trying new things.

Most employees want to do their best. They want to believe in their managers and they want their managers to believe in them. A mature leader conveys that we have a stake in individual and team success. Effective leaders continually have their teams’ perspective in mind. We need to create an air of authenticity around ourselves. We project an image of confidence and success that becomes contagious such that our team will willingly go in the direction we set.

It can be hard to measure if we truly are a transparent leader. Here are some questions to help us assess if we are being transparent:

  • Do we genuinely express our thoughts and opinions?
  • Does our message remain the same, regardless of the audience?
  • When we can’t divulge information, do we help people understand why?
  • Do we keep our commitments?
  • Do we admit our own mistakes without blaming others?
  • Do we ask questions, listen to the answers and new ideas?
  • Do we value the feedback of others?
  • Are we candid, open and honest?

The following are 4 tips for ensuring that we are transparent in our leadership:

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Play From the Same Sheet of Music

4 Tips to ensure alignment

Play From the Same Sheet of Music


Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment. — Jim Collins

Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone seemed to be headed in a different direction on the same topic? Ever been in a situation where nobody seems to agree on what we are supposed to be doing or what we are trying to accomplish? I think we have all been there and it is not only unproductive, but demoralizing. When we experience this, we know we are a long way away from being a high performance organization.

When everyone has a different interpretation of what is being asked or does not really understand the vision, we do not have alignment on what we are trying to do or where we are going. Without clear communication and leadership we are all left to wander around the topic trying to persuade others to join our solution when in fact we are not even all working on the same problem. Just having a vision is often not enough, we need to have alignment around the vision to come to a common understanding.

So what is alignment and how do we describe it? According to Wikipedia, “Strategic alignment is the process and the result of linking an organization’s structure and resources with its strategy and business environment (regulatory, physical, etc.) Strategic alignment enables higher performance by optimizing the contributions of people, processes, and inputs to the realization of measurable objectives and, thus, minimizing waste and misdirection of effort and resources to unintended or unspecified purposes”.

There is a lot of substance to this definition and more than we can cover in a single article. For the purpose of this discussion let’s focus on the second part “…higher performance by optimizing the contributions of people, processes,…” When we take the time to ensure we have alignment around where we are going or what we are trying to accomplish (our vision), we enable resources to focus their energy on developing a solution rather than debating the objective. It creates a better efficiency in our use of resources and ultimately allows them to produce a better result in less time.

Though sometimes overused, the metaphor of the relationship of the orchestra conductor and the musical score to the musicians is a great example of alignment. Imagine a conductor in front of a sellout crowd at the music hall stepping up to the podium and expecting the orchestra to play a complicated piece of music without anyone actually having a sheet of music. While the highly talented and experienced musicians probably have familiarity with the music in concept, there is no way for them to join together or even know where they are at any point in the performance. The conductor may think he is leading the orchestra, but in fact all he is doing is waving his arms. Without the sheet music, there is no way for the orchestra to be in alignment even though they are assembled in front of a leader.

Much like the conductor, we need to make sure that everyone has the sheet of music (alignment) to create a solution. In addition we need to be sure that everyone is at the same place in the music with a full understanding of where we are headed and what we are trying to accomplish. By taking time to make sure we have alignment, we are ensuring that we are producing an environment that will allow our resources to work more efficiently and produce better results.

Here are 4 tips for ensuring we have alignment:

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Keep Moving Forward

4 Tips to keep moving forward

Keep Moving Forward

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney

Are there times when you just feel overwhelmed? How about those days when nothing seems to be going right, have any of those? Have you or someone you known faced a significant heath or financial crisis? Most of us have at one point or another and we are likely to face more in the future. Sometimes life throws some big challenges our way. What can we do?

We will all most likely face stressful times and hard decisions in our lifetime. These events will happen, usually not by our own making, and most often without warning. As these things occur we have two choices. We can either face the challenge and find ways to keep moving forward or we can surrender. We can either assess the situation and find a way to get to the next day, or not. Clearly the or not option is not a viable solution, so it really leaves us with the move forward option.

People who have faced difficult challenges tell us that the only really solution is to find the strength to move forward. Today may appear bleak and perhaps even hopeless, but if we can find the will to make it to tomorrow we will find that we are one day closer to our solution. When we are able to focus on getting to tomorrow we are in the process of moving forward.

There are many people facing difficult circumstances everyday and if we are one of them then we know the challenge of moving forward. Fortunately, for most of us we are not facing dire circumstances and we should be grateful for that blessing. Nonetheless, most of us feel the stress of things not going our way and have the same feelings as those in dire circumstances though perhaps to a lesser extent.

When we face difficult circumstances either personally or professionally, the best thing we can do is “put one foot in front of the other” and keep moving forward. There is no future in looking back, after all the future is in front of us. Looking back allows our emotions to relive the event and does nothing to help us get to the next opportunity.

Most of the things we fear never happen to us, they are just projections of our imagination. Sometimes we tend to view our current circumstances through a negative lens and only see more negativity in front of us. The reality is that most of the things we fear will not actually happen to us. Our fear is mostly driven by projecting ourselves into other people’s difficult situations. Our empathy for them can make us feel as though we are there and allow us to relive an event that we have never truly experienced.

Our worry is just wasted energy. Worrying about things that most likely will never happen engages us to focus on things that fortunately we will never experience. When bad things do happen, they usually happen in unexpected ways. And here is the thing, we are so resilient that when something bad happens, we almost always find a way to rise above the issue. We would not have gotten this far if our first action was to surrender.

When things are not going our way, the best thing we can do is to keep moving forward. Find a way to get to the next day and things will be better. Hang in there and give ourselves a chance to find a solution. Tomorrow will open a new door and we need to see where it leads.

Here are 4 tips for helping us continue to keep us moving forward:

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Trust is Essential for Success

4 Tips for establishing and maintaining trust

Trust is Essential for Success

Do we trust those around us? Do those around us trust us? How does trust impact the performance of our teams? How does trust impact our success? These are great questions and the answers have a great impact on how we are perceived and our success. Trust is the fundamental currency of leadership.

Trust is the foundation of high performance. Before others are willing to go the extra distance to help us achieve our goals, they must be able to trust that our interest aligns with their interest. If we are not trustworthy or those around us are not trustworthy then the basic foundation of high performance is broken. There must be a firm belief in place that what is good for us is good for me. Without that firm belief there will always be doubt and reservation around the risks we are taking and the result it may produce. Where there is doubt or insecurity at the personal level, people will not give their best. In order for people to put it all on the line for a result they must trust that the result will be in their best interest.

So what is trust? Dictionary.com defines trust as “Firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” Essentially, trust is believing in something or someone to such an extent that they can be taken at their word. If they say it or convey it, then it can be believed. The “it” can be a vision, request or most any action, but the key is that people are willing to follow because they have faith in the reliability and credibility of the person making the request. We are more likely to follow a leader because they are trustworthy. We are more likely to achieve what they ask because they have earned our trust.

The benefits of trust are quantifiable and are significant. Organizations that are led by leaders that can be trusted significantly out-achieve those where their leaders are not trusted. Research conducted by The Forum cites 10 years of findings that high trust organizations have some major advantages:

  • 16% greater profit margin
  • 19% greater operating margin
  • 18% greater productivity
  • 2.6 times the earning-per-share growth of less-trusting companies

These are significant findings. These are core business metrics that all businesses are striving to achieve. As we can see trust in leadership has a direct correlation to superior business performance. Building and maintaining trust in an organization should be one of the core goals and key metrics to measure the success of the leadership of any organization or business. It has a direct link to business performance and the bottom line.

So how do we build and maintain trust? It starts with keeping our word. People need to believe that we will keep our word and deliver on our promises before they will fully trust us. When we make a commitment, we must keep it without excuses or failure. Even the way we make the promise is important. It must be clear and solid. It cannot be built on vague words that sound good on the surface but can be bent to have different meanings. Our statements must be clear and precise. If people are to have trust in us, they must have faith that we mean what we say and that if we say it we will do it.

We must always tell the truth and be transparent. Misleading in any way or not telling the whole truth or misleading by not including key facts will diminish trust. Our word becomes our currency and if our word is not rock solid, it will not have value. We have to be careful not to make promises that we cannot keep. In the event we find that we cannot fully deliver on a promise, we must come forward with full transparency and help others see that the results were from circumstances beyond our control. To say one thing and do another will severely diminish our credibility and trust will go out the window.

Employee trust is strongly connected to the organization’s transparency. Studies have shown that as organizations become more transparent they will become more trusted and therefore produce better results. Being transparent means doing a good job of sharing information with our teams and not hiding problems. Often we can produce better results by openly explaining the problem and including our teams in the problem solving. This serves not only to build trust, but leverages ideas and involvement which will yield better results with deeper ownership of the solution. By being transparent and open about the issues and solutions and in effect “showing our work”, we build trust and credibility with those around us.

The net result is that building trust through being open, honest and consistent allows others to invest in our ideas and actions and yields better results. Leadership is most effective when everyone is pulling together toward a goal without fear or reservation. As leaders, trust is perhaps our most valuable asset in creating commitment and producing results. Trust builds relationships and unlocks the future. It is one of our biggest levers; it should be one of our biggest concerns.

Here are 4 tips for establishing and maintaining trust:

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Trust Our Intuition

4 Tips on trusting our intuition

Trust Our Intuition

Have you ever been faced with making a quick decision without all of the facts? Have you ever had a feeling that one path was better than another? Or have you ever gathered a lot of information but it is still not clear what to do, yet you have to make a decision anyway? I know I face that situation on a regular basis, either there is not enough time or information and a decision needs to be made now. In times like that we have no choice but to follow our intuition.

So what is our intuition and how is it different than instinct? Intuition is a process of using our knowledge and experience to know or decide something without analytic reasoning. On the other hand, our instinct is a feeling or hunch in reaction to a specific event or situation.

Both are valuable and helpful when used appropriately. Our instincts are probably more deeply rooted in our DNA and past experiences. The word instinct comes form the word “instinctus” or “impulse” meaning the body’s biological tendency to make one choice over another. They are things like the gut feeling we get when we see an event or react to a threat. It doesn’t require thought, it is a reaction to a stimulus. Our instinct will be to duck if something is thrown at us. It is the way we want to react when insulted, it is our first reaction when something quickly changes in our immediate surroundings.

Intuition on the other hand is our thoughtful immediate decision making process without utilizing a process of fully balancing the pros and cons. It is our first response when confronting the need for an immediate decision. The word intuition comes from the word “intuition” or “consideration” formed by beliefs, experiences and memories. It leverages our past experience and the result of similar situations in the past to project a preferred action in this situation. In the situation requiring an immediate decision our mind races through all of our previous experiences and gives us an instant decision. It allows us to make the best decision we can with the limited information we have at the moment.

Everyday we are confronted with the need to make decisions with imperfect knowledge or information. Whether it is a key business decision or deciding what to have for dinner or even which way to turn to avoid this traffic situation, we have to make decisions quickly. Many times we do not have the opportunity to run a full analysis on the situation and chart out all of the risks and benefits. There is simply not enough time to fully analyze each decision against the multiple outcomes.

At some point we have to make a decision. We cannot wait at a stoplight and run a full spreadsheet analysis of the impact of our decision to turn right. We just have to make the decision and see what happens next. The inability to make a decision without intense scrutiny and analysis leads to “analysis paralysis”; the inability to make quick decisions.

Fortunately we have a built-in decision making tool called intuition. Our intuition gives us the ability to make a pretty good decision based on what we have experienced before. The decision will not always be perfect, but it will be right most of the time. It will allow us to move forward and see what happens next. It will be right a high percentage of the time and we should feel confident that without the opportunity to gain more information, the decision we make now will be the best decision we could make at the time.

We can improve the quality of our intuitive decision making by continuing to improve our knowledge and experience through our growth as we pursue excellence. As I pointed out in my book “EXCELLENCE: You CAN Get There From Here”, by planing our growth we build on our skills and talents providing a basis for even better decision making in the future.

Since intuition is based on combining our past experience and knowledge to allow a decision at the moment, it is not likely that the decision will yield a great new approach to the problem. That is not to say that our intuition doesn’t play a role in breakthrough thinking, in fact it is quite the opposite. Most breakthroughs require an injection of intuition to push us past the apparent facts. The very nature of the analytical process is that every answer yields two new questions. At some point an intuitive decision is required to decide which branch of research should be followed.

The net takeaway is that our intuition gives us the ability to make pretty good decisions with the information at hand at the time. We can have confidence that when forced to make a decision with incomplete information we can rely on our intuition to fill in the missing data and yield the best decision we could make at the time, and that decision is better than no decision at all.

Here are 4 tips on how we can use our intuition to help us everyday: