How will you measure productivity this week?

March 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Sometimes we measure productivity on how “busy” we are.  As a leader, though, your ability to measure whether you and your team are being truly productive in meeting your desired outcomes will be key.  Here are some great sources for finding ways to measure and increase true productivity:

WATCH THIS:  This short, 3 min, Harvard Business Review video with the author of Sidetracked explains the four keys to measuring productivity which she explains are:  1.  Don’t confuse effort with outcomes, 2.  Make sure metrics are meaningful, 3.  Examine your incentives, 4.  Look at the whole picture.

REVIEW THIS:  The 7 drivers of productivity as sited by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment which include:  building leadership and management capability, creating productive workplace environments, encouraging innovation and the use of technology, investing in people and skills, and 3 others.

READ THIS:  To find out ways to measure your organization’s productivity as sited from the Strategic Plan for Dummies.  They include measuring sales to assets, ROA or return on assets, inventory turnover, receivable turnover, and accounts payable.

Champions, like you, don’t just look at the bottom line.  You also know how you got there so you can repeat successful processes and focus on your ultimate vision.  In the book Switch by Dan and Chip Heath they explain that to make a change towards higher productivity you first need to discover the “bright spots” - those people and places in your organization that are doing things right and then repeat them.

Our team at Voltage Leadership Consulting had some exciting bright spots this week when we started production on our new Joltcast podcast that will be released the first week of April.  Our first guest is David Emerald, author of one of our favorite teaching tools – The Power of TED*  The Empowerment Dynamic.  We also launched an entire digital platform for our goMonti learning enhancement system.  Big baby steps towards our ultimate vision of providing champions, like you, the practical tools and techniques you need to go from good to great!

YOU will be the first one to receive a copy of the new Joltcast before it is available to the public.  Stay tuned for more information as we prepare for launch!

 

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Will you use lizard logic this week?

January 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

The part of our brain that helps us survive is known as the reptilian brain.  This section controls our breathing and other bodily functions.  It’s also the part that goes into high gear the second we feel threatened.  It turns on our ”flight or flight” mechanism, which is wonderful if we need to immediately get out of harm’s way.  The problem with our reptilian brain is two-fold, though.  One is that it’s turned on way more often than it should be and number two is that we don’t even recognize that we’re using it most of the time.

For leaders, like you, it’s important to operate from the prefrontal cortex, or CEO, part of your brain when you need to make decisions.  Recognizing when you are using your reptilian brain and when your team is doing the same is imperative to high-level decision making practices.  If the person you are speaking to is in fight, flight, or freeze mode, or if you are, chances are you about to use lizard logic to solve a problem.  The biggest problem with this way of thinking is that your brain limits the amount of choices you have as it’s only job is to be sure that you stay safe immediately.  Here’s some resources about the reptilian brain that you might find helpful:
WATCH THIS:  This 2 min video is about how the reptilian brain handles email.  Turns out that when there is a lack of information, our reptilian brain defaults to the negative.  If you send emails out to your team, you want to watch this one.
READ THIS:  contains a summary of what the reptilian brain is and what it does.  You’ll learn how your lizard is reactive and how it relies on your cortex to create the imaginations for whether something is safe or not along with how it sees the past as the “eternal now”.
KNOW THIS:  How advertisers use what they know about the reptilian brain to sell products to you and how participants of focus groups don’t seem to know what they really are thinking.
We can go a long way in our career using our survival mechanisms.  It’s when we begin building the skills, resources and behaviors of true leaders that we begin the process of transforming ourselves and our team members.  As I watched Lance Armstrong last week, I realized that there are many, many survivors among us, but the pack starts to thin as we identify true leaders and only a few among us stand apart as champions.
If you didn’t have it in you to a champion, or weren’t one already, you wouldn’t be reading this.  Stand up and out this week by using the highest level thinking possible.  Remember to exercise, eat spinach and salmon, take fish oil pills, and feed your brain with the type of knowledge and input that will propel you and your team forward.  Winning doesn’t happen by accident.
At Voltage Leadership Academy, we are so inspired by the new participants beginning their Amp Up Your Leadership journey this month.  They are standing up and standing tall as leaders and champions!  Welcome to the next stage of transforming your life as a leader!


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Will you be paranoid this week?

December 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Congratulations on all of your accomplishments in 2012!  You probably have many blessings to count and reflections to make as you round out this year.  In my quest to help set the stage for you I found a great new book and an old favorite.
It was Jim Collin’s newest one, Great by Choice, in which he outlines what he found in 10 years of research that builds off of his work  Built to Last and Good to Great.
Great by Choice - Jim Collins Morten HansenTurns out that the most successful companies had leaders who have three distinct characteristics.  ”The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical and more paranoid.”  As you look ahead at the goals you’ve set for 2013, being paranoid about what obstacles you are going to run into along the way and planning how you and your team will work through them could make the difference in whether you reach your desired outcomes.
USE THIS:  Brian Tracy’s process in Flight Plan to determine and prioritize your goals for 2013.  His question process includes: 1) Make a list of ten goals you would like to achieve in the next year.  2)  What one goal on this list would have the greatest positive impact on your life (or in your business)?  3) What is your deadline for achieving the goal? 4) List three problems or obstacles that stand in your way (or will stand in your way) of achieving this goal? 5) List three additional skills or forms of knowledge that you will require to achieve this goal?  There’s several others in Chapter 3 that you may find helpful as well.
BE EMPIRICAL:  Be guided by practical experience and not theory.  Rely on observation or experiment.  Be sure to measure your progress.  Collect data each day or each week that you can use to determine which pivots you need to make along the path to your desired outcomes.
RELY ON THIS:  Discipline, not feelings.  I wouldn’t be 10 years sober, have no debt, have a healthy, happy marriage, a wise and wonderful daughter, have built 3 companies, be able to run a 10K, or have a successful business partnership,  if I relied on how I felt each day as a way to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. If you are reading this, I can guarantee that you have reached some pretty amazing achievements as well!   You can have what you aspire to achieve if you create a plan and then stick to it regardless of how you feel at the moment.  Trust me, I did not feel like meeting Captain Kimberly at the pool today for an hour and half workout, but it was on the calendar so I did it and I sure am glad I did!
In 2 days you can hit RESET.  Take some time to think, to plan, to create the right strategy and then lock it in.  Any major change for you or your team will not be easy.  There will be setbacks.  You will encounter days where it just seems easier to quit and go back to the old way of doing things.  Plan for those times before you even get started.  Ask others for their support in holding you accountable.  Champions, like you, have accomplished many goals in their lifetime.  You are smart, courageous, focused, and disciplined or you wouldn’t even have read to this point.
I wish you the life and business you desire to achieve in 2013!
I am grateful to so many of you that have made 2012 an amazing year for us!  I appreciate all of the champions that attended Synergy Masters, Amp Up Your Leadership I, II and Amp Up Your Executive Presence I.  You have shown tremendous courage, discipline, and focus to grow yourself and your companies this year.  I salute and honor each of you for the hard work and dedication you have had.   I thank my partner, Jeff Smith for his tremendous leadership of our companies and initiatives this year, our Communication Coordinator, Taylor Ricotta for her reliability, tremendous spirit, and commitment, and my husband Allen for well, just putting up with me and his always supportive unconditional love.   On to the next mountain!
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Will you take the shoulds off your shoulders this week?

November 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The word “should” can really weigh you down.  For many of us, that word echoes in our minds often.  You might say things like, “I should be more successful than I am”, “I should make more money than I do”, ” I should be nicer or smarter or more disciplined or less angry or a better leader or father or mother or son or daughter.”. The shoulds can add up internally and they can also be directed at your team members and others.  ”They should work harder, be on time, take more initiative, be more willing to go the extra mile, etc.”

The question is, how does using the word “should” serve you?  Does criticizing yourself and others by constantly telling yourself and them what they should or shouldn’t be doing elevate you, or them, to their highest potential?

TRY THIS… Spend a day noticing how many times you use or imply the word should to yourself or your team.  Notice what you feel like when you believe those thoughts and what thoughts follow those.  Are they helpful?  Do they move you or your team member forward?

SWITCH THESE...your thoughts.  A more proactive thought pattern than “should” is to ask yourself “What do I want?” and work from there.  If you think you or someone else “should” be something other than the current reality of what you or they are right now, then what do you want?  What steps need to be taken to get there?

WATCH THIS…(1 min 48 sec) if you want to see how words can impact outcomes and WATCH THIS ONE (1 min 38 sec) to see how it can apply to you and your team’s mindset.

As a leader, you have the opportunity to influence many people’s lives.  You may want to first start with removing the word “should” from your internal and external dialog and see if it makes a difference in your desired outcomes.

I was very unsettled after I had spent a day doing something I thought I “should” do.  Jeff Smith passed along some wise words his father taught him.  He said, “Stop doing what you think you SHOULD do and just live your life.”  My level of satisfaction with my professional and personal life quickly experienced the difference when I made that mind shift.  Thanks, Jeff, I couldn’t ask for a better partner and leader of our company!

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Will your amygdala hijack you this week?

October 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sometimes you might experience what Daniel Goldman calls an “Amygdala Hijacking”.  Your amygdala is the part of your brain that is linked to emotions and aggression and controls fear responses and the secretion of hormones. It’s “hijacked” when you experience an emotional response that is immediate and overwhelming and that part of your brain basically takes over.  It happens to us more than you might think and could be at the root of some outcomes we don’t intend.  Learn more here:

WATCH THIS:  Loved this 4-minute video that explains what happens during an Amygdala hijacking.  We perceive a threat and we go right into fight, flight, or freeze mode to protect ourselves.  It sometimes could take hours for us to regain our full intellectual capacity.  Important to know for us but also explains what might be happening to our team members or clients sometimes.

READ THIS:  Article from Psychology Today that outlines how leaders are affected when their amygdala takes over.  Turns out your IQ actually goes down and the options that you see to solve the problem you are presented with decrease as well.  Any strong emotion, anxiety, anger, joy or betrayal tips off the amygdala and impairs the prefrontal cortex’s working memory.

Where the amygdala is located

 

TRY THIS:  A series of questions designed to reduce the attack (see details about why these questions work in the article above):  What am I thinking?  What am I feeling?  What do I want now?  How am I getting in my way? What do I need to do differently now?

I have found that even the best among us experience these hijackings.  When stress levels  and stakes are high, they can occur more often.  I find it most helpful when I am aware that it’s happening so I can reduce the effects they have on the situation I’m dealing with.  Your potential to reach the level of leadership you aspire to may depend on your ability to deal with and reduce the occurrence of hijacks.

 

Only champions read to the bottom of these articles, so YOU are one!  Keep learning, keep growing, keep striving to set the example for others you serve.  They are counting on you and I know you can reach your potential.

Thank YOU, so much, for your support by reading these articles each week and being a part of a growing group of leaders committed to reaching their potential.   I get to see who opens them and clicks through to the articles and videos and it inspires and motivates me to keep posting.  I learn so much, each week, so I truly appreciate this opportunity to serve you in this way.

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Will you increase employee engagement this week?

September 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Being a leader doesn’t just mean you have followers.  It means you help create other leaders.  To do this, you may need to create a shift in the mindset of your employees or even yourself in order to increase their level of engagement.  Here’s some tips and techniques that seem to be effective.

START HERE … with some stats. A Gallup poll in 2011 stated that 72% of US workers are not engaged in their work which they defined as essentially “sleep-walking throughout their day” and 1 in 4 intend to “jump ship” within a year.  HERE’s the full article. 

READ this… Learning what DDT is and how to make the shift from it to the Creator Orientation can be a foundational step to elevating a mindset that is stuck and may be the first step to increasing employee engagement. 

THINK about this… What do you want as a leader of your organization?  How engaged are your employees?  Is drama blocking innovation in your company or causing a lack of productivity and therefore higher profits?  Do you know each of your employee’s strengths and are you allowing them to work from those?

TRY this… ask the question, “What do you need me to know about this story?” when someone is stuck in their drama and you need them to bottom line it for you.  A follow-up question that is effective is, “What do you want?”

Lynda McNutt Foster, Keynote Speaker, ITT Institute Sept 2012

Lynda McNutt Foster, Keynote Speaker

 

I was fortunate on Friday to give our Voltage Leadership presentation on Make Shift Happen to the Board of Junior Achievement.  These dedicated leaders volunteer their time to help young people own their own economic success, plan for the future, and make smart academic and economic choices.  They truly make shift happen.  Bravo and thank you for all that you do for our youth!  

Friday was a busy day as I also gave the keynote commencement address to the graduating class at ITT Technical Institute.  Congratulations to students that had some major grit and truly made shift happen in their lives.

Jeff Smith and I make shift happen in companies and organizations just like yours. Give us a call at (540) 798-1963 if we can be of assistance to you.
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Will you take on yourself this week?

August 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You might be interested to learn that IQ isn’t nearly as important a factor to success as EQ (Emotional Intelligence).  A cornerstone to EQ is self awareness.  Getting honest feedback, regularly, from the right people who are unafraid to issue it to you, can be beneficial.  HERE’s some research on IQ vs EQ and an article that describes both.


READ THIS… to understand some of the key reasons why self awareness is critical to effective leadership.  It aides in things like developing intuitive decision-making, which skill gaps you might have, and the strengths you have that you might not be utilizing enough.

WATCH THIS… a short video (2:19) about Jim Clark, billionaire co-founder of Netscape about taking on anyone, including yourself.

TRY THIS one question self-awareness test… “Do you say one thing and do another?”  This article points out the importance of your actions being in alignment with your words.

The best leaders I know are on a constant quest for higher levels of self awareness.  If you’ve read this far, I know that you are a leader that cares deeply about the effect you are having on the teams you lead.  Champions, like you, are not afraid to take on anything, especially yourself.

Challenge yourself to take the next step in leadership by attending one of the Amp Up Your Leadership Courses that start in September.  CLICK HERE to learn more.  
Thank you to my husband, Allen, and my parents for a wonderful week in the mountains.  It was the perfect place and with the best company to practice self awareness.

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Success Accelerator #7 – Get there early

May 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Brett Sharp of WSLC, 949 Star Country has taught me a lot about attracting a large audience.  One of his tricks is to ALWAYS get there early.  If he is hosting a live event, or speaking for an organization, or hosting a concert, Brett is always early.

Do you know what he does with that time?  He greets everyone possible!  Seriously, I’ve heard of him greeting more than a thousand folks that were coming to hear a concert.  He’s the World Record holder for most amount of hugs in a 48 hour period or something like that.  He’s built, along with his team, an audience of more than 100,000 each week from pure hard work and all those hugs and handshakes.

If you own a business you’re building a tribe of fans that want to buy your product or service.  People like to buy from people that they like.  Sometimes it’s the one thing that can seperate you from your competitors.  If you’re a small business owner, YOU are an important part of the buying process and decision.  Use the Brett Sharp equation for success and arrive early.

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Success isn’t sexy

April 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I wish it was.  I wish there was a way to the top of the mountain without sweating.  I wish the waters weren’t rough and we could all just have an idea one day and “BAM” success would come the next.  Many of the books and tapes out there want you to think that.  They want you to believe if you could just understand what they are trying to tell you and execute as they show you that you would make millions of dollars – fast – without very much effort at all.

I haven’t found that to be true.  I know lots of millionaires that are small business owners.  If they started from scratch, it was hard.  There were times when they were broke.  There were times when failure was immenent and through good planning, hard work, and just a little bit of luck falling in their favor, they got through the challenge and prevailed.

Some would say that success has everything to do with your passion and not giving up.  I haven’t seen that to be true either.  I’ve seen people that worked really hard, stuck to it, had passion and still failed.  They lost everything.  They had mortgaged their house on their dream of entreprenuership and their idea that they thought couldn’t fail, and they did.  It happens.

There’s this special combination of having the right idea, surrounding yourself with great advisors that have experience in what you’re about to do, hard work, passion, capital, and a great plan that is based on reality and hard numbers, that lead people to success in small business.  There’s a focus that a successful small business has that others that fail don’t have.  They have a clear understanding of their “why”.  Like why they are in business in the first place.  Why they want to serve the customers they want to serve.  Why it is them owning and operating the business and not someone else.

Honestly, though, there’s nothing about the success of a small business owner that I can find sexy.  They’re consistent.  They’re not all glittery.  They have a head for numbers and they are checking them often to keep their thumb on the pulse of the flow of money through their company.  They’re able to tell you where their revenue is generated from and what their expenses are as a percentage of their gross sales and can usually tell you their ROI most anytime you ask (if they want to share that with you – the successful one’s usually don’t).

There’s plenty of small business owners that are micro-businesses and have plenty of business to keep them busy and clear maybe what they would if they worked for someone else.  They are successful.  They are people who didn’t want to work within corporate America and may find it exceptable to work for corporate America, just as a vendor.  Yay for anyone who knows exactly what they want, finds their lane, and stays in it.

Small business success that I was describing previously was about those businesses that want build businesses that they can sell one day.  Businesses that can be run by someone other then themselves.  Small businesses that are building equity so that their owners can sell and retire or step out and receive royalty checks for the rest of their life and leave those businesses to their heirs.  That’s what I dream about.  That’s what drives me.  That would be my definition of small business success.  It may not be sexy, but it sure is attractive!

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Success Accelerator Tip #6 – Learn

April 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I read somewhere that for many professionals that have worked in a field for 20 years they actually don’t have 20 years of experience but one year of experience that they’ve lived for 20.  It’s like the movie “Ground Hog Day”.  They just keep living the same year over and over again because they don’t get additional training.

I think that could have worked for people in the past.  Things really didn’t change that much in business for a really long time.  Yes, we got computers, yes, the internet became available and email started to be the way people sent business communications, but I knew many in business that didn’t adopt these things for a really long time and were able to continue to make a fine living and maintain their status.

The game has changed though.  In fact, the game is rapidly changing in almost any industry.  It has certainly changed in the way that consumers get and exchange information about businesses that they are thinking about doing business with.  I had a top level marketing executive tell me two years ago that “Facebook is a fad”.  He was in charge of millions of dollars of company’s marketing and advertising spending.  I wondered, at the time, if he would be able to hold onto that ideal and maintain his level of billing in the future.

Hey, 10 years from now we might look back and think that Facebook was a fad, and we might review things in the future and see that Twitter didn’t stand the test of time, or that network TV was more able to weather the changes and was still a significant tool to reach many consumers with new marketing messages.  Who really knows?  No one. 

Here’s what I’m positive about.  People want control.  They really like to have control of the content that they consume and when they consume it.  People dig the fact that they don’t have to be somewhere at a specific time to watch their favorite program.  They love that freedom.  They love to choose how and when they will interact with things.  The freedom that the consumer is getting is popular and since it’s an ideal that is executed through tools, the tools may change but the ideal is here to stay.

So, here’s my message.  Learn.  If you don’t think you have time to read about some of the changes that are happening your industry or marketplace, then get an iPod and download some books or Podcasts and when you’re getting ready in the morning or driving or have any time where you can listen to something, listen.

If you don’t think you have time to learn, I’m just going to tell you straight up - you’re wrong.  That may sound harsh but you need to hear it.  Life-long learning is so mission critical to small business owners and professionals that you have to find the time.  5 minutes here, 10 minutes there – it adds up.  You can put books everywhere.  You’d be surprised how much material you can go through in a year at 10 minutes at a time.  You can reach large volumes of text in that amount of time, over time.

Let the excuses be gone and figure out a strategy to have consumed pertinent information that can help you grow yourself and your business by year’s end.  I want you to be successful and this success accelerator tip is one of the most important to be sure that you are.

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