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“Creating Successful Leaders”

Category Archives: Better Business

October 23, 2013 On Organization: Let’s Learn From The Chefs

“Type A” people are too often misunderstood as overly strict and tightly wound when it comes to organization. Actually, we can learn from the type A’s out there. Their strict adherence to systems of organization may seem strange to a “go-with-the-flow” type of person, but they pay such close attention to sticking to the systems not to be weirdos, but to make things easier on themselves.

A timeless philosophy from the culinary tradition epitomizes the power of a well-organized work space:

Mise en place.

It’s French, and it translates roughly to “everything in its place.”

Going the extra mile in preparation for tasks helps you. It makes you work faster. It minimizes stress. It gives you free time. Imagine you’re a chef and all the things at your desk are different ingredients. Putting all the things in their place makes work flow beautifully, which is what mise en place is all about.

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October 2, 2013 Author Ken Blanchard on Collaboration

Even if you’re an introvert, there comes a time for everyone where their own brain needs an outside boost for generating ideas. Author and management expert Ken Blanchard gives us a few of his experiences that showed him the power of working alongside others. It’s only a 16 minute talk, and well worth the watch.

A few quick takeaways from the talk:

1. As Blanchard puts it, “no one of us is as smart as all of us.” A team of diverse minds will always outdo a lone wolf. This isn’t just because of more manpower, but because each individual brings a unique perspective and voice, making for a much deeper product.

2. Collaboration isn’t always an instant success. You may have trouble at the get-go trying to get things done, especially if you’re a new team. You may also feel that your best ideas come when you’re on your own. Don’t get discouraged if collaboration seems unproductive at first. In fact, it is productive even at the “worst” meetings. Just by being around a group of people united behind a project, a seed will have been planted in your mind that wasn’t there before the collaboration began. And if you are one of those lone wolf idea-generators, you can use the time in between meetings to ponder and come back to the team rejuvenated.

3. Be open to all types of collaboration. In my experience, the best collaborations aren’t planned. As long as you have an open mind and an ear to the ground for potential projects, you’ll be surprised by all the opportunities you never knew were all around you.

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August 7, 2013 Leading As A Moderator, Not An Enforcer

Leaders often burden themselves with being the only ones to make tough decisions and stick with them, even when they may not be popular with everyone on the team. There are times when you as leader must make this type of call and deal with a bit of unpopularity for a while.

But there are other instances–the majority, in fact–where leaders tend to take on too much when it comes to making tough or controversial decisions. They feel, rightly so, that because they’re the ones who must take ultimate responsibility within their organization, they also must personally decide, execute and maintain new systems or standards.

While it’s true “the buck stops here” when it comes to leadership responsibilities, we must remember that those we work with and manage have loads of helpful ideas we might otherwise not have thought of ourselves. We must also remember that our coworkers and/or employees are capable and eager to do a good job (and if they aren’t, then you have a problem with your hiring strategies).

With this in mind, we should take advantage of our teams when it comes to making, implementing and maintaining decisions.

Moderate The Decision-making Process, Don’t Make All The Decisions

As a leader, you should work to get your team involved in the process of making key decisions. Your role should be to moderate the group, keeping the discussion focused and realistic, and also to help peers work things out should disagreements arise.

Workers who are involved with decision-making feel more engaged and connected to their work, getting a sense of ownership for the visions the team has come up with together. This inevitably leads to better performance across the board, because ownership and meaning behind one’s work always gives them that necessary fire to push toward excellence.

Leading As The Vision-Implementer, Not The Productivity Police

If a team feels they are being micro-managed, they tend to become distant from their work. That is to say, a babysat team can easily be made to feel that they are not smart or capable enough to do their own work.

On the other hand, we all need standards in place to keep us all on the same page. A great team is well-organized, highly communicative and grounded in a mutual understanding of the standards and expectations.

You can see why involving everyone in big decisions can help you as the leader in the long run, when you need to begin implementing the vision (aka, the daily expectations of each team member). If and when you run up against disagreements or unproductivity, you can always point back to the standards the whole team came up with. You aren’t the dictator, you’re the one tasked with making sure everyone fulfills the requirements they set for themselves.

Maintaining The Vision

Things don’t always apply perfectly from the white board to real life. And, since the business world constantly changes along with the rest of the world, it’s necessary to constantly reevaluate the value of decisions you’ve made and implemented in the past. This means you’ll need to tweak things as you go and ask for feedback from the team, thereby keeping everyone directly engaged in the process.

This, my friends, is the recipe for good leadership, and for a functional, happy team.

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