08Nov/13

The Road to Leadership : Vision – Defining the Dream

November 8, 2013BlogDecisions, Leadership, Road, Self-awarenessVictoria

This week I had the privilege of speaking before The Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, an organization dedicated to developing strong leadership and civic engagement skills in young Latinas in our community. I wanted to start with a typical definition of leadership before presenting my thoughts and found this: A process of social influence whereby one individual elicits the aid and support of others towards a common task. That’s a lot of words that but it doesn’t help me explain leadership. To me, that sounds like someone in charge who may, or may not be a “leader”. I had to come up with something that had relevance to my audience.

Think of leadership development as a journey; start with a clearly defined destination (the vision). Add the people you need to convince to come along (inspiration) and then start taking the necessary steps to get there (action). Today, I’d like to talk about the first part of that journey: vision

Vision is about what can be; it’s about how to affect change and how to make a difference. Understand that your final destination may look completely different than in the beginning but that’s OK. A vision must be massaged and molded until you are clear about what you are trying to accomplish. One way to be clear is by answering the five W’s. Who will you need to help you? What resources do you have or will you need? When do things need to happen and in what order? Where will you concentrate your efforts and resources? And most importantly, why are you doing it?

Who:

Recruit your dream team but don’t leave it at that. Make sure their talents and skills align with the mission’s needs. Understand that not everyone who wants to help can or should be on the team. If you have some of these folks around, train them, reassign them or let them go. It’s not about how nice they are, it’s about what they can contribute. Think of your vision as a bus ride. You are the driver so you get to decide who comes along. Once you know who’s there you can determine how they fit into your plan or how your plan fits your fellow travelers; adjust accordingly. For example, is your envelope stuffer actually a CPA who could better serve the as organization treasurer? Make sure you not only have the right people but they are in the right seat.

What:

Now that you know who is on board and that they can contribute, it’s time to figure out what resources are available. This step will help how big you can dream. Big dreams require major resources; if the resources aren’t there yet – take side trips. Just make sure you’re still headed in the right direction

When:

Is your vision tied into a local or large scale event or do you plan to go it alone? If you want to join others, you may have to change the timeline which may, in turn affect your overall plan. As the leader, you have to decide which road to follow. Remember though, a side trip is not your ultimate destination – keep heading toward your original plan

Where:

Is your dream based on a local or wide scaled objective? The ultimate size of the project may affect what you can actually accomplish. Make sure you have the correct perspective.

Why:

As you look at who, what, when, and where, affects your vision, it will start to evolve from an idea to a possibility. That’s OK. A fully developed vision rarely stays unchanged from its beginning. But now that you know what’s possible it’s time to take a hard look at what you can do and tie that into why you want to do it. Does the reality of what you want to do match the reality of what you can accomplish? If it does, your journey has a chance to succeed. If not, start over, identify what needs to be changed and change it. Keep tweaking your dream until it is clear to everyone what you are doing and why. Repeat as many times as necessary until everyone on the bus sees the same road ahead. When that happens, you’re on your way.

Many thanks to LCSV – it was a pleasure to join you.

Want to learn how to create your vision? Check out our services here

18Oct/13

Courage: Why You Should Believe You Can Fly

October 18, 2013BlogLeadership, Management, Managerial Courage, Self-awarenessVictoria

The Challenge

At the age of 40, I had mustered up the courage to apply to law school. When I received the acceptance letter, my emotions started to run all over the place. I had no intention of practicing law but I wanted to challenge myself in one of the toughest arenas around. I knew there were be less stressful, less expensive ways to challenge myself but this was the one I chose.

When I prepared to become a fulltime student, my doubts and fears became unimportant – all because of a song. The song was – “I Believe I Can Fly” As the words poured out “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky” I started crying like a newborn. At that moment, my self-doubt disappeared because I truly believed.

The Power of Belief

As managers, finding courage means we must believe that we can fly. I suggest that it becomes part of our job description and that it apply to not only managers, but to anyone who is facing a challenge. If we believe that we can overcome obstacles, we take the first step to solving the problem. That first step is crucial because that is where we begin to figure out the how. This is where we develop our vision, sharpen skills and test theories. We cannot be afraid of failure because it gets us closer to the answer and we begin to see results. In July, I wrote about three different types of managerial courage: the courage to fail, interpersonal courage and moral courage (click here to read).There is another type of courage equally if not more important than the first three – intrapersonal courage.

Finding Courage

Intrapersonal courage dictates self-talk which in turn becomes the basis for everything we do. Anyone can memorize and recite company mission statements but if we don’t truly believe that we affect the mission – our success will be superficial at best. To be truly successful, we must inspire others to believe in the mission. When we do it shows up in everything we do and everything we say. It becomes contagious. It encourages and motivates others. They begin to welcome challenges and refuse to accept the status quo. There is a fundamental belief that there is a solution and folks will keep trying until the best answer presents itself. This is when greatness happens because it creates a synergy that cannot be stopped. But the first step is to believe.

20Sep/13

Complaints: Do you Treat the Symptoms or Cure the Disease?

September 20, 2013BlogComplaints, Critical Thinking, Management, Problem SolvingVictoria

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay

Complaints vs Comps

Ever notice how many customer complaints are “solved” today by some sort of compensation? Comps have become the standard solution for addressing complaints but they do not fix the underlying problem. If you work in an office environment and don’t deal directly with customers you probably figure this doesn’t apply to you. But it does – if only because comps have crept into our collective mindset as the way to solve problems. Unfortunately, they don’t solve problems; in fact things can get worse because providing comps allow the bad practices to continue until they become standard ways of doing business.

Taking Complaints For Granted

A big part of your job as a manager is to recognize potential problems and fix them before they get to the “comp” stage – to be proactive. Apologies and comps are reactive. Something goes wrong; we apologize and try to make it up to the customer. We have addressed the symptom (the situation) but not the disease (the underlying cause).

What’s the Real Issue?

Here’s an example. One evening I parked my convertible under a tree and forgot to put the top up. The next morning the back seat was full of leaves along with a few gifts from the resident birds so I headed for the car wash. I didn’t lower the top until the next day and when I did, I noticed that the back seat was still full of leaves and bird droppings. Naturally, I called and asked for the manager. The young man on the phone told me he wasn’t in at the moment but would call later me that day – he didn’t. However, the next day, the assistant manager called. I told him about my experience (the symptom) and that I had noticed a decline in overall quality (the disease) for some time.

The assistant manager heard that I had a bad car wash. Unfortunately, that’s all he heard. His solution: come back and specifically ask for him but he didn’t want to learn more about the problem. He wanted to make sure that I was “taken care of” so he started talking about discounts and a bunch of other things that had no bearing on the problem. When I tried to explain that the car wash wasn’t the problem he explained, “I need you to give me a chance to fix the problem, this is how we fix things”. He was not trying to fix the problem – he was fixing what he thought was the problem. I knew that my next car wash wouldn’t be any better because he wanted to address the car and not the service. After ten years of patronizing them, I’m looking for a new place.

Turning the Tide

My point is, as a manager your job is to not let things get to the point that your customers leave. Listen long and hard enough to find out what the real issue is. This will stop things from getting worse and salvage the relationship. The truth is when you only address the symptoms, problems persists. You just buy time for the disease to spread. In fact, you give your staff tacit permission to under perform because they count on you to take give the customer just enough to quiet them. The result is you now have a customer who is only partly satisfied and an employee that isn’t held accountable for the situation. Here are some suggestions to help you cure the disease:

Get to the heart of the problem from the start

Ask questions. Ask for real feedback. Why did you take the approach you did? Was it the right approach? What could you have been done differently?

Take it personally

See the problem as a reflection of your management skills. rust me, others will. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What got them to the point where they needed to contact you? Would you accept the quality they received? Put yourself in your staff’s shoes. Did they have the skills and tools they need to prevent the problem in the first place?

Take action

Engage and empower staff. Talk candidly about complaints and seek collective solutions. Do you need to provide additional training or tools? Can you empower them to make certain decisions or take actions without you? Is it a topic for team training? Is it a discipline issue? Talk to other managers. Do they have similar situations (it may not be isolated to your staff)? Find out if your boss has any insight.

To learn more resolving complaints, check out our services here.