The Do Right Leadership Rule #WisdomWednesday #Leadership #MML

As we continue to preview the upcoming MMLI program, the fourth Monday introduces us to the “Do Right Rule”.  Do what is right even when no one is watching.

Of course doing the right thing isn’t always easy, in fact at times it is very difficult.  Your shadow as a leader casts far and wide, farther and wider than you will ever know.  In fact, you can never not lead!

When my son Ryan was 7 or 8 years old and in Little League baseball, his team had just finished playing and all the boys were in the dugout doing what 7-8 year old boys do…messing around!  I was putting away equipment and packing up to head out when I noticed the boys were all glued to the chain link fence of the dugout staring out at two of our team fathers face to face at the pitcher's mound about to get into a fight.

I immediately left the dugout to break up the action (the boys were sorely disappointed).  Both father’s happen to be high level executives in their respective organizations.  I asked them, if they were to act this way in their workplaces, what would happen.  Both said major discipline actions or even fired.

I then pointed over to the dugout where all the boys were still plastered again the fence, still holding out hope for some action.  I said we have been teaching our sons the fundamentals of baseball all season long and now the only thing they will remember after the season was over is the scene playing out at the pitcher’s mound and two fathers' childish actions.

Ok point made!  Do you guard your leadership legacy and integrity even in the most difficult situations? Always remembering to do the right thing?

Escape From Management Land #WisdomWednesday #Leadership #MML

In the third Monday session of Monday Morning Leadership Interactive, Tony Pearce (your virtual executive mentor), talks about escaping from what he calls “Management Land,” where simple things often become complex and people easily lose perspective.

It is easy to fall into a daily routine of dealing with the urgent and never getting around to the important.  Your people and their development is important, but for much of the time when we are in management land, we don’t have time to invest in growing our people.  And since we have such limited ‘people’ time, where we invest that very valuable time is even more important.  

To ensure you are investing in the right areas, look at your team objectively and identify who are your rising stars, your middle stars and those on your team that might be falling stars.  Then pull past performance reviews for each individual and review the comments.  Also think about your daily interactions and where and how you spend your time developing each person.  Do the reviews look very similar for each person? And are you spending an inordinate amount of time with your falling stars rather than with your rising stars?

If you are treating your rising stars just like your falling stars, and your actions don’t reflect how important it is to coach your middle stars, then you might be stuck in “Management Land”.  This week start investing your time and attention in your rising and middle stars. This will be an investment that will pay huge dividends now and into the future.

Don’t treat everyone the same because they don’t deserve the same. Certainly treat everyone fairly, but if you treat everyone the same you will pull the top performers down, the middle just exist, and you accept less than acceptable performance or behaviors from the bottom and all you create is a chasm of mediocrity!

Escape Management Land today by investing in, leading and developing you and your organizations future - the rising stars of today!

A Main Thing Focus #WisdomWednesday #MainThing #Leadership

Do you know what the “main thing” is?  Equally important, do your people know what your main thing is?  Crystal clear clarity is important to ensure alignment and focus on the main thing.  This focus in turn allows your people to know what is important, not just what is urgent.

For example, ask any FedEx employee what their main thing is and this is what they will say, “People-Service-Profit, all we do aligns to and enhances those three things."

At Harley Davidson, every employee goes into work with a goal to “fulfill dreams of personal freedom”.  So what they do has a greater sense of purpose to make that happen.

Those working at Facebook are focused on giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.  Doesn’t matter the department, that is what they do. 

Successful organizations have a keen awareness of their competitive advantages and ensure a nearly myopic focus on clarifying and connecting the main thing to everyone no matter where they reside in the organization.

So this week find out the following:

• What is your organization’s main thing and how clear is it?
• Ask your team at your next team meeting, “What is the main thing”?  List their answers and discuss with the group what can we do to better clarify and align to our main thing?
• What is your managers main thing?

The key to this exercise is to fully understand if and where any disconnects might exist.  Is there clarity and alignment in the message and do our goals, actions, and behaviors support the main thing.  If not, you know what next week’s priority is…..identify and keep “the main thing the main thing”!

A New Launch #WisdomWednesday #MML

I am excited to announce the launch date of Monday Morning Leadership Interactive on October 1st.  This next generation, online interactive program has been under development for the last 6 months, so to have a final date for introduction is an exciting time for all of us at CornerStone.

I will be highlighting content from each of the 8 interactive modules over the next few weeks.  With over a 1.5 million copies sold of the book, we look forward to a whole new generation of leaders and future leaders participating in a completely new and revamped version of Monday Morning Leadership.  Personally, it is a tremendous milestone and extremely rewarding to see the future of CornerStone Leadership and CornerStone Learning House clearly ahead of us….....thank you for making this possible.

-Ken

Values, Not Just a Decoration! #WisdomWednesday #LipstickOnAPig #Leadership #Values

Enron is the poster child of espousing tremendous corporate values with words that were displayed in public places like on websites, reception areas and on conference room walls but were ignored behind closed doors by a select few.  In all fairness, the overwhelming vast majority of the people working at Enron were highly ethical and devoted to work, family, and community and many I call my friends to this day.

Values are often defined by organizations in good times as the organization is just forming, growing or changing in a positive way.  And while values are created in good times, they are tested in difficult times.  They should not be feel good words, phrases or sentences that become decoration, but they should guide, ground and direct each individuals behaviors and actions. 

As a leader, this week look at your organizational values from a different, more critical lens.  Do I see those values guiding decisions at all levels.  Are they grounding us to always do what is right no matter what, and finally do they direct our actions and activities every interaction, every day?

Just for a moment imagine if the un-imaginable happened.  Your organization is challenged in some way publicly by the media, or a government agency challenges some business practice of yours, or an unpredicted and very severe business downturn happened. Can your organization not only survive but thrive because our values are strong, lived by every individual daily and while created in good times stood the test in bad times?  So what do you value?