committed? are you sure?

How committed are you? To your job? To your personal mission? To the things you must accomplish in this life? How committed are you really?

We’re told we should choose a career that we love so much we’d do it even if we didn’t get paid. That’s a pretty high level of commitment and passion right there. We all want to do something we love, something that has meaning for us. But what if what you loved required you to risk incarceration? Death? That necessitated carrying firearms just to get to the job? That still paid almost nothing, if anything at all? That was so outside the norm that you were the only one in the entire country doing it and you were blazing the trail with almost every action?

That’s pretty rough. Let’s up it a little: would you go into exile for your passion? Would you leave friends, family, and everything you knew behind to go be a second-class citizen in another country just so you could “follow your bliss”?

This weekend I watched the 2007 documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad about Iraq’s first (only?) metal band Acrassicauda and saw a glimpse into what relentless obsession looks like. The movie is a fascinating look at Baghdad in 2005/06. It’s not about soldiers, politicians, ideologies, right, or wrong. It’s not even really about heavy metal. It’s about the struggle of a group of 20-somethings just trying to have a band and make some music against the backdrop of daily life in Baghdad. What would be a normal – mundane, even – activity for college-aged youth in the US becomes a hero’s quest where hopes and dreams wrestle against the hopelessness of daily violence and chaos.

They suffer more for their dreams than I could ever go through here. I highly recommend the DVD to see the level of commitment they demonstrate.

After watching, I came away wondering how I could up my passion to that level. How can I tap into the human need that’s fueling them to carry on? How can I bring the noise like they do? How can I play that big with the things that are important in my life? How much would I, could I, truly risk?

just show up

“80% of success is just showing up.” ~ Woody Allen

 

“Did you get out and run this morning?” The guy at the gym locker next to mine knew I often liked to get out and run through the neighborhood in the morning.

I told him I had. But admitted I’d been lazy and hadn’t run much this past month but was enjoying getting back in the groove.

“It happens.” He said. “I’ve been pretty uninspired the past couple of weeks, too. I just keep coming in. The hardest part is just getting here.”

Such a great perspective. I had gotten out of the habit and slacked off. He had some less than great workouts but showed up daily. Any guesses to who is better off? He’s maintaining while I’m rebuilding.

This morning’s conversation serves as a great reminder that work and life is going to be tough sometimes. We won’t be able to fine the new employees we want, we won’t know how to deal with the employees we have, passion and joy will be replaced by gutting out another day, we’ll forget our vision and inspiration and start watching the clock. It happens.

It’s so easy to back off, so easy to justify, and so valuable when we don’t. Keep coming in. Keep the habit going. The hardest part is just showing up.

read any good books lately (updated)

Note: I originally published this back on May 5 and thought it was time to revisit it. Instead of rewriting it, I decided to just make a few updates (in bold). The rest of the information still holds true.

 

I love books. One of my great frustrations in life is the knowledge that I will never be able to read (and reread) all the books I want to. No matter how deep the stack of “must reads” gets, I’m always looking for more. So, I thought I’d share my list of current reads and maybe a few favorites. There’s lots more I could have included (how could I skip Jim Rohn?!? – next time), but this is a good start.  (The links will take you to Amazon. I get nothing out of it and only provide the links as a convenience.)

Currently reading:

Adaptability: the art of winning in an age of uncertainty by Max McKeown (twitter: @maxmckeown). I’m a HUGE fan of Max McKeown. It frustrates me to no end that he is still relatively unknown in the States (that will change). I feel he’s one of the best at taking complex ideas and making them simple, practical, relevant, and important. I got so tired waiting for Adaptability to come out on paperback that I borrowed my wife’s e-reader and purchased it electronically. Well worth it. JUNE 25 UPDATE: Just finished it today and a review will be coming soon. Loved it.

Social Gravity by Jason Lauritsen and Joe Gerstandt (@TalentAnarchy). I actually started this book several months ago and then got sidetracked by Alf Rehn and Max McKeown. For shame! Jason and Joe put out outstanding blogs, both as Talent Anarchy and individually, and it’s been killing me to have this book on hold. I’ll be giving it my full attention again starting tomorrow morning. Yes!

Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success by Matthew Syed. In the vein ofTalent is Overrated and Outliers. A nice reminder that talent and interest get you in the game, but passion and hard, hard work keep you there.

Next Up:

Degrees of Strength: The Innovative Technique to Accelerate Greatness by Craig Ross and Steven Vannoy (@rossbestever). The latest from the boys who did Stomp the Elephant in the Office: Put an End to the Toxic Workplace, Get More Done – and Be Excited About Work Again. Full disclaimer: I used to work with Craig and Steve and consider them important mentors in my life. They are also two of the most passionate people you’ll meet when it comes to transforming leaders and workplaces.

Linchpin by Seth Godin. There are two blogs I seek out first thing in the morning and Seth’s is #1. I’m continually amazed by his ability to take some very big ideas and make them simple, clear, and brief. Daily. Can’t wait to read.

Dangerous Ideas: When Provocative Thinking Becomes Your Most Valuable Asset by Alf Rehn (@alfrehn). I haven’t read any of his books yet, but love the concept of the book and ideas he puts out on twitter. Can’t wait to read it. JUNE 25 UPDATE: Ok, I skipped ahead and read this one before some of the others. Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I finished this one a while ago and thought it was great. Alf likes to push the reader beyond their comfort zones and shake things up a bit (as you might expect).  I did a review on it here.

 The Supermanager by Greg Blencoe (@gregblencoe). Greg’s been following this blog for a little while and I always appreciate his comments on leadership. I’m looking forward to reading his book and finding out more about his ideas behind the Supermanager. 

Recently Read:

The Strategy Book by Max McKeown. I recently did a short review of this book here.

The Truth About Innovation by Max McKeown. From the back cover: “Innovation rocks. It rolls. It makes the world go round. In a definitive set of ‘home-truths,’ you’ll discover how to harness its power to increase creativity, collaboration and profit. Are you ready to change the world?” Yes, Max, I am. Thanks for helping.

Unshrink Yourself, Other People, Business, the World by (you guessed it!) Max McKeown. No, I don’t know Max personally, have no stake in him selling more books, and do actually read books by other authors. However, I was so impressed by The Strategy Book that I immediately sought out other books by him and with each new book my enthusiasm only grows. He writes the books I wish I could write. Good, good stuff. This one is about destroying the myths that keep us small and prevent growing ourselves, those around us, business, and (yep) the world.

Long-Time Favorites:

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Combine the ideas in these two books from the 1930’s and very, very little new has been written since then. Most personal development and success books since can trace their roots back to these two books.

The Greatness Guide: 101 Lessons for Making What’s Good at Work and In Life Even Better by Robin Sharma (@_robin_sharma). I’ve read this book at least four times in as many years. Although he’s better known for The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, I feel this collection of short lessons (none of them more than about a page and a half long) is a far superior, more practical, and more motivating book.

It’s Called Work for a Reason: Your Success is Your Own Damn Fault! by Larry Winget (@larrywinget). He’s fun, down to earth, and doesn’t suffer victims or fools.

How about you? What are some books you’d recommend adding to my must read list?

that thing

It’s out there.

On the corner of your desk, under a stack of papers, stuffed in a drawer. Or maybe it’s just written on one of many “to do” lists.

It’s “that thing”. That thing you’ve been meaning to get to. That thing you need to get done. That thing that keeps getting placed just below the daily priorities. That thing that’s been hanging out there a while.

Sure you’ve got your reasons (excuses!) for not getting it done, but who cares? That thing is still not finished. Maybe you don’t know where to start. Maybe you’re not sure how to finish it. Or maybe you know exactly what to do and simply don’t enjoy it. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. It’s still not done.

But that’s yesterday’s unfinished results. Today is fresh. Today is open possibility. Today is time for a decision: to do or not to do. Take it off the list forever undone or make it happen? Only you know for sure.

Decide. Act. Move forward.

Today.

was it the right decision?

[NOTE: the other day I did a post on customer service called ‘why did you bother?’ I had a great conversation yesterday that reminded me that the same issue applies to HR and onboarding.]

First day at work and almost everyone suffers buyer’s remorse. Was it the right decision? Would it have been better to stay at my old job? Will I like my co-worker? What’s my boss like? My old job wasn’t perfect – I hated parts of it – but there was some good stuff, too. I wonder if they’ll take me back if this doesn’t work out? I don’t know anyone here.

Was it the right decision? That’s what almost everyone is asking themselves when they come in to work that first day. Was it the right decision? Even when it’s a step up in pay, title, responsibility, or moving to a great company. Was it the right decision?

Based on the first hour of the first day on the job at your company, how do you think they would answer that question? How would they answer it at the end of the first day?

Some factors to consider:

Did they know what to expect?

Did they know how to prepare, what to bring, what clothes to wear?

Was someone there to greet and welcome them? Was that person excited to see them?

Were they given a tour of the building so they know where to park, find the bathrooms, and get to the cafeteria/break room/vending machines?

Was their boss there to welcome them, introduce them to the team, show them their workspace, discuss expectations, and help them get settled in?

Was their workspace clean and ready for them? Or did they have to spend time figuring out where everything being stored there needed to go?

Did someone offer to take them to lunch? Or did they have to eat alone?

Was there a plan in place for what they would be working on or doing the first day, and then the first couple of days? Did that plan make sense?

Was someone responsible for creating a fantastic onboarding experience? Is there even an onboarding plan or process in place?

Basically, it comes down to: did they feel expected, welcomed, important, and successful that first day? Did they leave feeling like they made the right decision to work at your company?

If you answered “no” to any of those questions, give serious consideration to this one: Why did you bother?

It’s like a car dealer spending huge money on advertising and promotions getting you to come down to their business, set you up to get a car that you think you’re going to enjoy, and then make the actual negotiating and purchase experience miserable. So miserable, that even though you love the car you vow to never buy from them again. And you tell all your friends to never go there. Why did that dealer even bother?

You (hopefully) put a lot of time and effort into advertising for positions, finding candidates, interviewing, and putting together an attractive offer. You have a lot invested in them before they even walk in the door. After all that work to hire them, why not set them up for success from the first moment?

Did they make the right decision? They’ll know after the first day. What’s their answer going to be?

stuck in yesterday: why is change so hard?

“You can’t get to who you’re meant to be tomorrow clinging to who you were yesterday.” ~ Robin Sharma (@_robin_sharma)

We want different results. We want to be a better leader, better networker, better at communication, better at managing our time, better, better , better. So we take classes and we read books and we get excited about the possibilities. It all sounds like it could really work and we can’t wait to get started.

And then…

We don’t. We don’t change. We wonder what’s wrong with ourselves. Why can’t we do this? Why is change so difficult?

Lots of reasons, really. Two of the biggest barriers are simply habit and our routines.

We have spent a lifetime building the habits that support our status quo. Twenty, thirty, forty plus years of habit rarely change after a class or a book. It rarely changes after a week of intense focused effort. It takes much more time and effort to truly replace one habit with another to the point where the new habit is completely reflexive.

We have also completely and entirely set up our lives to support us EXACTLY as we are right now. Our routines, processes, physical environment, etc. are all perfectly designed to maintain things just as they are. As an example, something as simple as eating healthier would probably require shopping differently – buying different food from different sections of the store, maybe even shopping a different store. Then it would likely require changing your routine so you had time to plan and prepare a day’s worth of food and snacks. Do you do it the night before, get up earlier, spend most of Sunday making meals for the week? And so on. None of it is impossible – it’s all pretty simple stuff – but if we don’t plan for it and realize that we need to change the routines that support our habits then pretty soon we’re eating fast food and snacking out of the vending machines again.

Or, if I truly want to become a better leader or better in my job, then I’ll need to create time to study, plan, think, reflect. I’ll need to seek feedback, evaluate it, and modify my plans accordingly. I’ll need to either invent extra time during the day (time is finite, so what am I going to give up?) or get better at time management or change my priorities and focus. It’s all completely possible and may not even be that hard, but it will require changing up routines and habits.

Personal change isn’t as easy as the infomercials suggest, but recognizing the difficulties and preparing for them makes it that much easier to avoid staying stuck in yesterday.

why did you bother?

Why did you bother advertising to get me in the door if you were going to treat me like you didn’t care?

Why did you work so hard to build up a brand image if you were going to negate all that effort with two brief interactions?

Why do you confuse “not openly hostile” for “pleasant customer service”?

Why do you choose to not use every touch point as a way to build and strengthen my interest and loyalty?

Why should I care about you on Facebook, Twitter, etc. when your employees can’t bother to care about me when I’m in front of them?

Why do you try so hard to build up imaginary signs of customer interest (how many “likes” does it take to equal a sale, how many followers create a profit?) and then not try at all when you have an interested customer right in your store?

Why do waste so much effort in getting me to reach out to you when you can’t be bothered to call me and tell me the service is done / my part has arrived / your serviceperson will arrive very soon / etc.? The two minutes it takes you to call is tremendously helpful to me. Or, you could keep me guessing, wondering, frustrated, irritated, and developing a negative attitude toward your company.

But that’s not a problem, because you have a new advertising campaign coming out, right? You’re spending more on social media. You use the word “branding” a lot. So you’re fine.

Meanwhile, I’ll be down the street giving my money to your competition.

Why did you bother?

48-second leadership lesson

“I can’t motivate people because I don’t control how much they make.” “People have to be self-motivated.” “The work ethic is dead.” “Kids these days…”

Managers often complain about being unable to motivate or get the best out of people. It’s not always easy, but let’s turn it around and think about it a different way.

Is there anything that you could do right now that would demoralized, demotivate, and disengage your employees?

Could you easily lead in a way that would cause them to not want to give their full effort?

If you really wanted to, could you communicate in a way that resulted in confusion, misunderstanding, and mixed messages?

The answer to all these questions is: absolutely YES!

Take a moment to think about all the easy, simple, and inexpensive things you could do to destroy performance. Got it? Good, now go do the opposite.

make it pretty, make it exceptional, make it extraordinary

“Hand me that drill again, I want to make this pretty.”

Yesterday, I got my first filling. The dentist had already drilled the cavity and was about to do the filling, but something had caught his eye. As he took the drill from his assistant, he said to me, “This is just for me, no one will ever see it.” Then he corrected the minor detail he’d seen.

At that moment, I knew he was my favorite dentist and I’d happily recommend him to others. He is a craftsman. Someone who cares enough to do the job right, even when he’s the only one who will know the difference.

Would I have known if he didn’t “make it pretty”? Nope. Isn’t good enough good enough? Why waste time on details that don’t matter? Hold on there, I never said the details don’t matter, only that I wouldn’t know the difference.

What if he hadn’t drilled more? What if he had said, “Yeah, I think that’s good enough. No one will ever see it.”

I read an article about Steve Jobs a few months back that talked about how he obsessed with making the inside of the computer as simple and elegant as the outside. When you worry about the things no one will ever see, is it any surprise that what they do see is exceptional?

Being the craftsman, approaching it from a mastery standard, making the unseen as elegant as the seen often takes little to no more time. And you never have to worry about having to go back in and do it again. You never have to worry if it’s “good enough”. In fact, it takes a lot more time and energy to do something to the bare minimum standard and have to keep reworking it to get it good enough than to just do it right from the very start.

This applies to all jobs. A couple years back I bought a new-ish car from a dealer and ended up in a knock-down-drag-out negotiation over whether or not the dealer would provide us with a second key. If they are willing to cut corners and kill the customer experience over a key, where else are they cutting corners that I can’t see?

There’s a great lesson here: they eventually gave in and gave us a key, but it took so much effort that I’m still bitter two years later and will never, ever, not even at gunpoint buy from them again. Like the dentist, it would have taken no more effort to do it right (less even) for the sake of doing it right than to do it poorly to see how much they can get away with. They could have made it a great experience and would have made more money off of goodwill, referrals, and the opportunity to sell me another car. But they chose not to. And it still cost them the key.

It really comes down to taking pride in your work, all of your work. People usually won’t notice when something is done above and beyond right, but they will notice when it isn’t. Would you notice that all the staples in a document packet were aligned the same? No, but you would notice if the documents had been stapled and re-stapled, if the ends of the staples snag your hands, or if the document had so many holes in the corner it looked like it had been mauled by an angry badger. Silly example, but very true.

What’s this look like at your job? How quickly do you return calls? How thorough and well written are your emails? How prepared are you for meetings? Do you treat your customers like you would want to be treated? Do you smile and say hello to everyone? Do you help out those who aren’t in a position to return the favor? Do you try to be exceptional or do you try to get by?

The people and companies that get this are the ones that really stand out. Those that don’t tend to be the ones wondering why they don’t get ahead.

Little things matter. Good enough isn’t.