joelle k. jay

July 2, 2015 by sereynolds

Do You Need A “Workover?” 5 Questions To Ask Yourself

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

Do you need a “workover?”

You’ll know a “workover” is right for you if:

You want to spruce up your reputation with clients and co-workers.
You want to improve the value you provide.
You’re looking for a new job, a new position, or a new company.

You’ll know you need a makeover if you love the idea of reinventing yourself or elevating yourself to a whole new level. Showing up differently. Stronger. More compelling. You…. only better.

So what, exactly is a workover? It’s a new take on the old model of you. Think of it as a work makeover. A positive calling-out of your very best traits to show you in your very best light. And who knows what can happen from there! New opportunities, new challenges, new successes.

Everyone needs a workover eventually. No one wants to be caught in last years’ shoes or a hairstyle from their high school days. But it happens anyway. You get settled in a routine and become satisfied with the status quo. Don’t let that happen – you’ve got to keep current.

If you’re in the market for a new job altogether, as many people are, the workover is absolutely essential, and the time is now.

Once you’ve had your workover, you’ll discover how much more is possible for you at work–a sense of fulfillment, the opportunity to do what you’re passionate about, and the ability to rise above the fray to land (or create) the job of your dreams–not just the job you’re most qualified, or whatever job come along first.

It’s a win-win situation for many entrepreneurs: you’re jumping out of your comfort zone to face boundless growth, and at the same time you’re aligning yourself with your passion.

In my workover series, I’m looking forward to helping you to discover–and follow–your passion, and turning that passion into your next career move! Later, in an upcoming column, I will be walking you through the process of giving yourself a workover, but for today, let me start you off with an assignment to get you thinking.

Try these five questions to decide if a workover is right for you:

Are you ready to refresh your reputation with clients, co-workers, the market or your bosss?
If yes, what specifically appeals to you about a workover?
What will change for you when you have overhauled your professional “look and feel?”
What, specifically, do you want to change or improve?
What would you want to retain and not change–the part of your work and work ‘presence’ you already love?

Anthony Smith, author of The Taboos of Leadership: The 10 Secrets No One Will Tell You About Leaders and What They Really Think, calls this his 3 C’s model: What can you celebrate? What would you like to change? And where are you coping with what you’ve got? Gaining this level of clarity will focus your workover and position you to quickly become the new model of success you have in mine. Get ready for a professional transformation.

This is the first part of a three-part series. Next time we will focus on the three things you must do to shed the old you and come back, new and improved.

June 26, 2015 by sereynolds

The Mirage of Success and the 3 Stages of Feeling Fulfillment

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

You’re successful. You’ve read tons of books, read a ton of “best practice tips” articles online. You’ve scoured tradeshows and networking events. And all that time has finally paid off–your business is thriving, your clients are happy, and the future is bright.

But do you feel fulfilled?

The sideffect of success isn’t always happiness. Sometimes it’s anxiety, existential apathy, or even a sense of isolation.

I worked with a corporate vice president in the banking industry, and, on paper, she had it all: the salary, stock options, and security. Yet she felt vaguely dissatisfied, even bored, wondering if something better was out there. This is a fairly common occurrence for successful entrepreneurs and leaders.

Here are the three stages of finding fulfillment–the next time you feel deflated or discontent, despite the green numbers on the spreadsheet, do the following:

Stage 1: Mining for values. Mine your experience to find values; values are the cornerstone of fulfillment. Living in alignment with your values is crucial for harmony and fulfillment. Values include principles, standards, and qualities. They don’t include material goods or people.

Revisit good memories, dream up ideal scenarios, or recreate the imagery you saw when you envisioned a you-and-improved future. Go back to a time that was “just right.” Take notes, explore what it was about that time and those experience that make it a peak experience. Write all the elements, and reexamine the bigger picture.

Stage two: Defining your values. After you have your list of potential values, define them. Choose your top 5-10 values and describe what each one means–the significance they have for you, and how it looks and sounds in your life. Defining your values moves them from platitudes to personal priorities.

Write a sentence or two about each top priority means to you. Defining your values gives them specificity and clarity.

Stage three: Refining your values. After you’ve defined your values, refine them with a process of prioritization. It’s revealing to understand which “top” values truly matter the most.

Imagine you are starting over in a brand-new work environment. Looking at your draft list of values, as yourself: If you could only be certain of having one value honored, which one would it be? Test it. If you had to live a life where you could count only on this one value, could you survive? Would you want to? And if you could have two values? Three? Continue ranking your values in this manner until you’re satisfied you have them in priority order.

Ultimately, once you’ve completed these three stages you have collected the raw materials of a golden life. It’s up to you to build a life with them. By looking at the role your values play in helping you achieve fulfillment, you are already beginning to live your values, as coaches say. In living your goals, you’re connecting with yourself, truly allowing yourself to feel fulfilled, and opening yourself up for more success to come.

June 4, 2015 by sereynolds

Breaking Down Your Roadblocks: The 4 People You Need To Help

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

When it comes to facing roadblocks, or any obstacle in the way of your success in business, popular speaker Kingsley Grant said:

“You overcome roadblocks by first identifying the roadblock. Assess the situation, the roadblock, and then look at your options to bypass it. Focusing on overcoming the roadblock can consume so much energy that you are depleted in finding ways around it. Roadblocks can lead to very creative solutions that you would not have thought about had it not been there.”

So how do we get to that action step, allowing us to bypass that roadblock? It all comes back to the people we surround ourselves with that keep our learning at a higher level, which I discussed in my last column where I shared some of Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s strategies.

Essentially, there are four different types of partners you need in your life to keep you learning at a higher level. The way you improve your learning is to work with others who know more than you in various areas, to help you expand your field of knowledge. Having partners in learning can help remove roadblocks that you can’t always remove yourself.

For example, I recently worked with an entrepreneur who came to me seeking a coach because she was facing a major roadblock–namely, a Strategic Plan. She knew she needed a better strategic plan, but she didn’t know how to create one. Having wasted many hours trying to find the right approach, template or system for strategic planning, she became overwhelmed. It dawned on her that trying to eliminate this roadblock on her own would be an enormous time sink–and frankly, she wasn’t sure she could do it on top of everything else in her business, especially since she would be relying on a frustrating process of trial and error to try to figure it out.

I helped her to understand that tackling this goal, which would ultimately help her to grow her business, would be greatly eased by looking for partners to help her move the roadblock.

Whether you’re looking for a new Strategic Plan, trying to reorganize your business, tackle a major challenge, or to stretch into an exciting new goal, there are four main types of people you can look to for help.

Advocates. Advocates cheer you on as you move roadblocks for yourself. Surrounding yourself with advocates is important to help remind you of your commitment to your goal and the importance it holds for you.

To follow from our earlier example, if the entrepreneur above decided to tackle that strategic plan in a Do-It-Yourself spirit, she could minimize the frustration and overwhelm by getting the support of her advocates. In this case, it might be her work team, who would understand the importance of the task and encourage her to complete it, with reminders of how helpful it would be to the business.

Running a business is hard work. A little support and encouragement can help.

Mentors. Mentors play a different role than advocates. Whereas your advocates cheer you on as you move the roadblocks, your mentors actually show you how to move it. They’ve been there. They’ve done it. They can show you how they moved their own roadblocks. As your “older and wiser” counterparts,–they’ve been where you are, and can coach you by using their own experience. They can tell you how they got over a roadblock, and how they were bale to navigate the unexpected along the way.

For our entrepreneur creating a strategic plan, getting a mentor would shorten the learning curve and eliminate the time-consuming task of starting from scratch. There’s nothing like a great example to get you on the right path, and a mentor can be that example for you.

Sponsors. Sponsors move roadblocks for you. Unlike mentors, sponsors have a responsibility for you being successful. A sponsor might be someone like your boss, who has a vested interest in your success. Or it might be an angel investor, whose success is tied with yours financially. In addition to the motivation provided by your advocates and the role modeling provided by your mentors, your sponsor actually gives you help. Your sponsor will open the door for you and get you the next job, or make an introduction, or in some other way move you forward in a way you can’t do for yourself.

If you want to move further, faster, you need a sponsor.

Imagine what would change for our entrepreneur who needs the strategic plan if she not only had the plan, but also a well-connected investor who was committed to helping her achieve her goals. Now she’s playing at a whole new level. Even the assistance of a sponsor, however, does not complete the set of partners she will need to be successful. It will still be up to her, ultimately, to do the work, and two more partners will help.

Coaches. Coaches help you move your roadblocks alongside you. Even with the best of partners to help you with the roadblocks, the ownership for moving forward past the roadblocks stays with you. A sponsor may be able to get you opportunities…but you have to take those opportunities and make sure you excel. This is where your coaches come in. Your coach will roll up her sleeves and help you do the heavy lifting related to taking action, overcoming new barriers, defining the process and the plan, and so on. She will help you implement the plan help you make the decisions that are right for you.

For the entrepreneur who wanted the strategic plan, coaching involved designing the specific plan that would lead to her ideal future – keeping her unique vision in mind and allowing her to lead her business, her way while still striving toward the end result.

Succeeding in business–especially when you’re the leader, responsible for defining vision, strategy, goals, plans, actions and all the rest–is no easy task. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be by trying to do it all yourself. Keep your eyes open for the roadblocks, and when you find them, don’t spend your time and effort insisting on moving them all single-handedly. You can move them more easily, faster and more effectively–with the help of your partners: your advocates, your mentors, your sponsors, and of course, your coach.

May 12, 2015 by sereynolds

3 Ways to Re-write a Bad Work Relationship

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

See if this sounds familiar: you’re working with a business leader who you find to be quite difficult. He’s demanding, makes assumptions that are unfair, blames others. As a result you back off from any relationship with him at all.

There is an assessment called the “Influence Assessment” that we use at LRI to help individual managers and leaders understand where they’re having a positive impact and where they could have a positive influence. One of the items on that survey reads: “Has positive relations with others regardless of the differences we may have.” What I like about that item is that even though the relationships may be partly out of our control, and even though the differences we have with the other person is certainly out of our control, we have the potential to take control of how positive the relationship is. This means taking active ownership for being the one that makes sure that the relationship is positive.

I recently worked with a client who had the same situation I just described: a work relationship with a demanding, unfair, blaming colleague. When we did her influence assessment and she read the item about taking active responsibility for having positive relationships with others, she realized two things. First, she did not have positive relationship with this person. Second, she had the opportunity to change it by taking the lead in a relationship and change the dynamic. She also realized that this particular gentleman may actually have an influence over her career.

So what do you do to improve a relationship with someone when you think it is not as good as it could be?

Give yourself the opportunity to reach out. I know it takes some courage, and it may not be comfortable to be the one to reach out, but you can certainly do it. Most people respond very favourably to someone coming to them and extending a hand in rewriting a relationship. In some cases we may have to apologize for something, or may have to explicitly start a relationship off on a different foot.

For example, you might say something like this: “Jim, I want to get together with you today, as I understand we started off our last discussion on the wrong note. I would really like to start all over again.” Or, “Allan, I wanted to sit down with you because I know I was harsh with you today. I owe you an apology. I realized I reacted too quickly, I was unfair and I am sorry. I hope you will forgive me for that so we can start over.”

Swallowing your pride and being the first to reach out can be all it takes to erase mistakes in a relationship and start fresh.

Assume best intent. “Assume best intent” means making an effort to believe that the person opposite you is doing the things he or she does for a good reason. Most people have positive motives. They want to do good and be good, but something may get lost in the implementation. I had a client who couldn’t seem to click with her manager. She was a real optimist, her manager was a real pessimist. When my client recognized this dynamic, she was able to take control of her own perspective. She didn’t want to apologize for anything, and also didn’t want to start the relationship all over again. So she instead chose to assume best intent. That simple shift in perspective helped her see that what came across as criticism from her manager was intended to be helpful feedback, and it helped her to quiet her inner critic.

Channel their motivations. People are driven by different motivations. Sometimes you can change a relationship by identifying what the other person wants. One of my clients was constantly locking horns with her direct report. I suggested that she might study him to understand his motivation–or better yet, to ask him. She did. She opened a conversation and said, “You’re doing your job very well. I appreciate that, but I sense there are some things you would change if you could. If you could work in the way that was best for you, how would you like things to be different?” He said, “I want to have the freedom to do my job. Just let me do my job.” It became clear that this employee’s motivation was freedom; he needed more latitude than she was giving him. Having identified the importance of freedom to her direct report, this manager was able to shift her way of doing things so that he could perform better in his role and contribute to a more positive relationship.

If you want to have positive relationships or a positive career with an endorsement from the people who are important to you, identify those people that you want to have positive relationships with. Who are the people who are influential in my career and who are the people for whom I am influential in theirs? Those are the people to focus on.

Businessmen and businesswomen may find the most influential people to be their managers or key stakeholders in their careers; entrepreneurs may find the most influential people to be their business partners or even their clients. You may never know who in your life is going to have the most influence over your career. But you can be the one to take control of the relationship and create those positive relations with others regardless of the differences we may have.

May 1, 2015 by sereynolds

5 Signs of Burnout, and Tricks to Break Free

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

Feeling burned out? Think you may have hit a low point? You’re in good company. The pace of change these days is exhausting, and it’s not uncommon to hit a lull when the stress finally takes its toll.

Knowing the signs of burnout can help you get your groove back. With just a little proactive self-assessment, you can turn things around and get back to your happy place, where you’re more motivated and enthusiastic about your work.

Recently I spent several months coaching a leader at a highly ambitious company–one where expectations are high, and failure is not an option. The intensity, long hours, pressure, and accountability all make this hard-charging, highly visible company a challenging place to work. They’re doing exciting work and people want to be a part of it, but it’s hard to sustain the energy that such a culture demands.

This particular leader, whom we’ll call Evan Stevens, was a director in IT. Within 10 minutes of our very first coaching session, tears were springing to his eyes. Finally given the opportunity to speak about his working life, he opened up about his discouragement and fatigue. Evan was working 13-14 hours a day, as well as receiving phone calls from work at night. He was starting to worry about his family life. Evan was completely burned out. He was seen as a high performer, a high producer, well respected leader, well regarded contributor, and he got lots of positive feedback for his work. Yet he felt discouraged, defeated, unappreciated and undervalued from the company around him.

You may or may not be in a situation as extreme as Evan’s, but many people I have met over the years are very close.

How do you recognize the signs of burnout? How do know if you’re just going through a phase, or if it’s time for a more serious change?

For many people, the best case scenario is to find a way to stay at your current company, while finding a way back to meaning and fulfilment. It is possible–I’ve seen it many times. Even if you’re burned out now, you may find it possible to work happily at your company, giving your best, enjoying yourself, putting in extra hours if you need to, while also finding a way to be fulfilled, appreciated, valued and enjoying your work. Now that’s a good life.

So what are the signs of burnout? The following signs came out of my work with Evan:

You give up easily. Evan said, “I feel like I am giving up.” He noticed in himself a sense of defeat. That sense of defeat can show up even before tackling a project. You feel like giving up, because you don’t have the motivation to follow through with initiatives. They suddenly seem daunting.

You blame others. The blame could be in regards to the atmosphere of the work place, or the quality of work being done. If you catch yourself blaming others, ask yourself where the basis for the blame is really coming from. If it’s from a place of exhaustion or doubt, you might be facing burnout.

Time passes slowly, even when you have a lot to do. “I can tell that I am burning out when the day seems long and dragging and I can’t wait to get home,” Evan told me. Burnout feels slow and slogging.

Your confidence is down. You’ll know you may be burning out if you used to tackle projects with excitement and focus, but now you question your abilities to finish the task at hand and finish it well. You notice may hesitate to get involved even in projects or discussions where you have something to add.

It’s hard to define success. Burnout can make it hard to see hope. Evan told me: “I’ve stopped seeing my own successes. Other people are not seeing my successes, and I am not seeing my successes either.”

Compared to those signs of burnout, after Evan was able to break free from this phase, he told me: “I accomplish more, I see my successes, I am contributing, I know I am a valuable part of the organization. Even if I am not getting the recognition that I want from my managers or my senior management, I look other places for my own value. I look to my team and how am I responding for them. I care more about what my manager says, but it’s also true that her approval is not where I get my self-worth from. I find ways to cheer myself up.”

How do you get from the signs and symptoms of burnout to a better place as Evan did?

First, take a step back and refocus. Get away. That means getting away from work without the phone, without the email, without feeling guilty, and just having to trust that you won’t be letting coworkers down if you take a few hours (or days) to collect your thoughts. Then reflect on the situation with a fresh perspective. Ask yourself: What can I do to turn this around? What can I control, and what can I not control, and how do I move forward?

It may seem impossible to get away and clear your thoughts, especially if it’s overwork or overwhelm that’s causing the burnout. Do it anyway. A clear mind is essential to finding solutions. After you’ve had some think time, treat yourself to a little extra time to rest, recover, catch up with the home stuff, clear the space and come back to work refreshed.

Second, think about how to redesign your work life so you can sustain that sense of stability longer term. For example, Evan did take a two week rest-recover-and-reflect vacation, but he also made a commitment when he came back to reducing his schedule to reliable10-hour days. He made plans to get away with his family at least one evening or weekend day a week and left the phone behind.

Third, reinforce your commitments by booking activities that refresh you and you know you won’t skip. Evan made a promise to his daughters that he would read them a story every single night–a promise that meant he couldn’t hole up in his office late at night.

Life in business today can be extremely intense and busy, and burnout is an issue (if not an epidemic). You are far too valuable to be swept away by stress and overwhelm. Become aware of the signs and symptoms, and acknowledge when you’re starting to feel burnt out, so you can take control and make a positive change.

April 21, 2015 by sereynolds

5 Ways to Lead in Challenging Times

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

What do leaders do when their stock price has dropped 75 percent and it’s their job to get it back up? What should leaders think when the thrilling vision they had for the future has been clouded by economic uncertainty? How do leaders get inspired when their employees are dejected, worried, and distracted–and let’s face it, on some level so are they?

Wait–don’t answer that. You can’t.

Because no matter how much you know about leadership, regardless of what the research says or what best practice implies, there’s only one way to find the right answers to these questions. Leaders need to find them for themselves.

In a time of unprecedented challenge, leaders don’t just need to lead their companies. They also need to lead themselves. They need strategies for improving their effectiveness while sustaining a sense of professional well-being. Every one of us has an internal source of strength and stability. Without care and consideration these renewable resources are seriously at risk.

In order to survive and thrive, leaders can’t just go about business as usual. Business isn’t “usual” anymore. It’s undergoing a seismic shift. Leaders need to get their footing in a shaky reality and learn to embrace the possibilities ahead.

So how does a leader actually practice personal leadership? What do they need to do? It looks like this:

Take time to think. Leaders need to step out of the daily rush and think about what they’re doing and why. Doing so, they will find the clarity and focus they need to get back into the action in the most effective way.

Look inside. Instead of being driven by the demanding urgencies, leaders can discover their inner resources–their strengths, their values, and their aspirations. Take for example, the leadership practice of visioning. Visioning is so vital that it is practically the prerequisite Chapter One in any book on the subject of leadership. Leaders of all kinds must have a clear vision to succeed. They need to know where their organization is going and why, and they need to communicate that vision clearly at all levels inside the organization and out.

But on a more personal level, leaders must also have a vision for themselves. At the level of the leader, visioning becomes something different than that longstanding vision that has to stand the test of time. It becomes something more fluid, more intuitive, and more flexible. It is a vision that changes as they change, but with consistent themes over time. The goal is not for a leader to establish one clear and permanent vision but to learn the skill of getting clarity about their vision again and again. For example, take an operations executive in a global medical equipment firm who had gotten overwhelmed by the pace of change in his company, which was growing exponentially, and his personal life, in which he was supporting aging parents. He had begun to be plagued with the big existential questions, like, “What am I doing?” and “What’s it all for?” By using visioning techniques as a way of finding clarity, he was able to discern what he wanted for himself as a leader, a son, an aspirational executive, and a person. As his circumstances continued to change, he learned to reconnect with clarity about his own personal vision–one that helped him to both be a better leader and lead a better life.

Rethink time and teams. The efficiencies of personal leadership come from a paradigm of abundance. Leaders need to recognize the wealth of resources available to them when they maximize their time and use the supportive people in their lives to help them achieve.

Work with a coach or mentor. Personal leadership is supported by a partner who can pose thoughtful questions, make observations, and help leaders learn to see new possibilities.

Look for ways to align and integrate one’s life. We are who we are wherever we are. The closer leaders can tie their true selves to their leadership roles, and in turn their leadership roles and their lives, the happier and healthier they will be–on all fronts.

Is it easy? Not necessarily. Introspection can be hard work. Is it worth it? Ask yourself: What would change for leaders if they had an inner resource to help them maintain stability and security within themselves when the world outside seems so unsound?

Successful leaders know that answer. Here are a few words from leaders who value the personal side of leadership:

“Leadership is personal. Management is personal. There’s something very powerful about bringing your whole self to work.” -Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

“If you can get your talents and passions to align with the organizational need, you’re really in a position when you can maximize contribution to company and achieve your career best.” -David Kilby, Director of Intel University, Intel

“As leaders it’s time to dig deep personally. There are a lot of people out there that are frozen. It’s a time to create a new future, and we can’t do it if we can’t think clearly.” -Lisa Weber, President, Individual Business, MetLife

When you practice personal leadership, you can take the practices of leadership more generally and apply them to oneself. As a result, both you and your team will flourish, even in challenging times.

April 7, 2015 by sereynolds

Senior Vice President at MGM Resorts Gives 3 Life-changing Ways to use Feedback

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

We’ve all encountered organizations that are going through a lot of change. I recently worked with an organization going through a transitional phase – they had a new division and even that division had gone through a major overhaul so they could be higher functioning within the whole of the company. All of that change can be hard on a team. Fast-forward a year later, I talked to one of the senior leaders on the team and found out that things had dramatically improved. The team was functioning productively, communicating with each other, making positive changes, and they were really on the right track.

I interviewed the Senior Vice President at MGM Resorts, Kelly Litster, to find out the strategy they used to make the difference. She said one word that stood out to me: feedback.

These are the three things Litster’s team learned about feedback:

We learned how to give feedback. One important step this team took to improve its performance was to create a sort of social contract. They agreed to a number of behaviors they wanted to hold themselves accountable for. The team started practicing a “scoring” technique to track how well they practiced the behaviors individually, and learned how to give feedback to explain their scores for each other.

Teams like Litster’s often include a number of common elements in their “operating agreements.” Some items might include avoiding blame, looking for the root cause of a problem, communicating messages even when they’re hard to say, and receiving messages without defensiveness even when they’re hard to hear.

Litster’s team held themselves accountable to scoring each other on those behaviors – a technique that made it possible for each of them to see how they score numerically, quantifying their behavior. Each individual team member can see the items they need to work on, try to remedy it and watch their score go up. It allows them to keep track of how they’re doing and provides a vehicle for how to communicate those messages and transform their culture.

We learned how to take feedback. Litster observed that on her team, members grew in their ability to listen and open their minds to feedback, learning how to do things differently instead of being closed off.

“We had to build trust,” Litster said, “The contract (or promise to behave a certain way) started us off – we joked about it before we could live by it. Then we had some serious trust building to do. Once there was a tiny bit of trust and someone was vulnerable – the team started to come together.”

They say a breaking point either leads to a breakdown or a breakthrough. In Litster’s case, it led to a breakthrough. They made it safe to give feedback within their team culture, so important messages could be both delivered and received. Taking hard feedback may not always been easy for a team member. It may not be pleasant. But it is helpful, and essential to elevate the team.

We learned how to use feedback to make improvements. Litster noticed that her team learned to assert themselves, to be necessary for the service of the greater goal even if the feedback made them uncomfortable initially, and they learned how to help each other. They also learned how to ask for help. Then they tracked their results and watched as the whole team came together in a more effective way. They also became open about giving compliments and offering help. The whole atmosphere became more congenial and productive. Perhaps most importantly, they were able to start demonstrating that they genuinely cared about one another and helped each other succeed.

If you lead a team, consider how you can use these same strategies for transforming the culture in an equally positive way.

Is your team comfortable giving and receiving feedback?
Do you have a system for communicating what’s important and how people are performing?
Do you have an agreement about how to improve based on the feedback?

With these three practices on using feedback that were so successful on Litster’s team at MGM Resorts, you can tackle a changing corporate landscape productively, and you’ll learn a lot about yourself and your colleagues along the way.

March 20, 2015 by sereynolds

The Formula for Success, and How to Actually Use It

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

We’ve all been there: you’re sitting at your desk reflecting, finding yourself frustrated with the lack of results you’re getting in your business. You reach the conclusion that you’re either working too hard and not getting enough results (sales, clients, income), or you’re just not sure if you’re doing the right thing.

Whether you’re doing the right thing with no result, or you’re doing the wrong thing with no result, the end result is the same: nothing.

So often success in business depends on the right formula. The right clients and customers; the right team; the right business model; the right branding and marketing; the right timing; the right action; and so on. It can be scary if you’re not getting results, because you don’t know which part of the formula is off.

Here’s a solution that can clear the confusion and get you back on the path to success. The formula is this:

Strategy + Execution (with Consistency) = Results.

I learned this model from a fellow consultant, but I never really understood it until I used it in my personal life.

Like most people, I was trying to lose those last insufferable “stubborn five pounds.” Despite being healthy and fit (enough) most of my life, somehow I had lost track of what I should be doing. I didn’t have a great workout plan to follow. I had forgotten what I should be eating to stay trim. As a result, I was much less consistent about my health routine, and that made it hard for me to get motivated. Finally it became clear to me I needed a strategy. I found a trainerto build that strategy for me, and once I got on the program, it was much easier for me to follow direction and get back on track. I knew what to do in my workout. I knew what to eat. I just had to do it–to execute the plan. Once I started doing that consistently, lo and behold those five pounds came off.

Business owners often fall into a similar pattern. They somehow, over the course of time, fall out of their marketing routine or forget what they should be doing about business development. As a result, they too become less consistent and less motivated. They too are missing the strategy. Whereas my trainer could create a diet and fitness plan for her clients, I often find myself helping entrepreneurs write Personal Strategic Plans they can execute–and when they do so, consistently, they also get the results they want in the form of clients, customers, and profit.

The formula for results is as follows:

Strategy. Ask yourself: On a scale from 1-10, do you believe you have the right strategy for your business?

What’s your ideal business model?

What should you be doing in the areas of marketing, business development and customer satisfaction?

What systems do you want for your team, your time, and your service delivery?

Making decisions in areas like these is key. Taking yourself on a good strategic planning offsite–even if you’re a solopreneur–is necessary to set the vision, mission, strategy, goals and activities that make up the business you want. Once those decisions are made, you can stop worrying and get back to work making it happen.

Execution. Ask yourself: On a scale from 1-10, are you executing the strategy well enough for it to pay off?

If your strategy dictates that you need to attend three networking events a month,, have you scheduled them in your calendar? Have you arranged childcare so that you can attend? Have you cleared your business schedule to attend the events? Have you made travel arrangements?

If your strategy tells you you need to take every Friday off to follow up on sales calls and tidy up your contact management system, are you actually focusing on those activities at that time?

Is there anything you’re supposed to be doing but really aren’t doing at all?

Even though a strategy is essential in building a profitable business, it isn’t enough. You have to commit to following the strategy with perfect execution.

So be honest: How well are you executing on your strategy? Are you really doing the things you’re supposed to do?

Consistency. Ask yourself: On a scale 1-10, how consistent are you in following through with executing the strategies for your business that get results?

The first time I heard the success formula it was explained to me as “Strategy plus Execution Equals Results.” I followed that equation and got nowhere, and that’s because I was missing consistency. So I added it to the formula: “Strategy plus Execution with Consistency Equals Results.”

Once my trainer had given me the diet and exercise plan she knew was right for me, and even after I had the system underway, she pointed out to me that I wasn’t being consistent. If I put in a great workout–but only once or twice a week–it simply wasn’t enough to get results. Business people often fail in a similar way. They have systems in place for working with clients, like networking and engaging in social media, but they’re inconsistent and not doing it enough. At best, they’re leaving money on the table. At worst, they’re giving up on the whole enterprise because they think the strategy “wasn’t working.”

One final tip: One of the things I learned from my trainer was the necessity of tracking. In fitness: Track your diet, track your calories, and track your mileage. In business, track your activities, track your successes, and track your results. That way you’ll be much more certain as to whether you have the strategy that’s working; you’ll be able to execute it more effectively; you’ll be motivated to stay consistent, and you’ll get the outcomes you want. That creates momentum and can help you build a business that lasts a lifetime.

March 3, 2015 by sereynolds

3 Common Events That Can Make Or Break Your Career Growth

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

We have many coaches in our lives. Teachers, sports coaches, mentors, and even our friends and families can become coaches to us in certain ways. In an article earlier this month I talked about the six signs to look out for that indicate that you could benefit from an executive coach, someone from outside of your organization who can guide you through career twists and turns.

But when is it time to pull the trigger? How do you know which twists or turns might become insurmountable and require outside help?

The following three scenarios are situations we inevitably run into at one point or another in our careers, sometimes multiple times. They’re situations in which a coach can step in and help you make the choices that are right for you.

You have an aspiration. The question I like to ask people is, what opportunities are you excited to take advantage of over the next year? Some possibilities:

New responsibilities. Is there a new project you’d like to take on, a team you’d like to lead, or an expanded role you’d like to take?
New business ventures. Do you have a new product to create–or to launch? Do you have some new potential partners?
Higher revenue goals. Is this the year you finally clear six figures? Or maybe seven? Does your team have the opportunity to be the best-in-class?

It’s so exciting to be able to see the very real possibilities ahead of you. But don’t let those ideas merely stir you creativity–make sure they light a fire under you so you actually get going and achieve the vision.

So many people don’t. They lose track of their goals, lose steam, or give up in defeat. That’s when to call a coach. Your coach will be sure the vision and goals stay first and foremost in your mind, so even when you’re busy, stress, overwhelmed, distracted, or not making progress, someone is there not only rooting for you but urging you to keep moving forward. A coach can help accelerate your advancement to get you over the finish line.

You’re looking for a career change. Whether you’re getting a promotion into a new role or looking to move companies altogether, coaching can help you shape your vision and get some clarity about what the next steps would be.

A client of mine was in a job at a company that went through a reorganization process, and the tasks he ended up being responsible for after the shift were tasks he wasn’t happy with and didn’t challenge him. As a coach I helped him by stepping in and providing clarity on what he does want and the steps he can take to get there, and we came up with action items that re-aligned him with his goals and interests. He was able to articulate a new plan for his career–one that had him developing a new niche in his old company. He found a renewed sense of purpose and meaning, and others saw him as confident, capable, and succeeding during a time of challenge and change

You’ve reached a plateau and want feedback. If you can feel yourself starting to lose motivation, if you’re frustrated with your boss and are losing respect for your company’s leadership, or if you are feeling that the feedback you’ve gotten from your boss isn’t aligned with you, then a coach can step in and provide the feedback you’re looking for to help you progress and grow.

The most successful businessmen and women I know are voracious about getting feedback. They crave the truth; they want to know where they can improve. They want to know their strengths and weaknesses. Without that kind of feedback loop, it’s hard for them to know how they’re doing. The sense of “plateauing” can be demotivating, because you don’t know how to move onward and upward. If your boss isn’t helping you improve, or if don’t respect or agree with the feedback you do get, you can find yourself stuck in “park.”

The good news about feedback is it’s always available, and you can access it yourself with the help of your coach. Your coach can choose self-assessments that will get you good information about your personality, strengths, and tendencies. He or she can help design a 360 for you, so you can get lots of feedback from all around. Your coach can even help you process the feedback you do have, differently. Seen from another angle, there might be some real hidden gems–messages that you do need to hear, and may be able to view in a different light with the perspective of your coach to add new insight.

Because your coach is someone in your court–without ulterior motives- he or she can give you a clearer picture of the next steps you should make to achieve the goal or position you want.

The Leadership Research Institute released a statistic that said the number one predictor of leadership effectiveness is a commitment to self-improvement. What that means is that what makes people see you as a more effective leader, and what makes you a better leader, is being open to learning. If you find yourself in any of the above situations, then learning is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your professional growth.

Related: 6 Signs You Need a Coach

February 17, 2015 by sereynolds

How To Save Your Struggling Business With Personal Leadership Practices

The following article appeared on Inc.com today as a part of my column, “Behind The Desk.” Look out for new columns every week!

The mark of a company able to adapt to a changing environment and to seize opportunities are leaders that lead the business, lead others, and most importantly lead themselves. Leaders perform best when aligned to a vision that inspires and motivates them to act.

Successful companies that maximize the talents of their leaders build personal leadership into their cultures, focusing intently on developing and communicating a meaningful vision and strategy; aligning the motivations of individual leaders to the direction of the firm; and effectively strengthening leaders’ skills and abilities to prioritize and make decisions that deliver the intended results–both for themselves and those they lead.

Entrepreneurs can build a culture of personal leadership by emphasizing the vision and strategy of the firm, and helping leaders to identify their personal goals and objectives.

Ask yourself:

What counts as success for your firm? How, and how consistently, is that message conveyed?
What do individual leaders care about that will motivate them to achieve success for your firm, for clients, and for themselves?
What do leaders need in terms of support for effectively prioritizing activities, developing action plans and managing their time?

Questions like these can help leaders align their efforts both to the firm and to their personal motivations, leading to a greater ability to leverage existing talent and sustain performance over time.

If the firm has decided to place its bets on its talent and make that its competitive advantage, then it’s got to do better. How do you do that? You get very clear about the vision, make sure everyone is aligned to it, clarify the strategy for the firm, and teach individual leaders to make their own personal and uniquely-motivating visions and goals for themselves. Then empower them to deliver on those visions and goals with skills related to action planning, prioritization, time management, and so on. The idea is that the individual leaders are so excited and energized by what’s in it for them personally that they align all their efforts to that achievement, and that achievement rolls up into the vision of the firm.

The image is one of, let’s say, a subway station. People are milling about, on their cell phones, individually getting things done but in no particular direction. One could stand on the balcony and say, “Look at all those busy people! So focused on their work… Everybody getting stuff done in their conversations and on their laptops even as they wait for the train…”

But compare that to a pack of marathon runners–all lined up and running the same direction at the same time toward the same finish line. They need to put their efforts into making sure everyone was running the same direction, for the same reason, and doing their best to stay focused on the same finish line. Then they could focus on minimizing the distractions that come from a lack of focus (such as poor decision making skills, poor prioritization, poor time management) and building up the leaders to do even more, better, faster (through coaching and mentoring).

Personal leadership assumes that leaders perform best when they are at their best, personally as well as professionally. So in addition to getting organized around vision, strategy and goals, it’s important to foster a strong appreciation for what it means to be a high performer and what it takes to sustain that level of success.

If your firm wants to capitalize on the investment its making in its leaders, it would recognize that to get the best results out of these kind of talented individuals, it needs to help them not just achieve but find a sense of personal motivation and fulfillment that will inspire and motivate them to over deliver not just for the firm, but also for themselves. That way, everyone wins.