Joelle K. Jay

leadership

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See the Miracles!

I was sitting talking to Michael Gerber one morning, who for decades has been the go-to expert for business owners through his work with E-Myth Worldwide. We were talking about personal leadership and the thrill of witnessing the moments when leaders experience their big breakthroughs.

I thought of my client, Belinda Keaganm,* who was promoted every year for five years before finally becoming the CEO of a large financial institution.

I thought of my client, Ari Chellis, who stopped being a “do-er,” started being a strategist, and earned himself the title of Chief of Staff of the chairman of an international organization.

I thought of my client, Caroline, the President and General Manager of a leading software company, who through faith and humor beat cancer not once, but twice.

As Michael and I celebrated their accomplishments, we talked about what it takes to be able to see the possibilities – to know and trust that the visions we have for our lives and our leadership can come to us even if we don’t know how to create them. It’s not luck. It’s openness. It’s willingness. It’s faith.

You can teach yourself to see the miracles that lead to breakthrough, the miracles that give you an edge. You can’t create those moments, but they’re there. As I wrote in the book The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership, Eureka moments, aha’s, epiphanies—they’re not scrunched into our in-boxes. We can’t force them to show up by working harder. Flashes of insight occur when we are relaxed, open, and alert.

Are you open to the possibilities before you? Most people aren’t, as Michael observed. In a lull in our conversation, he took a deep breath and sighed.

“Most people don’t see the miracles.”

*Clients’ names have been changed by request.

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

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Let It Be Easy!

Letting it be easy is the first strategy for seeing possibility. My friend and mentor, Dr. Heidi McKenna, once taught me this:

If things are going your way, go that way.
If things aren’t going your way, don’t go that way.

To put this suggestion into effect, you just have to notice what’s working and do more of it. Notice what’s not working and do less of it. Easy. This strategy is especially helpful for making difficult decisions or finding your way through confusion.

Letting it be easy is an approach you can use to see new possibilities. You are able to work smart and let the current of your life carry you in the direction it wants to go. You can put down some of the weight of success by noticing which direction seems easy and right.

Try these questions to help you get in the mindset of letting it be easy.

•    What’s going your way?

•    What’s not going your way?

•    What do your answers suggest about what to do next? How can you let it be easy?

Take a step back every once in awhile. Notice where you’re struggling. Notice where it’s easy. Even if just for a while, try going the easy way. It may be the path of success. The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu put it simply: Easy is right.

Many more ways to let success be easy are available in The Inner Edge: The Extension. This eBook provides 3 New Secrets to succeeding while “letting it be easy” that aren’t available anywhere else! Order your copy of The Extension today: visit www.TheInnerEdge.com.

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Learning By Chance, Learning by Choice

Leaders are encouraged to learn “on the job.” The problem is that many of us don’t. Either because we’re too busy, we forget, we don’t know what we need to learn, or we don’t have the resources we think we need, we end up learning by chance or command. Neither one is very powerful.

Learning by chance means you take opportunities to learn whenever they show up, but you don’t necessarily go looking for more. A conference brochure arrives; it seems interesting; you go. A friend recommends a book; it looks good; you read it. You take opportunities to learn as they come to you – in other words, when it’s convenient.

Learning by command means you learn when someone else demands it. When your colleagues tell you that you need to learn to be more decisive, or when your profession requires that you get an advanced certification, or when your boss sends you to a workshop to learn specific skills, you are learning by command.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these approaches to learning. Any learning that advances your expertise and builds your capacity may be worth your time.

Or it may not, and that’s the problem. You have so much potential, and there are so many opportunities to learn, and there is so much to be gained by learning that it simply doesn’t make sense to relegate your learning to the whims of chance and command. You need to learn by choice.

Learning by choice means carefully setting up your own learning opportunities based solely on what you need to get better results.

Learning by choice is based on a number of assumptions.

Learning is leadership. Learning is an essential component of leadership. Some experts go so far as to say learning is leadership, a leader’s constant quest for the improvement of the business, people, and results.

Learning is profit and competitive edge. The soul of business is innovation; the soul of personal leadership is the innovation of the self. You can’t have one without the other. If you want to have, run, or be part of a business that succeeds in a time of change, you need to be willing to change, as well.

Learning is life. In addition to learning for all of the practical and rational reasons that contribute to your effectiveness as a leader, there’s one more: learning is part of the fun of life. When was the last time you picked up a new sport, game or hobby? We learn these things not because we have to, but because we want to. Your vision and goals will be infused with a new sense of exuberance when you commit to learning what you need to learn in order to achieve them. You will know that you can do anything you want to as long as you know how to learn.

If you really want to lead well and live well, you must learn to learn well, too.

And if you’d like to master the ability to learn as a way of excelling as a leader and in your life, go to www.TheInnerEdge.com. You’ll find a free guide called Your Personal University to help you choose the most powerful way to learn.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be making strategic decisions about how to learn and what to learn in order to excel as a leader and in your life. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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Join the Leading Network (Yours!)

To get an edge – any edge, as a leader, in your life, on the competition, against your old limitations, toward your new self – you don’t have to go it alone.

In fact, you shouldn’t go it alone. You can do so much more with a team.

Call it a Mastermind, your “Dream Team,” an Imaginary Advisory Board, or just a good group of friends and associates, you will all go further faster when you support each other in your goals.

I’m not talking about doing the work, now (although a team is good for that, too). I’m talking about supporting each other in achieving your goals.

Here’s how Cheryl Scott, the former CEO of Group Health Cooperative, and now the Senior Advisor of Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, describes the experience.

“I joined a network of other Chief Operating Officers. We talked about what it was like to be a COO and be the #2. In this network, we started to explore our own personal leadership and personal mastery. It was transformational to me. I had never taken the time to think about it before that. When you’re in your 30s and early 40s, your career means a lot but it’s not necessarily about your own values and how to “leap from where you stand.” In two years of working with [my network], as we worked with great coaches and listened to Peter Drucker and read Peter Senge, it transformed the way I felt about my work. I started to think more purposefully about what I was about, what I brought, why I did what I did and how it connected to [my company] at the time. It really changed a how I thought about leadership. It became more personal.”

You can create your own network by asking yourself a few questions.

• Who do you admire?

• Who inspires you?

• How do you think they can support you?

• How can you support them?

• If you could get these people into a room all at one time and ask them the single most important question you have, how would that help you?

You now have your personal support team. All you need to do is invite them in.

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Email Info@TheInnerEdge.com for more information.

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Three New Shortcuts to Maximize Your Time

One of my favorite topics to write, coach, and speak on is Maximizing Your Time. It’s not just a topic for me – it’s an obsession! Your time is too precious to waste. I’ve started a collection of good ideas for maximizing time (which is the Sixth Practice of Personal Leadership). Most of these are available in The Inner Edge, and even more in The Inner Edge Extension. Here are a three more for today.

A New Kind of Balance
Paul Melchiorre, VP of Global Strategy at Ariba, once reframed for me the topic of “balance.” He said, “It used to be that there was office time for your work and down time with your family.” Now, though, our PDAs, laptops and cell phones bring the office right home. Flex time, telecommuting, and compressed work weeks likewise bring family life right into the workweek. “It’s not like you have a work life and a play life anymore,” Paul went on. “It’s just your life.”

Paul had a good suggestion for managing the co-mingling of the various parts of our lives: Set Rules. Don’t answer the phone during dinner, for instance, or schedule a family breakfast if you know you’ll be working too late to make dinner. If work and home are to share your time, make sure they both get an equal part.

Fun on the Run
It’s not just that our work and home lives are so integrated that we have trouble maximizing our time. It’s also because we’re so busy. Who has time for the full work day and the homemade meal and the family time and the workout all in one day, everyday? (It can be done, mind you…I coach people how everyday!) In a full day, sometimes you’ve just got to double up.

My friend and client, Saly Glassman at Merrill Lynch, often has creative ideas for Maximizing Time. She once told me a very funny story about how much fun she and her daughters have as they run errands. A trip to CVS might not sound like the typical Family Fun Night, but given all the laughs they have, it can be equally as good! Exercising with your spouse, taking your kids on business trips, or cooking dinner as a family all offer ways to get in quality down time in the middle of a busy day (or life). You really can do more with less.

Interruptible Time
Personally, I find peace of mind in compartmentalizing. I like to separate my work life and my home life. It’s my way of finding focus and relaxing into the moment.

But I am coming to realize more and more how much people can make interruptible time work.

“Interruptible Time” is time that is scheduled for one thing but doesn’t require so much concentration that you can’t switch to something else that comes up. I am convinced that this how executive search consultant Christine Heidenreich can work seven days a week and feel perfectly balanced, or how the CEO of a health care association can enjoy a long day at the zoo with his nephews right in the middle of the week.

To practice interruptible time, it’s best to plan a bit ahead. Make a list of the tasks you have that you can easily “switch into.” For many people these include phone calls, but could also be reading or making simple decisions. Then look at your schedule to see when those tasks could be intermingled with others for an acceptable balance – for instance, on a low key Saturday or some evening after dinner.

As the world changes around us, we are all learning to adapt. Technology is transforming the human experience. Suggestions like these are surfacing where the people who have found peace with the changes can show the rest of us what to do.

Don’t worry. I’ll keep looking for more great ideas, and I’ll post them as I do!

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. For more information email Info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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Opening Pandora’s Box

I had an interesting conversation with David Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of Global Human Resources at Marriott International, recently. He made me think.

All the time I spend executive coaching, what I’m really doing is helping people think. I am asking them provocative questions. Expanding their thinking. Challenging them. It’s also my role to support them when the thinking is hard, sometimes push them off the cliff of their limitations and then cushion their fall. The result is growth, and the result of growth is peak performance and an improved bottom line.

I thought that was a good thing.

But David showed me another perspective. He reminded me how hard it is to reflect. How unready sometimes leaders are to learn. He said,

Most people I find shy away from being introspective. Even if they have the capability they shy away from actually practicing introspection.

Knowing David to be a brilliant leader in the arena of leadership development, I was a little surprised. I thought leaders loved this stuff! Here’s what he said:

The times we’re living in today are tough. Everyone is under a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of uncertainty. A lot of emotional energy is devoted to coping with things outside our control. We can’t control the economy. We feel like victims. Everyone is trying desperately to stay calm and focused in the face of external pressures. This is supposition, but I think the average person does not look to add to the pressures they face. While introspection is great as a catalyst for growth and fundamental to growth, in essence what it really is is going to a zone of discomfort. It’s finding out things about yourself that may not make you feel in the moment good and in control. Especially in these times when people have such pressures, [reflection] could be a Pandora’s box.

And I suppose he’s right. When you open the lid to your potential, who knows what demons lurk inside, just waiting to jump out and grab you? Do you really have the energy to rally now, of all times, to fight the status quo? Can’t you just suffer through the challenges in peace?

Of course you can. Many do. I’ll admit that since David and I talked, I have met a few people who seem truly bedraggled by the impact of a negative economy. It would be cruel to unleash on them Pandora’s box.

Or would it? What I want you to remember it that practicing personal leadership is not just about facing your fears. It’s about finding your strength.

In Pandora’s box you may find old habits, destructive patterns, or hidden fears.

But you will also find a clear, inspiring vision of who you want to be.

You’ll find new focus on what you want to achieve.

You’ll find new strategies and tools for progress.

You’ll find fulfillment.

New ways of spending your time.

A stronger, smarter, more motivating team.

A whole new universe of learning and possibility.

You’re going to find yourself.

The Fifth Practice of Personal Leadership is Feel Fulfillment. I’ll admit that perhaps the process of getting there may present challenging questions, but those questions are the doorway to a satisfying life.

When you sit on the lid of Pandora’s box, you lock your real self inside. Go ahead. Open up.

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

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The Golden Life

One established principle of leadership is to know your values. I disagree. Values are indeed the raw materials of a golden life, but just knowing them is not enough. You also need to decide how to use them. You do that by looking at the role your values play – or could play – in helping you achieve fulfillment. We call this living your values. You are living your values when you’re not only clear about what you value but use it a basis for action.

To what degree are you living your values now?
When you live your values, they define who you are, not just who you want to be. If family is one of your top values, to what degree are you prioritizing your family? Are you spending time with them? Are you enjoying them, helping them, involved with them? If trust is one of your top values, are you being trustworthy? Are you trusting others? Are there any ways in which you might not be, or are there ways trust is being violated in your life? Questions like these aren’t meant to grill you or shame you; just to compare. Asking this question helps you hold up your life against your values to see how well they match. Then you know where to make adjustments to feel more fulfilled.

How would life be different if you were living your values?
When you live your values, they become an integral part of your life. How would it look for you to live your values? How would your personal life be different? How would your professional life be different? How would you act and be different as a leader? Knowing the answer to questions like these helps you make positive changes in keeping with your values. Practicing this kind of thinking, you can give up complaining about the parts of life that seem meaningless and actually bring them some meaning.

How can you live your values now for a more fulfilling experience every day?
When you live your values, you use them to make decisions. Your values are like the gas in a car. When you apply your values to your life, you drive positive energy into everything you do. Otherwise you’re are just idling and wasting power. Your values are especially helpful in making decisions, choosing perspectives, and resolving conflicts.

• Using your values to make decisions. Your values can help you make the big and small decisions that define your life. When you have to make a decision, big or small, ask yourself: How do your values influence this decision? Being explicit about your values gives you a basis for comparison when considering the opportunities that come along.

• Using your values to choose your perspective. Fulfillment doesn’t just come from using your values to decide what to do. It also comes from using your values to decide how to think. When you’re feeling challenged or struggling with a difficult situation, the question to ask is: How could your values enhance this moment? Even a chore like raking leaves takes on meaning when you connect it to a value of having a pleasant, comfortable home, and working for hours on the copy for a web page seems more palatable when you realize it fulfills your value of having a professional presence in the market. The right perspective can be the difference between a mundane and a fulfilling life.

• Using your values to resolve conflicts. Values serve a practical purpose in relationships: they help you resolve difficult issues. Many conflicts stem from a values clash. One person values speed, the other values meticulous correctness. One person values serenity; the other values excitement. One value crashes into another, creating tension and slowing progress. Simply by naming the values (“It seems like we have a values clash. I value loyalty, and you value freedom.”) you can move quickly into more productive questions (like “Is there a way we can meet both of our needs?” and “How can we get around this issue?”). Often these questions will lead to answers. If not, you’ll need to consider which values are worth taking a stand and which must be subjugated for the sake of a solution.

It’s not always possible to honor your values; that’s why feeling fulfillment is a practice. You practice aligning your choices with your values. The more you practice, the better you’ll become at creating a life of fulfillment everyday.

Take some time now to reflect on your values.
1. To what degree are you living your values now?
2. How would life be different if you were living your values?
3. How can you live your values now for a more fulfilling experience every day?

There’s an ancient Hindu story about the gods arguing over where they should keep the secret of happiness. Afraid that humans didn’t deserve or couldn’t handle this secret, they debated where to hide it. At first they considered putting it at the top of a high, high mountain, but reasoned that humans would eventually be able to find it. Likewise, they might find it in the darkest forests or at the bottom of the ocean. Finally, an idea struck one of the gods:

“I know the perfect place. We will hide the secret of happiness in the deepest depths of their own hearts. They will never bother to look there.”

It’s not easy to find the secret of happiness and fulfillment. But you have the ability to do it; the answer lies within you.

An entire process for identifying and living your values including a free audio Values Visualization and a companion worksheet is available at www.TheInnerEdge.com.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be talking about the process of living your values, and learning to shift your current reality into an experience of joy and fulfillment. For more information, click here or email Info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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Of Brilliances and Blind Spots

What could you achieve if your business were 38% more effective, or if your customers were 44% more likely to be satisfied with your results? Would it make a difference?

For years, I’ve been an avid proponent of Strengths-Based Leadership. In a nutshell, the theory argues that if we want to be our best, we need to capitalize on our strengths. According to research from the Gallup organization (as reported in Now Discover Your Strengths by Clifton and Buckingham, among others), in organizations where leaders are encouraged to build on their strengths, the business is

•         50% more likely to have lower turnover

•         38% more likely to have productive business units

•         44% more likely to have higher customer satisfaction.

You can improve your own results by building on your strengths. I call it Tapping Into Your Brilliance, and it’s the Fourth Practice of Personal Leadership.

Of course, we don’t always know what our brilliances are. But you can find them. My favorite resources are Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 and Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths to Work, both of which offer you the chance to take a quiz that reveals to you your strengths.

But it’s not just our strengths that need work. It’s also our blind spots. Cece Sutton, the president of the retail banking group at Morgan Stanley, agrees:

“Great leaders work on themselves. They’re acknowledging and aware of the things they need to improve on to be better. I don’t know all my blind spots, but I know a lot of them. I’m not always conscious of them, but I do think about them and try to improve.”

What’s especially dangerous about our weaknesses is that they’re so hard to see. Think about that blind spot in your car – how scary it is to realize that another vehicle could be hiding back there, threateningly close, and you can’t even see it.

To excel as a leader, you’ve got to be able to see into your blind spots. To help leaders with this process, I’ve created a feedback system you can use to discover both your brilliances and your blind spots. It’s called The 360 Investment, and you can find it at www.The360Investment.com.

You can also learn more about Strengths-Based Leadership by downloading a free copy of my white paper, The Best of You and the Rest of You: Making the Most of Strengths-Based Leadership.

For now, just give it some thought. What are two of your strengths, and how can you make them work for you? What is your one biggest weakness, and how can you prevent it from holding you back?

Did you enjoy this profile? You may be interested in the eCourse, Getting an Edge: 21 Ways World Class Leaders Share Their Secrets for Leading and Living Well. Each of 21 profiles just like this one comes in a separate email – once a day for 21 days. Click here for more information.

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From Brilliance to the Best

In The Inner Edge, you learned the practice of tapping into your brilliance. You now know your distinct natural attributes, as well as how to leverage them for a more powerful effect. The more you practice applying your DNA strategically to achieve your vision and reach your goals, the more you can do and the better you can do it. Then you’re not just brilliant, you’re truly being your best.

Being Your Best
“Being your best” may sound like a cliché, but let’s think about it more deeply. Each of the three words in that phrase is important.

Being. When you are being your best, you are focusing on the way you are. “Who you be” in any given moment is about your character, your alignment with your vision and values, and your ability to integrate your life and your leadership. It’s not what you do. It’s not what you win. It’s not what you have. It’s who you be that helps you tap into your true unique value. Focusing on the being aspects of your attributes (being caring, being inspirational, being strategic) will tie you to your brilliance.

Your. The biggest difference in being brilliant versus being just good lies in the operative word your. The goal is not to be the best. The goal is to be your best. Being the best is about ego. Being your best is about commitment. Can you be both? Sure. You probably will. But your attention must be on what you can do to succeed – not on beating everyone else. That’s a much more powerful position.

Best. “Best” is a moving target. Have you ever done what you thought was your best, only to surprise yourself by doing even a little bit more? The idea behind being your best is to push past the limits of what you thought your “best” would be. Find the edge – that spot where you really feel you cannot do one iota better. That is your best…for the moment, until next time where you find out yes, you can do even better.

Being your best instead of being the best is the opposite of the “nose to the grindstone” mentality that drives our culture…and drives many leaders to destruction. Being your best is being so yourself that you naturally excel.

And if you’re really ready to Be Your Best, use the worksheet, Your Best, in The Inner Edge: The Extension. Click here to see a preview or to purchase The Extension at https://www.joellekjay.comthe-inner-edge/.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be discussing what it means for your to Be Your Best – and how to get there. For more information, click here or email info@TheInnerEdge.com.

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The Catalyst

What is the one thing you could do that would have the greatest impact on your vision? The answer is your catalyst. In the sciences, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the process. For you, a catalyst is an action that dramatically increases the rate at which you achieve your vision, without consuming you.

To take effective action, you can get the potency of a catalyst by using an action plan appropriately called the CATA List. The CATA List is a chart divided into four categories:

  1. Catalysts
  2. Achievements
  3. Tasks
  4. Avoidances.

These categories help you sort interminable lists of To Dos to find the ones that pack the biggest punch. Then you trim away the rest.

“C” is for Catalysts
To find your catalysts, ask yourself, “What is the one thing you could do that would have the greatest impact on your vision?”

Any item you call a “catalyst” must be an action that drives all the rest, either because it causes the rest of the actions to happen; it frees you to put your time where you want it; or it unlocks a barrier to action. The main criterion for your catalyst is that you know this one piece will do more than any other to advance you in the direction of your vision. If you’re writing a speech, a catalyst might be to stand up and practice. If you’re leading a company, a catalyst might be to communicate the strategic direction. If you’re trying to lose fifty pounds, a catalyst might be to go running or give up sugar. Looking at these examples, you can see how easily catalysts get crowded out by more pressing issues. Indeed, even though your catalysts have the most value, if you’re not careful they can easily get pushed aside.

To find your catalysts, think about what action you would take if you could find uninterrupted quality time because you know it would make the biggest difference in your ability to attain your vision.

“A” is for Achievements
The next category includes actions you classify as important. Really important. They may not have the transformational effect of your catalysts, but they are the kinds of achievements that matter on a day to day basis. These achievements typically take center stage in your life. They tend to be:
• daily actions
• key relationships
• priority projects
• deadlines.
As a rule, working on achievements makes for a very productive day.

“T” is for Tasks
You use the “tasks” category for the actions you’d like to take but can’t justify as truly critical. Yes, they are things that may have to get done, but they don’t have nearly the impact as your catalysts and achievements.

Tasks are big time consumers. Long meetings. Some networking. Obsessive perfecting of non-essential details. You might feel a little twinge when you admit these tasks are less-than-important, because you may want to do them. And you may get to. But only after the more valuable things are done.

“A” is for Avoidances
Many leaders find the “avoidances” category the hardest to fill. The items in this category take more energy than they deserve. When you’re trying to rid your action plan of excess, cut the fat by forcing yourself to put at least 25 percent of your To Dos onto this list. To find actions avoid, look for the ones that take a lot of time with little return. The “avoidances” list is a place to throw off extra baggage. Letting some actions go – undone – lets you to be lighter, more nimble, and available for the things that really matter.

As a whole, the CATA List takes the commitments that emerge from your focus areas and marries them in a single-page, concrete list of actions that ultimately lead to your vision for living and leading well.

When you create a CATA List, you have a quick categorization of everything you need to do, organized in order of value. As you think about all the actions on your To Do list now, can you see how categorizing your tasks in order of value might help you make room for working on your goals? Suddenly the most important thing you need to do isn’t just the most pressing; it’s the one that fits with your focus and leads to your vision.

To create your own CATA List, use the free worksheet available at www.TheInnerEdge.com. Go to the Worksheets & Audios page and scroll down to find the worksheet called The CATA List.

Please join us for The Inner Edge Book Club! This month we will be using the CATA List to break through to greater, more effective action. For more information, click here or email info@theinneredge.com.