High Performance Leadership

Saying that we did the best we ould and actually DOING the best we could are NOT the same and does not fool anyone. You'll know for sure when you did the best you could when there is nothing left to give. -- doug smith  

People do want to be challenged, but only by people who walk the talk. Leaders who demonstrate the character and discipline that they demand from others. What would your team look like if everyone on your team performed exactly like you? -- doug smith

Ambition without vision consumes everything around it. -- doug smith  

Even brilliant minds sometimes fall behind. Keep learning. I say it a lot, and yet can't say it enough: keep learning. That's a note to self as well as anyone else. What have you learned today? -- doug smith  

Learning isn't always easy but it's always valuable. -- doug smith  

 "An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard." -- Gene Knudsen Hoffman Without contrary evidence it always seems like we're right. Even WITH contrary evidence we get stuck often defending our story, our view. The story may not be wrong, but it is surely incomplete. Listen. Ask questions. Understand. Learn. High performance leaders look for common ground. -- doug smith

"The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have." -- Sheryl Sandberg

It's better to be considered tough and show up tender than to be thought tender and show up tough. -- doug smith  

Resistance to change is our most natural and unproductive impulse. Helping people thru that change changes their lives positively. It's s something that high performance leaders do. -- doug smith

Have you ever danced to a tune you didn't like? Maybe it was at a wedding, or a holiday gathering, or a nightclub, or some other place. Dancing was around you and so you danced.  Dancing is usually a choice. Unless it is against your belief system (as a child I remember people in my family who thought that dancing was a sin) dancing is on the whole more beneficial than difficult.  I used to believe that I was a good dancer -- until my partner broke up with me and I discovered that SHE was the good dancer, so good that she makes anyone she dances with look like a better dancer (even me). And yet, still I dance. I remember the celebration dinner for a project that I worked on when the president of the company joined the rest of us on the dance floor to do a fun line dance. I'll admit, he danced better than me. For one of the programs that I teach I offer the participants the opportunity to dance in a brief virtual dance party. Some people do (and seem to enjoy it) and some peopl...

Every bad habit you break makes room for a good habit to take. -- doug smith