High Performance Leadership

This is a guest entry from my friend and fraternity brother, David Spiegel. He's a hard-working, deep-loving family and business person who shares his insights on a daily (almost!) basis. I like the positive nature of this entry and I have some leadership questions for you to contemplate after reading... Today is one of the days of the year that I truly enjoy. As the rest of the world seems to be shutting down from the mundane and gearing up for the upcoming holiday,we are busy doing business! When I arrived at The Grooming Shoppe this morning, Becca had already opened, brought in our first client, put on the Christmas music and straightened and cleaned up the front end. We were ready for action on what should be one of our busiest days of the year. Truth be told, we were actually busier on the Saturday before Christmas last year. It was the single busiest day we ever had. It's not that we have any less business. On the contrary. Becca has done a marvelous ...

Life's too short to spend all of our time working on goals we don't like. Maybe you have a boss who assigns you goals you don't like. Have you tried changing your relationship with your boss? Have you tried finding more exciting goals? Find goals that are exciting enough, noble enough, and useful enough and you'll find other people who are excited about them, too. Stick with goals that are stuck to you, and you stay stuck. It, like so much else, is a choice. What's your happy-face goal? Maybe it's your happy-face goal because it's so preposterous. Maybe because no one else would dream of it. Maybe because it will turn your life around in ways that make you giddy. Go for it. Always have at least one goal that makes you smile when you think of it. Giggling occasionally is healthy! -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Consider your current goals. If none of them make you smile, it's time to create one that does!

Values evolve over time. If values are ever true, they refine without denying what once was. They grow. They distill. They find ways to self-generate the results they aspire to. Here are some values I've refined into calls to action. I don't just agree with them, I expect to do them. To show them. To act on them. Sometimes it goes well, and often I fall short. The journey is a long one, so keep going. Here are my current calls to action: Be your best Stay curious Say yes! Communicate, Connect, Interact! Challenge yourself Reach out with compassion Expand your possibilities Appreciate Play nice, work hard, stay smart Learn constantly What are your values? What are your calls to action? -- doug smith

I ran on the track and field team in high school. We had runners who were fast and skilled at short distances. We had runners better equipped for mid to long distance. I usually ran the half-mile, which is a mid-distance race.  In those days it was unusual for anyone to run both short and long races. You trained for one or the other, because the stamina was different and the mental approach was different. Leaders make a similar choice with their work teams. Are you going to push for short term results, whatever the cost? Or, are you going to build for the long view and develop your people even as they make some mistakes along the way? I'm a strong advocate of the long view, of building for going the distance. In the mean time, leaders still must deliver short term results. Like modern track athletes, leaders now must ask: are you running for speed or distance? -- knowing full well that it's not a choice. You must deliver both. That's the tough news. The good news...

If you work on enough projects and goals, you will inevitably miss a deadline. It feels terrible. The energy can drain out and it can feel as if you will never achieve what you set out to do. Instead of giving up, though, what if you simply recalibrate, reset, and restart in order to redouble your efforts? What if you garnered more support and focused more sharply on the task at hand? Some goals we let go because their time has come and gone or they never really served our mission. But, if your goal is still in alignment with your mission and you do still have the support of your boss, then what if you took a few deep breathes, drank a glass of water, took a walk, and then hit that restart button on your goal? Sometimes missing a deadline is a delay, not a failure. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Take two minutes to review your top three goals. What are you doing on them today? You'll never do everything, but you can always do what is most important to y...

Once I was lost in Washington, D.C. That's easy for me because the streets are unconventionally situated compared to many other cities, plus I get lost quite easily. I could get lost in a hotel. While I was lost (before GPS was widely available) I stopped and asked for directions. Maybe the advice was good, maybe it wasn't, but I stayed lost. I asked someone else, at a deli. New directions, same outcome. Lost. Thank goodness for GPS these days! And also, thank goodness that I've learned not to take every piece of advice that's been offered to me. If I had, I might have: Given up on training Kept a dead-end job Never called an old friend just because she'd broken my heart Fired some people who later turned out to be exemplary team members Used facilitator's guides word for word You get the idea. There's a lot of bad advice out there. That's why a deep foundation of knowledge is vital. You don't get lost when you know where you'...

What do you do when you are really stressed? Having lived in Colorado for eight years, I became quite tuned into how a lack of oxygen can effect your performance. The higher you go, the more rare the air. And sometimes, that makes it very hard to breathe. High performance leaders live in rarified air. They go places others are afraid of. They lead people on new challenges. They get stressed. Breathe. Learn your limits. Learn your capacity. Learn what you need to keep going strong. When we pay attention, breathing teaches. Breathe. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Pause, Take one minute right now to breathe, slowly, and carefully paying attention to your breath. Give it at least a few deep full and complete breathes. On the exhale, make sure that ALL of the old air is expelled. Breathe in with your full attention.

This brief video poses the theory that in order to build an effective team it is important that the people on the team get along. Interpersonal dynamics are important. While this may seem obvious to anyone who has worked with many teams, it is still important. How well do the people on your team get along? What are the interpersonal behaviors that your teams needs and wants? Why not explore that idea at your next team meeting? It's cheaper than a retreat, requires no trust falls or zip lines, and might just be the best thing you do for your team this month. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Gather your team. Plan a substantial portion of your meeting (or maybe nearly all of a meeting) to asking your team members the following questions. Make sure that someone is capturing the answers on a group memory (white board or flip chart or similar display.) What interpersonal behaviors do you find most helpful when working with others? What habits or behaviors are...

Even high performance leaders can get stuck trying to solve a problem. Tough resistance stands against the solutions tried and keep the problem around. What makes that problem so tough? What is it that stands in the way? What if it's you? (or me, I must ask myself!) What if the part of the problem that's so hard to solve reflects that part of you that you don't want to change? You might need to change! -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Think about a problem that you are struggling with. What can you change about YOURSELF that might wiggle you free from this stasis?

Do you like to give advice? High performance leaders are often asked for advice. The temptation is to give it no matter what. After all, aren't we the experts? If someone is asking for advice, doesn't that mean that they trust us and believe we have the wisdom needed to answer? Maybe. Giving advice is limiting, though. What if you helped that person think thru their possibilities instead? What if they already knew what they wanted and needed to do, and were only hoping that you'd advise them accordingly? And what if your advice doesn't work? It's better to stay curious. Ask questions. Help them with their thinking. You could still end up giving them advice, but probably not. Probably, they'll develop a strategy all of their own, one that they can own and implement and achieve. "I wonder what you'll do about that" is more powerful than "here's what you should do..." -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Stay cu...

When I worked at Whole Foods, one of the store managers told me, "We live in the land of no excuses." That stuck with me. Even knowing it already, it helps to know that others will hold you accountable. Excuses are not acceptable. High performance leaders work past excuses and find ways to achieve their goals. When they miss (and we all do) they own their misses and move forward. Maybe the task gets a new deadline. Maybe it no longer matters. But excuses don't change a thing and do not reflect the courage that a high performance leader needs. Show your courage. Eliminate excuses. It's easy to get distracted or make excuses so we all need someone to hold us accountable. Who is holding you accountable? -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Ask someone to ask you about your most important goal, at least once a week until that goal is achieved.