High Performance Leadership

Leaders do not settle. Good enough is not enough. Almost will never do. As my dad used to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right," and leadership must be done in a fully attentive, fully focused, high performance way. High performance leaders insist on ever increasing performance. To get there, they encourage positive action after positive action. Step by ever reaching step to a higher level, to a better degree, to a higher quality. It's what high performance leaders do. High performance leaders provoke positive actions. What positive action will you provoke today? -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action The next conversation you have with anyone on your team today, take a moment to provoke a positive action. Encourage your team member to do more, to add quality, to add value to something otherwise routine. Keep provoking until that positive action is a reality -- and then keep provoking until that positive reality is a habit. You can do it. You...

It might seem obvious, but it's worth remembering: strong goals provide you with strength. They provide you with strength of purpose, strength of direction, and strength of endurance.  A goal that you truly care about, that's written with clarity provides help when others try to hinder. Lots will try to get in the way. The best goals resist this resistance and persist to achievement. A solid, clear goal can withstand any judging. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action Check in on your top three goals today. Are they providing you with strength of direction? How could you make them even stronger? What will you do today toward achieving them?

Are you working hard on your goals? I hope so. Goals require attention, effort, and energy. And you know what else goals benefit from? Help. Specifically, help from other people. And where do those people come from? They could be your team. They could be your peers. They probably START though with people you have helped before. When you help others to achieve their goals, they become remarkably more available to help you with yours. When you help other people achieve their goals they become more powerful allies. Whether you are working on goals that need help or not right now -- reach out to see who else you can help. Maybe they'll reciprocate and maybe they won't -- but there's nothing TO reciprocate unless you help first. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Think about a friend or co-worker who is working on a project that you are not involved with. Sometime in the next week, call them and ask how you can help.

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

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.