High Performance Leadership

How do you feel about other people's excuses? How about your own excuses? I've been guilty of creating some silly excuses for mistakes that I've made. Maybe you've heard some of them: - I ran out of time - I didn't realize how much it meant to you - Something came up - Traffic was really bad - The budget changed - We miscalculated We can create an excuse list longer than the Chicago phone directory, and it still won't help much. Excuses won't change the result. Most of the time, whatever truth there is in an excuse doesn't even matter. When it comes to improving performance we must get beyond excuses. We must identify reasons , and then develop the strategies it takes to deal with the reasons in order to achieve our goal. The next time you hear an excuses, remember this: an excuse is a request to make things better. Challenge those excuses. Make things better. Help others to challenge them as well. Why not get started? -- Douglas B...

Do your team members know what you expect? Have you set your performance expectations at a level that causes them to stretch their skills? Do they know how much they might need to stretch and where to begin? One of the most important things that a high performance leader can do is to make expectations clear. Here's what I want, when I want it, how it should look and feel, and what it includes. It even helps to make clear what it does NOT include, so that people see and feel the boundaries. As the leader, it is up to you to make those boundaries clear. Whenever I've had a performance conversation with one of my team members, it includes a statement to this effect: I'm expecting you do to your best. What are you expecting? Because if they are not expect to do their best, we need to change that right away. What are you expecting? -- Douglas Brent Smith Would you like to help your team improve its performance? Are you looking for high performance ways to lear...

What's the best thing you've ever learned from one of your mistakes? You do make mistakes, don't you? I think that we all do. We don't choose to make mistakes, but when they happen they promise to teach us something when we pay attention. That means first acknowledging that we made the mistake, and looking for ways to avoid that mistake in the future and improve on our outcomes. Here's the silliest mistake I've ever made: Buying carpet for a room and then cutting that carpet without measuring it I know - what was I thinking? I thought I knew how big the room was because it just seemed natural that it would be 9 x 12. Of course, it wasn't, and I ended up with an interesting strip of carpet that then fit exactly where the bare floor still showed. What did I learn? As my dad once said, "measure twice, cut once." Yep. Oh, and also: don't assume you know the answer just because you think you know the answer. Sometimes learning from ...

Do you ever experience attendance problems? Why is it that some people have such a hard time getting to work on time? It is frustrating to a supervisor or manager to deal with an attendance problem. And, whether or not you realize it, it is one of the most frustrating things ever for your team. I recall serving on a team where I did not have any influence over the attendance policy. I made it my business to always be at work on time. Through one stretch of my career I went over 10 years without ever calling in once. Yes, I was blessed with good health, and yes I was also disciplined. The team I most recall with an attendance issue had a person who was a wonderful worker when he was there. He worked fast and his production was great. He was knowledgeable and he was skilled. When he was there. The trouble was, he wasn't there a lot. Maybe he had medical issues. I don't know for sure. The rumor was that his biggest issue was playing video games all night, getting too high ...

Do you consider yourself confident? Confidence comes from many sources. It can be over-valued. Still, centered leaders need a high amount of confidence to face their daily challenges. Supervisors encounter things that can rock the confidence of anyone. So how do we build our confidence most effectively? We build confidence by knowing that we can do what we need to do. And, we get there through experience, reflection, growth, training, and constant learning. There is no substitute for constant learning to build our confidence that when the time arises we can learn whatever we need to learn to achieve our goals. Competence in the present builds confidence for the future. What are you doing to build your confidence this week? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Have you ever avoided talking to someone about something? You know it's important. You know it's likely on their mind. Until you talk about it nothing will change. And yet, there's so much anxiety or apprehension attached to the result or the relationship that you both keep quiet. Things don't change until you talk about them. Fear about talking about something is usually unfounded. Maybe we're shy. Maybe we feel unqualified. Maybe we don't want to feel pushy. I've been in those types of situations and what I've discovered is the conversation is usually nothing at all to fear. What tends to happen is a great sense of relief from getting the subject out in the open, real progress on the issue at hand, and a deepening of the relationship. What will it take to talk about the things you're afraid to talk about? If we want to communicate for results, we need to find ways to overcome our fears. -- Douglas Brent Smith

Have you ever heard someone talk about their goals and felt like it was all about them? If goals sound self-aggrandizing, it could be tough to gain support. And, maybe support wouldn't even be warranted. Noble goals are about so much more. Noble goals are about including other people and about in some way, creating a better world. Maybe it's modestly through a better process, a better channel, a more creative solution. But it's not about the goal setter. Centered leaders can talk about their goals without sounding like egotists. Can you? -- Douglas Brent Smith