The One Thing You Need to Know About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success

by Marcus Buckingham

1. Great Managing = Discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it
2. Great Leading = Discover what is universal and capitalize on it
3. Sustained Individual Success = Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it

• Airplane mode – disconnect from the world
• Organize your life – manage all my services from my iPhone, everything
• Unclutter your life — get rid of stuff you no longer need, what you own, owns you
• Clear your calendar of unwanted and unnecessary activities — learn to say no
• Be sure to keep your free time free
• Choose to take time to do things that keep you inspired
• Return to the simplicity of nature — spend time outdoors
• Keep a distance between you and your critics
• Take some time for your health
• Don’t forget to play
• Slow down – relax sailing or at the lake
• Remove any debts from your life
• Take your attention off what everything costs, but instead focus on their values
• Remember your spirit — who you really are, find your brand

New Business Schools, some legit, all special places it appears to me…

No, not Harvard, Wharton or Chicago.   I’m talking global places with unique curriculum.  Executive Education to 3-4 year programs.

Wizard Academy Austin

Kaos Pilots Netherlands

Hyper Island Sweden

Thunderbird Global

IIT Chicago

d.school Stanford

Rhode Island School of Design

Parsons NYC

Full Sail

All of these have blog sites with varying degrees of design, appears to a trend to focus on content not design.   Interesting for a design schools.

Know Self + Know Culture + Know Business = Leader.

Leaders = create vision to execute and implement, then communicate and reflect (feedback) on it and circle back to recreate the vision and keep everyone aligned to it.   Performance is aligned with vision, not task or process.  

This creates the right outcomes according to the vision set.

Finally, Leader spend most of their time to develop other leaders with this same process.

At past companies, I have created Mentor and Buddy system for everyone to create supportive connections.   Then we created a performance process that included self assessment, coaching and continual feedback from other supportive roles and from your mentor and buddy.

This process created supportive groups, which we started to build some technology to support the communication, leadership, processes and a project/product based culture, everything has an outcome.

With that, we built a whole new business.   We were building social networks for companies, not intranets with flat information.   We started to build a peer-to-peer platform that drove outcomes.  

So we will be introducing BuzzGroups, by BuzzLabs.net in the near future.

Here are a few things I am about to get passionate about…

• Ski instructor for the winter: Helitrax Telluride?  Hire me.
• White water instructor: put your paddle in the water
• Learn a second language: Spanish
• Golf School: shoot par
• Run a Marathon and complete a Triathlon – putting the miles in…
• Travel the world this year: Geneva, Dubai and Beijing
• Culinary Institute of America: Cooking School
• Day Trader: Think or Swim – options, futures, forex and stocks.  Soon to be the CNBC Million Dollar Winner.   
• Dance School: Fred Astaire / Authur Murray Ballroom Dancing – get my groove on
• Adventure Travel: Get a back pack and go: Antartica, Middle East, Silk Road, Africa, Latin America + East Europe – the adventure never ends
• Bareboat Sailing Certification
• Bondurant Driving School: 4 day grand-prix course – Certified Race Car Driver!
• Self-Defense Course – bring it on!
• Martial Arts: Aikido – I can take you down with my thumb
• Buy a Gun: Shooting Range, Handheld and Sniper Training
• Pilots License
• Helicopter License
• Hawaii Surf School
• Glider Ride
• Hot Air Baloon
• Hang-Glide

Thunderbird Executive MBA – I am in class XVIII.

We are:

#1 in International Business, Business Week – 7 years in a row

#2 in Leadership and Management skills, WSJ

#3 in Executive MBA, WSJ

What does this really mean?   Nada.  Nothing. Nil.   We make our own meaning to it.   Although, the only significant meaning I draw from it is that it does give me confidence in the value and the investment I am making in the Thunderbird MBA.     

With all the uncertainty, at least I know I am getting a good education.   The relationship, education, affiliation, network and perspectives I am getting are invaluable.    My ROI is what I make of it, not what the school does for me.   It is what I put into it, is what I will get out of it.  

Proudly, I will be a Thunderbird MBA – #1 in International Business.

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their
conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you
want.

FOUR. When you say, “I love you,” mean it.

FIVE. When you say, “I’m sorry,” look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone’s dream. People who don’t have dreams
don’t have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the
only way to live life completely.

TEN. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don’t judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer,
smile and ask, “Why do you want to know?”

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great
risk..

FIFTEEN. Say “bless you” when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for
others; and responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps
to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in
your voice.

TWENTY-ONE. Spend some time alone.

See this link to learn about the stickman and the secret of success.

Stickman

DEMING’S 14 PRINCIPLES

PRINCIPLE 1 : “Create a constancy of purpose”
Define the problems of today and the future
Allocate resources for long-term planning
Allocate resources for research and education
Constantly improve design of product and service

PRINCIPLE 2 : “Adopt the new philosophy”
Quality costs less not more
Superstitious learning
The call for major change
Stop looking at your competition and look at your customer instead

PRINCIPLE 3 : “Cease dependence on inspection”
Quality does not come from inspection
Mass inspection is unreliable, costly, and ineffective
Inspectors fail to agree with each other
Inspection should be used to collect data for process control

PRINCIPLE 4 : “Do not award business basedon price tag alone”
Price alone has no meaning
Change focus from lowest initial cost to lowest total cost
Work toward a single source and long term relationship
Establish a mutual confidence and aid between purchaser and vendor

PRINCIPLE 5 : “Improve constantly the system of production and service”
Quality starts with the intent of management
Teamwork in design is fundamental
Forever, continue to reduce waste and continue to improve
Putting out fires is not improvement of the process

PRINCIPLE 6 : “Institute training”
Management must provide the setting where workers can be successful
Management must remove the inhibitors to good work
Management needs an appreciation of variation
This is management’s new role.

PRINCIPLE 7: “Adopt and institute leadership”
MBO’s
Work standards
Meet specifications
Zero defects
Appraisal of performance
Replace with leadership

Leaders must:
Remove barriers to pride of workmanship
Know the work they supervise
Know the difference between special and common cause of variation

Principle 8 : “Drive out fear”
The common denominator of fear
The fear of knowledge
Performance appraisals
Management by fear or numbers

PRINCIPLE 9 : “Break barriers among staff areas”
Know your internal suppliers and customers
Promote team work

PRINCIPLE 10 : “Eliminate slogans, exhortations,and targets
They are directed at the wrong group
They generate frustration and resentment
Use posters that explain what management is doing to improve the work environment

PRINCIPLE 11 :”Eliminate numerical quotas”
They impede quality
They reduce production
A person’s job becomes meeting a quota

PRINCIPLE 12 : “Remove barriers”
Performance appraisal systems
Production rates
Financial management systems
Allow people to take pride in their workmanship

PRINCIPLE 13 :”Institute a program of education and self-improvement”
Commitment to lifelong employment
Overtime and education
Work with higher education of needs
Develop team building skills in children

PRINCIPLE 14 : “Take action to accomplish thetransformation”

Management must:
Struggle over the fourteen points
Take pride in the new philosophy
Include the critical mass of people in the change
Learn and use the Shewhart cycle

5 Sure-Fire Tips for Great Speeches

by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE
1. Come out punching!

Grab your audience’s attention. One way is to make a startling statement. For a recent speech to the National Speakers Association, I walked out and immediately started building a word picture: “Columbus, Ohio, December, zero degrees, 2,000 people trudging through the snow to hear four speakers…”

Don’t waste your audience’s time with trivialities. I heard a speaker addressing a San Francisco Sales and Marketing Executives audience, starting with how nice it was to be there, how great the weather was, and how he loves our restaurants. Who cares? I didn’t race across town to hear him talk about weather and restaurants. I was there to hear about sales and marketing ideas and he was supposed to be an expert.

2. Monitor your “who cares?” factor

Tape your talks, then listen to them, asking “Who cares?” after every statement or segment of material. If no one really does, don’t say it. This is a great way to see if you are saying anything of value.

3. Be funny…maybe

Humor can add a lot to your speech, but it must fit you and your topic. If humor is appropriate to your topic, use it, but go for laughs that grow naturally out of your content. Avoid old, tired jokes that may not be appropriate, or that everyone has heard before.

A friend from AT&T called me late one evening. “My boss is giving a speech tomorrow. He needs a joke.”

“Is your boss funny?” I asked.

“Well…not really,” he replied.

“Then don’t try to make him funny,” I said. “Get him to be inspiring.” I looked through my reference books and found quotes that fit the speaker’s points much better than any joke could.

If you decide to risk humor, ask yourself and others, “…but am I really funny?” Be brutally honest.

4. Organize with a three-part outline

A good way for both beginning and advanced speakers to organize their material is to use the three-part Alcoholics Anonymous format:

1. This is where I was.
2. This is where I am now.
3. This is how I got from there to here.

It is a great structure because it is so easy for both speaker and audience to remember. A woman in Yuma, Arizona called me. “I have to give my first speech in three weeks,” she said. “Would you send me one of your tapes so I can learn how to do it.”

“It doesn’t work quite like that,” I told her, “but tell me, what group are you addressing?”

“The Yuma Board of Realtors.” she said.

“Why have they invited you to speak?” I asked.

“Because I have been very successful in the real estate industry.” So I suggested she use the three-part Alcoholics Anonymous outline. (The first two points can be reversed.)

1. This is where I am: “Last year I sold $18 million dollars in real estate in a slow market.

2. This is where I was: Eight years ago when I got my license, I had never sold anything but Girl Scout cookies.

3. This is how I got here: “First I…”

5 Develop your content

Content I suggested:

Advice from her sales manager that worked,
What she learned from other agents,
What she did well naturally,
What she did not know that amazed her once she had learned,
Sales she fell into,
Sales she almost lost,
Sales that were out of the unusual,
What she would do differently based her 8 years experience,
Anything really entertaining.

I also suggested she keep a pad on her desk and as ideas came to her she jotted them down. Then, when it came time to sit down and put it all together, it was fine if she lacked some creativity as most of her ideas were written down.

She used the structure and reported later that the talk was a big hit.

Even if you add more sections to your speech, keep your outline simple. You’ll remember what you intend to say, and your audience will remember what they heard.