The summer is coming to a close. For many of us, it is a time to think about the four months left in 2017, or to plan for 2018. Kids head back to school or college. We settle back into our work routine.
For Carol Keers it’s time to celebrate the Minnesota State Fair. All the sights and sounds of the fair bring back great memories for her.
It is also the biggest month of the year when people decide to invest in their personal development, with Change Masters, which we deeply appreciate.
We are excited about our plans for ChangeMastersAcademy.com this fall. We are also expanding our communication to include our LinkedIn Group and Facebook. Follow the links if you would like to be part of the groups.
Blog entries you might have missed:
Your Fair Share
If you have four people on a project team, and ask each of them what percentage of the project work they’re doing, it should total 100%. Equal division of the work would be 25% each, reaching the total of 100%. In almost all cases adding the individual perceived totals for the four team members would equal 150% or more.
We are very biased toward seeing our own contribution as being larger, and minimizing what other team members do for the project, even when the work is evenly divided. It’s human nature to be more aware of our own work effort, and less aware of the work of co-workers.
Opportunity
Being aware of our human nature, in this regard, can help us resist the temptation to feel unappreciated for all the [continued …]
Wasted Regret
I wish I had never _________ (fill in the blank).
I wish I had _________ (fill in the blank).
I suspect I am not the only one who has wasted precious time and energy on past actions, or failure to act. Learning from our mistakes is valuable. Dwelling on our mistakes is making yet another mistake.
A missed opportunity is even easier to regret. It may have been the opportunity to stand up for our principles at a critical moment, and we were silent. It may have been turning down an opportunity that would have been a wonderful experience. If we spend any time at all in self reflection … we will recognize both of those moments in our lives.
I remember being 22 years-old, just arrived in London, and trying [continued …]
Leadership Proof Hires
One of my favorite leadership experts is Doug Lennick. We started working together in 1988 in multiple ways while he was an executive at American Express, and with his own company, Think2Perform. In addition to being a great customer, we have given joint workshops and created a wonderful audio series together.
Doug is an expert on emotional intelligence and has written books on Moral Intelligence and Financial Intelligence. Doug is a wonderful presenter and does so around the world.
I was having lunch with Doug a couple of weeks ago and he delivered one of his thought provoking lines that says so much. A group had hired him to speak to a group of salespeople. In hearing about what they wanted him to present, he told them he would probably disappoint them. He said the organizers wanted “leadership proof hires“. In other words, they wanted the salespeople to perform even if they did not have good leadership.
Doug explained how that, without good leadership, you can’t expect to have a high performance sales team. In the push for numbers and productivity, it’s easy to forget that good leadership is the primary lever for accomplishing great results.
41 Customers on The Fortune 500 List
The new Fortune 500 list was released in June. Fortune 500 companies represent about two-thirds of the U.S. GDP. Each year some companies drop off the list, and others are added.
The number of companies on the list that we have served, over the past 30 years, has moved up to 41. The number of Fortune 100 companies we have served is now at 14, with mergers and off-shoring.
Interestingly, Fortune asks the Fortune 500 CEOs whom they most admire. This year, on top of the list is Jeff Bezos (Amazon); next was Jamie Dimon (JP Moran); Bob Iger (Disney) and Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) tied for third.
Mirror
“What stops us from looking at ourselves and truly seeing ourselves is that we’re not who we think we are. We’re not as wonderful as we think we are.”
– Bill Murray
Feedback
Thank you to all those who gave me feedback. I welcome it at any time.
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