Okay – here we go, my first ever blog post that will appear on www.drdewett.com and on www.fuel4leaders.com. What topic is important enough to kick off the blog at Fuel4Leaders.com? That’s an easy one: communication.
To be honest, I’m fascinated sometimes that my career is even necessary. I spend a lot of time helping others become more self aware and more skilled interpersonally. Quality communication and interpersonal skills are the heart and soul of great leadership. I love what I do whether it is on stage, with a client group, or with my awesome students, but… isn’t it odd that so many of us are in need of education and coaching on these basic fundamentals?
Odd or not, here is our reality: we spend the vast majority of our education time on route memorization of facts and tools. This is true for kids in elementary school and for graduate students in MBA courses. It does not change much at work. We spend the vast majority of our training and development dollars on issues other than communication. We continue to fail to realize one profound truth: no amount of knowledge will add value to your life unless you know how to communicate effectively!
Think about life at work for just a minute. Is there a shortage of people with sharp functional skills? Usually not. Look hard enough and you will find many flavors of competent functional specialists. Yes, but are you surrounded by spectacular colleagues, teams, and bosses? Likely not… We have many skilled people yet few great communicators. That equates to massive wasted potential for you and your organization.
Here is my quick advice. Start by actively observing the quality of the communication and interpersonal skills around you at work. Try not to cry. If you run a team, make the decision to stop neglecting this issue and make it 1) something you regularly talk about, and 2) something you add to your training efforts. Next, for your personal professional development, don’t rely only on what your organization does for you. Proactively seek out communication-related blogs, articles, books, courses, and other resources (e.g., www.fuel4leaders.com) – you are in charge of your professional growth! Finally, please do us all a favor as we look down the road to future employees – spend time working with your children to ensure they understand how to communicate effectively! So many smart people and smart teams underperform due to poor communication skills. Don’t waste your smarts!
There, I feel better. As always, if you know of someone who needs to hear this rant, please send it along!
The Washington Post has seen fit to feature a review of my book, The Little Black Book of Leadership (LBBL). They were quite unimpressed! Here is the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/leadership-books.
I have two quick thoughts to share…
First, thank you Washington Post for the publicity!!!!!!
Second, the review misses the point. I’ve been accused before of being simple and targeted towards the basics and/or new leaders, as opposed to more senior folks who need more advanced training and coaching. However, as opposed to my critics, I have been inside hundreds and hundreds of organizations and worked with or spoken to many thousands of professionals. This includes front line leaders and experienced top executives. Guess what I’ve found? The very simple basics are ALWAYS the issues that need to be addressed, team after team, organization after organization. Most leadership books take one or two slices of the leadership pie and go into extraneous depth. None of them, outside of traditional textbooks, contain a broad take on the fundamental basics using a field guide approach. By design, the LBBL is a fast practical reference to keep on your shelf and use regularly. No entertaining stories (that’s what I do live…), just blog style bullets that might actually help you with the people-related issues you face.
There, I’m done crying in my beer. Go finish your last minute shopping and enjoy Christmas with your family and friends!!!
One of my favorite themes near the end of each year is personal renewal. True, we’ve not yet hit December, but I’ve got this on my mind and I’d love to preempt the thousands of others who will address this topic in the coming weeks.
Renewal: the act or process of renewing; to make like new, to add freshness and vigor. How often do we make renewal a targeted goal? How often should we? There is no perfect answer, but I’ll challenge you to consider renewal at least once per year. I’ve never been terribly traditional, so I’ve been known to start my renewal before New Years or sometimes after New Years. The timing really doesn’t matter, but your process sure does. Let me help you increase the odds of success. Here are two great pieces of advice to kick-start your personal renewal.
First, if you have any trouble finding issues worth targeting, try the “start, stop, change” approach. I use this simple thinking prod in consulting and training environments to great effect all the time. To be more happy, productive, and healthy, think about one thing you should probably start doing, one thing you should stop doing, and one thing you should continue but change. If you think about your personal relationships, your professional relationships, your daily processes and habits, and your hobbies and leisure pursuits – it shouldn’t be too hard to identify your stop, start, and change targets. The real question is will you muster the intestinal fortitude to make one or two of them stick. Remember, the most successful people aren’t always the smartest. They are the best at creating personal discipline.
Here is the second piece of advice: after you identify your stop, start, and change targets consider “going public.” This is a goal setting trick of the highest quality. If you really want to take renewal seriously, you have to do two things. One, identify great targets, as noted above. Two, tell someone close to you what your new goals are and give them permission to check up on you periodically to understand your progress. You might be amazed how quickly you become motivated when you know others are watching.
I know what my new start, stop, and change goals are. I will start taking more of the chances I wish to take career-wise – thus will be launching two new businesses in 2012. I will stop avoiding exercise. That’s a promise! I will change my approach to food such that I eat out less and cook healthy meals instead. I love cooking, but have fallen out of practice as a busy single guy. And yes, I’ve told my best friend about these goals and asked her to bust my chops if she does not see progress soon. That’s my plan – what about you?
All for now, no doubt I’ll return with pithy but useful advice soon enough. In the mean time, enjoy the leftovers, parties, family get-togethers, parades, cheese balls, wassail, and snowy pursuits that define fun this time of year. See you next time.
Gut check time – you are so lost in your routines at work everyday that you fail to see many things that are right in front of you. I know this to be true and I preach this everywhere I go, but recently I decided to test this reality. Several months after two colleagues and I delivered a teaching-related session for other faculty and staff at my university, I received a certificate of completion in my campus mailbox. It was one of those standard 8 ½ x 11 laser printer certificates, like billions of others you have seen in your career – uninspiring. Those of you who know my views on rewards know that this violated at least two major rules: be timely, and be personal and original. You can read The Little Black Book of Leadership for more.
There I sat looking at my spiffy certificate. I decided to take it to class. I brought it with me to one of my MBA classes and had a good chuckle with the students as we discussed how the certificate was not an ideal example of rewarding performance. Our discussion then turned to the routines that dominate our lives. They bring order and efficiency, yet they suck the creativity out of us and blind us to the rich details around us.
I decided to give my certificate to one of the students, a mid level IT pro for a large company. He works in cubeland. I asked him to take the certificate to work and hang it prominently in his cube to see how long it would take before anyone noticed he had a certificate of appreciation on his wall displaying the name Todd Dewett. Two weeks later in class he reported that on his wall it remains and that not one person had noticed the certificate or the fact that it displayed my name.
I submit to you that this myopic focus affects all of us! If you want to maximize your creative thinking ability and if you want to maximize the quality of the relationships around you, you have to break out of some of your daily routines – shake things up – and begin to see the often surprising things that are right in front of your eyes.
Quick, go hang something odd in another person’s cube and see how long it takes them to notice…
I am beginning a new business venture focused on a searchable web-based library of hundreds of short videos (most 5 minutes or less) of me colorfully discussing many leadership and soft-skills related topics (draft samples below).
The idea in a nutshell: a company may or may not be able to spend thousands of dollars to have me on-site for a day to address a group of leaders and employees. Nearly all, however, can afford a few hundred per month for a subscription to the site, allowing all of their employees 24/7 access to all of the content.
I believe the videos could serve many needs, by serving as:
Focused on demand coaching and motivation
An additional training aid to piggyback on existing training efforts
A supplement to ongoing leadership development efforts
Great discussion material for leadership events, meetings, and retreats
Watch the videos below and imagine a simple YouTube style site with hundreds of leadership and soft-side topics: motivating employees, dealing with conflict, managing change, effective communication, how to run great meetings, leading innovation, etc. I would love to hear your HONEST reaction to this idea. Why is it good? Why is it not so good? Email me your feedback at todd@drdewett.com. Thanks very kindly for your consideration!!!
The first 25 people who respond will receive a free pdf copy of my upcoming book The Little Black Book of Leadership Ideas – 365 quotes and ideas that serve as amazing conversation starters at work!
(An excerpt from my book The Little Black Book of Leadership. What? Your team has not read the book? Choose to maximize your performance – read the book!)
Why should you care about engaging the difficult process of conflict management? Quite simply, you must manage it, otherwise it will manage you.
An inability to effectively deal with conflict can derail your career.
In terms of dealing with conflict, there are generally three types of people.
The passives (70% of people). They habitually avoid conflict. Negative conflict that is avoided almost always resurfaces later – and it usually grows. When you avoid conflict, you tell others about your will and character. When positive conflict is avoided, improvement potential is lost – possibly forever.
The potentials (20% of people). They understand the potential of positive conflict. However, they fail to adequately check the emotions and they do not possess strong conflict-management skills. Best of intentions aside, they make things worse.
The professionals (10% of people). They understand the potential of positive conflict and they have at least decent emotional intelligence and strong conflict management skills. This is the small group of people whom you should aspire to join.
CHALLENGE:
Successful leadership teams are 10/20/70, not 70/20/10. What is your team?
Your career success depends on your joining the “professionals” group. Leaders are hired and promoted based on their ability to successfully engage in various types of growth through creativity and innovation. Inevitably, this involves dealing effectively with conflict.
If you believe in the 80/20 rule and the power of positive conflict, you have to consider the possibility of sometimes dealing with people whom you would rather avoid. If you cannot view the following in a positive light, you will not enjoy leadership roles:
You will always work with people whom you do not like. Unless you work in complete solitude, this is a simple fact of life. How you view it is up to you.
They know and do things you need. Not only do you not like them, but they have skills you need in order to be successful. Thus, your career growth requires them.
You must find a way to productively co-exist. In fact, you must move past mere tolerance towards genuine appreciation. How you feel about a professional colleague cannot be “all or nothing.”
If you’ve followed me for long, you know how I feel about money as a motivator. Useful, but overrated. Big thanks to Mike Figliuolo for using my book to address the issue. Thanks Mike! He has an amazing site that is a part of the Forbes Business & Finance Blog Network – stuffed with useful information so you will definitely want to stop by: http://thoughtleadersllc.blogspot.com/2011/02/7-ways-to-motivate-without-money.html
Don’t let the pain stop you! We all need a bit of feedback from time to time. It is absolutely essential for professional development – here’s my take:
My seven year old recently learned a useful life lesson. His name is Paxon, or Pax for short. I was at home sometime last year when Pax, then six years old, came running up to me, very animated and happy. He held up a shiny new medal – as in a medal one would earn for a sporting achievement. He announced to me that he had just received this great reward and that he loved it. Pax clearly wanted me to share in his excitement. I asked him why he received the medal. He dutifully replied that every member of his swim team had received a medal for simply being on the team. I remarked, “Well, that’s unfortunate. Don’t you think that in order to receive something as amazing as a medal you should first accomplish something amazing?” He seemed perplexed. He could not understand why I did not share his joy. I explain myself further, but he wasn’t terribly interested.
Months later, I arrived home from the office and Pax ran to meet me. This time he was not holding a medal, but a gift card from Target. He informed me that in class (he is in the 2nd grade) they have several timed arithmetic tests each week to measure student performance over time. That day he became the first and only student in his class to compete the test in less than three minutes. It was well known that the teacher considered three minutes or under a difficult and laudable achievement. Because this goal was so significant, the teacher announced that anyone beating three minutes would be honored with a reward – in this case a five-dollar Target gift card.
As we chatted about it, it was clear that seven year old Pax understood what six year old Pax did not – that rewards should be contingent on performance. Great things you receive from authority figures should be genuinely earned. Anything everyone has loses its value. This is a profoundly important concept directly related to human motivation and productivity at work. As a part of my work, I’ve learned that many (maybe most) organizations have forgotten this rule. You can give positivity, challenge, support, and many other free gifts to everyone; but only give high praise and actual awards to the folks who truly deserve it. Otherwise you do nothing but create problematic false expectations and erroneously inflated self-perceptions. It tickles me to see that my seven year old now understands what so many adults at work often forget.
I was recently fortunate enough to receive some honest and useful feedback. The first piece of feedback concerned a slang phrase I sometimes use. The second focused on everyone’s favorite mascot, Danny the Devil Duck. In both cases I unintentionally offended someone. What follows concerns my latest lesson in target marketing, the power of political correctness, and the need to understand yourself as a communicator.
Feedback incident #1 – I am in class, teaching a graduate course – a wonderful group. At some point during our discussion I used the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid.” As you know, this expression grew out of the horrific events perpetrated by Jim Jones, culminating in the death of many innocents. Since that time, the expression has entered popular consciousness and is commonly use as a silly statement about whether or not someone likes something. I honestly don’t know what I was referring to that evening when I used the phrase. What I do know is the next day I received an email from a student who was quite offended by my callous use of such an inappropriate phrase. He honestly felt that I could be somehow immortalizing what happened at Jonestown. For the record, I respect all religions and abhor aberrant religious nightmares such as Jonestown. Having said that, I’m not terribly politically correct and feel using the statement “drinking the Kool-Aid” is peachy keen. The student is one of my favorites: a mature accomplished professional who takes his studies seriously and who always makes positive contributions in class. Whether I like it or not, this person had a visceral reaction to my choice of words.
Feedback incident #2 – I recently sent out a marketing promotion to a small group of executives at firms where I have yet to do business. I sent a nicely printed note containing a message about what I do, along with a brief personal hand written note to each individual recipient, and one red rubber Danny the Devil Duck. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having Danny as my mascot and have received many positive comments about my use of Danny professionally. That does not change the fact that when you craft a brand and it successfully appeals to one group, it will not necessarily appeal to another group. In fact, it might offend them. Just ask Hugh Hefner. In this case, I received an email from one of the executives I targeted at a large well-known global company. The executive congratulated me for crafting an attention getting marketing piece and then explained how, as a Christian, she was bothered by my use of Danny the Devil Duck. She indicated that Satan was real, ruins lives, and that any representation of him is not to be taken lightly. She suggested I use a fireman duck instead. She indicated that even if she had a need for what I was selling, she would not have contacted me due to my use of the devil duck. It was an honest and heartfelt note and I genuinely thanked her in my reply.
I am deeply intrigued by these issues, in particular because of my goal to educate, motivate, and entertain professionals – not to piss them off. I am not yet ready to “reform” myself, begin changing the brand, or begin intentionally censoring myself in some calculated effort to avoid upsetting a few folks. I do, however, love to learn and I am grateful for this type of feedback. I also say to you, dear reader, that you face this same reality as well. When you market your company or when you speak to literally anyone – you send a message. Each message is not perfectly liked by each recipient. Sometimes they plain can’t stand it. Does this mean you’ve successfully mastered target marketing or that you’re simply insensitive? I leave it for you to decide. Me? Well, I talked this over with Danny. He’s agreed to try to look a little less devilish.
Eric Brown, uber IT consultant and blogger, was kind enough to review my book! Check out his site at http://ericbrown.com/. Here is his take:
Last week the author of The Little Black Book of Leadership, Todd Dewett Ph.D., contacted me to say hello, complement me on my work here and offer up an electronic copy of his book.
I receive variants of this type of email quite often. Most are from agents and PR folks trying to get a review of their clients book. I’ve started stepping back from accepting offers of books to review, mainly due to time constraints on my side.
So, normally, when i receive these types of emails, I polity decline. But…this time…I couldn’t decline.
Why?
A few reasons:
1.) Todd made the note personal.
2.) Todd made the note about me and not his book.
3.) Todd included a funny little photo (i.e., Danny the Devil Duck) that caught my eye and got me interested in learning more about him, his services and his book.
So…I promptly said I’d take a look at the book. I’m boy am I glad I did.
While scanning the book, I saw a passage that jumped out at me…and caused me to stop scanning and start reading.
That passage is:
It is a big lie that “managers” and “leaders” are different things! Managers deal with the present. Leaders deal with the future.
Simple statement but powerful. Think about all the commentary out there in acadamia, the interwebz and in books about ‘leadership’ vs ‘management’. Sure…the concepts are different….but at the end of the day, a good leader is one who can manage well…and vice versa….or at least it should be that way.
I’ve known good ‘managers’ who couldn’t lead their teams to save their lives. I’ve also known good ‘leaders’ who could get people focused and moving in the right direction…but the most successful people I know are those who could do both roles at the same time. They can lead and manage extremely well.
I read through the book twice….once while scanning and again with more focus on the content and I have to say this is a pretty darn good little book.
Is there anything in the book that’s groundbreaking? Nope. Nothing new either….but the way that Dr. Dewett presents the material is golden. This book isn’t something you read once and put on the shelf…its a checklist and reference guide combined. Its something that you can use at any stage of your career to become a great leader. The book has some great little nuggets of knowledge that will make it worth your time.
Check out Todd’s Fuel for Leaders website and pick up a copy of his book in his shop. I think you’ll be happy you did.
I was reflecting on a few folks I know the other day – folks with some impressive innovation track records. The jewels below struck me as true and funny. Read them in your best Jeff Foxworthy voice .
10. If you think rules and regulations are just a jumping off place – you might be an innovator.
9. If you think meetings are for suckers – you might be an innovator.
8. If you’ve ever risked your reputation in the name of cool possibilities – you might be an innovator.
7. If you speak up and push while others bite their tongues – you might be an innovator.
6. If you love making progress more than money – you might be an innovator.
5. If you think new business models are more fun than new product line extensions – you might be an innovator.
4. If you think that bureaucracy is to innovation as Kryptonite is to Superman – you might be an innovator.
3. If you could care less how someone looks as long as they kick ass – you might be an innovator.
2. If you’re never quite satisfied with what you did yesterday – you might be an innovator.
1. And finally, if you’d rather ask forgiveness than permission – you just might be an innovator!
I love to pass out the innovation kool aid, but honestly, if I am being responsible I have to discuss the predictable need for forgiveness. In fact, it may be the most undervalued tool in the innovator’s kit. Take a listen
Danny, your favorite social crusader, may just wind up in a courtroom over this one! Seriously though, isn’t there a leadership lesson here? Change management 101 suggests that you need to get input from those to be affected by any large scale change. I believe the anger we see over the new TSA enhanced pat-downs is due to lack of participant input and a feeling of alienation as much as having one’s, excuse my French, “junk” brushed up against. A lesson many organizations can learn from…. Hang in there Danny!
Admit it – you can relate to this one. We decide to avoid perceived conflict and challenges by avoiding the most interesting folks in the new applicant pile. Instead, we hire the safe guy! We can do better …
Every once in a while, you really need reality to hit you in the face. We are often so busy we forget to seek honest feedback about our performance. Sometimes we don’t think we need it. Sometimes we know we need it, but we simply do not want to deal with it. We prefer to think we’re doing just fine. Well, good for you – enjoy under-performing! For the rest of you, listen to this quick funny take on the need for good performance feedback. Enjoy the weekend!
Overall, the wave of coaching books, consultants, articles, and training modules have been a welcome addition to the business scene in the last few years. Having said that, let’s be honest, sometimes we take it too far. Like any tool, it must be used correctly! My take:
A huge thank you to the latest group of NATA professionals I met in Fort Lauderdale. Such a fun group! Sometimes my schedule does not allow me an extra day to play – but this time I got lucky. The day after the gig I took a Segway tour of the beach and surrounding area. If you have never tried one of these devices, you must! You never know what you will see at the beach…take a look at that not so modest fellow near the end of the clip. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the Segway. The leadership lesson contained in this clip? Simple: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! You can drive as hard as you want towards your goals (and I will applaud you), but if you do not recharge the batteries once in a while the hours on the job will not be as productive as they otherwise would. I hope your week is off to a fun start!
One of my favorite topics is employee creativity. There are many reasons we do not meet our creative potential at work. One big reason is the absence of a good devil’s advocate. A few years ago I started using a little red devil duck to help teams talk about creative decision making and the need for a good devil’s advocate. The rest is history. I named the duck Danny. He will likely have a reality show soon. Happy Monday.
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