I don’t know what it is about the start to 2010 but, 4 people have talked to me about executive presence in the past week!

Presence and Success

The conversations are about confidence, respect, being valued, being recognized, getting your ideas heard, and taking risks.

You can get good at it

This comes naturally to some people, but probably fewer than you think.

People often say to me, well this is easy for you, this is one of your strengths. I can tell you this was not always so.

I can remember early in my career being very nervous,  timid, or awkward in certain situations, and being worried and defensive when I had to meet or spend time with “important people”.

And because I was always young for the job I was in, I was often coached that I needed to work on my “gravitas” my or executive presence.

I eventually got there. Here is what I have learned:

Executive Presence has 4 parts

1. How you Feel
2. How you Look
3. How you Behave
4. Never appearing overwhelmed

1. How you feel

Be who you are

If you are being who you really are, you will be comfortable.  You will come across as strong.

Here is where people argue, but I can’t do that.  Who I really am is a surfer, and I wear beach clothes and tell jokes and I can’t be like that at work.

The trick is to still be the comfortable, relaxed person you are on the weekend, and bring all that  positive, real surfer-dude energy to your work environment.  You don’t need to bring the beach sand and the margaritas to work to be who you authentically are.

If you are positive, focused, like to challenge yourself, and have a sense of humor solving tough work issues, people will be drawn to that and respect you (as long as you get the work done too!)

If you instead overly contrive a non-surfer, buttoned-up, false work-persona, you will never be fully comfortable in it and your executive presence will always take a hit.

Be confident

This is really the crux of the issue.  It’s hard to be comfortable if you are not confident.  There are two schools of thought here.

1. Go into therapy for years to work on your self confidence
2. Do it anyway – Be fearless even when you are not confident.

I read an interview with the comedian, singer and improv performer Wayne Brady, which had a big impact on me.

I am paraphrasing, but he said when he needs to do an improv or anything on stage, if he is confident about it, he does it full on, all the way. But if he is standing on stage thinking, “hmm, I’m not sure this one is going to work, or I’m not sure this is going to be good”  He does it full on, all the way, anyway.

Don’t ever back off when you are not confident

He said that it never helps to second guess yourself and approach a performance apologetically in case it might not work out.

In fact, being tentative about what you are doing will guarantee that it doesn’t go well.

I have thought about that every time I have been in a situation where I was not as comfortable or as confident about my role, my performance, my argument, or my task, and I can tell you, it makes a huge difference. It’s always better than the moderated, apologetic version.

Fearlessness is a requirement

Fearlessness sets successful people apart.  You probably know lots of people who are not as talented as you, but have more executive presence.  Why not allow yourself at least that much?

Something that I talk about in my upcoming book in a chapter called “Executive Confessions” is that:  Everyone is Bluffing.

There is no executive that knows everything about the job they are in.

They are successful because they are willing to put themselves out there, make presentations, make decisions, and lead even though they don’t know everything personally.

The people that scramble around to learn and master every detail are the ones who get stuck because:

1. it is an endless task
2. so it uses up all your time
3. and you never actually step up and get around to leading

They believe that they can only be competent (and therefore confident and comfortable) if they know all the details.  But they are sacrificing their executive presence, and failing to lead.

Think about it this way.  By definition,  this goes against building any executive presence because people always SEE you in the weeds.

2. How you look

It matters.  You may think that what you say and think and do all matter more, and they do, but what about the people that only ever SEE you?

When you walk into a room, if you want to be seen as someone who is in charge, someone with presence, you need to look the part.

I have seen executives who are very casual get away without this, but their confidence and other leadership behaviors are off the charts.

If you want to stack the deck in your favor, pay attention to your appearance.  You don’t need to be a fashionista, but you should make sure your clothes really fit well, your shoes are not grubby, and your hair style and glasses are of this century.

No one ever felt more confident by wearing a cheap suit.

In fact I heard that when Sean Connery first started playing James Bond, they got him a really good suit and then encouraged him to wear it all week and even sleep in it.  This goes back to feeling comfortable.  One of the reasons Sean Connery pulled off James Bond because he was comfortable in the suit!

Trick:  Quality clothes that really fit you (superficial outside improvement) will make you feel more confident (meaningful inside improvement).

3. How you behave

How you talk and act, and what you say and do, either build or degrade your executive presence.  Being comfortable and confident give you a huge head start, of course, but the specifics matter too.

Whether you are in a room with your team, a large function in your company, or a meeting with your executive committee, board or other big, scary people, it is important to show up as, and be recognized as a leader with strong presence.

Step up!

If you are in a room with your team, lead.  Step up.  Don’t just be in the room or at the dinner with them.  Say something.  Have a point of view.  Reach out to them. Bring them together as a team with your words and actions.

If you are in a room with big executives, show up.   Meet them.  Get a sense of what they are most interested in and talk to them about that.  Ask some questions. Get input and feedback. (fearless, remember).

Don’t just stick to your prepared presentation and your work.  Do some research. Have a story that they will relate to that has nothing to do with work.

If you stay in the shadows, or are timid because you are nervous about being there, you are showing them you don’t really belong there.  Be a full person, willing to engage.

4. Never Appearing Overwhelmed

This is probably a sub-category of How you Behave, but it is one of the most hazardous to your executive presence.

Think about it this way.  If you appear overwhelmed in what you are currently doing, you are by definition showing that you are not ready for a bigger job.

Part of executive presence is to look like you are doing your job with ease and grace.  Even if behind the scenes it is chaos, what people should see is you calm and in control.

Deal with the overwhelm privately.

Don’t cancel meetings at the last minute, don’t act rushed and impatient.

Don’t get upset or defensive when people do things that throw you off course.  Just say “let me take that input and get back to you”, and then go off privately and scream, get frustrated, re-work or not, and go back calm and in control.

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Use your strengths

I talk about focusing on strengths a lot.

In fact, if there is any secret formula for success… it is thousands of years old, and it is:

Really know yourself, know your strengths, and put yourself in a position to be doing what you are good at most of the time.

Tuning your job over time to really suit your core strengths will make you more successful and happier in your work.

When you are doing things you are good at, you will thrive, the crowds will cheer, it will seem easy, and the rewards will come.

But LEAP from your comfort zone

However, I also talk about the fact that a key factor for driving big success is to be willing to leap from your comfort zone –  and to be willing to be uncomfortable (terrified) some of the time as you navigate the new, or bigger environment.

Is there a contradiction?

No.  Let me explain…

Strengths not skills

One of the things that makes this do what you are good at such a fundamental truth is that it is not about skills — it is about core strengths.

It is not about the work skills you are currently practiced in, and therefore comfortable at.  It is about the core strengths that define who you are and why you are good at what you are good at.

Your comfort zone is the familiar environment

Your comfort zone is largely defined by the people, places, and tasks of your work, the things that become familiar.  That can be the trap.

Be willing to break free of the familiar.  Be uncomfortable by taking on something in a new geography, bigger scope, or different market…

But then land squarely on your core strengths to get you through the new, scary, uncomfortable terrain.

For example, skills are things like being good at: consumer marketing, telecom, banking, information systems, retail supply chain, software development, public sector, pharmaceutical sales…

Your strengths are much more fundamental than your job

Strengths are things like decisiveness, empathy, ability to get to the core of a complex problem, working through conflict, taking action, being analytical, winning people over, competition, finding common ground, rationalizing lots of inputs, seeing the future, understanding how systems and organization work, thinking strategically, executing and implementing, connecting people.

These strengths could be applied to any of those jobs or skills.

If you jumped from consumer banking to retail supply chain, but were good at rationalizing lots of inputs, and understanding how complex systems and organizations work, you could leap from your comfort zone but still leverage your strengths to re-tool a newly competitive supply chain.

If you moved from telecom to information systems, but are great at finding common ground, seeing the future, and connecting people, you could establish a new business model really fast, and get a new plan executed quickly because that is your power alley.

Strengths, more than skills, drive advancement

If you were pursing a big promotion in your function, you won’t get it because of your functional skills, you will get it because you are gifted at helping people understand each-other, driven to compete, working through conflict, and thinking strategically.  (Or whatever your unique combination of strengths are).

It’s a good time to think about your unique strengths

As we start the new year, it is a great time to be reflecting on your strengths and what makes you thrive in your work.  Then build your plan to get more of THAT into your job description.

Many people are looking for new jobs either because they lost their job in this challenging time, or because they want to find a job that is more fulfilling and more fun.

The more you can learn about your strengths, the better you can define, go after, and position yourself to win a job that is going to put you in your power alley.

Get an advantage in the interveiw.

It is also worth noting that being clear about your strengths in an interview will make you stand head and shoulders above other candidates who are only talking about their skills and experience.  See also Don’t be Boring.

Even if you plan to stay in your current job, the more you can focus on your strengths and tune your job without leaving it – renegotiate the contract of your job with your company to include more of the things you are naturally good at, the better you will do and the more satisfied you will be.

Some resources:

Strengths Profile
There is a book plus online strength profile I use in my work that you can get from Amazon.   Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath.

Career Workshop
Building your Personal Brand by understanding your strengths is a big part the the Career Building workshop that I do.  You can register for a live session if you are in the bay area, or get the workhop on DVD.

Both include the Strengthsfinder Profile and other tools to get to the essence of your strengths and help you understand why you are good at what you are good at so you can use that to your advantage in your career.

This is a re-post of an article I co-wrote with my personal trainer some time back.  It’s well worth a read as we all get started in the new year!

by Patty Azzarello & John Fernandez

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In this article, I asked my personal Trainer and Fitness expert, John Fernandez to contribute to a discussion on fitness.

John will share what really works, and explain why doing things the right way gives the best results.

Our goal is not to tell you what you should be doing, but to give you some ideas and information for getting the most out of your workouts, based on John’s expertise and my suffering!

Get the most benefit from your workouts

Patty: I always talk about getting a bigger payoff for the effort you put into your work. I hate wasting time, and I like working with people to help them find ways to get a bigger professional and personal payoff for the time and energy they put into their work.

Likewise, when I met John, I quickly learned that he had the same approach – If you are going to spend time working out, you should get the biggest payoff for that time that you can.

John: When I met Patty it was clear that she was a successful executive with a hard work ethic. She was working out, doing spinning classes, lifting weights… but it was clear to me that she was not getting enough results from her efforts.

Many executives I talk to believe they are benefiting from an exercise program because they are putting regular time and effort in, but many of them also express frustration with the level of results they are achieving. Many also feel that they are losing ground in the aging process.

After a year and a half with me [now almost 4 years], Patty not only has increased the effectiveness and “the payoff” of her workouts, she has described the benefits as “life changing”.

Your workouts – what works.

Patty: The diet and fitness industry likes to sell the concept that you can get great results without strenuous exercise, because that’s what sells — not because that’s what works.

I’ve learned from John a few key lessons which I’ll share my perspective on, and John will tell you what you are really supposed to know about each one.

• Lesson #1: It has to be Strenuous.
• Lesson #2: Mix it up
• Lesson #3: Use your whole body
• Lesson #4: Stability and Core Strength
• Lesson #5: Jumping, even though it seems so unreasonable

Lesson #1: It has to be Strenuous

I am often at the gym with John, who has me on a treadmill, and the people on either side of me are happily doing their time, reading a book or watching TV, walking, or jogging for 30, or even 60 minutes.

John will get me on the treadmill, crank up the incline to its maximum setting, set the speed at an almost-need-to-be-running pace, and then give me a heavy ball to hold over my head while I do it. After 2 minutes I’m ready to throw up.

John has me running and jumping, lifting heavy weights, doing exercises where you expect to be sitting, but instead balancing on one foot (on a squishy pad), doing circuits, speed drills, and pulling on a pulley in more ways than you can believe is possible.

Always, it’s strenuous! John, why does making sure it’s always painful make such a big difference?

John: Everything I work for as a health and fitness professional is geared towards increasing your power output, which results in being more functional and developing the ability to DO MORE, whether that is exercise or enjoying life.

My approach in training is to create a workout that is very demanding and beyond the level of what “that” client thinks is hard. Then once the client performs at that level regularly, they have genuinely advanced. (Then I need to make it more demanding again.)

It’s not just about strengthening the body it’s also about challenging what you believe you can do.

Training your mind about what is possible is as important an exercise as it is to train your body, and that’s one of the pieces a lot of people leave out. If you’re not doing things to challenge yourself, you are not getting the experience of breaking through limits.

Patty often comes to the point where she thinks she can not keep going –everyone gets to that point. But the more often you get to that point and pass through it, you’re teaching yourself, body and mind, how to break through.

Whether you are an athlete, a CEO, or a busy parent, this helps you do more than you thought possible in your workout and your life. It feels great for the client, allows them to get real benefit from the workouts, and it’s exciting for me to see.

Lesson #2: Mix it up

Patty: We have never done the same workout twice, and in fact, every workout even after 2 years has at least one exercise I’ve never done before. [after 4 years, the most challenging things do repeat, but always mixed in with other different stuff.]

Apparently when your body gets used to the exercise you are doing, the elliptical machine, the spinning class, laying on a bench moving heavy weights around, you lose the benefit because as your body adapts to it and guess what: it is no longer strenuous!

I used to think that getting comfortable with a hard workout meant I was getting really fit — if it’s not as hard, I must be stronger. Apparently, that feeling of doing the workout well means it is no longer effective. Heavy sigh.

So the lesson here is that doing different stuff all the time makes sure you keep the level of misery sufficiently high to get the biggest benefit for your time.

John, tell me it isn’t so!

John: The first point is that the human body is an incredible organism built for survival, so one of its main functions is to expend as little energy as possible. In order to do so, it continually adapts to the stress placed upon it.

The second point is that fat and glucose are the primary sources of fuel for your body. In order for them to be used efficiently the body must receive enough oxygen. In the presence of oxygen your body will allow fat and glucose to be burned as fuel.

So basically, as you adapt to an exercise and it becomes easier, it requires less oxygen and therefore uses less fuel.

What is technically happening is that if you continue to place the same stress on your body over and over again,with the same exercises, your body will increase its ability to use those specific muscles, and distribute oxygen and blood to the specific areas of the body used for that exercise.

This is how your body adapts, and as it adapts it will require less oxygen so it can use the least amount of energy/calories possible.

This is why you stop seeing improvements when you keep doing the same workouts.

The way I avoid this is by constantly mixing up the exercise variables of an individual’s training program. Mixing up the stress placed on the body with varied exercise counteracts the loss of muscle and bone, allows you to maintain a high metabolism rate, (burn more fat) and fine tunes the nervous system. All these contribute to living life well, with maximum function and preventing injury.

Lesson #3: Use your whole body

Patty: Working with John, I have learned that exercising only one part of your body at a time does not provide nearly the benefit that you get when you use your whole body, both from the standpoint of the effectiveness of the exercise itself, and the efficiency of using the same amount of time to do multiple exercises at once !

Here’s an example:
Imagine being face down on an incline bench and doing reverse flys with dumbbells. You are exercising your back and your arms.

Now instead, to use your whole body and spend the same amount of time,

• First, lose the bench and stand up
• Now,  stand on only one foot
• Now,  do a one leg squat as you the move the dumbbells in front to start the reverse fly
• Raise up and out of the one leg squat as you do the reverse fly while extending your other leg behind your back
• …while balancing on one foot

In the same amount of time you are exercising your back your arms, your quads, your glutes, your hamstrings, your core,  improving your balance, and getting some cardio in as well! Same amount of time, way more exercise!

It’s clear that you get more exercise for your time this way, but John, why is this whole-body approach more effective in general?

John: Total body workouts may be a new concept for those who have been following bodybuilding programs that focus on training individual body parts or training programs based on machines.

There’s a lot of pushing and pulling, but the hips, pelvis and trunk which are the key areas for ALL movement are not tied into these types of training.

When you take a whole body approach, you achieve more support around the joints that other machine training programs ignore, because you’re engaging groups of muscles to assist in producing, stabilizing and reducing force.

Because you are engaging so many different groups of muscles and energy systems there’s little chance of overtraining your body, you burn more calories, and become less prone to injury.

Total body workouts are what allow you to meet the imposed demands of any physical activity because they allow you to achieve functional static AND dynamic strength, flexibility, and core stabilization in all ranges of motion.

Lesson #4: Stability & Core Strength

Patty: If you’re not sure about your current state of core strength try this. Get on the floor and face the ground as if you are going to do a push-up/press-up. Like a plank in Yoga. But instead of being on your hands and your toes, put your forearms on the ground and make sure your shoulders are directly over your elbows.

Make sure your back and your hips stay straight by tightening your abs and contract your glutes so your hips don’t drop.

Now hold that position and have someone time you for one minute. If you find that easy, good for you! If not, you have found your core.

John: Many people think core is just about abs. Core development is not about how many crunches you can do, or having a 6-pack, it is about controlling posture and maintaining spine stabilization throughout movement.

Your core is where your center of gravity is and where movement begins.

It consists of the abs, glutes, hips, lower back (lumbar), thoracic spine (mid back) and cervical spine area (between your shoulder blades).

Stabilization is the key to all movement, regardless of whether speed, strength, flexibility or endurance is dominating the movement. Real movement does not occur on a stable piece of equipment, in a neutral spine position, in one plane of motion.

Movement is a series of events that involves groups of muscles working together precisely to maintain our posture over a changing base of support.

As adults we need to rediscover and reactivate this type of movement into our exercise program, as we did when we were younger climbing the monkey bars, pushing up and down on the see-saw, climbing fences, crawling in the sand box, twisting, or lunging to catch a ball.

These same movements we learned naturally as children can be used to build a fitness program that will give you a more functional body that will be leaner, stronger and more powerful.

Whole body workouts also improve joint stabilization, flexibility, mobility, and everything else that contributes to your optimal posture and lowers risk of injury.

Lesson #5: Jumping, even though it seems so unreasonable

Patty: Jumping was probably the biggest shock to my system. Before I met John, I had literally not jumped for 30 years.

Through a combination of back problems, and the low impact aerobics surge in the 80’s, I decided that there was really no need to jump anymore.

Well apparently there is. It has to do with power, and keeping up your fine motor skills as you age. Remember jumping rope for hours when you were a kid. Try it now for 2 minutes. It’s much harder!

John: I stated before that movement is a series of events that involves groups of muscle working precisely together to maintain our posture over a changing base of support.

However, I did not mention that all movement is dictated by the nervous system. The nervous system is a conglomeration of billions of cells forming nerves that are designed to form a communication network within the body.

Most people are aware that the aging process causes muscle atrophy, however many are not aware that the aging process also causes neural atrophy.

This means that the substances and structures involved in sending messages to and from the brain deteriorate altering the way the brain functions.

Because of these changes, the brain may/will function slower. Older people may react and do tasks somewhat slower and some mental functions may be subtly reduced. This includes things such as short-term memory, and the ability to learn a new movement pattern. Therefore, older people are more vulnerable to injury.

Since the nervous system dictates movement it makes sense to train the nervous system too, to ensure that the communication between the nervous system and muscles stay developed to increase your reaction and reflexes.

Here is where the jumping comes in. Jumping is a form of plyometric exercise. Plyometric exercise is designed to boost your reactive strength – in other words, to train your nervous system and increase your power. Examples of plyometric training involve jumping up and down, jumping on and off of a box, running steps or jumping rope.

The goal of plyometrics is to train both the muscles and nervous system to react quickly. Combined with increases in strength, muscle size, flexibility, and function that you get from developing your core strength, plyometric training will make your body function as if it were years younger.

The payoff

Patty: OK. I’ve found John’s approach to be hard work but it’s worth it. I have indeed found it life-changing. Here are a couple of things I’ll share:

Enjoying life more.
Being stronger, more fit, and improving balance and coordination, let’s you do more. You can be more energized (and successful) at work and you can have more fun. Or you can carry more groceries into the house in one trip. All in all it makes life better.

The workouts about kill me, but the improvement in my strength and energy has been remarkable, and even noticed by others.

You can eat more without gaining weight!
Ok, so all this talk about improved health, function and energy aside, here’s a real benefit! John recently informed me that for every pound of muscle you add, it requires 50 calories a day to maintain it.

What I “heard” is that for every pound of muscle you add, you can eat 50 calories more a day without gaining weight!

This lends itself to some interesting math: If you add 5 pounds of muscle, which is what I did over 2 years, (and got smaller in the process) that is 250 calories a day. That’s 1750 calories a week.

So what this means is that if you generally eat a reasonable diet, then each week, without gaining weight, you could eat a small pizza or a family size bag of chips, or two spectacular desserts, or have 11 extra glasses of wine! I’m not giving nutrition advice here (obviously!) — but in my world, this is a real payoff!)

Summary: Three Things

If I had to summarize what I have learned from John and experienced — what gives you the most benefit from the time you invest in working out, and has the biggest impact on strength, fitness and losing fat, here it is in 3 points:

1. Strenuous: If it’s kind of comfortable, it’s not doing you much good.
2. Mix it up: If it’s the same all the time, it’s not doing you much good.
3. Jumping: It not only trains/maintains the nervous system and increases your power as John described, but it’s a great way to accomplish #1 and #2!

Thanks John for providing so much interesting and specific information about what works and why it is so.

Contact John

You can contact John Fernandez at esteem2@aol.com or check out his website at www.personaltrainingsf.com

John Fernandez has been involved in all aspects of the fitness industry for over 18 years from personal training to directing sales and business development initiatives for large health club chains. He was awarded Gold’s Gym Personal Trainer of the Year in Northern California.

John has been featured in national fitness magazines and has competed in 10 bodybuilder competitions, winning the title,” Mr. New York” in 1995. He holds certifications from the National Academy of Sports Medicine for Sports Performance and Corrective Exercise.

Carving out and committing time

You’re not alone if your work is interfering with your workouts.  Many people I work with  have this topic on the agenda — How to manage being fit and having a career.

I mention this only to let you know that you are not alone if you are struggling to be both fit and successful at work.

Everyone must find their own solution to this, but I have found some of the common factors to be:

Clarify your motivation:
Is it feeling better, looking better, living longer, aging better, more energy to enjoy your family and life? What’s yours? Focus on it. Any successful fitness program consists of three things: diet, exercise, AND motivation.

Really consider your schedule:
Can you find 2 hours a week? Even if it’s only 1 hour each day on the weekends? Once you achieve that, then maybe one more hour once during the week?

Can you ask your spouse, or children, or boss to provide some flexibility so that even one day mid-week you can get home one hour later or get to work one hour later?

Schedule it, for real
Make an appointment with yourself, or make an appointment with a trainer. As wonderful and smart as trainers are, I have found a huge part of the value is that when you have an appointment with a trainer and you are paying for it, you actually do it!

I admit without shame that this is a crutch for me, and it works. With our without a trainer, schedule time, protect it, and use it.

Younger Next Year:  A Book Review

Read this book: Younger Next Year: by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge.

You can’t stop the aging process entirely, but there is science to prove that you can turn off the decay and the degenerative aspects of aging.

It explains the science behind this in simple terms, and outlines a program that anyone can follow if you want to be, well, Younger Next Year.

I found it quite inspiring. It’s written by a former lawyer and a doctor. To summarize briefly:

• The lawyer retired at age 60 and his biological age measured at 70.
• For the next 10 years he worked with this doctor and they wrote a book about it.
• The punch line is that when he turned 70, his biological age measured at 50!

The Premise

The basic scientific premise is that your body has one of two chemical processes at work at any point in time: growth or decay. The important thing to note is that is one or the other, there is no neutral.

But the great news is that you can flip the switch from decay to growth at any age. How?

The short answer is: Exercise 6 days a week, one hour a day. And it’s important to use a heart rate monitor to make sure that you are really exercising. The exercise specifics the book recommends are as follows:

• 2 days a week, exercise at 80% of your maximum heart rate
• 2 days a week, lift weights
• 2 days a week, exercise at 60% of your maximum heart rate

This may seem an unreasonable amount of time when working in the peak of your career, but if you think forward to retirement, it’s a great deal. It only takes an hour a day to turn off the decay completely! There are examples in this book of people in their 80’s and 90’s skiing black diamond runs and cycling mountain passes. It is inspiring.

To round out the review of the book, the other (non-exercise) parts of the program are:

• Eat healthy (not any specific diet)
• Stay connected, care about people
• Stay involved, care about causes
• Keep learning and challenging yourself
• Have a good time and enjoy living

I can tell you from my experience that even 2 hours a week of the right kind of exercise makes a huge difference. In terms of movement, power, energy, balance, stamina, I definitely feel younger than I did two years ago.

Hi Everyone,

Happy end of 2009!  Whew.

I hope you get a  chance to celebrate, share time with the people you care most about, re-charge, and get 2010 off to a good start.

So many people have joined the blog this year.  Thank you!  I’ve done a round-up of the most read blog posts in 5 key areas in case you missed anything.

1. Grow Your Business

• Customer Cost or Care?
• Customer Value and the P&L
• The  Polar Bears Have Had it
• How companies waste leads
• Service or Torture?

2. Be a Better Leader

• Are you smarter than me?
• Average isn’t Enough
• OOPs, the crap IS the job
• 10 Reasons to go on a Vacation
• Mission Impossible
• How to Hire a Star

3. Build Your Network

• 10 Things to Give your network
• Authentic Networking
• The Power of Weak Connections
• High Value Online Behaviors
• Get Help! (best photo of the year)

4. Be More Effective

• Make More Time
• Fight the Bull
• Is email killing you?
• Why do you measure things?
• Ready, Set, Stall…

5. Get a Better Job

• Are You a Workhorse?
• Don’t be boring
• Six Career Hazards
• Just Start Doing the Job
• Do you Stand Out Enough?

Thank you for following my blog

Your feedback please!

Please send me your ideas and feedback about things you’d like to see in the blog next year.  There is a link to email me in the left column of the blog.

Thanks You very much for your interest and support this year.

Happy New Year !!

Here’s hoping 2010 brings more prosperity and peace in the world,  and more good stuff for you, your family and your work.

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10 IDEAS
FROM THE WEBINAR:
TUNING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

Download the podcast to learn more about:

Your Current Brand

1. You have a Personal Brand right now whether you know it or not!
Find out what it is and don’t leave it to chance!

Your brand is defined by what others perceive of you.  They base that on the behaviors that they see from you most consistently.  How can you better demonstrate the things you most want to be known for?

2. Consistency is KEY. Being consistently bad is better than being inconsistently good!  Inconsistency causes disappointment.  Consistency builds confidence, trust, and credibility.

Changing Your Brand

3. If you want to tune or change your Personal Brand, you need to turn up the volume on new consistent behaviors that demonstrate what you want to be known for, and turn down the volume on those you don’t.

4. Evolve a Positive: You can evolve a positive brand attribute that is not well targeted to your current professional situation by attaching or partnering new behaviors to current ones.  Don’t just be focused, be focused AND action oriented.

5. Recover and rebuild. You can get rid of negative brand attributes, (or climb out of a hole you dug with a screw up) by purposefully stopping certain behaviors and adding positive ones consistently over time – it takes time to give people a reason to trust a new behavior.

More Visibility and Relevance

6. Be more relevant. Don’t be well thought of but off base. If  you have a strong brand that  is not relevant to your current environment, (like if you have made a job change and people don’t see you as strong in the new role) add a focused new set of behaviors which create the new impression you want to give.

7. Be more visible. Don’t be well thought of but blank. If you are  respected in your small circle, but largely unknown and invisible, you will need to select something specific you want to be known for and tune your behaviors and communications to give people the right hook for what you want them to know and respect you for.

Using and Reinforcing Your Brand

8. Re-inforce it. Use your brand in every interaction – every meeting, email, presentation, sales call, every partner meeting… when you keep your brand top of mind and use it in every situation you will be perceived in a consistent, positive, trusted way.

9. Create your own personal role model. Your Personal Brand should describe the  best version of your self, and be a picture of someone that you can look up to and strive to emulate at every interaction.

10. Be more satisfied: A strong Personal Brand is based on your core strengths and values.  It is WHY you are good at what you are good at.  If you define and live your Personal Brand, you will be more effective and more satisfied in your work.

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I have learned over the years that there are specific things you can do that make all the difference between getting ahead and just working really hard. This is at the core of my work. So I share. (I had lots of help) I want to help.

I think all talented, ambitious people deserve access to the insights and support they need to get ahead. There is no reason why the “unspoken rules of success” need to be secret.  It’s just that most people don’t bother to talk about them.

So I do!  — in my membership program. As a member you get key insights, practical tools you can use right now, and live personal coaching from me.

Big payoff

The membership is paying off for people.  For $179/year, even if you only got one idea that helped you manage a conversation with your boss better, get bigger results out of your team, increase your value to your company, find more meaning in your work, make more time in your life, reduce your frustration, or get access to a promotion — the return on $179 would be huge.  And I know you’ll get more than one idea.

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Patty

Being the smartest one in the room is not easy. 

Really smart people who get to the answer before everyone else get frustrated because:

• No one wants to listen to you
• No one gets why you are right
• Everyone seems to WANT to go slower (and it is infuriating)
• You resent having to make the effort of “bringing people along”

Good guy or bad guy?

I have met and coached many talented and genuinely kind people throughout my career that want to do positive things for the business in an unselfish way — but they get stuck because they are so smart that they piss people off.

If you are one of these people, or you have one of these people working for you – here is the trick.

You can either be Smart or you can be Effective

You can’t do everything alone. You need other people — either to help or to get out of the way. So if you can’t influence them, you will face road blocks and fail to get others working on your agenda. You will not be effective.

If you want to be effective, you have to suck it up and bring people along with you, even though it seems like a waste of time.

Here are some ideas… slow down even though it goes against every grain of your being.

Include people: don’t just announce the answer, go through the step of setting context and getting input.

Listen: In meetings, give others time to talk, and listen instead of arguing or shutting them down. You may feel like you are wasting time, but you will win favor by listening.  It will pay-off later when you need to get their support.

Don’t be mean. I know it doesn’t feel like you’re  being mean. You are not trying to be mean.  You are trying to be straightforward, practical, share the answer, and make progress. In fact, one of the things that is so annoying about these people is that they accuse you of being mean when you are not.

But they have the right to their perception. What they see may be your dismissing their inputs, ignoring them, or picking fights publicly. Say less. Be more gracious. Be more patient. Use more steps in your logic. Get smaller agreements along the way. Say thank you.

Make an effort to learn what their strengths are. You may be pleasantly surprised. Or not. But if you can get someone talking about what they are good at, and show some appreciation of that, they will be your friend, and you can get their support for your agenda.

Give them the benefit of the doubt. Keep in mind that these people might be brilliant in ways that you don’t see. In ways that you are not.

What if someone in the room is really gifted at networking and connecting and getting others to get on board? Even if they never understand your project, if you can win over that one person they can bring you all the others.

What if the numbers guy who is just not getting the big picture, has a relationship with the CFO that will get your idea funded if you can win him over?

Set your sights on effectiveness

OK. Even if you are truly in a room full of stupid people who can’t keep up, you have a choice to make. Jump to the answer alone and face roadblocks, or make the effort to bring them along, so you can get the job done.

It’s a choice you have. It may be frustrating in the moment, but the upside is that you will be getting things done – maybe not as fast as you want to go, but better than not at all.

I get a lot of questions from introverts about whether they can be successful, top-level leaders.

They want to know if they are fundamentally missing something — skills and talents that only extroverts have.  They are concerned that they are somehow disqualified, or at a big disadvantage to really get ahead.

I know that introverts can be highly successful leaders because I am one!
And I have met many, many others.  I know many great extrovert leaders as well.

Being an introvert doesn’t need to be a hindrance in your career.

I have been getting ready to write about this topic, but before I could get my thoughts down, I came across this excellent article by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, and thought, OK that’s done! She has also written a book (amazon link) on the topic.

Jennifer has graciously allowed me to re-publish her excellent article as a guest post here on my blog.

Why Introverts Can Make The Best Leaders

by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler

They draw on important strengths that extroverts may not have.

“Most people don’t know that I’m an introvert.”

I hear this confession from surprisingly many successful executives. Quite a few, in fact, talk at length with me about their introversion, speaking candidly and often cathartically about their experiences.

Most also admit that at some point in their leadership journey they’ve had to work to overcome being disregarded or misunderstood because of their quiet temperament.

How do these introverted leaders do it? How do they thrive in the extroverted business world?

They seek to understand–and play to–their strengths.

It has been reported that a full 40% of executives describe themselves as introverts, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the über-investors Warren Buffett and Charles Schwab, Avon’s chief executive, Andrea Jung, and the late publishing giant Katharine Graham.  Odds are President Barack Obama is an innie as well.

What does that mean?

That introverts, not just extroverts, have the right stuff to lead organizations in a go-go, extroverted business culture

Here are five key characteristics that help introverted leaders build on their quiet strength and succeed.

1. They think first, talk later

Introverted leaders think before they speak. Even in casual conversations, they consider others’ comments carefully, and they stop and reflect before responding. One executive tells me that he sits back and listens to his leadership team’s ideas and proposals, often using silence to allow even more thoughts to bubble up.

Learning by listening, not talking, is a trait that introverts consistently demonstrate. They also use their calm, quiet demeanor to be heard amid all the organizational noise and chatter. (One thoughtful, reasoned comment in a meeting can move a group forward by leaps and bounds.)

In fact, the most powerful person in the room is often the most quiet. Additionally, an introvert’s tendency to be more measured with words is a major asset in the current economy, when no leader can afford to make costly gaffes.

2. They focus on depth

Introverted leaders seek depth over breadth. They like to dig deep, delving into issues and ideas before moving on to new ones. They are drawn to meaningful conversations, not superficial chitchat, and they know how to ask great questions and really listen to the answers.

In a recent interview with TheNew York Times, Deborah Dunsire, M.D., president and chief executive of Millennium, a Cambridge, Mass., biopharmaceutical company, said, “In addition to conducting organizational surveys and holding town hall meetings, I schedule walk around time, just stopping by offices. … I would just say, ‘Hey, what is keeping you up nights? What are you working on? What’s most exciting to you right now? Where do you see we can improve?’”

Dr. Dunsire maintains that by pursuing this kind of in-depth questioning–something that introverted leaders do exceptionally well–executives can learn what’s actually happening in the far reaches of their organizations and engage and retain their top talent.

3. They exude calm

Introverted leaders are low-key. In times of crisis, they project a reassuring, calm confidence–think President Obama–and they speak softly and slowly regardless of the heat of the conversation or circumstances. Whenever they get ready for a meeting, a speech or a special event, their secret to success can be summed up in one word: preparation.

They often plan and write out their meeting questions well in advance, and for important talks and speeches, they rehearse out loud. They also act “as if”: One executive tells me that he pretends to be James Bond before major industry conferences. It makes him feel more cool and confident.

They psych themselves up internally, too, by quieting negative thoughts and framing the upcoming experience more positively. Prior to networking events, Bob Goodyear, an Atlanta-based information technology leader, tells himself, “I can do anything for 30 minutes.”

4. They let their fingers do the talking

Introverted leaders usually prefer writing to talking. This comfort with the written word often helps them better articulate their positions and document their actions. I

t also helps them leverage online social networking tools such as Twitter, creating new opportunities to be out there with employees, customers and other stakeholders.

For instance, using Best Buy’s  Blue Shirt Nation, an internal social network for employees at the electronics superstore, senior management and sales associates can connect continuously to discussing workers’ feedback and ideas.

I know one chief financial officer who writes a daily internal blog and in a recent posting described how he made “a good presentation great” by practicing. In so sharing his experience, he not only showed openness and honesty but also provided coaching to thousands of employees.

5. They embrace solitude

Introverted leaders are energized by spending time alone. They suffer from people exhaustion and need to retreat to recharge their batteries frequently.

These regular timeouts actually fuel their thinking, creativity and decision-making and, when the pressure is on, help them be responsive, not reactive. When introverts honor that inner pull, they can do their best work.

In managing interruptions, they also manage people’s expectations. When asked to respond to requests or ideas, Martin Schmidler, a vice president at a national food service organization, often tells his team that he needs time to absorb what’s being asked or presented.

He’s clear on how and when he’ll get back to people, and he consistently follows through on his commitments. This clarity and consistency helps him build trust with his team.

Jennifer B. Kahnweiler is the author of The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength. (amazon link)

She is founder and president of AboutYOU, Inc. an Atlanta-based leadership consultancy, and is an executive coach and corporate speaker.  Contact her at aboutyouinc.com and theintrovertedleaderblog.com.

Thanks Jennifer!

More stuff for introverts…

Personal Branding for Introverts

I also came across another interesting article  Personal Branding for Introverts by Andrew Hedges.
Fun to read and good ideas.

Networking for Introverts

To round things out, I’ve included a link to a prior post on this blog about Authentic Networking.
You don’t need to collect business cards at networking events if you hate it!

This approach to Authentic Networking works for anyone, but does very well for introverts who want to meet people for reasons that are of real value to both parties, vs. just talking to a bunch of strangers.

Most people inherently know that they should delegate more, and delegate better, but one big obstacle keeps them from doing it…

It might not come out right

…so I better jump in and make sure
it is going OK or just do it myself.

Who’s at fault?

It it doesn’t come out right, the uncomfortable question this raises is -
did this person fail to do a good job because:

1. They are not good enough at the job? or
2. I am not good enough at delegating?

It’s not about getting comfortable with worry

The real secret of successful delegating is not to learn how to deal with the emotional discomfort of letting go, and learning to live with being worried about the outcome, or accepting bad outcomes…

It’s about preventing reasons to worry

Your job is to delegate, let go, NOT micromanage… AND create structure, support and processes so you ensure that it is going to get done right.

You don’t deal with the worrying, you ensure it’s not necessary.

Ways to build comfort and insurance into the project
without micro-managing

1. Let the person create the timeline, define the deliverables and how you will measure them.  The encouragement and trust goes a long way, and you either get the pleasant surprise of a better plan than you would have come up with, or you get an early warning that this person needs more support.

2. Tighten the Outcomes.  If you are concerned that the person is not capable enough to run with the project, Instead of a 6 month outcome, discuss outcomes that occur every two weeks.

3. Focus on the outcome, not the activity. No two humans will do a task exactly the same way.  If they deliver the outcome, it shouldn’t matter how they do it.  Let them worry about how and what.  You worry about WHY, and what needs to be true when it is done.

4. Create an actual process and tracking system for long term or repetitive tasks – a software development lifecycle with checkpoints is a good example.  But why not define a project lifecycle with checkpoints for a quarterly analyst presentation, a press release, or a marketing campaign?

5. Third party reviews. Get yourself out of the position of always being the one to judge whether a deliverable is good enough or not.  Get the actual consumers of the deliverable to review and provide feedback.  Your employees will learn far more this way.

6. Don’t forget to inspect and measure things along the way.  If you set up a timeline with review steps along the way, you must follow up.  A great deal of your comfort comes from the fact that people take you seriously and actually do the committed work.  A long time mentor of mine always put it “You get what you INspect, not what you EXpect”.

7. Teach. When you are delegating things you are personally good at, always think of delegating as a teaching opportunity. If you need to sometimes jump down and do the work yourself, make sure someone is watching and learning.
See also Let People Fail.

Bottom line…

You need to delegate effectively if you want to get anything significant done, get anywhere in your career, and save yourself from an un-doable workload.

If you are either doing the work yourself, or worried about the work not getting done, you need to change your strategy.

You can delegate and feel comfortable that the work is getting done as long as you do the higher level work of setting up the systems, processes and measures that ensure the right things are happening along the way.

Note to the micromanaged…

I will write another post on this because many people suffer from this.

But the short answer is, you need make your boss comfortable that he will get what he wants in some way other than by micromanaging.   Some of the techniques above can be useful with your boss too.

Category Note: I filed this post under “CONNECT Better” because it is critical to always be building a broad base of support. Getting your team and others to accomplish work that you need done is a critical element of business effectiveness and career success.

Very early in my career (I emphasize “very early” as this is not an incident I am proud of and didn’t want you to think this was last week!).

I was in a sales training session and we had to do a lifeboat exercise.

The Lifeboat…

You are probably familiar with this.

You imagine you are lost at sea in a lifeboat with others, and you have set of items in your emergency kit.

But you can’t keep them all, and you need to decide which few items to keep (while you pursue or await rescue) and which to throw overboard.  It’s stuff like a flare, a rope, a mirror, a flashlight, food, a compass, drinking water, matches, etc.

What’s supposed to happen…

The way the exercise goes is that you first create your list of must-keep items individually, and then you discuss it as a team and build a team-generated list.

This is an exercise where there are, in fact, correct answers, so you get a score on how well you did as an individual, and as a team.

The point of the exercise is to show how no individual scores come out higher than the team score, and to demonstrate the value of teamwork.

OK, So our team was pathetic.

This was an international meeting, and on our team we had 7 English-as-a-first-language people, and one French guy.  Although he spoke English, (loads better than any one of us spoke French!), the language issue was difficult and distracting to the team.

Every time he advocated for his choices we basically ignored him because it was just too slow and difficult to get what he was saying, and it didn’t sound that smart to us anyway.

You can guess the outcome here

1) Our team not only lost, but failed spectacularly, in an unprecedented way…
2) Our team score was lower than ALL of our individual scores…
3) AND the French guy not only had the highest individual score on our team, but of all the individuals, and all the teams!

OK, so what are the lessons?

He was the smartest guy in the room.  He tried to share his good ideas with us – over and over again.  We basically threw him overboard.

So for me, although miles from the lesson intended about teamwork, this provided a good slap in the face, and some real lessons about communicating.

I think about this tragically “American” moment in my career very often when I am working internationally.  And it serves as a reminder to be a better human!

1. Modify your expectations of communicating

When there is a language issue, treat is as YOUR issue.

They are speaking your language as a favor to you.  You don’t speak THEIR language.  So remember you are putting the other person in a difficult position.

If you have never tried – just try to learn another language.  Appreciate the great chasm that you would need to cross to speak as well in your colleague’s language as they do in yours.

Don’t just accept a weak meeting outcome, and blame it on the other person.

Take responsibility to get the necessary business outcome and give the person a chance to communicate on their terms.  It’s up to you to make sure you get their best thinking.

2. Don’t equate capability with ability to speak your language

I recall from one of Jack Welch’s books that even he made this mistake when he first started hiring people in Japan.  He hired the Japanese people that spoke English best because they seemed more capable to him.

He later let native Japanese leaders choose talent in Japan and got much better hires.

If something is critical, let people work in their native language and make it your problem to process and understand it.

3. Revert to writing

Writing can be much easier to understand because both parties get to communicate at their own pace.  Nothing gets lost as the conversation goes by.

I have had meetings where we literally wrote out, in sentences, our conversation, decisions and agreements on the white board.

The discussion moves slower, but the communication moves much faster.  Writing can often be much more easily understood than talking, and it is very easily translated.

Use writing in parallel with social media

I also heard a brilliant idea from Suzanne Pherigo.  (You may know Suzanne from Azzarello Group Webinar fame, as my Co-Host).  Suzanne runs an international R&D organization.

On all of their multi-country conference calls they use an additional IM window where people in each country type out the key points being made, translate any jargon, highlight questions and decisions, and clarify areas in the discussion that were moving fast, or unclear.

They also use blog updates which capture the key ideas and decisions from the conference call in writing, to re-inforce the key outcomes and have a record for later review and understanding.

This improved both productivity and relationships dramatically.  Brilliant, Suzanne!

UPGRADING YOUR TEAM WEBINAR

10 IDEAS

Download the PODCAST to learn more about:

It’s your job to build capability

1. A strong team. There is almost nothing more important in the “DO Better” category, which is about over achieving on the right few things that have the biggest impact on the business, than building a really strong team that can grow.

2. It is your job as a manager and leader to make your team more capable, not just manage their work.

3. You build capability in two ways: 1 – Develop people to become more capable over time, and 2 – Make people changes when current team members can’t live up to future requirements.

Start with Business Outcomes

4. Start with Business Outcomes. What does the business need? Draw a blank-sheet ideal org chart at your roadmap for your team, based on what the business requires.

5. Define NEW roles based on short term deliverables and longer term desired outcomes.  Include skill levels around judgment, leadership, communication, and personal support as well as technical/content skills.

6. People Moves. Once you have an ideal org chart, you will find some people on your current team will fit, but you will need to deal fairly with empty boxes and extra people.

Guilt, Change, & Difficulties

7. It is human nature to feel guilt when you eliminate jobs, but you need to realize that this is business driven and not personal.  You are creating roles to deliver business outcomes and then filling those roles with the most capable people.

8. You need to sell your plan and the value of the business outcomes your improved team will drive with your boss and HR early in the process.  This support is critical to getting it done and will make you feel more confident as you go through the process.

9. Don’t forget to keep momentum with high performers while you are diving change.

The Payoff

10. Building a stronger team is good for you, your team, and your business.  And don’t forget that taking people out of jobs they are struggling in is also good for them.  They deserve to be in a job where they can thrive.

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UPGRADING YOUR TEAM

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Non Members:
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