Do Others Like The Vibes You Give Off?
I pride myself in always having a great attitude. In fact if you were to ask those that know me they would tell you that one of my mantras would be my answer to the question of how I am doing: “I don’t know how I could be any better!” And, I really do believe this.
“The ‘secret’ of success is not very hard to figure out. The better you are at connecting with other people, the better the quality of your life.” ~ Nicholas Boothman
Amazingly this fits with my philosophy of having a great attitude all the time. This is affirmed in Nicholas Boothman’s great book that I am reading right now entitled How To Make People Like You In 90 Seconds. He talks about either having a “really useful attitude” or a “really useless attitude”. I have found, as Boothman also points out in the book, it always pays to have the useful attitude. In fact he provides a great table of both useful and useless attitudes.
From How To Make People Like You In 90 Seconds by Nicholas Boothman
Then, yesterday when flying into Orlando, Florida I had this affirmed when I picked up my rental car. When I went to my Preferred area, the agent told me that they were out of the vehicles in the selected size I always get. I said, “Okay, let’s just figure out what you’ve got; it will be okay.” I was in A garage and she said, you know if you want to go over to B garage they’ve got one. It’s a short walk, so said “No problem. Let’s do that.” Now could have got all huffy and holier than though, but really, what would that have gotten me – nothing.
As I was walking away the agent said, “Thanks for having a great attitude. I like your vibes you give off.” This made my day because I do try to always give off good vibes. Boothman would have been proud because I couldn’t help but take a moment and be the teacher I am and tell her about the book and what I had learned about useful and useless attitudes.
Then when I got to the other garage, I found that the first agent had called over and told them to take good care of me and give me an upgrade to a premium vehicle. So what did having a useful attitude get me? A premium ride. To be clear, however, I am not saying to just have the useful attitude to get stuff or be upgraded. I am saying, as my story proves, authentically having a useful attitude will be just that – useful. So, if we want to live a premium and top shelf life we need to always have useful attitude. What kind of vibes are you giving off?
Leading Toward Morale
As a student of IDEO, a global design company, I was intrigued by a comment that Tom Kelley made in the great book, The Art Of Innovation: “Morale cannot be planned or created.” This is so true. I have actually watched leaders try to plan organizations out of poor morales. It never works. Either the things that foster great morale are happening, or they aren’t.
Leading has to be so much more than just telling people what to do. It’s about building a rapport and fostering real relationship with those that are a part of the organization. Rapport in turn creates trust and then things can get things done. Unfortunately, many leaders either don’t care about morale, or have the belief that giving a pep talk every so often, having a get together or party every so often, or sending someone a gift card will build morale. While these are nice things, they have nothing to do with morale.
So what is morale? Dictionary.com defines it as: “emotional or mental condition with respect to cheerfulness, confidence, zeal, etc., especially in the face of opposition; hardship, etc.: the morale of the troops.” (Retrieved 5/22/2019 from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/morale) Employee morale describes the overall outlook, attitude, satisfaction, and confidence that employees feel at work. We can’t give an employee positive morale. As a leader, though, we do control large components of the environment in which employees work each day. Consequently, we are a powerful contributor to whether a team member’s morale is positive or negative.
When our team members believe they are part of the goals that are bigger than themselves, or their job, this contributes significantly to positive employee morale. We want to feel as if we are part of something important and contributing to success for the greater good is a real morale booster. A deep focus on serving the needs of customers, students, and families, also promotes positive staff morale. Think about this: when employees have confidence in the capability of their organization’s or school’s leadership, they tend to have positive morale.
So if we can’t plan for or create morale, what are we to do? We must create an environment of shared vision for where the school or organization is headed and is positive about the direction. In this environment employees will exhibit high morale. I we genuinely planning to make changes based on feedback, our authenticity will be apparent.
It requires a great team to steer the organization or school toward progress, and if that great team involves happy employees with high morale, the journey will be successful.
Stand Your Ground & Be The Example
Setting an example through your own practice illustrates to others that change is a shared endeavor. True leaders are the pinnacle of what they expect from the people around them. And by setting an example, true leaders encourage their people to aim for that. By walking your talk, you become a person others want to follow. When leaders say one thing, but do another, they erode trust–a critical element of productive leadership.
Great leaders are persistent. Try, try again. Go over, under or around any hurdles to show that obstacles, what I like to call opportunities, don’t define your company or team. This will allow you to create solutions. Don’t dwell on problems; instead be the first to offer solutions and then ask your team for more.
Furthermore, being the first to change can be challenging. As a pioneer, you have to overcome resistance to the status quo. We humans get used to the way things are. Yet those who dare to rock the boat are in a position of tremendous power, and can send ripples of inspiration out to the world. Lead by example because others will become curious. Remember, our actions are much more persuasive than than our words.
Leadership Is Empowerment
By being generous and loving, we become better leaders. Our kindness inspires others to follow in our footsteps. Humans require community in order to survive. As individuals we are week, but together we are strong. We need to strive for greatness, but we need to lift others as we rise. The goal is not to tower over our fellow humans, but rather to lift them up to where we are. If we all want to succeed ourselves, we cannot do it alone.
Leadership is empowerment. It’s lifting others up, helping them advance, and making them a part of something bigger than themselves. In short, it’s helping people to be a little closer to who they’re meant to be. Our leadership ability won’t be measured by our own advancement, but how well we advance the lives of others.
How does your leadership success measure up?
What We Know, And Don’t Quite Know We Know
I finished a great book by David Brooks this past week entitled The Second Mountain: The Quest For A Moral Life. He used a phrase in the book that really intrigued me: “What we know, and what we don’t quite know we know.” I’ve written about not knowing what we don’t know before, but this idea there being things we don’t quite know we know is intriguing to me. At first I related it to being curious, but I believe it had more to do with our learned knowledge and experiences that give us knowledge and perspective about things yet to be learned.
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” ~ Donald Rumsfeld, Former Secretary Of Defense
Case in point: this past week I was asked to research what we needed in terms of a website to market new professional development materials and services we have for schools to buy. At first I’m thinking, “I am so the wrong person for this!” I’m not a marketer, nor web development person. Then I started doing some research and got hooked up with a great resource at a web development company, who was happy to mentor me, fill in the gaps of my research, and help me develop the right questions to be asking back with the team.
What I found was, that while I did not have much (actually none) of the technical knowledge necessary for moving this project forward, I did have valuable user knowledge of what the website needed to be like. These were the things I didn’t know I knew, but by asking questions of the right people I was learning. I found I knew some vital things crucial to product success, such as:
- Making the website fast and easily navigated.
- Make it simple.
- Make the landing page in a way that hooks readers.
- Make it about solving problems.
Just understanding these things from my own experience using websites I was able to fill in the knowledge gap with the help of the website design gurus. No matter the scale, discovering your explanatory gaps is essential for innovation. An undiagnosed gap in knowledge means you might not fully understand a problem. That can hinder innovative solutions. To discover the things you can’t explain, take a lesson from teachers. When you instruct someone else, you have to fill the gaps in your own knowledge. A couple of tips would be to explain concepts to yourself as you learn them and engage others in collaborative learning.
Next time you take on something outside your current knowledge base, think about what you already know and what you don’t quite know you know. I’ll bet you know more than you think.
Remember Who You Are And Be Okay With It
One of my favorite compliments to give someone is: “Thanks for being YOU!” I believe it is a powerful compliment because it implies that what makes that person such a unique human being comes from deep within. What I am trying to do is give unconditional gratitude. I want the person to remember who they are and be okay with it. When I say, “Thanks for being YOU!” I am not just saying thank you for what the person has done – I am saying thank you for who he or she is. I am telling him or her that I value them as a person.
“Thanks for being YOU!” Even for all the mistakes the person made and the flaws he or she found that they want to change. For the times he or she did and the times he or she could not, for one day they will all add up. Any of us at our best is what serves us all best. We need each of us to be who we are in order to shape the future. We grow into being who we are one day at a time. We need everyone’s contribution. We need your contribution as much as mine. It’s something we build as much as we find, to do either takes a present mind.
Remember, you are not a robot or a Barbie™. Therefore, let’s be who we are and be okay with it. This does not mean that we should not work to improve or learn new things. It means we need to be okay with who we are as we continue to improve and evolve as the person we are. I believe every person is a work of art. Research indicates that our capacity for self-evolution and growth of our personality, mental capacities, relationships and actions are all based on conscious intent. Shaping our being is like making art; the same way an artist develops, evolves and creates a painting; or a composer creates music. We can all make our conscious being and all that emanates from it a work of art. As I always say, “There is no bad art.” So let’s go out there and remember who we are and be okay with it.
Getting The Whole View
The person who tries to hide weaknesses actually highlights them rather than concealing them. This concealment actually creates the perception of a lack of integrity and self-awareness. This is why I hate the term “fake it till you make it.” I don’t even think that is possible. At least not in all situations. Let’s face it, whether you acknowledge your weaknesses or not, everyone still sees them.
Self-awareness is probably one of the most important focus areas for leaders, but least discussed. When we are self-aware we can concede all the things we still need to learn and admit any missteps or mistakes we make. These can then turn into teachable and learning moments that give everyone on our organizations permission to be collaborative, thus creating a learning organization.
Welcome To Your New Addiction
What’s At Your Core (Value)?
Where to begin? There is so much I want to say! Yesterday we had a great gathering of our Florida 3D Leadership group outside Orlando at Renaissance Charter School at Boggy Creek. I love going there and spending time with this group. Yesterday’s topic was core values. We spent the morning setting the stage with some cool activities (Emoji tattoos, making graphic mantras) and discussions around core values and what they wanted to do with their lives and what they wanted their legacy to be.
Then, the coolest thing happened – Lunch!
Our lunch was delivered and catered from Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. First of all, as the truck, bright yellow, pulled up, it caught my eye out the window I had immediately seen the shiny object and was off topic. Check out the picture of the truck and you will understand what I am talking about. So, as they were setting up at one end of the room we were in, I asked one of the workers, Mariah Miller, whether she liked working at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop and if she did, why? Well, let me tell you, she jumped right into our core values discussion and said that she liked it because her boss did not act like a boss and did not want to be called a boss. He wanted to be considered a coworker.
Graphic Recording by Amy Reynolds
Then her coworker (boss), or leader, as he likes to be called came in, not having heard me ask the question. I called him over and asked him what his workers would say his mantra was (this was a core values discussion from the morning). He then basically reinforced everything Mariah had told us. We were amazed by the message that David Morales had for us in what became an outstanding extemporaneous luncheon keynote, literally.
David explained he had ended up in Florida, via Texas, because he quit his job, and I quote, “because my core values did not match those of the company I was working for at the time.” Of course I am beaming at this point and everyone was looking at me like I had set this up, which I had not. We had discussed how individual and organization core values needed to match. I had said earlier in the day that is was just a fact that if at any point your own core values become much different from the organization you work for, that it was time to quit. He was affirming everything we had talked about earlier in the day, but with the flare of personal experience and a lot of passion.
He then told us about looking for a job and finding Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. He told us how he cut the deal for Fuzzy’s Taco Shop to cater for the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers. He told us about how he has opened 29 businesses. Finally, he explained how core values build communities of commitment. We had been discussing how core values communicate what is important, influence behavior, and inspire people to action. We had also talked about how core values enhance credible leadership. David Morales from Fuzzy’s Taco Shop had become our exemplar. We did not need to spend very much time with his employees to know he was credible.
…it is clearly necessary to invent organizational structures appropriate to the multicultural age. But such efforts are doomed to failure if they do not grow out of something deeper; out of generally held values.” ~Vaclav Havel
Graphic Recording by Amy Reynolds
Core values are what support the vision, shape the culture and reflect what an organization values. They are the essence of the organization’s identity – the principles, beliefs or philosophy of values. Many organizations focus mostly on the technical competencies but often forget what are the underlying competencies that make their organizations run smoothly — core values. Establishing strong core values provides both internal and external advantages to the organization. Clearly, Fuzzy’s Taco Shop and David Morales have mastered this.
Needless to say, we were amazed at this outstanding example of a company and it’s employees living out shared core values. Would you, your organization, or school have been able to extemporaneously keynoted our lunch today with the same level of authenticity related to core values as David Morales, Mariah Miller, and Fuzzy’s Taco Shop were able to?
Play Chess, Not Checkers
Good Leaders Play Checkers.
Great Leaders Play Chess!
Great leaders recognize that each piece on the chess board is different. You cannot play the game (lead), much less win the game, if you do not appreciate, leverage, and deploy each of the pieces in their own unique and individual way.
So today, I facilitated a professional development session for Georgia and Florida principals that I title “Play Chess, Not Checkers.” I started off by asking two questions:
- What are the differences between checkers and chess?
- What must you be able to do to win at chess?
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a picture of the notes we took during discussion:
Here are some quotes from the day that stood out:
“What can I attack now, and what can wait.”
“Do You have the skills to pivot?”
“We need big vision protectors.”
“The wrong player changes the entire game.”
“What happens when you hire a leader who runs it like a checker game, instead of chess?”
For this next quote I need to put up the graphic I drew:
This was such a great discussion. And, of course, we could not move on without having them create their own model the ideal leadership chess game. Check out this video of their creation:
As you can see this was a very inspirational and meaningful discussion. We gave a lot of thought to how we lead and the environment we create by using the context of playing chess. How about you? Do you lead like a chess or checkers player?
Leadership Influence Formula
The ability to influence others is crucial to a person’s success as a leader. Let’s face it, leadership is influence. All of the successful and effective leaders I have encountered developed the way they communicate and influence. After activities involving identifying Mount Rushmorean leadership influencers in their life yesterday, our 3D Leadership participants in Georgia set out to develop the top 5 list of leadership influence. This very creative group went a step further and invented a leadership influence formula.
This happened because of a lively discussion while trying to narrow the list down to five. This had taken place using one of my typical strategies of having participants fly airplanes with their personal top three influencer traits. They then glided their airplane to someone else and so on. We then compiled the list and got down to eight. As you can imagine, it got lively at this point.
The beauty of our 3D Leadership Program is that our participants come from all positions. We have teachers, facilities professionals, principals, and many others represented. This gives us the unique ability to have all vantage points represented in a discussion. This affords us what Dr. Nicky Howe and Alicia Curtis call “diversity of thought” in their great book, Difference Makers: A Leader’s Guide To Championing Diversity On Boards. They contend that what really matters are not the visible differences between people but their unique perspectives on the world.
What I believe we are creating through our cohorts of 3D Leadership participants is an organizational culture that is committed to fostering open-ended, inclusive dialogue. It is about recognizing that every person is a rich tapestry woven together from a million threads. Participants’ age, background, experiences, abilities, job responsibilities, gender, race, family story, and many other things all matter. There is a fallacy that people who look alike have the same views. Nothing could be further from the truth, though.
Bottom line is, this “diversity of thought” enabled us to develop a pretty cool leadership influence formula. Here it is: Innovative + Integrity + Compassion/Caring + Listen + Inspire = Leading By Example. Pretty powerful, don’t you think? As we decided, even you wanted to switch some traits out, if you were doing all the parts of this formula, you would be getting along pretty well.
Do you follow the additive value of this formula? If you follow these traits you will stack things in your favor to quickly become a key person of influence.
Byron's Babbles 
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