Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go - Revisited

Still, one of my favorite leadership and culture books. Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go, by Beverly L. Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni, is a book that all leaders should have, not on the bookshelf, but on your desk as an ongoing reference. Below is my original review of this must-have book.

It only happens every few years. I’m talking about leadership books that come out that I like so much that I read it with a highlighter. I use them in staff development and lend them out to others who want to improve themselves and/or their staff.

A few years back it was Creating Magic by Lee Cockerell. Then came From Bud to Boss by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris. Now – I've had the great privilege of reading a pre-launch copy of Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want by Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Help Them Grow is the type of book that makes you think, “Hmm, why haven’t I been doing that?” It’s a straightforward roadmap on how to help your staff develop without you having to take control of the reins. Let your employees grab hold of those reins and become responsible for their own growth. Wow . . . what a concept, right? Can you see your time being freed up?

Kaye and Giulioni say that “your role is more about prompting, guiding, reflecting, exploring ideas, activating enthusiasm, and driving action”. This book shows you ways to incorporate these career conversations in your everyday work life. 

Notice that last sentence that says “everyday”. Leaders don’t have time to hold extended annual appraisals that package up everything from the entire previous year – and shouldn’t – heck, they don’t remember about what you’re talking about half the time anyway! You’re already having everyday conversations with your employees (hopefully), so just change the tone a bit. You don’t need a bunch of checklists and forms. Conversations and asking questions are the keys to development.

This book gives you actionable steps to “focusing on what the employee needs to experience, know, learn, and be able to do”. Too often, leaders think they have to have all the answers (and they avoid the topic if they don’t), when what they actually need most are the questions, permitting the employee to be a first-hand participant in their own successful development.

There’s so much more to this embracing book than I have time for here, so my suggestion to you is to go to Amazon to order yourself a copy or two – others are going to want their own.

Refire! Don't Retire

Age is an attitude, not a number.  Anyone who’s “getting older” should read Ken Blanchard and Morton Schaevitz new book, Refire! Don’t Retire.

Too many people use age as an excuse to slow down, stop learning, and retire.  You’ve got a lot more time and adventure in you than you think.  Too many people just give in to time.  Here, you have an outline to refiring emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually.

This book is so full of thought provoking ideas, you’re not going to want to put it down.  I know, I know, “I don’t like to read”.  Well, fine.  Get the book anyway and just go through the Pause, Reflect, Take Action questions at the end of each section.  I guarantee you’ll have a number of “a-ha” moments.

Not thinking about retirement yet?  Read it anyway.  There are many doors waiting in your future (and present) besides the retirement door.  Start your renewal now.  Enhance relationships, stimulate minds, and revitalize bodies.  You have the knowledge and ability in you, you just need some help pulling it out and putting it all together.  Blanchard and Shaevitz are going to guide you.

Don’t plan on getting old.  Plan on living life.  If you’re living too well to look at the clock, you won’t need to know what time it is.  You’ve got the steps to a more fulfilling life, now put it all together and live!

Follow Your Conscience

I was going to start out with, “a breath of fresh air”, but someone already did.  So I was going to start out with, “inspiring” . . . already done.  How about “enlightening”?  Nope, taken.

So what the heck, Frank Sonnenberg’s new book, Follow YourConscience, is an enlightening and inspiring, breath of fresh air.  It just is.

There are a lot of people in business who believe that they’re a great leader and they are there to support others.  There are people who believe the same of their leaders.  Have you ever heard the saying, “it’s not personal, it’s business”?  People seem to use that as an excuse to do less than they really could for people.  I (h/she) could do better - but it’s just business.  Just begin reading Frank’s book and you’ll see that you - or your leaders - are missing out on some things.

Think about what type of role model you believe you are.  Then read this book.  Now, what type of role model do you believe you are?  What kind of role model will you become?

Conscience - attitude, authenticity, integrity, humility, passion, fairness, faith.  These are just a few of the things Frank discusses, and in a way that’s easily understood and painless to put yourself in the middle of.

My suggestion?  Read the book.  Share the book.  Use it for a leadership book club.  It all makes so much sense that you’re not going to want to keep it to yourself.

Hooked On Customers

Listen – Think – Empower – Create – Delight.  There ya go, the 5 key organizational habits of customer-centric companies.  Some of you will say, “got it” . . . and fail.  Others will become curious and read Robert Thompson’s new book, HookedOn Customers: The Five Habits of Legendary Customer-Centric Companies . . . and succeed.  Bob gives us an abundance of research, interviews, and examples to help you outline your path to customer-centric success.

Contrary to what it should be, customer service is quite often just a department in many organizations.  It’s handled in one area by a few employees.  Customer-centric organizations, on the other hand, embrace the customer throughout the organization.  Bob takes a look at how various organizations do it right . . . and wrong – Home Depot, Apple, Best Western, JC Penny, Ryanair, Wells Fargo, Zappos (you’ll have to read the book to find out who’s good or not).

So many organizations focus too much just on the “hello’s” and “thank you’s”.  Those are all great – and needed, but Bob sums it up well when he says, “driving consumer loyalty is not as simple as providing great service.  Providing “the right stuff” at a fair price is still critical”.  What’s also critical are employee efforts in creating a desirable brand.  Keep in mind that your employees ARE part of your brand.

There’s no “best method” for driving loyalty but along with his years of research, Bob provides some very important questions to ask in order to know what to measure in your own research and development.

Bob Thompson is founder and CEO of research and publishing firm CustomerThink Corporation and editor-in-chief of CustomerThink.com, the world’s largest online community dedicated to helping business leaders develop and execute customer-centric business strategies. An author, keynote speaker and international authority on business management trends, he has been a thought leader in customer-centricity since 1998. Bob’s new book, Hooked on Customers, is now available on Amazon. Follow Bob on Twitter: @Bob_Thompson, and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Your Leadership Life Map

Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Kathryn Cramer as my guest blogger. Her recent release of Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders, See, Say, and Do, was one of the easiest to read and implement leadership books I've read. I highly recommend you running out (or to your computer) and getting your own copy.

YOUR LEADERSHIP LIFE MAP: DISCOVERING YOUR MIGHTY CAUSE

What is your mighty cause?  People crave a greater sense of purpose, and being able to

link your goals to a noble and mighty cause is inspiring.

Authentic communication, what I call “saying it with soul” is about meaning what you say–and saying something meaningful. When you can speak soulfully about your values and your personal investment in the vision, your mighty cause, it builds trust and commitment. It lowers the bar for your team to get on board.

Your Leadership Life Map

It is not as difficult as you may think to discover the mighty cause underlying your vision for your organization. Using the Leadership Life Map tool from my upcoming book Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders, See, Say, and Do, you can start by identifying patterns in your leadership path about what most motivates and inspires you.

For example, when I worked with my client Matthew, an operations manager, to develop his Leadership Life Map, we discovered that his deepest passion was from mentoring others, not efficient operations. Getting results was of course rewarding, but his greatest satisfaction came from watching people grow and excel.

From there, it was a short step for Matthew to identify his noble cause of employee growth and to link it to his organization’s vision of higher performance. His ability to speak soulfully about his dedication to this noble cause did more to inspire those he served than a powerpoint presentation on operational improvement goals ever could.

Download the Lead Positive Leadership Life Map tool here.

The Leadership Life Map exercise, which I have provided here as a free resource from the Lead Positive book, asks you to:

•  Map the chapters of your life as a leader
• Identify the major life-shaping forces in your leadership career
• List your most significant leadership experiences–positive and negative–and the key assets you used or noticed in others

Once it is all laid out, you can begin to identify themes and patterns regarding your leadership values, your mighty cause.

Kathryn D. Cramer, PhD, is passionate about possibilities and potential. Emmy-winner, business consultant, psychologist, and author, Dr. Cramer has written nine books, including the best-selling Change the Way You See Everything. She created and has dedicated her life to asset-based thinking (ABT), a way of looking at the world that helps leaders, influencers, and their teams make small shifts in thinking to produce extraordinary impact. Her latest book, Lead Positive: What Highly Effective Leaders See, Say & Do (Jossey-Bass, 2014), shows leaders how to increase their effectiveness through her revolutionary mindset management process, Asset-Based Thinking.

Follow Kathy on Twitter @drkathycramer and connect on Facebook.

The Heart of Leadership

Mark Miller has done it again.  His new book, out this week, The Heart of Leadership:

Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow, is one you won't want to put down.  VERY seldom do I read a book from cover to cover in one sitting.  But this one, I did.

Similar to his last book, The Secret of Teams, it's written as a fable.  This fable follows a young man, passed up for promotion, on a journey to find the meaning of "leadership character".  While noting throughout his journey that a lack of skills isn't what holds most leaders back, it's a lack of leadership character, Mark shows us that "leadership" is really within reach of more people than we think.

While most leadership books we read are about just getting ahead, he speaks more of servent leadership and using one's heart to forge the way.  Your skills account for only about 10% of who you are as a leader . . . the other 90% comes from your character - your heart.  Most leaders barely tap into developing their leadership character.

Any up and coming leader (or seasoned) will absolutely benefit from Mark's book.  SO, I'm going to start you off by sending the first three people who shoot me an email (auskavitch@gmail.com) with "The Heart of Leadership" in the subject, your very own copy of the book.  Read it, share it, read it again.  (don't forget to send your address - I don't spam)

Baby Service Steps

Simple question . . . How many successful organizations do you know of that

don't have some kind of customer service program for their employee's?  I'd be willing to guess, not many.

Take a look at such company's as, Disney, Zappo's, FedEx, and Wegmans (grocery chain).  These organizations are ranked at or near the top in customer service every year.  They all have customer service programs of some form.

We often hear the same things, "We already give good service", "We don't get many complaints".  Well why wouldn't you want to give "extraordinary" service or get even less complaints?

If nothing else, a CS program serves as a reminder to employee's to do even better than they are already.  It provides people with reminders and fresh ideas.  It turns those little light bulbs on . . . or back on.

Start thinking about it today.  Start small and grow from there.  It doesn't need to be extravagant - email reminders/ideas, newsletters, pre-work meetings, shared stories of "wow" service.  Do any of this and you're well on your way to better service.

Purpose Must Be A Priority

This weeks post is by guest, Jeremy Kingsley who's new book, Inspired People Produce Results will be released on March 11!  If you like it half as much as I do, you'll love it! Get it now.

As the leader of your team, you must clearly understand and be able to pass on the purpose of your organization and your team’s role within that organization. If you don’t know the purpose of your efforts, you certainly won’t be able to inspire your team to success.
     
Communicating purpose will take more than requiring your team to memorize the company mission statement, however. It must become part of the culture of what everyone in your organization thinks about, says, and does each day. It will influence decisions made at the top and choices made by the “lowliest” employee.
     
Keep your own sense of purpose honed and sharp. You are the leader. Keep that big picture in mind and know exactly where you are and where you are going. Communicate your enthusiasm and dedication. Carry everyone else along with you. It will take energy and effort, but no one said that being a leader was easy.
     
Grow together. At times, it may seem that everyone has a different purpose, and that paths are diverging. Make sure that everyone sees the way back to the common goal, and that the impact their work will have on it is clear to them. It is as if each team member must make a brick, ensuring that it is strong and free from flaws, and then firmly set it in place, among others, so that the next course can rest safely upon it.
     
Friday is a great time to bring your team together, to review the week, discuss the one to come, and end the working day with a sense of triumph, feeling united, energized, and eager for what lies ahead.
     
I’m a runner, I know how my legs ache halfway through a race, and at work my head often hurts at some point during a week. It is purpose that carries tired limbs and overburdened minds on until a second wind comes and that tape is in view. Purpose fathers that final burst of energy that carries your team over the line, with the broken tape fluttering at their feet. Purpose paves the way to victory. “Good leaders,” it’s been said, “create an organization with a purpose that rises above the bottom line; great leaders go a step further, finding ways to leverage the passion of each employee in order to create incentives that transcend financial rewards.”
     
What does this statement mean? I think it’s saying that to be an exceptional leader, you must discover ways to link the passions of each individual on your team with the purposes of your organization. You may have to find ways to do this that go beyond traditional methods. As you get to know your team, you’ll discover more about their individual desires and goals and how they define their purpose in life. It may be based on their family values, faith, or recent experiences. Pay attention to these clues! The more you can find common ground between your organization’s goals and purposes and the individual goals and purposes of each member of your team, the more effective and happy they will be on the job.
     
You won’t regret making purpose a priority.

About the Author
Jeremy Kingsley is a professional speaker, author, and the President of OneLife Leadership. Since 1995 he has spoken to over 500,000 people at live events around the world. He has given over 2000 keynote speeches and his messages have reached millions through radio, television, and the internet. He has a new book titled Inspired People Produce Results, published by McGraw-Hill. Order now and learn more at www.jeremykingsley.com