Tag Archives: Personal leadership

Positive Peers

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OldWatch.C.Guthier   In the last year I have had the honor of attending several retirement ceremonies for people I consider to be friends and great leaders. As I listened to my friends’ remarks during their retirement speeches, I realized how important peer leaders are to those who strive for continuous improvement and change. With the proper spirit of competition, support and cooperation, quality peers encourage you to become better than you are. It is easy to point to a current or former boss who provided a few words of wisdom, spent some time mentoring you or introducing you to some powerful people as sources of inspiration. Often we overlook the inspiration provided by those we work with and against every day. John Maxwell has long endorsed the 360 degree leader. Many have written about competition improving results. In many ways peer leaders may be more important in our personal growth as leaders than our bosses.

One common area peers are recognized as improving other organizational leaders is through competition. The peer may be your equal in another organization in the same industry courting the same customers, or within your organization leading a similar group. Their accomplishments provide inspiration to improve your own performance. Keeping up with or staying ahead of the competition, especially a friendly competition, encourages people to evaluate what the competition does well, which practices we can adapt and adopt, and identify improvements for performance ahead of them. Such continuous improvements start the momentum Gary Collins talks about in his book, Good to Great.Peers

Another area peers help fellow leaders improve is by providing support. Support may come in a variety of ways and reasons. You may find a former competitor now works for your organization and understands the importance of your success because it translates into success for everyone. Your peer may have moved on to another organization working in a completely different field; however provides support because of your past relationship. Other members of your network maybe able to point you to an expert or service that meets your needs. Sometime their support results in a mutual benefit, many times there is no directly benefit.

Your peers may find they need your cooperation to accomplish their mission or you need theirs. Cooperation requires trust and confidence in the skills of the other. Completing a project together improves relationships and greases the wheels for future ventures. When two or more people or groups of people work to develop something new, and all the players do their part, the completed product often exceeds the quality for the same product produced by an individual. You have a good idea to make something work. Your peer adds to the idea and makes it better. Through cooperation both win and the organization completes its mission.

Developing a network of peer leaders helps you improve in many ways. Associating with other successful leaders improves your attitude, expands your sphere of influence, increases available resources and inspires you to accomplish more than you could on your own. Developing positive relationships with others allows each to provide support and cooperation today, yet compete against each other tomorrow. Developing positive relationships with peer leaders is its own reward. Acrimonious relationships make for a lonely retirement. Positive relationships fill your life with good friends and good times. The next time the guy running the shop across the hall knocks on the door looking for help, or stops to brag about his latest accomplishment, take the opportunity to improve yourself and become a better leader.

Thanks to those of you who have helped make me a better leader and a better person.

 

Photo Credits:

Watch photo:  Christian Guthier from flickr.com Creative Commons License

Soccer photo: author

Suggested Reading:

The 360 Degree Leader by John Maxwell,

Good to Great by John Collins

Check Your Map…Achieve Your Goal

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At the beginning of the year I pitched a way to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions. (https://christopherstcyr.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/time-to-reflect-plan-act/) 0322141247One of the steps I suggested was to periodically check your list to measure your progress and adjust your course. That time is upon us. I know because the reminder I set in my calender alerted me to check my progress on my goals.

I use a goal setting check list to help me focus on task steps and measures for success. I used to keep them on paper, but as time and digitization have progressed, I have found using a word processor or even better, the task list on my email client work great. Your worksheet does not have to be fancy. I combined the format I learned in the Army to evaluate training with some of the great ideas Ken Blanchard pitched in his book, The One Minute Manager with a couple of theories I have learned about SMART goals. If you did not put your New Year’s Resolution in writing in January, you still have time to do so. The benefit of having your goal in writing is being able to sit down periodically (like now) to review your progress.

For those of you who did make some notes, dig them out and lets check your progress. I have learned several things throughout the years I have used this process. Your work sheet is like a map. As you travel you find roads exist not appearing on your map, and some roads on your map are more like mountain foot paths. For goal setters that means you may have found some of the steps you planned to take were not required, however things you did not know when you began the journey require you to complete tasks you did not anticipate, and that is okay. Just like our journey on an previously unknown but shorter or better road, as one works towards a goal and finds a shorter or better way to complete the task, you do. Note the changes on your map during your review. Enter comments about the progress of each task and check off completed steps. Open your calender and schedule time to complete the next series of activities on your journey to completing your goal.

An important question to ask as you check your progress is, “How will I recognize success?” The answer to this question becomes the measures of the success for your journey. If you goal is to improve your health (a common New Year’s Resolution) how will you know you are healthier? Some metrics may include a target weight, the ability to lift an amount of weight, the ability to be able to run a certain distance in a given amount of time, the measurement of your waist so you can once again fit into your High School jeans, your blood pressure number or the levels of cholesterol. What ever standard you select, make it specific and measurable by some recognizable value.Image

Checking the progress of your goals on a regular basis is important to your success. By having a map in the form of a goal checklist you improve the chances of your arriving at your intended destination, your goal. Your check list should include the route of travel and measures of attainment so you stay on track, or recognize when you have to adjust course. If you don’t know where you are going, it is impossible to know when you have arrived. Take a few minutes today to review and update your goals. For those of you who have yet to do so, set ONE goal today and develop your route and metrics. I have posted a sample goal setting worksheet on SlideShare. Check it out and use, change and adapt it to your needs. Move forward by taking that next, charted step to your personal success.

Photos by author

Time to Reflect, Plan & Act

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It is common at this time of the year to reflect on the past and look ahead to the future. People will establish a list of resolutions and many will moan about the resolutions they failed to complete from last year. Others look back, pat themselves on the back for what they have accomplished. So why the difference? The answer is simple, those who succeed approach the resolution process and establish personal, documented steps and goals. What follows may seem like a long lost secret to some, but much of the content I first read about over 30 years ago (when I was v e r y young) and has been reinforced with more recent reading.

The first step is to reflect on what went well, what you need to improve and what is not as important as once you thought it was. Of those things that went well, identify what actions to carry over into the new year. Also identify skills that were used to achieve those successes and how you can use those skills for future success. On the improvement side, focus only on the things that cause failure. None of us can do everything perfectly. Life is too short to fix everything, so instead work on your strengths and only those weaknesses that directly contribute to failure. Everything in the middle somehow works.

Photo by Reg

Photo by Reg

Identify goals and achievements you accomplished. Too often we dwell on failures. People rarely fail at everything every time. You probably achieved some successes. Concentrating on what you have achieve builds confidence to move forward. Enumerating skills you have overlooked in the first step helps you focus on your strengths.

After you have reflected on your successes and failures, your achievements and accomplishments it is time to decide where you want to go. The first two steps helped you identify where you came from, and where you are. This step sets your course for the coming year. In this process determine not only what goals and accomplishments you seek to achieve, but also task steps for each activity. In that process think about who you need to reach out to for help and what resources you need to assemble to be successful. There is no point developing a network if you fail to call upon them for help. The most important activity in this step is to write down your goals and action steps. At this point the most important thing to do is document each task step for every goal. As you work on this portion, it is important to write down action steps for every goal (see my blog about the Three Pitch Rule).

The final step is to schedule time periodically to check your progress. Grab your check lists in what ever format works for you and compare your progress against your checklists. Identify tasks on your list you can complete before your next check up and put them on your calendar. By scheduling task steps you give them a level of importance that increases the likelihood they will be completed.

Now is the time to act. At the end of year, when you sit down to make your 2015 resolutions you will find you kept your 2014 resolutions if you follow these simple steps. Seize the day, New Year’s Day to accomplish this simple task. There is no requirement to have dozens of resolutions. Focus on the one or two or three goals that will really impact your life and document them. Do it now. Perfection is not required for your plan. Do it now and adjust along the way. In the end you may find you accomplished more than you imagined, but only if you take the time to follow these steps. Really, do it now! Happy New Year.

I just posted a short slide deck on SlideShare.  Check it out:  http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisStCyr1/achieve-29982036