While I was sitting at breakfast this morning, I noticed the book title that my 7 yr old was reading, TreeTops Stage 13 “The Personality Potion” (If you know the scholastic series, you will know that I am boasting because Stage 13 is for 9 to 10 year old.) It was evident to me that here was a blog post if I ever saw one.  So after every one had left for school and work, I sat down to read this delightful book by Alan MacDonald.

The story is about a young boy Danny who is very introverted.  He is afraid of the school bully and afraid to try out for the school play. His uncle gives hims a magic potion.

‘Personality Potion?’ Danny’s eyes widened. ‘What’s that?’
‘It brings out the hidden talents that no one know are inside you.”

Turns out that after taking the potion, Danny is able to stand up to the bully.  Even though he drops the bottle with the potion in it, Danny successfully auditions for the school play.  While there are a number of lessons in the short book, the obvious one is about believing in oneself.  I could delve into the concept of the Pygmalion Effect or the power of affirmations, but I won’t.  The suggestions in the book for a parent to discuss with his or her child are far more potent.

After reading

• Read page 54 again together.  Ask your child if they think the story could happen in real life and if someone could change their personality by believing in him or herself.
• Talk together about any hidden talents your child things they might have and how they can use them.

As  coach, we are always asking our clients about limiting beliefs.  As a leader, we are always looking to uncover the talents and potential of those who work with and for us.

Questions: Do you think people can change?  Really?  If yes, how do you support this shift?

Awareness and knowledge are the first steps in a person’s ability to make choices of any kind.  Inpartial assessments can be a good place to start.  However, wanting to change and know how to go about your development may require a different skill set.  Just as parent is there to support and guide children, adults may need a mentor or coach to facilitate the process.

If you are interested in using assessments to uncover your own hidden talents or to use them with your clients / team, please contact me.  I offer a variety of instruments through AssessYourself or can recommend one to you.  More information can be found at: Assessments Here

Popularity: 6% [?]

Life is full of chores and too many little things to do .  There is a new service in town that I read about in Fact Company and I am on my second month of giving them a go.  In principle – this is a fantastic concept and service.  Fancy Hands call themselves personal assistants in the clouds and describe themselves as:

Every day there are things you need to get done, but they’re not necessarily things that you need to do. Just email us and we’ll take care of it.

Sounds even better than a virtual assistant.  I am not being modest here – I am very good at researching and finding things on the Internet.  If only I had the time – which is why, despite my research skills, I thought Fancy Hands could save me time.  So far I am not convinced — not to say this isn’t a great idea or service.  I will give it another month and will certainly recommend it to people who are terrible at researching.  It is worth the $30 investment for you to find out if it will be of benefit to you.

Do you know what your time is worth?

Time is money. Right?  So do you know if this is a worthwhile investment or not?  Check out this post in Small Business Trends.

Here is how I am using Fancy Hands.  If I think the task will take me more than 10 minutes and it is easy to write up the email – I will send it along. Sometimes they give provide an answer that is not really what I asked.  I usually find that what comes back is only a starting point for me.  Then I have to let my right brain kick in to think of a source they haven’t tried.

Here is a good example.

Let me begin by clarifying that what I was looking for in this request required going to sites in French.  Now, Fancy Hands does not have people who speak other languages although they are planning on expanding.  But my French isn’t very good either – which is why we have Google translation or other “one button” services.

I needed to find a place that would board my cat for 10 days in Paris.  I knew that this was actually going to be harder that it might seem.  House visits are common but boarding is not. My first “answer” gave me two cat sitting not boarding services.  The next email gave me four kennels that took dogs not cats and one possible place for cats.  I started my own search and confirmed what they had found in one minute.  However, I decided to be a little more creative and even without French, in 5 more minutes I came up with some addresses.  Two options had websites, rates and one was even in English.  The trick?  I made the connection that I needed boarding due to my upcoming move – so I looked for Expat Services or Groups with Bulletin Boards and searched their data base.  The two places are actually in the far suburbs of Paris .

Perhaps they should hire me and the Leadership Lessons

• Make sure your strategies are working.
• Don’t waste your time doing it over again.
• Be sure you delegate to the right person.

Credit where credit is due: I did have another question a few weeks back and it seems I got someone who may have had some French.  Even thought she claimed her French was rusty, she was able to come up with three resources that I found very useful.

FANCY-PANTS* Definition: Overly elaborate, swanky or pretentious – especially of dress.  Also applied to people who act in that manner.

*Origins: An American phrase – which is no big surprise as it derives from the American usage of pants to mean trousers. The first reference to the term in print is in an advert in the Maine newspaper The Bangor Daily Whig And Courier, in October 1843. In that, a company of auctioneers called Williams and Prince advertised the sale of “Fancy Pants – Cassimere”. That clearly refers to pants that were fancy. Cassimere was a type of soft closely woolen twill cloth. Not especially fancy by later standards but quite exotic for Bangor in the 1840s.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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My mother used to say:  “If you make your bed, then you have to lie in it.”  As a result of this upbringing, I am a bit of a product of “Calvinism”. I tend to think that good things won’t last and I always wait for the other shoe to drop.   Friends would say I am a glass half empty kind of person.  (Am I using to many metaphors?) My great fortune in life is that my better half lives life with such optimism and positivity it is almost sickening.  (OK, enough with the metaphors except for the morale of this tale.)  This is a story about peanut butter.

I don’t really like peanut butter very much and it is extremely expensive here in Europe.  I like to bring back a 1k plastic jar of Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter whenever I make a trip home to Canada. The kids like it and it comes in handy for  toast of a quick sandwich when nothing else seems to be available. I have been known to hoard it by storing it as far back in the cupboards as possible.  Good think is that it lasts a long time. There really is no immediate expiry date.

I have heard that peanut butter is excellent at getting gum out of hair.  So far I only know this from anecdotes and not first hand experience.  But for hiccups; this I do know.

I don’t get hiccups very often and when I do, usually holding my breath works.  Once in a blue moon it doesn’t and the hiccups continue until it starts hurting in my chest.  Then the best and quickest and surest way to stop it is to eat a soup spoon of peanut butter.  Instant relief.  Then I wonder why I didn’t get up and use it earlier.  Why did I have to suffer when I didn’t need to?  Do I think that I need to make things harder for myself?

Nike has it right with “Just Do It.” But this post is more than simply about getting up and stop procrastinating.  Sometimes we procrastinate because we make it so difficult for ourselves.  Sometimes the answers or actions are pretty simple. Like a previous post of mine: If you want to be a more effective leader start by being polite and courteous.

So here are the lessons that I have learned from keeping peanut butter in the house:

• Sometimes solutions are easy – we just don’t bother thinking the problem will go away. It usually doesn’t.
• Don’t overuse something just because it feels right.  Moderation.  But don’t hoard your resources either – people will begin to resent it and sneak around behind your back.
• If it is a limited resource – explain why it is important that usage is tracked and monitored. Make it clear that it is not about not trusting others.
• Using comfort food when we understand the purpose is not glossing over.  In real life, be consider and sincere. Say thank you.
• Celebrate when the problem is fixed.  Treat yourselves with another tablespoon of  . . . (fill in your own preferred choice.)

Popularity: 10% [?]

I am beginning to think that the whole concept of teams is passé.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think that my work with team building will be around for the rest of my career and will remain a major source of my income.  However, that said, as I focus more on collaboration I am beginning to wonder if the way we look at working groups is archaic for the new world of work.

What brought me to this conclusion?  It was a number of factors.  As I was writing this series on the basic principles for high performing teams, I kept asking myself:  “Surely, this must have changed over the past 20 years that I have been doing this stuff.”  While I was watching the “crowd behaviour” of all of us who were unable to get home due to the volcanic ash across Europe, I noticed how the people were acting with all the principles of effective teams but without the typical common “factors”.   I began to muse . . . could people perform and interact in a productive and collaborative manner without being a team?  My answer is “yes”.  The sports model is no longer adequate.  There is an inherent assumption that for a team to “win” someone has to loose.  We need collaborative models that build upon win-win solutions and the idea of teams no longer works.

Using old terminology to describe the new way people are working together is limiting.  I am also concerned about “creating” new words or descriptions that end up hijacked into jargon.  The perfect example is motivation became empowered which has now become enabled. Unfortunately, to date, I do not have any language that seems to make sense to me.  Perhaps communities is a beginning.  What language to you find yourself using?

This is the last in this series on the Basic Principles for High Performing Teams.  You can find previous posts here:

1. Team Building? You don’t even have a group!
2. Creating Healthy and Productive Teams
3. Who Needs a Team Charter? (Clarity of Purpose)
4. Team Commitment – Creating Trust and Confidence
5. Team Task Skills: Learning how to be the best at your game
6. Team Climate – Are you running hot or cold?
7. Team Process Skills – Tell me true
8. What does it mean to be a “good” team member?

It is also the last in my “rethinking” series based on my being stranded due to the volcanic ash:

1. Rethinking The Stories We Tell Ourselves
2. Rethinking Engagement
3. Rethinking Collaboration
4. Rethinking Leadership

Popularity: 10% [?]

Have you noticed that each week I post a new quote?  You can find it in the upper right hand column.  I also record the old quotes under the “Quote” tab above if you are interested.

I am also looking for short quotes related to the theme of this blog.  Please feel free to add them below.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The first follower is an underestimated leader.

To be a leader – you may have to be the first follower. The populous believes that you can’t be a leader without having followers.  I hate this premise – even if I don’t have a good argument to dismiss it. While watching people trying to figure out how to get home in spite of all the airplanes not flying due to volcanic ash, it was clear there was no leader of the pack. Nor was it any individual frenzy.  Everyone took personal responsibility for his or her actions and shared the knowledge that they discovered.  It made me wonder – if there is a shared vision, is leadership needed?

My answer is: Yes.  But perhaps not the traditional kind of leader from the front.  I have always liked this quote from Lao-tsu:

“To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!’”

The following short video by Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. He uses a very popular YouTube video which is under three minutes. Sure a leader needs to stand out and be fearless.  But it is first follower  who if treated like an equal will show others how to follow.

I have come to the conclusion that the follower is the leader.  This shouldn’t surprise me.  I have always believed that nothing is really diametrically opposed to another.  Everything is connected and once reframed is often the flip side to the same coin.  Thus the leader becomes an equal follower and the follower becomes the leader.

This is the fourth in a five part series based on some reflection time I had while “stranded” in Prague due to the volcanic ash. The others to date can be found here:

1. Rethinking Collaboration
2. Rethinking Engagement
3. Rethinking The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Popularity: 13% [?]

I was very fortunate to be be able to attend the Lift10 Conference for the past three days.   Lift is a series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each conference is a chance to turn innovation into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meet the people who drive them.

It was extremely eclectic in topic choices and workshops.  What was exciting for me was not to listen to subjects that were new to me but the content was very often from a completely different perspective.  I pride myself on having diverse interests and seek out a broad range of topics.  Somehow, I have missed something.  I would never have know anything about this conference, if a friend hadn’t told me about it. Jennifer has been an interpreter for them and recommended that I attend.  Funny, but Jennifer is so unconnected in the digital sense; nor does she really know what I “do for a living”.  But she knew enough about my interests to share this with me.

I mention this because I challenge you to your assumptions about where and how you gain your knowledge and perspective on things.  Are you limiting yourself without realizing it – as I was?  Twitter has the potential of tapping into a broad scope of interests but I noticed that despite a large number that I follow, I was really not paying attention to the fringes. I would be very interested in hearing your strategies on this question:

How are you learning from the fringes?

I felt that this was the most “accessible” video from the conference for those not there and who may not be as excited as I am about technology innovation.  It is the presentation by Jamais Cascio, Institute For The Future: Wired for Anticipation:

The future is a process not a destination.

The future is not something that happens to us.  The future is something we that we create; with our every choice and with every act and including the choice not to act.

Popularity: 28% [?]

What happens when the objective is clear but the resources and time frames keep shifting?  That is exactly what many of us experienced when we ended up in one location and due to the volcanic ash hovering over most of Europe, we could not travel home or to our next meeting.

The news kept reporting how calm everyone was.  I know this to be true.  When I first arrived at the airport early Thursday morning – it was so eerie how quiet it was.  Everyone stood at the departure sign expecting the canceled signs to change.  Most us viewed it as an opportunity to extend our trip or add a few days on as vacation.  Throughout the weekend everyone was amiable, friendly and helpful.  No one complained to the service people who worked overtime to try and sort things out.   We were very collaborative — or where we?  I think that we were definitely co-operative.  I have never seen such civilized line stretching for hours to try to get a train reservation.

Here are some of the behaviours I observed, that indicated to me we were operating in a collaborative manner:

• while we may not have had an inter-related goal we shared the same objective – getting home
• even though we were competing for scare resources we shared ideas, information and support
• we were inquisitive about what was happening around us and the impact it was having on others
• we didn’t have one plan – we experimented with different strategies and reinvented approaches (see video below)
• surprisingly, we didn’t “hang out” socially – we met one another, discussed ideas and moved on

Here is my rethinking on why this phenomenon occurred that made it quite different from most crisis.

• it was beyond anyone’s control and affected everyone
• there was no information hidden; what was know was shared – nobody really knew what would unfold
• there was an uncertainty around time but not really about outcome – we never gave up; we remained hopeful; we all knew that eventually we would get home
• while for some it was a real hardship for many it was an inconvenience – serious perhaps, but not the end of the world

The New Addition for Collaboration

I have decided that there one new thing that I hadn’t considered when it comes to a collaborative environment – not engagement or alignment (we are all in this together); not communication (sharing of all information); not  vision (something bigger than all of us) but simply HOPE – a faith and a belief that it will work out in the end.

As a leader, how do you create hope?

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This is really an amazing and short video on the critical essence of collaboration. It is a MUST view.  It showed up in in box a few days ago but I wold like to give credit to Dave Zinger and his Employee Engagement  Network for posting it first!
Tom Wujec explains with great humour, the need for prototypes and facilitation skills in collaboration.

Popularity: 19% [?]

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The whole reason I ended up caught in Prague when the volcano ash swept across Europe was that I had been in Olomouc for a day teaching a two hour class to students at the Placky University of Olomouc.  Our topic was Negotiation with a focus on Interest Based Negotiation.

If someone where to ask me the most important aspect of engagement I would answer with two things.  (As you know, I hate to be restricted)

1. Alignment
2. Communications

The students were engaged and entertained.  Don’t take my word for it – check out this short video of them doing the famous Ugli Orange Negotiation Case Study.  What I noticed was that they were not committed.  About 20% of the 40 students ended up leaving the class between 30 minutes into the class and before it ended 120 minutes later.  Once I got over taking it personally – the reason was quite obvious.  This was a communications class for students to improve their English and attendance is mandatory for successfully obtaining a course credit. Once attendance had been taken, there was no real need for them to stay.

I read the other day that an engaged workforce does not mean either a satisfied or a productive workforce.  Perhaps I am over presenting myself as a wonderful guest lecturer but I think it is safe to say that the students were satisfied but unfortunately not all that productive. Productive in this case is rather subjective.  There was no assessment of the learning or measurement against my own learning objectives.  Organizationally speaking, there wasn’t a vision, goal or result.  Even if there had been clarity on my part – it doesn’t mean it was clear or accepted by the students.  They had their own agenda.  I guess I should be honoured that they stayed at all!

Let’s be careful here about the distinction between someone being “engaged” and creating a climate for engagement.  More importantly,  to create an engaging environment then certain criteria should be met:

• flexible
• safe and trust inducing
• “fun”
• involvement in the planning and execution by all members
• change oriented
• focused on the greater purpose
• achieving the desired output, etc.

Alignment and communications are not enough

Let me come back to my two key aspects of engagement – alignment and communications. Upon further reflection, they are still valid but too vague.

I think that sometimes we stress the idea of engagement without remembering why we want to do it in the first place.  A more engaged workforce will be more innovative, “happy” and get outstanding results. . .   In theory that is.  In order to create an effective climate of engagement then some form of clarity around the purpose, public agreement and subsequent measuring is a must.

Leadership Question

On your team, are you assessing the level of engagement or the outcome of that engaged team?

Popularity: 23% [?]

While we often discuss the actions and behaviours that are required to be a member of a team we often look at only one side of  the accountability issue. Not only should we be accountable to other team members, it is everyone’s responsibility to hold each other accountable for what they say they will do and what they actually do.  It is NOT just the responsibility of the leader do to this.

Responsibilities of Team Members:

• Be accountable for actions
• Participate appropriately and fairly
• Support and respect one another
• Remain open minded
• Give objective and specific feedback
• Share knowledge and experience
• Volunteer for tasks and assignments
• Learn and utilize the team skills developed
• Encourage open communication and listen actively
• Look for solutions not problems
• Track results and make improvements
• Become a collaborative leader by assuming and sharing leadership roles

What else would you add to this list?

This is the second to last in this series on the Basic Principles for High Performing Teams.  You can find previous posts here:

1. Team Building? You don’t even have a group!
2. Creating Healthy and Productive Teams
3. Who Needs a Team Charter? (Clarity of Purpose)
4. Team Commitment – Creating Trust and Confidence
5. Team Task Skills: Learning how to be the best at your game
6. Team Climate – Are you running hot or cold?
7. Team Process Skills – Tell me true

Popularity: 19% [?]