Today’s piece is a guest post by S Max Brown.  Max is the VP of Organizational Learning at the Recognition Management Institute and in the last ten years, he has made nearly one thousand presentations in locations all around the world. He’s taken clients rappelling on the Great Wall of China, facilitated at the Parliament of World Religions Conference in Spain, spoken to a cheering crowd in the Netherlands, and even survived a severe winter presentation in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Recently, Max and I co-wrote the guest piece, “Is Your Leadership Serving Others… or Just Yourself?” for the “Wake Up and Shake it Up” leadership series organized by Shawn Murphy at Achieved Strategies.

Executives that secure big pay packages for themselves and then lay off thousands of employees don’t inspire much loyalty or confidence. Yet examples of such corporate excess and greed are plentiful. Why are we surprised when employees don’t feel like doing their best for the organization? Why are we surprised when our organizations suffer accordingly?

Recent research finds that we become more egocentric and self-centered as we gain more power. Sometimes, we believe that we can hide our insecurities by attacking, blaming, or otherwise tearing others down. Moreover, according to Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, we often focus on activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments while neglecting relationships because we are driven by instant gratification.

Albert Einstein made a similar observation regarding human behavior when he said: Click here to continue reading »”Real Leaders are Other Focused”

Every now and then when I sit down to write a post for my blog, I find my mind drifting off to other tasks; things that I could be doing at that moment instead of writing. In these cases, it’s not an issue of struggling with writer’s block, as I know exactly what it is I wish to write about. Instead, the problem has to do with something we all face at one point or another in our daily lives – getting stuck in the procrastination rut.

It’s a common situation that we can all relate to – finding ourselves procrastinating when there’s this pile of work that requires our current attention and focus. Of course, thanks to today’s hyper-accelerated sense of immediacy and drive to increase productivity, procrastinating not only draws our frustration and annoyance, but it’s also become something we feel guilty about doing.

Ironically, part of the problem with procrastination is that we’ve created a negative perception around it, instead of recognizing it as being a normal behaviour. After all, even the most efficient workers among us procrastinate at times. In dealing with procrastination, we need to understand that the real issue here is not so much the behaviour as how we choose to respond to it when it happens.

With this in mind, here are some things you can do that will not only help with maintaining some level of productivity, but which will also change how you look at procrastination: Click here to continue reading »”How to Make Procrastination Beneficial For Your Business”

Like most people, I look forward to that time when we can unplug from our computers and mobile devices in order to unwind, spend time with the family, and recharge my mind and body before we need to prepare ourselves to dive back into the hustle and flow of our workplace.

There are times, though, where that continual push to maintain our productivity through the week takes its toll and we can find ourselves struggling to get out of neutral. This is something that happens to me at times and I know only too well how frustrating these moments can feel, especially when we see that large heap waiting for us in our “To-Do” basket. As such, I want to share some of the strategies I use to recharge my productivity batteries so I could complete my tasks for the week: Click here to continue reading »”6 Tips You Can Use Today To Help Boost Your Productivity”

As with most kids on summer break, my girls have been spending part of their days taking swimming lessons to help advance their skills in this particular sport. While attending one of their lessons, I noticed something that was reminiscent of what many companies go through when managing the growth of their organization.

For one of their lessons, my daughter’s swim teacher asked the students in her class to swim the length of the pool and then toss a ball into the basketball net. One by one, the kids took their turn swimming across the pool and attempting to varying degrees of success in getting the ball into the net.

When it was my daughter’s turn, she swam toward the basketball net and stopped to one side to take her shot. On her first try, she bounced the ball off the rim of the net. In her next shot, she tried to throw the ball with more force, which ended up sending the ball past the net and over to the other side. Although she tried and missed another two times to get that ball into the net, she never once showed any sign of wavering in trying to succeed, even though she was clearly having no luck with this exercise.

After her class, I applauded her for being so determined to get that ball in the net, but I also had a question for her – why didn’t she just swim to the front of the net where she could have had an easier time shooting the ball? As soon as I asked her this, she gave me this sheepish smile, now realizing how she had made the task harder for herself simply because of where she chose to take the shot.

Watching her single-minded focus in performing this task reminded me of how many organizations and their leaders can also Click here to continue reading »”Learning From Your Mistakes – 4 Steps To Turn Failure Into Success”

As my kids revel in the freedom that comes with summer vacation, reflecting on my daughter’s end-of-year report card got me thinking about how we offer feedback to our employees. As was the case in previous years, she once again earned grades well above the class average. Of course, that’s not to say that there’s no room for improvement as her social studies mark was just barely higher than the class average.

In most cases, this is where a parent is supposed to ask the child why they’re not doing as well in this subject as they are in others. In fact, I recall from my own childhood that such differences in my grades would spur on comments of how I wasn’t ‘applying myself enough’ in this particular class. Indeed, sometimes these lower marks can move the focus from how well our children are doing in other classes to worrying about why they are having difficulties in this one particular subject.

I think this is why we all dread feedback from our leaders or other superiors – since our childhood days, we’ve become accustomed to getting ‘reviews’ telling us about our weak spots and being told what we need to do to ‘apply ourselves to do better’. Compare this to the number of times we were cheered on for those areas we accomplished in, or being asked what exactly allows us to succeed in these fields that we could perhaps use to address those areas that we’re not so good in.

Granted, there has to be an understanding that even if we try Click here to continue reading »”3 Tactics To Improve How You Give Feedback To Your Employees”