Jason Walker

Do you know what your strengths are?

Do you know what your people’s strengths are?

Anyone who’s ever been through an employee review knows that there are traditionally three areas of discussion in these annual conversations:

1. Successes (what went well – hopefully!)
2. Opportunities (what could have went better)
3. Gameplan or Action Plan (to focus fixing weaknesses or areas to improve)

But, how many of you ever have conversations about your employee’s individual strengthens?  And how to capitalize and leverage those strengthens on projects or in the role to get more impact?

The reality is that everyone has strengthens and weaknesses.  Everyone.  People are naturally gifted and talented in certain areas.  Eric Clapton is an incredibly gifted guitar player.  Michael Jordan was an amazing basketball player.  Mark Twain was a great writer.  And Ronald Reagan was a gifted communicator.  But could you imagine Eric Clapton playing basketball?  Or Michael Jordan jamming a guitar?

Yet somehow leaders focus 99% of their time and energy in figuring out what employee’s weaknesses are and then putting developmental plans together to “fix” or improve these weakness.  Action plans are put together, gameplans are developed and an incredible amount of time, money and energy is invested in trying to improve employee’s weaknesses.

I’ve always been interested more in what myself and others are great at.  And then trying to match up these strengths to allocate people in the most impactful manner to create 1+1=3 scenarios.

Gallup, Inc has done a tremendous amount of research in the area of “Strengths Based Leadership” and they have even written a book by the same name that helps one better understand this concept and more importantly, discover what one’s individual strengths are (there is a special code in the back of the book that you can use to access an online Gallup Strengths assessment).  According to Gallup scientists:

• The most effective leaders are always investing in strengths. In the workplace, when an organization’s leadership fails to focus on individuals’ strengths, the odds of an employee being engaged are a dismal 1 in 11 (9%). But when an organization’s leadership focuses on the strengths of its employees, the odds soar to almost 3 in 4 (73%). When leaders focus on and invest in their employees’ strengths, the odds of each person being engaged goes up eightfold.
• The most effective leaders surround themselves with the right people and then maximize their team. While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are. Gallup’s research found that top-performing teams have strengths in four distinct domains of leadership strength: Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking.
• The most effective leaders understand their followers’ needs.?  People follow leaders for very specific reasons. When Gallup asked thousands of followers, they were able to describe exactly what they need from a leader with remarkable clarity: trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

If you haven’t already done so, I highly encourage you to purchase the book and take the assessment so that you can discover what your individual strengths are.  And then show them to your spouse or trusted friend at work.  You will both be amazed at how incredibly accurate it is.  I will post more on Strengths Based Leadership, including what my personal strengths are and how I leverage the understanding of my team’s strengths in upcoming posts.  You should consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email and you will be automatically notified when the next article is posted and you can follow along the conversation!

Do you focus on strengths based leadership?  Have you already taken the Gallup Strengths assessment?

Well, we are one month down and many more to go here at LeadershipCures.com!  I launched this blog one month ago and we have had an exciting ride so far and started to build a great community of leaders based on a simple premise.

“Leadership Cures…All”.

We are dedicated to the idea that leadership can “cure” all – people, process and technology issues. We discuss how to apply leadership to inspire others, make the complex simple and demolish obstacles to success in any organization – large or small!

Thank you so much to all of our active readers, twitter follower, and facebook fans.  I hope you are all enjoying this as much as I am and looking forward to where we will be in one year!

In case you missed them, here are the top 5 posts for our first month based on traffic.

• 10 Rules for Better Presentations
• Five Flaws of Weak Leaders
• Performance vs Leadership Evaluations
• Eight Elements of High Performing Teams
• How to Stay Focused as a Leader

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When Bill Gates was in the sixth grade, his parents decided he needed counseling.  He was at war with his mother Mary.  She would call him to dinner from his basement bedroom and he wouldn’t respond. “What are you doing?” she once demanded.

“I’m thinking,” he shouted back.

“You’re thinking?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m thinking,” he said fiercely. “Have you ever tried thinking?”

How often do you just “think”?  With all the constant distractions at work: email, text messages, phone calls, door knocks, meetings to sit through, reports to put together, problems to solve, fires to put out, it’s a wonder that we ever actually get any real work done!

If your boss came into your office and saw you thinking, would he think you were wasting time?

As leaders, we are hired for our intelligence, creativity, unique perspective, experience, ability to inspire others, solve complex problems, acting strategically and delivering results.  That all requires time to, well….think.

Unfortunately what I have found is that unless I literally schedule time to “Think”, the “tyranny of the urgency” takes my attention away, fills up my schedule and I don’t have time to just think.

So, I set aside time on my schedule with my assistant for “Thinking” throughout the week.  I usually plan in advance a problem that I want to solve and I keep notes throughout the week on ideas that I want to explore and I set aside time to think.  I turn off email, I silence my phones, I close my door and I think.

Perhaps if we all spent more time thinking the BP Oil Spill could have been avoided, the world economy would not have collapsed, we could come up with more innovative solutions to complex problems, we could get ahead of traps at work before they become problems, more incredible books could be written, more movies like Inception would be made and work & life would be much more rewarding and creative.  Leadership cures all.

Quote to ponder: “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking”. Voltaire

Do you set aside time to think?  What do you think of this post?

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I recently wrote a blog post titled “10 Rules of Presentation Design”.  I had a lot of inquires about what tools I use to develop my presentations, so I thought I would share a little more about that subject.

I give a lot of presentations and I try to create unique ways to communicate with my audience and really boil down my points into a highly visual story to connect with my audience.

My presentation philosophy is based on a simple premise:

“People can not read and listen at the same time.”

It’s impossible.  The human brain can’t do it.  What happens when a presenter puts up a complex slide with a lot of words?  The audience member’s brains stop listening and shift their focus to orienting them to the slides and they start reading – often times ahead of where the speaker is in the flow.  The speaker keeps going; but the connection with the audience is lost.

Having experienced this and now understanding this concept, my presentations are now highly visual with as little text on the slides as possible and absolutely no bullets.  I hate bullets.  (see the post image above as an example of a presentation I have delivered – see “no bullets!”)

Audience members can look at pictures that supports the message while listening; especially when the visuals enhance the message on an emotional level – it helps the audience create a word picture that corresponds with the message.

My thoughts are that if people can read the slides and get all the information, then why am I there as a presenter? I want the audience to be focused on me and I use visuals to support my message.

My visual style of presentations require careful planning well in advance of the talk and I spend a lot of time developing the story and the slides. It’s easy to just open powerpoint and start typing bullets; it is very tough and time consuming to develop a robust story, creatively develop visuals to support that story and rehearse since I don’t have all the key points as bullets on my slide as a crutch for me to follow along with.

As a result of this careful planning and visual storytelling – my presentations feel different and the audience experiences something different.  They are actively engaged, mentally stimulated and hopefully even “wowed” through the process.

Here are some of the tools I use:

1. Post-it Notes.  Yes, I’m serious – the yellow sticky notes.  Before I start any presentation, I start “analog”.  I make a simple story line, then I draw out the various slides with a pen – one slide per sticky.  I then can re-arrange them on my white board in my office (I have a 4’ x 8’ dry erase board primarily for this purpose).  Sometimes I will even draw little squares on my dry erase board and draw out exactly how the slides should look.  This helps set me up for when I actually make my slides digitally.
2. Macbook.  If you are serious about making a great presentation, you need to get a Mac.  I switched in 2005 and have never looked back.  Even though I use a PC at work, I always use a Mac to present.
3. Keynote.  I hate Microsoft Powerpoint.  It’s hard to understand why until you have used Mac’s Keynote.  It’s dead simple, has amazing cinema quality tools, and it integrates my entire photo, music and video libraries.  As a result, my presentations look like a movie when I am finished.  One of the primary reasons I switched from PC to Mac was the amazing quality of Keynote and how awesome I can make presentations.
4. iStockPhoto.  Since I hate bullets and my premise is based on visuals, I need a great source for high quality pictures and artwork.  iStockPhoto has a gigantic library of images, their search works great, and their prices are very reasonable.  I purchase very high resolution images since they are usually blown up on a large screen.  No clip art here folks.  I also use them for all my blog posts.
5. Handbreak.  In addition to using images, I also use video when appropriate.  This free piece of software can “rip” the video clip and then I can embed it right in Keynote as an MPEG-4 video.  When I advance to the slide, the video plays and it’s totally seamless.  I don’t have to exit out of keynote, fire up a video program manually and come back.  Very slick.
6. Keepvid.  Handy little website where it allows you to download YouTube videos as MPEG-4 video and embed in a Keynote slide as described above.  You just type in the YouTube address and you are off.
7. Kensington 33374 Wireless Presenter Remote.  The best wireless presenter I’ve found.  Super simple, extremely reliable and very easy to use.  Small and fits secretly in my hand.  You can use your iPhone and Keynote Remote software also and it’s pretty cool as well.  The phone is a little bigger than my wireless remote and I like to keep it more hidden in my hand.
8. Mac Dual Display mode.  I can see my presenter notes, set up a countdown clock and more on my view and the audience sees just the important stuff.  Super simple to set up and yet another reason I use a Mac for my presentations.
9. Evernote.  I keep ideas, inspiring presentations from others.  It’s my electronic brain with amazing search abilities.
10. PresentationZen blog.  Blog by Garr Reynolds, one of the world’s top presentation designers and internationally acclaimed communications expert.  This is a must read for anyone who does any public speaking
11. PresentationZen Book.  A great reference from Garr Reynolds.  I skim this for creative ideas and inspiration when I am brainstorming ways to visually present ideas for my talks.
12. Slide:ology.  A great book from written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design – the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. This book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. It combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world’s leading brands.
13. Slideshare.net.  Cool website for sharing presentations, documents and pdfs.  There is a vibrant professional community that regularly comments, favorites and downloads content and you can review some excellent presentations on this sight.  Another great source of creative inspiration.
14. TED Talks: I highly encourage you to visit the TED website and watch some of the highest rated talks.  One of the best ways to learn is to watch those that are exceptional in action.

I hope this is helpful for you.  I believe that one of the primary differentiators in business is the ability of a leader to translate complex ideas into simple solutions and inspire action.  The best way to start delivering “wow” presentations is to study it and practice, practice, practice.  I constantly challenge myself and others to improve in this critical skill.  Leadership cures all.

What am I missing? Do you have a favorite tool that you use?

One of the goals of LeadershipCures is “to make the complex simple”.  We believe that one of the primary differentiators in business is the ability of a leader to translate complex ideas into simple solutions, to align people, process and technology to solve business challenges, and to inspire people to more than what they thought was possible.  Those leaders that are able to do this exceptionally well will be the secret sauce of business and extremely valuable resources as process and technology become more commoditized.

The TED Conference is one of the most prestigious conferences in the world – focused primarily on “Technology, Entertainment, and Design.” TED started in 1984 with a mission to bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers from those three worlds and to challenge them to give “the talk of their lives” – each speaker is provided only 18 minutes for their “TED Talk”.

Fortunately, the TED conference organizers provide their speakers with ten guidelines – that they refer to these as “The TED Commandments.”  These are helpful to any presenter in any situation and are a great reference to leaders that give presentations.

1. Thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual shtick.
2. Thou shalt dream a great dream, or show forth a wondrous new thing, or share something thou hast never shared before.
3. Thou shalt reveal thy curiosity and thy passion.
4. Thou shalt tell a story.
5. Thou shalt freely comment on the utterances of other speakers for the sake of blessed connection and exquisite controversy.
6. Thou shalt not flaunt thine ego. Be thou vulnerable. Speak of thy failure as well as thy success.
7. Thou shalt not sell from the stage: neither thy company, thy goods, thy writings, nor thy desperate need for funding; lest thou be cast aside into outer darkness.
8. Thou shalt remember all the while: laughter is good.
9. Thou shalt not read thy speech.
10. Thou shalt not steal the time of them that follow thee.

Unfortunately, most presentations in business are a real bore (and look like the picture in the post above).  As someone who gives a lot of presentations, I try to create unique ways to communicate with my audience and really boil down my points into a highly visual story to connect with my audience.  Below are some resources that I use to study the art of visual communication:

• TED Talks: I highly encourage you to visit the TED website and watch some of the highest rated talks.  One of the best ways to learn is to watch those that are exceptional in action.
• PresentationZen blog.  Blog by Garr Reynolds, one of the world’s top presentation designers and internationally acclaimed communications expert.  This is a must read for anyone who does any public speaking
• PresentationZen Book.  A great reference from Garr Reynolds
• Slide:ology.  A great book from written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design – the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. This book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. It combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world’s leading brands.
• Slideshare.net.  Cool website for sharing presentations, documents and pdfs.  There is a vibrant professional community that regularly comments, favorites and downloads content and you can review some excellent presentations on this sight.

Question: Which of these could help you the most as a speaker? Is there a particular area that you struggle with?

Working in teams is a core of the business workplace.  As leaders, we are responsible for assembling, participating and evaluating team dynamics.  So, what are the core elements of a high performing team?  What should we look for, strive for and evaluate to know if our teams are on track?

Below are some of the elements essential to success in team dynamics.

1. Focus. The purpose of the team is clear and it is linked to the strategic direction of the organization.  Assignments, goals and direction are clearly communicated and roles within the team are crystal clear.  Team meetings and activities are well managed and aligned to delivering results.
2. Communication. Everyone is informed, on-track and aligned to the team goals.  Opinions, ideas and concerns are shared openly and team leaders listen to ideas and suggestions of others.  Difficult issues are addressed and resolved quickly, honestly and directly.
3. Collaboration. Input is sought from other teams/functional departments to enhance efficiency.  Work is distributed fairly among team members and help is offered to each other without being asked or told.  Roles are flexible and reflect project needs and members respect and value each other.
4. Energy. Team members are valued for innovation, creativity and “out of the box” thinking.  The atmosphere is flexible, productive and enjoyable – the team even has a little fun!  The team takes the time to celebrate successes and recognize achievements along the way.
5. Decision Making. Team gathers relevant information and carefully evaluates alternatives and makes effective decisions.  Root causes and underlying issues are analyzed to fully understand situations/choices and make informed decisions.  Decisions are typically made by consensus by the group.
6. Process. Efficient processes are employed to complete work and make decisions.  Team systematically improves efficiency to increase overall effectiveness.  Team seeks and adopts best practices to maintain “cutting edge” processes.
7. Customer Service. The team proactively seeks information about customer/client (internal and/or external) needs and expectations.  Team seeks feedback from customers and makes changes based on their feedback.  Team members follow-up with customers regularly to ensure deadlines and expectations are met.
8. Leadership. Leadership is clear, undisputed and supported by the team members.  Leaders facilitate communication to ensure all team members are informed about issues, progress and next steps.  Leaders handle conflicts between team members quickly and effectively.  Leaders ensure team members have opportunities to develop new skills and challenge team members to grow.

I think these are great elements to review with teams as a group to set the stage for success.  Imagine if all teams focused on living up to these as part of their team charter! If more teams lived these out, I think people would be more excited to partner with others and find the experience rewarding, fun and valuable.  Leadership cures all.

What core elements do you look for in teams?  Have you been on a team recently that functioned well (or didn’t function well)?

What are you doing today to build your business?

Not yesterday. Not last month. Or last quarter.

Today.

I think that’s a great question because it underscores the daily need to stay focused on the most important tasks.  Too often the “tyranny of the urgency” takes our attention away from what we should be focused on as leaders – someone in the organization didn’t plan in advance, so their firedrill somehow de-rails your plans.  A client problem takes you off track for days or weeks.  An employee issue sucks up your entire week…And you wake up six months later and realize, “I haven’t done the things that I should be focused on as a leader!  Somehow I haven’t gotten anything done that is important to me or my team!”

Below are some strategies that I use as a leader to stay on track and ensure that I take a step forward every day:

• Set aside “think time” on your schedule. If you don’t take control of your schedule, others will.  Block off time to get your work done on your schedule.  Set aside some time in advance of the week so that you can ensure you have bandwidth to get your project’s complete and you have contingency plan time for those last minute firedrills.  I set aside time on my schedule with my assistant for “Office Work” throughout the week.  That protects my schedule from others attempting to secure meetings with me.
• Feel free to decline meetings/prioritize.  Sometimes you have to say no to a meeting.  Just because someone thinks they need to meet with you doesn’t mean you don’t have other higher prioritizes.  You need to determine what is the most important utilization of your time – not others.  Send a delegate to the meeting on your behalf or call the person and see if you can quickly discuss their need without having to conduct a one hour meeting.
• Develop monthly/quarterly/yearly goals. Each fall, I sit down and lay out my goals and objectives for the upcoming year.  These are both personal and professional and include goals for myself and also for my organization.  I lay out expected business results for my team that follow the S.M.A.R.T. model so that I can keep myself and my team laser focused on what’s important.  I sit down regularly with my organization as a group and individually to review progress.
• Keep your goals front & center. I print off my goals chart and keep it front and center in my office so that I can keep my goals top of mind.  Even though I hate paper/clutter and digitize almost everything, I haven’t found a better way to keep these in front of me than printed off and mounted on my office wall for the year.  It’s one of the few pieces of paper that I keep handy.
• Stay organized. The more organized you are, the more you can focus on the strategic aspects of your job.  Keep your to-do list up to-date, manage your calendar in advance, and keep your desk clean of clutter.  I keep my office super clean and organized.  I digitize everything with a fast paper scanner called a ScanSnap and heavily leverage Evernote to keep key items at my fingertips (nothing confidential).
• Learn the art of delegation. As leaders, we need to understand our team’s strengthens and weaknesses and help prioritize workflow.  There are elements of work that individuals on my team are better at than I am.  Having worked with some of my team members for five years, I have invested heavily in teaching and mentoring them.  As a result, I know what their capabilities are and more importantly I trust them to execute and represent me as they partner with others on projects throughout the organization, freeing my time up to add more value back to them.  As work is identified, if I believe someone on my team can execute it, would learn something by driving it themselves, they have the bandwidth to own it and it can free me up to focus on other higher value items – I delegate, check in along the way and use it as a teachable moment.
• Eliminate distractions. When working on an important project that requires focus and attention – I close my door, turn on my “do not disturb button” on my office phone, silence my cell phone and shut down my email client so that I can crank out work quickly.  I’m almost always amazed at what I can get done when I am super focused.

What are some strategies you use to stay on track with your plans? How do you stay focused on what’s important long term?

Throughout my time in business working with numerous different leaders I have seen a tremendous amount of different leadership styles.  Each time, I have tried to observe and learn.  Some things I take with me as things that I want to emulate and model in myself as a leader, and other things I want to ensure that I never do as a leader.

Below are five traits of weak leaders that I’ve witnessed:

1. Refusing to take responsibility.  Some leaders like to blame others for their mistakes and their refusal (or ability) to lead.  Someone else or something else is always at fault.  Great leaders are willing to stand up, take responsibility for the results and outcomes of their teams.  The protect the reputation of their people. “A good leader takes a little more share of the blame, a little less than his share of credit.” – Arnold Glasow
2. Hesitating to take definitive action.  Some leaders just aren’t comfortable making decisions.  Maybe they are paralyzed by fear of making the wrong decision or don’t feel like they have the backing of their senior leadership or fellow team members.  They could even be out of their comfort zone or level of expertise.  Nothing can kill a team’s morale faster than frustration around a leaders’ lack of willingness to take action or make decisions.  “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” -Theodore Hesburgh
3. Complaining about lack of resources.  No one ever has enough people, process or technology to get the job done the way they want.  You can always use more people, better technology or smoother processes.  Great leaders don’t complain – they overcome obstacles by going over, around, under or through challenges by coming up with creative and innovative solutions.  This is the very essence of the “Leadership Cures” philosophy.  You can read more about this here.  “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain…and most fools do.” – Dale Carnegie
4. Abusing the privileges that come with leadership.  These leaders ask more of their team member than they are willing to do themselves.  They somehow wiggle out of work and take advantage of their position or title in a very self-centered way.  They take advantage of others and of position or title.  “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. – Ken Blanchard
5. Focuses exclusively on the failures. Nothing is ever good enough for these leaders.  They only see the flaws in everything that they examine.  Feedback to individuals is always focused on the negative – what can be improved, how they can do better next time, and what needs to be fixed.  These leaders don’t stop to celebrate any success along the way.  Positive feedback to individuals is almost never shared and encouragement is never on their radar screens. ”If you look for the worst in people and expect to find it, you surely will.” – Abraham Lincoln

I’m certain that their are other traits that you’ve experienced first hand.  The best-safeguard against falling into the trap of any of these traits is self-awareness – great leaders challenge others and themselves – and aren’t afraid to ask the tough questions.

As you read this list did it remind you of any leaders you’ve worked for in the past?  Did it remind you of yourself?  What can you do to correct this?

“The best thing a leader can bring to his team is his energy” – Bill Hybels

I recently read this quote and I absolutely agree.  People feed on the energy  of others (negative and positive) and they especially take their cues from their leadership.  If their leaders are concerned, frustrated, negative – it will have a detrimental impact on the attitudes and productivity of the organization.

If the leader is positive, encouraging, optimistic, and energetic – it’s contagious and can have a significant impact on the organization.

Great leaders understand this powerful principle and are deliberate and focused on the energy and vibe they “give off” throughout the organization.  Here are some of the things that I have found help keep me focused on being an energetic leader:

• Eating right – diet impacts how I feel more than anything.  I try to eat fresh, organic, local fruits, vegetables and meats as much as I can.  I avoid anything that comes out of a box or a bag and limit my soda intake to a couple a week.
• Exercising regularly – a constant struggle of mine to keep this prioritized with my busy life and travel schedule, but there is no doubt I feel more energized when I regularly exercise.
• Getting a good night’s sleep – I make this a priority and try to get at least 7 hours of sleep.  Figure out what your body needs and make it a priority.  You can’t give off energy when you are wiped out and look tired.
• Surrounding myself with positive people – I deliberately try to associate with positive people in my circle of friends and co-workers at the office.  I prioritize lunch opportunities with those that build me up and make me feel great about the future.
• Avoiding naysayers and negative nellies – you know who they are.  They are cynical and nothing is ever going right for them.  I avoid them – they suck the life and energy out of me amazingly fast and can ruin an otherwise great day.
• Choosing to be positive/energetic – energy is a state of mind.  I have made a decision as a leader that I want to build people up, offer up solutions and solve problems.  I try to have fun, tell jokes, take a quick break to walk around the office and get up from my desk.  I actually keep push-up stands in my office and sometimes I’ll drop to the floor and knock out some quick push ups for a couple minutes.
• Celebrating successes – I make it a point to seek out those that are doing a great job and acknowledge them. A simple “I heard you are doing a great job” or “Awesome work on that project” can have a huge impact on your team and yourself.  I find that I actually feel great saying “great job” to others!

Becoming more aware of your own energy levels and the impact that it can have on those around you can have a bigger impact on your team than you realize.  Set aside some time to reflect on your attitude and the energy you are giving off.  Is it positive or negative?  Leadership cures all.

How do you bring more energy levels to your team?  Do you have a deliberate plan that you keep yourself focused on?