Month: August 2019

Jo Saxton: Level Up Your Leadership

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Yourself, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Jo Saxton’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Story of Wonder Woman: When Jo was younger, her aunt gifted her a pair of Wonder Woman red boots that she wore every day until she grew out of them.

  • Wonder Woman now looked like me
  • When she grew out of them, she realized she had no powers and was just ordinary

 

We feel that we might need to be superheroes to get the job done.

  • Leadership is exciting but it is also hard and challenging
  • Faith-building but soul-crushing and heartbreaking

 

Imposter Syndrome: Regardless of your talents, qualifications or experience, you still feel like a fake and a fraud and that you don’t deserve to be in the room.

 

 

How do we level up our leadership for the challenges we are facing nowadays?

What’s happening in our lives and the lives of our leaders?

 

1. Who were you before anyone told you who you were supposed to be?

    • The way you think about yourself is already shaping your leadership
    • No matter where our leadership and influence lie, we’ve all experienced a few knocks and disappointments
    • The stories in our mind matter; they implicate our lives and leadership

 

Henri Nouwen Quote: “You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.”

  • Level up by living a new story–A story based on the truth of who you actually are, your gifts and your worth and your value

 

2. If your body could talk to you, what would it want to say?

 

Story of her heart: Jo ignored the chest pain she was having for three days and ended up in the hospital diagnosed with insomnia. She was depriving her body of what it needed, and it ended up slowing her down and hurting her.

  • Couldn’t handle the pain of the team that was shattered
  • S. organizations facing burnout crisis
  • Of 7,500 full-time employees, 23% are burned out at work very often or always
  • Burned out employees are 63% more likely to have sick days and 23% more likely to visit the emergency room

 

What is your body saying to you?

  • Would it say you need sleep?
  • Don’t try to numb me?
  • Are you one breath away from burnout?

You have one body and your leadership lives in it.

 

3. Who are your people?

    • A 2012 study showed 50% of all CEOs reported they are lonely
    • Of that 50%, more than 60% acknowledged loneliness affected performance

 

 

Story of FOD: Shonda Rhimes writes in her book being the FOD, “The first only different.” When you’re the first of your kind in the room causes loneliness and impacts the rest of your life and can debilitate your leadership.

  • The first woman in the room
  • The only woman on that team
  • The first black woman in a particular position
  • The first black woman on a team
  • No matter what causes your loneliness, nothing prepares you for the impact of its constant presence in your life, the way it debilitates your leadership

 

We are not superheroes. We are human.

  • It takes a village to raise and sustain a leader
  • Level up your leadership, not your loneliness
  • As your leadership grows in the bad times, but also in the good times, have friends who know you and see you, and reach out to them

 

Delivering through Diversity:

  • Companies in the top 25th percentile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to experience above average profits

 

Make an action plan to do these things.

Visit http://josaxton.com/gls2019 or text LEVELUP to 345-345 (U.S. only)

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Dr. Krish Kandiah: VIP Leadership

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Others, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Dr. Krish Kandiah’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Story of the six-year-old: Krish and his wife are foster parents. All he wanted to do was continue watching the Marie Kondo series on Netflix, and the six-year-old boy standing on his door wasn’t sparking joy after his long, rough day at work.

 

The Principles of VIP leadership:

Vision
Inclusion
Proximity

 

1. Vision

  • Leadership is about having vision to see things differently than everyone else
  • When other people see problems, you see opportunity
  • When other people see chaos, you see a way through

 

The difference between a manager and a leader:

  • Managers like to keep things together in a neat, tidy and systematized way
  • Leaders are managers’ worst nightmare
  • Leaders see disruptive change

 

The difference between a visionary and a visionary leader:

  • Visionaries see things differently
  • Visionary leaders help other people to see things differently and take people on the journey

 

Story of Robert: A foster child with delayed speech who is looking for a home. Adopting parents see a disruptive 5-year-old with problems. Krish’s job is to help adoptive parents see a child who needs someone to take a chance on him and love him instead of writing off his future.

 

Jonathan Swift quote: “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.”

  • The film industry, authors, poets, etc. see children differently
  • Limitations and vulnerable children are not seen as an issue or potential danger but as worthwhile and able to change the world
  • Examples: Harry Potter, Batman, Star Wars, Tarzan
  • The entertainment and literary world see difficult starts as treasure, not trouble

 

Leaders are called to see things differently

  • To see the potential in people when others see problems
  • To see hope when others only see chaos
  • To see opportunities when others only see obstacles

 

 

 

Who on your team is a diamond in the rough who needs guidance?

 

2. Inclusion

We are more than the worst thing than we’ve ever done or the worst thing that’s ever been done to us.

  • Every human being has intrinsic value and is needed in our life
  • Leadership is not exclusion
  • Jesus did not come to be served but came to serve

 

The opposite of prejudice is hospitality.

  • Prejudice shuts people out
  • Hospitality opens doors and welcomes people in

 

What would it look like if our homes and leadership teams were more hospitable?

  • Focus on kindness and love and watch the profit follow
  • It will be returned by loyalty and bravery

 

How is your company? How is your team doing on redemptive inclusion? Do they have the same social and economic background as you?

 

Story of the kitchen: In Krish’s house, the kitchen table is the most prized possession because it is where children from all backgrounds and locations gather and rewrite their story and form relationships.

 

3. Proximity

  • Do not be a bang the table leader, be a set the table leader
  • Invite people onto the teams, into our homes and set the tone for the organization

 

What kind of company, church, organization, etc. do you want to lead? Set the agenda and show people what grace and hospitality really look like.

 

 

Story of the six-year-old: Now, Krish stands on the other side of the door with the same little boy from his doorstep. This time he’s bringing the boy to his new home and is sad to let the boy go. This child taught Krish the importance of seeing people for who they truly are, not what others label them as and seeing people for who they can be.

  • The power of radical inclusion shows what it means to get proximate with someone that needs you and see how they can, in turn, bless you.

 

Foster a new approach to leadership.

 

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Todd Henry: Herding Tigers

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Others, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Todd Henry’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Story of the t-shirt: Todd was in a Disney World gift shop and saw the perfect t-shirt. It had instructions on how to draw Darth Vader. It had a step-by-step process. Step one, draw the head and body. Easy. Step two, add the cape. Easy. Step three, draw the face, gloves and boots. Still easy. Step four, add shading and detail. Not easy.

● This is similar to how we talk about leadership
● The brilliant work happens between panels three and four
● Dedicated people doing what it takes to make it happen

Leaders should aim to be:

1. Prolific

  • Doing a lot of work
  • Lack of sustainability
  • “Walking zombies” of the organization
  • Works for a while but will cause the loss of the brilliant and healthy pieces

 

2. Brilliant

  • Performing good work
  • Not prolific enough to keep up with the organizational demand
  • Unreliable–can’t be counted on to do the work and deliver

 

3. Healthy

  • Working in a sustainable way
  • Working consistently but producing terrible work
  • Not brilliant work

If this were your definition for success, how would you be right now? Is my team prolific, brilliant and healthy?

What creative people need from leaders:

 

1. Stability

  • Creative boundaries and a stable environment
  • Creatives do not want freedom; it is not helpful to the creative process
  • The absence of limitations is the limitation of art
  • Your team need clarity and process
  • Your team needs to feel protected so they can produce the best work of their lives
  • When your team does not feel protected and secure, they take on the “tell me what to do” attitude and lose creativity

 

2. Challenge

  • Creative people want to be pushed
  • Maintain stability and challenge within the organization

High challenge and low stability = ANGRY team
Low stability and low challenge = LOST team
High stability and low challenge = STUCK team
High stability and high challenge = THRIVING team

 

Shooting star organizations: Challenging our team without the stability needed to support what we’re asking them to do.

Maintaining stability and challenge is going to differ for each person on your team.

  • Leaders, know what each person on your team needs from you in order to produce their best work
  • Some people need a couple of check-ins a week and they’re great
  • Some people need more frequent check-ins in order to feel like they’re on the right course; they need more of a sense of stability
  • You need to understand what the people on your team need so you can provide it for them consistently
  • They will reward you by producing the best work of their lives

 

How to instill stability and challenge:

  • Earn the right to be followed every day–never assume they’re with you
  • Trust is the currency of creative teams
  • Without trust you can do wild, imaginative, brilliant, risky, world-changing work

 

How leaders break trust:

  • Most leaders aren’t blowing trust in big ways; it’s often in the little things
  • Leaders can have a misunderstanding about how trust functions
  • Trust is not like a bank account you can make small withdrawals from
  • Trust is like a water balloon–if you puncture it in a tiny way, you’re going to lose it everywhere

 

 

Ways leaders forfeit trust:

1. Declaring Undeclare-ables

Story of the bear: A few years ago, Todd’s town had a bear spotting. His kids were scared and asked him if the bear would come after them. He said no that there’s not a chance in the world they’re even going to see the bear because it’s 50 miles away. One week later, the bear was a block from their house and appeared around town at their favorite places. He lost a bit of credibility with his kids and for the next six months when he gave answers to them, they questioned if that was the truth or if it would turn out like the bear.

  • In the workplace, leaders lose credibility when they say, “Maybe next time you are absolutely in line for the promotion”
  • The client changed their mind, we have to go with something else
  • Agreeing to meet at a certain time then pushing or cancelling the meeting

Is there any place in your leadership where you’re declaring the undeclared?

 

2. Being a Superhero

  • Pushing everyone away and pretending you have all the answers
  • Pushing away fails the fundamental responsibility of leadership incorporating the values, ideas and diversity of opinion-brilliant people we have on our team
  • Brilliance is forged in the cauldron of creative conflict
  • When leaders push people away, we play the superhero and betray their trust.
  • What that’s saying is, “I know better than you.” “I don’t trust you to do your job.”
  • This asks why should the team trust you?
  • Playing the superheroes sources insecurity
  • The greatest potential to cause damage as a leader is directly tied to your biggest insecurity

 

Leaders can fall into the likability trap.

  • Wanting everybody to like you because of the insecurity in leadership
  • Insecure leaders play the superhero
  • Superhero leadership wants to make people think they know all the answers, but these leaders don’t know all the answers, can’t stand up to the questioning
  • Leaders, your area of greatest insecurity is the area where you have the potential to do the most damage to your team

 

3. Loosen Your grip

A message for all control freaks

  • Lead the work, not control the work
  • People on your team will give up and say, “Tell me what to do.”

 

Example of card magic trick: Asking everyone in the audience to select a card on the screen, then shows the next slide asking if we see our card. All of the cards were replaced, not just one.

  • This happens when we get tired and are anxious as leaders
  • When you tell your team how to do something and you step in and you control the work–micromanage and tell them exactly how you want them to do it, they shut off their brain
  • They stopped paying attention in the context
  • They stopped looking for nuance
  • They stop asking questions and they say, “Just tell me what to do.”
  • This happens when we get insecure, when we get tired, when we get anxious as a leader, so we have to transition from leading by control to leading by influence

 

Leading with Influence vs. Control

Control: Leaders who are about presence
Influence: Leaders who are about principle

 

Leadership Philosophy: Establishing your point of view (POV) as leaders

  • Have a clear and defined set of values
  • Does your team know how you define success?
  • Does your team know what a good idea looks like?
  • How do you as a leader know what these values look like?
  • How do you choose a good idea?
  • Does your team know how conflicts should be handled?
  • What does an acceptable and unacceptable risk look like?
  • Have you instilled these principles in your team and given them the freedom to do what they do best within the rails of what you’ve set?
  • If you haven’t communicated a leadership philosophy to your team, they are guessing about it
  • Ghost rules emerge in our organizations when it should be filled with a leadership philosophy

 

Ghost Rules: An invisible narrative limiting a team’s ability to engage fully and bring themselves to the work they’re doing.

  • Establish clear and effective principles within which your team should function; make these simple
  • The team will reward you with the best work of their lives

 

 

 

4. Take Care of Number One

  • The old saying, “As goes the leader, so goes the team”
  • If you are not inspired, you cannot inspire
  • If you are not taking the time to fill your well, you will have nothing to give to your team
  • Your team should be drinking from the overflow of inspiration in your life
  • Make time for the discipline
  • You owe it to your team to be a model of what prolific, brilliant and healthy looks like
  • Build time in your schedule to fill your mind with great thoughts of others and your passion
  • Put yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable
  • Interact with the world in new ways and unleash your latent creative potential

 

Jack London quote: “You can’t wait for inspiration to strike. You have to go after it with a club.”

 

Ask Yourself:

  • What are you going to do to model for your team what prolific, brilliant and healthy look like?

 

Analogy of Greek proverb: A society grows great when old men plant trees

  • As leaders, plant the seed
  • Produce fruit that’s going to bless countless people, even ones you may never know
  • The influence you have on the person you lead will echo for generations to come as you model for them what generous, trustworthy leadership looks like
  • People will be influenced by you and sitting under a tree that you planted
A bad leader’s influence dies with them.
A great leader’s influence echoes for generations.

The measure of your greatness as a leader is the brilliant work you unleash others to do. Everyone has a mandate to change the world around them–this is what leaders do.

 

Choose to be a leader who makes echoes.

 

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Jia Jiang: Rejection Proof

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Yourself, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Jia Jiang’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Story of school gifts: When Jia was in school, his first-grade teacher had an idea to have the class receive a gift while teaching the virtue of complimenting each other at the same time. She purchased everyone a gift and stacked them in the corner. All the kids were asked to say one nice thing about each other. When a student’s name was called by someone else, they were able to choose a gift and then sit down. Jia’s name was never called to give a compliment to. The teacher told him to pick up a gift then sit down.

  • It is embarrassing being rejected in front of people, especially when we think we are well-liked.

 

Story of the letter: When Jia was 30 years old, his parents sent him a letter he wrote as a child. It had his aspirations and goals on it that Jia had not achieved yet. His wife noticed how unhappy he was and encouraged him to pursue the entrepreneurial journey he wanted to.

  • Felt he wasn’t progressing
  • Was afraid of failure

 

Story of the email: Jia opened an email from an investor declining his idea and not explaining why. He felt the same way from when he was six-years-old in the classroom and wanted to give up.

 

 

Solve that rejection problem once and for all.

Story of Rejection Therapy: Jia researched how he could overcome the fear of rejection and wasn’t impressed by the articles telling him to not take it personally. He found a website called Rejection Therapy. It’s a game created around a deck of cards. For 30 days, it challenges people to do things to get rejected and at the end become desensitized to rejection.

  • He decided to do it for 100 days instead of 30 and vlog about it
  • He was rejected left and right, then all of a sudden people started saying yes

 

Story of acceptance: One of the rejection prompts was to ask a stranger to play soccer alone in his backyard. The stranger said yes to Jai. The following day a police officer agreed to let him drive his car. Then someone let him fly his plane. A woman working at a donut shop agreed to make custom donuts into the Olympics rings symbol. People started sharing their rejection stories with him online.

What is rejection?

  • What is the thing you’re so afraid of?
  • If you overcome that fear, you can make some real changes in your life
  • Fear is a numbers game
  • In the 100 days, Jia asked for something pretty absurd, and someone said say yes to him. He could ask something that was pretty moderate, and someone would say no to him, but he finally got a yes. He just had to talk to enough people.
  • Every objection you go through and have enough no’s, eventually becomes a yes

 

 

Story of J.K. Rowling: The Harry Potter author received 12 rejections trying to get her book published.

  • Rejection is a numbers game
  • Rejection is nothing more than opinion—the preference of the rejector
  • It says more about the rejector than the rejected

 

Story of difference: Jia could say the same thing to ten different people. Someone will say yes and someone will say no for giving him a high five. Some people couldn’t wait to get away from him. He was the same person making the same request.

  • Rejection says everything about a person, their state of mind
  • Often rejection relates to someone else’s journey, education, prejudice and has nothing to do with you

Rejection therapy in the workplace

● Do something new every day
● Start outreach calls for an hour a day
● Find a new colleague to take to lunch
● Start encouraging other team members and saying kind things

 

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Aja Brown: When Vision Overcomes

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Organizations, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Aja Brown’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Leaders are:

  • Dedicated to overcoming obstacles
  • Invested in being a catalyst for progress
  • Leading themselves

 

If there is no new course of action, and the need for change is less tied to being efficient and more tied to survival, in order to utilize vision, move the mission forward.

  • Understanding about timing is essential and can make or break your calls

 

There is a huge difference between being busy and being fruitful.

  • Being fruitful is tied to production
  • Being busy is tied to actions not results
  • Jump-starting catalytic change is a direct byproduct of vision by collaboration and timing
  • When all of these factors are firing on all cylinders, production is imminent

 

 

 

Four Principles in Order to be Overcome with Vision:

 

1. Vision

  • The vehicle to creating momentum
  • Most of us want to go fast and dislike delay

 

Story of running for mayor: Aja knew the city needed a dynamic change and knew the critical need to connect and educate herself on the key issues in the community.

  • Everyone is an expert at their own posts, and you cannot lose by gaining information from those that you’re serving
  • People are a critical resource and people in position often take that for granted
  • Visioning is a process
  • It ensures that you are not working in a silo, and it also gives those voices of criticism a way to vent and come to the surface so that you can be tactical and address them head on
  • Building and creating any significant change requires buy-in
  • Leaders should draw from those they serve in order to get alignment to the organization
  • Create unity in order for common ground and goals to be identified in one action point
  • Defined shared progress upfront
  • Be clear on what you define progress to be or you’ll allow someone else to do it for you

 

2. Power

  • Vision has power strategically deployed
  • Launching a vision is the equivalent to sending a heat-seeking missile into the atmosphere
  • The missile may encounter obstructions and delays requiring a new route, but eventually it will hit the target
  • Vision doesn’t rely on one person, it relies on many
  • Once vision goes forward, the atmosphere begins
  • Vision is a consensus builder
  • Vision is a force multiplier

 

3. Timing

  • It takes time to be fruitful and to produce results
  • Example of scripture: God says, “Wait for it. And it will certainly come, and they will not delay.”
  • Certain conditions must be met in order to pick up momentum
  • God has another plan, and His timing is perfect and if you wait on that timing, the vision will manifest

 

4. Be Prepared

  • Having that strategy ready to meet the timing and produce fruitful results is critical and that’s what that vision does for us

 

So, how can we hone this vision?

1. Identify Your Objective

  • Know where you want to take the team
  • By defining a destination point, people can know where they are going
  • This informs everyone on how they can be a part of the bigger picture.

2. Find Progress

  • Establish critical milestones
  • Having midway points helps to delay fatigue
  • Indicators are helpful and keep us moving forward

 

3. Establish Priorities

  • Talk about what must be addressed
  • Identify what can wait
  • Critical resources must be appropriated elsewhere in order to achieve the larger vision

 

4. Communication

  • A communicable plan is essential to achieving meaningful participation
  • The essential ingredient to create momentum
  • People can’t go with you if they don’t know where you want to go
  • Communicating often is critical in order to get that momentum

 

 

 

5. Identical Obstacles in Advance

  • Be tactical when affecting change and know that there will be opposition
  • There will be people that don’t want to go in a new direction–that’s natural, so ensure that you have mapped that out

 

6. Navigation Plan

  • You need to be able to navigate over your obstacles and through them

 

7. Stay Focused and Informed

  • This is essential for the leader
  • When you’re in a position, when you’re leading people places, people will have their own agenda and it may be good, but it may not be God
  • Ensure that the vision you’ve set out is where you’re going and that you dedicate your critical resources to moving that forward
  • Obstacles and attacks aren’t defeats, they’re delays crafted to enforce growth in areas we may not know we need to develop
  • Expect obstacles and plan for them
  • Vision will manifest itself at the right time
  • What seems like a delay is an opportunity to adjust and to be able to activate
  • You do not fail unless you quit
  • In order to understand how to navigate that, we have to be able to understand the vision

 

Story of gang intervention: When Aja came into office in 2013, crime had spiked. She brought a team together to strategize what could be done. They sat down in the community center to talk and listen to the needs of the community. They talked about what the people needed to succeed.

  • Amazing things happen when people are on the same page working with one vision, together
  • Collaboration is your force
  • Stay connected to keep your momentum focused and growing
  • Empower people and develop more leaders

 

Ask Yourself:

  • How you can use vision to overcome your obstacles?
  • How you can use vision to create momentum?
  • How you can use vision as that vehicle for collaboration?
  • How can you use vision to direct change?

 

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Chris Voss: One-on-One with Paula Faris

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Others, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Chris Voss: One-on-One with Paula Faris at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

 

Paula Faris: What do I have to learn from a hostage negotiator?

 

Chris Voss: Anytime, the words I want or I need are in your head, you’re in a negotiation. The most dangerous negotiation are the ones you don’t know you’re in. And all of us are probably in five to seven negotiations each day.

  • If the words “I want” or “I need” are coming out of your mouth
  • I want directions
  • I need five more minutes
  • I need you to collaborate
  • The commodity that’s in all negotiations is time and it’s a commodity that we all have

 

Faris: Is this a skill anyone can learn or are some people better at it than others?

 

Voss: It’s absolutely learnable. As soon as you start putting in your time, and if you enjoy it, then you don’t notice you’re putting in your time. But absolutely, we all have the capacity to be really good at it.

 

Faris: What should our mindset be when we’re entering a negotiation?

 

Voss: Turn the negotiation into a collaboration-connect. You’d be shocked at how far you will get when you connect with people. If the other side feels you’ve connected with them, they’re going to look at you and say, “That’s right,” and feel more connected to you.

 

Faris: Why is tactical empathy important in negotiation?

 

Voss: Don’t confuse empathy with sympathy and compassion. Empathy is not compassion; it’s a compassionate thing to do and a step towards compassion, but it is not compassion. Empathy is completely understanding where someone is coming from and being able to articulate it, especially the parts you might not like. Those are the critical issues. If you find you intimidate someone, you should say, “I probably intimidate you.” That’s going to demonstrate understanding on your part.

 

Faris: Give me an example of how you would use tactical empathy in a negotiation.

 

Voss: At the beginning of a negotiation, call out the elephant in the room and don’t deny it being there. As soon as you do that, it’s not that bad.

 

Faris: What are other tactics?

 

Voss: Mirroring. Repeat the last couple of words the person said. It lets them know they were heard, but say this with an upward inflection so they know it wasn’t quite enough, so they can further expand. You want them to hear all that, and then they expound and talk more.

 

 

Faris: Why should we not say, “I understand?”

 

Voss: This shows we want someone to stop talking. You want to get to the “why” not the “what” they’re asking for. The word “why” makes people feel defensive. Switch it to “what,” and they’re more likely to answer.

 

Faris: What is the difference of an open-ended versus a close-ended question?

 

Voss: Focus on “what” and “how.” People love telling us how to do stuff. It triggers more in-depth thinking so we can shape the other person’s thinking.

 

Faris: What happens when you feel like the negotiation is slipping away?

 

Voss: Call it out. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve earned your trust.” This encourages someone to share what the problem is. If you ask what the problem is or why there is an issue, the other person will feel accused.

 

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

 

Patrick Lencioni: What’s Your Motive?

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Yourself, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Patrick Lencioni’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Fewer people in the world should become leaders. Don’t be a leader if you’re not doing it for the right reasons.

 

Two reasons people become a leader:

1. To do whatever you need to do to serve the people you need to.
2. For rewards: Attention, status, power, etc.

 

You have to understand your leadership motive if you’re going to be a leader.

Leaders have difficult conversations and manage direct reports.

  • You’re not a leader if you find it tedious and boring the higher you get to manage and maintain these
  • If people aren’t managed, they lose motivation and it becomes political within the organization
  • A lot of these types of “leaders” hate meetings and like to keep them short

How do you know if an executive is good at their job? It’s in the meeting.

  • If you complain about meetings, consider changing jobs
  • Those who can’t delegate them to someone else

 

 

What’s the cost of bad meetings? Bad decisions.

People suffer–employees, customers, constituents and also finances.

Reward centered leaders avoid team-building.

  • They either delegate or abdicate
  • They think team-building is too touchy feely and a waste of time
  • They think it’s going to be emotional or uncomfortable
  • If you can’t build the team, you can’t believe you’re serving your organization
  • Don’t like to over-communicate or affirm what they have said again
  • Communicating is why leaders are here and what leadership is about

The job of a leader is not to entertain others or ourselves, it’s to keep people focused. CEO’s are the CRO’s, Chief Reminding Officers.

 

 

We as leaders have to ask ourselves if we’re leading for the right reason.

  • Doing things that don’t bring a variety are not good for our people; they take this home with them
  • Politics and dysfunction cannot thrive in the workplace; this is something we cannot overlooked
  • The ultimate role of a leader is knowing when to step away and let someone else lead

 

Servant leadership is the only kind of leadership there is. Do not expect a reward. This is not true leadership.

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

DeVon Franklin: Your Difference Is Your Destiny

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Yourself, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from DeVon Franklin’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Most of us struggle with these things, and they are the key to leadership.

Story of cookies: DeVon has two bags of cookies in his hand. Both brands are not trying to figure out the other cookie brand’s recipe. Instead, they are focused on their own recipe and putting it in the grocery store.
● You have your own recipe for success
● Stop trying to steal somebody else’s

 

In leadership, in order to have a space on the shelf of our destiny, we have to own the recipe that’s already in us.

● Too often we try to become someone else at the expense of who we are

1. Difference: A way in which people or things are not the same

• Your difference is your destiny
• It’s difficult and hard to stand out
• People want you to tone it down to fit into their limited idea of who you are
• Be careful whose advice you get
• Not everybody is going to embrace your differences, but you should
• Too often we think we have to sacrifice to submit to destiny
• You can be who you are and still find success

What compromises have you been making lately to fit into doors too small for you?

2. Destiny: Your highest purpose and your calling

• Not a destination but a process of operating in your calling
• We often don’t answer the call of our lives because we’re too distracted and busy
• Walk in your destiny each and every day

What is your calling trying to tell you? Have you answered your calling?
● It’s all about walking in our higher purpose and our calling

So many times, we attach opportunity to destiny, making a compromise on fitting in and where you’re supposed to be.

Story of Hollywood: DeVon was interviewing for an internship and made it clear that if the project would require him to work on the Sabbath, he would not be able to fulfill that. He embraced the difference of his religion and he has not worked one Sunday.
● Own your difference
● We lose our voice when we just want to get by and when we want to fit in
● There are things we’re concerned about and don’t say because we don’t want to ruffle any feathers
● Understand who you are, and be bold enough to walk in it, no matter who understands or who gets you
● Get information and do not fear confirmation if this is the place for you

 

3. Stop Making the Exchange: What makes you different for what makes you common

Hollywood is addicted to the sequel; so is leadership.
• So often we want to do a repeat of what was done, avoid sequels
• We try to be a repeat of what someone else did instead of owning the difference between us
• Take the bold risk of being original
• It’s scary to own your difference, but stop being so afraid

 

4. Discipline: No discipline, no destiny

● Discipline sometimes betrays what we want
● Muhammad Ali quote: “Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
● You can’t say yes to every engagement; you can’t say yes to every project
● Sacrifice to achieve greatness

You are closer than you think.

 

5. Power: Be bold to walk in destiny

• Why you’re uncomfortable right now is because you know you’re supposed to make the move and you’re not doing it
• Know there is a bigger life for you and let go of the life no longer serving you

 

 

 

How to own your difference:

  1. Admit you are different
  2. Do not confuse someone else’s distinctiveness with your own
  3. Hang with those who encourage your difference
  4. Be salt and light

Story of Jesus: Jesus’ sermon on the mount calling people to be the salt and light. He said we’re the salt of the earth and we need to preserve it. Shine light in the dark places. Light cannot shine in light. Don’t be afraid to go places.

Destiny is a process. Commit to it.

Story of Cinderella: She had an opportunity to go the ball. When the clock struck midnight, she lost her shoe returning home. The prince discovered her shoe and searched the entire kingdom to find the owner of the glass slipper. Every person he found could not fit into it. Why? Because it was only designed for Cinderella. She made the excuse that she didn’t have a gown or other accoutrements. The prince said, “No, you don’t. You have something better. You have you.”

● You are enough; go out and get your destiny
● Your difference makes a difference
● Your destiny is the right fit, it won’t fit anyone else
● Go and be and do boldly
● Go where no other leaders has gone

Your difference is your fuel, and your destiny is your ship.

Affirmation: “My difference makes a difference.”

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Danielle Strickland: Leading Transformational Change

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Leading Organizations, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Danielle Strickland’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Story of workplace change: When email first became a thing, she worked with a boss who would have his secretary print out her emails so he could write his response on the bottom of the page and fax it back to Danielle.

  • Change comes fast and furious at all of us
  • Change has not slowed down since
  • The way we shop, communicate and date has all changed

 

How can we be leaders who survive change and thrive in the midst of it?

Story of Amplify Peace: Danielle was working with a movement that takes people on global immersions around the world that are suffering great difficulties but have exceptional leaders who are making peace and making changes in these environments. In Rwanda, she was meeting with a group of community leaders experiencing cultural change. Their domestic violence rate decreased by 60% in one year. The leader shared with her that happened because it started when Danielle’s training required him to confront the behavior.

 

 

Analogy of the tree: Life is a lot like a tree.

Leaves = Results: What is seen
Branches = Actions: What is done
Trunk = Values: What is best
Roots = Beliefs: What is true

  • When you have to let go to move forward, you ask for help
  • If you want to be a transformational leader, you need to pay attention to the fruit the tree is yielding
  • What are the values contributing to the branch of your life?
  • Have a deeply-rooted belief system

Transformational change requires leaders to go all the way down to the rooted belief system.

  • Productivity is linked to values we have as human beings
  • If we want to be leaders of influence to bring transformation to the world, we need to find the right things to change

 

Story of the last Emperor of Ethiopia: Haile Selassie died in 1974. A Polish journalist, Kapuscinski, interviewed the Emperor’s staff to see if he truly was a good leader. They said yes, and Kapuscinski asked why and was looking for evidence to support the claims of him being a great leader and good man. One million Ethiopians died of starvation during his reign while he feasted on the finest foods. Haile noticed his people were sad one day and flew in world-renowned experts from Sweden to lead his staff in 20 minutes of vigorous exercise so they could be happier working in the palace.

 

1. Change the right things

  • Leadership changes don’t always work if they’re not the right ones
  • Having open workplaces that seems to fix it all, new job descriptions
  • Doing the work of getting down into the deeply-rooted belief systems in order to bring transformational change into our lives, into our community’s lives, into the world’s life

 

It’s time for leaders to be transformational, change agents. If you want to change things, you’ve got to change the right things.

 

2. Embrace the process

Story of her family: Danielle and her family relocated to a different country. Her son had a difficult time adapting to change. He participated in a visualization scenario explaining what change feels like by looking at chairs and an exercise ball that start as stable then progressively become unstable.

  • Every leader needs to understand disruption is not a threat, it’s an invitation
  • Destruction is not a threat, it’s an invitation to keep moving to a new normal
  • Moving forward is equal parts fearful and equal parts exciting
  • Leaders help each other navigate and mobilize communities
  • Leaders find a new place to stand even when it doesn’t seem normal or familiar
  • Leaders find a new place and a new narrative which becomes the solution

 

 

 

Story of Acts 10: Peter has a vision from God telling him to kill and eat animals that are against his Jewish culture and religion. He wakes up confused and disturbed, wondering what it means. Later Peter says, “Oh, I see now.”

There is no changing the future without disrupting the present.

  • Peter navigated the chaos of leaving behind everything that was familiar
  • A new normal was born
  • Changing things doesn’t matter as much as changing the right things
  • Once you know what the right things are to change, you have to embrace them and the process

 

One encounter can change everything if you change the right thing.

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.

Jason Dorsey: Generational Clues Uncovered

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Articles, Diversity, Leading Organizations, The Global Leadership Summit

The GLS19 Illustrative Summaries are drawn and designed by Melissa Whelan.
The following are notes from Jason Dorsey’s talk at #GLS19. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.

 

Maybe what is said about generations, each generation, isn’t true
● The strengths of every generation bring value
● Generations are clues, not a box

The trends that shape generations:

1.Parenting

  • The trend no one talks about
  • It’s okay to be uncomfortable
  • Why is parenting important?
    • It influences everything we do
    • It’s how we decide if a job is beneath us
      • Should we go in debt to go to college?
      • Should we go to college?
    • Research shows entitlement is primarily a learned behavior

 

2. Technology

  • Each generation has a natural relationship with technology largely driven by our age
  • It’s invisible until we are forced to interact with someone of a different generation
  • Technology is only new if you remember it the way it was before, otherwise it’s all you ever know

3. Geography

  • Within the same generation, you will see differences based on geography and no one brings that up
  • There is a difference between the urban, rural and even other countries

Story of home: Jason grew up in a small rural area where he would have a spontaneous family reunion in the grocery store.

Generations are not boxes
● They are power clues on where to start
● Companies and society give generations a bad reputation and stereotype

Story of data: Jason would speak to corporate executives, boards and leaders in communities who would say negative things about generations. Jason asked to see their data and realized it almost never matched what they told him. He is solving and bridging the generations with his own research globally to separate myth from truth.

The WHY behind behaviors and myths in the workplace

Millennials

● Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce
● Experiencing delayed adulthood–not purchasing cars, homes, getting married and starting families as young as the previous generations
● Delayed adulthood changes how they look at stability with the work-life balance

We need to be aware as leaders to make sure we’re adapting and not looking at the 25 or 30-year-old through the lens of a 25 or 30-year-old, 20 or 30 years ago.
● Demographics say 18 to 34 are covered by advertisers that came out of the 1960’s
● We often don’t adapt as leaders yet we need to, if we’re going to be effective

Millennial generation is splitting in two:
1. Doing what we were told we were supposed to do

• Going to school, have a job, are responsible and show up

2. Struggling to create real world traction

Millennial Generational Dislocation: As the generation splits, you self-select into one part of the generation, and you can no longer relate to the other part of your own generation.
● Happens around the age of 30

Leaders, how does this affect your communities?

Millennials are not tech-savvy. They’re tech-dependent.
● Research uncovered this is the way millennials engage
● Example: If you want to reach them, target ads online to them

 

Generation X

● In an interesting life stage, being pulled in two directions, family and professionally
● Taking care of two generations: Their parents and Millennial children
● Naturally skeptical, they ask to see the data, they admit they weren’t sure if they were going to like something
● Gen X is the glue within an organization

 

Baby Boomers

● Define work ethic and measure success in hours per week
● Believe there are no shortcuts to success–it takes policy, procedure and protocol
● They believe you must pay your dues

Generation Z

● Came of the age around the great recession
● Saw their parents struggling growing up
● Research shows Gen Z is very practical with their money and driving thrift store sales and saving money
● It is predicted that many members of the Gen Z are going to leapfrog some of the Millennials over the next five to ten years

What can you do as a leader regardless of the size of the team or company? Learn the language of leadership.

 

1.Provide specific examples of the performance you expect

● If you want Millennials to do something, make a video or show photos explaining it
● Show what it looks like
● The language of leadership varies by generations, gender and geography

2. Lead

● This is critical for messaging
● Most leaders message in a linear format: Step 1,2,3,4,5
● Millennials and Gen Z do not think linearly; they are outcome-driven

Story of outcome driven: Millennials and Gen Z get a video game and skip to the end. They learn the cheat sheet and beat the game then go back to play the game from the beginning. They want to see the end first.
● Show Millennials and Gen Z the end result and they will work backwards and ensure the goal is reached
● Show the end and they will follow every single step

3. Feedback

● Provide quick hit feedback and more frequent feedback
● No trophies, no rewards–feedback

Example of feedback: “Hey Sarah, I saw you helped Jesse yesterday. Thanks so much for stepping up and we needed you.”
● That’s it, stop talking
● Other generations were taught if your boss is talking to you, you’re doing something wrong
● Millennials and Gen Z were taught if your boss is not talking to you, you’re doing something wrong.

 

Every single generation brings something important and every generation can lead.

 

 

Click here to view the homepage of the GLS19 Session Notes.