If you have ever thought about having your own personal leadership coach, now is the time to act. For a limited time I will make my services available to the first 5 (five) Developing Leaders mailing list members who contact me at ronn dot hurst at gmail dot com.

My current clients have realized significant benefit from our coaching engagements. increased performance, improved interpersonal skills, greater leadership capacity. All are within your reach as well when you make the commitment to your personal growth.

For a limited time I am going to make it possible for you to realize the goal of you having your very own leadership coach. Imagine having a skilled leader with 17 years in the leadership trenches at your side facilitating, challenging and guiding you to greater performance. What would that be worth to your cause, your career, your family.

The initial consultation fee will be waived. This means you can check out how coaching can help you with virtually no risk. Agree that you want a coach and it gets better. We will give you a special introductory rate of $50 US per hour will be available for a 3 month period. This is far below my normal rate of $300 US /hour and is only available to mailing list subscribers. I can do this because I believe so strongly in the power of this coaching model I want to get the word out to our membership and give you the opportunity to benefit and grow your leadership capacity now. I know that once you see this model in action you will want more.

Do the math for less than $300 or $0.82 per day you can dramatically increase your leadership ability. This offer is worth over $2000 if you were paying full rate and it would be worthwhile at that rate.

Contact me soon this offer will close as soon as the 5 spots are taken.

Looking forward to our coaching engagement

Ron

A lot has happened since then. I enrolled in a coaching program at Fielding Graduate School to test how well my coaching skills fared against a formal program and I am happy to say while it has helped me i am pretty good at this coaching thing. I say this not to boast but rather to let you know that I have been increasing my client load the past few weeks and and interested to hear from you  and whether you want to be coached.

Its one thing to read the thoughts and comments of a leader and trainer, its wholly another to engage in the process of leadership development. Real leaders develop by rubbing elbows with other leaders, getting in the game and leading something.

So if you want to learn more about how you can take your leadership capacity to the next level get in touch with me.The best way is to email me directly at ronn dot hurst at gmail dot com. Sorry for the phonetics but too much spam has been finding me lately.

Lead well

Ron

Ideas the Enemy of Habit?  You know we all fall victim to the comfort of habit. When was the last time you changed your morning routine, your morning commute. Habit is a good thing for the basics of life yet it can also mask the opportunities that lie just beyond the immediacy of our vision. Ultimately our ability to see old things anew allows us the opportunity to ideate then create new futures. So the opportunity and the challenge is to consider how our habits get in the way of new ideas. The last thing a leader can afford is to accept the status quo and keep doing things the way they have always been done. That’s not leadership, that is a cop out. Check out his video, it makes the point so much more eloquently than I can http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZQyj4ywT2s&feature=player_embedded Lead and vision well Ron

Here is the original article if you care to read it for yourself

 The Coffee Cup As a Management Tool 

http://management.about.com/od/communication/a/CoffeeMgtTool05.htm

As I read it I agreed with the simplicity and wisdom it offered. The idea was that managers should leverage coffee breaks to spend time with key employees getting to know them. Great concept and one I practice regularly. In fact my local Starbucks a half mile from my plant regularly sees me there at least twice a week on a “coffee break”.

I know from experience that I am not in the majority here so I asked myself. How many managers are intentional about investing in their key team members? Do they have a process for this or is it random?

In my estimation not many.

The most important thing a manager can do is to invest in their relationships with team members. Yeah sure there are many other critical aspects to the job, not arguing that. What I believe is that by investing in relationships, a manager learns of potential problems before they erupt. They head off personnel issues before they happen. They  can work with and through their team to achieve objectives. After all the old saying goes: “people don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care” To influence someone you need to be in relationship with them.

So what does the article recommend that managers do? Get away from communication devices, the office etc, and listen to the person. They also offer some detail about the fact that it need not be coffee per se and to avoid alcohol. Pretty simple stuff, great advice. Not so easy to follow consistently in our wired world.

My Advice

 Learn to Listen. 

I wrote extensively about this in previous posts and on the mailing list leadership tip series. Sign up for the mailing list if you want to learn more.

 Get to Know them 

Distance may be handy if you have to fire someone but it is useless for leading them. People don’t have to like you but it sure makes leading them smoother. So find out what their children’s names are. What their favorite past time is etc. Do this not to be manipulative but to be an authentic leader who cares about their team.

 Laugh with them, Cry with them 

Maybe I am overstating the point here, but I don’t think so. People want to follow someone who cares about them as an unique, valuable person. They want to be challenged, they want to make a difference. Know who they are, share in their story, even let them know who you are.

Lead Well

Ron

On a bright hot spring day that month in southern California my wife and I walked the isles of my universities grad fair. How would I commemorate this accomplishment? How would I remember this special time?

Class ring. That’s it, I always wanted to get one, couldn’t afford the undergrad ring, now was the time. I chose carefully selecting what only a Metallurgist would love. A ring made of silver, with palladium and a bit of platinum for good measure. A cool ring. I filled out the paper work, selected the wording, paid the bill and went on my merry way. 

A few weeks later I got the call. You cannot fit your degree name on the side panel you have one too many letters in the name. WHAT?! How could this be! This is my ring! The symbol of overcoming adversity finally kicking the “You cant finish” spectre out of my mind. It has to fit! I want that ring to be perfect. It has to be perfect!

I hung up the phone and called my wife knowing she would understand, she would console me. She knew how important this ring was to me.

What did I hear from my soul mate? “It’s not about you!”

Her words cut me to the bone. After a short pouting moment I began to consider her feedback. I had been acting like a spoiled brat. I was being irrational. It really isn’t about me, she was right. How many times have I counseled leaders about the fact that leadership is about sacrifice and responsibility. “I” doesn’t enter into the equation for a leader. In that moment it hit me. Its not about me, its not about “I”… There is no room for “I” in leadership. I had the perfect solution and from that day on I would have the coolest leadership story engraved on the very ring that commemorated my Masters of Science in Leadership and Management.

You have to check the photo to appreciate the coolness of this story.  You can see them here

Look closely at the side panel you will notice the point I made above and how after 3 years now you might notice how I have worn “lead” almost right off the ring. I wonder how that happened? ;-)

–
Ron

Fortunately this is not the case. You see leaders deal in relationships. They deal in the frailty of human beings, their habits and behaviors. I learned long ago that people have to be motivated to change. You cannot change them if they do not want to. Perhaps this is a good thing but regardless, when a repeat problem comes up inevitably you can trace its root back to a situation where someone who previously refused to learn and grow is now exhibiting behaviors that led to a repeat problem.

I cannot help you if you don’t want to grow. I cannot help you if you don’t recognize the need for your personal growth. I can only help those who humbly realize that growth is a necessary condition for life. Just consider a human muscle that is never exercised. What happens? Over time it atrophies. Same thing happens to people.

Back to the original challenge: The repetitive (read boring) nature of work. What to do?

One approach is to soldier on slogging your way through hoping this time there might be a better outcome. (sounds like the definition of insanity to me)

Another approach is to be indifferent and not react. This is a recipe for disaster. Don’t do this.

Yet another is to empower your team to take the challenge on themselves. Sounds like fun and is a worthwhile strategy to a point.

Or perhaps we could search for another right answer. Ask yourself what is the underlying cause. Assume that the problem is merely a symptom of a much larger challenge. Continue to search for the true root cause. When you think you have found it you will have a leadership challenge worth tackling. Are you up for it?

Lead well

–
Ron

Well as I looked at my twitter page I began to consider that Twitter just might be a great test of leadership. After all you search for those who you know already, find others who have common interests, communicate into the void meaningful points (hopefully) and see what happens. Somewhere along the way people decide to follow you. So as of writing this I have 87 people following my tweets. Yes a pretty small number on the scale of things but a decent number all the same.

The comparison stops here unfortunately because leadership is a contact sport and cannot be faked in a virtual space.

So then I consider the twitter sport of following and some interesting questions and thoughts come forth

* Whats up with the reciprocity?! I will follow you if you follow me. Seems a little juvenile

* How the heck does a guy like Glenn Beck get to 160,000 followers?

* How is it that people actively gain followers?

* When a friend gets too irritating I have taken to telling him that if he were on twitter I would unfollow him ;-)

Lead well
–
Ron

Lets face it we live in the real world where there are people in our organization and not all of them are “A” players despite our best efforts. We inherit people from a previous manager with different performance measurement criteria, some people’s life goals change and work is not their priority and on it goes.

It is critical that in rating an employee we consider that the rating in their current role is different than in a management role. While some attributes overlap many do not. When considering who might be an “A” manager be certain that you evaluate the right criteria. A partial list should include; motivation, initiative, integrity, communication ability, leadership skill and management skill. Many of these factors may not be considered at the individual contributor level thereby making the judgment more difficult.

If you want to be certain do what leaders do. Give potential “A” players opportunities to shine long before the selection process takes place. Ask them to lead projects outside their normal duties, encourage them to find a mentor, suggest they take on a volunteer leadership role etc.

As you invest in your team and begin to see who has the drive and ability to lead in areas outside their normal framework you will soon discover who your next “A” manager should be. 

Lead well
–
Ron