What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

#1 Leadership thinker

The top 5 Management thinker

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• Half of the leaders don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.

TWENTY HABITS THAT HOLD YOU BACK FROM THE TOP

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• You want to go to dinner at Restaurant X. Your husband, wife, friend, or partner wants to go to dinner at Restaurant Y. You have a heated argument. You go to Restaurant Y. This is not your choice. The food is awful; the service worse!

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• Your options: 1) Critique the food. Point out that your partner is wrong and this mistake could have been avoided if only he/she had listened to you. 2) Shut up, eat the food, and try to enjoy the evening.

1-Winning too much

• The need to win at all costs and in all situations - when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.

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• Imagine you’re the CEO. I come to you with an idea that you think is very good. Rather than just pat me on the back and say, “Great idea!” your inclination (because you have to add value) is to say, “Good idea, but if you tried it this way”

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• You may have improved the content of my idea by 5%, but you’ve reduced my commitment to executing it by 50% because you’ve taken away my ownership of the idea

2- Adding too much value

• The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.

For employees

• Be confident about your expertise Stick to your position

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• In a meeting with the CEO when he was asking for suggestions about a problem and telling one subordinate, “ That’s a great idea.” Then telling another subordinate, “That’s a good idea” and saying nothing at all to a third subordinate’s suggestion.

Two things had happened:

• First, everyone in the room had made a note of the CEO’s rankings. Second, no matter how well- intentioned the CEO’s comments are, the net result is that grading people’s answers makes people hesitant and defensive.

3- Passing judgment

• The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.

4- Making destructive comments

• The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.

What's interesting...

• We made destructive comments without thinking.
• We don’t remember saying them.

Do you use or hear the following sentences

• “That’s true,however.”
• “Yes, but….”

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• “That’s true, however…” (Meaning: You don’t really think it’s true at all.)
• “Yes, but….” (Meaning: Prepare to be contradicted.)

5- Starting with “No”, “But” or “however”

• An easy habit for people who like to win to fall into, and a surefire shortcut for killing conversations, is to start a sentence with “no,” “but,” or “however”. It doesn’t matter how friendly your tone is or how honey sweet you say these words, the message to your recipient is “You are wrong.”

6- Telling the world how smart we are

• This is a variation on our need to win. We need to win people’s admiration. We need to let them know that we are at least their intellectual equal if not their superior. We need to be the smartest person in the room, the sharpest knife in the drawer. It usually backfires.

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• We do it whenever we agree with someone offering us some practical advice, whenever we nod our heads impatiently while people are talking, whenever our body language suggests that we are not hearing something we haven’t heard before.

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• We do this more overtly when we tell someone: “I already knew that” “I think someone told me that,” “I didn’t need to hear that,” “I’m five steps ahead of you.” The problem here is not that we are merely boasting about how much we know. We are insulting the other person.

Do you agree….?

• Anger has its value as a management tool
• It wakes up sleepy employees
• It raises everyone’s metabolism

Do you agree….?

• When you get angry …. You get out of control…….It’s hard to lead people when you’ve lost control

Do you agree….?

• Emotional volatility is not the most reliable leadership tool Once you get a reputation for emotional volatility, you are branded for life
• All of us have people in our lives who drive us crazy
• Once you get a reputation for emotional volatility, you are branded for life

7- Speaking when angry

• Using emotional volatility as a management tool

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• Negative people: They are the people who are constitutionally incapable of saying something positive or complementary to any of your suggestions
• Negativity is their default response
• They are annoying, overtime we are avoiding them and we stop working with them

8- Negativity

• “Let me explain why that won’t work”

How you feel about the following events:

• A meeting you were not told about
• A memo or email you were not copied on
• A moment when you were the last person to learn something

9- Withholding information

• The problem with not sharing information – for whatever reason- is that it rarely achieves the desired effect. In fact it’s breeding mistrust
• We do this when we’re too busy to get back to someone with valuable information

9- Withholding information

• We do this when we forget to include someone in our discussions or meetings
• We do this when we delegate a task to our subordinate but don’t take the time to show them exactly how we want the task done

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• A big reason why so many of us withhold information, it’s not that we want to keep people in dark. It’s simply that we are too busy

10- Failing to give proper recognition

• Recognition is all about closure. It’s the beautiful ribbon wrapped around the jewel box that contains the precious gift of success you and your team have created
• When you fail to provide that recognition you are cheapening the gift. You have the success but non of the afterglow

To become a more accountable leader, I need to:

• Start doing______________________ Do more of______________________ Change how I ___________________ Do less of ______________________ Stop doing ______________________