Curiosity Builds the Leader

Intellectual curiosity, life long learning, seeking knowledge and new information is a universal process and is central to successful leadership. Every change in your life comes as a result of the input of new information. Coming face to face with a new idea or concept sends your life in a new direction, no matter how small that adjustment may seem.

Leaders are continually exposing themselves to the greatest quality of new information. From this diamond mine of information they come up with gems of ideas that enable them to stay ahead of the status quo. If a leaders does not expose themselves to a wealth of ideas, it is unlikely that they will discover the necessary innovation we talked about last week.

What books are you currently reading? Are they challenging you and making you grow? Do they inspire you to think about where you are heading?

What do you listen to each day? Is it uplifting and positive? Is it new information from people who have gone where you want to go?

What are you watching? Are the images it imprints in your subconscious helpful or detrimental to you moving forward?

Have an outstanding week filled with new and exciting information. You deserve it!

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Innovative Leaders Challenge the Status Quo

Innovation is another quality of a great leader, who is constantly seeking ways to improve things, always challenging the way things are. They know they are currently doing could soon be obsolete, so they have a back up strategy ready to go, just in case. There is but one constant, some would say, that you can be assured of, and that is CHANGE. The five best products and services around the world 3 years from now have not even been invented yet.

What does the issue of change mean, to you as a leader, and to your organisation?

If, while you are managing the present for results, you are not also keeping an eye on where you are going, you can head into trouble.

Innovation is simply a commitment to continuous improvement. With this commitment, your breakthrough ideas will inevitably come.

Think of one task central to the responsibility you have in your current role. Describe the process, either mental or physical, you use to complete this task. How is this process different to how it was six months or a year ago? What changes or adjustments could you make to this process in the future?

Change for change sake is mostly unproductive. Change for continuous improvement is vital in your personal leadership and in leading others!

Have a great week filled with innovative change. You deserve it!

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Leaders Produce more than they consume

The second vital quality a leader must develop is a productive, results-oriented attitude. While it may be true that people who feel good about themselves produce good results, it is most certainly true that people who produce good results feel good about themselves.

Everybody needs to be geared into results. How will you know when a goal is achieved? How will you measure that achievement? Goals don’t make sense unless they can be measured or are a means by which other people can tell whether or not you are doing a great job.

Business owners, managers and sales executives should ask questions focusing on key results. The secret of a leader’s effectiveness is isolating one or two tasks, key results areas, that they can do that no one else can. These specialties, if done well, will make an extraordinary difference to a leader’s, and in turn, an organisation’s success.

Ask yourself “What can I do that no one else can do?” Once you have the answer, plan on doing those things and delegate everything else to some one else.

Have an outrageously productive week. You can do it!

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Qualities of Leadership

Everyone wants to be a better leader. Unfortunately, many people are unable to identify the specific qualities of leadership. Since these men and women do not know what leadership qualities are, it is far more challenging to acquire these attributes because they don’t have a target at which to aim.

Over the next few weeks you will discover six of the most important qualities or skills you need to develop or improve in yourself in order to become an excellent leader. The six I have chosen are Vision, Productivity, Innovation, Intellectual curiosity, Courage and my favourite, Integrity.

VISION

Being a great leader begins with a Vision. You must have a purpose and a mission. Vision also involves the crucial questions of who you are and where you want to go. These are questions that only you can answer. Vision means knowing what has to be done to bring out your best.

In business, vision requires the devising of a strategy, for it is strategy that gives you the energy and momentum that will move you toward success.

Another name for this strategy is a Mission Statement. It is a declaration of where you want to go and how you plan to get there. Although vision leads to the creation of your mission statement, it is your mission statement that makes your vision real, set in concrete.

It is important to understand that this mission statement be written in such a way that anyone could understand it, with no need for complicated descriptions, just a simple statement of fact.

In the very best of organisations, it is not just the leader who has a mission statement. Everyone must decide that he or she is going to be the very best at what they are called to do. A great leader can set the example, showing the way to make the vision real.

To be a true leader, you need followers. The best way I know to produce followers is to give them someone and something worth following.

Have an outstanding week. You deserve it!

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Build on your strengths

Whilst there are many great tools for engaging people and driving performance, such as recruiting for certain talents, setting clear expectations, praising when it is due, and defining the team mission, the most effective tool on your belt is to get each person to play to their strengths. Employ this and an engaged and productive team will result. Fail to do this and no matter what else you do to motivate your team, it will never truly engage. They will never become a high-performance team.

Over the years of working with small and large companies alike, I have witnessed many people who seem to be a perfect fit for the role they have. A friendly, well dressed receptionist, a conscientious shop assistant, a detailed accountant, a mechanic with a love for cars. Round pegs in round holes, playing to their strengths. Equally though, I have seen countless people who just seem to have lost their true calling and don’t seem to fit where they have landed and would be better suited doing something else on the team. A classic example of this is a salesperson who loves to be with people, and is a great relationship builder, being promoted to a “sales management” role in the back office because of longevity. The insuring loss of enthusiasm and productivity should not come as a shock to us, but it invariably does. This person has stopped performing because they are no longer playing to their strengths. Why not reward their performance by paying them more to do what they do best?

Whilst knowing our weaknesses is equally important, focusing on them and how we are going to turn them around into strengths isn’t. Recently I read a great book by Marcus Buckingham which outlines six steps to achieving outstanding performance. It was all based on this principle of using your strengths so I thought I would share them with you.

Step 1: Bust the Myths

Change your mindset from improving weaknesses to building on strengths.

Step 2: Get Clear

Identify your own strengths and weaknesses.

Step 3: Free your Strengths

Identify exactly how and where each strength helps you in your current role and search for missed opportunities to use them. Learn new skills and techniques that will sharpen and build these strengths and build your role around them.

Step 4: Stop your Weaknesses

Avoid situations that employ your weaknesses and team up with someone who has them as a strength. Find a strength in you that can add productivity to your role and use your strengths to build on the area of weakness.

Step 5: Speak Up

Open conversation within teams, without fear of retribution or ridicule, when planning and giving out roles and responsibilities. The salesperson who became a manager would have benefited everyone if he had communicated his desire to keep working on his strengths. His role could have been structured around selling and training others to sell.

Step 6: Build Strong Habits

Stay clear headed and focused on the long term employment of your strengths, week in – week out, year in – year out, pushing towards activities that strengthen you, ever watchful for those that drag you down.

So, whether you are a sole trader or the CEO of a major corporation; build your team based on the use of strengths and the weaknesses will take care of themselves.

Have an outstanding week. You deserve it!

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Draw a line in the sand

As we head into a new year together, I want to take this opportunity to encourage everyone to give themselves a break this Christmas. 2009 may have not turned out how you would have liked, but if we waste our energy focusing on what could have been we may miss the opportunities put before us to move forward in 2010!

It is a sad statistic that more people give up the fight at this time of year than at any other. They feel they have failed again, not moving forward at all, and wonder if it is all worth it. Over the many hours of sitting with people, listening to their story, I have compiled a list of things to avoid when I assess my year.

* comparing myself to others,
* measuring my success by “things gained” or “tasks completed”,
* over thinking and dwelling on past mistakes, and
* the negative influences and words spoken over me by others.

Drawing a line in the sand and deciding to move forward, despite the past, is the only way to start your journey into a bigger, better 2010. We remove the power our past can have over us by only spending time on the “past” side of the line long enough to reflect on what we can learn from to build a better future, whilst enjoying the present.

* Who did I help in 2009?
* What new skills did my year help me develop?
* What have I got to be thankful for?
* Who did I get to meet?
* Why am I doing what I have chosen to do?
* What is really important to me and why?

Take a look at your life like a small fishing boat. The boat itself represents our present, sometimes on calm waters, other times tossed by storms and sometimes it seems like it is sinking. Our past can be an anchor or an engine, we choose. One stops us from moving forward and the other propels us forward, moving us into calmer waters.

Let me encourage you that no matter how stormy the seas may look for you at the moment, don’t abandon ship. Pull up your anchor, let go of 2009, set a well planned course into 2010 and rely on the power of the engine to bring stability back into your life.

Here’s a few guidelines for the journey.

* Only bring people into your boat that want you to move forward,
* Have a clear path set with contingencies for uncharted waters,
* Stop comparing your boat to the other ones around you,
* Surround yourself with “lighthouse” people who can warn you when you are moving too close to the rocks,
* Throw unnecessary items overboard like past hurts, conflicts and unforgiveness, and
* Make a decision to spend more time enjoying the ride in the boat knowing it is the boat you have been called to be the captain of.

Thank you so much for allowing me to share my life experiences with you in 2009. I hope in some small way I have been able to encourage you to believe in yourself and the power within you. Take a break, service your boat engine, clean the decks and I look forward to a bigger and brighter 2010 with all of you.

Have an outrageously enjoyable Christmas and New Year season. I pray that each of you would enjoy the peace, joy and love that was provided for us all at this great time of year.

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Communicate your Personal Mission Statement

What you say you are has the power to determine what you ultimately become. You tend to fulfill your own self-definition; behaving in a way reflective of what you have written down and declared about yourself.

It is extremely important that you formulate a Personal Mission Statement that reveals your personal vision of purpose and the meaning of your life. Nothing is as important to your effectiveness as knowing who you are and the purpose for achieving your goals.

Over the last few months we have documented our dreams, desires, values, beliefs and priorities. Our Personal Mission Statement is a brief, overall statement that, when communicated, reveals what is most important to us in all areas of our life. A Personal Mission Statement captures ideas that are worthwhile, challenging, inspiring and exciting to you. It serves as a motivator and is the filter used to decide what goals you are going to set and opportunities you are willing to participate in.

As time goes by, and you mature through knowledge and experience, just as a company mission statement may change, you too will tweak and adjust your Personal Mission Statement. The most important thing is to have it written down, rehearsed and ready to communicate to those around you. It will not only inspire you to do what you are called to do, it will inspire others who are like minded to follow you. There is no better tool available to a leader than a clear statement of who you are and what you want to achieve. This is easily evaluated by those you want to follow you, whether in your social or work life.

Wherever I go, whether one on one or in large groups, I ensure I communicate my life mission to my audience in my introduction. “I am an ordinary guy, created by God to serve Him by loving my outstanding wife and kids and by helping others around me to be released from the sense of hopelessness that comes from not having enough time, energy, skill or resource to be all they are called to be.” This statement comes from the heart and makes is easy for my audience to determine what is important to me.

This week I am reviewing my personal and business plans for 2010. Having my Personal Mission Statement out in front of me will make it easy to confirm the goals that I will work toward in achieving my mission, and change or delete those that don’t measure up. Let me encourage you all to spend some time, this week, defining your own Personal Mission Statement. I would love to hear from you; please leave a comment below or write me an email with your Personal Mission Statement. I would love to be a part of your encouragement team.

Have an outrageously productive week, doing what you love. You deserve it!

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Email me your Personal Mission Statement

Without a Vision the people perish

Before we can define our goals for 2010, we need to ensure we have a clear picture of what we want our business to look like in the future. Having a vision statement in front of us draws us forward and is therefore the most important part of our business plan. Conversely, if we lack vision, we are doomed to perish!

Having a business plan, which is continually nurtured and adjusted, is about far more than getting a loan to start our business. Whenever we need to make decisions, set goals or change direction, it becomes the compass that keeps us off the rocks.

The Vision Statement drives our Mission, our purpose for being in business in the first place, fueled by our values and beliefs.

Once we have established the why we can start to work on the what and the how.

Goals are specific statements of what needs to be done in order to achieve our mission. They are the direction we travel on our journey towards our initial vision that got us excited enough to get up and do something different in the first place.

Objectives are the progress markers in our plan that measure our success or need for change along the way. From these we can define our actions; what needs to be done in minute detail and who needs to do it.

As we work together in preparing for 2010, take some time to relive our initial vision and remind ourselves of the reason we got into business in the first place. Quality time invested in nailing the why will pay dividends when we come to put pen to paper and set our goals.

Have an outrageously productive week. You deserve it!

Cheers

Grant Herbert
The People Builder

Finishing Strong in 2009

2009 has been one of the toughest yet most rewarding years of my life. The global financial crisis coupled with a significant family illness, whilst in the midst of a major change in direction personally, has placed an unprecedented level of stress on me, my family and my business.

Thanks to having a clear set of values and goals, driven by a desire to never give up, I am emerging tougher than ever and ready to finish strong in 2009.

This is the time of year when most people subconsciously take about 6 weeks off and chill out for the “silly season”. Having a well earned rest is essential to a balanced success in our lives, however, before we hang up the hat for another year it is imperative to have 2010 planned on purpose so we can continue the momentum created by our hard work in 2009. Our time off, for those lucky enough to have some, should form a part of our plan.

A lot of people, at this time of year, reflect negatively on what might have been if things had of panned out differently. This negative can have a draining effect, fueled by fear, failure and frustration, binding us in an unhealthy environment and thought pattern and effectively sucking the life out of our time off. I visit the past for one reason; to learn from it and move on. Our current situation is the start point of the next phase of this exciting yet sometimes challenging life. My purpose for writing this article is to encourage us all to draw a line in the sand, accept what’s done is done, learn from our experiences and move forward into a brighter 2010.

Having a clear direction for 2010, articulated by a series of S.M.A.R.T goals, allows us to kick off a new year with purpose. Take off the baggage of the year that’s over, forgive those that have hurt you, change what is in your control, dream big dreams, shed limiting beliefs and have another go. You can do whatever you set you mind to and back up with the appropriate action. Set goals for all areas of your life, not just your business or career. Take a look at an article I wrote earlier in the year that will help you get started.

Here are a list of gems that I live by. Yeah some may sound a bit corny or cliche, but I am here to testify they work!

Success is the progressive realization of worthwhile, pre-determined, personalized goals.

Nothing happens without first a dream.

If we aim at nothing we are bound to hit it.

If you think you can you can; if you think you can’t you won’t.

Obstacles are only visible when we take our eyes off our goals.

In December I am working with all my clients to help them set some stretch goals for 2010. To facilitate this I am running a series of Goal Setting Workshops as my free gift to the local business community. If you need some help with goal setting, drop me a line and I will either contact you myself or put you in touch with someone in your area.

The only way to finish strong in 2009 is to make sure we are ready for a better 2010.

Have an outrageously productive week. You deserve it!

Cheers

Grant Herbert

The People Builder

Changing Behaviour to Improve Results

Past behaviour is a great indicator of future behaviour. What we continue to practice becomes habit. This can be positive or negative; it all depends on the behaviour. Everyone I meet all seem to have a desire to have better results, in many areas of life, including business. The challenge is to first recognize that it is our current behaviour that is bringing the current results and then, if we want to change the results, change the behaviour.

Behaviour is defined as the response of an individual or group to an action, environment, person, or stimulus. The key word here is “response”. It is not what happens around us that causes our behaviour to be good or bad; it is our response to it. This is why I believe the first step in managing behavioural change is controlling our attitude. Being in control of our attitude will ensure an appropriate response which in turn produces acceptable behaviour.

There are many environments in our life, such as school, home, work, church etc, that focus on changing behaviour rather than attitudes. Try as you may, you will never get the performance of a V8 out of a 4 cylinder. Our attitudes are the engine room for behavioural change. If we want to stop eating junk food, we need to have a healthy attitude towards eating. If we want stop procrastinating, we need to ensure our attitude reflects that desire. We will never change to a behaviour if it is not something we truly believe in. This is why it is futile to try and change the behaviour of others. If they don’t want to improve in an area of weakness, they never will. Fear motivation only places a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. You might appear to be making a difference but in the end the patient will still bleed.

In a workplace, when we foster an environment where people are rewarded for having a great attitude rather than just results, you will see lasting change. If the change is welcomed by the employees as well as the business owner, the results will be exceptional.

A great way to start this process is to conduct a brainstorming session involving stakeholders from all areas of the team. This week I facilitated one of these sessions for a successful company in our region. We looked at what attributes were needed for a great firm, what obstacles there were to having those attributes, what solutions we had to overcome the obstacles and then personalised it by asking each team member to identify something they would need to change personally to ensure we reached the team goal. The results were exceptional! By enlisting the people in setting up the “change” arena, we will always see a greater buy-in and therefore a more positive result. Followed up with team and individual coaching on the goals set by each stakeholder, the ROI on such an exercise will be guaranteed. The key, once again, to this process was starting with the “Attributes” of a great firm. Attributes are a reflection of an attitude.

Remember, the mind cannot work on the reverse of a negative. Motivating people to move away from bad behaviour will never work, however, encouraging them towards the positive does.

Have an outrageously productive week. You deserve it!

Grant Herbert

The People Builder

To see how we can help you with this process CLICK HERE