Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Leadership

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

  • Why? Again.

    Why? Again.

    I’m back to being asked why again about 200 times a day.  Thus is the life of a parent of a two, almost three, year old.

    I do not have a conversation with my little girl EVER these days without the question of “Why?” coming out of her mouth. While she was stalling on bedtime the other night, I began to take a tally and we got to 16 Whys? before I finally shut her down.  I couldn’t take it anymore!

    But the irony of all of this is that I’m now reading Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. The key take away is:

    “Great leaders are those who trust their gut. They are those who understand the art before the science. They win hearts before minds. They are the ones that start with WHY.”

    I’ve watched my mom live this quote when I hear her speak to groups about the work she does leading a hospice organization. She always tells a story about a real patient that addresses the heart before the head and answers WHY she, and the people she leads, do what they do.

    I wonder if I was a Why? fanatic questioner as a two, going on three year old?  Maybe my mom started by answering Why? for me before I even had to ask it.

    So, think I’m going to try to switch my methods and cut my little one off at the path by answering her Why? before she even asks it.  And maybe we will all get to bed a little earlier, or maybe I’ll have to wait out her development and continue to answer Why for now, even when I’ve already answered it. But I know from the example I’ve had, I’ll start with Why as both mine grow. Hopefully this will help them to become leaders.

    Do you start with why?

  • The Best Way to Show Your Employees the Love on Valentines Day- And Every Day

    The Best Way to Show Your Employees the Love on Valentines Day- And Every Day

    Ahh, Valentine’s Day. The day of love and all things chocolate. Is it a special day for you at the office or just another work day? I hope you place a special emphasis today, and really any working day for that matter, on loving your employees and coworkers in the agape love kind of way. That servant leadership kind of love (not the sappy romantic kind that could lead to a sexual harassment complaint) that helps you achieve positive organizational results.

    As I think about the best way to show employees love, I’m reminded of the high of my work week last week. Well maybe it was my 2nd high given that I spent two days in sunny and warm San Diego for work last week, but I digress….

    We’ve been working with a fabulous company to help them form company values and then drive all of their talent management initiatives out of these values.  Well last week, I got to watch the owner give out two of the first three values awards from the company. We found out from the award recipients’ managers and themselves what their favorite things are, and each value award was customized to that individual.   One girl, on top of several things she got for award, got the biggest jar of pickles the owner of the company could find.  Pickle lover she is.

    Watching the smiles on the faces of both the giver and receivers of this was divine. After they received the award, I watched one shuffle through his loot and mumble to himself softly, “Man this is great.”

    The price tag on the gifts wasn’t much but here are the things that stood out to matter:

    1. Find out what the person likes and give it.
    2. The giver matters. What added so much value to the personalized gifts was that the company owner picked them out (I offered to, but he wanted to) and drove over two hours to deliver both of them.
    3. Both 1 and 2 emphasize that giving of your time matters. It takes longer to personalize gifts and it takes time to personally deliver gifts.  Both of these facts may offer more meaning than the gift itself.
    4. The gift should connect or speak to some deeper meaning. In this case, the gifts spoke to these employees’ performance related to the core values of the company. They weren’t being given gifts just because (although I think just because gifts are also needed at times), they were being given gifts because they model the performance that drives company success. And that is appreciated.

    So whether you are giving gifts to your employees today or to your significant other, make sure the gift actually shows your agape love by taking the time to personalize it in a way that makes an impact. You never know, performance might increase in your relationship because you do…

    Which brings me back to my San Diego work trip.  Maybe I didn’t digress earlier. My husband went with me, and although he isn’t prone to like fancy dinners (he was most excited about a trip to In and Out Burger- his Milo’s of the west Coast) this the view is where he took me for our early Valentine’s dinner on the trip. Personalization at it’s finest.

    IMG_0577

     

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  • A Holistic Goal Setting Method

    A Holistic Goal Setting Method

    When I think about goal setting from a holistic perspective, Zig Ziglar’s wheel of life concept seems to be best.  When I’m honest with myself, I’m not really a holistic goal setter. I find it easier to set two types of goals:  Business or career goals and fitness goals. Zig’s approach helps me see that in many areas of my life that are important to me- like my spiritual life and my relationship with my friends and my husband- I’m very haphazard instead of intentional.

    The spokes of the wheel are:

    1. Career
    2. Financial
    3. Spiritual
    4. Physical
    5. Intellectual
    6. Family
    7. Social

    The approach encourages you to set a goal for each spoke, with the center of the wheel being your mission or purpose.

    Two important observations about this method that show the strengths and weaknesses of this approach:

    1. This method helps you focus on areas you may not normally tend to set goals in or find it easy to do so. Unless you are in academia or still in school, you might struggle the most with the intellectual area.  We call this our continuous learning and improvement value at Horizon Point.  Viewing it from this lens, we set “intellectual” goals as individuals each quarter around growing in an area related to our overarching business goal  (which is a revenue and profit driven goal each year). Sometimes the goal may not be directly tied to our overall business, but for the purpose of our own enjoyment.   A goal in this area I had a couple of years ago was to read 30 books that year; some of the books I read were directly tied to business, others were strictly for pleasure, and some were spiritually based. Which leads me to the next key point….
    2. Because there are seven areas of focus, things can start to overlap. It never seems to fail, if you set more than about 3-5 goals or values, you end up beginning to wonder how to classify each thing because they could be put in more than one bucket.  For example, my reading 30 books that year incorporated a major spiritual goal and that was reading The Bible in 90 days through a program to do just that so inadvertently, a spiritual goal arose that year because of an intellectual goal.

    Likewise, this year a physical goal was to run a marathon, but with my husband, dad and friends running it with me, it became a social and family goal or focus as well because it was a way to spend valuable time together both in training and in traveling to the race. It was good for me physically, socially, and quite honestly, spiritually and intellectually because when I did run alone, I listened to business podcasts or sermons.

    So using this method to set goals, like others, has its’ greatest strength that leads to its’ greatest weakness- the holistic approach can lead to redundancy.

    If you have trouble with setting goals to impact your life as a whole, this may be the method for you, but if you have adult ADD- aka difficulty focusing- then the simpler approach covered last week, may be better for you.

     

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  • Methods to the Madness of Goal Setting

    Methods to the Madness of Goal Setting

    It’s that time of year.  New Year’s resolutions abound still on this 10th day of the New Year.  We’re sticking to them now.  Will we by month end?

    New Years’ resolutions are quite simply, goals.  They can be set at any time of the year, and there are as many methods for setting and pursuing them as there are failed attempts at reaching them.

    But goal setting is a method that works. Research shows it does if it is handled within certain contexts and parameters. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m all about goal setting as a performance management method. I wish more company’s performance management and evaluation processes were centered around setting good goals tied to company values and strategy. Then, leaders could coach people regularly towards goal attainment through wise action planning and implementation.

    But the method to the madness in goal setting that works, depends on you. The method you choose to determine and also analyze your goal(s) for appropriateness is a matter of preference, not a matter of right or wrong.

    However, three I like and recommend:

    Stephen Covey- What’s the most important thing?

    Zig Zaglar- Wheel of Life

    Michael Hyatt- Pursuing the right thing in the right way

     

    All have pros and cons and cater to different personalities, mindsets and segments of life.  But all can work if you pick the right method and then, most importantly, have a solid plan for reaching them.  The action toward the goal is much more important than the goal itself (or as Nick Saban says, it’s the process)

    I’ll be describing each of these methods above so you can have some fuel for thought on which one might work best for you this year.  Then I’ll round out January with why the action plan and implementation is actually more important than the goal.

    Take the month of January to set sound goals and put a plan in place to pursue them.  The time it takes to do this is will help you achieve success for the rest of the eleven months in 2017.

  • Don’t Miss the Bus- Talent Management Lessons at its Finest from Lane Kiffin

    Don’t Miss the Bus- Talent Management Lessons at its Finest from Lane Kiffin

    I don’t know about you, but there has been a lot of football on at our house over the holiday break.  So much so, that as I was putting up Christmas decorations on Monday, I was silently cussing the college football season wishing my husband would get off the couch and help instead of watching more of what seems to be an endless bowl season.

    Then I hear him say,  “WHAT?!?!”  and turn up Gameday.

    “Babe,” he yells, “He fired Kiffin.”

    “He’s (Nick Saban) is about to come on live, you gotta come listen to this.”

    Despite my frustration, I stopped what I was doing and did go down there, thinking, this is going to be good.

    And good, it was indeed.  And so was the commentary afterward that I’m sure will continue to go on even after the National Championship is over.   As a talent management nerd, my mind was going crazy with all the lessons gleaned from this late-breaking news.

    You can watch the full clip of what Saban had to say here, but the basic lessons bowl (pun intended) down to:

    1. Most people can’t do two jobs well at once. With Kiffin having accepted the Florida Atlantic job, he was in a place of trying to steer an offense to win a national championship, while at the same time, recruit a staff and a team for his new gig.   While I’m all in favor of two (or more) week notices from a professional etiquette standpoint, you’ve got to weigh the benefit of keeping someone around whose mind is in a completely different place.   Even Kiffin admitted, “Trying to do both jobs, I thought it would be easier than it was.” Kirby Smart and Jim McElwain were able to do it, but both had a level of discipline and maturity that I think Kiffin lacks.
    2. Great leaders eliminate distractions for their team. Kiffin, not just this week, but previously as well, has been a distraction. He had a rant with the media before the playoff game and the media took to publicizing that he missed the bus again, literally.   How does the offensive coordinator miss the team bus, not once, but twice in one year’s time?  When it comes to a level of maturity that is needed to behave in a way that conforms to Nick Saban’s disciplined process, you can’t have your offensive coordinator being the bad example for your team and it being a focus that distracts players (and the media) from the important task at hand.   I want to say come on dude, set an example.
    3. There comes a point where opposites don’t attract, they repel. Much has been said about the differences in Kiffin’s and Saban’s personalities.  In one regard, having the differences in personalities from a leadership and organizational perspective adds tremendous value.  Where one is weak, the other is strong.  But, heck, what weaknesses does Saban really have when it comes to winning championships?   I was surprised to be honest, when Saban gave Kiffin a chance and hired him in the first place.  But when you can’t get your act together and it shows up in the way your offense plays in a key game, good leaders make sure those who have personality issues that lead to on the field issues move on.
    4. Yet to be seen, but great players can take direction and succeed under any great leader. Much of the commentary after Saban’s announcement dealt with how Jalen Hurts, the true freshman quarterback was going to handle a change in the voice in his head at the last hour before the most important game of his life.   I get where people are coming from on this.  Is change so late in the game good?  What is the greater distraction?  I think it came down to Saban thinking his true freshman was more mature, and therefore equipped to handle a change, than his offensive coordinator.

    As I sit in a local coffee café writing this blog post and preparing for a new year to hit at work, a conversation strikes up without me even prompting it about the Kiffin news.

    I silently grin to myself and listen, thinking again, this is going to be good.

    “He screws around,” an older gentleman said of Kiffin.  (I wonder how literally he means this, because I think it is quite literally, true too.)

    The lady making chicken salad behind the counter said, “His play calling was awful.  He isn’t cut out to be a head coach.”

    As the conversation progresses, it turns from Kiffin to Saban.

    “But you know they say he is hard to work for,” the chicken salad lady says.  “I wouldn’t care, I’d do it. I’d work for him,” she says.

    It is yet to be seen if Kiffin will indeed make a good head coach.  And it is yet to be seen if Jalen Hurts can handle another guy being the voice in his head in the National Championship game.
    But my money is on Jalen (and Saban).  Both have exhibited the discipline to not miss the bus.