Horizon Point Consulting

Category: General

Horizon Point writes about dozens of leadership, career, workplace, and workforce topics. Sometimes we write whatever we want. Read this category for general blogs from the HPC team.

  • Are You Full of Ideas? Where Do They Go?

    Are You Full of Ideas? Where Do They Go?

    Call them “ah-ha” moments or moments of clarity, but everyone at some point or another has a great idea pop into their mind. Many of these ideas could be the source of helping you live your mission (see Power of 3 Worksheet), create career satisfaction, and be of source of helping others, but how often do we listen to that voice in our heads?

     

    YouTube came about because three college guys wanted a simple way to share videos online with their friends. They sold YouTube to Google for $1.6 billion a year later. Not to mention, it was selected as the invention of the Year by Time magazine.

     

    Dave Ramsey has become the go-to name in family financial planning. He writes in his book Entreleadership that he was sitting around one morning writing some goals down and came up with the idea to“Develop a high-touch support group concept that is a seminar and counseling.” This became Financial Peace University which has now helped millions of people live debt free.

    A friend of mine was struggling with where to store a ladder in his garage so that it was out of the way. He thought other people might have the same problem too. He came up with a simple device to store a ladder overhead in a garage or on a ceiling that included a simple way to get it down. His idea was patented and is now being sold through a third party company that gets it in big name retailers.

    How to Capitalize on Your Ideas?

     

    1. Keep a Notebook Handy

    The first place to start with these ideas is actually getting them down on paper.

     

    2. Find a Need and Fill It

    Notice anything in common with all three of the examples? They all were people who saw a need and their idea found a way to meet that need. The focus became on helping others do something easier or live better lives.

     

    3. ACT!

    I would imagine that on average, most people have about three ideas fleet through their mind in a week. Some may be good, some may be bad, but what’s a shame is that the majority of these ideas are not written down, much less acted upon. They are simply forgotten. After you’ve taken the step to write down you ideas, revisit them weekly and determine where you need to act. Get input from others, do some research, but act on what you feel like can meet a need and help you live your mission.

     

    What’s the idea have you been mulling over that you need to act on?

  • 3 Tips for Checking your Facts: Leaders Know Things Aren’t Always What They Seem.

    How many times a week do you get second or third-hand information? By this I mean information that comes to you through someone other than the source or person that created that information. I tried to count up how many times I received information this way this week, and it was too many times to count.

    For example, most news we get is through the lens of the writer, the reporter, or the producer. When we hear from someone else about another person’s mistake or misbehavior, it isn’t from the original source or we didn’t see it first hand. Some people would say it is just gossip. Even when we look at what may appear to be black and white facts of data, sometimes it isn’t even what it seems. The data has often been filtered to through the lens of someone who wants to paint a picture or make a point with it.

    I’ve notice that good leaders always have this things-aren’t-really-what-they-seem radar up and they are prone to check their facts before make decisions based on the information. They realize not everything can be viewed just at the surface.

    Based on observation of these types of leaders, here is some advice for making sure you have your facts straight before making a decision or passing judgment:

    Be aware that things aren’t always what they seem. It all goes back to (self) awareness.

    Go to the source. If you hear that someone has a problem with such and such, then ask that person- in person. Not in email.

    Get both sides of the story. If person A says this and person B says that get person A and B together and figure this out.

    When has your things-aren’t-always-what-they-seem radar helped you make a better decision?

  • Who Keeps You Accountable?

    Who Keeps You Accountable?

    If you’re a goal-oriented person, having someone to keep you accountable for your personal and professional goals may seem trivial. Why would you do that if you are able to keep yourself accountable for your own goals?

    However, the best way to keep yourself on track with goals and actually make the journey through your goals more meaningful is to have some partners in crime to keep you on track no matter how focused and motivated you are.

    That’s why the Power of 3 Worksheet points to establishing three accountability partners to help you live your mission.

     

    An example may be helpful to illustrate the value of accountability partners. You may have seen when I went pubic with my goals at the beginning of the year (Go Public with Your Goals) that my first goal for 2013 is to maximize my mornings.

     

    Maximizing my mornings wasn’t going so well after the newness of New Year’s resolution time wore off around the end of January. But, with a friend and neighbor of mine, we committed to running the Nashville half-marathon in April. Because of her schedule and mine, this required 5:30 am training runs. There was no other time to do it. Two to three mornings a week, we rose before the sun to get that training run in. If she had not been waiting on me those mornings, I doubt my feet would have hit the floor. This sprung into action my whole day, and helped me maximize my morning time in the ways that I had sought to at the beginning of the year, but wasn’t quite able to do on my own.

     

    You see, establishing an accountability partner isn’t a process where you necessarily have to go up to someone as ask, “I need your help, will you be my accountability partner?” Oftentimes, accountability partners come in the form of friends and family or professional colleagues that help keep you on track, and they may not even know they are serving this purpose.

     

    Even though the half-marathon is long over, we still meet 2-3 times a week for that 5:30 am run, and my mornings and days have gone a lot better because she is waiting on me bright and early. This doesn’t take into account the time we get to spend talking while we run which, through her listening and wise council, keeps me accountable and grounded in many other ways. My dad has also served this purpose on morning runs for many years as well, and he joins us often.

    Accountability partners are valuable for the habits and behaviors they can help you create. But more importantly, they are valuable because of the relationship. Nothing gets done, or anything of true meaning really gets done, in my opinion, without lasting relationships.

    Who keeps you accountable?

    You may also like:

    Do you have a better half?

    Want to be the next COO of Facebook?

  • Real Leadership

    I have a good friend who cannot stand fake people.   Her philosophy is, be anything you want to be, just be real.   She has all types of friends, with all different background and interests, but she can spot a fake from a mile away. And once you are insincere with her, she writes you off. She has no need for you. Want to make sure she writes you off? Act like you are invincible, with no flaws, which to her is really the largest form of insincerity.

    Although her philosophy could be a lesson in leadership on giving people a second chance, I think her viewpoint also gives pause in considering authentic leadership.

    Keeping it real leads to leaders people want to follow.

    Consider these quotes:

    “…the act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and beauty.” From David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell 

    Why? Because it humbles us and makes us truly human. It gives us something we can learn from. We like people who are real, and we can get on board with following them. Invincible people really aren’t all that fun because they seem to make us, as individuals, feel more flawed than we already are. The truth is, we are all flawed and we have all made mistakes.

    “There is an important lesson in that for battles with all kinds of giants. The powerful and the strong are not always what the seem.” From David and Goliath

    Do we like the giants more when we learn they aren’t always what they seem because they make them more real and more human?

    And finally,

    “I used to be afraid that if I was authentic I might take a hit, but now I know that being real means I will take a hit.”From Love Does

    There is a fine line between having being able to cast a vision and lead people towards the implementation of a mission and acting like you know it all and are invincible.

    I think the leaders that are most effective can cast that vision and mission to inspire people towards action, but they do it with the humility that comes from acknowledging they are human too. This can be done by exposing their weaknesses and, quite possibly, taking what the world sees as weaknesses and using them as strengths.

    We’d rather root for or follow the underdog, David (as Gladwell points out in his book David and Goliath) than Goliath any day. But why? I think mainly because he appears to be more human or real than Goliath does and we can get behind someone we can relate to.

    When has a leader expressing humanness made you want to follow him or her more?

  • 4 Tips to Set Mission Focused Goals

    A few weeks ago, I discussed the need to set a personal mission and then question yourself when it comes to living out that mission.   The Power of 3 Worksheet can help you with this.  Another component to this worksheet and living out your mission is to set goals for yourself.

    Here are some tips for setting goals:

    1. Set just three goals related to your mission.  Any less is not enough, get too many more and nothing is really a priority.
    2.  32- Square the power of your three goals by writing them goals down.    Research shows that those who write their goals down are 9 times more likely to achieve success.
    3. Are your goals SMART?  Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable Realistic and Time Bound?
    4. Are you goals outcome based or task based?  It’s important to have both.  I used to think that all a person needed in terms of a goal was an outcome.  For example, “Achieve $100,000 in sales in 2013”.   This adheres to the SMART goal principles (of course if this is achievable and realistic based on what you are trying to sell).  However, this alone, I’ve come to believe is not enough.  We need to create habits and behaviors within our goals that get us to the end results we want. Setting task-specific goals on how to get there will help tremendously For example,  “Make 10 sales calls each week” would be good task-based goal that is behavior based and creates a habit that can help reach the outcome goal of an annual sales figure to achieve.

    What goals have you set for yourself this year?

     

    Some other helpful posts on goal setting:

    SMART Goals

    Diminishing Returns

    Feedback

    Go Public with Your Goals – (note, I violated tip #1 here!)