Category: General

Week 14

Weekly Mileage: 32

Long Run: 16

I dipped out last week and didn’t write a week 13 running and leading post. I was too busy with work and with trying to keep up with training and family, so I gave myself a bye week- for writing, not running (we ran 38 miles last week).  Maybe the best leadership lesson for this post should be for us all to give ourselves a bye every once in a while….

But a topic has been weighing on me related to running and leading stemming from my long run of 22 miles alone a couple of weeks ago.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought. And if I’m honest, the training for this entire marathon hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be either. And I think the reason why is because of one simple tactic: chunking the training and the long runs into manageable pieces – small, accomplishable pieces that I can wrap my brain around.

For the long run, I found myself breaking it into these pieces: Eight miles on the beach road and a water, Gatorade and chews break where I had set these things out prior to getting started.  Five and a half miles to my hotel and back to where I had left these things out.  Six miles out and back on a backwoods trail for another break, then two and a half miles back to the hotel.  Done.   In each section, I just thought about getting to the next break, not getting the 22 miles done and it helped me mentally and physically.

Same is true for the longer view of the training plan.  I just posted one month at a time on the fridge and tried to take it week by week. Low and behold, we’re headed to Philly for the run a week from today, and the training seemed manageable (with a lot of help along the way that made it manageable).

Getting an itch to run a marathon? You can view and download the month by month calendars we used here:

• August Calendar 
• September Calendar 
• October Calendar 
• November Calendar

When we think about what makes people successful in achieving long-term goals, many people point to grit as a key factor in doing so. “Grit is living life like it is a marathon, not a sprint,” Angela Duckworth, the guru of grit says.   She goes on to say in her TED Talk on the topic, though, that science knows very little about how to build grit.

In my experience, chunking tasks to meet a long-term goal into smaller, more manageable pieces is a good step in the right direction.   Many people refer to this as creating the action plan and focusing on it instead of the end goal.  Nick Saban would call this “the process”. And boy does he win with it.

So if you find yourself overwhelmed in trying to accomplish your leadership goals, break them down into smaller pieces.   And if you need a calendar type model to help you accomplish this like the monthly race calendars do, Gantt charts are a beneficial way to manage projects with long-term goals.  Here’s a tutorial on how to make one for yourself in Excel.

What helps you achieve success towards your marathons in life?

Today’s post is a video of founder of Horizon Point Consulting, Inc., Mary Ila Ward, discussing her path to entrepreneurship.  She addresses the following five questions in the video for those considering a business start-up:

1. Can you stick your foot in the water before jumping in full force? If not, have you planned financially to jump out on your own all at once?
2. How are you building relationships now to foster potential success for going out on your own in the future?
3. Is entrepreneurship right for you?  What is your motivation for doing what you are doing?
4. Do you have a support system in place to do it?
5. Finally and most importantly, do you have something that people want and need?  If you aren’t meeting a need you won’t be successful.

Week 10 Mileage: 47 miles

Long Run Distance:  20 miles

Shalane Flanagan, who was the top American marathon finisher in Rio (6^th overall),  almost didn’t make the Olympic team. The trials were in LA during a day of grueling heat, and after starting strong, things unraveled fast.

Having trouble with the digestion of her fluids, she started to get chills which indicates a problem with dehydration.  Her drinks were too concentrated and she ended up having absorption problems. At mile 23, she described her experience on the Runner’s World Show Podcast,

“Amy like (her training partner), I’m really struggling…”

“My face was getting really, really red, and she (Amy) could tell I was starting to overheat. At that point I thought I may be missing out on my fourth Olympic team.”

After finishing in the 3^rd spot and qualifying, she underwent a sweat analysis that analyzed her particular genetics and sweat composition to see what type of fluids and nutrition she needed, customized for her, in order to run in Rio- also in hot, humid conditions- to optimize performance.  She is a heavy sweater, sweating almost three times more than her training partner did during the same test.  Amy and Shalane had different fuels in their bottles in Rio and hydrated differently because they perspire differently.

Just like Olympic runners need different things to optimize their performance, different people need different things to maximize their performance at work through the motivational techniques their leaders deploy.  There are different strokes for different folks.

Some employees may be motivated by public praise whereas another might want to crawl under the table if you praise them in front of the team.  Some may need an opportunity to think things through and plan things out in order to perform successfully, whereas others may maximize their performance through the adrenaline rush that comes from a fast and spur of the moment pace.

Do you know what type of fuel each of your team members need to optimize performance? If not, here are a few things you can consider for discerning key motivators:

1. Ask them what motivates them! Email us and we will send you a simple questionnaire that can help facilitate this discussion between you and your employees.
2. Assess them.   There are several personality assessments out there that help us understand what motivates or drives people at the individual level and how that drive interacts with others to drive team performance. Email us and we can also set you up with one of these.
3. Watch and listen to them. Can you see when someone’s stress level is rising?  What triggered it?  Stress masquerades as demotivation.  Too much of those triggers and you are going to burn someone out.  In contrast, when do you notice someone is energized and excited?  They probably need more of the environment, tasks or interactions that lead to that excitement to optimize motivation.

Ask, assess, watch and listen.  This will help you customize your motivational elixir for optimal performance.

Week 5

Mileage: 32 (I only ran 28- I fell down the steps on Sunday and my foot looked like this for the beginning of the week.)

Long Run Distance:  13 (Half- Marathon Race)

We ran 14 miles last Saturday, the longest distance my husband and training partner have ever run.  It went fairly well, but running towards the “finish line” of this run topped it off as a memorable one. As we rounded the corner, we could see that someone had left four cold beers on the curb for us.  Our neighbors had timed our return and set them out, gleefully watching through the windows to gauge our reactions. It was a fun surprise (regardless of whether or not we even wanted a beer or not) for a variety of reasons that I think leaders can learn from:

1. Pay attention. The surprise showed us that our neighbors knew enough about what we were doing and when we were doing it to time our “reward” right.   They were going out of their way to pay attention, placing the beers on the curb in just enough time to not be seen but also make sure they were still cold.  Do you pay attention enough as a leader to be able to catch people in a way that surprises and delights them?

2. Know your people in order to customize. They knew us well enough to customize our beer selections, and to even take it a step backwards, know that we actually drink beer. (Don’t get caught up on the beer here as the example if you’re not into alcohol or disagree with drinking.  More power to you if you are, but the beer is just a metaphor for anything that is customized to your people to surprise and delight).  Do you know your people well enough to customize surprise or planned rewards to be meaningful?

3. Create an experience that lasts longer than the actual reward. The surprise created an experience for us that we will remember.  It was unique, funny, and our neighbors came out of the house after we reacted to our treat (Drew gulped his down, I still reached for the water) and they helped us celebrate the run.  I’m sure this will become a “remember the time when story” amongst our neighbors. In the competitive marketplace for talent, employers and leaders who create experiences for their people that are memorable and unique will attract and retain talent more effectively.  Are you creating experiences that last with your employees?

Go surprise and delight today!

Although the great recession of 2008-2009 is still a fixture in many peoples’ minds, the job market has changed substantially since those recession years.   I’m hearing more HR pros and business leaders complain about not being able to source and hire quality talent in a broader set of areas than usual.   We aren’t just complaining about the need for computer programmers and skilled tradespersons anymore.

According to the latest BLS Report on job openings and labor turnover,  “Job openings have trended upward since their series low in July 2009, and have surpassed the prerecession peak (April 2007). In July 2016, there were 5.9 million job openings.”  If you don’t think it has happened yet, you’re wrong- job seekers, or those not so active but passive job candidates that we really want, are back in the driver’s seat.

Given this information, there are three things you can do:

1. Lower your expectations and hire to those lowered standards
2. Lure the best talent in by upping your pay rates above the competition
3. Develop your internal talent to be prepared to fill the jobs now and for the future

What I see most often happening in a talent crunch is companies looking externally instead of internally to address the problem, yet they don’t lower their expectations or raise their pay.  Then we get the definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing you’ve always done and expecting different results.

Look internally to address your talent shortage woes.  This puts the investment you’ve already made in hiring to better use and it should even motivate your millennials as well as others to stay with you because you are invested in their growth.

How do you keep labor market trends from causing problems for you and your organization?