March, 2012

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How Leadership Is Like Beer

Kevin Eikenberry

I caught myself humming a tune from my past the other day. It’s an old Tom T. Hall song titled “I Like Beer.” Just to give you a flavor, here is the second half of the chorus. “Whiskey’s too rough, champagne costs too much, and vodka put my mouth in gear. This [.].

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Seven Proven Ways to Inspire Others

Leadership Freak

** You make a difference by inspiring others to make a difference. Here’s how: 1. Stop fixing. If your passion for excellence and success drives you to constantly fix people, stop it. Problem centered fixers invite self-protective restraint in others. 2. Compassion wins. The pursuit of personal gain and glory doesn’t inspire, it threatens. Inspiration occurs when [.].

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Joel Garfinkle | How To Get Ahead In Your Career In Today's Market

Tanveer Nasser

Regardless of whether the economy is going well or not, one thing that's remained consistent in the workplace over the last few decades is the reality that each of us is responsible for managing our careers and with it, the opportunities we obtain for professional growth and development. But how exactly do we obtain these opportunities to get ahead in our career?

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The Truth About Your Time

Kevin Eikenberry

I spend many of my days with leaders and employees from all over. Of all of the conversations we have, or of all of the side conversations I hear, one topic is most universal. Time. Or more specifically, that they don’t have enough of it. I get that people feel that they have lots to [.].

Manager 95
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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Radically Change Your Leadership, Today

Leadership Freak

How do you make people feel? The way you make people feel may be the most important thing about your leadership. Relentlessly looking ahead to noble destinations is never enough. Efficient systems don’t work apart from people. Values must find expression in behaviors. Feelings follow us everywhere. What emotional states do you create in others?

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How to Quickly Overcome Inexperience

Leadership Freak

10 dangers of inexperienced leaders: Needing to be liked. Blaming. Emotional decisions. Impulsiveness. Trying too hard. Neglecting the long term. Focusing on symptoms rather than causes. Aiming without pulling the trigger. Meddling. Forget to say thank you. (Speaking of thanks, many of these points were inspired by contributors on the Leadership Freak Facebook Page.

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Six Step Transformational Conversations

Leadership Freak

“Many people who could have made the biggest difference in my life didn’t.” @pastorhudson tweeted back, “WOW that’s so true! My question is why? Did they not know? Not care? Not have time?” I thought, “Great questions?” Why haven’t they made a bigger difference? We didn’t go to them? They didn’t come to us? They had [.].

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It’s Harder for Women

Leadership Freak

“The path to the top is harder for women than men,” Ruth Malloy. Men can be men but women must be both. Hay Group has identified six leadership styles. I’ve circled stereotypical male styles in blue and female in pink. Women using traditional masculine styles without including feminine styles are labeled bitches. Men lacking stereotypical feminine [.].

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What the Heck is a “Ding in the Universe”

Leadership Freak

I never appreciated Steve Jobs’ quote, “I want to put a ding in the universe,” until I talked with Gary Hamel, Wall Street Journal’s #1 most influential business thinker. I asked Gary what leadership behaviors have the most impact on organizations. Gary took a swing at the reason we don’t put a ding in the [.].

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How to Be Competent at Being Incompetent

Leadership Freak

Guess what insecure leaders do when one of their weaknesses comes to light? They immediate explain why it isn’t a weakness and how it’s not that bad. I see it all the time. It’s hard to acknowledge what you can’t do well when you live in a world that expects you to be good at [.].

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Change Management 101: A Practical 3 Part Guide

Implementing new tools or business processes in your organization? Lemon Learning put together a practical 3 part guide to prevent the pitfalls of change management. Drive a successful change management project from diagnosis through to measurement.

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Finding Your Power

Leadership Freak

Focusing on what others should have done is a powerless excuse maker’s paradise. Responses reflect values. Excuse maker and blamers value themselves above others. They’ll drive the knife in your back if it serves their purposes. Compassionate leaders value others. They believe in lifting rather than crushing. Responses reflect confidence. Blamers live defensive lives, feeling [.].

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What is Organizational Culture, Anyway?

Kevin Eikenberry

Have you ever been in the woods, walking on a trail? If so you know that while you see the trees in front of you it is hard to describe the whole forest. At that moment, the forest for you is the trees – because you just see the trees around you. Patterns, dimension and [.].

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Stop Working Hard to Remain Stupid

Leadership Freak

** Inexperience is under rated. Inexperienced people enjoy the courage of ignorance. They say, “Why not” rather than “we tried that.” Ignorance allows them to see what could be. They see fewer problems and more opportunities. They try because they haven’t failed. Stupid and experienced: Benjamin Franklin said, “We are all born ignorant, but one [.].

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Thriving Through Processes

Leadership Freak

Organizations without processes never thrive. Effective and efficient processes create platforms that enable, enhance, and evaluate both individual and organizational performance. What’s your systematic process for achieving breakthroughs, living transparently, and solving problems, for example? Powerful processes: Eliminate drama. Prevent distractions.

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Is Training the Right Solution?

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.

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The Final Four Thoughts on Learning

Kevin Eikenberry

Normally on Friday, I share a quotation; then provide questions to ponder, action steps and my thoughts about that quotation. Not today. Today, we acknowledge what many Americans are thinking about and will be watching tomorrow – the men’s NCAA Final Four. There are four teams remaining before a champion is crowned. Two games tomorrow [.].

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The Secret to Dynamic Presentations

Leadership Freak

Yesterday I gave my first keynote presentation since the accident on November 20, 2011. It felt like putting old jeans on. Successful presenters create dynamic connections between themselves and audiences. Connect with the past: Weeks before the presentation, I’d asked several people, “What was the best organizational meeting you attended?” They all replied, “The one [.].

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When to Make the Most Difference

Leadership Freak

Painful endings and uncertain beginnings are the two moments you make the most difference in a leader’s life. Enabling others to continue on their current course often adds value; facilitating an ending is a treasure. Endings are like giving birth. They begin with pain. Painful endings: All great journeys begin with painful endings. Immanent endings [.].

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Finding a Sense of Wonder

Kevin Eikenberry

Often we look at kids and wish we could recapture some of that magic of childhood. One of the many things that make children magical is that complete willingness to have a sense of wonder. I’m a big fan of wonder, so much so that I wrote a chapter about it in my book Vantagepoints [.].

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Revitalizing Dry Content: A Lesson in Engagement

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

We’ve all been there. You’ve been given a pile of dry content and asked to create a compelling eLearning course. You’re determined to create something more engaging than the same old course that learners quickly click through, but how do you take this “boring” content and create something relevant and engaging? Many instructional designers will say, “Boring in means boring out.

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What Leaders Can Learn from Spiders

Kevin Eikenberry

Have you ever stopped to really look at a spider web? If you aren’t afraid of spiders, the next time you have a chance, stop and look at a spider web. What you will find ais an intricately designed work of art and engineering marvel. Every part of the web is connected to every other [.].

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Creating a Hoop Free Zone

Leadership Freak

Dogs enjoy jumping through hoops, people don’t. Sluggish organizations require employees to jump through hoops before they act. Hoops represent frigid control. Passion is inversely proportional to the number of hoops required. Hoops are roadblocks masquerading as protection. Why it matters: Fewer hoops fuel passion. Dynamic organizations eliminate controlling hoops and develop energizing stepping stones that propel [.].

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Your Values in Action

Kevin Eikenberry

Last week, my son Parker was telling me about an exercise he completed in one of his college courses. Students were asked to list the most important things and people in their lives in various categories. During the course of the exercise, they were continually asked to take one item away. One by one, important [.].

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Turning Pickle Barrels into Wine Casks

Leadership Freak

Unrelenting pressure, backstabbing and undercutting, fatigue, feeling powerless and under appreciated spawn burnout. According to Maslach and Jackson the six factors of burnout are: Working too much. Unjust environments. Little support. Working where you feel unable to effect change. Serving values you loath. Insufficient reward (whether the currency is money, prestige, or positive feedback).

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Brain Fog HQ: Memory Enhancement Techniques for Professional Development

Speaker: Chester Santos – Author, International Keynote Speaker, Executive Coach, Corporate Trainer, Memory Expert, U.S. Memory Champion

In October, scientists discovered that 75% of patients who experienced brain fog had a lower quality of life at work than those who did not. At best, brain fog makes you slower and less efficient. At worst, your performance and cognitive functions are impaired, resulting in memory, management, and task completion problems. In this entertaining and interactive presentation, Chester Santos, "The International Man of Memory," will assist you in developing life-changing skills that will greatly enha

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Only Fools Trust Everyone

Leadership Freak

Don’t trust people who don’t trust you. Joan’s boss asked her what she thought of their company’s banner product. Joan replied, “I love the value it brings but in many ways it’s outdated.” She offered suggestions on how to improve process, delivery, and application. That was Joan’s mistake. It seemed the meeting went well. Later, [.].

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Buffet and Bennis on Delegating

Leadership Freak

** Mediocre leaders can’t or won’t delegate. Delegating may be the most unglamorous part of leadership. I woke up this morning with three things on my mind, delegating an important role in the organization I lead, and two Warrens. They all go together. Warren Buffet on delegation: Hire people and don’t tell them what to [.].

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Finding a Story for a Specific Communication Purpose

Kevin Eikenberry

Tom had a major presentation coming up in less than a week, and he was concerned. This presentation was important not only for his team and his company, but also for his career. He knew that if he did well it would make all the difference. for everyone. And if it bombed, [.].

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Leadership Lessons From Car Tires

Leadership Freak

Organizations and individuals remain stuck because they don’t understand and/or can’t endure the disorienting unbalance “new” always creates. Wise leaders understand prepare for, accept, and work through the pains of disequilibrium. Unbalance always precedes balance. From the garage: The tires on your car are balanced on spin balance machines. Technicians spin the tires and add [.].

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Love at Work

Leadership Freak

“You don’t love me,” comes from a heart that wants to be loved, but isn’t? “ I love you,” signals beginnings; “You don’t love me,” endings. Love’s ending begins with thoughts like: You put someone else ahead of me. You don’t think of me and my wants. You don’t have my best interests at heart. [.].

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Making Feedback Really Work

Kevin Eikenberry

I didn’t grow up a Bruce Lee fan. I knew who he was, was aware that he died far too young, and, until the last few years, that was about all I knew or thought about him. Until I met Dwight Woods. Dwight was personally trained in martial arts by one of Bruce Lee’s students. Dwight [.].

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Measure Carefully

Kevin Eikenberry

Today, a metaphorical quotation packing a powerful punch. “The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measure anew each time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect them to fit me.” – George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, Nobel laureate Questions to Ponder What old beliefs [.].

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Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Kevin Eikenberry

Today’s Resource Recommendation is Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. Read the subtitle again, outloud. The future is better than you think. Yes, the world has big problems: famine, water quality and quantity, population growth, disease, and disappearing energy resources. And this book says that the future [.].

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Second Guessing Sucks

Leadership Freak

Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you make a choice. You’re driving down the road and realize you aren’t comfortable. Choices expose what we really want. Maybe you feel trapped because you already decided. How can we make the rubber hit the road without creating a binding decision. Make nonbinding decisions: Public decisions [.].

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Discovering the Two Components of Hope

Leadership Freak

Those without hope cannot be led. Hope is the engine that drives success. Despair drives defeat. The overwhelming power of hope is demonstrated in it’s ability to inspire unimaginable endurance. Think of hope gone bad when a wife endures abuse hoping he’ll change. Wise leaders instill enabling hope that energizes sustained progress toward noble goals. [.].