Blog
It’s Reception (WT482)
The phone rang. “Hi Shirley, it’s Reception. Are you guys extending over the long weekend?” I had no idea who Reception was, nor to what she was referring. I had to ask her, “Reception. Reception from where?” She didn’t give me the answer I was looking for. “Are you guys extending over the long weekend?” she repeated. My mind was racing. What reception? What about the long weekend? Then it suddenly dawned on me. She was the receptionist at the caravan park we were staying at. I was working onsite at a client’s premises and normally wouldn’t have even answered the phone,...
You Need a Driver (WT481)
I’ve mentioned a few times about the REACH profile. In the past few weeks, I’ve worked with a number of companies where the executive team have completed their profiles. It has been really interesting to see the results. In some companies, they have at least one of each profile (Counselor, Coach, Advisor and Driver), whilst others are missing a Driver. You need a Driver. A Driver is focussed on the “what”. They are results and outcome focussed and they will push us to get things done. Without a Driver, we can tend to take it a bit easy and may not accomplish as much as we are...
Clean Up Your Mess (WT480)
Years ago, Ross and I attended a week long conference with Jack Canfield, best selling author of The Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books in Scottsdale, Arizona. The conference was called "Breakthrough to Success" and was based on one of his other best selling books "The Success Principles – How to Get from Where You are Now to Where You Want to Be". One of the lessons Jack taught us was to take 100% Responsibility for ourselves and our actions. It was confronting at the time and yet so liberating. This week in our leadership experience, I shared a similar exercise with...
Chicken and Chips (WT479)
This week, I facilitated Days 1 and 2 of the Leading Yourself and Leading Others experience. One of the topics is an Introduction to the Assertiveness Model. There is a big difference between being Assertive and being Aggressive. Sadly, a lot of people confuse the two. If you’re acting in an Assertive manner it means you get your needs met but not at the expense of others (win-win). Whereas if you act in an Aggressive manner, you get your needs met and you don’t really give a continental about others’ needs (win-lose). I was horrified whilst waiting in a shopping centre car...
Know What You are Competing For (WT478)
This week, I trialled a new activity for self-awareness with some participants for an in-house training session. Participants had to share their preferences for how their colleagues could best work with them. To make it fun, participants had to select some items without realising that the number of items they selected equalled the number of things they had to share about themselves. The instructions were simple, “Take as many items as you like.” It was really interesting to see how the participants turned this into a competition. They competed for items which backfired on them...
What Game Will You Play (WT477)
Have you ever thought about the type of player you are, when it comes to games? It’s an interesting concept and something I encourage you to do because “How we do anything is how we do everything”. In the last few weeks I dipped my toe into using social media to promote my next leadership experience and I found I had to challenge a few limiting beliefs. One of those beliefs was that I had to get everything right in order to advertise. If I was paying for ads, I wanted to make sure that I got a return on my investment. I had to reframe my belief and expectation to that of...
Your Manner Matters (WT476)
Firstly, I want to say that I am not complaining and this isn’t a rant. Rather, the goal for the stories in this week’s thought is to remind us of the importance of our manner and the impact it can have – both positive and negative. Here we go: As we’ve been travelling around Far North Queensland we’ve been staying in a mix of caravan parks, national parks and free campsites. We generally only plan our itinerary a few days in advance and mostly call a prospective caravan park a few hours before we intend to arrive. We got caught out a few times, booking and paying in advance, only...
You Can’t Make Your Team Compete (WT475)
As a leader, it’s your job to get the best out of your team. This doesn’t mean you are a slave driver and that you crack the whip to milk every last minute of productivity. Rather it means that you help your team to reach their full potential. When they are actively engaged and enjoying themselves, productivity will naturally be high. This week one of my coaching clients was sharing how she and her sister have been enjoying an exercise challenge. She was miffed when her sister pipped her at the post before the deadline. She was also miffed when she had finished a workout yet didn’t receive...
You’re Such an Idiot (WT474)
Of course I’m not talking about you. This is what I’ve been saying to myself the past few days; even though I know better than to do that. Sometimes my ability to criticise myself astounds me. I’ve been working day and night to make sure I have everything ready for our launch today for the Leading Yourself and Leading Others Membership Site. I have pushed myself to learn about 4 or 5 new software programs to make sure they all talk to each other. I was setting up the member logins and wanted to simply add their details to the new site. There was an action step that generated a Welcome...
Have Faith – Take Action (WT473)
It was 1am. We were sleeping in a paddock (a free camp), with only two other caravans nearby. We had stayed there the night before with about 20 vans and motorhomes and it was quiet and peaceful. We felt safe. But not the next night. The locals had been partying all night and were starting to get unruly. Walking through the paddock they were singing, dancing, fighting and swearing. I woke Ross. “Do you hear that?” “What?” “There’s people outside and they sound like they’re drunk. I’m uncomfortable. I think we should go.” “It’ll be fine. They’re just loud like Charlie used to be....