Empowering Leadership and Music Articles
Each article uses our empower framework that we also use for our leadership coaching services.
Count on executing perfeCT…
“Johnny try harder!!” One of the shorter members of our team was not able to keep up with the boys as they were becoming young men. His parents were hoping their voices would “help” him to be a more PERFECT player… and I could Count on it making him execute worse. He knew that there was no way to catch these bigger kids, and eventually, he left the team. Having been short my whole life, I understood, but that didn’t make it easy for me…
wonder how to make perfEct Easy?
“Play the Simple Ball”. Standing on a field that cold March morning, it was my admonishment to the young men preparing to play the game they love and qualify for the Finals – if we could win this match. We had jelled well this season, but this last hurdle was to beat our archrival – the wonder of which were mostly our close friends, including the Coach of the other team…
Focus and observe Radical Collaboration with PERFECT
“Could you possibly finish a thought?”. If you know mathematics, you would observe my sentences involve a lot of “open parentheses” – the start of something, and then something else, and then something else. Closing parentheses, which allow thoughts to be processed and considered – those are not easy for me to do. What I look for in teams are people who observe that, and “help me” Focus … and be more PERFECT…
Reframing PERFECT partners
Walking into our Executive’s office that afternoon, we were in big trouble, summoned by our boss to join him – NOW. As we came in, we were scolded that the Safety Engineer had turned us in with a memo. A large computer Terminal was on top of our bookcase – 6 feet in the air – and weighing nearly 60 lbs, had a coax cable wrapped around it that was about to be caught in the door, which could have killed us…
Examine the management of PERFECT
I had reached the point in the day’s interviews to meet with the Senior VP who would potentially be my manager. It was a large company, growing fast, and more than likely, you are reading this from a server that is hosted in their cloud. I asked: “How do you handle mistakes?” His confident reply – “The people we hire do not make mistakes”. I did not take the job…
Pausing to engage PERFECT
“What you are reading is PERFECT!” You know that is Looney Tunes – and if I could get you to read that in my favorite character, Foghorn Leghorn, “It’s a joke son! You missed it!” it would be perfect. Early in life, I ran across many characters like this, and eventually came to be a student of them, adopting some of their best (and worst) mannerisms, including what people say about me all the time: “Often wrong, never in doubt”.
renewing Goals
“Ok. Now you know all of the people I know that can help us achieve what we need to do. And it is now up to you: to Keep them as your contacts, to grow them, renew them, and to understand how to leverage them appropriately.” It was a Simple statement that happened within the first 3 months of my professional career. Add Smiley and we have the KISS Goal that is now my brand… which renews me consistently…
executing Goals
As I was leaving, I turned to my wife and said, “Today is going to suck.” Not the most empowering stance I know, but something that I had gotten used to saying particularly of late. She inquired, “Do you have a lot of meetings?” “Actually no – I have NOTHING on my calendar – which means something is going to blow up.”
Goal wonder
“DAD!!! I am keeping the time – NOT you!!!” Ok then – so much for the Goal of playing music together 😉 It was during practice with the Church band we had both joined as we attempted to support “Contemporary Worship”. The chance to actually play with him was wonderful… and being 17, frustrating to us both. But his kickdrum was in fact better… and allowed me to relax, and simply wonder what was happening – both on stage… and with me…
observing Goals
“I write down Goals every day in this Planner. Each day I review them… move the ones I didn’t do to tomorrow… and do it again.” I was listening intently to a Darden MBA student who I had already observed was HYPER organized and focused on achieving success. By this point, my own Goal was to be better at observing the “rest signs” in the melody that is “playing out” so I waited. He slid it across the table to me and stated “….. I hate that Planner”.
partners Goals
Nature abhors a vacuum… which means many leaders believe they can set Goals by themselves, and simply state them to partners and peers as clear and unambiguous. That vacuum then becomes like the silence of deep space – as blank looks, and unengaged stares come back your way. The moniker of if you want to travel fast, travel alone also fits here, where many leaders believe that partners simply slow you down… Yes… and…
managing Goals
You are seeing a lot written about “engagement” – A LOT with the ‘Great Resignation’. So I am honored that they have chosen a piece of empower for all these “new” articles 😉 – that now you need to understand what motivates people. Simply, I would add: saying it is one thing: the important thing is managing to do it. And it starts with you – before you can start thinking “out there” in the cubes and offices. What is it that YOU Believe in, and manage towards?
Goals to engage
… and we’re off on the New Year. And if you are following the normal course, you have made some resolutions … and some Goals for this fresh start after Cleaning Up. And normally those are in the trash heap by the time we reach MLK Day, and certainly by Presidents Day. So what are Goals really… and what could sustain us as we engage… practices that are Simple? And of course, the music needs to be a gentle reminder to slow down after the starting gun…
Cleaning Up renewal
One problem I have with Cleaning Up is there is always more to do. This week is no exception – I planned to “finish” U2 off with this week, and realized by Tuesday that I was going to need many more weeks to really do the band justice. It was renewing this week to let the music do the talking and less Cleaning Up my own stories. And it was very renewing to hear again these amazing songs and albums full of the barely hidden Gospel…
executing Clean Up
Happy New Year!!! …oh wait.. Maybe fewer exclamation points – I should execute this with a quieter voice.. if I had one:-) My wife reminds me often that there is one thing I am not, that is quiet. I hope that however, your night was, whenever you are now, and whenever you are reading this, you celebrated well. There is actually a tie-in to today’s song, believe it or not, so let’s quietly jump right in…
wonder… Cleaning Up
You have today. While always true, particularly today is the day to Clean Up anything you need to put a “2021” on. For me, it is ordering supplies and other expenses that I can accelerate into the rearview mirror, and then downloading fiscal records (stop laughing – I do actually keep them – mostly). It is one of those business practices that I used as a game each year that I continued to play in this new path. The wonder is I still do that mentally – stuck thinking eventually someone will figure out that I need to get a “real job”…
Cleaning Up observation
“So – he comes in here, throws papers in the air, plays some guitar, and then does it again?” Yes – yes, of course. My nephew was visiting, and his observation was spot on – my office’s normal state is a disaster. My Daughter on seeing my Cleaned Up version one time remarked more politely, “My, there are a LOT of things to observe!”. Up comes easy – Cleaning, not so much…
partners to Clean Up
Music is the cornerstone of my work now. U2 was formed by people who were, like me, actually not great musicians. Larry played the drums “wrong” and The Edge was at best a rhythm guitar player when they started, to say nothing of Adam who only learned the Bass because they needed one. Even Bono wasn’t that sure of his own voice – both writing and singing. Can we learn something about partners and Cleaning Up – only from the music?
Cleaning Up management
I didn’t even bring blank paper with me. Thinking about leaving behind the only reality I had known as a working manager for nearly 40 years, I knew I needed to get some clarity. Offsites were by now second nature, mostly done poorly, and frankly one of the things I found myself Cleaning Up for other teams. And here I was sitting in our recently purchased Mountain House, a little dizzy from the altitude, and more from what the heck was I thinking?
engage Cleaning Up
Happy Boxing Day! Sorta Christmas Lite for the poor and the working-class across the British Empire, it is now a holiday that has turned into something much more American – a huge post-Christmas Sale 😉 So In both contexts, it is bringing home “boxes” of goodies that you may not have gotten last week. One year this week between Christmas and New Year’s, our hot water heater went out, requiring us to Clean Up the whole back basement area … and sparked another way to think about Boxing…