Have you heard of Chris Widener? He's a leadership coach and author and I wanted to share with you some of what he's written about being your best....
"Some time ago, I spoke to a group of salespeople in Kansas City as they kicked off their new team. It was exciting to see them get excited about making a difference through their work.
The Best Are Optimists. - You can't get to the top if you don't think that there is a top or if you think you can't make it. One characteristic of those who reach the peak is that they always believe that things can get better or be done better. This pushes them on to be their best.
The Best Have Vision. - They can see ahead of the pack. Their eyes aren’t locked into the here and now. They see the bright future and what things will look like when they reach their destiny. While working hard for today, they live for the future! They do what Stephen Covey calls begin with the end in mind.
The Best Relentlessly Pursue Excellence. - The status quo is not for them. They want to be the best and experience the best. And that means giving their best. They go the extra mile so that in everything they do, in everything they say and think, they are striving for excellence.
The Best Have a Lifelong Habit of Personal Growth. - They don't want to stay at the level they are at. They want to grow in their work, their intellect, their spirituality, their relationships, and in every area of their life. And they discipline themselves to put themselves in situations wherein they grow. Personal growth doesn't just happen. You choose to grow. I always suggest what Zig Ziglar does and that is to enroll in Automobile University. Whenever you are driving around, listen to a personal or professional growth CD or MP3. Over the long run you will grow. Also, read more. The old saying is true: Leaders are readers. So are those who pass the Best Test.
The best Understand That They Will Be Pushed by the Competition and They Welcome It. - Like the lead runner in the race who has someone on his heels, the best know that the competition is right behind them. They love it, though, because they know that the competition keeps them from becoming lazy and resting on their laurels. Instead, the competition pushes them to go faster and to achieve more to remain the best by forging ahead.
The Best Have a Quest for Leadership. - Someone has to lead it may as well be the best! Those who attain it get there because they want to. They want to lead and help make a difference. And they want to be equipped with the skills necessary to lead others on to a better place.
The Best Leave a Legacy. - They aren't in it just for themselves, though they will surely reap the rewards of being the best. Rather, they build things that last beyond themselves, things that can be enjoyed by others as well.
The Best Are Adept at the Two Most Important Pieces of Time and Personal Management: Prioritize and Execute. - Just like weight loss boils down to eating right and exercise, personal management boils down to prioritize and execute. First, prioritize your activities. The important stuff goes on the top. Then, execute: do them. The best have habits and discipline that get them to the top by doing the best things and doing them first.
The Best Focus on Building Relationships. - Success does not come alone. Everyone who achieves much does it with the help of countless others. How do the Best get others to help them? They treat them right. They embrace them and help them. People become the best because they help other people, and people like them.
The Best Make No Excuses. - When they fail, they admit it and move on. They get back up and do it right the next time. They let their actions speak louder than their words. They stand tall and do the right thing the next time. No excuses, just results.
The Best Understand That the Good Is the Enemy of the Best. - Yes, they could say, This is good. But that would mean they have settled for less than the best. Many people think that good is good. Good is not good. Good is the enemy because it keeps us from the best. Choose your side: the good or the best. The Best choose, you guessed it, the Best.
The Best Dare to Dream. - While others live the mundane and settle into a life they never bargained for, a rut, the Best dream of a better life. And then they take the risks necessary to achieve their dreams. They live by Teddy Roosevelt's quote: Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
Want to be your best and the best at what you do? Take inventory on the above characteristics and then start moving to bring your life in line with the characteristics of the Best.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Brand You!
Brand You: What Makes You Special?
Companies spend millions of dollars a year trying to develop compelling employment brands by interviewing current employees, surveying external job-seekers, and validating the conclusions they draw from the data.
But even after all that, there's no guarantee that the brand statement will perfectly reflect what an organization offers potential employees.
If branding is that difficult for a company with money and resources, how in the world can you and I figure out what our own brand is, how we can present ourselves for a career move, to land that first management role, to move up the ladder?
Fortunately, it's easier than you might think. Let me use the perspective of a recruiter as an analogy.
This morning I went to my "Rolodex" of business contacts (really a stack of business cards held together with a rubber band!) and randomly chose two. As I pulled them out of the stack, I wrote down the first word that came to mind:
Incredible. This is a woman who supervised another department at a company where I used to work. She was so smart and innovative I volunteered to take on any project of her choosing just for the privilege of working with her. I still marvel at how much I learned from her.
Innovative. This is an IT consultant I worked with for several years who is always able to think of a clever solution to any problem, and consistently delivers it ahead of schedule.
Let's face it: no one probably deserves to be reduced to a single word, and each of these people undoubtedly exhibits behaviours contrary to the labels I've given them. Nonetheless, over time, this is the label they've earned in my mind. What label have you earned in the minds of those you meet, work with, strive to impress?
A popular phrase among the self-help profession is "We teach others how to treat us." Do you find your coworkers/boss claiming credit for your best work, yet find yourself saddled with blame for messes you were not even involved with?
Perhaps the problem is your brand. Just like a company, everyone has a brand, whether they like it or not. It's that one word that comes to mind for people when they think of you. The challenge is to learn what your brand is and then position yourself such that you emphasize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
Gather Data and Assess Your Current Situation
People, like companies, have both positive and negative qualities. As a first step in the branding process, most corporate initiatives start with an assessment of some sort. This is accomplished through the use of focus groups, surveys, or individual interviews.
Similarly, when you're attempting to learn about your personal brand, it's also a good idea to find out how your "customers" perceive you. You can certainly ask a trusted colleague to share their thoughts, but I recommend one of the widely available 360° assessment tools. In a pinch you can also use a free Web-based survey tool.
Regardless of how you do it, it's important to learn what you do well, what you don't do well, and what overall impression you leave.
Determine What Makes You Unique
I remember being assigned to a business group as its new recruiter. Every person I talked with had the same thing to say: "I'm sure you're a good recruiter, but, alas, no one will ever be as good as jane was."
Jane was this group's recruiter several years before, and despite having worked with several competent recruiters since, the entire team was unable to get beyond the fact that their beloved Jane was now gone.
It would have been easy to start acting like Jane to try and get that client group to like me, and that's in fact what they really wanted. However, as I probed a bit, I learned that her style was very different from mine.
Also, she always asked the hiring managers what they thought about a particular candidate first, and would respond the same way each time: "Isn't that amazing, that's just what I thought!" No wonder everyone liked her! I realized quickly that such a style just wasn't me.
My style is more analytical: "You have expertise and I have expertise. You define success this way, and I define it that way. You want this outcome, and I want that outcome. Let's design a process up front that will get us both what we want, and allow us to measure how we're doing along the way."
Did they like me as much as Jane? I don't know, but we did hire some very successful people into the company.
Advertise and Embrace Your Idiosyncratic Differences
The best recruiters I know tend to unabashedly let people know what makes them unique in the way they approach their job. Adopting a professional style that's not "on brand" for you can make you look insincere, unconfident, and unprofessional.
To hiring managers looking for an opportunity to challenge the "current recruiting model" for their own political gains, such a flicker of weakness is like blood in the water. I've seen it result in phone calls to supervisors, power plays by HR generalists, and frustration on the part of recruiters who begin to question their own abilities.
There are many different recruiter styles, and they all can be effective. For example, we all know the recruiters who are loud, brash, and direct a never-ending stream of resumes at their customers. Some of the resumes are worthless, but they just laugh that off and send over even more. Their customers adore them, and over time they start to focus that barrage of resumes and zero in on the correct skill set.
We also know the more cerebral type of recruiter, the one who thoughtfully goes back to their workspace for several days, triumphantly emerging with a single, perfect resume in hand. Can you articulate your own recruiting style?
Communicate and Reinforce Your Brand
Once you understand how your customers perceive you, and develop a style that plays to your strengths, let people know what to expect when they work with you:
•"You'll be hearing from me by phone several times a day. I like to keep you informed as we work together."
•"Let's set up a face-to-face conversation each week to review the resumes I've sent you, and agree on next steps."
•"I'm only going to send you the resumes that meet your exact specifications; otherwise, we'll just waste time. I need you to be very specific about what a candidate must have and must not have."
Take time to point out the things that make your style unique as you develop working relationships in the industry. You'll be able to feel more confident and instill this in your teams. A win-win situation!
Companies spend millions of dollars a year trying to develop compelling employment brands by interviewing current employees, surveying external job-seekers, and validating the conclusions they draw from the data.
But even after all that, there's no guarantee that the brand statement will perfectly reflect what an organization offers potential employees.
If branding is that difficult for a company with money and resources, how in the world can you and I figure out what our own brand is, how we can present ourselves for a career move, to land that first management role, to move up the ladder?
Fortunately, it's easier than you might think. Let me use the perspective of a recruiter as an analogy.
This morning I went to my "Rolodex" of business contacts (really a stack of business cards held together with a rubber band!) and randomly chose two. As I pulled them out of the stack, I wrote down the first word that came to mind:
Incredible. This is a woman who supervised another department at a company where I used to work. She was so smart and innovative I volunteered to take on any project of her choosing just for the privilege of working with her. I still marvel at how much I learned from her.
Innovative. This is an IT consultant I worked with for several years who is always able to think of a clever solution to any problem, and consistently delivers it ahead of schedule.
Let's face it: no one probably deserves to be reduced to a single word, and each of these people undoubtedly exhibits behaviours contrary to the labels I've given them. Nonetheless, over time, this is the label they've earned in my mind. What label have you earned in the minds of those you meet, work with, strive to impress?
A popular phrase among the self-help profession is "We teach others how to treat us." Do you find your coworkers/boss claiming credit for your best work, yet find yourself saddled with blame for messes you were not even involved with?
Perhaps the problem is your brand. Just like a company, everyone has a brand, whether they like it or not. It's that one word that comes to mind for people when they think of you. The challenge is to learn what your brand is and then position yourself such that you emphasize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
Gather Data and Assess Your Current Situation
People, like companies, have both positive and negative qualities. As a first step in the branding process, most corporate initiatives start with an assessment of some sort. This is accomplished through the use of focus groups, surveys, or individual interviews.
Similarly, when you're attempting to learn about your personal brand, it's also a good idea to find out how your "customers" perceive you. You can certainly ask a trusted colleague to share their thoughts, but I recommend one of the widely available 360° assessment tools. In a pinch you can also use a free Web-based survey tool.
Regardless of how you do it, it's important to learn what you do well, what you don't do well, and what overall impression you leave.
Determine What Makes You Unique
I remember being assigned to a business group as its new recruiter. Every person I talked with had the same thing to say: "I'm sure you're a good recruiter, but, alas, no one will ever be as good as jane was."
Jane was this group's recruiter several years before, and despite having worked with several competent recruiters since, the entire team was unable to get beyond the fact that their beloved Jane was now gone.
It would have been easy to start acting like Jane to try and get that client group to like me, and that's in fact what they really wanted. However, as I probed a bit, I learned that her style was very different from mine.
Also, she always asked the hiring managers what they thought about a particular candidate first, and would respond the same way each time: "Isn't that amazing, that's just what I thought!" No wonder everyone liked her! I realized quickly that such a style just wasn't me.
My style is more analytical: "You have expertise and I have expertise. You define success this way, and I define it that way. You want this outcome, and I want that outcome. Let's design a process up front that will get us both what we want, and allow us to measure how we're doing along the way."
Did they like me as much as Jane? I don't know, but we did hire some very successful people into the company.
Advertise and Embrace Your Idiosyncratic Differences
The best recruiters I know tend to unabashedly let people know what makes them unique in the way they approach their job. Adopting a professional style that's not "on brand" for you can make you look insincere, unconfident, and unprofessional.
To hiring managers looking for an opportunity to challenge the "current recruiting model" for their own political gains, such a flicker of weakness is like blood in the water. I've seen it result in phone calls to supervisors, power plays by HR generalists, and frustration on the part of recruiters who begin to question their own abilities.
There are many different recruiter styles, and they all can be effective. For example, we all know the recruiters who are loud, brash, and direct a never-ending stream of resumes at their customers. Some of the resumes are worthless, but they just laugh that off and send over even more. Their customers adore them, and over time they start to focus that barrage of resumes and zero in on the correct skill set.
We also know the more cerebral type of recruiter, the one who thoughtfully goes back to their workspace for several days, triumphantly emerging with a single, perfect resume in hand. Can you articulate your own recruiting style?
Communicate and Reinforce Your Brand
Once you understand how your customers perceive you, and develop a style that plays to your strengths, let people know what to expect when they work with you:
•"You'll be hearing from me by phone several times a day. I like to keep you informed as we work together."
•"Let's set up a face-to-face conversation each week to review the resumes I've sent you, and agree on next steps."
•"I'm only going to send you the resumes that meet your exact specifications; otherwise, we'll just waste time. I need you to be very specific about what a candidate must have and must not have."
Take time to point out the things that make your style unique as you develop working relationships in the industry. You'll be able to feel more confident and instill this in your teams. A win-win situation!
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