davidstegall: The Four Leadership Traits of Highly Collaborative Leaders ht Collaboration taps in to a broader pool of ideas. It maximizes the talents and abilities of your people. An inclusive culture is more flexible and adaptable. People are highly motivated, work harder and are more creative. However, collaboration isn’t something you can put on. For it to work you have to believe in it. If a leader believes that everything rises and falls on their talent and ability, and resources are for their sole use, collaboration is DOA. Ron Ricci and Carl Wiese report in The Collaboration Imperative, that there are four leadership traits of highly collaborative leaders: They focus on authentic leadership and eschew passive aggressiveness. Today, Just Be Average - Greg McKeown by Greg McKeown | 9:00 AM October 30, 2013 Do you ever “back door brag” about being a perfectionist? Unlike other obsessions and addictions, perfectionism is something a lot of people celebrate, believing it’s an asset. But true perfectionism can actually get in the way of productivity and happiness. I recently interviewed David Burns, author of “Feeling Good” has made this exact connection. Taken to the extreme, perfectionism becomes a disorder. This is an extreme example to be sure, but there are less severe ways in which our own perfectionism leads us to major in minor activities? Aiming for “perfect” instead of “good enough” can seriously backfire. This left me wondering: what if trying to be average could actually accelerate your success? Overachievers have such high expectations of themselves that their “average” might be another person’s “really good.” The word “perfect” has a Latin root; literally, it means “made well” or “done thoroughly.”
Most lives are lived by default Jamie lives in a large city in the midwest. He’s a copywriter for an advertising firm, and he’s good at it. He’s also good at thinking of reasons why he ought to be happy with his life. He has health insurance, and now savings. A lot of his friends have neither. On most of those Fridays, including this one, instead of taking the train back to his suburban side-by-side, he walks to a downtown pub to meet his friends. Jamie’s girlfriend Linda typically arrives on his third beer. There was never a day Jamie sat down and decided to be a copywriter living in the midwest. His friends are from his old job. Jamie isn’t unhappy. In two months he and Linda are going to Cuba for ten days. A few weeks ago I asked everyone reading to share their biggest problem in life in the comment section. The first thing is that everyone has considerable problems. Making a major change in just one of these areas will necessarily make a major change in the feel and quality of your day-to-day life.
How to Go Viral (The Art of Going Viral with Psychology) The web is a busy place… it’s become tough to get noticed I think that’s why so many folks have become obsessed with the idea of “viral” content. When something takes off, it’s fun to watch… but are there any commonalities between those things that seem to take-over the internet for a short while? There’s got to be… right? Luckily, you no longer have to guess, because today, I have the research that will show you. How To Push People’s Buttons I’ve just finished re-reading the book Buzz Marketing, authored by a guy named Mark Hughes. Mark was known as the VP of marketing for Half.com back in the day, and was famous for… get this, convincing the town of Halfway, Oregon to rename itself Half.com! Yes, he got a town to agree to name itself after a website. Apparently, this guy knows a thing or two about creating buzz! In his book, he outlines the six buttons he’s found in his marketing research and experience that always seem to get people fired up, when presented in the right way. Ready? 1.) Yowza!
Stephen R. Covey » Blog Archive » The Leader Formula: The 4 things that make a good leader. Each week we will be asking Dr. Covey to comment on common questions. This week we ask: what makes a great leader? Q: What makes a great leader? A: My definition of leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves. Q: You often say that leadership is a choice not a position. A: Because of the definition I use for leadership, the ability to become such a leader is a choice that any person can make; any parent or grandparent, any teacher, any coach, any co-worker, and friend. “How many of you had someone in your life that communicated your worth and potential so clearly that it profoundly influenced your life?” Inevitably over half the people raise their hands. Q: Is there a formula for becoming such a leader? A: I believe there is a formula. The first is to inspire trust. The world is vastly different today and ever-changing.
10 Reasons Why Every Manager Should take a Finance Course We just finished a “Finance and Accounting for the Non-Financial Manager” program this week for a large client. The audience was mostly engineers – program and project managers, the ones in charge of designing and making complex stuff. It was 3.5 days, which may seem like a lot, especially for a topic that has the potential to be deadly dry and boring. The participant’s comments and evaluations at the end of the program reminded me of why every manager (and probably every employee) really needs to have a firm grasp on the numbers and how their company makes money. Here are 10 reasons, all of them taken from the actual evaluations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
How much does it cost to be you? Now that I’ve installed snow tires, my car has only four things wrong with it. The passenger-side lock is misbehaving since someone tried to screwdriver it open this summer. The throttle sticks for a moment when the automatic transmission shifts to second gear. The heat takes twenty minutes to come on, and the suspension is creaking now. I don’t know how much each will cost, but I figure if I’m lucky I can fix one item with each of my next four paychecks, if I tighten in other areas. This is a pretty normal financial position for me. Parkinson’s Law is mostly responsible for this. Every time that happens, your financial situation doesn’t really change, even as you climb through tax brackets. That ample feeling comes, al least partly, from space. Space is an interesting asset in that it doesn’t actually cost money. There’s a stark difference in quality of life between walking around with a feeling of abundance, and walking around with a feeling of scarcity. This is the American Dream.
How to Email Busy People (and Not Be Annoying) If you want to get in touch with influential people (aka: BUSY people), you need to know how to email them. Despite the buzz around social media, far more people use email to communicate than any other online medium1, and business today still gets done over email, not through tweets. Today, I’m going to show you the elements of the PERFECT outreach email, and how you email busy people the right way in order to make things happen. You’ll also get exact scripts and email screenshots to journalists that landed me big features (worth 200,000+ hits). That said, let’s dig in! Why This is Important to Know Knowing how to write outreach emails might seem like a “no-brainer” or maybe even an unnecessary skill to have, but I can assure you the opposite, on both accounts. If you’re serious about networking and building your platform/personal brand, you MUST know how to email important people, and important people are busy people. Avoiding the Dreaded Trash Bin (“Bin-bound” Outreach) 1.) 2.) 3.) 1.) a.)
How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? - Leadership Training from MindTools What's your key area for improvement? © iStockphoto/hidesy Who do you consider to be a good leader? Maybe it's a politician, a famous businessperson, or a religious figure. Or maybe it's someone you know personally – like your boss, a teacher, or a friend. You can find people in leadership roles almost everywhere you look. However, simply having the responsibilities of a leader doesn't necessarily make a person an effective leader. So, how can you do this? You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? Instructions For each statement, click the button in the column that best describes you. Your last quiz results are shown. You last completed this quiz on , at . Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 still need to be answered! There are many leadership skills and competencies that, when combined and applied, go toward making you an effective leader. Personal Characteristics (Questions 2, 8) Key Points
How to Say No Gracefully How to Drop Out August 2012 Update When I wrote the original essay, my lifestyle happened to be close to the popular myth of dropping out, which was lucky because it attracted more readers, but unlucky because that myth is unrealistic and distracting. I still get emails from people who are excited to ask how I live in a cabin in the woods, or live with no money, things I never claimed to do. My goal may have been to separate myself from society, but only because that seemed like the best way to serve my deeper goal: giant blocks of time when there's nothing I'm supposed to be doing. Now I'm moving toward that goal as more of an insider. October 2008 Update "How To Drop Out" has been my most popular piece of writing for more than four years. 1. Seriously, it's good to live differently, to take uncommon paths, to minimize your dependence on a society gone astray. 2. 3. Now, that doesn't mean you should accept all gifts. 4. 5. What I recommend instead is to separate your money from your love. 6. 7. 8. 9.