CircleSpring's Blog: Leadership Levers

Yesterday while I was coaching a group of leaders, a man named Shawn shared part of his inspiring story.

The group was working on a team-building activity that seemed impossible to get done in the time frame that would net them the most points.

Shawn spoke up. “This is doable,” he began.  The team wasn’t convinced so he continued. “Until 2009, I only had an eighth-grade education. I’ve learned that if there is something I want, I put my mind to it and focus on on it, I can reach my goals.”

Shawn received his GED two years ago and is continuing to grow in his career, having recently been promoted to a supervisory level. He has his sights set on a position within his company that he would like to achieve.

During a break, I talked to him more about his journey to overcome his difficult circumstances. He said, “There’s so much to the story, so many things I’ve overcome that I didn’t share.  I’m not finished yet with what I want to do. Next I want to get my college degree.”

Shawn didn’t start out his career with many of the credentials, tools and abilities that most of us have. He does have spirit, heart, courage and focus and a passionate willingness to learn. And he also asks a lot of questions and is lucky to have mentors to support him.

Shawn believes that what he wants to achieve is doable.

The next time you are faced with a challenge that doesn’t seem like it can be solved according to your parameters and what you think is possible, I encourage you to think of Shawn and remind yourself that it is doable.

Then your job is to ask yourself, “How is this doable?” Be prepared for creative solutions to emerge and forge ahead knowing that a good solution is possible.

You want to be happy and love life. Loving your life is a high state of satisfaction and in it you receive more opportunities, are healthier and have a greater sense of connection to all those around you. In the natural cycle of life, you will also have times where you are discouraged or unhappy. However, by paying attention to your values and what you value, you can love your life more of the time, no matter what the circumstances and bounce back more quickly from the discouraging times.

I’m going to present a shift from a traditional view of values such as honesty, integrity and responsibility to a view of values that can dramatically increase your happiness and your attitude to loving your life.

Typically your values are a list of qualities like honesty, integrity, spirituality or responsibility. There are literally hundreds of values you can say are important to you. Owning and living these qualities don’t create happiness, per se, what they do, however, is give you a framework in which to live your life.

How you treat anybody is how you treat everybody. You can increase your happiness in life by aligning how you think about people with how you treat people, whether it is your employees or co-workers, friends or clients.

If you want to love your life even more, ask yourself, “What do I value?”

One of the aspects of loving your life is to live congruently with what you value. This type of value often reflects behaviors or attitudes you want to model or move toward. In order to learn what you value, notice what you feel drawn toward over the next week or two. For example, if you’ve always wanted to take art or writing lessons, you probably value creativity and self-expression.

If you volunteer frequently, you probably value contribution, sharing or social connections or all three.

Focus on what is important to you. Make a list of those things you value, like spending time with family and being healthy. Once you start to identify what is important to you and what and who you value, you will want to have more of those people and activities in your life.

If your inner voice has been nudging you to take writing classes for example, ask yourself why. Is it because you want an outlet to express your creativity or a forum to write your opinions? Either way, by doing more of what you value, you will love your life more.

“Live your values, love your life” means that you make choices that are in alignment with what you value. When you live in alignment with your personal truth and mindfully incorporate what you value into your life, you give your best in every situation. You leave nothing on the table.

Loving your life comes from aligning your actions with your dreams, values and beliefs. Going against your dreams, values and beliefs causes stress and dissatisfaction. When you focus on what is important to you and what you do to love life you will be more successful, attract more opportunities, be healthier and maintain a positive attitude.

You can boost your team’s success habits by providing them with the CircleSpring Ambio360™ assessment, a practical, economical and quick feedback tool. Our Ambio360 family of assessments is designed for professionals to receive objective feedback with access to online content that tells them how to increase their skills for success.  Visit us on the web. 

This week’s tip on communicating your ideas effectively is to talk to your stakeholders and supporters when you want to promote an idea. When web sites first started to be used as a marketing tool, I was a VP of Business Development for a creative firm. My common sense and feeling was that we needed to jump in early to get our name out there as the need for web sites grew.

I remember having a lot of conversations about the strategy and direction of the company. Would people really use web sites and the Internet as much as the media was suggesting?  The owners had recently decided to invest a good portion of design time to a multi-media project for a popular art museum so our resources were stretched at the time. However, I was certain we needed to move into web development and add to the services our company offered.

Spend time promoting your idea to others to gain support

To gain support, I talked to everyone. I talked to the company owners and my peers on the management team. In addition, I visited the creative people and heard their opinions. We talked about this in meetings and I discussed the strategy and approach in individual conversations.

People had varying opinions, however I wouldn’t give up. In general, the people I worked with were very open to new ideas. The web design idea was so new though, we risked putting resources into an area that we didn’t know would work or not.

Fortunately, the company was enough of a risk-taker that we put together a presentation and we talked to anyone who would listen. We were the first design company in town to carve out a position and promote our web design services so quickly our name was in the ring for consideration when companies wanted a web site. Not long after that we were invited to propose our services to one of the largest financial services companies in the country. We won the business!

Taking time to communicate your ideas with your stakeholders and with your supporters will benefit your career and very possibly contribute to the bottom line.

Here are some steps you can take to make this happen:

1. Identify your key supporters and those you trust.
2. Identify key stakeholders – those involved in the decision area of your idea.
3. Have casual, unscheduled conversations.
4. Schedule meetings one-on-one to discuss your idea.
5. When you feel you are gaining support and interest for your idea, schedule a meeting with the decision-makers to present your idea.
6. Be enthusiastic. This helps people tune in to your message.

You can boost your team’s success habits by providing them with the CircleSpring Ambio360™ assessment, a practical, economical and quick feedback tool. Our Ambio360 family of assessments is designed for professionals to receive objective feedback with access to online content that tells them how to increase their skills for success.