WHY YOU SHOULD SAY "NO" MORE OFTEN

In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown encourages us to discern 'the essential few from the trivial many'. He recommends focusing only on essential tasks, those things that make the highest value contribution to achieving our vision or purpose. (By the way, its a great read / listen. I highly recommend it).

In order to make your highest value contribution, you need to say "No" more often.

You should say 'No" when ... you are saying "Yes" just to be nice or please someone else. We all want to be liked, but we will create a difficult situation if we become a "Yes person". Leaders need to get comfortable with not being liked.

You should say 'No" when ... you know that saying "Yes" will set you up for failure. When you know you can't deliver on what is being asked, you have to either decline or negotiate a different time frame. This isn't being rude, just assertive.

You should say 'No" when ... you know that the task is not your highest value contribution to your vision or purpose. You have a responsibility to be as productive and efficient as possible and being caught up with tasks that someone else could do defeats this purpose. Delegation is the key here.

You should say 'No" when ... being authentic is important to you (and it should be). Saying "Yes" when you know you should be saying "No" means that you are compromising your values. Being authentic sometimes means pushing back.

You should say 'No" when ... you need time to think, create, plan, recharge. We can't be at our best when we are too busy. We need to eliminate non essential activity and focus on 'protecting the asset', as Greg McKeown puts it. Don't feel guilty about looking after yourself.

Saying "No" to a lot of things means that you are saying "Yes" to just a few, but it is the laser sharp focus on the most important stuff that the best leaders apart.

LEADERS H. E. L. P. OTHERS

Put really simply , the difference between leaders and non leaders is that leaders HELP others.

HONOUR - leaders honour others. They respect them. They treat them as humans, not as ways of getting things done. They recognise diversity and difference.

ENGAGE - leaders are about others. They try to understand what motivates people. Instead of telling people what to do they start by telling them why.

LISTEN - leaders take time to listen, truly listen, not just hear. Listening to others is one of the most powerful ways of showing respect and engaging others.

PROMOTE - leaders care for their people. They support and actively encourage them to be more than they could otherwise.

What are you doing to H.E.L.P your people?

CAN YOU H.E.L.P ME?

I am exploring the concept of 'Leaders H.E.L.P' others and I want to invite you to participate. Send me as many leadership words as you can start with H, E, L or P. Either email me (greg@licencetolead.com.au or go to Facebook - see the link to the right).
H words - eg, honesty, hustle, heighten
E words - eg empower, enthusiasm, encourage.
L words - eg, love, lift, leverage.
P words - eg, passion, productive, protect.

Everyone who contributes will go into the draw for a copy of my book, 'Road Rules for Leadership'.

YOU ONLY BECOME A LEADER WHEN YOU REALISE THIS

We become leaders the day we decide to help people grow, not numbers

Simon Sinek

I have been emphasising with the aspiring leaders I work with lately, that leadership is not all about us, but what we do with and for the people we lead. Simon Sinek's recent Facebook post absolutely resonates with this. We all want to be good at what we do. We all want to be the best we can be. But if we want to maximise our leadership influence, we must understand that it's not all about us.

True leaders understand that leadership is not about them, but about those they serve. It is not about exalting themselves, but about lifting others up

Sheri L Drew

Strive to be the best you can be, but realise that a leader's most important responsibility is to lift and inspire the performance of others.I have been challenging leaders to ask this simple question of their people. "What can I do to help you do your job?" Are you game enough to ask it?

ONE QUESTION THAT LEADERS SHOULD BE ASKING THEIR PEOPLE

“What can I do to help you do your job?”

This is about

• finding out what’s going on at the frontline
• showing that you care, and
• taking responsibility for empowering your guys to do well.

This is not about

• promoting whinging
• lip service, or
• micro managing.

The challenge is, once you ask the question, what are you going to do about the answer. You might find that you need to support the person more, provide them with extra resources or offer training. Sound like hard work?

Consider the alternative. Don’t ask the question. Let the staff member underperform. Leave them feeling undervalued. Let them struggle. Nothing surer than they will become disengaged.

Be courageous – ask the question today!

WHAT GETS MEASURED, GETS MANAGED

I heard this saying years ago. “You can’t manage it if you can’t measure it.” Fundamentally I took it to mean you need to monitor important things so you can tell if actual performance matches expected performance. Most people would agree that we should measure things like sales, safety and quality, but there are other important things that are much harder to measure, but we should still try.

Three really important parts of any organisation are its culture, the engagement of its employees and the satisfaction of its customers. With all three you should start by determining what your expectation is. State what sort of culture you want, how much you want your staff to care and how much you want your customers to love you. These kinds of things may be captured by what your organisation’s vision is, but this is not essential.

Next, do your best to take stock of each one. Try to get a handle on how you are performing, even if it is hard and not perfect. In terms of culture, ask your staff to list three words that they would use to tell an outsider what it is like to work at your place.

With regards to the engagement of your staff, look at absenteeism and staff turnover and observe morale. Another idea is to conduct an exit interview (usually done after a person resigns), while they still work for you! Ask what is good about working for you and what could be better.

When it comes to customer satisfaction we should be monitoring repeat business and asking questions like “would you recommend us to others?”. There are formalised approaches like the Net Promoter Score (Google to find out more) or just be bold enough to ask your customers how you are going.

Measuring the things that matter, comparing actual to expected performance, means that you can recognise and praise the good stuff and take corrective action on the not so good.