Leadership

Catch You When You Fall

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Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Research is proving what King Solomon knew centuries ago; there is value in teamwork. Teams allow you to harness the diversity of strengths. As a leader, you should be watching for individuals who complement each others’ weaknesses. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Life-Long Learning

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Chris Mortenson is a leadership consultant for a Canadian oil and gas company, a retired Air Force officer, and an experienced Toastmaster who lives in Colorado Springs and is pursuing a PhD in Education.

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Author Eric Hoffer is credited with this quote, and although he passed away in 1983, this statement is probably more true today than it was in his lifetime. It wasn’t so long ago that people would get a job and could expect to do basically the same work using only those skiils for the rest of their working lives. Although it still happens occasionally (my father has worked for the same government agency doing basically the same kind of job for well over 40 years), it is very rare and is getting rarer. Even if we stay in the same job, most of us (including my Dad) will need to learn new skills, adapting to the latest software upgrades for word processing, email, and other functions. In our personal lives we are being offered new service capabilities to figure out, from banking to television to how to make the next phone you buy do at least of few of those “bells and whistles” features you’re paying for. Continue reading →

I Get by with a Little Help from My Friends

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Keeping the momentum going when pursuing long-term goals can be tough. When faced with lack of progress, you can easily begin to focus on activities other than the ones which will help you obtain your goals. ‘Tis the season to talk about the Olympics, and I can’t help but think that each and every one of them had a Three embraced businesspeople sitting and looking at the camera.cheerleader encouraging them to stick with it and grab their dream.

I am blessed to have a few of those people in my life. They aren’t the people you would naturally think would be my champions. But there are those who tell me that I am good enough to reach my dream and that if anyone could do it, it’s me.

Today was a great day of encouragement. I had the opportunity to chat with one of my speaking role models, Ed Tate, and I gained insights on my new venture. I also got encouragement from a leader in my company who told me I had skills which make me uniquely qualified to do what I want to do.

Find these people in your life, the ones who will tell you that you’re great and who won’t let you give up on your dreams! Find the people who see you for who you are becoming, not just the person you are. And when you find them, don’t forget to tell them how much you appreciate them! We all need a little help from our friends.

Jana Axline is president and leadership coach at Axline Solutions. Through her leadership musings she hopes to inspire audiences to grow as leaders and ultimately achieve who they were created to be. For more information visit Axline Solutions.

Join Now!

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Today I attended an educational conference for Toastmasters. As I sat there, I recollected why I joined the organizations I’ve joined. I started Toastmasters when a boss suggested it for my development. I stayed because it gave me the chance to practice my leadership skills. Continue reading →

Treat Them like a Volunteer

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Or at least, a little more like a volunteer. I participate in a couple volunteer organizations, and I’m frequently talking to them about treating their volunteers more like employees. Volunteer organizations sometimes have performance issues because they are afraid to hold people accountable: “How can we expect so much from them? They are just volunteers.” Frequently, you find them settling for whatever they can get.

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Fail Forward

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Successful people never fail because they turn failures into learning experiences.

I heard this quote today, and it was at an ideal time for me. We have all heard the endless stories about how many times Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Edison failed before they reached success. We know you have to fail to succeed.  Continue reading →

Finger-Pointing

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Today I sent a project status report. Shortly afterward, I received an e-mail informing me that while I had reported a task as complete, it wasn’t actually complete. The manager wanted to know where I got my information, and I let them know I heard it on the status call. The manager then informed me via an e-mail cc’ing the world (OK not really, but when you are being criticized, it can feel that way) that I should get information from a reliable source, and the manager named a few. It just so happened one of those “reliable sources” was the person who told me the task was complete. Graciously, that person stepped up, responded to the e-mail, and said that she was mistaken and had passed the bad information on to me. The manager then sent me an e-mail berating this “reliable source” for passing on bad information. While the task was not done, it would still be done on time.  Continue reading →

The Blues

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If it’s not hard, it’s not worth doing. On the journey of pursuing your goals and dreams, there will most likely be moments of feeling overwhelmed and a lack of progress. Here are a few tips to help get you through the slump.

Examine your actions. Sometimes we get lost in the trees and miss the forest. Our actions begin to misalign with the goal and get us off-track. Take a minute to re-evaluate the path you are on, and ensure it will lead you to the end solution. Continue reading →

Fire Drill

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Poor planning on your end does not constitute an emergency on mine. This is a paraphrase of a wonderful quote I heard from Rory Vaden. I have lived this at times. I’m sure all of us have been in situations where we had to pull together as a team and produce nothing less than a miracle to get a deliverable complete on time.

This can create a great sense of accomplishment and team work. However, when done on a regular basis, it induces quite the opposite. Asking teams to perform heroics day in and day out while compromising their priorities to make the next deadline (and the next and the next) is one of the quickest ways to have knowledge seep right out of your company. These employees tend to get sick, start producing lower quality deliverables, and eventually just walk out.
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Jurassic Park Decisions

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A quote from Jurassic Park has stuck with me over the years (we won’t count how many): “[You] were so preoccupied with whether [you] could that [you] didn’t stop to think whether [you] should.” Oftentimes I associate it with potential avenues we could venture down in science, and I realized this can relate to companies as well.

1. Ethics
The story of Mr. Nobel, the newspaperman, is probably a good depiction here. The story goes that Nobel wanted to increase his newspaper profits. He decided that he couldn’t raise the cost of his paper any more than it already was, or it wouldn’t be profitable. How else do you increase profits if you can’t raise price? Decrease cost. He did this by increasing the cost to the newsies (boys who stood on the street and sold the newspapers). I’m sure the scenario went something like this: “Mr. Nobel, sir, if you want to make more money, we could charge the newsies an extra 1/5 a cent per paper.” You could, but that doesn’t mean you should. The result? A non-union strike.

Continue reading →