| Lorne Rubis - Part 2

What is Your Personal Excellence Framework?

201019 Nov
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Posted inBe Accountable

On a previous blog I introduced the great work of Matthew Syed in his book Bounce. The premise of Bounce, based on convincing data, is that purposeful practice and other attributes drive excellence and success more than raw talent. Now Tony Schwartz in an Harvard Business Review article proclaims that leaders can fuel excellence at anything.

The following is a checklist for our own personal excellence, combining Syed’s work, Schwartz’s leadership environment (which we need to develop for ourselves) and a few of my thoughts. It provides a framework for excellence. I challenge you to write out an outline for yourself before you mentally click off the blog!

1. Set our minds for achieving Personal Excellence.

You and I have to believe we can become masterful at what we’re doing. This is more important than being overtaken by words like “gifted” or ” talented.”

2. Define our driving purpose.

We need to tie our personal excellence objective to a larger goal or mission. What is our purpose in life? (Read a recent blog of mine on life purpose.)

3. Outline a very specific plan with milestones along the way.

Be specific. Be realistic but recognize that processes lead to results and everything is a process.

4. Practice with purpose; purposefully practice.

Have concentrated times of purposeful practice interrupted with appropriate periods of refresh.

5. Celebrate milestones.

Don’t wait for others to celebrate success. If others recognize us, it’s a bonus. We need to celebrate ourselves! I’m not talking about just feel-good mush. This is acknowledging meaningful, measurable, achievements along the way.

6. Get purposeful, objective, regular feedback. Apply the learning.

Get objective data. Develop a learning process. Practice improvements. Improve practice. Use coaches; we need outside viewpoints from people that care about our personal success.

7. Get masterful and don’t stop.

Keep raising the bar. Do 1 through 6 again. Get into our self-identified hall of fame. Enjoy the ride.

Being accountable involves a plan of action. We are respectful to ourselves by believing that we personally can become excellent. Be abundant. Focus on what we already have to be great, not what we don’t!

A framework and blog is easy to publish. Executing to excellence is darn hard. That’s what makes it worth it!

Live the Triangle,

Lorne

Tough Times End …Tough People Keep Going

201017 Nov
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Posted inBe Abundant

After 40 years in the work world if I know anything I know this: you and I are going to lose sometimes, and more often than we would like. Some will be big losses but most will be skirmishes. If you’re a lawyer you’re going to lose a few big cases. A doctor will miss a few vital diagnoses. A carpenter will have measured wrong more than once, and so on. How will you and I react? Well, we have a right to be disappointed, sad, mad, and a variety of other “feel bad” emotions. We will be seduced into the world of blame and we will likely be the harshest on ourselves. And we may want to blame a number of other things or people. Certainly we have to deal with others who will want to blame and criticize us. So what can we do?

The following action list is a helpful general guide but the most important thing we have to realize is that what we do about the loss is what matters most! How we react will tell us and others more than the loss. Please believe me. You might get empathy but there will be little or no sympathy. Only you and I can take us off the hook. We are in control and everyone is watching. If we choose the road of feeling sorry for ourselves, the ironic thing is that people like to pile on, usually in a negative way. More people push us away than pull us toward them, unless we:

Choose to examine the outcome as a serious student. Do not look for absolution. Without being defensive, get motivated to openly learn. Be objective. Collect data. Get honest feedback. Do not act victimized in any way. Other than our family and friends, most people don’t care if we won or lost. They will be attracted to helping if we’re a serious learner.
After a brief period of feeling sorry for ourselves, consciously choose to end the pity. We must not let our minds control us. If we “mind wander” we will likely go to “should’ve, …could’ve…” All this may be somewhat cathartic but not of much real value going forward.
Put the learning into specific principles and actions. Identify things to apply and practice so we don’t repeat the things that contributed to the loss.
Say thank you and be grateful for the loss so we get the opportunity to win again. Celebrate being in the mix. Show tenacity and mental toughness. Most people love those who get off the ground and dust off.
Smile and find the humor in the learning process. Forgive ourselves and others if mistakes were made. We’re alive. And as the old adage says, “You only trip if you’re moving.”

And by the way, don’t feel bad if this feels like it is easier said than done. It is.

Live the Triangle,

Lorne

Feedback in Today’s Workplace

201015 Nov
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Posted inBe Accountable

I have always found annual performance reviews almost useless. If we wait to get and give performance feedback on an annual basis, it must not matter much.

I want to give and get feedback in a much more timely way. Dan Pink, author of Drive, publishes a weekly article in the Telegraph UK. This Sunday his article was right on. He suggests three things we can do to make a workplace a little more feedback rich:

Do it ourselves. Why not establish our own feedback system. Get feedback on a regular basis (once per month?) from colleagues on how we’re doing. If we have a boss who’s really thinking clearly, they will honor and support this activity.
Peer Recognition. I’m a big fan of people giving each other recognition. In the company I run, people are encouraged to send each other written acknowledgments on a card we call an “ACE” card. In Pink’s article he references a large American engineering firm where employees also have the green light to award team members $50 gift certificates.
Do it with software. There are some great software packages that drive extensive 360 degree feedback – the more timely, specific, and constructive, the more effective results.

Great leading companies have feed back systems driving behavior.

Self accountable people find a way to get timely feedback on our performance.

Live the Triangle,

Lorne

Show That We Care!

201012 Nov
Comments4
Posted inBe Abundant

I used a quote from the renowned sales and motivational guru Zig Ziglar in a blog last week: “They don’t care about what you know until they know you care.”

It was October of this year, when I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep in the United Kingdom. It was 11:30 pm BST (British Summer Time) and I was still getting my North American body clock on track. I was exhausted and my mind was swirling. Then suddenly I realized it was Canadian Thanksgiving the next day and I’d forgotten to send a Happy Canadian Thanksgiving email out to our Canadian team. I lay there for a moment more and of course I knew what I had to do.

I got out of bed, grabbed my blackberry and lugged myself upstairs so I could get a decent signal and sent off a best Canadian Thanksgiving wish to Team Canada. As the CEO of a company with people in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, it was clearly the right thing to do. I’m no hero for getting myself out of bed to send that message. I should have had it on my calendar so I could have sent it out earlier. But my point is that to be a leader, regardless of title or position, is to demonstrate with sincerity that you and I care. Sometimes it’s inconvenient. Sometimes we might not be sure it even matters. But I think Ziglar is right; they need to know we care. And often the little demonstration of care rolls into an act of major importance and reference later.

Being abundant means being generous of spirit. That means dragging ourselves out of bed to send a message and much more. We have to generously and sincerely show we care. Be a leader. Act with abundance by being generous in giving of ourselves (and by the way don’t expect anything back in return).

Just Do It!

Live the Triangle,

Lorne

Character Triangle

Our character is exclusively ours. We define it by how we think and what we do. I believe that acting with Character is driven by what I call the Character Triangle.

What, exactly, is the Character Triangle (CT)?

The CT describes and emphasizes three distinct but interdependent values:

Be Accountable: first person action to make things better, avoiding blame.
Be Respectful: being present, listening, looking again, focusing on the process.
Be Abundant: generous in spirit, moving forward, minimizing the lack of.