Excellence | Lorne Rubis

Turn Yourself into “Amazing”!

201110 May
Comments0
Posted inBe Abundant

Bill Taylor in a recent Harvard Business Review article reinforced that these days we have to go from okay to amazing. Walk through any retail shopping center or main street today and we will see what okay turns out to be, a closed and boarded up retail store or restaurant. If the organization you’re with is satisfied with okay, then get out and find yourself one that wants to be amazing. If you want to be just okay at what you do, then be prepared to have someone replace you. It’s only a matter of time.

The only way any organization becomes amazing is because all of the people working there, at every level, are amazing. And, the way people become amazing is to identify who their customers are (internal or external) and then exceed their expectations.

Character Move: take a moment and ask yourself, “Am I amazing?” What would it take to be described that way? Go ask and find out? Take one or two small steps towards amazing… keep going until you hear the “amazing” description pop up. Then get even more amazing (being amazing is not being perfect). Become relentlessly crazy about being amazing! It is a mind set. Assume the position.

Being amazing in the Triangle,

Lorne

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

How Do Leaders Problem Solve Effectively?

201015 Oct
Comments2
Posted inBe Accountable

…all hat and no cattle?

As a CEO I have the opportunity to see all kinds of people at work at all levels. As I see employees progress or stagnate in their roles, there seems to be a point of excellence difference based on the degree one takes the lead as a problem solver regardless of position. Here is the process I see people who are effective at problem solving and pro-active in leadership, generally follow:

They have a self accountable mind set where they believe they can make a situation better.

They gather facts and data on the situation by actively engaging others who are impacted. This usually involves a formal or informal “campaign” of providing information on the impact of the problem and asking for suggestions in solution development.

They are decisive in choosing a solution supported by insight stemming from #2 above and then applying a solution.

But this next step is where some of the people who are exceptional at proactive leadership show their stuff… they have a campaign advertising the effectiveness of the problem-solving applied solution. People want to know that their input was put to work.

Success energizes the group and they are ready for more. If not, fatigue often takes over.

If we want data to support this process, review the work of Harvard professors as reported in Working Knowledge, August 30 2010. This research shows that information campaigns led to a 74% increase in suggestions to improve and even more when people learned about the effectiveness of working solutions.

Try the above process on a small or large problem in your area. See what happens. Otherwise we’re all talk and no action. Or as the saying goes, “All hat, no cattle.”

Living the Triangle,

Lorne

Landing on Our Butts 20,000 Times. Getting Up 20,001!

201029 Sep
Comments2
Posted inBe Accountable

The concept of what Matthew Syed calls, in his brilliant book Bounce… “Purposeful Practice” is really on my mind. It completely makes sense to me and meshes with my experience in business and sports. To be great at anything requires years of dedicated quantity and quality of practice. We not only have to practice a lot but practice the RIGHT things.

A metaphorical example might be provided by Shizuku Arakawa, the Japanese 2006 Olympic figure skating champion. It is reported that she fell over 20,000 times in her journey from 5 year old novice to gold medal winner. She fell because she, as all great champions do, was always practicing at the edge of her skill level; pushing herself to greatness. She not only practiced all the time, but she worked on practicing the right things and then pushed herself to break through. Hence 20, 000 spills. Of course she got up each time, brushed herself off and went back to purposeful practice. The end result: an Olympic Gold Medal, and the first Japanese gold medal in figure skating.

Purposeful practice involves:

1. Outlining in deep detail the processes that make up the desired expertise and end result.

2. Practicing over and over again every process; especially the ones we’re not good at.

3. Getting very specific process feedback and coaching on every practice so we improve rather than repeat.

4. Apply breakthrough creativity on how we might get better results faster.

5. Do it over and over again.

6. Have the right mind set (the CT!).

Whether we’re salespeople, grocery clerks, butchers, or golfers the same rules apply. If we want to be excellent we have to purposefully practice, and practice with purpose.

Self accountability and purposeful practice go together. The good news for all of us is that talent is over rated. Working at excellence with serious intent is not.

Living in 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.