Last month we started working through my response to the question of:

What can I do to deal with the daily pressures associated with my job and my life?

At the time I outlined that rather than spend time trying to work out how to deal with it if and when it occurs. I thought it better to outline a few ideas that might help us reduce the frequency of having to deal with it at all.

But after a period of time I found that my few ideas had become a lot of ideas. So rather than throw everything at you at once I have split my ideas up into two.

Here is the second installment.

Also, please do not hesitate to post a response to anything you read or and comment you might have about the subject of Dealing With Stress/Pressure.

Get out of your comfort zone
Know what it is like to deal with uncomfortable situations by having little exercises that take you out of your comfort zone each and everyday.

Spend time with you
There are always demands on you and your time. Without being selfish make sure you have a little bit of “you” time.

Be smarter and therefore better

The more we educate ourselves the easier it becomes to handle situations when they are encountered.

Give what you want to receive
Make sure you understand that what comes your way could be reflection of what you put out.

Take responsibility for your own actions
Instead of saying why does this happen to me, understand it is probably happening because you did something to cause it.

Goals
Each day have the discipline of daily action to take you closer to the goals and aspirations that you have set yourself.

Change

Be open minded to change, but never lower your standards.

Be involved in the positive
Surround yourself with positive people and influences. When there is a negative conversation taking place, walk away.

Stand your ground
Without being ridiculous stand up for the things you believe in and be consistent in doing it.

Respect, popularity and you
Understand that not everyone is going to like who you are, what you are about or what you stand for but that is OK. See point above.

Repetition

Don’t do things to release the pressure or stress and then wake up the next morning and worry and stress because you did them.

Motivation V Discipline
Sometimes you will have to do things you do not like this is called discipline. Sometimes you can do things you want to do this is called motivation. Understand the difference and when and how to use each one.

Learn to say ‘No’
One of the great stress and pressure busters is without being rude is to be able to say no. People are always placing themselves in situations that 10 mins have after they have agreed to something they start to stress about having to do it. Just learn to say ‘no’.

Relaxation techniques
These days there are any number of relaxation tapes and CD’s available. Get hold of one and use it as often as you can.

In the nose out the mouth
I am sure there is more to effective breathing than this. But I do know that effective and consistent deep breathing goes along way to helping reduce stress and anxiety.

Daily Inspiration
In your own manner find inspiration in each and everyday. This daily inspiration can be found through religion, meditation and Tai Chi, reading, music and the like.

Positive self talk
As important as it is to be in a positive environment and dealing with positive people it falls short of the need for us to be positive to ourself. Make sure when you start hearing that little voice it is saying all the right things.

Wind down the window and enjoy the view

As busy as you are everyday, make sure you take the time to understand and enjoy what it is you are doing and to take full advantage of all of the opportunities these situations provide.

New friends and acquaintances
Try to each day spend time with new people. New insight and perspective will provide you with renewed positive outlook on the opportunities that are available.

Be on time
There has to be a thousand different ways to do this. But if you want to reduce stress and anxiety be on time for the things you have to do.

Have a plan
Without getting to robotic in your day, make sure you have an understanding and a plan of attack for each and everyday. At the end make sure you have accomplished the majority of what you set out to do.

A little exercise goes along way
There is an infinite amount of descriptions of what constitutes exercise, which for your purpose is great. Just make sure each and everyday you do some type of exercise.

Keep looking forward
No sense dwelling on the past the only thing you can control is what happens in the future?

Have ago to place
When you get an inkling of what might be around the corner take a little time away from where you are and go to a place that is going to allow you to be cool, calm and collected.

Don’t ignore the signs

Sometimes we fail to hear ourselves telling us things that are important. Our body uses various means to tell us certain things be in touch with yourself so you know what you should be doing and when.

Prevention is better than cure
Probably no more needs to be said.

The Journey Continues!

This month’s question of:

Do I always lead from the front?

Is one that allows me to share with you a number of different ideas? I think the first insight I want to share with you is that you don’t always need to lead from the front, (and I will explain this in more detail a little later) however, I do believe you always need to lead by example.

To help you understand where I am coming from on the concept of Leading by Example, I want to go back to an article I have previously written:

I hear it so often. It gets stated by good leaders and by others, perhaps not so good. I hear it from young leaders and old leaders alike. I hear it from leaders with many years experience and from those with basically no experience.

I hear it spoken about as though it is a strength, when in most cases, it actually is a weakness.

The phrase I am talking about is:

“I lead by example!”

Leadership by example is fantastic as long as the example is the right kind of example.

As a leader do you have people saying this to you?

“Well if you want it done, then you go out and do it”, or

“If you believe it can be done, then you show me how!”

Leadership by example, in my opinion, is not doing for someone that which they should be prepared to do for themselves.

Obviously, there are going to be times when, because of circumstances, you need to go before everyone else and show what can be done.

Then there is no problem.

But if as a leader you always need to “be an example”, by doing what the people you lead should be doing, then you have a problem.

And that problem is either with you or the team. And as it stands, neither the team nor you are going to see the true benefits of a combined approach if everything continues the way it is.

Let me try and put this another way:

“Leadership is what you do with someone not what you do for someone.”

You are involved with the people you lead; you work with them. But as I said, very rarely should you do for them that which they are capable of doing for themselves.

As you no doubt realise, this will take a great deal of discipline on your part because there will be times when you “leading by example” is your fault, not theirs. Think through some of these statements:

• It was just easier for me to do it
• We were short of time
• I have extensive knowledge in that area
• I just needed to show them how it is done
• Delegation is not my strength

All of these are very legitimate reasons. All of them however, are negatives, not positives.

Yes, it might be easier for you to do it; and yes, they can learn from observing you; and yes, time is important; and yes, to every other reason you want to use to justify your actions.

But if all you ever do is solve the problems of the people you lead without helping them learn to solve them for themselves, then you are not really doing the right thing by them.

And leadership is all about doing the right thing by the people you lead.

Leadership is about empowering the people around you. Are you really empowering them by “being an example” and doing it for them time and time again?

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about the one or two situations where you introduce something new and then show them what is going on. What I am talking about here is role confusion: role confusion highlighted by the fact that you continue to fill their roles and don’t really fulfil yours.

So can leading by example be a strength?

Can leading by example really help those you lead?

Can you fulfil your role just by leading by example?

Can you empower someone by leading by example?

Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!

But it all depends on the type of example you are showing.

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Commitment
• Caring
• Discipline
• Communication
• Values
• Ethics
• Standards
• Purpose

These are the areas where you do want to lead by example. These are the areas that will have people following your lead. These are the areas that will empower people and these are areas that are capable of taking those you lead to another level; firstly as people, and then as colleagues involved in your specific work.

It is this leading by example that will generate the most important aspect of leadership: Trust.

Those around you will follow you because they trust you. People will follow your example when it truly helps them become better. People will follow you when you show your belief in them, by letting them do it for themselves.

So hopefully, I have been able to clarify my position on leading by example which then leads us back to the original question of should you always lead from the front.

To which my simple answer would be, No. But once again please allow me to explain.

My belief is that there are three different levels from which you can position yourself in your quest to be an effective leader.

Above=Leadership
Beside=Fellowship
Below=Followership

Now before we get to far into this, let me outline this important consideration in regard to this model:

One level is not necessarily better or more important than another.

I believe the best level of positioning will be situation specific. I know there would be others that would have contrary view to this and probably a very strong one.

And that view would be along the lines of: “There is only one place to lead from and that is out in front or above the people you lead”. Now without getting us side tracked I believe this to be a very restricted view.

But back to the specifics of:
Above=Leadership
Beside=Fellowship
Below=Followership

As a leader you understand the sequence of influence and you will also be aware that in some occasions you will need to be above or infront of the team, Leadership. Leading them to where they need to be. But at the same time, as we went through above not doing for them those things they should be doing for themselves. Basically, not leading by example by doing the things they should be doing.

But when the team has taken responsibility to go forward. When they have paid the price of responsibility to be able to take ownership of themselves and of the situation, then you as leader, join in side by side with them. They have their roles and you have yours it becomes a Fellowship of specific role identified performance.

You continue working with the team, you build the team in skill, experience, purpose, desire and responsibility. They continue to increase their responsibility to a point where they are taking control of themselves and their destiny. They are in charge of driving themselves, the product and the result.

In one sense, it is almost like you have made yourself redundant. But as you and those you lead continue to work through the sequence and in the process, have now placed you as the leader in a position of leading from behind the team, Followership. However, even from a position behind the team you are watching their every move and at the same time, watching what is coming ahead, so that if you need to change your position for the benefit of all you can.

But for the time, you sit behind the team, you are a follower of the teams action, purpose, commitment and direction.

So although this is a brief overview of the concepts of Leadership, Fellowship and Followership, I would hope that you can see as I said at the outset, that no one position is more important that the other. But where you sit with the team will be dependant upon an variety of situations, needs and influences.

The right place to sit when selected correctly, will bring with it a corresponding level of leadership effectiveness.

Don’t be frightened to develop the team to a point of independence, as in my belief when you have done this, you will be at your greatest level of your leadership effectiveness, that is; you have made those you lead independent of you.

The Journey Continues!

In the January 1st edition of our newsletter The Full Nelson, I asked the question of:

What is going to be your approach to 2008?

And I based this question around the age-old fable of the Hare and the Tortoise.

A hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing, “Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.”

The Hare, believing his assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal.

On the day appointed for the race, the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course.

The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after his fatigue.

The moral of the story?

Slow and steady wins the race.

From that story I then asked the following:

Are you going to come out of the blocks at a thousand miles an hour as you pursue your goals and New Year’s resolutions with a whole heap of excitement and motivation?

If you are, please make sure you don’t fall asleep half way through the year because of either fatigue or boredom.

Or …

Are you going to begin and end the journey of the next 366 (Leap Year) days following the philosophy of the tortoise — Slow and steady wins the race?

As a follow up to that article, I want to share with you the following insight to the ongoing relationship of the Hare and the Tortoise.

The Journey Continues!

The Hare and the Tortoise-Part 2:
The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. He realised that he’d lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless, and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there’s no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So, he challenged the tortoise to another race.

The tortoise agreed.

This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.

The moral of the story?

Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It’s good to be slow and steady; but it’s better to be fast and reliable.

However the journey still continues:

The Hare and the Tortoise-Part 3:
The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realised that there’s no way he can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted. He thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route.

The hare agreed.

The tortoise and hare started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other side of the river.

The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime, the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking, and finished the race.

The moral of the story?

First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.

However, the story still has not ended and the journey continues.

The Hare and the Tortoise-Part 4
The tortoise and hare, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realised that the last race could have been run much better. So the tortoise and hare decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time.

They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. Both the tortoise and hare felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they’d felt earlier.

The moral of the story?

It’s good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you’re able to work in a team and harness each other’s core competencies, you’ll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you’ll do poorly and someone else does well.

The Journey Continues!

This month’s question:

What is the right balance of head, heart and guts as a decision maker?

I know what I am about to run through will look like I am not prepared to give a definitive answer to a great question. I don’t want it to look that way, but too some it might. The reason being; that in my opinion there is no set standard of balance between Head, Heart and Guts when it comes to decision making or anything else for that matter.

However, I do believe it is important that all three become part of any decision making process. Ultimately though, the right balance will depend upon many different considerations.

Considerations such:
The situation
The outcome
The influences
Available information
Level of risk

On the other side of the ledger you would need to consider:
Your personality
Your leadership style
Your vision and focus
Your experience
Your levels of understanding
Your past decision making process

As you can see there are numerous factors that would need to be considered in the process or structure of your decision-making. However, there is also an opportunity, and in many cases, a real and relevant need to include the aspects of Head, Heart and Guts.

Now with that stated, I would also suggest the idea of a weighted scale that allows you to use all three elements of Head, Heart and Guts, but to what amount of each would depend upon the appropriateness of each area, as their relevance, significance and appropriateness will vary from decision to decision.

The reality is that you will operate from a different perspective in your decision making depending on a wide a variety of considerations, not to mention pressures, levels of clarity, understanding and information processing. One cannot use the same style of decision making every day. The need for diversity of approach changes moment-to-moment, situation-to-situation, and decision-to-decision.

We can always do better as decision makers, whether it is professionally or personally. But as you continue to develop yourself, your thinking, your understanding, and therefore your decision-making, it is vitally important to stay true to yourself.

Each and every decision you make must have your DNA attached. It should be easy for anyone influenced by the decisions you make to see you in how the decision has been reached and why.

They may not always agree with your decision, but their level of unease is somewhat reduced, simply because they can see your consistency of approach in the decision that has been made and through the process that led you to the decision.

As a leader of people, each and everyday you will be placed in the position of chief decision maker and those decisions need to be made based on some type of criteria.

Many times that criteria is developed through your past experiences, it is aided by a system or structure, or it can be helped by the information you have available.

I would also suggest emotion to some degree will be involved in your decision-making procedure.

The skill is not to remove or ignore the emotion, but to truly understand the level of emotion involved and its ability to influence you.

You should have a sense of understanding about you and your tendencies towards the emotional aspects of decision-making. That understanding at the very least is to guard against your own worst tendencies.

Let’s look at it this way. If you’re over optimistic, you’re likely to gloss over the threat of things going wrong. If you’re pessimistic, you might have a tendency to dwell on the negatives. And if you’re greedy, you might be so tempted by potential rewards, that you overlook risk altogether.

Probe the basis of your belief. We often make decisions based upon our assumptions, be prepared to test those assumptions against the reality of the situation. Test your opinions by looking for information that challenges your beliefs, rather than looking for information that supports your opinions.

Be prepared to look at your areas of expertise, your beliefs and your philosophies, and honestly assess the restrictions. Search for examples. Identify situations or individuals that have faced a similar decision. Evaluate their experiences to better prepare for your own decision. Watch for over confidence in yourself and others when you venture outside your individual perspective.

If at all possible, do a partial test-run. By this I mean, create a scenario in line with your overall objective, but only do part of the overall decision just to see how it might unfold.

Within the process of making decisions, it is vitally important to look further than one step ahead and to also take into consideration all future options.

Continually and consistently search for new information or insight which may help you in the decision making process. As long as you know where to search for the relevant information - and can verify the accuracy of what you learn - you will be well positioned to see all sides of an issue and make a sensible judgment.

The most effective decisions flow from your ability to surmise the right information, to read the situation correctly and to ask the right person the right question at the right time.

You should also consider: What are the costs associated with this decision and are the benefits worth the cost?

We’ve all heard stories of leaders or we know someone that has for whatever reason, decided to take a rather large risk and from that action, have been able to deliver some outstanding results. Basically, they were willing to make bold decisions with no real understanding, if the outcome they were pursuing would ever be attained.

However, the reality is that most successful leaders take a balanced approach to risk. That is; they accept that risk is inherent, but they make a sharp distinction between calculated risk and careless risk.

They look at a couple of key areas to help them make the distinction, areas such as:

1. Identify the cost
You have to be clear about your viewpoint, theories and assumptions and think through the potential consequences of any decision you make. Ask yourself what could go wrong under any and all circumstances, both internally and externally, and then evaluate the potential effect and magnitude.

Before deciding, picture the expected outcomes of your decision and mentally forecast the ramifications of your chosen course of action.

2. Diversify your approach to reduce the risk
Without turning your back on any element of risk, make sure that you put the context of risk into the bigger picture. That way you can offset risky decisions, ventures, or initiatives with more predictable outcomes.

3. Know when, how and where to read the warning signs
Make a point of understanding, monitoring and analysing the aspects that a favourable outcome of your decision depends upon. Work hard to detect if things aren’t working, as you believe they should be.

Makes sure you have created a network of people that can help you monitor the situation or hold you accountable to the things you should be monitoring.

So hopefully from what we have outlined, you can see that there is a role for Head, Heart and Guts both individually and collectively in your decision making process. To what degree you use any or all of them, is a decision best left to you once you have considered they types of things we have just worked through.

The Journey Continues!

This months questions:

Bill, does it get easier?

Fundamentally my answer is hopefully, no it doesn’t.

Now hang on a second before you start having a major meltdown because of what I just outlined, please allow me a chance to explain myself.

The reality is it does get easier however I hope as ‘it’ (and ‘it’ can be whatever you want it to be) is getting easier you are continuing to push the limits, to explore new situations, taking the most of every opportunity and an ongoing commitment to seeing your potential realised, so that it probably doesn’t get that much easier.

It should never be easy. However it should to some degree and at certain times to some slight degree, get easier.

I say that based on the fact that as we face the challenges of life weather they be personal, professional, educational, or spiritual, we become better educated, better skilled, more knowledgeable, with greater insight, competence and efficiency.

No doubt there are times when we probably don’t see that we are making progress or that we are getting better and that things will never get easier. It is at these times when we must look at our situation and ourselves and change our perspective.

We can at these times either see a hole or a donut, the glass is either half full or half empty.

It all depends on how we, at these times, view the world, ourselves and the situation that stands in front of us.

Now I am not going to get into the law of attraction, or the concept of positive thinking (not that I have anything against either), but I in times, like these, always remember the words of one of my mentors Bill Sweetenham when he would tell me “You are getting experience that no-one else is.”

I must admit at the time due to the challenges, the trials and tribulations he had organised for me, I did find it hard to see the positive side of it, however he kept throwing me these situations and the line about experience and I somehow managed to get through each one. And in doing so, became further skilled, knowledgeable and increasingly better in dealing with my perspective and in the process how to handle the situations he presented to me.

In the early days of learning, it is sometimes hard to see that we will ever become truly competent to handle certain situations of life, however in my experience, we tend to travel through four (4) cycles of learning, development and competence.

Let me explain it to you like this:

4×1-2 Year Development Plan

Years 1-2/3
Usually many problems and situations. Usually you have 1-2 methods to fix the problem or overcome the situation, which allows you something like a 50-50 success rate.

Years 2/3-4/5
During this period you will have fewer problems and difficult situations to deal with. This is brought about by the skills and learning from your first cycle of development. However, this second stage of development is not totally devoid of testing times, difficult situations and stressful circumstances.

At these times you now have an expanded arsenal of problem solving, situation rectifying and difficulty resolving skills. Basically you will have 4-5 methods to fix or overcome the situations that sit before you. Therefore your rate of success begins to increase.

Years 4/5-6/7
This is probably one of those periods where things do get easier. The reasons being that you have very few if any problems. Why? Because you are now skilled enough to cut off the problems, circumvent the difficult situations before they even happen. Your success rate during this stage is very high.

Years 6/7 and onwards
Now we come to the interesting parts of the journey of self-development. Things kind of become easier in some ways, but not really. Once again let me explain.

There are problems, situations and pressure filled situations. The difference being this time you create them!

What I hear you say, ‘Bill have you lost your mind?’

I spend all my time becoming skilled enough to remove these situations and now I am creating them myself.

Why would I do that?

Easy.

You have become that skilled at your leadership, your problem solving skills, your situation rectifying abilities that you now create problems, situations and stress so you can use them to teach others how to deal with them.

So I know it is a long answer to a quick question, but my real answer is this. I would hope that it doesn’t get easier for you. Why? Because I would like you to continue to push the limits, to explore new situations, taking the most of every opportunity and in the process, you have an ongoing commitment to see your true potential realised.

The Journey Continues!

As you walk around these days you cannot help but notice that how we communicate is rapidly changing. These changes have come about for many different reasons, one of the main being technology. In this day and age we use technology to increase and strengthen our communication process.

We use:

Mobile phones, Email,VOIP, Blogging, Podcasting, Instant messaging, Text messaging etc etc etc.

But you know what, as good as this stuff is, it is taking away the need and ability to be able to communicate one on one and face to face.

As an example think about the places you used to spend time talking with your family:

At the breakfast table of a morning. Travelling in the car. At the family evening meal.

Then bring in technology to those situations and many more and you see where things are going from a strength to a weakness.

Traveling in the car is near impossible each kid as their mp3 player jammed in their ears. Evening meal discussion (if everyone is there) over the evening news. Or in between SMS messages from friends or Blackberry email messages from the office. Breakfast discussions in between the radio belting out the news or watching the morning breakfast shows on TV.

Face to face meetings are disrupted because the mobile rings or in comes an important email message.

My point is simple use technology and the like to expand our opprtunity to comunicate but dont let it take away from the best form of communication there is that being face to face. I know not always possible but make that the exception not the norm.

Oh and yeah spend time with the family doing nothing other than talking. And if the kids find it hard educate them on how to do it better, because somewhere and at sometime in their life they are actually going to have to talk to someone face to face and be able to string three sentences or more together.

I have spent the weekend in Canberra in my role as manger with the band The Good. My son Jae is the drummer. Now Canberra is a city where I lived for 6 years, when I was coaching at the Australian Insitute of Sport.

My six years at the AIS provided me with many wonderful opportunities and situations, the one that was and still is the most important to me was the people that I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with.

The weekend trip back to Canberra allowed me to catch up with many of these people that in the past I had spent many hours working and socialising with.

Each of these relationships is very special to me. They are friendships that both parties realise that we dont need to be talking to each other everyday to make the relationship what it is.

However at the same time we know that we are only a phone call away if anything is needed.

It was a weekend that reminded me that life does present us with many wonderful times, opportunities and situations. But none more important than the people we encounter and the subsequent relationships we establish and develop along the way.