The Fire Within

I just went through a great training on accountability by Partners In Leadership . I thought I had a good understanding of accountability and would certainly label myself as accountable, who wouldn't? Unfortunately most of the business world has a negative view of accountability because we generally focus on the negative aspect, holding someone accountable when something goes wrong. True accountability is part of your organizational culture and it all starts with clearly defined results that you are trying to achieve. If we are honest with ourselves as leaders those desired results are usually clear to the leadership team, but not always clear to the employees. If your employees aren't displaying the accountability you desire, if you wish they would finally take ownership of their work and the things around them, the first place you need to look is in the mirror, as it starts with us as leaders. One of my favorite sayings is "The only person you can control is yourself

I've always been a big believer in organizational health and the importance it plays in a teams success. In a recent article by Michael Schneider he discussed a research project conducted by Google of 180 teams within Google and they came up with five key characteristics of enhanced teams. Four of the characteristics seem simple enough, and something we could probably come up with on our own: Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time? Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear? Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us? Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we're doing matters? What was most interesting is the fifth characteristic that was the most important because it was the foundation for the other four, without it everything crumbles. It is the concept of psychological safety, having an environment where all team members feel saf

I am convinced that the amount of success in the world is lower than we could have and the main thing that holds people back from achieving a higher level of success is that too many of us listen to the critics. If you start achieving good things, you will start to see some criticism directed at you, the more success the more the critics. Look at the recent NBA Finals, LeBron James and Stephen Curry battled for the championship and the majority of the conversation was from critics explaining why one or both wasn't as great as some say. Most seem to ignore the fact that both of them are in the top 20 basketball players of all time (I'm not going to argue where they are at, I think everyone can agree they are somewhere in the top 20). If you have people that criticize you be happy, you are probably more successful than you think. The great tragedy is when people start believing their critics. They lower their goals, they put off their dreams, they quit before the breakthrough b

Jon Gordon shared in a recent tweet  the following statement: Your social media platform is a blessing. Use it to add value instead of devalue. This got me thinking about my own use of social media, is the stuff I'm putting out there adding value? I hope so, but then I started thinking about what I see on my timelines and honestly how much has no value. During the last presidential election I think we can all safely say we waded through a lot of junk to find anything of value. Still today though I see a number of posts that if I took the time to look at the replies or comments you would see two sides vehemently trying to prove their point, with really no chance of swaying the other sides opinion because less face it, being open minded is a rare quality these days. The level of hurt that comes from social media doesn't stop there. If you think about the posts that are out there, especially for the younger generations, they share everything. They post who they are out with,

Change is such a fascinating thing. There are so many nuances to it: We want a change but the change doesn't happen We don't want a change but the change happens Change happens but it isn't what we expect We want the change but it takes longer than we had hoped We want the change but it happens faster than we are prepared for No matter how we view change it is inevitable that we will encounter a lot of changes in our life. We won't like all of them, we'll probably love some of them, we will be impacted by all of them. If you are leading a change, things to remember: Communicate - Whatever amount of communication you think you need on the change, double it at a minimum. I would recommend 3-4 times the amount of communication that you would think you would need. Communicate 1-on-1, group presentations, written, visual the more ways you can communicate it the better you will be able to make it stick.  Repeat - You can't just get the word out once

Life can bring us many new opportunities. If we choose to pursue those opportunities it often means that we need to leave some old things behind. The most obvious is when you leave one job for the next. Sometimes you might be leaving on good terms and sometimes they might not be the best of terms, if you were let go from your position for instance. No matter how those transitions go, I believe it is our responsibility to make sure we do everything within our power to make that which we leave behind as successful as possible. When one leaves on bad terms they often hope for the demise of the company or department they were dismissed from. Hopeful that things are hard on them because of what they did to them. But too often it isn't the manager that feels the impact of a person leaving, it is the co-workers that suddenly are left holding the bag, trying to figure out how the dismissed person actually did their job because it doesn't make sense to them. The right thing to do is m

We've all had those moments, someone at some point in time irritated us because you know they just weren't working that hard. A co-worker that we wish would just pull their own weight - a child that we swear only does the absolute minimum to get a job done that you ask them to complete or a worker at fill-in-the-blank that is taking there sweet time helping you with your request. But let's be honest, we've also all had those moments where we were trying to drag out a task to fill the time or not starting a project for some very good reason, or so we tell ourselves. It is in those moments where we achieve our dreams. Nobody ever sees the hard work of practice, the countless hours of training, the effort put in to perfect your craft. There are no short cuts in life, if you want something different, doing just enough to get by isn't going to get the job done. What do you want to be different? Read a book, take a class, practice your craft, perfect your art. MOVE

Recently I was talking to a friend about how there are things that I hesitate in doing because I feel inadequate. There are things that God has placed a fire inside of me for but rather than just going after it I end up talking myself out of things. I put together a list of the things I need before I can accomplish or even start on a goal. Writing was one of those things for me, I would start and stop so many times because I felt like nobody noticed or I would compare myself to others and know that I'm not as talented as they are. My friend simply stated that he believes everyone feels that way. As I reflected on that I realized how much the devil likes to make us tell ourselves we aren't good enough. The more we are called to do something the louder that voice becomes telling us we shouldn't. God sets before us open doors, but He doesn't shove us through them, they are choices that we have to make. We have to make the effort to follow what He has placed in our hearts