Playing It Safe Isn’t … Safe

I’m the un-proud owner of five residential units. These properties have never cash-flowed and they continue to deteriorate as it becomes yet another residence for yet another college student. Over the past two years, I’ve just been riding this money pit, waiting for an economic revival. Still waiting.

As I wait, I’ve tried to do as little as possible. Pay for maintenance only when the maintenance problem is life-threatening. Shrubs? Ha! Not a chance. But my lack of attention to these properties is starting to show. My competition is passing me by as they have better yards, brighter colors, and new amenities.

Over the past two years, with my properties, I was playing defense – protecting my position and my cash, doing as little work and as little harm as possible.

But my strategy is now shifting. If I continue to play defense, my properties will collapse (not literally, buy maybe). I need to look for ways to be more relevant and more attractive to potential customers. I’ve got to learn to compete again. I’m starting to spend again in order to make money. While that was uncomfortable a year ago, it’s absolutely necessary now.

It’s time to get aggressive, to play offense in business, to move from protection to progression. Those who are unable to shift from a defensive to an offensive mindset will find themselves significantly behind the competition as we grow closer to the rebound.

In order to shift to this offensive mindset in business, it will be important to become opportunity-minded – curious about our potential, evaluating the quality of our position, forward thinking and visionary, and courageous. Yes, spending money in a cash crunch environment takes courage.

Interestingly enough, our initial findings from the Champions ECChO assessment (www.championseccho.com) reveal that the opportunity-minded principle has the lowest average scores of all of the core principles of a champion as well as the smallest spread of scores.

Core Principle #1 – Enlightened: Avg. enlightenment score = 69%
Core Principle #2 – Connected: Avg. connected score = 72%
Core Principle #3 – Change-Maker: Avg. change-maker score = 73%
Core Principle #4 – Opportunity-Minded: Avg. opp-minded score = 68%

Those findings may have developed as a result of our difficult business environment. In a difficult business environment, defensive minds prevail. However, I encourage you to shift your mindset:

1. Grow your curiosity
2. Cast a new vision
3. Develop the courage to begin to take more risks

Onward!

Tags: bold, brave, business, challenge, downturn, economic, Leadership, offense, vision

The Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is to live fully with ultimate hope.

Let the debate begin. I know I’m not wise enough to nail this. I don’t think any of us are…but we sure seem to spend a lot of time in pursuit of identifying and understanding the meaning of life—especially around this time of year—the New Year. This is the time when I seem to rest the most, play the most, and wrestle philosophically the most. The turn of a new year for me is a time to consider the personal question of “what do I want to be this year” in pursuit of the meaningful life.

This consideration always comes back to purpose. So in the transition to 2009, I found myself, yet again considering … well, me. And I found some things I liked and some things I didn’t like. These were some of the questions I considered.

1. Where am I not honest with myself?
2. What needs more of a disproportionate amount of my attention?
3. Where did I screw up? Do less of that.
4. Where did I succeed? Do more of that.
5. Where would I like to grow the most this year?

For me, in ‘09 I’ll make a greater commitment to my spiritual growth, new adventures with my family, and business growth. What about you?

Tags: 2009, business, champion, lead, Leadership, life, new, organizational, purpose, reflect, resolution, review, year

Anyone Tired From the Times? Do Something About It.

Emotional energy is low, lifestyle challenges are high. And few people are escaping the negative impacts of our times. Life got harder.

So, how have you adjusted?

Hopefully, you’ve adjusted like Americans have throughout history. You aren’t waiting to be saved, bailed out, or granted immunity. You’ve replaced finger pointing and anger with a personal and strong sense of urgency. These aren’t the times for hope, but rather, action. It’s time to bring your intensity to every single day. According to John Kotter, it’s time to elevate your sense of urgency.

…true urgency is a set of emotions, a gut-level feeling that we need to get up every single day with total determination to do something to deal with those hazards and opportunities and make some progress, no matter how modest, and do so today.

Check out the rest of John Kotter’s post on HBSP.

Tags: business, career, champion, economy, harvard, john, kotter, Leadership, life, lifestyle, organizational, responsibility, urgency, work

All This Talk About Creativity

I’ve been impressed lately by the play creativity has been getting from business writers. Fast Company has really highlighted the topic and has featured a number of articles that show how creativity helps leaders and their businesses get ahead. Check out the October edition of Fast Company - page 56.

This brief highlights the book Iconoclast by Gregory Berns. The brief and the book present how our brains are lazy and our creative or imaginative process defaults to what we already know. The brief goes on to suggest that creativity and imagination happen most often in new environments or with new experiences.

Next time you want to get creative or imaginative, take on a new experience – bust out of the conference or leave the seminar, and go find a mountaintop, a shaded tree, or a roller coaster. Your mind needs a little right brain action. You and your business will benefit.

Tags: berns, business, champion, champions, championship, company, creativity, development, Fast, gregory, Iconoclast, imagination, Leadership, mike, organizational, thompson, Training

The End Result from Organizational Champions – Championship Companies

Champions build championship companies. What are championship companies?

Championship companies don’t compete, they win. They are most often category or industry leaders, or at least on their way to a category leadership position. Sometimes you might find a newly formed championship company in a turnaround effort. These companies are easy to spot.

1. They have great agility in an ever-changing world
2. They maximize partnerships and operate globally as an enterprise
3. Their culture is a highly diverse and performance-based culture
4. Accountability moves in all directions (evaluations happen up and down)
5. The organization operates as an interdependent system of cross-functional teams, clients, and suppliers.
6. These companies make bold plays and are disruptive by nature, often changing the game.
7. These companies are authentic – they walk the talk.
8. These companies have a genuine concern for their success and their contribution to society.

How do champions help build these championship companies?

1. They have trust and build trust within the organization by their example, their authenticity and consistency, their pure pursuits (win-win), and through accountability.
2. They are highly encouraging to others and spend a great deal of time investing in the highest potential.
3. They are inspiring through their emotional energy and drive for what’s possible.
4. They are always reminding people of the vision and connecting the dots to execution.
5. They are amazingly persevering and always get back up after a set-back (perspective).
6. They receive and give feedback regardless of hierarchy. They elevate above the politics. They have no time for politics.
7. They value the unique styles and experiences of all.
8. They personally engage. Their work has purpose, and therefore, they have a strong sense of mission.
9. The world doesn’t happen to them, they happen to the world (Jib Ellison).

Tags: agility, business, champions, championship, change, collaboration, companies, diversity, ellison, emotion, energy, enlighten, executive, interdependence, jib, Leadership, mutual, opportunities, organizational, performance, possibilities, purpose, risk, team, values, vision, win

OC Attributes Survey Findings

Thank you all for participating in the recent online survey regarding the attributes of an organizational champion. So far, we’ve captured the data from 57 responders. While we will continue to capture additional responses, this post is an update on findings from these initial responses.

Participants were asked to rank the importance of each of the attributes shown in the chart below regarding leadership today. The specific question was:

Based on organizational needs and demands in the 21st century, please rate the necessity of the following attributes of an organizational leader in order to have the most impact on organizational success on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being “Completely Unnecessary” and 10 being “Completely Necessary”.

The attributes and their ratings of importance are below (Click on image to enlarge.):

Not surprising, trustworthiness captures the number one spot for the most important attribute followed closely by vision. The next three attributes emphasize the importance of communicating to and enabling a complex and decentralized group of work teams toward change across many organizations and enterprises of which one has no or limited authority over.

Ok. Agree. The next question is how? Communication skills will fail if motives aren’t trusted. Therefore, motives must be pure and good. But motives will fail if you have an inability to communicate. Communication is a behavior (non-verbal) and skill (verbal). In order to be trustworthy, behaviors, skills, and motives must be trusted and understood in order to effectively move people, an organization, and a group of organizations.

Effectively maneuvering people and organizations through change seems to be at the top of the priority list as it relates to effectively leading in the 21st century.

Trusted behaviors and skills seem to fit many leadership principles. The next level of valued attributes for a leader in the 21st century according to survey responses are drive, inspiration, and authenticity. Today, inspiration can’t be manufactured as followers are smarter and leadership is constantly being tested and evaluated. It must be authentic from within. And because trustworthiness is so important, one’s authenticity must be good. There are few things more destructive than a driven and inspiring leader with a completely self-serving or evil agenda.

Therefore, the current data seems to align with the definition for an organizational champion. Organizational champions are enlightened change-makers who are sensationally tuned to altruistic values and relentlessly driven by possibilities.

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Tags: 21st, attributes, business, century, champions, change, characteristics, competencies, drive, enlightened, leader, Leadership, maker, organizational, trust, vision

A Call for Your Input

Hello everyone,

We’re getting serious now. We’d like to hear your input on the attributes of an organizational champion. The link below takes you to a quick and anonymous survey for you to provide valuable insights into the premise of Organizational Champions and whether or not organizational champions are relevant in the 21st century.

Today’s business climate is marked by the need for organizations to be more than just successful entities, but also good citizens. Today there are many more stakeholders involved, cultures are clashing, and for the first time in recorded history, we have five generations working together. Add the extensive accountability brought on by corporate scandals and a flat world, and we need more than leadership today. We need champions to help organization maneuver through this complex environment.

As a reminder, organizational champions are enlightened change makers who are sensationally tuned to altruistic values and relentlessly driven by possibilities.

The aggregate findings from your responses will be used in forming the premise of the Organizational Champions book. I’ll publish these findings once we’ve completed the research.

Click here to participate in our short survey and log in with the following credentials:

• Username: Organizational
• Password: Champions

Thank you for your help and insights.

Tags: 21st, attributes, business, century, champion, characteristics, culture, leader, Leadership, organizational, research, society, values

New Organizational Champions book coming in April 2009

I’m extremely excited to announce that McGraw Hill has agreed to publish my next book.

Organizational Champions

Moving Beyond Leadership for Business & Society

Organizational Champions will be released in April of 2009 and will highlight the bounds of business, the power of business, the opportunity for business … and therefore, the need for champions, not leaders.

An Organizational Champion is an enlightened change maker who is sensationally tuned to altruistic values and relentlessly driven to possibilities.

The book will emphasize the differences in a leader and an organizational champion, and how organizational champions transform cultures and create irresistible companies.

I’ll be updating my progress over this blog. Please feel free to leave any and all comments. Your insights are valuable to me. Thank you. Mike.

Tags: business, champions, company, culture, Hill, Leadership, McGraw, mike, organizational, thompson