Peter Drucker

The future isn’t just more of today.

future-that-we-createYou’re challenged to accomplish something you’ve never done before. When this happens, we’re tempted to find a way to make what we need to do, fit into what we’ve already done. Here’s the issue – some if it might not fit. Sure, you can rely upon your strengths to help you, but you must see the future – the place where you will apply your strengths, won’t be the same as the past.

“The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.”– Peter Drucker

No matter how well you’ve performed in the past, and how far you’ve come, the future isn’t just more of today. It’s different and requires something different.

Create Success. Don’t let the future be the place where you arrive, make it the place you create. Determine where you want to be, and when you want to be there. Believe you will succeed.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

Look Forward.  It’s fine to look back at the past – just don’t stare. Once you take in all that you have done in the past, turn your focus to the future and plan how you’re going to there.

“You can never plan the future by the past.” – Edmund Burke

Start Today.  The accomplishment you seek in the future won’t just come someday – it comes with small steps every day. What are you going to do about it today?

“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now.” –  Mattie Stepanek

The best answers are often questions

the-right-questionSometimes easy answers are just too easy, and aren’t the best answers. Often the best answers are questions that force us to dig deeper into the issue. Good questions can challenge our assumptions and lead us down another path than the easy answer would. Paul Samuelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, said “Good questions outrank easy answers.”

Take the time to ask questions and you will see that you and other people will learn more even if you think you know the answer.

Questions help get to the right answer. We have heard about the five whys of consulting – asking why until you uncover the root cause. Peter Drucker says the best consultants work by simply asking a few questions. People are better connected to the outcome if they are part of developing the plan.

Here are a few ways to ask questions that helps others discover the right answer for them:

“How would you go about accomplishing this….” then listen to their ideas.

“What would happen if…” then challenge different assumptions in the answers being presented.

“Have you thought about…” then offer alternative options to be discussed.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”  – Benjamin Franklin

The right questions help solve the right problem. The human mind is a wonderful machine that is a problem solver. When you pose a question, it works tirelessly to seek the answer. The key to solving the right problem is to ask the right question.

If something is not working, we might ask ourselves and our team, “Why can’t we accomplish this?” That is the wrong question because all of your energy will focus on understanding the ways you have been deficient and uncovering reasons why you can’t succeed.

Instead, in the same situation the right question is, “What does it take to accomplish this?” With this question you and your team will begin to identify all that needs to happen to succeed. Once you have solved that, your next question should be, “How can we deliver what it takes to succeed?” and so on until you narrow down the right answer to the right question.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” – Albert Einstein

The proof is in the results

ResultsEverything has a bottom line that shows the results. In accounting this is where the sum of all the debits and credits are called the net profit. It is the difference between what you achieved and what it cost you to achieve it.

You may be in a business selling computers, or a nonprofit providing assistance to the homeless, or coaching a college football team. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to accomplish, leaders are in it to win it and there are measurable results. As you win it, leaders provide the opportunity for their team members to learn, develop their strengths, and grow into greater roles. These too have measurable results.

I have a philosophy that if you accomplish both of these results leaders will be more successful, I like to say, “Don’t use people to complete projects, use projects to complete people.” You can get both of these right.

Peter Drucker, the founder of modern management, said, “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.” This doesn’t mean you don’t make speeches or worked to be liked, it means you make speeches to encourage and celebrate results, and are liked because of the results your leadership brings.

Here are the three ways to set yourself up to achieve positive results:

Set big goals

“Big results require big ambitions.” – Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher circa 500 BC

If you want to make a difference in the world and in the lives of as many people as you can, then go big. Don’t settle for what is easy, challenge yourself and your team to be the best at whatever you do over the long-term.

Set short steps

“You don’t get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the actions that produce results.” – Mike Hawkins, author, speaker and consultant on coaching leaders to lead as coaches.

Now that you have set big long-term goals, you will only get there by taking definite short-term steps. Everything you plan to do must lead you and your team closer to the end. Never get discouraged, just keep moving forward, adjusting your plan as needed.

Set clear expectations

“Don’t tell me how busy you are. Show me what you’ve gotten done. Words don’t matter. Results do.” – Larry Winget, Author of six NYT bestselling books on personal development.

Even short-term steps require the measuring of results. Don’t confuse activity with accomplishment. Make even the smallest step worth something. Give it your all.


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I am speaking at the Project Management Institute in Chicago later this week.  I will be discussing Leadership in Project Management using the strategies outlined in my best selling book The Leadership GPS – Your Turn by Turn Guide to Becoming a Successful Leader and Changing Lives Long the Way.

In honor of my appearance at the PMI, I am offering copies of my book at reduced prices for a limited time. Regularly priced at $19.99, the print version is selling for only $7.00.  And regularly priced at $9.99 the Kindle version is selling for only $3.50.

Please click on the links below to be taken to Amazon to purchase copies of The Leadership GPS.

The Leadership GPS Book on AmazonThe Leadership GPS – Print

The Leadership GPS – Kindle

Are you really ready for a change?

change machineIt has been said that people are only ready to accept the need for change when the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. Robert Brault opined, “We want the life we have now, only happier,” but alas, it doesn’t work that way.

When change comes, and it comes to everyone, we all react. There is a Chinese Proverb that separates our reaction into two extremes, “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.”

I think we make change harder than it has to be. George Carlin had the right idea when he joked, “I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.”

Now it’s not that easy, but there are steps you can take if you are really ready for a change:

Identify what you need to change.

I had a doctor who once told me that my headache was not due to a deficiency in ibuprofen. The headache was the symptom, the cause was the way I was exercising…that is what needed to be changed.

If you are really ready for a change, don’t settle for symptoms. Dig in and get to the root cause and change that.

“Do not let circumstances control you. You change your circumstances.” – Jackie Chan

Identify what you need to do to change.

The only thing we can control is ourselves, our actions, and our reactions. Any type of action that is taken in an effort to change anything must therefore involve you.

Focus your efforts of change on yourself and being the best you, you can be.

“I think the most productive thing to do during times of change is to be your best self, not the best version of someone else.” – Seth Godin

Identify what you will do after you change.

Congratulations! You are new and improved. Your life is better, you see things more clearly, and your outlook is positive. Now that you have changed, what’s next?

Change can’t be just about you. Take advantage of what you have learned, and what you can now do and help others with your newly developed talents.

“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” – Peter Drucker

Leaders bring tomorrow’s solutions

future possibilitiesIf you want to be successful don’t try to solve tomorrow’s challenges with today’s solutions. That is why leaders bring tomorrow’s solutions into view to solve tomorrow’s challenges.

How do leaders bring tomorrow’s solutions? What are tomorrow’s challenges that need solutions?

These are the questions that leaders must answer as they look around the corner for emerging risks and opportunities.

 

In an ever-changing world, here are the four things leaders must do to bring tomorrow’s solutions:

Predict – the future scenarios. You can’t predict the one thing that will happen, but you can be prepared when something happens.

The past is a guide but doesn’t always predict the future. Based on what you already know you can visualize what else could happen. Find the common themes in all that possible future scenarios you see.

“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking at the back window.”­ – Peter Drucker

Present – the team with the future goals and the plans to reach them.  Don’t just wait for the future to come true, plan for it and execute. Share the themes of the future you visualized with your team and create plans to succeed through them all.

Success does not come from being sure of what will happen. Success comes from being sure of what you will do if something happens. Remember, the future is not something we enter,the future is something we create. We can control how we respond to risks and opportunities.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it”– Abraham Lincoln

Prepare – the team to be ready to succeed. With your vision of the future clear and a plan to achieve success in mind, now it’s time to get ready to respond when the future comes. What skills, people, and information will be needed in when the future comes?

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” – Alexander Graham Bell

Prevent – the team from getting off course.  A greater purpose instills a sense of mission in us all. Leaders need to repeat the goals so you don’t retreat from the goals. Leaders are the chief cheerleaders.

“Start strong, stay strong, and finish strong by always remembering why you’re doing it in the first place.” – Ralph Marston

Planning for a successful career

soccer planning diagramI have watched my son play soccer since he was young. I have to admit, all of these years it seemed like a lot of running and kicking but I never caught on to the planning that goes on before and during every match.

This last year was different. My son started playing high school soccer and his coach is a former international semi-professional player. This was also the year of the World Cup that is played every four years, and we watched every game we could. We attended several professional matches in person. My son even bought the Xbox version of the World Cup and began the arduous process of teaching me how soccer is really played.

Here is what I learned. The successful soccer teams plan for success.  They have plans for offense and plans for defense. On offense they position themselves across the field so they can pass and have opportunities to score a goal. They plan each play so that each player is in the right position to make or receive a pass, and if that plan does not work, they pass the ball back to the defense or the goalie and start a new plan. On defense each team plans the location of their players to provide opportunities to block the pass and switch to offense. In soccer this all happens very fast, but for the successful teams it is all planned.

I learned that this level of planning extends beyond each goal and each match. It is also done with an eye on the season’s rankings and for accumulating points to qualify for the next World Cup. I hadn’t realized how much soccer was like planning for a successful career. Small wins, lead to bigger wins, which lead to the biggest win.

I have seen first-hand in both areas now that Winston Churchill was right when he said, “He who fails to plan is planning to fail.”

How have you done planning for a successful career? Many find themselves out of school in their twenties with their first job and no plan; wondering what direction to take in their career. Or maybe you have been working for ten or fifteen years and don’t feel like you have your dream job. What can you do to get on track and have a successful career?

Here’s the secret to planning for a successful career:

Begin With the End in Mind  For soccer the end could be the World Cup. For Landon Donovan, all-time leading scorer for the U.S. National Team it was something more. He said, “Most of us are in this more than just for playing soccer. We’re in it for the bigger goal, to move it along for the next generation.” Donovan wanted to win, but he also wanted to broaden the popularity of the sport in the U.S.

You have to decide what your ultimate goal is so that you can make decisions that will help you reach it.

In his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey uses the analogy of climbing a ladder as activities we undertake. We often hear about people who are climbing the ladder of success. Covey’s main point in this area is before you begin climbing you have to define success.

“If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.” – Stephen Covey.

A successful career begins with defining what you want to accomplish with that career. Do you want to have reached a certain position? Do you want to have worked for a certain company? Do you want to be known for having helped others achieve success? What will say success to you?

Plan short steps that move you in the right direction. In soccer, you only reach the World Cup if you win enough matches to qualify. To win matches you have to score goals and stop your opponent from scoring goals. Sounds simple.

But winning all you plan doesn’t always happen. That is why a good Plan B, is just as important as a good Plan A. James Yorke once said, “The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.”

So go ahead and begin planning for a successful career. It doesn’t matter if the first steps you take don’t necessarily work out. You will learn, adapt and move forward. Remember a goal without a plan is just a wish, and a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

You make progress towards a successful career when you take short steps to move you in the right direction. What do you need to know to move closer to your goal? Who do you need to know to move closer to your goal? What should you do first to move closer to your goal?

Commit to attaining the short steps.  Having goals and plans to reach them is just the beginning. You have to execute your plans every day. Argentine soccer great Lionel Messi said, “You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.” Make a commitment to do what it takes to achieve the plans you decide on.

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” – Peter Drucker

You achieve a successful career by making the investment in hard work.  What are you willing to do to achieve your goal?  What are you willing to give up to achieve your goal?

Success in soccer or in your career or in anything you want to accomplish in life, only comes trough planning for success.

 

The secret to leading virtual employees

leading a virtual workforceThe days where all employees work in one building with desks, cubes, offices right next to each other from 9 to 5 are gone. The advancement in computer technology has enabled everyone to be a virtual employee of some sort and the trends show that an increasing number of us are taking advantage of this ability.

The definition of a virtual employees has evolved over the years.  It used to be a select few that didn’t work in the office with all of the other employees.  The work they performed could be completed remotely, at their home for example, and their hours could be set differently to fit their personal situation.  Then it expanded to include the off-shore and on-shore workforce where certain specialties could be centralized for a lower cost apart from the office. Today it is common place to have a percentage of the workforce completely virtual and in most cases the entire workforce partially virtual.

Why did this shift to virtual happen? According to Global Workplace Analytics there are some compelling real-life examples of the benefits of virtual employees:

Costs. Forty percent of the IBM workforce operates without a dedicated office space. The employee to desk ratio is currently 4:1, with plans to increase it to 8:1 in field locations. IBM saves $450 million a year in reduced facility infrastructure and associated initiatives through telework.

Productivity. Ecolab, a Fortune 500 sanitation and food safety company, reported a 16% increase in the number of calls answered and a 10% increase in quick call resolution among its teleworkers

Absenteeism. British Telecom realized a 64% reduction in absenteeism due to its flexible work program

Lifestyle. More than a third of college student in the US (37%) say they would take a lower salary (up to $10,000 less) for the option to work wherever they are most productive and happiest. When the same question was put to existing employees, the percentage who would take a lower salary was 38%.

Employee engagement. According to a 2013 Gallup study, 39% of employees are virtual for some part of their work.  Those that are remote for 20% or less are the most engaged (35%) compared to those that are not remote (28%). 

What is the secret to leading virtual employees? The needs of a virtual employee are no different than those that work in an office.  Today’s leader needs to focus on the same leadership areas – Clarity, Communication, and Connections –  But using the technology that empowers the virtual workforce to keep virtual employees engaged – video conferencing, skype, gotometting, and some frequency of travel for the in-person connection.

Clarity. I think of clarity in very simple terms, “Get everyone on the same page, and keep them on the same page.” The importance if this simple idea can’t be stressed too much.  There are two main areas where clarity is needed: Purpose and Priorities.

Purpose:  If you want your virtual employees to be connected to the success of the team, they need to understand the big picture goals of the team.  Make sure you are talking about the purpose of the team and the success in achieving that purpose on a regular basis.

“Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.”  – Napoleon Hill

Priorities:  Knowing the purpose of the team is very important, but what drives the achievement of that purpose is the tactical actions that each member of the team executes.  Everyone needs to understand the priorities for their work, for other members of the team, and how it all fits together. 

“It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” – Henry David Thoreau

Communication. Whether your employees are virtual or in the office, they are people, and people need communication.  They keys to communication with your team is that it be planned and purposeful.

Planned: Communication is an important part of leadership.  I have found in my career that if something is not scheduled it is not done.  It is too easy for perceived fire-drills to overtake all of your time. So plan out your communication schedule.  Devote time every week for one on ones; get your leadership team together every month; meet every quarter with your whole team; and complete year end reviews on time.

“Failing to plan is planning to fail” – John Wooden

Purposeful: As a leader you should never hold a meeting without a clear goal in mind of what you are trying to accomplish with that meeting.  Meeting just to meet is a waste of everyone’s time. When you do this right, your team will feel the impact of the positive outcomes.

-In the one on ones your directs, be available for them.  It is their time to update you on progress, ask questions, and maintain comfort that they are heading on the right track. 

-In the leadership team meetings it is time for a higher level of updates across your team leaders.  This is an education for your leaders so they are aware of all that is important outside of their direct responsibility.  This level of knowledge helps them to see where they fit in the big picture and how what they do impacts others.

-Each quarter you should meet with your entire team through conference calls, video conferencing, or sometimes visiting in person.  Here you need to re-present the strategy and give them an update on how the entire team is doing.  This is time to celebrate successes.

-And finally, while you may be meeting with your directs frequently, the year-end formal review is important. Take time to talk through what went well and develop a plan for ongoing development. 

“Meetings are a symptom of bad organization.  The fewer meetings the better.” – Peter Drucker

Connections. All people need to feel connected personally to other people and professionally to a great cause.  There is no better proof of this than the world-wide success of Facebook and Twitter.  This is virtual connection at its finest. In business today, it is imperative that people are connected to learn from each other – the world is changing to fast not to take advantage of everyone’s expertise.

The obvious answer to fulfilling the need for connection with a virtual team is to use what has been proven to work.  Set up internal blogs, wiki sites, and other forums for electronic exchange of information, conversation and mentoring.  Of course the phone call now and again to just catch up works – like the coffee break conversations.

“No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.” -Brian Tracy

What is the secret to leading virtual employees? The needs of a virtual employee are no different than those that work in an office.  Today’s leader needs to focus on the same leadership areas – Clarity, Communication, and Connections – But using the technology that empowers the virtual workforce to keep virtual employees engaged.

 

 

How to be a Likeable Leader

Likeable - Dale Carnegie making friendsThey key to being a likable leader is to achieve both the “What” and the “How.”

What – People will like you for achieving success for the company (or team) and the individual.

How – People will like you for setting the strategy for the company to succeed and providing opportunities for the individual to succeed.

What does a likeable leader do?

Success for the company (or team).  How do you define success for your company or team? It’s about the results:  Sales, Profits, Stabilization of the Community, Growth, Returns, Market-Share…There are many ways to say it, but in the end success for a company is measured by achieving the results that the industry demands.  It’s hard to be a likeable leader if you can’t provide a source of income for the people in your company or on your team.

“Effective leadership is not just about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results.” – Peter Drucker

Success for the individual.  What about the people that make up any company.  Their company or team is doing well, is that enough?  The answer is no.  By achieving success for the company or team you have provided stability and also a sense of pride in the group.  But people are more than just members of a team, they are individuals and individuals have their own dreams and desires.  Do you know what the individual dreams and desires are of the people in your company or on your team?  If not, how can you hope to help them fulfill that need?

“All successful people are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.” – Brian Tracy

How does a likeable leader do it?

Strategy for the company (or team).  The leaders job is to decide on the goals that once achieved will bring success.  And just as important, the leader picks the path that the whole company or team will take to achieve its goals (including where not to go). No company or team can hope to achieve long term success without a winning strategy. 

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different…The company without a strategy is willing to try anything.” – Michael Porter

Opportunity for the individual.  Leaders must always keep in mind that a company or team is made up of individuals.  Your goals and plans may be strategic and energizing, but Monday morning comes and each person in your in your company or on your team has to know what they can do to help achieve the goals while bettering themselves. A company’s or team’s success is the sum of the individual’s successes.

“All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.” – Albert Einstein

Finally, here are a few daily exercises for the likeable leader:

Lighten up your approach

“If you look back on all the teachers that you liked, I am sure you will find they were very entertaining.” – Bill Nye

Look up and see others

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”  – Dale Carnegie

Lift up other people

 “Basically, likeability comes down to creating positive emotional experiences in others. When you make others feel good, they tend to gravitate to you.”  – Tim Sanders

 

Leaders: Troubling times require you to be present

presence of one we trustWhen there is trouble leaders need to be present.  Your team doesn’t want to receive an email or a phone call.  They want to know you really understand the situation and care enough to help – in person.

A team in crisis doesn’t want the one way communication of email instructions.  Even with emoticons and well placed capitalization there is no real EMOTION in an email 😉

A team wondering what to do next doesn’t need your cell phone call from the airport while you are catching a flight in the other direction.  They know you are busy, but imagine how busy you will be if this situation doesn’t get handled the right way.

Your team needs help.  You need to be there.  Here’s why:

Read More…

Leaders: Follow the discipline of positive discipline

imageWebster’s dictionary provides several definitions of discipline:
-A branch of knowledge or learning
-Training that develops self-control, character, and efficiency
-Treatment that corrects or punishes

Too often we seem to focus on the third definition of discipline in a negative light and punish those who “mess up” in a effort to “teach them a lesson.”

Positive discipline removes the word punish from consideration and considers discipline an end to end process for leaders to bring out the best in their teams.

Jim Rohn has a great definition, “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” It’s the way you achieve your goals.

The three outcomes of positive discipline:

Positive discipline provides direction. Taking a positive discipline approach to accomplishing goals requires planning the steps to success. Is everyone on your team clear on what they are being asked to do and the deadline?

Inspirational author H. Jackson Brown, Jr. says it this way, “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.”

Positive discipline provides inspection. Successfully achieving your goals through positive discipline requires that you regularly check in to make sure that everyone on the team is on track.

Peter Drucker, world renowned management expert, coined the phrase, “What gets measured gets done.” If you don’t know that there is risk in achieving your goals, you can’t take the right actions to succeed.

Positive discipline provides correction. Yes there is correction in positive discipline, but in a positive way.

John Wooden, the great college basketball coach said, “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” This doesn’t just happen. It takes a positive discipline approach to working with your team so they trust that you have their best interest at heart. Wooden goes on to coach us on how to build up this trust, “Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.”

 

 

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