Stephen Covey

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.

 

Communicating as a leader

art of communicationDo you have to be good at communicating to be a successful leader? The simple answer is yes you do.  When asked about the importance of communication in leadership here is what a few past leaders had to say:

Gilbert Amelio, a pioneer in the U.S. technology industry and former President and CEO of National Semiconductor Corp. said, “Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership.”

Author and former presidential speech writer James Humes answered the question succinctly when he said, “The art of communication is the language of leadership.”

And Lee Iacocca, former Chrysler CEO said, “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”

So you are a leader or you want to be a leader someday but you have trouble communicating.  Can a person who has trouble communicating be a leader?  Again the simple answer is yes you can.

Listed below are the four areas that all great communicators focus on.  Learn them and you will be successfully communicating as a leader.

Communicating with a purpose. Can you summarize the purpose of your message in one sentence?  If you can’t, then your audience won’t understand the main point.  You have heard some speakers say, “If you only take away one thing this is it…”  Before you start any form of communication you have to know the purpose.  It’s like Stephen Covey said, “Start with the end in mind.”

The purpose of communication is always to elicit an emotional response meant to inspire action.

That action may be very short term, like getting a laugh or tugging at the heart.  The action could be longer term like embarking on the first step of a life changing journey.

Knowing the purpose of your communication is foundational if you want to communicate like a leader.

Communicating with a plan. Now that you clearly defined the purpose of your communication it’s time to plan how you will accomplish that purpose.

Here a few keys to include in your plan:

Be an expert in the facts before you share the facts. This is not a new concept.  First century Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.“

Carefully select your words.  As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

Entertain, encourage, and end on time. Not only will the current audience appreciate you, they might also be a future audience.  The great British leader Benjamin Disraeli had advice for communicators: “Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.”

Communicating with practice.  Once you have your purpose and plan, it’s time to practice. The more you communicate the better you will get. According to master communicator Brian Tracy, “Communication is a skill like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life”

Even after communicating as a leader myself for over twenty-five years, I never step in front of an audience without reviewing and practicing what I am going to communicate.

Communicating with passion Your communication is not complete unless the people who heard it feel enlightened, equipped, and energized to do something with your message right now. 

If you want your audience to have passion about your message then you need to have passion about your message first.  You may be an expert in the facts, but are you committed to the message.  Do you believe it? More importantly do you live it?

Jim Rohn said it like this, “Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.”

 

How to avoid overload at work: Clarify

lack of clarity signYou are operating on overload. Even if you didn’t add one more thing to your task list, there is no way you can get all of this done.  But how do you tell your boss that you are overloaded on work without seeming like you are trying to pass of work?

CLARIFY

Clarify the expectations of the tasks, projects, deliverables…and clarify the expectations of your role in their outcome.

Not all bosses will tell you what to do first, second, third… but if you ask them what they would do if in your place, they know – So ask.  Remember, you are not asking to do less of everything, you are asking to do more of the right things.

Clarify what must be done versus what could be done. Too many people think that they have to accomplish everything – not so. For me the secret is to first eliminate what can wait, then create the list. 

  “The key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” – Stephen Covey

Clarify when it must be done versus when it could be done. Even after you have your list of what’s called important, the key is to know what’s the most important then do that first.

“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important then give it all you’ve got.” – Lee Iacocca

Clarify who must do it versus who could do it. Even the narrow list of the most important items can seem overloading, so share the load.  You have to know what your part is and do that well, don’t carry everyone else’s load too.

 “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” – Lou Holtz

Finally, use your feeling of overload to learn and grow.  Take a shot at thinking how you would prioritize if you were the boss.  When you talk to your boss, offer your suggestions and see how you do. 

 

Prioritize – deciding between AND & OR

PrioritizeIt’s a new year. Time to dream big dreams and never settle for easy. What do you want to accomplish this year? Picture next December 31st – What do you want to have accomplished?

Some people have trouble with this exercise. Is it a matter of “This And That?” Is it “This Or That?” So much is running around your head, it’s hard to decide – so you just don’t start.

Here is the secret to achieving big goals:

First, don’t limit your scope and don’t decide what to do yet. Think of big ideas and set big goals. Then take a look and decide what’s first – Prioritize. Out of your list, if you could only accomplish one thing, what would it be? Then out of the remaining list, if you could only accomplish one thing what would that be? Complete this exercise until your list is empty. That is how you prioritize.

There is no reason to sell yourself short on this year’s goals. But step two is to focus on the best ideas. Remember, if everything is a priority, nothing can truly be a priority.

“Sometimes you have to pass on good to focus on great” – Denis G. McLaughlin

Prioritize your goals. A major part of success lies in the ability to put things first. The reason major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey

Transformation through Imagination

imagine your futureI am a big fan of HGTV.  My family and I especially like two shows right now: Love it or List it, and Property Brothers.  While each of these shows has a unique premise, they share the common theme of transformation through imagination.

In Love it or List it the transformation begins when a family decides their home needs to be updated.  We watch as they are presented with two options: refurbish their home and stay there (Love it), or refurbish their home and sell it (List if) as they move into a new home.

In Property Brothers the transformation begins when a family decides they want a newer up to date home and are willing to buy a fixer-upper to get there.

Here’s how the transformation on these shows works: Each show starts with a discussion about what specifically the family wants as the experts help them imagine their future residence.

Then the experts show the family what it would take to obtain all they desire in a living space, like investment of money and time, choices between location and price. Next the experts show the home owners options that will fill their settled upon desires.  They use actual home visits and software that shows a vision of what a fixer-upper will transform into.

Once the decisions are made, the experts and the family design and execute the transformation of the family’s imagined living space.

I think I like these shows because they show what I have found to be the secret to a successful transformation – Imagination.

Napoleon Hill described the path to transformation like this, “First comes thought; then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality.  The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.”

Here’s why imagination works:

If we only did what we knew how to do we wouldn’t get very far.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Knowledge is limited.  Imagination encircles the world.” – Albert Einstein

It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done, your imagination is the window to future possibilities.

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” – Stephen Covey

Everything that is now common place was once an idea in someone’s head.

“What is now proved, was once imagined.” – William Blake

You will get better at imagining your future the more you do it.

“Imagination grows by exercise…” – W. Somerest Maugham

Are you planning for the rest of your life?

CoveyMy family and I are just about finished planning our annual summer trip. We love to travel and summer is the big trip of the year. This year we are going to Ireland and England for two weeks. We started planning last year after that summer vacation. So between discussing the trip, researching the countries and working with a travel agent, we have invested probably 30 full days getting prepared for this trip. That’s roughly two days of planning for every day of vacation.

I take comfort that we are not alone in our zeal for planning. Time management expert Alan Lakein said,

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

Imagine if we invested that much time in planning for other major life events:

The average working life time is forty years. You would have to plan eighty years before your first job. Unless you are Moses planning in the desert to return to Egypt, not many wait this long for their first job. But many do find themselves out of school in their twenties with no plan; wondering what direction to take in their career. Now, at twenty years old, you may not have found your dream job, but planning works nonetheless. It doesn’t have to be the last plan you ever make, just make one so you can move in a definite direction.

“A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

The average life expectancy in United States is seventy-seven years. It isn’t physically possible to plan your life for 154 years before living it. But, like your career – you’ll be better off with a plan than without one.

After all, we plan lots of things in life very well. I already mentioned vacations. There are entire industries built around planning individual life events like weddings, birthday parties, relocations, and of course funerals. We are great at planning when the outcome is within reach and life changing We are sometimes not so good when the outcome is far away even if it might be just as life changing.

The idea that you can’t plan your whole life keeps people from planning anything for their life at all.

Here’s the secret to a life plan:
You don’t have to plan every turn in your life to have a life plan. You just need to have a destination in mind and plan the short term steps that will move you in that direction.

In his best selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey discusses this in his second Habit: Begin With The End In Mind. He 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.

Your life plan, therefore, begins with defining where you want to end up; then works backwards planning the steps you think will get you there; finally, it focuses intently on the shortest steps that you can take today and requires you to take them. As stated by Peter Drucker,“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”

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