are you ready?

Are you the only person in your group that wishes the company to make more money?

Is everyone thinking about the company, or just their job?

Like spokes in a wheel, each person is integral to how the company operates, how it makes money, how the customers feel, and how the company remains sustainable over time.

How many in your team come up with ideas on how to improve their position, their process, or the process outside of the group?

How many in your team share their ideas?

Does your company reward and encourage their initiative?

Initiative isn't just about showing up to work or completing reports without prompting as you likely know already. Process improvement does not come easily, nor does it come with just one person.

Lean improvement comes with the collaboration, initiation, and promotion of everyone on the team.

The individual is to be encouraged and embraced.

The team is to be embraced.

Lean implementation will then be embraced, nurtured, successful and productive.

Many companies do not know how to encourage initiative; it's not taught in schools.

How do you encourage initiative?

Are you boring?

One of my earliest experiences with a project team was in the development of a hinge that would be unlike any hinge we’d ever created. This particular design element was critical to the rest of the product and had to be tackled early as it would drive the aesthetic and thereby likely the function of our product solution.

I decided I didn’t have to figure this out all by myself and challenged my team with a whacky benchmarking assignment they’d have to complete on their own time outside of work. Initially there wasn’t much movement around the table nor hearty acceptance of the proposal but as the idea swam inside of the heads of each colleague you could see creativity take root.

Two days later, we met again. Every one had done their homework. Every one had bought their hinge of choice for a show and tell, ideas spouting from each inspired to a better solution as we went around the room.

One thing was clear: they were hungry for inspiration, expectation, and a challenge.

How are you challenging your team every day?

How are you challenging yourself?

update: I was catching up on my NPR listening and found this snipit on motivation in the workplace. Give it a listen (short & sweet):

It's not my job

A month ago Thanksgiving, I talked about being thankful to your colleagues. As the week of Christmas has arrived, I am thinking about what and how you give in your organization.

What are you giving back to your organization?

Ideally, your teams are made up of diverse skills and viewpoints complimenting each other on how they interact and what they bring to the table. Your teams are confident enough to counter view points for creative discussion leading to creative solutions.

We all have our role. We all have our job.

Having our role also means that there are roles that don’t belong to us; tasks and responsibilities that don’t fall under our umbrella – tasks left to others.. jobs that aren't ours.

Do you ever do things that aren’t directly assigned to you? Of course we all have to mindful of our immediate and long-term responsibilities to ensure our work is getting done without being overworked ourselves, but I’d like to explore what happens when we give of ourselves fully at work.

Let’s starting with making a list of things that we could give:

• Pick up any trash you come across that’s the size of a dime or larger on the floor

• Help a colleague pick up something that accidentally spilled

• Walk a strong pace to get to your destination quicker – to finish quicker

• Smile and greet every person you encounter in your office

• Listen respectfully to every person you interact with in your office

• Help someone do their job if you have idle time

• Research and brainstorm on products, services, or just plain ideas that will help your company to do more.

• Contribute in discussion at meetings

• Prepare for meetings you’ll attend

• Finish your work when you’ve committed to finishing it

• Continuously think of ways you can do your job better

• Continuously think of ways your company can service its clients better

• Choose to share the positive verses complaining or dwelling on the past

• Support the team decision and make it successful even if you disagree with the method (within moral limits obviously)

• Go the extra step, put on the finishing touches, and do a little more proudly to delight your clients (or the colleague you’re delivering to)

• Be proud of what you deliver

• Understand the ‘why’ of decisions so you can support them fully

Wouldn’t you like someone who did all these things to work for you?

What more would you add to this list?

Securing your legacy

What’s your exit strategy?

“What?

Who?

Are you talkin’ to me??”

If you are about to jump ship or you're plotting to move your career elsewhere in the next 3 to 5 years, then I’m talking to you. Here is a serious question that you should be consistently considering:

How will your leadership be regarded after you have left this job and hit the high road?

In considering your leadership legacy and beginning to work on an exit strategy, you need to be concerned with three things: your ideas, your initiatives, and your people.

I’m sure you’ve had some great ideas and maybe even implemented several of them, but will they persist after you’ve gone? Will your initiatives and the people on your team shine when you are not there to mentor them anymore? What is your legacy going to be once you are no longer there? Next are three things to think about in building that better legacy.

ON IDEAS
Every leader has the responsibility to come up with creative problem solving ideas that are supposed to keep things running smoothly, trim expenses, and generate income. Some positions require a lot more ideas than others. Some workplace environments are more conducive to change, while others are more reluctant to the concept of implementing “new & improved” ideas. As a leader, your ideas matter. Let’s take a look at the ones you have already created. Are these ideas sticking around after you’re not pushing them anymore?

Are these ideas dependent upon you or did you build them with longevity and a legacy in mind? A great leadership legacy has tried and true ideas that stand the test of time.

ON INITIATIVES
Structuring change so that a smooth implementation is engineered with collaboration and buy-in from all quarters involved is key to a successful roll-out. Just like with any strong structure that is built to last, it is also foundational to the long term success of your project after you’ve moved on that its implementation was embraced. Perhaps you wrote the product launch procedure, you developed the new marketing communication program, or you’ve created the strategy for increased client sales.

How are you rolling it out to the team and to the company such that it is effectively communicated and designed for all involved? Who else was involved in it’s development?

How much are you involved day to day and what happens when you go on vacation? A great leadership legacy is built with plans that roll out smoothly so that foundations are built with strength and durability.

ON PEOPLE
It’s inevitable that some on your team will require more hand holding than others. What about those whose goal is to take over your job? Are you afraid of that occurrence and are trying to thwart their efforts? Or are you grooming them for the future with confidence and poise? If you have in mind securing a great leadership legacy, you will be asking yourself compelling questions that allow you the freedom to leave gracefully.

Ask yourself: “How am I helping the right person achieve eventual success in my current position?” And.. “Who is next in line to take over my position and responsibilities when I have moved on?

Preparing your team through training and mentoring in addition to providing critical information is key to setting them up for success when you’re gone. I’ve found that allowing those working for you to spin and toil on their own problems a little while and allowing them to come up with their own solutions helps them grow more quickly than if I had stepped in to intervene immediately. Similarly I try to bring in others on big initiatives to help them learn the process of development.

Some of us truly are indispensable and control information critical for our position. How are you making this available and easy to understand for the one who follows you?

The mark of a great leader is the legacy one leaves behind.

How your company survives and recovers from your absence is a tribute to your leadership.

Are you setting up your company for success in the long term? What is your exit strategy?

Will the company remain strong and not falter upon your departure?

Article originally published by me on the Linked 2 Leadership blog, June25, 2009