Tag: Leadership

15 Questions that Change the Way People Think

Life begins to change when you change the way you think.

• Change the way you think about yourself to extend your potential.
• Change the way you think about others to increase your impact.
• Change the way you think about managing to achieve new results.
• Change the way you think about the future to clarify purpose.

Delayed resistance:

The discomfort of new behaviors drives you to eventually return to familiar habits.

Change feels good – at the beginning – because you haven’t felt the pain of letting go.

It feels good to choose a new direction when you haven’t taken the first step. Eventually, change feels like shoes that don’t fit. Rather than pushing through, we lace up old shoes.

Returning to old habits is circling back to familiar discomforts.

15 Questions that Change the Way People Think

Questions that challenge assumptions change the way people think.

When they say … you ask:

1. I’m falling short… What didn’t you do to get here?
2. I don’t like them… How might you be like them?
3. I can’t… If you could?
4. I don’t know… If you did know?
5. They screwed up… What if you screwed up?
6. They’re wrong… How so?
7. I don’t think so… What if you thought so?
8. No, you can’t do that… What happens if you say yes?
9. I need help… What have you tried?
10. It won’t work… What do you want?
11. I’m afraid… What’s the bravest thing you can do?
12. I’m nervous… If you had confidence, what would you do next?
13. There’s too much to do… What are your priorities?
14. I plan to do X… How will that help you accomplish your goal?
15. Life is out of balance… What does a balanced life look like?

Pushing through is better than retreat, even if it hurts.

What helps people change the way they think?

What’s your favorite question in the above list?

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Management Rules During Constant Crisis

In the past you wondered when the next crisis would hit. You don’t wonder that today.

Crisis-mode used to mean canceling appointments, working late, drinking too much coffee, and eating pizza late at night. You assumed you would get enough rest and head back to the gym when the crisis passed. That assumption will kill you today.

5 Management rules during constant crisis:

#1. Crisis-mode will continue for the foreseeable future.

You live in constant turbulence, persistent disruptions, and seductive distraction.

The things you could neglect during past crisis you can’t neglect today because in the past you neglected things with the assumption that the crisis would pass.

It’s not just COVID. Technology obliterates old rules. Expectations shift and collide like drifting icebergs.

#2. Confront reality.

The thing that concerns me most about leaders today is the decisions they’re making that are based on assumptions that aren’t true anymore.

The assumption that turbulence is going away is deadly. In the past, crisis-mode meant you focused on solving the crisis.

Stop using crisis-mode as an excuse to neglect self-care and self-development.

You won’t get by if all you do is try to get by.

#3. Make back-to-back meetings illegal.

If a meeting is typically one hour, make it 50 minutes. If it’s 30 minutes, make it 20. My experience shows that a little margin between meetings elevates energy and increases efficiency.

#4. Focus on high-return activities.

Stop pouring energy into low return activities. Your team would love to hear you say, “This isn’t working. What else might we try.”

#5. Time off isn’t the answer.

You need time off, but it’s more important to learn new rules for work.

“When the way you’re living and leading isn’t working, all the time off in the world won’t fix it.” Carey Nieuwhof

Tip: Don’t make every new challenge a crisis.

What new management rules might you suggest?

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When People Think Differently About Themselves

Over the years, I’ve asked leaders to tell me about a tipping point in their lives. They typically give me the same answer. The question goes something like, “Tell me about a time when someone said something to you that caused you to think differently about yourself.”

Yesterday I asked the director of West Point’s Performance Psychology Program, Dr. Nate Zinsser, the tipping-point-question.

Trajectory:

Words are rudders. Conversations have trajectory.

Words cause us to think differently about ourselves.

Someone said something to you that sucked the life out of you. You felt devalued. Maybe, on the inside, you waved the white flag.

You’re less than you could be when you allow vampire words to suck the life out of you.

Admiration is better than complaint when it comes to transformation.

Something good:

Life-givers notice our strengths. Vampires notice our weaknesses.

Dr. Zinsser told me that his High School principal said he had more drive than anyone he had ever seen. That conversation is a lifetime away, but Dr. Zinsser still smiles when he remembers it.

Conversations that give life are about your talent.

Admiration lengthens your stride.

Negative magnetism:

It’s normal to notice people’s weaknesses, failures, and frailties. That’s why gossip is pervasive.

In order to energize people, you have to overcome the natural tendency to focus on things they can’t do.

The same answer:

10 years ago, I asked Bob Herbold the tipping point question. He found out he was smart. Bob grew up in a working-class family and became the COO of the largest software company in the world, Microsoft.

Someone believed in him.

Who spoke life into you?

How might you encourage people to think differently about themselves?

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How does a sleepy backwater college that few have heard of quadruple enrollment in 15 years? Furthermore, what enables a school to expand the size of the campus from 91 acres to 520 acres, while attaining a 98% placement rate? 

The short answer is intentional leadership. The longer version is that an intentional leader revolutionized the academic institution of High Point University with powerful and practical business principles, which often received sharp criticism but ultimately proved to be wildly successful. It turns out that academia, like most professions and industries, values the status quo. 

Originally founded as High Point College in 1924, this private liberal arts university has grown from 22 to 120+ buildings. There are now 1,800 positions, and they hire 12 to 20 more people each month. These employees act to support the students drawn in from nearly 50 countries and all 50 states. In fall 2021, HPU’s freshman class was larger than the entire student body was in 2005 and will have access to 62 majors and 64 minors. 

Even more astonishing? This growth occurred without borrowing any money, a distinct anomaly in higher education.  

And here is the brand promise that drives it all: At High Point University, every student receives an extraordinary education in an inspiring environment with caring people. 

Nido R. Qubein, an alumnus of High Point University, became the seventh president of this 94-year-old institution in 2005. After a successful career in publishing, consulting, speaking, and business, he was approached by the board to help resurrect the institution. Always open to new challenges, he seized the opportunity to lead a university with facilities that were a bit long in the tooth and that lacked any signs of innovating in the future. 

Similar to what we learn from physics, a system at rest stays at rest, and Qubein had to challenge the existing mindset and behavior of faculty and staff who were mired in outdated education methods. He made it a goal to provide life preparation for students to take their place in society after graduation. As Roger Clodfelter, Senior V.P. of Communications, puts it: “Our job is to prepare students for the world that will be, not as it is or as it was.”

So how did he meet the challenge of changing the staid academic culture to one that is today unique and innovative? Again, the short answer is hard work. But the longer answer is hard work informed by visionary strategy.

When Qubein took the leadership role, the university’s culture wasn’t defined. It just existed, the culmination of former leadership—the good, the bad and everything in between.

The first item of business was to change the existing mindset. With all of the importance placed on higher institutions, people sometimes forget that while colleges and universities do not function quite like most businesses, they still have clients. Students, either by loans or scholarship, exchange money for a service—and they can certainly choose to get this service from a different establishment. 

This…

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Scale your business. Find your freedom.

With proven systems, frameworks, and guidance, you can join other successful business owners as you scale your business, reap the fruits of high-performance, and spend more time on the things that really matter.

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Scale your business. Find your freedom.

With proven systems, frameworks, and guidance, you can join other successful business owners as you scale your business, reap the fruits of high-performance, and spend more time on the things that really matter.

Learn More

Continue reading

Scale your business. Find your freedom.

With proven systems, frameworks, and guidance, you can join other successful business owners as you scale your business, reap the fruits of high-performance, and spend more time on the things that really matter.

Learn More

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How to Develop the Habit of Finishing Stuff

Bad habits – in the beginning – are easier than good. The habit of almost finishing stuff destroys effectiveness, diminishes respect, and drains energy.

Anyone can start. Leaders finish.

People live with dangling rabbits pulling at their brain – unfinished stuff they intend to finish.

Rabbit chasers are exhausted. When your hands do one thing, but your head is thinking about the next thing, life zips past without you.

How to Develop the Habit of Finishing Stuff

#1. Finish one small thing before you begin the next thing.

Take something off your plate before you put something on it. It doesn’t have to be big. Here’s an example.

When I sit down to work, I might put a couple books back on the shelf before I begin something. You could:

1. Throw something in the garbage.
2. Save an unsaved document that’s hanging out on your desktop.
3. Put something in its place.
4. Close a few browser windows.

Caution: Don’t chase a dozen dangling rabbits. Finish one thing. It’s about the habit, not the rabbit.

#2. Begin-AND-finish small tasks.

Don’t create dangling rabbits by half-doing a task you can finish quickly.

Every dangling rabbit you create dilutes your ability to concentrate.

#3. When you leave your desk, put one thing in its place.

Before I leave my desk, I put my surface in the docking station and place the stylus in front of the docking station.

Before you break for lunch or go to your next meeting…

1. Put away paper, pens, or headphones.
2. Prepare your desk for the thing you’re going to do when you return.

“The shorter way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time.” Mozart

#4. Only start what you intend to finish.

Ask yourself, “Do I intend to finish this?”

Run a test if you aren’t sure you can finish. But always finish the test.

What bad habits create dangling rabbits?

What mini habits might help leaders develop the habit of finishing stuff?

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How to Use Toy Stories to Connect

My fondest childhood memories include toys.

I had a boy-doll named Rocky. Later I had a James Bond 007 spy attaché case with secret compartments and a gun that could be assembled into a pistol or a rifle. Both versions had a scope.

First memory:

The original Morrison farm, situated on a dirt road in Bradford, Maine, burned to the ground before I was in first grade. (Mom was a Morrison.) The only memory I have of the farm includes a toy.

I remember playing with my fire engine in the sloped hallway between the kitchen and the front room. I was probably two or three. The slope was useful.

Later memories:

I had a Lost in Space set with a battery powered chariot that ran on a course I configured with my imagination. I wanted to be Will Robinson (Bill Mumy).

I turned thirteen the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon (July 21, 1969). I still remember the grainy pictures and hearing Commander Armstrong say, “One small step…,” punctuated with beeps. I built models of the Apollo space craft and the lunar lander. Before Apollo, I built the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft.

Sometime in my early teens I used my Chemistry set to create an explosion that shook our house. There were no injuries or fatalities, just fear that I was going to ‘get it’. I didn’t.

I’ll never forget my raspberry red five speed Western Auto Buzz Bike with a banana seat, high-rise handlebars, and gear shift. (This image is the right model, but the wrong color.) I bought it with my own money at Western Auto.

4 questions to connect using toy stories:

1. What was your favorite toy when you were a kid?
2. What was it about that toy that you enjoyed so much?
3. What did that toy enable you to do?
4. Who did that toy allow you to become?

Skillful leaders connect with people.

What was your favorite toy when you were a kid?

How do leaders connect?

Note: My childish exuberance allowed me to exceed 300 words. I apologize.

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Your Brain has a Mind of Its Own: Brain Management Strategies

You have thoughts you would rather not think.

Your mind wanders like a cat looking for mice.

You know you know something but can’t remember it. You tell yourself to forget a bad experience and you can’t stop thinking about it. Then you kick yourself for doing it.

Your brain has a mind of its own:

You tell yourself, “Don’t worry about what others think.” What do you do? Wonder what people think of you.

I tell my brain to stay open, but I ignore myself.

Brain management strategies:

#1. Accept reality.

Forget the idea that there are two voices in your head. There’s a rowdy crowd in your head. Your boss, co-workers, customers, kids, neighbors, spouse, teachers, parents, and the dog all live inside your head.

#2. Stop beating yourself down.

I have the attention span of a chipmunk on steroids. It does no good to beat myself down for it. It’s the truth. Matters get worse when I beat myself down.

#3. Aspire without self-accusation.

Aspiration is an acknowledgement that you aren’t there yet.

Self-accusation is slop to pigs. The more you beat yourself down, the more you think about beating yourself down.

Accept, for example, that you don’t manage time well, AND aspire to make improvements. Don’t wallow in slop.

#4. Talk to yourself.

When your inner critic yells, “You’re an idiot,” say, “There’s my inner critic.” Then ask, “Anything else?” Or say, “Do you have anything useful to add?”

Lighten up. We’re all in the same boat, even people you admire.

#5. Understand others.

I met a guy from California who said he didn’t have a loud inner critic. I think he was smoking a joint. Everyone else beats themself down.

You don’t have to beat people down. They do it to themselves.

Challenge and affirm.

Correct with optimism.

What strategies help you manage a brain that has a mind of its own?

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