Helpful Insights Online» leadership

Increasing Likeability

Gil Pizano — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:59:49 +0000

We all know there are many great blogs out in the online world of the internet. One of my personal favorites is Guy Kawasaki’s blog. Through his blog, he releases many tidbits of wisdom and knowledge. In addition to being the co-founder of Alltop.com (an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web) and the previous “chief evangelist” of Apple, he is also the author of ten books including Enchantment, Reality Check and The Macintosh Way. According to Guy, when it comes to being successful in life, your likeability is a key factor. Regardless of one’s age, nationality, knowledge or experience, how likeable they are will determine how effective they will be in most situations. What are ways in which you can increase your likeability?

When it comes to increasing likeability, Guy Kawasaki has some pretty down to Earth ideas. Below is a chart that he shares in his book Enchantment. I liked it so much I wanted to share it here with you…enjoy!

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52 Powerful Quotes on Leadership, Action and Motivation

Gil Pizano — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:46:24 +0000

Why do we like quotes so much? A good reason for many of us is that you don’t have to read a book to get to the point. Quotes can be very short, straight to the point and thought provoking. Sometimes, there’s just so much wisdom and life experiences in one short sentence that you can almost sense and understand what the author has gone through to reach the point they are attempting to make! Here are some quotes that have thought provoking to me in my own leadership journey. Do you recognize any of these?

“I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.” —Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
“A leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless … someone’s got to make a wakeup call.” —Warren Bennis
“Although some people think that life is a battle, it is actually a game of giving and receiving.” —Florence Scovel Shinn
“A boss creates fear, a leader, confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.” —Russell H. Ewing, Author
“A frightened captain makes a frightened crew.” —Lister Sinclair, Playwright/Broadcaster
“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.” —Toni Morrison, Author
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.” —Warren Bennis
“A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually, and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.” —Rita Mae Brown, Mystery Author
“A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops.” —Henry B. Adams, American Historian
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear” —Ambrose Redmoon, American Philosopher
“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.” —William Ellery Channing, Psychologist
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” —Peter Drucker
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.” —Jim Rohn, Author/Motivator
“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Everyone lives by selling something.” —Robert Louis Stevenson
“I have more fun, and enjoy more financial success, when I stop trying to get what I want and start helping other people get what they want.” —Spencer Johnson, Business Author
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.” —George Bernard Shaw
“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” —Benjamin Disraeli
“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near” —Jack Welch
“If you don’t think about the future, you won’t have one.” —Henry Ford
“Most people succeed because they are determined to. People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit.” —George Allen, Football Coach
“It takes a tremendous act of courage to admit to yourself that you are not defective in any way whatsoever.” —Cheri Huber, Author/Zen Philosopher
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” —William James
“It’s so hard when contemplated in advance and so easy when you do it.” —Robert Pirsig, Philosopher/Author
“Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” —Tom Peters
“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.” —Bernard Baruch
“Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.” —George Washington Carver
“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” —Helen Keller
“Nothing great was ever created without enthusiasm.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you.” —Dennis A. Peer, Management Consultant
“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” —John Quincy Adams
“Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.” —Thomas J. Watson, Former CEO, IBM
“People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those people who sit still and inquire, why wasn’t it done the other way?” —Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Question: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Answer: Four; calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” —Abraham Lincoln
“Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I’ll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.” —Lawrence D. Bell, Founder, Bell Aircraft
“Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” —St. Francis
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“The best way out is always through.” —Robert Frost
“The first law of success is concentration, to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right, nor to the left.” —William Matthews, Journalist
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” —Max DePree, Business Consultant/Author
“The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. Then you develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.” —Elaine Agather, CEO, JPMorgan Bank
“The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.” —Robert J. McKain, Management Consultant
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” —Peter Drucker
“The first duty of a leader is optimism. How does your subordinate feel after meeting with you? Does he feel uplifted? If not, you are not a leader.” —Field Marshal Montgomery
“Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death.” —James F. Bymes, Secretary of State
“What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When I’m getting ready to persuade a person, I spend one-third of the time thinking about myself, what I’m going to say, and two-thirds of the time thinking about him and what he is going to say.” —Abraham Lincoln
”Always think of what you have to do as easy and it will be.” —Emile Coue, Psychologist
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” –Zig Ziglar

Hope you enjoyed reading some of these quotes! If so, and you’d like to comment, please do so. If not, then let us know and why!

What are some of your favorite leadership, action and motivation quotes?

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Is Someone Shooting Down Your Ideas?

Gil Pizano — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 01:26:33 +0000

Beware of the four gallingly common strategies that people use to shoot down a person’s ideas. These tactics are all the more common against a person who’s been identified as a leader within their organization…but why? In the world we’re in, there are many people who unfortunately don’t like to think about how to solve a particular issue. They’d rather do what is probably the simplest thing a person can do. Point out what may be wrong with an idea without giving an alternate solution for the problem the idea is attempting to address. I’m sure you’ve probably never witnessed such a scenario.

I always think back to the first time I read about an interview with the great statesman Dr. Albert Schweitzer where he was asked the question of what’s wrong with men today. His answer, “Men simply don’t think.” (Note: My last two sentences where not meant to give a feminist any extra fodder against men out there, the answer was given by a famous person who happened to be a man as well.8-) )

The four strategies that I’ve seen people often use to shoot down a person’s ideas are:

(1) Death by delay

(2) Confusion

(3) Fear Mongering

(4) Ridicule

These four types of “attacks” on a person’s ideas are often done through a couple of dozen questions, comments, and/or arguments. Any one of these questions can cause an unsuspecting person to cave in and give up on their idea.

We tried that before and it didn’t work (<– this one is one of my personal favorites).
No one else does this, why should we try it really.
You can’t have it both ways.
Ah! What about THIS? [“this” being a worrisome thing that the proposers know nothing about and the attackers keep secret until just the right moment].
Good idea, but the timing is all wrong.
It’s too much work to do this.
It won’t work here. We have a unique situation.
It puts us on a slippery slope.
We simply can’t afford this. / It’s just too expensive.
You’ll never convince enough people.
You’re abandoning our core values.
It’s too simplistic to work. / It sounds too simple.
Sounds like [something horrible] to me!
People have too many concerns to do that.
It’s too difficult to understand.
You have a chicken and egg problem here.
Your proposal doesn’t go far enough/your proposal goes too far.
We’re simply not equipped to do this.
Money [or some other problem a proposal does not address] is the real issue here.
You’re exaggerating the problem.
You imply that we’ve been failing!
What’s the hidden agenda here?
What about this, and that, and this, and that…?
We’ve been so successful. Why should we change? (if it’s not broken, why fix it?)

What’s Your Response?

One of the more common responses people often do to is often the first thing they should not it they want to succeed with their idea. All too often people push out the ‘troublemakers’. Why do that? Here is a golden opportunity. Why not just let them in and treat them with respect. Allow them to always be part of the solution. Listen to their concerns and criticism. The opposite of respect in that situation is shooting back. If you start shooting back at a person who is criticizing you, others will see that you are shooting at them and may become sympathetic to the other person even if his attack wasn’t fair!

Another type of response that often backfires is drowning a person in a half-hour’s worth of evidence. Drilling them basically into the ground with information as to why your idea is a good one that will definitely work. It’s better to communicate in ways that are simple, clear, short and to the point. Research by authors John P. Kotter and Lorne A. Whitehead had shown that the most effective people, instead of just spraying verbal bullets, respond in a way that is simple, clear and filled with common sense.

Never let it get personal, no matter how much you want to lash out. Just understand that the person is really attacking the idea, not you. Keep an eye on the entire audience and not just the one critic. It’s very easy to get hung up on the guy who’s attacking your idea.

Last Words…

The saying that states, “He who laughs last, laughs best!” is not one that I agree with. The phrase that often is more accurate to me is, “He who laughs last, doesn’t really need to laugh at all!” He lets his idea prove him right.

When one has an idea, it’s never simply the idea that makes it to be a working idea. One thing is to be able to generate an idea by digging up data, analyzing it, and putting it together in some form of logical way. But it’s another thing all together to gain the support one needs in order to get the idea off the ground and working!

Cheers!

Gil

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Beware of the Chameleon Effect

Gil Pizano — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:19:47 +0000

You know what’s amazing? It’s the ability we all have to change our environment based upon our view of it. I’m not talking about any mysticism or hocus pocus, but a proven psychological ability that we as human beings have. This ability is known as the “Chameleon Effect”, also known as the “Pygmalion Effect” in some circles, it has to do with our natural sense of value attribution and how it changes life around us. Value attribution or the inclination for people to superimpose or imbue a thing with certain characteristics or qualities based upon our initial perception. The initial impression we have of something or someone will cause us to view that very same thing in such a way that’s consistent with our initial impression. When Joshua Bell (a Grammy Award-winning violinist who plays to sold-out crowds in symphony halls around the world) dressed in jeans, a baseball cap and sneakers pulled out his $3.5 million dollar Stradivarius violin on a crowded subway platform in Washington D.C. during morning rush hour and proceeded to play, very few people seemed to notice or even care. Why would that be? Value attribution acts as a mental shortcut to determine what’s worthy of our attention and based upon what people saw (first impression), they assumed that Mr. Bell was an average street performer simply trying to make a few dollars any way he could.

The Chameleon Effect takes value attribution one step further by super imposing our view on the person or object and having the result “be as we’d expect it to be”. A perfect example of this was seen in an experiment conducted with the Israeli army within one of its training programs in which 105 soldiers were selected to participate in a very demanding 15-week commander training program.

Commander Training

The program was a rigorous and intense process, requiring intense physical training, mental concentration and 16-hour workdays. For the experiment, this particular course was going to be different from any of the previous ones. Dr. Dov Eden, psychologist from Tel Aviv University, informed the training officers leading the program that the army had accumulated comprehensive data on each of the trainees. He told the officers that, based on this information, each soldier had been classified into one of three “command potential” (CP) categories: high, regular and unknown (due to insufficient information). Trainees from each category were divided equally into four trainee classes. “You will copy each trainee’s CP,” Eden told the officers, “into his personal record. You are requested to learn your trainees’ names and their predicted CP by the beginning of the course.” The trainees didn’t have any idea that any of this was going on. And the officers didn’t know that the so-called command potential, along with the supporting data, was completely fictitious. Scores were randomly assigned to the trainees and had nothing to do with their intelligence, past performance or ability.

At the end of 15 weeks, Eden returned and discovered something amazing. Upon finishing the course, the soldiers took a test that measured their new knowledge of “standard operating procedures, combat tactics, topography, and such practical skills as navigation and accuracy of weapon firing.” The effects of assigning soldiers to the different command potential categories became apparent in the test results.

The soldiers who the training officers thought had a high CP score performed better on the test (scoring an average of 79.98) than their “unknown” and “regular” counterparts (who scored 72.43 and 65.18, respectively). This was a 22.7% improvement. It appeared that being labeled as having high leadership potential translated directly into the soldier’s actual improved ability. Remember that neither the trainers nor the trainees had any idea what was going on. Without realizing it, the trainees had taken on the characteristics of the diagnoses ascribed to them by the officers

When Dr. Eden informed the trainers that the command potential scores had actually been made-up and assigned randomly, they staunchly disagreed. In an attempt to prove their point, they offered up evidence that the high-potential soldiers indeed performed better on their exit exams. In psychology this is known as circular logic. The exit tests confirmed the initial diagnosis; the trainees had merely molded their abilities to the diagnoses ascribed to them. This molding process becomes self-perpetuating. When we take on the characteristics assigned to us, the diagnosis is reinforced and reaffirmed. Have you ever witnessed this occur? When we brand or label people, they take on the characteristics of the diagnosis, displaying the Chameleon Effect.

In the book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman, the authors talk about the Chameleon Effect this way:

We’re constantly sending and receiving cues and subtle messages to and from one another — swaying and being swayed, even if our rational brain hasn’t been let in on the secret. As this study illustrates, we can’t help but take on the characteristics others ascribe to us. There’s a hidden dance at work within even the most seemingly straightforward interactions — and in this way, we’re all psychological chameleons.

The Chameleon Effect in the Workplace

This phenomenon is of course by no means limited to the Israeli military. A meta-analysis conducted by psychologists at SUNY Albany suggested that these same diagnostic effects operate in the workplace. I’m sure you know what I mean when asked if you’ve ever been fortunate enough to work for a boss who values you. If you have you’ll know that we as people have a tendency to rise to meet the high expectations set for us. On the other hand, there’s nothing that will make a person feel more inept and demoralized than a supervisor who is convinced you don’t have what it takes to do what it is he or she wants you to do.

Looking back on my life and career, I myself have been seen the Chameleon Effect both on the sending and receiving side. I wish I knew then what I know now because it definitely would have made some difficult situations a little bit easier.

What are your thoughts on this psychological phenomenon?

Have you ever experienced the Chameleon Effect?

What do you believe we as people need to do about this?

Check out some of the great reads below!

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Leadership Traps: Communication Without Communicating

Gil Pizano — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:06:12 +0000

Depending upon where you’re from, or what generation you are part of, your view of what a leader should and should not be will vary. There are those who say changing times call for changes in leadership styles. While that may be true for some areas of leadership, many basic characteristics of leadership still hold true today as they did back with previous generations.

A crucial area that has not changed is the ability to communicate. Communication has added new tools to its repertoire over the last couple of decades (such as email and instant messaging), but time tested communication methods are still needed today. To substitute these time tested communication methods with email and/or instant messaging would be to ask your team and peers to begin alienating themselves from you. Why do I say such a blanket statement like that about using email and instant messaging? Because in a fast paced world, full of so many electronic communication methods, being able to communicate face-to-face is becoming rarer and more valuable than ever.

An Epiphany at Work!

A good friend of mine was recently working as a director for a large international firm in charge of putting together a brand new organization for the company. Unfortunately, she chose to leave that firm just after 7 months. Why? There were many reasons as it turns out. But what’s interesting is that most of those problems stemmed from the leadership trap of “communication without communicating”. Her boss and her were simply not meeting eye to eye on many things and consistently misunderstanding each other. Believing they were sharing clear concise information but in fact not understanding what the other one was intending to communicate. This leadership trap is probably one of the main ingredients in a “recipe for failure” and that recipe was cooking over the six to seven months she was at the firm.

For the first three to four months, things appeared to be going very well. At the end of the fourth month, however, she discovered that her boss was not happy with the way things were going. What made it more of a surprise was that she and her boss were having weekly one-on-ones since she started her new role. During these weekly sessions, the verbal feedback was a positive one. To add additional interest to this story, she discovered how her boss felt not from her boss but while meeting with an HR representative (that she met with on a periodic basis to discuss team development goals). Her boss never communicated to her that there were any issues or concerns during their one-on-one weekly meetings. She confronted her boss at their next one on one and heard a similar tone as before. Yes, there were some things that her boss was not happy about. They decided to discuss this further during the meeting and eventually an understanding was apparently reached. Three months later, my friend chose to leave rather than continue working at that firm because all she heard from the HR representative was that her boss was still not happy with any of her work. She said she never got this message from her boss. When I asked her why she decided to leave, she told me that it simply wasn’t a good fit.

My friend and her boss were not communicating well with each other. Both she and her boss were high enough in their careers to know how they should and shouldn’t communicate. But regardless, a communication breakdown occurred between two people who should not have had one occur. Even though they were meeting on a weekly basis, they were really “communicating without communicating”.

Looking back on the entire scenario, my friend told me there were things that both her and her boss should have done. Her boss wasn’t being upfront with his subordinate about his concerns and my friend was not asking her boss the correct questions she should’ve asked (in order to ensure that she and her boss were on the same page about how things were going). She can’t change the past, but today she is the wiser for what occurred.

Have you ever been in a scenario where you wish your boss was communicating more with you? Is so, understand one thing, you can’t always control how your boss acts, but you can always control the way you act. My friend had this opportunity at her recent position, and even though her boss may not have been the best communicator with her, she as the subordinate needed to make sure that she did everything possible to ensure that her and her boss were at the very least seeing eye-to-eye on things. This may not have guaranteed a working relationship for my friend between her and her boss (since other mitigating circumstances may have been occurring in the background unbeknownst to her), but it would have helped put the odds a little more in her favor.

Good Communication is Crucial

According to John Maxwell, in his book “21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader”, communication is one of the indispensable qualities a leader must have. It’s actually in the top five in his book:

“Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.”Leaders must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others.
Communication is not just what you say. It’s also how you say it. The key to effective communication is simplicity.
Speeches = Exciting opening, dramatic summary, as close together as possible.
To become a better communicator, become audience-oriented. People believe in great communicators because great communicators believe in people.
First, believe in what you say. Second, live what you say.
As you communicate, never forget that the goal of communication is action.

Some More Things to Think About

I have to admit that I am a big fan of many blog articles out there. There are quite a few, especially on the subject of communication and its impact on leadership. Below is a list of some of my favorites from the HBR (Harvard Business Review) Blog Network. Many people are not aware of the HBR Blog Network and so I wanted to share it with my readers here. For those who wish they could read the Harvard Business Review, the HBR Blog Network is made up of many of the same writers who write and comment within the HBR publication. The nice thing here is that, as with all blogs, these thought provoking articles are free…Enjoy!

· Eight Communication Traps that Foil Innovation

· Listening Is Critical in Today’s Multicultural Workplace

· How to Interject in a Meeting

· How to Influence Decision Makers

· Why Some Teams Succeed (and So Many Don’t)

· To Make a Strong Case, Don’t Be a Data Dumper

· Learn to Ask Better Questions

· How to Handle Silence, the Worst Kind of Feedback

· “Don’t Bring Me Problems—Bring Me Solutions!”

· Why It’s Better to Be Smart and Wrong than Just Silent

· Three Questions to Remove Ego from Decision Making

· Four Ways Leaders Can Stay on Top of the Issues

· Redeeming Yourself After a Leadership Disaster

What has been your experience in the past with people who believe they are communicating but who in fact aren’t? What advice would you have for them today? Do you see yourself as a person who communicates well or who may need a jumpstart on communication 101?

Share your thoughts! We’d love to know them here!…Cheers!

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Helpful Insights Online» leadership

Increasing Likeability

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52 Powerful Quotes on Leadership, Action and Motivation

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Is Someone Shooting Down Your Ideas?

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Beware of the Chameleon Effect

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Leadership Traps: Communication Without Communicating

An Epiphany at Work!

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