In Summary this is what I shared:

• Communication is about creating shared meaning and understanding
• Be mindful  of how your message will be received understood, and adapt accordingly
• Always check if your communication is received and understood
• Listen for how the other person feels about the information (emotional response)
• Aim to create dialogue. Try saying”do you mind if I ask you a question?
• Discover what’s important to them. Ask, “what’s important to you about this?”
• Summarise the conversation to confirm understanding
• Suspend your own mental maps to avoid missing out on the other person’s perspective
• Be ok with silence – the other person is probably processing what you said.

What I didn’t say in the interview which is very important, is that you must get the other parties attention first. An obvious tip but one that is often missed.

You wonder why your spouse is giving you those disapproving looks; sure, you have been a bit grumpy but surely they should be supportive, after all it’s work, it’s important it pays the bills. Things start to build up, you can’t clear your inbox or your call list and things start to slip through the cracks. You start to go from crisis to crisis and you don’t know who you are anymore.

If you are experiencing any of the above, you are stressed and at risk of burnout.

Work related stress has been rising and the rate has increased since the Global Financial Crisis. Not only has the work load increased but there are now less people to do it. The result – working long hours and coming to work even when you are sick.

In a perfect world employers should do more about workplace stress but it isn’t a perfect world and work-life balance appears to be a myth. If you are putting on the pounds and turning to the bottle you need to take action today and not wait for HR to role out a policy.

At the heart of Self-leadership is response-ability which means that you can choose your response. Choose to acknowledge that you are important; that you are the CEO of your self and that you can say, “yes” to being healthy and say, “No” to becoming a burnt out blob.

Start small and build your confidence. You can reclaim your life and your sanity onestep at a time and still keep your job or run your business. Consider which of the following you can do today and which you add over the coming weeks.

• Alcohol free days
• Exercise – even a 15 minute walk is a start
• Playing with your children
• Finishing work at 5pm – just one day/week is a start
• Talking to you spouse – but not only about work
• Taking one task at a time and finishing it
• Answer your e-mails in chunks rather than as the come in
• Reconnecting to why you are doing what you are doing
• Take lunch breaks
• Eat good food
• Breath - take time out during the day for deep (nicotine free) breaths
• Learn to say “No” to the unimportant things

The secret is to take control. It is not how long you are at work that matters, it is the quality of your work. If you are stressed the quality will decrease. You may think you are indispensable, but if you start to show signs of stress your employer may not see this as loyalty but fire you for not coping. Life is not fair unless you take control of your life.

As a footnote, it’s 2 months since my last drink, I am exercising everyday, my kids know my name and I have lost 7Kg. I feel great and am more productive – sometimes we need to practice what we preach

I shall shortly be giving a presentation to a group of private and investment bankers in Singapore. You can view the slides from my presentation here. In this presentation I highlight a few key strategies to be successful at selling value and  these are as follows:

1. According to Heiman – “Selling is a professional, interactive process directed toward demonstrating to all your buyers how your product or service serves their self interest, and will enhance their lives.” It is therefore important that we behave as professionals and get good at selling value.
2. Consumers are getting smarter and with access to the internet are likely to be familiar with your competitors products and pricing. You must therefore influence them to buy from you.
3. To influence effectively requires trust. You can generate trust by exercising Self-leadership and by your intentionality you become an electromagnet.
4. According to Aristotle you must demonstrate, Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Just having a logical argument is not enough, you must be ethical and show empathy. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
5. You must be an excellent listener for if you will fail to meet your sales numbers if you are unable to identify & effectively communicate unique value contribution by understanding, prioritizing, and matching to customer needs.
6. To find out what the client needs, you must be adept at asking the, “What’s important to you about that?” question.
7. People’s needs and values generally fall into the categories of; Security, Performance, Appearance, Convenience, Economy or Durability.
8. You can ‘frame’ you sale by pacing the client’s needs and values and connecting these to your product or service – providing there is an ethical fit.
9. Remember to apply the Law of Reciprocity – if you want to create success for yourself, help someone else become successful.

Of course there are other strategies and I can only share so much in a blog post. Feel free to add your ideas and techniques in the comments section.

Women often complain that, ” Men Don’t Listen”. They may be correct, some men and for that matter, some women don’t listen. What is perhaps closer to the truth is that men ‘listen’ for the things that are important to them that are phrased in a way that they understand.

I live by the maxim, “The meaning of communication is the response you get”, which puts the onus on the communicator to be flexible in their communication style to get their meaning across.

Today I spoke  on this topic at the Women’s Leadership Forum 2011, “Gender Diversity for Success” on November 3, 2012 in Singapore. If you attended please give feedback in the comments section and you can view the slide deck here.

With the sad passing of Steve Jobs today I wanted to make the point that he was a leader who threw lots of red paint balls. Steve did not conduct customer focus groups or ask other people for their opinion; he trusted his aesthetic sense and gut feel. Steve will not be remembered as a great people manager or collaborative team member but as an inspirational innovator who redefined the way we view and use technology.

Steve Jobs was a Self-leader; fully aware of his strengths and unapologetically used them to pursue his vision. He was often compared to a modern day Thomas Edison and I think you could also compare him to Galileo who similarly challenged authority and gave us a new way of looking at science rather than hanging on to outdated models.

Steve Jobs will be missed for sure, but what can the rest of us learn from his leadership style? Should we all just trust our gut and say, “to hell with what other people think”?

Firstly I think that if we know our strengths and work on developing them we should not be shy about letting people know what we are talented at. As the great Will Rogers said, “If you’ve done it, it isn’t bragging.”

Secondly we must realize that although we strongly associate Steve with Apple, Apple is more than Steve. Steve was smart enough to attract and retain good people around him to get the job done. Yes he was a charismatic leader but he was not a loner.

When we witness genius, such as that which Steve embodied, we might surmise that we could never be like him, but perhaps you can throw red paint balls in your life? Collaboration is great but not when it leads to procrastination or second rate solutions, so look for an opportunity to lead, to make a difference and to live your legacy – because nothing feels as good as being able to say, “I did that.”

This conversation highlights the dangerous lack of preparedness that many leadership teams are in. If 2012 is going to be uncertain or tough, then shouldn’t we get ready for it? Shouldn’t we put the best leadership team in place and make sure they have the competencies required? Or is this a non-essential expense?

Consider that, post the Global Financial Crisis, many leadership teams were decimated by cut backs and organizations are talking about growth when they don’t have the bench strength of talent to achieve it. It is frightening that less than 10% of executives have a plan to develop their strengths and the more senior they get; the less likely they are to receive constructive performance and strategic feedback.

My friend’s organization has 20,000 plus employees and I happen to know that engagement is low and in certain sectors attrition is high. It costs, on average, 18 months’ salary for each manager or professional that leaves, creating a massive financial strain. The engagement or commitment levels of employees are critical to an organizations success and yet with an increased work-load and smaller work-force employees are feeling stressed and fragile.

You would think that now is the time to align the leadership, and engage people through focusing on developing the skills to face ‘The New Norm’ that will be 2012, but perhaps this is a non-essential expense?

A PWC survey showed that 66% of CEO’s say that talent gaps are their biggest fear, whilst 52% are worried about the competition poaching their top talent. And in Asia, where 90% of CEO’s think growth will come from, there exists an alarming shortage of highly competent people leaders.

If this is not a compelling argument to make a strategic commitment at developing and retaining top talent then I don’t know what is. Unfortunately companies are highly sensitive to cost and see this activity as an expense rather than an investment. To an extent, I can actually sympathize with this view. Many so called leadership training programs are either outdated ‘cookie cutter’ approaches or they are just too academic. Such programs suck up time and money and don’t often deliver a tangible or measurable result.

If you are going to develop your leadership talent you are going to have to go beyond the generic leadership competency list that HR has kindly put on a Power Point slide. You are going to have to identify what specific behaviors do you want your leaders to role model. These can be as fundamental as that ability to give constructive feedback or have a crucial conversation without it degenerating into conflict. More advanced behaviors might include the ability to re-frame a challenging business situation and be able to identify opportunities or to communicate strategy in a way that middle management can delegate and execute.

To achieve measurable result requires seeing developing and retaining talent as a core business function and putting some metrics around the results. It requires an attitude of preparing people for the challenge ahead and not just making do. The approach of just doing the odd training here or there when the budget allows probably is an ‘unnecessary expense’, because if the business doesn’t fail, it will fail to capture the growth that it so desperately desires.

What stories are you telling your people? Do you know what stories are you telling yourself?

The finance and banking industry has long used the analogies of Bull or Bear to describe the market and its leaders have been known to use military metaphors to ‘inspire the troops’. Perhaps it is time to come up with some more creative metaphors, particularly in Asia where there is a strong tradition of passing on wisdom through story?

From a Self-leadership perspective, personal metaphors are extremely important in terms of motivation and achieving objectives. I remember coaching one senior manager who described his situation as, “It feels like I am clearing snow from my driveway whilst my neighbour is shovelling it back on!” Contrast this with another leader who had become frustrated with the status quo and indecision around an important issue for his global function; he told me, “I am throwing red paint balls at the wall, so now the discussion is no longer what colour to paint the wall, but how do we finish painting it red?”

Personally I am fond of using sailing for a metaphor and if you have ever sailed you will know that it requires knowledge and skill to harness the natural elements which are constantly shifting. You must ‘set your sails’ and then work the rudder and sheets (ropes connected to the sails) to achieve the optimum speed and direction. If you pull on the sheets too hard you can capsize the boat, if you let them go slack you will flap around and go nowhere. I was talking to a senior leader recently who had achieved quite a substantial goal and was now just ‘going through the motions’; we chatted about what, on the horizon, he would need to focus on to cause him to tighten the sheets and really set sail again. After some reflection this senior leader realised that he could now focus on transforming the culture of his organisation from a ‘dog-eat-dog’ experience to one where objectives could be met through collaboration.

After the global financial crisis has anything changed? The story certainly has. Just keep kicking the debt down the road expecting growth to take care of things has gone from a fairytale to a nightmare. There’s a new game afoot, a game with tighter rules, a game where we are rewarded by adding value and we do this by thinking strategically but by being flexible in the present. This is not a game for amateurs but a game for professionals who can learn and unlearn to suit the changing circumstances. So the game is on, will you lead or will you follow?

Our sense of Self is first created by our early care-givers; ideally we develop Self-esteem and Self-efficacy as we grow into adults and choose what we believe in and what is worth striving for. Obviously if individuals are born into poverty and with perceived limited opportunities they can choose to make this mean that life is hopeless. Hopelessness is a choice, you have to give your hope away; Victor Frankl did not give his hope away when he was a prisoner in a concentration camp and Nelson Mendela did not give away his hope when he was imprisoned on Robben Island.

The behaviour I am observing is not individuals but groups of people who have been caught up in a wave of frustration and criminal elements that have taken advantage of the situation. The Police were initially overwhelmed and so these groups gained early successes which validated their amoral behaviour. Self-leaders are Self-motivated and Self-regulated; the riot behaviour seems to be motivated by greed for “free stuff” and characterised by a complete lack of Self-regulation.

Politicians and ‘experts’ are now debating why London’s youth lack any moral code – is it the fault of a liberal government who has failed to educate or the break down in parental responsibility or some other coctail of causes? From my perspective I see the current crisis as an extreme  example of what can happen when people are not encouraged to take Self-responsibility in alignment with their own and their communities best interest.

Self-leadership

It should be no surprise that as the author of a Self Leadership blog that I think it is critical that Senior Managers begin to master their Self-leadership. Self-motivation, Self-direction and Self-regulation enable the manager to ‘walk the talk’ and be a positive influence to those that they lead.

Transformational Leadership

Much of management is transactional; setting goals, giving feedback and achieving business objectives. A senior manager must continue to do these things whilst also being transformational. Transformational leadership is about creating and communicating a vision of “What can be”. Transformational leaders focus on people and the environment (culture) to achieve extraordinary results.

People Leadership

Senior Managers realise that they can’t get the job done without hiring, retaining and developing the right people. As a manager this is often handed off to HR but critical skills include coaching and mentoring as well as a deep understanding of what drives people and how to motivate them. Effective leaders know how to “read” people and use this skill to positively influence outcomes.

Creating a Positive Performing Culture

We are strongly influenced by our environment and the people around us, it is therefore critical that the Senior Leader understands how to create a positive performing culture. Cultures can be subtle or obvious but we usually know what counts for success in any situation. By purposefully acknowledging and validating the behaviours that count, the senior manager can create high performing teams and an environment where people want to work and exercise Self-leadership.

Obviously these ideas are just a broad overview, if you would like to take a deeper dive, why not contact Self Leadership International or attend our program in Singapore on October 12-14, 2011.