Posts Tagged ‘The origin of leaders’

In meetings, John D. Rockerfeller would sit and not say anything.  Many times he would appear to be asleep.  However when he did speak, it was always a question.  It was a question that would break the status quo of the discussion and bring out new viewpoints on a challenge.  Michael Dell doesn’t speak much in meetings, but when he does it is almost always a question.

As a business school professor I teach by asking questions.  Verne Harnish says “we are good at finding answers to questions, leaders find the right questions”.

Nobody knows as much as Everybody

Business regularly promote the best performer to be team leader.  The top salesman becomes sales manager.  The top programmer becomes team lead.  The top engineer becomes operations manager.

The previous strength of the individual becomes their greatest weakness as a leader.

They know they were the best, so they have the best answers.  When they feel a little threatened in the new role, they stop asking questions.   They diminish the impact of those around them.

Nobody knows as much as everybody.  Even if I were to be technically the smartest person in the room, the combined capacity of others will be more powerful.  We ask questions when we are humble.  Liz Wiseman, author of “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter”, says we ask good questions when we are not thinking “I am the smartest person in this room”.  Liz calls this leader a “multiplier”.

John Baldoni offers 4 ways to improve your questions in the Harvard Business Review.  Learn to Ask Better Questions:

1. be curious,
2. be open-ended,
3. be engaged and
4. dig deeper.

Uncertainty and Frustration stop you from Leading Others

Last week, I was with a good friend and our 3 kids at the beach.  We left the beach at sunset and cycled home.  When we reached home, I discovered that we were locked out of the house.  I had left another key in the inside of the lock, and was now unable to open the door from outside.  It was getting dark and our 3 kids (between the ages of 3 and 5) were hungry and asking repeatedly “why are we outside?”

I felt stupid.  I stopped communicating.  I was getting frustrated by the kids asking “why are we outside?”  I was angry at myself.

I didn’t speak much to my friend and our kids.  First, I searched see if any windows or doors were open.  After 10 minutes walking around the house, no joy.  Fort Knox.

I asked my friend “do you have your mobile?”  I made some calls to get the number of the security company.  I finally spoke to someone who said they would send a car, it would probably take 40 minutes.  I said “ok”.

It was only now that I took a deep breath and explained the situation to my friend and our 3 kids.  I could see that my daughter had really wanted to help and she felt bad that I had ignored her.  My well-meaning actions had alienated the others.  Luckily my friend had created a little game to play with the kids while we waited.  He got the towels from the bag to wrap the kids and keep them warm.  I was no longer the leader in this group.  My friend was the emotional centre of the group.  I was an individual specialist who had emotionally abandoned the group in a moment of need. I lost control because of my frustration at myself.

I stop asking questions when I am angry at myself, feel overwhelmed or uncertain.

The Territory of Leadership is Uncertainty

Managers deal in improving the status quo.  Management is about doing the same things a little better.  Leaders deal in uncertainty.  Leadership is about giving others the confidence to move forward, helping them believe their own answers.

A friend of mine, Jacques, is the father of a tennis player.  If she loses, he asks “when did you know you were going to lose?  Why did you not stop right then?”  A leader must be able to regain belief.  When a team is winning, the captain can be a manager.  When the team is losing and doubt is in the minds of the players, the captain must become a leader.  He must take control of emotions.  First his own.  Then he must project his certainty out to the group.  Leadership is emotional work.  Leadership is about making sense of emotions and helping everyone reach a mental state that allows for performance.

A great leader believes in people and asks questions that help them perform.

John DeMartini talks about a transformational moment in his life.  He was 17, living in a tent and surfing the beaches of Hawaii with no purpose or plan.  A 93 year old man was talking with a group on the beach.  John listened.  At the end John approached the man.  The man asked him about his life and what he wanted to do.  John found himself answering that he would be a teacher.  The man listened and when he finished, looked him in the eyes and said “This is going to happen.  You are going to be a great teacher.  What will you do next?”  The man said these words with such conviction and belief that John knew it would happen.  John’s goal in life is to do the same for a 17 year old when he himself is 93 years old.  Leadership is about helping people believe in themselves.  It is helping someone reach enough certainty to take action.

The Best Questions…

• The best Leadership Question:  “What is the next right thing to do?”
• The best Teaching Question: “What do you think?  What other options do you see?”
• The best Coaching Question: “You have achieved what you set out to accomplish.  Imagine yourself there.  What does it feel like?”
• The best Friendship Question: “How are you?”
• The best Parenting Question: “What was the best moment of your day?”
• The best Sales Question: “(I understand that price is important.)  What other criteria are important in making this decision?”  (The implicit question: “What are you comparing this to?”)

What question will you ask?

The Origin of Leaders

The next post in this series will turn back inwards and look at why you would choose the path of leadership and stick to it for life.  What is a fulfilling life?  How can you live so that you reach the last day and say “I don’t want to go, but if I had it over again I would live much the same way.”

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Tagged as: active garage, best questions, conor neill, John Baldoni, John DeMartini, Leadership, Liz Wiseman, managers, Multipliers, questions, smart questions, The origin of leaders, The Rhetorical Journey, Verne Harnish

Habits play an important role in the origin of leaders. Successful leaders understand this.

How do we succeed in making changes in our lives?  How do we convert an event into a pattern—or ongoing habit–into our character or ongoing daily activities?

For example, when I first moved to Spain, I had only ever drunk one cup of coffee in my 29 years of life.  In my first month in Barcelona, I began to go to the coffee bar with my friends in the morning, as is the daily tradition here.  Over the course of the month I had a few coffees.  Some days yes, some days no.

The second month I started to enjoy this little habit and so probably had a coffee each morning. Over the next 8 years, however, I reached the point where I “need” 3 coffees during the 7am to 2pm period!  (I have probably drunk a swimming pool’s worth of coffee!)

What’s the point? I would never have drunk so much of coffee had it not been one of my daily habits. Drinking coffee is perhaps not an example of a positive, productive habit – but the story shows how habits enter a life.  I started writing seriously about 2 years ago.  I write 500 words a day.  Sometimes I write more, but my conscious daily habit is to ensure that I write 500 words each day.

We are what we habitually do

You are not a smoker if you smoke 1 cigarette.  You are not a smoker if you smoke 2 cigarettes.  You become a smoker at some point where it becomes a daily thing!

Likewise, you’re not a writer if you write today.  You are not a writer if you write a couple of times a year.  You only become a writer when it becomes a daily thing.

We overestimate what we can achieve in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a year.  This is a widespread human challenge.  Most people, including myself, will set a list of to-dos for today that is impossible to achieve.  I overestimate what I can realistically get done today.  I underestimate the interruptions, the distractions and my ability to maintain focus on the tasks.  However, we underestimate our potential to create over the course of a year – if I do a little bit each day.  In my coffee example, if somebody showed me a big vat with all the coffee I drank last year and said – “can you drink all this?”  I would balk at the sheer volume.  However, done step by step, over many days, as a habit – enormous things are achievable.

What are habits?

Habits are actions you regularly do.  Smoking starts as an event, turns into a pattern, and becomes a habit.  Aristotle says “we are what we habitually do”.  Who I am and become is directly related to my daily habits!.

Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly.  As the routine is repeated more and more regularly it takes less and less effort or self-discipline to begin and complete the routine.  Some say that it takes 30 days of sustained routine for it to become habitual.  If you write for 10 minutes for the next 30 days before you begin your day’s work, it will be an effort and require discipline for the first few days, but if you have the strength to keep it up it will become almost automatic around the 30 day point.

Start the day slowly

Ken Blanchard starts each day the same way.  After waking, before getting up and meeting the day, and certainly before checking emails, he sits on the edge of his bed.  He places his hands with palms down on top of his thighs and he listens to the thoughts running through his mind, the ideas, the people, the doubts; he listens to his body, how it feels, where it hurts.  After 5 minutes or so when he feels he has heard what his mind has to say, he turns his hands over so the palms facing up.  He thinks “what do I want to be grateful for at the end of today?”.  He starts each day this way – he calls it “starting the day slowly”. This start means that he spends the day on what is important.

Habituating Learning

All senior executives of Goldman Sachs are on 2 teleconferences every day.  At 6am and at 6pm they all dial in and have short conversation.  The 6am call looks at what patterns are happening today and gets each leader reflecting on the day ahead.  The 6pm call answers one question “What did we learn today?”.  This routine ensures maximum learning every day through a habitual reflection on what worked and what didn’t work during the day.  How do you ensure that you learn from each day?  Do you pause to reflect on what worked and what did not?

Routine sets you free.

I had a coffee with Verne Harnish just before Christmas at IESE business school.  Verne is author of The Rockerfeller Habits and founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation.  We talked about habits.  Verne says “routine sets you free”.  Deciding on what works and ensuring that it is a daily habit is something that makes the successful leaders stand out.  Michael Dell has a routine, regular habits, for reviewing his business performance.  Steve Jobs has a routine.  Bill Gates has a routine.  Warren Buffett has a routine.  Do you have a routine?  What differentiates the great work days in your life from the others?  How can you ensure that every day has the habits of the best days?

Verne coaches hundreds of businesses.  One important habit that he pushes in a big way is to ensure that all employees spend time in a daily huddle.  This daily huddle is used by hundreds of businesses.  It is a short 10-15 minute meeting where each person only says 2 things – what they are working on that day and (optionally) an obstacle that is in their way.  This 10-15 minute meeting allows a connection of the people within the company, and ensures that employees are proactive in planning their days.

Summary

We are creatures of habit.  We will repeat what we have done yesterday.  We are creatures of precedent. Share the habits you’re building into your life!

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Tagged as: active garage, conor neill, habits, IESE business school, Ken Blanchard, Leadership, management, Rockerfeller Habits, The origin of leaders, The Rhetorical Journey, Verne Harnish

I feel a fraud writing on self-discipline. I started this post over 6 weeks ago. Yet, here I am—just days before deadline–finally coming back to push through the hard work of completing it and making it readable.

I am definitely not a guru or master of self-discipline. More times than not, I am a master of procrastination. I am brilliant at finding important interruptions to fill my time when I have a big project sitting there.

But, I’m forced to address these issues because of the fundamental truth: A small step completed is a million times better than a big plan thought about. Seth Godin says that “Professionals ship”. Ship means they finish what they start. There are many, many people who are like bullfrogs in a china shop – they make lots of noise, but no actual action (or breakage) happens.

So, I’m dedicating this Topic to exploring ways we can all ship more often?  A little over a year ago I wrote my most-read-ever post – 17 Habits for a fulfilling life – and Self-Discipline was habit #1.

What would my parents say?

My parents would laugh to see me, Conor, writing on self-discipline! Alter all, they observed my high-school years where they watched me avoid studying, avoid starting essays, leaving homework to the last possible minute (and often somewhat later).

Likewise, my housemates from my time at university would be falling off their chairs laughing if you were to point them to this post.

Why I’m taking a fresh look at self-discipline

I began writing seriously about 2 years ago. This has led me to have a deep interest in why I am highly productive in some periods and totally useless during other periods. Through these musings, my hope is that some day those useless periods will be smashed to smithereens and I will become a “proper writer”.

I am not going to write a post today that says that you must become totally disciplined in order to be successful. There are some tricks, there is some psychology, there is a lot of pushing through and keeping working when things don’t look so easy.

What would Nike say?

I have spent a lot of time during the past few months interviewing high performance athletes. My goal was to understand their motivations, how they train, how they prepare mentally, and how they face anxiety.

In many cases these successful athletes have an ability to focus on the one next step and, in the words of Nike, Just do it!

Josef Ajram, Spain’s top endurance athlete, tells himself “I will run another 15 minutes. Come on. Anyone can run another 15 minutes.”

In Josef Ajram’s words, he has completed the Marathon de Sables – 243km across the Sahara desert in 6 days – by only ever allowing himself to think about the next 15 minutes!

The Pomodor Technique

Today, when I write, I use an execution tool called The Pomodoro Technique.

This was created by Italian student Francesco Cirillo during the time that he was writing his university thesis. He was having a hard time getting started.

One day, he went to his mother’s kitchen where he found a cooking timer in the shape of a tomato – pomodoro in italian. He took the pomodoro timer back to his desk and thought “right, I am going to set this to 20 minutes and I will keep writing until the timer finishes”.

He began to use this execution tool on a daily basis and quickly got on top of the thesis he had to write. He has documented the full method and provides tools at the Pomodoro technique home page.

So, set a timer and focus on just taking one small step.

Why do we procrastinate?

Why do we sabotage ourselves even when we know what we should do to move towards our goal? I read a great post by Leo Baubata of Zen Habits a couple of months ago where he talked of 4 reasons why we procrastinate:

1. It provides Instant Gratification – It feels better right now
2. It avoids Fear – If I do it wrong what will they say? What will they think of me? If I don’t act then I avoid the risk of making a mistake.
3. It has no immediate negative consequences – Jim Rohn says “We all have the choice of one of two great pains in the world – the pain of regret or the pain of discipline”. The pain of discipline is here and now. The pain of regret comes later… but is by far the worse pain.
4. I overestimate my future self – I have some inner belief that I will be smarter, better, faster in the future. This is a strong belief. The work that is hard today must somehow be easier for the better future me? But, what if’s not? I am deceiving myself.

Good and Bad Procrastination.

There is good and bad procrastination. Putting off going to the supermarket so that I can finish this article because I am on a roll would be good procrastination; checking my email because I am hitting a wall in my writing of this article would be bad procrastination.

Many highly productive people manage to succeed by procrastinating on important work when avoiding unimportant tasks. My desk here is quite a mess. I should tidy it, but writing this article is my way of procrastinating away from cleaning up.

Building Your Support Community

Which co-workers and friends want to see you succeed? Who are the people in your life who like to see you make progress on the things that are important to you? If you want to get big things done, you must spend time with others who are on this journey and support your journey.

Self-discipline grows with use

Self-discipline, like muscle, grows with use. Keep one promise, the next one will be is easier. Run tonight, tomorrow easier. Write now, tomorrow easier.

The other side of the coin, however, is that without use, discipline shrinks! No run today, harder tomorrow. No writing today, harder tomorrow.

How can you develop your self-discipline?

Here are some simple “first steps” you might want to try after reading this article:

• Try the Pomodoro technique. Do 10 minutes on something important right now.
• Take time each morning to reflect on what is important
• Avoid “the watercooler gang” – the groups in our offices and schools who are happily unproductive and enjoy helping others take their place in the group. Make a list of 2-3 people who support you when you talk of your progress in something important in your life.
• Never underestimate the role of practice and persistence and hard work in success. The “3 steps to untold riches programs” don’t work. The “flat tummy in 1 week while watching TV plan” doesn’t work. There are no shortcuts. Don’t waste time looking.
• Inspiration tends to come when you have trudged through 40 minutes of painful effort and have not allowed yourself to check email, make a coffee, eat chocolate, check IM… You have to push through to get to inspiration.

Summary (or how to change the world…  one step at a time)

The only people who can change the world are those that want to. Many don’t want to. Some want to, but don’t accept the discipline of hard work. Anything you want will never be as hard as you imagine it will be! So, get started and push on through. Do it “just because.” Even if it is a failure as a product, it will teach you. You will come out stronger.

In my next post we will look at how to take Imagination, Ambition, Learning and Self-Discipline and make the journey easier with each day. A friend of mine, Verne Harnish says: “Routine sets you free.” I welcome your comments, retweets and general link-love!

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Tagged as: 17 habits for a fulfilling life, active garage, conor neill, discipline, fear, Francesco Cirillo, Jim Rohn, Josef Ajram, Just do it, Leo baubata, Nike, Procastination, self-discipline, seth godin, support community, The origin of leaders, The Pomodoro Technique, Verne Harnish, Zen Habits

Stop.  Take a look around you.  Take a look at the people you work with, the people you meet at parties, even the people you just casually pass in the street.

How do they spend their days?

Most of them work.  They do some other activities as well. They sleep, eat, cook, hang out with friends, watch TV, play sport and some might play an instrument.  Nothing, however, comes close to the hours that they dedicate to work.

Now, honestly, how well do they do it?  Well enough to keep the job?  Maybe well enough to get a promotion every couple of years?  But are any of them great at what they do?  Truly world class?  Excellent?

Why?  How can they spend so much time at it, going through school, through university, maybe even an MBA, executive seminars, coaching, mentors, high-flyer programs…  but they are not great at what they do.

Why?  Some people have been working for 30, even 40 years.  After all these thousands of hours most people are no more than mediocre at what they do. This is sad.

Only two routes to get more done

There are two routes to double the output.  One is to work double the hours.  Instead of 4 hours, I give 8 hours.  I may get double the output.  It is unlikely.  The marginal utility reduces for each additional hour as tiredness and loss of focus become stronger.  There is also a physical limit to this approach.  I only have a limited number of hours in a day, in a week…  in a life.  So, I might increase today’s output by 20% or even 30% by adding hours, but this is not a healthy route.

Route two is to double the effectiveness of my hours.  How can I begin a process that continually increases the value of output of the hours that I give to a task or a job or a cause?

People who improve their effectiveness daily have two things in common:  they care about the outcome and they remain humble.

Care about the outcome

There is a Spanish saying that there is no good wind for a boat with no rudder.  Alice, when she reaches Wonderland asks White Rabbit “Which path should I take?”  White Rabbit replies “where are you going?”  Alice: “I don’t know.”  White Rabbit: “Then it doesn’t matter which path you take.”  Posts 1 and 2 in this series talked of Imagination and Ambition – about deciding and committing to a course of action, about clarity in what you seek to achieve.  If you don’t care where you are going, then effective learning is not going to happen.

Arrogance stifles growth, Humility enables growth

Learning requires change.  Change requires humility.  Humility does not come easily to successful people.  It did not come easy to me.

I was having drinks with a group of professors at IESE two weeks ago after playing football.  The conversation came around to “which program do you prefer to teach?”.  An MBA student at the table said “The MBA must be the best program to teach on.  Young, ambitious, successful people.  The senior director programs must be the hardest.  They must be so demanding.”

Alex said “No.  Years ago I preferred the MBA, but now I definitely prefer teaching the executive programs.  MBAs are typically 27, have done well in school, got to a top university, got a great job, done well, got into IESE MBA…  and believe they know everything.  The senior directors of 55 have learnt how little they really know.  They come humble.  They are aware of the value of education.  They come prepared and ready to apply the material into their lives.  The senior director programs are the most rewarding to teach.  MBAs are hard work”.

“Tinkering” and The Need for Deliberate Practice

The motto of the ActiveGarage is “Always tinkering”.  This is a great motto for this post on learning.  What is tinkering?  Playing with something.  Testing.  Changing inputs and looking to see what happens.

In school we do “book learning”.  We learn to memorize facts and to store those facts long enough to recall them during exams.

In life we do experiential learning.  We try, we fail, we reflect and we try again.  Tom Peters says that “the only source of good knowledge is bad experience.”  He is right.  The knowledge that a leader needs is not written in the textbooks.  It is not available from professors.  Textbooks, professors and gurus have there place.  They can help me make sense of my experience. Mentors, peers and coaches can play a crucial role in the process of experiential learning.  The can help me understand their experience.  However, there is no substitute for personal experience, for our own practice.

A science has been developing around the field of developing exceptional performance.  What leads to world class performance?  “Deliberate Practice.”

The 5 ingredients of Deliberate Practice and the 3 models of mastery is explored on The Rhetorical Journey blog.

Most problems we face in life are not solvable through thinking alone.  You have to try a few things and see how they work.  In business, you often have to try in a way that is visible to others.  Some of those others cannot wait to see you mess up and laugh at your attempt.  However you need the real world test in order to be able to reflect and refine your approach.  The person making 1% incremental improvements day after day will always beat the person looking to make a 40% improvement in one big step.  The humility of asking for help and sharing experience magnifies the value of the learning.

What do you think? Are you a “tinkerer?” How do you test and attempt incremental changes?

The next post in the series will combine Imagination, Ambition and Learning and look at what can only come from within a person.

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Tagged as: active garage, ambition, conor neill, creativity, IESE, imagination, Innovation, Leadership, leadership qualities, learning, The origin of leaders, The Rhetorical Journey

On 9^th August 2010, Ed Stafford arrived at the sea, having walked the length of the Amazon river.  Over 860 days of walking, 20,000 mosquito bites, 5,000 leeches, poisonous spiders and snakes.  No boss told him to do it.  Nobody paid him for it.  Why did he do it?  How did he keep going for almost 3 years?

Steve Jobs is worth billions.  He founded Apple with his friend Steve Wozniak.  Wozniak left 20 years ago worth millions.  Jobs is still there, still working, still pushing, still innovating new products.  Why?  What keeps him going?

Madonna was a star when I was 13.  She is still a star today.  She continues to tour, create new music, and maintain an exercise regime more intense than many professional athletes.  Why?

Ed, Steve and Madonna have ambition.  Each in a different way, each from their own source – but each have keep their own journeys going for long periods of time.

We began this series with a look at Imagination.  I called imagination the unique human skill.  However, an idea alone is worth nothing.  Execution is everything.  It is ambition that drives a person to keep going on the journey towards what they have imagined.

What is Ambition?

Where imagination guides the rudder, ambition powers the sails.  Knowing what to do but not doing it is the same as not knowing what to do. Dean Simonton, professor at USC-Davis says that: “Ambition is energy and determination. It calls for goals too.  People with goals but no energy are the ones who wind up sitting on the couch saying ‘One day I’m going to build a better mousetrap’. People with energy but no clear goals just dissipate themselves in one desultory project after the next.”

Ambition is the ability to transform purpose into disciplined action.  There are two components to this ability:

• Visualization of the future – the mental effort to turn an idea into desire (imagination).  The clearer the image, the more powerful the feeling related to the image, the more powerful the energy.
• Chunking – identifying the next simple step and taking it

A professional climber will look at a mountain and imagine what it will be like to achieve the summit.  He will begin climbing and shift focus to the single next hand movement, the next foot movement, the next breath…  the next meter…  but never more than the next meter during the journey.  Spain Ultraman? “just another 5 minutes… anybody can run another 5 minutes”.

Where does Ambition come from?

There is a genetic component – identical twins show a 30-50% overlap in their level of ambition.  There is an environmental component – FDR’s bout of polio gave him a sense of mission that led him to the presidency, Lance Armstrong survived cancer and won an unprecedented 9 tour de France victories.  Nando Parrado at age 19 was in a high altitude crash in the Andes, watched his friends and his sister and mother die – and when he walked out he took 100% ownership of his life.

Ambition is stronger in those that have a clear purpose in life

Nietzsche “Those with a clear why will overcome whatever how”.  To be good at what you do, you can depend on others…  but to be great, it must come from within.  You must find your source of ambition, the fire in the belly, the drive to give the last 1% that nobody else would notice if you didn’t give.  Only you can know.

Andre Agassi spoke about how he was number 1 in the world, playing great tennis…  and one day woke up and realized that he hated tennis.  It had lost meaning for him.  The goals of being number 1 were no longer important.  Over the next few months he dropped down to number 50 in the world and put on 10 kilos of weight.  After five months of drift he decided that he would open a school in his hometown.  He put effort into creating the foundation, fundraising and marketing the school.  He realized that his most powerful tool to further his aim of creating the school was playing tennis.  It was his most effective way of creating visibility and raising funds.  He returned to the top 10 and won 4 further US open titles.  He re-found a purpose that engaged him and gave him ambition.

One of the greatest books is Victor Frankl’s “Man’s search for meaning”, his autobiographical account of surviving the Nazi concentration camp system. 1 in 30 of those that entered the camp system survived.  Frankl saw that it was not random.  Those who survived had a purpose outside of themselves that kept them going, minute by minute, hour by hour as they overcame brutality upon brutality in the camp system.  Frankl identified the 3 sources of meaning and built a whole branch of psychiatry called logotherapy using tools to search for one of these 3 sources in each of our lives.

How to find your purpose?

What do you do that gives you energy?  What activities in your life seem to fly by?  You look forward to them when you know they are coming up.  You feel more energized afterwards.  I would ask that you do two things:

1. Take a notebook and spend 5 minutes a day for 2 weeks and note down the specific activities  of that day that give you energy, and the specific activities that suck your energy.
2. Say “no” more.

Identity – Marshall Goldsmith – what do you do because other people expect it of you, or you look to impress them.  What do you do that comes from within?

Mika de Waart says that we are driven by emotions.  “I should do more exercise”, “I should lose weight”, “I should get another job”…  are not driven by my own internal emotional drive – these are “shoulds”.  These are things that I want to do to impress others, to look good, to feel a significant member of my tribe.  Only when I convert a should into a must will it begin to be something that takes place in my life.  A must connects to my emotional inner life, into what is important for me.

How do I convert shoulds to musts?

Realize which are only ever going to be shoulds.  If you have 20 very important goals, you don’t have any.  If you have 1 or 2 then you have important goals.  If you don’t ever say “no” to people, then you are dividing yourself up into such small chunks that you will result in nothing real or lasting.  Let go of the shoulds that will never be more than shoulds.  Write them down on a piece of paper and set fire to the page.  Let them go.

“Carpe Diem. Memento mori.“  This was what was said to triumphant Roman Generals when they paraded through Rome on the day where they celebrated their greatest triumphs in battle.  Seize the day.  Remember you shall die.

Only in realizing the scarcity of our time and the reality that our time is limited will you have the strength to say no to the non essential.  Ambition is an expensive impulse, it requires an enormous investment of emotional capital.  In the words of Seth Godin: “only start what you mean to finish.”  Don’t burn yourself up on the unimportant.

Focus on process, not outcome.

Life is a marathon, not a sprint.  Marathon runners say “I ran a marathon” they don’t much focus on times.  Everyone who has completed a marathon is a winner.

These tips for ambition are not just for the Ed Staffords, Steve Jobs and Madonnas of the world – they are most importantly for you.  You are here for a reason.  We need to you bring your talent to the world.

How can you develop your ambition?

• Do less, get 3 important things complete each day
• Say “no” more.  Stop using “busy-ness” as a badge of honour.
• Meditate on how it will feel when you are old, when you look back on what you have done with your life
• Don’t run from your fears.  Turn and face them.  Hidden in your fear is a message about your purpose. Demons are never as scary when you look them in the eyes.
• As a parent, praise your kids for disciplined effort and not for results.  Same if you are a boss.  Same to your friends.

Commitment creates clarity. Do one next small step now.

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Tagged as: active garage, ambition, andre agassi, conor neill, dean simonton, ed stafford, imagination, Leadership, madonna, man's search for meaning, marshall goldsmith, mika de waart, nando parrado, steve jobs, steve wozniak, The origin of leaders, victor frankl

One of the most sought after answers in our society is perhaps to the question “Where do leaders come from?” We depend greatly on them, but what do we do to ensure that the future has the people with the leadership capability that we will need.  If they are born, there is not much to do. If they can be developed, then we have a responsibility to systematize the process by which great leaders can be created.

Recent research in talent, in leadership, in accomplishment and human development is leaning further and further towards the development through experience path.  Malcolm Gladwell has made famous the concept of “10,000” hours in his book Outliers.  If you practice for 10,000 hours you will become world class.

If you practice for 10,000 hours…

…What should you practice?

This leads to the question: What is at the core of leadership?  What are the habits of successful leaders?  The Origin of Leaders is a journey through these traits and a reflection on how previously successful leaders have been able to develop these skills.

Welcome to the journey.  I look forward to your comments.

Imagination: the nucleus.

Sir Ken Robinson, the creativity expert you may know from TED, gives a great speech about what it is that has brought humanity from living in caves to living in skyscrapers, speaking on mobile phones, reading on kindles, traveling in jets and building rocket ships.

I watched the film “Inception” last week with my family.  What is the most enduring parasite?  “An idea”.

Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses.  It is seeing something that is not yet here.  It is seeing a different future.  It is seeing a combination of existing products that has not yet been tried.

Why is imagination so important?

Imagination defines humanity

Genetically we differ 2% from chimpanzees and 3% from worms. It is not our genes that have us living in penthouses and connecting on facebook.  Our difference is The human cortex, the layer of brain that is most highly developed in humans, is very young in evolutionary terms – but crucial in every other respect.   The cortex is where we begin to live intentionally.  We don’t just respond to the world, but can begin to see a new world and thus plan and act accordingly.

The unique gift of humanity is reason, the ability to solve problems in the mind, to imagine.

2,300 years ago in the Greek city-state of Athens, Aristotle asked himself “what is the purpose of human life?”  Aristotle defined the purpose of an object as being that which it can uniquely do.  A human is alive – but plants are also alive – so that cannot be human purpose.  A human feels – but animals also feel – so that cannot be human purpose. The unique gift of humanity is reason, the ability to solve problems in the mind, to imagine.

Aristotle concludes the Ethics with a discussion of the highest form of happiness: a life of intellectual contemplation.   Reasoned imagination is the highest virtue.

The second reason is driven by the requirements of a leader. A leader must see a future that is not yet here.  The clearer you can see and touch and feel this potential future the more compellingly you can communicate it to others.

How can you develop your imagination? Here are some ways:

• Spend time bored.  Read fiction.  Write a new ending to a classic book.  Make a hero into a villain, and a hero into a villain. Write yourself into the book.
• Throw photos on the floor and then explain the connection between them
• Watch TV in another language and explain to a friend what is happening
• Visualize a horse with sheep’s coat and a dolphin’s head.  Imagine a rubber car.
• List 10 small improvements you could make to the seat you are sitting on
• Tell bedtime stories
• Develop 2×2 matrix on an area of interest…  and develop scenarios for changing positions
• Write a new ending for Seinfeld, CSI, M*A*S*H, Desperate Housewives, SITC…  or your favorite show
• Go to an ethnic restaurant and order something you have never had before
• Go to a railroad station or airport and take the first train or plane to depart
• Imagine a world without oil, cars, telephones, internet…  fill in the blank…

Develop the courage to share.  Leadership is emotional labor, when you are doing it right; it puts you on the edge.  In the words of Scott Belsky, author of Making Ideas Happen, you must “break the stigma of self-marketing”.  Learn the difference between the skeptics (good) and the cynics (get away from them).  Please share your results here.

The next post in this series looks at another vital component of leaders.  It is a characteristic that is required to achieve success.  No company has ever achieved market leadership when this characteristic has not been part of its CEO.

Stay tuned!

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Tagged as: accomplishments, active garage, aristotle, conor neill, creativity, humanity, ideas, imagination, inceptions, Leadership, malcolm gladwell, outliers, the making of leaders, The origin of leaders