Inspiration | Elisa K. Spain

How Do You Manage The Flow?

February 12, 2017February 11, 2017 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Sometimes the demands of one part of our life, work or family, consume us. Sometimes because of a crisis, sometimes because of a spike in workload or children’s sports or…, sometimes just because we become consumed.

These days, mobile devices link us 24/7 to the office, our bosses, our employees and coworkers. We are, as I heard it said recently, living in time poverty. It may be necessary, now more than ever, to pause, regroup and allow ourselves to do something counterintuitive; listen to music, go sailing, jogging, practice yoga, make pottery or simply go for a walk.

Why counterintuitive? Because our responsible self says, stay with it, do the work, finish the project, take care of the sick loved one, etc. We tell ourselves its selfish to do something for ourselves “at a time like this”.

If we think of our lives as a three legged stool….when one leg is gone, it won’t balance and falls over. We can’t take the pressures of work and family and go back and forth between them alone….that’s where the third leg, a completely different activity that is our individual interest alone, comes in.

At the height of World War 2 when the pressures were immense, President Roosevelt would escape to his stamp collection for an hour or so, doing something completely different. General George Marshall would ride horseback many mornings to relieve the pressures of his job of building and leading an Army of 8 million men and women.

Think about it—

What is your third stool leg to balance your life?
How often are you trying to balance on only 2 legs?
How might you feel if all three legs were grounded on most days?

But, Do They Really Like You?

February 5, 2017January 27, 2017 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Many years ago, Sally Field famously accepted her Oscar saying, “You like me,” she declared. “You really like me.” With the strong emphasis on the word really. Turns out what she actually said was, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me.” We probably misremember or misheard the quote, because it isn’t just actors who are primarily motivated by being liked, we all are. Psychologists say this misquote is so sticky because it exemplifies a central human need.

And, whether we are liked, impacts our ability to have long term, lasting, success. Likability is an essential component of EQ. Likability impacts the legacy we leave.

I am fascinated, particularly lately, with how this shows up in politics. Here in Chicago, our mayor nearly lost the last election, despite what he has accomplished, because lots of people, don’t like him. Our previous mayor was extremely popular. As a result, he could do things that people didn’t like (like swoop in and close an airport in the middle of the night, without any authority to do so), because people liked him, even if they didn’t always like what he did. The airport closing, by the way, turned out to be something the citizens of Chicago ended up liking because it became a lovely park and concert venue. And, our parks and the overall beauty of the city is part of Mayor Daley’s legacy.

Working with CEOs and executives, I observe the same phenomenon. The CEOs who, like Sally Field, are really liked, by their teams, get results. They get a pass when they make a mistake, especially when they own it and admit it. And more importantly, they get support when they want something to happen.

As we think about our own leadership, a question worth asking ourselves, perhaps daily:

What can I do today, to hone my EQ skills and increase my likability?

What Does It Mean To Be Present?

January 22, 2017January 16, 2017 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

When we talk about being present in our Vistage meetings, the request is to turn off the outside world and be present with the conversation in the room. Many of our members have similar requests for meetings inside their companies. Some leaders even collect everyone’s mobile devices when they enter the room so that no one is tempted to check messages and check out.

And of course, its easy to check out without a mobile device nearby. We get lost in our thoughts. And, meetings are only one place this can happen; it also happens at home. When our partners, our children, our friends are speaking, are we listening? Or are we waiting to respond, or simply lost in our thoughts?

Perhaps 2017 is the year to begin… finding time each day, or even each week, to shut out the noise, to be in silence or even meditate, all as practice for being present.

Perspective…

January 8, 2017January 6, 2017 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I had an experience that reminded me how true it is that we see the world through our own perspective. So much so that our experience, in the exact same situation as someone else, can be entirely different. And it’s not until we pause and sincerely try to see the world as the other person does that we can appreciate their perspective.

Here’s the story. A man I dated briefly, my first year of college, sent me a message through Facebook Messenger. At first, I wasn’t sure who the sender was, after all, this was more than 40 years ago. After a while I remembered, so I responded and said hello. He wrote back telling me he was glad to be in touch because he owed me an apology. Turned out, from his perspective, when I transferred to another college we had an agreement that he was to join me. He didn’t join me after all, he said, and he felt he had broken our agreement.

High standards he has for himself you might say, especially since he is still thinking about this after 40 years, that’s perhaps a topic for another discussion about letting stuff go.

Going back to the perspective subject, my memory of the situation was completely different. What I remembered was he did contact me and I had moved on; I wasn’t wanting or expecting to see him.

Who knows which perspective is what actually happened; perspective in this case is clouded by years. However, the fact that each of us remembered the exact same situation so differently, has stayed with me since our brief interchange on Facebook Messenger.

It’s a reminder to me to stop and listen and ask questions, to be sure I work hard to see the world as the people in my life see it. As a leadership coach, I must work to see every perspective, not just my own. Not easy and nothing important is easy, is it?

The challenge for most of us is we are busy moving forward, busy with our own perspectives and we just don’t take the time to pause. We assume, we challenge, and we see only what we believe to be so.

In this new year, what will you do, to try to see the world from someone else’s perspective?

Thoughts For The Coming Year

December 18, 2016December 18, 2016 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

As I was pondering what to write as we close 2016, I visited my post from the close of 2015 and discovered, sadly, that the December 2015 blog could have been written today.

With that in mind, I am reposting the same guest blog from my friend and fellow Vistage Chair, Larry Cassidy. For me, Larry’s commentary continues to express the challenge we face as a nation and as leaders.

With that in mind, I am making it visible here once again, offering you some food for thought as you begin the holiday season.

Wishing you peace and opportunity in the New Year.

Larry’s Post from December 2015

My first newsletter was sent on June 27, 2011, some 230 newsletters ago. And for those 4½ years I have stepped carefully around politics. Today I will take edge up to that tricky topic, not so much traditional politics, but rather on who we are, and what price we 322-million folks are willing to pay to be that.

We have undergone many serious gut-shots in the past several years, Paris and San Bernardino being the latest. As I ponder these tragedies, and before releasing this newsletter into the wild, my thoughts go to three big ideas:

becoming the best version of ourselves,
the hard price we are (or are not) willing to pay to get and stay there,
our leadership as a part of all that.

There are many pieces to that, and we each have our own ideas. I will share mine below. You may disagree. But I do so because it is a conversation we cannot avoid, and all voices are required.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The Statue of Liberty, dedicated 10/28/1886

Terrorism is a stark and frightening example of what others can do to us. Paris. San Bernardino. Too much, too often. And leadership is what we choose to do about it, and how we go about doing it.

Once again, we confront events with which we have not contended (remember: Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11), and while such moments spawn anger and paranoia, they also summon our better angels. Which is one more good reason we would rather live here than anywhere else in the world, our flaws notwithstanding.

As I now savor almost-eight decades, I wonder if our fears might extinguish the Statue of Liberty’s torch, our shining beacon of freedom. And I question whether my opportunity to be born here, to live here, and to experience this thing called America, could have happened had such fear and paranoia won the early days of our history.

A bit dramatic? Go back a century-or-more, and we Irish were potato-heads, lazy scum. Italians were looked on as not much better. Jews? Forget it. African Americans, which was hardly what they were called? Slaves at best. Nor does that count Japanese-Americans or German-Americans in WWII. Pretty lucky for we shoddy Irish (and me) that we got past much of that.

Yes, we each have a right to feel, to fear, to embrace and to be safe. But before we pounce, look around. Soak it in. The ethnic, religious and nationalistic mess we behold is what has combined to make us great. It is our grand experiment, a palate on which each color and belief and ancestry is a part. It is us. So, what will it be ten, or fifty, or a hundred years from now?

Once again, we are in the process of deciding. In every business, classroom, sanctuary, gathering and discussion. And we are the leaders: the parents, coaches, elders, teachers, business executives. Make no mistake, we are deciding, we are leading and we are teaching.

So what will we do, and how will we go about doing it?
Which parts of what made this country great will we keep, and which will we discard?
Will we mirror or will we reject what those who threaten us espouse?
And once we decide, once we move on, will we have found our way to safety while continuing to lift our lamp beside the golden door?

This is a big deal. And we are all right in the middle of it.

Larry Cassidy

P.S. This is the last post this year, see you back here in January.

In Your Effort To Please, Are You Giving Away The Store?

December 11, 2016December 10, 2016 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Much has been written about The Ritz Carlton Way. The takeaway I always hear is “empower your front line employees to deliver WOW experiences”. Today many other organizations follow this Ritz Carlton Way.

The intent of this approach is to allow employees to resolve a customer situation and have the customer walk away so pleased that they return and tell others about the experience. As with anything else, the best intentions can sometimes go awry. Here are some examples I have observed recently:

A customer at Whole Foods asks for product A and they don’t have it, so the employee offers a Try Me (aka free) for Product B. All fine and good; I believe this is the intent of Whole Foods management. But what about the employee that offers a Try Me, simply because they have only 1/2 a pound of the product and the customer wants 1 pound? Should the 1/2 pound be offered as a Try Me?
A salesman makes an error in writing up an order for a construction job. The salesman works with the office to ensure the errors are corrected at no charge to the customer. Again, all good. But then that same customer asks for additional changes and the salesman, feeling bad about the earlier mistakes, gives away those additional items at no charge. Is this the Ritz Carlton Way, or is it giving away the store?

It’s a fine line, and of course, judgement is required. I also wonder how many companies that have adopted the Ritz Carlton Way have also adopted the extensive training and monitoring for which Ritz Carlton has become famous. In fact, there is a Ritz Carlton leadership center that offers public courses in delivering what they call memorable customer service.

Even when the design includes training, as with all initiatives, the DIME Method comes into play. We often leave off with Design and Implement and forget to Monitor and Evaluate. With this in mind, I leave you with the question I asked at the beginning,

In their effort to please, are your front line employees giving away the store?

Are You Green & Growing?

December 4, 2016December 4, 2016 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

The further along we get in our careers, the more we know and the more we are challenged to stay curious.

Every now and then I meet a leader that knows it all. They have “the way” they do things that worked for them in the past and as leaders, they are certain it will work today.

They share “the way” with their team, expecting them to accept “the way” and to become successful because of it. They do this with the best of intentions, and yet, the results don’t come. Frustrated, they try again. If only folks would simply execute “the way”, they will be successful and so will our company.

Alas, they discover, it doesn’t work the way it once did. This leader has two choices, s/he can continue to lead as s/he has always done, or… s/he can become curious.

What I have noticed is businesses, like ourselves, are living beings. And, like a plant, if I am not willing, and able, to be green and growing, the result is, I, and my company, become ripe and eventually rotting.

Today Is Giving Tuesday

November 29, 2016November 28, 2016 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day dedicated to giving back. On Giving Tuesday, nonprofits, families, businesses and students around the world come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give.

Many of you know about my passion for CARA, a true social innovator that helps motivated men and women, affected by homelessness and poverty, reclaim their voice and their vocation. My relationship with Cara began when a friend of mine invited me to experience Morning Motivations. Soon thereafter, the immediate past CEO of Cara became a member of my Vistage CEO Peer Advisory Board, and today, I am proud to count Maria Kim, CEO, as a current member. Through my relationship with each of them, I’ve come to see Cara as not just a place where people come to get and keep good jobs, but a place where their whole selves are reinvented and recovered in the process.

Like all well run Vistage companies, Cara measures their performance. They produce hundreds of jobs each year, at retention rates over 20 points higher than national norms, and with over 80% of employed participants moving onto permanent housing in which their families can thrive. They also produce a profound social return on investment, where for every dollar invested in this work, $5.97 is re-invested in society over a five year time horizon.

This year, once again, I have joined with Maria’s fellow Vistage member, Kevin Krak of Gallant Building Solutions, along with Eric Weinheimer, former CEO of Cara, and Jim and Kay Mabie in offering a $25,000 Challenge Grant. We will match every dollar up to $25,000 (for a total grant of $50,000)! Click Here to give today and your gift will go twice as far.

Thank you in advance for joining us for a Giving Tuesday donation to the Cara Program, or to the social purpose organization of your choice.

Thanks-Giving

November 23, 2016November 23, 2016 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday because it is celebrated by all Americans, regardless of their backgrounds. While the “thanks” part of Thanksgiving is so meaningful, the “giving” part is equally so.

To celebrate the giving part, a delightful tradition, called Giving Tuesday, takes place on November 29th. It is a day dedicated to giving back. On Giving Tuesday, nonprofits, families, businesses and students around the world come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give.

Many of you know about my passion for CARA, a true social innovator that helps motivated men and women, affected by homelessness and poverty, reclaim their voice and their vocation. My relationship with Cara began when a friend of mine invited me to experience Morning Motivations. Soon thereafter, the immediate past CEO of Cara became a member of my Vistage CEO Peer Advisory Board, and today, I am proud to count Maria Kim, CEO, as a current member. Through my relationship with each of them, I’ve come to see Cara as not just a place where people come to get and keep good jobs, but a place where their whole selves are reinvented and recovered in the process.

In a way, their mission, community and culture of accountability are not dissimilar to what I have grown to love at Vistage. We’re both about untapping the leader within and inviting her forward to be her best self. They do it through hope, jobs and opportunity; and we do it through skill-building and peer mentorship to develop world-class CEOs.

Like all well run Vistage companies, Cara measures their performance. They produce hundreds of jobs each year, at retention rates over 20 points higher than national norms, and with over 80% of employed participants moving onto permanent housing in which their families can thrive. They also produce a profound social return on investment, where for every dollar invested in this work, $5.97 is re-invested in society over a five year time horizon.

In this season of thanksgiving, I realize we have so much for which to be grateful – the roof over our heads, the hearty meals we share with our families, and the occupations we have that provide for our loved ones and give us a sense of purpose in the process. These things we may take for granted are not always available for the most vulnerable citizens among us.

This year, once again, I have joined with Maria’s fellow Vistage member, Kevin Krak of Gallant Building Solutions, along with Eric Weinheimer, former CEO of Cara, and Jim and Kay Mabie in offering a $25,000 Challenge Grant. We will match every dollar up to $25,000 (for a total grant of $50,000)! Click Here to give today and your gift will go twice as far. (Don’t let the name fool you, we’re accepting donations today through November 29.)

Thank you in advance for joining us for a Giving Tuesday donation to the Cara Program, or to the social purpose organization of your choice.

Remember That First Date?

November 20, 2016November 5, 2016 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

In my practice as a Vistage chair, I often find myself noticing the similarities between business and dating. After all, dating is a “deal” of a sort, and there are “rules” and best practices we follow in an effort to get what we want, i.e. more dates, and in that special case, marriage.

Like dating, when we want that new customer, new employee or acquisition deal, there are rules and practices that business people follow to get what they want. And like dating, the “rules” are generally not written and the practices are learned along the way both from our own experience and from others who have done it before.

Here are some dating and business best practices I’ve learned along the way:

Be authentic.
Be respectful.
Be clear on what you are looking for in a partner, a customer, an employee or potential acquisition.
Be clear what it is you bring to the table and be realistic. That high powered CFO may be great in a Fortune 500 company, but is she really what your $30mm company needs?
Put yourself in situations to meet new people that fit. No matter what anyone tells you, it’s not a game of numbers; it’s all about defining and measuring fit.
Be clear about what fits with your culture.Unless your culture is one that fits, that wild guy or gal you wouldn’t bring home to Mom is probably not going to be your SO or your best customer, no matter what you are willing to pay.
As soon as you meet “Mr. or Ms. Right”, go out with someone else (when we get fixated on winning one partner, customer, employee, or acquisition candidate (buyer/seller), we can appear desperate). In short, play like you have nothing to lose.
Go on a date with anyone once (okay, not someone you know is an ax murderer).
Go on a second date, if there was a spark of interest.
When she says she needs some time alone, or the prospect doesn’t get back to us right away, its not the time to call a day later and suggest coffee.
Once you have made a commitment, be committed. Give your customer, employee, buyer/seller a chance to right a wrong.
And… when a relationship fails (or the service is consistently poor), don’t drag out the exit. End it. Learn from your mistakes. Decide what to look for next round and start the cycle again.

Please click on comments and share your additions to this list.