Are Your Expectations Too High Or Too Low?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

How do you know?

  • Sometimes we set our sights too low and don’t achieve as much as we can.
  • Sometimes we expect too much from ourselves and constantly feel as though we don’t measure up.
  • Sometimes we expect too much from our team or our key vendors and they feel as though they can’t please us.
  • Sometimes we expect too little or don’t ask for what we really want from our employees or our vendors and we end up taking on too much ourselves instead.

How do we know which it is?  For me the litmus test is this…

  • How often are our expectations of ourselves or others met?
  • What does our gut say about that percentage? Too high? Too low?
  • What then is the next step to get our expectations in line with what is possible?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Right People At The Right Time…

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

Most of the clients I have worked with over the years founded their businesses; same is true for the members of my Vistage CEO group. These folks often join Vistage because they want to grow and build a professionally managed business. They are grateful and loyal to the folks that helped them get started. And, sometimes these two objectives are at odds.

The CEO knows in his head that change won’t happen without changing some key players. (After all, if the folks that are there were going to get you where you wanted to be, you would be there already). And, in his heart he is torn.

As humans, when confronted with substantial change, particularly within a structure, the mind tends to go immediately to “what am I going to lose?” Often there is much to gain, occasionally something to lose, but this is our mind at work, much less than the process at work. The question becomes, how do we overcome these fears and realize that forward progress only comes with transformation?

Here are some questions to consider, as you think about your own evolution:

  • Owner: Am I in the right role in the organization? Am I best suited to be the investor, the operator, or both?
  • Owner: The age old question, are the right people in the right seats on the bus to get to the destination I want?
  • Owner or Key Executive: Am I spending most of my time do the things that are in my genius?
  • Owner or Key Executive: Am I performing at the same level (or higher) today as I was when I began? If not, what change could I make so that I am?
  • Owner or Key Executive: Am I making decisions out of loyalty rather than what is best for the organization? If so, what is the cost? And what really is loyalty?… Are we doing someone (or ourselves) a favor keeping them (staying) in a role that we are not excellent at? How might the organization (or I) benefit by moving on if I am not performing?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

 

 

As Time Goes By….

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Lots of talk these days about the increasing role the millennials are playing in the workplace. At the same time, many boomers remain in the workforce. The result: younger people managing folks older than them.

Millennials tell me they often feel uncomfortable in these situations. Today, I was talking with a young man taking over a family business. He shared with me that while he is excited about the opportunity, he is wondering why none of the “seasoned guys”, who have been with his father a long time, wanted to buy the business from his Dad. He is also wondering how they feel about him being their boss.

While the dynamics of a family business are different, I hear the same story from millennials in all types of organizations. And, I remember when I too was in a similar situation. I was 24 and became the manager of 3 divisions of a large company. Two of the direct managers were older than me and one was my age. Turned out the most challenging one, as you may have guessed, was with Nevin, the one my age. He wanted the job I had.

Here is what I learned from this experience. It is up to both the manager and the now junior employee to make it work. The best situation for me was with Rita, a graceful woman 30 years older than me. Rita didn’t want my job; she loved the job she had. And, while I was her boss, I learned a ton from her. She was gracious in sharing her wisdom and I credit her with helping me become a better leader. Nevin was a bigger challenge; we had some rough waters for some time. What we learned was there was a place for both of us and we could learn from each other. The result, we remained friends for many years to come. When I moved on, he took over the role I had, and years later, I introduced him to a friend who helped him launch a writing and speaking career he had dreamed of.

If this resonates with you, whether you are the boss in this situation or the older or peer subordinate, what are you doing to make the extra effort to make this work for both of you?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

As The Leaves Begin To Fall….

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

Those of us in the northern climates are enjoying the annual fall display. For me, it is a reminder of the cyclicality of life and of business. Time to reflect on what has passed, celebrate our successes and remind ourselves that whatever may have been our failures, we get an opportunity in the new year to begin again.

In my experience, putting some intentionality, around what I want to happen, ups my chances of being able to look back at this time next year and notice and measure progress and success. With that in mind, I offer these questions to consider before the year comes to an end:

  • What was one significant 2015 accomplishment?
  • Have I articulated my vision for my team and have I validated that everyone knows what it is?
  • What is our theme for 2016?
  • What are our specific business objectives for 2016?
  • What are the specific initiatives (action items) for achieving these objectives?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Tell Me A Story…

by Elisa Spain1 Comment

 

We humans seem to learn best, relate best and connect best, with stories. As children we learn the culture and norms of our society from fairytales and fables told by our parents. In the beginning of communities and societies, we told stories to the members of our “tribes” to initiate them into the tribe.

In organizations, we learn the culture and norms of our company from stories. For our teams and our customers, the stories they hear about the company and the stories they tell about the company matter. And today they share stories within their social networks, spreading the stories so much further than was possible before (via Yelp, Glassdoor, Twitter, to name a few).

The questions that come to my mind are:

  • What stories are you telling yourself, your team, your customers?
  • Are you intentional about the content of these stories and who you are telling them to?
  • What greater impact could you have by telling stories and fables of your own?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

 

How Do You Keep Your Mojo?

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?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

The Gift Of Feedback

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

Feedback is a gift. It is an opportunity for personal development and ultimately leadership development. And, it is hard; Very hard.

Not sure which is harder, giving feedback or accepting it. Recently I was with a small group of Vistage Chairs, several of us long tenured, and we were discussing this very topic. In fact, we spent a couple of hours working with each other to improve our skills at both. I mention long tenured, as a reminder to myself, that no matter how skilled we think we are at this, it is hard, and requires constant practice.

Here are the reminders I heard…

When giving feedback:

  • You can earn trust with truthful, specific, positive feedback (TSP as speaker, Michael Allosso, calls it)
  • When giving constructive feedback, ask first if the receiver is open to feedback
  • Even better, wait until the feedback is asked for
  • Own your experience, share feelings and observations; be specific
  • Use neutral language e.g., my experience of you… or When you do…, I feel…
  • Remember the purpose of feedback is to share your experience of another person, not to “fix” the other person

When receiving feedback, remember it is a gift

  • Ask for feedback, and be specific about the purpose, e.g., I want to become more effective at…
  • Listen and digest
  • Try not to defend or respond except to simply say, thank you.

Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Better, Better, Maybe Not?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

The notion that we can constantly make ourselves and our companies better, in theory, is a great idea. But when does it become too much?

For me, the best way to answer this question is to notice our strengths and work to enhance them. In my Vistage work and as a leadership coach, I refer to this as discovering and working in our genius.

Sometimes we become so focused on achieving that we are never able to appreciate who we are or what we and our people have already accomplished. When we’re constantly reaching, rather than occasionally being satisfied with what we have in front of us, that’s a recipe for perpetual dissatisfaction.

For me, the best way to avoid the “better, better, better” trap is to ask the following questions:

  • What are we, as a company, already good at? Are these the things our customers value?
  • Among the things most important to our customers, what are we good at and what do we need to do to become excellent at these?
  • Of the things we are not good at and striving to improve, what can we outsource, or simply stop doing?

Once we know and understand what we are good at, and focus on that, not only do our companies and our people become more effective, we become more satisfied and ultimately become better leaders.

Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

What Exactly Is Vulnerability?

by Elisa Spain2 Comments

 

I have received several comments about last week’s blog, so I thought I would continue the dialogue.

Here are some of the questions:

  • Does vulnerability have to mean showing emotion?
  • It’s okay for a woman to have tears and talk about feelings, but still not okay for men?
  • What’s the difference between showing vulnerability and showing weakness?
  • How do we, as leaders, coach the leaders we work with on how to show up both confident and vulnerable?

Great questions. In fact, this was a discussion at my last Vistage CEO meeting and here are a few of the stories I heard from them and from others who responded to my blog. Please share yours.

“I was a relatively new leader of a high growth business. We missed our numbers one year, and up in the front of the room, I teared up when I shared the news to my team. I definitely felt shame.. and the team rallied, each leader coming up to me to commit to what they would do to make sure it didn’t happen again.”

“Having entered the two most emotionless organizations -West Point at age 18 and Marines at age 22-, in some way hardened me to emotional outward signs, and especially as a small unit infantry combat commander in Vietnam; we had to suppress and not show any emotions despite what we may have felt internally. The problem being that to show emotions to the 18-19 year old young Marines that we led wasn’t viewed as something commanders did and we worried that emotions might enter into the brutal things we had to do in the infantry…. In our generation it wasn’t considered ‘Marine like’ to show emotion—which of course led many of us to suppress PTSD feelings.”

“I have been working on culture in my company. Frustrated with the lack of progress, I stood up in front of the entire leadership team, all levels, and told my personal story, my values, my expectations of myself as a leader. Wow, what an impact it had; people began to ‘get it’. And yet, I discovered that my two senior leaders, both women, struggled with this. They said they work hard to be “professional” and to them showing or talking about feelings was weak and unprofessional.”

For all leaders, it is important to have followers trust our message. As such, there is a fine line between appearing vulnerable, yet confident, and appearing weak.  These stories speak to different ways to address this challenge.

For me it’s something like this,

 

Vulnerable is I am human, I make mistakes, I admit them, I learn from them and I move on
Weak is I am uncertain, I don’t trust myself, I don’t know what to do.

 

Problem Solving Or Management?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

Continuing the theme of execution:

As leaders and managers, we have been taught to find the root cause and fix the problem.  And, in my experience, some problems can’t be “solved” (and, hopefully, made to go away) – they must be managed and may require the leader’s repetitive attention and time.

For me the key word here is repetition. For anything to be sustainable, it must be repeated. We humans get distracted, forget what we learned and have to be reminded. This is what Vistage is all about. Our members hear from a speaker 8 times a year. Do you really think each speaker brings something new to the table? Rather, they often are reinforcing a similar message. And, we hear the message differently depending on where we are in our lives and our businesses at the time. An entrepreneur leading a start-up will hear a leadership message differently 10 years later when he or she is challenged with building a leadership team that will lead to a sustainable enterprise.

I asked one of our long term Vistage members recently if he had ever considered leaving Vistage. His answer was “never, I learn something at every meeting, every one-to-one.” He leads a highly successful, high growth business. My belief is he learns something new each time, because he comes ready to listen each time.

The same is true for the people that work for us. Some problems can’t be solved, because things happen. Life isn’t static and our businesses and our processes aren’t static. I frequently talk about the DIME Method: Design, Implement, Monitor, Evaluate. For me the repetition speaks to the Monitor and Evaluate part of the continuum. As problems get solved and things change, we must monitor, evaluate and then design again.

As you mull over this idea that problems can’t be solved, I encourage you to ask yourself the following questions:

  • When was the last time I monitored or evaluated the systems I have in place?
  • Are we doing things, “because that’s the way we have always done it”?
  • Am I ready to look and listen with fresh eyes to what I have heard and seen before?

 

Elisa K. Spain