It’s A Dream Until You Write It Down

It’s A Dream Until You Write It Down

by Elisa SpainNo Comments


2013-01-20 iStock_000016539976XSmal stair moving uplToday’s blog post is offered by guest blogger Rick Landuyt, Vistage member and CEO of RFIDeas, One of the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America.

 

It’s a dream until you write it down, then it becomes a goal.

Stretch goals were explicitly designed to push people to think differently about the tasks at hand. Suppose your revenue in 2012 was 20 million. You want to grow it 10% to 22 million, you tweak your marketing ideas, try to get another big account etc… What if you decided to stretch your goal to 30 million – a 50% increase? How would you do it? As you begin to think about this, you will start to realize the benefits of “stretch goals”. It’s not the new revenue number, it’s the thought process.

An interesting side note, my wife and I had the pleasure of spending 10 days at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. There we were able to meet and talk with several ex-Gold medal winners. The one thing they all had in common was they had written goals that they carried with them every day.

Rick Landuydt, RFIDeas

Celebrate Your Gift

Celebrate Your Gift

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

At this gift-giving time of the year, I am reminded that we all have natural gifts.

The notion that we can constantly make ourselves 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 and advisor, I refer to this as discovering and working in our genius.

While personal growth and development are part of living a full life, and after all this is what Vistage is all about, I wonder sometimes if we have become so focused on achieving that we are never able to appreciate who we are or what we have already accomplished.

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

  • What am I already good at? What do I need to do to become excellent at this?
  • Of the things I am not good at and am striving to improve, what can I delegate to someone else?
  • Can I find a way to accept being adequate or “good enough” at the rest?

Once we know and understand our strengths, and focus on that, we not only become more effective, we become more satisfied, and ultimately become better leaders.

P.S. This is the last post for 2012. Happy holidays to all.  See you in the new year.
The Elephant In The Room

The Elephant In The Room

by Elisa Spain2 Comments

The other day, I was asking for feedback from a team I was working with about the value of the program. One of the members came up to me afterwards and said, “please don’t take this personally” and gave me some additional feedback. My response was,” the elephant is in the room whether we talk about him or not. For me, I would prefer to know what you are thinking and feeling so that I can modify the program to give you results that meet your needs.”

Yes, the elephant is in the room whether we talk about him or not.  There he is, clomping around, banging into things.

And yet, we often refuse to talk about him. Why is that? Here are the reasons I hear:

  • I don’t want confrontation
  • I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings
  • We can’t do anything about it anyway
My experience is that our reluctance to confront causes the elephant to cause more damage than if we just talked about him and got him out of the room.
It is our role as leaders to invite and initiate the conversation. With the elephant out of the room, we can get on to business. As long as he is there, we are focused internally instead of externally.
What has been your experience?

 Elisa K. Spain 

Inspiring Action, Achieving Results

Inspiring Action, Achieving Results

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As an award-winning Vistage CEO Chair, leadership coach and advisor, I have developed a straightforward practice theory: I hold up a mirror and help you identify and build upon your own strengths, values and goals. I inspire you to action so you can achieve the results you seek, and make possible what you used to think was impossible.