Set Boundaries

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

As we come to realize that these “interesting times” are likely to be with us for some time, we are also beginning to accept that we must find ways to adapt.

While the form that adapt and accept takes will be different for each of us, one thing is true for all of us; we must focus on what we can control, be mindful of determining what that is, and set boundaries.

When I said this to a client recently, he asked me what I meant by boundaries, here is my reply.

For those who see ourselves as servant leaders, especially those who are people pleasers, setting boundaries begins with putting ourselves first. It is only by “putting our oxygen mask on first” and following three key steps that we can be in service to others.  

In today’s world, this begins first with setting aside “me” time. Me time can include exercise, meditation, watching TV, whatever works for us to relax and recharge.

Next, it’s making time for thinking and planning, “library time” as a client of mine liked to call it. Focused thinking time is essential for identifying the things we can control and staying focused.

Finally, it’s about calendar management. We can only accomplish the first two steps if we do this one. Our schedules must have boundaries. If we are fortunate to have an assistant, we can ask them to be the gatekeeper. And, calendar management apps (I use Calendly) can be equally useful. These apps have advanced settings that allow you to set buffers between meetings, a maximum number of meetings a day, etc. Set this for yourself so that you can be fully present and productive throughout the day.

If you are looking to grow or get unstuck and cut the time to action to six months or less, there is no better time than now to contact me.

Let It Rest

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

As leaders, most of us are action-oriented. Something crosses our desk, we deal with it. An issue comes up with a customer, a vendor, an employee, and we take action. And, sometimes, especially in these times, it’s best to let it rest.

Most of us feel a lack of control over so many things today that when something arises, that feels like something we can control and can do something about, we are spurred to take action. And same as before,

  • Sometimes action is needed, and sometimes nothing is required.
  • Sometimes, that annoying email doesn’t require a response.
  • Sometimes, when a negotiation stalls the best tactic is to leave it be, or
  • If the other side has already done that, let it rest.
  • Sometimes, doing nothing is simply the best strategy.

Two quick stories from two CEO’s I know:

First, a long term negotiation on a contract has gone on for several years. As an outsider looking in, one might wonder, why not bring this to closure. Then we learn that it’s been 20 years of negotiation, minimal dollars spent, and many thousands at stake. Even if it eventually settles, the present value of the money saved alone justifies the lengthy process.

Another CEO was negotiating with a former operating partner, still an owner. Sure would be nice to close that loose end, icky to have a former partner still a voting member. And then we learn, the former partner is in bankruptcy; it looks like the CEO is going to pick up those shares at a significantly lower cost.

As Kenny Rogers says so well in The Gambler, “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away.”

For me,  when I feel that urgency to pick up the phone or write that email, I find it helps to pause and ask myself which hand of The Gambler am I holding? 

If you are looking to get unstuck and cut the time from stuck to action to six months or less, there is no better time than now to contact me. 

It’s Not About Color, Or Is it?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

I’ve spent a lot of time this past week talking about racism. The conversations began with wondering why, the murder of George Floyd last week sparked protests nationwide when the killing of Eric Garner, in 2014 did not. Then when the looting began, the conversation turned to one about fear.

As a teenager in 1968, when protestors were attacked by the police during the democratic convention and later at universities, I felt solidarity. Friends tell me their teenage and young adult children feel similarly now.  

For me, today, it is more complicated. It’s a conversation about the increasing divide between the haves and the have-nots. It’s a conversation about violence. And, as I have come to realize, most importantly, it is a conversation about racism. 

As a country, we are reluctant to talk about race and even more unwilling to talk about racism. And yet we must if we are ever to understand our fellow Americans. When the “enemy” is nameless and faceless, it is easy to hate. On the other hand, when we talk to one another and begin to understand that the “other” is not the enemy, rather s/he is just different from me, we can learn from and understand one another.

As a Jew, when I watched the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA in August of 2017, I heard my mother’s words to me as a child, telling me that anyone who isn’t Jewish is deep down anti-Semitic, and wondered if she were right?

Today, I hear, “all white people are deep down racist, and police officers, in particular, are racist,” and I wonder if this is true?  

And, as one who believes in the general good of humanity, I don’t want to believe any of this is so. And yet, something is clearly wrong. 

Some say this is a seminal moment and that Mr. Floyd’s murder is a catalyst for change that is long overdue. I hope so. 

And because we humans relate to stories, here are two I heard this week that will always stay with me.

Dr. Julius Few, an intensely private man and a prominent Plastic Surgeon practicing in Chicago and Los Angeles, decided to share his story on Instagram. Dr. Few grew up in a wealthy white suburb of Detroit. While his parents weren’t wealthy, they worked hard to live in this community to provide him and his brother what they believed was an opportunity. Instead, unbeknownst to his parents, he was a victim of racism every day. Dr. Few’s video story appears in two parts:

Part I – https://www.instagram.com/p/CA6uBDQjxZF/ Part II – https://www.instagram.com/p/CA6vlEjjhUg/

A dear friend of mine, an accomplished, highly educated business person, told me that when he was a teenager growing up in a middle-class neighborhood in Chicago, he was walking down the street one day, and several police officers suddenly came upon him, guns pointed. They told him he “looked like” a man that had just held up a liquor store. While they were holding him down, they got a call on the radio, and then abruptly left.

My friend told me he had forgotten about this until the current situation reminded him. “Forgot or buried it,” he wondered out loud. Of course, as you probably guessed, my friend is black. The saddest irony of this story is that my friend’s father was a police officer who died in the line of duty, not so many years later. 

For me, these two stories remind us that we must take time to follow the guidance from Steven Covey and seek first to understand. 

Here are a couple of resources I found this week to begin my learning:

Leaders Are The Unsung Heroes

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

As chair of a CEO Peer Advisory Board, I am getting to see first hand the courage, dedication, and determination of leaders during this pandemic. I am humbled and inspired.

Leaders of essential businesses all over the world are working hard to keep their employees safe while serving their customers at the same time. Not one of these individuals, trained for this or frankly signed up for this, and yet here they are doing what they know they must.  

Each day, these men and women are on the front lines making the hard decisions to maintain that delicate balance between safety and production. 

Each day, these men and women must stay current on the latest developments. Each day, they must adapt to whatever changed from yesterday.  

  • It’s the outgoing CEO of the public company, who could easily call it quits and instead visits factories; 
  • The CEO of the privately held company that quickly pivoted to make safety products thereby keeping the business viable and enabling all employees to keep their jobs;
  • The mayor of your local community who gets paid only a service honorarium, and yet works countless hours to serve, 

All of these leaders deserve our thanks, appreciation, and patience as they navigate this storm. They are the unsung heroes of these times.

Let’s work together. You can learn more about my leadership and transition coaching as well as my peer advisory boards here.

Gratitude For The Light

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Dear Readers,

As most of you know, I lead a CEO Advisory Board in affiliation with Vistage International. My clients meet monthly, and before each meeting, we share an update of our lives since we last met. Typically, we give a brief overview of significant events in our business and personal lives.

With nothing typical at this time, I wrote the following letter instead of my usual update. I am sharing this with you in the spirit of finding common ground in our humanity.

“As I read over last month’s updates, I am stunned by how much has changed since then. 

First, let me say how I continue to be in awe of the leadership demonstrated by each and every one of you. From the leader who is navigating staying open and supporting the building of critical health care facilities while managing fear when an employee got sick; to another pivoting to make materials to keep grocery store employees safe. 

Those in the food business are scrambling to keep our food sources flowing; others are working to meet our infrastructure needs, and some are adapting technology to kill the virus in hospital rooms and other high-risk environments. 

Every one of you is working to keep your essential businesses operating while keeping your employees safe. And at the same time, being that steady hand when it would be so easy to succumb. 

For my husband and me, we are both fortunate to be working at home—week four for me, week three for him. We are settling into this new normal, and while I am grateful to be safe, I long for the freedoms we have all given up. Freedom to go out to dinner with friends; buy what I need at the grocery store, including paper towels and toilet paper; go to a play or take a trip. 

My niece in Miami is due to have her first baby in just a few weeks. We were to be there, and of course, will not. She is frightened to be bringing a child into this COVID-19 world and, at the same time, is finding her center as she jokes about COVID-19 baby names. 

Last night for the first time, I dreamed about traveling. I woke up happy. This dream was a sign to me that I am seeing a light at the end of this tunnel. Even though I don’t know how long the tunnel is, the light is there. 

I am grateful for the connection we have found with friends all over the world. Passover with friends from Singapore, New Mexico, and Philly as well as folks here in Chicago. Zoom happy hours and dinners with friends and family from California, New York, Miami and here in Chicago. This change, of using technology to deepen our relationships, including the distant ones, I pray will stay with us when we do get to the other side.”

To continuing our shared connection,

Elisa

It’s Tough To Be A Leader At A Time Like This

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

II received two wonderfully inspiring leadership notes last week, and I decided I couldn’t wait until Sunday to share them. Thank you, Joan and Ozzie, for reminding us of the responsibilities we have as leaders in difficult times and how hard it is.

From, Joan Davison, a member of my Vistage Peer Advisory Board:

17 Hard Things You Have To Do To Be A Great Leader

  1. You have to make the call you are afraid to make.
  2. You have to get up earlier than you want to.
  3. You have to give more than you get in return right away.
  4. You have to care more for others than they care about you.
  5. You have to feel unsure and insecure when playing it safe seems smarter.
  6. You have to lead when no one else is following you yet.
  7. You have to invest in yourself even though no one else is.
  8. You have to grind out the details when it is easier to shrug them off.
  9. You have to deliver results when making excuses is an option.
  10. You have to search for your own explanations even when you are told to accept the “facts”.
  11. You have to make mistakes and look like an idiot.
  12. You have to try and fail and try again.
  13. You have to run faster even though you are out of breath.
  14. You have to be kind to people who have been cruel to you.
  15. You have to meet deliveries that are unreasonable and deliver results that are unparalleled.
  16. You have to be accountable for your actions even when things go wrong.
  17. You have to keep moving towards where you want to be no matter what is in front of you.

Source: Unknown

From Ozzie Gontang, a fellow Vistage Chair.

  • Business models are material, and material things die. 
  • Business propositions are ideas, and ideas are eternal.
  • How a company does what it does will and should continually change. 
  • What the company represents to its customers, properly understood, can be relevant for ages.
  • As our lives shift, it is important that our mindset shifts along with it. 
  • As leaders, our responsibility is to provide hope, support, and clarity. 

DAILY QUESTIONS FOR LEADERS

  1. What am I grateful for today?
  2. What are my three areas of focus that are in my control?
  3. How am I communicating with my Employees, Customers, and Vendors?
  4. What expectations of “Normal” am I letting go of today? How will I conduct our business in a different environment?
  5. How am I practicing self -care to keep my cup full so I can support my family, organization, and community?
  6. How can I give back to help support others this time? How can I help those who cannot go out?
  7. How will I conduct our business in a different environment (shelter in place)? Office supplies? Banking? 
  8. How do we go about preparing for the eventual “ramp up?”
  9. What will we want this company to look like when we are back up and humming? 

Question 8 carves out a portion of the leader’s attention and focuses it on establishing a process early-on to start thinking about the future (vs. just wallowing in the current mess); and, 

Question 9 accepts that we will not likely, nor should we, look and act and be exactly what we were before the storm. We must turn our attention to (at least) these two future challenges and find a way for our firm(s) to learn from and take advantage of having our noses shoved into this unexpected learning process. If we don’t, no one in the enterprise will, and that will be the real long-term cost of coronavirus. 

Oops, I Was Thinking Out Loud

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

How often have we said this to ourselves and discovered unintended consequences? As leaders, we know that others are always watching what we do and listening and reacting to what we say. And, when we are with our office staff, in the factory or the field, most of us are conscious of what we say and how we show up.

I wonder though, if we have this same awareness as leaders when we are with our leadership team. Or, for that matter, when we, as members of the leadership team, are with our bosses and our colleagues. You may be thinking (silently?) so, are you saying I want to be aware of what I am saying all the time? Yikes!!

My sense is the answer is yes. When we think out loud, sometimes we create expectations, alarm, or even actions that we did not intend. Recently, one of my clients shared this story: “I was sitting in my office with my VP of Operations, I was thinking out loud, wondering what we needed to do next to get to the growth goals I have. I was going on and on about my frustrations and concerns. The next day, he came back to my office and asked me if I was planning to sell the company. He apparently had gone home and thought about what I had said all night.

In my own experience, when I have the presence to say, “May I think out loud for a moment?” or “Can I just vent for a moment?” that frames the conversation. And sometimes, this pausing reminds me that it is best to ‘zip it.’

What has been your experience?

Let’s work together. You can learn more about my leadership coaching and peer advisory boards here. 

Introvert or Extrovert: Who Makes the Better Leader?

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Extroversion is the dominant style in the United States. As a result, we sometimes confuse leadership with charisma. Yet, research shows that not only are 40%-50% of CEO’s introverts, some of the more “famous” CEOs are also introverts, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Charles Schwab and Steve Spielberg. 

Amongst entrepreneurs, the numbers are higher. Why? Because entrepreneurs frequently are the expert at their chosen business and experts most often are introverts.

So what does this mean?

First, recognize that extroversion/introversion isn’t binary. Most leaders tend toward one style or the other. Leadership, by its very nature, doesn’t attract people who live in extremes.

As with all style differences, start by celebrating and leveraging the differences in style. While other factors come into play in style differences, the key difference between introverts and extroverts is where they draw their energy. 

Both introverts and extroverts seek input. Introverts tend to ask for feedback and then “go within” to think things over and make a decision. One thing to keep in mind about introverts – they aren’t necessarily shy, frequently just quiet – taking it all in.

Extroverts tend to think out loud, drawing their energy from the interaction with others. 

Introverted leaders are frequently your “back of the room” leaders – they are calm, unemotional, and perceived as wise. 

They are the ones that speak infrequently, but when they do, everyone listens.

Extroverted leaders are typically the “charismatic leader” – they are engaging, inspiring, and draw people to them.

If you are an introverted leader, leverage your natural strengths:

  • allow yourself to pause and reflect before making a decision and let others know this is your style
  • leverage your ability to build relationships with small groups inside and outside your company
  • And, take note when it is time to access your extroversion to rally the troops inside your company or externally show up as an ambassador

If you are an extrovert leading introverted leaders, you can help by:

  • giving the introvert time to think
  • asking them what they think rather than assuming by being quiet they are not in agreement
  • inspiring the introvert to step out of their comfort zone when it is time for them to be inspiring to the team

If you are interested in learning more about this subject, one of my favorite books on the topic is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.

Let’s work together. You can learn more about my leadership coaching and peer advisory boards here. 

The Challenge of Success

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

When does confidence become hubris?

So much is written about the importance of confidence, and yet, there is a dark, ugly side too. We see it every day in the press – rock stars, sports stars, politicians and others, who have so much confidence that they begin to make choices out of hubris.

Well, we say, they are stars, this doesn’t happen amongst “regular leaders.” And, while we may want this to be true, my experience is, it occurs in every arena where leaders are successful.

We all know the leader that made it big and acts as though s/he has the “Midas touch.” After one success, they believe everything they try, everything they touch will be the same. Or, they feel the need to tell everyone about their accomplishments, and they don’t feel the need to listen. After all, they already know it all; they accomplished what others have not.

We also know the leader who despite success after success, is humble. Who, when asked how they accomplished what they did, points to the people s/he has learned from, rather than to their own brilliance. The leader who is on a lifetime journey of learning, who believes no matter what their accomplishments, they can always accomplish more by listening to others.

  • Which of these describes you?
  • Which do you want to be?
  • If your choice is the humble leader, what are you doing to stay curious and continue to learn?

Let’s work together. You can learn more about my leadership coaching and peer advisory boards here.

Everybody Needs A Coach

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

“Everybody needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you are CEO, a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player, we all need feedback”  so says Bill Gates & Eric Schmidt in this 1.25min TED Talk.

Perhaps a bold statement.  And yet, doesn’t every professional athlete and every famous performer have one?  You may be surprised to learn, so does every successful CEO, whether leading a Fortune 500 company or a privately held company.

If you buy into what Bill and Eric are saying, and you are a:

  • Soon-to-Be, or Newly Appointed CEO or Business Owner
  • CEO or Business Owner Wanting to Up Your Leadership Game
  • CEO or Business Owner Considering an Exit
  • Executive Pivoting to Entrepreneurship
  • Former Executive Considering Re-Entry

Or perhaps, you are simply looking for clarity, to define where you are and where you want to be.

Wherever you are in your journey, if you want the feedback that Bill and Eric talk about, and the accountability to get to your goals, now is the time.

Let’s work together. You can learn more about my leadership coaching and peer advisory boards here.