Leadership

You Dreamer!

March 29, 2013

You Dreamer!

Disruptors, innovators and entrepreneurs; that’s how Forbes Magazine describes their 30 Under 30. These are the 30 brightest stars under the age of 30 in 15 different fields such as media, music, energy, education, sports, marketing and advertising, finance, and science. I call them dreamers. As leaders in their respective fields of expertise; many of them accomplished feats that most people haven’t even dreamed of attempting. Their inventions, innovations, creative thinking, physical abilities, and thoughtful approaches have had a major impact on society and culture. Several that most impressed me were:

Joshua Sommer – Seven years ago as a freshman in college he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Instead of accepting the low possibility of survival and lack of treatment options, he cofounded the Chordoma Foundation dedicated to raising money to fund research to cure it.
Hugh Evans – Founded the Global Poverty Project committed to ending extreme poverty, and developed an innovative means of raising $1.3 billion in new funding commitments.
Leslie Dewan – Is developing a new kind of nuclear reactor with a plan to power the entire U.S. with zero carbon emissions and eliminating mountains of nuclear waste.
Matt Mullenweg – Launched WordPress open source blogging software at the young age of 19. It’s now used by 17% of all websites.

Qualifications

But how did they accomplish so much at such a young age? As I read their stories, several qualities were obvious.

Dreaming – Every great accomplishment starts with a dream, and a great dream combined with great desire leads to destiny. The dreamer believes in the possibility of what appears to be impossible; believing that as they move toward their destiny, the pathway will emerge. A great dream may look fragile to the outside world, but is intense in the mind of the dream holder.
Selective hearing – They ignore the naysayers, those who would try to tell them that whatever they’re attempting isn’t possible; that no one has ever done it that way before. They don’t buy into the status quo and accepted ways of doing things. They chart their own path.
Sacrifice – Being the best at what you do only comes with hard work and lots of it. That won’t seem “fun” to others, but there is nothing else these dreamers would rather do than to work to pursue their dream. In fact, what others perceive as sacrifice, brings pleasure to the dreamer.
Failure – This is simply the process of eliminating options that don’t work. Thomas Edison reportedly failed 1,000 times before he succeeded in making the light bulb. But Edison says that he discovered 1,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb. (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090218050711AAw6KhA) So learn from every mistake. Failure with a purpose equals progress. John Maxwell’s book on Failing Forward says that the only difference between people who achieve and those who are simply average is how they handle failure.
Perseverance – Giving up is not an option. Setbacks can be turned into setups. Difficulties, roadblocks and financial worries are simply tests of your commitment. They build commitment just like lifting weights builds strength.

Your Dream

I believe that everyone has a dream of accomplishing something that is bigger than them, but few people follow through on it. For some people, that dream is vivid and tangible; they can almost reach out and touch it. They think about it daily, devise plans to work toward accomplishing it. Others are still discovering their dream. And still others have almost abandoned theirs. Maybe it once existed in the recesses of their mind, but was beaten still further back by constant affirmations of impossibility.

Children are often great dreamers because they haven’t yet learned all the reasons that adults have bought into about why their dream shouldn’t come to pass. They have:

No boundaries to confine them.

No past to live up to or sustain.

No thing to lose and everything to gain.

No fear of failure.

So what is your dream? You may have to reflect back on your early years to remember what it was, and what happened to it. Can you recapture the passion you once had for it? Can you regain the excitement you once felt as you replayed it in your mind? Can you take one step to redirect your path toward accomplishing that dream? Let go of the things that restrict your ability to dream. Instead, dream big and make something happen.

What’s in Your Hand?

February 28, 2013

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership, Purpose

What’s In Your Hand?

Moses was an elderly man, used to working alone with his animals. He spent much of his time in the desert with the hot sun beating down on his head. One day passed like the next. He thought that this was how his life would end. His life didn’t seem to have a compelling purpose. Was he content, or had he just given up?

Then God spoke to him. God was concerned with the same issue that concerned Moses. God wanted to deliver His people from their Egyptian oppressors, and He wanted Moses to be a part of that plan. God wanted to use a nobody like him, to be a somebody to others. Moses couldn’t even imagine doing any of the things that God mentioned. The only skill he had used for the past 40 years was leading a flock of animals here and there, making sure they were safe and had food and water, learning the terrain of the desert, and using his rod to guide them and keep them together. Surely God was mistaken. He wasn’t capable of doing such a great thing. He was just a common shepherd.

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Exposed

January 29, 2013

Priscilla Archangel

Character, Leadership

Exposed

“Secrets suck,” said Tyler Hamilton, former cyclist and team member of Lance Armstrong on the U.S. Postal Service Team. Hamilton was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay the day after Oprah Winfrey aired Armstrong’s recent admission that he took banned substances to enhance his cycling performance. He doped, and he lied about it. Armstrong said that he wouldn’t have won seven Tour de France medals without having done so. Over the years, others accused him of doping, and he not only vehemently denied it, he also bullied his accusers. Meanwhile he made tens of millions of dollars from endorsements, and started the successful Livestrong Foundation to support people with cancer and to further cancer research.

Hamilton himself exposed his own secrets regarding their drug use in his new book “The Secret Race,” with co-author Daniel Coyle. When he began talking with Coyle, his words came out very slowly, like water trickling from a faucet. The process of exposing his dishonesty to the world was slow and difficult. Hamilton saw the same difficulty in Armstrong’s public confession with Winfrey. Hamilton’s point was that the process of admitting and confessing a very public and long held deception is a slow progression, best mastered one step at a time.

Lies

Come Clean

Hamilton and Armstrong aren’t the first to go through such a process. Other high profile leaders have been forcibly exposed or “come clean” and admitted the truth after years of pretense and cover-up. But such behavior is not limited to public figures. People at every socioeconomic level are vulnerable to it. The desire to conceal past wrongs; present a more positive image of oneself; to be smarter, better, stronger and more successful than others becomes compelling and sometimes addictive.

Bernie Madoff was revered for the returns received by investors in his funds until the truth about his Ponzi scheme, thought to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history at roughly $65 billion, was uncovered. He pleaded guilty to all the charges and is now serving a 150 year prison term.
Russell Wasendorf, Sr, founder of PGFBest attempted suicide after federal regulators discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars were missing and from and non-existent in his company’s financial accounts.
Trevor Cook deceived more than 700 investors in a Ponzi scheme worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He’s now serving a 25 year jail sentence.
President Richard Nixon lied about his actions related to the Watergate scandal and ended up resigning.
President Bill Clinton lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached by the House of Representatives.
Tiger Woods’ multiple marital infidelities were exposed leading to the loss of his marriage and several sponsors, and seemed to negatively impact the quality of his golf game.
James Frey’s autobiography, “A Million Pieces” was Oprah’s book club pick until it was discovered that key portions of his story were fictitious. He returned to Oprah’s show to tearfully admit that substance abuse was the cause of his lies.

While the act of lying is no worse whether you’re famous or unknown, whether it’s “big” one or a “little white lie” (what is that anyway?), the difference is in the impact on the people who look up to you for leadership, those who believe in you. Those are the people who are hurt.

Lies

Just like your mother told you when you were a child, if you tell one lie, you have to tell another to cover it up, and still another, until it’s difficult to remember who you lied to and which lie you told.

The purpose here is not to castigate Armstrong, Hamilton or anyone else who may be guilty of this. All of us on some level may have perpetrated a lie at some point in our lives; and hopefully, thankfully we repented and were forgiven. Rather the purpose is to understand that lying or any behavior that presents an image of someone we’re not, of a capability that we don’t really possess, of a behavior that is not truthful, is a secret that eventually will reveal itself.

When we lie to others, we’re keeping a secret that is a contradiction from the truth. We have to continue to repress the truth and “justify” the lie….that it’s for the good of others, that it’s not anyone else’s business, that it’s not hurting anyone, that others can’t handle the truth. The reality is that we ourselves can’t handle the truth; that we’re running from reality; that we don’t want to fall off the pedestal that we’ve been placed on. But coming off that pedestal has to happen for us to face our humanness, our flaws, sometimes our demons, and begin the road to recovery. Few secrets can be kept forever. Someone knows, someone tells, someone makes a mistake in the cover-up ritual. It can be painful, and unfortunately, some have preferred suicide rather than facing the truth. But the truth eventually brings peace and healing as we reconcile the facts of who we know we are, with who others know us to be.

As leaders our responsibility is far greater to be authentic, admit and learn from our mistakes, and encourage others to do the same. Whether leading a team at work, or leading your family, whether a public pronouncement or a private commitment, like Tyler Hamilton said, “secrets suck”. They can cause internal stress and anxiety that knows no relief until the truth comes out. So focus on truthfulness because that’s where you’ll find peace.

Read the article in the Wall Street Journal here.

Other sources A and B

Game Changer

December 31, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Capability, Leadership

Game Changer

A simple act…

An interesting project…

A problem to be solved…

A wish to be granted…

Something you did that started small. You followed your interests and desires, taking one step that turned in to two, four, twelve, fifty or one hundred steps. You didn’t realize the significance of that first act, nor that it was rooted in a deeper desire or passion. All of your steps prior to this time prepared you for this moment, even when the path was circuitous, hilly, and filled with signs that said “Stop”, “Yield”, or “Caution”. Yet it brought you to the point of influencing the lives of many others; changing the way people approach a problem, learn or behave; or freeing them to accomplish their goals. Like a rock tossed into the ocean can ripple into a wave on the other side of the ocean, your simple act flourished and thrived into a movement, a game changer. You changed the rules of operation, and disrupted the normal system with a positive impact.

The Khan Academy

Salman Khan is an example of this. Khan is the founder of The Khan Academy, a company with over 3,600 brief free instructional videos on topics including math, science, computer science, finance and economics, humanities and standardized test prep, designed to help students of all ages learn about these topics at their own pace. According to a recent article in Forbes, over the past two years Khan’s videos have had 200 million views. There are currently 6 million unique students per month who visit the site, and over 750 million problems have been solved over the past several years. As a non-profit organization, they’re supported by foundations and individuals such as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, venture capitalist John and Ann Doerr, the O’Sullivan Foundation, Reed Hastings, Google, and the Windsong Trust. Khan has pledged that the company will not go public despite the urgings of several venture capitalists who see the potential for significant profit.

It all started out when Khan began posting YouTube videos to facilitate tutoring sessions with his cousins. Even though his video viewing audience grew to tens of thousands each day, he still looked at this as a hobby. He grew up poor in Louisiana raised by his mother and was mathematically gifted. He gained acceptance to MIT, completed an M.B.A. from Harvard and became a hedge fund analyst. During this time he supported his wife through her medical training while caring for his baby son. He quit his job when he realized the impact his videos had on helping students learn. Khan continued working on videos in a bedroom closet for ten months until Ann Doerr wrote him his first check for $100,000. The rest, as they say, is history.

Now with a $7 million budget, and a staff of 37 people headquartered in Silicon Valley, Khan is changing the education game. His ability to reach millions of students cheaply via the internet using inexpensive tablets (particularly important in developing nations), on a wide range of subjects is generating a growth spurt in online education. Khan Academy has proof of the efficacy of their teaching videos, and the global reach to provide high quality education for a small fraction of usual costs. Other universities and faculty members have similar results as courses at Harvard and Stanford offered online drew well over 100 thousand students each and provided a quality of learning equal to what they would have received in the classroom. According to the Forbes article, Khan has a vision for radically changing the education system of the future, and is referred to as “the most impactful educator in the world”. All this, even though he’s not a traditional educator by training.

What’s Your Game?

It doesn’t appear that Khan planned this business or career, but it grew out of his passion for teaching concepts in an easy to understand format. He recognized a problem around him, cared about how others were dealing with it, and decided to do something on a small scale without even thinking of the potential for growth. His passion was so great, and his impact so effective that he is playing a significant role in changing developing a new approach to education. He recognized the changes in how people communicate, learn, interact and apply that learning, leveraging the increasing electronic capabilities of the millennial generation. So Khan seized the moment and made the most of it. He took a leap of faith and leveraged his leadership abilities to help others learn more productively. He’s changing the game.

How are you changing the game around you? It typically begins with a paradigm shift, moving from acceptance that something in your environment must continue as it is, to challenging it to be different. This may be seen as disruptive to others, and such disruption normally causes a level of discomfort in those who are used to the status quo or have a vested interest in things remaining as-is. Disruption can be unconstructive, chaotic and threatening. But when you find a constructive approach to addressing a worthy cause, and with enough momentum and support, you can metaphorically move the car out of the rut and onto new higher ground.

So what are you passionate about, concerned about, interested in, desiring to be different? And what are you constructively doing about it? Do you have a vision for the future? Are you helping someone else accomplish their vision? Do you have faith in your ability to make a difference in the lives of others? Then you too can be a game changer.

Reference: One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing Education by Michael Noer. Forbes Magazine, November 2, 2012.

Business Values Add Value

December 1, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership, Priorities

Business Values Add Value

A recent interview with Jack Dorsey, the billionaire founder of two well-known tech companies, Twitter and Square, in the November 5, 2012 issue of Forbes, provided insight into one of the keys to his success as an entrepreneur. Twitter has 500 million members communicating across the globe. Square has changed the way 2 million businesses handle financial transactions, and Starbucks is expected to exclusively use that technology in their U.S. stores in the near future. At Square’s San Francisco headquarters, employees work at rows of desks in open spaces, or at tall tables; and conference rooms are glass enclosed. Dorsey spends 90% of his time with people who don’t report to him, and does a lot of his work at these tall tables in an open space so that he’s easily approachable. He also requires that at any meeting where more than two people are present, one of the attendees must take notes and send them to all the employees. This open style of communication and interaction is important to Dorsey because he believes in serendipity; that his team learns just by spending more time around each other. This has become a core business value for his companies, and drives how they operate.

Core Values

Bruce Gibney and Ken Howery identify core values as one of Four Things to Get Right When Starting A Company in the May 9, 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review. In particular, they state that when teams develop, they must quickly decide how they want to do business, because culture seems to become entrenched after about 24 employees are hired. Coherent and clearly communicated business values improve the quality, efficiency and consistency of decisions throughout the organization. Founders, leaders and employees are able to use them as a basis for ensuring alignment and proper direction when considering different courses of action.

For new and developing businesses, values are best developed up front along with the business concept and processes. They should be the guiding force, not the lagging afterthought that explains how they do business. Not only is this important for the individual entrepreneur who may be the sole employee (solopreneurs), but as the business grows, that entrepreneur must be able to clearly identify and communicate core business values when interviewing prospective employees, and establishing business processes and organizational norms. They are communicated to others through marketing and branding strategies, policy decisions, workplace norms and customer interactions.

The process of identifying and developing core business values requires thoughtful discussion among the founding leaders of a growing business at each step of the process. Solopreneurs might have these discussions with a business coach or consultant. The point is to think through all aspects of the business process and how the business promise will be fulfilled and aligned with the business values. They are typically very personal based on the priorities and preferences of the individual leaders.

Such discussions may be ongoing as the business evolves and grows. Throughout the process of adding more employees, customers and stakeholders, these values are communicated through behaviors and decisions. Just as leaders are at the core of establishing business values, employees are at the core of fulfilling the promise of the business values. Thus it’s important to engage them in understanding how their behavior contributes to and support values.

Start the Discussion

Consider the following questions.

How will my product provide value to my customers?
What are my quality standards and how will I ensure that they are reinforced?
What criteria will I use when deciding who to collaborate with or to do business with?
How do I want to serve my customers? How do I want them to remember me?
How and what should my employees communicate with one another, and how do we establish our work processes and environment to support that?
What are our financial resources and options?
What are my leadership styles and attributes, and how will I make sure that my employees are motivated and engaged?

Gibney and Howery cite Facebook’s “focus on impact” as an example of explicit business values or principles guiding a company in a more successful direction. Facebook’s 5 core principles are Focus on Impact, Move Fast, Be Bold, Be Open, Build Social Value. Theirs is almost more of a social mission than a business focused on revenue.

Whether you lead a business, non-profit organization, work team, volunteer organization, or your family, take the time to think through your core values. Define and discuss them with your stakeholders, and ensure alignment in all your decisions. As you collaborate with others, ensure that they share similar values. Clearly defined, shared values are a critical part of your personal and professional success.

Read the Forbes article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/10/17/jack-dorsey-the-leadership-secrets-of-twitter-and-square/

Read the HBR article at http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/four_things_to_get_right_when.html

Who’s the Customer

July 29, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership

Who’s The Customer?

In these days of internet connectivity, companies have the technology to track your every move on the internet. They know which websites you visit, how long you linger, and how many times you click through to another page for more information. They bury tracking devices to place ads in front of you based on the sites you visit, and send spam targeted to where they think your interests lie. Yes, they’re literally following you around collecting information to try to further influence your shopping habits. For stores where you have a physical shopping presence, they entice you with “loyalty” cards where you can get discounts or coupons on products, all based on your common purchases. Instead of you, the customer being king, you’re pressured by the businesses who expend a lot of resources to understand you. (more…)

Wise Leaders, Foolish Leaders

June 17, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Capability, Leadership

Wise Leaders…Foolish Leaders

Have you ever wished that you could give a colleague some wise feedback that would help him or her in their career, a project, or some aspect of their responsibilities? But you couldn’t because you recognized that they weren’t receptive to it, or they would have difficulty understanding it. You recognized that their perception or beliefs about what they were doing were so strong or deeply rooted, that it would be difficult for them to see any other point of view. You may have even recognized that this could develop into a serious professional derailer for the person. Maybe you carefully planned a moment in time to have the conversation, only for the person to rebuff your remarks and try to make YOU think that you were foolish.

As much as you wanted to help the other person, to help them see the folly of their ways, you knew that you had to wait until they WANTED to listen to you. You had to wait until they fell and got bruised and tried to figure out what happened and why….then maybe, just maybe you’ll be able to help them recognize how their own behavior or decisions contributed to their situation.

A rock with the word Wisdom engraved on it. Realistically, none of us are completely wise or completely foolish. There are simply areas in our lives where we exhibit more or less wisdom (sometime a lot more or a lot less). The goal is to increase the areas where wisdom shines through; to seek the counsel of other people who are wise; to be able to recognize the difference between wise and foolish behavior.

This is even more important for leaders, because their wise or foolish decisions impact not only themselves but others around them. A CEO who makes an irrational or foolish product decision can drive the company’s stock downward effecting investors and employees. A CFO who foolishly covers up material financial information similarly damages the corporate reputation and subjects the firm to negative sanctions. The greater your responsibility, the greater your need for wisdom. The greater your wisdom, the greater responsibility will come to you.

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Whay You See May Not Be What You Get

May 29, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Character, Leadership

What You See May Not Be What You Get

What if we all had x-ray vision to see beyond the visible into the invisible? What if we could see beyond a company’s balance sheet to understand their culture and strategies? What if we could see beyond the words people use, to understand the intent behind them? We’d likely make more informed choices, better investment decisions, and smarter selections in our relationships, career, and life in general.

Fortune Magazine’s recent article on How HP Lost Its Way (by James Bandler with Doris Burke, Fortune, May 21, 2012) provides an inside look at what they call “a dysfunctional company struggling for direction after a decade of missteps and scandals.” After the departure of CEO Mark Hurd following allegations of inappropriate behavior with a HP contractor, it became evident that his “external success had concealed internal deterioration.” The search firm consultant who recommended the new CEO supposedly told HP’s board of directors that Leo Apotheker would be “one of the best CEO picks ever”, but he only lasted eleven months. When the current CEO, Meg Whitman was initially asked to join the board of directors by Chairman Ray Lane, she reportedly thought that it sounded interesting and fun, and that it was likely a well run company. “What could go wrong?” she said. Once she accepted the CEO role after Apotheker’s departure, she gained a clearer picture of the needs and opportunities at this company. Eye looking through a hole in a piece of paper. (more…)

What Defines Your Leadership?

May 2, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Leadership, Results

What Defines Your Leadership?

In the April 9, 2012 issue of Fortune magazine, an article on The 12 Greatest Entrepreneurs of Our Time – and What You Can Learn From Them by John A. Byrne provides a brief but insightful look at what makes these successful men tick (three women received honorable mention but didn’t make it to the top 12).I’d like to provoke your thoughts by sharing the critical success factors about the top four.

Steve Jobs – Apple– Didn’t rely on consumer research, but instead “connected the dots” about relationships between technology and life experiences. He believed that it wasn’t consumers’ responsibility to know what they wanted, especially if they haven’t seen anything like it before. In essence consumers are often limited by their own experiences and imagination.

Bill Gates – Microsoft– Picked smart people and put them to work on important things. Both his business partner (Paul Allen) and his successor as CEO (Steve Ballmer) fall into that category. These are people who he bounced ideas off, and who in turn would come up with even better ideas. Gates believes that brilliant people should work on the best and most important projects.

IStockPhoto

Fred Smith – Fedex– Learned about logistics from his experience serving in Vietnam where he saw the importance of integrating ground and air operations to move material and equipment, and to support the troops.He also learned the importance of investing in the right first line managers to make good decisions, and to praise them publicly for their work.

Jeff Bezos – Amazon– Takes a mini-retreat every quarter. This is time for him to reflect on the past, and plan for the future.His time alone with no phones is spent web-surfing for new trends and ideas that he then writes in a memo to himself and other members of his executive team for follow-up and action. These ideas typically take on a life of their own as others add to them until something develops. (more…)

Who’s Your Tiger?

April 7, 2012

Priscilla Archangel

Courage, Leadership

Who’s Your Tiger?

I caught a few minutes of an interview recently between Charlie Rose, the acclaimed PBS interviewer and recent CBS morning news host, and Jim Nantz, CBS Sportscaster for The Masters’ Golf tournament. The key topic of course was Tiger Woods and his chances of again winning this major tournament. According to Nantz, Tiger’s left knee has been operated on four times, literally rebuilt, but that process has spawned a number of other injuries related to the knee, including Achilles tendon issues. If he is to succeed in his quest to beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of major championship wins, Tiger needs to win five more majors. Assuming his body holds up another 10 years, with four majors a year, 40 in total, he should be able to easily best Nicklaus.

Interestingly though, they commented that the field of golfers has changed significantly since Tiger’s last major win four years ago. Instead of just the golfers in their 30s and 40s, most of whom have been mentally and physically intimidated by Tiger’s skill, there is a new crop of younger golfers in their 20s emerging who are poised and ready to establish and define their own era of golf. They’re not intimidated by Tiger, or used to him beating them by double digit strokes. They’re confident and fearless.

IStockPhoto

I’m not a huge golfing fan so I sought out my local golf pro (my husband) to gain insight on whether Tiger really upped the level of the game, or were the new younger golfers just better. His opinion was that Tiger’s focus and commitment to the game taught other would-be players about the importance of body strength, practice and pure skill. This interview was really thought provoking, so I have two questions for you. Who’s your Tiger? And how do you respond to him? (more…)

You Dreamer!

What’s In Your Hand?

Exposed

Game Changer

Business Values Add Value

Who’s The Customer?

Wise Leaders…Foolish Leaders

What You See May Not Be What You Get

What Defines Your Leadership?

Who’s Your Tiger?

Leadership Tips