Be the Difference

Tom Ziglar recounts a story that his father, Zig Ziglar, would tell about a young boy and his grandfather walking down the beach.  A big storm had come in the day before and there were hundreds and hundreds of sand-dollars washed up and starting to die in the sun.  As they walked, the grandfather would stop from time to time, reach down, pick up a sand dollar and throw it into the ocean.  Finally, the little boy asked, “Grandfather, why are you throwing them back in?” and his grandfather replied, “So that they will live.” The little boy thought for a minute and said, “But grandfather, there are so many of them! What possible difference can it make?”  And the grandfather, reaching down and tossing another one back into the ocean, said, “To that one, it will make all of the difference in the world.”

No matter how many times I have heard the tale, each time it touches my heart and reminds me that each day we wake on this planet and are given a new slate.  We can choose to be the difference.

Ghandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see.”   But, how do we be the change we wish to see in the world, when the world seems so messed up right now?  By not trying to boil the ocean, but in starting small and remembering along the way the most simple gesture of good will can have an amazing ripple effect.

For as long as I can remember each day, as I see my boys off for the day, I say “do something today that changes the world.” What a reward later in the day to hear them recount the great things they did. My favorite? My then 8-year-old who told his teacher she looked beautiful in her purple dress. In return for “making her day” she allowed him to be first in both the recess and lunch line. Talk about learning a life lesson about the ripple effect first hand!

Recently, my 15-year-old caught me off guard. When I dropped him off and before I was able to say the words he turned to me and said, “Off to change the world, Mom.” Yes, this is the same son who brought a tear to my eye months ago when he turned to me at drop off and said, "Make good decisions today Mom."  Absolutely, no doubt that he will change the world, but instead of sand-dollars it will be one person at a time. 

The Art of Refocusing

"If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill


“Today every inch of my character was tested…just hoping it wasn’t a dress rehearsal for tomorrow.” – Facebook Post 8/18/11 3:13am


"I try to take just one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked me at once.” – Anonymous

The last two weeks have been tough.  Real tough.

I have found myself, throughout the days, needing to simply stop and reset. Now, I can clearly see the goodness in the stop and reset approach and I do my very best to refrain from participating in the defeating behavior of “spinning” which I recognize equates to paralysis. In essence, I’m calling "five for fighting" and taking the adult version of a time out (unfortunately without the accompanying nap). The other goodness that comes from this approach is, it gets me out of feelings of disappointment, discouragement, being questioned and challenged and in to those feelings of hope and progression towards a noble goal.

In the midst of a particularly rough issue, I started to sketch out this concept of stop, reset and progress:

Now, this concept is new to me and I haven’t fully mastered it. Sometimes I linger a little too long in “reset” mode before I can move fully, authentically, into progress. And, if I am being 100% honest, there is at least one time that I slipped back to full blown stop.

In both examples, something simple snapped me out of it (a Teddy Roosevelt quote above my desk or an unexpected note from a former team member) and motivated me towards progression.

During two tumultuous weeks, this self-reflection exercise felt like I had found the Holy Grail when in fact, it was actually some reinventing of the wheel.

I suppose that at the end of the day, it isn't about how many times the message is given, it’s not even about how many times the message is received, it’s about the message actually being applied. Me? I apparently needed to hear the message at least three times before it applied itself.

Curious though, as we all have our ways of resetting our focus to progressing…..what do you do to go from stop to reset to progress? What works for you? Comments welcome below.

Developing Strategic Relationships

Extraordinary Leader by authors John Zenger and Joseph Folkman was adopted as the leadership model to assist our company’s leaders develop their full leadership potential. Within the book, the authors discuss the behaviors of leadership breaking down each into tangible and relatable items affording leaders to assess their maturity within each behavior.

In late 2010 as I pondered about my career path, I pulled out the book and reflected on the behaviors and jotted down a few that would be essential components in the next position.
 
Surprised I was at first, to find the behavior that fell at the top of the list was “develops strategic relationships.” Upon reflection, this should not have been a surprise as I have openly shared my StrengthsFinder results, with the number one strength being “relator”.

In the role we play as Technology Architects, developing strategic relationships is critical. Relationship are essential to the strategic process because they are the enabler to get a spot at the table where ideation is occurring. At that juncture, the role is amplified and we become trusted partners within the process and we are able to do what we do best: translate vision to capability.

Zenger and Folkman provide the following behaviors to demonstrate the activities necessary to develop strategic relationships:

• Know how work relates to the organization’s business strategy (line-of-sight connection).
• Balance the short-term and long-term needs of the organization.
• Demonstrate forward thinking about tomorrow’s issues.
• Clarify vision, mission, values, and long-term goals for others.
• Explain to others how changes in one part of the organization affect other organizational systems.
• Continually communicate the highest-priority strategic initiatives to keep the leadership team focused on the right things.
• Ensure that all systems in the organization are aligned toward achieving the overall strategic goals.
• Lead organizational efforts that exploit the most highly leveraged business opportunities.

Extraordinary Leader © 2010 Zenger Folkman.  All rights reserved.

Assisting our businesses take their vision and translate it into technological capability through a technology roadmap and related architecture is critical to sustain business, but even more important to maintain our competitive advantage. And, at the end of the day is an expectation of our customers to be anywhere they are at the time they want us. Thus, building strategic relationships is fundamental to our success.

Below are ideas captured from various leaders on how to improve effectiveness in the building relationships while demonstrating the core competencies of Develops Strategic Relationships.

• Develop an elevator speech.
• Develop and communicate strategic goals and report on a regular basis in every meeting with your peers.
• Ask, listen and understand where people are before communicating to them.
• Leverage the Wells Fargo Vision and Values.
• Have the written strategy defining all critical communications to reinforce the vision/ strategy.
• Communicate clear messages and do it over and over and over again.
• Ensure messages are not so “in the clouds” that they are not relatable.
• Take a Strategic Communications course.
• Ask for feedback from all audience levels.

As you make developing strategic relationships a focus, share your successes with management or offer up at team members for shared learning.

Thank you for letting me share!
~Stacy

What do you do best? Do you do it everyday?

"Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"

- Benjamin Franklin

The StrengthsFinder website (http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx) begins by asking a simple question: Do you do what you do best every day? It then continues with a sad reality, “chances are, you don’t.”

From cradle to cubicle, most people spend more time focusing on what they can’t do right, versus what they do right. And, often times, what comes naturally to people (whether it be designing great architectures or giving great speeches or motivating the masses) is what people like to do.

I don’t know about you, but StrengthsFinder resonates with me. Personally, I am tired of living in a world that revolves around fixing weaknesses versus harnessing strengths. 

Ask Yourself: Do You Do What You Do Best Every Day?

Gallup says, “Society’s relentless focus on people’s shortcomings had turned into a global obsession.  What’s more, we have discovered that people have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.”

Peter Drucker, business guru extraordinaire, knew the secret of focusing on strengths.  He said, "Most people think they know what they are good at.  They are usually wrong...And yet, a person can perform only from strength."

Tying StrengthsFinder to our own team member engagement surveys, is critical. Over the past decade, Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement (and how positive and productive people are at work), and only one third “strongly agree” with the statement of “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday.”

Talent x Investment = Strength (StrengthsFinder, pg. 20)

And for those team members that do not get to focus on what they do best – their strengths – the costs are staggering.  In a recent poll of more than 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagree” or “disagreed” with this “what I do best” statement, not a single person was emotionally engaged on the job.” (StrengthsFinder 2.0, pg 1-2)

They go on to say having someone at work who regularly focuses on strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged and more than three times as likely to report having a excellent quality of life in general. Interesting enough, they also report that having a manager ignore you is even more detrimental than one who focuses on your weaknesses.

Who is focusing on your strengths?  Are You?

Now, to my team, some of you, reading this, are reading to jump in and take the assessment. Others are rolling their eyes and saying, “why, oh why?” Please, humor me. Take a leap of faith. Take the StrengthsFinder assessment and, upon completion, send me a copy of your five theme report so we can harness those Strengths. I think our collective themes will be a very interesting story to celebrate.

The rest reading, buy the book either hardcopy or kindle/reader and take the survey and take a chance on doing what you do do best everyday.

Thanks for letting me share,

~Stacy

StrengthsFinder. 2.0. Gallup Press 2007. Rath, Tom. Cllifton, Donald.