THE TIPPING POINT OF A GREAT LEADER by Anne Warfield

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The Tipping Point of a Great Leader What does the movie Coach Carter, the book The Tipping Point, and great leadership have in common?

Every Executive I work with wants to be a good, positive, and strong leader. When I ask them what they would like to change in order to make their life easier they often say things like, “it would be great if my team could think more independently to make the best decisions possible WITHOUT me involved!”

But how do you do that? In order to answer that all we need to do is look at the above question because the answer is right there.

One of the most fundamental and pivotal points of a great leader is one most people hate to take on. It is the one ingredient that makes a huge difference between great parents and just okay parents. It is what makes a team stick or fall apart. That one ingredient is consequences. It means that as a leader you have to have standards that you will NOT compromise no matter who is asking. It means that you have to follow up to make sure the standards are held up by all people. This can be very painful to do!

What I rarely see Executives do well is have direct consequences for poor behavior. In the movie Coach Carter each player had to sign a contract. The contract required them to have an average GPA of 2.3 while the state only required a 2.0, wear ties on game day, to participate in all classes and to sit in the front row.

The players thought these demands were not fair and the parents even stood up and said these are ridiculous standards, yet Coach Carter stayed firm. Even his boss, the school principal, thought he was being too “harsh.” They all thought his standards were too high because they weren’t the “average.” Coach Carter replied that “these are student players. The first word in there is student and that's what I expect them to be.”

Coach Carter took a job at Richman High School where only 50% of all students graduated and only six students out of every one hundred went on to college. That was a standard when he arrived. Parents, teachers and the school principal all told him that he was there to coach basketball and nothing more.

As an Executive you will often face people feeling you are unfair because your “standards” are too high. They will push you to lower them. And often, like in the case of Coach Carter, it could be your boss that tries to get you to lower those standards. When you have pressure like that it becomes even easier to let of your consequences for not following the standards. That is the first step to mediocrity.

In the book “The Tipping Point” Malcolm Gladwell proves over and over how ONE little thing can be the tipping point that sends a neighborhood to crime and violence. If one house has a window boarded up it is only a matter of time before crime creeps in to the neighborhood. Stopping the fare jumpers instead of going after the big criminals helped turn the subways around and reduced crime. So check your own scoreboard. What are your standards?

What are you willing to do to support those standards? What consequences will you FAIRLY and JUSTLY enforce to make sure ALL PLAYERS know the standards and follow them?

For this next month, challenge yourself to focus on ONE standard you would like to see followed in your company and set about implementing it in your company. Then just sit back and watch the positive ripple effect.

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As the leading Outcome Strategist, Anne Warfield shows people how to present their ideas, products and services so people WANT to listen to you. Her communication formula is easy to apply and produces proven results. Fortune 500 companies around the world have utilized her expertise and her work is published around the world. She has been published in Business Week, Good Housekeeping, Forbes publications and has been featured on ABC, NBC and CBS. Anne speaks around the world about Outcome Focus™ Communication. To book Anne, contact her at 888-imp-9421 or check out her web site at www.ImpressionManagement.com. Check out her website to take the communication quiz for yourself! Books can be purchased from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. You can also email us at contact@impressionmanagement.com.

The Great Sticky Escape

Anne Warfield, knowing my love for reading, sent me a recommendation to read the latest Jim Collins book.

Admittedly, the pile of books on my dresser has grown over the past months and I haven’t been going through them as fast as I would like. So I merely wrote the name of the book down on a sticky and placed it on top of the stack.

One weekend while cleaning, I found the sticky. It had migrated from the top of the stack to the right side of the dresser. I moved it back to the top of the stack. Two weekends ago, as my youngest son walked out of my bedroom, I noticed something attached to his backside…It was my sticky note!

I took it as a sign. Bought the book, read the book and have spent the past two weeks thinking about the book.

I am not going to ruin it for you, but will share some of my margin notes:
· Leadership is not a position. It is not a title. It is not a club or committee. You don’t sign up for it. And contrary to popular belief, you can’t take a class on it. You live it. You believe it. You model it.
· Leaders are focused on “we” versus “I”. Leadership is about enabling others to achieve the noble goal. It truly is about shared responsibility and group wins.
· The big difference between leadership and management is the ability to promote a vision and bring a group together to believe in it in order to effectively execute it.
· Leaders are as comfortable following as they are leading. The best leaders I have known have sometimes pushed me forward or stepped back in order to move me forward.
· Leaders are not perfect. They have trying days and lose EQ like the rest of us. I am reminded that leadership isn’t about being perfect at all times. It is about how they act/react during the trying times.

Now, I’m going to do something a little different. Instead of sending you the book, I am including a sticky note on the page with the book’s name and author on it. If this book piques your interest, I would encourage you to purchase it. If your pile is too high, then add this sticky to your list/pile. Just be aware that it might try to pull of the Great Sticky Escape!

Thanks for letting me share,

~stacy

A Story About Stump: Cohabitating with a Bullfrog

I have a bullfrog. Well, actually, I have seven bullfrogs. But this isn't a story about Jeremiah, Grenouille, Treeco, PollyFrog, PollyWog or Pisquat. It is a story about Stump.

Three years ago Uncle Randy took Marmot (aka Justin) and Turtle Boy (aka Devon) up to a foothills pond to "catch frogs". No “frogs” were caught on this particular day, instead the team of three came back to the house with a bucket full of tadpoles and two crawdads. Apparently the bunch thought it would be fun to set them free in our backyard pond.

Now, clearly the crawdads weren't allowed in the pond (and their story will surface in another story in the future), but the bullfrog tadpoles all 20+ of them were slowly lifted from the bucket and moved into the pond.

As the tadpoles were set free, I joked with Uncle Randy about the “Herd O’ Ugly BullFrogs” I would now have. His response? None of the tadpoles would reach adulthood. He believed that they would all be eaten by the koi - who were now swarming near the boys like customers at a sushi bar who had been told their next order was free. I was utterly horrified.

Now, with my first line of this message, you in fact know that Uncle Randy was wrong. In fact, 7x wrong...because one day while telecommuting, I had just exited a terrible call. I walked out of the house to catch a breath . Looking at the pond, I was surprised to find two eyes staring at me. A young bullfrog was on one of the lily pads (exhibit #1). I immediately ran into the house and called my colleague who had been on the call with me moments ago and blurted "I have a bullfrog in my pond!" Not surprising, my colleague simply laughed at me.

The other bullfrogs popped up like daisies over the next couple of months, but that first bullfrog (even though he was the smallest) was always present. He wouldn't run away and hide like the other bullfrogs, but would stay planted—sunning himself on top of the lily pads. When we walked up to the pond or sat by the edge, he would turn his head towards us and watch us intently (exhibit #2).

And then it happened. The boys and I watched a Discovery channel show about bullfrogs, only to find out that bullfrogs eat everything they can catch. Flying insects, birds, lizards, and even each other. AHHHH! That is when the mass feeding began.

Our thought was if we fatten Stump up - he wouldn't be a product of cannibalization. We started to catch bugs. We fed him every night. And to no surprise, by month three, he was waiting for us at night by the edge of the pond for his dinner (exhibits #3, #4, #7 and #8).

Last fall, I was scared because he hadn’t gone into hibernation. When he finally went into hibernation, I was scared that he wouldn’t come out. My husband teased me endlessly, “If you are this way with a frog, what it going to happen when the kids leave for college?” Kids leave? Huh? The warm weather brought Stump out of hibernation and to our excitement he had not abandoned his beggin' ways. He also has picked up a couple other bad habits: he loves swimming in the pool (exhibits #5 and #6) which require “pool rescue units” (ok, the boys) to be called in and he often mistakes fingers and toes for food.

In all seriousness and as silly as it feels to admit, Stump has been an absolute joy for my family and I. Watching him develop, I have reflected a lot on a variety of topics. Now, grab your bag of “bugs” as I share with you a couple. I like to call them “Stumpisms”:

1. Gauge someone’s character on how they are (not who/what they are)
2. Don’t discount first impressions, but don’t define someone by them
3. Don’t discount the small things—they can turn into the greatest of things
4. Live in the present—let go! Enjoy the moment
5. Just because you never have, doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t
6. Be patient. Good things come
7. Be trustworthy. Trust makes all the difference in a relationship
8. Think big!
9. There are no guarantees in this life — we will be here for the amount of time allotted—no longer, no less
10. Of course, there is also one about not chewing with your mouth open....especially when your diet consists of slugs and snails.

Thanks for letting me share
~ stacy