Cortex Leadership Consulting

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Habits of rich, successful leaders©

Rich is a term many people associate with having a lot of money.  Although many of the people we coach would be considered wealthy in that regard, most are rich in the types of things anyone can obtain, regardless of the size of their bank account because of their habits.  Rich, to truly successful leaders, is about having purpose.  That feeling that you get when you know exactly what you are supposed to be doing and who you are supposed to be doing it for.  Rich is waking up and knowing that the relationships you’ve built in your life and in your business are meaningful to you and provide joy and prosperity in more ways than what a spreadsheet can calculate.

So what do the richest, most successful and affluent among us do that is different.  Simply put, it has far less to do with luck and much more to do with specific habits that have been observed and measured by researchers.

Let’s do a mash-up of one of the most read articles of all time published on Hbr.org (Harvard Business Review), 9 Things Successful People Do Differently, which was based on decades  of research reported by Heidi Grant Halvorson on achievement and the findings of Thomas Corley in his book Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals.

Based on those and other sources of information and what we have found through our own research in Cortex leadership programs it would seem that 3 of the habits to first focus on are:

  1. Manage your time and energy around the highest level outcome you can measure. Every stick of research we could find boiled down to the fact that people who set stretch goals or high level desired outcome are much more likely to reach them.  To do this all you need is to create the goal and then ask yourself why do you want it?  If you want more money, why? Do you want freedom, influence, security?  Do you want a house?  Why?  Do you want a place where your kids can connect with other children and feel safe and secure?  If you want a bigger business, why?  Do you want to help more people in some way like giving them a life you weren’t able to achieve until recently?  Pick what you want and why you want it and then set measurable goals to get there.  Write them down!  Measure your progress regularly.  Let others know what you want to achieve so they can help you get there.
  1. Have grit.  If you’ve done number 1 properly then when things get tough you can answer the question, “Why must I suffer?” on days when reaching your outcome seems almost impossible.  Successful people have grit.  They dig deep and persevere during insurmountable challenges.
  1. Listen to the right people and appreciate their contributions. Successful people tend to hang around successful people.  That is not by accident.  It is quite intentional on their part.  They simply don’t waste time on people that spend their days in the dreaded drama triangle.  Choosing people to spend your time with that are smart, dedicated to their purpose, have high integrity, and challenge you in all the right ways, is key.  Consistently appreciating them for how they contribute to your success is vital to maintaining strong relationships with them.

Here’s the complete information from the sources listed above that might be helpful as well.

9 Things Successful People do found that they:

Get specific, seize the moment to act on their goals, know exactly how far they have left to go (they measure their progress), are realistic, yet optimistic, focus on getting better, rather than being good, have grit, build their willpower power muscle and don’t tempt fate.

Rich Habits:  The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals found that they:

Live within their means, don’t gamble, read every day, watch less than 1 hour of recreational TV or internet surfing a day, control their emotions, network and volunteer regularly, go above and beyond in work and business, pursue at least one major goal, avoid procrastination, talk less and listen more, avoid toxic people, exhibit focus, persistence and patience, set aside self-limiting beliefs that may hold them back, get and use a mentor, eliminate “bad luck” as a cause of any “failure”, know their main purpose.

STATISTICS about wealthy people reveal:

88% read 30 minutes or more a day. 

63% listen to audiobooks on their commute, 79% read educational career-related material, 55% read for personal development, 58% read biographies of successful people, 94% read current events, 51% read about history and only 11% read purely for entertainment purposes.

  • 80% are focused on accomplishing some single goal.
  • 76% exercise aerobically 4 days per week.
  • 81% maintain a to-do list.
  • 6% say what’s on their mind.
  • 44% wake up 3 hours before work starts.
  • 84% believe good habits create opportunity luck.
  • 86% believe in life-long educational self-development. 

TEAM EXERCISE FOR THIS WEEK: 

At an upcoming team meeting, ask yourself and each member this question.

What’s one thing you can do differently, starting this week, to create a richer outcome for yourself, for your team, and for your organization?  Choose on one of the habits, out of the lists above, to focus on for the next 30 days.

Ask each team member how they want to be held accountable for that new action or habit?

You are strong, capable and gorgeous!  Set your mind to the change you want to make and keep your head down until you create it.  You wouldn’t even be reading this if you didn’t already have everything you need to be wildly successful.  Execute on what you know to be common sense.  Make it common practice this week.

By:  Lynda McNutt Foster, CEO
Cortex Leadership Consulting

Betsy Head

 

 

FEATURED LEADER THIS WEEK:  Betsy Head, Co-Owner of Home Instead Senior Care in Roanoke, Lynchburg and Smith Mountain Lake sat down with Becky Freemal in a full-length podcast to discuss how to accelerate your success.

Last week’s Virginia at Work Segment on Preparing for a Job Interview:

On last week’s Virginia at Work series we had Coy Renick as our guest.  Here’s the segments if you missed them.  Coy announced 75 jobs he is trying to fill right now!  We’ll be recording podcasts about the topics of preparing for a job interview and habits of successful people this Tuesday at the CoLab in Roanoke.  Those should be posted by the end of the week on the www.virginiafirst.com website and the Cortex Leadership Youtube channel.

 

 

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Maximum Contribution Potential – Hiring right

By:  Lynda McNutt Foster

Measuring a team member’s maximum contribution potential is one thing every leader’s success depends on.  Learning the best questions to ask and tools to use in the hiring process and promotion process can save time and resources.  Here’s a common scenario.

Everything was fine until their last supervisor left the team.  He was great.  He did the job of 2 people.  He practically slept there.  He got an offer from another company and took it because it would mean advancement and it was closer to home.  Their company has been through 2 people since then and neither has worked out well.  The last one they hired had a completely different idea of what the job entailed versus what they expected from them.  They really liked both of the folks during the interview process, but when the new hires started the leaders quickly learned that neither hire had what it took to get the job done effectively.  The leader was aware that the work environment is fast-paced. They complained that the first one couldn’t keep up and the other one moves so fast that mistakes are made constantly.  They were frustrated and usually stayed late and worked weekends to complete the tasks themselves.  Their family complained that they were never home.  They were frustrated. 

Hiring right, assigning roles and promoting effectively makes leader’s jobs and the growth of their companies much easier.  Determining what the maximum potential contribution of each team member will be, in the new role, in your workplace environment is something that takes some calculation and practice.

Maximum Contribution Potential = Skills + Resources + Behaviors

Here are some quick thoughts to begin the process with:

Skills:  Don’t just trust their resume or what they tell you.  Have them do something that demonstrates their skills.  Do they need strong writing skills?  Have them submit a writing sample in a fixed time period to you.  Will they be required to submit reports using Excel or some other type of software program?  Test to see what their proficiency level is in that software.  Will they need to be able to effectively communicate or present important information to groups or other teams?  Have them prepare a presentation, on a specific topic, to your team and get feedback from them on how well they did.  You can train someone if they have the right experience, motivation, and IQ to do many skills.  Accurately measuring what skills someone does or does not have will help you plan appropriately and make an informed decision.

Resources:  A question you may ask that could help you understand how someone approaches setbacks or failures might be to ask, “When faced with your last challenging situation or significant obstacle, what resources did you use to overcome it?”  This is an open-ended question that would allow you to understand what they think is a major setback and their thought process for approaching a solution for it.  It will also let you know how they go about solving problems.  Is it through utilizing their resources of people?  Do they have long-term relationships, in your industry, whom they trust and that trust them?  Ask if you can contact some of their resources (also known as references) to get a first-hand look at what type of relationship that person has with them.

Resources go beyond people and capital.  Asking someone what resource have you used within yourself to overcome a major challenge may offer some insight into the type of effort they have made to build their character.

Behaviors:  It’s very difficult to determine how someone will behave in your work environment during an interview process. A high level of self-awareness is something that requires a great deal of work, focus, and feedback.  For that reason, many people don’t embark on that long journey or sometimes they think they know themselves when they really don’t.  So when you ask them if they work well in a fast-paced environment they might say, “Sure!” when in reality the work environments they have been in prior to yours were an “introduction” to fast-paced.  One of the best ways to predict a team member’s behaviors and what motivates them is through a validated assessment like DISC/MOT.  This type of assessment will help you predict a person’s general pace, how they will approach different types of challenges, what will motivate them to get and maintain engagement with your company or organization, and what may cause them stress and raise anxiety levels.

It is the combination of testing and measuring each of these areas that will reduce your risk in hiring, the changing of roles or the promotion process.  Some additional references that may help you develop skills in asking more effective questions can be found here:

The 10 Best Interview Questions to Ask

Measuring an Applicants Hard and Soft Skills

Ken low res 2016LEADERSHIP FOCUS THIS WEEK:  On tonight’s WFXR Virginia at Work segment with Becky Freemal we’ll discuss what types of questions you can be asking applicants during an interview.  Joining me on Good Day Virginia tomorrow morning at about 7:40am will be Ken Cronin, a consultant with Cortex Leadership Consulting who has over 40 years of experience in hiring, developing, and leading winning teams.

Last week’s segment focused on Stay Interviews with our guest, Russ Ellett.  CLICK HERE to see those episodes.

 

 

 

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Will your team trust you this week?

Effective communication that leads to peak performance starts with trust. Trust is tough unless both parties feel safe.   When we don’t feel safe our internal “brain cocktail” consists of fear, power, uncertainty, being right, and group think. Whereas, when we are in the “CEO of our brain”, using our pre-frontal cortex, we are transparent, relationship focused, seek understanding, want to share success and feel comfortable telling the truth.

If you want to build and maintain a high performing team that is capable of solving challenging problems and effectively managing change, this information may be helpful to you.

One of the best books I’ve found regarding leadership and communication, based on the most recent brain science, was written by Judith Glaser, Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust & Get Extraordinary Results.

Glaser explains that “when we connect with others, our mind toggles through a series of five hardwired questions at a pace so rapid our conscious mind doesn’t know it’s doing it.” Depending on how our brain answers these questions determines how we will react and interact with the other person:

Question I:  Protect  How do I protect myself, and do I need to?

Question II: Connect  Who loves me, who hates me, and can I trust this person?

Question III: Belong  Where do I belong and fit in?

Question IV: Be strong  What do I need to learn to be successful?

Question V: Partner  How do I create value with others?

If you want to motivate and engage other people to their peak performance, they need to be able to answer these questions in a way that would make them feel safe and trust that you have their best interest in mind.

If you are currently struggling with a particular team member or peer, it’s possible they are answering one or more of these questions in a negative or unclear way. Maybe past experiences with you have made them feel like they need to protect themselves. It could be that they aren’t exactly sure of their role or how they fit in. Maybe they are wondering how they are bringing value to you and the team. It is possible that they simply don’t think that you like them.

conversational-intelligenceA short cut to building trust is to focus on appreciation. Seeking honest ways to intentionally recognize and appreciate specific talents or actions of others can establish safety quickly. Judith Glaser explains:

“When we receive public praise and support, we unlock yet another set of neurochemical patterns that cascade positive chemistry throughout the brain. Highly motivated employees describe the feeling of performing well as an almost drug-like state (because of the dopamine and endorphins released by these interactions, it is actually quite similar). When this state of positive arousal comes with appropriate, honest, and well-deserved (sincere) praise, employees feel they are trusted and supported by their boss. They will take more risks, speak up more, push back when they have things to say, and be more confident in their dealings with their peers.”

How people are effected by ways we communicate:

7 percent to words
38 percent to tone of voice
55 percent to nonverbal behaviors

If you have an unpleasant “resting face” you are going to have to work twice as hard to connect with others to make them feel safe with you. That unpleasant face that rarely smiles, doesn’t make much eye contact, and looks like you just don’t care that much when people are talking to you is working against you if your desired outcome is to inspire others to be their best.

TEAM EXERCISE:

At your next team meeting, discuss the following questions to help build trust and transparency:

  1. Which of the 5 questions does each team member struggle the most to answer with key people at work?
  2. How would they rank theirs and others “resting faces”? When they are talking to team members do they feel like they are being heard and understood by the way they are being responded to?
  3. How appreciated does each team member feel by other team members, you, and the organization?

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Can the right questions help maintain high performance on your team this week?©

I received a note, this week, from a viewer of our new TV segments on WFXR.  They posed the following scenario and question.  I suggested, to this person, to approach their boss and let them know how they were feeling and respectfully ask them for feedback on how they could work together to improve the situation.

“I think I am one of the hardest working managers in my organization.  I get to the office early and frequently stay past when everyone else leaves.  I answer emails after hours and always return phone calls if they are urgent, regardless of time of day.  The customers I manage seem happy.  If I have a problem with a team member, I solve it with them.  I do my job and I think I do it pretty well.  There’s one problem.  My boss never seems to recognize my hard work or dedication.  She hasn’t spoken to me in the last few weeks and that’s not unusual at all for her.  It’s a month past the time I was supposed to get my annual review.  I’m starting to become pretty unplugged and dispassionate about my work because of this.  I have no idea if I’m delivering what the company wants from me. There’s just been so much change lately.  I don’t know what to make of her silence.  I don’t know if the next position that comes open for me to advance into is something she would support me in getting.  How do I best handle this situation?”

If you are a leader, reading this scenario, I’m sure that this is not something you would want to hear from one of your highest performers.  This situation is common because leaders are so focused on “putting out day to day fires” that they neglect to schedule time to issue effective feedback that will develop and encourage their best performers.  The real problem occurs when you lose a few of your high performers and have to replace them.  It will cost you WAY more time and money to find, hire, train, and assimilate a new person onto your team than it would to recognize, appreciate, and develop the person who is already doing the job well for you and the organization.   According to an article published by SHRM, the direct replacement costs associated with turnover can reach as high as 50-60% of an employee’s annual salary, with total costs associated with turnover ranging from 90% to 200% for high-level team members.

Creating High PerformersHere’s an easy to follow and execute set of questions that stems from the book, Creating High Performers: 7 Questions to Ask Your Direct Reports that might help.  I have added information to each of these, in order to assist you in discussing these with different behavioral styles and to create an atmosphere of accountability for both parties.  Schedule time for each of your high performers, in the next couple of weeks, and run through these questions with them.

  • Do you understand what performance is expected in your job?

(If they say no and you are confused by that answer since you feel that you have been clear with them in the past about what you expect, try asking it in this way:  What would help you the most to better understand what my expectations are of you?)

  • Do you know what good or great performance looks like in your job?

Take into account their behavioral style.  For high performers, they usually want to exceed your expectations, not just meet them.  Being adequate is akin to failing to some folks and especially the Driver behavioral types in DISC.  For a Calculator they are going to want to be sure that they are doing things as perfectly as possible.  An Influencer type will want you to indicate that you like them and the job they are doing for you. A Supporter type will want to be sure that they are helping you, your customers, and team members in the way that you want them to be.

  • Do you get enough feedback on the results you produce?

Remember that different behavioral types require different levels of feedback.  It’s important to understand what level of feedback the high performer needs in order to feel that they are being effective at their job.  Influencers may want more feedback than a Calculator, for instance.

  • Do you have enough authority to carry out what you need to do?

Refer to the segments I just did on aligning accountability, responsibility, and authority.

  • In areas where you don’t have authority, are you getting timely decisions from me or other people?

If the feedback you receive, from the high performer, on this question is, “No.  I have to wait weeks, sometimes, for decisions from you and it really makes it difficult for me to get the customers what they want or for me to proceed efficiently through my processes.”  See if you can’t work out a system for decision-making that will work for both of you.  Maybe you could have the team member code the request so you know how important it is or whether it is connected with a high-level client or whether it is attached to a project that will hold up multiple team members or other departments if a decision isn’t made quickly.  Perhaps you could schedule a time, once a week, to batch questions and decisions that need to be made.

  • Do you have the data, resources, and support to do everything that’s expected of you? If the answer to this one is “no” it’s best to dissect each part of it and determine what can be done to change, if possible, the answers to “yes”.  Not having these items, for a high-performer, can create tremendous amounts of frustration on their part.  If you can’t supply what they need it will help for them to know a timeline on when you will be able to.  If you can’t, period, negotiate what you can get them instead.  Maybe there just haven’t been enough ideas passed back and forth to create a win-win situation, yet.

If you receive a “no” to any of these questions, be sure to do what you can to immediately communicate in clear and focused language the answers to them, with your high performer, in order to keep them on track and highly engaged in their work for you and the organization.  This isn’t a one and done activity.  These are questions you want to be sure the high performer can consistently answer “yes” to.  During times of change what’s expected of them could change quickly.  You want to be sure each team member is clear, and can tell you, the answers to these questions, at any given time.

These questions are also a great roadmap to follow as you prepare for change.  Knowing the answers to these questions will create a level of security in your team members that will allow them to stay out of drama and focus on maintaining high levels of productivity.

If you missed last week’s WFXR, Virginia at Work segments, click here to find out what you need for high productivity to occur with your team members and in your organization.

HIGH 5 to Chris Head

I wanted to offer a BIG HIGH 5 to Delegate Chris Head for receiving the Small Business Advocate the Year award from the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.  His tireless work for the business owners in our region was recognized by that organization.  Chris is an owner of Home Instead Senior Care of Roanoke and Lynchburg, along with his wife, Betsy.  You rock, Chris!

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Are you experiencing an avalanche of email?©

Workers, on average, spend about 28 percent of their workweek managing their email according to the McKinsey Global Institute.  What is that costing the organization?  Let’s say that your team member is paid $50,000 a year.  That would mean that they are getting paid $14,000 a year just to manage their email.  What’s the total salary amount of your team members?  Let’s say your payroll is at $500,000 a year. That’s $140,000 a year spent reading, sending and responding to emails.

Wondering what your return on investment of time is on that? Is there a more efficient and effective way to communicate with team members than the current methods you’re using?

EmailHere’s some effective methods for reducing the avalanche I found in the most recent Success Magazine entitled, “Tech and Your Time”:

YOUR BRAIN:  switches from “legato” (deeper) thinking to “staccato” (shallow, quick) thinking more easily.  So, it’s suggested that you block off the 90-minute fringes of your day to avoid email.  Yes, this may seem like a pipe dream, but why not try it this week and see what results you get?

SLEEP WELL: by avoiding email right before you go to bed.  Email can overload you with energy or issues right before you go to bed.  Not a good recipe for sweet dreams.

FILTER:  emails anyway that you can in order to prioritize them.  They mention something in the article called SaneBox (I haven’t tried it, but anything with the word sane in it is something I am attracted to).  The way I understand it is that SaneBox uses past interactions in your Outlook inbox to determine the importance of incoming messages.

RELATIONSHIPS:  lead to great transactions, not the other way around.  The quality of the relationship you have with your boss, team member, vendors or customers will lead to effective and profitable transactions.

PICK UP THE PHONE: or walk over and talk to the person.  Email and text are not a good method for brainstorming, high-value decision making, and when tone really matters.  Trust me, if your tone comes across poorly you are going to spend a lot more time cleaning up the email conversation than it would have been to just have a conversation with that person.

STOP THE NOTIFICATIONS:  which are completely distracting.  Turn off the constant notifications and especially all the dinging and buzzing.  Your brain is constantly switching back and forth and therefore is not functioning optimally.

SPEND MORE TIME IN PREPARATION:  rather than just including everyone in an email correspondence, think about who really needs the information.  So many times teams get into a mode of, “I better copy him/her on this email or I will get in trouble.”  That is a default mode that will end up costing your company thousands of dollars this year.  Work on creating policies around communication that develop and maintain a safe environment with accountability and responsibility.  It’s much cheaper in the long run.

VIDEO on reducing email:  Silent video that gives you 10 ways to reduce volume of emails. (1 min 13 sec)

TRY THIS WITH YOUR TEAM THIS WEEK:

Start by discussing ways to cut back on email and rope off a “no-email zone” time period that everyone can agree to, even if it’s just 1-hour a day.  This will allow team members to consolidate their thoughts and respond in a more proactive rather than reactive way.  Here’s a super funny video you can play to set up the topic with your team.  CLICK HERE. (3:27)

Shameless plug:  If you would like to have me work with you or your team on designing time more effectively, moving managers to leaders, team building, executive presence or having more effective conversations that result in better outcomes, give me a call or text me at (540) 815-1300 or respond to this email.