It’s not necessary about how many ‘miles’ we have done, but how we have spent those miles.
Viewing entries in
Thought Leadership
The voice within is YOUR voice. This is the voice that likely talks to you all day long, “Should I or shouldn’t I? This way or that way? Respond or stay quiet? What if…? And then what…?” My goodness what we say to ourselves!
Consider how much of what we say is a warning, a discouragement, a critique, or a demanding parent to an innocent you. When we teach advanced executive professional speaking, the request each and every time from the class is: “What did this person do well? What is just one thing they could have done better? What is the special expertise that you noticed?” That’s all you need to get better and better with each presentation and come to think of it, with each interaction. No need for an inner judgment, no need for an inner critique, no need for perfection; simply a way to reorient yourself for the next right step.
You may have had a difficult conversation, a difficult meeting, a difficult day…but you can use these three little prompts to guarantee the next right step: “What did I do well? What is just one thing I could have done better? And what is the special expertise within me that I noticed?”
Have you heard of the saying ‘3 steps forward, 2 steps back’? Maybe it sometimes feels like 3 steps forward, 3 steps back? It’s important that we understand the steps back to help inform the next steps forward. Or maybe we need smaller steps? Or maybe we need a break altogether. Learn more in this video!
How can we benefit from a FORMAT in meetings and presentations? It worked for the old Western shows (does anybody else LOVE them?), and it can work for you too! Watch this video to learn more...
Let's talk about EMOTIONS. Paul R. Rasmussen, Ph.D., an Adlerian Psychologist, talks about validating and compelling emotions rather than positive and negative emotions. This is really helpful to apply day-to-day to help us find the JOY again in what we do. Watch this video to learn more.
Capture the little things! This will help provide more meaning for you and those you are talking with. Learn more in this video - it will only take 2 minutes out of your day!
Today, take moment to think about what do you want to be remembered for in your presentation, or your next meeting, or a conversation with your boss. Take a moment longer to watch this video where I explain more!
Today, think about what you can do differently to what you've done before and different to everybody else, and how that might help you THINK differently.
Give encouragement! With your children, spouse, colleagues, even your boss. Say what you liked, what you learned and what you appreciated. It’s a real skill but helps to promote growth, and create a culture of appreciation.
When was the last time someone offended you? And how did you react? It's important to take a step back and think what might be going on with the other person. Don't just react, make a considered response. Learn more in this video.
When giving presentations, doing podcasts, even leaving a voice mail, think about the message you want to convey. Really think about the person it’s going to. The results are interesting. Watch this video to learn more and let me know what you think!
Everyone has a To Do list, but how about a To Be list? Who are you going to BE today? This is the list that defines your success and your significance. Take two minutes out of your day to learn more in this video.
Sometimes we can easily get discouraged. If you end up taking 3 steps forward, but 2 steps back, remember to learn from your mistakes to inform your next step! Watch this video to learn more!
Something to think about this year - If you routinely give your team members gifts try something very different…give gifts to your team member's children! Not the same thing, give it some thought, you might even interview your team individually and see what each child is interested in. Not a specific gift the parent wants but “your” gift to them based on what you get from the interview. A book for a fourth grader? Or a cookbook! Clay for a middle schooler. What interests are there? Not just a gift but a present that understands your presence to their parents in this present moment.
When you present your facility and its people to the Board of Directors, your city council, or your state representatives remind yourself that they will remember the feeling you portray, not the content alone.
Your statistics need to have heart as well as head in them. Not only stories about patients but perhaps people telling the story - willing patients and families, doctors and housekeepers, nurses and maintenance. What would it be like to have them present? Interview them, bring the face and feeling of your place to the meeting.
This is what they will remember long after the meeting is over. This brings excitement about your place to your audience’s understanding.
Let's kick of 2023 with a question - when was the last time you took a risk? A calculated risk perhaps, but none the less, a risk. A leap of faith maybe. A time you spoke up first at a meeting. A time when you silenced your usual meeting speech or even a time when you realized you didn’t need to be at that meeting at all!
It’s fun and sometimes amazing to look back over our lives and notice the risks we did take, the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t, and to then ask ourselves what we now know even more about ourselves. Richard Rohr wrote, “It is never a straight line, but always three steps forward and two backward—and the backward creates much of the knowledge and impetus for the forward.”
As 2023 unfolds, think about the risks you take and what you learn from the experience?
In July I was at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville for the National Speakers Association Convention. True to the Gaylord name, it is a maze of trails and connecting ramps encompassing you in vegetation, people, music, and ‘something else’ just around the next corner.
At first, especially in search for coffee, it reminds you just how addicted you have become to a ‘normal hotel’...as well as to coffee! It is a delight however and over time I was able to feel fairly confident that I could get from here to there!
It reminded me of the times I was with my son, Corbb, who is blind, as he would accompany me to these conventions. Our first order to business was “O&M” - orientation and mobility. For those who are blind, O&M is not only a course to learn how to independently get around, it is also an ongoing task of seeing their way to and through the ”Gaylords” of the world.
Once properly oriented the mobility comes more naturally. It is a discovery process and I notice it among my sighted friends as well. New airport? Where am I? New neighborhood? Who am I? New role? What am I? For those who are blind O&M is a necessity…for those of us sighted, we do the same thing whether through the jungles of the Gaylord or the traffic before us.
I wonder too if there is a metaphor here for us as leaders. Perhaps our next meeting could use some O&M to help explain what is it really that we are all about. Perhaps we could use some O&M to speak to our history of our family. Or we could remind ourselves that what we know the other might not yet know. O&M!
There is an important difference between ‘managing the talk’ and ‘leading the discussion.’ Managing, to me, seems to be about controlling who says what and when and in effect, corralling all the voices. It does not often lead to a conclusion so…”we better meet again next week!”
Leading the discussion has to do with finding the common element, the issue at hand, the ‘one thing’ that is vital to the effort. While data points are presented and debated, the leader, regardless of their position or status, is the one who can go beneath and beyond the data and relate the ‘story’ that points the way.
2+2 might be 4, or in some cases 22, or in others the entirely wrong equation to be considering. It is the manager who allows the debate to rage (respectfully) among the experts. It is also the manager who suggests the next meeting! It is the leader, however, who tells the story of the equation, has a uniting example, speaks to the overriding issue.
Dr. Frank Dono worked at OhioHealth well into his 80’s as a teacher and physician executive and concluded EVERY meeting with a short, impassioned speech to remind us, “Today we talked about finances, but we are really talking about patients, the quality of their care, the safety we provide, the mercy we show.” EVERY meeting. (I have heard that as he was being wheeled on a gurney during a heart attack, he was calmly instructing the new resident what to do, giving her the confidence to do her best for her teacher! Till the end! Wow!)
A teaching of Adlerian psychology (Alfred Adler 1870-1937) is that we are ‘social equals’ worthy of respect. This is different of course from being the ‘same.’ Social equality means we are certainly different, but we share a common humanity, dignity, and down not-so-deep we are quite like one another.
One of my graduate students used to come late to class each week, just a few minutes late, but late, nonetheless. I asked him about it and he said, “Oh, Mr. O’Connor, I get stuck talking to a homeless guy down the street.” I said (and now deeply regret) “You talk to homeless people?” He kindly responded, “You know I think you and I are maybe one life event away from the spot he is in.” I then began a journey to look into the eyes of the other, not to their circumstances. Quite similar indeed though quite different too.
Char Wenc had a class game teaching physician leaders for the American Association for Physician Leadership®. She asked them to break up into groups of two randomly and then said to alternate with “I’ll bet we have _____ in common” or “I like ______, how about you?” Telling them to see how many things they had in common. Always at least seven often into the double digits within minutes. We are quite like one another if only we look and ask and listen and respond.
Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, authors of the book “The Courage to be Happy”, speak of a three-dimensional triangle with words written on each of the three sides. One side says, “poor me” another says, “that bad person” and the final side “what should I do from now on?” As a therapist all one has to do is at every session hand over the triangular object and simply say, “So what are we going to talk about today?” For those of us without a therapist, we get to hand it over to ourselves at every fork in the road. Of course, during our lives we encounter many a bad person and have plenty to complain about that was unfair. We could (and sometimes do) repeatedly speak of each…plenty bad happened and plenty of those bad people too. However, ultimately we need to face that third side…“what should I do from now on?”