Making Assumptions

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Know or Willing to Learn

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Starting this year we have split TOL into two sections.  The basic short question your thinking we have always done, and now the TOL extra.  So go sign up over at http://bridleinfocus.com.

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Hi!

You’ve caught me looking at a book, trying to find a bird, we have a beautiful bird flying around the building and I was wondering what type of bird it is.  This brings me to this month’s Thoughts on Leadership, because there is a lot of difference between wanting to know something and being willing to learn.  Many people have a desire for knowledge, desire for knowing something but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are willing to learn.

Take me for instance, I do enjoy birds and when I see a bird that is interesting, I like to know what type of bird it is.  I have no desire to be an expert on birds.  I have no desire to go bird watching.  I am just really interested in the different types of birds.

This is useful in terms of business these days.  Why do we want to know something?  Is it something that we need an in depth knowledge of, or is it something that we just need to have some general information about?  Would this be useful to us?

Most important from a leader’s point of view is understanding your people.  There are people out there who just want to know.  They are thirsty for knowledge about things, but there are ones that want it for the wrong reasons.  In other words, they are desperate to know anything and everything and they have got to know what is going on and what is happening and all these sort of things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have a genuine desire to learn.

The desire to learn is what is really key, particularly in certain areas of your business.  For example, you may have a situation where you want somebody to know something specific about the product, the wiling to learn bit is ‘how’ they are able to explain that product to the client.  So, if there if you have somebody who is quite happy to know about the product, but are not willing to learn ‘how’ to sell it to the client, then they are maybe the wrong person for that job.

As a result, the key is really getting to understand that there is a difference between ‘wanting to know something’ and ‘willing to learn’ and both are needed and at times we are going to need to do one or the other.  Have we got the right person for the right situation?

We have just started a business, which is in the sales training arena and it’s about “yes, we can give you the knowledge to things” but taking it that step further and getting you to be able to apply it, that requires you to have a willingness to learn and many people have a desire to know but not necessarily a willingness to learn.

This month I am asking you some simple questions here:

I want you to think about your own people and once you do, look at some of the people you’ve got working for you and ask yourself, “Is this somebody who has a desire to know something or is it somebody who is really willing to learn?”  The depth comes in the willing to learn.  The knowledge is just a veneer, very useful, very important and in some cases – all that’s needed.  However, in other cases, it is the depth that’s needed.  In my case, knowing about the different types of birds, that is great, but the depth would come in actually understanding them, their habits, etc. so that I could have an in depth knowledge of them and I could recognise them when I saw them and realise when they are out of place or where they might be nesting or whatever is required.

Think about it in your business.  What do you want people to know and what do you want them to be able to apply with that knowledge?  When you have those two differentiators then start to ask yourself the question with regards to some of your individuals; ‘Is this somebody who just wants to know or is this somebody who is willing to learn?’  If they only need to know and they are willing to know, well then that is great, you can deal with that.  But if they are somebody who you needed to be able to apply and go a stage further, then they have to have a willingness to learn.  The learning takes them from the knowledge into application.  It is that different.

I hope that has given you something to think about this month, I will go into more detail on the website, if you want to know more but there is something for you to go and think about this month.

I hope you are having a good month and a good year!

See you next month,

Bye for now!

Tapping and Sharing Knowledge

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Starting this year we have split TOL into two sections.  The basic short question your thinking we have always done, and now the TOL extra.  So go sign up over at http://bridleinfocus.com.

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We all attend events.  We sit in an auditorium, we listen to a guest speaker, you listen to the event.  And I do a lot of them; often I do the speaking part.

The question always is ‘what do you take away from it?’  And most of all what do you do as a result?  I find that a lot of people attend, they listen very attentively, they are making all these notes and they put the notes with every intention of doing something but do not follow through.  Worse than that, the organisation does not follow through either.

So, I got to thinking about it in terms of getting the best out of our people.  It’s also them getting the best out of the events and things that they are doing.  Whether it be meetings with clients, whether it be coming to a session such as this or whether it just be a day to day activity, how are you getting them to ensure they are drawing the best out and then using it for the benefit of the organisation?  Do you have, as part of your team meeting, a round robin discussion from everybody?  Who have you met this week?  What work sessions have you been to?  What learning have you undertaken? And how can you share that with other people in the team?

That’s the way learning and development is these days.  It’s about people taking ownership for their own development and it’s also about them sharing that with each other and within the teams that they work.

So, this month I got to thinking and challenge you with a question.

Are your teams;

1. Taking ownership for their development?
2. Are they sharing everything they learn?  And w

When we talk about development, I’m not using the word training deliberately.  I’m not talking about training sessions; I’m talking about development as in; what have you read?  What conversations have you had?  What sessions have you been to?  What online stuff have you been reading and studying?  And is there stuff that you can share with the team?  Because if you’re the leader aren’t encouraging this, proactively with them, then they’re not necessarily going to be doing it on their own accord.

So, the question, what are you doing about getting your team to think about taking ownership for their development and then sharing with each other?  Development in the widest sense of the word.

I hope you’re having a good month.  See you again next month.  Bye for now.

On Exhibition

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Hello, and welcome to this months Thoughts on Leadership’

At some stage in our lives we all attend tradeshows/exhibition.  When you enter them you can see that people have gone to a great deal of effort to put on a great show.  After all, it is an exhibition; it’s an exhibition of us, come look at us; look at the best of what we can be.  There is a tremendous amount of money and effort that gets put into all of this, for a two/three/four day show, and in reality, we are on show/exhibition every day

Our organisations/companies are being exhibited to our clients, either positively or negatively, everyday.  Whilst, there is a lot of effort going into these two/three/four day events, what is happening every day?   Is there the same amount of money, time or energy being put into how we are exhibiting ourselves on a daily basis.  Do we consider how our people are exhibiting themselves in the way they behave?

When you go to an exhibition, people dress well, people look good, people smile, people – if you’ve ever been to one you all know what I mean – you end up the day with your cheeks been sore because you smiled so much.  Yet we can go into an organisation and people are sat there, looking miserable, it’s hard work to speak to you whereas at the show, it’s out there doing it.

So the question I want to ask you this month is:

Are you thinking about exhibitions as just tradeshows and events, or do you see exhibitions as what we do all day, every day as an organisation?  If you are thinking that way, then what are you doing about getting your people to think like that?  To get into their mind, this is an exhibition, we are on show.  Everything we do is about exhibiting our brand, our products, our philosophy, whatever it is that our business is about.

I want you to really think about; how does your customer see you?  How does your customer see you day-by-day when they visit you?  Not just the times that they visit you on a tradeshow or when they see you first, because it’s being many times I’ve gone to a tradeshow stand and been really impressed and then called the person afterwards and found the real company — the company that doesn’t answer their phone, the company that doesn’t respond very well.  The company where the people don’t smile, they don’t reply, they don’t follow-up.  If you think about it, when you spend all that money on an exhibition, the important part is then following up, if you want to get a return on that money.  It is not just taking all those cards, putting them all in a file and doing nothing with them, you have to do the follow up, you have to follow through and part of that follow through is what you are doing day-by-day in your organisation.

So my question this month:  Is exhibition what you do purely at a tradeshow, or is exhibition what you do every day in your organisation, and if so are your people understanding that?  Are your people rising to that occasion?  In other words, do they appreciate that it’s about the show; it’s about an exhibition every day.

I hope that’s been helpful to you.

I look forward to see you again next month!

Bye for now!

Paul

Xmas 2011

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Well, it’s Christmas shopping time again and I bet you’re as busy as everybody else trying to plan out for Christmas.

It’s Thoughts on Leadership time for the end of the year so I was thinking let’s have a review of the year and let’s also look forward to 2012.

So, end of 2011 and somebody described it to me, “it’s been a year of having to work a lot harder and run a lot faster just to stand still.”  And I suppose for many of us it may feel quite like that.  It’s been a year where it seems you put more effort into things and not really moved a lot further forward than we were a year or two ago.  But 2012 is around the corner and it’s new opportunity.  We don’t know what’s going to happen economically.  We don’t know what’s going to happen to the world at large.  But we do know that we are in control of what we are in control of.  Stop focusing on things that you’re not in control of.  Stop focusing on the things that you have got no input to and focus on what you can.

My word of advice for 2012 is going to be:  what — where do you really add value?  And I know we’ve talked about this in the past before but the value that we offer is going to be so important to our customers and to what we are doing out there in the market place.  If we really, really don’t know how to have value then we really, really are not in the position to add, to charge anything for it.

So 2012 is going to be about what do we do and how do we add value in a way that we’ve never had it before.  It’s a time to really reinvent ourselves.  What are we really good at?  Get back to defining what are we really good at, what is our expertise and work with other people in areas where it’s not our expertise, finding ways of doing things with partnerships in alliances with other organisations or other people and cut away some of the stuff that we’re not really very good at all.

2012 is going to be opportunity to differentiate yourself in some way.  It’s got to be that opportunity to really review the market altogether.  Don’t think about the customers and what they’re needing, think about what the customers need that they don’t even know they need.  There’s no point in trying to ask your customers what it is that they really want.  Customers are looking for solutions and they’re looking for new ideas, principally new ideas, better ways of doing things.

So this year ahead is going to be a chance really to reinvent yourself as a business and as a leader.  The start of leadership you’ve had – is it working for you?  Has it been effective?  Is it going to be the leadership style you need in the year ahead?  These are the questions that you really need to be asking yourself in this moment.  What type of leader am I going to be in 2012 and what do I need to do to be able to get there?  Don’t be frightened to talk to your people.  What are they looking for from you in 2012?  Those are sorts of things that you need to be asking yourself at this stage.

So in essence, don’t be frightened of 2012.  Is it going to be easy?  No, it’s not.  Is it going to be hard?  It depends on how you use the word “hard”.  It’s going to be a challenge, yes, but it can also be exciting to have that challenge.  It can also be exciting to see the opportunities and do something a little bit different.  Throw things up in the air.  Ask yourself, “If I was going to do something different, what could I do?”  What further activities could we involve in and do really, really well?  We’ve diversified in 2011 and it’s been hard work.  But the more you put your mind to it, the more effort you put into it, slowly the rewards start to come.

So don’t just think about 2012 as an end game.  Think about 2012 as the start of a new way of doing business, the start of a new approach to things that you’re going to do.  Diversify, work in partnership with alliances with other people, streamline some of what we are doing, add real value, add value that we don’t even know where – what it is yet but we’ve got to find – those are the type of things that you’ll want to look at launching in 2012 that will pay you benefits in 2015.  And that’s the mindset you’ve got to be able to have.

I hope you have a wonderful festive season.  I hope that the whole festive season and the New Year is just an opportunity for you to unwind and have some fun and spend some time with your family.  I certainly am going to do that.  And let’s get refreshed and ready for 2012.

2012 we bring out new ideas and new products and new things to help and make life more interesting, things that no one else that we know of is doing in the market place and we’re trying to reinvent ourselves.  So I challenge you, reinvent yourself in 2012 and I’ll look forward to seeing you there!

Have a great time and all the best for now.  Bye!

Technology

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These days with the technology, and what we have got available to us we can do so much, we can carry music around with us, carry books, and in fact we can now carry a load of stuff around with us.  The question that it got me thinking about is: what do we actually carry around?  Is it the stuff that we need to help us go to the next level, to be where we need to be in the future or achieve what we want to achieve in the future.  The type of music we listen to, the type of books we read, the type of articles we look at, and the sights we go looking at or feeding our mind in some way.  They are either pushing us to another level or they are holding us back.

So, I got to thinking about it and I was thinking about the work place.  What sort of literature do you provide for people to read?  Many organisations you know don’t necessarily provide anything.  I started to realise that the good organisations that I’d been to actually put literature out there that was good for the employees, that was stuff that they wanted to learn.  In fact, many of them have got libraries and people are encouraged to borrow the books from the libraries.  And they have books that would help them develop them, improve their knowledge, skills, their ability and so forth.

So I was thinking about in your business, do you have that encouragement for people to learn the right things, to have access to the things they need that makes them better?  Are you actively encouraging people?  Because really we are in the day and age when people are going to be more responsible for their own learning.  The type of music that people are listening to, does it get them in the mood for the job that they do?  Is it the type of music that stimulates them?  Or is it like walking into the morgue at the beginning of the day?

Music can make a difference!

So for this month I wanted you to consider what are you providing?  Are you thinking about these little intricacies?  We can talk about décor; we could talk about a lot of things, but things like reading and music are things that are quite easy to implement and to encourage people with that can actually make a difference.

So my questions for you this month are:

• What are you doing?
• Are you doing anything at all?

What are you doing about actively ensuring the flow of knowledge into your organisation, are you are having some sort of input to it?  I’m not saying that you control it or anything like that, but you are having input into it.  For that matter with your children, you should be doing the same thing if you have got children.

So what are you doing about it and what do you need to do to get to the next level?  I am telling you now, 2012 is going to be another challenging year up ahead and if we are not feeding ourselves with the right things in the right way at the right time, then we are not going to be able to grow as individuals.  If we don’t grow as individuals, then our businesses won’t grow either.

Something to think about this month

It’s great to see you again and hope to catch up with you next month.

Have a great month!

Bye for now!

- Paul

P.S – Please check out our new venture over at Bridle Infocus. Also we have new Learning Point DVD’s coming in the New Year, which will be available through Bridle Infocus.

Dealing with Difficult People

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The other day, I got asked an interesting question: “how do you deal with people who are basically stupid?  It’s just difficult, they are just being obnoxious with you and they are being troublesome.”

I got to thinking about that.  Well, how do you deal with somebody like that?  I actually think the biggest thing is, keep your cool.

The mindset you have is going to dominate the situation, not them.  The moment they dominate the situation and your mindset, then you have got a problem.

So, here’s my suggestion, first of all, you have to come from a premise that everybody means well.  Maybe not the way I approach things, maybe not the way you approach things but it’s the way they have approached it and there is some reason for that behaviour.  If you can understand what that behaviour problem is or whatever, then you can deal with it.

So, if the person’s intention is good, but they are just handling it wrong, then the questions are going to get a lot easier.  It’s right, okay, what was driving this?  How do you now respond to it?  Is there something else that is really the issue?  Can we get around it?  Have you got all of the facts?

This person knows something that you don’t know, often I find that people who know something that you do not know or, they think you do not know and that’s why they are so desperate to make their point to you.

So, they make their point, you listen, ask the right questions and then you are left with a situation.  Is this what I have to deal with?  Can I just politely say “thank you” and move on?  Or are they part of the decision-making process in which case I have to win them over?  If they are not part of the decision making process, do not get bogged down, just move on.  Say, “thank you very much” then get out of the way from it.

But if they are part of the decision-making process, well then you have to take it to the next level.  Start looking at what you can do to get them to see it differently and start asking them questions to make them think a little bit differently about the situation.

The questions I am going to ask you this month:

What is it that you can do yourself when dealing with this situation that stops you getting angry, getting annoyed, getting worked up and giving them the ownership for the situation, because they have basically compressed your mind with the way that they behave?

What can you do about it?  I used to do exercises; I used to start taking deep breaths, or just go off and do something else just to get away from it for a while.  Whatever it takes, have you got a strategy?  What is your strategy?  And then practice it if it’s not quite the right strategy; tweak it, until you find the right one.

We are always going to have these problems; the making of us is how we deal with them.

I hope this has been helpful.

See you next month!

Bye now

Paul

Learning and Teaching

My apologises for the previous update to Thoughts on Leadership.  For some reason we posted up last months information.  Also remember our new site Bridle Infocus

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Paul

Work Out Of Your Job

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Hi and welcome to another Thoughts on Leadership.

I’ve often used the expression “Leadership is the art of working your way out of a job.” It’s one of my favourite definitions of leadership.

Leadership really is about finding a way of extracting yourself from your current job and allowing the people around you to be effective, in other words, operate without you.  If, the business depends upon you as, an individual and you solely, that is actually putting the business in a very unsafe position.

Recently, I got to think about this a little bit more than that, instead of just seeing it as leadership as in running a business, what about leading our own life?  How good are we at working our way out of our current position?  Now that doesn’t mean I am saying work your way out of your marriage or work your way out of your relationship with your children or anything of that nature.  That’s not it at all.  What I am saying is what are you doing about getting so close, and getting so close to ground that as a result, you don’t take time to step back.  You don’t take time to really look at things and move away from things.

Really thinking about: “How can I work my way away from this?”  “How do I give myself some time to just relax and enjoy and do what I do?”

So this month, what I want you to do is to think about your life.

1. What are you doing and how much of a rut are you really in?

Are you taking the time to work your way out of the situation you are currently in?  For example, if you think about your wife and your children, your partner, etc. Your relationship with them will change as the years go by, if you are going to remain the same then you are probably not going to be the most effective in your relationship whether that be as a parent, or son/daughter, or husband/wife, friend, whatever it is.  So what are you doing about adapting and moving in that relationship, in a positive way?

2. In terms of business, what are you doing about taking time out?

Just go out and take some time to think, and think differently, think beyond where you are at this moment in time.

What are you doing about that and how you actively working at it on a day-by-day basis?  Don’t let yourself get so close to the ground that you just don’t see anything outside of your world.  Take the time to step back.

I hope it’s been interesting for you all this month.

I wish you all the best and we’ll see you again next month!

Bye for now!

- Paul

P.S – Please check out our new ventures, Bridle Infocus and Quota Sales UK

Integrity

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Welcome to this month’s Thought on Leadership.  This month I am returning to one of my favourite subjects and that’s the subject of integrity, something I feel strongly about.

What do you stand for?  What are you really – what are your principles?  Those are the things that I want to really focus on.

I think it was Groucho Marx who said: “I have got principles; you don’t like those, I’ve got more.”  And that’s what I find in people, they say they have got principles, they say what they stand for, but when it actually comes to the test, you find that they are different people altogether.

As a leader we cannot afford this.  Integrity is too important.  Integrity is constantly building that relationship with people, making those deposits in their emotional bank account, building that relationship with them, so that the integrity between the two of you is strong.  This enables you to be a more effective leader.

So what are your principles?  Do you really think about it?  Because often we say: “Oh, we’ve got our principles, we know what we stand for” etc, etc, etc, but when it comes down to it we find that we give way.  In fact, I sometimes joke with people, those I hear saying “I stand by my principles” and then actually what I find is that they spend their time ‘sitting on them’.

So what I ask you to do is really think about those principles.  What do you really stand for?  And are you true to these principles?  You know how it can be – to give you a silly example if you like – you are approaching a set of traffic lights, they go from green to yellow, do you put your foot on the accelerator or do you put your foot on the brake?  Ok, if you are a person who abides by the law then you put your foot on the brake so then you stop and you wait until the traffic light turns green again.  But if you are that person who goes: “Oh no! I have good principles, but on this occasion I am in a hurry.” Is that what you’ve ended up doing?  If you have, I can tell you what’ll happen, you will be in a hurry this time and then you’ll do it again and then you’ll do it again and the next thing you’ll find is that you are doing it out of habit, and not really realising what you are doing.

So the question is; what do you stand for and are you still standing for what’s important to you?

Think back to the way you were ten, fifteen years ago – what was important to you then and is it still important to you now?  Have you allowed it to slip away from you?  If you have deliberately stepped away from it well that is a different situation.  But if you have allowed it to just slip away from you that is not good.

So questions for this month, think back, what do you stand for?

• Do you still stand for what you think that you stand for?
• What are you doing about demonstrating it?
• What are you doing about showing people because it’s alright saying “Oh I have these principles”, but if people don’t know what they are then they don’t really know the real you.

I hope this has been helpful, have a tremendous month enjoy the summer.

Look forward to seeing you next month, bye for now.

Paul

P.S – Check out our new website; Bridle Infocus