What enables you to be the best version of yourself?
There is a science and an art to professional development.
2017 will be a challenging year for many of you reading this. Whether you’ve just been promoted at work, or you’re entering a new era in your personal relationships, knowing WHAT will make the difference is step one in not just surviving, but in thriving at work and in life.
Leaders Who Meet
What if there was a way you could effectively and efficiently learn how to navigate the winds of change?
I think you’d want to know how as soon as possible. I believe you want to learn the practices that could strengthen your communication skills and help you connect and collaborate more effectively with others. The thing is, you might be trying to do this on your own.
A manager in St. Louis emailed me to say,
“I have our book club reading your book, and we’ll get together on January 11th to discuss it. Do you have a book club/reader’s guide you could send?
When an opportunity arises, take it.
I replied with a PDF that one of our Get Momentum members created years ago. A one-page summary AND activity guide for the book Your Best Just Got Better that he hands out to his direct reports whenever he promotes someone.
And, I included an offer:
“If you all get together in one room on the 11th, I’ll come by via video and host the first half-hour of your book club discussion.”
Now, this was months ago, and as anyone reading this can appreciate, “Shift Happens.”
Two weeks before I was due to meet with the group via our Video Meeting program, a client re-scheduled our full day seminar from January 18th to… January 11th!
Was this going to be a problem? No! It wasn’t going to be a problem because I was meeting them via video, using an App on my iPhone.
You see, meeting this way via technology has several advantages:
- You can attend live events (webinars/telephone conferences) from your office, home or while commuting.
- Recorded events are available for download and watching/listening 24/7.
- (Most likely) You can reach out to the presenters/coaches and get extra attention.
The scheduled time - 7AM Pacific - was too early for me to arrive at the client site. So, the only things to figure out were:
- What time to leave in order to be parked by 7AM?
- Where I was going to park so that a strong WiFi signal could reach my iPhone?
- How much of a battery charge would I need to run a 30-minute video meeting via an App?
Before you read on, here are THREE questions you must ask:
- Am I regularly meeting with leaders?
- Do I invite expertise from outside the firm to help our leaders build capacity?
- What can I do between now and the end of the month to incorporate TECHNOLOGY in to my PRODUCTIVITY and workplace performance?
There is a science and an art to growing the leaders around you.
Science:
Study the goals you’ve set and challenges coming your way. Divide your goals into smaller segments - think in terms of 90 days at a time. Develop your plans to chip away - project by project - on milestones you can achieve to get there. Do the work it takes to define and commit to the life and work you want to experience. Pause long enough to reflect on the coming year and years.
Art:
Look for chance opportunities and take advantage of them. When you think something could happen, call someone and ask them to think through it with you. Brainstorm, dream, create a vision of the future that you look forward to experiencing. This way, you create strong motives for action; those can pull you ahead.
St. Louis Leaders Showed Up…
Last Wednesday at 6:55AM Pacific I “dialed in” to the Video Meeting.
My iPhone was set on a tripod in the passenger well of my car. My earbuds/mic were plugged in, I was connected to a strong WiFi signal, and the battery was fully charged.
The 30 minutes were a wild success; and the follow up email I got reinforced the fact: Leaders Who Meet, Get Better…Faster.
(Take a look a the picture on top of this post…there we were last Wednesday!)