It’s Sweet Sixteen time in the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. By now, some favorites have already been sent home, and some underdogs are preparing for the fight of their lives. At this stage in the tournament, the competition is stiff and teams are more evenly matched by their win/loss records. The pressure felt by players and coaches is immeasurable, but out of the stress, 8 elite leaders will rise. Here are a few leadership lessons from March Madness:
Take the Leadership Bracket Challenge
If there is any competitive aspect of leadership, it is usually a competition of one. We are measured by our performance against a goal, not in comparison to other leaders in the organization. If anything, each leader tries to beat their personal best track record or experience. The goal is always to be a better leader today than you were yesterday. And yet, if your plan is to continue moving up the leadership ladder, you are absolutely in direct competition with your peers. And the competition is stiff. There are only so many titles with a C or SVP in … Read More
Reboot Your Leadership with Ctrl + Alt + Del
Every once in a while we all need to hit the reset button. When projects are off schedule, budgets are blown, morale is low, sales are down, and deliverables keep mounting, it can feel like nothing is going right. It’s hard to break the downward spiral and cycle of negative thoughts. As a leader, it’s easy to get stuck in desperation mode and keep wondering “how did we get here?” While reflection is certainly important, at times we just need to STOP and RESET.
Better Than a Trust Fall
I once had a really great sales team leader who lived by the motto “if you do the right thing, the numbers will just come.” What he meant by that is if you spent time building real, caring relationships with your customers so you know, understand, and solve their pain points, the sales will happen automatically. Any time a sales team member had a unique customer request and they went to that leader for approval, the conversation always went like this: Sales team member: “The customer needs X, but that will mean we need to do Y, which requires us … Read More
Cutting Off the Ends of the Ham
A young girl was watching her mother bake a ham for a family gathering and noticed her mom cutting off the ends before placing it in the oven. “Mom, why do you cut the ends off before baking the ham?” she asked. “Hmmm… I think it helps soak up the juices while it’s baking. I’m not sure, though. That’s just the way your grandma always did it, so I’ve just always cut them off. Why don’t you call grandma and ask her?”
Everyone Gets a Three
One of the most daunting tasks for new leaders is the first annual performance review of their team. Let’s set aside the usual laundry list of reasons why annual performance reviews are ineffective including the cumbersome talent management systems used to track them, the fact that the goals were set and forgotten a year ago, and time it takes to complete the process. The most frustrating part of it all is that they really don’t matter. A colleague of mine shared her first performance review experience as a manager: