How Leaders Apply WHATEVER They Learn to Achieve eXtraordinary Results

The End is the Beginning
The end of ANY book, seminar, or educational endeavor is the start of your journey to fulfill your purpose for that endeavor. In other words, the most important part of education is what happens after you obtain it.

Let’s assume you just finished reading a book on leadership. Why did you read it? To become a better leader, of course. But will you actually become a better leader? Haven't you read other non-fiction books that failed to help you to take the action required to improve your skills? We don't want that to happen to you, do we? Knowledge is not power, applied knowledge is power. You spent your money, and more importantly your precious time, reading the book. (FYI, the expenditures for training and development services in North America exceeds $120B. Training Magazine, Oct., 2003.) You need to see the pay off! Otherwise, it’s like shoveling cash and small pieces of your life into a burning potbelly stove.

How To Use It and Not Lose It
The process outlined below will help you apply the ideas you learn from any meeting, seminar, book... It is a system that shows leaders how to invest, not spend, their time and money on education.

1.      Brainstorm challenges and strategy. Ask yourself: What major challenges am I facing at work? Let your ideas flow and keep your pen moving as you brainstorm the answers to the question. In addition, reflect on your professional goals and your organization's strategy.

2.      Write a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Based on your business challenges, professional goals, and your organization's strategic imperatives, write a S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Responsible, and Timed) goal for your leadership development. What do you want to do better or differently because of the book? For example, one executive at our recent leadership course said her goal was: Improve my coaching skills by… (insert date) to help my direct reports develop professionally.

3.      Meet with your manager. Meet with your manager for a few minutes to discuss your goal. Access your commanding skills and tell your boss what you’re planning to work on. Ask for input, especially regarding how well you have aligned your goal with his or her overall strategy.

4.      Review your insights, ideas, and behaviors page. Write a list of 7 to 10 insights, ideas, or behaviors (IIB's) on a sheet of paper. (I do this as I read a book or take a class.) For example, listed below are several ideas that leaders from my leadership classes identified as most effective:

• Use the XLM for my and my team’s development. Ask team members to assess their XLM at www.xlmassessment.com. Then develop ways to leverage our talents and hold each other accountable for stretching. Meet every two weeks to measure progress and celebrate our success.
• Map a paradox. Conduct a mapping session on issues affecting our team. This will help them understand the tension they feel and increase buy-in to managing the two issues simultaneously.
• Eliminate internal silos using systems thinking principles. Think systemically by increasing cross-functional teamwork, inviting other departments to our meetings occasionally, and using the S.T.A.T. model.
• Focus on what’s important to team members. Meet 1-on-1 with one team member every day for five minutes to discuss individual concerns, clarify expectations, and applaud small successes.
• Increase two-way communication. Speak last at meetings, ask more questions, listen better, and remember that broadcasting is not communicating.
• Conduct after action reviews. Coach others by delegating small portions of my job, and then ask these questions after completion: What happened? Why? What lessons were learned? Who else might benefit from these lessons?
• Make better decisions with the XLM. Access all four orientations of the XLM when making decisions. This will help ensure I have all the facts (R), consider the big picture (V), assess the impact on others (E), and take action (C).
• Manage anxiety. When stressed, ask the team "how can we view the differently?" Also, remind them that anxiety is the essence of growth and that great companies approach downturns as a chance to beat their competitors.
• Understand concerns and focus on influence. Use Stephen Covey's circle of concern and influence to encourage me (and others) to take personal responsibility, exercise their free will, and be expansive.

5.      Review your favorites with a partner. Review your insights, ideas, and behaviors with a colleague. Focus your discussion on the few IIB's that you feel will help you best reach your goal. Tell your partner how you're going to use these few IIB's.

6.      Create a list of four behaviors. Translate your few, insights, ideas and behaviors into four specific behaviors you will implement when you get back to work. Write these four behaviors in the left-hand column on a blank sheet of paper. A well-written behavioral action helps you adapt an IIB into a behavior that you can actually see yourself applying. Here's an example: I will write the XLM on a Post-it note, and place it on my computer screen during my direct reports' performance reviews.

7.      Link the new behavior with an old habit. One of the best ways to remind yourself to practice your new behaviors is to link those new behaviors to old habits or current systems (old habit + new behavior = new habit). In the previous step, the old habit (i.e., current system) was conducting performance reviews. Linking the performance review with the XLM on a Post-it note will help create the new habit of using the XLM to develop direct reports.

8.      Review and celebrate progress. When you are back at work, solicit feedback from a colleague or your manager regarding your implementation of these behaviors. Ask them to help you monitor your progress. Once a week, report the progress and challenges you are experiencing as you use your new behaviors. Make sure you also celebrate your small successes. Don't worry too much about your goal, concentrate on behaviors. Research tells us that you will accomplish your big goal by focusing on small steps.

The most important part of education is what happens after you obtain it. Which of these steps do you use to help you Use It and Not Lose it? Are there others you find helpful?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

P.S. Click on the link below (or paste it into your browser) to read about my research on 171,000 leaders:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html

Ten Tips To Improve Leadership Learning

"Dave, we need to talk about your responsibilities around here." Jack was the new director.

"Okay, what should I be doing?" My teenage voice cracked as I rubbed my sweating palms.

"I know that under Bob you had a lot of responsibilities. I heard he even gave you the unofficial title of assistant youth director. Well, all that stops as of today. Consider yourself demoted to the front desk."

I was devastated.

Two years earlier, Bob, the youth director at our local YMCA, hired me to work at the front desk in the youth department. I worked hard for Bob and eagerly took on every new responsibility he tossed my way. By the time I turned 19 years old, Bob had entrusted me to lead the YMCA’s youth leadership program, junior high school teen center, and assist in running two, month-long, cross-country camping trips.

But now, it seemed that my professional growth had come to a crashing halt at the tender age of 19 because Bob left.

How about you? What happens when you are dealt a professional setback or encounter a new, challenging situation? Do you go through the experience or grow through it?

In a survey of 6,900 managers from 77 firms, the McKinsey organization reported that only 3% agreed with this statement: "We develop people effectively." (1) I invite you to adapt their question by asking, how effectively do I learn?

If you want to grow through today's turbulent environment, you must take control of your own development. It is not your boss’s job to keep you informed about the numerous changes bombarding your field. Of course he or she should support your learning efforts, but why trust your future in their hands? The latest research tells us that if you want to keep earning you must put agility in your learning.

Learning agility is the ability to deal effectively with new situations and changing conditions. When Jack took Bob’s place at the YMCA, my world was turned upside down. The question became, was I an agile learner who could grow through these tough times? (Read on to find out.) Researchers Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger followed 313 managers for two years after they were promoted. (2) They found that high learning-agility managers performed significantly better in their new jobs than those with lower scores. This study and other research tell us that a key to navigating any whitewater environment is becoming an agile learner. (3) Leaders I coach find the following ideas helpful in growing their learning agility. Pick a few that might work for you.

1. Involve others in learning. One administrator asked members of her team to develop a plan to train everyone on the new office software installed. Another invited the staff to add content to their web site.

2. Make education part of your meetings. When I was Chief Administrative Officer of Molecular Imaging at UCLA, our Friday staff meetings included a 10 – 15 minute educational agenda item. We would teach each other, invite faculty, and ask outside experts to bring us up to speed on technical and medical issues.

3. Volunteer to be on unfamiliar committees. Become more active in your associations. I’ve been on the board of directors of the National Speakers Association (LA Chapter) for the last four years. It keeps me going AND growing!

4. Obtain objective measures of quality. The Radiation Oncology Department at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Penn maintains a very active patient satisfaction survey and regularly reviews results. How active is yours?

5. Become an advocate for change. The top companies are ever mindful of how advanced technology serves their strategy. Are you?

6. Conduct small experiments. Ask your team members to try novel approaches to improve operations. Then conduct after action reviews.

7. Ask more questions. Listen more than you talk during one-on-one and staff meetings. Broadcasting is not communicating.

8. Find a coach or mentor. Be willing to look at issues from multiple perspectives by asking for diverse opinions. When I was conducting research at University of CA –San Diego, I learned a great deal from a few mentors.

9. Actively solicit feedback. Complete a research-based 360 assessment (e.g., http://xlmassessment.com/ ) in order to lead with your strengths and manage your weaknesses.

10. Try something new every day. Drive to work a different way, change the drawers in your dresser, go to the theater or symphony instead of the movies, brush your teeth with your less dominant hand...

Meanwhile, back at my local YMCA… how did I handle my change? After licking my wounds for several days and realizing Jack was not going to change his mind about my responsibilities, I approached Don, the director of physical education at the same YMCA. I asked him if he had any open positions. He said yes and I went to work for Don the next day. I continued my professional growth under Don and his able successor until I left home for graduate school.

Popular speaker and author Zig Ziglar recently told me, “I wasn’t much of a student in school, but I sure became a good one after school.” What kind of a student are you?

I encourage you to improve your leadership learning by developing your learning agility. Which of these ideas will you try?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

P.S. Read a great article about how my research on 171,000 leaders can help you be an eXtraordinary leader; click on the link below (or paste it into your browser)

http://davejensenonleadership.com/XLMHoweXceptionalLeadersAchieveeXtraordinaryResults.html

1. Cited in Michael Lombardo and Robert Eichinger, The Leadership Machine, 2002, page 165.
2. Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo: Learning Agility as a Prime Indicator of Potential, Human Resource Planning, December 01, 20004, 12 -- 15.
3. Lawrence Clark: Wanted: fully engaged, learning-agile people, People & Strategy, December 1, 2008.