How Highly Successful Leaders Develop Habits

The flock of squatting seagulls seemed increasingly agitated at the prospect of having their early morning, beach breakfast interrupted by my power walk. As I marched within ten yards, they all took flight, squawking… except Goliath (not his real name). Goliath’s eyes warned me to back off as he continued pecking at the scraps of food left by careless beachgoers. But I kept my stride, puffed out my chest, and stared back, reminding him that I was king of this beach. When I came with a few yards, this lion of the beach protested loudly and finally took flight. That's when I thought about the critical role habits play in leaders’ efforts to take flight.

"First we make our habits, then they make us," wrote the English poet John Dryden. How much of your day is spent operating according to habits? Do you have unconscious routines as you get ready every morning, drive to work, interact with colleagues, prepare your paperwork, or conduct meetings? Of course, everyone has habits. However, the real question is, do your habits have YOU?

Many of our habits begin as newly learned skills that evolve over the years into unconscious routines (i.e., habits). Moreover, many of these habits serve us well, allowing us to focus on important tasks and relegating the unimportant to the background of our minds. But have you thought about how to create new habits consciously in order to become a better leader? That’s what got me thinking about the seagulls and the big one I named Goliath. Goliath had created a habit of being the last to take flight. How much extra food do you think Goliath has eaten because he created a habit of staying longer than others?

The analogy may not be perfect; nevertheless, the point is that highly successful leaders discipline themselves to turn daily actions into life-long habits. They know that knowledge is not power, only applied knowledge is power.

Instead of just letting your habits dictate your behaviors, put desired habits to work for you. I discovered long ago that the secret to implementing new habits into everyday life is to link the new skill you want to become a habit to something you are already doing. In other words, connect what you want to become a habit to an existing habit. Figure 9.2 expresses this concept in a simple, yet powerful equation.

A Formula to Create Habits

Old Habit + New Skill = New Habit

I recently coached a senior executive to share a little more of his inner life with his team in order to improve his empowering style (via integrity). I told him to write the words “share self” at the top of his notepad because he had a habit of taking notes during meetings, telephone conversations, and one-on-one interactions. Every time he looked down to write in his notepad (his old habit), he was reminded to consider, if appropriate, sharing something personal by the words “share self” (new skill). This prompted him to practice the new skill. After several weeks, he told me that opening up a little more to his team was becoming a habit. He had combined an existing habit (taking notes during conversations) with the new leadership skill (sharing self) to implement the new habit of sharing his inner life.

This concept is as old as tying a string around your finger. The only question is, how will you use this old principle to help you practice the new skills you need to achieve your goals? Listed below are several examples of how to combine old habits with new skills. Adapt them to create the habits for those critical skills you need to master to reach your goals.

1. Index cards. Write a skill on a 3 x 5 index card. Put the card in your pocket. Whenever you put your hand in your pocket, read the card. You may also want to place a check mark on the card every time you practice the skill.

2. Pocket change. Put seven coins in the right pocket of your slacks. Every time you put your hand in your right pocket, move one coin from the right pocket to the left pocket and remind yourself to practice your new skill. Let the coins be a metaphor about the importance of making small change over time. (Thanks to my friend and professional speaker Bonnie Dean for this suggestion.)

3. Watch. Program your watch to beep on the hour. Use the beep as reminder to practice the new skill.

4. Cross your fingers. Visualize yourself using your new tool as you cross your little finger (pinky) with the ring finger next to it. Visualize the new sales skill when you review your morning goals. Create the rich mental images, sounds, and feelings as you imagine yourself successfully using the new tool. When you're actually in your new environment, cross your fingers as the reminder to practice what you imagined. I’m convinced this approach was instrumental in helping me turn my questioning strategy into habit when I was in sales.

5. Mirror. Slightly tilt the rearview mirror in your car. Every time you look in the mirror, tell yourself aloud how you are applying your skill today.

6. Notepad. Write a “reminder word” at the top of the notepad you use during the day. Just as in the “sharing self” example, every time you looked down to scratch a note, you will be prompted to use your new tool.

7. Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). As you review your daily appointments in the morning, write a word or two to remind yourself to practice your new skill.

8. Computer. How can you change your screensaver or scheduling software to inspire you to practice your skill? How about placing a post-it-note on your computer?

9. Colleague. Whom can you count on to encourage you to take daily action toward your long-term goal?

10. Meetings. How can you add the new skill as an agenda item to your meetings? For example, one leader e-mailed me after our leadership training that she had added “systems thinking” as an agenda item for their meetings. She said it was helping her and her team create the habit of thinking systemically about the issues they were addressing.

We operate according to habits that have evolved over many years. Yet few leaders use the power of habits to help them achieve difficult goals. I urge you to use the method described here to build the belief in your plan to reach your destination. As you do so, you will master the one habit of huge seagulls and high-flying leaders – the habit of making habits.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

How Leaders Develop Expertise

In previous blogs, we discussed that in order to achieve difficult goal, you might need to help your team develop the expertise required. The seven steps of mastery described below show you how to develop and practice any new skill you need to learn in order to build the belief that you can achieve your goal.

1. Select a critical skill or competency you want to improve that will help you reach your long-term goal. Then write a goal for this skill. Focus on a small, relatively simple, stretch goal. For example, if you want to improve your listening skills, your S.M.A.R.T. goal could be: During all meetings this month, I will improve my listening skills by asking at least one question before giving my opinion.

2. Learn as much as possible about this skill from the many models available to you. Whom could you call who does it well? What books or audio programs can you digest? Are there seminars or workshops you can take? What if you simply search “improve listening skills” on the internet? You might also choose to observe or interview a few of the best listeners in your unit/company.

3. Decide how to measure your progress. British scientist Lord Kelvin asserted, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it." Therefore, you must choose a method (or person) to provide feedback as you test the new skill. For example, you might simply place a check mark on a notepad every time you ask a question during all one-on-one and team meetings for a month. One leader I coached shared his “listening practice goal” with his virtual team. He then invited them to count his questions during their one-on-one phone conversations and virtual meetings. That which gets recorded gets repeated. He was promoted during our coaching agreement.

4. Practice deliberately. Begin practicing the skill in a safe environment. Safe environments are the training wheels of new skills. Olympic gymnasts practice new skills in safety harnesses. When you try the new skill, do so where you feel safe and where the consequences of poor performance are minimal. Practice the skill in your car, at home, with a friend. For example, leaders who have improved their listening skills, often begin at home were they are more comfortable taking their training wheels off in front of loved ones.

As your comfort level increases, increase the difficulty of the skill. The essence of deliberate practice is continually stretching just beyond your current abilities. On the basketball court, at the driving range, or in a business setting, most of us do what we've always done before without progressively increasing the difficulty. As your improve your listening competency, for example, you could try your growing skills in a variety of different or complex environments (e.g., with key customers, in executive meetings, during difficult negotiations…). If you want to achieve difficult goals, you must practice what you don't do well.

5. Record feedback after using the skill. We don't learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on our experience. It’s important to analyze performance immediately after trying the new skill. (In the military, these are called after action reviews.) Begin your evaluation process by describing what went well. Make a quick list of things that you felt good about when you attempted this new skill. Next, write a few thoughts about what did not go as planned. Why didn’t it? What can you learn from the trial that will help next time? Be gentle with yourself and others. Complete this step by refocusing on the positive and what went well.

6. Reward yourself for taking action. Using positive feedback can keep you motivated and on track throughout the day. When a baby learns to walk, the smiling faces of cheering adults spur the child on as it gains mastery over its environment. Employ the power of immediate rewards to reinforce the baby steps toward long-term success. These pat-on-the-back rewards increase the probability that you will try, try, try again, especially if at first day don’t succeed. Of course, do not reward every practice a session. The classic studies on conditioning teach us that intermittent reinforcement is best.

7. Make this new skill a habit. Incorporate this skill into your everyday routine.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

How Leaders Build Belief In Their Goal - Part 2

What do Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates have in common? If you guessed money or fame, you’re right. But if you guessed they have “achieved extraordinary results,” you’re spot on as my friends in the UK might say.

How did they and other peak performers achieve these extraordinary results? For many years, outstanding achievement in any endeavor was thought to be the result of outstanding genes. However, recent research has shed considerable light on the nature versus nurture controversy. Nurture has come out on top. Innate talent or natural gifts, once thought to be the key driver of amazing accomplishments, have been relegated to a secondary role. Something as simple as practice (yes, we're talking about practice) seems to be the major contributor to outstanding goal achievement. While modeling (discussed in a previous blog) is about learning from the best, mastery – the second step in building self-efficacy - is the process of practicing what your models teach you.

In a review of more than 300 scientific studies entitled, The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance, Professor K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University and his colleagues concluded, "Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years." (1)

As Fortune magazine senior editor Geoffrey Calvin points out, Tiger Woods’ father introduced him to golf at the age of 18 months, and encouraged him to practice. (2) Tiger went on to become the youngest Winner of the US Amateur Championship, at age 18… after 15 years of intense practice. Warren Buffett is well known for investing long hours studying financial statements of investment targets. Bill Gates had more than 10 years of concentrated programming practice before he ever cofounded Microsoft.

The importance of practice small steps in reaching goals is also illustrated in the movie What About Bob. In this comedy, Richard Dreyfuss portrays a psychiatrist/author who has a dysfunctional patient named Bob, played by Bill Murray. Throughout the movie, Dreyfus is trying to help Bob take small steps to improve his psychological health. In fact, the title of Dreyfuss’s book is called Baby Steps. Practicing increasingly difficult "baby" steps to achieve a goal, based on what is learned from models, is what this movie and mastery all about.

If you or your team members need to learn new skills or practice old ones in order to achieve your long-term goal, then you need to practice the art of mastery, the second key to building self-efficacy. Mastery states that your belief in your ability to reach your goal will increase as you deliberately and progressively practice the actions that you learn from your models.

As in modeling, you have already practiced mastery in other parts of your life. Have you ever trained for an athletic event or any sport? If your answer is yes, how did you prepare? What did they call the sessions that prepared you for the race or the competition? (If you answered practice, you get a gold star.) Remember learning how to drive? Did you start out driving on the highway? Of course not. You probably started in some deserted parking lot with a driving instructor telling you what to do. You then gradually increased the complexity of environments that you drove in. Eventually, you worked your way to the highway. You built your belief that you could achieve your goal step-by-step until you became a highway star.

The importance of progressive or deliberate practice was also emphasized by the extraordinary work by Professor Bloom at the University of Chicago. (3) He investigated the lives of 120 of the America’s very high achievers in six diverse professions (concert pianists, research mathematicians, neurologists, sculptors, Olympic swimmers, and tennis champions). He interviewed these peak performers, along with their coaches, parents, and other family members in an effort to uncover the common elements of their exceptional accomplishments. His key findings tell us how to practice mastery in order to reach our long-term goals:

• View early practice and performance activities as play
• Maintain a strong commitment to excellence
• Receive strong, on-going encouragement from coaches
• Develop high commitment to increasingly complex learning and growing

Practice does not make perfect, progressive practice makes perfect.

All four of these keys are related to taking small steps over time. Dr. Bloom’s 557-page encyclopedia of achievement is reminding us that if we need to learn or practice new skills to achieve our goal, we must develop the discipline of mastery.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues; The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance, Psychological Review, 1993, Vol. 100. No. 3, 363-406.

2. Geoffrey Colvin; What it takes to be great, Fortune Magazine, October 19, 2006.

3. Bloom B: Developing Talent in Young People. Random House: New York, 1985.