OPTIMISM, HOPE, ENJOYMENT, HUMOR, LOVING PEOPLE, PLAYFUL, LAUGHING AT LIFE

Don't you feel better just reading those words?
People want these qualities in a leader.
Yes, you need all the skills of leading--strategic thinking, communication, delegation, innovation, blah-blah-blah. You know these.
But people also want all of the above personal qualities in the person who is their leader.

Our workplaces and world has become grim. Positive words from a leader are often a fake marketing facade. Reality is tough. Leading has become about pulling, tugging, scaring, forcing, people. Energy lags. There is a chronic hopelessness. 
Try some warmth and nurture and a metaphorical hug for your company:
Positive, grateful, human: 
Optimism
Hope
Enjoyment
Humor
Loving people
Playful
Laughing at life

This is where energy comes from to be directed for results that then invigorate a company.

SIMPLE CUSTOMER CENTRIC ASSESSMENT MODEL—FOR CEO'S

So, picture a string that goes from you, the CEO, to your prized customer
You want it lightly taut. No strain but highly sensitive. You tug it and the customer feels it. The customer tugs it and you know it right away.

Now, picture the string between you and your best customer and think about your organization:

-- Who or what pulls down on the string so that the impact of a customer tug doesn't get to you?
.
--Where is the string so loose and long that the connection to you loses its strength? 

--Who or what feels the tug but redirects it with strings they have added? 

-- Where is your string about to break? 

-- Where do you keep your end of the string?  Do you ask someone else to hold it?  Do you forget where you keep it? 

--Who or what function does the tugging for the customer thinking the customer is too dumb to know what they want, need or feel?

--Is your string too short and tight so that everyone responds to the tug all of the time or too long and loose so that no ones "feels" the customer

Know your customers are out there tugging and tugging and tugging.
Check your connection with the string model and adjust. Tighten, loosen, cut, lengthen, strengthen, untangle!!

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT

Reading The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is a nice way to refresh your leadership idealism about what 'team' can be like. As the cover says it's about "Nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics". 

The book has many themes and plot lines but what struck me was the description of the teamwork needed for "rowing" an eight person boat.
There is an x factor talked about that emerges that carries the boat and crew (and an organization) to a new and sustainable extra-ordinary performance. I've been lucky enough to experience it for seven years out of a 25 year career.  (The rest of the years were good but not with the "swing" of those particular seven.)  Read below for some quotes from this compelling book and a description of 'swing':

     When the critical moment in a close race comes upon you, you had to know something 
      your opponent did not know—that down in your core you had something in reserve, something 
      you had not yet shown that would make your opponent doubt himself, make him falter when
      it counted most.  Like so much in life, crew was partly about confidence, partly about knowing
      your own heart. The boys in the boat were good-hearted.

      Eventually if the crew team was to become Olympic contenders, they had to develop that
      rare balance between ego and humility

      No other sport demands and rewards the complete abandonment of the self the way that 
      rowing does.The team effort, the perfectly synchronized whole beautiful symphony that a crew
      in motion becomes is all that matters. Not the individual, not the self.

      One of the first admonitions of a good rowing coach is "pull you own weight". The boat goes
      better when you do.

      Always be "in the boat".  You must row with head power as well as hand power.  From the first 
      stroke all thought of the other crew must be blocked out. Your thoughts must be directed to 
      you and our own boat, always positive, never negative.

      When you get the rhythm or the 'swing, it's not hard work. The synchronization of heart, mind 
      and body creates a fourth dimension where the 'run' (the work) is uncanny and the work of 
      propelling the shell a delight

I'll stop before I re-write the whole book. Read it and think about your company and your team.  

AREN'T WE LUCKY??

I have a dear friend who I see regularly.  We share our ups and downs.
But lately we've been sharing mostly downs.
And then we feel guilty because we have darned good lives.
I mean, we are not Afghan women.

So, when we are in the middle of a good complaint session, one of us
will laugh and say, "Aren't we lucky".  And then we laugh.  It's both sarcastic and a course corrector.  Then we will list why we are lucky and it gets hysterically funny and then shifts into giving it perspective.

For example, she called when she had two feet of water in her basement
which she found when she returned home at 11 at night. She roused the plumber and he unhappily came. BUT he wouldn't go into the water til the electricity was turned off and that was in the basement under water. So she called the fire department that came blaring and were hesitant to go in til it was drained. It was a burst pipe so the water was continuing to rise. She asked for a pair of boots to go in herself.  I don't remember the resolution.  I do remember her phone call of distress and that I listened and the said, "Aren't we lucky?"

—Aren't we lucky that there is such a thing as a plumber that got out of bed?
Aren't we lucky that the firemen were cute?  Aren't we lucky that ruined stuff clears out clutter? Aren't we lucky that sleep doesn't matter? —

Anyway, you get the idea.
AREN'T WE LUCKY?????????????

LYING FALLOW IS AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF PRODUCTIVITY

Funny.  No one uses the word 'productivity' much anymore.  We change the business vocabulary to freshen the concept (and to sell books). Execution,
results focused, KPI achievement, the business babble continues. Soon it will be back to 'productivity'.  They all translate to 'more, more more'.

Is 'more' sustainable? (Another word of the day) The demand for more will not work if it is a linear, constant, harsh demand for profit. It eventually wears out  the organism/organization.  

And so, the importance of building in time to lie fallow, to rest and restore and return (land) to health and productivity. I have often wondered what would happen if a company as a whole took a big break at the same time. I worked with a bank that had to have everyone take a weeks vacation at the same time to check for possible theft in the system. It was like a celebration when everyone returned. Renewal at the whole system level. 

This is my way to say have a great vacation this Summer.  Naps are the penultimate way to lie fallow. Let your mind take a break. Try living with no push in evolved.  Great things do not happen with effort alone.