Monthly Archives: January 2018

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Attitude

Leave a comment

Your attitude, that is the way you feel about someone or something is typically translated to behaviour.  Very simplistically bad attitude leads to bad behaviour and vice versa.

Being conciously aware of your attitude allows you to exercise control.  Like most emotionally founded behaviours this is usually not easy.

However, the results can be highly rewarding, not just to you but those you interact with as well.  Using your attitude effectively can be a great tool to make friends and influence others (to quote the very insightful Dale Carnegie).

Step One

To take control of your attitude toward anything you must start with recognition that you have one (an attitude).  Is your perception of someone or something fully open minded (without bias)?

The answer is probably never.  Significant bias or percieved feelings about a person or thing constitutes attitude and affects how you act.  Mild bias usually does not.

Recognizing you are displaying attitude is not always easy as it is as natural a personal behaviour as thinking or breathing.  You need to give it some concious thought otherwise you will not even be aware of the message your attitude is sending others.

Attitude is a powerful driver of behaviour and can be used for good.  Unfortunately though, rarely can the power of attitude be harnessed if you are not in control (i.e, your feelings are in charge).

Think of the incredible hulk, when his attitude takes over he becomes big green and powerful but not always in full control of his behaviour.

In the comics we see he fights for control to try and behave in a heroic way, but often his attitude overrides his good intentions. This is very similar to real life.  Success requires some level of control.

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Everybody is Important

Leave a comment

The last few days I have been musing about leadership.  Todays post is in the same vein, but with a bit of a twist. How others percieve you becomes the foundation of who you are to them.

On the positive side, if you are viewed as warm and friendly, thoughtful and knowledgable, kind, empathetic, easy to understand, motivated and successful, (to name just a few of the critical life skills) it is likely you will be able to exercise your earned power to a greater degree.

These skills are not only valued in leaders, but in fact serve everyone well with helping achieve their goals.  The key to their practice though, is the ability to be liked.  Arogant and conceited delivery can override personal effectiveness.

Everyone is Important

Embrace the thought “everyone is important” as a singular personal value and always behave according to that concept.  If everything you do is founded on this belief, by default you respect everyone and this permeates your behaviour.  Others will feel it clearly.

So whether you desire others to think of you as a leader or just want to use your own earned power to its best effect, start with an underlying mantra embedded in everything you do that will send others a clear single that you value them.

Leveraging this basic underlying default value as the drive of all your behaviours, that is good communication, empathy, self awareness, etc, will just be all the more powerful.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Measuring Leadership

Leave a comment

A multitude of behaviours are needed to be a successful leader.  The balance exercised around which actions to use, how and when is key to achieving success.

Leadership behaviour and being in a leadership role can be distinctly different.  In in leadership roles the expectation is you will exercise the optimal balance, but being in the role does not guarantee that will be the case.

Use leadership behaviours anywhere, anytime.

Behaving in a way that results in others perceiving you as a leader is not context, location or role specific.  The only distinction is the outcomes are achieved because of the way you behaved.

Unfortunately the outcomes leaders inspire and are accountable for initiating  can be good (e.g, Martin Luther Kings achievements) or bad (e.g. Adolph Hitlers achievement) but the leadership behaviour accountable for the achievement (good or bad result) is actually the same behaviour.

Behaviour

Being a successful leader is always associated with strong behavioural skills.  The key behaviours of communication, empathy, self awareness self confidence and self motivation are practices that can be executed at a variety of levels of competence.

Typically, if you think of a leader you know and admire and consider their behaviors together with the level at which they practice these behaviours, it will most likely be very skilled.

The Ultimate Level of Leadership

Leadership is not necessarily aligned with your role and having a leadership role is not indicative of anyones level of leadership skills.  A powerful measure of whether others considered you a great leader during your lifetime is not what you achieved during your life,  but rather how many people attend your funeral.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Oh behave!

Leave a comment

One of my favorite movie scenes is from Austin Powers International Man of Mystery.  It is  Austins response to the movies femme fatales offer to slip into something more comfortable.

“Oh behave, baby!”

Defined by our Behaviour

How do each of us assess others?  Basically, you start with the apparent, appearance, grooming and so on, moving on to speech, actions and non verbal communications.

All these things, from grooming to non verbal communication queues are derived from a persons behaviour.  So it is not a stretch to conclude how well you control your behaviour is key to achieving your goals.

Self Awarenes

Self awareness is the practice of being intimately aware of both your and others behaviours at any point in time, constantly analyzing the impacts and outcomes of your own behaviour (within context of those around you) and molding your actions to achieve the desired results.

To lead others, whether via the traditional “in front” practice or more innovatively from virtual or pheripheral places where physical positioning is irrelevant, the ability to behave in a self aware way is foundational for success.

In the simplest terms everything you do from how you dress, walk or talk to your written communications, facial expressions, emotional vibrations (what people sense about you) must be conciously managed.

Everything is carefully orchestrated to realize planned outcomes.  You know what you want to achieve and through awareness of your own and others strengths and weaknesses (expressed behaviourally) you get what you want.

The practice of strong and effective self awarness behaviours alone might not make you a great leader but it undoubtedly frames you for success.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Inner Peace

Leave a comment

Although external factors strongly influence our behaviours, it is technically correct to say you are both reponsible and accountable for your behaviour.

Responsibility

This noun can be interpreted with slight variations but as it applies to an individual it is primarily about the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions.

Accountability

This noun has a strong relationship to responsibility.  It refers to the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for your actions.

Feeling Peaceful

Proactively recognizing that taking accountability for things you accept as within your sphere of responsibility puts you squarely in charge of your life.

With this level of ownership worries, annoyances and frustrations need not exist.  By deciding how to deal with external influences on your terms, inner peace is achieved.

Consider this.  Is there any point to be frustrated, worried or anxious about things in your control?  Probably not.  If they are outside your control you can’t do anything so its does not make sense to waste time on them.

So logically as long as you take accountability and control you will never be frustrated, worried or anxious, in short a constant state of inner peace.

Too Simplistic

Emotions and human behaviour realities probably lead most to conclude this is interesting logic but not practical.    Before leaping to a conclusion it might be interesting to give it a try.

The success measure is simple.  Practice personal control consistently, then ask yourself, at any point in time, how do I feel? If your answer is consistently “ relaxed and happy” , than maybe  it does work.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Top down

Leave a comment

Traditional theory categorizes group management as top down or bottom up.  In this model bottom up is considered a weaker approach and indicative of lack of cohesive strategy or direction.

Sadly, for those that consider this concept viable, it is in fact an ancient and outmoded perspective. Today’s management philosophy is clear, effective and proactive  leadership is neither bottom nor top centric.

The approach chosen, leading from behind or in front, coaching results or directing results, ( to compare two extremes ) all work.  It is the context that leads to success, that is choosing the best approach based on the circumstances.

Show me the way

Traditional group concepts place a leader in front.  The expectation is that the group will behave in a sheep like manner, expecting the leader to get in front and set the direction for all to follow.

The modern perspective revolves around strategic leadership.  Although intrenched in the English language,  in fact, leader is no longer a relevant word.

The catalyst for group success lies with expert facilitation.  Channeling the energy of a group, team or organization does not require anyone to be in front, nor is it neccesarily the best approach.

Bottom up/Top Down

From an organizational perspective these are obsolete concepts.  High performing groups look within and cooperate seemlessly without boundaries and preconcieved notions.

In these cases the exercise of power lies with everyone.  You earn it and use for the good of all.   You are not granted the power of leadership.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Fear of Missing Out

Leave a comment

Human behaviour is most interesting for me when considering group think, basically crowd or herd mentality.

Many of you will be following the top equity market story of the last couple of months – marijuana companies.  The demand for these  stocks has no logical or rational analysis behind it that I can figure out.

Me too

Personally I believe this is a perfect example of the fear of being left out.   Based on the demand, unsupported by more than a quess at what sales volume the marijuana market  represents, thousands are acting out their me-too impulse.

Basically if we don’t buy now at whatever price we might miss out.  Lets get in before it’s too late.  News flash, it’s too late.  It was probably too late when the price for Canopy (the biggest Canadian marijuana producer) broke $8 a share.

Looking at basic indicators like sales, forecast sales, forecast earnings per share, net asset value, market cap, management track record and so on a solid case could be made to buy Canopy at $7 to $8 per share.  Beyond that, not so much and $42 per share, forget it.

(Full disclosure I bought at a little over $7 share).

Probabilities

Based on a very conservative guess at the size of the Canadian marijuana market, Canopy’s share of this market ( considering manufacturing capacity and current sales) it is highly likely they will be able to pay a 5 to7% dividend (based on a $7 share price) within 3 years (assuming they don’t retain a lot of capital to keep growing).

My estimation though is at $42 per share the dividend would be less than 1% at most and the only way you would get good value is if the sales grow rapidly along with demand for the shares.  A very big if for me.

So I conclude, the sheep mentality is in place and emotions, not logic or analysis are driving demand.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Economic Theory

Leave a comment

Economics is the practice of creating a theory to explain commercial activity.  This can span towns,cities, countries even the world.  The concept is to improve commercial activity through actions predicted by the theory as giving rise to positive results.

Is it working

There are a large number of well known and respected economic theories (Keynesian, Malthusian, consumerism, monitarism and so on).  Of course there are plenty of less well known theories as well.

The question of how successful economic management practices, based on these theories, have been is very difficult to answer.  I often wonder how the economy would fare without any intervention.

While activities that stimulate or contract commercial activities can be implemented and their results monitored, the question of what would have happened without intervention is unanswerable.

Todays Economy

Some industry and government organizations are questioning the relevance and effectiveness of traditional practices aimed at improving economic conditions.

The question arises whether economists have kept up with the myriad of continuously evolving factors that drive the economy.

Current changes in employment levels, productivity and individual wealth seem  to have little relationship to both macro and micro activities promoted by central economic theory.

Do Nothing

What would happen if governments stopped managing the money supply? (e.g.,  no economic easing , free floating rates, free trade and so on). Sadly no ones knows and it is unlikely we will ever find out.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Team Behaviours

Leave a comment

The other day a colleague advised me the topic I had raised for discussion was “my problem”.  This is hard to dispute as I am a believer in personal accountability.

What surprised me though, was the lack of understanding around the impact of such responses.  The message is clear, we are not a team, why are you bothering me with your problems.

Good communication benefits everyone

Team players understand the need to share.  The menbers of your organization are undoubtedly unique and diverse in their personalities and the associated behaviours.

Being a team player does not require empathy, sympathy or replication of others behaviours but it does mean listening, probing and understanding (i.e., strong communication).

We don’t always agree with each other, nor do we need too.  Diversity of thought and action are the underpinnings of innovation, efficiencies and high performing results.

Attack the idea not the behaviour.

It is easy to shut down collaboration, just respond with comments related to a persons behaviour.  For example, “not my problem, what a dumb thing to say, you have issues, you have not thought this out very well”

It’s not a stretch to realize those responses are not going to lead to a productive discussion nor team focused resolution.  Behaving individualistically encourages the same in others.

Help yourself and others

Being responsive, respectful and focusing on the content rather than the individual (e.g., you are, you said) benefits everyone.  Positive conclusions are achieved, not neccessarily agreement but at a minimum understanding.

So next time, before responding to someone in a way that includes, “you” or “ your” or “their” and so on pause and rephrase in a way that will result in more effective collaboration.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Boxing the Information

Leave a comment

It is a very natural human behaviour to classify, categorize and assume knowledge based on structure and context.  That is to say we tend to “box” stuff.

Bias and stereotyping are common sub-practices that incorporate this “boxing” behaviour.  For example, many people consider the female sex physically weak, dark skinned people are more likely to be criminals.  Asians are smart and really value post secondary education for their children.

These bias or stereotypes are simply a way of categorizing information quickly.  They are not necessarily true and certainly they represent an extreme.

In reality, extreme absolutes are rare.  Most things balance somewhere in the middle.

It does not require much effort to behave based on preconceived notions.  Unfortunately reasoned and balanced analysis does require conscious effort (it’s hard) .  As a result, most of us follow the easy route and act on simplistic assumptions, they seem logical but are they?

Take time to Understand

Consider a situation where you are going for a job interview.  You dress to impress and prepare sharp and positive things to say about yourself.

You believe a structured approach to the interview is best.  You don’t want to be perceived as conceited or arrogant.  In essence you are going to behave according to the “box” you have put the hiring manager into.  You are going to act the way you think most hiring managers expect.

Why do we box our behaviour this way.  Why assume these contextual aspects.  Why not start by being yourself, after-all if the employer does not want you for whom you are, then everyone is being disserviced.   You are fooling the employer and yourself.

Standing out as unique, may result in a very positive outcome.

Be Different

It is harder and takes a conscious effort to pause and think the best way to react in a situation, as opposed to the perceived “box”.    The results from acting outside the box, the balanced approach, can often surprise, in a positive way.

This is not to imply being different, thinking and acting outside the box is a guaranteed way to success or that it will always work but if you don’t try it occasionally you will never know the benefits.