GOALS for Today

How will you inspire yourself to work on your goals today?

Today, out of nowhere, this little acronym occurred to me:

GOALS
Go strong
Overcome obstacles
Act relentlessly
Learn constantly
Serve the greater good

What do you think? Maybe it's not a whole training program. Maybe it's not a teleclass. Time will tell. But, it makes sense for today, don't you think?

Goals require us to go strong and act decisively. We must take action!

When we do take action we are likely to experience resistance (from ourselves and from others) so it makes sense to work to overcome those obstacles. Don't let them stop us. Move forward.

Which brings us to the need to act relentlessly. We'll get distracted. We'll be given new work to do. Relationships will bring up new needs. But even while all that and more is going on we much work our plan. We must act relentlessly on our plan.

When we are assertively working on a plan we are likely to make some mistakes. New opportunities arise. The ground shifts and things change. That makes it essential for us to learn constantly. To create new ways to learn and learn when new ways present themselves. What could be more important?

What is important above all of this is to do it in service to something greater than ourselves. It is our responsibility to serve the greater good. Feed the hungry. Clean up the environment. Create justice and fairness. Share responsibility for creating a better world. When we pay attention to that, the rest of the story makes sense and the rest of the work comes much easier.

That's my inspiration on goals for the day. Who knows, maybe it will carry over to more days than this?

What will you do to inspire yourself today?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Are you working on your goals? Would you like some help? Check out my program, "Achieving Your Goals" or schedule an introductory "How to Achieve Your Goals" teleclass for your group.

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How to Analyze Root Cause Using Mindmaps

The Five Why's is a famous and useful tool for conducting a root cause analysis in problem solving. I've applied the idea of asking why five (more or less) times to get at the root cause and applied it to mind mapping. Since many problems have more than one cause, applying the process to a mind map keeps the door open for identifying many possible causes. While any one may appear to be the root cause, it is only in comparing all of them that you can clearly see the best opportunity. Here's the process that I use:

Start your mind map by writing your problem in the center. (In the example above, Stairway Accidents is the problem.)Radiat out reasons why there is a problem. What are the causes? What causes that cause? ("what causes" is as useful as "why" and without the emotional turmoil.)For each cause, ask why it's true or what causes it. Why that cause? What causes that - and radiate out your answers.Some "what causes that" may produce more…

Use Your Leadership Strengths

Our leadership strengths are like muscles. The more we use them, the more we apply them to situations, the stronger our strengths become.

How many problems could stand up to you using all of your clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion?

Use your leadership strengths. Develop your leadership skills. Solve those problems and achieve those goals with the ease and elegance that you deserve.

-- doug smith

Can You Stay Humble?

Have you known any leaders who let power go to their heads? Some people, once they gain leadership responsibility, allow their self-image and self-interests to take on outrageous proportions. But, leadership is not about selfishness. There is a major difference between healthy self-image and limitless self-interest. High performance leaders care about other people.

The results are important, and so are the people. To get there, to take care of people to such a degree that they of course work hard to achieve the desired results, a leader must control that ego. A leader must be humble.

You'll know when you are practicing humility: you'll be curious. You'll be patient. You'll be kind. If you're doing all that already, excellent and please continue. If you're not, the opportunity is there. True influence and power requires humility.

Humility is an early sign of understanding, and it's in the understanding that we begin to agree, to change, to grow, and to achi…

Learning Activity: Zip, Zap, Zoom Alternative

When I attended a regular acting workshop in Denver, Colorado we would often play a game called Zip, Zap, Zoom which some people loved and some people found frustrating. Even though I had great success with most improv games, this game did not work as well for me. That's why I offer this alternative.

Purpose:
To experience the frustration of playing a winning or losing game and then finding ways to convert that to a win/win game in order to develop a creative habit of looking for mutually beneficial outcomes.

Applications:
Conflict resolution. Communication skills. Team building.

Materials:
A writing surface and markers. Dots, or stickers (several for each player)

Process:
Play the game, Zip, Zap, Zoom conventionally in the first round. Form a circle of people, up to twelve people (for larger groups, break into multiple circles). One person starts by looking at a person to their left and saying either zip or zap. If zip, the next person turns to the left and has the same choice. If som…

Easy Answers

Are you looking for an easy answer?

We have so many simplified solutions these days. Our web sites give us big fonts to read, our phones send us reminders and even count our steps (got to get those 10k per day!) and our cars give us automatic transmission, power brakes, automatic lights, and soon will even drive themselves so that we can sit absorbed in our phones.

We've been getting used to easy answers. I'm not advocating giving back those easy answers - without a GPS I'd spend considerable time lost - but too much leisure also takes away muscle. We need the struggles of a tough solution to keep fit.

As tempting as it is, easy answers are not the only answers. We need a second light to see the shadows behind that all too easy to find solution. What are the complications? Who else is affected? What happens later?

Easy answers often play out hard.

We need more than easy answers because easy answers sometimes play out hard. It's not all grab-and-go, sometimes we need t…

Go Beyond Analysis

Do you enjoy analyzing a problem? I can analyze all day long. It is useful, and it's even satisfying. But it does not solve the problem. Problems are persistent and do not care about your analysis. To fix a problem, we've got to do something.

Your problem will probably survive analysis. Do more.

-- doug smith

Leadership Call to Action: Think about a problem that you have been analyzing recently. If you have not already done so, write down all the possible causes of that problem.
What is your next step beyond analysis? What part of that step can you do this week?

What Are You Following?

Leading requires following, and not just from your followers. What do you believe in? Where is your faith? What drives you? What is your mission?

Great leaders know that their direction - the place they are leading others - is built from a combination of influences, some remembered and some forgotten. It's gravity inside. It's magnetic attraction and a pull that keeps pulling.

We influence those influences. What we read, what we learn, what we talk about, the art we appreciate and the people we spend time with...we influence our influences. Why not do that with a sense of purpose and adventure?

Every great leader is following something.

Are you paying attention to what you're following?

-- doug smith

360 Focus Takes Help

Leaders, of any team, have limited vision. We can only see so much. What we see is also filtered thru our own beliefs and perceptions. A healthy self-image may add a positive spin to an otherwise cautious moment. An unhealthy self-image might make an otherwise positive experience incomplete. We need help seeing it all.

High performance leaders seek, receive, and utilize feedback. That means asking your team how you are doing. It includes talking (frequently) with your boss about your goals and how you are doing on your plan. Getting opinions from your customers also helps balance out your viewpoint. To truly know what's going on, leaders need to ask.

Are you asking? Are you getting the feedback you need from every direction that you need it? Today is a good day to ask someone who works with you, what's working great. And then, ask what you can do better. Because we can always do something better.

-- doug smith

Leadership Call to Action: Ask someone on your team to share with …

Build, Not Break

It's risky to ascribe motives to a problem. A problem is a situation, not an intention. And yet, we often do, don't we? We think of a problem with a personality out to do us harm. We can even think that a problem is out to break us, to wear us down until we don't matter. That is not true. The problem - the situation - does not care. When we pause to identify the goal that we want, instead of focusing on the problem, we can identify ways to achieve that goal and build our way out of trouble and into success.

A problem does not need to break you.

Problems are meant to build you, not break you.

-- doug smith

Learning Activity: Matching Gifts

Purpose:
Open up new possibilities in solving problems and achieving your goals. Identify opportunities to apply your gifts and the gifts of your team to problems and opportunities.

Materials:
Blank Index cards.

Preparation:
Create two decks of cards. One set of cards contains personal gifts and strengths, such as courage, creativity, clarity, compassion, centeredness, influence, charisma, passion, etc. The other set of cards contains current problems or opportunities that could be addressed using your strengths.

Process:
Each person draws a card from each of the two decks and explores whether the gift and opportunity match for them, or whether they match someone else in the room. Describe how whoever has that gift might help meet that opportunity or solve that problem by effectively using that gift.Other participants award points: 1 point for a reasonable explanation, 2 points for a creative and effective explanation, 10 points for an explanation and commitment to apply that gift on to t…

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