doug smith training

It might seem obvious, but it's worth remembering: strong goals provide you with strength. They provide you with strength of purpose, strength of direction, and strength of endurance.  A goal that you truly care about, that's written with clarity provides help when others try to hinder. Lots will try to get in the way. The best goals resist this resistance and persist to achievement. A solid, clear goal can withstand any judging. -- doug smith

You're not just part of the team, are you? You are, as the team leader, at the center. You set the tone. You set the speed. You set the mood. Those are powerful abilities, if you use them in high performance ways. You'll need power, and you'll need strength, and you can't grab that from anyplace else other than yourself. Your team is counting on you. Whether or not they tell you, they depend on you to be their strong leader. The strength of patience. The strength of persistence. The strength of high expectations. Pull your team together. Talk with them individually AND as part of the whole team. Let them know how to succeed and they'll do their best to do so. As much as you might want it to, your team will not build itself. It needs a strong leader. That's you. You can do it. You're the boss. -- doug smith

From Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Executive Coach, comes this is a great way to share fast, low risk coaching with a number of people. The three steps are simple and easy: Write down an area you'd like to improve that would have a big impact for you Ask for 2 positive suggestions for the future that would help with that area Repeat getting positive suggestions from others in the group There are two simple roles for the process: No talking about the past No judging or critiquing ideas Here's Dr. Goldsmith describing the process in one of his highly useful videos: I found this article and video from one of my favorite sources of leadership advice, GetLighthouse.com, here .

Would you like another super power? There's a skill that, once you start using effectively, begins to feel like a superpower. You never have to settle for a poor answer again. I learned this from my mentor Andrew Oxley, who taught me "if you don't like the answer to a question, ask a better question." Try it. It takes practice. At first you might run out of questions. But, if you stick with it and work at it you can always, always, always come up with better questions. And if you get stuck, silence can even be your better question. Just don't give in. Just don't give up. Ask better questions. Remember what Andrew Oxley said: If you don't like the answer to a question, ask a better question.  -- doug smith

How many top priorities do you have? The trouble with too many top priorities is getting them done. Too many top priorities means you don't really have priorities -- just a really long list of goals. Have all the goals you want. Goals are great. I've know people who carry a list of 100 goals. They check them off one by one, and some have truly accomplished nearly half. That takes time, and feels more like a bucket list than a goals list. Top goals are what you work on first. Top goals are what you prioritize above all else. Top goals are where your results make a meaningful distance. High performance leaders show the courage to focus on five top goals. How many do you focus on? -- doug smith

We may so many decisions. Big, little, routine -- lots of decisions. When it's harder than usual to decide (because the issue is complicated or the choices are vast) it helps to rely on our goals. Which decision supports our goals? Which decision gets us closer to achieving our goals? The right goals help make the right decisions. -- doug smith

I gain much from watching these brief videos from Business Made Simple featuring Don Miller. If you enjoy them to you can subscribe. This one features some quick advice on how to get your boss to like you.

Have you ever worked for a perfect leader? Me, either. And neither am I a perfect leader. We can't be perfect, yet we can work to be on the work toward perfection. It's a road we'll never finish. I've been blessed to work with many great leaders, none of them perfect. But, some people have not been so lucky. Some people seem to have worked for a long streak of frustrating leaders or bullies. Maybe some of those people are headed for (or already on) your team. The news is good, though. You can greatly influence their future experience, even if you were previously less than what they needed in a boss. It's a new day. It's a new time. You can be a new, improved, effective, attentive, high performance leader. Start today. Be the leader you always wished you had. Someone else is wishing for that, too. -- doug smith

Have you ever been stuck with goals that no longer work for you? Did someone else stick you with those goals, or did you do it to yourself? High performance leaders set lots of goals, but they don't get emotional about realizing that they can't possibly achieve all of them. Life brings complications, strategies change, better goals come along. Working on a project, working for a boss, working on change -- if the goal is big enough there is likely to be disagreement. That's OK. Talk about it. Negotiate. Find a goal you can agree on instead of grudgingly plunging forward on a loser. And then, stay calm. There's no need to take a disagreement personally. We can disagree on goals without becoming disagreeable. -- doug smith

Problems are aggravating, inconvenient, and frustrating. High performance leaders -- successful supervisors -- build muscle around solving problems that comes from practice, application, and outright solving. One problem after another, solutions come from facing the problems head-on. A problem could lead to frustration, OR it could lead to learning and growth. Go with learning and growth. -- doug smith

Are you carrying any useless goals? Maybe they didn't start out useless, but still you carry them long after the energy has drained. If you've got goals that you no longer care about, that have no real customer, and don't align with your mission, you might want to let them go. Focus on the right goals. The ones that make you both smile and sweat. The goals that once you have achieved them take you to a different place, put you in a better mood, or build something contributing to your success. Let go of the wrong goals to make room for the right ones. The right goals help make the right decisions. -- doug smith

Supervisors are asked to make more moves each day than a complicated game of chess. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you end up in what feels like a stalemate. But you keep on pushing, you keep on growing, and you keep on growing. Making the right moves, what I'd call the Royal Moves , requires training, experience, and an open mind. You need the open mind when the moves don't go exactly as you planned. Are you making the royal moves? Are your people growing, thriving, excelling, and delighting their customers? Are you making the royal moves? Is your own career developing in ways that challenge you and still bring a smile to your face? The royal moves keep you growing. It's deciding to plan more carefully so that the unexpected is not quite so unexpected. It's building the relationships that help you resolve inevitable disagreements. It's taking the time to coach your team members every day instead of letting administrative details pull ...

Work on yourself and then working on others gets much easier. They're more receptive, and you're more prepared. -- doug smith

High performance leaders spend much of their time coaching their people. We coach so that our team members can learn to generate the energy and effort they need to do their best work. We coach so that our team members will light up. But, sometimes, the light within our team members wanes. Sometimes, they need a boost. Sometimes they need us to light the way for them. Bring the light. Light the way. Keep them on track. Then, watch them shine. -- doug smith