doug smith training

  Leaders make mistakes. Oh wow, do they make mistakes. At question is, are we learning from those mistakes? Can we manage our emotions? Do we redirect our misdirection? Do we serve instead of pander? Leadership is hard. That's why people are asking you to be in charge. Learning constantly will make it better, but it will always be hard. When it stops being hard, ask someone what is it that you're missing -- because you are definitely missing something. -- doug smith

I like this quote about coaching, and I think it applies to much more than coaching. Maybe, just maybe, everything. Where does confidence come from? Well, you might be able to drum it up or talk yourself into it but that's shallow and not so resilient. True confidence comes form competence: knowing you can do what you say you will do, and doing it. It's reliability. It's sincerity. It's thousands of hours of practices and service. Phil Jackson had a lot of success in his career. His teams oozed confidence. And you know what? They were also really, really good. Build that confidence. Develop that competence. Learn constantly, every day. -- doug smith

Is your big goal bold enough? Does it make you sweat? Does it make you nervous? Does it make you excited to think of the possibilities? Here's how I know that it's big: I can't possibly completed it yet until I have worked my way up to it with smaller, incremental goals. Think of it as training. Think of it as development. A bold goal prods action. Go bold! -- doug smith

  I say it a lot: "what gets appreciated gets repeated." When people please you, celebrate. When people meet your expectations, celebrate. Let people on your team know when they've done a good job. They're starving for that kind of attention. Let them have it. -- doug smith

  Sometimes a manager, with every good intention, will skip around the supervisor who reports to them and provide direction to a team member. The supervisor is cut out of the equation.  It's fast. It sometimes works. It always has side-effects. The main side-effect is that the next time that same team member has an issue or a problem, they will go around their supervisor and directly to the manager. Before you know it, the manager is supervising the employee and the supervisor is cut out. That's not what you want. That's not what the supervisor wants. And, that's not good for your team. I know that in today's world there are fewer levels of leadership. It makes sense that people should be able to talk, at any time, to anyone in the organization. Keep your doors open -- just remember, you probably don't want a parade of people two levels down marching thru. -- doug smith