doug smith training

If your boss is rough on you, that could affect how rough you are on your own people, but it should not. Leaders don't get to hand down the trouble. Abuse shared is multiplied, not diminished. Having someone lose patience with you is no reason to lose patience with them. Centered leaders focus, breathe, and maintain. It's what you'd want, and therefore what to deliver. -- doug smith

Centered Blue Bolts Our natural condition is centered. It's the distractions that pull us away. -- Doug Smith

Why would any leader try to suppress a good idea? It's because they don't think it IS a good idea, isn't it? Or maybe it's because they need all of the ideas to be THEIR ideas. Or maybe they are not thinking it thru. There is no point to it. Holding a good idea down will likely strengthen its wings inviting it to fly somewhere else. Then, freed, it can't help you. Open up to those wild ideas. Let your creative side prosper and teach your other sides to listen. Suppressing a good idea is only temporary control. Let go. -- Doug Smith

How solid is your plan? I firmly believe that in order to achieve your goals you must design a creative, assertive plan and then act relentlessly on that plan. Don't give up. Dig in. Fly. Push. Do those action steps and keep plugging away. Here's the paradox. As you're plugging away you must also be ready to dance - ready to pivot, ready to change. Every great plan includes some degree of flexibility. As soon as your plan is in motion, something will change that will necessitate change in your plan. That's OK. Go with it. Stay relentless on your plan, AND stay flexible. It's the love of the paradox that will bring a smile to your face. High performance leaders are centered and flexible. We cannot break with every change, we must simply bend and then snap forward. On target, on purpose, on the rise. Every plan needs some flexibility. Are you at peace with that? -- Doug Smith

Have you ever been blocked from solving a problem by emotions? Anger, sadness, grief, despair, impatience...emotions can make things tough on a problem solver. Staying centered helps. Keeping balance. Drawing on our core strengths of clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion to keep perspective clear and kind. Any problem exists in a field filled with possibilities. Emotions can poison those possibilities if we lose our way. The way is clear. Stay focused. Stay balanced. Stay centered. Breathe. Stretch. See. Stay curious. Relax. Easier said than done? That's why it takes training and practice. -- Doug Smith

Are you looking for more balance in your life? I facilitate some workshops that include people who are desperately looking for ways to balance their work and their life. Sometimes they are looking for a magic wand, and that's not available. There are ways to find this balance. There are things that each of us can do to keep our focus. One essential ingredient is to keep in touch with our creative center. Our creative center is that part of us that simply knows when we need to move from the ordinary and find creative ways to move forward. Our creative center stores up our creative experiences and makes them available when they are needed (and, they are needed often!) Our creative center is that place where we can balance our flexibility with our urgency in order to see more possibilities. Anxiety, worry, and tension are often generated by the failure to see more possibilities.  But we do have the tools to overcome that - the creativity that we develop can supply the focus an

What are you good at? Really, really good at? What can you do that is absolutely wonderful? How many people know about that? Here's a tricky trick - how do you do your best, give your best, and let other people know about it without letting your ego take over? We have many essential leadership skills to choose from. I find it useful to think of these five essential leadership core strengths as a place to start: Clarity - know exactly what our purpose is and setting clear goals to live that purpose. Courage - speaking and acting assertively without getting aggressive. Creative - discovering and expanding our possibilities Compassion - caring about and for others Centering - staying mindful, in the moment, flexible, and able to use whatever core skill we need You're really good at one of those. Better than most. It's your core leadership strength. Bringing that core leadership strength to work with your team is doing it a wonderful service. The world needs wha

Do you bounce back after making a mistake? We must. If we are truly growing, truly taking chances, truly making a difference we will make mistakes. I've made plenty in my days in the world - little ones like not talking to someone right away who enters a room and big ones like missing what a client really wants out of an event. I've learned from each and every mistake and would like to think that I'm better because of them. But at the time, don't they hurt? Yes. Centered leaders develop the resilience and flexibility to overcome mistakes. What will you do to develop more of that resilience today? -- Doug Smith

Are you still discovering who you are? Do you have any big theories or processes that you are still working out? One of my big unifying theory-processes-notions centers around what I call centered leadership. It's different than the centered leadership identified in a recent book by the same title (I've read that book and it is filled with great insights and I don't disagree with any of it -- it's just that it was develop outside of what I have been thinking of as centered leadership. I did try to adapt away from my thinking but it's no use, I'm heavily intellectually invested in this now so I parallel my way thru any diversions). The purpose of this blog entry is just to capture another related notion with some connectedness. It's the psychological idea often referred to as the "Big 5". Good heavens, I have another notion I've been calling the Big 5 that has NOTHING to do with any of this but I won't let that deter me (my Big 5 is a

One of my favorite lines comes from the character Lou Grant. It was either the Lou Grant Show or Mary Tyler Moore. He essentially played the same somewhat surly yet lovable boss on both shows. His line went something like this: "I don't like to make a lot of rules because then I just end up enforcing them." That seems like useful advice. As centered, high performance leaders we shouldn't need a lot of rules. And, we should be extra careful about being fair in the rules that we do create. If our rules create losers, why would anyone want to play? -- Doug Smith

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi Not every cause creates a buzz. Not every leader finds the people needed to move the movement. Sometimes followers are hard to find. Sometimes our communications fall unheard and unheeded. Have you ever tried to lead an effort and found that you were mostly alone? What happens next? Remembering that if it was easy, it would have been done long ago, leaders with a focus on making necessary and timely change keep at it. Followers may come and go, but the cause remains. Centered leaders lead even when followers are hard to find. That's the part that calls for influence. Are you ready? ACTION PLAN: 1. Identify your most important cause. What is the one thing that you want to influence in your life right now? 2. What can you do to start influencing that, right now? 3. Who are your three closest friends? What would they each say about your noble cause? Ho

Centered leaders feel a calling for the work they bring to the world. It's more than a duty; more than a job. The sense of mission that leads to completion and satisfaction drives centered leaders as they work.  Centered leaders optimize their work by working on their calling. What's your calling? Are you working on it everyday? What will you do today? -- Doug Smith