doug smith training

  Strength is not a zero-sum game. Your strength does not subtract strength from anyone else (or shouldn't). Someone else's strength does not subtract from yours. Sometimes we act like it does, but it need not be that way. As high performance leaders our job is to help others to develop their strength. In the process, we develop our own. Our strength does not depend on anyone's weakness. We never need for anyone else to ever be less in order for us to be more. We can all grow. We can all improve. We can, and should, all develop our leadership strength. -- doug smith

Do you rely on the same methods of work over and over again? Have you been using the same tools for years without reflecting on why? My dad was a weekend woodworker. He worked in a glass factory as a supervisor most of his life, but he was also a skilled craftsmen. He even built our house. He didn't know everything about every craft, but he found ways to learn. He mainly learned by helping. When the contracted plumber installed the plumbing in the house he was building, he helped the plumber. When the electrician installed all of the wiring and circuits and kept everything up to code, my dad helped. He followed orders. He did the heavy lifting. He listened attentively. And, he helped. Not so that he could install plumbing or electricity in future houses (he never did) but so that he could FIX whatever malfunction occurred later in his own home. He saw which tools he'd need. He learned how to think thru a problem. He found the boundaries of his knowledge so that he'd know wh...

How have you been lately? Disrupted, interrupted, upset? It's a journey through more surprises than any of us figured on. Predictable perhaps, planned for, umm, no. We deal with one crisis after another, day after day. As a dear friend of mine once said (and I paraphrase) "you can have a problem and your upset, or you can have your problem and no upset. Either way you have to deal with it. Why not deal with one problem instead of two?" Things will throw us off-center. There's no benefit to getting upset about being upset. Instead, redirect back to the center. Breathe. -- doug smith

We do not have to create teams where people either win or lose. We do not have to create organizations where people either win or lose. We do not have to create societies where people must either win or lose. We can make better choices. As high performance leaders, we can co-create better outcomes; ways for all of our constituents to benefit. We can even compete without tearing down our competitors. What if every action you made as a leader improved the world, instead of producing a little tear in the fabric? Zero-sum leadership is not sustainable or defensible. Lead without producing loss, or face your own eventual loss. -- doug smith

What is your two-word mission statement? I'm sure you've seen a lot of mission statements. I have, too. Most of them are so long that I couldn't remember them if my job depended on it. And yet, in many ways, your job does depend on it. I've learned that if you keep it brief, it's easier to remember which makes it easier to do and much more likely to shine as the strategic guiding light that you're looking for. Try this. First, identify what you do. Second, identify how you do it. Put those two things together. If you don't like what develops, try again. Find yourself a two-word mission statement and see how empowering it makes you feel. If you like it, keep it. If you don't, try again. What is your two-word mission statement? Mine is "developing leadership." It's an abbreviated version of the full mission statement of "developing leadership with clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion." I like both. I can reme...

Does your team see and feel the real you? Are you the same person at work as you are when you are on your own? Or are there masks that you wear, roles that you play, that you leave backstage when the day is done? Leaders should be authentic. They also have personal lives. Your life at work may not match your life at home, and that's OK. What's NOT OK is if your life at work does not match your values. High performance, centered leaders lead with the heart as well as the mind and they lead with integrity. In "Alice In Wonderland" there are lots of surprises, lots of tricks, lots of turns, lots of levels of deception. Have you ever known a leader like that? How they achieve their goals and how they think thru their processes can feel like a total mystery. I'd rather work for a transparent leader who has no secret agenda. I'd rather work for an authentic leader who shows you what you get and tells the truth first time and every time. How about you? M...

Goals require change. Big projects force us into areas of uncertainty. Growth can feel uncertain. Setting a noble, powerful goal is essential AND so is the work to bring it about. We will experience resistance to our most powerful goals and sometimes that resistance comes from within. Resist the resistance and power thru. The outcome depends on your work. We might love the goal and still resist the changes that it requires. Recognize your resistance and let it go. It only stands in your way. What goal are you working on today? -- Doug Smith How to achieve your goals is part of the two-day workshop Supervising for Success that you can bring to your location. Contact me today to see how in two days you can develop the clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion it takes to be your best possible leader.

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