doug smith training

  How often do you participate in some refresher training? Those skills you acquired may be doing fine and yet as time goes on we smooth over the edges of our sharpness and take unexpected shortcuts that costs us quality. Refresh, re-learn, re-discover, re-apply: it's an important part of leadership development. We don't remember everything we learn, which makes refresher training so vital. Which of your skills could use a bit of refresh? -- doug smith

Who has shared your life the most with you? No matter who that is, they haven't shared every moment with you. No one other than you has always been experiencing what you've experienced. You are unique. Not alone. Not isolated. But unique. Distinctive in your gifts, talents, and abilities. Distinctive in the challenges that you've overcome. One of a kind among many, you are unique. Everyone other than you has missed what you've been through. Where you take your distinctions from here is completely up to you. What will you build? What will you grow? How will you serve? It gets ever more exciting from here, doesn't it? -- doug smith

You CAN get there from here.  When you think about it, you can't get anywhere except from where you are. We always start where we are. We always grow from our current level of development. We don't always know what that level is, though. Seeing our level of development is like finding a map to a treasure. The treasure is the better you, the better us, the better world. What does it take? Development, learning, and growth. To reach our potential (which may well be unlimited) we need to keep moving. To keep moving, we need to know where we are.  We can identify our level of development by asking the people we work with what works, and what needs work. We can attend training both in the skills we need in our work and in knowledge and skills that may not (on the surface) have anything to do with our work but that keep us growing. Growth is on your side. Go with growth. -- doug smith What have you learned today?

What are you learning today? If you want to do more, you must be more. Become more. Keep developing yourself. -- doug smith  

Do you delegate? Many leaders struggle with delegation. Some don't delegate enough because they worry that the work will not be done to their satisfaction. That's a case for developing both the leader and the people the leader could delegate to. It can be overcome. Some leaders struggle with delegation by only delegating work they'd NEVER do -- mundane, routine, or nasty tasks that the person getting the work doesn't want either, they simply have no choice. That is no way to endear yourself to your team. We do need to delegate though. And sometimes the work that we delegate is routine but simply needs to be done. During the time that I worked there, my team leader at Whole Foods once told me, "we don't pay supervisors to wash the dishes." She did go on to say that handling the dishes for 15 minutes set a good example, but washing them the whole shift simply kept the supervisor from leading. A more powerful form of delegation is done for develop...