doug smith training

Bumping into our limitations is irritating, isn't it? It's a distant, but vivid memory I have of eagerly raising my hand in class because I knew the answer, only to discover that my answer was incorrect. Ouch. It was one of those small things that felt like a big thing. I often call myself a "recovering know-it-all" because the more I learn the more I realize the vast amount of things that I do not know. The first answer that comes to me is not always correct. There is always more to learn. We're all small at some level. Knowing that level leads to growth.  -- doug smith

This might sound like a paradox, or a riddle, at first. I think of it as a koan.  It can be hard to be honest with yourself but it's the only way to the truth. Like it or not (and sometimes I do not like it) if we are honest with ourselves we can see our tender little fragile assumptions. If we're brutally honest with ourselves we can taste the vinegar in our lies. When we insist on exploring the truth before declaring the truth we have a much better chance of finding the truth. What do you think? -- doug smith

The project team is stuck. Answers are not only hard to find, they seem impossible. The problem keeps causing mistakes and creating barriers. Within robust conversations we discover that although far from perfect, the process with the problem offers plenty of opportunity. Something small and almost unnoticeable turns out to be useful.  Within every problem is something that is working. What if that contains the secret to success? -- doug smith

It may be comforting to lean on what we've already learned, but it's not enough. That doesn't mean that we need to abandon everything that we've learned, just to pay attention to what is changing. We can rely on learned foundational principles like continuous learning, ethical leadership, participative leadership, respectful communication and other core strengths that serve us well and that still matter. We also need to react to and find ways to manage brand new learning. Just exactly WILL we lead completely virtual workforces? How WILL we manage misinformation? What SHOULD we do about creating fair opportunities? There is much to be learned, but then again there always HAS been much to learn. The challenge now is to keep up the pace, to distinguish truth from deception, and to treat people with respect while building our own flexibility. What we've learned is important. What we still must learn is critical. -- doug smith 

How do you feel when things take longer than you expected? Complications, surprises, mistakes, barriers -- all kinds of things can make an easy path into a complicated trail. We're lost, but if we're paying attention, we're learning. Sometimes you need to spend a long time lost to find a better way to get there. -- doug smith  

How you grow is up to you, but you can learn a lot from how others have already grown. You can skip many of the same mistakes. You can build where they have established a foundation. You can grow by developing similar healthy habits. Growth never needs to stop. How are you growing today? -- doug smith  

Do you ever catch yourself relying on old tools? We've all got those tools that just seem to fit comfortably into situations that we feel the need to fix. Stock quotes, favorite lines, basic interventions, templates left from some long ago project... It's not that they won't work (sometimes they do!) or that we should abandon them forever. Instead, it's a matter of branching out, dancing faster, jumping into new waves of motion. Learn how to use new tools, give the old ones a rest, and see how much more useful your whole set of tools becomes.  I'll try that -- how about you? -- doug smith

Are you helping your team grow? Not in size, although that can be useful. Growth in terms of ability, skill, motivation, traction, change, endurance, happiness...are you building those components in your team? If you are the right leader for your team you'll help them grow.  Otherwise, they'll find someone who does. -- 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?

Are you a life long learner? I'm going to guess that you are. Life long learners stay in learning mode long after it feels like they should have all the answers. We never really have all the answers, and besides the questions keep changing!  One added bonus to project work is that each project provides ample learning opportunities. There's nothing quite like experience as a teacher. And, there's nothing quite like teaching your team how to meet your project expectations to teach yourself a bunch more. Projects bring about growth. I like to think of each project as another step to what I'm becoming. One project to the next your character -- and story -- grows. Let's keep growing. -- doug smith  

How many times have you started over? Not a minor change, I mean completely started over? New job, new relationship, new car, new year? Starting over is tough, but necessary. It's aggravating, but essential. To get where we'd rather be we have to change where we are. Changing feels like leaving an old friend behind and that makes us drag our feet. Yet here we are, in constant unrelenting need to pick up our feet, to move on. It's good. Change gives us chance -- the chance to improve, to learn, to grow. How many times have we started over? Every day we're starting over. Let's start over in joy. Let's start over with learning, with growth, with new levels of understanding, understanding that we can't possibly know it all and that is fine. We just need to keep starting over.   -- doug smith

Have you noticed that some of your biggest problems from many years ago no longer bother you? You've likely solved them, outgrown them, or left them behind. That's not true for every problem of course, some physical problems stay a lifetime, and some systemic problems last for generations. Some problems truly are out of our control. But what can we do about the problems that we do have influence over, we just haven't yet solved? Working a useful problem solving process is one way. Continuing to learn is another way. Evolving and developing ourselves prepares us in whatever strategy we use. High performance leaders and performers keep growing.  Evolve faster and you could make your most persistent problem obsolete.ff Then you'll be ready for something even bigger and better. -- doug smith

How fast are you growing? Can you feel yourself evolving and developing into the next better version of yourself? As old as I am (and if you ask my best friend, she'll tell you I'm OLD) I am still evolving. Still growing. Still experimenting, trying, striving, and stretching. Not as fast as before, perhaps, but there are no additional boundaries -- just opportunities. I aim to do as much as I can as long as I can. As Judi tells me, "you can sleep when you die." Well, I do need sleep BEFORE then, but in the mean time she's right: there's a lot of work to be done. Get busy. -- doug smith

Imperfection is a human condition but not a curse. The blessing is in the constant process of growth. Grow. -- 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

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

Leading requires following, and not just from your followers. What do you believe in? Where is your faith? What drives you? What is your mission? Great leaders know that their direction - the place they are leading others - is built from a combination of influences, some remembered and some forgotten. It's gravity inside. It's magnetic attraction and a pull that keeps pulling. We influence those influences. What we read, what we learn, what we talk about, the art we appreciate and the people we spend time with...we influence our influences. Why not do that with a sense of purpose and adventure? Every great leader is following something. Are you paying attention to what you're following? -- doug smith

Have you ever seen a leader so effective that they couldn't get better? Me, either. Unless we are constantly developing we are falling behind. Let's keep growing. The best leader you can be is still there ready to be developed. Keep going. -- doug smith

I suppose that if a problem is easy to solve that it isn't even a problem. Just solve it and be done with it. A problem like that is more like a decision than a problem. We all have bigger problems than that, though. We all struggle at times to solve what feels like an unsolvable problems. Some problems truly can't be solved, and must then be managed. How can we tell the difference? We need to ponder the possibilities. We need to change the problem into a goal and figure out how to bring that about. The difficulty is like a framework for building something we haven't thought of before. The problem stands there, a form waiting to redirect our notions of what is possible. Tough or not, solvable or not, a problem creates a space for traction. A problem you can't solve is give you room to grow. Grow. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action Create a list of three problems you have not been able to solve. Next to each problem, write the one leadership ski