doug smith training

Why are you a leader?  What do you hope to get out of being a leader? Chances are, you got started in leadership for any one of thousands of reasons, but soon realized that what leaders do is help other people to achieve goals:  - your goals - your team's goals - your organization's goals - the personal goals of your associates To do this takes a combination of coaching, counseling, helping, equipping, encouraging, prodding, following up -- and basically, serving.  The purpose of leadership is serving a higher purpose that helps other people live better lives. It's what centered leaders do. It's what you can do. Why would you ever settle for less? -- Doug Smith

As a leader, how much attention do you give to improving processes? Are they optimized fully, or just barely inching along? Too often I've seen leaders spend their efforts trying to fix people, when the center of their problems is usually broken processes and procedures. Any process can be improved until it's no longer necessary. And then you can shut it down. Work at it until it is optimized -- doing everything that you expect the process to do without creating problems and without slowing people down. Keep improving those processes. If you're still doing it, you can still improve it. -- Doug Smith

Are your products or services priced correctly? If your sales are slower than you expect, it could be that the price is too high. People will resist prices that they perceive to be too high, sometimes without even knowing it. Movie theaters can sit empty. Used car lots can sit full. Inventories can create mountains as expectations whither in the wind, products obsolete themselves, and customers take new options. But is there a price that people will buy? My son Juan and I went to the movies to see the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It's an entertaining movie, but having seen the first three and considered the last just a little over-the-top, I could easily have skipped number four. But the theater we attended has a Tuesday night special ticket price of just $5. For a movie, that's good. We'd seen "Thor" a few days earlier and paid a whopping $13 a ticket (it was in 3D). For that showing of "Thor" there were maybe 12 people in the audience. I have t

What happens to your project team as your project gets closer to the deadline? Does it gain momentum? Does it play fast and enthusiastically toward the goal? High performance leaders do not assume that a project team will remain cohesive thru the project and beyond. They could get distracted. Resources could dry up. Technology could break down. Relationships could strain or get muddled. What's a leader to do? Increase the level of communication. Drive deeper, more meaningful conversations to see how everyone is doing. Keep team meetings focused and on task to make them more productive.  Create powerful presentations that ask compelling questions and create an atmosphere where you the leader listen and encourage others to listen with curiosity. Reward people for progress made -- but don't forget anyone. Singling out top performers at the expense of those carrying the bulk of the load can backfire. There's much that a high performance leader can do to ke

What is your best point of view? Given the choice of selecting the way you look at things, how should you look at things? Your optimal point of view is informed, curious, positive and productive. Your optimal point of view may have other characteristics as well. What would YOU consider to be your best way of looking at things? How can you best express that positively? Start by writing about it. Invite someone into a deeper conversation to explore it more. Listen to their reactions with curiosity, And, take it from there. Your optimal point of view is ready to be formed. That's when the powerful communication begins. -- Doug Smith

Does your leadership communication style attract the people you need to achieve your mission? It takes many kinds of people to truly optimize your results. The size of your team may determine how diverse you can get, but centered and high performance leaders who communicate effectively find ways to add diversity to their teams. Maybe it's in how you collaborate with people from other teams. Maybe it's how you work with your clients. Maybe it's how you listen with curiosity and express yourself positively.Attracting people to your team -- even if they aren't actually ON your team, is essential.  High performance leaders attract diverse talent -- and let them be who they are. -- Doug Smith

Want to send a powerful message to your people? Want to communicate more effectively? Smile. They want to know how they are doing -- AND they want to know how you're doing. Walking around with a serious face all the time will wear them down. They'll wonder what's up. They'll start to question the path your team is on. Their desire to communicate will diminish. You can do better. You can create better conversations. Start with a smile. Find the joy in what you do and share it. Find the happiness in your team and grow it. Smile. -- Doug Smith