doug smith training

How much of your day do you spend helping other people solve their problems? Leaders seem to spend a lot of time listening, sorting, consulting, coaching, and working with people so that they can solve their problems. All of this often comes before the people involved have anything to do with solving the leader's own problems. It's a duty that builds relationships and loyalty. It's a calling that helps to make leadership unique. And it starts with better conversations. Centered leaders help people solve problems quickly, fairly, sustainably, and collaboratively. Who are you helping today? How will you create a better conversation that leads to problem solving? -- Doug Smith

Do you sometimes wonder if a certain person will EVER learn? Have you ever become frustrated when someone seems to repeat the same mistakes? Helping someone to learn can take patience. It can take several tries. It can take several methods and all of our reserve of creativity. But if the lesson needed to learn is worth it, we persist. People will learn if you don't give up on them. Maybe what we've tried hasn't worked yet. Maybe we need to try something else. Maybe we need to decouple ourselves from the consequences of that other person not yet learning. I try to keep this in mind: they haven't failed yet -- they just haven't yet learned. Maybe we need to ask better questions and create better conversations. That's where our influence starts. -- Doug Smith What have you learned today?

How do you feel right after you have solved a problem? Do you get a boost of energy, of personal satisfaction? Do you feel more confident and self-assured? Any problem that you solve will likely make you feel better. Solving problems comes with all sorts of benefits. - Enhanced perspective (see what's possible!) - More centered teams (we did it!) - Increased confidence (that didn't stand in OUR way!) - Improved skills (let's do this again soon!) - Expanded creativity (something new has been discovered or made!) and, of course, that pesky problem is solved. Solving problems comes with benefits. Why not cash in on some of those benefits soon? What problem are you working on today? -- Doug Smith

What makes you angry? Do you ever feel anger and wonder where it came from? Sometimes I've noticed that anger appears out of scale with the thing that seemed to trigger it. Maybe it's an accumulation of aggravations. Maybe it's a sustained patience that has become unsustainable. Maybe it's a lifetime of little disappointments. The anger boils, flairs, and erupts. At that point it can be highly unhealthy. We lash out. We shout. We blame. We break things. Humans can be so sloppy sometimes. We lose our center and our balance lists like a ship in a storm. Our storm of anger rocks our world. Maybe you haven't experienced this, and if not, maybe you've seen it in other people. It can scare. Where the anger heads though isn't always where it belongs. Fall-out occurs. Innocent feelings and people are hurt. The targets of our anger are seldom the cause of our anger. We punish the wrong people. We overreact to minor disagreements propelled by the build u

"It wasn't my fault." "I wasn't even there." "I think it happened on the other shift." "They are always messing things up." Who's to blame? When things go wrong, when a customer gets angry, when a supplier raises prices, when things don't go as you planned. Who's to blame? Will it even help if you could pin that down to one person? Will pouring guilt or punishment on a person solve your problem? Probably not. But people do it all the time. It becomes part of the conversation before we even realize it.  Blaming others is so easy that many people don't even know they are doing it. What if we stopped blaming others? What if instead, we worked together to find solutions, better ways of doing things, and ways to avoid what caused our problem to begin with? It's OK to find constructive suggestions to offer to people who need it. But they need more. And problems need more in order to solve. To arrive at ou

What do you see in the world that needs changing? Would you like more peace? Should there be more jobs available for people everywhere? Should we be doing more to stop global warming? Will we run out of water unless we do something creative? Add your concerns to the growing list and you'll likely see plenty of opportunity to make the world a better place. Shall we leave that up to someone else and hope that everything turns out OK? Or, should we roll up our sleeves, tune up our brains, and get moving on some creative solutions? Think about what you are most creative about. What challenging situation could that be helpful in? How can you impact what matters most to you? What if your creativity could change the world? It can. ACTION STEPS: - Make a list of the three biggest world challenges that you care most deeply about. - Make another list of your three most creative accomplishments.  - Compare your lists. How do they match up? This is likely your greatest opportu

Is your partner perfect? Are you? We don't need a perfect person in order to create love. Love creates the perfect person. Often, it starts by building better conversations. Are you ready to listen? -- Doug Smith

How many times have you seen a problem solved and wondered if the solution was worth the effort? How often have you seen leadership drive change that no one wants and that in the end creates no value? All too often, probably. The solution to any tough problem should include a clear change that makes a courageous, creative difference. Things should be made better by change. Processes should be streamlined by change. Customers and team members should find more joy in interacting because of change.  Any change that delivers less is a problem unsolved, a promise broken. As centered and high performance leaders, we can do better than that. We can manage to keep our problem solving promises. We can make the solutions worth the effort. What can you do today that will make your next change effort both more courageous and more creative? -- Doug Smith

What might stop you from reaching your goal? Every goal has a list of things which stand in the way and must be dropped. Things like... -- excuses -- time wasters -- ambiguities -- mixed priorities -- other people's goals that don't match yours -- recreational activities -- too much facebook, twitter, etc... You name it. Your own goals have their share of roadblocks with one cure: drop them. Get rid of whatever stands in the way of your goal, or watch it stand in the way. Where do you start? Drop them from your conversations, from your presentations, and from your meetings. By dropping excuses you will immediately begin to create better conversations, more productive meetings, more creative writing, and more powerful presentations. Won't that be useful? Won't that be nice? You decide. -- 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

When do you seize an opportunity? Are you able to stop what you're doing long enough to work on an immediate opportunity? Opportunities are not interested in our schedules. They don't wait. They don't delay. They don't nestle nicely into what we have available. We either move on an opportunity when it presents itself or we watch it fly away. Are you keeping your eyes open for opportunities today? Are you listening with curiosity? -- Doug Smith

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