doug smith training

Problems pile up. Answer hide. Frustration builds. Still, there are always more answers. There are always more possibilities. Our biggest challenge is to give up before we have explored enough possibilities to find a winner. There's a winner (or two or more) in there. Keep digging. Keep generating ideas. Keep focused on possibilities. We may never run out of problems but we'll also never exhaust our possibilities for solving them. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Stay curious!

You've got this. It's another great start to another great week. Whatever the challenges you face, you are ready. And if you're not ready? You'll learn! High performance leaders find the answers and today, you are ready to find some answers. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Be your best!

Have you ever been given bad advice? No matter how much someone insists that they know what they're talking about, maybe they do and maybe they don't. Have you ever given advice that might not have been the best? If you have, it probably wasn't intentional and you might not even remember it now. We sometimes give advice with the best of intentions but that advice is not exactly what is needed. Before taking the advice of someone else, here are some of the things I look and listen for: Do they understand my situation? Do they have my best interests in mind? Have they asked enough questions to determine what is needed? Have they ever experienced the same kind of situation - and if so, how did that turn out for them? Will they be there to help with the implementation of their advice? Ask these questions first before jumping to that advice. Giving advice is often the first sign that a person is not qualified to give advice. Everyone's got an opinion

Values evolve over time. If values are ever true, they refine without denying what once was. They grow. They distill. They find ways to self-generate the results they aspire to. Here are some values I've refined into calls to action. I don't just agree with them, I expect to do them. To show them. To act on them. Sometimes it goes well, and often I fall short. The journey is a long one, so keep going. Here are my current calls to action: Be your best Stay curious Say yes! Communicate, Connect, Interact! Challenge yourself Reach out with compassion Expand your possibilities Appreciate Play nice, work hard, stay smart Learn constantly What are your values? What are your calls to action? -- doug smith

How well do you know your team? Leaders spend a lot of time with their team members, but sometimes don't get to know them very well. If you asked them what their dreams were or what they thought about at night before they went to sleep, would it surprise you? High performance leaders expand their capacity of knowing their team. They learn what they don't know and explore at deeper levels what makes their team members excited, what makes them worried, and what makes them feel valued. When a leader can let the team members know that they are valued, their value increases. I don't know anyone as well as I think I do. I'm going to work at getting to know them better. How about you? -- doug smith

It is possible to agree too quickly. Talk about it to make sure that you understand the agreement. Is it really what you want? Will you be able to live with this as a decision? Do you support the likely result? An agreement is a choice. Make sure it is the right choice for you. Then, once you have made the agreement, keep it. It's what high performance leaders do. -- doug smith

Do people in your organization gossip? It's not harmless chatter. Gossip creates problems with reputations and generates disrespect. Without a person there to defend themselves, gossip is a poisonous mix of half-truth and hyperbole. It's bad stuff. When I worked at GE we had a guideline that made perfect sense: honor the absent. If you wouldn't say something if someone was sitting right next to you, then do not say it. Honor their absence and their humanity. Whether or not we agree with the goings-on and accounts of someone, if they are not there to defend themselves, maybe silence is the nobler path. Smearing them, swearing about them, and telling stories that are at least partially (and possibly, completely) untrue are behaviors that are beneath us. It's better to avoid gossip completely. High performance leaders know that to communicate for results it pays to stick to the truth AND to respect the people involves. Respect your audience, respect your topic,

Did Milgram get it wrong? This video raises some intriguing questions that are relevant to our studies of high performance leadership. It raises issues around obedience, control, leadership, followership, context, and even evil. Watch the video (17:49) and then reflect on the questions below. Reflection and Discussion Questions: What meaning regarding obedience have people commonly concluded based on Milgram's  research? What are the factors in play that effect the participant's willingness to continue with the experiment, even though it appeared to be inflicting pain? How did the context of the experiment effect the outcomes? What additional information was mentioned in the video that we don't usually hear about when it comes to this famous experiment? What is the surprising conclusion to this research when examined thru the lens of this talk? Given the circumstances as you understand them, would you have continued to administer the shocks past the poi

Do people need to earn your respect? Some people do believe that it is necessary to prove yourself worthy of respect before someone should grant you respect. What's the problem with that? When we put ourselves into the position of judge we also open the door wider to being judged. Can people tell when you respect them?  Undoubtably. We seem to have an inner radar that differentiates respect from disrespect -- or worse, disregard. We can tell, and we care. Deeply. Whatever a person has done in the past that we might question, it is still possible to treat them with respect. Kindness, compassion, even love know no limits. Respecting someone does not mean that you agree with everything that they've ever done -- or even with what they are  doing or saying right now. Respect means that you treat them with human dignity, fairness, compassion, and honor. I know that it can be tough to show respect in the heat of an argument or when someone is not acting in a likable manne

Silence in your anger gives it time to heal. -- doug smith

Are your team members ever angry with you? Whether you are a creative artist, a business person, a not-for-profit consultant...whatever -- when we are doing important, passionate work we will sometimes generate anger. It might be unexpected. It might be provoked. People get angry. Anger can cloud our understanding. We can disagree. We disagree every day with some one (and sometimes it feels like half the world!) The better path, better than getting upset, is to clarify. If we disagree, we can figure out how to understand. Unless we understand, all the anger in the world is wasted energy. High performance leaders find ways to disagree respectfully while staying open to new possibilities. Ever been wrong? I'm wrong at least once a day. Disagreeing with my truth is often useful. Getting angry at it seldom is. -- doug smith

Creativity, like leadership, requires us to stretch. To be at our most creative we must grow. Since we are surrounded by limitations, that can cause some discomfort. Which boundaries should we cross? Which lines are mental and which are metal? How do we create without getting hurt (or worse, hurting?) I'm not sure. Maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe the question is -- what limits should we ignore today? What limits should we buck against and stretch? If a limit is telling you that you are NOT creative -- ignore it. If a limit is telling you that you cannot grow -- defy it. If a limit is telling you that the world doesn't need your creativity -- laugh it off. The world needs you. The world needs your creativity. The world needs you at your creative best. The creative life pushes against limits. Keep pushing. -- doug smith