Get clear on Values: "Displayed", or "Driven"?

by Dries Lombaard

In his book "Leading Outside the Lines", Jon Katzenbach tells the story about two organizations with strong values.

The first has the values of Communication, Respect, Integrity and Excellence. These values were posted on the company Website, included in the employee manual, displayed on the wall in the foyer, and proudly repeated at company events.

The second organization has the values of Honour, Courage and Commitment. Every member of this organization openly talks about these three values, and uses it to make, mostly, life and death decisions. The organizations?

The first is the shamed Enron, famous for its corrupt scandal a decade ago. The company is closed down and their CEO in jail.
The second? The U.S. Marine Corps. It has endured now for more than 200 years.

A critical difference between these two organizations is in the way they make their values come to life... or not.
Enron was a values-displayed organization.
The USMC is a values-driven organization.

The difference? No window dressing. Living the values in everyday decisions, discussions, situations and actions.

Values are both formal and informal. Formally, the can be written down and displayed, and this is a good thing. But the formal side of values means absolutely nothing if it does not connect informally in the offices, hallways, boardrooms and interactions between staff and with clients.

A way to test values, is to informally ask staff and customers about it.
 See if, firstly, they know what it is.
And secondly, if they walk the talk.

How to achieve value-drivenness? Only one sure way: an example set by management or leadership.
Informally.
Daily.

Remember: "There is no use in walking somewhere to preach, if your walking is not your preaching."


Dries Lombaard is the co-owner of Strengths Institute South Africa, and has more than 7000 hours of Strengths Coaching experience over the last decade.  He is leading a vibrant and growing network of Strengths Coaches in Southern Africa, and works with corporate and multinational leadership and management teams and C-level leaders as a Strengths Coach and training facilitator. 

Talent cannot replace hard work... or vica verca

In his brilliant book "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell tells numerous stories about successful people in life. His make one very important discovery in his research: that it seems that almost every success story has a lot of very hard work, and long hours, behind it. To be specific, Gladwell found that at least 10'000 hours are spent working at something specific, in order to become a success. 10'00 hours. That is 8 straight hours a day, five days a week, for 5 years... a lot of practice in any book.

Gladwell found that the exceptions are so few and far between that it really is exceptions to this rule of 10'000 hours.
But, contrary to how some people interpret this, Gladwell never once claims that this 10'000 hours replace the value and importance of natural talent. On the contrary! Someone with no talent within a specific area, will simply run out of energy and 'fuel' long before the 10'000 hours is reached. Or, they might spent 20'000 hours for that matter, and never be recognized at all.

Talent cannot replace hard work, in the same way that you cannot fill up a car with fuel, and then expect it to go anywhere without starting it, and driving it. The key to fulfillment and success lies in the balance between the two. Working hard at developing your talent. Turning it into a strength. Perfecting it....if 'perfect' exists at all.

Aligning the effort and hours you invest in any activity with your continuous pattern of thought, behaviour and action (talent), is exactly what is proven by most people over history as the recipe for how they built not only success, but real fulfillment.

As you invest in this precious day, be sure to try and push towards your natural abilities. Be sure to do what comes naturally to you, most of the time. Be sure to work hard at it. Invest. This way, the most important thing of all will happen: you will find that today will have meaning and fulfillment beyond expectation. And that is already the achievement of success.

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Give Me Training or Give Me Death!

I say: take no thought of the harvest, but only of proper sowing. –(Famous Dead Poet), T.S. Eliot, Choruses from The Rock

You want to be better! It’s not a question. If you’re reading this article, you have a desire to perform on a higher level—at work and in life. You’re the fraction of the workforce and society that is ready to perform, learn, and live a better tomorrow than what you’ve achieved today.
But how do we get better? How do we really make worthwhile contributions to our family and friends, our organizations, and our clients, day in and day out?

WE TRAIN!

And I’m not talking about that old dinosaur called Two-Day Seminars or Workshops. The days of one- or two-day classrooms as “training solutions” are ineffective and dying. That’s teaching; that’s not training. I’m talking about a consistent effort to purposely get better at your job through a series of activities, experiences, and acquisitions of knowledge, skills, and competencies that are integrated into your workflow as the actual learning process—not a 15-minute follow up to some mountaintop experience you had last week. Training is a long distance race! It’s not a few toe touches and jumping jacks.

While the classroom itself still holds some meaning, the idea that you only get better in a classroom simply is not true anymore. There era of Dead Poets Society has moved beyond standing up on your desk and shouting about seizing the day, it’s a continual effort outside the classroom, in the real world, actually seizing moments. You can learn theories and skills in a classroom, but you can’t be trained to use them. You can’t create a habit in a Two-Day Workshop. With technological advancements, the idea that Soft or Off-the-Job training takes place outside of your normal workflow (in a classroom, away from your desk, pontificating some abstract leadership philosophy on a mountaintop) is Dark Age thinking. Seminars may be events, but they’re only events. Seminars and workshops don’t make us better; they only make us think about getting better.

Your colleague who is going to run in a marathon this fall doesn’t go to a one-day motivational seminar, or runners’ workshop, and think that he’s prepared to run 26.2 miles tomorrow—he trains for the event by exercising daily on a strict schedule, eating the right foods, getting the proper rest, and shedding a few drops of blood, sweat, and tears as prepare for race day.
If you’re not training, you’re dying from a slow and painful mediocre contribution. It’s not meaningless work, but it could become so much more if we take the leadership, the people, and the technical skills seriously enough to put them into action and apply them directly to our everyday real work and real lives. The next generation of leaders and learners want training, real sustained training, and through that training they want to make great contributions to the world and the workplace.

Jason Diamond Arnold
Co-Author of Situational Self Leadership in Action

(Article appeared on www.whyleadnow.com)

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Embracing Uniqueness

We all want to be seen and appreciated as being unique. Some of us do our utmost to express this uniqueness openly and positively. Other might be more reserved, but cherish their uniqueness within their privacy.

No matter what your personality might be, being unique is absolutely human. In fact, in is natural - as nature intended - because nature never clone anything. Be in a leaf on a tree, a stone in the field, a seashell on the beach, a snowflake or any animal or bird, in some specific way everything that is part of nature is also unique - even if it might look exactly the same on first observation.

Humans have two significant traits of uniqueness: outer and inner. Our outer uniqueness lies in the fact that no two people look alike - even identical twins has their own fingerprints. Inner uniqueness is even more fascinating! Your personality, character, talents, emotions and spirit is absolutely and completely unique. Nobody could be you, even if they try.

Whenever you turn up at any meeting you bring something to the mix that nobody can clone or even fake sustainably. That is simply: being you. Adding your own mix of energy, character, experience, skill, qualification, passion, point of view, values, likes and dislikes, dreams, abilities, physical presence.... this all adds up to something no salary can buy if the fit is right.

Be more confident in your own skin. Never try to fake or be what you are not. But always do try to better who you uniquely are meant to be. Keep growing. Keep challenging yourself. Keep on embracing your own uniqueness. And in doing so, you will earn the respect of others, and also realize how natural it becomes to respect those around you for who they are.

Embrace yourself today. Then grow by becomming more of you.

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Misunderstanding Talents - "Empathy"

The Talent Theme of "Empathy" is directly linked to the two words: "feeling emotions". People with this talent theme explain that they can sense and feel the emotions of other people. Sometimes this feeling of emotions is literally physical to them. It hurts them to feel the pain of others.

But "Empathy" is often misunderstood as being too soft or too emotional. This is not necessarily the case at all. Remember that talent themes is all about the management of it. So, yes - a mismanaged talent theme of "empathy" could lead to someone being very emotional. But again, one must not tag someone with empathy in this way.

People with Empathy are extremely good within both one on one individual and within group or team situations. They often seem to be a lot more emotionally intelligent than the rest. It is exactly because they can sense emotions so well.

If you know someone with this theme, celebrate it! It is an awesome ability.

This concludes out series on "Misunderstanding Talents."

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