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PERSONAL VISION

So many people go through life without a personal vision. If you are one of those individuals (don’t worry, I was too), it is not too late. The following questions will help you think about what your personal vision could look like. Your personal vision should guide you in all other aspects of your life.

  • If you could project ten years from today, where will you be, what will you be doing and who will you be with?
  • If you attain your vision, what would you be doing differently than you are today?
  • Will you commit to taking the actions needed to reach your vision?
  • What obstacles or challenges do you feel you may have to overcome to attain your vision?
  • What support do you need, and from whom to get started, stay motivated and keep accountable?
  • Have you shared your vision with anyone?
  • Share it, review it regularly and commit to moving it forward by continuous execution of ACTION.

 

‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’
– Mary Oliver

 

FIVE EASY STEPS TO YOUR PERSONAL VISION

  1. Develop a PERSONAL VISION – what do you want to do, where do you want to go and how do you
    want to feel? See it, feel it, imagine it.
  2. Set GOALS that will help you achieve your vision. Goals will help you identify actions required for execution. Prioritize your goals and define what you need to focus on per quarter moving forward. List the goals that you will work on through to completion next quarter.
  3. For each goal, PLAN the keystone actions required for every week of the quarter (12 weeks) to produce the results you are looking to achieve. When possible, list action items that can be completed within one week. These will drive your weekly and daily plans.
  4. Commit to working on the WEEKLY ACTIONS. Don’t lose traction. Even when you don’t feel like working on one of the actions, remain true to your commitments. Continuous execution of actions will ensure you retain momentum.
  5. Every Monday, spend 15-30 minutes conducting a WEEKLY REVIEW (what you focused on the week prior) and weekly preview (what you will focus on this week). Your weekly plan will help you map out the actions required in your schedule. Do not skip this step! This will help you MEASURE your weekly success and identify areas that need your attention and improvement.

 

WHAT DOES A GREAT WEEK LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?

Our days are often taken up by items we have not planned or scheduled. To allow time in your schedule to work on priorities, I suggest you allocate three periods in your weekly schedule to increase your efficiency and enable greater focus on tasks required for goal attainment.

WEEKLY THREE-HOUR STRATEGIC BLOCK

This three-hour period is scheduled, not interruptible and prioritized in your weekly plan. During this time, turn your notifications off. Don’t answer the phone during this period, and if in an office, close your door. This time will require 100% of your focus and should never be bumped. It will help you dig deep into strategic activities and get things done.

TWO DAILY 30-MINUTE BUFFER BLOCKS

Schedule one 30-minute period in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Use this time to make/answer phone calls, return voice mail, answer/send emails, and deal with low-value activities.

WEEKLY THREE-HOUR FREE BLOCK

Use this time to get away from your computer and perform face-to-face activities. Lunch or coffee with colleagues/clients/stakeholders. This time helps you focus on priority relationships that require your full attention.

 

‘Unless commitment is made, there are only promise and hopes; but no plans.’
– Peter Drucker

 

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

‘Once I have a holiday, I will have more energy.’
‘When we hire additional resources, we will be more organized.’
‘When the economy picks up, things will be better.’
‘Things will settle down after our busy period, and we will have more time to work on process improvements.’

Stop waiting for things to change. Make the change. You have control of one thing – your actions.

Take responsibility for the actions you take.

Commit to focusing on your actions to make your vision a reality, be self-accountable, and consistently execute on what needs to be done.

No more excuses, demonstrate your commitment – let’s get going.

BE IN THE MOMENT

Technology is excellent. However, how often do we get so distracted by it and forget to be in the moment? Alerts pinging, social notices, text messages… all take you away from being in the present. It is almost as though the fear of missing out outweighs social interaction conventions, whether in a professional or social setting. Being continually on is exhausting, stressful, and often a factor of burnout.

How much will you miss if you don’t look at your phone when you are in a meeting or when talking to one of your colleagues, clients, or stakeholders?

I encourage you this week to SLOW DOWN, be present and focus on one thing at a time. You will be surprised by how much you get done and how better you feel.

ACTION COMMITMENTS

Choose one thing that would make a significant difference if you did it daily in your professional or personal life.

Got it? Now commit to doing it daily for one quarter. The simple act of consistently executing on a critical action item that will help you be better in your job or personal life will benefit you fivefold.

 

‘There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.’
– Jack Welch

 

If you have any questions about personal visions, or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your professional success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership and professional development tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.

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KEY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY IN LEADERSHIP

Leadership is complex and challenging. You need to set the direction, communicate your vision, and be on top of strategy execution.

Focus on a positive workplace/team culture, align and mobilize talent to ensure they are working to their strengths and effective in their roles.

You are connecting purposefully internally and externally with a timely cadence. And…all the while personally managing your effectiveness and energy levels.

How a person performs in a leadership role matters. This is an obvious statement, but one we need to ponder as the top 20% of leaders could contribute more than 2.8% of the average leader.

Working on soft leadership skills is hard – ironic, isn’t it!

If you rate yourself on how you are performing as a leader on a scale of 1-5 (1-being abysmal to 5-knocking it out of the park)

  • How are you performing?
  • Why do you give yourself this rating, and in what areas can you improve?

No matter the industry sector nor size of the business or team, a leader’s key areas of responsibility include these steps:

1. SETTING THE DIRECTION

Looking back to look forward or conducting a review to do a preview of what’s coming is an essential leadership tactic.

Think of a Venn diagram, with the overlapping circles intersecting in the middle, that central area of overlap is the core focus. In the instance of setting direction, consider what is needed (your customer/client needs), what is your superpower (what you are good at), what drives you (what you are passionate about) and the big business kicker $ (how you can make money).

Be bold when setting your vision, direction, strategies, and resource allocation. Think beyond what is needed and focus on what is required in the future.

QUESTION: Why should we exist five years from now?

2. ALIGNING STRATEGIC PRIORITIES WITH BUSINESS GOALS

When taking on any new priority, ensure first it aligns with your overall business goals. This will ensure that you stay on track and focused for the long game. Don’t forget to set performance milestones, these will motivate and keep you accountable. Eliminate activities that do not contribute to core areas of focus.

QUESTION: What strategic priorities are you working on that ARE NOT aligned with your business goals? Why?

3. LEADING TO AN INDIVIDUALS PSYCHOLOGY

Everyone has a different psychology. What they need from a leader and how they receive it can be unique. A good leader makes the time to understand how to best lead each person in their team and get the psychology and mechanics right to help the individual be the best they can be in their position. A leader applauds an individual’s wins, supports them in situations, and provides professional development to help them be more effective in their role.

QUESTION: Do you know how you can best lead each team member?

4. EXECUTING CONSISTENTLY ON THE RIGHT THING

I love this quote:

‘There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.’
~ Peter Drucker

A reminder to constantly be assessing what the right thing is to be focused on and consistent in the execution of action to get it done. Remember the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle (80% of our outcomes come from 20% of our causes), prioritize high-impact tasks, resulting in greater productivity and results. Look at your entire task list, prioritize based on the impact level each task would have if complete on your work/business goals, focus first on those top 20% of items on your list as they will result in 80% of the impact that you can generate for the day.

QUESTION: What are the top 20% of tasks I need to focus on today?

5. FOCUSING ON CULTURE AND ENGAGEMENT

One of the most challenging things about leading a business team is not the work that needs to be done but… working with the people, navigating personalities and reframing a business culture to be more positive. Motivating and inspiring someone to improve their mindset, work ethic, or ability to work with others takes time and needs to be very intentional.

From a work culture and employee engagement perspective, I encourage you to start by working on one thing. It could be your: hiring process, onboarding, annual performance reviews, processes to address bottlenecks and points of frustration, engagement survey, revised job descriptions or the incorporation of team building activities to look forward to.

There are so many items that you can focus on, pick the lowest hanging fruit that will help you improve culture and engagement and go for it!

QUESTION: How can you inspire your team to do their best work?

6. CONNECTING WITH STAKEHOLDERS

To ensure strong relationships with your stakeholders, you need to start with a foundation of trust.

When was the last time you asked your stakeholders for feedback on any process or improvement recommendations?

Engage and share the goals you are working on, help your stakeholders understand your opportunities and challenges, harvest new ideas, and stay focused on a forward-looking agenda.

QUESTION: What stakeholders should you connect with this week?

7. MANAGING PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

As a busy professional, one of the most important things to focus on is your time. Take back your calendar, be conscious of every item scheduled one week out and determine if you need to be present in every meeting. Be intentional about what you want to achieve daily, weekly, quarterly and annually.

QUESTION: Can you articulate your professional areas of strength and work style? What changes do you need to make to be more consistent and effective in your role?

 

‘You have to reinvent yourself. The world changes. You have to change.’
~ Roberto Setubal, Chairperson, Itau Unibanco

If you have any questions about leadership and leader’s key responsibilities, or want to learn more on the powerful benefits of executive coaching to elevate your leadership success, please reach out to +1 604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com and book a complimentary 30-minute strategy session. If you want monthly leadership tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.

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WHY IS COACHING ESSENTIAL TO GREAT LEADERSHIP?

There are various leadership styles we can exhibit, and one of them is the coaching style. 

Coaching requires patience, instruction, and feedback. In a fast-paced working environment, leaders often find it easier to answer a question or solve an issue rather than coaching, as it takes less time. Ironically, the long-term coaching results override the initial time taken, and it is worth adapting your leadership style to have more of an emphasis on coaching your employees. At its core, coaching will help you work with your employee to become:

  1. More self-aware
  2. Help them move forward, learn, develop and grow so they can take on more, and
  3. Create more satisfaction in their roles as they take on added responsibility in their positions.

Coaching is a positive and powerful tool that you can use to improve performance, results, increase engagement and company culture.

I challenge you; the next time you are about to answer or solve a problem for an employee, think long-term and coach the employee through the process, I appreciate that it will take time, but the outcome will be worth your return on investment. 

 

You cannot teach a man anything. 

You can only help him discover it within himself.

-Galileo Galilei

 

Coaching benefits:

  • Coaching can positively impact performance, culture, and the bottom line.
  • Coaching can help individuals unlock their potential
  • Ongoing coaching dialogue improves clarity and understanding of expectations
  • Coaching allows leaders to delegate, give challenging assignments, and promote an environment of learning and knowledge 
  • More companies are trying annual bonuses to a leader’s development of their direct reports. The reality is that there is an understanding that coaching does positively affect bottom-line results

Listen intently and ask powerful questions

When we listen, we are not distracted by anything else around us. The individual has our full attention, and we are not as prone to jump in and provide an answer, solution, or fill in the gaps. 

Ask powerful, short questions. When formulating a question, I keep in mind two things: 

Why are they telling me this?

What’s the real problem?

I then follow with an open-ended question that starts with ‘What…‘

Try the following questions in your next one-on-one:

  1. What should we focus on (a work project, people issue, or behaviour) discussing that will help you most?
  2. What is the heart of this issue for you? Tell me more… what else…
  3. What is the challenge, and why is this important to you? 
  4. What have you done so far to address the issue?
  5. What is your ideal outcome?
  6. What is the next best step to take?

 

Most people do not listen with the intent to learn and understand. They listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak.

-Stephen Covey

 

Don’t be the bottleneck

Leaders and managers need to coach their people. Coaching helps decrease overdependence overwhelm, and this dependency creates bottlenecks and frustration for both leader and staff member. 

Stop being the bottleneck and allow your team members to develop. Coach your team members to help them learn and grow. 

Empower your staff by giving them the responsibility to do their job, coach them through knowledge gaps and then allow them to run with it. Autonomy allows the employee to learn by doing and demonstrates your trust in their ability. Trust that there will be setbacks and debrief on these areas in your regular one-on-one meetings. 

Coaching Tips

  • ask one question at a time 
  • listen with intent for the facts and maintain neutrality
  • ask ‘what’ questions
  • be curious about the details
  • focus on what matters most
  • explore off-hand comments (what is not being said). They will often assist in getting to the heart of a problem
  • ask questions that will help the individual expand the way they are thinking about the problem or issue
  • don’t use rhetorical questions that offer advise
  • Using the 80/20 concept allow the staff member to speak 80% of the time and yourself only 20% 

If you would like more information on leadership and coaching tactics, and you need someone to keep you accountable for your process and execution, I can be contacted at +1-604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com. If you want monthly leadership tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.

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2022 VISION – WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?

We are now into our seventh week in Q1, and it is time to refocus your attention on one or more of five key areas, which may require your time and attention:

  1. Your Vision
  2. People
  3. Data
  4. Processes, or
  5. Current Issues

Minor improvements in one or more areas can free up considerable time in your schedule and help you focus on the important rather than wasting time on workarounds. 

In what areas do you need to concentrate in Q1?

    • Is your 2022 team and company vision clearly articulated, communicated, and understood? – vision
    • Have you developed your team to enable them to efficiently handle details so you can focus on the big picture and not get stuck in the weeds? – people
    • Do you have a dashboard of data that you can regularly refer to get a complete picture of actual results? – data
    • Do your systems support your processes? – processes
    • Do you have an issues list that requires attention? – current issues

2022 VISION – WHERE ARE YOU HEADED?

Your team vision must be in line with your organizational vision. Do a temperature check with your team, ask two individuals randomly if they know the vision of the team? ‘Are you seeing what I am saying?’ Don’t assume that everyone sees the vision in the same way you do. Communicate clearly and often on the articulation of your vision. This will ensure team members do not become frustrated and confused. A compelling vision enables everyone to see the direction they are headed and how they will get there. Think of your team’s vision like a laser beam highlighting the path to take. Having a clear vision will enable you to plan action items required and help you retain focus strategically.

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH GREAT PEOPLE

It is imperative to have the right people in the right jobs. Look at your team and evaluate each member’s level of effectiveness in their roles. List accountabilities of each position, how core tasks are organized and by whom and if the structure is conducive to the roles and individuals you have in place. Is movement, training, or are additional or less staff required? 

YOUR PROFESSIONAL DASHBOARD

When driving, you often look down at your dashboard and check your speed and petrol level. Driving a vehicle is like leading a team. How can you lead effectively without knowing the details? Effective leadership requires the ability to have a dashboard or scorecard of data that will enable you to have a pulse on the work being done by your team, help you predict what may be needed and identify when areas are falling short of what is required and the action that is necessary to course correct.

Knowing your data will empower you. Understanding your numbers will help you problem solve and make decisions faster. Determine the core elements that should be highlighted on your dashboard or scorecard. Having this information will help you make decisions based on factual information.

ISSUE MANAGEMENT

All teams and organizations have areas that can be improved upon and issues that need to be addressed.

  • How do you track your issues?
  • Do you have an issue management list or a ticketing system?
  • When do you allocate time to solve identified issues?

The challenge is often that issues are identified but not resolved fast enough, which results in time and resource wastage. Allocate staffing time to solve issues, don’t let them mount if they are taking away from productivity, focus or results. Allocate time in your weekly meetings to discuss priority issues that require action and give your team permission to solve problems and clear off issues.

PROCESS MAPPING

The importance of process mapping cannot be underestimated—the need to know what needs to be done, how and in what order is essential for repetitive and scalable processes. A good process enables simplicity of action, increased efficiency, and scalability. Processes must be documented, shared, continually evaluated, and updated for maximum efficiency. 

CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT IN EXECUTION

Goals are not attained without discipline. A short runway of actionable steps within a quarter or 90-day period will help keep priorities aligned and provide focus on the essential item to be worked on. Just as 90-day plans are recommended, so too are frequent, preferably weekly meetings to ensure priorities are communicated, there is team alignment, and focus is on the most critical priority. 

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Simplify processes, eradicate rules when not necessary, be clear in what needs to be done, by whom, how it will be assessed, recorded and evaluated. Complexity comes with growth; however, if you can focus on using simplified processes, efficient operational systems, and delegation techniques to move work down to lessen bottlenecks, you will be well on your way to a more efficient organization. 

If you would like more information on leadership tactics and tips as you’re going through your 2022 vision, and you need someone to keep you accountable for your process and execution, I can be contacted at +1-604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com. If you want monthly leadership tips, sign up for my JRC newsletter or check out my social media on Instagram for top leadership advice throughout the year.

 

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TIPS FOR TRANSITIONING INTO A NEW ROLE

Transitions into lead roles are critical, and for those transitioning, this time can be challenging and stressful as you prove yourself to your colleagues and team. Try some of the following tactics over your first 90 days in your new role to alleviate some of this stress.

  1. Do your research and prepare yourself – get to know those in your team and whom you report to and understand their expectations and thoughts on what success will look like for you in the role. Your initial interactions form first impressions, so think carefully about the foundations to lay to create positive connections within your team, with peers and stakeholders.
  2. Observe, learn, and ask questions – find out who has and where to find information is half the challenge. To accelerate your transition, be focused and systematic in deciding what you will learn and how to do this efficiently.
  3. Build relationships – observe and be mindful of who is setting the tone, who is processed based, the go-to for answers, the motivator… this will help you strategize more effectively and build on the team dynamics. The easiest way to do this is to have brief ‘getting to know you’ calls to learn as much as possible.
  4. Manage expectations – through regular communication, organized team status meeting and 1:2:1’s. Working virtually requires more intentionality in coordinating and facilitating productive discussions. Highlight areas of focus: execution tactics on goals, what has been accomplished, what is currently being worked on, what is on, and not to schedule, what pivots or areas have been put on hold due to other pressing priorities, what opportunities and challenges you should be aware of in your role.
  5. Demonstrate your leadership capacity and show problem-solving and strategic thinking skills. Whether you are inheriting a team or building a new team, it is vital to evaluate, align and motivate your team members. Sometimes, some tough decisions need to be made; don’t procrastinate. Your ability to have the right people in the correct team positions is imperative for your team’s success.
  6. Don’t take on too much too quickly. You initially need time to understand the landscape, and you do not want to over-extend yourself to prove a point before competently taking care of your regular duties.
  7. Focus on your goals and how you can strategically attain them. Look for low-hanging fruit and quick, easy wins to build your credibility, motivate action and engagement.

What worked in your old team does not necessarily mean it will work in your current team. Rethink how you lead, what you delegate and how you can create a level of influence that will assist you in building and sustaining alliances. Be aware of your leadership presence, how you are being perceived against how you want to be perceived and the type of leadership brand you want to have in your role. Business orientation, stakeholder connection and expectations alignment will significantly assist you in accelerating your transition and overcoming roadblocks over the first 90 days. 

If you would like more information on leadership tactics and tips when transitioning into a role, I can be contacted at +1-604-616-1967 or jenny@jennyreilly.com. If you want monthly leadership tips, sign up to my JRC newsletter for top leadership advice throughout the year. 

 

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