Best Ideas for 2009

from Able Leader, December 2009

by Steve Kaye

Here are the ideas that have intrigued me the most this year.

1) Procrastination is more complex than starting a task. Most people procrastinate by inventing activities to prevent working on the tasks they want to avoid. Then they become so busy with these other commitments that it’s impossible to start those tasks. The result is stress, guilt, and lost opportunities.

For example, someone will volunteer to serve on committees. The many long committee meetings then provide a safe haven from the difficult work waiting on that person’s desk.

Or someone will avoid a major home project by filling the day with errands, do-it-yourself projects, and puttering.

Better: Make important tasks the first priority when planning each day. Then complete them.

2) Everything that you do today has an effect on your future. For example, every conversation either increases or reduces the other person’s trust in you. Every dollar that you earn buys something: wealth if you save it, debt if you spend more than you have, maintenance if you buy necessities, clutter if you buy too much, and so on.

Better: Live as if each moment were an investment in your future. Plan ways to invest time into having a better tomorrow.

3) Being a good friend matters the most. In fact, it’s more important than any other form of relationship, including marriage. Why? Because we treat our friends as if the relationship were temporary.

Good friendship is characterized by mutual respect and kindness. Friends help each other, reward each other, and support each other. And friends never hurt each other.

Better: Treat the most important people in your life as if they were friends.

4) An effective meeting is based on an exchange of ideas. A bad meeting is filled with an exchange of words.

This has important implications.

a) People will exchange ideas when two things exist: a safe environment that facilitates candor and a fair process that includes everyone. Otherwise, they retreat into exchanging words or they misbehave by disrupting the meeting.

b) A safe environment begins with a logical plan that everyone knows and understands. Lack of a plan (i.e., goals supported with an agenda) conveys incompetence and uncertainty, which people perceive as threatening.

c) A fair process requires courageous leadership. Such leaders detach from their personal expectations and let the participants work as a team to find the best solutions.

Better: Always conduct meetings with a fair process in a safe environment. If needed, schedule a workshop to learn how.

5) Failure is unavoidable. The catch is: we either earn it by taking risks or we choose it by doing nothing.

Recognize that failure can describe any effort, even a victory. Why? Because failure is defined as achieving less than expected.

Thus, we choose whether our achievements represent success or failure. For example, an athlete who set a world record could feel like a failure because the margin of victory was smaller than expected.

So success now becomes a matter of meeting one’s own standards for achievement.

And failure (missing expectations) can become a good thing. Here’s why:

a) We can only do something well by first doing it poorly. Every achievement begins with a rough draft that is less than expected. Failure then becomes a teacher that shows how to improve.

b) Failure can protect you from situations that might cause harm if you had succeeded. For example, a missed promotion could protect you from a career setback resulting from being in a role where inadequate skills caused problems.

Better: Seek strategic failure to achieve significant victories. Then analyze the failure to move forward.

Much success,

Steve Kaye
714-528-1300