Getting Inside the Millennial Mind Infographic
Author: Scott Asai
Helping people develop their leadership skills to advance in their career
Don’t Play Hero Ball
Hero Ball refers to a selfish brand of playing basketball. When a player is more concerned with his own statistical performance than winning, there’s a problem. Today’s athlete is easier to market based on individual talent, but talent alone doesn’t directly equate to winning.
Let’s transition to the professional world. If you’re solely interested in being successful alone, you’re missing the boat. Yes, you need to be a certain degree of selfish to get ahead, but it’s hard to climb high without the help of others.
Take for instance attending a networking event. I’ve been to plenty to know who’s in it for themselves vs. those who genuinely want to help others. The “sharks” who are after the sale craft their pitch and want you to buy. When they realize you have nothing to offer, they leave. Someone who is genuinely interested in connecting with others asks more questions and wants to know how they can help you. Another true indicator of intentions is what, if any follow up is done after the meeting.
Going back to my example of the athlete, not only is a “hero” out for themselves, they’re also hard to play with. You’ll notice they tend to jump from team to team (company to company), season after season (year after year), not because they’re not talented, but because they don’t make everyone around them better or get along with many people.
It’s important to note, every success story has many people who helped him/her get there along the way. You won’t hear about them because it’s not newsworthy, but every tall building needs a foundation to stand on.
Be ambitious, pursue your dreams, but don’t be a hero and step on people to get there.
Learning To Say No To Good Things
Guest Post by Josh Allan Dykstra
Entrepreneurs never want to pass up a good deal.
We thrive in the shimmering halo of possibility. We’ve learned through experience that one opportunity almost always births another, and that it’s our job to see the things others miss. We are always on the alert for the next Whatever. Our ears are constantly perked and our eyes are open wide. If they aren’t — if we don’t stay available and flexible and receptive and enthusiastic — we miss those things that make us, and our businesses, grow.
Literally, we create real things out of no-thing; this is the only sentence on our job description (if we had one).
As we grow as entrepreneurs, however, a new challenge emerges: learning to say NO to good things.
This is hard, because our experience has taught us to not do this. One of the reasons we were able to create a business from scratch is because we said YES to a million things others said NO to. We saw opportunity where others saw certain abject failure. We refused to relent when others may have quit.
But a never-ending stream of “YES” simply isn’t sustainable, for a couple of reasons:
First, we have to learn to say no to good things when they’re attached to the wrong people.
As your career progresses, you will inevitably come across amazing, potentially world-changing ideas that you want to be a part of. Your honed marketplace instincts will kick in and scream “PAY ATTENTION” — loudly, right in your ear. But as you learn more about the idea or project, you’ll also learn more about the people who are behind it.
Like they say: everybody’s normal until you get to know them.
Ideas that look good (and probably ARE good) on the outside can have not-as-golden insides, and the insides are always about the people.
I am not talking here about scumbags or assholes, by the way. Hopefully your instincts told you to stay away from those people altogether. I am talking about really decent people with really, REALLY great ideas — but who don’t treat you like you should be treated. This area gets rather gray very quickly, and it’s why learning to say NO to these opportunities is so damn hard.
As an entrepreneur we should develop obscenely strict standards for the kinds of behavior we’ll tolerate inside our inner circles, and we should be fanatical about protecting it. All the money in the world isn’t worth spending your time beating your head against a brick wall. Be militant about finding ONLY situations that are healthy and in alignment with the way you deserve to be treated.
Second, we have to learn to say no to good things when they don’t fit our long-range strategy.
When you’ve created something real, people will notice. Recruiters may stop by and say hello, random people will track you down on Twitter and want your attention, and opportunities will present themselves.
First off, this is amazing and we should be forever grateful that there are people who seem to care about what we’re doing. We may work hard to get what we’ve got, but we’re absolutely no better than anyone else, and for someone to seek out our expertise on, well, anything should be a ever-humbling experience.
We should also be very careful.
As your business grows, very well-intentioned others will attempt to pull you in a thousand directions. You’ll get invited to job interviews and nonprofit boards. You’ll be asked to guest post on blogs, share people’s content, and help friends-of-friends. I’m sure many people have opinions on how to handle this; my current policy has three parts:
1. First, be nice to everybody.
2. Second, be straightforward and don’t BS people.
3. Third, have a larger strategy that helps you know when to say NO.
The first two are hard, but not complicated. The last one is not-so-hard once you have it, but it’s really complicated to get there, which is why I want to talk about it a little more.
For me, a larger strategy starts by getting crystal-clear about the “noble cause” of your career. Start here:
– What’s the big problem in the world that you’re on a life’s mission to solve?
– When you think about the state of the planet, what pisses you off more than anything else?
– What is the one thing you’d like to be known for?
These are a few of the questions that helped me find my noble cause (which, if you’re curious, is: to improve the wellbeing of people by creating better places to work).
Without this “noble cause” I wouldn’t have a clue what to say NO to. I’d end up fracturing my attention in a million unproductive ways. (It’s hard to stay focused even with this, honestly. When your “problem to solve” is appropriately large, it leaves you many ways to get there.)
I’ve also found that, for me, family and health and balance are a crucial part of my “life strategy,” and that my sincere desire for those things also helps tremendously when having to say NO. Whatever your equation is, find a way to get your long-range target on the wall, and use it to filter out the stuff that won’t help you hit it.
Focus on Being the Best, Not First
Apple wasn’t the first to create to tablet.
Nike didn’t invent the shoe.
Disneyland wasn’t the first amusement park.
Yet the one thing they have in common is they’re the best at improving an existing idea.
As an entrepreneur, it’s much harder to be the creator than it is the refiner. Let me give you a personal example:
When I first started my business as a coach, I had to “double sell.” That means on top of trying to get a potential customer buy my services, I had to explain what my services were. I spent more time educating people what I did then once they understood I had to convince them that they needed what I was offering. I’m not the first coach, but since coaching isn’t mainstream the odds are stacked against me.
When you improve an existing idea, context is in your favor. People need a starting point to make a decision because that’s how your mind works. Your brain builds on what it already knows. That’s why commercials play over and over again – to brainwash you into thinking you actually need what you’re seeing.
So if you’re thinking of starting a business, start with the end in mind. What are your sales goals? What is your financial model? How are you going to get people to buy your product/service?
Competition isn’t easy to deal with, but being a pioneer is that much harder.
5 Keys to Creating an Innovative Company
Guest Post by Charles Lee
Innovation is essential to the success of any company in our world today. Given the speed of evolution in most markets, companies that don’t innovate will soon find themselves in decline or even obsolete.
Innovative companies work hard to bring clarity to real problems and design practical solutions for implementation. Many of these companies are exerting a lot of energy and resources towards creating an innovative company versus simply launching innovative projects. Here are some commonly adopted keys to creating an innovative company:
1. Innovation Starts with Vision – The topic of innovation must have a seat at the executive table. It should be a regular point of conversation and integrated fully into the overall narrative of a company. Whether it is a C-Level executive vision casting or a manager speaking to a direct-report during a review, the story of innovation must be integrated into the vision of the company. Team members at every level should be able to point to actual stories within the company that highlight this vision for innovation.
2. Innovation Scales with Culture – The natural outflow of vision should be the development of culture. While it’s tempting to just focus on the short-term ROI found in growth or value-adding products/services for customers, innovation flourishes when there’s a commitment to developing company culture or environment. In the long run, a great culture creates more energy for a company, long-term growth, and retains more talent. People aren’t usually leaving companies because of a lack of new innovation projects. It’s often an issue of culture.
3. Innovation Welcomes a New Kind of Thinking – Traditional thinking tells us to do what we know. How do we know what to do? Look to the past. This kind of thinking does not lead to more innovation. Innovative thinking adds another layer that allows people to diverge from what the past tells them. Divergent thinking takes what we know and then explores what could be. The past alone does not dictate what the future could be in this model.
4. Innovation Embraces Processes & Metrics – Innovation is not just feel good idea-making. Innovative companies embrace processes and metrics. Refining how a company gets innovative ideas to implementation is a constant area of focus for these companies. Developing metrics for how innovation gets injected into a company, how it is measured in-process, and what are expected as outcomes collective provide guidance for the innovation process. Innovative companies don’t shy away from creating and refining processes and metrics.
5. Innovation Needs Space for We & Me – Innovative companies allow for both individual times for employees to innovative as well as collective times. These times are often integrated into the rhythm on one’s work week. Also, these companies encourage the cross-pollination of inter-departmental expertise to spark new ideas and opportunities. There appears to be a growth in the number of idea-competitions, innovation think-tanks, and innovation centers on the rise.
Innovation is no longer optional in our new world. What will you do to help your company innovate?
Turning a Weakness into a Strength
During an interview, how do you answer the question, “What is your biggest weakness?“
It sounds like a setup, but it doesn’t need to be…here’s how to flip it:
Turn your perceived weakness into a strength.
Here’s my personal example: “I’m impatient.”
“I prefer to move fast, so it frustrates me when I work with others who hold me up. I like to make progress, so when I feel like those I’m working with aren’t as committed to winning as I am, I start to do more. I understand not everyone is going to see things the way I do, but I’m very driven to achieve quickly.“
See what I did there? I took a “weakness” and made it sound like an admirable strength. This nice thing is you can prepare for it. This type of answer can be used in most situations. Beneath it all, the interviewer wants to know if you have the confidence to get the job done. Your employer can teach you the skills needed, but your tenacity towards completing the task is innate.
My advice to you is when you’re asked this question, don’t cower under it, be prepared and attack it!
Your World is Made of Stories
Guest Post by Josh Allan Dykstra
The world we see is dictated by the stories we’ve told ourselves about the world.
From…
• The stories we tell ourselves about people of other faiths
• The stories we tell ourselves about where human beings came from
• The stories North Korean leaders tell its citizens about the outside world
• The stories we tell ourselves about gay people
• The stories we tell ourselves about what it means to be successful
• The stories we tell ourselves about Republicans
• The stories we tell ourselves about Democrats
• The stories we tell ourselves about how we manage our own strengths and weaknesses
• The stories we tell our kids about how to “get a job”
There’s a stark difference between facts and stories, after all.
When someone doesn’t call you back when they say they would, that’s the fact: They didn’t call you back when they say they would.
The story, however, is what we tell ourselves about that fact.
“Oh, they’re pissed at me.”
“I must have done something to annoy them.”
“They’re so disorganized and irresponsible.”
These are stories.
For all we know, they got in a fender bender and had to speak with the police, or their kid got sick at school and they had to go pick them up.
Our worlds are made up of stories — some big, some small — and they define the world around us.
In our day-to-day life, the way we feel about the items on the above list are more constructed from stories than from facts. The majority of the hatred and destruction we see on the news is born out of a terrible, tragic story that people have been convinced is a fact. (Likewise, the joy and beauty around us comes from stories, too — they are just very different ones.)
I think it would be great if we could spend more time pondering the stories we tell ourselves — and we should certainly learn to have more respect for the power these stories wield over the way we live our lives.
Hate Losing
If you ask someone who is extremely competitive whether they love winning or hate losing, they’ll answer, “I hate losing.”
Most believe the obvious answer would be, “I love winning,” but let’s dig into the process behind personal drive.
Who doesn’t love winning? The problem is you can’t win all the time. If you get accustomed to winning, you expect it. You stop working hard. Your focus is on your past success, therefore you’re susceptible to complacency. That’s when someone is ready to knock you off your throne.
Take for example elite athletes. They train harder after a painful defeat. They remember how bad it feels to lose so they never want to experience that again.
Competitive companies such as: Google, Zappos and Nike never stop innovating. They’re not satisfied being #1, they desire more. Even during their current success, they’re planning ahead for future domination.
I learned the hard way with my first business. I had idealistic goals and dreamed about achieving them. When I came up short, I stopped trying as hard. This time around I’m realistic about what needs to get done. Even when there’s good news, I know something could happen that can ruin it. It may sound like you’ll never be satisfied, but it’s more about always working hard to elude failure.
So the next time you have a goal in mind, don’t daydream about winning, be driven by hating to lose.
The Power of WE
Guest Post by Charles Lee
Human beings were meant to experience life together.
Life makes so much more sense when we come to a place to that we NEED others. No matter how different others may be in their worldview, cultural identity, and personal preferences, moving towards a mindset that says WE is better than ME is healthy.
G5 Leadership just released a new video, presentation, and discussion guide as a part of their research for a new book they’re writing. It’s absolutely FREE to download.
I hope you will take a moment to watch this video and visit their site for some great resources. Here’s a quick synopsis of the project from their founders, Steven Smith and David Marcum:
As part of research for a new book we’re writing, we noticed a societal decline in unity. You’ve probably noticed it too.
Politicians are divided with intractable positions. Enterprises and teams are territorial. Partners often appear to simply coexist. Families seem more separated, even when they’re together. There is a growing trend of me that divides we. We wanted to do our part to reverse the trend.
We created a video on the power of unity titled We. To spark a discussion, we produced three tools you can download that go with the video:
- A discussion guide to build a stronger culture of we where you work.
- A PowerPoint presentation for the discussion guide, including the video.
- A handout for people who attend the session.
We hope the discussion makes a difference, wherever we matters to you.
Managing Expectations
One of the most underrated attributes of a leader is his or her ability to manage expectations. This extends to personal, team and projects.
I learned this lesson early on. I distinctly remember posing this scenario to Dr. Henry Cloud in a class he was teaching. I asked, “How do you manage expectations so you don’t end up being disappointed?“
His answer went something like this…
“A lot of times we have our own expectations that are best case scenario or idealistic and there’s nowhere for you to go except down. I’m not saying lower your expectations, but think more at a realistic level so there’s at least some room to be happily surprised.“
I have high expectations and I don’t have any intention of changing that. What I have changed is forcing my expectations on others or situations where I don’t have much control over the outcome. For example, if I am leading a team I will set the standard high and expect my team to meet them, but if they don’t I adjust. Anytime your expectations include another person, be prepared for a variety of outcomes.
When your expectations are too high, it’s like putting someone on a pedestal…the only way they can go is down. People are going to let you down. That’s not being pessimistic, that’s a fact. It doesn’t mean you don’t put your faith in others, it just means we’re all human and we make mistakes.
Disappointment can be a result of unrealistic expectations. Don’t ever apologize for having high standards. Just make sure you’re not forcing your expectations on someone else.
Growing Forward 