Author: Scott Asai
Helping people develop their leadership skills to advance in their career
The Interview X-Factor
Since last fall I’ve been recruiting for a school so after seeing multiple resumes and doing several interviews I asked myself, “What’s that ONE THING that stands out as a candidate?“
I’m a firm believer that resumes aren’t a good judge of talent. It’s similar to having a Driver’s license…just because you have one doesn’t mean you’re a good driver. Everything is exposed when you interview. Whether face to face or over the phone within the first five minutes you can tell whether you have a great candidate or not.
So what is that ONE THING? Confidence. Not arrogance. Not ego. It’s confidence knowing who you are. Clarity about your strengths and weaknesses. It’s knowing your style and what results it brings. You can hear it in someone’s voice. You can see it in the way they carry themselves. Confident people’s self-assessment is the same as the way others see them. Confidence brings results and breeds trust from others. Confident people can do the job, because they’ve done it before. If they don’t have the experience, they have the drive to figure it out. Confidence is multi-sensory. Hard to describe, easy to recognize.
I’m not downplaying experience or education by any means, but when you’re the interviewer confidence separates a good from great candidate. On a scale of 1 – 10 how confident are you?
The Magic of Strengths-Based Coaching
Guest Post by Josh Allan Dykstra
I had the pleasure of presenting a virtual class entitled “The Magic of Strengths-Based Coaching” to the ICF (International Coach Federation) a couple weeks ago. Over 140 coaches attended from around the world!
Here was the gist of the class:
Research shows that the most effective leaders in the world share one surprising trait: they know their strengths and they work “in” them almost all the time. By attending this session, you will discover a fresh perspective to share with the clients you work with, and learn why a focus on “what’s right with people” is surprisingly counter-intuitive and also, perhaps, the most important insight you can provide someone who desires to live an exceptional life.
Coaches will deepen and stretch their knowledge of several ICF core coaching competencies, including:
How to create greater personal awareness for coaching clients, particularly in the areas of enduring personality strengths and natural sources of energy
How to design better action plans for coaching clients by aligning individual goals with unique personal motivators and, therefore, achieving more success
How to manage progress and accountability for coaching clients by integrating action plans with personal strengths, thereby developing greater resilience to meet objectives
If you missed it, you can listen to the recording here. While you listen, I recommend opening the visual presentation here, and following along with it as you listen to the recording. I give cues throughout to make it very simple.
ICF-LA does great stuff like this all the time (and the host, Paul, is seriously one of the most wonderful people you’ll ever meet). If you’d like to register for one of their upcoming teleclasses, just go here.
The Choice Generation
Millennials can be difficult to work with, but I believe it’s because they’re misunderstood.
The reason they change their mind so often and their tenure at a job is so short is because: they have choices.
Their parents were loyal to a fault and believed “a job is a job.”
Baby Boomers don’t normally resonate with the idea that you should love what you do.
Millennials believe you have to love what you do or else you’ll eventually quit.
Call it entitlement or lacking commitment, but it is what it is.
As an employer or colleague, the quicker you accept this the faster you can adjust.
Money isn’t a Millennial’s main motivator, perks are. Companies such as Google, Zappos and Facebook are revered for their work culture. The interview process is difficult, but if you get in the benefits help retain talent.
If you’re a small business or “traditionally run,” offering perks may not be an option. In that case give daily feedback, mentor and challenge them with new tasks. At the heart of the matter it’s not much different than anyone else: they want to feel appreciated and needed.
Like it or not Millennials have choices. The question is: will they choose you?
5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Making a Presentation
Guest Post by Charles Lee
Making a remarkable presentation is not easy.
No matter how experienced or polished you are in doing presentations, it takes a little extra to make your talk truly remarkable (i.e., worth making a remark about). While presenting with confidence and content is great, it doesn’t guarantee that things will stick with your audience. Here are 5 questions to ask yourself while preparing for your next remarkable presentation:
What’s the main objective you hope to accomplish through your presentation? While it’s tempting to share all that you’ve prepared for a talk, don’t! Focus on the main point you hope to communicate. The more you blur the main objective, the more your audience will begin to distant themselves from your presentation. Keep in mind that you’ve had time to process your information leading up the talk. Your audience is processing ideas in real-time and don’t have the luxury of reflection. It won’t matter how important your content is if your audience can’t digest it. There’s nothing more frustrating than to listen to a speaker try to do too much with a presentation.
Why should the audience care about what you have to say? Don’t assume that your audience cares about what you have to say. Simply because your content may be important to you, it doesn’t follow that it is important to your audience. Your assumption going into a talk should be that the audience has no real reason to care about what you’re about to say. Do the hard work of creating mental on-ramps for your audience so that they can find reasons to care about your talk.
How do you want your audience to feel during and after your presentation? Put yourself in the shoes of your listener. What are they like and how would you like them to experience your presentation? Don’t ignore emotions. Many presentations stick with an audience because of how an audience emotionally connects with a speaker and/or his/her content. Are there things you could do during your presentation to heighten the listener’s emotional connection with the content being presented? Are there ways to illustrate and/or experience the emotions that are naturally tied to many of the things you present?
What role, if any, will technology support your presentation? Technology is meant to be a supplementary tool for presenters. It is not designed to fully replace the one doing the presentation. In fact, some of the best presentations I’ve heard over the years have been technology-free. If you do use technology, try not to hide behind the tool. Many simple read what’s on the screen and don’t leverage the complimentary nature of these tools. The tool is there to support your talk. The focal point in presenting is still you. If you’re using any type of presentation software, (1) minimize the amount of text you use on your slides because people will stop listening when they see that they can work ahead and read your points, (2) use images to create a visual imprint of what you’re talking about, and (3) take out any unnecessary elements that don’t add value to what you’re talking about.
How will your respond to the body language of the audience during your talk? Outside of seeing someone in the audience completely knocked out in deep sleep, it’s often difficult to read people’s body language. Many people make interesting facial expressions when contemplating ideas. In other words, it’s quite possible that many in your audience may appear disengaged when in fact they are thoroughly engaged. The key is to keep moving forward with your presentation without being discouraged by what you think you might be observing. Don’t let people’s body language derail you from focusing on the presentation. You’ll find that many who come up and speak with you after your talk are actually the one’s you perceived as not connecting with the presentation. We humans are funny creatures.
What are some of the things you think about before making a remarkable presentation?
People Detox
There comes a time in everyone’s life when people will unexpectedly turn on you (no matter how popular you think you are).
It’s happened to me a couple of times. It’s hard to figure out in the moment, but in the “big scheme” of things it’s meant to be.
(Of course if this is a frequent occurrence then you’re probably the source of the problem…)
This is not about stockpiling enemies, it’s how you spend your time.
People are by far the most valuable resource on the planet, so interact wisely.
The process of detoxing consists of flushing out the bad in order to maintain health.
We think of health as physical, but emotional and mental strength is just as important.
A people detox consists of prioritizing your time spent with others. It’s quality over quantity.
I’m not discouraging you to expand your network. I’m saying deepen it.
Life is short and you can’t please everyone. The stronger stance you take on an issue, the greater the chance you’ll offend someone (it’s called honesty folks).
Relationships tend to travel in seasons. Intimacy can fluctuate over time.
Think of a people detox as God’s way of protecting you. Trust that who’s in your life currently is how it’s supposed to be. Things change because the future is impossible to fully control.
Don’t worry about who you should or shouldn’t connect with. Invest your heart and time into relationships and live with the outcome.
The Ultimate Scarcity
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Guest Post by Josh Allan Dykstra
If we buy the fact that everyone is indispensable, it means we have access to the ultimate scarcity:
You.
If there’s no one else like you, if you’re one of a kind, if there’s nobody else on the planet who can do what you can exactly the way you can do it — and if you can identify what that “thing” is — you can learn to leverage that scarcity to create demand.
This is the heart of personal branding at its most powerful.
It’s also what “having a career” is all about in the new economy.
3 Things I’ve Learned as an Entrepreneur
Ever since I was in high school I wanted to have my own business. Maybe it came from seeing my parents as business owners or it could have been my bent toward leading.
Since I made the leap in 2007 (without any prior experience) it’s been challenging, but I’ve learned so much over the past 6 years.
I couldn’t share everything in a single post, so instead here are the 3 things that stand out:
It’s much harder than I thought. There’s truth behind the fact that most businesses fail. If you think owning a business is going to be easier and immediately more profitable than working for someone else, you’re wrong. You don’t work 9 to 5 anymore, you work beyond that. There’s no guaranteed paycheck arriving each month. If you don’t have customers, you don’t earn income. With infinite freedom comes a need to buckle down and become extremely disciplined and structured.
Sales and marketing are necessary skills. It would be nice to delegate sales and marketing out, but without a budget it falls on you. Regardless if you have a product or service based company, selling determines whether you have a business or a glorified “hobby.” You may not be a natural salesperson at heart, but you’ll have to quickly figure out how to become one if you want to survive. If I could go back to college, I would have majored in business just because of this reason alone.
You are a jack of all trades. If you start with the appropriate funds you may have the luxury of not doing everything, but at the very least you’ll have to know about every aspect of your business. It’s important to be a specialist at what you do, but in terms of running a business you have to be a pretty stellar generalist also. Think of every department most companies have, now as a business owner you’re the head of every one! This is beyond multitasking, it’s learning how to run a company while on the job.
The best parallel to being an entrepreneur is like being a parent. You can talk, read and research all you want about it ahead of time, but NOTHING can prepare you for it besides doing it. Books, articles and blogs do a nice job of highlighting the less than 1% of success stories out there, but the reality is owning a business is like raising a child. Each child is different, so just because a particular method worked for someone else, doesn’t mean it will work for you. I’m not trying to discourage you from starting your own business. In fact, I believe our future economy will force everyone to function as entrepreneurs at some point in their lifetime. If your dream is to open your own business, know ahead of time making that dream a sustaining reality is hard work.
5 Common Traits of Greatness
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Guest Post by Charles Lee
At a recent speaking engagement for a private company, I had the privilege of listening to innovative leaders like Phil Jackson (former NBA player & coach), Tony Blair (former Prime Minister of Great Britain), Elon Musk (Founder of SpaceX; Co-Founder of PayPal & Tesla Motors), Whurley (Chaotic Moon), Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos), Salman Khan (Khan Academy), and many others.
All of the presenters are thought leaders in their respective spaces and took time to share their latest thoughts on the future. While listening to them, I started to note some of the characteristics or traits that all of them shared in the way they approached life and work. Here’s a brief synopsis of what I saw in each of their lives that have allowed them to become great at what they do:
Passion & Purpose Before Profit – The biggest drive for these individuals was their passion and the “why” (or purpose) behind what they were pursuing. While I’m sure that financial profitability through their endeavors does spur them on further, it’s not the main motivator. They are idea people who think they have something to offer the world.
Self-Awareness – All of them possessed a keen sense of self-awareness. They knew who they were and what they did and did not know. They were quick to point out their need for others in working towards their goals. They are smart enough to know that they didn’t have a monopoly on knowledge. All of them also appear to be avid learners and consumers of good thinking and teamwork.
Focused on a Few Things – Becoming the best in the world in something is incredibly difficult. All of these leaders directly or indirectly communicated the hard work required to stay focused on their endeavors. Many of them intentionally resisted the distractions that came along with their success. They all appear to have no problem saying no to opportunities that don’t resonate with their core.
Work is Not Something to Complain About – Hard work is inevitable for implementing any great idea. While it’s become common practice for many in our day to express displeasure in one’s “job”, all of these leaders embraced a contrary attitude. Working on their passions took away most of their need to complain. They love what they do and appear to thorough enough the process even when it’s difficult.
Invest in Culture & People – These leaders emphasized the need to build culture and people around ideas. While strategy is important, people ultimately determine the success of an idea. Developing a great culture for people to work in is essential to long-term growth and creation of something that actually matters. Spend time developing people as much as you’re developing your ideas as a leader.
I hope to unpack some of these thoughts a little bit further in the upcoming months. I’m still processing how these traits can be practically integrated into the life of any company or organization. Yes, still in progress…
When Leading Do the Opposite of This
Rarely do I use a negative example to illustrate my point, but in this case you can learn how to lead by doing the opposite of Mike D’Antoni.
Currently (unfortunately) he is the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and from the perspective of a die hard fan, this is the most underwhelming season I’ve ever witnessed.
Using him as an example, here are 5 ways to become a better leader by avoiding his mistakes:
1) Lack of direction – In sports, I’ve never seen someone change their lineups as much as Mike D’Antoni. One game a player will start the game and the next game he never plays at all. When roles aren’t clearly defined, people get confused.
Leaders need a clear vision that people can follow. Once the goal has been decided and your team has bought into it, stick with it. Results follow when there is a clear plan. “Without vision, people perish.”
2) Poor relationships – When Mike D’Antoni got hired, one of the first things he did was force his system on the players instead of creating a system around the talent on the team. He rubbed a lot of veteran players the wrong way right off the bat. Just because you’re the leader doesn’t automatically mean people want to follow you.
Leaders build rapport and eventually trust with people by asking them for input and listening to their goals. Engagement is a result of feeling appreciated, valued and heard. Engaged people perform better.
3) Passive-Aggressive – Every chance D’Antoni has to complain to the media he does. He consistently blames his players and drags them under the bus without hesitation. It seems like he’d rather vent about his players than actually talk to them. He deals with conflict by ignoring it.
Leaders communicate directly with the person. Conflict is inevitable and unless confronted, it lingers and builds up. As a leader, be the bigger person and talk about what’s wrong. When you resolve conflict and move on everyone wins.
4) Emotional roller coaster – D’Antoni loves to overreact and blow things out of proportion. He loves to identify problems, but rarely has any solutions. Since he is so moody, it has a negative effect on the team. Players think it’s acceptable to point the finger instead of taking ownership for areas they can improve upon.
Leaders need to be a calming presence. If you want to be a leader, it’s more important that you “show” your team before you “tell” them anything. People observe and follow the leader’s example.
5) Stubborn – D’Antoni has to be the most closed-minded coach around. No matter how many analysts, players or experts point out the flaws in his philosophy, he continues to repeat them expecting different results (that’s called insanity folks). Once you stop learning as a leader, it’s all downhill from there.
Leaders need to be open to suggestions. That doesn’t mean you do what everyone says, it means consider all options, then choose the best one. A humble leader knows there is always more to learn, so he stays flexible and agile, almost re-inventing himself over time.
Having leadership positions over the past 15+ years and being a huge sports fanatic, coaches have the single most influence on a team’s outlook. Since coaches are leaders, they have the ability to bring out the best in people’s performance and character. It is a privilege to lead people and “with great power comes great responsibility.” As a leader, focus more on the “we” than the “me” and you’ll accomplish great things together.
Growing Forward 