The Regenerate Web

I woke up from a dream early this morning. In the dream I was trying to move through a crowd at a conference but I could only move in slow motion - like I was walking in thick mud or with heavy weights on my ankles. I was frantically trying to go fast because I left my conference tickets back at my office.Time was ticking and the start of the conference was 40 then 30 then 20 minutes away. I could not miss the start! And when I tried to use my cell phone to call someone to help, I could not find them or the number was wrong.

As I reflected on this dream (interestingly I have had a similar dream before, have you?) the following pairing of phrases popped into my mind:

• Sense of urgency
• Inaction

That is what it felt like - like trying real hard and not going anywhere. Obstacles popped up everywhere. Do you have days like this? When we do, perhaps the place to look to get going again is not in the action, but in the focus - maybe the sense of urgency is poorly defined or not the right focus. 

Trying harder might be the solution sometimes, but I would bet the answer often lies in how we focus and tune our intentions.

Let's not waste time frantically going nowhere.....Is this what the dream is telling me? Who knows! Seems like sound advice!

Wally Bock, pal, fellow blogger, writer, and management expert, sent me a copy of his new book called, Ruthless Focus: How to use key core strategies to grow your business (Wally partnered with Thomas Hall on the book). And I would like to recommend this book for all leaders and managers.

Knowing that Wally had worked on the book, I expected it to be honest and direct, even when the message is one you might not want to hear. I expected conclusions to be insightful and insanely helpful, because that is how Wally delivers his messages.

And the book did not disappoint. Ruthless Focus is an important book because it addresses a topic that we don't talk about enough - focus versus multiple or changing #1 priorities. Actually, we talk about it often but not in the way that is helpful. This topic determines how we create a good plan and follow-through. In our "shiny object" business culture, sticking to a plan is often laughed off as unrealistic and not an option.

Here's the bottom line - you can ignore this topic, but it might be at your business's peril. 

Thomas and Wally researched successful companies and unsuccessful ones, and companies that were successful for a while and then withered. They share their findings in the book, which are provocative (not in a "gosh, I am shocked" way but in a "kick me in the butt I need to pay attention" way). They tell great stories about real companies we all know and some love.

The authors did not say this in the book, but it strikes me that the overall manta of their suggestions could be, "create enduring success through focus and discipline that enables engagement and excellence." This may not be as sexy as frequently reinventing the strategic plan but it is what will help your organization succeed, respond, and grow over the long haul.

For those of you who are frustrated by strategies du jour and revolving leadership styles and missions, you might want to get a copy of this book for your leadership team and facilitate a book club brown bag session. Let it catalyze great conversation and affect your thinking and future decisions.

Any manager or leader who reads this book will be better able to plan, measure success, and follow-through on core strategies. If they follow Wally and Thomas' advice, they will be able to achieve focus that opens doors to greater performance, engagement, and creativity.

There you go. Buy it. Read it. Be it. Pick up Ruthless Focus here. Excellent work, Wally!

In my previous post, I invited us all to have our best day ever and best week ever and offered a few suggestion for how to do this. I wanted to explore one aspect of how we experience our work a bit deeper.

Task completion versus task mastery. Is there a difference? Huge difference!

Task completion means you can check off the box. Been there. Done that. You might even have very detailed goals that make sure that you complete the task or project at a high level of performance. Success is usually defined by someone else, or a departmental plan, or an internal or external customer.

Task mastery occurs when we become in the "flow" with our work and perform in ways that can't all be measured. There is the task completion and quality that can be measured and then there is that je ne sais quoi (translated: I do not know what) or something special.

Your something special, your flow, your mastery, will be different than mine. We each have a special eye and a unique filter and a one-of-a-kind ability and when we bring this forth in our work it makes a huge difference.

So as you launch forward into the new week, take the time and care to bring your best to even the seemingly tiniest tasks. Do you have a staff meeting coming up? Don't show up checked out and automatic, enter the meeting room like you would have on your first day of work - interested, engaged, and ready to share your best thinking, listening, and partnership. Regardless of how many crappy meetings you might have been through in the past, see the next one as a huge opportunity and privilege. The moment you stop believing is the moment when mastery will no longer be possible.

You might retort: But what if I don't care about the depth of my performance at staff meetings?

My retort: This is not about giving something to your boss, mastery is for you. When we are in the zone of high performance, we enjoy our work more fully and we feel more successful. 

You might retort: Well, I will save that for something I am interested in, like project XYZ.

My retort: If you are present and in the zone during even small tasks, you will have much more capacity and focus to bring to the project. If you choose to check out and be automatic much of the time, you will experience more stress, distraction, and your brain will reinforce negative patterns.

I invite you to experience each task with a heightened sense of connection and focus - and make this the best week ever.

If you would like to join our little online group aimed at making this and every week the best week ever, read the previous post and drop me an email.

I was driving for several hours back from a client site this morning when my mind began to explore a few ideas.

BTW, before I get into the ideas, the idea-enhancing music wafting through my TDI today was TROMBONE SHORTY, and this album, Backatown, is so amazing (track #8 is addictive). Things you never thought a trombone could do! Here is a tantalizing description from TS's website:

Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews' new album, Backatown, is the work of a rare artist who can draw both the unqualified respect of jazz legends and deliver a high-energy rock show capable of mesmerizing international rock stars and audiences alike. With such an unprecedented mix of rock, funk, jazz, hip-hop and soul, he had to create his own name to describe his signature sound: Supafunkrock! Andrews is the kind of player who comes along maybe once in a generation, and Backatown is the latest, clearest proof that his artistry is as singular as his raw talent.

As the slippery guttural tones danced in my head like entwined endorphin ribbons (my reptile brain driving with confidence, no worries), I got to thinking about beginnings. And sub-beginnings. And faux-beginnings. And the power of designing our daily work experiences.

Here's the idea. Many of us do a pretty good job of beginnings when we take the time to think about them. So let's design the best work day ever tomorrow.

• How does it start off for you? Start that way.
• What kinds of things might you do? Do at least some of these things.
• How would you feel, act, speak, and relate to others on your best day? Be that way.

And because many of us are better at beginnings than follow through and endings, restart the day at lunchtime. Refresh your thinking and ask the questions again. In fact, take as many mulligans as you need, to the point of restarting at 4:30pm if that makes sense.

And what about the best ever week? What might that look like? Let's design that to happen next week and then improve upon our plan for the following week and then the next one and so on. Write your plan down, carry it with you, and review it every two hours. Restart any time. And on and on.

As I hit the replay button on TS track #8 for the 10th time, I thought, how could we make the weekly plan - and recreating it anytime and reinventing it each week - more positive and fun and energizing? How about a group who do it together? People from anywhere in the world getting together on the web to share their Best Week Ever plans and provide ideas, support and motivation. Interested? Willing to spend 30 minutes this weekend creating your weekly plan for next week? Willing to post it to a shared project site (wiki or Basecamp, etc..)?

Drop me an email if you want to give it a whirl. I will create a sample Best Week Ever template planning tool inspired by my Two Weeks to a Breakthrough work, but you can use anything you want.

And even if you do not want to do it with a group, give it a whirl on your own! Make tomorrow the best day ever and this week the best week ever. And this moment? Make it the best ever. What would that look like?

Let's use the energy we have for beginnings to continually relaunch the day. The past only gets in the way of the present and future when we fail to begin again.

One more idea: Maybe the specific items on your plan are not as important as how you would generate progress, forward movement, and build stronger and more effective partnerships.

One more thought: Be open to the idea that you can have both a challenging and great day at the same time. That you can experience adversity and peace at the same time. That you can be fraught with a tense situation and at ease at the same time.

My colleague and pal, Lisa Edwards, is working on her next book and would like to invite you to participate in her research. This book will be very cool and her research seeks to uncover how various types of performers approach their work and how they differ. If you would like to participate and then follow the progress of the research, click on through below. Here is the short invite from Lisa E.

============================

From Lisa Edwards:

I would love to invite you to be a part of my next book!

• Are you energized by your job?
• Do you believe you could be more effective?
• Are you struggling to succeed in your work environment?
• Do you have a track record of producing results?

If you agree with ANY of these statements, you may be eligible to be a part of my next book on personal effectiveness and performance at work.   Learn more about how you can get involved by clicking here.

Thanks!

I like tennis, take lessons, and have always enjoyed the sport. Today, I was watching the men's finals between Roger Federer (#2 in the world) and Mardy Fish (ranked #36 before today's match) at the Western & Southern tournament that is played right here in Cincinnati. I was not there in person, I watched on TV.

It was a very close match and Federer ultimately won. For the sports commentators, however, Fish was the story. This is what they said while marveling at how well Fish was playing: Apparently his career had been less than spectacular, with lots of injuries and few wins. Then, in conjunction with an injury and apparently realizing that he was getting older (he is 29, on the older side for tennis), Mardy decided to own his career in a new way. He started eating differently and lost 30 pounds, which enabled him to be faster, stronger, and last longer on the court while reducing injuries. He also revamped his training regimen and became a much more driven, focused, and disciplined person. The commentators even joked that the officials almost did not recognize him when he came in to get his credentials for the tournament because he looked so different.

      Both pics from the ATPWorldTour site

The way they talked about the turnabout in mindset and results struck me. What an inspiration! The power of OWNING our career, our health, our results is so decisive because all actions will derive from this. If there is something very important to you and in your life and if you demonstrate the ownership and resolve that Fish has, or more, there will be no stopping you. I am very sure of that.

The question we must all ask ourselves is, "Am I willing to own it, really own it?" And here is another question - "What if we did, what might be possible?"

You go Mardy!

I will be doing a talk tomorrow about middle management excellence. Here are six of the points I will be expanding upon - tell me what you think:

Overall premise: Managers are our engines that turn intentions (mission, strategies, goals) into performance and into results.It has never been harder to be a middle manager and we need great middle management more than ever (we don't need to call it that, but we need the work mucking about at the core of where processes, people, and plans intersect and sometimes collide).

1. Let's reframe middle management. It is the best and most challenging job available! If you want to have maximum impact, be a middle manager. Doing so will require that you see dysfunction as a part of your reason for being (and not become a victim of it).

2. Great managers do what others don't or won't. How fast and smoothly the engine runs depends on deliberate and proactive choices you make each day, many times a day. Great managers approach and blast away barriers. They have conversations others are put off and they don't let busy work get in the way of truly important tasks.

3. Management is a social act. Conversations are your currency to generate excellence and bring out the best in others. Erode relationships, erode results.

4. Let's reframe results orientation, too. We can likely agree that to be results oriented is to drive to achieve results. Some of us, however, might need a new paradigm when to better describe managerial activities that most impact results (I have seen how many organizations define results orientation and I invite your to rethink your definition). Think intrinsic, think inspiration, think connection, and then define it again. What managerial activities MOST impact results?

5. If you want to build business, build talent and partnerships. Selling - to internal or external customers - is often a push process but the most powerful way to expand your opportunities and impact is through creating pull. Pull is stickier.This applies to internal and external influencers.

6. Time is precious and expensive. Every conversation, every meeting, every IM, and every email has the potential to engage, excite, enliven, and explain. If you saw a ticker spinning and showing the mounting costs of time spent, would you change how you spent it? This is not an invitation to stop showing up at meetings or stop responding to emails, BTW, great conversations are worth their minutes spent in gold. Even break room banter can be a great use of time (better than many staff meetings!). Relationships = results.

I like to make the most of my business travels, adding talks, workshops, training sessions, and networking to my other scheduled events. Here is a list of the places I will be over the next couple of months. If this is your hometown, let me know if you would like to arrange something or pass this along to your colleagues who live in these cities (hit the email link on the left side of the blog to send me a note). Thanks so much!

Next week - Omaha, NE

Early September - Kingston, Jamaica

Late September - Washington DC and Roanoke, VA

Mid October - Kuala Lumpur

Also, in mid-November, I will be in San Francisco.

Would you like to learn how to use your brain's natural functions to help generate progress and a breakthrough? Check out this podcast!

During this 25 minute podcast, I chat with Dr. Ellen Weber, author of several books and the amazing Brain Leaders and Learners Blog. Ellen is the President of the MITA International Brain Center and is an expert on all things BRAIN and how to apply brain science to improve our lives. I have been following Ellen's work for years and we recorded a podcast several years ago that ended up never getting posted due to technical problems.

If you are a regular reader of mine, you know that I am passionate about helping people generate breakthroughs in results. During this podcast, we bring these two topics together to discuss easy and practical ways (easy but DEEP and PROFOUNDLY transformative) we can generate more breakthroughs and progress and put the amazing power of our brains and our body's electrical circuitry to work for us. I think you will really enjoy it. After the podcast, Ellen and I had a wonderful conversation where she recommended the following book, The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doige.

You can listen to my podcast with the Dr. Ellen Weber by clicking here:

You can also download an MP3 version of the podcast here.

And just a reminder.....

Here is the Podcast Feed for the entire Fireside Chat podcast series:

To see the complete list of podcasts in this series, select the Podcasts and Webcasts category on this blog.You can also find this series on iTunes (and several other podcast sites), just search under my last name for Fireside Chat.