How To Make This New Year Your Best Year Yet – Vlog By Robin Sharma

I am a person who loves setting targets for myself each year. Nothing could have been more better than this one. I hope you read it at a time when you could take action on these steps

http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/12/how-to-make-this-new-year-your-best-year-yet-vlog/

The 10 Keys to Genius Level Leadership by Robin Sharma

I seriously recommend that you read the LEADER WHO HAD NO TITLE by Robin Sharma and once done that, go ahead listen to this 30 min podcast. Its amazing

http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/11/the-10-keys-to-genius-level-leadership/

Be Confident, but Not Really Sure by HBR

One of the keys to effective decision making is confidence. Even if you only have temporary convictions, act on them. If you doubt your decision as you're making it, you'll erode others' trust in your leadership. Strong opinions signal confidence and provide others with the guidance they need. But, resist the urge to cling to your decisions once you make them. Have the humility to realize that you might be wrong if better information comes along. And, be prepared to change your mind and correct your course if that happens.

Today's Management Tip was adapted from "A Great Boss is Confident, But Not Really Sure" by Robert I. Sutton.

Inside The Novelis Turnaround by Economic Times

Kumar Mangalam Birla overruled managers and took the risky decision to buy Novelis for $6 billion.Now,hes rolled up his sleeves and turned it around,report Kausik Datta and M Anand IT WAS STEAK FOR LUNCH.AS THE two Indians at the JW Marriott in Atlanta cut into it,they gave the American seated across the table something to chew on.We would like to buy Novelis. Debnarayan Bhattacharya,the managing director of Aditya Birla group flagship Hindalco Industries,which was less than one-fourth the size of Novelis,had just uttered the bravest words of his career.It was August 2006.   Brian W Sturgell,the then president and CEO of Novelis,kept chewing.I must say that he was not utterly shocked, recalls one of the Indians who sat at the table that day.Sumant Sinha,the second Indian,and then the group CFO,had done much of the preparatory work that enabled Bhattacharya to pop the question.Their boss,Kumar Mangalam Birla,the 42-year old chairman of the group,had been closely studying Novelis,a manufacturer of aluminium products,for six months.He was keen to buy it.   Sturgell finished his steak and took the proposal back to his board.Eleven years after taking charge of the Aditya Birla Group as a 27-year-old,Mr Birla had just initiated the boldest move of his career.It was an intimidating proposition.But after a lot of thinking,I found it too compelling an opportunity to let go of, recalls Mr Birla.   Fifty months have passed since that luncheon meeting.The world has changed in the meantime.A global recession has come and gone.Billions of dollars were raised and invested.Three people have sat in the corner office at Novelis,a bunch of senior executives have gone and others have come.Aluminium prices have gone up and down,so have credit ratings.Over a thousand employees have been retrenched,one plant is shut,and another is under closure notice.At one stage,we were wondering what is going to hit us next the poor liquidity was hurting us, recalls Mr Bhattacharya.Through it all,Mr Birla,the one man keenest on this $6-billion wager,has held his nerve and resolve to make the deal work.   The turbulent weather at Novelis is now giving way to a calm horizon.Novelis on its way to an adjusted EBIDTA of over a billion dollars this financial year,Steve Fisher,senior VP and CFO,Novelis announced at a mid-September Credit Suisse conference in Miami.Novelis is certainly Kumars biggest achievement so far, says Basant Kumar Birla,chairman of the BK Birla group and Kumar Mangalams grandfather. MR BIRLA FIRST CONSIDERED the possibility of acquiring Novelis in 2006.When we presented the deal,Mr Birla immediately sensed this could define his career, recalls a top group executive.He knew the deal would help him to break into the Fortune 500. The $2.6-billion Hindalco was game to buy the $11-billion Novelis.   But inadvertently,the two men who first discussed the transaction in 2006,over steak,only made the Herculean task even more difficult for Birla each in a different way. Mr Sturgell took Mr Birlas proposal to the Novelis board,but he quit weeks after the luncheon meeting.Some reports say he was fired.Novelis chairman William T Monahan was appointed as its CEO.The board appointed Morgan Stanley to invite prospective buyers into a competitive bidding process.Mr Birla was hoping to seal the deal quickly and quietly.But he only pushed Novelis into play.Hindalco would eventually pay a lot more than what it had originally imagined.   Mr Bhattacharya came home,watched new bidders hover around Novelis,saw the asking price rise,and decided it was not worth buying anymore.It was better for Hindalco to stay focused on investments in its core area of expertise the upstream (raw materials) side of the aluminium business. Over the next few months,Novelis remained in play,with private equity majors like TPG showing interest.Mr Birla went to work on Mr Bhattacharya.He could have overruled Bhattacharya.But he just kept on persuading him, recalls a top executive.Mr Birla even offered to bring in his personal money through a rights issue to ensure that Hindalco did not run out of funds for the upstream expansion projects that Bhattacharya was keen on.This went on for six months. Soon,it was time to decide one way or the other.Mr Bhattacharya habitually spent the first half of Sundays at office,before taking his wife out for lunch or a movie later in the day.Mr Birla walked in on one such Sunday.I chose to do it on a holiday so that there would be no distraction.We had a long chat, recalls Mr Birla.   At the end of it,Mr Bhattacharya still would not budge.At that point,Birla stood up and said that he was exercising an entrepreneurs call: he was going ahead with the bid.The next moment,Mr Bhattacharya said he would fall in line as a manager and do everything possible to make the transaction work.The man who had first ambushed Novelis over steak was now back in the deal.Operation Red Sox,the codename of the Novelis acquisition,was in motion.   THE STORY STARTED WITH steak,but the next twist has to do with Indian food.By early-2007,all bidders,including Hindalco,TPG and a few others,had completed the duediligence process.With only a week to go before the bids had to be submitted,employees at Novelis Atlanta headquarters organised a high-profile Indian food festival.It was a subtle,yet loud message, recalls Mr Birla with a smile.The employees wanted Hindalco to win the race.We visited many plants during the due-diligence process and it was apparent to us that Novelis employees wanted us to win. But the honeymoon was short-lived,at least for Hindalco.Mr Birla and his team were aware of many problems that plagued Novelis.But after the deal,the full reality of the mess hit home.Novelis was contracted to sell aluminium cans to customers at prices lower than its raw material cost,the liquidity situation was bad and proper accounts had not been filed.Finally,Novelis was confused about its business model.It was only a converter of aluminium into can stock,but it was behaving like a metal producer, recalls Mr Bhattacharya.Their risk management needed immediate improvement, he adds,in a reference to the can price contracts. Consultants came in,offering to help us with the integration.They offered us a magic wand, he says.Hindalco wanted to do things its way.They must have thought that I was stubborn and overconfident. Soon,he and Mr Birla rolled up their sleeves.I made critical interventions that added value.I did not get into operational issues, says Mr Birla.   Mr Birla can be very hands-on when he chooses to be, recalls Sumant Sinha,the former group CFO.In this case,he chose to be. Mr Sinha now runs his hybrid investment banking/consulting firm,SaVant Advisers. Cost-cutting is another area.Mr Birla opted for a consultative approach.He chose not to set aggressive 90-day integration targets,often deployed in such acquisitions.The task was to create awareness before cutting costs, he recalls.Nothing was thrust upon them.Every decision was elaborately discussed and debated.They not only participated in the talks,they also added value, he says.Another hard call Mr Birla was involved in,was to shed about 9% of Novelis workforce. Project Blue Sox was the next step.Under this,Novelis can stock plant at Rogerstone,Britain,is being shut down and shipped to Hirakud in Orissa.This is a small,but significant step to mesh Novelis high technology with Indias low cost advantage.A second unit in UK,a foil rolling and packaging plant at Bridgnorth,is also being shut down.Our approach was to establish Novelis as a value creator,not a volume filler, says Mr Bhattacharya.   In fiscal 2010,Novelis posted an EBIDTA of $754 million,its liquidity improved by $640 million to $1 billion,net profit stood at $400 million and sales at $8.7 billion.It was Noveliss best performance ever.Can price ceilings were eliminated on January 1.We will never enter into a contract like that again, vows Mr Bhattacharya.Soon Moodys upgraded Novelis junk-bond rating by three notches.   THE FIRST SETBACK HIT Novelis soon enough.Less then two years after the acquisition,Martha Finn Brooks,president & COO and the woman spearheading these initiatives at Novelis quit.Mr Birla took charge of the search for the new CEO.Internal candidates were considered,but the job demanded someone with the experience of running a large profit and loss account.Several outsiders were screened,including two Indians.Finally,Philip Martens was offered the hot seat,but only after Birla had four meetings with him.The search took four months. Novelis was surprised that we did not choose an Indian to succeed Brooks, recalls Mr Birla.It showed that we did not want to thrust ourselves upon them. In fact,only five mid-management Hindalco employees were transferred to Novelis.Its very unusual for companies to send so few managers into such a large acquisition, he adds. Mr Martens fits the typical rock-star-American-CEO mould,starting early and rising fast.At 34,he was the chief programme manager for the Panther range of cars at Ford Motor.By 43,he was head of product creation for North America.He became president and COO of Novelis when he was 49.Martens is methodical,yet prone to action,which helps drive his decision-making, says Gary S Vasilash,editorial director,Automotive Design & Production,a magazine.Vasilash has tracked Martens career for many years now.   Martens acted quickly (after joining Novelis), says Henry Unger,a veteran business journalist with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,a newspaper.I didnt think he had time,partially because the company was facing several pressures,including the recession and falling liquidity, says Mr Unger,who interviewed Mr Martens last month. Thirty days after taking charge,Mr Martens centralised a very decentralised company.It made no sense for Novelis,which has a homogeneous manufacturing system and global customers,to operate by dividing the world into four regional fiefdoms, Mr Unger adds. Martens called this programme One Novelis.Says Mr Birla: Large corporations have many divisions and zones that tend to become independent.What has been done is the integration of the whole company to maximise the whole as opposed to optimising the parts.I give credit to Phil (Martens) for doing this. Hindalco declined to allow ET to interview Martens for this story.   Less then 18 months after taking over a troubled Novelis,Mr Martens is now helping it overtake rival Alcoa as the largest North American maker of metal for beverage cans.In the US,we will be the dominant can-sheet provider Alcoa took a different position within the US market and that has opened up opportunities, he told Bloomberg News in an interview this June. The job,though,is not yet complete.Novelis had $2.4 billion in debt when it was acquired.Now it has $ 2.7 billion.About 90% of this will come up for repayment from 2014. Mr Martens was a good choice for the role of Novelis chief for another reason.He is an auto industry veteran and knows Ford Motor inside out the company and the auto industry are major Novelis customers.At present,54% of the aluminium processed by Novelis goes into cans,only 7% into cars.But that equation is going to tilt towards cars.In the next five years,demand for aluminium from the world car industry is expected to grow by 10%,while demand for beverage cans will grow at less than half that pace.Aluminiums properties as a lighter,more malleable metal meets the auto industrys need for lighter,more fuelefficient cars.   After an intense,hands-on phase at Novelis,it is now time for Mr Birla to do what he does at all other group companies sit back and let the professional CEO take the wheel.Its a pity that he is vegetarian otherwise he could have taken some time out to enjoy the steak at the Marriott in Atlanta. ALL ABOUT NOVELIS Novelis produces 19% of the worlds flat-rolled aluminium products,including sheets from which beverage cans and car body parts,among others,are made Customers include Coca-Cola,Ford,General Motors and ThyssenKrupp It has a global footprint: 31 manufacturing plants in 11 countries,11,600 employees It is the worlds largest recycler of used aluminium beverage cans;34% of its can stock production was made using recycled aluminium DONE DEAL Debu Bhattacharya and Kumar Mangalam Birla after announcing the Novelis buy in 2007 THE TURNAROUND The turbulent weather at Novelis is giving way to a calm.Novelis is on its way to an adjusted EBIDTA of $1 billion this fiscal

3 Types of Failure to Avoid by HBR

Innovation experts have long argued that companies should be more tolerant of failure. But not all failure is created equally. Here are three types of failures that rarely contribute to learning and should be avoided whenever possible:

• Knowingly doing the wrong thing. When a project falls apart because someone hid information or misled others, any learning is moot. Failure is only acceptable when the project was done with good intentions.
• Failing to gather the right data. Often failure can be avoided by doing some simple research: asking target customers for input or testing an idea before launching it.
• Prioritizing research over experience. Some things are unknowable without real-life experiments. Don't waste resources on researching a theory when you can create a prototype or conduct an experiment that will give you a more realistic answer.

Today's Management Tip was adapted from "When Failure Is Intolerable" by Scott Anthony.

7 Rules to Create a Great Business By Robin Sharma

1. Hire only "A Players" because you can't coach height.

2. Narrow your focus and devote your resources to being best in world at only one thing.

3. Train and develop your team relentlessly because the growth of your sales is a reflection of the growth of your people.

4. Take care of people and the money will take care of itself.

5. Put your most valuable resources on your most valuable opportunities.

6. Get your product right so that people are awed by it

7. Commit to operational excellence.

Develop the 4 Qualities of an Inspirational Leader By HBR

Leaders need vision, energy, authority, and a natural strategic ability. But those things don't necessarily help you inspire your employees to be their best and commit to you as a leader. Here are the four qualities you need to capture the hearts, minds, and spirits of your people:

1. Humanness. Nobody wants to work with a perfect leader. Build collaboration and solidarity by revealing your weaknesses.
2. Intuition. To be most effective, you need to know what's going on without others spelling it out for you. Collect unspoken data from body language and looks given across rooms to help you intuit the underlying messages.
3. Tough empathy. Care deeply about your employees, but accept nothing less than their very best.
4. Uniqueness. Demonstrate that you are a singular leader by showing your unique qualities to those around you.

       

Today's Management Tip was adapted from HBR's 10
Must Reads on Leadership, one of six HBR article collections in the popular 10 Must Reads series.

What the Detroit Public Schools Can Teach Marketers By HBR.Org

Last month we served as judges on the North America Grand Effies Judging Committee. For those of you who do not know the Effies, they are considered the top awards for effective marketing communications around the world. Several rounds of judging submissions in different marketing categories result in a list of finalists for the "Grand Effie" or the award for the most effective marketing across all categories. That's what we were tasked to judge, along with nine other senior marketers representing both the creative and business sides of the industry.

The winner was a surprising choice. It wasn't a multi-million dollar television campaign for a Fortune 50 company, nor was it a digital media program for some new-age service. Instead, the Grand Effie award was given to the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) for a very simple, and cost-efficient word-of-mouth program to encourage student enrollment. Here's what they did.

With enrollment declining 80,000 students in the past 10 years, the school system faced a $305 million dollar deficit, forcing the Governor and The Michigan Department of Education to close 29 schools in 2009. This caused a major public outcry and highlighted the lack of confidence that residents placed in the DPS.

Leo Burnett Detroit created the "I'm In" marketing campaign to drive awareness of the positive aspects of the Detroit Public Schools as well as to halt the decline in enrollment. The main idea of this campaign is that the Detroit Public Schools have amazing and surprising opportunities behind them. This idea was brought to life by the creation of 172 blue doors representing the 172 public schools in the district. The doors appeared at various community events and in a large installation at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. Teachers, parents, and students brought the positive message of DPS success to local neighborhoods and encouraged residents to make a commitment to their local school. This commitment took many shapes, including a yard sign that featured a blue door and the phrase "I'm In". Residents could now see which of their neighbors were sending their children to the public schools, encouraging others to join the movement. With only $250,000 in paid media, the "I'm In" program generated over $1.5 million in free press coverage built awareness of the success stories from the DPS. Local and national celebrities, including Bill Cosby, used their status to support the "I'm In" program.

In the end, student enrollment in Detroit actually rose 6,500 in 2010. As a result, an incremental $49 million of funding was generated for DPS, keeping the school system financially viable. The program provided a beacon of hope for Detroit and its public school system.

Here are five lessons we tookaway from the Detroit Public Schools campaign and the finalists at this year's Effies:

1. Cause marketing matters more than ever. We live in a difficult world. Through these difficult times we expect brands to do more for our communities. If they take the lead, we'll reward them. The Detroit Public Schools campaign and Ford's "Drive One 4 UR School" are perfect example of this. People are excited to rally around important causes and brands that engage authentically in this effort can benefit too. The critical factor is to find a cause that authentically relates to your brand's equity and culture.

2. Taking the right posture in an economic downturn can bring success. The economic downturn caused a lot of suffering, but it also created an opportunity for brands to say, "We understand what you're going through and we are going to do something different as a result." Programs that did well in 2010 were ones that understood the impact of the economic crisis and responded to it with the appropriate voice and tone. For example, Hyundai brought compassion and assurance to a new car purchase by offering to refund your money if you lost your job.

3. Advertising is dead, long live advertising. There's a meme in the world of business that consumers do not like advertising and even more broadly, that marketing communications does not work. If there's anything that the finalists and the winner showed is that there's a very direct line from successful marketing programs to an organization's bottom line. The Detroit Public Schools turned around a 10 year decline in enrollment with some paint and lumber. Hyundai was the only car company to grow while their other competitors declined by up to 40%.

4. Resonance, resonance resonance. We live in a cluttered media ecosystem. For a message to break through, it needs to resonate with customers. That's what Apple did with "There's an App For That" campaign, where different iPhone applications were matched with corresponding print publications. For example, the advertisement in Gourmet magazine only promoted food related applications. Simple but powerful. The Detroit Public Schools took their message to the streets, neighborhoods, and local events frequented by the residents of Detroit.

5. Marketing means creating movements. There is no doubt about it that the most effective marketing programs are the ones that rally people, encourage them to serve as social voices for the brands, and make them feel like they are part of something greater.

The Detroit Public Schools is a brilliant example of all that works in marketing in 2010. It had a simple and emotionally compelling idea. It had disruptive and brilliant creative executions. And it leveraged the power of personal persuasion to generate outstanding results. As judges, we had to compare the impact of a national effort like Hyundai "Assurance" with a local effort like DPS's "I'm In." In the end, we made our decision based on the magnitude of the challenge. Many of the finalists required people to change their minds or make major purchases during an economic downturn. The DPS "I'm In" campaign encouraged over 6,000 more people to put their most precious possession on the line — their child's future. That's great marketing.

Shiv Singh is the Head of Digital for PepsiCo Beverages and a regular blogger at Going Social Now. Peter Carter is the Director of Brand Building Integrated Communications-Americas at P&G. To review the work and read the case studies of the campaigns mentioned visit their page on the Effies' site.

“Contact Us” Done Right : By Sanborn

Scott Ginsberg is a talented speaker and colleague in the National Speakers Association. I needed to ping him this morning so went to his website and clicked “contact us.”

I often hate the convoluted methodology used to capture information that turns a simple email into a royal pain. I don’t want to have to fill out a long from that goes to “info@” and wonder if my communication was ever received.

Scott does it right. He has one of the best, most straightforward contact pages I’ve ever seen. He makes it simple and gives you nine contact options, all direct to him. Check it out here.

Scott talks about how to network and connect, and he practices well what he teaches.

Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation

When IBM recently polled 1500 CEOs across 60 countries, they rated creativity as the most important leadership competency.

Eighty percent of the CEOs said the business environment is growing so complex that it literally demands new ways of thinking. Less than 50 percent said they believed their organizations were equipped to deal effectively with this rising complexity.

But are CEOs and senior leaders really willing to make the transformational moves necessary to foster cultures of real creativity and innovation?

Here are the six fundamental moves we believe they must make. In all my travels, I've not yet come across a single company that systematically does even the majority of them, much less every one.

1. Meet People's Needs. Recognize that questioning orthodoxy and convention — the key to creativity — begins with questioning the way people are expected to work. How well are their core needs — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual — being met in the workplace? The more people are preoccupied by unmet needs, the less energy and engagement they bring to their work. Begin by asking employees, one at a time, what they need to perform at their best. Next, define what success looks like and hold people accountable to specific metrics, but as much as possible, let them design their days as they see fit to achieve those outcomes.
2. Teach Creativity Systematically. It isn't magical and it can be developed. There are five well-defined, widely accepted stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. They don't always unfold predictably, but they do provide a roadmap for enlisting the whole brain, moving back and forth between analytic, deductive left hemisphere thinking, and more pattern-seeking, big-picture, right hemisphere thinking. The best description of the stages I've come across is in Betty Edward's book Drawing on the Artist Within. The best understanding of the role of the right hemisphere, and how to cultivate it, is in Edwards' first book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
3. Nurture Passion. The quickest way to kill creativity is to put people in roles that don't excite their imagination. This begins at an early age. Kids who are encouraged to follow their passion develop better discipline, deeper knowledge, and are more persevering and more resilient in the face of setbacks. Look for small ways to give employees, at every level, the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents.
4. Make the Work Matter. Human beings are meaning-making animals. Money pays the bills but it's a thin source of meaning. We feel better about ourselves when we we're making a positive contribution to something beyond ourselves. To feel truly motivated, we have to believe what we're doing really matters. When leaders can define a compelling mission that transcends each individual's self-interest, it's a source of fuel not just for higher performance, but also for thinking more creatively about how to overcome obstacles and generate new solutions.
5. Provide the Time. Creative thinking requires relatively open-ended, uninterrupted time, free of pressure for immediate answers and instant solutions. Time is a scarce, overburdened commodity in organizations that live by the ethic of "more, bigger, faster." Ironically, the best way to insure that innovation gets attention is to schedule sacrosanct time for it, on a regular basis.
6. Value Renewal. Human beings are not meant to operate continuously the way computers do. We're designed to expend energy for relatively short periods of time — no more than 90 minutes — and then recover. The third stage of the creative process, incubation, occurs when we step away from a problem we're trying to solve and let our unconscious work on it. It's effective to go on a walk, or listen to music, or quiet the mind by meditating, or even take a drive. Movement — especially exercise that raises the heart rate — is another powerful way to induce the sort of shift in consciousness in which creative breakthroughs spontaneously arise.

These activities are only possible in a workplace that doesn't overvalue face time and undervalue the power of renewal.

Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, "The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less," and coauthor, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, "Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time." Tony is also the author of the new book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance" (Free Press, 2010).

A Lesson in How to Make People Feel Special: John Baldoni Blog(Lead By Example Royal Encounter)

It is not often that we look to royalty for insight into how to demonstrate leadership in the modern age. So in our age of egalitarianism Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain stands as an exception. To overlook her ability to connect with people would be a shame. Wherever she visits she gives leaders a tutorial in how to make everyone she meets feel special.

In reporting on the Queen’s visit to the United Nations, Richard Quest, CNN’s U.K. reporter, commended the Queen for her extraordinary ability to make anyone who comes into contact with her feel quite at home. Quest experienced this first-hand when he welcomed the Queen to the dedication of CNN’s London studios in 2001. The Queen is not only able to make small conversation, says Quest, but she backs it up with a smile and eye twinkle that makes the person she is with feel special.

This ability to make people feel important is not solely a royal prerogative; many great leaders from Winston Churchill (who was Prime Minister when the Queen ascended the throne in 1952) to Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan had the gift of connectivity. I have seen corporate leaders connect in similar ways. And in conversing with folks afterward I know how special it was for them to be treated in such a personable manner.

The advantages of such up close and personal relations are two-fold. One, it makes the listener feel that he or she is worthy of attention. Two, it opens the door for conversation where a genuine exchange of ideas can occur. Granted this will not occur with royal schmoozes, but it can happen when CEOs or department heads make time to chat. So here are some suggestions for making it happen.

Smile first. The one with the bigger title must make the first move and the first move is to smile. Look like you are happy to be where you are, even when this visit is your tenth of the week. The act of smiling is way of putting others at ease.

Know what the issues are. People on the way up are often flummoxed by conversation with senior executives. In reality it is a two way street; more than a few executives have no idea what to say to front line employees. So it is important find out what the employees are concerned about and have a conversation about it.

Engage. Act, (and yes it is an act of leadership), like you want to be with the person. Put yourself into the conversation. Listen to what the other person has to say. Ask one or two open ended questions that get them talking. When done with a smile and cheery demeanor, you can do it quickly and without offending anyone.

Truth be told not every person in a position of authority knows how to make others “subordinate” to him or her feel welcome. More than a few leaders I know are quite shy and so hiding behind a wall of reserve comes naturally to them. Their standoffishness is as much a defense mechanism as anything else. Too many in the corporate world have risen to the top because they are good at tasks not with people; and so when they are in positions of senior leadership they lack social grace.

There is no excuse for acting aloof. Holding yourself apart from others sends the worst kind of signal, the one we typically associate with most royals. That is, I am better than anyone else. Such a sentiment might have worked for Elizabeth’s ancestors, but it simply will not do in today’s age.

3 Ways to Empower Your Employees By HBR

Successful leaders empower their people to make decisions, share information, and take risks. Here are three ways to get out of your people's way and let them take ownership: Give responsibility and autonomy. Let those who demonstrate the capacity to handle responsibility take on new levels of accountability and have autonomy over their tasks and resources. Focus on growth. Create an environment where people have the opportunity to expand their skills and are rewarded for doing so. Don't second-guess. Unless it is absolutely necessary, don't doubt the decisions of others. This undermines their confidence and encourages them to hold back when they have ideas.

Today's Management Tip was adapted from "Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves" by Marshall Goldsmith.

3 Steps to Recover from a Mistake by HBR

While most people accept that mistakes are inevitable, no one likes to make them. The good news is that even large errors don't have to be career-enders if they are handled well. Next time you make a blunder, follow these three steps to recover gracefully: Fess up. Trying to hide a mistake or downplay its importance can be fatal to your career. Be candid and transparent about the mistake, take responsibility for your part in it, and don't be defensive. Make necessary changes. Mistakes are important learning opportunities. Explain to your boss and other interested parties what you will do differently going forward. Get back out there. Don't let your errors keep you from ever taking risks again. Once the mistake is behind you, focus on the future.

Stop Bringing Down Your Team By HBR

Chances are you've worked with someone who drains all the intelligence and capability out of a team. Sometimes, despite your intentions, that person may be you. Here are three things you can do to get out of your team's way and let it shine: Don't be a hero. You don't always need to have an answer. Give your people the opportunity to think things through themselves. Don't make abrupt decisions. Quick decisions can short-circuit a team. Let your people in on your decision-making process and whenever possible, cultivate debate about an issue before coming to a conclusion. Don't talk too much. You may think your excitement is infectious when in reality it is stifling. Try keeping your mouth shut and leave room for your employees to share their ideas. Today's Management Tip was adapted from "Bringing Out the Best in Your People" by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown.

Downturns can be fair weather for business liftoffs By Harvey Mackay

The official unemployment rate today hovers around 10 percent -- far higher if you include those who have given up looking.  Still . . . things have been worse.  The U.S. unemployment rate during the Great Depression reached a high of 25 percent in 1933 and remained above 15 percent through 1940.

Nobody in their right mind would have thought of starting up a business during a rocky, hardscrabble era like that.  Or, would they?  Research business history from October 1929 through 1940.  You'll find some astonishing, I dare say, uplifting facts:

• Howard Johnson's was a single restaurant until 1932.  Through franchising, it was able to add 40 more restaurants by the end of 1936 and had a total of 107 units by 1939.
• Boeing created the first modern airliner -- the 247 -- in 1933 at the depth of the Depression.
• Hewlett-Packard originated in a Palo Alto garage in 1935.
• Hormel introduced its canned Chili in 1936 and SPAM in 1937 while the Depression was in full swing.
• The Estée Lauder company came into being in 1935.
• The Carlson Companies -- today a multi-billion-dollar behemoth -- was founded in 1938 by Curt Carlson with a $55 loan.

Well and good, you may say, but this was all before the era of information technology.  Remember the face of technology is an ever-changing one.

The world of high-tech audio today may be all about MP-3 and Super Audio CDs.

Back in 1934, while the likes of John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson were spraying Tommy guns into the banks of Middle America, the Hammond organ was being invented.  This seemingly tame breakthrough revolutionized the sound world from radio broadcasts to church services.

A downturn can spark great things.  I've learned more than a few people who lose their jobs in a stalled economy decide to give the "entrepreneurial thing" a shot.  They may end up investing their entire life's nest egg on a fling.

In 1975, at the end of another serious recession, Roger Schelper and his buddies decided to open what is today Davanni's -- a unique New York-style pizzeria in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Launching a business, especially in tough times is a high risk play which you should only consider with a cool head, a solid plan and the anticipation you will have to dedicate an incredible amount of personal work and patience.

Here are some of the things Roger learned in his venture that any budding entrepreneur will do well to bear in mind during a downturn or, for that matter, at any time:

• Research the market carefully.  Your chances often hinge on identifying an attractive, unoccupied market niche -- one you have the know-how and raw ingredients to fill with authority.
• Know the success factors.  In the restaurant business, for example, you could be the greatest chef since Julia Child and still end up chowing down your own leftovers. Running a successful restaurant has a 3-course menu:  Location.  Location.  And location.  Roger's team zeroed in on a high-density trading area of customers with ideal buying traits, finding an optimum site with the right zoning.  They were cooking with all the right ingredients.
• Be tight-fisted about raises.  Starting with your own.  Roger clocked 80-90 hour weeks from the get-go.  He gave himself his first raise after the business retired a small loan.  Get this:  This was the first time the business paid him even minimum wage!
• Do something you love.  "If you don't, you won't be able to put in the necessary hours to make the venture work," Roger notes.

Today Davanni's has more than 20 pizza shops and a dedicated customer and employee base.  But there's one other fact worth remembering.  Roger was the kind of guy who was paying his way from the time he was eleven -- shoveling snow and mowing lawns throughout the neighborhood while he carried two paper routes.  So, before you make the leap and open that bed-and-breakfast or sink your savings into a digital widget factory, take a long, hard look at your own track record.  Does your past say you really have the makeup to take this kind of a pounding?

Mackay's Moral: Entrepreneurs who make it are usually born entrepreneurs to start with.

3 Minute Monday: Enthusiasm Wins! By Jeremie Kubicek

Today is go time.

Take 3 minutes to come up with your personal plan to be more enthusiastic today than you normally are.

At the end of the day reflect back on how that changed your day. Were you more happy today? Were others more happy? Did the day feel more alive to you than normal? Or did people think you were simply a crazy loon?

“Enthusiasm wins,” as my friend Chris Carneal likes to say.

So, get fired up today and try to add a bit more pep in your step and some more joy in your voice.

Make it a great day!

12 Things Good Bosses Believe By by Robert I. Sutton

What makes a boss great? It's a question I've been researching for a while now. In June 2009, I offered some analysis in HBR on the subject, and more recently I've been hard at work on a book called Good Boss, Bad Boss(forthcoming in September from Business Plus).

In both cases, my approach has been to be as evidence-based as possible. That is, I avoid giving any advice that isn't rooted in real proof of efficacy; I want to pass along the techniques and behaviors that are grounded in sound research. It seems to me that, by adopting the habits of good bosses and shunning the sins of bad bosses, anyone can do a better job overseeing the work of others.

At the same time, I've come to conclude that all the technique and behavior coaching in the world won't make a boss great if that boss doesn't also have a certain mindset.
My readings of peer-reviewed studies, plus my more idiosyncratic experience studying and consulting to managers in many settings, have led me identify some key beliefs that are held by the best bosses — and rejected, or more often simply never even thought about, by the worst bosses. Here they are, presented as a neat dozen:

1. I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.

What do you say: does that about cover it? If not, tell me what I missed. Or if you're not quite sure what I mean in these brief statements, stay tuned. Over the coming weeks, I'll be digging into each one of them in more depth, touching on the research evidence and illustrating with examples.

If you're like most people I meet, you've had your share of bad bosses — and probably at least one good one. What were the attitudes the good one held? And what great, workplace-transforming beliefs could your worst boss never quite embrace?

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He studies and writes about management, innovation, and the nitty-gritty of organizational life. His last book was the New York Times bestseller The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't.

Get Your Team to Stop Fighting and Start Working By Amy Gallo

The conflicts that often arise in teams can make you want to throw up your arms in despair, retreat to your office, and live out your career in team-less bliss. But collaboration is here to stay, and while it isn't easy, putting more minds on the job usually yields better results. If your team has dissolved into arguments or two members just can't seem to get along, how can you get things back on track? How you do you turn a team marred by dysfunction into one that excels together?

What the Experts Say
Conflict is part of working on a team and, while it's often uncomfortable, it can also be healthy. "There will, even should be, conflict in a group with a task that has even a minimum of complexity," says Jeanne Brett, the DeWitt W. Buchanan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organizations at Kellogg Graduate School of Management, the Director of the Kellogg School's Dispute Resolution Research Center, and co-author of Getting Disputes Resolved. Understanding why teams fight, how and when to get involved, and how to prevent fights in the future is a critical skill for all team leaders.

Stop Disputes Before They Happen
Unfortunately, most team leaders assume they'll deal with disagreements as they come up. But Brett advises doing more prep work than that — to have "solid conflict management procedures in place to deal with [conflicts] when they arise, because they will arise." These rules will also help you work through issues more quickly. "Solving disputes after they happen is a hell of a lot more work," adds Richard Boyatzis, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and co-author of Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence.

Another important proactive measure is ensuring that your team shares the same purpose, values, and identity. Boyatzis says teams should "devote a certain amount of time to talking about the team itself." In these discussions, instead of focusing on easier, more concrete issues like goals and measurement, get the group to agree on its purpose first. Do this when the team forms, and throughout its existence. Boyatzis is part of a consortium that has met twice a year for the past decade. The group starts every meeting by reading aloud the team norms they agreed to ten years ago. He concedes that this might seem odd to an outsider but thinks this is what keeps the team grounded and focused.

How and When to Intervene 
Some of the most common disputes include conflicts over tasks, working norms, or process. Regardless of why your team is fighting, following a few simple guidelines can help you resolve disputes quickly.

• Intervene early. When two or more team members are engaged in a conflict, the sooner you step in the better. Once the dispute starts, emotions can run high, making it harder to diffuse the situation. Letting conflicts fester can result in hurt feelings and lasting resentment. Boyatzis points out that a simple disagreement can turn into a serious conflict in milliseconds, so it's critical for team managers to be aware of the team dynamics and sense when a disagreement is percolating.

• Focus on team norms. The best approach to resolving disputes once they've erupted is to refer back to something the team can, or has already, agreed on. These may be explicit or implicit team norms. If you haven't previously discussed norms as a team, now is a good time to hold the conversation. Be careful not to frame the discussion around the dispute but to focus it on setting rules of engagement for going forward.

• Identify a shared agreement. Your job as the team leader is to help the fighting team members reach an accord. "The key is to respect each party and the reason behind their point of view," says Brett. The only way to do this, according to Boyatzis, is to talk it through. He says that most team leaders "cut short dialogue or don't do it in an inclusive way." Once the cards are on the table, you need to "facilitate an outcome that takes into account both parties point of views," explains Brett. Compromise often has a bad connotation in the business world, but the resolution doesn't need to be a lowest common denominator answer. Rather, it should integrate both parties' interests. Whenever possible, connect the resolution back to shared purposes, values, or identity that can help both parties see eye to eye.

Moving On After a Disagreement
Boyatzis says the best way to heal war wounds is to start working again. Get a relatively easy task in front of the group to help them rebuild their confidence as a team. As the leader, you can model moving on and focusing on work. If people have been ostracized because of the dispute, make efforts to bring them back into the fold by assigning them an important task or soliciting their opinions. If feelings have been hurt, you may want to let the parties have a break and not directly work together for a short time. Going forward, it will be useful to establish a practice of regularly checking on how you all are working together. This will help you identify problems before they turn into full-fledged disputes.

Principles to Remember

Do:

• Set up conflict management procedures before a conflict arises
• Intervene early when a fight erupts between team members
• Get the team working together again as soon as possible

Don't:

• Assume your team agrees on its shared purpose, values, or vision
• Let conflicts fester or go unattended
• Move on without first talking about the conflict as a team

Case Study #1: Resolving personal conflicts on a self-managed team
Gary Hartman* was attending a partner meeting of his small boutique consulting firm in Boston when a conflict erupted. The firm's eight partners gather each December to make decisions about their compensation — a sensitive discussion for which the team had already set ground rules. Each partner presented his or her accomplishments and progress against goals for the year, then the other partners had time to ask questions, typically polite requests for clarification. If there was a more serious issue, the partners usually brought it up before the meeting so it could be addressed outside of this formal setting. During Susan's presentation, another partner, Robert, kept interrupting and questioning the truth of what she was saying. He said he'd heard from an analyst that one project Susan cited as a success was one in spite of her. The analyst said that Susan had regularly offended the client, showed up late to meetings, and did little to no work. At first, the other partners allowed Robert to have the floor, but soon Gary and some others realized that Susan was being publicly humiliated. "It was worthwhile to get other people's perspective in there but not in this way," Gary said, especially since Robert's evidence was hearsay and the team hadn't previously agreed on how outside information should be brought in.

As a self-managed team, they had to decide how to deal with the fact that one partner had openly disparaged another. They decided to make explicit a norm that had been implicit: anything potentially damaging or hurtful between two partners should be dealt with one-on-one first. If a resolution can't be reached, then it can be brought to the broader team, but not sooner. They urged Susan and Robert to discuss the client issue themselves and resolve it. The partners also set up a subgroup to address how outside perspectives would be brought into the compensation discussion in the future. This group was responsible for dealing with confrontations, looking at all sides, and developing a balanced recommendation to the partnership.

*Details have been changed

Case Study #2: Focusing team members on a shared goal
Kelley Johnson, the owner of an eco-lodge in Belize, regularly has to deal with team dynamics. Since the lodge is in a remote location, it employs over 25 full-time staff who live onsite for weeks at a time. This close-knit work situation can often lead to conflict, if not managed correctly. The lodge has four managers including Katja, a German expat who runs the front office and oversees the staff when Kelley is off site, and Carlos, a Belizean who is in charge of client services. Katja is incredibly organized and meticulous about her work. Carlos is a genius when it comes to client service, making each guest feel special. "He has an ability to make every guest feel as if they are the first one to ever see a snake," says Kelley.

But last winter, Katja asked Kelley to fire Carlos because she felt he wasn't doing his job. He regularly forgot to do tasks and was sloppy with his paperwork. She was frustrated and felt as if she was working twice as hard as him. Carlos had also previously complained about Katja. He resented her criticism and felt she was too cold to the clients. As Kelley saw it, they were both failing to understand or appreciate each other's talents. Kelley responded to Katja by asking her to take a step back and look at the situation. Carlos was failing to do part of his job description but he was invaluable to the lodge. She conceded that his job description should be changed so that he could live up to expectations.

She spoke to both employees, explained why each one was extremely valuable to the team, and asked them to appreciate what the other brought. They were part of a profit-sharing plan which meant a piece of their salary hinged on the business. She asked them to focus on the larger purpose and to put their disputes behind them. With expectations reset, Carlos and Katja found a way to work together by accepting they had completely different styles but both cared ultimately about the same thing — making the lodge successful.

Quote by Harvey Mackay

If you want to double your success ratio, you have to double your failure ratio.

Think about it, it just tells you how important failure is for success, only if you are willing to learn from it

Perseverance Pays: From Ballet to Broadway to Pilates

Perseverance Pays: From Ballet to Broadway to Pilates

Read this interesting article of how Jeanette Palmer, a broadway dancer has taken on life challenges and proved to be successful all the time.

A Book Worthy of Your Time & Attention By Tom Peters

Mandela's Way: Fifteen Lessons on Life, Love, and Courage,

by Richard Stengel (Stengel, now editor ofTime magazine, was a confidant of Mandela's.)

From "Look the Part":

"[Mandela has beautiful posture. You will never see him hunched over with his head anything but upright and looking ahead. On Robben Island, he was always aware of how he walked and carried himself. He knew he needed to be seen as standing up to the authorities, literally and figuratively ... He knew that people took their cues from him, and if he were confident and unbowed, they would be too."

"[Mandela] understood the power of image. ... 'Appearances constitute reality,' he once told me."

"In the election in 1994, his smile was the campaign. That smiling iconic campaign poster—on billboards, on highways, on street lamps, at tea shops and fruit stalls. It told black voters that he would be their champion and white voters that he would be their protector. It was the smile of the proverb 'tout comprendre, c'est tout pardoner'—to understand is to forgive all. It was political Prozac for a nervous electorate."

"Ultimately the smile was symbolic of how Mandela molded himself. At every stage of his life he decided who he wanted to be and created the appearance--and then the reality--of that person. He became who he wanted to be."

From "Have a Core Principal—Everything Else Is Tactics"

"Nelson Mandela is a man of principle—exactly one: Equal rights for all, regardless of race, class, or gender. Pretty much everything else is a tactic. I know this seems like an exaggeration—but to a degree very few people suspect, Mandela is a thoroughgoing pragmatist who was willing to compromise, change, adapt, and refine his strategy as long as it got him to the promised land."

From "See the Good in Others"* [*One of the best essays I have ever read.]

"Some call it a blind spot, others naïveté, but Mandela sees almost everyone as virtuous until proven otherwise. He starts with an assumption you are dealing with him in good faith. He believes that, just as pretending to be brave can lead to acts of real bravery, seeing the good in other people improves the chances that they will reveal their better selves."

"Mandela ... consciously chose to err on the side of generosity. By behaving honorably, even to people who may not deserve it, he believes you can influence them to behave more honorably than they otherwise would. This sometimes proved to be a useful tactic, particularly after he was released from prison, when his open, trusting attitude made him appear to be a man who could rise above bitterness. When he urged South Africans to 'forget the past,' most of them believed that he had. This had a double effect: It made whites trust Mandela more and it made them feel more generous toward the people they had so recently oppressed."

"Mandela sees the good in others both because it is in his nature and in his interest. At times that has meant being blindsided, but he has always been willing to take that risk. And it is a risk. ... Mandela goes out on a limb and makes himself vulnerable by trusting others. ... We rarely equate risk with trying to see what is decent, honest, and good in the people in our daily lives. ... 'People will feel I see too much good in people, and I've tried to adjust because whether it is so or not, it is something I think is profitable. It's a good thing to assume, to act on the basis that others are men of integrity and honor, because you need to attract integrity and honor. I believe in that.'"

Taken from Tom Peters blog

Don't Regret Working Too Hard

Don't Regret Working Too Hard

What matters to you? Are you working to hard for what matters to you or are you working hard on things that matters to others. No matter what stage of life are you in. It is still relevant to answer this question for yourself and then finally ACT ON IT.

Leadership and Bad Tv By Mark Sanborn

Leadership and Bad TV (article written by Mark Sanborn)

I don’t watch much TV. I have a few guilty pleasures, but mostly I view CNN when I’m working out in the morning.

Today I saw a world leader talk about all that had happened under his charge and then indirectly take credit for dealing with it all successfully. It was quite a list. He didn’t offer specifics or any tangible results.

That’s bad TV. And that’s bad leadership.

Good leaders talk about what happened, what they and their team did, and the results achieved (the more specific the better). They take responsibility for the good and the bad and they share credit for success. They realize that most people are skeptical of any leader who claims victory without proof.

I saw two commercials. One was for a bank and featured lots of green bicycles. It talked about relationships and being rewarded. So I’m wondering: if I do my banking there will I get a green bike? The commercial doesn’t explain, it hints.

That’s bad advertising. And bad leadership.

Leaders don’t have to be clairvoyant or even charismatic but they must always be clear. Good leaders don’t leave people wondering what they meant.

Another commercial was so bad it might be considered good. It was a pain relief ointment that shows the world’s worst actor pretending to “hurt.” “Ouch!” he screams as he doubles over in pain. The commercial is painful, but it gets your attention.

Bad TV. And risky for leader.

While corny may make you memorable, it won’t make you credible. Unless you’re selling ointment, choose believable over bombastic. Credibility takes months and years to build but only seconds to destroy.

And that’s what we can learn about leadership from bad TV.

Personal Development | Robin Sharma

Personal Development | Robin Sharma

Amazing videos. One which provokes you to take action today and one on 8 habits of billionaires.

Robin Sharma Leadership Blog - The New Level of Treating Customers - Vlog

Robin Sharma Leadership Blog - The New Level of Treating Customers - Vlog

Does providing customers with what they want help? He says no. Find out why in this 2 minutes video