Don’t Be Driven By Pride Or Fear - 

When things are going wrong, leaders can succumb to too much pride and not seek out help or, worse, not admit their mistakes. Leaders can feel that they know better or be too afraid to be wrong. Just like the best lessons come from failure, so to do the best insights come from admitting you don't (can't) know everything. 

Do Not Hide From The Truth -

Throughout my career - I've been accused of kindness. Oddly enough - never by the people, I was leading. Too often kindness, in business, is seen as a weakness instead of a strength - as this great blog post by one of my favorite Leadership Guru's (Dan Rockwell) points out.

In business - NOT being kind is the easy way out. The crisis nature of a good many work environments gives rise to excuses for people to manage in an adversarial way vs leading in a (much harder) servant leadership manner. It's a quick read - and a good reminder that being kind takes/examples the kind of strength that builds effective teams.

Fron Dan Rockwell (@Leadershipfreak)

Note: Spending some time recently with a client, helping them sort through their data aggregation and clean-up, gave me the opportunity to catch up with Randa Minkarah, Co-Founder & COO from Transform  Randa and I talked about the challenges that companies are still having regarding not only being “data-driven” but also turning their data into insights to get what they (actually) want – more revenue.  Randa details below a few simple steps (and simple home truths) about this process. Enjoy! Pat

Generating Sustainable Revenues from Your Data

by Randa Mikarah - Transform Digital - @Randam2

Reward Behavior Not Actions

When my children were small; I got an excellent piece of advice as to how to discipline them without crushing their spirit. When (not if) they did something that wasn't moving them in the direction that was going to make for a great outcome - it was suggested to me that I should affirm my belief in them first and then condemn the behavior.

"I love you...but I'm not fond of (insert action here)." By phrasing it this way they understand that THEY weren't "bad," it was THE BEHAVIOR that needed to be corrected. In essence saying, "THIS is how we do things around here."

7 things to look at - when things START to crack.

#LeadershipMinit - As the old saying goes, “You can’t bake a cake without cracking a few eggs.” Mistakes or failures (cracks) can teach you where you need to concentrate your attention or training.

In a traditional work culture, people will usually avoid revealing something that may either embarrass them or cause them to have to present some mistake or miscommunication. As a leader, you need to cultivate an environment that promotes the opposite. If you don't know what's going wrong (or is about to go wrong) your teams will never achieve greatness. 

The next time an error, failure or your team is stressed: 

#LeadershipMinit - It's an adage - but a good one. One of the best team productivity hacks I've learned is to hire people who are better/smarter than you are.   Actively work to ensure you're the “dumbest” person in the room.

It allows you to ask questions.  

Asking questions allows you to both learn and to provide your team with the knowledge that you value their expertise, input, and opinions. A well-formed question is the best flashlight.  Questions provide insights that statements will never recognize.

Use these questions to overcome corporate inertia and move things forward

Legacy organizations and corporate institutions are filled with inertia; cultures that promote a “Tell me what to do” environment.

I once inherited a department where my predecessor had purposely silo'd the department to develop a mystique about their work. Promoting that her team’s work was “black magic, smoke, and mirrors” was how she felt she could best retain her position.

The effect of this type of leadership (really managing not leadership) was that she also compartmentalized all decision-making within her role.  Making it very clear (via words and actions) that decisions were made by her - and her alone. The only way her employees, (because there was no "team"), knew what they were to be working on ways to go to her and get a list.  When the list was complete - they went back for more. 

Her employees didn't make any decisions about their own work.  Consequently, they didn't think.  They didn't think about the work itself, the impact it had on their workmates, the company, and (heaven forbid!) on how it impacted customers.  In fact - they were afraid to think because it had consequences.

This kind of imposed inertia promotes a work environment where team members become "List Junkies." At best, personal ownership is something that individuals achieve only by circumventing specific aspects/tasks of their work away from the eyes of their boss. At worst, it transforms team members into...