Recently I decided to stretch my athletic abilities and add a running program to my regular exercise routine. Although I had tried to run in the past, my level of success was pretty pathetic. This time, however, I decided to follow my own advice and find some expert runners who could teach me how to run. And that is exactly what I did.

Our local roadrunner’s organization was about to begin a running clinic for inexperienced runners. I immediately signed up for the program. During the second class, we were asked to run one mile at our top speed. What I lack in skill and endurance, I make up for in competitiveness, so I clocked in a mile at 9:28 (9 minutes and 28 seconds). While this may seem paltry for an experienced runner, I can assure you that it was a major accomplishment for me. During this speed test, I began to see outstanding leadership qualities of one of my coaches emerge. Vera, one of the trainers, was absolutely thrilled with my time. She told me what a wonderful time it was for someone so new to running. I started to think that maybe I could finally learn to run after all.

Almost two weeks later, I had a major lapse in judgment and signed up for a 5K (3.1 mile race). Now remember, I had just started running 3 1/2 weeks before and here I was ready to compete with 1,100 runners, some of whom could run a 5K in between commercials (not quite, but they were very fast).

When I arrived at the race, I saw Vera at the registration desk and went over to her. “Vera,” I said, “I don’t know how to run a race. What do I do?” She looked up at me with a big smile and said, “You ran a 9:28 as your fast mile. Just aim for a 10 minute pace for the first mile and you’ll be fine.” I walked away thinking that she had totally lost her mind. I couldn’t possibly sustain a 10-minute per mile pace for 3 miles. The best I had been able to do was just over 11 minutes per mile.

I ran the race, running part of the way, walking part of the way, huffing and puffing most of the way, and wondering what I was doing there when I could be home sitting on the couch watching TV. A short while after the race ended, I discovered my time. I had run at a pace of 9:55 (9 minutes and 55 seconds) per mile. I couldn’t wait to share my success with Vera.

At the next class, I told Vera my time and she was delighted. “That’s wonderful,” she said, again with a huge smile and total conviction. “You’ll definitely be able to get down to an 8 minute mile.” An 8-minute mile? At this point, I can’t even imagine running 5 miles without having to walk. However, Vera is an expert and if she thinks I can, maybe I can.

Vera believed in me. While I didn’t believe that I could live up to Vera’s expectation of an 8 minute mile, I was willing to borrow her belief in me and continue to try to get my endurance up and my time down. As I struggled to run and breathe at the same time, wanting to quit more than once, I repeated to myself, “Vera says I can do an 8 minute mile.” This kept my motivation in gear and my feet in motion, even when I wanted to chuck the whole idea of becoming a runner.

You can use Vera’s leadership strategy to get your team and other people in your life to strive for better performance.

SET A HIGHER GOAL

Look at where your team member is currently performing and set a higher goal. Make sure the goal is realistic for that individual. It must be something that you believe he or she can achieve. If, after I ran a 9:28 mile, Vera told me that I could run a 5-minute mile, I never would have believed her. She gave me a goal that she believed was possible for me, and since it was not that far away from what I had already done, it seemed that if I put forth the effort then I could achieve it.

COMMUNICATE YOUR EXPECTATION

Let the person know what your expectation is of him or her. Too often, people underestimate their own abilities. However, there is a part of them that would like to believe they could do better. People usually meet the expectations that others have of them. Let your team members borrow your faith in them, while they might not yet have enough faith in their own abilities.

BE A CHEERLEADER

Things don’t always go smoothly when people try to achieve something and there is a strong tendency to get discouraged and give up. That’s when you must encourage your team to keep on trying. Again, communicate your faith in their ability to succeed. When I complained to Vera that I was still having a hard time breathing during my runs, she told me not to worry, that I would get there if I kept up with my workouts. Your consistent positive attitude is a critical to your team’s success.

CARE ABOUT YOUR TEAM

The bottom line that makes this entire strategy work is that you must genuinely care about your team members. Make them feel special. When Vera told me the exact time of my fast run, I was shocked that she remembered it without looking at her notes. This made me feel that she really cared about me and I began to trust her more. If your team doesn’t trust you, they will perceive everything that you say and do as manipulation. When they know that you value them, they will gladly let you lead them to greater accomplishments.

Follow this strategy with your team and watch their performance soar. As for me, I still don’t know if I’ll ever be able to run an 8-minute mile. Vera thinks I can, so I’ll continue to practice even when I feel like quitting, and hopefully, one day I’ll live up to her expectation of me.

Della Menechella is a speaker, author, and trainer who helps organizations achieve greater success by improving the performance of their people. She is a contributing author to Thriving in the Midst of Change and the author of the videotape The Twelve Commandments of Goal Setting. She can be reached at della@dellamenechella.com. Subscribe to free Peak Performance Pointers e-zine - send blank e-mail to subscribe@dellamenechella.com.

Posted by admin as Management Hub at 12:44 PM CDT

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A long time ago, I learned something about being a manager that has proven to be one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever heard.

You can’t manage people from inside your office. You have to be out and about, talking to your staff and co-workers, and seeing and hearing what’s going on out there. It’s called “Management By Walking Around”, or MBWA.

Technology has been a huge asset to the workplace, but it’s also made us a little lazy and disconnected. How many times do you e-mail someone in the next office, or down the hall, instead of getting up and walking over there? Or you fax a document instead of carrying it to the person who needs it? People need personal contact and with e-mail and fax machines and cell phones and ATM’s and self check out lines in the supermarket, we’re getting less and less human contact every day. If you’re the boss, it’s even more important that you spend in-person time with your staff - there’s no substitute for face-to-face contact.

If you’re new to MBWA, your staff won’t know how to react and you may get stiff, monosyllabic answers at first. Persevere and show genuine interest and you’ll get the results you’re looking for. No one wants the boss standing over them and watching what they do, so when you practice MBWA have some simple questions or comments in mind. For example,

1. What’s the most critical thing you’re working on right now? Is there anything I can do to make the project easier to complete?

2. How’s the Jones report coming along? Any problems with making the deadline?

3. I’m impressed with your latest proposal, Karen. I know this project is a lot of extra work and long hours and I appreciate your commitment and flexibility.

4. Hey, Bob, I see you have some vacation time coming up. Do you have any special plans?

5. I saw that movie you recommended - what great special effects! Thanks for the tip!

Remember, keep it simple, short, casual and positive. Save the negative comments for a more private time and place. If one of your staff members brings up an interesting subject that sounds like it will take a while, invite her or him for a cup of coffee and set aside some time to really give justice to the topic.

As a manager, it’s easy to get caught up in your administrative duties and project responsibilities but the time spent away from your office and interacting with your staff will yield far greater results. It takes time and effort to build and maintain a balanced, effective workforce; take the initiative and you’ll be rewarded with an atmosphere of trust and openness that will spell success for any organization.

When you talk to your staff, do you really listen to them? Try this. Every Friday afternoon write down three things you learned from your staff during the week. If you can’t list at least three things a week, you’re probably not listening carefully enough.

Looking for more career advice?

Joan Schramm is a career, executive and personal coach with twenty years experience in management, training and coaching. Joan can work with you to figure out exactly what you want from your life and your career, and how to get there without a lot of detours.

For more information about Joan, or to talk about what’s going on in your career, e-mail coach@achieve-momentum.com, or go to http://www.achieve-momentum.com. Sign up for a free monthly newsletter, “Angular Momentum” and take a free Job Satisfaction Assessment.

Posted by admin as Management Hub at 11:23 AM CDT

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Since 1992, I’ve been pursuing personal growth with a passion. I’ve attended seminars, listened to audio programs, and read hundreds of books in this field. I’ve easily spent many thousands of dollars and invested thousands of hours on such pursuits. And one thing I can tell you from all of this effort is that personal growth is very, very hard.

Many books, audio programs, and self-help gurus promote the quick fix mentality. Read this book and all your time management problems will vanish. Attend this seminar and you’ll be the next self-made millionaire. This kind of marketing is unfortunate because most people who buy these products will achieve only modest results with them. Then disappointment and disillusionment set in. Some people feel they must be defective if they can’t meet such unrealistic expectations. Maybe I have a genetic predisposition to being lazy. Others conclude the whole personal development field itself is just a sham. [Insert guru name here] is only in it for the money none of his/her ideas really work.

I’ll say it again. Personal growth is very, very hard. If you think you can read one book or article on time management and instantly erase procrastination and disorder from your life forever, that’s an extremely unrealistic expectation. While a single book can potentially lead you to a big change, most won’t. When you experience a big change in your life, it’s probably the result of a long chain of events, of which reading a particular book was only a small but perhaps critical part.

Personal growth experiences often occur in the form of a quantum leap a strong and radical shift from one mindset to another. There may be a number of small steps leading up to that leap, but at some point there is a big change, and it happens in an instant. You go to work and suddenly realize you’re going to quit your job; even before you tell your boss, you know you’re certain and that there’s no going back. You decide to ask your boyfriend or girlfriend to marry you after you’ve been together for years. You decide you’re done smoking, and you quit for life. These decisions can happen in a mere second - a moment of clarity suddenly hits you, and you know what you have to do. A quantum leap occurs, and from that moment on, you’re never the same again. Some of these leaps appear more gradual than others, but virtually all of them can be traced back to a moment of decision. At some point you made a decision to change. And even before you manifest this change in your physical reality, you immediately know you’re not the same anymore.

It’s rare that reading a single book will produce a quantum leap. Quantum leaps require a large amount of consistent input and energy. When you decide to quit your job or break off your relationship or move to a new city, it may be the result of months or years of dissatisfaction. It may also occur after lots of time spent thinking positively about what life will be like after the shift. Both positive and negative factors can help generate a quantum leap.

Most of the time when people pursue personal growth, they simply don’t invest enough time and energy in a consistent direction to achieve a quantum leap. Maybe you’ve read a book on getting organized, and while you were reading it, the positive energy you experienced moved you closer to making a leap. You felt fairly certain at the time that this was going to work. But then you finished the book (or got sidetracked and didn’t finish it), and the impact of the book gradually faded. You never reached the quantum leap that allowed you to break through to a new level of order in your life. Over a period of days or weeks, your old pattern reasserted itself. Sound familiar?

But it wasn’t the book or the ideas themselves that failed you. The problem was that you didn’t invest enough sustained energy in the same direction to achieve the quantum leap. You never reached the point of no return. Reading a single book was only a small, short-term nudge, albeit in the right direction.

In order for a rocket launched from earth to reach outer space, the rocket must exert a sufficient amount of sustained force to overcome the earth’s gravity. If the rocket’s engines cut out prematurely, the rocket will crash back to earth. Just as it can take a massive amount of sustained force to put a rocket into orbit, recognize that there are certain areas of your life where you may need a large force to knock you into a higher state. Small efforts over a long period of time may do absolutely nothing for you. You can read one time management book a year and be no better at your managing your time.

So what does work? How do you achieve a quantum leap? You need to exert some effort in a particular direction where you want to grow, and you need to consistently sustain it until you achieve a quantum leap. If you stop short, you’ll likely fall right back to where you started. So first of all, if you’re going to target a new quantum leap, you need to commit to sustaining that effort until you hit the leap.

This is why I say personal growth is very hard. Effecting a quantum leap is tough work. It requires a strong force of sustained effort, and you can’t let up until you hit the leap. If you get sidetracked for too long, you have to start over again.

But the bright side is that after you make the leap, you can rest for a bit. You’ve reached a higher state, and you’re going to stay there by default, just as a satellite in orbit will remain in orbit. Sure the orbit may slowly decay, but if that happens it will be over a long period of time, and only a minimal investment of energy is needed to adjust course and sustain your new orbit indefinitely. Quitting smoking may be very difficult. But if you’ve been a nonsmoker for years, it doesn’t take nearly as much effort to remain a nonsmoker; you may need to make some adjustments along the way, but they’ll be minor required to the initial energy required to quit.

Suppose you want to lose weight. You read a book on weight loss and get motivated to lose weight. You join a gym and start working out. After a few weeks, you’ve lost five pounds. But you get busy with work and gradually stop going to the gym. Crash! You gain all the weight back plus a couple more pounds. A few months later you try again. You get inspired and buy some new exercise equipment. Again you use it for several weeks and lose some weight, and again something takes you away from this habit and you gain all the weight back. The next year you join a weight loss organization, adopt their diet plan, and start going to weekly meetings. But after a dozen sessions, you drift again and gain back all the weight you lost. You’ve invested a lot of time, money, and energy into this goal, but it wasn’t enough to hit a quantum leap.

So how would you pursue such a goal as a quantum leaper?

The exact manner of pursuing this goal is up to you of course. But here’s are some ideas that will help you achieve a quantum leap:

* Immerse yourself in your goal. Get clear on your exact goal, and write it down in your own words. Post your goal somewhere you’ll see it every day; I often use the text of my goals as screen savers or write them on my marker board.

* Educate yourself on what it will take to achieve your goal. And I mean really educate yourself to the point where you become an expert. Keep pouring knowledge into your head until you succeed continuously. Don’t just read one book on the subject. Read 10. Then read 10 more. Then 10 more. Listen to audio programs. Talk to experts. Never let up on your self-education.

* Alter your environment to support the achievement of your goal. This subject was already explored in a previous entry.

* Consciously change the people you spend the most time with such that your goal is supported by those around you. For details read this entry.

One reason people fail to achieve a quantum leap is that they make only a meager effort in these four areas. They don’t get really clear about what they want and keep their goals in their face every day. They invest only a few hours in education instead of several hundred. They maintain an environment that fails to reinforce their new identity. And they continue to cling to people who hold them back. Year after year they remain stuck in unfulfilling careers, unhealthy bodies, stagnant relationships, and incongruent belief systems.

In my own life, I’ve experienced many of these leaps:

1. employee -> independent contractor -> retail game developer -> shareware game developer -> game publisher -> speaker/writer (in progress)

2. SAD (Standard American Diet) -> vegetarian -> vegan (with some branches going into raw foodism, alkalarian diets, whole foods, and macrobiotics)

3. single -> dating -> living together -> engaged -> married -> father of one -> father of two

4. Catholicism -> atheism -> agnosticism -> various new agey stuff -> ? -> Buddhism -> ? -> Bajoran wormhole aliens -> ? -> objectivism -> ? -> ? (the ?s are belief systems that can’t really be labeled)

None of these shifts happened by accident; each leap was a consciously chosen step… well… all except “father of two” whoops!

If I’d never experienced any of these quantum leaps, I’d be an employed Catholic bachelor who eats the standard American diet. And that’s not necessarily any “better” or “worse” than my current situation (OK, the diet part is a lot better). I don’t think in terms of trying to reach some kind of final destination though. What’s important to me is experiencing the path itself: having been single AND married AND a father, having experienced lots of different belief systems, having worked in a business AND having owned one. In some areas there’s a logical progression; for example, I keep shifting careers to those that give me more and more freedom and which increase my ability to contribute. But in other areas, I find the most growth by experiencing a lot of different perspectives in no particular order, such as in my spiritual growth pursuits.

Yes it’s a lot of hard work to achieve a quantum leap in any of these areas, but I think the alternative of stagnation is worse. You can pursue the quick fix methodology and fall flat on your face over and over. Or you can accept that the change you want is going to be hard and that it may take years to achieve, but it will be worth it. And best of all, once you’ve gone through a few quantum leaps, you may learn to enjoy the process of building up to the next one. It’s deeply satisfying to look back on your previous state of being and see how much you’ve grown.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.

Posted by admin as Management Hub at 7:54 PM CDT

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We all have goals and dreams that we want to accomplishsome big, some small. But until we can organize a plan on how to pursue these goals and dreams, we may never reach our final destination or possibly even start. Goals can help us to feel more confident and fulfilled. They can give us direction and help us to make decisions. Goal setting can help us to feel more organized.

Here are some simple steps to assist you in beginning your journey towards your goals.

1. Brainstorm - With pen and paper decide what goals you wish to pursue. Write everything down. Your list can be as long as you wish. Your goals can be as big or small as you wish. They can include areas of your life such as family, health, career, spiritual, education, travel, etc.

2. Prioritize - Choose a few goals you want to begin with. Which ones are more important or urgent to you? List those on a separate sheet.

3. Get Specific - Once you have decided which goals you are going to work toward, write them down on a new sheet of paper and begin adding the details of the goal. Be very specific. Only use words and description that are positive and describe what you DO want to accomplish. List each step that you need to take toward that goal.

4. Visualize Your Goals - Picture them often in detail in your mind. You can also post pictures from magazines or photos to help you see your dream.

5. Watch Your Progress - Read over your goal list regularly. It will help to remind you of your progress and keep you on track. You can also hang your list up where it is always visible, like at your bedside. If you notice that you haven’t made any progress, try adjusting what steps you need to take.

6. Work Through The Bumps - Your journey toward a goal may not always run according to your plan. You may have setbacks. Learn from them. They may be good lessons to help you in the future. Some of the best experiences come from the actual journey toward your goal, than the goal itself.

7. Mission Accomplished. Next! - Once you have completed a goal, begin to work on the next and so on. Goals setting should be a constant action. Make it a life-long habit.

Tips for Encouragement

1. Use your emotions to help you to continue to move towards your goal.

2. Every step you take, no matter how big or small, gets you closer to your goal and your success.

3. Your only failure will be if you give up and quit. Don’t be afraid of setbacks or mistakesthey will bring you closer to success.

4. We can be our own worst enemiesbe compassionate toward yourself.

Congratulations!

Angela received her bachelors degree in fine arts, with an emphasis in Commercial Design, from Western State College, Gunnison, Colorado in 1992. She has years experience in graphic design and is also an artist. She is also married with three children, 7 year old and twin one year olds.

After many requests from friends and family to help in assist in organization projects and decorating/design projects, she has turned this talent into a career. She now is a professional organizer assisting families in their homes, students and artists. She is a member of Colorado Professional Organizers (CoPO), and National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

Posted by admin as Management Hub at 2:34 PM CDT

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