Leadership Challenge

Take It Outside: An Outdoor Leadership Challenge Experience

 

"An experience I will have for the rest of my life.  The workshop took me to places mentally and physically that I never thought I could reach, but they never broke me…just made be stronger."

 

"You will do things you never did before with people you never met.  But it’s an experience you will never forget."

 

"It was the best training that I have ever been to.  It will challenge you and you will grow."

 

"I have been trying to get to this training for the past two years.  I wish that I would have made it here earlier.  This training will make you look deep into your past, present, and future.  It will challenge you.  It will give you the wings to soar with the eagles.  Come and bring everyone you know.  Be prepared to grow."

 

"This seminar helped me to focus on the most important part of my leadership equation – me.  To realize my values and to begin establishing a way to create my own leadership style based on my passions, and communicate them to those I am surrounded by."

Certified facilitators of The Leadership Challenge have likely received comments such as these from participants in their workshops. What makes these comments different is that these participants literally climbed, swung, stepped, and leaped beyond their comfort zone. And so did I. 

As part of my certified master facilitator development plan, I chose to challenge myself in the same way we ask participants to challenge themselves – mentally, emotionally, and physically. A co-facilitator with my Certified Master Mentor Steve Houchin of International Leadership Associates, I spent four days at Camp Joy Outdoor Education Center in Ohio co-facilitating The Leadership Challenge Workshop for leaders from Kroger Manufacturing – four days I will never forget. 

I was going to push myself to the “edge of my comfort zone,” as Steve put it. I had finished six marathons so how big of a deal could the physical challenges be… a mistaken assumption on my part. 

My first “incident report” came from an unexpected body slam during the “Nitro Crossing” while I was photographing the experience -- no harm done. I wasn’t deterred from my ultimate goals – the high ropes course and the pamper pole. I had something to prove to myself, and nothing was going to keep me from those experiences. We’ve all seen our share of obstacles, and these activities were tangible proof that we are stronger than the limitations in our minds. 

On to the high ropes course. Steve helped me determine which ones would be appropriate, given the fact that I was having a lower back procedure in two weeks. I completed three elements on the course, among my greatest achievements. My second “incident report”:  I experienced “cable burn” with an abrasion and bone bruise ... battle scars I'm proud to say stay with me today. I hold the dubious honor of being the only facilitator to “earn” two incident reports during the same stay – my claim to fame at Camp Joy.

The culmination of our four days together is the Pamper Pole. A telephone pole that one can climb to the height of their choosing, and decide how to make the leap of faith. Prior to the Pamper Pole, participants make a commitment statement that answers the questions: What fear or doubt will they leave behind? What strength will replace that fear or doubt? How can the rest of the group support us in our climb to the top of the Pamper Pole?

This activity reminded me of one of my favorite quotes: “Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.” - Guillaume Apollinaire

Each of us shared what held us back, what will move us forward, and what support we needed. As leaders, many of us (myself included) are reluctant to tap into our personal support systems, for various reasons. I made my commitment statement, climbed to the top of the pole, sat on the edge, and “flew.” I held back my tears, at least until no one was around to see them.

The comments from the participants sum up the experience better than I can. No matter what the environment of The Leadership Challenge Workshop – inside or outside – the outcomes speak for themselves. The Leadership Challenge is not just a “flavor of the month” training that one takes and puts on the shelf, never to be reviewed again. The experience changes lives for the better -- for facilitators and participants. 

- Angie Chaplin, The Leadership Challenge certified master facilitator candidate

The Heart of the Matter

It's a time of year with many reasons to celebrate and numerous opportunities to Encourage the Heart of special people in your life. Graduates and students are continuing their lifelong leadership and learning journeys - journeys filled with lessons that extend beyond classroom walls. Today's graduates are positioned to lead us into the next chapter, the next stop on our neverending quest for exemplary leadership.

The practice of Encouraging the Heart is aligned with two commitments:

• recognizing contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence
• celebrating the values and victories by creating a spirit of community

Sounds easy, doesn't it? Yet why don't we do it more often?

Of all The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership, Encourage the Heart is a practice important enough to warrant its own book, workshop and training materials, and part of our The Challenge Continues collection. And for good reasons.

First is practicality. There are many resources and publications on motivating and recognizing others, but we couldn't find enough resources on Encouraging the Heart to share with our students and practicing managers attending our classes and workshops.

The second reason is principle. Some bosses might say simply paying their employees is enough. Managers may wonder why they need to go beyond routine pats on the back. Even using the word "heart" could turn off some supervisors who may think business is not about the warm-and-fuzzy stuff. Our research, and that of many others, shows that if you're after profits, you'd better pay attention to encouraging the hearts of your people.

Third, we were curious.  Have you ever heard someone say, "You know, you really could stop motivating me so much." Zig Ziglar once said, "Motivation is like bathing. That's why it's recommended daily." Encouraging the heart is a leadership practice and behavior with multiple benefits that ripple beyond a single act of kindness.

Encouraging the Heart matters. People matter. Our research and work with leaders around the globe shows that of all The Five Practices - Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act and Encourage the Heart - Encourage the Heart has more variability in application than most of the other practices. For some leaders, Encouraging the Heart comes naturally. For others, the behaviors related to this practice are harder to execute.

Our research on the importance of encouraging the heart is backed up by other researchers who say that about one-third of North American workers say they never are recognized for a job well done. Slightly more (44 percent) report they receive little recognition for a job well done. Only 50 percent of managers say they give recognition for high performance.

Encourage the Heart is a core leadership skill. When striving to get extraordinary things done -- raise quality, recover from disaster, start up a new business, or make dramatic change of any kind -- leaders must make sure that people experience in their hearts that what they do matters.

For the next week, conduct a self-audit of your leadership actions related to Encouraging the Heart. Let's learn from each other: Share comments with a few ways you've seen, heard, or experienced the practice of Encourage the Heart. 

You Can't Do It Alone

The Truth About Leadership shares what we believe to be the 10 fundamental truths of leadership. In a recent interview, Jim was asked which one of these ten truths resonated the most for him.

"The truth that you can't do it alone. No leader ever got anything extraordinary done without the talent and support of others. We need others and they need us. We're all in this together. We have to be sensitive to the needs of others, listen, ask questions, develop others, provide support, and ask for help. We are reminded of this every day as we work on our books. We're reminded of it not only by the leaders who share their stories with us, but also by the fact that we've been working collaboratively for nearly 30 years with each other and our publishers. We could never have done what we've done without the caring support and involvement of so many other people. We are so grateful to be part of an extraordinary community."

We've recently experienced connectedness and community in two ways. First, notice the badge to the left. The Leadership Challenge blog was named one of the Human Capital Institute's (HCI) Top 50 Leadership Blogs for 2011. We are honored, and share this award with you -- our contributors, readers and supporters. Thank you for sharing your talents with our community.

The second way is through our increased activity on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The power of networking is achieved by moving conversations beyond tweets, posts and updates to truly engage in dialogue with friends, followers and fans. Yes, it takes time to respond, comment and retweet - and it is time well-spent. As Barry says, "That's why the book's title is not The Leadership Cake Walk."

Social media, when fully utilized, is not about individuals. It's about building and nurturing relationships that extend far beyond 140 characters. Leadership and learning communities start and grow exponentially. Followers become true friends. Resources are shared, and we mutually benefit from the talent and support of others.

You can't do it alone. Whether in the real world or a virtual one, it takes the talent and support of others for us to be exemplary leaders. When you reciprocally Enable Others to Act, remember to follow up by Encouraging the Heart.

How are you using your talents to support others? How are the talents and supports of others helping you?

Validation

My good friend, and Master Leadership Challenge Facilitator, Steve Coats of International Leadership Associates alerted me to a wonderful video on YouTube, and I just couldn't resist sharing it with everyone. It's entitled "Validation," and the clever double entendre in the title is meant to refer both to the parking variety and the kind when we demonstrate that we truly value others. It's a wonderfully uplifting little show that's made over a million people smile. It also reminds us that we all can have a positive, and a negative impact, on the attitudes and behaviors of others just from very small gestures. 

During these really tough economic times, it's vitally important to remember how essential it is to tell others how valuable they are to the success of our efforts. The research makes it very clear that when people feel valued in their work they are more engaged and more committed. And, as an added bonus, we get to feel good about ourselves as well.  Take 16 minutes and lighten up your day.  And forward this on to others so they can smile, too.  Even more importantly, remember that in every interaction with others you have an opportunity to, as Phil Turner once remarked to us in an interview, "uplift other people's spirits." Go ahead, make their day!

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Gratitude Is the Best Reward

About once a week I am blessed to receive an email from a reader who passes along an uplifting story about a leader who exemplifies one of The Five Practices. Two weeks ago it was a note about coach Noel Klippenstein at Marshall High School in Falls Church, Virginia that prompted me to write about youth leadership. This week it's a story passed along by Beth Anderson, Diaconal Minister at Concordia College in Moorehad, Minnesota. Beth told us about a bank in Fargo, North Dakota, the State Bank and Trust, that "thoroughly illustrates the points you are making about Encouraging the Heart…" They've been featured on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and Beth pointed us to the video link about the "Generous Bank Pays It Forward." Click on the link and take a look and listen for yourself.

When asked what they don't like about the bank, State Bank and Trust employees say things like "I haven't found anything yet," "I have to go home," and, with tongue in cheek, management "smiles too much." It's not surprising to learn that this feeling of love for the company is a result of a very conscious strategy. The mission of State Bank and Trust, says Michael Solberg, Chief Operating Officer, is "happy employees, happy customers."

Last year the bank did something quite unusual. In addition to the more traditional year-end bonus and contribution to employees' 401K plan, State Bank and Trust granted an extra $1,000 bonus with one important condition. The money could not be given to an employee, nor could it be given to a family member. It had to be paid forward to a person in need in the community, and the good deed had to be documented for everyone to see.

One woman paid for an abandoned kitten to get life-saving surgery. Another gave it to a young, struggling new widow, and another bought DVDs and DVD players for the local cancer ward. The faces on the employees, as they passed along the money to those in need, communicated the central message. Giving to others brought great joy and happiness to those who gave. As correspondent Steve Hartman reports, "this gift of giving is truly the best bonus they have ever gotten."

A feeling of gratitude is, in fact, one of the secrets to happiness. In her book The How of Happiness, Sonia Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, writes "The expression of gratitude is a kind of metastrategy for achieving happiness. Gratitude is many things to many people. It is wonder; it is appreciation; it is looking at the bright side of a setback; it is fathoming abundance; it is thanking someone in your life; it is thanking God; it is 'counting blessings.'" She then goes on to cite research that demonstrates that "People who are consistently grateful have been found to be relatively happier, more energetic, and more hopeful and to report more experiencing more positive emotions." Grateful individuals are also more helpful and more forgiving than those who are less disposed to gratefulness. Is it any coincidence, then, that the folks at State Bank and Trust are so happy?

Gratitude, according to Lyubomirsky, boosts happiness it eight ways. First, it promotes savoring positive life experiences. Second, expressing gratitude increases a sense of self-worth. Third, it helps you cope with stress. Fourth, it encourages moral behavior. Fifth, gratitude helps build social bonds. Sixth, it inhibits envy. Seventh, because gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions it can diminish anger and bitterness. And lastly, it keeps us from taking the good things for granted.

The next time you want to uplift your own spirits, make a gratitude list. Reflect on and make a list of three to five things for which you are grateful at that moment. (Lyubomirsky recommends that we do this daily.) And encourage your constituents to do the same. Maybe you could even start your next team meeting by having everyone go around the room and complete the sentence, "today I am grateful for….." It may not be a conventional business meeting opener, but think about how happy everyone will be when they hear all that positive stuff.

And let me reveal a personal secret. Every morning when I wake up I look at my wife and I tell her, "I am the luckiest man in the world." That's how I feel, and it sure does help us both to start the day on a positive note.

Thank you for reading this blog. I am truly grateful for your interest.

Posted by
Jim Kouzes

Happiness Is Out There

A couple Saturday's ago, while running the usual weekend errands, I was tuned to my local public radio station, KQED-FM, listening to NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. My mood perked up immediately when I heard one of my favorite interviewers, Scott Simon, announce that next up on his show would be Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. For the next eight minutes I listened to the delightful grump entertain with stories about fascinating people and places and the lessons he learned and epiphanies he had while traveling the globe from Iceland to Thailand in his hunt for happiness. Do yourself a favor and listen to the entire eight minutes online on NPR. Then read the book.

One of the insights that Weiner had, and one that is well worth all of us pondering, is that "Happiness is not inside of us but out there. Or, to be more precise, the line between out there and in here is not as sharply defined as we think." And then he goes on to quote the philosopher Alan Watts who observed, "…you cannot have what is 'in here' unless you have what is 'out there.'" In other words, place matters.

I hope I am not spoiling the book for you in sharing one story. (Actually, I really can't spoil the book, because Weiner is a wonderful storyteller, and you'll want to read all of what he's written.) I think one vignette captures his main point. "Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura, the Bhutanese scholar and cancer survivor. 'There is no such thing as personal happiness,' he told me. 'Happiness is one hundred percent relational.' At the time, I didn't take him literally. I thought he was exaggerating to make his point: that our relationships with other people are more important than we think….But now I realize Karma meant exactly what he said. Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people…."

This point was driven home to me this past weekend when I was with an annual gathering of some very close friends and colleagues. We've been meeting ritualistically the second week of January for the last ten years. One of the activities we did with author John Izzo, based on his new book, The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, was to first think about all the things we wanted to do or accomplish between now and the time we die. Next John asked us to now imagine we were given the news that we had only six months to live. What would that list of things to do or accomplish look like?

There was a marked difference in the two lists. The long-term future was more about lofty goals and meaningful contributions. The second six-month list was all about relationships. It was all about spending time with family and friends, visiting people I hadn't seen in a long time, enjoying the little pleasures of being with people. This was true for the majority of my other colleagues as well. Perhaps what we want most is to take with us on our next hunt for happiness is the very thing that brings us happiness in this life—the people we love, the relationships we have.

What has all this got to do with leadership? It struck me that Barry Posner and I have written for years about how leadership is a relationship—a relationship between those who choose to follow and those who aspire to lead. It's the quality of this relationship that determines how effective leaders are. After having listened to Eric Weiner and looked at my own life, it also strikes me that exemplary leaders play a role in how happy we all are. Not just satisfied, but happy. Is there a correlation between our happiness and our performance? I don't know that we know, but maybe it doesn't really matter. When our final days arrive my sense is we'll be thinking less about what we accomplished and more about the joy we brought to the lives of others. What do you think?

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Charles Dickens’ Leadership Lesson

Three days before Christmas my wife, son, and I drove over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco to see the American Conservatory Theater’s production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We’d seen the play many times before, but were anxious to join all the other revelers in the spirit of the season. It was an exuberant production, and we immediately got caught up in the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemption from humbugging miser to generous benefactor.

There is one scene from the performance that has stuck in my mind ever since that night. It’s the episode where the first of three Spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, visits Scrooge and takes him back to, among other places, the warehouse of Old Fezziwig where Scrooge had once been an apprentice. The jovial Old Fezziwig closes the warehouse for a Christmas party, and everyone, including the young Ebenezer and his first love, Belle, dance and laugh and sing, experiencing all the joys of the season.

As Scrooge observes all this merriment, he is visibly transformed. Both saddened by his own current state and overjoyed to be young again, he joins in the fun. At one point there is this interaction between the Ghost of Christmas Past and Scrooge:

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

"Why! Is it not! He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

Go back. Reread the last paragraph again…..

Old Fezziwig’s power was “in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant,” and yet these were the very things that made service light and pleasurable and employee’s happy. Don’t we all possess this kind of power? Don’t we all have the capacity to make someone else’s day light, pleasurable and happy by word or a look?

In 1843 Charles Dickens didn’t have a clue about the global economy or the wireless Web or social networking. But he sure knew what uplifted people’s spirits. It wasn’t anything more sophisticated than a laugh, a kind word, a caring gesture, and a joyful heart.

As we ring in this New Year, let’s all resolve to employ the power of Old Fezziwig, the power that lies in each of us to make others’ lives significant and fulfilling.

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Keeping Hope Alive

I was watching Oprah yesterday....yes, I admit it… while on the treadmill, and I caught the last fifteen minutes of her show with Randy Pausch, professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. What’s a popular computer science professor doing on Oprah? He was there because he’s dying. Randy is suffering from pancreatic cancer, and he’s passionate about sharing his experiences with others in hopes that the lessons of dying can help others improve the quality of living.

I was first introduced to Randy on September 20, 2007 through an article by Jeff Zaslow in the Wall Street Journal. Zaslow wrote about Randy’s “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon and called it a “a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.” I was so struck by the piece that I took the hour to listen and watch Randy. I am not alone. About a million others have also viewed Randy's lecture. The response was so powerful that Jeff Zaslow wrote a followup piece the next week. Randy then appeared on Good Morning America and ABC World News. If you have not yet watched Randy’s speech, I strongly urge you to. You will be moved to tears by the humanity of this man. And you’ll learn lessons that apply to leadership and every aspect of your life. For instance: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.” I’m going to put that on a slide and use it in my speeches!

Randy is a role model for leaders. He demonstrates the power of being positive and resilient when faced with the worst of all outcomes. The response to his openness and genuineness clearly illustrates the kind of leader we desparately need in a crisis – someone who does not deny the diagnosis but defies the verdict. John McDonnell once said that “Adversity introduces you to yourself,” and Randy Pausch reveals a person who keeps hope alive. Thanks, Randy.

Posted by Jim Kouzes