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Slowing Down to Acknowledge Small Wins!

https://www.awesomejourney.ca/slowing-down-to-acknowledge-small-wins/

The key to success is realizing that our big goals are not going to happen overnight, in the next week or maybe even the next year and that is okay. We tend to focus on the end goals, rather than the small and significant steps we take to get us to that goal.

This is why it is important to acknowledge and celebrate small wins.

Why it matters?

In the book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, discuss how even seemingly small steps forward on a project, can make huge differences in employees’ emotional and intellectual well-being.

Leadership Insights 

Acknowledging small wins over a long period of time, despite how these moments may seem insignificant to the larger goal and accepting that you only have the moment you are in, allows you to see it is the combination of moments over time that achieve big wins.

Challenge:
Take 15 minutes at the end of the week to identify 5 small wins, acknowledge the wins with others and notice the impact it has.

Awesome Read

Have an awesome month! 

Moving from Surviving to Thriving

https://www.awesomejourney.ca/moving-from-surviving-to-thriving/

The blunt reality is that even the most sought-after careers bring some stress and frustration, often daily. This may cause us to work in a “just get through today” or as we call it at Awesome Journey, a “survival mindset”. This can stop us from being the co-creators that we were meant to be.

Why it Matters?

As a leader, you are now the person that others come to when under stress and frustration. Many times, this comes in the form of a complaint which can negatively impact culture and potentially cause poor results.

Leadership Insights

We have a saying at Awesome Journey that we use with our clients: “Behind every complaint is a hidden request, can you hear it?”

When we are in a complaint, we often do not take the time to figure out what requests need to be made. It’s easier to just stay in the complaint, then to do the work to turn it around.

Challenge:

Next time one of your teammates comes to you with a complaint, empower them to see what request they need to make, to move out of a “survival mindset” and into a “thriving mindset”. (hint: most times it is creating a conversation that they should, but do not want to have!)

Awesome Read

The link below offers some action steps that can support you in turning a complaint into a request.

The Next Time You Want to Complain at Work, Do This Instead

Have an Awesome Month!

Are You a “Wing-It” or a “Designer”?

https://www.awesomejourney.ca/are-you-a-wing-it-or-a-designer/

What type of leader are you?

Are you a “Wing-It” or a “Designer” leader in your life?

 

What’s the difference?

  • The “Wing-It’s” – The “Wing-It’s” get-by and survive with little to no preparation and hope for the best. A wing-it mindset is driven by the belief that they can handle a conversation without quality preparation and design. A “Wing-It” thinks and acts completely in the moment with outcomes that are not predictable or repeatable.
  • The “Designers” – A “Designer” is intentional and creates (through generative language and actions) the outcomes they desire. “Designers” prepare, coordinate with others, and show up knowing the outcome they wish to achieve. Generally, desired outcomes are pre-determined, and actions are aligned to create the desired outcomes.

“Wing-It’s” are individuals, teams and organizations that want to grow their companies, improve performance, and achieve results, but get stuck due to a lack of intentional design in their conversations to move forward.

As a company grows, its demands, requirements, and needs change. Behaviors and ways of doing things that enabled the company to get by, survive, and just-make-it-happen in the past become incompatible with the future the company wants to create.

A “Wing-It” just wants to get it done, while a “Designer” wants it to be intentional, repeatable, and to provide the desired results.

As executive leadership coaches, we strive to move “Wing-It’s” to become “Designers”.

Moving from a “Wing-It” to a “Designer” mindset starts with your “Way of Being”.

When you choose to be intentional by being a designer of your conversations, then your actions and behaviors become intentional, and eventually, your words and actions become reflected in the outcomes, results, and performance that is produced on a consistent basis.

 

“Wing-It’s” Vs “Designers”

Wing-It vs Designer

For most new business leaders, it is the wing-it mindset that starts the company and keeps the lights on, and then as time goes on and the needs of the company grow and develop, the company begins to need “Designers” who can create desired outcomes through intentional design.

“Designers,” think and act intentionally and strategically because they have a strong relationship to time which makes them reliable with their word. They create the plans that provide the focus needed to achieve KPI’s (key performance indicators) and can measure the effectiveness of the efforts.

 

Leadership Challenge:

What is one thing you are going to design, through intentional preparation, to create the outcome you desire over the next 7 days?

Are Your Blind-Spots Holding You Back?

https://www.awesomejourney.ca/blind-spots-holding-back/

We all have blind spots, but most of us are – as the saying goes – blind to them! The difference between good leaders and truly powerful leaders who get results is the awareness of blind-spots.

Powerful leaders are self-aware of their blind spots.

Developing the self-awareness to identify blind-spots usually isn’t organic, so the executive leadership coaches at Awesome Journey have developed a list of the Top 10 Blind-Spots we see the most with our clients:

 

  1. Being Stuck – We all get stuck sometimes. It’s that feeling of not being happy in your current situation, but being uncertain where to go next.

Powerful Leaders Know:

  • State of Awareness: they recognize that they’re stuck because they are self-aware of their emotional state (feel frustration or anger and a fight or flight state-of-mind).
  • State of Action: they move from being stuck back into action by asking for support from others in less than 24 hours.

 

  1. Asking for Support – Leaders tend to believe that they need to figure everything thing out on their own all the time.

Powerful Leaders Know: Vulnerability = Power and Action

  • Being able to say, “I don’t know” means they are curious to explore new possibilities.
  • They have a support network that is committed to holding them accountable to their big goals

 

  1. Emotional Triggers – It is important to understand how your environment affects you

Powerful Leaders Know: Being self-aware of what their emotional triggers are, gives them the power to shut them down and view situations from a more objective and positive mindset.

 

  1. Relationship to Language – What you say and how you say it matters. When your language is generative (action-oriented) vs. descriptive (not action-oriented) you speak with more intentionality and power.

Powerful Leaders Know:

  • Making clear requests of others leads to better outcomes
  • Using the language of accountability will generate action with others
  • Creating clear agreements with others leads to clarity of expectations and a stronger relationship
  • Designing every conversation with a clear intention of the desired outcome

 

  1. Relationship to Time – We all have the same amount of time each day, yet some people achieve more each day than others. When your relationship to time is proactive (planned) vs reactive (wing-it) you become the owner of your time.

Powerful Leaders Know:

  • What their time is worth per hour
  • Have a “Chief Accountability System” – they book time for their tasks and activities to turn promises into priorities because it is in their calendar

 

  1. Intentional Listening – When you understand how your listening impacts your interactions with others you are able connect to create.

Powerful Leaders Know: The power of listening with the intention to connect and co-create with others vs listening to fix problems

 

  1. Impact of Your Daily Practices – Daily practices are the routines we all have that set us up for success.

Powerful Leaders Know: How their practices keep them focused, productive and centered:

3 daily practices that are common for Powerful Leaders:

  • Meditation/Deep Breathing to support quality thinking time
  • Self-Reflection – what worked well today and what was a frustration today
  • Power of a Pause – when emotionally triggered they pause before they respond

 

  1. Coordinating Action through Others – No leader can do it all; at least not if they want to grow. Powerful leaders understand the power of delegation.

Powerful Leaders Know: When they delegate responsibilities to others they coordinate action by being:

  • Thorough with details
  • Creating clear agreements with others
  • Holding others accountable for their performance by following up in an appropriate time frame

 

  1. Negative Self -Talk – Everyone engages in negative self-talk occasionally. It is important to be aware of when you are doing it and how it impacts your daily performance.

Powerful Leaders Know:

  • What their dominate negative self-talk is – “I am not enough or I am right”
  • How negative self-talk can shut them down in any conversation
  • How to minimize it and bounce back

 

  1. Power of Their Personal Mission Statement – Your personal mission statement is your “Why” (why you do everything you do). You mission statement drives all your actions, so it is a very important statement.

Powerful Leaders Know: What their mission statement is and how they are living it.

Check out “Know Your Why” by Michael Jr.

 

Challenge: 

List 3 blind-spots you have and how you could overcome them.

 

Great Leaders Have an Innovative Business Model: Part Two

https://www.awesomejourney.ca/great-leaders-innovative-business-model-part-two/

In Great Leaders Have a Strategic Business Model: Part One we discussed the four components of a Strategic Business Model:

  • Client Value Proposition
  • Profit Formula
  • Key Resources
  • Key Support Structures

Now we want to look at some companies who have created Innovative Business Models that have challenged long-held, core beliefs about how to create value for their clients, and in the process revolutionized their industries.

NETFLIX: What if I could bring client videos via the web and charge them a monthly fee?

AMAZON WEB SERVICES: What if you didn’t need to own IT infrastructure to operate your business?

UBER: What if we transformed the pricing and the distribution model for people who utilize taxi services?

AIRBNB: What if we modernized the hospitality industry model by getting people to offer spare rooms in their homes as hotel rooms for daily rent via an extraordinary website?

APPLE: What if we revolutionized the retail experience for clients purchasing electronics?

ZAPPOS: What if we made it easy for “Professional Women, who don’t have time to go shopping, to buy their shoes online?”

WARBY PARKER EYEWEAR: What if we made it easy for anyone to buy quality eye glasses online for affordable prices?

TED TALKS & YOUTUBE: What if we made it easy for anyone to learn from experts online for free?

IKEA: What if we could make it easy for “People who live on a budget, and need space up and usable tomorrow”?

TARGET: What if people who shopped in discount stores would pay extra for designer products?

 

CHALLENGE:

Set aside 4 hours with your Executive Leadership Team and challenge every component of your current Business Model to identify new ideas of how to new create value for your current and future clients.

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