What are you dedicated to?

Posted December 2, 2011 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

It’s been said that you can be world class at everything if you spend 10,000 hours practicing. That’s  3 hours a day for ten years, give or take a few days. What that means is that every person could be world class at something ten years from now. For some, it could be an olympic athlete. For others, a world class musician or artist. Some will be dedicated to their health or their wisdom, in order to remain a vital, contributing person as they age. Some will dedicate their lives to writing, speaking, or learning to communicate to impact others in a positive way. Others will be dedicated to a spiritual practice, community service, or  a cause beyond their own self-interest. Some are dedicating their time to parenting. And others will become world class complainers. Have you ever met a world class complainer? It’s a person who has spent three hours a day for the past ten years complaining. If you spend three hours a day watching television, you will be a world class television watcher, and if you watch the same shows during that time, it’s likely that no one else in the world will know more about those shows than you.

Years ago I memorized a quote written by the nineteenth century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose words continue to inspire me: “The heights by great men [or women] reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” I don’t think he was talking about distracting yourself by surfing the net at 3:00 am. He was talking about being dedicated to something.

The question is: What are you dedicated to? Where are you investing your time? What difference are you making in the world through this dedicated effort? Is what you are dedicated to inspiring you? Engaging you? Making a contribution to others? Do you have a vision that awakens you, that gets you up early or keeps you up late? What if you set a worthwhile ten-year vision to dedicate your life to? It’s never too late to consciously dedicate your life to a vision that inspires you. You are going to be ten years older in ten years anyway. Why not dedicate yourself to a worthy cause in the process? You can be interested in something, but that is different than being dedicated.

 

David Irvine, Author and Speaker

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Accountability: Getting A Grip On Results

Posted June 13, 2011 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Accountability is about getting a grip on results. It’s about creating trust in relationships so the relationship will last. It’s about courageous conversations, about making clear promises that you will deliver on and the courage to hold people to what say they will do. It’s about engaging people and breathing new life into the relationships that matter. It is a deep and sustaining way to renew organizations with a promise and a commitment to what matters most, and to bring the very best you have to offer to whatever you do.

MAKING ACCOUNTABILITY AGREEMENTS THAT WORK:

There are five key elements necessary to make an agreement powerful and meaningful with the people you depend on and who depend on  you.

a) Contribution Statement – What is the highest level value you are committed to bring to this relationship? This is what gives accountability agreements heart.

b) Accountabilities – Accountabilities are the promises you make to others, what they can count on from you.

c) Support Requirments. Support requirements are the accountabilities you require from others to ensure that you will have the support necessary to fulfill your accountabilities.

d) Consequences – Consequences describe the results of the agreement (such as what you would like from others in return for delivering on your accountabilities). They are a statement of what is important to you, considering what is fair and reasonable within your current environment.

e) Follow up – Follow up is a statement that indicates how your agreement will be maintained as a meaningful and flexible document over time, a work in progress.

Assessing Accountabilty Gaps In Your Organization:

Does the Accountability or Authenticity Gap exist in your organization? Are you committed to narrow this gap?

Indicators of an accountability gap:

  • A lack of focus; busy but not producing results that matter most
  • A lack of dependability, ownership and trust
  • Excess dependency on positional leaders for direction and support

Often times accountability gaps are symptoms of authenticity gaps:

  • A lack of open, direct communication
  • A deficiency of passion, energy, engagement, and commitment

Where do you start? With yourself. Regardless of your position, you are accountable for the level of accountability and authenticity in your organization. You have established the culture. You set the tone.

If there is a gap:

(a)    People are not seeing you as being clear about your accountabilities or do not see you as authentic (you are not walking your talk),

(b)    You are not providing a strong enough model to the organization, or

(c)    People perceive that your team, though accountable, is not aligned in its accountabilities.

Four Steps To Narrow The Gap:

1. Look at your own habits as a leader. Fill any blatant Accountability Gaps you are responsible for personally. Go to meetings on time, follow up on commitments, deliver on your commitments, confront poor performers who are old buddies.

2. Identify accountability and authenticity blind spots. Ask trusted advisors to help identify instances where others see that your accountabilities don’t match your intentions.

3. Make sure your leadership team is pulling together, and that it does not appear to your employees that is okay to pull in a different direction from the team.

4. Write an Authentic Accountability Agreementä for yourself, and encourage your direct reports to do the same so you can ensure everyone is clear about their accountabilities. Be sure everyone has been invited to be authentic, and that everyone is aligned.

You can do all of these things on your own. You have the power, and the ability, to build an accountable, authentic company.

We can help you do it faster, and more completely, if you are committed to setting a tone that fosters accountability, authenticity, trust, and better performance throughout your organization. Here’s how we can help:

  • Coaching to help assess your own level of authenticity and personal accountability performance.
  • Leadership assessment for you and your direct reports to identify gaps in your accountability and authenticity that are reflected in your staff members’ gaps.
  • Assistance for you and your direct reports in writing, aligning and communicating your authentic accountability agreements.
  • Customized leadership development programs that promise an increase in accountability and authenticity throughout your organization.

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Bridges Of Trust: Making Accountability Authentic

Posted June 6, 2011 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Everyone’s saying it: organizations needs to be accountable. Leaders need to be accountable. Employees need to be accountable. So why do most accountability programs fail?

The concept and experience of accountability needs rejuvenation. You have to get to the deep meaning of accountability. You have to be clear about who you are accountable to, “for what specific results,” and “for what matters most.” If you aren’t, accountability becomes just another organizational buzzword, or worse, a hammer to punish people,

Accountability, when understood and applied effectively, will transform the your organization, your work, and your life. Accountability is the keystone of trust, the foundation of labour and life.

In it’s simplist form, accountability is the ability to be counted on. Real accountability is rooted in the behaviour of people. It is not, as some think, a character trait or something embedded in an organization. Accountability is determined by how you act.

When people accept real accountability, life in an organization or in a relationship is straightforward and productive. No one needs a pack of dogs eating their homework or a fresh pile of excuses to explain incomplete tasks. People do what they say they are going to do—and paradoxically when this happens real accountability creates enormous freedom and the opportunity for creativity.

Real accountability leads us back to our roots as people with integrity, unleashing the human potential that can so easily be suppressed. In our complex organizations, our busy families and our fast paced society, accountability can be diffused or completely lost—and when accountability is lost, we lose touch with our core. When we grasp real accountability we get a grip on results.

Accountable Behaviours

Real accountability requires you to do four things consistently:

1. Take Ownership. No one but you cares about the reason you let someone down. Deciding, once and for all, that all blame is a waste of time, will change your life forever. Decide to give to others what you expect from others. Be the change that you wish to see around you. Deciding that you have helped create the world around you – and therefore you are the one to step into healing it – is the ultimate act of accountability. Ownership means choosing service over self-interest, contribution over consumerism, and gratitude andgenerosity over entitlement. Ownership makes you a force in the world that changes the world. George Bernard Shaw knew this when he said, “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

2. Carry through to completion the responsibilities entrusted to you. Henry Ford once said, “you can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” Real accountability means only making promises you know you can – and will – deliver. Real accountability also requires you to search for and clarify accountabilities that are assumed in your roles, to judge which accountabilities you accept, and to carry those accountabilities through to completion. When you make a promise to someone you now have a creditor, where a debt is owed. Once you have made the promise, accountability means that you then deliver on your promise. When circumstances prohibit you from fulfilling your promise, let the creditor know as soon as you know, that the commitment is jeopardized. Negotiate, at this point, to minimize damages and re-commit to a new course of action.

3. Stand up for your actions. Real accountability depends upon transparency. Others need to know who did what, and who is accountable for doing something. Standing up for your actions in public is very relaxing when you are confident that you have acted ethically and with your best efforts. Standing up for your actions is another aspect of ownership, in that it means owning up to mistakes. Though owning up publically for the mistakes you make may not be comfortable, it takes less effort and results in more respect than hiding or running from the truth. No one ever thought less of a person who stood up and said, “I’m accountable for that.”

4. Stand behind your results. The effects of your actions—your results—matter more than the actions themselves. Yes, you sent the memo, but did the memo produce the desired effect? You explained to your child how much a pencil hurts when jabbed into an uncle, but has her behaviour improved? People are accountable for producing a result, not just for taking an action. Real accountability encompasses the unintended results as well as the ones you mean to produce. When you act to stop a child’s unsocial behaviour, you are also accountable for the effect your actions have on the child’s sense of safety and love. Or when you produce a high quality running shoe, you are accountable for the effect your plant’s effluent has on the local water supply. Real accountability requires an acceptance of responsibility for all the results your actions (or inactions) produce.

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

 

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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The World Needs A Skeptic, Not A Cynic

Posted May 25, 2011 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

What’s the difference between a skeptic and a cynic? Here’s my take:

A skeptic (according to Encarta® World English Dictionary) is “somebody who questions the validity or truth of things that most people accept.” Skeptics challenge the status quo. Skeptics are necessary for the growth and development of an organization, a culture, and a community. Perhaps the growth of life itself depends on the spirit of a good skeptic. While skeptics appear negative, they have a motive to build. They have good-will, and are solution-based. Their intent is to serve, to contribute, to make better and stronger by telling the truth. Some are called agitators. We need agitators – as long as its done with the greater good in mind.

Cynics are quite different. While cynics also challenge the status quo, their motive is self-interest. They are not in the game for the greater good. Unlike skeptics, cynics have no cause, and without a cause you are a poacher.

In my discussion with groups of leaders about the difference between skeptics and cynics, the role of complaint inevitably surfaces. Is complaining skepticism or cynicism? It depends on your motive. To complain is  to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief. While complaining inevitably, at least initially, comes across as negative, if your motive is to serve and build, complaining can be useful. Be careful that you don’t judge and silence complainers in haste. Sometimes they are your best teachers and your greatest allies. Listening to and learning from those raising complaints about what is not working can bring about positive change.  Judging complainers outright labels the leaders – the change makers – within your organization who have spoken up, to become silent lest they be labeled as such. Complaints can  promote change. Complaints can be productive  when they are heard and acknowledged and when the complaint is coming from a self-responsible mindset.

What’s your take on the difference between a skeptic and a cynic?

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Engagement Flows From Personal Values

Posted May 15, 2011 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

Over the years, my colleagues and I have spent considerable energy and time helping leaders create an aligned culture by clarifying their organizational values. We lead off-site retreats, creating corporate value statements and developing processes for getting those values into the hearts of their employees. But this is not what inspires commitment and engagement.

It’s personal values that matter most when it comes to employee engagement. People don’t put their hearts into anything until they believe in it. Clarity of personal values is the force that makes the difference in an individual’s level of commitment to an organization. Think about your own experience. When, in your career, were you most engaged? Was it when you were clear about the values of the organization you worked for, or when you were clear about your own personal values?

If you are committed to engage people with their hearts, clarifying organizational values is a waste of time unless you get to what matters to them as a person.

In retreats and workshops, I now focus more on helping leaders clarify their employee’s personal values than on clarifying organizational values. While both are important, you have to get to people’s personal values if you want to get to what engages them. Commitment is a matter of alignment between personal and organizational values. You have to get to both sides of the equation.

What’s your experience with getting employees engaged?

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Categories: Leadership and Culture
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Jumping Out Of Bed: Creating An Inspired Workplace

Posted March 29, 2011 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

“Going to work is a chore. It’s just a job. A necessary evil. A prison sentence. Doing time. Collecting a paycheque. I hate it.” How often have you heard someone talk about his or her work in these terms? Perhaps you have spoken this way yourself on occasion. Perhaps you speak this way more often than you’d like.

While we all may feel this way at times, what if most of your life was spent hardly waiting to get to the office? What if your workplace inspired you rather than depleted you? What if you jumped out of bed to get to work because you were so excited about getting there?

My passion is to make this world a better place to work. Work is so vitally important to our well-being, and life is far too short to spend these  hours in misery. We will all spend thousands of hours at work so why not have a great workplace culture?

So whose responsibility is it to make your workplace great? It is my notion that organizational culture starts with you, not your boss or your boss’s boss. While bosses set the tone, create the environment, and establish the culture, you are the one who actually creates the culture. Every employee is responsible for the culture within and around them. You make the difference.

And just how can you create a great culture in your workplace?

1. Be authentic. Engagement comes from being who you are. Bringing your values, your aspirations, your passion, and your unique talents to work lights a fire inside you. Work is a tool to create and express what matters most. When you have a purpose for coming to work and clear values with a commitment to serve others through your role at work,your energy will soar.

2. Build trust. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. Without trust, work will be a miserable place. And trust starts with you. Start by identifying your “Significant Seven,” the top people or groups of people you depend on or who depend on you, and make trust your number one priority with them.

3. Be accountable. Accountability is the ability to be counted on. Being dependable with others starts with being dependable to yourself. Do you keep commitments to yourself? Do you see yourself as a person who is accountable?

What is your way of ensuring that  you jump out of bed in the morning to get to work? How do you create an inspiring workplace for yourself and others you work with?

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Cultural Transformation

Posted October 11, 2009 By David Irvine and has no comments yet.

The focus of my work is inspiring, guiding, and supporting leaders at all levels to build strong organizational cultures. The leaders I speak with these days are not just interested in keeping people. They are committed to keeping people engaged. I define engagement as the desire by employees to go the extra mile to help their organization succeed and deem their work meaningful and fulfilling. So… just how do you get people engaged?

Culture and employee engagement is a topic for continual learning. First, engagement is not something you “get from” your organization. It’s something you bring to your organization. The people who tend to score low on a Hewitt engagement survey will tend to score low no matter what environment they work in. On the other hand, employees who say they are highly engaged will likely be highly engaged no matter where they work. That’s why the first principle of engagement is person accountability. Accountability – the ability to be counted on – means that engagement begins with ownership. When you create a place where all blame is viewed as a waste of time and where people can be counted on, there is always high, focused energy, because there is trust.

The second principle of engagement is authenticity. Authenticity is about creating a place where people don’t have to leave who they are at the door. You can be who you are when you come to work. The needs of the organization are integrated with the desires of the soul. Authenticity means the values, dreams, talents, and passion of all stakeholders are moving into alignment. The laminated Value Statements have come down from the walls and are lived. Employees have a deep commitment to the organization because they know that the organization has a deep commitment to them. Engagement is an inside job. It comes through conversation: about what matters most to you. When you are finding and expressing your passion, living your highest aspirations, and fulfilling your dreams  in the service of others, you will be engaged. Engagement is about energy. When the energy flows from a depth within you to the world around you, and then returns to its source within you, you are engaged. Nobody has to motive you.  It flows naturally.

Fostering this kind of culture is akin to being a gardener. It can’t be legislated, controlled, motivated, or coerced.  No plants ever grow better because you demand that they do so or because you threaten them. Plants grow only when they have the right conditions and are given proper care. Creating the space and providing the proper nourishment for plants – and people as well – is a matter of continual investigation and vigilance.

These are a few my thoughts about organizational culture and employee engagement. I’d love to know yours.

Categories: Cultural Transformation
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