Tag Archives: Leadership

Culture and Hebb’s Rule

Donald Hebb is the author of Hebb’s Rule used to explain the mechanism of neural and synaptic plasticity – the process within our brains that leads to growth, change and rewiring. How does this relate to culture? Well simply put, Hebb’s Rule is quite often summarized with the simple phrase – “Neurons that fire together wire together”.

Hebb’s Rule – Neurons that fire together wire together.

Culture is defined by Eagles Flight (www.eaglesflight.com) as the sum total of all the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of individuals within the organization. As a leader, your challenge is to define the desired culture, assemble a team that has the desired attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and coach the team in living the culture. If you can achieve that, you will have one of the key ingredients to a high performing team.

Neurons that fire together wire together and as a leader, when you assemble a team that fires together focused on a common goal you will end up with a team that is wired together.

When to Provide Feedback

We all struggle when providing feedback. When is the right time and should I say something that may upset the person? While giving kudos for a great effort is easy and we all feel good when delivering the message, offering constructive criticism is the challenge. As a leader, there comes a time when you observe a specific behaviour or action that requires feedback.

1) When the feedback has a high chance of improving someone’s skills and the person will have the opportunity to use those skills again.

2) When the person knows that you are aware of a certain action or behaviour and is expecting feedback.

3) When an action or behaviour can not be ignored due to the detrimental effect on another team member or the organization.

Providing feedback can also have a negative effect in certain situations.

1) When the person does not have the knowledge or skills to improve.

2) When you have not taken time to think through possible solutions.

3) When you do not have all the information and make assumptions.

4) When the person to whom you are providing feedback is in an emotional state where the message will not be received or retained.

5) When you are not in the proper emotional state to provide the feedback calmly.

When you are ready, there are three questions I suggest you ask yourself before delivering the message. If you can answer yes to the following three questions and have considered the above, provide the feedback and help someone to improve.

Election Time

It is election time in Canada. So often we are caught in that decision – I love the person but not the party. Case in point, Jack Layton had this fantastic quote before he passed away too soon. No one can argue with these words and the sentiment behind them.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” Jack Layton

Jack Layton (1950-2011)

The “F” Word

My “F” word isn’t the same as yours. My “F” word is “Frustration”. I tell everyone that frustration is a useless emotion, whether in your personal life or your business life. Frustration occurs when you believe you are blocked from reaching your goal by something that is outside of your control. In my personal life, I have come across many frustrating situations and I have learned to reframe those situations as challenging vs frustrating. We underestimate how much is within our control. I love a good challenge.

In my business life, I spend most of my time observing and listening. Listening for that “F” word. When you hear the “F” word in your leadership journey, don’t avoid the situation hoping that it will correct itself. Rather meet it head on and find a solution.

I have a good friend (shoutout to Trevor) that has made a career of going into companies and listening for that F word. When Trevor hears the F word he develops an app to solve it. Trevor has made a career on solving the F situations.

Whenever you hear yourself or someone else use the F word, don’t run away from it, rather walk straight into it and find a solution.

Built to Last

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras authored this fantastic book documenting the successful habits of Visionary Companies. The main takeaway – if you are involved in building and managing an organization, the single most important part to take away is to “preserve the core and stimulate progress”. This is referred to as clock building in the book – building a company that can prosper far beyond the presence of any single leader and through multiple product life cycles. Sound simple?

Preserve the core and stimulate progress is referred to as embracing the genius of the AND. How often in our leadership journeys do we struggle with this? Low cost OR high quality or can it be low cost AND high quality. As a parent is it living by the rules OR creating a loving environment or living by the rules AND creating a loving environment? In our personal lives is it living healthy OR enjoying the moment or living healthy AND enjoying the moment? Yes, we can have both.

In the book we are given mechanisms that have proven to be successful with other successful companies – Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs), Cult Like Cultures, Try A Lot of Stuff and Keep What Works, Home Grown Management and Good Enough Never Is. A great read and very powerful for my current business challenge.

Don’t Let Others Define Your Success – Part 2

If you haven’t heard of The Barkley Marathons take some time to research it. The Barkley Marathons is an ultramarathon trail race held in Frozen Head State Park near Wartburg, Tennessee. Runners are required to find their way around an unmarked trail in harsh conditions, covering about about 100 miles (160 km). The race is limited to a 60-hour period, and takes place in late March or early April of each year. There are books, articles on the internet and a fantastic film that all provide more information.

While the theme of the film is about the racers, you will also be introduced to the co-founder and director of the race, Gary Cantrell aka Lazarus Lake. During the film, Lazarus Lake provides narration. One of his quotes on success stood out to me.

Everyone has their own concept of success or failure. Don’t be concerned how others judge you, rather evaluate your performance and make your own judgement on success or failure

Don’t Let Others Define Your Success – Part 1

One of the great leaders in sports history is John Wooden. John Wooden was one of the best coaches in history. During a 12 year span in his coaching career, while John Wooden was the head basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) his teams won ten national championships, including seven in a row. It took John Wooden years to develop his formula for success and documented the formal in his pyramid of success. This pyramid took years to create (started in 1932 and finalized in 1948) and became John Wooden’s roadmap to success.

At the core of the Pyramid of Success was John Wooden’s definition of success – “ Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable”. John Wooden had a great teacher in his father. In Johnn Wooden’s book on Leadership, he recalls an early lesson from his father to him and his brothers – “Sons,” he would tell my three brothers and me, “don’t worry about whether you’re better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can become. You have control over that; the other you don’t.”

The message is the same – you define your success, others don’t. Too often we measure success by money, possessions, being better than others or popularity. Take a lesson from John Wooden, every day is an opportunity to do your best and be satisfied in that. You define your success, others don’t.

Change the Plan, Never the Goal

In an earlier post I referred to the importance of finding your North Star. The North Star is your reason to be, why you get up in the morning and provides clarity to your life journey, It took me almost 40 years before I could formalize my life goal. For me, I have three goals:

Get to heaven.
Help as many others get there as possible.
Enjoy the journey.

Those three goals guide my decision making everyday. Each year I take time out to review progress and develop plans aligned with those goals. From year to year the plans may change but the goals don’t.

When Your Kids Become Leaders

The definition of leadership that we started with “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something they wouldn’t normally do because they want to and they understand why.”

When we bring children into the world we have the responsibility of leading them. If you do a good job, the time will come when your kids begin to lead you. I have two simple examples that came up recently.

I introduced the concept of stimulus and response in an earlier blog. We are all challenged by this at some time. This year I made the public commitment that I would respect the observance of Lent and give up alcohol. I am not Catholic but I respect the concept of sacrifice and improvement. I was two weeks in when we had a small gathering at our house and I opened a bottle of wine to share with guests. I poured a glass for myself and was ready to bend the rules when my daughter caught my eye and knowing me said “Dad, if you do that you will regret it and there is no going back”. Needless to say, I did not drink any wine that night. My daughter was successful in getting me to do something I wouldn’t normally do because i wanted to and I understood why.

I also think of myself as somewhat chivalrous, upholding the honour of my wife. When we go for walks, I proudly hold her hand and stay aware, ready to protect. My son and his wife were walking behind us when he called out to me and said “Dad, what are you doing?” You see, we were walking on a busy road and my wife was on the inner side, walking closer to the traffic. My son educated me on chivalry and that I should actually be walking on the inner side and protecting his mother. Needless to say, I took my wife’s other hand and began walking on the inner side as I have continued to do. My son was successful in getting me to do something I wouldn’t normally do because i wanted to and I understood why.

Everyone Needs Their North Star

When I was young my father taught me how to find the North Star. If I was ever lost, I could look up, find The Big Dipper (Ursa Major) and locate the North Star. This was a way to reset, find my bearings and get home if I was out hiking and the sun had set. It didn’t stop there, my father also showed me the Belt of Orion and the Seven Sisters (Pleiades). As I got older, I took a university course in Astronomy and ended up buying an 8” diameter reflector telescope that would allow me to see light years away. Although the telescope helped me to see further, it was always the North Star I picked out on my walks. Not only does it centre me and give me direction on a dark night, it also takes me back to the teachings of my father and the importance of values.

Everyone needs their North Star. You can’t get to where you want to go if you don’t know where the destination is. Every year I take time out to review where I am, what my goals are and I write them down. It took me about 40 years to really figure out where I was headed and how I would keep centred on where I was headed. Now my annual exercise is more on how to reach the goal rather than setting the goal.

Yes, when I walk at night I still look up at the North Star. Every time I find myself walking at night with my wife or my kids, I stop and point out the North Star to them. Last week I was walking with my daughter and her dog. As usual I was walking with my head up, looking at the sky and thinking of my father. This time I was lucky enough to see the Northern Lights and the opportunity to share them with my daughter, the first time she had ever seen them. If you haven’t found it yet, sit down and think about where you are going and what your North Star is.