Quality Focused Leadership

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Little Things Matter. Quality is Often the Sum of Little Things.

Do little things matter? Do style and format matter? Does the packaging affect the quality of a product? Does grammar matter?

The easy answer to those is yes, yes, they do.

Little things matter but they never will trump the overall delivery of a project, product or service. Think for a moment about proposal for a system change that will have a million-dollar positive impact on the organization, make people’s life easier and help you deliver much better service to your customer. The core content of this proposal is solid. The numbers are right.

But, there is a typo on page 4. The wrong form of the word there is used. There are really no interesting graphics to appeal to visual people. The paragraphs are too long and ramble. The style makes the proposal hard to look at and read. Nothing interesting or sexy or appealing in this document.

Will that have an impact? Absolutely it will. Intuitively, this strikes many of you as wrong but unfortunately, style, details and presentation quality matter. It explains why neatly packaged name brands consistently outsell the same product sold generically.

Effective leaders need to strike a balance between overall effectiveness and attention to quality. When this balance is out of whack, there are two possible outcomes. If effectiveness trumps quality, poorly appearing items will appear and adversely impact the image of the organization. If there is overemphasis on quality, opportunities and market share will be lost. This balance is not a nice neat little 50/50 split either. It depends on the nature of your product or service, core values and corporate culture.

For a leader to have a quality focus, you must engage in a couple of key strategies. Firstly, you must clearly articulate your expectations. Tell your team what you expect and what you will clearly kick back to them as unacceptable. Provide them with examples of high quality and examples of poor quality. Provide them with templates of documents and standards that you view as quality work.

The second strategy becomes a matter of great judgment for leaders. A quality focused leader must not be afraid to return a piece of work to its author or architect when it does not meet the stated standard of quality. Far too many leaders “clean up” or edit projects prior to final delivery rather that have the originator make the changes. Unfortunately, that sends the message poor work is fine, because the leader will always fix it up. It will also condition your team members to continue to supply you with inferior quality work.

Where this becomes a matter of judgment and challenge is when quality abuts a deadline. I would love to produce more quality but the deadline is this afternoon. Many times, this creates a significant compromise in the quality of work.

To validate your judgment, you need to know your organization’s values. Is there more emphasis placed on speed or quality. Where is there higher impact, a missed deadline or poor quality? You must make this decision. You may also have to have a courageous conversation and tell someone a deadline will be missed because the quality was not acceptable. Certainly, not an easy conversation, but a necessary conversation none the less.

One final note about quality. As you model both your tolerance for quality and quality of your own efforts, your team will follow that example.

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.

The 10-Choosing Your Training Provider

There are certainly more important relationships than your training and organizational development provider.  Your doctor.  Your dentist.  Your tax professional to name a few.

But don’t undervalue the need to perform due diligence and pick a solid training and organizational development provider.  These are people that you are trusting with your most valued asset, your team.  Slick graphics and a cool website rarely tell a story of true effectiveness.  Some of the best organizational development people in the world have very small footprints on social media, the internet and would never be considered flashy but their value is unsurpassed.

  1. Results Matter – Look for an organizational development provider that has produced results for other organizations and can document those results.  Projects that they have actually worked on and not just projects that came with their franchise.
  2. Experience Matters – Look for depth of experience in not only years but in projects and scope.  Talent will carry some projects but the best practices and lessons learned are hard to replicate in a matter of months or a few short years.
  3. Qualifications Matter – Academic and professional certifications have value.  Look for those providers who’s team carries both especially when working with psychometric instruments and complex models.  You can’t be a senior executive lead facilitator with a month of experience and no credentials.
  4. References Matter – Look for a learning provider that has real references with names.  Call those references and check out the project leader and the outcomes from that project.
  5. Science and Thought Leadership Matter – Style is cool but at the end of the day, it is about delivering sound, useable and valid training.  Make sure your provider is a thought and practice leader by reviewing books, publications and proprietary work they have done.
  6. Credibility Matters – Many large projects require investment and technical credibility.  Check the Dun and Bradstreet rating.  Check liability insurance.  Check public records for legal actions.
  7. Commitment Matters – Look for a learning company that will partner with you and not just shove their solution down to you.  You will need someone who is as committed to your training objectives as you are and someone willing to become your learning partner.
  8. Service Matters – This one is any easy one.  Will your training provider be available at their convenience or yours?  Make sure you will receive priority service and treatment from your training and organizational development provider.
  9. Quality Matters – Little things do matter.  Correct words, grammar, spelling and material quality are part of the learning experience.  Make sure your training provider is committed to ensuring quality at every turn.
  10. Engagement Matters – Training and any kind of learning cannot be drudgery.  Make certain that your provider offers some spirit and not just canned slides or reading from a script.

Socks, Underwear and the Homeless

Aegis Cares

Helping to Make Our Community and World a Better Place

Polly Walker lead the Aegis Cares effort to gather socks and underwear for the Las Vegas Rescue Mission.  These core essentials and very meaningful to the homeless population in Nevada and we were thrilled to be able to help.

Special thanks to Ameriprise Insurance, the Boulder City Rotary Club and John Chase for their donations to this great cause.

#powerof1

Aegis Cares
Aegis Cares

Join our Facebook group to receive updates and to participate in Aegis Cares campaigns and events.

Aegis Cares Update

Aegis Cares

Helping to Make Our Community and World a Better Place

Aegis Cares is our work to help make our communities and world a bit better.  Through efforts, sharing of talents and donations, our core value is to help others.  Polly Walker is our Aegis Cares coordinator and guide.

In June, Aegis Cares is coordinating the gathering of socks and underwear for the Las Vegas Rescue Mission.  Please contact us or join our Facebook group for more information and to participate.

July will bring our second service event to the homeless community in Las Vegas as we serve dinner on the evening of the 14th.  Join us if you can.

Aegis Cares

Join our Facebook group to receive updates and to participate in Aegis Cares campaigns and events.

Inspired to Lead-Part 2

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Becoming an Inspirational Leader

Inspired to Lead

  1. Find a Message that Resonates with your Team.
  2. Engage in Empowered Delegation.
  3. Connect to Meaning and Value.

Finding Your Message

Your words that inspire or message can be a slogan, a rally cry, a single word, a quote or a common shared experience.  After listening to your team you will know what it is that connects them to your customer and your mission.  In some organizations I worked with it was as simple as “Starfish” a reminder that they could make a difference one person, one case at a time.  There is the “Sneakers and Cheerios” slogan that connected team members to the children they served in their organization.  You have heard of “Delivering Happiness” at Zappos and GE’s “Imagination at Work”.  You and your team will know when you have found the words of common experience that connect at an emotional level.

Leadership as Service to Your Team 

Leaders are servants and their primary customer is their team and their respective needs.  A leader must provide service to their team members.  To improve your service to your team members, recognize them as your customer, prioritize their needs, give of yourself and be open to their suggestions and feedback.  With providing excellent customer service to your team members as your motivator you will ensure an inspired team and long term success.

Inspiring Through Empowered Delegation

As you listen to your team remember that in addition to what you say and do you can inspire your team by creating opportunities for greater participation and input.

In one organization we worked with, providing greater team member participation and input paid tremendous dividends to organizational outcomes as well as breathing fresh air and new life into an environment that was previously anything but inspired.  It was leadership support for team member innovation teams challenged with proposing ideas for organizational improvement that reenergized team member connection to the company mission and vision.  The energy was palpable.  Connecting the team to rediscovering their organizational purpose and impact on customers and community was inspiring.  You can inspire by asking team members for input, listening and acting on their ideas.

Connecting to Meaning and Value

Another way to be an inspirational leader is by giving meaning to the work being done or to more effectively communicate the meaning and value of their jobs.  The point of meaningfulness is the self creation of ego fulfillment when a team member has a belief that their work and efforts have real value and contribute to a bigger product.  When the call center representative understands the impact of their work and contribution to the overall performance, pride and ego fulfillment follow.  No one wants to be a cog in the wheel with no understanding of how their work contributes to a more holistic view of success.

You need to make an important assumption here. Everyone’s work has meaning and value.  Otherwise they would not be getting paid to do it.  Paid employment has value inherently just by the very nature of being paid and having market driven terms.

So where is the issue?  Although a team member’s work has value, many do not know or understand that value.  It is incumbent upon you to communicate this value and share it often with team members.  Whether their contribution was huge or modest, it was a contribution to the whole and needs to be articulated.  The hotel guest loved their stay.  Do we communicate that to the housekeeper, grounds keeper, front desk person and security officer or do we just keep them in the dark about their contribution to this successful customer interaction?

As a very satisfied customer, I recently wrote a letter of praise to management about several team members at my fitness club.  Not sure whether the letter would be shared with the team members I made sure to give each of them a copy.  People need to know.  Praise, appreciation, and gratitude for their efforts by customers contributes to an inspired working environment.  Remember, create a culture where praise, positive feedback and customer appreciation is shared and celebrated.

You as the leader have the primary influence that can ignite inspiration in your organization.  Tap into the emotional drivers of your team members. Listen to them and connect what inspires them with the organizational mission.  Create a culture of positive feedback and praise. Mastering these simple (though not easy) skill sets will breath new life into any organization!

Teresa Lowry is a passionate advocate for learning, growth and generating real organizational change.

Fueling that passion are exceptional communication abilities, a great training room presence and the ability to connect with people successfully in mentoring and coaching. Teresa brings successful results and implementing change from the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. She has a Juris Doctorate and bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Personally, Teresa enjoys serving on several community boards, volunteering with non-profit community groups and she is committed to achieving a healthy lifestyle through fitness. Along with her husband, you will find her in the gym every morning working out and training for distance and obstacle races.

Inspired to Lead-Part 1

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Becoming an Inspirational Leader

Inspired to Lead

  1. Look at team member’s emotional composition.
  2. Manage your own emotional intelligence.
  3. Connect to what is meaningful to team members. Ask. Listen.

One of the definitions of inspiration is the drawing in of breath. Working in an inspired workplace can be like a breath of fresh air. Your team is energized. Stories of positive connections with each other and customers occur frequently and are celebrated. People want to come to work.

Inspired organizations have higher levels of motivation, enhanced enjoyment, productivity, service levels and commitment. This is what you want for yourself, your team and your organization.

Emotions Drive the Train

A necessary component of your leadership skill set is to influence and inspire. Where to begin? Dale Carnegie said “When dealing with people remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic but with creatures of emotion.” Understanding that 80% of all decisions, reactions and responses are driven by emotions becomes key to your success. You may start down a logical path but at the decision point emotions become the primary driver.

Your team members are emotional humans and they need leadership that appeals to those emotions. Emotions drive attitudes, attitudes drive behavior.

Know Yourself

Leaders require self mastery and emotional intelligence and as such you then inspire others with your attitudes and behaviors. This can be through a shared vision which can include helping others, making the world a better, safer, more fun, smarter place. Whatever your company product or service there is a way to tap into your team members human desire to connect, give, and feel good about what they do. By way of example, you have at some point in your life experienced a class with someone who was inspired to teach as opposed to someone teaching just to make a living. The best are those who are inspired to teach. You know the difference. There is no comparison in the quality and impact of the experience when we are served by those who are inspired by what they do.

Connecting to What’s Meaningful

“Connecting why we are here. We are hard wired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.” Brene Brown.

You begin by connecting with your team. Openly seek out their input. Ask the question: What is it about our mission, our service, or product that inspires you? After you ask the question. Listen. Then listen some more. Remember that what inspires you may not be the same as what inspires your team members. You have to have a message that resonates with them.

Next time: Finding the Message that Inspires

Teresa Lowry is a passionate advocate for learning, growth and generating real organizational change.

Fueling that passion are exceptional communication abilities, a great training room presence and the ability to connect with people successfully in mentoring and coaching. Teresa brings successful results and implementing change from the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. She has a Juris Doctorate and bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Personally, Teresa enjoys serving on several community boards, volunteering with non-profit community groups and she is committed to achieving a healthy lifestyle through fitness. Along with her husband, you will find her in the gym every morning working out and training for distance and obstacle races.

Be the Townie of Your Team

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

The Importance of Optimism in Leadership

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”

Colin Powell

I’m a huge Adam Sandler fan, and one of my favorite movies is “The Waterboy”.  You remember the movie.  Sandler plays a character named Bobby Boucher, a socially inept (but also intelligent and driven) fellow whose dream is fulfilled when he becomes the water boy for a university football team.

Bobby encounters a lot of ridicule in his new job. Even his mama is not a fan, constantly informing him about the evils of “foosball”.  But water is his passion and he continues to strive to be the best… refilling water kegs with fresh water and constantly testing the alkaline levels.

Poor Bobby has very few fans in his corner, save for his girlfriend and one other person: Townie. Townie is featured through the movie, constantly supporting Bobby by repeating one line: “YOU CAN DO IT!!!!”  At first, Bobby seems to be surprised to have a supporter, but as the movie goes on he actually seems to rely on Townie’s pep talks.  Bobby ultimately triumphs and becomes a “foosball” player, marries his girlfriend, and saves the day (I love a happy ending!).

Good leaders are the “Townie” of their team…the optimist and the unwavering supporter who is there through the tough times.  Optimism is defined as “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something”.  Optimism, in fact, is one of the best behaviors a leader can display and cultivate.

There will be many times that a team will become discouraged.  There may not seem to be an end in sight to a project, or support and faith may be wavering.  You, as a leader, may even have moments when you feel that way (on the inside)…but, as the commercial slogan goes, “Never Let Them See You Sweat!”.  It is during these dark times that optimism in leadership is not only important.  It is REQUIRED. Your team needs to know they have you in your corner, and that you believe in them even when they don’t.

But don’t confuse “optimism” with “always having the answer”.  You aren’t going to have the answer for everything, and that is ok.  What you do need to have is belief and support in your team, and to convey and instill that. Be the Townie of your team…provide your unwavering support and let them know they can do it! Having a Townie on the team may make all the difference.  It did to Bobby Boucher.

Polly Walker is a talented facilitator, coach and expert in process improvement.  As the chief innovation officer for Aegis Learning, Polly produces many of the new ideas and creative solutions for workplace learning programs and their delivery.

Ms. Walker has two master’s degrees and has worked with some of the biggest client projects for Aegis Learning.  She is also our Townie and constantly optimistic.

Awareness IMPACT-Few More Points of Awareness

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

More Awareness

Making IMPACT-Additional Awareness

  1. Look at the labels you use to describe yourself. Do you use titles or are you more connected to life role and purpose?
  2. Examine how you judge yourself and other people. See how those judgements limit both yourself and how you connect with others.
  3. Work hard to not be as self-critical, impatient or limiting with yourself.
  4. Become authentic by being consistently connected to your core values and beliefs. Act in congruence with those values.

In this journey of deeper, more meaningful and impacting self-awareness, we have looked at a lot of the components of the real us. We have examined motives, influencers in our lives, patterns of behavior, projections and emotional composition.  Not the run of the mill, “look at yourself” kind of self-awareness.  This dive has been deep and hopefully, meaningful in seeing a truer you and seeing how the world sees you as well.

To round out our view of self, there are just a few more to examine.

Your Identifiers

The labels you attach when someone asks what you do or who you are can be quite telling. Do you self-identify with work? Do you have to add a title to the answer? Take a close look at how you respond and what that might say about yourself and project to others. Some of the most common self-identifiers include the need to use title or the brand name of the workplace because they add artificial prestige. The healthier choice is to focus your identification on either life role or your purpose.

Your Judgements

Judgements are a complex set of thoughts that become labels for others and ourselves. They can be as simple as a passing thought about a fellow driver’s ability to navigate traffic or as complex as a near-medical diagnosis. Examining how we judge others gives us some great perspective on how we judge ourselves as well. Are we overly harsh or critical of our performance and life? Do we create false expectations for based on our internal judgements?  Do we use judgments of others to make ourselves feel good?

Authenticity

The buzz word of  2016 and 2017 is authenticity. Unfortunately, many people use the label of authentic to be an ass. Authenticity is not about living outside the boundaries of society and human respect as some people will use it for, but rather a congruence with personal core values and beliefs. Does being authentic give you permission to curse inappropriately, treat others poorly and be harsh when delivering feedback (think about telling your wife how a dress looks)? Of course, it should not. Being authentic means keeping your behavior consistent with your true beliefs and values. If you speak love, you should project love. If you profess forgiveness, that is what your behaviors should reveal to others. Authentic means consistent and means not running away from the filters and rules of a decent humanity.

Conclusion

Not every piece of self-awareness is pleasant to examine. Sometimes it can be downright painful to reflect and know yourself on a deeper level. This deeper, and authentic view of yourself can now lead to the significant and lasting changes that you desire. Quite simply, you can’t fix or move the dial until you know the starting point.

And now you have a much clearer understanding of the real you.

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.

Awareness IMPACT-Your Emotional Composition

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Your Emotional Composition

Making IMPACT-Emotional Composition

1. Track your emotional high and low points for 30 days

2.  Track your most common emotional settling points for 30 days

3.  Get feedback on your emotional composition and note it for 30 days

4.  Note your baseline state of emotional composition

5.  Listen to your body’s physical energy signals in this process

Emotional Composition
Emotional Composition

Saved a big piece for near the end.

Your emotions drive your attitudes and beliefs. Your attitudes and beliefs drive your behavior. Quite simply, if you want to achieve lasting change, you must look deep into you’re your emotional composition.

Emotions and Physical Energy are Connected

Another pretty easy visual. When you are in a higher emotional state (joyous, happy, satisfied), your physical energy is higher. You have the energy to execute your ideas and drive your passion. Conversely, when your emotional composition is lower (anger, frustration, grief), your physical energy is lacking.
This is an important barometer to keep in mind as we continue to take a look at your emotions. Listen to your body’s energy.

Most Common Emotional Frame

Healthy humans have ups and downs in their daily emotional composition. There are times of joy, times of satisfaction, times of overwhelming and periods of dark. All part of a normal day on the planet. Not every moment is butterflies and mugging selfies as Facebook would have us believe.

But within the fluidity of human emotion comes a common resting spot. That is a place where, over time, people’s emotional composition comes to settle. This is the spot that both you and I seek to understand. This becomes the emotional baseline that can then be used for prescriptive actions to improve overall emotional health.

It’s Not What You Think

When asked, most people will respond with a higher level of emotional composition than accurate at the time. This is due to a couple of factors including lack of emotional awareness and the desire to project a better state of emotional health to others and the outside world. In my experience, most people will respond to the query about emotional composition with where they would like to be instead of where they are at.

So, to get to your real emotional composition, some tracking is needed. My encouragement is to look at your most common emotional composition over 30 days. Also note your emotional high and low points for each day as well.

The Reconciliation to the Truth

As you track your own view of emotional composition, ask a friend, significant other or trusted team member to give you the same information daily. Ask her or him where they think you are at and note that as well.

As the above equation is true that emotions drive behaviors, your behaviors are tattletale of your emotional composition. The feedback from a trusted source is based on your behavior they observe. Your tone, your body language, how you approach situations. Even if you overcompensate with trying to be happy. You cannot escape what your behaviors tell others. Frustrated tone come from a frustrated person.

Now with 30 days of your own observations and 30 days of feedback from a valued and trusted source, you can see your most common spot. Hopefully over 30 days of self-examination you were also able to be more self-honest with your typical emotional state as well.

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.

Awareness IMPACT-Your Projections

Leading Edge from Aegis Learning

Your Projections

Making IMPACT-Projections

1.  Find a trusted source of honest feedback to tell you about what you are projecting.

2.  Look at positive connections and relationships you have and what kept them strong, lasting and healthy. Those are projections to keep.

3.  Look at relationships that were not healthy or long-lasting. What were the projections that brought those people to you?

4.  Connect projections back to your patterns. Do you have a set of projections that create either positive or not healthy patterns in your life?

5.  Projections are not a single element. Look closely at non-verbal signals, tone and your words to really become self-aware of what you project to others.

Projections are those things we put out into the world that allow others to judge us and, more importantly, dictate how they interact with us. They are a moderately complex set of behaviors that include body language, tone, physical appearance and the words that come out our mouths. The importance of projections is in that these are the most easily correctable piece of personal behavior and they have tremendous influence over how the world sees you and chooses to relate to you.

Your projections are your magnet for other people and situations. Simply put, you will receive from others what you choose to project. Unfortunately, personal projections are also a common blind spot among adults. Many people just don’t know what they are projecting to others and what those signals are attracting.

The balance of this article will look at some common projections and offer some tips to tuning them without sacrificing the core of you.

Super Serious Dude (Labeled without Gender Deference)
This was my wakeup call in the early 90’s when a team member gave me the nickname of “stomper” because of my tendency to walk fast and move with a sense of purpose through the office. What I was projecting was high urgency, high self-importance and little regard for anything around me. This one is found in verbal and tone responses when interrupted and you always project a hurried approach or overly share about how busy you are or how important the work that you are doing. Simple fix on this one is to lighten up and slow down. A gentle reminder that the world does not rotate around you and your project can also be useful.

Flippant Soul
Everything is a joke. Every response starts with laughter. Chuckles lead even the most serious of conversations. Smart ass comments are ever-present. Nothing is taken seriously.

Fun is great and everyone should have as much as possible but sometimes we need to arch our backs at be focused and serious. Not every situation is bubble-blowing giggle worthy. Learn when to be serious and when your comments and projection is too much for the situation.

Spiritually Smug
One projection set that is becoming more prevalent and common is spiritual smugness. It is certainly awesome that you found God (more accurately God found you) and you now have inner peace, detachment and total enlightenment. Awesome. Now stop judging the rest of us and sharing your path. Your path is yours, not ours and the constant pointing out of either your peace and happiness or our failure to find it will not serve you well in connecting with others.

Quiet, Aloof and Genius
One of a couple of unfair projections, quiet is often misjudged as aloof or even arrogant. Again, not fair but what you are projecting will determine what you receive back from others. You may be legitimately quiet and introverted but the world sees it differently. The same with really smart people (an affliction I have never had to deal with). They are seen as unapproachable because of vocabulary or command of a subject in a very directive tone. Learn to be more open, outgoing when around people and keep some of your genius in the garage.

Flirt and Charm
The line between good manners, charm and being overly flirtatious is thin. This one too is unfair in most cases and there are different standards (unfairly so) for women and men. Much of this is wrapped in non-verbal signals such as walk, leaning in during conversations and in tone. Again, the point of knowing this projection is to allow us to connect more solidly and genuinely with people and not based on projections we don’t desire to have in our lives.

Bitter Pill
Everything is wrong, everything is bad and the world is an ugly, ugly place. This projection, usually through a combination of verbal and tone signals is very distancing of others. No one wants to be around the person that sees nothing good in the world. Find the some good in things and share it and learn how to park your criticality.

Invisible Transparency
Transparent is great. It really is. It is awesome to be a genuine person, flaws and all. But there are those people that over disclose to the point that they have nothing left to share to anyone. They have told the whole story, names included, to anyone that will listen. We all have that over-disclosing friend and commonly that is one we tend to avoid. Keep some boundaries on what you share with others to maintain respect and credibility.

You Are What You Wear
Not everyone wears Prada but the harsh truth is that people judge us by our appearance and that judgement will affect connections and relationships with others. Wear booty shorts and see what you attract. This is not to say we must be dressed to the nines in all situations but we should be aware that our outer appearance will indeed dictate many of the responses and reactions we receive from other people. And to be intellectually honest, we do it to others as well.

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.