Organization

How Can I Be a Better Leader?

September 20, 2018 By kwmccarthy

“How can I be a better leader?” is a question I am regularly asked by clients and audience members at speaking engagements. Leadership development is 1 of 3 competencies to master to increase one’s contribution and call to service.

Let’s explore the central, inescapable reality of how to be a better leader—The On-Purpose^® Principle.

By understanding and applying this concept to your life and work, you’ll see that authentic leadership comes naturally rather than being a forced effort.

To become a leader, become a better you by beginning with knowing your purpose in life—your inherent worth and reason for being that live in your heart. Your purpose is an amazing gift too often buried under layers of doubt, pride, wounds, and challenges. Rather than seeing these layers as prevention from getting you to know who you really are, what if they are protection and preparation for just this time in your life to really understand the power of your two-word purpose, and being on-purpose?

Purpose is the bedrock of all leadership development.

Once you know your purpose, it will not be denied in spite of obstacles and setbacks. It works toward expression and contribution. The only person, circumstance, or condition that can stifle it is you.

Take 100% responsibility for being on-purpose (Think Inc!). Even in the worst of circumstances, you won’t get caught up in the blame game which distracts and chokes the pathway to being on-purpose.

Let’s take to the whiteboard for insights and practical application of the On-Purpose^® Principle so you can create high alignment of your personal purpose with your organizational purpose. That’s how you can create peak or TOP performance as a leader of your life and work.

Keep the On-Purpose^® Principle in mind, and you’ll discover that your matters in business, psychology, or management just got a whole lot easier and cheaper to understand and lead.

The bedrock of leadership is all about the purpose of the person being aligned with the purpose of the organization.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

P.S. Want to read and learn more about The On-Purpose^® Principle? Order The On-Purpose Business Person by clicking here or buying it from amazon.com.

How Much Planning Is Enough?

April 26, 2018 By kwmccarthy

“How much planning is enough?” is a question I’m often asked by business clients. It poses an interesting query because some of us are planners and others of us are more action-oriented.

There is a fine line between “gettin’ ready” and “gettin’ going.”

None of us are immune from the dilemma of how much is enough.

I see this in my business and life, and, even, authoring books and articles or producing On-Purpose Business Minutes.

Here’s one of my On-Purpose Proverbs on the topic. Perhaps it will give you a rough rule of thumb:

People who don’t have time to plan, need to plan more. People who have time to plan, need to execute more.

Figure out which one “people” you are and adjust accordingly!

Here’s a bit of a litmus test for you to see if you’ve got it right.

If your business is making sufficient revenue AND you have a high degree of personal and professional satisfaction PLUS you’re optimistic about the future, then chances are you’ve struck the right chord. If, however, the previous sentence doesn’t describe your current reality, then use The On-Purpose Proverb above to make a quick assessment of where you need to adjust your attention to find improvement.

Planning is typically considered to be in the wheelhouse of strengths for executive officers.

The reality is we all need to be planners to some degree. The difference in planning from the boardroom compared to the mail room is the scope and authority of the influence. The greater the authority and number of people following the plan, the more important the role of planning becomes to the organization.

Oh! One last thing. When doing planning, please make sure you execute on at least one thing: create a written plan, even if your plan is as simple as a “to do list” with names and dates. The “I Got It Right Here Between My Ears Plan” is really a dream without a deadline, details, and typically, satisfying results. You’re too at-risk of being distracted by shining new objects that cross your path.

“The executive of the future will be rated by his ability to anticipate his problems rather than to meet them as they come.” — Howard Coonley

Admit it! You’re prone to unproductive distractions, but chances are if you’re a person who invests time to watch the On-Purpose Business Minutes, then you’re committed to working on you, to becoming a better person and leader. What tips or suggestions can you offer us? Please use the comment section below to share your wisdom and school of hard knocks lessons learned.

Am I Irritating The Living Hell Out of You?

March 6, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Typically when someone is irritating the living hell out of us, this bothersome behavior provokes the fight or flight impulse. While the expression is often used, what if there really is more than meets the idiom?

How many of us find ourselves or someone close to us caught in a living hell within our body, mind, spirit, and financial condition?

There’s nothing worse than this sense of hopelessness except resignation to the hopelessness and denial.

On-Purpose^® is about awakening us to face our “living hell” by getting to the core of our being which by definition is good, pure, and whole—our purpose. Here is the keyhole to the escape hatch into being true to ourselves.

Choose hope!

Putting a name on our situation strengthens us to face it more directly, boldly, and successfully.

Why not experience the promise of “on earth as it is in heaven” on-purpose? Yes, I hope this message irritates the living hell out of you … and you’ll thank me for it.

Escape Your Living Hell

On a highly selective basis, I’m looking to mentor and develop quality people who want to build a true business as a coach. This will mean learning, ongoing dialogue and development, determination, and a long-term commitment to stay the course. You’ll be helping your clients get to a healthier place in their lives in the most robust sense of well-being. For you this means work, learning to engage clients, and growing as a leader on-purpose.

Interested? Email me why you think this sounds like you. I’m conducting interviews to work with 3 people.

Creating Customer Service Excellence?

June 8, 2017 By kwmccarthy

Customer service is first an attitude before it is a behavior. Too often we focus on creating excellent customer service skills but we neglect the well-being and perspective of the person delivering it. How a customer is treated makes all the difference to their impression, experience, and promotion—yes, promotion—of your business.

Treat your customers right—first, because it is the right thing to do in a civil society. Second, treat them right because it is really smart business.

Do you have a concerted effort to improve the customer experience? If not, why not?

Customer service would appear to rest mostly on the shoulders of the front-line person interacting with the customer.

But does it really? Long before the customer relationship begins the top leaders of the organization hire the employees, set the standards, make investments, train managers, and create training programs.

The front-line employee is an easy target when things go wrong with customer service complaints. Admittedly, the front-line person does have a high responsibility. The fact is customer service improvement is a joint effort unified and girded by the strength of personal leadership across the entire team.

If your customer service levels have plateaued below your standards, then consider that you might have a systemic problem rather than a people challenge. Look to your business strategy, departmental cooperation, hiring, technology, training, or any number of issues under the purview of the “Customer Service” department.

Customer service skills training may provide a quick fix, but it is rarely a long-term improvement in the customer experience.

Watch this On-Purpose Minute, “Do Good Manners Matter?” about the importance of manners and the Ritz-Carlton approach to serving “ladies and gentlemen.” Having recently stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead, GA I can tell you that this approach remains alive and well.

How On-Purpose Partners can help you

If you lead the company, you may need an assessment and recommendation to shift your corporate culture toward customer service excellence. We also offer one-on-one executive coaching as well as training and development programs designed to help your team members become TOP Performers and excellent in their customer service. Email us to arrange an appointment.

Who Cares About Leading The Business?

September 29, 2016 By kwmccarthy

Leading the business carries responsibilities. Being a business advisor and strategic management consultant for more than a couple of decades, I can tell you the single, simplest, most overlooked root of more problems in organizations is the failure to articulate, communicate, and execute based on the purpose of the organization (Po). Its absence is massively expensive; its presence nourishes the corporate culture for productive and efficient growth in people and profits.

Someone in charge, however, has to care. Is that you who is leading the business?

This lack of deep strategic clarity muddles every aspect of the organization. People, process, performance, profits, customer service, and operations are just a few of the functional areas informed by a potent, simple, 2-word purpose statement.

Yet, purpose statements are amazingly misunderstood, unappreciated, and under-engaged. In businesses, I’ve seen the benefit of the leadership team knowing and executing on their purpose produce a 25% or more increase in sales and even greater percentage increases in profits.

Are you finally ready to set a strategic cornerstone and write your purpose statement? Remember, it is just a beginning but an essential start. I recommend that all business clients first write their personal purpose statement before they do the business statement.

What Is Personal Leadership?

June 21, 2016 By kwmccarthy

Leadership is a broad term that, like beauty, is often described as “being in the eye of the beholder.” Ask ten people to define leadership and you’ll likely get ten facets of this brilliant diamond. Most can agree that leadership involves other people but that’s an incomplete understanding.

Whereas leadership involves working with others, personal leadership is about working with yourself. You can’t delegate this responsibility nor should you miss this opportunity to better your body, mind, and spirit. Here is the only place in the world where you possess a significant measure of control through choice. The power of choosing can be exercised and strengthened or avoided and diminished.

Ask yourself the following personal leadership questions:

What am I feeding my mind, my body, my heart, and my spirit to be a better person?
Am I reading books, articles, blog posts, and other content that inspire me?
Who in my life uplifts and calls upon me to rise above my problems?
Am I investing my time in healthy exercise, eating, and behaviors?
Do I have a plan to learn something new in the next 30 days … or the next year?
What is one thing I can start doing today to make my life better?

Self-care is not selfish; it is essential. The more you develop as a person, the more others are willing to follow your lead. The better you know yourself, the stronger your leadership potential will increase. In other words, as you win in your inner life, then your outer life is likely to thrive.

CLO Personal Leadership — Pre-Order Chief Leadership Officer by June 30, 2016 by clicking the image above.

In this On-Purpose Minute, personal leadership is defined as “The proactive process of meaningfully aligning and integrating your life around what matters most.” As this On-Purpose Minute briefly explains, there’s more here than meets the eye. You hold the key to the ignition to start the process. Be thoughtful and intentional about exploring possibilities to think about how best to align and integrate your decisions to produce alignment and integration about what truly counts.

Here’s where a personal 2-word purpose statement pays dividends. When you know your purpose, you have a personal, universally applicable point of reference for alignment and integration. Life becomes simpler because you’re aware of who you are, and you have a growing appreciation for what’s right for you.

The sooner you decide to be the leader of your life, the better off we all are. That, by the way, is true prosperity—everyone profits.

Personal Leadership involves the person you see in the mirror. Most of us will readily admit we have different “voices” within us competing for our “best” interest. No one escapes temptation. The following expressions offer insightful evidence of our inner demons of discontent and the desire for a more integrated life:

“I have my own demons to battle,” a la Flip Wilson‘s famous line, “The Devil made me do it.”
“I must not be in my right mind.”
“I’m torn. My head says one thing, my heart another.”
“I need some time to get my head together.”
“I can’t seem to get my act together.”
“Why am I so easily distracted?”

Get started leading your life right now! Not tomorrow. Not next week. Right now!

Not sure where to start? Write down what you want. The Discovery Guide can help you sort it out simply, quickly, and meaningfully. Download the free preview with instructions and the forms you need to take the next step toward being an on-purpose person in creation, being the Chief Leadership Officer of your life!

Pre-Order Chief Leadership Officer today!

Download the Opening Chapters here.

Two Views of Human Nature and Work

April 25, 2010 By kwmccarthy

The On-Purpose Approach attempts many things. One of the most significant is the meaningful integration of life and work. The On-Purpose Business Person opens with the quote below by Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance Company, a pioneer in creating learning organizations with a moral core.

Make no mistake about it, we are in the midst of this transformation. The tough shift from industrial age command and control management to the knowledge age of employee engagement has begun. I believe O’Brien understood that when a person’s heart is in their work miracles can happen.

The problem is rarely at the personal level, however. People want to engage meaningfully in their work and they want their work to make a difference or contribute to the well-being of others. Sadly, on far too many jobs, the ability to connect the dots between the work and difference making has too much distance between dots. The big picture and greater vision is lost in the efficiency of a time motion study expert’s standard measures of physical output and production.

Leaders are emerging who recognize the power to be found in systematically being organized around “the effects of work on the person,” including the employees, customers, shareholders, and community. This added dimension is messy because it doesn’t lend itself to the left brained measures of industrial engineering nor is this about social justice or welfare. A business must create value and capture profit or it ceases to exist. Business is not about the “objective view” or “subjective view” but the “integrated view”. Rather than an either/or, this is a both/and approach.

The burden of business design falls upon the leaders of organizations to find the appropriate blend for their business. Many people are hungry to engage in meaningful work that profits society and shareholders alike. It all begins with an awareness of one’s point of view.

The On-Purpose Business attempts to provide four simple “Pillars” to usher in the next generation in business design and organizational development.

Personally, should you come across an organization that is about creating “the wholeness of their people,” then run to that organization.

I’ve posted the above slide at the request of several leaders who saw my presentation, “Minding Your Business, On-Purpose” at the Take Shape For Life (now Optavia) Go Global Leadership Conference. For two years I had the honor to be a keynote speaker and influence with their health coaches.

I know why. In my decades of being a business owner and business advisory, TSFL gets the “wholeness of people” concept head and shoulders better than any business I’ve witnessed. Their stock price reflects their integrated approach. Dr. Wayne Andersen, Dan Bell, and Brad McDonald have created something truly special when they laid the foundations of this business… and it keeps getter better with time and growth.

When people and profits are aligned with synergy and meaning, growth is inevitable. Are you prepared to step boldly into the twenty-first century Bill O’Brien predicted? Are you ready to be on-purpose?