Good morning, Team! It’s Friday!

In between the politicians in DC last week, the conference included a keynote by Daniel Pink, author of “Drive!” He was shamelessly plugging his new book [you can look it up] but it may have saved me the time to read it and the cost to buy it…or perhaps it piqued my curiosity.

He has been studying the sales process and broke it down into the ABC’s:

•Attunement
•Buoyancy
•Clarity

Attunement is described as getting out of your head and into others.

I like to remove my shoe (especially the days I’m wearing loafers) but it’s more dramatic when I have to untie and retie a laced shoe. “Put yourself in my shoes” (if even for a moment) I comment. Now ask yourself as the proverbial customer, client or audience of your presentation-What am I concerned about, what do I need, what will make my life easier? Take that information to heart because I don’t care what you’re selling – if I don’t need it or don’t believe I need it, I won’t be buying it.

Buoyancy…Daniel highlighted the Fuller brush salesman, Norman Hall, who he visited in San Francisco and shadowed for some time. Mr. Hall says he faces an “ocean of objection” every day he goes to work and after 40 years, describes in the book how he stays afloat.
From my perspective, drowning in an overwhelming amount of rejection requires Herculean strength to overcome. Ignorance is bliss … but who wants to be ignorant? Self and situational awareness are hallmarks of emotional intelligence. The burden of such intelligence requires that you not let the tidal waves or the undertow catch you off guard- or you should just stay on shore.

Clarity-Pink describes this as curating information. We have made a shift from too little information to too much information. Whether buying a car, a service, a home or any consumer good, we now have tremendous amounts of information at our fingertips. Today, information is the true currency. We now have to sort through, prioritize and leverage the data and information to make the appropriate assessment and act on it.
If we are selling in this tectonic shift in the marketplace, we have to make it easy. Give your customer an off ramp, says Pink.

No matter your title, we are ALL in sales. These salient points are good reminders that selling today is different than what it was when Norman Hall started out forty years ago but I’d submit the landscape today has changed dramatically in the last four years with the proliferation of smart phones and Facebook and probably noticeable even in the last four months.

Challenge: What will you do to change your sales pitch now that you’ve been enlightened with some of Pink’s research?

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

I am not a social media wizard but I can navigate most things. I was with a 60+ year old CEO recently who posted his second Facebook picture, ever. (I was advised some time ago to not use Facebook so I never started.) I do blog…and I use LinkedIn where I recently got involved with a few leadership groups.

I’ve copied a link to a recent article in inc.com that refers to things we say that really displays our character.

http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/10-phrases-leaders-with-high-moral-character-always-use.html

I am returning from a long week in Washington, DC where I met with the North Dakota Senators and Congressman(‘s aid) as part of the American Council of Engineering Companies North Dakota delegation.

Party positions aside, I like Heidi Heitkamp. She’s knowledgeable, personable and I believe she cares about making a positive difference for North Dakota.
I also enjoy speaking to John Hoeven who is polished, friendly and got to the heart of North Dakota issues.
I’m pleased that virtually each year I’ve attended, we’ve been able to get time with our senators and they’ve made us feel that we and our issues are important.

We were also able to hear from Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska at a fund raising event. She led the charge on the Energy bill and is now pushing to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions so we might enjoy legislation to provide a path to energy security and make sustainability an economic reality.

When it comes to their phrasing, they are champion orators and it would be easy to hide behind political speak but I detected none of that. I heard;
•”We could have done better.” Regarding transportation funding for the next five years.
•”I’ll get back to you.” Regarding amendments on the recently senate passed Energy bill…and they did!
•”I don’t understand” regarding public sentiment on a hot, expensive issue where we’ve been able to move the ball forward to a solution. That’s right, a solution achieved through the political system!
•”Thank you!” Coming from a public servant, that displays humility as well appreciation.

There is plenty of confusion when it comes to our current political system  as exemplified by the presidential race.  I am encouraged that we have senators who have character demonstrated through what they say and how they say it.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

Michael Allosso, actor, director, and coach to CEO’s stopped by to listen in on our monthly leadership conversation for an hour before he led the group in increased awareness training of how we “show up” everyday.
A buzzword for this phenomena is called micro messaging. According to Wikipedia, it’s described as
Micro-inequities are subtle, often unconscious, messages that devalue, discourage and impair workplace performance. They are conveyed through facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, choice of words, nuance and syntax.

Mr. Allosso’s career includes acting in Pink Panther 2 with Steve Martin but spends much of his time training (we were his 1331st training engagement) and gave us some insight as to what actors deal with on a daily basis.

Who better than an actor and director to observe, point out and encourage improved performance?

The point he was making with all of his raw feedback was a giant step toward increasing our emotional intelligence through self awareness. Things to be aware of like
•Eye contact
•Demonstrating genuine interest through meaningful questions
•Body language has to be in sync with what you are saying

I don’t know about you, but often times I barrel through my day giving little notice to how I show up as long as I get my mental list done. It isn’t intentional if I walk past people without acknowledging them, I’m in a zone…some might call it the twilight zone.

Michael talked to us about a different zone, as actors, like Daniel Day Lewis, who gets into a part and doesn’t come out of the zone until the project is complete.

He also recommended that we “gather beauty”. Perhaps a play on stop and smell the roses but it sticks for me. A great and simple way to be more aware of our surroundings beyond just showing up as the best version of us.

Interpretation of this random stream of consciousness-
You have to be intentional in how you show up. Awareness is only the first step…you must be deliberate. During the hour of his listening and observing, he heard me talk about my “failed” empathy training. We all got a chuckle but in the end, it wasn’t that I had no empathy, it turned out I didn’t know how to display it. I simply need to work harder in order that my body; my voice, my eyes and my actions reflects my heart.

Leaders make themselves vulnerable to feedback in order to improve.
Einstein said that anyone who claims they’ve never failed never tried anything new.

Try something new today. Make an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. Seek out advice. Strengthen the connection between how you feel and how it shows up to others.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good Morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

What does it mean to be a professional?
Walter Bond, former college and NBA basketball player and motivational speaker, says that it is mastering the fundamentals and pushing yourself each year to be bigger, faster, stronger.

It appears to me that some of the best lessons come from what NOT to do.

We had a recent moving experience where the vendor claimed to be professional, it was even in their name, but they were far from it. They brought tired equipment (that failed enroute) , marginal labor, long on excuses and short on performance. The result was a bent lamp, cracked steamer tank, broken quilt rack, scratched the parked Harley while unloading…the driver of the second truck (because the “Pro’s” sorely misjudged the size of the load) jumps out after arriving 1.5 hours late and asks if he can use the bathroom! Movers didn’t remove shoes at all, taped up parts that didn’t reassemble well…and announced to me that was “going the extra mile”. They strapped the screen door open and now it won’t close on its own so I’d call it officially sprung.

By the end of the job, they were shoving things in the garage with no regard to what was stacked on what. The “leader” sought final signature from my spouse (who was happy to get them on their way) because he knew I wasn’t going to accept that the job was complete.

If you consider yourself a professional, and I hope you do, then please don’t:

•Commit false advertising of your abilities
•Disrespect other’s property
•Duck your clearly agreed upon responsibilities

Instead, I’d start by:
•mastering the fundamentals of whatever it is your profession requires
•treat everyone you meet with the utmost respect
•doing what you said you were going to do…always.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

Did he really nearly pull her to the ground? You grab me, I grab you. Who says media is above the law of reciprocation? Why is the White House using its platform to take a position on this?

Because it’s politics…and it is embarrassing and the behavior is shameful.

How do you avoid focusing on the real issues; building a robust economy, developing a comprehensive energy plan, correcting the downward spiral of heinous crime and drug use, establishing a long term solution to the broken social programs like social security, Medicaid and Medicare, bringing genuine resolution to terrorism by cutting off the head of the snake instead of playing with the tail, accomplishing true equality in pay, stopping this unfortunate backslide of racism, and a host of other issues society is facing today? Not to mention thinking proactively, using innovation, harnessing our brilliant people for overall good, not greed.

What the greatest country on earth has allowed its next generation of leaders to become is a perverted circus full of clowns – complete with make up for the cameras and spray tans that fool no one.

Some cockamamie producer (or a host of them) put psycho-babble on cue cards and
insert drama about emails, naked spousal pictures, allegations of affairs or whether someone’s arm was grabbed-are you serious?!

We are far too smart for this kind of charade to look the other way and call it politics and move on. This is OUR country; fought for and defended time and again. The great American experiment seems destined for failure at this rate. Are we going to sit back and watch it unfold on CNN in high definition?

I don’t care what party, gender, or skin color we bring to the table. The only thing that we can agree on is a need for common sense to bring solutions to the countless problems we face as a nation and a world.

•Are we allowing ourselves to be distracted because we let things get so bad?
•Did we learn nothing economically from Japan or Greece?
•Did we forget how to work hard and take care of ourselves – and our neighbors?
•Have we become so hypersensitive to a “squawk” with an agenda that it’s taking up our time rather than working on solutions?

As you wrap up your week, remember to tune out the “noise” and focus on the signal. There is so much distraction, so much garbage, so much wasted energy on things that don’t really matter. Take a deep breath, thank God for what he has blessed you with and then apply those blessings to make this world better.

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, Leaders!  It’s Friday!

I recall as a kid growing up in North Dakota, we’d have blizzards that would create “giant” snow banks packed in by the wind that you could create snow forts/makeshift igloos and pretend that you’d eek out a living there. It was what I considered carving out my future, even if it was only 15 minutes ahead. Hey, when you’re a kid, thinking much more ahead than that was wasting your youth.

So I spoke with an advisor last week who quoted the phrase (regarding career opportunities), “it’s yours to carve, right?”…
It conjured up the snow fort memory and has been bouncing around in my head since then.

Mine to carve-as if the world of opportunity is made of different density materials and as we learned with the three little pigs fable, you can build your house out of whatever material you prefer but if you want to keep the wolf from the door, you’d best select the right building material…so if you are carving your career out of snow (or whipped cream, cheese or straw bails- considerably easier to carve than say – wood or granite) you might get there quickly or easily but what do you have when you’re done?

What tool are you using to carve your future? I’m a motor head so it stands to reason that my carving tool looks like a hand held concrete saw. Ironically, it’s designed to cut the really hard stuff and plugs up if you cut through the mushy things. The super hard grit on the blade functions well with friction.

Carving for a while now-who was it that said objects in motion tend to stay in motion? I simply say that I don’t idle well. This goes beyond busy-body stuff. I desire purpose and cannot accomplish that without being in motion.

Discretion applied-Ah yes, the hard part of cutting the hard stuff. An artisan, craftsman or professional gains mastery of their paint brush/tool belt/skill set by using them enough until practice makes permanent. Cutting stone with a handheld saw is a challenge but it’s not really driven by sharpness of the blade or horsepower of the motor but by the vision of the operator. You’re not cutting to demonstrate your skill, you’re cutting the stone to release the masterpiece within the stone.

What’s your masterpiece?
(Is your focus on your)
•career?
•bank account?
•Family?
•quantity or quality of relationships?

Let me challenge your horizon-
I believe Leaders should be focusing on carving an environment where all the areas of focus mentioned above … and more … are included in your masterpiece.

We live in a complex world where singular focus is not rewarded, it’s expected as an anchor so you don’t waver or drift. Your masterpiece should be multi-dimensional, sustainable, accommodating, inspirational and inviting.

Pictured is the bank lobby of the Guardian building-Detroit, MI

Let the carving commence!

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

Last week I heard a speaker talk about three things that are changing drastically and will change the future for everyone.

His name is Peter Zeihan. His opinions are highly sought after, his conclusions are based on facts which make them hard to refute and he has studied these areas long enough to be considered a foremost expert on what the combination of all of this global intelligence means.

The areas he believes are changing the future are:
1. Geopolitics -the reassertion of, as the rules by which the world operates compared to the free trade we’ve enjoyed over the last 70 years.
2. Demographic Inversion that will change the capital structure of the planet.
3. Shale energy is creating energy independence for the United States.

Areas most deeply affected by these changes are:
•Finance
•Manufacturing
•Agribusiness

So, is this boring, is it too much to absorb or is it so scary that people don’t want to hear it?

Recently quoted facts:

Regarding geopolitics,
•The US has over 16,000 miles of navigable inland waters and since it costs only ~8% of what it takes to transport goods by land, the US is able to transport goods very inexpensively.

Regarding demographics,
•Most consumption comes from people in their 20’s and 30’s – buying cars, homes, goods, etc. When a country’s population ages, the economies slow and it takes at least 25 years to reverse the trend. For instance, China, in November of 2013, came out with a policy that states it’s ok to have two children rather than one, under the right circumstances. (It will take decades to reverse the trend created by the former, one child policy).

Regarding Shale (oil and gas) production impacts,
•New York City has converted a considerable amount of fuel oil consumption over to natural gas recently. The city now consumes more than the country of Belgium, exceeding 9 Billion cubic meters. Imagine not having to occupy Middle East countries or feeling like we have to referee centuries old wars just to buy “cheap” oil.

So, geography plays a big part in our quality of life. More than you think and probably more than you can possibly imagine.

Leaders – elevate your position, change your perspective, look at the bigger picture and take action.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

For the past seven years, I’ve been traveling to Arizona for a visit to the Mayo clinic. They have an executive program that consolidates all necessary visits into a tight time frame that respects busy schedules but it provides ample time to listen and consult with top notch doctors at one of the most renown health care facilities on the planet.

•Here is where I learned about diet. They advocate for the Mediterranean diet where my doctor said “Meat is a treat”…(I grew up believing it was a staple).
•Here is where I learned my hearing is failing fast. At age 45, I was told I had the ears of a 60 year old farmer. Last year the new audio technician shared that the frequencies I now hear the least happen to be the typical female voice frequency…recipe for relational angst. Hearing aids are in my near future and I can thank my contractor background where crushing concrete and working around loud machinery with no hearing protection likely accelerated my hearing damage.
•Here is where I’ve been told (more than once) that my liver function is sub par and doesn’t process sugar or alcohol well.

Sleep, exercise, diet…all pillars of health I slowly started taking for granted.

Question: Why do I raise the issue?
Answer: My ignorance toward physical fitness and how it relates to being in a leadership role coupled with my desire to pay it forward.

I used to think it was completely cerebral. Why would physical and mental health cross each other’s path? Studies are actually revealing a connection between the heart and the brain we never anticipated. Google neurocardiology or HeartMath for more information. Not to mention the obvious stamina related to being mentally available for long periods of time.

Leadership is stressful and you’ll need all your resources to function at a high level the way your Team expects you should.

There are few excuses for me being overweight or ignorant today.
-Smart phone apps help calorie and step counting,
-I can (and have) Skype(d) with a virtual nutritionist,
-Healthy food choices abound-even at McDonalds.

Now all I need is the discipline to follow through.
Where did I set that down again?

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

According to a Google web search, candor is defined as…

can·dor
ˈkandər/
noun
the quality of being open and honest in expression; frankness.
“a man of refreshing candor”
synonyms:

frankness, openness, honesty, candidness, truthfulness, sincerity, forthrightness, directness, plain-spokenness, bluntness, straightforwardness, outspokenness;informal-telling it like it is
“I’m not sure he appreciated my candor”

I often tell people “I prefer candor” because it sets the stage for an efficient, two-way conversation. No bull, no wasted words, just the facts.

As an example, in an effort to placate me regarding a tough work issue, one day my former CIO spent fifteen minutes dancing around what he really wanted to say which brought my snarky sense of humor to a head and I said, “You just wasted the last fifteen minutes of my life! What the hell?! Tell it like it is. Don’t beat around the bush.” Needless to say, after that our conversations were more blunt, and we got to know each other better because he became more open.

Unfortunately, those with a diplomatic preference might consider candor unnecessary honesty and concerning those currently in the political dog show (we are all being subjected to lately) we’re getting bombarded with verbose, infantile, shrill and braggadocios commentary that resonates with the anger of the body politic but…where are the issues, what groundbreaking policy or substantial solution has come from any candidate?

Candor is not spewing garbage when someone happens to be listening, it’s:
•straightforward
•unbiased
•without platform
It is the unadulterated and refreshing truth.

I also found out on multiple occasions it is NOT going to win any popularity contests. So,

•Choose your audience wisely.

•Ease them into your communication preferences.

•Be aware.

•Apologize when you’ve inadvertently offended someone.

In summary, aim for ‘Direct, respectful, but not mean.’

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

Monday of this week was the funeral service for Jason Moszer, Fargo police officer who ended his watch while protecting his community. It was the first officer lost on duty in over 100 years on this police force and moved thousands of people to the service. People came from as far North as Alaska and as far South as Texas.

As I heard some of the pastor’s words during the service, this was a “senseless act of violence” where officer Moszer lost his life and the shooter ultimately lost his as well.

The funeral service lasted 2 hours and the processional took another 2 hours where the people in the local geographic community as well as the law enforcement community honored one who fell in the line of duty but also took the time to honor the service we rely on and often forget to thank.

This local community that I grew up in has changed dramatically in the past half century. Technology, increased traffic, economic forces, gangs, drugs, and so many other contributing factors have influenced the landscape of what crime looks like today in our area. Fighting crime, restoring order, maintaining the peace and establishing a sense of security is an incredibly tall order and we are blessed to have so many committed, loyal and talented law enforcement working hard to do the right thing every…single…day.

What can we take away from a tragedy like this?

In the advent of cameras in squad cars, body cameras being added to the amount of equipment strapped to our protectors, weak political support as demonstrated in New York, this served as a reminder to me that not all communities disrespect law enforcement.

In my travels, when I share where I am from, people joke about Fargo as if the Coen brothers rendition is more accurate than my own memories. The display of support from the community is one more reason why I am so proud of where I come from, who I honed my values against and why it will always have a special place in my heart.

Special thanks for those who serve not in the light of recognition but behind the scenes. Planning events like this so people can properly emote and move on with their lives knowing this painful loss was not in vain. I salute the men and women who dedicate their lives to improving the safety and security of the world we live and work in.

Thank you.

Have a blessed weekend.