In his book The Seven Things Your Team Needs to Hear You Say David Dye shows us what we say as well as how we say it has massive impact on ourselves and those we lead. David’s list is in close alignment with what I have written about here. Examples of his ideas include how we as leaders can be of service to those we lead (#4 How Can I Help?), treating everything in life as an experiment (#2 Try It), and by celebrating the wins (#7 Nice).
For two years my wife and I lived on a sailboat in the Mediterranean while we home schooled our three children. That adventure gave us a legacy that our family continues to draw from. When we are “stuck” on an issue we can change the tone of the discussion by focusing on the positive, such as when we stayed in the marina in Calvi, Corsica, France, exploring the fabulous village and enjoyed views like the one above.
I’ve written before about how I Keep My Edge by challenging myself on the ski hill. I was recently skiing when I passed this sign marking the edge of the ski area.
In Write for the Customer I wrote about making sure that you have your audience in mind when writing and communicating. Today, I want to write about a different audience — the employees in your business.
To employees, senior management appears as if they are on top of a mountain. Isolated. Separated from the rest of the company. Making occasional pronouncements from on high.
I volunteer at Dragonboat Regattas in Vancouver’s False Creek. Dragonboat racing is a popular sport in Vancouver with thousands of participants. This weekend I was driving race referees around the race course all afternoon. There was one other referee and boat driver and between the four of us we had no extra people on the water. Which meant that we spent the entire afternoon out on the water helping to run race after race.