Chris's Conversations

"Confidence comes from not always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." The above quote popped up on my social media.  It is unattributed, but I don't mind.  The origination doesn't always add to the value and my social media isn't known for its factual content anyhow.   There is a large part of me that responds to the idea of no longer fearing "wrong".  Spend any amount of time with me and you will hear a version of the following concept " There is no big green check mark or red X that appears over you when you make a decision.  You will never know if you made the right decision or the wrong decision.  So make the decision and work from that. "  Of course, some things are wrong .  There is no argument for getting inebriated and driving a vehicle or hurting another intentionally.  My remarks aren't meant to be an all encompassing holy book, I'll leave that to others who are much more all-knowing than myself, so...

Last year I was asked to asked to pick up an orphaned session at a conference for student leaders.  The topic, leading an effective and engaging meeting, was missing a lot of excitement but it seemed like an easy enough session to offer and was needed professional development for the target audience. So I said sure. The session went well, the evaluations were positive, and I was asked to repeat the session topic at this year's conference.  I brainstormed with the committee for a moment or two on some different topics, topics I thought would be more interesting to present, but nothing was really decided upon and I was fine with repeating my drab fifty minutes on improving meetings.  Again, I can acknowledge the necessity but I was lacking excitement over the material. In typical presenter fashion, I scanned some resources on the topic and reviewed my previous presentation prior to the conference.  The presentation design got updated to one that was a little more...

Currently I am in the middle of holding exit interviews for a group I finished up with right before Thanksgiving. Over the past eight weeks this group of twelve has met once a week for three hours while we worked through a leadership workbook and addressed an assortment of professional development topics.  At the beginning of the experience they completed a behavioral assessment on leadership behaviors and had observers complete the assessment about their behaviors to provide feedback.  This meant they asked supervisors, peers, and underlings to assess them (anonymously) on how often the observer felt the participants engaged in the asked about behaviors.   While the assessments are completed at the beginning of our time together, I held the results until the exit interview.  Prior to going over the results with the participants in the exit interview I would ask them reflective questions on what they had hoped to learn when they entered the training, how...

“A leader’s job is not to do the work for others, it’s to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible.”                                                                                           -Simon Sinek Companies love 'Do-ers'.  Managers love Do-ers.  We tell them what to do, hint at it really, and they DO it.  Life is great when you have Do-ers.   Then you promote the Do-er, to recognize them for all the Doing, and have them keep Doing even bigger Doings.  Give the Do-er a team and tell them to create other clone Do-ers and lead the others in the Doings.  You can trust them to get those bigger, better Doings done because they are the Do-...

"There's no need to be perfect to inspire others. Let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfections." An author who has sold more books than I ever will talks about how we let perfection be the enemy of good.  We don't accept the victory, the baby steps, and we forget the journey because we aren't where we want to be and in all our fuss we have devalued the very wonderful thing that is where we are right now.  If we waited for perfect leaders to inspire us, we would still be sitting around.  Your leadership shouldn't be a Snapchat filter that smoothes away the imperfections and leaves a pretty picture.  There is value in the struggle, in the frustrations, and in the catastrophes.   Don't keep waiting till you are good enough or perfect enough.  Be inspiring with your determination to get there.