Are you prepared?

I just finished reading that yet another company was preparing to lay off several thousand workers. And, while this news is depressing, it is hardly surprising. Layoffs are coming fast and furious in a variety of industries. At times, no one seems safe. At the same time, I have clients calling and asking about changing jobs and finding something that will give them more purpose.

It's enough to make your head spin. People losing jobs by the thousands. People who have jobs looking for more meaningful work. It leads back to a simple question:

Are you prepared to pursue the life and the job that you really want?

For that matter, have you given any thought to the life and job that you really want?

Life has a way of sneaking up on us. We move from day to day, week to week, and year to year propelled down the river of life; not really knowing where the river is headed, but too busy to stop and look at a map and plan our destination. We go to work each morning in a job we don't enjoy, but haven't thought about what job we really do enjoy. We follow a familiar pattern in our life that takes us to the same places, meeting the same people, and doing the same things again and again.

The people who are losing their jobs MAY just be the lucky ones. For once in their life they don't have a job to go to. They don't have a routine to follow, and don't have the safety net of a weekly paycheck. Perhaps this is the time for them to take a step back, look at the life they have created, and decide to change it.

It's sad that it takes something as dramatic as a layoff to make this happen. Because, most of these people will not be prepared for the new opportunities that COULD be in front of them.

Are you prepared? Have you thought about the life and job that you really want? If you haven't, when will you? Will you wait until it's forced on you through a job loss, or will you take the initiative to think about the life you really want?

It's something to think about BEFORE you get that call or note from your boss.

Until next time....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com

Why should we invest in people development?

As I write this entry, the economy is in bad shape; the DJIA is below 8500, banks are failing, auto companies are looking for bailouts, foreclosures are climbing, layoffs are pending and retail sales slumped through the past Christmas Season.

So why would anyone tell you that NOW is the time to invest in yourself and your company with training and development?


Here are a couple of good reasons to invest in development now:

1. When the economy rebounds (and it will), will your staff be ready to handle your customer requests quickly and efficiently?

When your existing customers return, and new ones begin to call, I wouldn't expect them to demonstrate a lot of patience while your staff figures out how to handle their new orders. If you don't handle them quickly and efficiently, your customers will likely look elsewhere.

2. Think back to before the bust... Did you invest money in training and development then?

Probably not. If you are like a lot of companies you were “too busy” to invest in your people. There was “no time for training”, hence your employees never really got the chance to develop their skills. Certainly that is not the case now. In fact, now is the time when you CAN invest time in training and IMPROVE your customer's experience.

3. The problem with good employees is that they ALWAYS have options.

Your very best people are the ones who have skills that are transferrable to your competitors. And, if you don’t demonstrate that you are willing to invest in your employees, they are the ones who will be the very first to leave and the hardest to replace.


Investing in your employees is like investing in your future. When you make the investment, you can later reap the reward. And if there is no investment in your future, then you really don’t have a future.

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic as well. Are you looking for ways to invest in your employees and your future? If not, what is holding you back? And how will that change in the future?

Till next time….

Dave Meyer
http://www.ECILearning.com

Harnessing the Power of Your Team

In my last entry, I made note of the fact that there is much to be gained by harnessing the power and intelligence of those around you. But the question remains, "Why would others allow me such free access to their gifts?"

One challenge that we all face in life is that we believe that others think (or should think) the way we do. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. We all have different perspectives, different needs, and different desires. And in those differences lies the answer on how to access the gifts of those around you.

As the leader in your organization, you are putting yourself on the line, taking risks that others have not. It's you who has agreed to complete the project by Friday. It's you who has agreed to increase production by 15%. And it's you who has agreed to take responsibility for creating that brand new program.

While you think nothing about agreeing to these challenges, others would find the prospects terrifying. And, while you may not willingly give away your talent and expertise, others think nothing of it.

According to studies, a full 80% of the American workforce do NOT want to be "the boss". The concept of being in charge is more than they have bargained for. These 80% are, however, great team players, sacrificing themselves or their talents for the good of the team. They are chock full of good ideas that they are more than willing to share with you, if you will agree to be in charge and still give them credit for their work.

That's why building a team of strong, intelligent people is not nearly as challeging as you might be inclined to think. And, why building that strong team will not reduce your effectiveness as a leader, but rather enhance it.

Use your strengths to your advantage and allow your team members to use their strengths as well. Doing so will create a stronger organization and more upside to your career.

Till next time.....

Dave Meyer
http://www.ecilearning.com

Launching Your Career

One of the things that I have become sensitive about over the years, is the idea of building a strong team. I figured out a long time ago that it didn't matter how smart I was if the people working for me weren't smart. While it feels good to be the smartest person on the team, it meant that my career was limited by my own intelligence.

At first, that doesn't sound too bad. Certainly I want my career tied to my own intelligence, don't I? But if I am competing with everyone else based on intelligence then I need to make sure that I am not only the smartest person on MY team, but the smartest person around.

Except I'm not.

I know lot's of people who are smarter at some things than I am.

So competing strictly on intelligence is not a way to the top.

But what if I could harness the power of all of the smart people around me? What if I could take their best ideas and combine them with my best ideas? Wouldn't that make me look smarter?

Of course it would. And this realization is what brought me originally to the idea of building a strong team; A team of people who are actually SMARTER than I am. If I could surround myself with people who were actually smarter than I was, then I could benefit from all of their good ideas and I could launch my career based on their fuel.

But why should they allow me to benefit from their intelligence?

More about that next week.

Dave Meyer
http://www.ecilearning.com

Why we started ECI Learning Systems LLC

If you are reading this post, I hope that you have read the previous 6 posts that provide my personal history and career background. If not, here is the very, very short version of those posts:

I was very successful, receiving regular promotions throughout my career, because I was able to get things done. I tackled challenges that others could or would not, and found ways to make things happen. Later in my career I discovered that I had been inadvertently sabotaging my own career due to my personal blind spots. Blind spots are those things that others see in us that we cannot see in ourselves.

We all have blind spots that we are not aware of.....and my blind spots had been killing me.

I also discovered how attention to blind spots through mentoring and personal development can go a long way toward creating a more successful and fulfilling career. And how to geometrically improve my own performance by developing the people around me.

Which leads us to ECI Learning Systems LLC.

Let me start by saying that ECI Learning Systems is not my company….. it is OUR company. I work with a partner (Laurie Valaer) who shares my passion for personal development and understands the value of creating strong teams. While I approach this concept from a leadership perspective, Laurie’s view is from that of a follower. She clearly understands what motivated her and made her work harder, and what demotivated her and reduced her production. We founded ECI Learning Systems to help create the kind of workplace where people WANT to come to work and STRIVE to do their very best.....EVERY day.

And when people do that, companies don’t just survive….they THRIVE!

During my years at MCI I began the process of personal development. It was slow at first because I thought I knew it all. As my mentors invested more time in me I began to see the difference it could make in my performance, my team’s performance and the performance of the company. And a funny thing happened….. as my team’s performance improved, so did the way I was viewed by others. Oh, I still had my blind spots, but there was no question that the quality of the people around me was making me a better manager and a better leader.

At some point during this process I began to realize the folly of my earlier years and wished that I had only known what I clearly didn’t know. I wished that someone had taken me under their wing earlier and provided me with the tools I needed to be more successful. And much like the Tom Cruise character Jerry Maguire I sat down to write my personal mission statement. (Incidentally, this will likely be the only time in my life that Tom Cruise and I are mentioned in the same sentence.)

As I wrote my personal mission statement I was struck by my strong desire to help others succeed in ways that I had not. And while I still had my personal desires to “get things done” it was quickly being displaced by the great pleasure I received from watching those around me succeed. I began identifying key people below me that I thought had the talents to be excellent leaders and began to personally mentor them. I looked for ways to help my people learn lessons from the tasks that they were doing, and tried to find ways to help them identify their own blind spots.

Over time, this desire to build the people around me overcame my own personal desire to succeed and “get things done”. That desire led me to a number of training and certification programs that allowed me to do formally what I had been doing informally for a number of years: coach the best to develop strong leaders and build strong teams.

For Laurie and me, it comes back to the following key concepts:

1. You can create a great organization if you understand yourself and others.
2. Great leaders understand that it is not about them, it’s about their team.
3. Hiring and developing the best people leads to both personal and organizational success.
4. People that place themselves above the organization sap the energy out of organizations.
5. A company culture that focuses on its people energizes everyone in the organization.
6. Organizations that stress the importance of personal and team development tend to attract and retain the best talent.
7. Everyone needs someone to talk to. Someone who won’t judge them, but will help them identify and remove their blind spots.
8. No training program by itself can change a person’s behavior. People need to be trained ( Educate ); that training needs to carry across the organization (Communicate); and the training needs to be reinforced with practical and hands on coaching (Integrate).

Educate; Communicate; Integrate

That’s what ECI stands for, and it’s what Laurie and I believe in. More importantly, we believe that until we realize that “we don’t know what we don’t know” we can never begin to maximize our own, or our team's, potential.

With all of that said, I hope that you will subscribe to our blog, read our thoughts on how to become the type of leader you need to be, and begin looking for ways to identify your own blind spots.

And remember, when you are serious about getting the most out of your talent and your career, it’s time to contact ECI Learning Systems. We’ve been there ourselves and we know what it takes to create an energized workplace.

Till next time....

Dave Meyer
http://www.ecilearning.com

Let There Be Light

Jerry Hogan was a different kind of leader than I had ever exerienced before. I could say that he was a "no-nonsense" type of guy, but that would be a cliche' that would not do him justice. A lot of "no-nonsense' leaders are egotistical control freaks who want things done their way and only their way. But Jerry was not that type of a leader. He was the kind of guy who set clear direction and expected you to find your way there.

I was now a part of the Network Engineering organization, but I didn't know anything about networks and certainly was not an engineer. Jerry had taken over as Vice President of Network Engineerng about a week before I joined the organization. I had no idea what to expect from Jerry and he had no idea what to expect from me. In my first weeks there, we had a few face to face meetings. In those meetings Jerry made his expectations of his organization very clear. Things were a mess and he knew it. He didn't expect an instant turnaround, but he did expect everyone to start moving decisively toward our new goals and objectives. The objectives could not have been clearer. They were short, concise and results focused. But Jerry left it up to his leadership team to translate his objectives into specific actions for our departments.

As I began working with my new peers I began to see how different we all were and how very different all of our departments were, yet how we were all focused on the same "prize". Never before had I seen an organization with such clarity of purpose and a clear definition of what was needed. Every meeting I went to focused on how to achieve our objectives. Every decision we made was made with the overall goals of the organization in mind. Confusion over how to proceed with a new project or product was quickly resolved as we focused on how each issue blended into our overall objectives.

Morale had been extremely low when I joined the organization, but quickly things began to change. The sense of purpose that each of the management team felt was quickly adopted by every member of the organization. Each person in the organization understood exactly why they were there and exactly what they needed to do to be successful. We've all heard the hype over the need for Mission and Vision statements, but this was working proof that clarity of Mission did indeed inspire confidence and buy in from the team members. Over the next few years I learned that this clarity was the hallmark of a Jerry Hogan organization. I had the privilege of working with Jerry in several organizations and watched him provide crystal clear direction in each one.

One of the side benefits of a well run organization is the feeling that anything can and will be accomplished. While MCI had some struggles in the marketplace we surged forward with total confidence in our organization. We knew that if we did our job well, it would have a positive imact on the company and that we would all benefit. Jerry's brand of leadership can best be described as "hire good people, set clear direction, and get out of their way." The direction he set could not have been any clearer, and although he continued to closely monitor our progress toward the goals, he never stepped in to tell us "how" to do things. His view was, "I hired smart people. Let them figure out what has to be done."

This view is espsoused by many, but few leaders actually have the confidence to let their people figure out what needs to be done. So many leaders want to "help" their organizations by providing too much detail in areas that they are not experts in. Jerry didn't have this problem.

Jerry and I engaged in numerous discussions about the importance of people. He firmly believed that good people could (and would) accomplish anything. He told me, "The two most important decisions you will make as a leader are who you hire and who you fire. If you can't hire the right people you will never be successful. If you don't fire the right people your success will be short lived."

This last statement was deeply profound and deeply troubling. On one level it might suggest that firing people was a good thing. That taking people who don't perform and just getting rid of them was the best solution to your problem. But that message wasn't at the heart of Jerry's statement. The heart of his statement was "Put the right people in the right place and doors will open. Put the wrong people in the wrong place and your pathway is blocked." What Jerry taught me was that some people are really in the wrong place. And the best thing that you can do for them is help get them in the right place. Even if that means that they need to leave your organization.

Till next time.....

Dave Meyer
http://www.ecilearning.com

You Don't Know What You Don't Know.....

I don't know where the phrase originated, but the old saying is: "you don't know what you don't know". In my business today, we call them "blind spots" and everyone has them. You don't see them because you are unaware of them. As soon as you become aware of your blind spots you can do something about them. Assuming of course, that you want to.

I had blind spots. Lots of them. In spite of the fact that I had always "gotten results," my blind spots had secretly been hurting my career for years. And I didn't even know it.

MCI was intent on developing their people and creating a workforce where the sum is greater than the parts. One day my boss called me into his office and told me that he had signed me up for a class in Conflict Management. I wasn't sure why he thought I needed a class like that. I was good at winning conflicts.

The class was an open enrollment class with about 25 people present. Remember, this is Washington DC, with a lot of very large companies. 18 of the 25 people were from different parts of MCI. the other 7 people were from 7 different companies. It was clear to me that MCI was not just investing in me, they were investing in all of us. The instructor began to talk about types of conflict and causes. I kept waiting for him to get to the part about how to win more. But as you have probably guessed, that wasn't the topic. The class was interesting for me and I took good notes. He talked about various ways to create "win-win" strategies, and ways to avoid conflict by asking the right questions. It made sense. But when I got back to the office I soon reverted to my old ways. I didn't give it much thought at the time, but looking back at it I now realize that classwork and training without reinforcement aren't really a sound investment.

My bosses signed me up for other classes as well. I probably spent 4 or 5 days in training each year. The classes were not chosen arbitrarily, but were part of a plan put together in conjunction with my boss. But there was more. I identified key employees working for me and they spent time in training classes also. I still had my blind spots, but I was becoming more and more aware of not just how to get results, but how to really utilize the people around me to create something bigger than myself. I became intrigued about people's potential and how to identify and unleash their potential. And while we couldn't afford to send everyone to training classes I began to look for creative ways to develop my people.

I found them too.

I looked at my employees and identified their technical strengths. They all seemed to have areas of specialization, areas where they were experts. I decided to use that to my advantage by having my employees prepare internal training to help their peers understand their areas of expertise as well as they did. I used those internal trainings to strengthen my group's technical skills AND to improve their ability to communicate.

Up until this time I had been working on IT functions within the Billing arena. But I had an interest in learning about the network side of the business. I went to my superiors and told them of my desires. By this time I was getting used to the idea of MCI helping their people grow, so I wasn't too surprised when my bosses not only encouraged me to move to a new area, but assisted me in finding just the right spot. In my move to Engineering I met another of my mentors. He was the VP of Network Services and his name was Jerry Hogan.

Till next time....

Dave Meyer
http://www.ecilearning.com