LEADERSHIP MINTS

Bite-Sized Ideas to Freshen your Bottom-Line Thinking

Archive for the ‘Productivity’ Category

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Stripping Down to Toughen Up

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on October 19, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help become more aware of your surroundings. Reading time: 2:35.

 

           You’re virtually naked hunting buffalo on horseback with a bow and arrow. Your loincloth (a.k.a. a breechcloth) offers you little protection or comfort. By design.

          The Sioux Indians dressed for success on the hunt. They knew their regular clothing would be detrimental to their buffalo-bagging mission.

          They knew their regular “street” clothes would get in the way when they tried to load an arrow into their bows, especially on the run.  Buffalo could outrun horses.

        The  Sioux buffalo hunters also knew they could grip the horse more securely with their bare legs and therefore shoot more accurately.

       Leaders learn quickly like the Sioux that they have to strip down to toughen up.  The most effective leaders understand the more they figuratively bare it the better they can bear it. They don’t have to  hide behind committees, reports, or a phalanx of  assistants.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Too Pooped to Pop? Try Heavy Breathing

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on October 17, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to energize your leading skills. Reading time: 2:06

          You’re tired. You’ve worked hard all day in budget meetings. You can’t wait to get home, grab a cool one and put your feet up. On the treadmill or exercise bicycle.

Handball player in action

           Leaders make the time every day to do some heavy breathing of another kind, enough heavy breathing to virtually blow away the cobwebs in their brains so they can think more clearly and lead more convincingly.

       Heavy breathing is the key according to scientists who tell us your brain regularly consumes more than 30 percent of your body’s oxygen even though it comprises only 3 % of the body’s weight.

      You’re sucking in  8 quarts of air per minute right now as you sit still to read this. Go for a walk and you triple that air flow. Go for a run and you increase it 625% —to 50 quarts per minute!

     With their heavy breathing from exercise, leader even add a touch of magic  to their performance.  Just ask Houdini the great magician and escape artist. Read the rest of this entry »

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Letting Go: Turning your Burdens into Bridges

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on October 10, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to repurpose your resources for greater productivity. Reading time: 1:41.

          I tripped while out for my daily run on a country road a few years ago and found myself with a rare view of leadership in action– a view that gave me a  better understanding of how leaders turn burdens into bridges.

       Come and take a peek with me.

Ants are strong. This cheerio is at least five times the size of the ant.

             I’m face down on the pavement, virtually eye to eye with an ant– a strong and determined ant — hauling a load four times longer than itself. Then the burden became insurmountable.

       The ant stood staring at a huge crack in the road, a chasm too wide and too deep to walk across –a chasm that seemed to doom this expedition of carrying the equivalent of a 24-foot long telephone pole to you and me.

        But the ant solved the problem, creatively, productively, counter-intuitively. The ant, struggling to get a grip, let go. Read the rest of this entry »

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To Quench Your Thirst for Success : Stir

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on August 29, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you take more decisive action. Reading time: 1:46.

          “Yucky,” the little girl said, after taking a sip of her iced tea at a restaurant. Her mother intervened: “You have to put sugar in that.”

          The little girl tore two packets of sugar and poured them into the iced tea while her mother was busy taking care of her two other children. The little girl tasted the iced tea again. “Yucky!” The girl’s mother looked up and said matter-of-factly. “You have to stir it.”

        How many leaders have the right ingredients but forget to stir it? Taking action is critical. As the wit said,”Indeed, God may have given us the ingredients for Our Daily Bread but He still expects us to do the baking.”

   Just Do It

       Turn up the temperature on your oven. And get started baking. Don’t worry about next steps. Focus on THE NEXT step.

     Don’t worry about heading in the wrong direction. Just start out. You can made adjustments in your plan. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “The voyage of the best ship is a zig-zag line of a hundred tacks.”

        Adapt and adjust but keep going. Like the Nike iconic ad said: Just do it. “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it,” said German philosopher and author Johann Wolfgang Goethe. “Only engage and the mind grows heated.”

        Read the rest of this entry »

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Wooo Wooo : Training Yourself To Stay Plugged In

Posted by The Leadership Mints Guy on July 30, 2012

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

 Here’s an idea to help you to stay connected  to all parts of your organization. Reading time: 3:10.

                       Woooo….Woooo…Woooo….Can you hear it?  Woooooooo…..Wooooooo…..Can you see it? Oh yes you can if you are 8 years old again.Turn back the clock with me.

                      There I am watching my choo choo train snake around the Christmas tree. This was no ordinary choo choo train. It came with scenery that you could set up, trees, and houses and yes even city lights. Wow. City lights.

     But then suddenly, ominously, mysteriously those lights flickered and went out and so did my enthusiasm. I was so sad and mad.  Everything seemed plugged in. Why isn’t my train running? The lights on our Christmas tree were on so I knew the electricity was on. The switch on my train was on. But nothing was moving. Everything seemed dead. And I felt like crying or screaming. I was having a bad day.

        But then my dad saved the day. He found a loose wire underneath the track. He showed me how to apply an electrical connector so that wire would stay connected. I twisted that orange connector that looked like a long jelly bean. Then suddenly those lights beamed in all their splendor. And then I heard my train erupt back to life and once again my  train whistled Woooo…..Woooooo……Wooooo.  I was so happy.

        That little electrical connector made such as impression on me for its ability to keep all parts connected and to assure that productivity is plugged in and continues to deliver power that today  I use those electrical connectors as a symbol of the connections that leaders make to keep their organizations running.

Read the rest of this entry »

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