Tag Archives: thinking

Leadership Mints Sampler: CONCENTRATING Like a Leader

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Enthusiastically, the four-year-old girl tugged on her dad’s hand. She looked closely at his wrist watch and pleaded:

“Dad, what time is it?”

Her father looked down at her blue eyes and blonde hair and answered simply: “Now.”

His daughter scrunched her little face into a grimace and blurted out in exasperation to her dad: “Yeah, now!” And her dad simply said: “Now.”

By now his daughter was frustrated with all this talk of now and she still had no idea of what time it was. “Dad, stop fooling around. Just tell me what time it is.

And her dad said softly: “Now. Now is the only time that really matters.”

It would be a few more years before the little girl would understand the significant leadership lesson she had that morning : a sense of urgency and a spirited sense of now to achieve a desired result.

And that’s why readers of THINKING Like a Leader are treated to 15 different bite-sized stories called Leadership Mints that help you more fully concentrate from….

…..reading The Wall Street Journal more accurately to

……becoming a Roads Scholar of sorts driving a truck for more than one million accident-free miles to

…..wiping the slate clean with your own Personal Zamboni.

To sharpen your ability to concentrate, here is an overview excerpted from page 196 in THINKING Like a Leader.

CONCENTRATING -Part II

In thinking like a leader, you get a good start (Mint 48) with a sense of urgency (Mint 49) and immediacy (Mint 50) with grit (Mint 51) and without overlooking key data (Mint 37).

You stay curious (Mint 52). You expect to see something new in familiar places (Mint 38).

You cut out the distractions (Mint 39), clear away the clutter (Mints 40-41), vent your frustrations (Mint 42), write your plan (Mint 43), memorialize your meetings (Mint 44) and assess your status regularly (Mint 45).

You treat others fairly not equally (Mint 46). You firmly anchor your sense of purpose (Mint 47).

And you gain a good deal of appreciation for the inscription on a sun dial that says it all: “One hour alone is in thine (your) hands, the NOW in which the shadow stands (excerpted from
Mint 50).

THINKING Like a Leader is the first book in the Leadership Mints Series

The two other books are LOVING Like a Leader LOVING Like a Leader and SPEAKING Like Leader. All three books are available on Amazon.com in both print ($15) and digital ($8). As that sundial inscription says:

One hour alone
is in thine (your) hands,
the NOW in which
the shadow stands!

 

Baton Exchange Anchors Leadership Mints Series

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Exchanging the baton in a relay race — the front cover image on each of the three books in The Leadership Mints Series — celebrates the collaborative focus of leaders and followers.

Leaders and followers need — and heed—each other. On and off the track.

Leaders realize their success is dependent on their participating WITH their followers (a.k.a audiences). They learn from one other. They factor their mutual needs and interests with each other. And they speak WITH – not AT –each other. With civility. Time and again.

Their collaborative performance is an on-going pursuit.

Leaders realize there is no finish line. Just another starting line. And still another well-marked exchange zone on a track where they and their followers must perform collaboratively. On time (and under budget). One hand reaching out to the other’s hand. In full stride. With precision.

That’s why their on-going pursuit of interdependence between— leaders and followers, speakers and audiences, managers and their employees (and relay track team members) — is featured throughout The Leadership Mints Series in THINKING Like a Leader with clarity, in LOVING Like a Leader with empathy and in SPEAKING Like a Leader with civility.

Strategic Thinking: Controlling Your Assumptions

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to take more control over your assumptions. Reading time 2:07.

The famed researcher on sexual human behavior, Dr. Alfred Kinsey posed an attention-commanding question to a young woman during one of his lectures: “Name a body part that can enlarge 100 times?” The young woman was offended:

“You have no right to ask me such a question in mixed company.” The doctor demurred: “I was referring to the pupil of the eye and you my dear are going to be very disappointed.”

Have you ever focused on the wrong part of your business whenever you were sizing up a situation? Did you jump to a plausible — but not possible –conclusion and miss an opportunity to lead more effectively? Of course, you have. So have I. No one is perfect.

But all leaders become more effective leaders by consistently refining their focus, seizing strategically instead of sizing situationally.

When you size situationally, you already have a frame of reference. You bring preconceived notions into your decision-making process. You assume too much (especially when a sex expert asks you to consider a body part that expands.) And your faulty judgment, results in making an “ass” of “u” and “me” in the parsed spelling of the word “assume” that has become a clichéd paen to our predictable - if flawed- behavior.

Have you ever focused on the wrong part of your business whenever you were sizing up a situation? Did you jump to a plausible — but not possible –conclusion and miss an opportunity to lead more effectively. Of course, you have. No one is perfect. All leaders become more effective leaders by consistently refining their focus, seizing strategically instead of sizing situationally.

When you size situationally, you already have a frame of reference. You bring preconceived notions into your decision-making process. You assume too much (especially when a sex expert asks you to consider a body part that expands.) And your faulty judgment, results in making an “ass” of “u” and “me” in the parsed spelling of the word “assume” that has become a clichéd paen to our predictable - if flawed- behavior.

To stimulate your thinking on sizing up situations more strategically think of a red traffic light. That brightest color in the spectrum — RED — has the shortest light wave length. Size matters. Only situationally. Not strategicially.

Today’s ImproveMINT

Control your assumptions to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

SUBSCRIBE: Have a Leadership Mint delivered to your E-mail every business day. It’s free. Just click the SIGN ME UP box in the upper left column.

Brain Power: Igniting 60,000 Thoughts Every Day

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you overcome a few headaches you may face today.

It’s a beautiful summer day. The steaks are on the grill. You’re all set to dig into that juicy steak and suddenly you hear BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ SLAP! Stung by a bee. Oh, it hurts.

You probably just winced at the thought of a bee sting. You may even still feel the pain of that bee sting. Oh, the power in a painful bee sting. But the power in the brain of a honey bee is even more amazing.

The honey bee can perform 50 different thinking acts that require memorizing or predicting.

Memorizing: The bee memorizes the location of five different flowerbeds.

Predicting. The bee predicts the exact hour that each of those flowers come into bloom.

All of that ingenuity with a brain - the size of a grain of sugar - a grain of sugar. Now if a brain the size of a grain of sugar can do all that, imagine the power in a brain the side of a grapefruit - The Human Brain: 100 Thousand times larger. Packing 10 million times more cells for a total of 10 billion cells.

I take some solace any time I come across amazing statistics on the human brain. Somehow appreciating the anatomy of the human brain bolsters my thinking when I am facing a particularly perplexing problem.

Let’s take a minute together to celebrate the awesome power of the human brain. Continue reading →