Blog - Page 36 of 55 - The Third Zone

Jul 20 2016

Phil Knight of Nike Fame and How He Can Influence Our Job Success … If We Let Him!

Phil Knight …

built an empire based on his vision of shoes … Nike
the man behind the ‘Just Do It’ and Air Jordon campaignsbuilt an empire based on his vision of shoes … Nike
the man behind the ‘Just Do It’ and Air Jordon campaigns
the man who will soon be retiring from the world’s #1 sports merchandising company he co-created … one that has 63,000 employees and $31 billion in annual sales.

Obviously, it didn’t happen overnight given that his first year (1964) he had $8,000 in sales and $234 in profit yet he created an institution that is described in an article in ‘Investor’s Business Daily’.

Granted, the people I know and with whom I work as a coach are not people out to build competitive shoe companies. What they often are, however, are people wanting to climb higher and higher on the success ladder … in their jobs, departments and/or businesses. And I believe you’ll find that some of the same things that drove and motivated Knight can definitely motivate us to support our desire to achieve our own climbs. I think you’ll see the connection.

#1 – His Perseverance: One of Knight’s college teachers made this point … “The cowards never started, and the weak died along the way – that leaves us.”

Of course we are all faced with competition and yet, it is only true competition to the extent that they, too, are other than cowards or weak. Many people start and some don’t have the push to prevail. This leaves a much smaller group of true competitors and sets us apart.

#2 – His inspiration: “The secret of happiness … lay somewhere in that moment when the ball is in midair, when both boxers sense the approach of the bell, when the runners near the finish line and the crowd rises as one. … I wanted that, whatever that was, to be my life, my daily life. … So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy … just keep going. Don’t stop.”

How strong is your own desire to succeed beyond all others? What is your secret of happiness that is the true motivator to enable you to just keep going and without stopping? Finding that can be the key to differentiate you and carry you to the height that you envision.

#3 – His passion: Knight was infatuated, something crucial in what drives him: “Your business has to be something you really love. Remember that there will be a lot of dark moments. You never make it overnight. You have to be prepared for the tough times. As my Stanford Small Business Management professor liked to say, “The only time you must not fail is the last time you try.”

How much do you love the job you’re doing, the field you’re in or the business you run/manage? Success is never easy however it’s the passion we feel for what we are doing that can drive us through the challenges that will undoubtedly be encountered.

#4 – His differentiation: Knight said “I don’t want to be like my competitors.” We take a lot of our culture off the athletic field. Just like with tackles and running backs, we have to have better people than the competition.”

Better people or being better than all others. What does that mean for what you do and what can you do to enhance the divide between yourself and others as our competitors?

Phil Knight believed in running. He believed that if people got out and ran a few miles every day, the world would be a better place, and he believed these shoes were better to run in. People, sensing his belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, he decided is irresistible.

How committed are you to what you are doing and how much better do you believe you can do it than all others? As such what can you do to widen that gap to cement your belief that you are the best. As Knight said, people will sense that and want it for themselves. Vision

We all spend the lion’s share of our time devoted to the ‘doing’. The what’s, the whys and the hows dominate our attention. And yet, spending ‘Knight’ time contemplating the points above can provide an opportunity to re-establish your vision for the ‘being’ … what’s possible, what you truly want and how you intend to get there.

Mike Dorman

Jul 05 2016

Making the Best Decisions ~ Taking the Learning Out of BREXIT and Into BUSINESS

After having e BREXIT very day of the past week filled with news created by the ‘Brexit’ vote in the UK, I can’t resist the inclination to just get curious and wonder what’s the learning in this for me … for us in our work and business. With the resulting turmoil that has so many questioning the wisdom of their vote and concerned about what it will really mean, it is evident that some made purely emotion-based decisions whereas others only considered this from what appealed to their sense of logic and reasoning. The outcome is a country dealing and reeling from unintended consequences … uncertainty, fear and questions around ‘what now’?

Definitely it doesn’t have to be like this. In our jobs and being part of a team, department or management, we are often involved in decision making. And too often they are made from considering just one perspective … either the logical/reasoned one or the emotional one. Here are scenarios that you might recognize as a part of your own experience when this takes place.

Scenario I
The ivory tower occupants have made a decision about a new program for customers that will reduce the company’s waste and thus reduce costs while increasing profitability.

They call together the employee base, announce the plan and let the sales/customer service team know the message that they are to deliver. The program is of a ‘one size fits all’ nature and only one problem. The customer base doesn’t fit into one size. To the largest it represents a reduction of benefits and the emotional reaction to this was instant and loud. They’re not happy and they let it be known. The program was scrapped within a week. Wasted time, money and credibility.

Scenario II
Your best and largest customers want to do business with your company however they just didn’t want to drive to your current locations. They let it be known that if you want their business you need to open a location that was more convenient to where they live. As these were the ‘best’ customers management began an expansion program that opened 3 new locations within a year to suit their largest patrons. One year later, after responding in this way to the emotional input, the company was out of business.

Have you been involved in such situations? Too often, when this is allowed, we are forced to scramble to make needed changes in an attempt to return to smooth waters. Here is a suggested approach to minimize the need to respond to unintended consequences:

Bring people together who are familiar and work with any who will be impacted by the changes being proposed.
Each person is charged with the responsibility to present any and all perspectives that recipients of the change might possess … as if standing in their shoes.
Make alterations to the plan that will recognize and respect the variances rather than silence them and pretend they don’t exist.
Delay a final ‘vote’ until your ‘Monday morning’ (i.e. tomorrow) to allow all involved to digest the input and select the path forward based on having incorporated all critical perspectives into their personal decision.
BALANCED DECISIONS

Of course business is not like running a government trying to sell constituents on one choice or another. Rather it consists of making impacting decisions that will affect the ultimate success of an organization. Placing value on the consideration of all perspectives prior to making any decision enhances the degree of success that can be derived.

Brexit has created a messy situation that appears to be potentially costly in many ways. Perhaps a country thinks it can afford that. Few businesses can nor is it necessary if we call forth … insist on … all the voices as needed for the right decision.

Mike Dorman

Jul 01 2016

Dreaming … a complete waste of time or the path to living your life completely?

A few days ago I met with a new client who had made a decision to use the coached approach to create the movement he wanted and needed to achieve the success he envisioned in his profession. But more specific than achieving just dollars, it was related to his wanting to make the dream for his life and that of his family, become reality. Wait a minute. Dreaming? Get real you say? Stop wasting time and just do it?

I get the questions and yet I got curious and googled around because I wanted to understand the value of dreaming in the first place … that is, if there really was one. Then, what could be the potential impact it actually could have on any and all aspects of our lives? My initial finding was this must see video that, in a brief TWO minutes I predict it will give you an exciting jolt regardless of where you are in your life. http://joshspector.com/now-this-is-a-great-commercial/.

So what did you see? I know it was about life-long friends, obviously older and all suffering various ailments. Yet hopefully, you also saw people who broke out of the box in which they found themselves … trapped … and resumed living by following their dream. But take this further and into your own life.

By acknowledging and honing in on your dreams, what becomes possible that perhaps … just perhaps … we had accepted as being out of reach?
Where are you stuck in your daily routines and rituals?
What is something you need to do that is really daring and takes you out of your comfort zone at the same time is allows you to bring life back into your living.

My google search also led me to several papers written on the subject and these summations of two of them express what others reinforced.

Elizabeth Larsen said “the idea of dreaming about the future may seem pointless and if that is or has been your perspective to date, maybe it’s time you retired it. The payoff of dreams doesn’t have to be decades into the future. They can inspire ambitions, galvanize your focus, rev up your energy supply and increase your life satisfaction starting right now.”
Author Richard J Leider expressed that “Dreaming puts our less authentic priorities to shame. Once we have our highest goal in sight, we want to simplify our days and free ourselves from distractions so that we can pursue our passion with even more clarity of purpose. In this context, sacrifices become less painful. Obstacles seem less daunting. Our best abilities are sharpened, and often our sense of higher purpose unfolds.”

My new client is using coaching to forge his path to fulfilling his dream within the work arena. And, regardless of what tool you want or need to employ to do the same for yourself, dream it and you have taken the initial step to doing it. A waste of time or the path of living fully? The answer seems obvious to me. You agree?

Mike Dorman

Jun 15 2016

Muhammad Ali – A True Master Of Self-Management!

How well do you know your internal team? I’m not asking about the team you play on or your team at work. I’m asking about your personal internal team … or the voices existing within us. You might recognize them under their assumed names like The Prover, The Judge, The Pessimist, The Avoider, The Victim, The Doubter, etc. Be darned if inside team they aren’t inclined to jump out at inconvenient times during the day and our lives in general. I definitely have one of my own and have also met those of my coaching clients even before they might be aware of them. Our personal teams can be supportive of what we want to do or … readily protest loudly if where we want to go works against what they think is best for us. I know … it sounds a bit weird yet think about it. On any given day we can plan to pitch a prospective customer on a product we sell, we can plan to ask the boss for a raise or we might even be planning on asking someone for help. We are clear about what WE want to do and accomplish. Yet that voice appears (your inside team member) that cautions you, tells you don’t deserve the sale or the raise or the help – the voice that yells STOP.

Here’s the great news. We can actually learn to control the inside ‘folks’ so that what we want can happen without

being derailed by some one of the internal team members. For the past 10 days we have all seen the news about Mohammed Ali. NBC news described him as “the silver-tongued boxer and civil rights champion who famously proclaimed himself “The Greatest” and then spent a lifetime living up to the billing”. I think of him as the ultimate in self-management. In most every way what we heard him say and saw him do reflected a person who truly learned how to master his team in ways that enabled him to be the person he chose to be. This was so often evident in the ‘Ali-isms’ that he spewed very liberally such as:

If you even dream of beating me, you better wake up and apologize.’
“Not only do I knock’ em out, I pick the round.”
“It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”
“Live every day like it’s your last because someday you’re going to be right.”

So who among us doesn’t want to drink that cool-aid? Remembering that although we can’t eliminate our personal teams, we can control them, it’s really not that difficult following these 4 straight-forward steps:

First, recognize when our own goal has been hijacked by a team member. Thus, controlling our own team becomes the key to achieving our choices.

Second, we need to understand what the internal team member is trying to tell us. What is the concern of that voice?

Third, when we feel that we understand the concern, it becomes a matter of providing self-explanation of our true reasoning and the benefit that we will realize once we have achieved the goal … reasoning that we actually believe and that drives us.

Fourth, put conscious limits on how, when and where we will give any team member the ability to voice a thought, caution or concern. Remember that YOU are in charge. At the same time recognize when another team member is trying to take over.

Easy right? It actually is once, we recognize the reality that we do, in fact, have an internal team. It will take practice. The motivation is our strong desire to achieve whatever it is that is important to us. To the extent that we can learn to recognize and take control over our own, personal internal ‘teams’, we, too, can come to view ‘impossible’ in Ali’s terms … as nothing.

Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

Mike Dorman

Jun 02 2016

Conventional Logic Blown Out of the Water! Welcome GRIT!

A few days ago a friend referred me to a very interesting and attention getting book entitled ‘GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance’ by Angela Duckworth. The author makes her convincing case for the role that one’s grit plays in what we are able to truly accomplish. This is clearly differentiated from ‘natural talent’ or ‘superior intellect’ Got Grit in any specific area. Rather it is fueled by our sheer drive and determination to achieve whatever our passion … one that might be aided by, however is not dependent on, any obvious or natural talent.

I was reading this book at the same time the news publicized two very meaningful examples of grit in play … big time. The first involves Bethany Hamilton. Perhaps you know of her and that at the age of 13 and while pursuing her passion for surfing, she lost her entire arm to a shark while practicing her sport. Game over? No way! This past weekend, at the age of 26, she placed 3rd in the World Surfing Women’s Pro League competition in Fiji … this as an unseeded ‘walk-on’. Surfing minus one full arm and placing among the winners goes against the grain of conventional wisdom. For us maybe, however for Bethany, simply a little obstacle. Her magic ingredient? It has got to be grit to the nth degree.

The second example involves Nyle DiMarco. He is totally deaf and has been since birth 27 years ago into a family of 25 other deaf members. He just won a dance competition on the TV show … Dancing with the Stars. That’s right. He won and he doesn’t hear a solitary sound. That he actually dared to even enter is admirable and yet he went on to WIN! From what I’ve read and although total deafness is the only thing he has ever known, it hadn’t stopped him from it graduating a university or traveling the world on his own. Enter and win a dance competition … why not? Sheer grit!

Hopefully, you, as I, find ourselves ‘head-scratchingly’ curious. In working with clients I am often struck by the obstacles that we can place and allow to stand between us and what we might really be capable and desirous of doing. Maybe we don’t see ourselves as having the natural ability … or … we simply don’t see ourselves as having the skills and knack that one needs to excel … or … competing with those natural talents makes success seem very unrealistic so we need to pursue something else. It’s as if we have allowed our passion and avid interest in achieving our dream to be hijacked by self-doubt and insecurity. It’s as if we have convinced ourselves that we don’t have a realistic chance of achieving our high dream of success as we envision it.

Think about it. Nyle or Bethany didn’t win a dance or surfing trophy because it made any logical sense … to us. Neither of them have all of the physical attributes to obviously support their skill and drive. Yet what they did have was their daring grit that fueled their passion and propelled them forward … initially to try and ultimately to win. They simply refused to be defined by what others would see as obvious limitations. Choice determines Success

Of course this can apply to all of us in any aspect of our lives. The key, as author Duckworth indicates, evidently rests to a large extent in our sense of passion for whatever we are doing … something for the greater good with purpose that has the potential of awakening the ‘grit’ that might reside within us. If we’re determined enough to find and awaken that flame we too can win our dance or surf trophy equivalent. No hearing? Missing a limb? Only an inconvenience, however, apparently, not an absolute requirement for enabling us to accomplish whatever we truly desire. I’m not sure about you but … I’m on it! I’d be interested in your comments.

Mike Dorman

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