Communique

news2use | October 2018

Picture the following.

There is a boat, one end is sticking out of the water and the other end of the boat is submerged, already under the water.

People sitting in the submerged part of the boat are furiously bailing water out of the boat.

At the other end of the boat, the part that is sticking out of the water (and staying high and dry), one of the guys turns to the other and says, wow, I am sure glad that leak is not at our end of the boat.

Can you relate to being underwater, wishing some people at the high and dry end would offer you help? More importantly, when you reflect on the people, projects and teams around you, how often do you offer help to those who are sitting in the submerged end of the boat?

In the last news2use, I spoke about the importance of asking for help.

Let us explore the social impact and the improvement in well-being we get when we offer to help others. Offer to help someone, anyone for that matter, three times a day for the next seven days. After one week, you will have helped in 21 new situations. This could be something small, helping someone at the grocery store or at the bus stop, or offering to get the door for a colleague who has his arms full.

You could ask teammates, a colleague in another department, even walk into your boss’s office and ask where she might need your help.

These positive and unexpected actions trigger new patterns of helpfulness around us and boost our sense of well-being.

All the best for a highly helpful October, enjoy your news2use!

Regards,

Dan

 


“Relevant & pragmatic ideas, tools and insights to play at your best.”


For You

What is more difficult, changing a behavior or changing a perception?

Changing a perception, without a doubt.

I can change my own behavior, difficult as that sometimes may be. Yet whether people around me notice my change relates more to their perceptions of me. None of us is perfect, meaning we may slip into our old behaviors from time to time, and for the people around us, it may look like nothing has really changed.

This is why it is so important that you “go public” with the change you intend to make.

This goes for business and private matters as well. You don’t have to broadcast to the world, yet you should let one or more accountability partners know what you intend to do differently, ask for them to watch you and then go back to them periodically to see if they perceive the change you intended to make.

This is an essential part of Marshall Goldsmith’s Stakeholder Centered Coaching Program. Using our environment, and more specifically the people around us, to hold us accountable to the changes we want to make, accelerates the speed and depth of our personal change.

You can check out Stakeholder Centered Coaching here or call me and I will be happy to share my experiences with you. It will be a part of the upcoming Leadership Growth Labs that we will be running in Munich, starting in 2019.

 


For You & Your Team

Artificial versus Natural Challenges

What is the consuming conversation in your team?

When you step back and listen to team discussions, do you sense that the conversation is on customers, creating advantage, or debating new opportunities in the marketplace?

Or, does your team get wrapped up in internal politics and “functional fencing” with other business departments?

When team conversation and discussion becomes too internally oriented, they are focusing on what I call artificial challenges. Teams that have an outward-bound orientation (customers, new opportunities in the marketplace) focus on natural challenges.

Teams that spend too much time on artificial challenges do not perform as well as those that focus on natural challenges.

Teams need to discuss and resolve internal issues; however, high performance teams are conscious of the artificial-natural challenge balance.

If your team is losing energy and power and the atmosphere is not the best, this could be a sign that you are caught up in too many artificial challenges.

Keep your eyes and your ears on the artificial – natural challenges balance in your team.

 

 


For You, Your Team & Your Business

Would you like agility and innovation to spread throughout your organization?

Jeff Bezos shared his ideas on this subject at the recent Air Force Conference. He spoke about enabling middle management to become more agile and innovative.

One way to increase agility and innovativeness in the organization, Jeff said, is to create multiple paths to yes.

Here is what he said about that:

In a corporation, if you have a good idea, you need to sell it your boss, then your boss’s boss and perhaps even your boss’s, boss’s, boss. It takes just one person to kill an idea.

Now imagine you have an idea and you approach a venture capitalist. The first says no, the second says no, and so do the next 17 venture capitalists. That is 19 rejections. You make one more visit, and if the 20th venture capital says yes, and you move ahead. There are multiple paths to yes.

It is important for organizations to create multiple paths to yes, Bezos says, if you want to become and remain a growth company. Good advice from a man that knows about growth.

To hear Bezos’s ideas to bring agility and innovation to the heart of your organization, go to the link below. It is 50 minutes, well worth viewing, so schedule this during your weekly reflection and growth time.

Go here to hear Jeff speak:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNUUuaveZ4g

 


People, Places & Things

If your strategy is to put your customers at the center of everything you do, you simply must visit the “MOST Roadshow Experts“ Campus in Fürth, Germany.

Their mission is to help companies bring face-to-face experiences directly to their customers. Any time, at any place, under any conditions, in the world. To do so, they provide eye-catching vehicles that are used for mobile product presentations, promotional launches and highly effective training initiatives.

Look at this short video to see what the Most Roadshow Experts have to offer. If you are an executive with roadshow challenges on your desk, you can speak to Stefan Schäfer at schaefer@roadshow-experts.com

 

 


Thought for the Day

People often forget that a leader

is no stronger than his or her foundation;

the often “invisible people”

who give them support.

I never forget that.

-Martin Luther King

 

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Contact Information

Dan Norenberg
Wensauerplatz 11
81245 Munich
Phone: +49 172 862 5123
E-Mail: dn@dannorenberg.com

About Dan Norenberg

Dan Norenberg improves leadership performance and organization results through Executive Ownershift®, his transformational growth process for executive teams. As a trusted advisor, consultant and professional speaker, Dan’s mission is to enable executive teams and their organizations to play at their best.

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