The theme for the next two weeks? How to Succeed in a World (Seemingly) Hell Bent on Self-Destruction. That’s the working title for my next book, which is now officially underway.

This week and next, I’m looking for your help. Each day, as I give a quick overview of a new chapter from the book-to-be, I’m hoping you’ll ping me with comments, questions, suggestions, and additional resources you think should be included. The framework for each chapter is already done, including detailed outlines. What I’m looking for from you, my readers, is three-fold: first, a gut check that the outline matches what you’d expect from the title and from the preceding chapters; second, honest feedback about how compelling the topic is; and three, a quick description of specific content you hope would be covered in the chapter. This could include concepts, anecdotes, references, how-to’s, etc.

My tentative writing schedule is to have the body of the book done in Q1, though I may revise this schedule based on what comes back here over the next 12 days.

The general outline of How to Succeed follows below the video… this is the outline I’ll be stepping through during the next two weeks:

How to Succeed in a World (Seemingly) Hell-Bent on Self-Desturction

By Jason Seiden

1. The Universal Feeling of Success: Quality Time
1.1 Attitude
1.2 Objective
1.3 Environment
1.4 Mindset
2. The Source of All Your Problems: You
2.1 Lack of Adequate Problem Solving Skills
2.2 Lack of Self-Motivation
2.3 Lack of Empathy
2.4 Cowardicee
2.5 Get to know your problems
3. Complicating Factors
3.1 Pressure
3.2 Ego
3.3 Time
3.4 Your Sphere of Control
4. Eliminating Complicating Factors
4.1 Environments that reduce pressure
4.2 Environments that provide a check for your ego
4.3 Environments that accommodate realistic time tables
4.4 Environments that put you in control
5. Solving Core Issues
5.1 Getting the Most from Your Intellectual Abilities
5.2 Lighting the Fire in Your Belly
5.3 Walking a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes
5.4 Growing a Backbone
6. Applying Lessons Across Career Stages
6.1 Objectives for Job Seekers (heavy self-motivation)
6.2 Objectives for Workers (heavy problem solving)
6.3 Objectives for Managers (heavy empathy)
6.4 Objectives for Leaders (heavy courage)
7. Next Steps
7.1 Prepare your attitude mind/heart
7.2 Feedback you can trust
7.3 Clarifying Events Revisited
7.4 Practice

Posted under How to Succeed..., Video, Self-Development

‘Tis the time of year when many people slow down and relax, consider the year past, and plan for the year ahead. Not me so much. Truth be told, this time of year, with so many people not working, leaves me jittery and waiting with much anticipation for life to resume.

But, my wife–who I love very much and who has given me 10 wonderful years of her life (and counting) in marriage–*is* one of those people, and what’s good for her is good for me. So this week, I’m relaxing. All week. Someplace warm. Which means JasonSeiden.com is on hiatus until 1/5. Lots more themes and lots more Lenny coming in the new year, don’t you worry none.

Below are links to 5 of my favorite pieces to keep you well read in the meantime. Enjoy them as you plan ahead, reflect on days gone by, or simply email them as links to people you think really need to hear the message.

Finally, from one one human being to another, I wish you a happy, healthy, and successful 2009… Most of all, may you keep your two most important senses in the days ahead: your sense of perspective and your sense of humor.

Happy reading:

Fulfill Your Obligation to Be Great: The Flower Shop Story

Stress, Pressure, and the Quality Event

Personal Responsibility and the Moment of Clarity

Work/Life Balance: A Recipe for Mediocrity

Why Don’t Math and I Get Along?

Posted under Administrivia

What Communication “is”:

Talking. Listening. Influencing. Painting a picture. Motivating. Captivating. Engaging. Leading.

Communication is leadership; it’s all the parts of a management job that cannot be done from behind a desk.

How to identify a good Communicator:

Usually, when we think of great communicators, we think of confident communicators. Be careful: there are plenty of confident blowhards and whack jobs out there.

From a leadership perspective, a great communicator is someone who understands that delivering a single message to 100 people is vastly different from ensuring 100 people all leave having heard a single message, and who can adjust his/her message achieve the latter. The only thing that separates a great communicator from a great leader is direction.

How to develop your Communications skills:

Many of us have heard about the how the content of a message is as little as 7% of a communication, and how body language and tone of voice together make up the remaining 90%. What many of us don’t consider is that a communication event rarely happens in a bubble where the only elements being considered are voice, physicality, and content. Normally, a communication event is pregnant with all those other interactions that preceded it.

You know… the baggage.

If you want to communicate better, you need to minimize emotional baggage so that each one of your communications comes through clean and clear. If the last four people to be called into your office were all terminated, the it won’t matter how perfectly you manage your tone of voice for person #5, because person #5 is waiting for the axe to fall from the moment he gets summoned to your office.

To be a better communicator, you need to take responsibility for every aspect of your communications, including the broader context in which they occur.

Specifically, there are four aspects to your communications you should be managing: direction, frequency, content, and channel. As a leader, all four of these aspects impact how people receive your message, and from my experience, I would say that these four are bigger than body language and tone, because they set the context in which body language and tone exist.

Direction: Top down or bottom up? Fair? Bilateral for some but not others? The direction of your communications signals whether you are broadcasting or conversing.

Frequency: Important things get repeated more often than non-important items. If you’re not repeating yourself, you’re not signaling the importance of the message.

Content: The content of the message starts before the actual message. It starts with the context. Two people can deliver the exact same message to greatly different effects. Why? Because their messages are pregnant with different things. A good communicator understands how his/her message is being interpreted and massages the content according to the filter being applied to it. This isn’t manipulation… it’s more like adjusting the tint on a TV.

Channel: You can say, “I want this to be a dialogue” all you want, but if you’re disseminating the message through a recorded video on your company’s intranet, then no one will believe you. Similarly, you may tell someone that you have some quick feedback for them on a project, but if instead of a quick email you put your notes into a formal memo and copy the VP, rest assured they will take interpret your “feedback” as a formal reprimand and will feel sandbagged. The channel needs to match the intention.

Posted under Making Competencies Actionable, Video, Communications

What Strategic/Conceptual Thinking “is”:

Big picture, conceptual, strategic thinking is NOT knowing Porter’s 5 Forces. It’s not having an MBA, and it’s not being invited to a strategic meeting. It’s not industry expertise, ESP, or diligent work ethic, either. Strategic thinking is thinking on a conceptual plane, and the number of people who can actually do it is reasonably small.

Strategic thinkers can see things that aren’t there… yet. They can envision a different world from the one that exists, based on extrapolation as opposed to pure imagination.

If I differentiate strategic thinking from conceptual thinking, it’s to distinguish those who can merely think the big thoughts from those who can also see how to implement them.

How to spot Strategic Thinking ability in others:

Some clues that the person you’re working with has significant conceptual abilities:
-They invent original metaphors and analogies (not cliches)
-They have broad vocabularies
-They can draw connections between different disciplines (e.g., they can use marketing principles to explain an operational issue)
-They read avidly (note: lack of reading does not suggest a lack of conceptual ability)
-They engage actively in creative arts such as writing, painting, or playing a musical instrument
-They can put a picture in your head when they talk
-They generally—not always, but generally—”get it” first.

Within a reasonable range, strategic thinking ability has no impact on personality; smart people can be just as nice, rude, surly or happy as anyone else. Interestingly, from an ethical perspective, I find that very smart people tend to seem a bit more risky than the average Joe… not because they are less ethical, but because their broader perspective allows them to see connections that are not immediately clear to everyone else.

How to develop your own Strategic Thinking:

Conceptual thinkers don’t always “get it.” Similarly, more concrete thinkers sometimes do. Being “average” does not meant that you never think the big thoughts… it means that you usually don’t “get it” as quickly or as holistically as others.

A great way to advance your conceptual abilities is to READ. Not business books that spoon feed answers, but novels. Search for leadership books on my blog, and you’ll get a list that includes The Count of Monte Cristo and The Killer Angels. Figure out what these books have to do with business, and you’ll be working out your conceptual abilities. Even better, you’ll be enjoying yourself!

Posted under Making Competencies Actionable, Video, Self-Development

What the ability to Use Power “is”:

Power is the source of strength behind all those soft-skills we consultants like to use. Negotiations, influence, politics, and diplomacy only work when they can be backed by a threat of real power. They work best when backed by an implied threat, and second best under an explicit threat. They work least when backed by a show of force. Note that power here does not mean physical strength, but power in all its forms: the power to reward, punish, withhold or divulge information, or to form or break off relationships. And the reason that your ability to influence diminishes as you are more obvious in your use of power is twofold: first, using power is expensive. Using power requires an investment in time, energy, and resources that must be replenished; an explicit threat may need to be backed up with some minimal level of time, energy, and resources that also need to be replenished; an implied threat costs nothing and leaves you at full strength. Second, using power conveys information about your capabilities that maybe you didn’t want to share… in other words, it erodes your ability to bluff, and that can put you at a huge disadvantage in negotiations.

The ability to use power is knowing how and when to imply a threat, how and when to make an explicit threat, and when to demonstrate power in order to maximize one’s ability to accomplish goals without using power at all. More in the video:

How to spot the ability to Use Power:

The willingness to use power is pretty obvious; these are the people who always want to hit the nuclear button and who don’t realize when they are biting their noses to spite their faces. Last year, we had some of these people at our local school who basically picked a fight with the School Board. Some of us had to step into the fray to put a muzzle on them before the wrecked things for everyone. (Unfortunately, we had some similarly pugnacious personalities on the Board, too, but that’s a tale for another time.) The point is, you know those people pretty quick.

The ability to use power effectively is far more subtle. In extreme cases, the ability to use power looks like weakness… especially when wielded by a master who lulls you into a false confidence and then eats your lunch when you’re not paying attention. Think Sun Tzu’s generals, Columbo, Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks… even Machiavelli’s prince. These are folks who can afford to be patient, because they’vealready won before they’ve engaged. It can be very tough to spot these people.

In a business context, look for managers who have fired people for performance and fit reasons (beyond letting people go for cause or as part of layoffs), and who struggled with the decision. The manager should be able to articulate the trade offs made in letting the person go vs. trying to manage out of the situation, and they should also be able to tell you the steps they took to try to avoid the situation.

How to develop your ability to Use Power:

Do three things: first, prepare mentally. Imagine yourself in the conversation/situation, imagine the pressure you’re feeling, and then picture yourself taking the action you know you need to take. Second, build a network of people who have been there/done that who you can use as a mastermind group; it doesn’t have to be formal, but know where to go to get guidance. And third, take total control of your destiny by eliminating the words “if only” from your vocabulary.

Saying things like, “We’d be fine if only she’d stop compaining,” or a variant such as, “We’ll do OK once [read: if only] the economy turns around,” stops you from using power because such language tricks you into a false sense of security. Own your life, take full responsibility—by which I mean 100% FULL responsibility—and you’ll grow less reluctant to use power because you’ll recognize it as one of the tools you need to achieve success.

Posted under Making Competencies Actionable, Video, Leadership