Break Out of the Leadership Comfort Zone

March 19, 2013 by

Break-Out-of-the-Leadership-Comfort-Zone-Alli-PolinWe all like to spend time there: the Comfort Zone.  It’s the place where we are the most in control, we know our strengths, can minimize our weaknesses, it’s clear what’s coming around the corner, and we’re the experts on how to handle it masterfully.

Imagine, that before work every day, you eat the same cereal for breakfast for an entire year.  You love it; it’s your absolute favorite cereal.   It tastes good, it’s healthy and you know just the right amount to pour into your bowl even with your eyes closed.  The funny thing is, after a while, even your favorite becomes boring.  I hate to say it but maybe it’s not the cereal that’s become boring, but instead it’s you, living in a rut, that’s boring.

I may not have eaten the same breakfast cereal everyday, but my life in the Washington DC suburbs was definitely a predictable routine.  It was a busy cycle of kids, work, family, friends and I was constantly on the run as I made a daily valiant effort to get it all done.  In mid 2012 everything changed when I moved to the Australian Outback.  Talk about leaving my comfort zone!  The move enabled me to see life, work and leadership with fresh eyes.

Good news! You don’t need to be radical and move to the other side of the world to break out of your leadership comfort zone and move beyond the status quo.

Create Some Shake It Up Inspiration

It may feel awkward at first, but variation in your work “uniform” will actually give you, and your team, new energy.  Put on some silly socks, a bright tie or a vibrant shirt that you love.   Even small shake ups, when intentional, act as touchstones for our intention to be more open-minded, collaborative or just bring some lightness to an otherwise predictable routine.

Change Your Routine, Change Your Perspective

When we’re really stuck, the range of solutions available to us from inside of our comfort zone is limited.  Instead of staying in your routine, take a walk, drive a new way home from the office, go somewhere new for your afternoon coffee or hit the gym.  Focusing our attention outside of our heads and outside of our routines frequently shakes loose the inspiration we’re seeking.

Surprise Your Team

Leaders set the tone for their team and you may be unintentionally holding your team in the comfort zone with you.  Meetings are the perfect opportunity to surprise the team with new approaches to facilitate group discussion, brainstorming and decision-making.

Move beyond the status report to true interaction where people step up, share ideas and are accountable for collaboration. ~ Alli Polin Tweet this!

Action a Book

There are some amazing books on leadership out there – too many to read this week or this year.  For busy leaders, a great way to shift perspectives and grow their leadership wheelhouse is to read a book.  However, reading and having tons of ah-has are not enough to spark change.  Change happens when the ideas and approaches are put into action.  Stepping outside of the comfort zone and into new skills will mean failing along the way too.  Marry the failure with learning and the book has transformed from words on a page into leadership with impact.

Trade in Boring for Innovation and Adventure

Risk can be a scary word when we’re deeply entrenched in the comfort of the status quo.  As a leader, why should you foster innovation if you and your organization are successful today?  There are 100 companies right behind you and ready to undercut you on price for similar products and services.  Clients eyes glaze over after a while when the only differentiator is price.  Break out of the comfort zone and start with doing something different, not just making incremental improvements to today’s processes and products.

Create a Vision that Sparkles Like the North Star

Every leader needs to have a clear vision for what’s possible, the collective “why” for everyone’s hard work and effort.   Instead of sharing a vision that is bottom-line driven only (increase revenue) create a vision that connects to both hearts and minds.  How do you connect to hearts?  Leave the bullet points and PowerPoint at home and tell a story.  Stop hiding behind the comfort of statistics and charts!  Stories are the bridge to enroll, engage and inspire people to be a part of a compelling future.

Give yourself permission to still eat your cereal, wear your favorite tie and grab a cappuccino at your favorite Starbucks; just mix it up for some extraordinary leadership results.   

How has the comfort zone held you back from being an exceptional leader?  When have you been pushed outside of your comfort zone and what did you discover?

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

You Think Flip-Flop Leadership is Bad? – You Might Be Ignorant!

October 31, 2012 by

Inconsistent flipflop leadership
It’s frustrating to hear individuals complain about a leader who has changed their mind on a topic, when they haven’t taken the time to consider why the change of mind took place. They crucify this leader for “flip-flopping” and being inconsistent. The world is full of the stigma that consistency is an admirable trait and that to be a good leader you must be consistent, that’s just a bunch of hogwash. Consistency is only a good thing if you are perfect. I love the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, when he said “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Consistency is Not Necessarily a Good Thing!

Consistency is just another way to that one “could” describe the status-quo. If we all were consistent, we would all still be pooping in diapers and wearing onesies. I have met consistent sales people that pull in amazingly consistent below margin deals. I have worked with business owners who are remarkably consistent about not executing, and not setting goals. I have worked with employees that are bizarrely consistent about never growing their skills or reading a book that would help them.

Sure consistency could be described as a good thing …in some ways. But it also signifies the lack of change. The very definition of ‘consistent’ is: “(of a person, behavior, or process) Unchanging in achievement or effect over a period of time.” I don’t want to be a consistent leader, a consistent husband, or a consistent father; I want to be always improving – no matter how good I become. One of my core values in life is achievement. I’m motivated by achievement. If I was consistent I think I might shrivel up and into a lifeless, depressed corpse.

Embrace Flip-Flop Leadership

The definition of ‘Flip-flop’ in the context I am discussing is, “Make an abrupt reversal of policy.” So as a leader are you afraid of changing a policy or process for fear of being thought of as a flip-flop?

If you make a decision and it sucks, then make a better decision – FLIP-FLOP!

If you make a bad hire, hire someone better – FLIP-FLOP!

If your sales strategy is not bringing in the numbers you need, don’t ride the storm out for 12 more months; make a better strategy – FLIP-FLOP!

If it is not improving, change it.

One aspect of a flip-flop is correcting a bad decision. Another aspect though is flip-flopping because something has changed. Changes like: your industry, your market, buying patterns, a crisis, technology, competition, etc… There are thousands of things that could push the button for needing to change a policy, process, or way of doing things.

Good leaders are strong enough to make the right decision, despite what others think.” Tweet This

There is an art to the flip-flop. But it comes down to the ‘WHY.’ As a leader it is important to explain why you are changing your mind and explain the background information that led to the change.

Don’t be an ignoramus, embrace the flip-flop and achieve great things!

Filed Under: Flip-Flop Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Don’t Be A Status Quo Leader

January 26, 2011 by

I have never liked status quo, any status quo leader.  Maybe someday when life is perfect; when there is no disease or conflict and I am all knowing and want for nothing……maybe then I can accept status quo.  Of course at that point I will be so prideful, arrogant and annoying that I will have to change my status quo.  So I guess I will never like it.

As we all know, status quo is to “keep things the way they presently are” (Wikipedia).  As business leaders we can rarely if ever be accepting of  “keeping things the way they are.”  It is our job to succeed and achieve, in fact it is our responsibility.  It is our responsibility because there are so many people depending on us.  Employees depend on us, colleagues depend on us, vendors, partners, suppliers, customers, heck even our country and the world economy depend on our success; but most of all, the well-being of individuals and families of everyone we can touch depend on our ability to succeed.

This topic has always been a sore spot for me.  I see people immigrate to the United States from other countries and be here 20 years and still cannot speak proper English.  I see people stuck in dead-end jobs that stay there for years and years because they do nothing to increase their knowledge or training.  We have all seen people with annoying habits or weaknesses that they never put any effort into changing. 

We all have our “some-day’s” and “tomorrow’s”.  You know, that excuse that pulls us back and drags us down, sometimes for our entire lives. Someday I will learn to be a better sales person.  Someday I will learn to speak in front of large groups.  Someday I will learn how to communicate better.  Someday I will learn how to manage my money.  Someday I will take a vacation with my family.  Someday I will show my employees how much I care for them.  Someday I will write that book.  Someday I will overcome such and such bad habit or someday I will spend more time with my kids.  Tomorrow I will tell my spouse how much I care for them.  It seems they never stop.

Status quo is something we often think of as a kind of “environmental” problem that is happening around us, something that is caused by others or caused by the “system”.  But bring it back and bring it closer to the individual level, to the personal level.  If we could foster this value of progression in ourselves and in those that work for us, think about what could be achieved.  If every employee had a learning mentality and a mentality of overcoming their weaknesses and learning new skills, how much more powerful of a culture could we have at our companies?  We would not just have a lone leader progressing, but we would have an army of people going the extra mile and improving every day.  How much greater profit and greater happiness could be produced in this scenario?  How many more people could we positively touch?

I mentioned that this is a sore spot for me, because changing our current state does not necessarily have to be hard.  Learning a new language is hard, but if you learned 10 words a day or 5 words a day, how much greater could you learn to speak that language, than if you had done nothing?  Dr. Nido Qubein, said: “I learned English by memorizing ten words a day.  Each day, I would review the words I had learned the day before and then study 10 new ones.  By the end of the week I had added 70 new words to my vocabulary.  It was this consistent effort, that enabled me to achieve fluency in English.” Nido is a self-made raving success.  

This is not some rant on immigrants.  What I am driving at is that small consistent effort is the key to overcoming status quo.  There are thousands of stories like this, where someone took small consistent steps and were able to overcome great challenges, setbacks or weaknesses.  By only reading about 5 pages a day, you can read an average business book or self-improvement book a month.  There is a wealth of information in books that will help us overcome just about any challenge we face, although more effort is often spent searching for the remote control.

The biggest excuse I hear is “lack of time”.  It really is an excuse.  What you are really saying is: “I enjoy staying in my miserable state and I cannot prioritize what I do so I will just stay miserable and keep making excuses.”  “Miserable” might be a strong word, but there is almost always some level of suffering by not progressing.  That could be missing out on a better salary, a healthier lifestyle, amore loving relationship, a more profitable business, etc….  People will do what is most important to them.  If you find yourself watching TV a couple hours a week and not working for 5 minutes a day on something that could help you, then obviously the TV is more important.  If you spend your time always doing menial tactical work, and never strategizing to grow the business, then obviously business growth is not that important.

There is always a better way to do something or squeeze more time in somehow.  Great leaders know this and do not make excuses; they focus on what is important to them and their organization.  They will make time. 

No matter if you are a CEO or a high school drop-out, I invite you to look at your life and to consider what small and consistent effort you could work on that might have an impact on your current situation. Then start acting.  Don’t be haunted by “some-day’s.”

Please leave a comment or send me a message through the contact form.  I’d love to hear what you think and I am always happy to help.

Filed Under: Status Quo Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,