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visit www.clemmer.net
If you are reading a copy of this newsletter that was passed along to you, ensure you don't miss future issues by subscribing here.
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Welcome to the Premiere Edition of Jim Clemmer's Leader Letter! |
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I
am delighted to provide the Premier Edition of my first e-newsletter.
Don't worry about keeping this electronic copy in pristine shape in its
original cellophane wrapping; it likely won't become a collector's
item! I will try to send you this e-newsletter once per month. But with
an increasingly busy speaking and workshop schedule and my new book, The Leader's Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and Organization Success (see next story item), release this spring, I may slip a little on that goal. So I guess you could call this my Try Monthly e-newsletter!
The Leader Letter
is a complimentary newsletter. My goal is to make it worth much more
than you're paying for it. I'll try my best to make it a very good for
nothing newsletter. I want to use the Leader Letter to stay in
touch with readers of my five books (there are about 300,000 in print),
visitors to our web site (we get over 35,000 visitors per month
now), the people I speak to at conferences, participants in my
workshops, the management teams I work with, and people I meet on
airplanes, at meetings, or wherever. You are receiving this newsletter
because you fit one of those categories. We expect this to be the only
communication you'll receive from The CLEMMER Group from now on. If you
consider this to be one more piece of junk mail that you'd rather not
get, just hit reply and let me know in the subject line, and you'll
never hear from us again.
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The Leader's Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and Organization Success - Just Published!! |
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Over 1000 copies to go!
(click to enlarge)
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At this point, copies of The Leader's Digest
had just arrived and I have started signing over 1,000 copies of them
in my office to fulfill our pre-publication special offer of two signed
books for the price of one. I am excited and charged up.
How many more?!
(click to enlarge)
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Later
that day and especially the next, as my arm and shoulder began to
throb, I wasn't grinning nearly as much.Those words on my favorite
weekend sweatshirt (So Many Books, So Little Time) started to take on a whole new meaning.
Our two books for the price of one offer is still available for the next while (click for details www.clemmer.net/books/tld_241.shtml). However, these will be unsigned since my arm and shoulder do need a rest.
I have been asked if the arrival of my fifth book (technically this is my seventh since Firing on All Cylinders was expanded and totally rewritten for the second edition, and we produced an extensive workbook for The VIP Strategy: Leadership Skills for Exceptional Performance)
starts to become routine and is less exciting. Like first love or a
first child, a first book is charged with novelty and high excitement.
But like the arrival of any child, each one is special. The fifth (or
seventh) is no less a welcome addition to a growing family.
When we sent out the announcement about The Leader's Digest
in February, I said that after months of hard labor it was a bit like
giving birth. One woman gave me feedback objecting to a man making that
comparison. Point taken. Obviously I have never personally gone through
giving birth. I talked this feedback over with my wife, Heather, who
has been deeply involved with the conception, labor, and delivery of
all my books. The Leader's Digest
was especially challenging for us because we ran into a big wall of new
problems getting permission to use material from other sources. In all
my past books, we never encountered any problems.
In
the past few years, the publishing industry has changed and publishers
have put huge restrictions on use of their material as well as
charging, in some cases, astronomical fees. So we had to make numerous
changes and revisions that we've never had to make before (with both Firing on all Cylinders and Pathways to Performance
I used many times more material from other publishers with not one
permission problem). After going through many weeks of huge amounts of
extra work and major pain, Heather declared that giving birth to our
three kids was easier!
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I am very excited about The Leader's Digest because it expands upon our Leadership Wheel model and the approach of Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success. When we published Growing the Distance
in 1999, I felt that this book was by far the most fun to write and
most closely reflected my quirky humor (a few Dad Jokes did slip in),
stories and experiences, and personal philosophies. It was a very
personal book using our newly developed Leadership Wheel. There are now
close 100,000 copies of Growing the Distance
in print. In the last few years I have been gratified to get continuous
feedback on how the book has helped so many people, across a wide range
of ages and occupations (you can view some of the letters and messages
I have received at www.clemmer.net/books/gtd_feedb.shtml).
Most of my speaking engagements and workshops have built upon or used
the book and the Leadership Wheel in some way with ever stronger
results and feedback.
In addition to the content of Growing the Distance,
I continually get very positive feedback on its magazine style format.
I call it a browser's digest. Readers really like the short, modular
sections with snappy headlines and introductory headings, story
sidebars, pithy quotes, supported by the main text. This allows for
"grazing" or in depth reading according to the interest areas, focus,
or available time of each reader.
So it was a no-brainer to write The Leader's Digest in the same format again using the Leadership Wheel as the supporting structure for the book. Where Growing the Distance is about personal leadership, The Leader's Digest is for leading others. I hope readers find them to be the dynamic duo of leadership development. I have tried to fill The Leader's Digest
with similar humor, stories and experiences, and personal philosophies.
I sure would like readers to enjoy reading the book as much I enjoyed
writing it. The one difference with The Leader's Digest from its older twin, Growing the Distance, is that this book has more research and contemporary material supporting the leadership approaches outlined there.
To get an overview of The Leader's Digest,
see the pages of the Introduction and Chapter One, look at the Table of
Contents, review feedback on it, or get further information on our
introductory 'two for one' offer (which will end soon), go to www.clemmer.net/books/tld.shtml.
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I
have been very gratified by the early feedback I have had on the book.
I sent review copies of the emerging book to a number of people. I was
especially delighted to get a very positive comment from the grand sage
of leadership, Warren Bennis. I have long learned from his dozens of
leadership books and pioneering work as Distinguished Professor of
Business at University of Southern California. After reviewing The Leader's Digest, he said, "If you're looking for a book that illuminates the topic of leadership in a useful, readable and lively way, this is it."
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Our Web Site Has Been Totally Renovated |
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Hands full with the web site and trusty assistants,
Oscar and Willie!
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Our
Digital Diva, Julie Gil, has once again worked her magic (and burned
some midnight oil) with a complete makeover of our web site. If you
haven't been there lately, check out Julie's wizardry at www.clemmer.net.
Julie is one of those unbelievably valuable management team members
that exemplifies leadership, continuous growth, creativity, and high
technical competence. For the past six years, Heather and I continually
put her near the top of our CLEMMER Group blessings list! We try hard
to treat her very well and want to keep her around for a long time to
come!
The revamp of our web site coincides with the launch of the Leader Letter.
Both share a desire to provide less of a corporate look and more of a
personal touch to our work. My main area of expertise and deep interest
is leadership. Leadership is about stories, personalities, characters
and characteristics, feelings, and personal connections. That's what we
want to much better reflect with our website and the Leader Letter.
Our
redesign is also aimed at streamlining what's become a huge site. We
have grown to over 1,000 pages of information. We hope the new web site
layout, new content, and navigation bars will more clearly help our
growing number of visitors find what they are interested in quickly. My
goal continues to be creating a destination site that is packed with
information and inspiration. We hope people will stay and have a good
browse around, learn, grow, be inspired, keep coming back, and
recommend the site to many friends and colleagues. We hope that lots of
other high value sites on the Internet continue finding us and
connecting to our growing content. We also want all the newsletters,
e-zines, print magazines, newspapers, and other media continue to
reproducing my work in their publications.
We've debated long and hard about whether we should charge for some parts of the site (especially the 250 columns, articles, and excerpts), our Improvement Points subscription service,
and now this newsletter. Creating and maintaining all this is very
costly. At this point, visitors are buying enough books and booking me
or our associates through the site to fund our fully free model. Please
do your part by buying books, booking me, or referring others! I'll
stop now before this turns into a public television pledge drive...
Send Julie your feedback and suggestions on our new web site at [email protected].
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If you are reading a copy of this newsletter that was passed along to you, ensure you don't miss future issues by subscribing here.
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Key Notes from My Keynotes |
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Keynote
speaking is in the midst of a major transition reflecting the larger
customer-is-in-control forces at work in our society. Not too many
years ago, a well known keynote speaker proudly declared, "I don't
change my speech, I just change my audiences." Old fashioned shades of
Henry Ford's often quoted comment that his customers could have any
color Model T they wanted as long as it was black. Just as customers
today demand "just in time, just for me," audiences are losing patience
with speakers obviously taking a "if this is Tuesday this must be
Calgary" approach to "the gig" (a term I detest). The most powerful
keynote presentations today are well researched, relevant, and tailored
to the audience's industry, organization, or profession.
I
have been delivering paid keynote presentations at association or
industry conferences and organizational meetings since 1985. I have
been a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers for
the past few years and just recently joined the national Board of
Directors. This membership has led me to attend National Speakers
Association conferences and workshops throughout the U.S. and the CAPS
conferences in Canada. A topic of many workshops and discussion groups
is the need to tailor presentations to our audiences. One size or one
or two speeches no longer fit all.
The
struggle this creates for speakers is how to clearly explain our topic
areas, and the value a highly experienced and well prepared
professional speaker can add to a meeting or conference. Effective
professional speakers can bring an outside expertise to reinforce and
inspire the changes needed inside the organization. I speak, train, or
facilitate about 100 times per year. I have rarely given the same
presentation, workshop, or retreat twice. Recently I took a look back
through hundreds of my engagements and developed a long sample list of
ways I have tailored 60 – 90 minutes presentations, half and one-day
workshops, and two-day management retreats. It fascinated me to reflect
on the wide variety of applications, but then I am a little biased and
emotionally invested in this discussion. If you're interested, click here to see the sample list.
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Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from the Leader Letter in your own print publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:
"Reprinted with permission from the Leader Letter,
Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author
and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/ retreat
leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer
focus, culture, and personal growth. His web site is www.clemmer.net."
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Worth Reading: Two Book Reviews |
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There
really are so many books and so little time. I have long been an avid
reader. I usually have about four books on the go. These generally
include a book for bedtime pleasure reading (usually historical novels
or spiritual fiction), a browsing book on Canadian or local Waterloo
County history, morning spiritual or meditation reading, and a book on
leadership, personal growth, or organization change.
Two recent reads that stand out in that last category are Primal Leadership and The Heart of Change.
Both fit my criteria on providing strong research or particular
illumination that strongly supports my own work. To see my book
selection criteria go to www.clemmer.net/reading/criteria.shtml.
Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence
(Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Harvard Business
School Press, Boston, MA, 2002) is Daniel Goleman's third book on this
exciting topic. While I think this book is neck in neck with his second
book, Working with Emotional Intelligence, I would have to give
this one the nod as his best yet. I love the burgeoning field of
emotional intelligence. No doubt it's because the explosion in EI
research is providing extremely convincing empirical research showing
the immense value of the "soft" leadership areas I have made my life
work.
Primal Leadership provides the simplest framework yet for defining Emotional Intelligence. I know my bias for this book really shows through when I say that the framework fits perfectly with my leadership twins, Growing the Distance and The Leader's Digest.
In what Goleman and his colleagues call "Emotional Intelligence Domains
and Associated Competencies," they outline a clear EI framework with
two major components broken into four subsets that then define a series
of supporting criteria within each subset.
The
first major component they call "Personal Competence: These
capabilities determine how we manage ourselves." The two major subsets
here are Self-Awareness and Self-Management. This is a perfect fit with
the self-leadership messages of Growing the Distance.
The second major component they define as "Social Competence: These
capabilities determine how we manage relationships." These two major
subsets are Social Awareness and Relationship Management. These are
exactly what The Leader's Digest focuses on.
I have filed many passages and research from this landmark personal growth and leadership book. Here are two:
"...now
we have results from a range of industries that link leadership to
climate and to business performance, making it possible to quantify the
hard difference for business performance made by something as soft as
the "feel" of a company." (Page 17)
"Having
a larger repertoire of emotional intelligence strengths can make a
leader more effective because it means that leader is flexible enough
to handle the wide-ranging demands of running an organization. Each
style draws on different emotional intelligence abilities; the best
leaders are able to use the right approach in the right moment, and
flip from one to another as needed. People who lack the underlying
abilities have a narrowed leadership repertoire, and so are too often
stuck relying on a style that's ill matched to the challenge of the
moment." (Page 84)
The Heart of Change: Real Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations,
(John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen, The Harvard Business School Press,
Boston, 2002) is a powerful follow up to Harvard Business School
professor, John Kotter's, excellent previous book, Leading Change.
As the subtitle of this book describes, it's a collection of stories
about how people throughout their organizations (most are not senior
managers) bring about change by connecting with others emotionally. The
stories show, once again, that we're creatures of emotion and not
logic. We make decisions based on our feelings and then look for the
evidence to support that.
Building on
his well-known distinctions between management and leadership, John
Kotter and his co-author Dan Cohen show that strong change leaders skip
the PowerPoint presentations full of logical analysis, measurements,
and bullet points. Rather they appeal to feelings with stories,
metaphors, demonstrations, experiences, pilots, and the like to change
behavior. The authors explain,
"Our
main finding, put simply, is that the central issue is never strategy,
structure, culture, or systems. All those elements, and others, are
important. But the core of the matter is always about changing the
behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful
situations mostly by speaking to people's feelings. This is true even
in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative
measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an
M.B.A sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to
help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence
emotions, not just thought. Feelings then alter behavior sufficiently
to overcome all the many barriers to sensible large-scale change.
Conversely, in less successful cases, the seeing-feeling-changing
pattern is found less often, if at all." (Page x).
Information
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Communication
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Speaks to the Head |
Engages the Heart |
Monolog |
Dialog |
Facts and Results |
Stories and Values |
Mostly Written |
Mostly Verbal |
Quantity |
Quality |
Provides Updates |
Builds Communion |
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I read The Heart of Change after I had written The Leader's Digest.
One of the reasons I liked the book so much was because I had just
constructed and started using the chart to the right to illustrate the
central management versus leadership theme of The Leader's Digest.
The differences between information and communication sharply contrast
managers and leaders. Managers push, leaders pull. Manager try to light
a fire under people, leaders stoke the fire within. Managers focus on
facts, leaders focus on feelings. Management is intellectual,
leadership is emotional. Managers inform, leaders communicate.
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Site Seeing |
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With
my wireless high speed Internet connection at home (my best new
technology investment of the last two years), I take my notebook
computer and browse the Internet all over our house and backyard. Given
my intense interest in the rapidly growing Emotional Intelligence
research, one of my favorite reference sites is run by Daniel Goleman
and his associates at The Consortium for Research on Emotional
Intelligence in Organizations. Their web site is www.eiconsortium.org.
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Improvement Points Subscribers' Top Picks for March |
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Improvement Points
are short quotes from one of the articles on our web site that are sent
by e-mail three times per week. Each quote comes with a heading that
corresponds with my core models and frameworks (click here to view those).
Subscribers have the opportunity to click on the title of the article
that the quote was taken from and go read the entire piece. One way we
can gauge the popularity of each quote and its mother article is to see
what the click-through rate is. Of the 13 quotes/articles sent out in
March, the three most popular were (you can click on the article title
to read it):
Improvement
Points is a free subscription service. We've been quite pleased and
gratified to watch the steady growth in subscribers over the past few
years (especially with the volume of e-mails filling all our inboxes).
To check out the service and look at signing up for it, go to www.clemmer.net/improvement.shtml.
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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm... |
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"If you're under control, you're not going fast enough!"
- Mario Andretti, race car driver
"A (cynic) is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people."
- Peter McArthur
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
- Oscar Wilde
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Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from the Leader Letter in your own print publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:
"Reprinted with permission from the Leader Letter,
Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. Jim Clemmer is a bestselling author
and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, workshop/ retreat
leader, and management team developer on leadership, change, customer
focus, culture, and personal growth. His web site is www.clemmer.net."
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New Columns and Articles |
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I write a wide range of columns and articles adapted from my books or research. Here are two that ran recently:
From the "Careers" section of The Globe & Mail: This column is based on the research and writing I did for the Responsibility for Choices chapter of The Leader's Digest
"Stop Whining and Start Leading" at www.clemmer.net/excerpts/stop_whining.shtml
From So to Speak (newsletter of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers): This article was adapted from the Introduction and Chapter One of The Leader's Digest
"Are you a Leader on the Grow?" at www.clemmer.net/excerpts/sts0303.pdf
Over 250 of my columns and articles are available for reprint on our web site. Click here to view the index at www.clemmer.net/articles.shtml.
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Coming Events |
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Our Last Public Workshop (May 28 and 29)
In May, we are running our final public Leadership @ the Speed of Change
workshop. With so many things happening across our business these days,
we find that we need to take some of our own advice (a radical thought)
and set clearer priorities. Our workshop administration and delivery
support people need to focus on our core business – customized in-house
workshops, retreats, and keynote speaking. This last public session
will run on May 28 and 29 in London, Ontario. Click here for details.
Click here if you'd like to check out my customized in-house
Leadership @ the Speed of Change workshops or management team retreats.
Heather would be happy to explore dates and potential applications with
you. You can e-mail her at [email protected] or have the pleasure of chatting with her at (519) 748-6561.
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Lessons in Leadership (June 10)
I
am delighted to be part of such an impressive line up of Canada's top
professional speakers, all in one day. I'll be joining Warren Evans CSP
(Certified Speaking Professional), Donald Cooper CSP, Peter Urs Bender
CSP, Kit Grant CSP, and Dave Bradfoot CSP. The big bonus is that most
of your registration fee will be going to a very worthy cause, the
Laura's Hope research fund for Huntington's Disease. This entire line
up of high powered and high priced speakers are donating their time to
benefit Laura's Hope. Buy a corporate table and bring your Clients,
team members, or colleagues. Be inspired and help make a big difference
to pushing this research over the top. Click here for details: www.laurashope.com/lil/.
More Power to the People (June 16-19)
HR.com
is running their Power of People Series June 16-19 in Toronto. They
have lined up an impressive slate of speakers and workshop leaders.
Check it out at www.thepowerofpeople.com.
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I hope to connect with you again next month!
All the best,
Jim
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Please
post or pass this newsletter on to colleagues, clients, or associates
you think might be interested. If you received this newsletter from
someone else, and would like to subscribe, click here: www.clemmer.net/subscribe.shtml
Phone: (519) 748-1044 ~ Fax: (519) 748-5813 ~ E-mail: [email protected]
www.clemmer.net
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Copyright 2003, Jim Clemmer, The CLEMMER Group
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