Jim Clemmer's Leader Letter E-Newsletter

Practical Leadership: Inspiring Action, Achieving Results

February 2007, Issue 47 ~ View PDF Version ~ View Past Issues ~ www.clemmer.net

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from The Leader Letter in your own printed publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:

"Reprinted with permission from The Leader Letter, Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. For over 25 years Jim Clemmer's practical leadership approaches have been inspiring action and achieving results. His 2,000+ presentations and workshops/retreats, five bestselling books, columns, and newsletters are helping hundreds of thousands of managers worldwide because they are inspiring, instructive, and refreshingly fun. And best of all, they work! His web site is 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: http://www.clemmer.net/newsletter/leader_signup.aspx.
Highlights and Feedback on Our Web Site Make Over

We've had very gratifying feedback on the completely renovated web site we launched last month. If you haven't checked it out, drop by and browse. Some of the new or revamped sections include (click on any point to be linked to that section and look around):

Here's a small sample of comments from site visitors:

  • Very informative! I love all of the scenarios or first up points and how you lead onto the meaning behind it. E.g. the five fingers/ringing true to me which lead into Who am I?
  • Very easy to manage.
  • Keep up the great work - we all appreciate your feedback and articles.
  • Your website is excellent, with the information contained in it not only relevant but also of great use to someone like myself who has only recently embarked on the leadership pathway.
  • It sure is packed with information!
  • I like your train of thought and want to read more about you.
  • I found the website to be very user-friendly and full of lots of good information. I appreciated being able to access samples of your presentations, workshops and group facilitation activities.
  • A colleague passed on the information on the Moose on the table. We have a couple of those walking around. (There's a video clip of me presenting this metaphor at http://www.clemmer.net/video (6th clip in "Timeless Leadership Principles" section).)
  • I am finding it easy to navigate, which I appreciate.

Using My Complimentary Video Clips to Clarify Core Concepts

As I wrote in the July 2006 issue of The Leader Letter, we designed a "Courageous Leadership for Health and Safety" training program for Barrick Gold and provided a Train-the-Trainer approach to allow them to deliver the workshops themselves to thousands of their managers in numerous languages at sites around the world. This program was built around my book, The Leader's Digest. James Knight is Occupational Health and Safety Manager for Barrick in Australia where he is delivering the Courageous Leadership program. Last month he sent me this e-mail, "I had trouble trying to explain the difference between a Manager and a Leader in a way that all the trainees could understand, after watching your clip I now fully understand!" He's referring to the video clip on our web site at http://www.clemmer.net/video ("The Performance Balance: Technology, Management, and Leadership" section).

The 25 video clips available at http://www.clemmer.net/video were just added with our revamped web site. I have had a few people tell me they are using selected clips for their own understanding or refresher, to supplement their own training, or at staff/management meetings to evoke discussions, assessment, and learning. That's one of the reasons I put the clips there. So go ahead and make them worth much more than you're paying for them!

One-Hour Complimentary Podcast Interview Now Available

Listen from our web site or download the MP3 file.

Jan Schleicher of Inside Business Success interviewed me in January. We mixed some light and humorous ideas with deeper points-to-ponder in our fast-paced one-hour discussion covering:

  • My roots and how I started in this business
  • Growing @ the speed of life – what it means and what it takes
  • Applying my timeless leadership principles to leading ourselves and others
  • Moving beyond inspiration, theories, and clichés to practical leadership
  • Our choices to be navigators, survivors, or victims of change, loss, and setbacks in our personal or professional lives
  • Change management is an oxymoron
  • How I have worked to make my leadership books unique given the tens of thousands available
  • The two biggest challenges I believe organizations are facing today
  • Servant leadership
  • Taking action now by clarifying and applying the three key questions at the core of our Leadership Wheel
  • What I see as a key future trend
  • A few of my goals for the next year or two
  • Three next steps to put all we covered into action

To listen to this interview, go to http://www.insidesuccessradio.com/Guests/Jim-Clemmer or download as MP3 files here: http://www.clemmer.net under the "News and Events" banner.

Responses to Improvement Points on Managing Your Manager and Terry Fox's Inspiring Example

Improvement Points is a free service providing a key thought or quotation from one of my articles, provided three times per week, directly to your e-mail inbox. Each complimentary Improvement Point links directly into the full article on our web site that spawned it. If you'd like to read more about that day's Improvement Point, you can choose to click through to the short article for a quick five-minute read. This is your opportunity for a short pause that refreshes, as an inspirational vitamin, or a quick performance boost. You can circulate especially relevant or timely articles or Improvement Points to your team, Clients, or colleagues for further discussion or action.

Here are two recent Improvement Points followed by thoughtful subscriber responses:

"Too many managers aren't coping well with today's relentless pressure to do more with less. They feel they need to push harder to get more from everyone in their organization. They, too, have bosses to answer to.

At the same time, too few have been given the analytical training on management methods to work smarter, not harder, or the people leadership skills to effectively coordinate and coach."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Bad Boss: Learn How to Manage Your Manager"
Read the full article now!
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_306.aspx

"Good article! You are right, in most cases it really falls on the employee to find ways to work with someone who they identify as a bad boss - perhaps this is unfortunate but it is reality. However, when they find the right approach or the right plane to work on, the relationship can improve tremendously; indeed, it can be a revolutionary change with lots of positive outcomes.

The above being said, there still remains the truly incompetent, self-centered, bad boss and your only choice may be to move on. For the sake of sanity and health it may be imperative."
- Improvement Points subscriber

"Many people give up just as they're about to achieve success. They often stop digging when they're inches from their vein of gold. Then they decide to prospect for silver, start digging in new places, get discouraged and give up just before they're about to reach their dreams."

- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Persistence Goes the Distance"
Read the full article now!
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_68.aspx

"Jim, as always I enjoy receiving your 'Improvement Points.' Your piece on 'Persistence Goes the Distance' brought back a flood of memories from when I volunteered for the Terry Fox organization. This is one of the most inspiring organizations I have had the pleasure of being involved with. I saw Terry run into City Hall in Toronto, due to an inspired boss at Woods Gordon (now Ernst & Young) who himself was inspired by his son who noticed Terry's run long before most ever knew who Terry was or what he was doing. My greater inspiration came from those simple challenges that Terry set for himself.

I did a lot of speaking on behalf of the run and the most inspiring moment from all of those presentations was from the very point you made about running to the next telephone pole. Terry succeeded because he was persistent and set achievable goals. He said that if he truly thought about the 26 miles every day he likely would not have made it. But when he looked at the next pole, the next tree, the top of the hill, the next farmhouse, the daily challenge he gave himself was do-able. This comment seemed to move people, especially the children I spoke to, more than anything else.

Thanks for refreshing this important message!"
- Glenn H. Manderson, Mississauga, ON, Canada

Our Dress is Part of Our Personal Brand

"What amazing experience and motivating style that you have. I am 22 years old young man just graduated from college and looking forward to be a leader who makes a difference. I learned a lot from your articles. I have a question regarding the dressing of leaders. Do you think that the way leaders dress make a difference? I am a heavy person (108 kg), what do you think the best dressing style will be?

Sorry if I am asking silly questions. Thank you so much."
- Mahmoud, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Thanks for your feedback on my articles. I am glad you find them so useful. Of course, my books are even better! :)

Dress is not a silly question. How we dress forms a big part of first impressions people have of us and our ongoing "personal brand" or image at work.

It's very hard to give you hard and fast rules for dress because it's so specific to an organization and a country's culture. From my work in Doha, Qatar (I was just there again in January), I know that business attire in the Middle East is more formal than in North America. Here some people in sectors like financial, hospitality, or real estate services will most often wear formal clothing like suits. However, people in high tech or manufacturing industries would often look at someone formally dressed as too stuffy or pretentious.

I recommend you look at how most of the middle managers and senior executives in your company dress. They reflect what's expected. A good clothing salesperson or consultant can then help you find garment cuts, styles, and colors that look best for your body shape.

I hope that helps.

All the best as you head out in your career!

Jim

How I Came to Develop My Current Theories

"Unfortunately, you were only booked for a very short period of time with us and my only frustration with your session was that we were not able to explore some of the concepts in greater detail. I am interested to know how you came to develop your current theories, having arrived at very similar place myself following a much different career path."
- Workshop participant

You can get a lot of that story on our web site at http://www.clemmer.net/media/media_faq.aspx. The personal Focus and Context section of our web site at http://www.clemmer.net/articles/subject_17.aspx also has a few articles with this background. My book, Growing the Distance, is a reflection of my personal philosophies and the roots of much of my thinking are found here. You can review the book at http://www.clemmer.net/books/gtd.aspx.

You can also join me here in Kitchener, Ontario on May 30 and 31 for my two-day workshop going deep into my concepts and putting them into action. Details are at http://www.clemmer.net/events/lsc.aspx.

Jim

Effective Performance Management is Part of a Bigger Goal Deployment Process

"Thanks for the complimentary newsletter – it's much appreciated.

I have been reading your book, The Leader's Digest, and I am finding it filled with tried but true comments and ideas. One of the HR issues I've been tasked with is designing a 'New Approach' to conducting performance evaluations. Can you offer any thoughts on this subject or do you have literature available that discusses this activity?"
- Bernie

Hi Bernie,

I am glad you're finding The Leader's Digest useful.

Performance management is one of those areas that is often a symptom carrier for much deeper management/leadership issues in many organizations. Far too often senior managers try to bolt-on performance management programs in their organization as if it's just a matter of coming up with better forms, training, or exhorting managers to fill out HR forms on time. I outlined some of this bigger picture in my June 2005 issue of The Leader Letter at http://www.clemmer.net/newsl/june2005.html.

The CLEMMER Group has considerable expertise and experience in performance management system design, training, and implementation. But we only do this as part of a much bigger process along the lines of the "Goal Deployment System" diagram you see in the June 2005 issue.

Like employee engagement, retention, health and safety, or service/quality improvement, we've found there is no quick and easy route to improving performance management. It starts as a set of values/culture about leading and developing people balanced with disciplined systems and follow-through processes.

Jim

Welcoming Our New Marketing Director

Thanks to the many suggestions on where to advertise this position on-line, leads for potential candidates, and referrals from subscribers, we had a great choice of high quality candidates interested in this new position at The CLEMMER Group. I am delighted to welcome Aidan Crawford to our team. Aidan has many years of content development and information architecture experience. He's created and maintained a suite of banking and education sites in Europe and North America. Aidan developed and managed content for 15 different customized sites in the Financial Services industry. He's also a very strong writer with over 15 years of experience writing entertainment stories for magazines and newspapers, as well as marketing material and web content for businesses.

As outlined in the position description in the December 2006 issue of The Leader Letter, one of Aidan's key responsibilities will be developing and executing strategies to increase the usefulness and use of our web site. He'll be fine-tuning and continuously improving the site as we look at blogging, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, strengthening web relationships, and the like. He'll also be building upon and strengthening our relations with radio, TV, print publications, e-zines, blogs, newsletters, pod/video casters, web masters using my material, and other media. Aidan will be looking for ways to increase sale of products and services beyond The CLEMMER Group web site, such as on-line book retailers and distributors of e-books, digital content, and database services. To make sure he has enough to do, I'll also get him involved in working with me on expanding our practical leadership materials and programs!

Read Aidan's bio and contact information at http://www.clemmer.net/bio/acrawford.aspx.

"Leading @ the Speed of Change"

My Only Public Workshop Set for 2007

Leading teams, organizations, and even ourselves is easy when things are smooth. It's when the going gets tough that our leadership is truly tested – and most critical. How we respond – as Navigators, Survivors, or Victims – determines our personal and organizational effectiveness. Strong leaders navigate toward high performing teams and organizations by balancing the discipline of systems, processes, and technical skills on a foundation of effective people leadership.

And leadership is an inside job. It's nearly impossible to build a team or organization into something we're not. We can't lead "them" to places we rarely visit ourselves. Changing them starts with changing us. Strong and effective "leaders on the grow" pause periodically for deep looks in the leadership mirror.

Check out my upcoming "Leading @ the Speed of Change" workshop at http://www.clemmer.net/events/lsc.aspx. This is the only two-day public workshop I'll be doing in 2007 (my sessions are almost exclusively customized internal workshops). I am continually told this workshop is "edutaining" with the right balance of rich content, appropriate humor, inspiring insights, and practical how-to implementation steps.

I hope to see you right here in the center of the universe in May!

Special "Leading @ the Speed of Change" Presentations in Calgary on March 8 and in Toronto on May 14

The Calgary and Toronto chapters of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) are hosting an evening in Calgary on March 8 and an afternoon in Toronto on May 14 featuring my most popular keynote presentation, "Leading @ the Speed of Change" followed by a special overview of The CLEMMER Group's business model. We'll start with my interactive presentation for close to two hours. After a short break, I'll continue with a 45- to 60-minute overview of how my career has evolved in this industry and how we currently run The CLEMMER Group. This section is designed for current or aspiring professional speakers, trainers, and facilitators, but anyone is welcome to join us.

I will have copies of my books and other leadership resources available at steep discounts. I'll personalize and sign them for you and your guests for no extra charge! For more details and to register for the Calgary session go to http://capscalgary.ca/events.html. For information and to register for the Toronto presentation go to http://www.canadianspeakers.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=232

I do very few public sessions like this (two in the past two years in Winnipeg and Halifax). No other presentations are planned. Since I'll be touching on both personal and professional aspects of leadership, change, and dealing with adversity, you'll want to bring friends, family, and colleagues with you.

Feedback and Follow-Up

I am especially keen to get your feedback on our revamped web site. Please send me a quick e-mail at [email protected] on what you like best about it, what you like least, and suggestions you have to make it even better.

Keep learning, laughing, loving, and leading – living life just for the L of it!!

Jim

Please post or forward this newsletter to colleagues, Clients, or associates you think might be interested - or on a 'need-to-grow' basis. If you received this newsletter from someone else, and would like to subscribe, click here: www.clemmer.net/newsletter/leader_signup.aspx

The CLEMMER Group
10 Pioneer Drive, Suite 105, Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4
Phone: (519) 748-1044 ~ Fax: (519) 748-5813
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.clemmer.net

Copyright © 2007 Jim Clemmer and The CLEMMER Group