Last week I had a chance to share the platform with Mark Sanborn - friend and author of one of my favorite books, “The Fred Factor”.  In his own amazing way he managed to pack more wisdom into a 60 minute presentation than many of us may be lucky enough to get from our entire organization in a month.  A couple simple but significant highlights from my leadership journal notes follow.

It doesn’t take any more time to be kind to someone than it does to be a jerk                

What does it mean to truly C.A.R.E. for a customer?  Create A Rare Experience 

Quality & Service get you into the game - relationships keep you in and help you to win.

Gratefulness makes for a Great Fullness Of Heart

Celebrity is based on what you get - Greatness is based on what you give.

Great Questions to Ask yourself might include.

Q.  Did I waste any of the day I just finished?

Q.  Was I fully engaged in each moment?

The 3 word question   =    Innovate or Replicate?

Great question to ask someone you haven’t seen in a while.  Q.  What great idea has seized you since we last met!

You can re-invent yourself everyday!  It’s never too late to become who you might have been.

A quick heads up - THANK YOU T4D Subscribers!!  For making me a winner of the “talk smack” about whose video got the most views.  You guys brought me from the back of the pack to a solid first place.  I promised you a report and here are the numbers as of last Friday.

Kirk 600,

Phil 481,

Johann 342,

Pete 269,

Rich 204.

If you want to continue to bolster the numbers - below is my initial request in context with the links that will take you there.  (Thanks again)

FUN HELP REQUEST - I need a “A Little Help From My Friends”  Here’s the gig - I have been asked to do a webinar during “National Customer Service Week for HDI an IT Support organization.  Well there are webinars all week long and we were asked to come up with a short creative video to promote it…. and now a few of the other guys are talking some smack about having more video views than me.  So if a couple hundred of you guys were willing to go to http://www.thinkhdi.com/csweek/ and watch my video.(It’s about 20 seconds long) I’d really appreciate it.  If you want to leave highly inflated comments on youtube you can do that too.

“Most students treat knowledge as a liquid to be swallowed rather than as a solid to be chewed, and then wonder why it provides so little nourishment.” - Sydney Harris

“The greatest American superstition is a belief in facts.” - Hermann Keyserling

“To be nobody but myself, in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” - E.E. Cummings

“You are not thinking. You are merely being logical.” — Niels Bohr to Albert Einstein

“If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts - i.e. of materialism and astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.” - C.S. Lewis

 Make it a Great Weekend - It’s your Choice

Kirk

“People are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they there-fore remain bound.”  ~ James Allen

If you want to feel better, you must realize that your thoughts and attitudes - not external events - create your feelings.  You can learn to change the way you think, feel and behave in the here-and-now.  That simple but revolutionary principle can help you change your life.     ~David D. Burns M.D.   “The Feeling Good Handbook”

Think about what you are thinking about…. 

Challenge your thoughts

Could you be misinformed?

Do you remember all the facts?

Are you absolutely certain!?

Is there a possibility someone else is right?

We all have ‘Blind Spots’ 

Do you think it’s important to think about what you are “thinking” about?

I believe we can change the world for the better if we will change our minds for the better.   Choose your thoughts and your words with care…they are shaping your world and mine as well.  ~ Kirk Out

FUN HELP REQUEST - I need a “A Little Help From My Friends”  Here’s the gig - I have been asked to do a webinar during “National Customer Service Week for HDI - an IT Support organization.  Well there are webinars all week long and we were asked to come up with a short creative video to promote it…. and now a few of the other guys are talking some smack about having more video views than me.  So if a couple hundred of you guys were willing to go to http://www.thinkhdi.com/csweek/ and watch my video.(It’s about 20 seconds long) I’d really appreciate it.  If you want to leave highly inflated comments on youtube you can do that too.

THANKS!! I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.

I would not sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban;-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
(Sam Walter Foss, “The House by the Side of the Road,”

From the Deseret Morning News, written by Jay Evensen.

I quote from a part of it. Wrote he:

“How would you feel toward a teenager who decided to toss a 20-pound frozen turkey from a speeding car headlong into the windshield of the car you were driving? How would you feel after enduring six hours of surgery using metal plates and other hardware to piece your face together, and after learning you still face years of therapy before returning to normal-and that you ought to feel lucky you didn’t die or suffer permanent brain damage?

“And how would you feel after learning that your assailant and his buddies had the turkey in the first place because they had stolen a credit card and gone on a senseless shopping spree, just for kicks? . . .

“This is the kind of hideous crime that propels politicians to office on promises of getting tough on crime. It’s the kind of thing that prompts legislators to climb all over each other in a struggle to be the first to introduce a bill that would add enhanced penalties for the use of frozen fowl in the commission of a crime.

“The New York Times quoted the district attorney as saying this is the sort of crime for which victims feel no punishment is harsh enough. ‘Death doesn’t even satisfy them,’ he said.

“Which is what makes what really happened so unusual. The victim, Victoria Ruvolo, a 44-year-old former manager of a collections agency, was more interested in salvaging the life of her 19-year-old assailant, Ryan Cushing, than in exacting any sort of revenge. She pestered prosecutors for information about him, his life, how he was raised, etc. Then she insisted on offering him a plea deal. Cushing could serve six months in the county jail and be on probation for 5 years if he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault.

“Had he been convicted of first-degree assault-the charge most fitting for the crime-he could have served 25 years in prison, finally thrown back into society as a middle-aged man with no skills or prospects.

“But this is only half the story. The rest of it, what happened the day this all played out in court, is the truly remarkable part.

“According to an account in the New York Post, Cushing carefully and tentatively made his way to where Ruvolo sat in the courtroom and tearfully whispered an apology. ‘I’m so sorry for what I did to you.’

“Ruvolo then stood, and the victim and her assailant embraced, weeping. She stroked his head and patted his back as he sobbed, and witnesses, including a Times reporter, heard her say, ‘It’s OK. I just want you to make your life the best it can be.’ According to accounts, hardened prosecutors, and even reporters, were choking back tears” (”Forgiveness Has Power to Change Future,” Deseret Morning News, Aug. 21, 2005, p. AA3).

What a great story that is, greater because it actually happened, and that it happened in tough old New York. Who can feel anything but admiration for this woman who forgave the young man who might have taken her life?

I know this is a delicate and sensitive thing of which I am speaking. There are hardened criminals who may have to be locked up. There are unspeakable crimes, such as deliberate murder and rape, that justify harsh penalties. But there are some who could be saved from long, stultifying years in prison because of an unthoughtful, foolish act. Somehow forgiveness, with love and tolerance, accomplishes miracles that can happen in no other way.

~ Enough Said - Kirk Out

Your mind is a MEANING-MAKING MACHINE.  Without even trying, you “know” what things mean, at least most of the time.  When someone treats you rudely, your mind interprets that.  It makes some meaning out of it.  And it’s completely automatic.  That is, you don’t stop and think about it.  You don’t try to make an interpretation.  It happens without any effort on your part.

        The meanings you make affect the way you feel and determine how you interact with people and circumstances.  The interpretations you make about the events in your life have a significant influence on the amount of stress you experience in your day.

        …The good news is:  You’re not stuck with the interpretations your mind makes automatically.  You can come up with new ones. The possible ways to interpret (any situation)…are virtually unlimited.  ~  Adam Khan - ”Self-Help Stuff That Works”

Change the meaning of an experience and experience changes.

~Kirk out

I pulled this from a LeapFrog e-zine…. love it!  I think you will too!

Psst… What advice would you whisper in the ear of a senior leader?
We asked thought leaders, industry leaders and leading practitioners that we work with the following question:  If you had 25 words or less to whisper in the ear of a senior leader….to dramatically impact her/his leadership team’s effectiveness….what would you say?

Here’s what ten respected clients and colleagues whispered in response:

1 - “Discover, deep at their inner core, why each member of your team is working in the job they are.  Then you must feed that.”
Douglas “Yoda” Vlchek,  Chief Wisdom Officer - DaVita Inc.

2 -“Have you thanked someone today for what they’ve done to help you achieve your vision for yourself and your team?”
Bob Hoffman , Executive Director, Organizational Development
Novartis Oncology

3 - “Leadership teamwork is about individual genius, collectively experienced.  Don’t normalize eccentricity or brilliance.  Orchestrate a way for people playing full out to do so together.”
Foster Mobley, Chief Executive Officer
The Foster Mobley Group: Advisors in Innovative Change

4 -“Let your actions speak much louder than what you say.”
Cliff Hakim,  Career Consultant  Author: We Are All Self-Employed

5 - “Be visible, articulate a clear vision, communicate in person often, walk the talk, listen, and respond in a timely manner.”
Jeff Peris, Chief  Learning Officer - Wyeth

6 -“Know your business…know your people…have a clear vision and direction that you are able to communicate to your people. Be authentic, decisive, inclusive and most important, be humble.”
Tawfik Kamal, MD , Executive Director - Head of Strategic Marketing Capabilities
Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation
 
7 - “Find the people in your organization who are already doing what you wish others would do and make a big deal out of it.”
Keir Carroll, Performance Improvement Concepts

8 - “Self-awareness is critical. . . even in the executive suite.  Be aware of what others (1) think of you and (2) say about you.  Don’t criticize, judge or gossip about your peers, as your team will do the same.  Be a role model and mentor for others . . . you will then truly lead by example.”
Kathleen Sack , Director Learning Programs - Tyco International (US) Inc.

9 Drop your need to be right all the time. Your whole purpose is to help others be right” Court Chilton, Principal -Court Chilton & Associates

10 - “No matter what results you are trying to drive through the organization, the culture will bleed through. It starts at the top, so if your senior leaders aren’t modeling teamwork, don’t expect to break downs walls anywhere.”
Deborah Slobodnik, Principal -Options Consulting, Inc.

11 - “Breakthrough performance is rooted in remarkable people.  To attract, retain and leverage remarkable people YOU must weave the connection between their passions, their work, and one another.”
Dick Eaton,  Founder and Chief Energizing Officer -Leapfrog Innovations

Now if we could just whisper loud enough to be heard!! : )  Hey, what would you say to your boss?  Please share in response to this T4D by clicking here and responding to the BLOG version.

Helping to Make Your Culture Count - THANK YOU  ~  KIRK OUT

I thought there was a lot to the following quote - some thoughtful consideration may be required

Paulo Freire: Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

T4D subscriber Marcel whose company is in process of being acquired by a larger company is hearing from his peers that the potential changes likely to come from the change can only be negative.  So he asked me in an e-mail for a favorite quote I might have that illustrates how change can also often be a positive and necessary thing for long term success. 

Below is my quote for Marcel - if you have one to share with him - I invite you to go to the blog posting of today’s T4D www.kirkweisler.com/t4d and post your quote in the comment box.  Thank you

Peter F. Drucker: Society, community, family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability, and to prevent, or at least to slow down, change. But the organization of the post-capitalist society of organizations is a destabilizer. Because its function is to put knowledge to work — on tools, processes, and products; on work; on knowledge itself — it must be organized for constant change.

I have been in Charlotte NC for a couple of days attending a conference - each day I walk by several professional - or at least very practiced street beggars who ask me if I can “Spare some change”.  The thought I had about this a while back was - “People that don’t learn to do well with change in their lives, will most likely find themselves needing the change of others.” ~ Kirk Weisler (Yeah, I said that  : )

Last night on a walk back to the hotel - I was asked by 3 such people for either >”50cents” or “spare change” - I didn’t have anything less than a $20 so I politely told each one no.  The last person I passed actually asked me for twenty dollars!  After looking closely to make sure he wasn’t holding a gun, I told him no as well.  Twenty Bucks?  Sheeesh!