The word initiative has always been a favorite of mine….I remember in my college days having room mates who lacked the initiative to change out an empty toilet paper roll.  Seriously these guys would let the card board center remain on the rack the entire semester while a new roll was placed on the floor below it or the sink nearby.

At least once a week I find myself walking into someone’s work behind several people and am amazed to watch them step over, on or around a cup, can or piece of trash, rather than to simply pick it up and deposit it in a trash can that is on the way in the door.

I have always defined the word in the context of “someone with initiative sees what needs to be done, or something that needs doing, and who does that thing without being asked.”  I love what Stephen Covey says about it even more….read on…

5000 Percent Difference (John D. Rockefeller, Sr.)  ~  What did John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest industrialist of the 19th century, admire most in his father? It was his initiative. He often boasted of his father, “He’d get a thing done while others were just beginning to talk about it.”

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,  Stephen Covey says, “The difference between people who
exercise initiative and those who don’t is literally the difference between night and day. I’m not talking about a 25
to 50 percent increase in effectiveness; I’m talking about a 5000-plus percent difference, particularly if they are smart,
aware, and sensitive to others.”(1)

Most you readers know I wrote a “Best Smelling” book about initiative called “The Dog Poop Initiative” which has sold more than 50,000 copies….without the aid of a publisher, promoter or bookstore distribution.  I read a blog last week where they were giving away a few copies of my book ..yea FREE POO! Can you believe it.

On one of the blogs published by bizzia.com called “Slacker Manager“ where they offer tips on ”how NOT to be one”.  author Phil Gerbyshak wrote a nice piece on my book “The Dog Poop Initiative“ last week and offered an easy way to win a free copy of the book as well.  To read and find out how to win a free copy click here.  http://www.bizzia.com/slackermanager/want-free-poop/   (Thanks to Phil and I HOPE YOU WIN!)

Whether you win or not… we can all take more initiative…and be the ones who make the 5000% difference!

Don’t be a Slacker Manager, Parent, or Leader… Be a Super, Be a Scooper…take the initiative!

Kirk Out

“My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity”~~ George Bernard Shaw

Let’s make a greater effort to say the right thing….in the most fun or “funnest” way possible!

Make it a great day, it’s your choice!

Kirk Out

An excuse is worse than a lie, for an excuse is a lie, guarded. ~Alexander Pope

Still here in the Netherlands…having wonderful time.  Traveling home on Thursday.  Thank you for all of your comments and offered congratulations.  Indeed -thank you very much. 

A couple recommended reads follow.

Recommended Read!! == Man’s Search for Meaning
Victor Frankl, a psychologists by training and then was imprisoned in the Jewish death camps where he was in a position to witness behaviors of people in the most extreme circumstances. In this enlightening book he recounts numerous stories from the camps of how hope for the future kept him and his comrades alive. Frankl describes how the prisoners were able to create dreams and plans for the future in order to stay sane and keep their will to live in an environment where it was very easy to give up. What I got out of his recounting of the horrors of the death camps was that even though the Nazi’s took away almost all of the basic human necessities we are used to in life, and brutalized their prisoners, they weren’t able to control the minds of those imprisoned.  This book inspired many of the greatest teachers of leadership in our day… Dr. Stephen Covey author the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People quoted Frankl extensively.  Highly recommend it.

Scoopers In the News!!
A TX scooper…Eva Stephen Stoddard told me he was going to use The Dog Poop book to introduce lean manufacturing and 6Sigma concepts to his supervisory staff. I asked him how it went…here is his reply.
“It went well. Your books powerful message parallels the Lean manufacturing theory of eliminating waste (poop). I related the dog and his owner to the waste that we don’t know where it came from or why it is there but that person/process or our customer has moved on, but we keep the waste. I related the kids arriving to play with showing up to work. Some of the waste is obvious almost glaring to some employees. For what ever reason, time, effort, management difficulties we let the waste remain. I really like the illustration of avoiding the pile. I associate the second coach/group and ref to supervisors and upper management. When an employee brings an issue or a solution to their manager or supervisors attention but they lack the initiative to investigate or even follow up. As in your book they may go out of their way to avoid the waste. They may implement policies to protect us from the waste or change processes to work around the waste. I had my group relate to the Father. Listen to the pointers and realize that they can empower their employees (pointers) to remove the waste or resolve the issue. Remove the waste and move on. As the employees see their supervisors example they will in turn take the initiative. It will help the cream rise to the top.
~I will be using a refined version as a presentation to our employees at the department level. Thanks for the great tool.” ~Stephen Stoddard, Lean Six Sigma Project Manager

New York Times Best Smeller
A wonderfully illustrated true story to help inspire greater ownership, more initiative and more scooping on your work team or your home team!! Order your copy today from http://www.morebetterbooks.com/

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Kirk’s Cultural Client List Small Sample  - Alston & Bird Lawfirm, Lockheed Martin, General Mills, WellPoint, Panasonic, Cargill, Anthem, Purdue, CSI Web, GE Medical, Wilderness Quest, Right Now Technologies, People Soft, Intuit, Help Desk Institute, PGA, OC Tanner, ITSMF, YUM Brands, Sundance, MAYO Clinic, Lennox International, Waste Management, Foremost, All State, State Farm, Parature, Progress Energy, CSU, BYU, UofU, UNLV, ASU, UVSC, Intermountain Health Care, Society of Petroleum Engineers, NTC, Pink Elephant, Sento, INPO, Fairview Health, Home Hospice, Shawnee College, Colorado Mtn College, WNIC, ICSA, SuperSonic, Kneaders, GE’s ASI, HDI Chapters in Montreal, Boston, Atlanta and several other states, Abbott Labs, American Camping Association or ACA, E-Learning Guild, Schwann’s, Sir Francis Drake Hotel….etc etc.

   Earl sent me a quote that says… ” A smile is like a boomerang…throw one and it always comes back to you.”   I have been to Australia, I have bought and thrown many boomarangs and only a few have ever come back to me.  And even the few that did I could never seem to catch.   Some have come pretty close, and others not so close….and a few just seemed to fly back to Australia.  So is smiling really like a boomarang?   I think so… only Smiles are a better and easier to throw. 

Throw one smile out to a crowd and you may get several, even hundreds thrown back at you.  Sometimes people have smiled at me in a moment where I wasn’t in the frame of mind to smile back …but later thinking of their kindness, I smiled back in their absence.  They may have thought they missed but they didn’t.  And many times I have smiled at people and like my novice attempts at Boomarang throwing those smiled seemed to miss the target and land in a tree or bush.  I has either held on to long or released too quickly…. I had missed the right moment.

Smiling is like throwing a Boomarang in at least one other way that I can think of … and that is this.  The more you practice the better you get at throwing and catching them.  And the satisfaction and feeling you get with a good throw and catch can be a joyful moment to be sure.  And the more you catch them the quicker you can throw them again.

What else is like a boomarang? 

Kirk out

   I’ve spoken at many organizational banquets and events where recognition was a key element of the evening.  In my mind recognition generally falls into two categories,  achievement and anniversary.  Achievement can be many things such as creating value, selling, partnering, performance, excellence etc.  The 2^nd category, the anniversary, is one I have a growing admiration for.  Anniversary represents time spent, or life spent…because a measure of someone’s time is a measure of their life.

  Main Street /Busey Bank recognize their new associates (those who have joined the team since the last meeting.  Then they recognize the 5 year group, 10 year group, 15 year group and so on until they hit the 30 year group.  Think about that…30 years!  At 40 hours a week that equals 62,400 hours!  That is significant piece of someone’s life and potentially suggests some very positive things about the organizational culture as well as the loyalty and commitment of the individual. Hopefully it has been time well spent.

I’m in the Netherlands with my wife Rebecca and yesterday we celebrated our 18^th anniversary.  18 years ago we were married….and 18 years ago she was only 18 years old.  In January of this year I remember her saying to our children, “This year your father and I celebrate our 18^th anniversary.  This year I will have spent more of my life with him than without him.”

  

I remember when she said those words that they really struck me as being quite significant, even sacred.  I remember thinking “WOW, more of her life with me than without me?”  Trying to understand everything this implied seemed impossible then and still escapes me now.  But I remember thinking about how grateful I was for the willing investment of her life into our relationship and into me.  Her words have played through my mind again and again and I’m not sure a day has gone by since they were spoken that I haven’t reflected on them.

On August the 8^th the midpoint was passed…and now on August the 9^th it’s official.  She has spent more of her life with me, than without me.  Showing her the depth of my gratitude for this investment, and for her, is not something I can begin to imagine being able to do.  A nice dinner out won’t do it.  A fancy gift, a trip to Amsterdam, or any combination of things cannot begin to express my appreciation for her life that she has freely and exclusively given to me and to our children.

We spoke today about what love, real love is and what it isn’t.  The world says we “fall in love”.  Rebecca says, we “grow in love”.   Rebecca favorite definition of love is profound in its simplicity and endless in it’s implication… “Love”, she says, “is going through things together.”

We are constantly going through things together with people personally and professionally.  We are sharing time, a piece of our lives, with them and they with us.  Let’s strive to honor that more by valuing it, recognizing it, and celebrating it so that as we and those we spend it with reflect on it…. The over arching sentiment might be…

That it was “Time will spent”.

The T4D may be a bit intermittent this week….but it’s not because I have forgotten you…it’s just because I may be more distracted than usual by this incredible person I am spending time with.

Kirk Out

  Yesterday’s T4D on “Volunteering for Your Career” generated some great comments from you guys.  WOW, THANKS!   I’ve included a few of them below today’s quote from William Penn.  They are VERY worth reading. 

“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”  ~ William Penn
1644-1718                                                                                                                                                                                  AWESOME COMMENTS on the POWER of Volunteering to Enhance Career 

So true Kirk.   You do not get to the top by sitting on you butt! Back in 2002, I volunteered to be VP of Membership at the HDI Eastern MI Chapter (now Motown) and all of a sudden (or so it seems) I am the MAB Chair for HDI, have hundreds or friends nationwide, have spoken to hundreds of people at Conference, and have my career on hyper-drive!  Wow, what a ride.  Glad I said, I’ll do it”.

Congrats on the ITSMF gig, it’s nice to see you have another group of folks to hear the stories!

Dan Wilson  - Client Services Manager, ITPO  - Volkswagen Group of America

Kirk,  Back in the early 90’s when the country was going thru a recession my husband and I found ourselves unemployed and couldn’t find a job. Times were tough with no job and 3 children to support. Opportunity presented itself that I could go back to school. After completion, my colleagues decided they wouldn’t take a job unless it paid so much $$ per hour.

Well I knew I didn’t have the experience, and certainly didn’t have any money, but asked my instructors if they could find someone to hire me on just for the experience, they didn’t have to pay me, just let me work. Needless to say, I had to prove myself and loved the job, so in a matter of about 3 months, I went from the filing clerk, to the bookkeeper to the assistant manager of the largest medical practice in the county. I loved it and stayed several years before moving on.  ~ Karen

Sandra wrote -  Kirk - you are really onto something. I have volunteered thinking it is so I can give back, but what I have found I receive more than I give (personally and professionally). Even at work, I found being willing to volunteer for just about any task has helped my career flourish. I owe these learnings to a guy I heard speak a conference eight years ago (Kirk Weisler).

P.S. I have a cassette (yes a cassette) tape of your talk from 2001 on my office shelf to remind me of what great leaders do!

Thanks for your great comments… Volunteering truly opens doors, hearts and opportunities.

Kirk Out

Sometimes you just need to volunteer.  I could, without much trouble,  make the argument that nearly all of my speaking today came largely from my volunteering to lead a round table discussion at a conference that no one else wanted to lead.  The topic was “Dealing with difficult employee Issues like pornography, personal hygiene other difficult behaviors in the workplace.

I don’t remember exactly why they didn’t have someone to lead it… I just remember hearing them talk about not be able to find someone.  So I volunteered and said, “I’ll do it.”

It turned out to be a wonderful session… we laughed, learned and talked about the tough stuff.  It seemed that I may have even had a knack for it.  The feedback was positive and the event planner appreciative.  A post conversation led to an invitation to prepare a future session.  That particular meeting planner has become a dear friend and has hired me for 8 consecutive years now.

At another event someone was needed to act as a “GameShow” host .  So I volunteered and said, “I’ll do it.”.  It also was great fun.   It also was followed with a conversation where I received appreciation and another invitation.

I am guessing the majority of you reading this could share stories about how volunteering to help or lead some unwanted or difficult project opened doors and accelerated your journey of success.  (Stories/comments always welcome at www.kirkweisler.com/t4d)

 The last couple years I have been blessed to serve as the Mater of Ceremonies for the annual ITSMF USA Fusion Conference.  In addition to my MC duties I volunteered to fill other roles which as led to other opportunities.  This year I will MC and serve as one of the 4 Keynote speakers.  The Topics for each Keynote are pretty fun.  BOOM, ZOOM, VROOM and my keynote titled which is “From DOOM and GLOOM to BLOOM”.

The Economy is still recovering, conferences are working hard to stay in the game, serve their constituents and not lose money.  So I volunteered to do 10 recordings about reasons not to miss the event.  I’ve never done anything like this…and I told them they didn’t have to use them unless they thought it would do more good than harm. They used them!! (To hear them click HERE)  I volunteered to do the Keynote and additional work for the same fee as last year when I didn’t do the extra work.  Please don’t misunderstand me here… I’m not trying to sound like some sort of saint…I’m just saying that Volunteering to do extra stuff has never done anything but bless my life and enhance my career. 

So remember…  “Volunteering can open more doors, more quickly than 1000 applications, interviews or Monster Postings.”  Volunteering can give you a chance to shine, a chance to serve, and a place to connect with others who just may be looking for someone like you.

Kirk Out

“Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait. The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.” ~  Dr. Robert Anthony  Educator

I’ve sent this before (at least I think I have) but it reasonates with me on certain levels.  But then I also think it must be balanced with the old saying, “Good things come to those who wait.”   So let’s look at today’s T4D in the context of Dr. Seuss, who in his wildly best selling book, “Oh the Places You’ll Go, said,

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,
once more you’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

I disagree with Dr. Anthony… I think that “reasons” do count for something.  They must.  But they musn’t serve as excuses that paralyze us from activity, creativity, contribution and results.  We must find or create for ourselves the Bright Places where BOOM BANDS are playing.

Kirk Out