We often discuss leadership as if it is a state or quality that either exists or doesn’t. But the truth is that whether one seeks to become a leader or whether one is already serving in that capacity, leadership develops over time.
A leader’s development tends to proceed through three stages. The first stage is self-management. The second is individual achievement. The third is leading others. Although these three stages are distinct from one another, they may coexist and a leader may move back and forth through these stages at various times.
Today’s discussion focuses on the first stage: self-management or leadership of oneself. Executive coach Sharon Keys Seal, founder of Coaching Concepts Inc., refers to this stage as “leader in the mirror”. John Maxwell has written, “[h]e who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.” (Read the rest of the entry…)
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The Start-Up of You: Invest In Yourself And Transform Your Career
By Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
Styled as a career development book, the central thesis of The Start-Up of You is that a successful career requires an entrepreneurial approach.
Authors Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Ben Casnocha, a young serial entrepreneur, assert that career advancement worked like an escalator in years past: you got an entry-level job, you were mentored and groomed, and as long as you did well enough and weren’t unlucky, you could expect steady advancement until roughly age 65, when you’d move off the escalator to enjoy a comfortable retirement funded by a pension and Social Security.
(Read the rest of the entry…)
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
I read that little anecdote in a Wall Street Journal adaptation of the commencement speech David Foster Wallace made at Kenyon College. It struck me as amusing at first, but then it struck me as a great teaching story.
Are you living in an environment that you’re not really aware of, just because you don’t know anything could be different? Environment is critical to success, whether it’s success in business or in life. Want to lose weight? You’ll have better odds if your pantry is packed with water and oatmeal than if it’s jammed with sugary sodas and potato chips. Want to know what’s going on in politics? You might prefer to hang around others who care about politics and read the Wall Street Journal than to spend your time watching E! and talking about Snookie.
When it comes to business development, environment is often an unappreciated factor for success. Let’s look at three examples. (Read the rest of the entry…)
“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.”
~Chinese Proverb
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
~Confucious
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”
~Henry Ford
“Have a bias toward action — let’s see something happen now. You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.”
~Indira Gandhi
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg
Every single one of my clients faces the need to build new habits at some point. Whether it’s replacing an unhelpful old habit or building a new one from scratch, the process of illuminating automatic behavior and changing it can be quite difficult. At the same time, building a habit that operates without conscious thought and that supports desired outcomes is a marker for success.
You have to have the right habits.
Especially when it comes to business development, I’m a proponent of building strong habits. Why? (Read the rest of the entry…)
I occasionally find an article or resource that’s so helpful I wish I’d written it. When I do, I pass it along to you.
Twenty Marketing Maxims is probably the best summary of business development best practices that I’ve ever seen. As I wrote when I tweeted the resource: Print it. Laminate it. Read it daily. Use it. Get business.
Start now.
There’s an old maxim that 50% of marketing efforts are a complete waste of time. The problem is, as the punchline holds, that nobody knows which efforts fall into the 50% that succeed. That’s amusing only if it’s untrue.
I’m quick to climb up on a soapbox and start to rant when a client or a prospective client (or, for that matter, anyone within earshot) bemoans the “fact” that they just can’t bring in new business. Woe is me, it’s hard, the skills don’t come naturally, I may as well quit. I try to quell my irritation (and remember that I once felt similarly), but it’s easy for me to jump into conversation with a prickly request that’s designed to catch the bemoaning would-be rainmaker short:
What’s your ROI on each market effort?
(Read the rest of the entry…)
Last fall, I shared that I’d joined a gym, and I drew some parallels between getting into the regular gym-going habit and regularly engaging in business development. If you missed those notes, you can read them here and here, and I recommend you do so.
I haven’t written about the gym since last September, partly because when things went a bit haywire in my personal life and got frantic with business, I quit going. Isn’t that the story? I worked out on my regular schedule while I was away on vacation, but when I got back to “real life” in November, real life crowded out my goals. (At least, that was my story. The truth, of course, is that I allowed that crowding out to happen.)
The lessons I’ve learned from this experience apply equally to business development.
(Read the rest of the entry…)
I’m in the middle of two renovation projects. You’ll see the results of one project in the next few weeks, as I life the curtain on some significant changes to the face of my business.
The messier renovation by far is taking place in my home and my home office. It’s been loud, with lots of dust and people dashing through the house, often needing answers to questions I hadn’t even thought to contemplate. My mantra has become, It will be worth it when it’s done!
(Read the rest of the entry…)
“Do first things first, and second things not at all.”
~Peter Drucker
“Action expresses priorities.”
~Mahatma Gandhi
Two blog posts that got me thinking about how I start and spend my days:
Tim Miles, “How Do You Keep Up With All This Writing”
Tim is the author of Your Customers Like This: The Whats, Whos, Hows, & Whys of Shareworthy Customer Service, which I reviewed earlier this month. As I noted then, I’m a fan of Tim’s blog and so I’ve been delighted that he’s posted every single day this year. And I’ve wondered how he managed that, since generating that much good content is no easy feat. His post is helpful for those of you who write articles and blog posts (as most everyone should do) and his emphasis on ritual is worth noting and considering. (See, for example, the discussion of ritual in The Power of Full Engagement.)
Erika Napoletano is Redhead Writing
Erika is a brash, opinionated writer who has merciless views about time management and priorities.
I’ve chosen not to include the title of this post or any of the subheadings because they include multiple expletives. If cursing bothers you, please don’t click through to this post!
Her wake-up call is so persuasive and the directives offered are so blindingly obvious and yet easy to overlook that I’m suggesting you check it out if you’re not faint of heart. Not all will work for lawyers or for those who aren’t sole practitioners, but the overall thrust is worth a skim.
May 11, 2012 
