Continuous And Never-Ending Improvement

"CANI" could come from the mouth of a four-year old asking permission to eat another package of fruit snacks or ride his bike down the drive way one more time.

Here at The Carden Group we use CANI as an acronym for Constant And Never-Ending Improvement, a term we learned a few years back from a friend and mentor, Robert D. Smith.

A recent article in the University of Kansas Medical Center's newsletter called the Center Express, summarized The Carden Group's leadership development program currently underway at the medical center. Leading the Jayhawk Way is helping the University with continuous improvements.

"The process is giving me the most practical tools I've ever encountered for working with a team day-to-day," said Pat Dean-Love, administrative officer in the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Compliance. "We're being coached to have a clearer vision and communicate the vision within our work teams so we're all pulling together," she said.

The program was developed specifically for the University after several weeks of shadowing and research to determine the best ways to get the desired results for the hospital's administration. The Carden Group doesn't pull a program off the shelf for our clients. Each one is customized to their needs and goals.

The article in the Nov. 21, 2012 issue says:

It emphasizes excellence and a work environment that is positive, energized and focused on possibilities. The program emphasizes effective communication, clear expectations, effective meetings, appreciation and motivation. Supervisors learn methods for examining themselves and for finding actionable ways to improve as leaders. 

One hundred eighty supervisors, managers and their leaders at the medical center are participating in the program.

Steffani Webb, vice chancellor for Administration at the medical center said, "We are creating consistent processes for how we lead and developing an internal brand that speaks to excellence in our workforce and in our campus culture."

Solutions

One of the things I remember most from my days training with the Dale Carnegie organization is that you have to earn the right to work with your customer.

Basically, this means you need to do your homework to learn as much about your customer or audience, the product, and the subject matter as possible.  If you know it inside and out, no one’s time is wasted and you can solve a problem for your customer. People love solutions and will listen if you have one.

I was on a flight from Chicago to Newark. The flight, like most these days, was full. The boarding agent was trying to board people as quickly as possible so the flight could leave on time and the flight attendants were doing their part inside the plane to help people find their seats.

I was one of the first people on the plane, so I had a ringside seat for the show. We had about 10 minutes to go before departure and the overhead bins were all full. Customers had to start taking their bags off the plane and checking them to their final destination. Then the flight attendant and gate agent began to squabble about people having their coats in the overheads.

Suddenly the gate agent began randomly taking coats out of the overheads and throwing them into the center aisle of the plane, not even asking whose coat was whose. Then the passengers began to get irritated and argue. Soon, 10-15 people were screaming at each other with no solution in sight.

About that time, a flight attendant from the back of the plane began to move forward picking up coats and quietly returning them to the customers. Within five minutes she had the situation under control. The difference between her and the others -- she presented a solution and took action to move the situation in a positive direction.

 Click here for radio interview

Skill vs. Will

Sometimes watching kids gives us a window into helping adults learn something new.

Have you ever seen a 6-year old try to tie his shoes and become so frustrated by bunny ears that he tears off the shoes and tosses them across the room? This is an issue of skill.

At 6, a child probably has the dexterity to tie his shoes. He just hasn’t had proper coaching or enough practice to master the skill. If he is shown, in a patient manner, how exactly the process works (over and over). He will eventually be able to pick up the new skill. Velcro shoes can be banned from the closet!

That same child may be asked (repeatedly) by his parents to eat his peas (or corn, or carrots, or broccoli) for dinner, to no avail.  Everyone is aware that he knows how to put food on a fork or spoon and put it in his mouth….what he is lacking is the WILL to eat vegetables or to try something new.

Much frustration can happen when we confuse issues of SKILL and WILL. Many people will make up excuses when they don’t have the skill to do something, or avoid it entirely because they are not confident. Unfortunately, they may then be treated with discipline, annoyance or intolerance from their coach or instructor.

Taking our cues from how we want to treat kids, we should treat a lack of skill with positive coaching and encouragement which can lead to persistent practice (making perfect bunny ears). Finally, the skill will be mastered, confidence high and momentum will push us forward.

Turns out patience IS a virtue.

118 Years Later

The first official Labor Day in 1894 was all about working conditions in a era where many Americans (some as young as 6 or 7) worked 12-14 hour days for meager wages. Now, 118 years later, many also see the holiday as a way to celebrate the end of summer.

Over those 118 years many things have changed, but some things remain. In the late 1800s many workers were employed in manufacturing and industrial type jobs, but even then they were searching for a common purpose, a feeling of unity, communication from their managers, equality, fair wages and respect. 

Working conditions then were so horrible that workers began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay. On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first Labor Day parade in U.S. history.  
But, it was not until 12 years later, in the wake of a strike by the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago that created massive unrest; that Congress attempted to repair ties with American workers and passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and all the territories. 

As you end summer with a Labor Day celebration, reflect on the history of American workers  -- we've come a long way, but improving your relationship with your people, or helping your people improve is still at the heart of what makes businesses excel. If you need assistance. We can help!



 

Great Moments

Watching some of the best athletes in world push out every ounce of courage, strength and determination in these XXX Olympic Games, it is easy to rejoice with the winners.

But the heartbreaks sometimes make more of an impact. Because many of these competitors do not let a loss break them down. They have a drive inside to be the best and that shows on the outside.

Some of the most memorable comebacks in history have happened during the Olympic Games. In 1980, the U.S. Hockey team trailed 3-2 against the Soviet Union going into the third period, but they came back, took the lead and won gold. A movie was made about that team, Miracle featuring Kurt Russell as Coach Brooks. If you haven’t seen it or heard the famed pep talk, it is definitely worth watching.

More recently, gymnast Kerri Strugg pressed forward in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta as she vaulted on an injured ankle to help her team win gold.

Speed skater Dan Jansen had a catastrophic performance in the 1988 Olympics when he fell twice after learning of the death of his sister, but he did not quit. He came back in 1992, four years older, but determined to win, and he did…a gold medal!

These athletes are extraordinary in their sports. But, inside they are just like the rest of us, they need a mission, a purpose and vision of how to get there. Like us, they are using what is on the inside to build excellence on the outside.

That is what we want for your company, your career and your life.

We'll Listen

This week's news that Marissa Mayer left her post as VP at Google, to take the helm at Yahoo, left me wondering if her job at Google made her happy. Why would she leave to join the competition?

It’s a question as old as time. What is the key to happiness? Some would say money, power, fame or love perhaps.

Love in the workplace is translated to a feeling of belonging, working toward a common purpose, feeling like part of a family. The lack of it is one of the reasons people often leave a "dream job", or feel lackluster after a few years with a company and begin to just put in their time.

What makes a person happy with their job is different in every case. They might want personal and professional development, more money, more time off, casual Fridays, an office with a window, recognition for a job well done or a host of other things to numerous to mention.

When you get down to it, you have to listen to find out what people want and figure out how to make it happen. Keeping good employees content, happy and coming back for more is the dream of every manager. Need help? Drop us a line, we’ll listen. info@chadcarden.com

“Ways to make 2012 your BEST year yet!”

Define what success means to you and make sure you have a plan to get there. Write it down and carry it with you so you can review it from time to time. If you have already done this make sure you are still on the right track.

Make sure that you have the right attitude. To have the right attitude to improve you must answer “yes” to these four questions. Do I need to? Do I want to? Can I? Will I? Ask yourself these four questions and when you can answer yes to all four of them you are ready to move forward.

Plan your work and work your plan. Make any midcourse adjustments if you find yourself off track.

Recommit to your career, a relationship, a new start, and get excited again by setting goals, thinking about your long-term vision and where you truly want to end up to reach your definition of success, it is amazing what you can accomplish.

Continue to ask yourself, “Is what I am doing right now, being busy or being productive?”

Remember, today is the only day you have. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is not here yet. Make the most of today by focusing on what is right, not what is wrong.

Deal with your setbacks. Everyone has them, but letting them steal your confidence, and plan for the long-term is not the answer, you must continue to persist through setbacks.

Be patient and stay the course as you move in the direction of your success. Remember “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Reward yourself when you achieve one of your goals or meet a deadline.

Don’t worry what other people think about you. They are so wrapped up in their own lives that they are not thinking about you.

Be thankful for what you have and for what you have achieved.

Make sure that the people you hang around with have your best interest at heart. If they don’t find some new people to hang around with.

Block out all the noise and concentrate on the things that you can control.

Make sure that you stay organized so that important matters don’t fall through the cracks.

Do the most important and hardest tasks first. They are easier to accomplish when you are fresh and rested.

Work at staying healthy. Without your health nothing else really matters.

Don’t live in the past, just learn from it. Don’t live in the future, just prepare for it. If you do either of these you will miss out on all the great things that are happening today.

Keep a smile on your face. It is great for your attitude and takes a lot less work than it does to frown.

Being Realistic

People and companies want instant gratification. We have little patience. That is why employees feel as if everything is the flavor of the month. Earlier we discussed how a company starts an initiative. This same scenario works when it comes to patience. We want things to happen now, and set unrealistic timeframes. I am just as guilty. As CCG grows I want things to happen fast. Sometimes I need to consciously remind myself of my expected timeframes. Remember my analogy about how a company starts an initiative, and the plan on paper is a great plan? What most companies underestimate is how long the plan will take to work. We used a football field earlier so let’s stay on the same field. A company starts on the 5 yard line with the goal being; get to the other end zone 95 yards away. The initiative gets to the 50 yard line and the company begins to ask why aren’t things working (i.e. why aren’t we in the end zone yet)? We lose patience, scrap that plan and start with a new plan back at the five yard line (new flavor). What companies should look at is the progress that has been made, and what needs to happen to move progress along faster. Once again, it is about mindset. Choosing to look at things in a different way allows us to see things through different eyes. Even the slightest change in the way we look at something and giving it the proper patience can have a huge impact on the outcomes.

To see something from start to finish these days is rare, but when done right the results can be unbelievable. I see that all the time. Companies want instant gratification and at first their excitement level for change is very high, but over time something happens. Their excitement level begins to fade and people forget about their commitments to “changing the culture/ fabric/DNA”, and amazingly when this happens things go right back to normal. Again, you have flavor of the month! Remember we discussed Jim Winner’s four phases of attitude? People get bored quickly and begin the looking phase. Stay the course and be patient. Good things will begin to happen when we build good habits and create profitable action. When we want true change, we must stay focused on the prize or goal and not the price. It takes very strong leadership from within an organization to allow change to happen over time and without strong leadership; it becomes almost impossible for change to happen.

Patience is a quality most great leaders possess, and we must possess it too. We must stay lock step with the end goal and “center the needle” daily reminding ourselves of the prize. Setting and resetting the vision and crystal clear expectations must be an ongoing “to do” daily, weekly and monthly to get the true change we are looking for. Most people and companies truly underestimate what it takes to be world class.

Patience

Patience is something we all struggle with, instant gratification is what we expect, and when it doesn’t happen we get frustrated. We expect our sales people to understand how to sell better after a one day sales workshop, our leaders to take a two day leadership workshop and have their people figured out. We expect to go to the gym for two weeks and see a big transformation. Patience is a huge part to any successful project. To be able to stay patient, we must keep our eyes on the progress of the project, not the results. Also when it comes to results, they come in many different forms. It might be bottom line impact, positive atmosphere, better attendance, higher customer sat scores, etc… On the personal side, it could be saving money, losing weight, spending more time with your family, carving out more time to spend on hobbies, etc… We must remained laser focused on progress moving forward. Also, we must remind everyone why we are doing the things we are doing and keep the end goal in mind.

Staying consciously aware of our long term goals can help us from getting frustrated by short term obstacles. We shouldn’t measure results too early, but, we should stay focused overall on what we are trying to accomplish. For example, Sarah, my wife, is training for a half-marathon that is coming up in 3 months. When you train for a marathon you start by knowing and understanding what the final goal is, which is to be able to complete the race. You must keep your eyes on the long term goal of finishing the race, and at the same time be able to look at the daily positive movement. Sarah actually began her training schedule three months before the race. This is vital to staying patient. It’s also important to know what the long term goals are. By knowing our long term goals in any area of our life; we don’t have to ask “why are we doing this?” We know why, because it ultimately takes us to our long term vision.

P.E.P.P. Preparation Execution Persistence and Patience: A Rulebook To Achieving Success In Any Area Of Your life!

This Blog has been put together with the intention to help you see the process of success as manageable and realistic. In anything we do in life these four key elements play a very important role. We must prepare before we go into battle. We must execute our plan, or our plan is worthless. Action is required along with having a positive outlook that good things will happen. We must persist! We must not let little obstacles stand in our way. Finally we must have patience. Things take time to work. We live in a world of instant gratification, where people want things and they want them now. People want to become the best, the "Michael Jordan's or the Warren Buffett's", yet they are not willing to go through what the best go through to become the best. These examples can go on forever. We must be willing to have patience as we prepare, execute, and persist!

I want to help everyone reading this to see success as a fun journey. People must have fun in life or things become stale. These next few paragraphs will help you with a step by step process, you will understand the formula to have success in life, both personally and professionally, however you define success. By the way, that is the very first step! You must define what success means to you. To many times we are living life inside someone else's plan for success. Define success for you personally and professionally and then put a plan together that is right for you! Finally you must execute your plan.

For someone who cares about helping people set themselves up for success by helping people change the way they look at life, I have been fighting this battle for the past 12 years and continue to fight everyday to help more and more people set themselves up for success in their personal and professionals lives. I have had the privilege to work with over 100,000 people all across the globe helping them get on the right path to success (however they define the word "success"). Working with people through self-help, motivation, financial planning, career planning, business planning, leadership and sales development, and building self-confidence, I have seen a lot of people and companies who are truly searching for answers about themselves and their very own lives. I have decided to find continued ways to help as many people as possible with the power of P.E.P.P. The P.E.P.P. Formula can and will help you improve your life if you actually take action with these suggestions.

Improving one's life is a two-way street. First, one must know what do to and how to do it, and second one must take action! I have run across a lot of people who hear but don't listen, others who listen but don't understand, others who understand but don't agree, others who agree, but don't think they have the ability to accomplish, and finally those who have the ability to accomplish but don't execute (no action).

It is my goal to get you to actually execute, take action, and improve your life to reach your definition of success in many different areas of your life. As you read about P.E.P.P., think about ways you can take immediate action that will move you in the right direction towards your dreams, goals, and desires, in any area of your life. Taking the first step is sometimes the hardest, but once you do and you create momentum it is amazing what results you can and will produce. Remember to always be moving forward in a positive direction! Get out of the "rocking chair" mode. A rocking chair never moves forward, and we always want to be moving forward. Whether you move forward an inch or a mile, that doesn't matter, as long as you are moving in a positive direction. I challenge you to write your thoughts down and then execute your plan. Who knows, you just might come up with ideas that can change your life.

Use P.E.P.P. to improve you life! Prepare, execute, persist and be patience and watch your dreams become a reality.

Spend More Time Reviewing Your Finances

Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen teamed up to write a book called The One-Minute Millionaire. It’s a fantastic book written in two parts, so it’s great for people who are more creative and want to read a story, and for people who are more analytical who just want the facts. One of the points they make in the book is that millionaires spend an extra few minutes on their finances every day. Some people say they don’t have time to focus on their finances, but we’re not talking about hours and hours of reconciling bank statements. It’s an extra couple of minutes deciding whether or not you really need that pair of shoes you just picked up. It’s an extra couple of minutes figuring out what you have left in your checkbook. If you really want to get serious about monitoring your progress, spend a few minutes a day on Quicken or some other financial software that helps you track you’re spending, saving, and investing. Just spend a little extra time every day and see the progress you’re making.

In order to monitor your financial progress, obviously you need to have some defined money goals. For some, this may mean sticking within a budget and monitoring that closely. For others, it may mean determining by what day they want to have their debt paid. You may have a desired income goal for the month – or maybe you’ve been eyeing something in a store for some time and you’re saving the money to pay cash for it. Whatever your money goals are, you must determine how long it will take you to reach those goals and strive every day/week/ month to achieve them.

Finally, make a commitment to yourself that you want to WIN The Money Game. Make a commitment to stick to your budget, to pay off your credit cards, to live within your means, and to pay cash for everything. If you need help staying accountable, ask a friend, family member, or co-worker to keep you on track. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone checking in on your progress. If you should happen to falter or take a couple of steps back on your progress, re-commit to yourself that you WILL accomplish what you set out to do: WIN The Money Game!