Speaking of Leadership
Dan on Twitter- danmulhern: Manage ur mind in the recession. Grt post by @ellenfweber http://bit.ly/bHSQR9 See why I'm having her on Sat's show http://bit.ly/8krEqu
- danmulhern: Got some good ideas for this week's radio show for #LaborDay. Share YOUR ideas or good ????s on my FB fanpage http://bit.ly/bsYBss
- danmulhern: RT @SocialGuide When is the Best Time to Tweet? http://bit.ly/cAaxdZ
- danmulhern: @mcort What do you think of this small-sample-research on the best times to tweet? http://bit.ly/SwLtd Are there better sources?
- danmulhern: What do you think would be good questions 4me to raise on radio 4 #LaborDay? Future of the middle class? Of org labor? plz RT
Jul
28
Leading in Tough Times 6 – Faith and Framing
Filed Under All Posts | 14 Comments
Friends,
It is a truism that a good lawyer never asks a question in court whose answer she doesn’t know. But some of the fun of live radio is doing just that. You take a flier on a question without really knowing what you’ll get. That happened this weekend when I inquired of John Patricolo, executive vice president of Right Management Associates, “I may be putting you on the spot, but I wonder if you’d hazard a guess at what percentage of the clients your company has helped through downsizing and career transitions have felt better about their work and their lives 6 months or a year after coming to you than before they were downsized?” John, whose firm has helped thousands of folks make that tough life transition, hardly hesitated: “Eighty percent, I’d say.” I expected a pretty healthy number. 80% really blew me away.
John’s data flies in the face of our rather depressing conventional knowledge. Conventional knowledge says: challenge is bad; loss is bad; and suffering is definitely bad. And conventional knowledge says: with good leadership, things will always grow, get better, be smooth. But that defies all laws, the laws of nature, of economics, or of the world of spirit. Things don’t forever arc upward. Instead change is constant, things grow and things shrink, hair grows and then hairlines recede, nights get longer but then shorter, jobs challenge and then jobs become obsolete. I feel for people who are jolted by a downsizing, a bad health report, or a life loss. But I also pull back my mind’s camera, frame things larger, and remember that such losses almost never have to be an end but almost always open up to new beginnings.
The conventional view of Michigan’s economy is that the sky is falling. But observers are missing thousands of rebirths that are accompanying bad news. Individuals are finding new careers (according to Patricolo, 63% of downsized folks in the Southeast Michigan region are finding jobs there) that are frequently better. Companies are, albeit painfully, reinventing themselves. Companies like Herman Miller have paid close attention to their core values and emerged from downsizing as stronger companies. Individuals in pain are rediscovering enduring values of faith, family, love, and sometimes a long lost passion toward work. And whole new industries are rising up.
One thing we can do as leaders is to draw the frame back from the tight focus on the immediate and see that in crisis lie myriad opportunities for growth. Our own eagerness and resilience and our FAITH will serve us well as we lead others through times that appear dark but can and usually will yield to the light.
Look for opportunities for rebirth as you
Lead with your best self!
Dan
Jul
21
Friends,
On the Everyday Leadership radio show our goal is to “make work work.â€Â A waitress wanted advice and said: my clientele is changing, less people are eating out, and tips are down . . . but, she added, I know you can’t help me with that. A distant bell was ringing in my head, about a study I once read that said servers who find a way to physically touch their customers get higher tips. So, I went Googling for it, and he came up on page one of my search.
I mean Professor Michael Wynn who teaches at Cornell University. He has done tens – maybe fifty – studies on the variables that affect tipping. Can you guess some? Introducing yourself by name, crouching down to talk, repeating the customer’s orders back to them, thanking them by name (usually from seeing their credit card), and yes, physically touching them. So, I started out on a non-scientific study, asking servers if they knew these things. Almost none did. And I asked Professor Wynn whether restaurant management routinely teach wait staff about this research. Very infrequently, he answered - despite the obvious rewards they stand to reap from customer satisfaction and loyalty.
What’s the everyday leadership lesson? In tough times, get the research about your everyday work. We do over and over again what we have done over and over again. Yet Google is always sitting right there in our office, waiting for us to learn there’s a simple, better, more efficient way, and a way that’s probably been proven.  When was the last time you searched on your core task or tasks to find out what’s new, proven, and effective? Google will give you results in under a second. Got a minute?
In tough times:Â Control what you can control, and in your core business, learn all you can to
Lead with your best self!
Dan
Jul
14
Leading in Tough Times 4 – Problem into Opportunity – Graffiti or Art?
Filed Under All Posts | 9 Comments
Friends,
Challenging times. Somber stuff. I was going to write about three types of folks challenged by layoffs: the one receiving the bad news, the one delivering the bad news, and the workers left behind. A core message was to be this: stay open to rebirth and deep purpose. Then I came to Philly.
We’re here for the National Governors Association meeting and I was fortunate to land on a tour of some of Philadelphia’s 2,800 – yes, two thousand eight hundred – murals. The project began in 1984, when Mayor Wilson Goode created the Anti-Graffiti Network and hired Jane Golden, a muralist, to run it. Golden began taking graffiti artists (not called artists by many at the time) and directing them in a project to learn about and produce murals. Twelve years later, Mayor Rendell created a public-private partnership called the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and it is now known around the world.
Think of all the people complaining, or to put it kindly, expressing righteous indignation about the messy graffiti. And think of all the people bemoaning urban decay, the decline of an industrial city, the hopelessness of a once-great revolutionary city. There was plenty of challenge, fear, depression, anger, scapegoating, etc. Someone(s) saw opportunity. No one could have imagined 2,800 murals – and 100 more every year; 5,000 people annually touring the sites; 3,000 kids served through 56 sites every year; a prisoner art program and prison re-entry initiative; 100 Philadelphia schools involved in teaching and creating murals to uplift older buildings and playgrounds. And perhaps most importantly, prior to those 100 new murals a year, 100 community groups discussing their stories of culture, of heroes, of values, of what they want to literally and figuratively uplift for themselves and those who pass through their neighborhoods. And before those murals were even finished, they set off spontaneous sparks of pride, creativity, and expression on the block and in the surrounding neighborhood. The vibrancy is palpable.
If there’s something that you are tired of tolerating, ask yourself: where’s the possibility – the opportunity – for something altogether new and better? What might you help bring into being, in life’s amazing cycles of death and resurrection, decay and revitalization. Check out www.muralarts.org or check out the book Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell to get inspired by some amazing examples of folks,
Leading with their best self!
Dan
Jul
7
Leading in Tough Times 3 – fundamentals for leading with authority
Filed Under All Posts | 6 Comments
Friends,
Are you in, or have you been in, a system under great pressure, facing overwhelming challenges? If so, tell me if your experience has been like mine:
In systems – e.g., family, job shop, company, church – where the system’s survival is under stress . . . individuals look out for their own self interest, their own survival. Sure a few think they better cling to the ship at all costs. A some small number of others are exceedingly self-sacrificing. And a tiny fraction have splendidly rose-colored glasses and don’t believe the boat will keep taking on water. Some, yes, are noble to the point of heroics. But many, I dare say most, when the system is under pressure, will increasingly see the world through a lens of “me†not “we.â€Â If you’re the parent, you won’t necessarily see how a kid in a divorcing family will retreat into a highly personal view of survival. You won’t know in a struggling company how many people are going to Monster.com. When you’re the mayor or manager in a city under great strain you won’t hear how people are talking about their own safety or their own kids’ schools. But you know they are. So, what do you do when you want them to think about others, about the whole, the community, family, city?
1. Talk about the value of the whole. “We are the Jones Family. . .â€Â “We are Dansville. . .â€Â “We are Acme. . .â€Â  If YOU, in authority – the parent, the boss, the owner, the pastor – don’t have pride about your family, your company, your community – in these troubled times, then why should they? Talk about why they should want to belong.
2.    Interpret the reality. Yes, they know this is a divorce. They know, to quote the kids, “it sucks.â€Â They know the company’s in trouble. They know that you’re not as charismatic as their last pastor, and some families have left the church. But help them understand that you know something about why. You know something about what caused it. You see that people are nervous. You understand that anxiety. And you’re not panicking.
3.    Let them know that you have some strategy to make things better. Communicate the plan.
4.    Ask for their help. Tell the kids they can make a difference in the divorcing family. Ask the employees how they can cut costs or help sell. Engage the church members in finding a new way to build community.
In short: communicate more than ever before. If you don’t engage them in a view of the whole and their place in it, they will retreat to their personal self interest. If you’re not sure what it looks like, rent “It’s a Wonderful Life,†and watch George Bailey when there’s a run on the bank: Educate about the crisis, inspire a communal spirit, communicate a plan, and give them a way to help.
Be like George Bailey, the quintessential everyday leader, and
Lead with your best self!
Dan
Product Specials
Everyday Leadership: Getting Results in Business, Politics, and Life (7 Disc Audio CD)
Everyday Leadership offers strategies to improve leadership skills, achieve results, and gain greater satisfaction in these hectic times. It speaks to the everyday leader, whether that person is a principal, pastor, parent, or CEO.
$34.99
$24.99