INOCULATE

Not About Bird Flu

Most people are familiar with what it means to inoculate someone. You inject a small dose of virus into the blood stream in order to build immunity. The small dose may cause a minor illness, but the trade-off is worth avoiding a major illness and possibly death.
Leaders can inoculate their workplace to prepare employees for upcoming increases in problem-solving, workload and stress by simulating the event, or inoculation.
This is much like the two-minute drill in American football. The team must perform almost flawlessly in order to score the winning points. Teams practice the two-minute drill every week to prepare for this possibility. In the event of a rout, the team sets aside the two-minute drill for the current contest, but it will be practiced again next week.
Athletes know that if you want to perform at a maximum level under duress, you must condition your mind and body to act reflexively. You must have faced the intensity of the situation as often as possible in order to defeat thoughts of doubt or imperfect physical reactions that lead to a loss. Inoculation.
In addition to physical practice, athletes also condition their minds through the use of mental imagery. Mental imagery allows the athlete to see themselves in a pressure situations and “role play” how they will respond. The mind works like a tape recorder, replaying the images until everything feels right. The more the mind sees the successful outcome, the more it will program the body and other intangibles to be ready. Inoculation.
Businesses fail to inoculate employees and their leadership. Perhaps the thought is that it is a waste of time to prepare for something that may never happen or may happen with less intensity. Here’s the challenge: turn on quality thinking like you would a light. You know, like the image of a person with a light bulb over their head.
Well-prepared people practice thinking and procedures. Professional rescuers continually practice knowledge and skills. They know that if you don’t continuous practice key skills, you fail to respond in a timely and efficient manner. Inoculation.
Thinking is a skill and needs to be practiced. If you want to be surrounded by problem-solvers, you need to offer practice sessions. Just like athletes or rescuers, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it, so you set up simulations and classes. It is unwise to wait until you need quality thinking to get people together to think. It is not that easy to turn it on. Inoculation.
When businesses practice the “as needed” approach, chances are they will get “shallow thinking.” From an employee’s view, it’s a half-hearted effort to provide feedback. Since no one has invested in them since the last “think tank”, they are not prepared to think. Even with the best intentions, the thinking won’t provide much innovation or research. The skill of thinking has diminished.
Businesses say they look for people with outstanding thinking skills. Unfortunately, if that person ends up staying with a company that doesn’t have time to practice thinking, those skills will be wasted. And, as with the flu season, if there are insufficient doses of vaccine the outcomes could be tragic.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

MORE ILLITERACY?

Reading Success Is A Family Affair

In a recent issue of USA Today (05-23-2006), a research study by an independent, non-partisan group stated that today’s graduating education majors are under prepared to teach reading using the latest strategies and tools. Reading, a fundamental staple in the course of our lives and our commitment to continuous education, will not get the most advanced ideas for improvement because, apparently, something else in the college curriculum for education majors was more important. Does it seem like every time we turn around, “we shoot ourselves in the foot?”
Unless you have been living in isolation or out of the country for the last 5 years, reading and comprehension scores have been a focus of No Child Left Behind legislation. Poor test results will close schools (including terminating teachers) that don’t meet annual yearly progress standards (there’s that word again; see yesterday’s blog).
There’s an old story that asks why a worker spends all day fixing bent bumpers for automobiles. Why not find the source of the problem and fix the manufacturing process? One time fix and you’re done. While few things in education can be labeled as a one-time fix, it would help if schools were choosing from a pool of innovative individuals prepared to teach reading in every subject area.
And yes, I know about standardized testing that supposedly measures a future teacher’s ability to be an expert in the classroom. Unfortunately the test does not measure the individual’s passion. Give me an emotionally charged teacher that energizes his or her classroom any day over a good test taker.
If you think reading test scores have been horrible over the past few years, you may be seeing more of the same. There is a remedy; teaching good reading skills is not a teacher’s job alone. There is no excuse for parents to shirk their duty to promote reading at home. The best readers come from homes that read. You know, little things like a daily newspaper, weekly news or financial magazine or maybe, just maybe, a book. It works.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

MEDIOCRITY

Average: A Kind Word for Mediocre

“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself and lenient to everybody else.”

---Henry Ward Beecher

For years I have believed that standards create mediocrity. In school if a student meets standards, he or she can expect no worse than a “C” and quite possibly an undervalued “A”. Standards make it easy to reach academic goals. Standards limit the push students need to embrace additional accountability. Once the majority knows what the minimum is, that’s usually what they will produce. This kind of commitment doesn’t serve people very well in the “real world.”
Further, talented students tend not to realize their full potential because either they easily meet the standards or there is a lack of a challenge from the majority who are doing just enough to get by. If the only career a person will have is to be a student, then let standards rule. By all accounts, average should never be a goal.
At the workplace, standards also prevent a business from reaching new levels of success. Once a standard is set, the business has capped the person’s initiative. Standards seem to actually de-motivate people instead of encouraging excellence. Larger workforces, principally thanks to their scholastic and collegiate experiences, do the minimum.
One area of the “real world” where standards don’t dictate outcomes is in small businesses or with entrepreneurs. In this situation, everyday is about striving for excellence.
Over 80 percent of all small businesses fail within 5 years. Internet businesses fail at a 99 percent rate. The commitment to excellence is the only barrier between staying open and closing. Corporate standards are pale compared to the self-motivated drive a small business person needs to be successful (this is not to be confused with unethical practices). People in business for themselves work 24 x 7, holidays and possibly 52 weeks every year. Corporate America would love to have that type of commitment.
Beecher’s quote is the perfect mantra for everyone: set your standards high and seek excellence. For those around you, be a great role model and show them what they can achieve. Just don’t ask them to be like you.

WHY? IT’S YOUTH

And The Young Shall Lead

The reality of our lives as we get older, it’s the young that keeps us motivated an excited. Regardless if it is a baby, puppy or kitten, the energy and excitement the very young bring is “priceless.” Take an “old guy” and a new puppy and you just shaved 10 years off his life. Sure it’s demanding but the rewards will last for a very long time.
So why have a melancholy start to this article? Well, we “oldsters” need to adopt another gift from the young: asking “Why?” You know how it goes: “Why not? or Why is that?”
It seems like we stopped asking Why? after we heard No or Just because for the thousandth time. At work, it’s more subtle: it’s the old, My way or the highway. We got the delivered message that someone either knew better or there wasn’t time to allow your thoughts to enter into the decision.
Well, take back some of your control and ask “Why?” Keep asking “Why?” until you get an answer that fits your framework or at least makes sense. The more we discover, the better the outcome.
In sales, people with good sales numbers usually ask 3 times for the sale before ending the sales attempt. In your meetings or your relationships at home, ask “Why?” at least 3 times to see where the discussion leads. If the thread of conversation begins to fall apart doing the “Why’s?” then the other side needs to do more research (or have a better presentation) in order to “sell” you.
This is not an encouragement to be obtuse. Rather, thinking is a skill and asking Why? may lead to new alternatives that would go undiscovered if you only shrugged your shoulders.
It will seem odd at first to ask “Why?” and then repeat it several times. That’s just the adult part of you trying to dismantle kid part of you. Take it from the young: it’s not embarrassing and it’s worth the effort!