Do You Have Career ADD?

I've been wanting to write this post for many months because there's been an exponential increase in what I see happening out there in business. Are you paying ATTENTION? Are you PRESENT when you work? Do you solve PROBLEMS or do you put them off?

More and more, I see a clear divide between two types of people:

One type, let's call them the Makers & Shakers, come to work early, work with excellence, think outside of the box, take calculated risks, deliver on-time (or early), and stay true to their promises. The get the job done and ensure their bosses and teams respect them. Their clients, customers, and vendors sing their praises and they come to the job with a big smile and a positive attitude.

The other type, let's call them the Slackers & Fakers, don't live up to and fall quite short of the Makers & Shakers' level. They are late to every engagement, they do 'just enough to get by' at work, they do the same thing every day without improvement, they are usually late with all deliverables, and over-promise and under-deliver. They rarely complete what they say they're going to do and their bosses and teams regularly have issues with their performance and decisions. Their clients, customers, and vendors are slowly going away or shunning them. Finally, they come to the job with a huge weight on their shoulders and complain incessantly about all the bad luck they're having.

Which one are you? You probably say to yourself, "I'm a Maker & Shaker!". But there's a trick here.

This delineation is not a light switch — it's a spectrum. At one end are the Maker & Shakers and at the other the Slackers & Fakers. Somewhere on that spectrum line falls your present state and your future.

Look back at your current performance (it doesn't matter if you have your own business or if you work for an organization) and score where you fall within the BIG 7:

1. Regularly come to work (or meetings) early or arrive late?
2. Think outside of the box or just get by with the same old stuff?
3. Stay true to all of your promises or over-promise and under-deliver?
4. Get the job done or procrastinate and miss deadlines?
5. Boss & team respects you or they have issues with your performance/decisions?
6. Client/Customers/Vendors love or shun you?
7. A positive and enthusiastic attitude every day or a negative and complaining attitude?

ACTION: Draw a line on a piece of paper and chart where you fall on each of the BIG 7 items. Be honest!

If you have Career ADD, most of your BIG 7 items fall closer to the Slackers & Fakers end. You need to start addressing some of the more serious areas — but the best part? It's a simple choice and your state of mind. Any one of the BIG 7 can be turned around with a concerted, willful effort and repeated attention to not slack back to the dark side of the BIG 7.

It's easy to make the decision — unfortunately, it's hard to make it a habit. You have a lot of work to do.

P.S. In no way is the use of the term ADD in this blog a denigration of people who suffer from ADD. I used the term to capture an associative behavior that impacts the typical executive or business owner.

Image provided by gemsling at Flickr.

Five Reasons Why Leaders Fail (& Why Failures Lead).

It's hard to be a leader in today's economy. Add that you need equal parts of courage, vision, empathy, and reality (Peter Koestenbaum's Leadership Diamond) AND get your work done, it's almost impossible. I've reduced my list of hundreds down to five — and here they are: 1. You move from confident to cocky. There is a fine line between confidence and cockyness — my definition:

Confident - fully comfortable in their skin, able to hold their own in most situations, but always willing to learn from others to better oneself. Cocky - fully comfortable in their skin, able to hold their own in most situations, knows it all - and let's everyone know that fact.

Be more humble — keep your mind open to new ideas. This leads me to my next reason:

2. You speak more than you listen. Pontification is a rampant disease of leaders. Candidly, as you move from communicating to pontification, you slowly lose the attention of the very people that you are speaking to. Communication is a two-way street — so feel free to let your people know what you are thinking and impart key information, but please fit in a bit of listening to complete the circle. It will go miles whenever you communicate with your team.

3. You care more about your performance than your team's performance. This primarily affects new managers than accomplished ones, but it does creep in sometimes when times are hard for the company. We all fall back on touting our own laurels rather than bringing up the rear with stories of the real performers of your company — your team. Try to pick one person and one action every so often and message it to the people that matter. It will pay dividends in exposure and good will from your team.

4. You manage upwards significantly more than downwards. A corollary to the previous reason — when we focus on ourselves, we tend to manage upwards to hone impressions of our performance. When we spend time doing this, we tend to forget that our job is to manage our people — which is quite easy to do:

a. Give them the information they need to do their job. b. Motivate them when required. c. Help them get rid of any obstacles.

If you spend more time on your people, everything else will fall into place. If you would like to read more on leadership, read this.

5. You care more about where you're going than where you are. Everyone becomes enamored with shiny objects — add to that a bit of executive ADD, and you tend to look elsewhere for better vistas. I'm not saying not to do this (it's always good to keep your options open), but you also need to pay attention to where you are. Too many executives come onto the scene, make a big splash, pull in a big client or coup, and then immediately get distracted and look for other shores to conquer. Slow down, enjoy the accolades and see if there are bigger beasts to manage where you are — it might pay off in the long run.