In most organizations – corporations, governments, not-for-profits, families, schools - setting high standards is the result of a small number of things done extremely well.  Choosing those few practices that are the necessary conditions for high performance, and making them simple (but not necessarily easy – that is a different thing) is the art behind brilliance. Google is one organization, whose extraordinary success is largely attributable to just eight important ideas.  Here they are:

1.) Be a good coach. Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive. Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to your employees’ specific strengths.

2.) Empower your team and don’t micromanage. Balance giving freedom to your employees, while still being available for advice. Make “stretch” assignments to help the team tackle big problems.

3.) Express interest in team members’ success and personal well-being. Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work. Make new members of your team feel welcome and help ease their transition.

4.) Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented. Focus on what employees want the team to achieve and how they can help achieve it. Help the team prioritize work and use seniority to remove roadblocks.

5.) Be a good communicator and listen to your team. Communication is two-way: you both listen and share information. Hold all-hands meetings and be straightforward about the messages and goals of the team. Help the team connect the dots. Encourage open dialogue and listen to the issues and concerns of your employees.

6.) Help your employees with career development.

7.) Have a clear vision and strategy for the team. Even in the midst of turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy. Involve the team in setting and evolving the team’s vision and making progress toward it.

8.) Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team. Roll up your sleeves and conduct work side by side with the team, when needed. Understand the specific challenges of the work.

Read more in the the New York Times article.

The Secretan Center Inc. partners with CoachVille, the largest network of coaches in the world, to teach, train and certify coaches in a credentialed coaching program. A new Higher Ground Leadership® Coach Certification series begins April 29, 2013. The program consists of 7 two-hour teleclasses, and a practicum, supervised by Dr. Lance Secretan and Deanna Stull, General Manager of CoachVille, which provides 14 CCEU’s in Coach Specific Training. Registrants also receive a free copy of the Spirit@Work Cards (value $100).

As a member of our growing community of coaches this program will enable you to deepen your understanding of both the philosophy and methodology of Higher Ground Leadership®, adding it to you existing formal coach training and certification. Our coaches are a community collaborating and supporting each other, and their clients, using this life-changing work to inspire individuals and organizations to transform their lives and live their ONE Dream®.

Register or find more details here

Over the years we have developed a number of surveys which are used by our clients for:

1.  Strengthening coaching relationships,

2.  Assessing employee engagement,

3.  Measuring corporate climate,

4.  Surveying leadership strengths,

5.  Measuring on-the-job stress and burnout, and

6.  Calibrating the degree to which an organization’s culture engages the spirit.

These last two have been completely updated and I would like to introduce the new versions to you.

1. The Job Burnout Survey: We originally developed this survey many years ago.  It was the result of our discovery of the shockingly frequent and deep presence of stress in the workplace. In our transformational work with leaders and teams we frequently encounter complaints about the stressful nature of work, bosses, colleagues and customers. So we developed instruments to measure the level of stress on the job. We have just completed a full revision of this instrument, validating it against other instruments and the data we have received from hundreds of organizations, and it is now available for you – FREE. Please test drive it and let us know what you think.
2. The Soulscreen:  If the Job Burnout Survey  measures the profane then The Soulscreen measures the polar opposite – the sacred. If an inspiring work environment, at its very best, engages and nourishes the soul, then this instrument is a means for calibrating the degree to which we are successful in this objective. Most organizations focus on “employee engagement”, and this is mostly concerned with the personality and ego. Besides, we should be looking for something far superior, and more exciting, than mere “engagement” – we should be looking for inspiration. In other words, great organizations are ones in which the employees are so inspired they inspire customers. In an organization that has reached a higher level of consciousness and performance, the culture has moved beyond the limiting idea of simply meeting the needs of the personality, and has moved on to include both the personality AND the soul. This instrument has also been rebuilt and refined and the latest version is now available for you to test drive – FREE. We welcome your comments.

Enjoy these new iterations of our work and if you have ideas about how we can improve them or help you to use them, please let us know .

1. By putting these three steps together—Destiny, Character, and Calling—we bring clarity to who we are. It affirms Why we are here, how we will Be, and what we will Do during our visit to this planet
2. Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet—thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing—consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.
3. If you don’t believe that we should love all others—what exactly do you believe?
4. Inspiration and effectiveness always wax and wane together—both the quality and quantity of output are directly influenced by our level of inspiration at any given time.
5. Inspiring leadership, and being inspired, flows from joy—not success—from the soul more than the personality
6. In order to unlock the potential and power of modern leadership to transform clients, organizations, communities, cities, and countries or the world, we must understand and harness the power of our dreams.
7. Truth is a powerful economic tool. In fact, there is probably no single initiative that could boost profits more than a radical commitment to truthfulness—not Kaizen, Six Sigma, cost-cutting, TQM, or any other of the popular “profit improvement programs.”
8. Whenever we experience pain or sadness, it is because we have become separated from what, or whom, we love. And whenever we are inspired and joyful, it is because we are one with what, or whom, we love. All human challenges and successes can be explained through this awareness.
9. One of the greatest needs of the human spirit is to be inspired and to inspire.
10. Inspiration is the oxygen of the soul.
11. Inspiration comes from love, not fear—we cannot be inspired if we are not loving and loved.
12. Motivation is a relationship between personalities; inspiration is a relationship between souls.
13. We yearn to move from feeling tired to inspired.

I watched the latest James Bond blockbuster, “Skyfall” this week.

Spoiler alert: If you intend to see “Skyfall“, do not read on.

I remarked to my wife that the best part of the movie was when Adele sang the theme song.  She replied, “No, I don’t think so - leaving was the best part.”

Our world today is awash with violence - at home, in schools, in sports, in media, in politics, in organizations – and between countries, religions, beliefs, genders and values.

Simultaneously, we celebrate violence in our media and yet decry it in the world – especially when it trespasses into our personal world.  It is almost as if we cheer on violence when it is in someone else’s world, but protest it when it is in ours.

Changing this begins within each of us. Early in the movie “Skyfall”, one of the most gratuitously violent scenes (of many) that takes place occurs when a women is sadistically and deliberately murdered in “a game” of Russian roulette - if we celebrate and glamorize this, we accept and approve of gratuitous violence to women.

This movie is a meandering mess with an aimless plot based on guns, bombs, death, murder, soulless relationships, greed and revenge. (See where your country stands on this subject).

If we aspire to something better for humanity, if we believe in inspiring others to set examples that make us joyful, provide meaning and make the world a better place, then we all need to do better than this. And if we want to nourish our souls, and become leaders who nourish the souls of others, we might start by avoiding this piece of violent trash. By shielding our spirit from this energy, we will each accept personal responsibility for becoming inspiring leaders.

So now comes the real test of leadership.

We have had months of nasty, bitter, mudslinging, character-bashing campaigning between the Hatfields and McCoy’s. And now it is the morning after. It is time for healing, reconciliation, innovation and hope.  More than anything else, Americans – and for that matter the rest of the world – are yearning for a revitalized leadership that inspires everyone – and diminishes no one.

On January 9, 1961, President-Elect John Kennedy used the phrase “city upon a hill” in a speech to the General Court of Massachusetts:

…I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. “We must always consider”, he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us”. Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill — constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities. For we are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arbella in 1630. We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less fantastic than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within. History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required…

The same phrase is more often associated with President Ronald Reagan, who said in his farewell speech on January 11, 1989:

…I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it and see it still….

Two leaders, from different political hues, sharing the same dream for one great nation. This is our leadership moment – a moment when every one of us can become inspiring leaders committed to building a better world.

This is the morning after – and we only get one of these. How we choose to use it is our most important leadership decision.

Tuesday is election day in America – perhaps one of the most significant decisions in a decade.

In my work with leaders I’ve learned that there are two major blocks to progress, innovation and breakthrough, which lead to dysfunctionality:

1.  Blind Addiction: to a belief, ideology, philosophy, tribe or person.
2.  Judgment: A passionately held belief that I am right and others are wrong.

The first block quite often leads to the second one - as in, “My party is right and yours is wrong”.

As we approach this election these two dangerous habits could take us down a very bumpy road. Blind addiction may cause us to vote for the party we have always voted for, even if a careful analysis might suggest that a different party could be more effective this time around.  Judgment makes people defensive and angry – one of the reasons why we have such embedded partisanship in Washington, which has disappointed so many and hobbled our potential.

I am not arguing for any particular party or leader, or for anyone to set aside their duly considered beliefs. And I am not making a political statement.

What I ardently hope is that everyone will take a deep breath, consider what the Founding Fathers would have wished for us now, and which choices represent the best options for us as individuals, as a community, for the world, and for our environment.

As in any great leadership issue - and any great decision – let us choose wisely!

We have partnered with CoachVille for many years – they are the premier coach training organization in the world. We continue our partnership with CoachVille by beginning a new six-week teleclass series for coaches on Monday October 15th at 1400 EDT, taught by Dr. Lance Secretan and CoachVille’s General Manager and Master Coach, Deanna Stull. Sign up for this SIGNATURE SERIES class with Lance as your personal coach.  Lance and Deanna are a formidable team who will light your fire, accelerate your coaching skills, earn CEUs and inspire you to inspire the world.

The techno elves have been busy!

What I have loved about Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, among many things, is the company’s courage in design. Most people would agree that previous iterations of Windows  Phone were a disaster. But Microsoft did a very smart thing – instead of tweaking a really bad system to try and get it right, they ditched the whole thing and started over. The new Windows Phone is, quite frankly, the best operating system out there (all the hoopla about the iPhone notwithstanding) and Windows Phone 8 has just launched. (Disclosure: Microsoft is a client).

We took a leaf out of Microsoft’s playbook. There wasn’t anything really wrong with our website – but it had been around a long time and we needed fresh functionality and a new approach. The creative team at Louisville-based Core Cubed have delivered. The new website is built in WordPress, which means we can tweak it ourselves whenever necessary, and it offers super-speedy navigation for existing clients, those who are checking us out, faculty, and those who read our books, watch our DVDs and buy our products and courses. Please try it and be sure to leave your comments below.

And….

We also have a new iPhone app.  Many will be familiar with the  Spirit @ Work Cards  which have been very popular over the years. Now there is an iPhone app which you can find at the iTunes Store. (just search for (Spirit@Work) It was developed in the Czech Republic by our friends at uLikeIT.  Now you can carry your Spirit@Work Cards with you wherever you go. Please check it out too, and let us know what you think.

There is lots going on at The Secretan Center and much excitement about the future, our work with cities, our transformational work with organizations, and our executive coaching work with some of the finest leaders on the planet, all of which keeps us inspired and at the center of unfolding events. And ski season is just around the corner.

All of us share the ideal of creating inspiring organizations. But as I travel globally working with corporations, healthcare, academia, politics and not-for-profits I often find myself lost in a sea of jargon and buzzwords.

Here is my Top Ten list of most cringe-worthy buzzwords:

10. Core Competency (or Leadership Competency). This meaningless phrase immediately translates the simple into the complex.  Everyone practices a certain level of mastery. Mastery is an essential requirement for achieving high performance in any field. High mastery = high performance. Let’s just call it what it is.

9.  Corporate Values. Have we so completely abandoned our ethical compass that we need a rulebook, or a poster, or a rah-rah corporate conference to create a to-do list of empathetic behavior?  How about just living the Platinum Rule?  And how about assuming that human beings  are naturally generous and trend towards willing the good of others? Two percent of the time we will be let down – we can can live with that.

8.  Mission Statement.  If we held a world conference and invited all attendees to place their mission statements in the center of the conference hall, shuffled them all up, and then asked everyone to retrieve one randomly, most would not know if they got their own mission statement or someone else’s. Mission Statements  are the ultimate blandness, not to mention conceit.  Most companies I talk to either can’t find their Mission Statement or, if they can, they can’t recite it. And if they can, they are not inspired by it.

7. Vision Statement.  Did Gandhi, Christ or Buddha have mission statements? The idea is laughable.  We have numbed ourselves at too many corporate off-sites (another clumsy buzzword) into believing this mumbo-jumbo stuff is important.  Martin Luther King did not have a vision statement – he had a dream and dreams are what we are lacking at the moment and it is dreams that high-performance individuals and organizations create and pursue.

6.  Empower.  Who are we kidding?   In today’s volatile, regulated, Internet-transparent world, power is retained at the center and close to the top. True empowerment is delgating complete authority and responsibility to another, so that they are free to make any decisions they choose in their domain. Too few leaders feel personally secure enough to delegate completely and therefore give meaning to the word “empower”.  When they do, it is inspiring.  Only those leaders who are sufficiently confident in themselves are able to feel this confident in others. All others should refrain from using a term that is “all hat and no cattle”.

5. Reach Out. “Thanks for reaching out!” Are we dealing with orphans or destitutes here? These are our colleagues – what on earth are we trying to say with this phrase? Do we mean “Thanks for calling”?, or “Thanks for your help”? Or, “I really appreciate you”? If so, let’s just say it in English.

4.  Product. Few of us have “products” that we make or sell anymore. Yet I hear banks talking about their “products”, ski resorts refer to the guest experience as a “product”.  All this is a throw-back to an industrial age when we manufactured things on assembly lines, and it gives away our attitude – some still think of customers and employees as means of production.  It is demeaning to both.

3. Customer-centered. How does this make employees feel?  If the customer is “Number 1″ then what does this make all the people who serve customers – “Number 2″?  I especially see this in healthcare – there is much talk these days about being “patient-centered” – how does this make the nurse feel?  (And don’t get me going about “evidence-based healthcare!).  How about simply committing to being “people-centered” and respecting all humans equally? This will include suppliers and vendors, shareholders, stakeholders, unions, regulators, media, employees and customers – in fact, all people. Maybe even more than people – the Planet too.

2.  Consumer. OK, I get it.  You think I am an object to be manipulated so that I disgorge my money to you in exchange for consuming what you offer. Surely we can be more honoring in our descriptions of each other than this?  I am a person, a human being, and I hope you will respect my sacredness and partner with me for the good of us both, and others too. I do not wish to be demeaned as a “consumer”.

1.  Engagement. My number one bete-noir. If the clutch is engaged, the car  works – period. I’m looking for something far superior than this.  I want to be inspired, passionate, exhilarated,  delighted.  I want to fall in love with what you do, what you sell, what you stand for, how you help me to grow and excel, how you make a difference and change the world – Apple, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines. I won’t settle for being “engaged” and no amount of “engagement surveys” are going to inspire me to the great heights to which I aspire, and of which I am capable.

Oh, what the heck – let’s add one more:

11. Diversity: Diversity enables us to see the differences in others, to distinguish and separate them into various categories.  Inclusion, invites us to do away with these distinctions and include everyone as equals, without distinction.  If we love others, we will not see their differences because they will not matter. We don’t need programs for this.  We just need a heart.

Let’s free ourselves from the tyranny of MBA-speak, buzz-words and jargon that drags down our souls.  Buzzwords are one of the causes of the lack of inspiration in organizations today.  We can change this. Let’s use our beautiful language in a way that is creative, empathetic and inspiring so that we all have a spring in our steps and love what we do, why we do it and who we do it for.

(Thanks to Jessica Malnick for the graphic – http://www.blog.jessicamalnik.com/2011/12/12/buzzword-bingo-12-words-that-need-to-die-in-2012/)