From Effectiveness to Greatness Habit #8

Find Your Voice  Engage in work that genuinely taps your talents and fuels your passion  Doing something significant with your career  Take the path to greatness rather than settle for mediocrity

Find Your Voice  A whole person has four basic components:  A physical body  A mind capable of independent thought and analysis  A heart which can feel emotion  A spirit—your soul or philosophical center

Find Your Voice  Each of the four components ahs a corresponding basic need:  Physical body—to live  Mind—to learn  Heart—to love  Spirit—to leave a legacy

Find Your Voice  The highest manifestation of these capacities are:  Physical body—discipline  Mind—vision  Heart—passion  Spirit—conscience

Find Your Voice  As you begin to understand, respect, and ultimately balance these manifestations for yourself, synergy is created  You become energized as you begin to understand what you’re actually capable of achieving  When you engage in work that taps your talents and fuels your passions, and which fills the need your conscience has drawn you towards, you find your voice

Find Your Voice  The human voice is unique and significant because it lies at the intersection of your own unique:  Talents—natural gifts and strengths  Passion—those things that excite and enthuse you  Needs—the necessity that you earn a living by providing what people are willing to pay for  Conscience—that still, small internal voice or compass which confirms what is right and when you’re doing it

Express Your Voice  In order to express your voice more decisively and distinctly, you need to work at building your capacities in each of these four dimensions  Vision  Discipline  Passion  conscience

Express Your Voice  Vision  Being able to see a future state in your mind’s eye before it materializes in the flesh  Applied imagination  Most things are created mentally before being brought into the physical world  Practice seeing the best in people and finding it  This will help bring out the best in them

Express Your Voice  Discipline  Willpower  Needed to actually make things happen  Means to:  Accept reality  Become totally immersed in the facts  Move forward  Do what has to be done rather than what is easy to do  Forgo immediate pleasure in anticipation of a far greater future payoff

Express Your Voice  Passion  The unrelenting drive which comes from the heart  Being motivated because you believe the best way to predict the future is to take part in shaping it  Find your purpose and role in the world  When you are passionate, you don’t require any supervision to get things done  Motivation comes from within

Express Your Voice  Conscience  Your moral sense of what’s right and wrong  Encourages people to sacrifice something good in order to achieve something better  Transforms passion into compassion and allows us to build relationships of trust with others  People who live by their conscience will have inner integrity and peace of mind

Express Your Voice  Apply these four dimensions to any role you carry out in your life  Ask the following questions:  What need to I sense for my family, in my community, or in the organization I work for?  What talent do I possess which, if properly disciplined and applied, would meet that specific need?  Does the opportunity to meet that need tap into the things I feel most passionate about?  Does my conscience allow me to take action in this way and become intensively involved?

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Once you’ve found your own voice, the way you can continue to increase your feelings of achievement is to help others find their voices  To inspire others means to recognize, respect, and create meaningful opportunities for others to express their voices  Inspire—Latin inspirare--Breath life into another

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Whenever you express your voice using the four dimensions—vision, passion, discipline, and conscience—you are displaying potential leadership  Leaders must fill four roles:  Modeling  Pathfinding  Aligning  empowering

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Modeling  Set a good example  Inspires trust  Pathfinding  Developing strategies to move forward  Creates order  Aligning  Structures, processes, systems that keep everyone on course  Produces a moral authority  Empowering  Focusing talents on results rather than methods used  Unleashes human potential

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Building Focus  Expanding influence  Striving for personal excellence  Always doing what’s right  Avoiding complaining, criticizing, or being negative  Empathizing with your boss—do more than what is expected  Being constant—sticking to your principles

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Building Focus  Be Trustworthy  Personal integrity—principle centered life  Maturity—dealing with tough issues compassionately  An abundance mentality—win-win attitude, gratitude  Technical competence—skills and knowledge  Conceptual knowledge—ability to see the big picture  Awareness—all life is interdependent

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Build Focus  Building Trust  Create mutual understanding  Generate an environment of integrity  Practice openness  Be kind and courteous  Think win-win  Clarify expectations  Be loyal  Be prepared to accept apologies  Give and receive genuine feedback  Be forgiving

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Build Focus  Blend other’s voices  Conflict can be good  Create synergy—never compromise  Questions to ask:  Would you be willing to search for another alternative solution that is better than what either you have proposed or what we have proposed so far?  Would you agree to one simple ground rule while we discuss this: No one can make his or her point until they have restated the other person’s previous point to his or her satisfaction

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  Build Focus  Create a common vision  Combine mission, vision, and values with a strategic plan  When people know what key goals are, they will be accountable for achieving those goals  Focus on what needs to be done

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  To Execute Better  Align goals and systems  Develop informational systems  Create a compensation system  Have an abundance mentality  Stay flexible  Look constantly at world-class performers  Set up a great feedback system  Achieve good balance

Inspire Others to Find Their Voices  To Execute Better  Empower others  When people feel empowered, they need little or no supervision  Use their own initiative  Key empowerment tools:  Win-win agreements  Self evaluation and performance appraisal  Servant leaders

Closing the Gap Between Focus and Execution  Focus on the one thing that is important  Create a compelling scoreboard everyone will want to use  Must be highly visible  Must reflect progress toward your goal  Must be updated daily  Translate goals into very specific actions  Hold each other accountable for results all the time