Sunday, April 4, 2010

XLR8 The Passionate Leader: (G + L + F = JOY!!!)

Weekly Inspiration: You Can Do It! (click) Affirmation by Louise Hay from her 2010 calendar:

  • “I watch what I think and what I eat and my life improves.”
    • First of all, I hope you had a Happy Easter if you celebrate this Holiday. We had a big family gathering with waaaay too much food, and I certainly ate too much. Not as much as I would have in the past, I might add, since my renewed focus on fitness. I made sure I did my exercising and thought about eating smaller amounts of the many wonderful dishes and sweets available. So how about you? More importantly, what are you going to do tomorrow?
    • Well, as I’ve stated in the past, I’ll read the #1 item my happiness list tonight and again in the morning – “I weigh myself, eat a healthy breakfast and exercise at home and it motivates me.” I know what I weighed this morning, it will be more tomorrow, but I will be motivated to not let up next week until it is back to today’s number. Join me!


Team Zebra: How 1500 Partners Revitalized Eastman Kodak's Black & White Film-Making Flow

I recommended this book to a client recently. It was written by a friend and mentor of mine - Steve Frangos. He is retired now, but Steve was one of my “believe in you” people. He always said that I’d do great in this business. He’d tell me and I wasn’t sure I believed him. How could he know that?! It turned out he was a very wise man. Thanks, Steve.

Anyway, I’m not sure why I asked my client to read it, but it seemed to fit his situation. His area had been the “dark hole” you were sent to and often never emerged out of. However, several years of new leadership and hard work and numerous changes had changed that. The only problem now is that the next wave of changes is making the previous changes look small.

Well, Steve Frangos faced the challenge that if Black & White Film didn’t turn around, Kodak was going to sell that division. While there were many lessons in Steve’s book, my client took these three as being most important is his situation:

  1. Communicate, communicate, communicate and then communicate some more. He felt this was particularly important beforehand. After what was considered massive changes, we often get a little timid to say there is more on the way. However this time, there needs to be everyone’s involvement before and during the changes.

  1. Values-driven, not rules-driven, because it’s the right thing to do. Several policies had recently been changed giving people more responsibility and opportunity to do the right thing according to the company values rather than punish them for breaking the rules. If the changes are to be successful, this trend needs to continue.

  1. Measurement: Scoreboard with reasonable expectations. He liked the sports analogy about watching any type of sporting event without the scoreboard working. If you don’t know what you expect from your people, you are sure to get it. A much higher degree of process and outcome measures will be visible to everyone in the future.

So even though Team Zebra was written in 1996 about what happened in Kodak’s Black & White film divisions in the early 90’s, it’s lessons are timeless. Just thought I’d let you know that, Steve. Thanks again!

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