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In this issue...
April 2008, Issue 61
Break Through Your Bull With a Tailored In-House Workshop
Do You Have a Dysfunctional, Average, or High-Performing Culture?
"Breaking Through the Bull" Webcast Still Available for Download Online
More of the Story Behind the Moose Story
The Complete Leader’s Package
Choosing to be a Navigator, Survivor, or Victim
A Moose Read In Malaysia
A Father’s Message In a Bottle
How I Express My Personal Purpose
Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm…on Personal Purpose
Most Popular March Improvement Points
Feedback and Follow-Up
 
 

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from The Leader Letter in your own printed publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:

"Reprinted with permission from The Leader Letter, Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. For over twenty-five years, Jim's 2,000+ practical leadership presentations and workshops/retreats, five bestselling books, columns, and newsletters have been helping hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. His web site is www.clemmer.net."

 
 
 
April 2008, Issue 61
 
 

This month I'm kicking off my series of public Breaking Through the Bull workshops in eight major cities across Canada. We’re already full in one city and need to add room capacity or schedule an overflow session in another. We’re getting very close to doing the same in a few other cities. The first few sessions I've run as in-house or association workshops have exceeded my own high expectations. Using the dual track approach of telling Pete Leonard’s story (the fictional manager in my new book, Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work) while providing a concentrated series of assessments, brainstorming, planning, videos, and application exercises has resulted in some of the highest ratings I’ve ever seen from any of my workshops.

Moose on the Table and the Breaking Through the Bull workshops are proving to be a wonderful way to consolidate and weave together so many of the people, situations, research, improvement tools, and leadership techniques that I’ve been part of since I started in the training, consulting, and professional speaking business way back in 1981. You can get a sense of that and recognize key concepts from my first five books (Moose on the Table is my sixth) by reviewing the newly revised agenda at Breaking Through the Bull.com.

Break Through Your Bull With a Tailored In-House Workshop
 

Conducting a public workshop series is quite a rare event for me (the last series I did was with the release of Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success in 1999.) My half-day, one-, or two-day workshops are almost exclusively in-house and highly tailored for the organization I am working with. You can see my topic areas and workshop outlines here. If you’d like to explore a session tailored to your team or organization, contact me at (519) 748-5968 or Jim.Clemmer@Clemmer.net.

Do You Have a Dysfunctional, Average, or High-Performing Culture?
 

Here's a quickie quiz I put together for my new Breaking Through the Bull workshop. It draws on our Consulting and Training division’s growing experience with assessing and helping our Client’s shift their culture. It also frames many of the issues Pete Leonard (the fictional manager in my new book, Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work) is facing at his struggling company. You can take the quiz yourself. But what’s even more effective – and can open up courageous conversations – is if you have your whole team take the quiz, compile the results, and discuss data you’ve generated.

How true are the following statements:

1 2 3 4 5
Not True   Somewhat True   Very True
1 People are reluctant to openly discuss concerns, issues, or problems.
1 2 3 4 5
2 E-mail is consuming more of our day and reducing personal communication.
1 2 3 4 5
3 We are drowning in details and data while losing sight of the big picture.
1 2 3 4 5
4 Stress and frustration levels are increasing.
1 2 3 4 5
5 My/Our boss is not an effective leader.
1 2 3 4 5
6 Senior management doesn’t set clear priorities and provide good direction.
1 2 3 4 5
7 Trust and accountability gaps are widening.
1 2 3 4 5
8 There’s a fair bit of negativity, cynicism, and blaming others around here.
1 2 3 4 5
9 We avoid asking for or giving honest performance feedback.
1 2 3 4 5
10 Indifference and apathy are reducing customer service, innovation, quality, and productivity.
1 2 3 4 5
11 Morale is declining as absenteeism and turnover increases.
1 2 3 4 5
12 I/We often go along with things that I/we don’t agree with.
1 2 3 4 5

Scoring:

  • 45 points or higher – You have a highly dysfunctional culture. Courageous leadership and strong organizational development work is needed for major cultural change.
  • 30 - 44 points – Your culture is fairly average. Strong leadership and organizational development will boost you from ordinary to extraordinary.
  • 16 - 29 points – You’re somewhat above average. Keep leading and developing to move even higher.
  • 15 points or lower – You have a high-performance culture.
"Breaking Through the Bull" Webcast and Full Keynote
Available for Download On-line
 
 

If you missed my February webcast highlighting how you can break through the barriers to building a high-performance organization, you can now download the one-hour webcast here. It’s a highly condensed and strategic overview of many of the concepts in my new one-day Breaking Through the Bull workshop.

This broadcast consists of my slides and audio track. It's a jam-packed presentation that can be a powerful catalyst for discussion within your team. Download it for yourself and share it with your colleagues. Break through your bull and increase those courageous conversations!

More of the Story Behind the Moose Story
 

This is a really busy month as I hit television, radio, and print with a series of media interviews across Canada as Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work hits bookstores and I deliver Breaking Through the Bull workshops across the country. As soon as I know the schedule, I'll be sure to post my appearances on my blog at www.jimclemmer.com/blog. Below are responses to an e-mail interview I did recently for a business magazine.

“I also want to ask you about the style of this book with the use of a fictional character. Why use this approach? Because of the ‘novel’ approach, was this book easier or more difficult to write than your previous books?”

I used this approach because it is more "edutaining." We all love stories. An entrepreneur who'd just read the book told me last week that he has not read a book for five years – he doesn't have the time or interest in reading. But he found Moose on the Table so engaging and relevant to his life and organizational issues that he read it right through and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Moose on the Table was easier to write because I could just make it up! It was also a great way for me to weave together the characters and situations I've encountered in nearly thirty years of facilitating, training, and consulting to hundreds of management teams.

“The concept of ‘moose on the table’ is similar to the idea of the elephant in the room, something you acknowledge in the book. Do you have any concerns that some people may question the originality of the idea? Or do you see it as a uniquely Canadian take on a common issue?”

I have no concerns about the originality of the metaphor because of how it connects and stays with so many people for so many years. It's just way too familiar for many as they consider moose, elephants, skunks, and all manner of animals that have been named as variations on the basic theme of issues everyone know need to be addressed but are being ignored or avoided. Moose is very Canadian. In the December issue of The Leader Letter, our training Client, Barrick Gold, outlines (and illustrates with a few photos) how they are educating people in their operations around the world on our big lumbering creature. If you’d like to read more of the story behind the story of Moose on the Table, go to the October issue of The Leader Letter.

The Complete Leader’s Package
 

Over the years I've developed quite a catalog of leadership tools. For leaders on the grow, the biggest question becomes "where do I start?"

That's why I'm now offering "The Complete Leader's Package." It includes books, workbooks, and multimedia leaders at every level should have close by.

These tools are based on practical experience, and filled with advice anyone can use to improve their team or organization almost immediately.

This package includes:

  • The Leader's Digest + Practical Application Planner
  • Growing the Distance + Personal Implementation Guide
  • Growing the Distance Multimedia CD
  • Moose on the Table

Priced out individually, these products would cost over $200 (before taxes and shipping.)

But as part of The Complete Leader's Package you can order this combination online for only $127 (with tax and shipping included in Canada and the US.)

Choosing to be a Navigator, Survivor, or Victim
 

“Can you tell me which of your books covers/explains the Victim, Navigator and Survivor change choices?”

Nancy

Hi Nancy,

This simple model continues to be one of the most popular and commented upon parts of my keynotes and workshops. It connects both personally and professionally with so many people from all levels of every organization.

The Leader’s Digest touches briefly on this discussion in the Responsibility for Choices chapter. There is a fairly large section with assessment and application exercises (supported by my slides and audio track) in the Responsibility for Choices chapter of Growing the Distance: Self-Study System. Moose on the Table: A Novel Approach to Communications @ Work uses this model very directly and refers to it throughout the book. Victim behavior is illustrated in Chapter Three with Pete Leonard – the fictional manager – and his peers stuck in “Pity City” at Rocky and Bullwinkle’s bar. The model/approach is introduced and explained in Chapter Four.

My most complete article on this approach is Navigating Change and Adversity. You can also find a video clip of me explaining the model/approach on our site at http://www.clemmer.net/video (the second clip; “Navigating Change and Adversity”.)

I hope that helps!

Jim
A Moose Read In Malaysia
 
 

“Hi Jim,

I'm a subscriber to your Leader Letter and have been enjoying and putting into practice what's relevant to my work-life. My friends have found it useful as well and many of them have even downloaded the chapters from the Moose on the Table website. I will continue to recommend other parts of your brilliant and practical approaches. I would like to offer this comment on your newest book:

In Moose on the Table, Jim illustrates simple yet powerful strategies for improving communication in the workplace. Many of my friends who read self-improvement books have found Moose on the Table difficult to put down since the book is so easy to relate to. Jim has created an exceptional masterpiece and I strongly recommend it as a great gift for all occasions. A ‘moose’ read!

Best wishes to you, Jim.”

Jack
ITD Group, Malaysia
A Father’s Message In a Bottle
 

A few months ago, professional speaking colleague (we met, and stayed in touch through the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers), Tyler Hayden approached me with this intriguing offer:

“I am co-editing a book called ‘A Father’s Message In a Bottle’ (which will be part of a series – A Mother’s, A Sister’s, etc.) The first book we are bringing to print is the father’s version... In short the book has letters from Fathers to their children on assorted topics but each containing a nugget of wisdom and love.  It’s been really fun to build... we have letters from Astronauts, powerful CEO’s, and local guys too.... (we even have one from a father to his children before he died in WW2, and a father who lost his son in a terrorist bombing in the Middle East).

I’d really love to add a letter from you to your children in this edition of the book.”

You can read my contribution to this project here:
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/A_Message_in_a_Bottle.aspx
How I Express My Personal Purpose
 

Recently Krista Oulton Welsh, editor, YourWorkplace magazine pulled together a few of my shorter articles into a new one combining narrative and how-to points on the core inner leadership issue of personal purpose. She quilted together an excellent new piece (since it’s my work, I may be showing some bias)! Read this new piece at How I Express My Personal Purpose.

Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm…on Personal Purpose
 

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“….if you find yourself stuck in the parking lot of life, with few and only ephemeral pleasures, with minimal gratifications, and without meaning, there is a road out. This road takes you through the countryside of pleasure and gratification, up into the high country of strength and virtue, and finally to the peaks of lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose.”
- Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

Except for the financially desperate, people do not work for money alone. What also fuels their passion for work is a larger sense of purpose or passion.  Given the opportunity, people gravitate to what gives them meaning, to what engages to the fullest their commitment, talent, energy, and skill. And that can mean changing jobs to get a better fit with what matters to us.”
- Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence

“... an eight-year-old boy who described what happens when you die: ‘Your body breaks up into thousands of pieces and goes into all the people whose lives you have touched. That way you live in them always’.” 
- Mark Albion, Making a Life Making a Living: Reclaiming your Purpose and Passion in Business and in Life

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
- Charles Dickens, English novelist

“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’ I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy. In the Nazi concentration camps, one could have witnessed that those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive.”
- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.”
- Unknown

Most Popular March Improvement Points
 

Improvement Points is a free service providing a key thought or quotation from one of my articles, provided three times per week, directly to your e-mail inbox. Each complimentary Improvement Point links directly into the full article on our web site that spawned it. If you'd like to read more about that day's Improvement Point, you can choose to click through to the short article for a quick five-minute read. This is your opportunity for a short pause that refreshes, is an inspirational vitamin, or a quick performance boost. You can circulate especially relevant or timely articles or Improvement Points to your team, Clients, or colleagues for further discussion or action.

Here are the three most popular Improvement Points we sent out in March:

"Rarely do most people examine their own assumptions, beliefs, skills, behaviors, and learning levels to see how they created their own circumstances. Instead they develop a full blown case of Victimitis."
- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Control Your Own Destiny"
Read the full article now!
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_313.aspx

"If members don't have a shared picture of what success would look like, they will pull against each other. They also should have an emotional commitment to what they're doing."
- from Jim Clemmer's article, "A Coach's Playbook for Workplace Teams"
Read the full article now!
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_260.aspx

"Many managers have "done their values thing" and produced pretty parchment papers filled with inspiring words. However, many are frustrated because managers, supervisors and front line employees aren't getting the message. But people do get the managers' message. They see it loud and clear."
- from Jim Clemmer's article, "Two Keys to Adding Values"
Read the full article now!
http://www.clemmer.net/articles/article_43.aspx


Feedback and Follow-Up
 

I am always delighted to hear from readers of The Leader Letter with feedback, reflections, suggestions, or differing points of view. Nobody is ever identified in The Leader Letter without their permission.

I am also happy to explore customized, in-house adaptations of any of my material for your team or organization. Drop me an e-mail at Jim.Clemmer@Clemmer.net.

Keep learning, laughing, loving, and leading living life just for the L of it!!

Jim

Please post or forward this newsletter to colleagues, Clients, or associates you think might be interested or on a 'need-to-grow' basis. If you received this newsletter from someone else, and would like to subscribe, click here: www.clemmer.net/newsletter/leader_signup.aspx

The CLEMMER Group
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Phone: (519) 748-1044 ~ Fax: (519) 748-5813
E-mail: service@clemmer.net
http://www.clemmer.net

Copyright © 2008 Jim Clemmer and The CLEMMER Group