Giant Leap

Richard Wilson practices resilience consciously. He needs to. He is the president of a small wood products company, which is in an industry that changes rapidly and constantly. He has a few different tools. One is to look to others who have gone through change. For that, he often thinks of a quote by Ernest Hemingway: “The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” A friend in the industry gave him another prompt. ‘‘Richard, do you remember the time when…’ and he gave me an example. I had forgotten about it. He said, ‘Yeah, that's how long everything lasts. Nobody remembers. Just get through it, and keep charging on.’ He also uses what he calls ‘muscle memory’ when the company is having difficulties or disappointments. He asks himself what the worst and best case scenarios are, then puts budgets behind them. ‘And often what I find is that it's nowhere near the situation that I'm dreaming up in my head. And that is really comforting.’ And another is to bring his team into it. ‘Too often as a sole entrepreneur, I sit in my study thinking of all the solutions alone. And inevitably, when I invite my team in, they will either call me on stuff, or they'll confirm that I'm on the right track. And in a lot of cases, they will bring up better ideas.’ Richard Wilson is the president of Craftsman Specialty Products, which produces custom wood component manufacturing. They are based in Vancouver. #GiantLeap #entrepreneurlifestyle #lifegoals #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills

In our recent peer group discussion, we explored the challenging reality of hiring: that even with thorough processes, some hires don't work out. One member joked that they experienced "a spectacular fail" after what they thought had been a rigorous hiring process. "You never know until you are actually working with someone, despite involving several people in multiple rounds of interviews and careful reference checks." Another shared a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde situation they had encountered, wondering whether any amount of testing, interviewing, and background checking can get beneath the surface enough to uncover that dynamic. After an animated discussion, the group agreed: hiring is difficult. "We all make mistakes. The important question is: do we admit them early, or spend a year trying to make it work when we know fairly early on that it won't?” Key takeaways: 1) Accept imperfection: no hiring process is foolproof. 2) Learn from failures: each unsuccessful hire offers valuable lessons. 3) Act decisively: when a hire isn't working, address it promptly and professionally. What's your experience with hiring challenges? #GiantLeap #LeadershipCoaching #PeerMentoring #ProfessionalDevelopment #HiringStrategies #LeadershipLessons

How do we best create change? Tyler Parris, a long term chief of staff and coach to chiefs of staff, spent years learning the hard way.” “I did not meet with success in my chief of staff role or any of my other roles by just transferring what I know about change to other people, like, ‘Hey, here are the three easy steps to change management.’” he says. “I didn't just share my experience even and hope that it helped others — or at least, I tried that, and learned that didn’t yield the results I was looking for.” “And I certainly didn't just implement change, and hope everyone would get on board, or see the brilliance of the change. Well, okay, I probably did that too. But again, I ended up learning the hard way that it doesn't really work.” “What I had to do was understand the context, not just of where I was coming from, but where my team was coming from, the shifts they were making, and the potential costs of those shifts to them, in order to craft solutions and communications that work for their world.” Tyler Parris has not only been a corporate chief of staff, but has spent the past 12 years coaching people in chief of staff roles. He leads Giant Leap’s peer mentoring group for executives, based in the Seattle area. You can find out more about his group here. https://buff.ly/4cTTLWX #GiantLeap #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills #peermentoring #changemanagement

Richard Wilson is used to change. He runs a small, custom wood products company. While the equipment might be more or less the same, and some customers have been with them for 30 years, “the markets that we service, the types of products, and the level of quality that we do have all changed dramatically.” In fact, his experience is that there has been a full paradigm shift every five to six years. Something that is “scary for some people and exciting for others.” How does he approach it? “One of the things I realized very early in my manufacturing career was that I’d better get used to change. I’d better get really good at it. And I better be able to lead the team through change.” Richard Wilson is the president of Craftsman Specialty Products, which produces custom wood component manufacturing. They are based in Vancouver. #GiantLeap #entrepreneurlifestyle #lifegoals #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills

As a longtime chief of staff, a lot of Tyler Parris’s work was about creating self awareness in himself and others. He often sought out frameworks, and one model he found useful was the Johari window. “It's a graphical model of interpersonal awareness invented by a couple of psychological researchers in the 1950s,” he explains. “Those researchers say there are things we know and don’t know about ourselves, and things others know and don’t know about us.” “And I just find, more and more, that self-awareness is an important skill; maybe more important than technical skills or knowledge of your work and relationship success. Honing your awareness really increases your chance of transformational success.” Tyler Parris has not only been a corporate chief of staff, but has spent the past 12 years coaching people in chief of staff roles. He leads Giant Leap’s peer mentoring group for executives, based in the Seattle area. You can find out more about his group here. https://buff.ly/4cTTLWX #GiantLeap #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills #peermentoring #changemanagement

Aaron Schmookler, Trust-Culture Engineer learned that there is a magical mathematical formula at the heart of most healthy teams. He remembers a recent case where he saw this play out. He was talking to a CEO who told him, “‘I've got great people on the front lines and I've got great people managing them. And I don't understand why they're at each other's throats all the time.’” What Aaron found out was that the CEO had done a great job of hiring conscientious managers who were working hard to drive performance, but had 15 people reporting to each manager. Aaron passed on that the magic number is six or seven. “One of the simplest structures is how many people are reporting to each manager, and whether they have time to build relationships of trust that can withstand the pressures of the manager working to drive good performance.” Aaron Schmookler is a culture engineer. For nearly 30 years, he has “helped leaders build structures, habits, and mindsets that support an enduring high-performance culture, so both their profits and their people thrive.” Aaron leads two Giant Leap peer mentoring groups in the Seattle area. You can find out more about his groups via the link below. https://buff.ly/3WJ8uxS #GiantLeap #entrepreneurlifestyle #lifegoals #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills

Tyler Parris shares such a compelling personal story about overcoming a pattern of behavior from his youth that really resonates with us. Having a coach, colleague, boss, who takes an active interest in helping a person progress is so critical. Also critical was Tyler having the self-awareness to pay attention both to the feedback and to how he showed up in consequential meetings.

Aaron Schmookler, Teamification Culture Engineer learned how to work with “difficult” people from doing improv. He was going into a job where he was replacing someone who was retiring. They had a week’s overlap. And the supervisor warned him about the retiree, saying: “‘You know, this person is a piece of work. You won’t be able to work with her; you’re going to have to figure out ways to work around her. And it's not going to be fun.’ And I remember thinking, ‘Okay, that is your experience. It's not going to be mine. This is going to be fine.’ And it was, because he had some skills that let him deal effectively with people, and to, “enjoy working with people whom other people have trouble with.” “A lot of those skills came from learning to be an improviser in theater. And from being a theater director and helping other people be better improvisers, even in scripted work. I realized these are actual skills, and they are transferable. The understandings that I've gained and that I continue to study are about what structures lead to effective teamwork, and how to convey these to other people.” Aaron Schmookler is a culture engineer. For nearly 30 years, he has “helped leaders build structures, habits, and mindsets that support an enduring high-performance culture, so both their profits and their people thrive.” Aaron leads two Giant Leap peer mentoring groups in the Seattle area. You can find out more about his groups via the link below. https://buff.ly/3WJ8uxS #GiantLeap #entrepreneurlifestyle #lifegoals #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills

Aaron Schmookler, Teamification Culture Engineer has it so right that accountability is criticial to getting things done, and I appreciate the perspective that we cannot really "hold" people accountable. From my perspective it's about both the people and the process. Accountability is much more likely to happen when everyone takes responsibility and is eager to contribute. Add structure and solid business process, and you're off to the races. I know Aaron's session on this will be impactful because I've seen it. Even after years working on accountability with teams myself, I took away a few new techniques every manager should know. Enjoy Alaska!

After Tyler Parris served as a corporate chief of staff, he coached chiefs of staff. At the heart of that role is the ability to help the organization adapt to change. Something he found is that “the way you adapt to different contexts can really help you manage change, whether it's your personal change or at scale with an organization. And that understanding your own change journey isn’t enough; you have to understand others' contexts as well.” “And so there's just this constant need to be aware of our environments, to think systemically, and be aware of what's going on so that we can adapt.” Tyler Parris has not only been a corporate chief of staff, but has spent the past 12 years coaching people in chief of staff roles. He leads Giant Leap’s peer mentoring group for executives, based in the Seattle area. You can find out more about his group here. https://buff.ly/4cTTLWX #GiantLeap #LeadershipSkills #ManagementSkills #peermentoring #changemanagement