Make the jump today!

From the day I started working, I always hear the same comments from my former colleagues.  "IF ONLY I have the money to start a business.", "IF ONLY I have the guts to apply abroad", "IF only I have time to go to graduate school".  IF ONLY.

Sounds familiar?  I am also guilty of that just like you.  Whatever you aim in life, IF ONLY you act NOW, then you are an inch closer to your goal.  NOW, not tomorrow, not next week, but NOW.


Boost your career.  Be respected by your boss and peers.  Be Six Sigma cerified.
http://www.6sigmaph.com

by: Tara Hunt: Market research, strategy, writing and product management.

There are many lessons we can learn from The Game of Thrones...this is only one of them.I'm nearly done the third season of Game of Thrones (I know I'm behind!) and one of my favorite story lines is with Daenerys Targaryen (the mother of dragons) and her coming of age while being the Khaleesi of the Dothraki. I promise I won't give any spoilers, but there is one line that bears revealing:

The Dothraki follow strength above all.

It's a lesson that Daenerys' advisor, Jorah, repeats to her as she's trying to figure out how to navigate her new position. While other tribes in the various kingdoms follow self-proclaimed or inherited leaders, the Dothraki have a high respect for those who have the strength to lead, no matter what bloodline they follow.

In other words, the Dothraki are about as meritocratic as they come (). You get to lead as long as you ARE a leader. If someone else shows themselves to be more capable, you are out. And leadership is more than just displaying brute strength, something the Dothraki seem to also value. Leadership can also be wisdom and insight and knowing how to care for one's people. Therefore, the Dothraki, though they seem very brutish, are incredibly advanced in their thinking. The best leader for the situation becomes the leader.

In the non-Dothraki world we live in, leadership style doesn't always seem to suit the situation. In fact, most of our leadership rules resemble the kingdoms of Westeros. Whether it is anointing former-Googlers as having earned a pedigree (whether founding employees or not) or looking for the next Steve Jobs, we assign the same thinking to leadership over and over again, no matter the situation.

Lucky for us, the definition of what makes a leader is changing because of people who, like a Dothraki leader, step up and show their strengths are the strengths that are needed at the moment. I'm thinking of people like Tony Hsieh from Zappos (who demonstrated a CEO can win by focusing on culture and happiness, without a corner office or real hierarchy) or Marissa Mayer's leadership at Yahoo! (whose focus on data is legendary and who is a product person, not a business person) or the 20 female senators who led the US out of the government shutdown with their willingness to cooperate. Their surprising leadership styles emerged in the right situations.

Sometimes we need the business mind of a seasoned CEO and sometimes we need a leader with strong empathy skills and sometimes what we need is something completely different.

Leaders lead. They step up and do what needs to be done without being given a position. Saying someone is a leader doesn't make them one. For those of you who have seen the series, I have two words to illustrate this: Joffrey Baratheon.

When Cersei Lannister arrogantly asserts that "Power is power," she's underscoring the problem with treating leadership like a zero-sum game, where those who are in power deserve to be there because they have the power. This system benefits nobody. The motivation is power. "I'm the best," "I deserve this," when it is really just our job to do the right thing and move humanity forward. Our special skills will be needed again. No need to get greedy.

As I've watched through the seasons, I keep seeing characters die or lead others to their death because of an insane focus on gaining and/or keeping power. It all seems to come from this awful place of insecurity all caused by the fact that there is this one throne to rule them all. And I'm not even really sure why people want to sit in it...it seems uncomfortable and like it's a crappy job.

But what I really wonder is, if we were to make leadership truly meritocratic and non zero-sum (no one throne to rule them all), would that insecurity dissipate? Or would it be aggravated?

I'm curious to know what you think.

Don't let your project slide off the rails before it even starts. Keep your team on track and on time with these tips.

by: HARVEY MACKAY, author of The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World, is founder of the MackayMitchell Envelope Co. He has written six bestsellers, including Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.
@HarveyMackay

Plenty of assignments for everyone: some that involve a few quick phone calls, and others that will require overtime. How do you make sure you nail every deadline? Share these tips with your team.

• Start with specifics. When exactly is the deadline? Clarify whether “end of the week” means 5 p.m. Friday or first thing Friday morning. And hammer down the results: What does your client want? How will they measure your effectiveness?
• Negotiate. Better to do it now rather than later. Is the deadline realistic? Suggest alternative dates, or work out what other tasks you should put on hold in order to give the deadline the attention it deserves.
• Break the task down. “Complete big project by Friday” is not an action item. Start with the biggest tasks and break them down into individual steps that have their own deadlines.
• Build in a buffer. As you schedule individual tasks, give yourself a cushion. Mark the due date a few days ahead of the actual deadline so you have time to deal with changes or last-minute emergencies.
• Make it OK for people to ask for help. No one gets extra points for trying to be a hero. It’s far better for the team (and your client) if employees admit early on that they need more time or extra manpower. Check in often; your job as the leader is to help the team remove potential roadblocks before they become full-flown crises.
• Get started. Don’t end the first project-planning meeting without assigning everyone a next step and a deadline. This will help the team focus on the small steps in front of them and not the magnitude of the project ahead.

One of my favorite sayings is, “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” That statement has three parts: 1) the goal, which is what you want to achieve; 2) the dream, which is what you think you can do; and 3) the deadline, which means you will accomplish what you set out to do.

Deadlines aren’t bad. They help you organize your time. They help you set priorities. They make you get going when you might not feel like it. And meeting deadlines successfully is one of the best motivating factors out there.

I always get this question from my Six Sigma students:  "What is the most important quality of a Six Sigma professional?"

Some say its the Six Sigma technical skills
On one of my first few posts on this blog, I shared one meeting with a Quality Director of a US Health Care company that recently set-up a shared services company in Taguig.  Our meeting went from a casual dinner to the Director asking me to apply and work for him.  He was like my Advanced Statistic PHD professor who quizzed my knowledge about advanced statistical tools.  I was not surprised since he was an Engineering graduate and spent most of his career in a manufacturing company doing Design of Experiments as part of their Research and Development (R&D).  The problem is, Six Sigma projects in the service industry (which includes Banks, Insurance, BPO, Call Centers, etc.) rarely needs advanced statistical tools like DOE.

Others say its the leadership skills, facilitation skills, presentation skills, level of support from the management team, and the list goes on and on.

For me, everything is important.  A Six Sigma Black Belt should have a working knowledge in Six Sigma tools-methodologies and minimum level of the mentioned skills.  But to pick one most important quality, its TENACITY. 

Without it, skills and knowledge will lead you nowhere.  Around 95% of the hundreds of six sigma projects I have led and coached, at least one point in time on the project duration, the project team and I thought we hit a dead end.  Persistent determination, or tenacity would drive your team to success and hit your goal.  Just like what you see on the illustration above, your plan is very different from the Universe's plans for you and your project team.

Tenacity is the lifeblood of a Six Sigma professional.