I prefer not to be referred to as an expert. 

Seems silly, I know. By definition, someone considered an ‘expert’ possesses a special skill or knowledge in some particular field, a specialist, or an authority.  Sounds first-class and would be a badge-of-excellence anyone should be proud to wear.  However, it is the connotations, not the definition, that I think of that hold me back from wishing to be an expert. 

Is it just me, or have you also noticed that everyone seems to be an expert these days?  I read weblogs where the author writes they are a ‘self-described expert’.  That comment always provides me with a good chuckle, and is precisely why it is not the primary meaning of the word that keep me from liking it, rather, the misuse, abuse, and insinuations that are associated with it. 

Don’t get me wrong, when someone refers to me as an expert, I am flattered.  They are just paying me a complement; however, you will never hear me call myself an expert.

I do not want you to misunderstand, I am not trying to insult anyone who calls himself or herself an expert.  I simply feel that when you refer to yourself as an expert it can hinder your ability to be a leader.  Here are five reasons why being an expert can hold back your leadership’s maximum potential:

Being an expert signifies you have arrived.  Do you remember the story of the turtle and the hare?  The hare believes he is so fast, he becomes arrogant and overly confident and he stops to rest.  (Why? Because he has arrived in his own mind.)  And while he sleeps the turtle steadily pushes along and wins the race.  I bet to this day, the turtle never stopped going. 

Leaders should consider themselves a Turtle.  They should just keep moving along, learning everything they can along the way.  Why? Because when people chose to follow your example, they will only go as far as you go.   As you grow and improve, so will those you lead.  A leader never arrives. 

Being an expert says you are a know-it-all, and have nothing left to learn. The only people I would consider calling experts were a few of my college professors.  Attending college for an undergraduate degree was as much about learning new skills toward your intended profession, as it was about critical thinking.  God Forbid, you ever question a thought your professor wrote in one of their personally drafted, excellently perfected textbooks.  After all, you are simply an eighteen year old, and they have been around long enough to have debated with Socrates himself. 

Being a Know-it-all is the Achilles Heal of leaders, because it gives off the impression:

• They are much better than the ‘little people’.
• They did it without the assistance of others.
• They arrive at their destination without others.
• They would like to separate themselves from everyone else. 

Being an expert often creates close-mindedness. Aristotle once said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”   When you are an close-minded, it will cause you to be defensive and protect your knowledge at all costs.  How can you be open-minded when you are defensive? 

Jon Wooden taught his team best when he said, “It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

Being an expert signifies you are above everyone else.  Have you ever heard the comment, “it is lonely at the top”?  Anyone who has ever been a good leader knows this is not true.  When you are a leader, you surround yourself with your team and utilize the strengths of every member to complete the task.  Therefore, to lead effectively you can never be above your team. Realistically, when you have a good team, who needs to be an expert?

Being an expert often leads to giving a person an ego and makes them prideful.  An oversized ego or a person’s pride is their greatest enemy.  When a person is prideful they are more concerned with whom is right, rather than what is right. 

By contrast, Character, is a leader’s best friend.  Character is the predetermined values, ethics and morals, not associated with a specific religion, culture or country, that a leader chooses to engrave into their personality. 

Of those qualities, humility, may be one of the most important.  Humility is the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance.  When you have an ego, it directly conflicts with this quality and causes Prideful Issues:

• You will believe you can never fail.
• You will believe that rules do not apply to you.
• You will reflect a negative attitude to the team.
• You will disconnect from the team.

How can you look at yourself with a critical eye when you are egotistical and prideful?

It is my opinion, that when you refer to yourself as an expert, you will hold yourself back from achieving your greatest potential.  You will mentally stall yourself and slow down your ability to grow. You may even find yourself lying by the roadside sleeping while others pass you by.

I love this quote by Earl Nightingale, I used it in one of my recent posts, “If you spend an hour a day on any given subject.  After five years your will become an expert.”  What he is really saying is not that after five years you will arrive and can prance around bragging about everything you know.  He was really saying that growth is not a routine progression, and you should continue to grow, learn, and achieve new things - indefinately. 

Isn’t that what we are all striving to do… to reach our maximum potential?  In fact, that is one of the goals of this blog.  To help you reach your maximum potential, and I cannot do that if I do not continue to improve.  That is why you will always hear me refer to myself as a permanent student. Or sometimes, a scholar, meant in the most informal of terms: a student; pupil.

I will leave you with this quote from Paul Harvey, one of America’s most beloved storytellers, about his good friend Earl Nightingale, “Earl never let a day go by that he didn’t learn something new and, in turn, pass it on to others.  It was his consuming passion.”  As a leader, I hope it will be yours to.

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I believe that growth is not an automatic process.  If you want to grow, change, or improve you have to make a conscious decision to learn.  Earl Nightingale says, “If you focus on one topic for 1 hour a day, after 5 years, you will become an expert.”

I am not so sure about that.  I think I could spend the rest of my life training to be a comedian and I do not ever think I would ever be funny.

I like to learn; it helps me think.  Every time I learn something new, I commit it to memory by telling someone else or journaling it in order to use it again. 

About two years ago I subscribed to - Doctor Dictionary - and everyday when I open my email the Word of the Day is waiting for me.  Most of the time I learn words I will never use again (they are much too big for me), but that is OK, they are helping me grow and improve my vocabulary. 

I never have been the most talented writer.  My gifting is in oral communication more than written, but I suppose it is working better than I think.  My writing is improving; however, my book editor says I am starting to sound like a ‘college professor’. 

         Great! I am trying to become a better writer and I am sounding like some crotchety old professor and my readers are falling asleep.

Oh well, I guess it is time to work on being more conversational in my writing. At least, it is something to work toward. Who knows, maybe in 5 years I will be a little better.

In today’s job market, it appears to me that everyone is trying to find a job that they love.  In fact, for members of Gen-Y, job hopping and searching to find a job they love appears to be a hobby.  Jon Morrow - a twentysomething entreprenuer and interesting blogger who has good natural perspective - writes a great post on How To Find Work That You Love. 

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had a job that they loved?  I would offer, that a great deal of finding a job you love depends on your own perspective, and a Good Perspective is the key to finding happiness with anything.  However, instead of looking at it from Finding a Job You Love, lets look at it from a DL’s position. 

A DL is a Designated Leader, and, as one, you will endure a lot of pressure.  If you are in charge of a team it can be difficult to lift their spirits and present good leadership.

Last week I wrote about How To Influence an Employee Without Resentment, and I used an example of a Supervisor who used bad judgement in teaching his employees about customer service.  What you do as a leader has a massive impact on your team.  To paraphrase from Jim Collins‘ book, Good To Great, a leader’s roll is not to motivate the employees, but rather to not demotivate them. 

How many times have you seen a person who has been designated as a leader demotivate their team?  A thousand times, right? How you treat or motivate your team will impact their feelings towards their job and their boss, and at some level impact whether or not they have found a job they love.

Here are three suggestions to spark or increase the Joy in your team’s lives and potentially improve their perspective:

1. A keen understanding of where you stand.  Nothing is worse than standing in the middle of know where and not know where you are going.  Many times, teams are being blindly lead by there leaders with no comprehension of the team’s goals, where they are going, or where they stand.Share with your team the goals, and then turn them into their goals, in other words, get them to buy into them.  True joy will come from those who are devoted to a cause bigger than themselves.
2. Acknowledge others and lift those in need.  Positive reinforcement from the leader will do a great deal to lift your team’s spirits.  They need to hear praise and adoration on a regular basis, and those that are falling behind need to look up and see your hand helping them back up. 
3. Understand that Joy produces Strength.  Dr. John Maxwell says it best, “When you are winning, nothing hurts. When you are losing everything hurts.”When the team is joyful it will produce strength and with each new step you will increase momentum.  And believe me, momentum is a DL’s greatest ally. 

Share a little joy with your team and watch both of your perspectives rise.

The other day I was finishing up a workout at my local gym when I overheard a conversation between a supervisor and an employee.  Well, that is not entirely true, because I did not overhear it like I was eavedropping, I witnessed it along with many other employees and gym patrons.

The supervisor was attempting to teach a lesson in customer service, except he was an egotistical jerk who should not be in charge of anyone. 

“Say, Johnny. Do you know how many muscles it takes to smile?” he said as if it were trivia.

“Not Really.” replied the employee weary of the game.

The supervisor looks at another employee and sarcastically asks, “Can you tell him how many muscles it takes to frown.”

The other employee, eager to play along, mumbles his answer.  

“That is right! And it takes many more muscles to frown, than it does to smile.” he forcefully says, like a drill sergeant in boot camp.

“When you are at the front desk, you need to smile at every person. Got it?” he orders.

“Yes, sir” the employee says, while trying to hide from the eyes of the health patrons and the prideful smiles of his coworkers.

I do not think I need to continue any further with the story for you to understand what I am saying. 

The supervisor who intended to teach a lesson in customer service, did so by ridiculing and demeaning his employee in front of everyone.  And he accomplished little more than robbing this person of their dignity and honor, while humiliating them, and the message was entirely lost. 

This was probably the most ineffective way of ever getting your point across.  If the employee ever returns to work, the resentment for their boss will most likely be bursting from within them.

To be an efficient influencer of your employees or peers it is essential to lift them up and not tear them down.  A lesson is received very poorly when it is done in a contemptuous manner. 

So, how can you have this conversation and have it be well received?  Here are three simple rules that may help:

1. Talk about your own mistakes before offering a critique.  You may want to simply tell them a story, or make one up, about how you made a mistake in the past and how your supervisor devised a brilliant solution.  It would also be advisable to do it privately, and in a welcoming manner.
2. Pull the entire team together and teach an uplifting and inspiring message to everyone about your customer service vision, and include your expectations in it.  From there you will have a platform to work from.
3. Praise the slightest improvements honestly in front of everyone, and overlook the mistakes.  William James once said, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”  This will give them a reputation to live up to and make them feel good about themselves. 

Being a titled leader who has to uphold the rules and expectations of the office can sometimes be a difficult task.  However, handling people is an art and done properly can create a beautiful picture.

During the warm summer months my close friend and I enjoy wakeboarding on a small private lake. 

Two years ago, the lake had a modest 40+ foot rail-slide set up for the wakeboarders who wanted to use it.  It was constructed of wood 4X4’s and was securely installed into the lakebed.  However, this structure was easily defeated by the brutal winter we experienced in 2006/2007.  As the spring thaw broke up the ice, the rail was reduced to mere splinters and small portions still lie along the shoreline to this day. 

[Rail-slide: A trick adopted from skateboarding where the wakeboarder slides the bottom of the board (base) along an object, typically a metal pipe or wooden beam.]

Since my friend, myself, and only a handful of others used the rail-slide, the lake owners did not want to spend the resources to build another one and called upon us to create and install a new rail.  My phone rang soon after…

“Hello?” I answered

        “Hey, you want to help build a new rail for the lake this year? The old one was destroyed and, if we want one, we have to build it.” questioned my friend.

“Sure what do you have in mind?” I replied

        “I have already gotten started on it.  Just come over after work and I will show you the specs.” He said

“Yep, see you then. Late.” I closed

What I was not prepared for was the sheer size of the beast my friend had in mind.  I should have known better.  Anything he does is always big, and a major adventure.  And, really, I am not certain I can emphasize adventure enough.

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Happy Belated New Year!

Well it is back to work after taking the last week and a half off. (Dec 21 - Jan 2) And, I have to admit, it was time well taken. 

I am ready to take on the New Year, 2008, the year of New Beginnings, and I am ready in large part because of the time I take off over the holidays.  So, I thought I would share with you why I take vacation at the end of the year and always will:

1. Tradition!: I can almost here the old man in Fiddler on the Roof singing those words now …TRADITION.  Ever since I graduated college I have taken the week of Christmas off, and there is no need to stop now because it always sling shots me into the new year ready to accomplish my goals, help others, and enjoy the holiday.Part of the time I spend in Quality Time with my wife and child, some of the time I spend in the mountains enjoying a face full of fresh powder, and some of the time I spend in preperation.  Nevertheless, it is a great tradition to have. 
2. Reflection: I am not going to lie, 2007 was a tough year for my family and me.  We faced many great challenges professionally and personally.  But, wisdom tells me that we will go through many trails in our lives and it is through those trials that we develop persistence and perseverance.  (This year a little more than others :))

   John Maxwell, a prominent teacher on leadership and author tells us, “experience alone does not make you better, but only through evaluated experience do we grow.”

   Some of my trials were just life, and some of my trials were based on my own decisions.  During this time off, I spent some time thinking back over the year and reflecting on the highs and the lows, and looking for insight on how to improve in either case.  Evaluating my experience and thinking how to make the following year a good one? 

3. Quality Time: The holidays come but once a year, and, while I have heard it argued by many bloggers this holiday that they would rather work than spend time with family, I disagree.

   I will be the first to admit that my family and I do not always see eye to eye. I am the youngest in the family and many times, even though I am now a respectable adult with a family, I am still treated as such. In fact, most of the time we don’t get along, but that does not mean I love them any less.  And is no reason why we should forget spending time together.

   My wife, the wise woman that she is, told me this year that I could make the time with my family whatever I choose - good or bad.  She further explained that I could spend the day with them grumpy and upset over past hurts or I could spend the day removing our differences, focusing on our similarities, enjoying their presence, repairing and rebuilding relationships long overdue.  What a wise woman she is. 

   I also spend much needed time with my wife.  She is my best friend. During this holiday we spend our time enjoying one another, reflecting on our year, and making plans for the new year.

4. To Prepare: I have a great deal I want to accomplish this year, and one way of insuring I see it through is by setting goals.  These are not New Year’s resolutions. These are much more than that.

   My wife and I take time to establish Professional Goals, Personal Goals, and TeamWork Goals.  We can then encourage each other along the way.  Once I establish major goals, I create smaller markers that serve two purpose:

         1st - they help me track that I am moving towards that larger goal.

         2nd - they help keep me motivated.  I know I am most likely the only person who does this, but sometimes when I am not getting somewhere fast enough I have a tendency to want to quit.  However, establishing these smaller markers improve my motivation and help me leap frog to the next one. 

   Like this year, for instance, I plan to release another book. 

5. In Honor: I am a Christian, and the Christmas holiday is a time of year that I honor a man who walked the earth 2000 years ago, to accomplish one thing - He was an atonement for me.  During this time of year I honor his birth and the fact that he loved me so much he was willing to lay down his life for me. Everyone has differing beliefs and I respect their opinions, but for me this is a special time of year. 

The end of the year signifies a New Beginning, and while it would be easy to push through and work during this time, I use it to Reflect, Remember, and Prepare for the upcoming year.  I am very excited about what 2008 has to offer.  I wish each and every one of you a magnificent year.