How are we doing this?

We’re giving away our powerful proprietary leadership tool, the Framework for (Enlightened) Leadership™ Worksheet and a 20-minute video on how to use it effectively.

Our goal is to give it away one million times and to invite people to duplicate it, watch the video, and use it all they want. You might be personally familiar with the power of the Framework for:

- turning around struggling projects or groups

-leading organizational change

-aligning dissenting groups toward common goals

-innovative problem-solving

-resolving challenging conflicts

-engaging employees for new levels of effectiveness

-inspiring performance reviews(organizational and individual)

-continuous empowered improvement

-breakthrough negotiation in tough situations

How can you help?

You can help by giving it away physically or by emailing it to key people throughout your organization, to friends who own or manage businesses/organizations, to your associations, to the leadership team of your place of worship, etc. It won’t cost you anything and it can make a big difference when someone gets the power of the tool.

The Framework Worksheet is attached as a pdf file on this blog post. Just click here to download it onto your computer. It will open in a new window.

To access the accompanying video, simply go the web address on the Worksheet, or click HERE.

We’ve got a long ways to go to reach one million giveaways, so we’d appreciate your sending the PDF file or the link (http://budurl.com/framework251) to at least TEN PEOPLE who could use it. Or you could duplicate and pass out the hardcopy Framework Worksheet. Whatever is easier for you.

We’re grateful for your help, and we’re excited to giveaway one of the most powerful leadership tools we know!

Here’s to making a difference in 2011,

Ed Oakley and the Enlightened Leadership Solutions team.

Download the Offer Overview

Listen to the MMIL AUDIO that can change your life.

Please leave comments below.

Ed Oakley & the Enlightened Leadership team

Today I led a webinar for over 400 people in one industry that was the first in a series of 5 called Turning Managers into Leaders(The client preferred that over our trademarked Making Managers into Leaders).

We started out the webinar in a way that I’ve never done before, and it was a big hit – very empowering. It was called “Seeing Yourself and Leadership Differently.”

It reminded me of just how powerful this particular learning segment is.

So, I got to thinking as we’re close to announcing our special offer for new memberships that you might really appreciate experiencing the content that was so well received. This content has been a huge impact for so many people, just like it was for me personally decades ago when Kurt Wright of Clear Purpose Management introduced it to me. I’ve never seen it anywhere else.

We’ve pulled an audio segment of it right out of our Making Managers into Leaders paid membership files to share with you.

This process and concept can change your life and WILL be empowering. It will be worth far more than the 25 minute you’ll investment to listen to it. Our members can even download this and all our other content to their iPods or other mp3 players.

Take advantage of it now – while it’s here. No guarantee we’ll leave it up.

Listen to the audio now. Share it with your team members.

Helping you bring out the best in yourself,

Ed Oakley & the Enlightened Leadership team

ps: please share your comments below.

pps: we appreciate you!

First, Ed Oakley will share one more important aspect of effective leadership skill development.

Then, we will share one of our weekly learning videos, that you can use with your team as a team-based learning opportunity. Think about the value of every team member, one at a time, getting this kind of feedback. Talking about a team-building exercise!

IMPORTANT: Because the following video is in our “members only” area, you will need a password to watch the 8.5 minute video. The password is  “feedback360” without the quotes.

Watch: “Getting Awesome Feedback without Costly 360 Assessments” now.

You’ll need a password. It is …    feedback360

As always, we’d appreciate comments.

Ed Oakley and the Enlightened Leadership team

It is also important that you begin to consider solutions for you and your organization. Feel free to share the video with your colleagues, and please leave your comments below:

Please share your perspectives below!

To the total health of you and your team,

Ed Oakley and the Enlightened Leadership team

TRANSCRIPTION
Hi it’s Ed Oakley. We’ve discovered some significant problems with leadership development that impact your ability to develop and grow leadership throughout your organization – something critical to your success. And, I’m excited to share with you over several brief videos the breakthroughs we’ve had in the process of dealing with those problems

You know that the soft skills side of your job, the people side, the leadership side, is very important to your success and your security in your career. You do know though that people who aren’t good at the people side are vulnerable. Their jobs are vulnerable. They are at risk in their roles.

The so-called “hard part of the job”, the “technical aspects,” the parts we’ve put most of our education and experience hours into, can more and more be outsourced. That’s bad news. The good news is that the leadership part can NOT be outsourced. And, it is in high demand. So the soft side, the leadership side is critical to ensuring your success in the future — more so than ever before. If you didn’t realize that, you probably wouldn’t be watching this video.

There’s a problem with that however. It is very challenging to learn and really implement leadership on your own. It’s difficult to read a book or go to a seminar or watch a webinar all on your own and be successful in actually implementing it.

Now, it’s not impossible. But it is challenging. Think about the many things you’ve learned intellectually, but have never actually implemented. There’s a lot you “KNOW,” but you haven’t actually mastered, because you haven’t done it. Knowing and doing are very different. Can you relate to that? A doctor who knows how to do a surgery, but has not actually done it yet, is not someone I want operating on me.

Let me share an interesting story around this. I was working with a major pharmaceutical company that had an internal two-week management development process. They sent quite a few people through this management development program, and I and EL was a key part of the training process.

They also sent a few select people to a $35,000 summer executive program at a major Eastern University. Once a number of executives had attended both the executive University program and the internal program where they learned together as teams, a facilitator went out and interviewed all the executives. He asked a question, “what has been the value of each of these two programs?”

The responses were very telling. Consistently, they said that the $35,000 University Summer executive program was a lot of fun, they met a lot of interesting people, and probably made some friends that will be lifetime friends. They also learned a lot about themselves. From a practical perspective, however, the internal team-oriented management development program was far more valuable and more effective. That was consistent. In those internal sessions, they learned a lot more about how to be more effective leaders, as well as team players.

See it is extremely challenging to go off on your own and learn to be a better leader. How many times have you taken something you’ve read about back to your team – because you thought it was a good idea — and the reception was like a deer in the headlights.

It is much easier, more effective, and far more fun to learn, develop and implement as a team. Because when you do it as a team, you’ve got the opportunity to focus on specific organizational objectives and goals. When you have everyone on the team aligned on accomplishing the same goals while they’re learning leadership abilities, and how to achieve those goals, it’s easy and fun to do. There’s a supportive group focused on the entire team’s success. And there’s far more accountability.

And that was the difference in the internal management development program. it was team-based.

Now having said this, if you can afford to bring us to your site and do a face-to-face seminar or workshop, then I suggest you stop watching this video, pick up the phone and call us, and make plans for doing that team and leadership development solution-oriented workshop.

However, if you’re resource limited, either time or money or both, keep watching because we have a solution for you that changes the game and makes our work — the work of enlightened leadership solutions — proven with some 50,000 people from 67 countries over the last 23 years, accessible to a whole new group of people, teams and organizations. We’re changing some old paradigms in the learning and development industry. Stay tuned!

Let me share an accidental example of this team-based learning in action. In this case, administrative management and executives of a major West Coast University were going through a year-long leadership development program led by our company. I personally facilitated one of the sessions on-site there at the University, and several people made comments that they were getting a lot of value out of the weekly videos that they were receiving from us as part of this year-long learning process. I was, of course, pleased, because I personally created a number of the videos. But I certainly wanted to know more. “How are you using the learning videos?” I asked.

Without exception, the people who went out of their way to acknowledge the value they were receiving from the weekly videos said it was because they were sharing the videos with their team and discussing the concepts in the video, including what made sense about it, how they could use it on their own teams, challenges, solutions, and especially how the ideas, concepts and tools could be useful in accomplishing their challenging goals.

Do you see what they were doing? They were creating their own team-based learning by taking advantage of our weekly video series , and it wasn’t part of the requirement of their learning process. The best managers just saw the opportunity and jumped all over it.

Think about what happens. When you focus on your own team goals and objectives, you’ve got the whole team working with you, and you hold each other accountable for accomplishing those objectives – while you’re all learning to be better leaders – and yes, leadership can and should come from anyone and everyone on the team – when it is appropriate for them to do so.

Now, when we talk about the idea of having your whole team involved in a learning and development environment, do you automatically think,”oh geez, the cost of learning just went up!” Did you think that? Well… you’d be wrong.

We, ELS, are completely changing the paradigm of pricing in learning and development – at a time when leadership development at all levels of organizations is so critical. Imagine developing your whole team and all it’s members for the price of training just one person. More on that in an upcoming video.

Ok, that’s enough for now. In the next video – coming in a few days – we don’t want to bombard you with too much – we’ll talk about another key aspect of developing your leadership skills that is very important for you to know and understand. I’m excited about the breakthrough this new piece represents.

Now, please do me a favor. Make any comments: positive comments, negative comments, or any questions, concerns, anything that’s on your mind about any of this, please make your comments below. I would love to see them.

We’ll talk again soon. Thanks for watching.

Employee Engagement practices can be quite important in your leadership skill development. Please share your thoughts about what is important to you in keeping YOU engaged. Share your disappointments and your gratitude below (comments).

Our best,

The Enlightened Leadership Team

We’ve all taken various Time Management courses over the years – we
make lists, we prioritize A, B, & C; we plan to do important things not
just urgent things first. Yet the companies that we work for
unintentionally thwart our best attempts to do the right things at the
right time.

I’ve polled many of my executive friends and clients to see what they
say are the biggest obstacles to productivity. Here they are in order of
frustration:
Planned Meetings (this actually takes the blue, red & white ribbons)
Email overload
Informal “doorway meetings”
Incoming phone calls
Of course the culprit in all of this is just way too much to do in too
little time (And the company dares to list work/life balance as one of the
objectives!)

Here are some ideas we’ve come up with so that the organization can
support you in managing your time better. We’ll start with the topic of
meetings and get to the other categories in later articles. Of course, some
of these ideas will need to be modified to fit a particular workplace, but
you can get the drift.

MEETINGS
Have you seen the poster that says: “We’re going to keep on having
these meetings until we can figure out why nothing is getting done around
here”?

Meeting Periods
Remember college? Classes were often 50 minutes with a 10-minute passing
period. Woe to the professor who tried to keep you late. You were perfectly
within your rights to load up your backpack and leave. Remember too, that
they managed to get a lot packed into those 50-minute periods?
Suggestion: Have all meetings start promptly on the hour and end promptly
50 minutes later unless they are specified as a 2-perriod or 3-period
meeting. (3period meetings should be pretty rare).

Blackout Times
We can’t have work/life balance at 7am or 4:30pm if we offer flex items
and continue to schedule meetings. If you’re serious about allowing
employees to have a life, all meetings should be scheduled between 10 am
and 4pm. The reason we say no meetings before 10 is that every employee
deserves to have the first hour of the day to get organized and get a few
pressing things accomplished before they are called away.

Project Wednesdays
How many times do we feel forced to procrastinate an important project
because we just don’t have 3 or 4 hours of uninterrupted time to work on
it? Here’s the deal! Wednesdays are project days: No meetings, no
expectation that phone calls will be returned or emails answered. The
office door is closed. If you need information from someone for
Wednesdays’ project, you’d better get it handled on Tuesday. The
project day is the day you work on your “big rocks”. It only works if
it is held sacred by the entire organization or at least a department. Just
think of what you could plan to get done if you had a whole day every week
to work on something without distraction!

Meeting Productivity
Some companies require the person calling a meeting to email out or P.A.L.
to everyone at least 2 days before the meeting. The P.A.L. clearly
specified
Purpose
Agenda Items
Length
This helps keep meetings finite and to the point. Promptness must become a
cultural norm. A 10-minute late start in a meeting with 12 people is 2
Executive hours wasted, kaput, down the drain… For fun, we sometimes
throw paper wads at latecomers. It’s light-hearted, but it works.
If the meeting honcho can’t clearly state the purpose and some agenda
items, then it’s not likely to be the best use of your time. This brings
us to the next point, a radical idea…

Meetings Optional
Having Mandatory gatherings sometimes allows us to be sloppy in managing
the tightness and effectiveness of a meeting; people are there because they
have to be there. What if we trusted our employees to know what’s the
very best use of their time? If we ran informative, decisive, well-directed
meetings, that given their job priorities, people would choose to show up.

FORWARD FOCUSED MEETINGS
One of the reasons we have so many meetings is that they’re often so
awful that nothing actually gets done. Forward Focus™ completely changes the dynamic!

Jonette Crowley and the Enlightened Leadership Team

Yesterday was Memorial Day in the United States, a very special day

when we take time to be grateful to those who gave that ultimate

sacrifice – their lives – for the freedom of the rest of us.

I was not personally involved in a major celebration. Instead, I took

extra time…

… to read stories of fallen soldiers in the newspaper and

online. During the day when a short documentary would come up

on TV about a family’s sacrifice, or if I saw a report of a special service

being held, I just stopped what I was doing and allowed myself to

move into a deep feeling of gratitude.

I bought a poppy out in front of the grocery store from an elderly man

who was a veteran of foreign wars. As he shared how the poppies

were made by and bought from disabled soldiers and that 100% of

the proceeds were going to veterans in need, I found myself grateful

for him and all the others involved in this important cause. I proudly

wore the poppy.

As the day went on, I couldn’t help but notice how my little moments

of gratitude were so valuable for ME! I truly HOPE my gratitude is good

for the souls of those who died for our freedom. I’m PRETTY SURE my

gratitude is appreciated by the families of those who sacrificed their

lives. But I KNOW those moments of gratitude were good for my own

soul.

Those special moments of gratitude had a cleansing effect and had

me realize at a beautiful, deep level how trivial most of my worries and

concerns really are. What a blessing to feel that.

Then, this morning I woke up naturally and gradually with a

beautiful sense of peace and gratitude – significantly deeper than I

have felt in some time. I realized that the emotional and honest

appreciation and gratitude that I had felt throughout Memorial

Day was spilling over wonderfully into my new day.

Wow, what a special way to start any day, I realized – in appreciation

and gratitude. What a blessing this entire experience has been

for me. So, I quietly slipped out of bed, put on my robe, and went

downstairs to right this little post.

So, my plan is to take a few minutes tomorrow morning as I awaken

to think about what I am grateful for. I’ll be running on that question,

“What am I grateful for?,” even as I drop off to sleep.

I can only imagine, as I work with my team today at 

Enlightened

Leadership Solutions

, how my starting my day from gratitude will

naturally spill over to gratitude for them and everyone else I

encounter during the day. That will make me a better leader -

I have no doubt.

Leading from a place of gratitude is a powerful place from which

to lead.

I would enjoy your thoughts and comments about this!

In gratitude for YOU!

Ed Oakley

Technorati Tags: appreciation, gratitude, memorial day, POPPY

It’s finally time to let you know what’s in the upcoming “Leading Change in Difficult Times” webinar series. Here is the info in 11:32 minute video:

Printed information about the Leading Change series HERE.So, here are questions we invite you to comment on below:

What do you like about what you’ve seen or heard about this webinar series?

What else would make this course especially valuable to you, your team and your organization?

What other questions do you have?

How would being able to successfully lead your organization through significant change make a difference in your life?

Technorati Tags: CONTENT, leading change, webinar

Here is the 4th in our series of videos about Leading Change
in Difficult Times. We’re hope they’re providing great value.

This video focuses on the specific stage of Transition that
we call the Twilight Zone. Ed Oakley provides a couple of tips
for moving people through this stage. Enjoy!

Please let us know how this was helpful to you, as well as the
questions it raised! You can email us at change@enleadership.com,
or you can leave a comment below.

Our best to you as you guide your organization through successful
change!

The Enlightened Leadership Team

Technorati Tags: forward focus, leading change, RIGHT QUESTIONS, transition