In a Nutshell 

A nice collection.

The 7 Beautiful Things Excellent Leaders Do
By Robin Sharma
#1. Excellent Leaders Focus on The Vital Few
#2. Excellent Leaders are Masters of Their Crafts
#3. Excellent Leaders Cherish Time
#4. Excellent Leaders Forge Human Connections
#5. Excellent Leaders Have Optimization Mindsets
#6. Excellent Leaders Don’t Surrender
#7. Excellent Leaders Have Impressive Habits

10 Simple Rules to Be Nice
By Robin Sharma
Rule #1: Think about others before you think about yourself.
Rule #2: Say “please”.
Rule #3: Say “thank you”.
Rule #4: Smile.
Rule #5: Say “sorry” when you need to say “sorry”.
Rule #6: Turn off your phone when you eat with your family.
Rule #7: Be on time. No, be early.
Rule #8: Radiate optimism and make people feel good.
Rule #9: Keep your promises.
Rule #10: Be humble.

Top Tips For A Powerful Brand
James Caan
Appearances are everything
Quality is King
Find a niche
Be creative 

15 Things Inspiring Leaders Do Differently 
by Lee Colan 
Inspiring leaders...
1.      Install a rigorous selection process to ensure they hire only the best and brightest.
        Set a clear and compelling vision.
2.     Collaborate with their team to define a plan for realizing that vision.
3.     Keep the plan visible.
4.     Keep score along the way to keep the team energized and accountable.
5.     Look for people doing something right and recognize it.
6.     Eliminate barriers to getting work done.
7.     Address even minor performance issues with proactive coaching.
8.     Listen more than they talk.
9.     Uncompromisingly uphold the team's values by using them to make big and little 
       decisions.
10.   Give credit for and reward successes.
11.   Get to know the person behind the employee.
12.   Care about their people as much as their people's performance.
13.    Focus on the organization's purpose as much as (if not more) than profits.
14.    Consistently and frequently communicate even when they is apparently no news.
15.    On the contrary, leaders who miss the mark are likely to find their team's enthusiasm          expiring. 

These fifteen (not all that uncommon) leadership practices are what to avoid.

"Expiring" leaders...
16. Hire by the seat of the pants, caving to pressure to just fill seats. Paint a vague or 
     ever-changing picture of the future.
17. Tell their teams how to achieve their goals.
18. Keep the plan close to their chest in case they want to change it.
19. Leave the team in the dark about progress to maintain control over consequences and 
     rewards ... and to avoid personal accountability for results.
20. Look for people doing something wrong and punish them.
21. Create barriers to getting work done.
22. Sweep minor performance issues under the rug if they are uncomfortable to address.
23. Talk more than listen.
24. Talk about team values but make decisions using "real business criteria."
25. Take personal credit for team successes.
26. View team members as interchangeable parts to the business machine.
27. Care about results only.
28. Focus on profits.
29. Communicate using the "no news is good news" philosophy.

Take a good look at the way you lead your business. If any items from the second list apply to you, what action will you take to fix them?

Ask These 4 Questions to Build a Purpose-Driven Team 
by Lee Colan 
Without purpose, your team will go nowhere ... fast. 
You've probably heard the adage, "Make every minute count!" 
But count toward what? 
How do you know if your minutes count?
To know, you have to measure your time and effort against something. That something is your purpose. Without a compelling purpose, you are just putting in time. Your mind might be engaged, but your heart will not be. And if you want your team members to make every minute count, give them something to be passionate about. When you get your team members inspired about a purpose, their hearts will follow.
The Fundamental Four
Your purpose needs to answer the most fundamental question, "Why do we do what we do?" 
If your organization has a stated purpose, connect your team's work directly to it. 
If no one has yet painted the organizational picture, don't wait. 
Take the initiative to define a purpose for your team.
Where are we going? (Goals)
What are we doing to get there? (Plans)
How can I contribute? (Roles)
What's in it for me? (Rewards)

Why It's Essential to Keep Employees in the Loop 
by Lee Colan 
If your employees notice something out of the ordinary, they may start to fear the worst. Use proactive communication to avoid setting off a 'silence spiral.' 
Lack of information and unanswered questions can start what I call the "silence spiral" among your employees:
Silence ➾  Doubt ➾  Fear ➾  Panic ➾  Worst - Case Thinking

The silence spiral undermines trust and puts a damper on passion. It can take five minutes or five weeks to play out, but, in most cases, it happens more rapidly than you would imagine. 

6 Simple Questions for Building a Solid Strategy 
by Lee Colan 
Why do we exist?
Where are we going?
How will we conduct ourselves?
What will we do?
How will we measure our success?
What improvements or changes must we make?
Answering these questions will get you started with a solid plan you can execute.

The Six Simple Questions in Action
(excerpted from Stick with It: Mastering the Art of Adherence)
Let’s take a look at how a worldwide manufacturer of golf clubs might answer the simple six questions to develop a strategy:

1. Why do we exist?
To bring confidence and winning strokes to golfers across the globe.
2. Where are we going?
We will be a trusted club in the golf bag of 75 percent of the world’s ranked professional golfers.
3. How will we conduct ourselves?
• Innovate in all we do―the big ideas and the little ideas.
• Respect our teammates and the profession we serve.
               • Pour our hearts into our work. Every club is a reflection of us.
4. What will we do?
• Penetrate new markets.
• Boost brand exposure.
• Drive organizational efficiency.
5. How will we measure our success?
• Penetrate new markets
• Increase sales from $5 million to $10 million in China and Japan.
• Increase sales by 15 percent in the European market.
• Boost brand exposure
• Achieve number 1 or 2 ranking in all professional player surveys of best brand of clubs.
• Triple the number of brand impressions in Asian markets by year-end.
• Drive organizational efficiency
• Reduce manufacturing waste by 10 percent by year-end and by 20 percent over three 
   years.
• Reduce expenses as a percent of sales by 5 percent by year-end and by 15 percent over     three years.
• Improve average employee engagement score to 4.5 by year-end and to 4.8 (top 1%  in      industry) in 3 years.
6. What improvements or changes must we make?
• Penetrate new markets
• Hire new sales leaders for Asia and Europe.
• Double pipeline of player endorsements in Asia and Europe by year-end.
• Boost brand exposure
• Sign three new sponsorship deals with top 100 ranked players by year-end.
• Double the number of tournaments for which we are a primary sponsor.
• Sponsor 10 junior golfers’ clinics in each geography.
• Drive organizational efficiency
• Train all employees on innovation techniques.
• Review lowest-performing products.
• Implement Passionate Performance engagement model to drive employee engagement.
Copyright © 2013 by The L Group, Inc. 972-250-9989

Are You Connected or Connecting? 
by Lee Colan
There is nothing wrong with being technologically connected, so long as it doesn't keep you from making honest, personal connections in real life. 
Question - Asking questions is the least used and most powerful leadership tool you have. 
Asking questions is selfless and self-serving at the same time. It demonstrates interest in your team while providing you with insights into someone else’s world--their motivations, passions, challenges, assumptions, and aspirations. 
Once you ask, make sure you listen. Don’t ask if you won’t listen--that’s the fast track to employee cynicism. 
Leaders who really connect listen at least 50 percent of the time...
and most of the remaining time they are asking questions. 

Keep it simple by asking things like:
• How can I help you?
• What type of project gets you really excited?
• When do you feel like you are in the zone?
• What’s one thing you would change to improve your work process?
• What’s your vision for this project?
• What would you like to do less of?

Common Ground - 
If you are diligent about asking questions you will naturally find common ground. Find common ground as a platform for building a relationship or even a bridge to mend a relationship. When you really observe, watch, ask, listen, it’s easy to find things in common. This is more about your mindset than it is about reality. Consider two people who are at odds and walk away from negotiations as a lost cause. Then a mediator walks in and quickly finds a win-win solution. The contentious parties are focusing on differences while the mediator is focused on commonalities. 
Compliment - 
We do more for those who appreciate us. As long as your compliments are sincere and meaningful, you can pile them on. A sincere compliment is the quickest way to turn an enemy into an ally, a frown into a smile and resistance into acceptance. Look for things your team members are doing right. In addition, look inside of them to find a trait you admire. 
Are they punctual? 
Creative? 
Well-dressed? 
Optimistic? 
Intuitive? 
Selfless? 
Do they have high integrity? 
There are abundant opportunities to sincerely compliment your team members for who they are and for their performance.

3 Ways to Spark Employee Passion 
by Lee Colan 
Passionate employees are not born, they are made through thoughtful leadership. Here are three ways in which you can help bring the best out of your team. 
The key to passionate performance is found within the hearts and minds of employees where their basic human needs are fulfilled. It’s a simple but powerful formula: When their needs are fulfilled, they are engaged and perform at their peak ability. When their needs are not met, they are frustrated, out of control, unfocused, and disconnected. In a word, disengaged.
To meet these needs, leaders must first acknowledge and understand them. In order to do that, leaders must view their employees as people and not just workers. Once you do that, you will be able to identify their six basic needs--three of which are intellectual and the other three emotional. The goal of this post will be to highlight the three emotional needs: Purpose, Intimacy, and Appreciation.
Need #1: Purpose
The need to contribute to something bigger than ourselves is a basic psychological need. So, leaders must build a bridge between today’s tasks and brighter tomorrow. In essence, you need to create a compelling cause for your team to fight for. If your team’s “why” is strong enough, the “how” will take care of itself.
Need #2: Intimacy
Nothing we achieve in this world is achieved alone. It is always achieved with others helping us along the way. We all want to--and need to--belong. As the leader, you can create connections with rituals. Rituals create intimacy by making us feel special and unique from other teams. Ensure your rituals are natural to your leadership style and 100 percent reliable, whether it’s a Monday morning huddle up, a Friday birthday lunch, a quarterly community service day, or monthly performance recognition. The key is for them to be natural and reliable.
Need #3: Appreciation
People do more for those who appreciate them. Although leaders widely recognize the need for appreciation, it tends to be a blind spot. That is, they generally believe they are much more appreciative of their teams than their teams think they are. The reason is that they do not convert their invisible thoughts of appreciation into visible acts of appreciation. With all of today’s technology options, it’s easy to find ourselves too busy for face-to-face interaction, but that’s one of the best ways to charge up our teams. Showing appreciation is not a matter of time and intention; rather, it’s a matter of priority and action.
This is basic psychology--reinforce those behaviors that you want to see more frequently. When you spot your team doing something right, praise them for it...and do it often. The key is to be sincere and specific. In other words, don’t fall into the trap of blurting out the robotic “Good job”. Take the time to thoughtfully explain why you appreciated the specific action taken by a team member.

Ways to Get More of What You Want
by Lee Colan
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the ones that are most often overlooked. Reflect the behavior you want to see, and you'll be surprised with the results.
1. Want enthusiasm?          Give it.
2. Want change?         Become the change.
3. Want forgiveness?         Give it.
4. Want more autonomy? Give it.
5. Want to be heard?         Lend an ear.
6. Want recognition?         Give it.
7. Want respect?         Show it.
8. Want consideration?   Give it.
9. Want help?         Offer yours.
10. Want gratitude?           Express it.
11. Want leadership?         Be the leader.
12. Want more?         Give more.
13.    Want appreciation?       Give it first.

8 Ways to Be Constantly Improving 
by Lee Colan
The key to being successful lies in finding ways to be constantly improving. 

1. Seek feedback on your performance.  Be prepared to make changes. It might feel 
    uncomfortable, but it will build your competence.
2. Take baby steps. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is our competence. 
3. Listen more than you talk. Remember what Mark Twain said, "If we were supposed to 
    talk more than we listen, we would have two mouths and one ear." When you listen, 
    you learn and also prevent "blind spots"--weaknesses that are apparent to others but           not to you. The higher you rise in an organization, the more you must listen.
4. Build your BEST team--Buddies who Ensure Success and Truth. Choose your team 
   wisely. Ensure each member offers the energy, truth, and positive perspective you 
    need to succeed. 
5. Create it once, use it many times. If you know you will be performing a task more than 
    once, create a checklist, form, or template to save time and improve your consistency 
    over the long haul. No need to reinvent the wheel every time you conduct or 
    coordinate an off-site meeting, prepare a proposal, send out a mailing, plan a new 
    project timeline, etc.
6. Learn along the way. After you complete each task, ask yourself, "What should I Stop, 
    Start, and Keep?" Identify those things that did not go so well (Stop), those you did not 
    do that would have helped (Start), and those that went well (Keep). 
7. Ask the right questions. The fastest way to change the answers you receive--from 
    yourself and others--is to change the questions you ask. Asking the right questions will 
    get you better answers whether you're asking them of yourself or of others. The 
    questions you ask will either limit or expand the possible responses.
8. Be decisive! Get 80 percent of the information you need, then make the best decision 
    you can. Don't let the fear of being less than perfect stop you. Remember, good 
    judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Forget Time Management. Try Attention Management 
by Lee Colan 
Don't spend your day constantly battling the clock--it's a battle you won't win. Instead, decide what your priorities are and focus your attention on them. No matter what you do, time marches on at its own pace--tick, tick, tick. There's nothing you can do to change that (unless you can travel close to the speed of light). Time is a great equalizer; it runs at the same speed for everybody, rich or poor, jet pilot or snail farmer. You can't manufacture time, you can't reproduce time, you can't slow time down, or turn it around and make it run in the other direction. You can't trade bad hours for good ones either.

What you can manage, however, is your attention. Attention is a resource we all possess. Your attention reflects your conscious decisions about which activities will occupy your time. You are where your attention is, not necessarily where your body is.

The first step is to precisely understand your priorities.  Ask yourself, "If I could accomplish only one thing right now, what would that one thing be?" Your answer will quickly identify your top priority, which is where you should be directing your attention.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the World War II general who went on to become a popular President of the United States, used what is now called the Eisenhower Method for managing attention. After identifying the tasks confronting him, he drew a square and divided it into four quadrants. Each task was then designated to one of the four quadrants, according to which of the 4 D's was the most appropriate: Do it, dump it, delegate it, or defer it.
Be sure to distinguish between "urgent" and "important" activities. Important activities are beneficial and should be accomplished, if not right away, then eventually. Urgent activities are time sensitive, but not necessarily crucial to your bigger goals.
As you identify priorities, be realistic about what you can accomplish. Be honest with yourself about what you truly want to achieve in your life and work. 
Where do you want to invest your attention?
Eisenhower's mantra was "What's important is seldom urgent, and what's urgent is seldom important." Less important priorities should not receive more attention than more important priorities.
Manage your attention today and win tomorrow.

6 Things Your Employees Want You to Know
by Lee Colan 
Your company's best asset is a fully-engaged workforce. To achieve that, you need to understand what your employees really care about.   In fact, the good old “Four P’s of Marketing”--product, price, promotion and placement--are having much less impact for companies competing in today’s marketplace. A fifth “P”--people--has become an increasingly important competitive factor.
1. I want to achieve. I cannot read your mind, so communicate clear and achievable goals 
    so I can succeed. Do not be a barrier to getting things done by being a decision-making 
    bottleneck. After all, I am getting them done for you.
2. I want to master my work, so coach me often to help me get closer to doing so. I will 
    take the good feedback with the bad, but I need all of it to improve.
3. I need autonomy to do my work the best way I know how, so give me some space. I 
    know you have done my job  before, but let me use your experience and my fresh 
    perspective to create even better ways to get things done.
4. I need a sense of purpose. I want to work for a compelling cause, so help me see the 
   connection between my daily work and how it makes a difference.
5. I need to feel connected. I want our team to be special, and special teams start with 
    special relationships. I don’t really care how much you know until I know how much 
    you care.
6. I crave appreciation. I do more for those who appreciate me, so pour it on! I know I 
    make plenty of mistakes and we discuss those, but also try to catch me doing 
    something right and you know that too, so let me know. 
So, listen up, engage and win!

8 Ways Using Humor Will Make You a Better Leader 
by Kevin Daum 
1. Energize people. 
2. Create lasting memories.
3. Break the tension.
4. Put things in perspective. 
5. Liven things up. 
6. Disarm an uncomfortable situation. 
7. Build a bonded community. 
8. Make people feel great.  

5 Tips to Help You Hyper Focus 
 By Kevin Daum 
Feeling distracted? 
Who isn't? 
1. Understand Your Personal Work Style
2. Stay in the Present
3. Use the 4 Ds
4 Ds and was initially used by President "Ike" Eisenhower. The key is to distinguish between importance and urgency of tasks. Eisenhower's mantra was: "What's important is seldom urgent, and what's urgent is seldom important."
Do those tasks that are important and urgent. 
Delegate tasks that are unimportant and urgent. 
Defer tasks that are important and not urgent, but make sure you assign a due date and do those personally. 
Dump tasks that are unimportant and not urgent.
4. Respond, Don't React
5. Reward Yourself For Focus

To Work Better, Take Your Nose Off The Grindstone 
By Peter Economy

Here are 5 things you can do to enjoy your job more--by thinking about it a little less. 
A positive attitude can do wonders for any work environment. Happy, positive people are a pleasure to work with, particularly those who remain pleasant and even-tempered under challenging or difficult circumstances.
Challenge Yourself - In addition to your regular work goals, set some fun goals for yourself. 
New Tricks - Each week or each quarter, set a goal to learn something new. 
80-20 - Strive to make 80% of your job consist of tasks you enjoy working on, and accept that 20% may include assignments you don’t enjoy as much, or find more difficult. 
Commit time to getting done the less-attractive tasks first. Work at them consistently, a little at a time, until they are completed. If they can be delegated, invest the time to make that happen. Avoid procrastinating. Save the assignments you enjoy and have a knack for and address them last, since you will naturally find them easier to finish.
Socialize - Make time to get out of your routine and meet new people.
Explore - People often say "the best time to get a new job is when you already have a job."