If you haven’t read Horton Hatches the Egg, a lazy bird (Mayzie) wants a break from tending to her egg, and asks Horton (an elephant) to egg sit. Assuming a short bird-break, the elephant promises to watch the egg. Without giving you the full story, Horton keeps his word.

Why am recommending a children’s book? Like many Dr. Seuss books, there is a grown-up message. Horton goes through many hardships, but keeps his word. In fact, the line that is oft-repeated in the book is:

“I meant what I what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.”

Having this mentality and behavior would serve all of us well - at work and at home.

My wife Lori and I liked this message so much that she painted Horton and that phrase in our daughter Kelsey’s room before she was born!

We believe that the path of self-development is upward. We want to go to the next level or rise up to peak performance. I believe self-development can occur by spiralling downward.

Hop into the cockpit as we take off to a new spin on self-development.

Even as a 4 year old I dreamed of being a pilot. I was transfixed as the old propeller Trans Canada Airlines Vanguards and Viking planes would fly into the Regina airport. My dream was defeated because I was colorblind. My father told me that because I was colorblind I could not fly. I loved my dad but we should be cautious of what anyone tells us, even the people we love and who love us.

Dad was wrong.

I could not get a commercial licence but I but I could qualify for a private pilot’s licence. There was nothing so uplifting as flying solo for the first time.

Yet, as in landing and taking off, flying has its ups and downs. In learning to fly we practice incipient spins. The start of a spin that we pull out of before it goes into a full spin.

On a Tuesday afternoon I was practicing this manoeuvre. I flew up to 4000 feet, stalled the aircraft (on purpose) kicked the rudder hard to the left (on purpose) and moved into the incipient spin. Although the plane was moving my brain froze and in two seconds I was into a full spin…spinning out of control towards the ground.

The airplane seemed to be stuck in the air while the ground started to spin up to suck me and the airplane into the earth. The instruments jerked over the red line and I panicked as I tried to correct by pulling back on the wheel, away from the ground, and kicking the rudder hard to the right, away from the spin. This evasive action merely intensified the spin I was already in.

During the next few moments there were a bizarre chain of events. My life was about to end but nothing meaningful was flashing before consciousness. I had hoped for more and then a momentary curiosity flashed across my neurons. Would I see some kind of light just before I died?

Just as I was drifting into a contemplation of the afterlife, I heard someone scream, ”F _ _ K”. That somone was me. What a way to go, an obscenity as my last spoken word on earth. Yet the obscene scream jolted me into action.

The way out is through.

I pushed the control wheel towards the ground.

I kicked the rudder further into the spin.

The cessena shuddered.

The ground paused.

I levelled out with under 100 feet to spare. I had flown the plane through the spin rather than fighting the spin and making it worse.

You can call it a near death experience, you can call it a miracle, but I call it ineptitude with a dash of obscene good luck.

Below are lessons spun from this experience. I offer them to you as invitations so that you can pull out of your own “incipient spin.”

Be careful what you dream for, you never know how it might end up.

Don’t always trust people who tell you that you can’t do something but they might be more helpful than you know at the time.

The key lesson not just in flying but in life from this for me was: The way out of something is through it. We often need to push into what we fear and experience what we dread.

If you are not competent it may be best to stop before you hurt yourself of someone else. I was the best ground school pilot that year at the Winnipeg Flying Club but I sucked as a real pilot. You will be happy to know the sky is safe and that I only fly as a passenger now - but be careful if you sit beside me as I might want to tell you my story.

Sometimes our toughest moments become our best stories. When we transform experience into story we can change the past — not the facts of the past but what we take away from it.

Although I embrace respectful language I discovered that swear words, at the right time and place, can be quite liberating and maybe even put a whole new spin on our life.

Photo Credit: Cessna 172R by http://flickr.com/photos/lonetown/712037662/

If this were your last day, would you die happy today?

David Zinger

Which blogs do I read?… Here’s my list.

A number of people have asked me which blogs I read. I read and follow a very eclectic list of over 200 bloggers. I don’t read every post by every author but I check them all and delve into the ones that capture my attention.

If you ever thought blogs were just some type of diary kept by teenagers then I encourage you to see it very differently by visiting some of the blogs I have included on my list.

Click here to visit the list of blogs I read or you can always find a link to the list on my menu bar at the top of this site under the heading: Blog List.

This HR professional was reinforcing a leadership development program for supervisors and department managers we designed for them using The Leader’s Digest and its Practical Application Planner. She decided to now use Moose on the Table as pre-reading to a refresher follow-up session.

I wrote Moose on the Table based on what my experiences have taught me about what is needed to bring lasting cultural change to organizations. If change facilitators like HR professionals or middle managers are not able to get senior executives leading this charge from the top down (and even if they are), a critical component to success is equipping supervisors and middle managers with the skills, tools, and processes to change the way their part of the organization is led on a day-to-day basis. This does tie directly into metrics, priorities (what we call Strategic Imperatives), processes, systems, and the like.

Pete Leonard (the central character in Moose on the Table) made a feeble attempt to do some moose hunting in Chapter Six (I’d like to rename that chapter “Wild Moose Chase”.) It’s not until he goes through a deeper team/organizational analysis (Chapter Eight) and gets into identifying Strategic Imperatives with his team (Chapters Nine and Ten) that things start to happen (the Strategic Imperatives of Pete’s team start on page 120). But as he gets back to the organization, his boss and the organizational culture pushes back and he needs to really screw up his courage to break through that inertia.

First, recognize that I’m not talking about reading novels or the classics. Reading those is purely for pleasure, and, for the most part, the suggestions below don’t apply.

But if you are reading to learn something and to make your life better in some way - to improve your professional results, lower your weight, or learn a hobby – these suggestions will make a real difference in the enjoyment and benefits you gain from reading.

Have a goal. When you pick up any nonfiction book you should know why you are going to dive into it. Maybe you are trying to broaden your knowledge, or improve in a very specific way, or solve a problem? You could have a wide variety of reasons for reading something - any any of them are valid. The key is having a goal and recognizing it. Once you set in your mind your purpose for reading, your subconscious mind will help you reach that goal. Keeping a clear goal will keep you from getting lost in a section or spending too much mental energy on the writing style, etc. Give yourself a clear picture of success and consider the book as a tool to reaching that success.

Do a scan. Once you know what you want to get from the book, spend a few minutes looking it over. Read the table of contents. Flip through the sections. Allow your mind to notice the sections or parts that seem to best help you reach your goal. Perhaps you’ll determine that the whole book isn’t ever relevant to your goal. Which leads me to the next point…

Read only what you need. If you’re like me, you grew up with the idea that once you start a book, you finish it. But guess what; sometimes one chapter is all you need. Sometimes the book loses steam and become repetitive after the first few chapters. Sometimes the writing doesn’t speak to you. If you aren’t enjoying it, or benefiting from it, stop reading it. You will become a more effective and efficient reader when you stop feeling the need to finish every book to the last page.

Be active. Reading, like learning, is an active process. And since in this context you are reading to learn, you will gain more by being an active participant in the book. Keep a journal with you. Write in the margins. Use a highlighter. Unless the book belongs to a friend or the library (and if you are reading for learning, I suggest you really do need your own copy) you should feel free to write in it! Ask yourself questions. Agree or disagree with a point. Jot down your own examples to support an idea. In short, when you become actively engaged with the book, you will glean more from it.

Make it yours. Until you begin to own the material and ideas, they still belong to the author. You must own the learning. The best ways to do that are to write about and/or talk about the ideas, concepts, lessons and examples. This may be as simple as sharing parts of what you read with a friend or colleague. It might be writing about it in your journal for private consumption only, or writing about it on a blog to share with the world. If you are sharing it with others, not only do you benefit, but so do they! But even if you are simply taking notes and writing your ideas on a scrap of paper that gets lost, the act of writing is an act of synthesis and learning.

Try it. Remember, the book is a tool to help you reach a goal. Once the book has aided you in that journey, you must take the most important step. You must take action! Try what you read. Apply it in some way. That could mean using that new technique, starting on the prescribed diet or buying the necessary items for the new hobby. To get the ultimate value from the book, you must write your own chapters with your actions.

These are all actions that I take as a reader. They have made a difference in my life and in my results. They can make a difference for you as well. Regardless of what, how much or how often you read try these suggestions and you will be pleased with the results.

Potential Pointer: Reading is an important life skill. No matter how often you read, you need strategies to gain the most from your reading experience. You must have a goal for your reading and engage yourself with the book to maximize the benefit you gain from the time spent reading.

What do I need to communicate?

Often leaders say, “I’ve already told them that, sent the email, gave the presentation.” While this may be true, not only do these communications need to be repeated, but often what is being communicated is the wrong thing, or at the wrong time.

Here is a simple rule of thumb:

Communicate why before how, and don’t switch too soon.

In most organizations and teams the “why” is missing. When the why is strong enough, the how will be figured out. Besides, if you are trying to empower your organization, as a leader you probably need to spend less time on how anyway.

Focus more of your communication and conversation on why and less on how.

Also posted on Leadership.

Click here to visit the employee engagement network. In just under 4 weeks we reached 100 members. I strongly encourage you to both visit and join this network. It is for people who focus on employee engagement at work, people who want to enhance their own work, or people who are involved in writing, consutlting or doing other work related to engagement.

We have been very active in 4 weeks with over 25,000 views!

Here is just a sample of 12 of the over 100 members you can interact with:

Tim Wright who was the first member to join after I founded the network and who write a marvelous blog on culture to engage.

Terrence Seamon who is a very active and insightful community member from the American Management Association.

Rosa Say who brings a whole lot of Hawaii into her leadership practice.

Michael Lee Stallard who wrote a wonderful book and knows the importance of connection for engagement.

Michelle Malay Cater who writes with style and substance.

Judy McLeish from Toronto who writes another great blog on engagement.

Kathy Lankford who has made some very insightful comments on the network.

Michael Kanazawa who had a cubicle close to Scott Adams the creator of Dilbert and who works on big ideas to big results.

Scott Herrick who writes about careers in Cube Rules.

Guatam Ghosh who offers frequent contributions and adds a perspective from India.

Patricia Ryan Madson who brings the spirit of improvisation to the site.

Andrew Rondeau who jumped right in and got very involved in our conversations.

Obviously this is just a very partial list and it is the combination of EVERYONE who joined to make this a leading resources for anyone interested in employee engagement.

Photo Credit: The worlds network by http://flickr.com/photos/saschaaa/152502539/

David Zinger, Host - Employee Engagement Network.

Okay let’s assume you are very self aware and you are noticing behaviors that you would like to change or shift when interacting with others. Congrats! The next step is to be able to transform those behaviors into new strategies that will for you and for those around you.

In my book “The Control Freak Revolution- Make Your Most Maddening Behaviors Work for Your Company and To Your Advantage” I give in depth solutions on how to shift our actions in order to get new and enhanced results. I have been doing publicity for the book and I am commonly asked “how do we change these behaviors?”

It’s a great question and in Chapter nine I provide some help with this. In a very brief synopis here are 7 ways to make your maddening behaviors work for you:

Turn the negative into a positive for each maddening behavior transform it into new behaviors for example:

#1 Turn the negative of impatience into the positive of communicated urgency

#2 Turn the negative of being overbearing into the positive of assertive coaching

#3 Turn the negative of being over controlling into the positive of being just right controlling

#4 Turn the negative of being condescending into the positive of respecting others opinions

#5 Turn the negative of non trust into the positive of letting go slowly with trust

#6 Turn the negative of perfectionism into the positive of healthy achievement

#7 Turn the negative of being push and forceful into the positive of being flexible and adaptable

Of course none of these proposed shifts are easy to make and if you are really struggling I recommend getting support in the form of coaching in order to make a commitment to positive change and growth.

Or read the book

“What bold thing have you done this week?”

You know a great question, because even when you know the answer, you pause.

I paused.

We talked about variations of this question that she uses in different situations:

What bold thing will you do today?

What bold thing have you done this year?

What bold thing will you do this year?

… you get the idea.

But I hope you do more than get the idea…. I hope you will answer the question.

What bold thing will you do this week?

Or, to Kevin-ize it…

What remarkable thing will you do this week?

Take your pick - they are both questions we could benefit from answering (and acting on) regularly.

Also posted in Creativity, Leadership and Learning.

Building on the highly customized Courageous Leadership for Health & Safety training program we designed for Barrick Gold (see July 2006, December 2006, and December 2007 issues – The CLEMMER Group’s training and consulting division has been rapidly expanding our offerings and expertise in this area. As word of the dramatic results of Barrick’s program (75% reduction in safety incidents over three years) spreads, I’m having more conversations with health and safety professionals as well as senior executives about The CLEMMER Group helping them improve their safety performance.

But far too many leaders don’t get the difference between “sheep dipping” people throughout their organization in a training program and truly shifting the culture and daily leadership behaviors.

See Health and Safety Bolt-on Programs or Built-In Processes from the August 2003 issue for a deeper look at this critical distinction. The article also has a “commitment continuum” that is central to Barrick defining expected leadership behavior and one of the keys to their success. You can also watch me presenting this difference in a nine-minute video clip at http://www.clemmer.net/video (scroll down to “Quality and Safety Leadership”.)