Developing Your Leadership Foundation
As manufacturing leaders, it is important to continue to develop new habits of thinking and new habits of action. Doing so will allow you to create focus and gain momentum in your organization.
The goal is to help you build your leadership skills for yourself, for your organization, and for your future.
Building your leadership foundation requires three elements – habit of mind, habit of action, and focused work.
The Science Behind Habits
Habits comprise about 40% to 45% of our actions in a day. And while we want to do our best to develop some great habits, we still end up doing those things we know are not going to be useful in achieving our long-term goals. And we keep on doing them anyway. Why is that?
Whether that’s eating better, exercising more, being more focused on your work, taking a strategic view, or thinking how to be more creative – it can be such a struggle for us to develop good habits because they often get lost in the pressure of everyday work.
In the book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg, he says that habits are useful because they help us deal with everyday life. In fact, our habits can determine the arc of our lives. The behaviors we consistently exhibit determine where we go in life as well as what kind of leader we become.
The Characteristics of Habits
There are three pieces of habits:
Cue - what starts it and what triggers it
Response - what you do in response to that trigger
Reward - this rolls up into cravings
Habits are very useful filters.
We tend to have literally thousands of stimuli every day coming in through our senses. And we depend on habits for most of our responses. In most cases, a habit is basically something that happens without thinking.
Organizations have habits as well. It’s like “how things are done around here.” In other words, it’s what makes up the culture of an organization. And in many organizations, changes within the company tend to bump into their own organizational habits.
Habits can't be erased.
You don't get rid of bad habits or old habits. They are literally wired into our brains. However, they can be replaced or overlaid by new habits.
Therefore, don’t focus on what habits you should NOT be doing, but on what are the things you should be doing next in the future.
Habits vs. Will Power
Now, you could say you’re just going to use your will power, but habits are stronger and willpower tends to fade over time. So even if you’ve got the best of intentions, you could forget and not follow your new habit because you’re already tired at the end of the day.
Additionally, relapses can happen as you're establishing new habits. And when that happens, don’t be hard on yourself. Simply forgive yourself and move ahead.
The Laws of Habit Change
When you’re trying to swap your old habit with a new, better one, there are things you need to consider to really fully achieve this. Stephen Guise outlined this in his book, Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results (Volume 1).
1. Make it obvious and impossible to forget.
I once had a client that wanted to have a better habit for exercise. So literally, they placed their running shoes right where they would almost trip over them every morning. That way, there’s no reason they could forget what they’re supposed to do.
2. Make it attractive.
Think about what will make you want to do it? Is there something that you need to trigger an attraction and not trigger avoidance?
3. Make it easy.
How can you do it so that it's almost easier to do it than to not do it? If your habit is to write the first thing in the morning, place a notebook and a pen right on your desk before you go to bed at night. Or if your habit is to not eat cookies, obviously one good way to do it is by not having any in the house so that you have to make a special trip to go do that.
4. Make it satisfying.
What reward are you going to get from this? Old habits have rewards, and they're very ingrained. So what would you view as a reward for that new habit?
5. Make it smaller.
When you feel a certain resistance to a task, try to make it even smaller. A good example of this is Jerry Seinfeld's system of writing jokes. He had a big calendar on his wall and he committed to writing one joke every day. Then he put a big X on this big calendar. He didn't want to break the chain, so he had all these x's on this calendar for writing one joke in a day. He wanted to keep that series going so that became his reward or motivation.
Now, going back to the exercise example, instead of doing 10 or 20 push-ups, just do one pushup every day because you don't want to break the chain. By breaking down your goal into smaller chunks, everything becomes more doable than it would have been otherwise.
6. Make things into a routine or a sequence.
If you have a getting up routine and going to bed routine, how could you incorporate some habit into your normal habit of getting up in the morning and going to bed?
Maybe you want to write more and then you can make it a part of your morning routine. And so, as soon as I get up in the morning, you're going to meditate. Then you're going to write three pages. And you have that book on your bedside table or wherever it is that it's going to be the first thing you see every morning and it's something you do before you do anything else.
The idea here is to tack your little mini habits onto something you're already doing so you don't have to consciously think because it's already part of the routine.
Why You Shouldn't Set Goals
How many times have you made a New Year’s resolution? Now, out of those times, how many of those have you actually fulfilled?
Forget about setting goals because very little happens to them anyway. Instead, focus on what you want to become, not what you want to achieve. Then focus on the systems you need to create, and not just try to create goals around it. This is one of the ways you can get to change your habits for the better.
So the key question is, what are the new systems or habits you need to create to be what you're hoping to achieve?
Creating Habits of Mind
Have you checked in with your habits of mind lately? How do you view yourself? How do you view the world around you? Are you currently showing up in the world as you’d like?
In order to effectively operate as a leader and promote creativity, reasoning, and meaning in your work and life, you need to start with creating habits of mind.
How You View Yourself
How are you today versus yesterday? What do you do to make yourself better each day? Have you done to make yourself better today than yesterday?
As you’re developing habits of mind, your focus is on yourself, not anyone else. So don't compare yourself to other people. It's not about how you’re better than somebody else.
However, in this world where we feed our sense of belongingness with social media, how can you become your best self and lead and the best way to create the future for yourself and your company?
Finding the Space to Lead
Many leaders say that in a fast and busy world, they have problems creating space for them to think, learn and plan. Unfortunately, we have become more human “doings” and less of human “beings.”
We find ourselves trapped on the hamster wheel. We're running fast, but not really getting anywhere, or at least where we hope to go.
Technology as a Two-Edged Sword
Technology has given us so many unimaginable opportunities even in the past decades, but it’s also the same technology that has given us the same problems of the world. The overwhelming amount of information and knowledge we receive each day pulls at our brain, our attention, and our energy.
This whole wealth of information doesn't seem to create certainty. In fact, it only causes just the opposite – confusion. There’s that constant battle of the FOMO (fear of missing out) and that fear of not having enough information.
And when attention and energy become a side note, this can only lead to persistent worry and stress that can drain our energy. Therefore, as leaders, it’s very important to focus on finding the space to lead. And you can only do that when you begin with mindfulness, routines, and habits.
Continuous Partial Attention
Perhaps you’re multitasking while you’re on a conference call. That may seem like you’re being very productive, but that is sadly the contrary. Multitasking can hinder a person’s performance.
In fact, studies show that when the brain constantly bounces back and forth between tasks, it becomes more likely to commit errors – especially true when you’re doing complex tasks that require your full attention.
In the book, Finding the Space to Lead, Janice Marturano defines a mindful leader as someone who embodies leadership presence by cultivating focus, clarity, creativity, and compassion in the service of others.
As leaders, mindfulness is always something we can use in order to create our best impact for ourselves, our people and our organizations.
"I see you."
As leaders, can your people say, "I see you" when you're interacting with them? Are you sure your people know that you really see them? Or are you only giving them your partial attention?
Being Stuck on Autopilot
When we are overwhelmed, we can naturally go on autopilot. Then we fall back on the habits and behaviors that have worked in the past, even when we know they probably won't be helpful now. And so, we end up stuck in what we've done in the past, with no time to think about what needs to change as we’re moving into the future.
The Need for Space in Your Life and Work
When you are paying attention and fully present, you can do great work and deep work. You can also fully utilize your skills and knowledge so you’re not just catching half the story or part of the thing when you’re in this condition of continuous partial attention. Giving yourself the space you need also makes room for more creativity.
Studies show that creativity only shows up when there is some space. Doesn’t it surprise you how you’re able to get good ideas in the shower or while you’re on a walk in nature? This is because when your mind is slightly disconnected, it has a chance for some space to think. You can also create greater clarity when you move away from being on autopilot and have the opportunity to see things with fresh eyes or fresh perspective.
Why Is Mindset Important?
Mindset is the linchpin that creates the foundation for your progress and success. Therefore, the viewpoint or perspectives that you bring to your work and your life make all the difference in what you can accomplish and create.
As a leader, you need to achieve the right mindset geared towards success – so you can always keep moving forward. You’re accountable for everything and everyone in your team. You’re going to be responsible so you have to do everything you can to make the whole organization successful.
Examine your identity habits and mindset.
Building your habits and routines helps shape your identity. On the other hand, your identity also helps build your routines. Identity habits are not just goals, but who you want to be. Think about examples of people you want to emulate. Then take five small steps that would demonstrate how you're going to become that person.
For instance, rather than a goal of losing 20 pounds, work on becoming a physically fit person. How do you shape your behaviors around diet, exercise, and your main pillars of health so that wellness doesn’t only become a short-term, superficial goal, but make it truly a lifestyle. Not only will you only look better, but you will feel better, healthier, and happier.
Pay attention to your body.
How your body feels affects how your mind thinks and vice versa. Again, focus on the long-term goal. What areas in your health do you need to work on and get better? Get moving. Eat well. Get the rest you need. Don’t forget about your mental health, too.
Exercises to Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness Exercise
You don't need to go off to a mountaintop or live in the woods for you to develop mindfulness. It all begins with creating small amounts of space in our everyday routines. Whether you're getting coffee or walking your dog, or getting a bite of your favorite sandwich – be present in whatever it is you’re doing.
Be very intentional in being present. For instance, as you walk to the place where the coffee is, feel your feet as your stride along. Then as you get there, smell the aroma of the coffee and feel the warmth. Feel what you're doing in the moment.
Breathwork
Thomas Crum approaches mindfulness from the martial arts arena. In his book called Three Deep Breaths, he outlines three deep breaths:
Breath #1: The centering breath – Breathe in the present moment with balance and energy and then breathe out.
Breath #2: The possibility breath – As you breathe in, recite “I want to be with power and purpose” and then breathe out.
Breath #3: The discovery breath – Breathe in the mystery of life, let go of the judgment, and be open to things.
Practicing mindfulness and doing these three deep breaths every single day may seem like trivial actions, but these allow your mind and body to reset during a busy day, rather than just continually racing through the day, winding yourself up, and becoming exhausted by the end of the day. These small things only take less than a minute but their benefits definitely last. Now that you’ve allowed yourself some space to change, how do you actually change?
How You View the World – The Growth Mindset
When you have a growth mindset, you don't know how to do something just yet. It's not that you can't do it, or you won't be able to do it, you just don't know how to do it yet.
As a leader, our role is to help others make sense of the world and act in the world.
Have a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
Look at problems as opportunities to move forward. Don’t just try to prove how smart you are. Learn, listen, and understand new things. Do the right things to get to where you want to go.
It's not just about the final result, but it's also about whether you're doing the right things to get there. Practice the idea of just figuring things out. You may not know the answer or the path forward but look for the next few steps.
How You Interact With The World
Attempt to be 1% better each day.
In the book, Managing Transitions by William Bridges and Susan Bridges, there are three elements in change.
The Ending
As a leader, help your people get through the ending, the losing, the letting go of what you were doing before.
The Neutral Zone
This is the messy middle where we're not really doing things the new way and we're still kind of doing them the old way. But that is where the opportunity to rise to really create using elements, maybe the old to create something new and even better.
The New Beginnings
When you’re fully focused on the new beginnings, you have to consciously help your people spend much less time on old methods, processes, and technology so you can all focus on the new ways.
Treat each person, moment, and conversation like they do matter.
Move from saying “This doesn’t matter” to “This does matter.”
Choose trust over evidence.
Maybe you’re too worried about your data and numbers that you’ve forgotten the people behind those numbers.
Empower your team by giving them the trust that they deserve because one you trust them, they also begin to trust you. And when they trust you, they will strive to do better, work better, and become the better, if not best versions of themselves.
Creating Habits of Action
How do you plan, organize, and execute your day? How do you cut through the blinding storm of information and all the requests that are coming at you and actually make some progress each and every day?
Planning Your Days
Essentially, there are four key concepts to help you plan your days and ultimately learn how you can improve in the future by taking the time to analyze things that happen.
1. Prioritize tasks you want to complete and have a plan to accomplish this.
For instance, pick a couple things. And it's most effective when you're doing planned work. Next is planning the work, you're probably least effective when you're just randomly doing unplanned work.
2. Listen and be present in the conversation.
There's nothing worse than going into somebody's office to talk to them. And they're busy messing around their computer saying they're multitasking, okay, well, they're not really listening at the end of the day.
Then give them space. Let them have a full conversation. That's not to say you have to just give up your opinions or positions or anything like that. But you do need to at least hear them out and be curious about these things.
It's therefore helpful to create a safe space so while there can be some friction in the ideas, some way to kind of have competing ideas, you're not going to be judging or condemning or attacking one another with these things.
The four C's of effective conversation: clarity, candor, commitment, and completion.
3. Focus on the purpose of the meeting and why you are attending the meeting.
Map out what needs to happen in a meeting. Often, meetings are just getting people together, throwing something on the table, and the conversation goes wherever it goes. And often we find these things very ineffective and unsatisfying.
Have an agenda.
Is there something that you're really trying to accomplish in this meeting? And it doesn't mean you have to fill up an hour. Again, this depends on the purpose of your meeting.
Think about why you're having a meeting.
Make your meetings intentional. Be on the lookout for "should I be here?" Is there a reason you're in this meeting? Oftentimes, we copy everybody in the organization, because it's pretty easy to do. When in fact, you may not really be sure if you can provide any value in this meeting.
Instead, maybe you can send an email to the organizer that provides the one piece of information that meeting needs, so you really don't need to be there.
4. Reflect upon what just happened by using the military’s idea of “After Action Review” to find out how you can learn and improve.
In today's business world, we often don't take time to review what happened, try to understand what went right, and what went wrong – we just keep taking actions.
And being able to review and evaluate things is important for change to happen. Be able to figure out what just happened and what you could do differently next time, thereby reducing the pain points.
Pain points are the result of confusion within the organization because it's very easy to get lost in the blame game. They call it the fog of war in the military. But in business, it's the fog of execution. Everybody could have had the best of intentions, but they simply did not understand the bigger picture or what other people were experiencing.
The key thing here is you have to have trust and relationship in the team. And everybody needs to know what they should be learning without judging. Keep a forward focus on what you’re going to do tomorrow.
Developing Mini Habits
A mini habit is a very small positive behavior that you force yourself to do every day. Small steps work every time, and habits are built by consistency. Therefore, these two are meant to go together.
S.J. Scott, author of Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth, and Happiness believes that you should make your habit too small to fail. For instance, your big goal is to do 50 pushups every day. And to make sure you’re able to develop that habit, instead start with a goal of one pushup per day. Hopefully, that would inspire you to do a couple more in some days, but your goal remains to do at least one push-up per day.
Creating mini habits will lead to more productivity. Habits can be broken down into habits of thinking and habits of action. The habits of thinking are those mindset changes. But how do we sustain those and build on those?
How Our Brain Works
How our brain works is that it wants to use the least energy possible. And having a defined sequence helps to conserve energy and willpower. We have habits in order to make sense of the world.
Secondly, we only have so much energy and willpower. And if we use all our energy, making too many decisions, we run out by the end of the day.
So as you're getting started with setting up your mini habits, step back and figure out how you can do this habit stacking.
Here's an example of building up a small but useful routine: You put on your contact lenses and then meditate for one minute. Then you write down three key tasks for today. The key is to see what it is rather than focusing on your big goals.
What are the habits you need to become something? What are the habits you need to become a better leader? What are the habits you need to have a more effective process in your manufacturing facility? Finally, what's the smallest step I can take first?
focused work or deep work. In other words, how do you get the stuff done that really does require your full energy, or you need to avoid distractions and really stay focused.
Finding the Space for Deep Work
Learning to do focused or deep work matters as a leader. Our crazy, busy and distracted lifestyles tend to leave us doing shallow or superficial work, we seem to be just bouncing from one thing to another all day long, all week long.
When we're in this overwhelmed mindset, we can take the easy route and simply respond to what Stephen Covey has called the “tyranny of the urgent.”
In fact, we can make business a proxy for productivity. We may be doing lots of stuff, but are we really creating top level value for ourselves in our organization?
In Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, deep work involves managing your actions. And so, this concept of deep work is not only for creatives, but for everyone. Maybe you have critical customer projects, new products, or new processes that need to be developed and implemented.
The Upsides for Creating Space for Deep Work
When you're able to create a space for deep work, you're also able to create more new products and more work while spending less time on it. This gives you the opportunity to master the hard things.
Deep work can help you lead and help you produce at an elite level. It can also create that flow state where you are fully engaged in what you're doing. And this engagement tends to leave you with real satisfaction and accomplishment.
Deep work is hard. But it's a good kind of "tired" once you've done it.
Deep work is hard work, hence, you can only do it for so long. Even elite creatives can only practice or do deep work for about four hours a day. Regardless of how much time you’re able to do deep work, you have to be able to fully focus on one piece of work without distraction.
The Broad Rules of Doing Deep Work
1. Work deeply.
2. Embrace boredom.
3. Quit social media because it has just become a tremendous distraction in everything we do.
4. Drain the shallows. What is the less important work that may be burning up all your time and yet isn't really creating that much?
Routines and Habits of Deep Work
Be intentional about when and where you will do this work. Have a structure about how you're going to do during this work time. Have support structures or routines to help you do the work.
An example of this is the Pomodoro technique, in which you get your work done in 25-minute time blocks, and then you have a five-minute break. And so, you just need to focus on one thing for 25 minutes. When the timer goes off, you get up, and step away from it. Then you may return to the same project or that may be it for today. You can also use several of these 25-minute time blocks to help you start learning to do focused work.
Creating Methods of Measurement to Determine Your Progress
What is it you're doing while you're doing deep work? How do you measure things to determine your progress?
Here are a few suggestions from James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits.
Be accountable.
Have a way to be accountable. Have immediate feedback in some fashion over what you're practicing.
Break down tasks.
Break the task or skill into smaller pieces and focus on just one part. If you're learning a new piece of software, you focus on just the first couple of menu items or the first couple of tasks and only go to a small part.
Focus on small steps.
Make it something that's just outside your current knowledge or skill level. Don't try to jump right to mastery because you're going to have to make a lot of small steps as you get to becoming a master of a skill or piece of knowledge. You have to build that in to make this true deliberate practice, and not just sort of random activity that you're doing.
Minimize shallow work.
There are 4 lenses to help you define your goals so you know you’re not only doing shallow work:
1. Do more great work.
We have new commitments that may have come in, but we have to really boil it down to where's the highest value added activity and the different times you can do transformational work, not just execution work.
According to Michael Bungay Stanier, author of Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters. he talks about how there's great work, good work, and bad work.
Great work is what you do when you do deep work. The good work could be shallow, but it's the work that has to be done each and every day to keep things running. Those will often comprise most of our day because even if you wanted to, you don't have the energy to focus on great work for the whole day.
Bad work could be in the form of old reports or meetings or habits of work. All of us have sometimes experienced the zombie meeting that just keeps recurring and recurring or the zombie report. Everybody knows no one's really looking at it, but we keep generating it. How do you look at those things then?
2. Set your priority.
Jim Collins,author of Good to Great, emphasized that if you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities. So somewhere along the line, whether we intentionally make priorities or we unintentionally make them, they're going to be made.
Use the Pareto principle or the 80-20 rule.
The Pareto Principle says that 20% of what you do is going to create 80% of your results. So then start looking at where that 20% is and protect it. Use it for that really important stuff that you want to do.
Tim Ferriss in Four Hour Work Week, wrote that sometimes you let small bad things happen so that you don't lose focus on the big things.
The Pomodoro Technique
Here's a challenge for you: Find a project that you can work on for 25 minutes. It may be a current challenge, or maybe it's something you really want to learn.
Use the Pomodoro Technique and focus on that one thing for 25 minutes, get up, and take a five minute break. Then decide whether you should do another focus session. You might be amazed at what you can accomplish in four sessions, or basically two hours.
Give it a try and see how it works. These things in life are always experiments. If you develop a habit of doing deep work, it could be transformational for you.
3. Where's your energy?
Think about what gives you power. What gives you energy? What pulls you forward? What makes you mad and what makes you sad? These are the things that get at your emotions more so than just what's the task in front of you.
When you’re mad because something's missing or something is wrong that you wished it wasn't that way, think about how you can change things so you can transmute such negative energy into something positive? When you’re sad, what are the things you can do to energize yourself and make you feel better?
Energy is transferred, therefore, you have to be intentional about what kind of energy you’re transmitting to your team and to your customers because when you suffer, the people around you suffer, and ultimately, the whole organization suffers.
4. Can you move from personal achievement to a commitment to others?
This is the higher level of achievement or focus. Instead of being focused on your own happiness or success, focus on how you can help others achieve happiness and success.
Embrace boredom.
Plan for downtime. Be intentional to step away from business. Again, how many times has something come to you as you've been on a walk or in the shower? These are key pieces to help your mind think about what’s in the background, what's going on, and what you're trying to do. And these are the times that help you recharge with the energy you need to do for deep work. It's hard work so it's obviously draining. Therefore, you need time to actually recharge.
Quit social media.
This is going to be a difficult thing for everybody, especially right now when everyone is looking for a sense of belongingness. At the very least, then, try to schedule social media. Maybe it's not always on so it's not always interrupting your train of thought or whatever you're trying to do.
Schedule your social media for those periods of the day that you just feel less productive anyway. If you're going to have a shallow work time for social media, do it when you don't have a lot of energy to begin with.
Resources to Help You Develop New Habits
Below are four great teachers and authors who have great insights when it comes to creating new habits that stick.
Here’s a peek into some of the takeaways:
Your Message Matters by Jonathan Milligan
Make a list of your goals for the year. But don't get all hung up on that and just focus on 90-day periods throughout the year. Then narrow it down to two or three things that go into your 90-day plan. Working in a shorter time frame allows you to make more progress. Then make a list of your roadblocks so you can then figure out how to address those – whether you learn how to do it yourself or hire experts who can do it for you.
Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations by Paul Axtell
Look at each area of your life where it makes sense to DREAM. Then answer these questions:
What would you like to be true that is not true now?
If everything went right, where might you be at the end of the year?
What would be amazing if it happened?
If you put in more time, or get lessons, or try something new, what might happen?
Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith
Answer these six active questions every day to help you change your behaviors:
Did I do my best to set clear goals today?
Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?
Did I do my best to find meaning today?
Did I do my best to be happy today?
Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?
Did I do my best to be fully engaged today?
Atomic Habits by James Clear
How to Create Identity-Based Habits
Outcomes
Processes
Identity
1. Focus on creating a new identity first.
This is the key to building lasting habits because your current behaviors are a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe you are.
2. Build identity-based habits.
Believe new things about yourself for you to change your behavior. And be specific about your goals.
3. Change your identity.
This level is concerned with changing your beliefs: your worldview, your self-image, your biases, your judgments about yourself and others.
Leadership Takes Work
Building habits take time, that's why getting rid of old habits to make way for new, better ones can be really challenging.
It’s not impossible – but it takes hard work and it takes time.
That’s why you need to be able to find strategic ways to build great habits by starting with your mindset first then learning how to create mini habits so things don’t get too overwhelming for you.
In order for authentic, great leadership to happen, it takes a conscientious level of changing your habits of mind and your habits of action, as well as being intentional on doing focused, deep work geared towards success.
When you’re able to tie all these three together in building your leadership foundation, you then begin to create the kind of space within your organization that manifests clarity, success, and excellence.
