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The Promise Blog

Business

The Broken Team

  Doug sent a frantic text, Jenny replied in Slack, marketing in turn launched a premature email campaign, and customer service was immediately inundated with angry clients. Leadership meets, confusion all around, too many cooks in the kitchen, while ten people are working on the same task without being assigned to work together on any given project. The wheels are falling off the bus, or rather, they did a long time ago. In business culture, it is easy to observe where things aren’t working. Just set up a call with any employee and let them tell you the truth, once you’ve established what they say won’t be held against them. Just look at the confusion coming into customer service due to the latest mistake sent out. Just take a gander at Slack and see how well that’s being utilized. The Slack one is so frustrating I made a silly and comical song about it just to see if it would get a laugh from people in general who have complained to me about their teams not using it, showcasing how important it is.     In leadership, however we can, we must utilize our Signature Moves to inspire, lift, call

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Business

Who Does This Remind You Of?

  If I were to ask you who is the most reliable person you work with, what face and name comes to mind? We all have that person. Hopefully! If you’re lucky, they make up your team, your “work family” as I prefer to call it, and continually fill you with gratitude as one of the most underrated, and essential secret traits of success: consistency and reliability! The truth is simple: You Don’t Need to Be Impressive…You Need to Be Reliable. Reliability—not necessarily talent, brilliance or flash—is what actually builds trust, opportunity, and long-term success. When I think of reliability my mind goes to: the finance director who sends a report every night (just before midnight) to share the data from the day with the company founder and I, and has never missed doing so in 2.5 years (even on his honeymoon!); the person who thinks he’s “just an IT guy” but in reality is the one everyone turns to to get things done immediately, even outside of the IT realm, because he is so capable; the assistant who goes over the upcoming plans and events, and then checks off the boxes again to make sure nothing falls through the

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Business

The Missing Link in Leadership: A Promise People Can Trust

Most leaders don’t struggle with knowledge, motivation, or expectations.They struggle with consistency. They’ve read the books. Attended the conferences. Taken the notes. Perhaps you’ve spent time reading “Atomic Habits”, “Think & Grow Rich”, and “The Greatest Salesman in the World”. All excellent works and classics of self-help and higher thought for leadership. And yet—despite reading the books, attending inspiring conferences, even hiring coaches to elevate performance as leaders…. Teams still feel disconnected.Customers still feel uncertain.Cultures still drift. Why? Because leadership isn’t built on what you know.It’s built on what people can count on. You’ve heard me say it, “Why set a Goal when you can Make a Promise?” Do you know how many people resonate immediately with that statement? The Promise is a choice, a clarion call of character, an investment in integrity. The most effective leaders don’t just set goals.They make a Leadership Promise. A goal says: “Here’s what I hope to achieve.” A Promise says: “Here’s what you can expect from me—every time.” A goal says: “Once we reach this marker, we will have arrived.” A Promise says: “This is what I stand for, what I believe, who I am, and nothing will get in the way of

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Business

Unclear Expectations: Establishing The Promise

Disappointment usually shows up when expectations aren’t clearly communicated up front. For the last 2 years in discussions with disgruntled employees in organizations I consult with, the main cause of heartache is when unclear expectations leads to broken promises that were assumed and never articulated.   Example: I met with a longtime celebrity in the athletic field, now decades past their prime, yet still very relevant due to a legendary career, employed to be a new face & personality of a growing health company. He was brought into the company to raise brand awareness, land some customers through his reputation and connections, while also doing media when the opportunity arose. Months went by of an appearance here, a show or event there, and little, if any, evidence that customers were buying. The leader who made the hire was continually encouraging and asking for numbers, results, eyeballs, and proof of this arrangement working. There was eventually a discussion of needing podcasts and interviews to be consistently delivered in order to justify the paycheck, yet the former celebrity was feeling they were doing way more than asked, while the check-writer was aghast for lack of proven results. What it came down to

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Business

The Secret to Motivating Teams

The secret to motivating your team? Sit down with them and go through the ICM Process. This is the opposite of the “let’s discuss what you can do better” conversation. It is a recognition of every employee’s talents, gifts, strengths, and empowering them to use these as often as possible. As I have taught this simple, yet profound, process to leaders for many years, it is not only transformative for the employee, but the leader gets quite a bit of insight as well. Imagine sitting with someone you have mostly only discussed improvement with, and instead, flip the script to dig in to what they see is the best of what they bring? Most employees are doing all they can to comply, conform, and not shake things up, in an attempt to stick to the rules and meet all goals. In turn, motivation for asserting oneself and even overall greatness can begin to wane. However, when we encourage those we lead to stand out in a sit down world, this empowers their ideas, creates ramped up performance, and allows everyone to feel they have a stake in the progression beyond simply being a part of the team: They are a

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Announcements

The Best Fathers Day Presents

  Christmas Day was nearly 6 months ago (this next week), and it has been that long since I have enjoyed the gifts that keep on giving in our home. That cold wintry morning, as presents were strewn about the house, wrapping paper piled high, the kids were thrilled with what we had given them, but they had something else on their minds. Finally, when they were done opening theirs, they sat Mommy & I down to reveal a gigantic box, wrapped special, as we wondered what they had purchased for us. Our kids are now teens, and they have incredible imaginations and personalities, so we were curious, due to the grins on the faces of all, if they had a friend wrapped up in there to do a Jack-in-The-Box scare tactic, perhaps had re-gifted some white elephant presents, or had bought us a family of geckos. Instead, the box revealed many presents, all hand wrapped as well, in a nesting fashion, meticulously placed just right. Mommy & I took the top ones and began to carefully open them, only to reveal something we hadn’t expected: Individually framed pictures we would be able to place around the house of them,

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Business

Stepping Down When It’s Best For The Team – The Promise of José Abreu

  This week, former MVP baseball player, José Abreu, was sent down to the minor leagues. It may not seem like significant news to a casual observer, as baseball players go minors to majors and back to minors often. Here are articles with ESPN and Yahoo Sports. For a former 3-time All-Star and MVP, who was the best player in the entire major leagues only 4 years ago, to suddenly be sent to the minor leagues, that is noteworthy and we must dissect The Promise from within this story of leadership. Who are the Leaders keeping The Promise here? First: The Coaches Since when do we want an MVP to not play on our team? Only the smartest, bravest, and gutsiest coaches know when it’s time to have a difficult conversation with those who were our best players and aren’t performing at their best, needing to make a drastic change.   Second: José Abreu His numbers have slowly gone down month after month for 2 years. He knows he’s not playing at the level he’s capable of, and instead of putting up a fight, he not only agreed with the coach’s decision, but also encouraged it. He owned up to

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Business

When Executives Keep The Promise – The Legend of Troy Nix AMBA

  This week I witnessed something I’ve never seen done on stage at any event in my nearly 25 years of attending conferences worldwide. In Grand Rapids, MI, the Executive Director of AMBA, arrived on stage in a suit and tie, delivering a stirring motivational speech as good as any of my hall of fame speakers could give, and proceeded to prove his point about leaning into the discomfort by climbing into an ice barrel after filling it with water and ice, while cranking out more of his speech. Amazing!     He challenged the audience to commit to something at this conference, by standing and declaring into the mic what their promise would be, which would finally allow him to remove himself from the ice plunge. I was stunned to see the audience sit there and somewhat enjoy knowing he was suffering! A small chuckle came over the group…and eventually, a generous soul, made the commitment Troy was looking for, as he leaped from the ice tub. Incredibly, he somewhat toweled off, and delivered the rest of his keynote in ice cold clothing, dripping and soaked, which no doubt was the tougher part of the speech!     This

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Cardio Miracle

The Chocolate Factory Broken Promise

“Better than advertised” is always preferred to “Worse than we anticipated!” Did you read this story of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory Experience in Glasgow, Scotland 2 weeks ago? It advertised a spectacle of fun & beauty, replicating the famous movies and experience for kids, only to have families show up to a near empty warehouse, actors unprepared and underpaid, children given a jelly bean and water, with kids crying their eyes out! Recently this story popped up, and I wish I could show the AI generated photos of what was promoted vs the truth…but due to copyright issues I’ve suffered in the past I can’t post them here. You’ll have to look it up to believe it (and trust me, it’s worth it). You can see a good example of the astonishingly amazing ads HERE and the atrocious photos of the reality in articles both HERE and HERE. “Oompa, loompa, duped now by me, Come to my candy-less Factory;  You will find no happiness, too,  When you see my ads were not true…”      It is hilarious only because it’s so tragic. Which begs the question when it comes to promoting a Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory Experience for

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Cardio Miracle

Your Favorite President

Who is your Favorite President of the United States? And why? I grew up in the eras of Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and have raised children during eras of Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. It’s amazing to think there have been so few presidents in my lifetime, only 8 of them, as I’m a few years short of having been around half a century. Watching people lead through recessions, responding to terrorism, initiating war, navigating pandemics, social issues, and have the magnifying glass of criticism for every decision, makes you wonder how come anyone would want to become president. When I think of the ultimate and favorite leader of our Country, I would have to say, in my lifetime, it would be hard to consider any that I have listed above, although perhaps with time they could be in a top 5-10 list. My Favorite President seems to be the one most people name: Abraham Lincoln. In my office alone I have 2 paintings, one bronze bust, and one wooden statue of Lincoln, along with one of George Washington praying at Valley Forge as the only other president on my shelves. I often look at these images of Lincoln and

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