Everything I learned about leadership I learned it from Helgi the viking and his lean sensei

This is a story about Helgi, a strong, tall Viking, who was the leader of his village. Helgi had almost all the traits to become a great leader: He had dreams, dreams of conquering new lands, he was respected by his people, he was good at what he did: fighting, going on raids and executing (executing people).

After many successful raids across the European continent, Helgi decided that he wanted to expand his "business" in order to ensure a prosperous rich future for his village, so he decided to have the best consultant available helping him with his new goal of conquering the west. In order to do this, he engaged the services of a Japanese Sensei (Lean consultant), expert in cultural transformations.

The sensei came to visit Helgi and the first thing he did was to listen and try to understand what Helgi was trying to achieve. After some weeks of observing Helgi and his people at the village, the Japanese consultant made the following remarks:

"Helgi, you are doing it all wrong!! You are terrifying your people, they are afraid of you, they are not sharing their best ideas with you and you are creating enemies, if you want to offer a better, more secure future for your people, you have to comply with the following rules:

1- Have Dreams!, dreams you can share with your people so that they are inspired by them, in those dreams they need to see something better for them. And even though your current dreams are big, they do not involve a long term prosperity for your people or the people from other tribes or cultures they interact with. Therefore think in terms of long term prosperity for everybody, your people, other tribes and the environment.

2- Be good at Execution, but not the kind of execution, in which you kill people, be good at the execution of ensuring your dreams are supported by solid plans where you know what needs to happen next, who is going to do what, why things are being done and how things are going to be done. Then you will have to follow  up on that plan and address any deviation so that your dreams can be achieved.

3- in order to build faster boats, produce better weapons, you have to promote a culture of continuous improvement, where people can feel free to point out and bring to light problems and where you can get their ideas to resolve those problems. This in return will bring satisfaction to your people, because they will feel they are contributing, applying their skills and being valued.

4- Respect people: respect their ideas, their individualism, respect the fact that they need development and need to be challenged to be better, respect their environment, listen to them first, before you tell them something.

Respect for people also means that you have to trust them, and trust creates a sense of belonging and satisfaction.

5- Win the heart of your people: know their names, know their significant other's names, know what they like, dislike, what they do when they are not with you, what dreams do they have and above all be kind.

6- You have to know your business, but you Helgi, you already know your business very well, just make sure you use your knowledge wisely, use it to coach your people to find the answers by themselves so that they can grow, use your knowledge to help shape stronger and bigger visions and dreams and above all use the knowledge for the benefits of all, including those you consider your enemies, because if you can turn your enemies into allies then you and your people will be unstoppable in reaching your goals.

With these remarks the sensei returned to Japan and Helgi retreated to reflect about what he has learned, Helgi was able to understand the whole picture and immediately applied himself to implement what he had learned. Helgi went on to reunite his Vikings and become a great man and leader.

Quote about diversity and innovation in organization

“The less diverse an organization is – whether in the sense of race, class,

gender or personality type – the less it can empathize with people outside of it,

and the fewer partnerships it can form.”

 

5 Leadership Rules

There are some basic leadership rules, that if followed, will make you a better leader today.

 

These are the rules

 

·         “Shape the future” – Develop, share and drive your vision of the future.

·         “Make things happen” – Execute. Turn talk into action and do it properly.

·         “Engage today’s talent” – Develop abilities in others and inspire them to commit to the success of the organization.

·         “Build the next generation” – Think about the future: Who will lead and sustain the organization after you leave? Consider and nurture the leaders and the skills leaders will need in the years to come.

·         “Invest in yourself” – Commit to growing “intellectually,” “emotionally,” “physically,” “socially” and “spiritually,” by staying engaged, learning, building relationships, and by knowing and following your values.

 

If you want to make sustainable and timely change, make sure to follow these rules

 

Thomas Edison quote

"Achievement provides the only real pleasure in life."

Albert Einstein Quote

"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been kindness, beauty and truth."

A thought for success

"A project without a deadline is a wish"

- anonymous

Motivational quote

"Do not part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist,
but you have ceased to live"

- Mark Twain

Dalai Lama quote

"I consider non-violence to be compassion in action. It does not mean weakness, cowering in fear, or simply doing nothing. It is to act without violence, motivated by compassion, recognising the rights of others"

- Dalai Lama

Motivational quote

"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible"

- Doug Larson

Quote about success

"Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imagination, our possibilities become limitless."

- Jamie Paolinetti

Quote about Happiness

"The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not."

- George Bernard Shaw

Dalai Lama quote

"our purpose in life is to help others. If you cannot help them, at least do not hurt them"

-Dalai Lama

Nelson Mandela Quote

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies"

-Nelson Mandela

John Shook Quote on Leadership

When you see good leadership, follow it if you wish. If you don't see it, take it. If you wish.
If you don't, don't complain.
-John Shook

Work Quote

Let the beauty we love be what we do
-RUMI

Andrew Carnegie Quote

There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb himself.
–Andrew Carnegie

Respect, support and challenge your partners and suppliers

Humans often look to the animal world for inspiration. Especially exemplary are ants, which organize themselves brilliantly and seemingly never run out of team spirit. This successful species enters into a partnership with other organisms so that both sides profit. For example, ants raise aphids and actively protect them from enemies. In return, the aphids give the ants a sweet nectar. To linger in the ant world: If the aphids were not protected and nurtured, there would be no nectar. Even in an ant colony, the customer-supplier principle applies: all ants have a fixed task, with which they support other ants with different functions. This principle makes the entire colony successful. Now let’s transfer this successful principle to our workplace. We too must build and nurture effective partnerships in order to be successful. For example, Suppliers provide on time delivery of parts, Stamping produces parts for Assembly, Assembly provides the product needed at the plants, etc. In Lean, these partnerships are characterized by mutual respect and support. One-sided, exploitive relationships usually don’t last long. They end up demoralizing one or both sides, which has a negative impact on teamwork, which in turn adversely affects performance and quality.




Are you ensuring parts are deliver on time to your customers (other OU, other plants)?

Are you a team player?

Are you following your standard work? (if not, imagine an ant going against the flow of all other ants)

Getting things Done - Create a routine - Kata

It takes only three months to create a habit, good or bad. Routine builds good habits. Just look at a
successful major league baseball pitcher. In all likelihood, he can tell you his game day routine
down to the minute. He eats his pre-game meal at the same time, arrives at the ballpark at the same
time, and does his stretching exercises and warm-ups at the same time. He has programmed
himself to succeed by using this routine. Imagine a teenager who has a messy room, but who sincerely desires to become neater. If she starts by tidying her room 15 minutes every day, eventually the results will encourage her to do more. Soon, she'll find herself straightening up instinctively. Sometimes, a lack of routine is the only thing that stands in your way. Even something as seemingly mundane as checking e-mail can be turned into a productive routine. Instead of checking your e-mail every 15 minutes, only check it twice a day. Pretty soon that will be a habit, too.

Getting things done - Do one thing at a time

Managers like to think that they can do many things simultaneously, but even the most effective manager can only tackle one problem or deal with one issue at a time. Many times, your mind may seem to be racing at 100 miles an hour - tomorrow's meeting with the vice president, the project that's due in a couple of weeks, the inbox full of e-mails. But if you allow your mind to dart from one thing to the next, you easily can become overwhelmed. In most cases, that will increase your stress, build tension in your workplace and harm employee productivity. As a manager, combat feelings of being overwhelmed by establishing priorities. Decide which phone call to return, deal with the person who called in a calm, intelligent manner and then turn to the next task. Resist the temptation to think ahead.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind

In my opinion the most powerful statement that Covey uses to describe this habit is by asking you to imagine yourself sitting in the back of the room at your funeral. Imagine what people could honestly say about you based on the way you are now. Do you like what you hear? Is that how you want to be remembered? If not, change it. Take hold of your life. Implement
“personal leadership.”

Personal leadership means to create your personal mission statement indicating what are your goal. These goals will describe what type of person you are. In other words, are you self centered, money oriented or addict to work.

Based on these goals you can reflect in what you see yourself being and can modify certain things in order to allow you to become what you want to be.

Next: Habit 3. Put First Things First