In this issue:

Message From the President

A “new” holiday was brought into existence in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga. He sought to create and develop an African-American/Pan African holiday based on the traditional “First Fruit Celebration”. Before you brush this off as not relevant to you, let me share with you the values (in English and Swahili) upon which this celebration is based.

Unity – Umoja
Self-Determination– Kujichagulia
Collective Work and Responsibility– Ujima
Cooperative Economics– Ujamaa
Purpose– Nia
Creativity– Kuumba
Faith– Imani

I believe that if all of us lived our lives (or ran our organizations) with these principles or values at our core, many of the world’s ills would cease to exist. The celebration occurs from December 26 through January 1 and you can read more about it here.

Meanwhile, I wish you the most joyous of times this season!

Happy Holidays!   Feliz Navidad! Gung Hay Fat Choy!   Happy New Year!

Feature Article: Leadership That Transforms…& Delivers - PLANNING

For the last several months, we’ve been talking about various aspects of transformational leadership: vision, values, trust & integrity and motivational style. (See archives) This month we segue to a different leadership skill, planning. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines plan as “…a drawing or diagram showing the parts of details of something, a method for accomplishing an objective.”

That sounds really dry to me. I see planning as a much more exciting venture. (See the article on Strategic Planning from the October newsletter.) Merriam Webster also lists goal, aim and intend as related words. When done well, planning can transform one’s confidence level in achieving the end goal by making it seem more ‘doable’ and realistic. It supports the realization of the goal by anticipating potential obstacles and identifying necessary resources. By including others in the planning process, one can capture critical alignment from people who are important in the fulfillment of the goal.

It’s not enough to know and say to the troops, ‘let’s take that hill!’. As a leader, you have to be able to outline how you’re going to do that. Which route you’ll take. What dangers might exist and how you’ll deal with them if they arise.

People avoid planning for a number of reasons. They very often think there just isn’t time. There are fires to be put out. Urgent demands to be satisfied. This brings to mind Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix outlined in his 3rd Habit – Put First Things First in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic. In that model, he distinguishes what’s urgent (requires immediate attention) and not and what’s important (contributes to your mission, vision or high priority goals) and not.

Many people spend the bulk of their time in the urgent and important category, and this is helpful, but this leads to burnout, stress and constant fire-fighting, all justified by a sense of accomplishment expressed as “I get a lot done in a day”.

Planning falls into the important and not urgent quadrant. I would hazard a guess that rarely (with perhaps the exception of budget time) is anyone breathing down your neck asking “Where’s that plan?!”

(Click to Read More) >>>

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