Book: Franklin's Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin

In a couple of books that I've read, reference has been made to Benjamin Franklin. As I have previously (unapologetically) admitted, my knowledge of history is rather embarrassing. Obviously, I had heard of Benjamin Franklin; where he fitted into the bigger scheme of American history, I did not quite know.

One of the key lessons for me from his autobiography was his list of virtues that he wanted to incorporate more into his life. He made a table, listing 13 virtues, and each week he would focus on one, then the following week he would focus on the next one, including the previous week's one. So ultimately, by the end of week 13, he was doing and focussing on them all. 

The virtues that he identified for himself were:

1. Temperance: eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation 

2. Silence: speak not but what you may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation 

3. Order: let all your things have their place; let each part of your business have its time 

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. waste nothing

6. Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions 7. Sincerity: use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly

8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty 

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes: forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve 

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation 

11. Tranquillity: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accident common or unavoidable 

12. Chastity

13. Humility: imitate Jesus and Socrates

He made a table, each row had a virtue listed, and each column a day of the week. If he didn't live up to a certain virtue for that day, he would give himself a black spot against it. 

This sounded like a great idea, so I have drawn up my own virtues table. 

My list entails:

1. Order: decluttering, and general tidiness

2. Frugal: being a lot more mindful of expenses and wasting nothing

3. Moderation; less is more

4. Listen / silence

5. Healthy: being a lot more rigorous with my training plans

6. Service above self

7. Patience / kindness

8. Fun / being more spontaneous

9. Investing in value / quality

Currently, I have just completed week two. So far it's been going quite well, only two black dots. 

This is an autobiography that I highly recommend everyone reads. 

Leadership Magazine: Leading by Example

The latest Leadership Magazine article is on page 94 and 95. 

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers,” ~Ralph Nadar 

Leadership is fundamental when it comes building and nurturing a reputation.

I recently travelled to Kenya on business, and as an avid runner needing to prepare for the Old Mutual Two Oceans half marathon (aka shuffling my way through the 21.1km), I was keen to know whether it would be safe to train there. Google reckoned that it wouldn't be safe. I was also eager to know in general how safe Nairobi was. So instead of just relying on Google, I spoke to two different people when I arrived. They were unrelated to each other, and both, with almost the same voice said how the crime rate had gone down over the past four years which they attributed to their new president because he had taken a keen interest in the country and invested in infrastructure and the people. How fascinating that leadership was the recurring reason for the improvements in Kenya. When reading the local newspapers, there is also a particular focus and emphasis on women empowerment.  There is an air of hope and respect for the country's leadership. Sadly, not something that we can share in for our country with the recent economic downgrades and calls for the President to step down.

When we measure reputations, which we see as a key priority for executives when it comes to strategising for the year; we generally pick up two important contributors impacting an organisation's reputation. These are the leadership and human capital (or the employees that the business invests in).

Delving a little bit deeper, we can put a percentage score not only to the organisation's reputation, we can also measure the reputation of the leadership and management of the business.

There are five key things that we've picked up that leaders could do differently to positively impact their organisation's reputation:

1.     Values matter:  Values need to form part of the organisation’s strategic intent. They are a set of non-negotiable standards that everyone in the organisation needs to abide by. It is particularly important that the leader sets the example. The values that you share in the business world need to be the same as in your private capacity. It is important that everyone within the organisation shares the same set of values. Values help to attract like-minded people to work for the organisation as well as companies you want to do business with. During our weekly team meeting, I encourage everyone to share any experiences involving our core values during the week. I don’t want our values to just be something that gets put onto our website and forgotten about. When we have a difficult situation to deal with, we also use our values to guide us; the outcomes from these discussions may mean that we no longer pursue a lead, or need to walk away from a piece of work. However, that’s what it really means to prioritise values, even above profits.

2.     Listening matters: There is a lot of literature on the topic of listening. It is very true that instead of really listening, people are often rather thinking of how to respond to what the other person is saying. We’ve often picked up during focus group sessions that we facilitate, especially with internal stakeholders that many employees yearn for a listening ear. There are currently a vast amount of surveys out there, but nothing is really being done with the results. Once the results are in, the data disappears into a labyrinth type report and only a mysterious select few get to see the final results. Often no real action is taken from these lofty recommendations.  We get a wealth of information from the focus group sessions that we host, why? Because we are seen as a listening ear. Our clients who do take their reputations seriously and want to take it to the next level are not scared to share their Repudometer® results with all their stakeholders. By doing so they take accountability to act on recommendations and also show that they really value the inputs received by all the participants.

3.     Recognition matters: Leadership is a team sport. To build respect as a leader, you need to appreciate and respect your team. It is important to give credit where credit is due. When the team does well, everyone does well.  

Nelson Mandela once said, “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

4.     Fun matters: It’s important not to lose your sense of humour; having fun as a team is vital.  We used to have an ‘employee of the month’ initiative where the team would nominate one person who went the extra mile in that particular month. The snag was what to do when your whole team is a group of over performers? During our strategy session at the beginning of the year, this was an agenda item. The team came up with a brilliant solution; we now have a monthly “Cheers for Peers” initiative; we all celebrate as a team for work well done. Each month a team member gets to decide what the activity is, there is an agreed budget, and as part of the fun, the activity is kept secret until the last moment.

5.     Creating more leaders matter: Ultimately, our responsibility as leaders are to build more leaders. How do we do that? Making sure that we provide our teams with opportunities to grow and develop. We need to stretch them and push them out of their comfort zones. It is often easier to think “Oh, I’ll just quickly do it myself.” However, taking the time to mentor someone to do a piece of work that they might not have done before will give them an opportunity to learn something new. They might not do it exactly as you would have done it, or they could also have a totally different take on how best to do it but sometimes it may even work out better. In all of this, see it as an opportunity for everyone to learn. Leaders need to cultivate more leaders and at the same time continuously improve and develop themselves.

Keen to continue the reputation conversation? Join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters. Visit www.reputationmatters.co.za for more information. 

The Crazy Ones

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Book: Lean In, Women, Work and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg

A great read. Don't worry it's not a book about being a feminist. It gives an easy read view of corporate America, there is a lot of interesting stats and figures shared about women leadership.  As women, there is a lot of pressure we put on ourselves to be perfectly balanced in all aspects of your life and be able to "do it all," it OK not to; what is important is that we give ourselves a chance. What is also important, is that we do foster and encourage more women to take on leadership positions. I like how Sheryl Sandberg described that there is no longer a corporate ladder, it's a jungle gym. 

Counting your friends, friends you can count on...

They say that if you can count your number of friends on one hand you are incredibly blessed. The sad reality is that friendships do dwindle as you grow older as interests and life experiences change.

As a business owner, the friendship lifeline is even more precious albeit incredibly more fragile and fragmented. Friends, especially those who do not run their own business, unfortunately really don't 'get it'.  I suppose it is exactly the same as people with children. I agree, I don't 'get it', and when I go grocery shopping and there are children running, screaming and nagging down the aisles,  I don't find it cute or adorable, I can't get to the cashier quick enough to get home to the quiet sanctity of home.

There is a mutual annoyance between friends that are business owners and those that are parents, yes there are those that can juggle both, big respect for them, however one area will always be more dominant. [And thanks to Sheryl Sandberg's 'Lean In', it is OK to be driven, and not to be brilliant at both]. 

Non-business owners will always think that those who run their own company's have a lot of time on their hands, and no one could be as busy as them as parents. Something a person at my running club made quite clear some time ago that no one could be as busy as her juggling children and work; I get it.

It is sad when we start losing interest in each other's lives, I agree that business owners do get quite obsessed with work and can speak about very little else as it is something that they are focussed on 24/7; ditto for parents on the topic of any aspect of their child's life. Someone said to me once, owning your own business is very similar to having a child, it 's a lot of hard work, very fulfilling; given the chance to do it again, you would consider it very carefully and differently, if at all.

It is about mutual respect; it is a two-way street. A friend from school always used to say "my phone actually also receives phone calls," I can only reach out so many times before feeling totally stalker-esque; truth be told if I'm the only one texting / WhatsApping / calling, with no reciprocity, I get the hint and message loud and clearly.

The other day I received an email from a business connection that I have huge regard for:

"As you know they say if you are cleverest person in your group, its time to find yourself another successful group to be apart of. 

I found that I worked my way up and had out grown a lot of the people that I mixed with on a daily basis. So I decided to form a new group and what I did is I researched and found women who are top in their field in South Africa and we formed a Mastermind group..."

There are a lot of dynamic businesswomen out there looking for a 'safe haven' of like-minded individuals. Here's to exciting new connections. 

Focus focus focus

Saw this at the Tomorrow's Leaders Congress earlier this year.
One of the first lessons in business is focus...

[it does make you wonder, that if he makes over a US$ billion a year, why is he on Shark Tank?]

Readying yourself for rhetoric

As I get ready for some upcoming public speaking engagements, I had a quick read through the Leadership article I wrote on the topic last year. 

I've also come a across this interesting video and an article, which I'd like to share: 

Simon Lancaster's TEDTalk about 'Talk Like a Leader,' has six very useful tips:

3 x breathless | 3 x repetition | Balance | Metaphors | Exaggeration | Rhyme

This Entrepreneur article 'also has some great tips.