Whether your team has achieved a significant goal or is looking to get back on track after a shake-up, here are some basic ways to get everyone back on course.

Identify the Next Horizon

Once your team has reached a goal and the celebration is over (you do celebrate big wins, right?), there can be a bit of an empty feeling. What’s next, everyone wonders. If you’re not careful, you can rely on a past victory to define your team when what you really need is a new goal. Not all new goals are equal. Some are highly visible and broadly applicable. Others are just next steps. Don’t discriminate. Choose the appropriate next step to focus your team.

Reinvent Continuously

The speed of change continues to accelerate, which means what worked yesterday may not work today. It’s becoming much more difficult to duplicate past wins. On one hand, setting off in a new direction provides the opportunity to break down your operation and processes into small parts and identify improvements for each one. On the other hand, it’s important to be aware of the potential necessity to throw out your whole business model and chart a new course.

Remember, it’s far easier to change on your own terms than to wait until you have no other option.

Get Back to the Basics

Every year when the Green Bay Packers began training camp, the late head coach Vince Lombardi would gather the team together with a football in hand and remind them, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” It didn’t matter whether the Packers had just won a championship the year before (as they often had). After Easy Company captured Adolf Hitler’s famous Eagle’s Nest in WWII, Major Winters had his troops perform routine training exercises until they were sent back home. Once we’ve tasted success, it’s tempting to become lax on the fundamentals. But without them, the victories aren’t possible.

Engage Your People

No time is ever the wrong time to engage your people. But in the moments following a success or preceding a new initiative, take extra care to ensure a strong connection. Make sure your folks know they are appreciated, but are also keenly aware of how their work connects to the mission of the organization. Don’t just tell them once, tell them over and over again. Give rewards and promotions where due. And if organizational change is part of the equation, take special pains upfront to address how their daily work experience will transition.

In The Art of Leadership, Max de Pree says, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.” That’s great advice to keep in mind in times of transition as well as (rare) times of stability.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

So what happens when adversity strikes? How can we climb our way our of it? This isn’t an exhaustive list, but here are some thinking patterns that have helped me maintain a sense of sanity and clarity over the years.

No Second Guessing

Many times adverse situations are the result of our own making. We create our own chaos. That’s why it’s takes so much courage to make tough decisions when the outcomes aren’t clear.

Whether your adversity is self-inflicted or not, don’t second-guess. It’s a waste of time and energy. The past is gone. In economic terms, it’s “sunk cost.” Instead, re-assess based on where you are now. What went wrong? What could you do differently next time? What makes the most sense based on where we are today, not where we were in the past? Use the past as a teacher and then move on.

Profit From Your Losses

When I learned that Dale Carnegie had written a bestselling book called How to Quit Worrying and Start Living, I was a bit incredulous. Do people really worry that much, I thought. When I began reading, I realized I was one of the target audience. Carnegie shared that anyone can profit from their gains. It takes intelligence, creativity and a winning spirit to profit from your losses.

There are countless personal and business stories where the mistake led to the breakthrough. Your adversity may not be Hollywood material in the making, but most reversals rarely are. Start where you are. Find a way to turn your minuses into pluses, your lemons into lemonade.

Live to Play Another Down

That’s a sports reference. If you want a first class lesson in dealing with adversity, just take your queue from the world of athletics. I could never be a sports coach. If there is anyone who isn’t allowed to say “well guys, looks like this one is over,” it’s them! Sometimes it “works” and the team comes from behind to win. Other times even the most devastating losses provide an opportunity to grow into a stronger team. No single play or game or season gets the last word. The present is only temporary. It’s all about where you go from there.

When I was a college student, my classmates and I would occasionally receive a bad test on an exam followed by an overwhelming, end of the world feeling that our lives and careers were now in total jeopardy. It took some perspective to admit that job recruiters weren’t likely to inquire about each individual test score for all our classes.

Put your adversity in perspective. A speed bump is just that: a bump. Not a mountain.

Plan for Next Time

The worst part of adversity is getting fooled twice. Don’t let this happen to you! Don’t second-guess, but re-assess. Remember?

A construction company I work with nearly went under during the housing collapse in the United States a few years ago. They made it, but just barely. Now the market is coming back and it would be easy just to get back to business. But nobody wants to go through all that misery again. So the leaders made a plan to diversify the main product line. It takes extra work now, but if the market collapses again, the company will stand strong.

How do you handle adversity? What’s your plan?

If your adversity involves a traumatic experience, visit this article entitled: Resilience and the Pan Am Flight 73 Hijacking.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Has an opportunity ever come up that was even better than your carefully laid plans?

Add your thoughts in the comments section below!

View the rest of the Powerful Questions series by clicking here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

As we prepare to celebrate the holiday, it’s important to note that thankfulness actually encompasses four different areas: gratitude, generosity, sharing and contentment. Last week, I mentioned how important it is to be generous, especially with so many people who need our help. Right now, it’s the survivors of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. (If you haven’t made a donation yet, you can contribute to the Red Cross here). But there are many more.

I’d like to challenge you to be a generous person. Here’s how you can get started.

Stop Making Excuses

I don’t have enough to give. What I have won’t make a difference. I’m not convinced there is a real strategic solution in place. Generosity isn’t my “spiritual gift.” I’ve heard (and made) some of these excuses in the past. They make it easier to justify doing nothing. Instead of focusing on what we can’t do, look at what we can do. Everyone can do something.

Identify a Need

We can’t fix every situation and meet every need, but we can do something. So choose something or someone you really connect with. Do you prefer to solve problems or help a group of people? Start there.

Look at What You Have – and Be Creative

Generosity is not just about giving money to the less fortunate. We can be generous with our time, talents, ideas, platform and a limitless number of other things. Last week I shared one of my favorite stories of a football team who shared their fans with the other team. I have friends who give up one Saturday morning each month to do service projects in the local community. Other friends teach a personal finance class. A teacher gives a few extra minutes to prepare lessons for special needs students. Another friend donates his ideas as a board member of a local YMCA. One of my friends recently wanted to raise $5,000 for cancer research, so he offered to write a personal theme song for donors and follow them around for an hour performing it in public. The options are limitless!

Plan Ahead

I can’t stand when people challenge me to give up a coffee or two a month to contribute to their cause. Coffee is important! (Or in my case, breakfast). I’d rather plan ahead so I don’t have to miss out on such a small but crucial part of my day.

Honestly, this is usually the crucial step. Many times when we encounter a need, we’re completely unprepared to respond to it. That’s why we need to plan ahead. If you set $20 (or $50 or $250) to automatically transfer to a separate bank account each month, then you don’t have to think about whether you have any money to share when an opportunity presents itself. If you have no margin in your calendar, you won’t be able to commit to a service opportunity or have a conversation with someone who needs to talk.

Diversify

I’ll be honest, I’m not a big hugger by nature. But sometimes that’s what the situation calls for and I have to step up. I mentioned last week that I believe everyone ought to make a donation to the Haiyan survivors, even if they don’t have tons of cash laying around. We can’t always outsource a form of generosity that doesn’t come naturally for us. We may have a favorite, but we should be flexible as well. Incidentally, what people ultimately need is hope. Can you give that?

Make It a Lifestyle Habit

The goal of generosity isn’t a one-time transaction but a lifestyle. Every little bit counts, even if it’s never noticed by the masses.

Generosity is its own reward.

Will you join me in becoming a generous person?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

What is your process for determining which projects get priority and which ones either get saved for later or dumped altogether?

Add your thoughts in the comments section below!

View the rest of the Powerful Questions series by clicking here.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

You’ve probably heard the adage, “if you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” Strategic planning initiatives give organizational and departmental leaders the chance to define strategy, set direction and make key decisions. It breathes life into the vision and gives the existing motivation a track to run on. But a plan doesn’t inherently ensure success.

I recently spoke with my friend John Maloney of ASJ Consulting about why strategic planning fails. Whether you’re a one-man shop or a large organization, here are some of the main reasons we identified.

Lack of Buy-In

If the leaders of an organization or department don’t think it’s important to create a strategic plan – or that it’s a waste of time compared to their normal duties – it’ll be hard for them to invest their full attention and effort into the process. If the chief doesn’t buy in, it’s already over. Make sure to elicit the top leader’s buy-in for both the process and purpose – and use his or her influence to convince the rest to participate.

Misunderstanding the Difference Between a Strategy and a Plan

A strategy is not the same thing as a plan, and a plan is not the same thing as a strategy. The two are different. A strategy is a set of choices that clarify the organization’s competitive advantage, value proposition, target markets and essential capabilities. A plan is an actual list of goals, objectives and tasks that need to be accomplished. A plan becomes “strategic” when it is informed by the strategy. Without a strategy, a plan is simply an organized list of good ideas. Don’t just create a plan; do your homework before the event and come prepared to develop the plan together.

There’s “No Time” on the Calendar

Of course, every leader has the same amount of time on the calendar. Claiming there is no time indicates that planning is a low priority. If the leaders don’t see the value in spending time away from normal activities to plan for the future, they’ll opt for spending 1-2 hours discussing top of mind ideas instead of investing the 1-2 days required to create an effective plan together. Make sure strategic planning events make it on the calendar well in advance and have high priority. Conducting the session offsite can really help cut down on distractions.

Lack of Participation

If the leaders whose strategic insight is required to produce an effective plan can’t get on the same page, you may end up with a plan, but it won’t be the plan you need to win. If there is a high degree of fragmentation, politicking or if the departments operate in silos, leaders’ first priority may be vying more for budget and resources instead of open collaboration. Make sure both the chief and the facilitator elicit open and candid collaboration.

Complicated End Product

Many leaders assume strategic plans need to be completely comprehensive and addresses every concern and possibility. In some large organizations, higher leadership elements may mandate that strategic plans adhere to a certain format or length. But for the rest, large plans can actually create a disincentive for implementation simply because they are too detailed – especially for leaders who aren’t natural planners. It’s possible for a strategic plan to fit on a single page as long as you discipline your team to clarify which priorities are most important.

It Never Gets Implemented

This is one of the results of an overly-complicated plan. No one wants to deal with it! Make sure each task has an owner assigned. In addition, make sure the entire plan has an owner – someone who will follow up with the task owners and track the progress. If the chief leader isn’t the acting owner of the strategic plan, he should appoint (or the other leaders agree on) a “strategic plan czar” who will perform the follow-up duties.

Sticking to “the Plan”

You read that right. Sticking to the plan can actually get in the way of execution effectiveness. At the end of the day, a strategic plan is like a battle plan or a game plan. Once you get into the action, you’ll have to improvise. A strategic plan should be written in pencil. If it’s immune to any changes, your team won’t be able to make the necessary adjustments. Invest in period revisions.

Both John and I address all of these issues when we facilitate strategic planning sessions with clients. If you’ve never investing in a strategic planning process, or for more information, visit my Consulting page.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

As organizational leaders, we tend to worship good ideas. We don’t want followers who simply show up to do their work and leave, we want ones who generate ideas on their own and possess the motivation to see them through. So what makes good ideas so dangerous? The answer lies in the substantial difference between a good idea and a right idea (tweet). The difference between the two is alignment. In the absence of a guiding vision and strategy, there is no overarching target to align ideas with (whether good or bad ones). That means no basis exists to determine whether a particular good idea ought to be pursued or not. This can be all the more true for government, non-profit, and ministry organizations, who are rewarded not in dollars earned for products/services but for meeting what can often be vague or changing objectives.

Let’s take a closer look.

When an organization’s guiding vision is non-existent or unclear, good ideas can be dangerous.

In the absence of a guiding vision, good ideas represent low hanging fruit that unfocused leaders reflexively reach for, especially when pressured to report visible success. It’s likely you’ve seen this before.  When each individual comes up with different good ideas, the operating environment quickly gets complicated. It can be even worse in large organizations where entire teams come up with ideas independently of one another. Once a team or an individual commits to a good idea, their personal success and pride are on the line. Quitting equates to failure, so ideas evolve into personal agendas that turn departments, teams, and individuals into silos. Organizations can literally be pulled apart by pursuing different “good” ideas that send them in directions. The result is a wide variety of small “success stories,” but no accomplishment of the organizational mission, effectiveness, or momentum. All too often this leads to a loss of trust, miscommunication, and a decrease in morale, not to mention loss of market share or revenue. Instead of diagnosing what went wrong, more good ideas are elicited to save the day and the vicious cycle continues.

When an organization’s guiding vision exists and is clear, good ideas drive positive change.

Clarity inspires focused creativity and guides a team’s thinking. It places a buffer between people and their (collective) ideas since each idea is evaluated based on it’s ability to accomplish the overall objective. Special consideration is given to the opportunity cost of good ideas, since each one requires time and resources that cannot be easily reallocated to another better idea. When an idea is achieved, the success story is centered around the accomplishment of the mission and realization of the vision, instead of a disjointed summary of ad hoc success stories.

So what can you do when the “Good Idea Fairy” strikes? Bobb Biehl once said that a sign of maturity is putting process between opportunity and response. In this case, the process is evaluating each idea against the guiding vision to ensure alignment. Of each idea you must ask the question, “what are we really trying to accomplish and will this idea get us closer to the realization of our vision or not?” Here are some steps you may want to use:

• Consider your guiding vision. If you don’t have one, or if it is unclear or under-communicated, give this your full attention before considering any new ideas that could risk spending time or resources pulling your organization in a wrong direction.
• Brainstorm: don’t just evaluate each idea as it comes. Collect a wide range and evaluate them collectively.
• Separate the ideas into groups of those that align with your vision and those that do not.
• Of the ideas that do align, select the very best and get to work on them. Put the others into a “parking lot” for later consideration. For the ideas that do not align, consider how you can share them with other teams or organizations whose guiding vision would support their consideration.

In all of this, remember that they key is not to try to limit creative thinking or discourage people from sharing their thoughts. The key is to always have a visible True North, so that everyone can generate, commit to, and implement ideas they are fully confident will drive your organization in the right direction.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

In my last post, I shared the basic principles of mentoring from a potential mentee’s standpoint that I’ve learned over the years. But I’ve also built a professional mentoring program in a previous role and also advised clients on mentoring programs they’ve set up themselves. I’d like to share some of the best practices I’ve collected.

Identify Your Objective

Mentoring programs can be great for development, but you shouldn’t build one just to have one. There’s nothing worse than setting up a mentoring program (or any type of program) that no one wants, or that is so generic that no one gets any value from it. Are you sure a mentoring program is actually needed? Would people sign up? What gaps would a mentoring program address? What outcomes do you want to see? Begin by identifying your program objective.

Identify Your Mentee Population

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it requires more thought than you might imagine initially. Most people probably consider entry-level employees as having the highest needs for mentors, and by and large they are correct. But additional groups could include new experienced hires, first time supervisors, first time executives, or employees who gain a new certification or join a new group. Or it could be a group of high potential employees being groomed for additional leadership responsibilities down the road. Your mentoring program will be most effective if it divides these populations into separate programs instead of one large program which accommodates everyone. Or you may want to focus exclusively on one group and address other needs at a later time.

Identify Your Mentor Population

Once you identify the mentees, you’ll need to identify which group would make the most effective mentors. Mentors should have more experience and knowledge in order to maximize the value of their insight. But they don’t need to be senior executives (in fact, for many mentoring programs, the tendency to recruit mentors from too high a level results in only mediocre results). A good rule of thumb is to match mentees with mentors who are 1-2 steps ahead of them in terms of career level, competency, certification, etc. Mentors should not also be a mentee’s direct supervisor.

Set Clear Expectations

Of all the steps included, this one might be the most critical. Many mentors are happy and honored to agree to serve in that capacity, but without clear expectations, their mentoring duties can remain a low priority when competing with all their other responsibilities. Here are some of the areas that need basic expectations:

• How long the mentoring relationships will last
• Maximum number of mentees that mentors should take on
• What mentees will seek mentoring for
• How often they will be expected to connect
• Where the mentor’s responsibilities begin and end
• What (if anything) is considered “out of bounds”

Incidentally, one of the most helpful expectations you can set for your mentors is that they shouldn’t try to provide 100% of the solutions to their mentee’s concerns. Encourage them to provide insight, but also to help their mentee think about the best solutions themselves. Mentors should also be encouraged to reference other resources and share their own networks.

Choose a System for Mentors/Mentees to Connect

Once the mentees and mentors are identified, they need a forum to connect. There can be various ways to do this, from publishing a list of mentors that mentees can choose from, hosting a kick-off event to make assignments, building an online system so mentees can choose their mentors independently, having the program manager assign mentors, or a number of other ways. Objective, budget, infrastructure, and preference for being hands on (or hands off) play major factors in choosing the most effective system for any given program. The biggest mistake is to not have one and to just assume that once the two groups are identified, they will make it happen on their own.

Obtain Executive Sponsorship

This practice is less crucial than some of the others, but can go a long way in generating both involvement and awareness. Try to get a senior ranking person in the organization to sponsor the mentoring program. Put their name on it. Let them speak publicly about the benefits and include their name and picture on communications. Use their influence to enlist more participation.

Utilize a Communications Campaign to Launch the Program

Once the program is ready to go, it will need some type of communications campaign to let everyone know. Generally, the more communication outlets the better. You might consider an internal web page, a corporate email message, a newsletter article, or a memo encouraging supervisors to promote the program directly to their teams. One effective method is to give a short in-person presentation at a town hall or community meeting to generate broad visibility. Make sure to reference start dates and links to additional resources and points of contact.

What other best practices would you add?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.