Leadership Fitness in 5 Minutes with Gary Slyman

You need to be a good story teller if you are going to interview well.

Where are you in your career? Where are you going next? Chances are you are going to have to interview to make that change.

If you want to be an authentic, credible and memorable when you are interviewing you need to be a good story teller.

Here is a simple framework from "Signs of a Great Interview" by Scott Vedder

1! - Look back on your career, what was a significant event?

2@ - What are the specifics of the above? People, place, things, dates.

3# - What are the numbers? Leading how many? Time it took to complete a project? Affected how many people?

4$- Dollars are always attached? My budget? What you delivered impacted by this amount?

5%- Growth or improvement? Deliver on time? Exceed?

An authentic story, shows your credibility and a story makes it memorable. Need help? DM "interview" for more resources.

How focused are you on personally and professionally on the destination of where you are going.

Let me help you build clarity on your destination.

Do you want to make sure you're going in the right direction? or Wonder why am I doing this?

Help get focus and clarity on your destination by thinking about the following celebrations:

1. Short-term career - you are headed to a new position and celebrating 2. Middle-term career change - retirement; big change; how do you and others speak about that journey 3. 90th Birthday - who is there; what are they saying?

Hopefully this exercise will help you know where you want to go and gain clarity on how to get there.

Consistency!

It's our 100th episode! Thank you to you my listeners and clients.

Thank you to Freedom Makers Virtual Services for freeing up my time and allowing me to consistently produce this weekly video and podcast.

If you were more consistent in one area of your leadership what would be the impact?

Think of yourself and those you lead: 1. Identify what you need. What do you need to be more effective and consistent. Education, training, resources? 2. Identify who can help you? It might be a peer, mentor, sponsor, a virtual assistant. 3. What structure do you need to put into place?

Structure will be a real foundation for building consistency across the board.

5 minutes to get your week off to a great start. Helping you become a more effective leader and love what you do. What's your purpose for networking? 1. Warm (familiar) to Cold (unfamiliar) 2. Learn don't teach 3. Give don't take. Think about the above and where you feel most comfortable. Set yourself up for success when building those networking relationships.

Ever been frustrated by the communication in your organization? Let's discuss the Culture of Communication Spectrum: Direct, Clear Concise……….Context, Nuance, Emotions Where are you? Where is your team? Where are individuals on this? Where do you want to be? What do you want for your culture? How do you influence it? Listen for more.

How good of a culture fit are you with what you're planning next?

You are thinking about what's next, you might be moving laterally or up or a totally new job.

How do you uncover if you are a culture fit for your next position or organization you are going to? We will revisit Schein's analysis of organizational culture:

1. Artifacts: You know where you want to go? What are those things you see when you walk into the organization? There is a feel in the office. What is it you want? Write it down, this is what you are looking for.
2. Espoused Values: What is written, mission, vision, values, strategic plans? This is often the easiest to find on websites or in the office.
3. Underlying assumptions: This is what really is going on in the organization. What do you want them to be in your next organization? You have to uncover them. Formed by people being together for a period of time and solving a problem, this gets passed along. Build questions about what you want to uncover? For example; tell me about the last time someone left, why did they leave?

Write down what you want, you need to get face to face with people in your organization. Does the audio match the video. It is worth the work to uncover these areas to find out if you are a good fit.

Do you know your organizational culture well enough to make a change?

In Edgar Schein's book "Organizational Culture and Leadership" he proposed that organization culture can be analyzed on three levels.

1. Artifacts - what do you physically see and feel when you check out an office space or business?
2. Espoused values - what is the ideal mission, policy and expectation of behavior?
3. Underlying assumption - the expectations that are assumed but not necessarily talked about.

If you are an executive exploring a new company or organization walking through the history of that company looking at the above can become very insightful and helpful to making a cultural impact.