Problems and challenging situations are inevitable.

A typical human reaction to difficult situations is to blame other people. Often we see ourselves as victims of the circumstances. But is that true? In most cases it is not.

In any unpleasant situation you have to ask yourself first: in how far am I part of the problem? What part of the problem am I causing myself? And as inconvenient as it may be, you have to be brutally honest with the answer.

Recently I did a group coaching workshop with an international team. All participants were great; very smart people and highly motivated. The kind of people you dream of having in your team when you are the team leader.

They were facing two issues in particular: apparently the team’s role as a service provider within the larger organization was not clearly defined. That lead to other departments using the team for all sorts of work – often the work nobody else did or wanted to do.

The other issue was an immense workload. Participants were very concerned about the amount of emails awaiting them after the 3 days group coaching workshop. It seemed to be common to work until 9 p.m. each day, and one lady told me that she stayed up until 3 a.m. after the second day of the workshop to cope with her work.

What an abuse! How mean from the other departments to put so much workload on this service team, especially when it comes to work that the team is actually not supposed to do. How mean from the others to send so many emails. How mean from the bosses not to limit the working hours.

Is that so? Or is there another perspective to the situation?

During the course of the workshop we made some interesting observations. For instance it seemed that the team was not really clear about their role themselves. Moreover, it was apparent that roles & responsibilities within the team itself were not precisely defined.

How can you expect others to know what you are supposed to do when you don’t know yourself?

We also noticed that when it came to implementing action plans, the team was highly motivated and eager to do everything and to do it all at once – which is impossible. In addition, it seemed that their approach could be more structured and results oriented.

If you think you can do everything at the same time, satisfy all demands, then don’t be surprised when other people will always put some more projects and tasks onto your desk…

Once more I want to highlight that this team was one of the most motivated I ever worked with, and the working atmosphere was very positive. The point is that even the smartest people in the best working environment may be causing the problems they are facing themselves.

If you are complaining that others are bringing on too much to your team, have you defined the roles & responsibilities within the team in the first place? Have you communicated these clearly?

If you are complaining that your workload is too high, have you set priorities and are you focused consistently without giving in to the shiny ball syndrome? Have you structured and organized your work so that you will deliver results in the given timeframe while still maintaining a healthy work-life balance? Can you educate people not to expect a response to any email they sent you within the next 10 minutes?

In any given situation ask yourself honestly: in how far am I causing the problem myself? Once you take 100% responsibility for the problems you are dealing with, your life will change dramatically!

That is particularly true when you are a leader of an organization or a team. You might be causing most of the problems you’re complaining about yourself. I still remember an advice I got from an experienced colleague when I was a junior manager. It’s probably one of the best advices I ever got: the fish rots from the head!

One of the best advice I ever got as a junior manager: “the fish rots from the head!”

I admit I was not very happy hearing it first. Once I accepted it though, I became a much better leader. It’s much more enjoyable to be part of the solution than being part of the problem.

Your action steps:

1) Accept that in any difficult situation you are causing the problem to a certain extent yourself. Take responsibility instead of finding excuses or blaming others.

2) Get clarity on what your desired outcome is.

3) Act upon it. This either means a change in your behavior and/or a change in your attitude.

4) Enjoy the process!

Would you like to find out more about how to become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem? Would you like some support in dealing more effectively with your workload and the never-ending demands by other people? Would you like to become the leader of an excellent team rather than a rotting fish?

I’ll be happy to help. Contact me now for a complimentary consultation on Executive Leadership Coaching, Work-Life Balance Coaching or group coaching:

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“Life is easy. We humans make it complicated.”

I heard this for the first time from Dr. Glenn Matthews, a great American psychologist who retired in Bangkok, Thailand. It took me a while to fully grasp the depth of this statement.

I grew up in Germany, in a culture that seems to advocate retirement as the ultimate goal in life. We Germans go through a thorough education to get a good job, and then we work as hard as possible until we reach retirement at the age of sixty-something. Then real life starts, and only then. Before that it’s a struggle, and there is little time to enjoy life.

The problem is that once people reach the age of retirement, often they are physically no longer able to enjoy life as much as they wished. And of course many do not even reach this age. Like one of my classmates who died at the age of 29 in a bus accident.

My past seven years in Thailand turned out to be a great learning experience. Thai people live in the moment. It’s like the other extreme to my German roots. Often times when a Thai person encounters a problem at work, they will quit the job from one day to the other. They don’t worry much about the future, and their amazing networking capabilities ensure that someone always takes care of them, somehow.

Buddhist monks teach us how little we actually need to live. And in fact it’s no different in Christian believe: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.” -Matthew 6:26

If life is actually so easy, why do we humans make it so complicated?

Once I met a lady from Bhutan. I don’t know much about Bhutan, but I recalled that this country ranks highest on the global happiness index. I asked that lady why she thinks that is so. Her answer was as simple as it was stunning: “I think we desire less.” And that’s probably true. Isn’t the key to all suffering unfulfilled desires?

Many managers who were once identified as high potentials get stuck at some point in their careers. Decision makers get second thoughts about the manager’s capabilities dealing with a  broader job scope. Or, what’s worse, the manager gets promoted and suddenly finds him-/herself on the fast track to derailment.

The situation is serious: the whole team may be prevented from performing at their best, and important business goals are not met. It is very frustrating for the individual if he/she is not progressing as desired, and the whole development can be embarrassing for the manager who once nominated the candidate high potential.

Here are three effective steps to get you where you want to be in your career:

1. Create Awareness

The essential question is: what key strengths must the individual exhibit in a specific position? Although certain competencies may be generally expected, leadership skills are not universal for all industries or positions. Great capabilities as CEO in the software industry don’t necessarily qualify you for the top position in a manufacturing company.

Once you are clear what strengths are required for the position desired, you need to know yourself. Great personality instruments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) or the VIA Character Strengths Survey help you understand who you are – and eventually who you can become.

Even more important than being aware of your strengths is the perception others have of you. People do not get promoted because of actual performance but because of perceived performance. As Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman Google, says: “one thing people are never good at is how other people see them.”

Do a 360 degree feedback to identify actual and hidden strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots. Or just ask the people around you for honest feedback.

2. Overcome Unacceptable Weaknesses Only

A great leader does not have to be great at everything. Nelson Mandela is my role model when it comes to leadership. After 27 years of agony in prison he refrained from retaliating against his adversaries. Instead, he practiced forgiveness, and with amazing people skills he lead a whole nation towards unity and peace. However, it is no secret that this great man failed in enjoying a fulfilling family life. Apparently this didn’t prevent him from being an outstanding leader of a country.

Time and resources are limited. You may spend a lot of time getting marginally better at what you’re not good at. Investing the same amount of time and effort in improving your natural strengths will get you further – and be so much more fun.

However, there maybe weaknesses that you simply must overcome. For instance the world’s best technical expert who does not communicate information with impact will not inspire others. The most insightful visionary who is not paying attention to getting results will not climb far on the ladder of success. Some key tasks cannot be delegated.

3. Build on Your Strengths

Based on my experience as Executive Coach & Life Coach people are clearly at their best when they build on their natural strengths. People who develop their talents and follow their passion will inevitably be successful.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review “Making Yourself Indispensable”  suggests: “What makes leaders indispensable to their organizations (…) is not being good at many things but being uniquely outstanding at a few things.”

It takes only two to four outstanding skills to be in the 72 to 89 percentile ranking of top leaders, according to a key message in the paper. In addition, the authors recommend to improve your skills through “cross training”: when you are already excellent in one area, improving this any further may not be effective. Instead, you should develop a “complementing” skill which will help you grow more significantly. Say for example you are great already in building relationships, then developing the complementary skill of developing others will eventually have more impact than further incremental improvement in building relatiosnhips.

In a nutshell: Define with a key stakeholder or the HR Manager in your organisation the crucial skills required for your desired career. Do a 360 and take the MBTI assessment to understand yourself better. Work with a mentor or coach to overcome weaknesses – if required – and build on your strengths. Enjoy your growth!

Want support? I can help you advance in your career and lead your team to success. Contact me now for individual coaching & team workshops to get where you want to be: email hidden; JavaScript is required

The MBTI® (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®) is the most powerful personality instrument to enhance leadership capabilities, improve communication, and boost team effectiveness.

The MBTI® personality inventory is based on the theory of Personality Type by Carl Gustav Jung. Carl G. Jung was one of the greatest psychiatrists ever and  the founder of Analytical Psychology.

Based on his theory, Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers developed the MBTI®. With over 70 years of studies, the MBTI® is the world’s best researched and most widely used personality instrument. More than 2 million people take the assessment each year and 70% of all Fortune 500 companies use it.

“Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire” -Isabel Briggs Myers

Carl C. Jung believed that we are all born with certain natural predispositions which do not change throughout our lives. Myers-Briggs derived from this 16 personality types with natural strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots. Once we understand ourselves and how we are different from others specifically, we have a toolset at hand to improve our personal & professional lives. Typical MBTI® applications are in the area of

• growth & self-development
• communication with others
• leadership & management capabilities
• appreciation of diversity & team effectiveness

The Four Dichotomies

According to the MBTI® there are four pairs of opposite preferences, so called dichotomies:

Where We Direct Our Energy: Extraversion (E) – Introversion (I)

People who prefer Extraversion focus their attention on the outer world of things, people, and events around them. They are often perceived as friendly, verbally skilled, and easy to know. They derive energy from being with other people. Typically they do their thinking as they speak.

People with a preference for Introversion focus their energy and attention on the inner world of thoughts, ideas and reflections. They are typically quite and perceived as reserved and harder to know. They re-charge their batteries when being on their owns. Usually they take some time to gather their thoughts before they speak.

How We Take in Information: Sensing (S) – Intuition (N)

Sensing refers to taking in information primarily with the five senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching. People with a preference for Sensing pay attention to facts and details. They want to understand the parts first to comprehend the overall design. Sensing people are often practical and realistic.

Intuition is about “the big picture”, the meaning and connection behind the initial information. People with a preference for Intuition enjoy concepts and theory and can be quite abstract. Typically they look at the overall design first to understand then how the single parts contribute to the whole.

How We Make Decisions: Thinking (T) – Feeling (F)

Thinking people make their decisions based on objective impersonal logic, and are often good at analyzing and solving problems rationally.  They focus on tasks rather than on relationships. Thus they may seem cold or detached to people with a preference for Feeling.

Feeling people base their decisions mainly on their value systems. They focus on the effect their decisions have on other people and their feelings, and they are good at understanding others. Their behavior may seem overly emotional and irrational to Thinking Types.

How We Organize Ourselves and the World around Us: Judging (J) – Perceiving (P)

People preferring Judging like to have the external world organized and orderly. They tend to make plans and stick to them. They are decisive and like to have things done. At times they may seem rigid and inflexible to other types.

People with a preference for Perceiving like to explore the world rather than organizing it. They are spontaneous and flexible. They prefer to gather information and leave things open. This may come across as disorganized and irresponsible to J people.

Sixteen Personality Types

Combining a person’s preferences leads to 16 basic personality types, described by a combination of four letters as shown in this chart:

Each type has individual strengths and weaknesses. A brief description of each Type can be found here:

Understanding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and your type is extremely helpful in various areas of your life. The MBTI® supported me personally in a career transition and to improve relationships with others. Today I use the MBTI® with my coaching clients: leaders learn the skills to lead people to sustainable success. Organizations appreciate diversity and boost team performance. Individuals grow personally & professionally.

MBTI® by Vivo Coaching in Bangkok, Thailand: giving leaders the skills to lead people to sustainable success. Enabling Organizations appreciate diversity and boost team performance. Helping individuals grow personally & professionally.

Dr. Gerrit Pelzer is the only Qualified and Accredited MBTI® Administrator in Thailand holding coaching credentials by the International Coach Federation. Contact him today to find out how the MBTI can help you get the results you desire in your personal life and your career: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Sources:

“Introduction to Type”, Isabel Briggs Myers, 6th edition; ”MBTI Manual”, Isabel Briggs Myers et al., 3rd edition

Further Reading:

“Jung: A Very Short Introduction”, Anthony Stevens

“Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type”, Isabel Briggs Myers

“How You Can Make Better Career Decisions Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator”

“How to Take Your Love Life to the Next Level with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator”

“If you don’t know who you are, the world will tell you.” -Carl G. Jung

Organizational complicated-ness has risen by a factor of 35 since 1955 according to the Harvard Business Review.

“Today companies, on average, set themselves six times as many performance requirements as they did in 1955 (…) Back then, CEOs committed to four to seven performance imperatives; today they commit to 25 to 40″ says Yves Morieux, senior partner with the Boston Consulting Group.

Are you glued to a sticky web of countless targets? How many KPIs are you juggling every day? And how many of these KPIs are actually in conflict with others?

I once worked for a multi-national company with a couple of thousand employees worldwide. With best intentions a “SHEQ” system (safety, health, environment, and quality) based on the norms ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 was introduced. As a by-product the list of targets for a year became a couple of A4 pages long. Just administrating all the KPIs  became an immense and not always productive task.

If you too spend more time reporting KPIs rather than achieving them, here’s the way out:

Get the big picture first, then focus on less.

What is the overall goal of your organization? What are your critical success factors? Choose the three critical few by the following definition: if nothing else gets done, achievement of these critical few will still add considerable value to the organization. (Thanks to Allen Moore from PDI for this valuable tip!)

You may want to break down targets further so that people on all levels can relate to them. That’s ok as long as you make sure everyone still sees the forest for the trees.

Throughout the year remain flexible in adjusting targets and KPIs as necessary while avoiding the temptation of the “shiny ball syndrome.“

Be persistent and keep your team on track.

You need to align your own actions and your team’s with the critical success factors. To be successful you have to do this consistently, every day. A great and simple tool that helps you is visualization of KPIs and target achievement.

Recently I was waiting at a client’s office. It was early in the morning and I had a walk around the empty workplaces. The area of the sales team literally caught my eye: a huge poster was on the wall, hand-crafted without fancy computer graphics. The simplicity was striking: the sales target for the year end split into the three main sales products plus the actual number versus target.

When the sales people enter the office, the first thing they see is this chart. Do you believe that reminds them what to focus on for the day? You betcha! In fact one of the managers told me that this approach was not only very helpful for achieving the targets. The team actually asked for increasing the sales target! What more could you want?

To make your way effectively thorough the jungle of performance targets, simply keep the three keys to success in mind: Direction, Focus and Execution!  Once you do this consistently you will be amazed how success will trigger more success.

How are you going to apply this? It’s November, and I know you’ll have to set targets for the new year soon…

Want support? I can help you achieve more by targeting less. Contact me now for individual coaching & team workshops to get where you want to be:

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My girlfriend’s house is about 1 m under water, and even though I still have dry feet, I have not been able to buy bottled water for a week, and customers cancel participation in my live events.

There is an enormous nervousness out there: “Can this bloody flood come now! I’m sick and tired waiting for the flood to come or maybe not to come or not here or maybe later or somewhere else or …” as someone posted on Facebook.

The situation is disastrous, no doubt. But does it help to be nervous? As the saying goes, you cannot prevent the pain, but suffering is optional. Here’s how to lead yourself and others through crisis:

1. You cannot control the events in your life. But you can control how you respond to them.

You cannot prevent flooding, earthquakes, or the loss of a loved one. You and only you decide though what you do in an extreme situation.

Whereas it is normal to be sad or to worry when things are not going as planned in your life or your business, you have to accept worrying does not help.

For any dramatic situation in life or business I have learned the two most empowering questions:

- What can I learn from this?

- How can I turn this around?

2. Focus on the solution, not the problem

Focusing on the problem does not get you anywhere. It will just lead to more negative emotions and limit your ability to plan intelligently. Moreover, whatever you focus on, you get more of: focus on a problem, you’ll get more problems. Focus on solutions, and you will find solutions.

Accept that you are in charge of your mind no matter what happens around you. The above mentioned questions are extremely powerful to help you focus on solving problems. The more options you create, the easier it will be for you to find a feasible way forward.

You can deal with any situation if you decide to, can’t you.

3. Be a role model and lead your team

If you are a manager or a business leader, you have a huge influence on how your team will deal with challenging situations. In times of crisis, people look up to a leader. They look for someone great who they can follow. Be this person.

In order to lead them, you have to lead yourself first and not give in to your worries and negative emotions. Create empowering beliefs, self-confidence, and know that you can handle the situation.

Go out there, let your team see and feel your confidence. Then instill this confidence in your team by teaching them how to apply the rules above. This will help you and your team to get where you want to be.

If you would like to have my support in helping you and your team through crisis, contact me now:

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No other skill distinguishes truly successful people from the rest more dramatically than persistence, the ability and strength to keep going despite all difficulties. History is full of examples of men and women who are today known as extremely successful, but hardly anyone realizes the difficulties these people had to go through before they could harvest the fruits of their efforts.

Last week Germany lost their greatest humorist Vicco von Bülow aka Loriot. A sad day? Of course. And yet, at the same time it was amazing to see how people responded to the news of his death: thousands of funny posts reviving classic Loriot cartoons and video clips emerged on Facebook and Twitter. Humor was spread instead of tears. The man who made me laugh out loud countless times must have looked down from heaven to us with a big smile on his face: what greater honor could there be for a true comedian but seeing even his death cause us to laugh?

If you are German you surely remember Wum & Wendelin, Familie Hoppenstedt, Herr Müller-Lüdenscheidt and Herr Doktor Klöbner. If you are not, these figures give you an idea about Loriot’s outstanding success: over 50 books and booklets published, innumerable TV spots, two movies and awards en masse (see loriot.de and wikipedia).

When we hear such success stories, we often stand in awe. We might think that successful people were born with talents we don’t have or that they have resources we cannot access. This often serves as an excuse for us not being as successful ourselves.

What we tend to overlook is that most of outstandingly successful people went through extremely difficult times in their lives before they turned famous. Times when success was simply absent. What kept them going was a strong believe in themselves and in doing the right thing.  Thus they remained persistent when times were tough.

My “humorous hero” is no exception. As I learned last week from Spiegel on-line Loriot has a hard time making a living after graduating from university. In 1949 he writes in a letter to his father that despite lots of efforts he failed to get more assignments. A magazine he regularly writes for reduces their orders. Loriot stays together with his wife in a small one bedroom apartment, and struggles to pay the rent of about 50 USD.

Then, in 1953, a cartoon series for the renowned magazine “Stern” could have been his breakthrough – but turns out as a disaster: readers don’t laugh about the cartoons “auf den Hund gekommen” but instead threaten to stop buying the weekly magazine. After the seventh issue with the dog cartoons the editor decides to cancel the series. No other German publisher gives young Loriot a second chance. The fate of a genius who is ahead of his time!

Does Loriot give up? Not at all! 1954 Swiss publisher Daniel Keel prints the controversial dog cartoons, and Loriot’s first book turns out as a success. This marks the beginning of a life-long collaboration between von Buelow and Keel. And suddenly the German magazines seem to have forgotten the quarrels of the past: for 17 years “Stern” will continue to publish Loriot’s cartoons.

Vicco von Buelow will be referred to later as the creator of “comical Germany” and will be elected  again and again among the most popular Germans. Today hardly anyone is aware of the initial rejection of the great artist.

Indeed it seems that going through tough times is a typical pattern of all extraordinarily successful people. For example just recently I came across a blog post “Attributes of Billionaires” by Aziz Ali  on Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

The examples cited range from Bill Gates over Oprah Winfrey to Warren Buffet. Aziz tells us about the “hidden emotional challenges” of these extremely successful people, and how perseverance helped them to ultimately get where they wanted to be.

Choose any person you admire, I bet when you look up their story you’ll be surprised to see what kind of difficulties they had to deal with, and how they overcame them. Only a few people are just born lucky.

May these stories inspire you To Remain Productive When You Feel Like Giving Up and to  make your dreams come true.

Thank you Loriot for making me laugh more often then anyone else did. And thank you for encouraging me to remain persistent when times are tough. (It might be no coincidence that Vicco sounds so similar to Vivo…! Ach was.)

As an Executive Coach I work with successful managers who want to achieve even more. A larger part of the coaching journey is spent on identifying the client’s desired outcomes and specific goals. Over time I have identified the four main reasons why even smart, bright, and highly motivated people like you do not achieve their goals.

1. You Don’t Know Your Goals

It is obvious that if you don’t know where you want to go it will be difficult to get there. It reminds me of the picture of the manager on the hamster wheel: no matter how fast he or she spins the wheel, they are not getting anywhere. This may sound amusing, but you’d be surprised how many people seriously struggle with the most important step of setting goals. Recently a man in his fifties called me and said: “financially I am doing well, I could retire if I wanted to. Now I want to know what I want to be when I grow up.”

Unfortunately today’s achievement-oriented society misguides us: we are all supposed to be successful in our careers, earn a lot of money, have a big house with the corresponding car, a happy marriage and intelligent children, exercise regularly, and have deep insights into politics. Oh, I forgot that we also have to look gorgeous like supermodels.

One day you may find yourself running after all these carrots only to figure out they have a very bitter taste.

2. Your Goal is Blur

I guide new coaching clients through a process of identifying their goals. One of the first and perhaps most crucial questions is “what are your expected outcomes of the coaching?”

Among the top answers are: being more successful, improved career, more money, happier relationship.

“Hmmm… How will you know if at the end of the coaching process you got there?” I wonder.

If you have been too long in the corporate world like me, you may have become tired of the acronym S.M.A.R.T. But we simply have to admit that setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals makes it so much easier to achieve them.

3. You Have Conflicting Goals

Conflicting goals exists on various levels. One issue that almost all of my clients deal with is procrastination. Procrastination is related to the conflicting goals of longterm rewards versus instant gratification. Do you get your rewards from accomplishing this one year project or from surfing Facebook and Youtube? Do you derive joy from a 5-times-one-hour-per-week workout or is it more enjoyable to be a couch potato with a bottle of beer after a long working day?

Or you may face conflicts on a higher level. For instance if your goal of being a successful company director consumes so much time that you no more resources left to pursue the goal if being a great husband.

4. You Don’t Seize the Day

Many “success coaches” will ask you where you want to be in three or five years. The problem with that is that it makes people start working hard with the idea of allowing themselves to be happy in three or five years. And on the way of getting there they are very unhappy.

Do you want to be unhappy for the next 3-5 years, not even having the guarantee of finding true happiness then? (Anthony Robbins once said that the happiness of having made his first million dollars didn’t last long.) Being regularly in a state of unhappiness does not support you in achieving your goals

Four “Get Where You Want To Be”-Tips to Achieve Your Goals

1. Know your carrots. Ensure that you have identified what is important to you, what really matters in your life. Do not blindly run after the goals that other people have for you.

2. Be specific about your desired outcomes. What concrete evidence will you have to know you have achieved a goal? How will it look like, taste like, feel like? Paint a picture of your future and see yourself in this picture with contentment.

3. Get clear on your priorities. As my grandmother said: you cannot have everything. How are you going to spent the 24 hours that each of us is given?

4. Keep the great movie Dead Poets Society in mind and carpe diem – seize the day. Maybe you want to adapt one of my goals: to enjoy every single day in my life as much as I can!

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This article has been previously published on ezinearticles.com

http://ezinearticles.com/?Four-Reasons-Why-You-Are-Not-Achieving-Your-Goals&id=6476874

Famous blogger Yaro Starak published a great post on this topic: “How To Remain Productive When You Feel Like Giving Up”

Yaro gives valuable insights and one key messages is that success is to a great deal based on the “ability to force yourself to be productive when you don’t feel like it.”

Although I admire people with such output-oriented attitudes, I have a slightly different view.

There is no doubt that persistence is at the heart of truly successful business people and entrepreneurs. However, it is most important that you find out how you are most productive. And this does not contradict with the idea of persistence as a key of success.

Become Your Personal Best

One of the biggest mistakes many people make is to listen to other people’s advice without listening to themselves. They copy behavior of role models not taking into account their own personal strengths and preferences. Then they blindly follow that advice – and get frustrated because they don’t succeed that way.

You may look at these ‘achievers’ in awe and what happens next is you get discouraged because you know this idea of forcing you to produce output on a bad day will never work out for you. In worst case you feel like a failure and you give up. “I cannot be like this,” you say, and the world will never hear about the great ideas you have just buried.

I want to encourage you to build on your strengths and find your personal style: figure out when you are at your best!

Maybe you are one of these people who look unproductive on the outside at times, but lots of things are going on inside. You are constantly thinking, developing ideas… in silence. The environment does not take note of that.

Your best ideas are not developed at your office desk, but during a day on the beach, while running on the treadmill, or simply when taking a shower.

Some of this ‘breeding ideas’ almost takes place on an unconscious level. Then suddenly, you get things done in an outburst of energy. And as long as this works for you, there is nothing wrong with that. By no means are you less successful than your super-productive counterparts.

As a very successful business owner and friend of mine once said: “It’s not procrastination, I call it incubation.”

In essence: listen to yourself and distinguish between truly unproductive patterns (e.g. a NEED to overcome procrastination) and a more inconsistent but still highly productive working styles (e.g. working in bursts of energy, interrupted with periods of apparently unproductive times).

Moreover, define what you really want to achieve. Do you strive to achieve more to pursue your most important goals in life? Or are you just running after a bunch of carrots of extrinsic motivation? I have met a couple of ‘highly successful and productive’ people who lived very unhappy lives…

Get where you want to be tips:

1. Define what you really want to achieve to experience fulfillment in life. Stop running after the goals of other people.

2. Persistence is definitely the key to success. If forcing yourself to be productive when you don’t feel like it does not work out for you, check if you are a procrastinator or an incubator: procrastinators get distracted and don’t get the necessary things done. Incubators need to breed ideas internally, and then become highly productive in bursts of energy.

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But despite working 24/7 you feel that something is just not right. You are still not achieving the results you desire. You are lacking a sense of fulfillment. You wonder how you can squeeze out more hours of the day to finally get where you want to be.

Let me tell you one thing: spinning your hamster wheel faster will not get you anywhere!

Already in the 1980ies Stephen R. Covey noticed we need to spend some time to sharpen the saw in order to cut the wood faster. Or as Lothar Seiwert put it “Slow Down to Speed Up” (“Wenn Du es eilig hast, gehe langsam”)

It’s time for you to jump off the hamster wheel. Now. Step back for a moment and take inventory.

Albert Einstein said “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.” So if spinning the hamster wheel has not brought you where you want to be, it won’t get you there in the future either.

It is time for you to do things differently. Or to do different things.

A typical symptom today is that organizations and the people in it fall short of realizing their full potential, thus failing to achieve sustainable success. Through my years as an executive and now an executive coach I have noticed there are mainly two diseases causing these symptoms: mission issues and people issues.

1) Mission Issues

Direction, Focus, and Execution are key factors on the mission and tasks side for sustainable organizational success.

Direction: As the cat tells Alice in Wonderland when she comes to a crossroad, “If you don’t know where you want to get, then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.”

Has your company set up a clear (and I mean clear) direction of where they want to be? And if so, is the whole organization aligned in that direction?

Focus: Even if a corporation has a clearly defined direction, often times they fail to focus on the right priorities without getting distracted. A friend of mine referred to this easy distraction as “the shiny ball syndrome.”

Do your organizational priorities change on a daily basis? Staying focused on the top priorities will be much more effective and efficient than running after every new “shiny ball” that appears.

Execution: Knowing what to do is not enough. You need to do what you know. Too many meetings, too many emails, and being busy being busy will not get you to where you want to be. Work smart, not hard.

Referring to Belbin’s team roles, does your company have enough implementers and completer-finishers?

2) People issues

Often worse than the task-side however, is how today’s corporations deal with what they often refer to as their most valuable “assets”: the people working for them. The idea of referring to people as assets or - in my opinion even more perverted - as “human resources” shows the dilemma, doesn’t it? According to Wikipedia “a resource is any physical or virtual entity of limited availability that needs to be consumed to obtain a benefit from it.”

The idea of “using up” people makes me shiver.

Obviously companies with human resources departments tend to degrade human “beings” to human “doers,” and consequently they make these top four mistakes when it comes to this “most valuable asset”:

Recruitment: Your organization’s success depends on having the right people at the right place. Obviously this starts with getting the right people on board. But while busy with being busy, people do not spend enough time in attracting and choosing the best people.

How much time do you and other senior managers invest in this most important business process?

Development: once you have made sure you have the right people on board, the investment must continue. Training and development is not a luxury or an incentive. It’s a necessity not only for organizational excellence but moreover for your organization’s survival in the long run.

How does your organization support the development of people who devote a great deal of their life time working for this organization?

Motivation: Alas, latest since Daniel H. Pink’s “Drive” we should know about the importance of autonomy, mastery, and purpose for a person’s motivation, right? Of course your company provides room for all three so that people excel, don’t they?

If you are still applying the carrot and stick model in the year 2011 do not be surprised if your company fails to succeed.

Communication: Communication is crucial. From romantic relationships to the work place. And even though we all have learned this in our first leadership seminar, it seems so difficult to apply simple rules of active listening or convincing people in daily life.

Is communication in your organisation mono- or bi-directional? Do people take into account the need of different personality types e.g. according to MBTI types?

Jumping off the hamster wheel doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. The world won’t fall apart if you put down your phone, and close your laptop.

The main point to remember for both you and your organization is that people need to be valued as people and not machines or assets. And “people” includes you as well. Focusing on your people as people and on a unified organizational direction will ultimately lead to the type of sustainable execution you and your organization are looking for.