Show Me The Way...

Photo credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2009

Ten + 1 Tips for Leadership


If the “perfect” list of leadership tips existed, it would highlight “Take A Break”. Leadership is demanding, so demanding in fact, that burnout is much too common. Stress may kill, and as Tom Peters says, it also kills effectiveness. When "innovation" needs to happen, leaders need to show everyone around them that they are r-e-l-a-x-e-d.

How's that again? Innovation is about letting go of "the plan", the analysis, the financial implication. Innovation may end there, but it starts with...mindless meandering, crawling along the rocks by Lake Superior...wandering in the woods...playing with childlike abandon, preferably with children. When you are free to see issues from a new perspective, with a wide horizon, the solutions appear.


The Rest Of The "Almost Perfect" Leadership List

Just like "fast food" isn't healthy every day, "fast leadership" can lead to an unhealthy organization. For innovation, think "slow".

“Slow Leadership’s” shortlist of attributes would include:

* The willingness to think deeply and independently.

* A true focus on creating the best outcomes for the most people over the longest period of time.

* The willingness to reflect carefully on all the available options before committing to action.

* An acceptance of the ethical and moral responsibilities that go with all leadership positions.

* A sound appreciation that the bulk of his or her job is about helping others succeed, not improving his or her own position.

* An understanding that profit is an outcome of good management, not a goal to be pursued for its own sake.

* Open-mindedness and adaptability, in place of rule-bound, silo thinking.

* Most of all, moral courage to stand up for what is right and accept full responsibility for all his or her actions and their outcomes.

Source: Carmine Coyote is the founder and editor of Slow Leadership http://www.slowleadership.org/blog/

As we discuss “innovation” in community and organizations - start with “self-innovation”; look inside yourself first, before beginning a change initiative elsewhere.

Are you in synch with the demands of leadership as we know them now?

Or have you been left behind in a cloud of dust, while the innovators are truly changing the world?

Words Sharp As Ice

Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2009

The Power and Pressure of Leadership

When things go wrong, we learn. We learn that assumptions lead to a variety of disappointments and decisions. We learn that communication isn’t as effective as we want it to be. We learn that even the mundane routines of leadership can have cracks. And that even experienced leaders make off-hand comments that blow up into major issues. Take Barrack Obama, for instance.

Jay Leno asked Obama about his bowling prowess, or lack thereof. That was the popular joke during the campaign. Obama proudly said he recently bowled a 129, and as Leno was mocking it, Obama joined in and compared it to the Special Olympics. "It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something."

Sure enough, we understand how the media works in North America. As does the White House. Spokesman Bill Burton released a statement aboard Air Force One after the show aired:

"The president made an offhand remark making fun of his own bowling that was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics. He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world."

Leadership Moments Count

"It's just a joke. Give him a break!"

The real message, though? Those little leadership moments DO matter.

Symbols count.

Words count.

What someone finds funny counts, too.

Leadership moments count...the words, the symbols, the jokes.

If you want the leadership spotlight, you get both: the power and the pressure.

The president is in a high-attention job. It's a cage, even. It's gilded, certainly, but it's a cage, nonetheless.

And among the things that go with the job he has, or any leadership job, for that matter, are an expectation that he won't perpetuate stereotypes, whatever they are, and an expectation that he will lead by positive example. In planned statements and actions, and the "mindless" moments, too.
The mentally and physically challenged have feelings, the same as anyone else does. They're trying to maintain their dignity in a world that quickly reaches for the "R" word ("retard") to put people down.

Leadership means knowing the power and value of the spontaneous actions, reactions and words one uses.

It may take education, exposure to the real lives of the people someone makes fun of in an oh so simple "joke."

In this particular case, maybe President Obama should spend a day as a Special Olympics coach. Or work for a day with the handicapped in a sheltered workshop. Or volunteer for a day in one of the homes for the profoundly retarded that any state has to care for those who, by accident of birth, or illness, or by accident, itself, would never have asked for the circumstances they have, will never live lives completely on their own.
We all have moments we regret, a simple comment we didn't really mean. And yet...

If we are in leadership positions, we must remember, those simple moments count. And they are so very powerful.

Source: http://www.jgrichardsresults.com/

Remember that your leadership is showing 24/7, through your emails - with brusque subject lines ("I'm Furious!!!!") - or your judgmental conversations with your CAP team in a public space. Someone may be listening, or reading, or assuming.

Leadership is 24/7...It's Power and it's Pressure. And neither ever stops.

Economic Renewal & Change

Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright

For change to happen:

“Leaders need to be the rock of Gibralter on rollerskates.” - Tom Peters

Two Days’ Worth

Staying current on hot topics is essential for leadership. Here’s a sampling of Chronicle Journal columns which mirror recent Leadership Thunder Bay Community Learning Days. What's happening from a community wide perspective? What are the connections and consequences industry to industry, service to service? What is your role as a leader?

Friday March 13, 2009

Salaries Out of This World

That noise you hear in the background is a rude awakening, the kind of alarm clock jangle that has finally reached the ears of the NHL. ...The money crunch has been slow to hit professional sport, and conversely, pro sport has been slow to react. Carolina: Thunder Bay’s Eric Staal signs a $57 million, seven year extension in the hot-bed of southern hockey: $8.15 mill....

The one thing that has intrigued me over all the years around this game at the highest level, is wondering when somebody, anybody, an individual or even a group of players from one hometown is going to put in a financial infusion back into the source of their success....setting up an endowment fund for the minor hockey organization that gave them their start...” - Ross Brewitt

City, CEDC Boost Online Services.

The redesign of the website is initiative No 65 of the city’s Building a New Foundation Strategic Plan.

Among the major changes:

• Online users can subscribe to city news through RSS feeds, meaning whenever the city posts a news release, the user is notified.


• The “Event Calendar” has been revamped, new features added.


• Photos from MyTBay.Ca, the storytelling portal.


• CEDC has also developed a new website to attract investors and serve business.


• The Community Profile: Key Facts and Stats is a one stop shopping document.


• BizPal simplifies and customizes the business permit and licence process.


• http://http://www.thunderbay.ca/

Rebound Falls Flat: Finances Stymie Elizabeth Fry

Almost a year after the Elizabeth Fry Society closed its doors in Thunder Bay to regroup and sort out funding, it’s not much further along....The group helped about 200 women each year with one paid staffer and volunteers...There is a desperate need for women’s housing. Women inmates are falling through the cracks.

3 Cheers for Food: Security Research Network Hard at Work

Some celebrate with food, others just celebrate food itself. The organization which focuses on enhancing and sustaining the local food system, has more than 50 partners in the region, including food distributors and producers. http://www.foodsecurityresearch.ca/

Lessons for Native Youth

A change in the way aboriginal people are governed in Canada is necessary and inevitable, an aboriginal youth conference being held in Thunder Bay was told Thursday....

"We can rebuild our economies to the point where we can take care of the needs of our own people rather than rely on somebody else to never give enough. Undoing the damage that has been done is also our responsibility. No one else is going to do that for us."- Herb George, president of the National Centre for First Nations Governance.

Clinic Recruits Patients to Keep Staff

Health clinics in economically depressed Northwestern Ontario towns could lose in-house staff if the number of patients declines along with the general population, warns the Ministry of Health. Marathon Family Health Team has 3200 residents enrolled, but the Ministry expects us to have 4000. Marathon Pulp, one of the town’s main employers, has been idled and many of the plants’ 230 workers may have to move away to find other jobs.


Saturday, March 14, 2009

35,300 Jobs Lost in Ont.: Unemployment Jumps in Thunder Bay

There are even bleaker times ahead for Ontario as the province continues to take the brunt of job losses in Canada, the opposition parties warned Friday. Thunder Bay’s unemployment rate went from 6.9% to 7.6%.

Abitibi-Bowater Restarting Newsprint

The full complement of about 1100 employees who work for Abitibi-Bowaters’ various Thunder Bay operations should all be back on the job on Monday when the newsprint plant - the last division to come back on line - fires up.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

And finally, your readings for April 16, 2009

1. Chapter 7: Competency to Mastery, Dr. Brad's 7 Strategies

2. Chapter 9, Whole Brain Book: Styles of Management

3. EDC Site: http://www.thunderbay.ca/CEDC.htm

4. Gladwell's Tipping Point http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html

Your key leadership skill is GOAL SETTING.

Enjoy your Spring Break...St Patrick's Day

"Every day's a fine day. It's just that some days are better than others." - Irish proverb courtesy of our own George Burns

Food for Thought

Do You Know?

1. About our Schools:

Ogden School in Thunder Bay is one of twenty of the fastest improving elementary schools in Ontario are found in neighbourhoods that have among the lowest average parental incomes, according to the Fraser Institute's Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools 2009.

"Teachers and administrators in these schools have found ways to beat the odds and help their students do better than might be predicted by their families' average income," said Peter Cowley, Fraser Institute director of school performance studies.

The average parental income for all Ontario elementary schools listed in the Fraser Institute Report Card is $73,500. Sacred Heart (in Thunder Bay) showed the greatest improvement, going from an overall score of 2.5 in 2004 to 7.5 in 2008. Average family income for parents of students at Sacred Heart is $47,300.

The complete Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools 2009, including detailed results on all 2,778 schools, is available as a free pdf at http://www.fraserinstitute.org/.
Source: Lakesuperiornews.com

2. About the Gender Lens

“Looking at our communities and the world around us using a gender lens means looking at situations in our daily lives, societal events, policies and actions.

When we apply this lens to our work in poverty reduction and community action, the gender lens helps us consider how men and women are affected differently by the conditions of poverty and by the work we do to reduce poverty and increase access to jobs and social programs”.

From: The Thinking Behind the Wall Workshop: Why Gender and Poverty?
Adapted from “Starting with Women’s Lives: Changing Today’s Economy”


3. About Aboriginal Issues and the Gender Lens

Reasons why Aboriginal women have poor access to health care as identified by the interviewees:
• For those who live in rural areas, health care facilities are limited or non-existent
• For those who live in urban areas, women do not always have transportation (e.g., bus fare) or childcare readily available.
• Racism and discrimination in the health care system were identified as major problems.
• Aboriginal women who do not have treaty Indian status cannot always pay for the prescriptions that they need.

Source: Women, Income and Health inManitoba: An Overview and Ideas for Action.

4. About Hunger in Thunder Bay

The average increase in demand (for food) across the province was 13% whereas the increase in the Thunder Bay District was 28.5%

In March of 2008 we were providing food hampers to 5000 people each month and providing over 17,000 meals per month. In the year 2008 the RFDA supplied $506,000 in food and $30,000 in used winter clothing and brand new boots to those in need within Northwestern Ontario.

The next Hunger count will be taken in March of 2009. .The prices of food are elevated in Thunder Bay, Dryden, Ottawa and Bearskin Lake Ontario. This effects poor people's buying power and also costs our food banks more in purchases:

Source: http://www.heartandstroke.com/atf/cf/%7B99452D8B-E7F1-4BD6-A57D-B136CE6C95BF%7D/reportcard-eng-ON.pdf

See you Thursday! Comfy clothes, flat shoes, ready to talk...

For a Few Pennies More

Photo Credit: Richard Chicoine iCopyright 2009

It's Not Just About the Bagel

The Hunger Report came out in December from the Ontario Association of Food Banks and reflects figures until September 2008.

"When children are removed from the equation, we can see that over one in four Ontarians served by food banks are working.

In addition to these figures, there are also many Ontarians turning to food banks that have recently lost their jobs and are receiving Employment Insurance.

When taking these figures into account, 19.7% of those served by food banks in Ontario are employed or have recently lost their job.

There are also many Ontarians served by food banks that are not currently employed.

43.1 per cent of all Ontarians including children report general social assistance (Ontario Works) as their major source of income.....

Over 20 per cent of all persons served by food banks in this province are persons with disabilities. This figure is well beyond the population average which reports that 13.5% of Ontarians are living with disabilities."

38% per cent of Ontarians forced to turn to food banks are children.

A Challenge for you and your family?

We read the statistics, we understand how mill shut downs along the north shore and in TBay are affecting our communities. But what's it like to live the circumstances, instead of being the bystander?

Here's the challenge...

Could you and your family live for 5 consecutive days:

a. without spending an extra dime? Eat what's in your pantry and fridge - no trips to the grocery store, no stops for bagels and coffee, no dog treats...and when you're out of gas, you hitch a ride

or

b. recording every dime you spend?

Bring the results of your experience to the next Learning Day on March 12.

Read "A Gathering Storm" http://oafb.ca/assets/pdfs/A_Gathering_Storm.pdf

- Maggie