CMD 034: How To Navigate Your Career Like An Air Force Pilot – Aaron Stark

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CMD 032: How To Give And Receive Critique Like An Artist – Shannon Johnston

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CMD 017: How To Connect, Mobilize, And Deliver With Your Team – Part 2

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CMD 015: How To Build A Championship Team, with Chris Grill

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CMD 014: How To Deliver Results With One Question

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These words spoken by one of my professors at Kansas State University didn’t sit well with me, but I still remember them decades later.

I disagreed with my instructor at the time (I’ll tell how that went in just a moment…), but I now think she was right.

And, now I would even argue that being lazy is actually a good way for you to build your career. Even if you’re not an engineer.

Disagreeing with my professor

I have a degree in Electrical Engineering. And, many, many years ago, I learned a lot of very technical information I can now remember basically nothing about.

But, I do remember a very important lesson from an extremely intelligent professor who was teaching about some shortcut to make highly complex calculations simpler and easier. I now have no clue what that shortcut was or how to apply it.

I do, however, remember the reason she said we would need to know this technique.

She told the class that, “Engineers are inherently lazy.” She and I had a good rapport so I raised my hand and told her I disagreed. I told her we weren’t lazy. We were efficient.

After spending part of my career as a practicing engineer and almost all of it as a business leader, I have reached this conclusion.

We were both right.

Whether you use the term efficient or lazy, doing more work with less effort is an important skill to master if you want to be successful.

But, it can be easy to not recognize behaviors that are actually beneficial because they can appear on the surface to be things an unmotivated slacker might do.

I’ve found if you want to build your career and be more effective as a leader, you need to resist the temptation to view these 7 techniques as lazy.

It might not be easy to change your perspective. But, if you can learn to see these practices as important fundamental career skills instead of acts of laziness, you will have uncommon success to go along with your uncommon viewpoint.

7 techniques to build your career by being lazy

In my experiences these seven behaviors are often viewed by many to be the behaviors of a lazy person who will never be successful.

To be honest, this has been my initial reaction in the past. But, I’ve been wrong.

Now, I continually work to maintain what I consider to be a more informed mindset in each of these areas.

Lazy or efficient?

So, my professor was probably right when she taught me that engineers are inherently lazy. And, I consider that to be a compliment now when I think about how to reinterpret what many people view as lazy.

I hope these seven techniques give you some practical ideas to build your career by being as lazy as you can be, in the right way of course.

You can call it being efficient or being lazy, but regardless of which term you choose, embracing these strategies and the mindset behind them will serve you well in any field or profession as you build your career and grow as a leader.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

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I suspect you did and may not have even realized it.

That’s been the case for me at least. Because until I spent some time reflecting on my own experiences saying goodbye, I hadn’t noticed how much I could learn and apply personally.

Here are three powerful leadership lessons I’ve taken from the many times I’ve said goodbye to my coworkers throughout my career.

The typical farewell event

Farewell events come in many different forms. An event like this may be a big retirement celebration with a room full of people. Or, a dinner with a smaller group. A farewell event might just be an individual conversation with a colleague on their last day with the company.

It could even be your final day before you make a career move to try something new.

Regardless of the situation, in my experience, the person leaving and I rarely talk about the specifics of the projects we’ve worked on together. And, we don’t talk about how much the person contributed to the bottom line each year.

We talk less about work and more about the friends we’ve worked with and how the person leaving has impacted people’s lives.

And, that is the first of three leadership lessons I’ve gained from my many farewell conversations.

Lesson 1 – Invest in people and relationships

When I’m talking to someone who is about to move on to a new phase of their career, we spend nearly all our time recalling the stories of the people we’ve worked with over the years.

And, I try to tell the person who is leaving how much they mean to me. Without tearing up.

We focus on the relationships we’ve built with our coworkers. Our conversations often go deeper than those we had when it was “just another day.” The finality of a person’s last day brings out what is truly most important.

Farewell events bring clarity on what’s important

Each farewell conversation I have reminds me of the importance of investing in people.

These precious few moments of time while we’re still in the same organization cause me to see the value in developing meaningful relationships with the other human beings I have the privilege of interacting with as we do work together.

Perhaps you’re newer in your career than I am. You haven’t consumed as much retirement party cake and punch as I have.

I encourage you to trust me on this and take this advice:

Invest in people and relationships throughout your career.

Prepare for your farewell event now

Get to know your coworkers, not just on a surface level with conversations about work topics. Learn about them as fellow human beings. Share life with them.

When you’re together and have time to chat, talk about your families, your joys and struggles, your spouse, kids, pets, whatever. And, ask them about these type of things too.

As you interact and work together, ask them how they’re doing. Not just with their projects, but ask them how they are doing mentally and emotionally, without prying of course.

If you do this consistently throughout your career, when you see a coworker shaking hands and saying goodbye years from now, those memories will come flooding back to remind you of the connection you have with a colleague who is also a friend.

And, when it’s your turn to move on and you are talking to your teammates on your last day before embarking on a new career opportunity, these moments of shared humanity are what you will cherish.

But, I’ve found this isn’t true for everyone.

There are some people I’ve known and worked with for years but when they are about to become former coworkers, I honestly don’t think much about them.

Situations like this lead me to my second of three leadership lessons from farewells.

Lesson 2 – Live out your values

Not everyone has the same values. We don’t hold the same core beliefs and worldview as every one of our coworkers.

But, if you’re reading this blog, you and I likely take the same approach to living our lives, at work and everywhere we interact with people.

We truly care about people. Helping others be successful is important to us. We strive to be kind and compassionate leaders.

We’re not perfect and we don’t always get it right. But, we keep trying.

If we’re honest, we’ll admit that not everyone is like that.

Not everyone wants to lead with kindness

The “authentic self” some individuals bring to work isn’t an example we seek to emulate. We all have coworkers with very different leadership behaviors than ours. And, we don’t want to be anything like them.

When a farewell event occurs with a coworker who fits that description, I don’t have much to say when the emcee asks if anyone wants to say a few words about the guest of honor.

My grandma’s advice on what to do when you don’t have anything nice to say comes to mind.

Thankfully, many leaders do care for their people even when it’s hard

But, I almost always have a lot to say when the person departing has lived out values I respect and appreciate.

In fact, I could dominate the ceremony by communicating my admiration for a colleague I’ve observed serving sacrificially during their career.

I want them to know I’ve seen them wrestle with how to best care for their teammates while also meeting the challenging demands that go with being in a business.

And, this is one of the most important leadership lessons for you (and me) as a leader striving to lead with kindness and confidence.

Keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t give up when it’s hard to show empathy and compassion.

Focusing only on short term results has serious pitfalls

Don’t succumb to the pressure of “making the numbers” while damaging people and relationships in the process.

I know the temptation to achieve short term results is strong. It’s so much easier to take a shortcut to deliver what is demanded by the company or “The Street” for the month, the quarter, or the fiscal year.

But those shortcuts that look good in the short term can destroy the foundation needed for the success of the organization in the long term.

And, our coworkers see whether we’re taking those shortcuts or putting in the hard work to find solutions that last.

It’s often only when a person is leaving that they learn who was watching and respecting them as they lived out their commitment to take care of the people in the organization while also delivering business results.

That last statement about delivering results is critically important. And, it brings us to the last of the three leadership lessons from saying farewell.

Lesson 3 – Deliver results

The reality of the business world, or any organization, is this.

You have to deliver results.

If you can’t do your job well and execute what you’ve been hired to do, you won’t have the privilege of an enjoyable farewell event.

A farewell event that won’t be a party

Oh, you’ll have a farewell event alright. But, it most likely won’t be the kind that gives others the opportunity to share their thanks and praise with you as you depart.

It will probably be a closed-door discussion with your manager and a representative from Human Resources explaining how you need to move on to “pursue other opportunities.”

That may seem like a harsh scenario at first. But, it’s reality. And, it’s appropriate if you aren’t delivering results.

We’ve all known coworkers who were kind and compassionate. And, they were great people. But, they just couldn’t do their job well.

They couldn’t add enough value to cover what they were costing the organization. So, they needed to leave and go do something different.

These individuals needed to be in a position that was a better fit for their skill set. To thrive and be successful, they needed to find a role that allowed them to provide value and give as much or more than they took from the company.

Deciding to remove a person in a situation like this isn’t mean or heartless. It’s kind. Because it preserves their dignity and honor.

Delivering results allows a leader to impact lives

In contrast, think of the person who is leaving the company after many years of distinguished service. No one wants to see them go even when they know it’s the best thing for their friend and coworker.

That desire isn’t based solely on the person’s character or personality.

It’s also a result of knowing the person gets things done. They deliver results for the organization. And they help others do the same.

The person being honored on their last day caused the business to perform well financially in addition to building a positive and healthy workplace culture.

They earned the position that enabled them to positively impact people’s lives by delivering results.

Their investment in leading well and meeting financial business metrics provided jobs for their teammates. And, those jobs provided income for their coworkers and their families. The incomes created by sustained business performance fueled local economies and strengthened communities.

Delivering results is good for a business and it’s good for the people impacted by the business.

Leading with kindness and confidence requires you to consistently deliver results. (To read more on this concept, check out the post, “Want To Be A Kind And Confident Leader? Deliver Results.“)

And, it’s an absolute necessity if you desire to have a farewell event that gives you the opportunity to interact with people you’ve invested in over a long career.

How do you want your farewell event to go?

I encourage you to pause for a moment and consider how you want your farewell event to go.

The good news is if you’re still working, you can influence what that day will be like.

To impact that future experience, I hope you apply these three leadership lessons I’ve learned. And, many more you collect as you say goodbye to leaders you admire and respect too.

Because someday it will be your turn to say farewell.

So, take action now to make that day rewarding and memorable. Not just for you, but for those teammates you are leading now.

May your work result in an amazing farewell event for you and the many friends and colleagues you’ve influenced throughout your career.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

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With a tagline of “training leaders to lead with kindness and confidence” you would naturally expect me to believe kindness is a good investment for you as a leader and for your business. But, maybe hearing the word kindness doesn’t make you think of financial benefits.

What about similar words like “goodness”, “caring”, or “gracious”? Do they sound soft and fluffy and disconnected from business performance?

If you think they do, you’re not alone. Many business leaders have a similar reaction.

But, many others hold a different perspective. They view these terms as critical to their business success. Experts have done the research and agree.

To support my statement, here are three examples to remind us that kindness truly makes a positive financial impact on any business.

The Art and ROI of Caring Leadership

First, if ROI is a new term to you, please don’t be embarrassed. I seem to discover an acronym I don’t know with every financial report I hear.

ROI means Return on Investment. In other words, it’s what you get out of what you put in.

In this case, it means what a business gets out of investing in leading with kindness. Or, to use a different term, the ROI of caring leadership.

The term “caring leadership” comes from a book called “The Art of Caring Leadership: How Leading with Heart Uplifts Teams and Organizations” by Heather R. Younger.

I encourage you to check out the book, but here are a couple of excerpts to save you some time.

Heather R. Younger on LinkedIn

In this post on LinkedIn, Heather Younger makes this statement about how Caring Leadership makes a positive impact on the financial performance of a business.

When employees are cared for, appreciated, and heard, they are happier and more productive. 

That is what Caring Leadership is all about. 

Heather R. Younger

More productive employees create a more productive business. It’s a direct correlation.

As a result, investing in caring for your teammates delivers a return that is realized in better financial performance for the business.

Melissa Houston in Forbes

Melissa Houston provides another summary of Heather R. Younger’s book, in a Forbes article titled, “The Art Of Caring Leadership In Business Can Increase ROI.”

After highlighting the nine tenets from the book, Melissa writes this on the topic of the ROI of Caring Leadership.

I agree with this message and highlighted one particular point above.

Whether you call it leading with kindness or caring leadership, investing in your employees makes a positive impact to the financial performance of any business in any industry or field.

Another business and leadership expert has demonstrated this in the healthcare industry.

Gracious Leadership

If you’ve been following my blog, the name Janet Smith Meeks is familiar to you. She is the author of the book, “Gracious Leadership: Lead Like You’ve Never Led Before.” [affiliate link]

I first mentioned Janet in the post, “Can A Kind Leader Be Successful“. There I explained that Janet is not only an author. She is also a veteran C-Suite leader within the healthcare and financial services industries.

In other words, she knows how to run a business. And, she knows that kindness, or gracious leadership as she calls it, makes a positive impact to the bottom line.

This quote from her article, Why Gracious Leadership Is A Strategic Imperative, on the website Chief Executive makes that point perfectly clear.

Early in my tenure as a hospital president, I encountered resistance from cynics who believed Gracious Leadership was “soft stuff.” Quite frankly, they were wrong! Through practicing the grace and tough love that are integral to Gracious Leadership, we transformed a struggling, community hospital into an award-winning, high performance regional medical center ranked within the top 5% of hospitals nationally. We had highly engaged employees, physicians who happily collaborated to achieve excellence, very satisfied patients, outstanding quality and great financial results. Gracious Leadership is not soft stuff. Indeed, it’s strategic!

Janet Smith Meeks – Why Gracious Leadership Is A Strategic Imperative

That makes two experts on leadership and business who agree that kindness makes a positive impact to the financial performance of a business.

Let’s add one more example to the conversation.

How Goodness Pays

Before I introduce these next two experts, I want to make a statement that could be controversial.

Leading with kindness is for female leaders

Some people reading this post, may be tempted to think something they probably wouldn’t say out loud. At least not in public.

The previous two authors, Heather and Janet, think that kindness is important because they’re women. Guys don’t think like that.

That is hard for me to even type. And, I bet it’s hard for you to read.

But, sadly that’s a common misconception. Being kind and compassionate is for women who lead not men.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

To support my position, these next two experts are just as male as I am. And, they clearly believe kindness makes a positive financial impact. Or, as they put it in their book title, goodness pays.

Leading with kindness is for all leaders

Paul Batz and Paul Hillen wrote the book, “How Goodness Pays: Why good leaders THRIVE in a transparent business world.” Based on three years of research and the extensive data they collected, they summarized their findings with this statement.

“Good leaders create great results by leading with goodness.”

You can hear them describe this in their own words by watching this short video where you’ll hear Paul Hillen say this.

I used to think that goodness kind of got in the way of that drive for better financial results… Now I believe that goodness is the driver of financial success.

Paul Hillen, Co-Author, How Goodness Pays

And, if you’re unsure if Paul Hillen has the personal experience to support his statement above, I encourage you to review his career profile on LinkedIn by clicking here. He definitely has a resume to give full credibility to his message.

Both of these men are experienced business leaders who have proven they know what it takes to be successful in a company.

They know that goodness makes a positive impact on the bottom line.

Leading with kindness really does pay

Leading with kindness brings benefits far beyond financial performance. And, I’m confident most of you aren’t being gracious and caring for the money.

But, it is important to know that being a kind leader will help you with one of your main goals in business, to make money.

A positive financial impact may not be your primary motivation for caring for your teammates, but it is one more reason to do what’s right.

And, knowing kindness makes a positive impact on the bottom line will build your confidence as you increase your company’s ROI in multiple ways serving your team as a caring and gracious leader.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

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You’ve heard this is something the best and most experienced leaders do.

But, maybe you don’t have years of experience leading people. Or, perhaps you’ve been in a leadership role for some time but don’t consider yourself skilled at asking powerful questions.

In fact, you’re not even sure how to ask a good question. Let alone a powerful one.

How can you get started?

I’ve got your answer in this post. And, it’s super easy.

A super easy, two-step suggestion to get started

How can you get started in your journey to learn how to ask powerful questions as a leader?

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I try to keep things simple. And, today’s post will definitely stick with that approach.

Here’s my super easy, two-step suggestion.

Step 1- Find some powerful questions

Another thing you know about me if you’re a regular reader is that I don’t claim to have original thoughts.

I’m a firm believer that everything created by humans is built on what came before. I write about this in a previous post.

So, if you want to get started asking powerful questions, you don’t need to create these questions yourself.

Start by finding some powerful questions others are already using effectively.

Simple, right?

Where can you find these existing, powerful questions? I’ll get to that shortly. But, first let’s cover step 2.

It won’t take long.

Step 2 – Ask these powerful questions

Once you have these powerful questions others are already using, what do you do next?

Ask them.

That’s step 2. Just ask the powerful questions that others recommend.

Leading others well usually isn’t complex. It’s often quite simple. And, that’s the case with asking powerful questions.

Getting started developing the skill of asking good questions doesn’t require anything more than the willingness to try.

And, maybe a bit of courage. But, once you complete step 1 and have some example questions to ask, I’m confident you’ll be ready.

You can get started by borrowing questions from the coaching industry.

7 powerful questions from a coaching expert

Many would agree that Michael Bungay Stanier wrote the book on coaching. And, the book they are referring to is “The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way You Lead Forever”.

The Coaching Habit is the best-selling book on coaching this century. And, it contains a set of seven transformative questions coaches and leaders around the globe use every day.

These powerful questions are a great place to start as you work on your ability to ask great questions.

Great questions for all leaders, not just coaches

And, don’t worry. You don’t have to be a coach to use these questions.

They work well in just about any conversation in all types of settings.

Here’s what Bungay Stanier says about these seven essential questions in his outstanding follow up book, “The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious, & Change the Way You Lead Forever.”

There’s no set script. You don’t have to ask them in a certain order. They work by themselves, or in any order.

Michael Bungay Stanier in The Advice Trap

Sounds easy to try, right?

It is. Super easy in fact.

So, what are these seven powerful questions?

Here are the questions and the author’s descriptions taken directly from The Advice Trap.

Seven Essential Questions from The Advice Trap

I said earlier that “Find some powerful questions” was Step 1 in this super easy, two-step method to get started asking powerful questions.

Now you have seven. That’s a pretty good start, huh?

With these proven questions, I’m confident you will have no trouble taking Step 2, which is “Ask these powerful questions.”

But, let’s not stop with seven questions.

I’d like to give you even more powerful questions to choose from.

In fact, you’re going to have a plethora of choices before we’re done.

3 sets of powerful questions

I first learned these questions during my courses at The Kansas Leadership Center a few years ago. Since then I’ve kept a copy in my notebook I use daily.

They are that good.

The Art of Powerful Questions

Is asking powerful questions an art?

I think it is. But, don’t let that intimidate you if you don’t consider yourself an artist.

These questions are taken from a short guide titled “The Art of Powerful Questions: Catalyzing Insight, Innovation, and Action” written by Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs. It is available through The World Cafe’ and other locations online.

I especially like how this guide groups these valuable questions according to their primary purpose. This structure makes these powerful questions even easier to use and immediately applicable to your specific situation.

The questions from this guide are so easy to use in fact, you may be considered an expert “asker of powerful questions” before you know it.

I say that based on my personal experience.

Let me tell you a quick story before I share the questions.

It’s easy to ask really good questions

“You ask really good questions.”

I’ve been told that many times in the past few years. And, my typical response is this.

“Thank You”. Then I hold up my notebook with my taped in photocopy of a handout I got from The Kansas Leadership Center and show them my secret.

Then, I add my own powerful question.

“Would you like me to make you a copy?”

As I said earlier, I don’t claim to have original ideas. I’m simply using and building on the work of those who have gone before me. And, you can do the same.

Follow my example and your teammates will be viewing you as an expert in the art of asking powerful questions soon too.

Questions for all seasons

My friends at the The Kansas Leadership Center consider these questions as tools for Appreciative Inquiry, as you can see on the handout in my notebook.

The authors of “The Art of Powerful Questions” call them “Questions for All Seasons”.

As that term applies, they can be used in a variety of settings. And, just like the Seven Essential Questions above, they are easy to use.

Here’s how the authors introduce these three sets of powerful questions.

Here is a series of generative questions that we and other colleagues have found useful to stimulate new knowledge and creative thinking in a wide variety of situations around the world. Look at these questions to stimulate your own thinking about questions related to your own specific situation. Play. Use your imagination.

The Art of Powerful Questions

Did you catch the last two sentences?

Be creative and get started

“Play. Use your imagination.”

I promised you this post would give you a super easy way to get started asking powerful questions.

How much easier could it be than to “play” and “use your imagination” using these example questions?

And, with these 25 powerful questions grouped into three categories, it’s even easier to begin experimenting and applying them as you lead.

25 Powerful Questions from The Art of Powerful Questions

Aren’t these truly powerful questions? Every time I read them I am energized and inspired to use them whenever I can.

If you agree and are excited to put them into practice too, you can. You are now fully equipped and ready to get started.

You are ready to get started

You now have a super easy, two-step suggestion to get started asking powerful questions.

Remember the two steps?

And, you’ve got 32 powerful questions that coaching and leadership experts have proven to be effective.

Step 1 complete.

All that’s left is Step 2.

And, taking this next step is up to you.

Take Step 2 – Ask these powerful questions

If you want to be a better leader, a kind and confident leader who helps your team get results, I encourage you to take Step 2.

Just pick one or two questions that sound natural to you. Something you can hear yourself saying in normal conversations you have with your teammates.

Then, just ask the question.

You’ll be glad you did.

And, you will likely be amazed at the positive impact you will have on your teams and your organizations.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

PS – Photo credit goes to https://www.wocintechchat.com/, an amazing collection of photos of Women in Technology. I encourage you to check it out.

Discussion Questions

• Out of these 32 powerful questions, which do you like and plan to use with your team?

• What powerful questions would you suggest others try?

I’m curious to hear about your experience using these questions in your organizations. Please share your comments so we can learn together.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

Click here to download the free guide.

How to Write a Professional Email: Make a positive impact with every email you send.

The post How To Ask Powerful Questions – Getting Started appeared first on Greg Harrod.

This is true in business and in sports.

The game of basketball provides us with many lessons on the importance of fundamental skills. It also helps us better understand why even those who are most committed to success sometime struggle with the basics.

If you aren’t as good as you want to be in the basics in your career, be encouraged. You’re not alone.

And, you can keep making progress by being aware of these three common barriers and taking action to push through them.

The importance of fundamental career skills

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or what type of job you have, the people in your organization will likely agree in many ways about fundamental skills.

In your field most people will know what skills everyone needs to do well. The core competencies are particularly obvious when a teammate doesn’t perform well in one of these areas.

Poor performance highlights the need

Here’s an example I’m confident you’re familiar with.

Communicating in a professional manner is a fundamental skill that applies to every career.

Think back to a time when you’ve heard someone in your organization says things in a way that was entirely inappropriate. Or, maybe you’ve read an email that makes you cringe.

In those moments you, and everyone else involved, were keenly aware of the importance of mastering the fundamental career skill of professional communications.

The failure to execute this basic skill well highlighted its importance.

Communicating poorly can limit a person’s career.

Fundamental career skills are general and specific

A skill like communicating well is an example of a general competency. Things every team member should know how to do well.

Other important fundamentals skills are competencies unique to your trade. They are the little things. The basics that are required to be successful.

Most of these fundamentals are tasks that are done over and over but aren’t necessarily glamorous.

If you and your teammates stop doing these things, your organization will shut down.

These fundamental career skills are important. Critical. Essential.

It’s hard to argue with this statement. And, people rarely do.

Nearly everyone would agree fundamentals are important, in theory

If you were to talk to people in your organization at any level and ask them if the basic skills are important, they would respond with an emphatic, “Absolutely!”

In my career, these fundamental career skills are things like communicating well, whether in emails, presentations, and in person. Leading projects and project teams. Critical thinking. Getting along with others.

These competencies are critical for most people in many different career paths.

In theory, nearly everyone will agree that these general fundamental skills are important.

Reality and theory often don’t match

But, if you were to ask these same people if they invest in improving themselves in these areas to further their career, do you think they will respond with the same enthusiastic, “Absolutely!”?

I don’t think they will.

They will probably say something about not having the time to work on these or they’ve done a little bit of training a long time ago. And, they do them well enough already.

The truth is most people say fundamental career skills are important but their actions reveal something else.

In my experience, many people really aren’t that good at executing the fundamentals. And, they aren’t investing time or money to get better.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable team members. They are.

But, it does expose their hidden truth that they don’t actually consider these fundamental career skills as important as they say they do.

So, why the disconnect?

Why don’t most employees excel in executing the basics and work to continually improve in the fundamental career skills they need?

3 reasons everyone struggles with fundamental career skills

There are many reasons, but let’s start with three.

1. Fundamentals must be practiced. And not everyone is willing to practice.

In the game of basketball, shooting free throws is a fundamental skill.

For men and women who earn their living playing the game, it’s a fundamental career skill. An important part of their job is shooting the ball well.

One of the greatest shooters of all time is Stephen Curry.

Stephen Curry’s example

In the book Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets From the Best of the Best, Alan Stein, Jr. gives us insight into why Steph Curry is as good as he is.

Stein describes how at a high-school camp for high-level prospects, Steph Curry would not leave the court until he swished five free throws in a row.

For you non-basketball followers, a “swish” means the ball passes through the rim without touching it. Hence the phrase, “Nothing But Net.”

Swishing a free throw is not that hard for skilled shooters, but swishing five in a row after an incredibly intense workout?

That’s difficult.

Listen to Alan Stein, Jr. describe Steph Curry’s commitment to practicing the fundamentals and see just how good Curry is in this short video.

Steph Curry’s does his job at an amazingly high level of excellence.

How does he do this?

He relentlessly practices his fundamental career skills.

And, I think it’s safe to say he does this more than anyone else.

Did you catch how Stein mentions that other players were not as committed to putting in the effort to practice the basic skills?

Not everyone practices like Steph Curry practices. And, it’s no coincidence that no one else shoots as well as Steph Curry either.

To perform the basics with excellence we must follow Steph Curry’s example

We can also perform in our jobs with high levels of excellence. But, we must do as Steph does.

We too must practice our fundamental career skills.

But just like the other very good players who left the court when Steph Curry stayed to shoot free throws, we often don’t practice. We accept good as good enough.

As a result, we don’t improve in our fundamental career skills. We perform them at a decent level. Maybe even a good level, better than many of our teammates.

But, we’re not as good as we could be if we practiced our fundamental skills more often.

And, sometimes that lack of practice causes our performance to decline. The results we deliver aren’t what we expect them to be. Or they aren’t what others expect them to be.

Then the pressure starts to build. Inside us and around us.

2. There is pressure to do something different

We know executing fundamental career skills consistently over time will lead to success, but we often feel pressure to do something else.

This pressure can tempt us to make poor choices. We entertain the idea of not investing time to get better at the basics, but rather to seek different solutions.

Internal and external pressure

Whether it’s internal pressure from the words of our inner voice or external pressure from others who have strong opinions about our approach, the influence can be hard to resist.

It may be judgmental comments from a critic or a seemingly innocent question from a teammate. Both can suggest that staying the course and doing the basics more consistently just isn’t going to work.

“Surely there’s a better way” they tell us. “There must be a shortcut to get the results you want.”

There’s always a new and flashy path to success.

These methods start to look attractive, especially when we’ve have had setbacks. We think maybe being committed to the basics really is too simple.

Those fundamental career skills we thought we could trust may not be so trustworthy after all.

We can all find ourselves facing doubt when these internal and external pressures come our way.

The pressure comes quickly when the results don’t

In December of 2019, the Texas Tech men’s basketball team had just lost two games in a row. The record was 5 wins and 2 losses. Not a terrible early season record, but they had played for the national championship the previous season. They were expected to be 7 and 0 at this point.

A reporter asked head coach Chris Beard if he was going to do something different based on these two recent losses.

His response showed his commitment to sticking to the process he had established with his team. A process built on the consistent execution of the fundamentals that he knew would bring success.

Chris Beard’s words in this one minute clip should be applied not only by every coach and athlete but also by every person who wants to have a successful career in any field.

Most of the basics Coach Beard lists in his response are specific to the athletes in his program. But, the application to us in any career is obvious.

We can trust that consistently executing a sound process of applying fundamental career skills will bring success over time.

We just need to stick to the process and continue doing the basics as we’ve been trained to do them.

But what if we haven’t been trained in the fundamental skills we need in our career?

Sadly, this is the situation for many people.

3. We don’t get properly trained

This final reason we struggle with fundamental career skills may be the most important because it’s often the easiest problem to fix.

Take a moment to think about the basics of your work. The things you need to do well every day to be successful.

Have you received training in these areas?

Or, did you only get hands-on training when you first started your job and you’ve had no meaningful guidance after that?

Proper training is not a problem for professional basketball players

You are most likely not feeding your family by playing basketball. But, if you are, you probably have been trained in the fundamentals. You likely have a group of talented people committed to making sure you are doing the fundamentals of your job to the best of your ability.

You have professional trainers studying your footwork. Coaches dedicated to analyzing your shooting form. Nutritionists ensuring your body is fueled to perform. Staff members breaking down your game film to prepare you to rebound more effectively against your next opponent.

If you’re a professional basketball player, you have all these things and probably more.

But, we’re not you.

Most of us don’t have groups of people who are personally dedicated to helping us continually improve our career fundamental skills.

But proper training is a problem for many of us

Many of us are not properly trained in the basic tasks we use every day to make a living.

Despite this lack of intentional training, too many people are expected to be highly competent in these fundamental career skills.

Training in the basics is sometimes considered too, well…

Basic.

Doesn’t everyone know how to write an effective email, or lead a meeting, or have a professional conversation with a customer or their peers?

No. Everyone doesn’t know how to do those things.

They don’t intuitively know how to do them well. Sure they’ll figure it out on their own. Or they’ll learn from someone else.

But, is that how organizations should train their employees on the skills they use continually to deliver results for the company?

Of course the answer is no. But based on my conversations with many people, this is a common approach.

Too many companies don’t consider it valuable to train their employees on fundamental career skills. They don’t consider it valuable despite the fact their employees spend a significant amount of time each week applying these skills.

You can get the training you need

If you aren’t getting the training you need to perform your fundamental career skills with excellence, I encourage you to invest in yourself.

Explore your organization’s internal training resources to find classes to help you improve in these core skills. Investigate external options to get training like this too.

Free resources are abundant. You can find articles, podcasts, and webinars on a variety of relevant topics.

If you’re serious about being exceptional in executing fundamental career skills, online courses are also an excellent option.

For a reasonable price you can learn and continually improve the basic skills that will benefit you in any role you have in any field or organization. A one-time investment in yourself will pay for itself quickly and continue to benefit you throughout your career.

Don’t let your organization’s lack of investment in you hinder your career growth and performance. Find a way to get better at your fundamental career skills.

But, what are those skills?

What are your fundamental career skills?

I don’t know what specific skills apply to you. But, in my career, I’ve found there are fundamental skills that benefit every person I’ve encountered.

Here are a few examples.

I’ve got a much longer list, but this is a start.

What would you include on your list?

Do you do these things with excellence? Do you invest to continually improve in these areas?

I hope you do. But, if you don’t, don’t be discouraged. Just take the next step to improve.

Start now to find ways to perform the basics a little better each day.

It will be worth it.

Executing fundamental career skills with excellence will bring success

People who do the basics extremely well have successful careers. They break through the three barriers we discussed in this post (and many others) and execute these skills with excellence.

And, they deliver exceptional results for their organizations.

Exceptional team members continually strive to execute the fundamentals with excellence.

This is true in basketball and every other field. It takes practice, training, perseverance, and courage to stick to the process. And the results will be worth all you invest.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• What are your fundamental career skills?

• Are you investing to improve these skills? Are you helping your teammates do the same?

I’m interested to know how you put this into practice in your life. Please share your experiences in the comments section so we can learn together.

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