Leadership

Diversity in the Workplace Should be a Priority

October 26, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

Many of the organizations I consult with have either been engaged in workplace diversity for quite some time or are newly involved. As I have worked with them on making this a sustained, strategic, and effective initiative, some realities have emerged.

These realities can help your thinking in this critical issue. Diversity matters, whether you lead an organization, work in one or are just concerned about the subject.

Here are some reasons why workplace diversity should be a priority.

Diversity increases the positives

There are many significant advantages to prioritizing workplace diversity. While research is continuing on this, here are four of the positives I have observed.

#1 – Better creative decisionmaking: the variety provides much-needed energy in how critical decisions are made

#2 – A broader perspective: understanding the mission of the organization from the vantage point of a bigger and more global level

#3 – Matching the market demographics: positioning the product or service to who is actually out there consuming

#4 – Heightened employee engagement: more and different people tend to increase commitment and enthusiasm in the workplace

Diversity decreases the negatives

Diversity also serves to limit negative consequences for the organization. Following are three of the negatives I have observed.

#1 – Losing relevance in the marketplace: the risk that the organization will be perceived as out of touch with the world

#2 – A drop in the credibility of the brand: the potential that the public will see the organization as being uncaring and self-centered

#3 – Losses in performance: the risk that not having the “positive disruption” of more diversity will limit the growth of the company. (TownsendNOW Members: You can watch my video on improving unhealthy company culture here.)

Diversity is the right thing to do

Principles should always outrank pragmatics. Even if the above advantages didn’t exist, we should be actively engaged in diversity because it is a fair and just concept.

Simply put, we have a responsibility to reach out to the marginalized talent pool to give them their chance to compete for work positions, and to succeed. I have never met a successful high-integrity person who didn’t think that he or she had been given support by others to get to their career position.

Take an action step on this critical issue. Read up on the subject, starting with the Wiki article about diversity to give you an overview.

If you are in a leadership position, make diversity part of the business and team conversations. The best places to start are with whoever is in charge of the company and the human resources department.

At so many levels, and for so many reasons, we all need to support workplace diversity in thought, word, and deed.

Here’s How To Be More Mindful and Present

October 12, 2018 by sgadmin Leave a Comment

With our busy schedules, it is so easy for us to miss out on a day and fail to be present. Many leaders and parents I work with, for example, tell me that when they go to bed at night, they realize that all they did that day, was make decisions and solve problems.

They missed out on stopping and smelling the roses. It’s a problem for most of us, and you really don’t want to miss a lifetime by being a compulsive “doer.”

Mindfulness and presence are merely awareness of one’s current experience. It’s just being “in touch.”

For example, there is a big difference between writing up a report at work, and realizing I am so bored with this, I wish I were playing a video game. There is a big difference between trying to get your kid to do his homework and realizing I feel somewhat helpless, frustrated and a bit angry right now.

As Allen Saunders said, “Life is what happens to us when we are making other plans.” So here are some tips to help you be more mindful and present in your daily life.

Tips For Being More Present

Value being present. Just think about what a loss it would be to miss out on experiencing life. Yes, we all have tasks and goals to accomplish, and we all want to be successful. But the longitudinal research of human lifetimes indicates that people who did nothing but work and engage in tasks tend to have huge regrets as they age. On the more positive side of the coin, why do we take so many smartphone photos? We know that experiencing life is essential and valuable. It brings meaning to what we do.

Schedule it. I set my digital watch to go off every few hours in my day. It is a reminder to stop whatever I’m doing (unless I’m speaking to an audience), and just be aware of what I’m experiencing. I haven’t found it helpful to just reflect on my day when I’m ready to go to sleep. For me, that’s a form of missing out. Nor does it work for me to tell myself, Ok, be mindful today. We have too many tasks crowding our mental reminders in the first place. But a little alarm does the trick for me.

Don’t Miss on Life

Deal with the categories. There are several types of experiences and emotions corresponding to our experiences. Just take a couple of minutes and ask yourself these questions.

General well being: How am I feeling right now in general, positive or negative? Are you happy, content, feeling connected, full of energy? Or are you somewhat down, discouraged, anxious or overwhelmed? Don’t go into solutions mode here, you can do that later. You need the practice of being aware of what’s going on inside you first, and that will help with the solutions.
Relationships: Who are you having feelings about right now? It might be your spouse or significant other. It might be a friend or coworker. It might be your child. It might be the person who just cut you off on the freeway. People trigger lots of feelings in us. I share five ways mindfulness can improve your relationships here.
Activities: How are you feeling about what you are doing? Are you fist pumping because you just crushed it at work? Are you irritated at yourself because you missed going to the gym again?
Past: Are you feeling something about a past event or relationship? We can be currently mindful about our histories. You may have lost someone who comes to mind, and you may be sad for a bit. Or you may remember a great vacation and want to savor what that was like.
Future: What future events are you anxious about, or dread? Which ones do you look forward to? Just bring these to mind, and understand why they are important to you. You can discover why time is your most valuable currency here.

So don’t miss out on life! Be mindful as soon as you read this blog. Best to you.

Why Time Is Your Most Valuable Currency

September 17, 2018 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

If we look at the most valuable currency on this planet, our first thought often sways towards dollars, dinars, pounds, etc, or in some cases the crypto-currency called Bitcoin. Time is actually the most valuable currency – one second lost cannot be bought back.

Everyone has an equal number of hours per week to become unequal — be it local tea stall owner, shopkeeper or someone as big as Mark Zuckerburg or Elon Musk? So what is that they (Musk, Zuckerburg) do to create that big difference between their success and of others? The understand how important it is to manage their time.

Priority Management

When we talk about time management it is merely an art of priority management, so are we prioritizing the schedule or scheduling the priority? If we have our priorities scheduled, then the amount of success or achievement of goal will not be an issue, however, if we prioritize our schedule we may have a good schedule but our goals will not be achieved to the level that we may want.

Doing the Right Thing

Similarly, what is more important doing the right thing or doing things rightly? Lot of people believe that doing things rightly is the way to success, but doing the wrong things rightly will leave you high and dry on goal achievement status. So doing the right thing is far more important than anything.

Stay Productive

Time management is to make sure that you stay productive throughout the day and it should not be assumed that all the tasks will be completed within a time frame. The most important benefit that can be extracted out of it would be from the fact that you will get organized and it will improve your productivity both on the academic and professional front.

Practice Time-Management Seriously

If you may have wondered why your boss is always busy and finicky about time then the reason is simple, they are practicing time-management. Time management cannot be adopted in a day but has to be practiced over the years to get the desired outcome.

Still not sure where you are spending your time? Here are three questions to ask yourself.

What is distracting you? List the top 3 distractions you feel you can cut in your day.
How are you scheduling your priorities now? Use this week to start a new system using tips above to see if it can help.
How much time are you spending on social media? Analyze if you need to draw firmer digital boundaries.

Now I’m going to share with you nine habits that can help you manage your time better. They really work, too!

9 Habits To Help You Manage Time

Take a note of things on paper or digitally to help you cruise through the day.
Assign toughest task at the beginning of the day so that biggest hurdles can be overcome.
Prioritize tasks – the most important tasks need to be finished at the earliest.
Learn to say NO to people or tasks will increase at hand and existing tasks may fail to see closure.
Stick to your break timings as they may take up your productive time period.
Don’t waste your time on social media and respond to messages if they are very important.
Learn to delegate tasks as you alone cannot do everything.
Most importantly, keep a clock on your desk to track your time on tasks.
Break tasks into shorter goals so that every goal achieved keeps you motivated during the day.

Here Are 3 Tips for Healthy Parenting

July 9, 2018 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

No doubt about it – parenting is a vast undertaking! I have two sons of my own. Trust me, I know that raising a child can be a tough but rewarding journey with a lot of responsibility. No matter how prepared you feel before your kid is born, you quickly learn that you have a lot to learn! Good thing making mistakes are a natural part of life!

Being a parent is very complicated because you have to raise this little person who is in your controlled home environment for 18 years. After that, they emerge as an adult and are hopefully ready to take on the world.

Part of being a healthy parent is learning to deal with failure. You can read more about how to work through it on one of my previous blog posts.

There is a lot of pressure put on parents to be perfect. This might be pressure you feel from other parents, or even yourself depending on the situation. It’s impossible to be a perfect parent! You can be a healthy parent, though.

So, what does great parenting look like?

Your job as a parent is to teach your child what it means to be someone who can handle the demands of reality, including finding their passion, having great relationships, and learning how to navigate the ups and downs that come with living.

Is there really a “wrong way” to parent?

I’m sure many of you are hoping that the answer is no – there is no “wrong way” to parent. Sorry – that’s not the case here! Unfortunately, there are some ways people approach child-rearing that doesn’t really work.

When you don’t give your child unconditional warmth (love) or structure, you’re setting yourself up for a dysfunctional relationship down the road. To be a successful adult, a child needs to have a steady relationship based on trust, and know that they are living in a home where they are loved and accepted no matter what.

Believe it or not, if you don’t implement structure or rules in your home, you could be unintentionally creating a culture of entitlement, which you definitely do not want. Who wants to raise a child who feels like the world owes them something?

In my book, “The Entitlement Cure,” I talk about how I raised my own children with warmth and structure. Here’s an excerpt:

“I had told our kids in a thousand ways, ‘as you go through life with us, you will need a lot of things. You’ll get what you need — things like love, food, shelter, safety, values, structure, faith, opportunity, and an education. We are committed to seeing that you get what you need. But we also want you to know that you really don’t deserve anything. You can’t demand a toy, a phone, a laptop, or a car. That attitude won’t work with us. Need, yes; deserve, not so much.’”

As a parent, your ultimate goal should be for your child to be autonomous from you, especially financially. If you don’t have structure or warmth, you could be setting yourself up for having to continue parenting long after your child leaves the nest. For example, if you have too much structure, your child may take that as a sign that everything they do in life must adhere to strict standards. That’s not healthy. Again, no one is perfect.

3 Tips for Healthy Parenting

Now that we’ve talked a little bit about the wrong way to parent, let’s focus on a few ways to do parenting right. If these suggestions are new to you, do not fret – you aren’t alone! It seems to me that all parents are making it up as they go along, and most of us are just trying to do our best. You aren’t perfect and that’s okay!

Here are three tips for a healthy parent-child relationship that I’ve learned by raising my own kids and coaching thousands of other parents on healthy parenting.

Marry warmth and structure with warmth being dominant. While you need a healthy balance between warmth and structure, warmth has to take a dominant role. A child has to know that, no matter what, you’re for them and love them. Warmth is a number one priority, with the structure being a close second. Integrate and balance them. But, remember warmth first.
Keep the future in mind. We’ve already established that no parent, no matter how hard you try, is going to be perfect. You’re going to make mistakes and that’s okay. It’s part of the job. It’s about how what you do now is going to impact what he or she does when they are an adult. It’s always about the future, so don’t just try to solve the crisis at hand. Pick your battles wisely.
Commit yourself. Everyone has a unique experience growing up. The best thing you can do is reflect on your own upbringing and commit to being a better parent than you had.

You’re still going to make mistakes because parenting is a messy process. That’s okay! Remember to be intentional with your parenting. Be warm. Provide structure and unconditional support.

Leading a Family

April 30, 2018 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

What does it mean to serve as the head of a family?

A family is really an oven, growing people to be the best they can be, to learn their talents, to feel loved, to feel like they have choices, etc. To lead a family unit is to influence your kin to be the best oven of growth possible.

As a household leader (which usually means a Mom or a Dad), you’re going to influence your family; it’s up to you to create a place where all the elements of growth and the kids’ work come together.

If you are leading with integrity, that means you’re working hard, God’s working hard, and really good things happen. Leadership is an influence.

Why Is Leading A Family Important?

First off, leading a family is an expression of love. I mean, one of the primary feelings we feel inside is that we love our kids. When you have kids, they can sort-of drive you crazy, but they’re also the people you love more than anything in the world.

Simple fact – kids can’t do it on their own.

By definition, a kid can’t lead a family. Sometimes, you see this happening with absent and dysfunctional parents when you’ve got somebody 11 years old who has to be a grown-up. This isn’t fair – kids can’t do it.

Basically, a parent is the person who has the maturity, structure, and all the tolerance and wisdom to pull it off. You can’t expect a child to have these things and lead a family!

Another important thing about leading a family is you really want to work yourself out of a job. Your job as a good parent, really as a good leader of a family, is to work yourself out of a job. Your goal should be to be fired, so to speak, one future day at the right time. If you’re always somebody’s parent at 25, and 35, and 45, you’ve still got children.

When you think about it like this, the end goal for your children is really autonomy. The goal in leading a family is for your kids go out and win the world themselves.

Your job as a family leader is to help your kids be self-sufficient and find their life in their own way.

When In Doubt, Be Warm

Another thing about leading a family is, sometimes it can be tough! When in doubt, move to warmth, and when there’s still doubt, move to strictness.

In great meta-studies, researchers found out that warmth and strictness from parents made for highly-functioning children over a long period of time.

So, what is warmth? Simply put, it’s just getting on their level and talking to them about life. Learn and apply listening skills and get them to open up.

Part of being the leader of a family is applying appropriate strictness. Functional families need boundaries, house rules, ground rules, consequences, and values.

This also means that you’ve got to be the one with a thick skin and let people hate you. This is how families grow together. I mean, it’s a tale as old as time – kids must hate you (respectfully) and rebel, which will ultimately result in (fair) consequences. The big thing is that you can’t take this personally – it’s part of growing up and they will grow out of it.

Final Thoughts

Part of leading a family is giving your kids room to grow. Be the good parent that lets them make other friends. Keep in mind that they’ve got to be the right friends, hopefully, with good parents, you can trust You don’t want your kids to be around toxic friends, but if you’ve done your job right you won’t have to worry about this. Instead, learn when to start letting go of the reins a bit and trust your kids to pick the right people to spend their time with.

Struggling to connect with your children? Get real-world guidance today from TownsendNOW!

Leading a Team

April 23, 2018 by Dr. John Townsend Leave a Comment

The basic idea of leading a team is to influence a small group of individuals to perform at levels that they could not without you. In other words, they can do something without you, but your influence and guidance has them perform at a higher and better level. If they could do it without you, you don’t need a leader, but as you’ll see, they do need one.

Why is Leading a Team Important?

The research is clear – teams do better when there’s a good leader. They perform better, are more motivated, and more engaged because they’ve got someone that they know they can trust. It’s not even a question if you’ve got a team that has no leader and a team that has a leader, all things being equal, the team with the leader does better. But secondly, as the team goes, so goes the organization.

So if you get the team going right, you’ve got a much better probability of success in the entire organization.

Another reason this is important is that a team puts together intimacy. Teams have to learn to connect and be together.

Tips For Leading a Team

First, the leader’s supposed to advocate for the mission.

Secondly, developing trust. Every team leader must develop trust not just toward yourself, but also within the members. They have to learn how to trust each other enough to have hard conversations, to make mistakes with each other, to know they’re safe with each other.

Third, remember to get their views before you give your view. A mistake team leaders make is putting their opinion first. You’re supposed to set the tone, but then your other job is to tease out what they’re thinking.

Fourth, create a path. Sometimes, we call that a strategic path, sometimes we call it a path to growth, but that’s your job. You don’t have to do that by yourself, but you’re the one that’s got to make sure it happens.