Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. ~ Agatha Christie
Many people believe it takes 21 days to master a new habit.
Wishful thinking!
Self-help books and motivational gurus have promoted the 21-day myth for at least 50 years, with little research to validate the claim. In a 2009 European study, participants took a full 66 days to adopt a new habit.
In an age of ubiquitous social media and cell-phone videos, leaders know that one careless customer experience can go viral, ruining their corporate reputations and wrecking careers. They must therefore be transparent, conscientious and responsible to their global constituents, never forgetting that employees, customers and the community at large will hold them to the highest standards.
It turns out that a lot of what we previously thought about the brain isn’t true.
We’ve discovered, for example, that the brain continues to grow well into our later years through a process called “neuroplasticity.” It accommodates learning by producing new neurons, cells that help transfer information.
“Human communication has its own set of very unusual and counterintuitive rules.” — Malcolm Gladwell
What does it take to transmit bold new ideas to people who don’t want to hear them? How can the language you use facilitate enthusiastic, energetic implementation?
In The Leadership Code: Five Rules to Lead By, (Harvard Business Press, 2011) Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood and Kate Sweetman have distilled leadership into five core roles:
Someone in your company may have recently been promoted to a leadership position. This person successfully competed against other qualified candidates, some of whom were probably just as experienced and smart.
As often happens in judging one candidate over another, the decision most likely came down to degrees of “executive presence.”
“Leadership isn’t something you do writing memos, you’ve got to appeal to people’s emotions. They’ve got to buy in with their hearts and bellies, not just their minds”
~ Lou Gerstner, former CEO, IBM
Business has a long tradition of ignoring emotions in favor of rationality. Feelings are dismissed as messy, dangerous, weak and irrelevant to day-to-day operations.
Far from being touchy-feely concepts touted by motivational speakers, purpose and values have been identified as key drivers of high-performing organizations.
Leaders who have a clearly articulated purpose and are driven to make a difference can inspire people to overcome insurmountable odds, writes Roy M. Spence Jr. in It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand for.
Every person in an executive role is expected to exercise wisdom in their decisions. However, senior leaders are often more concerned with meeting the numbers and therefore fail to come close to being astute over the long term.
If employees lack motivation, don’t be too quick to blame them. Managers and organizational practices are often the problem’s source.
In The Truth about Managing People (FT Press, 2007), Stephen P. Robbins, PhD, examines 10 common myths about motivation.
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