Angie McLeod, Author at WeBC

30%: The Difference Between Goal Setting & Accountability

Angie McLeod — Tue, 28 May 2019 22:48:22 +0000

I found some statistics online about the success rate of goal-setting and accountability systems. The actual quote from the Kansas Association of Colleges and Employers is:

“The probability of completing a goal if:

You have an idea or a goal: 10%
You consciously decide you will do it: 25%
You decide when you will do it: 40%
You plan how you will do it: 50%
You commit to someone you will do it: 65%
You have a specific accountability appointment with a person you’ve committed to: 95%”

Every year in business we ponder our annual goals: revenue; productivity; sales; sales conversion; health; the number of clients; and so on. Being the strategic thinkers that we are, we write our plan down, think it through, calculate and shift how each activity will move us forward toward our vision. We are excited, energized, and driven….

And then as the year unfolds, we lose momentum and focus. Those goals we set for ourselves with good intentions fall aside as we retreat back into daily operational issues. And in doing so, we become less excited, energized, and motivated. The result: we only achieve 50% of what we set out to do.

What would happen if we actually took those goals and strategic objectives one step further and shared them with someone else, particularly someone who would hold you accountable? What if you set your intent more clearly? How would this change your results?

Let’s say the statistics above do hold true.

Wouldn’t you rather be 65% successful by just sharing your goals with another person?
How hard would it be to elevate your success to 95% by being part of an accountability partnership or a mastermind group that meets regularly?

That’s a 30% improvement! All due to setting up a regular accountability meeting, breaking your goals down into chunks, laying out a plan of action, and committing to holding each other accountable. It’s not rocket science. Yet, only a small percentage of leaders set these systems in place. Will you be one?

_______

Source: http://kaceweb.org/the-power-of-accountability/

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What Batman Taught Me About Business

Angie McLeod — Thu, 09 May 2019 15:43:44 +0000

Creativity. Fun. Laughter.
All are easy to lose in the day-to-day busy-ness of our lives, particularly when we are entrepreneurs juggling our business and family obligations.
Rarely do we take time to slow down, breathe, and take a moment to explore something a little different; something that might make us smile, giggle, or actually snort.
Over spring break, my youngest daughter invited me to join her for some imaginative play. She passed me an action figures and invited me to “play.” I was so out of my league (pun intended!).
My mind was racing. How does one “play” with the action figures? How does one weave the stories to make the characters come to life?
My daughter is a master at imaginative play. So I let my mind take flight; I was silly; and it made her giggle. Batman and Spiderman were at odds with each other; Thor was bonking people on the head for being too soft; Captain America was ranting about politics; and Iron Man was being silly, not smart.
I simply stepped into being foolish, saying crazy things, and giggling along with her. It was the best 30 minutes of my week. I was relaxed. I was giggling with my little girl. I was truly connecting with her. And I had fun.
Being silly with my daughter changed the spirit of the day. My brief interlude of play swept away the cobwebs. I was no longer overwhelmed by my to-do list; instead I approached my work with a sense of productivity, creativity, fun, and abundance. What a treat!
I’m looking forward to playing with my daughter more … whether it is crafting a story with her action figures, challenging her to a competitive game of “Sorry!” or “Crazy 8s”, or simply cuddling up to share jokes. I’m going back to the basics to bring some fun and simple magic back into my daily routine.
How can you build more “fun” into your day to spark your creativity, sense of connection, and bring joy back into your work?

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The Stories that Shape Trust

Angie McLeod — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 11:30:16 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how TRUST is built. It’s the cornerstone of every relationship we have – and yet there isn’t a magic bullet that creates it or sustains it. And trust is hard to earn and easy to lose.
Brene Brown, author of Daring Greatly, explains that when trust is built a marble gets put in a jar. When an action or behaviour reduces trust, a marble is taken out of the jar. That leads me to ask: what actions lead to trust being built—and marbles being added to the jar? What actions decrease trust—and remove marbles from the jar?

Trust is a fragile thing. Past negative or hurtful experiences become “stories” that we carry in our minds, replaying them each time a similar situation arises. These “stories” carry weight: they impact our response to each new person we meet; each new situation we encounter.

If our amygdala (the brain that keeps us safe) perceives a threat based on the past stories preserved in our limbic brain (the centre of our emotional memories), our amygdala triggers our fear centre causing us to proceed cautiously, if at all.

To overcome this primitive amygdala hijack we need to prime ourselves for trust before and during conversations and consciously practice skills that reinforce trust relationships. Judith E. Glaser, the founder of Conversational Intelligence, states that we prime trust by:

T – Being Transparent.
R – Sharing to build respect and strengthen relationships.
U – Seeking to understand others’ perspectives.
S – Creating a vision of shared success and support.
T – Telling the Truth.

Priming for trust is not a one-time activity; in fact, every relationship is a work in progress all the time. The more positive the interaction, the more we seek to understand each other, and the greater our sense of “we are in this together” – the foundation of all trust relationships.

Now can you prime for trust in your existing and future relationships? What do you need to do differently?

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