What Matters to You?
If you skew a little bit "old school," you probably remember a series of TV ads for Dunkin' Donuts that featured a shop manager who wearily woke up at 3:00 am every day with the mordant refrain, "Time to make the donuts." If you're too young to know what I'm talking about, check this out:
My wife recently saw a bumper sticker with the (edited here for public consumption) phrase, "Freakin' Donuts." If you're old enough to remember, then you're in on the joke. Sometimes life can feel like it's just one more day of making the donuts.
I find this happens when you get overly focused on the tasks that stack up in front of you. All those donuts can cause you to lose sight of the bigger purpose and picture. Leaders (and I definitely include myself here), need to pull the lens back on a regular basis and ask themselves, "What really matters to me?" Getting clear on your answers to that question can help you clarify your priorities and even come up with some innovative ways to address them.
So, how did I come up with this point and why am I bringing it up now? Well, it so happens that I'm married to a really excellent coach named Diane who asked me last night to make a list of the things that matter to me. Once we covered the basics (e.g. strong marriage, healthy kids, food and shelter), I moved on to other things that matter to me. Since I'm a leadership coach, one of the obvious answers is leadership. But, if you think about it, good leadership is a means to an end. So, Diane kept asking, "What else matters to you?" Here's my list:
- Sustainable global economy
- Justice
- Basic levels of quality of life for all people
- Global and national security
- Innovation and progress
- Health and wellness
- Learning and knowledge
- Happiness
- Reflection and spiritual development
- Personal and family sustainability
How about you? What matters to you? What's the connection between your daily work and what matters? What about your team? What kinds of conversations are you having about the connection between their work and what matters?
Speaking of conversations, let's start one here. I'd love to see some comments posted on what matters to you and the meaningful work that you and your team are doing about that.
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ABOUT THIS BLOG
Executive coach Scott Eblin’s goal is to help you succeed at the next level of leadership. Throughout the week, he’ll offer his take on the leadership lessons in the news and his advice on your most pressing leadership questions. A former government executive, Scott is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and is the author of The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success.
*That my children and grandchildren have the same or better opportunities than I have.
Rick Posted Wednesday, June 3, 2009 10:26 AM*That my work means something other than a paycheck.
*That the American people wake up to the mortal danger that emotion brings.
*The realization that to succeed is not necessarily bad, success breeds the opportunity to help where failure doesn't.
While I can't control the world, I can recognize what I can do and then "just do it". I have no thoughts of perfect justice, or equality of living for these are impossible to achieve. Those that produce more, take larger risks, believe in the basic goodness of man will always live better than those that produce the minimum, take no risk, are afraid, and believe that man is inherently evil. I have no willingness to lower my standard of living to help those that refuse to do what is necessary to better themselves. Until we breed the perfect human with all the same characteristics....things like justice and equality will be the challenge never to be achieved.
Just an observation for Rick (and others):
Arty Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 9:35 AM"That the American People wake up to the mortal danger that emotion brings."
In fact, emotion is the spur that goads us to action. Individuals who have brain damage or endocrine imbalance that completely suppresses emotion find themselves just sitting doing nothing until they are prodded to action by something external. Like so many things, the ebb and flow of emotion and reason are a balance to be attained and maintained, and it is the IMBALANCE that is dangerous.
Maslow's heirarchy of needs?
William R. Cumming Posted Tuesday, June 9, 2009 7:40 AMA survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development last year found that 95 per cent of organisations in the UK were increasing their use of coaching.
Isreal Pulvermacher Posted Saturday, September 18, 2010 12:25 PM