By Your Life: Recent Episodes
Lisa Huetteman
BY YOUR LIFE is a podcast that will inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday with Monday through Friday in a secular, business world. It is our desire to help you live your Catholic faith in the marketplace and to discover that it is good for business. We believe that most best practices in business can be linked to Holy Scripture and our Catholic traditions. BY YOUR LIFE hopes to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify God by your life.
If you want to grow personally, if you want your company to grow, you must let go of the old to make way for the new. This is hard when it means confronting our egos and our strongly held beliefs.
All companies should aspire to be trusted. All people should aspire to be trusted, because great teams are built on trust. But, in order to be trusted, you must be trustworthy.
Coaching is often considered a punishment or a penalty for having done something wrong. Coaching is reserved for troubled employees instead of a common practice that benefits everyone.
It is easy to be discouraged when we fail and unless we seek the lesson, we’ll never discover the opportunity that is hiding in the darkness.
Having a right to do something and doing the right thing, are not the same. Ethical behavior is knowing the difference and acting accordingly.
We’re all guilty of making bad decisions. How do you deal with good fortune—your own and that of others—is what separates the winners from the losers, and the envious from the grateful.
A leader’s #1 job is to develop the people he/she leads. But how do you know when you’ve crossed the line from helping them improve to enabling them to continue failing?
Listening is the most important element of effective communication. It is a skill that can be developed, but most of us don’t invest in practicing to improve. Learn to listen and you’ll transform your life.
In business, and in life, we face thousands of forks in the road. When your guiding principles are clear, honoring your core values is the easiest tough decision you’ll ever make.
Beware of pointing out others’ wrong behavior as a justification for your own. You’re pointing to the splinter in the other person’s eye when you’ve got a wooden beam in your own.
People define “integrity” as doing the right thing even when no one is looking. But, we can be complacent when defining the “right thing.” Challenge yourself to exceed the minimum form of “doing the right thing” to what is difficult.
It is easy to become distracted by what others think is important. When you put first things first and follow the right priorities, you’ll be blessed.
Companies that fail because their leaders fail make the headlines. Ethical leaders who run profitable companies are not newsworthy, but they exist. Their profits aren’t their measure of success, rather the means to achieve their mission.
We rarely associate love with leadership, yet all the qualities of great leaders—great communicator, visionary, knowledgeable, generous—are of no benefit if not exercised with love.
We all know that embracing diversity is good for business. Different talents, skills and perspectives are important for our organizations to thrive. But when not embraced, diversity can cause division.
We never seem to have enough time to do the right thing right, but we always find the time to deal with the problems caused by failing to do so. Being proactive takes time, but it is an investment with definite returns.
When we work hard, we can get so bogged down in the mire of our day-to-day lives that we fail to step back and look at what is really important. We can get stuck in the details and miss the big picture.
There is an important difference between power and authority. Authority comes with a position and is limited in scope. Power is the ability to influence people and can be unlimited. To develop your power, develop humility.
Although work/life balance is talked about a lot, it isn’t really what we seek. Instead, what we really want is more harmony in all areas of our lives.
Is your future a function of what you do now, or is what you do now a function of how you view your future? It is a little of both, so how do we affect change if we are dissatisfied?
People are attracted to leaders who challenge them, follow leaders who see in them the better person they can become, and are loyal to leaders who are ethical and worthy of following.
Dealing with difficult people is so frustrating that our instinct is to give them some of their own medicine. It may give some satisfaction, but in the long run, it often makes things worse.
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but complacency killed the company. Beware that you and your company do not become complacent and let the competition catch you by surprise like a thief in the night.
Great leaders know that no one has all the information, can see a situation from all perspectives, nor has all the answers. Acknowledging this is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.
Where there is no vision, there is no hope. But when you have a clear vision, and keep it before you, it provides motivation to keep moving forward, a guide for making decisions, and direction for when we get off course, in business and in life.
What leaders say and do is important to their people if their people believe they are important to the leader. There is no simpler way to say “you’re important” than by remembering a person’s name.
Honoring the Golden Rule in the marketplace and generating profits are not mutually exclusive propositions.
In our capitalistic society, it is great to witness companies that have found the way to true and lasting success by benefiting their people and the greater good of society.
By Your Life seeks to transform performance reviews from well-intended, often dreaded, and rarely effective meetings into a more positive and productive experience for all involved.
Honoring commitments is more than just doing what you say you will do. Honoring commitments means helping others keep their commitments to you too.
A manager has the authority to direct the work of those who directly report to him or her. A leader, on the other hand, is one who influences others to achieve great things. You don’t have to be given authority to do this, you just need to take responsibility for it.
If what you are doing or how you are doing it doesn’t contribute to the mission, you should question why and how you are doing it.
When things go wrong, we look for someone to blame. Instead we should expect things to go wrong because human intellect isn’t capable of fully synthesizing the complexity of issues and what is efficient, isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.
Feedback is as much of a gift when it is given as when it is received. Yet many organizations suffer from a lack of accountability because people aren’t comfortable giving and receiving feedback. Effective feedback is truth wrapped in mercy.
Your vision, mission and values are the blueprint for the business you want to build. Are they gathering dust on a shelf or are they honored and lived by each person in your organization?
Pride gets in our way at work. It prevents us from accepting honest feedback, blocks us from accepting new information, leads us to make excuses, and affects our trustworthiness.
A great brand image communicates what it promises. A great company culture delivers on the promise the brand communicates. When this happens, both employees and customers engage with the brand.
Our behaviors follow our beliefs, and our results follow behaviors. So, if you lack belief, it matters.
Edmund Burke wrote, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Don’t make that mistake.
Great leaders know they need to take care of their employees and don’t sacrifice the welfare of their people for the benefit of their customers or shareholders.
The only place anyone can get anything done is in the present. It resides in between learning from the past and visioning the future.
It is not a question of either a market economy or a moral economy, but rather a market economy that is successful precisely because it is based on moral truths.
Fairness desires to right a wrong, but envy’s desire is to wrong a right. Envy destroys teamwork because it destroys relationships, and it brings death to collaboration because it destroys trust.
Hurricane season has started, and experts recommend we be prepared. It is also best to prepare to weather the storms of life.
The act of physically sharing a table and eating with others at work creates a sense of community while building a collaborative environment. It’s the sign of a healthy home and can be equally indicative of a healthy workplace.
Collaboration is essential for any group of people who share a vision or mission and want to work together to achieve their common goal.
Good leaders know that the best decisions are made when all possible alternatives have been debated. Good leaders are critical thinkers who are seeking the truth.
Networking is a common practice in business. If I know someone who I think might help you in some way, I’m happy to introduce you. It is the natural thing to do.
Love in the workplace can be complicated but studies have shown that creating a culture of love can be good for business.
The best thing for our businesses is for us to want every person to succeed. As logical as this sounds, we all know that this isn’t what happens.
Having another person’s best interests at heart can be a big challenge in the workplace. Somehow it is easier to volunteer at a soup kitchen or go on mission trips than to recognize the person sitting next to you at work is hungry for a word of encouragement.
There is so much noise in the world! We are constantly bombarded with “stuff” clamoring for our attention. Who should we listen to? Listening to the right voice will change your life.
When an employee doesn’t do the job the way you want them to do it, it is because they are ignorant. Who’s responsible for curing their ignorance? You are. And they are, but they can’t do it without you.
Each person has a unique set of knowledge and experiences that they bring to bear when solving problems and making decisions. These natural differences that are at the same time complementary and cause conflict.
Being the change you wish to see in the world, is easier said than done. Sometimes just doing it is the only way to get it done.
The smallest things that we say or do can leave a lasting impression on people. The question is, is that impression favorable or unfavorable?
Our lives are filled with rules. There are rules that govern any organization, club, team or business and there are those who accept and live by the rules and those who think they are unimportant.
Fear of dying leads to fear of living life to the fullest. The good news is that those who have had near-death experiences universally say death is not to be feared. So go ahead and live an abundant life.
Core values are a joke if they are not honored. When you don’t practice what you preach, and when you don’t hold others in your organization accountable for honoring your core values, they are worse than meaningless, they are a joke.
When we’re too busy with being who and what we are we fail to become who and what we’re meant to be. There are no shortcuts to the hard work of transformation.
Business and social justice don’t always appear in the same sentence, but they should. When the two come together, positive things can happen.
I think it is interesting that many people are more interested in the commercial interruptions during the Super Bowl than they are in the game itself. At work, we are usually as excited about interruptions. What is your attitude about being interrupted?
Seemingly insignificant issues, left unchecked, can develop into substantial problems. So, when confronted with bad behavior or unethical decisions, do you speak up or keep quiet?
The decision to infuse a higher purpose into your culture, one that guides strategic decisions and gives clarity to everyday tasks, is what propels companies to success.
Strong leaders want to know the truth and surround themselves with advisors who will present them with the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then they follow their advice.
Leadership requires you to handle conflicting demands from customers, employees, bosses, family and faith. When you have your priorities right, everything else falls into place.
Transforming your culture requires letting go of the obstacles to the future you want. Transformation means leaving old ways behind in exchange for the greater good that lies ahead.
Mediocrity is the result of lowered expectations when anything better is viewed as impossible. Excellence is achieved by striving for the impossible.
Your “WHY” is your purpose, your north star. Your “WHY” doesn’t change even though the “what” will be constantly changing as circumstances change. When you’re not clear about your “WHY”, you lose your bearings when you get rerouted.
The Unique Value Proposition is the marketing strategy of informing customers about how your brand or product is superior or different to your competitors. It is easier said than done.
Two things that may be getting in the way of planning for your departure are a failure in time management and a failure in humility. Overcoming both are essential for long-term success.
One of the greatest keys to success for a business in the long term is effective succession planning. But many leaders put off planning for their departure, as if that day may never come.
Completing performance appraisals only at year end loses the real value of performance evaluations that comes from a continuous process that happens throughout the year.
Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman and philosopher said, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” Do what you can with what you got—nothing more, nothing less.
Nothing is more irritating than for someone to come to a meeting unprepared. It wastes everyone else’s time and makes that person look like a fool.
Wealth is morally neutral, but as MCI-WorldCom, Enron, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Purdue Pharma have shown, an unbridled pursuit of wealth can lead to our downfall.
A leader cannot effectively lead others without first leading themself to set and achieve goals that are aligned with his/her purpose. A pre-requisite to this self-leadership is a strong self-image which rests on self-love.
Most people will ignore facts that are contrary to their beliefs and will seek out, interpret, and focus on facts that confirm their preconceptions. It’s called confirmation bias and it should scare us.
When co-workers share a meal it helps build camaraderie, fosters deeper work relationships and boosts productivity. It can be a way to share goals or brainstorm solutions to challenges with others who bring different perspectives.
Healthy, productive organizational cultures don’t just happen. They need to be cultivated. Unfortunately, many organizations identify a few core values they think are good and then “plant” them, hoping they’ll take root. This never works.
Integrity strengthens relationships in teams, with vendors, and customers. When integrity is absent, there is a lack of trust and teamwork implodes.
Compensation systems are designed to attract, retain, and motivate employees, but many plans miss the mark because companies fail to recognize that mission is more important than money.
Be more forgiving because every relationship, whether it be between family members, neighbors, co-workers, or friends, is strengthened by forgiveness and weakened by unforgiveness.
Each of us is a critic but telling someone they’ve done something wrong is not the same thing as achieving the desired result, which usually means the person improves their behavior.
When choosing between what is easy, what is popular and what is right. Choose what is right.
How you deal with praise or criticism, whether deserved or undeserved, defines your character. Your character defines how you will exercise your God-given authority.
Attitudes impact behaviors which impact results. Whether positive or negative, attitudes are developed and when tested, will affect your results. So why not invest in developing positive attitudes?
What you focus on matters. Focusing on the wrong things will yield the wrong results and when you focus on the right things, the right things happen.
There is a community of leaders that’s driving a global movement of people using business as a force for good. It’s not just a different business model. It is a different way of thinking about business.
Coach John Wooden said, “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” It is up to you to “Make each day your masterpiece.”
I cringe when someone says, “That’s not my job!” It is counter to my belief in taking personal responsibility. There is one thing that is not my job: judging others. Judge the work, not the person.
Is profitability a core value? Profitability is a laudable business goal but defining profitability as a core value can lead to unintended consequences.
If you have a “We’ve always done it this way” mentality, you’re missing the opportunity to find a better way.
Stephen R. Covey said, “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” It all comes down to priorities and discipline.
Fear can be a great motivator and it can also be an obstacle. It can keep us from becoming our best selves or it can drive us to accomplish things we never thought we could.
When your core values are more than just words, they truly have the ability to transform your company’s culture and the bottom line.
Condemning someone whose behavior is unacceptable or whose productivity is lacking may feel good in the moment, but it is not a very effective way to encourage improvement.