Today is Valentine’s Day! In honor of one of my favorite holidays, our Social Media team has created some fun Blanchard-themed valentines that you can use to brighten the day of your favorite friends or coworkers. Each of these ideas is special to me and I’m here to fill you in on the background for each phrase we’ve used. Here we go!
Love is the answer. Now, what is the question?
Anyone who knows me will tell you this is one of my favorite phrases because I’ve always been a fan of bringing love into the workplace. This is not about romance, though. I’m talking about love in terms of camaraderie, forming close friendships, and caring about the people around you. I found a kindred spirit around this philosophy in my wife, Margie Blanchard, former president of our company and the founder of our organization’s Office of the Future. Someone once asked Margie to define leadership. Margie simply responded, “Leadership is Love!” It’s not like love. It is love. And effective leaders know this. They love their vision. They love their values. They love their people.
I dig your Leadership Point of View!
A Leadership Point of View answers the questions What motivates you as a leader? What are your values? What are your beliefs about leading others? Identifying the experiences that have shaped you as a leader helps you become more authentic, self-aware, and intentional about who you are and what people can expect from you. Writing your Leadership Point of View can lead to profound discovery about yourself and your leadership style—and sharing it with others demonstrates courage and vulnerability that sets the foundation for trusting relationships.
I’m your biggest Raving Fan!
Back in 1993, I wrote a book with Sheldon Bowles called Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service. It was built on the premise that “Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough these days. To succeed, you need to create Raving Fans!”
To this day Raving Fans remains one of my best selling books. It teaches readers how to define a vision, learn what their customers really want, institute effective systems, and deliver +1% to create that emotional connection that makes others want to brag about you.
You make building trust easy!
There’s a lot packed into this one. Building trust doesn’t just happen—it is a skill that can be learned and developed—if you know your ABCs and Ds! Leaders who practice all four behaviors in the ABCD model build trust by being:
- Able—Demonstrate competence.
- Believable—Act with integrity.
- Connected—Show care and concern for others.
- Dependable—Honor commitments.
Following the ABCD model fosters a growing culture of trust in your relationships at every level, both at home and at work.
I love how our convos are always in the sweet spot!
Craig Weber, author of the bestselling book Conversational Capacity, has helped us create a training program by the same name. One of the core outcomes of the book and the program is to have dialogue that is open, balanced, candid, and curious. Craig calls this the “sweet spot” where good work gets done. To stay in the sweet spot during any discussion, people need to combine the skills of candor and curiosity in a balanced approach toward effective communication. These are great skills for other areas of your life also!
You're D4 at teamwork!
In our situational approach to leadership called SLII®, being at “D4” means you have aced a task or goal and are at the top of the learning curve! In the SLII® training program, we teach people about the four development levels we all go through when beginning a new task or working toward a new goal: D1—Enthusiastic Beginner (very excited but don’t know what we are doing); D2—Disillusioned Learner (discouraged, still inexperienced but aware of how much we don’t know); D3—Capable, but Cautious Contributor (getting the hang of how to do it but still need help); and D4—Self-Reliant Achiever (able to do it with little supervision). Being a D4 means you are at the top of your game.
A final thought
One last favorite saying of mine is to “Catch people doing things right.” I hope you’ll download one of these JPEGs (just click here to access the images on LinkedIn) and find the right person for each message! Happy Valentine’s Day!
