Helping teams reach their potential through leadership.
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Shawn Stratton works with organizations to strengthen leadership skills that translate into powerful teams. Founder of the LiveMore Group, an organization that helps people maximize their potential and productivity, Shawn has designed presentations and retreats for both small businesses and large corporations, offering teams of all sizes the inspiration and tools to flourish in this unpredictable, exciting economic environment.
Why You Need to Fail Faster
Failing sucks! There is nothing fun about it and no one wants to be apart of it. But the sucking part of it doesn’t need to last and many times failure leads to the biggest and best breakthroughs. Admitting a mistake shows you are wiser than you once were, don’t be afraid to admit. I have failed many times and I am sure will fail many more, only in the future I hope to fail faster so I can learn from the experience and move on to the next goal. Too often we let failure drag itself out over months if not years. You may be leading a project you believe is doomed from the beginning for a multitude of reasons or you could be in a leadership position that you are not the right fit for because of your experience level and interest. It is human nature not to want to admit failure so we push on; enduring sub par performance and results with the fleeting hope things will work out. I am not telling you not to stretch yourself and push your comfort zone taking on challenging projects, positions and goals. What I am suggesting is that as you stretch yourself or dive into leading challenging projects you set realistic boundaries that, if crossed, lead you to admit failure. This could be a date, a dollar figure, closure of a knowledge gap, level of progress. The faster you admit failure the faster you can learn from the experience and move on to inching your way to success. Proper failure is a speed bump, useless failure is a...
Diversity Is Not Where You Are Looking!
Where Do You Keep The Ketchup? Have you have struggled with the diversity vs. skill debate when building and working in teams? I know I have, along with countless Human Resource managers. Why can teams find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity: not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities. On a recent Reply All podcast, a form of diversity unrelated to race, gender or age was discussed: the diversity of thought. It turns out diversity of thought may be the most important factor a team faces with solving problems. Unfortunately, as Lauren Rivera from the Kellogg School of Management points out in her research, managers like to hire people like themselves, leading to little diversity of all sorts in the workplace. Scott Page, Professor of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan, has been researching the diversity of thought for years. He highlighted much of his research in his book The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. It turns out diversity of thought is even more important than all other types of diversity. His research discovered groups that display a range of perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts. Diversity in a team yields superior outcomes and collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Moving beyond the politics that cloud standard debates about diversity, he explains why difference beats out homogeneity, whether you are talking...
Don’t Bring the Problem Without a Solution
As a leader, people come to you with problems weekly, daily and in some unfortunate cases hourly. Is this your fault, their fault or the system’s? Wouldn’t it be better if the person with the problem delivered a solution or at least a potential solution at the same time? Fortunately, you can have some control over this problem parade. You just need to role model and insist that your teams adopt the “Don’t Bring the Problem without a Solution” philosophy. I was recently hired a consultant on a website project and like most projects things weren’t always turning out as expected. I am sure there were many minor hiccups I didn’t hear about but when there was a fairly major problem that could potentially cost me more than originally anticipated, the consultant came to me to address the issue. As the conversation started out, I was becoming more frustrated picturing a further delay and increased cost of the project, or worst a problem he couldn’t fix. As he continued with his explanation, I became pleasantly surprised that after he finished telling me about the problem, he went into not only one but two potential solutions. This response left me going from frustrated and disappointed to impressed and optimistic. How Can You Get Your Team To Take On The “Don’t Bring The Problem Without A Solution” Approach? It starts with you! Like most things in leadership, if you want your people to adopt or maintain a behavior, they need to see you role modeling it consistently. As a leader, you are probably coming up with solutions to problems all the...
Shawn Stratton, Leadership Motivational Speaker and Consultant
“His use of story telling, humor and photography delivered a powerful message on the importance of finding our true passion as an indicator of success. ” -Ian Shortall read more
