AIM

Webinar in Review

In February approximately eighty professionals gathered with me for an hour’s focus on the topic of AIM: Preparing for Success in 2010. This program is one in a series of four webinars designed to “Shape the INFLUENCE of Leadership” through four pathways:
AIM, ADAPT, ALIGN AND ADVOCATE.

The ten tools offered in AIM builds a foundation for leader influence. In turbulent times, a leader is like a lighthouse. People look to the light to lead their way. Leaders clarifying their direction and vision turn on their brights: increase their ability to help others focus and inspire initiative.

Five steps aimed towards Preparing for Success in 2010: (1) Complete the Past (2) Clarify Purpose and Vision (3) Set Goals (4) Visualize and Affirm (5) Celebrate Successes

1. Complete the Past
We have only so many Attention Units. (Hard to imagine in a multi-tasking world!) This section asked us to complete the unfinished, cluttered, confused and irrelevant to release “stuck” and unleash “flow”. With each completion, we gain attention capacity.

2. Clarify Purpose and Vision
A mere 10% of participants had a written purpose statement and yet we agreed that identifying purpose brings us back to what’s meaningful so that at the end of the day, we tend to our soul as well as our achievements. As leaders we must inspire through vision—hold up the higher view. Too often we get caked in the muck of the details, become apathetic and overwhelmed and forget where we’re really headed. One vision tool inspired us to identify what kind of leader we needed to be and one offered information on creating a shared vision.

3. Set Goals
66% of our participants had written goals. We used the SMART goal setting system—ensuring that our goals were specific, measurable, realistic and timely. One key element was to create the vision first, borrow from the future so to speak and then write goals as a beam to achieve them.

4. Visualize and Affirm
We explored a “no paper” way to make our vision visible. A key learning; we move in the direction of the pictures we hold in our mind. An internal tension is created when there’s a difference between our now picture and our future picture. Our mind/body seeks to lessen the tension by aligning our world to the picture that is the clearest.

5. Celebrate Successes
We are an achievement-oriented, urgent-focused group. We want it now and we want it fast. Too often we wait until we’ve completed something before we celebrate. Celebrating small steps as we go creates momentum for keeping UP and keeping ON!