Have you ever challenged yourself to leave your comfort zone and try something new or different? 

Terri Lechton is a speaker, writer, and educator who believes that everyone can live a life of adventure, no matter what their age, ability, or financial situation. As an asthmatic, non-athletic, and only just artistically proficient individual, she has pushed herself to complete a half-marathon in Antarctica, swing through obstacle courses, learn foreign languages, try stand-up comedy, earn a doctorate degree in management, and discover that impressionism is the only style that she can paint.

As a speaker, she blends storytelling, humor, and practical tips to help others create a plan to stretch and achieve their personal and career dreams. Her next challenge: write her first book.

Terri always had the goal of visiting all 50 US states. After she did it, she joked that she might as well try and visit all seven continents. But you can’t just visit Antarctica. There is, however, a half-marathon held there, so she decided to go for it.

When she’s coaching entrepreneurs, Terri tells her story of growing up in a poor part of Chicago. Back then, her wildest aspirations were to travel eight blocks either side from her house. But, then, she started to imagine going further and the rest is history. She turned a huge goal – visiting all seven continents – into a series of small, attainable steps. Anyone can apply this to any goal.

If you consider yourself averse to risks, look at the advantages risk-taking can bring. Failure is a possibility, but there’s usually more to be gained than there is to be lost. Just break each risk down into small increments and you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

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Resources:

• terrilechton.com

What business are you in? Whether you’re a CPA, CEO, lawyer, banker, entrepreneur, or anything else – the truth is you’re in the people business.

Will Hill and Paul Miller are the hosts of the podcast “Pulse of the Practice.” Will has been with Thomson Reuters since 2001 and currently serves as Customer Proposition Strategy Lead. Paul is the owner of Business by Design, an advisory-focused tax and accounting firm. They are going to explore different aspects of building a sustainable relationship business in your organization.

Paul had the opportunity to co-present one of Thomson Reuters partner summit events, and his message (to think about things differently and examine how people are helping their clients) resonated strongly with the audience. As clients heard that message, people started reaching out to him asking to buy his work, but he wasn’t exactly selling his methods. He sat down with Will and, together, they created Practice Forward, where they help firms become advisory-centric in their client relationships.

We have to stop looking at our job as just being in the tax business, otherwise, as soon as taxes are done automatically, we’re out of a job. We need to know our true value so that we can keep growing and moving. Taxes are a function of our business, but our true value is in helping clients achieve their goals.

Our world changed so much over the last year and people had one of two responses: they hunkered down and waited for things to go back to “normal,” or they adapted to the new way that things were. Surprisingly, the approach that’s more exhausting is the first. People drained their life away by waiting for a chance to come up for air. Meanwhile, those that learned to adapt are now riding the waves. Waves may be choppy, but they also build inertia and energy. The sooner you can come to terms with the fact that business has changed, the more energy you will have to spend on it.

We have to change our mindset. We’re in the relationship business. Only then will our behaviors change. And when that happens, nothing can make you obsolete.

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Resources:

• Listen: “Pulse of the Practice”
• tax.tr.com/practice-forward
• mybbd.com
• linkedin.com/in/wghill
• linkedin.com/in/businessbydesign

What happens when you throw two improvisers into one podcast? You’re about to find out!

Avish Parashar performed improv all through high school, but he stopped in college so he could focus on his studies – a decision greatly supported by his parents. That decision lasted only a few months, however, as after seeing an improv comedy show, he fell back in love. One week later, he auditioned for the campus improv group and the rest, as they say, is history.

After graduating, he started Polywampus Improv Comedy, which performed regularly in and around the Philadelphia area for seven years. He closed up Polywampus to focus on the speaking and training side of the business, using improv comedy as a tool to teach valuable business skills such as creativity, innovation, and adaptability. He’s also the best-selling author of “Improvise to Success!” and “Say ‘Yes, And!’”

One of the biggest misconceptions around improv is that it’s all just “making stuff up.” That’s certainly a big part of it, but all within constraints and guidelines. Think of it like basketball: you practice the moves, you know the rules, but when you get out onto the court you never know what’s going to happen. You have to react to each situation as it arises.

Avish Parashar defines the improv mindset as having fun, being willing to fail, and focusing on what you can control. That last one in particular is important. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you stop worrying about the things you have no power over.

A fun exercise to aid brainstorming is The Ding Game, usually played with a bell – though you can just make the sound with your mouth. As one person is telling a story or trying to come up with a solution, another person dings the bell and the storyteller must change that current detail. The bell ringer can continue to ding the same point until the player comes up with something more original. This forces the person to think beyond the first thought that comes to mind, because if the solution were that simple, you probably wouldn’t have a problem in the first place!

Remember: try not to focus on what you can’t control. Just accept it and use it as a springboard. Nothing shuts down productive discussion like complaining about how you wish things were different.

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Resources:

• avishparashar.com
• dinghappens.com/podcast
• facebook.com/avishparashar

I love a good challenge. Convincing business leaders that improv is a leadership method has been one of the most difficult. I have to dispel the myth that those who improvise are just “winging it” and “making stuff up.” Let’s address this myth in the improv process of preparation, practice, and letting go.

Preparation is one of the keys to success. However, most people don’t realize that preparation is a huge part of improv. When I prepare for any speaking engagement, I will have thoroughly researched the topic, what questions may be asked, the demographics of the audience, and the venue. If this is a virtual program, I will determine my backup plan should I lose power in my home or off-site office. The preparation gets very granular and no stone is left unturned. And it’s important to note that part of this preparation sits in my subconscious mind—remembering prior experiences that went awry and the solution I used to correct the issue.

In addition to preparation, an equally critical part of success is practice. For example, I was recently asked to do a five-minute presentation and, on the surface, this didn’t seem to be too

difficult. However, after I researched how many words on average people speak in 5 minutes—about 750—I rewrote my presentation to only contain 400 words. I wanted enough time to allow for pauses and to keep my pace at a regular rate. I spent about 5 hours practicing for a 5-minute presentation. I wasn’t trying to memorize it; I was working on the cadence, tone, pauses, and body language—and, all the while, I was placing tiny memory seeds in my brain. 

When it came time for me to speak, I took a deep breath, trusted my instincts, put all of my notes and written text into a drawer, and closed it. Then I leaned into the unknown and started speaking. The result was terrific and the five-minute presentation was a huge success. Because I let go of perfection and had fun, and because I had prepared and practiced, I had a most exhilarating experience. You see, I was able to bring passion to the conversation I was having with the audience.

Did you know that Martin Luther King improvised the “I Have a Dream” speech? It’s true. The address Dr. Kind had prepared that day didn’t even have the words “I have a dream” in it. As Dr. King and his inner circle were working and crafting the speech the day before the march on Washington, he decided that he wanted the speech to have a similar impact on the nation as The Gettysburg Address. He had used the phrase too many times, and his aides advised him to cut it, so he did. As Dr. King was delivering his prepared remarks, its impact on the crowd was less than expected. According to “How Martin Luther King Improvised ‘I Have A Dream'” by Carmine Gallo, “Jones saw King push the text of his prepared remarks to one side of the podium. He shifted gears in a heartbeat, abandoning whatever final version he’d prepared… he’d given himself over to the spirit of the moment.” The speech was 17 minutes long and Dr. King improvised the last six of them.

Business leaders, those of you in the C-Suite, and aspiring leaders: there is a lot to learn from Dr. King’s speech and the power of improv. Keep your mind open to the world of improvisation by considering the benefits when dealing in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) business climate.

Resources:

• How Martin Luther King Improvised ‘I Have A Dream’

As a leader, do you help your employees feel satisfied in their work or are you just focused on KPIs? Do your employees feel like they are doing something meaningful? Are you keeping your employees aware of developments in the business — even if it’s not good news?

This is David Veech’s second appearance on the podcast and, in it, he answers these questions and more. He first appeared in season 3, episode 13: “Getting LEAN in Leadership,” where we discussed how the principles of LEAN manufacturing could carry over into leadership and team development. At the end of our interview, he asked if he could come back to talk about building satisfaction at work and we were thrilled to make that happen.

Whether you’re making $20 an hour or $250k a year, money doesn’t create fulfilment, alone. How do you build satisfaction at work, and how does a leader build satisfaction within their team?

For a long time, employee contentment hasn’t mattered to business at all. In 1908, Henry Ford made 10,806 Model Ts in workshops with employees building the cars, together, as a team. This was highly skilled work and, seeing every car get built from the ground up, led to highly satisfied workers. But in order to increase volume, Ford reconfigured their business model to the assembly line. Now, instead of building whole cars, workers would build one piece, over and over again. And the existing workers started leaving in droves.

Ford thought the best way to retain workers was to offer them more money. He offered $5 a day, over the going rate of $11. He received mountains of applications, and he picked the very best from them. He took those highly skilled engineers and put them on the assembly line, but they kept making mistakes because the work was so tedious. And we’re still making that error today.

Just contrast Amazon with Zappos. The work at their fulfillment centers was essentially the same, but Zappos cultivated an entirely different atmosphere. They called their employees superheroes, they gave their employees time to take breaks, they offered them snacks, they provided childcare and education, and the energy there was vibrant.

So what actually leads to employee satisfaction? It boils down to three main things:

1. Finding meaning in their work
2. Awareness of what’s going on in the organization — even if it’s bad news
3. A sense of responsibility

Finding the right balance between these three criteria and building employee satisfaction is difficult to get right. But getting it right is important, if not essential.

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Resources:

• Learn more: leadersights.com
• Read: “The C-4 Process”
• Read: “Leadersights”
• Email: david.veech@leadersights.com
• S3E13. “Getting LEAN in Leadership with David Veech”