keynote session: a crooked yardstick—a better way to measure winning and manage change

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THE CROOKED YARDSTICK

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The Crooked Yardstick 3 .................................................

3 Common Crooked Yardsticks 3 ..................................

Change 4 .....................................................................

Problems & Opportunities 5 ....................................

Winning 6 ....................................................................

The Game Plan 7 .............................................................

Lighthouse vs Courthouse 8 ..........................................

About The Sandusky Group 9 ........................................


CONTENTS


The concept of the crooked yardstick comes from a phrase my mother used to use: “If you measure material using a crooked yardstick, the clothes you make will look right but the person who tries those clothes on will feel that something isn’t quite right. They won’t know what it is, but they’ll know it isn’t quite right.” Examine not only your results but also how you measure success.

There are three commonly used crooked yardsticks in most organizations. They deal with how individuals and organizations measure these three areas:

Change

Problems & Opportunities

Winning


THE CROOKEDYARDSTICK

3 COMMON CROOKED YARDSTICKS


Change • Change is inevitable and unavoidable. It is a constant

for every individual and every organization.

• Even if you don’t change, most things around you do change.

• Most people only celebrate change once a year—on New Year’s Eve.

• How much more effective would you be as a person and a professional if you took the attitude you have about change every New Year’s Eve into the other 364 days in a year?

• Five phases we all pass through when dealing with change:

1. Disbelief

2. Anger

3. Uncertainty

4. Acceptance

5. Integration

• Innovation = Change

• The real challenge we face as leaders isn’t innovation. It’s shortening the cycle from innovation to integration.



Problems & Opportunities • Most people and organizations see problems and

opportunities as distinct, different, and unrelated.

• Look at the last five letters of the word Opportunity. U-N-I-T-Y. Unity. I believe it represents a unity with problems.

• Problems and Opportunities are two points on the same spectrum. Attitude connects them.

• Winston Churchill: “An optimist is someone who sees the opportunity in every problem; a pessimist is someone who sees the problem in every opportunity.” Which are you?

• With the right attitude you will see problems lead to opportunities—they exist together.

• That is PROBORTUNITY thinking.

• Wayne Dyer: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

• The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: Our observations have an effect on the behavior of the thing we’re observing.

• With Probortunity thinking you are no longer the effect of problems, rather you are the cause of opportunities. Be Cause!



Winning • “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”

—Vince Lombardi

• Lombardi wasn’t just talking about the outcome of games. He was also talking about the input of every day efforts.

• Winning is as much about approach as results.

• John Wooden taught his players how to put their socks on correctly to send an important message: Do the little things the correct way this day and every day and a big thing like winning a game will take care of itself.

Change your time perspective to very short and very long

• See winning as a function of what is right in front of you right now.

• The Ravens have a slogan: W.I.N. What’s Important Now?

• See winning as something you will do not just next quarter or next year but next legacy too.

Winning is about approach too

•

The Five Questions

• Who are you?

• Where have you been?

• How long have you been there?

• Where are you going?

• How will you get there?



• Question one is your identity, your essence, the core of what makes you unique, special, and authentic.

• Questions three and four deal with your history.

• Question four is about your vision.

• Question five is your action play, your game plan

The Game Plan

• When you build your action plan, your game plan remember the relationship between vision and action:

• Vision without action is the time we waste our potential; action without vision is the potential waste of our time.

• Build your plan around what your team understands and believes in.

• The more your team believes you understand them, the easier it is to get them to believe in and understand you.



Four Types of Leaders • There are four types of leaders:

• The Outhouse

• The Greenhouse

• The Courthouse

• The Lighthouse

The Outhouse

• Toxic, selfish, full of you know what

• Sees only problems

• The kind of person you want to stay out of their way

The Greenhouse

• The nurturer, the helper, the coach

• Sees the potential in others

• The kind of person who helps others on their way

The Courthouse

• The righteous, the rule follower, the law giver

• Sees himself or herself as superior

• The kind of person who shows others the error of their way

The Lighthouse

• The role model, leader, mentor

• Unselfish, unwavering, committed

• The kind of person who shows others the way


CONCLUSIONS


It’s Your Choice

• You always have control over how you look at things.

• Have the courage to see change as a process, not an event. See change as an ally, not an enemy.

• Problems are merely the start of PROBORTUNITIES.

• Focus on doing your job, getting better at your job, improving your attitude, and being low maintenance and you become a Lighthouse of Excellence.

• Spend much time and energy on focusing on others not doing their jobs, complaining about things you can’t control, and making a habit of making excuses will make you a Courthouse of Criticism.

• Effective communication and leadership is as much about who you are as what you say.

• It’s never too soon to improve. Don’t wait.

Live NOW!



About The Sandusky Group We help our clients shine! We coach, consult, and teach our clients how to improve their profits, reduce costs, focus and motivate their organizations, establish and expand a competitive advantage, increase the power of the brand, and transform the potential of their career growth through improved communication skills.

A TV & radio broadcaster for more than two decades, and the radio play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Ravens, Gerry Sandusky founded The Sandusky Group fifteen years ago to help professionals do a better job of expressing their excellence in front of the media and live audiences. Gerry is a two-time Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award winner.

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For more on The Sandusky Group, please visit our website: www.sanduskygroup.com.



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keynote session: a crooked yardstick—a better way to measure winning and manage change

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