Welcome to the May edition of Horizon Time!  Have you found work life balance to be a struggle? If so, this month's edition is designed for you!

• The lead article this month introduces you to a powerful tool to stay on track as you seek better work life balance.  It can not only help you stay on track, but it can help your projects as well!

• Two critical leadership competencies are the ability to be innovative and to clearly present your ideas publicly.  Check out the Leadership Tools section for two highly recommended ways to develop these competencies.

• Did you know that most people only remember about 10% of what they hear in a "typical" training class or keynote speech? Don't let that happen to you! Check out the Special Offers feature to learn how my Five Phases of Real World Learning© will help your organization learn for the long term!

• Finally, I'm honored to have Zig Ziglar share his timeless lessons on work life balance in this month's Interview with an Expert.

If you don't have time to take this all in now, print the newsletter out by clicking here to view the printer friendly version and enjoy it when you have more time.

Let me encourage you to forward this newsletter to friends and colleagues. They can join you and other subscribers on six continents who read Horizon Time each month!  As always, my commitment is to help you and those you influence become excellent leaders, and I would love to include your friends and colleagues in the learning. 

Have a great month!

Speaker, Author, Coach

President, Institute for Leadership Excellence & Development Inc.

Jon’s head hits the pillow with a thud. Another day has come and gone…seemingly in a second. As he tries to drift off, his mind is filled with the blur he remembers as today. He slept in too long so he didn’t have time to exercise like he had wanted to. At work he was greeted by 45 new e-mails added to his already overloaded inbox and a week’s worth of interruptions before lunch. He barely remembers the afternoon, though he does recall losing his cool with a team member that brought some bad news. And he winces as he remembers how grouchy he was with his wife and kids when he finally made it home—late again. As he struggles to get past the regrets of the day, he promises himself, “That won’t happen again.” But deep down he knows that’s a hollow refrain he’s sung before….

Eric stares out the high-rise hotel window, overlooking the late night Los Angeles skyline. It’s Day 3 of a 4 day business trip. He’s not sure what he dislikes more: Not being able to attend his son’s baseball game tonight or the fact that his son doesn’t even seem to miss him being there. 70+ hour work weeks with extensive travel is taking a toll on his family, and on Eric. “I can’t sustain this pace,” he tells himself. “But how do I get off the train?”

Sheryl can’t believe the constant noise as she spends another night in room 308 of St. Francis Hospital. She’s recovering from cardiac surgery that saved her life after she collapsed at work two days ago. Sheryl started her career as a hard worker but over the years had grown into a just another workaholic at her growing company. Earlier this evening her doctor provided an update and strongly recommended she make significant changes at work and home to better manage the stress in her life. If she doesn’t, she might not be so lucky next time. As she tries to think over the noise of the place, she asks, “How did I get this far off course?”

I’m guessing that John, Eric, and Sheryl did not purposely set a course for where they are tonight. Somewhere along the way they got a little off course and didn’t realize it. Perhaps it was the winds of chasing a dream or the tide of reward & recognition. It might have been the pounding waves of fear & uncertainty that caused them to take their eyes off the compass, but regardless, they’re now headed for dangerous rocks and not sure how to turn the boat around.

Though your story is different, I work with enough people struggling with this issue that I am confident there are areas in your life that you’re sensing are off course and heading in a bad direction. How do you get back on track and stay there, despite the winds, tides, and waves of life?

The answer lies in a sailing story from a few a years ago. Once a year I go on a sailing outing up in Door County, Wisconsin with my friends Jim, John, and a few other invited guests. The waters of Green Bay make for a great backdrop for a weekend of relaxing and solving the world’s problems. There are great places to dock for the night, and we can typically navigate by sight since we know the area so well. One year, however, was different. We knew the forecast called for intermittent rain, but it wasn’t until we were out quite a ways that we started experiencing a cold, driving rain, lightning, strong, gusty winds, and tall, crashing waves. Between the rain and patchy fog, we were suddenly faced with not being able to navigate by sight. We probably would have been pretty worried except for three beautiful letters: G-P-S! With a map, a destination, and a Global Positioning System-based instrument on board, we knew where we were, where we wanted to go, and how to get there.

Knowing where you are is a critical concept in sailing, in projects, and in life. Since the experiences of work and life can fog up our vision, most of us need help to get a more objective understanding of where we are. I encourage people to create a Personal Instrument Panel© to help them stay on course. We need instruments to help us know when we’re off course as early as possible instead of waiting to until we hear the hull crashing into the rocks. For example, I’ve learned to trust my wife Sara. She can read me like a book and know if I’m off course. If Sara tells me she thinks I’m off course, I’ve learned to believe her even if I don’t realize it myself. I’ve also learned that if I’m short-tempered with my kids when they’re simply acting their age, it’s a “yellow light” that I could be off course. If I start failing to achieve the daily physical, intellectual, and spiritual goals I’ve set, a siren goes off to let me know things are not going well. How about you? How do you know when you’re off track?

Here's my May challenge for you.  Take some time in the coming weeks to develop your own Personal Instrument Panel©. The Personal Reflection Questions below will help you do this.  Your panel can be as simple as a set of bullet points on paper or in a Microsoft Word document. The key is to identify some areas and monitor the panel regularly. To give it real power, I challenge to share your panel with someone who will hold you accountable by asking you face-to-face how you’re doing.

Incidentally, the instrument panel idea works for projects and teams as well. Well written objectives with regular review help provide early indicators when things start going bad. Consider using the Team Questions with your team to identify how you can avoid hitting the rocks. Early warning systems to notify you when you’re off track are invaluable to an organization seeking to build a reputation of reliable delivery.

1. What’s an example of where you ended up way off course in an area of your life?

2. Looking back with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, what were some early warning signs that could have been picked up that you were heading off course?

3. Who knows you well enough to know when you’re off course in one or more areas of your life? Would they actually confront you if they saw you heading off course?

4. Consider inviting one or more of the people from the previous question to a lunch or dinner. Talk to them about this concept and how you really want them to help you stay on course. Be open to what you hear back.

Team Questions

1. What are some examples where our team has ended up significantly off course?

2. Looking back, what are some consistent early warning signs that we’re missing or ignoring?

3. What can we do to our processes (start, stop, do more of, do less of) to help us pick up on those signs next time?