Against All Odds

While the stakes for most business and organizational leaders are far lower than they were for Judah, there are many situations in which marketplace or boardroom victory seems as remote as it did in the Judean caves of the second century BCE. As leaders, we often face circumstances, such as market conditions, lack of funding, or the absence of internal support, that threaten to derail us. We want to persist anyway but recognize the uphill challenges that we will be facing under such circumstances.

What can leaders do inspire themselves and their people to persevere with their dreams when the odds are stacked against them?

Get a heavy dose of cold water – Leaders who want to succeed when others tell them that success isn’t possible would do well to begin with some honest soul searching. What are the challenges that everyone is talking about? Why are so many predicting your failure? Am I personally biased or do I really have something special here? If, despite their contrarian arguments you feel that your the goal is attainable and you can win, then go for it with everything that you’ve got.

When I left my last position as head of school, I debated back and forth as to whether I should pursue a new principalship or try my luck in the coaching arena. In the end I decided that I really wanted to and parlay my experience and past successes in delivering high-impact trainings. But there were very few people who had done this successfully and so I got on the horn with as many people as I could to figure out why others either hadn’t tried or hadn’t succeeded. After determining that I had a blueprint for a successful foray I committed to my current path and have never looked back

Naphtali HoffDecember 27, 2016Comment

Seeing the Meaning in Our Work

As I researched this topic I was struck by the extent by which all people, not just back office or less prominent professionals, identify meaning and purpose as central elements of their job satisfaction. We all seek affirmation and want to know that the work that we do makes a difference. Mary Kay Ash once said, “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, 'Make me feel important.' Never forget this message when working with people.”

Money alone is not what motivates us. In fact, while meaningful pay is certainly a key element in selecting and remaining in a job, compensation is usually not at the top of what motivates us to come to work every day. Purpose, more than any quality, is what we value most.

Naphtali HoffDecember 17, 2016Comment

Appreciating What We Have

It can be easy for all of us, especially the chronic complainers amongst us, to see the glass as half empty. Particularly in a society that makes many promises and encourages us to think that we deserve every last convenience and pleasure, it can be easy to fall into the trap of complaint when things don’t go our way. But if we just take the time to look at things from another’s perspective, we can often see that we have it good even when it doesn’t always appear that way.

So how can we start to see things from another’s perspective? And how can we adjust our thinking to be more thankful for what we have and see our life’s glasses as being half full?

Adjust your paradigm – In his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, author Stephen Covey shared a story involving a young father and his children on a train. Covey was seated on the train, preparing for a long weekend in front of him. He expected a nice, quiet ride while he read through his favorite periodical. The children, however, had other ideas. They were loud and boisterous and the father seemed quite oblivious. Increasingly annoyed, Covey eventually made his way to the father and asked him to control his children. You can imagine his shock and dismay when he was told that the man and his kids had just come from the hospital, where their wife/mother has passed away. Covey uses the story to speak about paradigms, or the way that we see things. If we have rigid, me-first perspectives on what should happen, such thinking will impact how we act and communicate. If, however, we condition ourselves to think more in terms of what others want and need, as well as to set more realistic expectations for situations (such as taking public transportation), then we can approach them with more patience and balance.

coaching, leadership, relationshipsNaphtali HoffDecember 17, 2016happiness, appreciation, living, bus ride, perspective, paradigmComment

From Lovable Losers to Lovable Leaders

For many, Cubs fever is still upon us. No matter which baseball team you root for (unless it’s Cleveland) there’s a part of you that is surely excited that the Lovable Losers from Chicago’s North Side have finally ended the longest title-less streak (by a long distance) in professional sports, a whopping 108 years. As a New Yorker-in-exile (and avid Yankees fan) living in the Windy City for a dozen years, I got to observe what it was like to be a Cubs fan up close. And believe me, it was not pretty.

I was there when Steve Bartman interfered with Moises Alou along the left field foul line in 2003. I observed the National League leading Cubs get swept in the first round in 2008. And of course I heard all about the curse of the Billy Goat, the black cat, and all of the other reasons as to why a North Side champion was a near-impossibility.

Refrains like “better luck next year” (in April, mind you) and “everyone can have bad century” remain well etched in my mind. As someone who grew up rooting for George Steinbrenner’s Yankees (love him or hate him) the notion that mediocrity was acceptable, let alone embraced, went against my very nature.

But something changed over the past few years. The Yankees former nemesis, Red Sox championship architect Theo Epstein, took the reins at Wrigley and began to build a winner. With some existing assets (acquired through some early futility) and deft maneuvering, Epstein has turned the Cubs into what appears to be a perennial powerhouse with strong nucleus of young talent.

Naphtali HoffNovember 9, 2016Comment

Establish clear work-home boundaries

One of the biggest challenges for any employee is to establish clear boundaries separating work from home. Many people fall into this trap regularly, bringing their domestic challenges to the workplace and/or making their homes an extension of the office. While doing so may make sense or feel right in the moment, it can have negative repercussions, particularly if done regularly.

People who bring their personal problems to work can face a number of problems. For starters, depending on how often you do this and the nature of what you share, others around you might start to view you negatively, and may come to classify you as a chronic complainer.

To be polite, they might listen with a look of concern on their face and nod their head in agreement. But if you do this too often, people will start to tune you out, walk away as you approach, or silently wish for you to shut up and go somewhere else. Remember that everyone has problems and hardships. They have a hard enough time with their own and certainly don’t want to add yours to their list.

Naphtali HoffNovember 7, 2016 Comments

Learn to Let it Go

When I say that haven’t recited this prayer properly I refer mainly to the above paragraph. After all, there have been people who have hurt me, sometimes in serious ways. They seemed very content with their behavior and most did not seek forgiveness. Even though I recognize that if we all – myself included – willingly forgave one another then we would all be able to approach God for the atonement that we desperately seek. But still, it was so hard to forgive sometimes, especially is their behavior hurt my career and/or affected my family. I suspect that most of us have struggled with this point. We simply have a hard time letting go and are prepared to hold grudges indefinitely when we feel that we were right, even to our own detriment.

Naphtali HoffOctober 6, 2016Comment

Making Good on this Last Chance

This past Sunday I traveled to Phoenix in order to present at a national conference for school business officials. When my teenagers found out where I was going, my trip quickly took on new meaning. To them, the conference was really only a means to a loftier purpose, which was to shop at a local clearance store called Last Chance.

For the uninitiated (which included this author until very recently), Last Chance is Nordstrom’s only true clearance store in the country (as opposed to Nordstrom Rack, which offers savings when compared to Nordstrom stores but not to this degree). Clothes, shoes and accessories that end up here are sometimes new, sometimes used, and often damaged. This merchandise comes to Phoenix because it was accepted as a return somewhere along the way and could not be sold in any other Nordstrom store. Last Chance sells it at steep discount, and offers shoppers hope that they might to get their hands on high-end Italian and other products that would otherwise be cost prohibitive for them. As you might imagine, shopping at this store has the feeling of being part Marshall’s, part Grand Central Station, and part Black Friday.

For me, it was quite the experience. Shopping for my children with my outdated sense of style is hard enough (especially as one is a girl, for whom I was told that I have no sense of fashion). To do so while navigating through the bustling store made matters all the more interesting. Suffice it to say that any return trip to Phoenix will go unmentioned to my kids.

Enjoy the Journey

Recently I reached a seminal moment in my professional and personal journey. After three and a half years of study, research, and writing, I completed my dissertation requirements and earned my PsyD in Human and Organizational Psychology (I/O). The moment that I received formal notification that I was done brought great relief. There had been quite a few hurdles along the way and I was happy to know that it was all over and I had finally earned the title “doctor”.

After I had a chance to celebrate, however, some nagging thoughts started to enter my mind. I began to ask myself what’s next. All of this effort. All of the papers and research. For three and a half years. And now, nothing but a few congratulations and “mazal tov”s and an updated LinkedIn profile. It was almost as if others seemed happier about my accomplishments than I was. How could that be?

I think that my mistake was that I may have focused too heavily on the end goal and assumed that by finishing the journey I would suddenly feel this rush of happiness or fulfillment, as if there was this pot of gold awaiting me on the other side of the finish line. What I soon realized was that In order to feel real satisfaction and joy, it is important to try to find it from the entire process that has led you to this point.

Naphtali HoffSeptember 20, 2016Comment

Reflective Thoughts on the 15th Anniversary of 9/11

I was living in Chicago at the time, employed as a teacher in an independent high school. I will never forget the moment that an administrator told me, with a seriousness and fear that I had never seen from him either before or since – that the World Trade Center had been hit and that he was “not f**king kidding!”

Down in the school gym we listened to a live conversation on NPR between a reporter and someone inside one of the towers who was describing the tower-rattling boom, the stifling smoke and the NYPD’s initial orders to stay put. Little did either party know what would soon become of that man on the phone. He almost assuredly did not make it down in time to save his life.

We all have our 9/11 memories, seared into our minds much the way that Kennedy’s assassination lies forever in the minds and hearts of our parents or grandparents. But this time was different. We were now at war. We just didn’t know with who. Or how the war would unfold. Or how long it would last. Or its long-term implications, including our protracted struggles with Radical Islam and ISIS. At that moment we simply knew that we had been dealt a devastating blow, one from which we now know that we would never fully recover.

Naphtali HoffSeptember 11, 2016Comment

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