What are you waiting for?

Get your fingers out

 of other people’s pies!

You may be the boss. But don’t stick your nose into the creative process that’s being strategized or implemented by the writer(s) and/or designer(s) YOU hire. When you’re paying an individual or team to create your branding message, advertising, packaging, promotion, public relations, website, or Internet marketing: Back Off The Process!

If you’ve done your job up front by hiring top talent to begin with, leave it be. You risk losing personal respect, leadership control (including the ability to motivate), sales, and even market and industry stature by interfering in his, her, or their work in progress.

I’m NOT suggesting you don’t VERY carefully explain the perspective and posture you want to see be used in representing your business at the very beginning of the creative process. You need also to insist on a “How Goes It?” review / inventory / status or progress report half-way through the creative process.

And you positively must review every word and every graphic treatment BEFORE it’s released or launched or distributed, and offer an honest critique … which, btw, is usually better accomplished with questions than with judgement statements.

It’s your company and YOU are ultimately responsible for every verbal and every visual message conveyed. [And ad agencies and marketing groups — even in-house — love to walk the thin line of public acceptability and appropriateness; it wins them awards!]

But just because you think you’re a “creative whiz” and know how to write a nice email or drum up some sizzling topic for your kid’s science fair entry, or can draw cute pictures that always amuse people, do NOT think that you can match those you’ve entrusted to do the job!

If you were that talented at design or writing, you’d be a designer or writer. It’s just another way of expressing the old management theorem: Stick To Your Knitting! Creative people are not likely to be able to match your entrepreneurial drive and management / organizational and financial know-how. Tech people are, incidentally, the least creative.

Get the best people you can find to do the job, give them your input, take their pulse at the fifty-yard line, double-check their final product, but let them do the job.

I have seen countless great marketing, sales, and advertising campaigns be ruthlessly and unwittingly aborted by well-intentioned top management who haven’t a clue about how to connect their messages to their target markets.

No time to do all that creative process management stuff? Lacking the sensitivity to deal with the writers and designers? Not sure how to best direct or coach them? Call me. If I can’t do it for you, in a consulting role, I’ll find someone who can. [302.933.0116]

# # #               

Leaders who fail to sell

fail as leaders.   

     No, not everyone is out there selling, every minute of every day … just those who are leaders!

     Leaders of the world, and of every nation, region, state, county, city, town, neighborhood, household, and business, department, institution, team, crew, organization, task force, office, store, studio, construction site, laboratory, factory floor, and professional practice are the ones who are out there selling with every waking breath. 

     Well, now, that certainly includes most everyone, doesn’t it? Not really, there are armies of followers (in the military and in Twitter, to name just two), and there are hermits. Okay, that’s being evasive for the sake of prompting a smile. Truth is we are ALL leaders of SOMEthing. It it’s not a rock group, classroom project, family, or community group, it’s SOMEthing. What are you a leader of? What do others think you’re a leader of?

     Most of us mix it up: leaders of some things, followers of others. The point is that whenever we are actively leading ANYthing, we are selling. And whenever we are NOT actively leading something, we are — at the least — a hair trigger away from selling, and will pounce into a sales mode at the mere mention of anything that even suggests the focus, issues, or activities of the thing(s) we lead, stand for, and believe in. 

     So, now that that’s all cleared up, let’s examine the flipside:

     Short of threats to perpetrate physical harm, how can anyone expect others to “buy into” ideas, directions, and recommendations that the leader has not enthusiastically endorsed and demonstrated value for? If we as followers see no benefits to the leader’s plans, do we suffer through the process or seek new horizons? Does it depend on circumstances?

     Without getting into all the side issues of parental control, HOW do we choose to provide inadequate leadership and expect others to follow? (Remember that selling is helping others solve problems, and it is 80% listening!)

     Unlike the tokenism we see in politics, truly effective salesmanship ushers in substance. It does that by proving performance, by instilling trust through demonstration, and by acting from a posture of authenticity.

     You are most certainly a leader of something, perhaps many things, and your effectiveness can only be measured in terms of results. Results only happen when others are motivated to prompt or get them.

     Others are only motivated when you have been effective in selling them the benefits they will realize by their efforts. And this applies to volunteer and charitable organizations as well as entrepreneurial ventures, “Mom and Pop” bricks and mortar stores,  virtual online enterprises, and global corporate entities.

     It applies to households, classrooms, scouting groups, and sports teams. Notre Dame University’s most famous football coach, Knute Rockne, was a worldclass professional salesman.

How and what are YOU selling? The answer defines your leadership skills.

# # #               

You’re going to work for a

living SOME where, right?

Recommended: Print & pass to a business hopeful attending or considering college

     So you’ve earned a PhD, an MBA, LLB, MD, MS, MA, and all kinds of bachelor and associate degrees. You are Mr. or Mrs. (maybe “Dr.” ?) Joe (Josephine?) College, in the flesh. And the academic credentials got you a decent job. Now what? Do you seriously believe your 4.0 grade average means you’ve got what it takes to thrive … even survive?

     After your punishing (and expensive!) labs, coursework, exams, thesis papers and consulting with so-called “Academic Advisors,” if you have learned anything less than HOW to put ALL of the following to work, you’re in big-time trouble, and college put you there.

     Can you honestly say you have learned how to practice (and hopefully excel at) ALL of these attributes?:

• Making Decisions
• Managing Stress
• Managing Time
• Managing Customers
• Communicating Clearly
• Being a Leader
• SELLING
• Delegating
• Innovating
• Being a Team Player
• Listening and Giving Feedback
• Organizing
• Empathizing
• Respecting Others
• Being Genuine, Honest and Transparent
• Valuing Experience
• Accepting Criticism
• Setting and Pursuing Goals
• Being Accountable and Cultivating Trust
• Avoiding Political and Psychological “Games”

     Give or take perhaps a couple of the above items, these are the attributes that add up to being effective in business or professional practice (ANY business or professional practice) and without which, your road to success will be a long one indeed, especially if you aspire to a forward-moving or productive management position.

     Good leaders do all of these things well. So do good salespeople. All good leaders are also, not incidentally, good salespeople [SEE TOMORROW’S POST ON THIS SUBJECT!]  

     What’s sad about all this is that institutions of higher learning (other than a very small handful that do in fact address a number of these subjects as part of academic platforms on, for example, nursing and entrepreneurship and some behavioral sciences like human development) not only scoot around these issues; they outright reject them.

     Colleges and universities (again with rare exception) fail to value reality. They are invested in fantasizing on the past which will never come again, or the future which hasn’t yet arrived, and may never. They refuse to acknowledge their hands in front of their faces.

     So YOU end up losing out to an arcane system of learning that fails to deal with preparing students for life in the real world. It’s true.

How do I know? I’ve worked extensively in creative roles with Fortune 500 companies, as a consultant with entrepreneurial businesses and professional practices, as a management trainer for over 20,000 business and healthcare executives, and as “Professor of the Year” at a major university and two colleges. I’ve been in the thick of it.

     You DO have a way out. There IS hope. You need to first accept that you’ve been taught subject matter, not real life applications, not how to succeed. Second, you must commit to yourself to learn as much as you possibly can about yourself as possible.

The more you know about what makes you “tick,”

the more skilled and successful a leader you will be.

# # #               

Prepare to get your

socks knocked off!

     Great leadership is not always a product of war, sports, and business. Prepare to get your socks knocked off by taking 3 minutes out of your life to watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqbVbPvlDoM

     I guarantee it will make you smile. Many will laugh out loud. Some will cry. Because great leadership does that. And this, my dear entrepreneurial business owner, operator, and manager friends, is a fantastic example of great leadership. [If you’ve seen it before, watch it now from a business perspective!]

     Don’t shrug off this request if you’re serious about wanting to be a more effective leader. This is NOT your typical classroom or textbook approach to the subject. Take a quick visit to the link above, then jump back here for some insight and thought-provokers that you’ll never get from your ex-boss or your corporate gorilla brother-in-law.

     Go. Then come back…  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Welcome back! Now, that you’ve seen it [I was right, right?], think about what it is exactly that makes this performance such an outstanding example of perfect leadership. Skip the temptation to 0ffer wisecracks for a minute, and concentrate on what it is that you just saw happen. What connection did you see with the values and concepts that are suggested by the  following words? 

• SHARED MISSION
• CONFIDENCE
• TRUST
• CONCENTRATED ENERGY
• TEAMWORK
• FUN
• MUTUAL RESPECT
• POSITIVE ATTITUDE
• HIGH SPIRITS
• COMMUNICATION AND FEEDBACK
• LOYALTY
• PRACTICE
• “HERE AND NOW” FOCUS

     Have you ever experienced a leader of any kind who hasn’t exemplified a good handful of the attributes listed above? What do YOU need to do to cultivate more of these attributes for your SELF? How can you encourage and stimulate more of these practices in your own organization? 

     And curiously worth noting, no tangible rewards were offered. Did you notice any INtangible rewards? How big a role did nonverbal communication play in achieving success?  Are you sitting there on your hands, laughing smugly to yourself that this analogy is ridiculous because you are dealing with real, live, human beings, not a golden retriever … and you are the boss, not an animal trainer? Are you thinking that? I hope not.

     If you own or run a business or part of one, the reality is — whether you like it or not — that you are seen every day of the week by those who report to you, as a surrogate parent. You are a maternal or paternal figure to your employees. That makes you a trainer.

     They will do as you tell them, to a fault, if they respect you. And you will gain and hold their respect by practicing as many of the above-itemized attributes as possible as often as possible — in person, on the phone, in emails, in meetings.

     Why does it matter? Because the sum total of what you do, or have already been doing, with what’s presented here in this blog post will determine the branding of your organization. Branding is all about conduct, credibility, integrity, trust, and authenticity.

     Is that what YOUR branding is all about? What can you cherry-pick from here (and the video) that will move your branding — through your leadership — closer to where you want it to be?        

# # #               

Innovation Starts With

A Creative Idea.

     Innovation may end with the implementation of a strategic plan that carries a creative idea all the way through to completion — whether it’s a new product launch, and expanded service offering, a new approach to management or something else — but it begins with a creative idea!

     Hey, that’s great, you might say, but how do I stimulate my people to dream up creative ideas that we can innovate with? I have 6 engineers, 3 chemists, and 4 accountants reporting to me and the most creative thing any of them do is wear a plaid shirt on vacation.

     Aha! Then — assuming it’s worth 45 minutes a week to maybe light some fires under them and facilitate some positive changes — tell your team that it’s time to divest your business of its status quo investments.

     Tell them you want to begin making some big waves in the market and/or the industry and or the organization. Challenge them to rise to the occasion and take responsibility for introducing 3 new workable ideas each, every week.

     Give each person 1 minute to present each idea in each weekly status meeting. So 3 ideas each, 3 minutes = 3 x 13 team members = 39 minutes.

     Devote 1 minute of each meeting to creative stimulation activities: Make something out of a single page of newspaper! (Anything!) or draw a t-shirt and put the word or words or picture on it that best describes how you feel right now (Anything!) or pass a rock around and have each person pretend to put into it the one thing besides money that she/he thinks is missing from the company that could make it better, and say what that thing is (Anything!).

     Use 1 minute to vote on the 3 most feasible ideas and rank them. Address the #1 idea with 4 minutes of quick discussion about how the team could make the idea work. VOILA! 45 minutes a week of creative stimulation will most certainly produce some innovative pursuits. 

     Don’t be afraid of trying, or too quick to abandon the approach. It WILL work and it WILL bring some meaningful new directions from once stagnant corners of your business environment. Adapt the timing and challenges as you see fit. Email me if you have questions.

     As the owner or manager you have the implied power to make it work. It’s your choice to bring active, encouraging, fun-filled, and noncritical leadership to the table, to challenge others to take the risk of offering suggestions. And remember that bad and stupid suggestions will almost always trigger good productive ones that would otherwise NEVER have surfaced.

     So encourage ALL input and reward failures when there’s real effort involved. You’ll be amazed at the differences you can usher in within just a few short weeks of consistent and enthusiastic support. Similar approaches have brought astronomical success to all types and sizes of businesses. The keys: Encourage every effort and be persistent.  

# # #

It Doesn’t Fall From The Sky

…Innovation Needs Ignition

We’ve all heard  how the lousy economy is getting better now, and will soon (fingers crossed behind backs) be booming again. And even those of us who are eternal optimists know better than to believe a word of it.

Small business owners and operators and managers  know that only job creation will turn the tide, and that job creation will only come from increased sales, and that increased sales will only come from great customer service and … INNOVATION.

Here are ways/attitudes/ideas  that can help jump-start innovation (the development of new products, services, markets, ways of doing things, from ignition to blast-off to orbit and back) beginning right now:

1. Do not tolerate paralysis. Some action is always better than no action. Inspire a “Do it” mindset and reward failures when genuine efforts are made.

2. Try stuff!  Test it out. Ask customers and suppliers what they think. Convene quick focus groups. Scramble together as much quick feedback as possible and LISTEN to it!

3. Instill a sense of urgency  about taking initial ideas all the way through the thought and strategic launch process. Insist on thorough thinking done quickly. Don’t wait for lengthy studies, follow-up meetings, and long assessments.

4. Be open and receptive  to and encourage bizarre and eccentric and cyberspace thinking, but cultivate ongoing teamwork to shake ideas loose and get them organized and moving.

5. Get EVERY one engaged. The best results can sometimes come from the least expected sources. Make EVERY one who contributes part of the launch crew, with small frequent reinforcement rewards (fresh fruit in the lunch area, personal handwritten thank you and acknowledgment notes mailed to “The Family of” at home addresses, local news releases, website mentions)

     Remember that it doesn’t take much to shake things up  and spur some new innovative activity, but it can take a lot of work and a long time to restore order if you try to take things to fast in too many directions at the same time. Keep the ideas flowing. Keep each step of the way a product of organized teamwork. And keep control.

You need to ignite fires and encourage brainstorming with one hand, then bring things into realistic focus with the other. Yes indeed, you are once again in that old entrepreneurship attitude that you thrived on when you started.

Maybe you’ve lost touch  in recent times with some of those “egotistical, competitive, passionate, persistent-beyond-belief entrepreneurial traits” (Thank you Tom Peters and Nancy Austin in “A PASSION FOR EXCELLENCE…The Leadership Difference”)?

Perhaps someone convinced you not to worry about it because the economy is turning around? Perhaps it’s time for you to turn your business around with more innovative pursuits and action. Perhaps?

# # #

Are your customers

your personal Guests?

     You wouldn’t have your personal guests sit  in a waiting area for 30, 60, 90 minutes without popping in periodically to say hello, chit-chat, explain the delay, see if they want or need anything. Why would you do that with customers, clients, patients, passengers?

     With so much business ownership and management effort  needing to be diverted to overcoming economic doldrums, and the renewed focus we all share to beef up sales and innovation these days, it’s easy to lose sight of those who wait for us.

     No, this is not an issue that’s slam-dunk resolved  with waiting and reception room stacks of dog-eared magazines, old newspapers, stale coffee, staticky music or a TV channel selector riveted to some ridiculous, insultingly manipulative station like MSNBC or CNN or ABC or CBS or NBC (instead of, for example, something more truthful and less stressful, like Nature, History, Animal, or even Weather Channel).

     Unfortunately,  these token tools used to distract those who wait are not only annoying and stressing up your visitors, they are becoming more pervasive; it’s not just car dealerships and medical offices anymore. Even restaurants have joined the news bombardment parade.

     I can’t think of a less appetizing setting  than to be served lunch while facing an all-news TV station showing live pictures of some bloody tragedy. What can someone possibly be thinking when they put that channel on? [Obviously, they’re not.]

     Oh, yeah, and it’s like a whole  get-ready-for-your-blood-pressure-and-heartbeat-readings deal while waiting for the doctor; if you didn’t have a stress ailment before you got there… 

     If the people waiting were friends or family members,  would you extend them such small insignificant “courtesies,” or make a point of personally visiting (maybe with cold bottled water and fresh warm cookies as one office does routinely) to keep them posted about how much more time you guess it might be? Would you at least send someone out to socialize with them?

     Here’s how I see it.  When people are waiting to spend their hard-earned dollars on your products or services, they deserve to be waited on hand and foot. They are also giving up personal time in their lives (that they’ll never get back) to sit and stand around because they are sold on and believe in what your business or professional practice has to offer.

     These people are your greatest asset.  They love you to start with, or they wouldn”t be there. When you treat them with tokenism and no personal attentiveness, you are essentially letting them know that you and your business are not worthy of their trust and confidence and patronage.

     What’s the answer? Be grateful.  They are giving you the most precious possession they have — their time –which is finite, limited, and irreplaceable. Appreciate what you have.

     If you have customers, clients, patients, passengers  who are willing to wait to spend their money with you, you are truly blessed, and those people need to know how much you value their sacrifice of time.

Perhaps you’ve missed or forgotten that

your best customers are those who wait.

# # #               

You must be dreaming!

Today’s economy is GREAT!

     Dear business owners and managers:  If you’ve been talking about having some weirdo notion that we are in a never-ending economic tailspin that’s ruining the odds for  success, you may not be speaking with forked tongue, but you are looking through crooked glasses! 

     If  your business is still afloat,  that means you have done some hard sweeping work getting the cobwebs out of the corners. It means you are down to a bare-bones personnel operation that is probably 50-100% more productive than it was before “bailouts” and “stimulus” became part of the language.

     And you are coming full circle around  to what Tom Peters and Nancy Austin told us a quarter of a century ago in their classic #1 best-selling business book, A Passion for Excellence:

In the private or public sector, in big business or small, we observe that there are only two ways to create and sustain superior performance over the long haul:

“First, take exceptional care of your customer (for chicken, jet engines, education, healthcare, or baseball) via superior service and superior quality. Second, constantly innovate. That’s it.”

They add that “sound financial controls” and “solid planning” are of course also essential and necessary,” but that the bottom line of achieving success is to manage by wandering around —

• By constantly talking with your people,
• By constantly and attentively listening to their ideas, and
• By motivating through examples of the ways you cater to customers and work nonstop at innovation: always drumming up new creative ideas and strategically taking them all the way through in your thinking to a point of implementation.

Introducing a new product feature isn’t good enough. Anyone can think of that. Actually working out all of the steps involved with associated costs, benefits,  timelines, and logistics… that’s innovation! 

• By instilling a passion for customer courtesy and innovative thinking in every tiny corner of every department of the business, whether there are three employees involved, or 300,000. 

     Today’s economy sucks if you choose for it to.  If instead you seize the opportunity to be more motivated to deliver a better dollar-value quality product and service, quicker and safer, and that’s longer-lasting than ever before… and you pump all your company’s efforts into making your customers love you… NOW you’ve got something!

     And your leaner, tougher, more customer-conscious business  would never have happened when cash was flowing and you were on cruise control, lunching out and playing golf and taking off early and traveling the world on long vacations, and being so successful you were able to sell ice to Eskimos with one hand behind your back.

     Speaking of your hand:  The lousy economy, being continuously fueled by shortsighted (maybe even blind) government bureaucracy, has essentially forced your hand to act in new ways. And if in fact you do act in new more productive ways, then it’s a GREAT economy!

     Will you rise to the occasion  and make things work, or keep dreaming that they can’t,  throw in the towel, and get out of the way of those who are choosing to meet the challenge? 

# # #

“It’s not MY job!”

     Ever heard this before? Or is it just my imagination? Odds are someone in your business either says something like this, or has the underlying attitude but doesn’t express it openly.

     The person who rejects  awareness, spontaneity and (friendship / partner / spousal) intimacy also rejects the responsibility for shaping her or his own life. She or he is someone who thinks of him or herself as either lucky or unlucky, assuming without question that it’s meant to be and: can’t or shouldn’t be changed, or that only ______ can change it.

 Sound familiar? This is the same individual who

     routinely proclaims (or thinks): “It’s not MY job!”

     By contrast, the autonomous person  is concerned with “being.” He or she allows his/her own capacities to unfold and encourages others to do the same. These are the kinds of individuals who project their own possibilities into the future as realistic goals which give aim and purpose to their lives.

     They sacrifice  only when they are giving up a lesser value for a greater value according to their own personal value systems. They are not concerned with getting more, but with being more. 

My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”

— OPRAH WINFREY

     As a business owner or manager, and especially in today’s economy,  you really can’t afford to have people working for you with this attitude. E V E R Y person in your business needs to accept responsibility for doing whatever needs to be done whenever it needs to be done as long as he or she has the ability to do it.

     But this doesn’t mean that you need to be a shrink  with employees who evidence a not-my-job mentality. It DOES suggest that you may want to think hard about keeping this kind of person on payroll.

     If it’s a locked-in situation  and you can’t let go of her or him right now, set a deadline for change, explain it clearly and gently, then teach by example. Do recognize that it takes courage for someone like that to rise to the occasion, and reward any evidence of attempts with “pat-on-the-back” comments and encouragement to keep at it. 

     You’ll always get more of what you genuinely

appreciate, praise and reward.   

With special thanks to human relations/communications consultants Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward for the inspiration and adaptations from their classic book BORN TO WIN: Transactional Analysis with Gestalt Experiments    

# # #