September 9, 2021 - Is Your Thinking Holding Your Business Back?

Main Idea:

Is “That’s the way we do it here.” popular in your business?  Do you have a lot of debate on how to handle issues?  Do you know what your constraints are?  Are any of them impossible to fix? How creative are you and your team?  When was the last time you took 8 hours off to just think?

Expansion of the Idea:

Two weeks ago, I reread 2 books by Eliyahu Goldratt.  They are “The Goal” and “It’s Not Luck”.  My copy of It’s Not Luck is literally falling apart because I have reread it so many times.  I generally reread these books every 2-3 years.  You might look at them and question my intelligence.  They are simply two business parables with a few key insights.  Yet I find it is important to me to reread these books.  The reason is that some of the answers to business problems are so profound that I need to reread them to keep me focused on the answers.  Like everyone else I can fall into ruts in how I think.  The real genius in the books is the alternative way that Eliyahu Goldratt approaches bottlenecks in business and various conflicts in problem solving.  The key to everything is identifying what your true goals are, looking critically at your situation from the other person’s point of view or sometimes from just another point of view.  As Mark Twain said:

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. 

It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.

The last two years have created a lot of issues that we have to deal with.  Almost everyone has employee problems.  Anyone that sells products also has supply chain problems.  If you don’t sell products then you go back to employee issues.  Customers have changed buying patterns, maybe a couple of times.  Taxes have changed as often as a parent changes a newborn’s diaper.  And no one knows really what to expect going forward.

What should we do?

We really need to think about three things:

1. What are our goals?

2. Where do we stand right now?

3. What is holding us back from achieving our goals?

Most of us have a bottleneck or constraint in our organizations. This bottleneck is neither bad nor good.  It is just a constraint.  All of our competitors have constraints also.  The issue for us as managers and leaders is to figure out how to exploit the constraint.  However, to do this, we need to get rid of our old way of thinking that includes:

1. We definitely can’t afford to do that.

2. We never want to offer that service.

3. I am the only one who can do this task.

4. My team is holding me back.

There are a number of other phrases that I could write.  But I think you get the point.  We have a no in our mind and that “No” cannot be sandblasted out of there.  However, instead we need to think about doing something that we think is impossible and figuring out how to make it happen.  Too often, the only thing holding us back is our thinking.  And the next thing holding us back is our team’s thinking.  To move forward, we need to establish a culture of trust where the team can share their opinions and ideas in a safe environment.  And we need to share with them.  I like Benjamin Franklin’s quote:

We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.

Wherever your business or organization is right now, we need to improve.  And like most things in life, the improvement needs to start with us. And it doesn’t cost us anything to change our thinking.

Questions or Ideas to Consider:

1. Read the book “The Goal”

2. Do you have clear goals?

3. Do you know where your constraints are?

4. Do you have a solid plan to address those constraints?

5. Do you have a safe culture?

6. Does your team think you have a safe culture?

I plan on having a zoom conference call on Constraints and Conflict Resolution on October 27 at 1pm CDT. This will explain how to identify your constraints and use the constraint to grow your business.  I know that this sounds like an oxymoron but it works.  I will also introduce a special conflict resolution process to help in your thinking.  This zoom call will be beneficial for all managers, whether in a business or nonprofit.  If you are interested in reserving your spot, please email me at your earliest convenience. 

July 16, 2021 – Do You Have Noise in Your Decision Making?

Main Idea:

Do you consistently make great decisions?  Are there things that impact your decisions that you had no clue that they existed?  How many decisions do you make that turn out to be disastrous and it was obvious why?  Do you have a system for making important decisions?  Why are we so good at seeing other people’s bad decisions but don’t recognize our own?

Expansion of the Idea:

Early on when I was building my business, it was obvious to me how certain clients made less than optimal or even bad decisions.  My solution to that was to build better financial systems, help educate them and then provide a sounding board.  The net result of all of this was that their decision making improved but it still was far from perfect. 

Then I started looking inward and realized that my own decision making was less than ideal.  I didn’t pay attention to some warning signs with clients or employees.  I didn’t read the tea leaves on changes in the industry.  I realized that I was making the same mistakes my clients were making.  I started looking for common errors and I identified a few things.  I put systems in place for hiring employees.  I set up a more rigid criteria for new clients.  There are a number of items that improved but I still wasn’t satisfied.

About a month ago, I learned of a new book coming out.  This book explained why my decision making was still not where it should be and some of the factors that are impacting it.  The book’s name is “Noise” by Kahneman, Sibony & Sunstein.  The book is a little hard to get through because it has a lot of psychology and statistics, but it has some fascinating ideas about our judgments.  A lot of the examples are in the legal system but the application is true for how we run small businesses.  The book really gets into the variations in judgment that are over and above bias.  Bias is the easy part to understand.  This could be racial, or it could be things like optimism which could bias how we evaluate people.  Or it could be something like confirmation bias which confirms something we already suspected.  Noise goes beyond that.  It could be any of the following:

• You hear on the news about how saving taxes is critical in this economy.  As a result, you implement tax saving strategies when what you really need a cash flow plan.

• You hire an employee based on your gut which is tied to the fact that the potential employee was referred in by a big customer.

• You hire an employee who is a great talker. 

• You give a customer an additional 30 days to pay because they have been a long-time customer, ignoring the fact that their industry is having major issues.

• Your identity was just stolen and then you had to make a major decision about a new product line. 

• You had to put your dog down and then you had a career counseling session with a potentially problematic employee.

• You are in a good mood because you just became a grandparent and then you discuss raises for your team.

• Your decisions are different in the morning when you are refreshed versus the afternoon when you feel like a slug.

The point with all of this is that some of our decisions are influenced by factors that may or may not be related.  We live in an interconnected world which is good but it can be a problem when you are making major decisions.   It is important to realize that we do have a problem with noise in our decision making.  Only then will we implement steps to improve our decision making.  Most of the improvement centers around improving how we make decisions and creating systems to make better decisions. 

I might have been on the right track early on but I didn’t go far enough to really help clients.  However, if you think about your decisions and judgments and ways to improve them, you will improve your business.  And this doesn’t require more sales or employees.  It is amazing that you can improve the business just by improving how you think. 

Questions to Consider:

1. What would be the financial impact if you decided the opposite on 5 key decisions you have made?

2. How do you make decisions?  Is it solo or with a team?

3. Does your team go along with everything you say or do they push back?

4. Do you encourage your team to think for themselves?

5. Do you have a method for making key decisions?

April 3, 2020 - What Do I Have?

Main Idea:

Have you just lost a third of your net worth in the stock market?  Do you feel like your business is going bust because of the coronavirus?  Are you afraid that you will lose a close friend or family member to the virus? Do you think that you will end up at home with your 5 & 7 year old for the next 5 years?

Expansion of the Idea:

Our lifestyle changed completely when the Covid-19 virus came to the US.  Very few people realized the extent of the damage it could do.  Almost no one took it as serious as we should have at the very early stages.  But when it took over, we all realized that life as we knew it was gone.  It will come back but it might look a little different.  Either way, we have the next few months of social distancing, economic hardship, stress on relationships, uncertainty, fear and restrictions on what we do.  And we just missed opening day of Major League Baseball.  We feel like we are in a bad dream where we are just going through the motions. 

All of that bad stuff is reality.  And it is natural to focus on the negative stuff.  If we had 100 customers buy something from us in a day and one of them complains about price, that customer will haunt us.  We will worry whether we are pricing our products properly.  We don’t think about the fact that some people are going to complain about something no matter what.  It still sticks with us.

However, there is another reality that we don’t focus on.  This other reality is always there and is probably more real than the negative reality.  We are so blessed we take things for granted.  We overlook a lot because we stress about what we just lost or don’t have. 

Here is my list of what I do have and am extremely thankful for:

• My faith

• My spouse

• My kids and their spouses

• My grandkids (They are really a little higher on the list.)

October 27, 2010 - Have You Earned Respect?

Main Idea

Have you been told by your child that you say one thing but do something else?  Do you hear from politicians that they are looking out for you but then they have their hand in your wallet?  Have you had a business dealing with a company that espouses customer service yet the reality does not include service? 

Expansion of Idea

Next Tuesday is an important day.  It is an election that will dictate the business and political environment for the next two years.  I will be extremely glad when the day is passed if for no other reason that I am sick and tired of the political ads.  I do think that this is a critical time for our country and I have been following some of the races.  One race that seems really odd is the California governor’s race.  Republicans are doing pretty well across the country and yet Meg Whitman, who is a Republican, is trailing Jerry Brown, who is a Democrat.  She was doing very well until it was revealed that she had not voted in previous elections.  (There was also another allegation about hiring an illegal immigrant.)   However, the lack of voting in previous elections tells Californians that she doesn’t care.   Whether or not she cares is actually irrelevant.  The apparent hypocrisy of telling everyone that she will help fix their problems when she has not voted in the past will probably prevent her from being elected even if she is the better candidate.  Voters are sick of the double talk.  They want someone who will treat them with respect. 

I think that this is carrying over to all of our organizations.  Employees want respect.  Customers want respect.  They want us to do what we say we will do.  All of us fail at this sometimes because life gets in the way and we cannot honor all of our commitments.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t try to do the right things.  We can look at our businesses and see if we are doing what we say we will do.  We can look at our commitments and honestly assess whether or not we can do them.  Do we have the right staffing levels to provide the service that our customers want and need?  Hypocrisy creeps into all of our lives in very subtle ways.  It is obvious when we look at politics.  It may be equally obvious when we look at our businesses from our customer’s point of view.

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Are you honoring your commitments to your coworkers or customers?

2. Are there systems issues that are preventing you from doing the right things for your customers?

3. Are you doing the best that you are capable of?

October 20, 2010 - Are You a Success?

Main Idea

What are the qualities of a great leader?  What are the qualities of a great employee?  How do you know if you are successful?  How do you define success? 

Expansion of Idea

About two months ago, I was having dinner with a family friend and one of my sons.  We were discussing one of the weekly ideas that I had just sent out.  I explained to him that this series of ideas was based on John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.  I told him that I thought that this was the single best model for success that I have seen in the business or sports world.  John Wooden defined success as “self satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable.”  Success is not measured by how many national championships you win or how many competitive sales processes that you win. 

This definition of success is contrary to what most people think.  Yet, this approach to personal success allowed John Wooden to become the best collegiate coach of all time.  One of my biggest failures in life is the failure to apply these ideas earlier in my career.  I knew about the Pyramid of Success.  I just did not realize the gold that was buried there.  I probably exhibited some of the characteristics but not as consistently as was required.  (As a side note, during the dinner noted above, my friend mentioned that through a friend of his when he was in his 20’s, he was introduced to John Wooden and had a personal signed copy of the Pyramid of Success.  I asked him what he did with it.  He pitched it when he moved a year ago.  I almost cried.)  

Over the last couple of months, I have introduced the core concepts of the Pyramid of Success.  If you follow those concepts you will achieve competitive greatness and that will translate to success.  I would strongly encourage you to go to www.coachwooden.com .  There is a printable version of the Pyramid of Success.  I would suggest printing the pyramid and using it as a character check every day.  Everyone will be successful if they follow the pyramid guidelines. 

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Are you successful as defined by John Wooden? 

2. Would those around you define you as successful? 

3. If there are differences, what are they and how do you bridge any gap in definitions of success?

4. What is one characteristic on the Pyramid that I can work on? 

September 22, 2010 - How Confident Are You?

Main Idea

When a customer calls with an unexpected problem, do you shrink from it or lean into the problem?  When you have an important sales call, is your stomach in knots before the call?  When your boss wants to discuss your performance, are you eager to hear the results or are you tempted to call in sick that day? 

Expansion of Idea

One of the cornerstones of success is confidence.  This includes success as a leader, as a manager, as an employee, as a teammate, and as a service provider.  If we do not acquire confidence it will break us.  It is critical for our service delivery.  If we are unsure of what we are doing, nothing will ever get done.  When we are unsure of what we are doing, work tends to be delayed because we are afraid of making a mistake.  We can only be confident in ourselves if we have properly prepared for the event or transaction.  I am talking about real confidence as opposed to arrogance.  A lack of confidence shows clearly when you go to a restaurant and have a waiter who is doing their first shift alone. 

One of the areas that I have worked on over the last ten years was my overriding fear of public speaking.  This was caused by an incident when I was in sixth grade.  In an effort to improve my public speaking, it was suggested by a teacher that I participate in the Bellarmine Speech Club.  In preparation for the speech meet, I had to memorize a famous speech.  I prepared and memorized the speech but not to the point where I was confident.  As I was waiting to give the speech, the kid before me started his speech and it was the exact one I had memorized.  AND HE NAILED IT.  My confidence went through the floor.  I made it through the speech but it was awful.  There was no difference in my knowledge or skills before and after I heard the kid before me speak.  The only real difference was my confidence.  That determined my success or, in this case, my failure.  That lack of confidence held me back for 30 years because I did not have confidence that I could speak in public.  I did not gain that confidence back until I was 44 years old. 

While it is unlikely that I will be world renowned for my public speaking, I have improved to the point that it is no longer a liability.  Most of that improvement was directly related to preparation.  This applies to every one of us in our interactions with customers and coworkers.  Every one of us can improve our customer service, our knowledge, our use of technology, or we can at a minimum get to know our customers better.  All of these will give us confidence to do our job. 

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Are you confident in how you handle your job?

2. If not, where are you unsure of your job?

3. What do you need to prepare to improve your job performance?

4. How can I encourage a team member with their confidence?

September 16, 2010 - How Do You Handle Pressure?

Main Idea

What do you do when good or bad things start happening?  How do you handle unforeseen events?  Do you panic, or do you engage?  Are you the “go-to” person or are you running down the street in a panic? 

Expansion of Idea

I was watching a documentary the other night about 9/11.  The poise and heroism that people exhibited are unbelievable.  As I was watching the stories, I started asking myself whether or not I would react the same way.  I can handle a fair amount of pressure.  I would like to think I would react positively, but I don’t know for sure how I would react unless I was in the exact situation. 

At a less extreme level, how we react on a daily basis to the challenges and struggles in our businesses can determine our future.  A critical piece of success is maintaining poise while under pressure.  This can be extreme pressure like 9/11 or just an upset customer or coworker that catches you off guard.  Some people naturally handle themselves better than others in critical situations. 

However, this is a skill that can be improved.  First, you need to know how you handle pressure.  You need to get feedback.  You might be good under certain types of pressure and bad under other types.  Get a baseline so that you know what you need to improve.  Then you have to develop a training program.  This might be doing skits with other customer service representatives.  It might be learning your products and services or your customer’s applications.    Sometimes it is just a matter of practice.  You might have to get very creative to improve in this area.  The point is that you can improve.  There are certain people that think quicker than I.  If I have something critical that needs to be discussed with them, I rehearse it.  I can eliminate some problems by prior rehearsal.  In addition, another big thing that can be introduced to help you with your poise is the core values of the business and your own core values.  If those are clearly defined, communicated, lived and in general are real, then those determine your actions. Deciding what to do when something blows up is a lot easier in those situations.  

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. How do I handle pressure?

2. Do I react negatively when confronted with problems?

3. Can I get feedback on my poise under pressure?

4. What am I going to do to improve?

5. What are the core values of the business?

6. What are my core values?

7. Are there conflicts?

September 2, 2010 - What Skills Do You Have?

Main Idea

When you think of someone with great skills, who do you think of?  Are you jealous of the skills that person was given?  Do you think that there is no way you could have those skills?

Expansion of Idea

When you look at great athletes or musicians or business people, most of us admire their skills.  We think that we could never be like them.  And we probably can’t be like them.  I can’t swing a bat like Albert Pujols.  I know I can’t sing.  (My wife would second that.)  I have no musical rhythm.  Yet, I do have skills.  Each of us has skills to do our job.  The main point, that is overlooked when you look at the great athletes, is how much time they put into maintaining and sharpening their skills.  Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers in which he looked at some of these extreme success stories.  One of his conclusions is that 10,000 hours is a very magic number.  Once someone puts that much time in his skills, really good things happen.  The really great athletes put that much time in earlier than the average athletes.  This unrelenting push to improve is a big part of what makes the truly great athletes what they are. 

The same is true in business.  When we invest, push, train, work and do everything we can to sharpen our skills, good things happen.  For those people who don’t do this, they are completely dependent on the economy, their company, their boss and life in general.  There is one other thing that most of us tend to forget.  I was discussing this with a client the other day.  We look at the stock market or our house and we can easily get depressed because our investments may be falling off a cliff.  That can be really depressing. 

However, our single most important financial asset is our own earning power.  If you add up what you are going to make from now until you retire, it will probably dwarf your savings or the equity in your house.  We need to focus on improving our skills to maximize the value of that asset.  We can’t control the stock market or our investments, but we can control where we invest our time.  From a financial planning standpoint and from a general success standpoint, this should be our number one priority.

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. How would you rate your skills to do your job?

2. Are my skills the best that they could be?

3. How would your coworkers rate your skills?

4. What needs to be improved?

5. How can I expand my skills?

6. Are there new skills that I need to learn?

August 25, 2010 - Are You In Good Shape?

Main Idea

Does the word “Conditioning” ever come up in connection with doing your job?  Is this something that you used to do when you played high school sports?  Should it be used in connection with business? 

Expansion of Idea

One of my clients was talking about putting a gym in his business the other day.  While this may have been in jest, it actually is good business.  Dupont reported a 47.5% reduction in absenteeism over a six-year period for employees in a corporate fitness program.  There was a study in the journal, Ergonomics, that concluded that mental performance was better for people who are fit.  They committed 27% fewer errors than those who are not fit. 

This idea of conditioning goes beyond just physical conditioning.  We also need to focus on mental and moral conditioning.  This is especially true for the leaders but is also critical for team members.  We need to make sure that we have balance in our lives.  We need to take rests.  We need to take time off from work and focus on play.  The moral conditioning comes into play with making wise choices.  How many young professional athletes are in great physical condition and are at the top of their game and then do something stupid at 1am that costs them their careers or maybe even their lives?  At a less extreme level, we may go out at night during the work week and we do not get the sleep that we need.  All of this is part of making sure that we are in a good condition to succeed at work.  Ultimately, success is a choice.  We can prepare for success or we can decide it is not important.

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Am I physically fit?

2. If not, can I start going for walks instead of watching TV?

3. Am I tired all of the time?

4. Do I eat a healthy diet?

5. Do I schedule time off and vacations?

6. Am I making wise choices in my off hours?

August 11, 2010 - Are You Alert?

Main Idea

Do you know what the common refrain was from the CEO’s of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in 2008?  This was also the common refrain from most of our government and business leaders.  I DID NOT SEE IT COMING!!!

Expansion of Idea

Alertness is one of the most critical attributes of success that we need.  If we are not engaged and alert and looking for new opportunities or for new ways to serve our existing customers and coworkers, then we are ultimately going to fail. 

When I used to coach grade school basketball, one of the drills that we focused on was dribbling the basketball and keeping our heads up.  I occasionally had the team read posters on the gym wall while dribbling.  I would do whatever I could to get them used to dribbling the basketball without looking at it.  The main reason is that if they are looking at the basketball, they cannot see the rest of the court.  If they cannot see the rest of the court, then it is only a matter of time before they lose the basketball.  

The same is true of business.  We always have to keep our heads up.  We have to be paying attention to our customers, to our employees, to our systems, to our vendors, to our financials and key performance indicators.  We must constantly look to improve our services and to determine if there is anything new that we need to do. 

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Have I been keeping my head up?

2. Can I learn two new things about my co-workers?

3. Is there an industry publication that I receive but don’t read?

4. Have I done anything to improve my skills, attitude or performance in the last month?

August 4, 2010 - Where is Your Focus?

Main Idea

Do you stay with a problem or client issue until it is finished?  Do you focus on finishing with excellence or do you focus on just finishing?  Do you ever give up? 

Expansion of Idea

Do you remember the Columbo television show from the 70’s?  For those of you who are too young, Peter Falk played a detective who, on the surface, was a clown.  He drove a beat up old car, wore a beat up coat and frequently had his pet basset hound with him.  Whenever he was tracking down a murderer, he seemed gullible and naïve.  The criminals kept giving him false or misleading information and he kept coming back to follow up.  He would always have just one more question.  I am amazed that he always caught the criminal.  In sports, you can look at Michael Jordan, Larry Bird or Albert Pujols.  The word intensity barely describes those guys.  In business, you can look at Jack Welch, the retired president of General Electric.  He has his share of faults, but he was intense.  He was focused on getting the job done. 

Intentness is a critical component of personal success as well as your organization’s success.  Intentness can manifest itself in different ways.  We don’t have to be rude or humorless to be intent.  We do have to be focused on getting the job done.  We have to decide that we are going to succeed and then go out there and do it.  You are handed a lot of setbacks and problems every day.  How you react to those problems determines your ultimate success.

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Am I focused on getting the job done?

2. Do I worry about obstacles?

3. Do I get easily distracted?

4. Do I know exactly what to do in my job, how to do it and am I on track in completing it?

July 30, 2010 - Are You Out of Control?

Main Idea

Have you ever worked for someone who loses her temper?  Or is there a coworker who has no control over his spending habits?  Do you have an office meeting scheduled at 10am and one or two people show up 10 minutes late?

Expansion of Idea

Most of us have a general idea of who Rod Blagojevich is.  I suspect that he is guilty of most of what he has been charged with.  However, the part that I want to focus on is his complete lack of self-control.  It was pretty humorous when the press interviewed him during his trial and his only real comment is that he learned that he needs to keep his mouth closed more.  This is after he acted like a complete buffoon on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice and the rest of the circus that is called Chicago politics.  He achieved some level of success making it to be governor of Illinois.  (I would argue that is not very prestigious considering how many of them have been convicted of crimes.)  But he could not maintain that success because of his lack of self-control. 

To be successful in the long term, self-control is a requisite.  This includes having the discipline to show up for work or meetings on time.  It means keeping control of your emotions.  This is critically important.  All of us have things thrown at us on a daily basis that if we don’t control our emotions, we will lose the confidence of our team or our customers.  Last year, I lost a major account (which is a good thing in this case).  If I started moaning and worrying about it, I would probably have lost my team.  They might look at the situation and say it is all over.  Instead, this loss opened up some other opportunities that allowed us to focus on the clients that we serve best. 

Self-control allows us to learn from situations and to constantly improve.  If you are the leader, it gives your team the confidence to go out and do what is necessary.  This may include learning about mistakes.  If you have no self-control, how likely is it that your team is going to tell you about a mistake?  The answer is pretty close to zero because no one wants to get their head chopped off.  Yet, when a mistake has been made, it is critical that you learn about it as soon as possible and that may give you some alternatives. 

Questions to Ask Yourself           

1. Do I have self-control?

2. Do I make decisions impulsively?

3. When confronted by bad news, do I overreact?

4. Do I need to work on this area of my life?

July 15, 2010 - How Loyal Are You?

Main Idea

Are the days gone where people work for one employer for life?  Is this good or bad?  Will Albert Pujols retire as a Cardinal or will he make a larger fortune going to the Cubs? 

Expansion of Idea

In the last week if you turn on the news, it is hard to get away from LeBron James.  For those of you who don’t follow professional sports, he is theoretically the best basketball player in the world and he just switched teams from his hometown Cleveland team to the Miami Heat.  I personally do not care about professional basketball, but it is a great example of how loyalty comes into play in building great organizations.  It appears that he decided before the playoffs that he wanted to play with his friends in Miami and as a result, he gave up on his team, even though his team had the best record in the league.  Some may say he had loyalty, but I would say that the only loyalty shown was to himself.  I would instead call that egocentric.  He had an opportunity to build a great team and instead he focused on his own goals. 

To build a truly great organization, loyalty to the team and to customers is a critical building block.  The key to building loyalty in an organization is for the leader to have solid core values and live by them.  When the leader shows loyalty to his team, then it is much easier for the team to show loyalty back.  This does take time but building trust based on loyalty is a step that cannot be overlooked.  By putting others interests ahead of yours, you are cementing a bond that cannot easily be broken.  One other thing to consider – per Frederick Reichheld*, an increase in customer retention of as little as 5% can amount to an increase in profits of 20%.  Loyalty is a very sound business strategy to improve your profits.

Questions to Ask Yourself

1. Am I loyal to my team and to the customers?

2. Do I expect loyalty even though I am not always loyal?

3. How can I improve my loyalty to my team?

4. How can I help my team with their loyalty? 

5. Read a book by Frederick Reichheld called the Loyalty Effect.

*Frederick Reichheld is an author and consultant with Bain & Company and is one of the world’s foremost experts on loyalty and the effect on business.

July 1, 2010 - Do I Like Going To Work?

Main Idea

Why did everyone like Woody on “Cheers”?  Do you get up in the morning and look forward to work?  Did you ever?  What is the difference in the productivity when you did look forward to work versus the times where you dreaded going to work? 

Expansion of Idea

All of us have a choice every day.  We can cheerfully go to work and look forward to helping our team, our customers and ourselves.  Or, we can go to work with an attitude that life sucks, work sucks and in general have a pity party for ourselves.  We have all had days where we lean towards the pity party.  And, in general, we get what we expect on those days.  The day drags on, our team members treat us like garbage, and you just hope that you do not talk to too many customers or else you will be losing a bunch of business. 

A much better approach is to look forward to the day.  How can we help others?  What can we learn?  How can we improve our business and ourselves?  What new friends can we make?  When we approach life with enthusiasm, it becomes contagious.  Our coworkers catch it.  Our customers catch it.  Work becomes a much better place to be.  When you go into a business, you can normally tell in the first 10 minutes if there is energy and enthusiasm or if life has been completely sucked out of it.  Who would you rather deal with, a business with energy or one that is depressing?  What do your customers think of your business?  Enthusiasm is one of the cornerstones to building a great business and a great life.   Without it, we will not succeed.  With it, the sky’s the limit.  PASS IT ON!!!!

Questions to Ask Yourself

1. Do I look forward to going to work? 

2. How can I bring more enthusiasm and energy to work?

3. If I am lacking enthusiasm, do I know why?  What can I do to fix it?

4. Are there coworkers that I can help?

June 24, 2010 - Are You Out Working Your Competition?

Main Idea

What is the difference in take home pay between a great waiter and one who satisfies his customers?  What caused that difference?  What is the difference between a sales person who is setting his appointments for the next week on Friday afternoon and one who is playing golf?  What separates the truly great athletes such as Albert Pujols or Michael Jordan and the athletes that have a lot of potential but never seem to reach that potential?

Expansion of Idea

Each of us has been given different gifts.  We may have been created equal, but we are not identical.  There is always someone better than you in your chosen field.  There are people who have been given more talent than you.  The big secret is that industriousness or hard work is a great equalizer.  No matter how much talent you have been given, without hard work, you will be a failure.  If you have not been given quite as much talent as your competitors, then hard work is even more important.  The funny thing is that the truly great competitors such as Albert Pujols, Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird all outworked their opponents.  They were given talent that we would all love to have.  Yet, they spent more time developing that talent than almost anyone else. 

If you go into a restaurant, you can tell which waiters are making the most money.  They are the ones working the hardest.  The same is true in every business, large or small.  Other people may have been given a better starting point than you.  They may have better talents than you.  They may have better finances than you.  However, there is no reason that anyone should outwork you.  This is one of the cornerstones of success. 

Questions to Ask Yourself

1. Are you working hard?

2. If yes, what do you need to do to continue to work hard? 

3. If no, what is holding you back from working hard?

4. Are you being a positive role model for your team members or a negative role model?

June 9, 2010 - Who Do You Get Advice From?

Main Idea

How close are you to your best friend?  What relationships can not be broken?  When relationships are broken, what is the real cause?

Expansion of Idea

If you think about your best friend and the years of your relationship, what is one constant in the relationship?  Generally, it is contact.  You talk once a week or exchange emails.  You understand each other and there is constant interaction.  There is probably less interaction than when you were a teenager but there is still some consistent interaction.  If you have a problem you know who to call. 

Why would your business be any different?  Do you have your business relationships set up so that you know who to call if you have a problem?   If your copier fails, you have someone who you trust to fix it.  If you have a legal issue, hopefully you have a good attorney to call.  If you have an insurance claim, you should have a good insurance agent to help you through the problem.   Do your customers view you as the go to person to help them with not just your products and services but to be a resource for their business? 

Most of us have not developed that level of relationship with our customers.  However, when we do, we are developing loyalty, referrals, and friendships.  We are also making our workplaces a better place to work.  It is not necessarily hard to develop that level of relationship.    It is extremely hard to develop the discipline to stay in touch with our customers and continue to stay in touch with them even if there is no immediate benefit. 

Suggested Areas to Start

1. Call a customer for no apparent reason.

2. Thank a customer for no apparent reason.

3. Send a newspaper or magazine article that would be of interest to the customer. 

4. Show them you care!!!

April 7, 2010 - Are You Burning a Candle at Both Ends?

Main Idea

What happens when you burn a candle at both ends?  Does it serve its purpose?  Is its life shortened? 

Expansion of Idea

With the increased use of cell phones, I-pads, laptops and always on- demand service, we are all working harder than ever.  But are we more effective?  I see a lot of people who are tired, stressed out and generally not providing great customer service.  When we get in that mode, we normally are only performing at a percentage of our optimal level.  If you are only performing at 70% of your peak level, then how much time could you take off and still get the same performance?  Do you have to stay later to get that report out or should you make sure you get a chance to refresh and hit your job fresh in the morning? 

It is very easy to get into a downward spiral with work and other duties.  How often do we actually plan time to read a book, take the kids to the zoo or take our spouse to dinner?  It is virtually impossible for you to do a great job between 8 and 5 if you are completely out of control time wise between 5pm and 8am the next morning. 

If you are the boss, questions to ask yourself

1. Am I burned out?

2. Do I have regularly scheduled time for relaxing and improving?

3. Is there anyone working for me that needs work reassigned to remove pressure?

4. How can I help my team improve their work-life balance?

If you are not the boss, questions to ask yourself

1. Am I burned out?

2. Do I have regularly scheduled time for relaxing and improving?

3. Is there a way to help my coworkers with their workload?

4. Do I need to talk to the boss about systems to help workload?

March 31, 2010 - How Curious Are You?

Main Idea

How many questions per hour can your kids ask you when they are growing up?  How many questions per hour can you ask your teenagers?  Why do all of these questions pop into our heads?  How do they help?

Expansion of Idea

What is the value of asking questions?  When something or someone is important to you, you want to know more.  It is very easy to ask questions and then follow up on the questions and then follow up with more questions.  One time when my kids were about 5 years old, my wife was taking them by car from my office to the library which is almost next door.  She stopped counting the questions at 20.  They were very curious about something and the questions just flowed.  At that age it is really neat to see their personal growth and development. 

Questions are a key piece of this growth.  Why is it that this curiosity suddenly vanishes when we grow up?  The proper use of questions can really build relationships, fix customer service, help with personal development and gain wisdom.  This only works if you care about the answers.  However, if you ask a question about something and then have the follow up question, and continue drilling down, you will hit the core answers after 5 or 6 questions.  This is where the real important information resides.  If we settle on surface answers, we get surface solutions which are not really solutions.  Curious George does have it right when he is trying to see what is under the yellow hat.  We need to stay focused and keep looking for answers.

Questions to ask yourself

1. What do I need to know more about?

2. What problems do I have at work that could be avoided by asking more questions?

3. How can I raise sales or customer service by getting to know my customers in a deeper way?

4. How can I learn more about my coworkers and how to more effectively work as a team?

5. Make a list of your own questions.

March 4, 2010 - Are You Juggling Too Many Balls at Once?

Main Idea

How many projects do you have going right this second?  Do you feel like you are standing in the batting cages without a bat just trying to not get hit by the baseballs?  What if there are two pitching machines, or three, or more?

Expansion of Idea

It is tax season.  There are approximately 20 things that I should be doing right this second.  And that is probably on the low side.  I know that tax season gets pretty messy and I am not looking for pity.  This is fairly normal for tax season.  The problem I always have is that I get caught trying to do too many things at once.  That does not work.  It is just like your computer when you keep opening applications.  At some point, the computer says, “NO”.  It freezes and then gets nothing done. 

We are just like that.  We need to keep things focused and get one thing done at a time.  All of us get backlogged with work.  We can get through it when we systematically open the application, finish it, close the application and move on to the next item.  That is always easier said than done.  Life comes at us so fast.  The key is recognizing when we have too many things going. In those situations, we need to prioritize the open items, restrict the new demands or ask for help from our coworkers.  Sometimes we have to do all three.  It is great when we are busy.  We just have to realize that it is a time that we can really serve our clients or we can really create some huge problems for ourselves.  The choice is ours. 

Suggested Questions to Think About

1. How many open tasks do you have?

2. Are there items that you should delegate to your team?

3. Are there items that you are doing that really should not be on your list or anyone in your organization’s list? 

January 27, 2010 - Do You Believe in the Vulcan Mind Meld?

Main Idea

Did you ever watch Star Trek?  Do you believe in the Vulcan mind meld?  Do you use that in your organization?

Expansion of Idea

I don’t know if you have every watched the old Star Trek series.  If you look at them now, they are very low tech and very corny.  (I know I just offended some Trekkies reading this.)  One of the things that would occasionally occur is what they called a Vulcan mind meld.   A key person in the series was Spock, who was from the planet, Vulcan.  He would do a Vulcan mind meld which was a complete transfer of the minds with another person on the show.  It involved some degree of risk because they never knew how it would be received. 

I am not sure why I thought of this.   However, if I questioned a lot of small business owners, I am pretty sure they think they have done a mind meld with their team members.  The reason that I know this is that they frequently give their team members duties, a computer, a brief introduction (which was interrupted by five phone calls) and then told to go do work.  Then they are frustrated by the employees not getting work done.  I know that I am guilty of this at different times.  I try very hard to spend time training my team but then I get pulled away and sometimes never really complete the training in a reasonable time period.  What should we do instead?  We need to really devote ourselves to the right training for each of our employees.  This does not need to be all day offsite training.  It can be regularly scheduled training for short periods that address specific issues.  It can be used to address problems that come up.  It can be used to raise customer service.  A particular employee may need some specific skills and technical training. 

If you are the boss, you need to carefully evaluate your plans here.  If you are an employee, you need to take charge of yourself and ask for specific training where you have problems.  The key is to develop a plan and stick to it as best you can.  When you have hired good people, train them, systemize the training and follow up on the training, you will have no choice but to succeed.

Start by Asking Yourself these Questions:

• Are there skills that I need to acquire?

• Can we raise our collective skills by training?

• Can I share some knowledge with my coworkers?

• Do I have a plan to raise our skills?

• For the advanced application, are there skills that can help our customers use our product or service better?

• Have I scheduled the training?