One of the toughest challenges facing managers on a daily basis is the care and feeding of key employees. If you don’t keep the “tigers” happy, your competitors will. And if your team doesn’t see a purpose – a positive vision, they will come to work for a paycheck and not for a compelling future.
Contagious leadership means providing motivation through a compelling vision to your team on a daily basis. This means not only being able to clearly articulate a vision – but to live it and breathe it so that it becomes a passion for your team – a passion to excel and win!
Hold regular meetings with key staff not only to review progress towards goals, but also to fuel the fires of passion for their role in your great mission. If every member of your team doesn’t have a fire in their belly for excellence, then you still have your work cut out for you.
Negative motivation is a passion killer. Micromanagement, losing opportunities for recognizing strong contributions by your team, and distrust are all forms of negative motivation that destroy team spirit. If you see issues that need redirection, refocus your team on the end goals, and try to defocus from the negative issues or they can grow from the attention paid to them.
Listen to inputs from your team, and make each member feel valued and respected. Encourage brainstorming and innovative ideas – this is how many winning corporations maintain and keep their edge. Every single team member is unique, and brings a new perspective to the table.
Positive motivation creates contagious leadership – leadership that unifies teams and wins in today’s highly competitive business landscape.
Success happens as a direct result of how we interact with other people, period. True leadership means being able to inspire and motivate others to reach their full potential, and to contribute to others in a meaningful way. Unless we consider some of the great writers and artists, very few success stories have been hermits.
So what does this mean? It means that everyone you meet has potential to influence your future in some way. Let me repeat this – everyone you meet has potential to influence your future in some way. An oft quoted corporate saying is, “Be nice to the janitor, he may be your boss someday”.
Every contact you make should be treated with the utmost respect. In Asian countries, it is customary to grasp a business card with both hands when offered, and admire it lovingly for some time before placing it in a safe location within a portfolio or briefcase. Yet many American businessmen grab cards abruptly, misplace them, or scatter them carelessly about their desks.
Business cards are a treasure trove, and represent a person’s public façade. Every time you receive a new contact, you should place the card into a folder AND make an entry into a computerized CRM application or spreadsheet for future reference. Review this collection often, and make sure that you have the most up-to-date information for each contact.
Make a back-up copy of every contact you have so that any hard drive crashes, power failures, or theft issues will not cause you to lose your most important asset – your contacts. This back-up should be kept in a safe place, preferably in another location.
Some excellent applications include Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, and ACT – these are designed to help you store and easily retrieve large amounts of customer and contact data in a paperless format.
The original business cards serve as another form of backup, and should be kept indefinitely.
Remember, no matter what your job title – we are ALL in sales!
Many executives possess all the innate qualities to be truly great leaders, but they lack one fundamental attribute; consistency. In their minds, projecting leadership is something to be saved for board rooms and key customer meetings. But true leadership is evident even in the small daily tasks and how they are executed.
For instance, how are your internal staff meetings conducted? Do you straggle in late, with coffee dripping from your sleeve, and then proceed to answer messages on your netbook or “crackberry” while your employees present you with information? Or do you arrive sharp and on time, and give each employee your full attention? True leadership is evident in how you handle even a mundane staff meeting, or respond to a simple email.
The workplace is ripe with opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills, but these opportunities are often disguised in commonplace clothes. How do you reply to a customer complaint? An aging invoice with a customer who shows promise, but is having difficulty in these economic times?
The temptation is to write off the day-to-day challenges of management as unimportant and take the easy way out by not giving them your full attention. This creates a tiny crack in the dam of professionalism – a crack that can easily lead to a full scale flood if left unchecked. The Buddhist religion contains a very important concept, called “mindfulness”, which simply means giving EVERY task your entire attention at the moment. This is said to lead to a calm, and peaceful perspective that is otherwise difficult to attain.
Just for this week, I challenge you to undertake every task as if the entire Board of Directors were watching. Renew your commitment to leadership internally, and make sure that everything you do reflects this commitment.
You will notice a change in how your staff relates to you, and more importantly, in your own confidence and abilities to execute on a daily basis. Leadership is not just a trait, it is a lifestyle!
Several weeks ago Beverly engaged the services of Chip Lambert, business development and LinkedIn expert, to present a program for the Leaders Institute, a collaboration between the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce and John Hersey International. About 50 business leaders attended. We were so taken with Chip’s 90 minute presentation that we hired him to work with both of us for an entire day. Our day was Friday, March 5, 2010. It was one of the best investments in our business that we have ever made.
We set up our computers at the dining room table and Chip worked with each of us. First, making sure our profiles were up to “code”, if you will. They weren’t! As we learned, most aren’t. We rewrote our business description and the summary section on both of our pages. The later is where other LinkedIn users can learn about you and, more importantly, what you are looking for. Most of us throw up some tidy little piece about what we have accomplished and how terrific we are at what we do. That is all history. What we need is a description of who we are, what we do and what we are looking for.
Then we uploaded our contacts and invited people we know to connect with us on LinkedIn. In addition, we did some searches for the category of people we are looking to connect with, (national association presidents and executive directors, chairmen, CEOs, and or presidents of corporations doing up to $30 million in annual sales with in excess of 200 employees and meeting planners in the same organizations.) Best of all, Chip spent one-on-one time with each of us helping us learn what to do with the search once we had it.
After seven hours we had accomplished several very important things; 1) we were confident that our profiles were current and what is needed to effectively function on LinkedIn; 2) we were both clear about how to grow our network on as little as 15 minutes each day, and; 3) the process opened us up to working our “advanced searches” so that we never again have to waste our time or a prospects time, when they may not fit our ideal prospect definition. Do you have any idea how beautiful this is? Only spending our time searching for and speaking with individuals that fit the description of our ideal prospect. WOW!
I am sure there are others who do what Chip Lambert does. But, for Beverly and me, he was money and time very well spent and we’d invite him back in a heart beat. We are lucky that he was local but inasmuch as he works virtually as well I want to encourage all of you to check him out. We are very careful not to overdo our recommendations. Here is one that we think you can take to the bank. Go online to www.network2networth.com and do some homework.
Successful managers and good leaders share certain practices that enable them to continue, day after day, to motivate others, grow companies and achieve personal as well as professional success. True leaders know that the qualities they need to succeed come from first knowing themselves, and then from learning all they can about the world around them. These are the skills they must practice constantly to remain focused and true to their commitments. These activities can be broken down into 5 basic steps:
Be committed to effective communication, and be honest and direct in all your communications. Don’t be afraid to “tell it like it is.” Others will appreciate your honesty and value your sincerity. Always be willing to share your vision so others can see the possibilities the way you envision them. Help them to understand ways that they can work with you to make them happen. Communicating well also means being receptive to, and appreciative of, the feedback offered by others. Let people know that you are available and willing to listen. Another important element to communicate to others is praise. Praise encourages involvement and commitment.
Know your company and your people. Understand the workings of your business from the inside out, and also remain current with innovations and new ideas within your industry. A good leader is constantly learning and growing. Be a visible presence to your people and get to know them, both on a professional and personal level.
Define your mission and vision. Take ownership of the company mission and make it your own. Develop a passion for reaching goals and share your motivation and inspiration with others. Contribute what you can to help others to succeed. As others benefit, so will you as their leader.
Be willing to take risks. Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without some element of risk. For the leader of an organization or the manger of a company, risks must be taken to some extent every day. Things you must do that involve some risk include: being honest: (not everyone will like what you have to say); standing up for your beliefs (there will always be someone who challenges them); making decisions and acting on them (you could be wrong); trying something new; (you could fail). And perhaps the biggest risk of all: be accountable for the company’s success! Risk taking never comes easy, even for true leaders, but true leaders do understand the importance. They know that taking risks is the only way to move forward and make your dreams and goals a reality.
Monitor your results. In order to know how far you’ve come, you have to know where you began. Keep track of progress and measure results. Take a close look at what’s working and what isn’t and be prepared to make the necessary decisions to change things and make them work.
Following these simple principles will help every individual understand that the true qualities of leadership are there inside themselves waiting to be set free.
It was one of those typically spectacular sunny March afternoons in Fountain Hills, Arizona. Tops were down on many cars and the golf courses were buzzing with activity. It seemed as though everyone was outside. Everyone, that is with the exception of seventeen business leaders engaged in an enthusiastic leadership conversation at the home of Bob Ditta, former President of Dental Services Group.
George Obst and Bob Ditta, former Chairman and President of Dental Services Group
George Obst, DSG former Chairman, and Ditta were there to contribute to The Leaders Institute, a collaboration between the Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce and John Hersey International. It’s mission is to provide business leaders with an opportunity to tune into a high level leadership conversation by exposing them to a variety of businesses and business leaders. The opportunity today was for these local leaders to learn from two leaders that led their team to purchase the Dental Services Group business and then grow that business, in a highly competitive category of 14,000 Dental Labs serving 118,000 Dentist, to double it’s size in fourteen years, without acquisition.
When Obst and Ditta, along with two other DSG executives, purchased the business through a leveraged buyout, it consisted of 34 Dental Labs across the United States doing approximately $30 Million in annual revenue. When the group sold DSG in 2005 it’s revenue’s were in the $60 million range.
This Livingroom Leadership session covered topics like:
the 4 original partners are as different, behaviorally speaking, as different could be. How were they able to allow those differences and still run a successful company. George Obst offered that the solution was a clear delineation of responsibilities, largely tied to the individuals strengths. Ditta added that there was a remarkable consistency in values. Each of the partners was committed to growing the business through employee relations and development. Unlike many of their competitors, DSG took on training, at all levels, like no other company. The strategy was to help the employees learn more and achieve higher levels of knowledge and competence in their jobs. The belief was that it would actually lead to significantly lower turnover levels, more loyalty and thereby increased customer support and service. It worked!
Creating Your Own ceremonies. Each year DSG spent gobs of money to put on it’s annual leadership meeting in Scottsdale (where else?). The teams would arrive with great expectation, primarily for the awards dinner. A pretty extravagant affair for nearly 300, the recognition awards always stole the show. Obst and Ditta agree that “recognition has always and will always be the key to motivation and employee loyalty.” Obstencouraged all the Leaders Institute participants to create ceremonies, even if they were solo-preneurs.
Performance accountability and reviews. Everyone at DSG, from the person working on a bench crafting, grinding and polishing the caps ordered by our dentists, to the Chairman and President, had annual goals. And, the leadership team, some 65 strong were trained to manage to those goals. Every employee had an annual review and the subject of goals was always discussed. As Bob Ditta put it, “Goals don’t lie. You either achieved the goal or you didn’t. If you didn’t, the why is relatively unimportant. How we can do better next quarter or next year is the key.”
Educational goals. Everyone in the company had to have an educational goal. What were they going to do to get better at their job? DSG was willing to invest in these classes and seminars because, in keeping with the values of the 4 partners, training and development would pay dividends way beyond the cost.
Listening. Listen to your customer, listen to your prospects, lost customers and employees. Then have a system in place where what you have heard can be acted upon. This is the bullet to excel, be the best. You will hear and observe everything you need to dramatically improve on a regular basis.
Dental Services Group implemented strategies that were way ahead of the competition, at the time. We look at these strategies as sound, basic leadership habits that work every time. Well, I don’t know about every time, but these sure did work for George and Bob and Dental Services Group.
You may have a boss. You may have a manager. You may have a team leader that you need to report to. But just because you aren’t “the boss” doesn’t mean that you don’t have good ideas to contribute to the company. Good managers and leaders listen to, and value the input and suggestions of their employees. But all too often, despite a leader’s willingness to listen, this message has not been relayed adequately to the employees. As a result, employees are often hesitant and/or afraid to offer suggestions or to open up with their ideas.
The idea of a “suggestion box” is age old, but many companies and organizations have eliminated them, seeing them only as a receptacle for grievances and complaints. A well run suggestion campaign, can however, be successful if organized properly. When a manager has a sincere commitment to making the program work, they get everyone involved, and offer rewards that will motivate employees to contribute, a suggestion program can do great things. In some companies contributors’ ideas have led them to accomplish everything from saving money to creating new products; from eliminating unnecessary procedures to improving overall quality.
All it really takes to run a successful suggestion program is the effort, the commitment and some positive reinforcement. Here are some things a manager can do to get a great suggestion program started:
_Create a well publicized and positive employee suggestion program. Make sure that senior management is fully behind the program and then advertise it prominently to all employees. Send out personal letters to encourage employee participation.
_Develop an easy to use suggestion form that is detailed enough to allow the contributor to include details such as how much money may be saved, what the benefits of taking this action would be, and what their recommended plan of action might be. Include right on the form a thank you for the suggestion, as well as a time frame for expecting comments from the suggestion committee.
_Maintain interest and participation by acknowledging all responses right away. If employees start to feel that the program is not taken seriously, they will lose interest and no longer offer ideas.
_Create a suggestion committee to evaluate ideas made up of a cross section of employees from various departments and who hold a variety of positions. Give this committee the power to initiate action upon suggestions in a timely manner.
_Once a suggestion has been accepted and is going to be acted upon, notify the contributor right away. Then keep them updated as to the progress of implementation of their ideas, and encourage their ongoing communication as the project progresses.
_Recognize contributors with some form of reward and make the presentation of the award public. This might include such things as a little write up in the monthly newsletter, a posting on a company bulletin board or acknowledgement at a monthly staff meeting.
_Most of all: make it positive, fun and worthwhile for everyone!
Empowerment is a business buzzword that has been around for a long time and yet it is surprisingly misunderstood. Some see it as management’s way of making employees feel as though they have power when really they don’t, making it more of a “now you have the power to do as you’re told” situation. But true empowerment can change an entire business and accomplish great things. Good managers and leaders understand that true empowerment means sharing their power with the people over whom they have power. When individuals and team members believe that they have the power to make decisions that were previously left only to managers they become committed and driven employees.
The 3 Benefits
There are three great benefits gained from empowerment that works: Ideas, Synergy and Ownership. Let’s explore these:
Ideas: The old expression “two heads are better than one” was never more aptly used than in this situation. When employees feel empowered to offer up ideas and suggestions, great things can, and often do, happen. One of my favorite examples came from an employee at a clothing company who suggested “the gravity fed pattern system”. Now, this sounds pretty fancy but all the invention really amounted to was a basic laundry chute. In a large clothing manufacturing company, the clothing patterns were printed on the second floor and the cutting machines were on the first floor. This inevitably meant that when new patterns were needed someone had to run from the first floor to the second to retrieve the patterns. When an astute employee suggested constructing a “laundry chute” for delivering the patterns, the team set to work to put the idea in motion. Not only did the system save everyone valuable time, but everyone had fun contributing suggestions and watching the idea come to life.
Synergy: Synergy is defined as “two or more units working together to achieve a greater effect than individuals can do by themselves”. When the employee in the above story first put his idea into words, others jumped on board to help bring the project to fruition. Someone thought of a way to box in the structure, another recommended lining the reception box with foam to protect the patterns and yet another came a catchy name to put on the door. And so the “Automated Gravity Fed Pattern Delivery System” was born out one empowered group of employees. Since the alternative to this system was going to be moving the large printer to the first floor and constructing a whole new room for it, it goes without saying that the company saved a ton of money!
Ownership: Empowerment gives employees ownership of a project or plan. This in turn creates a desire to participate in, enthusiasm for, and commitment to, the company’s success. The team in the above example owned this project and was determined to see it through. When employees have no ownership, they have no interest or desire in contributing new ideas.
We have long said that leadership is not nearly as complicated as we have made it, but we never said it would be easy. Most things worth doing have a challenging side to them. That’s what makes them worth doing. Leadership is one of those things.
How do you want people to remember you when you die?
Why are you alive?
Why does your business exist?
What does it do and offer others?
How do you want people to see it?
What’s your business?
All the questions above refer to purpose. They dig deep into the motivations and suppositions that are essential and tied to your visions, values, goals, and improvement strength. Vision, values, and purpose, are the three elements of Focus and Context, and they are all crucial.
Other popular names for purpose are: mission, meaning, reason for being, life theme, calling, niche, strategic intent, value-add, and business definition. No matter the name, you, your team, and your business, must possess clear answers for the questions above, everyone must understand them clearly, and they should be used constantly.
This being said, the worst purpose you can ever have is money. If your business’s reason for being is making money, it won’t succeed. Your business will probably disappear sooner than later. Money is not a cause, it doesn’t fire up the spirit, there is nothing that motivates and excites less than operating margins and investment returns. The quest for money is a weak and unproductive main goal. It is pure greed, and serves individuality. It derives from, and moves toward, a selfish purpose: “what I can get out of this”.
Money hunters only worry about themselves. If you center on money rather than on the things that bring money in, you are so internally and short-term oriented that you are aggressively destroying the delivery of service.
Almost no one wants to buy from, work for, or partner, with a business that only wants to make money for itself. You are openly saying, “If you all work very hard and give your best, one day this is what you will achieve” while you show your team the picture of a yacht and a luxurious mansion.
In the same way, your business wo’t survive long enough to serve a higher purpose if it is not profitable and strong economically. Every business requires clear financial goals and priorities. No small business can afford waste and inefficiency; you require effective measurement systems and feedback to get rid of the activities that are not crucial in order to center on the ones that will produce profitable results.
This is the irony behind a business’s purpose: if it exists just to make money it won’t last long, and if it doesn’t pay attention to money, it won’t be able to survive to fulfill a worthy purpose.
Hunting for money without a meaningful purpose, or hunting for a purpose without money, are equally bad strategies. These aren’t options, but problems that need to be tackled. However, do it right. There are many studies on the influence of values and ethics that have proven that money comes from valuable and constructive purposes. Focus on your purpose, and the money will come as a reward. The size of the reward will depend on the value of the service we provided for others.
A purpose centered on helping others in some way, offers a stronger sense of meaning to our lives. It responds to our profound need to make a difference, to believe that this world is a better place because of our contribution, however small.
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