Get your attitude right! Yes, the last couple of years have been rugged! They have been rugged for everyone. So, get over it and start thinking like a leader. Concentrate on what is possible rather than why you can’t accomplish your goals.
Get your team’s attitude right! Identify everyone on your team with an attitude challenge and give them 30 days to make it right (it actually only takes a moment). Sure there are challenges but they are either on the team or not, they are either thinking about solutions or challenges.
Hire the best people for the job! If you are not matching behaviors, competencies and talents for each job you will suffer the consequences later. Stop drooling over resumes and interviews! Benchmark every job. Assess every candidate before falling in love with them during the interview, then match the assessment to the job. This will take all the emotion out of the hiring/promotion process and produce vastly superior results with far less turnover.
Hire slow and fire fast! If someone you hire or promote isn’t cutting it, you’ll know in 90 days or less. Don’t let your mistakes linger. Act on it. Step up and move on.
Get rid of all the micro-managers! Not only are they annoying but they are stifling creativity, motivation, morale, innovation and the development of future leaders. They may produce short-term results but it will be at the expense of the future of your organization.
Apply the Rule of 3! Have every person in your organization outline the top 3 tasks they need to complete in the next 30, 60 and 90 days that will contribute to achieving the organization’s mission and goals. Focus relentlessly on these 3 tasks and monitor, measure and celebrate the successes. Don’t let anything interfere with the accomplishment of these 3 tasks.
Stop doing those time-wasting performance reviews 2X per year! Have a 15 minute conversation with every employee every 30 days to check in on the progress on the Rule of 3. Focus on:What is working?
Why is it working?
What is the ideal?
What is not working?
What is needed?
What is the plan?
Ask your employees how you can help them achieve their 3 tasks, rather than telling them what to do.
Apply generous recognition! An authentic and heart-felt “Thank You” will keep most employees far more engaged for longer than you might think.
Love the employees and customers you have! Just for the next 30 days spend more time loving the employees and customers you have than trying to attract new ones.
Spend some time considering the culture you have created. Is it positive or negative? Do people lead or wait to be lead? Is the focus on solutions or challenges? Are you developing future leaders or mindless followers? Are people excited about the challenges or do they dread going to work?
However you answer these questions, ask yourself the same 6 questions as in #7 above.
What is working?
Why is it working?
What is the ideal?
What is not working?
What is needed?
What is the plan?
Developing a Contagious, high performance culture is not nearly as complicated as you might think. One thing we know for sure is that it can’t be done sporadically. Talking about your ideal culture and leadership once a quarter at the all employee meeting or once a year at the annual conference doesn’t cut it. Leadership development is an ongoing process, every day, every week, every month. Create an ongoing leadership conversation that every employee is allowed to participate in and you’ll build a productive, high energy culture that serves as a strong foundation for your future.
Have you ever thought about the power of the watermelon seed?
This tiny little seed has the power of creating a fruit that is 200,000 times its weight. It draws whatever nutrients it needs from the dirt and sun and colors a unique spherical, almost psychedelic rind by smearing various tones of green, and then creates a white rind inside and within that a crunchy, juicy succulent red center, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of yet another fruit that’s 200,000 times its weight. If an itsey, bitsey teeney, weeney seed can draw that much power from a handful of dirt, imagine what we can do.
Sometimes we get in the rut of thinking that we need more of something to grow, to be better, to be happier or more successful. We know, from working with people from all over the world, that we have all we need to be 200,000 times more that we are today. We have the power of the watermelon seed to create a magnificently unique and outstanding individual.
Here’s a way to get started. Get a handful of dirt and put it at your desk and know you have everything you need to be truly great!
Too many so-called leaders spend their days looking for mistakes. How much fun can that be?
Try catching people doing great things and then recognize them. It’s more fun and will help you create an organization of hi-performance contagious leaders.
Practice catching your folks doing great things for 21 days and let us know the results. You’ll be amazed!
The greatest breakthroughs happen after major breakdowns.
Leadership bench strength will be a huge factor in the coming recovery. Those organizations that build strong benches will win. Every other organization will either lose of barely hold on. Allowing your leaders to take risks, try, and even fail on occasion will build strength from real experience. Micro-managing will build weakness.
How’s your bench strength?
Gives us your comments so we can all benefit and build strong teams.
I witnessed something remarkable recently. After delivering the opening keynote speech for First American Equipment Leasing’s annual sales kick-off meeting, the Chairman and co-founder, delivered his state of the company address.
I have seen and heard these hundreds of times. The Chairman/CEO runs through the results from the previous year, acknowledges a few folks, talks about how important the upcoming year is and tells the audience they are the “best team in the league” and “together we deliver a huge years this year”.
That was only part of what the Chairman of First American did. After the review and the projections for the year he came down from the platform, among the people. Then, he asked if they could have a candid conversation. He went back to 2008 and reviewed 6-8 goals that had been outlined for the next 3 years. He asked the group for their candid opinion on what had been done well, which areas they had missed the mark on and which were not worth pursuing at all.
As the opinions and comments began to come forward he did not try to defend, convince or persuade. He actually listened. He noted what was being said, asking others if they agreed. An actual dialogue ensued the likes I have rarely seen. As the outsider in the room I was totally impressed while at the same time being somewhat envious. I had always wanted to work for or with a company like this.
The Chairman admitted that neither he nor the executive leadership team had all the answers and that the company was only as good as the great people in the room. As I looked around the room I could not help but notice a confidence, a belief, a commitment, an attitude of pride and determination. Each person, in their way, seemed focused on what they could do to help the company take on its mission for 2011. This is a company with a goal to revolutionize an industry. Now, that’s a big goal! Creating ownership in that vision is the first step to making it happen. The Chairman accomplished both, in my mind, in a 30 minute session. It was a pleasure to watch a revolution in the making.
It all started when he did not presume to know it all.
Several weeks ago we spoke to a group of realtors about using Social Media to build their business. We shot a video using a Flip Video Camera, uploaded it to YouTube and to a Landing Page on our website and sent an email to prospects inviting them (the realtors) to view the video and attend our meeting. We expected them to show up with great excitement.
They showed up.
During our talk the look on their faces was more “deer in the headlights” than “excitement.” In a world that is demanding that we change at an ever increasing pace or simply die a very slow and painful death, these folks were choosing death. Most of them appeared to want change as long as everything remained the same.
Following the meeting one of the realtors told us about an agent who was criticized by his broker for “fiddle fooling around with his computer on all this social media stuff.” “Fiddle fooling around?” C’mon. So, what did the guy do? He left the company and is now killing his business through social media connections. “Fiddle fooling around!” Now, there is an enlightened broker who needs to update his internal conversation.
Speaking of updating the conversation, who among us doesn’t need a reboot now and then. So, here is our suggestion. Conduct your very own WIDA Test (pronounced “wee-dah”) Test. It stands for “What I DO Audit.” It’s simple.
1. Sit down and make a list of all the things you do during the course of a day.
2. Pick three of the activities that need updating
3. Narrow your WIDA list to one
4. Give yourself 30 days to update the activity.
a. This may include getting rid of the activity completely. Or, like the “enlightened broker” it may mean selecting one of the social media and getting started with it and posting everyday for 30 days.
b. It could also mean changing the way you currently do that activity. Sometimes we get so emotionally invested in what we do and the way we do those things that change becomes an excruciating experience. So, make a little change for 30 days.
Take it from someone who has been highly resistant to change. You can change, you can change with more frequency, and you can change with less angst. It just takes practice. In the end, it’s better than dying.
Leaders normally learn leadership development, communication, and sales rules, principles, and techniques during training or while reading a few leadership books.
There are as many rules as people to declare them, and under this scenario, I wonder… which of all the rules are the best? Well, probably none, so you do yourself a great favor and ignore them.
Yes, the truth is that everything is a lot simpler than you think.
I am a leadership speaker and coach, and have discovered through personal experience, how simple selling is when you forget about the rules.
The reality is that every leader is in sales. We leaders are trying to sell something to someone every single day, all day long. To our kids, we sell the idea of doing well at school; to our colleagues, we sell projects that are meaningful to us.
Through a lot of the observation and coaching experience, I have discovered that the traditional sales process only gets people to wish they could yell, “Pleeeeaseeee! Stop selling to me and let me buy!!!!”
Their faces say it all, because no one likes to be sold, no one. So, let’s stop selling!
Yep, you read right, we have to stop selling, because when it comes to leadership, communication and selling, we have been completely deceived.
Our general notion is that we have to convince and persuade. We have been deceived.
We have been told that great sales people follow certain rules, that there are crucial principles and techniques we must learn, and we have even been given scripts to follow.
According to the rules, we have to take control early on in every sales conversation; we must qualify every prospect, isolate objections, close, isolate, and close again. We have been deceived.
The truth is that to be a great leader in sales you must be a great communicator, and to be one, you must stop selling. Why? Well, simply because PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE SOLD.
Analyze the difference between these two activities:
- When people buy, THEY are in control. Being in control feels great; THEY have the power.
- When we sell, people are pushed to agree to being sold something. People don’t like being pushed; it is uncomfortable and they feel vulnerable.
In view of this, the best way to sell something is not selling it; it is slowing down so that you can listen to what people have to say about what THEY want, and after listening, repeat what they said back to them so that they know you heard them.
If you consider that almost no one listens to others nowadays, when someone does, people feel special, and the barriers for great communication come down.
We have been deceived about leadership, communication and sales. The secret is to simply begin with someone other than ourselves in mind… Instead of selling, help people buy.
A GIFT FOR YOU-
Beverly and I are about ready to re-launch our eBook More Sales, Less Selling with updated information on using social media. The book is an entertaining, easy read with practical, proven and effective techniques. To get 2 FREE chapters just complete the form below and submit.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Steve Chandler.
“Have a mentor. Be a mentor” is what we live by and Steve Chandler was one of our first and continues to be an important mentor to us.
Steve has written more than 20 books and pretty much they all speak to the power of changing one’s perspective. Contagious leaders know that by changing their perspective they change their life! That’s just how the brain works.
We are all run by our perceptions. When we change how we see things then we change our story.
In Steve’s book, the Story of You, we immerse ourselves in ways to strip away the made-up limitations we believe about ourselves. In one of his first books Reinventing Yourself he brings to life our choice to live our lives as an “owner” or a “victim” of circumstances. Powerful stuff.
Stuff that true leaders are made of. Stuff that Steve Chandler is made of.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Dori Wittrig.
Our Contagious Leader of the week is Dori Wittrig owner of Sonoran Lifestyle Real Estate and a person who knows how to seize opportunity!
Dori had the unexpected good fortune to go out on her own. She had been in real estate with a substantial developers and was quite remarkable in how she packaged properties. Well, when she opened her real estate company in 1991, she packaged it in a robe of excellence and crowned it with the intention of cultivating an attitude of possibility in everything they created.
In the same spirit, when Real estate hit a rocky road, especially in Arizona, she saw the possibility of showcasing foreclosed properties in a big way. Today, the Sonoran Lifestyle over-the-top executive limo bus escorts eager buyers to preview a lineup of foreclosed properties. She saw the possibility and took action and now dominates the market!
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Steve Chandler.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Dori Wittrig.
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