Extreme View

We have all met extreme people in our time. Each individual brings their own extreme to the table in a different area, and for good reason. When someone is extreme in their convictions they are typically far away from our stance on the same subject, but they have a true passion for what they believe in. This can refer to religion, strategic plans, sales tactics, or simply a passion about what food they put in their body. And they need an extreme view because most of us will not waver from our positions without a strong incentive to do so. We are creatures of habit and we tend to be stagnant, not buying into new ideas quickly.

I know a man that is the sales person for a finance company and is excellent at his job. He travels the country selling his finance program to stores everywhere and teaching their sales people how to use the product. He has a total belief and a passion for his product which is one reason he is excellent at his job. The other reason is that when he presents to an individual or an entire organization he is ‘extreme’ in his pitch. In his sales pitch he tells people that they need to change their entire sales process in order to incorporate his program. But the magic of this is that when he teaches, he leaves subtle hints on how to incorporate his program in bits and pieces that will  be very effective without fully implementing his process. He is pitching his program in its entirety while leaving breadcrumbs on how it can be incorporated without changing an entire sales process. He has to be extreme in his approach in order for the people he’s pitching to meet him 1/2 way and begin to implement his program. If he’s lackluster and only sounds half as convincing, the people he’s pitching are only going to meet him 1/4 of the way to where he wants them.

Many business authorities that have talked about the dangers of allowing organizations to ‘split the difference’ and it’s negative impacts. I agree that it can be detrimental in cases, especially when it is within an organization that is rolling out new ideas or internal program. However, in this instance, splitting the difference in going from NOT using a finance program to trying out a finance program because the sales person was so convincing has helped bring the company over $1,000,000 in financed customers since that extreme presentation. The sales person has to be extreme on one side to get his potential clients to meet him half way and begin to use his program. And the next step in his brilliant process is to incrementally bring them closer to his ‘extreme’ stance as his customers use his finance program more and more. The more they see it’s success at 1/2 way implementation, the closer he can bring them to be 100% implementing his process.

Are people meeting us 1/2 way or even 1/4 of the way to something we believe in? Maybe the answer is to have a more extreme view to get them closer to what we believe. Pick a Direction and be extreme!

Copy of a Copy

Expansion is a intense path to trek. Many companies talk today about ‘scaling’ (which is just a fancy term for ‘growing’) their businesses. And in this scaling process said businesses aim to replicate their exact models in different cities or locations. Some examples would be expanding restaurant chains, online businesses focused on the hyper-local (original idea for Epic Day), and any franchise under the sun. Where many of them run into road blocks is their lack of processes and ultimately their lack of training, I have experienced this first hand.

Michael Keaton starred in a movie released in 1996 about a man who clones himself, called Multiplicity. And as one of the greatest actors of the late 80’s/early 90’s shows us, we cannot make a copy of a copy. If something is going to be replicated, it needs to be replicated from the original template. If not, the copies begin to get farther and farther away from their core template. What might appear as a small blemish on the first copy, tends to come out as huge skid mark on the copy of that copy.

When I trained sales people I would run across this issue frequently: We would train a new store owner on the processes and techniques to sell furniture and then they would teach their sales people. After we taught the store owners, they would not always retain the information we gave them and some would intentionally leave out parts and add their own twists. The details are irrelevant, what is important is that they changed what was taught and the template had now shifted. Then the store owner would train their new hires to sell furniture based on how they did it. The same would happen with the new sales people: change some, add some, drop some. So by the time many sales people were in action they had moved so far off the beaten path, aka the core sales process we ware teaching, that they were in a world of their own. I did my best to teach the exact same processes each time during training classes so when these sales people made their way to me, I could get them back on track and as close to the core process as possible.

This is relevant because businesses looking to ‘scale’ today need to understand that having a plan in place and process to follow is crucial to the long-term development of the business during expansion. If there is not a defined process in place and the scaling of the business hinges on exact or even remote replication of that core idea, than the growth will not take the path originally planned. For some organizations that is OK, autonomy is good, and they are content with variations from location to location. But for others, the scale needs to be exact and calculated because the processes are what create success for the organization.

Be Ourselves

When many of us come into new work environments we are faced with a fork in the road: Do we attempt to fit into the role we’ve just been hired for or do be ourselves.

It is unfortunate that we are hired and fired this way, placing our ‘square’ personalities into round ‘holes’ of job descriptions, but that is the way most businesses are run today. However, we can all overcome this and still thrive in the positions we’re hired for if we stay true to ourselves.

When I was hired with the furniture company the person I worked for walked around chirping to me that I was going to be a replica of him. One day I had enough of the non-sense and stopped him in his tracks to tell him that if he wanted a replica of him he would need to fire me and find someone else. I never wanted to be him and even if I did, the best him that I could be would be a second or third rate… I could never be him. Instead, I explained, “if you allow me to be me and work in this role with the strengths that I have, I will thrive and I will help you build this company as best as I can.” This conversation took place in 2008, less than a month after I was hired full time and I stayed until July of 2013, keeping my promise throughout my tenure.

This anecdote is useful for us all to learn how we can make the mistakes of trying to fit ourselves and those we hire into the wrong positions. If we hire someone who is not good with people to be in sales, we are setting them up for failure before they even get started. If we try to find jobs in a field such as accounting where we attention to detail is critical, yet we know we’re scatter-brained, we are setting ourselves up for failure. In both of these scenarios, the best we can be is mediocre.

On the flip side of this coin, if we find the position that matches our talents with our passions (referred to by Dave Ramsey and his crew as “The Sweet Spot”) we can and will thrive. Focusing on what we are good at is the only way to push the limits of  what is possible. Think about it for a moment, would a would a chemist that has worked in labs his entire life up and quit to go start a finance company? Probably not, and that is often the shift we make when taking new jobs or hiring for them. We need to look for that intersection of talents and passions, otherwise we’re only fooling ourselves into being a second rate version. Instead, be ourselves.

I was fortunate enough to know about my own strengths from my past in sports and some of my professors at CSU, enabling me to be aware of this before I everattempted to be someone I’m not. The book StrengthsFinder 2.0 helped me have a better awareness of what my strengths are, one of my professors gave it to me years ago and I have read the entire series by Tom Rath since. I would highly recommend it to learn more about what makes each of us tick, we need to know ourselves to be ourselves.

Group-Think

 Group-think can be great. However, it has many downfalls and can mislead many organizations if it’s not balanced out, here are some collaboration comments.

Everyone wants to come out and say that teamwork is best, or two heads are better than one, or collaboration is king… I have heard more group-work terms than I care to spout, but more often than not these are simply feel-good sayings and the teamwork is not curated properly. Group-work can be über-productive, but here are a few things to note:

A team leader is necessary for group-think

Yes, we want to encourage others to step up and no we don’t want the person in charge to run the entire session. The person chosen for team lead must be a balanced-thinking person that is not going to push their own agenda.

This is a perfect opportunity to encourage someone to “step up” and show what they’re made of. Maybe this is a up and comer in the organization or maybe this is the out-spoken person who does great solo work, each person should get a shot at being this team lead to get a feel for it.

If no distinct lead is defined, my next point will come to fruition immediately AND people will be on their own agendas versus being accountable to the team lead. When it’s time to define roles, there needs to be one clear voice.

One person’s ideas will trump other’s because they’re the loudest, not because they have the best idea

Be sure to have anonymous brainstorms: Don’t just let one person control the flow of ideas, put all ideas on a whiteboard or note cards without people’s names by them when brainstorming. List as many as possible, we won’t use them all.

List all ideas whether they’re good, bad, or obvious: One mistake groups often make is that nobody wants to be the first to push the envelope and come up with crazy ideas. So instead of speaking up, we wait until there’s a good list to be present and then try to slip it in. The problem here is that the good ideas don’t come until the group is 18 minutes into brainstorming and we’ve only allotted 20 minutes, so the best ideas don’t get the time they need to be explored.

The individuals that don’t speak up are often introverts that don’t want to look “dumb” in front of a group. A group leader needs to direct questions to them specifically and give them the opportunity to speak without interruptions. If they don’t receive this encouragement, their ideas will never blossom without being given the floor.

Having individuals work solo on a project can give ideas another layer of depth

As each of us work together we are influenced by each other’s words and thoughts. In solitary settings we can instead focus on one individual thought and “go down a rabbit hole” with it, exploring all angles of possibility. One way to do this is have each team member spend 5-10 solo minutes exploring thoughts/solutions before coming together for the big picture.

A clear option should always be chosen

Another major downfall of collaboration in teams is no clear direction after coming up with a number of solutions. The final verdict should be written down and explained thoroughly before breaking so the final vision is clear.

Each individual should be assigned specific tasks coming out of this collaboration, whether it’s working solitary or with team members so that clear expectations are set for them.

A brief follow-up session should be held shortly after the team breaks in order to make sure everyone is working on their respective puzzle pieces properly. This part frequently catches teams, they will assign work and then come together a day before the deadline and one individual didn’t understand their assignment. Because one person didn’t understand their role, they wasted hours of time working on something that didn’t fit with the rest of the group. At this point a scramble occurs and the project is not what it could be.

Group-think can be very helpful, but structured collaboration is more effective than randomly throwing people into a room with a problem and a whiteboard.

Simple, not easy

In my former life in the furniture industry, I had a saying that I frequently used when training sales people: “This business is simple, not easy.” I would often get confused looks in return so I began to explain in more detail as soon as I would spout it off, attempting to motivate new sales people in my class prior to their return back home.

The best business ideas lack complexity: we have X product that costs us Y dollars, we will add our personal brand and value to sell it for Z and make profit. From here we begin to add strategies, vendors, sales processes, customer acquisition, inventory, forecasting, logistics, and more growth oriented components to your business model. However, X, Y, and Z are still the core of your business and will have very little change from Day 1. Where many small businesses fail is their obsession with all the fluff around their core process. Over-complication of a business plan will stop people dead in their tracks because they become overwhelmed with everything outside of their core process and cannot determine what is important and what should be swept aside. Making everything priority level one.

In the furniture business, it was simple: get X product for Y price, use small margins and guerrilla marketing tactics along with a creative sales process and sell it for Z to make a profit. Buy more product and repeat. The marketing was straightforward and low cost so the prices were able to say low and the business encourages repeats and returns. Where that business needs to capitalize on their opportunities is to infuse a level of customer service unseen by any in the industry, something much easier said than done.

Where the confusion comes in for many people is thinking simple is easy… WRONG. Simple means there is no complication and we have a compass that tells us exactly what needs to be done. Once that confusion is out of the way, hard work rears it’s ugly head and we have to grind and dig to repeat that process over and over again to get to that final goal. So many of us get hung up on the planning and the “fluff” around the core concept that we forget how to make things happen: X, Y, and Z. The best businesses cut through the red tape, define X,Y, and Z and work hard every day to get there. Once that core is solidified we can move on to improving them and the other processes previously mentioned, but not until those are stable.

As we all can imagine, this is where many sales people were lost, when I explained the difference in simplicity versus ease. There is a high turnover in the company for sales people, but the ones who embraced the idea of simple, not easy were the ones who worked harder than others and coincidentally succeeded. As managers and leaders we need to look for opportunities to simplify our processes and get to the core of what is important so the people around us have a clear direction and all they have to do is work hard to get it. Problems are rarely solved by adding more to the equation, instead look for what can be taken away to simplify.

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Leave me a comment or chat with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear from you. Have a great weekend!

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Learn to follow

Sometimes the most important thing a leader can do is follow. I write a lot about leadership and what it means to be a great leader, but some of the most pivotal moments that define us require that we take a back seat to someone else and learn to follow. There are often times when we simply do not have the best ideas or we are not in the position to lead the team like it needs to be led. These situations can vary and they do not come up every day, but they are crucial when they do.

Imagine for a moment that there is a team meeting and budgets talks or new project development or a brainstorming session is going on and the leader is in the room. Someone that is not in a leadership position speaks up with a fantastic idea that can save the company money and speed up productivity, but they are the only one with enough expertise to carry the idea out. The leader(s) will be in a special spot to crush the idea or to let it blossom by making a move of encouragement. If the leader doesn’t fall in line and show support for that lower level team member, nobody else will believe it him either. In a sports setting, it also happens when new coaches come to established teams. The team captain (official or not) has the choice to step in line with the new coach and defer to them OR the captain can rebel and influence the entire team to do the same.

Our leadership is not always about dictating and ordering (although that is needed from time to time), instead it is about how we carry ourselves and how we treat others. In the same business setting above, imagine if that lower level team member gets shut down or embarrassed by the leader(s) who tell them it’s a stupid idea simply because they don’t understand it. That team member AND all others will never have the courage to bring up outlandish ideas again in that setting, which will inevitably stifle growth. On the flip side of that coin, that lower level person can start a wave of people speaking up for improvements in their respective areas and create a quick moving culture of autonomous thinkers always looking for ways to improve their respective positions. Leadership is about knowing when to lead and when to follow. We need to be open enough to see those opportunities and humble enough to take them.

“Learn to give and take dictation” – The Red Hot Chili Peppers in the song 21st Century

 

I heard this song lyric by Anthony Keidis in 2006 and it struck such a cord with me that it’s become one of favorite songs on the double CD. What’s interesting is that most of the time, his lyrics barely make sense and he seems to be simply throwing things together that rhyme, while this is very thought out and calculated.

Twenty-twenty

The easiest thing we can do is scrutinize someone’s work: hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

After someone has shipped their product/masterpiece/idea we too often come behind them and tell them what they did wrong. Yes it is difficult to have foresight and see what issues may arise and what imperfections are visible, however it is even harder to ship. Too often we find ourselves making these criticisms of others’ work prior to analyzing how difficult it is for them to finish.

Finishing is difficult for most and impossible for others, do not be quick to break someone down. All too often that urge to break someone down stems from our jealousy. If we are going to give feedback on a project or idea that has shipped, be sure to give it out of truth and with encouragement. Honest feedback on how to improve someone’s idea goes a long way, if it is asked for and if it is not projected down. Nobody wants to hear, “That’s a great painting, but it would have been better with a blue background.” In business terms that sounds like: “You did a great job with your team, but next time you should use a power point presentation.”

I loathe most analysts because they make a living out of scrutinizing other people’s work with little or no experience. Explaining why a coach made a wrong call on Monday is easy, but to be in the coaches position on Sunday with 1:13 left and make a decision is infinitely harder. It is  baffling to me that people can sit on the sidelines and simply critique what others do without actually being in the industry (broadcasting is not sports, fyi) and be paid to talk about the successes and failures of others. Although that is a sports analogy – on the sidelines – it is applicable to all areas, i.e. fashion, faith, art, music, family, and more.

When we ship, we know how hard it is to do so and we should not take shots simply because we can. If we see others shipping and we see an area for improvement, we should bring it up without being harsh or degrading their finished product. And if we have not shipped yet we have something to say about someone who has, we should eat our words and use them as inspiration to finish our own project. Anyone who ships is more likely to take the advice of others who have shipped over those who have not. And that puts those who have shipped in a position of influence, do not abuse that position, instead use it to help those looking to follow your footsteps.

The Year Without Pants

Just as I write each day, I read as well. I feel it is imperative to continue to challenge my mind by exploring new topics and articulating my findings as they relate to the business world. I feel inspired by the most recent book I just finished- The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the future of work by Scott Berkun.

As the title suggests, and as you can imagine, WordPress.com is a very forward thinking company with non-traditional styles of work collaboration that would throw most of us into a tailspin even before we got started. WordPress.com hosts a majority of the world’s blogs and is constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible plus the entire company works remotely. They have offices but they are rarely used and the preferred method of communication is written; one may go months before they ever hear someone else in the companies’ voice, much less talk to them face to face. This style works great for them and although the book is not dedicated to remote work, it does challenge the status quo for many companies on that issue as well as employee autonomy and collaboration methods.

The book is told from Scott Berkun’s first person perspective and he gives in depth feedback on how teams (new to the company at the time) operate, lessons they learned, and and what he did to push the boundaries of the organization. He was hired to work as a team lead, not having prior experience at the company and having to mix into a new culture. This first person perspective gives the book life and a story line as it infuses business lessons in easy to comprehend formats, I will be finding some more work by Berkun soon.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I finished it in 9 days (about 230 pages),  and as I said, it is a much easier read than many business books because of the story line Berkun created. I would highly recommend this to book. The lessons are easily transferable, and I feel strongly that the more technology influences our lives, the more remote work will be done. The faster we adapt to this notion and embrace it, the more we can get ahead of the pack to see what’s coming.

The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the future of work by Scott Berkun