Category Archives: Business Management

Defining Leadership

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Leadership is not something that can be defined within the confines of a witty statement. In fact, it may be that you cannot easily define leadership in several pages of intelligent ramblings. My personal belief is that defining leadership is like describing a boot with nothing to go on except a boot print. Let’s see if I can describe the boot print.

First, leadership does not exist outside of the individual. It requires a host to manifest itself. This is why so many fail to capture the essence of leadership when trying to describe it as a separate stand alone quality. Leadership is not a thing to be assigned. It is, instead, a result of other “things”.

Second, leadership does to exist without followship. It works like this. Leadership exists because of followship, which exists because of leadership, which exists because of followship….

For a leader, followship comes in two forms. First, a leader gets the authority to act from their followers. Supervisors get their authority to act from higher up in a management chain. This is why you will often find that the supervisor and the leader in a group are not the same person. The supervisor will never find significant success without collaborative leadership, from themselves or someone else in the group.

The second followship comes from a leader’s willingness to follow others when necessary. Delegation and sharing of control come from trust, which is at the core of leadership. A leader knows to stay focused on those things that only they can do and delegate to others what others should be doing. A leader who will not share control is nothing more than a supervisor.

If you want to be a leader, do not seek to be a leader. I know this seems like double talk, but leadership cannot be coerced or taken like a prize.  Leadership chooses its host, when others chose to follow. In other words, you can chose to be a leader only when leadership is offered from followers. It is earned instead of assigned.

Effective Sales Training

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I want to discuss what I see as 4 critical to quality aspects of sales training.

  • Tap into existing team’s knowledge and skills
  • Have frequent, periodic, training
  • Measure sales performance
  • Try different sales training strategies

You don’t teach a child to ride a bike by riding around yourself while they watch. You have to get the child on the bike with your support and advice.  Effective sales training is handled the same way.

Most professional sales training providers teach sales strategy at the 30,000 foot level. Though this might be helpful to the sales management team, it isn’t very helpful for the individual sales people. Each sales person has different skills and knowledge, strengths and deficiencies. Teaching at the 30,000 foot level will not be effective in addressing this uneven terrain, which exists at the 10 foot level.  To be fair, an outside sales trainer does not have the time or resources to leverage this knowledge into their training program.

Bringing in an outside sales training professional is not a bad idea if you are targeting the correct people in your organization. The right people will probably be your sales management team, in a train the trainer approach.  In other words, teaching your sales management team how to teach sales. This approach leverages the sales training professional’s knowledge into your organization’s sales domain knowledge so that it can be brought to bear over the long haul instead of over a brief training session.

Actually, the best available resources to teach the individual sales people in your organization are your own most skilled and knowledgeable sales people. Leveraging their knowledge with that of the business’s sales domain knowledge is a potent way to develop your sales staff.

Training should be done periodically and often. This training is part refresher training and part skill development training.  A well managed sales team is like a well maintained hedge.  When maintained daily and carefully, the hedge stays attractive. But, if you neglect it, it will grow out of control and lose its beauty. Additionally, if after neglect you try to rein it in, you may kill it. Having frequent, periodic, training for you sales team will keep the team focused, nimble and effective. We have a sales training hour every Wednesday morning at 8:00 AM. We also have an hour of standardization training every other week in small groups.

Measuring performance sounds easier than it actually is. Are you measuring the right things and are your measurements accurate? Bernie Smith has made a post on this blog titled, “Measuring Things? Here’s a Way to Scare Yourself”.  This is good piece and should be read by anyone who is in the measuring business. Check out Bernie’s blog at “madetomeasureKPIs.com”. The key is this; make sure that the measurements you use to gauge your sales team’s performance, incentivizes them to do the things you want done. For example, closing percentage targets are easy to make if you are giving margin away. Profit margin per sale is easy to make if closing percentage is not important.

Not everyone learns the same way. Some learn best by seeing, some by hearing, and just about everyone by doing. What this means is that sending email, giving away books, and talking are never going to be enough.  No matter how you approach a particular training session, always include “doing” as part of the learning process. By changing the learning media from time to time, as well as the trainer, the learning process stays fresh.  A while back I wrote a sales tip on the bathroom mirror at the office. It only took minutes for the message to get around. It was new and fresh, and the sales staff was eager to share the tip. I waited two weeks and changed the message.  The change was not noticed for several days. The original tip became old and stale, which lead to the sales staff ignoring it. When I changed the message, no one was paying attention to what was written on the mirror anymore.

Here is the key tip regarding training anyone to do anything. People need coaching, not programming. Trainees need information that is relevant to them, fresh, and requires practice to integrate into their personal processes.

Why People Leave a Business

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This is from a LinkedIn discussion group. The question being discussed was” Do people leave a business because of its managers?” The following was my response.

“I believe the character, soul and values of a business are manifested by its leadership. This applies even if the stated mission, vision and values of a business say something different. It is a “you are what you do” sort of thing. If I am right, then people leave a business because of its leadership when there is no alignment in these areas.”

“I See You” Management

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Connectivity between human beings is the beginning of synergy.  It is written in our genetic code and expresses itself in our drive to connect to others and be part of a group. Since this is how we are wired, it only makes sense that the most effective management styles, as far as us humans are concerned, leverages this aspect of our specie’s corporate psyche.

I would call this “I See You” management. I did not coin this phrase, but since I cannot remember who did, I will use it for this post. The way I see thIngs, “I See You” management is based upon three levels of recognition.

I see you. You are there, or here, and I acknowledge your presence. This is important to the individual because we all want to be a part of the group or team. Recognition is a powerful fulfillment agent when it comes to our personal emotional bank account. This is consistent with the conclusions from Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Works experiments from the 1920’s.

I see you as a person with hopes, dreams, joys and fears. A complete person fills my vision. You cannot effectively manage a person from the perspective of seeing them as an available asset rather than as a person. The ability to motivate someone comes from knowledge of their personal value proposition. Lou Holts, as a football coach, would require the players on each special team to know their teammates full names, the names of their immediate family members and some special fact about them. Coach Holts knew that a player would block more effectively for “Bobby”, who they knew, than they would for the “running back”, even though they were the same person.

I value you for who you are, not at the level of your title or your possessions, but instead at the level of your commitment and effort. This is tricky ground because I am not speaking exclusively about commitment and effort at work. Although these are critical to acceptable performance at work, I also will also value you for your commitment and efforts on behalf of others outside of the work environment. A lot can be learned about someone by how they treat others. I was at a restaurant recently with a business acquaintance who wanted to join my business team. He was disrespectful to our waitress and others he encountered while there. Even though He was very respectful to me, I could see that he only valued people for what he wanted from them. This attitude did not fit our culture and I did not hire him.

The result of “I See You” management is trust. Trust is the interpersonal lubrication that allows successful organizations to tackle tough problems and weather the storms of uncertainty. It is also the glue that keeps a team from despair and fragmentation. It keeps an organization in alignment when other forces are trying to pull it apart.

In my daily walk through my business, I try to touch every employee with a message about their value to me and our business journey together. I expect them to do the same.  It keeps us sane, focused and successful.

Measuring things? Here’s a way to scare yourself.

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Most people agree that measuring things is key for improvement. Most organizations have a basket of key measures on which they base their decision making. Pick a measure that’s regarded as important and spend a bit of time with one of the team that uses the measure (one-on-one, this isn’t about embarrassing people) and ask how they think that measure is calculated. Make sure you find out what they think is and isn’t included in the measure.

I’ve done this lots of times and have never once had two people come up with identical definitions (more often than not, they are nowhere near)

What’s surprising is that most people seem pretty confident that the definitions are nailed down, until you go through this exercise. They will sit in meetings, debating what certain measures are showing, without realising they have completely different perspectives on what the measure is actually showing.

The solution is pretty simple. Create a KPI database (even on a spreadsheet) that nails down a measure in as much detail as possible. Keep one master-copy that is accessible and use that as the ultimate reference for all calculations. Here’s a link to a free template

To read about all things KPI, have a look at Bernie’s website www.madetomeasureKPIs.com

Sales Stratgey

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Businesses only exist as a result of consumers who purchase their products or services. Consumers drive the economy. This is why successful businesses focus on the needs of the consumer in order to fulfill the needs of the business. In plain English, this means that if you want to successfully grow your pay check, make sure that you understand and satisfy the needs of the shoppers who reach your phone or store. God bless them every one.

Thanksgiving Notes

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This will not be a post about Six Sigma or personal development. It is a time for being thankful and telling those you love how you feel.

Things I am thankful for and people I care about:

My mother and her recovery from cancer surgery.
My wife who deserves recognition for putting up with me.
My grandson Caleb who brings light into every corner of my life.
My son and the difference his life makes with others.
My daughter-in-law whom I love as if she were my own daughter.
My job and the opportunities it gives me.
My friends. Special mention: Lonnie who gave me a job, Brian and Fadi who share my burden at work.
My readers, who follow my words agree or not.

The problem is that when making a list you will undoubtably leave someone or something off by mistake. If I left anyone out, please do not take offense. I am only a human man, flawed, but saved by Grace.

Talent vs Heart

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If you follow professional football you are hearing a lot about Tim Tebow’s perceived lack of passing talent. Even so, he continues to win. So what’s up with that? If you look deeper into the story, you will find that his teammates believe in his leadership and drive, even if his head coach and the sports news talking heads do not.

Obviously, there is something else in play here. Let me explain. Talent by itself is like a box cake mix. Until you add some water and eggs, you have nothing of value. Talent without heart and drive will not win a championship for you. After coaching high school basketball for several years I found that teams who relied on their talent for success were the easiest to beat.

Success comes more from effort than talent. Yes, talent is an important ingredient to success, but it is just an ingredient. The plain truth is that there are many people with talent who are wasting away with sub-par performance because of a lack of effort. At the same time, there are people who are less talented, but because of their effort they accomplish great things.

Let me give you some exciting information. Your success depends on your effort. Sure, talent helps but effort is what carries you to the top. You can go as far in life as your effort will take you. There is no magic, no silver bullet, or short cut to success. It is all up to you. My dad used to tell me that in order to win I had to out work the competition. I have found this to be as true in business as it is in athletics.

So, put on your game face and get busy. Plan to out work and out effort the competition. Success is a choice you make, not something that just happens to you.

Personal Development and Six Sigma

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You might ask why I write about personal development on a website that is supposed to be focused on Six Sigma. This is a question that I hear from those who are trained in Six Sigma, but I rarely hear by those who are not.

The answer is that I see Six Sigma as a paradigm change for business people, not a just statistical business management program. At the end of the day, businesses are operated and managed by people. Any real change in the way things are done will happen at the people level. Failure to understand statistics will not cause a business to fail. Failure to understand the underlying, people focused reasons for why things happen in a business will lead to failure. The “why” is more important than the “what”.
Let me give an example. Business arrogance will cause a business to have a deaf ear toward customers and employees even if the business metrics show a problem. Six Sigma processes and statistics will not solve the problem of a manager who is not a believer or is protecting their turf. Therefore, a paradigm change at the individual manager level has to take place in order to bring business processes in alignment with customer expectations.

The majority of Six Sigma consultants are probably aware of the importance of existing corporate culture and its ability to adapt to the Six Sigma paradigm. At the same time, they probably do not know how to fix the problem and (or) are unwilling to walk away from the job opportunity. The resulting Six Sigma roll out fails because of failure to change the leadership culture. No one is happy as a result.

From a cultural perspective, the change is from the inside out not the outside in. No consultant can push change in an organization. Change is pulled. The impetus of pushed change comes from desire that is outside the organization. The impetus for pulled changes comes from the organization’s internal desire to change. This is where the rubber meets the road in Six Sigma.

Circle of Influence

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The concept of a circle of influence has been around for a while. For me, Stephen Covey’s description was the most influential. Just in case some of my readers have not had much thought time with the concept, your circle of influence incorporates those people, organizations and circumstances you are able to influence in some way.

Each of us, as individuals, or even as a business/organization, has some control over expanding or contracting our circle of influence. Obviously, for growth to take place, the expansion of your circle of influence is important, as long as it is for the right reasons.

Breaking things down to a simplistic philosophical level, I see four sets of opposing forces at work. Each set is made up of a quality that will expand your circle of influence and a quality that will contract it. These are:

Self-honesty/Self-deceit
Reality centered/Self-centered
Self-confidence/ Self-doubt
Self-Esteem/Self-condescension

Bear in mind that balance is important in any relationship and the same is true here. Going too far in the direction of self-honesty, for example, can be as bad for you as practicing self-deceit. Our wishes and dreams are not always in the realm of reality, but can still be used to give direction and motivation to our lives.

Being honest with yourself is critical for any forward progress with your personal life. If you consider a business/organization a self-contained entity, the same relationship to forward progress applies. Being honest with yourself allows you to make quality decisions based upon facts and the truth. The fear of the facts, or the truth, is a sign of deception and untrustworthiness that will contract your circle of influence. No matter how hard you try to hide it, others can see right through you.

Being reality centered means realizing that you are very seldom at the center of the universe, as a person or as a business/organization. Actually, in the human experience, the center of universe changes along with circumstances and priorities. When others see a reality base perspective about what is important, your circle of influence grows because trust and confidence in your opinions and perspectives grows. When others see a consistent self-centered perspective, your circle of influence shrinks along with trust in your opinions and perspectives.

It is difficult to make quality decisions when you doubt yourself. Whereas it is prudent to evaluate your abilities in specific circumstances, to always doubt yourself is not. Just think of how the world would be different if people like Edison or Einstein let self-doubt prevent them from making bold statements and decisions. On the other hand, being over confident has its own problems. People want to be lead either directly or indirectly, so they pay more attention to self-confident people and pity those lost in self-doubt. Your circle of influence expands with self-confidence until the tipping point of arrogance is reached.

I consider self-esteem to be one of the most important of human perspectives. It is the firewall that allows you to operate interdependently with others in our social network. When self-esteem is healthy, you are not nearly as dependent on other people’s opinion or criticisms of you. When self-esteem is low (self-condescending), your voice joins other voices in criticizing and bullying you. The resiliency that comes with good self-esteem expands your circle of influence because others appreciate your emotional strength and stability.

All of this can be state in a unified way. Being honest, confident, grounded and emotionally strong will expend you circle of influence. This expansion results in more opportunity on multiple levels.