Day 132 | You Never Have Time

What is the #1 reason I hear from leaders explaining why they do not become more systematic in the way they hire, manage, develop, and retain employees in a FUN, productive and profitable company culture?

"We don't have the time..."

The problem is this reason is a deception.

We have the time.  We just decide it is easier to do things the way we have been doing them for a little bit longer...  and that becomes years and decades of unnecessary mistakes, lost profits, and missed opportunities to change lives for the better.

The best leaders who I am privileged to serve make the time to better focus themselves, their organizations and embrace accountability to become the best they can be.

Just stop saying you do not have the time.  Everyone has the same amount of time.  The challenge is sustaining your focus, managing your schedule, and embracing accountability to achieve greatness.

Wise leaders throughout history have found ways to balance working in their business with working on their business.  You can too.

It is Friday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. How are you doing on your 3strands this week?
2. Is the work remaining to complete this week's 3strands scheduled in your calendar so you can work uninterrupted?
3. Have you scheduled your Sanctuary time later today or over the weekend for personal accountability and focus?

Stay on track.

Day 131 | It's The People

Lee Cockerell was the EVP of Operations at Disney World.  What was the #1 focus of his time?

#1:  Hire the right people.  He focused on who they hire and promote rather than working in the business.  Hang out with the right people because "...you adjust to the environment you are living in."  

By the way, how many questions do you have on your employment application?  Disney World has 136 questions.

#2:  Training, testing and enforcement.  This applies even to job candidates.  They have to watch a reality film on what it is like to work at Disney World.  25% drop out of the hiring process after the film.

#3:  Be a role model.  He had 72,000 people who had to want to get out of bed and come to work in the morning.  Tell your people you appreciate them.  Make them feel they matter.  Be careful what you do and say every second.  You are being judged constantly.

Do you see how each of these are consistent with being a 3strands LEADER?

It is Monday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. Did you take Sanctuary time over the weekend to improve your focus?
2. How did you do on your 3Strands last week?
3. Have you defined your 3Strands for this week?
4. By 9:00 a.m. this morning you should have 3Strands emails from each of your direct reports.

Stay on track.

Day 129 | Accountability on Investments

At some point we will be held accountable to the success of our investments in people, time, and stuff. Who will hold us accountable?

1. Ourselves - have you ever wished you had behaved differently?
2. Others - have others ever complained that you should have done better?
3. Last but not least depending on your perspective, God.  (Please note:  I respect your spiritual beliefs, whatever they may be.  I do not believe in an angry, judgmental God, but it is logical that someday a higher being will judge our stewardship of what we have been given.)

You can hold yourself accountable by setting clear, measurable Goals That Work each year and reviewing your progress BRIEFLY each week and day.  "Eat your elephant one bite at a time," which reminds me... 

It is Monday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. Did you take Sanctuary time over the weekend to improve your focus?
2. How did you do on your 3Strands last week?
3. Have you defined your 3Strands for this week?
4. By 9:00 a.m. this morning you should have 3Strands emails from each of your direct reports.

Stay on track.

Day 120 | Mirror, Mirror...

The enchanted mirror in the story of Snow White cannot lie.  It answers the question of the evil queen, stepmother to Snow White, when she asks, "...who is the fairest in the land?"

It's almost as if part of the enchanted mirror's response is to reflect back on the vanity of the wicked queen.

You and I are leaders.  It may surprise you, but we have "enchanted" leadership mirrors that reflect the effectiveness of our leadership systems to hire, manage, develop, and retain top performing employees who love their career with our company.

Our leadership mirrors do not lie.  Our leadership mirrors are called employees.

"Mirror, mirror in my company, tell me what you truly think of me?"

Our employees' behavior mirror the effectiveness of our leadership systems.

If we have employees who are unproductive, and/or gossips, and/or error-prone, and/or unwilling to follow our processes, and/or have other difficulties - DO NOT BLAME THEM.  Often our leadership systems are broken.

Their issues are our fault.  We hire them...  We manage them, or not...  We develop them, or not...  and worst of all, we retain them too long when some people will never be successful in our company culture.  

Our LEADERSHIP Essentials and All-In LEADERSHIP systems develop the habits of 3Strands LEADERS.  If you do not want to learn from us, please learn from somebody!  Time passes too quickly not to be the best leader possible.

It is Monday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!

1. How did you do on your 3Strands last week?
2. Did you take 20 minutes or more for Sanctuary time this weekend to improve your focus on what is most important?
3. Are you starting this week with 1-3 clearly defined MAJOR OBJECTIVES - your 3Strands for this week? (Look at them each morning.)

Stay on track.

Day 115 | Your Academy Awards

Whether you watched the Academy Awards last night or not (like me), have you ever considered organizing your own "Academy Awards" that coincides with the timing of the real event?

Recognize your employees.  Applaud your Clients.  Mimic the momentum of the real Academy Awards by sending out advance notices, sneak peeks, and other creative ticklers.

THE BOTTOM LINE:  Do you have a person who would be great at organizing this type of activity?  Someone take responsibility for it because consistency is critical to its success.  If you have that person, then it would be a shrewd move to identify a quarterly national or international event to mimic or celebrate.  Have FUN.

It is Monday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  (You should have done the following, at a minimum, in your Sanctuary time since late last Friday.)

1. Review your 2014 goals.
2. How did you do on your 3Strands last week?
3. If you have defined your 3Strands for this week?

Stay on track.

Day 110 | Review Process

Many of you are wrapping-up your 2013 employee performance review process.  Here is the simple yet comprehensive review process that we develop with our Clients.  I recommend you follow it in 2014:

1. Practice Sanctuary weekly (see my January 29 blog post).
2. Define a strategic plan for each employee that includes clear, measurable goals;  behavioral expectations;  and a career path (and more, but those are the "moving parts.")  Job descriptions are dead, static documents.  Engage people with strategic plans for their success.
3. Require each direct report to submit their 3Strands to you weekly and hold them accountable to it.
4. Automate your annual review process in MANAGEtoWIN.  (There are several unique things we recommend in regards to designing your annual performance review form also.)

If you are not doing this, then make changes NOW so you fully engage your people throughout 2014.

There are other activities that are important to be an inspirational and effective 3Strands LEADER, but this system replaces the once-a-year agonies of painful employee performance reviews with motivational Halftime Reviews.

It is Friday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. How did you do on your 3Strands this week?
2. At the end of today or at least before 9:00 a.m. Monday take Sanctuary time and hold yourself accountable to this week's 3Strands and define your 3Strands for next week?

Stay on track.

Day 108 | Character

More than one Client this week has employees with character issues.  Do you have an employee who IS A CHARACTER rather than someone who consistently demonstrates good character?

1. Try to catch character issues when hiring by being systematic in my Hire The Best - Avoid The Rest 10-step hiring system.
2. When character issues arise with employees, then write them up and make certain consequences are in place should the character issue repeat itself.
3. For every one time you catch a character issue, there are 5-10 other instances you do not know about...  BIG RISK.

Even well-behaved people of integrity can have character lapses so do not write someone off because of a mistake.  On the other hand someone who is having character issues weekly is a big risk.  You need to work those people out of your organization if they cannot correct their character issues quickly.

The solution is ACCOUNTABILITY.  Speaking of accountability...

It is Friday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!

1. How did you do on your 3Strands this week?
2. At the end of today or at least before 9:00 a.m. Monday take Sanctuary time and hold yourself accountable to this week's 3Strands and define your 3Strands for next week?

Stay on track.

Got Your Back

John DiJulius recently spoke of what he calls "Anticipatory Service" in one of his newsletters.  His example was something Amazon did recently.

Amazon contacted customers who purchased songs years earlier to offer them a free MP3 copy of those songs.  They did not try to close a new sale.  Instead Amazon gave up the profit of a small sale to communicate the value of their Cloud Player service.

They communicated to their customers:

We've got your back.  You can trust us.

I suggest you proactively look for these opportunities and capitalize on them.  The additional revenue generated by increasing and sustaining trust with your loyal Clients far surpasses the small profit you may earn with borderline integrity.  We must remember our Clients not only pay us, but refer us to new business.

It is Friday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME (that you asked for)!

1. How are you doing on your 3Strands this week?
2. Have you defined your 2014 goals? 
3. If you have defined your 2014 goals, have you looked at them this week?

Stay on track.   Email me if you need help.

Be a Systematic Leader to improve employee productivity, company profits, and the personal fulfillment of your team.  (The first person you have to manage is yourself.)

Daily LEADERSHIP Tip / Accountability

Day 5 - it is the end of the week.  As I mentioned in Day 2 of this series, sometime between late Friday and early morning on Monday is ideal for Sanctuary.  This is a time of personal accountability.

I am starting early.  Let me give you an example based on my 3 Strands for the week:

Assess

I started this "daily" newsletter six business days ago.  One of my objectives this week was to assess whether it is helping people.  Based on emails I am receiving the answer is "yes."  However, I remain committed to writing a full newsletter (instead of this) with a new idea most weeks, so this is not really a "daily" communication.  Plus, I do not send these emails on weekends or holidays.

What I am asked for is accountability.  These communications are a bit more like reminders, but we could call it "soft accountability" or encouragement.  This is why I changed the name from "Daily Leadership Tips" to "LEADERSHIP Accountability."

Status:  Complete.

Book

I am writing a book for a client.  This is the second one I have written for them.  I want to make a lot of progress - at least 50% done, if not more because we have a fairly detailed outline. 

Status:  Complete (on track to be by the end of tomorrow).

NOTE:  I do some work on Saturdays because we adopted a sibling group of four kids.  Making time for our three biological children, these children, my wife and exercise interrupts my work days so I often work a bit in the mornings and sometimes the afternoons of Saturdays.  For instance, at the moment, my wife is spending four days with our granddaughter and I'm taking care of the four new kids on my own.  This interrupts my work.

Focus

Improve my focus, particularly in the area of presenting the benefits of our new Certle application to manage multiple vendor programs and technical certifications, and MANAGEtoWIN software and services.

Status:  Complete - I made good progress this week.  Yes, this Strand is not as clear and measurable as a typical weekly objective that supports my annual Goals That Work.  However it is critical to my ability to achieve my Goals That Work this year.

How about you?  Why not give Sanctuary a try this weekend and define your 3 Strands for the upcoming week.

B.H.A.G. vs. M.G.

*Watch for our 20 Mile Challenge for ConnectWise partners, a FREE webinar series that begins in January 13. It will help you become what Jim Collins' calls, GREAT By Choice (buy his book).

Most people do a poor job of setting goals. Even more struggle to follow-up on them. 2013 can only be your game changer if you do two things well:

1. Set clear, measurable goals and pursue them relentlessly to completion. (I teach this and it is in my book, The Company Culture Challenge - Goals That Work). These are goals that you achieve in 2013. For instance, you want to increase revenue to $10 million. You do NOT set the goal at $10M and then be satisfied with $9.5M. Set your 2013 Goals That Work at realistic stretch numbers.
2. You need a B.H.A.G. or M.G. Jim Collins coined the term, B.H.A.G. for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This is the ultimate stretch goal that you rally your people around.

Last Friday we had an all-day Leadership Team meeting. I laid out an M.G. for our company that would grow our revenue 2.5X, but our recurring revenue 20X in 2013. I believe we will achieve the goal... by the grace of God.

I have observed a B.H.A.G. can be an ego trip for many people, no matter what their spiritual journey may be. I am not thrilled with the acronym, but during our meeting I suggested to my team that our goal is an M.G. - Miracle Goal. It will only happen with God's blessing.

I encourage you to set a B.H.A.G. or M.G. with your team. (And send me your idea for a better name than Miracle Goal if you have one...). Rally your team. Ride the river rapids of your business through 2013 to incredible success. YOU CAN DO IT.

P.S. Have a blessed Christmas! Laugh so hard that you cry. Dance like no one's looking. Be deeply thankful for the gift of each moment and relationships. I appreciate you and sincerely hope 2013 is your best year so far in your life's journey.

Meeting Ideas

I encourage you to set your goals as a team for your company. Group input is valuable, even if you are developing through email. However, the B.H.A.G. or M.G. comes from a visionary - it might be you, or a member of your team.

Do not let your ego stop a member of your team from defining a great Big Hairy Audacious Goal or Miracle Goal.

Here is one approach to developing 2013 goals that will rock your world in positive ways:

1. Follow the Goals That Work process to define your company objectives and cascade key goals throughout your organization.
2. Come up with a B.H.A.G. or M.G. What would you have to achieve to make your company financially secure, employees on fire for what you do, and/or provide an incredible client experience?

What is your inspiration that everyone can share? "I will be rich" is not inspiring to others or sustainable. What can you define and then provide an atmosphere for your people to motivate themselves to achieve it? "They should be happy to have a job" is not motivational. What will you do on a daily or weekly basis to pursue your Big Hairy Audacious Goal or Miracle Goal? "I will work that out later" is a plan for failure, not success. How will you recognize progress in ways your people prefer? "That's not important" or "Gift cards for anyone who does something I like" is a mistake. How will you celebrate victory? "The way I like to celebrate" will end your success early.

Contact us if you need help. There is too much on the line to pursue a B.H.A.G. or M.G. haphazardly. Our experience and ability to provide additional ideas and accountability can provide the additional lift you need to succeed.

20 Years - Never a Compliment

Imagine this: A guy works for an organization for 20 years. He tries to be creative and feels like he’s made a real contribution… but he feels no one cares.

As a leader, I try to use the 5 Languages of Appreciation with people. You and your people will benefit from doing the same. Learn about it - https://www.christianleadershipalliance.org/?page=SRbookdiscussion

Don't shy away because this article is. Learn from anyone, even groups that are different than your beliefs. If it is truth, if it is logical, if it can help you become a more effective leader, then consider piloting their recommendations for 30 days to see if it improves your company culture.

One Tip

Take a couple minutes to watch this video interview of Verne Harnish with Greg Brenneman, the former CEO of Continental and Burger King:

He talks about creating and daily/weekly communicating a one-page plan for the business that has a theme at the top and then:

1. Market plan
2. Financial plan
3. Product plan
4. People plan

He also believes as leaders we need to make certain, without being inappropriately personal, to let people know we care about their life of faith, family and friends too.

Meeting Ideas

Let's keep it simple:

1.  Create a one-page plan for an individual, workgroup, division or your company.
2. Structure how you will follow-up.
3. Hold people accountable to your plan.

Great Leaders

Great leaders do two things consistently well. First, they set clear, measurable objectives. Second, they follow-up (and follow-through).

Here is a simple test for you to evaluate your leadership in these two areas:

1. Have you set goals for your company, yourself or your people for 2011 and not followed up to confirm progress is on track on a weekly or biweekly basis? If you are not following-up, then how can you require your people to follow through consistently?
2. Do you make commitments to your staff that you will complete something by a certain date and then miss those due dates? If you miss your commitments to your people, then how can you require them to fulfill all their commitments to you and your clients?
3. Have you met with an employee about a problem and agreed to follow-up with them, but you have not followed-up as expected (yet)? What does this communicate to the employee, and how do they mirror your dysfunctional behavior to clients and coworkers?
4. Have you identified an issue that is hurting your company and procrastinated on making a decision? If you procrastinate when making important decisions, then how can you expect your employees to be decisive?

OUCH. These two skills are second only to holding yourself strictly accountable to being a person of integrity and good character. When you fully develop these two skills into consistent habits then you will be more effective than 81% of other leaders.

So why not start today? Contact us if you want coaching to help you accelerate the process.

Meeting Ideas

So you say, "This is not my problem. I already do this well." Wanna bet? If your staff is willing to be candid, then I suggest you gather a group of employees and ask for candid feedback. Or you can do this one-on-one. Basically you just need to ask the same questions I asked above to the group. Here they are:

1. What goals have I set for our company, myself, you or any of our people for 2011 and not followed up to confirm progress is on track on a weekly or biweekly basis?
2. What commitments have I made to anyone on our team that I would complete something by a certain date and then I missed the due date?
3. This year have I met with an employee about a problem and agreed to follow-up with them, but I did not follow-up as expected?
4. What issue have we identified that is hurting our company and I am the one who is delaying action being taken to resolve it?

Why is employee loyalty at a three-year low? Response to USA Today

There's an article on USAToday about a recent MetLife study, reported by Laura Petrecca that details how businesses are losing focus on their employees.

Key points:

• MetLife 9th Annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends
• Employee loyalty is at a three-year low
• Slightly more than one in three hope to find a new job in the next 12 months

This is evidence that companies are focused on getting work done instead of fully engaging their employees in a mutually-fulfilling company culture. In my opinion, this is the equivalent of driving your car 100,000 miles and never putting oil in it or getting a tune-up. At some point the car dies. In this case employees are reaching the breaking point where their relationship with their employer will end and employees will move on to what they perceive to be greener pastures with another company.

Don't let your people forget how much you need them.

Our Tax Dollars Hard At Work

There is an email going around with a picture and the following words:

"House Minority Leader  Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a  new budget.” (AP)

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two....he's on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

These are the folks that couldn't get the budget out by Oct. 1, and are about to control your health care, cap and trade, and the list goes on and on.

Should we buy them larger screen computers - or - a ticket home, permanently

This is one of their 3-DAY WORK WEEKS that we all pay for (salary is about $179,000 per year).  I am ready to start from the beginning by voting out all elected officials and not letting any of them stay in office for more than two terms.  No more lifelong healthcare, retirement, voting in their own pay raises, taking perks on our taxes, etc."

Our own elected Congress members playing computer games while they are supposed to be figuring out how to fix our messed up government policies is not funny.  I sure hope the picture is fake.  If not, it's a great lesson for leaders on what not to do.

Goals That Work

I just talked with another person who had such a challenging 2009 that they did not set goals for 2010.  The focus of their work became survival rather than growth.  A lot of people were in that boat last year.

Whether you have 2010 goals or not, here are 5 quick tips to define clear, measurable objectives to pursue for the balance of the year:

Decide on the format of your goals

Absolutely required areas:  Goal Measurement (a TARGET - see below or SMART statement that is clear and measurable), Goal Description (steps to achieve the goal), Due Date and Weighting for importance.

Write the Goal Measurement as a TARGET statement and then drop the initial "to"

T      To (the preposition)
A     Action verb
RG     Realistic Goal to be achieved
E      Effectively measure whether the goal has been achieved
T      Time or date for the goal to be completed

Here is an example:  (To) Close $5 million in sales by December 31, 2010.

Assign only three goals for the company and individuals.

One relates to finance, another to customer satisfaction and the last to professional development.  You can list specific areas of measurement under the goal, such as:  Technicians are booking 78% billable time;  Achieve a 15% net profit margin; Managed services represent 55% of overall sales...

NOTE:  I did not know this when I came up with my idea to limit yourself to three goals, but Jim Collins (author of Good to Greatand other top selling books on leadership) once said, "If you have more than three priorities then you don't have any."

Have everyone's goals link through their boss to the company goals

Enough said.

Then Follow-up

Meeting Ideas

GOALS THAT WORK is a process of setting clear, measurable goals for your organization, yourself professionally and even yourself personally.

Consider asking your people these questions during your next one-on-one or team meeting:

1. What are our company goals? How are they clear and measurable?

2. What are your professional goals? How are they clear and measurable?

3. How does each employees' goals link through their supervisor to our company objectives?

4. How could we follow-up on our goals to better confirm we are on track to completing them?

5. What do you need to achieve or exceed each of your goals this year?

Now, just for you:  Imagine what would happen to your career if everyone on your team achieved or exceeded their goals so you achieved or exceeded yours?  THAT IS WORTH an investment of your time to accomplish.

You Are Awesome: The Power of Praise

Picture this:  Everyone's there.  One by one they stand up and share stories about how wonderful he is.  His major accomplishments are mentioned in awe and his personal moments with tears or laughter.  For once, everyone is focused on what he has done right!  No one remembers his mistakes.

The only problem is... he is dead.  It is his funeral.

Why do we wait so long to set aside competitiveness, anger, bitterness and busyness to appreciate people?  It is one of the great ironies in life that seems to reinforce how self-centered humans can be.

The guys who wrote the book, The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance, believe 67% of all employees have NOT received a compliment in the past year.  My guess is that most if not all of those employees did get complimented, but they also got 10-20 (or more) corrections, reprimands, sarcastic remarks or insults for every compliment so the good news was quickly forgotten.

What can you do?

You can have fun.  Engage a positive extrovert on staff (or on contract) to organize monthly recognition of your people.  Think of yourself as an employee.  How would you feel if one day you came to work and the following happened:

1. A banner across the reception area said "(your name) IS AWESOME!"

2. Many people had buttons on that said, "(your name)'s THE BEST!"

3. Your cubicle is decorated with something you love - nature, Dilbert comics, Star Wars toys

4. You were taken to lunch at your favorite restaurant by the president along with two people of your choice.

5. Something you have been waiting on is suddenly prioritized and completed for you.

6. Your boss calls your spouse to say the company is really happy to have you on the team and shares a story of your success.

7. You receive a scrapbook from www.picaboo.com with photos and stories from other employees about your great works, good character and friendship.

8. You get a crisp $100 bill to spend on yourself or a nice dinner with your spouse.

The point is, PLEASE do not wait until it is too late to say "You are great" to your employees. 

Meeting Ideas

You Are Awesome is a way to increase employee productivity, profits and personal fulfillment in working for your company.

Here are some ideas for discussion during your next management (not staff) meeting to consider how your firm, at very low cost, can recognize people more regularly.

1. Determine why you want to recognize people.

2. Define how you want to recognize people.

3. Choose when you want to recognize people.

4. Decide who will be in charge of activities to recognize people.

5. Track recognition to make certain everyone gets appreciated.

Goal Warm-up

The objective of Goals That Work is to set clear, measurable goals and follow-up more often so results are achieved.

I recommend you warm-up your goals this week in your meetings with direct reports and/or staff by speaking positively about their potential for achieving each key objective. Whether your people are doing well or struggling, give them a vision of success.

Words are powerful. Use your sincere words, body language and follow-up after the meeting to build-up your people. But do not stop there. Cast the vision, or reinforce it, and then help them understand the tasks they need to complete during the upcoming week to move one step closer to achieving each goal.

That's why I suggest it's time for a goal warm-up. One third of the year is gone. Let's make the final two thirds of the year our best ever!