Obstacles

There will sometimes be obstacles. Obstacles are not distractions.

Obstacles are barriers in the way of the Vision – they impede progress. They are real and cannot be ignored. Obstacles don't just go away with hope. If they cannot be taken down, a detour must be built around them.

Some leaders ignore obstacles, thinking that by pretending an obstruction is really just a distraction, it will somehow magically disappear. They demoralize.

Great leaders:

1. Identify and acknowledge obstacles – they do not ignore them or confuse them with distractions.
   
2. Deliberately and quickly collaborate with the team, developing plans and strategies to effectively deal with them.
   
3. Don't allow obstacles to cause them to lose sight of the Vision.

They energize!

Related Posts:

Don’t let your lunch get stolen
Listen to those that are closest to your

Obstacles

Distractions

There will always be distractions.

Opportunities, details, problems, crisis, tragedy, can pull our focus and attention from what we should be doing. (Details? Sometimes our focus on the minutiae replaces the purpose for them.)

What should we be doing? Only that which takes us closer to our Vision - our purpose.

Great leaders:

1. Relentlessly ensure that everyone has absolute understanding and clarity of the Vision.
   
2. Put every distraction into proper perspective, and continually refocus and reset energy and efforts back toward the Vision.
   

Some leaders entertain and/or are the creators of distractions. This is why they never become "Great" leaders.

They frustrate.

Related Posts:

Pet Bureaucracies
Parallel Parking: the sacred cow

Distractions

No Pain – No Gain

The term "no pain – no gain" has often been misunderstood. Positive and beneficial exercise or change (gain) will cause some short term discomfort(pain). If we do not experience the short-term discomfort, it means that we have not pushed ourselves hard enough.

There is a huge difference between this "beneficial short-term discomfort" from profitable change or exertion and the intense throbbing of injury. The pain experienced from a back injury does not bring any gain. Neither does continuing to run with a knee injury.

How do you know if you have made a decision or change that has caused your organization to "jog with a knee brace?" How do you know if it was the wrong decision?

1. The pain doesn't go away
   

The discomfort caused by beneficial change always goes away. The new level that we have pushed ourselves becomes the norm. On occasion, we may push ourselves a little too hard and as a result may take longer to recover, but we do recover.

If the pain never goes away – injury has occurred.

2. Symptoms prevent normal activities
   

Physical injury makes it impossible to carryout normal everyday activities. Business decisions that have caused injury to the business do the same – stop the essential everyday activities. For example: If you can no longer provide the service to your customer that your business was built on – something is seriously wrong.

Pushing through "knee injury pain" (unwise business decisions) is a terrible idea. Don't let pride get in the way.

Knee replacement surgery means it is too late.

Photo by: notcub

Related Posts:

Listen to those that are closest to your customer

Character

No Pain – No Gain

Joggers with knee braces

I respect people that run (jog) for exercise. It indicates that they are making smart choices in all areas of their life for the benefit their health. What I don't understand is why people run with knee braces on? It's not that I think it looks bad or anything like that, but a knee brace is an indication of an underlying problem – like a knee injury – or more to the point - pain!

Recently, I witnessed a guy running on the grass (people run on the grass to reduce the pain they feel because it is softer and generates less impact than running on concrete), with knee braces on both knees. Our bodies speak to us through pain. We learn this early in life. The child that touches the hot stove instantly learns not to do it again. If I hit myself in the head with a hammer, the pain that I experience makes me question whether I want to try it again. "No pain – no gain" has obviously been misunderstood.

What does this have to with leadership?

Leaders must make decisions that often cause discomfort. Exercise is uncomfortable to our bodies in the same way that change is uncomfortable to our routines and habits. The soreness and pain from change in business and/ or a physical workout goes away in time – it gets easier and easier until it becomes normal. Further challenge repeats the cycle and we continually elevate our capacity.

However, sometimes we make decisions that cause unhealthy pain. The pain experienced by a runner from a damaged knee, will not go away by continuing to run on it. The pain caused to an organization by a hasty, or unwise decision will not go away by continuing to stick with it. Leaders must understand the difference between the beneficial, short-term, discomfort of healthy decisions and the damaging, intensifying pain of unhealthy decisions.

It is never too late to reverse our decision, but it will usually mean that we have to swallow some pride. I.e.: Can't run anymore.

To the runners with the knee braces: There are many other ways to get a good cardiovascular workout that will still allow you to walk after the age of 60.

Photo by: cesareb

Joggers with knee braces

Privileges

I notice a woman park in a handicap parking spot with a vehicle that has a legitimate handicap parking tag as well as wheelchair lift apparatus. I watch as she walks into the store and realize that she is clearly not physically handicapped.

Just because you can - doesn't mean you should.

When leaders abuse privileges, what message is sent to the rest of the organization? Using company assets, resources or time for personal non-business purposes gives licence for anyone else to do the same. Respect is earned; it is not part of a benefit package that comes with title. Acting with integrity – even when you think no one is watching – will earn respect.

That means: always do the right thing.

If you are the leader – you are the standard – you set the example.

Everyone is a leader, is some way, in some forum.

Privileges

Great Leaders

I am currently in the midst of a career transition.

Many people have stepped out to help me during this transition in various ways. Friends, family, colleagues – some people that I have not spoken to in years – and even some that I have just met.

If you have ever been unemployed, you understand how much it means to have people on your side – doing what they can to help.

Great leaders understand that: the more people they can help - push up - the more successful they themselves become. They find fulfillment in helping and investing in others and there are no dividing lines between their personal and professional life when it comes to relationships. I am grateful that so many have crossed my path.

If you know someone that is in between jobs, careers or vocations, help them out. Introduce them to someone in your network, refer them to a potential employer – forward their resume, or just take them for coffee and listen to them.

Your acts of kindness will never be forgotten.

Great Leaders care about other people.

Photo by: FotoFling Scotland

Great Leaders

Don’t let your lunch get stolen

I suggested to my wife that we should check out "mail order DVD rental." "Oh yes, we have a free night so let's go rent a movie - to watch . . . in three days," was her sarcastic response. Hmmm, I guess that's out – at least for us anyway.

She had a good point. I don't think watching a movie is something that most people generally plan in advance. Most (mail order rental schemes) do have streaming options but my TV is nowhere near my PC and curling up in front of the computer monitor with a bowl of popcorn is not very appealing.

There is no dispute that many are using this system, but why? Could it be that it is currently a better alternative?

The convenience of brick and mortar DVD rental outlets is still a big advantage, but they do still need to compete in every other area.

How?

• Instead of punishing those who return late with extra fees, reward those who return early.
  
• Simplify checkout – set up on-line reservation so that I know the movie I want is there and waiting for me.
  
• Drive through return drop off (pick up) so that I don't have to burn extra calories getting out of my car.
  

Why not just ask the customer – they will tell you.

Or . . . just keep trying to copy the new competition – but Red Box (not yet in Canada – see photo), is going to be a real problem.

Sometimes leaders that once exercised compelling vision become complacent. They get comfortable with success – lose their edge. This allows others to "eat their lunch and pop the bag!"

RedBox DVD rental - At McDonalds, 50 miles east of Houston on I-10. Photo by Adam Melancon

Don’t let your lunch get stolen

SPAM

Do you like to receive spam (unsolicited / unwanted electronic messages)? Do you send spam?

Why does every email program need to have a filter built into it?

Are you the person in your company that copies everyone that you can think of whenever you send an email? What makes you think everyone wants to read your message?

There are "need to know," "nice to know" and "didn't need to know" messages. Email has made it too simple to copy. Perhaps there should be a fee for every "cc."

"Cc" stands for carbon copy. Before email, carbon paper severely limited the amount of copies you could make. If you really pushed hard with the pen, you might be able to get four. Only the four most important people received the memo.

The next time you click a name into the "cc" field, ask yourself this question:

"If I had to lick envelopes and stamps for every person I was copying on this message – would I still send it?"

SPAM

Would your "leadership" go this far?

Residents, Sebastian Neumayer and Gisela Reichelt, of the community that I live (Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada), like to spend time during the warmer months of the year – walking. However, in addition to regular exercise (often twice daily), they do their part, well . . . more than their part to clean up the community. They pick up garbage – bags full of garbage. Each carrying a grocery store recycling bag in one hand and a "hand held pick up reaching stick in the other," they pick up every piece of garbage - including cigarette butts that they can find. Not just the litter in their path – they go out of their way to seek and find all garbage – even using their mechanical reaching sticks to pull it from among trees and bushes.

I have observed them on many occasions throughout the community picking up garbage and finally had a chance to talk to them. I caught up with the incredibly friendly couple at the end of their evening walk just as it was getting dark. More than happy to share the details of their efforts with me, I find out that they have been carrying out their twice a day "community cleanup walks" for five years.

Sebastian informs me that they each filled two bags this morning. "When we first started doing this, five years ago, we picked up ten bags full just from the path over there," he adds.

Explaining further, "We have noticed that the amount of garbage thrown down has been reduced dramatically since we started – I think that people see what we are doing and are more reluctant to litter."

"We don't do this for money or recognition or anything like that – we just like a clean community – but people often come by and give us these gift cards," affirming with humility as he pulls out a Tim Horton's coffee card (a big deal and valuable gift for any Canadian).

His experience with reduced litter is explained by, and support for, the "Broken Window Theory" outlined in the book "Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities" by George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles. The authors suggest that a successful strategy for preventing vandalism is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage. Clean up the sidewalk every day, and the tendency is for litter not to accumulate (or for the rate of littering to be much less). Problems do not escalate and thus respectable residents do not flee a neighbourhood. The theory's most well known support is that of the cleanup of New York City in the late 80's and early 90's. (Source: Wikipedia)

Sebastian and Gisela are the kind of people who have stories and life experiences that you could sit and listen to for hours. Both retired and widowed due to cancer (Gisela widowed twice) they have been in Canada for over 30 years. Gisela is originally from East Germany and escaped in the late 50's – well before the wall came down (or had even been erected in the first place).

"They had to build the wall – communism was so bad that there would have been no one left," she explains.

Sebastian, also originated from Germany (West), says, "The next time I see you I will tell you about how we came to Canada. I landed in Montreal and came to Edmonton – by foot!" I checked: a distance of (2790km, 1,846 miles). "It took me over 3 months!"

The conversation moves back to their efforts in keeping the community clean. It is clear that they thrive on giving back in whatever way they can.

Sebastian provides some detail of how blessed they are and uses that to give back – to bless others. "My mother always told me 'you give with warm hands', meaning you can't do anything from the coffin," he says to support his conviction.

"Bottles which are returnable for a refund are saved and given to the kids when they come around to raise money for their sports teams or other activities," Gisela informs.

I notice that they have "dog treats" and offer to any dog that comes by while walking their owner. "All the dogs love us," Gisela says as she stoops down to give the latest lucky puppy a dog-treat.

They are not just walking and cleaning up close to home either. Their radius extends by over five kms (3 miles) from their home. They are singlehandedly cleaning up close to 25% of the city.

An inspiring couple, keeping the community clean and giving back in any way they can, for no other reason than personal satisfaction. They are unintentionally influencing a community in a very positive way.

Now that is leadership.

Would your "leadership" go this far?

Suggestion programs cut both ways

Early in my working career, I was introduced to the "Employee Suggestion Program". I thought it was great. The idea that I could submit my ideas to help improve the company for consideration provoked me to continuously look for them [new ideas]. I sent a few in. One of them, a simple invention to help make a process easier, actually rewarded me with a $25 gift certificate. I was 17 years old, and the power that this "Suggestion plan" provided me, had a profound impact. It made me feel like a partner in the business. It kept me engaged. Sadly, the organization for which I worked, terminated the program - a very poor decision.

Whether your employees are 17 or 50 years old, a suggestion program is a great method for soliciting the great ideas that are within the loyal employees of your company. These kinds of programs – used properly - make everyone feel like a partner, and help to engage the entire organization. However, these can't simply be superficial – lip service types of programs. Only leaders that actually want to hear the suggestions and ideas of their employees should attempt to start and utilize a suggestion program. In fact, a suggestion program ignored can do more harm than good. Very careful consideration should be given to the idea of a suggestion program. Using this as a "political correctness" tactic will come back and bite you – you can't fake this:

• Instituting a program to solicit the ideas and suggestions from your employees sends a message – a good message.
  
• Not listening or utilizing any of those ideas after instituting the previously mentioned program also sends a message – not so good.
  
• Terminating a suggestion program sends the worst possible message to your organization.
  

Leaders that are not ready to listen should completely avoid these, and continue to completely rely on their own genius. I recently heard a quote from Andy Stanley: "Leaders who are not interested in listening to what other people have to say, will eventually find themselves surrounded by people who have nothing to say." How true this is, and as this type of leader gets their wish, the impact on the organization is dire. Depending on their position, these conceited leaders harmfully shift the entire culture of the enterprise, and are often not identified and replaced until it is too late.

I cannot think of any downside to actively soliciting ideas and input from your team. Beyond the benefits already mentioned, here are some famous examples of what partnering with employees has manifested.

• The 1965 discovery of NutraSweet, a billion-dollar low-calorie sweetener product, would never have happened if it were not for a creative employee at Searle Pharmaceutical Company. A research scientist named Jim Schlatter was working on a new anti-ulcer drug. Some flecks of a solution splattered onto his bare hands and the drops didn't really register in his consciousness. He later licked his finger to separate some paper and noted an extremely sweet taste. He retraced his steps to identify the source of the amazing taste - a taste 200 times sweeter than sugar. The chemist shared this information with two other friends and the three knew they were dealing with something very important that could compete with the two other sweeteners on the market: saccharin and cyclamate. Schlatter's efforts and suggestion are responsible for one of the most profitable products in the company's history (Corporate Creativity: Robinson & Stern, 1998).

• Ian Hart, a British Airways baggage handler initiated an idea that reduced the average time for first-class luggage to arrive at the carousel from 20 to 9 minutes, 48 seconds, with some routes regularly achieving 7 minutes. In 1994, his idea was awarded the Chairman's Customer Service Award of the Year, and Hart received £11,000 (about $18,000) as well as two round-trip Concorde tickets to the United States(Corporate Creativity: Robinson & Stern, 1998).

• At the historic El Cortez Hotel in San Diego engineers had drawn up plans to install an additional elevator that would require closing the hotel for several months. A janitor, concerned about the mess this would create, as well as the jobs lost while the hotel was closed, offered a suggestion to build the elevator on the outside of the hotel instead. The engineers agreed and the El Cortez became the first hotel to give visitors a bird's-eye view of beautiful San Diego Bay as they ascend to their rooms. Today, outside elevators are an admired mainstay of some of the world's poshest resorts (The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference By Robin Koval, Linda Kaplan Thaler, 2009).

Related posts:

• Throw out customer opinion surveys
• Listen to those that are closest to your customer

Suggestion programs cut both ways

Throw out customer opinion surveys

Who determines what is important? The boss? The CEO? The Board? The shareholder? I believe in most enterprises, it is one of the previously mentioned that determines what is important and what forms the basis for decisions. But, shouldn't it be the customer? At the end of the day, isn't the customer the one that really counts? And ultimately, shouldn't an organization focus on meeting their [customer] needs?

Of course ... umm ... yes ... the customer is the most important. So, let's do something to show that we really do believe this. Let's ... umm ... oh I know, create a survey that the customer can take. We can offer it to them to fill out afterwards to rate us on our service. Wow, we could even tie performance bonuses to the outcomes of these surveys ... what a great idea.

Then a lengthy survey is developed with questions around the decisions, strategies and tactics that the organization has already determined the customer wants. There is almost never an opportunity for the customer to provide opinions on what the organization could to more effectively satisfy their needs outside of those strategies and tactics, and if there is, in my experience the decision makers never see the comments. Since these surveys are filled out after the customer experience, they often have little impact on that customer's potential return, and if your business only serves a customer once a year, or once in a lifetime, this is less than ideal. Certainly, you could make changes for the future, that is, if you actually had a survey that could capture useful data and reacted to it. But people talk and market your business for you – hopefully in a positive way – but sometimes negatively.

Most organizations offer "The Customer Survey" as a necessary evil - kind of like a fuel station offering public washrooms – an inconvenience, often messy, but a necessary part of the business.

"Multiple choice," "on a scale of..." and "yes or no" kinds of questions cannot capture customer opinions in a way that will help you to effectively adjust your business. More often than not, these surveys end up becoming just another metric that is used to internally evaluate. Has your enterprise ever made a decision to change strategy or tactics based on the answers to the questions on these surveys? One only has to view the questions to see that it is impossible to get any information that is useful for changing or developing strategy.

Why not ask your employees. Throw out the "we feel customer opinions are important" hypocritical surveys, and start asking the people that work for you, have allegiance to and are interested in helping the business that they work for. Why not ask those who are in many companies – your best customers – and those who deal with and talk to every customer that provides revenue to your organization. They hear and experience the feedback every day, and if you are truly interested will tell you about it. Since they are in a unique position, closer to the customer than anyone else in the organization, sometimes they even come up with some profound ideas – ones that if heard and implemented could propel your business into the stratosphere.

One effective method to capture the ideas of employees is an "Employee suggestion system", which I will explore in my next post. What stories of famous employee suggestions which have significantly increased a company's results have you heard about?

Related Posts:

Listen to those that are closest to your customer

Profit is NOT your #1 priority

Photo by: boltron-'s photostream

Throw out customer opinion surveys

Parallel Parking: the sacred cow

My first born successfully completed her road test and received her driver's license today. Many would be able to appreciate the contrast of mixed emotions between pride and trepidation produced by your baby girl being authorized to drive a large automobile – by herself.

The nearly three years of preparation for my daughter's historic day provided many tense moments for her parents, as well as a few heated discussions (adolescents just don't like to take advice from their parents). The majority of these special memories came out of the "Parallel Park". In fact over 90% of our special practice time together was spent on the intricacies of parallel parking. Out of the thousands of aspects that one needs to be aware of to successfully drive (signs, rules, laws, etc.), most new drivers fear having to parallel park more than anything else.

How many times in your life have you actually parallel parked? If you are like most people, this is not something you do everyday ... or even every month. Most people may only parallel park once per year. Could this be because parking lots have been invented virtually eliminating the need for parallel parking?

The skill of driving a vehicle in reverse and putting it into a very tight space between two other vehicles is certainly not simple and does require practice. But I have become convinced that something is wrong when this [parallel parking] is the primary focus of a new driver and has been since I first received my license. And I am going to go out on a limb here, I am sure that not many people are killed in the act of parallel parking a vehicle.

Whenever things (things: simple word for processes, business, organizations, etc.) get big and organized, people have a tendency to get lost in their focus. That which is important seems to get lost in the myriad of details. Businesses find themselves spending massive amounts of time and money on elements, programs, metrics and sacred cows - that if never existed in the first place - no one would have cared or noticed. All of this at the expense of what is important ... you know ... stuff like, sales, profit, customers, and the bottom line. Sometimes we just need to take a step back and take stock of what we are doing. Is this really that important? Is the benefit of this ____ going to outweigh the input cost? Does this support or fit our mission or purpose for being in business in the first place? Is learning how to parallel park critical to one's driving ability?

Just as organizations should kill useless sacred cows, testing new drivers on parallel parking should be stopped. Let them learn it if they want to and instead focus on the driving "stuff" that is really important – that which will preserve life – theirs and others. What is the worst that will happen (if parallel parking was no longer a focus)? New drivers wouldn't be able to shop downtown. On the other hand, it is amazing how desire has a way of motivating people to learn new things. I bet my daughter would figure out how to parallel park if that was the only way she could get to shop.

Parallel Parking: the sacred cow