Are your goals big enough to be the “elephant in the room?”
About 10 years ago I was working hard to pull off a buyout. I had a well-crafted plan, a solid strategy and a 20 year plus track record. It was as though the circumstances of my life converged to make this opportunity to possible. It was a multi-million dollar deal that I was trying to bring to fruition. That’s when he said to me, “You need to think bigger.”
I reviewed the general strategy and laid out my plans once more. He said, “No bigger! Think bigger.”
I had explained that I had operated bigger businesses with more locations, more people and more of just about everything — including headaches, hurdles and pain points. At the time, I didn’t want to “think bigger.” For me, small was the new big.
The buyout attempt failed. It was a 3-year grind, but unlike a pregnant woman who gives birth after 9 months…this gestation period ended up without a birth. Instead, it was a death.
The death of a dream. The death of a goal. The death of a plan and strategy. It had been a few years since my friend had urged me to “think bigger.” Now, I mocked his advice. “See, if I had thought bigger I’d be holding a much bigger funeral,” I said. It was just snarkiness to mask the disappointment.
The disappointment didn’t last long. Within a few months I was grateful and thankful. I had chased other things that never worked out. My heart had been broken many times before because a deal had fallen through. When you start out in business at a young age and wind your way through the maze of business success (as I had), you endure many disappointments along the way. They sting like crazy in the moment, but over time you’re able to look back with a different perspective. In the rearview mirror, almost all my disappointments look like blessings.
Time shrinks big disappointments.
And dulls the pain.
So, do you avoid thinking big in order to avoid big disappointments? It’s like that adage, “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Easier said than done. When you’re heart is broken due to lost love, you’re likely wishing you’d never allowed love in to begin with. Sadly, that presupposes that losing love is the natural outcome…and it implies it’s the most likely outcome. But that’s not true. Love doesn’t have to be lost any more than dreams have to be crushed, or buyouts have to fail.
My buyout attempt failed. That was great, for me. It doesn’t mean your buyout will fail. It doesn’t mean my next effort – if there ever is one – will fail.
I’m not naive enough to believe that failure leads to success. It may. It may not. My failed buyout attempt didn’t lead to any success. It did help me avoid a colossal trap of being stuck in a business I may have learned to hate. I loved it at the time, but I can now see that over time, that love may have been tough to sustain. Call it failure averted by failure.
All this got me to thinking about this new year along with the new dreams and goals that accompany each new year.
In the last episode (no. 200) I referred to 2014 as the year of finding your element. Okay, to be honest, I’m hoping to find my own element in 2014. Lots of people are right there with me! Element finding isn’t the exclusive domain of kids or young people. Some of us older folks are searching for newer elements.
It’s not easy, but it can be fun.
Happy New Year!
P.S. Grab a BIG blank sheet of paper and think big thoughts for 2014. Then, take BIG ACTION.
“Wrap it up, I’ll take it.” -The Fabulous Thunderbirds
If we’re talking about 2013 (and we are), the question is, “Where are we gonna take it?”
Some people want to take it and flush it down the toilet. Others want to take it and replicate it.
Maybe you want to take it and run away from it. Or maybe you want to hang onto it and never let it go.
Many years ago an old business guy asked me, “Do you know why one business in a crappy location does well and another one in a great location has to close its doors?”
I was young and unsure what the answer was. I had some ideas, but I had no idea what answer he was fishing for. I said, “I’m not sure.”
“The successful business has a better manager,” he said.
That was over 30 years ago so I’ve had a long time to think about that conversation. It’s mostly true because leadership matters. It’s mostly true because a person can make a positive (or negative) difference. It’s mostly true because all of us do things that bring us the results we get. Not always, but mostly.
Putting A Bow On 2013, Personal Leadership & Doing Right By Yourself
Follow the leader
Personal leadership.
Question: Would that lead duck do the same thing even if his quack-mates weren’t following?
He would if he was watching out for himself and doing right by himself. That means, if he cares about his own welfare, he’ll do the right thing. Does the weight of the followers compel him to make decisions he might not otherwise make? Likely. Leadership does bring responsibilities.
If that lead duck doesn’t act and do the things that will profit his own life and the life of his followers, then he’s not much of a leader. It’s not merely self-interest. It’s wisdom.
That’s what I wish for all of us — personal leadership manifested in our wisdom to lead our own lives, figure things out and make the new year everything we want it to be. There’s no guarantees…other than the guarantee that you won’t reach your goals if you don’t try. So, try hard, then try harder.
It’s not about entrepreneurship.
You’d think building your own business is the only path to success. Carol Roth wrote about book about it in 2011, “The Entrepreneur’s Equation.” Ms. Roth articulated brilliantly what many business people have argued for years. Starting and owning a business isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Stop listening to the biz opp (business opportunity, aka Internet marketing) crowd. Roth correctly argues that we don’t expect everybody to be a professional athlete, or a surgeon, or an attorney, or anything else. There is no single path to the proverbial good life. We each have to find or create our own way.
In 2013 I continued to encounter people who felt like misfits because they liked their work — they enjoyed their job! Heresy. I suspect right now too many people are reading too much, listening too much and being influenced to be discontented with a professional life that may suit them just fine. But everybody is telling them how awful it is to have a job and work “for the man.”
I’ve spent my entire life in business, but that’s not the only path. For many, it’s a terrible choice. And boy am I glad. Else we wouldn’t have music, art, film, entertainment, sports, medicine, science and a host of other things that improve the quality of our lives.
We all enjoy the benefits of good people doing good work. Some do remarkable work. I’m hoping more of them will take pride in it in 2014 and not be swayed by the noise of entrepreneurship. Besides, as Roth correctly points out. More businesses fail than succeed. FAR more.
Your personal brand is whatever you want it to be.
Build your platform. Create your own tribe. Assemble an audience. It sounds terrific. Who wouldn’t want that? Maybe you. Maybe your friends. There are plenty of people who prefer quieter lives devoted to doing good work, providing for their family, helping their friends and having a good life that may differ from the stereotypical “good life.”
That’s a personal brand. The rock solid employee who is reputable, reliable and competent has crafted a positive platform.
It’s a personal brand. The 6-figure celebrity public speaker who has global recognition. It’s a platform.
“That’s not what he wants,” is the argument against the humble lifestyle. But that’s a bias that presupposes that everybody wants what we want. They don’t. It also presupposes the myth that any of us can be whatever we want. “You can do whatever you put your mind to,” is among the biggest lies of all.
Dirty Harry said it best, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.” Not enough people know that. Some of us clearly focus too much on our limitations and not enough on our strengths. No matter, we can all use our talents and craft a personal life – and a life – that suits us well.
These are my people.
I was talking with Bettye Zoller, a veteran voice actress in Dallas. It was an interview I was recording for a new project, ChasingDFWCool.com.
During our conversation she recalled first finding out about this craft of voice acting. She said very quickly she felt at home. “These are my people,” she told me.
Sir Ken Robinson calls that the same thing he titled his last book, “Finding Your Element.” Have you found your element? Not somebody else’s element…your own?
Maybe you spent 2013 trying to fit in the element somebody else told you was the way to go. And maybe you were miserable. Stop it. Step away from the noise of the maddening crowd and find your own path. Look for the life – and the people – who fit you better. Hopefully, with some effort, you’ll find a crowd you instantly recognize as being “your people.” A place and a crowd where you fit right in. Your element.
I don’t know what that looks like for you. Or what it might feel like. Truth is, I have my own days where I’m unsure of what it looks like for me!
It remains the epiphany worth searching for. If you found yours already, be thankful. Embrace it. Push forward.
If you’ve not yet found yours, keep looking. Keep trying things. Examine yourself. Discover your strengths. Soar with those. Don’t over-estimate your weaknesses and don’t under-estimate your strengths.
I don’t view business-building success like most. Jim Collins, famed business author of “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t” gave people the metaphor I hear almost weekly.
Put the right people on the bus in the right seat and you’ll achieve success.
No, you won’t. You’ll end up chasing your tail looking for better people and before long, you won’t even be able to find the bus, much less the right people to put on the bus.
It’s a colossal excuse-making vehicle. That’s what the bus represents. Visit any CEO and within minutes, if the conversation is about constraints, challenges and hurdles, you’ll hear complaints about people. The problems are almost always people.
Internal people are the problem. Employees.
External people are the problem. Suppliers. Financial partners. Vendors.
Other external people are the problem. Prospects. Customers.
Every business owner I’ve ever known could have a more successful business if only they could get better people.
It’s a never-ending story. And it’s not because people suck. Well, okay, some of them do, but that’s not the issue. The real issue is that too many business owners are focused on the wrong things.
I’m fanatical about remarkable client experiences, but that’s the output, the result of putting first things first.
“I don’t care about that stuff,” he says. “I want customers. I want more business.”
He’s got the cart before the horse. If he’s focused solely on getting new business then he’s doomed to fail…eventually.
His employees won’t be engaged. His existing clients won’t find the experience remarkable. His referrals won’t be positive. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times with businesses that otherwise could have achieved extraordinary success. They erode their client base. Like the foundation of your house, if it crumbles, then it won’t be long before the roof caves in.
In my freshmen year of high school, having played football since I was in elementary school, we arrived at summer practice, a few weeks before school started. Dressed in workout clothes and sneakers an assistant coach lined us up and began his big speech, “Here at Southwood we use the 3-point stance.” He instructed us to get into a 3-point stance. We’d all known this since the 4th grade. I played along.
“The way you take a man’s head, that’s the way his body will go,” said the coach. I smiled. Big mistake. “You think that’s funny, Cantrell,” he said. Never one to let a snarky opportunity pass, I tried to resist, but couldn’t. I replied, “Yes sir, kinda.”
He ordered me down in a 3-point stance. I obeyed. He stood over me and held my head down. “Try to raise up,” he barked. Of course, I couldn’t. Nor could I resist to tell him that holding wasn’t allowed and that I’d battle and knock my opponent to the ground if they ever attempted to hold me.
He wasn’t amused. I was. As were my teammates. But the lesson was never lost on me, the body follows the head.
Businesses follow their leaders. Grass roots efforts are almost never positive. I’ve seen insurrection rise up from the grass roots. I’ve never personally seen a business built into a success from the grass roots. Without intervention, weeds come up more easily than grass.
That’s why all my work starts with the head and getting the foundational principles established.
I’ve learned the hard way that when the leaders of a company don’t have proper focus on dazzling their clients, then I can’t help them.
I never assume there’s a devotion to spectacular client or customer experiences. Talk is cheap and everybody talks a good game. Very, very few make good on it because when push comes to shove, superior experiences for clients get pushed aside for something else…usually a short-term profit margin.
Here’s THE SECRET. Okay, it’s not really a secret, but you’d think it is given how few people incorporate it into their business. It’s a question.
What one thing can we do for our customers that nobody else can (or will) do for them?
About 20 years ago a friend who worked for GE invited me to join a small group of Dallas business people to meet and greet GE Chairman Jack Welch. He knew I was a big fan of Welch, even though many people reviled him as Neutron Jack.
He spoke to us briefly, and then opened the floor for questions. Herb Kelleher, then Chairman of Southwest Airlines, was present and asked, “What is GE’s strategic planning?” Being an avid reader about Welch I knew the answer, but the 5-foot nothing New Englander answered with his usual blunt flare.
“We don’t have strategic planning at GE. We just ask two questions. What can our competitors do to nail us to the wall in the next 18 months? And, what can we do to jump over them and nail them to the wall in the next 18 months? That’s our strategic planning.”
For Welch, things were pretty cut and dried. If you weren’t number 1 or 2 in market share, then you had no purpose for existing. He earned the nickname Neutron Jack because he would jettison entire companies or divisions, but leave the buildings standing. Downsized people, including executives, hated him, but by most accounts, he always warned divisional or company leaders that they were on the auction or chopping block. Welch didn’t suffer fools or market laggards.
Business building is about making up your mind. It’s about determination. It’s about fixing on what matters the most.
It’s not about WHO.
It’s about WHAT.
Systems, processes and workflow. Those are the things that can best build successful businesses. They remove excuses. They either work or they don’t. They either work well, or they don’t. They’re measurable. They remove hiding places.
That’s why most companies don’t operate that way. They’d rather spend their days asking, “Who did that?” as they look for penning the fault on somebody.
It’s easier to move people around than to do the heavy lifting of putting systems in place. It takes a lot of hard work to architect a system – whether it’s marketing or management or client follow-up – that produces predictable results over and over again.
Typically two groups of businesses have had to produce stellar results and they appear to have nothing in common: airline pilots and fast food counter help. One group is highly skilled and high compensated. The other earn minimum wage.
Both are considered failures if they only get it right 99% of the time. Pilots can kill people if they fail. Customers yell at fast food clerks if they get orders wrong. But mostly, both groups get it right because both groups work with advanced systems and processes that provide predictable success every single time.
One special person who happens to “get it” can be an outlier and perform killer business results. Like finding a four-leap clover, it can happen, but the odds aren’t favorable.
Or, systems and processes can be built that will provide predictable results every single time without fail.
Focus. Concentrate.
Without them we’re aimless. Meandering. No direction. The principle element of focus is answering the question, “Where is our place?”
Of you and your business, “Where is your place in the market?”
What’s the most important thing to you and your business?
What are your convictions — the things that drive you?
Select. Discriminate.
If everything is important, then nothing is important. You’ve got to pick and choose where you’re going to put your efforts. If you don’t, you’re going to be riddled with daily chaos. “We’re chasing our tail,” is the common refrain borne by business owners who fail to establish the priorities of proper business building.
Organize. Set up.
This is where some real heavy lifting happens. Or not. Again, walk into visit most CEO’s and ask them if they’ve got systems, processes and workflows documented and they’ll respond by telling you about job descriptions.
Nope. Not the same thing.
A job description is just a meaningless document faking it as an accountability tool. It’s an HR device, not a business-building tool. It’s a tool to beat a poor worker over the head with before we fire them.
A process is a detailed, step-by-step direction telling people what they must do, how they must do it and what result they’ll get when they do. In the hands of worker A, or worker B, or worker C — the same result is achieved if the process has been properly crafted.
The Marines famously say, “Improvise, adapt and overcome.” We have to do that in our businesses. We can’t stand pat on our systems. That doesn’t mean we deconstruct them constantly, but we do have to revise them and make improvements.
Being dissatisfied is a quality that drives every successful business. Complacency is a killer.
Connect. Communicate.
There are no results unless there’s effective communication. No process, whether it’s marketing, selling, consulting, advising, answering, asking, telling, educating, inspiring, entertaining or correcting happens without it.
Connections and communication are often inadequate, non-existent or unclear. The result is lost sales, unhappy clients, tense situations, unhappy employees and elevated frustration.
When we touch people with effective communication it stands out and solidifies relationships. It’s how we determine who we like and who we hate.
Conclusion
Servant leadership means removing the obstacles that prevent people from delivering predictable success time and time again. It means giving people – all your people – the best chance for success. That means you provide clear instructions and great systems that serve them and your customers.
You hear it pretty regularly. An entrepreneur tells the horror story of their humble beginnings. They had no money and no investors. So they apply for as many credit cards as they can and max them all out. Whether it’s hundreds or thousands, it’s runway they need to get up to speed so they can get liftoff and gain some altitude.
The success stories are thrilling. We listen with anticipation, thinking to ourselves, “How scary! I can’t imagine living like that.”
But when we hear how they came through it, paid off all the cards and gained traction to be wildly successful — well, maybe that’s not a bad strategy after all. (Yes, it is.)
Cash flow – or more appropriately, a lack of cash flow – kills as many businesses as anything else.
It’s a systemic problem, but it can be so powerfully worrisome that we forget the reasons why we’re out of cash. Sometimes it makes a fella do something unethical, or even illegal. Sometimes, it drives a gal to drink. I’ve seen some pretty crazy behavior tied to a lack of cash flow. It can bring out the worst in people.
Desperation. Panic. Those are sure to distract the most disciplined business person.
Talk with any cancer patient and they’ll confess that one of the things they hate most is how all consuming it is. It takes over their life. It dominates all conversations. It’s the elephant in the room that you just can’t kill. Cash flow problems are the cancer of business building.
Today’s show is an answer to a recent question – an all too common question:
My company is experiencing a severe cash crunch. We need to take fast action. What should we do?”
These are my people.
