November 2018

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We have hot buttons. All of us. Things we’re just overly zealous about. For some reason that maybe we don’t even know.

Some business owners are fanatical about employee honesty. They’re paranoid that people are always stealing. They lead and manage based on that assumption.

Some are fanatical about inventory refusing to discount it quickly enough because they over-value it. It impacts how they manage and lead.

Emotions are the bad guy. We all have them and without them, we’re not fully human. Psychopaths don’t display emotions quite like most of us. That’s an extremely negative example. Sociopaths can display extreme emotions. That’s another negative example.

Emotions fuel us. When we have our emotions in sync with reality it’s a great thing. But when our emotions overrun reality and logic, we can encounter problems.

This week a friend and I were talking about some business opportunities and he told me a story. Two people went into business together with very different skills and responsibilities. They appropriately notated what each of them would do, then set about to do it. Less than a year later they were experiencing solid success, but one of the partners began to feel her contributions were worth more than her partner’s. Resentment was setting in. It was an unrealistic emotion. She wasn’t seeing things for what they really were. The truth was, her partner was handling a ton of things that were enabling her to do what she was best at. Without the partner’s contribution, there’s no way the enterprise would have been as successful.

We’ve all got stories of unreasonable behavior in the face of strong evidence. Proof that emotions need some type of regulation.

An entrepreneur is angry with an employee who gave a customer a discount of less than $100 without getting permission first. He goes OFF on the employee and the rest of the staff to make a point. For hours he spends time trying to figure out ways to prevent this from ever happening again. Less than $100 wrecks the entire company for the day. And the owner continues to obsess about a “lack of control.” So it goes when emotions rule the day.

But…

Emotions play a vital role in the establishment and building of our companies. We’re driven to accomplish something. It’s not always rational. The vast majority of small business owners earn less money than they could make working as an employee for somebody else. But they don’t want to work for somebody else. People have feelings, emotions, and desires that may be uniquely their own. Who are we to judge?

A software developer earning good money wants to open up a cookie shop.

A lawyer wants to start a charter fishing company in the Gulf of Mexico.

A physician wants to renovate an old house and create a bed ‘n breakfast.

Go figure. May not make sense to us, but it makes all the sense in the world to them.

Those emotions are tied to doing work that’s more rewarding than the work they’re currently doing. They don’t care about the money earning comparisons. They’re willing to earn fewer dollars so they can achieve something else. Something that matters more to them. It’s largely an emotional decision.

Your enthusiasm and passion aren’t fueled so much by logic, but whatever logical foundation exists is fueled by emotions. I could likely bring up a topic close to your heart and your interest in that topic would be noticeable. Your voice would change. The tempo of your speech would amp up. Your eyes would widen. You’d lean more forward. Emotions.

Those are positive. Well, they could be if they’re leveraged properly. Context matters. The software developer with 3 kids and a wife earning $120K a year may want to open up a cookie shop and risk the entire family’s savings. Maybe a good idea. Maybe not. He and his family can judge. Emotions.

A business owner can obsess about not paying employees more than minimum wage. Emotions. Refusing to budge he finds himself in constant turmoil unable to find or keep competent help. But he won’t budge on the hourly pay rate because he remembers how little money he earned starting out.

One thing has nothing to do with the other. He’s being irrational. It’s purely emotional. And it’ll kill his business.

It happens all the time. Business owners get fixated on something that is a pet peeve – either for or against. And like a dog with a bone, they refuse to let go. They’ve poured so much emotion into their viewpoint they’re unwilling and unable to let go. They need to pour that emotion out of their business so they can grow as leaders/owners and so their business can grow. I see it get in the way often as you peel back why an owner feels the way he does about certain things. When you can finally to the root of the emotion, it hardly ever has one thing to do with the issue at hand. That’s crippling!

It sounds nuts perhaps, but it’s time to take an inventory of your emotions. Time to figure out the ones that serve you well and the ones that stifle your progress. We all have our share of both. This may be best done with a one-word question, “Why?”

Why are you feeling this way? Why does this amp you up so? Why does this bother you?

Why does the software engineer want to open up a cookie shop? He may not even know or understand why. It may be less about a cookie shop and more about his hatred for his boss. He may love engineering software, but he hates doing it for this guy. Or, he may hate engineering software, but he stays because he loves his boss. Or, he may hate all of it and simply love baking cookies. That’s the ball of yarn he’ll have to untangle to better understand why he wants to open a cookie shop.

A feeling can be diffcult to harness. Harder still to let it go if it’s harmful to us. I talk quite about bit about forgiveness and bitterness because I see them destroy a lot of people. When people ask me, “How can I forgive?” — I always offer the same answer. “Just make up your mind.” I’m not being snarky or sarcastic. I mean it. It’s the only way to do it. Just decide. But a mind has to be in a place – a place where a person is ready to make that decision. Else, it won’t happen.

Ditto with any other negative emotion that’s crippling your business or your organization. Throw a fit when an employee offers a discount of $85 without asking you. Make a full day production out of it if you want. Show everybody who’s boss and how intolerant you’re going to be that behavior. You’ll wreck way more than a day. You’ll wreck your company. All for $85?

Come to yourself. Realize the risk and reward of the emotion. You may feel better after ranting and railing about the $85 discount. But unless you’re an idiot you’ll realize $85 isn’t risking your company, but you going off incessantly about it may. Let reality hit you square in the face so you can see things for what they are — damaging. Then, let go. Pour that emotion down the drain so it ceases being toxic to you and your company.

Replace it with the passion that drives you to higher achievement. Those competitive juices that fuel you to be the best. To deliver superior customer experiences. To do all the things required of becoming “world-class.” You need those emotions. But they’re too often suppressed by the fixation on the $85 unauthorized discount.

It’s good to get worked up. Just make sure you’re getting worked up about the things that will help you and your company grow, improve and transform. I want you and your company to grow great. Don’t let unhinged negative emotions ruin that for you.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Episode 100 of the Grow Great Daily Brief was preceded by hundreds of other episodes through the years, but it’s a milestone of the new format…and I want to thank everybody who listens and subscribes. I hope you find value here as together we work to grow, improve and transform our companies and our leadership. I’ve chosen a powerful theme for this 100th episode, the TRUTH.

Monday night the Dallas Cowboys showed how pitiful they truly are in a loss to a mediocre Titans team, 28-14. Most of us living in DFW weren’t terribly surprised. The radio outrage Tuesday morning continues. People are tired of the last 20 years of average football played by this team. But the Cowboys have a brilliant businessman at the helm, Jerry Jones. He’s only got one major blindspot it seems, the delusion of being able to construct and lead a winning football team. Making money ain’t the problem. Winning games? Well, that’s far more challenging to Mr. Jones. But he doesn’t appear willing to see the truth of his football circumstance. Yet. Probably never will.

Sometimes success reinforces the lie and gives our delusions extended life.

When your business is as financially successful as the Cowboys are, I’m sure it’s very hard to see any failure. Jerry Jones isn’t any different than you and me in that regard. He’s looking at the valuation of the team, now presumed to be the most valuable sports franchise in the world at $4.8 BILLION. Hard to argue with the business end of things. But professional football, and all other pro sports is a different breed of cat. There’s the team’s performance in the sport, and there are the dollars brought in by the team. For the Dallas Cowboys, those are two desperate things.

Financial success reinforces the notion, “Look at how successful we are. We’re doing things right.” It’s hard to argue with…making it more sinister by deepening the delusion.

Where are the lies in your life and your business?

You know what vexes me as much as anything? Entrepreneurs who don’t see what’s possible – with “what’s possible” defined as growth and improvement. Many businesses operate every day on the lie of “good enough.” Sales are good enough. Profits are good enough. Systems are good enough. People are good enough. Too many business owners presuppose that their current success is good enough. They’re satisfied. Complacent. But they don’t sense it for what it really is. Dangerous!

I once found a way for a $3 million annual revenue increase for a business. At the time, the business was doing pretty well. Better than they’d done in 2 years. That success made the owner gunshy to see, face or adjust to THE TRUTH. At the time, I was doing hardcore roll-up-your-sleeves-get-your-hands-dirty consulting. I no longer do that work because it’s so incredibly frustrating for me. The business didn’t pursue this potential increase. Two years later, they were back to a cyclical struggle. And I felt awful, even though they were way back there in my rearview mirror by then. It was just painful to see the TRUTH but unable to help them see it. But success got in the way.

Seeing, facing and adjusting to the truth is a viewpoint, mindset, and attitude.

Do you question the current state of things? Including success?

Do you believe – truly believe – that things can be improved?

I’m not talking about a restless discontentment, but I’m talking about leveraging a constant state of dissatisfaction. That’s why Cowboys fans are so upset. For more than 2 decades they’ve endured the same ‘ol, same ‘ol. One season blurs into another season of mediocre results. The sameness is what’s driving fans crazy.

That sameness drives people inside and outside your company crazy, too. But it needs to drive YOU crazy…crazy enough to be tired of it so you can hit the 3rd leg of the trifecta, to avoid going crazy in the process of improving your business.

Success can spoil you. Failure can panic you. But the Truth will set you free.

What is TRUTH?

If you see it one way, and I see it another way — who is right? Maybe both of us are right. The glass indeed is half empty and half full at the same time. But those viewpoints are dramatically different. Those viewpoints lead to completely different attitudes and actions.

Enter the power of others.

I’m pushing all my proverbial chips into the middle of the table to bet on the power of surrounding business owners/entrepreneurs with other entrepreneurs. Because the value proposition is unparalleled. In the span of my 30 plus year career, I’ve seen nothing – NOTHING – that can approach the positive impact of being surrounded by people committed to helping us see, face and adapt to the truth.

Speed. Convenience. 

I don’t know a single CEO or entrepreneur who has enough time. Everybody is pressed on multiple fronts.

I don’t know a single CEO or entrepreneur who is satisfied with the speed of their own decision-making. Everybody is clamoring for more and better information delivered to them faster so they can be faster in figuring out what should be done.

I don’t know a single CEO or entrepreneur who has enough convenience in their decision-making. Everybody is appropriately vexed at the complexity and difficulty of getting the feedback and information necessary to grow and improve.

That’s the power of others surrounding us with no other agenda other than to help us make better decisions! Candor from others. Candor from others with multiple viewpoints, and the ability to ask different questions. Perspective changes everything. It’s among the many reasons the police seek out as many witnesses as possible. When you put together multiple viewpoints you get a much more accurate picture of what really happened. The Truth.

The Truth will not emerge when everybody is saying YES to us, or when everybody is working hard to make us happy. Most of us are surrounded by people more willing to please us than push us. It’s true for you, me and Jerry Jones. But that’s not where growth or improvement is found. It’s only found when we surround ourselves with people willing to help us see, face and adapt to the truth.

It’s up to each of us to embrace a philosophy of being dissatisfied. Not a state of misery, but a state where we’re optimistic that tomorrow can be better. If only slightly. And the day after that, better yet. It’s a sad place to be when we feel as though we’re good enough. There’s always growth and improvement to be achieved. We just need to have people around us who are committed to help us.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

P.S. The Peer Advantage is my response to the need. Please check it out if you’re ready to grow your business and your life. Click here.

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I’ve coached my fair share of teams. And people. Some in sports. Some kids. Some college kids. Some in business. Some kids. Some not.

The most engaged times I’ve ever spent were leading teams best described as TIGHT, TOUGH and TOGETHER.

Listen to any sports team coach and you’ll hear the importance of these things. They’ll use terms like “chemistry” or “culture” to describe it, but these three T’s are what they really mean.

The Dallas Stars hockey club has a first-year coach, Jim Montgomery. Like most folks in hockey, Jim has a nickname, “Monty.” The team is only about a dozen games into a new season with a new coaching staff. So far, so good. The team has been on an extensive road trip playing games out of town. On Monday Monty said he was noticing the team was growing tighter. It’s noticeable on the bench during games. The team is growing because they’re getting tight, and playing tougher because they’re more together than in earlier games.

Tight.

Tough.

Together.

What about your team? Would those terms – all 3 of them – describe your employees?

Or, do you find yourself using cliches like, “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing”?

I hear far more of those cliches than CEOs who are proud to extol the virtues of their company culture. I think I know why. It seems to me that too many CEOs and entrepreneurs aren’t quite sure how to go about it. An easy barometer is to see all the outfits offering to help leaders improve culture. Another barometer is the breadth of conversation and content surrounding company or organizational culture. Lots of us are talking about it and concentrating our work on it. Doubtful we’d be doing that if there wasn’t a strong need.

Part of the challenge is the diversity of today’s workforce. When companies employee people in their 50’s, 40’s, 30’s and 20’s – those are very different people who view the world through different lenses. Employee engagement firms focus on assessments. Companies are data-driven and these companies work hard to give clients what they most want – data. The assumption is that once you know how well (or how poorly) you’re doing with employee engagement, then you’ll know how to improve it. But that’s not necessarily true.

I can go to a doctor and get an accurate diagnosis. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get well. If the doctor tells me what I need to do, I may decide to refuse. I may choose some other course of action. I may decide to do nothing. Assessments may be very helpful, but they’re not the prescription any more than our doctor’s diagnosis.

You are here. Good to know. There’s where you want to go. Also good to know. The big challenge we often face is how do we get from where we are to where we want to be.

Monty, the Dallas Stars coach, could see that his new team needed to improve the three areas of chemistry or culture. They needed to be tight, tough and together. NHL teams usually begin a season with a week away from home before the pre-season games begin. Unlike NFL teams who may spend weeks in camp before the end of the season, the NHL clubs have a different business model. For starters, they don’t have 53 players on a roster so they don’t need as much time to get their team’s roster lined out. Additionally, they’ve all got minor league teams where they develop players. The NFL has no such advantage. NFL teams play 16 regular season games. NHL teams play 82 regular season games, 41 on the road and 41 at home.

That’s an important difference because by the time the NHL teams go to their camp for a week, they’ve got their final roster. Mostly. NFL teams don’t have their final roster until after the camp is over. So the Dallas Stars go to camp with chemistry being a major goal. To develop a roster where those 3 terms are growing more important.

Tight.

Tough.

Together.

Being away from home, focused on the team helps. Road trips, especially those early in the season, can also help. Or hurt. If the team hits a losing streak during the road trip, being away from home for extended days can wreck chemistry. It’s a fragile thing.

For a professional sports team on the road, team meals, team movie night, team activities away from the rink can help. And every coach knows to have players who genuinely like each other helps, too. The tighter the bond between the players the more powerful their chemistry. It’s manifested in their willingness to perform well FOR each other, not merely for themselves. Over time, the team – THE LOCKER ROOM – becomes the thing.

I use professional sports because of the dollars spread through the roster. Unlike in your company, the compensation differences among players can be vast. A player making a few hundred thousand a year may be playing alongside a player earning in excess of $5 million a year. If ever there was an opportunity for complaining and whining, “He makes more than me!” – this is it. And you think you’ve got problems.

So far, this week a theme is emerging. We improve what we focus on. First, we started out Monday talking about people. Yesterday we talked about processes. Now, we’re talking about the merging of both I suppose so we can help our employees achieve more. To help our employees improve these 3 key areas that constitute the culture of our company.

Don’t impose what you think or feel is right.

You can make things worse without trying. Monty could deploy strategies to help his Dallas Stars’ team chemistry and end up building more resentment. CEOs and entrepreneurs do it all the time. Movie nights with the players, for example, only work because the team is in Canada, a thousand miles away from home (and their families). If he tried to impose that when the team is home, the players would feel and think, “I don’t want to spend more time with my teammates, I want to be with my family.” Why then, do I hear (with great regularity) employees complain that the boss has cooked up some event after hours? Because the boss thinks it’ll help build tight, tough and together employees. Well, it may. They’ll be tight in their opposition to the boss. Tough against whatever the boss wants. Together in their rebellion against the boss. Not quite what we’re after.

You have a team chemistry. A culture. It doesn’t matter if you meant to craft the one you’ve got or not. It is what it is. Put 3 people in a room and it’ll happen organically. It may be good. It may turn violent. You never know.

Our challenge is to create an ecosystem that will foster and encourage the positive elements of being tight, tough and together. Here are some things to consider.

One, what’s important? 

The great advantage of sports is the immediate feedback. Scores. Teams know if they’re winning or losing. And they know for a fact if they’ve won or lost. We operate daily often not knowing any of that. And our people don’t either. That’s a problem.

How we do overcome that? We establish our identity based on what’s important to us. I know a company that claims they want to be “the world’s best.” It sounds great, if not overly lofty. But they don’t operate as though they’re the world’s best (or trying to be). The employees don’t believe it. It just seems laughable and empty.

Walk the talk. Establish priorities and live them. The best customer service companies eat, drink and sleep it. Amazon. Walmart. Honda. It’s not a by-product, but a focus.

Figure out what matters most and make sure you’re following it religiously. People inside and outside your company will notice. Behavior will follow.

Two, reward and punish based on what’s important.

Hockey teams have a fundamental reward system. It’s called “ice time.” Players who perform well get more playing time. Players who don’t, get less. If a player isn’t performing well enough – or not following the coaching – then he may find himself “scratched” from a game, meaning he’s not even on the bench. Or players unable to perform at the high level required may be sent down to a minor league team where they’ll have to prove themselves worthy of rejoining the major team. Reward and punish. (I’m clearly using punish in the sense of consequences intended to serve the team and the player)

High achievers don’t enjoy being tethered to low achievers. Mediocre achievers can find acceptance if they’re putting in the effort to improve, but if they’re not – teams will reject them. Take a look at your roster and get real with yourself on where the rewards and punishments are. You may be rewarding the wrong things. And punish the wrong things, too. It’s a common mistake.

I’m reminded of the Simpson’s episode where Homer skipped out of work on a Thursday. The boss found out and talked to him on the phone ripping into him. The boss says, “If you don’t come in tomorrow, don’t’ bother coming in on Monday.” Homer, being Homer, hangs up the phone thrilled. “Woohoo, four day weekend!” Sometimes we do things intending one thing, but it really accomplishes something different. Something we never intended.

You have to make your rewards and punishments consistent with what matters most to your company.

Three, establish and maintain non-negotiable standards. Context matters.

Your company – like any sports team – has to learn how to win. Sometimes our people learn how to lose and find it really hard to get unstuck from that. Multi-million dollar athletes do the same thing. They find a slump that seems like it’ll never end. Coaches know their players and figure out how to lead them individually. One size does not fit all. People aren’t equal. You can be fair, but that doesn’t mean you’re equal.

It’s all about establishing and maintaining non-negotiable standards for the company and for the individual employees. There’s US, then there’s YOU (the employee).

Where does the individual employee fit? That’s their context. I’m rolling these two together for this last point because I think they belong together. There are team standards and there are individual standards within the context of the team.

The top players on the Dallas Stars have a higher expectation. In hockey there are typically four lines, meaning three players go onto the ice and play together. One line consists of these same 3 players. The lines are numbered 1 through 4. Fourth line players know their role, which is often to defend against the other team’s top lines. The coaching staff doesn’t expect that line to score enough goals to win games. If it happens, it’s a good thing, but it’s not the standard for the 4th line. Their non-negotiable standard is to not give up a goal. Lines usually play for just 45 seconds at a time, then the next group jumps onto the ice. That first line knows their non-negotiable standard is to score goals.

Then, within each line are players with different skills and talents. Some are gifted at scoring goals. Others are playmakers, able to make passes to the guys who can score goals. Some are great at playing pucks in the corners of the rink. Others love all that rough stuff in front of the opposing goal. The context of each player plays a big role in helping players understand how they can best contribute.

I talk pretty regularly about not painting all your employees with the same broad brush. It’s important that you spend time with individual employees and know what they’re able to most contribute to the whole. It’s rewarding for them, and your company.

By the way, I define non-negotiable standards as standards that could cost a player (an employee) their role. Their job. You get what you reward or whatever you tolerate. Tolerate toxicity and you’ll have a toxic culture. That’s why standards matter. Context helps you serve the toxic employee individually to better understand how their behavior is hurting them and everybody else.

Tight. Tough. Together. It doesn’t happen accidentally. Leaders foster it. They create it. Build it. The great ones never let it slip – or for very long.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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I’m fixing to make some college football fans angry. Because I’m going to take a stand as a fan myself. I was born in Ada, Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas. My grandparents were always in Oklahoma. That makes me a Sooner football fan. I’ve been an OU fan since I was a little boy. Through thick or thin. A BIG TIME FAN! Honestly, I love college football even though I live in DFW, which is an enormous professional sports town. 

The point?

Some weeks ago the OU head football coach fired the defensive coordinator in mid-season. He put another coach in charge of the defense. The team’s defense was dreadful even though they had four-star players. The first thing the new defensive coach did was SIMPLIFY how the team played. He understood that these players were fast, but they didn’t play fast because they were being overcoached by the ex-coach. Things were so complicated the players weren’t playing fast. The new coach felt that if he could get the players to line up properly (position matters) and give them the confidence to know they could do what he asked…then they’d play fast. By simplifying everything the team did defensively, within a few games under this new system it’s obvious to fans and media that his strategy is working, but it’s still very early in his process. Sooner fans are hopeful. 😉 

Speed kills. 

And I mean it kills in the most positive way. It destroys the competition. It kills in the market! 

Complexity slows everything down. It causes people to pause or hesitate. If only for a second or two. Ask those OU defensive players how much easier their lives got when they gained confidence in what they were doing, knowing coaches were putting them into the best positions on the field. Simplicity and confidence go hand in hand. And not just for college football players. 

What does that mean for you and your business?

Hard work. That’s what it means. It’s tough to make things simple. 

One of my favorite quotes is up for dispute as to who said it. No matter, it’s brilliant. And true.

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

I’ve done enough writing, podcasting, and public speaking for years to know the truth. It’s really hard to make things concise and brief. Longer, like complexity, is often easier. Simplicity and speed are very, very hard. Which helps make them monster competitive advantages that you must seize! Today. Right now.

Simplicity works no matter where you deploy it. Get started. Hint: it may be ideal to tackle the areas where you know complexity is hurting you. You don’t know? Ask the people doing the work where the complexity is. They’ll tell you.

That new defensive coach for OU started asking the players what plays made them uncomfortable. He was searching for areas where they weren’t confident. They told him. And where they all agreed, he and his staff began to go to work. 

You need to do the same thing. Find the areas inside your business where the complexity is breaking things. If you really want to know, you can find out fast. 

Then what?

Then you go to work to figure out how to fix it. This won’t likely be overly burdensome, but it requires your focus and attention. That’s what’s tough about this activity. We don’t want to tackle this stuff. We’ve got other fires to extinguish. Stuff to sell. Payroll to make. Contracts to negotiate. Marketing campaigns to approve. 

Processes often grow cumbersome over time. Owners implement one process to address a problem. The new process winds up creating a few new problems. But they’re less bothersome than the problem that got fixed. So you live with it. Then another process gets created because one of those problems starts growing. Systems get crafted and piled on top of other systems slowing down everything in its path. We end up choking on things we installed intended to serve our company. 

Burn it to the ground in your head. Make up your mind that you’re going to put simplicity near the top of your objectives. When it becomes a priority, then you’ll start unwinding all the complexity that’s crippling you. It won’t happen until then. So I’m encouraging you to get sick and tired of it right now. Decide today that enough is enough!

Don’t make it a fad initiative. This won’t work if you dive in to simplify things this week, then next week you start winding things back up into new and different complexity. Commit to simplicity and speed. Embrace it as a permanent way of life. This doesn’t mean everything in your business is simple. Some things are complex, but they should only be as complex as they need to be. 

Go simple and go fast. Be complex and go slow. You know which way to go if you want to win. Get busy!

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Last week a new Gallop Poll reported the number of employed Americans has never been higher. The unemployment rate is 3.7 percent, the lowest since 1969. 

Yet CEO’s and business owners continue to lament how difficult it is to find “good people.” Said one CEO, “I just need people who know how to work.” He wasn’t talking about people who lacked the skill. He was complaining about how difficult it is to find people with a dedication required to be high achievers in his company. It wasn’t as if he was being overly demanding. He commented about people following through on what they were supposed to do – and what they commit to doing. Things he felt were basic, fundamental and “common sense” things. 

A software entrepreneur told me finding developers was growing increasingly more difficult for her firm. “Even mediocre talent costs way more than it should,” she said. 

A clothing retailer feels stuck with part-time and transitory employees who aren’t finding the work career-oriented. The turnover is taking a toll on his ability to grow as much as he’d like. And the added strain on his life, too. 

Across all sectors, it seems people are challenged to upgrade, or topgrade their workforce. “Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People” by Bradford D. Smart was a book published in 1999. It spoke of the need to have superior people if you’re going to build a superior company. Mr. Smart’s advice – and his company – focus on being able to assess people so you can acquire top level talent.

For some of us, that’s completely practical. For others of us, it’s impractical. Thankfully, many of us can operate successful businesses with good to great employees. We don’t necessarily require the very best, but we may need to upgrade. 

The wheelhouse of my work focuses on enterprises achieving a few million bucks a year up past $100 million a year. For each of these companies, the difference in achievement between mediocre or average workers and good or very good employees is noticeable. Every CEO and entrepreneur says so. But not each of them are necessarily willing to do the necessary things to make the improvement. Some just wish things would magically be better. Others are working hard to figure out ways to make it better. I’m hoping you’re among that latter group. 

So what do we do if we want to upgrade our workforce?

First, and this is going to be overly obvious, but I’ve often found that we get so bogged down we often overlook the obvious. Examine your habits and practices to discover what has worked well in the past versus what hasn’t worked well. 

Have you ever had a problem with something say electrical? Perhaps it wouldn’t turn on. Only to find out it wasn’t plugged in? I suspect we’ve all done it. Embarrassingly we’ve discovered the problem after spending too much time thinking of every other possibility. We overlooked the first place we should have looked. Ditto with this problem.

It’s certainly possible, if not probable that what once worked won’t work any longer. Or at least as well. But sometimes we simply drifted away from a practice that was producing good results. It’s worth looking into. 

Do more of what works. Do less of what doesn’t. 

Perhaps parts of what you once did – that worked well – are worth reinstating. Be creative. Think it through. Discuss it with your leadership team to get feedback. 

Second, figure out your employment constraint. What’s the problem? 

This varies. Sometimes wildly. I know entrepreneurs in some parts of the country where the challenge is systemic of their location. Maybe they’re in an area where the economy is driven by tourism, but they’re not in the tourism business. That’s not the same challenge as another entrepreneur in a small college town where most of the applicants are young people looking to get part-time hours, not make a long-term career choice. 

Whatever the constraint is — identify it so you can figure out the depth and breadth of the problem. The business owner in a tourist town isn’t going to alter that dynamic. She’ll have to figure out a way around that problem. Ditto for the college town business owner. But you’re challenge and constraint may not be related to such things at all. 

Some owners are battling better paying job opportunities in other industries. Industries where the profit margins afford higher wages than they’re able to pay. In some cases, much higher. What do you do? You commit to figuring it out. For example, I know retailers who closely examined their workforce in detail and their hours of operation. By adjusting the number of workers scheduled at various times they were able to upgrade their compensation programs to improve productivity with fewer employees. The result? Happier employees with improved incomes and better opportunities. Such ideas come mostly from facing the reality that the future isn’t going to be defined by the past. It’s about getting unstuck and letting go of how things were once done. 

You can’t figure out solutions until you first know why you’re experiencing the challenge or the constraint. Make sure you can prove the constraint. Don’t just jump to a conclusion. “We can’t get good people because we just can’t find anybody willing to work for $12 an hour.” Or, “We can’t find people willing to work the hours we need.” Are these assumptions or do you have evidence? 

Be an evidence-based leader!

As much as possible, know the answer. The truth will help set you free!

Third, deploy creativity to solve the problem. Do you want to know the biggest opportunity most companies have when it comes to upgrading people? Baby boomers. People over 50 years old have proven superior to many employers willing to give them a chance. They have maturity, life experience, good manners, strong work ethic and don’t always need top dollar because they’re often searching for other things at this stage of their lives. Too many entrepreneurs though discount them, thinking they’re unable to learn new skills, or adapt, or follow instructions. Those are false assumptions. Jaded viewpoints that make as much sense as throwing all Millenials under the bus of “they don’t know how to work hard.” Don’t write off an entire segment of the population because you’re biased against them. Open yourself up to the possibility that you can upgrade your workforce after you upgrade how you think. And how you approach the challenge.

Lastly, share the vision, mission, and purpose. Don’t assume people get it. Help them get it. So many people are clamoring for a cause. A sense of purpose. An answer to the one-word question, “Why?” If you’ll be more passionate and clear about that with your employees, you’ll see a shift that may surprise you. A positive shift where mediocre work becomes good, good becomes great — and people behave as though their tanks are full. 

Don’t overlook or minimize our common desire and need for significance and purpose. As the leader of your parade, you’ll attract the people willing (and able) to help if you’ll openly share your own purpose and significance and help each person achieve that for themselves in the context of the work inside your company. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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One step forward, two steps back. A better strategy is one step back, two steps forward. But that’s not how the cliché goes. I think we should change it.

Take a step back so you can move forward further, faster! 

I’m not talking about regressing. Not far from where I live there are two sweet tree-lined streets that are heavily traveled. But there’s a problem. When it rains a lot, the roads flood because they’re in very low lying areas. Yellow signal lights are activated by the city then gates are pulled together to keep cars from going any further. Those of us who live in the area know when it rains a lot we’d better figure out some other route. Sometimes I forget, only to get to the warning light and have to turn around and go back. It’s the only path forward.

What do you do when life doesn’t present you with a yellow flashing warning light though? How do you know it’s time to turn back?

Sometimes you don’t. That’s why we dig ourselves into a hole and we keep digging. We’re unaware that what we’re doing isn’t working, or likely to ever work. Before we can ever advance we have to stop hurting ourselves from moving forward. Rule one: stop moving backward. The paradox is that the path forward begins by seeing we’re already moving backward…but now we have to move back even further. That’s when resistance kicks in. Our brain and our desires compel us to not do it.

Seeing the reality of our current actions isn’t always easy. We feel like this digging (hustling, grinding – pick the term you love most) is moving forward. No, we’re not seeing signs of success, but how are we to know we’re mere days away from breaking through? We all think about it and talk about not quitting too soon. So we keep digging. Thinking it’s the wise option. 

What if we’re wrong? 

I was watching one of those HGTV flip shows late one night. You know the shows. Couples in various markets in the country buy homes, rehab them, update them and flip them for a profit. Every episode is pretty much the same. Buy the house as inexpensively as possible. Sink as little into as necessary, or as much as necessary, depending on the market and comparable prices in the area. Sometimes they encounter a problem though. Suddenly they need to sink in another $2,500. Then they encounter a problem that has to be fixed, like electrical or mold. There goes another $3,000. Suddenly, the flippers realize their math isn’t going to work if they don’t stop investing more money into the property. Sometimes they guess right. Sometimes not. Of course, on TV they always get it right. We don’t see the downsides of the flipping business. Those times you invest more than you make back. Watch just a few episodes and you quickly realize it’s a game of cost containment and market conditions. 

Look at your life in the same way. Cost containment versus market conditions. Can I invest more time and money and make a return on the investment? Well, I think I can. But even these seasoned flippers often get it wrong. They buy a house for $108,000, sink another $60,000 into it thinking they can sell it for $225,000. So they enter the game expecting to earn a gross profit of $57,000. Once the rehab begins they find problems they didn’t budget for. Electrical. Structural. Plumbing. Mold. Now they’ve sunk an additional $20,000 into their costs. That $57,000 expected return is now $37,000. And once they list it, expecting to sell it for $225,000 and quickly. But two weeks on the market the only offer they get is for $212,000. They don’t make $57,000. Instead, they make $24,000. Life doesn’t always go as expected. 

The lesson? We all have to adapt. Knowledge and speed are critical. 

The more flippers know about the project the better. Those hidden problems are the costly ones. And the speed with which they can do the work, and how quickly they can sell the property — those are major elements of their success. 

It’s the same with our lives. Personally and professionally. 

Knowledge. Speed. Key ingredients for our success, growth, improvement and transformation. 

The quicker we know we’re stuck, the better. It all begins with understanding things as they truly are so we don’t delude ourselves. Flippers can be delusional about how much return they’ll get on a specific investment. Will those hardwood floors warrant a significantly higher selling price? They may feel very strongly, “Yes.” But they may be wrong. It could be an expensive mistake. 

I live and have grown up in oil field country. My grandfather was a wildcatter. Guys who drilled oil wells on speculation, hoping to strike oil. The challenge for wildcatters is, “How deep do you drill before you give up?” All my life I’ve heard the saying, “Don’t keep drilling a dry hole.” Make sense, right? Don’t keep spending money and time to drill a hole that will never produce results. 

That’s great except it doesn’t address how you can know to stop drilling. It’s the same challenge we all have. We don’t start drilling or rehabing a house (if we’re a flipper) thinking failure. We’re fixated on the success we see in our mind. It can be hard to let go of that belief. Especially if we’re already heavily invested in money and time. Every seasoned negotiator knows the benefit. The more time you make the other person invest time in the process the more likely they’re going to want to make a deal. Nobody wants to walk away from a deal after we’ve spent so much time trying to make it happen. Is it reasonable? Who says we have to behave reasonably?

How can we protect ourselves? How can we see clearly that it’s time to stop and turn back…otherwise, we’ll never be able to move forward? 

Outside perspective. That’s how. The elimination of our blind spots and the reduction of our false assumptions can happen effectively when we surround ourselves with people who care enough about us, and our success, to help us figure it out. We don’t need – or want – people to take control of our lives. We still want to be in charge of our own destiny. We just need safe, caring people capable of asking us tough questions, challenging our assumptions, pushing us…all in a non-judgmental way. 

The answer is to surround yourself with people willing and able to serve you. People who have no vested interest in your outcome except to see you achieve the goals you’ve established for yourself. Now you can see THE PEER ADVANTAGE. The advantage of having people in your life who will do that for you. 

Convenience is speed. Online and virtual make it powerful.

The power of THE PEER ADVANTAGE is why I’m now building two groups of U.S. based entrepreneurs bold enough, hungry enough, hard-charging enough to do that for themselves. I want to invite you to take some time to check out the details at ThePeerAdvantage.com 0r you can jump start things by filling out the application form at BulaNetwork.com/apply. Your application doesn’t put any pressure on you or me, but it gives us a starting point for a phone call. Apply right now. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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