Randy Cantrell

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“I’m not sure it’s ever going to be right,” he tells me. He’s spent the last few minutes telling me about a project that is very important to him. A project he’s as passionate about as anything he’s done in a long time. I ask some questions to make sure I’m seeing and hearing things as they truly are. One of the first things I want to know is how far along he is in the project. That’s when I get a reality check.

He says, “Oh, we haven’t launched it yet.” I press a bit more asking him to describe what has been done so far. He rambles on about planning sessions, timelines established and a host of other details that I’m assuming are important, but certainly not vital to launching because…well, because they’ve not yet launched. So how important could they be? 😉

“When do you think you’ll be ready to start?” I ask. Now he’s repeating himself. “I just don’t know if we’re ever going to be able to get it squared away. Not at this rate.”

We’re about 10 minutes into the conversation. Enough already. I hit LAUNCH and thus begins my mini-sermon on taking something from start to profit (profit could be in dollars, productivity or anything else one deems valuable or important).

This movie is played out daily in every organization of any size. People stuck in planning mode. It’s like a person going target shooting and getting stuck in ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim mode. What’s the point in going target shooting if you never pull the trigger? Seems foolish, but we don’t feel foolish because we fool ourselves into thinking that planning is doing. Well, kinda sorta, but not really.

Time for a reality check.

The reality is that we learn by doing. Okay, we learn MORE by doing. We certainly learn better (more deeply) by DOING.

Let’s be practical. And real.

Soldiers preparing to go into combat learn by training, practice and lots of repetition. Ditto for pilots and anybody else who is about to engage in life and death situations. The stakes determine the level of preparation. Rightfully so.

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that whatever you’re planning to do isn’t going to put anybody’s life at risk. If so, then plan away. Get it as right as you can. Test it. Test it some more. Then launch.

For all the rest of us, we’re likely going to be way ahead of the game if we have plans that hit 70% on our confidence meter. Sometimes anything north of 50% may be sufficient. Again, the stakes determine the requirements.

Speed doesn’t mean reckless.

Launch speed matters. The faster you start, the faster you can fix. The faster you fix, the more success you experience. It’s a formula that works.

My conversation partner ultimately had to acknowledge that weeks and months of planning, planning, and planning hadn’t brought the launch date any closer. Mostly, it had been a major waste of time and effort whose aim was directed at making people feel better. More confident to start. And it hadn’t worked. Instead, it had fostered timidity. The ongoing striving to make it “just right.”

The team was stuck but didn’t know it.

We learn fastest by pulling the trigger. How else can we tell if our aim is off?

Ready, aim, fire. Yes, by all means, prepare and plan. That’s the whole ready and aim part. Give yourself the best chance to hit what you’re aiming at – the target. Keep your eyes on the target as you pull the trigger. Won’t do you any good to watch the target unless you do though – pull the trigger, that is!

Now, fix your aim. Did you hit the target on the first shot? Great! Now shoot again, and again and again. As long as you’re hitting the target, keep shooting.

If your aim is off, fix it. Adjust. Correct it. Pull the trigger again.

Rinse and repeat.

Where is the growth? Where is the real fixing happening?

After you pull the trigger. Only then.

Everything else is just hypothetical until you pull the trigger. Planning and all the other ready, aim stuff you think is so important is largely “here’s what we think will happen” or “here’s what we want to happen.” Pulling the trigger is our reality check. It’s how we find out if our theories are true or not. It’s how we figure out what adjustments to make so we can find success.

The problem is plans don’t have to fail.

We can stay in planning mode and never find out if we’re right. We can just assume we’re right and get stuck in the endless loop tape of preparing, planning and planning some more. Who cares why? Fear. Perfectionism. What difference does it make? Failure to DO SOMETHING is failure, period.

Risk versus reward. If pulling the trigger has an extraordinarily high price, then do the work to get it as right as you can. If the price is too high, you may want to figure something else out. Don’t even take the shot if you don’t want to. That’s okay, too.

But the game is made of taking shots. Pulling the trigger is where achievement and success are found. If you’re not able to pull the trigger then you have to figure out why. Why are we putting this off? What are we hoping to improve by all this preparation and planning? You’re either in it to win it, or you’re not.

Get going. Fix it as you go. It’ll accelerate learning and growth. And you’ll figure out how to win, or you’ll figure out you can’t. Either way, you’ll win.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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Last Friday NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke with at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference. The topic? The mental health of the players.

Silver reported that social media and headphones are impacting the professional athletes, sometimes making them feel more anxious and isolated. Players fly or board buses with headphones affixed and interactions aren’t what they once were.

Heads down. Music in their ears. Scrolling through their social media.

During the conversation Silver recalls Isaiah Thomas telling him,

“Championships are won on the bus.”

I recently watched a 2014 documentary – The Hornet’s Nest – about a father and son who were embedded with troops in Afganistan. Like most other wartime military documentaries, it’s evident that the soldiers are fighting for each other. Band of brothers is a real thing.

Our lives are enriched by the deep connection we have with comrades, co-workers, family members and the other people in our lives. When those connections begin to slip, so do we.

The NBA Players Association is so serious about the mental health of their members they launched a mental health and wellness initiative last May. In spite of the multi-million dollar contracts, the jet-set lifestyle and the other perks that come with being a professional athlete…these people endure constant scrutiny, criticism and glorification. It’s easy to see how the noise could be overwhelming and foil the best attempts to have peace.

Last week a local radio team on the number 1 station in Dallas traveled one week with the Dallas Stars NHL team. They’ve done it for 14 seasons now. This is a team, like most, with their own team plane, built with every possible amenity to make the players comfortable. These radio hosts get to experience world-class travel just like the athletes, staying at 5-star hotels and dining at the finest restaurants. When they returned they talked about how exhausting it was to be in 4 hotels over 5 days. And they only had to focus on doing a 3-hour radio show each day. Proof once again that all that glitters ain’t necessarily gold.

We’re not operating professional sports franchises. Some of us may want to one day (not me), but we’re operating businesses and organizations that aren’t likely so high flying as the Dallas Stars. Or the Golden State Warriors. Or the Boston Red Sox. What does any of this mean for us?

Just this – isolation is destructive to happiness. And unhappiness is counterproductive to high performance.

Workplace dynamics – or the lack of them – is worth a closer look. That includes how people are set up. The open office concept is increasingly under fire for failing to do the very thing it was designed to do – help people connect and collaborate.

Perhaps people need their own space in order to more deeply connect. Not hard to understand. Look at your home. Inside our families, we all need our space, time for ourselves. Then we yearn to come together. Imagine your entire family having to occupy one big room, together all the time? Food for thought.

But the point is how deeply can we care about each other.

I focus frequently on communication, connection, collaboration, and culture. At the heart of all 4 of these important components is COMPASSION. It’s about our willingness and ability to care about one another.

It’s why I find myself constantly telling folks about Tom Rath’s 2006 book, Vital Friends.

The sub-title is, “The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without.” Truth is, the people who surround us, the people we care about and the people who care about us have a dramatic impact on our lives.

Team chemistry. Living in DFW where we have every major professional sport represented we get to hear lots of coaches and pro athletes talk. Beyond the X’s and O’s of each sport, there is a lot of talk about how well the players gel. General managers and coaches are always trying to find players who have skills to help the team, but also humans who will fit in. It’s harder than it looks, likely complicated by the things NBA Commissioner Silver pointed out.

People working elbow to elbow day after day, with headphones on, checking social media, posting narratives to depict their lives as something different than what they truly are — increasing their sense of being imposters, amplifying their need to find social acceptance on Instagram – and perhaps resulting in a deeper loneliness than they know how to manage.

You’re the leader. What do you do?

I don’t have THE answer. Today I hope to help you give it some headspace. Think about it. Look around your organization. Listen. What do you observe? What’s working in your opinion? What isn’t working?

I can tell you that short-term trendy solutions are crap, sparked largely by coaching or consulting companies selling a solution. Climbing walls, rope courses, and other adventure-based team building exercises may have their place, but I’m not a fan. Artificial setting designed to overcome day-after-day, hour-after-hour routine just seem shallow and empty to me. I wouldn’t be impressed if a leader asked me to spend a morning, an afternoon or an entire day doing such things. You may though. And that’s fine. I’m not opposed to these things. I’m just opposed to leaders or bosses thinking those are going to fix a broken culture. They won’t.

Let me slam my generation for a moment. 😉 Butts in the seat meant work was being done. That’s why too many older leaders whine about younger generation workers. And why an awful lot of them are opposed to virtual workers. If they can’t see people where they’re supposed to be stationed, then they incorrectly assume productivity is being hampered.

Truth is, time spent connecting, sharing and learning about each other may have an incalculable ROI. When employees roam around the visit with each other (sure, moderation in all things), they’re not necessarily wasting time. They’re communicating and connecting. Those must happen before collaboration. And all 3 are vital to forming your culture.

I know this. Leaders who foster the first 3 C’s build the best cultures on the planet. People are happier. They enjoy doing battle with others. Fighting along side others. That’s what time on that bus represents. Our ability to learn to care about people, know people and trust people. If you can’t foster that in your organization…you’ll never be a champion.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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A young man aspiring to get into the big state university neglects high school homework. Weeks before graduation he gets a rejection letter. The University doesn’t grant him admission because his grades aren’t good enough. He failed to understand the consequences of not taking high school as seriously as he could have.

The epidemic of accountability is real. It’s not limited to young people. The prevailing thought that the universe owes us, or that we’re victims of somebody else’s doing – it gives us an out that we’re happy to take. It’s not our fault. It’s somebody else’s fault.

Leaders have long struggled to find ways to help educate and train people to properly understand how things work. Namely, how to help people really understand that there are rewards they can gain and consequences they can avoid. “Can” is the big word. Each person has the power to affect the outcome.

First things first. Leaders must first hire people, or train people, to understand that they have command of their choices, their actions, and their outcomes. I’m not a big fan of pushing water up a hill – meaning, I’m not fond of trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Converting people, changing people – it’s really, really tough work. Maybe you want to take that on. Maybe not. That’s up to you. I’d rather find people already bent toward accepting responsibility for their outcome. For me, time spent helping them achieve growth is very rewarding. Trying to get people to move from excuse making to accepting responsibility would drive me crazy, so I choose to not do that kind of work.

Grow Great is about just that – improvement, growth, and change. 

Helping people is job one for any leader. Today, I hope to provoke you to think more deeply and thoughtfully about how you can serve your people to gain a better grasp on how they can control their own destiny. By more soberly considering the impact of their decisions and behaviors, people can have a big impact on their own growth. It’s big service leaders owe their people.

But how?

Candor.

That’s it. Candid conversations where you don’t protect people from the truth, but where you insist on sharing the truth.

Let them get punched in the face.

You want to protect the people you lead. And you should. The bigger question is, “From what?”

Protect them from things that could cause harm. Get really clear on what defines harm though. Pain isn’t always harmful. Suffering either. Or struggle. You have to let people fail and suffer some.

A retailer had a staff of buyers. They were tasked with making merchandising decisions for the company. It’s a big role that can make or break any retailer.

One buyer invests $100,000 in a single product that he thinks will be a wild success in the fall. Instead, it’s a flop. The product had a target retail price that was supposed to garner a 40% profit margin. That means the $100K investment should have been successfully sold for over $166K, providing the company with a $66K profit.

That didn’t happen. Instead, months later the product was stagnant and growing less valuable every day. The markdowns began. The company decided to forego making any profits. They just wanted to get back as much of their original investment of $100K as possible. Within weeks they had only sold a fraction of the inventory, less than $10K worth.

Now things were getting really bad. The product was clearly going to produce a loss for the company. They marked it down some more. And some more. And some more. When the smoke cleared the company’s $100K investment cost the company $70K. Seventy thousand dollars was flushed down the tubes. A single deal that was the worst mistake the buyer had made in his 4-year career with the company.

Upstairs there was talk of firing the buyer. In a meeting with HR and top brass, the merchandise manager, the direct supervisor of the buyer, put forth a compelling case. “If you think I’m going to let our $70,000 investment in him walk out the door to benefit somebody else, you’re nuts. It was an education that he’ll NEVER forget.”

He knew the buyer was a responsible person who owned his work. In fact, just 40 days after the merchandise hit the warehouse (it had been in stores about 32 days), the buyer had come to his boss saying he felt, based on the sale through (the speed of sales), he had a bad feeling they should make markdowns much quicker than normal to minimize the loss. The boss, being the leader he was, owned the decision with his bosses. He told the buyer to stay the course for a few more weeks. Based on what they now knew, the merchandise manager knew the buyer was right. Had they marked the inventory down more quickly they could have likely reduced the loss from $70K to something much, much lower.

The VP of Merchandising was the man in charge, answerable to the CEO. She realized she had two good people here. Her merchandise manager and buyer were both capable, high performing employees who quickly took ownership. A $70K mistake provided a priceless education for both people. It was painful, but not fatal. She leveraged it to help everybody. Instead of some HR-based PIP (performance improvement plan; a fancy term for “we’re going to work you out of your role”) she had a conversation – a real dialogue – with her two employees where they walked through the purchase, the thoughts behind it, and the execution of it once it arrived. She wanted to learn from it, too. Happy to get her own hands dirty she led the way for her employees to know she had a vested interest in their careers.

Contrast that with another retailer who experienced a similar situation, but handled it very differently. Admittedly, it was a bit more money on the line – almost double, $180,000 invested at wholesale. But the overall loss was actually less, $60K. The COO, thinking he was going to make a point, forced the VP of Merchandising to formally reprimand the merchandise manager, who was forced to terminate the buyer. In his mind, that was leadership that would teach “these people to be accountable.”

Care to figure out which culture is the higher performing of the two?

Yesterday we talked about forgiveness and compassion. That doesn’t mean people “get by” with poor decision making or poor performance. But that didn’t happen in either of these cases. In the subjective world of buying products for retail, some purchases work out better than others. Both buyers were diligent in how they approached their respective purchases. In fact, both had pretty solid intel to back up their decisions. Each company had a precedent of similar products with good sales through success. For a variety of reasons, neither purchase worked out this time.

The first company used the loss to make it a people gain. The second company lost money, experience and one good employee. Within 90 days the merchandise manager left his employee to accept the same role with a better company, a competitor. So it’s really difficult to quantify the real loss suffered by the second company.

Just one word and thought for you as a leader – HELP. That didn’t happen with the second company. Nobody helped anybody, except themselves – they only helped make themselves feel better by pandering to their own ego.

Be a leader. Be helpful. Grow your people by first growing yourself.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”  – Oscar Wilde

It’s funny. And likely very true. But cynical. Here’s a nobler quote.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”  – C.S. Lewis

I’m a Christian and what Mr. Lewis wrote is congruent with scripture. So there’s my bias and I honestly should share that.

For the last few weeks, forgiveness has come up over and over again in conversations. From personal and family stuff to corporate and business stuff. Husbands struggling to forgive wives. Employees struggling to forgive the boss. Bosses finding it hard to fend off bitterness. It’s one of those universal topics and transcends who we are, where we are or whatever station we occupy in life. Everybody needs forgiveness. And everybody can likely improve their own ability to forgive.

Why is forgiveness important? Because bitterness and resentment are destructive.

They eat us from the inside out. Hatred and other negative emotions don’t help us grow. They certainly don’t contribute toward growing great!

Compassion and forgiveness are the right things to do. That alone is reason enough. Or it should be. But there’s plenty of good reasons by it makes sense IF we’re determined to grow our lives. And our organizations.

How you treat people matters!

It demonstrates your heart, your true character. Sit down with somebody to share a meal and if they’re rude to the wait staff, you have your answer to the question, “What kind of person is this?”

CEO’s sometimes make declarations that I find puzzling. They express exasperation toward their people while simultaneously trying to express great care for their customers. It’s not congruent with growth – growing an organization and a high-performance culture. When pressed, they’ll often admit that it’s easy to hold grudges toward employees who “mess up.” Sometimes they’ll even brag about how they rarely forget such screw-ups. Employees can find it almost impossible to get out of the boss’s doghouse. Sad.

What do YOU gain by not forgiving?

Confidence in the person you refuse to forgive is lost. There’s no hope of it ever returning until you’re able to forgive. If you lack confidence in them, why do they still occupy any space in your life? Do they merely exist now to be the object of your bitterness? That’s destructive for both of you.

They don’t grow because they know you have no confidence in them. No matter what they do, there’s just no way out except to exit your life.

Maybe the relationship is worth destroying. You and they must decide. Or maybe just you. Or maybe just them. But either way, your unwillingness to forgive them seals the fate of the relationship (even if neither of you sees it right away).

Bitterness, resentment and hatred grow. I’ve not yet come across anybody who grew great by harboring those things. Maybe you’ll be the first. 😉

Your unwillingness to forgive displays the depth (or shallowness) of your compassion and grace. Tough leaders – stereotypical tough leaders – may think it’s being too soft. They think things like compassion, love and empathy are for sissies. Weaklings.

They’re wrong.

Parents unwilling to apologize to their children are weak. Parents unwilling to forgive their children are hateful, vindictive and mean. So it goes in every area of life, including the office. Leaders, like parents, have to serve with love, care and concern.

We all need forgiveness…sometimes. We all need to extend forgiveness…sometimes. More often.

It just makes sense. Forgiveness forges a path conducive for growth and improvement. That alone makes it worthwhile.

What’s stopping you? Is your pride? Your ego? You don’t want to give an inch? Whatever is stopping you is the very thing that’s getting in the way of your growth. It’s time to face it, deal with it and get past it. It’s high time you enter the land of forgiveness.

Give it try today and this entire week. Don’t wait until people ask you for it. Just give it to them anyway. Do it every day this week and I can all but guarantee that by Friday your heart will more open than it’s been in a long time. When your heart is open you’ll mind will also expand to be more open. It can’t be helped. And that, kids, will give you the power to change anything!

Become a better leader by improving your willingness to forgive. Who wouldn’t want to follow that example?

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

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Two months down, ten to go. If you’re like me, you feel like 2019 is a rocket ride…going super fast.

Speaking of fast, instant is about as fast as you can get. Small business owners lean into their core strength – being nimble. It’s why so many giants have been disrupted by little guys who could move blindingly fast compared to the lumbering aircraft carrier speed of some gigantic competitor.

But instant? Well, that’s way beyond being nimble and highly maneuverable. Seems kinda ridiculous. But it’s not. Let me tell you a quick story to prove the point, then we’ll review the lessons we can all learn from it.

Gibson Brands, Inc., the world’s most iconic guitar brand, appointed their new leader – James “JC” Curleigh – as president and chief executive officer effective last November. JC joined Gibson from Levi Strauss & Co., where he served as president of Levi’s brand. Gibson also appointed a new Chief Merchant Officer, a new Chief Financial Officer, and a brand new c-level position, Chief Production Officer.

It’s important to understand the context behind these massive changes at the top. This Gawker article can tell you more, but the previous CEO had a terrible reputation and guitar players worldwide complained of the quality of the instruments. This 117-year-old company lost its way. Leadership let them – and their customers – down.

Enter JC and the new leadership team who took over the day the company emerged from bankruptcy. Right about now you’re thinking – well, of course things happened quickly. They had to. And you’d be right. But just because things need to happen quickly does not mean they do happen quickly. Look in the mirror at your company before you start throwing rocks at Gibson. 😉

JC immediately began to rally the troops first by listening. Who better to ask, “What’s wrong? What needs to be fixed? How do you suggest we fix this?” than the guy or gal at the top? That’s right. There is nobody better! Sadly, too few do it. Too few think of it as the noble work it truly is – to walk the factory floor (or whatever floors exist in their company) and engage in real conversations with the folks who do the work.

The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show was fast approaching. January 24, 2019 was the opening date and Gibson staffers wanted to be there. That’s not even 90 days away from day 1 for this new leadership team, who was walking through a minefield of quality control issues and brand reputation erosion. JC told the team to prepare a plan for showcasing the new Gibson at NAMM. Within 4 days the team had improved products, ready to showcase, and had a full plan to blow the lid off the show. Now that the show is over, it was a grand success by nearly all accounts.

What happened in those 4 days and the 12 weeks or so prior to NAMM? JC and the team worked their tails off. That’s what happened. But first, JC asked questions and listened.

He made 3 fundamental improvements instantly that set Gibson on course to reclaim prior days of glory. First, the CEO learned that partners – the sellers of Gibson guitars – discovered quality control snafus by reporting that when they closely examined the products, the flaws were obvious. Why didn’t Gibson notice? Turns out when the CEO is curious enough to find out, he does. Gibson products were being built in a variety of places. Each factory floor had different lighting. None of it apparently good enough to produce the highest quality products. Immediately, new factory lighting – uniform lighting the same in every location – was installed.

“How hard was that?” you ask. So hard that it took the humility and curiosity of a great leader to ask. Then listen.

Next, the CEO discovered that each instrument was being handled about 74 times. That is, there were 74 opportunities for errors, mistakes, flaws to be introduced to each instrument. Why are we handling each instrument so many times…and then checking quality only at the end of the line? Good question, Chief.

Thus began more “what if” questions. What if we drastically reduce the number of touches? What if we make each person responsible for handing a PERFECT instrument to the next person?

Answer: It’ll make a quantum leap improvement in quality. So that’s what they did. They cut the number of steps, or touches, in half. They put accountability in place up and down the line. Each person was responsible for passing along a PERFECT instrument. Quality was dramatically improved…instantly.

Third, the CEO figured out that the company needed to wage a war on dust. The fit and finish is everything when you’re a premier brand. Gibson had lost their fit and finish advantage years earlier. It was time to get it back. The company had a history of building world-class instruments with world-class fit and finish. They simply needed to build the products according to templates that had been created years ago.

Manufacturing handmade instruments produce a lot of crap in the air. That crap impacts the fit and finish. The CEO led the charge to reduce or eliminate dust in the air so the instruments would emerge at the end of the line in the most pristine finish possible. It worked.

Three BIG improvements. Three BIG improvements that happened almost immediately because the person at the top – the CEO – started involving the people who do the work. It so happens that the people wanted to build great instruments. And they knew how. They needed a leader who understood the human potential and who believed in it. By nearly all accounts, Gibson found a CEO who “gets it.”

Step 1 – Act fast.

Yesterday is over. Gibson entered bankruptcy because the company had nearly impossible debt, bad products, incompetent leadership and a reputation that was going more south quickly. When the patient is near death, you have to act fast. I think we should all accept the challenge to act that way even if the patient (our company) isn’t near death. It can serve us well to behave with greater urgency as though our corporate life depended on it.

Step 2 – Do not figure it out by yourself.

Leverage the people who know. Be curious. Be humble enough to ask. JC came from Levi’s, not Fender. I constantly push companies to veer outside the norms for key hires. Not simply to be contrarian, but to amplify the curiosity and humility that can lead to dramatic growth. An experienced guitar maker CEO may have come into Gibson thinking she had all the answers. JC entered knowing he didn’t. There are BIG advantages to CEO naivete. Be willing to be humble, curious and naive so you can solicit the help you need.

Go to the source. The people who do the work likely have some of the best ideas and solutions. See them as the valuable resource they are. Ask them questions. Listen to their answers. Ask them more questions. Collaborate so together you can come up with better answers than you thought were even possible.

Step 3 – Do it.

All three of these decisions were implemented quickly. Why not? Don’t think they were simple, easy solutions, but they were all quickly implemented. That’s because the CEO was decisive. But another major component was because the people helped provide the solutions. That gave them strong ownership in making these happen. The team wanted to show off at NAMM. They arrived first each day and were the last to leave each night of the week-long show.

The “can do” spirit has to happen throughout the company. Great leaders know how to make everybody feel like their work matters. Because it does.

As we end a week but begin a new month I’ll leave you with a question to ask about your leadership and your company: Do you get it?

Do you enjoy this podcast? Am I providing you any value at all? If you’re a small business owner in the U.S. then I have a small favor to ask. Go check out ThePeerAdvantage.com. I’m working to form a small 7-member mastermind group of small business owners from around America to get together regularly online so we can help each other grow our business and our leadership. This isn’t a networking group. It’s not an advice-giving group either…at least not the way most groups work where people tell you what you should do. It’s a group designed to provide you with a safe space where you can speak in confidence and full honesty while we share our experiences and know how to help each other. Visit The Peer Advantage dot com and you can learn all the details. I’d love to speak with you about it.

Have a great weekend and let’s make March as strong as a stiff March wind.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:27 — 11.0MB)

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I’m an operator. I’ve never shied away from that title. A VP of a supplier first called me that when I was about 23. He meant it as a compliment. And I took it that way.

It’s not as sexy as being called an “entrepreneur,” but I think it’s more indicative of the work. The work of operating an enterprise.

Not everybody can look at an organization and see it operationally. To each his own. I look at all the people, the moving parts and the systems and naturally begin to think of ways things can be improved. That’s why I’m so intolerant of pathetic customer service where companies like DIRECTV make customers jump through every hoop possible to make things as difficult as possible.

Greasing the wheels to make things work better – more efficiently and effectively – is good business. I don’t care what business you’re in.

Ray Kroc purchased the hamburger stand from the McDonald boys and figured out how to make a pattern, a template for efficiency. McDonald’s growth mushroomed unlike anything before, in large part, because Kroc figured out operational efficiencies and how they could help each store replicate food quality and service with predictable success. When you start focusing on how many steps it is from the front counter to french fry machine, then you’re concentrating on operational efficiencies.

They claim 10,000 daily steps is good for our health. That’s roughly 5 miles. In business, we’re constantly trying to reduce our steps. If our current process involves 5 steps, how can we reduce it to 4? Or 3? Eliminating a step saves time, money and effort.

Saving steps also reduces friction. Friction is the resistance that can ruin business success. How difficult are we making it on our clients? How difficult are we making it on ourselves?

I’m sure DIRECTV and ATT (their owner) are intentional in their client experience. It pays. Well, they think it does because they’re only measuring things, it seems, in dollars and cents. Complex pricing structures, unable to be understood by any paying customer, benefit them. It’s a shell game they enjoy playing with customers to squeeze all the profits they can. But the friction has a cost. A cost the folks at the top aren’t looking at. Client happiness!

Google them and you’ll see blistering reviews. I’ve been a customer for over 20 years and I’ve never had a phone call last under an hour. Friction is intentional because they’re betting on a lack of breakage. Namely, they’re betting (and they’re right) that most folks won’t notice bill creep and if they do, they won’t complain about it. The dollars drop to their bottom line and they’re happy, even though customers aren’t. Operational inefficiencies at the level of a multi-billion dollar enterprise can pay off handsomely.

You can’t likely pull that off with your $10 million a year company. It would bog you down in execution and billing. Which is why people are leaving DIRECTV in droves and opting for streaming – even the newer DIRECTV NOW service, which has more straight forward pricing and no contracts. Simple is more cost effective and makes customers happier.

Adding steps adds costs. Reducing steps reduces costs.

First, save steps for your customers.

Save them time and hassle. They’ll love you for it.

We can all tell when a company is putting customers first. We feel it. It permeates their intentions and every aspect of their operation. Companies that put us first stand out and apart from the rest.

Be one of those companies. Demonstrate how much you love your customers by focusing on your operational efficiencies. Sure, you’ll save money, but if you’ll put the energy toward making your customers happier, that’s where the real money and profits are.

What are you making hard for customers? Why?

Do you make it hard for customers to get refunds? Why? You’re not going to make them happier by giving them more hoops to jump through. If they’re unhappy, do you assume, “Well, they’re already unhappy so what do we care?”

You care because an unhappy customer is a perfect target for happiness conversion. Give me an unhappy client and I promise I can make their experience so terrific they’ll become an advocate. It’s one of the most highly underutilized customer opportunities. Always has been.

Do you make it hard for customers to buy from you? Is the paperwork so complex and daunting that it requires minutes instead of seconds? Why? Friction kills. Get rid of it everywhere you can.

Make yourself easier to do business with. Buying. Complaining. Returning. Getting a refund. Closely examine every area where customers touch your company. Challenge yourself to make every one of those interactions smoother. MUCH smoother.

Next, save steps for your organization.

These likely impact customers, but maybe not. They do impact employee happiness and frustration. That alone makes them worth tackling.

Your best resource are the front line people. Ask them how things can be streamlined. They’ve got good ideas. Listen to them.

Jeff Bezos tells the story of the early days of Amazon when he and a buddy, presumably employee number 2, were packing boxes to ship. They were on their hands and knees. Bezos tells his buddy, “We need knee pads.” The buddy, being the brighter of the two at the time, responded, “We need packing tables.” They bought a couple of cheap packing tables that thus Amazon’s first operational efficiency was set in motion. Now they could stand upright while packing boxes. THAT is operational efficiency.

Many of these will be smack your forehead kind of things. You’re not looking at them right now so you don’t see it. When you start looking with clearer vision and when you start listening to the people who do the work, some solutions will become blindingly obvious.

We can all be prone to step over quarters to pick up pennies. Saving steps will help you become more proficient at picking up quarters and dollar bills. I’ve never seen an organization where operational efficiencies couldn’t be drastically improved – and quickly. It’s one of the fastest paths to greater happiness, lowered frustrations and higher profits.

Why don’t we give it more attention? I don’t know. Maybe because it’s not sexy. Maybe because we don’t believe it’s true (that’s my suspicions based on how many times leaders have challenged me that the savings is just so nominal it’s not worth the effort). But it IS true. It’s always true.

Your company has money laying around in the form of wasted processes, idiotic workflows and systems that once made sense (but haven’t made sense in a very long time).

Put in your 10,000 daily steps for your own fitness and health. Work daily to keep reducing the steps inside your company for the fitness and health of your business.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC