Flickr photo courtesy of Matt McGeeA small condensation drain provides water for the squirrels.
Yesterday I pulled into the driveway and noticed, for the umpteenth time, a squirrel darting from the house across the driveway to the large bushes on the opposite side. I see this all the time from Spring time throughout the Summer. But yesterday it was different. I saw where the squirrel was before I startled him. Enter the epiphany!
There is a piece of PVC pipe that goes from one of the air conditioner units to drain the condensation to the outside. The water that drains from that HVAC unit provides water for the squirrels. That explains why every time I pull into the driveway I see a squirrel dart from the house to the bushes.
Our yard is full of big trees that provide a great habitat for squirrels, lizards and birds. Animals have an innate sense of things. They’re not smarter than humans. Well, let’s be fair to the critters. They’re not smarter than most humans. Still, I can watch with amazement at how clever they can be. They can find food, shelter and water because their life depends on it. Enter another epiphany. For a man just searching for epiphanies, I’m on a roll now.
Their life depends on it.”
I’ve watched enough of these survival reality shows to know that those three elements of life are critical to survival: food, water and shelter. Every single time the survivalists land in a new place they take inventory of what they’ve got. What items did they bring with them that can be used to help them survive? What are some things they can see in the environment that will help them survive?
Survival (And Success) Is About Managing Resources
The squirrels in my yard need water. I’m sure they get water when the sprinklers go on. And there’s a dog bowl filled with water in the backyard for Rocky and Rosie. Nothing irks them more than catching a squirrel trying to grab a drink from their bowel. I’ve even caught squirrels straining to lean forward to grab a quick drink from the pool. But when you’ve got two West Highland White Terriers, squirrels need good cover. So when you’re thirsty and need a drink and you’re in a yard patrolled by aging Westies, well, it pays to find resources outside the yard where those dogs can’t reach you. A place where there’s low or no foot traffic. What better resource than a condensation drain on a side of the house where there are no windows or doors and there’s monkey grass for cover?
I started wondering how squirrels can even find such a resource, but then it dawned on me.
What else have they got to do?
If you’re a thirsty squirrel, I suspect you go hunting water and you don’t stop until you find it. Else, you’ll die!
Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.”
Peter Drucker wrote that in his autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander (1979).
Those squirrels I see dart across my driveway are monomaniacs with a mission to get water.
What’s your single focus?What’s your mission?
The single focus foils lots of people. Today people pride themselves on mutli-tasking. It gives people a false impression about productivity. Just because we can text on our phones while surfing the net, while listening to podcasts, while watching a YouTube video doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Besides, it’s tough to figure out just one thing. We want to do lots of things. At the same time. As for mission, well…that’s easy. Make money. Lots of it. Today! If that’s not the only mission, people will often add, “I want to impact as many people as I can.” Or, “I want to follow my passion.”
Lamer Than A Squirrel
Flickr photo courtesy of Peter G. Trimming
The squirrel’s mission is more important – and specific. He wants to survive another day. He wants to live. He wants to be safe from predators. He wants to eat. He wants to drink. He wants to mate. In that order. One thing at a time.
It’s clearly working, at least in my neighborhood. The squirrel population is insane. The squirrel population is on the uptick so they’ve got their business model problems ironed out. Maybe the summer and this Texas drought will throw a wrench into their plan. It’s about time they experienced some disruption like the rest of us. That’ll force the beggars to adapt and iterate.
Anybody wanna bet against the squirrels? Me neither. The rascals are resilient. If one source of water, food or shelter disappears, the squirrels figure something else out. The only thing that will stop them is death. It reminds me of an online poster I saw the other day…
You Can’t Eliminate Income Inequality Until You Eliminate Effort Inequality”
Squirrels don’t measure their income in dollars, but in food, water and shelter. Maybe there are some lazy squirrels, but you don’t see them. They’ve gone off somewhere to die. The dead squirrels I see are those jittery, indecisive ones who can’t decide if they’re going to cross the street or go back. They get hit. But they’ve got food and water in them when they do, so I could argue they died doing what they love…playing. Game over!
Tenacity, The Squirrel’s Super Power
Some close friends, a young couple we know at church, moved into a different house recently. They’ve got a great yard with big trees. One of the trees is a Japanese Maple. Odd thing is, much of the bark is missing from various limbs, endangering the life of what’s thought to be a 50 year old (or older) beautiful tree. Evidently, squirrels do this as a source of food or water.
For about a month now the homeowners – my friends – have tried various tactics to outsmart the squirrel (or squirrels; they’re not sure if it’s just one or a herd). Thus far, the squirrel has proven smarter than the humans who own the tree. They bought a wildlife trap hoping to trap the critter and relocate him. They put enticing food inside. It seemed like an ideal, logical approach…until they watched the varmint reach up, close the trap door, then reach inside through the cage to snag the food. If not for the threat against the cherished tree, it’d be funny.
Whether you love trees or not, you’ve got to tip your cap to the ingenuity, resourcefulness and tenacity of the squirrel. And not just this particular squirrel. It’s part of their clever nature I guess.
Why Aren’t We That Clever? Why Aren’t We That Determined?
Cause we’re not squirrels. 😉
There are other reasons, too.
We’re humans and we’ve got a lot going on.
I can’t prove it, but I strongly suspect squirrels don’t go around comparing themselves to one another. I’m pretty partial to my side of the street. Maybe the squirrels in my yard think they’re better than the ones living across the street. But I doubt it. I think that’s likely a human hangup. That gives the squirrels a leg up on us.
We’re busy comparing ourselves to each other. That means we’re busy being jealous. It means we’re growing increasingly discontent with our life. Translation: “Your stuff is better than my stuff. I want your stuff, or stuff like it. I hate my stuff, or my lack of stuff.”
It’s hard watching all the squirrels in my yard as they scurry around thinking they’re guilty of envy, jealousy and comparisonitis. Maybe they are, but it sure doesn’t look like it. They don’t act like they’ve got time for all that nonsense. But we do. We make time for it. The squirrels are too busy looking for food, water and shelter.
I love books and all kind of instruction (including podcasts). Squirrels run around my yard chirping in squirrelese, “I ain’t got time for that.” People make time for all the stuff they don’t yet know…but are convinced they need to know. Squirrels are too busy to stop searching for resources. People are too busy trying to learn how to be resourceful. There’s just no time left to actually be resourceful. Maybe tomorrow.
Squirrels won’t have a tomorrow if they fail today. They wake up every morning to Larry The Cable Guy’s mantra, “Get ‘er done!” It’s that or die. When you’re facing two distinct different choices it must be easier to make a smart decision. We wake up every day with a million choices. Most of us aren’t facing life or death decisions. If we’re hungry, we go to the kitchen. If we’re thirsty, we have to figure out what we’re going to drink, not how we’re going to find water. Water, juice, soda, coffee, tea – what do we want to drink?
Maybe Life In The Gray Is Killing Our Success
“With him, everything is black and white,” we hear somebody say about a person who seems inflexible. Well, nobody is as inflexible as a squirrel. These critters are binary. It’s a one or a zero. It’s live by finding food, water and shelter or it’s die because you failed. No, the inflexible person has a full gray-scale palette going on in their life when compared to the squirrel.
Don’t do this. Do that. Or, do that. Don’t do this.
We make lists. We daydream. We think. We ponder. We procrastinate. We seek distractions. We get scared. We get angry. We struggle to do the most important things because we mostly enjoy the unimportant things.
We fail.
Or we don’t succeed as much as we could.
And you know what else? We don’t have as much fun either. When the squirrels in my yard aren’t searching for food, water or shelter…they’re chasing each other like crazy. I suspect much of that may be part of that other activity, mating. They seem to be having the time of their life.
Sean is a fellow Texan living here in Dallas. I initially did this interview for a new project – Chasing DFW Cool. That’s a project I’m still planning to launch, but the conversation with Sean is too good to sit on.
We talked about his past history, technology, entrepreneurship, how he connected with Brian Clark (founder and CEO of Copyblogger) and more. Sean is the creator of Scribe, a SEO optimization solution.
Copyblogger Media offers a variety of products and services designed to help content creators build more successful platforms:
Studiopress – the creators of the Genesis WordPress framework and child themes
Authority – an educational resource and community available via Copyblogger
* The new platform, which has been teased for months now, is coming soon. In fact, this week Brian Clark is going to begin a series of webinars about the Rainmaker Platform. You can visit the New Rainmaker website, scroll to the bottom and sign up to get in on it. You can also listen to a short podcast about the three webinars on the new platform at the New Rainmaker podcast.
The other day I heard a man talk about how his great grandfather had his own business. His grandfather and his father also had their own businesses. Now, he had his own business. Four generations of business owners, including the current generation!
You’re thinking, “What a great family tradition. I wish I had entrepreneurship in my DNA like that.” Wait a minute though. Tap the brakes.
He went on to say that none of them, including him, had experienced financial success. He summed it up by saying, “We’ve all struggled and never broken through.”
Four generations of business ownership seems impressive until you get that last little truth.
In 2012 the median income in America was $51,017. The great grandson figures he’s made more money in a single year – in hard dollars – than his father or grandfather. It was under $50,000. He’s not been able to crack the median income. Struggling with failure is a daily feeling for him. “How can you feel like you’ve broken through simply because you work for yourself?” he asks. Everybody thinks working for yourself is the road to financial and lifestyle freedom.
And it can be, but it’s not an automatic outcome.
You Must Be Willing To Risk It All
We’ve all heard that. Define all. Does “all” mean your family? Your wife? Your kids? Does “all” mean your health? Does “all” mean your convictions and beliefs? Business pundits who tell us how to achieve success may back pedal at these questions, but if ALL doesn’t include these things, then how many other things are excluded? Sounds to me like all doesn’t mean all, or even nearly all. Or does it?
Sacrifice Means Giving Up Some Things So You Can Claim More Valuable Things
I’m not telling you that success – even financial success, if we want to limit our discussion to money – hinges on risking everything. I don’t believe it. For every person who claims to have put everything at risk to make it financially I can show you others who will admit they didn’t risk much at all. Life just isn’t so cut and dried or simple. It’s very complex with more variables than I’m able to quantify.
Here’s what I do know to be true – you must be willing to sacrifice some things if you’re going to have some things of higher value. Fitness is going to require you sacrifice morning donuts, mid-afternoon soft drinks and late night pizza gorge-fests. A successful marriage is going to require self-sacrifice, not hanging with your buddies too much, not spending 80 hours a week working and tons of other sacrifices. Raising children, if you’re going to succeed, is going to demand lots of sacrifices. All kinds.
“Yes, I want all those things…and I want to be rich, too.” I’m not saying that’s impossible, but I am saying it’s improbable. It’s foolish to think you’ll buck the odds and it can happen for you. It might, but you’re likely going to be very disappointed.
If everything is important, then nothing is important.
Yes, making money is important. Yes, having a great marriage is important. Yes, raising good, well-behaved children is important. They’re all important.
Okay, then let me give you a scenario and you tell me how you’re going to handle it.
You’re youngest son is 8. He’s got a school program tonight. It’s been on your calendar for almost 2 weeks. Your wife’s family have come to town to attend. They’ve arrived in town yesterday. Your wife has made plans to go to a restaurant 2 hours before the event. That’s been on your calendar, too. The school program is at 7pm. The restaurant reservation, with the family and in-laws, is set for 5pm. At 3:45pm you get a phone call. A prospect is in town and wants to know if you’re free tonight to discuss your newest products. He knows it’s last minute and hates to impose, but he’s flying out late tonight and would love to talk about your products. He’s potentially a big customer.
What are you gonna do? Which of these is important? I know they all are, but you have to sacrifice something.
Will you:
Sacrifice the family dinner?
Sacrifice the school event?
Sacrifice the business prospect?
These are real world scenarios that many of us face.
In business, if you selected 1 and 2, then congratulations – you’re on the road to financial success. Maybe. There’s no guarantee.
The prospect may spend the evening listening to you, asking you questions and flying home only to have second thoughts and deny you the purchase order. Or, he may go home and write you a million dollar order. Can you risk that?
One dinner missed. One school function missed. That’s not going to wreck anybody’s home. True enough, but we both know it’s not just this one time. It’s priorities and it’s vexing to have to wrestle with these, but it’s how our real lives work. And many of us make a choice one time, then a different choice the next time and we end up wrecked all the way around.
We all know of too many people – maybe it’s US – who tried to have it all only to realize they couldn’t have any of it. Lost their family. Lost their kids. Lost their business or financial success.
Well rounded people aren’t at the top of the hill in financial success. So don’t start shouting that you want to be well-rounded unless you really mean it.
Here’s The Secret Rule: There Are No Rules And There Are No Formulas
We love to focus on outliers. We also love to think we’ll be one of them. It’s just highly unlikely. Just look at the barometer of money, income. Only 3.9% of American’s earn $200,000 a year or more. That means 96.1% of the American population is earning less than that. 80% of Americans earn less than $100,000 a year. Do you still think anybody – or everybody – can make $200,000 a year? They can’t. They won’t. And there’s tons of reasons or explanations on why. The numbers don’t lie. We do. To ourselves.
Can a person be wealthy, have a successful marriage and raise good kids? Of course they can. But again, the odds aren’t favorable. As I type this up we’re experiencing severe weather in Dallas. Some homes have been destroyed. Power is out in some major parts of the city. We’ve had tornado warnings. Tornados are like success in some ways. They’re random. Yes, the atmosphere can produce conditions that enhance the possibility, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get a tornado. Just like financial success, there are no guarantees.
We want guarantees. At least we want a guarantee that there’s a chance. And we’d like it to be a good chance! We want a formula to follow like a cookie recipe. Insert these ingredients, at these quantities, during this point in the process and presto! Success. But there are no formulas or recipes. And there are no rules.
I’m not saying we roam the earth subject 100% to random chance. I’m not saying we shouldn’t assume responsibility for our outcomes. Fact is, I’m fond of the saying I first heard from Jack Welch during his days running GE, “Control your own destiny or somebody else will.” I believe in doing all you can to give yourself the best opportunity, but that doesn’t mean you’ll ever break through. You still may fail. But it beats the alternative to just sit around hoping lightning will strike.
Figuring Out What Matters Most Is Often Harder Than We Imagined
Here’s the reason we can’t make success a formula, recipe or secret. It’s individual. It’s based on our own exploration and discovery. It’s based on our own values, ambitions, skills, talents, connections, choices and behaviors. You have to find your own way. I hope to just supply you a bit of help along the way.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has the motto, “We Deliver For You.”
You can’t outsource results in your career. Nobody can deliver for you. It’s all up to you.
Time is the single biggest component of delivery. Fail to get it there on time and you’re toast. It’s not enough to get it there. It’s not enough to get it there in one piece. Those are assumed outcomes.
But time also involves timing. You’ve got to deliver on time and you’ve got to hit at the right moment.
Hustling Demands Speed, But That’s Not All.
Faster is better. Sooner is better than later. The very term “hustle” denotes speed. But sometimes people feel like they’re hustling when they’re creeping along.
It’s the common malady of confusing motion with meaningful action. There’s only one area of my life where that’s profitable: the treadmill. I can do 4 miles a day on a treadmill and it helps my health. It doesn’t take me 4 miles down any other road though.
Fast doesn’t mean reckless. Or ill-planned. Or knee-jerk. Or seat-of-the-pants.
It means taking the next step now. And it means being comfortable knowing that you don’t have complete knowledge or insight.
The Marines talk about a 70% rule where in the field, armed with 70% information, troops make the best decision possible without delay. They know success is more likely using that formula than it is if they wait for more information.
In fact, Louis C.K. talked about the same thing in an upcoming GQ interview.
These situations where I can’t make a choice because I’m too busy trying to envision the perfect one—that false perfectionism traps you in this painful ambivalence: If I do this, then that other thing I could have done becomes attractive. But if I go and choose the other one, the same thing happens again. It’s part of our consumer culture. People do this trying to get a DVD player or a service provider, but it also bleeds into big decisions. So my rule is that if you have someone or something that gets 70 percent approval, you just do it. ‘Cause here’s what happens. The fact that other options go away immediately brings your choice to 80. Because the pain of deciding is over.
“And,” he continues, “when you get to 80 percent, you work. You apply your knowledge, and that gets you to 85 percent! And the thing itself, especially if it’s a human being, will always reveal itself—100 percent of the time!—to be more than you thought. And that will get you to 90 percent. After that, you’re stuck at 90, but who the (bleep) do you think you are, a god? You got to 90 percent? It’s incredible!”
How often do you find yourself completely stumped about what to do next? Sure, it happens, but most often don’t you know what you should do?
Make a phone call. And you know who you should call.
Go see somebody. And you know who that is.
Write something, read something, research something or do something. And you know what it is.
It’s just one thing, but it’s the next one thing…not the next 10 things.
Hustling Is Selling
Are you a creative? Don’t confuse creating with hustling. You’ve got to be busy creating your art, but that’s not hustling. That’s being creative. Hustling involves money. Whether you need a patron or a customer, you’ve got to hustle.
Are you a business person? Then I don’t have to explain it to you.
We all need people who will fund us. We need money. Without it we can’t keep doing whatever it is we want to do. Paying customers don’t merely provide affirmation that we’re on the right track, they let us stay on the track so we can keep moving.
You gotta hustle! You gotta keep hustling!
For some (maybe for many) selling can be the hardest work possible. After 41 years of doing it, I’ve wrestled with just about every imaginable selling problem.
Call reluctance
Fear
Timidity
Not wanting to be “that guy” who always self promotes
People claim these problems stem from our personal history, our point of view, our personal philosophy and our personality quirks. Maybe. Maybe not.
Me? I think they stem from more basic and fundamental problems like idiocy.
I’ve known stellar salespeople who could sell (or attempt to sell) just about anything. I’m not that guy. I’m certainly not a “sell ice to eskimos” kind of sales guy.
And I’m not a master closer. You know the ones, don’t you? They can pitch like nobody’s business, but their real skill in compelling or coercing you to say, “Yes.” Even when you don’t want to. They don’t care if you have remorse after the fact. Too late, they’ve made the sell and extracting a refund is nearly impossible and hardly worth the trouble. But these sales animals are creatures built very differently than the rest of us.
Sadly, you may be tempted to think that there’s only one way to sell – the way you hate most! WRONG.
You have to be true to yourself. Sharks recognize posers. Don’t try to be a shark…unless of course, you are a shark. It’s okay. We’ll all know you by your fin and sharp teeth. And the fact that you’re swimming alone!
Here’s the deal. For every person who says you CAN’T sell like that…I’ll show you somebody wildly successfully doing it exactly like that.
“You can’t pitch all the time.” Sure you can. I know people who do it all day, every day. And make lots of money doing it. They eat, drink and sleep selling themselves and whatever that involves (real estate, insurance, stocks, financial services, etc.).
“You can’t bug people into buying.” Oh yes you can. I also know people who bother the snot out of people until they either hack them off, or make the sale. Either way, they feel like they won. And for them, that’s the point. They just have to work as fast and hard as possible to get a YES or a NO. If YES, they celebrate, but only briefly. If NO, they quickly move on.
“You can’t make it all about yourself.” Yes you can. Plenty of people do. Some don’t even hide it. Others try to feign caring about others, but in time it’s obviously not genuine. Self-centered, ego maniacs are running rampant in sales circles because some of them have figured out how to make it work for them.
Pick the most despicable selling behavior and I bet I know somebody making a handsome living doing it exactly the way you think it cannot possibly be done. And that’s a problem. For all the rest of us, in overcoming our adversities to be more effective in selling.
We’re repulsed by the notion of hustling or selling. It seems sordid, seedy and something we’d just rather not be associated with. But if we ignore it, we’ll fail. If we neglect to figure it out, we’ll join the vast ranks of people whose great idea never saw daylight because nobody funded it, nobody supported it with purchases and it faded into oblivion.
All for the lack of a paying customer!
Today’s show has one big aim – to help you flip your mental switch in favor of the single biggest activity that will drive your financial success, SELLING. This includes career folks who want to move up the ranks. It includes creatives who need patrons and customers to buy their art. It includes attorneys who need to persuade prospects to hire them. It includes doctors who need to establish referral networks. I don’t care who you are or what you do, selling is still critical for your success. If you’re failing, it’s highly possible that a big reason is because you’re neglecting this major daily activity.
Why?
Laziness
Don’t want to sacrifice anything
Stupidity
I’ve heard tons of people make this excuse: “I’m just not passionate about selling.” They’re nuts. They’re also wrong!
Oh, I know some people want to chase their passion. Well, behave like a dog chasing a car if you’d like, but that’s not what I do, or what I help clients do.
Doing the work requires doing stuff you don’t always enjoy. And you’d better work hard and be good at it. Else, you won’t find success. You have to hustle as though your livelihood depended on it…because it does.
Stop looking for the elusive definition of “successful” because it changes for all of us. Instead, focus on making yourself a success by doing good work really well.
If Mark Cuban netted $100K a month he’d be suicidal. If he made $1 million a month he’d still be suicidal. At the altitude where he’s now accustomed to flying, financial success is measured in 100’s of million of dollars annually. Anything less is disappointing. Cuban is always hustling because he’s now a whale and it takes a lot to feed a whale. His hustle has to match his needs, ambitions and desires.
The point isn’t to compare yourself to Cuban, or anybody else. The point is you do have to hustle to match your needs, ambitions and desires. The world won’t deliver any of those to you. Stop waiting for the truck to pull up to your office or house.
YOU gotta deliver the results you need to make your enterprise succeed. YOU gotta deliver to get what your family needs to survive and thrive. YOU gotta deliver if you’re going to fulfill your ambitions.
So here’s what you gotta do:
Give up excuses! All of them. Take responsibility.
Stop procrastinating. It’s never worked for you. It never will.
Be more fearful of letting down your family and your potential than in hustling. Don’t your loved ones deserve your best? So do your prospects and customers!
Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. You can’t have it all, but you don’t want it all anyway. You’ve just been listening to all the noise telling you you do, and that you can. It’s a lie.
Chase what’s important to you. You have to get the things you need first. That’s money. You need paying customers because you need money to live and to make your other dreams come true. Money is a resource you need, so go get what you need and don’t stop until you get it.
Build a bridge over disappointments and setbacks and stay focused on hustling. A closed door, or a rejection is the price you have to pay for winning. Embrace it and get past the losses fast!
Own it. Own your outcome. Own your actions. YOU gotta deliver!
A deep bench isn’t always necessary, but a strong one is.
When I’m commissioned to coach teams, helping organizations develop bench strength is often a major driver. Organizations have a variety of bench strength concerns. Some worry about succession. Others about just getting the work done. Still others worry about gaps in knowledge, competence or leadership. Not all teams are created with equal needs.
What’s Your Game? What If You Lose A Player?
It’s important for you to look at your company or organization when you’re thinking about bench strength.
Very small businesses don’t even have a bench. They’ve got a few chairs. Many small business owners don’t think much about bench strength because they’re the star player. As long as they’ve got enough support people to play the role of grunts, things are fine. Until they’re not. Suddenly, the person who was doing an important, but perhaps unappreciated job quits. Now, the owner feels betrayed, let down and realizes he’s got a bench problem.
I’m always puzzled when I see bosses react to an employee’s resignation. Too often the boss instantly goes to a place of personal betrayal. “I’m disappointed that you’d do this to me,” he may say. The other day some 2008 episodes of Million Dollar Listing L.A. were on TV. One of the brokers had an assistant who turned in her 2 week notice. She explained that the hours as a single mother just were too taxing on her and she’d found more suitable work for her lifestyle. Her boss, one of the brokers on the show, immediately told her how disappointed he was in her. And the funny thing is this year he had an almost identical situation with a different assistant. He hasn’t learned much in the last 5 years or so because he handled the recent resignation of an assistant almost identically as he had in 2008.
It brings up a universal question of any organization consisting of 2 or more people. What if one leaves?
The real estate broker acknowledged that his life was complete chaos when his assistant left. He quickly scrambled to find a replacement because his workload skyrocketed without an assistant. Many service professionals (like real estate brokers) are very small teams, but that often makes them susceptible to greater dangers if an employee leaves. For this broker, one employee represented 50% of his team. That’s gonna hurt, but shame on him for a) being personal when it should have remained professional and b) for failing to see how a 65-hour workweek was affecting his assistant who was a single mom. He should have done a better job of hiring a team member whose life was more suitable to the work and the schedule. Part of bench strength is knowing the game you’re playing and the needs you’ve got.
Contingency plans are vital for every organization.
You never know. If you’ve been a leader for any length of time at all you’ve been blind-sided before with an unexpected resignation, or worse. Worse would be some event that created a gap in your organization. It could be a death, an arrest or some unforeseen event.
You need a short-term plan and a longer-term plan.
What will you do if in the next hour you suddenly lose a player? Any player? Even non-key players fill a place that leaves a gap when they’re not present. Who else knows how to fulfill that role? Is there any documentation of the role? Are there step-by-step systems in place so anybody with reasonable skills can fill the role, at least temporarily?
Disaster preparation is mostly top-of-mind after a disaster. As I record today’s show the deep south here in America has experienced some violent storms. Some strong tornados have taken almost 40 lives. Entire communities have been devastated. Some people had storm shelters. Many did not. Some people thought they had more time. They were wrong.
I’ve lived most of my life here in Tornado Alley. If you don’t know exactly where you’ll go and what you’ll do when the sirens sound, then you’re potentially in big trouble. So it is if you don’t know exactly what you’ll do if a person – any person – suddenly leaves your bench. Or goes down with an injury. Have you ever had an employee suffer a health issue that knocked them out of the game for awhile?
Don’t start working on the systems after the disaster. Do it beforehand. Document, document, document. Every role in your organization should have documentation of what they do, how they do it, and when they do it. Those systems need constant revision and improvement (and updating). Just because you did the work years ago doesn’t mean the work is still up-to-date enough to do the job if the needs arises today. I’ve got a closet in my house where my wife should hide if a tornado warning sounds. The closet had sufficient room for us a few years ago, but over time more and more stuff has been crammed into it. Today, I went and looked at it. I’d have to spend precious seconds tossing stuff out to make room for us. Those seconds could be the difference in living and dying. I need to go clear out that closet a bit today! You may need to do the same with your documented systems.
Role players are considered people who fill a specific need, but they may also be people with diverse abilities capable of bridging a gap. Usually they’re very comfortable in whatever role they’re given as long as it’s congruent with their view of themselves and their strengths. For instance, the role player who is ideally suited for detail work isn’t likely going to excel if you put him in a sales role, even if it’s only temporary.
Don’t mistake role players for “lesser” players. They’re not. Quite often they’re the guy in the second chair because they’re perfectly suited for it, and they love it. Not all “A” players want to be first chair musicians. Some are quite satisfied to play Ed McMahon to your Johnny Carson (or Paul Schaffer to your David Letterman). The Lone Ranger had Tonto so don’t discount a Tonto in your life.
If Tonto rides away, the Lone Ranger needs to find a suitable replacement. It’s not likely going to be a new acquaintance. Lone Ranger has somebody in mind. Somebody he already knows and trusts. And somebody he feels is capable. The list may have only existed in his head, but at least he had a list just in case. You need a list, too. Just in case.
Relationships are the cornerstone of bench building. Your relationships with your team are paramount, but you must develop relationships with others who may be suitable for your team if the opportunity arises.
Bench Development Hinges On Development, Acquisition And Placement
DAP it. Fail at any of these areas and you’ll suffer bench issues at some point.
Development is easy to overlook and undervalue. Too often I see organizations that put a priority on hiring the right people and trusting they’ll just work out. Little things like “on boarding” can be overlooked. They can also make or break talent acquisition, but they negatively impact developing existing team members, too. Don’t dismiss these things as being soft things that make no difference. These cultural things determine the daily practices of a company or organization.
Hop over to Linkedin or Monster and check out the job listings. Go look at higher end jobs. Look at the laundry list of skills and requirements. Now look at what they offer! See how few of them even mention any support, training or development. Well, no wonder. They don’t even focus on attracting people with compelling offers. They scream, “Look, I’ve posted a job. You should jump at the chance to work for us.” And they wonder why they have bench weaknesses.
Development and acquisition are joined at the hip. You can’t separate them. And placement means what Jim Collins (author of “Good To Great”) called “putting the right people in the right seats on the bus.” It’s matching the right people with the right job and situation. Don’t ruin an “A” player with misplacement or you’ll quickly feel you’ve got a “B” or “C” player. It’s not the player, it’s the situation.
It’s Stanley Cup Playoffs in the National Hockey League. When one team goes on the power play and the other goes on the penalty kill, you’ll see the importance of placement. A star player can find himself sitting on the bench because the coach knows his skills aren’t ideally suited for either of these situations – the penalty kill or the power play (one side is playing with fewer players than the other due to penalties assessed). Sometimes the best “specialty teams” players aren’t the marque players, but rather role players who shine under these special pressure situations. Great coaches know when to put specific players on the ice.
Devote time and energy to develop your team. It takes commitment. Make up your mind that helping your team members become stronger is important. Then get busy doing everything you can to help your people succeed.
Acquire the very best talent available. Skimp on talent and you’ll weaken your team. Go cheap and you’ll end up going home with lackluster performance. I know you’re tempted to think you’re spectacular leadership and coaching will make all the difference, but you’re wrong. Winning is done by great players. Great coaches allow the team to win more, and to win bigger. Poor coaches manage to lose, even with good talent. Never diminish the value of great team members.
Placement isn’t just where people are, but it’s also who is coupled with whom. Bring in a “B” player and see how your “A” players react. It won’t be pretty. And you’ll erode your winning culture with poor placement – either by putting an inferior talent in their midst or by putting the wrong person in a position unsuited for them. This is where your leadership can shine. Do great work in this area and it’ll be clear how strong you are.
Conclusion
Maybe it’s about having somebody in place who can take over your role when you leave.
Maybe it’s about having somebody in place who can accept more responsibility.
Maybe it’s about filling a new position with an existing team member.
Maybe it’s about having a short list of potential candidates to fill unexpected vacancies.
Maybe it’s moving people around so they’re in situations better suited for their talents.
Your game may determine these things. Your company culture and mission will impact them, too. These can be very challenging waters to navigate, especially if you’re trying to do it without proper planning and competent execution. Before you can focus on the work, you have to focus on your bench of players who will perform the work. Your work requires people who can perform at high levels. In your organization it may just be you and one other person, or it may be you leading a small team. But it might be you leading a team of hundreds.
Ignore your bench at your own peril. Don’t disregard the power of the individual people who make up your team because your bench is filled with individuals. Make sure your team members know their proper place on the team because their contribution to the whole is what makes your organization win.
The other day I heard a man talk about how his great grandfather had his own business. His grandfather and his father also had their own businesses. Now, he had his own business. Four generations of business owners, including the current generation!
