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"We're Not Smart Enough About That Yet" - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 267

267 “We’re Not Smart Enough About That Yet”

Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

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Knowledge makes everything simpler. That doesn’t mean it makes things easy.

Some years ago I’m visiting with a business owner. The topic? Finding other streams of revenue. It’s more than a brainstorming session. It’s strategic based on the current revenue sources.

A few ideas leap to my mind and I toss them out for consideration. The beauty of these sessions is they’re unfiltered. This is no time for bashful behavior. These are the times where uncorking can pay off.

One particular idea sparks a response from the owner. His answer formed the title for today’s podcast.

“We’re not smart enough about that yet.”

I was instantly impressed. Not at his company’s ignorance, but at his admission. True confessions are difficult for lots of entrepreneurs. Anybody who can be that candid during a session like this is probably my kind of people.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“We just don’t know enough about that technology right now to do it properly,” he said. “But we’re working on it.”

He proceeded to tell me the investments he was making in trying to get up to speed – and get his people up to speed. It was high-technology and the target learning was moving fast. He talked of “catching up.” And I could tell he was pretty committed to the effort.

“But the operative word seems to be YET,” I said.

“Yes, we’re going to get there. We’re just not ready to tackle it right now,” he responded.

“But you’ve got some target in mind or you wouldn’t be making the investment to catch up,” I replied.

Sure enough. He knew some opportunities were tied to making sure his team got up to speed on some technology that was currently outside the scope of their base knowledge. We talked about the capital and time investment they were making. We ironed out a timeline, with some mile markers of things they could do to traverse this unchartered water they were entering. They were going to be poised to launch a test within less than 90 days. A prototype product could be in beta testing within 6 months. And the opportunity could be game changing providing more revenue than all other products combined. It was an exciting adventure and I could tell most of the team was thrilled with the prospect.

If we conclude that we’re not smart enough about something (anything) yet, then it’s time to get smart!

How smart do you have to be to get started? Well, I suppose that depends on the endeavor.

The challenge is two-fold:

a. Knowing what you don’t know
b. Knowing what you know

That second one is much easier to quantify. But with it can come an arrogance that can hamper progress and innovation.

The other day I was talking with somebody about the differences in small business people 30 years ago versus the ones today. It was a conversation about the difference in the generations. I’m old enough to have a perspective. My observations might not be empirically correct, but anecdotally they are.

Thirty years or more ago, many small business owners I knew had a confidence most saw as necessary. “You’ve got to believe in your idea,” was the battle cry of the 1970’s when I began my career. The problem I quickly observed were business owners who would fall in love with an idea – usually their own – and they wouldn’t move off of it, or away from it. Stubbornness can be a good thing. Or a bad thing.

Resilience, determination and tenacity are great traits. But put them in a different context where a business or organizational leader refuses to budge off something that isn’t working — and they’ve got deadly potential. More than I can count I’ve seen leaders refuse to lose, in spite of the fact that their organization is getting their brains beat out. “Nope, we’re going to keep pushing forward,” says the ignorant leader who refuses to acknowledge what he or she doesn’t know. Namely, they don’t know that their idea ain’t working!

Knowing what you know can sometimes deceive us into thinking we know enough, or that we know it all. That’s why you see new comers enter spaces and disrupt it with new, bold ideas. They’re not encumbered with past industry knowledge.

New comers have an ability – and a thirst – to figure things out. Part of that comes in asking the biggest question any of us can ask.

Why?

They also tend to be speed freaks, which I find very appealing. Today’s entrepreneurs find out fast, and they find out if they’re failing even faster. They morph, adapt and change. The favorite word is, PIVOT. They abandon what isn’t working in favor of something that will work better. My generation didn’t tend to do that so much, but it was a different time with a different time element. No Internet. No cell phones. No computers. It was much harder back in “the old days” to figure out if you’d given something a strong enough effort to know if it would make it or not. So adapting, changing and morphing took a lot longer back in the 70’s than it does today.

My experience is one reason why I am so fond of the premise of the book, The Knowing-Doing Gap. It’s about knowing what you know and doing what you know!

If you’re not going to move forward, then any excuse will do, but don’t let a lack of know-how spoil your hope of success. There are way too many resources readily available to help us prepare to take action – just taking that first step might be all we need to make success a reality. Refusing to take the first step is a surefire way to fail. Don’t get hung up thinking you’ve got to have complete knowledge.

I love today’s pace and the resources we have. Beats the snot out of by gone years! Today, you just need to know enough to take the next step. The very next step. Figure that out, then do it. And do it fast! Then figure out the next step. And the next. Keep moving as fast as you can, making adjustments along the way.

Today, you don’t need to know all the steps before taking your first one. So many people fail to start because they can’t see all the details of the finish. Forget that. Head in that direction and start.

The technology company didn’t know where this new found knowledge would take them. They had an idea of what they wanted to build based on this new knowledge, but they knew they needed to get going. They needed to start learning. Fast. So they dove in.

When boots hit the ground, the battle plan changes. We don’t want to put boots on the ground foolishly, but we don’t want to assume we know exactly what the boots are going to experience either. There’s no way we can know until we’re there.

Enter something leaders may not always consider, CONFIDENCE. Organizations and people need confidence in order to win. Weekly I encounter people who are depressed, losing morale and lamenting the future because they’ve no confidence in leadership’s ability to change. In the face of challenges, people want to see a response. They want to see the game plan adjusted.

I’m a hockey guy and we’re right now in the latter part of the conference finals to see which two teams will play for the Stanley Cup. Some of these games are close, but some are blowouts. The other night I’m watching Chicago give up 3 goals in the first period to the Anaheim Ducks. I wasn’t in that locker room between the first and second period, but I guarantee the coaching staff was giving the team some hard instructions. They were correcting things. And every player in that room was expecting that. Chicago ended up driving the game to overtime after 3 periods, so the adjustments worked. The players had to execute those adjustments.

The point is – if those coaches hadn’t made any changes the players would have lost confidence in the coaches and in themselves. They knew they weren’t playing well. What they needed from the coaches were answers to the question, WHY?

We’ve all heard a coach after a loss tell the press that there’s nothing to be learned from a loss, but that’s a lie! Every good coach knows a loss teaches far more than a win. It teaches us what DOESN’T WORK. That helps us figure out what does work. In professional hockey, it’s very common for a team to make it deep into the playoffs one year or two, before finally figuring out how to make it further. Teams will bring in veteran players who have been there before. They’ll work on team chemistry. They’ll put together pieces that may have been missing in prior years. Teams have to learn how to win! That takes some losing, but it takes the proper response to losing.

Confidence comes from learning. Speed matters. The faster you get going, the faster you get smart.

Some time ago I’m talking with a young man about an endeavor. He’s wrestling with what to do. I tell him to build it in his head first. Embrace this trait we have as humans. To project into the future. To see things as they might become. To create the future mentally.

I wanted him to do that so he could see the end before he began. But I urged him to realize that he was going to have to change once he got going. “Just figure out your next step,” I told him. “Don’t delay.”

Do what you know to do while you’re learning what you don’t know. Don’t let the “resistance” get in the way. Fend off the challenges. Learn fast. Start faster. And if there aren’t any signs of success, then stop and rethink what you’re doing.

Some resources mentioned in today’s show:

• The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton
• City Government Leadership – a new endeavor I never planned, but one I’m pursuing enthusiastically
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
• BulaNetwork Facebook page (please visit me there and click that like button)
• Leaning Toward Wisdom – my other podcast; it’s a modern tale of an ancient pursuit

Don’t stall. If you realize that you’re not smart enough to get started, then get smart enough to just start. The faster you get started the faster you’ll get up that learning curve. You’ll also speed up your wisdom, not to mention the cumulative effect of getting in the habit of taking action.

Thanks for listening.

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Time To Amputate: Your Organization Won't Win With A Loser Attached - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 266

266 Time To Amputate: Your Organization Won’t Win With A Loser Attached

Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

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Time To Amputate: Your Organization Won't Win With A Loser Attached - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 266

surgical-tools-civil-war-era — A surgical kit from the Civil War

Pictured is a Civil War era surgical kit. It includes the implements used for amputation. Soldiers with horrible wounds often lost limbs in order to save their life. Sometimes we have to cut off things that would otherwise kill us.

My consulting and coaching has always involved helping organizations (mostly businesses) morph and adapt. I started seeing a trend about 8 years ago. An increasing need. I also saw increased resistance to solutions.

• Amputation of a poor performing segment of our business is difficult.

• Eliminating poor performing people from our organization is hard.

• Identifying and eliminating what isn’t working isn’t nearly as easy as you might think.

It’s the necessary elimination of products and services, people and processes. You can’t neglect the art of cutting.

I regularly encounter resistance when I talk with a business about the prospect of jettisoning a portion of their revenue stream in order to save and grow other areas of the business. We fall in love with our business. We become attached to our business model. Sometimes we even have pet products or services.

Business people can be notoriously loyal to what launched their career. The CEO who came up from the sales ranks will most certainly have a hard time giving any serious consideration to out sourcing sales. Even if it’s more cost effective and efficient, he’ll likely be too attached to having it in house to consider any other option. He’s got a viewpoint that may be impossible to alter.

How we generate income often matters more than we care to admit. It may not seem rational, but to us – it’s our business and it’s perfectly sensible. It made us wealthy. It made our enterprise successful. Our victories in the market were created because what we did and how we did it WORKED.

With empirical evidence staring us in the face, business owners can still refuse to see a category or process as a major source of sickness for our business. It’s our leg. It’s our arm. You try cutting off your own arm or leg and see how attached you are to your body parts.

Apply the same idea to people and their performance. Organizations of all kinds can get mired down, unable to accurately see what (and who) is working and what (or who) isn’t.

On Trial For Its Life

Back in the fall of 1999, while running an organization, I crafted what I called, A Quantum Leap. We were about to embark on a new decade, a new millennia. Lots of people were expecting a technology crash prompted by a year that began with 20 instead of 19. Debit cards would stop working. Credit cards, too. Bank accounts would freeze. The world would stop turning because all the computers on the planet had been programmed for a year beginning with 19. I wasn’t terribly concerned. And it wasn’t because I was smart in the ways of computer programming. It was because I was occupied with other ideas. Taking business to a completely new level by using a pivotal moment in history to rally the troops to achieve things never before thought possible.

It was during those fall planning sessions I found myself repeating the phrase, “on trial for its life.” I had risen in the ranks of leadership early in my career by doing just that. One over arching ambition trumped all others — How can we do better? That’s at the heart of putting things, and people, on trial for their life. No, I’ve never put people on trial for their literal life, but I have put their performance on trial for their occupational life in the organization.

Initially some people think it’s harsh. Mostly, they’re the poor performers. Or the people who don’t want the pressure of high performance. I never much cared what those people thought. Pandering to poor or average performance is not a good business model for high achievement.

These decisions shouldn’t be handled flippantly or casually. If a surgeon wanted to remove an arm or leg, I’d most certainly give him a vigorous emotional argument. I’d balk. I’d fight him to exhaustion until he fully convinced me I had no other choice.

I’ve spent dozens of hours examining critical data on a single product or service before concluding it needs to be considered for amputation. Then, dozens hours more making the final call, and figuring out the best course of action. It requires more than a casual glance. You need to take a deep, hard look at anything – or anybody – who is on trial.

And I suggest you put EVERYTHING on trial on for its life!

I don’t blame any leader for their reaction to the necessary amputation of the things that are killing their organization. I simply want to help you through the decision with the best possible solution so you can put yourself in the best position for success. I want to contribute to help more leaders succeed. Too many organizations are suffering. America doesn’t need to lose more small businesses. We don’t need to foster any more inefficient, poorly run organizations.

We need growth. Engagement. Health. Prosperity. Tenacity. Remedies. Solutions. Profits.

Additionally, I’ll end today’s show with a brief discussion about the benefits of a lower noise floor. Remember, focus is more about elimination of unimportant things than merely trying to concentrate more on what is important.

Randy.Black

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If you have a chance, please leave me an honest rating and review on iTunes by clicking Review on iTunes. It’ll help the show rank better in iTunes.

Thank you!

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Who Do You Listen To? (And Who Listens To You?) - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 263

263 Who Do You Listen To? (And Who Listens To You?)

Communication, Leadership, Personal Development, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

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How do you determine who gets your time and attention? Who do you read? Who do you listen to? Who listens to you?

There are three distinct groups who occupy your life – in terms of people who you’re willing to pay attention to – with one major caveat, these are people who know who you are. Of course, we all tend to listen to far more people who have no clue who we are. We read books, listen to speakers, watch videos, read blogs and listen to podcasts by people who don’t us. Sometimes we even put more weight on what they tell us than on what those who love us most may tell us. It’s the maze we all have to travel as we figure out who deserves our attention based on who can really help us.

1. The core group – the people you know and who know you. These are people who have a personal connection with you. They understand your life, and they care about it. They have a more vested interest in your life. Hopefully, you also care about them.

2. The special interest group – the people you know and who know you, but they leap to your mind because of some present need or interest. For example, you may have some specialized skill. Let’s say you’re a WordPress website designer. People know that about you. When somebody has a question or need about a WordPress website, your phone rings – or you email inbox gets a new message. You occupy a “top-of-mind” presence for the people who know you. You have people like that in your life, too.

Then, there are all those people we know of, but who don’t know us. Connections are made that have value, but aren’t very intimate. We really don’t know them, but based on their public persona we think we do. Again, some of these people may be core people we listen to. We may listen to them all the time. We may hang on their every word because we’ve decided they’ll be in our inner circle of influence even though they don’t know us.

Another group may be more specialized. I’m a member of Don McAllister’s Screen Casts Online. Don teaches about all things Apple Mac. He produces killer video tutorials at his membership site. I learn from Don’s work. He doesn’t have a clue who I am, but based on my special interest in what he teaches, I listen to Don. We’ve all got people like that in our life. They provide value for us. Sometimes we pay for the value. Sometimes it’s completely free.

With Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Pinterest, Google + and the host of other places where we interact with people – it’s entirely probable that most of the people you interact with each day are people who haven’t a real clue who you are. Why do you listen to them? Is it popularity? What is it that draws you to them? What value do they provide in your life?

Quite often I find myself not asking these important questions – and every time I drift away from asking these great questions I find my life grows noisier. That’s not good for me. It’s distracting.

Some years ago I devised a plan to further restrict the voices in my head – and my life. It’s hard. I’d love to tell you how I don’t plan to allow the cool kids to dictate the voices I value most, but sometimes they do. Sometimes it’s like reading a book only because it’s popular and top-of-the-chart only to find that I’ve wasted hours reading a book that was an utter waste of time! The herd isn’t always right. Popular people aren’t always the most reliable people to listen to.

Besides, I find the most value in listening to people who care about my life – and those willing to let me care about theirs.

3. The special confidant – the person, or maybe persons, who you completely trust. This group is really a subset of the first group, the core group. And it can consist of at least 2 sub-groups:

a) people who have skills/experience to help or
b) people who are special friends willing to help (but may not know how)

Maybe your mom loves you and is willing to listen to all your problems, but that doesn’t make her qualified to offer you sound advice. A husband or wife may have little insight about a professional challenge. Or you may just want or need a person with some distance to provide you with a fresh perspective.

This last group can be the most challenging group. For good reason.

The first group naturally happens. Our family, church friends, friends who share our hobbies and people who share other social interactions with us — they know us. We know them. Each group has some context. That is, church friends see us in one context. Friends we tailgate with at the weekend football game know us in a different context. Parents of our kids’ friends know us in that context.

Additionally, these groups happen around some central focus. Family happens because we’re born into or adopted into a specific group. We didn’t choose it. It just happened. Funny how our closest core group is so random, huh? But other groups – like our tailgate buddies – happens because we share our love for a team. Or because we have season seats near each other. Or because we’re next door neighbors who happen to love the same team. There are some shared reasons that bring us together. Some of these relationships may be shallow while others run deep. Our core group of people tend to run the range between very casual to very trusted. Still, these people are in our lives because of a common, shared interest. Or because we’re family.

The second group – the special interest group – can overlap with the core group. Those tailgate buddies might be close friends, but the foundation of the friendship was forged because we both loved a specific team. It may have transcended the weekend fall game, but we still view these friends as people we can talk with about next season’s chances to go to a major bowl game.

I’m mostly using this second group for the purposes of helping us though. These are people who have a specialized skill, talent or experience. It’s less important that they know us because the relationship – our willingness to listen to them – is based mostly on how much trust we have in their ability to help us. Can they help us solve this problem?

As summer is approaching my son and I were talking last month about having our AC units checked out. He knows a guy. Well, I know a guy, too. But he knows his guy better than I know my guy. And his interaction with his guy was just last year. I haven’t interacted with my guy in a few years. Based on his past experience, his trust and confidence in his AC guy — we both lined him up to do a seasonal tune-up on our units. My son knows him. He knows my son. I had never met him, but because of my son we had a connection.

He came over, spent a few hours doing what he does, charged us a reasonable amount and I even posted on Facebook telling anybody who might need AC work to call him. I strongly recommended him based on how he served me. He was in my second group, but now he’s in my third group. And there’s a point to that migration from group 2 to group 3.

That third group is even more special, or narrow. The AC man was in group 2 for me because I was going on a recommendation of my son. The guy didn’t know me. We had never met. He had never done any work for me. But once he had done work for me – and once we met – I was fully prepared to move him to the 3rd group based on his work and my experience with him. He could have come to my house, done crappy work and fallen off of any list…except the one where I keep people who I never want to call again. But he did a good job so I elevated him among the people I’m willing to listen to.

I’m not going to call him when I have a business problem. He’s not going to be somebody I call if I want to talk Bible. I won’t be calling him up for relationship advice. But if I need heating and air conditioning advice, he’s my guy.

That’s how it is with specialized interest. But it can also be how it is with a special confidant. Sounds odd to have a special HVAC confidant, but we all have people like that. Maybe you have a yard guy or a tree guy. Any time you have a problem in those areas, you call a special somebody who knows how to solve those problems. You trust that person completely when it comes to yard or tree issues. They’re a confidant, even if the subject isn’t terribly sensitive. Like my HVAC units.

We don’t think twice about having such people in our lives. But we either fail to think – or we avoid thinking – about some other people who may serve us in very important matters (not that our yard, trees and HVAC aren’t important). Married couples can struggle and one or both can avoid seeking help because of pride, embarrassment or a host of other moronic reasons. A marriage isn’t more valuable than air conditioning? Sadly for some, maybe not. But it should be.

I think there may be an even bigger reason why people don’t find or include a special confidant in some areas of their life. They don’t know anybody. And they don’t know who to ask, or they’re too afraid to ask.

The bravest ask, or quietly cold call somebody seeking out Google and other search devices to find somebody. But many don’t. They just quietly go about their business struggling alone, or leaning on people unequipped to help them. They hope to find some solace in a listening ear, but often find themselves more frustrated by a caring friend or family member who doesn’t know what to say or how to react.

And there’s the whole stigma of seeking out a professional. “We don’t need to see a marriage counselor,” says the husband to his wife of 10 years. Communication between he and his wife are non-existent. They both know they’re in trouble. They love each other, but the last few years have wrecked what they once had. Pride. Shame. Embarrassment. Coupled with not knowing a good marriage counselor…are creating the perfect storm for their marriage to fatally hit the rocks. “Besides, how much does something like that cost?” asks the wife. Again, it’s so far outside the realm of what most of us know about…our cluelessness hinders our ability to craft an ideal circle of trusted confidants to who can serve us.

Executive coaching suffers the same problems. Whether you prefer to call it business coaching, leadership coaching or career coaching – it’s all very much the same. It’s serving the specific needs of somebody who needs a person with whom they can be completely transparent and vulnerable. It’s serving the person who may need short-term help through some specific challenge. It’s serving the person who may want longer term help through a transition. It’s anything, but one-size-fits-all. It’s specific, personal and targeted.

Those brave enough – wise enough – to seek it out will attest to the value of it. For many, it’s priceless. For most, it’s invaluable. When it’s done well, it’s a partnership. It’s focus is YOU. That’s a rare feeling for most. A good feeling, but rare. To know that another person is so vested in your outcome that they’ll do whatever they can to help you — it’s a terrific feeling. One that too few ever experience.

It’s not about fixing things necessarily. It’s about exploring possibilities. It’s about improvement and growth. It’s about vital friendships that can help us achieve higher levels of success faster.

Who do you listen to – and how do you decide?

Randy.Black

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Every Significant Pay Raise Is Sparked By These Strong Desires - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 262

262 Every Significant Pay Raise Is Sparked By These Strong Desires

On Being Extraordinary, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

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Every Significant Pay Raise Is Sparked By These Strong Desires - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 262

I’ve negotiated countless deals in my career. Some of them have involved my own pay and terms of employment. Those negotiations are personal with stakes that run deep. Each time I’ve done it I’ve thought about the representatives of professional athletes and others who rely on professional representation. I never reached altitudes that required it, but I can see the benefits of it.

Herb Cohen, author of You Can Negotiate Anything, published the first edition of that book in the shadow of the Cold War. For those of you too young to remember, the Cold War was more than strong-arm negotiations. It was an arms race to show strength of destructive power. The logic was simple. If we show the Russians that our guns are bigger and more powerful than theirs, then we’ll have the upper hand. It was problematic because it was constant one-ups-man-ship brought about by one country making a move that would be countered by the opposition.

Cohen had a front row seat in a number of negotiations with Russia. In the book, he depicts the Soviet negotiation style as a sort of “my way or the highway kind” of conversation. My entire life – and my generation – understood and learned that anybody who sat across from us at a bargaining table with such a posture was assuming a “Soviet” approach. From an American perspective, those Cold War negotiations made us believe the Russians never negotiated in good faith. I’m sure Russians my age likely feel the same way about Americans. Back then, you never heard that worn out phrase, win-win. If you won, that meant the other guy lost. If he won, then it meant you lost. And that didn’t just apply to international, governmental negotiations. It applied to business, divorce settlements and any other bargaining between two or more parties.

It was all a zero-sum game. My winning necessitates you losing. Your winning necessitates my losing.

That was then. This is now.

My early business career was not spent around many people who believed in the Golden Rule. Instead of doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you, the mantra was…

Do unto them before they have a chance to do unto you.

I wasn’t able to embrace that notion, or strategy. It violated everything I’d been taught as a child, and the philosophy I was determined to live. That didn’t preclude me from trying to get the very best deal possible. I always felt it was my job to do the very best I could for my employer. I assumed the other side was trying to do the same thing and if I bested them, it only meant they didn’t serve their boss better than me. Yes, it was personal. Whoever said, “It’s only business” was only saying that to make the loser feel better. It’s always personal. It can be professional, but it’s still personal.

Today’s show was prompted by some professional people who wanted to know my thoughts – and advice – on negotiating pay increases and higher end titles. I’ve mentioned all this Soviet stuff to establish my own history and background and to encourage you to respect the position of the other side of the table. Take your eye off the other side at your own risk. Assume the other side has your best interest at heart — at your own risk (and likely peril). You have to assume responsibility for your own welfare.

Negotiating pay raises or better titles isn’t the same as negotiating purchase orders. It’s far more personal. Our investment in the outcome is higher. And more sensitive.

Your Need For More Money Doesn’t Matter

One of my first experiences with an employee who wanted more money involved hearing how he needed more money. I heard about a wife and kids. I sat there, listened and at the first pause said something that sat him back.

“Your need for money isn’t my problem.”

I could tell he was stunned. Not wanting to appear heartless, I went on to explain to him that all of us had responsibilities – people who depended on us to provide. I was sympathetic with his sense of responsibility, but it wasn’t my problem. While I wanted him to have the best opportunities possible in our company, he had to understand that because he had 2 more kids than another employee didn’t warrant higher pay. I thought his argument was senseless, and it was.

I talked to him about adding value. However, like many people, he was solely focused on his need, not his value. I urged him to focus on that responsibility and let it propel him to higher levels of accomplishment in his work. “Your family ought to provide you with enough inspiration to be more valuable here at work,” I told him.

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He wanted me to grant his wish like some magic genie. I knew he left my office dejected, in spite of my best efforts to encourage him. But I was young and not likely as accomplished at encouraging people as I am now. But I knew that I couldn’t be held responsible for any income deficiencies he suffered. He needed to own it himself. His family was his burden to bear. My burden toward them was done only through serving him so he could serve them. I’m not sure I succeeded, but I tried.

It’s been 35 years or so since I had that encounter. Many more have happened since. Each time the focal point is the same – providing value. Far too many people seem stuck in thinking only of what they need or want, not how they can elevate their value to warrant a pay raise.

Just this week Jacquelyn Smith wrote a piece for Business Insider entitled, 7 tricks to talk your boss into the salary you want, from a former FBI hostage-negotiation trainer. Mark Goulston is the FBI. Now he’s an author. He’s written some very good books including, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone and Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In.

Mark’s negotiation experiences are very different than mine. Yours, too probably. I’ve felt like I was in a life-death negotiation before, but it was just a feeling. It wasn’t real. Money, profits and income were the highest stakes for most of my negotiations. I’m not minimizing those because those are the pain points in business life. They’re just not quite the same as knowing somebody may die if you fail.

I’ll leave it to Mark and Herb Cohen (and plenty of others) to teach us some tactics. I’m mostly focused today on the point – the purpose and motivation behind the ask. And maybe, to a lesser extent, the courage to simply do it – to ask. In that regard, I really agree with point number 4 of Ms. Smith’s article…

Most people are “receivers” who are not willing to give — unless you ask, he says.

My own experiences have found this to be true. Sometimes you’re dealing with somebody who is proactive to reward superior performance, but it’s more the exception than the rule. And yet almost every worker likely wishes the boss would observe their good performance and offer them more money and other rewards. Maybe in a future episode I’ll talk about the powerful impact such behavior can have on a culture and leadership.

There are 2 things I want to focus on today. These are the things I have found most powerful when people are yearning for a pay raise. One is internal and one is external. It can start from inside out, or outside in. It doesn’t really matter. That’s an odd thing because most things have a defined sequence. Not this.

Inner Drive

Both things are inner. But only 1 is external. Let me explain.

Value. The business or organization cares mostly about what you can do for them (it). That doesn’t mean the organization doesn’t care about you as a person, but not so much really. It’s not personal – or impersonal. Well, it can be. But mostly, it’s business. It’s how things operate and you can’t be offended by it. In spite of some managers saying, “We’re like family…” it’s not true. Unless you really ARE family, which fosters its own set of big issues. Don’t expect your boss or your organization to care for you like your family. It’s not that kind of relationship. But I think many problems arise because managers often communicate “we’re family” and employees believe it. Then, when people don’t behave in the ideal family way, people are disappointed and sometimes hurt.

Value is both internal and external. The organization wants it from you (external). If you’re conscientious, you want to deliver it (internal). Some argue that it has to begin here, but I don’t think so and I’ll tell you why.

There are things I want. You want different things. Maybe you want a bigger house, or a newer car. Maybe I want to give my wife an expensive trip. Whatever we want is our inner drive. It doesn’t have to be something others find valuable. It’s valuable to us. And it can be selfish or altruistic. Some people want to earn more because they’ve got a sick family member. Others want to earn more so they can buy a fancy wardrobe. I don’t care what you want to do with the money. The point is, you do. We all care about what we want.

Here’s where too many people get it wrong. It stops here! Self-centered motivation drives the bus toward the quest to make more money. All by itself, epic fail. Nobody cares that you want or need more money. Just because you’ve got 6 kids and I’ve got 2 doesn’t mean you’re worth more money. It definitely means you need more, but that’s not my problem. Or your boss’ problem.

Value to your organization = value to your family and what you want.

Value to your organization in the work you produce + your personal desires = getting what you’re worth.

It’s one thing to say, “I just want what I’m worth” but most of us want more than what we’re worth. That’s the describer word needed in all this, MORE.

More value.

Bring more value to your work.

Gain more value to your personal desires and needs.

One can fuel the other. You need them both though if you’re going to make it happen.

Randy

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261 Is Innovation Valuable In Our Personal Lives?

Not Going Crazy In The Process, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

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Is Innovation Valuable In Our Personal Lives? - RANDY CANTRELL Innovation in the workplace has been a hot topic during my entire career. It accelerated when the digital age arrived, but it was present long before that. Some of us are old enough to remember a time when our businesses operated with manual, handwritten spreadsheets, telephones and postal service mail. Facsimile machines arrived and suddenly communication got faster. Computers arrived and with it a piece of software called VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet. That made every act of accounting – including inventory control and payroll – faster!

Technical innovation has built up speed all along the way. Today, it’s coming at such a rate of speed we likely need super-computers to measure it. The resulting avalanche of data has drastically increased the stress in the workplace. Every executive I know complains of being overwhelmed more often than not. Keeping up wasn’t always the biggest concern of leaders, but it is today.

Simultaneously, many leaders complain about a lack of innovation in their workplace. The pace, they claim, prevents it. “We’re moving so fast and furious there’s no time to consider improvement or innovation,” said one executive. “Besides, we’re afraid if we slow down enough to consider there might be a better way that we’ll just fall further behind.”

Not all that long ago I released an episode of my Leaning Toward Wisdom podcast where I talked about the damage of “the hack.” We’re focused on short-cuts and recipes. So much so, that I fear we rob ourselves of giving our work a chance to be great. But great is often the result of taking the time to innovate.

At home many people tell me they’re working hard to figure out a better way.

Doesn’t that seem odd? Busy moms and dads are often driven to figure out some things – to innovate – at home because of the blistering pace. Yet, that same pace at work stymies innovation.

Dig deeper and there may be some obvious reasons. Two of them actually: bosses and results.

At work we’ve got bosses. Even the bosses have bosses. And everything is measured, especially in high performance organizations. Employees, even executives (especially executives), are driven to knock out that to-do-list, produce results, finish projects, start new projects and keep pushing in a “mush-mush” world. No rest for the weary. No time to consider if what we’re doing might be done in a more efficient or improved way. It’s the pressure of the workplace.

The pressures at home are different. It’s less about performance and more about efficiency. Get the shopping done. Pick up the dry cleaning. Clean the house. Wash the clothes. Take the kids to school. Life is a never-ending series of to-do-lists. It’s about accomplishment, not performance. So the innovation is geared mostly toward getting things done faster, or with greater efficiency. “If I swing by the dry cleaners on my way to the pharmacy, I can avoid that road construction on my way back home.” At home innovation often takes the form of mapping out geographical and time navigation!

The paradox is that busyness is driving both behaviors. At work, it’s clogging up the innovation. At home, it’s forcing it to happen.

The result is we’re getting more done. We have to. But are we doing great work? Are we building better businesses? More importantly, are we building better homes (better marriages, better environments for our children to thrive)?

Innovation isn’t about change. It’s about improvement. It’s about taking the time to ask – and answer – the question, “What if —?”

What if we spent more time having meaningful conversations with our spouse?

What if we turned off the TV and all the electronic devices, and asked our spouse what we could do to be a better husband/wife?

What if we established non-negotiable standards in our homes? Those things that matter the most to us!

What if we took the time to consider our short-term future, and actually tried to map out a strategy to get us there? What if we decided to do more than hope our future would be better than our past?

What if we took more time to ask more “What if?” questions, and what if we took the time to come up with good answers to those questions?

At the heart of all innovation is the two word question: What if…?

Innovation is really nothing more than improvement. For all of us – personally – it’s about giving ourselves the very best opportunity to be the people we know we should be. The power to be our best.

Randy

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Avoiding The Loneliness Of Leadership - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 259

259 Avoiding The Loneliness Of Leadership

Leadership, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

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Avoiding The Loneliness Of Leadership - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 259

There you sit. Alone. Pondering the problems of the day. And the week. To say nothing of the quarterly performance worries.

Your organization’s performance hinges on lots of people. You stare at the ceiling tiles in your office and think of the various functions in your organization. Finance. Marketing. HR. Operations. Sales. Most days you never stop to think about all the moving parts and how they have to work almost perfectly to get it all done. But today isn’t one of those days. It’s one of THOSE days. A lonely at the top day.

Your gut is telling you all the right stuff, but that’s only because you remember being a young leader who made the mistake of sharing too much. Sharing the strains of your leadership with your direct reports — that’s a mistake you know all too well because you used to do it until an older, wiser head warned you about how destructive that could be to your people. You can still remember the day when he confronted you about it. “It’s not fair to them,” he said. You hadn’t considered that until he taught you. You felt better venting to them, but he was absolutely right…it wasn’t fair to them. It was just one of the many leadership lessons you had to learn. He told you it was “leadership courage” because it meant doing the hard things that would best serve your people.

But right now, sitting alone in your office, you’re sure wishing there were an easier way. Some way you could bring in a few of your most trusted people and just spill your guts about these worries. But you don’t. And that makes you feel even more lonely.

Part of you feels like a hypocrite because you’re constantly preaching teamwork. Just the other day you called in one of your top leaders who has 3 very capable direct reports. She was trying to pull all the weight alone and you had to coach her to “lean on your people and give them an opportunity.” Now, part of you is feeling like maybe you’re making the same mistake — but that’s your emotional heart talking in your ear and you know it’s different for you. This time.

Some problems are “rally the troops” problems. Not this one. This is one of those play your cards close to your vest kind of problems. Your head is telling you the right thing – keep this to yourself and figure it out. It’s the loneliness of being at the top. With the authority, power and prestige comes lots of loneliness. You signed on for it though so there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself.

But the weight is still there. Hovering on top of your shoulders like a bar bell filled with weights.

How do leaders handle the stress of this kind of loneliness? Like the punchline to a joke…I could say, “Very carefully.” But, there are some more serious answers to consider.

These answers can serve to help any lonely leader better cope with the stress and understand why loneliness is sometimes ideal for your work.

Okay, the title of today’s episode might be slightly misleading, but I didn’t intend it that way. It’s not really about avoiding the loneliness of leadership. It’s more about the realities of loneliness and why you should embrace them.

It’s Good For Your People

You want to be among the very best leaders, right? Of course you do. Leaders come in a variety of positions. There are team leaders, executives, supervisors and all sorts in between. Some have many direct reports. Some have one. None of that matters because it’s still lonely at the top of the leadership ladder. Whoever you are, whomever you serve — you want to be a high performer.

High performance leaders always serve their people. Decisions are made to maintain the healthiest organization possible. It doesn’t mean great leaders serve the individual, personal best interests of every single person because they can’t. Sometimes the best decision is to eliminate a position. You can’t hang your hat on that decision being the best for the person who holds that position because it’s not. But if it’s the best thing for the organization and the overall performance, then you have to do it. Those are difficult decisions that a great leader will make even in the face of knowing they’re putting somebody out of work. However, the great leader will still try to serve that soon-to-be displaced employee.

I’ve terminated managers before and in the process dug more deeply into ways I can help him land on their feet. It’s not because I’m altruistic. It’s because it’s just the right thing to do when you can.

The courage required to face down your fears is B-I-G. Make no mistake about it. Loneliness is a fear. It’ll suck you down the road of over-sharing if you let it. You’ve got to have courage to refuse the urge because it’s unfair to your people to burden them with something beyond their ability to handle. You’ll over share if you stop thinking of them though, and keep all the attention on poor, pitiful YOU.

I’m not talking about keeping your people in the dark about things they should know, or things they can help you with. I’m talking about things that you might share with them followed by, “…but that’s not your problem…I’m going to have to figure this out.” Too many leaders utter those words to their people. Far too many keep on uttering them. Why weigh down your people with something they can’t possibly help you with, and something that might only serve to distract them from their work? Or make them worry unnecessarily?

It’s not about nobility. It’s about service. Serving your organization. Serving your people. Protecting your people. Your leadership role is no different than the motto used by police all over the nation – To Protect And Serve.

It’s Good For The Process Of Improving

Improvement often stems from thoughtful consideration. In spite of all the hoopla on collaboration there’s a time when sitting alone in quiet contemplation works. Too often leaders are rushed from one meeting to another, from one text message to the next and from one conversation into another one. Every leader I know complains about not having enough margin in their life. Some want more white space on their calendar to coach their rising stars. Others want more margin so they can better prepare for the most important meetings. Still others want the white space so they can just “mange by walking around.”

Loneliness is represented by the white space on your calendar. It may not be utilized with quiet though — and that’s a mistake. You’re not embracing the loneliness of leadership if you sit alone in your office plugged into every web-based group think vehicle available. Twitter. Facebook. Reddit. Mashable. Business Insider. Pick your poison. It really doesn’t matter. Blogs, social media networks, aggregators and even podcasts take away your margin. They diminish your loneliness, which is why we all rush to them when we’re alone. Fearful we’ll miss something…we plug into the rest of the world and tune out our own thoughts and feelings.

Even people who claim to enjoy being alone (and I count myself among them), admit they’re not rarely quietly alone. As I type this I’m sitting inside The Yellow Studio. The radio is on a local sports talk radio station talking about the Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray going to Philadelphia. The flat panel TV is on – with the sound down – tuned to ESPN where there’s lots of talk about Murray going to Philadelphia. Over on the monitor to my right is a Tweeter client showing at least 4 columns of various content. Apple iTunes is open to my music library and I’ve got a pair headphones on my left ear only listening to some Hayes Carll tunes. And like Eric Carmen, I could sing, “All by myself…” You can relate. Sometimes it’s noisiest when we’re alone!

Okay, I’ve now turned off the TV. I’ve shut down iTunes. Sports talk radio is still playing ’cause I’m afraid I’ll miss the official announcement about Murray leaving Dallas. Now, prepare yourself for the real shocker that will prove how crazy we can all behave. I honestly don’t care one bit who Murray plays for next year. Sure, I’m a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, but only because I live here. I’m an Oklahoma Sooner football fan – where Murray played – and I still don’t care. But something in my brain compels me to listen for fear the news announcement will come and I won’t hear it in real time.

Don’t laugh. You do the same thing. We busy ourselves even when we have white space on our calendar. We say we want to do this or that – and the this or that is always something valuable or profitable – but when we have time, we avoid doing it. Instead, we do something less important, or less urgent. If you don’t do this, then keep it to yourself ’cause you’re more special than the rest of us. We battle these things. And thanks to Apple and other technology companies we’re losing the battle. I’m talking to you, iPhone. And you, too, iPad. And you, iTunes. All you “I” things are making me take my EYE off the more important things, sometimes.

Okay, I’ve shut down the radio. It’s all quiet now. And just like that, I find myself now with my thoughts. And this keyboard. And this post – this podcast. I’m suddenly thinking more seriously about the value loneliness can play in leadership IF it’s properly applied. And if we’ll stop to think of it for what it can do to serve us better.

Find what works for you. But make it quiet physically and mentally. I’ll share with you some things have worked for me through the years.

1. Turn the lights down. Or off. I don’t mean complete darkness, but turn off those florescent overhead lights. Pull down the shades over your windows. Turn on a lamp.

That warmer light helps quieten my mind down. And it happens pretty quickly for me, likely the result of years of practice.

2. Turn off anything that makes noise. I’m fond of white noise. When I sleep, I’ve got to have it. But when I’m embracing leadership loneliness, no noise is best. Even a ticking clock will drive me batty. Nothing will bring out a hammer faster than a ticking clock. I will beat a noisy clock to death quicker than you can say, New York second.”

3. Look up. I can’t explain it, but there’s a distinct difference in my mental state when I look down on the desk versus when I look up at the ceiling or toward the ceiling. Weird, huh? I know, but maybe life is metaphorically telling me something when I look up. When you’re facing a problem, or a challenge, or a decision – you want things to look up. So you may as well get things started by doing it yourself.

You’ve got to figure out what works best for you, but I can tell you right now — whatever you’ve been trying has probably not worked well for you. Not unless you’ve given some concerted effort to embracing being alone with your thoughts.

Daily Rituals by Mason Curry We form habits that work for us on some level, but foil our improvement in others. One of my more recent favorite books is entitled, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curry. The book chronicles the daily habits of creatives from the past and present. It’s done sort of in catalog fashion listing the person, followed by a page or two of how they went about their daily business. I find myself picking it up pretty regularly to just open a page and read of a few different people. The interesting thing you quickly find is that there’s not a single way to creativity. Nor is there a single path to being productive or being an effective leader. You have to not only find out what works for you, but you have to find out what works for your organization — because as a leader, your work impacts many other people.

Thinking time matters. And that’s the point. Drawing on your past experiences, your convictions, your philosophy and your intuition can flow more easily if you’re not looking outside yourself for every answer. There comes a time in every leader’s life – perhaps many times every week – when we just need time to think about our best course of action. Don’t rob yourself of that value found in loneliness.

It’s Good For Your Well Being

Let’s be selfish for a minute. Being alone is good for you. With all the demands on your time and with everybody tugging at you, it’s good to embrace the selfishness of being lonely, sometimes.

When I was a 25-year-old General Manager I was running a subsidiary of a larger company. The CEO of the parent company was about 10 years older and I really liked working for him. One day I was at the company’s headquarters (a different location than my offices). I was visiting with some folks in accounting and other people. I swung by the CEO’s office to stick my head in. The door was open, the lights were off. It was completely dark. I peeked in and say, “Dan?” He wheeled his chair around facing the doorway and I could see he was sitting there in complete darkness. I noticed a letter opener in his hand. I asked, “What you doing sitting in the dark?” He answered, “I’m contemplating suicide with this letter opener.” And we both laughed. I had caught my boss in a moment of loneliness. Leadership loneliness with a letter opener. A few years later Dan was killed in a car accident. It was a long time ago, but today I think of Dan every time I pick up a letter opener. A CEO sitting in the dark embracing a moment of loneliness.

You need time to exhale. Or inhale. Preferably both. It’s good for you to disconnect and just let your mind float to wherever it needs to go. Even before my days with Dan I had grown fond of using darkness. For as long as I can remember I’ve never used the overhead lighting in an office. I’m a fan of lamps. With bulbs that have a warm color temperature.

Good music and headphones plus darkness. That’s my personal recipe. You can mix up your own, but it’s important to go somewhere else in your mind. It’s a brain vacation without mind impairment. There’s a reason so many leaders, especially hard charging ones, are attracted to alcohol and drugs. The tension, stress and pressure of leadership must be released. Find a profitable, non-destructive outlet. I’m advising you to find moments while you’re at work. Sometimes 10 minutes is long enough. Sometimes you need an hour. Or two. Do it and don’t feel badly about it. Do it for yourself.

It’s lonely at the top. It’s necessarily lonely because the buck stops with you. It’s also lonely because as the head of your organization you’re driving. Only one person can drive. It’s the responsibility of the driver to get everybody to the destination safely.

Sometimes you want to roll down the road with ZZ TOP blaring through the sound system. Other times you want everybody to just shut up. The driver needs what the driver needs in order to navigate safely and successfully.

Embrace the tools of loneliness and you’ll be a more effective leader.

Randy

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