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Business Books That Helped Define Me As A Business Guy (Part 2) - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 251

251 Business Books That Helped Define Me As A Business Guy (Part 2)

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Business Books That Helped Define Me As A Business Guy (Part 2) - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 251

In part 1 I talked about the leader of ITT, Harold Geneen. His book, Managing by Harold Geneen with Alvin Moscow had a big impact on me. Ironically, Geneen’s ITT bought the company led by another author and business leader who may have had an even bigger impact on my business philosophies and techniques. And when ITT bought the company, they ran this guy off.

The first version of this book was published in 1970, long before business was on my radar. But by the dawn of 1984 a revised version of the book was published. I can’t remember, but I probably bought it because the subtitle drew me in. It still does.

Further Up The Organization: How To Stop Management From Stifling People And Strangling Productivity by Robert Townsend was a monumental book for me. The first version – the 1970’s rendition – was Up The Organization.

By January 1984 I was a big time fan of Tom Peters, co-author of In Search Of Excellence. Tom Peters had talked openly about how brilliant Robert Townsend was. Townsend was part of the executive team of American Express before being recruited to run Avis, a then struggling car rental company that had never turned a profit. In the early 60’s, under Townsend’s leadership, the “We Try Harder” campaign was born and Avis joined the ranks of profitable companies. Townsend continued to lead the company until Geneen’s ITT acquired them in 1965, resulting in Townsend’s departure.

After that he went on to become a senior partner of Congressional Monitor. During that time he wrote the first version of the book, Up The Organization, which landed on the New York Time’s bestseller list for 28 weeks in 1970. Almost 15 years later, when the new version of the book was published, I was well into my own management career.

Sometime in the 1980’s I got into audio programs, especially programs that Tom Peters was producing. Among them, was a cassette program Tom did with Robert Townsend, based mostly on this book: Winning Management Strategies for the Real World. That was a few years after this book was published, but I remember being so happy to finally have a voice to the author of this book, Further Up The Organization.

I must have played that audio to and from work a thousand times. I enjoyed listening to these men talk business. Somewhere in a box I’ve still got the cassette. I’m sure of it. I just don’t know where. Of course, I don’t have a cassette deck, but I’d find a way to convert it to mp3. I went looking online and can’t believe nobody is selling it as a downloadable audio file.

Townsend was a refreshing voice for me. A street fighter kind of business guy. The first sentence of his introduction to the new edition says quite a lot.

Since I wrote Up The Organization in 1970, much has happened, but nothing essential in organizational human behavior has changed.”

But he goes on…

In many of the major American industries, the same kind of leaders have been rising up the golden escalators and presiding in turn over the decline of their companies, their industries, and, as a consequence, the position of the United States in the world’s productivity pecking order. In their companies, the workers still check their brains at the gate.

This book is an attempt to help people change that.”

For Townsend, it was about how people do work together and how they should work together…and how they would work together if they just had the chance. He called it participative management or Theory Y, because he said, “I don’t know any better terms.”

This book was an instant hit with me because Townsend was irreverent, snarky and funny. He didn’t come across like the Princeton grad he was. Instead, he came across like the local business guy who had figured out how people work best. He was intolerant of hubris and I loved him for it. If I had thought I wanted to experience working for the likes of Harold Geneen, well, the idea of working along side Robert Townsend was beyond anything I could comprehend. How cool would it be to work for a guy to wrote a memo to the readers of the book with this admonition…

Dip into it someplace. If you don’t get at least a hollow laugh and a sharpened need to kick that 200-foot sponge you work for, then throw the book away. It’s not for you. There are already too many organizational orthodoxies imposed on people, and I don’t want to help the walking dead institute another one.” 

Townsend believed in operating companies as if people mattered. It was more novel then than now perhaps. But I think it’s still more novel than people think. Townsend didn’t have in mind ping pong tables and free snacks. He had in mind people being alive in doing their work together.

I remember Townsend’s opposition to Assistants-To. I didn’t live in a world with Assistants-To. I knew about Assistant Managers and other lifeforms known as Assistants, but Assistants-To were new to me. Townsend wrote…

In my book, anybody who has an assistant-to should be fined a hundred dollars a day until he eliminates the position.”

The very few people I knew in bigger business, where Assistants-To existed, were not humored by Townsend’s position, but for me…it was a bit of a canary in the coal mine barometer. It was indicative of an organization that was experiencing bloat and inefficiency.

There are 246 chapters, but most are just a single page. Some are just a paragraph. They are alphabetical and range from topics like Advertising, Firing People, Putting On Weight, Titles Are Handy Tools and Wearing Out Your Welcome. The chapter on Thanks is just a single sentence:

A really neglected form of compensation.”

Don’t be fooled into thinking the book is shallow though. Re-read that sentence he wrote on Thanks. Do you really need to hear more on the topic? Brevity shouldn’t be misunderstood as low value any more than exhaustiveness should be misunderstood as high value. Townsend wrote a couple of pages on a chapter entitled, Too Much vs. Too Little, but his lead sentence exhibits what I loved about Robert Townsend and this book.

Too little is almost always better than too much.”

Townsend was blunt, opinionated and confident. He was unabashed. And like Geneen, he was gone before the Internet age got into full sway. In 1998 he suffered a massive heart attack and was gone at the age of 77.

In that chapter about Too Much vs. Too Little, Robert Townsend mentioned 3 areas: space, people and money. Here’s a single sentence he wrote of each one.

Space: Too much brings out the worst in empire builders.”

People: One person with only half a job can wander around and do real damage in his or her spare time.”

Money: A tight budget brings out the best creative instincts in man.”

The final chapter is one that resonated with me throughout my career and still does. It’s entitled, Workers Should Own Company Stock. In 1984 I had always worked in small business. At this time I was running a subsidiary of a larger company, but it was privately held, like all my employers had been up to that point. Closely held private companies are as prone to bad behavior as larger, publicly traded ones. At some level, they may be worse. Sales may slip, but the owner still buys a new Mercedes every year and the troops are affected. Employees are told, “No pay raises this year,” while the owner takes home record pay. It happens and I’ve seen it throughout my career.

Back in 1984 I had no knowledge of how things might work otherwise. I’d had owners make overtures of an equity position, but I always saw it as a ploy – and in retrospect, I know now that it was. In lieu of increased pay I’d be offered some trivial amount of ownership. I was smart enough to know that unless the company sold my “equity” position would be worthless. I never accepted such an offer.

Over time though, a new thing would capture my attention. Employee Stock Ownership Programs. ESOP’s became part of the IRS code in 1974, but it wasn’t until the early 90’s that I began to really cultivate an interest in them. I had long believed that employees as owners would be a game changer. For decades I had heard business owners lament about their employees. Many would tell me how frustrated they could be because some employees didn’t behave with enough pride. “They don’t care as much as I do,” an owner might say to me. And I’d invariably respond, “They don’t have a stake in the business like you. They don’t act like owners because they’re not owners.” Of course, I’d often be hit in the face with a retort, “But you do.” He’d be right. It was always my competitive edge. I behaved like I owned the joint and it’s why my career was made in being a hired gun, running another man’s business. I was a faithful steward and they trusted me. I’d earned it.

But still…I knew Robert Townsend had it right when he ended the book on this topic and wrote the following:

Get with it, Mac! If 70 percent of your people think of themselves as shareholders, it’s worth at least two percentage points on your company’s pre-tax profit margin.

With 2 percent you can beat anybody in the country. Or Japan.”

Robert Townsend was bent toward candor. It’s the quality I most admired about Harold Geneen. Every leader I’ve ever admired had it, or has it. And the belief that people – if given the best opportunity – will do good work. Together.

That’s why I spent 3 years of my life, while operating a company full-time, to buy the company and convert it into an ESOP. My conviction ran deep. And strong. Until I grew exhausted with the quest and in the face of insurmountable difficulty, I quit. I surrendered, but I never changed my mind. Organizations can exist and operate in ways to enhance and empower or they can exist to stifle and strangle as Townsend’s subtitle suggests. Sadly, far too many perform the latter. I’m still on a quest to help them operate at a high level. Thanks to lessons learned by Robert Townsend, I’m better armed to be more helpful and effective.

Mr. Townsend, I’m doing my best to get with it!

Randy

P.S. Next time I’ll tell you about a book that proved to me things could be done with employees being fully engaged.

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Business Books That Helped Define Me As A Business Guy (Part 1) - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 250

250 Business Books That Helped Define Me As A Business Guy (Part 1)

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Time Magazine cover - September 8, 1967 - Harold GeneenIn 1984 I read a book about somebody I had never heard of. A business titan with a reputation for making senior leaders cry publicly as he questioned them about their numbers in an open forum. He’d made the cover of Time magazine back in 1967, but that preceded my business career so it escaped me. People still think of the hard-nosed CEO as an SOB. This man is often credited with being the father of the tough, SOB executive. I’m not so sure that’s accurate or fair, but I admit I have a favorable bias for him.

From 1959 to 1972 Harold Geneen was the President & CEO of International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (ITT). Under his leadership the company grew from $765 million in revenue to a multinational conglomerate with $17 billion in revenues in 1970. Geneen was among the first corporate leaders to incorporate building a business into a larger conglomerate. ITT grew mostly through about 250 acquisitions and mergers spanning 80 countries.

I bought the book, Managing by Harold Geneen with Alvin Moscow, for no particular reason other than I was (and still am) a voracious reader. The cover was plain. The authors, unknown to me. But there I stood in line buying a copy. It was a new release. Maybe that’s why I bought it. I don’t remember.

Only 2 years earlier I had stood in this same bookstore buying a copy of the first book to really establish the business book genre into mainstream America, In Search Of Excellence. I’d never heard of those authors either. And like Geneen, these people were living in a different universe than the one I occupied. They were part of BIG BUSINESS. I was part of small business. Rinky dink business compared to the things these men were exposed to.

But it all fascinated me. I was a young father, married almost 7 years and I was ambitious. I was a learner, mostly captivated by what I did not yet know. And smart enough to know how vast that depth of ignorance ran. It’s likely why I was a voracious reader. I had a lot of catching up to do. Still do.

While In Search Of Excellence captivated me with stories of men and women doing amazing things – contrarians who were figuring out new ways to excel – when I dove into Mr. Geneen’s book it was different. It was one man’s journey and story of how he was doing things. It was about philosophy, beliefs, teaching and biography. I was young, impressionable and searching for wisdom in places far loftier than any place I knew I’d ever occupy.

Geneen’s book changed me.

He suffered from paralysis by analysis.”

You likely didn’t know that’s a Geneen quote. He was a very quotable guy. Maybe that’s was part of my attraction to him and his book, but it ran deeper than that for me. I had read Peter Drucker, but I confess Drucker wasn’t a writer who resonated with me. I knew he was smart, brilliant even. But I also was more captivated by the people in the trenches doing the work. Men like Geneen. And that made him different that Peters and Waterman who had written In Search Of Excellence. They were high brow consultants. Geneen was a business guy. Hard core.

Performance is your reality. Forget everything else.”

One quote in particular caught my attention like no other. It’s been the most used quote in my working career since because it’s so pointed and powerful. And clear.

Management must manage!”

Geneen’s intent with that quote is that managers must get the job done. People in every organization I’ve helped run since 1984 have heard me repeat that quote, giving Geneen attribution each time, thousands of times. For me, it wasn’t merely a good quote, but it was true. The burden I always felt as a manager was to perform. That likely stems from my early days as a straight commission salesperson selling hi-fi gear. If I didn’t sell something, I didn’t make any money. It’s the purest form of performance based pay I suspect.

Performance was my reality and it was easy for me to forget everything else. That’s how it is when your paycheck is fully determined by your performance. Of course, that doesn’t speak to the frustrations you experience because of the incompetence of others. I had plenty of that in my life, too. Frustration that something was out of stock. Frustration that co-workers fiddled with connections and a system wouldn’t work properly when you were trying to show it off to a shopper. Irritation that one part of the store wasn’t as clean as my area of the store, making it embarrassing to take a shopper to that area. Finger prints on glass was a constant source of frustration for me in those early teen years of selling because every sound room in a hi-fi shop had sliding glass doors. The presentation was part of the performance for me as a young hi-fi salesperson and I grew increasingly irritated when co-workers took no more pride than they might in a buddy’s dorm room at LSU. All those details ate me up some days.

Geneen seemed to be a guy who was equally eaten up with details. And I loved him for it. Mostly, I loved him for his candor. While In Search of Excellence had some terrific stories, it lacked the grit of the ugly conversations that necessarily have to be had if business is going to succeed.

The interviewer is annoying – poor Harold Channer – but it’s worthwhile to hear Mr. Geneen explain things on camera.

Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.”

Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.”

If you keep working you’ll last longer and I just want to keep vertical. I’d hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an 18-inch fish.”

I learned some critical things from this book by Harold Geneen. Among them, that leaders owe people more. Managers must support people by holding them accountable. While I knew peers who struggled to hold people accountable because the conversations were difficult, Geneen taught me that no matter how difficult they may be, managers owe their people that conversation.

Geneen’s book also taught me that the facts serve us, but we have to make sure we’re really getting facts. He lived in an era where getting the numbers was much tougher. The world was manual. Stacks of spreadsheets. Ledgers heaped upon ledgers. Decision making took much longer in his day. I grew up in the computer age where business could much more easily distill the facts. The numbers were far easier for me to get, than for Harold.

I knew instantly, upon reading this book, that Geneen was right about measuring performance. It rang true based on everything I knew and everything I believed.

When you have mastered numbers, you will in fact no longer be reading numbers, any more than you read words when reading books. You will be reading meanings.”

Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non performance can always be explained away.”

By the time I was reading this book I had almost a dozen years of business experience behind me. Most of it had been involved in sales. Real world toe to toe, belly to belly sales. I had mostly learned how NOT to do things. I was now running a multi-million dollar enterprise and I had a clear vision of how I thought things should be run based mostly on how badly I had seen some of my earlier places of employment operate.

I knew what I wanted and some years prior I had learned somewhere to begin with the end in mind. So Geneen’s message just kept on resonating with me.

You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it.”

Geneen’s philosophy was extremely congruent with my own. I knew his style was probably more gruff than my own, but I didn’t care about that. I had friends who were busy trying to be something they weren’t. Or somebody they had never been before. I knew my limitations. I knew who I was and what I was. I never really tried to be somebody else. That doesn’t mean I was always happy with who I was, or what I was, but my convictions were strong. I was unwavering in my dedication to not be somebody different. If Geneen or other leaders I admired could yell and scream, I knew I couldn’t. I could get amped up and raise my voice, but I wasn’t some storm trooper manager who walked in a room and everybody instantly grew uneasy. I’ve longed believed managers must be congruent and true to whom they really are. And I think we all can be. For every hard-nosed manager who is succeeding I’ll show you a soft-spoken manager who is doing it stylistically very different, but also succeeding.

Winning changes everything. Losing does, too. But losing makes everybody pay. I never wanted to lose and I never wanted my organizations to lose. The price was too high. Geneen was such a no nonsense guy driven to win that I couldn’t help but like him. More than that, I found him highly valuable. I remember the first time I read the book I thought how nice it would be to work for a guy like that. I had never worked for anybody remotely like him. Sadly, I had worked for a few good managers, but most of the managers I worked for were poor. By the way, now years later my mind hasn’t changed. If anything, my current perspective of my earliest managers has only revealed to me how pathetic they were.

Geneen had high standards. If performance measurements weren’t met, he didn’t lower the expectations. I thought that was exactly right. I had grown up with hearing managers and business owners excuse poor performance. I grew up with managers who had no trouble lowering expectations. Sometimes I had managers who didn’t have an expectation. And because I was often working along side of people who were at best indifferent, at worse they were apathetic or rebellious…I could not understand why management made me work along side these losers. Geneen was staunch about what management owed people, namely to not make them be partnered with people who failed to perform. Boy did that hit a sweet spot in my belief system!

Do you want my one-word secret of happiness? It’s growth – mental, financial, you name it.”

Harold Geneen died in New York City on November 21, 1997. He was 87 years old. He had endured the Great Depression. Like most people who went through that experience, it helped shaped his world view and business philosophies. He was trained in accounting so the numbers were always important to him. Fact-based management was crucial during his regime at ITT.

This November he’ll have been dead for 18 years. This book was first published 31 years ago. Today, you can go to Amazon and buy a copy for a penny! A penny.

In Search Of Excellence changed the book selling world by giving us a new subset of books, BUSINESS BOOKS. Prior to the publication of that book you wouldn’t have seen aisles and shelves of business books. But this book, Managing by Harold Geneen with Alvin Moscow impacted my entire career by giving me a sense of my own abilities to become a better manager and leader. The fact that Geneen had achieved wild success using techniques and philosophies that I believed in gave me hope that in time I too could figure out how to be successful, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Ironically, earlier that same year – 1984 – another book had already had a profound impact on me. I’ll tell you about that book the next time. As you hear stories of these books that impacted by business philosophy you’ll see a theme emerge. The focus is on HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE.

Randy

Here’s a Slideshare on 10 Management Lessons From Harold Geneen by Sompong Yusoontorn.

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How To Be A Deliberate Person Without Being Stupid - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast Episode 249

249 How To Be A Deliberate Person Without Being Stupid

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cross word puzzle
If you use a pen to do a crossword puzzle, you’re deliberate. Or stupid.

If you use ink to complete a crossword puzzle – you’re a deliberate person. How can you be a pen user instead of a pencil user…with a fat eraser handy?

Frequently I’m engaged in a conversation with people who are on a quest to make an improvement. Maybe they’re trying to elevate their sales or revenues. Maybe they’re working to upgrade the people on their team. Or maybe they’re trying to launch a brand new enterprise.

Invariably somebody will utter something – usually a cliche – about commitment to the goal. I’ll hear things like:

“We need to go all in on this project.”

“This is our primary objective. We’re committed to seeing it through.”

“We’re at the point of no return on this.”

People express this in a variety of ways. Here’s one of the more popular ways I hear it…

It’s time to burn the boats.”

Many people cite the incident in the 1500’s during the Spanish conquest of Mexico when Cortes gave the order to burn the boats in order to force his troops to conquer the land. I don’t even know if that really happened, but if you Google “burn the boats” it’s not the only example of it. And doesn’t it sound good? I mean, how much more deliberate do you want to be?

We value that level of commitment. We even romanticize it. But I don’t agree with it because it presupposes that you – or we, or anybody else – can be more deliberate if we’re desperate. For quite a few years I’ve given the following advice to clients…

“Don’t presuppose that you’re not able to chase it hard enough unless you’re desperate. Thoughtful intent can often beat desperate. Embrace thoughtful intent as you chase your goals.”

Being deliberate isn’t desperation. It’s not intention. It’s not just being thoughtful. It’s thoughtful intention. More technically correct, it’s action taken with thoughtful intention to move closer to the goal.

Too many people are chasing dreams. They hop from thing, to thing, to another thing. Mostly in their mind.

I suspect a few other people actually do something. They take some action. They don’t think much about it, confusing motion with action. It’s a common myth to think that because we’re moving, we’re taking meaningful action.

Then there are the people who think about it ’til the cows come home, then they take an action. But they’re so slow to act they don’t get much done. And their rate of speed is so slow there’s rarely any momentum.

And then there are the desperate. You’ve been desperate before. Burned boats foster desperation. It may not foster deliberate action though. Well, to be fair, it may not foster positive deliberate behavior. Thieves, murderers and other criminals often act out of desperation. And quite often they’re very deliberate, but only in committing more crimes.

That proverbial point of no return is a poor method for incorporating deliberate behavior into your life. Or more deliberate behavior.

There’s a scene in an old Al Pacino movie, And Justice For All…where Pacino’s character, an attorney, takes a helicopter ride with a judge, the pilot. Unbeknownst to the attorney, the judge likes to play a little game where he goes beyond the halfway point.

“We’re NOT alright, land!” That’s not just a great movie line, it’s wise advice. By the way, the judge crash lands the helicopter in shallow water just 90 feet from the landing pad.

Desperation can create panic. Not exactly the ideal inspiration for wise action. Or thoughtful intentions.

Deliberate action is best taken when we’ve considered our options and figured out our “next best step.” It’s what we do when we put a puzzle together, or work a cross word puzzle, or work a math problem. Truth is, it’s pretty much what we do no matter the problem we’re facing. Solutions are worked out because we’ve got a special skills as humans. We can run scenarios in our head. We can answer a problem with a hypothetical and theorize (quite often with great accuracy) how it MIGHT turn out. Then, based on those mental models we’ve run in our head, we can take deliberate action to do what we think is best.

We can avoid being stupid by avoiding putting ourselves, or letting ourselves, be put in desperate situations. Stupidity happens when we neglect to pre-think what we’re doing. Don’t believe me? Then you’ve never raised teenagers.

Randy

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Q&A Friday - November 28, 2014 - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Podcast

248 Q&A Friday – November 28, 2014

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Q&A Friday - November 7, 2014

 

Here are today’s questions:

1. I’ve got to figure out how to serve clients without being face-to-face because it’s growing increasingly impractical and too expensive. How can I learn it and maybe more importantly, how can I transition clients to embrace it?

  • Let’s start with the last part, transitioning clients to a new way of interaction. I’m going to have be somewhat generic because I don’t know how your clients are wired or what their current expectations are. My first concern would be their demographic and technical abilities. For example, if you’re going to connect with them via Skype or Google Hangouts On Air or some other online video conferencing technology, your clients are going to have feel comfortable with that technology. Even though it’s easy for those of us who use it regularly, it can be like flying a spaceship for people who aren’t familiar with it. Additionally, do your clients have the technology. I’m assuming a two-way (perhaps more) interaction since you’ve said “face-to-face.” Delivering content to clients in a passive manner is easy enough as long as they’ve got computers that can access the Internet. But it can grow increasingly complicated if we’re now asking clients to get online and interact with us live.
  • You may also find it difficult to transition clients from a higher touch experience to one that’s lower touch. I’ve seen this with clients who spoiled clients with a level of responsiveness that simply is impractical or unsustainable. For example, some service professionals who don’t know how to properly manage their time, or client experience, can unexpectedly train clients to expect them to answer the phone directly every time they call. When these clients aren’t able to get “the boss” on the phone they feel slighted. Through the years they’ve grown accustomed to getting him on the phone anytime they want. It can be tough weening them off that expectation, but it’s important to devise a process that will better serve the clients and the business.
  • It depends on a few things I’d like you to consider: scope, scale, context and content. When I say scope I mean the breadth of it. That is, how broad is this in your business? Let’s use a software company as an example. An enterprise software company may have 100 clients. An end-user software company could have millions of users. Two very different scopes. When I say scale I mean the depth of it. That is, how deep is this in your business. The enterprise client may have a dozen critical users even though there are 100 clients. Now we’ve got 1200 potential individual people representing those 100 enterprise clients. The end-user software company is serving individuals so it’s a one-to-one ratio when we think of scope and scale. Still, it’s millions. Context is the level of interaction necessary. The enterprise software company needs to provide more hand holding than the end-user software company. It requires much higher interaction. Content is the actual information exchange needed in the interaction. For the enterprise software company it’s customized to suit each client. For the end-user software company it’s one-size-fits-all.
  • As you can see, these four factors help us establish the methodology. If you’re a customer of an end-user software company like Skype, or WordPress…then you realize you’re not going to get high touch interaction. There are millions of users and it’s impractical for us to be able to experience that with such software companies. Over the years, we’ve been trained to submit support tickets. That helps the company manage the customers and their own product better. We’re mostly satisfied with that unless the response times are too slow. Additionally, these kinds of companies have knowledge-bases that answer all the most frequently asked questions or address the most frequently encountered problems. For the enterprise software company with far fewer customers, and customers who are likely paying much larger sums of money, the expectation is different. A support ticket system may still be useful for both the company and the client, but what happens next is likely going to be very different. It may be a phone call. It may be a 15-minute guaranteed response time. And it may have a support fee attached. Again, the four factors impact the client’s expectation and the company’s business model to handle these things.
  • Many service professionals, such as coaches and consultants, do business virtually. I do. Again, I’d challenge you to incorporate the four factors and think of how they apply to what you’re doing. Technology is getting more widespread and usable. Things that were once rare are commonplace now. Skype for instance. It may be that you’ll have to teach and train your clients in the proper use of technology. I even know some who provide their clients with a webcam and USB microphone, plus training in how to use them. That way, they’re insured of a good experience for their purposes and for the client.
  • The bottom line is you must do what’s in the best interest of serving your clients so your business can be sustainable. Face-to-face interactions are sometimes necessary, but many times a virtual session is just as good. Here in DFW I could easily spend an hour in traffic. Additionally, face-to-face time is more costly for a client. When it’s needed, I can make it available, but at a premium price warranted by the high touch nature of it. Or, I can conduct a virtual session for a much lower price because I don’t have to factor in the wasted time required when face-to-face sessions are in play. I’d suggest thinking about making both offers, but put a premium on the highest touch offer so when people do select it…you’re happy to say, “Yes.” What I see too much of are businesses that will make that offer, then bemoan the fact that clients select it. Resentment toward clients is a bad habit afflicting too many business owners. Avoid that by putting pricing in place that makes you happy when clients select it. If you can’t do that, then don’t make the offer. As with all of these things an honest, upfront sales story should be crafted so clients know exactly what you’re doing and why. Tell the truth and I’m betting you’ll be able to transition clients to your new process. Expect to have a few clients who may be more difficult. That’s okay, just do enough hand holding with them to get them to better understand how this is going to benefit them by keeping costs down and giving them improved service.

2. I’ve heard you talk about the “Knowing-Doing Gap” so I read the book. Thanks for talking about it. My question is about how I can make sure people are doing what they know. Sometimes we have people failing to perform as well as we’d expect, but sometimes it’s as though they honestly don’t get it. We want to hold people accountable, but we also want to make sure we’re fair.

  • Willingness is a big factor in accountability. The simplest way to approach this is to make sure that every employee has proven they “get it” and they can properly perform. [coaching kids in hockey story]
  • Training, training, training. Don’t overlook the “show me” step. It’s a frequent trap employers get into. They simply assume employees know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Until the employee has proven they know, assume they still need training.
  • If a person can’t show you, after sufficient training, then you either have a competence issue or a willingness issue. Either way, the employee has to go. You need people who can and will do what’s needed.
  • The minute a person shows you they can do the work, expect it to be done properly every time. If they fail, you should assume that you’ve now got an issue of willingness. They’re just unwilling – for some reason – to do what they know they must.
  • Address that directly and quickly. Follow the HR guidelines of your company and make sure you’re obeying all the appropriate laws governing proper employee discipline. Put it in writing and be clear. Provide additional time and support to help the employee get back to a place of willingness. Sometimes it’ll succeed. Sometimes it won’t. The employee must be in a position to control his own destiny. Do the work properly, keep your job. Don’t, and lose your job.
  • Don’t be a coward and hope things will improve on their own. They won’t. Besides, it’s unfair to the rest of team who is performing.

3. Podcasting seems to be going crazy. I’m a longtime listener, but have never really considered using podcasting in my business. I’m an attorney focused mainly on helping fathers who want to be part of their children’s lives post divorce. How would I be able to use podcasting in my practice?

  • Content marketing gurus will urge you answer the questions your clients are asking. A few years ago that would have been good advice, but today there are millions of businesses attempting to do the exact same thing. You need to do something different. I’m a big believer in zig zag — that is, if everybody is zigging, you need to zag. Now that doesn’t mean you need to reinvent the wheel. It just means you’ve got to do something to set yourself apart.
  • If you’re a person comfortable speaking in front of people and if you’ve got a conversational style of communication with your clients I say give it a go at podcasting. But many attorneys are so steeped in the language of the law, which is what law school has properly taught them, they find it hard to talk like a regular person. If you’re not able to talk like a regular person I’d encourage you to avoid podcasting. Ask your non-attorney friends for feedback.
  • Assuming you want to move forward – and I’m not going to discourage you, even if you love attorney-speak. Practice can help. And it will help provided you stay with it and devote yourself to learning.
  • Let me just give you some ideas about content. Address the fears and concerns of potential clients. I’d assume a dad you serve has a lot of trepidation. Do a series of podcasts talking about that. Talk about how you work, and what the client can expect in that first meeting. I’d imagine most of these men have never had to go through this process before. Help guide them, through the podcast, in how you work. Hearing your voice in a friendly, conversational tone can help you stand out from other attorneys doing exactly what you’re doing…but prospects have no way to getting a sense of who they are because they don’t have a podcast.

Submit your questions using the contact page or “Send Voicemail” button on the right.

Randy

248 Q&A Friday – November 28, 2014 Read More »

It's Never Too Late (Or Too Soon) To Focus - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Episode 247

247 It’s Never Too Late (Or Too Soon) To Focus

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It's Never Too Late (Or Too Soon) To Focus - HIGHER HUMAN PERFORMANCE Episode 247
Focus is a constant activity necessary for clarity.

Skilled photographers prefer manual focus over auto-focus. It’s because they trust their eyes more than they trust a microchip. It’s also because they have better control over the quality of the picture, or the outcome.

The thing about focus is that it changes with even the slightest movement. Move one inch in any direction and the focus needs to be adjusted. You’ve got to be constantly monitoring things with your eyes. It demands careful attention.

Focus isn’t merely an art for photographers. Or creatives. Or business people. We all need it.

Back in July 2014 Greg McKeown published an article over at Linkedin entitled, “The One-Word Answer to Why Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Have Been So Successful.” Greg posted this four quadrant chart…

focus chart

McKeown wrote the book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Here’s what the jacket cover on the book says about the subject of essentialism:

The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. It is not a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.

pile of screws
Notice the ones getting most of the focus

It’s about focusing on the things that really matter. It’s like this photograph of a pile of screws. The focus is primarily on just a few screws in the pile. They’re in clear focus. The others are out of focus. Some are more out of focus than others. That’s the price paid for focusing on just a few.

I’m sitting with an executive the other day and repeating advice that I distilled years ago when I found myself with an organization confused about the priorities. If employees had been asked, “What’s important?” they’d have answered, “Everything.” We think that may be the correct answer, but it’s not. It’s terribly wrong. And impossible.

If Everything Is Important, Then Nothing Is Important

If there are two pieces of wisdom I have sought to pass onto others this is right at the top. The other one is, “The quality of our questions determines the quality of our work.” Admittedly, that last one presupposes that we’re not just asking the questions, but we’re answering them. And with equal or superior quality. But today it’s about focus and figuring out what really matters. That second piece of wisdom enters into it because I don’t know how we can do that without asking questions. Tough questions.

When I consult or coach an executive or business owner I often find myself asking them, “Which of the 5 W’s and 1 H best describe your organization?”

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

I’ll ask them to just pick one. Usually, they quickly make their selection. I’m prone to only ask this question once I feel I’ve gained enough insight to think I know the answer.

The answer is important. If the leader sees things for how they really are, then the answer in my head usually matches the one they give. If the leader is trying to give the “right” answer and not being fully honest, then it shows. Either way, I gain some insight that may be useful in our work moving forward. I’d say mostly I hear the truth. Most leaders that I work with are honest, truthful and not deluded. It’s why they’ve engaged me. I don’t find deluded leaders often reaching out for any assistance. So I doubt my sampling is very scientific, but even so it’s helpful when we’re working on focus issues.

Organizations tend to concentrate more on one of these one word questions than the others. Top leadership determines which is most important. And they can change over time, but mostly I think a culture gravitates to whatever the CEO or top leader pushes hardest. In spite of all the talk about “anybody can be a leader” I’ve not found it to be the case in a practical matter when it comes to an organization’s culture. Not all leaders are created equally. The person at the top has far more to do with organizational focus than anybody else.

However, there is a practical daily routine that each of us can lead. To a point. It’s answered by the question, “What are going to work on today? Right now?”

The senior vice-president may answer with some things the CEO has mandated. The COO may answer with some things the board has mandated. The shift supervisor may answer with some things the plant manager has ordained. So it goes. We all answer to somebody. Even the CEO/founder of a privately held company must answer to financial partners, suppliers and others. None of us are in full command of our agenda or focus.

But let’s drive this down to where we all live and see if we can’t learn some things, or at the very least, get the wheels turning so we can elevate our own performance (and hopefully the people around us).

The One-Word Question That Trumps All The Others

I confess that I’m naturally wired to ask one question more than all the rest, “Why?” The reason or outcome of a thing has always been my natural focus. Not everybody sees the world that way and I’ve learned to appreciate that. It wasn’t easy, but I worked at it.

In my mind the “Why?” connects quite easily to helping answer the others. For example, I enter a company steeped in paperwork forms. As I assemble the stack of these I’m asking, “Why?” all along the way. An explanation is given on some. For others, nobody remembers why that form was created in the beginning, but it’s been in use for so long everybody assumed somebody needed it. Turns out there’s a lot of crossover work being done, meaning there’s a ridiculous amount of redundancy in the work. Rather than capturing information once, in some centralized location, the company is making multiple people gather the same information at multiple points along the way. The why answers the who, what, when, where and how. Who is gathering this information? Who benefits from this information? What are we doing with this information? When is this information being gathered and when is it being put to use? Where in the process are we gathering this and where does this information end up? How is this useful?

So while I admit my own inclination toward, “Why?” that’s not why I suggest it trumps all others when we’re talking about focus…I think it trumps the others because more than any of the others, it direct connects all of the others. It’s the reason for things. And isn’t that what focus is about. Isn’t that the reason for the lens being focused on just a few screws in that photograph instead of being focused on all of them? The photographer seemed to be focusing on the rusty screw and the head of the top screw. By doing that, a couple of other screws got some focus, too. But the others just didn’t matter as much. We see them. We know they’re screws. They’re just not as important as the ones getting most of the focus. Just a few screws were the reason for the focus.

What’s your reason? Simon Sinek wrote the book, Start With Why. Simon is a lot smarter than me so I’m happy to know somebody who confirms what I’ve long practiced.

Why is focus so hard? I guess there are millions of reasons but today I’m focused (see what I did there?) on one, distraction. Distraction isn’t merely the kind you think about when you consider texting while driving (watch this video and urge your kids to watch it, too). Distraction happens when we try to do too many things at one time because they’re all important. Again, if everything is important then nothing is important. That is, if we’re focused on everything and everything is vying for equal attention, then we’re going to end up disjointed and focused on nothing.

Career Application

No matter what your career path, focus is important, if not urgent. We all need to be able to answer the one-word question about our own career. What one-word question best describes your career and your approach to your career?

Much of my work involves helping executives learn who they serve. Particularly lower level executives who wear titles like “deputy” or “vice” or “assistant.” Often these people are in the trenches, albeit at a higher level. They’re more involved in the daily grind than their bosses. As a result they can tend to view things from a much lower altitude, and they must. But as they’re flying close to the ground they’re often unable to appreciate the higher view held by their boss and sometimes they can resent things they don’t clearly see. It’s just one reason some lower level executives struggle with second guessing their bosses instructions, or why they may find it difficult to salute the mandates they get from their boss.

It’s all about knowing who your number one customer is. Answer: It’s always your boss.

Sometimes the biggest career benefit I can give somebody is helping them better understand the value proposition of their career. Provide value for your boss and you’ll benefit. Provide higher value for your boss and you’ll greatly benefit. I see it everywhere I go. The person who can properly read and correctly anticipate the needs of their boss is the superstar. The person who can’t or won’t do those things is a burden and will soon be displaced. I can’t offer many guarantees, but I’ve seen this one play out many time through the years. I guarantee it.

It’s hard to focus on the needs or wants of your boss when you don’t agree though. That’s where you have to decide what you want to do, and what you can do. If you can’t do it where you are, then my best advice is to get somewhere working for somebody where you can. Because things will eventually disintegrate if you keep resenting the mandates from above.

Focus on yourself by focusing on your number one customer, your boss. It’s a concentration will demand you avoid the distractions of the office gossip parties and all the other noise that happens as organizations second guess the boss.

Business Application

In a recent episode of CNBC’s The Profit, Marcus Lemonis walked into a beauty salon and found all manner of merchandise. There were hair care products, knick knacks, jewelry and even apparel for sale in the first few feet of the store. He told the owner of his confusion when he first walked in. As is often the case on that show, Marcus hones in on the focus of the business. Turns out this salon owner had her own line of hair care products. The margins on those were in excess of 70% while all that other stuff had a margin, at best, of about 30%. From a business perspective it was a no-brainer. Devote more space to your own products, which are congruent with the salon business, and get rid of the rest. That speaks to how many people are distracted though. And the phrase leaps to my mind, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” So does texting while we’re driving, but it’s dangerous.

Once again, I’m drawn to ask, “Why?” Marcus asks the salon owner that question. She didn’t have a good answer. It’s likely that somebody suggested, or came by selling their wares, and she made an emotional decision without thinking it through. Now here’s Marcus walking into her struggling business and it’s apparent to the most novice business among us. But she can’t see it because like all those forms I talked about, it’s been this way for so long she long ago forget why she did it.

Lack of focus in business – or any organization – happens when we get up today and repeat what we did yesterday. And we know tomorrow won’t be much different. We’re just pushing to keep our feet moving. But in what direction? Movement doesn’t equal meaningful, or positive action. Hamsters move quickly on a wheel, but they’re going nowhere. That’s exactly where some of our businesses and organizations are going, too.

Right Now Is The Time

Whether it’s your personal life, your career or your business…now is the time to focus. Or re-focus. When the slightest movement can put a camera out of focus what makes us think that all the movement happening in our lives won’t do the same for us? This isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it kind of a thing. And our lives don’t have an autofocus setting. We’ve got to keep our hand on the focus ring of our own lives and make sure we’re concentrating on the things that matter most.

Like that picture of the screws, we don’t have to focus on just one, but we can’t focus on everything either. Focus on your family. Focus on your career. Focus on your friends. There’s 3…and maybe your three look very differently. Mine are pretty simple to state, but crazy hard to remain true to with the intensity they deserve: faith, family and career. Like my favorite one-word question, “Why?” it’s likely because for me all 3 are so closely intertwined. I find that a loss of focus on one can quickly lead to a loss of focus on the others, too.

Randy

247 It’s Never Too Late (Or Too Soon) To Focus Read More »

245 Doing The Wrong Work, Doing The Work Wrong

245 Doing The Wrong Work, Doing The Work Wrong

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245 Doing The Wrong Work, Doing The Work Wrong

See that blur? You may be that blur. Scurrying around frantically trying to get things done.

When somebody shouts, “Hey, what are you workin’ on?” You stop momentarily. You think about it and realize you don’t know what you’re working on. You just know you’re going as fast as you can.

Today’s show is a composite story. A true story…mostly. It may be your story. It may be the story of somebody you love. It’s a story that happens daily around the world as business owners struggle to gain footing toward success. Some find it. Others slip below the water line and drown under the pressures. The goal is to learn, apply these things to our own situation and try to make the coming days more productive and profitable. It’s fundamentally about two things that may seem almost the same, but yet they’re very different: doing the wrong work and doing the work wrong.

Your little boy hands you a battery operated toy. The battery compartment is secured with a small screw that requires a flat-head screwdriver. A small flat-head screwdriver. You scrounge around for one that will fit. Most are too big. Others are too fat. You try a small Phillips-head screwdriver by awkwardly using just one little side of it. A dime won’t work either. Frustrated that you don’t have the right tool for the job, you begin to look around at anything that might work. Like a knife. Or a letter opener.

I’ve encountered too many people who approach running their business just like that. Doing the wrong work and doing the work wrong.

Let’s consider a solopreneur, a person in one of the many professional services industries. You can easily apply this to your situation because the problems we face in business are mostly common. We need customers who will pay us an amount that affords us the ability to sustain our business. We need customers who are happy with doing business with us so they don’t ask for their money back, and so they’ll tell others good things about us. We need our business to be predictably successful so we don’t lose our minds and our lives along the way. We need our business to fuel our life, not drain it. That’s true whether you’re a dentist or a dressmaker.

We’re going to call our case study business owner, Ted. Ted is a capable and competent presenter in the education space. He speaks to school faculties mostly. Ted was once a principal of an elementary school. He wrote a book about classroom management, was asked to give a presentation a few years ago and really enjoyed it. He accepted a job as a middle school assistant principal because he wanted to see if he could make speaking and training a full-time career. So Ted is in transition.

This all began about five years ago when Ted was sitting in a professional development meeting one day listening to a man speak. One of the topics the speaker covered was classroom management, but Ted thought he had some better ideas. He found the speaker compelling, but he didn’t think the tactics were very real world, not based on his experiences. Ted had been a 4th grade teacher for four years before becoming an assistant principal. Within 2 years the district had given him his own school, promoting him to principal. He’d been tasked with helping find suitable people to address the faculty on professional development days for a few years now. He found himself struggling at times to find people with a message he felt could really help his staff. Listening to this man speak on classroom management just seemed to flip some switch inside Ted’s head causing him to think, “I should write a book. I could do what he’s doing.”

That was five years ago. Since that time, Ted did write the book. He self-published it using Amazon’s CreateSpace publish-on-demand services. He got some English teachers at the nearby high school to help him edit it. He paid a college kid some money to design a jacket for the book. He even registered the domain name for the book’s title. So far, so good. He hadn’t spent any significant money really. So far, his biggest investment was the time he had to spend not doing the typical weekend family stuff he would have done. But it was okay, his wife and small children seemed to handle it well. And Ted made sure he didn’t string together too many busy nights or weekends in a row.

Ted is known around the educational circles where he works. He’s even made some friends in other parts of the state. So it wasn’t surprising he got calls to present even before he finished the book. The money wasn’t big, but he was grateful to be in front of people teaching the things he had learned about managing elementary classrooms. He had the perspective of a teacher and an administrator. And now, he also had the perspective of a parent.

Once the book was written – and it took much longer than he expected – he and his wife decided they’d invest a little bit of money into printing some hard copies to have so Ted could take them with him to his presentations. He knew he needed to package a bundle of them with every presentation and sell them to the schools in advance of his presentation. He came up with a package price for local schools where he could easily drive and make a morning or afternoon presentation. The price would include a copy of the book for every faculty member and his speaking fee. He started out asking for a nominal amount because he knew he was inexperienced and that administrators had other choices. Being local, having a book and not charging big money were all competitive advantages in Ted’s mind.

At first, Ted found very favorable response to his book and presentation. By the time he had delivered the presentation a half dozen times he felt he was hitting his stride. He had refined things, eliminated unnecessary slides and worked hard to get the presentation crisp. He was using vacation days, scheduled in advance, to deliver these sessions. The district didn’t have any problems with Ted’s endeavors. In fact, district folks were rather proud to have “one of their own” becoming a leader in the field. But the grind was taking a toll and Ted was struggling to approach the work with the same zeal he had. Now the calls to come present were slowing. He felt he needed to write a new book, maybe even update the current one. But he was tired. And he hadn’t made much money. Truth was, he had made enough money to build a nice website, pay for the help he hired to create the first book, and take his family out to eat at nicer restaurants every now and again. But he hadn’t made the kind of money he had hoped, or the kind of money he knew he could make. He was stuck.

This isn’t so unusual. People ramp up for take off. Like a rocket that needs massive fuel to escape gravity, Ted has spent an awful lot of time and energy, along with some bucks, to get this far. The problem was, he still wasn’t beyond the reach of gravity. Running out of fuel with gravity still tugging at you is a very uncomfortable place to be. And Ted is fortunate because he’s not relying solely on the fuel from this speaking endeavor to feed his family. Many days he thinks conflicting thoughts. On one hand he’s so thankful he didn’t leave his full-time job because he knows it would be a financial disaster. But on the other hand, he wonders if he was fully committed to the speaking, would it help him reach the level of success he yearns for? It’s a quandary that everybody who embarks on a side project feels. Should I go all in, or not?

For the past 2 years Ted has been grinding it out. Frantically rushing to meet one deadline, then another one. All the while, he’s also had to migrate from elementary school to middle school. No easy transition. It’s not as though he’s been able to devote himself fully to this writing/speaking gig. He’s had a full plate. Then there’s family. His wife has been supportive, but she’s not been terribly happy with the workload. Or Ted’s inability to help her with the kids as much as she’d like. In the trifecta of business building that I preach, Ted is struggling in all 3 phases: getting new customers, serving existing customers better and not going crazy in the process! Ted is absolutely going crazy. So is his wife. It’s just not going as planned.

The question Ted has to answer now, “What did you plan?” If it’s not going according to plan, then let’s hear the plan.

Well, Ted will tell you the plan was to write the book, be overcome with speaking engagements, price the work based on the demand, get to a 6-figure net income sooner than later and step away from his day job. Together with his wife, they figured she could help him with administration and accounting stuff. They also thought there’d be some opportunities where the whole family could travel with Ted if the out-of-town gig was somewhere pleasant.

Sounds like a plan, right?

Nope. It’s not a plan at all. It’s a daydream. Ted has dreamed up a vision of what could be. Ted isn’t basing his notion on fiction though. He’s talked with plenty of people who do just what he hopes to do. They’ve told him how many times they present. He’s quizzed them down about their work. Around their answers Ted has formulated a notion – a general idea – of how he’d like life to be. The problem is, Ted has no plan. And no idea how to craft one. Ted is doing all he knows to do. He’s working hard. But like so many of us – myself included – sometimes we’re doing the wrong work, and sometimes we’re doing the work all wrong.

Let’s Help Fix What Ails Us

First, Ted has to see it. That’s not easy. Usually. In fact, this is usually among the most difficult parts of the process. Ted has a Master’s Degree. He’s been in the field of education for years, both in the classroom and as an administrator. He’s a husband and a dad. He’s not a rookie. He didn’t just roll into town on the proverbial turnip truck. (I feel sorry for farmers who roll into the market with their turnip truck, don’t you? I only hope they don’t fall off of it.)

Ted knows what he knows. And what he knows, he’s pretty confident about. After all, look at all that he’s accomplished. He went from a 4th grade classroom to assistant principal to principal. Then he morphed into an assistant principal of a middle school because he wanted the experience and the opportunity to pursue his side project. He’s done some things right. There’s no denying it. Ted knows that.

So telling Ted that he may not have it all right is a tricky thing. Until you find his pain. And for a guy like me, that ain’t hard. I know pain. I’ve experienced pain. I can spot pain a million miles away in a galaxy far, far away. That’s how well I know pain.

Ted has lots of pain. When talk turns from what’s working to what’s not working…his whole demeanor changes. It’s not the most pleasant feeling for him and I know that. Realizations demand a lot of us. Humility demands even more. But that’s how breakthroughs happen. It’s the only way they happen. Nobody breaks through while running through a field of daisies. We break through by crawling on our belly underneath a barbed wire fence. Through the muck and mud. When we come out of the other side, we know we’ve been through something terribly uncomfortable, but we know we’re better where we are than where we were.

Fixing first demands we know what ails us. A doctor can blindly prescribe medicine to you, but unless he knows what’s wrong…it’s not likely going to work. It’s hit and miss. Ted’s been living in a hit and miss world for too long. He’s exhausted. Shoot, we’re exhausted as we listen to the story and we’ve got our own exhausting story, right?

Time For Triage

Taking an assessment of where we are and how we got to be here…well, it’s not easy work, but it’s profitable work. The trick is to avoid laying blame, but discovering the responsibility or reason. Who did it is only important so we can fix it, not so we can dog pile. Because ultimately the question we want to answer – the question we need to answer – is, “Why did this happen?” In addition, “What did we do, or fail to do, that brought us this result?”

The purpose of a triage is to set priorities. What needs fixing first? Rarely can we jump on a hoard of problems all at once. It’s tempting to be overcome with frustration as we look at all the things that may be broken, but not everything is fatal. The person in the emergency room with a broken nose thinks he’s dying. And he may be. But it’s not his broken nose that’s the real problem. It’s his heart attack. That can kill him.

So it is with careers and businesses. Some things are killers. Ted has a few things that are killers. And for different reasons. Sure, he needs more paying customers. Yes, he needs to do a better job of delivering his service to existing customers. But he’s got a bigger problem, one that may not appear to be business, but it is. Ted’s family is in major pain. Ted needs a plan that will allow him to pursue this side project while fueling his ability to be a better husband and father, not an absent one. Ted has to make that choice. Thankfully, he makes the right choice. In my opinion.

As we examine the problems facing Ted it’s clear that this whole side project has wrecked him. He confesses that he doesn’t feel he’s as good an administrator as he once was. His wife acknowledges that the tension at home is elevated since this all began. In fact, now she’s wishing he’d just forget the whole thing. She doesn’t care about the little bit of extra money they’ve made along the way. She’ll give that up in a heartbeat to have things better at home. Or as she puts it, to “get our life back.”

A dream has turned into a nightmare. A nightmare neither Ted nor his wife quite know how to escape. Do they dump the whole thing? Do they press on through this, not knowing what’s on the other side? What do they do?

The triage focuses on the killers. Killers of what? Killers of things we don’t want to die. In Ted’s case, his family is first. Ted doesn’t want to kill his family, but that’s precisely what’s happening. So first things first, we’ve got to stop harming the family with this enterprise.

Does that mean the side project dream dies? No, not necessarily. Many of us tend to swing from one end of the spectrum to the opposite end when facing problems. Ted’s no different. He’s in a black and white state of mind right now. Understandable given all he’s been through. But he’s not seeing clearly at the moment. That’s where outside help can benefit.

Keep in mind there wasn’t a plan going in. Just a dream that took legs and began to walk. Lumber really. Ted took his family along for the ride. Unsure where they were going, or how they were going to get there. No wonder it’s taken a heavy toll. Who wants to go for a ride to no place in particular with no purpose in mind, even if it is with somebody you love?

“What’s the goal for this enterprise, Ted? What do you want this business to accomplish?”

Ted looks at the ceiling. He’s thinking of what the answer should be. “Ted, why did you act on the idea you had a few years ago? Why did you take any action when you thought you could write a book and do this work as well as the next guy? What prompted that?”

Ted begins to unravel the mystery of why he felt he could do something he was seeing these other people – the people the school would call in to become the expert of the day. He confesses that he felt he was as much an expert as they were. He was rather certain of it. Turns out being an expert was important to Ted, but he hadn’t admitted that to anybody until now. Truth is, he hadn’t really thought of it in those terms until now. But there it was, the driving reason behind it all. The desire to be somebody, an expert.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Ted. Experts help the rest of us who aren’t so expert at a thing. What else did you want?”

“I wanted a different life, I guess. I wanted to go into a school, pass on what I learned. I wanted something more exciting.”

Again, nothing wrong with any of this. Many of us want something more exciting. Of course, I quickly realize and often remind people that compared to Jason Bourne, James Bond’s life seems dull. Be careful what you wish for I guess.

Through the conversation Ted experienced some insight. Whether it was suppressed or never before realized, I don’t know. But it was helpful. He realized he wanted to be in front of people. He wanted to be not only the expert, but he wanted to be up in front of people. Not just young students, but up in front of teachers. He wanted to be an authority recognized for his contribution to the space of education. It all seemed so arrogant to him. But there it was, the reality of what Ted really wanted.

It’s not arrogant at all. It’s the truth. It’s honest. And real.

Sure, there was talk about how much Ted knew his career would pay. And with three little girls, one already in school, Ted knew the financial strain at home would only grow as the girls did. Besides, he had a tough time seeing himself as a principal or assistant principal for 20 more years, or longer. His wife was a stay-at-home mom because together, they decided it was what they both wanted. That hadn’t changed. So through the fog of the conversation it was clear Ted was feeling some pressure to figure out another way to serve his family financially, but it wasn’t just about the money. For Ted is went much deeper. I suspect it goes much deeper for most of us.

Now What?

The triage didn’t just reveal what was killing Ted (and his family), but it revealed why Ted took action to begin with. It showed the real reasons behind Ted’s enterprise. Now, armed with a clear goal – things Ted and his family wanted to accomplish – it was time to devise a solid strategy to navigate underneath all that barbed wire so Ted could emerge a victor over this obstacle course of entrepreneurship.

What do you love? What do you like? Why?

What do you hate? What can you tolerate? Why?

It’s not merely philosophy, it’s real stuff. I talked in episode 243 about how I hate beets. But I can tell you why I hate beets. I hate their texture. I hate their color. I hate their taste. I hate their smell. Other than that, beets are fine. Sometimes we think we hate things and we don’t know why. Or we love things and we don’t know why. I’m not sure that’s exactly true. I love chocolate, but I mostly love the chocolate that’s not good for you, milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is okay, but it’s not sweet enough. I love the texture of dark and milk chocolate, but I love the taste of milk chocolate better because it’s sweeter. I like sweeter! Okay, let’s get off of food cause I’m craving a Twix bar right now.

Ted likes being up in front of people. Why? Because it makes him feel important, like he’s the expert. Ted enjoys that feeling. It fuels him. Others might be terrified, but not Ted. It is what it is. Thankfully Ted isn’t shying away from it thinking it’s stupid, or pompous. Again, it’s just Ted being honest about things. If you deny yourself the honesty of a thing, you’re doomed. Don’t even start something if you’re going to lie to yourself.

Ted wants to earn more money than his chosen professional will allow. He talked with enough people doing what he wanted to do to know they can earn significantly more money.

Ted enjoys his day job. Mostly. He doesn’t want to quit being an assistant principal. He enjoys the camaraderie and the security. He also enjoys the work and the people he works with. Ted never did want to start an enterprise that would force him to quit his day job tomorrow. He didn’t even want to quit his day job in the foreseeable future. Honestly, he wanted to start it and see where it took him, hoping it would afford him some new opportunities.

Ted and his wife didn’t have a 1-year plan, or a 5-year plan. The most complex it ever got was to start it and see where it takes us. Now they know. And they’re unhappy with the destination so it’s time to grab the steering wheel and take command.

There’s dreaming, then there’s planning. Lots of enterprises and endeavors begin with a dream. Dreams are great, but they’re just a step. And not necessarily the most important step either. Without dreaming about it Ted would have never taken any action. Without a dream we wouldn’t have all the cool stuff in the world today, or even the things we think are vital…like cars, houses, and dishwashers. But somebody drew up the architectural plans of where you live. Somebody put the dream or vision into motion by crafting a detailed document that mapped out how that dream could be realized. Ted never did that. Many people never do that.

Plans Often Demand Modification

Watch any home renovation show and you’ll see it. Plans are put into motion to build the kitchen just so. But once the demolition happens some unexpected problems hit. Now the plans need to be modified and changed. Maybe they revised plans are even better than the original. But they’re certainly different than the first because we’ve got new information that has to be dealt with. We can’t ignore the need for the plans to change.

Ted carefully constructs a plan on what he wants to accomplish in the next 12 months. With his wife they examine the vacation time Ted has during the school year and the time he’ll have off during the summer. With calendars in hand, they carefully look at the school calendar for their oldest daughter, now a 2nd grader, and they look at the activities for the two younger girls, too. They start with their family because Ted acknowledges that even though he enjoys being in front of people, it was his family’s future that drove him to this idea. He’s putting first things first. So should we.

They decide that Ted can easily do 10 to 12 presentations a year in this first planned year. But only if they’re within driving distance with no overnight stays. He figures he can do at least 8 if they require overnight travel, but with his wife they agree that they’ll limit any overnight presentations to no more than 6 this first planned year.

They already have a box of 100 books in the garage. The book is now a couple of years old, but Ted is convinced it’s got legs. Besides, the information isn’t dated and the strategies still work. He admits he needs to spruce up the presentation, but he’s now got some renewed energy because he can see where’s headed. He’s got plenty of books on hand for the next presentations so they won’t need to invest any money there.

The energy increase is palatable. Ted and his wife are racing with idea and things they know they need to do. It’s better to harness a race horse than to whip a plow horse. This is idea time and a good time to let things flow, making sure you capture all the things that pop to mind.

The website is up and running. Ted agrees he needs to spend more time updating the content there. He doesn’t have much up on his YouTube channel and knows that’s a great vehicle for anybody in his space. He got a GoPro camera last year to use with his family. It never dawned on him to use that for work, but he agrees it’s a great idea to take the GoPro to every presentation so he can put it on a tripod and capture portions of his presentation for his YouTube channel and website. He maps out an editorial calendar to help him manage putting content on his website on a regular, consistent basis.

Last year he met a fellow who travels all over the country speaking to school administrator and students. This guy’s message is more inspirational than Ted’s. He’s not doing what Ted’s doing. Ted thinks he might try to connect with this guy and see if they can help each other somehow. After all, Ted only wants up to 6 out of town gigs anyway. Besides, it may be an association that will help Ted from feeling so alone.

Ted hasn’t done any professional media kits before. He doesn’t even have a professional speaker kit. Schools just knew him, or knew about him. All of his jobs have come from people who knew him. It’s time to be more proactive. That means Ted needs a professional kit, with photos, video snippets and testimonials. He maps out a strategy to solicit written and video testimonials from people he’s already served.

It’s a frenzied pace, but it’s got purpose. It’s brainstorming with an end in mind.

When the dust settles and Ted is spent with all the new ideas, it’s time to put it down on paper. Time to craft the plan, with a schedule and deadlines. For the next week Ted and his wife spend an hour each night and most of one Saturday writing down what needs to happen, and when. They purposefully put the most important things at the front or top. They focus on the trifecta of building a business and work hard to answer the questions:

1. How will Ted get new clients?

2. How will Ted serve existing clients better?

3. How will Ted avoid going crazy in the process?

They agree that everything they plan will answer the first one. The better Ted performs, the more referral business he can get. And they agree that the second one will also fuel the others. Ted is going to polish the presentation and even craft a few different presentations delivering the same message. He figures that way he won’t be just going through the motions. He worries about being bored with the presentation and thinks this can help him keep it fresh. Besides, the schools are always giving him new ideas during the question and answer session he has at the end of each session. As for that third one, Ted and his wife agree that everything has to be focused on that. They translated that last one to fit their situation, “How will this work make our family stronger?”

Ted reviews his pricing strategy, too. It’s time to earn what you’re worth. Some financial goals are established and Ted restructures the pricing strategy, making it uniform for the first time ever. Before, he’d sorta wing it, asking a school to pay what he thought they could afford, or would afford. Now, he realizes that he’s got to say no to something so he can yes to other, more profitable things. He more than doubles his price, which sounds worse than it really is (for his buyers anyway) because he was practically giving it away before. Ted figured if he could sell each book for $10, then he wasn’t too concerned about being paid to present. Now, he’s looking at it more like an expert would…’cause that’s what he is (and what he wants to be). His packaging idea was good. It was just too cheap. He’s not top tier yet in his pricing, but he knows he’s not top tier quite yet in this endeavor. But now he’s more in line with where he needs to be. Plus, he and his wife have a 5-year plan to move into a bigger house. If year one goes anything according to plan, they’ll be able to easily afford that move and have both cars paid off, too.

Conclusion

This is where I’m supposed to tell you what you can take away from this story. But I’m not going to do that and I’m going to tell you why. We’ve all grown too lazy in wanting people to tell us what to do, how to do it and when to do it. “Just tell me what to do,” is a refrain that typifies too many of us. “Just tell me how to do it,” is another one.

The reality is, no matter how much guidance Ted and his wife get and no matter how helpful it is…they have to do the work. But they’ve been doing the work all along. Like so many others they’ve just been doing the wrong work and sometimes doing the work all wrong. Nobody is standing over them now telling them which tools to use, or how to use them. They’re not following some formula or secret, but they are following a plan. A plan they crafted themselves with a bit of help.

Ted and his wife are on the road to figuring it out ’cause that’s what we all have to do. With a bit of guidance and a lot of conversation Ted was able to gain some clarity that he simply couldn’t find alone. Partly because he wasn’t looking. At least not until the pain got so bad he knew he’d better do something. And partly because we don’t know what we don’t know. Ted was smart enough to figure that out. He feared what he didn’t know.

What about YOU? What haven’t you figured out yet? How intense is your pain?

None of us are out here crawling through the mud under a barbed wire fence because we enjoy it. We’re doing it because it’s the only way to get to where we’re going. Where are you going? Do you want some help to get here?

I’m not plan B. I’m option C.

I work every day to help people figure out where they’re going and devise a plan to get there faster.

Randy

245 Doing The Wrong Work, Doing The Work Wrong Read More »

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