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Small businesses have many advantages. Being highly maneuverable is chief among them. Speed kills competition and wins in the market. Not recklessness. Speed. Not impulsiveness. Speed.

As an operator, my mantra has long been to make sure the company was highly maneuverable and viciously competitive. 

Both involve the factor we all care most about, TIME. 

Frenzy isn’t profitable. Motion doesn’t equal action. Let’s not confuse these things. 

My grandmother had a little wooden sign in her kitchen from Alice In Wonderland that read…

Some business owners operate in a frenzy thinking that speed of motion equals profitable activity. Rarely does that work out. Instead, it most often elevates stress and strain. I’ve never seen panic pay off. It will put you further behind, not further ahead.

Speed is impacted by the mindset behind it. Let me explain. Some entrepreneurs love chaos and frenzy. A hyper approach to everything. These are the folks who have another question before the previous question has had time to be answered. They’re easily distracted. Antsy. Always on the move. 

While it may not be thoughtless speed, they may be the only ones who know the thought behind it. Others are frustrated by it. It looks like zaniness and a lot of squirrel chasing. And maybe mostly it is. It may be an addiction to motion. Speed. Moving, moving, moving. Never stand still. 

Owners who lead with that frantic pace mostly grow increasingly frustrated with the slowness around them. They also grow increasingly impatient. 

Your organization can likely thrive more with a calmer, more deliberate approach. An approach that gives people time to gather their thoughts, express their concerns and ideas and to ask questions required for clarification. None of those activities slow things down. Quite the contrary, they make speed more advantageous. 

Are you an impulsive leader?

Do you give a directive, then completely change directions before that directive ever has a chance to be completed? 

Do you ask a question, only to “on the fly” figure out you’ve got a different question – and one you ask right on top of the first one? And one that has nothing to do with the first question?

Do you issue some edict, then hours later forget all about it, and deem it unimportant – even though a number of your staff members have been working all morning on it?

Impulsive behavior has nothing to do with effective speed. Instead, it has everything to do with a thoughtless lack of self-discipline. No self-restraint. No self-control. An unsettled mind will result in unsettled leadership and unsettled business activity. 

I see it often, which is why I’m talking about it today. Over a year ago I did a video (without audio) that demonstrates the problem of having too many irons in the fire, and not allowing any of them to get hot enough to work with. It’s the “from start to profit” mindset I find myself talking about quite a bit with business owners who find it difficult to focus. 

Reckless speed is still speed. But it’s dangerous. Thoughtful speed is still speed. But it’s effective, efficient and wins races. 

Sometimes owners benefit by thinking about short-term versus longer-term. Execution of an idea – any idea – is easy to consider. Let’s say you’ve got an idea, some innovation you’d like to implement inside your company. You toss the idea out there, but due to your scattershot approach, you’re like a hummingbird who won’t light. You fidget. That idea is still something you’d like to get going, but a week goes by and nobody is working on it. They’re unsure what they’re supposed to be working on. So like my video illustrates, they take a few steps toward executing it, then you change direction so they follow your lead. They’re now moving on something completely different. 

Weeks and months pass. Still no execution of your idea. 

Compare that with an approach where you quieten things down as you explain your idea. The staff asked questions. Provide input. An hour later the meeting ends and everybody knows what needs to be done at this stage of the game. You’ve got a million other ideas floating around, but you temper yourself. You’re making notes and keeping track, but you’re not about to distract your team from the work at hand. You know that by the end of the week they’ll be ready to launch the first iteration of your original idea. Four days from you telling them about it until it’s some form of reality. Four days! 

Versus it never happens. You never get it off the back of the napkin to figure out if it would even work. So you never have the opportunity to iterate it and perfect it. It’s the classic, ready, ready, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim…oh wait a minute, here’s what we should do. Ready, ready, ready, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim…hey, no…you know what we should do?

Funny thing. Owners ruled by thoughtless impulse mostly have no idea how bad it is. They usually know they’re “all over the board,” but they have no concept of how disruptive they are. Frenetic activity begets more frenetic behavior, amplifying stress and anxiety. Even if it makes the boss feel better!

Intentional. Purposeful.

Two words that creep into almost every business building conversation I have. Today, I’m summarizing both into a single term, thoughtful. 

Thoughtful.

Here’s why I like it. It signifies a component of caring, compassion and being considerate. Thinking of others.

That’s why I’ve incorporated it into this conversation about speed. At bats count. Shots at the target. Pick the metaphor you like most. They all refer to the number of opportunities we take. That’s where speed has an impact. The more opportunities we take, the more we learn, the more we’re able to grow and improve. And the faster we’re able to figure out if we want to keep going in that direction. Or if we want to quit and try something else. 

Tap the brakes on the frenzy. Slow down enough to be thoughtful. Go as fast as you want, but keep a check on your thoughtfulness. When it starts to slip, you may be moving too fast surrendering to your impulses instead of your thoughtfulness.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Some people think you just sell your way out of every problem. More sales equal more money. More money means less trouble. Fewer problems. It doesn’t always work that way though.

You know if you’re more driven by the top line (revenue) or by the bottom line (profits). You can be top line driven and still care about controlling costs. They’re not mutually exclusive. It’s largely determined by what you believe in most, and what you enjoy doing most. CEOs and business owners who have a gift of selling tend to focus on that. It’s fine. You don’t need me to tell you it’s okay. But I just did. CEOs and business owners who lean more toward details and efficiencies likely pay closer attention to the bottom line. This isn’t about making a judgment on the rightness or wrongness of either focus. 

Balance. Every business needs balance. A proper focus on the revenues or sales while maintaining focus on the bottom line profits, which must take into account all those expenses. Costs. 

In personal finances, you can save your way toward wealth. I’m sitting in an Economics 101 class in my freshman year of college. There are a few hundred kids in this class. Big auditorium, stadium type seating. The professor had teased the class, telling us he would be informing us how we could all become millionaires. Many of us who regularly cut the class attended. How can you cut a class when it’s going to be about how to become a millionaire? 

Here was the formula he taught us that day. Don’t get married. Get any job earning any reasonable amount of money. Don’t fret about getting a high paying job. Live in the most austere way possible. Don’t buy stuff. Just have a modest lifestyle, living as bare bones as you can. Save at least $20,000 a year. Earn $40,000, then you save 50%. Earn more, save more. At least that’s what he encouraged us to do. Work 50 years and you’ll have $1,000,000. 

Needless to say, it wasn’t the formula we were looking for. We were sorely disappointed in this wealth building strategy. By the way, we cut his class much more frequently after that lecture. To say we were hacked off would be to mildly understate how angry we were at being dupped into attending class that day. But it stuck with me. You can save your way to wealth in your personal life. 

Makes sense that you should be able to save your way to business prosperity, too. But you can’t. And for good reason. Revenue (the equivalent of personal income) isn’t predictable. If you get a job earning $40,000 a year you know you’ve got $40,000 coming in each year. You can implement the strategy our professor told us about. But in our businesses, we have fluctuating revenue. And we lack the discipline to not let our expenses or costs fluctuate with it. When sales are strong, we spend more readily. When sales are tight, we reach for our belts to tighten things down. 

Discipline is the key to personal wealth building success and to our corporate success. 

Returns. As you man the helm of your business you must focus on generating revenues, cash, and customers. Cash is king. Always has been, always will be. Cash flow is the fuel you need to stay aloft. Run out of cash and you’ll crash. Customers? Well, try getting revenues and cash without them. Sales. Cash. Customers. They’re all tied together.

Some costs have a fairly easy ROI (return on investment) to calculate. Customer acquisition costs, for example. How much does it cost your company to acquire a customer? I know service-based businesses, including trade-type businesses, who have a very low customer acquisition cost. Maybe they’ve been operating so long they’ve got a strong book of business, with tons of referrals. They market, but they don’t buy advertising or spend any significant money to get business. Other businesses have high dollar real estate investments in a physical location designed to be attractive to would-be customers. They spend thousands of dollars each month to attract customers. Their customer acquisition costs are significant. 

I’m picking on this particular expense for good reason. You need customers. You’ve got to get them some way, somehow. You can’t just spend your way to success. You can’t save your way to success either. The math has to work to your favor or you’ll soon be out of business. 

You could drive down the expenses of acquiring customers. For example, you could eliminate all advertising. If you’re spending $30,000 monthly in advertising you could be lulled into thinking, “Great, that’s $30,000 I can add to the profits.” That’d be true if sales could be maintained (like our example of $40,000 personal income). But we both know if we eliminate all our advertising our sales will likely plummet. So that’s not a sound approach.

Getting costs down while maintaining or growing sales. That’s the key. Easier said than done, but it can be done. WalMart has led the way for decades. 

In our example, the key is to drive down our customer acquisition costs. We can do it in 2 ways. We find ways to gain more customers while not increasing our costs. And, or, we find ways to maintain the rate of customer acquisition without spending as much. Maybe you focus on your closing ratio (how many prospects you’re able to convert into customers). If your current customer acquisition costs are based on closing 4 out of 10 prospects, then you can focus on finding ways to get 5 or more out of 10 while spending the same amount. 

Making your dollars go further. Business success depends on this investment/expense activity. Sometimes it’s getting costs lower. Other times it’s getting more out of the costs. 

Advertising that garners more prospects – dollar for dollar – is more valuable than advertising that brings in fewer prospects. But we can be tempted to avoid the math. We fall in love with things. We get sentimental. What once worked stops working, but we don’t adjust. The retailer who has historically spent advertising dollars on newspaper, radio or TV continue to spend money there, even though the dollar value is awful. The math is the math. It’s not just about the math, but we can’t avoid looking at the math either.

“I can’t afford it,” is a common refrain. You hear it from your prospects. You say it to your suppliers. We all use it even though it’s not always (or even often) true. What will the money spent get us? Returns. It’s about our discipline to manage the real returns we get. If you spend $35 to get a customer and one customer is worth $50, then you’ve got a math problem. The remaining $15 of profit have to be enough to cover all the other expenses and leave you a sustainable net profit. That’s not likely going to happen. But if you spend $35 to get a customer who will spend $3,000 then you’ve got the math working to your favor. 

Basic. Fundamental. But quickly forgotten by too many business owners who let costs grow out of control. Expenses have a way of creeping up, and up and up. You can’t afford to ignore the math of the return you’re getting on those expenses. Every expense has a return. Yes, those health insurance premiums you hate to pay garner a return. Unless you offer those benefits the quality of your team falls. Can you drive that down if you focus on it? Yes. Everything can be driven down with a bit of attention. I’ve never seen it fail. When we pay close attention to something, we’re able to accomplish magical things. 

Miles per gallon. Attack your expenses line by line with an MPG mindset. Make the dollars take your further. Make your advertising foster more sales. Make your insurance premiums garner bigger benefit, greater peace of mind. You know my attitude about expenses…put every expense on trial for its life. Make it earn its spot on the books. If it can’t, then adjust it so it can. 

My personal objective with all my clients is to provide a 10x return. While I can’t guarantee it, because I can’t guarantee the effort clients put into the work…I am determined to do everything possible on my end to help clients generate at least $10 for every dollar they invest in my help. I’m happier if we can get it closer to $20. That math is important. For me and my clients. I want to earn sufficient profits so I can render the best service possible. And so I can operate a sustainable business. And I want it to be a no-brainer, drop-dead easy decision for my clients. If I’m able to deliver a ten dollar bill for every dollar bill they give me, then it’s an easy decision for them, an investment they’re anxious to make. 

Take the time to figure out if the line item expenditure is earning its keep. What kind of return are you getting? Calculate it. 

Now figure out how you can elevate that return. If you can’t, then figure out if you can get an equal or better return by lowering that expense. 

As you go through your P&L line by line you’re going to discover some things that are completely worthless. Costs that can be completely eliminated. 

You’ll find others that are so much higher than necessary, you’ll be angry at yourself for not looking at it more closely. Regularly. 

I’ve seen business owners operating large multi-million dollar businesses neglect to pay close enough attention only to find gaping holes where profits were just pouring out onto the ground. I’ve seen owners unearth some horrible internal thefts, too. Your business isn’t too small or too large to benefit from a closer examination of costs with the intention of making every dollar go further to propel your company to new heights of success.

Tracking is important, but not if you’re failing to pay attention. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s deadly. Know the numbers. Know what they mean and how important they are to your operational success. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Is it really daring to innovate? Absolutely. 

Proof was apparent here in Dallas Sunday night during a pre-season NFL game between the Cowboys and the Arizona Cardinals. Late Sunday night Yahoo sports writer Jason Owens wrote a piece entitled, Viewers not impressed with NBC’s ‘green zone’ innovation for ‘Sunday Night Football.’

He wrote…

The yellow line is a Hall of Fame level sports broadcasting innovation.

The digitally imposed first-down marker developed by Sportvision and launched on ESPN in 1998 changed the way fans watch football and has inspired a host of digital enhancements to improve the home viewing experience.

NBC launches redundant technology

In the tradition of the yellow line, NBC launched the “green zone” during its “Sunday Night Football” broadcast featuring the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals.

This did not go over well.

The issue here is that the green zone is pointless. NBC digitally alters the field a darker shade of green between the line of scrimmage and first-down marker, showing fans how far the ball needs advanced to achieve a first down.

It’s a cool idea if the yellow line didn’t already do that exact job, only better.

Fans show no mercy for “green zone”

Twitter users were quick to point this out and mocked the “green zone” without mercy. (the article showed many Tweets by critical viewers)

Networks are constantly looking to find new innovations to improve the viewer experience. This attempt seems bound for the trash heap.

And this ladies and gentlemen is why quite a few business owners don’t innovate. Fear they’ll fail. And be mocked. Ridiculed. Embarrassed. 

No, I’ve never had a CEO or business owner (except those in the public relations arena or some other strategic communication’s space) admit it, but we all know it’s true. 

We’re not a major network like NBC. Our small business may lack a reach beyond our local market or region. No matter. We’re all afraid. 

Daring is defined as “adventurous courage.” 

Innovate is defined as “make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.”

You might think all innovation requires a degree of daring, but I don’t think so. Some industries foster innovation. They’re unabashed in their quest for it. Computer science comes to mind. 

Is there any phrase more trite than “outside the box?” As much as we say it, or hear it, you’d think it’d be easier. 

Years ago I seem to remember a cartoon, maybe a Far Side cartoon. I miss the Far Side! It depicted some cavemen walking on all fours, but one of them stood up, presumably man’s first attempt to walk upright. The others mocked him and told him to stop it, he’d hurt himself. So it goes with innovation. We risk ridicule from our peers. Or in the case of NBC, the viewing audience. The world. 

And we sometimes wonder why people and companies hesitate to try to grow, improve, transform…or innovate. Those same folks jumping on NBC for trying the “green zone” may likely also Tweet about the importance of creativity and innovation. But hypocrisy is a good topic for another day. 

Daring innovation first requires the daring component. And I intentionally made today’s title incorporate a word – daring – that can be understood as an adjective…as in “daring innovation.” The innovation can be daring, or adventurous. Or as a verb, “daring innovation.” We can dare to innovate. I mean both. I encourage both. I applaud both.

Daring is fun. And contagious. 

Much has been written about innovation. Much less has been written about fun. Especially at work. It’s too bad, too, because it’s fun to be daring.

Routine is hum-drum. Complacency is, too. “Hey, let’s don’t ever improve, OK?” Hardly the battle cry of the highest achievers. It may well be the mindset of CEOs, business owners and companies who are stuck. Too fearful about all sorts of things, and more willing to stay comfortable…so many people don’t achieve more when it could be so easy to do it. 

I co-host a podcast with Leo Bottary called WHAT ANYONE CAN DO. The podcast is themed after Leo’s book, being released next week, “What Anyone Can Do: How Surrounding Yourself with the Right People Will Drive Change, Opportunity, and Personal Growth.” Leo took the title from a running coach who once observed that high achievers mostly do what anyone could do. The difference is, they’re willing to do things most people won’t. Don’t we all intuitively know that’s true, even if we don’t behave like it? The word is COURAGE. Most of us lack courage. Particularly the courage to stand out, show off, be different, achieve more. 

Courage begets more courage. Just another benefit of having a daring culture. 

Something tells me that last night some executive at NBC (probably a few of them) hit the panic button after seeing the negative Twitter comments on the “green zone” innovation. Text messages and emails were likely firing left and right while the game was still being televised. Monday morning there were likely many meetings about it. It’ll be interesting to see what NBC decides to do. Let’s see how much courage they have to see if their daring innovation has legs or not. Is a single telecast a good enough sample size? What would you do if you were NBC?

Innovation is fun. It’s also contagious. 

Environments and cultures that foster creativity, innovation, and daring have a bravery that can withstand criticism. Part of the problem may stem from the constant barrage of business advice that tells us to ask our customers what they want, then give it to them. It sounds wise, but is it? 

Most everything we enjoy every day wouldn’t exist if the companies we support had followed that advice. Daring to innovate. Daring innovation. They’re not restricted by merely considering what people are asking for. Before that yellow first down line innovation on televised football games, I never remember hearing people say, “I wish we could see where the first down line is.” Somebody would have likely said, “Yeah, that’s what that first down marker is for, you idiot.” 

The Sony Walkman was an innovative gamechanger. Nobody was asking for it, but when Sony delivered, boy were we happy about it! Same with the CD, the DVD, the Apple iPod, seatbelts, car headrests and thousands (maybe millions) of other things. 

In decades of operating businesses, I’ve never seen a group of people fail to be fired up to think about what might be. Every time I’ve seen people energized to do the best work of their lives, it was when they were challenged to do something that hadn’t been done.

In 1986 Charles A. Garfield published a book entitled, Peak Performers: The New Heroes of American Business. I was a big fan of his work and leaned on it heavily at the time. It helped form some of my foundational philosophies in helping people achieve higher performance. Garfield talked about the early NASA years and President Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon before the decade of the 60’s ended. The NASA engineers were quite young. Nobody had ever gone to the moon before, much less put a man there. And returned him home again. It continues to be a bar setting daring innovation even today in 2018. Many of those people have held to the declarations they made as young people, “It was the best work of their lives.” 

I know. You’re thinking, “Well, of course. They put a man on the moon.” But look at your own daring innovations. What stands out for you? 

It’s not going to be anything ordinary. It’s going to be the remarkable, extraordinary things. The things that were anything, but mundane. You may even be drawn to think of things you attempted, but failed at. Big things you tried and even if they didn’t work, you learned things you’d have never learned otherwise. 

What do you remember about your childhood? Think about it. 

You certainly remember doing ordinary things. They’re not specific memories necessarily, but you remember playing baseball, hanging out with friends, and whatever else you did as a kid. 

Now, think about the specific memories you have. What are they?

I remember the time a bunch of us built a cart to ride down a big hill. I remember us going into the piney woods, building a fort that took a week. I remember us climbing up in a tree and building a treehouse. I remember saving my money to buy my first 10-speed bicycle. These weren’t daily, ordinary things. They were memorable because they were special, if not spectacular. 

It’s true for kids. It’s true for CEOs and business owners. It’s true for the people who work with us, too. We’re all chasing dreams of doing something extraordinary. Yet, we’re too frequently paralyzed to try for fear we’ll fail. I’m not sure the failure is the thing we dread. It’s what comes with failure. Or better yet, it’s what we THINK may come with failure. Ridicule. Embarrassment. 

Here’s the fact. In spite of the fact that millions may have been watching NBC’s game on Sunday night, and seeing the curtain unveiled on that “green zone” innovation…today is Tuesday and it’s been largely forgotten already. And it’s not going to cause people to not watch if their favorite team is playing. What about the Tweets and ridicule? What about the criticism? So what? 

You’re not NBC. People aren’t paying attention to everything you may try. Your daring innovation may go unnoticed to the outside world until they take notice. But the fuel provided to you and your organization, and the ultimate benefit to your business is undeniable. 

If chronic courage is the only outcome, that alone is worth the price. Be bold. Be courageous. Two lines from one of my favorite quotes, often attributed to Goethe, but it’s widely debated. I don’t need to know who wrote it or said it to know how valuable it is. It’s likely an amalgamation of a number of quotes by various authors, but I still like it.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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I’d been thinking about this for a good long while. Many private conversations have been had in recent years about it, too. 

Language and demeanor. 

Retired NFL head coach and current NBC Sports football commentator Tony Dungy was on a local sports talk radio station here in Dallas this past Friday. I’ve read quite a bit about him and I’ve even perused his book, Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life. He’s written quite a few books, including most recently, some books with his wife, Lauren. 

In this radio interview, Dungy was asked about the HBO’s series, Hard Knocks, which always features coaches hollering, screaming and cussing.  I was rather pleased to hear him respond as I suspected he would. He pointed out how that TV show is about entertainment so they purposefully chase high drama. Tony said he didn’t think it was shocking that the teams featured on Hard Knocks aren’t often playoff teams or serious contenders. He’s worried that future coaches, especially at the high school level, will take their cues from watching shows like Hard Knocks, and think that’s how successful coaches behave. He was quick to point out that success can be achieved without all that nonsense.

On his first day with a team, Tony Dungy said he’d ask the players to raise their hand if they needed him to yell, scream, get foot-stomping mad or cuss in order to have them do what he asked. No hands go up. Admittedly, a few players (but not many) took a few days to get adjusted to it – because they’d experienced so much anger, yelling and cussing in their playing careers. Dungy would speak with them calmly and deliberately with clear feedback and instruction. Of course, that doesn’t make for very entertaining TV. 

And it’s too bad. 

The short answer to our question today – Do you have to be angry, yell and cuss to get improved performance? – is, “No! You don’t.” But let’s give it a bit more consideration. 

It plays well on the Internet, YouTube and wherever else content is consumed. People pay attention to that kind of behavior. It garners far more attention than calm, deliberate, considerate behavior — which seems boring, mundane and low energy. Just like the humble, intentional listener most often gives way to the larger-than-life-hey-look-at-me personality. Some people are driven to draw attention to themselves at every turn. They exhaust me. I wonder if they exhaust others because their behavior sure seems to pay off with people giving them attention. 

Today’s topic transcends leadership, business ownership or entrepreneurship. But in that context, I suspect Tony Dungy is right. I suspect too many people are taking their cues from what they see and hear online. They think if they don’t drop F-bombs and use crude language, then their point of view lacks validity. And if the delivery isn’t animated with an over-the-top delivery, nobody will listen. 

Permit me to focus on that last phrase of our question though, “…to get improved performance.” And let’s broaden that a bit to mean influence. Have an impact. Serve. Help.

Tony Dungy’s question is a great one.

“Who needs me to get angry, yell and cuss in order to help you improve?”

Would you raise your hand if somebody asked you that? I sure wouldn’t. 

I can’t speak for Tony, but I can speak for myself. I’ve been angry before and shown it. I’ve yelled some, too. I’m not a foul-mouth though so that last one has never been much of a temptation. I just don’t use that kind of language. Mostly, my demeanor though is laid-back. If you listen to a single podcast you can easily conclude what kind of a guy I am. I don’t give any effort to trying to be somebody I’m not. And I don’t play ball with people who would prefer me to be somebody different.

Does that kind of behavior work? Depends on the kind of work you’re doing. If you’re trying to gain attention and followers, yes. It clearly works. Scroll through YouTube or iTunes and you’ll see it pretty clearly. And I know I risk coming across as an old fogey. That’s okay. Right is right and I subscribed to these notions when I was a teenager. So think what you will. 

When you start working retail at 16 and you’re meeting the public daily, you learn how to speak and behave (if you didn’t know how already). If you walked into a store and the person helping you dropped an F-bomb I suspect you’d be surprised. But you can watch some guru on YouTube lay down four F-bombs a minute and be enthralled. 

I’m not naive. I knew retail people who had terrible language away from work. Like a radio or TV personality who habitually watches their words while on the air, but off the air they can cuss like a sailor (apologies to any non-cussing sailors)…some people watch themselves when they must. Maybe most people do that, I don’t really know. But I do know people are being much looser with their profanity in all circles than ever before. There’s no regard for the ladies in the room anymore. Or anybody else. We’re in a let-it-fly zone all the time these days. 

What does it do for us?

I don’t have a good answer. The people who I need to be surrounded by in order to grow great don’t serve me best by being angry with me…angry enough to be provoked to yell and cuss at me. Maybe I’m not typical, but I suspect we know I am (at least in this regard). 

Immune. Hardened. Desensitized. 

Those worry me. I worry that the people we’re leading, and attempting to lead, will achieve all of those things if the trend continues. If shouting is the route to attention, what happens when the whole world is shouting? How is my shouting going to appear more valuable than anybody else’s? 

I’ve sat down with many people over the course of my life and career. People who often disappointed me with poor behavior or poor performance. In hindsight, most often I’m told how difficult it was to sit before me and endure a calm, deliberate conversation about it. “Worse than a beating,” is how quite a few folks described it. “But much longer lasting,” would be quickly added. I wanted to have an impact. The goal was to teach and make it memorable. 

Getting angry. Yelling. Cussing. Those aren’t memorable anymore. Entertaining perhaps, but not memorable. Late night TV is filled with them. Reality TV shows are, too. We’re surrounded by angry, hollering and cussing characters.

I don’t get it.

As I lay dying I’m fairly sure I’m not going to remember anybody who treated me that way. Or anybody I saw treat others that way. I’m pretty certain, and hopeful, that I’m going to remember the people who cared enough to help me become better by making sure I heard and properly understood them. Mostly, that I understood how much they cared about me. 

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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These days scaling is all the rage. And talk. Start-up’s focus on scaling as quickly as possible as they struggle to escape the gravitational pull of business failure. When we’re not trying to scale, then we’re trying to hack, implement something lean, strategize something agile and all the while we’re honing our storytelling chops. 

Earlier this week I had a very brief Twitter exchange with Tom Peters. He mentioned how storytelling could be used for bad and said he gets nervous when he sees storytelling consultants. He hates when the word “agile” is capitalized. And he’d hate the word “storytelling” if he ever saw it capitalized. Poking a bit of fun, I replied, “So Agile Storytelling would (be) anathema (smile) — I’m with you on both counts btw.”

Buzzwords and buzz activities abound. I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry for getting tickled at it all. People love it because it makes them sound smarter. And some people need all the help they can get to sound smarter. 

Meanwhile, we’re busy trying to make payroll, put out fires and increase sales. “Agility? I’ve got your agility. I go to the gym and workout every day. And I’m old, but I’m still agile. I do need to improve on that lean business though.” 😀 

Today it’s about communication. I’m not talking about information you may need to broadcast to your employees, or team members. That’s a one-way street. Sometimes one-way streets are effective. Lots of cars can move in a single direction if the street is only open to one way. More than if we allowed cars to move both ways. But what a pain it’d be if every street were one-way. I suspect we’d be going in lots of circles to get to where we needed to go. 

But there are times when a written or spoken message needs to be communicated (broadcast). We need to pass information on to the people who need it. That’s already scalable. We write and distribute emails, memos, presentations, videos, web sessions, text blasts and whatever else can get the job done efficiently and effectively. It may be helpful to consider ways to improve that – largely, tone and the way we convey the message could likely be improved – but that’s not what I’m talking about today. 

No, I’m talking about how we can scale interactions inside our organization. There are 2 specific areas we can consider: 1) our interactions with people inside the organization (and consequently, our leadership team’s ability to scale communication with people), and 2) the interactions between people in our organization, particularly people who may not naturally interact much, if at all. 

Our Interaction and Leadership’s Interaction

We make this seem like it’s not worthwhile, and that it’s too cumbersome. Truth is, it’s neither. It’s highly profitable and easy to do. You just have to make up your mind (or perhaps change your mind about it). 

Some owners and leaders don’t think it’s worthwhile because they don’t think some people have anything of value to offer in conversation. Nobody will say that in a crowd, but they’ll feel it and think it. If you think the class system is gone, go visit the blue collar workers and you’ll find out different. Those boys in the top floor who wear those French cuffs aren’t found roaming the factory or warehouse floor, except when they’re showing the place off to a visitor. Besides, that guy making $12 an hour has no clue how to operate a business. Right?

WAY too many owners behave that way. I don’t care if they give it good lip service. Judge their actions. Judge your own actions. When you look around your operation and you feel some citizens in your kingdom are lesser people, you’ve got a blind spot that needs to be eliminated. And don’t try to convince anybody that blind spots are good things. 

Listening. Really listening. That’s the point. And the goal. 

Too many owners and leaders feel like listening means conceding decisions. Others are afraid of having to explain something or defend something. So they avoid the conversations altogether, or they enter the conversations with their guard up. Which is likely how they behave much of the time. Not open. Hardly ever honest. Never transparent. Always on guard. That behavior cripples communication, which cripples leadership.

I get that not everybody in your organization has the same degree of skill, expertise, knowledge or ability. But scaling communication from a leadership perspective starts with how you feel about other people. It’s steeped in what you believe about people. If you believe that because you make more money, or wear fancier clothes, or have an important title — then you’re sense of everything is more valuable than the viewpoint of anybody else, then you’re doomed already. You’re just too stupid to know the game is already over. 

Consider a guy working on a manufacturing factory floor. He’s got a job that may involve one step of an 18-step process. Question: is there likely anybody else who knows more about that part of the process? If I’m the CEO of that company, I’m putting my money on that guy. I’m betting he knows his step better than anybody else in the place. To think otherwise is the epitome of a closed mind. 

First, I have to see value in having a conversation with him. Second, I have to lower my guard, be candid and listen. Really listen. Third, I’m going to make it easy for him. I’m not going to talk with him to see how he feels about our new business development strategy. I’m leaning on him for his expertise in the area where he clearly knows more than me, and likely everybody else in the joint. That doesn’t mean I restrict what I allow him to share with me. It means I acknowledge his area of expertise and let the conversation go from there. 

When I respect him, I don’t get defensive. I don’t dig in. I understand the context of the conversation, whatever it may be. I can communicate with him to get his feedback, to see how he’s doing, to find out what I can do to better serve him (and make his work better, etc.), to give him feedback that can help him do better…there are many reasons I can engage in a conversation with him. Each of them share one thing: serving him. Don’t serve him for any reason other than because it’s right. It’s who you are!

Do it and coach your leadership team how to do it, too. Show them the way. Share with them the value of it. Hire for this trait. I challenge you to hire people – leaders – are find value in the opinions, insights and ideas of others. Hire the smartest guy in the room at your peril. Hire the person capable of making the room come alive with ideas and creativity, and you’ll have found a key person. 

The Interaction Among Others

Do you foster ways for people in one department to encounter people of another department? Or are the folks inside your organization siloed off among only themselves day after day?

Get creative in finding ways to make new interactions happen. Use your imagination. The priority has to be safety. Security. People have to feel confident that there’s not some underlying thing going on that they’re not privy to. Again, your openness and honesty is key.

Emphasize the value of shared ideas. Tell everybody – and show everybody – how much you value creative, innovative conversations and ideas. Here’s an idea, ask people what they think about intentionally fostering conversations among people who otherwise don’t talk. Or don’t talk very much. 

These don’t have to be formal conversations. They might be break time conversations. Lunchtime conversations. But they might also be formalized or facilitated. I don’t know your environment. You can figure this out. I’m encouraging you and your team to do the work to figure it out though. Because there are conversations that need to happen that aren’t happening. There are ideas that haven’t been expressed. Creativity that hasn’t been unleashed. Frustrations that haven’t been expressed in a positive way. Fixes and opportunities that haven’t been shared. 

The price of unscaled communication is insanely high. You’ve heard that old story of the daughter who would cut the ends off the ham before cooking it because that’s how mom did it. Only years later did the daughter learn, when prompted to ask her mom, “Mom, why did you always cut the ends off the ham?” – that mom did it because he had a narrow pan and the whole ham wouldn’t fit. Rather than get a bigger pan, mom just made the ham fit. Think of all the wasted ham over the years that might have been saved if they’d just had the conversation. 

What about the conversations inside your company? How much ham are you wasting? Stop it.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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Okay, we can’t possibly make all the right assumptions, but we can improve making our assumptions serve us better. For today’s show we could use “expectations” and “assumptions” interchangeably. 

I’d sum it up like this: be convinced you can instead of being convinced you can’t. 

 It’s another one of those dreaded formulas. You can’t grow great – or accomplishment anything truly valuable – without hard work. But, you can work hard and still not grow great or accomplish much of anything. So let’s start there. Don’t make the assumption that just because you’re busting your butt, you’ll grow great. 

Your leadership, your business, your life — they won’t grow or improve simply because you’re putting in work. It matters what kind of work you’re doing. 

Many years ago David Letterman was interviewing somebody who brought up the subject of boxers versus briefs. I remember the guest saying to Dave that those openings on the front of the briefs don’t work so well. To which Dave replied, “It depends on what kind of work you’re doing!” 😀 

Exactly. You can work hard, put in long hours and grind away, but still fail to grow or improve yourself or your business. And it’s not that work smart, not hard crapola. You’ve got to do both. Effort can’t be misplaced if we’re going to grow great. And in order to properly direct that effort, we have to pull back and take a closer look at our assumptions. 

We all operate from assumptions. It’s necessary. Else we’d be unable to function. 

Just think about driving around town. We assume other drivers are going to obey the traffic signals. As we drive through an intersection with a green light, we’re assuming the cross traffic is going to obey that red light they’re staring at. 

We assume when we get up in the morning that our light switch is going to result in the lights coming on. We assume when we flush the toilet or turn on the water faucet that the water is going to automatically work. 

We assume we’ll get mail today unless it’s Sunday or a holiday. 

We assume our car will start. 

We kiss our spouse good morning, assuming we’ll see them again at the conclusion of the workday. 

Some days, with somebody, one or more of those assumptions fail. Perhaps it’s happened to you. Things rock along just as they always have…until they don’t. But we can’t live our lives without making these and many other assumptions. It’s just the practical reality of our ability to go about our daily lives. Our assumptions enable us to live. 

But they can also curse us if we take on negative assumptions and allow them to rule our lives. They’ll wreck our judgment and decisions, which in turn, will wreck our outcomes. 

You want the best outcomes possible. You want great results. For your business. For your life. Then today focus a bit more on your assumptions because they determine your perspective, which will drive everything you do. And everything you do will impact what happens. It’s up to YOU.

This was all provoked by a conversation I had recently with somebody who was embarking on a new enterprise. As we rolled through something of a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) it was clear that he wasn’t terribly confident about the endeavor. Yet he was insistent how much he wanted to pursue it, how much he believed in it. His words and tone indicated some assumptions that didn’t appear to be serving him well. So I gently challenged him with a single question…

“What if all your assumptions pointed to a positive outcome?”

“What do you mean?” he asked. I clarified by asking him, “What if you assume that everything you try will work? What if you go into every act assuming it’s going to be successful?”

He pushed back. “But that’s not realistic.”

“And what’s the downside?” I wanted to know. Anybody who knows me understands it’s among my favorite questions because it gets past the clutter to the real point of it. Which almost always is “so what?”

He thought for a second or two. “I don’t know. It just feels delusional.” 

It was an interesting response. Here’s a business person embarking on a new thing – a thing he claims to really believe in (and I trust he does). But he thinks to elevate his confidence in the effort (notice I didn’t emphasize the result because who knows what’s going to work or not) will feel “delusional.” 

“So are you telling me your endeavor is delusional? And if it is, then why embark on it in the first place?” I asked.

No, of course not. He felt his idea had legs. He started citing how it wasn’t some new thing that nobody had ever done before. It was a fairly tried and true business model. It was just something he had not done before. And boy did it resonate with me. Because a few months ago I set about to begin efforts to form the first of what I hope will be two peer advisory groups for small business owners from around America. Virtual, online groups that meet using a video conferencing platform.

I told him I’d never done this before, but that I was confident I had the ideal skills and experience to do it. And to do it extraordinarily well. 

Now he had a kindred spirit. He was trying to do something new. I’m trying to do something new. He’s assuming everything he’s going to try might (he really wanted to emphasize that word) fail. I’m assuming whatever I try will work. 

“Is everything working?” he asked about my own endeavor, The Peer Advantage.

“No, of course not. Truth is, most things aren’t working if you want to use hard measurements like acquiring people. But I’m not pursuing transactions and neither are you. We’re pursuing longer-term relationships. So honestly, I can’t say with certainty that anything isn’t working.” 

What about our assumptions? That’s the point. 

Have you ever achieved any business or career success without a deep belief – an assumption – that it would be successful? 

I don’t care what others think. Or how they feel. Or what “evidence” they try to use to persuade you that you’re an idiot. I care about what YOU think, feel and believe. It’s your assumptions that make the difference. 

Jeff Bezos believed he could successfully sell books over the Internet. Along the way, he and his leadership team made some other assumptions. You know about the successes because they’re quite public. You don’t know about all the failures because they never saw the light of day, or they were quickly forgotten. 

We don’t have to be business royalty to know that’s true of us, too. All of us. 

What if this will work? 

What if your actions today are based on your deeply held assumption that it’ll work? Is there a downside to that? I suppose only if you refuse to face compelling evidence to the contrary AFTER you’ve tried hard enough. 

I’ve tried many things that failed on the first few (or few hundred) attempts. There’s a fine line between stupidity and dogged determination to find out if an idea will work or not. You get the make that call though because it’s your assumption that it’ll work. Until you decide otherwise, give it your best shot. 

There are homeless people in every community of any size. In a place like Dallas/Ft. Worth we’ve got more than most. Drive into any major intersection with an overpass and you’ll likely encounter some poor soul begging for money, with a cardboard sign in hand. Now I’m not making any judgments about how they got there or what they might do with any money they get. But as I watch these people humble themselves in an effort to gain a few bucks from passing cars, I often think of the determination required to simply survive on the streets of a major metropolitan area like DFW. And I think of a seemingly hopeless situation where this person is hopeful, even optimistic and assuming that somebody – not everybody – but that somebody is going to give them something. And people do give them something. 

We’re blessed. We’re not homeless. We’re business people trying to make great things happen. For ourselves. For our people. For our companies. For our families. For our communities. 

Assume it will work and be successful until proven otherwise. Then try something else. And something else. And something else. 

Don’t defeat yourself with a built-in excuse that it “might” not work. Empower yourself that it “will” work. And we both know there’s only one way to find out. 

Try it.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

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