It’s THE job of top-level executives and business owners. The higher up the food chain, the more critical the decisions and solutions. Lower level or mid-level decisions have an impact, but they’re not as high risk as those made in the C-suite. Even so, it’s important for an organization to help leaders at every level make wise decisions. Leaders can learn how to do it better. Organizations benefit when leaders advance based on their ability to make great decisions and effectively solve problems quickly.
I often use an index-card illustration with clients.
An index-card illustration of the power of others
A car accident happens at an intersection. Four different witnesses, standing at each corner, saw the whole thing. As you investigate to figure out what happened, you have options. You can survey the scene and deduce what happened without talking to anybody. You can speak with the witness standing on corner 1 and draw your conclusions without hearing what witnesses 2, 3 and 4 have to say. You can single out any of the other witnesses to the exclusion of all others, or some of the others. It’s up to you.
The smart investigator will leverage the power of everybody who saw the wreck, including the drivers and passengers of the vehicles involved. There could be lots of people to listen to and understand. The investigator will find great value in anybody who can add credible testimony to help him figure out the truth. We’d consider any investigator who didn’t to be a poor detective.
Unfortunately, some organizations don’t see problem-solving or decision-making inside their operations the same way. Too frequently leaders arrogantly figure they’re the smartest person in the room, fully capable of making the decision without any help or input from others.
The combined insights gained from the four witnesses at the intersection provide the investigator with a more complete picture of what happened. It eliminates potential blind spots that could derail the investigation.
I intentionally titled today’s show using the word “creative” because creativity is a differentiator in high achieving organizations. Yes, they execute better, but they don’t follow the throngs in how they do things. Groupthink doesn’t tend to produce innovative, creative solutions. Of course, groupthink is easier because you simply have to copy cat what others do. Every industry has it and most organizations do things pretty much the same way others in the industry do. Don’t do it. Brace yourself to put in the work to be more insightful and creative. It’s going to require you to learn how to better leverage others.
Step 1 – Commit the time required.
Using my index-card illustration, the investigator could more quickly walk around the scene and decide what happened. He would likely get it completely wrong, but he might get it right. He could save a lot of time.
Taking the time to speak to every witness and carefully surveying the scene will take a lot more time, but the odds of him getting it 100% correct soar.
Realistically, sometimes time isn’t on our side. Sometimes an event or circumstance hits causing us to act now. This is when we have to quickly weigh the consequences – the risks and rewards – of taking more time. In decades of running companies, I’ve almost never been faced with a decision or problem that didn’t allow time to leverage the perspectives of others. I’m a speed freak, but there’s a big difference in being quick to act responsibly and being careless. Don’t be careless. Reckless problem-solving will create more problems than it solves, but I see it happen time and again as executives reach for that box of bandages to temporarily fix some nagging problem…when thoughtful minor surgery might fix the problem once and for all.
Make time to leverage the experience and insights of others who can help you figure out the right move.
Step 2 – Avoid conclusions until you’ve gained those insights.
It drives me crazy to hear an executive speak with somebody on their team prefacing the conversation with the opinion or conclusions they’ve already drawn.
Executive: “I think we should move forward on that, what do you think?”
Team member: “Sure.” (even though they have a very different opinion)
Don’t ruin the testimony you can gain from your team or anybody else who might help you see things more clearly. Open up your mind and you’ll make better decisions faster. It helps to leave yourself open to the possibility that you may not always be right and that things may not always be what they seem. It also helps if you give enough consideration to others, assuming they may know more than you do. Don’t you want to be surrounded by bright, smart people? Then view them that way.
Step 3 – Clarify what you’ve learned and rehearse it with your team.
After the individual talks get your group together – the people who have particular helpful insights about this issue – and rehearse with them what you’ve discovered. Confirm what you’ve learned and see if anybody corrects something you may have misunderstood. Again, it’s important that you avoid reaching a conclusion (or at least that you avoid sharing your opinion). This is where you want to distill what you’ve learned. It’s also smart to ask the group what solution they think they be best. Let them debate it. Facilitate a productive but candid conversation. If you can work to consensus, that’s great – but it’s not always possible.
Step 4 – Don’t assume there’s only one right answer. Put the top ideas on trial for their lives and let the best ones bubble to the top (hopefully, clear for everybody to see).
Make the decision and gain a commitment from the team to help execute the decision. Many a good (or decent, perhaps even great) decisions have been foiled because a team member knowingly or unknowingly sabotaged the decision. Allow no saboteurs on your team. Ever! Not once the decision has been made. This is easier to do when you’ve allowed time for debate, even vigorous debate. Team members are like disgruntled customers. They sometimes just need to vent. Don’t rob them of that opportunity. Sometimes out of that venting come some creative solutions.
Step 5 – Fix it and move forward. Don’t fix it only to revisit it constantly.
This is where creativity really earns its keep. Sometimes you must bandage something to buy yourself more time, but more often than not I see organizations patch up a problem that needs more serious attention. Why? Laziness. They don’t want to devote themselves to the issue long enough to fix it so they can be attentive to other, perhaps more important, things.
If you don’t have time to do it right, then when will you have time to do it over?
Everybody knows that question, but sometimes we still claim we don’t have time to do it right…or time to fix it permanently right now. We’ll get around to it later. But we never do. Meanwhile, the wound starts bleeding again and we grab more bandages. Sometimes I sit down with a CEO who confesses he’s got specific challenges that have gone on for years using that exact strategy. If he’d only dug deeply enough to commit the time and resources to figure this out years ago, the organization would have been further up the road to greater success.
When possible, look for a permanent (I know things can change) solution. A great long-term decision. Don’t add to your daily fires by performing a half-hearted fix.
Refuse to leverage the power of others at your peril. Your competitive edge lies in listening to, understanding and accepting the collective experience, wisdom and insights of the people around you. If you can’t do that, then my question remains, “Why are they surrounding you?”
2020 is getting a lot of appropriate buzz as a year for clearer vision. It remains to be seen if we can leverage it the way we hope. According to U.S. News & World Report, 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by mid-January. Other surveys report that well over 90% of all resolutions fail somewhere along the way as the new year progresses.
Due to the vast distinctions of resolutions, it’s tough to determine why they fail, but there likely are some general truths we can consider.
For starters, many of us decide to do something that we’ve never done before. Well, never successfully. Or to any degree. Even more so, we likely don’t alter our behavior. Doing the same things. Remaining in the same habits won’t result in a different outcome. And habits are very hard to change.
The old year ended professionally with a focus on disagreement. I had a number of clients who wanted to enter the new year with a focus (for some, a renewed focus) on crafting a culture devoid of blame. “That’s not our department’s responsibility,” isn’t something the leaders at the top want to continue to hear. But the blaming game isn’t limited to that phrase. Disagreement takes on many forms and faces.
I bring this up right here in the initial episode of The Power Of Others podcast because it demonstrates the point of this podcast so well. This is a podcast about how we benefit from who surrounds us. And yes, that can include those who disagree with us.
Benefit. That word is intentional.
I know we could easily focus on the negative side of the power of others. Bad company corrupts good morals according to the Bible. We’ve all seen it. Maybe even in our own lives. There’s positive power in teaching such lessons to our children and to ourselves. Be careful who your friends are. It’s wise advice.
I’m optimistic though. I prefer to lean into the sunlight of what’s possible if we just put our minds into active work. Benefits are possible – far more probable – when we put ourselves in the company of people who can help us grow.
The first disagreement that may serve us well is to disagree with ourselves. To question things we’ve long thought were absolutely true. To seek productive disagreement in our lives. Most of us will do everything in our power to maintain the status quo, even if the status quo isn’t working. We tend to hate change. Growth and improvement are often the most powerful forms of change.
It’s not about conflict. With yourself or others. It’s about learning that not everything is worth fighting. Not because we’re apathetic, but because life is more complicated than we first think. We like neat tidy packages of our assumptions and beliefs. But life is messy.
Culture is steeped in an “I’m right, you’re wrong” way of communication. It stems from the notion that we all feel completely right. We know, with great certainty, that the other person is wrong. Look inside yourself though and you’ll quickly see how complex it all is. You believe what you do for very complicated reasons. Even simple positions are fraught with complex drivers. Why don’t we ever assume it’s the same for the other side? Because we don’t want to make that assumption. It’s easy – and makes us feel better – to simply think they’re idiots who don’t know. They’re just wrong. And we’re right.
So much of our disagreement stems from the craving to feel better about ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s too often at the expense of others. That’s not a positive leveraging of the power of others. That’s leveraging the power of self-delusion, which never works to help us grow or improve.
I’ve long used the scenario of a favorite milkshake flavor. What’s yours?
Mine is going to be chocolate, sometimes. Vanilla at other times. I’ll never pick strawberry. But I love strawberries and I love that flavor.
Why do you prefer one over the other?
You don’t know. You just do. So do I. We like what we like.
I could easily judge you and think, “You’re crazy for picking vanilla when chocolate is so good.” You might think the same about me.
For you, there may be deep memories you’re not even aware of. Times when a grandparent took you to get ice cream and you wound up with a vanilla shake. Vanilla shakes have been the choice ever since, but you’re not consciously thinking of your grandfather. If you’re not aware of it, how can I be aware of it? It just is what it is.
It’s easy to think the flavor of a milkshake is stupid. Maybe…until you have to order one for yourself. Then you care which one you get.
Disagreement isn’t about caring less, but it’s about caring more. Caring more to understand. Caring more to give grace because a time will arrive when you need and want grace. It’s about leadership. Your leadership. Somebody has to start it. It should be YOU.
When we shut down disagreement or we amp it up so nothing ever gets accomplished, we stymy growth and improvement. We dedicate ourselves to being stuck. And remaining stuck. Or we go backward. We regress.
We like to believe that most disagreements are important, but they’re not. Review your arguments with your spouse. Were they really large, important issues at stake? Not likely. More likely you argued over a chore, a meal, a relative or something rather small in the grand scheme of things.
We can get amped up over very small things because we rarely give thought to the prospect of being wrong. Alone all day every day with our thoughts, we know what we know. We think what we think. It’s all been worked out in our minds for as long as we can remember. Then somebody – anybody – takes a counter position and we react. Not with understanding. Not with the curiosity to understand, but with ferocity to defend what we think.
What if we put pressure on the truth? What if we put pressure on understanding? Instead of putting pressure to defend our being right?
What if we’re wrong? What if we could be more right?
Do we seek affirmation of our correctness over our growth and improvement? Of course, we do. Too often. But is being right worth that enormously high price? Our personal development pays the price for our hardheadedness. It’s time to ditch our stubbornness and a refusal to leverage the power of others.
Stop battling everything. Approach the fight with a different mindset. Decide to seek victory for understanding. It will change everything. I know there are people in our country who actually believe some politicians want to destroy America. It’s a viewpoint. I don’t agree. I don’t agree with the approach some people take. I have a viewpoint, which is largely determined by being a capitalist. I’m fond of free and open markets. But I quickly acknowledge I don’t know enough to be a policymaker. I’m simply not interested enough and my overall viewpoint is, whatever happens in our nation’s capital or our state’s capital — I’m in control of my future. I choose to not blame my situation on our government, the economy or anything else. I could be wrong, but I choose to believe this because it serves me. I don’t struggle judging others who see it very differently. And I certainly don’t battle them. I know where my viewpoints come from and I’m happy to learn where others get their viewpoints, but it doesn’t impact my life really.
There are other things where I’ve sought greater understanding because my mind isn’t fixed and I’m curious to know what I don’t. So I surround myself with people who will question, challenge and share insights. In many instances like that my mind is changed. Sometimes completely. I went in thinking and believing one thing, emerging believing something very different. In short, I was far better for it.
Personal growth. Improvement. Those are the desired outcomes. For each of us.
I’m choosing to not be a victim of the politics that are clearly part of my life. None of us can avoid the governments where we live and operate. I believe my best play is to do what I can with my own life no matter what the politicians do or say. And honestly, I’m less interested in what they do and far more interested in what I’m able to do.
Facing a decision – sometimes a very big decision – I surround myself with people who I know want my best. People who love me enough to be truth-tellers. People capable of making sure I have no (or limited) blindspots. I often go into it thinking I’m going to do one thing, but after hearing their insights, questions and experiences…I often make a very different decision. Because I don’t resist or disagree with their efforts to help me.
I think it has much to do with our view of vulnerability. We too often hate being vulnerable.
Being vulnerable doesn’t mean what you may think. It’s not weakness. Rather, it’s courage. It’s not putting yourself in an unsafe position. Rather, it’s making sure you’re completely safe. It’s not surrendering the fight. Rather, it’s taking the fight to where victory is most meaningful.
In a word, it’s about being PRODUCTIVE. Another word, GROWTH. Yet another, IMPROVEMENT.
These are all positive, forward-moving things. Made possible only when we give ourselves permission or allowance to let others help us.
Here’s The Plan
The podcast is going to change. Translation, grow and improve.
For starters, I’m planning on a weekly show. Once a week. I may do more. I may do less, but my goal is to bring you one show each week. I’m not sure what day of the week, but it may be Tuesdays. Why not?
I’m going to bring you stories and insights from others who have figured out how to leverage the power of others in their lives. By sharing their stories I know you’ll be able to better figure out your own forward progress.
I’m also going to bring you the insights from people who have spent time studying and looking more deeply at topics that are congruent with the power of others. Some of these will be folks who specialize in studying communication, leadership, group behavior and whatever else fits our theme.
I’ll continue to share my own insights and my own journey as I try to better leverage the power of others in my own life. All areas of my life: spiritual, personal and professional.
My plan for you is simple? Not easy, but simple. I want to help you figure out how you too can leverage the power of others so you can make better decisions faster and figure out how to grow and improve your life. Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Cue Tom Petty’s classic hit song from his fabulous Wildflowers’ album, Time To Move On.
Tom’s singing about divorce, but if I were singing the song it’d be about my long-last professional shift. Today, I hope you get some value as I rehearse with you the general angst and execution (or lack) of the past year. As we near the end of it and stare into the face of 2020 it feels right to craft this final chapter of the Grow Great podcast.
I’m hoping you’ll stay along for the ride because my intent on continuing to provide high value – in fact, I’m making this change because I want to up my game in bringing you HIGHER value.
For over 4 decades I’ve been immersed in business. All my activities have been focused on the business of building and growing business. I’ve spent most of that time leading businesses. And I’ve loved almost every mile along the journey. But it’s time to move on.
No, I’m not leaving business behind, but I am changing direction. More accurately, I’m changing my focus and going singular rather than being as broad as I’ve been over the past decade.
When I entered the professional services arena a decade ago it was real roll-up-your-sleeves-get-your-hands-dirty consulting work. I was intent on helping business owners shore up operationally. Quite often it involved retooling sales processes, too. It was the under-the-hood stuff that every business requires.
Over time it morphed. Quite organically. It ended up becoming coaching, which I found suited me unlike anything else. I’m ideally wired for it, as I had discovered when I was in my early 20’s. I enjoy communication, learning, discovery and my natural curiosity drives me to ask questions seeking understanding. In short, it was right up my ally, suited to my strong suit because it was all about PEOPLE. It was about me doing whatever I could to help people figure it out for themselves. I loved it because everything about it felt right.
There’s a character strength assessment that I’m fond of. A buddy – Joe Bacigalupo of AlliancesHub International put me onto it. I knew something of the folks behind it because I had read (years ago) a book entitled, Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. He’s one of the people behind the VIA Survey, the folks leaning hard into character strengths (which differ from talent or skill strengths).
That assessment is meaningful because among my core character strengths are things I’ve long known about myself. Things like forgiveness are big things for me. And easy.
My passion to go deep with people in an effort to serve them has always been strong. It’s been growing stronger and stronger over the past decade. I’m naturally bent toward being a person with whom others can feel safe. Confidentiality isn’t hard for me. Not judging people or telling them what they “should” do it’s either. I’m happy to give people my opinion if they press, but I mostly am geared to asking questions so they can figure out for themselves what is best for them. This is all in the context of business or organizational behavior. So candor is up near the top of things I cherish most.
What I’ve learned the past 4-5 years is that this is woefully lacking in the world. But not really. Let me explain.
Talk with 10 people and I guarantee if you direct the right questions toward them you’ll discover each of the 10 was powerfully impacted by somebody. Likely a number of somebodies. In other words, they leveraged the power of others. We all do it, but most of us don’t do it strategically or even tactically. It just happens organically. Or not.
I began to look more closely at the people at the bottom of the achievement pile. People who suffer all sorts of challenges that I have never faced. Many of them lacked good influence from others. The child who grows up abused and neglected may lean into poor and foolish behavior. Devoid of having the power of others, that child can develop into an adult lacking the necessary wisdom to navigate life successfully. Yes, there are outliers — those who grow up like that and in spite of the horrific odds, they choose to lean hard into wisdom opting to make the best choices possible so they can escape the dungeon of despair.
It’s not so shocking to me because as a man of Faith I’ve long known what the Bible says about such things.
1 Corinthians 15:33 “Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals.”
The converse is equally true. Surround yourself with good people and it can foster higher behavior. In our organizations, it produces higher human performance. Just take a close look at any group or team that is high achieving and you’ll see it. The power of others.
Four years or so ago things took a professional turn for me. I was given an opportunity by a very forward-thinking City Manager looking for an executive coach for one of her Directors. Thrust into an organization whose goal was to deliver superior service to a demanding city population, it was quite different than my typical trifecta of business building stuff: a) getting new customers, b) serving existing customers better and c) not going crazy in the process.
I found two of the three were still in place though. Mostly, I found the focus was solely on PEOPLE. It was a complete focus on PEOPLE. People working well with other people. People struggling to work well with others. People unable to accurately read a situation. People struggling to communicate effectively. People finding it hard to lead. People finding it hard to follow. A lot of culture stuff. A lot of team stuff. Chemistry stuff. Emotional intelligence stuff.
My eyes were opened. This was my niche. Not serving city government, but focusing on PEOPLE. It felt right. Everything about it felt right.
While I’d been an “operator” all my life and I still immensely enjoy strategy and operations…nothing trumps PEOPLE. For me, nothing trumps being able to go deeply enough with people where real help, support, and service can happen. It fueled me, unlike any work I’d ever done.
I pushed a bit harder into the PEOPLE side of things. It wasn’t easy. I was too reluctant – now that I look back – to let go of operational stuff. When you’ve so embraced being an operator for so long it’s a tough thing to shed. But slowly I began to intentionally work on it.
Then there’s the reality of client services. You do what you must to get clients, serve clients and keep clients. It wasn’t always the direction I wanted to go, but I did it anyway. Increasingly my heart wasn’t in it. But a clean pivot didn’t seem possible. Besides, now that I’ve got clarity I didn’t have in real-time.
Along the way, I reached out and made a connection with Leo Bottary. Leo had co-authored a book, The Power Of Peers. We started a podcast, which I produced, The Year Of The Peer. From that podcast, Leo wrote a second book, “What Anyone Can Do.” After that, I joined him as a cohost of our current podcast by the same title.
Associating with Leo was very intentional because I knew he was a smart guy about peer groups and peer advantage. I wanted to learn all I could about peer advisory groups. Why do they work? Why don’t more people take advantage of them? What makes a great peer advisory group? Why do people join them? Why do they leave? I had many questions. I knew I wanted to operate in that space. In fact, three years ago I knew I wanted Bula Network to be a peer advisory company operating virtual or online peer advisory groups. I also knew the first group needed to be SMB owners. Entrepreneurs operating companies doing a few million bucks to companies doing in excess of $200M. I’m an operator and I was driven to build this first group of people who make the decisions, and who are close to the customers and the employees.
It takes time to figure it out. It took me too long. Proof that no matter how smart you are, figuring it out is hard work. 😀
2020 is a fitting year. A fitting number. 2020 provokes most of us to think of VISION.
My vision is clearing. Well, not physically. I need reading glasses, but professionally, even personally, many things are getting clearer. It’s been a long journey, but I rather think things happen in due time. I suppose things happen in a timeline that CAN work to our advantage if we’re wise. I’m trying hard to be wise.
Over the summer I really started trying to build The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. I had figured I could get it up and running by the late fall of this year. It didn’t happen. And it was entirely my fault. I didn’t give it the focused effort it deserved. I had so many irons in the fire because I said YES to too many things and I wasn’t discriminating enough. Learn from my errors.
“If everything is important, then nothing is important.”
That’s my quote. I first said it when I was a teenager as I observed the insanely erratic behavior of a business owner I was working for. He taught me a lot because he was a jerk and not very smart. I learned early on what NOT to do to succeed at business. He was second generation and dad had built a good business. So good that even a moron son couldn’t quite ruin it at the time. 😉
Here I was being my own jerk and being stupid. “Who’s the moron now?” I often thought.
I’d have conversations with people about peer advantage. Most had no idea about it. It was so far beyond the realm of anything they’ve ever experienced that they struggled to see how it could help them. I searched for language to help convey it. I’m good with words. And have never struggled to find ways to connect. But that wasn’t really the challenge.
The challenge was like a hydra – a monster with many heads. I had too many irons in the fire. I wasn’t focused. The Peer Advantage wasn’t’ seen as solving any one problem. Customers want solutions and a generic solution – helping you make better decisions – isn’t nearly precise enough.
Leo is an adjunct professor and he was conducting a master’s level online class for a university. He thought it’d be a good exercise for his class to do a project on The Peer Advantage, this new initiative I was planning to launch. Bright people from all over the globe devoted themselves for 2 weeks to develop a brilliant strategic communication plan to help me. I interacted with the class via a video conference twice. Their work resulted in a brilliantly constructed slide deck and advice that my brand should become The Peer Advantage by Bula Network.
They did great work and I did very little with it. Again, too many distractions. Too many irons still in the fire. Saying YES too many times and not saying NO nearly enough. Nobody to blame but myself. I simply needed to make up my mind. I needed to draw a line in the sand and fully commit. But I was reluctant.
Belief. It Matters.
True confession time. I *strongly* believed in the service. I knew the power of, “Who you surround yourself with matters.” I also knew from experience how tough it is to help other people see the value of peer advantage. I was suffering the symptoms of it myself. Vulnerability. Courage. Those are big issues. They impact belief and belief drives everything. Without belief, there is little confidence and without confidence, there’s never success!
But I did believe in THE POWER OF OTHERS.
I did believe in how dramatically it could positively change the lives of anybody who dare join themselves to THE PEER ADVANTAGE.
I did believe in my ability to have the necessary conversations to find and select the best people. I even believed in my ability to convey the benefits of it to prospective members.
What I didn’t believe in was the sales conversation.
What I didn’t believe in was my ability to make this singular focus work, to the exclusion of everything else. It was scary. Deep down I knew I could, but at a surface and practical level, it was frightening.
Along the way, some personal challenges erupted that changed my life. No, I didn’t get a divorce. I’m still married to the girl I fell in love with when I was 18. In January we’ll hit our 42nd wedding anniversary. But life throws all of us curveballs and we’ve experienced our own. So have you. I’m not claiming mine are special because they aren’t. But you know that personal challenges, especially those that deeply affect us, are impossible to compartmentalize. Our lives are our lives. We’re not just podcasters, or business owners, or leaders. We’re people. And there it is again. PEOPLE.
More and more I was falling in love with what I deemed, “leveraging the power of others.”
Emotionally and mentally that was my focus. I couldn’t get my mind off of it, but I was still distracted with too many other activities. They were robbing me of any opportunities to succeed at what I most wanted to achieve. I was my own worst enemy but didn’t fully realize it.
I was isolating myself. How ironic, right? The guy falling in love more and more with THE POWER OF OTHERS. And he’s not availing himself of the power of others. Not professionally anyway.
During my personal crisis, I was fully leveraging the power of others. Four men served me. Three old men and one younger man. All of them gospel preachers. We all share a common faith. I’ve known each of them for a long time, three of them (the old men) all my life. They helped me in ways that even a wordsmith like me can’t properly express.
One of them, the youngest of the eldest, was 75. He’d been battling health issues, but nobody was expecting a hospital visit end with his sudden death. He was a big figure in my life. A man who loved me enough to challenge me. And it was terrific because I knew he cared deeply about me. Suddenly, I was without him and I’d never been without him.
A week ago the eldest of the eldest died. He was 88 and had been fighting his own health challenges, but none of us expected him to go to bed and not wake up. Another major void in the great men who have surrounded me all my life.
The last of the eldest is 83, a man as special as any man in my life. This week he’s prepared to enter hospice. And while I know he’s ready, I equally know I am not. I’m not ready to press on without access to his wisdom. He’s been a brilliant guide of unparalleled importance in my life always.
Thankfully, my fourth advisor is in his mid-40’s so I’m hoping to have him around for a while. 😉
All that to help you better understand my context and my struggles. You can relate, right? I know you can. It’s how life happens. It’s the struggle of our lives. And sadly, I’m confessing that professionally I’ve struggled because I’ve failed (woefully) in leveraging the power of others.
I know, I’m a hypocrite. Here I am, the guy harping at you to leverage the power of others. To be courageous enough to be vulnerable so you can achieve more. And do it faster. And as much as I know that’s true. As much as I believe it. I’ve failed to do it myself. It boils down to just one thing, a dreadful lack of courage. My belief hasn’t been strong enough. My fears have been too big.
Fear. It’s real. And it destroys all of our dreams.
My fears were real. And many.
I was fearful I’d fail. Fearful I’d look stupid. Fearful I’d be judged.
All of which is true. I will fail. I will look stupid. People will always be judging. Nothing I do is going to help me escape any of them. Those things and many other fears will happen no matter what. Don’t we all know that? Surely we do — logically anyway. But not emotionally.
Something happened to my fear when my 88-year-old mentor died a week ago. Something clicked as I sat in that funeral service. Something happened as I put my right hand on the rail to carry his casket as a pallbearer. Something happened as I sat there and wept at my loss. Something happened as I surveyed having done the very same thing back in 2013 when I helped carry the casket of my lifelong best friend, Stanley. This 88-year-old man was Stanley’s dad. Something happens and it’s up to us to leverage it. To make the most of us.
A flash of insight overcame me. As if somebody had reached deep inside me and flipped a switch helping me see things more clearly than ever before. Instant feelings of stupidity and hard-headedness quickly gave way to more positive thoughts. “I don’t care anymore.” Cue Phil Collin’s hit song. It’s another song about divorce, but like Petty’s “Time To Move On” I applied it in a very different context. (I don’t know what there is with me and divorce songs!)
We buried Johnny (Stanley’s dad) this past Saturday. So it’s not even been a week. And I don’t want you to think that I trumped all this up in just a week. This has been brewing for years. I’ve been thinking, making notes, vetting and dissecting all this for going on 4 years! All the while not doing what I know now I should have.
Let me share the sad truth. It’s a truth that isn’t unique to me. It’s true for you, too.
We have failed to achieve the things we most want to achieve because we’re afraid. Who cares how illogical the fear is? It’s still real for us.
Listen, I’m closely associated with Leo Bottary who wrote the book, What Anyone Can Do. I’ve already told you that book was the result of a podcast Leo and I did, Year Of The Peer. We kept hearing stories of people who didn’t do extraordinary insanely super-human things. They were driven (and influenced by somebody who expressed belief in them). The title of Leo’s book comes from what a running coach said back in the 1970s about track champions. They mostly don’t do super-human things. They do the things most of us could do but don’t.
We fail to do the very things we could do. I had failed to do the things I could. The things I had claimed I wanted to do. Fear prevented me. Isolation helped fuel my fear. What helped me was finally seeing how intentional I had been in this personal part of my life. I had leaned heavily for over a year on four men, two of whom are now gone and one who is ready to go. And as I looked in retrospect it dawned on me, “What if you had no relied on them? What if these men had left the planet without you reaching out to them to help guide you through this?” What a loss! I couldn’t get my head wrapped around it.
Barney was 75, months away from turning 76. What if I had not confided in Barney about my challenge? What if I had not spent the hours on the phone (he lived in Ohio) getting his insights and fielding his hard questions?
Johnny was 88. Just days earlier he had celebrated that birthday. What if I had not leaned on him about my issue? What if we had not spent hours wrestling with the issue together? What if I had not gone to see him and spent a few hours with him (he lived in Oklahoma)?
Ronny is 83. I’ve spent the most time with him. He’s been my most trusted advisory. What if I had not had him in my life to see how he saw things? What if I had not been courageous enough to share my vulnerability with this most respected hero in my life? What if I had not spent hours and hours on the phone with him? What if I had not spent hours and hours in person seeking his input? He lives in Missouri.
Kevin is 46. I met him when he was 14. I’m well his senior, but he’s a close friend and like the other men, I love him very much.
The epiphany arrived. Finally.
I’m sitting there weeping at Johnny’s funeral and realizing that I had personally done what I had failed to do professionally. It was driven entirely by gratitude. Only weeks ago we celebrated Thanksgiving Day. I was overwhelmed with how thankful I felt for having these men in my life. And how thankful I was that I had formed relationships long ago with each of them. Mostly, thankful that I had such talented, insightful and caring men with whom I felt safe enough to share such important matters. It was so blindingly obvious how special and priceless these insights had been for me in my personal life.
“This is exactly why I want to get The Peer Advantage by Bula Network going,” I thought in the car ride back home. Of course, that was after a few hours of thinking, “I’m an idiot.”
No, I’m human. I’ve got the same fears and issues you do. I lost so much time because I was isolated while being surrounded by people. I didn’t lean on people as I should. It’s not their fault. It’s mine. I had intentionally put myself in the presence of people like Leo Bottary. But I didn’t want to bother people. I didn’t want to impose. Maybe I didn’t want to share my fears.
When I got back home I wrote down, “This is exactly why a paid peer advisory group is THE answer to better leverage the power of others. When we’re paying to be part of a safe group of peers we can more easily shed our fears and reservations of imposing on others. It’s the reason we’re paying to be part of the group – so we do exactly what we need to grow and advance our goals.”
It was a Homer Simpson DOH moment.
Look at your life. Look closely. Honestly.
Think about the fears that have long stood in your way. It doesn’t matter how reasonable or unreasonable they are. Or have been. They’re real because they’re yours.
What if some people had been gathered around you to help you through them? What difference would that have made?
Think about the lost time. Think about the lost advantages of having reached a goal that you’ve yet to reach.
Think about how much further up the road you’d be enjoying the achievements and success you’ve most wanted?
This isn’t a guarantee for success, but it’s absolutely the closest thing I know to it. It’s a sure-fire way to accelerate growth and your ability to figure it out.
Logically I’ve known all my adult life that it’s about making good decisions. It’s about finding out how we can make the very best decisions. Then, it’s about how can we execute those decisions? That’s it.
I don’t care what you want to accomplish. I don’t care what specific thing it is to which you aspire. The path forward is to make a good decision, then act on that decision. It’s how achievement happens in your life, my life and every other life.
Why don’t we do it better?
Because we’re afraid. Fear is the killer.
The antidote is the power of others. But that creates its own fear. Deep fear. Embarrassment. Looking stupid. Looking like we’re incompetent. Not wanting to be vulnerable. Not wanting to show our underwear even though we know everybody else feels just like we do.
We lose sight of the truth of our collective and common humanity.
Your Instagram moments feel real to me. So does my lack of Instagram moments. But you’re fronting. Hoping to fool most of the people into thinking you’re fearless. I get it. I’ve been doing the same thing, just not on Instagram. 😀
Friday the 13th, December 2019. The day of reckoning. The day I say, “Good-bye!”
First, good-bye to Grow Great, the podcast.
The podcast, starting in 2020, will be re-branded The Power Of Others. I’ve wrestled with other names, but that’s the one that best describes what I most want to do for the rest of my life. I want to evangelize the message that there’s enormous power in seeking and accepting help from others.
Everything will remain right here on this website. GrowGreat.com will still bring you right here. So will all these other names:
I didn’t want to rebrand the podcast The Peer Advantage because leveraging the power of others is bigger than peers. Look at my story of the four men I leaned on the past year or so. These men have been in my life a very long time and none of them is really my peer demographically. We all share faith. That’s our commonality so in that way we’re peers, but not in any other way.
Think about your life and the people who have heavily influenced you. It’s likely it may have been a boss. A parent. A grandparent. A co-worker. A spouse. A close friend. A teacher. There are lots of OTHERS out there who help us. And who can help us. I didn’t want to limit the podcast to just peers and I absolutely didn’t want the podcast to be some device to simply schill my work. And I wanted the podcast platform to be large enough to satisfy my curiosity for a long, long time. The Power Of Others will do that. I have no doubt.
Grow Great is under the business category. The Power Of Others will go into Society & Culture.
This my final episode of Grow Great. Starting in January each episode will be about the power of others. It will address whatever curiosities I have satisfied and the ones that remain. It will include business and organizational viewpoints. It’ll also include personal ones, too. It will include leadership, but it’ll also include elevating our game all along the way toward leadership if that’s something to which we aspire. It’ll take aim at leveraging the power of others no matter our circumstance or situation. Age and situations don’t matter — we all need others to help us along the way.
It’s not about promoting The Peer Advantage by Bula Network although I will shamelessly do that (but no more than I have in the past). It’s about influence and persuasion. Namely, convincing you and all of us, including myself, that we’re leaving so much potential behind. We’re wasting so much time. We can be further along in our success journey if we can find the courage to get past our fears. I hope to be just one voice evangelizing the message and helping show the way. Not because I’m an expert. Not because I’m a “thought leader,” but mostly because I care. And because I believe.
Professionally The Peer Advantage by Bula Network is going to get my attention and focus, finally at long last. No more consulting gigs. Any engagements I say YES to will be because it speaks to my desire to help companies and organizations (this includes city governments) with PEOPLE. If the issue isn’t directly related to PEOPLE, then my answer is, “No thanks!”
I’m doing some collaborations with people like Leo and Joe Bacigalupo who are also focused on people. But my focus is on my own company, Bula Network and driving the launch of my first group of The Peer Advantage. That charter group will consist of 8 (originally it was 7) SMB owners from around America. I’ve settled on and given formal invitations to just two so far. Quite a few others just didn’t feel right, which is fine. It’s not for everybody. For starters, it’s not for CEOs who aren’t owners. And for now, I’m not building a group for CEOs who aren’t owners. I may the next go-round, but not right now. It’s not for number 2’s. That too is an appealing idea and I’ve talked with lots of number 2’s, but this charter group is only for number 1’s. See, this has been just one of my problems in forming this first group. Distraction. Not being clear enough to say NO more quickly (albeit politely).
I went to 8 from 7 because I want to increase the value. The value proposition was already very high, but it was important to me to increase it even more for this charter group. And it was also important to me that the room have sufficient power to leverage the power of others to a level that’s as high as possible. Eight feels right on many fronts. First, it allows me to lower the cost to everybody in the group. That price reduction isn’t going to make a bit of difference in somebody saying YES, but it feels better for me. I didn’t do it for the members. I did it for myself. The members will benefit, too though. And I wanted to increase it by 1 because I know there may be times when not everybody can attend each meeting. It happens. We’re all busy. But I think over time the attendance will be near 100% every time. Even so, things can come up. With 8 I’ve convinced a majority of members showing up will provide sufficient feedback and insights to bring higher value to every single meeting.
I’m now diligently looking for 2 more charter members so we can begin. When we have half our members we’ll start meeting regularly. Monthly membership won’t begin until we have all 8 members at the table, but we’re going to get underway as soon as I get 2 more (four total). Those 4 will have paid their one-time enrollment fee, which is an important emotional tool more than anything. Yes, it’s the proverbial skin in the game and it’s non-refundable, but it’s such a ridiculously low sum of money it’s not going to make any broke or rich. What it will do is serve to overcome that fear I had – and that everybody has – to lean on others. It makes the group PROFESSIONAL. Yes, it will all be very personal, but the professional part is very important so we all feel comfortable and confident to bring whatever problems, challenges or opportunities to the group without any reservations.
So if you own a company doing in excess of a few million bucks a year I hope you’ll apply so we can discuss it. I only want you to have a company of that size because I don’t want the $800 monthly membership to be any kind of hardship whatsoever. My two members right now are over $50M each, pushing their way toward $100M. So don’t let the size or scale of your organization prevent us from talking. All the details are at ThePeerAdvantage.com.
So there it is. I feel better for having shared the gory details with you. It’s been a long, arduous journey to reach a place where I feel I have it figured out a bit better. I still have much to learn, but we’re in this together.
And when I think of what’s driving me mostly it’s significance and meaning. It’s impact. I believe each of us matters (as Angela Maiers is so fond of saying). And I believe each of us has a strong, innate desire to matter as much as we possibly can. Further, I believe we can achieve that best when are helping each other achieve those goals and ambitions that are so uniquely our own. It’s not about me deciding for you or you deciding for me. It’s about a mutual respect and care where I want you to achieve what you’ve set out to do and I need your help so I can hit my own targets.
The sign off won’t likely change because I’m rather fond of it. And along the way together we’ll figure out the things we’ve not yet figured out. I hope you’ll stay on the journey with me and I hope you’ll invite others…because it’s all about The Power Of Others.
Part of figuring out your best moves to ratchet up your branding is to figure out what customers really want, what you’re really good at and what weaknesses exist in the competition. There’s no magic to it. It’s a basic formula to help you create the proverbial competitive advantage.
What do your customers want most?
Interview your existing customers. Interview prospective customers. Remember, those conversations need to address your space, the things your company can do for them. It can be tempting to pivot into areas beyond your expertise or know-how if you get feedback that’s outside the scope of your offerings. It’s fine. You can pursue anything you’d like, but I might suggest interviewing existing and prospective customers about what they most want from a supplier or provider in your niche. But plenty of entrepreneurs have unearthed brand new opportunities that caused them to ditch their existing plan. All because clients and prospective clients pointed out something they needed or wanted more. Pay close attention. Listen. Keep your eye open.
Spend some time finding out what the current frustrations or short-comings are. I enjoy asking prospects to describe their worst experience, then following up by asking about their best experience. What they say reveals what they love most and what they hate most. Along with some nice details that give me insights I couldn’t otherwise get.
Sometimes the best path to finding out what customers want is to quantify what they absolutely hate.
What does your company do better than anybody else?
This is what most folks view as their competitive advantage, but it’s just the start. You want to really leverage this strength so you must be willing to go deeper.
Remember that one-inch drill bit that produces the one-inch hole the customer wants? The customer needs and wants a one-inch hole. He could care less about the one-inch drill bit, but he knows if he’s going to get a one-inch hole he needs a one-inch drill bit. The customer is envisioning the one-inch hole he needs. He’s not picturing a one-inch drill bit.
What’s your one-inch hole? Your company must provide an equivalent value to your customers. That one thing you do better than anybody else is your point of leverage. You need to know what it is and you must be able to articulate it consistently and uniformly throughout your company. The message has to be congruent company-wide. Sometimes we have a litany of marketing materials that all say something different about our company. And we wonder why our marketing is falling flat. Because it’s not working for us at all!
One thing. That’s what’s tough for most of us. We look at Amazon and see they’re into all sorts of businesses, but they made their brand by selling books online. Everything else stemmed from that. The Earth’s retailer made their name for selling one category of products. Their growth stemmed from that.
But we all need to figure out the one thing that we can convey that will tip the scales into our favor with the prospect. For Jeff Bezos it was buying books online cheaper than you buy at Border’s or any other bookstore. It was easy. Cheap. And it worked well.
Your prospects need and want something. Sure, they want many things, but you shouldn’t try to solve their every problem. What’s the one problem you can solve? What’s the one solution you be best provide?
Start conveying that and ONLY that. Stop diluting your message. Stop shouting different messages. Get everybody shouting the same thing and watch how much attention you’ll gain. Your marketing doesn’t work because it’s not unified. It’s not singular enough. Too many messages and none of them being heard.
Until you get their attention you can’t possibly get their business.
Be well. Do good. Grow great!
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing some very personal things with you – well, okay, they’re professional, too. But you’ll want to listen because included are some big announcements!
What do your sales conversations sound like? What do they look and feel like?
You may think that brand building isn’t even a third cousin to sales conversations. Positioning your brand has much to do with the sales conversation.
“Everybody knows our brand. We’ve spent millions through the years getting our name out there.”
There are at least three levels of a brand we all must consider. First, there’s our name. Literally, our “brand” as used by cattle ranchers who put their insignia on their livestock to differentiate them from the neighboring rancher’s herd.
Then there’s the aspect of our brand in what we promise the customer. It establishes the expectation of the customer. It’s why folks like Starbucks, Chick-fil-A and In-N-Out Burger. Visit any of them and you know exactly what to expect and what you’ll get.
The third aspect of our brand is the linchpin to it all. It’s that one thing that our company owns. It’s that one idea that gives us the edge in the market over everybody else.
That last one is the critical one. And it’s not one that’s necessarily going to be identical to everybody. Ask my wife what soft drink brand comes to her mind and she’ll say, “Coke.” I’ll say, “Dr. Pepper.” They’ve both got the first two down cold yet ask multiple people and you’ll get a different answer because taste and preference (and a host of other things) can enter the equation.
You’ve heard that people buy what the product or service will do for them rather than the product or service itself. An old hat illustration that’s as powerful as any is the purchase of a 1-inch drill bit. We buy that if what we really need or want is a 1-inch hole. That’s indicative of this third aspect of building a brand. We have to paint a picture for the prospect of the outcome they want. That image is what will be planted in their minds if we brand ourselves effectively.
When working with leaders about communication I find myself often engaged in conversations about disengaged or uninspired employees. Eventually, the conversation rolls around to culture and things like the stories people tell themselves. Especially the stories of how they fit and how their work makes a meaningful difference.
If leaders don’t give people a great story – not fiction, but the truth (and the best version of the truth) – then they’ll create their own. And in the context of employees, it won’t be good. Human nature being what it is, we tend to think the worst and see ourselves at risk. Or underappreciated. Because leaders haven’t conveyed to us the importance of our contribution or a sufficient degree of appreciation when we perform well.
Prospects do the same thing. We all write our own story unless somebody tells us a better story. We simply must do a better job of telling our story so the prospect can vividly see the ideal outcome they seek — and they see it happening with our help. Our product. Our service.
Years of operating retail companies taught me how crucial it was to unify the messaging, the branding. Imagine having six sales reps. Each approaching the prospect in their own different way, using different wording, telling different stories. Disjointed. Incongruent. A branding trainwreck.
The prospects for that company may know the name of the company. What else do they know? Probably not much, if anything. If the three aspects of successful brand building form a pyramid, then this company has the first level only. The next two, which form the pinnacle, are missing because there are too many different messages. No engaging vision on the part of the prospects where they can see themselves achieving what they most want with anything those sales rep have to offer.
The challenge is to quickly and engagingly paint that picture for the prospect. What is the single idea that turns the tide in the sales conversation? That one thing that causes prospects to become customers? Too frequently companies can’t answer it. Or they provide different answers, thinking more is better. It’s not. It’s branding death.
In short, it’s what you’re most known for. Hint: You can’t be known for everything. Nor can you be known for a wide variety of things. Wal-Mart carries thousands of SKU’s, but they’re known as having low prices, every day. What are YOU known for?
Think about the moment when your sales conversations turn in your favor. That’s your moment of truth (well, okay, it’s one of them). It’s your branding moment of truth.
I’m a real-life example. Currently, I’m in the throes of working to be known for just one thing: online/virtual peer advisory groups for entrepreneurs. Branding doesn’t end with just making up your mind and deciding though. You have to execute. That’s where that consistency enters. It’s why the people who answer the phone must do it in a way that’s uniform and consistent with THE message you want to be conveyed. It’s why those 6 sales reps can’t be left to behave like six different messengers. Everybody must be on the same page saying the same thing.
Fail to do that and you’ll fail to build a brand. You’ll just be throwing money at marketing or advertising and it won’t provide any return.
Let’s get something out of the way. If you’re genuinely a jerk, then this won’t work well. 😉
Genuine means you’re real, not hypocritical. It means you’re YOU. Whatever that is.
I can explain using myself (as always, it’s easier to pick on myself than to pick on somebody else). Here are a few bullet-point factoids about me:
• I’m an introvert. I’m not socially awkward or even reserved, but I don’t gain energy from being around lots of people. I prefer deeper conversations with fewer folks. Outwardly, I can appear like an extrovert though.
• Communication is key for me. Firstly, I’m drawn to other communicators. People who are wall-huggers and so reserved it requires great effort to draw them out…those are NOT my kind of people. I respect them and I understand them, but I’m not likely going to be a good fit for them because it’s honestly just too distracting for me. That’s on me.
• Candidness is important. People who couch everything they say and appear overly measured in their communication exhaust me. Again, I can appreciate and understand them, but that exhaustion factor is a deal-breaker.
Now I could go into a prospective engagement intent on fooling the prospect. I could feign that the way I really am isn’t so much really the way I am. Here’s the problem: that’s really bad for the prospect, should they become my customer and it’s equally bad for me because I don’t be able to deliver the quality of service I want. The money isn’t worth it. For either of us.
But plenty of people do it. They chase the money, no matter what.
This isn’t about being happy as much as it’s about being true to who you are and your core strengths. My core strengths are closely tied to who I am as a personality and communicator.
If you need a person who is the life of the party at a big gathering, I’m not your man. The mere thought of it makes me want to go back to bed.
If you’re a person needing somebody to quietly listen to you as you peel back your most confidential vulnerabilities, sign me up. Right away.
I keep secrets. Always.
I maintain confidences. Always.
I listen intently. Almost always. 😉
I don’t make judgments and tell people what to do. I don’t even have the urge.
I quickly and easily forgive. It’s my top core character strength. Forgiveness.
By knowing these things about myself I can choose to go all in on these, or I can choose to try to be something I’m not. When it comes to attracting customers you can fool some of the people some of the times. You may even be able to fool a lot of the people a lot of the times. But at what cost? To them and to yourself?
I’m unwilling to pay that price or to ask my customers to pay it. We both deserve better.
I’ve got good friends who are quite the opposite from me. They hate sitting down to have deep conversations. And don’t even think they’ll sit still if you want to discuss how you FEEL. Or what you’re THINKING. They’re uncomfortable. Instead, they’re comfortable having conversations that are 100% safe, where there’s no pain, no emotion, no chance for conflict. Good to know. I’d never suggest that any of them roll the way I roll. Instead, I’d suggest they steer clear from doing what I do because faking it would make them miserable. And how good do you think they’d be at it?
That’s what I mean by being genuine.
The hard part is our need for business. We all need business. New business. Repeat business.
Depending on the nature of your business, being genuine can take on a different context. For me, as a solopreneur in the professional services trade, it’s personal to ME. If you’re selling cars and have a sales staff, then it’s less personal to you as the owner of the place, but it’s still relevant. Because YOU drive the culture and the culture is going to be a reflection of you.
Over the years I’ve had some favorite eating places. As a customer – and a prospective customer – I’m fanatical about two things: food and service. And not in that order. I’ll suffer lower quality food for superior service (although it’s funny how rarely that happens). I will not suffer poor service with stellar food. The food just isn’t going to be worth the aggravation to me. That’s personal to me, as the customer.
I’ve known restaurant owners who were fixated on the food. The food was always spectacular. Sometimes the service was equally spectacular. Sometimes not. Hit and miss. Very infrequently have I gone to a place where the food was spectacular and the service was POOR. I assume it could happen though.
The owner to values the food above all else drives a culture that produces great food. He may not get all the fine details of superior service though. He could do one of two things: up his game in that area (not likely something he’ll be able to sustain unless he really experiences a conversion) or hire somebody who is as fanatical about service as he is food (in my opinion, a much better option where both can soar with their strengths).
That’s what I mean by being genuine.
Attracting the right customer mean we have to get very in touch with ourselves as entrepreneurs. We are what we are. Yes, we should grow, improve and develop ourselves…but I’m never going to grow into an extrovert (a person who gains energy by being around a bunch of people). Those situations will always drain my energy. If my business required that behavior I’d need to partner with somebody who had that strength.
So this isn’t about you do you – implying that whoever you are and however you roll is just how it is and how it’ll always be. I’m working daily to get better, but I’m not working to completely change my stripes. I know who and what I am. I want to become a better version of myself, which means I have to lean MORE into my strengths and recognize my weaknesses, which may require somebody else’s help.
That’s partly what leveraging the power of others is all about. Recognizing what others may be able to provide that we can’t. Or something that might be very hard for us, distracting us from being as great as we could be at our strengths.
Be genuine. Figure out how to best dazzle your customers and your prospective customers. Leverage others to help you create the culture and workflow that will produce remarkable results.
