Which mistake are you more comfortable with?

We often have great leadership and management choices these days. We research the options, calculate the potential returns, try to understand the downstream implications to each decision, identify the risks associated with each and then . . . we have to decide:

What's the best decision to make?

Here's a little tool that often works for me.

While I'm looking at what's most likely to succeed or sometimes even which option is more likely to get executed, I find that no real certainty emerges. In many of these day-to-day decisions I ask the following question:

If both of these are a mistake, which mistake am I more comfortable with?

In other words, and not to be pessimistic, but if this turns into a failure or a mistake, which would I be most comfortable with?

For me, if I'm going to lose in a situation, I would like to do it on my own terms. Sometimes that's about minimizing human damage, sometimes its about cultural pain and sometimes its about just wanting to aim high. But in any case, if there is a problem I know I have to stand up and take whatever fallout there may be (most times the winners have plenty of people with deserved credit; but the buck stops with me on the losers).

So given that I'm playing for big wins knowing sometimes the alternative will happen and I'll need to shine the light directly on myself, then I'll choose the option which I will feel best about failing at.

Sure I probably need more therapy and know that this isn't for all decisions, but sometimes the math dictates that the potential realities of a decision must be faced before the eventual outcome. When I choose using this basis, I find that I can be more aggressive, I am more at peace and I am much less concerned about things not working out.

There are few people, managers or otherwise, who are more impactful on their situations, than those people who are not afraid to fail. This may help with that.

Don't Waste Your Sophistication

What is it that you truly understand? What core decisions about your business or your life have you made? Can you describe to an outsider what your business or department is all about (and I hope you are happy with that)?

I ask these questions because if you have clear answers to these questions, then the rest of your decisions should be much simpler. Note: I'm not saying without pain, but simpler.

The British have a saying that goes something like, 'he was too smart by half'. Its what I'm getting at.

For many of us, we've made decisions, we've learned great lessons; the rest is persistance and perseverance. Those are the traits that make all the difference once the direction is set.

And sophistication? That ability to see the nuance and understand the implication and develop the complexity? Its great to use a mentor/coach or your own experience to work through the thought, plan or idea. But once it's been done, get on with it. Execute and learn.

I can remember a proposal I worked on for a Big 4 consulting group. We started with a core team and put the proposal together. Then the 'powers that be' brought in more experts to review and contribute . . .they did this over and over again for a two week period. Over that period we changed/evolved the proposal 3 times a day. By the end of the process, we had over 30 different versions (I remember putting in my hours for those two weeks: 205 hours.) At the end of the iteration hell, on my own, I looked at the versions from the beginning to the end and you know what? I suspect you guessed it.

The last version was uncannily similar to the very first version. And you could track the evolution from human to simian to ape to simian and back to human. Scary.

So the arithmetic here comes down to this: use your sophistication to set your direction and then move as aggressively as you can. Don't suffer sophisticates or doubters lightly. And learn as you go. You'll run rings around the competition and your team will have a lot of fun.

People Truly Bond by Working Together

A great Boston-area social worker told me about a survey that was taken to determine what predicts whether families are closely-knit, functional and felt connected.

Seems that over 50 different influencers were identified but only one had a better than 60% statistical coorelation to predicting a close-knit family. Of all the factors, only those families that went 'camping' could be expected to be close and connected.

Well I can tell you I felt a bit taken a back when I heard that (yes, aback). First, my wife sure wasn't going to go for that and second, most of my camping experiences (Boy Scout, etc) included a myriad of mishaps including leaking tents, partially cooked food, uncomfortable beds, insect bites, etc. How could this be an answer for familial happiness?

Well, as the researchers supposedly found, camping puts people in a situation where, in fact, things go wrong and people have to work together to make them right. Campers suffer together and they work out their own personal solutions to each challenge. Its personal and its authentic to those groups of people. No one else shares those moments.

And there is the wisdom. People don't necessarily bond by playing together; fun is not a predictor for bonding and feeling personal warmth towards one another. People bond because they find themselves in the same situation/challenge, commit to working together and find a way to win or endure.

I had the priviledge and honor to be a single father of three children (age 3, 8, 11). Although their mother saw them and supported them on a regular weekly basis, it was my task to run the day-to-day family operation. The way I describe it is that it was like my three children and I stepped into a covered wagon in St. Louis and headed west. I certainly didn't know what I was doing and my wonderful kids knew less. But over time, we worked out every logistical issue. Each had responsibilities. Each knew they were depended on for things to work. And it worked . . .at least from where I stood.

I'm not saying my children and I have unique intimacy nor that there aren't issues between themselves and between them and me, but I can tell you this: We know things others don't know. We've been places others haven't been. And we've been there together.

Exaggeration? No, you feel this way when you have the personal experiences that people build working through the challenges.

Bond a team by having them work together towards something that all agree is important. There will be challenges, obstacles and personal differences, but the process of having to move the project to completion should give each an appreciation for the other. If you have some that can't team, then either find a place they can work in a solitary manner, intervene with them to let them know how this needs to work or get them out of your organization. (Note: People who can't or won't work with people shouldn't and its up to managers to isolate or get rid of them. I've got the scars on my back to prove this.)

So the math is simple: want bonding? Have people work together around something that is important to all.

The Sales Pitch: Just Because You Can, Should You?

OK so I'm getting old and there are some things that worked better 10 years . . .OK, OK, 15 years ago, than they do today. For instance, if I'm going to lift something heavy, head out on some air travel with heavy luggage or dig up my garden, then there are some steps I better take before I start. I'll need to stretch, warm up a bit, take an aleve and maybe sacrifice an innocent animal to the god of my choice in order to have any real physical functionality on the backside of the project. No doubt I can get the job done, but the on-going pain is a high price to pay.

Maybe this one makes it clearer: people fall in love (or lust or ?) and decide to get married. Clearly the vast majority who do (me included) often have no idea what they are getting themselves into. And the resulting consequences provide enough 'shake your head' moments to last a lifetime.

For those of us who's professional task is to make a difference in revenue, the question is similar. Just because we can get someone to sit down with us or our professionals to hear a pitch, does that mean we should do the pitch?

Often we need to take a minute and ask what the point is? Is it getting the next piece of business? Or is it building business relationships that will generate value on both sides for years to come?

I argue strongly that its critical that each new client relationship be built based on a personal knowledge of several basic questions:
>> What will make our client's company successful this year? How do they measure it?
>> What are the challenges that stand in the way of that success?
>> What are they doing to address those challenges?
>> Then ask the same questions for each contact personally (i.e. what will make the person successful this year? How will they measure it?)

Once we understand this information, we are in a position to address our client's most important professional issues. To the degree our solutions are set in that context, we build a solid relationship which can grow and which will be less vulnerable to competitive attacks.

There's no doubt that many of us can talk ourselves into getting a pitch heard. But for the vast majority of our client targets there are several steps which should occur before we have the presumption to even offer.

Otherwise the math is clear, there are many actions we can take and the consequences of those actions are often not what we intended.

The Leader Can Make All the Difference

"I rode him like he was a good horse." Calvin Borel

In the 2009 Kentucky Derby, Mine That Bird, a horse that had lost 31 of his last 32 races and left the gate as a 50 to 1 bet, won one of the longest shot, most dramatic races in Derby history. Mine That Bird was a distant last on the back stretch and not even in contact with the pack. And he wins by 5+ lengths . . . going away. In short, there was no expert who expected this performance and most had not even studied the horse due to his track record. When jockey Calvin Borel was asked about his ride that day he said, "I rode him like he was a good horse."

I've had the privilege to come into two different organizations to organize, reorganize or run their marketing / business development groups. Each time I've been given a warning that some of the individuals on the team would probably need to be let go. And each time, I've seen people, who were formerly unappreciated and whose capabilities were questioned, raise their game to a new level and become highly valued players.

For myself, earlier in my career, I can remember my performance and development being dramatically impacted by leaders and managers who believed in me and just as importantly, provided me with a role that, with their guidance, I could win in.

Just as in the Derby example above, one needs a leader who knows how to win, who has an approach that has been tested and who understands how to handle the various talents provided to him or her.

I've seen leaders who's teams were about the leader's success. Those team's success is dependant on the brilliance of the leaders. Not being brilliant myself, I've always thought success was dependant on the cumulative talents of the team, aligned and directed in a manner that played to their strengths and protected individuals from their weaknesses. That seems to work rather well.

So I'm curious:
What are your expectations for your team?
What are your expectations for each individual?
How do you train them to win?
Does each individual understand what is critical for them to do in order to win?

Cause the math of this is simple: Followers are only as good as their leaders allow/train them to be.

Can Trust Transform Your Business?

I recently participated in a webinar run by Stephen Covey around the impact that Trust can have internally and externally in your business. He paints a compelling picture with his examples.

One involves a coffee and muffin vendor who doubles his business by setting out a change basket (with his own money in it) at the end of his counter. He had noticed that he was losing customers due to the long lines in the morning which were primarily caused by the slow payment process (taking money / giving change). So he put out the change basket, took / fulfilled the orders and allowed his customers to make their on change. He handled twice the number of transactions and his customers appreciated the trust he had given them.

But yesteray I actually heard another example of this dynamic on NPR. In a incredibly poor section of a city in India (3 square miles hold 500,000 people), the local CocaCola bottler was working through ways to increase their sales (whether you think this is appropriate or now, watch what happens). Traditionally, the Coke vendors stored the drinks behind the counter and required all customers to order them personally. One of the local sales guys convinces some of the Coke vendors to put a cooler outside the front door of their establishment allowing all customers access to review their options and pick their own drink. As in the example above, sales of drinks have doubled (10 fold in one case), transforming many of these vendor's business success. Their customers tell them that they are proud that they can be trusted.

Frankly I think most of us find this idea of trust with our clients to be revolutionary. And certainly scary.

I remember when some companies figured out they could give a money-back guarentee without risking much at all; and yes, most of us now know that there is no real benefit to us as customers. Its a huge hassle to deal with any vendor whose product doesn't work properly; never mind the cost of the product.

But that's not what is being offered here: these examples are saying that the business trusts the customer to protect the business's income if the customer gets appropriate trust upfront.

There's the pinch: many really don't trust their clients enough to allow the clients to determine what services should be provided (we often think we know better what our clients need), how they should be delivered (it might require our organizations/practices to change or evolve) and what compensation is deserved.

But its really worse that that: we really don't want to transform our business relationships, we just want to get paid more for being historically relevant. And for most, we will only consider change once we are in so much pain that we have no choice (ergo the 'burning platform' scenario).

OK, so read those two examples above and give yourself a moment to wonder if there is a scenario where trusting your clients could provide you with such a distinctive relationship that your clients would think differently about themselves and the business relationship because of the way you treat them . . .from the very start. Some very interesting math indeed (yeah I said indeed).

The Success of Strategy: It Isn't What You Think

The key to success continues to be a subject of wonderment to me. I study and observe over and over again the number of times great minds move in a direction with great conviction only to discover that they got lucky. It's as if moving with conviction makes you much more likely to get lucky . . . if you are smart enough to adjust.

I always enjoy talking with successful people about how they got where they are. And the most frequent response is that 'it was an accident' or 'there really was not any overarching plan' or 'the phone rang and I picked it up'. The serendipities of success seem to be the rule, however the fact remains that these people were looking for success and determined to find it. It's just that the path moved a bit.


Two examples:

Recently reading William Manchester's The World Lit Only By Fire, Manchester discusses how the great Spanish and English explorers found a new world while attempting to find a sea route to the east. Their ambition was to replace the land-based commercial routes (which produced a dozen different hands touching, charging and moving the goods) for a sea route with lower pricing and more predictable business relationships. In the end, the big win was finding a entirely new source of business, land and wealth. Ironically the Portuguese were more successful in attaining the sea route to the east (note: in fact they discover Brazil when one of their ships gets lost in an extreme storm rounding the Cape of Good Hope; sounds a bit far fetched, but that's the story), but in the long run lost the opportunity to redefine their and our world.

The second, more recent, example involves the founders of Microsoft and its genesis. One story has it that Bill Gates et al saw their future in the developing of software for computers. Certainly this viewpoint and its wisdom is unquestionable. However the critical moment, say some business historians, came when IBM needed an operating system for their new line of computers and the Microsoft guys bought one they had used in the past. They licensed it to IBM, thereby funding Microsoft's dreams. Gates was going after one thing; it drove him to seek something else which in the end enabled him to do exactly what he wanted. But let's be clear, the Microsoft kingdom was built on the success of the licensing of an operating system, not the fun, neat software they were building. There were and have been plenty of developers of fun, neat software who never made it out of their garage. The operating system license was the key to the success.

So what's the arithmetic here? Well, it seems that moving with conviction and even daring, gives one a chance to be successful; however having the ability to adjust as opportunities evolve along the way becomes even more a predictor.