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Month: September 2017

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Leadership Marketing Operations Personal Development

The Surprising Secret to Sales Growth

Every company has ups and downs, but what if yours has had a few quarters of disappointing revenue? You might be thinking it’s time for a big marketing investment, but where would you focus your energy?

  1. On rewarding regular customers with promotions to keep them coming back.
  2. On improving the customer’s experience at the time of purchase.
  3. On providing comparison shoppers with rational reasons to choose your product over another one.
  4. On customers who are only starting to consider making a purchase.

Most people would choose (A), and in fact that’s been the trend with brands over the past few years. But according to a recent article by global management consulting firm McKinsey&Company, (D) may actually be a better answer.

Customers aren’t as loyal as you think they are.

Traditional sales advice says that it’s easier to keep a past customer than to get a new one, and so there’s been a proliferation of customer loyalty programs over the past few years. However, McKinsey reports that fewer people are actively engaged in these programs today than in the past. And 58 percent of loyalty members don’t even use the programs they signed up for.

McKinsey researched a database of 125,000 consumers across over 350 brands and found that only three out of 30 categories of purchases were driven by loyalty: mobile carriers, auto insurance and investments. In every other category, from breakfast cereals to personal care items to laptops, at least two thirds of people shopped around. For cosmetics and shoes, almost everyone did.

The researchers then looked at whether these shoppers ultimately stuck with their tried and true brand or switched. In the 27 categories where people were likely to shop around, 13 percent of people never considered another brand and another 29 percent shopped around but stuck with the brand they’d bought before. The real news is that a whopping 58 percent ultimately decided to buy from someone else. And shoppers were twice as likely to buy a brand that they’d considered at the beginning of their buying journey, as opposed to a brand they became aware of later on.

One of our team members at Beyond Philosophy offered this example that I think explains these changing trends in customer behavior. She says that for the past 30 years, her mother has bought all of her cosmetics at the local department store’s Clinique counter. She is the ultimate loyal customer who never even considers buying another brand, and she might buy more if there’s a special promotion. My colleague’s 19-year-old daughter, on the other hand, hops from one makeup brand to another based on reviews, blogs and what her friends are buying. She already knows what she’s interested in when she steps into a store, though she’s likely to look around before making a decision.

Loyalty programs might work for the mother, but for the daughter, it’s more important to get on her radar before she goes shopping.

Getting in on the Initial Consideration Phase

As a customer experience consultant, I of course have some ideas about how companies can more effectively become part of buyers’ initial consideration phase.

  1. Understand what the customer is experiencing as he or she first begins interacting with your brand, whether that’s on a website, through social media, or in person. Before you begin to design a better experience, you must understand the rational, emotional and subconscious factors that make up your current experience, and how it can be improved. We use a process called  Customer Mirrors to make these assessments and provide practical recommendations.
  2. Appeal to your customers’ emotions. When we talk about “shopping around,” it’s easy to think that customers are comparing features and prices, but that’s only a small part of the story. Our research has consistently shown that customers’ decision making is more influenced by emotional and subconscious factors than rational ones. That includes the way your brand or product is perceived by your customers and their friends.
  3. Make it easy for people to buy from you. In my recent book, The Intuitive Customer: 7 imperatives for moving your Customer Experience to the Next Level, Professor Ryan Hamilton and I talk about the role of behavioral economics in the buyer’s journey. When people are tired, stressed or simply overloaded with choices, they revert to an intuitive form of decision making. They go with their gut and choose something that’s easy. You can take advantage of this by setting your product or company up as the easy choice.

This of course doesn’t mean that you need to abandon loyalty efforts altogether. But the more you begin recognizing that the customer’s journey begins earlier than you might have thought, the better you’ll be positioned for the challenges of the future.

How likely are you to switch brands, and why? Let’s talk about it in the comments box below.

If you enjoyed reading this blog, you might also like these:

The Happiest Way to Spend Your Money in 2017

Not Meeting Your Targets? Here’s Why

Ignore this at your Peril: How Customers Decide

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of six bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX

 

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Security is Not Insurance – Debunking the Myth

Since 2005 I have been in the Information Security consultant and today I consult and coach security executives on strategy, compliance, messaging, and teams, so today I am going to talk about something that is critical to any organizational leader: information security. More specifically, the myth that security equates to insurance.

Many people in the security industry have used the security analogy for a very long time to explain the importance of security to an executive or client who has said,  “Why do I need security? It’s expensive and nothing has happened to my network; my company’s data is fine.”

The response often provided has been “for the same reason you need car insurance or medical insurance, you never know when there will be a problem.” Using a real-world situation to help explain something that is not always clear makes sense, but this analogy is not correct.

The reason it’s not a good analogy is because security is not insurance. Insurance attempts to make you whole again. It is there to replace your car, rebuild your house, allow you to replace lost or stolen items, or help you regain your health. Security on the other hand does not make you whole; once your data is stolen, your network breached, or your systems locked up with Ransomware it is not security that will make you whole again. There is insurance you can purchase to use when the hacker on the other end of the phone says we want 20 Million Dollars to unlock your systems, but that really is insurance.

If we are going to use analogies, then security is your force protection, it is proactive. You know the guys (or gals) at the perimeter with the big guns that are going to keep the bad guys (or gals) out in the first place. When I used to work at the Pentagon, there were armed guards with very big guns making sure only the people with the proper access could enter the building. Then there were locked doors within the building that could only be accessed by another select group of people. That is security! We don’t call them insurance guards we call them security guards (or in this case military police).

The same is true for access to your computer systems, network, and data. Your Information Security or Cyber Security (if you are using that term) team is the armed guards; it is their responsibility to keep the bad people out, to monitor for intrusions, and to react if or when a breach is observed. If you are treating this group as insurance you are not giving them the level of importance they deserve, the funding they need, or the authority they require.

For small organizations, you might think, “Who wants my data? I’m good till we get bigger; the hackers are out there looking for the big guys to steal from.” But that is not true at all. It’s like the burglar who will just move on to the next house when they see the ADT sign in your neighbors yard. If your neighbors are the bigger companies with the fancy security and armed guards it is your network the hackers are after because they know it will be easier.

But you want to say “I don’t have anything worth taking” and that might be true at the data level, but you do have something worth taking. It is your resources, your connection to other networks, and it is the fertile playground you are giving them to practice their craft. By allowing your network to go unprotected, you are allowing hackers to practice, to find vulnerabilities they can use against other networks, and to potentially use your network to launch an attack on another organization.

I am writing this so that we can stop equating security with insurance. Stop looking at this as a cost and start looking at is as a responsibility. You are not only protecting your data, your employees, and your customers; you are also protecting other organizations by putting the guards up around yours.

If you do not have a security team or strategy, don’t worry. It’s not too late and it does not have to be scary. There are lots of great consultants out there who can help. As a 12-year veteran of the information security and compliance space,  I invite you to send me an email at sharon@c-suiteresults.com or reach out via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/smithsharonj/ to ask any questions you might have on this topic.

 

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Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

5 Easy Steps to Writing Your First Book

“Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases, that’s where it should stay.” – Christopher Hitchens (maybe)

There are several variations of that quote and some dispute as to who first came up with the snarky witticism. But one thing’s for certain: It wasn’t Keith Leon. The co-founder of Leon Smith Publishing has been helping would-be authors become published authors for nearly 15 years.

As the author of three books on extreme leadership, I’ve long been a student of good writing and of writing processes. So I was curious about the advice Leon offers when he speaks to groups, teaches writing classes, or mentors individuals who want to turn their message into a book. Here are five tips he shared with me during a recent conversation:

  1. CREATE A ROADMAP

Most folks give up on their idea because they start without knowing where the book will begin or where it will end. A roadmap provides the path.

Once you decide the type of book you want to write – a memoir on launching your business, for example – start by writing down a series of one-line answers to a simple question: “If I were to write this book, what would I want to share?”

Don’t worry about the order. Just brainstorm things like key stories and processes. Keep writing them until you look at the list and say, “That’s it. That’s what I want to say in my book.”

Then make a second list using the first. This time, ask, “Who wants to go first?” Inevitably, one will jump up and say, “Me! Me! Me!” If not, ask, “Which one feels easiest?” Then ask who wants to go next and keep going until you have your roadmap complete.

  1. START WITH WHAT FEELS RIGHT

The roadmap provides the path the book will follow, but not necessarily the path you’ll take to write it. Begin by writing the chapter that feels “juiciest” or “easiest,” Leon says. Then do the next one that gets you most excited. And so on.

“You build momentum, and it doesn’t feel like a chore,” he says, “so you keep coming back.”

  1. FINISH WHAT YOU START

One of Leon’s rules is to complete the chapter you start before moving on to another chapter.

I didn’t quit my day job when I wrote my leadership books, so I know this challenge well. When you step away from your writing project for a few days, sometimes you return to find the chapter you were working on no longer is the “easiest” or the “juiciest.” If that happens, Leon says, re-read the last few pages of what you’ve written in the chapter. That’s usually enough to get you back into it and rolling again. But don’t leave it unfinished, because that’s just asking for trouble.

“If you have a chapter that’s undone, your subconscious knows it and it’s hard to complete the next one,” Leon says. “Then you get writer’s block, which is really just a pissed off inner child, right?”

  1. HONOR YOUR INNER CHILD

Leon tells his students to set an alarm and write in 50-minute blocks. When the alarm goes off, get up and do something else – stretch, go outside, put on some music. Do something for your inner child for 10 minutes. Then have a conversation with your inner child – out loud – before you return to your writing.

“OK, it’s my time to play,” you say. “But don’t worry. I’ll be back in another 50 minutes.”

Many of Leon’s students resist this idea, he says, but they inevitably find it “profound” after they give it a try.

  1. WORRY ABOUT THE ROCK, NOT THE DIAMOND

We’re conditioned to think that what we read is exactly what an author wrote. New authors can tend to expect perfection in the first draft, and that seldom happens. Writing is an artistic process that’s sometimes sloppy. Books go through revisions and an editing process. And editors, as Leon points out, take your rock and polish it into a diamond.

The freedom in knowing someone has your back allows you to focus on writing without judging what you’re writing.

“I encourage people to free-form write,” he said. “Then read it one time from beginning to end. If something makes you want to hurl, change it. If not, keep it.”

Then let the editors take over.

Leon’s advice here applies primarily to non-fiction books. Some authors also use it with novels, while some stick more to a storyboard. But if you’re convinced you have a story to tell or a message to share – fiction or non-fiction – and you aren’t sure how to get it from your head and heart to a finished document, Leon’s roadmap will show you a way.

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

How To Let Go of Perfection and Pursue Happiness

Ever noticed how the drive toward perfection that fuels our success also ends up running right over our happiness?

Call it the Perfectionist’s Dilemma.

Yes, the pursuit of excellence pushes us toward greatness. But as Dr. Marissa Pei points out, it typically leads us into a cycle of perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis that never ends in happiness.

Pei is an organizational psychologist who’s gone from college professor to corporate consultant, executive coach, inspirational speaker, radio host, and author. Perfectionism, she says, is one of the eight ways we rob ourselves of happiness.

“I can speak to all of this,” she told me, “because I am a recovering perfectionist.”

Pei was working on her next book, The Eight Ways to Happiness, when she came up with eight “balancing tools” to help perfectionists rediscover our happiness. Obviously, we must start immediately and execute these tools perfectly. … OK, let’s just do our best.

BAKE YOUR OWN CAKE

Perfectionists typically crave external validation. We need some way to measure what’s “good enough,” so we go by what others say. Instead, we need to get to the point where we’re happy with the cake we’ve baked, and any compliments (or criticisms) that come later are just icing to go with it.

When Pei turns in for the night, she doesn’t think about what she didn’t get done. She simply asks herself if she did the best she could with the time and resources she had. Most nights, she said, the answer is, “Yes, I did. I baked my cake, and it’s good.”

NAME YOUR CRITIC

Perfectionists have an inner voice that tells us we should have done more, we need to do more, or otherwise questions our every move.

Give your critic a name and have a conversation with him or her. Pei’s critic, for example, is Rose. When Pei feels beaten up or like she’s focusing too heavily on criticisms, she puts Rose in her place.

“You got to be really tired,” she’ll say. “You’ve been criticizing me since 9 this morning. Take a load off. Sit down. Take a seat.”

She doesn’t throw her out of the car, she just doesn’t let her drive.

STAY OUT OF THE LABYRINTH OF POOP

Negative thoughts, to put it bluntly, stink. And they lead to more negative thoughts, which ultimately leads to self-blame.

Most perfectionists have been given a belief system — what Pei calls “their BS” — that they once were responsible for someone else’s unhappiness. So if we don’t catch ourselves in the early stages of negative thinking, she said, we’ll end up blaming ourselves and get lost in a crappy labyrinth.

FAST FROM COMPLAINING

Perfectionist are champion complainers because we’re always looking for what’s wrong. Pei actually has an app to help people fast from complaining. She calls this the “diet that is good for your soul.”

I-N-T-B-O-A-D

No matter how bad things are or how far we feel like we are from the Nirvana we expect for ourselves, our failure is temporary and unlikely to define us or our lives. In other words, It’s Not That Big Of A Deal.

“That’s also known as T-T-S-P, which is This Too Shall Pass,” Pei said.

STOP THINKING

If the average person has thousands of thoughts in a minute, Pei believes perfectionists have 50,000. All that activity can drive us crazy. Meditation is simply thinking about nothing. And not thinking allows us to reset and give our brains a rest.

For two minutes each morning, sit up and just breathe in and out. It will seem difficult when you start. But, Pei points out, “If you keep at it the same way you keep at everything else, you will get good at not thinking.”

BE GRATEFUL

In Chinese, eight is a homonym for good fortune, so Pei considers eight a lucky number. That’s why all of her lists have eight things. And that’s why she suggest a daily habit of naming eight things for which you are thankful. Specific things. You can’t say “friends and family.”

The payoff for the perfectionist is that it reminds us of where we’ve been and what we have, which makes it harder to obsess about what’s missing or what’s left to get done.

OPEN THE GIFT

Pei has noticed that her overachieving clients seldom take a vacation. If they do, they spend it planning their next vacation. They are on their phone, checking their email or calling in for meetings. They are focused on what went wrong in the past or what they need to do next, and they fail to find the happiness in the moment.

“The past is history,” she said, “the future is a mystery, and the present is a gift.”

Perfectionists need to stop and open the present — the gift of life.

 

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Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

5 Body Language Questions That Make You A More Awesome Negotiator

Click here to buy “Body Language Secrets”

When considering how you’ll engage in a negotiation, the questions you ask of yourself and the opposing negotiator will determine how successful you’ll be in the negotiation. The following are thought-provoking questions that will allow you to be a more awesome negotiator and enhance your thought process and abilities to win more negotiations.

1)    How difficult will it be to read the other negotiator’s body language?

In assessing the other negotiator’s body language, understand what she does in a ‘normal’ environment; this can be obtained by observing her when she’s in situations that are not stressful. Then, during the negotiation look for body language signals that are different from what you observed when she was in her ‘normal’ environment. The different displays will give you insight into how comfortable or uncomfortable she is based on what you’ve asked that puts her in that state.

2)    How will you control subliminal messaging?

Subliminal messages are thoughts or actions that you convey that move the other negotiator to adopt and action or thought that you want him to consider or engage in. To the degree you want to bond with him, you can speak at the same pace, invoke thoughts of happy times that he’s experienced in the past into the negotiation, and mirror his actions. Since people like people that are like themselves, your subliminal acts will remind him of himself, which will state to him that you’re just like he is.

3)    How will colors influence the negotiation?

Colors have a profound impact on our psyche. To the degree we’re aware of it, we’re less influenced by colors. As an example, red denotes power, passion, danger, and strength. White, in the American society, denotes purity and innocence, while blue is associated with trust, stability, and loyalty. So, if a negotiator was attired in such colors and you were not aware of the impact the colors were having on you subliminally, you might be more prone to acquiesce to concessions, due to the perceived authority you had of them at a subliminal/subconscious level.

4)    How will you shift your strategy as you read the others negotiator’s body language signals?

Body language signals can give unfettered insight into the thought process that’s occurring in the opposing negotiator’s mind. To the degree you see a frown at a particular time, him pulling away from or towards the table, all such signals are indicators as to how pleased or displeased he is with your offer/counteroffers. By observing when such occurs, you can increase or decrease the value of your offers.

5)    How can you tell when the other negotiator is lying?

Rather than seeking to discern when the other negotiator is lying, seek signs that display to what degree he’s uncomfortable. Since the body always seeks to be in a state of comfort, when it’s uncomfortable, we do such things as rub the back of our necks, fold our arms across our chest, tighten our lips, or shift our weight from one foot/leg to the other. Those body language signals are indications that the body is in a state of discomfort. To understand the meaning that it’s seeking to be comfortable again, you need to assess what you did/said, or what the other negotiator did/said, to put the body in the state of discomfort. Therein will be disclosed to what degree some form of a lie may have been told.

As you can see, the more you understand what you may encounter in a negotiation, the better prepared you’ll be. In order to be better prepared, consider reflecting on the questions above and you’ll win more of your negotiations … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

“Questions form the foundation through which we gain greater insight into the unknown.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert.

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

 

 

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Disrupting the Status Quo – Part 4

This is the fourth and final article in the series; Disrupting the Status Quo. We have now discussed what the status quo is and why you should disrupt it. We have also gone deeper on the first two steps you will take on your journey to disruption; one change at a time and getting buy in.

The last step, the one we will look at today is communicating status. This is going to take a culture of communication, which is something to consider before you start creating change. Actually it is something to consider regardless of whether you are creating change or running the day-to-day operations of your team or organization.

Imagine taking a road trip that was expected to take three days and not knowing until the end of the three days whether you had gone in the right direction, at the right speed, and with enough resources (gas for instance.) You need to know the status along the way and that status is communicated to you in several ways.

It is communicated through your GPS or map (if you still use one). It’s also communicated through speedometer and gas gauge. Regardless of how well you feel you planned the trip, along the way you need feedback and status in order to reach your final destination.

If you are driving this car and you were not getting this feedback how quickly would you turn around? Your people, those on your team and in your organization are driving the car in this scenario, they are the ones working towards a goal or desired outcome that you initiated. If they think they are headed for danger or don’t know where they are, it won’t take long before they turn the car around and head home for safety. That means it will not take long before you lose their buy in and they start to sabotage the plan. They want what’s safe and normal and they can only get that through communicating status.

Communicating status should be a natural part of a culture of communication. This means that you as the leader are consistently communicating with those who report to you and the entire organization. Whether you make the time to share communication with everyone or you delegate this to your direct reports, what’s important is for you to set the stage for communication and check in to make sure it is making its way down the line. Don’t assume what you tell your team is what they will pass on unless you verify it.

Trust but verify is what I learned years ago as an auditor and it’s true in any endeavor. If you don’t ensure what you said is getting passed along properly you might end up with the end of a very twisted telephone game like you played when you were a kid. The message at the beginning and the message at the end sound nothing alike.

It is your job to keep the headlights on so everyone can see where they are going, to act as the GPS letting them know they are on the right track or if there is a detour ahead, and your job to keep the resources coming (the gas tank full) and ensure they know when they are running low.

In a culture of communication, discussing status is a two way street. You must insist that you are kept abreast of what is happening. If someone sees a roadblock ahead they must make it known and a detour must be identified. If the resources are running out faster than anticipated there must be a way to let you know so you can determine if more resources are available or other ways to reach the destination. It could also be that there is a slow leak in a tire that can be patched if identified soon enough, before the tire blows and needs to be fully replaced. In other words you need to find the root cause of problems as quickly as possible to fix them before they become costly issues that delay your progress and results.

It is as vitally important that you receive this information in a timely way and create a culture where it is not only okay to provide feedback, but required. The good, the bad, and the ugly must have a way of getting back to you, and you need to have a way to communicate it out yourself. If this feels uncomfortable check out the article on Creating a Safety Zone for ideas on how to make this easier and sustainable.

If you are looking for tactics and strategy on communication, reach out to me at sharon@c-suiteresults.com. This is an area I am happy to help with and because there is more information than I couldn’t possibly convey in one article I am happy to discuss specifics with you. For more resources visit www.c-suiteresults.com where you will find articles, podcasts, media, and other resources to help you along your journey. I’ll keep the lights on for you.

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Accountability: 3 Steps to Holding Yourself Accountable to Grow Your Influence

Click here to watch Accountability: 3 Steps to Holding Yourself Accountable to Grow Your Influence 

It’s not the skills and techniques you and your team learn that make you more influential.  It’s what you do with what you learn.

Accountability is the most difficult aspect of having influence Monday to Monday®.

This video will share with you three steps you can take today to avoid slipping into your old habits.  These three steps will keep you focused and disciplined to do the work of communicating with influence Monday to Monday® until it becomes ingrained in you. 

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Growth Human Resources Leadership Personal Development

Do You Want Your Employees to Feel like Volunteers or Slaves?

Do you Want Employees to Feel Like Volunteers or Slaves? 

If you are a leader of a team now, ponder this idea: everyone in your organization is a volunteer.  Would you treat them differently?  Why would you want to treat employees as volunteers and how can you start?  This blog will touch on the answers.

I bet each of us, at some point, has been a volunteer (on a board or team).  It is usually a huge challenge because often only 20-30% of the people do all the work.  The other 70-80% either coast or don’t even bother to show up.  You’re probably thinking, “Well that problem is often true with employees as well” and you would be correct.  Leaders who want to treat employees as volunteers must make two important shifts.  The first shift must be how we think about our leadership responsibilities.  The second change must be how we act as a leader.

Why should we want volunteers?

Treating employees as volunteers is the foundation for creating an engaged workforce. Volunteers feel empowered and feel a part of something important larger than themselves.  Volunteers do tasks because they want to.  Disengaged (slaves) do things because they must (they are bribed or threatened).  Disengaged employees are compliant.  Volunteers put in extra effort because they love what they do.

Volunteers are committed emotionally and intellectually.  The disengaged are controlled by domineering forces either spoken or unspoken.  Engaged (volunteers) employees creates greater profitability, quality customer service, and innovative ideas.  Disengaged employees cause costs to go up.  Study after study shows the benefits of an engaged workforce.  Treating employees as volunteers will lead toward higher engagement, higher profitability, and expanding success in many areas of performance.

During slavery in the United States certain behaviors were prevalent among the slaves. These included the avoidance of work, theft, and an outward defiance of authority. One could interpret these behaviors as demonstrations of resistance for the loss of freedom.  In my experience, these same behaviors are prevalent with disengaged and actively disengaged employees.  My theory is an increase in freedom and autonomy will help eliminate most, or all, of these resistance behaviors.

Shift #1 – Change how we think about our responsibilities

It is not a bigger challenge to manage volunteers it is just different and it requires a shift in thinking and it requires different skills.  The shift is to stop managing people but instead lead them with an environment which encourages self-management.  Volunteers self-manage.  The disengaged (slaves) require management control.

There is an important distinction between self- management and manager-dependent management.  Most organizations have a manager-dependent environment.  Manager-dependent environment encourages employees to wait to receive ideas for improvement from their managers before making any significant changes in performance.  This type of environment creates more fear and less innovation because there is less freedom and less autonomy.  Self-Management increases employee engagement and enables natural feedback mechanisms and autonomy.  This accelerates the decisions and therefore accelerates the ability to adapt to change.

Shift #2 – Change how we behave

Typical managers often put in controls and policies that create compliance.  Leaders of volunteers spend their time helping employees understand the mission, vision, values, and strategy of the organization.  They must also explain how the employee’s responsibilities fit into these and how they can contribute to the achievement of all of those items.  These leaders spend time explaining “why” the work is so important.

Leaders of volunteers spend time helping employees match their skills to the task they hope to perform.  If the task is too difficult they will refuse it because it might embarrass them if they perform poorly.  Conversely, if the task is too easy they get bored.  A leader of volunteers must match the skill of the volunteer or it won’t get done.  A typical manager will use carrots and sticks to attempt to ensure compliance to get the task done regardless of the match of skills with the task.

Typical managers must spend a good deal of time with attorneys to understand how to force accountability.  Managers of volunteers continuously manage trust.  Attorneys are unnecessary in a culture of trust.  The leaders of volunteers must facilitate the removal of barriers to performance.  Typical managers must create new rules when mistakes are found or when jobs remain incomplete.  Typical managers see the person as the root cause of problems.  Leaders of volunteers review the system to remove the barriers that prevent the trusted volunteers from doing their jobs.

Typical managers use performance appraisals and pay for performance policies.  Performance appraisals control behaviors with threats to either future promotional opportunities or future pay (if pay-for-performance is linked to the appraisal).  Leaders must be willing to let go of these addictive policies.  They are inconsistent with a culture of engaged volunteers.

Thinking differently about people

To create an environment of volunteers, leaders must begin to think about employees as unlimited human potential not as human resources.  This potential, when released, can possibly add unlimited value to the organization.   Resources can be used up.  Potential can be tapped as an unlimited supply.  I suggest the Human Resources Department to change its name to the Human Potential Department.

Thinking differently about policies

What happens when people stop performing or stop following the rules?  When this happens, they are telling you “I don’t want to work here anymore.” Accept their decision.  Let them go physically because they have already de-selected mentally.

When you decide to treat employees as volunteers it can be scary because the skills are different and require discipline and effort.  Yet, it is the future.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Leadership Personal Development

Do You Love What You Do?

How do you know if you love what you do for a living?

It’s a simple question that seems straight-forward enough, but it’s not always easy to answer. Many people would instinctively say something like, “I just know” or “I can just feel that it’s right” or “I definitely know the opposite – when I don’t love what I do.”

Those aren’t wrong answers, they’re just a bit vague. They are tied to emotions, which we know can be fleeting. And, frankly, they aren’t all that helpful. So if you’re not sure if you really love what you do or if you just want some validation, consider these two filters. They aren’t the only criteria, but they’re a good place to start.

You most likely love what you do if …

  1. It’s not just about you.

Real love – the type of love we talk about with Extreme Leadership – is others-focused, not narcissistic. So if you think you love what you do but it’s all about you, then you’re missing the boat.

Scott Krist, a trial lawyer in Houston, put it this way: “I couldn’t do what I do if I didn’t have a genuine love for my clients, for the law, and for how I can help people rebuild their lives.”

He doesn’t mention winning cases or getting rich. There’s nothing wrong with those as motivators, but they can’t be the singular driving force, because those are self-focused pursuits. If you love what you do by focusing on others, the other things flow naturally.

Ryan Hulland, president of Netfloor USA, often sees this expressed as humility.

“For some strange reason, salespeople who don’t stay humble and think their customers absolutely love them never seem to do as well as the down-to-earth, likeable ones,” he said. The best sales people, he points out, are genuine, authentic, and live by the motto, “You have to love your customers more than you think they love you.”

  1. You willingly sacrifice for it.

When you love what you do, you are excited about giving your time to it. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to give your time to other important things. It just means you have an instinctive pull to invest time into your work.

“I don’t just meet with someone once in my office and then never see them again until their case goes to trial,” Krist said. “I’m talking to them and visiting with them regularly and becoming part of their lives while their case is in the process.”

It’s been said that where your “treasure” is, that is where you’ll find your heart. In other words, if you look at where you’re spending your time and money, it will show you what you truly love. Krist said he said he often gets to know more about his clients than “their closest friends or their doctors,” and that type of connection makes the outcome of the cases very personal to him. In other words, his “treasure” is tied up in knowing and helping his clients, which is a good indication that he’s doing something he loves.

What about you? Are you willing to sacrifice your time and money to pursue your work? And is it driven by a sincere desire to serve others, not just yourself? If so, there’s a good chance you love what you do.

 

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The Hidden Value of Trust in Negotiations

“The Hidden Value of Trust In A Negotiation (DACA)”

When someone trusts you in a negotiation (you’re always negotiating), they’re more likely to believe what you tell them. Thus, there’s hidden value in trust when negotiating from a long-term perspective. Once trust is broken it’s difficult to regain it. Therefore, broken trust sets off negative ripples that can have unintended and unexpected consequences in the future.

Let’s look at the trust factor with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) as an example. The kids in the DACA program were brought to the US by their parents. In most cases, they had no input as to whether they would stay where they were, or travel to the US. They instinctively trusted their parents with that decision. Then, there’s the US government.

The US government basically said, if you register for the DACA program and abide by our requirements (i.e. check in every 2 years and make payment to stay in the program, go to college, serve in the military, stay employed, pay taxes), you’ll be OK in the US.

Some registered and some didn’t. Those in the DACA program trusted the government and abided by their mandate. Then, trust was thrust out the window. Those in the DACA program cried, ‘We did what you asked of us! Why are you going back on your word? We trusted you!’ Those that did not register for the program, if not stated out loud silently thought, ‘see, I told you so; you should not have trusted them. The government can’t be trusted. Now, the information you gave them will be used against you.’ The ripple that such a message sent to non-DACA members was, stay in the shadows and let the darkness protect you.

In the eyes of those in the program, the US government went back on its word and broke the trust it had conveyed. Suffice it to say, the ripples set forth from this situation will cause the government not to be trusted in future matters by different entities. They’ll mentally relate their situation to the resemblance of the DACA plight. That means those submitting information requested by the government will be skeptical at best and cynical at worse when contemplating a course of action that they should adopt. In essence, through the loss of trust, the government has made it more difficult for others to trust it.

If I tell you the truth, will you believe what I say and trust me? If my perception of the truth is altered in the future, will I be declared a liar? If so, what will become of our future negotiation efforts? Those are questions every negotiator needs to consider before and during a negotiation. That’s the hidden force that trust has on a negotiation.

When trust is the foundation upon which a negotiation is built, the truth becomes a happier companion in the negotiation. Therefore, when the truth as one knows it shifts, the shifting of the truth can still have believability.

Change allows you to embrace new experiences, and everything changes. Thus, what’s true today may be proven not to be valid tomorrow. Nevertheless, once trust has been established and nurtured by consistency, over a period of time change can withstand the onslaught of doubt and suspension. In so doing, even when your negotiations become difficult, you’ll have less of a challenge finding a path to success, simply because you had trust adding hidden value to your negotiation … and everything will be right with the world.

What are your takeaways? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

 “Without trust, failure awaits you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator and Body Language Expert

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