Orchestrating Success

Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change. – Stephen Covey

Leadership Blind Spots


In o…

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Nathan Hirsch from Free Up shares his outsourcing secrets.

Nate is the CEO of FreeeUp.com and the COO of Portlight. Nate has been an entrepreneur in the eCommerce industry since 2009 and has grown into a leading expert in the field with experience managing multi-million dollar businesses. He has extensive knowledge in creating business systems and processes, personnel management, hiring remote workers, the Amazon Marketplace, and advanced sales tactics. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge with others and has been featured on leading industry podcasts, webinars, and blogs.

Nate is determined to build FreeeUp into the top hands-on platform for hiring remote workers where thousands of businesses and remote workers are connected. If you’re interested in connecting with Nate, shoot him an email at Nathan@FreeeUp.com.

For more information go to https://freeeup.com

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It’s interesting to observe in the news accounts of politics the fact that people with opposing opinions both claim to be precisely correct. Is there a danger in claiming to be right?

I observe that there is typically common ground in diverse points of view and that many people don’t know how to get that perspective lost in the debate or argument about who is right and who is wrong.

Getting unstuck often is about observing reverse polarities.

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. – Saint Augustine

Is It One or the Other…Or Both?

Many times in interviewing leaders about their organizational culture, performance standards, and strategy, I get the response that there’s not sufficient time to write down the plan and it’s not important anyway. The response to my question as to why it’s not important typically is, “Too much structure interferes with my creativity.”

In my discipline as a musician, I understand that creativity is unleashed when the structure is clear. In addition, it’s crucial for the performer(s) to master the techniques and the notes, to then be able to be creative.

Balance is Key

My 4th leadership principle is about Systems, “Rehearse for Success.” It’s mastering the notes that leads to excellence in performance. We don’t utilize this concept in non-musical settings. We just go directly to performance and continue playing the wrong notes, so to speak. We continue to proceed by ignoring the very things that compromise our performance and limit our results.

There’s a natural tension between form and freedom. There are many ways to interpret this dynamic. As a musician, I’m able to process information by using both sides of my brain. Those who are not musicians consider us to be right-brain thinkers without structure, when, in fact, we must learn to be creative within a very rigid structure. Music is a highly structured and organized system that’s mathematical and linear, very much like computer programming.

This podcast is part one on the topic of the reverse paradigm of form versus freedom. I invite your comments as I explore the different ways this principle plays out in the cultures we lead.

Structure and Creativity

Here are some of the parameters for unleashing creativity through structure:

1. Structure Enables Creativity: If you have ever listened to a jazz ensemble, you might not have realized that this most creative of musical performance genres is actually very structured. To a non-musician, it seems as if there is no structure and the performers just make things up. Well, not true. The chord structure, the meter, the tempo, the form, and the melody, are just a few of the things that are structured. Mastering these elements allows each performer to then improvise around this structure. This is a simultaneous right/left brain function – being creative within a structure. Getting off the chord progression, or playing too loud when it’s not your solo, are reasons for not being invited to the next performance with that ensemble. Knowing the structure allows each performer to then be creative…they don’t need to spend energy thinking about what’s already defined. This is the same principle in non-musical settings: the structure prompts and encourages active engagement.
2. Consistency: Knowing the sequence and the milestones allows all the participants to coordinate efforts. The plan identifies what activities are concurrent and which are continuous. It also identifies what activities depend on the completion of other activities. This is necessary for consistency and synergy in the group’s performance.
3. Quality: When the outcomes are specifically defined, the benchmark for quality is a measurable objective. Quality, like artistry,

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Kelly Holmes on Networking

Home

Welcome to TEAM Referral Network, where we are passionate about networking and connecting you with the right professionals to grow your business. TEAM Referral Network was created in 2002 out of La Verne, California. That first chapter has grown to hundreds of chapters across the Western United States, with plans to expand nationally and internationally. TEAM Referral Network includes weekly meetings with your chapter, training programs, business development, and most importantly, quality business relationships.

The individual chapters are at the heart of TEAM and promote an environment for regular networking, building strategic partnerships, and promoting your business on a local level. Each chapter is comprised of business owners, just like you, who desire to support and grow their businesses together. Our chapters are exclusive in nature, where only one person per business category is allowed in each chapter. Traditionally, our chapters consist of local individuals, centers of influence, business owners/entrepreneurs, and corporations who physically meet on a regular basis. However, we have recently launched our virtual chapters, which employ online conferencing technologies and apps to allow networking to happen virtually! These online business networks bring the power of TEAM Referral Network to anyone and everyone!

There is so much more to TEAM Referral Network that happens outside of our chapter meetings. Members are encouraged to meet one-on-one with other members to get to know each other on a deeper level. The entire TEAM Referral Network has access to all members with the exclusive TEAM-sponsored member’s website. These “mini” websites give added value to your brand’s online presence and search engine rankings (SEO), as well as make it even easier for prospects to find your company online. TEAM Referral Network also provides regular business development trainings, as well as our annual “Big Event”, where keynote speakers and coaches challenge you to go to the next level with your business. TEAM Referral Network helps you exponentially expand your sphere of influence and grow your business referrals.

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Let’s focus on Success! That means accomplishing what we set out to accomplish!

According to the research…
D & B determined that 90% of entrepreneurs fail due to the lack of skill…
The Myer Foundation discovered that 45% of nonprofit leaders are burned out!

Others of are might be doing fine…
…we could do much better, if we only know what was missing.

I have been working with Social Entrepreneurs for 31+ years on 4 continents with many types of organizations.

I have discovered the common threads that limit their effectiveness, and consequently, their income. Organizations cannot develop any more than the leader’s ability to lead.

The Problems as I Have Discovered Are:
* Too Much to Do…
* No Team or Little Team…
* Insufficient Income…
* Relentless Stress…
* Not Sure What To Do About It…

So, I created a step-by-step course for busy people to get out of their current situation and create a different future.

I’ve called that program, “Unbound Leader: Unlocking Your Inner Potential for Success.”

In one way or another, we are all bound by conditions of our own making.

It’s time to do something different.

Look at my short video to see if this program is a fit for you
http://TheUnboundLeader.com

I’ll see you on the video…and then in the winner’s circle!

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Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.

– Emily Dickinson

Once, upon hearing a person tell me that he had worked continuously for four years with no vacation, I stopped to think about how unsuccessful that person appeared to be to me. Now, I fully realize that, to some people who enjoy their work, this might be a desired result – work all the time, because that’s what makes you feel good.

I prefer to think of life like a musical composition. It’s full of variety – tempo changes, dynamic variations, rests, fermatas, and more.

With a variety in life, the Transformational Leader is equipped to think clearly and respond to the challenges of leadership with a continuing fresh perspective.

My 4th leadership principle is “Balance.” This principle allows all the other principles to work. If we are burned out, we compromise our work. We owe it to ourselves to order our day, our week, our month, and our life.

Balance means thinking about the total self: spiritual, physical, mental, social, intellectual…and so forth. Caring for self is a priority if we want to be at our best as a leader and if we want to be fully present in the life that we create.

Caring for self is not being selfish. Caring for self is allowing us to be equipped to serve others in a more comprehensive and engaging way.`

TIP: If you plan to create variety in your life, the change of pace will empower you for challenges ahead for your leadership. Do not lag behind the curve; be prepared to lead the charge by being rested and focused.

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David A. Duryea is business improvement veteran with more than thirty-two years of experience in practical business improvement and technology innovation. He has led more than sixty business improvement and innovation projects in sixteen different industries.

As a legal expert witness for failed technology and business innovation projects, David has performed project forensics on failed implementations for over a dozen large-scale projects.

A popular speaker on business improvement, he has been featured at Computerworld, InfoWorld, and industry conferences. His articles in the area of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and advanced technology implementation practices have been featured.

David holds a patent from the United States Patent Office, degrees in business administration and computer science, and an MBA with a focus in project management. David is happily married with seven children, four of whom were adopted from China. He and his family live near Cleveland, Ohio. When not studying the intricacies of business improvement, he enjoys hiking, bicycling, baseball, coaching, and investing time in activities with his children.

His Business-Improvement Model
Part 1: Business Strategy Structure
Step 1 Understand the Law of Business Reality Organizations serve customers in a profitable way (balancequality and efficiency) or cease to exist.

Step 2 Understand the Target—The Core Business Model Why organizations generate profit different from their
competitors.

Step 3 Influencers of the Core Business Model Pressure and Enhancers on Performance

Step 4 Embrace Business Strategy and Structure Basis for Improvement—Whether Leaders Know It or Not

Part 2: Business Process Structure
Step 5 Common Processes and Functions of a Business Model The Law—Inherent to Process, Functions, and Operation

Step 6 Industry Processes of a Business Model Developing Industry Common Process Structure

Step 7 Core Business Model Processes Embrace for Uniqueness and Profitability

Step 8 Business Processes Influencers Influencing Process Structure, Performance , and Profitability

Step 9 The Business-Improvement Objective Change Operations to Further an Organization’s Core Business Model

Step 10 Business and Operational Performance The Performance Goal—Core Business Model Productivity

Step 11 True Operational Performance Measurement Measure the Goal: Core Business Model Productivity

Part 3: Business Enablement Structure
Step 12 Business Process Enablement: Resources to Realize the Core Business Model

The Interview Transcript
Interview with David Duryea
Hugh Ballou: It’s Hugh Ballou again. My guest tonight is a man I met through another person, his publicist. We talked a little bit, and I discovered we had a lot of values in common and we do similar work. We are going to talk about David Duryea’s new book that is out. I have a copy of this book, and it’s really good. It’s 200 pages of really, really well-researched, well-written content. The book is called- I’m getting to the cover. I’ve started reading and I am deep down into it. The cover is a light bulb, and it says Do the Right Thing. My guest on this podcast is David Duryea.
David, tell people a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to want to write this really great book Do the Right Thing.
David Duryea: Well, first of all, Hugh, thanks for having me on again. It’s been a great conversation and connection with you as well. Basically, Do the Right Thing is doing the right thing in business improvement, including process and technology. I would have to say that I came up with the idea, or at least the inklings of the idea, somewhere around the late ‘90s, believe it or not, when we were in the heydays of putting in a lot of different technologies. Dot coms were coming up as well, and we were doing a lot of implementations. I also saw at the same time a very high failure rate.

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Leadership is a container, which supports healthy growth for people like a garden supports healthy growth for plants. Planting the seeds is just the beginning. The health depends on constant feeding and care. – Hugh Ballou

We are leaders because we have a vision and act on that vision. Out of every 100 people who have an idea, only 3 will do something about it. Out of the 3 that act on their vision, less than 10% will succeed. If you are leading a functioning organization, then you are in a very small segment of those who dream. Many people dream and few succeed.

Insuring success comes with a price – that is equipping yourself for success. Define the strategy and develop the skills for implementing that strategy. After all, your vision will not happen if you don’t make it happen.

The price, your investment, is risk mitigation, in the viewpoint of an investor. Your investment is creating clarity with careful, strategic, planning and implementation. Very few of us, if any, can do this alone. I teach strategy and leadership implementation. I can’t do those things for myself with either of my enterprises – a for-profit or nonprofit. I need specialists in those skills to assist me in gaining objective perspective, to identify my blind spots, and to fill in the gaps in my thinking and awareness.

When I interview potential clients, I typically ask the following questions:
1. What is your vision?
2. Identify your competition?
3. What makes you different from the competition?
4. What’s the gap between today and the realization of your vision?
5. Do you have a written strategic plan?

Often, I get the following responses:
1. Lots of unclear, rambling thoughts that are unclear and not specific.
2. Lack of knowledge or denial of competition
3. A description that could apply to thousands of others.
4. Unsure of what’s next.
5. There’s no written plan, but I know what I want. A written plan will limit my creativity. Also, I’m to busy to do this?

Here’s how I reply:
1. Until you can identify your vision and people can understand why they need you, there’s no reason to do anything further.
2. If there’s no competition, then there might not be a need.
3. You sound like a lot of others, why do you need to launch (or grow) you initiative?
4. It’s what you don’t know that will compromise or even block your success.
5. There’s no success without a strategy in writing and an integration of that plan with team performance.

If a leader is not willing to invest in the “upfront cost” of building a solid foundation for the enterprise, then why should they expect to succeed? You can’t build a house with no solid foundation and expect that it will last for long. You can’t, or shouldn’t attempt to fly a plane without taking flying lessons. And, certainly you can’t launch and grow a successful enterprise without preparation and hard work…much of which comes at the beginning.

The “Upfront Cost” is by far lower that the cost to replace or repair later on. The loss of time, money, and likely in relationships is far greater.

Why not invest in success?

Check out my Unbound Leader program to learn the process for success at http://TheUnboundLeader.com 

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Sandy Papavero works with excited entrepreneurs who have a passion for their business but might not have the experience to manage the financial part of their business. Unfortunately most entrepreneurs I meet aren’t even aware that they are driving themselves into debt, or at least leaving themselves open for massive financial stresses in the future, simply because they didn’t understand the business of their business.

The Interview Transcript

Ep 61, Interview with Kelli Holmes
Hugh Ballou: Hey there. This session of “Orchestrating Success: Converting Your Passion to Profit” is an interview with my longtime friend, Kelli Holmes, a longtime friend who I haven’t seen in a number of years. We just connected on email and said, “Let’s tell people what we need to know about getting outside of our office to connect with those people who are so important to our business but we don’t know.” We call it networking. Kelli, welcome to my podcast.
Kelli Holmes: Thanks, Hugh. Wow. Fantastic to be here. Great to see you. Don’t we love technology? We can see each other with being thousands of miles apart. It’s great.
Hugh: I’m in Virginia, and you’re where in California?
Kelli: Just outside of LA in a sleepy town called La Verne.
Hugh: Oh yeah. We in the South think California is another country.
Kelli: Sometimes in California we think California is another country.
Hugh: Kelli, tell us your company name. It’s a really cool name.
Kelli: TEAM Referral Network. TEAM stands for the motto “Together, Everyone Achieves More.”
Hugh: I love it. What does this company do?
Kelli: We primarily help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and independent contractors—those in some way, shape, or form responsible for generating their own success—by teaching them how to network effectively and build valuable business relationships that can build and grow their business. It’s really through the power of relationships and referrals. We are known for networking groups and events. Our marketing path is through the word of mouth and networking opportunities.
Hugh: Awesome. There is a crossover here. I teach that leadership is basically building relationships. I talk about the pathway to revenue is built on relationships.
Kelli: Absolutely.
Hugh: Communication is based on relationships. There is a hand and glove with my methodology and what you actually do in real life. How did Kelli get interested in building this networking business? You have been doing this 19 years?
Kelli: No, 15 years. We just celebrated our 15th anniversary last week at our signature event. It’s an annual event, but last week’s event we turned into a 15th anniversary celebration.
I have a very typical entrepreneurial story. 15 years ago, knowing that I loved this type of business and working with entrepreneurs and there is a lot of networking groups and choices out there, how do we build a better mousetrap so to speak? We decided to start TEAM Referral Network based not only on the premise of better networking and relationship building and referrals to grow your business, but also how to insert better technology. 15 years ago, there was a different picture in terms of the technology landscape, and we were able to be pretty cutting edge with what we brought to the table and to put heart into it by working with nonprofits. We have opened hundreds and hundreds of chapters of TEAM Referral Network, and our goal is to plug in a nonprofit to each of those chapters, donate the membership to them, teach them to network, and connect them with a great group of businesspeople in our community to further their organization. It was adding the community outreach plus technology on a traditional theme of networking events and groups that started TEAM Referral Network.
Hugh: I love it. What is your secret power that brings energy to networking?
Kelli: My personal philosophy is a lot of people confuse networking with relationship marketing.

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A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is an ongoing conversation that comes up with about every organization that I work with. I find that people universally don’t understand the concept of consensus and confuse it with compromise. In fact, many leaders consider either on to be a weakness of leadership rather than a strength of an influencer leader.

Most groups attempt to utilize the principles and processes outlined in Robert’s Rules of Order, which is a time honored system of best practices. Utilizing consensus strengthens the Robert’s system.

When there are active, caring, engaged individuals working together and having meetings, there will be differing perspectives and opinions on things. This is a good thing. It’s the leader’s duty and delight to utilize those perspectives into a synergistic collaboration in which everyone understands the challenges and the benefits of every decision and backs the process. Consensus builds relationships. Compromise erodes relationships.

It will be obvious which side of this debate I fall on…consensus is giving consent to a decision. Many feel that compromise and consensus are the same. I disagree.

Despite my revealed opinion on this topic, I trust that you will be interested to see how I distinguish these two standards.

The comparisons to musical ensembles might make sense to you if you are a musician. If you are not a musician, then you might have some misconceptions of how the system works. The musical conductor is perceived by non-musicians, and some musicians, to be a dictator when, in reality, the musical conductor is an influencer. We influence singers and instrumentalists to function at their highest level. That’s a form of consensus.

Compromise is…
Everyone giving up something in order to agree on a decision
A Win/Lose or Lose/Lose
Holding to a view point and bargaining for middle ground
Like a tug of war
Bargaining
Power plays
Personal needs/opinion positioning
Everyone loses something
More talking than listening
A contractual legalistic agreement

Consensus is…
Everyone coming up with a better solution than each had originally conceived
A Win/Win or No Deal
Looking for additional options and not holding fast to an opinion
Open and honest conversation
Listening for options
Open to options
Holding the value for the organization and not for self
Everyone gains more than originally perceived
A group process of open conversation and decision backed by relationship
A covenant agreement and relationship

Consensus means that the individuals in the group function like a musical ensemble, in that they carefully listen to each other player/singer and adjust their playing for blend, tempo, dynamic, and tone, and don’t give up their excellence in musicianship. The synergy created by seeking and practicing consensus building, builds a culture that functions at a higher level and develops mutually agreeable accountabilities and standards of excellence.

By facilitating this process, the leader reaches a higher level of functioning by not micromanaging group process, but guides the process much like the conductor guides the ensemble. Conductors don’t make the music; they provide the leadership for musical excellence to happen.

Leadership is influence.

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