When I work with executive teams,  I uncover obstacles to execution that the team are  just not seeing.

They are too close to it.  Here’s a common one…

Who is capable?

I want to talk about what happens when the GM and the executives don’t share a view of who is capable at the next level down, and what to do about it.

Here’s how this often goes…

My team is stuck in the weeds…

I talk to the General Manager and they are concerned that the executives who report to them are stuck in the details and tactics — that they need to step up, think and work more strategically, and delegate better.

I would love to delegate, but cant…

Then I talk to the executives and learn that they would LOVE to delegate more, but feel trapped because some of their people are not capable enough.  They also feel like they don’t have the ability or support to make changes.

Expectations Diverge…

So the GM is thinking that the execs are upgrading talent where necessary, but the exec’s are not making changes to staff because they think there is some reason they can’t or shouldn’t — that they need to work with the people they already have.

Different views of key players

Also, often there is a key player that the exec trusts but the GM doesn’t, so there is lots of questioning or second guessing from above.

Or sometimes it’s that the GM has a “favorite” that the exec sees as not performing, so feels like their hands are tied to do anything about it.

Execution slows or stalls

This shoots the whole strategy in the foot.

The work of getting the strategy executed never quite lands in the right place.

Managers know they should delegate, but if they don’t have people capable of delegating to, they will jump in to get the work done personally.

They strain under the workload because they are doing too much of the work personally.  They attempt to do their strategic work AND to “cover” for the weaker players on the team.

The strategic stuff takes ultimately takes a back seat to the current, urgent work.  And the GM remains frustrated that the execs are still in the weeds.

A really straightforward way fix this

1. You’re allowed and required. As a manager, accept as a fundamental truth that you should have confidence that you can delegate to every single person on your team and trust the outcome.

2. Get really clear about your players. Answer the following questions for each person:

• What is my level of trust and confidence to delegate to this person?
• If not 100%, what is the issue? What types of things break down?

• What is the risk to the business if this person doesn’t deliver well?
• Will training work?

• Does my boss trust this person?  If no, why not?

• What is my recommendation for this person/role?
  • Train the person
  • Eliminate and get a new person

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3. Review it! Then (here is the magic), sit down with your boss and review these assessments for every single person on your team.

Get your boss’s opinion about these questions for each person.  Talk it out.  Get aligned.

Don’t guess.  Find out.

Don’t make assumptions that you can’t fire people because your boss likes them, or that you are not allowed.

Don’t make assumptions that your boss does or doesn’t trust someone on your team without asking specifically.

This saves so much time and heart ache.

Get all the opinions and concerns (yours and your boss’s) out on the table and then act. Get a plan.

Reduce Execution Risk

You and your boss need to be in lock step to make sure that you both trust every single person on your team to be delegated to.

• If you trust them, but your boss doesn’t, you are going to get stuck in the work because your boss will demand that you check up, or show up personally.
• If your boss trusts them, but you don’t, you are going to get stuck in the work, because you are going to feel the need to check up on them and re-do the work.

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It’s your job to build the team that can deliver what the strategy requires.

See Also: Strategy into Action

Don’t let different expectations about who is trusted get in the way.  Find out and then build the right team.

I also often talk about the importance of “Thinking like a General Manager.”

But, I haven’t really spelled it out…

If you are thinking like a General Manager, what would you be thinking about?

Think Broad, not Deep

Even if you don’t want to be a General manager…

If you want to make a relevant, significant contribution, and advance your career, you should think like a General Manager –  no matter what role or level you are at.

You need to understand broadly what drives the business,  so you can really understand how and where your piece fits in, how to add the most value, and communicate better outside your team.

Questions to ask

To help you get started, I put together a list of questions that a General Manager would want to know about the business.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list to manage the business by.   I haven’t included analysis of Financial Statements or Cash Flow.  This is about understanding what makes the business go, across the whole business.

How does the company make money?

1. How does your company make money?
2. What are your sources of revenue? How much does each provide?
3. What are your sources of profit?  How much does each provide?
4. What things are your company’s fixed expenses?
5. What things are your company’s variable expenses?
6. Where do you and your department fit in the expense picture?
7. Where do you and your department fit in the revenue generation process?
8. What can you do personally or with your department to impact revenue or profit?

Geography

9. Where in the world does your business operate? What things happen in which locations?
10. How is the revenue split among geographies?
11. How is the profit split among geographies?
12. What are the advantages that geographically dispersed workforce offers your company?
13. What are the biggest operational challenges the company faces with geographically dispersed teams?
14. What are the cultural considerations that impact how you operate in each geography?

Market

15. What markets does your company compete in?
16. Are your markets growing, shrinking or flat?  Why?
17. How does your company’s growth compare to market growth?
18. What are the risks of your primary market changing and being less available over time?
19. How will you know? What are the most important triggers or changes in your markets to be watching for?
20. What is your primary advantage in the markets you serve?
21. What is your biggest competitive disadvantage in the markets you serve?
22. Where are the biggest opportunities for new markets?

Value Proposition & Strategy

23. How do you measure if your customers are successful? For them? For you?
24. How do your customers define whether or not their purchase was successful?
25. How much does your product cost the customer over the lifetime of owning it?
26. What is the most important thing the customer relies on your product or service to do for them?
27. How well does the customer think you do at what is most important to them?
28. How does the customer measure the ROI of your product?
29. Who are your most successful customers? Are they profitable?
30. Who are your most profitable customers?  Are they successful?
31. How do your customers describe why they bought your product (or service)?

Competition & Market Perception

32. Who is talking most about your product space externally? What are they saying?
33. How do prospects in your market talk about you vs. your competitors?
34. What is being said about your company and products on message boards, blogs, and other social media?
35. What can you do personally to improve the discussion about your company and offers?
36. Who are your direct competitors? What are your indirect competitors?
37. How do your competitors answer these 100 questions?

Sales

38. How is your product sold? What are the steps in the process? How long does it take?
39. How much of your product is sold directly by your company?
40. What partners and other channels sell your product?
41. Which are the biggest sales channels?
42. What is the cost of each sales channel per dollar of revenue? Which are the most profitable?
43. Which channels provide the biggest source of referrals and new customers?
44. How are your internal sales people measured and paid?
45. How are your sales channel partners measures and paid?
46. How can they each make the biggest bonus or commission?
47. How do you get information from sales into your team?
48. How does your company train its sales channels?
49. What could you or your department do to make the sales team more successful?

Marketing

50. How much do you spend in marketing relative to others in your market?
51. What are the most important things Marketing is doing this year?
52. What are the key marketing messages that are being promoted?
53. How does your company use the web and social media to connect with customers and prospects?
54. How is the Marketing organization measured?
55. What are the most and least successful marketing programs?
56. Who are the key industry analysts, mavens, spokespeople for your market? What do they say about you?

Finding Customers

57. How does your company find new customers?
58. What does Marketing do to find new customers?
59. What does Sales do to find new customers?
60. What makes your current customers refer new prospects?
61. Do your customer support or services organizations uncover new leads? Could they?
62. How can you personally help find new customers?

Service and Support

63. How do you provide support and service to your customers?
64. Which types of support do customers prefer?
65. Does your company invest to provide service as a competitive advantage or treat it as only as a cost?
66. What is the cost of support for each product line?  Which have the highest support costs? Why?
67. Does the cost of support align with the profitability of the product?
68. Are there any bad support practices which damage customer relationships?
69. Are there any product issues which create too many support and service needs?
70. Do you make money on Support? How?
71. Do you make money on Service? How?
72. Do you give away service and support to generate new business?
73. How are the service and support teams measured and paid?

Product Development

74. How much do you spend on Product Development relative to other companies in your market?
75. What is the product development team measured on?
76. How does the product development team decide what to build?
77. How does the product development team deliver to schedule commitments?
78. How does the product development team get input/feedback from customers?
79. How does the product development team measure and track quality?

Supply Chain & Manufacturing

80. How does your product get built?
81. Is cost of with building your product a either competitive advantage or dis-advangage?
82. How are costs measured and tracked?
83. How is quality measured and tracked?
84. Who are all of the vendors and partners involved?
85. Which are the largest partners/suppliers?
86. Which partners or suppliers have you as their biggest customer?  Smallest?
87. On what basis are vendors and component parts selected?
88. On what basis are suppliers chosen?
89. What is the method of communicating with partners?

Distribution Channels

90. How does your product actually get to the end users/consumers?
91. How long does it take between customer order, customer payment, and receipt of goods?
92. Is your distribution process a competitive advantage in your business or not?
93. What are your distribution mechanisms and technologies?
94. What is the speed and cost of each?
95. Which do the customers prefer?

Technology

96. What are the key technologies that your business depends upon?
97. What aspects of your technology create the most risk in your business?
98. How do the IT costs relate to the business objectives?
99. How can/does technology provide a competitive advantage to your business?
100. How can/does technology provide a cost advantage in your business?

Some actions to take with this list:

• Make sure everyone on your team knows how the company makes money – this is so important if you want your team to contribute to the business in a meaningful way.
• Give a section of this list to a high performer as a development exercise.  Have them go get the answers and then educate your team.
• Invite a person from another area of the company into your staff meeting, and use these questions to start a discussion and learn how their group works.
• Personally meet people in other functions and use this list to start a discussion to learn what they care about.

Why does this matter?

By thinking like a GM you will:

• Get better ideas for how to add value to the business.  See connections you would otherwise miss.  Always be working on things that are most important to the business.
• Be able to speak in the language of the business. Talk about what you do in a way that really matters to others. Be more relevant. Negotiate better.
• Rally your team around a bigger purpose. Motivate them, show them how what they do fits into the overall strategy.

Have more impact, and build career capital

Thinking like a General Manager, by definition puts you on a broader playing field and reveals issues and opportunities beyond your function you would not otherwise notice.

It gives you an opportunity to connect and communicate with the the business so that you improve both your results and your status.

Please add your ideas for thinking like a General Manager as a comment on the blog.

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At some point the world will change and you will be in a re-organization.

Get support before you get buried

When I talk about my DO Better, LOOK Better, CONNECT Better model, I know people struggle with this (support) part.

They sigh and think, I really should do this, but I don’t have the time.

It gets put on the back burner, because it doesn’t feel like part of the day job.

Excellent work alone does not protect you

It’s happened to me.  I’ve been buried.  My results were outstanding, but they were not visible or relevant to the people making the decisions.  My work mattered to me and my team, but not to them.

The world changes and you get pushed down a level, or your job gets smaller, or you’re pushed out entirely.

My heart always goes out to people in this situation, and when they ask me for advice, and I give them some ideas about what they can do to make the best of it right now.  But then I reluctantly tip-toe into that, “Take this as learning, and don’t let this happen again”, place.

My annoying lecture goes something like this:

Air Cover

If you had been creating more air cover (people at high levels that know you and care about your career), and building your credibility and relevance over time, you might not be in this position…

Someone in a position of power might have said, Wait, we need to watch out for this person.

This person is really valuable, and if we just put them somewhere organizationally convenient for us, but bad for their career, we run the risk of losing them.  We need to create a spot for them in the new organization that does not feel like a step down.

That’s what you want to happen in a re-org.

If you want some additional help building this type of support, check out the free resources at the bottom of this article, but in short…

How to build support

Let’s face it, the urgent stuff typically falls into the DO Better category – get the work done, deal with the crisis, close the deal, respond to the customer.

Then the tasks to build support both in LOOK Better — necessary to build your credibility and relevance, and in CONNECT Better — to build a strong network of support,  get pushed aside.

A tempting trap – the “high ground”

It’s tempting to work this way because it feels like you are doing the right thing because you are working really hard and delivering results.

Or sometimes people feel like they don’t want to be one of those people protecting their job, instead of doing their job.  That is not what I am talking about.

Take care of the future now

OK, so since we can’t travel back in time, let’s work on taking care of the future.  Don’t wait until you are in a bad situation.

Act now:

• Do an Assessment.  How much air cover do you have?  Do you have a relationship with your boss’s boss or boss’s peers?  Do you have relationships with people running other organizations?
• What is the context for talent assessment in your company? Who is in the room when people at your level are talked about?  Do you have a good relationship with any of those people?  How many of them know who you are?
• Do you have a mentor?

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Start finding ways to meet and engage with these people, and get at least one of them to be a mentor — to officially care about what happens to you.

It’s not just politics

Before you start heading for high ground again and saying, that’s politics.  I don’t do politics.  Remember that high Credibility and Relevance are not just about protecting your job.  They as much, or even more about increasing your effectiveness.

They let you get more, higher value work done.  They are necessary to deliver the RIGHT results that decision makers care about.

Even though you are really busy with the work, it’s important to remember that this is a vital part of your job longevity and success.

Communicate with Stakeholders

In my Career Workshop, we cover the concept of a Stakeholder Communication Plan™

Know who your stakeholders and influencers are and communicate with them on purpose, consistently, in ways that they find valuable.  Be relevant, to them by visibly working on things that matter to them.

Build your credibility by having a strong Personal Brand, clear communications and executive presence.

You are better off

This is not a perfect system.  For example, when a company gets acquired it is often assumed either that 1. all the people in the acquired company are stupid, and all the good jobs go to managers in the parent company, or 2. that all the incumbents are stupid, so all the good jobs go to the people in the new company and all the “legacy” people get pushed out.

Or sometimes your mentors retire, or your Air Cover leaves the company and you need to start again.

You can’t always stay on top in an re-org, but you are always much better off if you have relationships and air cover than if you don’t.

With the right support there is a chance you will land on your feet.

Have a head start, at least

Even if you don’t land well in the new organization, you have a huge head start of connections, useful knowledge, relationships,  and good will in your network, with the people who can quickly help you find a different job.

I encourage you to spend a few hours a month on these things to put yourself in the strongest possible position, and to develop relationships with key people BEFORE you need their help.

Some FREE Resources to build Air Cover

I’ve collected some articles below that can help you focus on the LOOK Better and CONNECT Better aspects of building enough air-cover so that you will have more organizational clout and support when the world changes.

Communicating with Stakeholders
Do you stand out enough?
Don’t be boring
Fight the Bull
Don’t bury the lead

Being Relevant
Responsive or Reactive?
Be more Relevent

Bulding Credibility
Executive Presence
Tuning your Personal Brand

Building Support
Authentic Networking
5 Mentors Everyone Needs

Additional Help

If you want some help fitting this type of work into your schedule, check out:

Career Year of Action Guide

The Career Year of Action Guide will help you plan your time to optimize your DO Better tasks, to get more of the right, highest value work done, AND help you make time for the necessary LOOK Better and CONNECT better tasks, to build credibility, relevance and grow your network of support.

Membership

And if you want to get monthly reminders and direct support from me to keep your career on track, become a member.

Are your colleagues evil or just incompetent?

OK,”evil” is too strong a word, but what about those people that are “guilty”.

Guilty of not supporting you, putting obstacles in your way, and failing to deliver what they said they would?

Assumptions drive outcomes

Your assumptions about someone’s guilt or competence drive your reactions, your behaviors, and therefore the outcomes you get.

For example:  If your spouse gets home really late without calling:

• If you presume innocence, you might worry that they are dead on the side of the road, and be hugely relieved and super-nice to them when they return.
• If you presume guilt you might think they are lying and cheating, and throw their clothes out on the lawn and lock the door.

What will you do?

How useful will your rage and accusations be if they got a flat tire and their cell phone battery died?

This type of mis-understanding happens all the time in business.

When someone makes a decision that harms you, or seems to be ignoring you, or goes back on a commitment, there is a tendency to assume the worst – They did it on purpose with full knowledge that it is bad for you.   Guilty!

I reconstructed the table below from something I saw many years ago, but have been unable to find again.  (If anyone knows where this comes from please let me know and I will fully attribute it!)

Why not Presume Innocence First?

Get some data.

Find out what really happened before you jump to the conclusion that the person is an evil mastermind, plotting against you, on purpose, with great skill and precision.

For example:

If a colleague promised to give you some help on something that was vitally important to you, and then failed to do so:

If you think they are Guilty and Competent…

You might believe that they knew exactly what they were doing, and chose to leave you hanging.  They lied.  You might think that they are setting you up to fail, to ruin your reputation, or keep you from succeeding or advancing.  They don’t care about you.

You might get angry and accuse them of doing the wrong thing on purpose.

You might confront them, or pick a fight.  You might start telling other people what a selfish, closed-minded jerk they are.  You might try to find a way to get back at them, or harm their reputation.

But what if you were wrong?…

What if they are Innocent?

If you start with the presumption that they are innocent, you might think: There must be a reason they didn’t they do what they said they would do.

You would want to find out what happened.

What do they know that you don’t? What changed since the agreement?

You might learn that there was a good reason they didn’t do what was expected, and that they are still planning to help you.  Or they did do it, but it got blocked somewhere before it reached you.  Or someone down the line changed it, or gave you the wrong information about what happened.

Good Outcome:

With the knowledge that this is a competent person with good intentions, you can still get what you need, because you didn’t piss them off by telling them how horrible they are.  You didn’t throw them under the bus.

You preserved the relationship by being respectful and focused on the facts and the outcome. You might have even learned something about how the system works, so you can avoid this happening again.

If you had presumed Guilt and you were wrong…

You could have made an enemy out of a competent person who can actually help you.
You could have burned up a lot of energy, only to ruin a valuable relationship and dig a hole for yourself.

Not only wouldn’t you get what you needed, you might also have damaged your own reputation by speaking badly of someone who is highly respected.

What if they are just Incompetent?

It’s tempting to jump to the Evil Genius conclusion when someone’s actions harm you.

But, if you start with the presumption that the person is incompetent, not out to get you, just unable to help you, you might think differently.  Although the person didn’t do what was agreed, it wasn’t malicious.

Find out what really happened.

What got in the way?  Did they try?

They, in fact, had the best of intentions.  You might find out they just didn’t get to it yet.  They might be overwhelmed with other things. Or that they didn’t realize what the measure of success or quality was.  They did their best but messed something up. Perhaps the task was simply beyond them.

You might offer some assistance to them.  Help them help you.  You could give them another chance.

Good Outcome:

It’s still frustrating if you didn’t get what you need, but as least you have not wrongly accused someone of malicious intent.

With the facts, you might both decide that after all, that as much as they’d like to help, they actually don’t have the capability to help you.  You move on, you move forward.

If you had presumed competence and were wrong…

You would blame them for choosing not to help, instead of understanding that they didn’t harm you on purpose.  You wouldn’t get what you needed and you might have made an enemy of a person who was inclined to help you.

Get the facts before you react

In my experience, you always get a better outcome if you presume Innocence first.  And you most definitely get a better outcome if you get the facts about why things happened the way they did before you make any judgment, about someone’s Guilt or Competence.

If you presume innocence first, you are more likely to be able to get the facts because you won’t be putting people off, or making them defensive in the process.  Then you’ll have real data to work from.

But what if they ARE guilty?

If after you get the facts, you discover they are indeed Guilty — they really don’t support you, they are ignoring you on purpose, they are out to sabotage your career, make you look bad, or throw you under the bus, you’ll have more facts to deal with that too!

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10 IDEAS FROM THE WEBINAR:

HAVE MORE INFLUENCE

Dowload the PODCAST to learn:

Get More of the Right Stuff Done

1. Influence is one of those career lessons that no one ever seems to tell you about directly. Know that this is part of your job no matter what your level. Without strong influence skills you get stuck.

2. Be more effective – Get more work done. You need to multiply your resources.  If you rely only on what you and your team can deliver directly, you will fall behind. We talked about how to get more people working for you!

3. Broaden Your Impact. You need to look at your work in the context the bigger business needs, and increase the breadth and value of the outcomes you drive.  We covered how to demonstrate an impact beyond your team.

4. Sell Your Ideas. Having good ideas is very different than successfully selling them and getting them acted upon. You need influence skills to get your ideas adopted by the organization.

Manage Your Career

5. Influence Perceptions – Managing how others perceive you is vital to your career growth. Use your influence skills to do this on purpose. See also Tuning Your Personal Brand.

6. Win the Promotions - Know that ability to influence is a key factor in deciding who is promotable.  If you are not seen as someone who has support across the organization with broad influence, you will get passed over.  See also Manage Your Career

How to Influence

7. Control vs. Motivation. The most important thing is to give people a reason to personally care, and WANT to help you, whether or not they report to you.   If people care, they will deliver for you.  We talked about tactics for how to motivate people to want to help you.

8. Be a Communicator. The more you share knowledge, reach out to people and communicate, the more you will be seen as giving back to the organization, doing important things, and being someone worth helping.

9. How to get others to do work for you – We talked about a number of tactics to get people  to help even when they are not motivated.  A big piece of this is being gracious in your request and grateful in your follow-up.

10. Time, Trust, Relationships – Influence does not happen over night.  We talked about the things you need to be doing over time to build up your ability to influence.  Understand the power structure across your organization and start communicating and building relationships now.

How YOU can increase your influence NOW.

• Download the PODCAST for details on what to do and how to do it.
• Download the  WORKSHEETS to plan your specific actions and communications.
• Download the Career Year of Action Guide to help you use your time better.
  Give yourself the time to do what is necessary beyond your job description to be successful.

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* Be a Better Leader
* Be More Effective
* Build your Network
* Get a Better Job
* Grow your Business

All downloads are FREE to members.

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When I was in my early 20’s I learned an important lesson.

I was working in a start-up company and had gone 3 years without a raise.

The wrong way…

I went to the CEO and asked for a raise.

He said, Why?

Among other things,  I said that I had been working for 3 years without a raise, and that I had taken on more and more responsibility over that time, and that I always delivered and often exceeded expectations.  I told him it was becoming un-motivating to feel I was working so hard and not moving forward in pay, and peers in other companies were making more money than I was…

He said, I don’t’ care.  It’s not my problem. I only care about what the cost is to replace you, and I could replace you for your salary or less –  so no raise.

(In reality I was valued more than that conversation would lead you to believe, and ultimately got rewarded for it, but I was being taught an important lesson.)

Your job is a contract with your company

You don’t get a raise for good attendance, or because you feel like you deserve one.

You earn a raise by increasing the value of your contribution.

And if you want to get that raise, you need to re-negotiate your contract on terms that are relevant and valuable to your company, not based on what you want or need. And you have to ask.

1. YOU Drive the process

If you are uncomfortable having this conversation with your boss either get comfortable with it, do it anyway, or don’t be disappointed if you get overlooked.

Know that you are at a disadvantage by not having this conversation.

It is vitally important that you and your boss share a common view of your performance and your expectations for promotion and compensation, even if your boss does not drive this discussion.  Of the 20-something years I worked in a corporation for a boss, I did my own performance review 17 times, just to make sure that there were never any disconnects.

2. Understand how you and your role are perceived

It is important to know if you are perceived as a high, average or low performer.  Don’t ever guess about this. There should never be any surprises about this. Find out.

Even in an economy where there are not a lot of raises going around, you still need to be communicating with your boss about your performance and what it is worth, so when there is money, you have done all the groundwork.

Also make sure you know how much your ROLE is valued by the company. For example you don’t want to be the superstar performer leading the support team for an obsolete product.  You may be great, but need to move into a higher valued role to get a raise.

Once you confirm that you are a high performer then go on to build your case for what you want.  If you are not perceived as a high performer – fix that first.  Understand what it takes, and focus on adding value, before you start asking for things.

3. Discuss your raise as part of a business outcome

The basic premise here is:

If I do this, what is it worth to the company?

Here are some things you can say:

• Last year, this is what I accomplished and this is my current compensation.
• I would like to raise the bar for the upcoming year, and deliver more value to the company.
• And If I were to add these additional business outcomes, exceed these goals, etc, would that be worth more to the company?  How much more?
• What business outcome would I need to accomplish that would be worth this level of pay, or this promotion?
• Can we agree that if I deliver this, you will give me that?

4. Follow up on the specfics…

• 9 months ago, we agreed on performance objectives which if accomplished would
  result in increased compensation.
• I believe I have delivered on all of these and then some,  and I also took on this additional project which has benefited the company by increasing our margin on this product line.
• Do you agree? Can I get your feedback on my accomplishments? … (Assuming it’s very positive then…..)
• Will you be increasing my compensation for next year, per our agreement?

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If the answer is, No, for some reason outside performance, you need to get a next agreement.

As long as you keep focused on business outcomes, you are on the high ground.

• If your hands are tied right now, I would like to understand the timeline of what is possible, and if it’s not a raise, is there [stock, bonus, promotion, etc.] that could be possible?
• I’m very motivated, but I think you can understand that at some point this level of performance will be hard to keep delivering if it is not recognized by the company, what do you advise?
• You have my commitment to keep delivering for you, but I can you help me understand what I can expect over time in terms of the company being able to hold up our prior agreement about my performance and compensation?

And my personal favorite…

• If you were in my position, how long would YOU keep performing at this level with my current compensation?

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Note to high performers:

One of the hazards of being a high performer is that your career advances quickly, and you are always at the bottom of the pay curve.

Your company acts like it is doing you a favor by taking a chance on you in a bigger role (and in the beginning they are), but then you can get stuck. You end up performing at or above the level of your peers and getting paid far less.

It is up to you to show the value of your work and re-negotiate your contract based on the business outcomes you deliver, instead of the history of how you got into the role.

Focus on what you are delivering,  and mention the fact that you are not getting any slack for having less time in the job, or delivering any less value than your peers.  You should be paid what the job is worth.

Two things to never do

1.  I need a raise because my mortgage has adjusted, I had another child, I am supporting my extended family…  Your company does not, and should not care what you spend your money on.  They only care about the value you deliver.

2. Give me a raise or I’ll quit.  This can work… if you are serious.  But you better actually quit if you don’t get the raise.  If you don’t quit, you will have caused so much bad will, and lost so much credibility that your career at that company will never quite recover.  And that story will be part of your back-channel reference forever after too.

There are many reasons that good strategies fail.

They range from, poor communication, lack of alignment, difficulty with change, underestimating resources required, failing to train people, running out of time…

But at the heart of all these things is:

How much do your employees care?

If your employees don’t personally care about what you are trying to do, it’s not likely to get done well, on time, or at all.

Give your people a reason to care

Here’s a good example:

The dreaded Mission Statement

You are probably already rolling your eyes at the thought of this…

This can become one of the most draining, irritating, and lame activities you can engage a management team in, and often results in a statement that reads something like:

To be the leading provider of the most innovative products in our space, with outstanding customer service, and the most efficient operations, therefore maximizing shareholder value.

OK employees…Now, hop to it!  (yeah, right.)

The trick is to actually care

If you want a mission that employees care about and can act on, the trick is to start with something you actually care about.

When I work with management teams on this, we start with the question “What do you personally care about?  Why are you here?”

Your employees will never care if your executives don’t.

Your team won’t care if you don’t.

You don’t need to call it a mission statement, but you do need to stand for something and care about something for real, if you want your people to spring into action, solve problems for you and drive the momentum you need in your business.

1. Define your strategy in terms people CAN care about.

If you care about customer service and believe that it is a competitive advantage then say so, and ask for help.

We are going to provide a level of personalized customer service for our products that is so good that our customers are shocked by it. We believe this is our key competitive opportunity.  Providing outrageous levels of service compared to the industry will grow our business, and we will be profitable doing it.

Now you can ask your employees to start solving this puzzle for you.

It gives them something dig into.  It gives them a way to engage.  It gives them something that they can care about too.

2. Talk about why you are here.

Why, personally are you here? at this company? in this organization? What are you trying to do?  Why does it matter to you? What are your values as a leader and as a human?

If you are willing to share your core values, your employees will care more.

You are giving them a basis to support you.  When they talk about work at the dinner table, YOU are the company, much more than anything else is.

If you stand for something they can care about, they will care.  If you only ever talk about projects and schedules, there is nothing for them to personally connect with or care about.

3. Talk about what excellence means to you, and why?

What is it that makes you proud of what you and your team delivers?  What is most important to YOU that your business stands for and shows the world?

Is it innovation? is it service?  is it quality? is it an externally validated proof that you are the best? What embarrasses you?  What do you believe is wrong that other companies do?  Why?

If you want your employees to step up, they need to understand why it matters.

So many managers struggle to get their employees to work at the same level of competence and quality that they personally deliver.  Your employees will never care about rising to your level of excellence unless you really show them why it’s personally important to you to operate at this level of excellence.

What if you don’t care?

If you don’t really care about your work or your company, if you are only there because you need the money, remember, while they are paying you, it is your job to lead, so it is your job to find  something you can care about.

If you don’t like the product, care about the way the company treats people.  If you don’t care about the company, care about the customers.

I’ve been here.  Believe me.  It’s better to find something to care about than it is to check out.  You are way more likely to get yourself into a better job later, (and maintain your sanity) if you keep caring about something along the way.

If you don’t genuinely care about something, you employees will not deliver for you.

Your strategy can be great, but if your employees don’t give a damn, your chances of executing go out the window.

I often say that your job is your
job description AND dealing with all the crap that gets in the way of getting your job description done.

Stupid obstacles often come in the form of people’s opinions, corporate policy, changes of direction, fire drills, conflicting goals, delayed decisions, unclear strategies, shall I go on?

It’s always important to remember that you can’t blame your failure on other people being stupid.

Six months or a year down the road, if the reason that you didn’t get something done is because someone else has or hasn’t done has something, you have lost.

The right language

Clearing an obstacle that is being put in place by another person or policy has everything to do with language.

And there are two language techniques I have found to be really useful to get things going your way again when you are confronted with difficult, rigid, indecisive, or stupid people.

1. What is the NAME of the Meeting the other person would WANT to attend?

For example, If your requests for a program change in other organization are going ignored, the name of the meeting YOU want to have with the manger is called something like,  “You are doing this wrong and I need you to change it, because it’s killing me”.

But would they really want to attend that meeting?

Change the name of the meeting to name their problem, not yours.

When you are trying to get someone to do something for you, you need to name the meeting something that is relevant and motivating to them.  “I want  to discuss how my team can solve your most critical competitive issue, with no increased cost on your part”.

Then when you have the meeting, make sure to stay relevant to them.  Describe your problem in the context and actual vocabulary of the business problems they are facing right now, and how the action you are requesting is directly beneficial to them.

If you don’t use the right language, you will not be relevant to them, and you will continue to go unheard, and un-helped.

2. “I’m hoping you can help me…”

The angrier and more frustrated you are, the more you are likely to start a conversation with something like, This is all messed up because [of something you, (or the people you represent are doing)]

Do you really expect their reaction to be helpful at this point?   Wow. thank you for telling me how stupid and wrong I am.  You are so smart, please tell me what do do next? I am at your service.

Even if it is all their fault, if you need to influence them to do something better or different, a far more useful approach is to open with, “I’m hoping you can help me”.

I use this not only colleagues, but with utility companies, hotels, and health insurance providers all the time.  It works like a charm.  I guess, because you are using some charm…

Engage people to WANT to help you

When someone says to me,  “I’m hoping you can help me…”, I always think, “hmmm… I wonder what this challenge might be?  Can I really help? I’m kind of hoping I can help …

This approach builds people up instead of cutting them down.  They have power to help if they choose to.  Giving this small bit of respect makes them want to help you.  People generally like to help.

If you don’t attack them first and tell them how wrong and incompetent they are,  you stand a far greater chance of getting what you need from them.

I know it is frustrating when the people you are dealing with are actually wrong and/or stupid, but if they are indeed creating an obstacle, it’s your job to clear the obstacle and get the job done, not to prove that you are right and demand their support.

I want to help

I have learned over the years that there are specific things you can do that make all the difference between getting ahead and just working really hard.

Are you getting everything YOU want from your career?

If you’d like to get a real, practical advantage, my membership program is an easy way to do it.

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Big payoff

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In the next year, even if you only got one idea that helped you:

• Manage a conversation with your boss better
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…the return would be huge.  And I know you’ll get more than one idea.

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One of the most important things you can do for your career, your success and your sanity, is to be more Responsive and less Reactive.

There is constant pressure to do the urgent things that come in, and these days people are trying very hard to preserve their value in a tough economy and job market.

So they don’t want to be seen as saying “no”.

Put points on the board

It’s important to realize that the real hazard is not about saying  “no”,  it’s in trying to do too much, then failing to deliver on the few things that really matter.

Being reactive is shooting yourself in the foot.

You may think you are being valuable to your company by working tirelessly on everything that comes your way, but if you don’t deliver excellent and visible results where it counts, your company will not give you any credit for being responsive or working hard.

Be Responsive on select things

Success, relevance and recognition come from getting things done that impact the business.

The trick is to appear to be responsive without actually responding to everything.

Here is a key thought:

Always think about aligning your responsiveness  to your Ruthless Priorities, instead of trying to be responsive everywhere.

(Ruthless Priorities are those few things that have so much impact on the business that you refuse to put them at risk, and are willing to risk other things to make sure they get done.)

Be extra-responsive where it matters most, instead of putting all that pressure on yourself to react to everything that comes in.

1. Know your Ruthless Priorities. This requires you give yourself some strategic thinking time.  Be clear with yourself and others about what  your Ruthless Priorities are, and make sure they are the things that have the biggest impact on the business.

2. Filter all emails and requests of your time based on your Ruthless Priorities.  if actions and requests help you get your Ruthless Priorities done, be highly responsive — if they don’t, delete or delay.

3. Focus on your most important stakeholders, your boss, board members, key clients, etc.  Filter all your email and requests so you can respond quickly to those few key people — the ones you  most need to see you as being responsive.

Ways to appear extra responsive,

…without getting sucked into being reactive.

The well placed weekend Email:

You don’t need to do email all weekend or all evening (reactive), but take 10 minutes each evening or weekend and do a quick triage.  If you get something from a key stakeholder and can answer a question quickly, do it.   You get lots of responsiveness points for the quick reply and the weekend time stamp, without actually working on the weekend.

If it is a much longer task, but not required to be completed on the weekend, just fire back, got your message, will be thinking about it and get back to you by noon on Monday. That is the difference between responsive and reactive.

Got it, thanks

When people send you things, respond immediately with something like, “got it, thanks, more later…” That may be the only thing you will ever have to do!

Remember,  you don’t have to DO everything.  But that simple acknowledgment will show you as someone who is responsive.

Think about it… when you send off something that matters to you, don’t you wonder and want to know if they got it and what they think?  Just hearing back from them at all, makes them register with you as someone who is responsive.

Why do you care?

When people ask you to do work for them, read something, review something, call someone, etc., if it does not help one of your ruthless priorities, deflect it, delegate it, or say no.  Since it is not critical to your Ruthless Priorities, if it is not perfect, what you do you care?  Let it go.  Don’t try and add value everywhere or resolve everything.  That is being reactive.

When it matters, get all over it.  Be responsive and be seen as being responsive. Respond with an action plan and a schedule.  I will get this done by Thursday and will let you know that it is done. That is being responsive.