Last week I kicked off a series of articles about what good general managers do.

I keep finding myself talking to CEOs who are concerned that their new general managers (also directors and VP’s) just aren’t getting that they need to be working in different way now that they are in an executive level job.

New executives struggle to step up

New executives often struggle to understand that their job has become much broader and strategic, and really different!  

To be successful, they need to stop worrying about the work they used to do, and they need to start worrying about growing people and capability beneath them, owning decisions, personally leading change, and driving the business forward strategically.

Summary

Here are the big things (list from last week’s post) a general manager needs to care about.

Number 1. Get a mentor or a coach. (don’t skip #1) (broken record)

Number 2. As a GM Split your thinking, and budget your time into the following areas:

• People
• Process
• Profit
• Communicating

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This week, the one I will be talking about is People.

People

When I am brought in to help general managers get their organizations functioning better, the first thing I do is talk to their team. I talk to all their direct reports, and have focus groups with their mid-level managers and their employees.

It often becomes very clear that the general manager is not having these same conversations!

Because I’m listening to their team’s ideas, experiences, feedback, and concerns, I’m figuring out what all the big issues are – with the organization, with the business, (and sometimes with the general manger).

Hint: Talk to your people! Learn what is really happening.

What is your job now?

When I was in my first executive role, I will admit I was sitting in the chair thinking, hmmm, what exactly is it that I am supposed to be doing now?

My first thought was to look at the roles of all the people who reported to me and start trying to optimize them in one way or another, but I knew that that was not the right answer. That was their job. I knew I should be doing things that spanned the whole organization, but what things, exactly?

I was lucky to have a mentor who taught me this big lesson – talk to everybody and you’ll know what to do.

Talk to Everybody

This was one of the best lessons I ever got about knowing how to do a good job as a GM.

So I did this. In my first 2 weeks on the job I did 60 one-on-one meetings. I can tell you, I knew what my job was after that!

The scary and notable part was that if I had not done these meetings, I would have had no idea what the most vital issues to work on really were.

I would have gotten bogged down in the way the organization was currently working, instead of seeing how to improve it.

When you talk to the people doing the work, you discover things you will never learn from your managers.

Never count on filtered information

It’s not that your managers are maliciously hiding information from you — but if you never experience the business from the employees, sales reps, and service people’s perspective, you won’t know what business you are in.

You won’t know what you need to be fixing, improving, inventing, or stopping.

I came to relish customer visits, not for the customer contact but for the ride in the car with the sales rep! Talking to the people doing the work shows you the way forward.

Ask everyone in your organization “How am I doing? What would you like to see differently from me?”

Some leaders resist doing this for three basic reasons.

1. Because they feel like they are going around the mangers who report to them and this feels wrong
2. Because ego tells them, “I am a big shot, so I don’t talk to the people doing the work, I only talk to managers,” or
3. They are afraid of what they will hear and that they will lose credibility if these issues are spoken of.

Stay connected to reality

Well, I hate to break the news, but the issues are already being spoken of, and you will definitely lose credibility if you’re the only one who doesn’t know!

Even if you want to act like a big shot and avoid these conversations, you can’t do your job without them.

Talking and listening is not going around your managers.

Make it part of the culture that you are going to spend time talking to individuals. As long as you don’t start directly assigning work to individuals without involving their manager, the managers are not offended or concerned by your having the conversations.

See what you are missing

Once I started talking to individuals I realized some important things I wasn’t seeing. For example:

I learned that there was one manager in my organization who was a bully. This manager was great at managing up, so I couldn’t see it.

I learned that there were three different projects that were duplicate efforts. I didn’t see this because my managers weren’t talking to each other about it! So that was two problems to solve, the duplication and the teamwork.

I learned that the customer satisfaction survey scores were high because the questions were tuned to get the right answers, not to get the real opinions of the customers. Either stop the useless survey or create an effective one.

I learned that employees were frustrated that a decision had not been made and they were spinning their wheels waiting for direction. But the decision had been made, so I learned that I had a communication issue.

None of this information was coming up through my direct staff.

Once I started seeing this stuff, the light went on.

Know with confidence what your job should be

As a GM you can use the critical insight you gain from talking to individuals about what’s really happening to improve the business. You will be surprised just how useful the information is, and how much more effective a GM you will be once you know it.

As my roles grew to lead organizations of thousands, I could no longer talk to everybody, but I still made sure to put time in my schedule to talk to the people doing the work, either 1-1 or in groups. I did this every week.

No time for this?

You don’t have time NOT to do this.

It is always very sad when I talk to a GM who tells me “everything is fine”, and then people above, around and below them, tell me they are concerned the GM is failing because they are focused on the wrong things and have lost track of reality.

Sure you will face some conflict and learn issues that make you uncomfortable as a leader. But better to know them and choose what to fix, than to assume everything is fine and get further and further out of touch with reality.

Don’t skip this!

More People Stuff…

Stay tuned for more articles..

As a GM, one of your biggest success factors it to decide WHO? and WHY? You are no longer so much in the business of WHAT? and very much not in the business of HOW?

Your job is to develop leaders and build a highly capable and effective team that can execute. I will talk more about choosing and developing leaders in additional articles in this series in the coming weeks.

Want more now?  See:

Upgrading your Team
Take my job, please (delegating and succession planning)
Uncertainty is Expensive

Leave your thoughts in the comment box below!

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I get a lot of questions from people about what it takes to be a good general manager.

So I am going to write about this over the next few weeks on this blog.

General Management is very different than your last job

Stepping into a general manger role for the first time is a big deal because it is a very different job than you’ve had before.

I know a guy who is a new general manager and he thinks he is doing a good job. But if you talk to anyone around him, or above or below him, they are all frustrated with him, and they are worried he is not going to make it.

If you ask him, he admits there are challenges in his market and in his team, but he reports somewhat abruptly that it is all under control, and that he’s doing fine.

I actually see this quite regularly.

At the root of this is some combination of insecurity, fear, ego and pride. None are worth failing for, (nor do they get any better after failing!)

Never suffer in silence. Never fail alone

I feel like a broken record on this sometimes…

Get help. Don’t try this alone. Get a mentor or a coach.

Make sure you have someone helping you who cares about you and your career success, who has a lot of experience as a general manager.

You need someone to advise you how to do the parts of the job you don’t know how to do yet. You need someone to tell you what you don’t know you don’t know.

Learn fast

In your career, if you are in totally over your head, and you are scared, it does not mean that you are failing, it means that you are advancing!

But you need to get your bearings fast and start doing a competent job.
And nothing helps as much as getting help.

I was very lucky to have mentors, and I have never been shy about asking for help.

For example, as a new GM I went to my mentor to get advice for best practices on what to delegate vs. what to focus my personal time on, how to measure my staff, how to improve execution in sales and on product delivery, how to prioritize strategic partnerships and organic growth.

Before this my perspective on these things came from doing the work personally. What I wanted to learn was how great general managers add value when they have to worry about all of these things at the same time.

Don’t get bogged down

It’s easy to just wade in and start doing the job, and react to what comes along.

You’ll be asked to produce strategy documents and financial plans, to launch products, and talk to the media. But I find that most people who just dive in end up working at the wrong level.

They get too bogged down. They leave their organization waiting for big decisions. They don’t drive accountability. They fail to recognize duplicate efforts, communication issues, and chronic execution problems. The spend their time on tactics and fail to make strategic progress.

Here are the big things a General Manager needs to care about.

Number 1. Get a mentor or a coach. (don’t skip #1) (broken record)

Number 2. Split your thinking, and budget your time into the following areas:

• People
• Process
• Profit
• Communicating

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As a general manager, you need to divide your attention across these categories and make sure that you:

1. Are connected to reality, and know what is working and not working
2. Establish clarity about the scope of your business and its advantage
3. Make clear assignments, measure and track accountability and recruit support from your team. (hint: have someone help you do this)
4. Have a prioritized plan to improve
5. Build your credibility with the Board, C-Level staff, external audiences and your employees.
6. Grow your network.

I will talk more about all of this, and share my thoughts and experiences about how to be a great general manager in the next weeks, and I invite you to share yours as well.

Leave your thoughts in the comment box below!

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Last week I was the keynote speaker at an event for a services organization in an energy company.

I spoke on the topic of Adding more Value to the Business.

This is an important topic for all of us.

The bottom line here is that you can’t wait to be told what adds value, and you can’t count on your job description as written to add enough value.

You need to figure this out for yourself.

You need to educate yourself about what the business values, and then tune your work specifically to deliver more value.

Do more than your job description

Your job description is valid for a moment in time — the moment when it is first given to you. As soon as you start doing the job, what the job needs to be evolves as the business grows and as the world changes.

If you do your job as written for too long a period of time, you will become out of date. You will begin to lose relevance to the business. You will not be adding enough value.

Don’t wait to be asked or directed

Yes, you need to do your job, but you also to think about how to improve the way your job is done. Don’t give this extra work of figuring out how your job needs to evolve to your to your boss. Sort it out on your own and make a recommendation. (That’s what high performers do).

What adds value?

I have collected some questions that will help you figure out how to tune your job over time to make sure you are adding enough value.

1. Who uses my work & what do they need most?

• Who are the consumers of each piece of work that I do?
• Do they still use it? Do they still need it?
• Do they pass it on to others? What do those people need?
• Can the content I deliver be modified to be more useful or relevant?
• Can the manner in which I deliver it be improved to be more useful or relevant?

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Note: Stop producing work no one cares about.

Check! I know so many organizations that are over-busy producing reports, analysis, or sales and marketing that no one uses. Don’t burn up your time on things that no one cares about. DO actively learn what they find most useful, and tune what you produce to be more valuable.

2. What business outcomes does my work drive?

• What is the business outcome that happens as a result of my producing this work?
• How does my work impact profit?
• Does my work impact quality, innovation, efficiency, competitiveness, cost reduction, process improvement, sales effectiveness…
• Can I tune my work to create a better or different business outcome?

.
Note: If you can’t connect your work to a business outcome, you are in danger of not being relevant.

If you are not relevant you are not adding enough value. You need to stay educated on the most important outcomes the business is driving and stay connected with them.

Even if you are a cost center providing an internal service, you need to find ways to improve efficiency or usefulness.

3. What does my work cost?

• How much does it cost the company for me to do this work?
• Can it be done for less?
• What happens to my work after it’s delivered?
• What are the downstream costs of the things that I do?
• Who else does my work cause work or costs for?
• Is there a way to make my work more efficient for others?

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Note: Own improving the outcomes your work causes, not just delivering the work.

Always be finding ways to take cost out. If you produce 50 reports, maybe 20 better reports would do? (Everyone will like 20 reports better than 50!)

If you do things manually or in a chaotic reactive mode, how many people are impacted by this? How can you create a process to streamline the work, make it less complicated, and require fewer touch points, questions, or follow-ups?

4. What has changed?

• What has changed in the market since I started this job?
• What has changed in our customers’ business since I started this job?
• What has changed in our competitors’ business since I started this job?
• What has changed inside our company since I started this job?
• Do these changes require a change in the way my job is done?

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Note: If you are not evolving your job, you will no longer be qualified when the game changes.

Or you will be doing the wrong job, and your job will get eliminated. Be the one to recommend changing your job to meet the evolving business needs.

5. Growth & Scaling

• How much has the company grown since I started this job?
• How much does the company plan to grow in the future?
• What still works in the way I do my job if the company is much bigger?
• Which things about how I do my job don’t work if the company is bigger?

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Note: When companies get bigger all the jobs change.

You can’t keep using the same way of working. It doesn’t scale. You can be the one to build a new process that will scale, or you can be the one who gets pushed aside by someone with experience at a bigger company.

6. Help others

• What can I do to communicate better?
• How can I share more knowledge?
• How can I teach someone to be more effective?
• How can I help someone step into a bigger role?
• How can I help someone believe that something bigger is possible for them.

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Note: If you are not helping others, you are not adding enough value.

The other upside is that helping others can put a meaning into an otherwise unfulfilling job. If you are feeling unsatisfied about being in a corporate role that doesn’t make enough difference in the world, help someone. When you help someone else, you change the world for that person.

Don’t wait

I see a lot of people thinking that answering these questions is not part of their job. They wait for others to answer them, and await new instructions from their manager.

It’s dangerous to rely on your job description to tell you what to do, or to wait for your manager to tune your job along the way. It’s much safer (and your are adding more value) when you do it yourself. Take that weight off your manager. You decide what needs to get done to drive the future goals and continue to add the most value.

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Context is critical

1. Understand what drives the business.

2. Put your work and your communications in that context.

3. This gives you a tremendous advantage. Don’t miss this.

THINK LIKE A GENERAL MANAGER

In this month’s webinar we covered the key aspects of how general managers think, and why it’s important to think like a GM, whether or not you want to be one.

Listen or Download the Podcast: Think Like a General Manager

Here are some of the things we talked about.

Understand the Business and the P&L

Know how the business makes money. Where do the revenues come from? Where do the profits come from? What are the fixed and variable expenses? Where do you and your team fit in the P&L?

Make sure your whole team understands the P&L. We talked about a simple way to share how the P&L works with everyone on your team. It’s important for each person to know where the revenues, profits, and costs fit, and where they and their role fit, personally in the P&L. (The webinar includes a worksheet on this).

What do YOU cost? If your salary is $100k/year, and your business makes a 10% profit on units that sell for $10k each, then your sales force has to bring in 1000 units, or $1M of revenue, to pay your salary. Are you worth $1M/year?

Likewise, if you propose to hire another person, the sales force will need to sell another $1M to pay for them. Does your need justify an additional $1M year in revenue? Why? If you can’t answer, you shouldn’t be asking.

Educate your team. Talk about the P&L frequently. Invite customers, partners and people from other functions into your staff meetings to share their perspective on what drives the business, and what is important to them.

More Innovation. When more people understand how the company really makes money, and where the costs come from, I find that they get more creative, not less. When they know what is important, they solve more of the right problems, and invent more valuable solutions.

Tradeoffs

A GM’s job is about tradeoffs. When a general manager wakes up in the morning their job is to make tradeoffs. Should I invest in more sales people? Or in making the product better? Should we hire more services people and try to get more profit from service than product? Or should we invest in marketing? Or in training the sales force?

Know the context. What tradeoffs is GM is considering? Before you make any kind of proposal, be ready to propose your own tradeoffs, show that you understand the whole business. Don’t always just advocate for your function or project. Put the business in the center of your discussion, not your project.

Don’t always be seen as asking for new money. You need to fund some new work out of your existing budget. You need to do the things you did last time for less money this time. We talked about why this is so hard. You already don’t have enough resources, what do you do? You will not be credible if you are not seen making tradeoffs and shifts within your own function. We talked about how to do this.

Your strategy is where you put your resources. Know the company’s strategy. Know where the company is investing and cutting and why. Know how the company is measuring success. Make sure your proposals fit into the right context.

Timing and Scope

Know the size of what you are asking. It’s important to get the scope right. We talked about how to assess the scope of your initiative relative to the scope of what the GM is worried about, and how to position your piece the right way.

Know the business calendar. Always know what else the GM has going on in the normal cycle of quarter ends, board meetings, or key program rollouts. Know how to strike at the right time, and how to ask for the right amount of time.

Communicate and Persuade

Have a business case. GM’s need business cases to make decisions. “We are overloaded” is not a business case. We talked about how to make your communications more persuasive by always making the business case clear. (There is an outline of a business case in the webinar presentation.)

Personal, Engaging Style. Don’t try too hard to be overly impressive. You will come across as trying to be overly impressive. Instead, be prepared, be relevant and be engaging. Be human. Execs are humans too, and they like to have conversations with real people. We talked about how to get this right and wrong.

Want more?

Listen or Download the Podcast: Think Like a General Manager
Download the complete webinar: Think Like a General Manager
(includes the presentation, and worksheets to put the ideas into action)

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Who is helping?

One of the CEO’s I am working with on a business transformation said to me about his managers,

“No, he won’t actually help solve the problem, he is more of a reporter.”

Ouch!

Think about your behaviors.

Are you at any risk of being a reporter?

Do you often highlight things that aren’t working?
Do you study things and point out what is wrong?
Do you regularly play devil’s advocate?

Oops!

What adds value?

I always talk about the importance of adding value to the business.

When it comes to reporting trouble, many people confuse what adding value actually means. They think that identifying and exposing problems is adding value. Or that doing analysis and providing insightful commentary about what is broken is adding value.

It is not.

So, you may be thinking…but you have to identify problems if you want to solve them. Or you need to know about issues if you want to fix them. Surely the person who raises these issues is adding value because the business “needs to know”.

Talking vs. Doing

The big, BIG difference for adding value is between talking and doing.

It is the difference between describing the current state or moving something forward. …Between exposing a problem and fixing it, or at least proposing a solution.

Do you have reporters on your team?

You can find them — talking.

Sounding smart, playing devils advocate. Raising important issues. Figuring out what is wrong. Telling people about it.

Do you have solvers on your team?

The solvers are the ones that show up and say, nervously, “I hope it’s OK, but I did this.”

Or, “I found this nasty issue, but here is what I have done to resolve part of it. Can I get your thoughts on these two options to fix the rest of it?”

When solvers run into an impossible problem they say to themselves, “Man this is screwed up, what is the first thing I am going to fix? What will I propose that will move us forward?”

The reporter is the one that gets to “Man, this is screwed up”, and thinks “I have to come up with the most compelling way to communicate how big of a problem this is so that people will get sufficiently worried about it, and I will get credit for exposing it.”

Reporting vs. Solving – the behaviors

Example: An organization that is chronically late delivering.

The reporter might analyze root causes and talk about lack of definition, poor test plans, poor communication, lack of accountability. All may indeed be real issues, but the reporter will expect someone else to lead and to act.

The solver will think through what actions might actually help. Even if it won’t solve the whole problem, they will endeavor to at least move something forward.

In the case of something like chronic late delivery a solver might say, “I am going to create a sign-off document that defines what finished looks like. This will help all of us clarify what specific actions must be completed to reach the deadline. It might not solve the whole problem, but it will make things better and we will learn something by doing it.

Another example: Sell higher

If an organization is not selling strategically enough, a reporter might present information about background and revenue and current sales skills, and recommend kicking off further study.

A solver will find someone in another organization inside or outside the company who is an expert and learn from them. They will experiment. They will try a new sales process. They will tune it until they hit on what succeeds. They will propose specific changes to share the learning.

What is your proposal?

You want to send a clear message that being a reporter is not good enough.

In every organization I have ever led or consulted with, I have found that merely responding to every single news report with the question, “What is your proposal?” goes a long way to solving this. Consistently doing this changes the culture and separates the solvers from the reporters.

The people who come back with a proposal will rise in the organization. Next time and forever after, they will start with a proposal.

The people who get annoyed by this and say things like, “I just thought it was important to make you aware of this”, (by the way, even typing this makes me cringe – I can still picture the specific people who regularly said this to me). These people will never be significant contributors to the success of the business.

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3. Check out a short video about my new book:
RISE…How to Be Really Successful at Work AND Like Your Life.

So many of you have expressed interest in how the book launch went, and have helped me in the process, so I wanted to send a brief update and let you know what’s happening.

First of all, a big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me spread the word, and make RISE a success! Your help made a big difference.

Since the launch some very cool things have happened:

We broke into the the top 30 Leadership Books on Amazon during launch week!

RISE was also recently listed one of  The 10 Business Books to Read this Summer on the American Express Open Forum website!

Also some other great stuff…

1. Book Clubs have formed
2. Amazing Success Stories Told
3. Great Reviews & Interviews
4. New Ways to Share

1. Book Clubs

One of the most gratifying experiences is that several organizations are using RISE as an employee leadership development framework.

They bought copies for the whole organization and created a discussion guide to talk about 1 or 2 chapters each month.

Each month someone has the job to apply the lessons in RISE to their unique environment, and recommend some specific leadership actions to improve. This is awesome!!

2. Success Stories

Thank you to all of you who have sent me notes about how you have used RISE to create a breakthrough in your career and life.

This is why I wrote the book!

I wanted to inspire peoples’ imaginations about what is possible, and then give them the specific tools and insights to give it a try.

So BIG Congratulations on the promotions, the raises, the successful job transitions, and the newfound confidence you have achieved.

And thanks so much for letting me know! Please keep these stories coming.

I know often times these breakthroughs and transitions are very personal, but if you are comfortable doing so, I would love it if you would share your stories, insights and experience on the Facebook page for RISE or write a short review on Amazon.

3. Great Reviews & Interviews

Rise has been reviewed in many places, and I’ve been on lots of radio shows talking about how to take more direct control of your business and career success. We are in the process of collecting all the media coverage to put in one place on the website.

For now, here are a few really good ones:

Reviews:

The San Francisco Book Review
RISE…Destined to Become a Classic

Radio Interviews:

The Cranky Middle Manager Show – Weasel-free Career Advice
The Engaging Brand – Don’t forget to succeed

4. New Ways to Share

Also since the launch I have created some new ways to get and share information about the book.

1. Free eBook

There is now a free downloadable eBook, in which you’ll be able to get the full Chapter on Ruthless Priorities, one of the key concepts in the book.

2. New web page
There is a new page dedicated to the book at www.risebookonline.com.

You can find everything you need to learn about RISE, share it, purchase it (or get the free download) on this page.

3. Facebook page
There is a new facebook page Rise by Patty Azzarello.  Click to “Like” the page and you’ll get updates on a wide array of business topics, and pointers to new leadership and career resources in your facebook stream. (Not too many, I promise!)

Could I ask another favor?

Now that the book has been out for a few months, and many of you have had a chance to read it, I would really appreciate it (again) if you could share these new resources with your network.

I know you are super-busy, but if you could do even one of these ideas, it would really help further spread the word. And let me know how I can help you in return!

Ideas:

Email:

1. Send the link to the new web page for RISE http://www.risebookonline.com to your network and encourage them to check it out.

Post On Twitter:

Get a free eBook chapter of @pattyazzarello’s RISE… http://ow.ly/4QH46 <-- Worth reading!

Or

This is a Business Leadership book worth reading: http://ow.ly/4QH46 from @pattyazzarello

Post On facebook:

Post a link to http://www.risebookonline.com and share a personal note about the book.

Thank you all so much for your wonderful support!

Please keep the success stories coming!

Patty

I recently received some input from a reader that defined the perfect storm of being stuck in the workhorse trap. Here it is…

“I’m the workhorse for our volunteer emergency communicator group. There are 4 of us, but here lately I’ve been the only one answering the calls from the City for severe weather (tornadoes, severe hailstorms, etc.) even in the middle of the night. Problem is, by the time the City gets to me, they’ve already tried the other members with no luck. I’ve said something, but so far no results.

Since lives and property may be at stake, I feel it’s important to have someone doing the job. So, I do it—

But I say something to the rest of the group every time since the 5th time in a 3 day period– now, it’s been 13 times in a week that we’ve been called and I’m the only one who would answer the call. Okay one guy had surgery twice this week, first on his eye and again on his foot so he gets a pass. But the other 2? One is a definite flake and the other… well, I really don’t know.

I’m tired, and we still have more shots at being called again in the next 2 days. I feel bad saying “NO, SORRY– I can’t” when it’s the City Office of Emergency Management or the National Weather Service, but I might just have to, and tell them that I’m exhausted. After all, we’re VOLUNTEERS!

First, let’s look at the situation

1. THANK YOU. The world is a better place because of people like you that are willing to make personal sacrifice and step up when others need them.

2. Many people in their jobs feel like this. They feel they are the only one capable or available to the work. The work must get done, so they do it. Even though lives are typically not at stake, their values won’t let them drop the work.

3. In your case, lives are actually at stake! Truly, the work must get done.

4. Because you are all volunteers, there is no official way to insist that people do the work.

5. You have tried to raise the issue to get the rest of the team to step up to no avail – so you are stuck being the workhorse.

What can be done?

The first point to remember is that even if you can order people around, you are much better off if you can persuade them to be emotionally committed to doing the work. This makes everything better.

Second, it’s important to note that when I talk about getting out of workhorse mode, it is never about abandoning the work. The trick is to figure out how to get the critical work done without doing it all personally.

Sure, sometimes you need to work 24X7 when there is a crisis, a deadline, a big opportunity. The problem arises when that becomes a steady-state way of working.

If you want to get out of work-horse mode, don’t expect your manager to make it better.

YOU need to be the one to invent a new approach to make it better.

Stick to your instincts that this is not right. Devise a plan to change it.

Here are some suggestions to improve the situation:

Your desired outcome:  Have other people to share the workload with.

There are two basic ways to achieve that outcome.

1. Get the people on the team to step up
2. Get new people

Get People on the Team to Step Up

1. Record the data about what has happened. Data is not opinion or emotion. It can’t be argued with. Keep a record of all the phone calls that were made and what the response was from each team member.

Call a meeting of the whole team and share the data. Ask everyone to comment on it.

2. Discuss the team’s desired outcome. What does successful service look like? What will it require? Ask everyone to contribute to the definition of the process and the required commitment and responsibility.

Be really clear what the responsibilities are. Ask everyone on the team to talk about their ability to respond to their share of responsibilities.

3. Create an actual calendar for who is on call each day. Set an expectation that if you commit to be on call that you WILL ANSWER. Have everyone sign off on the schedule as a group commitment to one another.

4. Be super clear that there are only two choices, sign and commit or leave the group. There is no room for broken commitments when it is a matter of life or death.

If you are afraid of losing people on the team by doing this, remember that the people who are NOT answering the phone on a regular basis are not part of the team anyway. (They shouldn’t get to talk big and pretend they are a volunteer if they don’t do the work.)

They are not helping. Ask them to leave. Get new people who will be committed members of the team.

Get new people

A critical factor of getting out of workhorse mode is making sure that you have a team that is capable of doing the job.

No matter how vital the work is, staying in work-horse mode long term is the wrong answer.

You need to take it upon yourself to create a team or a process that can get the work done that really matters, without burning up your time personally.

If your current team can’t cut it, you have to change the team.

If you are an individual, you need to influence. You need re-negotiate the work to focus on the most critical outcomes, and recommend a new, better process that achieves the desired outcome in a different way.

In any organization, volunteer or business, people get burned out, leave, or have other priorities come up in life. It is important that you are always cultivating a pipeline of new people that can (and want to do) the job.

When you look at the people who are not performing, decide “Can’t or Won’t”.

Can’t you can work with, Won’t is not worth the trouble.

Cut them loose. Get people who are motivated to help. That will be your only way out of workhorse mode long term whether you are in a group of volunteers or leading a business team.

Also, there are lots more ideas about workhorse traps and escape routes in Chapter 3 of my book, Rise… They Shoot Workhorses, Don’t they?

What do you think?

IF you have any other ideas for this generous and tired emergency response volunteer, please share them!

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Today We are Rich, by Tim Sanders

I love this book.

It is rare to find a business book that inspires you to be a better person.

In Today We Are Rich, Tim Sanders outlines how we can improve our confidence, our life, the lives of others, and our business success by investing in specific positive behaviors.

He describes this new book as a pre-quel to his book, Love is the Killer App, where he first introduced us to the “Lovecat” — the type of business person who is generous, kind, and respectful — the business leader who gives his way to the top, and grows people along the way.

In his new book, Tim shares with us where he got these values in the first place, through the lessons he learned growing up, from his grandmother Billye.

Abundance

“Today we are rich” is a declaration of abundance – We can redefine what it means to be rich in moments of giving and helping. When Billye was able to take what little she had and change the world with it (even if it was just for one person), she would declare “We are rich”.

Moving forward

In the book, Tim shows us how to get our lives and our businesses moving forward by living in what he refers to as “The Good Loop” of learning, thanking, giving and finishing. It’s about investing in good habits, on purpose, and avoiding negative talk and behaviors. Living in the good loop requires that we act.

I had a chance to have an awesome conversation with Tim Sanders about The Power of Confidence and his new book Today We Are Rich.

You can download a recording of the conversation here.

Confidence

Confidence is easy when you are on top. But what about when things go bad? You need confidence when you don’t have the wind at your back and you are in a “personal recession” where you stop growing as as a human. Confidence is rocket-fuel for the abundance mentality.

Tim emphasized the importance of confidence, and how to get it!

Giving

When you give, you believe that there is enough to go around. When you share…in that moment …that’s when you are worth something to the world. Richness is within your control if you stop making it about things.

The fundamental secret: the law of reciprocity. Humans in western culture are engineered to give back. So the more you give, the more you set off a whole chain reaction of giving. Everyone wins. Your confidence grows.

The Horn of Plenty

In the book, Tim tells a story about the “horn of plenty”. If your granny or your mom has one of those wicker baskets, the horn-shaped one with the plastic fruit in it, ask them why…

Tim’s grandmother told him this. During the 30’s if you didn’t have poverty, you caught the fear of poverty from listening to other people. Around the dinner table, the conversation was about  - who’s going broke next? Billye’s mom, bought an “end-the-depression-horn-of-plenty”. It symbolized today we are rich. It changed our family’s culture forever.

Culture comes from conversation.

You need to always move the conversation forward

Tim’s grandmother proclaimed: I’m tired of talking about the economy. Let’s talk about what’s going right. We have everything we need here.

Culture, whether in your family or company is a conversation, and the conversation must move forward. We’ve got to change the conversation, because the negative one will drive us into the ground if we let it.

Practice Gratitude

Gratitude is a muscle, not a feeling. People get spiritually flabby, because they stop re-investing in their gratitude. They become a cynic whether at work or in their relationships.

Ask What do we HAVE?

What are we grateful for? Tim shared some great stories about people and organizations who got out of a slump, and started moving forward simply by being grateful.

Breakfast for your soul.

Give your gratitude a workout in the morning instead of doing email! Think about the people you are grateful for. Tell them.

Feed your mind good stuff

Processed food and sugar are bad for your body. Same goes for what you put into your mind. Anything that is easy to eat and digest is genrally not that good for you. TV, internet browsing, and bite size news and gossip online are not nourishing you.

Books are hard. (Think protein and fiber!) But that slow, deliberate intake of information lets us assimilate specialized knowledge. It makes you better. When you feed your mind good stuff, you are making an investment in everyone. Fill gaps in your day with confidence-building, learning.

If we’re not growing, we’re not keeping up. If you want an advantage in business, read books.

You can download Tim’s “Feed Your Mind Good Stuff” chapter for free.

Purpose vs. Passion.

It’s popular to tell our kids, just do what you love, just follow your passions. (Be selfish.)
When a person enters society, we need to change the compass.

True north needs to be a Purpose.

We need to think about something bigger than just ourself. Tim talked about how investing in your purpose and giving something to the world further builds your confidence.

No Short Cuts

Positive thinking is an outcome not a prescribed behavior.

Everybody wants to make short cuts out of self help. When things are really bad, to prescribe positive thinking to someone who is down and out is as useful as going to someone who is struggling with obesity and telling them to just think skinny.

Positive thinking is an outcome of investing in the right behaviors and habits on purpose.

If you want to invest in building your confidence and abundance mentality, it’s a serious workout. Tim’s book Today We Are Rich is loaded with insights and practical advice to get into  ”The Good Loop” of learning, thanking, giving and finishing.

Tim, thank you for writing it!

Tim Sanders

Tim Sanders is an internet business marketing visionary, former Yahoo Chief Solutions Officer, and international best selling author of Love is the Killer App.

You can download a free eBook chapter of his new book Today We Are Rich, and learn more about Tim’s work at www.twar.com.

Listen to the conversation

You can listen to my conversation with Tim Sanders here.

It’s 30 minutes that will inspire you.

Who, me?

I remember when I first joined HP, I was notified by my manager that I was to attend a meeting with HR to discuss mentoring.

I went in thinking, “Boy, I could really use a mentor. I am new here, and this is a big company. A mentor could help me learn about other parts of the company and help me build my network.”

I was stunned in dis-belief when I realized that they were recruiting me to BE a mentor.

At this point in my career I had no idea what I had to offer. In fact, I was pretty nervous. “I’m going to get found out…. My mentee is going to report me as being a useless mentor”.

I tried to humble my way out of this responsibility, because I was afraid to fail, and because I wasn’t sure I had time to be a mentor. (Interesting to note how I thought I had time to work with a mentor, but not the other way around…)

I failed to avoid it!

I left that meeting as an official mentor awaiting an assignment of my first mentee. I was given a brief pamphlet about mentoring, which I don’t recall having learned anything from, and I was off to the races.

Two main reasons people don’t mentor

1) They don’t feel like they have something to offer.
2) They don’t think they have enough time.

Let me talk about both of these.

1. You DO have something to offer

What I learned from my mentees surprised me. They would come and talk to me about what was happening in their jobs, and I would share stories about similar things that I did. (I can’t emphasize enough that it did not feel like I was sharing anything of value.)

I was amazed when they would come back and say, “Thank you so much, I did what you said and it worked wonderfully!” When they repeated back to me what they had learned and what they had done, I was staggered to find out that those stories had been so useful.

The reason this happens makes sense once you think about it.

The things you already know seem obvious to YOU.

So you don’t think they are valuable or impressive. They don’t seem fascinating or important — precisely because you already know them!

But the things you know are indeed fascinating and important to others — all the people who don’t know what you know!

And you don’t have to know how to be a mentor, you can just start.

No matter where you are in your career you can be a mentor to someone.

There is someone who can benefit from what you know. And they will do better from having the encouragement of someone who thinks them worthy of investing in.

I have been a mentor ever since. I have found it to be a huge source of learning and inspiration. I always learn stuff from the people I mentor.

2. You have enough time

When I was at my busiest as an executive, I would relish my mentoring appointments.

It was like having a vacation in my schedule for an hour. Every other hour I was on the hook to solve problems, negotiate, mediate, make difficult decisions, sell something, invent something… When I had a mentoring appointment, it was a lovely break from my own job. I was not going to end that meeting with bigger problems or more to do.

But the more important part is that you feel better about your job when you help someone else. You feel more in control. You feel less overwhelmed.

If you feel like you have no time, when you give a little time to help someone else, you realize that you do have time. It actually makes you feel less overwhelmed if you give time to help someone else.

How to become a mentor

If you are mentoring today, bravo, and thank you from the world at large.

If you are not, volunteer.

Here are some ideas:

1. If you have relationships with your manager’s peers, go to them and say, “I am not currently mentoring anyone but would like to. Is there someone in your organization who would benefit?” By the way this does not hurt your credibility with your manager’s peers! But that’s not the primary reason to do it.

2. Make the offer to someone in HR. Ask if there are any high performers one or two levels down that would benefit.

3. Make the offer to your neighbors. Perhaps they have children entering the workforce.

4. Strike a deal with your peers to each mentor someone in the others’ organization. You’ll also get the benefit of getting smarter about the business. You’ll get a steady stream of information from another part of the business, from another level, which you don’t normally interact with. This is gold.

There is really no downside.

Be a mentor!

Join me for a Special Interview with Tim Sanders

I moved this blog topic up to align with my upcoming interview with Tim Sanders about his new book Today We are Rich.

Of the many valuable lessons in this book, the concept that having something to give makes you rich is a common thread, whether it is time, money, gratitude, help, positivity, or just spending the energy to move something forward.

Please join us for a fantastic conversation on Wednesday April 20 at 9am Pacific Time.
You can register here.

You can also download Tim’s free eBook ahead of time:

(by the way every click to download sends a donation to the Smyles foundation to educate at-risk children)

.
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Wed April 20 9am PT
Register here

Debate or GO? or Stall?

Awhile back I wrote a post about Debate Phase vs. Go Phase.

These labels help timid people raise issues when it’s helpful (Debate Phase) and then keep everyone focused on execution vs. talking more, when it is time to go. (Go Phase).

I got some questions about what to do when people undermine Go Phase with passive aggressive behaviors, when they continue to debate behind the scenes, expecting or trying to get the Debate Phase to re-open.

Let people know you are serious

The basic remedy here is that you need to let people know you are serious about the new work in GO phase.

The natural habit of an organization is not to change.

People will always go back to what they were doing before if you are not explicit about making the change stick.

Behaviors don’t change for 2 key reasons

1. Dissenters. Passive aggressive people really don’t agree, and they are trying to do something different on purpose.

2. Reality strikes back. People with the right intentions cave when the reactive pressures of the day re-assert themselves, and they get nervous about doing something different or strategic.

As soon as the first person jumps ship and goes back to the old way of doing things, then others will think, “oh I guess we are not doing this new thing any more and I better get back to reacting to the emergencies like before, because that is what is valued. I believe this to be true because I can see people acting the old way, and I haven’t heard about the new thing in awhile”.

I recommend these strategies to my clients to avoid 3 common failures to predictable, on-time execution and to make change stick.

1. Track Progress Better

Have someone help you track progress.

Do you find yourself communicating strategy, assigning work and owners, and then absolutely hating doing the follow-up to keep checking in with everyone to see if things are on track? Or just being too busy with customers and other things to do a good job at this. When I was a CEO and GM, I know I struggled.

I was lucky early in my career to have someone on my team who was great at this. I assigned the work. He wrote it all down, he made sure I didn’t fail to assign specific owners or dates. Then he relentlessly followed up with everyone involved, and created tracking reports for how we were doing on finishing the things we committed to.

If you are not doing a good job tracking progress you will fail to execute.

If you are not good at this yourself, get someone on your staff to do this for you, or you will never get the important things done. I had a person on my staff to do this for me for the next 15 years of my career once I learned this lesson. I would have failed without it.

2. Communicate More

Have someone help you communicate.

Once you make your decisions and you are in GO phase, communicate a lot. Communicate more than you ever thought you could. Get bored to death with your message.

Talk about key initiatives in every communication, in every meeting, in every 1-1 discussion. Make sure that when people see you coming, they know you are going to want to hear about the key initiatives that are in GO phase.

If you are not communicating regularly, you will fail to execute.

If you are not in the habit of communicating regularly, or other things keep you too busy to focus on it, get someone to help you do this.

Have them put you on a schedule for email and group meetings.

Have them write up a straw-man of the communication. Have it include milestones and great examples of how people supported the new strategy, and questions for you to answer about what people are confused or concerned about.

Don’t ever go more than 1-month without revisiting and communicating your progress on key initiatives with everyone involved.

3. Set a good example

Don’t let sloppy behaviors get in the way

I have seen leaders who say they are serious about execution, that it’s the most important thing to them, but then they are late to their own staff meetings. Or they let missed deadlines come an go and never mention it or deal with it.

If you want your organization to be good at executing, you to set a good example for the quality of execution you expect with your own behaviors. And you need to hold people accountable when things don’t get done.

If you have people helping you track and communicate, it’s just a matter of your following through. (but you still have to be on time for meetings!)

What do you think?

What has delayed execution in your organization and what have you done about it?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment!

If you want more ideas on leading better execution download my free report on leading change called “Too Busy to Scale”, or learn about the Strategy into Action^TM work I do with executive leadership teams .

If you found this useful, you can subscribe to this blog for free and get updates in your email or RSS reader.

THINGS YOU CAN DO NOW

1. Get Facebook Updates.
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3. Get your copy of RISE… now on Amazon

4. Get RISE for your whole team at discount pricing.