Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers: The Idea in Practice

Matthew Dixon Lara Ponomareff, and Anastasia Milgramm   January 23, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

The notion of going above and beyond customer needs is so entrenched in organizations that managers rarely question it.
But delighting your customers may be a waste of time and energy.

In fact, most customers just want a simple, quick solution to their problem. Exceeding customer expectations has a negligible impact on customer loyalty. Instead of providing a series of bells and whistles in customer interactions, companies need to reduce the amount of effort customers make.
This is the conclusion we found in our five-year study, in which we analyzed customer data from 75,000+ respondents and conducted interviews with hundreds of companies around the world. We presented the findings in the 2010 HBR article "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers". In it, we explained that what matters most to customer is the amount of effort they put in to interactions: 96% of customers who report putting in high effort in their service interactions are more disloyal, while only 9% of customers who expend low effort are more disloyal.

Because these findings contrast the conventional belief that companies must provide over-the-top service for customers, we've found that companies are often relieved to have hard proof that exceeding expectations — an often expensive and unsuccessful mission — shouldn't be their focus. Then they want to know what steps they should take to reduce the amount of effort their customers expend. In our work with companies to answer this question, we've seen where most organizations struggle: getting buy in from the rest of the organization and figuring out what to tackle first.

To provide practical advice for companies to address these challenges, we created an Idea in Practice that shares the experiences of two companies — American Express Consumer Travel Network and Texas-based energy company Reliant — as they implemented plans to reduce their customers' effort in service interactions.
Here is a preview of two of the crucial lessons:

1. Reducing customer effort doesn't require a 180-degree turn, but a shift in focus. Many of the companies we work with wonder if they have to start from scratch to achieve effort reduction. We've found most companies already have some of the right elements in place, just as Reliant did. Instead of starting fresh, they can reframe initiatives with the goal of effort reduction in mind, tweaking existing processes rather than overhauling them.
2. Focus on the front line. Frontline employees are crucial for good customer interactions. The most successful companies, such as American Express, focus on ensuring that frontline workers have the skills, permission, and the desire to reduce customer effort.

10 Dumb Mistakes Companies Make Over And Over

Steve Tobak  January 23, 1012 www.cbsnews.com

COMMENTARY These days I'm constantly bombarded with books and articles about why leaders, executives and companies fail. It's mindboggling. Most of the "sage" advice is pretty weak, running the gamut from the absurdly obvious to the obviously absurd.

One article by author and psychologist Jack Stark lists the top five reasons leaders fail as greed, insecurity, power, arrogance and narcissism. Can't say I disagree, but I seriously doubt if any of the CEOs I know will be running to a shrink anytime soon. Maybe they should. Mark Stevens, author of "Your Marketing Sucks," says companies fail because of "lack of leadership." Well, thank you Captain Obvious. To be fair, he also lists "complacency" and "conventional thinking," which I do agree with.

Why leaders need a good shrink, not a coach
10 reasons why smart people do dumb things


And while leadership experts blog and tweet all sorts of generic, esoteric nonsense, executives and their companies keep making the same dumb mistakes they've always made, over and over again. Here are my top 10, along with some recent and notable examples:

Killing promising new businesses to maintain old ones. Kodak (EK) just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after years of mismanagement and playing catch-up in digital photography. Ironically, Kodak invented the digital still camera in 1975 and then sat on it for a quarter of a century, presumably because it threatened their cash cow, film. When will companies learn that if you don't cannibalize your own business, competitors will do it for you?

Lack of objectivity and perspective. Probably the most common mistake executives make is being too self-contained or breathing their own fumes. They stop asking questions like, "How are we doing," and when a daring customer or employee tries to provide some feedback, they ignore it. As failure modes go, this one even takes down big companies like BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM), for example.

Failure to articulate the company's strategy. It's absolutely appalling -- and I never use that word -- that there are large, public companies with CEOs who cannot tell you what the company's unique vision and value proposition are. As one VP said of Scott Thompson, the new CEO of Yahoo (YHOO), "Maybe he can let us all finally know what Yahoo is." If he can do that, maybe he can help Radio Shack (RSH) and Sony (SNE), too.

Chronically bleeding red ink. Over the years, I've watched dozens of once prominent companies continue to lose money, quarter after quarter, year after year, until they're either acquired for peanuts or they file for bankruptcy protection. Just so I don't keep picking on Kodak, anybody remember Sun? And will anybody remember Sony 20 years from now?

Not challenging the status quo. Many famous leaders have said it a lot of different ways, but it always comes down to the same message: when you stop challenging the status quo, you're dead. Few companies are great at constantly reinventing themselves and most get by one way or another. But the ones that resist change and try to hold onto what they were are lost.

Poor risk management. The flipside of taking no risks and trying to make believe the world is static is unnecessarily betting the company on huge mega risks or jumping from one strategy to another hoping that one will actually stick. An example of the latter is the current incarnation of AOL (AOL). An example of the former is the old AOL's merger with Time Warner (TWX). And Sprint (S) betting the farm on its iPhone deal somehow manages to fall into both categories.

Ignoring hot new trends. Resting on your laurels, ignoring viral trends and failing to innovate turns market leaders into dinosaurs in record time. Besides Kodak and RIM, there's Nokia (NOK), Yahoo, and for some historical perspective, big iron computer companies like Digital Equipment Corp. whose CEO couldn't understand why anyone would ever want to own a computer.

Dumb customer service policies. It's one thing to suffer a temporary bout of bad customer service over a poorly handled crisis or two, but some companies have systemic issues with bad policies and procedures. The reason, I think, is the inherent conflict between the customer's satisfaction and the company's customer service expense and efficiency. Still, that's no excuse for customer service nightmares we all experience, like these.

Harassing customers. We all get spam in our inboxes, but most annoying is the spam you can't get rid of no matter how many times you unsubscribe. Don't these companies know better? I mean, would you ever consider doing business with a company that doesn't honor unsubscribe requests? Take it from me: persistence is fine, but harassment has the opposite effect.

The Peter Principle. Last but certainly not least is the gold standard of executive failure, the Peter Principle. Incompetence that breeds more and more incompetence, like a Petrie dish in a bizarro universe where the laws of natural selection work backwards, is the perennial gift of business mediocrity that never stops giving.

Study: Most managers are ineffective

Margaret Heffernan January 16, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Power is the ability to get things done. You could say that management is the art of ensuring that things get done. Yet what's so striking about most organizations is that so little management is effective.

That's what academics Heike Bruch and the late Sumantra Ghoshal discovered when they investigated what they called "decisive purposeful action." Most companies, far from being hives of busy, effective executives, could instead be seen as "a few isolated islands of action amid an ocean of inaction," the researchers found. Does this ring any bells? It certainly reminded me of many places I've worked -- and run -- where a small number of people always seemed to be doing the majority of work that mattered.
Bruch and Ghoshal's study quantified my impression. "What we found in our research surprised us," the authors write. "Only about 10 percent of the managers took purposeful action." The remainder were busy, just not very effective: 40 percent were energetic but unfocused; 30 percent had low energy, little focus and tended to procrastinate; and 10% were focused, but not very energetic.

No wonder most businesses are so unproductive. What all of this suggests (and there's plenty of other supporting evidence), is that we waste most of the human resources we hire. The people around us are either unfocused (they don't know how to use their energy), uninspired (they've lost their energy), or distant (they'd rather think than do.) Leadership is about galvanizing this potential and getting it to move effectively in the right direction.

The 40 percent who are energetic but unfocused are the ones you have to work on. They want to do useful work and are up for a challenge. They just don't know where to start or how to prioritize. When you have a coherent strategy, you give this energy meaningful direction. Unfocused energy is rarely the fault of the individual. Rather, it's an indication that your strategy isn't sufficiently understood or being translated into goals.
The 30 percent who have low energy and little focus are tough nuts to crack. Did they start well and just run out of steam? Are they in the wrong jobs or the wrong company? There's a high likelihood they started out in the energetic 40 percent cohort but became disillusioned and disengaged by their inability to have an impact. Your best hope is that galvanizing the 40 percent creates enough draw within the organization that the best of these get swept along.

I don't really worry about the focused but less effective 10 percent. In my experience, focus is always valuable, even if it's slow. In most companies, everyone knows who fits into which category. You probably know, too. The question is: What are you going to do about them?

7 Tips on How to Apologize in the Business World

This one should be posted over every employee's Desk!!!

Tom Searcy January 13, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

I believe that apologies are woefully underused in professional communication.
Hyper-sensitivity to liability, finger-pointing, entitlement, and a lack of accountability drive good people to avoid acknowledging mistakes, let alone apologizing for them. This resistance to apologizing does all sorts of bad things professionally. The longer issues are left unaddressed, the deeper the resentment and the harder it is to move forward.

Here's what I like about professional apologies:

-- Apologies take the energy out of conflicts
-- Apologies allow for recognition of shared accountability

Believe it or not, there are lots of bad ways to apologize. A few examples of what not to say:

-- "I'm sorry you feel that way."
-- "You have to admit, a big part of this is your fault too."
-- "There's lots of blame to be spread around here."

Here are guidelines on how to make a professional apology:

1. Separate the apology and the explanation -- The apology has to stand on its own. I know you want the other person to understand your intentions, the circumstances under which things happened and, most important, that it is not all your fault. However, he or she cannot hear this at the same time as the apology. They will hear the explanation (read: "excuses and accusations"), rather than the apology. Instead, just apologize. Get clarity that you have apologized, and make no explanations or excuses until the apology has been accepted.

2. Ask for the discussion, but don't insist upon it -- "If you would like to discuss the circumstances around this so we can work on avoiding issues in the future, I'm open to it, but it's not necessary. I want to move forward." This invitation puts the ball into the other person's court and allows for the discussion to be invited rather than forced. If they don't want to discuss, don't push it.

3. One-up the connection -- If you can, you want to move the connection method for the apology to its highest level. Face-to-face is best, but GoToMeeting or Skype is second, then phone, then letter and finally email. The point is that professional apologies are still personal.

4. Don't assume you know what will make it right, but be prepared with options -- If the issue that requires the apology also requires some resolution, ask what the other person believes will "make this right." Have options ready, but don't offer them first. Instead, ask and consider what they have suggested.

5. Own more than your portion -- When mistakes are made or offenses given, there is a tendency to get to a 50/50 assignment of responsibility. You have to own your entire portion without seeking them to own theirs. This usually means owning the entire problem in your apology. Remember, one of the things you are trying to do is get past this point in the business relationship. You won't accomplish that doing "guilt fractions."

6. Focus on what happens next -- Close out the issue with the person and then move to immediate next steps. Time may heal, but action accelerates it.

7. Move on -- There is no sense in hanging onto this issue or walking on eggshells. If you have given the apology and it has been accepted, then you need to keep moving. If the other person chooses to bring the issue up again, simply state, "When I apologized and you accepted it, I considered the matter closed."

Professional apologies allow companies and people to resolve issues, change the direction of a relationship and move forward. If you are looking for "justice" in your professional relationships, I think you are destined for disappointment. I encourage you to be satisfied with resolution and move on.

6 Ways to Fail Your Business

Jeff Haden January 17, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Here are six ways you could be failing your business:

Your eye has started to wander. You're bored with your business because, well, things have gotten a little stale. You don't want to necessarily leave your company, but you've started to look for a little variety: You're thinking about forming other companies, or starting a side venture, and you pay less and less attention to your primary business. In the process results, relationships with customers and suppliers, and employee morale all suffer.

You focus on the wrong line. When revenue is down it's natural to focus on cutting costs, especially if, like me, you don't come from a sales background. Instead of focusing on the top line and growing sales, you cut and cut and cut until nothing is left. Sometimes it is impossible to save your way to profitability, and focusing on top-line growth is the only long-term answer.

You use "we" at the wrong times. You know there is no "I" in "team" so you try to say "we" -- but at the wrong times. "We worked straight through the weekend," sounds good -- unless you stayed home while your employees were at work. "We need to cut down on errors," sounds good -- unless you're the only one who made the mistakes. Use "I" whenever you personally make a mistake, and use "we" whenever you do something positive.

You network rather than sell. Networking is like sowing seeds. Selling is like harvesting crops. To survive, your business needs sales, not business cards and handshakes. Spend all your time networking on the golf course, at restaurants, and at social events instead of getting out and selling and revenue suffers. Network some of the time -- sell all the time.

You're in it for glory. Does your business serve as an extension of your ego? Is your business just a status symbol? Is your business on display for the greater glory of you? You should serve your business. Your business should not serve you -- and especially not your ego.

You can't stop searching for that one big idea. Innovations and breakthroughs do sometimes build great companies. Innovations and breakthroughs are hard to develop and even harder to deploy, though. Most companies succeed through hard work, attention to detail, and consistent execution. Ignore ideas and small improvements while you search for that one incredible breakthrough and your company will fail. A big idea is unlikely to transform your business; executing lots of small ideas can build a great business.

"No" is the New "Yes": Four Practices to Reprioritize Your Life

Tony Schwartz blogs.hbr.org January 17, 2012

I was sitting with the CEO and senior team of a well-respected organization. One at a time, they told me they spend their long days either in back-to-back meetings, responding to email, or putting out fires. They also readily acknowledged this way of working wasn't serving them well — personally or professionally.
It's a conundrum they couldn't seem to solve. It's also a theme on which I hear variations every day. Think of it as a madness loop — a vicious cycle. We react to what's in front of us, whether it truly matters or not. More than ever, we're prisoners of the urgent.
Prioritizing requires reflection, reflection takes time, and many of the executives I meet are so busy racing just to keep up they don't believe they have time to stop and think about much of anything.
Too often — and masochistically — they default to "yes." Saying yes to requests feels safer, avoids conflict and takes less time than pausing to decide whether or not the request is truly important.
Truth be told, there's also an adrenaline rush in saying yes. Many of us have become addicted, unwittingly, to the speed of our lives — the adrenalin high of constant busyness. We mistake activity for productivity, more for better, and we ask ourselves "What's next?" far more often than we do "Why this?" But as Gandhi put it, "A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
Saying no, thoughtfully, may be the most undervalued capacity of our times. In a world of relentless demands and infinite options, it behooves us to prioritize the tasks that add the most value. That also means deciding what to do less of, or to stop doing altogether.
Making these choices requires that we regularly step back from the madding crowd. It's only when we pause — when we say no to the next urgent demand or seductive source of instant gratification — that we give ourselves the space to reflect on, metabolize, assess, and make sense of what we've just experienced.
Taking time also allows us to collect ourselves, refuel and renew, and make conscious course corrections that ultimately save us time when we plunge back into the fray.
What follows are four simple practices that serve a better prioritized and more intentional life:
1. Schedule in your calendar anything that feels important but not urgent — to borrow Steven Covey's phrase. If it feels urgent, you're likely going to get it done. If it's something you can put off, you likely will — especially if it's challenging.
The key to success is building rituals — highly specific practices that you commit to doing at precise times, so that over time they become automatic, and no longer require much conscious intention or energy. One example is scheduling regular time in your calendar for brainstorming, or for more strategic and longer term thinking.
The most recent ritual I added to my life is getting entirely offline after dinner each evening, and on the weekends. I'm only two weeks into the practice, but I know it's already created space in my mind to think and imagine.
2. As your final activity before leaving work in the evening, set aside sufficient time — at least 15 to 20 minutes — to take stock of what's happened that day. and to decide the most important tasks you want to accomplish the next day.
Clarifying and defining your priorities — what the researcher Peter Gollwitzer calls "implementation intentions" — will help you to stay focused on your priorities in the face of all the distractions you'll inevitably face the following day.
3. Do the most important thing on your list first when you get to work in the morning, for up to 90 minutes. If possible, keep your door closed, your email turned off and your phone on silent. The more singularly absorbed your focus, the more you'll get accomplished, and the higher the quality of the work is likely to be. When you finish, take a break to renew and refuel.
Most of us have the highest level of energy and the fewest distractions in the morning. If you can't begin the day that way, schedule the most important activity as early as possible. If you're one of the rare people who feels more energy later in the day, designate that time instead to do your most important activity.
4. Take at least one scheduled break in the morning, one in the afternoon, and leave your desk for lunch. These are each important opportunities to renew yourself so that your energy doesn't run down as the day wears on. They're also opportunities to briefly take stock.
Here are two questions you may want to ask yourself during these breaks:
1. Did I get done what I intended to get done since my last break and if not, why not?
2. What do I want to accomplish between now and my next break, and what do I have to say "no" to, in order to make that possible?

Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything. Become a fan of The Energy Project on Facebook and connect with Tony at Twitter.com/TonySchwartz and Twitter.com/Energy_Project.

7 modern workplace myths

by Steve Tobak www.cbsnews.com January 16, 2012

(MoneyWatch)
COMMENTARY: How did we ever get by without social media reminding us how miserable we are at work?
Every time CareerBuilder burps out an employee survey, a thousand blogs and tweets tell us how overworked and under-appreciated we are.

And you can thank Gallup for the latest management fad -- employee engagement. Now, we all know we're not as enthusiastic about our jobs as we should be, either.

Well, here's a curve ball for you. I don't disagree with any of it. For all I know, a high percentage of employees are underpaid, working their tails off, doing the job of two or more people, under-resourced, under-informed and, as a result, hate their jobs.

So what's my beef? Just this: It's been that way forever. There's nothing new here. Maybe it's just me, but from my first summer job as a kid through 23 years in the high-tech industry and eight more as a management consultant, I'm pretty sure I've never seen a workplace where all that wasn't true to some extent.

It's just that we now have the means to ensure that every single one of us is aware of just how miserable we are 24x7 on Yahoo, Google, Twitter and Facebook.

Here are my top 7 modern workplace myths. Not that there isn't some truth to some of them. It's just that they've always been the case, and more in some companies than in others. That will never change. It's all tilting at windmills. Really.

Myth #1: Employees are overworked

From 1980 to 2003, I'm pretty sure I averaged 60 hours a week. In 1991 my CEO signed a bunch of new requisitions for my group. When he changed his mind two weeks later, I nearly had a nervous breakdown. In 1995, I had two different managers literally crying in my office because they were overworked and needed more resources. There's nothing new here.

Myth #2: We need more communication

Sure, communication is as important to business success and organizational effectiveness as it used to be. There's just too much of it. Workplace communication has so jumped the shark. The old problem of protecting domains by limiting the flow of information has morphed into a new problem of hyper-collaboration where everybody's included in everything. Communication overload has reached epidemic proportions and it's killing precious productivity and effectiveness.

Myth #3: Workers are under-engaged

What does that even mean? I guess Gallup has turned it into a big buzzword, but I've been involved in conducting employee surveys for decades. It's the same old thing. Employees are happier (aka, more engaged) about their jobs at some companies than others. Some CEOs are psychopaths who create cultures where employees live in fear, others run their companies like love fests and there's everything in between. It's just a new buzzword.

Myth #4: Managers need to do more

They need to communicate better, listen harder, manage up more effectively, yada yada. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe managers are the most overworked of all employees because they're the ones who are salaried, which just means they get to work 60 hour weeks on 40 hours pay? That's what I did all those years. Yeah, managers need to do more. Right.

Myth #5: Your job sucks

For one thing it's work, not happy hour. Also it's a free country. You get to decide what you want to do for a living and where you work. Isn't that enough? Sure, the economy sucks. So if you've got a crappy job or a boss who's a jerk, you're sort of stuck for a while. Sometimes it's worse than others, but the economy is cyclical and it's been that way forever. Besides, if you think your company is hell, your boss is the devil, and your coworkers are political, backstabbing creeps, there's a fair chance that it's you. Nobody wants to believe they're the problem.

Does your job suck? It's probably you
Are you sabotaging your own career?
10 ways to stop communication overload

Myth #6: There's a discrimination problem

Obviously, there are isolated incidents of every type imaginable. But these days we have employment laws, protected classes and political correctness. Managers are trained in diversity, executives are coached on sensitivity, and there are plenty of lawyers around to take the case if and when they screw up. The majority of discrimination that's going on in the workplace is the reverse kind.

Myth #7: Corporations are not people

I don't know how to break this to everyone, but if all the people disappeared, so would all the companies. Organizations, executives, managers, employees, shareholders, customers, vendors -- everything about companies from top to bottom -- are all people. Corporations have bylaws, articles of incorporation, stock plans, SEC documents, all sorts of legal documents, all written by and for people. The furniture and computer you use, the facility you work in, all made by people at other companies.

by Robin Sharma rscomnewsletter@aweber.com January 16, 2011

I'm sitting on an airplane thinking about what the best performers and most successful people do to continually outperform everyone around them.

As we enter what I hope will be the single best year of your life yet, I've come up with 35 Tips that I invite you to concentrate on. Share these tips, reflect on then, post them where you can see them - and allow them to infuse your mindset:

Remember that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts.

1. Keep the promises you make to others - and to yourself. 
2. The project that most scares you is the project you need to do first. 
3. Small daily improvements are the key to staggering long-term results. 
4. Stop being busy being busy. This New Year, clean out the distractions from your work+life and devote to a monomaniacal focus on the few things that matter.
5. Read "The War of Art". 
6. Watch "The Fighter". 
7. In a world where technology is causing some of us to forget how to act human, become the politest person you know. 
8. Remember that all great ideas were first ridiculed. 
9. Remember that critics are dreamers gone scared. 
10. Be "Apple-Like" in your obsession with getting the details right. 
11. Take 60 minutes every weekend to craft a blueprint for the coming seven days. As Saul Bellow once said: "A plan relieves you of the torment of choice."
12. Release your need to be liked this New Year. You can't be a visionary if you long to be liked. 
13. Disrupt or be disrupted. 
14. Hire a personal trainer to get you into the best shape of your life. Superstars focus on the value they receive versus the cost of the service.
15. Give your teammates, customers and family one of the greatest gifts of all: the gift of your attention (and presence).
16. Every morning ask yourself: "How may I best serve the most people?" 
17. Every night ask yourself: "What 5 good things happened to me this day?" 
18. Don't waste your most valuable hours (the morning) doing low value work. 
19. Leave every project you touch at work better than you found it. 
20. Your job is not just to work. Your job is to leave a trail of leaders behind you. 
21. A job is not "just a job". Every job is a gorgeous vehicle to express your gifts and talents - and to model exceptionalism for all around you.
22. Fears unfaced become your limits. 
23. Get up at 5 am and take 60 minutes to prepare your mind, body, emotions and spirit to be remarkable during the hours that follow. Being a superstar is not the domain of the gifted but the prepared.
24. Write love letters to your family. 
25. Smile at strangers. 
26. Drink more water. 
27. Keep a journal. Your life's story is worth recording. 
28. Do more than you're paid to do and do work that leaves your teammates breathless. 
29. Leave your ego at the door every morning. 
30. Set 5 daily goals every morning. These small wins will lead to nearly 2000 little victories by the end of the year.
31. Say "please" and "thank you". 
32. Remember the secret to happiness is doing work that matters and being an instrument of service. 
33. Don't be the richest person in the graveyard. Health is wealth. 
34. Life's short. The greatest risk is risk-less living. And settling for average.

I genuinely wish you the best year of your life.

Stay Great.

Robin

Four Destructive Myths Most Companies Still Live By

Tony Schwartz www.blogs.hbr.org November 1, 2011 

Myth #1: Multitasking is critical in a world of infinite demand.
This myth is based on the assumption that human beings are capable of doing two cognitive tasks at the same time. We're not. Instead, we learn to move rapidly between tasks. When we're doing one, we're actually not even aware of the other.
If you're on a conference call, for example, and you turn your attention to an incoming email, you're missing what's happening on the call as long as you're checking your email. Equally important, you're incurring something called "switching time." That's the time it takes to shift from one cognitive activity to another.
On average, according to researcher David Meyer, switching time increases the amount of time it takes to finish the primary task you were working on by an average of 25 percent. In short, juggling activities is incredibly inefficient.
Difficult as it is to focus in the face of the endless distractions we all now face, it's far and away the most effective way to get work done. The worst thing you can do as a boss is to insist that your people constantly check their email.
Myth #2: A little bit of anxiety helps us perform better.
Think for a moment about how you feel when you're performing at your best. What adjectives come to mind? Almost invariably they're positive ones. Anxiety may be a source of energy, and even motivation, but it comes with significant costs.
The more anxious we feel, the less clearly and imaginatively we think, and the more reactive and impulsive we become. That's not good for you, and it also has huge implications if you're in a supervisory role.
As a boss, your energy has a disproportionate impact on those you lead, by virtue of your authority. Put bluntly, any time your behavior increases someone's anxiety — or prompts any negative emotions, for that matter — they're less likely to perform effectively.
The more positive your energy is, the more positive their energy is likely to be, and the better the likely outcome.
Myth #3: Creativity is genetically inherited, and it's impossible to teach.
In a global economy characterized by unprecedented competitiveness and constant change, nearly every CEO hungers for ways to drive more innovation. Unfortunately, most CEOs don't think of themselves as creative, and they share with the rest of us a deeply ingrained belief that creativity is mostly inborn and magical.
Ironically, researchers have developed a surprising degree of consensus about the stages of creativity and how to approach them. Our educational system and most company cultures favor reward the rational, analytic, deductive left hemisphere thinking. We pay scant attention to intentionally cultivating the more visual, intuitive, big picture capacities of the right hemisphere.
As it turns out, the creative process moves back and forth between left and right hemisphere dominance. Creativity is actually about using the whole brain more flexibly. This process unfolds in a far more systematic — and teachable — way than we ordinarily imagine. People can quickly learn to access the hemisphere of the brain that serves them best at each stage of the creative process — and to generate truly original ideas.
Myth #4: The best way to get more work done is to work longer hours.
No single myth is more destructive to employers and employees than this one. The reason is that we're not designed to operate like computers — at high speeds, continuously, for long periods of time.
Instead, human beings are designed to pulse intermittently between spending and renewing energy. Great performers — and enlightened leaders — recognize that it's not the number of hours people work that determines the value they create, but rather the energy they bring to whatever hours they work.
Rather than systematically burning down our reservoir of energy as the day wears on, as most of us do, intermittent renewal makes it possible to keep our energy steady all day long. Strategically alternating periods of intense focus with intermittent renewal, at least every 90 minutes, makes it possible to get more done, in less time, more sustainably.
Want to test the assumption? Choose the most challenging task on your agenda before you go to sleep each night over the next week. Set aside 60 to 90 minutes at the start of the following day to focus on the activity you've chosen.
Choose a designated start and stop time, and do your best to allow no interruptions. (It helps to turn off your email.) Succeed and it will almost surely be your most productive period of the day. When you're done, reward yourself by taking a true renewal break.   

Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything.

Five Lessons from World Changers

John Coleman www.blogs.hbr.org January 10, 2012

Now is the time to change the world.
The past decade has been one of remarkable transformation and seemingly endless crisis. We've seen hundreds of millions rise from poverty to the ranks of the middle class, but we face persistent and difficult problems like disease, economic recession, and financial turmoil. Correspondingly, we need leaders who are willing to address those challenges.
They exist. The Passion & Purpose MBA survey found that, among graduate business students at least, two of the top three reasons for choosing a workplace were "intellectual challenge" and "opportunity to impact the world," and nearly 85% of those surveyed thought "business people are well-qualified to solve the most pressing problems in the world."
But what would it take for us, as individuals, to be world changers? That's the central question in John Byrne's new book, World Changers.* In it, Byrne recounts discussions with 25 entrepreneurs who have changed the world — people like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson. Byrne focuses on allowing those people to tell their stories, but in reading them, I found several valuable lessons for world changers in the making.
1. Start with purpose: Perhaps the greatest common denominator amongst great world changers is the centrality of purpose in their organizations. Google's mission is to "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Whole Foods' motto is "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet." And Facebook's mission is "to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." This purpose is what serves as a compass for the company and its employees. Finding and articulating your purpose are critical to launching a world-changing enterprise.
2. You're not too old: Too often, we view entrepreneurship as a young person's game or something for which you must be uniquely suited. Rather, entrepreneurship is about having an idea and the courage to pursue it — no matter your age. Did you know that when Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank started Home Depot, they were 34 and 48 years old, respectively? Further, neither was an entrepreneur: Marcus was a former pharmacist, and both had just been fired from their jobs at Handy Dan Improvement Centers.
3. Seek advice: It's difficult to start and grow a company in isolation, and mentorship and peer counseling are critical to maintaining your focus and direction. Find those who have been through your experience before and seek their guidance on the situation. Even great entrepreneurs like Howard Schultz seek advice when confronted with difficult situations. Schultz reassumed his leadership post at Starbucks, at least partially, as a result of a bicycle ride with Michael Dell. Schultz and Dell ran into each other vacationing in Hawaii, and during a three-hour ride along the Kona coast, Dell advised Schultz on how to handle Wall Street and the company if he resumed leadership at then struggling Starbucks.
4. Be the expert: Many MBAs, in particular, are tempted to launch businesses they know little about because they seem to have big "upside" — but to change the world it pays to be an expert. Find something you love, become an expert, and see what it would take to innovate in the space. Larry Page and Sergey Brin succeeded at Google at least partially because they were experts on search. To quote Page: "[W]e really benefited from being real experts...we understood all aspects of search. We talked to all the search companies. We really knew a lot about what was going on." They didn't know exactly how to bring their product to market or build a world-class organization, but they knew more about how to comb the web for useful information than anyone on the planet.
5. Start small: World-changing businesses are rarely world-changing from day one. Sometimes they're not even fully formed concepts. Many groundbreaking entrepreneurs simply start with a small idea and grow with it as the idea evolves. If you're waiting to launch your business because you can't see the path to changing the world, you may be missing an opportunity to learn through experimentation. One of the most shocking lessons of World Changers was how few of these entrepreneurs started "big" or even with "big things" in mind. Oprah Winfrey launched her career as a TV reporter in Nashville and worked as a reporter of local talk show host until entertainment lawyer Jeff Jacobs encouraged her to create her own show and company. Richard Branson sold records out of the trunk of his car, and Michael Dell got into business for himself, upgrading personal computers from his college dorm room.
It's a new year with new opportunities. Learning these five lessons is the first step to making an impact. How will you change the world?

John Coleman is a coauthor of the new HBR Press book, Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders. Follow him on Twitter at @johnwcoleman.

15 Ways To Do Your Best Work

From Robin Sharm robinsharma.com

15 Ways For You To Do Your Best Work

1. Do your best work by challenging the way you did things yesterday.
2. Do your best work by allowing your passion to see the light of day.
3. Do your best work by becoming part of the solution versus growing the problem.
4. Do your best work by expecting nothing less than you playing at world-class.
5. Do your best work by giving away the credit (especially when you crave it)
6. Do your best work by practicing your skills so you become a virtuoso.
7. Do your best work by releasing excuses and doing important things.
8. Do your best work by getting up when you’ve been knocked down.
9. Do your best work by keeping your promises; to others and to yourself.
10. Do your best work by showing integrity.
11. Do your best work by delivering more value than anyone could ever expect from you.
12. Do your best work by making time to refill your well.
13. Do your best work by having a strong foundation at home.
14. Do your best work by becoming as fit as a pro athlete.
15. Do your best work by doing work that makes a difference and inspires others to do the same.

As Chuck Palahniuk once said: “The goal isn’t to live forever. The goal is to create something that will.”

Keep Leading Without a Title.

17 Tips To Double Your Productivity In 14 Days

by Robin Sharma @ www.robinsharma.com/blog

I wanted to share 17 of the tactics I’ve learned that I know will help you lean into your productive best in this age of dramatic distraction:

1. Turn off all technology for 60 minutes a day and focus on doing your most important work.
2. Work in 90 minute cycles (tons of science is now confirming that this is the optimal work to rest ratio).
3. Start your day with at least 30 minutes of exercise.
4. Don’t check your email first thing in the morning.
5. Turn all your electronic notifications off.
6. Take one day a week as a complete recovery day, to refuel and regenerate (that means no email, no phone calls and zero work). You need full recovery one day a week otherwise you’ll start depleting your capabilities.
7. The data says workers are interrupted every 11 minutes. Distractions destroy productivity. Learn to protect your time and say no to interruptions.
8. Schedule every day of your week every Sunday morning. A plan relieves you of the torment of choice (said novelist Saul Bellow). It restores focus and provides energy.
9. Work in blocks of time. Creative geniuses all had 2 things in common: when they worked they were fully engaged and when they worked, they worked with this deep concentration for long periods of time. Rare in this world of entrepreneurs who can’t sit still.
10. Drink a liter of water early every morning. We wake up dehydrated. The most precious asset of an entrepreneur isn’t time – it’s energy. Water restores it.
11. Don’t answer your phone every time it rings.
12. Invest in your professional development so you bring more value to the hours you work.
13. Avoid gossip and time vampires.
14. Touch paper just once.
15. Keep a “Stop Doing List”.
16. Get up at 5 am.
17. Have meetings standing up.

8 tips to get your great ideas acted upon

by Tom Searcy,  www.cbsnews.com

Great holiday party themes, starting a recycling program, changes to the compensation system, ways to expand the business globally...regardless of the category of idea or the scale, you've probably had a great idea somewhere along the way that never got heard, despite valiant attempts. That's because you were probably thwarted by the "Idea Vampires," those people who reject your brilliant insights, and for any number of reasons. In order to get heard, you have to learn how to work with these people to move your idea from concept to action.

Vampires are scary. Idea Vampires use fear to suck the excitement, interest and support out of new ideas. They do it in emails, meetings, and conversations after the meeting. By creating doubts, delays and distractions, they can mortally wound your good idea. Here are some ways to move your ideas forward:

1. Make your idea the next evolutionary step. If your idea can be attached to an existing program or initiative and seen as an extension, it is less scary and more likely to be adopted.

2. Break it into bite-size steps. Break your idea into smaller pieces that can be implemented in phases. Less threatening ideas are more possible ideas.

3. Co-opt your idea onto someone else's idea. Making something another person's idea is a great trick you may have used in the past. A twist on this is to add an addendum to that person's idea, which is typically most successful when that person is in a stronger power position.

4. Start smaller for traction and expand the idea for resources. In the brainstorming sessions from which ideas come, really good thoughts get squashed because they start out too big. Start your idea small. Generate interest, then consensus, and grow the idea in the conversation in order to secure resources.

5. Ask, "Under what conditions," to open up the brainstorming. When you get thwarted by a stonewall response, see if you can crack open the door of possibility by asking, "Under what conditions do you think we could move forward?" This maneuver avoids a deadlock and may get creative juices flowing.

6. Anticipate the typical vampire blocking moves and be ready. Here are some of the usual suspects in the vampire vocabulary: "We don't have the resources"; "This will distract from our priorities"; and "Give me an example of where this has worked," are typical. Be ready for them with answers.

7. Seed the audience with supporters. If you have decided to present an idea in a meeting, preview your idea to some supporters in advance to get friendly voices in the discussion.

8. Put your idea forward in terms of "yield." Executives are paid to make the performance needles move. That means a calculation of what is the yield of each idea (ratio of effort to result), in order to be successful.

Remember the old saying, "There's no limit to what you can get done if you don't mind who gets the credit." Make the point of your concept to create progress for the company rather than to claim personal credit, and the chances of getting your ideas implemented will go up tremendously.

Tom Searcy is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and the foremost expert in large account sales.

Tom is the author of RFPs Suck! How to Master the RFP System Once and for All to Win Big Business

and the co-author of Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company.

Five Resolutions for Aspiring Leaders

Friday December 30, 2011 by John Coleman and Bill George

As the New Year approaches, people will be making resolutions to eat better, exercise more, get that promotion at work, or spend more time with their families. While these are worthwhile goals, we have a more important challenge for young people: Think seriously about your development as a leader.
These are tough times. Many leaders of the baby boomer generation have failed in their responsibilities by placing their self-interest ahead of their organizations. In so doing, they have failed to serve society's best interests. As a result, more young leaders from Gen X and the Millennials are being asked to take on major leadership responsibilities. To be prepared for the challenges you will face, we propose the following resolutions this New Year's:
Find a trustworthy mentor: Mentorship is a critical component of your development as a leader. A 2004 study showed that young leaders with mentors were more likely succeed professionally and experience career satisfaction. The essence of effective mentoring is developing a trusting relationship between the mentor and mentee. Identify someone with whom you have a genuine chemistry and who is committed to your development. Although many mentees do not realize it, a sound relationship is a two-way street that benefits both parties — not just the mentee. We suggest looking for mentors whom you admire for their values and character more than their success.
Form a leadership development group: Most of us have little time to reflect on the values and characteristics we want to define us as leaders, the difficulties we're facing, or the long-term impact we hope to have. Forming a leadership development group can give you the space you need to think deeply about these subjects. Leadership development groups are groups of six to eight people who meet to share their personal challenges and discuss the most important questions in their lives. Find people you can trust, and make a commitment to be one another's confidential counselors. Meet regularly, and share openly your life stories, crucibles, passions and fears, while offering each other honest feedback.
Volunteer in a civic or service organization: Have you served your community this year? In the Facebook era it's easy to lose touch with our real-world neighbors. Long hours often cause us to avoid volunteer opportunities. Participating in local organizations — from religious organizations to civic groups — can give you early leadership experiences, provide real connection to your neighbors, and offer opportunities to serve others. It adds a dimension to your life that work can't, and helps you develop and solidify your character while giving back to the community. You will find your time serving a community organization is highly rewarding while broadening your outlook on people and life.
Work in or travel to one new country: "The world is flat," as Tom Friedman puts it, so it has never been more important to get global experience. In the future cultural sensitivity will be a more important characteristic for leaders than pure intellectual ability. John's survey of more than 500 top MBAs found that on average they had worked in four countries prior to entering graduate school and expect to work in five more in the next ten years. Having a global mindset and the ability to collaborate effectively across cultures are essential qualities for aspiring leaders of global organizations.
Finally, ask more questions than you answer: With the high velocity of change in the world, it is impossible to have answers to all the important questions. Much more important is a deep curiosity about the world and the ability to frame the right questions in profound ways. The world's toughest problems cannot be solved by you or any one organization. Your role will be to bring the right people together to address the challenging issues you raise. Our research demonstrates that the biggest mistakes result from decisions made by people without deep consideration of thoughtful questions.
Young leaders will soon be asked to take on major leadership responsibilities in their organizations and their communities. We believe it is essential that they take steps like these in order to be prepared for the difficult leadership challenges they will face. There's no better time to get started than the coming year.

John Coleman, HBS '10, is the author of Passion and Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders. Bill George is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and the author of five books, including True North and True North Groups. Follow them on twitter @johnwcoleman and @bill_george.