Are You Creating Disgruntled Employees?

Joseph Folkman | 6:00 AM July 23, 2012 blogs.hbr.org

You can't make every worker happy, surely, and should a business even try? Evidence from our recent research suggests, actually, that the answer is yes. Or rather, our evidence shows that managers are giving up far too soon on their disgruntled employees, making them less productive than they could be, exposing their companies to unnecessary risks from thefts and leaks in the process, and inflating turnover costs.
What causes employees to become disgruntled and what can be done to prevent it? To find out we zeroed in on the most unhappy people in our data. These were 6% in our database of 160,576 employees who displayed the lowest levels of job satisfaction and commitment on their 360 evaluations of their bosses. We were looking for those among them whose managers also oversaw the most satisfied employees. In this way we identified that group of leaders who were managing both the very unhappy and the very happy at the same time.
The results of the data were clear: There is most definitely such a thing as "the boss's favorites." And while, in any disagreement we inevitably find both parties bear part of the fault — that is, the disgruntled employees do certainly play some role in their own unhappiness — we consistently found in the analysis that their complaints were justified. Their managers were in fact treating the disgruntled employee differently than they treated their very satisfied employees. What's more, when the managers in question started to treat their disgruntled employees like everyone else, the employees' behavior quickly improved.
Our results suggest a clear path forward for bringing disgruntled employees back into the fold. In particular, the unhappy group in our survey strongly agreed on six major areas in which they felt (and we agree) that their leaders needed to improve:

• Encourage me more. When we asked the unhappy 6% to name the skill they thought was most important for their boss to demonstrate, the top response was "Inspire and motivate others." Too often, managers take a negative tone with disgruntled employees. Expecting that efforts to motivate will be ignored, none are proffered, and the expectations become self-fulfilling. But our data suggest managers should take the opposite view: Work harder to inspire this group. Keep the conversation positive. Expect the best, not the worst.
• Trust me more. It's probably not surprising that both parties — unhappy employee and boss alike — distrust each other. The key to restoring trust is to operate with the belief that the other party can change. Here we'd suggest the manager make the first move by making the effort to understand the employee's problems. Then, as both parties work on their relationship, they must strive for consistency —that is, the manager must strive to treat all employees equitably, and both parties must strive to reliably do what they say they will do. Over time, trust will grow.
• Take an interest in my development. If a person works hard and gets a pay check he has a job. But if a person works hard, gets a pay check, and learns a new skill, she has a career. Career development should not be focused only on the high-potentials. As counterintuitive as it may seem, don't leave the underachievers out when distributing stretch assignments.
• Keep me in the loop. Communication is fundamentally a management function, so this responsibility rests squarely with the managers. Great communicators do three things well. First, they share information and keep everyone well informed. Second, they ask good questions, inviting the opinions and views from others — all others. Third, they listen. And not just to the people they like.
• Be more honest with me. People want to know how they're really doing on the job — and the one's not in favor perhaps even more than the one's feeling the warm glow of approval. They want to know why they're falling short. They want a chance to improve. Too often, though, the bottom 6% felt their bosses were not giving honest feedback, glossing over problems with comments like "You're coming along fine," when clearly they were not. What's more, many reported promises being made ("if you finish this project on time then...") that were not kept. Honesty is the bedrock of good relationships.
• Connect with me more. Anything managers can to do improve their relationship with the disgruntled employees will have a significant positive influence. Here's where favoritism takes on its most concrete form: managers go to lunch more with people they like, our data show; they talk with them more socially (about children, sports, etc); they know them more personally. This is natural, surely, but so are the feelings of exclusion it creates among the less favored. A small effort by managers to spread their attention around more broadly can go a long way here.

As leaders, our knee-jerk reaction to unfavored (and disgruntled) employees is often — "It's their own fault!" Our research shows this is not always (and often not wholly) the case. Before you settle for letting your dissatisfied people go and cost your organization thousands of dollars in employee turnover, take a moment to consider how these performers need to be treated.
If not for their sake, then for everyone else's sake. Research by the University of British Columbia recently published in the Journal of Human Resources has shown that those who witness workplace bullying become equally disgruntled as the victims and just as likely to quit. All employees need leaders who know how to inspire and motivate them, give them opportunities for development, and treat them with the respect and dignity they each deserve.
A third of a person's life is spent in the workplace, sometimes more. When the environment is created by an extraordinary leader who cares about everyone's development, it leaves employees with little room to complain.

5 accountability pitfalls that kill companies

Steve Tobak 7/23/2012 www.cbsnews.com

President Obama's "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" speech hasn't just created a firestorm of political debate. It's got a lot of business people shaking their heads, as well. And that includes me.

While I understand what the president was trying to get at, the fundamental problem with his logic is that it flies in the face of one of the most important management concepts: accountability. When people are held accountable -- to themselves and their stakeholders -- things get done. Good things.

Actually, the speech does a pretty good job of explaining how accountability works, if you just reverse the cause and effect. You see, when people take risks and hold themselves accountable for the outcome, as our founding fathers did, that's what built "this unbelievable American system," to use the president's words.
Granted, that system does now exist, but only through the continuous replication of the concept of personal initiative and accountability. It's not the other way around. The founding fathers were entrepreneurs and innovators in every sense of the way we think of those words today. Had they not been, we wouldn't have this great system.

President Obama was certainly right about one thing. There are a lot of smart and hardworking people out there. And one of the best ways I know of to differentiate and ensure successful outcomes in business is to create solid accountability mechanisms.

Here are the top five "accountability" pitfalls that business leaders and executives typically fall into, in my experience. Some of them don't even appear to be accountability-related on the surface, which is why they're so insidious. If you want a high-performance management team, make sure you avoid them:
Unclear responsibility. This is probably the most common pitfall. Show me an organization and I'll show you managers with misaligned goals and vague responsibility. Two people shouldn't have the same functional responsibility or own the same goal. If you do that, you're asking for things to fall in the crack. That doesn't preclude "matrix" management; the trick is to ensure goals and responsibilities are properly aligned. It can be done.

No follow up. This is practically an epidemic in organizations. Executives are great at coming up with goals, strategies, even metrics. Unfortunately, they're also notoriously bad at following up. I don't care how driven and entrepreneurial executives are; without follow up, nothing good happens. Companies must have a relatively objective and, sorry to say this, strict process for both setting and scoring management performance metrics.

Compensation plans that reward poor performance. Closely related to the "no follow up" problem, most companies have terrible executive compensation plans. Maybe 1 in 10 actually rewards the right behavior and has enough teeth to foster accountability. The problem? The bar for making gobs of money is set too low, and there's not enough difference between success and failure, plain and simple.

Management behavior. When it comes to management behavior, most executives and boards just look the other way. That lack of accountability plays a key role in business failures because dysfunctional leadership results in bad strategic decision-making and poor employee performance and execution. Granted, coming up with metrics for this sort of thing is challenging, but I think "360s" are pretty effective.

Flawed corporate strategy. This is rarely seen as an accountability problem, but it is. When company executives push a flawed strategy, two things inevitably happen. First, smart people in the organization call them on it -- publicly or privately -- word gets around, and management credibility suffers, big-time. Second, folks will start covering their behinds, pointing fingers, acting passive aggressively -- all sorts of dysfunctional behavior that wreaks havoc with organizational performance.

Not surprisingly, I find that executive management teams at consistently successful companies make accountability a priority and, therefore, avoid these pitfalls. It take a real commitment of precious management time and resources. But not only is the payoff worth it, it's a necessity in our hypercompetitive business world.

What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day

By Kevin Purdy  August 22, 2012 www.fastcompany.com

 

 

How much does the first hour of every day matter? As it turns out, a lot. It can be the hour you see everything clearly, get one real thing done, and focus on the human side of work rather than your task list.                                       

Remember when you used to have a period at the beginning of every day to think about your schedule, catch up with friends, maybe knock out a few tasks? It was called home room, and it went away after high school. But many successful people schedule themselves a kind of grown-up home room every day. You should too.

The first hour of the workday goes a bit differently for Craig Newmark of Craigslist, David Karp of Tumblr, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, career writer (and Fast Company blogger) Brian Tracy, and others, and they’ll tell you it makes a big difference. Here are the first items on their daily to-do list.

Don’t Check Your Email for the First Hour. Seriously. Stop That.

Tumblr founder David Karp will “try hard” not to check his email until 9:30 or 10 a.m., according to an Inc. profile of him. “Reading e-mails at home never feels good or productive,” Karp said. “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.”
Not all of us can roll into the office whenever our Vespa happens to get us there, but most of us with jobs that don’t require constant on-call awareness can trade e-mail for organization and single-focus work. It’s an idea that serves as the title of Julie Morgenstern’s work management book Never Check Email In The Morning, and it’s a fine strategy for leaving the office with the feeling that, even on the most over-booked days, you got at least one real thing done.
If you need to make sure the most important messages from select people come through instantly, AwayFind can monitor your inbox and get your attention when something notable arrives. Otherwise, it’s a gradual but rewarding process of training interruptors and coworkers not to expect instantaneous morning response to anything they send in your off-hours.

Gain Awareness, Be Grateful

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.
Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”
Robbins offers the “Hour of Power” segment of his Ultimate Edge series as a free audio stream (here’s the direct MP3 download). Blogger Mike McGrath also wrote a concise summary of the Hour of Power). You can be sure that at least some of the more driven people you’ve met in your career are working on Robbins’ plan.

Do the Big, Shoulder-Sagging Stuff First

Brian Tracy’s classic time-management book Eat That Frog gets its title from a Mark Twain saying that, if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ve got it behind you for the rest of the day, and nothing else looks so bad. Gina Trapani explained it well in a video for her Work Smart series). Combine that with the concept of getting one thing done before you wade into email, and you’ve got a day-to-day system in place. Here’s how to force yourself to stick to it:

Choose Your Frog

"Choose your frog, and write it down on a piece of paper that you'll see when you arrive back at your desk in the morning, Tripani advises."If you can, gather together the material you'll need to get it done and have that out, too."
One benefit to tackling that terrible, weighty thing you don’t want to do first thing in the morning is that you get some space from the other people involved in that thing--the people who often make the thing more complicated and frustrating. Without their literal or figurative eyes over your shoulder, the terrible thing often feels less complex, and you can get more done.

Ask Yourself If You’re Doing What You Want to Do

Feeling unfulfilled at work shouldn’t be something you realize months too late, or even years. Consider making an earnest attempt every morning at what the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a graduating class at Stanford to do:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Customer Service” (or Your Own Equivalent)

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark answered the first hour question succinctly: “Customer service.” He went on to explain (or expand) that he also worked on current projects, services for military families and veterans, and protecting voting rights. But customer service is what Newmark does every single day at Craigslist, responding to user complaints and smiting scammers and spammers. He almost certainly has bigger fish he could pitch in on every day, but Newmark says customers service “anchors me to reality.”
Your own version of customer service might be keeping in touch with contacts from year-ago projects, checking in with coworkers you don’t regularly interact with, asking questions of mentors, and just generally handling the human side of work that quickly gets lost between task list items. But do your customer service on the regular, and you’ll have a more reliable roster of helpers when the time comes.



Timeless Success Recipes From Stephen Covey

by Lisa Nirell July 20, 2012 www.fastcompany.com

 
"Here, have an oatmeal cookie."
That is the disarming way in which my first interview with Stephen Covey began in 2004. In light of Dr. Covey's passing this week, his lessons are more alive than they have ever been. I'm certain that my experiences with Covey were consistent with many others. This is my attempt to summarize those life lessons.
I wish that I could say my first live interview with Covey went smoothly. Although FranklinCovey's press team invited me to their Long Beach, Calif., conference, they asserted that Covey's full schedule would not allow time for me to interview him. My expectations were very low. Suddenly, after the Day 1 main session, the reporter from the Los Angeles Times contacted Deb Lund, the director of PR, and cancelled his interview. She offered me his interview time slot.
I paused three seconds for dignity, then said yes. Here's the rub: I had seven minutes' notice to prepare for the interview.
As a rookie journalist and freelancer for The San Diego Transcript, I was panicking over my lack of preparation. I felt that I just didn't have enough time to make a strong first impression.
My hike to the second story of the conference center felt somewhat like the Bataan death march. I kept a stiff upper lip, looked him straight in the eyes, and spoke the truth. "Stephen, I apologize for not being prepared for this interview." He deftly offered me an oatmeal cookie, sat back in his chair, and proceeded to ask me about my life, my family, and my passions.
Needless to say, the interview is one of my most memorable. Our 15-minute interview spilled into 40. We covered a wide range of topics. Five years later, he graciously agreed to endorse my book and granted me another interview.
Many will remember Covey for his prolific contributions to the burgeoning self-help movement. Others will applaud him for his global impact through his nonprofit endeavors and his prolific speaking and writing abilities. I applaud him for something else.
Covey had an uncanny abililty to push his ego aside and make others feel included and valued. His book, The 8th Habit, outlines his belief that we must find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. Even though we only met three times, he inspired me year after year to weave that philosophy into my daily business activities.
These are the timeless Covey gifts that Stephen gave me:

1. Encourage critical thinking during meetings. I ask for evidence behind every opportunity or problem. I seldom allow hearsay or gossip to drive my own strategic choices or my clients'. When I stray from this philosophy and make irrational, knee-jerk choices, I lose clients and create unnecessary tension. Covey says in The 8th Habit, "between stimulus and response there is a space where we choose our response."
2. I constantly strive for deeper meaning and purpose. While some of my contemporaries become enamored with the latest marketing automation, performance management, or social media platforms, I strive to stay grounded in my life's true purpose. Generating more leads or driving higher EBITDA are not examples of a noble purpose. Automated performance management and stack ranking programs have proven to be a hornet's nest, because they often stray from a company's purpose and assume that some people will always be worthy of termination. Are these ideas holding your company back from reaching its true potential?
3. I strive to eliminate the hourly worker mindset forever. Covey opened my eyes to the foolishness of our Industrial Age thinking. In The 8th Habit, he described the four Industrial Age maladies:
   --"The belief that you must control people;
   --Our view of accounting (People are an expense; machines are assets);
   --The carrot-and-stick motivational philosophy; and
   --Centralized budgeting ... a reactive approach that produces 'kiss-up' cultures bent on 'spending it so we won't lose it next year.'"
4. I schedule time for self-reflection every day. This may mean a five-minute check in with a colleague or my husband, but it gets done. During my CMO peer meetings, I encourage each member to provide a "check in": What's different from our last meeting? What worked in your performance? What didn't work? What are you celebrating? Self-knowledge must take front and center position to text messaging, email, and tweeting. The majority of senior executives I meet confess that reflection is often rejected in favor of addressing the crisis du jour (the urgent versus the important). Picasso once said that "without great solitude no serious work is possible." Perhaps he and Covey conspired at some point to help us strike more balance in our lives.

Covey made this world a better place. I will savor that "oatmeal cookie" moment for the rest of my life.

The truth about liars

Here's a riddle: What are the three times in life it is acceptable to lie? When you are an actor in a play, when you are bluffing in poker and when you are giving objections to a sales person.

Overcoming objections is especially difficult because prospects think it is perfectly okay to play it fast and loose with the truth. Let's look at the liars, half-truth-tellers, "concealers," and the delusional hopeful, whose greatest sin is that they lie to themselves first and then repeat it to us.
I don't have science behind me and I am not a poker expert that can read tells. I do, however, tend to think there are some indicators when the conversation is not completely truthful and those hints are worth watching for.

Over claims. Promises are too big for the person's position in the company or role in the project. Beware the overzealous prospect. They make claims that they can approve the deal because they are afraid you'll move past them and leave them out of the discussions.
Wait-and-see. When someone is delaying the timeline in a buying process he or she defined, it's not a great indicator of honesty. I have found that in these circumstances the person is often checking pricing with the incumbent vendor or negotiating with my biggest competitor while keeping me on the hook.
Too-good-to-be-true. "Price is not a major factor in this decision." "We're not considering any other providers." "We're going to bypass the normal testing phases and put this into full production." I've heard all of these and later in the process not one of them turned out to be true. Was the person lying? Let's say no. But I think she had convinced herself of something that in the end she should have known was not going to be true.
If, then. As in, "...if you just lower your price 11 percent, then we will make the decision right away..." only to find out this was a gambit in a list of demands. This liar is seductive because he preys upon our sense of urgency, and causes us to act as his agent in negotiations within our own firm. The "if, then" liars proceed to blame other forces within their firm, for further delays and heretofore unmentioned requirements, as a means to repeat the "if then" game to win even more concessions.

When I see these types of red-flags, I push. I think a mixture of self-confidence, raw curiosity, and authenticity can get you closer to truth, regardless if the person will tell you the truth or not. The biggest push is raw curiosity -- ask the questions that are uncomfortable. It always surprises me how often we don't ask the questions we know we should because we are afraid of the answer. As if by not asking the question, the answer doesn't exist.

Some of those tough questions can include:

• Why are you considering making a change at this time?
• What is the exact threshold of performance improvement that has to be achieved for us to win this business?
• Who has the greatest amount to lose in your company if you agree to do business with us?

Since you are delaying the decision for 30 days, what specifically will change during that period to enable you to make a better decision in 30 days?

If you made the decision today and went with our firm, what is the biggest thing that could go wrong? Who would be the first to point it out?

This is not the climatic scene of this week's episode of "Law and Order" ("ripped from today's headlines!"), but rather a hunt for information that will help you overcome the real objections. And that's the truth.

Gaining commitment

Tom Searcy July 5th, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Prospects have a hard time with the C word: Commitment. Sure they have signed on the dotted line. But fear, uncertainty and doubt enter the picture. One of the biggest fears prospects usually have is a quite simple question: "How do we get started?"

They're now poised at the end of a cliff and a deep chasm. They can see the other side and implementation of your solution. But between now and then is a huge chasm they cannot cross in their imagination. This, of course, makes them very afraid.

Building a bridge for them will eliminate that gigantic fear and show them your competence, your ability to anticipate and strategize, and your willingness to share a little of the load of transition.

What the prospects want to know is, "What happens between now and then?" And you have to be prepared to answer completely and with confidence.

"Trust us. It'll be done," won't eliminate any fear.

Let's look at how we develop your transition map.

- Start with the question: What will we do today or tomorrow to move this forward? And you take it from there.

- Name and define clearly each step you will take between now and full implementation. Think of everything. Nothing is too trivial to be included: Actions to be taken, people to be involved from both companies, training that will be needed, person(s) from your company responsible for each step, timelines for each step, and individuals to contact in case the prospect has questions.

- Set a regular communication schedule with the prospects to keep them fully informed.

- Establish milestones with key performance indicators where you and the prospects can discuss how everything is going. Define your results threshold for rollout upfront. At each step, what results do you need and what results do your prospects need to make, so that you can move seamlessly through the steps?

- Establish the 30 percent completion point, the 50 percent completion point, and so on.

- Establish an ROI schedule.

This transition map is essential when you're hunting a big deal. Since this is such a large deal and since prospects are fearful, sometimes they will say, "Let's try a little and see how that works." Don't fall into that trap.

I was with a company recently in the far Northwest. They would sell an initial implementation -- fairly complex engineering sales -- and they'd sell almost any volume they could get.

The volume that would allow them to work out the kinks, really engineer the product, and work through the implementation was 10,000 units. But the salespeople were allowed to go out and sell 5,000 units.

Well, you want to know what the first 5,000 units look like? A mess.

During the first 5,000 they're just getting their supply chain management right. They're working through the orientation of parts in the inline manufacturing process. The first 5,000 units is where all the hard, bumpy work gets done. And if the prospects really wanted to know what the future would look like working with that company, the best vantage point would result from viewing it during the implementation of the second 5,000 units.

If you let yourself get caught in the "try it and see how it goes" trap, you won't have made the big sale you want to make, and your prospects will be disappointed with the results. Chances are you'll lose the deal entirely.

Selling 5,000 when you know the only way for prospects to really understand your value proposition is at 10,000 will not get you your big sale. If the prospect isn't interested in buying your entire deal, you need to find other prospects that will. Don't sell yourself short and settle for anything less than commitment.

A cure for toxic salesperson syndrome

 Tom Searcy July 18, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Does your company have a salesperson that is too valuable to let go but too painful to keep?  Toxic sales people are easy to spot in the workplace. Co-workers call them tyrants, jerks, and worse. Most are emotional bullies who treat employees coldly, even cruelly. They are quick to assign blame and even quicker to hog credit for themselves.

But what is the impact of such bosses on company performance? Heavy, according to researchers who polled several thousand managers and employees from a diverse range of U.S. companies. Here's how employees respond to toxic co-workers:

• 80 percent lost work time worrying about the offending employees' rudeness
• 78 percent said their commitment to the organization declined
• 66 percent said their performance declined
• 63 percent lost time avoiding the offender
• 48 percent decreased their work effort

Add to that the legal penalties levied against companies in connection with workplace bullying or the hidden cost of long-term disability if a bully makes his or her targets psychologically incapable of working again. And if word gets around that a company tolerates this sort behavior, the employer may have trouble hiring or retaining good employees.

Despite their adverse impact, toxic managers can be rehabilitated, says workplace psychologist Dr. Bruce Heller, author of the book "The Prodigal Executive." That is good news for any company with the kind of salespeople you can't live with -- and without.

"Toxic sales people can be saved because these are individuals who are extremely successful," Heller says. "Many of these executives could be compared to an elite athlete. They are highly skilled, talented, and energetic. They have passion for what they do and love the companies they're working for. They feel a sense pride in their work, have an insatiable curiosity, and want to learn more."

Unfortunately, many of them have never had coaching or leadership development. They were put into a sales leadership role because they were good at selling and often are eager for a mentor. As a result, many are ripe to learn some of these skills.

Heller has repeatedly found that toxic salespeople can change their personality, even if they have been that way for a long time. "Personality is malleable if there is a reward for doing so," he says, citing the example of one president of a Fortune 500 subsidiary named Peter. "His level of intuition and ability to analyze problems were superb. He was also one of the best negotiators I have ever seen. Peter picked up subtle nuances and would instantaneously have the perfect retort ready."

But the executive never listened to staffers. He felt that because he was the smartest person in the room, listening to others was a waste of time because he already knew what was best. Not surprisingly, there was a mass exodus of top talent from the company.

"I coached Peter to listen using small steps," Heller says. "First, I just had him practice not talking for awhile while his subordinates spoke. Next we had him practice nodding while others spoke. Then, while going through the motions, something amazing happened. He actually heard what they were saying. 'I sure learned a lot more listening than when I was talking.' "
Remember the old joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb? Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

6 Leadership Styles, And When You Should Use Them

www.fastcompany.com 05-29-2012

Taking a team from ordinary to extraordinary means understanding and embracing the difference between management and leadership. According to writer and consultant Peter Drucker, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

Manager and leader are two completely different roles, although we often use the terms interchangeably. Managers are facilitators of their team members’ success. They ensure that their people have everything they need to be productive and successful; that they’re well trained, happy and have minimal roadblocks in their path; that they’re being groomed for the next level; that they are recognized for great performance and coached through their challenges.

Conversely, a leader can be anyone on the team who has a particular talent, who is creatively thinking out of the box and has a great idea, who has experience in a certain aspect of the business or project that can prove useful to the manager and the team. A leader leads based on strengths, not titles.
The best managers consistently allow different leaders to emerge and inspire their teammates (and themselves!) to the next level.

When you’re dealing with ongoing challenges and changes, and you’re in uncharted territory with no means of knowing what comes next, no one can be expected to have all the answers or rule the team with an iron fist based solely on the title on their business card. It just doesn’t work for day-to-day operations. Sometimes a project is a long series of obstacles and opportunities coming at you at high speed, and you need every ounce of your collective hearts and minds and skill sets to get through it.
This is why the military style of top-down leadership is never effective in the fast-paced world of adventure racing or, for that matter, our daily lives (which is really one big, long adventure, hopefully!). I truly believe in Tom Peters’s observation that the best leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders. When we share leadership, we’re all a heck of a lot smarter, more nimble and more capable in the long run, especially when that long run is fraught with unknown and unforeseen challenges.

Change leadership styles
Not only do the greatest teammates allow different leaders to consistently emerge based on their strengths, but also they realize that leadership can and should be situational, depending on the needs of the team. Sometimes a teammate needs a warm hug. Sometimes the team needs a visionary, a new style of coaching, someone to lead the way or even, on occasion, a kick in the bike shorts. For that reason, great leaders choose their leadership style like a golfer chooses his or her club, with a calculated analysis of the matter at hand, the end goal and the best tool for the job.
My favorite study on the subject of kinetic leadership is Daniel Goleman’s Leadership That Gets Results, a landmark 2000 Harvard Business Review study. Goleman and his team completed a three-year study with over 3,000 middle-level managers. Their goal was to uncover specific leadership behaviors and determine their effect on the corporate climate and each leadership style’s effect on bottom-line profitability.
The research discovered that a manager’s leadership style was responsible for 30% of the company’s bottom-line profitability! That’s far too much to ignore. Imagine how much money and effort a company spends on new processes, efficiencies, and cost-cutting methods in an effort to add even one percent to bottom-line profitability, and compare that to simply inspiring managers to be more kinetic with their leadership styles. It’s a no-brainer.

Here are the six leadership styles Goleman uncovered among the managers he studied, as well as a brief analysis of the effects of each style on the corporate climate:

1. The pacesetting leader expects and models excellence and self-direction. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Do as I do, now.” The pacesetting style works best when the team is already motivated and skilled, and the leader needs quick results. Used extensively, however, this style can overwhelm team members and squelch innovation.
   
2. The authoritative leader mobilizes the team toward a common vision and focuses on end goals, leaving the means up to each individual. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Come with me.” The authoritative style works best when the team needs a new vision because circumstances have changed, or when explicit guidance is not required. Authoritative leaders inspire an entrepreneurial spirit and vibrant enthusiasm for the mission. It is not the best fit when the leader is working with a team of experts who know more than him or her.
   
3. The affiliative leader works to create emotional bonds that bring a feeling of bonding and belonging to the organization. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “People come first.” The affiliative style works best in times of stress, when teammates need to heal from a trauma, or when the team needs to rebuild trust. This style should not be used exclusively, because a sole reliance on praise and nurturing can foster mediocre performance and a lack of direction.
   
4. The coaching leader develops people for the future. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Try this.” The coaching style works best when the leader wants to help teammates build lasting personal strengths that make them more successful overall. It is least effective when teammates are defiant and unwilling to change or learn, or if the leader lacks proficiency.
   
5. The coercive leader demands immediate compliance. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “Do what I tell you.” The coercive style is most effective in times of crisis, such as in a company turnaround or a takeover attempt, or during an actual emergency like a tornado or a fire. This style can also help control a problem teammate when everything else has failed. However, it should be avoided in almost every other case because it can alienate people and stifle flexibility and inventiveness.
   
6. The democratic leader builds consensus through participation. If this style were summed up in one phrase, it would be “What do you think?” The democratic style is most effective when the leader needs the team to buy into or have ownership of a decision, plan, or goal, or if he or she is uncertain and needs fresh ideas from qualified teammates. It is not the best choice in an emergency situation, when time is of the essence for another reason or when teammates are not informed enough to offer sufficient guidance to the leader.

Bottom line? If you take two cups of authoritative leadership, one cup of democratic, coaching, and affiliative leadership, and a dash of pacesetting and coercive leadership “to taste,” and you lead based on need in a way that elevates and inspires your team, you’ve got an excellent recipe for long-term leadership success with every team in your life.



Robyn Benincasa is a two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, two-time Guinness World Record distance kayaker, a full-time firefighter, and author of the new book, HOW WINNING WORKS: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth, from which this article is excerpted. (Harlequin Nonfiction, June 2012)

Seven "Non-Negotiables" to Prevent a Bad Hire

by David K. Williams and Mary Michelle Scott   May 31, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

The costs of a bad hire are staggering. A recent survey by Career Builder reports more than two-thirds of employers were affected by a bad hire last year, according to AOL Jobs. Of nearly 2,700 employers surveyed, 41% estimate a single bad hire cost $25,000; a quarter estimate a bad choice cost $50,000 or more — not to mention the demoralizing effect of the issue on other employees and on the new hire. Losing a job is one of the most stressful events a human can experience.

To avoid that, when we make hires, we screen candidates using a list of personal characteristics we call the Non-Negotiables. First there were four. Ultimately, we've expanded the list to seven. These are the characteristics that have become the primary criteria for hiring decisions — things we value even more than skills and background. When we add people to our nearly 100-person company, these criteria are non-negotiable.

The seven Non-Negotiables are Respect, Belief, Loyalty, Commitment, Trust, Courage and Gratitude.

Ideal hires bring traditional and job-specific capabilities and high proficiencies in these seven core traits. However, in many cases, the Non-Negotiables have led us to make what others would consider "unusual hires." The result, for our company, has been near-zero turnover — and many employees express the desire and willingness to stay with us for life.

It took us a few years before we fully embraced the concept of the Non-Negotiables as an explicit hiring goal. We always sought individuals with high character strengths and strong work ethics. In HR parlance, we looked for "athletes," and we talked about assessing the right fit through a strong "gut feeling." Since January 2011, we've gone further: We've now articulated these traits as full and formal requirements for the people we hire. Granted, it is more difficult to identify and assess character traits than concrete skills — however, the strategy we are using thus far seems to be meeting success. We ask potential candidates to tell us about situations where they have exemplified each of the non-negotiable traits. Because each candidate is interviewed by multiple leaders, we compare assessments on each of the traits. Later on, we may also move to an actual scoring system as well.

We also ask the same questions of the individual's references — not the references they list on their resume, but of their former co-workers, associates and bosses that we identify independently, and who are in a position to speak open and candidly about the candidate's strengths (or weaknesses) in exhibiting these traits. Clearly, it's not an exact science — but we are finding the ways to become more precise as we grow.

At times focusing on this non-traditional hiring criteria leads us to hire people with unusual backgrounds. When Kevin Batchelor — now one of our two VP's of Engineering — came to work here, he was not a programmer at all; his degrees were in theater and anthropology. Now, eight years later, his software designs are winning awards. John David King — now our EVP of Sales and Marketing — had no prior background in leading a sales organization. He had heart, spirit, and character, coupled with a law degree and a bachelor's degree in communications.

We've filled our developer ranks largely through a partnership with Utah Valley University. We started by looking for interns — the right people with the right characteristics who wanted to learn how to code. One of them was a firefighter, one an electrician, and one was in the culinary program. Some were programmers by training, but only interested (or so they thought) in programming Internet games.

We have a strong community focus — of our near 100 employees, 40 are or have been interns working on flexible schedules to allow them to finish their degrees.
Our approach is contradictory to most conventional management wisdom, which suggests that hiring managers focus on relevant skills and experience. But it is working for us.

Our company has no shortage of talent because we've trained the people we bring in with care. Our employees are respectful of each other, and as a company we strive to be respectful of others as well. In a competitive $1 billion software market we are collegial — we list our competitors' offerings along with our own products on our Facebook page, and we applaud their successes along with our own.

Our hiring strategy has built a loyal base of employees during a time when the typical career path is to "keep the options open" and to be at least periodically shopping around. Our strategy will continue to be the right one for us. Perhaps it could work for other organizations as well. We look forward to your opinions and thoughts

Stop Guesstimating Your Sales Forecasts

Matthew Bellows  May 17, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

For anyone running a sales organization, the 48 hours before a pipeline presentation are the worst days of the month. The pipeline meeting is where you tell management your team's sales forecast for the next month, and no matter how good your numbers were last month, your work life is a mess.

In the days and weeks leading up to this point, you've had everyone send you their individual and team projections. You've told them, "Update me on the deals you've been working on, tell me about the new ones, estimate when they are going to close, and give me a percentage chance for each one."

You have been diligent in managing your people and in creating compensation plans that reward consistency and predictability. You have stayed on top of the major deals. You have put in place sales training and a market-leading, cloud-based CRM system. Everyone on your teams spends hours each week typing updates, but for those 48 hours, none of it seems to help much.

Basically, you're going into the pipeline meeting and giving your bosses your best guess, because you lack the tools to offer something more precise.

But how can forecasting sales data be such of a problem? The performance of the sales team has always been the most measurable in a company. At the end of every week, month, quarter and year, the result of sales activity is shown on the top line for all to see.

There are two reasons. First, the obvious: the higher you go in the organization, the less connected you are to the deals happening beneath you — and the more vulnerable you are to individual reps or teams, either purposely or subconsciously, altering their pipeline projections to suit their needs. This is no different from how people in non-sales functions push to create budgets and targets they know they can beat.

The second reason for the sales manager's pain is that when it comes to gathering data about upcoming sales possibilities, companies and CRM systems rarely measure anything real. For most kinds of business-to-business selling, your CRM database is an outdated collection of anecdotes and guesses. The fewer the deals, and the longer the sales cycle, the less your "data" matches reality. The stuff that does get accumulated in spreadsheets and CRM systems looks like data — there are dollar signs and probabilities next to prospect names — but it's not. It's really just the opinions, guesses, estimates and suppositions of your sales team.

Thus, the terrible two days. The number you present to your bosses will look definitive, and your reputation will be staked to it. You will have padded it, of course, and your boss will push back and demand that you raise it. You'll settle on a compromise, but you'll leave the room anxious, because you know that there's nothing firm and reliable to back it up.

Why is this the best we, as sales leaders, can do? Because for the most part we are collecting and summing opinions instead of data.

Some innovative sales organizations are starting to move away from the old ways. The growth of inside sales teams and the increasing emphasis on more-measurable sales channels like phone calls and emails is a start. And while CRM systems have their shortcomings, the central repository of information and leads at least gives the harried manager a single pile through which to dig.

But there will be no end to the stress, the chaos and the cognitive dissonance of the 48 hours before the pipeline meeting unless we change. We have to start caring more about sales activities, the specific actions that salespeople and sales teams perform to close more business. We need to know how many phone calls, emails, demos and visits it takes for our teams to close a deal. Then we need to measure the underlying data for each team member without requiring them to report on themselves.

(Full disclosure: Although my company does make an email product to support the sales function, it doesn't help with the problem of tracking sales activities.)

So this is a call to innovative sales leaders, sales operations people, technology and service providers, and the top companies of the CRM industry. Let's build the processes, the services and the tools we need to collect data instead of opinions. Let's learn to build forecasts based on what we do instead of what we say. And most importantly, let's help our salespeople succeed instead of weighing them down with processes that waste valuable time and money.

It's the only way to improve those awful 48 hours. And along the way, we'll find ways to make a whole lot more money.

Matthew Bellows is founder and CEO of Yesware.

People Want Jobs That Make A Difference, Even If It Means A Pay Cut

 Ariel Schwartz www.fastcoexist.com

A new survey comparing college students soon to enter the work force with current workers found that everyone wants an "impact job," and would do a lot to get one.
The job market may be bleak, but college graduates of all ages still have high hopes that they will eventually land "impact jobs" that make a difference socially or environmentally. So says Talent Report: What Workers Want in 2012 from Net Impact, which surveyed 1,726 college students about to enter the workforce as well as employed four-year college graduates (including Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers) on their life goals, job satisfaction, and desire to have an "impact job."
Here’s what the survey found.

• Somewhat surprisingly, current workers said that having an impact job was more important than having children, a prestigious career, wealth, and community leadership. The top two most important things to have for happiness: financial security and marriage. Financial security still matters more than making a difference, but wealth isn’t important for people if they can do some good.
• That’s especially true for students: 58% of student respondents say they would take a 15% pay cut to “work for an organization whose values are like my own."
• Almost 60% of students also expect to have multiple job offers to choose from (that may be a little overly idealistic); 37% believe they can make a positive social or environmental impact within five years.

 Half of current workers care if their job helps make a better world, but 65% of students care.

Among current workers, work/life balance is the most important aspect of an ideal job. A positive environment is the second most important piece (it’s most important overall for students), and interesting work is third. Having a prestigious employer is the least important piece.

There are a few big differences between students and workers: 50% of students say it’s important to have an employer that prioritizes CSR, while only 38% of current workers care. Half of current workers care if their job helps make a better world, but 65% of students care.

Overall, women care more about impact jobs than men: 30% of women say they would take a pay cut for an impact job, while 19% of men say the same thing. And 60% of employed women believe that working for a socially and environmentally conscious employer is important, compared to 38% of men.

In spite of the student population’s idealism, Boomers are most likely to vote (73% compared to 43% of students in the last year), boycott a product or company, or volunteer outside of work.

What does it all mean? Employers had better start taking action now to accommodate the burgeoning socially conscious generation of college grads (which paradoxically does not seem to be civically minded at all). And those new grads, in turn, might want to check out some of the new impact job resources that have started popping up.

Ariel Schwartz is a Senior Editor at Co.Exist.

How to Engage Your Customers and Employees

R "Ray" Wang www.blogs.hbr.org May 9, 2012

Most customers now ignore targeted marketing campaigns, avoid responding to offers, and provide minimal feedback when asked. Instead, potential customers interact with each other, bypassing sanitized corporate messages devoid of meaning or value.
Meanwhile, employees increasingly look beyond compensation to non-monetary factors such as advancement, recognition, and corporate social responsibility in choosing where to work. And with the retirement of the Baby Boomers looming, attracting, retaining, and growing the next generation of leaders is an essential task for any organization.
As a result, organizations around the world are rushing to engage with their customers and employees. It's easy to see why. Without engagement, the influence of brands will continue to decline and big organizations will lose out on the best workers. Our studies at Constellation Research have found that engaged workers — those who participated in a forum, helped out a colleague in a chat, or provided feedback on an enterprise initiative — are 37% more likely to stay with their employers. Meanwhile, engaged customers are three times more likely to recommend or advocate a product or service to a friend. Improved engagement creates business value and strategic differentiation, and technology is enabling a shift from transactions to engagement.
Haphazard approaches to engagement negate good intentions
Unfortunately in the rush to engage, many organizations have taken a haphazard and siloed approach. Based on hundreds of conversations, a common theme emerges of failing to learn from the last Web and ecommerce boom. For example, many organizations have created separate social divisions in the same manner that ecommerce divisions were established a decade back. The result — haphazardly designed customer engagement paradigms doomed to fail. Why? These design points optimize for the company and not for a frictionless and seamless customer experience.
Meanwhile other organizations have built their social strategy using Facebook as the keystone in the same way AOL and Yahoo! central to many companies' plans last century. The result is overdependence on (and enrichment of) Facebook at the expense of driving traffic and activity onto one's own platforms. When customers wake up and decide they are the product, they will stop trading privacy for convenience. The result — brands built on Facebook will face a backlash.
On an internal basis, the rush to deploy social business tools matches the hype of the past decade in installing collaboration tools and assuming one's employees would easily adapt if only the right tool was deployed. The recurring problem — culture always trumps technology in adoption of new tools.
Successful engagement requires nine key components
How do we ensure engagement and avoid the fatal fatigue engendered by every wave of new media adoption? How can an organization and their leaders make the shift? The first step is to think systematically about it, and understand that engagement requires a set of building blocks. I divide them into three categories: people-centric values, delivery and communication styles, and the right time drivers.
People-centric values are the starting point. An organization needs to genuinely understand and relate to its customers and its employees before it can engage them. The key elements here are culture, community and credibility. Culture is about societal norms, communication preferences, and global outlook. At the organizational level, this includes which leadership styles are most effective, and how workers interact with each other. In dealing with customers, it's about understanding customer segmentation, digital readiness, and inclination to participate. Community focuses on internal and external stakeholders. Each stakeholder may have different needs. For example how you share information with a supplier may be different than what you can tell an internal employee. The last component, credibility, involves earning trust through actions. Credibility is built through influence, reputation, track records, and accumulated expertise.
Values alone are not enough. To engage successfully, organizations also need an understanding of delivery and communication styles. These styles incorporate channel, content, and cadence. Channel refers to the means of engagement: face-to-face, retail, mobile, social, web, kiosk, virtual, and video. Content can be internal, user-generated, re-purposed, paid, news-driven, or analytic. Finally, cadence describes the frequency of engagement — whether it's ad hoc, scheduled, or continuous.

The last piece is choosing the right time drivers to provide a why, when, and where in engagement. The goal is to inspire action through context, catalysts, and currencies. Context means location, business process, role, relationships, and sentiment, all of which need to be considered to deliver the right offer to the right person at the right time. Catalysts are what inspire action and response: campaigns, offers, advertisements, direct rewards, indirect rewards, and loyalty programs. Finally, currencies influence behavior through an exchange of value. Monetary models include traditional cash, bonuses, rewards, and rebates, but non-monetary currencies such as virtual goods, recognition, access, and influence can often be more powerful.
The nine critical components of stakeholder engagement




















New models of engagement herald the death of B2B and B2C
The emergence of extremely viral people-to-people (P2P) networks has changed the notion of the customer and employee forever. Social media, social networks, and mobility also herald the death of B2B and B2C as we know them. A bad experience at work with a particular brand of laptop bleeds over into consumer choices. Great experiences with consumer products have driven the rise of bring-your-own-device-to-work — a key to Apple's new success in the enterprise.
As organizations master engagement, early adopters will shift to building experiences by filtering massive streams of information through context. Context — in the form of roles, relationships, location, business process, time, and other factors — will transform engagement to experience. Early adopters of augmented reality and gamification already apply these nine Cs of engagement to craft intuitive and natural customer experiences. The drive towards engagement will impact both the future of work and next generation customer experiences. The move to engagement lays out the first step to a P2P world.

R "Ray" Wang is Principal Analyst and CEO at Constellation Research.

10 big mistakes successful leaders make

Steve Tobak May 9, 2012 www.cbsnew.com

Executives and business leaders don't just peak and lose their potency over time, like wine. They change. Oftentimes, success is the culprit. Success affects everyone differently and not necessarily in a good way.
I've seen it happen to loads of successful CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners I've worked with over the years. It's not a result of the Peter Principle, since their responsibilities didn't change. It's not necessarily a question of the business outgrowing their capabilities, either.
And they don't just "lose it." Rather, they change. Success changes them.

If you know a little about human psychology, that shouldn't surprise you. You've got to really know yourself, possess unusual self-confidence, and be pretty well grounded in reality to withstand the ego-inflating onslaught of winning big in business.

Since we're all human, we're all susceptible to the unusual pressures and pitfalls that come from achieving what we've always dreamed of. In my experience, these are the ten most common traps successful leaders fall into.

Becoming the status quo. Startups often break into the market by challenging the status quo. The problem is when success makes them the status quo, yet they don't realize it. That was evident when Apple and Google challenged the BlackBerry with the iPhone and Android platform. It's ironic that RIM's co-founders forgot that they were once the challengers. Their failure to be proactive or even to react in time was RIM's downfall.

Tunnel vision. They lose perspective and become rigid, sticking to their myopic vision like glue. Since competitors are unpredictable and markets are always evolving, it can be deadly to a business. If their vision fails to gain traction, they often double down and become even more grandiose. We saw that with former Sony CEO Howard Stringer's concept of product synergy. The only problem is it didn't exist.

Losing their fear. Fear is a key emotion that warns you when to be alert and when you need to act. When you start to think that success is inevitable and believe you can't fail, you act irrationally, become reckless and take risks you shouldn't or without due consideration. Reminds me of lots of megamergers and LBOs, that's for sure.

Fear of losing. The opposite of becoming fearless to the extreme is becoming too risk averse because you're afraid of losing what you've won. Unfortunately, that simply doesn't work in an ever-changing business world. Once that fear of taking chances sets in, you're business is doomed.

All knowing. They stop asking questions and don't really listen when key stakeholders -- customers, executives, directors, investors -- tell them something they need to hear. They think they have all the answers, that they're the smartest guys in the room. They miss critical warning signs.

Isolated. I've seen far too many successful people develop an elitist or ivory tower mentality. They become insular in their thinking and cut themselves off from others with layers of bureaucracy and hierarchy. There are also usually physical manifestations like executive offices, suites, buildings, and assistants to keep the masses out.

Controlling. In the name of maintaining a culture of entrepreneurship, they become obsessed with keeping things the way they are. That often translates to micromanaging and controlling every little thing. They fail to let go by adding processes and infrastructure that growing businesses need to effectively scale. I see this over and over, especially in the high-tech industry.

Surrounded by yes-men. There will always be weak-minded lackeys that tell leaders what they want to hear and sugarcoat negative news to gain favor. But their power only comes from weak leaders with low self-esteem that need their egos to be constantly pumped up.

Lost the magic. Business success is nearly always the result of a number of factors. Sure, there's a product or service that customers are excited about, but there's also pricing, timing, partners, even luck. Whatever the combination, it's tempting for successful entrepreneurs to think it's all about them, not the "magic formula" that got them there.

If I build it, they will come. Entrepreneurship works in America because anyone with an idea can get funding and, if the stars are aligned, develop a hit product or service. To get out of the "one hit wonder" phase and develop a second and third successful product, however, requires a willingness to embrace marketing, sales, operations, customer service and other business functions.

Key Account Selling: The Unwritten Rules

Tom Searcy May 16, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

Selling key accounts is like baseball: Both have their codes of unwritten rules.
Baseball fans and players know the game has an informal code of conduct worthy of a samurai. One former player said it is a game played by human beings and governed by unwritten laws of survival and self-preservation.
These rules are largely unofficial and aren't written down on clubhouse walls. But they are well-known. For instance:

• Don't slide into second with your spikes high and try to injure the infielder (that went out with Ty Cobb)
• With runners in scoring position and first base open, walk the number eight hitter to get to the pitcher (don't get me started on the designated hitter rule)
• Don't bunt with a home run hitter at the plate
• If there is a fight, everyone must leave the bench, and the bullpen has to join in (but no bats -- just fists)
• In cities that have two baseball teams, any given fan can only root for one of them (President Obama roots for the Chicago White Sox, for instance, not the Cubs)

Selling key accounts is similar to baseball. There are unwritten rules you are expected to learn if you want to pursue these major pieces of business, which have the highest profit potential. The competition to land these large corporate accounts is fierce. These unwritten sales laws are also a matter of survival and self-preservation.
One such rule is that when you're trying to land a key account, your prospects are listening for certain things. They want to know if you respect their money, if you respect their time, and if you understand the risks they face. For them, it doesn't matter what you are selling; they will judge your selling tools to see if you respect and understand the unwritten rules about money, time, and risk.

Salespeople have a bad habit of ignoring these unwritten rules and selling what they think prospects want to hear: quality, service, capacity, innovation, on-time delivery, guarantees, and all the other usual buzzwords. But the fact is, these are not the reasons why big companies buy. When you speak an entirely different language it shows, at best, ignorance of the rules, and at worst a lack of respect.

When you use those typical words, you are asking the big company to translate what you believe is valuable to what they believe is valuable. For example, to a big company the meaning is different.

Quality means time -- production lines not going down because of faulty parts, customer service calls not received because products work, and so on.

Quality Also Means Money -- repeat purchases, reduced waste in production, etc.
Quality Means Less Risk -- fewer product returns, investment confidence, etc.
The more complex your offering, the more difficult it is for a big organization to hear the three things it needs to hear make a decision to buy. To play the game right, we need to talk to a big company in its own language. We have to translate value based on the result of what we deliver.

Remember rule No 1: What matters most to a larger organization is time, money, and risk. For salespeople, that means following the unwritten rules of doing the translation in real-time, when you are presenting the benefits of what you sell. Every benefit needs to be accompanied with an impact statement that translates to time/money/risk in the big organization's business. To be successful, those are the (unwritten) rules.

The Hidden Wealth Beyond Net Promoter

Bill Lee May 10, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org 

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is perhaps the best known customer loyalty tool around today, based on the entirely sound principle that the more customer promoters you have (i.e., customers who say on surveys that they're highly likely to refer you to a colleague or friend), the more likely you'll be to grow your business and outpace the competition. That makes powerful sense, and the continued growth and success of Net Promoter is a testament to the idea's relevance and value.
But I have found in my years of experience working across industries and sectors, that firms who embrace NPS are often leaving tremendous sources of wealth creation on the table. That's because the focus of NPS is on creating promoters, but stops short of engaging them to actually promote the business through activities like referrals, references, blogging or tweeting, speaking at industry events, or any of the myriad ways that passionate customers can help build businesses these days. The implicit assumption seems to be that NPS is only about getting customers to buy, to keep buying and to buy more. But there are many other — often far more lucrative — ways that customer promoters can create value for your firm and help grow your business.

Here are some ways to tap this unrealized source of growth:

Be intentional about customer promotion. Many firms assume that because a customer says on a survey that he'd be highly likely to refer you, that he will in fact do so. That may not be the case at all: they need to be asked. Two studies of firms in the telecommunications and financial services industries showed that only about 10% of declared promoters actually do refer profitable new customers. That's not bad, of course, but what about the other 90%? Why not intentionally provide opportunities to such promoters and invite them to, you know, promote you?

By the way, not all referral customers are the same. Businesses that take the time to understand which customers are more likely to respond to a marketing campaign by buying, and which are more likely to respond by referring a colleague or friend — doubled the return on their campaigns, as opposed to those that treated everyone as a potential buyer.

Look for customer value beyond promoting. Loyal customers who are disposed to refer business to you probably like you a lot. Why limit the ways in which they can help you grow your business to referrals? They might enjoy helping with your sales and marketing efforts by providing references or testimonials. Or they might speak on your behalf at industry events. Or participate in your user groups or other customer communities. Or ... you get the idea.

Remarkably, even highly sophisticated firms miss these opportunities. When Coleen Kaiser took over SAP's global customer reference program, she thought it would be a good idea to have the firm's promoters — in addition to providing referrals — to provide sales and marketing references as well. (A referral occurs where a customer suggests your solution to her friend or colleague. A reference is where a customer affirms the value of your product to your prospect). As it turned out, only 20% of promoters were customer references. Indeed, very few references were identifying themselves as promoters on NPS surveys!

Kaiser took the obvious step of reconciling that anomaly — making sure that her team invited promoters into its reference program, which more than tripled their participation to 70%. It wasn't a hard sell. After all, these are customers who've said they'd be highly likely to recommend SAP. As a result, in post-sale surveys, sales people went from identifying customer references as a "neutral influence" on sales to identifying them as one of their highest rated competitive advantages.

Move beyond promoters to defenders. With the rise of social media and the ability of buyers to check out a business long before they engage with its marketing communications or sales people, the very idea of a "promoter" is looking dated. It's too passive. The concept that emerged at the 2012 Summit on Customer Engagement was "defender." That's a customer advocate who doesn't passively wait for you to invite her to promote your firm, but who is already active on the social media sites that are talking about your firm and vigilant about addressing and correcting negative comments as well as amplifying positive ones.

Salesforce.com (SFDC) and a growing number of other firms are cultivating such customers, who are often called "MVPs" (most valuable professionals). At the 2012 Summit, a panel of three such MVPs talked about their activities and wowed the audience of marketing professionals with their dedication to keeping the Salesforce.com brand strong. They blog, they attend live events, they present and sit on panels. In return, they're given front row seating and other benefits and platforms at SFDC events. And they do all this for free — any other arrangement would destroy their hard-won reputation for objectivity.

Defenders go way beyond simply being loyal customers. They identify their success with SFDC's success and both promote — and defend — the firm vigorously. In today's world, such passionate 3d party defenders can be among a firm's most powerful sources of wealth and sustained growth.

Bill Lee is president of the Lee Consulting Group, Executive Director of the Summit on Customer Engagement, and author of The Hidden Wealth of Customers: Realizing the Untapped Value of Your Most Important Asset (HBR Press, June 2012).

Jim Collins: Good to Great in 10 Steps

Kimberly Weisul May 7, 2012 www.inc.com

Management guru Jim Collins asks entrepreneurs to do 10 things that will dramatically improve their companies. What are you waiting for?
Researcher and management guru Jim Collins has authored or co-authored six books, including Good to Great and Built to Last. On his web site there are 48 articles written or co-written by him. But speaking at the Womens Presidents Organization’s annual conference last week in Atlanta, Collins boiled it all down. Do these 10 things, he said, to dramatically improve your company.

1. Download the diagnostic tool at jimcollins.com, and do the exercises with your team. Yes, I thought this was self-serving at first. Then I looked it, considered that it’s free and doesn't require you to sign up for anything, and immediately saw his point.

2. Get the right people in the key seats. This comes from Collins’ famous observation that building a company is like driving a bus. You need a driver, but you also need the right people in all the key seats. So, says Collins, figure out how many key seats you have, and make a plan that will make sure you get all the key seats filled by the end of the year.

3. Once a quarter, have a brutal facts meeting. Be careful about who you include in this meeting. You will be discussing just the brutal facts. This is not the time to express opinions or strategize. Repeat: Only discuss the brutal facts.

4. Set a 15 to 25-year big, hairy audacious goal (BHAG). This is a goal that is concrete enough, and ambitious enough, to guide your company’s progress for years. Collins writes that “With his very first dime store in 1945, Sam Walton set the BHAG to ‘make my little Newport store the best, most profitable in Arkansas within five years.’ He continued to set BHAGs, which continued to get larger and more audacious, as his company grew.

5. Commit to a “20-mile march” that you will bring you to your big hairy audacious goal. Collins makes the analogy to someone who is trying to walk across the county. The best approach, says Collins, is to attempt to travel the same distance every day. If you’re on a 2-mile march, says Collins, you don’t bolt 30 miles ahead when the weather is good. You go 20 miles. When the weather is bad, you can’t sit inside and complain – you still have make 20 miles.

What does this have to do with entrepreneurship? In his research, Collins found that companies that perform consistently do much better than those that do spectacularly one year and are feeble the next. That’s because if you overextend in good years, when opportunity appears to be everywhere, you may not have the resources to get through the lousy years. The 20-mile march is a metaphor for the milestone that you can reach day-in and day-out.

6. Place at least one really big bet in the next three years, based on having fired bullets first. No entrepreneur has unlimited resources, just as no small army has unlimited gunpowder (this metaphor may be dated, but you get the point). The best use of limited gunpowder, or resources, says Collins, is to fire bullets to ensure that your aim is calibrated properly and that you can indeed hit your target. Only when you’re sure of your ability to hit your target should you load lots of gunpowder into a cannonball and fire away. “Fire bullets to calibrate. Fire cannonballs to go big,” says Collins.

7. Practice productive paranoia. Collins says he fondly refers to his entrepreneurial subjects as PNFs, or paranoid neurotic freaks. “Successful companies have three to ten times the cash on their balance sheets as their peers even when they are very small,” says Collins. Or as one of the CEOs he studied said to him, “We’re very proud of the fact that we’ve predicted 11 of the past three recessions.”

How exactly can one practice productive paranoia? Collins recommends making a plan that will allow you to go for an entire year with no revenues, and still survive.

8. Get a high return on your next luck event. Collins says that both great and mediocre companies encounter the same amount of luck, good and bad. What matters, he says, is how well they’re able to capitalize on it. Collins refers to this as ‘return on luck.’ “How are you doing on luck?” he asks. “Have you turned your bad-luck events into a big part of what makes your company great? Are you squandering your good-luck events?”

9. Make a to-do list. “If you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any,” says Collins. For every major ‘to-do’ on your list, you should have a corresponding item that you will stop doing. The 'stop-doing' list.

10. Commit to a set of core values that you will want to build your enterprise on, without changing them, for 100 years.

Get ready for the future…

 February 16, 2011 by Dr. Charlie Hall www.ellisonchair.tamu.edu

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them, but ready or not, here they come!

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the Post Office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with cheques by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the cheque. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered printed edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’ve always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates simply self-destruct. Over 40% of the music purchased today are “catalog items,” meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”
7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they’re playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
8. The “Things” That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in “the cloud.” Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest “cloud services.” That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or hand held device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this “stuff” or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big “Poof?” Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That’s gone. It’s been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7 “They” know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And “They” will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again. All we will have that can’t be changed are Memories.

Something to think about in terms of how you are going to do business in the future. Most of these changes are already taking place. If you want to experience an amazing look back at the history of technology, then this 13 minute video about IBM will give you a glimpse of how far we have come.

Are relationships really that important to teamwork?

Mike Rogers www.socialsuccesstelevision.com November 17, 2009

Relationships are the foundation of teamwork. Teams fail to execute when relationships are poor. Yet leaders often neglect and sometimes even completely ignore this foundational component of teams. There are many reasons for poor relationships, but my opinion is that lack of understanding each other is the number one contributor.
If I don’t understand you, I won’t fully understand your motives. My trust is initially built on what I have seen or observed about you, not on what I understand about you. Therefore if what I have observed about you is negative, then your intentions will always be questioned.
I had a final job interview many years ago in which this was evident. As is the case with many final job interviews, this one was with the team that I would be working with. I believed my interview was going great, but one particular person’s body language told me otherwise. She just blankly stared at me, kind of “freaky” like. When I was being funny, she didn’t laugh. When I was being engaging and looking for agreement, she didn’t nod her head. She just stared at me. When it was her turn to ask a question, I immediately believed she was asking the question to be malicious and that she wasn’t really that serious.
I got the job and later discovered that this person showed no emotion towards any interaction, personally, or in meetings. But I also found out that she was one of the kindest and sweetest people you would ever know. Once I understood her, my judgment of her motives changed. Being on the same team, this would be critical because of the nature of the projects we would work on together.
When team members don’t trust one another, issues that need to be resolved in meetings become personal, not task-oriented. In fact, some team members may not even fully participate due to the fear of conflict. As a result, issues are never resolved effectively or efficiently.
If there is one thing I tell teams over and over again, it is that they must spend time together. There are many other things team’s can do to develop relationships, but spending time together is one of the easiest. Go to lunch together, spend a half a day or full day with teambuilding, have regular effective meetings together face to face or plan department activities together. There are many ways teams can spend time together, but the most important thing is that they do.