Four Fingers!

If you see several people holding up four fingers you are either at a remedial safety course for power saw operators or at a football game entering the final period of play.  As time expires at the end of the third period of a football game many players and fans hold up four fingers as a statement of intention to increase focus and intensity to finish the game strong.

 

With October well underway we are all into the fourth and final quarter of the year.  What are your goals for 2012?  Have you already achieved them or have they been revised downward in order to still be attainable?  Either way it is time to hold up four fingers and recognize that it is time to increase focus and intensity to finish the year on an upward trend.  Even if 2012 ends up a little short of the original goal, you will be off to a fast start with positive momentum for 2013.  We are forming Master Mind Groups now so members can develop that fourth quarter intensity all year long.

 

If you need power saw safety, we know a guy who can help with that too!

Lonely Leaders

Leading is a lonely profession and it only gets lonelier the higher one gets in an organization. There is certainly potential for positive relationships with staff members but those have inherent limitations. Of course many professionals and solo proprietors work alone and they obviously have no one else in the organization to talk to. 

Who can a leader turn to when there are uncertainties on the horizon and tough decisions to make? Professional advisors such as bankers, attorneys, accountants and coaches are certainly a good source of outside perspective. Friends and family will likely be willing to talk and share perspective but they may tend to be either too kind or too critical and may not even fully understand the issue. Getting a meaningful perspective other than your own and follow through with effective action is critical to adapt to changing circumstances, threats, and opportunities. Average leaders are reluctant to ask for help, tend to avoid accountability, and choose to go it alone; great leaders however recognize their personal limitations and surround themselves with experts in various fields with cumulative experience that would be impossible for one person to have.

While the concept has been around for many years Napoleon Hill in the classic, "Think And Grow Rich", coined the term mastermind and defined it as: "The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony….No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind, the master mind."

We have witnessed this concept help many organizations grow and flourish as we coach leadership, teamwork, sales, customer service, and communication skills. However we recognize at times more peer perspective is needed so we are now forming Peak Pathways master mind groups for leaders. Contact us for details at 402.332.3031 or send an e-mail to info@peakpathways.com

Doing What They Know

What do people do when they don’t know what to do?  They do what they know, however that may not be in alignment with what you as a leader want them to do.  It may be obvious that a leader should say what is expected but when it comes to the subtle skills of listening, communication, and generally interacting with other human beings few leaders provide training and direction.  However, those subtle skills and behavioral characteristics are often the critical ones that differentiate great from average.

Beyond modeling their own skills, leaders have three options: hire for those skills; train for those skills; or accept the skills that accompany the technical skills they hire for.  Unfortunately most leaders hire based on if the person can do the job and fire on how they do the job.  Best practice of course selects on both as well as whether the person actually wants to do the job.  We know from Leadership Charisma research that employee engagement and success are driven by fit with the job and a leader who helps them feel and fare better as a person as well as a professional.  Developing the subtle skills of employees is one of the best ways to do that.

Team USA

Later this month when the Summer Olympics begin in London we will likely be hearing a lot about Team USA.  With a lot of individual athletes achieving personal goals and competing for themselves the concept of team can get lost beyond the mere medal counts and a few team sports.  Unfortunately the same thing can happen in businesses.  We are often working with clients to help develop teamwork and communication because individual performance goals can overshadow the team in unproductive ways.

 

Whether a leader is considered successful or not can vary significantly depending on the eye of the beholder.  From a business perspective however the most common measure is the results the leader’s team achieves.  We speak often of personal leadership skills such as communication, adaptability, and providing direction.  However those skills are inadequate if the wrong people are on the team.  The selection of team members is therefore the most critical skill for leaders.   Once the team members are selected a successful team is built by developing mutual trust; positive conflict; commitment; and accountability.  When a leader can build that type of team collaboration leverages the productivity and capability of every individual. 

Culture and Values

Many companies spend significant resources to promote brand awareness to customers, employees, and investors. A common part of the brand is often core values and cultural standards which positively distinguish the company from their peers. Unfortunately as recent new stories confirm, the acts of board members, senior officials and other employees often negatively distinguish them. Examples closer to home include a school superintendent, a police chief, a city administrator, and perhaps even people down the street or next door.

In Peak Perspectives we often have articles on leadership and job fit, two key drivers of employee success. However, a vital element of job fit is sometimes taken for granted. That element is fit with the company’s culture and values. Specifically are the candidate’s normal behaviors and attitudes aligned with the leaders as well as with other employees? If it is a wide gap, the new employee likely will either be dissatisfied enough to quit or the supervisor will fire them. Either outcome is bound to be costly. If the gap is narrower the impact may be more subtle such as a gradual deterioration of the company culture and values. That outcome can of course be even costlier.

As always we welcome your comments and feedback.

Employer / Employee of Choice – A Win-Win Scenario

Over the last several years we interviewed a number of CEO’s of local companies that were selected through an employee survey process as being the best place to work among similar size companies competing in the contest.  There were a variety of descriptions but they all said essentially the same thing that was articulated very well by one of the CEO’s.  He said “if they are not going to vote saying we’re the best we don’t let them vote.”  That was not an implication they were rigging the vote but rather that they had rigorous selection and performance management procedures to make sure only people who fit their jobs and organizational culture were hired and retained.


When you ask employees why they consider an employer to be their best choice they too have a consistent message which is essentially ‘if the organization doesn't provide what I want for my effort I won’t be here to vote.’  Employees want a job they can do with new challenges to help them grow and develop; work that they are interested in; and a culture where they can be themselves and succeed.  In addition to fitting the job they want a leader who understands them; communicates well; recognizes their contribution and helps them grow personally and professionally.  In general they want to be a valued member of a winning team.


To attract and keep the best, employers need to be the best.  If your workforce procedures are not creating win-win solutions in selection and development of employees it’s time to make a change or watch the changes as the best ones leave.

Average is Good - Not Great

Have you ever comforted someone by saying ‘That’s OK, we all do that’ or perhaps simply ‘you’re fine’ or ‘that’s fine’? In many settings those comments are socially appropriate and intended to put the other person at ease. However, when those simple phrases show up in a business conversation it can be a warning sign that people are settling for being average rather than striving to be great.

Leaders particularly need to be aware of their communication and how it is perceived. Caring and comforting can be appropriate at times but leaders at any level need to diligently challenge their organization to not succumb to the tendency to be average.

Average is the easy solution and justifying it happens frequently by comparing to others and copying successful strategies and processes. Many workplace innovations are like high tides that lift all boats. It can feel good to see progress from a past benchmark but look around and you may still be average or even slipping.

Greatness comes from doing what the average has not thought of or is not willing to do. It is playing to win rather than playing not to lose. Make it a Great 2012; play to win!

A Winning Team

With March comes the ‘madness’ of the NCAA basketball tournaments for men and women. Teams and their fans will all be proud, excited, and hopeful as the first games tip off. As fans we like to be connected to winning teams and celebrate championships and other accomplishments. If you watch some of the tournament games, notice the energy and enthusiasm generated in the crowd when the game starts and then how different that is for the winning and losing teams’ fans at the end of the game.

Which energy do you want in your organization and in your own job? Of course, we want to have the energy and enthusiasm of the winning team. However, such energy and enthusiasm is rarely evident in most organizations. While sustaining that level for 40 hours rather than 40 minutes is one factor, another key reason is the scoreboard. Most organizations lack a clear scoreboard or feedback system to clearly and frequently tell everyone how they are performing personally and collectively so they can step up to meet the challenge at hand. No wonder, according research on workplace engagement, most employees do not feel like champions or members of a winning team. They may not know what their score is or if anyone cares what it is.

If you want to develop some leadership insights while also enjoying the games, notice the differences between the winners and losers: the effectiveness of the leadership; the team members fitting their individual roles while also working together; and how they all respond to feedback from the record of the results they produce. Then consider what parts are present or missing from your team. If you would like further insights on how to create a winning team, let us know. Our mission is to develop winning teams for our clients – without the ‘madness’!

Earn More Spend Less

Our 2012 theme to Occupy Prosperity could be like a resolution to lose weight and fade to a faint memory a few weeks into the year. Resolutions usually fail because they focus on the end result rather than the action steps that can be influenced and predict the end result. Weight loss for example is assured if calories burnt regularly exceed calories consumed. Those two variables can be influenced by watching what we eat and how active we are. Together they very reliably predict weight loss or weight gain.

To Occupy Prosperity two fundamental variables that can be influenced and will predict the end result are earning and spending on both business and personal levels. For businesses payroll is usually the biggest expense and of course increasing sales is the quickest way to improve bottom line results. The two actually go hand in hand. We recently showed a company how they could increase gross profit from 1.5% to 7% by reassigning employees to roles where they were a better match to requirements of the job. With minimal investment their ROI was 1,500%! Optimizing sales by selecting the right people and using targeted individual development of existing employees the training scrap rate is reduced. For other positions reducing expenses of turnover, training, and low productivity can all be influenced by implementing a well-designed workforce development process.

On both a business and personal level we have found a vehicle that combines both expense reduction and income generation. Actually it was costing Peak Pathways NOT to be a member of Team National. Taking the concept of group buying power to the internet with national name brand products and retailers, as well a locally owned businesses, substantial discounts and rebates are available on many common things people and businesses buy every day. On top of that there are several other ways to generate significant income by bringing in new members.

Let us know how we can help you influence and predict a prosperous 2012!

Occupy Prosperity

Despite all the concerns early in 2011 carmageddon did not materialize in southern California and therefore the clever term for a high volume traffic detour and traffic jam was not the word of the year. The winner was occupy – as in Wall Street. Controlling, engaging, and inhabiting each seem to be a few of the actions implied by that word and in those contexts occupy can be an appropriate descriptor for any intended objective. For example: occupy – bankers; journalists; main street; customers; sales; employees; health etc.

Our theme for 2012 is Occupy Prosperity. In 2012 we will offer insights to help our readers prosper as business owners, leaders and employees. Since Peak Pathways was founded in 2003 our objective has been and remains to help people succeed in work and life. The emphasis to Occupy Prosperity in 2012 is to help all of our readers and clients achieve more in 2012. In addition to the articles for learning about successful leadership and workforce development strategies this edition also includes information to nominate yourself or someone else to participate in the launch of our first Leadership Charisma groups.

We wish you a happy and prosperous 2012!