Successful Blog

How to apply military leadership skills to your business

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By Ben Morton

The last four years have unquestionably been difficult times for business and the public. In a short space of time we have witnessed the banking crisis, phone hacking and political scandals and the demise of many familiar big brand names such as Blockbuster and Woolworths to name just a couple.

All of these things have brought leadership into sharp focus once again and led us to ask many questions. Two of the most common questions I have heard are ‘Can we trust our leaders?’ and ‘Are our leaders equipped to lead us through these times?’

Linked to these questions are a couple of phrases or buzz words that I have heard more and more lately; Innovation and VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity). It is VUCA that particularly interests me.

The term VUCA derives from the military vocabulary and they have been training their leaders to operate in this world for many, many years. In fact, it’s one of the cornerstones of military leadership.

Here are some of my favourite techniques, taken from the military, that you can use to help you be an effective business leader whilst operating in a VUCA world.

Provide Stability

A leader’s role is to create stability and an air of calm – these tools can help by ensuring that teams are not reliant on particular individuals.

  • Train your team to understand and be able to carry out other peoples jobs.
  • Don’t allow a Job Description document to constrain what your people do – give them freedom to act.
  • Recruit for flexibility, intellect and team ‘fit’ – not just skills in a narrow job role.

Provide Clarity

In times of uncertainty it is important for leaders to communicate and provide clarity where they can.

Ensure that everyone in your team or organization fully understands the vision or end goal as opposed to just their individual task. This means that if the situation changes, they still know what the team or organisation is ultimately trying to achieve.

Tell people what they need to achieve – not how to achieve it.

‘Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.’ General George Patton

These two points will empower your people to act and handle change quickly with the end goal still in mind. The military call this ‘Mission Command’.

Communicate

It is easy to stop communicating when under pressure but the impact on the team can be huge.

  • Communicate regularly and build it into your processes.
  • When teams are under pressure, individuals will often retreat inwards and team meetings stop taking place – this is the worst thing that can happen in difficult times.
  • Establish a routine for team meetings and communications and make them sacrosanct. This gives you confidence that the team knows what is happening and it gives the team confidence in you and the plan.

Communicate early

The military have the concept of a ‘Warning Order’ which tells subordinates early on what little information is available about forthcoming operations. This allows for concurrent activity and provides a faster response time to challenges. Critics will say, ‘But this could waste time if people start working on the wrong things.’ Not so if you have provided clarity and everybody understands the end goal.

Plan for the Risks

The military have a great phrase – ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’. So what can we learn from this?

  • Consider the ‘threats’, ‘risks’ and ‘what if’s’ that may affect your plan – create a simple Issues and Risks register.
  • Once you have considered the risks – plan for them. Don’t just have a plan B, have a plan C as well.
  • Communicate the risks and plans. It will allow people to act quickly when things change and once again, it gives them confidence.
Author’s Bio: Ben Morton is a Consultant at TwentyOne Leadership specialising in the provision of high quality leadership training, mentoring and coaching. He has approaching two decades experience in leadership, learning and management along with a wealth of expertise in strategic Human Resource management drawn from experience as a Board Member in small entrepreneurial organizations and working in large multi-nationals such as Tesco and TUI Travel.

Having led expeditions around the globe from the Alps of Europe to the Steppe Country of Mongolia and served two operational tours of Iraq as an Officer in the British Army, Ben understands what it takes to lead people in the most difficult of conditions. He’s passionate about sharing his knowledge, experience and expertise. Connect with Ben on Twitter: @benmorton2

Change Your Life Today

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By Michael Costello

Things around us change all the time. Hardware and software upgrades abound. And to keep pace with life we need to change as we go. Our thinking. Our skills. Our beliefs. Our lifestyle. Everything.

We need to do more than adjust our lifestyle to the seasons of the year. Or to roll with the punches that life throws at us. This will help us to get by. And if you wish to settle for that then read no further.

To get the most out of life we need to reinvent ourselves. And to do so now if we are to be ready for the next wave of change that is coming our way.

If you have any doubts about the wisdom of giving yourself a make over, consider how well placed you would have been ten years ago if you knew what you know now. Had the skills you have now. And the expertise you have now.

Identify what you need to change

Do you want to lose weight, stop smoking, drink less or exercise more? Most people want to do one or the other of these things. And try as they might, they almost always fail to make the change they desire.

If one of these changes is high on your list then ask yourself, “are they the real problem in my life?” Jules Evans tells us that we use our habits to help us to cope. The truth is that when we smoke, drink, overeat or under exercise it only makes things worse for us.

Don’t be misled by these symptoms. Get at the real problem. Identify it and deal with it. This is the real change you need to make. Only then can you move ahead and make the most of your future.

Possible candidates

Make a list of ten possible hidden causes of any unhappiness and anger you experience. The unhappier you are to put something on the list the more certain you can be that it should be there.

Take your time. When you have ten issues, narrow them down to five. Then four. Three. Two. And finally settle on one. Sleep on it for a few days. If it is the right one you will know it for certain. Even if you do not feel happy about it.

This is what you need to change. And you will not be able to move forward until you do so. As I discovered when I identified a lack of purpose was the key issue I needed to address.

Change tactics

Allow yourself plenty of time to change. Any worthwhile change takes two months or so to become a habit. We need to put a well thought-out support system in place to see us through this habit-forming period.

Set yourself a goal. A “S.M.A.R.T” goal. One that is Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic and has a Time frame. This will give you a target to aim for. A standard to measure the progress you make. And it puts your change project on your personal agenda.

Go a step further and set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for yourself. For example, my BHAG is to “Write one world class post for my Personal Development Blog every week.” Which I have about a 50% chance of achieving provided I manage to acquire the knowledge and skills I need to raise my performance to this level.

A BHAG can inspire you. It raises the goal out of the ordinary into the extraordinary. Gets you to think big. And to focus on acquiring the knowledge, skills and other resources you need if you are to have a chance to achieve your goal.

Do you have a BHAG or SMART goals? Share yours in the comments and we’ll keep each other accountable!

Author’s Bio: Michael Costello has retired from the corporate world where he worked as a Director of Training and Development. He is a positive psychology enthusiast who writes a personal development blog at www.personaldevelopmenttoolbox.com.

Small Steps to Productivity

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By Rosie Gollancz

“I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.”
Henry David Thoreau

Working for a startup means that I rarely experience a day that seems long enough. Being part of a small team also means that there isn’t anyone to fall back on, so getting your job done and doing it well is really important. The sheer number of responsibilities each person has on a daily basis mean that we have all had to take a step back and reassess both our work and relaxation time in order to ensure that we’re getting the most out of each.

I’m going to share some things I’ve learned, which I hope might help you increase your productivity at work and your sense of calm at home as well.

Having said this, I wish that I had a mind-blowing hack to share with you – one that would help you instantly become many times more productive. In reality, one of the first things I learned was that there wasn’t one all-encompassing solution that would overhaul the way I work and play.

In my experience, becoming more productive is about making small improvements to habits you have already established, or a schedule you have unwittingly become accustomed to. Although it wasn’t always easy to put these things place, the benefits they brought about were almost immediate.

My first secret to optimizing productivity: sleep.

Working in a sleep-focused company, I am surrounded on a daily basis by research on the negative effects of sleep deprivation and its potential effect on your mood, productivity and general wellbeing. It was therefore, the first thing I turned to in my quest for self-improvement!

When I’m not well rested (which means having anything less than 7 hours of quality sleep) I really struggle to concentrate and my emotions take a nosedive. So, in general, I aim to keep to a regular schedule that sees me in bed by 11.30pm each night, ready to get up at 6.03am sharp.

Unsurprisingly, research has repeatedly shown that even relatively mild sleep deprivation impacts negatively on mood, cognitive performance and even motor function. Even keeping to the same routine won’t help if you’re not getting enough sleep each night with dips in performance being observed in those who feel they have ‘adapted’ to their lack of sleep [1].

Sleep loss has also been shown to have a negative impact on your working memory, so the longer a task takes to complete the worse your performance becomes – when you consider that tasks take longer to complete when you’re sleep deprived it really is a lose-lose situation [2,3].

Why 7 hours a night? This number is as individual as your shoe-size – I’ve chosen mine based on how much sleep I need to feel alert and motivated the following day. To sum up, not getting enough sleep has the potential to affect everything from your work performance, insight, risk assessment and even your communication skills [1] so why not make sleep a priority for 2013?

If you still need some convincing, I’ll point you towards the study which found similarities between the effects of sleep loss and half the legal limit for alcohol when driving on a person’s mental performance [4]. If you wouldn’t show up at work drunk, then you shouldn’t show up sleep-deprived either!

My second pillar of productivity: happiness.

Research has shown that when you are happy at work you put more effort in and, in turn, you are more productive [5]. Being happy was defined by these researchers as ‘experiencing positive emotions’, but it might not be just happiness affecting your productivity – general well being was linked to increased productivity as well.

Findings such as these definitely ring true for me – inevitably, there are days when you feel sluggish and struggle to be productive, but by and large, the key to unlocking your potential may just be finding that delicate balance between hard-work and time-out.

How can you do this?

One very simple thing we’ve started to do is make sure we take time out to eat lunch together as a team away from our desks each day. In doing this we’ve bonded better and having a few laughs and a chance to relax during lunch keeps us motivated for the rest of the workday.

Second, we’ve started reserving 45 minutes each Friday for a ‘team talk’ – each person has the opportunity to nominate himself or herself on a Monday to give a talk on a topic of their choice. Highlights so far have included a beginners’ yoga session and an interactive face-painting lesson! It might seem like a significant time investment but it has led to an increase in the team’s confidence and makes sure that we always end the week on a good note.

In accepting that there are only so many hours in each day, I have found it easier to focus on making those hours count, but there’s no doubt that it takes effort and willpower to work on yourself. In fact, the desire to become more productive has provided an excuse to work on some bad habits I’d been keen to change but had never gotten around to!

References

[1] Pilcher, J., Huffcut, A.I., (1996). Effects of sleep deprivation on performance: a meta analysis. Sleep, 19(4), 318-326.
[2] Durmer, J.S., Dinges, D.F. (2005). Neurocognitive consequences of sleep deprivation. Seminars in Neurology, 25(1), 117-129.
[3] Lim, J., Dinges, D.F. (2008). Sleep deprivation and vigilant attention. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1129, 305-322.
[4] Williamson, A.M., Feyer, A.M. (2000). Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 57, 649-655.
[5] Oswald, Andrew J., Proto, Eugenio and Sgroi, Daniel, Happiness and Productivity. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4645.

Author’s Bio: Rosie Gollancz is the Community Manager at Sleepio.com a clinically proven sleep improvement programme grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques for when you just can’t sleep. You can also keep up-to-date with the latest sleep research on the Sleepio blog and Twitter @Sleepio.

Six Steps to Getting the Attention of Journalists on Your Own

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By Gini Dietrich

I am a communications professional. My entire career has been spent at PR firms – first at Fleishman-Hillard in Kansas City, then Rhea & Kaiser in Chicago, and I started Arment Dietrich in April 2005.

One of the most important things I learned early in my career was how to build relationships.

It started with journalists, then moved to the executives within our office, and finally with the executives at our client’s offices.

I spent many years cultivating relationships with journalists: Getting to know their beats, understanding what they would or wouldn’t cover, and even knowing when they celebrated their birthdays so I could send a card or cupcakes or booze.

And then 2008 hit. Newspapers folded, popular magazines went under, and a lot of my friends – those I’d known for more than 10 years – lost their jobs.

Suddenly the journalists who were left had to cover automakers, small business, and manufacturing…even though small business might have been their only beat previously.

They were too busy to take phone calls or go on media tours or even sit with you for an hour to talk about what you had upcoming.

And the role of a communications professional changed, when it came to media relations.

Getting the Attention of Journalists

Almost exactly four years ago, Steve Strauss – the small business expert at USA Today – wrote an article called, “Should Entrepreneurs Twitter? Uh, No.”

I read it with great interest, mostly because I had had amazing success using Twitter to build our brand.

In it, he detailed the four reasons entrepreneurs should not use Twitter. I very thoughtfully responded on his article and pointed out the four reasons they should use it…and the other social networks, too.

Because my comment was thoughtful and professional, he called me and we talked about social media, in general. About 30 minutes into the call, he asked if we could go on record.

What came of that conversation was, “Twitter for Small Business…Reconsidered.”

Because he’s like everyone else – swamped with little to no time to listen to pitches from PR professionals – he reads the comments on his articles to see if there is anything worth revisiting or diving into more deeply.

The Response Campaign

Hence, the response campaign was born.

It’s not a very creative title, but my team and our clients know what it means: Spend the time to read and respond to journalists and they’ll eventually add you to their Rolodex of trusted resources.

Here is a step-by-step process to create this magic for yourself:

  1. Choose one newspaper, magazine, or blog that makes a difference in your industry. It can be Wall Street Journal or it can be one of your trade publications. Choose just one.
  2. Once a week, comment on one article, blog post, or editorial. If you disagree, fantastic! Say so. But do it professionally. Being negative or criticizing without a solution isn’t helpful. Professional discourse is.
  3. Keep this up.
  4. After about six weeks, the journalist will feel like he or she is beginning to know you and will call you for a story in the works.
  5. Every quarter add another publication, so you have four that you focus on each year.
  6. Don’t be afraid to go after the big publications. If your expertise adds value to the stories they’re reporting, comment away!

If you are consistent and post intelligent comments once a week, you’ll soon have developed relationships with journalists who call on you when they need someone to interview.

Yes, it takes some time. Yes, it’s hard work. Yes, it requires that you keep up with your reading. But it works 100 percent of the time. Wouldn’t you rather do that than send a news release to 1,000 journalists and not get a single bite?

Author’s Bio: Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communication firm. She is the lead blogger at PR and marketing blog, Spin Sucks, co-author of Marketing In the Round, and co-host of Inside PR, a weekly podcast about communications and social media. Connect with her on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

5 Ways to Kill Your Career on the Internet

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When you turned the calendar into 2013, did finding a new job rank among your top New Year’s resolutions?

As many individuals have discovered over the last few years, jobs are precious and few in this day and age. And in many cases, all it took was sending the wrong message out on the Internet to turn their life upside down.

Given that factor, here are five things you ultimately want to avoid doing while online at your present job:

1. The dreaded comment – It just takes one tweet or share to essentially put you on the Titanic, that is when it comes to staying afloat in your current job or one you are applying for. While a comment about your current boss or an ex coworker may seem innocent enough to you, it can spell doom for your career. Many companies in this day and age preach office culture, that is a culture where everyone pulls together, works as a team, and has each other’s backs. If you are seen as possibly being a loose cannon, someone who talks behind the backs of your boss or those you work with (especially via social media), the company may think otherwise about keeping or hiring you;

2. The ill-advised photo – Just about everyone likes to have fun, but that photo of you more than a little inebriated at the last office Christmas party, well it is not going to win you many points, especially once your boss or potential employer sees it all over Facebook. While your employer wants you to have fun outside the office (including office functions), they also expect you to keep some level of decorum. By splashing the photo on social media, you could lead some clients who know you to perhaps reconsider doing business with you moving forward;

3. The moment you forgot to turn off your office computer – Many employees find themselves busy at work, but sometimes they sneak in a little job hunting here and there. According to a 2012 CareerBuilder study of more than 1,000 Americans, nearly 75 percent of individuals define themselves as actively looking for a new gig or would be open to new possibilities. Meantime, close to 70 percent of employees claim searching for new jobs is part and parcel of their normal routine, with nearly one-fourth of them doing it at least once a week. In the event you are one of those types of individuals, do you ever leave an online job application and/or your online resume on your computer, go on a break or forget to turn your computer off at the end of the day, then realize such information was sitting there for anyone and everyone to see? You would be surprised how often it actually happens, so never leave yourself vulnerable to such an embarrassing and potentially job-killing moment;

4. Those you keep company with – Even though an employer can’t order you who to follow or befriend on social networking sites, it is not advised to be “hanging” with the wrong crowd. If you are following or befriending a number of questionable sites (i.e. gambling, porn, racist commentary or images), it certainly does not paint you in the best light as to rising up the career ladder at work. Yes, you are free to pick and choose who you want to chat with on social media sites, in online forums etc., but unless you lock your specific pages, they are there for all the world to see;

5. Those sites you should never visit – Finally, whether viewing it on your office computer or your mobile device, looking at certain non G-rated sites (pornographic to be exact) while on the job can be the kiss of death. Not only is such a move potentially going to land you in hot water with the boss, but it could even land you in a precarious legal position. In a day and age when political correctness has taken center stage, another employee could file a harassment suit against you and the employer, saying they were offended by what they saw you viewing online. If that happens, you give your boss a good reason to discipline or even terminate you, so avoid the risk altogether.

With all that you have riding on your career, avoid making a silly mistake that could leave more than just your computer crashing.

Photo credit: atlanticwire.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers a variety of career and small business topics, including how to remove personal information .

SOBCon Block One and Giveback Sunday Revealed

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Sean Ogle

Building Relationships: Turning First Contacts into Customers
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about Sean Ogle. This week we’re excited to announce that Sean will be the first presenter Friday morning, May 3. Sean will draw on his own experiences to show you how to:

  • Establish the relationship at the very first contact
  • Identify a need you can fill
  • Build trust in your offer

Give-Back Sunday
After two days of packing our heads full of fantastic ideas at SOBCon, we get the opportunity to do something that can make a big difference: Give-Back Sunday.

Hosted by Mark Carter, we’ve got three organizations (we’ll announce the 4th soon) that we’re very excited to help this year:

We’ve had several people tell us that this part of SOBCon ends up being their favorite part of the weekend.