Successful Blog

7 Steps Get the Best Leadership Thinking from Your Team

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10-Point Plan: Teaching Leaders to Think

“I Don’t Pay You Think” Doesn’t Work Anymore

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For years we marketed one-size-fits-all solutions, it worked to grow the numbers higher and higher by allowing companies and corporations to focus on how to give us more for less. We had access to more products at lower prices because of it.

And in that one-size-fits-all environment, it’s fairly certain that at least once in your career you heard a manager say the famous words, “I don’t pay you to think.” In fact the system relied upon carefully controlled decisions … only a few people were allowed “to think.”

Rogue thinking upset the carefully constructed system of industrial production that made the whole thing work. Even customer conversations were perfected down to scripts so that no maverick thought could undermine the “perfected” process of handling relationships.

Except customers never did find those scripts the making of a perfect relationship and now as customers have ways of connecting with each other, they’re letting us know that they’re spending their attention, time, and money with companies and corporations who build one-of-a-kind things, offer customized and personalized service, and develop true and loyal relationships.

What 20th century company or corporation was designed to manage that?

7 Steps Get the Best Leadership Thinking from Your Team

It’s been decades of businesses that have preached the mantra “I don’t teach you to think.” Leadership reaches out to build together what can’t be build alone. Ironically, it gets stronger when everyone thinks.

How does a leader build a team that leaves behind black-and-white safety of scripted relationships to the gray decision making that actually serves customers and the company? Without the right environment, support, and commitment in place it’s likely to be a mess of good intentions that foul up things.

Here are 7 steps to building a thinking, influential leadership team.

  1. Trust your team. It goes without saying that if you picked the right team, they’ll do the right job. If after reflection, you find that trust isn’t going to come. It’s time to change your own thinking about the people you want on your team.
  2. Start with a small crew. A change in management style cannot be made via a toggle switch or a pendulum swing. Rather than announcing new “rules of behavior.” Enlist a small crew who has already shown they understand both customers and what drives the business.
  3. Agree on the definition of a good result. Strategy always begins with knowing where we want to go. Set a goal. Define what a successful completion of that goal would be.
  4. Let the crew plan how to get from here to success on that one thing. You’ve agreed on the outcome and you’ve chosen the right crew. Let them show you their most efficient process for achieving it. Let them work out the details without you.
  5. Review the plan by asking questions. Have a short meeting for the crew to show you what they’re going to do. Limit yourself to questions rather than advice. You now have the benefit of being outside the thinking and so you can test it for holes and hidden assumptions — something you couldn’t do when you were part of building the plan. You can learn from the new ideas they bring to it.
  6. Stay out of their way as they execute. Ask them to keep you apprised via status updates and meetings, but stay in question so that you can be tester of the thinking rather than the only thinker in the room. When people look to you for an answer, answer with, “You have more information, than I, what seems the most appropriate action to you? Why do you think so?”
  7. Celebrate Success and Value What You Learn Every status meeting take a moment to celebrate successes. Invite the crew to do the same with you. Also take time to highlight and value new things, surprises, and misfires that teach what not to do.

The days of “i don’t pay you to think” are thankfully long over. True leaders are people who don’t want to do all of the thinking. Leaders are people who want to build something innovative, elegant, and useful that they can’t build alone.

Care-filled thinking, well-thought action, and thoughtful response has become the gold standard of business growth, innovation, and loyalty relationships. When everyone is thinking, the customer and the company become a community and the business thrives. Thinking is the new ROI.

The way and the level at which we value our teams’ thinking is directly proportional to the value of the thinking they return.

How do you get the best thinking from your team?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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How to Attract the Leaders in the Pack

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(Updated in 2020)

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

10-Point Plan — Attracting Second Generation Heroes and Champions

Employees as Volunteers and Volunteers as Employees

Whether you’re a small enterprise like SOBCon building a brand and a legacy to stand upon or you’re an internationally known brand with a legacy of success and relationships that you want to nurture and protect, your employees and volunteers are the heart of your brand.

What makes that heart beat?
What gets those people to invest their time into your quest rather than into some other endeavor each day?
One of three reasons brings us to work and that reason that drives us runs through every nuance of every interaction that we undertake — every success we enjoy and every error we miss, overlook or turnaround in a fabulous way.

Whether you’re paying for a job role or enlisting volunteers, what you want is a volunteer who leads like a $200,000 / year employee. Leaders like that are learners who are focused on the cause and willing to put their minds, hearts, and vision into making the best things happen.

The Three Kinds of People Who Show Up to Work

People often say “There are two kinds of people, those who … and those who don’t.” In this case there are really three. Knowing all three will help you find and identify the leaders you need.

  • It’s a job. These volunteers are looking for an in-kind return. They are worker economists in that they do a hard day’s work for a hard day’s pay. The return might not be money. It might be a free seat, new clients or contacts that translate into potential work, a chance to raise the level of their pay grade by raising their skills and contacts. Be aware that they aren’t working for your brand or cause. They are executing a transaction.
  • It’s a career. These volunteers are looking to build their resume.They are politicians in that they look for a return that will enhance their own value proposition. The return is not financial it’s power and positioning. They do a hard day’s work for the ability to say they were part of the team. They might be working for a recommendation or entrance into a new network that will offer more opportunity. Understand that their first purpose isn’t working for your brand, it’s to extend their reach.
  • It’s a quest. These volunteers care about money and reach, but are driven by a need to build something no one can build alone. They look for a situation that will allow them to invest their best and want the same in return. Leaders will actually work for less if they’re convinced that the quest, the people, and process will be tied to values and intelligent ROI.

I bet you could phrase a set of questions and conditions to attract the best volunteers to that outstanding project you want to take off.

How would you start?

READ the Whole 10-Point Plan Series: On the Successful Series Page.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

5 Ways to start a mutiny!

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by Patty Azzarello

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People want their work to matter

I was preparing to write this blog about how to make work more meaningful for people, when I heard a piece of an interview with Dan Ariely about his new book, The Upside of Irrationality.

I didn’t hear the whole interview, but he talked about a test he did to measure how important meaning was in one’s work. The test was to complete a task repeatedly, until you wanted to stop.

The task was to build a Lego robot.

When you completed it, you got asked if you would like to build another robot.

In one case the robot you built was placed to the side so you could admire it while you built the next one.

In the other case if you said you’d like to build another, they dis-assembled the one you just built right in front of you,  gave you back the pieces and said, OK build another one.

How to drain all meaning out of someone’s work

I’m sure I am doing a dis-service to Dan Ariely’s work by taking this out of context, but that is one of the best metaphors I have heard for taking the meaning out of someone’s work!

It got me to thinking, what are all the ways we drain meaning from our employees work, dis-assemble their robots right before their eyes, mabye even without recognizing we are doing it?  And how can we build up the meaning instead?

1. Changing your mind all the time

Someone completes something you said was really important, but you changed your mind since you first assigned the task.  Now instead of accepting the work and thanking them, you gloss over it and ask them to do something else instead.   Then later you change your mind again, maybe even back to the first thing.

Robot parts are flying at this point!

Let people finish things.  Don’t keep switching the task before people can complete things.  Consider the full cost of changing your mind.  If you really have to change your mind, don’t skip the closure.

Thank people for the work, and communicate a reason why THEIR work still counts,  even though YOU have changed your mind.

2. Not accepting something different than you do it

Be careful here, just because it isn’t like you would do it, doesn’t mean that it’s not good enough, or maybe even better.

Build the robot again, but this time use the blue legos for the feet and the red ones for the arms because that is how I do it.

You are far more likely to create meaning if you accept good work, than if you tweak it to death just to make it exactly like you would do it.

3. Skipping the closure

The urgent customer issue or demand has disappeared because you either won the deal or lost the deal. The team has been working frantically to produce or defend something.

When you no longer feel the urgency, you either forget to call off the team, so they keep working round the clock — oops!   Or you just never go back to collect the work, because it no longer matters to you.

Just because it no longer has meaning for you and you have moved on to other things, doesn’t mean you should take the meaning away from the people that did the work.

Save the robot as a resource

If the work is no longer necessary, close out the project, thank them, and have a quick brainstorming about how we can use this important work for another customer or to solve a general issue.

It’s so much easier to just move on to your next urgent thing, but you are sacrificing your team’s motivation an ongoing performance and support if you skip this step.

4. Not being clear about the strategy

This is probably the biggest and most common hazard I have seen.

Companies are fuzzy about what their strategy is.  But they demand lots of hard work from people, and it is utterly impossible to understand if the work matters to the strategy or not.

Unclear strategy causes lots of wasted time and energy working on the wrong things, or waiting for decisions to be made, but it is really de-motivating for people to deliver work into a strategic black hole.

That is like throwing their robots directly into the trash can.

Make the strategy clear.  It’s what creates meaning for the work.

5. Not connecting the dots for people

Even if the strategy is clear to you, don’t expect your staff to automatically see how their work fits into supporting the big picture.

You need to spell it out and show them why their work matters. If you never connect the dots about how their work specifically supports the over-all strategy, there is no meaning in it for them.

Otherwise, they are just putting their robots on a conveyor belt to be used for unknown purposes.

Ensuring that all your employees understand how the business works, and how their work helps move it forward, motivates and enables them make better decisions and add more value.

With our without financial rewards your employees will do better work, faster, if they can personally see why it matters.

How do you create meaning for your employees?

This is a topic where concrete examples are so valuable. What’s worked for you? Please share your ideas in the comment box.

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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Aristotle Scooped My Ideas on Personal Brand

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by Patty Azzarello

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not
an act but a habit.” –Aristotle

Consistent Behaviors

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I am always talking about how Brand is about consistent behaviors.

In fact, I just was interviewed by a Forbes Magazine editor for 90 minutes on this topic. Turns
out, I was scooped by Aristotle!

As Aristotle will tell you, what I am saying about branding is not a new idea.

The Big Idea

But the big idea here for me is that we build or degrade our Personal Brand every single day — in every single conversation, meeting, email, presentation, and interaction we have with others.

You are broadcasting your Personal Brand

The behaviors people experience most consistently from you, ARE your Personal Brand.

(By the way this is true for corporate brands too. Your company’s brand is granted to your
company based on your customers’ cumulative experience with all the products, services,
processes, communications, and employees that interact with customers.)

You have a personal brand today whether you know it or not.

The question is – is it what you want it to be? And are you doing anything consistently, on
purpose, to give people any particular impression of you?

Choice #1 – Build your Personal Brand on Purpose

If you want to build your Personal Brand here are the steps.

Learn what you are known for. Get some feedback from people who know you and work
with you.

  • Decide what you want to be known for. Understand if there is a gap.
  • Define some specific behaviors that support your Brand.
  • Do them on Purpose every chance you get.

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For example if you wanted a Brand of being…

Efficient: Don’t write long emails, ever. Do present (every time) how your solutions save time and resources along with getting the desired outcome.
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Well Connected in your industry: Don’t take on projects alone, engage your network. Do expose the virtual team you’ve created and always include externally sourced content in your communications.
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Cutting Through Chaos and solving complicated problems: Don’t ever participate in group email debates, offer obtuse suggestions, or let issues fester. Do offer concrete ideas and close off loose ends – every day.

Choice #2 – Leave it to chance

Why now?

If you have made it this far in your career without bothering to build your Personal Brand, why
should you worry about it now?

One hazard of leaving your Personal Brand to chance is that you remain somewhat of a blank.

Even if you are generally known as “good”, when opportunities come up, if you are not known
for anything in particular so you don’t stand out very much. You don’t stand out as much as
someone who is known for something specific.

Many people are striving for more recognition, relevance, and respect. Building your Personal
Brand is a key factor in positioning yourself to attract the respect and the rewards you deserve.

Stand out more. Be more Credible.

You become a much more credible and powerful presence in your company if everyone around
you says similar, specific things about their impression of you. Your Brand becomes significant
and believable.

Your intentions do not equal others’ perceptions

It doesn’t matter what you think or feel, or intend to do. Those things only matter to you. No one
else can see them.

Others can only experience what you DO.

Another hazard of leaving your Personal Brand to chance are that you can be giving negative
impressions that you don’t intend.

For example, I remember once when I did a 360 review, I got low scores on being a good
listener. I was totally shocked, because I always considered myself to be a great listener.

What I learned when I dug in was that the few people I listened to, indeed thought I was a good listener, but the vast majority of my organization never observed me listening.

Build your Brand with visible behaviors

So to build my Brand as a Listener, I created more opportunities to listen.

I created office hours, and breakfast and lunch meetings with groups of individuals. I created a website where people could give me feedback. I requested input every time I spoke. I told people what happened as a result of getting input.

My Brand issue was not with my listening skill or intention, it was about the accessibility and
visibility of listening opportunities. I was able to build positive brand value by creating more highly visible listening opportunities on purpose.

By investing some thought and energy in building your Personal Brand on purpose you will
increase your credibility and your value.

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Patty Azzarello works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. She has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at The Azzarello Group Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello

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Conan’s Good-bye: 10 of 10 in Leadership, Reputation, and Community

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A Lesson in Reputation Management

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At a time that anyone serving the public is aware of the importance of brand and reputation management. It’s still rare to see a fine example of a response to a tough situation that shows authentic, human leadership. The recent NBC / Conan O’Brien situation had so much press that millions of people were following it.

Conan O’Brien’s farewell came after what could be called an unseating, what may have felt a betrayal. His final good-bye was televised. How would he communicate with grace and dignity when a crowds of fans and lawyers are looking at him to recognize what’s been?

10 of 10 in Leadership, Reputation, and Community

Corporations, small businesses, every one of us could learn a lot from how Conan said good-bye. His words were the careful words of a leader delivered from the heart in a difficult situation. He was visible authenticity, leadership, and grace in these visible ways.

  1. He took control of the situation. Gently, but firmly he said …
    There has been a lot of speculation in the press about what I legally can and can’t say about NBC. To set the record straight, tonight I am allowed to say anything I want.
  2. He told the truth in fair and generous context.
    … between my time at Saturday Night Live, The Late Night Show, and my brief run here on The Tonight Show, I have worked with NBC for over twenty years. Yes, we have our differences right now and yes, we’re going to go our separate ways.
  3. He shared his pride and his gratitude.
    But this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible.
  4. He was honest about state of mind and his feelings of loss.
    Walking away from The Tonight Show is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. This is the best job in the world, I absolutely love doing it, and I have the best staff and crew in the history of the medium.
  5. He celebrated the positive.
    Every comedian dreams of hosting The Tonight Show and, for seven months, I got to. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second.
  6. He moved the focus to the future.
    I’ve had more good fortune than anyone I know and if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-11 parking lot, we’ll find a way to make it fun.
  7. He raised up and cherished all who might be his friends.
    And finally, I have to say something to our fans. The massive outpouring of support and passion from so many people has been overwhelming. The rallies, the signs, all the goofy, outrageous creativity on the internet, and the fact that people have traveled long distances and camped out all night in the pouring rain to be in our audience, made a sad situation joyous and inspirational.
  8. He gave everyone’s investment meaning.
    To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. .
  9. He invited everyone to be part of something better.
    All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.
  10. He offered hope even to the nonparticipants.
    Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.

It took leadership, courage, a sense of humor, and trust in his audience to deliver on that message. If you saw it, you know it was real. Unfortunately, the video has been taken down at YouTube, but you can see it at the Huffington Post.

Conan won day and probably won a huge following of new fans by showing humanity, fairness, and leadership. He kept his focus on who and what mattered and left out who and what did not. He raised us all by not tearing anything down. I hope we’re never faced with such extreme circumstances. If we are, I hope we come back to this example of how to build good relationships from conflict.

Imagine if every corporation, business, and individual demonstrated that same 10 or 10 in Leadership, Reputation, and Community when conflict occurs.

What was your personal response to Conan’s last words?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Personal Integrity: Leadership and Taking Turns

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I've been thinking . . .

about taking turns.

It doesn’t take much experience to know that to be heard, you have to listen. Leaders know that. So do teammates and people who understand human nature. Relationships are an ebb and flow, a “give and get” kind of thing.

From childhood, I learned to take turns at being first, at choosing, at having the lead.

Now, I’m grown up and I’ve been thinking about that “taking turns” rule. It’s automatic. I take my turn and I step back for someone else to move forward. When I don’t I feel the world look at me. Is that best way?

I’ve been wondering for weeks now . . . should a leader stop leading because it’s supposed to be someone else’s turn?

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