Archive for Leadership
How Followship Becomes Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsCame across this post and the video below from Derek Sivers. It’s so good, and requires nothing more from me. I’d love your reaction in the comments.
The Right Way to Do the Wrong Thing
Posted by: | CommentsNothing sharpens your perspective like challenges.
Take Jeff Healey. No one in their right mind would play a guitar the way he plays the guitar. It’s not coorect, and guitars weren’t meant to be played the way he plays them, laying the body in his lap and fingering the fretboard from above.
But Jeff lost his sight when he was eight months old, and started playing guitar when he was three. The way he wanted to play it. Because he didn’t know any better. Because it made perfect sense to him.
The real story here isn’t that Jeff Healey overcame blindness to become a great guitar player. There are lots of blind guitar players. The story here is that his challenges are actually what made him unique. His playing style opened up options that those of us who play guitar in the “normal” way simply don’t have. His style got him noticed by Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert Lee; gave him chances to play with Eric Clapton and George Harrison. Heck, he even got to be in the movie Roadhouse.
What challenges can you embrace rather than avoid? What things do you need to unlearn before you can really move on?
FYI, things really get good around the 3-minute mark on this video.
Why Year-End Predictions are a Waste of Vital Brain Function
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Fast becoming more annoying than tax season or budget season is the ever-popular, clearly link-baiting time of year marked with blogs filled with predictions for the new year:
- “10 predictions on social media in 2010.”
- “7 things that will happen on Facebook in 2010.”
- “47 ways advertising will die in 2010.”
It’s all baloney (yes, I know it’s spelled “bologna,” but I don’t want to chance you pronouncing it in your mind as bah-low-NUH), and it’s an utter waste of time.
“But shouldn’t one prepare for what’s ahead,” you ask. “Is it not a sign of knowing your industry?”
It’s definitely cool when someone knows an industry or trend so well that they repetitively prophesy and, poof, it happens.
Those people are rare. My guess is you’re not one of them.
Playing a Numbers Game
The problem with banking on predictions is that you are putting way too much stock in what has yet to happen.
Let’s say you make 10 predictions in your industry or for your company for 2010, and you put in place plans to address all ten. Now, fast-forward to 2011 and look back. Assume two of the 10 predictions came true. Granted, you are really ahead of the pack in those two areas, and it’s probably paid off to a certain degree.
But you wasted 80% of your planning process and strategic abilities on something that can’t even be used, because your assumptions never became reality.
Let’s face it: there are too many levers moving too quickly in the world today to know everything that’s coming. In fact, the sooner you realize there’s something always around the corner that you’re not prepared for, the better off you’re going to be.
Instead of waxing poetic on a year-end guessing game just so you get the thrill of proclaiming “I told you so!” at the end of next year, why not try building a different list.
How about figuring 10 things you can do now so you can easily react to what 2010 brings?
The all-stars of business today, especially small business, are those people who can react the fastest. Opportunity is always knocking, but it’s opting more and more for a speed-dating approach. If you don’t answer right away, it has no problem hopping to the next doorstep.
What processes can you put in place to get yourself and your team better prepared when the big 2010 moment hits? What processes can you eliminate? What do you need to learn? Who do you need to get to know? Who do you need to rally?
Two years ago I picked the Rams to win the Super Bowl. I think they won a total of three games that year.
Predictions mean nothing. Reactions and responses mean everything. Stop predicting and start preparing for the unpredictable.
Spreading the Strategy
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s pretty common in all businesses. The non-executives want to know what is driving the executives. We all want to know where the leader is trying to go, and why.
It’s just as common that the non-executives don’t get answers to these questions. Whether it’s true or not, every project appears to be nothing more than a tactic and/or reaction. Not strategic, but urgently necessary. And easily influenced.
A plan that’s not communicated is just a wish. Businesses fail on wishes.
So, if you’re the one in charge, realize that you’re people are yearning for you to tell them what the whole point is. They want to know the strategy, so they can buy into it. “Strategy” is one of those words we all like to throw around a lot, but few of us know what it really means. Fewer know how to create one.
Chances are, though, that you struggle in one of two areas here:
- You know the strategy, but you haven’t communicated it efficiently. That’s easy to fix. And remember that it’s never as clear to them the first time as it is to you, so simplify it. Nail it your wall. Talk about it in every conversation. Get a tattoo. Repeat it so much that people now make fun of you for talking about the strategy so much.
- You actually don’t know the strategy either. Your team is right: you are just reacting, just guessing. If this is a problem, get some help fast.
When people know the strategy, they are left with much smaller things to complain about.
Do you have an example of a good way you’ve seen a company communicate it’s strategy to it’s employees? What is it, and why did/does it work so well?
When the Tribe Has Spoken
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s apparent: modern society is more tribal than we probably like to give it credit for. The beauty of a tribe is in its shared interests, its selective inclusion and its easy accessibility among its members. Every tribe has its own rules. Its own secret handshake, if you will. Its own belief system.
A fundamental truth of any tribe, though, is that it must reject more than it accepts. If it doesn’t, it’s not a tribe. It’s just a group, or crowd. Crowds don’t have belief systems. Or secret handshakes. They’re just crowds.
The Tribe Has Spoken
Tribes create their own criteria for acceptance. That’s their right. It doesn’t have to make any sense to anyone but the tribe. This becomes apparent in watching just a couple episodes of Survivor. The show is built on the suspense and strategy surrounding the decision of the tribe. And when the tribe speaks, there is no opportunity to dispute.
Rejected by the Tribe
If you’re rejected by a tribe, regardless of the reason, that’s it. The tribe has spoken. That’s their privilege and their right. And it’s the beauty of the whole system. Otherwise, the tribe would mean nothing, and acceptance would be meaningless.
The bad news is there are so many tribes that the chances of getting rejected are pretty high. The good news is there are so many tribes.
p.s. I’ve only read about 20 pages of Seth Godin’s latest book Tribes. I’m sure much of what I’ve said below is something he’s already explained in a much better way. But I promise I didn’t intentionally rip it off.
Beat It
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I’m in Atlanta today, and made a point of having lunch at Ted’s Montana Grill. If you’ve never had one of their Bison burgers, then you still haven’t tasted the true potential of a burger. I love ‘em.
In addition, if you’re lucky, you can sit at the bar right in front of the kitchen. Those guys don’t hold back, and it’s great.
Today, I witnessed true leadership. The guy working the bar for lunch came into the kitchen area (they’re connected) and started complaining about something, dishing out ways things should be done better around there. On and on. The guy I assume was the head chef let him go on for a little while, then finally just looked up and said “Beat it.”
It was as if someone had pushed the mute button. It was dead silent, and the bartender simply turned around and went back to work.
When you can make things happen with just two words, you’re doing something right.
Are the Questions Better than the Answers?
Posted by: | CommentsYou don’t need to know all the answers. In fact, you’ll be better off if you don’t. You need to know the questions.
It’s rare for the person with the answers to just speak up. But if you know the questions to ask, you can prompt the people with the answers to share them with everyone else. And when they speak up, you know what to do, and they feel empowered.
The questions reveal the plan and process and people you need to move your idea forward. And since no one will ever have all the answers, it’s makes much more since to try to know all the questions.
Brett’s note: This post is part of a series known as The Vault, which looks back periodically at some of the better moments of MarketingInProgress.com. This post was originally posted on August 29, 2007.
You’re Disgusting
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In the spirit of the clean slates, resolutions and Auld Lang Syne’s of the New Year’s Eve, here’s my bit of advice for you:
Go disgust yourself.
Really. Take a good look in the mirror and realize just how disgusting you are. It’ll do a lot more for you in 2009 than vowing to lower your caffeine intake or read your Bible every day.
Many a successful direct seller during my AdvoCare days taught me just how great a motivator disgust is. They often admitted that they did nothing with their AdvoCare business until they got so disgusted with themselves and their circumstances that they finally dedicated the necessary effort to make the business work.
Most of us are waiting for a gigantic pile of inspiration to hit us and get us going, when it’s actually a hefy dose of self-depracation that’s really needed.
So, as the clock strikes 12 tonight, go to a mirror and pick out those things that repulse you in the reflection. And not your looks; your traits. Your procrastination. Your fears. Your lack of skills. Your lack of passion.
Identify the disgusters, then figure out how you’re going to attack them.
Here’s to a disgusting 2009.
p.s. Thanks to the Festivus on Marketing series for inspiring this thought.
Consensus Makes No Sense-us
Posted by: | CommentsWatching Jonathan’s video (below and here) sparked a still-brewing thought in my dusty brain:
Consensus is the enemy of progress.
OK, maybe that’s harsh and not always true. But after seeing Jonathan’s response to the HR lady below, you realize that having balls gets you a lot more than having consensus.
We Need More Organizers
Posted by: | CommentsRead this post and click the link on the Common Sense PR blog. The link highlights axioms of Fred Ross, Sr., and I haven’t read anything this good in a long, long time.
I appears as though what most of us are most impressed with are organizers, not leaders. Here are my favorite points from his list:
An organizer is not someone who leads but someone who gets behind people and pushes.
90% of organizing is follow-up.
Good organizers never give up – they get the opposition to do that.
To win the hearts and minds of people, forget the dry facts and statistics; tell them the stories that won you to the cause.
The only way to organize is to organize, not to sit around and jaw about it.
I dare you to read through the list and not find at least three points that hit home. Do us a favor and write your favorites in the comments below.
