As we’ve all learned, most of life’s lessons don’t travel in a neat formation accompanied by bugles and cavalry. They arrive filthy and unkempt, prominent in the mess we’ve made around our foxhole. These lessons are typically the offspring of hubris, naivete and ignorance … or from overlooking the land mines hidden beneath our feet.
Every Tuesday, we’ll share valuable and practical leadership tips and tools to help you BE a better leader so you can BECOME a better leader. Remember … you won’t BECOME a better leader until you start BEING a better leader … implementing NOW the changes necessary to adopt the proven strategies of successful leaders. You might start by building on the communication matrix and making sure you’re defending the castle to get done what only you can do. Make some time so you’re thinking past today.
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You probably know someone, don’t you, who is a star performer who believes that her achievements go unrewarded? If so, you probably also know an underachiever who gets more than he deserves. Is there any greater disincentive to the high performer than knowing that under-performance seems to be equally rewarded?
I’ve talked about the value of incentives before, but it keeps coming to mind as I talk to senior executives who don’t seem to have spent any time at all considering whether their incentive plans are working as intended … or whether they need to be revised.
In some ways, it reminds me of the comment that Bloomberg attributed to Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, during the $20 billion bonus scandals during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown. According to Bloomberg, this was his comment …
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It happened again the other day. I was chatting with a client and in the course of our conversation about someone they said: “I checked him out on LinkedIn.”
LinkedIn has become the de facto “go to” resource for researching companies and most especially people to learn more about them. And, if you’re very interested, you can usually find someone in your LinkedIn network to chat with and “get the scoop.”
LinkedIn doesn’t get covered as much in the media as its more glamorous cousins, Facebook and Twitter, but it has grown steadily as a powerhouse in the business environment and now stands at 100M+ members, adding 1 new member a second!
Unlike Facebook, people don’t hang out on LinkedIn for hours, they get in and get out – usually with a specific business purpose in mind. The information you get isn’t about a new restaurant or cute kid stories; people actually share information that’s useful to other business professionals on LinkedIn and use it as a research and networking tool.
Since LinkedIn members are there for business reasons, it’s become a highly receptive marketing channel for you to leverage for a variety of business purposes, including Business Development and Brand Management.
Business Development gets a boost when you leverage the capabilities of LinkedIn.
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~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, (American 34th President (1953-61). 1890-1969)
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Most of us weren’t around during World War II … but D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion of all time, with over 250,000 troops and 15,000 ships landing along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944. Luck? Accident? … or the result of rigorous strategic planning and project management?
Did General Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, lead this effort without any planning? Of course not, and even if our business plans aren’t quite as extensive, we know (deep down, we know for sure) that we need some sort of an organized planning process to build a successful business.
We need to make sure that everyone’s headed in the same direction … that we don’t ignore the obstacles or overlook the great opportunities on the road ahead … or don’t squander valuable resources chasing rainbows.
That’s why you should listen to our 5-part podcast series that demystifies planning and describes a simple discipline to get you started.
I find myself using General Eisenhower’s phrase repeatedly for at least two reasons … it’s true … and
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What do YOU want to do? There’s no criterion more important to evaluation how you’re going to build your business.
In this episode of our Building a Business podcast series, we conclude our conversation about the criteria you should use to evaluate all of the opportunities available to build your business:
You’ll recall that we started our planning discussion by killing all of the strategy myths. We dedicated the following 4 episodes to understanding the 4 important criteria to evaluate the opportunities you have:
– how to assess your current capabilities,
– assess the competitive landscape, and
– consider the external, and often less controllable, forces that affect your businesses … industry trends, markets, demographics, technology changes and other external factors.
In this podcast, we explain why what YOU want to do is a critical component of this process.
The holidays are just around the corner, and we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to get it all done. So, instead of asking you to work at something – anything – I’ve decided to give you a gift of holiday music. Elmo did it, so did Ren & Stimpy, Winnie the Pooh, Shrek, the Muppets … so with animated competition like this, what can go wrong with my first effort at song-writing?
Yeah, I know, don’t quit your day job. So, feel free to sing along to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas. Key of D Sharp, please.
All together now:
The first thing in business that’s such a pain to me … is the never-ending stinking eee-mail.
The second thing in business that’s such a pain to me … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.
The third thing in business that’s such a pain to me … meetings, meetings, meetings … stuff a-cumm-u-lating … and the never-ending stinking eee-mail.
The fourth thing in business that’s such a pain to me …
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Yes, the holidays are here and already the list of things to do continues to grow – completing the annual budget, planning parties, visiting with friends, figuring out what to get who for when … and so it goes. Yet, my spirit remains strong, so I’ve prepared a menu of 12 holiday treats that I hope will slide down like Amaretto eggnog in front of a winter fire.
I’ve even scoured some of my earlier columns to find the most delectable morsels. So, here’s a smorgasbord of lessons learned – a few appetizers, a choice of entrees, a little dessert – from executives of both extraordinary capability and numbing incompetence — that should grace your executive table.
1. It’s never about you. It’s always about them. Customers, employees, suppliers … family, friends, colleagues. Be clear about it and thrive. Get it backwards? Fail.
2. If you don’t think you’ll ever have a management succession problem, you already have one.
3. Build your compensation plan based on performance. Period.
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We’ve all been here, haven’t we? We’ve got a great idea to expand our business, we dive in head first so certain that it will work … only to find that we’ve squandered valuable resources that we wish we had to apply to an even better idea we didn’t think of the first time.
This happens to virtually every growing business because there are always more opportunities available than resources to support them. That’s why even a little planning can go a long way … why we need to kill all the strategy myths … and simply focus on prioritizing the opportunities that make the most sense to build our business. How do we do this? By applying consistent criteria to each of the opportunities before us.
In our previous podcasts, we discussed the first two criteria: your company’s core competencies and the competitive landscape. The 3rd factor needs to be the broader external forces that affect our businesses … industry trends, markets, demographics, technology changes and other external factors. What do those cards look like? How do we select the right opportunities and build our strategy to deploy our limited resources in the best possible way?
Are you spending quality time to understand industry trends? Do you know what’s happening in your markets?
If not, why not?
A critical part of planning requires you to carefully examine all of the opportunities available to help you build your business … and to apply consistent criteria so that you can compare each of them equally. In our previous podcast, we discussed the first criterion: your core competencies. We now turn our attention to the competitive landscape and what you need to do to get beneath the surface and obtain the competitive intelligence necessary to inform your decisions about the strategic opportunities you should pursue.
Remember in building your business … think big, take action and make sure you’re integrating these concepts of Strategy, Finance & Leadership into your everyday decision making.
Wanna have some fun? How about logistics? Now that’s some fun, ain’t it?
Social media has stimulated countless phenomena … but connecting with our communities is probably one of its most valuable outcomes … which is why this new UPS commercial really caught my eye. Remember the lesson that if the railroads realized they were in the transportation business, they might not have collapsed?
UPS believes they’re really in the “life” business … that logistics is making life better … parts on time, always in sync, compete effectively, track everything, no lost gifts … logistics just “makes the world work better”.
So, isn’t that the shocking truth about having fun … that it’s actually possible to build it into our work if we work at it? If UPS can put fun and some pizzaz into logistics, shouldn’t we be able to add some fun and excitement to our products and services?
Surely they’re more exciting than shipping and delivery? Am I right? Am I? Right?
Welcome to Exkalibur. I’m Lary Kirchenbauer, President of Exkalibur Advisors, Inc. Please take advantage of our resources to help you build your business ... and let me know what more we can do to serve you.
Read my latest column from the NY Times affiliate, the North Bay Business Journal.
Lary began advising our company when we were going through some difficult challenges, and now, two years later, we are in a completely different and significantly better place. His advice was specific, direct, and not always what we wanted to hear, and that was invaluable. Lary has been quick to cut through to the heart of an issue. His coaching, prodding, and tough questioning helped us to make changes that truly and measurably have helped both our top and bottom lines.
Paul Levitan, CEO Galaxy Desserts, Inc.
