While in the USA recently I watched a documentary on the leadership development programs of the US Marines. I was struck by what a senior officer described as their “leadership philosophy”: Know Yourself, Know Your Job, Know Your People.

Undoubtedly, the Marines are an elite and highly effective military force. Their leadership training must equip graduates to make life and death decisions under the most extreme circumstances. Leadership is a complex responsibility and yet they responded with a stunningly simple and potent philosophy. Know yourself, know your job, know your people.

By contrast I’m deeply concerned that so many business leaders can’t describe their plans without a 50 page document and Powerpoint slides. In complex times, every leader must choose to simplify. So here’s how to lead like a Marine:

Know Yourself
Before you assume this is the “easy one”, why not do a quick inventory of your self awareness?

• What are your top five values?
• What have been your key life-defining events and how have they shaped how you see yourself and your world?
• What are your greatest strengths as a leader?
• What are your greatest weaknesses and opportunities for growth?
• What are your blind spots and what are you doing about them?
• What makes you angry?
• What are you most afraid of?
• How do you change when you’re under pressure?
• How do others see you as a leader?
• … and we haven’t even scratched the surface.

Self awareness is foundational to effective leadership. To know yourself is a challenging mission.

Know Your Job
You cannot truly succeed in any role without understanding your job. Not just what activities are you to be involved in, but what results are you there to deliver? Clarity in understanding your role and objectives is critical, and without it you’re like a sportsperson competing without knowing the rules of the game. Lasting success becomes unachievable.

I wonder what would happen if I was to interview you and ask you to describe to your job in detail? What if I then asked your boss how he or she sees your role? And what about those who report to you? What would I get? Consistency? Conflict? Clarity? Confusion?

If you haven’t got clarity on your job- get it or get going elsewhere, because you can’t succeed without it.

Know Your People
Something I have observed often as I’ve coached individual leaders is that many haven’t made the effort to get to know the people they lead. Some believe a convenient myth about keeping people “at arm’s length”. Some have never applied themselves to understanding people with a different outlook or personality to their own. Some are preoccupied with themselves and lead people as resources rather than human beings (which is why “Human Resources” is a sort of oxymoron to me).

To my shame, I’ve led people for years only to discover later that I hardly knew them at all – that they had a painful divorce, a life’s mission, a serious illness… whatever it was, I knew nothing about it. Not because it was a secret, but because I was content with only a superficial knowledge of my team.

But the Marine Commander’s benchmark for leadership was extraordinary. “I will not let a man become an officer that I would not allow to lead my own son into combat”, he said. That’s a serious benchmark for knowing the people you lead.

What could you stop doing in 2010, to do more of what gets real results?

This time of year most people are setting goals and making plans that revolve around adding things to their lives. New projects. Extra staff. More products and services. The problem is that many leaders are hoarders when it comes to strategies. Over time their teams become burdened beneath the weight of ideas that have outlived their usefulness.

Here’s a new mantra for shaping your new year: Simplify.

Often the most effective plans are marked by simplicity not complexity. So before you rush headlong into planning your new year with the assumption that leaders are supposed to constantly add, why don’t you take stock of what you already have?

Don’t add, subtract to multiply your impact.

My wife and I have been spring-cleaning our house in recent weeks. There’s something liberating about throwing things out. Giving yourself permission to jettison all those items that you’ve hung onto just in case they become useful again at some point. As a coach I’ve worked with businesses that need a serious spring clean. Purge the plans. Rethink what is valuable. Get ruthless with things we’ve outgrown or rarely use.

I believe there’s wisdom in the well-worn saying “less is more”. Often the most creative thing you can do is simply stop doing something that isn’t working. In trimming the deadwood you create the space for the best things to flourish.

The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of your results in life are produced by only 20% of your efforts, and my own experience seems to prove that true. It’s a great theory that many of us already know, but it’s not until you actually apply it to your plans that it makes any difference. So if you had a life-threatening illness and could only work one day a week because of your health, what would you focus on when only 20% of your week was left? Make 2010 about those things.

• Is a stocktake of your priorities long overdue?
• Is it time to write a not-to-do list, as David Allen suggests in ‘Getting Things Done’?
• Could you de-clutter your mind and your plans with a ruthless spring clean?
• Is 2010 the year to simplify? Subtract to multiply.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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I met a coach recently who had tried to give away $50 notes on the streets of Sydney. I was fascinated as he told the story about how hard it was to give away genuine money to strangers. Some people apparently thought it was a scam. Some avoided eye contact and just walked past him. Others actually crossed to the other side of the street when they saw him trying to hand out cash. What does that say about human nature? Why is skepticism the default setting for many of us? I wonder how many good things have I talked myself out of because they seemed just ‘too good to be true’.

For better or worse, people don’t tend to trust strangers. Think about what that means for your organisation. Too often we focus on the value of our product or service in the way we communicate with our target audience. We tell them it’s the best, the most, the first, the only. But you’ll have to do better than that to convince strangers who would cross the street to avoid free cash. Regardless of how valuable what you’re offering truly is, without trust it mostly falls on deaf ears.

So what can we do to bridge the gap?

1. Build some trust
Trust is foundational for relationship, and relationship closes the gap between us.

• If your goal in sales and marketing was developing trust (instead of pitching how amazing your stuff is) what would you do differently?
• What could you stop doing that has been eroding their trust?
• Who do they trust already and what could you learn from them?

2. Build a crowd
I suspect the $50 trust experiment would turn out differently in a crowded shopping centre. Instead of confronting individuals with my offer, if I was shouting it to a crowd it would only require a few people to decide it was worth the risk and a tipping point would be reached. As people saw others running to a guy who was handing out cash, more and more of them would override their cynicism for fear of missing out on a good thing. Such is the power of a crowd.

• How could you create the stampede effect with your one-to-many marketing?
• What else could you do to enable your core clients to spread the word to the crowd?
• Do people see a crowd when they look at you? Most people don’t want to go first.

3. Build their dream
A friend of mine called Taki is a marketing guru and he often says, “Education builds rapport, selling breaks rapport”. I write The Leadership Coach every fortnight for thousands of people and give it away free, but education has built rapport. So it’s no surprise that most weeks I receive an enquiry about a speaking engagement or leadership workshop as a result of these articles. In helping others build their dreams I’m seeing my own dream built.

• What could you do to help people achieve their dreams?
• Do they see you as a salesperson or partner in their vision?
• How well do you understand the dreams and challenges of those you hope to influence?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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It’s widely accepted as common sense that increasing transactions is good for your business, but often it just isn’t true.

• Have you ever purchased something at a store and got the distinct impression that you were an interruption to the salesperson?
• Have you received the sort of service that leaves you wondering if that business saw you as a person or a ’sale’?
• Or how about the salesperson who rattles off their script and doesn’t seem to hear a word you say?

The danger for those businesses is that on the profit & loss statement those transactions might have looked good, but the experience left you less likely to choose that business again. So what is the solution? I’m convinced that it’s not just transactions that build your business- it’s interactions. Transactions are ok to a point, but nothing leaves an positive impression on people like great interactions do.

I have three kids and I remember clearly those first moments when each of them were born. I’ll never forget looking into my daughter’s eyes for the very first time. In that moment we had a connection that didn’t require words and that impacted me for life. Sadly though I have found that in the busyness of life, with all of its pressures and to do lists, that it’s easy for those interactions with my kids to deteriorate into mere transactions. Played with the kids? Tick. Got the groceries? Tick. Baths and bedtime? Tick. Transactions.

So if even the most significant relationships in our lives can slip into becoming transactional, how much more is that true of your customers who you connect with for just a few minutes? Sometimes it’s easier to just churn out transactions than to take a moment and connect with people in a genuine way. But interactions are what human beings crave. Sure, we have our busy days when we just want to buy something and go. But at the core of human nature is a desire to matter, to be noticed, to be treated with dignity, to connect.

But how does a leader build the sort of team that deliver on this consistently? Here’s one answer. I spoke at an event for small business owners recently and a very successful franchise owner shared her hiring strategy. It was simple yet profoundly effective. She said “I hire for personality, then train for skill”. While other franchise owners were looking through applicants’ resumes for experience in food service or academic achievements she was looking for one thing – the right personality. “I can train them to operate a register”, she said “but I can’t train them to be nice”. And with that simple formula she was building a winning team.

So perhaps it’s time to do an inventory-

• Where does personality feature on your list of priorities when hiring staff?
• Are you underestimating the number of roles on your team that need to be delivering genuine interactions?
• And what do people experience when they connect with your organization? Transactions or interactions?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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I’m not a gifted sportsman, in fact even ‘competent’ is a stretch most of the time. But one sport I picked up quickly was snowboarding. There’s something exhilarating about hurtling down the side of a mountain strapped to a snowboard with trees and rocks all around you that heightens the senses and reminds you that life is short (and could be even shorter if you don’t take up a different hobby).

Every instinct in my body led me to believe that leaning back in a defensive posture was the way to stay safe. Yet ironically, keeping your weight on your back foot is in fact about the surest way to fall. My breakthrough came when I got out of my defensive stance and shifted my weight to my front foot. My instincts told me that this was dangerous, that I would fall and hurt myself, that this was risky. The reality was that I fell less often and then relaxed and enjoyed myself. Those defensive instincts had actually caused much of my pain.

Leaders have to learn to favour their front foot. Aware of the dangers all around them and sometimes still hurting from the last fall, the leader must choose to override defensive posturing and get on the offense. Their default setting must become action not inaction. To press forward not lean backward. To push through pain and go again. In other words they lead with “front foot favouritism”.

So why don’t more leaders do it? Well for one thing it often goes against our instincts. Unless you have a natural inclination towards risk and action, it tends to be a difficult choice at first to contravene what seems like self-preservation and get on the front foot. But with time and success you slowly form a new neural pathway in your brain until eventually “front foot = self-preservation”. The other reason that leaders stay on the back foot is that once in a while that hesitation and passivity actually pays off and saves them from making a “wrong” choice. But what they don’t tend to see is the enormous opportunity cost – all the times they missed out on real wins while they played it “safe”.

The conservative perfectionist part of me can worry about making the wrong choice. The problem is that it’s often better in the long run to make more decisions, even if a few of them are wrong, than to make only a few decisions but get nearly all of them right. In the scheme of things the decisive leader actually makes many more right decisions than the conservative leader does. And the momentum from all that forward motion enables them to take a few mistakes in their stride.

So what is your default setting? The front foot or the back foot? Of course there are times when it’s appropriate to pause and assess the situation or to wait a crisis out. But for leaders those moments should be by choice, and not by default.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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I was speaking in Singapore last week to a group of marketers from across Asia/Pacific on what it means to be a “Trusted Advisor”. These are turbulent times in the world of marketing. By nature marketing tends to be about longer term strategic direction yet many companies are sacrificing that agenda in the current climate in favour of short term results. Often marketing results take more time to produce and more effort to measure than areas like sales. And on top of all that, Web 2.0 and the likes of Facebook and Twitter are revolutionising traditional marketing and marketplaces.

Simply put, I believe there has never been a more important time for them to be Trusted Advisors. There are six distinctive traits that set Trusted Advisors apart from Typical Consultants. Regardless of your industry, if your role requires giving advice or expertise to others then your goal should be to transcend the Typical Consultant and become the Trusted Advisor. So what are the differences? Let’s talk about three.

Culture Creator vs Adaptable

I heard a respected CEO last week say “Leadership creates culture, and culture creates performance”. I wrote an article recently called “Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast” because leaders must recognise that no amount of strategy will save you if your team culture does not support your goals. The Trusted Advisor sees it as part of their charter to help cultivate a culture that is conducive to lasting success. By contrast the Typical Consultant is simply adaptable – their goal is to fit in. Where one is a thermostat, the other is just a thermometer. One changes the temperature of the room, the other merely measures it.

Lifelong Learner vs “Qualified”

Something I’ve observed about Trusted Advisors is that they treat their education as a journey rather than an event. The Typical Consultant is merely “qualified”. They have degrees, experience, achievements and references. All past tense. But how much of what they learned is no longer true? To what extent does their experience blind them to new possibilities? Are they “qualified” for the future or only for the past? The Trusted Advisor recognises that there is always more to learn especially in an age of constant change. They learn to love learning. The humility to acknowledge their own need to grow is a key reason why others trust their advice.

Innovator vs Mechanic

Innovation is a word at risk of losing all meaning through overuse. My personal definition is: Innovation = Creativity Harnessed To Purpose. The Trusted Advisor is focused on future purpose and possibilities. Instead the Typical Consultant is more like a mechanic – fixing problems and keeping things running. There’s nothing wrong with being a mechanic, but to become a Trusted Advisor we must show that we can move from what is to what could be through innovation. Recently someone said to me that “marketers need to keep up with the developments in social media”. I don’t agree. Keeping up is not enough if you want to be a Trusted Advisor. The Trusted Advisor needs to lead the way.

So, which one are you being for the clients you serve? The fact is that Typical Consultants do good work and tend to get good results. Being a qualified, adaptable, skilled mechanic is a pretty reasonable start. But it’s not enough.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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It’s been said that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just a little bit “extra”. There’s a coffee house that I’m irrationally loyal to (in fact I’m there even as I write this). It’s not as though the coffee or the service or the surroundings are so drastically different to other purveyors of the bean. No, it’s in the little things that they’ve wooed me into this trance. They’ve got the basics mastered but then they dazzle me with a little bit extra.

Classic example: I walked in recently and the barista proudly held up an extension cord. Strange greeting, but it turns out they’d noticed that my favourite spot by the powerpoint was getting popular, so they bought an extension cord so I could work at my laptop from another table. That’s the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. And what did it cost them? What are the economics of extra? It was probably $6 at the supermarket, but the real point is the value that it communicated to me. I matter. Somebody noticed. Some team member cared enough to remember it next time they were picking up supplies.

That’s value. It’s often like that with being extraordinary… the real cost tends to be less about money, and more about the effort and energy it takes to “go the extra mile”. Yet the rewards are enormous. I’ll drive past five other cafes on the way to this place because they won my loyalty with tokens of effort and energy.

I heard a speaker recently who said, “The gap between where you are and where you want to be is largely determined by the price you’re willing to pay”. It’s a bitter pill to swallow because we’d rather blame something external. But what price am I willing to pay to bridge the gap between where I am and where I want to be? When it comes to my fitness it’s more convenient to blame being busy than to accept that in reality I’m not as fit as I want to be simply because I don’t do those little extra things that fit people do.

So what about you and your team? Imagine you were to take an inventory of all the things you do – every product, service, contact point, and piece of value you add. How many of those would be left if you were to take out everything that could be classified as “ordinary” or standard? If “ordinary” was defined as “doing what’s expected”, “what others do too”, “what you’ve always done”, or “the basics”… what would be left on your list? What is it that you offer that is “extra“ordinary?

It’s time to define extraordinary-

• Ask your loyal fans and passionate advocates what they believe your “extra” is.
• Ask your team to automate the ordinary so they can give their personal attention to the extraordinary.
• Ask yourself what you could do today to invest your best effort and energy into multiplying your extraordinary points of difference.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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Years ago a friend’s father had a car accident and was given a loan car over a long weekend by the smash repairer. Since the father didn’t need the car, his son’s friends hatched a plan to get away for the weekend… to Uluru (Ayers Rock)… half way across Australia from Sydney. Driving and sleeping in shifts they raced against the clock, knowing the car had to be back in three days. They barely saw Uluru before continuing on to Darwin (and the untimely demise of a Kangaroo who smashed a headlight and dented the panels). Then they braved muddy floodwaters near the Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland and completely submerged the car. Miraculously they were able to restart it and they limped the car home. But there was no miracle for its condition – smashed, scratched, flooded and full of mud. Tuesday morning came, they returned what was left of the car, paid a paltry insurance excess and walked away. True story.

That’s what a lack of ownership will do. You’d never treat your own car like that. But there’s something in human nature that treats what belongs to someone else without respect, unless we cultivate a sense of ownership. Do your team treat your organisation like a loan car? You know you’ve got Loan Car Syndrome when the team don’t value the customers, the assets, the products, the reputation or the vision like the boss does. In great teams you get the sense that every person sees himself or herself as an owner.

I’ve got an Apple iPhone, and I worked out pretty quickly that if I needed help with it I should go to Apple, not to the phone company that sold it to me. I won’t name the phone company to protect the not-so-innocent but they represent what is worst about modern businesses. Departments blame each other, repairs are outsourced to someone you can’t speak to, you wait 30 minutes on hold to have someone waffle about a ‘glitch in our system’. But take your phone to Apple and someone with a t-shirt that reads “Genius” will sit down with you and help you… face to face… because they love their product… they’re proud of it… and if something is wrong they’ll replace it on the spot.

So how can leaders develop a culture of ownership in their teams? It goes deeper than attaching people’s pay and bonuses to performance measures, although that can have its place. By contrast I’ve led teams in volunteer organisations where hundreds of people demonstrated deep levels of ownership without receiving a cent for it.

My Top 5 Ownership Strategies-

1. Demonstrate it daily. They’re watching what you do, not what you say. If the standard is low, first check the standard you’re setting yourself.
2. Reward ownership wherever you see it. You get what you focus on so make heroes (and managers) of those who are exemplars of true ownership.
3. Shift your language from “I” and “my” to “we” and “our”. It’s our business and we have a great opportunity here.
4. Allow people to take responsibility and authority. If you micro-manage your team, or you delegate responsibility without authority, don’t be surprised when they lack ownership.
5. Make sure your people can own the successes too. Ownership should include sharing in the plunder, not just the problems.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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I flew into New York City for the first time last week and was stunned by the impact that city can make on you, even from the sky. I was in awe, taking photo after photo. Our week there only confirmed that first impression. But I thought about articles I’ve read lately on ‘making a good first impression’ on people that focused only on superficial attributes, as if people somehow fly over you from a distance. One stressed that new employees should have a neat desk, another that you should wear ‘strong’ colours. But is that really how we make an impression on people?

I’d contend that nine times out of ten it’s the quality of our interaction that leaves a lasting impression. Sure, dressing well is ok. But the most powerful impressions, for better or worse, usually come down to how the other person perceives you are relating to them. Did they seem rude? Easy to talk to? Preoccupied? Insincere? Confident?

Too often while we’re focusing on looking the part or saying the right things, the other person is thinking to themselves, “You lost me at hello”. So let’s get beyond dressing for success and harness the power of quality conversations to make not just an impression, but a connection.

1. Be Interested

It doesn’t get more fundamental than this and I must confess it’s an area I’ve had to work on. What I excused as just part of my ‘focused’ personality type for many years actually left people feeling like I was uninterested in them. Ouch. The truth is… people are interesting. But the choice to truly engage in those opening moments of a conversation can make or break all that follows.

2. Ask Questions

If the best you’ve got is “So, what do you do?” then you’ve got work ahead. If your questions can be answered with cookie-cutter clichés then you aren’t asking quality questions. Remember the goal is to create a connection, not just a forgettable conversation. Where might questions like “What’s your background?” or “What do you find most rewarding about your work?” lead a conversation?

3. Listen Intently

As executive coaches we’re trained to listen not only for what is said, but also for what is not said. For many of us, listening is a discipline we need to work on. It’s much more than being quiet while thinking about what to say next. Truly listening to another human being is a way of placing value on them. And if you’re in sales or service you can guarantee that the inability to listen will cost you dearly.

4. Be Genuine

I met some people recently who wanted to know more about what I do. I shared first and after I discussed my values one of them said, “You mentioned authenticity. What does that mean for you?” I answered that it was what I had just done- freely talking about who I am, what I’m about and what I do… before I know whether that’s what they are looking for.

5. Be Interesting

I personally believe that every person is interesting, but we do ourselves a real disservice when we don’t consider what other people might find intriguing about us. Instead of rattling off the same old stuff in conversations why not take it up a gear. “Actually, what I’m really passionate about is…” (insert cause/ problem/ solution/ dream here).

This week… hone the skills of memorable first conversations.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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My first car was a Datsun 240K – complete with rally clips to hold the bonnet down (OK, it never got anywhere near fast enough to require them) and a kill switch that was identical to the air conditioning switch (as I first discovered while doing 110km/hr on the freeway). I remember wondering why the car seemed to pull to the right side of the road if I didn’t concentrate, and what the strange shaking & shuddering at high speeds was all about. The first service revealed I had an alignment problem. Even worse for a part-time waiter, it had worn out my tyres well before their time.

I see those same symptoms in so many teams… Unexplained tendencies in the team to get off course for no apparent reason. Results and relationships getting bumpy as the team moves forward and increases momentum. People burning out and getting tired long before reaching their capacity. For the wise leader these are signs that it’s time for an alignment check.

So could I suggest some aspects of your team or organisation that need regular alignment checks?

1. Vision and Values
One of the businesses I love to work with as a coach and speaker is Gloria Jean’s Coffees. Spend five minutes with them and you’ll discover that their ‘vision, mission and values’ are the yardstick against which they measure every activity and decision. The values have become embedded in the language of the organisation, constantly reshaping their current reality. By contrast far too many organisations are content to have their values be nothing more than some glib clichés on the company website which make no difference to the way we do business every day. So when do you last thoroughly realign your team against the vision and values you proclaim? Could they even articulate them?

2. Priorities and Plans
One of the fastest ways to burn out your team is to have conflicted priorities and plans. How closely does your actual activity this week relate to what you say your priorities and plans are? Where this really becomes clearest is when you start to pick up speed. The truth is that many teams would fall apart if they achieved the growth they’re hoping for. The faster you go the more critical alignment will become. On the runway you can get away with the door of the plane being open, but not at 30,000ft and 900km/hr. Are you ready to get ruthless with your own priorities and plans and get you and your team ready for the next level?

3. Your Customer’s Experience
Alignment affects your customers too. So what is the true experience of those who use your products or services… start to finish? You say you are all about results/ service/ relationships/ value/ quality/ innovation/ social responsibility. But what do people really experience when they interact with you and your team? I’m currently changing merchant facilities even though my current provider works well for me. Clunky forms, strange processes, ambiguous payments – I’m changing because the experience for my clients doesn’t line up with what I say Innovation Coaching is about. What would happen if you analysed the brutal facts about your customer experience and set about realigning everything that’s out of place?

It isn’t glamorous, but working on alignment might just save your team and prepare you for exponential growth.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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