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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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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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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For many years I’ve been fascinated by the subtle differences in the mindsets of highly successful leaders when compared with the mediocre majority. As Mark Twain once said “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect”.  I’ve had the opportunity to observe many outstanding leaders in action and it has become clear to me that a core strategy of their sustained success is a decision to choose what they will focus on. So what do successful leaders focus on?

The Core (instead of the fringe)
An ever-present threat to the success of every leader is the array of issues occurring on ‘the fringe’. Like team members that are leaving. Or distractions and fire fighting. Or side projects that don’t align. I’m not suggesting leaders should ignore the fringe, because issues do need to be addressed and sometimes great opportunities first appear on the fringe. But it’s a question of focus.

The leader who focuses on the fringe lives a reactionary existence and without the strength that focusing on the core brings, they can rarely capitalise on opportunities that arise anyway. Something I’ve noticed about effective leadership is that it operates with great clarity around what its core business is. They know what really matters and what the centre of their target is.

Momentum (instead of maintenance)
What gives your organisation momentum? Knowing the answer to that question is one of the great weapons of effective leadership. Momentum is one of the most difficult aspects of a business to build and a commodity that should be treasured. When we focus on building momentum we often make different decisions to the person who is more concerned with maintenance.

A momentum focus demands that we invest in things like marketing, training, product development and generally taking some risks. A maintenance focus is more concerned with systems, quality control, management and generally maintaining the status quo. Of course, you can’t ignore maintenance either if you want to stay in business for long. But you can have a well ‘maintained’ business that you run into bankruptcy by failing to keep the focus on momentum.

What They Can Influence (instead of what they can’t influence)
Stephen Covey was right when he taught that focusing on your “circle of influence” is instrumental to being an effective leader (ref: Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People). There is a direct relationship between the extent to which I focus on the things I can influence in the world around me, and the extent to which I create real and lasting change.

To be ineffective is to expend my best efforts and energy on issues over which I have no personal control. Like every business I’m affected by interest rates, competitors, global events and a whole host of factors that I cannot influence. I don’t ignore them, but I can’t focus on them and remain effective. One of life’s best-kept secrets is that when I focus on what I can influence, over time I increase what I can influence. On the other hand if I expend myself on things that I can’t influence, gradually my influence shrinks through disuse.

So What Are You Focusing On?

• Are you crystal clear on what is core for you and your team?
• Do you know what gives you momentum and does that get the lion’s share of your attention?
• And how much of your precious focus is drained away by things you cannot influence?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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Years ago my father consulted to a mining company that was in financial meltdown. Unable to prevent the inevitable, his project wrapped up and the business had no cash left to pay his fees. As a token of their appreciation they gave him half a dozen ‘semi-precious’ stones mined from the site. Fast-forward several years and my Dad rediscovers the stones in his desk drawer, alongside a graveyard of stationery relics. Too small to make a useful paperweight they had been relegated to collect dust… brown, green and frankly unimpressive in appearance. Or at least they were to the untrained eye.

It occurred to him to have the stones valued and I well remember his shock when the call came from the valuer. These unimpressive, uncut stones were worth over $60,000 in their raw form alone. In the hands of a master craftsman their value would multiply further. You can probably guess what happened next. Suddenly the stones went from the unlocked desk drawer to the safe. They were added to the insurance policy. They were even eyed off by my Mum for jewellery pieces.

I wonder who is in your drawer?

Experience has taught me that in the drawers of almost every organisation lie people with extraordinary, but as yet unrecognised potential. Brown and green. Gathering dust. There for the taking. Over the years I’ve hired several individuals that other leaders had in the drawer. A few of those leaders even warned me that I was wasting my time. Today those same individuals have become truly world-class leaders in their own right and are ‘paying it forward’ as they help others realise their potential.

One of the most valuable skills you can hone is the ability to spot real possibility in people. Anyone can identify a leader when they’ve already been crafted. The mastery is in identifying, investing in and maturing that potential. It reminds me of Michelangelo who carved the famous statue of David from the very same slab of limestone that several other sculptors had already rejected as being too shallow and weak. He said later that when he looked at that slab he could already “see David in the stone”.

So perhaps it’s time for you to look again?
•    Take stock of your team. Consciously disregard appearances, position and market value. Ask yourself “What are they truly capable of?”
•    Find a valuer. Is there someone in your world with an eye for potential that could give you a professional opinion?
•    Multiply their value. One of the greatest gifts you can give your team is to not settle for raw potential. Be the leader they can trust to cut through the exterior and bring out their ‘wow’.

“Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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Regardless of whether you’ve connected with Twitter yourself or not, you’d have to admit its explosion into the marketplace is a phenomenon worth reflecting on. A feature of Twitter called “Unfollow” got me thinking recently. When you click “Unfollow” you stop receiving messages from that person to your home page, and unless the person has very few followers the chances are they’ll never even know you’ve stopped following them. That’s a picture of leadership.

Whether you are a Twitter devotee or think it’s a fad every leader should consider why people might “unfollow” them. So why do people stop following others on Twitter, and what could that remind us about our everyday leadership in the real world?

1.    Be a conversationalist: Monologue = Monotony
Everything changed when I stopped just making statements and started asking more questions. My Twitter replies went through the roof and comments on my blog increased, all because I invited interaction. The truth is most followers are looking for some level of dialogue, not just a monologue. I heard Mark Scott, the CEO of ABC Television, say “Today if you broadcast but don’t interact and engage with your audience you condemn yourself to irrelevance”. When we stop talking at people and start talking with people we go to a higher level of relationship.

2.    Be interesting: Quality beats quantity
I follow some people on Twitter who only ‘tweet’ once a week, and others who tweet dozens of times a day. The key for me is not how much they say it’s whether I find them interesting, informative or entertaining. I believe quality beats quantity. You can communicate lots if you are high on value for those who listen, but if you add no value you’re likely to find people “unfollow” your leadership without you even realising. It’s important to acknowledge though that one person’s “interesting” is another person’s “boring”.  So leaders need to ask themselves, “What is likely to be interesting to the audience I’m trying to reach?”

3.    Be a source: A giver not a taker
Much of my learning especially on social media and the web comes from articles I find through following gurus on Twitter. I follow them because they are a source of expertise or news. The fact is any leader, who acts as a resource to people whenever they can, will have no shortage of people following them. It’s when we become self-serving that our leadership really wanes. Are you a giver or a taker to those you come into contact with?

4.    Be consistent: Whoever you are, be that
There’s no such thing as a person that everyone wants to follow, so be who you are and be that consistently. Often in trying to be “all things to all men” we end up being nothing much to anyone. So learn what you can about why people don’t follow you, but then get on with being the best you that you can be. I find Ben Stiller hilarious so I’ll happily read his tweets about his goldfish dying, and I think Darren Rowse is a genius on blogging. But if Ben Stiller tried to teach me about the web, or Darren Rowse started tweeting funny events in his day constantly, I’d think twice about following either of them anymore. So who are you?

Ask yourself:
•    How well am I engaging my followers in a true dialogue?
•    How relevant is my communication to those I hope to reach?
•    What proportion of my interaction is a gift not a request?
•    Who am I to those who follow me?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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I was talking with one of the senior team at Gloria Jeans Coffees last week and she made a memorable statement as we discussed the different ways leaders can view the challenges facing their teams. Sadly it’s something many organisations don’t seem to understand- “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. I couldn’t agree more.

Now, I’m not one of these leaders that describes themselves as being a “big picture person” in an attempt to gloss over a lack of attention to detail. In fact, I love strategy. I enjoy problem solving. I care about scoring every point I can, not just winning the game.

But if I had to choose between culture and strategy as my primary weapon there is no contest. I will choose culture in a heartbeat.

1. Culture Is Soil

The culture of every organisation is to its team what soil is to the plants that depend upon it. Focusing on strategy without addressing culture is rather like planting a palm tree in a swamp. No matter how good your strategic initiatives may be in their own right, the likelihood of their sustained success comes down to culture more than just about any other single factor. I’m no horticulturalist, but it’s common sense that unsuitable, barren or toxic soil will eventually kill even the best plants. The leader that ignores culture is often the same person who rants about the ineffectiveness of their team, blames HR for poor hiring, moans about “Gen Y”. Their team are stunted, fruitless and impotent. And culture is their silent killer.

• So what’s the true condition of your soil?

2. Culture Is Life Blood

The culture of your team is its life supply. Its essential role, like blood in your body, is to bring life to every area and to carry away the toxins that would otherwise destroy it. For better or worse, when a team is injured they bleed the true culture. Who we are when things go against us says everything about our actual values, regardless of what mission statement we put on our website. A healthy organisation has potent culture pumping through its veins, mostly unseen yet nourishing every part. No hardened managers blocking arteries. No internal bleeding quietly draining life away.

• So do you need a blood test?

3. Culture Is Ideology

If we elevate strategy without giving attention to culture, we’ll win the battle but lose the war. Down through history the empires that have truly altered the world as we know it were those who ideas, world view and beliefs impacted the cultures that came into contact with them. The best teams have a pervasive passion about them. They get the big “why”, and as a result “what” and “how” tend to flow quite naturally. When we live our values its easier to develop people because everything we do and say is part of their training. Great ideology creates a contagious culture.

• So what’s your infectious ideology?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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