Category Archives: Leadership

Leadership

3 Things Happy Marriages and Successful Business Partnerships Have in Common

February 18, 2015

I co-founded my business with an amazing business-partner-in-crime. We have complementary skills, a shared vision and enjoy spending time together. She made starting our business more meaningful, more successful and infinitely more fun.

It wasn’t a huge surprise to me when I learned that the Partnership Dissolution Agreement is one of the most popular forms downloaded on LegalZoom. But it doesn’t have to be your fate. Whether you have a business partner now, or plan to onboard one in the future, it’s important to treat them like a spouse to ensure a long, successful relationship.

I often joked that my business partner was my first “husband.” In fact, when I met my real husband, I remember introducing him to my co-founder and thought “She better like him or this is going to be trouble!” In order to build a strong and successful partnership, it’s important to implement a few strategies right off the bat:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Just like marriages, partnerships can fail. A lot. And just like marriages, it often comes down to one thing: communication. I credit my 10-year business partnership with our early commitment to communicate, sometimes even to excess.

Small businesses are like a family. Everyone knows everything about everyone. Just like a marriage, sometimes it felt easier to just sprint out the door. I never did, and neither did she. We talked, cried, fought and laughed, but through it all, we communicated openly and honestly. Looking back, it’s what kept us together through all of the ups and downs of running the business. It is one of the reasons we are still close.

Related: Avoid These 7 Partnership Killers

2. Create a business “pre-nup.”

Pre-nups are standard for many marriages these days. Well, launching a business isn’t much different from launching a marriage. You are just about as financially tied in either situation.

In the business pre-nup, lay it all out there on the table. Define your roles. Discuss everything from whether it’s acceptable to have another job to how much vacation time you will take. Talk about what happens if one of you wants to leave the business or worst case, dies. Discuss it when the emotion is absent. This will make the communication piece much easier when things do come up. Things always do.

Related: 10 Questions to Ask Before Committing to a Business Partner

3. Have a date night.

Just like any good marriage, enjoy a night out! You are choosing your partner for many reasons, I really hope one of which is that you enjoy spending a lot of time with that person, because you will be spending a lot of time with them. So, get out and have fun together.

My business partner and I both love going to spas, so we started to do that regularly together (when we could afford to, of course). Often, that’s where we would have our most strategic or creative discussions. It was a nice way to chill out and let the guards down.

Just like a marriage, sometimes the most difficult conversations are best done outside the office. I always liked going on a walk. That way you are walking in the same direction instead of staring each other down. It made the conversation a bit easier.

Partnerships can be hugely successful, even for small businesses. With partners, sometimes one plus one equals three! The key is to communicate with honesty and transparency. Remember that, just like a marriage, partnerships need to be nourished and cared for to succeed. As Helen Keller said, “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” I’m cheering for you!

Leslie Barber
LESLIE BARBER
CONTRIBUTOR
Small Business Engagement Officer, QuickBooks
Leadership

3 Things Happy Marriages and Successful Business Partnerships Have in Common

GUEST WRITER
Small Business Engagement Officer, QuickBooks
February 18, 2015
I co-founded my business with an amazing business-partner-in-crime. We have complementary skills, a shared vision and enjoy spending time together. She made starting our business more meaningful, more successful and infinitely more fun.
It wasn’t a huge surprise to me when I learned that the Partnership Dissolution Agreement is one of the most popular forms downloaded on LegalZoom. But it doesn’t have to be your fate. Whether you have a business partner now, or plan to onboard one in the future, it’s important to treat them like a spouse to ensure a long, successful relationship.
I often joked that my business partner was my first “husband.” In fact, when I met my real husband, I remember introducing him to my co-founder and thought “She better like him or this is going to be trouble!” In order to build a strong and successful partnership, it’s important to implement a few strategies right off the bat:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Just like marriages, partnerships can fail. A lot. And just like marriages, it often comes down to one thing: communication. I credit my 10-year business partnership with our early commitment to communicate, sometimes even to excess.
Small businesses are like a family. Everyone knows everything about everyone. Just like a marriage, sometimes it felt easier to just sprint out the door. I never did, and neither did she. We talked, cried, fought and laughed, but through it all, we communicated openly and honestly. Looking back, it’s what kept us together through all of the ups and downs of running the business. It is one of the reasons we are still close.

2. Create a business “pre-nup.”

Pre-nups are standard for many marriages these days. Well, launching a business isn’t much different from launching a marriage. You are just about as financially tied in either situation.
In the business pre-nup, lay it all out there on the table. Define your roles. Discuss everything from whether it’s acceptable to have another job to how much vacation time you will take. Talk about what happens if one of you wants to leave the business or worst case, dies. Discuss it when the emotion is absent. This will make the communication piece much easier when things do come up. Things always do.

3. Have a date night.

Just like any good marriage, enjoy a night out! You are choosing your partner for many reasons, I really hope one of which is that you enjoy spending a lot of time with that person, because you will be spending a lot of time with them. So, get out and have fun together.
My business partner and I both love going to spas, so we started to do that regularly together (when we could afford to, of course). Often, that’s where we would have our most strategic or creative discussions. It was a nice way to chill out and let the guards down.
Just like a marriage, sometimes the most difficult conversations are best done outside the office. I always liked going on a walk. That way you are walking in the same direction instead of staring each other down. It made the conversation a bit easier.
Partnerships can be hugely successful, even for small businesses. With partners, sometimes one plus one equals three! The key is to communicate with honesty and transparency. Remember that, just like a marriage, partnerships need to be nourished and cared for to succeed. As Helen Keller said, “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” I’m cheering for you!
Marketing

Teach an Old Dog New Digital Marketing Tricks

February 17, 2015

You’re a middle-aged chief marketing officer. And everything and everyone around you is rapidly advancing in matters digital.

But your chaotic schedule won’t allow you to learn all the things your youngest employees were seemingly born knowing how to do.

You owe it to yourself and to your career to develop skills that keep you at the top of your game.

Here’s what you can do to survive in this digital age:

Related: The Video Revolution Will Not Be Televised

1. Spend 20 minutes a day exploring.

There are no digital experts. The pace of technological change is too fast. Everyone is an explorer. The best practitioners just spend more time doing it than you. If you want to stay ahead, you need to understand the possibilities.

To do that, make digital exploration part of your lifestyle. When you hear about a new site, app, service, company, look it up. You don’t need to learn to code, but engage in the online and tech universe and actively educate yourself.

2. Get on Twitter and Instagram.

Sign up. Follow on Twitter and Instagram your colleagues, other chief marketing officers, brands, personalities and news and sports outlets that interest you.

Don’t act like a corporation. Be yourself. Try to create a few posts or updates a day. Experiment.

Share things that you’re proud of or whatever grabs your attention. Comment. Ask questions. Respond.

Once you’re comfortable, try out other social-media networks. You don’t need thousands of followers. You just want to learn best practices and formulate opinions.

3. Download apps. Buy gadgets.

Find your inner app geek. Replace as many life tasks as you can with digital services. Purchase gadgets and download apps even if you don’t know what they are exactly at first.

Some of my favorite apps to use include Uber for rides, Zite for news, Postmates for delivery, FitStar for workouts and Dark Sky for weather.

And don’t forget to avail yourself of the connected gadgets. Do some weekend drone flying, make GoPro movies and buy some wearable tech.

Document your learnings. You’ll spot trends and become smarter.

Related: 11 Unusual Social Media Tips to Drive Branding, Clicks and Conversions

4. Follow BuzzFeed video and Vice on YouTube.

You’re not just competing with other companies. You’re competing to keep up with culture.

BuzzFeed and Vice and other video outlets are creating a lot of it these days. BuzzFeed has more than 74 million unique visitors and routinely scores more than 1 million views a video.

Spend as much time as you can on popular YouTube channels like BuzzFeed and Vice. Follow the feeds of popular video creators.

There’s an art and science to creating shareable digital video content. Familiarize yourself with it. Everything you make should be designed so it could be shared online.

5. Hang out with proven innovators.

Many professionals talk to themselves too much, forgetting that the best ideas result from divergent thinking. Over the last seven years, I have tried to exit my comfort zone by spending one-on-one time with proven innovators outside the advertising and marketing field.

I’ve met with venture capitalists, engineers, founders and notable technology thinkers. I take an annual ski trip organized by Path founder Dave Morin called The Lodge with a group of tech innovators to expose myself to new and unexpected thinking.

Most of these different types of people whom you will reach out to will want to have a relationship with you. Invite them over, have them speak to your company and take dine with them at events like SXSW, CES, TED or Cannes.

Also participate in labs run by Google, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter and meet with the engineers not just the salespeople. You’ll learn a lot more from the makers than the sellers.

6. Hire Internet kids.

Training will help, but it won’t be enough. The digital landscape is too complex and fast moving. And this is an age of specialization. If you want to do breakthrough marketing, surround yourself with young digital specialists who are obsessed with Internet culture and technology, the type of people who explore the digital world for fun, not just work.

Put them in key and empowered roles and task them with evaluating ideas, identifying the right partners, developing digital, mobile and social media strategies and keeping your company digitally literate.

Find the Gen Y people who know how to win on the Internet.

The next generation of brands that history will remember will be digital at their core. Stay close to the talent inventing it. Hire young, digital folks and people smarter than you.

7. Remember what you bring to the table.

Digital natives instinctively understand what works on the Internet. But remember you’re a marketing chief for a reason – not because you can fly drones, build robots and write code.

You understand business, culture and brands and have the skills and experience to lead people and large organizations. You have vision — something everyone needs but few possess. The secret to your longevity is maintaining curiosity, keeping an open mind and giving smart young people plenty of runway. Don’t tell them what to do. Show them where to go. That way everybody wins.

Winston Binch
WINSTON BINCH
CONTRIBUTOR
Partner, Chief Digital Officer of Deutsch in North America
Marketing

Using Social Media the Right Way

January 07, 2015

The pressure of standing out above the noise in social media can create unhealthy behaviors like over posting, not engaging and being phony. While this strategy may have a positive upside in the short term, it can be detrimental to your brand in the long run.

As a social-media consultant, I’ve over time established what works for me and am passing my shortlist on to you to apply to your brand.

Related: There Are No Shortcuts to Success in Social Media

Quality trumps quantity.

I’m not a fan of posting just to have something posted. To me, quality trumps quantity every time. Why be a blabber mouth?  It becomes obvious you don’t have anything interesting to say.

By flooding your social stream, on any channel, in excess screams, or “spam,” can backfire as followers don’t appreciate it. Regardless how wonderful you think your content may be, it’s necessary to self-edit before posting.  Let’s say you just attended an amazing social event. Rather than posting all 50 photos in the space of an hour, share just your top three images. Perhaps post the photographs that didn’t make your top 10 list on other social channels to mix it up.  Don’t forget you can also post the following week to keep the hashtag alive.

Post content with distinction.

I recently attended a #VZWBuzz event that I really enjoyed, because we were treated to a private tour at the NFL behind the scenes. But I was with 20 other active social users distributing the same fantastic experience.  Think about how your image and storytelling is going to stand out from the rest of the crowd and post accordingly.

Related: How to Build a Strong Social-Media Presence

Earn engagement, don’t buy it.

Be genuine. That means don’t buy your likes or followers.

While those followings and likes may get you invited the first time around, people will see through your shortcut eventually and marketers who run contests will catch on to this very quickly.  And guess what?  They will adjust the contest rules so all parties can participate on an equal playing field.  Do you really want to have the reputation for being this type of influencer?

So try earning it like the rest of us.

Are you meant for each other?

So you want to be included on these influencers’ lists?   Instead of messaging 10 people to endorse you, my suggestion is to do an audit on your social channels.  Ask yourself if what you post on your channels aligns with the influencer, brand or company.

When I get approached to endorse a product, it has to be a match and not just about making a buck. When you get offers that really don’t make sense for your brand, turn them down, because in the long run, it will mar your image.

No two channels are the same.

Remember: Each network is different, so it pays to come up with a different caption to tell your story. Find your inner voice and uniqueness, and share it with us! Decide where you want to be with what brands you want to promote and choose wisely.

Related: 3 Social-Media Mistakes That Are Killing Interest in Your Company

Ann Tran
CONTRIBUTOR
Social Media Consultant
Marketing

Using Social Media the Right Way

The pressure of standing out above the noise in social media can create unhealthy behaviors like over posting, not engaging and being phony. While this strategy may have a positive upside in the short term, it can be detrimental to your brand in the long run.
As a social-media consultant, I’ve over time established what works for me and am passing my shortlist on to you to apply to your brand.
Related: There Are No Shortcuts to Success in Social Media

Quality trumps quantity.

I’m not a fan of posting just to have something posted. To me, quality trumps quantity every time. Why be a blabber mouth? It becomes obvious you don’t have anything interesting to say.
By flooding your social stream, on any channel, in excess screams, or “spam,” can backfire as followers don’t appreciate it. Regardless how wonderful you think your content may be, it’s necessary to self-edit before posting. Let’s say you just attended an amazing social event. Rather than posting all 50 photos in the space of an hour, share just your top three images. Perhaps post the photographs that didn’t make your top 10 list on other social channels to mix it up. Don’t forget you can also post the following week to keep the hashtag alive.

Post content with distinction.

I recently attended a #VZWBuzz event that I really enjoyed, because we were treated to a private tour at the NFL behind the scenes. But I was with 20 other active social users distributing the same fantastic experience. Think about how your image and storytelling is going to stand out from the rest of the crowd and post accordingly.

Earn engagement, don’t buy it.

Be genuine. That means don’t buy your likes or followers.
While those followings and likes may get you invited the first time around, people will see through your shortcut eventually and marketers who run contests will catch on to this very quickly. And guess what? They will adjust the contest rules so all parties can participate on an equal playing field. Do you really want to have the reputation for being this type of influencer?
So try earning it like the rest of us.

Are you meant for each other?

So you want to be included on these influencers’ lists? Instead of messaging 10 people to endorse you, my suggestion is to do an audit on your social channels. Ask yourself if what you post on your channels aligns with the influencer, brand or company.
When I get approached to endorse a product, it has to be a match and not just about making a buck. When you get offers that really don’t make sense for your brand, turn them down, because in the long run, it will mar your image.

No two channels are the same.

Remember: Each network is different, so it pays to come up with a different caption to tell your story. Find your inner voice and uniqueness, and share it with us! Decide where you want to be with what brands you want to promote and choose wisely.

Startups

Crowdfunding Industry Spotlight #23: Adam Pressman

Josef Holm,Editor

Editor’s Note: Each week I put a crowdfunding industry thought leader in the spotlight and ask them ten questions to inspire and educate. This week Adam Pressman, the founder of Crowdfund Roundup tells his unique story.

Adam Pressman

I’m a singer, a sailor, a serial entrepreneur and, oh yeah, I help people become millionaires. My first career was as a security professional, I kept bad things from happening to people, or their businesses. I learned a lot about businesses keeping bad guys from exploiting the weaknesses in those businesses. That was my entre to management consulting and coaching, where I combined what I learned identifying weakness and strengths and the leadership lessons I encountered leading racing sailboats to victory. Now, with experience to make wisdom out of knowledge I have the credibility to challenge the orthodoxy in how people find, fund and perform the great work that changes lives, maybe even the world. I’ve had the chance to work with people who’ve literally changed the world for billions of people. I can’t wait to do it again.

Q: How did you get into crowdfunding and what was it that attracted you to this industry?

I noticed that my clients no longer had the access to funding for the transitions or creation of their businesses for which they sought my help. Curious, I researched and discovered the many reasons why the traditional capital formation process was failing. During that research I rediscovered crowdfunding. I say rediscovered because I’d leveraged patronage before as I gathered a crowd to preorder the album my band in college sought to record. I remember walking into a record label with my list of 2000 fans who committed to buying our record before it was pressed in 1982. Crowdfunding…80’s style.

Q: What’s the most common question people ask you about your job and how do you respond?

It’s either of these two:

1. Who let you in here?

2. Why is there a ship on your shirt? (The brand of my favorite company, LeaderShipShape).

No, seriously, If asked about my job (I don’t have a job, I build value every day but I can’t call it work. I enjoy it too much) I say, “I help one out of 24 people achieve more, work less and celebrate often.” That ALWAYS leads to a discussion and I’m not sure how much ink you’ll use on me. My answers are never as interesting as my questions or the answers to them I hear from others.

Q: Did you have a mentor or is there someone who inspires you as a leader? How did/do they impact on your career and life?

I can’t point to just one mentor. (I think if you have only one mentor you’re a stalker.) Winston Churchill, Joshua Slocum, my mother (everyone has their mother as a mentor whether they say so or not…but mine was also a two time Olympian) have all provided me by their life’s examples the best answers to the hardest of life’s questions. Writers that inspire me include Shakespeare and Emerson who between the two left nothing about the human condition unsaid (or ever better said). Inspiration is one thing but execution is the rest and that leads me to credit my fantastic network of fellow business builders, my team atCrowdfund Roundup and I learn a lot from my clients (who are paying to learn from me).

Q: What is the biggest challenge facing crowdfunding as an industry today and what solutions would you suggest?

My mission is to forever remove the disclaimer/admonition/weasel words that appear in every mention of startup investing “Don’t invest money you can’t afford to lose”. That’s silly, linguistically. If you can afford to lose it, by definition, it’s not money as it has no value. There are people out there double-speaking their advocacy for crowdfunding and the supposed democratization of capital formation while simultaneously repeating those senseless words above.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Complicated aspects of life, like healthcare and capital formation, require us to learn and engage critical thinking and take steps to prevent catastrophe. There’s no substitute for that. But when we’re wrong, we have insurance in healthcare. Most of the industry doesn’t know we can provide that assurance in startup investing. You need not lose your money investing in a failed startup. If you can’t make that promise, you’ll get no investment from the larger crowd. Without that larger crowd, much of the oft-touted promise of crowdfunding won’t happen.

Q: What advice would you give someone trying to get into crowdfunding right now?

Well it depends upon what you mean by “getting into” crowdfunding. So I’ll address what I see are three paths.

For the fundraiser or entrepreneur, crowdfunding allows you to not do the things you hate:

1. Write business plans for people who don’t care about your business.

2. Sell of equity and/or burden yourself in debt with people who don’t care about your mission.

3. Serve two masters, those you wish to serve, and those to whom you owe money. And it allows you to do the one thing that all entrepreneurs love to do, get people, specifically 150 people, excited about your idea, offer you ways to execute it, better it, sustain it and, when you ask them, fund it to whatever extent they can. You’ll pull your best ideas, your best teammates and your best prospects for success from this “tribe” of 150. The mistake I see fundraisers make is trying to impress and persuade people they don’t know to give them money.

For the investor:

1. You can be a partner in the products and service you love and bring wealth and opportunity to your community.

2. You need not fear failure. Failure is the step to success that wasn’t in the plan. You need to invest in opportunities that won’t kill your investment budget and plans because of failure.

3. You can empower others and yourself by becoming a prosumer. Make something that leaves the community better than you found it, even if it’s only an investment in someone else who does the work.

Then there are the service opportunities in Crowdfunding. I’m reminded of the anecdote about the California Gold Rush (not far from where you now call home, Josef). Many came to prospect, most went home broke. A few went home rich. The folks that all went home rich were the people who sold the gold pans, shovels and blue jeans. The magic behind Crowdfunding is due to a really awful word, “disintermediation” (removing the middle men).

The change in capital formation is from eliminating the obstructive and margin-fattening middlemen and replacing them with high volume, low margin, lean and expert middlemen. They provide the services to increase viability and sustainability in great ideas and to identify great opportunities for investors who demand the kind of yield only possible in starting and nurturing small businesses.

Q: What resources and events (blogs, books, conferences, podcasts, videos, etc) would you recommend to someone looking to become a crowdfunding expert and why?

I like and we use what Ruth Hedges is doing at CrowdU andCrowdfundingRoadmap.com as a great overview of what works. Sam Guzik and Tony Zeoli are two attorneys that are constantly getting the right info to the industry and the right messages to legislators and I follow their blogs. There’s so much out there including what I learn from Crowdfunding.biz each week. At the end of the day though it doesn’t matter what you know, it matters what you do with what you know and who helps you do it. We put Crowdfund Rounduptogether to coordinate nationally the meetings we have on what works and doesn’t in crowdfunding so people seeking funds and those that love to fund them can come together, ask people familiar with the local market realities and crowdfunding globally to help and we used this wealth of wisdom from our attendees to crowdsource our products like the Crowdfund Guarantee.

Q: What are you doing to make sure you continue to grow and develop as an industry leader?

First, I listen to my coach. I listen to my customers and people who will never be my customers. I listen without listening FOR anything. That way, I can learn everything. I listen a lot because I don’t know a lot. Three years ago my knowledge of capital formation was how to spell it correctly. I’m a little disturbed at how much I’ve been able to learn and that I’m not infrequently regarded as an expert in capital formation.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about how social networking and Web 2.0 have affected your organization or you personally?

Wow, LinkedIn! I can’t believe what I can learn from the more than a thousand connections I have. Facebook and Twitter have become alternative news sources of note in alternative finances. Social technologies empower social or what we call the crowd creative process. We believe that fundraising, sourcing and even distribution will ultimately be part of this process. As someone who promoted my band thirty years ago with newspaper ads, bulletin boards and mailing lists, the accessibility and low expense of marketing via social tech amazes me and I now use Facebook for a fraction of what I spent on other methods.

Q: What do you think the crowdfunding space will look like five years from now?

First of all I think we’ll lose the word. I believe most funding in the $100k to $3M part of the capital formation spectrum will be done this way and we’ll just call it funding. The odd thing will be when someone gets a bank loan. I imagine thousands of portals linking a particular community of investors with a community of entrepreneurs and business builders all with a consistent vision of success. I believe larger traditional sources of capital are seeking and will find ways to engage in the incredible success metrics of crowdfunding in startups.

Q: What ultimate goal are you working towards?

I want to see a Crowdfund Roundup Meetup in every community desiring change (we have five so far across the nation), where people who both know the local market and the formula for success in crowdfunding can meet those who care about their community and want to bring in wealth and opportunity not in the form of short term handouts or public largesse but by building what they can be proud of and pass on.

The success of this, combined with new thinking and solving the issues of risk and failure in startups, will draw in the larger body of potential investors. There’s over $300M in money out there not invested in communities, most of it in the hands of people over 50 years of age. These are people that can’t afford to lose their money and don’t have time to wait out the compounding on today’s single digit fixed asset yields. With a way of enabling the failures that lead to success without losing investor’s principals, the nature of capital formation envisioned by the writers and signers of the JOBS act can actually come true.

CONNECT WITH ADAM: Crowdfunding.biz | LinkedIn | Twitter

Leadership

7 Tips to Get Your Team to Actually Listen to You

CONTRIBUTOR
Chairman of HighTower Advisors and of CorpU

Right from the outset, entrepreneurs must pay attention to every communication and opportunity for sharing their passion and vision.  They must communicate effectively, so they can inspire others to come aboard.  They must speak honestly and in ways that reveal their personal character and genuine connection. Yet, this sort of communication style can be difficult and time consuming – especially when demands are huge and time is scarce.

There is far more to being an effective and authentic communicator than most entrepreneurs believe — at least when they are starting out. Even if you think you’re good at speaking to your team and motivating them, there’s always more to learn.

Leadership communication is a discipline and a practice: The more time, effort and heart you put in, the more effective you become.  There really are no shortcuts.

That said, here are seven ideas that can help you focus your attention and improve your leadership communication.

Related: Founders: Don’t Let Your Ego Get in the Way of Success

1. Be authentic.

When you speak with your employees you must come across to them as real. This means sharing your beliefs and your struggles. Talking about moments of doubt but also explaining how you overcame them with more conviction and confidence than ever. Or perhaps share a story or two about a failure and disappointment in life.

My most convincing talks at Schwab were when I shared stories about my personal weaknesses and what I was doing to overcome them or my disappointments and failures and how I turned them around.

2. Know yourself.

Dig deep.  Know your values and what motivates you.  If you don’t know yourself you cannot share or connect with others. People want to know what makes you tick as a human being not just as a leader. Share this and make yourself real.

3. Rely on a good coach or a trusted advisor.

Developing good communication skills takes time — and in the rush of business, that’s scarce.  Having someone who can push you to examine and reveal your interests and passions is enormously helpful and the value is immeasurable.

Related: 3 Leadership Traits That Transcend Skills and Experience

4. Read up on leadership communication.

If you can’t hire a coach, read all that you can.  I consider Terry Pearce’s best-selling book Leading Out Loud to be the bible on this subject, and assign it to all my students.

5. Make values visible.

Effective, empathetic communication and a commitment to culture can provide a solid foundation for your ideas and contribute to making it a reality. Many of today’s most successful companies have gone through dramatic crises.  Their improvements often hinged upon genuine communication from the leaders.

For instance, think of Starbucks and Howard Schultz’s clear and genuine communications about the importance of managers and baristas being personally accountable for future success. Your employees want to know what you and the company stands for. What is the litmus test for everything you do? These are your values. Talk about them but you must always be sure to “walk the talk” and live by them.

6. Engage with stories.

As a numbers guy, it took me some time to learn that if you want to make a point and convince people, you can’t rely on facts and figures alone. It’s stories that people remember. The personal experiences and stories you share with others create emotional engagement, decrease resistance and give meaning. It is meaning that gets employees’ hearts and fuels discretionary effort, thinking and desire to actively support the business.

Once I was implementing a massive pricing cut at Schwab. I could have presented reams of data about this change and why we needed to make it. Instead I invited in four clients of the firm who had written me letters about why after more than 10 years they had decided to leave due to our pricing being noncompetitive. Everyone was engaged and quite horrified to hear this feedback. Getting the team’s support for the change was much easier after that.

7. Be fully present. 

There is no autopilot for leadership communication. You must be fully present to move people to listen and pay attention, rather than simply be in attendance. Any time you are communicating, you need to be prepared — and to speak from your heart.  Leadership communication is, after all, about how you make others feel. What do you want people to feel, believe and do as a result of your communication?  This absolutely can’t happen if you read a speech. No matter how beautifully it is written, it doesn’t come across as authentic or from your heart if you are reading it. Embrace what you want to say and use notes if you must, but never read a speech if you want to be believable and move people to action. (And yes this requires a ton of preparation).

Your speeches are visible and important components of your role as a leader. Successful entrepreneurs are conscious of that role in every communication, interaction and venue within the organization and beyond. They also know that while today’s world provides a wide range of ways to communicate to your organization — mass email, text, Twitter, instant message and more —connecting is not that simple. Electronic communication is a tool for communicating information — not for inspiring passion.

Leadership

Art of Managing—Moving Beyond A Failure to Execute

OCTOBER 29, 2014

BY ART PETTY

Ram Charan writing in his article, Conquering a Culture of Indecision (found in the HBR 10 Must Reads on Making Smart Decisions collection), offers,“The single greatest cause of corporate under-performance is the failure to execute.”

While there’s a Thanks, Captain Obvious, feeling inherent in Charan’s statement, it’s his explanation that should give most corporate managers a cause to pause and even squirm just a bit.

I paraphrase: Such failures (to execute) usually result from misfires in personal interactions…and it’s these poor personal interactions that perpetuate a culture of indecisiveness.

Charan goes on in this very useful article to focus on the issue of building a culture to promote the right type of honest, robust dialog that leads to decisions.

There’s little doubt in my mind that decisions are the fuel that creates locomotive power in organizations and that high quality dialog leads to better decision-processes. The absence of timely and unified decisions on direction and priorities, not only sustains the status quo, it creates a corporate trap where people act like there feet are encased in cement blocks. Movement slows and when it occurs, it’s disjointed and short-lived.

The lack of healthy dialog manifests itself in a variety of symptoms in an organization, however, there are three key contributors to a failure to execute that jump out at me over and over again in my travels:

1. A wholesale failure of senior leadership…from providing clarity on direction and strategy to actively working on building and reinforcing an environment that promotes accountability for execution, learning and continuous improvement.

2. The absence of an empowered and unified middle-layer of management. While senior leadership is again at fault here, the layer of mangers in the middle controls the work that gets done in a firm and often has more power than it understands or uses in pursuit of execution.

3. The lack of creative or productive tension or dissatisfaction on the part of the entire workforce that good isn’t good enough, AND the belief that they are charged with the task of doing something about it.

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While it’s easy and appropriate to indict senior management for all three of these contributors to poor performance, the issues tend to be more sins of omission than commission.

Most senior leaders care about their firms, their teams and their results and spend their time working hard in the business. And most middle managers work extraordinarily hard to keep things moving, often while coping with being under-staffed and operating in a state of uncertainty over the bigger picture of the firm and its strategies.

Resolving the failure to execute problem is much more like a long-term fitness program than a quick weight-loss diet. It involves changing the thinking about what’s most important for organizational health and success and doing the hard work of developing new habits that support continuous improvement.

It’s the hardest work senior leaders and managers will ever do.

7 New Habits to Help You Move Beyond a Failure to Execute:

1. Start and sustain a company-wide dialog over direction. Everyone who walks through the door in the morning must know where the firm is headed and why. The lack of context for direction and specifically for how team and functional priorities connect to corporate priorities is a guarantee of poor execution. Fixing this starts with the right, regular conversations.

2. Work hard to link functional and individual goals to the corporate goals. While this sounds like some advice from our friend, Captain Obvious, it’s more the norm that I find firms where corporate goals are vague and there’s little cohesion between individual and functional goals and corporate direction. The failure to align here guarantees failure.

3. Move faster and smarter. Redefine the operating cadence to reinforce communication on performance and to encourage learning and improvement. Consider applying Agile approaches to your operations meetings, where reinforcement and focus on priorities occurs constantly and the emphasis is on identifying and solving problems. Frequency, speed and focused built upon a foundation of accountability…priceless. End the debating society culture that pervades most operating meetings and focus on talking about what it takes for the firm to win…one decision at a time.

4. If you are the CEO, rethink your role. Seriously. If you signed on for the job…all of this is on you. You control the corporate agenda, you are a major contributor to forming and framing the working environment and you own bringing clarity and direction to confusion. If you’re not the CEO help him/her succeed with these important tasks.

5. Give the customer a chair in every meeting. Literally. A nameplate at the table, a stuffed animal or a cardboard cutout…I don’t care how you remind yourself that the customer is present, just do it. If the focus is on new markets and future strategies, these new…even blank-faced customers must be present as a reminder that no strategy works and no execution plan is worthwhile unless it aims to do something for someone who can pay you for it.

6. Invigorate mid-level management. Help them recognize their critical role in execution success and ensure that senior leaders, give them support to improve instead of giving them hell when things don’t go right. If this layer of talent is weak, top-grade the talent to build strong management here. These are your future senior leaders.

7. Get the whole company involved in the wins and the lessons learned. Build the excitement and creative tension to improve by celebrating and sharing the small and big victories. The workforce at large has to buy into the idea that execution and continuous improvement are their responsibility. Management must bring this to life by ensuring that the heroic efforts, great victories and even challenging lessons are made visible as part of the daily culture of the firm.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

There are no silver bullets or simple solutions for business execution challenges. It’s a journey that starts with senior leadership and all of management focusing on what counts…giving clarity to direction and goals and working non-stop to support the people working hard every day who help you move closer to your goals. It’s good, old-fashioned, grind-it-out hard work. But once it starts to take root in your culture, the habits of winning take over and the work doesn’t seem so hard. Just exhilarating.