Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

It's a while after Thanksgiving.  I'm going to go a little off theme so bear with me.  Thanksgiving is not normal for my family It's only normal in the fact that there is some family drama.  But not enough to get us a reality TV show which is fortunate.  The iconic figure to your left influenced my childhood. Ignore my last name for a minute and if I told you that I grew up watching the NWA, going to NASCAR races, and was exposed to chewing tobacco in elementary school, what would you think?  That's right. My Asian butt was born and raised below the Mason-Dixon line.  So I may love fried chicken, but God help anyone who tries to take my rice cooker.  This makes Thanksgiving all the more interesting since like many American born Asians, I married Caucasian-- not a Northeastern or West Coast one. The best kind of all-- one that was raised in the South.  This means the best of both worlds and an entirely different thank you list th...

One of best things about working in Corporate America is that there are plenty of opportunities to get into an email battle or war.  If there was a way to get a "You Got Served!" pop-up to happen after you feel like you've sent a witty response to shut the other person up, I'd be all over that Outlook add-in.  Ever since I became a Contractor (note that I'm staying away from the word Consultant because Consultants don't deal with BS like this) and received the death sentence of working  in IT of a Fortune 100 company, the skill of not getting into an email battle is something that I've had to hone. Like all battles, there is usually some kind of instigating message (i.e. perceived insult) - or catalyst. It's typically ignited by someone forwarding a message that shouldn't have been forwarded. This is directly correlated with low EQ scores.  Let's take Contractor vs. Client. With every Client there is a key word that may trigger a...

The very first thing that I learned in business school was that businesses exist to make money.  Pretty simple, right? Profit = Revenues minus Costs  When you are Management Consulting, your purpose is twofold - 1.) Help your firm make money by, 2.) Helping your clients make money.  As a result, you make money-- and it's no small amount of change.  It's enough to put you on the preferred end of the bell curve.  But then this thing called life happens.  You get married. If you marry the right person, you'll actually want to spend more time with that person.  You have children. If you think that it's important to watch your child grow up, you want to spend more time at home.  You start reflecting on the past and thinking about your legacy-- Enter Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, or any other self-help professional.  (I call this the 40 life crisis - some might actually have this crisis earlier than the age of 40. Others of you ...

On my very first engagement as a consultant I remember sitting in a room with my Manager, another Sr. Consultant, and the client talking about an analysis we were doing. I want to say that it was one of those situations where the client was looking at us for something insightful to say and it seemed like everything that we did say wasn't a surprise to him.  It got to a point where my colleague said, "Look... I'm just trying to add some value here, " in which all of us burst out laughing. (Thankfully we had a good relationship with our client).  Value is an interesting word (and overused for all of us that do business speak).  John Maxwell says that as leaders (and people), we should be "adding value to the people around you." As an employee or business owner, how often do you ask:   How am I going to add value today? And to whom? What value am I going to add today? And how big is it going to be? Did putting in my time on time into all of...

Remember gold stars? In preschool and maybe even in elementary school, if you did extremely well on something, you would receive a gold star. The gold star was a symbol of excellence. And believe it or not, there are companies today that rate their employees according to a star rating system. Think of Angry Birds -- just with a couple of more stars The thing about gold stars or any other type of recognition system is that it recognizes performance at that point in time. But what about recognizing potential.  I'm talking about leadership potential, managerial potential, creative potential, or any other type of potential that's important in carrying an organization forward. In recruiting and in performance reviews at my old firm, it was important to recognize whether a consultant had the potential to make to the next level. I think that's important because when you recognize potential, you can put systems in place to help cultivate that potential. If those...

I've been off the road for over 2 years now. No more airline status. No more hotel status. No more rental car status.  My Amex points are no longer exponentially accumulating.  This also means no more rushing to the airport because of a last minute deliverable. No more excruciating wait times in the airport or on the tarmac. No more hearing those dreaded words, "We have a mechanical problem."  Finally, after 2 years, I'm okay with that.  When you are in the game (the game being a management consultant's lifestyle), you compare yourself to others that are around you. It's a race to who can get to Diamond status faster or who has the coolest alternative travel story. )You'd be amazed at what you can do with SPG Rewards.) When you are out of the game, you look back on it and wonder, "How in the world was I able to sustain this?"  It's because you've traded your time for money. And if you think about the sheer proportion of wa...

It's interesting when you read in the news that an artist and a manager or and artist and a producer part ways because of "creative differences."  Typically an artist will have a vision for what he wants the end product to look like  and everyone around him needs to at least be in the same book, if not on the same page. I have no experience in that world, but my gut tells that that like corporate America, there are outside forces at work (the label, corporate execs, fan expectations) that may influence how that artist's visions changes over time.  But the bottom line is that there will be differences of opinion- it's just a matter of how wide the gap becomes between the artist and the contributors that matter most.  You have to wonder how many of these creative differences exist, yet are stifled in large organizations because of the fear of challenging authority- or worse yet, the authority refusing to believe that they are wrong.  As a consultant, you...

In watching an interview with Mitch Joel, author of Ctrl Alt Delete  he brought up one of those things can trigger an a-ha moment when it's said out loud.  For me, it was understanding that there is a sense of complacency in people.  There are people that are perfectly fine with going to work, checking the box, going home, and collecting the check.  For every book that I read, interview that I watch, and TED Talk that I consume - the sense of inspiration that I get puts me farther and farther from those people.  Mitch Joel's advice was to recognize that and change things cautiously.  A lot of us on one side of the table shake our heads in amazement and disbelief when the person on the other side of the table isn't picking up what we're throwing down.  That should be expected but we act like it's a complete surprise when our great ideas are dismissed or deflected.  We shouldn't be surprised.  When trying to make significant cha...

The past few nights have been spent catching up on the Great Work MBA interviews on entheos.com.  If you think you are working on problems that matter, watch these interviews and you may realize that you aren't.  If there is one interview that you must see, it has to be the one with Scott Harrison, Founder and CEO of charity:water. If you can find his Inbound Marketing presentation on YouTube , then that's even better.  I've probably spent the past couple of years wallowing in losing the opportunity cost associated with staying with a big Firm.  And then here's a guy that left a life that was pretty glamorous to solve the big problem of providing clean water to those people that need it.  Here I am b*tching about bad leaders, organizational constipation, and project management when there are people, including children that are drinking water with parasites, leeches, and bacteria that I've never even heard of.  If you aren't solving a problem tha...

In Kotter's seminal paper, What Leaders Really Do , he sums up the difference between management and leadership as this: "Management is about coping with complexity. Leadership, by contrast, is about coping with change."  He also says that, "Most U.S. corporations today are over-managed and underled."  It's easy to mistake a person with charisma, an authoritative title, and strong organizational skills as a leader.  And to be fair, many successful organizations are run by extremely talented  and capable managers .  One of the toughest transitions to make in a career is that from a great manager to a leader.  I think that many of us think that if we take on more complexity, more responsibility, and become even more organized, that this makes us leaders. But if all you are doing is making the status quo an even better status quo, then that's not really leading. If you take on more responsibility because you think it influences others to view...

Not a long post. Just some interesting stats. The common rule of thumb is that of 10 start-ups, only three or four fail completely. Another three or four return the original investment, and one or two produce substantial returns. The National Venture Capital Association estimates that 25% to 30% of venture-backed businesses fail. (Source: WSJ) The cold truth is 90% of technology startups fail. Even companies which make it big out of the gate often lose momentum and shift from a potential powerhouse to a thing of the past. (Source: Mashable) I've read that of the startups that get through the first 5 years, 80-90% of those will fail in the next 5 years.  Combine all of this with the statistic that 70% of American workers are not engaged with their work. (Source: Gallup, Forbes) What all this means is as hard as it is to start a successful business, it's even harder to sustain it-- especially if your workers are not engaged. I wonder if business owners or leader...

Many employers like to tell employees that they are being completely transparent.  Like everything, transparency can be defined differently depending on which side of the fence you are on - employer vs. employee.  As a leader, transparency should mean providing access to information that matters to your people.  The things that matter to you as a leader may not necessarily mean anything to the people that work for you.  For example, let's say that as a business leader, you provide updates with charts and graphs that show how the company is doing financially. More than likely the metrics you are using to communicate financial health only matter to you and external stakeholders.  As a leader, you probably care about that because it's how you are measured. As an employee, you probably don't care unless the company is going into the toilet. But if you need charts to tell you that, you've got a much bigger problem.  As a leader, it's your respo...

When I left my first consulting firm, my goodbye email consisted of, "Is the grass greener?" in the Subject line and "I intend to find out," in the body of the message.  It turns out that the grass was greener because I spent the next 9 years at my second firm and had incredible experiences, grew as a professional, made great friends, and moved "up and to the right." as some would say.  Fast forward a couple of years and I am getting my Generation Y on.  Switching jobs.  Trying to find a purpose or mission.  Searching for meaningful work.  Let's just say that the yard needs a bit of fertilizer and a lot of water -- and probably some grass seeds.  That's just the thing. You can choose to tend to your lawn or you can choose to deal with it and accept it. (I'm guilty of accepting it just like the next person).  There is nothing wrong with tending to your lawn and finding another house to live in that has a better yard.  ...

How do you tell someone - a Manager, a colleague, a business leader - that he /she is not being authentic?   You know the types.  These are the people that are "acting" in their position or title as a leader. These are the people where you've determined that something is a bit 'off' about them or that you know that you can not trust them.  These are the people that you think act one way at work, but another way outside of work.  These are the people that you perceive are following a script and not necessarily improvising once in a while.  The bottom line is that if you are not being genuine, the likelihood of anyone trusting you is low.  And as a leader, much less a human being, trust should be all that matters.  Unfortunately, the people that require the feedback that they are lacking authenticity are the ones that will refuse to believe it.  After all, the Dilbert principle generally holds true -  companies tend...

"Why can't we all just get along?" - Rodney King Ask yourself this.  Who is your ultimate customer? In organizations, both big and small, there are a number of answers to this question.  If you are in IT, it means the business.  If you are in sales, it means customers.  If it's within IT, it means other IT functions.  If it's within the business, it means other business functions.  If you agree with all of the above, you've fallen victim to silo'd thinking.  More than likely you are trying to please your immediate customer or stakeholder at the expense of another customer -- and unfortunately, that's probably the customer that matters the most. When an organization's "silos" all agree on who the ultimate customer is, the internal "we" vs. "them" mentality goes away.  "Don't let them (referring to another functional area) win," should not even be a part of an organizati...

There is nothing easy about starting your own business.  The difference between an entrepreneur and a "want"repreneur is that the entrepreneur has experienced failure more often than not. (I only know this because I'm close to a successful one).  A wantrepreneur is a hustler.  A wantrepreneur values the image of what's being created over what is actually being created and why.  A wantrepreneur views a successful business as a petty cash account vs a place that takes care of its employees. If you are looking to work in an entrepreneurial environment, really think about what that means.  Ask how many innovative products have been cranked out.  Ask about ideas that have been developed and followed through.  Look to see what alumni have gone on to do and where they have ended up.  Ask about professional growth in the organization - are people better off when they left versus when they first started?  If the answer to any of thes...

The hardest feedback is the slap in the face feedback.  It's feedback about you that you know is true and is in the back of your mind--  then hits you like a bus when someone actually calls you out on it. For me it was, " I really don't want to be in your situation in a couple of years."  I completely get it.  A rut only gets deeper the longer you stay in it. Call it comfort, acceptance, being distracted by the Internet on a continual basis -- the rut quickly becomes the Grand Canyon.  I read something a while ago that talked about getting out of a career rut. So I'll list those things and apologize to the author that wrote it for not referencing him or her.  Name your desired outcome. Every leadership expert will tell you that this should line up with your values, passion, purpose. A lot of people spend time figuring out what that is when they stray from the traditional career path.  Name what's stopping you. This is the resistance tha...