Stuck between mediocrity and excellence

When you are in a hiring process and the interviewer tells you that " we're a consensus driven organization ," what does that mean to you?  To me, it can mean a variety of things.  In order to make a decision, we need to engage everyone that will have an opinion about the decision being made; or The organization makes a decision and if it's ever questioned, no one can really point to that single point of contact that really made the decision; or  To make a decision requires a lot -- and I mean A LOT of meetings to confirm, clarify, verify, and confirm the decision being made.  By definition, consensus means "a general agreement."  Therefore, my interpretation of the type of organization that is consensus driven is that they are a "generally agreeable"  organization.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? And what happens if you are one of the ones that likes to challenge or disrupt agreeableness?  What I've learned is that there is a right way a...

An expectation is only an expectation if there are consequences.  An expectation is simply a wish if there is nothing to back it up. When you manage people, you have to start with setting expectations.  Expectations, standards -- whatever you want to call them. Start with the non-negotiable principles that define you as a manager or leader.  But that's only the beginning.  It's one thing to set your expectations.  It's another thing to back them up-- which is harder that it sounds.  People are emotional. People are manipulative. People know how to work the system.  Just ask any parent trying to raise a child the right way.  Standing your ground is a lot harder than it seems. The important thing is to have a set of expectations and stick to them. If you stick to them, everyone-- and everything will fall in line. 

All you need to do is move the needle.  Work paralysis occurs when you get bogged down in the timeline of where you should be.  You want to lose 20 pounds, but it has to be gone by tomorrow.  You want to be at the next level in your job and you wonder why it's five years after you expected to be there.  You want your business to transform overnight, but you forgot how many years it took to for it to become what it's become.  Ctrl-Z doesn't work in life because life is a journey and a marathon.  All you need to do is move the needle in the right direction--- whether you feel it's an inch or a foot.  As long as it's moving.

Feedback can be a b*tch.  If it's positive, then the world is great.  If it's negative, or "constructive," as many of us like to say, then it can become instantly personal.  A lot of things have to be right for feedback to stick and be impactful.  Trust has to exist. Trust only comes through respect, credibility, integrity, and competency. Not a lot of people in the workplace score high in all of these categories.  Emotional intelligence has to exist . The ONLY being I know that that is truly in charge of his emotions is Mr. Spock from Star Trek. And he's fictional. The reality is that we are all emotional human beings-some more than others. The growth mindset has to trump the fixed mindset.  There is a book that is out called Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. It's probably for a good reason. In today's world of exhibiting false confidence and having swag, you eventually begin to believe how legendary you are. This immediately closes down all...

Inherent in any organization is a system.  You can call it culture. You can call it the people. You can call it beliefs and values.  It's still a system.  The solopreneur has a system.  A group of partners running a small business has a system.  A multi-functional global organization has a system that is made up of many systems.  I'm not talking about technology.  I'm talking about how people behave. How decisions are made. How people treat other.  A system for how things get done. If you work in a large, global organization, the system is defined as "heavily matrixed," or "bureaucratic," or "influencing and persuading through relationship building."  People generally move ahead because they've figured out how to effectively work the office politics.  If you work for a small organization, the system is defined as "chaotic," or "one has to wear many hats," or "filled with growing pains."  ...

There are plenty of stories written in news articles and books about business turnarounds. Marcus Lemonis does it most of the time on The Profit . Jon Taffer makes it his sole mission on Bar Rescue to resurrect bars that should not even be in business.  Management consultants not only write about business turnarounds, but use them to support frameworks and points of view to help them sell service offerings.  Everyone loves the story of the 600 pound human that becomes the Biggest Loser .  There are 2 types of people in this world; people that don't want to change and people that want to help you change.  "People want to get better or improve. But they don't want to change." - Butchered Tony Robbins Quote If you are coaching a team or running a business, the hope is that you have more people that are in the category of wanting to change than the other.  If your team or company is filled with people that don't want to change, then it's ...

There are certain things that you take for granted when working for a corporation or a well run business.  These are usually the things that everyone complains about. They include: Processes and procedures Performance reviews HR policies HR in general. (ha) Templates and forms (e.g., expense reports) Management meetings Required training Etc...  As much as these things take us away from "doing our job," they are part of our job and are necessary to keep a company from becoming a big pile of mass chaos. The foundation of a company has to be stable and part of that foundation includes having a set of standards to live by.  No standards = inmates running the asylum.  No standards = inconsistency.  As Jim Collins said,  "The signature of mediocrity is not unwillingness to change; it's chronic inconsistency."  Businesses are made up of people.  People, by nature, are unique and variable.  Without anything...

Back in the dark ages when I was in business school, I decided to enter a supply chain case competition with a couple of classmates.  As a side note, both of those classmates are now supply chain PhDs.  It's safe to say that I was the not the smartest one on the team. My love for business books existed way back then. I vividly remember working long hours with my teammates and using strategic frameworks that weren't business school standard issued.  I figured that if we were going to win this thing, we should use something that would differentiate us from the other teams.  In this case, it was content provided by the book  Profit Patterns  by Moser, Mundt, Quella, and Slywotzky.  It was coming down to crunch time and I was spewing textbook rhetoric from the book for our case presentation. We were entering that period of working as a team where tensions were running high because of the time crunch and we had nothing in the form of a coherent s...

I was sitting in a class being led by Barry Deutsch  that addressed hiring and retaining talent.  I'm going to say that what I took away from the class is not what he wanted me to take away. That said, I still found the session entertaining because the look of fear from the people in the class around what he wanted them to do was priceless.  In one of our discussions on people, he talked about employees that have the case of the E and E's - Explanations and Excuses . (I love when speakers come up with a mnemonic or something catchy that resonates with a current situation that I am in). Everyone that reads this knows the type of people I'm talking about. Or, if you work in an environment that is solution driven and has a high caliber of talent, you have no idea what I'm talking about. I salute you.  When dealing with people that have a case of the E and E's, the easy thing to do is avoid them. I mean, if you keep going to the doctor and he has no cure as to ...

There is a word that becomes dangerous when declared enough times in a business or organization.  That word is "should." "Well... the process should be to notify our customer, but I've got too many things on my plate."  "We should be monitoring our inventory levels, but our systems don't allow us to get at that information quickly."  "Turnover really should not be this high. We're hiring the wrong people."  The reason that the word "should" is dangerous is because, like in the 3 statements above, an excuse typically follows.  Enough shoulds will equal a lot of excuses.  A lot of excuses equals organizational inaction.  Organizational inaction leads to a culture of purgatory.  Eliminate the word should from your vocabulary.  Replace it with "must" or "can" or "will".   Your organization will begin to move from inaction to action which will lead to the right kind of growt...

One of my favorite comic book characters is Bizarro .  Bizarro is the complete opposite of Superman and everything that he stands for.  Although, in one of my son's comic books, he does everything wrong, yet still manages to save the planet!  Businesses can be the same way. It is possible to do everything the complete opposite of standard and professional practices-- and still make money!  Profitability hides organizational dysfunction, substandard business practices, and a lack of leadership every day of the week. That's a shame. If you have a profitable business, then you are obviously doing something right (or something Bernie Madoff would do.) However, businesses are fragile entities. More than likely if you have found a way to be profitable, there is an 18 year old kid that can code his ass off that is ready to disrupt you in a heartbeat. So even though Bizarro, in this one instance, saved the world, the odds of him consistently doing it are not...

The assumption that you make as you progress through business school is that you will graduate and go out into the world managing P and L statements, work with middle and senior managers, and make decisions informed by educated data analyses.  In reality, what you end up doing is dealing with a variety of personalities with personal agendas, doing business and managing people at all levels on the professionalism scale (or lack of a scale), and making decisions informed by biases and emotion. The most effective manager is the one that can cut through all the irrationality of people and make decisions based on limited information. No business book or elite business school curriculum can prepare you for that.  So instead of watching documentaries on Enron or talking about what you would do differently at the end of a Harvard Business Case Study-- do what's practical.  Watch Mean Girls . Discuss. Read Dr. Seuss's Yertle the Turtle . Discuss. Take a conflict manageme...

The problem with having a big guy as a customer is that you are exposed to big guy capabilities.  Big guys have access to capital.  Big guys have access to talent.  Big guys have all those things that you wish you had such as: The latest technology Access to resources High priced consultants offering free advice Talented people wanting to work for them Leverage  Benefits They also have all the things that you don't want: Political infighting Long decision making cycles Executive posturing An opportunity to waste away in a job and not make any real impact When you are a small guy, it's okay to have champagne tastes and aspirations.  However, you have to be practical on what capabilities you want to build based on what's in the bank (financially and people).  So before you start breaking out the Moët & Chandon Bicentenary Cuvée Dry Imperial 1943, start with the sparkling wine at Kroger.  It might just be go...

The best thing about being a decision maker is that you are the decision maker.  The worst thing about being a decision maker is that you are the decision maker. If you are mostly heart and less brain, making decisions about people's lives is excruciating. And then you remember that everyone is an adult. (You should still exercise that power with great caution though) If you are a business leader, you have to not only check your ego at the door, but your soul as well -- that's what the perception will be and you have to be able to live with that.  The worst thing you can be is indecisive. Indecisiveness leads to stalling. Stalling leads to a waffling. Waffling leads to a lack of credibility.  When you are a consultant, telling people what decision they should make is pretty d*mn easy.  But when you are the one actually making the decision, it's pretty d*mn hard.

Pick any topic and I'll find you a reference.  For example, if trust doesn't exist within your organization, I'll recommend reading The Speed of Trust.  If you feel that your company is organizationally unhealthy, I'll point you to The Advantage.  Employees don't seem motivated? Drive would be the perfect book to read to understand what really motivates people.  Unfortunately pointing others to books and references can only go so far.  What I got out of a book will definitely not be the same thing that you get out of a book.  So I run the risk of having my intentions ending up completely missed. The reason for this is that people have a different set of experiences that make up how they interpret the world -- so unless it's absolute math, what people read or what people take away from a book is always "subject" to interpretation.  In short, what I take away from a book will almost always be completely different than what you take away....

When the time comes to make a decision, pulling the trigger is either a quick response or a long drawn out period of analysis. If you are in a leadership position, the decisions that you make can make your life easier, or they can end up creating more work for yourself.  You obviously prefer the former to the latter.  If you pride yourself on good judgment, then making a decision based on gut feel is not a problem.  If you've made bad decisions in the past, the chance of going into a long period of analysis paralysis and pondering is extremely high.  What I've learned over time is that most every business decision isn't permanent- it's simply the decision you make at that moment. It's your call as to how you react to the consequences of that decision. A litmus test that I use is that the right decision will result in a sense of relief.  The wrong one usually sends you down the road of anxiety. It's the ones that leave you in limbo that you have t...

When you get hired in an executive / leadership / management capacity, it doesn't matter how many business books  you've read or online courses that you've taken.  Just be glad that you've read those books or taken those classes.   It's an entirely new ball game when you actually have to practice what's been written.  Culture, values, communication, purpose, motivation, conflict resolution-- all of it will hit you as fast Manny Pacquiao can jab.  And you better be ready to bob and weave hoping that you don't get knocked out.  As much as I have opined about what I would do if put in a situation where I could actually do it-- being faced with it is an entirely new reality.  Here's to the start of the journey. 

"When tha sh*t goes down ya better be ready (When tha sh*t goes down)... -  Cypress Hill, When the Sh*t Goes Down Are you prepared to be successful at the next level?  If you are a consultant, have you done the right thing by working yourself out of multiple jobs while moving up the consulting hierarchy? If you are in management, have you improved and grown out of your position allowing for younger managers to come and fill in? If you are an executive, are you thinking about who will succeed you? The bottom line is that you need to be prepared to have someone competent and capable at the next level when you are about to move on. (See The Peter Principle for the antithesis of that statement.) Unfortunately, that preparation rarely happens.  It's like saying every pro basketball player would make a great head coach, general manager, or commentator.  We all know that this is not the case.  So make sure your plan to move to the next level includ...

If you are a leader going into a f*cked up situation, it's going to be easy to generate a list of things that need fixing.  I was watching a video of an interview with Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and she talked about what to do if you are a senior leader inheriting a tumultuous situation. One of the things she said was to focus on the things that are going right and double down on those things.  The things that are going wrong will always be there.  However, you want to have complete confidence that what's going right continues to go right and that your employees recognize that you recognize that there are positive things occurring. Meg Whitman is also known for a style of management that includes asking the right questions to get others to arrive at the answer that they need to. Questions such as, "What are we trying to accomplish?" or "Do we understand the problem? " or "What does this do for the customer?"  The majority of ...

Jim Collins has a quote in his book, Good to Great that says,  "If you have more than three priorities, then you don’t have any." Effective leaders do a great job of filtering through the noise and constant demands on their time by letting their priorities dictate what they need to address. If you are growing a business, it could be growing the top line.  If it's delivery excellence, it could be emphasizing quality of work.  If it's talent retention, then it could be reducing the attrition rate.  If you, as a leader, don't have any priorities at all, then it's up to the employees to freely interpret what they think your priorities are. It's the proverbial inmates running the asylum scenario which is never good unless you believe that holacracy  works for your company or organization. Whether you are leader or manager, write down what your three priorities are and post them wherever you can.  Then do your darnedest to communicate what ...