What Thing Are You Going To Do Today?

Karla Nelson, Principal at Swiss Avenue Partners and founder of SBEIA (Small Business Economic Impact Alliance) sent me a follow-up note after a recent meeting, and on the back of the note was one of the most high-impact quotes I've ever read by Paulo Coelho.  Cuelho is a popular writer most noted for The Alchemist.

"One day you'll wake up and there won't be any more time to do the things you've always wanted.  Do it now."      -Paulo Cuelho-

What thing are you going to do today?

Driving the Message

Assuming that your top management team is meeting weekly or monthly, the next key to driving communication and messaging throughout your company is to meet with your "extended management" team at least quarterly. Here is where you share safety issues, financial performance, and progress against objectives.  This is all part of the "rhythm" required to make a company run at it's best.

Dare Yourself to be Real

Candor.  Jack Welch calls it "the Biggest Dirty Little Secret in Business."

Why is that?  Because often enough, people just don't open up and say what's on their mind--good or bad.  They withold criticism, they want to "make nice" and avoid conflict (as I said two Blogs ago in "Did You Reach Consensus?  Oh-oh").

We have to be determined to use more candor in the way we deal with our people, our teams, our meetings, and our situation.  From Welch's book "Winning:"

1. "....candor gets more people in the conversation, and when you get more people in the conversation, to state the obvious, you get idea rich."  "Instead of everyone shutting down, everyone opens up and learns.  Any organization-or unit or team-that brings more people and their minds in to the conversation has an immediate advantage."

2. "...candor generates speed.  When ideas are in everyone's face, they can be debated rapidly, expanded and enhanced, and acted upon.  That approach-surface, debate, improve, decide-isn't just an advantage, it's a necessity in a global marketplace."

3. "...candor cuts costs." "Just think of how it eliminates meaningless meetings and b.s. reports that confirm what everyone already knows.  Think of how candor replaces fancy PowerPoint slides and mind-numbing presentations (with real conversations)."

You've seen and know when people are using candor.  Dare to do it yourself.  Don't hold back.

In fact, be blunt.  Do it with respect, but better to show tough love than hold back and fail to achieve.

When Is A Leadership Team---"Not?"

A leadership team "isn't a team" when it's members don't trust one another.  It won't operate at its best if the members even mistrust a single person on the team.

A leadership team doesn't operate when it's members work in their own silos--placing their personal or department agendas ahead of the team's.

A leadership team doesn't point fingers at one another--because they know that four of those fingers are often pointing back at themselves.

A leadership team doesn't withold helpful, constructive criticism or debate around key ideas in order to "make nice" with the others.

A leadership team doesn't let take their collective or individual "eyes off the goal" and allow critical progress toward results to go unaddressed.  And a leadership team doesn't continuously take on new projects before they execute and complete the current.

So where does teamwork start?

In Patrick Lencioni's book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the author places "trust" at the foundation of building effective leadership and management teams.  If you've not read the book--I place it at the top 5 most useful business books I've read.  Like Lencioni, I also place trust at the core of an effective team.

Earning and building trust is a two-way street--and it happens on and off the court.  When team members trust one another--each knows that he or she can count on the other members to work together for the good of the team.  Personal agendas are checked at the door.  Attempts at control and power-grabbing are absent. The agreed upon objectives of the team become "goal #1" for all--with no exceptions.

Leadership teams can attempt to master all the other qualities of a high performing team--but if trust is missing--or even in question, the collective results will suffer.

Do you have a team? If the answer is no, where do you need to start?

What Gets Measured Gets Attention....

....and what gets attention gets results.  There's truth in this concept that "what gets measured gets attention--and what gets attention gets results."

It is difficult to deny that the goal of every organization must include “results.”  To go through the actions of business, transactions, product development, program initiatives, and tactical execution WITHOUT the attainment of results is in itself disappointing, but is totally unacceptable if the “results” were never the focus, not measured, not spoken about, unclear, and were not at the heart of the leader and his or her team’s focus and conversations.

How do you do this?  One way to start is to ask yourself “how visual is my workplace?”  If for instance, safety, on-time shipments, customer satisfaction, or profit margins are important--how do you keep track of those?  Better yet--how does your team and how do your employees keep track of those?

A visual workplace is one where the company metrics aren't a secret, where they're not shared only among the management team.

A visual workplace is one where the "vital signs" are posted, they are shared, and they are used in daily decision-making.  A visual workplace uses "dashboards" or charts or bulletin boards to post the progress against the stated goals and objectives.

And while you're considering sharing vital information--why not post your entire strategic plan?  Whether you post it for all employees or in your office for you and your team to review frequently--Verne Harnish has created some outstanding tools for business planning.  Review and download his templates and planning forms at http://www.gazelles.com/.

One of the Gazelle's primary principles is to create measurements and themes and post them for all to see--and to track the progress throughout the year.

Three keys to creating a visual workspace are:

1. Select a small number of metrics to measure that reveal the progress of the company and departments towards the top objectives.

2. Use dashboards and easy-to-read graphs or charts to convey the "green light/red light" status toward the goals.

3.  Keep them updated.

And finally, engage your team and employees in conversations regularly around the progress you're making.  Bring attention to the measurements--and you'll bring attention to the results.