Change 1 “Intention” And You Can Change It All!

Take a look at your calendar for the meetings you have coming up, or discussions you’ve put off having. Find one that has some tension built in.

Ask yourself

“What is the success we ought to focus on creating?”

Better yet. Sit down with everyone who is involved, and start a fresh conversation with a single agenda item: to set the definition of success. Start the discussion with that new intention and see the shift in positions and in your results!

February 26, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration | Leave a Comment 

THE PERFECT ARGUMENT

The True Secret To Winning!
By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

Everyone around us was waiting with baited breath, leaning forward in their seats, watching as if to see if the lions would eat the gladiators in the arena.

Well, it was actually a more modern version of that moment – A presenter at a conference posed an offer and a challenge.

“Who wants to win $200?”

Two contenders stepped up briskly and were seated across from each other at the table.

“Are you familiar with arm wrestling? Yes? So here’s the challenge. I’m giving you 20 seconds to get the other guy’s arm down on that table and if you do I’ll give you 200 bucks. Ready? Go!”

And the fists clenched, muscles seized and the hooting and hollering started immediately… They had every intention of making sure the $200 was their own.

That moment was very like the ones that go on in offices, school hallways, and homes every day.

A challenge is posed. Two people who are sure they’re going after different sides of a ‘win/loose’ battle have every ounce of energy poised. And everyone else leaps to take spectator seats, reinforcing the strategizing and maneuvering and battling.

As I watched I leaned over to the woman next to me and said out of the corner of my mouth “They ought to go for broke!”

“What?”

While adrenaline fed the clenched fists, frozen arms and straining necks at the front of the room, I said… well, I’ll get back to that in a second.

How many times a day do you get to watch a discussion turn into a battle over who will win?

At one of my clients, a manufacturer of industrial machinery, battle broke out between the head of Accounting and the head of Sales. A string of emails flashed back and forth for a month, each one longer, more heated and accusatory. And the President of the company was cc’d on the series after weeks of this going on.

“What do I do with this?” he asked me, tossing me page after page of print.

“Change the conversation.” I said.

“What?”

I’m asked that a lot.

“If you read the emails, each of them is insisting that their stand is the company policy. Your head of Sales says she struck a unique agreement with a new distributor in order to open the market in the northeast for your product, ahead of the competition. She’s guaranteed them commission payouts every 15 days. Your head of Accounting says payout on that schedule is against company policy and she won’t do it. Are they both correct in their perspectives at this moment?”

“Yes.”

“Then change their conversation from competing to see who can forcibly win an argument, to HOW might this situation be addressed so that the company succeeds.”

And the 3 of them sat down and in 6 minutes had ironed out their solution.

Don’t tell me “But Linda, that’s obvious! It’s common sense!”

Life and business are about habits and adrenaline more often than they’re about common sense. I bet you could list at least 4 disagreements you overheard, or even participated in this past week.

Because no one started with the question “What could success look like in this situation?” and they certainly seldom pose the question with the other party at the table to join in.

When you look at the clenched fists of arm wrestlers, they’re identical to the joined hands of agreement. The only difference is the intention – to win over the other person, or to create joint success.

How do I know? Well in addition to the tens, or is it hundreds of times I’ve helped clients shift their conversation and their results, I did it there and then in the room.

“He said 200 bucks for getting the arm on the table. He didn’t put any limit on how many times. Work fast and work together and everyone wins.”

She grinned.

And at the 20-second mark both their arms were still in the air.

The presenter grinned and said “Anyone else want to try?” And I grabbed her hand and pulled her up from the table and headed for the front of the room.

As we sat ourselves down, he said “I want to up the ante here.” Before he went any further I asked “Is that the total limitation – arm touches the table top within the 20 seconds?”

“Yep, but this time, it’s for a 45-hour 15 week $2,997 course with me!”

I confess.

We both smirked. I looked her in the eye and with a faint side-to-side wiggle of my head quietly said “Fast and easy!”

“Ready? Go!”

Remember… 15 emails for 4 weeks and lots of anger… versus 6 minutes and a solution?

Well, $5,996 in under 3 seconds.

That’s what we created before the rest of the room had a chance to start rooting. Both of our arms were down on the tabletop within the first 3 seconds, and then we relaxed and easily did it another couple of times while looking up at him as the 20 seconds expired.

Hands in the same position as the combatants, the difference was in the intention.

What is your intention? What is the success you’re focused on creating?

February 22, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration | Leave a Comment 

Change 1 “Distraction” And You Can Change It All!

Leverage your own mind’s inner brilliance!

The shift I made was from dodging a task that was frustrating, to noticing I was frustrated, and deliberately using a tool or technique to slide around the obstacle that had me frustrated.

“What task am I procrastinating about today…”

If you have a mental task that has you stalled, find a way to walk away from it on purpose and switch to a completely different use of your mind… If you’re stuck on language, find something numerical or visual to do. If it’s analytical, do something physical. Do something other than that task and let your subconscious do some of the heavy lifting for you!

February 19, 2007 | Filed Under Processes, Productivity Tools, Time Management | Leave a Comment 

Up With The “P” Word!

Use Procrastination Today!

By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

You know that task sitting over there, on the corner of your desk? Yeah, the one you’ve been avoiding… Or should I say, the one that’s been pre-occupying your mind, distracting you from getting anything else done effectively… The one you’re not getting solved but you’re sure having a lot of mental chatter about.

Back in the days when I was in the Big 8 consulting world (or was it Big 6, 5, 4…) I had to write reports for clients. For hours at a time I was combing through the results of our team’s analytical work and turning it into narrative explanations to support the recommendations we were making.

Some of these documents ran for 100s of pages. And, as is natural when working with language, there were times where a written discussion ground to a halt. I just couldn’t come up with the ‘right words’ to use. Aggravating as all get out! Sitting there staring at black ink on a white screen with my progress utterly stalled.

One part of my mind was as blank as the screen while at the same time I was berating myself for not coming up with better language, not moving on to the next thing I knew I had to get to, not willing to give up on sitting there until it was done – and a flood of inner critical chat having a party inside my head!

I really wanted to escape from the assignment and I’m smart… I figured out a great way to ‘get away’ from it.

I was one of the rare folks who had a Macintosh computer at that time, and on my Mac I had a game called Tetris. This program dropped shapes composed of four blocks from the top of the screen and there was limited time to use key strokes to change the orientation of the object before it touched down. The object was to create a full horizontal line of blocks so that they’d flash and disappear. The more times the player succeeded, that faster the program ran… until the only possible way to succeed was to get into a Zen-like state where the hands moved faster on the keys than a thinking mind could direct them.

So there I was, sitting at my desk, looking like I was intently ‘working’… yet doing something that had nothing to do with writing a report.

And a funny thing happened ~ the perfect words for that sentence showed up from some corner of my mind.

The first time it happened I was startled and grateful and wrote down the sentence that showed up with such clarity.

The second time it occurred, I noticed that I’d had myself really focused on the game.

As you can imagine, my inner critic started having a field day.

“You’re not supposed to be playing games! Your’e at work! You’re just masquerading here! What if someone catches on that you’re goofing around?”

I’m nothing if not stubborn, even in the face of my own inner critic.

The next time I got stuck for language, I deliberately played the game and tracked how long it took for the phenomenon to produce the result.

Instead of wasting hours writing lousy language that wandered uselessly in circles and made a mess of ideas, and re-working it to death for even more time, I could shift to 15 minutes of Tetris and have a cogent sentence present itself with complete clarity!

And my inner chat evaporated and the momentum on my next task was focused and undistracted.

In fact, I decided to turn this amazing procrastination process on deliberately. I’d look at the information gathered, reading through it thoroughly, and then turn on the program and let my subconscious work it’s magic, and let me know the key ideas to bring out or a key point to describe in the report.

Then I started telling everyone else in my group what I noticed, and asked them to try it for themselves.

Guess what? Same result!

This experience is one of the ones that spurred me to study how our minds and consciousness operate and start deliberately using tools that leverage them. And now I teach them to my clients so they can boost their own effectiveness.

I discovered that procrastination is an outward signal that the approach you and I are taking on a task may in fact be getting in the way of leveraging the rest of our mind’s ability to join in and solve things – sometimes much faster than expected.

I uncovered four other techniques that work superbly for me and I now use them all the time and teach them in my coaching forums.

So join me and put up a placard above your desk and cheerfully use Procrastination today!
© 2007 Linda Feinholz.

February 15, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Productivity Tools | Leave a Comment 

Think Two Products Ahead

Ben Mack is the genius behind brilliantly successful product branding, repositioning and launches you’ve often heard of by the top ad agencies. He’s created the successful positionings of the products you drive, drink and dream about… His new book reveals the sterp-by-step method for creating your compelling brand.

Ben’s making himself available in an amazing trio of programs, working with businesses and professionals, you won’t want to miss. For direct, one-on-one work “Ben Comes To You” has Ben working with you and your business anywhere you want in the world. “A Day With Ben Mack” is a private day of tele-mentoring with Ben.

For the utter do-it-yourself-er, you can buy the book then register here, and access a series of tele-seminars by Ben and Tellman Knudson walking you through creating your own brand essence and reframing how you think of your products and services in this new digital world. You’ll also get additional materials from renowned marketer Mark Joyner.

February 13, 2007 | Filed Under Productivity Tools | Leave a Comment 

Change 1 “Incomplete” And You Can Change It All!

If you’re sitting on a list of things that need your attention, and that sense of being “stuck” or “stalled” feels famliar, there may be a personal pattern keeping them incomplete!

Grab a piece of paper and make the list of incomplete items, sort it using the question:

“What is the single most important reason this is incomplete…”

Now take a look at the reasons you often have things incomplete. When you can categorize those reasons you’ll be able to identify patterns in your own thinking or decision-making that you may want new skills and tools to solve so you don’t have to keep repeating the bottle neck in the future.

February 12, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Processes | Leave a Comment 

Bust OUT of “Stuck!”

3 Steps That Release Your Breaks!
By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst”

Is this you? You have customers to satisfy, professional goals to deliver on and your personal goals shoved to the back burner… and you and your friends, colleagues, clients and vendors are already talking about ‘this’ year. Decisions aren’t getting made because too many of them feel like they’re all the top priority… and you find yourself with a task list that is incomplete, messages unreturned, and lists growing longer.

“HELP ME STAY ON TRACK!”

I had a call from one of my clients this week. She was overwhelmed and anxious. And she was sitting at her desk getting nothing done. Her deadlines were looming and her team was clammering for her attention. As we spoke it became clear that her stress was triggered by her chewing on last year’s results, her uncertainty of the results she’s targeting, and her frustration over results that have slipped away. ALL at the same time! It probably sounds familiar?

The truth is, you will always be bombarded by more information, more ideas and more opportunity than you can follow through on – that’s success!

I’ll admit, I’ve had a few of those days that stretched to weeks with my foot jammed down on the break. I found myself sitting in overwhelm last month, as I was trying to get my newsletter launched, I got in the same old black magic state of overwhelm… and pulled out my 3-step process to bust out of being stalled.

If you cannot get a handle on the tug of war for your attention, your future is at risk!

I don’t want you to spend even one more day in that whirlpool. So how do you get out of overwhelm and back on track? Here are 3 steps I use that are guaranteed to work for you personally, for your team, and for your organization:

1. List EVERYTHING That’s Incomplete

Rather than trying to decide anything, sit down and make a list. That’s all, just make a thorough, complete list.

Scientists have shown that people cannot make decisions when their heart rate is over 90 beats per minute. So the first order of business is to get your heart rate down, and as you focus your attention on a task, your heart rate will drop.

In this instance the task is making a list of every single thing that is incomplete. You can do this in writing or on your computer, in a program that will let you list each item on a separate line.

The items may be on other lists, on Post-It notes, in your PDA, on scraps of paper on your desktop, on the bottom of meeting agendas, in your wallet. You might find them on phone messages you’ve “save” in your voicemail, on receipts you put in your “in-basket” or pinned to your bulletin board. And don’t forget to look on the white board.

2. Sort Them and Tag Them

The next task is to sort out your list and identify the key reason each item is incomplete. The question you’ll ask yourself is “What is the single most important reason this is incomplete?”

Some quick and easy sorting criteria to use include:

1 – I don’t have the information I need to make a decision
2 – I have the information but I don’t like the form the decision will take
3 – I have the information and I like the form, but not the timing
4 – This conflicts with another item on the list

Create YOUR list of criteria, and then tag each item on the list with ONE of those criteria. Once they are tagged regroup the list so that all the items that need further information are listed in a single group, and so on.

3. Prioritize Them and Act on the 1st One

Within each group, put a priority on the items in your list. This is another form of sorting, but this time it’s within a group that already has a common characteristic.

You’ll want to use a new set of criteria for sorting this time. The criteria might be “easiest to get done” or “easiest to delegate” or “needs to be completed in order to do other things on this list.” Set your criteria and sort away!

Once you’ve sorted all the groups, select one group and the top item in that group and take action on just that one thing. Here’s a hint – you might want to start with the “Delegate This” list if you created one. As you systematically turn those incomplete items over to others, they become a list of things you’ll follow up on, rather than things you need to “Do!” and you’ll have even more attention left for the things you’ve kept on your own list.

As you keep your attention focused, you’ll retain control over your attention and find each item is dealt with much faster than you had anticipated. In turn, you’ll find the sensation of overwhelm and being ’stuck’ will be gone!

February 8, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Processes, Productivity Tools | 1 Comment 

What Challenges Are Getting In the Way of Your Results?

I had the priviledge this past week of spending more than 10 hours with Ben Mack, author of the Amazon.com #1 Bestselling book Think Two Products Ahead, a MUST read for anyone offering a product or service.

Until I started my work with Ben, I’d been going in circles regarding my branding and integrating it in this new business model I’ve taken on… Definitely “stuck!”

I cannot rave enough about the clarity and directness with which he uses his methodology and questions to cut through confusion, and bring to light the unique brand essence, customer benefit and associated product and service offerings of each person he works with.

February 7, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas | 2 Comments 

Change 1 “Assumption” And You Can Change It All!

If you’re relentlessly flexible, you’re not settling long enough to test anything!

If you’re utterly fixed then you’re missing a flood of opportunities that may be even easier and more efficient and profitable than the model you’re currently using.

Take a lesson from bamboo. Blend strength with flexibility. Make a commitment to revisit your model and check it against the goals you’ve said you have for your business.

Find a trusted person to sit down with and play “20 Questions”. As you talk them through the model you’re using and your reasons for it, you want them to find 20 places to ask you

“What about if you…”

Notice what shifts in your world when you really consider their questions.

February 5, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Processes | Leave a Comment 

FIXED OR FLEXIBLE?

The Catch-22 of Your Business Model.
By Linda Feinholz, “Your Success Catalyst” 

Start-up entrepreneurs, independent professionals and business leaders may be equally deeply passionate about their product or service model. Despite, or in fact because of that passion, their success may be at a stand still.

In the late 1990s I worked with a woman who had a brilliant cosmetics idea that had HSN  (the Home Shopping Network) interested. In order to play to that audience, the product needed to be displayed in a fashion other than the one the entrepreneur wanted. She was adamant. It was her baby after all. More than 20 hours of explaining and cajoling and analytically demonstrating the potential for sales if done “the HSN way” produced no shift in her devotion to her model.

The boxes of her prototypes are sitting on her closet floor.

Contrast that with the jewelry designer whose original model was “I need to make every piece because they must be made exactly the way I want them to be.”  It so happened she hated making duplicates, so her business was stalled. She was willing to test a new model. In four hours of our discussions and one month of research she explored locating people experienced with the materials she used in her jewelry making who would demonstrate their ability to reproduce her pieces exactly the way she wants.

Her jewelry is now being sold in Hawaii, California and Canada.

The President of a business in transition from one generation to the next informed me flat out that they couldn’t change the model for how they market or package and provide services “because everyone else in the industry does it this way.” He and his management team were unable to imagine a single other way to package their expertise to change the game. In a single brainstorming meeting with the management team, I was able to suggest six ways to do so. In the second meeting I was able to walk them through the entire discussion of the pros and cons of each and they outlined what the required changes in materials for sales, sales training scripts, and customer service activities would need to be if they decided to pursue it.

Now they’ll need to decide if they’ll pursue any of it.

A sales consulting expert with experience in professional service firms decided to focus on a single category of professionals to serve. Success followed, followed by a stall out due to a saturated market. His insistence on a single target customer meant he missed the opportunity to use all the same products and services with a different, underserved customer. He’s tapped out his growth in his geographic market, and will have to spend greater hours and dollars to develop ‘clever’ techniques to acquire customers away from his competitors.

In contrast, my attorney client “Mike” called this week and said “I’m sick of training, I want a different model!”

You may recall that I’ve been working with him on the management skills he needs to develop using his current model: bringing in entry level junior attorneys to grow and expand his legal service offerings. The root of his decision is that his market is changing and he wants to establish a firm that can flex to meet the regulatory and seasonal waves that influence the flow of work coming to his firm while also growing the business.

He’s tested his first model, the time and content of the training he needed to commit to bring a less experienced person up to speed. He created a way of evaluating the trade off between time and effort, and so on. In reaction to the experience he’s having with training, he’s now asking himself if he’d rather bring in much more experienced and much more expensive lawyers to build his business.

I’ll be working with him to explore that approach, to test it, analyze it and learn from it.

So what’s the Catch-22?

If you are completely, absolutely, positively set on your model, be it fixed OR flexible, you’re not running your business, it’s running you.

There is NO single best model to use – every model is a blend of the internal forces of the personality, decision making, skills and processes, and of the external forces where that effort is aimed.

What sets successful businesses apart from the ones that are languishing is that the key decision makers step back from the market, the product, the model and re-check whether the formula they are currently using is getting them the result they say they want: profitable growth; competitive differentiation; stability; and so on.

If you’re completely fixed, you’re not testing where opportunities, efficiencies, and profits might come from.

If you’re relentlessly flexible you’re probably not gathering enough information to identify where you could be more systematic in order to gain efficiencies that will make you profitable.

If you found yourself wincing at any of those examples, it’s probably time for you to step back and check your model.

© 2007 Linda Feinholz.

February 1, 2007 | Filed Under Ideas, Processes | Leave a Comment