Focus
Being able to stay focused is the first key to small business success. There will always be new options, new opportunities, new markets you ‘could’ take your products and services to. The quickest and easiest way to build success is by having a clear focus and checking to make sure all your efforts are aligned.

There is always more that could be added to your To Do list, but are those tasks adding value? Double check daily that the actions you’re giving your time to will build the business results you’re aiming for.

Leverage
One of the ongoing challenges for every small business is getting it all done. If your vision is to grow your business, you need to practice ‘not doing’ – not doing it all your self, not doing what doesn’t actually need doing. Leverage means setting up systems for how things are best done, so that they can be handed off to other people.

Another form of leverage is hiring others, whether part-time or full-time, to take over those systems and activities. Using both of those forms of leverage will free you up to be doing exactly what you need to accomplish on behalf of your business.

Leadership
How do you envision your role in your business? Is it as a team member or a team leader? If it’s the former you’re playing small. Every team needs great members, but team success depends on a leader who make sure the resources the teams needs are available, and the obstacles get cleared out of the way. Be the leader.

Management
No matter the size of your business, you need to carve out time for working ‘on’ your business rather than ‘in’ it. That means putting together the plans that will be road maps for everyone’s efforts. Once you have those plans, it’s your turn to make sure you’ve got the resources your business needs to get the work done. And as work is taking place, you need to monitor how things are going so you know what to adjust.

Passion
Let’s not forget, as you become absorbed in the doing, you need reminders of why you’re in business in the first place. Keep your life vision and your business vision in your line of sight on a regular basis so that you can draw on the inspiration to sustain your balance!

And one way to grow your business to the next level is to join the Business Accelerator TeleSeminar Club at http://www.TheBusinessAcceleratorClub.com – come on board and join for $200 savings the first month.

Come join me and like-minded business builders and learn all about how to run your current business ever easier, AND how to take your experience & expertise and turn it into – Programs, Products & Services Your Clients Are Hungry For – with all the how to’s set out for you.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management

With that notion in mind, here are the Top 7 Activities of Great Leaders

1. Setting the Vision… and checking that all your activities are leading to that end. Businesses that don’t have a clear vision are often just the place everyone shows up to keep busy. Create a vision that makes all that time, intelligence and effort worth it!

2. Inspiring Others… describing the vision to them and describing how their work fits into achieving the vision. We each get out of bed wanting to make a difference and we’ll put in 120% when we see an inspiring path!

3. Modeling what keeping the Vision in mind looks like… by starting every meeting with the Vision as your reference point to the issue on the table. This is just the first step to running a meeting that everyone feels was worth paying attention and solving issues.

4. Encouraging Others To Step Up… so that you can leverage the experience and intelligence of other people to build your business further, faster and easier than doing it all on your own. The more they do, the easier it will be for you to focus on finding paths to grow the business.

5. Challenging “the way things are done here”… to constantly invite new, more productive and more profitable options be brought into the planning and execution of your work.

6. Measuring what matters… and reporting the trends ensures that everyone keeps their eye on how their own work is achieving the goals that are important for the business.

7. Making “Leverage” the key…
The challenge for most business owners and entrepreneurs then is to be able to keep enough attention on activities that make a difference. Keep asking how to leverage everyone through putting systems in place so your work is done with excellence, no matter who is putting their attention and energy into it.

Bonus Tip –When you let people know that they are appreciated, they’re even more inspired to bring their best thinking to the table. Great leaders acknowledge each person and every team for their great thinking and effective work.

And one way to grow your business to the next level is to join the Business Accelerator TeleSeminar Club at http://www.TheBusinessAcceleratorClub.com – come on board and join for $200 savings the first month.

Come join me and like-minded business builders and learn all about how to run your current business ever easier, AND how to take your experience & expertise and turn it into – Programs, Products & Services Your Clients Are Hungry For – with all the how to’s set out for you.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Vision

In a meeting last week with one of my Platinum clients, Brian, reviewing the goals he had achieved since we began work in January, he shared an “Ah Ha!” he’s had.

“Linda, when you kept steering me to simplify my Vision, I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t ready to. But, wow! Once I heard you, once I followed your process and created that simple vision – it’s all taken off like a rocket!”

Now, prior to this, Brian had been having difficulty getting his team on board. He couldn’t get all their activities pulling in the same direction towards the same goals. When we took a look at the reasons for the weak results, the confusion behind it became apparent. Everyone on his team had a different understanding of what the objectives were.

For the lack of a clear vision, all their time, intelligence and energy was having minimal results. Instead, the was lots of wasted time every day, by well-intentioned professionals…

A real shame to have all those resources wasted. But that didn’t have to be the way they operated for the long-term.

What do I mean by ‘simplify’ your vision?

The reason this is so helpful is that simplicity and clarity at the beginning, from the top, becomes the starting point for every activity in your business. ‘Simplify’ your vision.. and you can make it easier to identify your ideal target market. Simplify your ideal target market…  and you can focus all your marketing efforts so that you’re easier for them to find. Simplify your marketing… rather than trying to be all things to all people… and you make yourself easier to understand and an easier solution to buy.

Moreover, while it becomes easy to see the impact that your Vision’s simplicity has on your external presence in your chosen market, it’s as important inside your company.

Why?

Because you can simplify your operations. Simplify the solution you’re trying to offer and you can simplify your delivery of that solution. Your time and that of your entire team, gets used doing the right things at the right time, without needing to spend time straightening out confusion, conflicts, and plain old inefficient time wasting by everyone.

That in turn means you can simplify your systems, the processes you use to get work done, which leads to simpler results, that are simpler to measure and track, and simpler train new people to produce. And so on.

That doesn’t mean thinking flies out the door. On the contrary, it means each person can ask “Is this in line with our Vision?” for themselves, to help keep the entire company’s efforts pulling in the same direction towards the same goals.

Each person becomes a Visionary and Brilliant Problem Solver for your business.

Whether you are heading a major organization, or a division, or your own small business, the result is the same.

As you set a clear vision, it becomes apparent what is out-of alignment, wasted time and effort, busy work for busy sake rather than the best path to deliver solutions to your customers.

Of course, setting a new Vision, or a cleaned up Vision, or your first one ever, often makes people fearful. The most common reason I hear from my program participants is that “I’ll have to stop doing a lot of what we’re doing here.”

Indeed, that is the exact choice that Brian faced, that I face, and that you will face.

But I ask you, in this economy, do you want to be putting all that time, energy and intelligence into doing things that are expensive busy work, or put them into focused, high payoff activities that are simpler, targeted, lower cost, more highly profitable?

You have the opportunity, right now, to step back. Step out of the business of habit and ongoing activity and take ten to fifteen minutes and look for the simplest vision you can hold, that humms and excites you.

Or, you can keep yourself very busy, and delay achieving the goals you say you want.

My vote? SIMPLIFY your Vision.

During the week of Thanksgiving in the United States, many of us reflect on all that we appreciate in our business and personal lives. Did you know, being grateful actually increases your results?

You might already be aware that being grateful is good for your sense of well-being and your state of mind and mood. Now there is research demonstrating that gratitude is good for your physical and mental health AND your ability to achieve your goals.

Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis, and Dr. Michael McCollough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas conducted The Research Project on Gratitude and Thanksgiving.

The results of the study showed that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. People who used regular appreciation exercises made more progress toward personal goals.

On a practical level, the study showed that members of the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, and exercised more regularly. Each of those results is of direct benefit to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Grateful leaders are more focused, better able to handle the challenges that occur in business, and model gratitude for their team.

Gratitude is a learned behavior for most people. I work with entrepreneurs and business leaders to align their attention and actions with their vision. One of the greatest challenges posed by all that action is remembering to pause and recognize what HAS been accomplished.

One daily gratitude exercise I offer them is a 3-minute summary of their day – looking over the meetings they’ve conducted, the actions people committed to, and the milestones that have been met.

While many of the study’s results are about personal benefits, there is an additional result uncovered by the study. It is critically important for you to know. The gratitude group was more likely to help others.

While many managers focus on personal results, and periodically acknowledge outstanding efforts in performance reviews, SHOWING gratitude regularly and deliberately is what sets outstanding leaders ahead of the pack.

One of the Leadership Principles my group members implement is creating an inspiring climate of gratitude. It produces high payoff results for everyone – the leader and their entire team.

If you’d like to take inwardly focused gratitude and turn it into a success booster for others around you, there are 3 steps:

Appreciation, gratitude and celebration.

* Appreciation is our positive feeling about another person or thing in our lives – the focus is on the other person and how they show up.

This is often the step that takes the most practice. It’s your opportunity to tune in to the person you are thinking of, to really see who they are – their capabilities and intentions, and how they bring those with them as their gifts to you, the team, your customers.

* Gratitude is our positive feeling about the positive impact of this person or thing in our lives – the focus is on how we benefit from their energy and efforts. This might sound something like “Julia, I really appreciate the dedication you bring to problem solving.”

While we are used to saying ‘Thank You’ to others, what is truly valuable is to make the connection between their action and the results it creates for others. Julia would be delighted to hear “That dedication let’s me know that the challenges we’re facing will always get excellent attention from you and have really effective options surfaced.”

* Celebration is how we express our appreciation and gratitude – the focus is on making our appreciation and gratitude known, to them, and to others.

For some organizations, a public thank you at a meeting is the way to go. Ongoing studies have shown for over 20 years that a face-to-face thank you is valued more highly than a five-percent increase in base pay.

At some of my coaching clients, more creative approaches are being used now. If one of your folks has created a financial benefit for your business, above and beyond what was expected from their performance, it’s a great opportunity to give them a bonus they’d personally appreciate. That might be cash, or the use of a rented luxury car, or a weekend stay at a local resort, and so on.

Appreciation, gratitude and celebration. Each has their value in sharpening your perception of another’s efforts, and in letting the other person know what to do more of.

Pull your team together to talk through how can you use this in your business and your life today. It’s good for your business and everyone it touches.

If I were to make a guess, it would be that you’re hearing an average of 6,294 messages a day about how bad a disaster the economy is, how everyone is going to loose their jobs, the roof over their heads, and even the ability to put clothes on their backs.

Even if I’m overestimating your exposure by a factor of 100… that’s 62 times a day when the despairing ghosts are moaning at you from behind the curtains and the goblins are haunting you from your radio and TV.

Well, all I know is I don’t need to hear whispers sixty-two times to put me off my dinner. Once, twice, three times is enough to give me the creeps. So my survival technique for surviving the ghouls is to remember the walk in the woods when I was growing up.

I remember creeping through the woods by our house after dusk. Every snap of a twig or brush of a leaf made me jump. I had that reaction even when I’d walked the same path easily in daylight a mere few hours before.

And of course it was even creepier when I was walking with other kids, as we all stirred each other with mutterings of fright – building a sense of helplessness and impending doom.

In the same way as that path was just fine during daylight, things are just fine when you shut off the radio and TV, put down the magazines and newspapers and focus on what you DO have control over.

I’ve had techniques I’ve used for years, that work for me, and work for my clients when they learn them. In the spirit of dispelling the gloom and wisps of despair swirling around you, I’m bringing them to light for you.

Choose Your Companions Well

Just as they were in childhood, some of the people around you thrive on anxiety, worry and fear. And they want companions on their path. Don’t let yourself be roped into walking that path with them.

Turn off the news media, cancel lunches and dinners with bogeymen, and those who want to feed on your fright. Wish them well, and get your attention back to what you DO have control over: your time, your attention, your energy.

Surround yourself with people who look at life for it’s possibilities, in good times and risky times alike. One of my coaching clients has started holding weekly conference calls with her entire team, with a light, up beat tone of voice. She uses the time to acknowledge the successes the team has created and cheer them on to each upcoming project.

Light a Lantern

The woods were spooky on a moon-less night. Not so during the day, or at night when the moon was lighting the way.

In your personal life and your business life, someone needs to put a light in the lantern and hold it up for others to see. I vote for you! Be the lantern bearer consistently and publicly and others will rally behind you.

I have a client who has contracts for the next five years. Can you imagine! You can bet that after our work together he is mentioning that fact weekly, reassuring his staff that their jobs are not in jeopardy.

He’s already designing the quarterly bonuses he’ll be giving out, instead of annually, to reinforce the message that every thing is OK, better than OK, for everyone.

Face The Path In Front Of You

Ghost stories work because they take us into our imagination. Brain studies have shown that anything you visualize, and I mean absolutely anything, is interpreted by your brain as completely real. So when you watch and listen to the drama being acted out on the political stage and the media pages, your brain is telling you “This is truth!” even when it’s metaphor, ghost stories, fear mongering.

Replace all the ‘what might happen’ imagery that your eyes are seeing and your ears are hearing with information that will keep you focused in present time, on the opportunities for you, your business, your life. Right here. Right now.

• Post your business Vision and Goals where you and everyone else can see them.
• Chunk your daily time to 45-minute blocks and focus on what you have control over right here and now. Plan your week for how you’ll use each day to keep your attention on the high payoff actions that will get you to your goals. One topic at a time.
• Focus your language with your team on what you WILL create with your business.

And I’ll meet you in the sunlight on the other side of the woods.

For instance, when you look at your calendar and see who you will be meeting with, you’re inclined to label them and judge them based on past experience of your interaction with them, rather than wait to see if it’s repeated this time, or not.

Today, take a frank look at a meeting you have with other people you know ‘well.’ Ask yourself:

“What am I assuming about them and their behavior?”

Right down one assumption you have about each person you’ll be seeing. For instance, “Jerry – impatient” might be one of your notes.

Now, find a different word for the description of each person. You might relabel Jerry as “passionate” or “hoping I’ll see it his way.” Find a new label for each person and hold that label in mind as you start your meeting with them. Make a point to remind yourself of your new label everytime you ‘hear’ the old label creeping into your mind.

Let me know what you come up with in the comment box below.

For two days I stayed out of it. I sat watching and listening.

That’s what I was supposed to be doing, as a consultant and coach who was sitting in to observe the workings of a team of managers as they conducted their monthly senior management meeting.

And boy did I have to bite my tongue!

In every moment they were working so hard to avoid improving their working relationships with each other.

What do we understand about building relationships?

So often, often relationships seem to be out of our hands. There are people with whom we get along, and others who (at best) we tolerate. Some relationships scare us, so we avoid those people. Mostly, we invest our relationship building with those who understand us.

From my one-on-one discussions with each of these managers I had some perspective of their attitudes towards one another. And I watched those attitudes play out for sixteen hours.

The heads of Marketing, of Sales, of Production, of Finance, and everyone else sat around the table. They spent more time watching to see if they were at risk, and criticizing each other, than bringing their experience to bear in solving the challenges in front of them. Meetings that ought to take 30 minutes went on for up to four hours! Ugh!

None of them had their attention on the critical success factor of strong teams: building strong relationships with each other.

As the managing heads of their company they needed to improve their capabilities as technical managers AND claim their role as leaders. Both of those competencies depend on commitment to relationship.

When I brought this up with each of them their first concern was whether there was enough time to add “all that extra work” to their plate.

What if my clients understood that they could affect the quality of their relationships intentionally? Easily? Without risking a thing? Would better relationships across the board improve the quality of their lives at work and at home? And their business results? I’ve got my money on your answer being an emphatic “Yes!”

So here are the keys I’ll be teaching them that unlock High Payoff Relationships:

Leaders Inspire
In 15 seconds when speaking to others, leaders inspire a shared vision of what the organization can become and enlist others in putting their efforts into making that vision come to reality. One sentence spoken with a smile and energy at the beginning and conclusion of a meeting is usually all it takes. And that’s not more work!

Leaders Model
Every business has a culture demonstrated by the behavior in the organization. Leaders model the way by setting an example for others to follow. For this group, modeling includes showing up to participate in meetings. That includes speaking up actively with questions that clarify the challenges under discussion and proposing ideas for how to solve them. It won’t take a minute longer – in fact it will shorten most of their discussions by about 75%!

Leaders Enable
Nothing is more frustrating for an employee than to be told they have a target they must achieve… and then having nothing but obstacles in their way. Leaders enable others to act by providing the tools needed for them to get their jobs done and removing those obstacles. This set of leaders needs to demonstrate doing that among themselves and for everyone else.

Leaders Challenge
Contrary to popular belief the goal isn’t to prove others wrong. Leaders challenge the process and the status quo, without criticizing or discrediting others. They look for opportunities to innovate, experiment and take risks. My clients need to recognize that risk taking involves mistakes and failures – learning opportunities. Learning easy changes in language will ease their stepping forward with ideas for making it all work better.

Leaders Encourage
We each know how wonderful it feels to be acknowledged, whether in conversation or with an email of appreciation. This team needs to mimic their CEO and encourage the heart or each person, including their peers, by recognizing contributions that individuals make; celebrating their accomplishments; and making people feel like heroes. Total time? About 9 seconds!

Leaders Cultivate Consistency
For leaders to be credible over time, they need to act consistently, demonstrating the professionalism of their work, the manner of following through on their own performance and the management of other people’s on behalf of the organization’s vision and goals. Frankly, that starts with those other five behaviors and sustaining them over time.

There’s actually little time added, and often quite a bit saved. When leadership is incorporated into a team’s attitude and commitments it makes everyone’s ‘work’ easier, more fun and bonds teams together.

From those deeper relationships, my clients will be building their success in good times and solve challenges in tough times with everyone pulling together.

Now it’s your turn!

Tags: Leadership

Here’s an interesting fact…

According to one of today’s leading authorities on Attention Deficit Disorders, Tellman Knudsen, if you have ADD, you have been programmed since birth to actually NOT be able to do something you really need to do to succeed in life…

The thing you have been programmed not to be able to do is to participate effectively with others.

As I read his work, it struck me that the same programming that helps someone with ADD increase their productivity, are the very beliefs that all people need for success in teams. And you may not hold those beliefs.

Don’t believe me?

Tell me, how often have you ever heard,

“We all have to clean up after ourselves?”

or…

“You have to carry your own weight?”

or… The all-time winner:

“If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself”?

If you heard those sentences, or ones similar to them, repeatedly then you have been programmed.

You’ve been programmed with beliefs so that you won’t let yourself draw on the power of the ‘teams’ around you. Those teams include your peers, your vendors, your clients, your mentors, and so on.

The programming affects your productivity on two fronts. Not only is it diverting you from learning how to delegate things you really don’t need to be doing, but it is also stopping you from having the time you need to do the things you really WANT to be doing!

And a single belief can derail an entire team.

My client, Charles, is the president of an international organization. He wants his team of managers to show up as better teammates to each other, and as better leaders of their company. He needs them to step up and take on management of their business so that he can focus on strategic issues in their marketplace.

He keeps waiting for them to raise important high-risk issues for discussion. And he wants each of the managers to offer input, insights and innovative thinking on each issue. And he watches to see if anyone will fight for what they believe is the right solution to problems the company is facing.

The problem is he’s been programming his senior management team to avoid the very behaviors he wants to see. Charles happens to believe that ‘Challenging is the best way to encourage people to show their capabilities.”

Because of that belief, rather than setting up the team for success he’s been making some key mistakes:

Letting the group ‘figure out’ how to be a team for themselves.

Charles believes starting topics and letting them roll from there helps his people gel as a team. Although his managers work together well outside of his all-hands meeting, when they walk in the door for his monthly meeting they don’t know the purpose of their time together. Is it to have the team think about the topic? To identify breakdowns? To figure out lessons to be learned? To suggest improvements that can be made?

So, they comment and quibble and jockey for position and approval like siblings around the dinner table.

Every ‘miss’ is a mistake

There is no standard for evaluating the impact when a manager’s results when they don’t meet the plan. Charles’s tone of voice is so critical that people shut down. Hoping to please him by copying the behavior they see, and in the hopes he won’t do the same to them that week, everyone else picks joins in the criticism and fault-finding.

As a result, the behavior in his management meeting is often like a college hazing.

Chasing bright shiny objects

Charles gives equal value to any remark made during the discussions. When his managers discuss one topic, their conversation ranges all over the place. Any comment can be inserted into the discussion, even when it’s off-topic. Meetings often last 10 or more hours and the team seldom comes to conclusions or decisions about next steps.

As you can probably guess, Charles keeps waiting for people to take responsibility, offer suggestions and step up… while his managers are often trying to stay ‘unnoticed.’ The managers keep waiting to be lead, to have conversations organized towards a purpose and to be given priorities for the hours they’ll spend together.

We’re going to work at changing Charles’ programming and management style so his folks in turn can get UN-programmed and come prepared, hold business-matter-of-fact discussions and build a high payoff management team.

I got the most marvelous surprise today. It was totally unexpected, and stopped me dead in my metaphorical tracks.

I’d been listening to one of my coaching clients describe how scattered she’d become. She’s a small business owner, planning on doubling her sales and finding a new facility and redesigning the packaging for her signature products.

I helped her take back control of her time and attention and prioritize her marketing so she’ll put her time into the Highest Payoff prospects first. The tension dropped off her shoulders and there was a smile in her voice.

She said “I knew you’d make this easy!”

I LOVE being acknowledged and I know you do too. This one was a real gift. It meant that she was experiencing the bold claim I make in my newsletters, on my web site, in my programs, with all my clients: small simple easy steps can have a huge impact.

The gift she gave me was in telling me that what I give my heart and soul to was appreciated. And I wasn’t even expecting it.

Why do I tell you all of this? Because I’m just the same as you and everyone you come into contact with on a daily basis. That includes your family, friends, and colleagues, the folks serving you in restaurants, delivering your mail, working on a portion of the product being made for your customer and even your clients.

Just like me, and just like you, the people around you are doing their best, trying to succeed at the things they’ve taken on. We each become so focused on our own ‘doing’ that we often don’t know if our efforts are seen, are on target, are even valued.

When my coaching client acknowledged me, I was reminded by my own reaction just how strong a result the simplest gesture can create – Acknowledgments can be the very best surprise!

I’m all about making things simple and easy to use and that includes acknowledging people and teaching other how to as well. I figure that if I teach it and encourage you to use it and you teach it to others, the world will be filled with people being acknowledged and acknowledging all the time. Now that’s a world I want to live in!

So here are the simple steps to becoming a High Payoff Acknowledger.

Step 1 – SET Your Intention
Before my client said a word to me, I was in my head, sorting through the information I was going to use with her, checking what she was paying attention to and how well it was getting her to her goal. When she spontaneously shared that comment with me I instantly relaxed, lightened up, and felt sparkles. I’ve timed it – It took her less than 3 seconds to change the energy in my world. Wouldn’t you like to create that same result over and over in your world?

Step 2 – DECIDE On Your Target
Take a beginner’s approach to this – start with the people it’s easy to thank. For some of us that’s people we work with everyday. For others it’s the strangers we encounter from time to time. I will say that it can get addictive – you may find yourself acknowledging everyone everywhere. You might even be using a whole “45 seconds” every day!

Step 3 – Make it SIMPLE – Find One Thing To Acknowledge
This is your opportunity to deliver one single quick message. This isn’t the time to deliver a performance evaluation or give constructive feedback. This is about gifting the person in front of you with a moment of joy at being appreciated.

Step 4 – Make It Systematic – Create A New HABIT
One of my clients has taken on the habit of ending every meeting acknowledging the person she met with. 3 seconds per meeting. A small business consulting client sends out 5 written thank you’s on high quality statationary every day. 10 minutes at the end of each day. One of my MasterMind buddies uses Friday afternoons to review his calendar and send emails to people he worked with during the past week. 16 minutes a week. And worth every moment.

Step 5 – SET Your Reminder
I’ve found the letter “A” is a great visual reminder for me. Try it on – Write it in your calendar. It will trigger you to use acknowledgments during your business day. Put it on a post-it on your cell phone and it will remind you throughout your life. Put it in your computer meeting reminder and it will spark your imagination throughout your weeks.

Let me know how you do with it, and the results you create.

Acknowledge them and they’ll show up fully again at the next meeting. And it will encourage you to show up with your ideas as well!

Whether you’re the leader of the meeting or one of the attendees, ask yourself:

Before you push away from that table, or hang up the phone, tell the person who made the observation how valuable it was for you.