What WILL Make The Difference In Your Business Results?

© 2008 Linda Feinholz

All too often our progress in business plateaus. You know, it levels off at the point you achieved when you last gave it attention. Very often we settle into ‘habit’ mode and forget to look at the long view for our business.

Over the years I’ve consulted to many business owners and leaders who want new results. By their own admission, they’ve assumed that staffing up or cutting expenses was the route to achieving their business’s next level. In their hearts they believed that if they managed the money, the rest would follow.

They’ve very often been wrong!

It’s already standard business practice to manage the money. What differentiates successful companies from those just noodling along are some things not discussed in business courses and business books.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: One of the most important ways to boost your business is to focus ON your obstacles.

Watch Your Competition

It’s very inspiring to be told to ignore your competition. We were well trained in school. all dream of doing better on a test than our classmates, and that carries over to how we behave in business. “I won’t look at yours paper if you don’t look at mine!”

The fact is, the more you know about your competition the quick you can sort through potential options for your own business, and Read more

August 17, 2008 | Filed Under Managing, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

Change 1 COMMITMENT And You Can Change It All!

It’s not at all unusual to become stalled…. as an unconscious reaction to mis-aligned goals and projects.

If it’s been a while since you reviewed your Vision, and the action plans you’ve been following, you may have begun pursuing projects that feel like ’shoulds’ rather than ones that have a direct, high payoff for achieving your Vision.

And if you’re keeping yourself over-worked and over-whelmed, you’re not building in time to notice that you’re putting energy into activities taking you further and further off-course.

So take a look at the most recent Vision and Objectives you set. And take a look at what you’ve got scheduled on your calendar. Ask yourself:

“What percentage of the activities I’m focusing on actually align with my Objectives?”

Make a 2-columned list - place the activities that are on track on the left and the ones that are off-track on the right.

Now create an action plan to wrap up the activities in the right-hand column in the next 10 business days. When you commit your attention fully to the actions that are aligned with your Vision, your results will be achieved much more rapidly than you ever anticipated!

Let me know the results you create!

June 24, 2008 | Filed Under Managing, Vision | Leave a Comment 

WHY YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS GOING OFF TRACK

© 2008 Linda Feinholz.

This past week I spotted a trend among my clients. You might call it the ‘dash’… everyone is sprinting to prove they’re making changes in their business’s productivity as if that is a badge to earn all by itself.

And too often they are speeding down a track that is taking them to actions and solutions that will cost a lot of time and money and not even solve the issue at hand.

You may be caught in the same sense of urgency, starting an unnecessary race. So I thought I’d share the steps I use with my clients to get them focused at the right pace so that they get the full result they’re hoping for to grow their business.

Step 1 – Define The True Issue

One of my largest clients asked me to sit in during the first presentation by a tech team to address improving the Customer Services function at their company. Sure enough, the team ‘presented’ the issue by quoting back 35 interviewees’ concerns and then went straight into the proposed solution. Fortunately the COO paused the conversation and identified that he hadn’t heard the actual ‘need’ for which the proposed project was a solution.

Make sure you’ve defined exactly what is being ‘fixed’ and be sure the users of the solution are at the table defining what is needed.

Step 2 – Research the Options for Solutions

We all fall in love with our area of expertise. And the tech team members showed it clearly. They were proposing ‘web based’ technology and mega databases to gather all the interactions with clients… and they completely neglected the more familiar automated phone options and even email exchanges. Not to mention the non-tech solutions that could be created by realigning customer service personnel roles.

Take the time to flush out at least three options and run those ideas past the potential users to see if you’re staying on track.

Step 3 – Check that the Solution Matches Your Business Model

For this particular client, the end user will never be the person contacting Customer Service. Their distributors are the ones who will report issues and 20% of them are not computer users. That doesn’t mean they might not find technology solutions useful, but it won’t be sitting at their desk. They need solutions they can use when they are standing on site at a client, or get a phone call while driving between appointments.

All the technology in the world won’t solve your key challenge: make it easy for your customers to communicate with you the way they are ready to today. OR make it even easier!

Step 4 – Double Check That The Solution Works ‘Inside’ AND ‘Outside’

Not only does my client need to make it easy for their customers to be heard and responded to… They also need to capture the information so they can check internally to identify trends in their products and services and decide what may need to be redesigned. The tech team will need to design a system for gathering information easily, and passing it to those who need to know immediately, and summarizing it in reports for periodic trends analysis. At each stage, the information may look very different to each audience.

Sort out how you’ll store information over time so that you can be sure it serves improving your customer’s experience AND your own organization’s performance.

Step 5 – Design How You’ll Test And Adjust The Solution

Just like a rubber band springing back into place, changes in systems and people’s behavior can melt away when you assume it will all come together as needed. Nothing takes you off track more predictably than designing and instituting changes and then walking away from the project. Never assume the ‘design’ is the solution.

Before you invest time and money in permanently changing processes, and policies, and roles and responsibilities test the proposed system with all the users.

Commit to the project’s long-term success by assigning responsibility for testing your chosen solution and evaluating how it’s working… AND commit to adapting it as you learn what is working well and what needs to be tweaked.

Step 6 – Test And Adjust, Test And Adjust

My client is bringing together a task force of six disciplines to talk through all of the steps above. They’ll be guiding the tech team’s focus to be sure it meets all the users needs and stays on track with the Issue identified back in Step 1.

Now it’s your turn on the track.

June 2, 2008 | Filed Under Managing, Organization, Processes | Leave a Comment 

Change 1 Metric And You Can Change It All!

What are the 3 top things you measure in your business? Your time? Your income? Your phone calls? Your prospects? Your meetings every week?

Give your attention a jolt by adding the following metric to the list:

“What single activity brings in the largest portion of my results?”

Once you have the answer, grab your calendar and make sure you spend at least one hour a day for the next two weeks focused solely on expanding that activity. Put it ahead of every other activity and let’s see the new results you create! Let me know the results you create!

April 23, 2008 | Filed Under Managing | Leave a Comment 

BUILD YOUR BUSINESS BY THE NUMBERS

© 2008 Linda Feinholz

I’ve spent a lot of time in meetings during the past two weeks and I found myself noticing opportunities for productivity that my clients kept missing. Each time, I spotted the same missing element: no one was keeping their eye on the numbers.

A manufacturer was using two entire days for his monthly management meeting. That’s Days! Not hours!

A financial advisor insisted he’s “been at his work so long there are no new ideas for marketing my business

An executive coach was planning a retreat for her clients that was focused on strategy, without naming their goals.

In each instance I found myself pulling back the veil of the hidden element that really magnetizes results: Measuring.

As I think about it, there were actually 15 different times over the past two weeks where I spotted the metric that could be used to design and track high payoff business building activities. I used those metrics to sharpen the effort my clients planned to put into growing their business.

I mean measuring the value of the activity so that you’ll know if the investment of time, energy, resources, political capital and so on was worth it.

So I decided to pull together a quick summary of the metrics that might be boosting your results too – if you give them your attention. Read more

April 22, 2008 | Filed Under Managing | Leave a Comment 

SWITCH ON YOUR BUSINESS’S FAT BURNING MACHINE

© 2008 Linda Feinholz.

Suppose, for a moment, that building a business was as easy as…

  • Clearing our your distractions
  • Setting your focus
  • Pulling your team together
  • Focusing your attention on your high payoff activities

“Well, of course.” You might say. “If it were that easy, no one would be stalled. But it’s never that easy. Building a business is just hard work. There’s NO way around it.”

That’s the conventional wisdom and perhaps it’s your belief about it too. Yet this ‘wisdom’ has resulted in business owners and professionals feeling buried by all they need to accomplish.

My client, Brian, needed 15 minutes to review his To Do List. It had all the things Conventional Wisdom told him were the activities he ‘must’ get done to build his business. When I asked him to estimate the time it would take to achieve them, it totaled 357% of the hours in a week.

His business was getting accomplished but his attention was constantly pulled back to that list. Like a huge layer of fat, the weight of the list was dragging on him every hour of the day, every step he took.

If your list looks like Brian’s, then Conventional Wisdom on building a business has failed you for one simple reason…

You’re Working Too Hard At Building Your Business!

What’s probably going on? You’ve got a mind full of chatter about all the tasks that need doing, solving, adding to, judging, distracting you from honing in on the few High Payoff Activities that WILL move your business forward NOW!

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a simpler, better way to build your business. The better way I’m referring to is easy to achieve if you’ll treat your business like your metabolism and burn off the fat.

Follow the High Payoff Processes that burn off the fat and get you focused exactly where you need to be. Here are the steps:

List everything, just once
Grab a fresh piece of paper and clear out the looooong long list that’s been hanging on your mind. You’ll find a really useful form for it HERE. It’s the first step I use with all my Platinum Coaching Clients to get them focused. When you use it daily you’ll see the list shrink and the weight starts to drop right off your shoulders.

Divide that list into the FEW top To Dos you’ll achieve today
The quickest way to do it is using the 4-in-1 form you’ll find here. My coaching clients love it as they use it to get a handle on exactly what they’ll put in action and accomplish. Brian commented that at first it felt like his list was ‘too short’. Now it feels like a cheer for what he knows he’s going to get done that day!

Plan every action and every meeting before you step into it
I know one of the habits we get into is lugging all the extra weight of our To Dos with us into meetings. If any of them are hanging on you, you need to burn them off before you walk into any meeting. Focus your attention on the purpose of the meeting, your preparation for it, and exactly what you want to accomplish – 100% of your attention on it before you take the meeting.

Limit every meeting to 20 minutes
Open every meeting by stating the purpose. You’ll find all the wandering conversations melt away. Is there a goal to be set? Set it. An obstacle to remove? Focus the entire conversation on defining the issue clearly so that an action plan can be set. Note Any additional ideas that come up on a Parking Lot sheet and assign it to another discussion.

Delegate everything else!
As you go through your day, new ideas and issues will crop up. Don’t let them hang on you and weigh you down. Put them on our 4-in-1 sheet so you’ll know that you’ll get them solved today or tomorrow, or delegate them now to someone else. Otherwise they’re a wish and a hope and need to be moved onto your brainstorming list and out of your attention.

Peel off the To Dos you were never going to get to. Get your attention trimmed and in focus on what really needs doing. Loose the fat flip the switch and light a fire inside you and your business!

Just like Brian, if you follow these simple steps, you’ll turn into a business building machine.

April 4, 2008 | Filed Under Managing, Productivity Tools | Leave a Comment 

STEP UP AND CREATE YOUR HIGH PAYOFF MEETINGS

© 2008 Linda Feinholz.

There are times in business when it gets complicated sorting out why a team gets stalled. I’ve had clients who were facing so many competing issues they couldn’t figure out where to start: their strategy, their capabilities, their products or services, and so on.

With those companies, we often have to feel our way through as I sort the issues and help them prioritize where to start the Change process.

And there are other times when there is a clear starting point.

I’m working with an organization that knows exactly the challenge they’re facing and the impact it’s having on their business.

They’ve been sitting for hours in management meetings with very little managing or problem solving taking place. Can you imagine what it was like for them to see my slide with a calculation about the cost being over $1,800,000 in lost productivity?

Their breakdowns are a result of inexperience with practices that make individuals and teams effective. While several of them have been entrepreneurs, they now need to work at problem solving with peers. Many of them are used to being responsible for getting things done during business turnarounds and are unfamiliar with delivering on both the competing priorities of ‘normal’ work and client emergencies.

Most of them are in their role as division heads for the first time in their careers. They’re grappling with the endless stream of challenges and paradoxical conflicts faced at that level in businesses. They know they’ve been less productive and much less effective than they ought to be as a team and as leaders of their employees.

A month ago I observed two days of management meetings - nearly twenty hours in which perhaps 4 hours of actual work got accomplished.

I pointed out to them that since the root of their breakdowns is not personality differences but “know how,” the work I’m doing with them is to give them new tools and techniques, sort of like new hand rails, shoes and stair treads, they’ll use every day.

They love the fact that what I’m teaching them is immediately valuable to them in their management meetings. AND it’s also immediately useful in other settings, including their work with their own direct reports.

Because their behavior is so easy to spot when they’re in their management meeting, that’s where we started this week. I spent 16 hours with them –first describing the techniques of running high payoff meetings, then doing some role playing, and then taking it straight into the rest of the meetings they had planned.

Here are 3 quick tips they learned to make your own meetings more effective and productive, immediately:

Tip #1 – Have a purpose for the meeting before it begins

While these folks started their meeting with a schedule that showed a list of topics, they usually launched straight into discussions without any stated goal for any of the conversations.

Now they’re stating clearly at the beginning of each conversation whether the purpose is to clarify an issue that has come up, to identify potential solutions for it, evaluate efforts underway, or come to agreement about specific actions and accountabilities.

Stating the purpose at the beginning is helping with the next tip…

Tip #2 – Have the right people at the meeting

Usually, five or six members of the management team sat through hours of discussions that had no relevance for their own work in the company. Everyone was at the table “just in case” it might be useful. So they were spectators rather than contributing to the work.

Now they’re planning each agenda item ahead of time, including inviting those who belong at the table and excluding people who have nothing to add.

Having the proper group to work on the matter means they can absolutely achieve the next tip…

Tip #3 – Stick to the topic

When half the people in the room sat observing, they often tried to contribute ideas so the time didn’t appear to be wasted. Yet their ‘helpful’ comments derailed conversations into explaining details already known, or addressing tactical ideas when the discussion was strategic, and so on.

Now they’re holding their conversation among subject matter experts and people responsible and accountable for the results. Their conversations go deeper yet take one quarter as long as before. They’re stepping up to a new level as issues that had languished without progress for months are being worked on in the next 30 days.

The entire team is very clear about the high payoff return they’ll be getting using those new practices.

April 1, 2008 | Filed Under Managing | Leave a Comment 

USE A HIGH PAYOFF ‘GMS’ TO BUILD YOUR BUSINESS?

© 2008 Linda Feinholz

“Linda, what do you think I should do with this client’s request I got?”

My client, Susan knew I wouldn’t just hand her an answer. Yes, I’m famous for having answers for nearly every type of question my clients pose. That’s what a rich full life of diverse work, travel and many interests will do for you!

But I’m also famous for posing questions… really simple, direct, to-the-point questions that shift paradigms and points of view. This was one of those days.

“What’s the Value of the work for you?” I asked her.

Susan sighed before she answered. That was a tell-tale sign that she knew the work wouldn’t be using her team’s highest and best talent, or would be diverting them off their most productive work.

“Well, Mike’s someone I’ve known for years, and he’s known the work we do, and I don’t want to say ‘No!’

“And what’s the value of the work for your business?” I probed.

Our conversation went back and forth several times, as Susan talked her way through the value of pleasing Mike: so that he’d speak well of her in the community, so that he’d come back when he had more substantial work that needed doing, and so on.

“So it sounds to me like he’s a gnat.” I proposed. “He’s nice, but the work he’s asking you to do is going to use more time and more resources and you’ll deliver it at barely break even. You’re rationalizing doing the work as if it might produce good marketing for you. At the same time it’s diverting your staff’s attention from much larger and profitable clients’ work.”

Susan got wide-eyed, startled. Not ready to label anyone that way. And then she broke out laughing and admitted it’s the perfect description of the situation.

“So, what would an ideal High Payoff result be from doing the work with Mike?” I pondered out loud.

“Having him request profitable work that makes it worth our time, and leaves him feeling satisfied with the product we create for him.”

“And what is the ideal minimum work effort, in dollars, you’d want to take on? “

“Well, $5,000 but he doesn’t have that kind of money to spend.”

So Susan trapped herself trying to please Mike and mind reading what he would or wouldn’t invest in for his business’s success.

“In an ideal world, how might you describe the type of clients you’d want to be doing your work with? What specific packages of services, OR what monthly retainer fees for what level of hours, would you say your best clients fall in today?

She had never thought of it this way, yet with very little effort, Susan was able to describe 3 levels in her current clients.

The top tier has her company on $50,000 per year retainer agreements. Her second tier clients are a group who typically budget $15,000 to $35,000 for her services.

From several Tier 1 customers, Susan’s company makes as much as $25,000 more each with special projects during the year. The retainer relationship lets her project how much work there will be, and how many employees she needs throughout the year.

Susan’s third tier clients want 20 hours of her services per month. The work is typically interspersed with the larger clients’ work and keeps the workflow steady each month. And it’s as profitable as the rest of the work her team delivers.

We drew it all out on her conference room white board and invited her staff in to take a look at it. They loved it! They even recommended a couple of modifications to what services would best be offered to which tier of clients. They even gave each tier a name.

And then they listed six more examples of gnats they took on and now spend too much time hand holding, sighing when the clients call. They knew they shouldn’t have taken as clients in the first place and won’t in the future.

As a result of drawing it all out where she could see it, Susan had a new perspective on how to speak of her firm’s services when she’s at conferences and out networking, how to respond to inquiries and how to word her proposals.

We’re calling it her “Gnat Management System.”

Moreover, her GMS is so clear that she was able to craft a reply for Mike that isn’t saying “No.”

She’ll use it for year’s to come.

“Mike, I’d love to help you. Let me tell you about how we do business. We have 3 packages that we offer and I’d be delighted to talk with you about which package would work best for you.”

With the Gnat Management System we’ve put in place in her business, Susan and the rest of her team can focus on the work and the clients that really build their success.

March 16, 2008 | Filed Under Ideas, Managing | Leave a Comment 

THE HIGH PAYOFF RELATIONSHIP KEY FOR LEADERS

© 2008 Linda Feinholz

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!

March 10, 2008 | Filed Under Leadership, Managing | Leave a Comment 

ARE YOU MISSING OUT ON THE TRUE POWER OF TEAMS?

© 2008 Linda Feinholz.

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.

February 9, 2008 | Filed Under Leadership, Managing, Teams | Leave a Comment 

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