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#Leadership : 7 Reasons Why your #WorkMeetings are a Waste of Time — & How to Fix Them…There are a Few Small Fixes you can Make that will Transform your #Meetings from Breaded Blocks on your Schedule into Efficient Ways to Realign your Team.

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Team meetings can be massive wastes of time. Instead of taking a few moments to catch up and develop ideas, you and your colleagues proceed to either doze off or check email as someone drones on.

Free- Locks

The good news is there are a few small fixes you can make that will transform your meetings from dreaded blocks on your schedule into efficient ways to realign your team.

We asked Jessica Pryce-Jones, co-CEO of iOpener Institute and co-author of “Running Great Meetings & Workshops For Dummies,” to share her best advice.

After working with companies like American Express and Coca-Cola, she found common reasons why most meetings are wastes of time and how to fix them.

1. They have no purpose or structure.

Even a single daydreaming employee is a bad sign.

If your meetings are stretching on much longer than they should be, they likely lack a clear purpose. Before the meeting begins, tell your team what the main objective of getting together is, and determine how it will progress.

Pryce-Jones recommends saving the “meat” of the meeting for the middle, after everyone has focused on the task at hand but before their minds start drifting.

 

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2. The moderator is stretched too thin.

The person running the meeting may be trying to juggle too many things at once.

You can’t properly manage the meeting if you’re trying to do everything at once.

Pryce-Jones suggests having a “wingman” who is responsible for the little things, like bringing refreshments and making sure the projector is working, as well as ensuring the team sticks to the agenda. Ask them to let you know if you’re falling behind schedule or if the meeting is no longer constructive.

 

3. The moderator isn’t the best person to run all parts of it.

The moderator should know when to turn the meeting over.

If you know that a particular team member knows more about a topic of discussion than you do, let them lead that part of the meeting to keep things moving quickly. It keeps you from stumbling and keeps your team alert and ready to speak.

4. There are no ground rules for conduct.

Allow employees to say what they need to, without letting the meeting go off the rails.

Pryce-Jones says that frustration arises when employees hold back their feelings in meetings because they’re afraid of stepping on each other’s toes.

Avoid this frustration by establishing a code of conduct. Set a time limit on the meeting and consider allotting set portions of time each employee will speak. Ask the wingman to be responsible for letting the team members know if they are being too vague or verbose, and don’t let politeness interfere with getting things done.

“You’ve got to have a little bit of tension, because that’s where the real value is added,” Pryce-Jones says.

 

5. The meetings aren’t relevant to everyone in attendance.

Avoid “submeetings.”

If employees are constantly sneaking emails on their smartphones or tablets rather than writing down relevant notes, “that is a strong signal to me that the content of the meeting is not correct,” Pryce-Jones says.

Likewise, if you find that your meetings have become a series of “submeetings” in which you’re only fully engaging one or two employees at a time while everyone else checks their phone or daydreams, then you’re wasting time. Keep meetings relevant for everyone involved by utilizing other forms of communication that don’t require getting the team together, whether that be through one-on-one meetings or business group messaging services like Slack.

6. There are no followups.

Make sure the objectives you discussed get completed.

Communication is key to successful meetings, especially if you’re experimenting with finding the ideal format for your team. Keep track of your meetings, and don’t rely on just your own thoughts. If you tried a time limit, ask your employees if they felt that the meeting went more smoothly or got cut short. Get a sense of whether or not your team thinks the purpose you set out to achieve at the beginning was actually fulfilled. Be open to suggestions on how the meeting can be improved.

7. They’re getting stale.

Go out for coffee every now and then.

Regular meetings can become repetitive and boring and therefore not as productive. Sometimes all that’s required to bring energy and good ideas back to the table is a change of scenery, Pryce-Jones says. Try going to a nearby cafe or even a bar and treat your team to coffee or beer.

As always, ask your team if they enjoyed the change of pace. If they enjoyed it but didn’t find it constructive, try something else the next time. It’s never a complete waste of time, says Pryce-Jones, since “a bit of socializing is never going to hurt things.”

 

Businessinsider.com | December 19, 2015 | Richard Feloni

 

#Leadership : Top 10 Leadership Books of 2015…Hone your #Management Skills with the Latest & Greatest #Books on #Teams & Leadership.

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“Whenever I found myself pressing on, even though I’d pissed off my boss, his boss, my whole department or another department, I find myself thinking, ‘What is the worst that can happen? They will fire me.’ I had realized that I’d rather be fired then be a yes-man, and it’s been the single best thing for my career.”

 

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#Leadership : Hate #Meetings? 5 Ways to Stop Them From Being a Waste of Time…The Time you Actually Spend in Meetings Might Depend on How Much your #Boss (or you) Actually Likes Them.

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Meetings are infamously the bane of work life. As far as workplace drudgery goes, they’re right up there withchecking emails and mandatory fire drills. But no matter whether you work for a Fortune 500 company or one that’s just getting started, meetings are a necessary evil in order to run smoothly and have employees on the same page. If Google and Apple are still holding meetings, chances are your company will need to as well.

The time you actually spend in meetings might depend on how much your boss (or you) actually likes them. The Harvard Business Review found that one large company’s executive meeting led to 300,000 hours per year spent supporting it with smaller meetings (the higher-ups met with their divisional employees in order to be preparedfor their weekly executive get-together.) Overall, about 15% of a company’s collective time in spent in a meeting room somewhere. The Wall Street Journal reported that in a sample of 65 CEOs, about 32% of their logged hours were spent in meetings. It’s a small sample, but based on conventional wisdom doesn’t seem far-fetched.

Software creator Atlassian estimates that most employees will have an average of 62 meetings to attend per month, and many people consider at least half of that time to be wasted. While that might seem like a lot, meeting regularly can be a good thing. That’s because if employees are given enough time to have a back-and-forth discussion with the decision-makers, they have the chance to express their opinions on goals or new strategies for the company. “The plan often changes because of the team’s input. And consensus is neither assumed nor achieved with any regularity. In the end, though, everyone feels like they’ve said their bit, and they’re able to back up the decision because of this,” writes Kristine Kern, a consultant for workplace adviser The Table Group.

Whether you’re the executive who’s normally hosting the meetings or if you’re expected to be in charge of one once in a while, there are a few ways to make sure they go off without a hitch, and are actually productive at the same time. Here are five things to keep in mind.

 

1. Start on time

 

Yes, your mother’s wisdom about the importance of punctuality really does have a huge impact on setting the right tone for a meeting, right away. If they enter the meeting thinking about the other things they have to get done, and then you wait an extra 10 minutes until you begin, you’re signaling that their other projects aren’t as important as shooting the breeze waiting for the straggler or two to show up. Starting on time — and letting the latecomers realize they’ve inconvenienced the group — will encourage prompt attendance from everyone, writes BFG Communications founder Kevin Meany.

Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

If meetings are known to start on time, at every level of the company, you have fewer chances to derail other productivity throughout the day. “If you can start on time with the first meeting of the day (and respect the end time) you set a culture where the importance of people’s time is highly valued,” writes Entrepreneur contributorCraig Cincotta.

 Being punctual also helps you to end on time, as long as you’ve been careful to avoid tangents. This is crucial, because once the time slot for the meeting is over, employees will start to mentally check out whether or not you’ve made it through the agenda. “Their mind isn’t on the meeting at the end, so it’s not productive,” Peter Handal, former CEO and chairman of Dale Carnegie Training, told U.S. News & World Report.

 

2. Have a concise agenda

 

You need an agenda if you want a productive meeting, so everyone knows what’s about to be discussed. But how you handle the agenda-setting will likely depend on team dynamics and what you think will work best for that particular atmosphere.

 Another tactic is to enter the meeting without a pre-set agenda, but have the meeting members develop one based on what’s most important to them. Kern, from The Table Group, wrote in an article for Inc. that the agenda does need to be tightly focused around the general goals for the meeting — this isn’t the time to put tangents on an agenda. But the results can be empowering for the people who attend the meetings. “The meeting scriptdoesn’t result from a circulated email and it’s not based solely on the meeting leaders’ strategic priorities, and that is important. This is a powerful change, because it means that team members are discussing things that are important to them,” Kern explains.

3. Take good notes

 

Nothing can be more frustrating than spending 30 minutes in a decent meeting, only to realize a day later that no one recorded the details of what was actually discussed. Alexandra Samuel, author of Work Smarter with Social Media, suggests using a collaborative tool like Google Docs. That way, when one person is talking and sharing ideas, another person can be recording what’s said. This is also a way to draw more people into the meeting, as they can share ideas and get them down on paper immediately. Applications like Evernote also allow for searchable functions and provides an easy way to keep track of archived meeting minutes, Samuel writes.

While you’re taking those notes, it’s wise to also keep track of who is taking responsibility for which tasks. Steve Jobs became famous for this, including a “directly responsible individual,” or DRI, next to every task or agenda item. That way, people can be working on a project but know exactly who is responsible for seeing it through to completion. It’s a quick way to streamline questions, follow-ups, and also who will likely update their superiors on progress that’s made.

4. Use technology as an asset

 

We’re now squarely in the digital age, so technology should begin to be used to our advantage in meetings, not ignored in favor of another Powerpoint presentation. If you’re conducting meetings remotely or have clients who aren’t coming in to your office, Samuel suggests using a screen-sharing app to quickly show drafts or brainstorm topics. Of the several platforms she’s used, Samuel recommends Join.me for quick and reliable sharing.

Also, have an extra screen like a spare iPad or other device ready to display reference material. That way, you won’t have to divert your main screen from taking notes or your prepared presentation, but everyone can still see multiple sets of information relevant to the conversation. If you’re on a conference call, Samuel suggests setting up a backchannel before the call in-house, so that you as a team can stay on the same page during the meeting.

In addition to these things, start basing decisions and conversations around data when possible, not personal preferences. Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!, approaches design pitches from a scientific viewpoint whenever possible. Carmine Gallo wrote in a piece for Bloomberg Businessweek that Mayer discourages “I like” statements and instead looks for statements backed up by performance measures and metrics. Instead of “I like the way the screen looks,” Mayer expects statements like, “The experimentation on the site shows that his design performed 10% better.” Mayer was still working for Google when the Businessweek article was written, but it’s pretty safe to assume the same logic is happening in Yahoo!’s meetings.

5. Leave with action steps

 

If employees leave knowing where everyone is going to lunch but not what’s happening for your marketing strategy, your meeting has failed. Figure out who is responsible for heading up certain tasks, and come up with measurable ways to track progress. “The worst thing that can happen is nobody follows up and then you have another meeting to talk about what you already discussed,” Cincotta writes.

For the steps that will need to be carried out with other employees, establish a framework for how it will be explained to colleagues or direct reports. “It’s important that everyone is on the same page about what you will and what you won’t say outside the meeting. Not everything will be ready for prime time, and that’s OK, so long as everyone finds out information within the same time frame,” Kern at The Table Group writes.

One last word about wrapping up a meeting: don’t let people get away with stewing in the corner, just waiting to leave the meeting to tell everyone else about the bad brainstorm ideas. “Nothing is more deadly than silent disagreement that quickly results in a totally dysfunctional meeting after the meeting in which ‘real’ opinions are shared behind closed doors,” Kern explains. If you’re leading the meeting and believe someone strongly disagrees but isn’t speaking up, encourage them to do so or follow up with them immediately after. Disagreements are natural, but should be resolved before it feels like the entire meeting was undermined by a complaint afterward.
CheatSheet.com | October 27, 2015 | 

#Leadership : A Retired Navy SEAL Commander Explains 12 Traits Effective #Leaders Must Have…Just as Discipline & Freedom are Opposing Forces that Must be Balanced, Leadership Requires Finding the Equilibrium in the Dichotomy of Many Seemingly Contradictory Qualities Between One Extreme & Another.

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Jocko Willink is the retired commander of the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War: US Navy SEAL Team Three Task Unit Bruiser, which served in the 2006 Battle of Ramadi.

 

Retired Navy SEAL Task Unit Bruiser commander Jocko Willink.

In his new book “Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win,” co-written with his former platoon commander Leif Babin, he and Babin explain the lessons learned in combat that they’ve taught to corporate clients for the past four years in their leadership consultancy firm Echelon Front.

During his 20 years as a SEAL, Willink writes that he realized that, “Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.” By being aware of these seeming contradictions, a leader can “more easily balance the opposing forces and lead with maximum effectiveness.”

Here are the 12 main dichotomies of leadership Willink identifies as traits every effective leader should have.

‘A leader must lead but also be ready to follow.’

Willink says a common misconception the public has about the military is that subordinates mindlessly follow every order they’re given. In certain situations, subordinates may have access to information their superiors don’t, or have an insight that would result in a more effective plan than the one their boss proposed.

“Good leaders must welcome this, putting aside ego and personal agendas to ensure that the team has the greatest chance of accomplishing its strategic goals,” Willink writes.

‘A leader must be aggressive but not overbearing.’

'A leader must be aggressive but not overbearing.'

Echelon Front

Leif Babin and Willink when they were deployed in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006.

As a SEAL officer, Willink needed to be aggressive (“Some may even accuse me of hyperagression,” he says) but he differentiated being a powerful presence to his SEAL team from being an intimidating figure.

He writes that, “I did my utmost to ensure that everyone below me in the chain of command felt comfortable approaching me with concerns, ideas, thoughts, and even disagreements.”

“That being said,” he adds, “my subordinates also knew that if they wanted to complain about the hard work and relentless push to accomplish the mission I expected of them, they best take those thoughts elsewhere.”

‘A leader must be calm but not robotic.’

Willink says that while leaders who lose their tempers lose respect, they also can’t establish a relationship with their team if they never expression anger, sadness, or frustration.

“People do not follow robots,” he writes.

‘A leader must be confident but never cocky.’

Leaders should behave with confidence and instill it in their team members.

“But when it goes too far, overconfidence causes complacency and arrogance, which ultimately set the team up for failure,” Willink writes.

‘A leader must be brave but not foolhardy.’

'A leader must be brave but not foolhardy.'

Courtesy of Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Task Unit Bruiser SEALs look up at an Apache flying overhead Ramadi in 2006.

Whoever’s in charge can’t waste time excessively contemplating a scenario without making a decision. But when it’s time to make that decision, all risk must be as mitigated as possible.

Willink and Babin both write about situations in Ramadi in which delaying an attack until every detail about a target was clarified, even when it frustrated other units they were working with, resulted in avoiding tragic friendly fire.

‘A leader must have a competitive spirit but also be a gracious loser.’

“They must drive competition and push themselves and their teams to perform at the highest level,” Willink writes. “But they must never put their own drive for personal success ahead of overall mission success for the greater team.”

This means that when something does not go according to plan, leaders must set aside their egos and take ownership of the failure before moving forward.

‘A leader must be attentive to details but not obsessed with them.’

The most effective leaders learn how to quickly determine which of their team’s tasks need to be monitored in order for them to progress smoothly, “but cannot get sucked into the details and lose track of the bigger picture,” Willink writes.

‘A leader must be strong but likewise have endurance, not only physically but mentally.’

'A leader must be strong but likewise have endurance, not only physically but mentally.'

Courtesy of Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Navy SEALs on a roof overlook in Ramadi in 2006. (Faces have been blurred to protect identities.)

Leaders need to push themselves and their teams while also recognizing their limits, in order to achieve a suitable pace and avoid burnout.

‘A leader must be humble but not passive; quiet but not silent.’

The best leaders keep their egos in check and their minds open to others, and admit when they’re wrong.

“But a leader must be able to speak up when it matters,” Willink writes. “They must be able to stand up for the team and respectfully push back against a decision, order, or direction that could negatively impact overall mission success.”

‘A leader must be close with subordinates but not too close.’

“The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people — their lives and their families,” Willink writes. “But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.”

“Leaders must never get so close that the team forgets who is in charge.”

‘A leader must exercise Extreme Ownership. Simultaneously, that leader must employ Decentralized Command.’

“Extreme Ownership” is the fundamental concept of Willink and Babin’s leadership philosophy. It means that for any team or organization, “all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader,” Willink writes. Even when leaders are not directly responsible for all outcomes, it was their method of communication and guidance, or lack thereof, that led to the results.

That doesn’t mean, however, that leaders should micromanage. It’s why the concept of decentralized command that Willink and Babin used in the battlefield, in which they trusted that their junior officers were able to handle certain tasks without being monitored, translates so well to the business world.

‘A leader has nothing to prove but everything to prove.’

“Since the team understands that the leader is de facto in charge, in that respect, a leader has nothing to prove,” Willink writes. “But in another respect, a leader has everything to prove: Every member of the team must develop the trust and confidence that their leader will exercise good judgment, remain calm, and make the right decisions when it matters most.”

And the only way that can be achieved is through leading by example every day.

Businessinsider.com | October 22, 2015  |  

#Leadership : The Change Habitat – 70% Percent Of Change Managers Are Wrong…Top Managers Should Lead Only One Big Change Program: The Creation of a Change Habitat. 70% of All Change Initiatives Fail

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There Seems to be a Veiled Arrogance in the Statement “70% of Change Initiatives Fail”. It basically says, “We know what workers should be doing, but most of them are either too stubborn or too ignorant to do it.” This know-it-all attitude to change programs has generated mountains of books and herds of change consultants advising top managers to create a sense of urgency, walk the talk,get employees involved, form a team of change champions, celebrate short-term wins, and communicate, communicate, communicate!

 

You’ve probably seen this statistic before. It has been repeated again and again by reputable sources such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, IBM and McKinsey. And even though more than one expert has claimed that the statistic is wrong, it is a fact that change programs have a bad name among workers, and one of the biggest frustrations of top managers is that people resist all change.

But what if the change managers themselves are failing?

The problem lies in beliefs about who is responsible for launching change and how change is implemented.

– Gary Hamel

 

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Your Business Is Like a City

I frequently claim that organizations are similar to cities. Instead of a geographical boundary, businesses have an economic boundary. But most of what people do in businesses–they way they collaborate and compete and they way they lead and follow–can be compared to how people manage themselves in cities.

 Have you ever seen a local TV station complain that 70% of citizens fail to watch their programs?  Would it bother you to know that 70% of business ideas fail to get paying customers? How would you rate a politician bemoaning the fact that 70% of voters fail to vote for him?

There seems to be a veiled arrogance in the statement “70% of change initiatives fail”. It basically says, “We know what workers should be doing, but most of them are either too stubborn or too ignorant to do it.” This know-it-all attitude to change programs has generated mountains of books and herds of change consultants advising top managers to create a sense of urgency, walk the talk,get employees involved, form a team of change champions, celebrate short-term wins, and communicate, communicate, communicate!

When you see the organization as a modern city, instead of a traditional army, change becomes a very different phenomenon. No marketer, politician, or entrepreneur would blame the public for 70% of ideas not catching on.  The people’s resistance to change is what others would call the manager’s failure to make a difference.

Fortunately, you can address this issue.

Create a Habitat of Change

What’s needed is a real-time, socially constructed approach to change, so that the leader’s job isn’t to design a change program but to build a change platform—one that allows anyone to initiate change, recruit confederates, suggest solutions, and launch experiments.”

– Gary Hamel

What Gary Hamel refers to as a change platform–which is a rather technical term–could better be called a change habitat.

Habitat /ˈhabɪtat/

The natural environment in which a species or group lives; the natural home of an organism; the environment one is accustomed to living in.

Managers should lead only one big change program: the creation of a change habitat.

A change habitat is an environment in which change is natural. It is the home for people who feel comfortable suggesting, introducing and implementing changes. It is an ever-changing environment that workers are accustomed to living in. Such a change habitat has at least five preconditions:

  • A higher purpose toward which people can self-manage;
  • The autonomy for workers to do what they believe is best;
  • Sufficient connectivity which enables sharing ideas in a network;
  • Ample transparency for everyone to know what is going on;
  • A feeling of safety that allows people to experiment and fail.

When you have these in place, there is little need to roll out change initiatives as a manager, to get people involved and to communicate, communicate, communicate. In all but a few cases, it is not even your job to create a sense of urgency or to celebrate short-term wins. The major of a city doesn’t do that, so why would you?

Your job as a manager is to create a habitat that is optimized for adaptation, exploration, and innovation.  Forming teams of champions for every change of direction is a waste of your time! Allow your creative workers to do this themselves. If you don’t think they’re smart enough, then why did you hire them in the first place?

Will you care that 70% of the change initiatives of your workers are going to fail? You shouldn’t. In fact, informal investors would tell you this statistic is a rather impressive number. They are used to 90% of their startups failing. The world of business has become too unpredictable to plan and roll out top-down change initiatives. Top-down change is too slow and too risky.  By offering your employees a change habitat, you let the crowd do its job for you. Maybe 70% of those changes will fail, but–by offering purpose, autonomy, connectivity, transparency and safety–it is you will likely succeed.

Forbes.com | September 22, 2015 | Jurgen Appelo

 

 

#Leadership : The Pernicious Myth of the 80-20 Rule…While it’s Easy to See Why Managers Still Believe That 20% of a Company’s Workforce does 80% of the Work, the 80-20 Rule is a Corrosive Myth that Often Does More Harm Than Good.

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Management Consultants Insist that a 20% Vital Few really Matter in Companies, a Large Middle Just do their Jobs, & Another 10%  or 20% Should be Encouraged to Leave or Be Fired.

 

Back in the late 19th century, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80 percent of the land was owned by 20 percent of the people. In the 1940s management consultant Joseph Juran argued that the 80-20 rule applied to management in general, concluding that there were the “vital few and the trivial many.” That seemed a bit harsh, so he later revised it to the “vital few and the useful many.”

The principle seems to be having a revival these days. Management consultants insist that a 20 percent vital few really matter in companies, a large middle just do their jobs, and another 10 percent or 20 percent should be encouraged to leave or be fired. Recent data from Mercer Consulting shows that employers are now focusing most of their bonuses on just a small number of people, while about 30 percent of companies that had broad-based equity plans have dropped them to focus on “the people who really matter.” So the new corporate mantra, I suppose, is that “20 percent of our people are our most important asset.”

This rule never made much sense to me. After all, if we focus rewards on the 20 percent, the other 80 percent would be most unhappy. Of course, that might demotivate them enough to make the 80-20 rule actually work. That is especially true because surveys consistently show that about 70 percent of employees believe they are in the top 10 percent of performers (admit it, you think you are, right?).

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It is easy to see why people are attracted to the 80-20 rule for management. First, everyone who writes and reads about it, I’d wager, believes they are in the 20 percent. Second, it justifies maximizing the rewards that go to the top. Third, if you treat people as if they don’t matter that much, you may well end up with an organization where they don’t. So your brilliance in following the 80-20 rules is self-fulfilling. In fact, why not take the 80-20 rule a little farther? If 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the people, then shouldn’t 80 percent of the results from the top 20 percent of the company come from 4 percent? And 80 percent of what the 4 percent produce from 0.8 percent? After all, this is a rule.

Curious about this, I spent an hour Googling for research on it in anything related to human resource management that prove the 80-20 rule. There may be something out there, but I couldn’t find it. Of the hundreds of links I did find, all but a handful just accepted the rule as some kind of unrepealable law of nature.

The 80-20 rule is corrosive. It deters management from finding ways to get as many people as possible in an organization to contribute ideas, information, and effort that help the company move forward. It creates too much competition between people for scarce rewards, thus discouraging teamwork. And while it is certainly true that people make unequal contributions to organizational success, to assume this follows an arbitrary division of any kind is lazy and ineffective. So I am herewith creating the Rosen rule. If in your organization 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the people, your organization is very badly mismanaged.

That’s how Doug Smith of Lumber Traders, an ESOP-owned company in Port Angeles, Washington sees it. He told us that “the establishment of the 80/20 rule is a benchmark of bad management. Our society always looks to the dark side, self-interest and fear. No wonder so many people are only looking out for themselves. We take a different approach. Yes we do have some percentage of ‘vital few’, and we do have pockets of perfection, but our overriding goal is to identify these resources and to propagate them.” Smith’s concept is that these star performers should be focusing their efforts not on distinguishing themselves from everyone else, but working to bring the other 80 percent up to their level.”

Great business leaders are humble. That humility is what makes I possible for people around them to be confident they can express ideas and disagree. Rather than trying to rely on the ideas and energy of just a small percentage of their workforce, they seek to engage everyone and put them all in the top 20 percent.

PUBLISHED ON: SEP 7, 2015
BY COREY ROSEN

Founder, National Center for Employee Ownership

#Leadership : The Daily Habits of 19 High-Achieving CEOs …Success in Business & Life is All about Being Intentional About How you Use your Time.

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Think about the Most Successful People you Know. Chances are they Didn’t get Where they Are Because of a Lucky Break, but rather possess characteristics or a state of mind that sets them apart from people leading average lives.

 

Check out these quotes from 19 successful CEOs who credit simple daily habits for helping them get ahead in business and life.

1. Take a few 30-minute breaks to walk around the whole company and talk to people.

“Often I’ll overhear a problem that I didn’t know about that we’ll need to solve some day. And while [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][it may be] a bit nerve-racking to have the CEO running around asking questions at first, [you’re more] approachable over the longer-term as long as you don’t over-react.”

–Suhail Doshi, CEO of Mixpanel, an analytics platform for mobile and web that tracks 50 billion actions people take in applications per month to help companies gain insights into user activity.

2. Talk to at least one customer.

“I try to never let a day go by where I don’t speak with at least one of our current customers. No one is better equipped to let us know where our services are succeeding and failing, and where we can improve. This is also why we have a client success team, but hearing it directly from the horse’s mouth can provide greater context.”

–Michael Ortner, CEO of Capterra, a web service that has helped companies such as Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Home Depot find and purchase business software.

 

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3. Limit meetings.

“I never have more than five meetings in the average day and usually only two or three. The reason is I believe you can create a daily work life where you are too busy to grow. I spend much of the day just thinking about the business–the product offering, the sales and marketing strategy, the industry. Taking time to think about your business gives you the best chance of growing [it].”

–Matt Godard, CEO of R2Integrated, one of the largest independent marketing agencies in the country.

4. Don’t leave things for later.

“We tend to save the more complicated tasks for later, but that’s an efficiency killer. Solve things right away. This goes for emails too. Email still is the most used tool and by far preferable to phone calls. It has, however, the most undeveloped functions. Try to use the basic set of filters and sorting on your next batch of emails. It helps.”

–Serban Enache, CEO of global stock photo site Dreamstime.com.

5. Run to work and back.

“I bookend my day with exercise by jogging to the office and back. It’s a great way to clear your mind and get the creative juices flowing. Naturally you need a shower at work to pull this off and a reasonably short commute. It means exercise is built into each day, and it beats sitting in a car or a bus. Plus, audiobooks!”

–Jay Simons, president of software company Atlassian, which offers team collaboration products including JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket, and HipChat, which are collectively used by more than 48,000 companies worldwide.

6. Wake up an hour early and stay up an hour late.

“I find that I have the most time for myself to think during the hours of the early morning as well as late at night. During the early morning, I often think about the priorities for the day ahead and what communications to the team I must relay in order to ensure everyone continues to be fully aligned and on the same page. Then, at night, as everyone else goes to sleep and the distractions of email and phone calls dissipate, I allow my mind the freedom to be fully creative and think bigger picture, exploring our organization’s vision for the future and the overarching path we will take to get there.”

–Tiffany Pham, founder and CEO of MOGUL, an award-winning technology platform for women.

7. Be willing to meet with anyone at any time.

“I meet with people–usually via phone and computer–at all times of the day and night. [It might be] 5 in the morning for meetings in India or Sunday night for meetings in Singapore. I find that without doubt the harder I work and the more flexible I am about meeting someone’s schedule, the more people I reach and the luckier I get.”

–Eric Frankel, founder and CEO of AdGreetz, a cloud-based SaaS platform that empowers brands such as Intel, NBC, and Toyota to deploy relevant, personalized video messages.

8. Work your to-do list.

“In the morning or the night before, I write down a to-do list, a sort of priority of what I intend to accomplish that day. As the day progresses I scratch off items completed and open room for others. I find this helps me keep focused on the most important goals and not lose sight of what I primarily intended to accomplish that day.”

–Payman Taei, CEO and founder of Visme, a DIY online tool that has empowered over 200,000 businesses and nonprofits create better presentations and infographics. He is also the founder of HindSite Interactive, an award-winning web agency that helps companies improve their online presence.

9. Work out hard every day.

“I’m driven when it comes to sports and fitness. I have a regular 5 a.m. workout consisting of Insanity, Asylum and a five-mile run regardless of where I am in the world and the time zone. Since so much of my job is unpredictable, the workout helps keep my mind and body fresh and at least I have a predictable start to my day.”

–Don Joos, CEO of global telecommunications company ShoreTel.

10. Be a servant.

“Once you get to any reasonable size, the team is running the company. Your job is to be a servant–to make sure people have the resources to do the job, to eliminate friction, and to drive the strategy that sets everyone up to succeed.”

–Greg Schott, CEO of MuleSoft, a software company valued at $1.5 billion.

11. Don’t be afraid of failure.

“The biggest mistake any leader can make is to avoid taking risks because they are afraid of failing. It’s best to fail fast, quickly learn and re-do versus wasting years in trying to perfect and losing a key opportunity. And, sharing the failures with your team is even more important as you build a culture that fosters out-of-the-box thinking without obsessing about the worst-case scenarios.”

–Faizan Buzdar, CEO of Convo, an enterprise-mobile messaging and collaboration platform used by 15,000 businesses and 25 percent of the Fortune 500 companies.

12. Leverage all of your staff.

“Understand that you and your sales personnel don’t necessarily have all the knowledge in the world. Constantly ask the company staff and external advisers, ‘How else can we be bringing value to prospective customers?’ There are always new clients and revenue models that can be explored and a holistic approach to BI and BD can provide substantial results.”

–Joel Zamel, CEO and founder of Wikistrat, which operates a global network of more than 2,000 subject-matter experts specializing in national security and geopolitics, operating on a virtual platform to conduct wargaming simulations and data modeling for enterprise clients.

13. Be a collector.

“I have always had a love for one-of-a-kind collectible action figures. It’s a great passion of mine. Maybe it’s something I do subconsciously to connect to my inner kid. It’s a great reminder to maintain a degree of levity and balance.”

–Moshe Hogeg, founder and CEO of Mobli Media, a technology company that creates products leveraging crowd-based activities that benefit people through content sharing and social media.

14. Exercise during your break.

“Science has told us countless times that sitting at a desk all day will doom our bodies to eternal suffering and not only will getting up and moving around during the day significantly lessen the damage, it also boosts productivity. Instead of simply taking my lunch break to eat food in another chair, I make sure to duck out at least three times a week to get my limbs stretched and my blood pumping. My personal favorites for this are a 45-minute spin class or cross-fit training.”

–Shaul Olmert, CEO and co-founder of Playbuzz, a free online content platform that enables publishers, marketers, bloggers, and brands to create, distribute, and embed quizzes, polls, lists, and other content on websites, social pages, or mobile apps.

15. Have pointless conversations.

“Especially when it comes to the fast-moving tech industry, it’s easy to fall into a trap where urgency takes over and every conversation, interaction, or meeting has to fulfill a particular purpose. While staying focused and effective is important, I’ve found it’s equally important to take the time to have pointless or no-action-item conversations with people about how they are doing and what’s going on in their lives. This is key in building a strong bond with the people in your company, but equally important, it allows you to learn more about the people you’re working with, and knowing what makes them tick will make you a more successful manager.”

–Tomer Bar-Zeev, co-founder and CEO of ironSource, a global technology company that helps developers connect with users across devices and platforms.

16. Cross things off the to do list, but don’t delete them.

“I was keeping a Google doc and just deleting things of the to-do list. However, it was difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment, especially on days when the list actually grew longer. I find that when you cross items off the list, and don’t delete them until the end of the day, that you see the progress and feel the satisfaction of moving forward.”

–Eric Narcisco, founder of Effective Coverage, a national online renter’s insurance site that recently launched a mobile platform for buying renters insurance via a partnership with Traveler’s.

17. Meditate every morning.

“I begin each morning with an hour of deep meditation. I’ve learned to remain calm when the world strikes a stressful blow, which happens frequently as a businessowner. It’s amazing how much easier it is to lead a ship through stormy seas when the captain is calm and confident. I can’t imagine my life or running a business without meditation.”

–Jeremy Hallett, CEO of online term life insurance company Quotacy.

18. Go out for coffee several times a week.

“I don’t even like coffee but it’s a great excuse to go out and meet people I can learn from, and hopefully, who I can then help in return. My network is the most important asset I have, but I have to work it by getting out of the office and meeting people. It’s how I raised $1.2 million in funding and met some of our big-name clients.”

–Kristi Zuhlke, co-founder and CEO of KnowledgeHound, a market research data retrieval and visualization technology that serves large consumer brands like Pepsi and Procter & Gamble.

19. Listen to podcasts.

“Every night I listen to podcasts that feature ideas on entrepreneurship, interviews with successful founders, or industry news. I’m a huge believer in lifelong learning, and I find these podcasts to be incredibly helpful in sparking new ideas, inspiring me to improve, and learning from the mistakes of others.” (His favorite: The Startup Podcast.)

–Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of online IT recruiter Hired.

What daily habits help you succeed in business and life?

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
PUBLISHED ON: SEP 2, 2015

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#Leadership : How To Be A #Boss: 7 Tips For Hiring — And Firing — A Friend…The Really Hard Part was, & Has, Been Deciding Whether or Not to Hire Friends at All.

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There are Still some Rules-of-Thumb for Managers/Founders Who are Considering Hiring Folks they Have a Relationship With.

When I first became a boss, one really tough thing was supervising my former co-workers and friends.  Kind of makes sense – right? You have to be a jerk sometimes and your erstwhile pals don’t take kindly to it. The bad: I lost a lot of party invitations. The good: the pay was better.

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It's important to realize that you don't actually need to like an employee's personality.

Whether to Hire a Friend or Not ?

But the really hard part was, and has, been deciding whether or not to hire friends at all. A lot of managers/entrepreneurs, for instance, do this during the startup phase. I did it at larger organizations, but still…it wasn’t a great when things went wrong. (Even when things didn’t go wrong,  you were always worried that things would go wrong – and how it would reflect on you.)

You don’t quite have that problem – you run the whole business after-all. But there are still some rules-of-thumb for managers/founders who are considering hiring folks they have a relationship with.

1. If you have to hire a friend, only Hire “A” players. That means folks at the top of their game. Yeah, I know. You do that all the time. But you tend to cut your friends some slack. That’s life. But it only creates a lot of problems. Your better employees resent cleaning up after your talentless buddies – and may look elsewhere for work. Customers will be annoyed. Even if the “A” player is a jerk, at least he or she is a talented jerk.

 

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2. Don’t Supervise Friends. If your “A” friend really has the chops, let your co- founder or a trusted employee run them. It isn’t always convenient, but it gets pretty uncomfortable directly supervising friends. And someone will always think you’re cutting them slack or paying them more or both.

3. Keep Your Door Open. I hired a friend to help me run a small magazine. He eventually left. When he did, a stream of folks came into my office to describe unspeakable stories of management malfeasance. I asked: “Why didn’t you tell me?” They replied, all of them: “Because he was your friend.” Jeez. The solution? Make sure all your employees know they can come to you if they have a problem.

4. Avoid the “Favor Syndrome.” Here’s how it goes. A friend will call you asking if you could give their friend, who “is really good,” some work. I have to tell you: This never, ever turns out well. If someone is calling you, that means their pal has been having trouble finding work. And you know what that means? More often than not often, that means they’re not very good.

5. Test Drives: See the “favor syndrome.” It doesn’t hurt to dole out a tryout assignment. If it doesn’t work, you may have to ghost your friend for a while. But it’s a lot better than friend-divorce. And speaking of which….

6. No Hard Feelings. I love this one. You tell your friend they have to agree that that the working relationship might not end well. And if it doesn’t, they have to leave and still like you. Well, it won’t work out just that way. But talking about it upfront helps.

7. Fire Fast. Yup, fire your friend if things aren’t working out. If you let problems linger, you’ll look bad to your co-founders, your employees, and your customers. You’ll lose your friend in the process, but so be it.

Your business, you know, is your only real friend.

Forbes.com | August 11, 2015 | Hank Gilman 

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#Leadership : You Have 15 Minutes To Respond To A Crisis: A Checklist of Do’s & Don’ts…When a Crisis Hits, How you Respond in the First 15 Minutes can Make or Break your Organization – & your Reputation.

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If you Can Do the First 15 Minutes of a Crisis Right, you Are on Your Way to Finding Solutions, Fixing the Problems, & Repairing & Recovering From the Damage. Do them Wrong, & you will be Dealing with Damage Control not Only for the Crisis, but for Your Early Mistakes, for a Long, Long Time to Come.

Directions Man

 

While we all know that crisis management training is critical for leaders and boards today, much of it still tends to be shopworn, focusing on the lessons of yesterday. The new climate of ultra urgency is rarely emphasized sufficiently.

Yet I have found that in those first 15 minutes of a crisis your response must be exactly the right message, delivered in exactly the right words, to the right audiences, in just the right way – or you will have to deal with your mistakes for days, weeks, even months to come.

Immediate response and indelible accountability – that’s a tall order for any leader.

Yesterday We Had The Luxury of Time

It used to be standard to have until the end of day to get back to a press or customer inquiry about most crises. Even if the call was from a television network or local station, you could put off any interview until mid-afternoon. Then you might be able to respond by phone, or in a well-choreographed interview, in front of a backdrop of your choosing, to be aired on the nightly news.

Even in the iconic Tylenol crisis case – still considered by corporate execs as a best practice in crisis management – it took the company three days to decide to remove all bottles of Tylenol from store shelves, after several people were killed by taking cyanide-laced capsules from unsealed bottles. And that was deemed fast work.

Today Immediacy Is Key

When news is transmitted around the globe in a nanosecond over social media, featuring real-time pictures and videos, there is little to no time to position, posture, or even understand the facts before you are pressed to make a statement.

Because, if you do not speak for yourself quickly, or if you do so poorly, someone else – antagonist, police, government, competitor, or anonymous hater – will speak for you. And in the world of public perception, the first mover has the advantage.

 

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What Is A Leader To Do?

Clearly the first 15 minutes after you learn of a crisis are just the beginning of what could be a very long haul. Lawyers whisper in one ear,  “Say nothing, make no comment until we evaluate all the facts, and our liability.” Crisis managers like me urge swift action, to get out ahead of the problem, or at least keep apace. And at the same time, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Reddit feeds are lighting up second-by-second with photos, interviews, information and misinformation you have never seen before.

The “First 15 Minutes” Crisis Management Checklist

The critical element turns out to be how to fit a day’s worth of activity into 15 minutes.

Following is my list for leaders of “Do’s” and “Don’ts” in the first 15 minutes of any crisis – be it predictable or black swan – from the minute you hear about a problem to the moment you make your first statement. It does not cover the crisis preparedness work you should have already done (that’s another list), nor the entire arc of crisis activities you will be engaged in starting from the 16th minute until resolution and recovery. But it’s a place for leaders to start when crisis hits:

Crisis Management Checklist

DO:

  • Resolve to become the trusted voice in this crisis – the person and organization that people turn to for the truth and solutions.
  • Stop whatever you are doing and calmly, but immediately, turn your full attention to the matter at hand. This may seem obvious, but it is surprising how many leaders cannot disengage from what they were doing when a crisis hits.
  • Pull the trigger on your crisis plan if you have one (these steps should all be in that plan, of course).
  • Alert your crisis team (assuming you have already designated one, and if not, your management team) immediately, and assemble them in person or virtually in an hour.
  • Assess what you must do yourself and what you can delegate in the specific situation. Begin to delegate with urgency.
  • Immediately designate trusted lieutenants to find out the facts – their first reports to be made in seven minutes.
  • Designate another trusted lieutenant to connect with law enforcement, or other critical parties involved in the situation.
  • Monitor in real-time what is being said on social and traditional media – sometimes Twitter tells you more in real-time than any other source. You need to know what is out there already so you can begin to set the record straight.
  • Try to understand the scope of the issue as you know it and the critical decisions that must be made immediately.
  • Draft an initial “holding statement” with the help of your head of communications, crisis manager, and/or legal counsel. This is a statement you can issue immediately. It should state what, if anything, you believe you know, with the caveat that these are early impressions that may not be totally correct. Reinforce that you are committed to finding out as much as you can immediately, and that you will stay in touch with your audiences continually, as you know more.
  • Think through every word: under stress you can say the wrong thing, your words may be misinterpreted, or you can say too little or too much.
    Depending upon the magnitude and kind of crisis, issue your holding statement to waiting print and broadcast media, over the wire, by email, and post it on your website, intranet, and social media feeds, etc.
  • Match your communications to the issue: seek to neither under- nor over-communicate.
  • Show humanity, compassion, and concern for any human toll – and mean it. Make people your first priority.
  • Make sure to correct any errors of fact that are already public. Try not to speak personally to the media or hold a press conference immediately. Get some solid facts before you do.
  • Contact your employees, board, shareholders, and other key audiences at the same time – or just before you communicate to the media – sharing with them your public statements.
    If appropriate, video a quick personal statement from the CEO or other leader that is steady, strong, compassionate, and solution-driven. It can go on your intranet, emergency communications system, and even your website.
  • Resolve to follow up on everything you have promised to do; revise your estimates as you get more knowledge.
  • Begin the process of triage, discovery, communication, solution, accountability, and recovery.

DON’T

  • Don’t lie – your first words will be long remembered, as will be your tone and intent. Scrutiny is at a peak in the first moments of a crisis, and your comments may go viral – among your employees, shareholders and regulators, as well as over social media.
  • Don’t disappear. As tempting as it might be to go underground until the storm passes, your voice, presence, and guidance are needed, especially by your workforce.
  • Don’t issue a denial until you have all the facts. If you issue a denial and are then proven to be wrong, your credibility is shot for the duration.
  • Don’t minimize the situation. Things tend to look more contained at the outset of a crisis than they do as it unfolds. Minimizing may feel like the right strategy initially, but it is not. Rather, say “We do not yet know the magnitude of the problem, but are working furiously to find out.”
  • Do NOT make a joke. You must be serious and respectful as a crisis unfolds. One of the biggest signs of respect you can give someone is to pay attention to their claims, upfront, even if they are later disproved.
  • Do not say “We are taking the matter seriously,” even though you are. No one believes this reflexive statement. In fact, it has come to mean the exact opposite. Figure out another way to phrase the sentiment.
  • Don’t repeat the problem or accusation when delivering your statement – make the statement proactive and put it in positive, but not Pollyanna-like language.
  • Don’t let your fears of liability trump your humanity. Compassion and kindness are critical.
  • Don’t speculate until you fully understand the situation.
  • Don’t get drawn into interminable series of internal meetings and think you are making progress when you are not – focus both inwardly and outwardly, simultaneously.

To Sum Up

If you can do the first 15 minutes of a crisis right, you are on your way to finding solutions, fixing the problems, and repairing and recovering from the damage. Do them wrong, and you will be dealing with damage control not only for the crisis, but for your early mistakes, for a long, long time to come.

 

Leadership & crisis expert Davia Temin, CEO of Temin & Co, helps create, enhance & save reputations at board & executive levels & coaches CEOs & leaders. Twitter: @DaviaTemin

Forbes.com | August 6, 2015 | Davia Temin

#Leadership : People Leave Managers, Not Companies…People say Many Things about #Managers. But There’s One Thing I’m Willing to Bet you Never Hear. You Never Hear People say #Management is an Easy Job.

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“Here’s Something they’ll probably Never Teach you in Business School,”  “The Single Biggest Decision you Make in your Job—  bigger than all the  rest—  is Who you Name Manager. When you name the Wrong Person Manager, Nothing Fixes that Bad Decision. Not Compensation, not Benefits—  Nothing.”   – Gallup CEO Jim Clifton in the summary accompanying his organization’s 2013 “State of the American Workplace” Study

People say Many Things about Managers:  1- He’s too demanding. She’s too intense. 2- He’s a great motivator. Her team really likes working for her. 3- You can count on him. She gets things done. 4- He’s a terrific leader. She’s a real strategic thinker.  5- He doesn’t know what he’s doing. She doesn’t have a clue.

Develop an Effective Knowledge Transfer System

But There’s One Thing I’m Willing to Bet you Never Hear. You Never hear people say Management is an Easy Job.

After I retired from management in 2012, I wanted to step back and gain some perspective on what I’d been doing for the last quarter century. As I began to spend time with different organizations’  management and employee studies, trying to get a broader sense of the common issues managers were grappling with and how they compared with my own experiences, one inescapable truth struck me: Vast numbers of employees are disengaged. By “disengaged,” I mean not emotionally committed to the organizations they work for, and therefore in all likelihood not highly motivated and fully productive.

There are subtle differences in how different studies define  “employee engagement,” but the commonalities among the various studies are far more important than the differences. No matter how you slice the data, in the big picture somewhere around 60 or 70 percent of employees are simply not working—  say it  straight—  as hard as they could be. Let’s take some examples. Gallup data shows 30 percent of employees  “engaged.” Towers Watson data shows 35 percent “highly engaged.” Dale Carnegie data shows 29 percent “fully engaged.” And these aren’t small studies; the Gallup survey includes more than 350,000 respondents and the Towers Watson survey includes more than 32,000. Gallup goes on to estimate an annual cost in lost U.S. productivity of more than $450 billion. This is a staggering figure. Even if it’s imprecise, it gives a sense of the magnitude of the problem.

 

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What high-level factors contribute to this epidemic of disengagement? To return to the title of this chapter: “People leave managers, not companies.” In short, the central relationship between manager and employee plays a critical role. Beyond that, other factors also contribute. These include belief in senior leadership, pride in one’s company, and the chronic uncertainty resulting from a steady stream of reorganizations, layoffs and pressure “to do more with less.” But no matter the precise constellation of factors, which vary according to the character and circumstances of an organization, there’s no question that a chronically high level of employee disengagement represents both a failure of management and a fundamental challenge to it: a challenge to do what is needed to keep vast numbers of individuals interested in their work, feeling good about their organizations, and working as productively as they can.

What does this  high-level data mean to you as a manager? It means, first and hopefully encouragingly, that if you find the practice of management challenging, you’re not alone. It is challenging and you have a great deal of company. If 60 to 70 percent of employees are working at less than full capacity, an awful lot of you in management are dealing with motivation problems. It also means there’s a huge opportunity: an opportunity to better engage employees and improve productivity for your department and organization. To use simple numbers, if you manage ten employees and six of them are to some extent disengaged, and you can reach on average two of them to better engage and motivate them, those are immediately very significant productivity gains you’ll achieve.

Of course the challenge lies in reaching those two employees, understanding why they feel the way they do, and improving their mindsets. We’ll dissect these challenges and provide new tools to approach the old task of management in the pages ahead.

“Here’s something they’ll probably never teach you in business school,” wrote Gallup CEO Jim Clifton in the summary accompanying his organization’s 2013 “State of the American Workplace” employee engagement study. “The single biggest decision you make in your job—  bigger than all the  rest—  is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits—  nothing.”

*     *     *

The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World is available on many book-selling sites.

Following is an excerpt from my new book The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World, which is being published today by Prentice Hall Press. Publishers Weekly has called the book, “an excellent resource for leaders who don’t fit the mold, and for upper managers who need to fill leadership positions.”  This section, from the chapter “People Leave Managers, Not Companies,” examines the fundamental importance and challenges of a manager’s role.

 

Forbes.com | August 4, 2015 | Victor Lipman