Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Managing People

Don’t Be A Founder Who Won’t Let Go

By Leave a Comment

Don't Be A Founder Who Won't Let Go You’ll never get a potential successor to take your job if you’re going to be peering over her shoulder constantly and talking to employees directly about what they’re doing.

When you have a case of the founder’s syndrome, you’re addicted to running the show, and you’ll have a hard time separating yourself from the company you’ve built. When there are conflicts, you’re often at the center of it and hold your vision and experience over the leadership’s heads.

In the long run, your compulsion to have a say in all the nitty-gritty of your company will undermine the future of the very company that you’ve devoted your life to. The best thing you can do for its future is to back off and give your successor real control.

Establish a timetable to disengage yourself from the operating decisions and set some firm rules about this transition. Spend increasingly more time away from the business and pursue other interests. Start to envision a world in which your next ventures or leisure activities will become the principal focus of your life.

Idea for Impact: Know when your work is over and when it’s time for you to move on to other things. Grooming exceptional talent to take over the business you’ve built and gradually letting go of control is one of the most challenging things a founder will ever do. If done well, it’s the most transformative you can do for your business.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Book Summary of Leigh Branham’s ‘The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave’
  2. How to Buy a Small Business // Book Summary of Richard Ruback’s HBR Guide
  3. How to Manage Smart, Powerful Leaders // Book Summary of Jeswald Salacuse’s ‘Leading Leaders’
  4. Book Summary of Donald Keough’s ‘Ten Commandments for Business Failure’
  5. Ten Rules of Management Success from Sam Walton

An Underappreciated Way to Improve Team Dynamic

By Leave a Comment

An Underappreciated Way to Improve Team Dynamic Reverse mentoring (the youngest and brightest teaching the oldest and experienced) has obvious symbiotic benefits for the mentor and mentee. The approach can also stimulate compelling results for the core organization and help mobilize nontraditional teams.

Reverse mentoring flips the hierarchy. It helps senior employees avoid the “ivory tower syndrome,” which happens when they become so out of touch that they can no longer relate to the juniors’ day-to-day struggles. The fresh perspectives on how the young think and work can benefit their more established colleagues.

Reverse mentoring builds up the junior employees’ sense of belonging. When included in the decision-making process, they’re comfortable expressing their views.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Book Summary of Leigh Branham’s ‘The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave’
  2. Ten Rules of Management Success from Sam Walton
  3. How to Handle Employees who Moonlight
  4. Not Everybody Wishes to Climb the Corporate Ladder [Finding Work-Life Balance]
  5. You Don’t Have to Be Chained to Your Desk to Succeed at Work

Nothing Unites Like a Common Enemy

By Leave a Comment

On a recent Airlines Confidential podcast, former CEO of Airbus-America Barry Eccleston discussed how Airbus has grown over the years to dethrone Boeing as the world’s largest commercial aircraft maker.

'Boeing versus Airbus' by John Newhouse (ISBN 1400078725) Airbus began in the late 1960s as a consortium of pan-European companies connected by a shared crusade to counter American industrial prowess. Once aviation’s leaders in innovation, these European underdogs had been surpassed by Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed in the ’50s and ’60s.

Once Airbus got started and was standing on its own feet, the concept of ‘Beat Boeing’ became the Airbus mantra. Indeed, it brought together the French, the Germans, the Brits, and the Spanish. If you think about it, Europe had been trying previously to do joint venture programs successfully for quite a while, but most of them didn’t happen. But this one did. And, I believe, it happened, not solely, but in large part, because everybody rallied around a flag, and the flag was called Beat Boeing. Do you remember, in the old days, the Avis slogan was “We are number two, and we try harder?” That kind of like, was where we were at in Airbus. We knew we were number two; we knew we could become number one, and we tried harder.

Idea for Impact: Nothing unites a team like a common enemy. The adversary doesn’t have to be a person, a team, or a competitor. It can be a being-the-underdog mindset or an against-the-the-odds challenge. It can even be a system that has resisted change.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. This is Not Responsible Leadership: Boeing’s CEO Blames Predecessor
  2. Make Friends Now with the People You’ll Need Later
  3. Five Where Only One is Needed: How Airbus Avoids Single Points of Failure
  4. How A Single Point of Failure Became The Boeing 737 MAX’s Achilles Heel
  5. Many Hard Leadership Lessons in the Boeing 737 MAX Debacle

Invite Employees to Contribute Their Wildest Ideas

By Leave a Comment

When Hewlett-Packard (HP) Norway appointed Anita Krohn Traaseth managing director in 2012, she implemented a “speed date the boss” program. She invited every employee from every organization level for an informal, five-minute conversation based on three themes. She encouraged people to bring their big ideas on innovating individually and collectively.

  • Who are you, and what do you do at HP?
  • Where do you think we should change, and what should we keep focusing on?
  • What do you want to contribute beyond fulfilling your job responsibilities? Or, do you have a talent or skill you don’t get to use now in your position?

Invite Employees to Contribute Their Wildest Ideas - Speed Date the Boss

Everyone’s an Innovator: Ramp up creativity with your frontline employees

Krohn Traaseth’s initiative defined the roadmap for her tenure. It pushed HP to become one of Norway’s top workplaces within three years. HP Norway improved every major organizational performance measure, such as staff turnover, customer satisfaction, top-line growth, and bottom-line performance.

Not only that, her discussions uncovered that there were 30 skilled musicians on her payroll. HP Norway formed a band, which played live to 1,800 company executives in Barcelona in 2013, gaining better visibility to her Norwegian outpost.

Following Krohn Traaseth’s success, other HP divisions and employers have now introduced the concept of ‘Speed Date the Boss’ initiatives in other countries.

Idea for Impact: Value the frontline people in your organization as talented assets, not cheap cogs.

Krohn Traaseth’s program was so successful because, as the top boss, she showed that she was willing to listen. She also openly modeled her willingness to listen to her management teams and foster their engagement.

  • When employees see the boss willing to receive honest feedback and no one’s head rolls, they’re more likely to speak up.
  • Soliciting ideas directly from employees individually, rather than holding brainstorms, takes the edge off group dynamics. Group settings aren’t where all employees feel free to share their best–and bold—ideas.
  • Rank-and-file employees can be a great source of innovation if only their leaders listen to them. Organizational innovation doesn’t have to trickle top-down or emanate from the R&D team. The best way to produce great ideas is to start by generating many ideas. Encourage everyone on your team to think, contribute, and participate.

————

'Good Enough for the Bastards' by Anita Krohn Traaseth (ISBN B00MVXFK4K) PS: Anita Krohn Traaseth is now the CEO of Innovation Norway, a state-sponsored project focused on promoting innovation and economic development. She’s the author of Good Enough for the Bastards (2014,) a Norwegian version of Sheryl Sandberg‘s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013.)

Cf: See my guide on preparing an action plan at a new job by collecting the expectations of all the people with whom your new role interacts.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Creativity by Imitation: How to Steal Others’ Ideas and Innovate
  2. Book Summary of Leigh Branham’s ‘The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave’
  3. Lessons from Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works: Autonomy Can Create Innovative Workplaces
  4. Never Surprise Your Boss [Managing Your Boss #2]
  5. Ten Rules of Management Success from Sam Walton

Focus on Rituals, Not Goals

By Leave a Comment

My biggest takeaway from James Clear’s Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (2018) is the importance of shifting your focus from your end goal to what your need to do regularly to reach that goal.

'Atomic Habits' by James Clear (ISBN 0593189647) Though goals can provide orientation and motivation, Clear notes that committing to the system makes all the difference. Goals aren’t necessarily the best way to ensure things are done. Thinking about only goals tends to make people believe, “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal.” This impedes their long-term progress.

Instead, Clear recommends centering on the routines and things you need to do regularly to reach the goal. For example: If you’re a swim team coach, and your goal is to win a championship, the system that you should focus on is training every day, “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”

Idea for Impact: A systems-first mentality beats a goal-oriented mindset. “Fall in love with the process rather than the product.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Effective Goals Can Challenge, Motivate, and Energize
  2. “Goals Gone Wild”: The Use and Abuse of Goals
  3. The Power of Sharing Your Goals
  4. Missing in SMART goals: the ‘Why’
  5. The #1 Hack to Build Healthy Habits in the New Year

When to Send Customers Gifts

By Leave a Comment

Gifts are crucial marketing tools, which can help customers remember you throughout the year, not just during the holidays:

  • Send a gift after a sale. Saying thank-you does more than complete the sale—it helps build the relationship.
  • When to Send Customers Gifts Send gifts after receiving referrals. One of the most rewarding compliments a salesperson can receive is a referral. Send a thank-you soon after getting a referral.
  • Commemorate anniversaries. Observe the day you signed your first contract with a customer, making it a special date to celebrate each year.
  • Remember birthdays. Send customers some birthday cheer, not just a card. Be creative and personalize the gift—send tickets to a sports event that the entire family can enjoy, for instance.

Idea for Impact: Business gifts can help solidify sales relationships and earn even more business. Pay attention to the things your customers enjoy and show your appreciation. As long as your gifts don’t seem patently insincere, they’re likely to welcome them.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Buy a Small Business // Book Summary of Richard Ruback’s HBR Guide
  2. Bad Customers Are Bad for Your Business
  3. How to Develop Customer Service Skills // Summary of Lee Cockerell’s ‘The Customer Rules’
  4. How Ritz-Carlton Goes the Extra Mile // Book Summary of ‘The New Gold Standard’
  5. Putting the WOW in Customer Service // Book Summary of Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness

Avoid Blame Language

By Leave a Comment

Refrain from using the terms “always” and “never” when you’re in a disagreement.

Avoid Blame Language Making statements like “You never think about anyone but yourself” or “You always ignore how I feel!” provokes defensiveness because of the apparent exaggeration.

The actual conversation gets abstracted because the other person understandably resists the all-or-nothing argument.

Making negative judgments or proclamations about the other in extreme, absolute terms gives no wiggle room because making global attacks on their entire personality.

Idea for Impact: Try to voice your concerns in a way that focuses on your own feelings and how the other’s behavior affects you. Try “I” statements, such as “I feel neglected when you make plans without me.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Use Personality Assessments to Sort the Talented from the Less Talented
  2. Use Active Voice for Persuasive Communication
  3. Identify and Eliminate Passive Voice in Microsoft Word
  4. Don’t Be Interesting—Be Interested!
  5. How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt

Lessons from Airline Entrepreneur David Neeleman: Staff Your Weaknesses

By Leave a Comment

Airline serial entrepreneur David Neeleman has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD.) School was torture. He couldn’t focus, and he procrastinated constantly.

“I felt like I should be out doing things, moving things along, but here I was, stuck studying statistics, which I knew had no application to my life,” Neeleman once said. “I knew I had to have an education, but at the first opportunity to start a business, I just blew out of college.”

Despite his own struggles, Neeleman went on to build a stellar business career in the airline industry. He started Morris Air, WestJet, JetBlue Airways, Azul Brazilian Airlines, and Breeze Airways. He’s even led the revival of TAP Air Portugal.

Through it all, Neeleman made the best of his strengths—original thinking, high energy, and the ability to draw the best out in people.

Lessons from Airline Entrepreneur David Neeleman: Staff Your Weaknesses

Far from lamenting his ADHD, David Neeleman celebrated it

Early on, Neeleman realized that he must manage his ADHD carefully. Throughout his career, he got help with his weaknesses.

People with ADHD tend to possess rare talents and gifts. They can be extraordinarily creative and original. They display ingenuity, and they encourage that trait in others. They can improvise well under pressure.

However, ADHD confers disadvantages too. People with ADHD are likely to be incredibly forgetful, disorganized, impulsive, and hyperactive. They drag their feet and miss deadlines. Their performance can be inconsistent. They can drift away mentally unless, oddly enough, they’re under stress or handling multiple inputs.

Sadly, modern society (including parents, schools, workplaces, and career counselors) tends to linger upon the negative symptoms and encourages people with ADHD to learn to cope with them. Strengths are more likely to go unnoticed.

Idea for Impact: Don’t let your weaknesses stop you from reaching your life goals.

In your work-life and outside, seek environments that allow you to bring more of your strengths to play. But don’t ignore your weaknesses (or the downsides of your strengths.)

Staff your weaknesses. Identify two or three key job activities that you don’t do well. Determine how you can delegate those responsibilities to others or seek help. This way, your weaknesses don’t become the Achilles heel that can hamper the strengths that make you effective.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. “The Business of Business is People” and Other Leadership Lessons from Southwest Airlines’s Herb Kelleher
  2. Lessons from David Dao Incident: Watch Out for the Availability Bias!
  3. Why Mergers Tend to Fail
  4. How to Buy a Small Business // Book Summary of Richard Ruback’s HBR Guide
  5. Silicon Valley’s Founding Fathers // Book Summary of David Packard’s “HP Way”

Hitch Your Wagon to a Rising Star

By Leave a Comment

If it becomes apparent that someone above you on your department’s org chart is a superstar, let them know that you want to join their team or continue to work with them as they move up. Especially if you sense you’d connect with them intellectually as well as emotionally.

Companies identify their A-players, pour training into them, give them growth opportunities, and build their experience using “stretch assignments.” Partner with such a superstar. Even if they get hired away by a competitor, you’ll stand a chance of moving with them.

Contrarily, if you wind up working with someone whose career is about to implode, try to get a transfer away from that person as quickly as possible.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Creativity by Imitation: How to Steal Others’ Ideas and Innovate
  2. On Recruiting from a Competitor
  3. 7 Alternatives to Working From Your Home Office
  4. Compilation of Job Interview Questions
  5. Assignments Hacks: 8 Tips to Get It Done Faster

The Right Way to End a Meeting

By Leave a Comment

The Right Way to End a Meeting

Many meetings fail to produce tangible results because they lack closure.

An effective coordinator synthesizes everything she’s heard from the participants, incorporates the best of what’s been discussed, and distills all the inputs into a course of action.

A good closure sounds like this: “Let me see if I can go over the main points. Our objective is to achieve [Goal] by [Due Date.] In light of what [Emily] and [Ryan] have said and the concerns that [Mark] has raised, it seems that we agree about [PointX] and [PointY]. We must watch out for [Risk] and incorporate [Possibility] into our contingency plan. Therefore, the consensus seems to that, we proceed with [Decision]. … Have I missed anything? … Is everyone OK with this decision? … Here’s what we’ll do before the next meeting … .”

Without a concrete plan for moving forward, even the best outcomes of a meeting can languish as the initial enthusiasm and commitment fade away.

The foremost goal of a meeting organizer is to steer participants towards a decision and nail down the specific commitments, deadlines, and follow-up timetables.

There’s another key benefit of encouraging everyone’s involvement and piloting a meeting to closure. When each participant feels that their opinion has been fully considered, they are more likely to feel ownership of the group’s decision, even if it’s not the entire outcome they hoped for.

If a meeting can’t come to a decision, it’s reasonable to hold off decision-making. Still, distilling the key points, assigning ‘homework,’ and defining what’s expected of everybody before the next meeting constitutes an effective closure.

Idea for Impact: Closure is, more often than not, the missing link between meetings and impact. Steering a consensus at the end of the meeting gives a sense of closure that participants will find most valuable.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Decline a Meeting Invitation
  2. Micro-Meetings Can Be Very Effective
  3. How to Prepare for Meetings
  4. How to Stop “Standing” Meetings from Clogging Up Your Time
  5. The Curse of Teamwork: Groupthink