How to Secure Commitment

By communicating consistently and clearly…

The Grand Traverse Pie Company has 17 locations throughout Michigan and Indiana. As one of 2008’s “Michigan 50 Companies to Watch,” they know the importance of a strong company culture.

Last spring, we gathered all of their key team members, which included shop owners and general managers from each location, and together we created what it means to be GT Proud. Click here to learn more.

Every other week the support team sends out a team newsletter called “News You Can Use” that communicates key information to each shop. This team consistently and clearly communicates the values by prominently positioning them at the top of every newsletter.

Grand Traverse Pie was just featured in the February issue of O: The Oprah Magazine! Check out their great selection of pies and baked goods. Click here for directions to your local shop or to send a pie to friends or family!

By creating a common language.

Gompers, Couillard, & Wolfe, Inc., a prominent insurance agency in southeastern Michigan, determined that integrity, innovation, compassion, team synergy, initiative and professional service were the core values that would drive their success.

“The team was energized and united after participating in the core values exercise with Aha! Leadership. The outcome: our entire team created and agreed on our six core company values. It was so exciting to watch everyone engage and become passionate about our company.

We kept the momentum going by encouraging everyone to help create our ‘values’ posters. Their buy-in soared, and the posters remind each of us every day the values we, as an agency, agreed to live by and work toward. You’ll often hear teammates ‘joke’ with one another when their actions tie in with one of our values. Often our customers will ask about the posters displayed throughout the office, and when they do our team members proudly tell them about our values,” said Kelly Bottcher, Assistant Operations Manager.

She added,

“Overall, this process has granted us the ability to understand one another better, service our clients better and move forward as a team.”

I am on the treadmill watching Oprah (yes, I am a closet Oprahaholic…) and she is having a conversation with some big important movie star using Skype.  If you’re not familiar with Skype it is a free online video telephone.  Seriously, it’s like George and Judy Jetson used to use in the old cartoon “The Jetson’s”.   Anyway, I thought to myself …Oprah keeps using this Skype gizmo to have guests on her show.  Why does she do that? Well there are probably at least two good reasons: 1) it saves on travel costs and 2) it saves a ton of time shuffling last minute guests to and from Chicago.   I thought to myself… that’s it, I can use Skype to connect with customers all over Michigan.  It’s free… it’s fast … most important it’s fun!  I now Skype 6 to 10 times a week and beam myself from location to location in minutes.  Pretty cool!

My point, open your eyes… your ears and your mind…  There are so many great ideas out there that can be used to solve so many different problems.

A couple of days ago, I was in a leadership meeting at our church.  Just like the for profit sector, non-profit organizations are getting creative with cost cutting ideas.  We learned that the janitor came up with a $12,000 per year cost cutting idea.  Get this… by closing off one section of the massive parking lot on weekdays the church saves money by not salting the parking lot. Because the parking lot fully surrounds the building there are over 6,000 other parking spots to choose from.  Besides the demand for parking is obviously the greatest on Sunday morning.  So, none was really inconvenienced by the change.  Now … that is a simple idea from a truly unexpected place.

If there is one thing that I have learned over the years it’s that sometimes we just look too hard and take ourselves way too seriously  when looking for great ideas.  So, today put on your pink sunglasses and go out looking for ideas.  See every encounter, every interaction, and every situation as an opportunity to spark a new idea.  I guarantee you will be amazed at how many great ideas you’ll spot.

Just think of the possibilities….

Pay it forward and share your Aha!

How to Ignite Passion…

By having fun!

Alfie, one of 2009’s “Michigan 50 Companies to Watch”, transformed both their branding and corporate culture in the autumn of 2008.  The entire team came together to create the new mission statement and to determine their core values: integrity, effective communication, creative vision, attitude, excellence, and customer delight.

Last August, Bonnie Alfonzo, Alfie’s President and CEO, awarded $500 cash to the winner of Alfie Idol; the company’s first annual talent competition.  The only requirement — incorporate the Alfie mission and values.

It was a amazing to see the team bring down the house with tunes such as Call Me, Sweet Caroline, and Tomorrow, just to name a few.

For the grand finale the entire team preformed Summer Lovin’ from Grease. Everyone had a blast!

Watch this and get inspired!

Keep in mind… just a few months ago this was an very shy production team.

This process can be used for a company, a team or an individual (or even a family).

1. Gather your team and determine the five (5) words that best describe how you will behave with each other, customers, and key business partners.

Determining a team’s core values may seem simple, but it’s not easy. Why? Because we are complex human beings, who have unique backgrounds and experiences. These differences are incredibly valuable and by working together we can identify and prioritize the values that reflect what is most important to you, your team or your company.

By involving your team they will help every member:

• Understand the “why?” behind the final outcome
• Buy-in faster and fully support the final decisions
• Hold each other accountable
• Begin to engage by “thinking” and saying “I can make a difference by…”

2. Define what each of values means. This is a productive team building exercise.  Select a core group of team members to write a short definition for each of the values.  Keep it shot and easy to remember.

Need Help?

Need help facilitating a “Power of 5 Values” session.  Aha! Leadership will help your team unite and determine their values in only 90 minutes!  It’s a powerful team-building exercise!

• “I watched you bring 18 people (that never, ever agree on anything) together and actually accomplish this goal in such a short period of time.  We all left motivated, high-fiving and on the same page.  Absolutely amazing!”
• “By including everyone in the decision making process makes everyone feel responsible for passing on the feelings and attitudes.”
• “I saw for the first time that when inspired we can all be productive and constructive.”
• “Since we worked together, I completely understand why and how these values were created.”
• “My Aha was the realization that although we are all different, we can come together and agree.”
• “My Aha was realizing that we are all able to work as a team to come up with our company values.”
• “Thank you for including me. For the first time in a long time. I feel important.”

Next week, we will see how various Michigan Companies bring their values to life.

The answer: Set SMART Goals.

Year after year, we make New Year’s resolutions with the best intentions. According to experts, nearly   97 percent of us fail to turn these intentions into results.  I believe the same mindset holds true for leaders. Year after year, we intend to set goals for our business and suddenly January 5^th is here and we have a critical fire to put out…

What do the 3% of us do differently?  Why do they always seem to achieve more year after year.

The answer: They set SMART goals for themselves and their teams.

Dan Mulhern, Michigan’s First Gentleman recently conducted a survey of 365 leaders and found:

• Only 19% believed in annual goal setting and do it religiously.
• Nearly 80% believe goal setting has value but sometimes or seldom do it.
• Only 30% of the leader’s surveyed plan to write down goals for 2010.
• Only 40% say it is essential to have periodic review of goals.

Goal setting isn’t easy but it’s essential to driving results.  As leaders we must push ourselves and our teams by setting SMART goals.  This is the key to driving accountability!

Why is this important?  If you don’t invest the time to clearly define what you want the team to achieve, then how in the world do you expect your team to invest the effort required to achieve it?

Bottom line: It’s impossible to achieve results when you don’t write down clear goals and it’s impossible to hold yourself and others accountable to vague visions.

Hummm… maybe that’s precisely why we don’t do it…?

5 Easy Steps to Setting Goals

1. Make a list of all of the things that you feel are critical to accomplish this year.

2. Circle the “Power 5” – Using the 80/20 rule, identify those things that will drive 80% of the results for your business.

Don’t focus on the same old goals that you choose every year. Take some time, think about it and identify the 5 activities that will drive the highest impact for your organization in 2010.

3. Create SMART goals using the “Power 5” activities that you identified above.

Define what it means to win.  Be specific.

Answer two key questions:

How will you know when this is accomplished?

How will I measure this?

4. Break the “Power 5” into tasks and assign an owner and due date to each task.

5. Communicate the “Power 5” to your team and schedule a monthly accountability session to review progress.

Links to Aha! Leadership Resources:

What is a SMART Goal?

Company Cascading Goals Worksheet

SMART Goal Setting Worksheet

Action Plan Worksheet for tracking large goals

Department Goal Summary Worksheet

“Nothing can stop a man with the right mental attitude of achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help a man with the wrong mental attitude.” Thomas Jefferson

“The thing always happens that you really believe in and the thing you really believe in always happens.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

They desperately seek your approval.  They’re watching everything you do.  They’re listening to every word you say.  Not only are they watching and listening – they’re acting on it.  They’re doing the things you do.  They’re saying the things you say.

Who are “they”?

They’re your team members.  “They”‘ could also be your kids if that’s what you were thinking!Someone I respect greatly, very simply stated, “People follow their leaders.”  Your actions dictate what’s acceptable and what’s expected from your team.  Whether you do it consciously or unconsciously, you’re creating your team’s culture.  Whether you want to or not, right now, you’re leading by example.

Your language becomes their language.  Your actions become their actions.

• Blow off their emails and phone calls – they’ll do the same with your clients’ emails and phone calls.
• Gossip and speak poorly about other team members and clients – they’ll do the same.
• Create obstacles for others to get some of your time – they’ll do the same when it comes to their time.

Here’s the good news: the same is true for the good stuff.

• Take a vested interest in their success – they’ll do the same for your clients and other team members.
• Stay upbeat and positive – they’ll do the same.
• Speak highly of your internal and external clients – they’ll do the same.
• Seek to understand before seeking to be understood – they’ll do the same.

Make them feel important, appreciated, valued, and liked – they’ll make your clients feel important, appreciated, valued, and liked.

Get it?

The bottom line is a “Do as I say – not as I do” approach may work short-term, but will never work in the long run.  You can’t constantly beat on your folks and expect them to hug your clients.  What we’re talking about here is conditioning.  Just as you’re conditioning others, the people you’ve been watching your whole life helped condition you.

Here’s how you begin to fix it:

1. Accept responsibility for your team’s behavior.
2. Identify the specific behaviors you want to change within the team and write them down.
3. Take a good, hard look inside and pinpoint the instances where you’ve exhibited those behaviors.  Write them down.
4. Create a pattern interrupt – something to stop the behavior when you catch yourself doing it.  This is something meant to change your physiology: clapping your hands, pumping your fist, a chant, etc.  Write it down.
5. Insert a replacement habit – the way you expect yourself and others to react.  Write it down.

Lastly, while you need to take responsibility, you can’t blame yourself for the individual behavior of every team member.  They’ve had years of prior conditioning before you.

Bottom line: don’t underestimate your influence in helping them change.