Many people took vacation time last week to celebrate our country’s Independence Day. If you were one of those people who “held down the fort” by staying in the office and working last week, perhaps you found it very refreshing to have some quite time, sans meetings to get through a bunch of work. With July being such a popular time to take vacation, maybe your turn is coming later this month. More importantly, I ask, are you taking time away from the office to do something you enjoy and recharge those batteries?
I have come across a few people in my career who seem to have an allergic reaction to the thought of leaving the routine of work for a week or even a few days. Sometimes this appears to be out of pressure to maintain things at work. However, sometimes it seems a person wears their “no-vacation this year” status as a badge of honor. As if to say, “see how committed I am to my work” or perhaps to feel particularly important. Somehow the office would surely explode if they were not present to keep it together.
If you fall into the latter “badge “ category, I realize a blog or newsletter may not be enough of a wake-up call to get you to change your ways. Sometimes learning from the mistakes of others before we have to experience misfortune for ourselves can be powerful. Take a business leader I worked with years ago. He never took a day off and seemed pleased to find opportunities to share his dedication when the topic came up. After following this pattern for years, his boss started citing performance issues due to his lack of creativity. True, time away from our normal routines can helps us gain new perspective. Would you believe research supports how taking time off can actually make you more productive?
A recent study by Harvard Business School professor Leslie A. Perlow, Ph.D. found hard-charging business consultants who take “predictable time off” from their 65-hour workweeks actually accomplish more – not less. Consultants in one group had to skip a full workday each week, totally unplugged from their technology. Of course, at first they balked, but over time, productivity went up – in part because the consultants had to collaborate better with co-workers to plan for these mini-vacations. The also reported feeling more satisfied with their jobs. The message here, take some time-off and you can reap gains in creativity, communication with your team and efficiency.
Leaders certainly send messages to their teams about a culture around time-off. If you work for someone who acts as though they simply could not allow the team to handle things while taking time off, would you feel trusted and competent? Not likely. So if you are just getting back from or planning some time off in the near future, kudos to you. If you can’t seem to tear yourself away from work for a few days, perhaps baby-steps are a good strategy for you. Take some long weekends or a night off. I am willing to bet nothing will explode while you are gone. Here is to quality time at work and outside of work – enjoy your summer!
In this short talk, Arianna Huffington shares a small idea that can awaken much bigger ones: the power of a good night’s sleep. Instead of bragging about our sleep deficits, she urges us to shut our eyes and see the big picture: We can sleep our way to increased productivity and happiness — and smarter decision-making.
Recently a business leader told me that he’d run across his list of New Year’s resolutions and realized that he had only tackled 1 out of the 3. He was disappointed in what he believed was his lack of resolve and commitment to making important & positive changes in his life. In just a few days we will have made it half way through 2012. On July 1st we will kick off the second half of the year – do you know where your list of resolutions is?
Further conversation with this leader revealed how their business had experienced an unexpected shift in supply of raw materials for making their product, forcing changes to the game plan in nearly every business unit. On a personal note, he shared that his daughter was struggling with an illness, and he had made it a priority to spend time with her & support his wife who was a full-time caregiver. Both situations had altered his ability to address 2 of his resolutions, leaving him feeling frustrated & overwhelmed.
He was surprised when I congratulated him. “Given what you just told me, I am proud of you for achieving that one resolution.” Our discussion led to the revelation that while accountability is very important, it is equally necessary to continually reassess what we commit to, and measure against our core values & long-term goals, reprioritizing where it’s warranted.
REVELATION
Accountability without regard to circumstance is irrelevant. The fundamental resolution needs to be the commitment to growth, integrity and responsibilities. Life is not a snap shot, rather it is a motion picture. The scene & characters are ever changing, and our goals have to evolve too.
“Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.”
Even though almost 50% of people who make new years resolutions do break them in the first 6 months, research shows that making resolutions is useful. People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t.
Pull out your list and take a look.
Make an honest assessment of your progress on each goal. If you haven’t reached it (or even started) ask yourself:
– Is this goal still relevant / a priority / necessary?
– If the goal still stands, where are you as far as progress? If you’ve slacked a bit, then recommit & choose a realistic 30-day benchmark to strive for.
– Not started yet? Don’t waste energy beating yourself up – just get started & determine a 30-day goal to work toward.
– If circumstances have changed the need or relevancy of the goal, then reprioritize or remove it from the list & replace it with a new one if needed.
3. Keep the new list visible – not buried in a notebook or under a pile of paper
4. Schedule an appointment with yourself for 30 days from today, to review your progress – and keep it!
Nothing unites a team like a common cause!
(Adapted from one of my favorite quotes “Nothing unites a team like a common enemy!”)
Consider organizing a unique team building event this summer that gives back to the community. The most recent issue of Success Magazine focused on the topic of Happiness and Significance. It reported that some of the keys to achieving happiness can be found through developing meaningful relationships and giving back.
Success had several articles that talked about the key to “significance”. There was no surprise here… the most fulfilled people actually gave back to their community. The surprising part was that people are actually rethinking the definition of success, especially the next generation because they don’t strive as much for money and possessions. Research states that after our basic needs are met (shelter, nutrition, security, adequate medical care, etc.) financial success does little to make us happier. The research says there is however a direct correlation between happiness and quality relationships.
So I got thinking…. If we want to create significance and happiness at work then …. What if we combined these two ideas and created an experience that helped develop meaningful relationships at work by giving back!
It’s fun, it’s relevant, it’s happening and it works! Our clients are out there doing it!
Here are 10 ideas to unite as a team by giving back!
1. Sponsor a “Jeans Day”: A large Detroit corporation charges $5 each Friday for the opportunity to wear jeans to work. Each Friday on of the departments sponsor the jeans day and they pick the charity and also work together to generate more sales by holding a bake sale, car wash etc.Last week I watched as the HR team donated a check for over $2500 to the local food bank.
2. Sponsor a Habitat for Humanity House: A midsized company has adopted the charity Habitat for Humanity. They work all year collecting donations and then each member of the company is then when the house is being built each employee is encouraged to sign up and take part. They are given paid time off to work alongside their CEO to build the house.
3. Host a community “Lunch on the Run” program: An automotive company dedicates one day each year to delivering lunch orders to other local businesses in the community. All proceeds go to a needy cause.
4. Hold a car wash and with the proceeds going to a charity the team chooses…
5. Participant in or coordinate a bowlathon.
6. Run a 5k and organize one and encourage the community to participate too!
7. Serve at a local soup kitchen or food bank.
8. Clean up a neighborhood park … paint, spread new mulch and earn the funds to add something to the park too!
9. Rally every member of your company to donate few dollars from each pay check to a powerful cause like United Way!
10. Rent a dunk tank for the day and “Dunk Your Leader”! Have the each team in your company compete for which department can dunk their leader the most times.
NBC’s popular television show The Office is the subject of workplace humor and no doubt lots of jokes and laughs around water coolers across the country. Since the shows debut in 2005 and up until last year Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) served as the Regional Manager for a sales office in a fictional paper company. Michael’s character was involved in weekly mishaps in management, that most of the time are totally off the wall or inappropriate.
When it comes to Michael’s management style, there are far more blogs recounting the humorous disasters and problems associated with his approach. Many people can relate in some way to the craziness of what goes on at work, which make the show so popular. Sure it is easy to come up with a list of “don’ts” from material in The Office. I asked myself the question, “What can we learn and emulate from Michael’s Scott’s management style”? Here are three take-aways:
1) Find Ways to Make Work Fun
There was never a dull moment around The Office with Michael’s antics. He looked for ways to make a mundane workday fun and exciting. There were examples of Office Awards, called the “Dundies”, or a team retreat with a Survivor Theme or just simple things like ordering in Mexican food for a themed lunch. The truth is, we spend our best waking hours at work and with our co-workers. As a leader, how can you add something enjoyable or unexpected to the mundane? How can you do something fun that speaks to the culture at your organization or captures the spirit of the team. Do we sometimes take ourselves too seriously? If you lighten things up, can it open the doors for more creativity, collaboration and positive energy? Who can’t use more of those characteristics in their workplace?
2) Be Approachable
Sometimes a manager for fear of being too friendly becomes stiff and unapproachable to their team. They put up a wall that makes it hard to get to know them. As leader, strive to be affable. Find the right balance where your team finds it easy to talk to you and be truthful with you, but you remain respected. Care about what people think, ask their opinions about how things function in the office. If you are not taking advantage of your front-line experts, you will miss opportunities to improve.
Do be balanced, Michael takes this to an unhealthy extreme because he looks to several people on his team as “buddies” and tries on numerous occasions to interject himself into their social lives. There is nothing wrong with being friends with people you work with and even seeing people from work socially outside of the office. Just caution yourself; when you become so close with people you work with in a “BFF” way, your judgment can become compromised to their performance or other difficult business decisions a leader may face. When the boss’s friendships are selective with people in the office it also creates the impression of biased treatment, even if it does not exist.
3) Let Your Team Do the Job They Were Hired to Do
If there is one word you could not use to describe Michael Scott, it would be “micro-manager”. Perhaps it would have bored to television viewing audience if he pulled aside Oscar and started questioning his accounting practices and wanted to go over the budget line-by-line. Can you imagine him sitting down with Toby (the Human Resources Person) to discuss and question every HR practice in place? I realize it does not make for good TV, the there is a useful message here: Don’t let your team check their brains at the door. Give people the accountability and authority to do the job they were hired and are qualified to do. Give them goals and let them manage how it gets done. One of the most motivating phrases you can tell someone is, “I believe in you, I trust you and what you think is best”.
In one early episode, Michael goes on a sales call with a more junior person. The junior sales person was basically shadowing Michael. Up to this point the audience could easily question Michael’s competence in his role. We they get to see him in action with the customer he is brilliant, eloquent and manages to close the sale. It was a shining illustration or leading by example. The junior person took away a real-life example of how to be effective in sales not a bunch of talk or a boring lecture.
So perhaps this is how I justify tuning in on Thursday nights to a comedy show that may not be the most mind-challenging way to spend ½ an hour? Keep in mind there are lessons in leadership all around us: what to do and what to avoid if we are paying attention. The key is how we observe, process and maintain enough self-awareness to make small, on-going, changes that make us better. In the spirit of keeping it light, I leave you with a short clip as a reminder to have fun. Here is one of Michael’s typical antics, useful for a good chuckle: Michael’s Best Moments.
Have you ever noticed that for some reason, when people are trying to persuade or induce someone to do or buy something, they often lose the one perspective that they need the most – that of the person they are trying to persuade? Often the best training for improving our skills or effectiveness are the experiences we ourselves have when working with another person in that same role. This is especially true for sales professionals. How often have you worked with a salesperson & found yourself totally annoyed by their approach? Have you ever told a salesperson that you are in a hurry and know exactly what you want, only to have them take you through the entire “pitch” anyway? Ever had to sit through a mind-numbing, 50-slide presentation? The worst part is the lack of awareness some salespeople have about the effect they are having on you! We’ve all been the customer, so it should be easy to avoid the most common mistakes – but it doesn’t always work that way. Recently we reached out to several successful business leaders and decision makers to tell us the most common negative experiences they have with salespeople and how they often kill their own deals.
#1 SO WHAT?
The most common answer we received was that far too many salespeople do far too much talking, and not enough asking & listening. “It’s almost like they go into robo-sales mode and someone pushed their ‘Provide Info’ button. Even if I’ve asked for the meeting & been clear about what I’m interested in talking with them about, they keep dumping all of this info about unrelated capabilities, history and experience. It’s even worse if they’re manager is with them at the meeting – you can tell that they are following a checklist of things they have been told to cover no matter what,” related one Chief Marketing Officer.
It may be tempting to let customers know how smart & experienced you are, but the best way to communicate capabilities and expertise is in the context of providing relevant answers to your customer’s questions. In order to make sure you are providing information that matters to your customer, we suggest using the So What? test. For each piece of information or data you will share at the meeting – imagine the customer looking you straight in the eye asking you, “so what?” If you can’t tie the answer directly back to how it benefits that specific customer & the current solution you are discussing, hold it for another meeting … otherwise there might not be another one.
#2 READ THE AUDIENCE, NOT THE SLIDES
This has happened to everyone at some point: the stakes are high, and you really want to win a sale. So you prepare a “presentation” for the meeting that includes every element you think you need to cover in order to get the business. However according to our respondents, even experienced, knowledgeable salespeople turn into presenters instead of well-informed and prepared advisers sharing relevant answers. Don’t fall into the trap of talking at the customer, instead of with them. One C-level decision maker shared, “I am looking for someone to come in and host a meeting and ask relevant questions, provide me with relevant solutions, and know their information inside and out so that we can discuss it in the format and order that makes sense to me, not how it works for them.”
Best practices for a customer meeting with a slide presentation component include these 2 rules of thumb:
Use slides sparingly and carefully!
Either put it on the slide or say it – don’t do both. We’ve all been in meetings where the presenter stands in front of the audience and reads exactly what is on the slides. Think of slides as “helpers” that provide the audience with extra information to make the point you are speaking about, or as “exclamation points” that provide visual examples of complex or important information that make it easier for the audience to understand or be involved with the material.
#3 MIX IT UP
Every leader we spoke with mentioned that they appreciate a meeting where the host provides different ways to engage the audience. The best salespeople use different tools to get the audience involved in the meeting. For example, rather than a slide with a picture of the item you are talking about – bring the actual object with you so that they can touch and feel it. When dealing with a group, consider doing a short exercise that gets them interacting and discussing an important point so you can draw out important information. Short video clips of relevant experts, testimonials, inspirational or funny clips meant to encourage discussion can be very effective. Bring along a whiteboard so that you can draw in order to better explain a point, or keep track of important ideas and questions that surface in the meeting. Better yet? Get the customer more involved and engaged by asking someone in the meeting to help with white-boarding.
It boils down to this: don’t lose the perspective you need most – that of how it feels to be a customer. Be RELEVANT, EFFECTIVE & ENGAGING. When preparing for the meeting ask yourself from the customer’s perspective:
So What? If the customer asked me, how could I tie this directlyback to something that is RELEVANT to them or their needs?
What words can I take out of the slides and cover more EFFECTIVELY by simply talking WITH the meeting members, or at least shorten the bullets to a couple of words that emphasize the most important points?
What parts can I do a more effective job of handling by ENGAGING the customer? Rather than using a slide or by discussion – where can I pass out samples, white-board, ask questions, show a video clip or include a short group exercise etc?
Once you have made the changes above & completed the meeting material, ask yourself the same questions again.
To get more presentation tips from the top speakers & presenters in the world:
Click here to watch a 2 minute video of internationally renowned speaker & Former Apple Macintosh chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki on the 10/20/30 Rule of Power Point
If you fall into the latter “badge “ category, I realize a blog or newsletter may not be enough of a wake-up call to get you to change your ways. Sometimes learning from the mistakes of others before we have to experience misfortune for ourselves can be powerful. Take a business leader I worked with years ago. He never took a day off and seemed pleased to find opportunities to share his dedication when the topic came up. After following this pattern for years, his boss started citing performance issues due to his lack of creativity. True, time away from our normal routines can helps us gain new perspective. Would you believe research supports how taking time off can actually make you more productive?
