Most important things in life should be done as fast as possible and as slow as necessary.
Wise people know when to push and when to pause.
It was great to chat with Gary Kayye on Rants and rAVes about InfoComm and the Leadership Search Committee.
When you think of courage, the image that might come to mind is a soldier on a righteous cause or a first responder rescuing a child from a burning building. To be courageous is to be strong.
But most of us show the most courage when we are weak.
It takes more courage to ask for help than to offer help.
It requires vulnerability. It requires, often, for a proudly self-sufficient person to be out of options and rather desperate. It requires an awkward conversation, the risk of rejection, and a blow to the ego that might last long after the situation or the need for help has passed.
And it is also difficult, because most of us don’t have great examples of it in our life. We see lots of heroism. Lots of opportunities to serve. Lots of stories of the little guy accomplishing much. We see the success (whether it is plastered in corporate branding messaging or on the white-washed posts that we see of our friends on social media). We don’t see the climb. We don’t see the rejection. We don’t see the others who may have been involved.
And we don’t see the ask. We might never in our life hear someone in desperation ask someone else for help for something serious. Beyond the “can you pick up the kids?” or the “can I borrow an egg?” variety requests. I am talking about the “my career is floundering” or “my marriage is failing” kind of pleas for help. We literally have no pattern to follow on how to start the conversation or how to respond to the response (whether positive or negative).
What have you found to be the most effective ways that you or others have asked for help of any kind?
I have been enjoying the NBC show “This is Us.” In a recent episode, a character visited his childhood home and was surprised to find a few precious items tucked behind a fireplace brick left decades ago. As he takes inventory of what he found (see how I am trying so hard not to spoil it for you?), the character reflects on how the items were still hidden there after all these years and comments “isn’t it strange how the world sticks and moves like that?”
Our careers also stick and move as well. Here are three ways our work and our workplaces can be sticky and yet demonstrate mobility.
1. Habits die hard, so it’s good you have nine lives
Each of us learned powerful lessons in our families growing up or under the tutelage of coaches, teachers, and early bosses that affect our work habits. We learned to work hard, work smart, and communicate in these early experiences. Early habits and work styles can stick. But they can move as well. Especially if we are mindful and purposeful. In this book, The Leadership Pipeline, Ram Charan, outlines steps people take in their career to abandon the things that made them successful in the past to adopt new habits and approaches befitting their increasing responsibility or more impactful role. The first passage, as he names it, is the transition from managing yourself to managing others. Then, managing managers. Then managing functions. Then to managing businesses, then groups, and finally enterprises. And at each stage there are things that have to be learned and things that need to be unlearned. That is hard work to execute, but just like child’s toys hidden behind a fireplace aren’t appropriate for a grown-up, taste and needs change and you will need to as well.
What habits are no longer serving you that need to adapt?
Years ago, I was the one that took notes in meetings. I can type fast. I understood the issues. I was organized. But over time, I learned that being the scribe didn’t serve me. It kept me from fully participating in the discussion and it turned me into an administrator instead of the leader I needed to be. So, I delegate this now to others and only capture my own actions or commitments. This is a small thing, but illustrates how change occurs. One habit at a time.
2. “Culture eats strategy for lunch,” so I hope you are hungry
The quip about the importance of corporate culture is attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker and is now the title of a book by Curt Coffman and Kathie Sorensen. And just like changing your diet, changing your culture is a difficult, but worthwhile effort. I have worked in organizations whose leaders were very purposeful and thoughtful about the culture they were building. One of my past CEOs and mentors, Balaji Krishnamurthy, went onto to found a consulting company focused on culture and its impact on strategy. Changing the corporate culture requires first awareness that it is there. It is like a fish recognizing that it is swimming in water. Only if it differs from your experience or changes in some way, do you notice it is even there. And when you do notice, it is already having a negative (or positive) impact on your results, team dynamics, and job satisfaction. The fish is gasping for air when it leaves the water. High performing companies think about what culture they wish to build, reinforce the preferred behaviors in many ways, and demonstrate patience and persistence. Culture is very sticky, but there are many examples of leaders who decide that what they are isn’t what they need to be and they lead change initiatives that last. But it is a process and not everyone comes along for the journey.
What elements of your corporate culture are no longer helping you achieve your goals?
I worked for an established company. An established company that was acquired by an entrepreneurial Chinese firm last year and formed an incredible international business that is now being served by the combined company and our brands (Planar andLeyard). And our business is growing rapidly (we doubled last year). Facing this caliber of change - which hold so much promise and is very exciting, yet challenging - has caused me to reflect on the kind of leader I need to be and the kind of “norms” we should be cultivating in our business. This is an effort in progress and requires constant reflection. The old ways of working, communicating, executing our plans, or even making our plans must change to keep pace, and I must change with it.
3. Excuses never made anything better
Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” But that doesn’t make it less tempting to cook up a fresh batch of excuses when things go wrong or when the results of poor choices catch up with us. We blame our boss, our genes, our 4th grade math teacher, or the train being late. Our dog ate our homework or our phone battery is dead. I am not saying that these things don’t occur and that everything is within our control. Clearly that is not true. But if we focus on the excuses we can get stuck. In old ways of thinking. In old patterns of acting. In using the same excuses again and again. In not holding ourselves accountable for being better versions of ourselves.
Watch yourself make excuses. What are you trying to avoid? Who are you trying to impress? What are you afraid will happen? What excuses do you use regularly?
I have been trying to post articles on LinkedIn once a month. A discipline that I started nearly two years ago and I have been quite predictable about it. Then I wrote an article in December about the benefits of procrastination and I guess I took it too much to heart: January got away from me without a post. I blamed my busy schedule. I blamed the fact that I was writing for some other publications. Those are all true, but they were true before as well. I promised myself that I would turn one of these ideas I had squirreled away in Evernote into an article and would post it tomorrow. Then tomorrow became the day after that and now a month later, I am confessing that those excuses didn’t write the article. Only writing it did. All my efforts to procrastinate could have been directed to writing and my track record would have been preserved. In this case, this is a practice I do primarily for myself, but I see the same pattern in other more important matters. It is time to retire some of my well-used and worn out excuses and perhaps you need to do the same.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse
"If you are doing your presentation right, no one will know or care what software you're using. It's not about the tools. It's about the meaning." - Garr Reynolds, @presentationzen
Remain an artist - Picasso
Remain a beginner - Jobs
Remain calm and carry on - Churchill
Guest article by Elita Torres with Lead Grow Develop.
As a leader, one of our most important responsibilities is keeping our workforce engaged. Typically, that may mean adopting your leadership style to match the needs of your team. However, with the millennial generation joining the workforce, it is not enough for leaders to have to adapt their management style. Employers may need to look at their engagement policies as well.
Millennials or “Generation Y” are defined by many as those individuals born between 1982 and 2004. According to the Pew Research Center, there are now 75.4 million Millennials, surpassing the 74.9 million "Baby Boomers," those born between 1946 and 1965, as the largest segment of the U.S. population.
If Companies are to keep engagement a priority, they need to understand what drives Millennial’s motivation. Is there a need to change one’s style to adapt to this different generation? With so much focus on Gen Y, it pays to take notice.
A recent Deloitte Millennial survey uncovered some interesting facts about this generation:
- During the next year, if given the choice, one in four Millennials would quit his or her current employer to join a new organization or to do something different.
- Millennials judge the performance of a business on what it does and how it treats people.
- When asked, “What are the most important values a business should follow if it is to have long-term success?” They responded that businesses should put employees first, and they should have a solid foundation of trust and integrity.
- Seven in ten (70 percent) Millennials believe their personal values are shared by the organizations they work for. This rises to 80 percent among the most senior Millennials and 82 percent for those intending to stay for at least another five years. This is a strong indication that Millennials choose employers whose values reflect their own.
What values are important to Gen Y? Working for a company that:
- Provides a good income to employees
- Is the best possible place to work
- Focuses on improving the skills of the workforce
- Provides services and goods that make a positive difference to people’s lives
- Generating and supporting jobs
It sounds similar to previous generations. After all, which generation doesn’t want to get paid well or work for a company where they can improve their skills? The main difference is Millennials are not willing to wait for a company to get it right. Their level of loyalty is lower than previous generations. Remember the first statistic from the Deloitte survey? 70% would quit their job to do something different.
Leaders and companies can no longer afford not to put employee engagement first.
Here are 7 Mistakes to Avoid in Leading Millennials in the Workplace
1. Not Being Clear on Career Opportunities
Surveys show that millennial workers rate training and development as an employee benefit three times higher than they rate cash bonuses. It starts with a set onboarding plan and continues with a development plan that focuses on elevating their employees’ skills. Find ways to challenge them through stretch projects.
2. Establishing Your Authority through Power
If as a leader, you attempt to display your authority through your position or power, you will not achieve consistent success. In order to motivate millennials, establish authority through relationship and respect. Leaders need to forget top down management and now focus on side to side management.
3. Micro-Managing
“The new-era employee assumes they can and should contribute to conversation and decisions that affect where they work,” says Lisa Orrell of San Francisco Bay Area-based consultancy, The Orrell Group and author of Millennials Incorporated. Meetings should be open, collaborative sessions in which everyone is encouraged to share ideas.
Explain what needs to be done and what the end result should look like, but trust them to get there on their own.
4. Under Emphasizing the importance of Company Culture
Establishing a solid company culture has always been important but never more so than now. If they believe that their values are being shared by the company they work for, their loyalty increases. Make sure your company vision is clear and is reflected in your business decisions. When identifying and building your company culture, focus on the team and not the company.
5. Not Investing in Technology
If you have outdated technology, you will quickly frustrate your employees. Millennials are comfortable with all the latest tech and expect it from the place they work for. They have become reliant on technology for just about everything.
6. Not sharing
Transparency and open dialogue is key. If you don’t take time to connect with your employees, you will lose their interest fast. Don’t assume you know what gets them motivated and have that dialogue with them.
7. Not Reconsidering the schedule
It may not be an option in every work environment, but if you can make work hours flexible, you will be meeting an important benefit. Replace the regular 9-5 work routine and try to work around a schedule that is a win-win for both employee and company.
The good news is that you can get to know what your Millennial workforce needs by just asking. They expect transparency, but are transparent themselves. Just ask.
Our guest blogger is Elita Torres is a Regional Sales Director and Blogs at Lead Grow Develop. She writes post on Leadership and Personal Development as well as a #5MinMotivation series. Elita can be found @ElitaTorres1 on Twitter and on Facebook at@LeadGrowDevelop.
It was great to collaborate with Elisa Torres to bring some new perspectives to the readers of LeadGrowDevelop for the article below:
In every organization, there are those that are identified as key contributors to the success of the business whether they have exceptional technical skills, great relationships throughout the company and with customers, or a track record of delivering results. We often call these “high performers.” Research shows that high performers can deliver 400% more productivity than average performers. Said another way, every dollar you spend nurturing a high performer to even greater levels of achievement, could return 400% over investments you might make in others. It is worth the effort.
Here are five ways to nurture high performers in your organization.
- Let them know they are a high performer in the company
Tell them that their contribution matters and that their future with the company is bright. Because every person is different and frustrations and challenges come every day, you should plan on telling them often and in different ways. Tell them with words, with recognition, with opportunities, with advancement, and in their compensation. Early in my days as a manager, I would gather the team together periodically and hand out trophies (yes, literal trophies, recycled from a thrift store) to recognize employees. I like to write notes of appreciation and have used team and individual gifts to call attention to great performances. I use our quarterly review conversations to remind high performers that they are valued by the organization and reflect on all the progress and achievements they have accomplished. - Give them an opportunity to profit from the company’s success
You should be paying your high performers well. According to research from Oxford Economics and SAP Success Factors, the number one contributing factor to job satisfaction is base pay, followed shortly by bonus incentives. Special attention should be paid to those high-performers who have had long tenure in the organization and whose annual raises might not have kept up with competitive market pay rates. But even more important than base salary for those with growth potential, is the opportunity to align their pay with the performance of the company overall. Many companies have bonus plans or profit sharing for employees, and those are great programs to leverage for high performers. But you might consider other programs as well. A special bonus for finishing an important project, an incentive tied to achieving a certain group goal, or even a retainer bonus tied to working through a particular date of importance to the organization. Find creative ways to compensate your highest performers and you will find them being more creative to grow the business. - Keep them accountable
Just because you are telling your employees that they are valued and critical to the business success, doesn’t mean that key employees should be coddled or that they can do no wrong. In fact, it is the opposite. It is like a coach who is hard on their best players, because they see their potential. Randy Pauch in his book and lecture entitled, The Last Lecture, he told a story of playing sports under a demanding coach. His conclusion was that “when you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, it means they’ve given up on you.” So, if you have employees that you have not given up on and in fact you see incredible potential, you should spend more of your time and effort helping them to achieve. Encourage not only your effort, but get other managers and executives in the company to invest their time to give high potential employees the most resources possible. - Help them see their potential
For many high performers, they know what might have made them successful in their current role, but they might not see clearly what they have to strive for. This is where mentoring, networking, education, and even executive coaching can play a role. Success, they say, is contagious. So put your best performers in position so that they can see what world-class performance in their field looks like and they can create their own plans. Research shows that high performers show a tendency towards self-directed learning and in fact, that is one of the ways to identify high performers who have head room to grow beyond their current roles or contributions. Early career employees often don’t know what might be possible and need someone to show them the way. - Align their career goals with the company’s goals
We all know the cost (in both hard expenses and soft cost distraction) of losing a key performer. So, it is important to collaborate to create a career path that aligns the company’s goals for low turn-over and high productivity, to the employee’s goals for personal growth and financial rewards. Career paths no longer fit solidly on rungs on a ladder, so as a leader you shouldn’t limit your own thinking either. Not every key contributor or high performer wants to be a manager, wants to take an international assignment, or shares the same motivations. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in today’s business environment.
"Success is what happens after you've survived all of your mistakes." - Lauren Maillian, Founder and CEO of LMB Group
You may be following the political and legal battle surrounding daily fantasy sports. I won’t recap all the issues here, but one crucial question that has been poised is this: Is betting on sports a game of chance or a game of skill? Certainly playing the lottery is a game of chance. Being better at starching the tickets or picking numbers, has no correlation to winning. However, assembling a fantasy sports team does require a degree of familiarity with the players, understanding of their injuries or mindset, and, although I don’t play, I assume one can increase their odds with better choices.
This got me thinking about gambling and risk in general. It seems to me that life itself is both a game of chance and skill. You can be born in the right country in the right century to maximize your options. That clearly is luck. You can make good choices and improve your odds. You can educate yourself, get and take advice, and learn from your mistakes. Life certainly favors the skilled. You can meet a friend-of-a-friend at a cocktail party (chance) and impress with your expertise and witty banter and they consider investing in your company, buying your product, or offering you a new position (skill). Like this example, most of us experience a good mix.
There is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson that reads “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I suppose that is really the take-away from our experience. Everyone is gambling with the hand we have been dealt. And with better plays, can win more frequently.
I am very aware of the blessings that I have received without my involvement or skill. I am humbled to realize that my success is in a large part attributed to things outside my control. This is why I am committed to give others the opportunity to achieve their full potential. This is why I joined the board of Marathon Scholars. I invite you to learn more about the organization, become a mentor, invest in a scholarship for a worthy scholar, and find other ways to get involved.
All of us have cause to feel hurt, overlooked, or disrespected from time to time. Finding ways to handle that graciously while maintaining our self-respect and poise can be a challenge for even the most self-confident of the bunch. In the heat of the moment, when you feel attacked or dismissed, it is hard to muster the courage to take back the energy and the power. Sometimes you need a cheat to help get you there.
In Amy Poehler’s recent book, the comedian talks about her winning strategy in these situations. “This is the part where you apologize to me,” she says. “You screwed up and this is where you make me feel better about it.” And then wait for the response.
She describes using this technique on bosses, co-workers, and even the rude concierge at a hotel, who might need a “this is the part of the evening where the concierge helps me” kind of reminder. “Act like they are an actor who has forgotten which part they are playing,” she continues. “It brings the attention back to them and gives you a minute to calm down so that you don’t do something silly like burst into tears or break their stupid glasses.”
I think I might try this the next time that I am asked to wait too long, have my awesome idea interrupted, or want to ask for something in a disarming way.
Let’s try it now. This is the part of the blog post, where you leave a comment.
I have a stitchery, which was a wedding present, which reads “Love is a choice and a commitment. It takes a lifetime of giving and receiving.”
Sometimes love gets up in the middle of the night to comfort a sick child. Sometime love travels great distances and solves seemingly impossible problems to resolve a customer problem under deadline. Sometimes love looks like dirty work.
Although it is not popular in western culture to discuss, sometimes love looks like duty. Duty, administered thoughtfully, purposefully, and with heart, can be loving.
"Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life." - Christiane Northrup, MD
You are looking to grow your business and your executive team. You want to add another voice at the table to represent strategic marketing. Communications and brand are becoming more important and you want the organization to be more thoughtful and integrated in your approach. You want to add some diversity to your executive team, in which finance and operations are heavily represented. Perhaps this is your first CMO role and you want to hire right.
You have worked your network, promoted a job and possibly even hired a recruiter to broaden and deepen your search. You have a list of key candidates who might be perfect for your new role. You know, as we all do, that interviews are horrible for assessing talent and fit, but that is the tool you have at your disposal, so you plan to use it to its fullest potential.
Here are five questions you should ask in an interview and what to listen for to help you find the rock star marketing executive who can help take your organization to the next level.
- What was your first professional “win” in marketing and what made it successful?
I am a big believer that how you do anything is how you do everything (which is a tenet of the Effective Interviewing curriculum that I highly recommend). Making someone go back to their memory banks, reaching back early in their career (or even college), tells you a lot about how they approach problems, find resources, and how they assess their own strengths. For this question, listen for the role that they played, how they measured success (was it a feeling or data), and how those same patterns show up in their later successes. - What is on your dashboard?
Assuming they have done similar work in the past and that is why you are considering them for your open position, ask them how they measured success in their last role. Listen for metrics that are not activities based (ie, number of campaigns, shows, or product launches), but results based (ie, sales-qualified leads, conversion rates, opportunities, coverage, etc). Listen for a mix of qualitative and quantitative. Ideally, they would have financial measures that relate to revenue and profit generation, not just budget management. And if you want to inquire as to their technical skills on some of the marketing systems that might be deployed, ask about how the metrics were set-up and delivered. - What marketing metric should be on the CEO dashboard?
This question helps you get a sense of how the person believes their work should be measured and how collaborative they will likely be with you and others on the staff. They should be able to provide you with a few key metrics that are measurable and meaningful to the business. Not just benchmark metrics like marketing spend as a percentage of revenue, which are useful, but not terribly actionable. Each business might call for different metrics, so listen for the logic behind the answer and probe into that if anything is unclear. - What do you consider best practices for building a winning team and how have you deployed those successfully in the past?
In any executive role, one of the key measures of success is how well they can recruit, empower, motivate, develop, and retain high-performing teams. This question allows the candidate to talk about their previous teams. If they are not specific in their answers, be sure to press them on where they found their key performers in the past, how they developed them, and how they delegated authority and responsibility over time. You should also listen for how they describe the teamwork among the executive team – your direct reports – which are critical for the company’s success. Patrick Lencioni in his book The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, talks about the importance of having a first team that is your peers, not simply focusing on teamwork within functions or groups. As a member of the executive team, it is critical that your CMO understands their first team responsibilities and knows how to team up and build trust among their peers. - From what you have learned about our company and industry, where are the most impactful points of leverage in our business?
This question requires the candidate to put on their management consultant hat and it tests their situational analysis skills, as well as the research they did prior to the interview. Do they understand your business well enough (or ones like it) to identify a few things that would be of key importance to the business. This is also a place where they could reference your financial reports (if those are public or provided) and provide you their analysis of the leverage points in the business model.
These questions get to the heart of what you want in a marketing executive. You want someone who knows their stuff from a marketing perspective and can lead the function with the capabilities, credibility, and confidence you need for the investments you are making. But you also want someone who is an effective member of your executive staff and can help you lead the business to new heights.
This article was originally published on The CEO Magazine.
I learned recently that the research firm SRI employed researchers that developed the hyperlink and many of the conventions that we use today on websites and other digital interfaces. And the same team pioneered some machine intelligence, AI, and voice recognition developments that were behind Apple’s Siri application. It struck me as ironic that over the decades, this group sought to undo its own work. You don’t have to click on anything, if you can just speak to your devices.
Planar, now a Leyard company, has a history of this kind of cannibalization. We make our own products obsolete regularly. The Planar® LookThru™ OLED transparent display addressed many limitations of previous offerings and has essentially replaced the Planar® LookThru™ LCD offering. We have single displays that are larger than 2x2 array of tiled video wall products, making this style of display easier to specify and install than previous generations. We add features into products that used to require separate purchases or third-party equipment. You have to look no further than the latest version of the Planar® UltraRes™ display to see how much image processing, scaling, and control we have built into the product, especially once you consider the free iOS or Android UltraRes App. As the bezels have been shrinking on LCD tiled video wall displays, like the award-winning Clarity® Matrix™, we have also introduced cutting-edge, fine-pitch LED technology that is truly seamless (see Planar® DirectLight™ or the Leyard® TVH or TW series).
Innovation companies that last are ones that aren’t afraid to kill their best product lines with a new idea. To stay relevant, I heard someone say recently, you need to be prepared to run a different company every few years. In the fast-moving space of display technologies, flexibility is a requirement. Planar has been innovating for over 30 years and Leyard for over 20. It’s a testament to our shared commitment to the long play.
Good advice. Stay busy with what you can do. Don’t worry about what you can’t control or influence.
"Set goals for the things you can control. In my case, I can't control the marks from the judges, but I can control how I train every day, and I can control my performance." - Claire Carver-Dias, Canadian Olympic Medalist in synchronized swimming
It was a pleasure to chat with Gary Kayye in the Rants and rAVes podcast about the upcoming Integrated System Europe (ISE) conference next week. #ISE2017
“Grandma, you have to see this new show that we found on Netflix. I think you’d really like it!” my son told my Mom. “Really? What is it?” replied my Mom, intrigued. “It’s a show about a Dad and his son and his crazy co-workers in this small town. It’s really funny and doesn’t have bad language,” he continues. “You’ve probably never heard of it,” he adds. “It’s called the Andy Griffith Show.”
This conversation really occurred in my house last year, when my kids thought they had discovered this show which ran 8 seasons in the 1960s. They were shocked to learn that their grandma already knew about the show. In fact, she had watched it every week when it was broadcast, first in black and white and then in color. My kids “discovered” Andy Griffith like Columbus “discovered” the new world or the world “discovered” TED talks over the past few years. Things around for decades, centuries, or even millennia get rediscovered when new technology makes it possible.
My kids would have never watched Andy Griffith without NetFlix serving up suggestions. Columbus would have never discovered America without the help of ships and navigation technologies (however flawed they were). TED would have never extended beyond an event for 1,200 people in Canada each year, if it weren’t for the ability to stream video online, which extended the platform of the events and the “ideas worth sharing” to multiple continents and cultures.
What old things are worth discovering again? What technology innovation will be required to make that discovery possible?
"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone, but what is woven into the lives of others." - Pericles