Re:Focus

The Best Thing You Can Have Is Bad Intelligence

During the Cold War, America would fly spy planes over the Soviet Union to count how many bombers they had. Knowing exactly what the Americans were doing, the Soviets laid out hundreds of fake, wooden bombers to trick the Americans into thinking that they had a much bigger capability than they actually did.  The problem was, America believed its own intelligence and built real bombers to counter the perceived Soviet threat. 

It wasn't until after the fall of the Berlin Wall did we learn that, if we ever had gone to war with the Soviet Union, we would have annihilated them because our resources vastly outnumbered theirs.  This massive unfair advantage would not have happened if it weren't for the good fortune of some bad intelligence. 

Believing that your competition is stronger and better than you will pushes you to better yourselves. Whether real or perceived, believing you have a disadvantage forces you to find new and clever ways to compete. It's always the organizations that are resourced constrained that come up with the good ideas to win.

You can save money on competitive analyses by simply pretending that whatever your competition is doing, they are doing it better than you. This works no matter if you're the leader or the challenger.  Instead of constantly trying to compare what you're doing to others, focus instead on constantly trying to improve yourself and the way you do things. You should believe, true or not, that there is always someone lurking on the horizon waiting to take advantage of you.

The greatest threat any organization can face is not its competition but its own success. With great success comes complacency - the false belief that you are the best and that you don't have to worry. The problem is, you'll only realize it's a false belief when someone else catches you by surprise. This pattern is repeated over and over and over. Wal-Mart, Microsoft and General Motors all believed that they were unbeatable...until a company who believed they were not as strong found a better way to compete with the 800lb gorilla.

Who Cares About Customers?

One day, when you get old, would you like your family to support you or would you like them to care about you?

If you're family supports you, that means they will pay the bills for the old age home, call you the prescribed number of times and visit you on your birthday. But if they care about you, they will visit you more often and not on any set schedule. They will bring the grand kids over and make sure you get an extra helping of marshmallow sweet potatoes (your favorite) at Thanksgiving.

No one wants to be supported, we want to be cared for. So why are so many companies so proud of their "customer support?" You see it all the time on websites...the link in the upper corner that says simply, "support." To most that means giving you the ability to send an email with your question.  Support means answering your questions and acting in the prescribed manner.  But "care," that's an entirely different standard. Care is human...like the customers.

There is power in words - just as you plainly understood the difference when I asked you if you wanted to be supported or cared for when you get old, so too does that word impact the behavior of the people we hire to support...er...care for...our customers.  Firstly, the department itself is usually called, "customer support."  It should be called, "customer care."  We tell those who work in the department to offer "customer support."  We should be telling them to "care for our customers."

We, as customers, can always tell the difference too.  A customer support agent who has been told to offer "support" tends to follow a script.  They tend to be matter-of-fact about things. And even if the problem is not resolved to your satisfaction, they will actually tell you all the things they've done to help you and that there is nothing more they can do. That is, by all fair metrics, good support.

But customer care agents who have been told to take care of the customer, will talk to you differently.  They have more patience.  They will go out of their way or even ask one of their colleagues for help if they don't know the answer.  There is no script.  They don't need one.  If you hire someone who likes people and you tell them to take care of other people, there is no special training required...just special words to inspire them to do the right thing...to take care.

Do You Know Why?

  Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their successes over and over?

 People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. Their natural ability to start with why enabled them to inspire those around them and to achieve remarkable things.

 Three and a half years ago I made a discovery. I discovered that all the most inspiring and successful leaders, regardless if they are individuals or organizations, regardless of their size or industry, all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way—and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does. I called this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

Any organization can explain what it does; some can explain how they do it; but very few can clearly articulate why. WHY is not money or profit—those are always results. Why does your organization exist? Why does it do the things it does? Why do customers really buy from one company or another? Why are people loyal to some leaders, but not others?

Start With Why is a book for those who want to learn to inspire others and for those who want to find someone to inspire them.  Start with Why is available now at your favorite book seller.

Special Promotion: Buy two copies, give one away and we can inspire even more people...

How Did That Idiot Get To Be My Boss?

As anyone who has every held a job can attest, at some point in ones career you will work for someone who clearly has less talent or ability than you do. On a regular basis you’ll ask yourself, “how is THAT guy my boss?” The answer has less to do with the poor sod who was promoted above you and more to do with how we view talent and reward performance in an organization.

The biggest problem is that companies often promote someone who is good at their job to being a manager. But doing the job well and managing others to do it well are not the same thing. In fact, they are completely different skill sets. A great salesman is just that, a great salesman. But a great salesman does not necessarily make a great sales manager. But very often, the top-performing salesman is promoted to sales manager not because he’s necessarily qualified, but because he did well at his other job. And it gets worse. Not only are we promoting people into the wrong jobs, we’re not even training them once they get there. I can guarantee that top-performing salesman was given tons of training to be a salesman. He probably even shadowed more seasoned veterans to learn the ropes. After he became sales manager, however, his training likely stopped. And he almost certainly never shadowed more seasoned sales managers to learn the ropes.

click picture to buy the t-shirt

When people are in middle management and below, we train the heck out of them. That’s because they are doers so, logically, companies train them so they can be good at their jobs. With all that training, they prove themselves and earn promotions. But then the amount of training plummets.

As people get more senior, they move from being doers to being thinkers and managers, but most companies don’t train people how to manage or think. If you make widgets – there is a training on how to make the best widget. Get promoted, and you’re left to figure things out by yourself. There are painfully few companies that train their managers how to manage or think strategically.

Being good at your job does not equip you to manage others, nor does being smart. Two men in recent history widely regarded to be some of smartest to become US Presidents were Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Nixon’s intellect, in fact, was said to be astounding. Yet neither of them had particularly remarkable presidencies. Smarts do not necessarily equate to leadership.

Leadership is a skill set that does not always mean you’re good at the job itself. Tommy Lasorda, the famed LA Dodgers manager was hailed as one of the great all time baseball managers. His own baseball career, however, was short and not so sweet. In contrast, Isiah Thomas was one of the great basketball players in the ‘80s. He eventually joined the management of the New York Knicks and he was an abysmal failure.

When someone got promoted because they were very good at doing a job, they feel they can do it better than those who now work for them (and maybe the can). The temptation to micromanage or to tell people to do it their way can be overwhelming. Sometimes their intentions may be good, they may be trying to teach, but other times they simply miss being in the trenches and yearn to get back in. Either way, it manifests as poor management. And poor management is to blame for a lot of the ills our economy is facing now. It's not that bad things were being done at the lower levels, it's that the people weren't managing properly.

Great managers, in contrast, are able to coach others to maximize their own potential and work to their own strengths. They give out responsibility instead of tasks and allow people to make mistakes. Great managers may even have an advantage if they are not good at the tasks themselves because it forces them to step back and rely on those around them. And most importantly, great managers are always aware of the big picture and the long-term strategy.  That, afterall, is their job.

American organizations need to change two things if our management is to become as skilled as our workforce.

1: Companies need to get better at assessing people’s skills before we simply reward good performance or big brains with promotions. The higher someone gets in a company, the better they are supposed to be at managing down. Instead, the Peter Principle rules – where we promote people to their highest level of incompetence.

2: If companies ignore this first requirement, then there is even more pressure to provide more training to people as they are promoted up the ranks. We teach technicians what to do, but we need to teach leaders how to lead. Management and leadership, like any skill, require learning and practice.

So the next time you get a promotion for a job well-done, ask for some training as you enter your new job before you find yourself as the idiot that people can’t believe they are working for.

Is your company doing any effective management or leadership training your company is doing? Please let me know in the comments.

Originally published on The Huffington Post

The Best Leaders Show Up For The Cause Not The Result

Offering CEO's big money to come and run companies does not guarantee great leadership. In fact, the practice may attract the wrong leaders altogether.

With banks failing, the auto-industry in a mess and Steve Jobs returning to work after his secretive liver transplant, it's a good time to raise the subject of succession again.  

Wall Street was quite upset that Apple was so close to the vest about Jobs's health.  And well they should be, the last time Jobs left in 1985, the company slumped and didn't re-emerge as the powerhouse they are now until Jobs returned to the helm a decade later. But Jobs's health is irrelevant. Cancer or new livers aside, the fact is he can't lead the company forever and knowing how to find a good leader to succeed him is important.

But Apple is just one of many succession conundrums.  Many of the banks are sailing rudderless into the future as are companies like AIG, Chrysler and GM. Rick Wagoner, for example, was ousted from GM for mismanaging the company, only to be replaced by a man who, well, lets just say he's not much of an inspiring leader. And given the desperate need for real leadership these days, there is an ongoing debate in boardrooms and on Capitol Hill about how much we should pay these leaders for their contributions. 

The argument is that companies can not attract the best leaders, the leaders they need, unless they are very well compensated. And that, believe it or not, is actually the problem.  The flaw in the logic is that the best leaders do it for the money, which they don't.  Great leaders show up for the challenge or the cause. The bad leaders show up for the money.

Instead of finding someone with an impressive resume who is willing to help if you pay him or her enough, imagine if the Obama administration made this appeal:

The recent economic melt-down has taught us a valuable lesson - that the way we did things in the past is not the way we can do things in the future. We may have enjoyed the short term riches of the past decade or more, but we have done so by weakening the very foundations of our corporations and indeed our economy.

Now is the time for change.  Now is the time for new ideas and new leaders to emerge to rebuild our economy and our nation so that we may, once again, be the beacon of how a great free market economy should run.

We are looking for the men and woman who want to help shape the corporations of the future and help build the new American economy. The salary will not be big. The challenge will be great. And the opportunity to influence the future of our county is real.

Are you up for the challenge?  If so, please contact President Obama and tell him you want to lead.

Such an appeal does not mean that prior experience is ignored, it just means it is considered second to the leaders desire to help.  If a leader shows up for the cause, they will work with blood, sweat and tears and they will inspire those around them to do the same.  If the leader does not believe in the cause, then they will work for the money.  The very fact that got us into this mess in the first place.

Click here to download a PDF version of this article

This blog also appeared in The Huffington Post

Why So Many Successions Don't Succeed

There were three words missing from Bill Gates’ goodbye speech when he officially left Microsoft in July of this year.  They are three words he probably doesn’t even realize need to be there.  Three little words:

“I’ll be back.”

After abdicating his role as the head of Microsoft to Steve Balmer in 2000, Bill Gates has completely relinquished influence over the company he built so he can lend more time and energy to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  But Gates forgot to do one thing that would allow his plan to work. This one oversight could have a devastating impact on Microsoft and will require him to come back in 3 to 5 years to right the ship.

 Bill Gates is special.  Not because of his brain or his management style.  Though important, those two things alone are not the formula for building a multi-billion dollar corporation from scratch.  Like all visionary leaders, Bill Gates is special because he physically embodies what he believes.

When Gates founded Microsoft just over 30 years ago, he did so to advance a higher cause.  A noble purpose.  He believes that technology is the great equalizer.  Give people the right tools, make people more productive, and everyone, no matter their lot in life, will have an opportunity to achieve their real potential.  “A PC in every home and on every desk,” he envisioned (which is remarkable from a company that didn’t make PCs).  He saw the PC as the great equalizer. Microsoft’s most successful software, Windows, allowed anyone to have access to powerful technology. Tools like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, gave everyone the power to realize the promise of the new technology – to become more efficient and productive.  Small businesses, for example, could look and act like big businesses.  Microsoft’s software are the tools that helped Gates advance his cause to empower the “every man.”  It was Gates who is responsible for the advancement of personal computer.  Gates put a PC on every desk and in doing so he changed the world. 

Gates is important to Microsoft because he physically embodies his vision.  He is the “every man.”  He dresses like you and me.  He drives his own car.  He is understated.  He his not flamboyant with his wealth. Bill Gates is the original vision of Microsoft.

So what happens now that he’s gone?

Such a departure is not without precedent among companies with equally visionary leaders.  Steve Jobs, a man who personifies the notion of challenging the status quo, who is the physical embodiment of “Think Different,” left Apple in 1985 to start Next.  He left the company in the hands of a capable executive, Pepsi’s John Scully.  The problem was, Scully ran the company as a business and not as a tool to achieve a higher purpose.  The company thrived on Jobs’s fumes for a few years and then it started to falter.  Not until Job’s return in 1996 did Apple reinstate it’s power for innovation, for thinking different and to, once again, redefine industries.

Michael Dell had a cause.  One he didn’t effectively communicate before he stepped down as CEO in July, 2004.  And when the company started to weaken with him gone, he came back in fewer than 3 years.  In 2000 Howard Schultz resigned as CEO of Starbucks.  And for the first time in it’s history, Starbucks started to crack.  Schultz returned in 2007 to put things right. 

Jobs, Dell, Schultz and Gates are not God’s gift to management.  Their companies are thousands of people deep and they alone can’t pull all the strings or push all the buttons to make everything work properly.  They rely on the brains and the management skills of teams of people.  In this respect, they are no different from any other executive.  But what they all have in common, something not all CEOs have, is that they physically embody the cause around which they built their companies.  Their mere existence reminds every executive and every employee why they show up to work.  Put simply: they inspire. 

Like Bill Gates, these inspired leaders failed to properly articulate their cause in words that others could rally around.  And as a result, they are the only ones who could lead their movement.  But they still have the same challenge – what happens when they leave again? 

  

The best thing Dell, Schultz and Jobs can do while they are back is to make sure that everyone knows why the company was founded in the first place.  What’s the cause they are there to champion?  What movement are they leading?  Why should anyone care? 

Schultz hasn’t done it yet. He is back at Starbucks talking about coffee.  There aren’t many employees at Starbucks who are truly inspired by coffee.  In fact, if you go back to the history of Starbucks, it wasn’t even coffee that originally excited Schultz, it was opening coffee shops.  It was the vision of building a space between work and home that allowed Starbucks to single-handedly drive a coffee-shop culture in the United States. Talking about coffee will not re-energize employees at Starbucks and it will not drive innovation.  And, more importantly, it will not prepare the company for when Schultz leaves again.  Schultz needs to refocus the company around the coffee shop experience, not the product they serve.

Gates made the same mistake.  As the company grew, he stopped talking about what he believed and how he was going to change the world and started talking about what the company was doing.  Microsoft changed.  Founded as a company that believed in making people more productive so they could achieve their highest potential they became a company that simply made software products.  Such a seemly subtle change impacts behaviors.  It alters decisions.  And it impacts how a company structures itself for the future.  Though Microsoft has changed since its founding, the impact was not as dramatic because at least Bill Gates was there, the physical embodiment of the cause that inspired his executives and employees.
But now he’s gone.

Gates left to do something else that also embodies his cause – to use the Gates Foundation to help people around the world wake up everyday to achieve their potential.  The only difference is he’s not doing with software anymore.  Steve Balmer, a smart man by all accounts, does not physically embody Gates’ vision of the world.  Balmer is not seen as a humble man.  He is not “one of us.”  He has an image as a powerful executive who sees numbers and not people.  Like John Scully at Apple, Jim Donald at Starbucks and Kevin Rollins at Dell – all the CEOs who replaced the visionary founders – Balmer might be the perfect man to work alongside a visionary but is he the perfect man to replace one?  The entire culture of all these companies was built around one man’s vision.  The only succession plan that will work is to find a CEO who believes in and wants to continue to lead that movement, not replace it with their own vision of the future. Balmer knows how to rally the company but can he inspire it? 

Successful succession is more than selecting someone with an appropriate skill set, it’s about finding someone who is in lock-step with the original cause around which the company was founded.  Great second or third CEOs don’t take the helm to implement their own vision of the future, they pick up the original banner and lead the company into the next generation.  That’s why we call it succession, not replacement.  There is a continuity of vision.

Gates’ departure from Microsoft is no different from the founder/CEO departures at Starbucks, Dell and Apple.  If Microsoft does not clearly articulate the cause around which the company was built, then no matter who takes over, Gates will have to come back in 3 to 5 years.  Like the other examples, he will need to return to remind everyone the cause by simply being Bill.  If that cause is not clearly articulated and if Gates doesn’t come back, then Microsoft probably only has about 5-7 good years left before it starts to look like AOL, Netscape or Yahoo – other once-mighty forces who, after the vision left with their respective founders, floundered about only to become irrelevant in the long-term shaping of an economy.

Have fun in Africa Bill and see you in a few years.


This piece also appeared in The Huffington Post.