Tip 2023-01
Does your Superpower have a dark side?

I was welcomed into the The Outlier Project last week and spent 3 days experiencing the warmth, vision and promise generated by a group of exceptional leaders, all with life journeys that inspire. It made me look deep into finding a first post that reflects how great people remain great people and I landed on this one -- "Does your Superpower have a dark side?" We all strive to find our exceptional skills and talents and work hard to deploy them either towards individual pursuits or as part of a professional role. Once they do emerge, we work hard to hone them and elevate them to their max -- or at least we should. BUT, sometimes what is effectively a superpower also has a dark side we need to monitor and make sure does not overshadow its benefits. For those who have worked directly with me, I always push ahead towards the next milestone, next goal, next achievement, next challenge. I am confident and I use clarity and depth of thinking to make my choices. This is a superpower in my professional world. My dark side is that I often forget to celebrate the achievement in the moment which makes the achievers around me feel unappreciated. I have had to work hard to make sure this dark sided behavior does not work against this superpower effectively discouraging my teammates from seeking success. Does your superpower have a dark side? What is your superpower and how do you keep its dark side in check. Curious minds want to know -- a lot can be learned from grappling with this.

Tip 2022-01
Is THAT the right answer?

Recognizing the right answer in the middle of a meeting is more difficult than you think.  How many times do you wonder why your team is circling the discussion again and again when the right answer was already articulated?  It could be that the experience of one team member is not properly understood by the other team members so their contribution is treated equally when it comes to critical decision making.  A good approach is to review the decision criteria up-front, ideally citing business goals, product goals, customer needs, market needs, competitive drivers, revenue, expense savings, whatever -- but with the criteria identified up-front, it can make it easier to recognize when the right answer is in front of everyone, a decision can be made, and progress is acheieved.

You may want to consider having a facilitator involved to help practice this process, well worth the investment if you can find the right experienced professional.

Tip 2021-05
Being Impactful with KPIs?

Metrics, KPIs, OKRs, whatever you want to call them are all about revealing strength and weakness in a business. In many respects, both are important as doubling down on strengths is valuable but sometimes not as valuable as unleashing what is holding back areas of weakness. Choose a handful of items on each side of the ledger and regularly discuss what can be done to reduce weaknesses and accelerate results related to strengths. It might be as simple as pivoting your lead generation messaging or spending more time rehearsing FAQs with the sales team. No time wasted on this would be wasted time as long as it does not fully consume you. Check out Metrics

Tip 2021-04
You cannot manage what you do not know?

A commonly heard adage that speaks to the heart of marketing effectiveness. How many times do you see advertisements that bear no resemblance to how you would choose a product? Establishing metrics for overall marketing performance is a key deliverable of a marketing leader. Metrics can have a surprisingly large impact on the overall results of the Company as well. Effective metrics, ones that the team would take action on based on how they change, are difficult to come up with (there are some basic ones though). A common mistake is to analyze marketing effectiveness to death -- generating all kinds of metrics, analysis and reports that largely show there is business activity, but not necessarily any value coming from it. Check out Metrics

Tip 2021-03
You cannot manage what you do not know?

An often heard adage that speaks to the heart of marketing effectiveness. How many times do you see ads that bear no resemblance to how you would choose a product? Establishing metrics to track marketing performance is a key deliverable of a business. Tracking metrics can have a surprisingly large impact on results of a Company. Effective metrics, ones that the team takes action on based on how they change, are difficult to come up with. A common mistake is to analyze marketing effectiveness to death -- generating all kinds of metrics, analysis and reports that largely show there is business activity, but not necessarily any value coming from what is tracked. Check out Metrics

Tip 2021-02
Are You Ready to Risk Growing?

Growth is a measured event, more revenues month over month, voila - growth! But growth alone does not mean you are ready to take on the risks associated with growing -> expenses that are not easily wound back if growth were to stop unexpectedly. You are ready to risk growing when your revenues come from programmatic efforts that are detached from prior success.  Ones that come from personal connections, one time large deals, customer wins that are out of band from the sales playbook don't count as success. Once you securely can generate revenue from programmatic efforts of sales and marketing, you are ready to take on the risk of growth. More importantly, the people supporting your business financially -- investors -- should be eager to see you grow and willing to risk money to help make it happen if you can show them this.

Tip 2021-01
Virtual Retention

A smart colleague of mine remarked how staff retention will become more challenging the longer workers remain virtual as a normal part of their work lives. While working virtual must be an accepted part of how we all work together (there are very strong benefits to be gained), virtual workers are challenged to bond with their work mates without some level of regular physical interaction. Getting to know your team exclusively through a 3x5 video frame on ZOOM is a necessity during a pandemic, but changing jobs can become as easy as clicking out of a virtual meeting. The ties that often affect our job decisions are reduced to a few -- unfortunately, salary moves way ahead of other considerations.

Retention is hard to develop when working exclusively virtual. You need to be in regular contact with all team members, schedule virtual team bonding events, show sincere interest in their lives and most importantly, make sure they are surviving the virtual experience in the way it is intended. Do not assume everyone knows how to work effectively when isolated in their bedroom or home office, do not lose key employees because you just assume a zoom smile means job happiness.