Archives for August 2013

Viral marketing "How To" – create excited customers who take your marketing viral – and grow your profits at the same time!

August 23, 2013 by Tom Leave a Comment

In this CEO Essentials Podcast, I connect with Joey Coleman of Design Symphony.

We talk about how connecting with customers in a REMARKABLE way leads to bigger margins

How to set your company apart from the other dozen companies “just like yours”
How to “walk in your customers’ shoes”
Specific tips on creative thinking – leading to raving fans – and to your ideas going viral

We’ve pulled the essentials from our discussion with Joey – key tips to move from idea to action.
Download the First 100 Days Tip Sheet

About Joey:

Joey Coleman is the Chief Experience Composer at Design Symphony – a customer experience branding firm that specializes in creating unique, attention-grabbing customer experiences. His clients include individual entrepreneurs, start-ups, small businesses, non-profits, government entities, and Fortune 500 companies. For over a decade he’s worked with clients that include NASA, Network for Good, Hyatt Hotels, Zappos, the Save Darfur Coalition, and the World Bank – not to mention dozens of regional and local organizations around the world.

Joey is a recognized expert in customer experience design, an award-winning speaker at national and international conferences, and has taught business and creativity courses at both the college and graduate school level. Past appearances include presentations at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, Google, the Georgetown University School of Business, Stanford University, Zappos, YouTube, and numerous undergraduate, private corporation, and non-profit events.

Joey’s design palette and sense of adventure is augmented by travels to over 44 countries on six continents. He has jumped out of a perfectly functioning airplane, raced along the Great Wall of China, juggled in front of the Taj Mahal, sang love songs on the Ponte Vecchio, goose-stepped to mock the soldiers in Red Square, and ridden a mountain bike down a volcano – although it remains a debate as to whether he rode the bike or the volcano rode him!

Are you making this costly legal mistake?

August 20, 2013 by Tom 2 Comments

Flikr - NobMouse — Image: Flikr/NobMouse

I’m in the process of moving my family, and have been working out a zillion details. As many of you know, details are not my strong suit, and it takes concentration for me to get them right.

One of the things we’re working on is a lease for a temporary house in Charlotte. The agent sent the lease to us electronically and we needed to sign and fax to back to them. This has been an iterative process – the agreement and disclosures require at least a dozen signatures – each, and it seems that no matter how carefully I review the paperwork there’s one thing or another that I manage to overlook.

The first time that I faxed the lease to them, the agent responded with an email.

Subject line: “Lease issues”
Body: Page 4, missing initial, Page 5 missing date, page 7, your wife signed, you didn’t….

Never mind that we never had a conversation about what was needed, nor was a paper copy sent to me with flags where signatures were needed. Never mind that some had space for two signatures, and others only one – I was supposed to intuitively know what to do. (Okay, rant over.)

Here’s the thing – the focus has been entirely on the terms and conditions, and compliance with the letter of the law.

Please don’t misunderstand, I know that the details matter. What got lost in this process is the PEOPLE part.

We have legal agreements so that when the real relationships fail – when we can’t negotiate and agree on what matters to you and what matters to me – we can go get help from the courts to “fix” it.

If we place all of our energy on the details and overlook the real people involved, it makes for a bumpy ride. In fact, you might find yourself having to rely on the contract rather than on the people. That never turns out well.

Think about your contracts and connections.

Where are you overlooking the people because you’re thinking about the details?
What can you do to change that?

Getting back to the lease: Now that I’ve faxed the thing to them at least 5 times, I think it’s finally right. *Whew!*

Flikr shawnzrossi — Image: Flikr/shawnzrossi

The shocking truth about conflict – can you really leverage conflict to grow your company?

August 16, 2013 by Tom 3 Comments

Leaders: Do you ever feel like

“I could really move things forward if it weren’t for all those annoying people issues.”

What if I told you that the very things that annoy and frustrate you could be the catalyst to huge growth for your firm?

In this CEO Essentials Podcast, I connect with Laura Palmer from Bridgenosis. We talk about

How conflicts can be your catalyst for huge revenue growth
How to understand the role your thoughts play in the conflicts around you
How to “hack your brain” and “upgrade your apps” so you can resolve those conflicts

FREE RESOURCE!

As we discussed in the Podcast, Laura has offered to share her latest e-book Unlimited Beliefs: A Guide to Accelerating Your Organization.

This e-book includes a 15-mintute relaxation/visualization audio recording to help you overcome obstacles. Go get it now!

About Laura

Laura obtained her law degree and public policy master’s from the University of Chicago and is also a certified hypnotherapist. While practicing labor and employment law for seven years, which includes a brief stint as a political appointee, she began to envision a future where conflict within and between organizations no longer limits a company’s potential, but instead serves as an opportunity to create a new, empowering perspective to achieve greater success.

My team is just…stupid! Is yours?

August 13, 2013 by Tom Leave a Comment

This is the last in my series of blogs covering leadership lessons from Scout Camp. I had the opportunity to spend a few days with a fantastic group of young men who are growing up to learn how to be strong leaders and achievers. It’s a beautiful thing.

In Boy Scouts, the adult leaders establish safe boundaries and then let the boys run the activities. Our vision is to provide a place where boys can “fail safe” – that they can try out new skills, succeed, fail, learn, and try again – but not in a way that endangers them. The boys organize into smaller groups called patrols and the patrols work together to accomplish the goals for the entire troop.

As leaders, we provide a learning lab for them, and they run experiments in leadership, projects, collaboration, and skills development all while having a GREAT time. (Mostly.)

This mostly part leads me to the story of David. David is a young scout. He’s just getting started in learning about collaboration, compromise, and influence. He’s smart – perhaps too smart for his own good. He’s got a LOT to learn about how to influence others.

I can relate. As a boy I was a bit of an “old soul.” I got along better to adults than I did with my peers. My interests and vocabulary were different from boys my age. I was a very strong learner of facts. Unfortunately that knowledge didn’t come with wisdom. I wanted to let others know just how much I knew. I had a quick and sharp tongue. If that meant that you ended up looking less competent or more ignorant, well whose fault was that?

I see a lot of those same characteristics in David. He is capable, and does have a lot to offer. Unfortunately like many young men, he’s also pretty “me focused” and tends to overlook the impact his plans have on others. Which leads to great frustration and pain. Apparently it leads to “stupid” patrols, too!

In a moment of significant frustration with his peers, David came to the leaders and announced:

“My patrol is stupid.”

He was really upset with them. We looked into it and it turned out that David was insisting that everyone do it his way, or not at all. The other boys in the patrol were willing to work with him, but David refused every other idea. I think that what David was really saying was “I’m not getting what I want, and I don’t know what to do about it, so I’ll criticize the other guys.”

Let me ask you:

At work, do you deal with anyone who is “just…stupid”?
Is there someone on your team (or another team) who behaves in a way that makes no sense and makes your job harder?
Is there any way you can learn about their interests and needs?
Might there be a way you could compromise with them?

Getting back to David. He will get there. Sometimes the most valuable leadership lessons come from the toughest experiences. I’m confident he has a bright future, even if his current patrol is “stupid.” His leaders are on his side and will help him become the leader that we can see him become!

"You are the worst….ever!"

August 9, 2013 by Tom 2 Comments

I didn’t know it ahead of time, but I was in a “leadership development laboratory last week.” I spent time at Scout Camp with my oldest son. We had a blast. What surprised me was the set of leadership growth experiences I was able to participate in, and to observe.

One of the activities this week involved the rifle range. Boy Scouts provides a safe place to help boys understand the danger of firearms and how to use them safely and responsibly. On the range, boys take turns firing a set of rounds at small paper targets 50 feet away. They can do it from a seated or a prone position. To help with accurate shooting, shooters can stabilize their weapons on wooden blocks or on sandbags.

Which brings us to today’s story. One of the young scouts selected a wooden block to stabilize his rifle. Unfortunately he didn’t notice that the sandbag had fallen off the platform and was in the direct line of fire of his rifle.

The small .22 caliber bullet easily passed through the burlap and sand to head toward the target, but in its wake it destroyed the sandbag and covered the rifle and shooter in a mist of sand. Sand or dirt in a firearm is a dangerous thing, and that meant this rifle would have to be disassembled and cleaned before it could be used again.

The man in charge of the range (the range master) was furious. I think he was embarrassed that

He allowed the boy to do something unsafe,
He allowed the boy to unwittingly endanger others,
That rifle now needed another thorough cleaning, and
Everyone at the range could see what had happened.

In his embarrassment and anger he did something that I probably have done before. (OK I’ve done this far more than I want to admit.) He allowed his anger to boil over as he shouted at the boy.

“You did what? How could you do that?”
“You. Are. The. Worst. Shot. I. Have. Ever. Seen!”

Dale Carnegie said

“Give a dog a bad name, and you might as well hang him.”

Carnegie’s point is that once you tell yourself that a dog is a bad dog, you start to tell others, and the dog himself how bad he is. Once the dog thinks of himself as a bad dog, there’s no way you can have him be good for anything.

That’s true for people, too. I’m sure that the scout was embarrassed that he made a mistake, that he made a mess, that he created work for the range master and his crew, and that he had accidentally done something dangerous.

Maya Angelou said:

“People never forget how you make them feel.”

I can’t help but wonder how that boy felt when the authoritative range master called him out and gave him a bad name in front of everyone at the range. Will that boy ever go to the range without thinking about that mistake? Will he even go back to the range at all? If he goes back, will he be able to work without thinking that maybe he really is the word shot in the world?

People never forget how you make them feel. I can totally relate to being frustrated, embarrassed and angry. I can even identify with letting my anger boil over and yelling at someone. That doesn’t make it right, but I can easily see how it happens.

What are you letting yourself do?
How do your team members feel about it?
About you?
About themselves?
What is that doing to your team’s effectiveness?

How can you overlook errors and praise progress in your team?

What’s one thing that you can do differently based on this story?

Are you prejudiced? Are you making the same mistake I made?

August 7, 2013 by Tom Leave a Comment

I just got back from Scout Camp with my son. It was a great experience for us, and while Joel gained “mad skillz” in pioneering and first aid, I learned some things too.

One of the lessons had to do with my preconceived notions about what it means to be “experienced.”

One of the tenets of scouting is that the boys help each other achieve and learn leadership. Over the course of the week I watched as scouts repeatedly came to the troop scoutmaster asking for his help. Time and again Jon turned them away.

Why did he turn them away? Isn’t it the scoutmaster’s job to teach the boys?

Yes, it is his job to teach them (which he does exceedingly well) and it’s *also* his job to develop leadership skills in the boys.

One specific boy, Ted, was working on trying to build a fire. Jon had spent time with Ted teaching him about how to find good materials, and about the next steps in getting it to burn and stay burning. Jon taught Ted what he needed to know, and then pulled back and let Ted struggle with the process.

When Ted got frustrated, Jon didn’t jump in, but encouraged Ted to seek help from boys who had already mastered that skill.

I took a moment to ask Jon about his approach, and what he said surprised me. He said

“I don’t need to work with him now. There’s plenty of experience around this fire pit to get him those skills.”

“Plenty of experience around this fire pit“? Really? The fire pit was surrounded by a bunch of 12, 13, and 14 year olds. There’s “Plenty of experience” in a bunch of pre-pubescent boys?

Upon reflection, I realized two things:

Jon was right. Those boys around the fire pit DO have plenty of experience in that particular skill! Boys that age (and Assistant Scoutmasters, too) like to play with the fire, and have started lots of them. They are well equipped to share their experience with others.
I had some pretty strongly held prejudices about the boys – that they were such apprentices to life that they were not yet prepared to be respected leaders of anyone. I was wrong.

Which leads me to ask:

What is your prejudice about that team member that you don’t like?
What about that other department that doesn’t cooperate?
What story are you telling yourself about them? Are those stories serving you?

Back to the story: Ted didn’t become a master fire builder that trip, but a number of those “experienced” scouts used their fire building experience to help him get better. And that was a lesson for both Ted and to Tom.

240-668-4799