How Do We Miss Dead Right Patterns?

Think About It First!

I had a very interesting day yesterday.  I was able to witness two key leaders get out of line with their leadership.  I witnessed some very awkward leadership moves.  I know one thing for sure, they did not win those exhibits of behavior.  I do think however that each of those leaders walked away thinking they had won the human exchange events they had just decided to exhibit.  One leadership move was a personal battle that involved one leader.  The other move was a business move demonstrated by a business leader with his staff.  Both events were off the chart for being some of the poorer pieces of healthy leadership.  I sat back and watched with amazement.

A few years ago I was attending a motivational seminar put on by a medical doctor who had built a nice series of medical clinics across the Northwest.  He was actually a very good speaker.  I liked the presentation he made.  I still remember his subject matter very clearly.  It was informational and funny.  It was also very useful.

His subject covered the art of recognizing how "dead right" works in the world of leadership.  He circled what I would call the subject of, "critical thinking."  Yesterday I witnessed a business leader lose the battle of leadership with his "dead right" thinking.  I also witnessed another leader lose the same battle in his personal life at home.  I was able to see both of these troubling events on the same day, in two different venues.  I considered this pattern a sign.  I figured it was a sign that I needed to cover the depths of this interesting subject.  How do we miss "dead right' patterns?

Let's leave the personal one alone in details.  I care not to cover the details of that event in this kind of venue.  I will say this much for that event, leaders can lose control in such a strong denial fashion.  They can become so wrapped up with their emotional baggage that they do not see some very important leadership steps.  This particular event was completely written by fear.  Fear dominated the mind of that leader.  I know he would not agree with that assessment, but it is true.  His fears related to lost love crawled all over his methods for performing the silly mistake he performed yesterday.  I also believe he walked away from that mistake believing he had won that awkward event of human exchange.  He did not win it.  He only believes he did.  He will walk side by side with denial on this truth.

If you lead your business model and you are the leader at home as well, make sure you learn how to properly manage these two leadership roles.  I can guarantee this leader who strayed off course yesterday has seriously damaged his personal home relationships with the act he performed yesterday.  His lack of leadership did not go unnoticed.  He inserted some serious damage in his effort to take control of something he needed to leave alone.  We all feel like we need to control everything in our business and personal lives.  We do not need to control everything.  Sometimes important things need none of our control.  I know this is a hard one to grasp, but leaders...get this one understood very well.  Know when to hold up, know when to fold up and know when to run.  That is a famous gamblers phrase.  Make sure your leadership knows how to recognize this pattern of need.  The leader I watched perform this stupid act yesterday is a leader who likes to control everything near his path.  He stepped in some stuff that was none of his business.  Then he smashed it around and made a big deal of it.  It had nothing to do with his leadership life.  He just wanted to serve his fears.

The doctor who presented the great seminar covered this subject very well.  He described how someone can be 'right' about taking a stance on a serious subject yet being wrong if they express that stance to those who will not appreciate how they feel.  He termed this process as being "dead right."  We are right in how we assess our view, how we feel about the truth of our view and how accurate we may be for seeing some things the way we see them.  However, because of some little circumstances, if we express those truths and our view about the truths as we know them we will likely lose our battle about those truths we share.  We might actually become "dead right."  The doc described in his seminar how many business leaders miss this tiny little step as they perform their daily functions.  He described how often we make this silly mistake.  We drive home a position of view that is totally accurate.  We deliver it with a sense of seriousness and later we learn how damaging our position of stance was wrongly treated.  We get burned by the other things that hurt our outcomes from the truths we shared because our stance of truth was not a stance that was a very wise one to perform.  We become "dead right."  It was a great seminar.  It is a great subject.  I witnessed this pattern twice just yesterday.  Amazing.

The second failed leadership move is one that I can share details comfortably.  It can come to the surface of discussion in this blog with more sense and respect.  I have no problem sharing it.

Find Your Defining Moments

Give Your Lights Meaning

There are a lot of lights that turn on inside our minds.  Some lights glow about business, some glow about hobbies and some glow about family stuff.  Some business leaders have dim lights moving about the channels in their mind.  Other business leaders have really bright lights moving around in their minds.  Whatever the case, lights go on and off inside our minds.

We can get up out of the chair in the evening and head for the kitchen to grab a snack.  That means a small light went on in the mind.  Once we reach the kitchen, we can forget why we wanted to go there.  That means that light went off.  While we are standing there in the kitchen trying to remember what it is we wanted, we start turning on each light to discover which light led us to the kitchen.  We manage the kind of lights that are working in our minds.  Our thoughts work just like little lights in the mind.  Some go on, some turn off.  Sometimes our lights are not burning very bright.  Sometimes they are so dim we barely recognize what they are.  Sometimes the lights we turn on in the mind are so bright they can be seen by the people who are close to us.  Those are the lights of leadership.  Those are the lights that drive where we truly want to go.  They are the brightest ones that shine all the way through our minds out onto the streets of life.  It is difficult to turn those kinds of lights off.  The people around us can see which light we are working on.

A business leader lives by those kinds of lights.  Business leaders follow the lights that are burning brightly.  The brightest lights glow the most and guide the way a leader should go.  Those are the lights that come from the experiences we host that produce our defining moments.  Our defining moments guide our spirit and our energy to the places where we ought to go.  Those lights, those moments help to define the kind of business leader we eventually become.  When we find our defining moments, we found ourselves.  Those defining moments are the ones that help us to build the best business models.  Great leaders begin to do the right work, at the right time when the most defining moments come to the surface of the mind.  The right lights are all burning brightly when that happens.  Our view is as clear as it has ever been.  Our mission, our purpose is so well defined when those moments come to the surface.  Our single chief aim is moved to the top of the path.  We are clear in what we need to do.  Great leaders search for those kinds of lights.  Great leaders recognize how to respect their most defining moments.  Find your defining moments.  Find the brightest lights glowing in your mind.

One of the most effective ways to find defining moments is to push through some very trying stuff.  I know this sounds a bit backwards, but most of the true defining moments in life come right out of the work you do to survive a tragic experience.  Some of the best opportunities come wrapped up neatly inside some of the worst situations.  Some of my most defining moments in business success did not come to life because I thought them up.  They came to life as a result of the changes I was forced to make due to some kind of personal tragedy that occurred.  I was forced to make some unwanted changes.  It was during those changes that some new lights went on.  Those new lights burned brighter than expected and became my most effective defining moments.  The most valuable personal discoveries were found wrapped up inside the defining moments that kicked out of those tragic events.  In truth, some of the best defining opportunities came to light when they were least expected.  Napoleon Hill once coined the phrase, "Every adversity brings with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit."  It is amazing how true this is.  Keep in mind, he did not suggest that we receive a tree, only a seed.  We must grow the tree.

Hill was trying to describe how each business leader needed to find his defining moments.  This is what he was trying to describe.  The most powerful defining moments usually come from the most horrific tragedies we must endure.  If stuff is not going well in your leadership life right now...good thing.  However, while all is falling out...look hard for the right kind of lights to go on and respect how those changes are occurring in your life.  They may at first look like a small tragedy.  However, inside that tragic wrap may be the most defining moments your business life will ever witness.  Something very good is just about to happen.  Trust those difficult but defining moments.  Find your defining moments.  Get busy looking for the kind of lights that burn more brightly when they are turned on.  When all else is falling apart, speed up the way you start turning on the light switches in your mind.  Start looking for the new seed of opportunity.  Get very busy with the search for your defining moments.

We Chase Our Business Because It Chases Us.

Be Effective With The Energy Therms We Expel!

It is a vicious circle.  The things we do over and over without much charge.  We expend a great deal of energy and planning to make sure we do the routine stuff we think we need to do in order to manage the things we must maintain.  My neighbor moved in about eleven years ago.  He is a perfect example of how we chase our business as it chases us.  It is a vicious circle.  All of us get to play this game hard without much fanfare.  Let me explain what I mean.

My neighbor and I live on the edge of the city, almost out in the country.  We are the last two homes within our city limits that reside out in our direction.  His house sits about 70 yards away from my side yard and my front yard shares the property line with the city limits.  There is a city watershed easement all across the backside of our property and a major country road that travels all the way through the front side of the property.  There is virtually no chance for any 'next door' developments to occur.  Our two homes are it.  I like that kind of property arrangement.  It suits me fine to be set in this kind of perfect arrangement to have our property this protected and still remain somewhat secluded.  It is a nice piece of property that has city benefits with development privacy.  I do not need to buy all of the property around me to protect my land from too much development encroachment.  I like where we live.

However, my neighbor has to put up with me.  I not only like where I live, I make sure I express that part in my landscaping designs.  My wife and I have a wonderful woodland designed yard.  It is almost one acre of well-appointed landscaped designs.  We include a lot of art and some wonderful hardscapes added to that design.  Our lighting is contemporary and the whole yard is appointed with interesting underground lighting features.  We have five water features, two outdoor fire burning pits and an 89 foot stream that flows from one water feature to the next one.  The stream works in a circle.  The water runs up and down the stream with pumps that feed the two features at both ends.  It is spring time unfolding right now and all of the new colors are happening to glow.  My wife and I spent the past two days solid, cleaning up the spring time stuff.  We chased our yard hard.

Furthermore, we have two mountain views sporting our properties.  In the front yard we have one of our two fire-pit sitting areas and small contemporary designed deck.  My wife and I can be caught sitting by the fire chatting about life and plans, often.  We enjoy the full mountain view to the south and the partial tip of the other mountain to the north from that sitting area.  People drive by and see us up on the hill sipping our coffee by the fire.  Some wave at us.  In a distance, our neighbor can see us enjoying our yard when we crank up another fire.  His front picture window sets in the perfect direction about 90 yards from the place where we commonly sit to enjoy the front yard view.  We can see him at a distance, watching T.V. in the night as the flashes of his television screen change the colors in his front room.  We notice how quickly the television flashes occur.  Flash...flash, flash, flash......flash, flash....flash, flash,flash, flash.............flash........flash,flash.....flash, flash...........flash, flash, fl,fl,fl,flash, flash.......fl,fl,fl,fl,flash.  This occurs in his view, all night long.  It looks like cameras flashing in his front room.  I am sure it does not bother his senses very much.  It puts us to sleep.  It is a good thing he is almost one hundred yards away.

When we shut down for the evening and put the fire out, turn the lights off as we head inside for the rest of the evening we notice him sound asleep in his recliner chair.  The flashing is still going on.  Apparently it puts him to sleep also.  I am not surprised.  He was tired, he chased his yard all day.

My neighbor is a simple guy.  I like him for a neighbor.  He is responsible, quiet and a great family guy.  He works hard to keep up with his life.  His wife works hard as well.  They spend almost all of their extra time working their yard with life maintenance.  It is slightly larger than our acre.  They are much more simple than we are.  They planted a perfectly straight row of 100 shrubs to block out the view of the road below.  Then they placed three trees in a perfect line sitting right in the middle of the full grass yard.  That is it for the landscaping.  No flowers, no shrubs and no other plants to grow.  We noticed how they also planted a small row a new trees along the inside our shared property lines, about four years ago.  When those trees mature, they will be able to block most of their view off from our 'busy' landscape designs and activities.  They will be able to remain simple and private.

Here is my point.  I have three very small areas to mow my lawn.  They are very small.  It takes me about five or ten minutes to complete that duty each week.  It is a fast maintenance chore with little energy needed.  The rest of our yard is woodland bound and requires very little year around maintenance work.  We just spend the rest of our time enjoying it.  The irrigation water, the operational water features, the sound (speakers), the electrical boxes and the lighting is all underground.  The rest of our landscape designs just grow and change all on their own.  We prune and trim once in awhile to control the over growth.  We pick the flowers, the roses and make cool arrangements to enjoy.  We place them in the outdoor flower vases that are incorporated in our landscape designs, hidden among the woodland shrubs and plants.  It adds a nice touch to the nature of the woodland beauty.  My neighbor will spend almost two hours mowing and trimming his yard every single week.  He does not own a riding lawn mower so he pushes it back and forth every single day that he does that kind of routine work.  He also does not have an underground irrigation system in place.  So every spring and summer he can be seen moving his sprinklers all evening long, every evening, until his wide area of lawn gets completely watered properly.  He chases the business of his yard maintenance because it chases him.  Do you get it?  That is my point.  We chase our business because it chases us.

However, here is the message.

What Color Is Rain?

Somebody Hired These Characters!

I have employed some real characters in my career.  Hung over, combative, and lying thieves have been a part of my employment ranks in the past.  People never cease to amaze me.  That is what makes all of us so interesting.  All of us can produce a laundry list of human foibles that we can show each other about the troubled times we shared with some past employees.  We all have discovered interesting human behavior that somehow found its way into our daily grind.  It seems that many of those troubling employment experiences usually appeared when we least expected them.  They also seemed to appear when we least needed them to appear.  Human strangeness sometimes shows up in small surprises when the timing is at its worst.  It is that kind of surprise that helps muddy up the wet water of business challenges.  I hate the thought of swimming in muddy water.

I remember how often human foibles used to shock me.  Years ago, the surprises they brought were very distracting to me.  Now, I just gloss over them and keep moving on.  I have discovered better ways to prevent strange human behavior from distracting me away from my business goals.  I have learned how to manage the rain better.  If I plan a picnic during a possible rain storm I come prepared to manage how it falls.  The same rules apply when I hire someone who offers me a chance to see the short side of their personalities.  I come prepared to manage what possibilities may occur.  I prepare for potential rain.  I carry some very good umbrellas in my business hiring practices.  So should you.

Some business owners hire people for reasons other than what they should be using.  Sometimes owners hire a friend or someone they know who needs some help instead of finding a person who best fits what needs to be done.  Every good business model should have a clear idea about how it needs to perform its hiring practices.  Every business model comes face to face with some very clear employment needs.  Not always do business owners respect the proper ways to manage these needs.  Performing proper hiring practices is a process that is not always placed at the front of the line.  Sometimes we hire a friend.  Sometimes we hire a person we met or know and they just need some help.  Sometimes we simply do not want to spend the proper time going through the long process of screening people for our next hire.  Eventually these kinds of hiring practices come dangerously close to the edge of wrong human placement.  Our business model will eventually discover the bruises it feels as it travels along that muddy trail.

Rain can become dark, sometimes.  Rain usually looks kind of gray, too.  We might not be able to describe the color of rain but we know it often comes with a gray-colored feeling.  When we hire wrong people our business model discovers its need to use umbrellas.  Wrong people placed to work in wrong environments can eventually develop some stormy outcomes.  A business model that does not take great care in the way it employs its staff is a business model flirting with the high potential for disastrous outcomes.  Many owners make this simple business mistake.  They hire the wrong people.

What can make matters worse, some business owners try to place some of their best people into positions that are not the best fit for those people to perform.  It often comes down to the simple fact that some owners try to make their best re-bounders do the three-point shooting while at the same time, expect their best three-point shooters to go learn how to rebound better.  It is silly stuff to watch happen.  I have seen managers try to take a great salesperson away from their particular area of expertise and try to teach them how to manage the accounting books, too.  It is silly stuff to watch happen.  Some leaders know exactly what I mean.  I have made that simple mistake myself.  The outcomes are not often very good.  Make sure you get the ball into your ball handlers hands.  Make sure you place your rebound specialists near the underside of the basketball rim.  Be smarter about how you design the use of your hired help.  They perform better when they are doing what they are good at doing.

What About Performance Appraisals?

Check Out What Is Really Going On!

I actually like to conduct performance appraisals.  Most business leaders seem to hate that part of their business duties.  I might conduct them differently than most leaders, but I like doing them.  I learn a lot about the folks I hire in those sessions.  Performance appraisals teach me a lot about who my staff employees really are.  I learn about who they are and how they deeply do what they want to do.

First of all, I have worked for many business managers and only once did a leader of those models do his performance appraisals on a routine basis.  That was way back in the 1970's.  I like to sit down with my staff at least twice each year to process their performance appraisals.  I like chit chatting about how they do their work.  I like to see how they think they are doing at work.  That is usually my main goal.  I like to hear how they evaluate themselves.

It is kind of strange, but they do not seem to notice that each of them does their own performance appraisal when we get together to conduct their review.  I rarely do any of the judging in the evaluation process.  I let them do it for themselves.  Most of the time, they never seem to notice that they evaluate themselves in my appraisal process. I think so many employees are so deeply afraid of the appraisal process that they rarely notice how they end up judging themselves.  Most of the staff I hire would prefer I skip the evaluation process.  Most of them assume I am pulling them in to criticize how they do their work.  In more than 90% of the time, I have them review themselves.  They just do not notice that is how I conduct my reviews.  It just goes to show you how fearful this kind of employment practice has become to most employees.  They hate reviews.  They hate to be evaluated.  They fear anything that looks like the process of criticism.

My reviews are designed to avoid most of the process that relates to criticism.  I avoid initiating any acts of criticism in my reviews.  I ask better questions about how they view their work loads, the way they process their work and how they feel about their own performance levels with their own opinions.  I listen to how they think they are doing.  In the end, that is what they believe.  Their perception is key.  I already know my perception.  I want to get together and hear how they perceive it.  Their view is the one that is driving what they do or don't do.  Right?  In the end, that is what drives them.  Not me.  Get serious.

It is amazing what I learn.  When the tables are creatively turned, they evaluate themselves with no problem.  Most of them are pretty tough on themselves.  I try not to make it too obvious, but I turn the tables around and they evaluate themselves.  They usually have no problem telling me how they think they are doing.  I like to discover how honest they are.  That usually pleases me more.  I will ask interesting, but relevant questions to get it going.  For example, I like to know what they are thinking about on Sunday night?  They have had some time off and must wrap up the weekend and prepare to come back to work.  What are they thinking about when the weekend is almost over?  Sometimes the answers to that question are amazing.  I learn a lot about how some of them view their place of employment.  This is good stuff to know.  I do not care to delve into their private lives but I do want to know how they view coming back to work.  It tells me a lot about how they actually get into their work.  How happy they are at work can be discovered inside the way they feel about coming back to work.

I recognize that it is not my job to make my employees happy, but in the same breath, I also recognize that happier employees make for a better production process.  There is a direct relationship that offers some strong correlations between these two theories.  I prefer a better system of production in my business models.  That is why I check out how they feel about coming back to work.  They will share some interesting stories with you.  It will be some stuff you did not know about how they treat their work travels.  It can become part of some very interesting discoveries about who your employees really are.  Most of the time, it turns out to be very useful stuff.

Performance appraisals are a process that must be done.  It is not so much that they will help you correct what is going wrong, better yet, they will help you to protect your business model from doing some things wrong on a continuum.  Performance appraisals will help to prevent your business model from doing the wrong stuff when trouble tends to work its way through its hidden paths.  Your staff can become very important eyes to this discovery.  They often see things going on that are much more difficult for you to see.  I learn a lot of valuable stuff in my performance reviews.  Too many leaders try to guide and direct those reviews for correction efforts.  Too many leaders try to drive that process instead of allowing the review process to drive itself.  I like to allow the review process to drive itself.  Oh, trust me, I guide it.  I just like to allow that process to teach me more about what I do not know.  I already know how I feel about their work performances.  I do not need to share that with them unless it is wonderful news.  In the meantime, I need to get them going on deeper stuff so I can learn more about how my company is really performing.

I guide the review process enough to get it going into the direction I prefer to see it go.  Then I take my hands off the wheel and allow them to share what they feel they need to share.  I try to remove the typical pressures that everyone brings to the performance review process.  I prefer to chit chat with each of them about what they know, how they feel about their own work success and what I can do to help them continue to provide good success.  I want to know where those improvement adjustments can best occur.  I work my way through the reviews as if they are evaluating themselves.  I permit them to grade their own performance.  I have discovered that I do not always know the most important things going on.  If they are given the right to conduct their own reviews, they will often times become tougher on themselves than I would ever become.  They will also become more secure in that process and will typically feel comfortable enough to share some tough stuff with me.  I actually like that process.  It is usually the tough stuff we need to fix the most.  We might as well figure out what that is.

Creativity, Enthusiasm And Energy Are Cousins

Creativity Supplies Energy!

What makes going to work fun?  If you are a business owner, do you enjoy going to your place of business?  Better yet, let's examine that question from a different angle.  If we were to eliminate the habit patterns you have developed for mentally preparing yourself to go to your place of business with the routine duties in mind, each day, would you be going to your business with an exciting and fresh new outlook each day?  Are you excited about heading to work today?  Are you finding yourself excited to get to work to do some more exciting things?  How truly excited are you for pursuing your growth in the business you own?  Are you worn out?  Are you exhausted?  Are you disappointed?  Are you frustrated?  Or are you excited about some new projects you are doing?  If you check out your levels of thinking on these simple questions you can discover how your creative juices are running in your business model.  You will find out how strong your creativity is flowing.

Creativity helps the owner produce some good visions about what needs to be done.  Creativity provides the added excitement a business model needs to have energized.  Creativity helps produce some healthy ideas, plans and work projects.  These kinds of things are critical to do in a business model.  Even an accountant can find some healthy approaches to creativity in their routine pattern of business duties.  They can pursue some creative classes for the young college students.  They can work with the finance instructors and set up some high school 'on-site' field trip orientation segments for the finance class students.  They can prepare some gift handouts for the students to receive after they attend the scheduled orientation sessions.  The 'show-and-tell' efforts could help the owner of an accountant office become more creative in how they present their business model.  It is amazing how much more interesting a business model can become when the owner infuses higher levels of creativity into the model.  Increased interest lends to increased enthusiasm. Increased enthusiasm adds energy to the process.

Creativity, enthusiasm and energy are cousins.  All of these relatives are necessary components to infuse into a successful business model.  The leaders who operate with a creative heart are the leaders who are always looking for the next round of increased interest.  It is the increased interest factors that help drive consumers to continue to check out what your business model is doing right now.  When a business owner is able to apply and manage a routine amount of stability to their business model, they will attract the consumers who count on what they do.  If that same stable business model can somehow infuse a routine blend of creativity with their marketing stability, they will win bigger.  A certain amount of creativity keeps the model fresh.  Freshness is one of the higher demands the consumers tend to favor.  They do not like stale environments.

If you have not applied anything new and exciting in your business model, you have ignored one of the great desires consumers possess.  Although consumers rely a good deal on a healthy dose of familiarization when they shop, they also need to see new and exciting things.  Creativity helps the business owner find healthy ways to insert consumer interest.  I know a whole bunch of business owners who fail terribly at the creativity game.  Many business owners have a good deal of rational sense but do no naturally possess the creative side of the equation.  The creative side of business needs are difficult to do for many business owners.  It is one of the reasons why their business model fails to explode with a long line of consumer success.  Creativity provides a certain level of enthusiasm that is needed for new growth to continue.

Think about how nice it is when you enter a business model that is filled with healthy levels of creativity.  Your senses are tested nicely.  You discover some really neat things about the history of the building, the history of the owners or the history of the region.  You might discover some really neat products that look really cool but at the same time, serve a routine functional purpose.  You might discover some new food combinations that blend together nicely that you never considered mixing before.  You might learn about how glass is made.  You might learn about why the human mind prefers certain colors over others.  You might discover new uses for old discarded items.  You might be introduced to some new ways to paint a wall.  Creativity can be found in the business models who love to arrange for it to happen in their business model.  Consumers love to discover these things.  Consumers desire to go on an Easter egg hunt.  They love to discover new things.  They prefer to be in the front of the new wave of interest patterns.  Creativity helps make this kind of stuff happen.

Stale and tired business models are the most common ones that struggle to attract more customers.  When a business model becomes tired, it usually shows.  The appearance of that tired business model becomes less likely to remain crisp and sharp.  The paint begins to chip and flake.  The cobwebs start to grow and the dirt builds up in the corners.  The creativity factors are running out of gas.  The business model begins to drift away from the needed forms of new and exciting creations.  Consumers are not attracted to this kind of atmosphere.  In fact, they are subconsciously offended by it.  Consumers want to know that the business owner appreciates them so well that the owners work extra hard on making sure the right kind of appearance is happening to show how much the owner appreciates the consumers patronage.  Consumers love this kind of subtle treatment.

When a business model shows how much it appreciates the patronage of its customers, that business is running smart.  Creativity is one of the best ways to project this feeling.  Consumers get more enthused about spending money in a business model that works extra hard on presenting this kind of appreciation for their trade.  This kind of consumer respect can be offered by the kind of creativity that is employed.  Creativity helps to project how a business model appreciates its consumer support.

Who Carries Your Dirty Work?

Do Not Sweep Your Messes Under The Rug

Every single one of us can think of a list of problems we learn to live with in our lives.  We have some challenging things that occur to us that we need to figure out how to manage.  Not one of us gets to escape this part of living our lives.  Some people may be able to develop some good perspectives that help them deal with the pressures of anxiety, frustration, anger and depression that occurs in a lifetime.  Each person has a separate way they manage the challenges and problems they face.  It is how everyone navigates their way through life.

One of the best ways to view how well we manage our life challenges is to make sure we see who owns these problems.  Try to picture each problem as if it was able to fit inside a small bag.  If the problem is a sour relationship with a spouse, try to imagine how to place all of the components related to that mess into a small imaginary bag.  Picture those challenges wrapped up inside that bag.  Now picture yourself carrying it.  How heavy is that bag?  How many hands are helping you to carry that bag of mess?  Where do you leave that bag every night?  When do you pick it up again?  What other things will you be placing into that bag?  How rough are you on moving that bag around from place to place?  Do you throw it around or do you set it down gently?  Do you zip it up or do you leave it wide open so all of its contents can spill out over everyone else?  How do you manage the contents of that bag?

Did you know that one of our own problems can also become a problem others will need to endure?  We are connected.  No man is an island.  In some strange way, the contents in that imaginary bag that is carrying our problem is also part of the contents that can easily spill over into the bags of others.  We carry that bag way to close to the other important people in our lives who cannot always avoid the spilled stuff we carry in our problem bags.  Eventually, some of the bad contents in our problem bags will end up spilled into the bags others are carrying.

I have met some people who will actually reach into their problem bags and pull out a whole bunch of debris and begin throwing it all around so everyone else near them has to wear some of the problems they throw out.  I see people like this all of the time.  Their problem bags need to become a problem to everyone around them.  They are determined to share their junk.  Some people just need this kind of attention.  They are the ones who feel like their problems must become forced onto the front porches and tossed freely into the bags of other peoples lives.  Other people will be forced into carrying portions of this ugly stuff.  You know what I mean.

Some people need others to witness how badly stuffed their problem bag is filled.  They want other people to touch their bad junk.  In many cases, they expect other people to also live around their bad stuff.  They actually expect others to carry some of the bad contents in their bag.  They want someone else to help carry their dirty work of life.

Who carries your dirty work?  If you manage a business model, who carries your dirty work?

Every business leader has challenges.  Every business leader runs up against some very challenging problems from time to time.  When these kinds of things occur, who carries your dirty work?  Who mops up the lions share of your routine problems?  How many of those problem bags do you expect your staff to carry for you?  Do you delegate your dirty work to be managed by your employees and staff?  Who carries your dirty work?

I have been asked by supervisors to make a tough customer phone call for them because they were having a difficult time dealing with that person.  They were placed in a tough spot to deliver some very bad news to a tough customer.  Instead of making the call themselves, they delegated that duty to my desk.  It was done creatively, but the fact remains, they had someone else do their dirty work.  Do you do this kind of stuff?  If you do, your leadership is lost.  If you creatively pass-off the dirty work from your business bag and place it into one of your employees routine work bags to perform, you are not protecting your leadership role properly.  You may not know it but you have lost your leadership.  It is at an end.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Taking Risks.

Our Fears For The Unknowns Are Like Big Angry Alligators!

We know we do not like to stretch our decision-making into something new and unknown.  It is not one of our strong characteristics.  We know that.  We harbor within our souls all of the normal fears that have a tendency to reduce our desire to do new things.  The normal fears we harbor inside keep our decisions for risk-taking closer to the things we are more familiar with doing.  In the end, we will decide to do the things we are most familiar with doing.  That is how most of us operate our business models.  That is how most of us operate our life of living.  We stay close to the things we know.

Even though operating a business is already a risky venture to perform, it does not compare to the risk we take when we are trying to do something we have never done before.  When we choose to perform new tasks in an area we have no previous expertise doing, we are playing with higher levels of real risk.  Those kinds of risks look very large.  Doing something we have never tried before seems too risky for us to do.  They look like very big shoes to fill.  We would choose to fail at doing something we know rather than try to succeed by doing something we know nothing about.  It is a much safer way to live.  We are terrible risk takers.

There are strong correlations in the relationships between the size of success and the size of the risk taken.  The higher the risk, the higher the potential return.  As well as the corollary of that rule, the smaller the risk the smaller the potential loss.  High risk taking bears the best potential for higher returns.  It also carries the most opportunities for larger potential losses.  We tend to fear the loss more than we expect the gain.  As a result, we will take less risks.

Our motivation factors for risk taking get clipped by our fears that feed what we are not willing to give up.  Regardless of the level of pain we have become used to living, at least we know what that pain is all about.  We accept that level of pain since it is part of the stuff we already know.  It is the unknown that scares the heck out of us.  We will always allow that kind of thinking to dominate how we take the risks we need to take to become more successful in our business lives.

The unknowns truly become the most powerful things that dominate which risks we are willing to take.  The unknowns are the things that truly hold us back from taking larger risks towards producing better levels of business success.  These are the things that become very uncomfortable for most of us to deal with.  We do not like the idea of how the higher the risk we take the greater the potential loss may be if the risk does not pan out well.  Not knowing how our results will turn out keeps us away from taking those higher risks.  The unknowns play havoc with the mind when new and exciting ideas come to the surface.

The one thing that comes with new and exciting ideas is the potential for doing something we have never done before.  We must first accept to take a new risk when we try out new ideas.  New risks bring on new challenges.  New challenges bring on new fears.  New fears bring on a lot of unfavorable feelings about the unknowns.  This is exactly how risk taking works.  This becomes the uncomfortable truth about risk taking.

Feeling uncomfortable about trying out some new ideas is a normal part of taking risks.  It comes packaged with all new ideas.  That is exactly why all new ideas are usually met with resistance.  Nobody wants to feel uncomfortable when trying to decide to do new things.  We tend to believe that doing new things should help us feel better.  Why try to do something new and exciting only if it helps us feel better.  We begin our early evaluation about changing our ways, about doing something new and unknown by first measuring how we feel about doing the necessary work and required steps that will produce the change.  We first examine the work that we need to apply.  We rarely study the potential results.  This is why our fears dominate the process.  We can only see the work required to make new changes.  We cannot see the results they may produce.  This is another reason why we feel so uncomfortable about taking risks.

These truths are part of the package, part of the driving restrictions for curbing our desire for developing new challenges that will produce better long term results.  We remain uncomfortable with the uncomfortable because we truly know what it looks like.  It is no longer a fearful unknown.  We eat the wrong fast foods at McDonald's because it is McDonald's fault.  We know exactly what to expect when we travel the roads and stop to get a bite to eat.  There are no surprises at McDonald's.  The food is not great, the prices are not unknown and the service is always the same.  We know exactly what we are getting.  It ain't the best in the world but at least we know what to expect.  That is exactly why McDonald's is so successful.  They are willing to accept the blame for the wrong foods we choose.  We can remain faultless.  Our risk factors were completely removed from the running fears we manage in our travels.  We do not need to accept the blame for selecting some little eatery off the side of the road that delivered to us some really bad food and terrible service.  If we took the risk to pick that kind of place when we travel, it becomes our fault.  We hate that feeling more than we dislike the bad food McDonald's supplied.

Do You Have Business Tunnel Vision?

Move The Cash Fast

I think too much.  I can sometimes irritate my wife just a little bit.  We can travel somewhere and I will not stop noticing little things about people in business and the services the business models out in the world provide or skip.  I am constantly pointing out which ones could use some improvements.  I will usually make a quiet comment to her about what I notice.  We might walk into a travel gift shop and notice how every single isle, door, register and corner will have cameras pointed in all directions.  I do not buy anything in a shop like that.  I am not a thief and do not want to be treated like a potential one.  I know people do steal stuff.  It happens.  Business owners will never eliminate shrinkage.  The best thing an owner can do is accept it and get used to it.  Just learn how to budget the shrinkage and do some other subtle things to curb its frequency.  It is part of the cost of doing business.  Just make sure you add the cost of theft to your margins.  Then do not be stupid about making theft too easy to do.  I have been at the retail game for forty years.  Every fair paying customer who has purchased goods from my endeavors has already subsidized the thieves in my retail stores with their purchases.  However, I am not certainly going to make the good 97% of my patrons, the ones who do not steal stuff, feel like they have been paying for the theft nor will I work extra hard on making them feel like I assume they are the ones stealing.  My wife will hear about the cameras as we walk around.  I think too much about all of this stuff.

We might be sitting down to enjoy a short coffee break in a remote town when we travel.  The floors will be dirty and the corners of the shop might have several weeks of spider webs hanging near the windows.  My wife will hear about that.  We could be online doing some shopping for a gift we want to find for one of our daughters.  The site we may be cruising through might have a small glitch and keep returning us back to a page we do not want to see.  My wife will hear about it.  I will notice small scenarios where each business can work to make positive changes.  I might add some extra thoughts about how this same kind of stuff needs to be removed from my business models.  It is how I think.  Like I said, I think too much.  My mind carries some very serious tunnel visions about business procedures.  I have business tunnel vision.    

One of the most common errors I see in the business world is the desire of the business world to slow down how it serves its customers.  I do not think the business leaders actually try to slow down how they serve their customers.  However, business leaders do add procedures of data collection and cumbersome security steps at the sales counters that inadvertently add steps to the transaction that will slow down how they process each transaction.  This kind of business design is usually done without notice.  The desire to get the information is stronger than the desire to quickly serve the customer.  I have seen many business owners fail to recognize this little affliction.  They get so immersed into the desire to gather more relevant information that they do not notice how irritating it has become to the patrons of their business model.  What's more, they do not notice how invasive their efforts are being felt.  Business models who practice this kind of stuff justify why they need to practice this kind of stuff.  That is exactly why they have too many cameras in every nook and cranny of their business model.  They have become too wrapped up with managing their thieves.  They have become too wrapped up with the data of accounting.  They have become too wrapped up with the data collection of customers for future marketing plans.  Sometimes business owners become 'wrong-sided' with their business tunnel vision.  Do you have business tunnel vision?  I do.  My wife would agree.

Quick service is always a good thing to practice.  Any business who designs its working model to do the things that will slow down how it routinely takes care of its customers is a business destined to fail.  Any time a procedure is introduced that will bog down how quickly you care for your customers is a business that consciously decides to flirt with losing more customers.  Customers want to do their thing quickly.  Get very used to it.  Any procedure that is introduced that ignores this truth is a procedure arranged to ignore customer desires.  An owner cannot talk their way around this truth.  Face it and deal with it.  Do not ever bog down the processing methods you use to service your customers.  Never.  Just flat out refuse to do it.  It is an excellent habit to inject into your business model designs.  In fact, Google just reported how long people wait when they click on search engines looking for information.  Over 80% wait less than one second before they move on to the next page!  One second, people!  Customers want faster service.  Get directly in line with this customer desire.

I watch many business models add procedures that slow down opportunities to provide quicker services to its consumers.  I see it happen in so many business models.  Those models do not truly recognize the power of good, efficient customer service.  I work for one of those models.  They are very supportive for the additions they insert and increase to their accounting tools.  They love to gather better information from the point of sale technology they currently use.  Unfortunately, with each step of additional input requirements they impose at the point of sale registers they inadvertently slow down each consumer transaction.  They desire the gathering steps of the accounting data more than they respect the protection to quickly serve the waiting customers at the sales register.  The leaders who make that kind of business decisions are not as much concerned about serving the customers quickly.  Those leaders are more concerned about gathering increased data to help the accounting office do a quicker, more effective job.  They accept the warped philosophy that better data at the expense of slowing down the consumer sales transactions is a good thing for the company.  Business leaders often times accept the common practice of wrong thinking.  In fact, many times I have justified wrong thinking in my own business models protecting my wrong thoughts with a list of justifiable reasons loaded with legitimate support.  Even then, wrong is still wrong.  I have done it.  

The process to complete each consumer sale should never get bogged down with more accounting steps required.  Develop a better more efficient system if more data is desired.  Do not constantly 'hit' that consumer each time they enter the check out line.  Once is enough.  To continue to bog customers down with every required step inserted into each required keystroke on every sales transaction is far too much to ask of the customers waiting in line.  Repeat customers see this foolishness.  Customers eventually become offended with these added steps required in the point of sale process.  It will stop a few of them from coming back.  Period.  That is one of the most stupid reasons to slow down volume.  I see this stupid stuff performed a lot.  I do not get it.  Apparently, neither do some business owners.

Every single time a business model decides to insert a new input requirement at the point of sale transaction that new procedure is destined to create a slower process for serving the consumers at the sales registers.  That kind of addition to business is plain stupidity.  Most accounting offices do not care about this kind of senselessness.  Make certain that your accounting office does not rule the roost on this subject.  This kind of disservice is one of the small ingredients inside the recipe for retail failure.  The accounting office will always deny this fact.  If you are the owner, the manager or the CEO, make sure you know where to sit on this particular argument.  Do not land smack dab in the middle of the accounting office perspective.  Instead, land where the clerks and customers live.  The clerks sit smack dab in front of the daily customers.  The truth is in the process.  In the end, the real accuracy of increased or decreased good service is evident to one side of this equation.  Who do you think sees this accuracy better, the main accounting office or the sales clerks and customers?  I tend to lean with the customers opinion.  The accounting office tends to ignore that view.  Get on the same side of this argument where the customers reside.  Wrong is wrong, right is right.  End of debate.  Move on.  Make certain your point of sale processing is the fastest you can provide.  It needs to be lightening quick.  The consumer is done and wants to move on.  They are running behind on their multiple task schedules.  Help them solve their delay.

I notice a lot of these silly things.  Leaders tend to excuse poor techniques for allowing bogged down customer service techniques and designs in their working models.  They actually introduce some wrong techniques by design.  What's more, we protect how we keep doing these terrible things to our customers.  We justify how our customers need to be more patient with our business processing desires.  We design our methods and we expect our customers to get in line and respect our poor business processing designs.  We determine our future, our fate within the confines of this kind of thinking.  Then when business goes sour we ask the silly questions, what went wrong?  We start to point our fingers at things that usually cannot be readily fixed.  We point fingers at the poor economy.  We point fingers at our untrained and careless sales employees.  We point fingers at the store manager who is given the art of directing his staff.  We point the fingers at the areas of costs that get out of line.  We demand that the manager cut down the use on his electric bill.  We demand that the manager trim out his staff overtime hours.  We demand that the manager lay off one of his part-time employees.  We do the stuff that seems obviously wrong with how our customers have slowly slipped away.  We do not truly work on improving how we increase the services we offer our customers.  Those kinds of efforts are usually the last ones on the list of our guided repairs.  Every model I have seen struggles with this kind of misguided business approach.  We get caught up in our business tunnel vision.  We get less consumer friendly and more accounting heavy.  It smacks too much of the act to perform too much business tunnel vision.  I am also prone to do these silly things.

Personal Opinions Versus Business Ideas

I have to admit.  I was walking yesterday and this blog title came to my mind.  So I thought it might be worthwhile to chat about it.  The idea of measuring the difference between a good business idea and a personal opinion seemed like a great subject.  At least, that was my personal opinion when I was walking.  There lies the title, "Personal Opinions Versus Business Ideas."  So I started with that.  Now nothing.

The title either speaks for itself or the subject matter has too many directions to travel.  In either case, my writing came to a halt.  It seems as though there is not enough 'pull' to lead me in the 'flowing' direction so I can share deeper and more valuable thoughts about this particular idea.  I think the title has extreme value, however.  I witness this kind of confusion surfacing in the organizations of many business leaders.  Too many times a strong opinion misdirects the great possibilities that a small business model can enjoy.  Instead of supporting a good idea, an opinion from the opposite side of the good idea surfaces and takes enough of a foot hold to restrict the good idea from occurring.  I have seen this kind of management style cripple many small business opportunities.  Often times a personal opinion directs the show.  Good ideas will struggle when this occurs.  Maybe this is where we need to look?

When we drive down the road and a motorcycle goes by us, we know when that bike is a Harley.  There is usually no mistaking knowing when a Harley goes by.  We can usually tell by the sound of the bike.  Did you know that Harley Davidson patented the type and production process of that noise?  They actually own the right to produce that sound the way it is produced.  That specific sound is protected.  It is protected for a reason.  It was a good idea to protect the noise that identifies who you are.  It was distinct enough to be 'branded.'  However, what if you were a bike enthusiast who did not like loud noises?  What if your personal opinion was to reduce sound litter?  It was a good thing your opinion was not flowing around the board room when the Harley Davidson Company made the decision to support the patented business idea to secure its 'noisy' brand recognition.  Your opinion would have killed a great business idea.  That is exactly how fine the line to success can become.  Our opinions carry a lot of where our models go.

I do not like a lot of things.  I know what I do not like and I also know what I do like.  Those certain characteristics have helped me to form some strong opinions about what I like and what I do not like.  These things become part of my base of life opinions.  I actually use those opinions to help me decide where and what I support.  They work inside me to govern my choices.  They also get inside my business life.  They help me to govern what I do in that area of my life as well.  I have formulated some very strong opinions about how I prefer to operate my business models.  The more I tend to trust my opinions, the more I tend to rule out contrary ideas.  I guess my original thought on this subject was to examine how we can damage our future success by allowing our strong opinions to take over the production patterns of our business ideas.  Maybe the real title should be, "What Opinions Do We Support That Hinder The Development Of Good Ideas We Do Not Understand?"  Maybe that is more like the discussion we should have.

When was the last time you sat down with your managers, your leaders and your staff and had this kind of discussion with them?  Pull up a white board and write that last question on the top of the board and give them the microphone.  Sit back and watch them go to work.  They have opinions, too.  Some of their opinions carry some very good weight.  I also know enough about life and people to recognize that many of their good ideas are being suppressed by the quiet strength of your opinions.  They do not feel safe enough to bring many of those good ideas to the table of judgement.  They already suspect and know how you feel about certain opinions.  Guess what?  Now I know what we need to talk about.

How do your plain opinions cripple the good ideas your business model could and should be doing?

This is certainly worth a closer look.  I know I have crippled many good ideas with my fleeting opinions.  I know I have missed many great opportunities by refusing to look deeper when a good business idea cropped up but it sounded a lot like it would rub up against some opinions I carry.  I know I have limited some good ideas with my support to dominate my business atmosphere with my personal opinions.  I know I have made this quiet mistake.  I know I will make that mistake again.  I know I will not 'catch' myself every time my personal opinions take over to sideswipe the flow of some good ideas floating about.  The real question, therefore becomes, how do I 'catch' my personal opinions trying to limit what good ideas come floating through my business model?  How do I catch myself from limiting those great business ideas with the strength of my personal opinions?

How do we do this little trick?