Mike Figliuolo – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

About Mike Figliuolo

This author has yet to write their bio.
Meanwhile lets just say that we are proud Mike Figliuolo contributed a whooping 1238 entries.

Entries by Mike Figliuolo

The 4 Need to Know Approaches to Growth

November 16, 2020 /1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Knowing your growth strategy and understanding four key growth approaches – organic, acquisition, new products, and geographic expansion – will help you be more successful in achieving the growth you desire. You have to ask yourself – how does your business grow? Is it geographic expansion? Are you selling new products? Are you selling the same products to new customers? Are you growing by acquisition and buying other businesses? What’s your overall growth strategy? You need to be able to answer this question. Look at your historical growth and where it came from. That’s usually a pretty good indicator of how your organization is going to continue to grow from here. Pull out your strategic plan and look at your marketing plan to see where the future growth is expected. Assess whether or not that sales and marketing plan is aligned with where the future growth is supposed to come from. Different Approaches to Growth There are some very common methods for growing and they all have very different economic profiles. Acquisition One way you can grow is acquisition. The economics of conducting an acquisition are you spend a lot of money up front to buy another company or portion of another company. You’re buying a large piece of the market when you do so. The way you make acquisition economics work out is you reduce the costs of the combined entities by looking at synergies. So, you bought another company. Congratulations! You have two HR departments now. You have two marketing departments. You have two Legal departments and two IT departments. You have two of everything! How do you consolidate those and reduce costs? That’s the first source of economic value in an acquisition. The second source of acquisition value is all about growth. Now you have a new […]

Authenticity Lies in Your Ability to Cut The Crap

October 26, 2020 /1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Authentic means getting rid of the B.S. and buzzwords and layers of ‘protective’ crap. Sharing who you truly are is the best way to establish a connection and build trust with your team. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS and author of One Piece of Paper(CLICK HERE to get your copy). The only way I know to roll back the tide of all the meaningless jargon in our world is to say what you really mean. Words spoken from the heart and the gut are clear, concise, meaningful, and genuine. They help ground you and your team. They signal that you are willing to take a stand for something you believe in instead of watering down your beliefs with complicated words so you will not offend someone or so your simple thoughts will sound more important. It is imperative that you realize such approaches have exactly the opposite effect. Using buzzwords makes you sound less intelligent. Filling your leadership philosophy with obscure or difficult to define concepts diminishes peoples’ trust in you. Both behaviors are counterproductive and hinder you from reaching your goal of becoming an authentic leader. That is why you are here, isn’t it? Allow me to share a story that demonstrates the trouble jargon-filled leadership philosophies can cause, as well as how an executive avoided such a trap. I know several executives who were members of the same senior leadership team. After a reorganization, their new boss, Jared, worked hard to get the team to gel. After several months of effort, it simply was not happening. The team members were mistrustful both of Jared and of each other. Team meetings were painful and one-on-one sessions with Jared were even worse. The team was quickly devolving into chaos. Jared decided he would break through […]

How Avoid Mistakes When Doing Analysis and Making Recommendations

October 19, 2020 /0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Three major mistakes people make when conducting analysis are succumbing to confirmation bias, analysis paralysis, and generating weak results. If you’re mindful of these risks and approach your analysis rigorously and objectively, you can make a recommendation that will be easily approved. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERSs and author of The Elegant Pitch: (CLICK HERE to get your copy). A hypothesis-driven approach to problem solving and making recommendations can be tremendously efficient. You create a hypothesis (something taken to be true for the sake of argument), conduct analysis designed to prove or disprove the hypothesis, then make your recommendation based on the results of your analysis. Typically your hypothesis is based upon prior experiences you’ve had as well as your knowledge of the subject matter you’re evaluating. I’ve personally used this approach for years. I refer to it as the Structured Thought Process. The method is both efficient and effective. That said, using this approach is not without risks. Risk #1: Confirmation Bias While it’s great to have experience and prove your hypotheses are correct, that same experience carries risk with it. Confirmation bias – the tendency to look for or interpret information in a way that confirms your preconceived ideas – is the biggest risk you face when using a hypothesis-driven approach like the Structured Thought Process. No one wants to be wrong so it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking disproving your hypothesis means you made a mistake. That fear of being “wrong” can lead you to wear blinders when you’re conducting analysis. You might ignore or dismiss facts contrary to your hypothesis. You might only look for data that proves you’re “correct” which can then skew your analytical results. Before you know it, you’re making a case based upon incorrect […]

Protecting Yourself When You Make a Tough Call

September 23, 2020 /3 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

I can guarantee you’ll face a major moral/ethical dilemma situation at least once in your career. Even if you make the right decision, you’re still at risk for bad things happening. Here are some tips on navigating those sticky situations. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS. When I was a cadet at West Point, we learned the Cadet Prayer. We didn’t learn it as part of some religious education but rather because there were points in it about ethics. The one line that stood out for all of us was “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.” Sounds awesome in theory, much tougher in practice. There have been times I’ve lived up to that and others I’ve fallen miserably short. I’ve had friends, colleagues, and clients have similar experiences. While it sucks to choose the easier wrong and deal with the consequences later, it’s even worse to choose the harder right and still get screwed over when bad things happen to you as a result. I’d like to offer some thoughts on how you can protect yourself when you’re choosing to follow the moral high road. It’s a funny thing – when you’re walking up on the high road, you make yourself a nice, big, target silhouetted against the skyline. In situations where you’re doing the right thing, someone else is probably doing the wrong thing. Those are the folks who will try to take that shot at you while you stroll along the high road. If you don’t protect yourself, you’re going to find bad things happen to you. Sometimes those people taking the shot will walk away from the situation unscathed. Now that is a bad outcome. Here’s how to avoid it. Be Right If you’re going to make […]

Using Stretch and Commit Goals to Drive Performance

September 21, 2020 /0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Goal setting is tricky business. You’ll get much better performance if you set two goals for your team. Once you’ve done so, paying for performance is more of a math equation than it is black magic. Incentives can, and have been, a topic of great discussion but one thing that is hard to argue is this: you want to complete a goal, incentives work. Sometimes incentives are money. Incentives can be salary increases or bonuses. You may offer stock or options. Other incentives can be awards, time off, or promotions. Incentives need to be something that’s meaningful and exciting to your team, collectively. When you set the incentives, make a direct linkage between the goal and the reward. I’ve always liked setting “commit” and “stretch” goals. The commit goal is something where folks are signing up to deliver it no matter what. There’s zero bonus associated with hitting a commit. It’s the “you did your job” level of goal. A “stretch” is the furthest point that folks think is in the realm of possibility. They have an idea for how they’ll achieve 70% of it but no clue where the last 30% will come from. And to be clear – that first 70% will take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to hit. With a stretch goal, people can max out their bonus. If you have a commit goal and a stretch goal, put the bonus on a sliding scale between those two instead of creating an all-or-none scheme. A “commit” goal is the minimum that someone will deliver to the organization. At the “commit” the bonus is zero. A stretch goal is a high level of impact that will take a tremendous amount of effort to achieve. If someone hits their stretch, the bonus should be 100% of […]

Why You Need a Wookiee on Your Team

April 17, 2019 /1 Comment/in Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Leaders can learn a few things from Chewbacca the Wookiee. Leaders who have people that are loyal, team players, skilled, and action-oriented will be more successful than leaders with team members without these qualities. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC. GRRNNHHNNNHHNN! WOOKIEE! Every great leader needs their own Wookiee. They’re extremely useful. They can carry around robots, knock out stormtroopers, and co-pilot wicked awesome smuggler spaceships. On top of that, they usually have long, luxurious brown hair (how has Chewbacca not landed a shampoo/conditioner endorsement yet?). Some of you longtime readers have seen this post before, but it was time it be revived from the archives once more, it truly is that good. Read it again. It’s good stuff. New readers – read it. This is one of my favorite posts ever. No, I haven’t lost it. All leaders need their own Wookiee. First, allow me to explain the characteristics of Wookiees that leaders will find attractive and helpful, especially for those of you who haven’t jumped on the Star Wars bandwagon in the last couple years. Second, I’ll explain how you can unleash those Wookiee talents for the good of your team. When you figure out who your Wookiee is, let them know that, in a matter of speaking. You should share your assessment with them so they understand what you expect from them and how valuable they are to you as a member of your team. If you want to expand your Star Wars leadership skills beyond managing a Wookiee, you can read this post about what Han Solo can teach you about leadership (a real flashback for any of you who’ve been with around since the beginning). There are five things you’re looking for in your Wookiee: