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

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

Protecting Yourself When You Make a Tough Call

September 23, 2020 /2 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:

Two Keys to Getting Tough Decisions Executed Well

April 10, 2019 /0 Comments/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Large decisions carry plenty of execution risk. To increase the chances that your decisions are executed the way you want them to be, focus on clearly explaining the decision and actively managing change. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC. If you want to make a successful decision, communicate the rationale for the decision to the broader organization. Lay out the context you’re making the decision in. Tell people what the decision was and why it was made. Explain the goals for making the decision. Tell people how you’re going to monitor execution. And also that you’re willing to make new decisions as you get more information. Perhaps even tell them what some of the contingency plans are. Explaining the Decision The better people understand why you made the decision, the less they’re going to second guess it and the more they’re going to support it. Their support is critical to reducing execution risks in making the decision. It helps you get the decision out and executed quickly because they’re bought into it and there are not going to be obstacles. For example, at one company I worked for, we did a large layoff and those are always difficult decisions. Most of the time, layoffs are kept quiet and people don’t know they’re coming. This CEO did it differently. He laid out a complete presentation that explained the rationale for the layoff. He explained the strategic implications and the market dynamics that were driving this change. He also explained what might happen if we didn’t act. People didn’t necessarily like this decision. Their friends were going to be laid off. Some of these people were going to be laid off. But they understood the strategic rationale for making the decision and they supported and executed the […]

The Secret Method for Getting Your Recommendations Approved

April 3, 2019 /0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Getting to “yes” is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face on a daily basis. Whether you’re making a case for more budget, more people, more time, or approval of an idea, you’ll need to communicate in a clear and compelling way. Here’s the secret method for doing just that. Today’s post is by Mike Figiuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS. “We’re sorry but your recommendation wasn’t approved.” We’ve all heard those words; it’s a sentence that slaughters your hopes and crushes your confidence. Getting ideas or projects approved and securing the resources needed to implement them is one of the greatest challenges business leaders face. With multiple stakeholders, constrained budgets, and competing agendas, it’s difficult to cut through the clutter and garner the required support. I’ve been teaching folks this method for years as part of our Structured Thought & Communications Course (and if you’d like me to come teach you and your team, I’d be delighted to do so – just contact me and we can discuss the program). After teaching the method for over a decade, I finally put pen to paper to make it available as a book. The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved was published a few years ago and has helped business professionals, across multiple industries, create successful pitches for all their business needs. If you’ve ever been a participant in our Structured Thought & Communications Course, the book is a wonderful complement to what you learned in class. The Elegant Pitch provides a simple, proven process to go from idea to approval more quickly and effectively than ever before. This is the same method used by elite strategy consulting firms such as McKinsey & Co. and Bain Consulting. But you don’t have to be a high-priced […]

Leadership Lessons from Tragedies, Near-Misses, Hardships, and Mistakes

February 13, 2019 /0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Great leaders learn from even the worst situations – perhaps especially the worst. Find out what some great leaders learned from holding a man’s hand as he took his dying breath at work, a falling crate smashing to bits on the factory floor a few feet from visitors, a painstaking walk across the entire country of Spain, and a lost driver’s license that threatened to derail an entire 2-day business trip. Today’s post is by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS principal and bestselling author of Lead With a Story and Sell With a Story. Here’s an easy way to learn some new leadership skills – in easy-to-digest podcasts you can listen to at your convenience. These podcasts are based on interviews with 100 executives, leaders, authors, and experts at dozens of companies around the world. Each episode brings you an important leadership lesson through a single compelling story. Does customer service this amazing ever happen at your company? If so, would you even know it? Probably the most outrageously positive customer service story I’ve ever heard. Maybe too good. You decide. Then ask yourself these five questions… Compensating Behavior: A Leader’s Guide to Finding Problems You Don’t Know You Have The most dangerous problems are the ones you don’t know you have. Here’s a creative way to find them. Two Leadership Lessons from an American Author’s Walk across Spain