Mike Figliuolo – Page 28 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

How well did your end-of-year review process go last year?

January 5, 2017 /0 Comments/in Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How well did your end-of-year review process go last year? – Very well — We did a great job of reviewing performance: 12% – Well — We did OK, but it could have been better: 31% – Not well — It was somewhat ineffective: 11% – Poorly — It was a frustrating waste of time: 18% – What end-of-year review? 28% Are reviews dead? Only 43% of you had a positive experience with end of year reviews. Hopefully that means people are set up to succeed this year and they received actionable feedback. For the other 57%, ask yourselves why the process is broken. It is fixable if you focus on key changes you can make. Is it the process itself or the quality of reviews being written. If the former, remember you own the process and have a responsibility to fix it. If the latter, you get out of the process what you put into it. Invest the time. For the 28% without an end of year review, as long as feedback is given on a regular basis and people are continuing to grow, that’s fine. If there’s no feedback, you have an impending crisis you need to get in front of. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

6 Leadership Resolutions for a New Year

January 4, 2017 /1 Comment/in Entrepreneur, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

A new year provides a fresh start. Leaders would do well to assess how they can be more effective in the coming year before getting overwhelmed by the day to day. Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a restful, safe, and enjoyable holiday season. Now get back to work! Not so fast. There’s still time to pause, catch your breath, and be thoughtful about how you want to tackle the year ahead. I enjoy the holidays because they offer time to reflect. The work world slows down for a few weeks and you can think about what went well that year, what didn’t go well, how you want to grow, and what you can do to improve yourself for the year ahead. In the spirit of saving you some time in case you haven’t yet used the holiday period to be reflective, I’d like to offer a list of resolutions for the new year to get you started. 1. Take better care of yourself. I’m eminently qualified to opine on this topic after having two heart attacks in the last few years. Changing lifestyle can be a struggle. You have to overcome excuses, give up things you enjoy (sweets, naps, sitting on the couch), and put in some effort. Trust me on this though – you’ll feel better and be more effective if you invest time and effort in taking care of yourself. Go get a physical. Know your numbers. Change your diet. Drop a few pounds (this one takes time and is a constant battle to eat right). Exercise – even if it’s only a 20 minute walk a few times a week. I’m a convert. I won’t say this is easy. It requires dedication. That said, it’s the sum total of small acts that will make […]

9 Questions to Answer to Make Decisions Like a CEO

January 2, 2017 /0 Comments/in Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Decision making is one of the most important skills a leader needs to possess. A key determinant in how successful you are as a decision maker is your ability to communicate with and influence others. Today’s post is by Paul Petrone, editor of The Learning Blog for Lynda.com. The fate of your career will come down to your ability to make decisions. When most people start their career, they spend time mostly on execution. But, as people start gaining experience and moving up the ladder, it comes less about execution and more about decision-making. At the highest levels of business, such as the C-suite, it is all about decision-making. And the leaders who make great decisions will build great organizations, whereas the leaders who make poor decisions will build poor organizations. So, how do great leaders make great decisions? In his Lynda.com class Decision-Making Fundamentals, leadership coach Mike Figliuolo laid out a winning decision-making process. And part of that is asking yourself these nine questions, as they all impact your decision and force you to think through each part of it. The nine questions you should ask yourself before making any decision are: 1. How big is this decision? And, the follow up question, “Can I break this decision into smaller decisions?”. A common fallacy is that you think you have to go all-in with one decision. That occasionally is the case, but more often, there’s the potential to break it into smaller decisions. Then, you can see one decision performs, before making the next. 2. How irrevocable is this decision? Sometimes, there is no coming back from a decision. For example, you can’t reverse a layoff – once you let someone go, you let him or her go. However, other decisions aren’t as set in stone. You can make a decision and see […]

How effective is your organization’s goal-setting process?

December 29, 2016 /0 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How effective is your organization’s goal-setting process? – Very — we have clear and actionable goals all the time: 20% – Somewhat — we set goals for big items but not smaller ones: 31% – Not very — our goal-setting is inconsistent: 40% – Not at all — what’s a goal?: 9% Set a Destination. It’s hard for your team to know where it’s going and why their work matters if they’re not clear on the destination. You have a responsibility to set clear goals that the team can focus on and drive toward. Without those goals in place, they won’t know if they’re working on the right things or if their efforts have been successful. Sit down and set some targets today. Your team will appreciate you doing so. 80% of you aren’t being as effective as you can be. With a little effort, you can set clear goals that your team can rally behind. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

5 Tactics to Showcase Thought Leadership in Your Executive Resume

December 26, 2016 /2 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Showcasing your soft skills on your resume is a challenging task. These five tactics will help you showcase thought leadership in your executive resume and land that job you deserve. Today’s post is by Lisa Rangel, an Executive Resume Writer at ChameleonResumes.com. How you include thought leadership in your executive resume is a key determinant of whether or not you’ll get the job. Oftentimes these are skills that have more to do with the identity and knowledge you have put out there as evidence that you have what a prospective job is seeking. This can make it difficult to put this thought leadership trait on paper. Up until recently, companies sought after talent with hard skills that would get the firm to hit its bottom line goal. Now we know that thought leadership and soft skills are just as important when it comes to growing a company and hitting those goals. Thought leadership and soft skills are considered to be behaviors and traits such as knowledge transfer, critical thinking, mentorship, talent attraction and selection, likeability, time management, and so forth. Thought leadership has shifted from being perceived as solely academic to trend forecasting. Soft skills are those skills that are hard to measure but equally as important. How do you reflect them on a resume? Check out these five ways to effectively and strategically incorporate thought leadership and soft skills in your executive resume. Repeat soft skills mentioned in the job ad. Job posting ads will, often times, have soft skills written into them. This will give you a clue as to what the employer is looking for in their next hired leader. For instance, one employer may emphasize that a candidate be “results oriented” while the other may prefer “strategic and trend forecaster.” Tell stories that showcase the actions […]

What experience have you had with being “layered” at work?

December 22, 2016 /1 Comment/in Career, Communications, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: What experience have you had with being “layered” at work? – I’ve never been “layered”: 6% – I’ve been “layered” and it worked out great: 2% – I’ve been “layered” and it was horrible: 7% – What’s getting “layered”?: 85% What happens when you’re “layered.” Getting layered means there’s a reorganization where someone new gets inserted as a “layer” between you and your existing boss. You no longer report to your boss – you report to the new person who reports to your boss. This can be an uncomfortable and awkward situation. If you’re layered, you can take several steps to make the change go smoothly like acknowledging the awkwardness and fully supporting your new boss. Your initial approach to the change can make it be a great one or a disaster. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

Best of thoughtLEADERS 2016: A Basket of Kickass

December 21, 2016 /0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Innovation, Leadership, Sales, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s time again for our annual year in review list of the BEST posts we’ve published over the last 12 months. Welcome to the 2016 edition of The Figgies (our EIGHTH YEAR of em! Wow!) which are the awards we give ourselves for writing awesome blog content (here are the 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 editions of those awards). This is an annual event at the thoughtLEADERS Blog. This list is comprised of our most viewed, most forwarded, quirkiest, most provocative work. Enjoy. Share. We’ve loved writing them. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I don’t ask a lot of you folks so I have two small requests as your holiday gift to me (you are getting me something, right?): 1. Invite all your coworkers, friends, and family to come check out the blog and become readers. The only way we all get better is by raising everyone’s game. I’m not asking a lot here. If you found this blog helpful at all this year, here’s your chance to return the favor for all our hard work. Just email folks and tell ’em to come take a look. 2. Pick up a copy of my books. They make great holiday gifts for the professionals in your life. The titles include: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful Personal Leadership. In the words of Roland Smith (former CEO of Wendy’s/Arby’s) “This book could change your life.” To get a sense for what the book is about, read this free ChangeThis Leadership Manifesto which is based on the book. If you like the manifesto, you’ll love the book. Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results. “Finally, a leadership book that cuts through all of the noise. This book needs to be […]

Balancing Current Performance with Future Growth

December 19, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Finding a balance between current performance and future growth is a critical element of your strategy. Too much focus on either the present or the future can lead to disaster. Today’s post is by Jeffrey Saltzman and Scott Brooks, co-authors of Creating the Vital Organization (CLICK HERE to get your copy). What is the difference between companies that succeed and those that fail? The answer lies at least partly in the concept of vitality. All organizations have daily operations that help create or deliver the goods and services that make up the core of their business – current performance. Yet no matter how strong or successful an organization may be at delivering their current performance, they run the risk of stagnation and even failure because eventually competitors, changing marketplace realities, or new technologies will render their current performance irrelevant or obsolete. In order to stay competitive and relevant, an organization must constantly explore future potential opportunities and ideas. These efforts require investments of time, resources, and specifically money, yet despite all this, many of them will fail. Nonetheless, it is critical that organizations work toward building new capabilities. Eventually, one of the future potential ideas will succeed, and will become current performance that helps support even more future potential exploration. In other words, it is a cycle of using current performance to support and fund future potential that will one day become the organization’s current performance. We first came across this idea years ago when listening to a company’s CEO discuss how his company refreshed its products lines. After determining that the life span of their product was roughly five years, they realized that they needed to refresh 20% of their product-line annually to stay relevant and competitive. The concept of constant renewal stuck with us, and we started researching […]

How full is your “negotiating toolkit”?

December 15, 2016 /2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership, Poll, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How full is your “negotiating toolkit”? – Very — I know many great negotiating techniques: 20% – Kind of — I know a few core negotiating techniques: 42% – Not very — I know one or two key negotiating techniques: 25% – Not at all — My toolkit is virtually empty: 13% Learn the Tools, Win the Deal. It’s surprising that 80% of respondents said they’re “kind of” or less on how full their negotiating toolkit is. The ability to negotiate is a huge determinant of your happiness and success. These skills aren’t only for Procurement people. Negotiating for a day off, a different role, compensation, promotions, and even where to eat lunch as a team can seriously impact how happy and successful you are. I strongly encourage you to fill your negotiating toolkit and learn as many negotiating techniques as you can. Doing so will make you more effective in many areas related to your success and job satisfaction. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

3 Business Lessons from a Cracked Tooth

December 14, 2016 /2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

You can learn business lessons anywhere if you look hard enough. A recent incident involving a cracked molar offers great lessons on planning, investing, and making long-term decisions. After a couple of heart attacks, I’ve learned to eat a lot healthier. Finding snacks can be challenging though once you remove Doritos and Cheetos from the equation. A good substitute for me is now Harvest Snaps which are baked lentil pods. I highly recommend the tomato basil version. Anyway, I was lentil snapping away the other day on some of the onion thyme ones. I bit down on a snap with my back left molar and heard a snap. Then the pain train came roaring through the station. The tooth had cracked all the way to the root. Of course this happens on a Friday at 7PM and the dentist doesn’t open until Monday morning. So I suffered through the weekend wondering what I’d be in for. On Monday morning, Dr. Kubic saw me and put in a temporary filling to hold the tooth together. He told me it had cracked all the way down to the root. My options were having an extensive root canal, getting a crown, or getting a dental implant. With the root canal, he said it would be pretty invasive and he wasn’t optimistic about it holding up over the long term. With a crown, it would be more permanent but given it’s a molar with heavy grinding activity, it would need to be re-crowned down the road. The dental implant was the most permanent solution but also the most expensive, would take the longest, and was the most invasive. He referred me to Dr. Hinkle who had done an implant for me previously. By the way – if you live in Columbus, Ohio and need […]

How to Quickly Evaluate Coaching Needs by Being BOSS

December 12, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

To properly coach your people, you need to focus on behaviors, outlook, skills, and stature. In doing so, you’ll be able to quickly identify their coaching needs. Today’s post is by Jonathan Whistman, author of The Sales Boss (CLICK HERE to get your copy). A part of every leader’s job is to provide the coaching necessary to each of the individuals on the team. The challenge is that sometimes what we end up coaching on is the thing that happened the most recently, or the thing that most stands out and not the thing that would most impact the future results of the person. At other times, we might struggle with how to evaluate what the needs of our people are and what will be most helpful. In my work with Sales Managers whose ability to coach salespeople is critical to the success I teach the acronym of BOSS as a way of thinking about the coaching needs and to quickly evaluate what might be most impactful for each individual. This method will also work as you evaluate the needs of your non-sales staff. Let’s look at what each letter represents. Behavior What are the behaviors of your team member? This is the WHAT they do not the HOW they do it. What are the critical behavior activities they need to be involved in for success? For a sales person it might include the number of calls, the contacts they make and the emails they send. It would also include things like eating, drinking and exercise. How organized are they? How well do they use resources available? Taking a close look at behaviors might provide an area rich for coaching. After all, it doesn’t matter how great someone is at something if they never actually do it. Outlook

Have you ever faced a major ethical dilemma at work?

December 8, 2016 /0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: Have you ever faced a major ethical dilemma at work? – Yes, and I navigated it well: 70% – Yes, and I navigated it poorly: 12% – No, but I feel prepared to deal with one: 16% – No, and I feel unprepared to handle it: 12% Difficult Ethical Dilemmas. Many of you have faced these challenges and and handled them well. For the 24% who didn’t or who don’t feel prepared, don’t be discouraged or intimidated. These situations can be overcome by executing a few key steps. Be right, seek counsel, document events, and keep good records. In doing those four things, you’ll have protected yourself in the process of making a difficult call. Failure to follow these steps likely results in an ugly situation. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!