Mike Figliuolo – Page 35 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

About Mike Figliuolo

This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Mike Figliuolo contributed 1284 entries already.

Entries by Mike Figliuolo

8 Elements that Differentiate Your Business and Make it Stand Out

June 20, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Sales, Social Media /by Mike Figliuolo

Differentiating your business and making it stand out isn’t about cosmetic external attributes. It’s about sharing the internal elements that make your business different. Today’s post is from Winnie Brignac Hart, co-author of Stand Out (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Today, we’re bombarded with marketing messages from every side – the New York Times estimates over 5,000 messages every day. Marketers used to try to reach consumers at home watching TV or reading newspapers and magazines, but now advertisers reach consumers in real time, trying to catch their attention at every turn. It’s absolute sensory overload as companies press harder to make their brands stand out. My sister, Lorrie, and I are identical twins. Because we are identical twins, we know a lot about the confusion and frustration that comes from a lack of clarity when things look the same. It has taught us a simple truth about differences. We live in a world that appreciates and expects individual differences in appearance and behavior. So when we encounter two identical individuals, this experience challenges our beliefs about the way that the world works. Of course, identical twins are never exactly alike, and some differ in profound ways. Yet we can’t stop ourselves from comparing them and trying to find the differences that help us to tell them apart. By taking a closer look at twins, we can learn a great deal about the concept of differentiation. When I look at my twin, I can experience how others view me – and actually see myself from outside of myself. I did not think about it much until I was almost 13. Around that time, I remember clearly that looking and being different from my twin sister was just about the most important thing in my world. I wanted to be […]

How frequently do you spend time writing?

June 16, 2016 /2 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our poll today asks: How frequently do you spend time writing (blogs, journaling, articles, etc.)? – Very — I write regularly every week: 16% – Somewhat — I’ll write occasionally as the mood strikes: 21% – Not at all — I’ll write only when absolutely necessary: 63% Writing Makes You Better. Finding the time and a reason to write has many benefits – it makes you sharper, more articulate, helps you clarify your thoughts, and creates opportunities for you. It’s easy to rationalize you don’t have time or a reason to write. Reconsider that position and think through the many benefits of having a regular writing habit. Whether it’s journaling, blogging, white papers, or articles – writing will improve your skills and value to your company. 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!

Managing Up is About Expectation Management

June 15, 2016 /1 Comment/in Books, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Managing up can be challenging. Failure to meet your boss’s informational needs can lead to bad decisions and frustrating interactions. Learn how to manage up more effectively. Sometimes it’s harder to manage your boss than it is to manage your team. All senior stakeholders can prove challenging to keep control of. Fail to do so and they run off with harebrained ideas or half-baked truths that take you days to fix. But if you invest the time and thought in managing up, you can turn your senior stakeholders into your greatest allies and one of the best assets on your team. It all boils down to expectations and managing them appropriately. Your boss or senior stakeholder has a lot on their plate. They’re managing you and all your colleagues not to mention managing the stakeholders above them. When they’re pulled in a million different directions, they get precious little time to engage with the work you’re doing. When they do engage, they have limited opportunity to dig into the situation before offering their assistance. In their efforts to assist you, when they make decisions based on a cursory understanding of the situation, things are bound to go awry. In the worst cases, they make decisions that run directly counter to what you want them to do. They send your team East when you should be heading West. Now your task is double – you have to convince them that going East is a bad idea – which is hard to do because they think it’s the right decision – and convince them you should be taking your team West. But before you go cursing them for wreaking such havoc, you must realize you’re to blame. Managing up is all about expectation management. Tell them how to help

5 Keys to Peer Advantage and the Value of Learning How to Learn

June 13, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Career, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Building a network of peers who help you learn is a key to personal and career success. Surrounding yourself with others who push your thinking makes you a better leader. Today’s post is from Leo Bottary, author of The Power of Peers (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Earlier this year, I addressed the graduates of Seton Hall University’s Master of Arts in Strategic Communication & Leadership (MASCL) program. Using principles from The Power of Peers: How the Company You Keep Drives Leadership, Growth & Success, I presented a challenge to the group. As you know all too well, who you surround yourself with matters. In fact, it really matters. Whether you want to run a marathon, build a new company, or complete your Master’s degree, if you surround yourself with really good people who share your commitment and dedication to the goal at hand, you can accomplish anything! Today is a celebration of graduation, yet it’s also a time for us to consider what’s possible for your future. So to that end, let me offer an assertion and propose a challenge. My assertion is that the most valuable learning you had in this program didn’t come from one of your instructor’s posts or lectures; it didn’t come from the writings of Kouzes & Posner or Peter Senge; in fact, it didn’t come from WHAT you learned at all – it came from HOW you learned – that’s the most enduring lesson. You learned how to learn together. It’s quintessential peer advantage. Think about it. Over time, facts can become irrelevant, theories outdated. Since we live in a world where we contemplate a future we barely can imagine, having the ability to work and learn with others is where the real enduring value lies. As for the challenge, I […]

How rigorous are you about planning your time?

June 9, 2016 /0 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our poll today asks: How rigorous are you about planning your time? – Very — I manage my calendar closely: 41% – Somewhat — I plan my time when it’s required: 45% – Not very — I don’t spend much effort planning my time: 11% – Not at all — my schedule dictates how I spend my time: 3% Your Most Precious Resource. Time is the one thing we can’t get back. Time spent planning your calendar can pay huge dividends. Perhaps one of the largest benefits of doing so is being more efficient and effective with the time you spend with the members of your team. Not all time is created equal. Once you start differentiating how you spend your time based on individual team member behaviors, you should see benefits in terms of improved performance. So take greater control over how you spend your time – it’s the best investment you can make every week. 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!

Changing Behaviors is the Key to Achieving Your Goals

June 8, 2016 /4 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

No matter how SMART your goals are, if you don’t get people to change their behaviors, there’s no way you’ll ever achieve the goal. By clearly articulating what behaviors they need to change and explaining how those changes tie to goals, you’ll increase your chances of “making your numbers.” The reason we set goals is to drive different outcomes. That means behaviors need to change. You need to know what the current behavior is, what the preferred behavior should be, and have the right incentives in place to make people change to that new behavior. You’d be remiss to set a goal and not tell people how they should behave differently in order to achieve it. Explain which behaviors should change and how you’re going to monitor those changes. What new skills do you need your people to build? Do you need to train them, coach them, give them different resources? What new information or resources will they need to demonstrate these new behaviors? If you want to hit your goals, tell people what the new behaviors are that you expect. Setting a goal without telling giving your team members behavioral guidance is a recipe for failure. Make sure they know how they should change the way they work and reinforce those changes regularly. There’s a consumer packaged goods company that had a large sales force. That sales force was previously given incentives based on the revenue they generated. The company was trying to grow which was their strategic imperative. Their original goal of driving revenue was tied to that strategic goal of growth. All the salespeople had individual revenue goals for the year. The behaviors that led to was first, the salespeople discounted heavily to drive revenue and steal share from competitors. Sales people also chased small accounts because […]

6 Steps to Achieving Your Goals in 90 Days

June 6, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Achieving your goals is all about taking tangible steps every day. If you change your time horizon and ask yourself six simple questions, you’ll find you’re achieving your goals more rapidly than you ever thought possible. Today’s post is by David Horsager, author of THE DAILY EDGE: Simple Strategies to Increase Efficiency and Make an Impact Every Day (CLICK HERE to get your copy). I met an eighty-eight-year-old man named Orville at my health club. I first noticed him one afternoon while checking in at the front desk. He was stumbling along behind me. There was no way this man, slowly shuffling along the path to the gym, was going to do any kind of meaningful workout! Orville patiently moved, inch by inch, into the weight-training area, picked up some dumbbells, and, with an audible grunt, started his routine. One day I happened to see Orville out of the corner of my eye, stepping onto one of the treadmills. I was across the room, and he was already reaching for the start button. Too far away to help him, I just stood there and watched. As the treadmill came to life, Orville took one small step, and then another. The machine picked up speed, but miraculously, so did his legs. Within a minute, he hit full stride, running like a man half his age! At this point the reality of the situation dawned on me. Orville’s problem was not with his legs, it was with his vision. He couldn’t see where he was going. Though Orville did nothing to cause his vision problem, it is a powerful example of how limited we are when we lack clarity and vision. How often do leaders and employees lack clarity in their communication, and as a result, drive forward ambiguous goals? I think […]

How large of a threat do you face from substitute products/services?

June 2, 2016 /1 Comment/in Entrepreneur, Innovation, Leadership, Poll, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Our poll today asks: How large of a threat do you face from substitute products/services? – Huge: 23% – Large: 19% – Moderate: 27% – Slight: 16% – Negligible: 15% There’s Always a Threat. When it comes to assessing the threat of substitutes for our products or services, we tend to think narrowly about how those threats manifest. We think “We make blue widgets and red widgets are the substitute.” True. But think broadly about what customers could purchase instead of your product/service. You might be surprised by where the competitive threats come from. When you look at your product through your customer’s eyes, you’ll likely see more threats than when you view it from your position. It’s a worthwhile exercise that can prevent you from being blindsided by the next competitive threat. 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!

16 Questions That Keep Your Leadership Philosophy from Sucking

June 1, 2016 /1 Comment/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Career, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Buzzwords sound great but they have no place in your leadership philosophy. If you’re looking to be authentic and build trust with your team, tell your personal story in a way that conveys the type of leader you truly are. Today’s post is by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS instructor and bestselling author of Lead With a Story. It contains the summary of a discussion between Paul and Mike Figliuolo. The audio version of the interview is available for replay at the end of this post. Anyone who’s spent any time in the corporate world has been in this situation. Somebody new joins your department — could be a peer, a new boss, or even a new direct report of yours. And you’re having one of those first get-to-know-you meetings with them. Then, at some point, they pull out a sheet of paper and hand it to you. At the top, it says, “My leadership philosophy” or “My leadership values” or something like that. They suggest you read it after the meeting to get to know them better and what it will be like to work with them. It’s a great concept. I’ve always been impressed with people forward thinking enough to have their own personal leadership philosophy. But I’ve rarely been impressed with what that leadership philosophy is. It’s usually a bunch of vague, hackneyed platitudes and meaningless buzzwords, like “think strategically” and “manage decisively” and “win as a team.” In his book, One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal, Leadership, thoughtLEADERS’ very own Mike Figliuolo gives the following as an example of the kind of mind-numbing leadership philosophy that drove him to come up with a better way:

5 Ways Successful Entrepreneurs Achieve Breakthrough Business

May 30, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Fostering innovation requires a different mindset. Organizations have a tendency to stifle ideas and kill creativity. Fortunately, there a few simple steps you can take to get the creative juices flowing again and generate breakthrough ideas. Today’s post is by Dr. Liz Alexander. Just as bass gobble up minnows, big companies swallow small ones. One of the main reasons being that they desire the Holy Grail of innovation. Something the vast majority of CEOs, when surveyed, say is a key lever of growth and hence crucial to their sustainable success. No problem if you’re Google or Apple with billions to spend on “disrupters.” Or if you’re still a start-up. But your business may have reached a point where you’re too small to afford to acquire breakthrough thinking, but big enough to have morphed into something more conservative, consensus seeking, even too comfortable for your own good. All those processes you put in place to help everything run smoothly have created a kind of “regression to the mean.” In other words, your focus on managing toward the middle has pushed entrepreneurial thinking out the door. Yet that’s not an absolute. Of the 30 “most transformative innovations” since the 1970s, as identified by the Wharton School of Business, the majority—including fiber optics, handheld mobile phones, liquid-crystal displays and digital photography—were invented by employees. But as shown by that last example (rejected by Kodak, see #1 below), it takes a certain willingness by leadership to both nurture and appreciate their efforts. Below are five practices or, to be more accurate, mindsets common to the entrepreneurs I’ve known. Not only through my professional involvement, but also as someone who left corporate life 30 years ago to “do my own thing,” because the culture was crushing my creativity. Which do you recognize?

How is culture reinforced in your organization?

May 26, 2016 /0 Comments/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Our poll today asks: How is culture reinforced in your organization? – We micromanage people to drive it: 11% – We use principles for people to adhere to: 44% – We share stories that reinforce culture: 19% – We don’t focus on reinforcing culture: 20% – We do something not on this list: 5% Principles and Stories Win. You can’t be there for every minute of every team member’s day. Micromanaging culture is simply unfeasible. The most effective way to reinforce culture is through the use of behavioral principles. A close second is telling stories. By giving your team members principles they can apply to any situation, you’ll be leading them and reinforcing culture without you having to be present to provide direction. Spend some time thinking through the principles you want them to live by. Tell them stories that reinforce those principles. Long term, their behaviors should fall in line with the culture you desire. 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!

Work isn’t Worth a Heart Attack

May 25, 2016 /11 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Work is a convenient excuse for not taking care of yourself. Not exercising, poor diet, and stress are a bad combination. You’ve got to make time for you. Work will always be there when you get back. Just over a year ago, I had a heart attack. A second heart attack. Yep. Two. The first one sucked but it was my fault. Crappy diet. Poor exercise habits. Not managing stress well. I lost a lot of weight. Dropped my cholesterol. Modified stress responses. I was feeling great. I had conquered the cardiac event. Wrong. Heart attack #2 was a nasty little bugger. Hit me on a flight to Salt Lake City. I was headed out to teach my Leadership Maxims class. It ended up being the first class I’ve missed teaching in 12 years of running this business. It wasn’t fair. I was in shape. I was eating well. I was managing stress. Kind of. I threw a chunk of plaque and it blocked my obtuse marginal artery. Such B.S. Ended up with a third stent. Missed teaching the class (although my client was unsurprisingly understanding of my dilemma). I quit caffeine after that one. That was painful but green tea isn’t a bad substitute. Where am I going with all this? It’s easy to fall out of good habits.