Mike Figliuolo – Page 39 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

How well do you push your own thinking before involving others?

February 18, 2016 /0 Comments/in Communications, Innovation, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How well do you push your own thinking before involving others? – Very well — I advance ideas as much as possible before relying on others: 59.4% – Well — I could stand to do a little more thinking though: 36.32% – Not well — I’m overly reliant on others to advance the thinking: 3.42% – Poorly — I rarely advance the thinking before involving others: 0.85% Think Then Think Some More. Investing time thinking through your ideas is worth the effort. It increases efficiency as you’re not wasting a stakeholder’s time by having them think through something you can figure out. It builds your skills in terms of creativity and anticipation. It also improves your reputation as a more strategic thinker. So the next time you’re about to involve a stakeholder in your thoughts, pause and ask yourself if you’ve thought about the issue as much as you can. If the answer is no, keep thinking. 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 Keys for Successfully Communicating Big Decisions

February 17, 2016 /3 Comments/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s not enough to make the right decision. You have to ensure that decision is properly communicated if you want it to be successfully implemented. The bigger the decision, the more rigorous you have to be in communicating it. Here are 5 keys to communicating that decision well. At some point in your career, you’re going to have to “make the call.” You’ll make a big decision that will affect a lot of people. Some will be happy. Some will be bent. If you want your decision to be successful, you’ve got to dedicate a significant amount of thought to how you’re going to communicate the decision to the organization. There are five keys you should think about as you’re making big decisions: Clarity. First, be clear about the call being made. Tell people exactly what the decision is. The crisper you are in explaining the decision, the higher the likelihood that they’ll carry it out. Documentation. Document that decision so you have something to true back to. Remember, big decisions can take a long time to make. The results of those decisions can take a long time to mature and for you to see what happens. You’ll want a document to go back to and say “Here’s the decision we made and here was the underlying rationale.” It will help you and your successors understand why the decision was made. If things go awry, people can dissect the original rationale and understand what mistakes were made so those mistakes can be avoided in the future. Rationale. Lay out the rationale for making the decision. Include the assumptions you made, the facts you were using to make the decision, and the sources of the information you used for making the call. When things change, you can go back to that […]

How Millennial Managers Work with and Manage Other Generations

February 15, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Millennials are leading teams full of people older than they are and those numbers grow every day. Here are some tips both for the Millennials doing the leading and the people being led. Today’s post is by Chip Espinoza, author of Millennials Who Manage (CLICK HERE to get your copy). I like to allow time for Q&A after I keynote because the questions generally lead me to new research interests. I knew it was time to put a book proposal together when I kept getting asked, “What if you are a Millennial managing older workers?” The tipping point came while I was getting a haircut. During the perfunctory small talk, the stylist made a comment that intrigued me. She said, “My Mom’s baby boss is driving her crazy but my Dad loves his baby boss.” I had to ask what a baby boss was, according to her baby Boomer parents, a baby boss is someone who manages someone significantly older than them. So, with a survey population of two, Millennials were batting 50/50 as managers. In an effort to get a broader perspective, my co-author Joel Schwarzbart and I decided to survey workers 35 years and older to see how they perceived their Millennial managers. List 1 reveals what they liked about being managed by someone under 35, List 2 unveils what they consider to be the negative characteristics of a baby boss, and List 3 shares advice they have for young managers. List 1: Positives of Being Managed By Someone Under 35 They are relatable They have a fresh perspective They are open-minded They have energy and enthusiasm They understand new technologies They are helpful They are understanding List 2: Negatives of Being Managed By Someone Under 35

How effectively do your content marketing efforts drive action?

February 11, 2016 /0 Comments/in Communications, Innovation, Leadership, Poll, Sales, Social Media /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How effectively do content marketing efforts (blogs, white papers, etc.) drive action by your customers? – Extremely — our content marketing drives great lead generation: 6.06% – Generally — our content sometimes sparks new conversations with prospects/clients: 34.55% – Not at all — our content generates few, if any, comments, feedback or leads: 36.97% – Not the point — we only publish content because everyone else does: 4.24% – Not relevant — we have much higher priorities than content marketing: 18.18% Increase Your Return. “That’s Marketing’s job.” Sorry but if you think content marketing is only the purview of marketers, you’re missing a big opportunity. Thought leadership is your product and the leaders in your organization have plenty of it. If you’re not tapping into it, you’re missing out. First, you should be driving new ideas. Second, share those ideas with the world. Think about all the knowledge your team has to share with the outside world. Give them a platform to do so, have it link to your product/service (both in terms of the content you share as well as with relevant URLs), and be responsive to the ensuing discussion. You’ll be surprised how many leads come from sharing great ideas. 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 Tips for Making Your Staff Meetings Not Suck

February 10, 2016 /0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Staff meetings can be incredibly productive. Or unproductive. More often the latter. If your staff meetings are terrible, it’s your fault because you’re not structuring them well. With a few small changes, you can make those meetings valuable (and shorter). One of the most surreal business experiences I’ve ever had relates to a staff meeting. I had joined a new team and my boss’ assistant sent me all the calendar invites for the division’s recurring meetings. One invite in particular grabbed my attention. When I saw it, I immediately called her. “Hey, I think you made a mistake on the staff meeting invite you sent me. You set it for 8AM to 10PM. I think you meant 10AM.” “No. The invite is correct.” “Um, what? A FOURTEEN HOUR staff meeting?!? Every month?!?” “Yes. You guys start at 8AM and run until about 5. Then everyone goes home and changes and meets for dinner at 6 and you guys meet until 10.” “Alright – setting aside the 8-5 part, it’s just a dinner afterward, right?” “No, you guys work during the meal.” My head exploded. I had no idea how this was possible. When I went to my first meeting, I understood. We went around the table and every person briefed a status update on EVERY PROJECT THEY WERE WORKING ON. Folks with dashboards walked through EVERY METRIC THEY MONITORED (even the ones that were “green” and were fully within variance expectations). For items requiring a decision, people walked through THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE PROJECT DATING BACK TO THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE.

Inspiration and Creativity in 10 Minutes or Less

February 8, 2016 /1 Comment/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is the fifth in a series by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS instructor and bestselling author of Lead With a Story. You’re busy as a leader. You don’t always have time to invest in learning new leadership skills. I recognize that and I’m here to help. Below are 6 great lessons in easy-to-digest 10-minute podcasts you can listen to at your convenience. These podcasts are based on interviews with 100 executives and leaders at dozens of companies around the world as they learned their most important leadership lessons – sometimes the hard way. They feature stories from executives at Proctor & Gamble, Dollar General, Hewlett Packard, Kellogg’s, Dun & Bradstreet, Saatchi & Saatchi, Verizon, and many more. Each episode brings you an important leadership lesson through a single compelling story. These next 6 episodes will help you both inspire your team and get more creativity out of the whole organization. A creativity-boosting secret your company isn’t using . . . yet. Uncommon wisdom on how to bring out more creativity in your people, by asking them to work somewhere else.

Where does the biggest threat to your organization come from?

February 4, 2016 /1 Comment/in Leadership, Poll, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: Where does the biggest threat to your organization come from? – From within — we’re our own worst enemies: 76.82% – From the outside — the market is our biggest threat 23.18% Why is this so hard? It’s surprising and discouraging how many of you feel like the biggest threat to your organization’s success comes from within. 77% is a staggering number. Remember – change can start with you. Spend some time identifying the biggest roadblocks (politics, personalities, decision making approaches, bureaucracy) and resolve to fix some part of that – even a small one – every week. Enlist others to do the same. Change is slow and painful but 77% of you being in your own way hurts even more. 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!

Achieving Balance Through the Ups and Downs

February 3, 2016 /0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Achieving balance with your work is a difficult task. There are busy periods and slow periods. Many times we seek to make the busy ones less busy and the slow ones busier by adding work. If that approach isn’t working for you, perhaps it’s time to embrace the highs and lows. Sometimes life is frenetic. Sometimes it’s slow. We all want to achieve “balance” in our lives but it’s difficult to do so through all those ups and downs. We falsely believe “balance” is a Goldilocks thing – not too busy, not too bored, but juuuust right. We try to manage the busy periods to make them less busy. We make the slow periods busier. We do all this in a futile effort to get our lives into that range of “just right” but it never seems to play out. Why? It doesn’t play out because we mistakenly believe we have control over our lives. Control is an illusion. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to achieve a sane sense of balance. But it’s not balance as you might be thinking about it. It won’t be in that “comfortable range” every day. To achieve the balance I’m talking about, you have to look at balance differently and therefore approach it differently. First, the busy periods will always be busy. Second, the slow periods will always be slow. Third, control is an illusion and you can only do so much to manage those busy and slow periods. Once you accept these points as axiomatic, you can unlock the secret to balance. It’s a pretty simple method.

Magnetic: The Art of Attracting Business

February 1, 2016 /0 Comments/in Books, Customer Service, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Sales, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Growing your business is all about understanding how to attract and retain customers. There are several simple techniques you can apply immediately to make customers flock to your business. Today’s post is by Joe Calloway, author of Magnetic (CLICK HERE to get your copy). We’ve entered an entirely new marketplace for business with an entirely new set of rules. Businesses can no longer thrive following a strategy of going out and getting customers. Today we must become, in effect, magnets for customers and create a never-ending flow of new business that comes to us. It requires letting go of much of what we’re used to, what we’re comfortable with, and what used to work. Let Cate represent a business. Cate can be in any arena of business – retail, business-to-business, consumer, industrial – it makes no difference. There are some new factors at work that can, if Cate gets them right, ensure steady and ongoing growth. Of course, the main rule is this: the rules always change. The first factor that Cate must understand is that traditional advertising and marketing will play a much smaller role than ever before in creating business. They are still part of the mix, but the most powerful factor in buying decisions, whether business to business or consumer purchases of products and services, is word of mouth. Nothing else even comes close. It is the single most important element in the growth of any business. It is more powerful than any advertising and it should be at the core of Cate’s marketing strategy. To be a magnet for business Cate must also change how she thinks about social media. It’s not what she says about herself on social media that influences prospective customers; it’s what her existing customers say about her. The Internet has changed the math on the power of […]

How important is a SWOT analysis in a strategic plan?

January 28, 2016 /1 Comment/in Leadership, Poll, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How important is a SWOT analysis in your strategic planning efforts? – Critical — you can’t have a strategic plan without a SWOT: 22.76% – Very — a SWOT is an important element of the plan: 34.14% – Somewhat — a SWOT can help but it’s not required: 20.00% – Not very — a SWOT has marginal value in planning: 5.86% – Not at all — a SWOT is a waste of time: 1.38% – What’s a SWOT analysis?: 15.86% Understand the Market and Your Position. A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) is clearly an important element of any strategic plan. For those who see it as less important, I suspect it’s because the SWOT is done and then disregarded. To use it effectively, think through the implications of the SWOT. The strategic themes you identify in the SWOT should point you in the direction of major initiatives to pursue. The better your SWOT is linked to your ultimate strategy, the more successful you can be. If you need a primer or a brush up on conducting a SWOT, here’s a quick perspective on the topic. 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!

The Most Important Ingredient in Employee Engagement

January 25, 2016 /1 Comment/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

The number one ingredient in shaping a winning culture that fully engages employees is trust in leadership. Here are four ways to build and sustain trust. Today’s post is by Kevin Graham Ford and Jim Osterhaus, authors of The Secret Sauce: Creating a Winning Culture (CLICK HERE to get your copy). In August of 2015, The New York Times gave an insider’s account of life at the hugely successful online retailer Amazon. Workers described a hyper-competitive workplace where team members have to produce or else as the company boasts of “unreasonable” expectations. Most chilling perhaps was the report that Amazon’s internal directory provides contact information allowing employees to give anonymous feedback to others’ supervisors. Apparently, Amazon is a place of innovation, excellence, and performance – but not trust or joyful employee engagement. The number one controllable predictor of organizational success is employee engagement. So, what’s the best way to insure your employees are engaged? We’ve been preoccupied with this question for two decades in our work at TAG Consulting (www.tagconsulting.org). Engaged employees are found in organizations with a great corporate culture. If you search “great corporate culture,” you’ll get 165,000,000 results! Our clients, such as QuikTrip and Balfour Beatty, are often featured in “best places to work” studies found in those results. But the answer to the question “What does it take to create a great culture?” has remained elusive. At TAG, we have been researching that question since 1998 through an employee survey called The Engagement Dashboard (TED). Our database contains thousands of records from organizations in all three sectors – public, private, and social. It is one of the most comprehensive analyses of the American workforce, and our research was highlighted at the American Academy of Management in 2000. One of the survey questions revealed an organization has […]

How much professional reading do you do each month?

January 21, 2016 /1 Comment/in Books, Leadership, Poll, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How much professional reading do you do each month? – A ton — more than 5 books per month: 3.82% – A lot — 2-3 books per month: 13.25% – Some — 1 book per month: 24.5% – Little — a book every few months: 42.57% – None — I don’t have time for it or interest in it: 15.86% Reading is Fundamental. It’s a bit surprising and somewhat distressing that leaders are reading so little with almost 60% of you stating you do “little” to “none” in terms of professional reading. Time sounds like a convenient excuse but I’ll challenge that assertion. If you add up the time you spend watching TV, cat videos, and being on social media, I’m sure you can carve out a portion of it for reading. If you want to continuously grow as a leader, you have to invest in expanding your knowledge base, perspectives, and skills. Reading a book is a great way to do so (and for some great suggestions on where to get started, check out these titles). Letting your knowledge base stagnate directly correlates with the stagnation of your skills. Go hit your local library or bookstore. 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!