Mike Figliuolo – Page 55 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

How much of your team’s work is a waste of time?

November 13, 2014 /2 Comments/in Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How much of your team’s work is irrelevant or a waste of time/efficiency? – Less than 5%: 15.5% – 6% to 15%: 33.04% – 16% to 25%: 31.14% – 26% or more: 20.32% Stop doing stupid stuff. More than 50% of you believe you’re wasting more than 15% of your team’s time on irrelevant work. More than 20% of you said it’s 25% or more of your time. Imagine how much more work you could get done if that irrelevant stuff went away. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to dictate the work your team does or doesn’t do. This comes down to making hard choices and holding both your team and your partners/customers to supporting those decisions. The good news is there are easy ways to decide what to stop doing. Let’s all resolve to get more efficient. 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!

A Balanced Life is Achievable – if You Work at it

November 12, 2014 /11 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle /by Mike Figliuolo

I had a heart attack. Wait. Calm down. Not another heart attack. Geez. Relax. I had a heart attack almost a year ago to the day. I never saw it coming. I was a healthy (so I thought), energetic entrepreneur running a great business. Sure I had stress in my life. Tons of it. Still do. And then I got short of breath. Next thing I know I’m in the ER, an ambulance, and eventually a cardiac cath lab where they stuck a couple of stents in my heart because one of my arteries was 100% blocked. It kinda sucked. Afterward I saw what I had done to myself. My diet was terrible. “I don’t have time to eat well and look at me – I look just fine.” I didn’t look fine. “I don’t have time to exercise. I’m too busy.” I had time. I simply chose not to. But I’m better now. Much better. But man I have worked my ass off to make it happen. I’ve fundamentally changed my lifestyle. And it’s been hard. And worth it. You’ll see the results of my efforts toward the end of this post. If you’re fat, out of shape, have a lousy diet, lack energy, sleep poorly, and feel stressed out in general, there’s something you can do about it too.

Why there’s No Right Way to do Things Like Strategy

November 10, 2014 /5 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Natasha Golinsky, founder of Next Level Nonprofits. I saw an article on Harvard Business Review this week that I thought was dead on –Why Smart People Struggle with Strategy. As I read the quote “The problem with smart people is that they are used to seeking and finding the right answer; unfortunately, in strategy there is no single right answer to find” my entire life flashed before my eyes. I saw myself in high school on an event planning committee totally stressing out over the details of something. I saw myself as a young professional totally micro-managing the development of a course I was writing. I saw myself yesterday almost melting down as my kids were being graded for their final home-school report cards. My entire life has been a chronic search for the “right way” to get a job done. If you’ve been at a startup for any length of time you’ll know that there is no recipe for success. During my first ten years in business I would regularly go out of my way to meet other leaders who were experiencing a lot of success in my field and ask them “what did you do to achieve your results” and they would give me an answer that was totally opposite of what the person I had sat down with last week had said. The inevitable result of each weekly coffee date was total confusion and discouragement. I would find myself trying to create a master strategy by fusing together everyone’s best tips hoping I would strike gold. The mix and match approached never really worked out financially but did a great job of driving my confidence as a business leader way down. I was following the best advice I knew and was getting nowhere. […]

How often do you overcommit yourself and your team?

November 6, 2014 /1 Comment/in Balanced Lifestyle, Leadership, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How often do you overcommit yourself and your team? – All of the time. I never say “no” to any request of me or my team: 7.19% – Frequently. I usually take on too much work: 33.87% – Sometimes. I occasionally stretch beyond resources: 54.29% – Never. I manage priorities and resources rigorously: 4.64% Just say “No.” Forty percent of you are overstretching either all of the time or frequently. You think you’re choosing the lesser of two evils — either saying no or being stretched or doing rushed or shoddy work. The latter is much more evil. Sure, saying “no” is hard, but it’s much harder to revive a burned-out team. It’s harder still to recover from making errors or doing poor work because the team had to cut corners to get the work done. Prioritize rigorously and practice saying “Yes, if …” instead of “No” because that “if” helps you make a case for more time or resources to do the job properly. 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!

Why Leaders Should Seek to be the Head of a Dog

November 5, 2014 /1 Comment/in Books, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by bestselling author Paul Smith. It’s from his newest book Parenting with a Story: Real-life lessons in character for parents and children to share (CLICK HERE to get your copy). He’s also the author of Lead with a Story – the basis of our course on Influencing through Storytelling. Renaissance artist Michelangelo once said, “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” It’s echoed in the advice of many Western business leaders that it’s better to set lofty goals even if we don’t achieve them. But of course, the kind of goals deemed worthy could vary over time and across cultures. In Asia, for example, setting lofty goals and falling short of them might not be what most leaders would call success. In fact, there’s an ancient Chinese saying that it’s “better to be the head of a dog than the tail of a lion.” Let’s look at how that value might play out in someone’s life and career, and then you can decide which is right for you. Junichi Endo grew up in Saitama City, Japan, about twenty miles north of Tokyo. Like every other student, when he entered O’Hara Junior High School he was encouraged to join one of the extracurricular clubs on campus. Junichi loved baseball in elementary school, so that’s what he signed up for. It’s important to understand that in Japan, baseball was the most popular sport among boys his age. So it attracted the best athletes in the school. The good news was that thirty boys were allowed to join the team, including Junichi. But since only nine can play at any given time, earning a starting position would be […]

3 Steps to Hating Your Job Less

November 3, 2014 /3 Comments/in Career, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by David Ramos, author of the upcoming book Builder Chaser Dreamer. It’s 11pm Monday night. In seven hours I have to get up for work again. I reach for my smart phone and play through two more levels of the brick breaker app I just downloaded. I hate my job. And chances are, if you took to the time to click on this article, you do too. Maybe you don’t hate everything about your job; maybe you have just grown tired of the routine or have been deflated by workplace drama. Whatever it is, you know something has to change for you to be excited about work again. But what? What makes a job enjoyable? Does it have to be in your field? Do you need to make more money doing it? No. The solution is actually much simpler than that and the following three concepts can be applied no matter what field you are in or level you are at. These can help you not only hate your job less, but learn to love it again (or for the first time!). Discover how it impacts other people Believing that your work doesn’t really matter is one of the worst feelings. I once spent two weeks re-cutting plastic pieces at a factory only to be told they decided to throw them all away and order different parts. I felt like someone had just pulled the rug out from under me. All that work, all that time – for nothing.

How prevalent is scope creep in your organization?

October 30, 2014 /0 Comments/in Poll, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: How prevalent is scope creep in your organization? – Not at all. We manage scope very tightly and effectively: 4.27% – A little. We occasionally face scope creep but it’s not too bad: 20.22% – Moderate. We get scope right about half the time: 28.54% – A lot. More often than not we increase scope: 32.51% – Rampant. Scope has little meaning or rigor for us: 14.16% Scope is out of control: More than 45% are reporting a pretty big problem where there’s either a lot of creep or that creep is rampant. Your job as a leader isn’t to manage the project itself — your job is to keep it under control. I’ve previously discussed managing scope in this post, and it includes guidance on setting clear boundaries, expanding scope in controlled steps and rigorously managing priorities. If you do so, you have a much better chance of keeping your project on track and meeting its objectives. 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!

Moments of Clarity: 10-minute Lessons in Character

October 29, 2014 /0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS instructor and bestselling author of Lead With a Story. Character is at the heart of good leadership, and therefore ultimately of success at work and in life. I recently interviewed 100 people from 20 countries around the world and from all walks of life. I asked them to reflect on their most profound and unexpected moments of clarity about who they are and how they should treat others. The stories they shared contain lessons on 23 of the most sought-after character traits we all aspire to – things like ambition, curiosity, integrity, self-reliance, courage, hard work, self-confidence, persistence, fairness, humility, creativity, and kindness. Each episode below shares one person’s story and the lesson they learned from the experience. Apply them to your life to strengthen and build new character at home and at work. These episodes will help you find the courage to pursue your dreams, learn the secret to successful compromise, strengthen your compassion for other people, learn how to stand up to bigotry when you find it, recognize the one question that can turn you from a thinker into a doer, and one story can literally save your life. Enough preamble… here are the stories:

Why You Should Build a Culture of Purpose

October 27, 2014 /3 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Christoph Lueneburger, author of A Culture of Purpose (CLICK HERE to get your copy). In the summer of 2002, John Replogle – currently CEO of Seventh Generation Inc., a leading maker of environmentally friendly personal and household products – was US President of a beer company. John recalls that one morning, as he was backing the family car out the driveway… “I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw these two young girls looking back at me.” His daughters. “I had an epiphany. I had been working with my coach that morning on a mission statement, and frankly it was all about me. I was thirty-five years old. I was president of $900 million business. I lived in a wonderful house in Connecticut with my wife and two kids. I mean it was ideal. And I realized I was on the wrong course.” Then and there, John started focusing more of his energies on improving the wider world. Fast forward a year. John was now general manager for Unilever’s North American skin care division, encouraging his new team to break out of business as usual, innovate, and be nimble. “We were talking about how we needed to be more maverick, to take more chances,” John says. He soon experienced a powerful connection between this drive to be bold and his earlier epiphany in the family car. As part of exploring new directions for its iconic Dove® brand, Unilever team members were asked to videotape their own daughters talking about beauty. “They could all see beauty in each other, but they had real difficulty seeing it in themselves,” John notes. The deeper meaning was unmistakable. Here was an opportunity to promote real sustainable change — not just in a process or a product, but in the daily lives of human beings. […]

Are candidate values or skills more important?

October 23, 2014 /1 Comment/in Career, Poll /by Mike Figliuolo

Our reader poll today asks: When interviewing job candidates, what’s more important to you in making your selection? – I place equal emphasis on the balance between skills and values/background: 75.29% – I value their background and values more than anything else: 19.3% – I value their skills more than anything else: 5.41% Balance matters. Clearly skills are important, but the emphasis on a candidate’s background and values trumps any skills interviewers are looking for. This seems pretty obvious given that skills can be taught in a relatively short period of time compared to the values a candidate grew up with. Bob Herbold, former COO at Microsoft, has offered a revealing and simple way to dig into a candidate’s values and background — all you have to do is ask one line of questioning related to who influenced the candidate the most while growing up. The answers to that line of questioning should reveal the core of his or her character. 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!

How Why and So What Can Fuel Innovation

October 22, 2014 /4 Comments/in Books, Entrepreneur, Innovation, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

One of the biggest barriers to creating new ideas is the raw inertia of organizations. Personally, I am not satisfied with the “way we’ve always done it.” Whenever I am given an explanation of how the organization does something, I ask “why?” five times. That’s my maxim for generating new insights: “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” By the time I get to the fifth why, I have usually found an insight or an opportunity to improve something. By the way, every time I think of the five whys, I picture this inquisitive baby. You just know he’s about to ask “why?” Because my maxim is simply five whys, it serves as a regular reminder for me to challenge the status quo, continue to learn, and seek new opportunities to do things differently. It also helps me ferret out risks to the business if those five whys reveal outdated assumptions about the world. If we are doing something based on old assumptions and the new reality is different, the actions we are taking are potentially wrong and we could be unwittingly damaging our business. I see it as my responsibility to find and defuse those time bombs before they blow up in our faces. I am not the creator of “the five whys” but I loved it so much the first time I heard it I adopted it as my maxim. It is more than a concept to me though. There is a personal and emotional story behind it. I stole “the five whys” from one of my first consulting engagement managers. He stole it from the leaders who had taught him and so on. I invite you to steal it from me if you like. Here’s how our little interaction played out:

5 Reasons You Need to Create and Manage Your Personal Brand

October 20, 2014 /3 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Lisa Orrell, author of Your Employee Brand is in Your Hands. CLICK HERE to get your copy. Personal branding has become a hot topic in the workforce these days. And smart employees focus on managing their personal brands daily. They understand the concept that every time someone has contact with you at work, or on social media, one of two things happen: your personal brand is either strengthened or weakened…by what you say or don’t say, and by what you do or don’t do. So, exactly what is personal branding? In a nutshell, a strong personal brand allows all that’s unique and effective about your personal and professional style to become known (in a deliberate and managed way) to your colleagues up, down, and across the organization. And that can enable you to generate maximum value and unique “distinction” for yourself. But why else should you care about creating and managing your personal brand at work? Let’s look at five ways it can benefit your career: It Gives You Clarity and Direction When you truly focus on developing and managing your personal brand it becomes a “behavior barometer.” Personal branding is all about increased self-awareness by acknowledging your weaknesses (e.g., having a bad temper, being extremely shy, or being a poor communicator) and making the necessary changes to improve yourself. But it’s also about understanding your strengths. You have to know “who you are and who you aspire to be” in order to conduct yourself in any role effectively; be it entry-level or a senior leadership position. What changes do YOU have to make to possibly overcome a “negative” personal brand perception and/or to become the person you truly want to be? Therein lies the essence of creating and managing your personal brand. It Expands Your […]