Mike Figliuolo – Page 69 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

How You Can Avoid a Communication Breakdown

August 19, 2013 /2 Comments/in Communications, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

I forget the comedian but I remember the skit. He asks why it is that when we speak to a foreigner who doesn’t speak English, we do stupid stuff like speak more slowly and LOUDER. “Excuse me. Where’s the nearest gas station.” “Yo no hablo ingles senor.” “I SAAIID WHEERRRE IS THE NEARREST GAAAS STAAATION?” You know what the response will be. It’s funny. Thing is, we do it all day long. We speak to people in languages that are foreign to them. We talk to them about what we care about – not what they care about. We use terms and speak of goals that are incomprehensible at worst and uninspiring at best. There’s only one solution – learn to speak their language. As a consultant, I was fortunate enough to serve a non-profit hospital system. They were affiliated with the church. Their hospitals were having significant financial troubles. Of course, we came along and found all this money just lying on the floor waiting for someone to pick it up (at least that’s most of the world’s view of consultants – we actually busted our butts crawling through their general ledger looking for places to remove costs without hurting quality of care. Immediately after that, we took the CEO’s watch, took it apart, reassembled it, gave it back to him and told him what time it was). We found money. A lot. We went into the board meeting and pitched a plan for closing one of the underutilized facilities and saving a bunch of fixed costs. Millions of dollars. It was a no brainer. We got tossed. Excused. Asked to leave the room immediately.

The Secret Formula for Having a Spectacular Day

August 14, 2013 /7 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Natasha Golinsky, founder of Next Level Nonprofits. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve definitely been exposed to the success strategy of getting up early to get a jump-start on your day. Noted by many leadership experts as becoming part of the 5:00 AM club, rising with the birds has been touted as the ideal time to get organized so to set yourself up for a highly productive, proactive day. Like many of my colleagues, I understood the logic of waking up early but because I was never sure of how to best use that time I had never done it with any consistency nor experienced much benefit from doing so – and so I didn’t. During my annual reflection time at the end of 2012, I realized that while I was an expert at setting goals, I wasn’t quite as strong at consistently holding myself accountable to the accomplishment of them. Wanting to make 2013 an amazing breakthrough year, I considered what could I do to daily keep myself on track and began to research how the world’s top thought leaders start their day. Within a few weeks I had found my answer in an audio interview between Robin Sharma and Darren Hardy published in SUCCESS magazine discussing what it means to make the first hour of my day your ultimate “power” hour. Although I list these practices in the order (and with the time allotment) that I have found works best for me, please know that these can be done in any sequence (and in any amount of time) – the important thing is that you consistently do them. 1. Read and take notes from an inspirational book (20 minutes). Before you check your email or even look at your […]

5 Steps to Fixing the Problems with Your Problem Solving

August 12, 2013 /5 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Everyone thinks they’re a great problem solver. I mean – who isn’t? Give me a problem. I solve it. The problem is you might be working on the wrong problem. Or you’ve missed the entire root cause. Or the solutions you pursue aren’t the highest impact ideas to chase down. Problem solving is actually pretty simple though. All you have to do is follow five simple steps. I promise if you’re rigorous about the problem solving method you use, you’ll improve your chances of solving the right problem, generate solutions that address the true root cause, and select the ideas to pursue that will have the greatest impact. How do I know this method works? I’ve personally used it for almost 15 years and we’ve been teaching our clients our Structured Problem Solving course for a long time. And every time we teach it, participants in the program walk out with great new tools they immediately apply to solve the biggest problems they face. So how can you become a better problem solver too? Easy. Step 1: Pin the Problem You’ve got to clearly define the issue at hand. Look at the problem not just from your perspective but from multiple perspectives. What would your CEO say the problem is? Your customers? Your front line associates? Your finance team? You get the picture. Problems look different to different people. Also look at causality. All of us have solved a symptom before rather than curing the real disease. When you fix a symptom, the root problem doesn’t go away – it simply manifests as new symptoms. Be sure to understand causality. Once you’ve looked through different lenses and found root causes, you should have a clearly-defined problem.

Great Teams Refuse to Bounce Back

August 7, 2013 /5 Comments/in Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest post is by Sean Glaze, an expert in team-building and coaching. You can read more about him at the end of the post. Here’s Sean… No matter what kind of team you are a part of – corporate, athletic, or educational, you have likely experienced some adversity. Perhaps you have lost games. Maybe you have missed out on sales goals or suffered some other type of setback. You may also have heard from other people (coaches or managers) who believe that the key to overcoming adversity is learning how to bounce back. They are wrong. Instead, you should seek to bounce beyond. Let me explain…

How Primacy of Purpose Can Make Your Strategy Successful

August 5, 2013 /4 Comments/in Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

There’s an old Army saying that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” (I’m sure some navy or marine guy out there will attribute this comment to their branch of service but to be clear, it came from the Army… well, actually it came from Helmuth von Motltke but his version was much less pithy. Gotta love his helmet though…). This principle holds true in business as well. You can put together the mother of all PowerPoint presentations, make massive strat plan binders for the Board of Directors or the heads of your business unit, create Excel models that cause the lights to dim when you run them and lay out huge project plans in MS Project. The thing is, as soon as you’ve briefed your plan, it’s irrelevant. The world has changed. Oil spikes. Consumer sentiment. A presidential election. New regulations. Disruptive technologies and even more disruptive competitors. Not to mention natural churn in the labor markets (see “Talkin ’bout My Generation“). In these changing times, it’s easy to get “off strategy” and chase things that seem important. Unfortunately you can end up behaving like a puppy in a park (Ever seen a puppy in a park? They chase EVERYTHING that looks interesting.). The only thing that can save you and keep you “on strategy” is something called “primacy of purpose.” I think primacy of purpose and a clear vision and mission are so critical to success that I spend tons of time working with our clients on strategic planning programs. Failure to invest in your strategy pretty much guarantees failure.

How You Can Lead Effectively Through a Crisis

July 31, 2013 /1 Comment/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Adam Crowe – an expert in emergency preparedness and the author of Disasters 2.0. Here’s Adam… Leadership in a crisis can be somewhat cliché, but in reality every organization, no matter how big or small, truly must have strong and consistent leadership during events that stress and overwhelm day-to-day practices. The crisis that is overlooked or forgotten is the one that emotionally impacts your organizations, but doesn’t structurally or actively impact your facilities, resources, and personnel. Events like the attacks on September 11th, Newtown school shootings, and the Boston Marathon bombing have significant localized impacts, but also have far reaching emotional and spiritual impacts that ripple through the region, country, or even world. These secondary effects are not only some of the most difficult for leaders to identify, but also some of the most impactful as employees and organizational partners tend to be distracted, distraught, and disconnected as they try to process and understand the events around them. These characteristics lead to lowered efficiency and reduced productivity, which are ultimately the lifeblood of an organization. There are three leadership techniques that can be utilized to help address these issues: Information Employees and organizational partners should be given the opportunity to have access to all sources of information realistically and reasonably available to a given organization. For example, if organizations routinely limit employee access to the Internet, social media outlets, or streaming video, a temporary reprieve from this limitation should be implemented. Likewise, televisions or other sources of information (if available) should be made available to all staff. This openness of information allows people to feel they are engaged in the process and no longer “in the dark.” While the information may ultimately still be limited, it will reduce the distracted thoughts of a worried team member.

Reading the Room – The Secret to Creating Better-Performing Teams

July 24, 2013 /0 Comments/in Books, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

This post is adapted from a larger interview with prominent systems therapist David Kantor, conducted by Art Kleiner of Strategy + Business. Kantor is the author of Reading the Room: Group Dynamics for Coaches and Leaders (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Every once in a while, you meet someone who really knows how to “read a room.” This is the individual, usually a seasoned executive leader, who can walk into a tense meeting and sense why two would-be collaborators are butting heads, why a third manager hardly speaks, and why a fourth seems to be protecting some unspoken priority. Then, with a few words, the room-reader can defuse the problem, get people back on track, and move the team to a new level of productivity. When this type of work is done with an executive team, it can have invaluable impact, rippling out to the rest of the organization. David Kantor, an innovative family therapist based in Cambridge, Mass., built his career around trying to help people track their conversational interactions, understand the hidden dynamics in them, and learn how to intervene effectively. Kantor makes the case that being attuned to the signals of a conversational system—an approach he calls “structural dynamics”—is the first step toward becoming a far more prescient and effective leader. Structural Dynamics: Using Conversational Cues to Lead More Effectively David Kantor speaks with Booz & Company partner Rutger von Post about how leaders can tap into “structural dynamics” to create better-performing teams. S+B: You suggest, in your book Reading the Room: Group Dynamics for Coaches and Leaders, that most leaders need a better model of human systems. Why is that?

Staying True to Your Purpose in Life

July 22, 2013 /2 Comments/in Books, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post focuses on the importance of defining a vision of what’s important to you and aligning the choices you make with that purpose. It’s an excerpt from One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (you can get your copy here). For me, the future is all about learning and teaching. Learning new ideas or disciplines fascinates me. Interconnecting those experiences and disciplines and creating new ideas to share with others through teaching is even more exciting. And the more I teach, the more I learn from my class participants and that learning renews the virtuous circle. My finest professional moments (and even many personal ones) occur when I am teaching someone something new. When I see light bulbs go on for people, I feel a deep sense of fulfillment. Even better are the times when I see connections I have made and insights I have had become new knowledge I am able to share with others. The entire process of learning, sharing, and growing is the most professionally fulfilling work I have ever done and what I want to continue doing well into the future. When I add those concepts and feelings together I arrive at this maxim: He never stopped learning, teaching, and coaching. This is who I want the future me to be – someone who is always learning, teaching and coaching. When people remember me and talk about me when I am gone, I want that conversation to be about all the things they learned from me. I want them to remember how I took every opportunity afforded me to learn, teach, and coach. As an entrepreneur I do not have a boss telling me what to do. Sure, my clients ask things of me but as far as the day-to-day running […]

Tips for Using Outside Advisors to Guide Your Leaders

July 17, 2013 /0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Steve Van Remortel, author of Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Business visionaries are often heralded as saviors, heroes or catalysts and without them, goes the story, an organization simply couldn’t be what it is today. Personalities like Jack Welch and Steve Jobs often come to mind. But a company’s visionaries are like lightning rods. When focused, they channel massive energy and power into a company, but if not, they fizzle and burn out. It’s the job not only of the leadership team, but also your outside consultants and advisors to help to harness the power of your visionaries in your business. There are five fundamentals that we’ve found are essential when harnessing the power of your visionaries. 1) Secure a leader and an advisor to keep visionaries on track while providing structure for the team. However, it also requires a great deal of upfront work from the company leader, advisor, and the team. If you are the leader of this process, prepare for your role to range from cheerleader to strategist to taskmaster. It’s important to keep the process professional, honest, open, and informal to ensure optimal participation. Because of the significance of their role, I use the term advisor, whether this person is an internal team member or an external consultant. 2) Work with an advisor who is trusted, approachable. Your advisors must be able to effectively read people to lead the team through honest and open dialogue. The advisor must extract information from the team members, regardless of how introverted they are or reluctant to address hard truths. The behavioral assessment tools give the advisor the ability to do it. More introverted team members typically are not as forthcoming by nature, yet when they talk, their words can […]

Three Rules of Three for Successful Communications

July 15, 2013 /5 Comments/in Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

For as many words as we use, we’re terrible communicators. Voicemails are jumbled streams of consciousness. Emails are “text bombs” with no rhyme or reason. Presentations are nothing but crippling piles of slides. But don’t worry – here are three rules of three to make your communications clearer, more compelling, and more efficient/effective. All good things come in threes. Blind Mice, Stooges, Wise Men, Little Pigs, Musketeers, and Rocky movies (for the record, Rocky IV and Rocky V were terrible – see? They should have stopped at three). Rule of Three #1: It’s Always Three Things When you convey information, don’t rattle off a list of 47 things the listener must understand. Don’t hand them an incoherent pile of slides and expect them to make sense of them. Structure your work. Chunk up the information into manageable bites. You will find there are usually three bites regardless of what flavor of pie you’re serving. Why is it usually three topics, sections, ideas, etc.? If you’re only sharing one concept, you likely haven’t broken it down into understandable component parts. If you’re sharing 5 or more concepts, they’re hard to follow and remember. When you chunk your ideas up into groups of three, it’s manageable, understandable, and memorable. For example, in the above list of 47 items, it’s likely three groups of 15 items or so and in each of those groups are three sub-groups of concepts consisting of 3-5 things in that group. Sure, your audience likely won’t remember the sub-sub points but they’ll remember the high level structure and follow your communication more easily.

How to Be a Successful Team Leader

July 10, 2013 /0 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Lindsay Traiman of Dale Carnegie Training. No matter what industry you work in, we all want our teams, departments, and ultimately our entire company to be successful. Each team has an important role to fulfill that is imperative to a company’s success, and it truly takes the right pieces of the puzzle to make the masterpiece that is a great team. Each member of the team plays a vital role, but the leader of a team has an important responsibility to guide, motivate and inspire others. The most successful businesses and organizations can attribute their accomplishments to effective leadership and teamwork. Whether you are a manager or team member, it is important to have leadership training and develop the necessary skills to be a good leader. There are several fundamental skills that need to be acquired which include the following: Effective Communication — Communication is the key to many interactions in life, especially in business. Whether the communication is via email or in person, without effective, clear communication, businesses cannot run smoothly and efficiently. Leaders must find a way to open the lines of communication throughout their entire team. Find ways to increase mutual understanding and to break down potential barriers that could stand in the way of the lines of communication, and don’t be afraid to facilitate the interaction of diverse personalities within the team. It is also important to remember that listening plays a huge role in effective communication. Allow each member to have a voice and listen to what team members have to say. Remember: each member of the team has a right to question the process, add input, and evaluate the team’s progress.