Mike Figliuolo – Page 71 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

The Secret to Stress Reduction According to Burger King

May 27, 2013 /2 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

As a leader, one of your many responsibilities is keeping things in perspective. I’ve got some suggestions for how you do that through an excerpt from One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (you can get your copy here). Many of us take the events in our lives way too seriously. Anything and everything ends up being viewed as serious and important. Little things become larger than they really are and can seem more critical than truly important things. When you take things too seriously, you lose perspective. Losing perspective creates stress. Stress makes you fat, bald, gray and dead earlier than you should be. When the human body is stressed, all attention is pulled in and focused on the stressor. Vision becomes tunneled and “extraneous” information is blocked to enable focus on the perceived threat. It is biology at work. Going back to the days before time, when a caveman saw a saber tooth tiger emerge from the woods, he ignored anything not related to getting away from that threat. Those same instincts have remained with us for thousands of years. When we perceive a threat we focus on it to the exclusion of everything else around us. That reaction is a defense mechanism that prevents distractions from taking our attention away from the survival task at hand. The problem is this physiological reaction causes us to lose perspective. This focusing instinct does not serve us as well as it did the caveman because there are not too many saber tooth tigers running around the cubicles of the office. If you examine how this instinctive reaction to a stressor manifests itself in the modern world you will see how dysfunctional it can be. Imagine you are the brand manager responsible for your company’s website. When […]

3 Ways Leaders Undermine Team Accountability

May 22, 2013 /3 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Roger Schwarz, author of Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Here’s Roger… Do you see accountability problems in your team? Do your team members need to be more accountable? If so, you may be contributing to the problem. Here are three leadership behaviors that undermine team accountability. Recognize yourself? If so, there are specific things you can do differently to help the team you lead be more accountable. You don’t require team members to share their own information. Eric, one of your direct reports, comes into your office and says, “Janice is driving the project costs through the roof. She keeps changing the standards and it’s delaying implementation.” You and Eric briefly discuss the situation and you say “I’ll handle it.” How you undermine accountability: The moment you agree to talk to Janice, you’ve shifted accountability from Eric – where it belongs – to you. How to generate greater accountability: Keep the accountability where it belongs: Start by asking, “Have you talked directly with Janice about it?” If Eric hasn’t, get curious. Ask, “What’s prevented you from doing that?” If Eric doesn’t know how to raise the issue with Janice or has had little success, you can be part of the conversation with them. But if you agree to serve as intermediary, you send the message that team members are accountable to you but not to each other. You don’t raise and resolve team issues in the team.

How to Make Rude People Lose Their Minds

May 20, 2013 /7 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

What is wrong with people these days? Since when did being rude not only become acceptable but it seems to have become the norm. Road rage. Uncouth manners. Snappy remarks. Abrupt and curt conversations. Mean comments. Profanity-laced tirades on the phone. It’s disappointing and painful. The worst part is rude behavior can bring out ugly things inside of us and the next thing you know, we’re being rude too. It has to stop somewhere. You may as well be the first one to try to stop it. If we don’t put a halt to it, pretty soon we’ll be on a beach looking at a half-buried Statue of Liberty screaming “We finally really did it. YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!“* Allow me to offer a few examples of the kind of behavior I’m talking about before I give you a solution that will absolutely melt the brains of the rude offenders: – A procurement guy hung up on me during a phone call on which we were discussing a contract. Seriously. <CLICK>. Gone. When I called him back and said “I think we got disconnected” he replied “No. I hung up on you. I didn’t like what you were offering us.” Note: we were in contract negotiations at the time – it wasn’t a sales cold call or anything like that. – I had a sales guy cold call me. I listened to his initial pitch. I told him “thanks but I’m not interested.” He did his obligatory “overcome objections” script. I again said “thank you but I’m not interested.” His response was “Fine.” <CLICK> – I had a colleague tell someone they wouldn’t be able to give him exactly what he wanted and the recipient of the news responded with […]

The Art and Process of Leading Transformational Change

May 15, 2013 /2 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Maureen Metcalf – a thoughtLEADERS instructor and author of The Innovative Leadership Fieldbook. and the newly-released Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Here’s Maureen: Sarah was the Vice President of Marketing for a Fortune 100 company when we met several years ago. She was known throughout her division for the bright colors that she wore and for her equally bright disposition. Her ability to help people she feel almost instantly comfortable was a well-crafted skill. Sarah rose through the ranks in the company starting out as a sales assistant and then slowly earning her way to progressively more responsibility. As an executive she was centered, focused, and highly successful. Her office was an interesting mix of beautifully crafted cherry furniture, professional certifications and awards, and personal memorabilia highlighting both work and family relationships. Entering a conversation with Sarah in this setting had the instantaneous feeling that something of importance was about to transpire. When we last met, she told a story of a Senior Director “He was a top salesman when he came to us and was quickly moved into our high achievers program. His numbers were always solid and his group was very productive when he was a manager.” At that, she looked down reflectively and then back to me. “But even then” she remarked, “I would hear about incidents where people left meetings feeling demoralized. He has such strong people skills and is so bright; I thought that these incidents must have been attempts to help his staff stretch. Now, in retrospect, I think I missed some warning signs. We are at the point where he has stepped on so many toes that nobody wants to work with him.” Problems like this senior director’s are as complex as they […]

Why it’s Important to Deliver Tough Feedback

May 14, 2013 /1 Comment/in Books, Career, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post focuses on the importance of providing clear and direct feedback to members of your team. It’s an excerpt from One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (you can get your copy here). Taking risks on people is important but leadership requires more than that. The other side of the development equation is feedback. If you are committing to a team member’s growth you first have to give them the opportunity and then ensure that they do, in fact, grow. The only way they will learn and develop in those roles is with coaching and feedback. Giving feedback can be challenging. Many times we nail the easy feedback when we say things like “great job on beating your goal by 37%!” That is not a particularly hard message to deliver. Such feedback is not remotely useful either. There is no action being requested of the recipient. Your job as the leader is to provide an observation on the recipient’s actions and give them ideas on what they might do better or differently going forward. That is easy to do in a goal-beating situation but what about more difficult conversations? Many of us avoid having them because they are uncomfortable, but when you ignore the problem it festers until those conversations turn into the “very difficult conversations,” then “extremely difficult conversations,” and eventually the “here’s your severance check and pink slip” conversations. I know my gut instinct is to avoid these discussions at first but I also know it is my responsibility to have that feedback conversation as soon as possible. I have adopted a maxim designed to hold me accountable for doing exactly that. My maxim is “It’s easier to correct course 100 yards into the journey than 100 miles into it.” The maxim sounds […]

5 Steps for Turning Your Organization into a Thought Factory

May 8, 2013 /1 Comment/in Books, Guest Blogger, Innovation /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Mats Lindgren, CEO of Kairos Future and author of 21st Century Management – Leadership and Innovation in the Thought Economy (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Here’s Mats… “Mission: Get some ideas.” That was Dagens Media’s (Today’s Media) front-page headline on September 12th 2012. The article in Sweden’s leading trade paper for the media industry was specifically about the crisis in media and its search for new ideas and business models, but the simple and straightforward message could apply to almost any industry today. Today’s management challenge is exactly that: getting some ideas, or more accurately, about getting some ideas off the ground. High-flying thoughts are not enough if businesses and organizations are to keep up with an increasingly fast-changing world. Ideas must lead to action. Brainstorming about possible actions will not cut it. It’s just as necessary to have highly developed processes for production of new ideas and possible futures as it is to have such processes for production of goods and services. Not many organizations have that. “Why should the Devil have all the good music?” asked William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, and decided to borrow heavily from contemporary popular music. We could ask something similar today, like “Why should ‘production’ have all the good methods and processes?”. Why are we not as systematic when innovating as we are when producing? And why do we, as managers and leaders, spend so little time taking the long view and charting the future? Why is so much time spent weathering storms, deflecting threats and merely reacting to events?

Lead Like Your Mom

May 6, 2013 /10 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

No, this isn’t a “your mom” joke post. Today I’ll share some thoughts on how to lead like your mom. I’m picking this topic today because it’s a gift for Mom’s birthday (and it’s cheaper than flowers… have you seen FTD’s prices lately?!?). That’s one of my favorite photos of her over there on the left. I’d like to share some leadership lessons based on things Mom taught me. Last time I did a post like this, I covered leadership lessons from my dad for his birthday and it was really well received so I’m going to stick with something that works. So Mom, Happy Birthday! I love you! Thank you for all the things you’ve given me and taught me. So here’s what Mom said… Do Stuff You Don’t Like Because Other People Do Like It We hate doing things we don’t like. Watching movies we hate. Going places we hate. There’s a reason we hate those things. The thing is, other people like them. When I was growing up, I used to play Dungeons & Dragons (if you’re under 25, go look it up on Wikipedia). I loved that game. Unfortunately I was a bit of a dork (Shocker! I PLAYED D&D!) and didn’t have tons of friends to hang with. We didn’t have teh interwebz then either. But you need two people to play the game. Enter Mom. She created a character (a cleric – a healer… hmmm…). She named her Nomannic (she had made French toast that day so cinnamon was fresh on her mind). She played the game with me one afternoon. I loved it. I’m sure she didn’t exactly have a blast (what mom enjoys fighting basilisks and shambling mounds?). But she played because it was important to me. She put the person she […]

How Partnering with Your Competitors Can be Good for Business

May 1, 2013 /4 Comments/in Guest Blogger, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today, Erin Schwartz of 123print.com discusses the benefits of cooperating rather than competing with your competitors. The traditional approach in business is to regard competitors as enemies. In keeping with that philosophy, when a competitor succeeds, wins a customer, or lands a deal, the result is lost business opportunities for you. However, that old attitude toward competition needs an adjustment if you’re going to adapt to the realities of the modern business world. These tips will shed light on how working with your competitors can actually enhance your business. Distinguishing Yourself If you are competing with another company for the same customer and you’re both offering the exact same goods or services, you’re likely stuck in the dog-eat-dog mentality. In that kind of business culture, it’s difficult to partner with competitors, and success usually means lowering prices. No business owner wants to slash revenue in order to succeed and there are things you can do to avoid getting caught in that kind of uninspired business model. Rather than offering identical products or services that others already offer, aim for specialization. If you differentiate yourself and find a unique niche, you’ll ultimately improve your business because you’ll have an easier time focusing and striving for improvement. By concentrating on your strengths, you may appeal to a smaller market, but you’ll have that market cornered. And if your would-be competitors adopt the same approach, you can easily refer customers to one another. Referrals from Competitors Carry Great Weight

What Squirrels Can Teach You About Networking

April 29, 2013 /11 Comments/in Career /by Mike Figliuolo

You folks know that fable about the squirrel and the grasshopper, right? The squirrel works his butt off all summer fortifying his little tree fort, scurrying around gathering acorns, and storing his food and water like a nut job doomsday prepper. The grasshopper goes partying, drinking margaritas, hitting the clubs, and making fun of the squirrel for wasting his entire summer. Then Old Man Winter comes. The squirrel is fat, warm, and happy in his little nut hut bunker eating acorns and sipping cognac by the fire. The grasshoper gets cold and hungry then freaks out and asks the squirrel for some food but the squirrel tells him to bug off (see what I did there?). The grasshopper then starves due to malnutrition, poor planning, and hypothermia. I’m pretty sure that’s how the story goes. The question I’ll ask you is when it comes to networking, are you a squirrel or a grasshopper? From what I can tell, there are loads of grasshoppers out there but very few squirrels. I can spot a grasshopper a mile away. They’re partying their butts off at work while they have a steady paycheck and predictable job. Then comes the harsh winter of the layoff. The grasshopper frantically spins up the LinkedIn machine, sends out a million connection request (or introduction request) messages to people he hasn’t spoken to in years, acts like he’s best buds with them, then unceremoniously and selfishly asks “hey, can you introduce me to everyone in your network because I’m looking for a job.” To the grasshopper, this seems like a totally reasonable approach. The squirrel hates it and would do well to let the grasshopper starve. Why? There are a few good reasons.

How to Improve Your Life Through Mentoring Programs

April 24, 2013 /14 Comments/in Career, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today, Kerrie Main, Communications Director for Nobscot, discusses the benefits of mentoring programs both for mentors and mentees. Here’s Kerrie… If you’ve been looking for ways to develop further on your career path or simply want to find a way to give back to your organization, joining a mentoring program is a great idea! Mentoring programs, essential components of training and development programs, provide opportunities for shared growth for both mentors and mentees. No matter if you’re the mentor or mentee, there are numerous benefits of mentoring programs. Benefits for Mentees As a mentee, you will usually be responsible for driving the mentorship and your role is that of the willing participant and learner. Mentees can take advantage of numerous benefits. Expand professional and personal networks Mentors usually introduce their mentees to influential, knowledgeable professionals inside or outside their current industry and/or field. Developing these networking relationships plays an integral role in getting ahead, because who you know is just as important as what you know. Learn about different career paths Some mentees join mentoring programs because they want to explore alternative roles and career paths. Some of these paths may be a great fit, but some may not. Getting the opportunity to explore the pros and cons of potential career moves beforehand is priceless, because it allows you to avoid costly mistakes.

Perception Is Reality: 8 Steps for Changing How Others See You

April 17, 2013 /7 Comments/in Books, Career, Guest Blogger, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest post is from Joel Garfinkle, executive coach and author of Getting Ahead: Three Steps to Take Your Career to the Next Level (CLICK HERE to get your copy). While all our guest bloggers are great, every once in a while a guest writes a post that I read and say “I wish I had written that!”. This is one of those posts. Enjoy! James is an up-and-coming sales manager for a Fortune 500 company. He sees himself as outgoing, friendly, fast-moving—a real deal maker. Some of the people he works with, however—as well as some of his clients—see him as a fast-talking backslapper and a bit of a phony. Which perception is accurate? And why does it matter? The “perception is reality” adage is most often applied to the way each of us sees our own environment. If we see the glass as half full, we will operate from that reality and the glass will always be at least half full. But what if we turn that adage inside out? What if the reality we’re experiencing is due in part to how others perceive us? Carly Fiorina, former Chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, stated: “Leadership is a performance. You have to be conscious about your behavior, because everyone else is.” Let’s revisit James for a moment. He sees himself as a deal-maker, but lately the deals have been drying up. He’s having trouble getting appointments, even getting clients to return his phone calls. And the people on his team are working around him, leaving him out of important conversations and meetings. James is in serious need of a perception correction. So how do we create the “me” we want others to see? How do we change perceptions? There are a number of actions we could take but we […]