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Entries by Mike Figliuolo

Authentic Leadership Means Eliminating Buzzwords and BS

April 30, 2012 /22 Comments/in Books, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

The following is an excerpt from my book One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership (you can get your copy here). This post focuses on the importance of eliminating buzzwords and instead simply speaking from your heart. If you have been in the professional world for more than a year, you have probably heard something like this a million times: “My leadership philosophy is to optimally leverage the passions of my people such that at the end of the day we maximize employee engagement to get them to think outside the box and synergistically drive value-added activities in a profit-maximizing way that is a win-win for our people, our shareholders, and our customers.” It sounds great. It is polysyllabic. It uses words with long definitions. I have only one question: what the hell does it mean? I want you to wipe away all those unproductive phrases and words that get in the way of you being an authentic leader. Consider this a bit of a slap upside the head. You may not realize how deeply ingrained some bad behaviors have become in your daily routine. You have likely looked through the same lens on the world for a while and that lens colors the way you view leadership. The color of that lens is determined largely by your organization’s culture. Somewhere along the way that culture has shaped you more than you are shaping it. We are going to reverse that dynamic.

5 Marketing Strategies that Don’t Change

April 25, 2012 /2 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Sales, Social Media /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by David Chapman – Director of Marketing at Webrageous. Here’s David: Musicals never go out of fashion, because the formula is well understood. It is tried and tested and everyone knows what to expect when they sit down to watch a good musical. The audience is given what they want. The marketing strategy is a classic strategy and doesn’t need to change because the audience and their desires are considered first. Online marketing managers could learn a lot from this kind of simple approach. The old school marketing strategies should be at the top of our modern marketing plans, even though the marketing world has developed incredibly over the past ten years. Why? Because even though the marketing world has developed from a technological point of view, buyers are still the same. People are dinosaurs at heart. We don’t change. We approach a sale in the same way as we have always done and we will continue to approach our sales in the same way as the years sail by, because human beings don’t really change. So… with this in mind… what are the 5 most important marketing strategies that a marketing manager must utilize when working on any campaign to ensure marketing success, even within our technologically advanced marketing world?

The 7 Deadly Sins of Entrepreneurship

April 23, 2012 /3 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Innovation, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Most new ventures fail. Accept it. Sometimes those failures are market-driven. A great new competitor beats you to the punch. The economy tanks and you run out of cash. Meteors take out your corporate headquarters. However, many failures are self-inflicted. I’ve been lucky enough to be an entrepreneur for a while and I’ve also hung out with a ton of great (and not great) entrepreneurs. I’ve seen businesses thrive and I’ve seen others fail. I’ve noticed a few things along the way that can cause entrepreneurs to fail. I’ve tried to neatly bundle them up into what I affectionately refer to as the seven deadly sins of entrepreneurship. If you want to succeed in building your new venture, I strongly suggest you avoid these sins at all cost. Lust Sex sells. But sometimes trying to make your product so sexy can lead to your downfall. Excessive thoughts of sexy UI’s, features, bells, and whistles can distract you from building something a little frumpier but more durable. When you spend all your time thinking about how to make a sexy javascript HTML Boolean double-quad Flash SDK widget app, you’re likely not focusing on the core functionality you need to create to solve the one or two major problems your customers actually want you to solve. Throw a non-sexy muumuu and a bathrobe on your product and build the basics. Gluttony Over-consumption can kill you. Just because you have the funding you need (now) it doesn’t mean you need to go buy all sorts of crap so your offices can be hip and cool. It also means you shouldn’t go out and buy up a ton of people (via hiring) unless you’re equally prepared to fire a similar number of people when your cash can’t keep up with your appetite. Know your […]

The Dangers of Calling It Like You See It

April 18, 2012 /6 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest post is by Michelle Braden, CEO of MSBCoach. Join me in welcoming her to the blog. Have you ever found yourself making this statement, “I just call it like I see it” or have you known a leader, friend or family member who says this? Calling something as you “see” it can be strength. People are not left wondering what you think or how you feel, which can be refreshing and provide clear communication. So many leaders “beat around the bush” and their teams are not clear on what they want. The challenge in “calling it like I see it” is one key word, “I.” We all see things differently in the world. One of the most thought provoking movies I have seen that illustrates this is the movie Crash. If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It will open your eyes to your own personal judgments and the importance of creating strong paradigm shifts. Just about the time you think you have a character figured out in the movie, something shifts and your paradigm is rocked. You will find yourself in deep thought and mentally stimulated at the end of the movie. Similar to Crash , in our leadership when we “call it like I see it,” we may learn that the way we see it could be very different from how another person sees it based upon their perspective.

The Secret True Life of an Entrepreneur

April 16, 2012 /3 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Entrepreneur /by Mike Figliuolo

Many people wonder what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. I am often told “You’re so lucky to run your own business! You work from home, do cool work, don’t have a boss, and get to be like a titan of industry or something.” Yes – I do love being an entrepreneur but a few things need to be clarified about the lifestyle. If you want to know what it’s really like to be an entrepreneur, grab your coffee and settle in – I’m about to take you behind the secret curtain. Warning: it’s *not* like being the guy in the picture about to board the plane. First – I’m not “lucky” to be an entrepreneur. I bust my ass every day to do it. I’ve earned being an entrepreneur and all the benefits that go along with it. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity and being an entrepreneur requires tons of preparation. Second – I do have a boss. Two, actually. Their names are Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and the United States Treasury. They take pretty much half of everything I make. Unlike most bosses in corporate America, they’re not very forgiving when I miss budget… Now, as far as the average day in the life of an entrepreneur, it’s not always as glamorous as it’s made out to be in all these tech blogs, magazines, and books. And working from home isn’t the highly productive and totally chillaxed lifestyle most people believe it to be. To debunk some of these common myths and misconceptions, here’s a look at an average day for me. It’s an aggregation of many real events:

The Road to Value

April 11, 2012 /1 Comment/in Communications, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Thomas Butta, Founder and CEO of 21 Weeks. You can read more about him at the end of the post. Here’s Thomas: Much is written about value. Even more is said about it. Value just might be the most overused word in business today. At the organization level, we hear about customer value, shareholder value, and enterprise value. At the department level, Product Management wants its products to be perceived as good value not high cost. Sales wants to sell from value rather than feature/functions. And, Marketing is measured on the value of leads and brand equity. Even support departments like Finance, IT and HR strive for value. Finance wants the return of value for capital deployed. IT must demonstrate value to its business unit customers. And, HR strives for a culture that recognizes the value of individuals. If value is so important, why is there a dearth of proven ways to create and capture value in a given market space? A clear path to value would seem to be critical at a time when competitive differentiation is short-lived and the rate of change has accelerated. My experience shows there is little content out there to help an enterprise know how to truly identify and realize top and/or bottom line value in their market. Which is enormously frustrating to client-side executives looking for clarity amidst the noise created by multitudes of companies touting their particular solution sets. Wouldn’t it be nice to be shown the way to value rather than sold solutions? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a roadmap from a trusted advisor to guide your way to value — especially in a market that’s undergoing rapid change? You bet it would.

How You Can Live Your Leadership Philosophy

April 9, 2012 /2 Comments/in Books, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

I was recently interviewed by Andrew Clancy of Soundview Executive Book Summaries. We discussed my book, One Piece of Paper, and how leaders can implement and live their leadership philosophies on a daily basis. Here’s the conversation I had with Andrew. Andrew: Leadership is a skill that is honed over a lifetime. As you travel on your leadership journey, you will inevitably be influenced by a variety of resources: books, seminars, other leaders, personal experiences. Taken as a whole, your sources of inspiration could probably fill a 300-page book. Now consider the challenge issued to you by author, U.S. Army veteran and management consultant Mike Figliuolo. He believes you should distill your guiding leadership principles down until they fit on a single sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ paper. In this interview, the author of One Piece of Paper discusses the importance of maxims, how they grow and change, and how you can communicate your maxims to others. Andrew: What is it that makes maxims so powerful? Mike Figliuolo: A maxim is nothing more than a trigger. It’s something to remind you of strong emotions. It’s something that will resonate for you. It should remind you of a story or an example from your personal past or experience. The method is designed such that when you read your own maxim, it triggers all those feelings inside of you and those feelings are what are going to get you to behave differently. It’s very easy for me to ignore a platitude like “Be the best that I can be,” but when I tap into something much more emotional, much more personal, it’s a lot harder to ignore and it will change my behavior. Andrew: There may be readers who approach the process with the impression that the maxims should be carved on […]

Business Ethics Ain’t Rocket Science

April 4, 2012 /7 Comments/in Communications, Customer Service, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Allen Laudenslager and Bryan Neva Sr. You can learn more about them at the end of the post. The famous U.S. Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf once said, “The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do… the hard part is doing it!” Likewise, the answer to most business problems is usually obvious as well. Consider this – when was the last time you were really stumped for a solution to a problem? In most cases, the hardest things about solving the problem were the obstacles of personalities, politics, or cost. Taken together, these obstacles usually make the obvious solution very hard if not impossible to implement. These are failures of an organization’s values, guiding principles, and ethics. Twenty years ago, my elderly mother came to live with me due to her declining health. She sold her home and hired a moving company to move her furniture and transport her car via trailer from New England to Virginia (primarily to minimize the mileage). When the moving van and car arrived, it was obvious that the car had not been transported but driven instead. When questioned, the driver admitted that they had driven the car and not transported it as they had been contracted to do. When I called the moving company’s main office to complain, the representative asked what I wanted them to do about it. My only reply was “What would you expect someone to do if it was your mother!” Shortly thereafter, the driver came back to tell us that they were refunding the cost of transporting the car. When a customer calls about a problem with your product or service. You generally know right off hand what the right thing to do is: either fix it, replace […]

How to Avoid Stupid Consequences by Thinking One Step Ahead

April 2, 2012 /7 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Our government is full of morons. I know – and the sun is hot. But seriously – we can learn a lot from their stupidity and lack of foresight. All too often our “leaders” identify problems they want to rectify. They then create a perfect solution targeted at resolving exactly the issue they identified. And then stupidity happens. Why? Because the world isn’t static. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction folks (can I get a holla for Sir Isaac and 10th grade physics?). Guess what? You do stupid stuff too (and so do I). Why? Because we don’t think far enough ahead about what the reactions in our environment might be. Today I’m going to share some of my favorite moronic decisions and their corresponding reactions and I’m also going to give you a great tool for staying out of the lack-of-foresight-stupidity-trap yourself. To illustrate these points, allow me to share five of the stupidest government decisions I’ve ever seen and their unintended consequences. After doing so, I’ll share the simple question that will prevent you from being equally moronic. So here are the five stupid decisions…

5 Big Resume Lies You’ve Been Told

March 26, 2012 /9 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

Judging from the thousands of books and hundreds of thousands of websites on the topic, you’d think the resume is the be-all, end-all of human existence. Thousands of pages written about one or two simple pages of text. There are books, websites, training courses, DVDs and how-to guides on the subject ad nauseum. I’m happy to see the economy is picking up a little. How do I know that? More folks who are currently in jobs are sending me their resume for review and to make connections. That means they’re looking for new employment (not just some employment). I’m also getting search firms reaching out to me asking me “do you know anyone who…” So companies are hiring. Given all that, I thought I’d offer some thoughts on resumes based on some of the things I’m seeing now and have seen in the past. Here’s the dirty little secret – a lot of it is snake oil. Indulge me while I debunkify a la Mythbusters. Strap yourself in – I’m about to challenge “reality” which just might cause a quantum shift in the wasted-time-polishing-a-resume/job availability continuum… 1. Your resume alone can land you a job. Wrong. Too many people spend so much time and effort on their paper because they believe it is the magical key to the six figure job offer. It doesn’t get you the job. It gets you a phone call and serves as a conversation piece during interviews. If you submit your resume and get a phone call, you’ve succeeded. You’ve cut through the clutter and grabbed their attention. They’re interested in spending time getting to know you. I’ve never heard of someone landing a job with nothing but a resume (and if you have, I’d submit said hiring company is terrible at candidate diligence).

Five Leadership Lessons from Temple Run

March 21, 2012 /3 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… Coaches, managers, and principals often pick up team leadership lessons in interesting and unexpected places, and the other day I was introduced to just such a moment while learning how to play Temple Run. My children were playing the popular game, and after quickly getting hooked on the game myself, I recognized at least five very useful leadership lessons that the game offers. For those not yet familiar with the game, it is available as an app on your iPhone or iPad, and has become nearly as famous and enthralling as angry birds was a few years ago, but the premise of the game is quite different. You are running, much like Indiana Jones, from a temple carrying a golden idol and being chased by huge ape-like creatures. You must turn right or left to stay on the path and then occasionally (and increasingly more often and more quickly) leap over or slide under obstacles. You can collect gold coins as you run and also can collect a “power-up” of invisibility and speed. You reach different levels as a runner over time and by accumulating gold. The game is addictive, and in the midst of doing my best to at least come close to my 8 year old son’s high score, I realized that there are five very applicable lessons the team leaders can take away from the experience. While I would imagine that many of the people on your team are already familiar with the game, it may be interesting to discuss the ideas listed below as part of your next organizational discussion. Here are my five team leadership lessons from Temple […]

All Leaders Need a Wookiee

March 19, 2012 /11 Comments/in Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

GRRNNHHNNNHHNN! WOOKIEE! Every great leader needs their own Wookiee. They’re extremely useful. They can carry around robots, knock out stormtroopers, and co-pilot wicked awesome smuggler spaceships. On top of that, they usually have long, luxurious brown hair (how has Chewbacca not landed a Clairol endorsement yet?). No, I haven’t lost it. All leaders need their own Wookiee. First, allow me to explain the characteristics of Wookiees that leaders will find attractive and helpful. Second, I’ll explain how you can unleash those Wookiee talents for the good of your team. When you figure out who your Wookiee is, let them know that. You should share your assessment with them so they understand what you expect from them and how valuable they are to you as a member of your team. If you want to expand your Star Wars leadership skills beyond managing a Wookiee, you can read this post about what Han Solo can teach you about leadership. There are five things you’re looking for in your Wookiee: