Mike Figliuolo – Page 96 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

About Mike Figliuolo

This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Mike Figliuolo contributed 1284 entries already.

Entries by Mike Figliuolo

Courageous Decision Making – Quit Being a Wimp and Lead

October 19, 2009 /12 Comments/in Leadership, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Waaah. The economy. Waaaaah. Boo hoo. Woe is me. Stop. Right now. Stop. Tough times like these demand leadership. I’m sick of hearing how organizations are “hunkering down” until the storm passes. Guess what people? It won’t start to pass until leaders like you make decisions that take us toward a solution. Of course there’s a balance between being conservative in case the environment worsens and making bold decisions and taking on their associated risks. My argument is simply that we’re doing all of the former and very little of the latter. The fix to all of this begins with you. The leader. Everyone (your team, your peers, your boss, your business partners, your competitors) is looking at you to see what you’re doing and how you’re acting in this environment. It’s the business equivalent of monkey see, monkey do. If the monkey sees you hiding under the banana tree, they’re going to hide too. Why is this so important? Because courageous organizations who are aggressive when others are scared are the ones that will kick everyone’s butt when things get better. We’ve told you before that as a leader you have to make decisions (the 4 D’s of decision making) and doing nothing is not an option. So how do you snap out of the funk? Three steps.

An Influence Shortcut: “What do you have to believe?”

October 12, 2009 /0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

I was recently invited by Brian Ahearn to write a guest post on his blog Influence PEOPLE. Brian recently wrote a great post here on the thoughtLEADERS blog and I’m happy to reciprocate and give his readers something to read over at his place. The gist of the post is this: you spend a ton of time and energy doing completely wasteful work and analysis. You do so in an attempt to influence people to make a decision based on your recommendation. The problem is, you can get to that answer much more quickly and efficiently (thereby saving yourself tons of time and effort). What’s the magic pill, you ask? It revolves around asking a simple question: What do you have to believe? (This is similar to the technique we described in a post on “Getting to YES.”) Pop on over to Influence PEOPLE to learn more about this time-saving technique. While you’re there, be sure to spin through Brian’s posts as well – there’s some great content and ideas there. – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Making HR More Strategic (Part 2)

October 8, 2009 /0 Comments/in Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Earlier this week we teed up how failure to incorporate HR in your strategic planning process ultimately leads to the failure of your strategy. It’s a common and easily avoidable problem (unfortunately too many organizations don’t avoid it). As you know, we believe we have a responsibility to offer solutions for the problems we identify. This is no exception. To find the cure for this common problem, just pop on over to SmartBlog on Workforce and read Mike Sheehan’s perspectives on how you can avoid the trap of destroying your strategy by ignoring the people implications. The solutions are pretty straight-forward. It’s simply a question of whether you’ve got the determination to make the required changes. Are you up to Mike’s challenge? Take a look and let us know what you think! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Why did your strategy FAIL? It’s the PEOPLE stupid!

October 5, 2009 /3 Comments/in Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

We’re experimenting a bit with a few posts on leadership, strategy, and people issues. The topic: strategies don’t die because they’re bad – they die because organizations foolishly ignore the people implications of the plan. In true thoughtLEADERS form, this won’t be a blathering set of ethereal platitudes. We’re going to give you some concrete steps you can take to stop screwing up your strategy. Why is it so critical to nail this HR planning piece of your strategy? Failure to do so means the plan fails which means you lose in the marketplace which means you don’t get a bonus. Capice? (That’s Italian for “Do you understand?”). We’re going to bring you perspectives from three of our team members: Mike Sheehan, Dave Willis, and Mike Figliuolo. We’ll cover this topic both here on the thoughtLEADERS blog and also on SmartBlog on Workforce (it’s an awesome resource that’s also tied to their SmartBrief on Workforce and SmartBrief on Leadership offerings – I don’t recommend many things but I’m TELLING you to sign up for these because they’re great and they’re free. They save you the trouble of finding the good stuff because they find it and summarize it for you!). Enough preamble. Strategies die for many reasons (bad analysis, poor decision making, flawed assumptions) but the most egregious and most common reason for failure is you botched the people planning. It’s unforgivable because it’s completely within your control – you simply don’t focus on it because it’s not “sexy.” Porter’s Five Forces? Sexy. Org charts? Not sexy. Right?

10 Reasons Your Team Hates You (They Just Won’t Say It To Your Face)

September 28, 2009 /63 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Your team hates you. Really. They do. They hate their boss (you) but they just won’t say so because they like getting paid. But when they go home at night, they spill their bile about their taskmaster of a boss who does nothing but drive them crazy (isn’t that what you do too?). It’s been a while since I’ve been controversial (okay, maybe the post on trust not being the most important aspect business partnerships was provocative but I’m talking controversial at the level of the I don’t care about your degree post). For this post, I’ve been sure to drink a glass of vinegar before typing. If you don’t start fixing some of these behaviors, you might end up with a mutiny on your hands. In today’s world though, that doesn’t involve them tossing you in a dinghy – instead they’ll all just quit their jobs. Before you go all “Mike has lost it again. This post doesn’t apply to me so I won’t read any more of it.” I’d ask you to spend the 2-3 minutes it will take to spin through the below list and see if any of the points resonate. If you make it through all ten and can honestly say none apply to you, bravo (related: are you hiring?). If some of the points do resonate, I’m asking you to commit to rectifying some of these behaviors. We’ll all be happier that way. To assist with that, I’ve offered some suggested behavior modifications for each of the ten. Full disclosure – I’ve been plenty guilty of some of the below behaviors. Fortunately I’ve had talented folks around me help me work on many of them. I’m not perfect by a long shot yet. I guess what I’m saying is all of these things apply […]

Lead AND Follow AND Get The Hell Out of the Way: Leading High Performing Teams

September 21, 2009 /2 Comments/in Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

So many leadership articles focus on leading the problem children. You know, the ones like Tiffany in the last post. But what if you’re leading rock stars? What if you’re leading people who you know you’re blessed to work with? What if you’re only a first among equals? Leading high performers is tough. As Belinda Gore points out when she talks about resilience: “when skill is high and challenge is low, boredom is the result.” High performers need challenge more than they need direction. They need space and for goodness’ sake, the last thing they want is a micromanager. So what’s a leader to do? I offer a twist on an old adage – instead of “lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way” I’d submit, when dealing with high performers, it’s “lead AND follow AND get the hell out of the way.” Confused? It’s really not that hard.

Leaders Who Empower: Why Kenny Kicks Tiffany’s Butt Every Time

September 14, 2009 /13 Comments/in Customer Service, Leadership, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Within a 4 hour period on Friday I witnessed excellent leadership and an abject failure of leadership. Both experiences occurred with the leaders in absentia. I’m basing my assessment of their leadership on the performance of their team members. I needed a new tap for my beer keg because mine was busted. It was a crisis situation. I called the beer distributor at 4:47PM and spoke with Kenny. “How late are you open?” “We’re open until 5 but I’ll be here until 6 so no worries. Here’s my cell number. Just call me when you get here and I’ll hook you up.” When I arrived, I called Kenny’s cell. A skinny 24 year old with an awesome Mohawk came around the corner and said “Hi, I’m Kenny. Don’t shake my hand, I’m covered in grease. Let me see what’s wrong with your keg.” At this point, things got interesting.

Trust Isn’t the Key to Business Partnerships

September 8, 2009 /6 Comments/in Communications, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Recently a question was posed to me: what’s the most critical element of business partnerships? It’s not trust. That’s an overly simplistic answer. Is trust important? Sure it is. But it’s not the most critical element of a business partnership. Look, I trust my local police force but the Dublin PD is not listed on the business partners page of my website. I trust my physician but we’re not jointly marketing our services. “Trust” is the easy answer to give to this question but that’s not particularly insightful. The most important element of a business partnership is a shared purpose. That purpose is something that aligns all the efforts of each organization. That purpose creates momentum and energy around every undertaking between the parties. Without a shared purpose, your partnership is more like The Odd Couple than it is a joint venture. So if a shared purpose is the most important element of a business partnership, how do you identify it and harvest it? A shared purpose is nothing more than both organizations seek to change a specific part of the world in a particular way. The strength of that sharing comes out in the organizations’ complementary skills.

3 Reasons No One Listens to You

August 31, 2009 /13 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Have you ever had the feeling that you were moving your mouth but no one could hear the sounds coming out of it? They go about their day as if you’re not there. There’s a reason this is happening: they’re really not listening to you. There. I said it. People are tuning you out. What are the warning signs of this dynamic? When you speak with people, they nod politely but are looking for the exits while they do. They check their Blackberry and have “urgent” calls come in every time you’re talking to them. Your emails never get replied to. Most importantly, the things you want to get done never seem to generate traction. Don’t worry – the problem is not you personally per se. It’s the information you’re putting out there (or not putting out there for that matter). What I’ve found is there are three major reasons people aren’t listening to you. I’ve personally been guilty of all of these at one point or another. You probably have too. The good news is there are some simple things you can do to solve those problems.

Customer Service Isn’t Hard – Just Be a Mind Reader

August 24, 2009 /2 Comments/in Customer Service, Sales, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

How many times have you had a customer service interaction where you walked away in disbelief over how clueless the person “helping” you was? You’ve sat there at least once saying “I cannot believe they just don’t understand my problem.” Now think about how many times your customers have said this about you or your organization. Scary, isn’t it? I’m not only talking about customer service reps in call centers – I’m talking about anyone who interacts with a customer (salespeople, relationship managers, marketers, executives, etc.). Any one of those individuals can completely destroy a customer interaction by not connecting to the customer’s need. This disconnect occurs because the person providing the service comes at it from their own perspective rather than the customer’s. Why does this happen? Probably because your metrics are screwed up and you create incentives for bad behavior. Remember – Hobbes pointed out that man is inherently selfish. Your people will behave in a manner that maximizes their own well-being (cash, advancement, free time, etc.). But don’t despair. There’s a simple thing you can do to generate the behaviors that will have your customers rave about you: become a mind reader just like Karnak.

Are You “An” Authority or “In” Authority? A Critical Differentiator in Persuasiveness

August 20, 2009 /3 Comments/in Career, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s my pleasure to bring Brian Ahearn, a colleague and friend of mine, to you today as a guest blogger. I hope you enjoy his perspectives. – Mike “An” authority vs “In” authority – it seems like a small distinction, a single vowel in front of the letter “n,” but it’s actually much more than that. My guess is every one of you has worked for someone you thought was not qualified to be the boss. Some of you might even say that person was an idiot. Let’s face it, life isn’t fair and victory doesn’t always go to those who deserve it. Neither do raises or promotions. As a result we see people in positions of authority who ought not to be there. Sometimes they’re decent people but just not the most competent for the job. Regardless, they’re in authority over you and it’s usually not the best situation. Now think back to other people who’ve impacted your life not because they were in a position of authority but rather because you viewed them as an authority. Who would you rather follow? The betting man in me believes you’d rather follow someone you view as an authority. The difference is positional vs. personal, and that’s a huge difference. If you have authority because of position and nothing else, don’t expect people to follow you if you lose the title. However, if you are viewed as an authority because of who you are, that follows you everywhere. Having a position can enhance your results but results are not necessarily dependent on the position. Who were authorities by virtue of who they were? How about Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa, to name just a few? None of them held office or had titles that made people follow them […]

Please Don’t – A Great Tactic For Successful Strategy

August 17, 2009 /2 Comments/in Leadership, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

High-falootin’ strategery sounds awesome. Unfortunately the best strategic plan in the world can come crashing down if you don’t have tactics in place to support it. And these tactics have to occur on a daily basis. This is where, as a manager, you’re probably missing the boat. I know your intentions are good but your dysfunctional behaviors are the root of strategic destruction (how’s that for being provocative?). I’ve mentioned before that strategy is about saying “no” and I’m unwavering on that point. The organization has to know where it’s going and pursue a balanced set of initiatives to get there. It has to be a mix of building your core business so it can spin off the cash required to invest in new ventures. It’s about hitting the sweet spot on balancing between growing the core or expanding beyond it. Let’s assume you’re already doing those things.