Business Toolkit – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Protecting Yourself When You Make a Tough Call

September 23, 2020/2 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

I can guarantee you’ll face a major moral/ethical dilemma situation at least once in your career. Even if you make the right decision, you’re still at risk for bad things happening. Here are some tips on navigating those sticky situations.

Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS.

When I was a cadet at West Point, we learned the Cadet Prayer. We didn’t learn it as part of some religious education but rather because there were points in it about ethics. The one line that stood out for all of us was “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.”

Sounds awesome in theory, much tougher in practice.

There have been times I’ve lived up to that and others I’ve fallen miserably short. I’ve had friends, colleagues, and clients have similar experiences. While it sucks to choose the easier wrong and deal with the consequences later, it’s even worse to choose the harder right and still get screwed over when bad things happen to you as a result.

I’d like to offer some thoughts on how you can protect yourself when you’re choosing to follow the moral high road. It’s a funny thing – when you’re walking up on the high road, you make yourself a nice, big, target silhouetted against the skyline. In situations where you’re doing the right thing, someone else is probably doing the wrong thing. Those are the folks who will try to take that shot at you while you stroll along the high road. If you don’t protect yourself, you’re going to find bad things happen to you. Sometimes those people taking the shot will walk away from the situation unscathed. Now that is a bad outcome. Here’s how to avoid it.

Be Right

If you’re going to make a difficult choice, be sure you’re right. Calling the Ethics Line? Ensure you have all the proof of wrongdoing you need before picking up that phone. If you’re filing a report and it comes to light that you’ve submitted inaccurate information, you’ve just made some hefty accusations against someone that weren’t warranted. Even if nothing happens to them, you’ve tarnished their reputation. You can expect some less-than-favorable responses from doing so. Also realize the Ethics Department won’t look too kindly upon you for filing a “false report.” Be absolutely, unequivocally right before reporting something.

Seek Counsel

Using Stretch and Commit Goals to Drive Performance

September 21, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

Goal setting is tricky business. You’ll get much better performance if you set two goals for your team. Once you’ve done so, paying for performance is more of a math equation than it is black magic.

Incentives can, and have been, a topic of great discussion but one thing that is hard to argue is this: you want to complete a goal, incentives work.

Sometimes incentives are money. Incentives can be salary increases or bonuses. You may offer stock or options. Other incentives can be awards, time off, or promotions. Incentives need to be something that’s meaningful and exciting to your team, collectively.

When you set the incentives, make a direct linkage between the goal and the reward. I’ve always liked setting “commit” and “stretch” goals. The commit goal is something where folks are signing up to deliver it no matter what. There’s zero bonus associated with hitting a commit. It’s the “you did your job” level of goal. A “stretch” is the furthest point that folks think is in the realm of possibility. They have an idea for how they’ll achieve 70% of it but no clue where the last 30% will come from. And to be clear – that first 70% will take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to hit. With a stretch goal, people can max out their bonus.

If you have a commit goal and a stretch goal, put the bonus on a sliding scale between those two instead of creating an all-or-none scheme. A “commit” goal is the minimum that someone will deliver to the organization. At the “commit” the bonus is zero. A stretch goal is a high level of impact that will take a tremendous amount of effort to achieve. If someone hits their stretch, the bonus should be 100% of what’s available as an incentive.

Teams can get extremely frustrated when they hit 85% of their stretch goal and they get nothing for it. They should get 85% of the possible bonus. I’ve been in both of these situations. I was in one organization where we had a commit of $50 million of profit and a stretch of $75 million of profit. At $50 million dollars, our bonus was going to be zero. If we hit the commit, there was no bonus. At $75 million of profit, the bonus was going to be 10% of our salary.

Developing Stronger Executive Communication Skills

September 16, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Mike Figliuolo, thoughtLEADERS Managing Director, sat down with Adam Torres of The Money Matters Top Tips Podcast to talk about executive communication.

In this podcast interview, Mike reunites with Adam Torres of The Money Matters Top Tips Podcast to delve deeper into his personal thoughts and tips on executive communication.

Mike breaks down executive presence and what exactly it is, and then points out a few of the standard shortcomings that people point out with regards to executive presence and how finding a few small fixes really can move the needle in interacting with others.

As the discussion continues, Mike gives his top tips for improving this executive communication, starting with knowing your audience, something people have heard many times before, and how finding and knowing that hot button topic to get people engaged and bought in is a game changer. And then being able to assemble everything beyond facts into a compelling story that further engages the ‘audience.’

Stay tuned for more of podcast features and interviews from Mike and the rest of the thoughtLEADERS team.

Money Matters Top Tips Podcast – Mike Figliuolo

The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

August 10, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Ryan Shaw

Emotional intelligence is no longer a ‘nice to have’ in the workplace, but a ‘must have’ to be effective in the modern workplace.

Today’s post is by Asha Tarry.

Emotional intelligence skills are those important soft skills that are now reaching the desk of more and more leaders. It used to be targeted as a set of skills that belonged to customer-driven and service industries. However, we are learning there are people who are inept at having those important, emotional, human skills which connect people and build strong teams. That is why emotional intelligence is now being considered an important asset for employees.

We need to reevaluate how we review resumes. It matters that employees have a good grip on soft skills. For example, being an effective communicator, and being able to adapt to the different styles in which people work, should become required skills. Most people want to avoid certain emotions at work, but that is where they spend most of their time. That is why emotional intelligence should not be limited to helping just customer-driven industries or education workers.

Change Starts At The Top

August 3, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Sales, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Leadership cannot be do as I say, leadership must also be do as I do, show your team how you want to operate.

Today’s post is by Pat McManamon, author of The Intentional Sales Manager (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

As a sales leader, you have to admit it’s been an interesting year.

You’ve been faced with business challenges you never even imagined you would encounter. Guess what? Your sales people are in the same situation! Your decisions, like theirs, are going to be crucial. What criteria will you use to make them?

Business is still being conducted; prospects are reaching out; your competition is on the phones and on the streets; customers are buying. Many companies I’ve spoken to had a record month in March despite the disruption of a nationwide shutdown. All signs point to a strong recovery in the near future for those who are prepared. But we must be prepared to make constructive changes, and we must accept that the most important change starts with us!

Creating Galaxies Not Pyramids

July 27, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Ryan Shaw

The top-down hierarchical structure of organizations is limited and outdated. Here are four tips for leaders to adjust their strategic planning process to support a networked model.

Today’s post is by Chris Yates, author of Share (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

During my work from home life, kids have been teaching me how to win Battle Royale in Fortnite. For my 10-year old son, it’s all about taking the high ground to snipe at your opponents. My 12-year old daughter, on the other hand, builds networks and alliances. She is already conditioned by societal gender stereotyping to win not through force or the relentless focus on the high ground. She seldom loses, and is perhaps better prepared by that same stereotyping to win in a future world.

In most organizations, there is a basic assumption that the hierarchy of titles represents the hierarchy of information. Bosses know best because they’ve taken the high ground. Most management books, gurus, and models created to date have been based on the same premise of a vertical organization with a hierarchy of power. Recently, management theory has been about creating a more effective pyramid, by turning it upside down and calling it servant leadership. Nevertheless, it’s still a pyramid.