I recently sat down with David (Ledge) Ledgerwood from the Leaders of B2B podcast to discuss improving leadership skills through better planning and decision-making.
On this episode of the Leaders of B2B podcast, David Ledgerwood and I discussed some leadership lessons that can help B2B business leaders become more successful.
We talked about the importance of making decisions quickly but rationally. Leaders also need to be flexible enough to recognize new information that allows them to correct a course of action.
We also touched on the importance of maximizing your time by building the right team. Leaders shouldn’t sweat over the small stuff. They need to identify people’s strengths and have them run with tasks that require those skills. It’s equally important to know when someone on your team isn’t in the right place and help them find the right role.
Freeing up time is vital because it allows you to focus more on strategy and development.
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When you have a squeaky wheel on your team, your biggest challenge as a leader is going to be pulling back on the investment you’re making in them.
One type of high-cost producer you might deal with is a squeaky wheel. They’re in the upper left corner of the Leadership Matrix because they deliver great results, but they take up a lot of your time and energy.
Squeaky wheels are very effective at getting their work done. They just consume a lot of a leader’s time in the process of completing their work. Many times they’re consuming this energy because of their own lack of confidence. They come to their leader frequently with questions they can answer for themselves. They go to the leader for decisions that they’re capable of making on their own. They drive great results, but they demand a lot of leadership capital because of their constant interruptions or because they’re outsourcing decisions to their leader.
Here are some easy ways to spot a squeaky wheel. First, they have strong skills and they produce great results, but they can seem to lack confidence. A lot of times they’re asking for help too frequently. They may come to you for permission on a decision that they can make. They may make decisions and ask for your affirmation of the choice they made. They frequently drop by or send you emails or requests for immediate help. They seek out a lot of time with you in terms of meetings or other interactions.
I had one squeaky wheel on my team who I loved to work with. He was high-energy and drove awesome results. He was also in my office all the time. He was always popping by and saying, “Hey, boss man, I have a question for you.” And I’d let him in and I’d talk to him because he was seeking my advice and guidance, which felt good for me. But I didn’t realize I was making an investment of time and energy that I shouldn’t have been making.
When you have a squeaky wheel on your team, your biggest challenge as a leader is going to be pulling back on the investment you’re making in them.
Want to learn more about developing your team? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your strategic plans. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/20221221-Grocery-Carts-Red.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=112801920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-12-21 07:00:062022-12-21 05:03:00How to Identify Squeaky Wheels on Your Team
The Leadership Driven Method to Performance Management can help senior leaders in the public and not-for-profit sectors make informed decisions and meet their strategic goals.
While many articles and approaches focus on the science of Performance Measurement, meaning the step-by-step methodology, and the business processes required to analyze, interpret, report, and the quality of performance measures, this article will focus on the human side or the art of performance measurement.
What are the requirements for employees to fully participate and effectively use the PM System?
The first requirement is to understand the context of performance measurement. In other words what is a Business Plan and why is it important to performance measurement. Well, the answer is easy. The Business Plan provides the strategic direction of the organization in terms of its vision, mission, and objectives. It also provides a framework for decision making so that all decisions support the achievement of the strategic direction of the organization. But, in order to be effective each employee needs to know where they fit and how they contribute to the organization in terms of their function and daily work. Also, the Business Plan provides the standards against which the performance is measured. Without understanding the purpose and their fit within the business plan, the staff member has no context to understand the need or benefits of PM.
So, what is PM?
The next requirement is to understand performance measurement. The most frequent misunderstanding is that it is performance appraisal. It is Not. Many people confuse performance appraisal at the individual level with performance measurement at the organizational level. These are distinct concepts. A collection of individuals working as a group in an organization can achieve dramatic results. But no one person at any level, is responsible for overall organizational performance in isolation from their peers. Dispelling this myth makes performance measurement an innovative and positive force for creativity and achievement.
For our purposes we will define Performance Measurement as a management system – an ongoing process that provides a balanced, methodical attempt to assess the effectiveness of an organization’s operations from multiple vantage points – financial, client satisfaction, internal business and innovation/learning. It is used to provide feedback at all levels – strategic, tactical or operational – on how well strategies and plans are being met. This performance information is necessary to improve decision making within the organization, to enable proactive problem correction and to promote continuous improvement.
Why bother with Performance Measurement?
Performance measurement provides a framework for decision making to:
improve resource utilization,
demonstrate accountability,
facilitate excellent programs/services,
ensure motivated and productive employees,
enable a high level of employee client cooperation and coordination,
allow for the use of innovative best practices, and
provide the ability to deal with unexpected challenges or emergencies.
In short, it is a navigation system that helps management and staff adapt their operations to meet the goals of the organization while adjusting processes to the ever changing requirements in finances, programs, client needs, etc.
Organizations are constantly bombarded with ongoing changes to their finances, personnel, strategies and initiatives. Their external environments, especially client requirements and economic and political changes, are also in constant evolution.
So how does an organization move towards its strategic direction as outlined in its business plan when the foundation upon which it was built keeps shifting. The answer is the PM System. It acts as a navigation System allowing the organization to steer around the changing shoals of business.
How to break down resistances to a threatening project?
A performance measurement system can be perceived as very threatening to staff. In order to break down resistances, a process-oriented approach should be used. This process-oriented approach to developing and implementing a PM system ensures its acceptance through a gradual process of change in organizational culture. Stakeholders begin to understand that the focus is on identifying and dealing with issues that are interfering with attainment of the organizational mission, linking business plans with operational decision making, and on identifying and rewarding achievement within the organization.
As the development process continues, stakeholders in the organization shift their attitudes from awareness to understanding and from acceptance to use of the PM system. Over time this approach allows the development of an organizational culture that values and supports balanced and comprehensive feedback as an essential element in both rewarding achievement and providing the information necessary for effective business and operational decision making.
Is there a code of conduct used to develop and operate the PM System?
Organizations often make decisions based upon an implied set of values. The challenge of this approach is that implied values or principles can be misunderstood or misinterpreted. The LDM (Leadership Driven Method) approach to performance measurement requires that principles be defined, stated and communicated to the entire organization. These principles provide a code of conduct that govern behaviour for the development, implementation and operation of the PM system.
There are numerous techniques that gradually reduce/eliminate resistances and increase ownership of the PM system, the most important being ongoing leadership. Senior management must be directly involved and charged with communication to promote understanding and acceptance and provide financial support. These interventions create a climate of acceptance within the organization by stressing the importance of performance measurement and the need for staff to participate and cooperate fully in this endeavour.
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Our reader poll today asks: What is your organization’s biggest source of competitive advantage?
Our people — we have the best team out there 49.54%
Our product/service — no other products/services come close 21.97%
Our prices — you can’t beat our deals 5.61%
Our placement — we own the market we’re in 6.54%
Our promotion — we’re amazing marketers and salespeople 0.46%
Something else 7.47%
We don’t have a competitive advantage 8.41%
People are our edge. Half of you reported that your people are what give you your competitive advantage in the market. So ask yourself – if that’s the case, are you doing everything you can to develop and retain them? Do they have the tools and resources to get their work done to compete effectively or are there processes and gaps in your organization that make things harder for them? Are your compensation decisions focused on keeping them happy or do you focus more on “hitting your numbers” even if it comes at the expense of your team members’ happiness and satisfaction? The mantra of “people are our most important asset” gets trotted out frequently. Spend some time asking yourself if you’re living up to that belief. If not, make the required changes or face losing your competitive advantage to an organization that backs this saying with actions.
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To grow your team’s rising stars, make sure you step back, give them room to grow, and reward their performance accordingly.
Your rising stars are in that upper right quadrant of the leadership matrix. You don’t put in a lot of time and energy, but you get great results out of them. The issue with rising stars is they want to advance and they can get bored along the way if they don’t have opportunities to grow.
Growing rising stars means promoting them internally. Keep them in your organization, even if it means losing them as a member of your team to go work for another team in your company. Give your rising stars increasing levels of responsibility. Provide them visibility opportunities across the organization and be sure to reward their outstanding performance accordingly.
I was managing a rising star a while back and it was very clear that he was going to do great work. From day one I gave him full responsibility for the profit and loss of his organization. I got him publicity across the entire organization for some great work he did on an internal audit. I also made sure he got the highest rating possible at the end of the year and a raise and a bonus to go along with it. I wanted to keep him in the organization really badly and I made sure that he knew how valuable he was.
Some of the benefits of effectively leading a rising star include getting credit for retaining those people in your organization and building your reputation as someone who develops their people. You have an easier time attracting other rising stars to your team to develop them because people know you’re going to give them the room to grow. And, your rising stars who leave your team can become valuable connections down the road elsewhere in the organization.
The bottom line with developing a rising star is to step back, give them the room to grow, and reward their performance accordingly.
Want to learn more about developing your team? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your strategic plans. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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I often hear that innovation is primarily about ideas and creativity. With over 20 years of speaking with top innovators around the globe, I am biased to disagree.
I believe that when it comes down to it, innovation is about leadership, communication and execution. Without strong, informed leadership, there is no strategy, and without strategy, there is no innovation. And communication and execution is what separates ideas from results.
To be truly innovative, it’s not enough to proclaim weak platitudes like “Be creative,” “Spark your imagination,” or “Think Bold”—let’s not confuse corporate propaganda with actual strategy.
To keep their organization innovative, leaders across levels and functions must hold themselves responsible for clearly defined pathways, actions, and measurable outcomes. Remember, innovation doesn’t happen naturally—so an environment for innovation must be incentivized and supported.
As I write in Fearless Innovation, when helping others shape their innovation strategy, I often think about the work of Abraham Maslow. If you’re not familiar with Maslow, he was a brilliant twentieth-century American psychologist, best known for developing the concept of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, typically depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels that address our material and immaterial human needs.
At the bottom level, we have our most basic physiological needs, such as food, shelter, and clothing. The next level up is safety, covering aspects like personal safety and financial security. Level three is that of friendship, family, and a sense of connection, known as the love and belonging level. The fourth level is esteem, including self-esteem, status, and the feeling of accomplishment. And the top level is self-actualization, basically a level that’s all about being the best people we can be, focused on a sense of morality, personal development, and creativity.
I believe that when it comes to innovation, any goal can fall under one of four main categories:
Aspirational Innovation. Human aspirations are a key driving factor, and pretty much every innovation throughout history originally resulted from an individual or a group of individuals pursuing their ambitions. When it comes to the business environment, ambition, curiosity, and legacy play a major role in many leaders’ plans, decisions, and strategy.
Innovation for Survival. Survival is the market position you need to retain to remain in business. If your competitors are on top of innovation and you aren’t, it’s likely that you’ll see a negative change in your market share, or your entire market might just go away. As a goal, “just surviving” may not sound all that exciting, but if you remember Maslow’s pyramid, basic survival is essential to prosperity and growth.
Innovation for efficiency. Operational efficiency relies on optimizing the processes and costs in an effort to increase the speed of production or time to market. This goal, and any of its related strategies, has been popularized through lean methods, some to great fanfare.
Innovation for growth. Growth requires the greatest attention to the future. Here, your company shapes or creates new markets and increases its footprint and revenues. Ideally, innovation will ideally always lead to growth over time.
These innovation goals do not always come in a particular order and will vary based on current market conditions, as well as maturity of your organization. If you’re a sole proprietor launching a new project, you may have different goals than a well-established corporation whose business model is quickly becoming obsolete. Then again, there are times when even their goals will overlap. Just like in the pyramid, as one set of needs are met, others arise, and they always will. Whether you’re focusing on one or all four, these goals will develop into an actionable innovation strategy.
Many might disagree, and my experience shows that a constant state of creativity does not move a company forward and could be counter-productive to getting results. To survive and grow, organizations need to develop actionable goals and strategy, mapped out in practical terms, that align horizontally and vertically, while identifying where innovation is necessary and efforts should be invested.
Remember, developing a clear innovation strategy is just the first step—you still have to execute on it, and you will surely pivot with time. Taking accountability and communicating to spread clear and measurable goals is where it all begins.
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Our reader poll today asks: Which type of team member do you find to be the most challenging to lead?
Someone with the skill but not the will to do the work 82.83%
Someone with the will but not the skill to do the work 17.17%
Motivating is harder than training. The vast majority of respondents (83%) are more challenged by a team member who can do the work but simply chooses not to versus the person who wants to but doesn’t have the ability. The key to getting these skilled but unmotivated associates to perform is engaging them. Have the honest conversation about how their performance is not meeting expectations, especially since you believe they’re fully capable of doing the work. Then ask why this is happening. Are their obstacles to doing the work? Do they not have the resources or authority they need? Are their interpersonal conflicts that are causing difficulty? Is something happening outside of work that’s distracting them? Are they not excited or challenged by the work? Do they feel unappreciated or not appropriately compensated? Instead of guessing why they’re not performing, go right to the source. Create a candid environment where they can share and you can really listen. Once you understand the barriers or factors that cause the lack of motivation, you can take the appropriate action.
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Rising stars are quick to understand their roles, they deliver outstanding results, and they require very little guidance.
Your team members who are in the upper right quadrant of the leadership matrix are your exemplars. One type of exemplar is your rising star. Rising stars are your future leaders. They’re eventually going to be taking over your role. These people require very little leadership capital investment, and they deliver great results. They’re typically quick to understand their roles, they deliver outstanding results, and they require very little guidance or assistance from you as they do their work. They actively seek out new growth opportunities.
There are some pretty easy ways to spot a rising star. First, they make a strong early impression. You put them in the role and they’re on their way. They’re dedicated, they have a strong sense of pride of ownership in their work. They quickly master their role and deliver high-quality results. They’re always seeking out new ways to improve their role, as well as pursuing growth opportunities to improve themselves. They volunteer and help out other people, and a lot of times people from other organizations are going to try and recruit these people away from your team.
I was very fortunate to have a rising star on my team at one point. I brought him in to run one of my business units. One of the first things he did was say, “Mike, give me a couple of weeks. I’m going to come back to you with the strategic plan.” Two weeks later, he came back with a very buttoned-up strategic plan that laid out the next three years, the major initiatives he was going to pursue, and the resource allocation for how he was going to get it done. He then went on to build very strong relationships with every member of his team, as well as the external business partners he worked with. I knew for this individual I could step back, not put in a lot of time and energy, and just get out of his way and let him deliver those outstanding results.
If you have a rising star on your team, make sure you spot them early and give them the space to grow and deliver the results that you expect.
Want to learn more about developing your team? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your strategic plans. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
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If you and your company are involved at all in marketing (and who isn’t?), you’re constantly being bombarded by sales reps, each claiming their marketing tactics or services are the silver bullets that will put you over the edge, into viral heaven.
Everything from search ads to email to analytics programs to social media influencers are being promoted as the next big thing.
In all fairness, many of these tactics play important roles in effective marketing campaigns. They wouldn’t exist if they didn’t.
The problem is with the tactics-first approach they seem to be advocating. Let me explain.
Too many companies begin marketing campaigns these days by diving right into tactical execution. Like choosing between Facebook and Twitter. Search marketing or email. They’re casting the TV spot, worried about the media buy. Arguing over product placement. Unleashing PR people, web developers, search marketing experts, email specialists and front-end designers on the world to do their own thing.
They churn out tons of material. Take up gigabits of storage space. Burn through a lot of cash.
But those tactics-first approaches almost always fail.
Oh sure, maybe they get some likes. Or some heart emojis. But sales and leads? Not so much.
So while Marshall McLuhan proclaimed decades ago that the medium is the message, I’m guessing he didn’t mean that the medium should create the message.
And maybe what he meant was that you should choose the medium based on the message you want to deliver.
Not the other way around. The way all too many marketers do – picking a medium and letting that choice dictate your message. Or worse yet, hoping your media choices ferret out the message lurking somewhere in all that stuff you’re generating.
I’m a writer. A content guy. Always have been, always will be. And I think that before you select a social media platform or hire a celebrity influencer to make your pitch, you need to know what you’re going to say.
I have a writer’s solution to the problems marketing faces today – the creation of strategic messaging. A single-source, definitive document that defines the messaging around your offer (whether it’s a product introduction, a market initiative or a brand awareness effort) and presents all the relevant information your creative teams need to understand, present and deliver that message.
Here are the elements of that document:
The strategic landscape – how this project came about and the technology issues, the competitive landscape and the market dynamics.
A list of goals, as specific as possible, laying out what you’d like to accomplish.
A clear definition of the product, initiative or offer and the customer value proposition that differentiates it from the competition.
An integration statement showing how the project fulfills or validates the corporate strategy.
A customer profile (or preferably, a full persona) identifying the prospect and their motivations or hot buttons.
The strategic vision for the campaign: the one-sentence summary that aligns the product with the corporate strategy, connects it to the audience hot buttons and differentiates it from the competition.
The reasons to believe the Strategic Vision and the proof points that support them.
A map of the marketing campaign listing the proposed tactics (like emails, ads, posts and web pages) and showing how they work together to advance the sale.
An accountability plan, not only making it easy to optimize the program, but also measuring your success in achieving the objectives.
That’s not your typical product manager’s brief. Or even a creative director’s instructions to the creative team. But rather a hard-as-nails, comprehensive account that gives the creative team their marching orders.
Above all, it elevates clarity. A clear statement of the product’s advantages, shorn of corporate vanity, marketing voodoo and campy creativity. And lays out the proposed path to success.
It connects corporate strategy to the marketing process by making the brand, service or product the incarnation of the corporate positioning and keeping it top-of-mind as marketing tactics are developed and implemented.
It connects to the audience by highlighting the prospect’s pain points and making them the focus of the key messaging elements, specifically requiring strategists to call them out when they’re defining messaging reasons-to-believe and proof points.
It makes campaign integration possible, issuing a single set of instructions to the array of PR, advertising, social media, email and web teams you have generating the content in different silos. By different people. Working in different buildings. Perhaps for different companies. Maybe on different continents. Soon, on different planets.
It makes the best use of your subject matter expert’s time. You’re capturing all the information at once and working with them to make sure it’s accurate. Before it’s given to the different content teams to disseminate. So they only have to give the final materials a cursory look-through as the campaign is finalized and the paid ads, Tweets, e-mails and videos roll out.
It facilitates accountability and ROI measurement, both of which are not possible without the discipline of campaigns. Sure, you can measure impressions, likes, emojis, clicks and click-through rates. But to what end? Want to show any of that data to your CEO? Not hardly.
By organizing marketing efforts around strategic messaging. we marry strategy and concepts, messaging and campaigns. And we set the stage for program measurement, optimization, accountability, ROI reporting and even predictive analytics.
That’s the goal of strategic messaging. Nothing short of rescuing marketing from the snake-oil salespeople and the tacticians. And giving today’s businesses the marketing they need and deserve.
Jim Everhart, author of BRAND VISION: The Clear Line Of Sight Aligning Business Strategy and Marketing Tactics is a freelance strategist and writer, working with corporations and agencies to develop marketing communications tactics and campaigns. He spent more than four decades in the marketing industry, most of it at Godfrey Advertising, one of the largest business-to-business marketing agencies in the United States.
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Avoid these three common pitfalls when developing your team members.
Some common pitfalls I see leaders fall into revolve around not taking a personalized approach to developing their team members.
This includes spreading your time and energy equally across all your team members. I call this the peanut butter approach. Leaders give everyone exactly the same amount of time and energy. They do this because it feels fair to everyone. What’s wrong with this approach is, not everyone needs the same amount of your time. It’s not fair to people who need less of your time. It can feel like micromanagement. It’s also not fair to people who need more of your time. They’re getting slighted on how much attention they’re getting.
Another mistake I see leaders make is using a reactive approach and dealing with issues as they arise. Leaders give people attention whenever they ask, in the order they ask for it. This happens because the approach requires little thought. What’s wrong with this approach is it fails to prioritize the leader’s time and allocate that time and energy to the most important issues. It also encourages team members to constantly take up the leader’s time rather than solving issues on their own.
The final pitfall I often see is leaders taking the path of least resistance, where they only deal with people who are performing well. They spend more time with people who are easiest or the most fun to work with. They avoid team members who give them trouble. Leaders do this because this approach is easy—it avoids conflict. The problem with this approach includes not resolving big issues. You’re dedicating time to low-return efforts. Excessive time with high performers doesn’t contribute a great deal to improving results.
To see if you’re demonstrating these behaviors, ask yourself the following questions. Are you spreading your time equally across all team members? Are you only working with high performers? Are you reacting to people as issues come up?
Once you recognize these tendencies in yourself, you can be more thoughtful about how and where you spend your time with your team members. This means you’ll get better results from that time with them in a more efficient use of that time.
Want to learn more about developing your team? How about taking an entire course on it? Check out the video below to learn more about the course and get started. Or you can go directly to the course and start learning how to assess and improve your strategic plans. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
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Our reader poll today asks: What do you do when you find your passion for your work waning?
I find new ways to reengage with the work to make it exciting again 35.98%
I take a break from it because I’m probably burned out 30.58%
I look for a new type of work that will excite me once again 16.54%
I’ve never had a passion for my work 7.55%
I’ve never lost my passion for the work I do 9.35%
A fresh set of eyes. When you lose interest and passion for your work, many of you (67%) try to look at it with a fresh set of eyes to reignite that passion. That can be in the form of taking a break because you might be burned out (31%) or coming at the work from a different perspective and finding something new and exciting about it (36%). This can be in the form of new developmental challenges, figuring out ways to improve your results, or appreciating a different aspect of the work itself. A significant number of you (17%) look for new work that will excite you. For leaders reading these results, think about how these approaches apply to your team members. Sometimes you need to force them to take a break. Others, you’ll have to help them see their work from a different angle to reenergize them. And for that 17% looking somewhere else, consider role changes they can make within your organization and facilitate those changes because if you don’t change their situation, they’ll take their talents elsewhere.
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https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/20140203-EKG-Pulse-Graph-with-Glowing-Blue-Line-Narrow.jpg?fit=833%2C258&ssl=1258833Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-11-24 13:00:172022-11-24 01:08:06What do you do when you find your passion for your work waning?
It’s never a great idea to work in a silo. You have make sure you’re working with a strong team. Learn how you can strengthen your team and your leadership.
Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS.
Personalizing Your Leadership Approach
Do you feel like you’re investing a ton of time in your people and not getting the results you expect? Do you have team members who are performing well, but you just can’t get them to improve? Are some of your team members disengaged and you worry about them leaving your organization?
I’ve dealt with all of these situations, and I’ve taught countless leaders how to overcome these challenges. As a result, I developed a framework called the Leadership Matrix to help deal with these issues. I’ve also written a book that explains this matrix in depth.
Here, I’ll cover how to assess how you’re spending your time and energy. How to reward and inspire your high performers. How to get results out of team members who aren’t contributing. How to train and motivate your low performers. And how to reclaim your time from team members who tend to waste it. By using this approach, you can generate better results by being more efficient in how you lead your team members.
https://i0.wp.com/www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/20221123-Fist-Bumps.jpg?fit=1920%2C1211&ssl=112111920Trevor Joneshttps://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/logo.pngTrevor Jones2022-11-23 07:00:192022-11-23 05:17:04Developing Your Team Members
