Career – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

Is Your Organization Building Innovation Into Its DNA?

October 14, 2020/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Career, Leadership /by Ryan Shaw

Want to continue to be at the forefront of your industry, trying to get to the forefront, building innovation into the company structure is a must-have.

Today’s post is by thoughtLEADERS principal Maureen Metcalf.

Change is accelerating on all fronts across all industries. Each organization will be faced with different types of change and at different rates. The commonality is that everyone is facing opportunities and strains because of the current business ecosystem. Companies are regularly facing a broad range of risks, such as cybersecurity attacks, where the question has changed from “Will we be hacked?” to “When will we be hacked?” On the positive side, robotic processes automation, machine learning/artificial intelligence and a wide range of applications are making the tight labor market more productive.

With rapid change as the backdrop for the foreseeable future, it has now become imperative for leaders to build innovation into their personal leadership “operating system” as well as into the DNA of their organizations. Innovation is imperative for long-term survival and success.

While many people associate innovation with special people who come up with creative ideas, it is more accurately nurtured by building a company that embraces innovation as part of its core DNA. The real question is what does that look like, and how do you make it happen?

Boosting Sales Is About Simplicity

September 30, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership, Sales /by Ryan Shaw

Sales are the lifeblood of any company. No sales, no company. The good news is there’s an incredibly simple technique that you can do right now to help boost your numbers.

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

Strap yourself in. You’re about to have your mind blown.

Ever since grade school when I sold anything that wasn’t nailed down, I’ve been drawn to sales. It started with pencils I painted with custom designs and people’s names on them. I then graduated to selling comic books. Then I sold table space at comic book conventions I put on myself (at age 14). Over the years I’ve migrated to other sales roles and, in the day to day running of thoughtLEADERS, I’m the head of sales.

I won’t lie – sales can be a grind especially when facing competitive situations or making big ticket complex sales. Long lead times, budget constraints, and prospects who are tough to get a hold of make selling efforts difficult.

But I’ve found a secret. I’ve found a way to get in touch with clients and prospects and engage them in a sales conversation 100% of the time. Not only that, they’re excited to talk to me about it and they’re usually ready to buy by the time we finish talking. I’ve been astonished with how effective this technique is and it’s beyond simple. I’m going to share it with you now and it will change your life.

How to Make “Easy Button” Career Decisions

September 28, 2020/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Ryan Shaw

Finding your core values isn’t just good for guiding your life, its good for guiding your career too.

Today’s post is by Tracy Timm, author of Unstoppable (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

When it comes to making career decisions, we’ve all been to “the dark side.”

Endless pro-con lists. Sleepless nights. Emotional rollercoasters. Circular conversations. Worrying if this is our “one shot” while simultaneously wondering if we’re settling or worth more. Trying to balance the shiny components of the offer, maintain a level head, remember to negotiate, and keep every other generic piece of career advice front of mind.

Cue confusion, anxiety, doubt, and fear.

But what if there was a way to ensure that every decision you made in your career was in your best, long-term interest? What if you could wade through the emotions and momentary elation and get down to brass tacks: Will this work for me or is this just another distraction?

In the moment, it can be so difficult to separate what really matters from how we are currently feeling. After all, no matter if we’re being offered the CEO role or a part-time consulting position, there are so many emotions at play.

It’s human nature to feel compelled to pursue something that we’re offered. Even if the offer is coming from left field (hello, Mr. CMO, would you like to design a logo for me?) there’s something about an opportunity showing up on your doorstep that begs the question: Am I supposed to take this?

Protecting Yourself When You Make a Tough Call

September 23, 2020/3 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.

Work Isn’t an Excuse for Lack of Self Care

September 7, 2020/2 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Leadership /by Ryan Shaw

Work is a convenient excuse for not taking care of yourself. Not exercising, poor diet, and stress are a bad combination. You’ve got to make time for you. Work will always be there when you get back.

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

Back in 2015, I had a heart attack. A second heart attack. Yep. Two. The first one sucked but it was my fault. Crappy diet. Poor exercise habits. Not managing stress well.

I lost a lot of weight. Dropped my cholesterol. Modified stress responses. I was feeling great. I had conquered the cardiac event.

Wrong.

Heart attack #2 was a nasty little bugger. Hit me on a flight to Salt Lake City. I was headed out to teach my Leadership Maxims class. It ended up being the first class I’ve missed teaching in 12 years of running this business. It wasn’t fair. I was in shape. I was eating well. I was managing stress…Kind of.

A chunk of plaque blocked my obtuse marginal artery. Such B.S. ended up with a third stent. Missed teaching the class (although my client was unsurprisingly understanding of my dilemma). I quit caffeine after that one. That was painful but green tea isn’t a bad substitute.

Where am I going with all this?

It’s easy to fall out of good habits.