Communications – Page 52 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

3 Simple Steps for Driving Your Audience to Action

June 20, 2008/0 Comments/in Communications, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger, has been gracious enough to have me as a guest blogger. The article is about how you can communicate and persuade more effectively through better audience connections. Those connections are built by starting with the audience and working backwards. To read about Hobbes, WIFY, and pushing buttons, check out my post on Copyblogger.

Copyblogger has over 37,000 subscribers and over 100,000 unique monthly site visitors.

The Guardian named Copyblogger one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs.
Advertising Age ranks Copyblogger as a top 5 blog about marketing.
Technorati says Copyblogger is one of the 50 most popular blogs in the world, and a top 20 favorite among readers.
The editors of Performancing honored Copyblogger founder and editor Brian Clark by naming him the most influential blogger of 2007, and he came in at number 30 among the 50 most influential bloggers compiled by top blogger Leo Babauta.

In other words, Copyblogger is a pretty reputable place to get published. I’m grateful to Brian for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with his readers.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Photo: Number 3 by Richard Whitaker

Outlookicide

June 2, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

Meetings give me a rash. A really bad one. One that not even calamine lotion can soothe. The only things worse than meetings are reports. Standard daily reports, weekly reports, hourly reports. Reports on the status of reports. If I wasn’t already insane, these things would drive me insane.

Take a look at your Outlook for this week (or if you’re a rebel, look at your Lotus Notes). How much time is spoken for already? How little time is left for you to actually get stuff done? Now take a look at your inbox. How many Excel files are in there with their thousands of rows of data that no one will look at until some SVP gets bored, opens one up and asks a random question about a data point no one has looked at in months? Even more alarming is if you have folders in your Outlook dedicated to storing each of these reports so you can quickly answer said random questions because you have the reports conveniently stored on your laptop. By the way, they’re probably also stored on a shared drive somewhere so you’ve now doubled the amount of data storage space required for this crap repository.

Fear not my friends. There is a cure.

I never want to be [sic]k

May 19, 2008/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

Reading the news (or even your email) can be distressing and can drive one to the point of despondency. It can also be fun. It’s especially fun when people say or write silly stuff and the reporter has to write “[sic]” after a misspelling or stupid comments in the original transcript. “[Sic]” technically means “Thus; so. Used to indicate that a quoted passage, especially one containing an error or unconventional spelling, has been retained in its original form or written intentionally.” Said more simply, it’s a way for the author of the article to point out the person they’re quoting can’t spell quite as well as they can or to indicate the speaker speaks funny.

To be clear, I never want to be [sic]. Being [sic] means I forgot to hit the spell check button before I put something in the pubic [sic] domain (See? It can be funny!). It means I’ve been less than attentive to basic tenants [sic] of professionalism. It reflects poorly on me and really tests the patients [sic] of my readers. In some cases, it reflects a certain level of disrespect for my audience as it implies they’re not even important enough for me to spell check before presenting an idea to them. At the very least it indicates I don’t have enough spare change to buy a pocket dictionary or buy web access to get to dictionary.com.

I’m not saying I’m bettor [sic] than people who misspell things. I’m simply trying to point out that the one minute you save by not proofreading something costs you immeasurably in terms of your own personal brand equity. I saw a massage [sic] the other day where the author was exhorting people to do their diligence on companies before interviewing with them because “failing to do so can undermine your creditability [sic].” Hmmmm. I’m thinking using “creditability” instead of “credibility” undermines your credibility more than not doing your diligence, no?

Rabid Ferrets In The Corner… Give Them An Out

May 13, 2008/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

Stupid stuff is going to happen. Expect it. It’s part of our complex and highly interdependent world. People will make mistakes. A lot of them. Layer on top of that some incredibly politically charged cultures (for more on that subject see “Hot Heads and Karma”) and there’s an abundance of potentially bad outcomes.

There will be times where stupid stuff will happen to you (and yes, there are times you will do stupid stuff – accept it as axiomatic). When really stupid stuff happens (known as “stoooooopid” stuff it’s so stupid), it can feel like others are conspiring against you. It can seem like a plot of Oliver Stonesque proportions. During those situations, the outcomes are mostly binary – you defuse the situation or it blows up sometimes causing irrepairable harm to your career or reputation. You may even have an urge to attack the responsible individual. Doing so can create a situation where they feel like a rabid ferret backed into a corner. When you create that dynamic, they’re most likely to attack back (and rabid ferrets can be NASTY!).

The good news is, there are ways to defuse these events simply by adopting the right mindset.

When you’re facing that little fang-baring whirling devil-spawned rodent, give them an out. Create a way for them to gracefully exit the situation without a full-on conflict. They want a fight as little as you do.

April Foolish Bad Office Behaviors To Kill

April 1, 2008/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

April Fool’s Day. One of my favorite days of the year. Usually I’ll find some nasty heart-stopping little gag to play (usually on my boss because it keeps him on his toes but now that I don’t have a boss, I guess I’m only fooling myself…). This year, I’m dedicating April Fool’s Day to calling out some of the foolish behavior we see and tolerate every day in our cozy little cubicles. While these aren’t the worst behaviors, they do make work a little less tolerable unless you can find the absurdity in said behaviors.

That being said, I’d ask everyone do their part to end the foolishness. Call it out. Kill it. Please.

So here are the foolish behaviors that made this year’s list:

1. Staff meetings
2. Sycophants
3. Stupid frameworks and acronyms
4. Stealing talent from another manager

So without further ado, let’s examine each of these practices so we may better eradicate them from the face of business…

Networking At The Breakfast Club

March 13, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

Okay everyone. Get out your legwarmers, neon, and feather your hair. We’re heading back to the awful 80’s to talk about The Breakfast Club. Okay, maybe not that kind of breakfast club but one that can help improve your career and job satisfaction dramatically. I’ve been part of a few breakfast clubs over the years and have found them entertaining and useful.

So what is it? No, it’s not detention on a Saturday with Anthony Michael Hall (which would be entertaining as long as he’s not fresh out of rehab). No the breakfast club is simple. It’s a group of coworkers who regularly meet for breakfast. Wow. Insightful stuff. But you know the brilliant things in life are usually simple and elegant. This is one of them.

The first breakfast club I was a member of I also founded. We called it bagel call. There was a cool little bagel shop next door to our office building. We were all consultants at the time and usually spent the majority of our week on the road at client sites. It was sometimes difficult to stay connected with friends and colleagues. One Friday morning, I went around the office and grabbed about six people and dragged them to the bagel shop for coffee and a shmear. We discussed current client engagements, whose engagement manager was a taskmaster, family, sports, whatever. It was a nice break from the week and a pleasant way to reconnect.

Consultative Selling: Solve My Problem – Not Yours

March 4, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Customer Service /by Mike Figliuolo

Everyone has goals these days. The one that causes more disconnects than any other is a sales goal. It’s a number to hit (either units or dollars or both – the better ones are actually measured in profit dollars rather than revenue dollars). They’re problematic because by their very nature they get a salesperson to focus on their needs (hitting their goal) versus the needs of the customer (finding a solution to a problem). The best salespeople truly use a consultative selling approach. The others? Well, they’re just annoying. They throw around phrases in their sales rooms like “Okay guys! It’s time to get your checkup from the neck up! It’s go time! Everyone start smilin’ and dialin’!” Excuse me. I just barfed in my mouth a little…

I’ve had offers posed by both types of salespeople and I too have sold (sometimes like a huckster in my misguided youth but more consultatively as I’ve learned better). Allow me to offer some scenarios.

I was in the market for a software solution. Nothing major – just some basic functionality that would help me grow my business. I needed cheap (not a lot of budget dollars available), fast (I was trying to grow quickly), and easy (our technology department did not have a bevy of available resources to throw at this). I spoke with a few providers. One of them had a very cool solution. It had bells. It had whistles. If you pushed the right combination of buttons it would make you a frappuccino. It was expensive. Very expensive but somewhat justifiably so given all the features. I explained our challenges to the salesman.

Serving Customers is Easy – Just LISTEN

February 11, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Customer Service, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

You’ve already been exposed to a few of my customer service diatribes and bad customer service experiences in Customer Disservice. You’ve also seen how little things make a huge difference in my post on Customer Service Without Boundaries. What’s the difference? Two little awkwardly shaped pieces of cartilage covered with skin (and in my case a few errant black hairs that I occasionally have to pluck so I don’t look like Ernest Borgnine). Figure it out? EARS!

Listening makes all the difference. Whether or not your front-line employee (or even you for that matter) takes that moment to genuinely not just hear, but absorb and appreciate the concern of your customer is the determinant of which way the interaction will go. Use your ears and everything will be okay. Fail to do so and you could potentially create a blogger who has no problem whatsoever berating your or your company in front of millions (I’m a nice guy though – I don’t name names…).

“Thanks Mike. Helpful advice. ‘Listen.’ Gee whiz… you’re like the Yoda of customer service. You’ve given me nothing helpful or practical in this post. You must have been a consultant at some point in your career…” You must be a new reader (welcome to the blog by the way!). Regular readers of these posts know the drill. I tee up an issue, highlight why it’s important, tell a story or two, occasionally soliloquize, then give you one or two real-world tools to try out in your business. Strap in. Here we go.

Managerial Miscues: The But(t) Sandwich

January 31, 2008/3 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

A really cool thing happened today – I had a referral come to this blog from a prestigious newspaper’s website forum on career and management styles. At first I was like “Wow! I’ve been noticed by a leading periodical.” Then I read the content of one of the posts on the site and lost my mind. No – the post wasn’t something bad about me or my blog. It was offering advice that made me cringe as a professional manager.

The advice was about how to give critical feedback to your team members. It suggested:

“Use the ‘sandwich technique.’ When delivering a critique, it’s important to censure the behavior, not the individual. One of the easiest ways to encourage receptivity is to preface your criticism with a positive statement about the person’s job performance or character. Once you’ve fortified his ego, deliver the bad news. Ensure that he received the message, and knows how to correct the situation. Then close the conversation with an affirmation.”

Pardon me. I just had an embolism.

Sorry. I don’t subscribe to this particular way of doing business. Where I come from, we call the above “The But(t) Sandwich.” You’re offering kind words at the beginning and end (the bread) and the criticism in the middle (the meat). The word “but” typically separates the bread from the meat and the meat from the bread. Unfortunately, while it looks appetizing on the menu, it goes down like a butt (deliberately spelled with two t’s) sandwich. Allow me to elaborate:

Getting to “Yes” – Does It Change The Answer?

January 28, 2008/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

At some level, all of us are looking to get a favorable decision on ideas we put forth. Whether it’s being able to hire someone new, launch a new project, make a sale, or get approval for an acquisition. Too often, though, we overlook an important and time-saving point – does what we’re proposing “change the answer?” If it doesn’t, we’re wasting time and energy because nothing will ever come of all our hard work.

Let me explain with a couple of examples. I was lobbying for an acquisition. I built the financial models and my recommendation was to do the deal. Another individual in the approval chain was reviewing the economic model and started pushing on some of the costs in the pro forma future P&L. He believed they were too low (and therefore we were overstating the benefits of doing the deal).

He and I went back and forth for about an hour on whether a particular ratio was 10.2% (my estimate) or 10.5% (his estimate). On another item in the model we argued over whether it should be $37,500 or $42,000 (my and his estimates respectively). We spent a lot of time in the conversation (we were talking by phone). Eventually, I got tired of the argument. I put him on speakerphone, muted my end and let him babble for a while (he wasn’t listening to me anyway). After a while I got bored listening to the diatribe and started messing with the model. I looked at the cells we were arguing about and simply popped 50% and $80,000 into the model just to humor myself. That’s when the light bulb went off – even with those numbers in the model, the deal still made good economic sense. I took my end off mute and quickly said “okay, I’ll use your numbers.” He was surprised with how easily and suddenly I rolled over.

“Great but why the sudden change?”

“No Longer A Customer” Service

January 21, 2008/1 Comment/in Communications, Customer Service, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Is the customer REALLY always right? We throw that comment around haphazardly without truly considering the ramifications of such an approach. I’d submit that they’re not. There are plenty of times the customer is wrong (and sometimes, very much so).

First, let’s explore the implications of a “customer is always right” approach. On the upside, they are right in that they perceive a problem. They believe they are not getting the service they deserve. Treating a customer with the utmost of respect in this situation is absolutely good business. There’s nothing more infuriating than being blown off or not listened to as a customer (for a good example, see this post on customer disservice). Treating the customer with respect, whether the issue is resolved in their favor or not, will at least have them telling their friends they were treated appropriately. While they may not be exceedingly happy with the outcome, they won’t be out there bashing your company for both problems AND bad service.

So let’s explore a problem where the customer’s request is outside the bounds of what your company would ordinarily deliver. The customer might be asking for something because they’re not clear on what your organization delivers or promises. In these cases, sometimes a simple education of the product’s features (or lack thereof) can bridge the disconnect from their expectations to what you deliver. Okay. That problem is solved.

But what if they aren’t satisfied? What if they’re still insistent that they’re “the customer and the customer is always right?” What if they’re asking for something outside the bounds of what you can or should deliver? Let’s look at a real example. Read more

Strategic Planning: “Budget +10%” Isn’t a Strategy

January 16, 2008/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Everyone wants to do “strategy.” Everyone wants their stuff to be “strategic.”

Strategic Plan
Strategic Facilities Expansion
Strategic HR Sourcing
Strategic Restroom Cleaning Schedule

The word “strategy” is being abused so badly it needs counseling.

Wikipedia says “A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often ‘winning.'” Everyone wants to win. And sometimes winning means increasing financial performance by 10%. The problem is many organizations use the end metric to define their strategy. To be clear – financial or numerical results FOLLOW from strategy (they don’t drive it). Strategy and the defined tactics and initiatives for executing it result in financial performance (hence the more oft used term “financial RESULTS”).

Why am I harping on this point? Simple. Define your strategy as “budget +10%” (or some other such ROMA-based number) and your team will have no idea what they’re supposed to do to achieve it. Instead, provide them a goal and vision then clearly lay out the competitive environment, how you’ll compete, what initiatives you’ll pursue, then execute. Doing this means your odds of hitting your magical budget +10% goal go up dramatically.

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