What Living in a War Zone Taught Me About Leadership

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barbed wire

In Beirut, Lebanon during 1973, five-year-old Elisa A. Schmitz first learned situational awareness—a leadership lesson she says is key to being visionary.

Today’s guest post is by Elisa Schmitz, author of Become the Fire: Transform Life’s Chaos into Business and Personal Success (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

It was 1973 and I was living in Beirut, Lebanon, when that country was a powder keg before its civil war. I was not quite 5 years old. One day, my siblings and I were on the sidewalk in front of our apartment building, walking with my father toward school. We had recently moved to Beirut, and I was still getting used to the new culture – for example, women dressed head to toe in flowing black, their faces carefully hidden behind fabric – and the unfamiliar language that was so different from the Spanish and English we spoke at home.

Ahead on the sidewalk, two women approached – dressed in that traditional garb – but their eyes kept darting to the rooftops. Then they started to run. I saw the fear in their eyes and felt a chill down my spine. In the next instant, I heard gunshots coming from the rooftops. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle and a wave of fear crash over me as the snipers shot at a car below.

That chill and that tingling on my neck screamed danger to me, and I knew I was not safe. I felt a grownup hand yank me hard as my dad hauled us back to our apartment. Later that night, shots rang out again. I stayed up all night, thinking that if I was the one to be awake and hear the shots, I could warn everyone. I thought my being aware could help keep us safe.

Being in Beirut triggered my dad to remember the pain of his own childhood, when his family was forced to flee war-torn Yugoslavia. But at the time, all I knew was that my dad was often sad. So, I would sing and dance or tell jokes to try to get him to smile.

Situational Awareness Is Key to Becoming Visionary

Living in a war zone taught me my earliest lessons in how to read the room, how to tune into my senses, how to adapt, how to turn the situation around. Situational awareness, which is key to being visionary.

As the chaos kept coming, it became a pattern in my life. Chaos is like that; it’s rarely just one thing. Whether I was dodging bullets in Beirut or bullies at school, I learned to rely on my situational awareness.

Using my senses, that mind-body connection, I learned to fine-tune my awareness of my surroundings and detect any potential threats – and possibilities. I listened to my body and looked for its cues. If I got a funky feeling in my stomach or the hair on my arms stood up, I paid attention. What was my gut trying to tell me? When I learned to focus on these sensations, I found that they were often preparing me to deal with some impending fire – or something even greater.

That mind-body connection enables you to see opportunity. That’s what it means to be visionary. You feel with intensity, you examine your environment for information, and you see opportunities that others often don’t.

Being Visionary Makes You a Better Leader

Reading the room, tuning into your senses, figuring out what they’re telling you about a situation, trusting your instincts, then acting on them. That’s how being visionary makes you a better leader.

This knowing inside enables you to be the kind of leader who can see around the corner into opportunities, then take action to bring the possibilities to life. The more situationally aware you are, the more visionary you can be. The more visionary you are, the greater your leadership success can be.

Situational awareness was burned into me during those war-torn times, which helped me to become visionary – and a better leader. Here’s how it impacted my career:

  • Situational awareness helped me envision ways to make life better: first with seeing a need for parenting information; later, with seeing a need for credible content on mobile devices.
  • That awareness enabled me to see business opportunities: with my first company, iParenting, acquired by Disney; later, with my second company, 30Seconds.com.
  • Situational awareness spurred me to take action, bringing the visions to life and growing them into media platforms for millions of unique users.

Taking leadership meant that I didn’t sit back and wait for someone else to find solutions to problems I saw. Once I recognized those problems as opportunities, I stepped up to find solutions – myself. The more situationally aware I was, the more visionary I became.

How to Enhance Your Situational Awareness and Become Visionary

You don’t need have to have lived in a war zone to develop situational awareness. Here’s how to enhance your situational awareness so you can become more visionary:

  • Always survey your environment. Think of ways to enhance your awareness of what’s going on around you – things like tuning into your senses and being more observant.
  • Think about any challenges in your life where you wish there were solutions. Come up with opportunities you may have to make life better.
  • Remember times when you may have experienced vision in your life. How have you already envisioned ways to make life better, no matter how big or small?
  • Look around at your friends and family, your customers, your boss. What do they need? How can you serve them better? Are there tools that would make life better? Write them down.
  • Don’t just dream about a better world or making a difference. Picture what that looks like and what you can do to bring that vision to life.
  • Act on the opportunities you see. Come up with actionable ideas – things like starting a side hustle, connecting with someone in the field you’re interested in, volunteering for a cause you’re passionate about.

However you choose to enhance your situational awareness, just keep at it. As you do, your vision will grow, making you a more successful leader.

become the fire bookIn her new book, Become the Fire: Transform Life’s Chaos into Business and Personal Success, Schmitz—a trailblazing Latina entrepreneur— shows how to transform obstacles that can block the progress of women and BIPOC into the unstoppable fuel of success. Schmitz shares her journey of how she sold her first business, iParenting, to Disney, started her current venture, and how other “outsiders” can achieve life-changing success.

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4 Essentials Every Challenger Brand Must Cultivate

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Successful challenger brands know where they stand, who they are, and how prepared they are to go to battle. They identify disruptive strategies, make distinctive promises and statements, and create and use a voice that’s unique to them.

Today’s post is by Mike Sullivan and Michael Tuggle, authors of The Voice of the Underdog: How Challenger Brands Create Distinction by Thinking Culture First (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

For those unfamiliar, challenger brands are those brands in second place, third place, seventh place, all chasing the category leader. Challengers are smaller, scrappier, and most often are brands where ambitions run high, but resources run low. Challengers cannot outspend their competition, so they outthink them instead. They start with a focused business strategy and look for opportunities to disrupt. Challenger brands don’t win by finding ways to play the game better. They win by changing it.

For every successful challenger brand, there are great examples of how they disrupted the status quo. When airlines started charging $25 a bag, Southwest Airlines said bags fly free. When fast food restaurants struggled to get orders right in the drive-thru, Chick-Fil-A built double drive-thrus and staffed them with smiling, helpful, appreciate people who took, checked, and double checked the accuracy of your order with a “my pleasure” at the end. When Blockbuster insisted people loved their neighborhood video rental store and would never go anywhere else, Netflix said we’ll see about that.

Disruption is the calling card for successful challenger brands. Take for example Franzia wines, and their beloved Charles Shaw Chardonnay affectionately known at Trader Joe’s and beyond as “Two Buck Chuck.” At the 2007 California Fair Wine Competition, Charles Shaw’s $2 Chardonnay beat out 350 other chardonnays in a blind taste test — some priced as high as $55 a bottle. So what did Franzia do to the price after winning the most prestigious wine competition in North America? Nothing. Two Buck Chuck stayed at $2 a bottle. When asked why, Charles Shaw winemaker Fred Franzia replied, “We choose to sell good quality wine for $2 a bottle because we think it’s a fair price. We think the other people are charging too much.” Disruption epitomized.

What every challenger brand needs

For challenger brands to lean into disruption and take on their stronger competitors, here are four essentials:

  1. A challenger strategy– To win, challenger brands have to devise a marketing strategy that challenges category conventions and doesn’t simply imitate the moves of the leader or other successful category competitors. Apple didn’t try to out-IBM IBM. Burger King can’t out-McDonald’s McDonald’s. Challenger brands never win by mimicking the category leaders. They win by challenging category convention and attracting the consumers drawn to that disruption.

Leadership teams for authentic challenger brands evaluate the competitive landscape with an eye toward changing something fundamental about the way they approach the business. In doing so, they create a new and distinctive competitive advantage. When this is accomplished successfully, it creates a new and clear path for a unique marketing strategy. Franzia could have marketed his Charles Shaw Chardonnay the way the category competitors did, but he would have missed a significant opportunity for category distinction.

  1. Challenger promises– Challenger brands must also make brand promises that aren’t easily duplicated by competitors. The promise must be solidly grounded in realdifferences created by the company’s state of mind — something it does best or is striving earnestly to do best. The key for success is that the promise must be authentic. It can’t simply be manufactured through advertising.

The authentic difference for the Charles Shaw brand isn’t that it’s an award-winning Chardonnay. The distinction is the company’s ability to sell it profitably for $2 a bottle, and its willingness — even desire — to do so. In a category driven by price breaks and promotions, Chick-Fil-A embraces neither. It promises and delivers exceptional products and service, and believes it’s worth the cost. Its customers agree and, as a result, in 2021 its stores averaged $5.9 million in sales doing business six days a week.

  1. Challenger statements– Challenger brands must be willing to make clear and compelling statements about what they are and what they’re not, who they’re for and who they’re not for. Famous challenger brands such as Red Bull, Southwest Airlines, and Motel 6 are very specific about what they have to offer and who they’re for. They’re also not afraid to position themselves clearly away from customer groups that aren’t in their crosshairs. Red Bull isn’t for ladies having a soda over lunch. Southwest Airlines isn’t for people who like to fly first class. Motel 6 most assuredly isn’t for the traveler who wants something more than a clean room at a great price.

Challenger brands aren’t afraid to limit their appeal at the expense of alienating those who will merely tolerate them. They’re laser focused on those who will love them. The benefit for the challenger brand is a fervently loyal core customer base.

  1. A challenger voice– Challenger brands are willing to amplify their strategies, brand promises, and statements through a unique voice. Their advertising and marketing communications look and sound different from their competitors. They say different things, make different promises, and command a different kind of attention in the marketplace. The state of readiness present in challenger brand leadership not only paves the way for unique and unconventional marketing and advertising, it compels them to seek it out.

Successful challenger brands know where they stand, who they are, and how prepared they are to go to battle. They identify disruptive strategies, make distinctive promises and statements, and create and use a voice that’s unique to them. Just as crucially, they embrace their company culture as a distinct advantage. Changing the game isn’t an easy proposition, but when you build a team that feels empowered, supported, inspired, and even loved, there’s no limit to the havoc you can create for your competitors and the success you can achieve as a challenger hungry to change the world.

underdog bookMike Sullivan is president and CEO of LOOMIS, the country’s leading challenger brand advertising agency. For more than 30 years, he’s helped some of the country’s most successful companies build their brands. Michael Tuggle is an award-winning creative director and writer with more than 25 years in the ad world building brands and growing companies. Their new book is The Voice of the Underdog: How Challenger Brands Create Distinction by Thinking Culture First (BizComPress, Aug. 10, 2020). Learn more at theloomisagency.com.  

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Sisters, Service, and Sales

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Customer service that is focused on customer relationships will impact your ability to make sales and to improve your business.

Today’s post is by Kate Edwards, author of Hello! And Every Little Thing That Matters (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

There is a scene in the Tina Fey/Amy Pohler film “Sisters” that is hilarious. The scene takes place in the dressing room of a trendy shop where the eponymous sisters go shopping for dresses for a party they are hosting that night. They go to a boutique and try on a number of party dresses, but they are clearly clueless. Each dress the sisters put on is completely unflattering as they wear the dresses in all sorts of inappropriate ways.

The shop clerk watches them in deadpan horror and her face expresses what we are all thinking: each dress is worse than the next. The clerk, however, doesn’t help them put the dresses on correctly or offer them sizes that fit; rather, she says “that looks amaaaazing” in a completely flat tone. This character is the epitome of the lackluster clerk who clearly has been told to compliment the customers. No. Matter. What.

Service that is inauthentic, unhelpful or pushy is the stuff of horrible Yelp reviews and comedic movie scenes. But service doesn’t have to be like that. Businesses that take time to connect authentically to their customers will build a client for life. And businesses that ignore service in the sales moment are doing themselves great harm as sales are based on a human connection. Here are some easy ways to connect with your customers that will make the sisters of your business – service and sales – shine.

Establish Customer Quotas, Not Sales Quotas

Too many businesses focus on the number of sales rather than the number of customers. You must remember that customers make sales. Ask your salespeople to create relationships with every type of customer – not just the ones they already know.

Read more

My CEO Career: Workplace Culture My Biggest Lesson

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Learn how an award-winning CEO transformed a once struggling organization by improving its workplace culture.

Today’s guest post is by Thane Lawrie, author of The Buddhist CEO (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

In this article I will tell you an interesting story about how I became a successful CEO and what I believe was my biggest lesson. I have just published a book called The Buddhist CEO, but in many ways I was the accidental CEO.

Ten years ago, I joined a large not-for-profit organization in my native Scotland. I was in charge of all their daily frontline operations and was part of a four-person senior leadership team. Four months into the job, our then CEO died suddenly due to a very unexpected illness. Cutting a very long story short, this resulted in me becoming the CEO.

It was clear to me that the organization was in some difficulty at the time. It had made significant financial losses for two years running, staff morale was low, and our services didn’t perform anywhere near the level they should. Some people might have said I had inherited a poisoned chalice. However, I was able to turn the organization around quickly. In my first year in charge, we made a small profit, staff morale increased significantly and our services started to dramatically improve.

How did I know things were improving? Improvements to the finances were easy to monitor by analysing our management accounts, but how did I know morale was improving? I decided that if the organization was to improve, we needed to boost staff morale. How could we expect staff to provide fantastic services if they didn’t enjoy their job? I set up meetings with different staff groups and asked them directly about what they liked and didn’t like about the company. Clear themes emerged. Staff really wanted to work for us as they loved the idea of helping people. We were a not-for-profit organization helping people to stay warm in their homes and were involved in other environmental projects. Our staff wanted to help people, but they felt our company got in the way.

They were unclear how their job contributed to the company, managers were reluctant to take decisions, nothing worked, the IT was useless, our company cars were old and broken, our phone system was frustrating to use, and they had no idea where the company was heading strategically. In the office, people were not always nice to each other as they were just so frustrated. I realized quickly that our workplace culture was awful and if we were ever to become a high functioning organization we needed to make significant changes and quick.

This was when I started to learn my biggest lesson as a CEO. Workplace culture matters and if it is broken then your organization will never be as successful as it could and should be. I set about fixing the structural issues first. A complete overhaul of our IT, company vehicles and telephone system. This was a big call at the time, after making such heavy losses for two years prior. The board took some persuading that spending more money was the way to go. The impact of this act alone was huge. Staff felt they were being listened to and they could see that things were now working.

I then set about trying to change the culture. I introduced the term ‘world class culture’ into our meetings, our policies and strategies. This lifted the aspirations of staff. I am not sure we ever became world class, but I am certain that just by introducing the notion that we were trying to deliver everything we do internally and externally, at a level that could be described as world class, raised everyone’s game. Our performance went from okay to very good/excellent. This resulted in more contracts coming our way, as partner organizations could tell they could trust us to deliver.

We then brought in an HR specialist to help us train our managers in how to be better leaders. I empowered them to take decisions on their own with clear instructions on when they had to push a decision up to their senior manager. In conjunction with staff, we developed company values that we agreed as a company and then held people to these values. We treated people well but we expected them to treat the company well. This meant that when a staff member clearly wasn’t acting in line with our company values, we intervened and addressed the behaviours being shown.

I believed the culture was changing from negative to positive, but how could I be sure? I decided to measure our culture and we entered the prestigious Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to work for in the UK awards. Why? As part of our entry, staff had to complete an anonymous survey asking them for their view on the company’s leadership, strategy, terms and conditions, ethos, their team, their manager and how we looked after their wellbeing. Every year we got a score which was benchmarked against other companies. Over time we could build up a picture of our culture through this and other measurements we used. To my surprise and delight, we were listed in the top 100 companies to work for in the UK during 6 of the 7 years I was in charge.

This is a brief outline of how I transformed a company. None of this was easy and it takes time and effort to really engage with your staff. In my experience though, it is always worthwhile putting this level of focus on your staff as they will go on to help your company thrive and achieve great success.

The person at the top sets the tone, so make that tone a positive and inspirational one. Put time and energy into developing an aspirational and supportive workplace culture. In my novel The Buddhist CEO, the main character sets out to lead like a Buddhist CEO, applying a compassionate and caring approach towards his staff. It brings his company great rewards, but he still faces great challenges.

the buddhist CEO

Thane Lawrie was CEO of an organization called Scarf, in his native Scotland, and is now an author. He recently published his first novel, The Buddhist CEO (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Thane also writes a regular blog on his website. You can follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BuddhistCeo or visit his website at https://www.thanelawrie.com/.

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Fostering an Ownership Mentality to Boost Your Business

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Employees are driven to perform their best when they feel a sense of ownership over their work. Fostering a company culture driven by a ‘we’re all in this together’ mindset is easy – here are 10 actionable strategies.

Today’s post is by Shaara Roman, author of The Conscious Workplace: Fortify Your Culture to Thrive in Any Crisis (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

When you think of an entrepreneur, you think of someone who is constantly hustling. They’re highly invested in their work, extremely driven, innovative, and agile. Now, wouldn’t it be great if all employees operated like that?

Of course you want your employees to work for you the way they would work for themselves…and it’s possible. By nurturing an ownership mentality, you can create a team of people who are genuinely invested in the ongoing success of the business. Your employees are more likely to go above and beyond when they understand how their contributions impact the success of the company — and how that success in turn impacts them.

Benefits of fostering an ownership mentality:

  • Higher engagement rate
  • Increased retention
  • Boosted innovation
  • More autonomy
  • Improved collaboration
  • Higher client/customer satisfaction
  • Better bottom line

Some people come to work with this attitude — this desire to give it their all because they’re genuinely invested and they know it will pay off. But the majority of employees tend to be more disconnected, with a mindset of simply getting the job done. So how do you get your employees to shift from thinking like an employee to thinking like an owner who is fully vested in the success of the business? Sure, you can foster ownership by ensuring employees have some skin in the game by offering financial incentives, but there are also several other ways to make that happen as well.

1. Model a win-win mentality

Adopt an abundance mindset and commit to the notion that there is enough to go around. Too often our talent programs pit people against each other and foster competition versus collaboration. Show your employees that the successes of the business are directly related to the individual — made possible by their hard work and also to be enjoyed by them. When the company thrives, the individual thrives, and vice versa.

2. Empower your people

Give your employees the authority and information to make meaningful decisions. Demonstrate your trust in their competence and refrain from micromanaging. The more empowered each individual feels, the more likely they are to feel engaged in the day-to-day and connected to the big picture.

3. Value your employee’s work

Be sure to regularly express praise and appreciation for all the hard work your team does, both on an individual and collective level. Positive reinforcement is a proven method, and the more you encourage your employees with words of affirmation, the more likely they are to want to continue to meet those standards. In fact, Gallup research shows that you should recognize people for their contributions at least every seven days.

4. Ask for each individual’s input

By asking your team for their input, you show them that you really care about what they have to say. Everyone wants to feel heard, and we all perform better when we have a say in what we’re doing / how we’re doing it. You can even go further and seek out employee input to the company’s strategy and new services or products.

5. Keep everyone in the loop

Communication is key, and it tends to go a long way. The more transparent you are with your employee-facing communications, the more included your people will feel. If your employees feel in the dark about the goings-on of the company, then they will feel disconnected from their work, their results, and their drive.

6. Foster inclusion and belonging

Creating a strong sense of community has all kinds of benefits. Prioritize your culture and your people, and you will see a team-driven work ethic emerge. When your employees feel accepted and connected to each other, they operate more like a family. ‘What’s good for you is good for me’ will start to be a common denominator, and this will show up in all that your employees do.

7. Give your employees a sense of purpose

People need purpose — it’s what drives us. When you show your employees that their work is meaningful and that their contribution is invaluable, they will care about what they’re doing. They will put their heart and soul into it, rather than getting by with the bare minimum. Establish a clear mission/vision/values and explain why it’s so important to the bigger picture and greater good.

8. Hold people accountable for their commitment to the team

Teamwork makes the dream work. Without the belief that ‘we’re all in this together’, there will likely be dysfunction and more self-centered behaviors. When those types of behaviors arise, it’s important to course correct by holding people accountable to a higher, team-oriented standard.

9. Hire individuals who already have a sense of ownership over their work

This ‘sense of ownership’ attitude is contagious, and the more people on your team who feel this sense of ownership, the more likely they are to inspire others to adopt the same approach. While such a mindset can certainly be trained, it is of course easier when you’re working with people who are already inclined to think that way.

10. Minimize meaningless rules

Nobody likes having to jump through hoops. The more useless rules and protocols you have built into your organization, the further removed your employees are from having a sense of ownership. Ditch the needlessly rigid processes and instead emphasize trust and autonomy.

The relationship between employer and employed tends to be strictly transactional. By shifting that standard towards a more genuine sense of mutual care, you can ensure a higher level of success for your organization. Your greatest power lies in your people, you just have to shift the tone from the individual to the collective. Once your employees feel invested in the team, you will start to see a ripple effect.

the conscious workplace bookShaara Roman is the author of The Conscious Workplace: Fortify Your Culture to Thrive in Any Crisis and founder + CEO of boutique culture consulting firm, The Silverene Group. She works with executives to align their company’s leadership and culture with the business strategy and create programs to maximize the employee experience and productivity.

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The Best Leaders Are Comedians

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Leaders can learn a lot from comedians. They’re captivating public speakers, they practice economy of language, and they’re experts at insight. Insight is a critical leadership skill.

Today’s post is by Antonio Garrido, author of MY DAILY LEADERSHIP: A Powerful Roadmap For Leadership Success (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s the leader’s job to joke their way through the difficulties of the day. Nor am I saying that the leader’s job is to find something to lampoon in order to amuse others.

No, my argument is this: comedians are experts at insight: they are wonderful at drawing seemingly unrelated pieces of information together in new and unexpected ways. The best leaders have a similar gift: they have the ability to ‘see beyond the data’ and notice patterns, trends, or truths that nobody else sees. And then, like comedians, when they draw attention to the path of their particular perspective, suddenly everyone else sees it too – this is insight in action.

Comedy is Insight in Action

Have you ever noticed how often comedians say, “Have you ever noticed how…?”?

Have you ever noticed how…

you’re never quite sure whether it’s okay to eat green crisps.

triangle sandwiches taste so much better than square ones.

you’ll always pour a glass of water from the sink faucet, but never ever the bath faucet.

“Have you ever noticed how…?” is an example of cultural referencing and looking at the world from a different perspective. Comedians are brilliant at finding ways to come up with a new way of perceiving the world. We don’t see insight till we see it, and then once we do, we can’t ever unsee it. The best leaders do the same. The best leaders use insight to see what others don’t or can’t yet.

Great Leadership is Also Insight in Action

If real leadership is about ‘future proofing’ (future proofing themselves, their people, and their business), then the ability to see the as-yet unseen or unrevealed is critical. This is why Steve Jobs insisted the iMac was launched in four bright colors (not beige), because he realized color is a critical way for people to express themselves. Insight. This is why Bata Shoes opened a shoe factory in Africa where nobody wore shoes, because they saw a potential opportunity where every other shoe manufacturer saw, well, a market where nobody wore shoes. Insight. And this is why Sam Walton of Walmart insisted on building superstores between towns, and not in them, because of lower rates and fewer competitors. Insight.

Insight, as comedians will tell you, can be developed. And you can’t get more insightful without getting more creative. Creative insight is what we’re after. The most creative leaders are, at their core, playful – playing with ideas and scenarios and messages. Great leaders have creativity sessions actually scheduled on their weekly calendar.

Take a look in your calendar right now. Go to next week. How many scheduled, blocked-off slots are there for “thinking” or “creative time” or “idea generation?” How many?

Count again. None? Exactly.

What you should see in your calendar is forty-five minutes peppered here and there for blue-sky thinking and ideation. Or even better, five minutes every morning and evening dedicated to creative thinking in your Leadership Journal. If you don’t make time for creativity, for insight development, you’ll find a million less important tasks to do.

As the extraordinarily insightful Maya Angelou once said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.”

Lighthearted, Not Lightweight

The best leaders, like comedians, are lighthearted, not lightweight: we often confuse the two, but there’s a difference.

I’ll never forget how one of the best leaders that I ever had the pleasure of working for always took time to start every speech with an amusing anecdote or observations (insight). He used this insight skill to great effect too when studying a lengthy balance sheet, or considering the salient KPIs of a particularly complex plan.

He would even charge the HR departments to specifically identify candidates who would test high for insight when recruiting new leaders.

Here’s an example of how this inspirational leader would begin a typical meeting. How’s this for the opening line of an annual general board meeting to announce that year’s performance? It’s probably important to note that the company was a world-leading lock-maker with global revenues of around 100 billion.

He began, “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending our annual general meeting. It’s a little-known fact that my entire work life has been involved in security in one way or another. You probably don’t know this, but my first ever job was selling security alarms door to door. I was really, really good at it. I’d knock and if there was no one at home, I’d always leave a brochure on the kitchen table. They’d call me right away.”

Okay, so that’s not the best joke you ever heard, but for that particular audience it was the perfect opener to a discussion that would at times, he knew, be rather difficult. It probably goes without saying that this particular leader was a master at insightful strategy development.

Insight is a Key Leadership Differentiator

In terms of leadership, insight is one of the key differentiators – it separates the best from the rest. Insight allows the leader to peek into the future and helps them to start creating a pathway into it today.

Too many leaders rely on their intellect, or experience, or tried and tested methodologies. Unfortunately, though, the future is increasingly uncertain. This means that new directions and new and uncertain futures will require, if anything, new insights. Wayne Gretzky skated to where the puck is going to be, and not to where it is now – and that’s the leader’s job too. Intellect and experience might have got you here, but insight, will get you there.

In closing, comedian George Burns probably said it best: “Look to the future – because that is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.”

garrido bookAntonio Garrido, author of MY DAILY LEADERSHIP: A Powerful Roadmap For Leadership Success, has over twenty-five years in senior leadership positions with world-class businesses. He is a serial entrepreneur, successful business coach, author, and charismatic speaker.

For more information, please visit www.MyDailyLeadership.com

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The Human Dimension – The Forgotten Element of Performance Measurement (PM)

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office presentation

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. 

Today’s post is by Bryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty, authors of THE LEADERSHIP-DRIVEN METHOD TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: The How-To Book on Improving Performance Measurement In The Public And Not-For-Profit Sectors (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

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.

LDM bookBryan Shane and Patricia Lafferty are the authors of THE LEADERSHIP-DRIVEN METHOD TO PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT: The How-To Book on Improving Performance Measurement In The Public And Not-For-Profit Sectors. They are also co-founders of BPC Management Consultants, a client-centered, management-consulting firm based in Ottawa.

For more information, please visit www.bpcgallery.com.

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Creativity Does Not Make Innovation Happen. Execution and Leadership Does.

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When it comes to innovation, focus is way more important than creativity.

Today’s post is by Alex Goryachev, author of FEARLESS INNOVATION: Going Beyond The Buzzword To Continuously Drive Growth, Improve The Bottom Line, And Enact Change (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

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.

fearless innovation bookAlex Goryachev, author of FEARLESS INNOVATION: Going Beyond The Buzzword To Continuously Drive Growth, Improve The Bottom Line, And Enact Change, is the former managing director of Cisco’s global Co-Innovation Center, where he spearheaded programs and initiatives to accelerate innovation. Goryachev is a Silicon Valley veteran who is a sought-after speaker on innovation and is often referred to as the ‘innovation therapist’.

For more information please visit www.alexgoryachev.com

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Watch Out for Silver Bullets!

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silver bullets

Jim Everhart explains why every marketing program needs strategic messaging.

Today’s post is by Jim Everhart, author of BRAND VISION: The Clear Line Of Sight Aligning Business Strategy and Marketing Tactics (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

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.

brand vision bookJim 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.

For more information, please visit www.brandvisionbook.com

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Question Everything Always

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pile of question marks

There are no stupid questions. There are only stupid people who don’t ask questions.

Today’s post is by Gary Douglas, the founder of Access Consciousness®.

People have always told me that the way I do business is different. I may indeed have a slightly different point of view about most things in life – and I’ll change my point of view on a dime. I question everything all the time.

Innovation occurs when you are willing to be in the question and to ask a question always. Whatever conclusions we come to become the limitation of what we can actually achieve and receive. Don’t assume: “We’ve got this part of the business right,” which is what Kodak did. They assumed: “We’ve got it right. There will always be film.” They didn’t get innovative. They knew about digital and electronic imaging.

Did Kodak look at that and ask: “Which is the direction we need to go? What do we need to create here?” Or did they go to the conclusion that they would always have the answer? Once you decide that you have the answer, nothing that doesn’t match your conclusion can come into your awareness. You’ve got to be willing to see what kind of awareness you could have if you were willing to question.

The purpose of a question is to gain awareness. With increased awareness, different possibilities become available to you. When you become aware of the possibilities, you can make choices. Choice creates. With each choice, you can look at: “If I choose this, what will this create?”

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5 Managerial Behaviors to Improve (and 5 Habits to Avoid) for Hybrid Managers

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number 5

We took a recent survey of 1,000 employees and compiled the top behaviors that hybrid managers can improve (and avoid) to keep their team engaged and productive.

Today’s post is by Alyssa Mertes, Lead Copywriter at Quality Logo Products

Managers face unique challenges leading hybrid teams across multiple work environments. The good news is that many hybrid managers appear to excel at it. A new Quality Logo Products survey on boss habits reveals that over half (51%) of hybrid employees think their bosses manage employees “very well.” On this measure, hybrid managers outperformed both their remote (45%) and on-site (39%) counterparts.

In today’s challenging employment landscape, however, businesses need to do all they can to retain and engage quality employees. This often starts with improving relationships and satisfaction in the workplace. In fact, around 64% of employees surveyed said that their relationship with their boss is their most important one at work.

In this article, we’ll discuss five managerial behaviors to improve and five to avoid to keep your hybrid team happy and productive.

The Top 5 Managerial Behaviors to Improve

  1. Communicate well

If you want to improve your workplace leadership in a hurry, your communication skills make a great place to start. While nearly half (48%) of employees say that hybrid bosses communicate “very well,” it’s hard to overestimate the importance of this skill. In fact, employees ranked interpersonal communication style as the second most important management quality in a boss.

Your team members need useful information that helps them understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Good communication requires both clarity and transparency, whether that means explaining your expectations well, providing the necessary context for projects, or owning up to your own mistakes as a manager.

  1. Listen thoughtfully

Good communication starts with careful listening. If you’ve always thought that strong leadership means doing most of the talking, try to flip the script and spend more time listening. Keeping your ear on the ground not only generates goodwill with your employees, but can also lead to improvements in team productivity and maybe even some innovative ideas for the company.

  1. Respect your team’s opinion

Make your listening even more meaningful by valuing what team members bring to the table. An overwhelming 83% of employees said that respecting others’ opinions is a key attribute of a good boss. Employees who feel valued are more likely to respond in kind by respecting others, exhibiting honesty, and maybe even going the extra mile for you.

  1. Treat employees fairly

Full-time employees spend around one-third of their waking hours at work. So, feeling that their boss treats them fairly can make a huge difference in overall satisfaction—in fact, 91% of employees say they want fairness from their boss. Try to delegate tasks equitably, give credit where it’s due, and present any negative feedback privately rather than calling out employees in front of others.

  1. Give feedback often and positively

Nearly half (46%) of hybrid employees think their bosses give feedback “very well,” but that means over half think otherwise. No one likes to work in a vacuum, but the dangers of disconnection rise for employees working remotely.

Take steps to raise your visibility by regularly acknowledging your employees, encouraging informal check-ins, and letting them know they can contact you with questions or feedback. Always remember to keep it positive: providing actionable feedback in a constructive rather than destructive style can make the difference between demoralizing team members and inspiring them to do their best.

The Top 5 Managerial Habits to Avoid

  1. Talking down to employees

More than any other attribute, employees dislike condescension in their boss. Around 78% of professionals indicated this as a mark of a bad manager. When a boss exhibits arrogance—whether by acting superior, talking down to employees, or simply wasting people’s time in meetings—workplace morale can suffer.

  1. Creating a negative work environment

Striving for a competitive edge in business does not mean that your business’s work environment needs to feel competitive. Nearly three-quarters of employees surveyed named “creating a hostile or competitive work environment” as a major negative in a boss.

Just like in sports or any other team environment, infighting weakens the group rather than strengthens it. A great leader knows how to make a team competitive without pitting its members against each other in a negative way.

  1. Micromanaging your employees

If you think that micromanaging poses less of an issue for remote employees, you are right—but that doesn’t make it any less important. In fact, hybrid bosses may rate more highly with employees because they don’t stand over them telling them what to do. Micromanaging ranked as the number three characteristic of the worst bosses, with 75% of employees saying they dislike it in a manager.

  1. Appearing out of touch

When describing a bad boss, one of the worst characteristics that employees chose was “out of touch.” Even more than “pushy,” “annoying,” or “inept” bosses, employees don’t like leaders who don’t seem to understand the realities of what they do every day. Listening thoughtfully and respecting your team’s opinion will help you stay in touch with their needs.

  1. Blaming employees when things go wrong

Good managers give credit to their team. Great managers never take credit themselves, unless they’re taking credit for failures. While it may not always seem fair, part of being a leader is having extra responsibility. Your job involves figuring out how to get the best out of your employees, not blaming them when things go wrong.

Conclusion

If you manage a hybrid team, take heart that hybrid employees are generally more satisfied with their bosses than their remote or in-person counterparts. To make sure your team members feel the same, keep raising your own personal bar with some of the tips suggested in this article. Your employees will appreciate it—and hopefully stick around for the long haul!

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Even the Best Leaders Can Be Ageist – Make Sure You’re Not One of Them

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Learn how leaders can get ahead of any age-related problems in their workplace and create a truly diverse and age-inclusive workforce.

Today’s post is by Patti Temple Rocks, author of I’m STILL Not Done: It’s Time to Talk About Ageism in the Workplace (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

If there is a common trait among all the great leaders that I have worked with throughout my 4-decade career it is that they have high standards – for themselves and those they lead. They are measured (rigorously) on their performance so if you bring them a problem, they will solve it quickly. Sales are down? Let’s mix up territories. Growth has stalled? Invest in the innovation pipeline. Recession headwinds getting stronger? Tighten spending. Wrongful dismissal due to age discrimination lawsuit? Call HR and write a settlement check.

But there is another common trait I have observed among those leaders – at least the ones I admire and like the best – they genuinely and deeply care about their people. Those leaders would not just write the check to make the problem go away, they will understand that behind that litigation there is a much longer story and most likely an employee who is hurting.

Here is how leaders can get ahead of any age-related problems in their workplace and create a truly diverse and age-inclusive workforce.

Do Your Research. Assess Your Organization

The first and not surprising task is data based and straight-forward. Do some Google searching, and it will take no time at all to confirm that ageism is rampant in the workplace. In May of 2021, an AARP reported that an astounding 78% of workers between 40 and 65 had either witnessed or experienced ageism on the job. That is the highest number they’ve ever reported and up a whopping 17% since before the pandemic. Your Google search will also find all the stats on the cost of litigation and that the American Bar Association predicts even more age-related lawsuits post-pandemic. You will conclude that ageism is in the workplace is an issue

But…maybe you might think, ‘well yes, but not here.’ That is when you need to move on to the next phase of your research.

The Mirror Test

You can’t solve a problem you don’t understand so I recommend engaging your teams to hold a mirror up to your own organization. Direct your HR team to conduct an employee census to determine if the age groups that work for you represent the general population (spoiler alert: most do not). Look at the stats of the voluntary and involuntary quits. I can assure you very few of your voluntary quits will be over 50. Research shows that the most loyal and engaged employees are in that age cohort. Ask your recruiting department to review your job postings for ageist language. Your marketing team should review your website – all your external messages – to ensure that all age groups are represented visually as well is in the written word. Re-read your DE& I policy – does it specifically call out age as category for protecting (don’t be shocked if it doesn’t). What is your standard practice for discussing retirement with your employees? And if you have a practice at all, congratulations, you’re in the 10% club.

By looking honestly at your company, the chances are good that you will discover that ageism is an issue for your organization as well. And an issue that you must address.

But, as a leader as empathetic as you are decisive, there is a much more important task you must take on.

Lead by Walking Around

This is not a new idea – it was originated by HP’s David Packard in the 1940’s and popularized by 80’s and 90’s business guru, Tom Peters – but it remains viable today, even if walking around is now a Zoom call.

As concrete and definitive as some of the legal markers of age discrimination are there are many more that are not. Older workers talk constantly of feeling marginalized from being excluded from meetings or talked over in the meetings they are invited to. They don’t understand why they are no longer considered for training opportunities or for that new job opportunity in an expanding market or division. They tell me about having to smile through gritted teeth at some of the ageist comments or jokes people make. I suspect that much of this ageist behavior is non-intentional and likely based on some unconscious and long-held biases about older people in general. But intentional or not, these all add up to an employee who can’t help but feel devalued or diminished – some even go so far as to say they feel “invisible” in the workplace.

Ugh. It hurts my heart to hear about what the end years of long, successful careers are like for many. Leaders do so many things right to make sure they have an engaged, happy, and productive workforce but many miss the boat when it comes to ensuring the same for their older workers. No one should have to feel this way (presuming the obvious, that they are adding value to the company) simply because they got older.

I promise you, if you walk around – virtually or otherwise – and talk to your workers over 40, and especially those over 50 and invite them to talk freely and without judgement about their feelings and experiences as an older worker you will be both enlightened and motivated to do better.

I know I was.

Im Still Not Done BookOver the course of an impressive four-decade career, Patti Temple Rocks has held senior leadership positions in three different sectors of the communications industry: PR, advertising, and client side. She served as the Chief Communications Officer for The Dow Chemical Company and Chief Reputation Officer for Leo Burnett Worldwide. She is an inspirational leader, builder of teams, creative thinker, problem-solver, and agent of change.

The author of I’m Still Not Done: It’s Time to Talk About Ageism in The Workplace, Patti is passionate about discussing and fighting age discrimination and helping people understand how ageism stunts business growth and reflects poorly on our society. As a public speaker and consultant, Patti works with businesses that wish to change for the better and implement effective practices to fight ageism in the workplace. During her impressive career in marketing and advertising, her valuable ideas and strategies were implemented by world-class organizations including McDonalds, Unilever, Bacardi, and Walmart. To learn more about ageism and get in touch with Patti, visit http://imnotdone.rocks.

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