Preston Leadership Blog

So You Want to Start Your Own Business?

People who know me know that I am generally an optimist. And I enjoy helping people get where they want to go in their careers and their lives. That's what coaches do. But when someone says, “I’m thinking about starting my own business”, my reaction is always the same: “Are you sure?” 

If you’ve read “The e-Myth Revisited”, you know that most entrepreneurs imagine their lives as business owners quite differently from what turns out to be the reality. Short of an infusion of cash that, at least temporarily, removes one huge headache, those who venture out on their own are in for some rude awakenings.

First, you’re responsible for everything. Let that sink in for a minute. My rule was, “if I don’t do it, it won’t get done,” and that is certainly true at the beginning. Those who have become accustomed to ample resources that help them get things done will need to learn a bunch of new skills right away - or have the cash to pay other people to do it. Most times, you’ll be tempted to save your cash and do-it-yourself.

Next, you will no longer have the benefit of the clout you acquired in your corporate life. Without a well-known company name behind yours, you won’t get easy access to decision-makers; you won’t get fast responses, and you won’t feel that warm corporate allegiance and identity an employer gives you. Eventually you’ll form a new identity, but it takes time. Put that on your list of things to do: Create a corporate identity and get people to care about it.

One old saying about entrepreneurship has certainly been true for me: The highs are higher and the lows are lower. With a limited financial cushion, almost no clout, and limited expertise, most entrepreneurs need to dig deep most days. Rejection and delays happen; world economies tank, and prospects change their minds or lose their budgets.

Do you need some slick collateral, a fancy website, and the means to travel for business development purposes? What about technical and administrative resources to help you make all this stuff happen? Guess what – that’s all you. How many hours are there in a day again? Not enough. How many hours can you work without losing your mind? Plan on 10,12,14-hour days for months on end. Scared away yet?

If you are fortunate enough to get an injection of cash and access to expertise, that’s half the battle. Most new entrepreneurs don’t have these things. Serial entrepreneurs learn this lesson early: You need cash and you need some expertise you don’t have. First time entrepreneurs are boot-strappers. They are working in their pajamas until 2 or 3 pm before they realize they haven’t eaten, brushed their teeth or dressed for the day. They struggle constantly with prioritization. They push themselves in ways they never expected to. Forget about your comfort zone. Most fail. So why is it so alluring?

For many years, (starting way back in 1984), I have worked for and around entrepreneurs. I finally took the plunge myself in 2004 with no large injection of cash. There were so many things I had never done, and I made mistakes. I wasted money (my own, not investors'), and actually got traction for 3 years before the “Great Recession.” In 2010, things picked up where they left off, thankfully.

One thing I've noticed: entrepreneurs are truly a different breed. And within that breed, there is one huge differentiator: money. People who start out with a big bank account full of other peoples’ money are one subset. Those who have a portion of their life savings they are (somewhat) willing to lose are another. But regardless of their access to capital entrepreneurs must have thick skin, be dreamers, and be smarter than the average bear.

For me it’s uncharacteristic, but I don’t always encourage people to start their own business. When people say to me that they’ve always wanted to, and they have a great (untested) idea, that’s all well and good. But do they have the means and the constitution to move to the bottom of the ladder at their age and go it alone? There are big realities to understand, and in my experience, most dreamers underestimate them.

There’s no shortage of advice on starting and running a business. One could spend months just reading all the advice out there, then many more months deciding which to believe. It’s foolhardy to advise people to “just do it” when the fail ratio is so high. Better guidance should come in the form of questions, starting with the first one: Do you really know what you’re getting into?

Bottom line: Would I do it again? Definitely!

The Work in Studying a Situation

I find myself rushing to conclusions more often these days. Sometimes I worry that I’m missing important considerations, sometimes I don’t.

Fortunately, like the vast majority of us, I’m right more often than I’m wrong. If humans were wrong more often than right, the universe would move at a snail’s pace. If we had to think about routine tasks every time we had to perform them, our conscious minds would be totally overloaded. So we find shortcuts, and that’s not new to human beings.

Part of our eagerness to “just make a decision!” comes from our ancient survival instincts. The faster we can sum up a situation, the more likely we are to make the best of it, and maybe come out the other side alive. When our ancestors first started to truly reason and contemplate potential consequences, they had already been using some form of verbal language/sounds for a long time. But soon enough, they needed a new phrase, a new concept altogether: “what if?”

This stuff fascinates me. Our ability to consider complex consequences in a somewhat uncertain future with partial information is perhaps one of the most important human developments of all time. We plan, at some level, almost constantly, but most of it is subconscious.

Interestingly, another absolutely critical human intelligence milestone was the ability to draw, or to “depict” as scientists like to say. But this is important, because combined with the ability to plan and anticipate consequences was when influence really took hold as a leadership method. Before that we could only threaten, now we could persuade. 

 Influence in leadership is like chocolate in a Hershey bar. Incredibly, some leaders still rely on fear and intimidation to get results through other people. That’s not just outdated, it’s primitive. Sometimes it helps to remember that when you’re up against a leader whose style is all bluster and threats.

 Back to my our propensity to rush to conclusions. My brain is lazy. But wait, so is yours, according to David Eagleman in “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain”. It simply takes more time and energy to imagine and deliberate potential solutions and courses of action. Both hemispheres of our brains need to engage, and one wins. 

 So, when energy and time are limited and finite, our brains learn shortcuts which get reinforced quickly. We develop successful habits this way. While faster decisions can enable faster action and improve our odds of success against a physical threat, often times it pays to think through a situation when the stakes are high. Some of us have to fight against this more diligently than others.

As the Car Talk guys say, sometimes we’re “unencumbered by the thought process”. Who hasn’t been every now and then?

Communicate Differently in 3 Ways in 2013

Whether you’re hoping for significant advancement in your career or maybe in your personal relationships, time spent on three key communication skills will be time well spent. There have been 9 zillion books written on communication techniques, so you may decide to start with a good one. Or, if you don’t, you can start with these three essential ingredients.

You’re bound to notice a difference in the way people respond to you at work and at home when you:

1. “Seek to understand, then to be understood” (Stephen Covey). If listening is a lost art, then talking too much is graffiti. Sincerely paying attention to what others are saying and not saying (take notes if you need to), is a very powerful way to improve your effectiveness. But we all know people who talk too much. They never ask questions. They like to one-up. It’s tiring. Be an active listener and you might just learn something, not the least of which is how to respond most effectively. Develop the courage to break in; some people just start talking until the other person shuts up.
2. Sometimes start with the punchline. Sounds simple, but leading someone down a path for too long can damage your credibility. If you take too long to get to the point you will eventually lose your listener. Information needs to flow crisply, but not aggressively. State what’s important to you clearly and succinctly, remembering that speaking “at” someone rarely gets you anywhere. Make it a conversation and you’re more likely to get buy-in.
3. Learn to write more better! I really believe that everyone can improve his communication skills. Remember that what passes for interesting and effective in person can fall totally flat on paper. When your audience cannot see or hear you, they cannot pick up on non-verbal clues you normally send, such as enthusiasm - or lack thereof. I am surprised at how many really smart people don’t write well. Try listening to yourself annunciate what you want to say (in your head - use your inside voice), then write from that. When you drop some unnecessary formalities and big words, you begin to write like you sound. People will be more likely to tune in. 

 Maybe it would be easier to think of them as New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Try not to talk too much, and be a better listener.
2. Get to the point.
3. Work on written communication skills.

These are mine. Happy New Year!

Wow - a mistake!

One of my staff came to me this week and said, “Alan, I made a mistake.”

 I was thrilled. I said, “finally!”

She was puzzled. You may know her; she’s one of those people who almost never makes mistakes. She’s petrified of making them. She works really hard, and puts a lot of pressure on herself. She worries constantly. Healthy? No.

I believe that unless we make some mistakes, we’re not pushing hard enough. “You need to finish the game with 5 fouls,” was what one of my former bosses told me. Not stretching enough to screw up sometimes limits growth. Let’s be clear, though: I’m not talking about carelessness or making the same mistakes again and again.

If you’re not stretching and trying new things, you’re missing valuable opportunities to learn new skills and develop smarter ways of doing things. Until we get used to this reality, i.e. that mistakes are inevitable, we don’t grow. And isn’t it all about growth? 

My company holds itself to high standards, but sometimes we fail. We hold each other accountable and we expect a lot. Sometimes we mess up, but we learn and we try to move on quickly. (It’s the ‘moving on’ part where we stumble most often, but that’s another topic for another day).

My point is that mistakes are an important part of life and work. If we don’t push ourselves to take on more, to try new things, and to venture out of our comfort zones, we may lessen the probability of mistakes but we also put limits on our development. S/he who never fails, ultimately fails.

In order for people who fear mistakes to get over their fear and learn to stretch, you need to guarantee a safe environment for them to do so. If you freak out when people make mistakes, no wonder they're scared. Handle mistakes calmly, directly, and constructively. Relate some of your own mistakes. Ask for some follow up, e.g. a plan for preventing similar screw-ups from happening again.

Leadership is about developing others. You may think you're lucky to have a stressed out, burned out perfectionist who struggles day in and day out with insecurities. That's not sustainable. Push hard, accept mistakes, don't freak out, and work constructively to learn from them. It's really that simple.

A Reminder About the Solid Middle

We all have them. They’re not something we’d usually brag about. It would be rare to hear an executive sing their praises in public.

No, I’m not talking about a spare tire or a muffin top.

I’m talking about the armies, large and small, of people who form the very backbone of our organizations. Not flashy, these salt-of-the-earth types just get it done without fanfare, and without fail. When this core of support crumbles, you’ve got real problems.

Much has been written about how to manage high performers and low performers. Superstars tend to crave attention from the boss and, to the extreme, become high-maintenance restless team members. Nothing wrong with most of that, in moderation. When you learn how to manage (and retain) top talent and you can do great things. 

Then there are those at the bottom of the performance spectrum. Some are on their way out, most are disengaged, and all of them need to be on a performance improvement plan. If you’re not working that plan, you’re cheating yourself and your company out of money (drama intentional).

But what about those in the middle?

Let’s hear it for those dependable, reliable, solid citizens who work hard and cause few problems. Are they unsung heroes or just regular people who expect little but give all they’ve got? Yes and yes.

Ignore them at your peril. Some leaders fail to understand that not everyone is as ambitious as we think they should be. What if everyone craved a promotion and constantly expected to move up and be rewarded? We’d have more of a bottleneck than we do now. There is danger in this sort of low EQ (emotional intelligence) - assuming that others have the same values and motivations that we do. It's very common.

Let me be clear (political reference intended): The solid middle are not under-performers. You have not compromised your high standards by keeping them around. What’s happening is that you’re looking at the bell curve that represents employee performance in all organizations and seeing the proportional value in your infantry. Don’t misunderstand; we shouldn’t tolerate mediocre effort, subpar performance, or persistently low effort-to-effect.

Understanding that we need our armies in the solid middle and doing what (little) it usually takes to attract and retain them is a recipe for strength over the long term. So much about what we do these days is unpredictable. When you have a solid middle you can rely on day in and day out, don’t be disappointed. Make the effort to know what motivates them and apply some resources there. Need to bring your “average” up? Great! You’re looking at a tremendous leverage point - 70-80% of your workforce. What if most of your players start batting .300?

That’s a pretty good “problem” to have...

Groupthink and the NFL

Roger Goodell, the tough Commissioner of the NFL, is his own sub-brand. He has made his mark by being a proactive leader, but now he's exposed a weakness that may sully his legacy. The replacement Ref debacle was a terrible embarrassment for the NFL; and Goodell could have gotten a deal done in time for the season, but he didn’t.

To be fair, Goodell has done a lot of good. I would even argue that his activist leadership style is important now, as he tries to bring the league into a modern era quite different from the one most owners remember fondly. I'm not a fan of organized labor in general, but there have been many examples of adept labor-management relations in history. It can be done to mutual benefit.

But it usually isn't. And it certainly wasn’t this time.

In the replacement Ref disaster, I suspect that Goodell's power is what got him into trouble and let the situation spin out of control, calling into question several games over 4 weeks. Did he and his advisors really think a band of misfits (to be fair, not all misfits), could run NFL games? Or was Goodell trying to flex his muscles after recently crushing the bounty culture that existed on some teams, especially the Saints. His ego must be on a roll.

Then there's the concept of "groupthink". A strong leader with momentum is harder to challenge, or at least, according to Irving Janis in his book by the same name, people are reluctant to do it. Examples abound wherein a highly visible, powerful leader like Goodell wills his way to whatever he wants with the full support of a team of yes men and women. 

My point is that Goodell could have gotten this deal done by the deadline had he been able to resist the temptation to play hard ball; something he's gotten good at. The strength of a super-assertive leadership style can often hinder the best possible decisions sometimes. 

When the boss has such a strong style, other people are often less likely to challenge him, or at least they will carefully pick their battles. Goodell wanted to hold the line on the NFLRA, and apparently no one could convince him otherwise. Viewership stayed strong, so there was no immediate financial incentive to end the lockout. 

An ego-driven leader like Roger Goodell needs to evaluate different points of view and weigh crucial decisions regardless of their compulsion to do things their way. Left to run amok, hard-charging leaders like Goodell can run a company into the ditch occasionally. At the NFL, maybe dissenting opinions are squashed. 

Articles on Goodell’s leadership:

Jessica Daniels: http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/09/26/nfl-referees-bad-calls-roger-goodell

Fran Tarkenton: http://www.frantarkenton.com/component/content/article/54/381-leadership-lessons-from-roger-goodell

 

 

The Power (or Not) of Talk

I recently re-read Deborah Tannen’s groundbreaking article, “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why”, which appeared in Harvard Business Review a while back (link below). Anyone who wants to improve their influence and effectiveness should read Tannen’s article and commit it to memory.

The real meat of the article, for me at least, was the author’s description of social mores and how men and women learn their most basic relationship and conversational styles at a very young age. And for better or worse, these early lessons carry forward for the rest of our lives.

For women, this can certainly lead to frustration with male-dominated work cultures. At Preston Leadership we often work with high tech clients where the majority of employees are men and women in leadership roles are either wildly successful or struggling for the advancement they seek. There’s not much in the middle.

The Power of Talk brings crisp insight into tendencies we all surely recognize both in ourselves and others. The problem is that these tendencies are mostly subconscious. Handling perceptions can be challenging, and we just may be perpetuating the very things we’d like to erase.

Learning the most effective communication style along with some practical techniques for getting our points across for maximum influence should be a higher priority for most leaders. We encounter many who are smart, ambitious, and experienced but who struggle with why they don’t seem to be advancing at the rate they’d like. The secret may lie as much in how we say things as what we are saying.

Deborah Tannen wrote “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why” for On Point, a Harvard Business Review series. It is product number 9977. 

 

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Who hasn't put his foot in his mouth? I know I have. This week a nice little reminder of the gravity of the situation at RIM came across my desk and I had to pass it along:

RIM’s Heins Quickly Lodges Foot in Mouth

New CEO drops a quote that will live in infamy

Jan 23, 2012, 1:38 pm EST   |   By Tom Taulli, InvestorPlace Writer

 If a company loses more than 70% of its value in less than a year, Wall Street usually cheers when a new CEO comes on board. But in the case of Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM), things have not gone according to the playbook. The stock was down more than 6% Monday after RIM announced new leadership.

Then again, the new CEO — Thorsten Heins — seems to be a lackey of the former co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. Despite the fact that RIM is getting crushed by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Thorsten actually proclaimed, “I don’t think that there is a drastic change needed.”

Lots of leaders feel that they must fill every moment of silence with their own sweet voices. There are people who virtually never stop talking. I've railed about this before because it drives me bonkers.

Now, if everything they said was intriguing, insightful, visionary and witty, I could listen all day long. The problem is, I suppose, a difference of opinion. They must have thought their words were all those things, but alas I did not.

It's hard to listen for more than 10 minutes when the content is either full of minutia, scattered all over the place, or full of self-aggrandizing. 

Mr. Thorsten, the new CEO of RIM is either totally out of touch or allowed his mouth to continue after his brain stopped paying attention. No need for drastic change? Seriously?

Just Say "No" to Loud Restaurants with Open Desks

Last Tuesday I scheduled two appointments far apart and at either end of the day, meaning I would be wasting a lot of time driving back and forth. So, at 9pm the night before I searched for a Starbucks or Panera Bread where I could spend about 4 hours between meetings.

Even if I could avoid the unnecessary driving, the problem with restaurants is noise and a lack of space to spread out. I had calls to make, but in the car or at a loud restaurant. Fortunately I remembered a much smarter alternative: Open Desks.

At 9pm on my phone, I was able to easily find an office with a door, a landline, coffee, and Internet halfway between my two meetings. The price was right and the process was simple. The next morning I breezed in, gave them my name, and they led me to my office. After they showed me where the coffee, the copier and the bathroom were, and I was working in under 5 minutes.

I didn’t have to do much to find a perfect place to spend 4 hours. Now that I know about this new “on-call office” in Malvern, PA, I actually look forward to being there - and avoiding down time. 

 

Manage Up or Be Disappointed

The very idea of managing one’s boss (“managing up”) is quickly coming back into the mainstream. Subordinates the world over raise their eyebrows when we suggest that it’s not only OK to manage your boss, it’s something you really must do.

The late Peter Drucker wrote about it in 1999, typically pushing the envelope in his time. Those who admire Drucker, including me, consider NOW to be his time – but that’s for another post.

Many good articles and books have been published on the topic since then.

As you might imagine, there are lots of similarities between managing a direct report and managing a boss. For example, setting expectations. Why do so many leaders fail to manage their boss’ expectations well? Surprises are usually not good. Avoiding conflict now often leads to unavoidable strife later.

My dad liked to say, “If you work for a man, work for him.” He was talking about loyalty. It’s never a good idea to be disloyal to your boss.

Finally, get to know your boss’s communication preferences. Drucker puts leaders into two categories in this regard: readers or listeners. Do you rush into your boss’ office with new information, expecting him to make a decision on the spot? It’s more likely that you’ll get the decision you want if you give him time to absorb the information in writing first. Obviously emergencies are emergencies, but readers strongly prefer a little time to ponder.

Or, do you send your boss volumes of information via e-mail (or paper), only to be disappointed when you learn that she didn’t even read it! Listeners prefer to evaluate facts on the spot, discuss options, and make the call. Volumes of data are not nearly as influential with this style of communication as an overview would be. Give ‘em the summaries.

Interacting with your boss in the most effective way will get you what you want more quickly. It’s really as simple as that. Why do so many people miss this? Send me an e-mail if you’d like to discuss.