I remember, shortly after my board coup several years ago, the movie “Rocky Balboa” came out and in the middle of the movie, Rocky made the following comment to his son,

“It ain’t about how hard you’re hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward–that’s how winning is done!”

I immediately put that quote up on my credenza and still look at it to this day. To me, that’s the power of a great quote. In just a few words, it can say so much.

In light of that, over the July 4th weekend, I decided to create my own favorite quote site. As a consultant and professional speaker, I’m regularly on the look out for great quotes. So, rather than horde them for myself, in the spirit of Tom Peters (when you go to the site, you’ll understand that comment), I’ve decided to make them available to everyone.

So, rather than bore you with more content, let me encourage you to go to the site and read some great inspirational business-oriented quotes. I think you’ll enjoy them! Oh, and the URL is pretty easy to remember

http://www.brucequotes.com

Note: I just created the site Saturday evening so some of the topics only have a few quotes, while others have quite a few. But over time, the approximately 400 quotes will grow. The site is still under 48 hours old. Just bookmark it and return to it whenever you either need some inspiration or you’re putting together a talk or training session and need the perfect quote to make the perfect point.

To your accelerated success!

http://www.brucequotes.com

In other words, before someone starts adding something to the mix to improve execution/implementation, they should first eliminate some of the things that are currently hindering successful implementation. As a typical INTJ, I had a list of 15 hindrances in my notes, but to encourage some more group interaction I decided to ask the leader/managers present to break into groups of three to four people and come up with their own lists of items or issues that hinder execution in their company.

Without betraying confidences, I’m going to combine some of their ideas with some of mine to help get your brain kick started. For example,

• Too many “priorities“ (or conflicting priorities)
• Lack of specificity on the details of who’s responsible for what
• Not enough communication (or unclear communication)
• Lack of trust
• Interruptions
• Poor prioritization of what matters
• Departmental conflicts
• Lack of accountability
• Fear of accountability
• Limited people/resources
• Lack of personal responsibility/commitment
• The complexity of a project (or its size)
• Lack of executive attention
• A tendency to over-analyze (analysis paralysis)
• Lack of ownership
• Lack of excitement about the project, etc.

Now, think about this. If some of these issues are present in your organization, what do you think the probability is that your people are going to execute well? Probably somewhere between zero and nil. It just isn’t going to happen.

Therefore, one of the first places to make changes, if you want to make sure that your team executes better, is to eliminate some of those hindrances. And what I’d recommend is to take this question to your team,

”What hinders us, as a team and company, from executing better and faster?“

Have them brainstorm, while someone writes their ideas on an easel pad (my guess is that ideas will come rather fast and furious–after all, they’ve been thinking about these for years :-). Then, once you have a list, discuss what are the top three hindrances that, if eliminated, would have the greatest impact on increasing our ability to execute.

Then I’d take that list and work, as a team, on creating a plan to eliminate your top three hindrances from your company/organization (i.e. don’t try to fix everything at once. Start with a few items and then expand as you eliminate the current “three”).

Remember, execution doesn’t have to be rocket science. But it does have to be done. So make the list, reduce the list, and then start eliminating the items on the list. Because it’s going to be difficult to create an environment/culture of execution when there are a number of hindrances competing to ensure that execution doesn’t happen.

To your accelerated success!

P.S. You did make that list, didn’t you?

Note: If you didn’t answer the question from the last post, “What are the major constraints that are hindering me (and my business/organization) from achieving my (our) potential?”, then make sure you do so before proceeding any further.

Okay, so you’ve now identified your major constraints (and as I said last time, they could be external or internal, mental or physical, systemic of situational). They could be a person or a process, a self-limiting belief or a financial limitation (for example).

The next thing you want to do is order them. You want to take each constraint and ask the question, “Where does this constraint come in the priority list of which constraint needs to be solved first?” In other words, you want to play each constraint off the others as you seek to find the major constraint that needs to be solved first.

I liken this to a playoff system (brackets) you see in sports. For simplicity’s sake we’ll call constraints “C”. So you play C1 vs. C2. Let’s say C2 needs to be solved before C1. Then you play off C3 vs. C4. Let’s say C3 needs to be solved before C4. Then you playoff C2 vs. C3 and let’s say C3 needs to be solved before C2 (which means it has to come before C1). You now know what has to happen first. In other words, once you work through this process, you’ll quickly know what the major constraint is for you (or you and your business) this year.

Using the four constraints listed above, it would be understandable to think that you need to solve the financial problem first. But that might not be true. It may be because you don’t have a systematic and methodical process in place to acquire new capital. However, it may be that the reason you don’t have a systematic and methodical process in place is because Sally is in charge of that area and she’s not very competent. She’s been at your company for ten years, she’s loved by every one, but she’s incompetent. You know you ought to let her go, but you haven’t pulled the trigger yet. Why?

Ah, it’s that self-limiting thought that keeps you from changing her out. It may be a belief that letting Sally go will demoralize your team. Or the belief that, “If I just give her some more time and training, she’ll succeed” (which could be true, but hasn’t been for the past five years). Or it could be the belief that, “She’s a single mom and she needs our help.” Or it could be the belief that, “Maybe in a year another position in our company will open up and I can move her over there.” Etc. We all have them. And those self-limiting beliefs do get in the way of making good business decisions.

The beauty of working through this process is that once you play this game, you’ll often find out that what you thought was the major constraint (in this case, “We don’t have enough access to capital”) may, in fact, not be the most important constraint to solve first.

So, before I give you the next step, why don’t we stop here for today. Take out your list of constraints and order them. Play them off against one another and see if you can reduce your constraints down to a handful of the most important constraints to solve first. And most importantly, make sure you identify what the first constraint is that you need to solve before any others!

To your accelerated success!

For years, I’ve looked for catalytic mechanisms to do just that and have found few. One of the few ideas I had heard about was the idea of holding a daily meeting or daily huddle–which I simply resisted as impractical and unsustainable. Now, if you’re my age range or older (I’m 48), you might remember watching LA Law or Murder One and seeing the actors conduct their daily meeting. Or maybe you read Patrick Lencioni’s 2004 book, Death By Meeting (you’ve got to love the title :-) and thought about the idea (I know I did).

However, for me, the person whom I’ve heard harp the most about it is Verne Harnish of Gazelles (the author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits). When I attended Verne’s two day conference on Mastering the Rockefeller Habits this past June, I anticipated that he’d talk about it–and I anticipated that I’d pass on the idea once again. However, while I was right about the former, I was wrong about the later. Let me explain how he won me over.

Verne began by discussing John D. Rockefeller’s daily habit that he and the other leaders of Standard Oil had. They would walk together to work, go their separate ways, and then at noon they’d reconvene and have lunch together. And they did this EVERY DAY. Remembering that John D. was/is, using current dollar amounts, the richest man to have lived, I thought, “That’s a pretty powerful argument for a daily meeting.”

Then Verne asked, “How many of you have the discipline of this man?” (which led to a slide of T. Boone Pickens). He said, “Here’s the daily routine of T. Boone. He has two analysts meet at 5:45 a.m. every day. They review the data from yesterday and overnight and then meet with T. Boone at 6:15 a.m. to present him with their findings. At 6:30 a.m. T. Boone works out and mulls over what they’ve told him. At 7:30 a.m., T. Boone meets with his top executives for breakfast (again every day) to talk strategy. Then at 4:30 p.m. they reconvene and he asks, ”What did we learn today?“

He then went on to talk about other companies like Goldman Sachs, where they convene for meetings twice a day, this time at 6:00 a.m. and again at 6:00 p.m. What was interesting about the Goldman Sachs reference was that, not only do they meet twice a day, their profit per employee is about two and a half times that of their competitors like Merril Lynch ($251K vs. $95K).

Sold! However, Verne had one more nail to nail in my coffin. He then asked, ”If you only meet once a month with your executives to discuss your business and review your metrics, how long is your decision cycle? If you meet once a week, how long is your decision cycle? If you meet daily, how long?“ Then, came the killer close, ”So, in a volatile market, who do you think wins–the team that meets monthly, weekly or daily?“ Doubly Sold!

Now, if you’re like me, you have all kinds of questions like,

• ”How long should we meet?“ (no more than 15 minutes)
• ”When should we meet?“ (whenever you want–just make sure it’s daily)
• ”What should we discuss?“ (Verne suggests, What’s up? What are the metrics? Where are you stuck? But you can use any questions you want–fixed or not)
• ”What if we’re not all available?“ (Everyone who can, should. If you can’t, bring a doctor’s permission slip :-)
• ”What if we’re not all in the same physical location?“ (phones and conference calls work)

However, rather than get bogged down in details, I’d simply encourage you to give it a try for the next sixty days. You’ll figure out the best formula in your organization. But this much I’m convinced of, if you and your team would touch base daily, focus on moving your key initiatives forward (that would be the metrics part), and help each other get unstuck–there’s no question in my mind that you’ll speed up the process of executing your plan and generating more business.

No one likes showing up at a meeting and having to say, ”I’m sorry, I didn’t get that done.“ But when you’re only meeting once a month or once a week, it’s a whole lot easier to swallow than when you’re meeting every day. The accountability of meeting every day is a very powerful tool.

So, when can you start? Today or tomorrow sounds about right!

To your accelerated success!

The way he got to me was by asking two simple questions. Showing a picture of a MacDonald’s hamburger, he asked,

1. How would you describe the quality of a MacDonald’s hamburger?
2. Who sells the most hamburgers in the world?

Point made. Point received.

I don’t know about you, but I often get stuck by trying to make something “perfect.” I have three books, several new talks, and a couple of projects all stuck in varying states of completion–not because I can’t get them done–but because I want to make them PERFECT!

In the literary world, it’s the equivalent of wanting to write, “The Next Great American Novel.” It’s the desire to want to write  something that “no one else has written.” Or to say something so compelling that newswires will want to pick it up, blogs will want to make it viral, TV reporters will want to call for interviews, and schools of business will want to make it required reading (of course, by this point, you’ve already figured out–this guy lacks reality–exactly!).

It’s this longing to do something perfect, to do something that causes people to take notice, that tends to hinder so many of us. When, in reality, we ought to set our sights a little lower. While I may want to write the “ultimate” guide to growing a business, there is no such ultimate book to be written.

In the mean time, while I’m waiting to create the perfect/ultimate book, others are publishing their books and making money–and the people I could be helping out are missing out.

Likewise, in your world, chances are (if you’ve been infected with the disease of perfectionism), you’re doing something similar. You have projects on hold, products that haven’t been launched, services that haven’t gone public, talks and letters that haven’t been written, and presentations that haven’t seen the light of day, etc. Not because you can’t get them done, but because you’re waiting until the thing you’re working on is … well, perfect.

But in a business environment, perfection is not the goal–it’s an impediment. In fact, when Ray was speaking I wrote in my notes, “Perfection > leads to procrastination > which leads to poverty.”

While you or I may want to create the perfect burger (metaphorically), the reality is that someone else (MacDonalds, in this case), is making a ton of money while we’re still in the design phase.

So, if your goal is making money, or influencing others, or meeting a critical need or want for your target market, then you’ll want to revisit this MacDonald’s hamburger metaphor again and again. Make sure you beat down the perfection monster. And whatever you do, make sure you get what you’re working on out in the world. As I’ve said for years,

“Excellence is not perfection. Excellence is doing the best you can with what you’ve got in the amount of time you’ve got to get it done.”

So what projects have you been holding off on or delaying because of perfectionism? And how much more money (or whatever metric your project works with) could you be making if you stopped waiting for perfection and just got that thing out in the marketplace?

To your accelerated success!

And of all the people who do a great job at helping companies hire great people, Brad Smart of Topgrading is one of the best.  And in a recent blog post he made the comment that you have in this title, “Fire Your ‘C’ Players Now.” You can read it in it’s entirety by following this link. But for those of you who won’t here are a few highlights.

If you have a few people whom you’re hesitant to move because sometimes they’re good but at other times they’re not and you keep wondering, “Should I keep them?” here are a few ideas.

That said, regardless of what method you use, Brad Smart’s comment, “Fire your ‘C’ players Now,” is great advice. Why? Because once you’ve cleared out a “C” player, you’ve just created space for an “A” player. And “A” players by definition are people who make things happen–which is why doing this is such a strategic decision.

Remember, there’s always an opportunity cost associated with poor performers. It’s the cost between what an “A” player could be producing (along with a reduction in your time) and what your “C” player is actually producing. If you take the time to crunch the numbers, I think you’ll end up agreeing with Brad. You really can’t afford to keep that “C” player on the team.

So, what are you going to do with your “C” players?

To your accelerated success!

Every leader I’ve ever known has felt that way. But questions like these do raise a critical issue for us, “If one of the keys to growing a business (or organization) is to multiply our efforts through leveraging the time, talents and energies of other people, then why are we having such a difficult time with delegating?”

If we’re not giving people authority and responsibility, if we’re not multiplying our efforts, and/or if we’re not creating massive leverage, then we’ve got a major problem that strikes right at the heart of effective leadership. So, what’s the way out?

I’ve found that there are three critical distinctions that I’ve been repeating with clients recently. The first is obvious (but not practiced), whereas the other two are less common. So if you no longer want to “do it all by yourself,” then you’ll want to employ all three of these distinctions.

1. Remember that Delegation and Dumping are not the same thing. Most executives dump, they don’t delegate–and there is a difference. A dumper finds something they don’t like doing or don’t have time for and “assigns” the task to someone lower on the “food chain” than them.

A delegator, on the other hand, is someone who wants to build and develop another person. They don’t just “assign” (I mean, dump) a task, they delegate out both the authority and responsibility for the task, convey their expectations, offer any required resources, and provide on-going coaching. The difference is night and day. So if you’ve been frustrated with your delegating attempts lately, you might want to ask yourself, “Have I been dumping or delegating?” Be honest!

2. Make the Delegatee the one responsible for follow up. Not doing this is one of the major mistakes that a lot of leader/executives make, which is why they often feel like they’ve become a “nag.” The way they’ve set up the relationship (“I dump, you do”), creates a setting where the exec is still the one responsible. A better option is to engage the delegatee in the process of designing the accountability system.

For example, after you’ve successfully delegated (not dumped) a task/project, you might ask, “So, what kind of accountability system do you want to set up? When will this be done? You set the date. And then, how will you let me know when certain milestones are reached? Again, you set up the timeline and the structure. I just need to know.”

Did you notice the difference? It’s huge! They create the system and they have to report to you (not vice versa). Now, if the timeline they create is too long or if the frequency or means of communication isn’t acceptable to you, then negotiate. But at the end of the day, you want them to self-police and report to you (not the reverse).

3. Change Your Expectations. You and I get what we expect, not what we want. So, what do you expect from your employees? If you’re like most of the execs I know, and you’re honest, you’ll probably say something like, “I expect them to not get [what I assigned to them] done on time (or not to my standards or I expect them to be lazy, etc.). And then we wonder, “Why do my people fail me?”

The amazing thing about expectations is that they do influence our behaviors, whether we clearly say so or not.

For example, a few weeks ago I asked my teenage daughter to work on a presentation I had to do. I asked her a week out. She said, “Yes.” I asked her several days ahead, “Now, you’re still planning to get those slides done on Wednesday, right?” “Yes, dad!” Then the day of, “So, you’ll get those slides done tonight, right?” “Yes, Dad.” Then later that evening, “So, are you going to get those slides started? I need them tomorrow.” “Got it covered Dad.” Well, at 11:30 p.m. I finally said, “Why don’t you go to bed. I’ll take care of getting them done (which I did at 1:30 a.m. :-(.

Where was my fatal flaw? In my expectations. I never actually said, “I don’t think you’ll get them done on time.” However, by my incessant asking I just as well might have.

So, do you want to take your delegating to the next level? If you do, use all three of these distinctions for a triple play and I’m confident you’ll experience a whole new level of productivity.

To your accelerated success!

Would you pick, “Great leadership?” Or, “A new or better technology?” Maybe, “Massive cash flow?” Or, “Viral marketing?” Or would you pick, “Great systems?” Or maybe even, “Great people?”

Well, while all of those are worthy choices, I would pick something else. Because, while all of the those choices above are essential to building a great company, especially an accelerated growth company, they aren’t what really drives the behavior of fast growth companies.

No, if I had to pick one driver above every other driver of accelerated growth companies, that one driver would be . . . Speed of Implementation.

Show me a fast growth company and I can almost guarantee that they operate by, “Ready, fire, aim. In other words, the time lag between the generation of an idea and the implementation of an idea is almost always very short.

Bottom line, accelerated growth companies aren’t hung up with perfection.

In fact, Google could easily be the poster child for this. They regularly come up with ideas and put them out in ”imperfect“ forms to test their ideas quickly–in the real world. That stands in stark
contrast to most companies which come up with an idea or two and then tweak those ideas endlessly in their quest for perfection, which of course means they end up missing the timing of the market–and massive cash flow.

Over the past few months as I’ve been speaking on accelerated growth issues, I found myself frequently saying, ”There are some of you who will go home tonight and execute on several ideas you’ve come up with as a result of what you’ve heard here today. Some of you will go home and over the next few days, implement an idea or two. A few of you will take a week or two and then implement an idea. And then there are the rest of you who will leave here and probably implement nothing. I can almost guarantee you that those who leave this room and implement the ideas they received this morning, tonight, are leading the fastest growth companies in this room.“

Why? Because speed of implementation matters. As Dr. Edward Kramer says so well,

“Eliminate the time between the idea and the act, and your dreams will become realities.”

If you have the right strategy, but don’t implement quickly, you’re toast. What good is an idea, even a great idea, if it’s not implemented quickly?

So, take a look at your business (or organization). How fast are you at executing? How short is the time span between the moment an idea is hatched and the moment its implemented? Are you burdened by perfection? Or fear of failure? Or fear of rejection? Or ego? Or are you burdened by systems of ”checks and balances“ (which rarely are)? Or committees? Or controlling people? Or procedures and policies?

If you or your company rate anything lower than a 10 on the speed of implementation scale, my encouragement would be to deal with it–and fast!

Finally, if you’d like a quick practical application of this principle, here’s an idea for you. Pick a project or idea that’s been sitting on the shelf waiting for its turn. Estimate how long you think it’ll take to implement it. Cut that time in half. Then get started. Ready! Fire! Aim! What are you waiting for?

Toward your accelerated success!

Well, one way is to use, “Needle Movers,” (a phrase I love) from Christine Comaford. Christine defines a needle mover as a tangible result that if accomplished would change everything for your business. In other words, a needle mover is a game changer. It’s not a simple task. And it’s not necessarily a strategic initiative.

I think of strategic initiatives as key initiatives that the majority of executives (or business units) in a business can be involved in. For example, “To raise the level of excellence,” or “To develop the next generation of leaders.” The idea of a strategic initiative is to get as many people as possible involved in helping move a company or organization forward. If an initiative is something that only one small part of a company might be involved in, the ownership and excitement over that initiative will be minimal.

However, a needle mover could be something that is very specific to a specific area. For example, a needle mover could be, “To land two major accounts with Fortune 500 companies in the next 90 days.” HR and Finance (et. al.) probably won’t be involved in landing those accounts, but landing those two accounts could be a game changer.

Other examples of needle movers might be

•    To generate 1,000 new leads this month
•    To hire three new pay-for-performance sales reps
•    To ink five new joint venture projects over the next quarter
•    To create one new product over the next 30 days.
•    To outsource all of xyz (so you can focus more time on profitable activities)
•    To generate an additional $________ of revenue in the next 30 days
•    To add two new sales channels

You get the idea. Based on your size and your market, what would be a game changer for you? What needle movers will radically change everything for you and your business?

Narrow those ideas down to the top three (no more than five) needle moving results you want for the next month (or quarter, or year). Then create a plan for how you plan to accomplish those needle movers. And then finally focus your attention, every day, for the next 30 (or 60 or 90) days on those three (to five) needle movers.

Every morning you need to ask, “What progress will I (or we) make on our needle movers today?” And then, at the end of every day, you need to ask, ”What progress did I (or we) make on our needle movers today?“

If you want to make progress fast, make sure you focus on your needle movers . . . every day!

To your accelerated success!

Believe it or not, one of the main culprits of that feeling is probably your ability to multi-task! In other words, one of the skills that you acquired as you’ve built and led companies over the years has now becoming one of your Achilles’ heels.
For years, you’ve probably prided yourself, like I have, on your ability to do a lot of things very fast and often at the same time. And chances are, the people around you have probably been in awe of that ability (which only made you feel better, didn’t it?).

However, you’re now the senior executive of a thriving business and what was once an asset, has now become a liability. The studies are clear, multi-tasking actually slows you down–it doesn’t speed you up. A classic example would be writing an important proposal (or letter or ad or …, you pick). You write paragraph one. Your Blackberry goes off (or your email program beeps). You look at it. Read it. Respond to it. Then back to the proposal. “Now, where was I?” So you go back and re-read the first paragraph. As you’re doing that, in walks your admin (or staff member, etc.). And so on. And so on. Right?

The proposal (or letter or ad or …) which should have taken a half hour to an hour to compose and get out the door, has now taken three hours–or even worse, didn’t get done because the only time you had available to do it was “eaten” up by other people and activities. You’ve been busy, but you haven’t been effective.

The number one quote that haunts me every day is from Alec McKenzie. “Nothing is easier than being busy, nothing more difficult than being effective.”

So, what’s the solution? The simple solution, which you probably already know, is to work in uninterrupted blocks of time. That may mean working at home or closing the door of your office (yes, it is okay to close your office door and not be accessible all the time) or, as I frequently have done, work at a restaurant like Panera Bread.

However, since I assume you already know that, I’d like to give you another idea that can help you actually do what you know you ought to do. At the end of every day, take five minutes (no more than seven) to answer three simple questions (and do this every day).

    1.    What did I do today?
    2.    What results did I achieve?
    3.    What progress did I make today on my needle movers for this month?

If you prefer, you can change the last phrase to “my top three (or, if you prefer, five) goals” or, “my strategic initiatives,” etc. But, personally, I love the phrase, “Needle movers,” from Christine Comaford. She defines a needle mover as a result that if you achieved it would radically change everything. For example, “Generate a 1,000 new leads this month.”

You determine the wording, but don’t you think that if you asked and answered those three questions every day for the next 30 days, that you would be infinitely more focused and productive? Absolutely! You’d be more focused on results than activity. And more importantly, you’d become incredibly focused on the three (to five) most important things that can move your business forward this month.

So, if you want to increase your productivity, why don’t you commit to asking these three questions at the end of each day. Then make sure you send me an email, 30 days from now, to share the results of what’s happened in your life and business because you asked these three questions.

To your accelerated success,

P.S. If you need help clarifying your needle movers and strategic initiatives, click here >>