Due to poor management of those who had preceded us and rapid industry deregulation, creditors were knocking at our door on a daily basis and paychecks were routinely 1-2 weeks late.

A new surprise—not the good kind, like an IRS agent paying us a visit asking for unpaid withholding tax—seemed to pop up at every turn as sales swooned. Yet, amazingly, morale was high.

The staff understood the reasons why we had these problems, and, every individual was committed to helping solve them. At our first staff retreat, held at a hotel whose rooms we bartered for radio air time, I presented an award that through the years became one of the most coveted awards to receive in the company.

The Golden Sandals

In preparing for the retreat, I thought of the people who had worked extra hard to get us back on track. One person came to mind who had in the month prior really gone the extra mile. She worked extra long hours, took on extra responsibility, and shown an extraordinarily high level of commitment to our recovery.

A saying from the Bible popped in my head, “If someone asks you to go with him one mile, go with him two.” I was inspired! I took an old pair of my wife’s sandals, spray-painted them gold, and glued them to a wood plaque covered in red velvet I found in the garage.

The next day I made the presentation. I recounted the incredible things this person had done and presented her with, ta-da, The Golden Sandals!

This is the Corniest Story You’ve Ever Heard, Right?

All right, I know what you’re thinking. This is the corniest story you’ve ever heard. And I would agree with you, except … except what happened next. The Golden Sandals began to take on a life of their own.

At our social events every three months or so, each recipient of The Golden Sandals was given a chance to pass them on to someone else in the company who, like them, had gone the extra mile. In doing so, they had to tell why this person earned the award and what they appreciated about this person.

People would stand up, both men and women, and start talking with tears rolling down their cheeks what another person on our staff team meant to them. The recipient would take the award, display it proudly in their work area, and give it away with the same reverence with which it had been received.

At one of our events, as a complete surprise, a staff member gave a typically touching Golden Sandals speech and gave the award to me. I felt my throat tighten, my eyes well with tears, and thought to myself, “This is a stupid pair of sandals my wife never wore and a block of wood I found in the garage!”

But it really was more than that. It was a workplace revolution. It was the triumph of positive actions over negative circumstances by intentionally focusing on what people were doing right, instead of focusing on what had gone wrong.

The Real Power of Positive Praise

That’s the real power of positive praise, it brings out the best in people and energizes them to give 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time. When you consider the fact that disengaged employees cost businesses $350 billion a year, this is no mere “soft skill.”

MORE: Once a Year is Not Enough: 3 Incredible Simple Ways to Thank Your People

And while it’s nice to receive recognition for being a great place to work, it’s even better to cash the checks that come as a result. Because, quite simply, leaders who consistently encourage their people create employees who are fully engaged who, in turn, win customers who become raving fans that bring significant growth to your business’ bottom line

So go out to your garage, find a block of wood and a can of paint, and start your own revolution.

The post The Real Power of Positive Praise: A True Story appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

“We have one of the best products on the market, and sales at first were strong. But now it’s become a disaster.”

He explained to me how his company had grown rapidly in the last year, hiring more people than ever before and promoting others into management positions. They had invested heavily in this expansion and leveraged much of the assets of the company to do so.

Then nothing. Or next to nothing for their return on investment.

So he did the typical things. Spent more money on marketing. Pushed the sales force even harder. Held a company-wide “come to Jesus” meeting. Still no improvement.

Meeting with me was almost a last resort. And while I’ve built my professional reputation  helping small and mid-size companies get turned around through more productive sales and marketing, that’s never my starting point. My starting point is The Leadership-Profit Chain.

The Leadership-Profit Chain

Yes, we all want more sales. And we all want our business revenue to grow year after year. But that outcome is the result of a series of events that begin elsewhere.

This first-time CEO misinterpreted his early sales success. After an initial experience with the company, new customers never came back and didn’t recommended them to family and friends. The reason sales didn’t scale was simple: their encounter with his employees was so lackluster, they concluded, “Why bother?”

The employees at this company were good people, but the environment was toxic. Inexperienced leaders, under pressure to perform, managed their direct reports through manipulation and intimidation. Praise was as rare as a sunny day in Seattle. Distrust and disrespect was rampant.

What was happening? The company had grown beyond its internal leadership capacity and was imploding as a result. The Leadership-Profit Chain in reverse.

The Leadership-Profit Chain is a term coined by The Ken Blanchard Companies for the link their researchers found between leaders, employees, customers, and profit. Here’s how it works:

Leaders who build trusting relationships with their people and communicate with them in a positive, productive way, create a climate within a company that’s a joy to be a part of. And when employees love the place where they work, they bring their whole self to the party, giving 100% effort 100% of the time.

Quite simply, highly effective leaders produce fully engaged employees.

What’s important to understand about the process, however, is this: as nice as it is to be voted a great place to work in whatever poll, the business benefit is even better.

Fully engaged employees turn customers into raving fans. They freely go the extra mile because they’re focused on meeting customers’ needs, not recovering from the latest management rant.

And raving fans come back again and again, telling everyone they know about the great experience they’ve had with a product or service, and those people come back again and again.

Employees who are fully engaged connect with customers in such a way that those customers become evangelists in the marketplace, dramatically increasing sales and rapidly growing revenue. It’s the domino effect for business.

The Domino Effect for Business

The Leadership-Profit Chain is a proven business dynamic that begins with your leaders and ends at your bottom line. The first domino in the chain is you, being a leader whom others trust and respect and developing leaders within your company whom others trust and respect as well.

When this domino drops, the next dominoes fall in line, moving your company forward to achieve its goals. In fact, I’ve found that almost nothing is impossible for an organization committed to developing leaders who lead their people in this way.

Now you’re ready for sales and marketing strategies that are a natural extension of who you are as a company, rather than the smoke and mirrors so many businesses employ to convince people to buy from them.

The post The Surprising Secret To Sustained Business Growth appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

But they have two totally different functions. You look through a window to the world outside, and you look into a mirror at yourself.

I have found that there are two totally different kinds of people when it comes to life and leadership . There are externally focused people, window people, who look outside at others passing them by; and there are internally focused people, mirror people, who look inside themselves for the solutions they need to move forward.

Which of these two are you? Answer the following four questions:

1. Do you assign blame or find solutions?

The first characteristic of a window person is that they look to the world outside and critique it. Rather than participating in the toss-and-tumble of real life, they stand on the sidelines and find fault. Window people are professional critics who see problem after problem and ask, “Who screwed up here?’”

A mirror person, on the other hand, takes a totally different approach. Rather than passing the buck onto someone else, they accept responsibility. If they participated in causing a problem, they own it and fix it. If they didn’t, they help find a solution. This question is never far from their lips, “How can I help?”

2. Do you give up power or do you become self-empowered?

The great irony of being a window person is that you think you’re so smart, sitting smugly on the sidelines cynically criticizing the work of others. But that’s a position of powerlessness. Quite simply, when you’re not involved in finding solutions, you give up your power to others whom you have no ability to control. You are at their mercy.

By looking into the mirror, internally focused people see the one thing they can control: themselves. And by controlling their response in any situation, they become self-empowered in every situation. Few things can stand in the way of a self-empowered person.

3. Do you approach issues as a victim or as an equal?

Lack of power and control, then, makes a window person a victim, and all victims, by definition, have villains. Instead of working with other people just like you who are trying to do their best, you view yourself as working with sinister people who are out to get you. This point of view poisons your relationships.

Mirror people bring confidence and strength to their relationships. They don’t play the victim, but approach others as respected peers, an equal to an equal. Even in a bad situation, they believe the best in others, withhold judgement, and ask questions for clarification (as opposed to making accusations).

MORE: Resolving Conflict at Work Without Victims and Villains

4. Do you take input personally or receive it as useful information?

Finally, window people take a totally different approach to input and feedback. Because of their victim mentality communication is always personal, seen as an attack on them. As a result they feel compelled to fight or take flight. That’s what we do when under attack, right? The villain is either attacked in return or withdrawn from completely. Both destroys communication.

A mirror person, approaching issues as a peer to a peer, an equal to an equal, doesn’t assign emotional meaning to a conversation. Input received, even if it’s about them, is a way to become more knowledgeable. And knowledge is power. As a result, a mirror person is able to communicate calmly and collaborate effectively because it’s not personal. It’s just information.

How do you become a mirror person?

Okay, how do you become a mirror person and not a window person?

Recognize that we’re all born window people. We come out of the womb pointing our finger at others and assigning blame. It’s part of the human condition. We become mirror people by the choices we make. Here are two.

In every circumstance you face, first ask and answer this question: Who am I? That is, look deep inside yourself and discover the values you embrace at the very core of your being. Define those values personally and live by them uncompromisingly. They are your moral center. Your rock. Your anchor.

Secondly, ask and answer this next question: What do I do well?

From your moral center flows a functional capacity for excellence. This is the unique ability you possess that allows you to thrive. It’s your personal tool box, a set of gifts and talents you can access at any time to solve pressing problems.

These two dynamics, character and competence, are the choices you can make to become a mirror person. Character, your core values, and competence, your unique ability, clearly defined and consistently deployed allows you to control the one and only thing you can control in any situation: yourself.

In this way you’ll be ready for anything that life and leadership throws at you.

The post Are You a Window Person or a Mirror Person? appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

Image courtesy Fred via Compfight

 Imagine waking up tomorrow morning, taking a shower, getting ready for work, and walking out the door–briefcase in hand–to your car.

Instead of getting in the front seat, however, you get in the back seat because there’s a person already sitting at the steering wheel of your car. “Great,” you say to yourself, “someone’s going to drive me to work. It’s about time!”

But instead of heading in the direction of your office, the driver takes you in the complete opposite direction, like a bat out of hell, leaving you clinging to the upholstery for dear life.

Thirty minutes later, the car comes to screeching stop. The driver jumps out and another driver gets behind the wheel and that driver, too, speeds off in a random direction.

This happens a dozen times throughout the day, and you return home late for dinner. Alive, yes, but exhausted and frustrated. The work you were planning to do in your day will now have to get done in the evening.

You wake up the next morning, and, like a scene out of Groundhog Day, the event repeats itself again. Day after day, week after week.

Even on your vacation, a driver is sitting in your car to take you on a wild ride, away from your personal plans for the day. This goes on for months, then years.

It’s Not that Far from the Truth

As goofy as this story sounds, it’s not that from the truth.

No, there isn’t a physical carjacking going on in your life; but for most of the leaders I work with, the course of their daily activities have been ceded to others over which they have no control.

Instead of actually getting any work done in their day, they race from place to place, meeting to meeting, doomed to do their actual work in the evening at home or on the weekend. In the end, both their professional life and their personal life suffers.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. It only takes an hour, just 60 minutes or less, to fix this problem. Here’s how:

The First 30 Minutes: Proactive Weekly Planning

The most important discipline you can instill in your life is scheduling a weekly planning meeting with yourself and keeping that meeting without fail.

I have a client who does this on Friday morning, another who does it on Sunday evening. I prefer the quiet of Sunday morning while my family is sleeping in. It’s crucial, however, that you carve out a private, uninterrupted space of 30 minutes every week to reflect and plan.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I would like to modify his words slightly: The unexamined week is not worth living. For our life is made up of the days in our week, and the effectiveness of those days is dependent on their honest examination.

Here’s what to do in that 30 minutes:

STEP ONE: Answer These Four Questions

All the activities in your week should flow from the vision you have for your life and work. In other words, you should be the one driving your car, not someone else.

To ensure that this is the case, start this meeting you’re having with yourself by answering these four questions:

• What kind of person will you be? How are you staying healthy and strong physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually?
• What kind of relationships will you have? How are you investing in the lives of those whom you love the most?
• What kind of work will you do? What is the best way to make a contribution in the marketplace with the gifts and abilities you possess?
• How will you give back? What causes are you supporting with your time, talent, and treasure?

Over time, you’ll develop set answers for these questions, and that’s a good thing. Taken together they define what it truly means to have a vision for one’s life and work.

STEP TWO: Answer This One Question

Now ask yourself this one question, “What’s the most important thing I can do this week for these areas of my life?”

Your answer may not be just one thing, it may be two or three things, but they must be the most important things for the upcoming week. Neither are these things everything you’ll do in the week. Again, they’re the most important things. Your first things.

On the list may be regular exercise, a date night with your spouse, visiting your aging parents, one-on-one meetings with your team, follow-up calls to current prospects, or writing thank you notes to new customers.

All tasks are not created equal, and you’re choosing the most important ones for the coming week. You may have a journal where you write these things down or an app where you record them digitally. Do it. Don’t keep this stuff in your head.

Some of the activities that come to mind as I conduct my weekly planning meetings are recurring tasks, like reading and exercise, but many times ideas have come to me in my Sunday morning planning sessions that I had never thought of before and are the perfect solution to a pressing concern. I’ve planned trips with my kids and employee rewards programs, marketing campaigns and consulting innovations.

STEP THREE: Schedule It

What do you do next?

If you had a doctor’s appointment on Friday, how would make sure you got there? You would put it in you calendar, of course. Nothing really magical about that. The fact that a doctor’s appointment is scheduled on Friday allows all the other activities in your day, and even your week, to fit around that appointment.

This is what you do with the activities you’ve identified in your weekly planning meeting. Put them in your calendar giving each a specific day, date, and time.

Here’s why this is so important.

Imagine in front of you a five-gallon bucket, a pile of rocks, and a pile of sand. If you put the sand in the bucket first, there’ll be no room for the rocks. But if you put the rocks in the bucket first, the sand will sift around the rocks.

I refer to this phenomenon as Bill’s Law of Scheduling. Bill’s Law of Scheduling states:

Unscheduled events will conform to scheduled events.

In other words, when you place your top priorities in your schedule–your rocks–everything else will adjust to them. We all know email can take fifteen minutes or an hour and fifteen minutes. The difference? The way you schedule your time. Sand conforms to rocks.

Fundamentally, what you are asking yourself is this, what are your highest personal and professional priorities for the week? Having determined them, schedule them so you live life differently, based on importance and not urgency.

In other words, drive your own car.

The Second 30 Minutes: Dynamic Daily Check-Ins

Now, just like you’ve scheduled a 30-minute planning meeting with yourself one day in the week, schedule a 5-minute check-in meeting with yourself the other six days.

The vibe of the daily check-in, however, isn’t the quiet reflection of a weekly planning meeting, but the quick connection of a football huddle. Your goal is to arrange the day in light of the weekly plan you’ve made and the dynamic developments that have transpired during the week.

Missed your workout because of an unplanned sales meeting? Reschedule it for this afternoon. Skipped date night because of sick kids? Reschedule it for the weekend when your sister’s available to watch them.

I have clients who prefer to do this at the end of the day and others who do it at the beginning. But do it without fail.

Any cross-country flight, and any week in the ever-changing world in which we live and work, has things happen that take it off course. Regular mid-course corrections keep your week on track and get it to its desired destination.

And that’s all there is too it. Thirty minutes of planning one time per week and thirty minutes adjusting that plan five minutes a day.

Beats being driven all over the world by someone other that yourself!

The post How to Make the Most of Every Week in 60 Minutes or Less appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

What do you experience in that moment?

A racing pulse? Cold sweats? Thoughts spinning out of control? You’re not alone, because that’s what most people experience when their boss shows up unannounced wanting “to talk”.

And that’s what people experience when you do the same with them.

What’s a leader to do?

We’re being told to get out of our office and get more in touch with our people. We’re being told to talk with others on their turf and not make them come to us. And we’re being told to do all that in person, not by memo, email, or Skype.

And what we’re being told is true. It’s just the doing of it that gets in the way, the context and not the content.

Context, Content, and Negative Sentiment Override

All communication takes place in a specific context, a set of experiences both past and present that determine how a message is received. You may have the most positive message in the world to announce to your people, but if you’re communicating it in a context where negativity has reigned, that message will be misunderstood and, ultimately, rejected.

This is a phenomenon known and negative sentiment override.

Negative sentiment override occurs when the context of a message cancels out its actual content. It’s what people are doing with the ubiquitous BP commercials telling us how committed they are to the environment. Given BP’s track record in the Gulf of Mexico, negative sentiment override kicks in and we sneer, “Yeah, right!”

Here are three steps to keep this from happening to you:

1. Be a credible leader

The context of any conversation you’re having is, first and foremost, personal character. Simply stated, people won’t believe the message if they don’t believe the messenger: you.

This means being a leader who’s credible. Leadership credibility comes from doing what you say you will do, speaking the truth even when it’s difficult, and saying sorry when you’re wrong.

Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee say it best in their brilliant book Resonant Leadership, “We trust–and follow–people who are real, who are consistent, whose behavior, values, and beliefs are aligned. We trust people whom we do not constantly have to second-guess.”

2. Invest in organizational culture

The second place people look for context is the culture of your company. They may believe you, but if you’re representing an organization that’s not trustworthy, they may still may reject the message.

Organizational culture is the silent killer of performance and productivity in business today. Leaders have dismissed investing in their culture as empty fluff, as useless as holding hands and singing kum-by-yah.

Repeated research, and experiences I’ve seen with my own eyes, prove otherwise.

No amount of pep rallies and strategy sessions can overcome a culture that’s broken. People will put in their time, but withhold their heart, eyeing with disdain anything that comes form the top (even from a trusted leader like you).

In some of the cultures I’ve come in contact with as a consultant, I’ve even seen people actively working against the stated direction of the company. I once had a Safeway checker say to me, “Please don’t use the new automated check-out machines. If you do, we’ll lose our job.”

So fix your culture.

Make your business a great place to work. Praise your people honestly, authentically, and, dare I say, lavishly. Open up the lines of communication, and listen, really listen, to what others have to say. Define the values that you believe in as an organization, and use every touch point with your people to reinforce those values, including hiring and firing.

3.  Say what you’re not saying

All of these things, however, will not eliminate the racing pulse and spinning thoughts that arise when you show up in a person’s office “to talk”. It may slow them down a bit, but it won’t eliminate them entirely. So getting started on the right foot in any conversation is critically important.

And super simple to do. Just say what you’re not saying.

State the issue at hand clearly and plainly, then spend some time explaining exactly what that issue does not mean. This process provides a context of safety, a platform of sorts, upon which to place your content.

MORE: Stop, Be Safe, Be Sound: 3 Steps to Keep Your Cool in Conflict

This is how a discussion like this might sound. Imagine stepping into someone’s office to discuss their continued lateness to team meetings:

Tom, I want to talk about your arriving late to the last few team meetings we’ve had. I don’t want you to think I’m not satisfied with the quality of your work. If fact, just the opposite is true. You do terrific work, and I’m thrilled with it. Punctuality is important for both myself and the team, however, and I’d like you to address that by being on time for all out meetings from here on out. Okay?

This is an interpersonal communication technique that’s called contrasting. Contrasting is simply putting into perspective an issue by first saying what you’re not saying, then saying what you are saying. It frames the conversation around the one issue on the table, punctuality, and gives you an opportunity to affirm everything else that’s being done well.

So how do you avoid the BP-effect with your people?

Here’s the formula:

Trustworthy Context (personally and organizationally)

PLUS

Well-Framed Content

EQUALS

Effective Communication

Do this well, and you’ll never have to run a series of television commercials in prime time proclaiming how perfect you are.

The post How to Avoid the BP-Effect with Your People appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

Image courtesy Ken Douglas via Compfight

Your world is ever changing.

Like the tide, it’s in constant motion. Sometimes with a dramatic surge, other times with more subtle shifts in the sand.

This is true in the world of leadership as well. So it’s imperative that you stop every once in awhile and ask yourself if you are changing with the times.

One of the best ways to do that is to look at each of the following three zones and ask yourself which one you’re living in right now.

ZONE ONE: The Comfort Zone

The first zone that leaders find themselves in is the comfort zone. It’s the zone where we are safe and secure. This is a zone we think we want to live in (Who doesn’t want to be safe and secure?), but one that’s not in our best interests long term.

You know you’re in this zone when you’re bored. At first you don’t realize you’re bored, of course. It seeps into your soul unannounced, but it’s boredom just the same.

The spring is gone from your step. The exhilaration you used to have at the beginning of each day is just a faint memory. And the future … nothing really special awaits you.

Leadership starts in this zone, however.

It starts with a deep dissatisfaction with the status quo, a “holy discontent” as Bill Hybels puts it. Leadership in this zone realizes that what you crave–an endless feast of comfort food–will actually kill you, and what you need to do is get to work on that which will capture your imagination and transform your life.

ZONE TWO: The Stretch Zone

So you enter the Stretch Zone.

This zone has nothing to do with maintaining the status quo. This is the zone of bold vision and big goals. No, it’s not safe and secure, but bold vision and big goals never are. The Stretch Zone is “walking naked into the land of uncertainty,” according to leadership guru Robert Quinn.

And he’s right!

You know you’re in this zone when you’re a little excited and little scared, at the same time. You’re in this zone when you have big dreams for the future. Dreams you can almost taste and touch, but don’t know exactly how you’ll achieve. And that’s okay, you’ll figure it out.

And you know you’re in this zone when the people in your life–family and friends, colleagues and coworkers–are animated by that dream as well, and join you on this amazing adventure.

ZONE THREE: The Danger Zone

The third zone of leadership is called the danger zone because we enter it when we’ve gone past being stretched and start experiencing unhealthy stress. Strings on a violin don’t produce any music unless they’re stretched. But turn those strings too tight, and they’ll snap.

Most of us enter the Danger Zone unaware. The slide from stretching to stressing can be subtle and imperceptible, but dangerous just the same. This is the zone of leadership burnout.

Here are three signs that you’ve entered the Danger Zone:

• Physical exhaustion
• Emotional depletion
• Relational distance

First, in the Danger Zone we experience an intense tiredness that doesn’t go away. Our sleep isn’t restful; and when we awake, we’re not refreshed. With this fatigue also comes an emotional weariness, a lingering sadness that has no real loss associated with it.

MORE: Warning: 3 Danger Signs of Entrepreneurial Entropy

In this zone, as well, we feel cut off from family and friends. Mostly because we’ve run out of anything useful to give them, but also from the pace of living and leading that’s left them watching from the sidelines (or, sadly, moving on).

If you’re in this zone, the answer isn’t giving up on your vision and going back to the days when you were bored and pathetic. It’s just backing off a bit. Catching your breath personally, and taking some time to reconnect with the ones you love the most.

All good leaders learn where that fine line is of pushing hard enough to get somewhere significant and pushing too hard, eventually running out of gas. When you find that line, back off from it just a notch to assure that you’ll always be in the Stretch Zone of leadership and never in the Danger Zone.

Effective leadership is a marathon and not a sprint. In running a marathon pacing is all-important so you can finish well. How’s the pacing of your leadership? Which one of these zones are you in right now, the Comfort Zone, the Stretch Zone, or the Danger Zone, and what do you need to do about it?

The post Three Zones of Leadership: Which One Are You In? appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

That’s what Harvard Business School recently discovered in a research project on the way CEO’s spend their time.

The report found that CEO’s are hardworking and diligent, serving their firms tirelessly. No surprise, right? What was surprising was this: The area where CEO’s spent most of their time, over 60% of it, was in meetings, with only 3-4% of their time being spent on long-term strategy.

Neither of these percentages are encouraging.

Whether you’re a CEO nor not, if you’re in business, you’re probably sick of sitting in meetings. They don’t need to be a necessary evil, however. Smart leaders handle meetings differently. Here’s how:

1. The Check-in Meeting

Every time you sit down for a meeting, you don’t have to spend and hour.  In fact, I would guess that most meetings don’t require anywhere near to an hour to get things done.

The check-in is a quick, five minute meeting to briefly touch base on what’s going on. That’s the agenda, nothing else. This meeting has been called a stand-up meeting, because the minute you’ve put your butt in a chair, you’ve wasted a hour. So it’s best to do a check-in standing up.

When a meeting like this takes place in a group, it’s called a huddle. Some find that term too sports-minded, but you get the idea. People don’t sit down in a huddle, they stand up and talk about the next play, not the entire season. Check-ins can be done daily, or a few times a week, but they are brief, single issue touch points with your people.

2. The Strategy Meeting

The next kind of meeting is the strategy meeting, best conducted over an extended period of time off-site. The strategy meeting is like going up on the balcony and viewing the party below. When you’re down on the floor dancing, all you can see is the whirlwind that’s going around you, but when you’re up on the balcony you see people at the party who aren’t having a good time at all, other who are drunk in the corner, and still others who are walking out the door. The only way to see all of this stuff is to leave the dance floor and go up to the balcony and watch for a while.

That’s why once a quarter, no less than once a year, a leadership team should get off-site and take an extended look from the balcony, honestly evaluating the progress of the business and setting the plan for the months ahead. My clients usually take a morning for these meetings, about three to four hours, with breakfast before or lunch afterward. One of those quarterly meetings should take a longer look, planning the next year, three years, or even five years.

MORE: Two Insanely Simple Rules to Making Meetings Matter

3. The Tactical Meeting

The third kind of meeting is the one we’re most familiar with, and it’s a meeting that I believe is grossly overused: the tactical meeting. First, there are things that need discussing related to your business that can’t be done in an hour. That’s why the strategy meeting is so critical. It provides a protected place and a protected time to get the all-important view from the balcony. Secondly, once direction is set, quick check-ins are often all that’s needed to keep people on track.

With these two meetings in place, the tactical meeting can be used sparingly, not abandoned entirely, but utilized every couple of weeks, or even just once a month. Use the tactical meeting for, obviously, tactical issues: short term planning, key metrics, and ongoing accountabilities. If a bigger picture, more long-term item comes up, defer it to your next strategy session.

In other words, stop the meeting madness!

Don’t use just one kind of meeting all the time. That’s like using one key on the piano to play every song. There’s often a better, more effective way to meet your business needs and increase impact with your people.

The post Stop the Meeting Madness: 3 Choices for Smart Leaders appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

Why?

Because they know if they’re going to be world class at they do, they need someone who’s an expert in their field to bring out the best in them.

The same is true for business.

If you’re going to be the best leader you can be, it’s going to take someone who knows business and leadership, someone whose experience you trust, to bring out the very best in you.

Four Questions to Ask Yourself

Is it time for you to work with a business coach? Ask yourself these four questions:

1. Do you want to grow as a leader in a way that you’ve never grown before?
2. Do you want to grow your business in a way that it’s never grown before?
3. Are you facing a set of challenges you’ve never faced before and need a new level leadership to overcome them?
4. Do you want someone to help you achieve what matters most both in business and in life?

If you said yes to any of those questions, you have your answer. It’s time!

What Does Coaching Really Mean Anyway?

I know, I know coaching has been all the rage recently and you’re not sure what it really means. Or if it’s even something you want to waste your valuable time and hard-earned money on.

Here’s my definition of business coaching. It’s simple, effective, and what I’ve done for over a decade.

Business coaching is assessment, action, and accountability focused on measurable results.

Results: that’s where business coaching begins.

What do you want to do? This is what drives the entire engagement, the measurable outcomes you seek to achieve both in business and in life. And this is exactly where I start my work.

After asking the question, “What do you want to do?” I then ask the next question, “What are you doing now?”

That is what I mean by assessment, not staring into a mirror to find your hidden flaws, but simply discovering where you are so we can set a path forward to get to where you want to be. Then, based on this information, we’ll create a plan, powerful steps of action we’ll attack with laser-like focus.

Finally, I’ll hold you accountable for executing this action plan, encouraging you when things gets tough (and they will) and celebrating when you experience success (and you will).

Meeting for about an hour every other week, my coaching engagements extend from six months to a full year, repeating the assessment, action, accountability process as many times as we need to get the results you seek

Why in the World Should You Work with Me?

“Okay, then, maybe I need do a business coach,” you might be telling yourself, “Why you?”

That’s a good question. Here’s how my  clients would answer it:

Coaching with Bill has been fantastic! He has taken me to the next level both in work and life. I would recommend him to any leader eager to grow.

Tina Stuiber
Director of Operations
Health Payment Systems, Inc.

With Bill’s coaching our company has grown 20% annually during a time when other contractors are going out of business. On a personal level, Bill has been a good friend and mentor, helping us through the struggles that occur in a husband-wife business partnership. We are more successful personally and professionally as a result of working with Bill.

Trish and Trent Irwin
Owners
TnT Builders, Inc.

Every once in a while someone comes into your life who challenges you to be your very best. Bill Zipp has been that person for me. Working with him I’ve nearly tripled my business income.

Dr. Richard Eley

Lamplighter Leadership Coaching

What’s the Next Step to Take?

Okay, where do we go from here?

I’m going to be honest with you (as much as I’d like to think otherwise), coaching with me is not for everyone. The most important thing you’re looking for in a coach is a good fit. You want to work with someone who “gets” you, but also someone who’ll push you to be the very best you can be.

So the first thing we should do is talk and see if it makes sense to work together.

In our initial appointment, at no charge to you, we’ll get to know each other and get to know your business. I’ll also share the various coaching options I offer, as well as the financial investment you’ll need to make.

As a special thank you gift for investing your time in this way, I’ll even send you my 75-minute audio CD: How To Tame Your Tasks Lists: Four Critical Steps to Doing More by Doing Less. These CD’s sell for $20.00 each, but, again, I’ll send it to you at no charge after we meet together.

I’m currently scheduling initial appointments on the following dates:

• Thursday, February 28
• Friday, March 1
• Thursday, March 7
• Friday, March 8

Read This, Please, It’s Very Important

I only work with 12 coaching clients at any one time.

I do this so I can give my undivided attention to the leaders I serve, and currently have just four openings in my coaching schedule. That’s it, just four openings. So, if this is something you’re interested in, act now.

These openings will fill up quickly!

Is it time for you to hire a business coach? If it is, don’t delay. Schedule an initial appointment with me right now and take the first step to becoming the very best leader you can be.

Fill out the form below to request an initial appointment:

The post Seriously? Why in the World Should You Work with a Business Coach? appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

Am I right?

And I would agree with you, except. Except for the actual experience I have with my clients.

So many of the clients I work with know they should have big, challenging goals for both their business and their life–and maybe at one point in time they did–but they’ve veered from this fundamental discipline. In so doing, they’re adrift, driven by the wind and waves of circumstance and the demanding expectations of others.

Does this describe you?

Here’s some encouragement to get you back on track, 21 amazing benefits to having big goals:

1. Goals focus your energy

With so many things to do in a day, how do you choose from the myriad of options? Big goals, well-chosen and well-defined, help you cut through the clutter of the urgent and do that which is truly important.

2. Goals measure your work

What gets measured gets done. It really is that simple. It’s the way we’re wired as human beings. Specific goals provide measurement so what you need to get done–exactly what you need to get done–gets done. Without fail.

3. Goals activate your emotions

There’s something about the human spirit that’s inspired by a challenge. We get fired up to do that which is out of the ordinary and pushes the envelope. That’s what big goals do, they fully engage the heart, activating our emotions.

4. Goals strengthen your will

And when you face unexpected obstacles in the pursuit of a goal, the goal itself keeps you going. You just can’t let it go! Even when your emotions tell you to quit, your volition doesn’t allow it. Big goals produce dogged determination.

5. Goals make work fun

Why do we love playing games? Because it’s fun to keep score. Try bowling all day without keeping score. Boring. Trying working all day without knowing how you’re doing. Also boring.

6. Goals help you get better at what you do

Keeping score has an additional benefit. Yes, it’s fun to keep score, but it’s even more fun to improve that score and get better at what you’re doing every day. Setting a big goal and measuring its progress does that for you.

7. Goals tell you when to take a break

If you’re like me, you need someone to tell you when to stop working. Right? A big goal does that, because, when it’s achieved, you know you can stop and take a break for awhile. At least until you’ve set another big goal.

8. Goals give you a reason to celebrate

When a big goal gets done, it’s cause for rejoicing. Go out to dinner, pop open the champagne, order the finest steak in the restaurant. A completed goal is cause for a party. Throw one!

MORE: How Many Goals Should You Have?

9. Goals force you to ask why

Any big, challenging goal should make you think more deeply about it. “Why am I doing this?” you ask yourself. That’s a good question! Answer it and you just found high octane fuel to send your goal into orbit.

10. Goals force you to ask how

Another question a big goal forces you to ask is this, “How in the world am I going to get this done?” Again, answer it! When you do, you just got your marching orders to move forward with your goal.

11. Goals are the mother of invention

Many times when asking how, no answer comes to mind. But you’ve got this big goal you’re committed to completing. So you think and think and think and bam!, the perfect solution comes to mind. Goals provide the necessity that gives birth to innovation.

12. Goals get you living in the present not the past

Yeah, I got stuff in my life, as I’m sure you do too, that I’d rather not remember. What will keep you from brooding on that stuff and spinning into a depressing black hole? A big goal. It pulls you out of your own pity party about the past and places you squarely in the present, doing that which is positive and productive.

13. Goals give you a way to tell others what you do

Try explaining what you do to someone, and watch their eyes glaze over. Tell them the big goal you’re working on, and that’s a different story. They’ll be on the edge of their seat and just might join you in getting it done.

14. Goals give you a way to encourage others to put aside their differences

There’s nothing more frustrating as a leader that to have the members of your team bickering among themselves. It sucks energy from the group and keeps important work from getting done. Getting people focused on a common goal, however, forces them to put their differences aside. There’s no time for such nonsense, they’ve got a job to do. Big goals put pettiness in its place.

15. Goals provide the yes that allows you to say no

One of the trickiest things we have to do in life is saying no others’ requests for our time. A goal however, is a yes that allows you to say no. “I’m so sorry, I would love to do that, but…” You’re not being lame, you’ve got a big goal to complete and there’s only so much of you to go around.

16. Goals get you thinking about what might go wrong

When you really care about a goal, a big goal, you start thinking about the things that threaten it. Good thinking!  Now address that threat so it won’t derail the goal. Clouds in the sky shouldn’t keep you from going on a picnic, it should remind you to bring an umbrella.

17. Goals give a deadline to a dream

It’s fun to dream, but most dreams never actually get done. Why? Because they’ve not been turned into a goal, and, as a result, they’re just empty wishes. Give that dream a deadline, and now you’ve got a goal. And goals, as opposed to mere wishes, have a good chance of getting done.

18. Goals bring greater personal satisfaction

The ultimate indignity in life is to do meaningless work day after day with no sense of accomplishment in it. That’s the fate of Sisyphus, a fate we must fight with every fiber of our being. Setting and achieving big, challenging goals fights that fate for us.

19. Goals give people a reason to respect you (even though they may not like you)

Deal with it, not everyone is going to like you. I know that’s hard to accept, being so wonderful as you are. But let me ask you this: Who can argue with results? When you become a person who sets and achieves big, challenging goals, even the most grudging in their approval will not be able to withhold it.

20. Goals get you up in the morning with a spring in your step

Nothing is worse than another dreary day with no reason for it to exist. When you’ve got a reason to get up and get going each day–insert your big goal here–getting out of bed is no problem. You can’t wait to get working on that goal.

21. Goals give birth to other big goals

“What else can I do?” you ask yourself when you’ve completed a big, challenging goal. “Anything you set your mind to,” is the answer you can give, because you know how to set and achieve goals. You have power, awesome power. Bring on the world!

The post 21 Amazing Benefits to Having Big Goals appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.

Image courtesy bark via Compfight

You know you need to give many of the things you’re doing to others to do.

You know if you don’t delegate more, you’ll end up drowning as a leader in a sea of endless work.

And you know if you don’t develop your people, you’ll never move forward in the organization, forever being labeled as one of “those” managers who doesn’t trust their people.

You know all this, but you haven’t been able to do it. The plain honest truth is that you stink at delegation.

After over a decade of working as a consultant with leaders just like you, I’ve discovered three reasons why delegation is such an elusive skill. The problem is, no one’s talking about these reasons. So let me solve that problem right now.

Here are three surprising reasons why you stink at delegation:

1. You stink at delegation because you’re using work to meet your ego needs

Say what? That sounds like a bunch of psychobabble. Using work to meet my ego needs … give me a break!

Stick with me, however, and I’ll prove it to you.

Instead of having a real life, many of us use work to feel better about ourselves. The harder we work, the better we feel. And the harder we work, the more we are rewarded, and, again, the better we feel.

That backfires, however, when we’re put into leadership.

The secret to successful leadership is not doing things yourself, but making sure things get done. This is no mere exercise in semantics. Without exception good leaders get things done through others, not doing those things themselves.

But if working hard is what you do to feel better about yourself, you just can’t bear to give something to someone else to do. It’s your drug of choice and you’ve gotta have your daily fix. See the dilemma this puts you in?

Here’s my first piece of delegation advice: Have a life outside of work. Get your ego needs met in ways other than your job. You’ll then have the emotional clarity to be able to give stuff to others to do because you don’t need to do those things to feel better about yourself, you’ve got your family, friends, and faith for that.

And, surprisingly, you’ll get more done as well.

Succession Plans Gone Sour

I once watched a very successful, hard working leader reach the point of her retirement, hire her successor (the ultimate act of delegation), only to use her position on the governing board to have that successor fired and return to the organization.

Why?

Because she had given her whole life to the organization, including choosing it over her marriage, and upon retirement had nothing to live for. The only logical thing was to come back to the organization as its leader, in spite of their succession plan.

If this leader, however, had a life outside of work, retirement, while an adjustment, would have been the next chapter in a fulfilling life.

2. You stink at delegation because you rush the process

Fundamentally, delegation is not an event but a process. Delegation is not an act where I’m doing something and then give it to you to do. It’s a sequence that moves through these logical steps:

The problem is, when we don’t think through delegation until it’s too late, we sit down with a poor, unsuspecting soul and give them a long list of things to to do. That’s not delegation, that’s a drive-by  shooting.

When you use delegation thoughtlessly in this way, you rush the process and it doesn’t work.

MORE: Delegation is Not Dumping: A 5 Step Process that Really Works

Get ahead of the curve. Identify the tasks you want others to do. List the steps involved in completing those tasks. Find the people with the skill set that’s the best match for completing them. And walk those people through the process until they’ve got it down.

You don’t have the time for that, you say?

I maintain that you don’t have the time not to do this. It takes infinitely less time to prevent a fire than to put one out. Get in front of the delegation process and put a plan in place that keeps your business, and your life, from burning to the ground.

3.  You stink at delegation because you get buyer’s remorse and take it back

We’ve all experienced buyer’s remorse. Buyer’s remorse happens when we purchase something we thought we needed, then change our minds and return it. We get buyer’s remorse in delegation when we give something to someone else to do, then take it back from them.

There are two reasons why this happens:

Reason One: Willing but Not Able

Sometimes buyer’s remorse is perfectly justified. We buy something we don’t need or charge something we can’t afford, and then realize our mistake. The act of purchasing the item brought a sense of clarity we didn’t have previously.

Sometimes when we take that final step of delegation, completely handing over something to someone else to do, we realize we’ve acted prematurely. The person is willing to do the task, but they’re just not able. At least not yet.

No problem. Return to the delegation process outlined above and fill in the gaps. Then release them once again to act on their own without you.

Reason Two: Able but Not Willing

This second reason, however, we get buyer’s remorse in delegation is the real killer of it. It’s the story of the failed succession plan I related earlier. The person you’re delegating to is able to do the task, you’re just not willing to let it go.

It’s at this juncture that you must realize that your calling as a leader is to serve the organization, not yourself. And serving the organization means developing its people and training them to excel on their own apart from you.

The great irony in leadership is this: The way up is down. As you learn to be a leader that truly leads, not just using your position to meet your ego needs, you become more valuable to the organization. You can be trusted with most any project in it because you’ll make it work apart from dependence on you.

These kind of leaders are worth their weight in gold.

Are you?

The post Three Surprising Reasons Why You Stink at Delegation appeared first on Bill Zipp on Business.