But aren’t most of the tasks maintenance, really?  If we spend a year without doing any big projects even if I continue fixing or improving routine things, then the paint will be a year older, things will be a little more worn. No big projects means the house looks older and older, it just doesn’t stay the same.

I believe a similar reality applies to leadership and people development in organizations, too.  Taking a year away from developing people doesn’t leave you where you were, it takes you backward–just a little.  Skills that are a little less current, the dialogue in the organization is a little more stale, people are a little more distant from company values and purpose. Having learning projects engages staff, channels their energy and keeps them moving forward.

I know the philosophy for many in this economic downturn has been “all hands on deck.”  Focus has been on sales and marketing and on bringing in as much business as possible.  I hope the time has come to look around to see how to tend to the people in the organization.  How can their development support the bottom line? What are the projects your house needs to be a home?

What are the first challenges that need to be addressed?  What are the longer term projects that can create an environment to be proud of?

Sincerely,

Melanie Parish

In retrospect, all that longing wasn’t great for my relationship.  Asking for my partner to give me more, didn’t make our relationship better.  However, the desire to reduce all that conflict kept us in dialogue and helped us to change our marriage.  Instead of asking for more of each other, the phrase that we laugh about repeatedly is, “If you aren’t happy in your marriage, lower your expectations!”

Lowering expectations has worked wonders for our marriage–and laughing about it hasn’t hurt, either.  Not having expectations of the way it is “supposed to be” has allowed us to appreciate the contributions from all of our family members.  It allows us an opportunity to stay in a place of gratitude rather than disappointment.  Somehow, without he conflict I have found the intensity and intimacy I wanted.  it wasn’t by asking for it, it was by appreciating my husband and by being intimate with him.

People end marriages all the time because they don’t measure up to the preconceived idea they have of marriage.  For us, the joy has come in allowing our marriage to unfold and being grateful for the glorious twists, turns and offerings.  It feels good.

By the way, John Gottman, a relationship expert and researcher backs this up with his research.  In his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Gottman reveals that 69% of all marital problems are perpetual–that means they can’t be solved.  By lowering our expectations, we were able to stop focusing on the perpetual problems.

This entry is about my marriage, but the landscape of conflict in relationships happens in all relationships and teams.  Where do expectations of your team members keep you from appreciating their talents?

I know that many small business owners are afraid of sales and marketing.  They are too slow to get their marketing together, and they mistake marketing material for sales.  In the busy life of an entrepreneur, sales and marketing activities are a zero sum game.  That means that time given to one takes away time from the other.  Both sales and marketing need to be part of an overall business building strategy that is well thought out and effective.

I have also noticed that people internalize sales and marketing pain in a way they don’t with other challenges.  I can’t count the times a business owner has said to me, “I don’t know why I am not more successful.  Maybe I am supposed to fail.”

WHAT?  Are you kidding me?  You are failing because you lack the knowledge you need to be successful in sales.  You don’t have a plan and you aren’t following through with the activities that will drive business opportunity.  OK, so that wasn’t the most supportive coach-like behaviour on my part, but I do not believe that helping people “feel” better is the answer to a sales problem.  It is strategic planning in the area of sales.  It is creating a marketing and sales strategy that drives business that is tested over time.

I have been working with business owners and entrepreneurs almost since the beginning of my career as a coach and organizational strategist.  They hired me because they perceived me to have something they didn’t.  They saw me as someone who had been successful in sales and marketing and they craved success in these areas.  Sales and marketing aren’t innate skills, they are learn-able skills!  Anyone can learn to put sales and marketing strategy in place and then try it out.  If it works, keep doing it.  If it doesn’t work, try a new strategy.
Put a marketing strategy in place.  Follow the strategy through until you are ready to evaluate the strategy and see if it worked.  Use your sales strategy to close the business your marketing is bringing in.  That is what marketing and sales are all about.

Of course, it may make sense to get some help with all of this.  If you would like to speak with me about your sales strategy, I would love to talk with you.  To schedule a time for your free sales strategy session, click here.  Type “free session” in the big box.

I look forward to learning about you and your business!

Melanie Parish

Organizational Strategist and Coach

I consciously decided that if I said yes to this leadership role I had to consciously try bring my best self to that community. I wasn’t going to be perfect, but I had to make an effort to bring all of my skills to the group. I needed to try to be creative instead of reactive, to bring my relationship skills and my kindness rather than my frustration and judgment.I joined the board. I ended up being a part of a highly functioning group. We worked well together, dissenting was both allowed and encouraged, and we made strong decisions and presented a united leadership front. It worked.

That moment, when I realized I could consciously change and bring my best self stays in my mind. It makes me wonder where the spots are I allow my worst self to show up. Sometimes with my family and with the phone company, I know. There are times when I am not sure whether I am bringing my best self or my worst self. When I stand up for something, and have unintended conflict, I am confused as to whether I am at my best or my worst. I cycle around and try to stand up for open communication and relationships.

I continue to work on bringing my best self to my life.

I think it made sense to cut back in order to survive.  To put aside leader development and team building to focus on the bottom line.  It was a wise business decision.  It made sense in tough times to cut the budget anywhere possible.

But what now?  What does the new economy call for from its leaders?  What are the skills that the next generation of managers and leaders need for the next cycle of the economy.  What will people need to cultivate in their staff to create high levels of profitability going forward?

Clearly, innovation is still needed.  Ability to motivate and get results…  Collaboration?  Creative thinking?  Kindness?  Transparency?

What do you think our leaders need to be developing in the next 3 years?  I am pretty sure resilience is one of the skills our leaders will need.

She has a busy classroom and sets it up in a way that the children are rarely in trouble.  She doesn’t keep them sitting too long or chastise them for talking.  She creates time in the schedule for them to talk to each other—she believes in their relationships with each other.  She fits the learning into their natural flow.  She doesn’t keep herself at the center of their learning—she creates opportunities for them to learn in a variety of ways—she strategizes how they can learn from a variety of people.  One of these opportunities are the third graders who come in to read to the kindergarteners once a week—they have a buddy system and they love it.  This is teaching two skills:  mentoring and helping others and learning from others.  She had another staff member come in and work with the children around the topic of responsibility.  There was a book and a heated discussion from the staff member, and  I saw her talking about responsibility during the time the kids got their coats and boots off and hung them up and again when a child spilled a tub of small toys and they all helped pick them up.

During circle time, I watched this teacher do 3 things that blew me away:  the first was an inquiry session with my son Emerson.  She asked him to figure out which of the children was missing.  When they come into the classroom, they have a card they put in a hanging chart that has clear plastic to read all the names.  They sort—girls on the right, boys on the left.  She asked Emerson to look at the chart and see whether it was a  boy or a girl that was missing.  This seemed easy until I noticed that Claire’s name was on the boys side.  Emerson deduced that a boy was missing and she sent him to look at the remaining card—to check his work.  He was noticeably embarrassed when he found Ethan’s name.  He came back and she encouraged him to keep looking to see why the name wasn’t what he expected.  It took him a while (I actually was shocked that he could read 17 children’s names) but he found it and was so proud.  What she demonstrated was allowing him to be uncomfortable to facilitate his learning and believing in him even when it was hard.  He learned that by looking longer he could figure it out and could help the class.  She also created an excellent environment for Xander to learn about strategy.  She asked Xander to come up with a strategy for counting all the children in the class—he chose to have each child sit down as he counted them.  She could have told him to count the children, however, her question took the learning to a higher level and allowed him to learn about strategy while he practiced counting—something we focus on with leaders all the time.

The final thing that has stayed with me almost a week later is when they stopped and played a song and danced.  She had a great song on a cd player—the children chose which one—and they all stopped and danced.  It was fun and the image of her dancing with them will stay with me for a long time.  Sometimes I find myself being too reserved, holding back, trying to pretend I am cool.  The image of her dancing joyfully with the children  was a lesson of living life to the fullest and giving herself completely to her profession—to me in the land of leadership, this is perhaps the greatest lesson of all.

This article was written about Lesley Tiringer at George R. Allen Elementary School.  Her name is published with her permission.

1. Keep the information flowing

2. Offer as much security as you can in the midst of uncertainty. You may not be able to promise that people will keep their jobs for the next five years, but you may be able to say, “We feel certain we will not have any lay-offs for the next six months and we will re-evaluate then.”

3. Allow people to be human and to have feelings during lay-offs. After lay-offs have occurred, allow a time for the people left behind to talk and express what they are feeling. Help them to recognize that the organization cares that they are feeling strong emotions and understands that their workloads have increased. This will help your employees become productive again sooner.

4. Engage the team in the big picture and what they can do. Give the team a stake in the ownership of company actions required to keep the company afloat during a recession. Asking people to take a pay cut may be necessary. Also help them understand how their day-to-day actions can impact the company and keep it strong. Ask for more, not less, to get through tough times.

5. Share good news. Good news can be forgotten when bad news is the norm. Share the good things that are happening around the company. Share stories of people going the extra mile. Recognize the efforts of people who are trying incredibly hard.

1. Make your goal incredibly specific.

2. Set a “complete by” date. A goal without a deadline is like a fishing line without a hook. It looks great on the surface but you won’t catch anything! We all need targets and timelines so that we can pace our progress and establish when we’ve met our goal. Again, make your goal specific, like “I will make 100 cold calls where I talk to a new potential client by phone or email in the month of October.”

3. Imagine the impact of your goal. What is the expected impact of the new activity? How will completing the goal improve your sales in the long term? Short term? This will help motivate you to achieve your goal, and also give you a good sense of whether your goal is worth pursuing.

4. Set a realistic goal that you can hit if you push. People sometimes get in the habit of letting themselves off the hook for goals they set. They make the goal too easy to achieve or shrug it off if they don’t achieve it. Make your goal sacred–it is! Goals are the way to become the top producer you want to be. Set a realistic goal–then work like crazy to meet it.

5. Give yourself a prize. As a sales coach, I have noticed that for most people money is not the best motivator toward meeting a goal. Money allows a certain lifestyle but we hardly see it. It gets deposited into the bank account and pays bills. If you give yourself a prize, you have a tangible motivator that can drive you toward your goal. This doesn’t need to be a prize set by the organization or the boss. Figure out your own prize for being the best you can be. “If I make 100 cold calls where I talk to a new potential client by phone or email in the month of October, I will buy myself those fabulous red patent leather pumps!”

6. Set a different goal next time. Salespeople often think a goal was so successful they will just “do it again.” As a coach, I have found that people need variety. Very rarely do I see the same energy the second time. If you did cold calls the first time, do appointments or set a goal to speak to three business groups the next time. Change it up to keep your energy high.

“I just didn’t want to give up on the sales,” he says, sheepishly.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example. Wheatly’s tale—the story is true, though his name has been changed to protect the guilty—is not uncommon. Many business managers are much more focused on—and have a much better picture of—their revenue than they do of their profit. The focus on the top line versus the bottom line is an issue for companies of all sizes. For example, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that one of the Fortune 500 was reviewing its cost structure for the first time in 10 years. But it is a more pernicious problem for many small businesses that don’t have the luxury of deep pockets and complacent investors.

It’s 5 p.m. Do you know where your profit is?

Improving profitability requires first that you focus on it. When you talk about your company do you describe it as a “$2 million (sales)” company or a “$100,000 (profit)” company? When you talk about how you’re doing at the end of the day or week or month, is it in revenue or profit terms? Are your incentive schemes based on revenue or profit? Do you even know from month to month what your profit is?

Though the specific steps will depend on the nature of your enterprise, here are several suggestions for sharpening your profit focus and finding ways to enhance the profitability of your business.

Pay yourself first. This doesn’t mean you write yourself a check before you pay your employees, but that you account for yourself at the salary you deserve, rather than “what’s left over.” What do you think your time is worth? $100 an hour? $500 an hour? What would the profitability of your company look like if you paid yourself that? If you don’t like the answer, then dig into the underlying reasons.

Lose the customers you are better off without. We’ve all heard that the 80/20 rule tends to apply to your customer base—80% of your profit will come from 20% of your customers. So far so good, but what do you do with the other 80%? The tendency is always to hang on to any source of revenue. But by trying to segment the bottom 80% further, you can often find that some of them are making you money and some are actually costing you money. By carefully reviewing these segments, you may be able to up the profitability of the middle tier…and then increase your profitability further by shedding the bottom tier. Turning away customers—any customers—may be tough (just ask Steve Wheatly), but that discipline can be highly rewarding.

Develop a “Profit Paradigm.” Let’s say your business is currently producing a 10% profit. The conventional approach to trying to raise that number is to examine your overhead and/or cost of sales and look for another 1-2% at the margin. That approach will often produce some results, particularly if you build in a process of constant reevaluation. But another strategy is to target a 20% net profit and figure out how to restructure your business to achieve it. Impossible? Maybe, but don’t underestimate what you can come up with by taking a more radical approach.

Retention vs. Replacement. If the “lifetime value” of your new customer is $1,000, then surely you can justify the $250 investment to attract one, right? That may make sense in the abstract, but the $1,000 is a hypothetical value and the $250 is coming out your pocket. The real question is what is the cost of retaining a good customer that you already have? Often that number is a small fraction of what it takes to get a new customer. The impact of customer retention on profit can be huge; a 5% increase in customer retention can yield a 25-100% increase in profitability.

Enlist all the help you can get. The suggestion box was supposedly invented in 1721 when the eighth shogun of Japan, Yoshimune Tokugawa, posted the following note: “Make your idea known . . . Rewards are given for ideas that are accepted.” The Japanese have since led the way in engaging workers in productivity (and profit) improvement processes. But you can tap your own employees’ knowledge and creativity for suggestions on how to reduce costs and improve productivity, and it doesn’t take a full-blown TQM or Six-Sigma process to do it. For many small businesses, Tokugawa’s note and a real commitment from the CEO are all that’s required. And if you run a business on your own, try having an “idea party.” Invite friends and colleagues over, present your situation and ask for creative solutions.

Author’s content used under license, © 2008 Claire Communications