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Great managers are hard to find. Great managers have a true gift and a passion for getting the most out of people. Great managers possess a unique ability that is not in everyone.
This message is a mini–passionate plea. Having worked with so many managers, I now see clearly the ones that truly want to be great managers and the ones that are doing it for other reasons (e.g., ego, advancement, having nowhere else to go).
One of my clients a few years back—the owner of the business—took over the sales manager role for his company because he thought it would be fun. He was very upset with me when I challenged his motivation and long-term ability to be a great, consistent, and enduring manager of his salespeople. Many years later, as he sits in the visionary seat of his fast-growing company with a great manager in the Sales VP seat, he thanks me for the brutal honesty and admits his ulterior motive.
A person who says “other than having to discipline people, keep expectations clear, repeat myself often, run meetings, and hire, fire, review and hold people accountable, I like being a manager” is not a great manager, and something bad is going to happen. Not always maliciously or purposely, but it’s going to happen.
If you’re sitting in a management seat for the wrong reasons or have put a manager in a seat who doesn’t belong there, you owe it to those people being managed to make a change. Make sure that every seat in your accountability chart that requires a manager is filled with a person who gets it, wants it, and has the capacity to be a great manager. If not, you must make the change.
Find out how you’re doing; (click here) to download the Management Questionnaire which is part of the LMA download. It contains five simple self-assessment points that get to the root of what makes great managers.
When 100% of our time is given to doing the business (marketing, selling, making, fixing, shipping, accounting, etc.), we’re stuck. We’re in a rut that leads to failure.
It’s a common trap we can all fall into. We have something the market wants. Demand increases and the technical activity associated with getting and filling orders completely fills our schedules. Forty hours per week becomes fifty and then sixty. We start taking work home (it’s a sign when what we once enjoyed becomes work). Everything becomes more mechanical. We lose balance often at the same time our business is losing steam.
When we’re in the rut, the solution appears to be counter-intuitive and impossible to execute, but we must allocate a portion of our time to work on the business if we want our business to survive. It’s not optional – it’s essential. We need to continually infuse creativity into our business, if we want to stay out of the rut. That won’t happen if we don’t: 1) purposefully allocate time for it and 2) utilize an agenda that maximizes the creative input in the time allocated.
The best solution I’ve seen to infuse the most creativity in the shortest amount of time is the EOS® Meeting Pulse™. It calls for setting aside 5 days per year with your executive leadership team and 90 minutes or less per week (5% to 6% of your total work hours), using specific agendas to extract creative input to prioritize, solve your issues, maintain focus and advance your company.
If you haven’t already established the discipline, start today and stay out of the rut.
One simple discipline we teach our clients is the power of rating their weekly Level 10 Meeting (click to download the Level 10 agenda). The power of doing this consistently is getting instant feedback on the effectiveness of your meetings.
Meetings are a necessary evil in business. They are the moment of truth for leadership teams. They’re an opportunity for getting on the same page, solving problems, creating ideas, and reporting on what’s important. It’s vital that your meetings are great. That’s non-negotiable.
Knowing this, the best way to find out if your team thinks your meetings are great is to ask, and the fastest way to ask and get an answer is a rating. It works like this: At the end of your meeting, ask, “Okay, let’s rate the meeting. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, how did we do?” Once everyone has answered, you’ll have your feedback. My advice is that an 8 or better is the standard. Anything less isn’t going to get you to great.
Sometimes, if the rating is less than an 8, you just leave it right there and end the meeting. You’ll have your insight, and the awareness alone will move you toward increasing the number. However, I’d also recommend occasionally asking anyone who rated it lower than an 8, “What would have made it a 10 for you?” You will then get some great feedback on how to improve and take it to a level 10!
I know it might be a little scary to find out the truth, but I urge you to try it in your next meeting.
How often do we find ourselves in the position where people are trying to communicate with us and we’ve heard little or nothing of what they’ve said? When we are supposed to be engaged and working together with our team to resolve important issues, it’s disturbing to see how disengaged we can be:
- Out of the blue, Bob and Sally break out into a side conversation about a totally unrelated topic.
- Ted hasn’t contributed a word and keeps checking his cell phone.
- Debbie’s falling asleep.
Consider the impact of being physically present and mentally absent in company meetings:
- It takes much longer to get to a decision, especially if we have to repeat ourselves for those who keep drifting off.
- We make poorer decisions because we haven’t heard and considered relevant input.
- We have weaker buy-in because we aren’t all fully engaged in the final decision.
When you come to your senses and realize you’ve been mentally elsewhere, apologize to your team and, if time permits, humbly request to be re-informed. Then stay engaged. Be present.
Fast Company published an article with the title, Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch, on January 24th, 2012. The article was written by FC Expert Blogger Shawn Parr. You can read the whole article here.
Gino Wickman, the founder of EOS Worldwide sent the article around to we EOS Implementers. He said the article is a must read from two standpoints. The headline is spot on with the EOS philosophy and it is exactly what EOS Implementers do for companies.
Parr summarizes what he thinks it takes to build great cultures, like those at Apple, Southwest Airlines, Zappos, Virgin, WholeFoods and Stoneybrook Farms.
Four very basic building blocks he calls out are:
- Dynamic and engaged leadership
- Living values
- Responsibility and accountability
- Celebrate success and failure.
We couldn’t agree more. If you’d like to talk about how we help companies accomplish these things, let me know.
The above title is our EOS Creed. Simply put, if you want a great enduring company, everyone on your leadership team must speak the same language and play by the same rules.
I’ve seen too many businesses where highly talented new hires are allowed to do things their own way, mergers and acquisitions that force multiple differing approaches to compete with each other, and stubborn business owners who won’t play by the rules. These are all examples of not running on one operating system, and they are less effective.
Having experienced this dynamic with over 120 companies intimately, I’ve learned that, in the long run, a team of average people operating on one operating system and all speaking the same language will outproduce a team of above-average people who are all doing and saying it their own way.
So, whether you have five people or 1000 people, the question is, are you all consistently following the processes, using the same terminologies, meeting on the same pulse, prioritizing the same way, selling the same, and delivering the same? The mantra should be one system, one vision, one team, one voice. That’s how sports teams win, and that’s how companies win.
There are hundreds of systems to choose from, or you can create your own. We’re partial to The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS); regardless, you must choose one.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines the noun, discipline, as:
- punishment
- instruction
- a field of study
- training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character
- a) control gained by enforcing obedience or order; b) orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior; c) self-control
- a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity.
Words like punishment, control, enforcing, obedience, order, rules, system and governing all convey a sense of restriction. It sounds unpleasant and hard, so can’t we talk about freedom and creativity instead?
Although it seems counter-intuitive, discipline actually leads to greater freedom and creativity. Subject yourself to 1 hour of focused practice per day in almost any area and see what you get in return – freedom to create something extraordinary with an instrument, a tool, your mind, your body, your voice.
Discipline is hard. It is restrictive, and it’s all about keeping commitments we make with ourselves and others. I commit do the hard things that make it easier to do the things that matter most.
So restrict what you ingest each day to those things that are good for your body, mind and soul. Exercise regularly so you can do cool stuff for and with the people you care about. Invest time each day or week to develop a skill so you have more value to give. Be open and honest and insist that others are open and honest with you. Systemize what you do, stripping everything down to the essential components, and then force yourself to do those essential things every time. Keep these commitments and see what you get in return.
As Harry Beckweth says, “People don’t lead, purposes do.”
Your company’s purpose/passion/cause (please choose one of those three words) is its reason for being. Organizations that have one and live by it are more successful and endure longer than the ones that don’t.
Yours should meet the following criteria if you’ve nailed it:
- It’s stated in three to seven words.
- It’s written in simple language.
- It’s big and bold.
- It has an “aha” effect.
- It comes from the heart.
- It involves everyone.
- It’s not about money.
- It’s bigger than a goal.
I hope yours passes the test.
On a recent return trip from Alabama where I had spent a week cycling, the instrument panel of my Subaru Outback Wagon suddenly began flashing and if the “Sub”could have talked it would have shouted “Warning! Warning! Warning! Will Robinson”. The window wipers slowed down, the power steering failed and my cycling buddy Chris started hypothesizing about the probable cause …Battery? Alternator? Cyber Attack? Chris quickly located the nearest service center with his smart phone and we pulled off the freeway into Montgomery, AL. It being Saturday morning we weren’t too hopeful that we would find a place that could diagnose the problem, make the repair and send us on our way without too much delay.
You can appreciate the emotions of anxiety, hope, apprehension and fear when you’re vulnerable and pretty much at the mercy of whomever it is that could help you with your problem. That’s how I felt when we pulled into the Cloverdale Service Center in Montgomery, AL. John, the owner, was busy with a customer but told us that he’d be with us in a minute. A minute later he was looking under the hood and quickly found the problem … broken fan belt, caused by seized bearings in a tension pulley. He assured us that if he could get the parts, he could fix it quickly.
I followed him back into the garage while he made a couple of calls. The Parts and Service department at the local Subaru dealership was closed (I’ve never been able to understand this) and so John called a couple of friends who quickly located the belt and the bearings needed to make the repair. I was greatly relieved and thanked John profusely. I then said “John, you seem to really get a kick out of helping people.” John smiled and replied “God put me on this earth to fulfill a purpose. I’ve been fortunate to find my purpose … I love what I do and I’m pretty good at doing it too!” He added, “I know too many people who’ve been given a gift but just won’t accept it, even though it’s right in front of them.” Wow! “Be great at doing something that you love to do” … nice to see it in action.
After making the repairs, John checked the alternator and battery, proclaimed them fit for duty and we were underway. Thank you John! Chris and I made it home to our wives safe and sound. And the Subaru is still on the planet and not lost in space.
When we work in EOS sessions with our clients, we neither require, nor desire, Internet access. We do all our work together on white boards or easels with paper.
Further, we provide Leadership Team Manuals for each leader, which are 3 ring binders with paper documents we distribute and generate.
We are often asked why we still use paper and why we don’t encourage the use of laptops or iPads for everyone?
The reasons we use paper Leadership Team Manuals are several:
- They foster face-to-face interaction, which is best for building team trust and for ensuring people are “present” in the meeting.
- They provide a place to take hand written notes which often, but not always, reinforces learning.
- They provide a convenient place to store materials that you develop.
- They are a reference place for EOS principles and tools.
- Eyeball to eyeball is the most effective way of building trust.
How frustrating is it for you when you are in a meeting and everyone is glancing at their phones, tablets or laptops checking email, or worse, typing?
The first and fifth benefits above accrue to meetings which use whiteboards, or paper easels, instead of PowerPoint. Don’t you agree?
