Culture | Elisa K. Spain

When Was The Last Time You Went On A Date?

March 9, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

You are probably wondering why I am asking this question and what dating possibly has to do with a leadership blog…

Actually, this topic comes up frequently in my coaching sessions. Business it seems, is a lot like dating…

So, here are some dating and business best practices I’ve learned along the way:

Be authentic.
Be respectful.
Be clear on what you are looking for in a partner, a customer, an employee or a vendor.
Be clear what it is you bring to the table and be realistic. That high powered CFO may be great in a Fortune 500 company, but is she really what your $30mm company needs?
Put yourself in situations to meet new people that fit. No matter what anyone tells you, it’s not a game of numbers, it’s all about defining and measuring fit.
That wild guy or gal you wouldn’t bring home to Mom, is probably not going to be your SO or your best customer, no matter what he is willing to pay.
As soon as you meet “Mr. or Ms. right”, go out with someone else (when we get fixated on winning one partner, customer, employee, we can appear desperate. As Vistage speaker, Tom Searcy says, “play like you have nothing to lose.”
Go on a date with anyone once (okay, not someone you know is an ax murderer).
Go on a second date, if there was a spark of interest.
When she says she needs some time alone, or the prospect doesn’t get back to us right away, its not the time to call a day later and suggest coffee.
Once you have made a commitment, be committed. Give your customer, employee, vendor a chance to right a wrong.
And.. when a relationship fails (or the service is consistently poor), don’t drag out the exit. End it, learn from your mistakes, decide what to look for next round and start the cycle again.

For an amusing, albeit somewhat crass, perspective on the subject:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristinchirico/ways-building-a-startup-is-just-like-dating

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

All That Matters Is Culture

March 2, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

The theme in my Vistage CEO and Key Executive Groups for 2014 is “All That Matters is Culture”. Each meeting, the host shares a bit about how this applies in their company. Here are some of the comments I have heard so far…

We have a “can-do culture”. When I interview prospective employees, I ask questions that tell me how the person has demonstrated this in previous jobs.

Our core values reflect our culture. I have articulated ours to each employee and I am asking employees to tell stories about actions that have been taken that demonstrate how these core values resonate for them. For example, we have a value of integrity, I want to hear stories about how employees have made choices that reflect the integrity choice. I publish these stories so other employees see them.

We have a lot of temporary employees. When it comes to culture, I treat them the same as the full-time employees. I want them to know our culture and feel good about working for our company.

We share our core values and our culture with our customers. The more they know about us, the more effectively we can serve them. Similarly with our suppliers, when we share common values with our suppliers, we deliver a better product.

In the past, I had some talented people who didn’t fit our culture. It was difficult to make the decision that these people had to go. And, once I made this decision, the performance of the rest of team improved exponentially.

I will add to this list later in the year. Meantime if you have stories to add, please click on comments.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

The Queen (Or King) Of Denial

February 16, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

There is a country music song entitled Cleopatra, Queen of Denial, recorded in 1993 by Pam Tillis. While the lyrics talk about a love relationship gone wrong (are there any country songs that don’t?), the title stayed with me because it reminds me sometimes of what I see in business.

What I observe is that both kings and queens of denial sometimes confuse optimism with denial. For example:

“Yes we are losing money and if we get that next deal, we will turn things around for good.”
“I know, Joe or Jane employee is not up to the challenge now that our company has grown, but I can make it work anyway.”
“We have always done it this way, if we continue to do things this same way, things will change.”
“Our business has grown about 4% YOY the last 10 years and this year, we will grow 20%, without any new capital.”
“I know the industry has matured, and prices have fallen as a result, but if we keep offering customized services, we will be able to command a higher price.”

I am sure you can think of others. And, my further observation is that denial is a powerful drug. As with most other drugs, the user won’t stop using until he or she is ready. No one can tell us we are in denial, we must see it for ourselves. One benefit Vistage members have is their chair and their fellow members will keep holding up that mirror until one day, we do.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

How Do You Know When It Is Time To Go?

January 5, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Whether you are a business owner, a professional manager, an advisor – or anyone who is engaged in an enterprise for an extended time – how do you know when it is time to go?

“Nothing is forever”, the old saying goes, and yet sometimes, perhaps even frequently, we stay too long. We watch professional athletes stay past their prime; and we participate in the debate about term limits for our congress; and yet, when it comes to our own engagements, how often do we look inward and debate our own need for term limits?

When I was negotiating my exit from the corporate world 15+ years ago, I remember a conversation I had with a friend. My friend asked me what I was going to do if I didn’t get the deal I wanted. My answer was, “I guess I will stay one more year”. Her response, “How many more years are you going to say, one more year?” It was in that moment I realized, it was time for me to go, regardless of the outcome of the negotiation. And… because I had made my decision to exit, I of course, handled the negotiation more effectively.

While this topic comes up every now and then with executives and business owners I coach, it surfaces mostly in a time of frustration. I wonder if instead it might serve us to ask ourselves this question as part of our annual strategic planning. What if, as part of strategic planning, every business owner or executive answered the following 5 questions:

What did I give to the business, other than my time, this past year?
What did I get, other than $$, from my engagement in the business?
How do my answers to #1 and #2 compare to previous years?
If my give/get has declined, what do I need to do to change this and do I have the passion and skill set to do it?
If I didn’t lead or own this business, what would I be doing instead?

My noticing is, that if we have asked these questions in the past and have stopped asking them, we may already know that it is time to go…

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Are There Subtitles In Your Conversations?

November 10, 2013 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Ever wish your conversations had subtitles?

How often do we begin what seems like a casual conversation, only to realize that something has happened. Emotion has entered and we are no longer talking about the subject at hand. Yet, we keep trying to talk about the casual subject while our thoughts wander to the meta message.

There is a scene in Annie Hall that I often think about when this happens.

We see in this film clip, a classic first date, where both of them are saying one thing and thinking something totally different. Their thoughts are shown as subtitles. What makes this scene so memorable is that these subtitles or “meta messages” frequently occur in conversation, including business conversations. And, in life, there aren’t any subtitles.

In the film, Annie Hall chose to end both the conversation and the meta messages by reminding Woody Allen that he had to leave.

In my experience, the more history we have with another person, the more likely we are to step on historical land mines in the course of our conversations. Ending the conversation and continuing later is an option. If the conversation becomes heated, sometimes this is the best option. Alternatively, we have an option to pause and talk about the meta message. In other words, have a conversation about the conversation.

‘Meta’ from Greek is a prefix which means ‘about’ or ‘beyond’.

Here’s how you might move from a conversation that’s getting difficult to a meta-conversation:

Pause. Once you observe either you or the other person is feeling anything other than neutral.
Name what you observe, about each of your viewpoints, e.g. I have the sense we started out talking about the agenda for our next meeting, and there is something else on the table.
Follow the Vistage model, stay in a questioning mode, “What is it about the next meeting that is giving you concern?”
Keep your language neutral. Stay away from the 5 “fighting words”. “You” (use I), “Always” (use frequently), “Never” (use seldom), “But” (use and) “Why” (use what).
Work toward mutual understanding, rather than being right.
Allow the other person to respond. I find that restating what I believe I just heard is helpful. And, then continuing to stay in a questioning mode.

And, allow the possibility that the intended conversation may have to wait until another day.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

It Only Takes A Moment…

November 3, 2013 by Elisa Spain2 Comments

Appreciation as a leadership action. As leaders, we focus on big things so naturally when it comes to appreciation, we think big; the sales contest, the celebration parties, etc. As humans, we most value specific appreciation that is directed just to us. And, most of us find it difficult to do this. We celebrate the team, we complement the team, yet we rarely notice and communicate with simple appreciative words, a carefully selected card or a note selected just for one person.

Here’s an example:

Instead of, “you did a good job on the status report”; why not say, “You did a good job creating the status report this week. I like that it was succinct and included the due dates. It helped me see what was pending and how much was due at the same time”.

The great thing about it, this simple appreciation doesn’t take any planning and costs nothing. It only takes a moment and can be done in the moment.

Who will you give a specific appreciation to today?

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Trust Your Gut For The No…

October 6, 2013 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Often when we are buyers, we find someone or something we like and then work to find data (experience, accomplishments, etc.) to convince ourselves why this person or this product is something we should buy.

When it comes to interviewing for key candidates, Vistage speakers, Barry Deutsch and Brad Remillard, recommend we take a more structured approach to interviewing to improve our hiring success. They recommend we start the process first by clearly defining the success factors for the role and then asking the candidate to tell us stories about how they have achieved this success in the past and how they will do it for us.

It dawned on me recently that this approach works in many (most?) situations when we are buyers. After all, when we are hiring, we are buyers.

So, am I saying no gut at all? All data? No. Absolutely, there is a gut to every decision we make, and in most situations, especially when we are buyers, trust your gut for the no. If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. When hiring, it’s the behavioral questions that help us learn if a person is a cultural fit. If a person’s style, ethics or values don’t fit, it doesn’t matter if they can do the job.

When committing our time or buying a product, isn’t it really the same key question?

What are my expectations (success factors)?
What is the data that supports that my expectations will be met?
Then the gut question: How does this feel?

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Go Ahead, Drop Some Balls…

September 15, 2013 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Just the other day, I was meeting with an executive acquaintance of mine who had just received a significant promotion. While he is excited about his promotion, he is challenged with looking for his replacement in his previous position; and in the meantime was doing both jobs. When I asked him how it was going, he responded, “just trying to get it all done, without dropping any balls”.

This conversation reminded me of one I had with one of my Vistage CEO Advisory Board members. He was lamenting the challenges one his executives has with burnout. In this case, the CEO was saying “I wish he would learn to drop some balls, his effort to get everything done is what is causing his burnout”!

For those of us who want to dot every I and cross every T, (I admit I am one of them), the ‘to do list’ can seem endless. What I heard this wise CEO saying is, “go ahead, drop some balls”, just choose the ones you are going to drop.

What if instead of starting each day with a list of what we are going to do, we instead begin by removing from the list the things we aren’t going to do. Here are some examples to get you started:

What if you reviewed email once or twice per day, and let everyone know that is your plan?
What if you coded your email so that critical emails moved to a priority list and you responded to these first?
What if you paused and asked yourself, does this email, call, text, inquiry require a response?
What if you removed yourself from EVERY email where you were listed as a cc (or sorted these to a “someday maybe” list).
What if you paused, before saying “yes”?

Please send me your comments with ideas to add to this list…

P.S. In honor of this post and my upcoming vacation, the next blog post will appear September 29th.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

When Making The Counter-Intuitive Choice…

September 8, 2013 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

I have often heard our Vistage economists, Brian & Alan Beaulieu say, “the time to invest is late recession, early recovery”. And it is one thing to say this in theory, and quite another to actually have the courage to do it. Not unlike the recommendation to buy more equities when the market is down. While we all understand the “buy low, sell high” adage, natural risk aversion causes many of us to do exactly the opposite.

And yet, the Beaulieu’s advice works. As an example, I had the pleasure of watching Baird & Warner, the 2nd largest real estate company in the Chicagoland area. With two of their top executives as members of the Vistage Advisory Boards I lead, I have a close connection to Baird. And while Baird, like everyone else, made tactical cost saving efforts such as closing offices and increasing efficiencies; at the same time, they were also investing in the future, making capital investments and key hires.

The result: as the real estate industry continues to recover, Baird has earned its unfair share of the market. Outperforming the competition on every key indicator, deals written, deals closed, etc.

When I spoke with Steve Baird, his response was “while everyone else is hunkering down – I took the opportunity to double down”.

Here is Steve’s summary of what it takes to build, and sustain (in his case for 5 generations), a world class company. Food for thought as the current economic cycle matures:

investment
reinvention
continuous feedback loop
commitment /stick to your principles
time is an asset
you have to do it for years – not just ride market share up and be really good
not just a great product – need a great business
building world class is not building to sell – be clear
be careful of sacrificing profitability for the sake of more business

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Given The Opportunity, Create An Experience…

August 18, 2013 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Earlier this week, I spent two days with one of Vistage’s top speakers, Tom Searcy. Tom’s workshop is about Hunting Big Sales; What to do to Filter and Win the Big Deals. Filter, as in, know which ones to pursue and then what to do to win.

Our members take turns hosting meetings and the second day Tom joined us, the meeting was hosted by Shane Dittrich, CEO of T&D Metal. In reflecting on the day we spent at Shane’s location in Watseka IL, we were all struck by the experience he created for us. And for me, the connection between creating an experience and winning big deals.

Here’s what I observed.

The entire day was intentional and orchestrated – starting with the night before – where to stay, where to eat, the setup and planning of the meals, the transportation, and the tour. Instead of PowerPoint for a prop, Shane used vans from one of his businesses and gave a plant tour. When it came time to give his presentation, he just stood up in front of us and told us his story. And, he didn’t do it all himself, he delegated to several team members. As a result we were able to feel the culture of T&D.

‘Learnings’ for me from this…

-Intentionality yields results

-Given the opportunity to create an experience, do it

-Use real “props” rather than PowerPoint to tell your story

-Bring in your team in ways that demonstrate your culture

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com