Goals | Elisa K. Spain

Ego Diversification

November 19, 2017November 18, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

What does it mean to diversify your ego? Does that even make sense?

In the investment world, diversification is de rigueur. Anyone who works with an investment advisor has heard them talk about the benefits of holding a diversified portfolio. The reasons are pretty straightforward, asset classes typically move differently and when one class is underperforming, another is likely to outperform. The goal, therefore, of holding a diversified portfolio, is to achieve an overall positive return. And, even when a positive return isn’t feasible, e.g. in a significant downturn like we experienced in 2008, a diversified portfolio will still outperform a single asset class that experienced a significant loss, the S&P 500, in this example.

The concept of ego diversification is similar. If we are getting all of our identify, our ego satisfaction, from a single pursuit, what happens when something is not going well with that pursuit?

Perhaps something at work is not going well, a new customer, for example, wasn’t transitioned well and we focus all of our attention on fixing that problem. Our initial instinct often is to double down and laser focus on solving the problem.

What is the impact to our self-esteem when our gut tells us solving the problem is going to take a while?
What if instead of grinding away, heads down, for weeks or even months, we intentionally spread our attention toward positive situations, time with a happy customer, or time being in service to someone or something that matters to us?
How might the “performance” of our lives improve, if we endeavor to diversify our ego gratification all the time thereby creating a “portfolio” of pursuits that together provide satisfaction and joy?

Why Do We Celebrate Labor Day?

September 3, 2017August 31, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

When the first nationally recognized Labor Day was celebrated in 1894, the day consisted of a street parade sending up a message of “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” (in the words of the AFL).

We have come a long way since then. Today most employers focus on offering opportunities and benefits to attract and retain talent; as a result, the need for unions has diminished and few remain.

Yet we still celebrate the day as a national holiday. Perhaps it is simply tradition, or the acknowledgment of the end of summer. Or a reminder to celebrate how far we have come as a nation of leaders and followers, where two-way communication has become much more the norm than work place “negotiations”.

So, as you enjoy your family barbecues, or however you celebrate the day, I encourage you to pause and ask yourself:

As a leader, what can I do tomorrow to let each member of my team know they are valued and are essential to our success?
As a follower, what I can do tomorrow to let my boss know what else I can do to add value to the success of our company?

What If We Meet Them Where They Are?

August 6, 2017August 4, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Most of the time, we have an agenda. Whether it is to close a deal, persuade our employees or our customers to “see the light” or simply to win.

What if instead, we simply let things unfold at their own pace?
What if instead, we seek to understand?
What if instead, we invested in understanding where they are, and meet them there?
What if instead, we recognized that our stakeholders are made up of individuals, for whom “there” may be a different place for each of them?

But wait you say, isn’t it all about having a plan? Isn’t the goal to win? Perhaps it is, and I wonder if our chances of winning go up when we stop trying to orchestrate the outcome.

Not Asking Has a Price Tag

June 11, 2017June 10, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

We Vistage chairs often talk about the importance of staying curious, of asking questions. Often as leaders we tell ourselves that the only “cost” of being directive vs. asking questions are soft costs. For example, we make assumptions that are wrong and have to start over when we learn we are headed in the wrong direction.

What about the hard costs of heading in the wrong direction?

What about when we as leaders, march into a new area, or start a new initiative, everyone follows, and we are headed in the wrong direction? Money is invested and then we have to start over. If only we had asked a few questions up front, we tell ourselves afterwards, the price tag associated with the failure might have been avoided.

This TED talk, titled simply, “If you want to help someone, shut up and listen!”, by Ernesto Sirolli, brings this point home in a global way. Ernesto Sirolli is a noted authority in the field of sustainable economic development and is the Founder of the Sirolli Institute, an international non-profit organization that teaches community leaders how to establish and maintain Enterprise Facilitation projects in their community.

What does this talk have to do with leadership? A lot.

What does it have to do with business? I’ll let you decide that.

What If That’s Not How I See it?

May 21, 2017May 19, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

How often are we in situations where what we want and what others want are not aligned? We make assumptions daily, mostly about other people. These assumptions enable us to take shortcuts and at the same time, they cause disagreement that perhaps wasn’t there to begin with.

We assume a person attended or didn’t attend an event because…
We assume a person responded to us a certain way, because…
We assume a person took an action or didn’t take an action because…

What if instead of assuming, we paused and asked:

What is the reason you made this choice or took this action?
When your customer complains about “service”, do you probe to understand what is really going on?
When we see something, as the TSA reminds us, do we say something?
When an employee behaves a certain way, do we ask what is going on?

And when what we want seems far from what “they” want, what if we asked and explored the possibilities..

As We Search For What Matters, Must We Choose?

May 14, 2017May 12, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.

William Butler Yeats, 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939

I came across this poem some time ago and was reminded of it in a recent discussion in my Vistage groups about “what matters”. Today we constantly talk about achieving balance; we perceive that it is the stress of modern times that creates this challenge. Yet this poem was written in the early 20th century. A reminder that this quest is the human condition, a daily challenge of choice. Here are the questions that come to mind:

Must we choose between success in life and work?
Or is it the search for perfection of one or the other that forces the choice? e.g. Albert Einstein was portrayed by his biographers as a poor husband and father. Was he, or was this the judgement of the biographers?
As we search for meaning in our lives, must we distinguish between what defines “life” and what defines “work” or is it possible to simply pursue what matters to us?
On this day devoted to mothers, what are you telling or demonstrating to your children about this question?

Care, Attention, Competency

May 7, 2017May 6, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Care, Attention and Competency (CAC), these are the watchwords of the client service model for one of my Vistage member’s business. This business is in the construction industry and as he explains, bottom line of what they deliver is service, not construction.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the progression (regression) from Better, Faster, Cheaper to simply faster and cheaper. So where does CAC come in? Perhaps as several of my readers responded, the bifurcation is already happening, certainly in the consumer world (think airlines premium seats/status vs. economy/discount seats), and beginning in the B2B world. If this is so, then in order to deliver better, CAC must become the standard.

What exactly does this mean? For me it means, we meet the customer where they are, we provide care, in the manner they want us to show it. We give them our attention when they ask, and not wait until they demand it. And, we remind ourselves that competency, while the baseline, isn’t enough. In fact, studies show that customers who receive care and attention are more tolerant of errors, because they trust we will resolve them.

In short, CAC begins with the Golden Rule, and reaches it’s full value with the Platinum Rule. The Golden Rule implies the basic assumption that other people would like to be treated the way that you would like to be treated. The alternative to the Golden Rule is the Platinum Rule: “Treat others the way they want to be treated.”

Here are the questions I leave you with:

Assuming the bifurcation is happening, where is your business on the continuum?
Are you focused on Faster/Cheaper or are you seeking to differentiate by offering Better?
How might CAC apply, or not, to your service delivery? And are you delivering by the Golden Rule or the Platinum Rule?

Better, Faster, Cheaper

April 23, 2017April 21, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

For many years, the adage was “do you want it right, on-time or cheap, pick two”. And then somewhere in the 80’s and 90’s, perhaps associated with the dot.com era, marginal costs moved close to zero in some industries. Because of this, we began to expect all three. In fact the new adage became “better, faster, cheaper”. And, some believed we had moved to an era where all three were in fact possible.

Or did we?

I wonder if instead, more and more businesses, driven by customer unwillingness to pay for quality, have simply picked two on our behalf, with the two being cheap and fast. We see this happening in B2B, B2C and B2Self (i.e. w/internal corporate customers) three examples:

Amazon delivers using their own drivers because they are cheap. Amazon made this choice because they believe what we consumers want from them is fast and free delivery and when quality of logistics suffers (packages left in strange places, in the rain, etc.), we are willing to accept that cost.
Airlines overbook and sometimes have to deny boarding to passengers or in a recent highly profiled United airlines case, remove passengers to accommodate crew. This recent scandal with United brought attention to the consequences of this (and while this particular situation captured on video was awful, we all know it isn’t just United Airlines that overbooks and removes passengers).
HR support and IT support is outsourced in many, perhaps most?, large corporations. Ask any employee or user of IT which 2 of the three choices they are getting?

In an article entitled “Why Flying in America Keeps Getting More Miserable” Matthew Yglesias of Vox news sums this up well when he says, decades’ worth of evidence suggests we prefer cheap and safe to pleasant. Pleasant, defined as available seats all the time combined with higher prices to cover the costs, is a price we pretty clearly could bear as a society if we chose to, but as consumers we have collectively and repeatedly chosen not to. Instead, wherever competition has reared its head in the industry, the mass market has aimed for low prices above all else, followed by a vigorous culture of collective complaining when something goes wrong.

Where will this take us in the future…

Will this trend toward faster and cheaper continue to drive most products and services?
If it does, will there be exceptions where quality is the driver? The obvious exception is medical products and medical care, or is it?
Will some markets bifurcate such that parallel services will develop where consumers are willing to pay for quality?

What are the implications for your business?

What Does “Implement Dictatorially” Mean?

April 16, 2017April 3, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

A few weeks ago, I posted the following as the leadership quote for the month of March:

“Decide democratically, implement dictatorially.” —Peter Schutz, CEO of Porsche 1981-1986

One of my readers replied with the following comment:

“Schutz got the first part of that quote right. I however believe you implement collaboratively.”

In our conversation that followed his comment, I was reminded how everything is subject to interpretation. My reader heard Schutz say “command and control”.

What I hear in this quote is, gather input in the planning and then once the decision is made, get it done. It is incumbent upon a leader to hear input from those impacted by a decision. Two reasons for this:

to inform the decision, perhaps others see opportunities or risks that the leader does not
to allow those impacted to feel heard, to weigh in

And, it is incumbent upon a leader to move quickly once the decision is made. The time for feedback is over, it is time to execute and for all parties involved to move together toward implementation so as to maximize the benefits of the decision once it is made.

How do you see this question?

And What About Our Own Resistance?

April 9, 2017April 3, 2017 by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Whether leader or follower, we are all in the position of having change thrust upon us. Vistage Speaker, Mike Scott, responded to my March 19th blog (Is Resistance The Problem?), with the questions I asked, turned inward. Thank you Mike for this wonderful reminder of the responsibility we each have to notice our own resistance.

HOW DO I OPERATE?

I justify my resistance when:

1) I resist when I don’t “get it.”

2) I think I know more than I do therefore I don’t actively listen. Then I resist.

3) I think I heard all you said when I didn’t. Then I resist.

4) I think I know what you’re going to say so I stop listening. Then I resist.

5) I mentally criticize what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. Then I resist.

6) I really don’t know what you mean when I think I do. Then I resist.

I blame others when I should be asking, “What was my part in this problem that was created?”

In my workshops one of the principles is to have people repeat or paraphrase all verbal requests. I’m going to use this as the logical justification for repeating and paraphrasing. A new context.