Laws Of Success | Elisa K. Spain

Hold The Advice…

May 18, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

When we discover something new, or see someone we know in pain, or struggling with a problem, we want to help, to solve the problem. And off we go, giving advice. And, more often than not, that advice is received with resistance. “How can that be?”, we ask, “I genuinely wanted to help, and I am sensing my advice is not being well received”.

Here are some examples I have experienced lately, perhaps you can name one or two of your own:

I was watching my partner try and figure out how to do something on his Ipad. He didn’t ask for help, but there I was offering a “better way”; just wanting to save him time I said…
A friend found a new exercise program for his back, and instead of simply sharing his happiness with the results, he was working really hard to convince me to agree to try it (even though I reminded him I have one I use).
A colleague and I were discussing best practices, sharing ideas and then, without asking, I received a series of emails offering advice.

Offering unsolicited advice is the opposite of asking the better question. So, next time you are tempted to give advice, don’t. Wait until you are asked. And if you must say something, consider asking a question.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Leadership Quote: You Can Tell Whether A Person Is Clever…

April 27, 2014 by Elisa Spain1 Comment

This month’s leadership quote:

“You can tell whether a person is clever by his/her answers. You can tell whether a person is wise by his/her questions.“

-Naguib Mahfouz

In Vistage we chairs encourage our members to stay in a questioning mode. This is probably the most important ingredient in effectively getting to the resolution of an issue and the most difficult to do.

Those of us in leadership roles are accustomed to having the answers. After all, it’s having the answers that got us where we are; we solve problems. So… when we hear a problem, we want to shout out our answers and help the other person (or is it we want them and everyone else to hear how smart we are? Perhaps if we are honest with ourselves, it is a little of both).

Here’s the thing, I think I am smart too. When I bring an issue to the table, first I am a bit uncomfortable, because I am being vulnerable. Second, when you give me answers, I immediately go into objection mode.

If on the other hand, you ask me questions, I can get to the answer myself. Does it take longer than just giving me the answer? Sure for you. Sometimes you can help me by making observations, but don’t solve it for me. That may help you, but it doesn’t help me.

So, as our Vistage speaker, Amy K says, “strive for the better question”. Easy to say, hard to do. Here are a couple of tips I have picked up from Amy that can aid the process:

Write down your question before asking it.
Write down 11 questions, and then pick your best to ask. The act of writing down so many, helps you push for the better question.

And in the moment, when writing the question isn’t practical, listen to yourself. When I catch myself making a statement, instead of asking a question, I will pause and say, “wait, let me rephrase that as a question”.

The Socratic method after all was named for the man viewed as the wisest in the land because of the questions he asked.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Culture Doesn't Change, But It Can Bend

April 20, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

It is often said that culture change is the most challenging change one can attempt in an organization. In fact, Edgar Papke, Vistage Speaker and author of True Alignment, says that culture can only change when you change the majority of the people at the same time.

Hmm, does that mean if we aren’t willing to fire 1/2 of our team, we may as well not bother?

I say no. While I agree with Edgar that complete change will only happen with a complete change in players, culture does bend.

It’s hard; it takes a long time and can sometimes (often) be frustrating. Yet, the results can be worth it. Here is an eight step process (synthesized from John Kotter’s landmark book, Leading Change) that can serve as a template toward bending the culture.

Create a Sense of Urgency
Pull Together a Guiding Team – choose a powerful group with leadership skills, credibility, authority and a sense of urgency
Develop a Simply Stated Vision for Change – paint the picture of how the future will be different
Communicate – create a surprising, compelling and visual experience – strive to change feeling, rather than thinking
Empower Others to Act – remove barriers, including people that are barriers
Produce Short Term Wins – find them and celebrate them
Don’t Let Up – press harder and faster after first successes
Institutionalize the New Approaches/Behaviors – continually reinforce

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Ask, The Answer May Surprise You

April 13, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Sometimes, in our zeal to anticipate our customers’ needs, we forget to ask what they prefer.

The notion of anticipating customer needs has been around for some time. And… certainly it makes sense when it comes to product development. Steve Jobs was famous for anticipating customer needs; knowing that we often don’t know what we are going to want next, best to give it to us and let us try it out. While it isn’t easy to anticipate customer product preferences, when we do it successfully, awesome innovations enter our society.

I wonder though, if we have taken this notion of anticipating needs beyond where it was intended, i.e. toward anticipating (guessing) preferences. I keep learning that when I guess at what someone wants, I am often wrong. Here are some small examples:

I believe the customer I meet with regularly wants to meet in the morning, so I keep scheduling morning meetings. It turns out, she would prefer afternoons and thinks I am only available in the mornings.
I believe a customer has referred someone to me because they expect me to include them in my vendor search. But instead, he is indifferent, and just providing a referral in case I need one.
Because my service provider is organized and intentional, I assume she is inflexible and unwilling to adapt to my scheduling preferences.

In short, ask for what you want and ask them what they want; the answer may surprise you.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Did I Delegate Or Did I Abdicate?

March 23, 2014 by Elisa Spain1 Comment

Here’s a simple test to know if you have delegated or abdicated.

At what point in the process will I know if my expectations were met?

Hmm… guess that means if my intention is to delegate, I must take the following 5 actions:

Clearly outline my expectations
Check-in to see if my expectations were understood
Agree how both progress and outcome will be monitored and measured
Agree when and how progress will be reported
Agree when and how progress will evaluated and adjustments made

You might be asking yourself at this point, “seems a lot of process; do I have to do this every time I ask someone to do something for me?”

This decision of course, is yours to make.

Meanwhile I will share a personal story that happened years ago and reminded me of the value of following these five steps, and following the DIME Method, whenever I assign work to someone else.

I emailed a document to my virtual assistant, asking simply, “please clean up this document and send it to FedEx to make into a poster.” What I had in my head was a black and white, 24×36 printed document that I could roll up and take with me to a meeting and then throw away at the end of the day. The cost of this type of document is about $5.

When I arrived at FedEx, my bill was $100 and what they had ready for me was a full color, 24×36 printed document, mounted on a board and laminated.

Which do you want? And, have you made that clear?

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

Laws Of Success: The Three Secrets…

February 9, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Working with CEOs and senior executives as both a coach and advisory board chair, I have had the opportunity to observe both those that are successful and those with unrealized potential. While their businesses and their personality styles are all different, when I distill it down, those that succeed share the following three traits:

Tenacity
Discipline
Hiring the best people – paying them and treating them well

Tenacity – The willingness to stay with it, even when there are setbacks. As Winston Churchill said so well, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

Discipline – Successful leaders ruthlessly manage their time, ensuring they ALWAYS carve out time to think and plan and learn. It is so easy for each of us to get caught up in the tasks of the day; successful leaders don’t. They make time to stay close to their business and rise above, stay current and focus on opportunities. And they make time for mental and physical fitness. Every successful leader does this their own way, and every one of them does it.

Hiring the best people AND paying and treating them well – Talented people want to work for talented people. And… the pool of talented people in each industry isn’t large – it is those that find the talented people, pay them and treat them well that succeed. The definition of “well” varies by individual, the leader that understands this and responds to the needs of their key people leads a successful company.

Seems so simple, doesn’t it? Just three things to do.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Delivery ALWAYS Matters…

February 2, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

When the stakes are high, we prepare. Whether it is a presentation to a large audience or a meeting with a key client or prospective client, we know we will be more successful if we prepare.

What exactly does it mean “to prepare”?
When aren’t the stakes high?
When we focus on content and not on our audience, are we really prepared?

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear a speaker and deliver a presentation of my own, where in both cases, the content was outstanding and yet the message was not received well by most of the audience. These two experiences reminded me of two important facts:

Delivery always matters – It’s not enough to prepare our content. It is at least as important to consider the audience, prepare our delivery and adjust midstream as we read the audience reaction. Not easy to do, and yet, critical to having our message heard.

Prepare for every interaction as though the stakes are high, because they are – Every interaction with another human being, either as a group or with individuals, matters. When we are fully present, we listen, we adapt and thus can be effective.

Elisa K. Spain

Elisa Spain

elisaspain.com

Why Now?

January 12, 2014 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Continuing the beginning of year theme of strategic planning. The question is, why diversify my business now, when everything is going so well?

Anyone who has hired an investment advisor knows, all of them advise first and foremost, to build a diversified portfolio. And, despite all the data supporting the long term benefit of diversification, some investors believe they can time the market. There are LOTS of stories in the investment press about the risks and consequences of market timing.

Those of you who are frequent readers know that my background is in financial services and investments and I often compare running a business to managing an investment portfolio. And, as with some stock market investors, when it comes to our businesses, we frequently ignore our advisors and the diversification advice they give. We have a great product or service, we are making money, we think “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”.

Over the years, I have worked with a number of businesses and watched this process unfold…

Business is great, there are industry measures that indicate the product or service is maturing, but business still remains strong. Then suddenly (one could argue it wasn’t suddenly), it isn’t strong anymore, in fact, the business has gone from significant profits to losses, seemingly overnight.

The thing about income statements is they are lagging indicators. If we ignore other key indicators, especially the external industry trends, it is easy to be lulled into market timing behavior. And as with market timers, by the time the CEO realizes the market has turned, it is often too late to adjust without incurring significant losses.

As you continue your planning for 2014 strategic actions, I encourage you to pause and ask yourself the following questions:

What are the trends in our industry; where is our industry in its business life cycle?
How does our product/service compare to others in the industry; are we a leader or a follower?
What is our current level of product/service diversification; where would we like it to be?
What new product or service can we begin development on this year that will replace our core offerings in the future?

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