Ego Diversification

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?

I recall a time early in my career, when I learned this lesson the hard way. I was in my first significant leadership position, and 2 of the divisions I was leading were having major issues. I was frustrated, feeling inadequate and convinced I was a failing. So, what did I do? I worked more. Convinced that if I cut everything else out and focused just on work, things would get better. Not so much. The issues were long term issues, they were there when I took over and it took a long time to sort them out. Meanwhile, my feelings about myself continued to focus on the negative. I was fortunate at the time to work for a manager, Jim was his name, that understood this concept of ego diversification. In fact, he was the one who first shared this idea with me. As I was telling him how badly I was feeling about the problems continuing to go unsolved, instead of trying to help me solve them, or trying to “make me feel better”, he simply said “what you need is ego diversification”. Find something else to spend time on that will make you feel successful.

While it seemed counterintuitive at the time, since I was already working so many hours, this led to my first charitable board position. This work was fun, I was able to have an impact and it gave me separation from my regular work. Eventually the work issues were resolved and since that time, every time I have felt myself sucked into 110% focus on just one thing, Jim’s words came back to me.

Here is what I learned from this. When we focus all of our attention on fixing a problem, when our initial instinct 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?

On November 14, my Vistage CEO group is hosting one of our semi-annual guest days. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about Vistage, this is a low-key way to meet our members and hear a great speaker, Andrea Simon, who asks “Who will be your customers in three years?” Please contact me directly for an invite: Elisa K Spain.

For more about the members of the group click here

For more about the speaker on November 14, click here

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

The Second Arrow

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

Last week my Vistage CEO group had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Srikumar Rao who presented his Creativity and Personal Mastery Workshop. Dr. Rao has been one of the top-rated and popular professors at many top Business Schools – including Columbia, Kellogg, Berkeley, London Business School and Imperial College.

The message in Dr. Rao’s presentation: we create our own happiness. Some call it mindset, he calls it creating and living an alternate reality.

One of the most powerful stories he told was one from Buddhist teachings.

It is said the Buddha once asked a student:

  • If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?
  • If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?
  • The Buddha then asks, Then why did you shoot the second arrow?

Most of us react to this statement with “huh?”

Dr. Rao illustrated the second arrow with this story. A woman goes on a date with a man she met online. They were both looking forward to the date after their positive correspondence. The date ends abruptly with the man leaving and saying he is not interested. Brokenhearted, she calls a friend who tells her, “why did you think it would work out, you are uninteresting and have fat thighs”. What friend would say that, we ask? No one. The friend was herself.

In short, the second arrow is our negative self-talk.

So next time you don’t win the business you want, or a key employee leaves or, or, or… Perhaps we can learn from Dr. Rao and the Buddha, and instead of piling on with negative self-talk, create an alternative reality that looks for the opportunity in what appears to be a loss.

On November 14, my Vistage CEO group is hosting one of our semi-annual guest days. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about Vistage, this is a low-key way to meet our members and hear a great speaker, Andrea Simon, who asks “Who will be your customers in three years?” Please contact me directly for an invite: Elisa K Spain.

For more about the members of the group click here

For more about the speaker on November 14, click here

You can read more of my blogs and leadership quotes here.

 

In Your Effort To Please, Are You Giving Away The Store?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Much has been written about The Ritz Carlton Way. The takeaway I always hear is “empower your front line employees to deliver WOW experiences”. Today many other organizations follow this Ritz Carlton Way.

The intent of this approach is to allow employees to resolve a customer situation and have the customer walk away so pleased that they return and tell others about the experience. As with anything else, the best intentions can sometimes go awry. Here are some examples I have observed recently:

  • A customer at Whole Foods asks for product A and they don’t have it, so the employee offers a Try Me (aka free) for Product B. All fine and good; I believe this is the intent of Whole Foods management. But what about the employee that offers a Try Me, simply because they have only 1/2 a pound of the product and the customer wants 1 pound? Should the 1/2 pound be offered as a Try Me?
  • A salesman makes an error in writing up an order for a construction job. The salesman works with the office to ensure the errors are corrected at no charge to the customer. Again, all good. But then that same customer asks for additional changes and the salesman, feeling bad about the earlier mistakes, gives away those additional items at no charge. Is this the Ritz Carlton Way, or is it giving away the store?

It’s a fine line, and of course, judgement is required. I also wonder how many companies that have adopted the Ritz Carlton Way have also adopted the extensive training and monitoring for which Ritz Carlton has become famous. In fact, there is a Ritz Carlton leadership center that offers public courses in delivering what they call memorable customer service.

Even when the design includes training, as with all initiatives, the DIME Method comes into play. We often leave off with Design and Implement and forget to Monitor and Evaluate. With this in mind, I leave you with the question I asked at the beginning,

In their effort to please, are your front line employees giving away the store?

 

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

How To Recharge Yourself And Your Strategic Plan

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

What if we simply accept August as the time to recharge our batteries, then get a jump-start on strategic planning for next year?  This week’s blog post appears on Executive Street Blog. Please click this link to view it.

To the Greeks and Romans, the “dog days” occurred in late July, when Sirius appeared to rise just before the sun. They referred to those days as the hottest time of the year, a period that could bring fever or even catastrophe.

Today we think of dog days as the time of the year marked by lethargy and often inactivity. Here’s another spin: What if we were simply to accept August as the time to recharge? And then once our batteries are charged, get a jump-start on strategic planning for next year?

All of us possess an inner reservoir of positive energy. It is this positive energy that enables us to move forward. And the human body, like all other energy-powered machines, needs to be charged regularly.

Most of us think of recharging as taking time off. For some, time off means long walks. For others, it means sitting by the beach. Still others look for adventure. All of these methods give the body an opportunity to recharge.

And what about recharging the mind? Is it possible to recharge both the mind and the body at the same time? And, like everything else, is there a benefit to being intentional?

For me, recharging the mind comes from learning. Sometimes it’s reading about leaders that inspire me, sometimes it’s watching a Ted Talk on a topic totally outside what I know and see daily. Taking this journey outside the norm gives me a new perspective and the ability to ask better questions of my clients as they plan for the coming year.

Find your source of inspiration. Become intentional about recharging during these dog days of August.

In Beyond Business • Tagged ,

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Did I Delegate Or Did I Abdicate?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Most of us who have been in leadership roles for awhile understand the importance of delegating. It’s simply a matter of leverage; the more we delegate, the more gets done.

And… sometimes we get confused. We think we are delegating, when in fact, we are abdicating. What’s the difference?

Delegate: entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person

Abdicate: to fail to do what is required by (a duty or responsibility)

For me, one question defines the difference:

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

If the answer is, at the end, or maybe not until there is a serious problem or a disaster, we have abdicated not delegated.

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

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

“Okay”, you say, “I get that, when it comes to team members doing tasks, but certainly you don’t expect me to monitor my leadership team? That would be micromanaging!”

For me, there is a big difference between micromanaging and delegating. When we micromanage, we are checking in, hovering over, second guessing, etc., etc. Delegating, on the other hand, requires none of this. Instead when we delegate, we let the system manage accountability.

The CEO who hires a new sales manager, and then checks in daily on the activities each sales person is doing, is micromanaging. On the other hand, the sales manager who ties compensation to performance and publicly posts activity reports and results for each salesperson, is allowing the system to manage accountability. The sales team and the CEO can know at any given time who is performing, without asking or hovering.

The CEO who hires a President and then “goes fishing” or goes off to work on acquisitions without first creating agreements with the President around the 5 steps above, is abdicating. On the other hand, the CEO who sits down with the president and together they decide how they will divide roles and responsibilities and agree on the management reporting the CEO needs to monitor and evaluate, is delegating. Once again the system, in this case a combination of agreements and reporting, is providing the accountability.

So, next time you are wondering if you are micromanaging, instead of abdicating, pause and ask yourself, what systems do I need to put in place so I can delegate instead?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Healthy CEO, Healthy Business

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

I recently heard a CEO say, “when I am healthy, my business is healthy”.  I have been thinking about this CEO’s statement in the context of CEOs I have known or observed over the years. My reflective observation is, he is right; there is a strong correlation between the health of the leader and the health of the business.

In the public company arena, we see the impact on stock prices when the CEO becomes physically ill.

In the private company arena, where most of the CEOs I work with reside, those that focus on their health and fitness are the ones that lead successful companies. I have watched CEOs move from poor mental and/or physical health to good health and back again and observed the company performance move in tandem.

Years ago, I worked with a CEO whose company growth had stalled. He brought me in as an advisor to help him get the company back on a growth track. While certainly there were some operational and structural changes needed, what I discovered was holding the company back was the CEO’s lack of engagement. He had suffered a series of injuries that kept him away from work, followed by a serious issue with his son. Once we put the infrastructure in place that he needed to take the company forward AND he got well and found a way to deal with his son’s issues, the company began to prosper. In fact, it was he that I was quoting in the first sentence of this post.

While a component of health is genetic and beyond our control, and life happens beyond our control, research continues to show that lifestyle and exercise are directly related to emotional and physical health.

So, as we go through our daily lives, what can each of us do to pause, reflect and recognize we have a fiduciary responsibility as leaders to care for our physical and mental well-being?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Socrates Was So Wise

by Elisa Spain1 Comment

I have become convinced the Socratic Method is the secret to business success. In short, the answer is in the question. By asking better questions, we enable others to come to their own resolutions. Most of us in business are problem solvers, and often the answer to someone else’s problem or challenge seems obvious to us. Therefore, we rush in with advice, without stopping and asking questions. What I have learned, and continue to remind myself of daily, is that by asking more poignant questions, the resulting answer may not only be better, it may also be different than what we perceived as obvious before we asked. And most important, eureka only comes when a person discovers their own answer.

Following is a quote from one of my CEO members that, to me, captures the essence:

“I had a very interesting life lesson yesterday. Another member was leading and that was probably a little difficult for me to have someone else in charge. Once I accepted my role and decided to listen instead of work hard to offer my opinion, my perception of how I could add value changed drastically. I remember that Elisa said, ‘work to ask questions and not just offer suggestions’. I struggle with that as I always want to solve other people’s problems for them. It’s like counseling. The counselor never seems to tell you your problem; they just keep asking questions until you have the realization and state it yourself. That always bugged me. I now realize that until someone deeply understands their own problem, they will not take action nor will they truly support any action that they do take based on another’s understanding. I think I got more value out of the meeting than any other person in the room. That value was directly linked to not talking”.

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Are Your Expectations Too High Or Too Low?

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

How do you know?

  • Sometimes we set our sights too low and don’t achieve as much as we can.
  • Sometimes we expect too much from ourselves and constantly feel as though we don’t measure up.
  • Sometimes we expect too much from our team or our key vendors and they feel as though they can’t please us.
  • Sometimes we expect too little or don’t ask for what we really want from our employees or our vendors and we end up taking on too much ourselves instead.

How do we know which it is?  For me the litmus test is this…

  • How often are our expectations of ourselves or others met?
  • What does our gut say about that percentage? Too high? Too low?
  • What then is the next step to get our expectations in line with what is possible?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Right People At The Right Time…

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

 

Most of the clients I have worked with over the years founded their businesses; same is true for the members of my Vistage CEO group. These folks often join Vistage because they want to grow and build a professionally managed business. They are grateful and loyal to the folks that helped them get started. And, sometimes these two objectives are at odds.

The CEO knows in his head that change won’t happen without changing some key players. (After all, if the folks that are there were going to get you where you wanted to be, you would be there already). And, in his heart he is torn.

As humans, when confronted with substantial change, particularly within a structure, the mind tends to go immediately to “what am I going to lose?” Often there is much to gain, occasionally something to lose, but this is our mind at work, much less than the process at work. The question becomes, how do we overcome these fears and realize that forward progress only comes with transformation?

Here are some questions to consider, as you think about your own evolution:

  • Owner: Am I in the right role in the organization? Am I best suited to be the investor, the operator, or both?
  • Owner: The age old question, are the right people in the right seats on the bus to get to the destination I want?
  • Owner or Key Executive: Am I spending most of my time do the things that are in my genius?
  • Owner or Key Executive: Am I performing at the same level (or higher) today as I was when I began? If not, what change could I make so that I am?
  • Owner or Key Executive: Am I making decisions out of loyalty rather than what is best for the organization? If so, what is the cost? And what really is loyalty?… Are we doing someone (or ourselves) a favor keeping them (staying) in a role that we are not excellent at? How might the organization (or I) benefit by moving on if I am not performing?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

 

 

As Time Goes By….

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Lots of talk these days about the increasing role the millennials are playing in the workplace. At the same time, many boomers remain in the workforce. The result: younger people managing folks older than them.

Millennials tell me they often feel uncomfortable in these situations. Today, I was talking with a young man taking over a family business. He shared with me that while he is excited about the opportunity, he is wondering why none of the “seasoned guys”, who have been with his father a long time, wanted to buy the business from his Dad. He is also wondering how they feel about him being their boss.

While the dynamics of a family business are different, I hear the same story from millennials in all types of organizations. And, I remember when I too was in a similar situation. I was 24 and became the manager of 3 divisions of a large company. Two of the direct managers were older than me and one was my age. Turned out the most challenging one, as you may have guessed, was with Nevin, the one my age. He wanted the job I had.

Here is what I learned from this experience. It is up to both the manager and the now junior employee to make it work. The best situation for me was with Rita, a graceful woman 30 years older than me. Rita didn’t want my job; she loved the job she had. And, while I was her boss, I learned a ton from her. She was gracious in sharing her wisdom and I credit her with helping me become a better leader. Nevin was a bigger challenge; we had some rough waters for some time. What we learned was there was a place for both of us and we could learn from each other. The result, we remained friends for many years to come. When I moved on, he took over the role I had, and years later, I introduced him to a friend who helped him launch a writing and speaking career he had dreamed of.

If this resonates with you, whether you are the boss in this situation or the older or peer subordinate, what are you doing to make the extra effort to make this work for both of you?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain