Tag: communication

Is It Possible To Be Too Lean?

February 17, 2013 by Elisa Spain4 Comments

When the “great recession” began, companies got lean and they went there quickly. This worked, for employers, owners and employees. Now 3+ years into recovery, lean continues while sales have grown. The result is increased profits. So….what’s the issue?

I have been hearing a troubling refrain lately. I began hearing this from middle managers in large public companies I work with; and I am now hearing it from small and midsize companies.

Middle Managers say it like this: “My team is exhausted and the workload continues to increase. I am struggling with how to become more efficient than we are and I am seeing signs that we are becoming less effective”.

High Performing employees put it this way: “The saying used to be, the best thing you can do for a high performing employee was terminate a low performing employee. I don’t feel this way anymore. In fact, quite the opposite. When anyone leaves, I groan. I groan, because I know there is going to be more work for me and I am struggling to get the work I already have done”.

As business leaders and owners, I encourage you to ask:

Are my middle managers and high performing employees saying similar things?
Am I listening?
Am I perhaps too lean? What are the risks to production, client servicing, morale and ultimately profitability if I am?

Elisa K. Spain

Do Titles Matter?

December 16, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Last week I had the chance to listen to Vistage speaker and futurist David Houle. David talked about coming changes, many of which are driven not only by technology, but by Millennials entering the workforce. We are already seeing flattening organizations and a move away from hierarchy and titles and offices and cubicles and all the stuff Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are comfortable with. In entrepreneurial companies, which make up the majority of our Vistage groups, hierarchies never existed. These companies pride themselves on being nimble and quick to respond to marketplace demands. The result is a competitive advantage, now more than ever, because these are the companies able to attract and retain Millennials. As Vistage companies grow, we Chairs encourage owners to build a leadership team so they can build a sustainable enterprise. Owners want experienced leaders to do this – In walks the boomers and Xers, accustomed to structure and ready to create that sustainable enterprise, and with their ability to create processes to support a sustainable enterprise, comes their comfort and desire for hierarchy, titles, offices, etc.

CLASH

Perhaps as David says, as the Millennials become leaders, this will all even out. In the meantime, here are my questions for Boomer and Generation X leaders and followers:

Is it time to pause and ask, how much of what I expect in terms of hierarchy, paying dues, etc. matters?
What recognition is truly important for me to feel successful in my organization?
When joining a new organization or taking on an assignment, what behaviors, rather than titles and trappings, should I be asking for from my leader that will set me up to succeed?

A Timely Reminder Of Email Best Practices

December 9, 2012 by Elisa Spain2 Comments

I put this together some time ago. A compilation of things I have learned from experience and from others. The topic has come up a lot lately, so I thought I would share this with you.

Professor Albert Mehrabian’s research into verbal communication is often quoted in this simplified form:

Words – 7%, Tone – 38% – Body Language – 55%

Email, being only words without tone and body language, leaves the reader with fewer queues for interpretation. For this reason, recommended email best practices are:

Email is for communication, not conversation
Use Email for two purposes: transmit information or schedule meetings
Choose your words carefully, sometimes slang words, e.g. “yeah” can be misinterpreted
After 1 response – pick up the phone
Reply only to the sender
Reply to all – ONLY if sender requests or the information in your reply will benefit everyone on the distribution list
Only put in an Email something you would want to appear on the internet, on a billboard, in the news – you get the idea
Don’t send an Email when you are angry – see previous bullet
Never negotiate via Email
Never send an important Email w/o an advance phone call and a follow-up phone call to discuss and prevent/correct misunderstandings
Be brief, most people read Emails on their IPhone, Android, etc.
When sending an important Email, ask someone else to read it before sending it, with three questions:
- What would you think?
- How would you feel?
- What would you do?

Anything you would add?

Are You A Bad Boss? Are You Sure You Aren't?

September 9, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Most of us think of a bad boss as one who explodes, intimidates and otherwise behaves badly. The reality is this type of bad boss represents less than 20% of the behavior that actually defines the worst bosses (based on research conducted by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman). For the full results of Zenger and Folkman’s findings, click here.

The more common “bad boss” shows up in one the following ways (in order of most to least fatal):

Failure to inspire.
Acceptance of mediocre performance.
Lack of clear vision and direction.
An inability to collaborate.
Failure to walk the talk.
Failure to improve and learn from mistakes.
Inability to lead change or innovate owing to a resistance to new ideas.
Failure to develop others.
Inept interpersonal skills.
Bad judgement – leading to poor decision.

In short, even if we are kind and soft spoken; if we aren’t demonstrating leadership, we are not good bosses.

Vistage members know this and that is why they join. As you read through the list and the accompanying article, I encourage you to ask yourself:

Which qualities on the list do I excel at?
How might I become a better boss by focusing on #6?

What Is The Business Practice All Leaders Do And Everyone Says They Hate…

August 5, 2012 by Elisa Spain1 Comment

What is the business practice everyone does and everyone says they hate? MEETINGS!

How often do we hear, I hate meetings? And yet, how do most leaders spend most of their time? In meetings.

Most of us accept that, as leaders, we need meetings to communicate and get things done through other people. And yet, most leaders, say they dread attending meetings, even the ones they are leading.

As a leadership coach, I enjoy my meetings. I draw energy from the peer group meetings I lead and from the coaching sessions with my Vistage members. Some meetings, of course, are better than others and I find value in all of them. I enjoy the interchange, the questions, the sharing, the challenging and the learning. And, my members tell me that meetings inside their companies sometimes have these characteristics and sometimes they do not.

I am curious to hear from you. What’s working for you in meetings and what is not?

For those who hate meetings, here are my questions:

When you say, “I hate attending meetings” what would you rather be doing?
What is it about one-on-one meetings you don’t like?
What is it about group meetings you don’t like?

And, for those of you who like meetings and find them to be productive:

What is it about one-on-one meetings you like? What makes them work for you?
What is it about group meetings you like? What makes them work for you?

And, for those of you who want to learn more about leading productive meetings, one of my favorite books on the subject is Death by Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni.

Is Your Leadership Team Your Co-Advisor Or ?

July 22, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Businesses are assets, right? What might happen if we followed the best practices of investment management in running them?

When we hire an advisor to manage our traditional portfolio of stocks and bonds, the first thing they want to know is the answer to the following two questions:

Will you delegate full responsibility for managing your portfolio to me? or
Will the account be co-advised, meaning, before I make a purchase or sale in your portfolio, I must consult with you?

When the owner of the portfolio chooses #1, the client and the advisor work together to design a portfolio that meets the risk tolerance of the client, the advisor constructs the portfolio and typically the advisor provides reports, usually monthly or quarterly, that inform the owner of the status of their portfolio. Additionally, the advisor’s reports include a comparison of their performance to that of their peer group.

The full process is based on the DIME method (coined by my friend Scott Morgan, author of an out-of-print book by the same title). DIME: Design, Implement, Monitor, Evaluate.

Sometimes, the owner of the portfolio chooses #1, but instead of delegating authority, monitoring the performance of the portfolio, and periodically evaluating the portfolio manager; the owner abdicates, i.e. moves on to other things and ignores the portfolio manager.

I heard a sad story from a friend recently who chose option #1, neglected the monitor and evaluate part, and didn’t discover the result until he needed the money and discovered it was gone. The advisor was not dishonest, he simply made poor investment choices.

Ok, so what does this have to do with leadership and running a business? Here is what I have learned as a Vistage Chair and leadership coach.

The “portfolio managers” of our business are our leadership team, our key executives. Each business owner has a risk tolerance that leads them to be more or less involved in activities in their businesses. The result sometimes is key executives either feel micromanaged or business owners abdicate instead of delegate, only to jump back in when things are not going as they expected (but didn’t verbalize).

This seesaw drives both owners and key executives crazy and leads to outcomes neither wants. What if instead owners and key executives sat down together and asked the investment manager questions. These questions might include some of the following:

What decisions will I have full responsibility for?
Which decisions do you want to co-advise?
What risks are you most concerned about?
What kind of reporting works best for you? Written, verbal?
What do you want to monitor, and on what frequency?
How will my performance be evaluated?

And finally the most important question,

What is our agreement as to how to give each other feedback when the outcomes or the process didn’t go as we expected?

Leadership Quote: I Am Part Of All Whom I Have Met….

June 24, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote: I am part of all whom I have met. – Alfred Lord Tennyson.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned since becoming a Vistage Chair is this one. How many times do we as leaders say to ourselves, “I am different, they are different, that is the reason we cannot communicate.”

What if instead, we asked ourselves the following questions when dealing with a difficult communication challenge:

What can I learn about the person I am dealing with that will give me insight into them as a human being?
What life experiences do we share?
What personality traits, interests, passions do we share?
How might what we share, help us to communicate?

Leadership Quote: Those Who Failed To Oppose Me…

March 25, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote: “Those who failed to oppose me… who readily agreed with me and accepted all my views…were those who did me the most injury.” -Napoleon Bonaparte

As leaders, how do we avoid the trap of responding only to those who agree with us?

What do we do each day to encourage our employees to tell us what they really think?
Are we able to hear feedback from those who disagree and not brand it as “not being a team player”?
What forums do we have to solicit input from our employees who are “on the line”?
What actions have we taken lately that demonstrate we heard and listened to opposing views?

Leadership Quote: The Way You Do Anything…

February 26, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote: “The way you do anything, is the way you do everything.”

Boaz Rauchwerger, Vistage speaker, attributes this quote to his Mom in his December 5, 2011 newsletter. The point, she says, is to be excellent at everything.

For me, as a leadership coach, this quote raises broader leadership questions:

Is the way I do everything, the same regardless of who I am doing it for or with?
Is the way I do everything, the same when I am doing it alone or when someone is watching?
Does “doing” include how I treat people along the way to achieving excellence; the old question, is the outcome what counts or is it the process?
Is the way I am perceived as doing everything as a leader, the way I want to be perceived?
As the leader, how does the way I do anything impact the culture of my business?