Three key questions help frame the question of your business model (the who, what and how):

1. Who we are?
2. What we do?
3. How we make money?

Who We Are?: Most companies address the who question with their mission and vision statement but many of these miss the mark because they are too focused on the product side of who they are and not on the outcome they strive to achieve. Take a look at the mission statement for Ralph Loren:

“Ralph Lauren’s mission is to redefine American style, provide quality products, create worlds and invite people to take part in our dreams.”

Walk into any department store around the world and you will see people striving to join Ralph Loren’s dream of style and to have the opportunity to pay a premium for it.

What we Do?: Build your product line with a focus towards what will serve the organization’s mission. Too often companies may engage in multiple activities hoping to hit a home run with one while covering their bases with another. Establishing a list of what we do and what we don’t do helps to clarify the specifics of our products.

Salesforce.com built a disruptive technology by offering a subscription based software product that ran a great customer relationship management product. While there were plenty of good CRM products, Salesforce’s differentiator was being able to make the software available on-line anywhere, anytime freeing sales people from the burden of going back to the office to track their contacts.

How We Make Money?: Many years ago before I sold my first company, I introduced the concept of Open Book Management to my staff based on the work of Jack Stack and his book, The Great Game of Business. Using this approach, I proceeded to provide my staff with complete financial reports on the status of the company (except compensation) and educated them on reading spreadsheets and P&L statements. The result was a greater sense of ownership and engagement that helped our staff understand how their actions on both the revenue and expense side contributed to our and their success.

Most companies delegate off the financial component of business success to the CFO and accounting department but I would suggest that it is way too important to be relegated there and that the question of how the company makes and spends money is everyone’s business.

As business changes at the speed of light, revisiting your business model and how you and your staff understand who you are, what you do and how you make money can only help strengthen your success.

Call us for some ideas on putting these models into play for your organization.

By now the entire world has heard about Jeremy Lin. An unheralded undrafted New York Knick basketball player whose resume highlighted his Harvard education more than his professional basketball prowess. While he helped his high school team win a California championship, he received no Division I scholarships and “settled” on Harvard as his number 2 choice.

After an outstanding career at Harvard, he wound up signing a contract with his hometown Golden State Warriors where was heralded for his Asian-American roots more so than his basketball play–something that seemed to bother him as he wanted to prove himself as a basketball player. But he was waived by the Warriors and then went onto Houston where he played 7 minutes in 2 exhibition games before getting the send off.

It was just this past December that the Knicks picked him up as a third string point guard and he spent his first month with the Knicks playing well for their farm team before being recalled since their players at that position were still rehabbing from injuries.

Given that Lin had not played much in his first month, the Knicks were planning to waive him on February 10 but after a devestating loss to the Boston Celtics on February 3, the Knick head coach, Mike D’Antoni decided to give him a chance.

191 points, 60 assists and seven victories later, Jeremy Lin is hot.  He’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the New York Post has run out of “Linisms” for their headlines and his #17 Knick jersey and t-shirts have increased on-line sales for the Knicks 3000%.

In the talent world, Jeremy Lin would be described as a “diamond in the rough”. Smart, hardworking, focused and committed on improving his craft and a man who works with a sense of perseverance and purpose.

His story, while still new and fresh portrays a great message for both employers and employees. For the boss, always keep your eyes open for that person in the background at the end of the bench who has a secret desire to contribute and who keeps working at it. For the rest of us, keep at it and when your turn comes go for it big time.

He describes himself as being very competitive and that he thinks his self denouncing language is a way to pump himself up and that pushes him to do better. I could agree with him if he had been able to tell me about the ways that his approach worked. But the more he talked, the more it became clear that he was not pushing forward but instead was pushing backwards and actually keeping himself down.

It was not as if he didn’t have his fair share of challenges with a growing business, a young family and a small workforce that he had to train and oversee while he was out growing and building business but I couldn’t help but ask him, “what his option b to pump yourself up”?

We talked about the words he uses to describe himself and I asked whether he would consider using less inflammatory language even if he wanted to describe his performance as less than acceptable to him. He was honest about not being sure that he could or that he wanted to but agreed that he could see how the way he was talking to himself about himself might not always have the motivating power that he would like.

He told me that he remembered a quote from Mahatma Ghandi that he always thought he should try to apply in his life but that he did not often put into play

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes”.

There were three keys that made this vacation so pleasurable for us. The first is that we got to see great family and friends. We made two stops, one in Austin for the wedding of the daughter of one of our oldest friends and then onto Sarasota to see my brother and sister-in-law. The second was that we kept a full schedule of activities and rest including some new fun things we hadn’t done before like renting a power boat and driving up and down the Intracoastal exploring dolphins, birds andrestaurants and third we enjoyed getting a little work done in the mornings before adventuring out.

Maybe I’m a workaholic but I see nothing wrong with spending time getting some work things done when “on vacation”. I was able to stay connected with email, make some important calls and work on some writing that was due the week I returned. I like being in touch with clients and the time between writing and relaxing gave me some new perspectives on what I would talk about in my monthly newsletter.

Of course, no vacation is complete without a trip to some kind of museum and a visit to the Edison/Ford estate in Fort Meyers helped me connect with these two giants of 20^th century leadership. More about them in the next blog

As I’ve been meeting with senior leaders, many of whom are in their 40’s, they are bringing a completely different perspective to their role. They don’t see themselves as “heroic leaders” capable of running and leading their organization on their own like a lion who is king of the jungle. Instead they want to create a working organization where responsibilities are shared more evenly and decision making can be made more easily and nimbly.

As a result, they recognize that their skill set must be different. As I’ve interviewed a number of them, I’v coalesced their ideas into five keys:

1. Philosophy: When I’ve asked successful leaders about their approach to leadership, they’ve been able to successfully share their ideas. Many of them talk about being genuine, following up on their word and modeling effective behaviors.
2. Communication: The workplace is more complex than ever and people are smarter than ever. They ask questions, take nothing for granted and infer solutions in the absence of certainty. Not maintaining a clear line of communication and keeping the flow of information open is an essential quality that these top CEO’s demonstrate. Many advocate the use of multiple channels including town halls,  emails, social media and face-to-face visits. Not only will staff appreciate the information but these CEO’s report getting more information than they give.
3. Understand your Talent: The prime job for any CEO is to make sure that he or she has the best people working for them doing the best job they can. Taking time to assess top performers and finding a way to help them grow means that the organization is creating a pipeline that ensures that your best performers will stay around and make key contributions
4. Show your Humanity: One CEO told me that the most important thing he ever did was to apologize to his staff when he screwed up on a big project that cost his company millions of dollars. His acknowledgement showed everyone that he was capable of recognizing and acknowledging his errors and that he could recover from that and move on. His honest sharing made a tremendous difference in his team’s commitment to him as a leader and the organization’s mission.
5. One Life: Several CEOs told me that they could not separate their work life from their home life and that their best efforts at maintaining that balance was to embrace the fact that they loved working in their jobs and fulfilling the mission inherent in their job. They took time for family and their personal life as a matter of course and did not “carve out” specific time. The result was that they lived “one life” which allowed them to move easily and comfortably between work and home. Surprisingly, this created a healthier balance for them and helped them maintain an even keel within their life.

All the CEOs I’ve spoken with tell me that they think that shifting ideas of leadership are bringing about new ways that CEO’s will be interacting with their organization and their employees. In a changing world, change the ways.

You may find yourself reliving your own personal 2011  as you reflect on the past year. I always like to ask myself the question of what I was doing a year ago and I was actually able to check on that by looking at my Google calendar from last year and seeing that I had some contacts I made with some friends and potential clients that worked out to be pretty good contracts.

I also noted that I had set some goals–both personal and professional for the year and did pretty well on some and not as good on others. But on balance a happy and satisfying year.

So how can you approach 2012 to make it a great year for yourself. Here are some ideas:

1. Don’t make resolutions. These are too tough to keep. Set goals for your professional life, personal life, relationship and family and fun. Think about 2-3 in each category and then plan some time in January to map our some strategies for each.
2. Talk to someone who knows you well and ask them how they think you could improve for yourself. Having others provide unbiased ideas can be helpful but give them the rule that they can’t be critical
3. Map our your plans for fun things to do first. Talk with your partner or family about holidays and vacations and get them on the schedule for yourself.
4. 2012 will be an election year and there will be a lot of negativity in the air with paid advertisements, debates and “the world is ending” hyperbole. Ignore it all and find your own best way to stay informed without getting caught up in all that noise.
5. Talk to people at your place of work about how you can help make it a more production, positive and profitable workplace. It may mean a conversations with just a few folks who you trust but you can begin to build out your connections from there.
6. Make better bad choices. You can’t think about the new year without considering food and exercise and I advocate for doing better incrementally. Instead of a whole plate of cheese fries, go with the regular fries and share the plate with someone else. Instead of buying donuts for the office, pick up bagels and cream cheese. Incremental improvements can yield great results
7. Go with what you do best. Building on your strengths is a great way to have fun and do better so delegate tasks that you don’t do as well to others which might include your tax preparation, software fixes and even cooking.
8. Make some new friends or reconnect with old friends. It can be tough to make time for friends but you may find that it is really good to have other people to bounce ideas off of and to have a place to vent frustrations.
9. Be nice to yourself. If you find negative messages rotating in your head (more than normal) find one of those friends and talk it out. Make sure your buds are on your side and trust them that they have some secret knowledge about just how great you are.
10. Write down some of your 2012 goals in your google, yahoo, icalendar or even on your December 31, 2012 wall calendar so that you can check them out at the end of the year. I bet you’ll be surprised at how well you do.

Oprah Winfrey has a nice approach to the New Year, “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right”.

Have a wonderful New Years Celebration

Last week, I began discussing Robert Cialdini’s six approaches to persuasion or what he calls weapons of influence by covering reciprocation and commitment and consistency. This week, we’ll be exploring Cialdini’s third and fourth tools–social proof and authority.

While people clearly go out and shop on Black Friday because there are great deals, there is also the desire to be a part of a community of people who are all doing something that is must be good and correct behavior. Somehow getting out there and battling the crowds makes us one of the legions of cool people who know how to spend that Friday after Turkey day.

Being persuaded to follow the crowd works in many situations but can also backfire, particularly in the workplace. Beware of situations where groupthink gets everyone on the same page and being afraid of being a non-conformist for not fitting into the expectations of the workplace. As a leader, you want to encourage thinking that is different from what everyone thinks. However recognize that the power of the group can easily direct behaviors that people will adopt.

Authority is the most common form of persuasion and for most of us we defer to people in authority. Even authority, over the long term must be earned as a persuasion approach as opposed to just being given. For example, titles, dress and even the kind of car that someone drives bestows a certain amount of authority on an individual, but if there is no real substance backing up their expertise, then their authority and influence will soon wean.

You can put this influencing strategy to work for yourself by backing up your statements with authoritative sources that support your positions.Demonstrate over time that your authority is based on who you are as a person and the commitment you are willing to make to be an expert as opposed to the position you hold in the organization.

Do you use your role and title to get things done, try to create a collaborative approach, use rational thought to build your case, build on precedent or just go with the flow?

In my coaching sessions I find that issues around influence are one of the most important topics that my corporate clients want to talk about. Most are competent in their relationship building, understand and can develop a strategic outlook and are typically great at executing. But their ability to impact their organization through influence rather than authority is frequently their weakest link.

Over the next couple of blogs, I’m going to discuss the six essential tools of influence as developed by the world’s leading researcher on influence, Robert Cialdini who is a professor at Arizona State University.

One of the first key things to get our arms around related to influence is to know that it is an emotional experience for people and not just a logical request by you. People react to your ideas and you must feel comfortable in respecting and using the emotional tools of influence to help win the day.  So lets take a look at Cialdini’s first 2 “weapons of influence” (there are six altogether)

1. Reciprocation–Ever notice how when someone does a favor for you, you feel a need to return the favor. Most people want to even the score and not be viewed as someone who does not repay debts. For example, you’ve probably received a fund raising request letter from some organization that included return address labels for your use. In providing labels to potential donors, the VFW observed that they almost doubled the number of people who contributed from 18% to 36%. Recipients often feel they should repay this favor by making a donation to the organization

At work you probably already use this strategy by just wanting to help out someone when they do something nice for you but you can get ahead of the curve and bank some favors through a number of strategies such as providing free information, offering to help with a project or even sending a birthday card or celebratory acknowledgement.

2. Commitment and Consistency–You are a person of your word and so are others. If you can get people to commit to an idea or goal either verbally or in writing they are more likely to to honor that agreement because people want to be consistent with their self image. In my work with corporations around promoting healthy workplaces, people who work with a health coach are asked to sign a health “pledge” that they will try out some of the healthy ideas like a walking club or joining a nutrition class. When signing the pledge or even making a statement of your belief as the illustration above shows people tend to agree with their aforementioned belief.

Most probably you already use some aspects of these first two tools of influence. Part of the key to becoming influential is to use them consciously and consistently. Take note of situations where you can try them out and how effectively they work. I’ll be discussing the next two “weapons of influence” in my next blog post

Thankful for a job, for their health, that they will be together with their family for the holiday (or that they won’t be with their family for the holiday!), thankful for their personal blessings that only they understand and appreciate.

As if we needed to know, a new set of studies shows that gratitude boosts your positive outlook. Gratitude builds happiness through both the addition of affirming statements to yourself and others and a simultaneous reduction in the time available for complaining.

So what are some quick and easy ways to build up your gratitude according to my informal survey of some kids and adults I spoke with last week:

1. Give more hugs
2. Limit your whining time to 15 seconds
3. Write down three appreciations at the end of your day in a notebook
4. Write down three appreciations you want to share with others at the start of your day.
5. Attend a concert or go to an art gallery to enjoy the art and change your routine
6. Go for a walk out in the woods
7. Pet your dog (or cat if she’ll let you)
8. Listen to an inspirational book on tape
9. Tell a friend how cool you think they are
10. Take a moment to enjoy the beautiful view of your family and friends tomorrow at your Thanksgiving dinner table

Thanks to all for your support of my work. I am filled with gratefulness!

George Will is one of my favorite columnists. His writing is nearly poetic and his mind transforms complex ideas into understandable simplicity. Even when I disagree with what he says, I have to admit that he says it so deftly that I put down my paper and am forced to reconsider my thinking! On top of all that, Will is a major league baseball fan and his books on the sport are addictive. In fact, he commented that he only writes his political columns to support his baseball habit.

Now I think George Will customizes his lectures to challenge his audience and given the predominant older population in Sarasota, he went right at the core issue of Medicare and Social Security suggesting that the Social Security age should be raised to 74 and that significant changes should be made to Medicare including increasing co-pays and patient responsibilities for the management of their own health.

That is where I got in trouble…

I am passionate about helping people become better consumers of health care. I’ve heard all the arguments…”Health care isn’t like other services”. “The doctor patient relationship is sacred and money shouldn’t get in the way”. “People can’t understand about the complexity of health care costs”. “We shouldn’t have to worry about health care costs when we are sick”. With all that, I am convinced that patients like you and me must become more involved in questioning and understanding how much medical procedures cost. Its really a simple question…”Doc, how much do these different procedures cost?”

So Mr. Will looks up at the vast audience in that beautiful hall and asked “Has anyone ever asked their physician how much a medical procedure cost? My hand shot up as I had just spoken to my knee doctor about the costs for three different options to treat my chronic knee pain. Mr. Will looked across the auditorium and seeing my hand as being the only one raised shouted up at me “Liar” and proceeded to discuss the very topic of why it is important for patients to get involved with this aspect of healthcare. I completely agreed with him and regretted that he didn’t invite me up to the stage to discuss the matter further, but I guess he didn’t think he needed my help. Later that evening my brother and sister-in-law, who were sitting downstairs on the main floor said that after Mr. Will called someone a liar up in the cheap seats, they looked at each other and said “that was Rich”.

I wrote a couple of notes to Mr. Will after the lecture challenging him on his accusation and even considered suing him for slander but decided that it was probably good that I had him in my corner on this issue. I’m not so sure about the rest of them. Maybe next time he’ll call me a socialist

I remember a conversation I was having with a retired Air Force Colonel who told me that in the military they expect officers to change jobs every 5 years or so. “The Air Force doesn’t want people to get stale and that means new jobs and new responsibilities”. But in the private sector, he told me, he was surprised how many people had survived in their current role for 10-15-20-25 or 30 years just doing an okay job. But just an okay job in today’s competitive environment leaves any company behind the proverbial “eight ball”. 

Before you panic, however, remember that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, so what is required is to evaluate who are your top performers, what are the key or critical positions and then evaluate the options for how to realign the organization to make certain that you get your best people in the key roles within your company. 

As Jack Welch, the legendary leader of General Electric once said “The team with the best players wins”.

The first half of the game did not go well for Nebraska. Ohio State controlled the line of scrimmage and dominated play heading off to a 20-3 half time lead that jumped to 27-6 early in the third quarter. At that point, for some bizarre reason, I started thinking about my resilience model and how would (or could Nebraska) bounce back from their biggest halftime deficit in school history.

Remembering that the three mechanisms of resilience—preparation-navigation and bounce back comprise the opportunity levers for being resilient, I began to wonder if some kind of preparation that Nebraska does would create an opportunity to shift the momentum of the game. Just that actually happened at the midway point in the 3^rd quarter when Nebraska defensive player Lavonte David literally stripped the ball from OSU quarterback Braxton Miller. As the sportscasters described it later, “…Another millisecond later and Miller would have been on the ground and David’s strip of the ball would have been nullified…” But the turnaround had begin and by the end of the day, Nebraska won this game 34-27 and all was good in Lincoln.

Sporting events are great metaphors for thinking about resilience. Part of the benefit of using sport is that it is time limited and when they are over, they are over. Not so with our work and personal lives and that is what makes having a resilient mindset and good navigation skills even more important. Here are some reminders about navigating challenging situations:

· Focus—Take a look at the picture above and you can see that Lavonte David is definitely focused on getting that ball into his hands. You can’t be focused every moment, but you can be aware of what you are trying to accomplish

· Discipline—I have no doubt that Nebraska practice “strip drills” where they work on taking the ball away from other players. That is about preparation so that when the moment is ready, so are you

· Being agile—Agility means that you can change from one direction to the next. No doubt Nebraska coaches were emphasizing some changing ideas at half time and one of them was to break out of your standard play mode and make something happen.

Being in stressful and challenging situations happen every day and being able to respond to them effectively is more than just hoping they will go away or that we can “manage” them”. Think of your day as a sporting event (maybe multiple events) and look for the chance to turn a good situation into a great situation. Even if you are down 27-6 early in the 3^rd quarter, remember there are still plenty of plays ahead.

If we look back over the past 100 years in business what we see is that we have gone through three major transitions in how the workplace has dealt with people. The first was the industrial age. In the industrial age employees were expected to be obedient and diligent. They were expected to do their job, keep their mouth shut, and follow the rules and regulations. This was actually a critically important phase since products were being produced and specific parameters and guidelines had to be followed to ensure proper manufacturing. Additionally, employees were seen as a cost.

In the late 20th century we moved into the knowledge era. In the knowledge era what we saw was that knowledge and intellect was vital. We were relying on our people as an asset to take the information they possessed and to create new ideas that would increase profits. During this period, businesses moved from. manufacturing things, to creating ideas. Employees are seen as an asset to the business and not just a cost.

Today we have entered the talent age. In the talent age what is important is creativity and passion. People are seen not as costs, not as assets, but as talent that brings value to the organization. Employees engage with the organization and their focus on bringing their best to the workplace creates greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Unfortunately, many companies haven’t made that leap to the talent management era and most employees have not made the leap to recognizing how their talents can create a better and more effective workplace. Both parties oftentimes still operate in either the industrial age era or in the knowledge age era and so both sides tend to think of themselves as just being there to get a job done rather than as a key element of their workplace strategy.

Whenever you talk to leaders in the workplace and ask them, “What is your most important resource?” Most companies will say, “Our people.” But when you ask the follow-up question such as “what strategic role do your employees provide and how do you garner them most value from them, they have no idea. Employees are seen as a tactical resource. Here are a couple of questions to ask related to how you are seen in the workplace:
• Involve the people who are doing the work to find out what makes their job critical to the company and what they can do to increase value.
• Keep your organization’s business objectives front and center and remind everyone about these goals as you determine the best ways to deploy your employees.
• Communicate and educate your staff about the strategic role they play in the organization. Make them create the definitions of how they contribute to the success of the company.

In addition, talent management also means that the roles required to fulfill the corporate mission are in better alignment than when employees are hired to “fill a position. Jim Collins who wrote the book Good to Great stated that it was not enough to just get your “people on the bus”, but you had to make sure they were in the right seats and that the bus was moving in the right direction.

Talent management gets the right people in the right places and the research shows that companies that do that well get a 22% higher shareholder return than companies that don’t use talent management effectively. So there is a great business incentive for organizations to begin to look at how they manage and leverage their talent effectively.

So how is your organization using your talent?

The first are strategic roles. About 10-15% of roles within the organization are strategic. Most people typically think that the strategic roles are roles like the president of the company, the senior vice-president of the company, the chief financial officer of the company or the chief technology officer of the company. These may in fact be strategic roles within the organization but surprisingly strategic roles may be roles that you wouldn’t think about as being strategic. For example, I wrote an article recently called “Why is Joe Smith the FedEx Driver More Important Than Fred Smith the CEO of FedEx?” and the reason for that is that Fed Ex recognizes that the strategic role for their organization are the truck drivers: The men and women who get those packages from the warehouse where they land to the office or home where the people who need them need them. This is what FedEx is all about and these roles are very much strategic for this company.

Another great example points to employees who are in the same job but in one company they are strategic and in another company they are not strategic and that would be the difference between an airline like Southwest which is a low budget quick turnaround, point-to-point airline versus American Airlines which is a hub and spoke airline that is going to connect people from one place to another. At Southwest Airlines the ramp people – the people who get the bags out of the plane and onto the ramp and out so that that plane is ready to turn around and get going quickly and effectively are strategic roles: At American Airlines not so much. The plane is going to be on the ground for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. The ramp people want to get it out efficiently, that is obviously good customer service but it is not nearly as important as it is for Southwest Airlines where their planes are going to be turned around in 10 minutes. You have got to get those bags off. You have got to get the new bags on. Southwest Airlines, American Airlines.-both same positions, ramp people. One strategic and the other one is the second area that we talk about related to organizations which have to do with supporting roles.

The next group of job roles is “supporting roles”. Supporting roles keep internal operations moving. Information technology is a supporting role. Operations is a supporting role. Human resources is a supporting role. Safety manager is a supporting role. These roles are very important and vital to the organization. However, their importance is really secondary to the more important strategic roles.

Finally, the third group of roles in an organization are the core roles. These are the ones that are required for operational excellence. They may be your manufacturing roles if you are manufacturing steel or some other product. They may be your sales and marketing positions. Again, these roles are vitally important to the success of the organization but they are not strategic. By the way, the core roles will fill about 20-25% of all jobs while strategic are about 10-15% of the company and operational around 60%.

Understanding these roles in any organization is central to building a talent management model. You recognize immediately where you need to put your energy, where you need to find the best people, where you need to actually assess what roles are most important and whether those people that you have in those roles are the best people for the organization.

When I asked her if she saw herself as a manager or a leader, she told me that she saw herself as a manager and not a leader. I asked her what the difference was and she kind of chuckled and told me that as a manager, she doesn’t feel as if she has to take on as much responsibility as she would if she were the leader!

I followed up with a question about how the organization viewed her and she didn’t hesitate to say that her boss told her that he wants her to be a leader—set the vision—create a can-do culture, and hold people accountable so that the work gets done in a way that creates real value for the company. We set up the framework for our coaching to help her become a leader.

Leaders bring value to the organization. They demonstrate their worth by creating something new and not just moving the ball ahead in the same way it has always progressed. Innovation, creativity, inspiration are a few of the key ideas that differentiates leaders from managers. Becoming a high achieving leader means that you deliver great ideas that move into action. Try some of these ideas:

1. Realize that yesterday’s great ideas are just commodities today.
2. Promote new ideas that are derived from your team’s experiences and knowledge.
3. Like my coachee above, if you do not feel like a leader, go ahead and look around you at the leaders in your organization and begin modeling the behavior of that person. Follow their leads.
4. Find a mentor or someone you can talk with in your company about your leadership style. Ask your supervisor for feedback about your leadership style and how you can strengthen it.
5. Be clear about your expectations for your team and establish and state what you expect them to do within your prescribed timeframes.