Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
Many organizations set goals and fail to reach them. Others achieve some of their goals by accident, and some could achieve a lot more.
Are your goals mandatory or experimental? In my leadership development coaching projects, I’ve seen many organizations set their goals without considering the obvious reasons they may not be achievable. By addressing these reasons up front, an organization can dramatically increase the likelihood of success in achieving their sales goals.
Here is a list of common circumstances that cause organizations to fail in achieving their goals:
- No consideration given to the capacity of the target market (growing-shrinking).
- Overestimating the organization’s ability to deliver the products and services at the optimum level while keeping its brand promises.
- No funding in place to finance growth should the company grow faster than its ability to self-fund.
- No advertising or marketing plan in place to support the goals.
- Marketing and sales forces are not prepared to properly differentiate the company from the competition.
- Low performance track record from the people that need to deliver on the goals.
- Not enough sales and sales support people.
An organization that considers the above questions will discover they should plan on upgrading people, increasing resources, moving some around, refocusing time and making other adjustments. Significant goals—those that require growth rates and increases in profit margins—need refinement on a monthly and quarterly basis.
Great leaders ask these questions, refine goals and make the right adjustments.
Howard Shore is a leadership development coach who works with companies that need leadership development and strategic business coaching. Based in Miami, Florida, Howard’s firm, Activate Group, Inc. provides strategic planning and management coaching to businesses across the country. To learn more about leadership development coaching through AGI, please visit www.activategroupinc.com, contact Howard at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, goal-setting, Howard Shore, leadership development coach, leadership development coaching projects, management coaching, Reasons Your Goals May Not Be Achievable, why organizations fail in achieving their goals
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Friday, May 11th, 2012
We all want to see 100 percent effort in our workforce every day, but most of us struggle to achieve that level of motivation. Maybe you’ve tried motivational speakers and management trainers, and maybe you’ve even told everybody what you expect, and still experience the same mediocre results.
If you continue to throw the same old solutions at motivation problems, you are going to get the same old bad results. I suggest that you first need to define your problem correctly and then decide if you are willing to do what it takes to solve it.
I hate to tell you this, but in organizations that lack motivation, the issue usually lies within the C-suite (CEO, President, COO, CFO, etc.). Basically, leadership has not created an environment that is conducive to engagement and motivation. As an executive leadership coach, I’ve worked with many C-level leaders and have seen first-hand how their beliefs (many of them misguided) are preventing them from properly motivating the team to get the results they are after.
Myth #1: Information should be shared on a need-to-know basis.
Even people at the management level struggle with this belief and for the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would want to hide such crucial company information like strategic goals and milestones from the team. They need to see the big picture if you want them to color their part!
Holding information doesn’t help you control people, it only downgrades them. Strategy is certainly not for the executive team only.
Myth #2: More training will solve the problem.
Usually when leaders throw more training at what they think is the problem, the real issues start bubbling to the surface. Training can only maximize performance within the existing system. If the entire process is constrained then the training will fail to get results.
Myth #3: I do not need to motivate my top performers.
Imagine your company is a jigsaw puzzle. The key to building the puzzle is having all the pieces. Suppose you as an employee have only half the pieces to the puzzle. You’ll never have the satisfaction of seeing the entire finished result. In other words, there is no sense of progress and no way to know what you have contributed towards the goal. Since you do not understand the goals, you believe that in the grand scheme your job is not that meaningful to the whole puzzle. How hard would you work?
All employees—especially top performers—need development, information and motivation.
So many leaders subscribe to these myths and the results are frustration, mistrust and misunderstanding between management and subordinates, which results in mediocrity. When you see mediocrity in your company, you have to look at belief systems and activities that are not supporting the outcomes you want. Usually it is the first that leads to the second.
Howard Shore is an executive development coach who works with companies that need leadership development and strategic business coaching. Based in Miami, Florida, Howard’s firm, Activate Group, Inc. provides leadership and management coaching to businesses across the country. To learn more about executive leadership coaching through AGI, please visit www.activategroupinc.com, contact Howard at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, executive leadership coach, Howard Shore, motivatetop performers, Motivation, myths that kill motivation, organizations that lack motivation, people at the management level, Training can motivate top performers
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Monday, April 9th, 2012
I’m an executive leadership coach so I see and talk to a lot of C-level leaders. I see many leaders struggle to build consensus and following within their organizations. I know many “technically” great leaders—they have amazing skills and accomplishments in their backgrounds, but lack the special something that unites employees behind them. That doesn’t mean they are doomed to lead an uninspired team that simply takes orders.
There are two categories of leadership qualities: learned and innate. Natural-born leaders have a certain amount of charisma. Leaders who inspire a great following are liked—maybe loved. Unfortunately, you cannot teach charisma—you are either inherently likable or you’re not. Charismatic people are natural leaders.
But you don’t have to be naturally likable to be a great leader. You don’t have to be charismatic to be magnetic. Yes, there is a difference. Magnetism can be learned.
How? Start by making a conscious effort to live the following magnetic qualities:
1. Be Thankful.
How and how often do you give feedback? What type of environment do you create with this feedback? People won’t follow someone who only notices screw-ups and constantly focuses on negatives. And they certainly will not follow leaders who take frustrations out on employees. Be generous with positive feedback and recognize the little things. Shake hands. Pat backs. Give a high-five now and then. Appreciation is fuel for production.
2. Be Fair.
Favoritism and nepotism are charisma killers. There is nothing employees hate more than seeing favorites recognized for barely meeting expectations while the rest of the team is ignored. You want to see mutiny first-hand? Watch what happens when you set different rules and processes for different people or teams.
3. Be Consistent.
Without clear vision you have no plan and therefore no guideposts for the team. How can employees follow you if they don’t know what to follow? Set a clear vision and don’t change course unless absolutely necessary. In order for people to follow you down the trail you must blaze it for them. Constantly changing course causes battle fatigue and the lost respect of the troops.
4. Be Authentic.
No one wants to follow a phony. Be human. You can still be the exalted leader in the corner office, but be a genuine person with a personality, likes/dislikes and a sense of humor. Be respectful and honest with everyone, always. And admit when you are wrong.
5. Be Vulnerable.
I see executive leaders regularly struggle with being human and therefore vulnerable. You’ve been told your whole career that you need to be tough as nails and stronger than the rest. It can be hard to make the mental switch and allow yourself to admit that you don’t have all the answers. But being a little vulnerable is actually quite humanizing and endearing. It’s okay to be wrong, or to say, “we missed an opportunity” when it is true. Overly positive or “flawless” people can come off as fake and frankly, egotistical. No one, and I mean no one, is without fault. When people feel you are vulnerable, you become real and relatable. If they can relate to you, they can follow you.
What will you do to become a more magnetic person?
Howard Shore is an executive leadership coach who works with companies that need leadership development and business management coaching. Based in Miami, Florida, Howard’s firm, Activate Group, Inc. provides strategic planning and management coaching to businesses across the country. To learn more about executive leadership coaching through AGI, please visit www.activategroupinc.com, contact Howard at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, become a more magnetic person, charisma, Charismatic people, exalted leader, executive leadership coach, executive leadership coach in Miami, executive leadership coach in South Florida, Howard Shore, Magnetism can be learned, natural leaders, Set a clear vision
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Friday, April 6th, 2012
When evaluating performance, company leaders—even some leadership coaches—often focus on lagging indicators like revenue, profits and other metrics found on the income statement and balance sheet. While it is important to keep track of lagging indicators, it is far more productive to understand leading indicators—the forces driving revenue and profits.
Here’s an example. Let’s say your total sales goal is $5 million dollars, and a salesperson has an individual sales goal of $1 million of that total. Start by determining your average sale amount. Once you have that number, manage your salesperson’s quota by tracking their number of phone calls, meetings and proposals. A predictive pattern will emerge that shows you how many connected phone calls lead to a meeting, how many meetings lead to a proposal, and how many proposals lead to a sale. By managing these leading indicators, you can predict whether or not your salesperson will achieve that $1 million goal, determine which people need training and coaching, and which ones are not capable of doing the job.
You can identify leading indicators for every item on your income statement. Simply break down the end numbers into the activities that produce the results and track them over time to identify the patterns. Then, work to measure and improve upon each indicator.
Don’t make the all-to-common leadership mistake of failing to recognize cause and effect. By inspecting and improving the items that cause the monetary results, you can figure out exactly how to improve those results with very real metrics.
Howard Shore is a leadership coach who works with companies that need leadership development and business management coaching. Based in Miami, Florida, Howard’s firm, Activate Group, Inc. provides strategic planning and management coaching to businesses across the country. To learn more about sales force development through AGI, please visit www.activategroupinc.com, contact Howard at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, Coaching in Miami, evaluating performance, Executive Coach, Howard Shore, income statement, leadership coach, real metrics
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Monday, April 2nd, 2012
Motivation develops internally from a desire to achieve goals that are important to both the individual and the company. It is the force that prompts action. If you are having trouble motivating your team to achieve your goals, you are probably failing to understand theirs.
While pay, benefits and working conditions are important, research shows that they have no long-term effects on motivation. The things that do have an effect are recognition, sense of achievement, growth, participation, challenge and identification with the company’s goals and vision.
In spite of these facts, executive leaders and managers still use fear and incentives as motivational tools. Fear can be highly motivating, but does not produce positive results for any length of time. Incentives, on the other hand, are positive motivators—rewards in exchange for specific behaviors, but also have diminishing returns as employees expect fair compensation based on their contributions. Eventually, a disconnect forms between what the employee desires and what the employer is willing to pay.
Here are 9 ideas proven to provide for long-term motivation:
- Outline a clear vision. Identify your company and department goals and objectives. Make sure everyone understands how to help achieve those goals.
- Give regular compliments. Make an effort to compliment each of your direct reports on (at least) a weekly basis.
- Prioritize employee development. Make employee development and retention a primary objective of each manager and executive leader, and reward their success accordingly.
- Ask for input. Ask employees for advice in areas where they have expertise.
- Include employees in goal setting. Involve everyone at all levels in goal setting and strategic planning, particularly if they are responsible for the results.
- Treat everyone with dignity and respect. Pretty self-explanatory.
- Stand behind your employees and back their decisions. Also, let employees learn from their mistakes.
- Listen. Take time to listen carefully to other people’s interests, opinions, concerns and goals.
- Encourage employees to expand their comfort zone. Help them look for new ways to meet their personal goals and expand their skills.
What motivates you? What does that tell you about how you can effectively motivate your employees?
Howard Shore is an executive leadership coach who works with companies that need leadership development and business management coaching. Based in Miami, Florida, Howard’s firm, Activate Group, Inc. provides strategic planning and management coaching to businesses across the country. To learn more about executive leadership coaching through AGI, please visit www.activategroupinc.com, contact Howard at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:achieving goals, business management coaching, clear vision, Coaching in South Florida, company’s goals, company’s vision, desire to achieve goals, Executive Coach, executive leadership coach, Howard Shore, leadership development, Motivation, teams achieving goals, What motivates you
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Friday, March 9th, 2012
Do you have a Jeremy Lin on your team? You might. You may think you understand the potential of every person on your team but the truth is, you could have unbelievable, untapped talent sitting “on the bench” just waiting to be discovered by you—or your competitor. As company leadership we must think like championship coaches and learn to recognize and develop game-changing talent.
Jeremy Lin had been passed over, cut and underutilized his entire career. Yet, he quietly kept practicing and getting better. When the NBA lockout was going on, he used that time to practice harder and get better. When the season started, they kept him on the bench, and he kept practicing and getting better. And when they had no one else to put in, they put in Jeremy…and he blew everyone away. But what if he never had the chance to play? He would have been one of the best talents in the NBA, gone to waste.
So how do you identify your hidden Jeremy Lin? And when you find raw talent on your team, how do you develop it?
1. Use Talent Assessment Tools
Having great talent on your team starts with the hiring process, and that process should start with using assessment tools early in the candidate screening process. Talent assessment tools are keys to understanding the natural talents of your candidates. You can also use them post-hire to identify employees’ hidden qualities and talents that may have gone unnoticed. Every person has natural abilities—skills that cannot be taught—and areas that they have the capacity to develop. Things like strategic thinking, vision and data analysis capabilities cannot be taught but are an enormous asset to the team. Folks with these abilities should be coached and put into a leadership development track that builds on those talents. Assessment tools like the OMG Assessment and TopGrading are extremely effective in discovering these traits.
2. Ask the Right Interview Questions
Again, having great talent means finding great talent during the hiring process. After you have the results of your assessment tools and begin to understand what the natural talents of the candidates are, you need to make sure your hiring managers are asking the right questions to identify the people who are best suited for the team and the company’s strategy. As experienced leadership development coaches, we recommend asking the following about the candidate’s key past job experiences:
- What were you hired to do?
- What were your accomplishments?
- What were your low points?
- Tell me about your team…
- Who was your boss and what would they say about you?
- What were they like to work with?
- When I talk to him/her what will they say were your greatest strengths and your areas for improvement back then?
- Why did you leave?
- What are your future goals?
3. Manage by Walking Around
Are you really noticing people for who they are or are you judging them with personal bias? The goal of executive leadership should be to capture all the positive energy that occurs when someone is working at high levels of performance. When employees are in the right role for their talents, performing work that is satisfying, they are happy and energetic, and it’s infectious. Learn to spot this energy, develop it and use it to motivate others. People who are challenged with tasks they enjoy breed positivity.
So how do you encourage this energy?
4. Assign Special Projects
As you are walking around and noticing your energetic employees, ask them questions and try to get a sense of what they want and love to do. Then give them opportunities to excel at those things. All leaders, from executives to managers, need to do this.
Jeremy’s special project was to play point guard when there wasn’t anyone else to jump in. He excelled and he became the “A” player that changed the team.
Howard Shore is an executive leadership coach who works with companies that need leadership development and business management coaching. Based in Miami, Florida, Howard’s firm, Activate Group, Inc. provides strategic planning and management coaching to businesses across the country. To learn more about executive leadership development coaching through AGI, please visit www.activategroupinc.com, contact Howard at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:"A" players, Activate Group Inc, Assessment Tools, Assign Special Projects, candidate screening process, change the team, changing talent, coaching, Executive Coach, Howard Shore, Jeremy Lin, leadership development coach, leadership development coaches, NBA, NBA lockout, OMG Assessment, potential of every person on your team, Talent assessment tools, team, Topgrading, your competitor
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Wednesday, February 29th, 2012
Great leaders have a lot in common. I have been reading Great by Choice (Jim Collins), which discusses the personality traits common among the most successful CEOs in the country. Things like goal setting, creativity and healthy paranoia are highlighted. As a business coach and leadership trainer, I have worked with many successful CEOs. Based on my experience, I’d like to add to the conversation with three things that the great leaders would never, ever do:
- Pass the buck. The buck stops with the leader. That’s what they are getting paid for, and if something goes wrong within the team they innately understand that it is their responsibility and no one else’s. Great leaders never blame others. I think this is especially important for young managers and mid-level team leaders to remember. Great leaders at all levels don’t play the blame game.
- Say, “I’m too busy.” A leader’s primary responsibility is to set their employees up for success. Period. If employees need help, have questions or want to share their ideas, great leaders always have time and an open door.
- Spend, spend, spend. Great leaders understand that spending company money is a highly visible responsibility, and that they set the example for everyone else. I’ve seen leaders and company owners spend money like drunken sailors and guess what? So do their employees. And at the end of the year when accounting shows them the damage, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Howard Shore is an executive coach and leadership trainer with expertise in leadership coaching and human capital management. To learn more about AGI’s executive coaching, management consulting, and leadership training, please visit his website at www.activategroupinc.com or contact Howard Shore at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Monday, February 20th, 2012
Since we celebrate President’s Day today I thought it might be interesting to pull up a little business trivia about some of the past leaders of our republic who were also business leaders.
And they did it all without the help of an executive coach. Go figure.
- George Washington built a whiskey distillery on Mount Vernon the year he left office, which eventually became one of the largest distilleries in the country.
- Herbert Hoover started a mining consulting firm with offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Paris and Petrograd.
- Warren Harding bought a newspaper that was nearly bankrupt and made it so successful that it provided his income for decades, including while he was running for office.
- Franklin Roosevelt founded the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation as a hydrotherapy and healing spa for polio victims.
- Harry Truman opened a clothing store in Kansas City, which was initially successful but eventually went bankrupt.
- Jimmy Carter took over his family’s peanut farm and eventually grew it into a multi-million dollar business that included warehouses, a peanut-shelling plant, and farm equipment supplies.
- George H.W. Bush founded the Bush-Overby Oil Development company and co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation; business ventures that made him a millionaire.
- George W. Bush invested $800,000 in the Texas Rangers baseball team and later sold that share for $15 million.
Thanks to Entrepreneur.com and USAToday.com for the interesting factoids!
Howard Shore is an executive coach and trainer with expertise in leadership coaching and human capital management. To learn more about AGI’s executive coaching, management consulting, and leadership training, please visit his website at www.activategroupinc.com or contact Howard Shore at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, Bush-Overby Oil Development, Businessmen, Entrepreneur.com, Executive Coach, Executive Coaching, Franklin Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, George Washington, Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover, Howard Shore, Jimmy Carter, leadership training, management consulting, past leaders of our republic, Presidents, Presidents Who Were Businessmen, President’s Day, Texas Rangers baseball team, USAToday.com, Warren Harding, Zapata Petroleum Corporation
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Monday, February 13th, 2012
Right now I am engrossed in Jim Collin’s newest book Great by Choice. As a business consultant and unapologetic fan of Jim’s work, I recommend that every business leader read this book. For those who are currently too buried in other must-read books (we’ve all been there), I’ll summarize some of my personal favorite takeaways from the book in a series of articles on my blog.
The book itself is a study of the most productive and successful companies in America—those companies that have consistently performed 10-times better than their competition, despite economic conditions. Why did they outperform us all? What makes them so darn special? The book answers these questions by analyzing the common behaviors of the leaders of these companies, with fascinating results.
One of the most interesting behaviors is what Collins refers to as “Empirical Creativity.” Basically, this means the leaders made a point of moving on new ideas (products, services, trends, etc) they had control over. The market changes, and these leaders focused on what they knew they could control to push towards they future they wanted.
So basically, as you strive to find new and creative ways to compete—whether that’s hopping on the latest technology trend or changing the way you service your customers—don’t take things at face value. Do the research. Analyze the data. Do a study of what your customers want.
Remember that the loudest customers may not always represent the larger community so don’t rely on the opinions of a few squeaky wheels to drive your business strategy. Don’t rely on your guts either. Do your homework to make sure the move is grounded in real intelligence and not someone’s pet-project ideas.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you should favor analysis over action, but made sure you put in the time and due diligence before steering the ship onto its new course.
A little paranoia is always good for business. More on that later…
Howard Shore is a business consultant who works with companies that want to maximize their growth potential. To learn more about how an executive coach, management consultant, leadership training, or business coach can help your team, please visit his website at www.activategroupinc.com or contact Howard Shore at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, analyzing the common behaviors of the leaders, Business Coach, business consultant, business leader, creative ways to compete, drive your business strategy, Empirical Creativity, Executive Coach, Great by Choice, Howard Shore, Jim Collin, latest technology trend, leadership training, management consultant, the market changes
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Monday, January 30th, 2012
In Jim Collins’ newest stroke of literary genius, Great by Choice, he and his co-author Morten T. Hansen present the results of a research project that identified the characteristics that help businesses succeed in and all economic conditions. The result is a fascinating look at leadership styles and insightful conclusions that really can be applied to your business.
My favorite company analysis from in the book is on Southwest Airlines. Collins calls out that when Southwest started up, they actually copied the strategy of another company—Pacific Southwest Airlines (we come to learn that radical innovation is not one of the characteristics of ultra-successful companies). PSA shared their strategy with Southwest, down to every step of the operations manual because they didn’t necessarily compete in regional niches. Southwest stuck to the defined business strategy and was so fanatical about staying on that course they actually grew beyond it. PSA didn’t have the same discipline and is no longer flying the friendly skies.
Southwest Airlines, and other companies like Progressive Insurance, Microsoft and Stryker, are identified as “10X companies” or “10Xers” for their ability to produce results 10-times that of their competition. The book identifies the common behaviors in these 10x companies—a big surprise is that ‘innovation’ isn’t one of them. The three behaviors that I find most compelling are:
1. Disciplined. These companies work consistently towards defined performance standards and remain consistent in their messaging over time.
2. Productively paranoid. The 10Xers stayed humble and on their toes by always fearing the next big thing that would make them obsolete.
3.Empirically creative. These companies slowed down before they sped up to make sure there was a sound basis to develop a new idea, concept or decision. In other words, they did the homework before they made a move.
One of the real-world takeaways from this book is that fast decisions and fast actions are good ways to get killed. There are times when it is mission critical to go fast, but most of the time you have much more time to think things through, and many leaders don’t.
Jim Collins has supplied the business world with a great many books, most of them I consider to be valuable help with business leadership development. I have been pouring over this latest book and have found it to be highly applicable to my clients—in fact I already have a few clients reading it! Can you tell I am a raving fan?
Just read it.
Howard Shore is a business growth expert who works with companies that want to maximize their growth potential. To learn more about how an executive coach, management consultant, leadership training, or business coach can help your team, please visit his website at www.activategroupinc.com or contact Howard Shore at (305) 722-7216 or email him.
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Tags:Activate Group Inc, applied to your business, book is on Southwest Airlines, Business Coach, business growth expert, business leadership development, Business Success, economic conditions, Executive Coach, Great by Choice, help with business, Howard Shore, Jim Collins, leadership styles, leadership training, management consultant, Microsoft, Morten T. Hansen, Progressive Insurance, Southwest Airlines, Stryker
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