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“Joy is a well-made object equaled only to the joy of making it.” — Haida Indian saying

I learned this saying years ago when I was researching Bill Reid.

I became really aware of the power of the Northwest aboriginal art culture when I saw The Black Canoe in Washington, DC.

Reid was a man of letters and the spoken word before he became a master sculptor.  His work is totally suffused with the myth and spirit of a beautiful people.

He also turned to restoring and resurrecting the ancient myths in his work with Robert Billinghurst who went on to write the amazing book “A Story Sharp As A Knife”. It tells the story of elders who passed on tribal lore and oral history in enchanting monologues of eight to ten hours at a sitting.

The culture Bill Reid celebrated and brought back to our awareness was one of total intricacy and integration between the realm of the spirit and the realm of the flesh.  Between the realm of celebration and the realm of hard work and hardship. Between the heavens and the human appetites… witness the incredibly spirit and humor of the raven in Hadai Gwaii lore.

An amazing tradition.

Keeping the balance between the inner and the outer…to celebrate with the ones we love and cherish, even as the darkness both winter and financial hovers. Giving yourself a rest to tell the stories that are important to your family and community, even while psychically preparing for the year ahead. Remembering that hard work and soulful connections make for a full, rich life.

And to keep in mind that the joy of creation is equal to the result.

It’s a good set of principles to keep in mind as you reflect on the outside world and your family life in this 2008 holiday.

Make it a wonderful holiday season! Make commitments to make your 2009 your best ever!

I recently wrote a post on Always Be Opening, one of the core principles of “Stop Selling and Do Something Valuable”. Now more than ever is the time to be opening possibilities with clients, potential clients and your network. Here are some other ways to find and keep an ABO mindset:

1.       Engage clients and future clients with possibilities - that’s what gets people motivated.  Help them believe.  Help them execute on them.

2.       Focus on positive news and results to keep your own energy high and motivated. Even with the “crash” and the willingness for everyone else to jump on the “poor us” bandwagon, are you noticing the positive news and economic stories around you?  They’re there. Polish your lenses.

3.       Push your energy ahead of you … be positive and progressive … it’s infectious.

4.       Appreciate and honor your clients’ strengths.  Build on them.

5.       Be grateful and keep it building the virtuous cycle.

I sat with an executive in the telecommunications space a few weeks ago.  I realized afterwards that I have had similar conversations with executives in various verticals: in software, technology, marketing, financial services, law firms and in professional services firms.

The conversations go something like this:

• “Stop Selling & Do Something Valuable is very practical, it’s much more than the typical book that is all technique or all concept”
• “I really value a structured simple and powerful process for our professionals that really creates business dialogue”
• “So many approaches tell people what to do, not how to do it”
• “It’s organic - people can adapt it to their own style and that of their client”
• “I can’t remember the last time I read a business book cover to cover.  Usually all the value is in the first third and then it’s just repetitive”
• “This is a brilliant approach for the professional, the practitioner at the client facing level”
• “What’s next?”

Good question…what is next?  How do we help our clients move forward after “this” and build on the momentum?

So first, thanks for letting me share some of the great feedback I’ve been getting.  People encouraged me to write a book for a long time before I was ready.  That’s why I chose to focus so narrowly but so practically.

Make a real difference!  Engage the front line professionals serving clients.  Help them be their best.  Move along the business on its strengths.  I struggled with these challenges as a leader of professional.  It’s really rewarding to see individuals and businesses making a difference with the tools and approaches.  Let’s not talk conceptually about strategy and culture - let’s make it real!

Secondly, and most importantly, I want to start addressing the”What’s next?”

“What’s next” for me is helping leaders build a value-added platform with the SS&DSV philosophy and tools.  It can help services businesses enhance a strategy that is based on needs-driven, value-added relationships and helps drive revenue “now”.  Strategy, culture, metrics, ownership and alignment by executives and practitioners.  Here on this blog I’ll begin the conversation about implementing SS&DSV as an organizational and strategic vehicle.

SS&DSV delivers tools that are recognized as the beginning of a process:

• Applying the agenda builder focused on building shared commitment with the client or partner
• Targeted recap statements and targeted questions build the “Know Your Client Warm”conversation
• Both start to happen before the meeting
• The agenda confirmation call brings the client to the table and surfaces other issues and needs
• The meeting is less “event” and more a “stage in a process”
• Sets up powerful, insight rich follow up and follow through

Now the producing professional can measure impact.  New insight.  Increased pace of sale.  Increased awareness of other needs.  Increased commitment to solution finding.  Less competition.  Less focus on price.

Delivering value in tough markets!  Enduring approaches beyond!

Executives:build a platform of disciplined repeatable client excellence.  The sales will follow.  Profitability pressures will ease.

Expect that shared standards provide a foundation for innovation and excellence.  Stretch the folks who want to know you are not imposing a narrow ceiling of compliance on them.

Look for future posts tagged The Executive’s Guide as I explore ways to do this in your company.

Worried about all the folks with fear running their lives right now.  Saw this little article on Wikihow.com and liked it as a simple way to re-frame fear and scarcity and head for abundance.  Our mindset is the most powerful thing we have in business, and happily, unlike the Dow Index, it’s in our control.

Always Be Opening

Our clients have challenges right now.  Many of them are in shock or have been hit directly.

Many of our clients are tightening down.  Many also know they need to look forward and be poised for positive possibilities.

What are you letting dominate your dialogue with your key clients and prospects?  Fear or openings?

Opening to create new business

The Stop Selling and Do Something Valuableprinciple “Always Be Opening” is a principle that keeps business in flow even when scarcity seems to be shutting tight the doors. While pop culture versions of sales professionals often have them snarling “Always be closing” at each other, I have found time and time again the inverse to be vastly more effective. When you are focusing on continuous opening, rather than closing, no one has to protect themselves around you. Instead they are invited to play in the realm of possibility and exploration which doesn’t push for the final and sometimes “too early” commitment to buy in the conventional sales approach.

But isn’t commitment the point of doing business?

Well, yes and no.

Of course we ultimately want to do business with someone, but not at the expense of ramming the door down and forcing them to take us on.

We’re really talking about a MUCH higher order of commitment.

Seek commitment to positive business possibilities for your client.

In the safety of possibility, the potential client can relax with us, discuss their dreams, their fears, their needs and their desired directions. In the safety of possibility we can be a positive conduit in our speciality, helping potential clients dream, design and choose directions.

And the result? We are often either a) chosen right away to make that outcome happen or b) remembered as being particularly helpful and knowledgeable without being pushy and inappropriately aggressive and are called upon when the time is right to go forward (or at the very least we are the favourites of the bidding process).

Don’t forget - less on price!

I’m hearing stories about how on-the-ground folks are using Always Be Opening in these current tough times.

There’s a female professional services manager who uses the “Always Be Opening” mantra to present to new clients. She finds it keeps the door open - especially in her own mind - to remember that it’s about sharing needs and ideas rather than forcing an outcome.

There’s a search professional who talks knowledgeably about how 2009 is one to stay close to major clients, take them out to lunch every 3 months and listen to their woes and needs, staying close and ready for the burst of re-hiring in 2010.

Pair it up with Selfless Listening

Selfless listening is about listening without a secret agenda. It’s relaxing away from your immediate business needs and shifting all your attention on theirs. Selfless listening means being present to your client/potential client and letting the conversation truly be about THEM for that period of time. Selfless listening pairs well with the principle of “Always be opening”, because good listening is the heart of how to behave in an ABO manner. Good listeners - authentic listeners - will create openings all the time and will hear those small shifts in tone or details of insight that those rushing into the gap to sell something often miss.

Don’t lose sight of your own agenda.  Just relax it for a bit.  Your client will actually help you bring it back to yours because they value your selfless listening to theirs.

Clients don’t miss closers.

Who they love to meet with are openers, particularly ones who are in a realistic but positive frame of mind, who can support them in navigating these troubled waters and who can come up with multiple ways for them to succeed.

So often leadership gurus talk about “either ~ or”

• Tactical or Strategic
• Operations or Human
• Profit or Social

Reach, grasshopper!

It’s both!

As a young executive, I was schooled and drilled in Kepner Tregoe’s ” Rational Management” approaches and tools.  They were awesome.  Then.

Twenty years later I was trying to figure out how to incorporate the qualitative and judgement aspects of leadership.  With KT, the best I could do was trick the system - use quantitative technique to measure qualitative dimensions.

I learned a lot about wisdom from Robert A. Johnson in his beautiful memoir “Balancing Heaven and Earth”. He made it so clear that wisdom and leadership is not as simple as balancing or choosing between contradictions - it is creating new spaces by reconciling the tensions in a what at first appear to be opposing factors.

One of the best organizational and business writers on this topic is Robert Quinn. I first encountered him when I read “Beyond Rational Management”, a book I highly recommend.

As We Move Through Tough Times…

…we need the confidence to navigate them - read Quinn’s ” Building the Bridge As You Walk On It” as a guide.

Remember, it’s not:

a) Bold or iterative

b) Directive or collaborative

c) Top down or participative

d) Aggressive or patient

The correct answer is (e) - all of the above!

Step through the ambiguity… create new insight.