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Thoughts for challenging times

Lots of gloom.

Lots of financial advice.

Not much in the way of how-to’s about managing a positive mind-set.

Here are three quotes that I really appreciate – they anchor me and help me navigate choppy waters. After all aren’t challenging times the best time to learn new things and make new commitments?

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Ghandi

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning the day difficult.

E. B. White (1899-1985)

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Suzuki Roshi

And once you decide… COMMIT!

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

What do you use for guidance and focus in challenging situations?

We’d love to hear from you.

I recently read on the Business Strategies etc. website that a “Recession is a Terrible Thing to Waste!” (www.business-strategies-etc.com/2009/a-recession-is-a-terrible-thing-to-waste/). It seems they read an email bulletin from the NAPL (National Association of Printing Leadership) where this was described. They liked the phrase and decided to re-use it, well so did I.

When I read this, I thought that they had captured the essence of what every good company should do in difficult times. However, my belief is that if you want to develop a truly great company you should view that a recessionary trend is a natural way of correcting markets that have become unstable or artificially overextended. The one underlying message to this is that “This Too Shall Pass” and we better prepare ourselves so that we come out the other side as a stronger organization. There is the ability to do a quantum leap, gain market share or tackle new markets once the economy returns to normal (if there really is a normal). The proper preparation falls to our leaders, but how do we accomplish this when we are fighting the day-to-day battles?

Well I read the newspaper today) and there it was, another indicator on how our economy is in a tailspin and our unemployment rate is nationally 8.4%, and even greater in some areas across the country: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/unemployment-by-cities-provinces/article1170164/ Over the past months the headlines seem to claim that we haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Depression. On occasion, someone will mention that we in fact have suffered through a couple of more recent recessions and come out stronger when it has passed.

I think one of the reasons that this seems harsher today is that we hadn’t really recovered from the last series of issues and they do seem to be coming faster. Hard to believe it was 10 years ago when we were all preparing for the Year 2000 disaster that failed to materialize. Perhaps that is why we didn’t see the DOT com bust or Telecom downturn approaching. Then, when we add the fiscal mismanagement of some very significant corporations throughout North America, currency fluctuations and the global impact of the sub prime mortgage industry…well it seems like we have been battling for the past decade.

Typical Management Behaviour

As leaders, we tend to follow some very traditional patterns in surviving difficult times. We have learned these patterns over the years and we seldom challenge the track record of their success rate. Here are a few of the most common things that I have seen:

• Bring all of the big brains together and lock yourself in a room for a couple of days
• Recognize that sales are slipping which means that cost cutting is your only salvation. This means wage freezes, no promotions, travel freezes and of course “layoffs.”
• Management becomes invisible and always seem to be in closed door sessions.

For the sake of brevity I am going to stop at these three because these three points start to define a manager’s behaviour. What do you think these three points signify to the average employee? After all, your role as a leader is to lead isn’t it?

Tips to Improve Your Management Style

Now I am not suggesting that the preceding points aren’t necessary for corporations to survive difficult times, but there is a reason that during war times, generals try to make themselves visible to their troops. When you are asking someone to help fight a war for you, and make no mistake the similarities are strong, they need to know that they are not in this alone. Here are a few simple things to do that will make you stand out as a leader during tough times:

• Be visible – walk the halls, engage in conversation
• Provide clear leadership intent – this means that you tell them the objective but give them some leeway in determining how they get there
• Recognize individuals but praise the team
• Make decisions quickly and fairly – procrastination is a business and morale killer
• Connect with your customers – they are probably suffering just like you and probably would appreciate that you understand their position not to mention that your employees will like the fact that you are engaged

In my past life, I was the CEO of a mid-size software company that was named one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies during our last economic challenge. It was during that time that I learned to be out among the staff. They needed to know that they weren’t alone and I was constantly amazed at the great ideas that people were willing to share. I guess it is true that necessity is the motherhood of invention, because we created three new products that were introduced just as the economy was recovering.

Make Your Communications Meaningful

This is the ideal time to improve your personal and corporate communications. Your messages need to clear and memorable for them to have the right impact. If you don’t know how to make a message memorable, you might find some helpful tips in a book called “Made to Stick” by Chip & Dan Heath: http://www.madetostick.com/. I found their book to be helpful in understanding why some messages stick with people and why most just bounce off of us.

Tough times really aren’t new, but we sure treat them like it is something we have never seen…every time it happens.

I was walking through the airport on my way to business meetings in California

I saw a poster of a pair of hard core cowboy boots and denim with the word “Follower”. It immediately got my attention. The ad immediately confronted my expectations by playing on what we usually project when we think of a ‘follower’.

I was curious, who’s the leader? Sure enough, the next poster, “Leader” had a figure in a snappy suit, shirt and tie. That seemed to make sense but I wasn’t sure I saw the point.

But the ads weren’t done. The next set of posters came up, this time with the figures reversed. Now the suited guy was the follower and cowboy boots was the leader.

“Got me!”

Okay  so now I’m paying attention and I want to know who’s playing with my mind. I looked for the advertiser …www.hsbc.com. http://www.yourpointofview.com/page03.html

There was another set of contrasts on the jet way for me to chew on: a camping trip “stressful” or “relaxing” depending on your perspective. A party deck on a cruise ship, “stressful” or “relaxing” depending on your perspective.

Reminds me of conversations with many top performers and leaders.

Good performers stop or slow when it comes to the crux of labeling the moment with the client in front of them…

“close” “open”

“aggressive” “patient”

“support” “challenge”

They look for the right answer - either/ or.

But the best do it differently.

The best just plow through - they know the answer is both! New insight comes from the tension in the new spaces discovered by reconciling what looked like contradictions:

Open-close

Aggressive-patient

Tactical-strategic

Consistent-adaptive

If you can be in both spaces at once, holding the space for both to be possible in any given moment, then you are playing a top performer game.

When I was a kid, I had stacks of Batman and Superman comics in my room. While I enjoyed their stories immensely, I liked Batman the best. He was a person under that cape…not so much a superhero but a real guy - with a lot of cool gadgets.

With the huge release of The Dark Knight, and its themes of duality (Two Face is really two-faced!) it got me to thinking about how that same wrestling with duality shows up when we sell. It’s the dark and the light of selling - the positive aggressive focused energy needed to create action versus the selfless empathy who tunes into client needs. The one that wants to land the deal and the one that wants to help the client. How do you reconcile and integrate the two sides of yourself in one meeting?

While Batman’s “shadow” is more intense than most of us will ever experience, we do need to learn - like Batman and Bruce Wayne - how to wear one “hat” at a time. I say “hat” not “mask” because we don’t want to hide ourselves from clients, the way that Batman clearly feels safer doing. Because we’re not so intensely shadow-centric, we can be more balanced, more open with the differing roles we play with clients.

However, to successfully allow those different roles to emerge without sinking the deal, we need to know who we are “being” at any given moment during our meetings and interactions with clients.

• Are we being the empathic listener whose focus is to listen first and foremost to understand the clients problems and look for the best solutions, regardless of our self-interest?
• Are we being the specialized knowledge expert who provides value through applying that information for our clients’ benefit and elucidation?
• Are we being the action-oriented “progresser”of the sales relationship, leading our clients to how they might use our services to solve the problems they have?

It’s fine to wear all of these “hats” in one meeting. The trick is to know which hat to wear when and to be conscious yourself of doing so, so the “good” listener doesn’t suddenly morph into the “dark” enforcer at the wrong moment, who is suddenly perceived by the client as forcing the sale.

The first step is in knowing that we play all these multiple roles within our client relationships, so we can be responsible for each “hat”.

The second step is wearing the right “hat” at the right moment. Often sales professionals charge in ready to “progress” or download knowledge, before they’ve tuned into the client by listening to what’s up for them first.

The third is to read the subtle shifts of when the client is ready for the next “hat” - and which hat is required. That may be a bit trickier, which is why it’s nice to have a well-thought out Agenda in front of you (and the client!) that ensures you are asking the questions that create the listening space, but also hold space for the next stages as well.

Give a try in your next meeting. Observe yourself interacting with your client. Do you rush quickly through the client talking, proving you know your stuff without allowing them to fully express their issues? Do you allow time for an exploration or discovery of needs or changing needs? Or do you linger so long in listening to your client issues that you walk away realizing that no firm next steps were outlined?

Let me know what came of your experiment. What did you see about the way you wear your “hats”? How comfortable are you having two or more faces and how do you integrate them?