In my last post, I wrote about the important task that a leader has in answering the question of what for their team or organization.
What matters? What should I do? What is your Vision?
A great way to answer that question is through the creation of goals.
In my experience, I’ve found that effective goals are specific, challenging, provide line-of-sight, have a time-frame, are measurable, and are followed up on.
What?
It’s the first question a leader must answer.
This lesson was brought home to me as I was coaching my youngest son in baseball.
Throughout the game, I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated as I kept hollering for him to “back up the pitcher.” I didn’t understand why I had to keep getting on him for it.
After the game, as we were driving home, he asked me what I meant by ‘back up the pitcher?”
My heart sank. I had assumed that he knew what I meant. I knew what it was that I wanted, but I hadn’t communicated the what in a way that he could understand.
Several weeks ago I walked into the chiropractor for a routine visit and walked out having experienced an insightful exercise in “customer relation management.”
In the past, I’ve visited chiropractors who treat their business like a marathon, trying to schedule and race through as many appointments as time will allow. But this visit was different. This chiropractor made some recommendations, we spent a good portion of our time discussing the “why” behind healthy living and we talked about some of the things that I’m involved in that are contributing to good health like Cross Fit. He went so far as to tell me that if I continued to live a healthy life, I wouldn’t need him for more than occasional maintenance adjustments.
It was evident that he was more interested in empowering me to make healthy life decisions, even if it meant fewer visits for him to bill. The moment I learned that he was in it for me, and that he was not trying to manufacture an urgency and dependency around his business, I was sold.
Customer commitment is priceless.
A Big Dumb Company tries to manufacture a need for their products or services. A great company recognizes that customers don’t need it and tries to create an experience that causes their customers to want to do business with it. There’s a big difference in how employees approach customer service, from “acquisition” to “customer relationship management,” and it’s an important paradigm shift to make. Continue Reading…
In the 1803 Battle of Maida, an army of 6,200 Napoleonic French prepared for battle against 5,200 allied British and Italian soldiers.
At the beginning of the battle, a commander for the allied army sent orders to “advance when the drums sound.” By the time the order reached the front lines, it had been interpreted as “advance, sounding the drums.”
Despite such a colossal miscommunication, the allies were able to fight their way to victory. But misinterpretations and miscues are often one of the greatest hindrances within teams.
Crystal clear communication is an essential ingredient of success for any organization, and in order to communicate well, there must be a shared language; with words and phrases which become the daily building blocks of an organization’s culture.
At SEI, we guard our culture vigilantly. Part of The SEI Way of doing business is not only ensuring that we share the same core values, but also that our language reinforces those values.
Last week, I published the first in a two part series on the attributes of a Big Dumb Company. In that post, I highlighted the the first 4 characteristics which were bureaucracy, prioritizing numbers before people, an intolerance for failure, and a lack of Vision. Here are the final 4.
Steve Jobs once said “I’m as proud of what we don’t do, as I am of what we do.”
Often, organizations that experience great success in their beginnings, do so because they do some thing well. They offer a product or service that meets the needs of their customers and provides adequate revenue to sustain their growth. But as a Big Dumb Company grows, it attempts to become all things to all people and it loses sight of its core-business; it’s Vision becomes blurred.
As an organization grows from its entrepreneurial roots as an innovative upstart into a larger organization, it must guard against developing attributes of the Big Dumb Company; attributes that repel the top talent that it had once attracted, depress revenue growth and margin, and alienate customers.
At Service Express, we vigilantly guard against “catching” the cultural attributes of, what we call, the Big Dumb Company. Our leadership team is intentional about consistently communicating the values of SEI to ensure that everyone understands what makes our people and our culture great. We like to say that we’re living the SEI way.
I have the privilege of being able to talk to SEI leaders and employees regularly about our business. Because we’re a growing company, I often take those moments to remind them that we must continually guard ourselves against becoming the Big Dumb Company; a transformation that doesn’t happen over night but is gradual and almost imperceptible to those who are unguarded.
Here are attributes of the Big Dumb Company:
As the Big Dumb Company grows, so also do its layers of management. Often, managers at the Big Dumb Company create these layers to “shield” themselves from ideas, problems and customers and it works.
Some of the healthiest marriages I’ve observed are ironically partnerships of two people who have learned not just to fight, but how to fight well.
Each accepts that the other brings a unique personality and perspective to the table. And each understands that the partnership is stronger when each focuses on the other’s strengths and not on their weaknesses. Both learn that a strong partnership is a result of open and honest communication, and the goal is personal and professional growth.
As with marriage, many make the incorrect assumption that the best teams are conflict free. They often equate conflict with dysfunction. It’s an assumption that can lead to misaligned expectations (for others and for oneself), hurt feelings that turn into wounds, resentment and mediocrity.
Conflict in teams is beneficial when it:
