Mission Control Podcast Part 2

Last week I gave you a link to the Mission Control podcast.  When we were recording it, Ramon decided that it was going so well that we should do a second episode! So here it is – 

Constructing Leadership From The Inside Out: Part 2

Make sure you give attention to the right things

What will move the needle?

What critical area is most broken?

What matters in your relationships?

Who matters most?

Who can help?

You only have so much attention.

Make sure you give it to the right things and the right people.

Find the right problems to solve

Many of us are solving problems every day.  If you are a perfectionist, you are trying to be perfect and have probably been working on getting really good at being the best at what you are already doing, never looking up and out.

But the people who make the most progress are finding the right problems to solve. 

What problem can you solve that will solve 10 or 100 or 1000 other problems?

From nothing….something

If you don’t want something that isn’t there yet or hasn’t happened yet, then your leadership is not necessary; because what you want is already there.

What do you want that is not there yet?

Are you clear?

Can you explain it to someone else (your team)?

Have you?

How often?

Don't be a jerk

Can you imagine one of the great people you are trying to attract and hire going home and saying “Honey, I’m betting our family’s future on this jerk!”

Don’t be a jerk.  The test comes when things go wrong and you get mad.  Between stimulus and response, there is a space.  In that space, you choose how to respond.  If you say something nasty, people will never forget it.  You can tear down what took a long time to build with one outburst.

If you are mad, shut your face and don’t speak until you get over it.  Go home and go to bed.  When you wake up you will have a better more productive outlook on the situation.

Be nice.  It’s far better for your business.

Your building is part of a strategy

“Where do you work?”

“I work THERE”.

Your facility says a LOT about your organization, your vision, and your standards.

When it comes to choosing your facility and spending money on it, remember it is part of an overall business strategy.

How do people feel walking in and being there?

Payroll is your largest expense. If you can reduce employee turnover, get a bit more productivity out of them, and improve their attitude by just a bit – you can pay for the building.  Most of these things are hard to measure, but they are real.

Some facilities shout “You can grow here!”.

I remember when I moved to our first building in Seymour CT. in 1997  I had outgrown my 20,000 square foot steel building and had moved from my 900 sq foot house to rent a 3,000 sq. ft. space to buying a 8,000 sq ft building to buying a 20,000 sq ft building – all in 11 years.  I was tired of moving which is very disruptive and expensive.    I looked for the biggest building I thought I could afford.

I found a beautiful 80,000-square-foot building with huge parking lots, beautiful office space and an elevator!  The seller was motivated as it had been empty for over two years.  I sold my 20,000 sq ft. Steel building for one million dollars and bought this one for two million! Boom!  Wow!

This building tells people who we are.  People talk differently to us and about us.

Today, we have an 11-building campus in that business park with 450 employees.

Bend the future into reality – get the right space for your vision.

Mission Control Podcast Part 1

Recently I was invited to be on a podcast that my friend Ramon Peralta or Peralta Design does.  Here is the episode – 

Constructing Leadership From The Inside Out: Part 1

Abdication

Abdication is when you tell other people to do a job, without telling them how to do it or to what standard.  For example, you let a manager run a department for years and they do it their way, and increasingly their way, until the standards or culture in their department doesn’t match the rest of the company or what you had hoped for.

Maybe you were so busy with running the department you were best at, that you just told someone to “run this” out of desperation. 

In my early days, I abdicated responsibility for a key department because I didn’t know how things should be done and I assumed someone else did – so I let them do it and do it their way.  I was taking the short-term easy way out because I was ignorant, hopeful, or had no choice.

Over time you realize the person you abdicated to may create a negative subculture in their department, or you realize they do not know what they are doing and their department becomes a weak part of your company.

It’s true, once in a while I have been lucky.  I abdicated and it worked out.  To avoid problems from turning over an important position to someone and having problems you can –

• Discuss your vision for the position and mission at the outset.
• Have regular meetings to discuss progress.
• Measure the right KPIs and put up scoreboards.
• Hire the right people for that manager’s department rather than the manager hiring all their friends.

The idea is you can’t let every manager do it their way when they really don’t know what they are doing, and everyone is doing it differently.  You want talented managers who are bringing out the best in their people while accomplishing the goals of the organization – and all operating off the same sheet of music that you wrote on purpose.

In the end, the leader is responsible.  Building a great team of managers to run the important departments in your company is necessary for your company to grow to its potential.

Working hard is one thing. Working long is another

I’m all for hard work.  Working hard is indispensable.  

But working long….that’s something else.  You can’t get ahead by working 16 hours a day six days a week.  You can only get burnt out, and miss out on the rest of life.

If you feel you have to work more than let’s say 54 hours a week to keep your business afloat, you are doing it wrong.  You need to drop less important work, and do more important leveraged work.

What’s that?  Set up systems for others to follow.  Hire the right people.  Innovate.  Do better marketing.  Teach others to sell better.  Leverage through systems and people.

Work hard doing the right things.  And when it’s time to go home, go home and love and play different games.

You don't scale

People (like you) don’t scale.  You have 24 hours in a day and no matter what you do, you will never have more than that.

Businesses scale.  How?  Through other people (who also only have 24 hours in a day).

Get great people to help you.  Learn how to bring out the best in them.  Hire people who bring out the best in other people – and who do it better than you do – or better than you CAN because you only have 24 hours in a day.