If you don’t have a clear cannabis use policy in your company, create one now. Here’s why.

With many states legalizing cannabis, every business needs to be prepared with a clear use policy.

Today, all but four states in the U.S. allow for cannabis use at some level. Nine states have legalized recreational use, while others have authorized limited use of cannabis products at varying THC levels for specific medical conditions and situations. And the maps are changing quickly as state legislators introduce new bills on a monthly basis.

As the use of legal cannabis spreads, employers need to carefully consider how this will impact their workplace and the working expectations of their employees. Court cases are already starting to appear around the issue, and, it's clear, that the vast majority of businesses will be caught flat-footed if they don't get ahead of the issue.

Complicating matters is the fact that cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, which means that employers need to know what's happening federally and state-by-state if they want the full picture. Employers also need to consider the states their employees reside in not only where their business is located to fully consider the possible situations.

Topping it off is the effects of cannabis are not well understood, and drug tests are not well developed. This leaves a lot of room for uncertainty that can create sticky situations for employers. While there is a lot to be ironed out by regulators and the court system regarding legal guidelines and processes, smart companies are taking action now rather than avoiding the issue.

As a business coach, I strive to create healthy and highly productive work cultures. Here are five things I suggest to my clients, and what I see progressive companies doing to be proactive about cannabis use.

1. Get out ahead of the conversation

First, companies need to make the issue a priority in their discussions with employees. Hiding from cannabis will only lead to problems in the future. Talk about how cannabis use can impact your people and your business and openly engage in the conversation early. Work to clarify your expectations before issues arise.

2. Have a clear, written policy

Every company needs a clear, written policy on cannabis use. With the legalization of medical and recreational cannabis, the use of cannabis will only increase in the coming years. Your people will be using cannabis if they are not already, and you need to deal with it.

Clearly state what you expect around the usage and effects of cannabis. If someone has a medical use permit, can they use cannabis while in the office? Can they use the night before or the morning before they come to work? Do you have a zero-tolerance policy or are actions taken based on the circumstances? Define your guidelines and processes now.

3. Discuss the policy with all employees

Creating a policy is not enough. You need to make sure people know about the policy and understand what's in it. Burying your policy in the back of your employee binder won't pass muster. You can't enforce a policy or process that wasn't properly communicated.

Hold regular sessions to review all new employee policies and changes; include cannabis in these meetings. As the laws change and more people start to use cannabis, you'll need to update, revise, and reconsider these regularly. Start the conversation now.

4. Apply the policy fairly and evenly

Like all expectations and policies, you need to apply them in a fair and balanced manner. Make sure your policies and enforcement processes don't create bias by role or employee. Unfortunately, the enforcement of marijuana law has been significantly racially biased by the law enforcement and the justice system. You need to make sure your approach doesn't perpetuate this problem.

5. Stay up-to-date on changes in local laws

There is new cannabis legislation on a weekly basis as laws are developed and passed. Courts are continuing to sort through cases to establish precedent and applications of these laws. Subscribe to a good news service such as the Marijuana Policy Project to stay abreast of new and upcoming legislation and update your policy as needed.

Many employers are taking a 'wait and see,' or even a 'hide and hope,' approach to cannabis. And while they are avoiding the work of having to deal with the issue now, they are only creating bigger issues in the future. Employers who get out ahead of the topic will not only avoid difficult situations, but they will also attract employees who appreciate working for a company who is proactive and allows them to use cannabis safely.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/cannabis-is-going-to-impact-every-workplace-across-country-how-your-business-can-prepare-for-it.html

Pricing products and services is not easy, and unfortunately most people get it wrong

Pricing your product or service is hard. And most people get it wrong.

Here’s the thing about pricing…if you can raise your price just $1, and don’t have to change your cost basis, you drop that dollar right to the bottom line.

That’s pure profit. Money in your pocket. Cold hard cash.

Yet, many people don’t get pricing right. As a result, they leave a lot on the table. I want to change that by helping you think through your pricing better and, hopefully, find money you can drop right into your bank account.

So why don’t people get pricing right?

First, they think about cost, rather than value.

When most people start thinking about how to price their product or service, they start by figuring out how much it cost them to make or deliver it and then they add some “reasonable” margin. And while I strongly suggest you know exactly how much your product or service costs to make or deliver, it shouldn’t be the basis for your pricing strategy.

Instead, start with how your customer will value your product or service.

How much more money will they make? How many expenses will they be able reduce? How much time will they save? How much easier will their lives be? How much better will they sleep at night?

And then ask: what are these advantages worth to them and that’s the basis for pricing. Focus on value delivery rather than what it costs you to deliver.

Creating a value-focused mindset in your company will have other benefits as well. As you get clearer on what you do that adds value, you also learn what doesn’t add value and you can remove it from your business. This saves you money and makes it simpler for your customers.

I talk through several other points in the video. If you’re interested, check it out here. Or, if you want to see all of the points, check out the article I wrote for Inc.com on this recently…

Most Companies Get Pricing Their Products and Services All Backwards. Here's How to Get Your Right

Need help with pricing strategy?

Let’s set up a call to talk through your product or service and how you can increase your price by focusing on the value you provide. You can schedule a call by clicking here.

I’ll close by including one of my favorite pricing quotes…

“You know you’re priced right when your customers complain—but buy anyway.”
~ John Harrison

Bruce Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment

Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive

Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting

Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Are you the victim, the villain, or the hero?

If you’ve been to my website you’ll know that one of my core promises is “less drama.” While I love a good Broadway play or series on Netflix, drama in the workplace is generally not very productive.

Unfortunately, it’s also rampant in many businesses.

Emotions in the workplace are understandable. We are human and driven by emotions and feelings. We want to have fun, celebrate success, and enjoy ourselves. And we need emotions to do all of those things. Emotions are important and necessary.

The problem comes when emotions pull us into destructive patterns unwittingly. If we’re not careful, emotions can blind us to the bigger picture and suck us into behavior that isn’t productive.

But in many cases, it’s not hard to get unstuck. Here’s how…

The vast majority of drama on teams and in organizations falls into a classic victim-villain-hero pattern. Once you realize that it’s happening on your team, you can disrupt the pattern and reduce the drama by coaching new people into new roles.

If you want to learn more about the patterns, watch the video or check out an article I recently wrote about this on Inc.com...

3 Common Roles Found in Any Workplace Drama, and How to Rewrite the Script

The great thing is that you don’t need to change everyone. Coaching just one person into a new role will often be enough to break the spell and get others to make changes.

Left unchecked however, the pattern tends to be negatively reinforcing and will often cause the team/organization to spiral downward, sometimes to the point of no return.

Do you have a team that’s struggling?

I work with struggling teams a lot, helping them reset their focus and boost their morale. Check out my team launch program, which works great as a “reboot” program.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/team-launch

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or needs. I’m happy to make time for those on my list. Just shoot me an email and we’ll schedule a call.

Bruce “Action!” Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment

Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive

Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting

Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

The best companies do these things to attract the best talent, even in a tight job market

Talent can be tough to find in a tight labor market, but it shouldn't lower your standards.

While a strong economy is great for sales and market expansion, it makes for a particularly tight labor market. If you're like most companies, finding good candidates for your open positions is getting harder and harder.

You might be tempted to lower the bar and take on people you might not otherwise, but be careful. While you can lower the bar on skills and supplement with training and development, lowering the bar on cultural fit will only hurt you in the long run.

Here are the techniques I've seen the best companies use to find the best people even when there are fewer candidates looking for jobs.

1. Define the role behaviors, not experience requirements

Most companies start a job post with a long list of professional experiences, skill requirements, educational degrees, and technical certifications. These are all proxies for the actual work to be done and not always the best indicators. Plus, research shows that women, specifically, tend to not apply to a job if they don't meet all of the stated requirements, which cuts out up to half of potential candidates.

Instead, focus on listing the key job responsibilities and requirements and how these will be measured. Let people make their own call regarding whether they can successfully perform these tasks.

If you need people with licenses, required certifications, advanced degrees, or accredited education, then list those and make it clear that regardless of performance, you cannot consider candidates without these items. Only list requirements that are true deal breakers.

2. Don't try to solve process problems with role definitions

I often see job descriptions that are odd combinations of responsibilities and skills. Typically this happens because the company hasn't designed a clear operational process. They end up with a pile of operational "leftovers" and throw all of these responsibilities into a catch-all role to solve the problem.

Instead, take the time to refine your process to use skills and capabilities that you know your labor market can provide. Make investments in technology to help standardize the work.

3. Look outside your immediate industry

If you're struggling to find talent in your immediate industry, consider related industries you can pull from. You may need to do more training, but if you can find the right core skills, you can often find access to new talent quickly.

Shake off your preconceptions; focus on the core skills and attitudes of the people you need. One company I know who needed people to make marketing cold calls used out-of-work actors who not only loved having the work but also enjoyed the normal business hours.

4. Boost your internal training programs

Most companies now know that hiring for cultural fit is more important than hiring for the technical skills. Making sure everyone you bring on shares a similar set of core values and is passionate about the vision for the company creates long-term value and alignment.

However, many companies are stuck hiring for skills because they have no internal training strategy. If a company doesn't have training processes in place for new hires to utilize, it forces hiring managers to prioritize skills instead of culture fit.

Invest in a good program for teaching role-specific skills as part of the on-boarding process so that hiring managers can recruit people who will be good long-term investments. Then invest in ongoing development so you can retain those people over time.

5. Leverage the power of coaches

A thirst for learning is one of the best attributes you can have in any hire. Feeding that desire will not only allow you to boost their productivity and impact, it will also allow you to attract them in the first place. Ambitious people want to work in an environment that will fuel their growth.

Internal or external coaching can be great at getting the right talent in the door and keeping them there. Coaches not only train important leadership and management skills, but they also build a personal relationships with employees that increase their loyalty to the organization.

6. Focus on culture development

The best way to attract and retain people is to build a powerful organizational culture: figure out how you're different from every other company and what your unique attributes can offer the market.

Being different allows you to compete for talent because you offer something an employee can't get anywhere else. This focus lowers your recruiting costs and avoids increasing compensation in an effort to retain your people.

The best companies are always looking for the best talent regardless of the economic situation. They keep their standards high and trust their processes, even when the competition for talent is fierce. While they could compromise to ease the short-term pain, they know that the long-term costs aren't worth it.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/in-a-tight-job-market-get-creative-with-your-talent-search-heres-how.html

Does your team set great goals but then fail to successfully deliver? Here is the one meeting you need and how to get it right

Teams can set a solid strategy and create great goals but then miserably fail on the delivery. Here is the one meeting that will make a difference.

Nothing is more frustrating than having a great planning session and coming up with a breakthrough plan for the quarter, only to have the team fall short on their targets. This shortcoming not only means lost time and increased risks, it's hard on team morale, too.

Left unaddressed, this accountability problem slows down the team considerably until people leave or management steps in and shakes things up. To break out of this cycle, there is one aspect I focus on that helps rebuild the team's planning and execution capability and morale.

That one thing is the weekly planning meeting.

The weekly planning meeting is when the team looks at its goals and their individual commitments to the team and figure out what they are going to focus on and accomplish over the next seven days. Seven days is the core work cycle of the team and all it takes to rebuild a team's momentum.

The agenda for the weekly meeting is simply five questions:

1. What did you commit to for this week?

2. What did you accomplish?

3. What did you learn?

4. What do you commit to for next week?

5. What is your action plan?

For the first two or three weeks, I just ask the questions. I don't probe too deeply, I just make sure I'm clear on what they are committing to, what they are learning, and what actions they are planning. My goal is to understand the situation and the dynamic. There are a several common patterns I find within these meetings; all of which have simple fixes.

1. Focusing on too many priorities in a week.

This happens when people feel pressure and are desperate for results. They hope that committing to lots of work will offset the lack of delivery. Instead, I try to take the pressure off and just have them focus on a few simple, but highly important, tasks. Once they have success and confidence, we can rebuild to a reasonable volume.

2. Focusing on something other than a key priority.

This can happen because there is an obvious obstacle they don't know how to address or a fear of tackling something highly important and then failing. By refocusing on the main thing, breaking it down to simple set of tasks, and focusing on learning something, rather than finishing something by the end of the week, we can begin to make progress in the right direction.

3. Not having a clear sense of the goal.

Too often people make commitments that are vague and fluffy. Which means that they don't really know what they are going to do or work on which in return means they can't deliver at the end of the week. One of my favorite terms is definition of done. What am I going to see with my eyes or hold in my hands at the end of the week? Only after answering this question can we ask if that work product really helps us advance towards our goal.

4. Not planning time to do the work

This happens when someone hopes to find the time during the week to do the work they committed to, but then gets overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks. In simple cases, I help them set aside time to dedicate to the work. In severe cases, we focus on rebuilding their daily schedule and delegation plan to free them up to make time to work on weekly priority commitments.

5. Starting too late in the week.

This is a common case of procrastination. They push off the work until day five or six and then get caught waiting for someone else to reply or get back to them before they can finish. Here, I suggest the "eat the frog" approach to task management, whereby you start each day tackling the hardest, least fun task each morning so that you can get it off your plate and move on to something easier and more fun.

6. Spinning wheels on an obstacle.

Sometimes people report that they hit an obstacle quickly and then struggled with it for the remainder of the week or just shut down and stopped working. My best advice in these cases is that when you get stuck, raise your hand. One of the main reasons most businesses work in teams is so that you have multiple brains on a problem. By suffering in silence, you're undermining your team. Instead, talk to someone and get some help.

While other situations do come up, these are by far the most common, and the most addressable. Usually after a few weeks of course correction and rebuilding, the team gets back into a productive grove. And, over time, by focusing on good, realistic habits and continuously improving on process, a team can overcome and makeup for lost ground.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/if-your-team-is-struggling-with-accountability-focus-on-getting-this-1-meeting-right.html

Does your team have more drama than you’d like? Look for this plot and these characters

Team drama takes on many forms, but it's rarely effective. Look for these patterns and use these techniques to flip the script.

As a team coach, I often get brought into situations with a lot of drama and dysfunction. Sometimes drama is too ingrained and systemized to resolve and the team needs to be disbanded and rebuilt.

In many cases, however, we can turn the ship around by recognizing patterns and the roles people are stuck in. The most common pattern I see is the Victim-Villain-Hero triangle.

In the late 1970s, psychologist Stephen Karpman identified this common Victim-Villain-Hero pattern in many dysfunctional families and relationships. These roles caused the members involved to get stuck in a downward spiral. As it turns out, we can apply this same analysis to professional team situations.

Team members might switch roles at various times, but these three roles are key to the pattern. The resulting drama triangle between these roles causes the individuals to stay stuck.

The Victim

Feels powerless and feels that everything is happening to them. They act stuck and unable to make decisions or have control over the situation. Generally they are unhappy and ashamed of the situation they are in.

The Villain

Feels they are logically correct and morally justified in their actions. They are generally blaming, critical, and demanding in their behavior. They are generally focused on doing what they feel is right and fair to the larger group or community.

The Hero

Feels the need to rescue the victim from the villain. They will often act in a caring, supportive, and self-sacrificing manner to support the victim. However, the hero is often not addressing their own obstacles or bigger issues and instead diving in to save the victim so they, the hero, can avoid harder conversations and/or avoid addressing the villain.

When I start working with dysfunctional teams, I often see this drama triangle playing out. In complex situations, and workplaces there are often multiple triangles between multiple people and situations where a person can be a victim in one triangle and a villain in another.

The first step in changing the situation is making the team aware of the pattern they are in. I give them feedback on their behavior based on specific interactions, and I help them see how they are playing out a certain role. Sometimes, just this awareness is enough to change the dynamic.

Once we expose the pattern, I can start coaching them on how to react to these situations differently. For each role there is a different, and more empowering approach they can take to improve the situation.

The Victim can help solve the problem. 

When someone feels themselves slip into victim mode, I suggest they shift to problem solving mode. Rather than wallow in their situation, they should brainstorm options. This might include resources they have and people who can help. I also suggest they shift from seeing the other person as the villain to instead seeing them as someone trying hard to live up to a high standard.

The Villain can focus on clear results.

When someone sees themselves becoming the villain, I encourage them to focus on the results they want to achieve and shift the blame and criticism. They should become a champion of higher expectations and desire and assert what they want rather than attacking the other person. I want them to ask for the other person's help and commitment to reach their shared goal. A good champion will make the other person part of the solution.

The Hero can clarify their goals and expectations.

Being a hero can feel great. You get to put on your cape and pull the victim to safety. However, this is a not a sustainable approach. Instead, I encourage the hero to think more like a coach and to help the victim generate options he or she can implement themselves. I also encourage the hero to work with the villain to help them clarify their goals and expectations.

While not all drama is the result of the victim-villain-hero triangle, and not all triangles can be successfully turned around, knowing the patterns and trying these approaches can change the dynamic when you see a team in trouble. More importantly, being aware of the tendency can help you realize when you're stuck in one yourself.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/3-common-roles-found-in-any-workplace-drama-how-to-rewrite-script.html

When all you know how to do is hammer, everything looks like a nail

I’ve been coaching a few very talented young executives in a fast growing company (they’ve doubled twice over the last two years). All three executives have been top performers in their domains (sales, tech, and HR) and have been promoted to run their departments and to be apart of the new leadership team.

They’ve done well overall. But I’ve noticed one thing in all three cases—something I notice a lot with first-time managers that move into leadership positions, particularly when they’ve previously been top performers.

The issue is that they only have one approach to managing their people and their teams.

Regardless of the situation, context, or circumstance, they fall back onto the one way they know how to manage and get things done. It works really well most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t. As a result, they get stuck, and their people get frustrated.

For comparison, having only one management style is like playing golf with only a 9-iron. It’s great when your within 100 yards of the green, but if you’re trying to reach a fairway 250 yards out or if you’re 6 inches from the cup, you’ll struggle. Better to have a bag of clubs for different lies.

Generally, I find that people who have previously been high performers get stuck in the directive mode of leadership. They tell people what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and even sometimes where to do it.

And while this can be important when the team is new, time is tight, or the stakes are high, it won’t work well if your goal is to build and grow a team’s capability. Ultimately using just one management style becomes a crutch if it’s your only approach.

Fortunately, there are several other options. Good leaders know when to be inquisitive, encouraging, supportive, empowering, and visionary. And while every leader has strengths, I’ve found that all managers can utilize all of these based on situation and context.

To learn more about different leadership styles and when to use them (and when not to), check out this article I wrote for Inc.com...

These 7 Leadership Styles Allow Great Executives To Tackle Any Situation

Want a great, easy-to-use team development tool?

I’m working on creating discussion guides to go along with my articles. These are PDFs of my articles along with some key questions to foster discussion on your team. If you want a PDF copy with the discussion questions (totally free) from this article, just email me at pdf@eckfeldt.com and mention “7 leadership styles” in the subject line.

Know someone who might benefit from some one-on-one executive coaching?

Here is a link to my coaching services overview. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. Happy to offer people on my list a free 30-minute session to see if coaching might help.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/individual

Want a free book?

I’ve been cleaning out my bookshelf and giving away a bunch of hard copy books. Follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn to catch these. I’m even paying for shipping. :)

If you’re in the northern hemisphere, hope you’ve enjoyed your summer. If not, (like my friends in Sydney) enjoy what’s left of winter!

Bruce “Toolkit” Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment
Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive
Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting
Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Want to improve your productivity at work? Take a cooking class

A good cook has a system, and in order for the system to work, everything needs to be in the same place every time.

As I made the transition from company founder to CEO for the first time, I needed to learn many things. Sometimes I learned things from formal training, sometimes from the school of hard knocks. But the most interesting lessons I learned were when I carry sometime over from a seemingly unrelated part of my life.

One such time was when I decided to take a cooking class. It was a knife skills class and we spent several weekday evenings learning how to chop, cut, and fillet everything from shallots to salmon. It was hard work, but it was fun and I learned a lot about how to be proficient in the kitchen.

Cooking was purely a personal passion of mine and I had no intention of apply my culinary lessons to the business world. Yet, I ended up taking several things I learned in class back to the office.

Have a code of conduct and dress

For class, everyone was required to buy a chef jacket, hat, scarf, and apron. If I wanted to learn real culinary skills, dressing the part was step number one. We needed to dress like chefs before we learned how to perform like chefs.

At the office, I realized that while we wanted to create a casual culture and laidback work environment, we had no guidelines or expectations for that desired outcome. People were wearing flip flops and, in one case, T-shirts with outright profanity.

Therefore, we created a new set of norms through a set of team discussions and mutual agreements on what would create a respectful, healthy, and professional office environment. We codified it into a one-page overview which became part of our handbook and onboarding processes.

Start with a team huddle

At the start of each class, our chef would have us gather around the front station. He would hand us the menu for the evening and explain what we were learning. People would ask questions and get clarification so everyone had a crystal clear understanding of the goal and process.

Back at the office, I could now see many situations where people were working frantically on projects for which we hadn’t sat down as a team to discuss the project goals. Once we discussed the goals, several projects changed significantly, and a few were even shelved when we realized the outcomes weren't clear or important.

Set your mise-en-place

After our huddle in cooking class, everyone would go to their station and set up everything they needed for that menu. This included knives, bowls, utensils, measuring cups, raw ingredients, seasonings, etc. Our chef would give us a map of where everything went and how the station should be organized to make the work flow easily, to keep your station clean, and to make sure you and the food were safe. In the kitchen, this is called your mise-en-place.

Thinking about our work space at the office, I realized several areas were not set up for this kind of mise-en-place success. This included my personal desk. I took an hour and cleaned up and created a system for where everything should go. I zip tied and tucked away cables, and I moved anything I didn't need regularly to drawers and cabinets.

Working with our office manager, we created “meeting boxes” for of our conference rooms that had all of the materials we needed for meetings: stickies, sharpies, masking tape, index cards, paper clips, rubber bands, computer chargers, video adaptors...everything.

Once a day, our office manager would check the boxes in each room and make sure everything was in each box. Because of this new system, team members could walk into any room and be confident they would have what they needed for a successful meeting.

Learn from your peers and improve as a team

Some cooking techniques I learned quickly. Others took more time. When our chef came by and I demonstrated that I was able to do the step well, he would ask me to go over to someone else who was having trouble and show him or her how I did it. On the flip side, and if I was struggling, he would send someone over to help me.

At first, I was a little frustrated because I wanted to move on more quickly, but I soon realized that by teaching I was reinforcing my learning and we were keeping everyone in the class at the same learning pace. If he didn't do this, some people would finish quickly and others would fall behind. He kept us learning together as a team.

It quickly occurred to me that back at work, we had several people who were true experts in parts of our business that others were just beginning to learn. We were not learning and growing together.

We set up internal training sessions where the best of our people could present what they knew and help teach others. We had everyone create learning goals and meet monthly in coaching groups. Simply by sharing knowledge we already had internally, we raised the bar on everyone’s performance.

As a company grows, systems and processes become more important. And it’s possible that what worked well at 25 people may not work well at 250. Successful executives are constantly looking for new and better ways of doing things to improve performance and productivity. By exposing yourself to new learning challenges and opportunities, you can often find ideas and solutions to bring back to the office that you probably would not have considered otherwise.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/entrepreneursorganization/2018/08/02/want-to-improve-your-productivity-at-work-take-a-cooking-class/#6594a30f3d17

Confused about the difference between a priority and a goal? Here’s a framework to keep you on track

If you're involved in any goal-setting effort, you're bound to run into a host of terms that all seem to mean the same thing. Here's how to keep them straight.

When working with leadership teams and executives on strategy planning, we often throw around a lot of terms. Some of these terms can seem to mean the same thing, and they often end up meaning different things to different people. Here are some definitions I've coalesced and use in my work to keep things clear.

Purpose

I use this to describe what an individual or organization is meant to do in their heart of hearts. It's something they can spend their entire lives pursuing and has infinite room for success. Some examples are: to rid the world of hunger or improve our lives through technological innovation.

Mission

I like to think of the purpose as the why, and the mission as the what. A mission defines what we want to achieve at the highest level. Some examples are: give every child three square meals a day or make tomorrow's technology available today.

Vision

A vision describes a future state in rich detail. We use a vision to create a compelling view for what our success will look like once we've achieved our goals. Generally, this is written in prose over several paragraphs and provides key details and taps into core emotions.

BHAG

Coined by Jim Collins in his book Built To Last, BHAG stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. I look 10 years in the future, but some people go as far as 30. There are different types of BHAGs, but they are always compelling and time-bound. Good BHAGs will move you into a new league of play and should invoke the slightest bit of fear.

Priority

Priority defines the one thing you are dedicating the majority of your time to. Your priority is the thing you do prior to working on other tasks. It is often helpful to have a list of things that you are deprioritizing in return. Priorities are generally set for a year or quarter and can involve multiple tasks or projects.

Focus

Your focus is similar to a priority, but slightly more general. I think of a focus as a topic of interest or concern for a group or individual. A focus might be customer service, whereas a priority would be reducing the wait time for priority customers.

Initiative

I generally use initiative to describe a group of projects, often across departments, that achieves one or more key results in an organization. Some examples might include: improve safety to reduce shop floor accidents. This one initiative includes human resources, operations, facilities, and logistics.

Objective

Objective is defined as an area of focus that is clearly aligned with the long term strategy, reasonably narrow in scope, and compelling to the team. For example, a quarterly objective might be improve project management skills for all delivery staff.

Goal

A goal is similar to an objective but smaller and more specific; it also has a clear deadline and timeline. If the objective is improve project management skills for all of our delivery staff, then a goal might be have all delivery staff score over 90 percent on the PMI project management skills assessment.

Target

Used in conjunction with a key performance metric (KPI), a target is a specific number or measurement you're looking to achieve. If your KPI is number of orders per day, your target might be over 200 orders a day for five consecutive days.

Key Result

If you're using OKRs, then these are the specific, measurable, actionable things you are doing to move forward on your objective. Each key result is an independent task that adds value, not a series of steps in a project plan.

If your objective is improve project management skills for all delivery staff then your a key results might be 1) run three project planning workshops in March, 2) have two people go to the PMI certification class, and 3) hold a project retrospective on our last three projects.

Action Item

An action item is a commitment to do something. It has a 'who', a 'what', and a 'by when'. With any action item, I want to know what I will have in my hands or see with my eyes that will tell me it's complete. When running my weekly team meetings, I'm focusing on what actions people are committing to for the next meeting so that I can hold people accountable to what they've signed up to deliver.

I'm sure there are other terms that get thrown around in these types of sessions, but the ones above are the core terms that are good to know. While I like mine, they are not gospel. What's most important is that everyone on your team agree to each word's meaning so everyone has the right expectations.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/these-12-common-business-terms-seem-redundant-but-they-have-practical-differences.html

Most companies struggle to develop a good business strategy. Here are 6 common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Many companies struggle with creating an effective business strategy. Here are six ways to get yours right.

While I enjoy all parts of growing and scaling a business, creating an effective scaling strategy is one of my favorites. I love running sessions and helping a leadership team collect information, develop insights about their market, and decide on their unique course of action.

However, many teams get strategy wrong. Here are the most common mistakes I see and suggestions on how to avoid them. Get these right and you'll not only improve your success, you might just have more fun.

1. Don't compete to win, compete to be unique.

Many people frame business strategy as one company pitted against another in a battle of force and will to decide who will dominate a market. And while that might make for a good movie, it's not a good approach to business.

The reality is that most markets are multifaceted; there are plenty of customers for you all to have a reasonable slice of the pie. The trick is to create an approach and niche that will be reasonably profitable and that will allow you to efficiently sell to your target customers.

Instead of seeing strategy as a race to win, see it as a race to be different. An effective strategy is one which clearly defines your niche in the market based on your unique strengths and weaknesses as a company.

2. It's not about motivation, it's about making choices.

Another common mistake people make is to see strategy as rallying the team to put in extra effort and long hours. They string together inspirational quotes to excite people about the future and the wonderful things that will come with success.

Instead, I find that a good, effective strategy should make things easier. A good strategy clarifies who will be targeted with what product/service. This clarity helps you make decisions and allows a company to simplify their processes to do just those few things really well.

3. Know what you're not doing.

Strategy is fundamentally about choice. It's about reducing the areas of focus to a carefully chosen few. Unfortunately, I see many companies that define their strategy in such a way that still leaves them trying to sell everything to everyone, everywhere.

One technique I use is to have a company list all of the prospects they are not targeting, products they are not offering, and locations they are not servicing. If this is a long and clear list, I know that company has a clear strategy which focuses on doing a few things well. If it's short and vague, I send them back to the drawing board.

4. Don't chase the puck, get out ahead of it.

Another thing I often see is a company developing a strategy in reaction to a specific market event, competitor move, or industry situation. While companies need to respond to events and changing markets, that is not the core of business strategy. Your strategy should guide you on how to respond, but it's not the response itself.

A strategy defines a set of choices and a series of policies on how you are going to make decisions and what you are going to prioritize. By design, strategies are long-term plays based on a logical analysis of the trends in the market and where future opportunities are likely to exist.

5. Strategy is worthless, if it's not communicated.

Often times, companies spend weeks developing a sophisticated and smart strategy, but then they put it in a binder and leave it on the shelf. At best, a few people on the leadership team can recall the content months later, but the vast majority of the company has forgotten or is oblivious of the work.

Strategy needs to be simple to understand and easy to communicate. The fact is that everyone in the company needs to know the strategy as they are the ones implementing it. Your front line workers make more decisions on strategy each and everyday than any executive. It needs to be simple and it needs to be communicated frequently.

6. Strategy is a regular process, not a document.

Too often I see teams create a great strategy and then frame the final document on the wall. They check the box and get back to day-to-day business. The power in strategy is the discussion and application not the document. Great teams talk about strategy weekly and grapple with strategic decisions on a daily basis.

Strategy is not easy, but it doesn't need to be hard. The trick is to make it a regular process and routine inside your leadership discussions. And while strategies should be simple to be effectively communicated, they need not be simplistic in approach. Much like writing a good letter, the more concise a strategy is, the longer and harder a team most likely worked on it.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/most-companies-struggle-to-develop-a-good-business-strategy-here-are-6-common-mistakes-how-to-avoid-them.html

6 key skills that will improve your goal setting and success in business and in life

Setting and achieving powerful goals requires more than one skill. Here are the six skills that great goal achievers have mastered.

As an executive and team coach, I help individuals and teams set goals every day. And while all teams are very different and have very different goals, the ones who are most successful share six key skills--skills which you can use to accelerate your success, too.

1. Polish your crystal ball.

The first thing to develop is your ability to see the future. Having a powerful imaginationthat gives you a clear vision of yourself in your future success will drive motivation and inspiration. Great goal setters spend time carefully envisioning themselves in the future having already achieved this success.

Visualizing future success sets up a cognitive dissonance in your mind. And since the mind doesn't like it when thinking doesn't match reality, it begins to take action to change reality, driving our unconscious thinking towards reaching your goals sooner.

2. Get good at planning.

Great goal setters know how to think through the steps needed to reach their objectives. They see the tasks that need to be performed and the order they need to be performed in. Good plans create a path to success by connecting the dots between where you are now and where you want to be.

But don't get attached the plan itself. As Eisenhower once said, "plans are worthless, but planning is everything." Great planners know that the value comes from the process of thinking through your options, developing a good strategy, and assessing risks. Highly successful people take action, get feedback, develop insights, and then re-plan quickly.

3. Just do it.

If you want to achieve your goals, you can't spend all day looking at your navel. Yes, you need to think and plan, but even more importantly, you need to take action. Action not only moves you forward, but it also gives you feedback.

I often use the analogy of when you first turn on your phone's GPS and it's confused about which direction you're facing. While you could wait there and let it think, the quickest solution is to just take a few steps forward and it will quickly adjust your position on the map.

The same goes for working on your goals. Sometimes, you just need to do a few things and then see if you're making progress, or if you need to turn around and go in the opposite direction.

4. Master the juke.

Great running backs learn how to juke to avoid tackles by dogging, weaving, and spinning to avoid defenders. They know that trying to square up and bash through them will not usually be successful and will almost always hurt.

The same is true for those who are highly productive. When faced with an obstacle, these high achievers don't put their head down and drive into it with brute force. They find a way to avoid it and move around it. Even if the obstacle adds a little time or wasn't the path they originally planned, they know that maintaining forward progress is more important than sticking to a plan that isn't working.

5. Discover your inner zen.

In the late 1970s while researching why artists get so absorbed in their work to the point of not eating for days, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered that these people entered a physical-mental state of hyper performance which he named flow.

He discovered that anyone can get into this highly productive state. And when they do, they can achieve up to ten-times their normal level of performance. Not only that, but people report having a euphoric experience of blissful satisfaction where time passes without notice.

Finding your flow state is critical to being productive. Choose the right day of the week, time of day, environment, and frame of mind to make yourself hyper productive. For some it's a nature retreat, and for others it's a noisy coffee shop. Experiment to discover what works for you.

6. You can do anything you want, just not everything you want.

The fact is, we all have real limits on time and energy. We can't work on everything at once. Great achievers know that it is better to focus on one priority at a time and drive it to completion before changing course.

It's good to have a few different projects going so you can switch gears when you're stuck or frustrated, but keep this variation to a limited few. And don't try to multitask between them. Bigger blocks of dedicated time will allow you to get deeper and tackle bigger, more complex challenges.

While there are other skills that will improve your ability to set and achieve great things, these six are your core building blocks for success. And like most skills, there is always room for improvement. Getting better at goal setting is a lifelong pursuit.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/want-to-get-good-at-accomplishing-your-goals-master-these-6-skills.html

Don’t get fooled by a good outcome (or deflated by a bad one)

In a world of 100% certainty, making decisions is simple: list the pros, the cons, and total up your columns. If the pros outweigh the cons, move forward. If not, don’t.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of business decisions are full of considerable uncertainty and situational factors. There is no sure thing, and waiting for more information might seem like a good idea, but oftentimes waiting to get more information is extremely costly in terms of time and money. And if you’re in a high-growth company, this is even harder.

In these situations, where uncertainty and variability thrive, decisions and outcomes can be more loosely correlated. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t.

The problem is, people will often assign more meaning to outcomes then they should. And the result of this association impacts their confidence (both good and bad) and skews their future decision-making process.

In some cases, people make a bad decision, but get lucky with the outcome. This gives them positive feedback (erroneously) and increases the chances they make a similarly bad decisions in the future. A little positive feedback for a bad decision can go a long way in rooting a destructive cycle.

In other cases, people make a good decision, but Murphy’s Law strikes and they end up with a bad outcome. Still licking their wounds, they tend to play it too safe in the future.

In my video, I give some examples of how outcomes work when variability is high using bets with dice roles.

Or, you can read my article on Inc.com which you can find here:

Not All Bad Outcomes Are The Result of Bad Decisions, Here's Why

Effective leaders have developed the skill and insight to know the difference between good and bad outcomes. They know when they screwed up and when they had a bad role of the dice, or when they got lucky with an outcome but shouldn’t take that path again.

Not sure how to figure this out? One of the best ways to uncover these situations is through a retrospective. I’ve written a lot about those. Here are a few links.

The Secret To Turning Your Mistakes Into Opportunities In 6 Simple Steps

We’re always looking for new ideas, insights, and opportunities for improvement. Retrospectives are the best place to find them.

And if you’re looking for help, check out my work as a facilitator of retrospectives…

http://www.eckfeldt.com/retrospectives

And if you have a specific challenge or decision you’re trying to make, reach out and let’s talk about it.

Bruce “Beat The Odds” Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take the Growth Readiness Assessment
Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive
Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting
Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Just because you’re a nonprofit organization doesn’t mean you can’t act like a for-profit company

Being a nonprofit organization doesn't mean you can ignore good business practices.

Any business that doesn't follow good business practices will struggle. A lack of attention to costs and profits will lead to financial troubles, a loss in customers, and an exodus of good talent.

Nonprofits don't have that same Darwinian force at play. A poorly run nonprofit can limp along for years based on the good intentions of its managers and the hopeful support of its funders. However, while nonprofits don't have the same money motive and financial goals, they can still benefit from adopting many for-profit best practices.

As a business coach who works with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, there are several good for-profit business practices that I employ to help mission-driven organizations dramatically increase their impact and reach.

1. Clarify your organizational focus and desired outcome.

At the core of strategy is choosing a clear focus for the business. Focusing creates alignment for the team and eases the daily decision-making process. Having a clear focus allows you to concentrate your energy and resources and move the needle. A business without a focus will chase too many priorities and produce lackluster results.

The same is true for nonprofit organizations. While there are many noble pursuits, if you want to truly make an impact, choose one you can advance the most and define the specific outcome you desire. Once you've made a choice, explicitly clarify all of the things you are not going to do. This will help you avoid distraction which water down your efforts.

2. Paint a vivid picture of the future you are striving for.

Stalin has been quoted to say, "single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." It's sad, but true. Because of the way our brains work, we emotionally attach to stories not numbers. If we want to create a compelling vision of the future, it's better to describe it as a narrative rather than with numbers.

For businesses, we create vivid visions of the future by describing accomplishments in rich detail and writing them in the present tense as if we've already achieved them. For nonprofits, we take a similar approach: we focus on the core beneficiary and desired impact for them; we describe the good we want to achieve in a rich language of success.

3. Create measurable outcomes and objective definitions of success.

In business we say, "what gets measured gets managed." By finding ways to benchmark our efforts and outcomes, we can begin to keep track of our progress and success. Only then can we know if we're getting closer to our goals and desired outcomes.

The same can be done in nonprofit organizations. Once we have a clear focus and defined outcomes, we can create a set of objectives and criteria we can measure as we proceed. Without these, we don't know if our action and efforts are moving us closer to or farther from our goals.

4. Measure and track program costs and impact.

Beyond just a way of measuring financial value, money gives us a way of directly comparing otherwise disparate outcomes. It allows us to compare the value of two different types of customers or compare to the return on investment of different initiatives.

While money is not our end goal in nonprofit organizations, it can still be used to compare costs and measure value of different programs and initiatives. A program which generates more value while using less resources is better than one who consumes more and delivers less. By tracking the direct and indirect program costs and monetizing program value, you can see which programs you should double down on and which you should scuddle.

5. Balance core programs and investing in future innovation.

In business, you need to generate results now and in the future. If you only focus on driving short-term results, you'll soon find yourself with employees who are stunted and products and services that can't keep up with the competition. But if you only focus on long-term training and innovation, you'll run out of cash by the end of the month.

The same is true with your nonprofit organization. You need to invest in your staff and create new programs and services for your beneficiaries. But you can't do so in a vacuum and ignore the short-term reality of budgets and delivery. Set aside a reasonable portion of your money and resources for each.

While running a nonprofit is not the same as running a for-profit business, there are many best practices you can borrow to be successful. Many nonprofits shun running themselves like a business thinking that purpose trumps profit. Unfortunately, even though nonprofits are not driven by money, failing to adopt good for-profit business practices will often leave these well-intended nonprofits struggling to create the impact they were designed to make.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/just-because-youre-a-nonprofit-organization-doesnt-mean-you-cant-act-like-a-for-profit-company.html

Here’s why your executive team struggles to solve problems and what you need to change

Many executive teams struggle with addressing issues quickly and effectively. Here's how the best ones avoid drama and get better results.

As a leadership team coach, developing a good decision-making process is one of my main areas of focus. And while many teams are good at simple decisions that come up frequently, these same teams can be challenged by new and complicated decisions that come up when the company starts to grow quickly.

The key to getting good at decision-making is to have a process that everyone knows and has had experience using. While it's true that every decision is different, the process you use should be the same. Here is the one I coach my teams to use.

1. Define

First, I have teams start every decision-making process by clarifying the problem in front of them.

In this step, it's fairly common to discover that the decision on the table is simply the presenting problem and there is, in fact, a deeper, more important problem hiding underneath the surface layer. By getting to the core problem, we will not only address the surface issue we're having but we will also be able to address other issues on a more systematic basis.

For example, one team I was working with recently had a problem with low sales numbers during the previous two months. Their first reaction was to spend more on marketing. However, it became apparent that one of the sales people was on maternity leave for three months and hadn't been replaced. The real issue was not having a good process for covering people while they were on planned leaves, a problem that would not have been solved with more marketing dollars.

2. Debate

Once the team has defined the problem well, I have them develop criteria for the options they want to consider. The goal here is to get clear on the definition of solved and all the possible ways they could address the problem.

For the criteria, I'm looking for objective tests we can apply to all of the options to evaluate and sort them. For simple problems, this might be things like cost, speed of implementation, and/or measure of impact on the problem. For more complex problems, you might have criteria that address risks, organizational change, or undesirable collateral impact.

Creating as many options as possible is critical to a good problem-solving process. If there's only two or three options to choose from, a team can easily become stuck with a less than ideal outcome. Create time and space to brainstorm ideas. Suspend judgement and generate as many ideas as possible. Often times the winning idea comes late in the game and starts out as an off-handed comment.

3. Decide

Once you have your criteria and your options, the team can start the final decision-making process. Use the criteria you've developed to evaluate and rank the options you've generated. For some criteria, the budget for example, might be easy to calculate and apply.

On the other hand, it might be harder to quantify things like risk and undesirable collateral impact, but taking some time to discuss is important. In the end, I like to see absolute numbers, scales of one to five, or high/medium/low for each criteria and for each option.

However, all of this only works if people are free to speak their mind and share what they know and see without fear of judgment or shame. If people hold back, you'll miss key insights.

Most of the time, one of your options will float to the top as the most desirable choice. On occasion however, you might find that two or more options seem good for different reasons and it's not obvious which one to choose. In these cases, try to develop a trade off value between the criteria.

For example, if one solution costs more but is faster to implement, decide how much a week or day of schedule is worth in dollars and then discount/add it to one option to compare them head-to-head. You can do this for many types of criteria and effectively normalize options to reduce the complexity.

While you won't always need to create complicated matrices to compare and score you options, when the stakes are high and the issues complicated, it's a good approach to have in your toolbox.

Good decision making is a core skill for every leadership team. It takes training, practice, and experience to build that muscle. But once you have achieve that capability and honed it, your work will become much faster and easier, and you'll have better outcomes to celebrate.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/if-your-team-is-struggling-to-find-good-solutions-to-hard-problems-try-these-3-steps.html

Good and efficient decisions will make or break your business. Here's why.

It’s not enough to make good decisions, you need to make efficient ones as well

One of the key lessons I’ve learned over the years as a founder, CEO, and business adviser is that it’s not enough to make good decisions; you need to make good decisions efficiently. Bad decisions are never good, but it’s just as bad to make good decisions late.

The fact is that business is full of decisions. Effective executives and effective leadership teams learn how to make tens, if not hundreds, of decisions every week to keep the business running well and growing. They do this by applying the right amount of energy, brain power, and focus required for each decision and not an ounce more.

As a CEO, one of the key moves I made for company growth was to establish a leadership team within my company. This was the team I worked with to think through the bigger issues and the team that became responsible for key departments. I realized I couldn’t do everything myself. I needed more input and insights into where to steer the business.

However when I first established this team, I made a critical mistake. I assumed that everyone should be involved in all of decisions. I made a long list with copious notes and called our first meeting with all of the senior team members. The first few decisions felt good because everyone was included. We had good discussion, and we found directions that everyone stood behind.

The problem was that we only had completed three or four items over the course of two hours and we had over fifty items on the list. Clearly, this wasn’t going to work going forward. I realized that I needed to find a way to make both good decisions, and also make them in the limited time we had available.

In order to speed things up, we decided that not everyone needed to be involved at the same level for every decisions. For some decisions, certain people needed to be at the table to discussion, but for other decisions we just needed to collect information from a few people.

In order to streamline our process, we came up with several different levels of involvement and worked to minimize everyone’s time commitments within our key decisions. We came up with five levels.

Input

For many decisions, we needed to collect information from several sources for input into the process. We learned that while gathering the information was critical, the key executives who provided the information didn’t need to be part of the process. Once we had the information, they could go back to other work. This worked well for staffing and planning.

Collaborate

At times, we realized that we needed certain people at the table to discuss options and think through scenarios and possible outcomes. It was more than input, so we made it a higher level of involvement. We used this for deciding project team leads and new clients.

Make

One of the best things we did was get super clear on who was actually going to make a decision. Generally we got it down to one person. They took in all of the data, considered all of the options, and applied all of the criteria discussed to make the final choice. Our rule here was to have the person who was closest to the issue make the decision when possible. What we found eventually is that the person closest to the issue and the person who was going to have to live with the decisions were the best people to put in this role.

Approve

As CEO, I realized that I needed to delegate a lot of decisions if I was going to free myself up to focus on more strategic tasks and to empower the team. However, there were some things I still wanted to give a final blessing to before they were implemented. The rule was that I couldn’t change the decision, I could only approve or vote it. It freed up my time immensely and developed my team’s leadership skills.

Inform

This was a powerful move for the team. We realized that many people were coming to the table just so they could hear the discussion and learn what the final resolution was. Rather than having them sit through the meetings, we promised to take notes, record final decisions, and distribute them to the right people in a timely manner. This greatly reduced the people who needed to be at the meeting.

Once we had these levels defined and agreed to, we found the best strategy was to push people from the middle to the edges, to either to input or inform, if we could. We generally tried to only have one person make the decision and then I would often take approve simply to coordinate with strategy and longer term planning.

Now as a business coach, decision making is one of the main things I help leadership teams get right. The key is to balance quality with efficiency and to know when you’ve hit the “good enough” point so you can move forward onto the next decisions quickly and confidently.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/entrepreneursorganization/2018/06/06/its-not-enough-to-make-good-decisions-you-need-to-make-efficient-ones-as-well/#3931f612215e

Hate going to networking events? Here’s how to make them productive, if not enjoyable

While being an introvert can make networking events more business than pleasure, it doesn't need to be difficult.

I've been a consultant and entrepreneur for over two decades and networking has undoubtedly been the key to my success. Ironically, I test off the charts as an introvert. And while I have approached networking differently than a natural extrovert, I've found ways to be extremely effective in these social situations.

Networking is critical to most professional careers. If you're in a sales or business development role, networking is central to your ability to develop relationships and leads. But even if your primary responsibility is not lead generation, networking will have a significant impact on your success.

Networks give you access to information, resources, knowledge, and most importantly, talent. One of the best ways to find candidates for open positions is your professional network. And when you need freelancers or service providers, your network can provide you with names and recommendations.

There are many ways to network, but the most common and often most productive is the tried and true networking event. This could be a one off event some evening after work or a cocktail hour at a longer conference or industry gathering. Either way, these types of situations provide a good opportunity to meet many people in a short amount of time, if you approach it correctly.

Here are the strategies I've developed over the years and the ones I coach my clients on when they want to make the most of an event.

1. Set a specific goal to achieve.

As an introvert, I don't naturally work a room. I'd rather find someone interesting and sit in the corner and talk. To motivate me, I set a reasonable goal to kick start me into meeting people. It could be as simple collecting 20 business cards or meeting three of the speakers. The goal gives me purpose and helps me make decisions and take actions.

2. Prepare yourself mentally and physically.

I suggest that introverted people prepare both mentally and physically for the event. If I've been at work or conference proceeding all day and then head straight to a happy hour, I run out of steam quickly. Instead, I'll sneak in a workout, go for a long walk, or just find a quiet corner and grab some down time. By "pre-charging" for big social events, I give myself the energy I need to be successful at them.

3. Have a few opening lines ready.

Starting a conversation can be difficult in many social situations. Fortunately, events come with some context that make openings a little easier to develop. I like to have 3-5 general open-ended questions in my back pocket that are specific to the situation. "What did you think of so-and-so's talk?" or "Did you come to last year's event?" are great examples of openers that can kick-start the conversation.

4. Work the room to meet new people.

Too many times I see people meeting someone early in the event and then speaking with him or her the entire time. Networking events are great opportunities to meet lots of new people. Focus on moving through three steps: building rapport, making a connection, and setting a reason to follow up (my go to is to send them an article). I generally spend between 3-5 minutes per person to get these. Once I set a reason to follow up with them after the event, I move on to meet someone new.

5. Give yourself a break.

If you're an introvert, you'll need some downtime. If an event is more than two hours, I often plan a 10-15 minute break about half way. I might call and check in with my kids or just find a place to relax for bit. Be sure to set a specific time for when you'll jump back in so you don't convince yourself to call it a day.

6. Follow up on your commitments.

After the event, be sure to follow up with everyone and mention the items you agreed to. I try to do this by the end of the day or first thing the next day. You don't need to do the follow up itself, but definitely touch base with them and set expectations for the follow up you mentioned in the conversation. If I promised to send them an article, my email would just tell them I'll send it to them by the end of the week or by some date. Many times this is a better approach since it allows me to email them again which, in turn, builds more connection.

Just because you're not a natural extrovert doesn't mean you can't handle a social event like a networking pro. In fact, by using these techniques, you can often get more accomplished in less time than someone who can close the bar. You'll also feel much better the next morning.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/hate-going-to-networking-events-heres-how-to-make-them-productive-if-not-enjoyable.html

Want to know the one secret to Amazon’s success? The SEC has a letter from Jeff Bezos that tells all

Amazon has been ranked number one by the American Customer Satisfaction Index for eight straight years. Here is how they did it.

As a business advisor and leadership coach, one of my first tasks with any organization is to help the top team set the bar. Without a clear bar, we have no target and no way to measure progress. However, my real job isn't getting these teams to reach that bar; my real job is teaching them how to raise that bar when they reach it.

For companies like Amazon, the idea of continuously raising the bar is hardwired into their DNA. The only way a company can reach and maintain such high levels of success is by systematically resetting their sights on higher and higher goals as they continue to succeed on previous ones. They are never "done" and they never stop thinking about how to be bigger and better.

Recently, I came across a letter Jeff Bezos wrote to shareholders, a letter which the SEC posted on their website. In it Bezos writes about how the constant pursuit of customer satisfaction has instilled an ethos in Amazon.

"One thing I love about customers" he writes, "is that they are divinely discontent." And it is this natural tendency of the customer to constantly want more that has driven the company to be fanatics about continuous improvement.

Bezos identifies one simple thing that drives continuous improvement within Amazon. And any company can use this simple tool to fuel growth and innovation. It's simple, but not simplistic, and it's something that you can spend a lifetime pursing and still not be finished with.

What drives Amazon's success is their dedication to always setting high standards.

Setting high standards does not just apply to the executive team, but with every team and at every level of the organization. High standard are part of Amazon's culture and ethos. It's a core value and a continual pursuit.

But setting high standards is not easy, nor is it cheap.

First, standards are infectious. Once one person raises or lowers the standards, others tend follow. It's critical to set the standards high and then push people to achieve them. It's a virtuous cycle: success will continue to build more success.

However, the opposite it true as well. As soon as one person gets away with lower standards without comment or correction, then others will quickly follow suit. And once this momentum builds, it's difficult to arrest.

For companies like Amazon, where employees tend to be some of the smartest and brightest in their fields, another problem presents itself. People who are exceptionally smart in one area will tend to assume they are exceptionally smart in many others--even when they are not.

Bezos emphasizes the need for everyone to be open to the fact they have weaknesses and blind spots. The answer he gives is to get good feedback and insights from the people around you. Reflecting back on the early days of the company he says, "my colleagues were my tutors."

Having such high standards has cost Amazon a lot of time and money.

For example, instead of quick and easy slide presentations, teams at Amazon write six-page memos to lay out ideas in narratives which are read in silence at the start of a meeting. When well-written, these frame up concepts perfectly and kick off highly-productive discussions.

But these memos are very hard to write well and people often spend a week or more creating a memo. Many companies would baulk at that kind of time investment. For Amazon, it's just one more example of the bar they are willing to set and the work they are willing to put in.

What are the practical benefits of such high standards?

The positive outcomes show up in their products and services. High standards drive the breadth and depth of Amazon's offerings and the quality of their service. Bezos lists out all of the innovation and success initiatives they have recently launched. He lists everything from Prime Video, AWS, and Alexa to the internal accomplishments with programs such as Career Choice where they pay up to $12,000 towards the education of Amazon employees.

Beyond their products, high standards drive internal culture. And while it's a demanding place to work, it's also an engaging place to work. Good people are drawn to high standards and so they are drawn to Amazon. This creates a virtuous cycle so long as these standards are maintained.

Good companies learn how to set goals and achieve them. Great companies learn how to continually raise the bar on performance to reach ever higher levels of success.

While the vast majority of companies are a fraction of the size of Amazon, they can adopt the same approach to set high standards and achieve the same benefits of this continuous pursuit of improvement. It's certainly not easy, but it's worth it.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/this-shareholder-letter-written-by-jeff-bezos-reveals-1-simple-secret-to-amazons-success.html

The 12 external factors you need to consider to create an effective business strategy

Too many companies create their strategy in a vacuum. To be successful, you need to consider and react to these external factors.

If you want to grow quickly and successfully, you need a solid plan that positions you well in the market and gives you plenty of business opportunities. Strategy is fundamentally about how you are going to respond to what's happening in your market and what your competitors are doing. If you're only looking at what's happening inside your company, you'll miss the bigger picture and many of the great opportunities--and risks--that are out there.

Developing strategy is one of the main things I do with leadership teams as we plan for how they are going to scale and grow their businesses. When we conduct our strategy sessions, we start with a broad assessment of the external factors that we need to look at. From these, we can pull insights, predictions, patterns, and trends that are going to play key roles in the decisions we make about where we go.

1. Customers

Knowing what's happening in your customers' business and having insight into their market is critical. Ask them how things are going, what they are worried about, what their big plans are, and where they are investing their time and energy. Look at your best customers and worst customer and see what they are doing differently.

2. Prospects

Beyond your current customers, what are your prospects doing? Try to understand why they are the not buying, what else are they buying, and how it is different from your product or service. Look at what criteria they are using to make decisions and what channels they are buying through. See if you can develop insights into what's preventing them from buying.

3. Direct competitors

Knowing what your competitors are doing is critical. Have they launched or announced new products or services, made key hires, or opened new locations? One of the best sources of this information is the people who have recently left said companies. If you're connected to someone who just left, take them out to lunch and see what you can learn.

4. Indirect competitors

Too many teams only focus on direct competitors. Instead, you need to consider all of the options your customers and prospects have to solve their problems. Don't forget that coping with the situation is a viable option for some of your current and prospective customers. Knowing the options that these people are considering is key to positioning.

5. Markets

Knowing what's happening in your local market is critical. And if you're in multiple markets, this is even more important because it's easy to become blind to local conditions that might impact your business. Understand what's happening on the ground in the place you do business.

6. Industry

Stay aware of shifts in your industry that will impact you and your business. If everyone else is moving staff from 1099s to full time hires, this will impact access to talent and the expectations of your potential employees.

7. Technology

Staying current with the changes in the underlying technology and the infrastructure of your industry is critical. Many companies have gone belly up or been swooped up in acquisitions because they missed a key shift in technical trends. These tend to happen quickly, so suss them out early.

8. Labor

If you're a growing company, access to good talent is critical. Understand what's happening with salaries, benefits, and who else is competing for the same people you are. If labor is tight or expensive, it will hinder your growth and cut into your margins.

9. Economic

Macro issues like interest rates and general economic growth will impact the business environment. But you should also pay attention to how these impact your specific industry. For example, interest rates will impact real estate, which will hit construction, which means building supplies will be less in-demand.

10. Political

Politics define policy which can have a significant impact on business conditions. New regulations or changes to existing ones can make or break businesses. Make sure to look beyond national politics; pay attention to state and local issues because hese can often fly under the radar.

11. Cultural

Trends and movements can change customer expectations, behaviors, and priorities. And sometimes this happens more quickly than we anticipate. Companies that respond quickly can take advantage of the slower competitors and gain market share.

12. Social

While there are others you can, and should, consider that are unique to you business, these twelve factors are a good starting point. By collecting what you know about each of these you'll be better informed and will make better, more insightful choices about the strategic moves you plan to make. Good teams look at all of these on a regular basis to catch changes that can have a big impact on the business and help them take advantage of opportunities and avoid pitfalls.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/12-external-factors-you-need-to-create-an-effective-business-strategy.html

Here are 12 ways to make emailing a more effective tool for your team

While many businesses are switching to collaboration tools, email hasn't gone away. Here are a dozen ways to make it more productive.

As a team coach, I'm focused on elevating the performance and results of the organizations I work with. And regardless of whether it's leadership, management, or project teams, communication is critical to their effectiveness. Unfortunately, email tends to be an area that generates a lot of problems and drama for these teams.

The problem with email is that it's easy to send a lot of information and create a lot of work for everyone else. Here are twelve rules I generally suggest teams adopt to reduce the number of emails, make them more effective tools for communications, and help people prioritize and manage their inboxes.

1. Don't email when a phone call will do.

If you can pick up the phone and have a conversation, do that. Anything that is not a simple yes/no will require some back and forth and it's better to that by phone than a long email thread. And if someone is just down the hall, a short walk is better than typing.

2. Stick to one topic or issue per email.

I generally suggest one issue or topic per email so that people can reply with just that answer or response. This way, you'll get faster responses since the person is not waiting to pull together all of the answers before they reply.

3. Only put people in the "TO" field who need to respond.

Only put the people who need to be directly addressed or need to reply in the top line. And think twice about who you put in there and if they can be excluded or just CC'd. I assume that if I'm in the "TO" I need to read and reply.

4. CC everyone else who just needs to know.

For anyone who just needs to know about the email or needs a copy of it for their records, put them in the CC field. By separating these out, you'll help people prioritize what they need to read and reply to.

5. Make reading CC emails optional.

Make reading CC emails optional or at least low priority. Create filters that put CC'd emails into a separate folder and skim once a week.

6. Don't hijack emails.

It drives me nuts when some replies to an email with an unrelated topic or issue. Even if it's related but a different thread, make an new subject line or start a fresh email.

7. If you have a lot to say, start with a summary.

If your email is going to have in-depth details, lists, and background, then start your email with a short summary that includes what actions need to be taken. Long emails will not be read right away, but a summary might.

8. Name people who you want to respond.

When you need specific people to respond with answers or decisions, make sure to call those people out by name with a clear description with what you need from them. Ideally list the call to actions on separate lines so they can reply inline.

9. Confirm receipts with reply timeframes.

If you get an email but can't reply to it right away, send a note saying you got it along with anything you can give or share at that moment as well as a timeframe for when you'll finish your reply. Don't leave emails hanging out there for more than 24 hours if you can avoid it.

10. Include documents as attachments (unless they are huge).

If you have documents, attach them rather than sending links. Many people have emails downloaded to their phones and tablets which don't have internet connections and they will be unable to see the information offline. If the documents are extremely large, consider attaching the key pages with links to the full documents.

11. Use numbered lists with more than three items.

When you're listing items or points, use numbers when it's greater than three. This allows people to refer to the points in replies or other conversations. It also helps you see how many things you're including which can help you to prioritize.

12. Set no-email hours for your team.

Emails can be very encroaching on personal lives. If people on your team have a habit of emailing at crazy hours, set up "no email" times where people agree to not send emails or cannot reply to emails. Create fun penalties for people who break the rules. Giving people time off email will prevent fatigue and burnout.

While there are many more rules you can, and should, consider, these are my top twelve recommendations that will help you and your team get your emails under control and your inbox to zero more often.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/is-your-team-overwhelmed-by-emails-try-these-12-rules-for-better-emailing.html

Struggling to set effective quarterly objectives? Make sure you’re using these 5 types

Many team struggle with setting effective quarterly objectives. Here are five types that will create better alignment and simplify implementation.

The core of my role as a leadership team coach is to help my clients set strong objectives each quarter that advance the companies growth strategy and critical capabilities. Without these, they only focus their time and energy on the day-to-day demands of the business. Powerful objectives align the team and create urgency and progress on long-term goals.

However, when I walk into many teams, the objectives they've set are often vague, lack key details, and don't serve to focus and align the team. Generally this results in lackluster performance and frustration with progress. With a few revisions and an understanding of what makes good objectives, these pitfalls can often be avoided.

Here are five types of objectives, and examples of each, that I find work best for driving results. If you're having difficulty with your objectives, use these examples to fix them.

1. Completion

When you have an initiative or project to finish, use a completion objective. The key with completion objectives is to define what your "definition of done" is and to set a clear date. Here are three examples,

Allow new affiliate partners to sign up via the website by October 1st

Route all new customer service calls into the new CRM system by August 15th

Complete and deliver all senior executive 360 feedback reports by June 1st

2. Proficiency

Use this objective strategy for when you want to raise the bar on performance for a specific capability in the company and keep it there. For proficiency goals, select a specific performance indicator (how to measure) and a target (the number you want to achieve).

Increase the customer service NPS above 0.25

Get inventory level under 90 day inventory turn

Finish weekly leadership team meeting in under 55 minutes

3. Reduction or elimination

If you're trying to reduce or eliminate something in the business, use this approach. This one is similar to proficiency but opposite since there is a lower limit your trying to get to.

Eliminate all returns due to missing shipping address information

Have zero accidents on the shop floor due to liquid spills

Get same-day employee call-outs to zero

4. Run rate

With run rate objectives we're focused on an absolute number or volume, rather than a proficiency standard or ratio. We want to set a target rate and keep it there going forward. By focusing on rates rather than one total number, we focus on the system that needs to be put in place, not just creating a one-time win.

Increase our inbound lead rate to 25 qualified leads per week

Improve sales in the northeast to $750,000/month

Publish three new white papers per week

5. Composition

Sometimes you want to change a ratio in the business. With these goals, there is usually a range you're targeting with a high and a low. You want to achieve a specific balance, not set a bar to overcome and exceed. Numbers that are too high or too low are both undesirable.

Have 20-25 percent of new clients be small businesses

Spend two to four hours a week on learning and development activities

Keep two to three days of inventory on the top 20 best selling products

Don't over complicate your quarterly planning process. Pick three to five things to focus for the coming ninety days and leave everything else for later. It's far more productive to complete a handful of goals in a quarter than to get halfway on twice as many initiatives. And by focusing on these five types of objectives, you'll simplify your planning even more and accelerate your grow even faster.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/you-can-set-many-types-of-quarterly-objectives-here-are-5-types-that-work-best.html