Scaling Companies Is Not for Everyone. These 6 Skills Will Determine If Your Ceo Is a Growth CEO

Companies have different needs while growing. Having a Growth CEO with the right mindset can make all the difference.

To grow a company fast, you need to envision a bigger, better organization with new structures, innovative strategies, and an evolving culture. This process is not easy, and it's not in the wheelhouse of every CEO or founder.

As a business coach, I work with a lot of CEOs who are growing and scaling their business, often times 100 percent or more a year. And I've learned that the type of CEO who can quickly scale a company is usually not the same CEO as the one who founded it, or CEO who is going to optimize it once it reaches maturity.

Growth CEOs have a different mindset and mix of skills that help them drive expansion and navigate the challenges of rapid change. While CEOs don't need to be perfect in all of these areas, it usually hinders the process if the CEO is deficient in many of them.

1. Grow strategically.

Getting traction, early in a company, is everything. Finding the right customer segment, the right problem to address, and the right solutions to bring to market is critical. Any growth is good growth because it means you're solving a need that people are willing to pay you money for. It validates the business model.

However, once you have traction and are generating revenues, the key is to hone your focus and offering(s) so you can optimize the business. Smart growth CEOs know that even though they can solve a variety of problems, focusing on the one or two that they can do exceptionally well will allow the company to maximize margin and profits.

2. Have a deep understand of their core customers and the market.

The best growth CEOs I know have a deep understanding of a specific customer segment. They've looked at the market and the competition, and they've zeroed in on a specific segment to strategically focus on. They work to understand not only how they buy and use their product/service, but they also understand  what they are trying to accomplish and the broader needs of their customers. This allows these CEOs to drive customer insights and innovation.

3. Use effective and efficient decisions making.

Decision making is always a challenge as companies scale. What needs to be decided by who and within what timeframe gets more and more complicated at the business expands. Effective growth CEOs figure out what to delegate and to whom. They balance speed with effectiveness of decision making and know how to calculate if taking another day to decide is worth the delay in the decision. They are masters of knowing "the last responsible moment" of making a decision and push the limit without going over.

4. Invest in people and talent.

Most companies are limited in how quickly they grow by how quickly they can find and onboard the right talent. Growing a company requires expanding resources, putting in place good management, and building an effective management team. A CEO who tries to grow the company through brute force will quickly falter or burn out. Growth CEOs know they are only as effective as the team of leaders they surround themselves with.

5. Focus on continuous improvement.

It's easy to look at a company and see dozens of problems that can be fixed. The challenge is knowing which problems should be fixed first. Good growth CEOs know how to analyze the business and find the problems that are holding the business back from reaching the next level.

6. Establish rhythms.

Early stage companies are a scramble. Rooting out opportunities and quickly taking advantage of them are part of the scrappy early stages of getting a company off the ground. But once you have traction, a business needs a consistent routine for reviewing progress, identifying priorities, and determining actions and accountability for implementation. Growth CEOs know how to build these habits within the leadership team and management structure to create a repeatable, improvable way of working.

All CEOs need good leadership, communication, and critical thinking skills. But when it comes to taking a business from a few million in revenues to hundreds of millions requires a set of skills unique to that stage of a business's growth. And the fact is that not all CEOs have those skills.

Putting a CEO who is great at starting a company from nothing, or one who's great at optimizing a large company, into a growth situation will lead to lackluster results. Getting the right growth CEO into the business just as it has figured out its niche and is ready to scale ignites the thrusters on the rocket ship.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/how-to-find-right-ceo-to-scale-your-company.html

Having Challenges with a Colleague? Trying to Change Them Is Not Your Only Option

We all run into drama at work. Before you try to change them, take a close look at yourself and develop the right approach.

People have friction with their colleagues. It happens at even the best companies.

Variations in personalities, working styles, cultural norms, and varying levels of emotional intelligence always exist. As a result, there will frequently be differences of opinions and conflicts. In fact, in order to create a healthy and functional team, we need diversity in all of these areas. Sometimes, however, these differences make it tough to work together.

As a leadership coach, I help CEOs and key executives navigate these challenges. There are always a few suggestions I usually give when interpersonal drama heats up.

1. Check your reaction.

The first thing I suggest is to check in with yourself; look at the reaction your having to the situation. Is it their behavior that's out of line? Or are you overly sensitive to what's happening?

Often, we have triggers around certain types of behaviors and situations. If someone is triggering one of these for you, it's really not about them, it's about you. Working on how you react to the situation is where the real work needs to be done.

2. Assess the likelihood of change.

If you're sure that you're being reasonable and the friction is really a function of the other person's behavior, then you need to take a step back and assess the likelihood of them changing. It's difficult to change, and most of people's behavior is driven by underlying psychology which takes time and work to first figure out and second to modify. If it's unlikely that someone will change, then you're probably better off finding a coping mechanism.

3. Calculate the cost of change.

Once you have decided that it's possible that the other person can change their actions, then look at what the cost of the change will be. More importantly, you need to think about the possible secondary impacts of the change. The resulting new behavior might be worse than the current one. Often these types of changes have unanticipated ripple effects on interpersonal dynamics.

4. Give them feedback.

Once you decide to take action, start by giving the other person some feedback. First, I always suggest you ask them for permission to give them feedback and wait for their okay. This enrolls them in the process and helps them accept the feedback.

Start with the specific behavior that is affecting you, and then explain the impact it has. Stay far away from implying their intentions or impact on other people. Finally, ask for the new behavior you would like to see.

5. Develop coping strategies.

Sometimes we either decide that it's not worth requesting a change, or we request it but it's just not happening. In these cases, developing an effective coping strategy is the best solution.

Try re-framing the behavior in your mind to adjust your reaction. For example, if someone is on their phone during the meeting, it's easy to think that they don't respect your time. Instead, tell yourself they have too much work and they can't manage their time well leaving them scrambling to meet a deadline. It's about them, not you. We often over personalize people's behavior as being about us, when it rarely is.

6. Make your own change

If you conclude that you really must take unilateral action, focus on making a change in structure, processes, and/or routines to shake things up. While you can't always get someone to change what they do, if you change the situation they will need to respond. In the phone example, putting in a ground rule of no phones in meetings and having everyone put their devices in a bowl outside the meeting room will cause a new, hopefully better, behavior to emerge.

I always remind my clients that changing other people is an arduous and often fruitless task. The flip side is that we have all the power in the world to change ourselves and our thinking. And while neither approach is easy, we do have options. Sometimes, simply knowing there are options will help us get out of victim mode and into forward momentum

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/is-someone-on-your-team-driving-you-nuts-here-are-your-options.html

The Faster You Want to Grow, the More Focused You Need to Be, Here’s Why

Most early stage companies chase anyone with money. However, if you truly want to scale you need to learn how to say 'no' to a lot more prospects.

People hire me to scale their businesses. And they're not just looking for 10 to 15 percent growth a year. My clients want to grow 50 to 100 percent a year or more. While this kind of growth is not easy, it's very doable for many businesses. The challenge is that if they want to grow at these rates, they need to change the way they do things. And that change can be tough.

One of the toughest changes they need to make is who they prospect and sell to. Typically, I find that most businesses with one to 10 million dollars in revenues use what I call chameleon selling. This is where they hunt for leads and then customize and adjust their products and services to the needs of whatever prospects they find. While you can build a good business this way, you won't build a scalable business.

In order to grow systematically, you need to focus on a small, limited set of products and services that serve the needs of a target set of customers. This is the only way you can hone your processes proficiently, find talent efficiently, and train your people effectively, and consistently deliver a quality product or service.

When working with companies who want to scale, I typically start by defining their ideal customer by looking at past customers and finding companies who have been profitable, easy to serve, and promoters for the business.

Once I have a good set of example ideal customers, we can ask a series of questions that define our ideal target customer. Any prospect who doesn't fit this profile should be de-prioritized in the funnel, regardless of how attractive they look.

1. How would you pick your ideal customer out of a crowd?

The first thing we look at is demographics. What does your ideal customer look like externally. What car do they drive, what school did they go to, how big is there business, in what industry are they, or in what geography are they located? These are things I find in industry reports or through some good Google searching.

This information helps us figure out where we can find these targets and what strategies might work best in terms of prospecting and finding leads. The better we do this and the more refined the demographic description, the easier it is to find a productive channel.

2. What's happening in your ideal customer's head?

The second thing we look at are the psychographic attributes of these core customers. These are their values, concerns, priorities, tendencies, and habits. It tells us how they think and what's going on in their heads. With a good psychographic profile, we can understand what will get their attention, what they are concerned about, and how they make decisions.

This tells us how to best sell to them and how to position our products and services to meet their needs. It will influence everything from types and style of imagery we use in our advertising to the tone and language of the copy we use in our communications.

3. When is the best time to approach your ideal customer and with what offer?

Finally, we want to ask ourselves what triggered the sale or beginning of the engagement. Using our example core customers, we look at what prompted them to start a conversation with us that led to a closed deal. This can be an internal event that occurred--having a baby, hiring an employee, or moving offices. It could also be external events such as a new regulation going into effect, the introduction of a new competitor, the change in industry technology, or a change in the economy.

These events tell you when you need to communicate with you prospect. Too early and you're jumping the gun. Too late and you've missed the boat. Getting this right will increase the impact of your message and greatly improve the efficiency of your selling.

It's also important to map and understand any lags or delays that happen between these events at the beginning of a sales conversation. Knowing that your core customer typically searches for your solutions six months before or three weeks after an event is important for the timing of your messaging.

By clearing defining your core customer in specific terms, you'll be able to be more strategic and efficient with your selling process. Even better is that you'll streamline your delivery and operations management since you'll be focusing on just a few products and services rather then customizing your solution for each customer.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/why-you-should-sell-to-fewer-people-to-increase-your-sales.html

Does running meetings make you cringe?

If your meetings are a free-for-all, then you’re probably lacking good structure. Here’s are a few ground rules to make your meetings more focused and productive.

Last week I was speaking to a CEO friend of mine and he was talking about his holiday break. He and his family had a great time skiing out in Colorado, but what he couldn’t stop complaining about was having to visit his in-laws in Texas.

He complained about the weather, he complained about the food, and he complained about the travel. While he seemed to genuinely like his wife’s family, visiting them was fraught with pain and frustration for him.

When we switched to the topic of his upcoming annual planning retreat with his executive team, things got even worse. “Don’t remind me,” he said.

He went on to explain that each January they plan a two-day retreat to work out their annual goals and targets. And each year, it’s a disappointment for him. Things start out okay, but the meetings quickly deteriorate into griping session and people start rehashing closed issues. Instead of focusing on long-term planning and goal setting, these meetings end up going down rat holes and chasing shiny random ideas.

Ironically, he said that he’d rather stay in Texas another week than come home and run that meeting.

While I was limited in my ability to help him with visiting his in-laws, I was able to help him with some ideas on how to make his annual planning session more productive.

The key to these types of meetings is having a good set of ground rules.
Ground rules help you establish the expected behavior during a meeting so that you can stay focused on the agenda and the topics at hand. By getting everyone’s agreement up front, you create a powerful tool to help the team self-monitor their actions.

You can make any ground rules you want. Just make sure you agree to them up front, before you need them. Trying to put a rule in place after you’re in a mess is hard and people will resist. It’s better to lay down the foundation first.
I have a broad list of ground rules that I use for different types of meetings. I will often customize them to specific situations and many of the teams I coach have unique ground rules for their companies and culture.

Recently I made a video that explains three key ground rules I almost always use: Vegas rules, tackle issues--not people, and assume positive intent.

I also wrote an article on Inc.com about ground rules. It covers a bunch more that I often use and that you might find helpful.

Running a Great Meeting Is Difficult. These 8 Ground Rules Will Make Your Job Easier

Honestly, I think meetings get a bad rap. Understandable, but unfortunate. That’s why I write about them so frequently. Want to try a different type of meeting? Take a peek at this approach which has no agenda...

One of The Most Powerful Meetings You Can Run For Your Team Has No Agenda. Here’s Why.

Do you dread meetings with your team?
In my experience, ground rules have been very effective at shaping up my meetings and making them more productive. If you’re struggling with your meetings, let’s set up a call to discuss which ground rules would be most beneficial to your teams and meetings. Book a call by clicking here.

And if you need some help with your annual planning session, you can find out how I run mine on my website. This page has a video on how to run an annual planning session and has a link to my standard agenda.

Annual Planning Meeting Agenda

Hope 2019 is starting out strong for you and your team.

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

The Best Strategy Is Worthless If It's Too Complicated. Here's Why

Your business strategy explains how you’re going to compete in your market. But if it’s too hard to explain, it won’t work.

Once a year, I spend two days with my client companies developing their annual plan. While we continuously review strategy throughout the year, the annual plan is a chance to do a deeper dive into the internal and external factors that inform how to go to market.

Getting this strategy right, and keeping it right, is key to long-term growth and success. However, many teams get it wrong. They don't get it wrong because the strategy they develop won't work, but because it's impossible to explain it in simple terms. If it's not easy to explain, it will be impossible to execute.

Your employees, your partners, and your customers are the ones who will actually be implementing your strategy. If it's too complicated to understand, they won't understand it.

After you've decided on all of angles you're going to play and all of the moves you're going to make, set to work developing a simple, clear, and effective way to communicate it to everyone on the team. Here are three things every strategy must communicate easily and effectively to all stakeholders.

1. Set a clear (and limited) set of focused priorities.

In essence, strategy is about choice. And the first objective is to set a clear and decisive set of priorities for the organization. The fewer the better. These need to be above and beyond the day-to-day work and focused on long-term goals and key moves needed to get there.

Strategic moves include things like creating new products or services, developing new capabilities, entering new markets, scaling up capacity, or even researching technology. While all of these might help the organization, trying to do all of them at once won't. Pick three to five for the year, max.

Another trick I often employ is to list all of the strategy options that the team eliminated or de-prioritized. By publishing these strategies as well, you're making specifically clear what you're NOT doing in the coming year.

2. Set a clear definition of success and a timeline.

Beyond direction, a good strategy needs a clear desired outcome and definition of success. Too many strategies stop at big ideas without nailing down specifics. The devil lies in the details. Too often, I see a team of people agree to a high level strategic priority, only to discover they are on vastly different pages when the details are fleshed out.

For each strategic direction, create a set of specific goals that are both measurable and time bound. It should be clear to everyone what constitutes completion, and it ideally should include a handful of objective criteria. I generally suggest a simple checklist or short description of the outcome or product.

3. Create a compelling vision of future success.

Now that you have a clear set of priorities and a definition of success, it's time to paint a vivid picture of success. As humans we're wired to be compelled by stories and visual images. Turn the goals you've selected into a narrative explaining why you've chosen these objectives, why they are the most important ones, and how achieving these will lead to organizational success.

If someone on your team has a creative bent, try illustrating your desired future with photos and illustrations. If you're developing a new product or service, find images that reflect the impact you want to create on your customer. If you're expanding into a new geography, create a slideshow highlighting the city or region and explain why it's such an attractive market.

Having a strategy with a clear set of priorities and objectives with actionable outcomes will increase your stakeholder alignment. By creating a rich vision for future success you'll drive engagement and motivation. When in doubt, keep it simple, clear, and compelling. A basic strategy, well-executed, will always beat a brilliant one whiffed.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc-asean.com/grow/if-your-business-strategy-looks-too-complicated-it-probably-is-heres-why/?utm_source=inc&utm_medium=redir&utm_campaign=incredir

5 Plans You Can Make Right Now to Make 2019 Your Best Year Yet

Annual strategic planning is not just setting forecasts. To really up your game, take a deeper and more honest dive into what's working and what's not.

It's that time of year. As 2018 winds down, businesses everywhere are doing their 2019 planning. The type A personalities probably already have it done, while the rest of us are either squeezing it in before the holidays or blocking off days in January. I don't think there is a best time to do annual planning, so long as you do it.

While I don't care when you do it, I do care how you do it. I see many companies setting aside time for annual strategic planning and all they do is map out quarterly sales targets or forecast their key metrics. I hate to break it to you, but that's not strategic planning. That's forecasting.

Strategic planning involves carefully considering where you are as a company, the current state and future of the market, and making hard choices about how and where you'll apply your limited time, energy, and resources. It's more about making decisions, and less about setting targets.

My annual planning agenda is a two-day process. Day one is reflective and focused on generating options and possibilities for the future based on insights and trends. Day two does the hard work of prioritizing and focusing the organization to select a limited number of moves to execute over the coming year.

Here are the key highlights from that agenda you can use to up your annual strategic planning game. Even if you don't have two days, running through these in just one is better than skipping them.

1. Take the time to reflect deeply

Start with a review of the previous year. I like to structure this as a retrospective with a twelve-month timeline and a generous data gathering process. Gather input from the entire organization about what they recall from the last year. Make sure to include the good, the bad, and the ugly. Try not to edit at this stage, just let things come up.

Once you have the data, begin to look for insight, patterns, correlations, alignment, and disagreements about what happened, and if it was good or bad. Look for areas that need focused improvement. Select areas that are critical to your business and will impact your success.

2. Dig into issues to find root problems

Once you've identified areas that need to be worked on, dig below the surface of the issue to find the root problems. This is a two-part process:

First, you need to repeatedly ask why. This helps identify the underlying cause to the surface-level issues. If you're struggling with your accounts receivable, you might need to look at your delivery process or how you structure your engagements, not just how many times you email your client hounding them for payment.

Second, you can't blame people, you need to look at the system. People are only as good as the system they operate in and you can only address errors by creating a system that prevents them from happening. Take blaming people off the table; focus on what underlying processes need to be fixed.

3. Review your strategy and positioning

Once you have identified the changes you need to make, review your strategy. This will help you decide which one you really need to focus on. You might find ten areas that need improvement and come up with ten more changes that need to be made to them. You won't have the time to energy to do all them.

Assuming you have a good strategy framework in place that clarifies where you see the market going, how you will respond, and the key moves you need to make, update the strategy with current information around the market and the competitors. Make the necessary adjustments to your plans and update your moves.

4. Choose a handful of priorities for the year

Using your updated strategy, focus on making changes to the the areas that are critical to your strategic positioning and core capabilities. While you might have found several areas that need improvement, prioritize those that impact your strategy most directly. Choose three to five to put in your annual plan.

5. Communicate your plan to your stakeholders

Most importantly, after you've analyzed and identified the key changes you're prioritizing for the year, communicate everything to each of your stakeholders. You internal employees are the most obvious, but don't forget contractors/freelancers, vendors, partners, current customers, suppliers, and investors. These groups need to know you plans (at varying levels of detail and specificity) for the year.

If you haven't put together your 2019 annual strategic plan, it's not too late. Just remember that it's more than setting numerical targets, it's about making tough but important choices that you'll stick with over the coming twelve months.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/the-2-day-goal-setting-process-that-will-make-2019-your-best-year-yet.html

Nicer Managers Get Better Long-Term Results. Here’s How You Can Up Your Game and Your Reputation

Good managers deliver the results a company needs at the end of the day. A great leader knows how to deliver results year after year.

I frequently get calls from investors in early-stage companies asking me to meet their portfolio CEOs when things get rocky. Sometimes, the strategy isn't working and they need help with a pivot. Other times, they are having difficulty executing and their processes need refinement. More often than not, these challenges arise because the company has grown, the teams are getting bigger, and the founder is struggling to adapt.

As a company grows, leaders must shift from the directing style of an entrepreneur to a supportive and inspirational role as CEO. It's not an easy transformation, and it's normal to struggle.

In these situations, I've found that it's best to focus on developing long-term relationships with the team members. A big part of this is being nicer to your people. Here are six things I focus on.

1. Take the time to listen.

They say you have two ears and one mouth for a reason; you should use them proportionately. As a leader, try to listen more than you speak. Before you launch into your agenda, check in with your people. Find out where they are and what they are thinking; then adjust your message accordingly.

While it's important to take the time to understand someone, you also need to take the time to make sure the other person feels heard. Sometimes waiting until they're finished speaking takes a while, but trust that it's time well spent. If someone doesn't feel heard, they are usually not willing to listen.

2. Commitment not compliance.

It's easy to get someone to do something by yelling at them. Your threats don't need to be explicit. Issuing commands, raising your voice, rolling your eyes, and crossing your arms all imply that you're done discussing and you expect people to do exactly what you say.

This method gets you compliance, not true commitment. The moment your direct reports no longer feel the immediate threat, they will return to their previous behavior. If you continue the threats, they will promptly look for a new job. Unfortunately, the people who stay will be the ones who can't find a better job, and you'll be stuck with the bottom of the talent barrel.

Nice leaders include their people in the decision-making process. The more your people contribute, the more they will be committed to decisions. Even if it's not the way you would do it, let them do it their way. It will be much easier to have tough conversations about performance if the approach was theirs.

3. Set clear expectations.

Before you can hold someone accountable for results, you need to know what the measure of success is. Get clear about what you expect before you meet with anyone. Frequently, I see executives upset about results, but when asked, they can't even articulate what they want.

Nice leaders provide clarity. For projects, I suggest creating a success checklist. This should be an objective set of criteria which a third party could use to determine whether the project is done. The devil is in the details here: be specific and always test assumptions.

4. Give feedback.

Many managers see things that don't meet their expectations, but they don't say anything. They hold onto it until the annual review when they unload all of the criticisms at once.

Nice leaders provide regular feedback using neutral language. They nudge people politely if they want something different. They encourage people to make changes and to experiment with different approaches. They create a safety net by rewarding people who try to make positive changes, even if they come up short.

5. Coach don't manage.

Many managers swoop in and take things over when they see problems. These same managers often complain that people keep coming to them with their problems, expecting things to be fixed for them.

Nice leaders let people do the work. When a problem comes up, they start asking questions. What have you tried? What haven't you tried? What other approaches could we try? Who else could help? Where else could we find information to help us?

6. Be empathetic.

Generally, I suggest keeping personal stuff out of the office, but I see many managers expect that their employees keep the office strictly business. They have no tolerance for people's personal lives showing up at work.

The fact is we are humans with complicated lives; sometimes it's impossible to show up to work with a perfectly clean slate. Nice leaders know stuff happens. They give people the time and space to take care of personal needs, still insisting the job gets done and customers are happy.

Being a nice leader doesn't mean you're a pushover. It means that you treat people as people and work with compassion and respect and with the intent of creating trust over the long term.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: http://preview.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/want-to-be-a-better-leader-try-being-nicer-heres-how.html

How can you tell if someone is coachable?

No matter how you spin it, coaching is not for everyone. Have you ever struggled with an employee or direct report that doesn’t seem open to the coaching process?

As their manager or mentor, you know there’s room for improvement. You tried being nice and perhaps you’ve even tried yelling and screaming, too. Bottom line is you have tried in a number of ways to explain the change you're looking for—and nothing seems to work.

The fact remains: not everyone is coachable.

So what can you do?

Having been a business coach for over a decade, I’ve learned to look out for a few key characteristics.

These telltale signs usually give me a good idea as to whether a person will be receptive to new ideas and approaches. If my potential clients or direct reports don’t have these qualities, I’ll be reluctant to start the coaching process with them.

In this video, I outlined a few of them that I look out for: self-awareness, ambition, and accountability.
I also wrote about all six qualities I look for in a recent article on inc.com:

Coaching Is a Powerful Management Tool, but Not Everyone Can Be Coached. Here’s How to Tell.

Are you or one of your people coachable?

Let’s set up a call to talk through the “warning signs” you might be seeing. Coaching is an investment whether you are the one giving or the one receiving the coaching. You’ll want to set yourself up for success by being prepared for the coaching process before it begins.

Bruce “Coach” 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

4. And if you’re trying to manage remote teams, check out this post by Coding Ninjas

https://codingninjas.co/blog/ultimate-guide-how-to-manage-remote-teams/

Want to Motivate Your Team to Reach A Goal? Create a Winning Theme That Gives Purpose - Here's How

Setting goals is key to business success, but teams often just focus on the numbers. Instead, create a theme that gives meaning to your achievement.

Many teams hire me because they want to grow faster. They are highly motivated, but they typically lack the experience, structure, and discipline to determine how to implement their strategy. As an outside set of experienced eyes, I can often see obstacles more easily than they can.

One common situation is that leadership teams have set many financial and performance goals, but the rest of the teams continually fail to meet these targets. The targets--revenues, gross margins, units shipped, conversation rates, and billable hours--are good, but they haven't wrapped these targets into a story that offers inspiration and meaning behind the success to the team.

What they've failed to do is provide a theme to the goals. A theme demonstrates how the targets tie into the organizational purpose and it helps them see how the success of their team can make a clear impact. A good theme has a few parts. Here is a process I use to elevate my objectives to be more than just a set of numbers.

1. Know your purpose.

Before you can create a theme, you need to know your purpose. Why are you in business? What differences do you want to make in your customers' lives? A good theme will connect to some aspect of your why and show that when you achieve your targets you will be closer to realizing that purpose.

2. Select your priorities.

It's important to build your theme around your priorities. The key here is focus. Select just a few things to prioritize and make it clear that everything else is a back burner item during this time. You can't be highly successful if you're doing too many things at once.

3. Choose your metric.

Once you have your priorities, choose one metric to focus on. This is a number that, if changed, will indicate that you're achieving your goals. I like to avoid revenue metrics and focus more on subtle aspects. For example, if a priority is sales, aim for a specific number of new ideal accounts, of new qualified leads, or a conversation target. Find a number which measures a process rather than a result.

4. Set your targets.

Now you're going to set your targets for success. Are you trying to get to 50 or 500? Maybe you want to reduce a specific defect from 6% to under 1%. I like stretching goals, so I typically have my teams set one number at the 70-80% confidence level and then a stretch number which defines hitting it out of the park. Make sure you do this as a team; have everyone participate and vote. This increases people's involvement and commitment to the final targets.

5. Craft a theme.

After creating the priority, metric, and target, you're ready to develop a theme. This is your chance to get a little creative. Come up with a concept, phrase, or story that ties your metric to your purpose. Now's the time to leverage the people in your organization who are good with copy and marketing. The snappier the theme, the more memorable it will be.

One company I worked with wanted to focus on their core value: "sharpen the axe." They tracked the number of process improvements made over the quarter. The goal was finding ways of working smarter, not harder.

6. Create a scoreboard.

A scoreboard helps you visualize your goal. Use your metric and your theme to drive the design. You get points for creativity. For the example above, the team made a big poster of a tree and then made little wedges they would write improvements on to paste on the tree like it was being chopped at. It became a conversation piece for visitors and everyone in the company could readily see the progress being made.

7. Create a reward and plan a celebration.

Many teams create bronze, silver, and gold-level rewards for the company based on hitting different levels of achievement. Afterwards, they have a party or social event around the theme to tie it all together.

For the "sharpen the axe" theme above, the team set a goal of 100 improvements over the quarter and the reward was a company outing. Where did they go? You guessed it, axe throwing!

8. Establish a rhythm.

Make sure you're reviewing progress at least once a week. Add it to your meeting agenda and take five minutes to discuss progress. Many teams I coach work it into their daily standup. The axe throwing team added the wedges each morning and then announced the new count during the morning stand up.

Every company needs to work hard if they want to achieve their goals, but that doesn't mean it can't be fun as well. Creating themes brings a powerful human element to the workplace and makes it easier to stay focused and be successful.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/want-to-motivate-your-team-to-reach-a-goal-create-a-winning-theme-that-gives-purpose-heres-how.html

Beating Out Other Candidates to Land Your Dream Job

Passing a few interview rounds, along with a technical evaluation, might be enough to get you to the final stages of a company’s hiring process. But to actually land the position, you need to win out over professionals with comparable skills.

If you’re faced with strong competition, how can you position yourself as the preferred candidate? Here are some effective strategies: 

Add a New Checkbox

Recruiters and hiring managers typically select applicants who check off the most boxes on their list of requirements. That generally means there’s a lot of parity among the top contenders for any given job. If you want to win out, you’ll need to focus on something that makes you unique; that will separate you from other candidates who boast similar experience.

“Look beyond the job description and the required technical skills to find an attribute that gives you a huge advantage, preferably something that will impact the business or address the hiring manager’s implicit concerns or issues,” said Bruce Eckfeldt, Inc. 500 CEO and business coach for early-stage and high-growth companies.

To understand what distinguishes you from other applicants, put on your marketing hat. Create a competitive map or conduct an attribute analysis (a tool used to identify competitors’ positions and a challenger’s key differentiators). For instance, are you one of those rare developers who is able to communicate with product managers, as evidenced by your track record of successful cross-team collaborations?

Alternatively, can you show that you are in a constant state of adapting and learning, which points to future success? Does something in your record show that you’ll mesh well with your company’s culture? Those kinds of things will make you a “less risky” hire.

You might not boast all of your rivals’ strengths (and you might not even know who you’re competing against, most likely), but you can nonetheless influence the hiring manager’s decision-making if you can emphasize something that makes you the best fit for the company’s specific needs. Just insisting that you’re “skilled” or “experienced” won’t necessarily cut it; show why you’re ideal for the firm at this moment in its history.

Appeal to the Hiring Manager’s Emotions

A recent study revealed that managers tend to base their hiring decisions on emotion; specifically, whether they feel excitement and enthusiasm for the candidate.

That means forming an emotional bond with the hiring manager (and any prospective teammates who appear during the interview process) is key. Let your personality shine through; remain friendly and inquisitive. Demonstrating passion for the company’s mission and people is nearly as important as showing that you have the technical chops for the role.

Draw Subtle Comparisons

Don’t bash other candidates, even hypothetical ones; that only puts you in a bad light, weakening your chances of landing the job. Instead, draw very subtle comparisons by emphasizing your unique strengths. Take the time to describe examples of your previous work that are relevant to the current job, especially if the results were stellar.

For example, you could say something along the lines of: “While most programmers commit an average of three coding errors an hour, my average is less than one. I’ve improved my bug to code ratios through experience and by supporting my manager’s stringent code review process.”

Fix What You Can

If you botched an answer to a technical question, you can attempt to clear that up during the final stages of the hiring process. Don’t interrupt the flow of the interview to revisit a particular instance—that may only annoy the interviewer. Instead, seize any opportunities that arise organically to revisit those previous topics. By providing additional examples or proof statements, you can show that you indeed know your stuff.

Summarize and Close

Connecting the dots between your attributes and the manager’s needs is not only a powerful way to close your job-interview argument, it’s a key differentiator, explained Dana Manciagli, president of Job Search Master Class.

Here’s how to plan for your closing statement: Before the interview, create a document with a two-column layout. Highlight the manager’s top requirements in one column; in the other, list your specific successes (i.e., the results you’ve achieved in your previous roles) and relevant experience. Any requirements that align with your successes/experience are your key talking points.

For example, if the role requires someone who’s skilled in iOS development, and you built an iOS app at your last job that increased the company’s engagement and revenue by a significant amount, that should form a key aspect of your closing argument: You know how to leverage the technology in ways that profit a company.

Whatever talking points you decide upon, make sure to lay out your case in a logical manner. That will increase your chances of landing a job, especially when you face stiff competition.

This article was originally published on Dice.com: https://insights.dice.com/2018/11/19/beating-out-candidates-land-dream-job/

Have you ever felt like a fake?

Have you ever felt that you’re in over your head? Maybe even that if people really knew how much you didn’t know or how unsure you were, they might fire you from your job?

These feelings come up more often than you’d think. Questioning your ability to lead is natural. In fact, it’s one of the most common leadership challenges I run into when coaching executives. This experience is extremely common among leaders in all kinds of roles, but it’s especially common in quickly growing organizations.

It’s so common that psychologists have given it a name: Imposter Syndrome.

It’s that feeling when you’ve found yourself in a role you’re not capable of and everyone is going to find out. You feel desperate to prove them wrong, but also hopeless that any minute now things will crumble to the ground.

But it doesn’t have to be the end. In fact it’s a good sign that you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone into your learning zone. And there are a few things you can do to push completely through.

It’s first important to remember here that all leaders have reached a point where they start to question their abilities.

As leaders of quickly growing organizations, you need to be constantly improving and reinventing yourself to keep up with the competition. It’s normal to feel that you don’t measure up from time to time. The trick is to not let it completely derail your progress.

If you want to learn more about the ways to shift your focus, watch the video or check out the article I wrote for inc.com about the topic.

3 Easy and Effective Ways I Overcame Feeling Like an Imposter

Need help and motivation to feel up to the challenge?

From time to time, it can be really difficult to push those negative thoughts out of your mind. If that’s the case, let’s set up a call to discuss ways that you can turn these thoughts into productive action. Book a call by clicking here.

“Great leaders don’t need to act tough.
Their confidence and humility serve to underscore their toughness.” — Simon Sinek

Bruce “Cheerleader” 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

Core Values Are Not an Airy-Fairy Feel-Good Exercise. They Are a Powerful Decision Making Tool If You Do Them This Way

Many companies create aspirational core values, make posters, and check the box. Here is how to up your core value game and make better decisions.

Business is full of decisions. What products or services to offer, which people to hire, which clients to serve, and what geographies to focus on are all important questions. A successful business needs to make these decisions efficiently and effectively.

Leadership teams navigate these choices in many ways. Previous outcomes give them experience. Processes help them ensure they investigate options, tradeoffs, and risks. However, the most important decision-making tool is developing a strong set of core values.

Unfortunately, many companies fail to get these right. Some create a set of core values which are a list of generic platitudes. Words like honesty, integrity, and ethics are table stakes for being in business, not ways to define who you are.

Other companies create lists of idealized desires for what they wish to be rather than who they currently are. This leaves companies with aspirational goals rather than a tool for embracing their raison d'etre.

As a business coach, I've found several ways to ensure that your values are effective decision-making tools rather than lip service on poster board.

1. Discover, don't decide.

Many teams approach core values as a decision. They look at a list of words and decide which words describe who they are. They debate the pros and cons of different terms trying to determine which one is correct. Values, however, are not something you can rationalize.

Instead, think of your core values as something buried deep within you that require unearthing. Looking at past decisions and behaviors will reveal that which already exists.

2. Values are reality not the ideal.

Often times when I start working with a new team, we review their existing core values, and they describe wonderful ideas. However, when we start looking at recent decisions, policies, and incentive systems, we soon realize that none of these are alive in the company.

The mistake they've made is creating an idealized set of aspirational values that feel nice rather than a list of descriptors that illustrate reality. I like to joke that your values should be fifteen pounds overweight, have a receding hairline, and drink a little too much. If your values look perfect, then they are probably not right.

3. Your values should have a dark side.

One of my personal core values is self-reliance. Usually, this serves me well and by embracing it I'm aligned and in my flow state more often than not. However, sometimes it works against me. For example, I don't like someone taking my bags to my room at a hotel. I'll balance two suitcases on top of a roller just so that I don't have to rely on a bellhop. My method doesn't make sense, but it's the reality of who I am.

I know that a leadership team has nailed a core value when they can point to situations where the value has required them to do something that was difficult or seemingly unnecessary compared to other teams. You should feel compelled to live you values, even when it doesn't make complete sense.

4. Each value needs an anti-value.

Core values are tools for making difficult decisions. And in order to serve that purpose well, you need to know what you are choosing as well as what you're not choosing. A core value reflects a trade off between two equally valid choices. The harder the choice, the more powerful the core value becomes.

I like to call the things you don't choose "anti-values." They are things you're willing to give up in order to live your value. For example, if one of your core values is collaboration, then you might be willing to give up competition. In that case, you won't create individual incentive plans or promote head-to-head challenges and still be true to your values.

My test for anti-values is if you can switch the order and give them to another company and it still works, then you have a good pair. It means that you've given up something of value in your choice.

5. Identify moments in time that illustrate them

One of the most powerful parts of your core values is the stories you tell about them. For each core value, I have the team identify two to three cases when they had to use that core value to make a tough decision. It could have been to fire someone or to continue or discontinue a project. Sometimes the stories are how they didn't follow their core values and how it hurt them.

It's okay if your team prints up a poster of your core values or paints them on the walls of your office, but if that's all you do, then you've missed the point. Core values aren't window dressings; they should be used daily to guide actions and decisions.

This article was originally published on Inc.com : https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/dont-develop-core-values-then-forget-to-use-them-heres-how-to-make-them-count.html

Most Employees Dread Performance Reviews. Here’s How to Make Them Fair, Useful, and Less Painful.

For most companies the review process is confusing and unhelpful to both the manager and the direct. Here’s how to change that.

The annual review season will soon be upon us. With that, comes much angst regarding how to evaluate your people. If bonuses are involved, it gets even more complex as you decide who should get how much of the pie.

As an advisor who works with dozens of companies on performance management strategies, I've seen a few things that work well, and I suggest these when leadership teams are looking to overhaul their review process. Here are a few big ones.

1. Review quarterly not annually.

One of the best changes you can make is to review more often. First, this offers employees more frequent feedback and multiple chances to set better milestones for their development.

Second, by reviewing more frequently, the organization gets better at doing it. Also, meeting more often means there is less to review which simplifies the meeting.

2. Use a role scorecard.

A role scorecard is used to define the scope and responsibilities of a position and how success is measured. Too often people are in roles without a clear sense of what they should be doing or how they will be measured.

Scorecards are as simple as index cards with the top priorities of a given role or as complicated as multiple-page spreadsheets. Personally, I use a one-page worksheet including title, name of reporting manager, key responsibilities, KPIs, targets for below/meets/exceeds expectations, and available resources.

3. Separate the performance and compensation reviews.

I suggest separating the performance and compensation reviews. While money can be motivating, it's typically restrictive and can skew behavior. It's better to keep the compensation review separate, or at least make a clean break in the agenda.

4. Collect multiple points of feedback

Rather than one manager putting their wet finger in the air, collect feedback from three to five people on specific behavior. Don't ask people if someone deserves a promotion or a bonus; that's the managers call.

Collecting input from different people gives managers perspective on their directs' behaviors. It also gives more credibility to results which will help managers during their conversations with their directs.

5. Provide specific examples

One of the best things to do when giving feedback is to provide specific examples of behavior and results. Bring copies of work products or descriptions of actions. Abstract ideas and generalizations can be easily misinterpreted.

6. Talk about what's going right

It's important to reinforce positive behavior. Often we assume people know what they are doing well, but that's not always the case. Call it out, be specific, and explain why it's good.

Avoid the feedback sandwich. People ignore the bread and usually only focus on the meat. Corrective feedback is something to be embraced and valued, not something to be ashamed of.

7. Set clear expectations for new behavior

When giving corrective feedback, it's important to be clear on what the new/different behavior or results look like. Simply telling someone that they are doing something wrong isn't enough. They are left with the 99 thousand other ways to try it. Giving clear examples of the right and/or desired way gives them a clear target.

8. Have them create a plan for change

Once feedback is given and the direct is clear on what needs to change, I suggest having them come up with their own plan of attack. There are two reasons this is helpful. First, the direct is going to own the plan and will be more committed to the process. Second, it means less work for the manager.

9. Ask what support they need

My management philosophy is hire good people who are self-motivated, point them in the right direction, and give them support. If you've given feedback and they created a good plan, let them run with it and simply ask them how you can help. You might be able to offer advice on a decision, an introduction to someone who can help, or a recommendation for materials or training, but let them ask for it first. Keep them in the driver's seat.

10. Establish a check in time frame

Any professional development plan requires milestones. Once you have a plan, establish what the next milestone is and when you'll meet to review their progress. Let them suggest the first plan. If you feel that's too far in the future, ask them to schedule a halfway meeting. If the pace seems slow, give them feedback that the plan doesn't seem to get them where they want to be in time. But let them replan; resist the urge to step in and take it over.

While assessing performance can be a little uncomfortable, it's the best way to drive organizational improvement. Keeping it objective, focused on the future, positive, and supportive will help minimize stress, while maximizing impact and driving real results.

This article was originally published on Inc.com : https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/getting-ready-for-annual-performance-reviews-heres-how-to-make-yours-worthwhile.html

8 Easy to Learn Ground Rules That Will Make Your Next Meeting More Productive and Fun

Good meetings require structure and process. Here are 8 ground rules that will improve your productivity and focus.

Everyone loves to hate meetings. The fact is they are a core part of working within any organization. Gathering to discuss issues, develop options, and make decisions is often the most efficient way to get work done. Done well, meetings can help quickly clarify challenges, advance ideas, and lead to clear implementation plans.

Bad meetings are typically the result of a lack of a focus, agenda, or structure. And one of the best tools you can use to make sure you stay productive is agreeing on a set of meeting ground rules. Here are eight that I use on a regular basis.

1. Use Vegas rules

Like in Las Vegas, what happens in meetings should stay in the meeting. We don't keep this rule because we want to discuss people's dark secrets or talk ill of people who are not in the meeting, but because we want people to speak openly about what they think about the issues on the table. If people worry that something they say will come back to haunt them, they will be less likely to share. Keep things respectful, but agree that what is said will not leave the room without everyone's agreement.

2. Tackle issues, not people

Too often, when things get heated, people fall into the trap of ad hominem attacks. This only leads to people becoming defensive, taking intractable positions, and dragging in unrelated issues to counter attack. Instead, agree that the team should focus on finding solutions to the problem, not assigning blame and doling out punishment. I often use the phrase "don't make things personal, and don't take things personally" when setting the tone for the meeting.

3. Assume positive intent

I like everyone to agree to approach problems with the assumption that everyone involved is doing everything they can to help the organization. Even if their actions or decisions may look bone-headed in retrospect, assume everyone acted in good faith. It will help focus on finding future solutions rather than who's to blame.

4. Speak now, or forever hold your peace

Sometimes people are hesitant to speak up in meetings. As a facilitator, I do everything I can to remove barriers for people to be able to speak their minds, and I use techniques like silent brainstorming to accommodate different thinking styles. In return, I ask that people have the courage to say what they have to say during the meeting. I want to avoid situations where the group reaches a decision and the next day someone brings up a reservation they held onto, unwinding the hard work we put into reaching an agreement.

5. Own your own experience

You can lead a horse to water, but only they can drink. Same with meetings. Just bringing people together will not cause a meeting to happen. Each person needs to actively participate. This ground rule reminds people that if they want a great meeting, they need to engage and speak up.

6. Be present, or be elsewhere

When I come into companies with bad meeting habits, I'll often suggest they adopt a meeting optional policy to shake things up. It does two things. First, it forces the meeting organizer to run a good meeting with important topics so people actually come. Second, it means that anyone who shows up will be fully engaged, otherwise why bother attending.

7. Have one conversation

While I love heated debate and passionate discussion, chaos will ensue if people are having multiple conversations on top of each other. Insisting on one conversation at a time will allow everyone to fully participate and follow along. If you're dealing with a particularly unruly crowd, you can pull out the talking stick and pass it around to focus the conversation.

8. Follow the 40 second rule

Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, explains why some people tend to talk too much in meeting in this Harvard Business Review article How to Know If You Talk Too Much. He says that when someone talks more than 40 seconds, people begin to feel like they are hogging the floor. I encourage my teams to be aware of how long they've been speaking and find a way to hand it off to someone else after a half a minute or so.

While there are many other things that you need to run good meetings, these ground rules are an important place to start. To be most effective, don't foist them on your group. Discuss them and get full agreement on them before enforcing them. Agreement on the ground rules shifts the dynamic from you trying to control the meeting to you reminding others of the agreement they made.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/running-a-great-meeting-is-difficult-these-8-ground-rules-will-make-your-job-easier.html

Ask A Career Coach: How Can I Beat Out Another Candidate In The Final Interview?

Dear Bruce,

I’ve been interviewing for several weeks for a new position. Honestly, I’m a perfect fit for this role. I have the experience, and I’ve hit all of the key points from their job description in my resume. The salary is right in my range, plus I love the company’s culture and values.

I’ve had two in-person interviews, and I’m scheduled to go in for a final interview next week. Everyone I’ve spoken to has loved me, and they’ve all implied that I have the job in the bag. I’ve been treating this last interview as a formality to discuss the details of the job offer and some final compensation negotiations.

Then, when I called yesterday to confirm the interview time, the HR manager indicated that they have one other person also coming in for a final round. I was shocked! I’m not sure what to do. How do I make myself stand out in the final interview round against that one person in these last moments?

Signed,

Fiercely Competitive

Dear Fiercely Competitive,

First, stay calm. There’s no point in letting a little competition throw you off your game. Going in focused on trying to “beat” the other person isn’t an effective strategy. Instead, get clear on your values. Focus on what you can contribute, and express your interest in the position.

The fact is, you’re always competing when there’s an open position: Outside applicants, internal promotions and even the threat of leaving the slot open are all options for the company. In addition, organizations often move multiple candidates to final interviews. Finding out that there’s someone else vying for the role in this stage is to be expected and shouldn’t be seen as a bad sign.

That said, there are few things you can do to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward.

1. Emphasize The Strengths You’ve Previously Covered

First, review your previous interviews and identify the strengths you’ve already covered effectively. Make sure to highlight those strengths again and why they’ll be valuable to the organization. If you’re meeting with new people, mention the discussion you’ve had with others during the process and their positive responses.

“When I was speaking with Gregg about the project management process, he mentioned that my experience in agile software development would be a great asset for the team.”

2. Reposition Points That Were Weak Or Weren’t Clear

Another thing to do is think back to any points that you maybe didn’t nail. Try to restate them in a more clear and direct manner. Don’t draw attention to the fact that you covered them poorly before, just restate them succinctly.

“In my interviews with Sammy and Alexa, they mentioned that teamwork is an important value. While much of my previous work has been individually focused, my most fulfilling and successful professional experiences have been with teams. I’m looking forward to more of that type of work here.”

3. Acknowledge The Competition And Suggest Criteria

Finally, while you may not know the competition’s exact strengths and weaknesses, you can make sure that the scales are tipped in your favor. Acknowledge that the organization has a choice and then suggest the criteria they should use to make a successful hire. By influencing the criteria, you’re indirectly selling yourself without coming across as overly self-promotional.

“Janet, I’m sure you have several good options for this role. It seems to me if you really want to raise the bar on product development capabilities, you should focus on bringing in folks that have both the technical knowledge of lean product development and the experience applying it in the healthcare space.”

While none of these will guarantee you'll get the job, they will help make sure you’re presenting yourself in the best possible light. And, of course, now that you know you’re not being asked in as a formality or to discuss the job offer but to continue to demonstrate why you should be hired, you’ll approach it in the right way. You want to be confident but not overly so. It’s not time to stop hustling, not just yet.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2017/05/15/ask-a-career-coach-how-can-i-beat-out-another-candidate-in-the-final-interview/#79e934077651

You Don’t Need to Pay More for A-Players. Here’s Why.

One of the challenges that I come across when meeting with CEOs is they associate their A-Players to higher salaries and big bonuses.

What if I told you that finding and retaining A-players wasn’t always about the money?

The first step I share with my clients is you need to establish what an A-player looks like for your business. The fact is: an A-player in one company or role might be a B-player in another.

How do you figure this out?

Talent scores are a great way to evaluate your team and to figure out how people are doing in their roles and what’s working and what’s not from a "people" point of view. It’s important to get into the nitty gritty details to be able to evaluate your people. And knowing your people has many advantages when growing and scaling your business.

If you’re familiar with the Top Grading process, you know that we like to talk about the definition of an “A-player.” The technical definition of A-players I like to use is the top 10% of talent for a given salary level and a specific geography.

You can always find better people if you start throwing money at the problem, but an A-player is not the best person money can buy, it’s the best person you can get for your budget.

The thinking here is that if you can get better talent for the same price that your competition is paying--through smarter sourcing, better interviewing, and more effective on-boarding--you’ll be able to beat the competition. If you’re paying more money than the competition, then they have more resources and can outflank you in other ways.

Defining your A-player is not hard, but it takes some work.

There are a handful of parameters--all unrelated to salaries and who I like the most--that I like to use when evaluating people.

If you want to learn more about these key evaluation criteria, watch the video or check out the article I wrote for inc.com about the topic.

A-Players Are Not the People You Like the Most, But They Drive Results. Here’s How to Tell Who Your Best Employees Are

Putting the right people in the right seats has benefits for you, the CEO, and the employee, alike. Taking the time to get this right has significant benefits to the organization and fuel success.

Are you finding it difficult to identify your A-Players?

Sometimes it’s hard to look past the the people you like the most or the people with an impeccable CV. Let’s set up a call to discover ways that you can get into more of the implicit ways your people are helping or hurting your business's success. Book a call by clicking here.

I'll conclude with one of my favorite quotes about talent from Jim Collins in his book Good to Great...

People are not your most important asset...
...the right people are.

Bruce "Talent Scout" 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

Not All Attrition Is Bad. Here’s How You Tell Who You Should Keep...And Who You Should Let Leave

Not every employee is an A-player, and the best companies have a clear criteria for knowing who they should keep and who they should

Every company needs to find the right people and put them in the right seats if they want to be successful. And while it might sound easy, figuring out who your good people are and who your best people are is critical to success. A great employee can often be two to three times more productive than just a good employee, yet the difference can be subtle.

Here are eight factors that I use with my clients when doing talent reviews to see who we should be going to all lengths to keep and who we might be okay accepting a resignation letter from. A company who has the vast majority of their key roles filled with people who score very well on these parameters will be a force to reckon with in their industry.

1. They understand the role and expectations.

Your top people know what's expected of them in their role and what's outside their scope. Someone who is given a clear description but still has to ask questions or be reminded of work they need to accomplish is not in the right position. Similarly, someone who repeatedly extends themself beyond their role can create problems and is unlikely getting more important work done.

2. They demonstrate the ability to perform.

The best people can perform their role functions with a high level of skill. While they may have room for improvement in a few areas, they are highly capable and have mastered the majority of their tasks. If someone is struggling for an extended period of time on a core part of the job function, they are probably not a good fit for that role.

3. They are hungry to learn and continuously improve.

Top performers are always looking to improve and get better. They have a growth mindset and are continuously setting new targets and striving for higher levels of achievement. Once they have mastered their current job functions, they will naturally start working on the next higher role and training themselves.

4. They cooperate well with others.

While different roles require different levels of collaboration, all top performers can cooperate with others in a win-win outcome whenever needed. They don't keep score and don't hold out for a quid pro quo deal. They know that in the great game of business karma is more powerful than an IOU.

5. They focus on system--not local--optimization.

Great performers know when they need to rise above their local situation and do something for the good of the team rather than what's just easiest for them. They seek to understand the bigger picture and they work to find improvements to the larger system, even if is means their job gets a little harder.

6. They are easy to manage and coach.

The best people know that feedback is critical to getting better. They welcome observations on their performance and suggestions for how they can improve. And they don't just 'yes' you, they ask clarifying questions and want details.

7. They have passion and desire for the role.

Beyond the ability to execute well, your best employees will bring a high level of energy, excitement, and drive to the role. They celebrate wins and dig deep when there's a problem. And not everyone needs to be an extrovert. Passion can be subtle and private, but you'll find it if you look for it.

8. They live the company's core values.

Last, but not least, your best people will be aligned with your company and your team's core values. They will naturally embody the way your organization works and chooses to make decisions. Someone who likes to be a lone wolf in a company that values teamwork will never be a top performer, regardless of how we'll they execute on their role.

Finding and keeping the best talent is not easy. While attracting and recruiting are key to creating a good pipeline, if you aren't continuously reviewing and topgrading your current team, you are either watering down your talent concentration or you won't have any where to put great people when you find them.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/a-players-are-not-people-you-like-most-but-they-drive-results-heres-how-to-tell-who-your-best-employees-are.html

Here Are 6 Important Questions That Will Decide If Hiring a Coach Will Boost Your Performance or Drain Your Pocketbook.

Whether you're a top executive or a recent grad, coaching could be a huge boost to your career. But it could also be a waste of money.

The professional coaching industry has exploded over the last decade. Today, I hear high-powered executives bragging at cocktail parties that they have not one but two or three coaches who help them with everything from leadership to public speaking to mindset.

As a leadership coach, I'm thrilled that so many people are hiring professional like me. However, like any trend, some people rush into hiring a coach who maybe shouldn't. Here are a few questions I ask people who approach me about coaching and questions I suggest you ask yourself before you hire a coach.

1. How self-aware are you?

While this is a difficult question to ask yourself, it's key to the coaching process. If you're not willing, or able, to objectively look at your own thinking, behavior, and actions, then coaching may have limited impact. Those who get a lot out of coaching are highly aware of how their behaviors impact others and situations.

Check the language in your thinking. When something bad happens, do you immediately start blaming other people and finding excuses of why the external world conspired against you and put you in a bad situation? If so, you might want to first work on seeing how you contributed to the outcomes, too.

2. Are you ambitious?

Coaches can help develop great strategies and paths to success, but they can't do the work for you. If you're not driven to make changes and not willing to put in the hard work to implement the action plans, you might not get much out of coaching. You need to want the outcomes enough to do the hard work. If not, you might be wasting your money.

3. Do you hold yourself accountable?

Many people come to me looking to be held accountable and for me to drive the process. I have to explain to them that I can't make them do anything. I can only help them get clarity on what they want, why they want it, and how they are going to get it. But they need to be in charge of doing the work.

If you're not willing or able to take personal accountability for your commitments, then even the best coach in the world will not be able to help you succeed. That doesn't mean you need to be perfect; failure is part of the process. But you need to "own it" and be willing to be self-critical. Don't blame your coach for not making you do your work.

4. Do you have a growth or fixed mindset?

A lot of research has been done in the last decade regarding how your thinking can impact your ability to create change. Carol Dweck's book Mindset presents this as the concept of fixed vs growth mindset. Which one you have will impact the effectiveness of your coaching considerably.

Put simply, a fixed mindset is one that believes your skills and abilities are innate and determined at birth. A growth mindset believes that while you have many natural gifts, you also have the ability to learn and grow through persistence and focused effort.

If you have a fixed mindset, you will not get much out of coaching. If you have a growth mindset, you will see change and improvement by working with a guide who can help you accelerate your learning process.

5. Are you curious to learn?

As a parent of four kids, I can say that one of the most difficult stages of parenting is going through the why phase. They want to know and understand everything. Ever answer is follow by the same question: ..."but why daddy?"

While exhausting to me as a parent, this attitude in the people and teams I coach is an augur of success. People who are willing to ask why, and then why again, and then why a few more times, are much more likely to find root causes and make fundamental changes to they way they behave and think.

6. Can you keep things in perspective?

A big part of the coaching and development process is getting feedback, often a lot of it. Some of it will certainly be critical, and at times it will be difficult to hear. Your ability to take things in stride will determine if you are able to gain insight or if you close up and get defensive.

While you don't need to answer all of the questions perfectly, know that you'll be challenged in many ways by a good coach and being prepared to do the hard work will help you get the most out of it.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/coaching-is-a-powerful-management-tool-but-not-everyone-can-be-coached.html

One of the most powerful meetings you can run for your team has no agenda. Here’s why.

While most productive meetings need an agenda, an Open Space meeting intentionally doesn't use one.

Many years ago, when I was CEO of the first technology company I founded, we started having all-day quarterly meetings with our staff. Because many of our people worked remotely and on client sites, we rarely all saw each other at the same time, so these meetings became important for maintaining our cultural cohesion.

The first quarterly meeting we held was full of presentations and breakout sessions centered on different topics we knew. While the meetings were successful, we also got a lot of feedback reminding us that we missed several topics and that some of the topics could have used more or less time.

It's important to mention here that our company was one of the first Lean/Agile consulting firms. We were steeped in new ways of building teams and processes. So, when one of our developers came back from a conference where they used a crazy meeting format called Open Space Technology which has no predefined agenda and let's attendees choose the topics. We tried it. And ever since then, it's become one of the most powerful meeting formats I know.

Open Space meetings don't work for every meeting, so you can't do away with agendas forever. However, Open Space meetings are great when you are bringing together a group of people who have many different potential topics to discuss and the priorities are not immediately clear.

I use this format for summits and retrospectives where we need to uncover the topics as a group and prioritize them as we go. Open Space meetings are also great when you suspect new topics will come up during the process and you'll need to re-prioritize them in real time.

Here are a few simple guidelines for running your own Open Space meeting.

1. Choose a theme or a focus

While I keep the agenda open, I do create a general area of focus for the meeting. I've used "sharpen the axe" to focus on process improvement or "stronger bonds" to think more about team engagement and culture. Choose something that identifies a know concern but still leaves the topics open.

2. Set good ground rules

A meeting with no agenda needs good ground rules to stay focused and work well. Here are the three that I use.

"Vote with your feet": If you're not learning or contributing, move to a different topic.

"Yes, and": (No "buts" rule.) Don't tear down ideas; find a way to build on it.

"Tackle issues, not people": Focus on the underlying issue, and don't make personal attacks.

3. Start with a brainstorm

Every Open Space meeting starts with a discussion of the theme and a brainstorming of topics. Make sure you're not being critical at this stage; be open to any potential discussion topic. Don't rush this step; often the best topics come up late in this process and after a long moment of silence.

I have team members write ideas on index cards (one per card) so that we can organize as we go. I keep extra index cards around so we can add new ones as they come up during the session.

4. Select discussion facilitators

The power of an Open Space meeting is that you are empowering people to talk about what they want to talk about. Choose, don't assign, facilitators who are most passionate about the topics.

5. Work in self-organizing teams

I generally set up multiple rounds of meetings in time slots of 30-45 minutes with 15-minute periods for regrouping. For each round, I get volunteers for 3-5 topics and then have people self-organize into meeting groups.

After the round ends, we regroup and each facilitator presents a short summary of the discussion, key insights, and any recommendations for the larger group.

6. Document notes and action items

Make sure to have each team submit a one-page summary of the discussion including the topic, the facilitator's name, names of those who attended, key discussion points, takeaways, and any other recommendations.

This summary can be handwritten on paper and taped to a wall so people can see the results. If you have good connectivity, you can also collect information on an online document as you go.

7. Reflect on the process and learning

At the end of the meeting, take some time to reflect on the process. At the end of the meeting, I like to have each person share their biggest takeaway along with one personal action item. You can also have people rate the meeting and suggest changes for future formats.

Open Space meetings are not a lazy-person's substitute for properly planned meetings. Instead, they are a tool you can use when the situation calls for deeper dives into emergent topics. And remember: like all powerful tools, you need practice to use Open Space meetings. You also need to know when, and when not, to apply them.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/want-to-increase-innovation-drive-change-in-your-organization-try-this-1-simple-meeting.html

The most important part of taking a new job is how you handle leaving your current one

Getting ready to jump ship? Even if you can't wait to leave, don't burn your bridges on the way out.

While company loyalty is important and many companies will reward people for long tenures, switching jobs is part of the normal course of business. However, the fact that there is an expectation that you will leave, doesn't mean you should take leaving lightly.

How you make your exit will have a large impact on your professional reputation, and you want to get it right. Have a plan and make sure you're taking the high road regardless of what other people do or say along the way. Here's what to keep in mind.

1. Don't play games.

For example, going out and getting job offers in order to pressure your current employer for a promotion or more money is a dicey game to play. While it might be warranted when you have clearly been passed over or are well below market rates, you can only play this card once, and you need to play it carefully.

Be completely committed to the process and only stay at your current employer if they give you a big bump. Using this technique to nickel and dime your way to higher compensation will wear your employer thin. Plus, you'll most likely not receive an offer from the new company again, so you'll be burning that bridge, too. f you work in a small industry and people talk, you might be burning others too.

2. Keep doing your job.

It's to your benefit to stay focused on your current job while you're still employed. It's also the right thing to do. They are paying your salary and have every right to expect you to perform well. Until the end of your last day, keep your head in the game.

Another reason to finish strong is you want your current employer to know that you cared enough to give it your all. Sometimes, after you make the move, things go sideways or you realized it was the wrong decision. Leaving on a good note increases the chance they would welcome you back if you were to change your mind.

3. Communicate once you've decided.

Once you've made the final decision to take a new position, be sure to communicate clearly to the right people in a timely manner. You don't want people to find out in the wrong way or from the wrong person. This misstep can lead to hurt feelings and people questioning your intentions.

Generally, I suggest that once you have a final offer letter from the new employer and you've made the decision to accept the offer, let your immediate manager or supervisor know that you are leaving. You're departure will impact them the most and they will appreciate being the first to know.

Depending on the situation, assume a two-weeks' notice, but I might offer an additional two weeks if your current employer asks for it and your new employer doesn't mind. From there, let your current employer's HR department know and then your colleagues and friends.

4. Be appreciative.

Throughout the leaving process and with everyone you speak to, be sure to thank them for the opportunities they've given you and for what you've learned. Venting your frustrations as you head out the door might feel good in the moment, but it won't help your future prospects and you'll likely regret it.

If you want to kick it up a notch, write personal thank you notes or even leave small tokens of appreciations behind for the people who you really connected with and the people who impacted your career. You never know if they will be in a position to hire you in the future or show up in your new company as your new boss.

5. Don't gossip.

It's tempting to show up at a new company and start sharing all of the internal drama and dysfunction from your old company with your new colleagues. It feels powerful and gives you a lot of attention while you're trying to fit in. Resist that urge.

Not only does it lack integrity, it might be in violation of your previous employment agreement. It will also paint you as a gossip and people might reasonable think that you'll spill their beans in your next job.

Interviewing and taking a new position is never easy: it's a mix of emotions and opportunities. Nobody expects you to get everything right, but handling yourself with poise and having a plan to make the transition smooth for everyone will serve you well now and in the future.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/how-to-leave-your-current-job-without-burning-bridges.html