You Can't Create a Great Business in a Vacuum. Here Are 5 Ways to Get Better Feedback on Your Ideas and Strategy

Getting unvarnished feedback is key to advancing your ideas and strategy as an entrepreneur. However, it can be hard to find.

For many entrepreneurs, it can be a real struggle to get honest and direct feedback on your business ideas and strategies. The business people surrounding you in your day-to-day usually have biases and conflicts of interests which make it difficult for them to speak truth to power. And friends and family will rarely say something that might be difficult to say or even more difficult to hear.

Unfortunately, getting direct feedback and insights at the right time, even if it's critical or scathing, can save a business leader from going down a fruitless path or getting themselves into trouble. While you always want to push the limits and challenge assumptions, you also need some guardrails

One of the best ways to get this feedback is through a mastermind group of your peers. These groups allow people who truly care about you and your business to give you unvarnished insight on what you're doing. And because they don't have a stake in the business and aren't family, they are more likely to tell you what you need to hear. Here are some places you can find a mastermind group.

1. Entrepreneurial membership organizations.

Groups such as The Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) and Young Presidents Organization (YPO) offer mastermind groups called forums where six to 10 members are placed in a group. Each group meets monthly for three to four hours, and the group also holds multi-day retreats once or twice a year.

Placement happens in a number of ways based on each chapter's policies. Some groups stay together for many years and form deep connections. Membership requirements include company revenue size and ownership/equity percentages along with annual dues.

2. Industry and professional organizations.

Groups such as Vistage and TAB provide mastermind-like experiences in a slightly larger format with groups ranging from 10 to 20 people. The main difference is these groups are typically run by a paid facilitator who manages the group and runs the meetings. The benefit is that someone is doing the organizing, bringing in experts and speakers, and keeping the meeting on agenda and schedule.

3. Professional advisory groups.

Many professional and industry groups offer mastermind type offerings that bring together small groups around specific topics or challenges. While many of these lack the vulnerability and deep sharing of true masterminds, they offer a more intimate space for sharing challenges and getting ideas for solutions. With time and focus, these groups can offer ongoing relationships that evolve and get to deeper sharing and problem solving.

4. Regional and local business advisors and coaches.

Many business advisory and coaching groups offer different types and styles of mastermind programs. Some are ongoing and some last for a set period. Many of these groups have structured agenda and curriculum geared towards specific topics and goals. Often they are part of larger learning and coaching programs. They also often involve retreats that include travel and multi-day meetings with other activities and experiences designed by the program creator.

5. Online mastermind platforms.

Over the last few years, several online platforms for virtual mastermind groups have appeared. Some of these focus on specific types of groups and industries, and others are open platforms that combine people from varied backgrounds.

The benefit of these is their access to large numbers of potential members. Meeting times are still an issue as people in different time zones are at different points of their day. While video calls aren't the same as in-person meetings, most people find they can still develop a tight-knit group where they feel comfortable to share deeply.

Bonus: Roll your own mastermind.

If you can't find a suitable mastermind group from the above sources, then consider forming your own mastermind. While it can be a little more work, you can hand pick the people you want to surround yourself with and tailor the agenda to your needs and goals. There are several books on masterminds along with several online resources to help you get started and teach you how to run a successful meeting.

Finding the best option will be based on your situation and personal style. Over time, you may find the need to change strategies and groups. The important thing is to find a scenario where you are able to share your most pressing challenges honestly and be truly open to hearing feedback.

How I Made My Company’s Hiring Process More Attractive and Effective

Recruiting the right talent for your business is key to growth. Here's how to make sure your process is both effective and efficient.

As a founder and CEO of a services business, I know how difficult it can be to find and retain talent. Getting the right people in the right seats doing the right things is a challenge when growing and even more so when growing quickly.

As a CEO, I was involved in recruiting well over 250 people (some of them I had to fire too). As a business coach, I've worked with many companies to help them create recruiting strategies. I've worked on many different hiring processes for all sorts of roles and there are a few common mistakes I see. Here are my suggestions.

1. Move critical questions to the front.

One of the most common problems is that candidates make it far in the process and then fall out of the funnel toward the end. The result is that valuable time is spent on candidates that don't actually get offers. Instead, a good recruiting process filters out non-target candidates early in order to spend time on those who have a high probability of making it to the offer stage.

One of the best ways to do this is to find the questions that cause the drop off and move them to the beginning of the funnel. For example, if you have a strict dress code and it turns people off, make that topic one of your first conversations and invite people to remove themselves from the process if it doesn't align with their expectations. Front loading these topics creates a more efficient hiring funnel.

2. Automate the process.

Once you have a process that works, find ways of automating as many of the steps as possible. While you still want to create a high-touch experience, you can often find easy ways to automate steps through scripts, videos, outsourced services, and templates.

For example, when hiring analyst roles, make a simple test to measure excel proficiency. Have candidates create a video of them completing the exercise and submit the file. We trained virtual assistants on how to score the videos and we would only interview people that scored a minimum level. We also created videos that candidates could watch about the company and the role before coming in for in-person interviews.

3. Have candidates self-filter.

Another advantage of automating the process and creating content for candidates to view on their own is that they can self-filter out of the process. If you know what type of person fits well in your company and what skills are needed for success, be clear and upfront about those. Having candidates filter themselves out of the process saves you time and money.

An example of this is Zappos. They offered $2,000 to new people to leave training and quit. The idea was that if someone was there just for the money, it would be better off if they left.

4. Focus on speed.

If you're in a competitive job market, speed can be one of your best strategies. If your processes takes weeks and you leave the candidate waiting, they are more likely to find a position in the interim. Keeping your process short and clearly communicating to the candidate throughout will reduce the chances they get swept up by a competing firm.

5. Create real-world working scenarios.

Often I see people in interviews ask hypothetical questions or come up with ideal scenarios. While it might be fun to put a candidate through these exercises, it typically doesn't correlate well with actual performance. Instead, capture real-world scenarios and have them work through them.

For one client, we had candidates come in for a half day and sit in on a team meeting and work with some of the folks on a real project. Even though they didn't have much background, seeing how they conducted themself, the questions they asked, and ideas they contributed told us a lot, and it told us much more than sitting in a conference room asking them questions would tell us.

6. Don't end the interview on hire.

Many companies get to the point of hire and then assume that interviewing is over. My suggestion is that you think of your recruiting process as extending three to six months into the employment period. It's not until you have them working with real people on real problems that you'll see how they perform. Set clear monthly goals for new hires and hold regular reviews to give feedback. If need be, make adjustments to the role and don't be afraid to terminate if you realize it was a bad hire.

Your business growth and scalability is highly dependant on bringing in and keeping the right talent. Investing in your hiring and onboarding process is not a small investment, but it's one that, when done right, will pay out handsomely over time.

Tired of Negotiating Salaries and Benefits? Try This One Simple Change

Figuring out how much to pay each employee is a difficult and often drama-filled process. Here's a better way.

When my business really started growing, we went from a handful of people to several teams in multiple cities--and the complexity grew just as quickly.

We were a service-based business and our biggest challenge was finding and retaining talent. Our culture was strong, we worked with good clients, and we did a good job hiring based on values.

The big challenge was compensation. As a technology company, we were in a very competitive market. Salaries were high. If we didn't get people's compensation right, they would turn down offers or worse, leave the company for our competitors.

To make things worse, with constantly changing market rates, an offer for a given role could go up 10 percent in just six months. Trying to come up with new offers and deal with constant salary review request was taking up a huge amount of time and leading to more and more drama.

In 2009, I was reading about open book management and floated the idea of having an open payscale to the rest of the company's leadership. Collectively, we decided to give it a try.

We developed a model of five major pay levels each with three minor levels. We then mapped all of the roles based on skills and experience to these levels. This gave us the flexibility to deal with nuanced situations, but also provided us with a clear structure.

The hard part was the implementation. Since we had people all over the map, we had to map existing staff to the scale. We immediately changed the pay of any employee who, it turned out, we'd been underpaying. For people who were overpaid, we froze their salaries until everyone else caught up.

Then, we published the scale to the company. Everyone could see how they fit into the system, what the next rung was, and what they needed to do to reach that next level. We moved to a quarterly review process, which spread out the load across the year. We also added annual cost-of-living adjustments and checked our scale against industry and market rates every other year.

I recommend this system now to many companies I coach because I've discovered these five distinct benefits from using it myself:

1. Simplifies the compensation review process.

By having a set schedule mapped to roles and levels, the compensation review process was easier. We reviewed a person's level of performance, decided if they met the conditions of the next level, and adjusted them accordingly.

At times, we facilitated a partial move if someone was close. Then we would split the difference between the levels for a period of time while they worked their way up.

2. Focuses on role performance, not negotiation skill

The other nice thing was that it removed the negotiation process altogether because level descriptions and salaries were more objective. We didn't have to come up with justifications for how much to pay someone; we just looked it up.

If someone tried to argue for a higher rate, we just pointed to the table and asked them if they met the criteria. We saved a lot of time, energy, and drama.

3. Provides a clear path for future growth

Another benefit of having the pay scale published was that it gave people a clear path for their future. They could see what it took to get to the next level and what that level would pay them.

We also published the market rate reviews we did and showed them how we stacked against the general market. So, while they might have been able to get someone to give them a bump in salary to make a move, they knew it probably wouldn't last and would eventually revert to what the market would bear.

4. Reduces gender and racial biases

Having clear role descriptions and scales made bias less likely whenever we interviewed job candidates. We stopped asking what people were making previously, and instead focused on where they could perform within our organization. It reduced the risk that we might have continued to rely on our previous bias in regards to compensation.

5. Creates transparency and accountability

Having an open pay scale fit with our cultural values of transparency and accountability. This built trust and respect between management and staff because nothing was hidden and people knew where everyone stood. It also increased accountability because people knew the performance levels for each role.

Many companies keep salary hidden. They generally do so to have power and control in the negotiation process. Unfortunately, it becomes a burden that only leads to mistrust and confusion.

Instead, create a fair compensation system so you can focus on what's really important: the business.

Career Success Is Based on These Three Important Factors

Passion is important to a successful career, but it's not enough. You must also master a set of skills that are in demand in a lucrative market.

Popular advice says that to be successful you just need to follow your passion, which implies that doing something that is driven simply by your interest will be enough to propel your career and financial needs. While it's nice to think that it's that easy, the fact is it's not.

I've worked with many professionals on career planning and development, from executives with 30 years of experience looking to make a change to 20-somethings just out of school looking for their first real job. Regardless of the situation and life phase people are in, the basic formula for career successremains the same.

There are three factors for predictable success. While passion is indeed important, it's not sufficient. Some people get lucky and happen upon two of the factors by chance, but most people are better off taking a hard look at all three when planning their professional future.

1. Internal Drive

People talk a lot about passion, but I find it's often misunderstood. Most times, people think it's something they like to do. And while a true passion is not unenjoyable, it's really not about having fun. What you want to look for is something that drives a lot of intrinsic motivation for you.

Unlike extrinsic motivations--which are the external forces that cause you to want to do something--intrinsic motivation comes from within. It's the fire in your belly that keeps you going strong even when it's hard, when the way is not always clear, and when the reward is not immediate.

When you're intrinsically motivated, you're more likely to invest the time and energy to push through and do the hard work. You also won't be as likely to need external structure and instant gratification to stay focused. This will allow you to stick with the work required for long-term success.

2. True Mastery

They say that it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert in something. At two hours a day, six days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's 17 years to become a true master. And that's what it takes to be truly successful at your chosen profession.

The most sought after professionals are the absolute best at what they do. The trick: They have found a specific niche to be the best in the world at. General lawyers are a dime a dozen. But the lawyer who has mastered the subject of internal maritime law can name his price when millions of dollars are at stake for the shipping company in a dispute.

Choose a narrow domain and learn everything and anything about it. Don't be satisfied with good or even great. Be the best in the world in that niche and you'll be able to not only reap the financial rewards, you'll also be able to control your schedule and choose where you want to work and whom you want to work with.

3. Market Demand

Finally, you need to choose a niche for which there is a reasonable market demand, and that market needs to have sufficient financial means. This niche still needs to be focused, but it needs to be big enough to support your career.

Much of this is relative to your expectations and goals. If you want to make a decent living being a professor of a particular area of art study, then that might be fine for you. But if your goal is to be able to afford traveling by private aircraft, then you'll need to find a niche that pays handsomely for your expert services.

Too often people focus on one, or maybe two, of these factors, only to be disappointed when years of hard work lead to dead-end careers and lack of professional satisfaction. If you're early in your career, the good news is that if you develop a strategy that considers all three attributes, you'll have a much easier time achieving your professional goals.

If you find yourself stuck later in life, it's not too late. Go back and look at these three factors and make the necessary changes. Often, a few tweaks to your focus can dramatically increase your prospects and chances of success.

Before You Make Your Next Job Move, Know Which of These Career Phases You’re In

Planning your next job move can be stressful and complicated. Knowing which career phase you're in will help make it easier.

Trying to plot your career path can be confusing and frustrating. As a leadership coach, I've done a lot of work with professionals at many levels who need help making their next career move. I've worked with entrepreneurs who have successfully exited their business to college graduates looking for their first job after school and everything in between. With each of these varying tracks, the next move is different.

What is helpful in all of these types of situations is understanding where you are in your professional journey. While the details of each journey are different, successful careers develop over several key phases. In each phase, the goals and criteria change. Here are the eight that I use to assess someone's current situation and help them map out their next steps.

1. Becoming self-sufficient.

The first phase of anyone's career is to learn to be self-sufficient. For many folks, this is the first lesson learned after going off to college. It's about learning how to run your life, get yourself to class, keep yourself fed, and balance work and fun in a reasonable way. Being good at managing yourself is a key first step to your career.

2. Acquiring core skills.

Regardless of your final career path, you need a base set of skills according to your general domain. If you're going into computer science you'll need basics around informational systems, programing, hardware and software, and micro electronics. While you do need to make some choices at this phase, it should be broad and based on your passion and where you see general professional opportunities.

3. Exploring possible interests.

Once you've acquired core skills through college, university, or another type of training, you're ready to enter the workforce. The goal in the phase is to explore. And while I don't recommend job hopping, you might need to be in three to four different jobs before you are ready for the next phase.

4. Choosing a focus.

This phase is all about zeroing in on a niche. Finding the area where you want to become an expert in is the most important decision you can make in your career. With good awareness of your interests and skills, and a broad set of experiences in different areas of your chosen domain, you're ready to double down on a narrow focus.

5. Mastering a niche.

Once you have your niche, you need to master it. Experts say it take 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to reach mastery. For most people that will take 8-12 years of dedicated focus. However, if you've chosen a path that you have both the passion and the skills for, you'll be able to push through, and maybe even have a little fun.

6. Monetizing your value.

If you've selected and developed your niche successfully, you'll be in a position to reap the reward. This phase of your career is all about monetizing the value you've created. For some, this will be a very nice salary and a full-time job, for others it might be a high billing rate as a consultant, and for others it might be starting company that generates cash or equity.

7. Giving back to your industry.

Once you've been able to financially secure your future, the goal becomes to give back to the communities and institutions that have helped you along the way. And this isn't just about money. Give your personal time, access to your network, and share your insights and knowledge with the next generation.

8. Leaving your legacy.

The final stage to a successful career is to leave a legacy. This isn't about a big donation to put your name on a hospital wing, it's about impacting the world long after you've gone. A legacy is driven by a person's core values and sense of purpose. It might be creating a scholarship, it might be starting a conference, or it might be building a school. The goal is to create something that will develop its own momentum.

A lucky few people will go through these phases sequentially and smoothly. The rest of us will find that our professional journeys can come with a few twists and turns, and maybe even some backing up to regroup. The point is not to be perfect, but rather to keep the bigger picture in mind.

Tired of sitting through presentations that take too long?

Have you ever been in a presentation that went waaaay over its time slot?

If you’re like most of the executives I coach, that’s basically their job. Or at least it seems like it for many of them.

Most of their days are spent sitting through meeting after meeting, listening to people give poorly prepared presentations that are long on time and short on content.

Giving effective presentations is something I work with all of my clients on.

Making sure they can get to the point, make their case, and do so with time left over. Not easy, but if done right, it drives productivity and organizational effectiveness. In most cases, the trick is to say less, not more. And to say it with clarity and impact.

One tool I often use with the companies and teams I work with, is a training technique called pechakucha.

It’s a structured format that forces the presentation to end on time, thereby requiring the presenter to be prepared and be able to deliver with precision. I recently wrote an article on Inc.com about how you can use this to improve your skills, here is the link:

Do Your Presentations Drag On? Here Is 1 Simple Technique to Keep Them Pointed and Concise

https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/do-your-presentations-drag-on-here-is-1-simple-technique-to-keep-them-pointed-concise.html

Presentations are just one of many good management skills. Great companies have great managers and they know how to manage themselves, their people, their projects, and their teams.

If you want to learn more about how to level-up your team’s ability to execute with precision and with good management, you might want to check out Being a Better Manager, which is the training program we’ve developed over the years specifically designed for high-growth companies.

Being a Better Manager
http://www.eckfeldt.com/bbm

Have a management question or challenge? We’d love to hear it. Email us at info@eckfeldt.com or book a call to discuss by clicking here.

Cheers,
Bruce “Less is More” Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

PS - Want to level-up your team and reduce the drama? When you’re ready, here are a few ways we can work together…

Leadership Team Assessment
Let’s create a plan for how you can better engage in constructive debate, achieve true commitment to decisions, and increase the level of accountability on your team.
http://www.eckfeldt.com/leadership-teams

Project or Quarterly Retrospective
Just finished a big project or closed your quarter? Let’s reflect on how things went through in retrospection. We’ll collect the data, develop key insights, and identify actions that will improve your future results.
http://www.eckfeldt.com/retrospectives

Planning with OKRs
Objectives-Key Results (OKRs) are a great way to tie strategy to execution with actionable and measurable quarterly goals. Developed by Intel and used by Google, Facebook, and many rocket-ship startups, they will take your planning to the next level.
http://www.eckfeldt.com/okrs

Not sure what approach would be best for you?
No worries, just book a call and we’ll talk through your goals and current challenges and figure out the best strategy for your situation.

Scaling a Company Requires Defining Your Business Processes, but Not Too Much

Small companies don't need much structure, but as a business grows chaos can quickly ensue. Good process design can help.

Standardizing processes is important for a growing business, but few people know exactly how to do this. Most times, what is created is too general or detailed and burdensome and is put on the shelf never to be looked at again. A good process is a tool for management and strikes the delicate balance between comprehensiveness and effectiveness.

The key to designing a good process in any business is to see it as a tool for communication between people and teams that's continually updated and changed as the business grows. Follow these steps and balance the need for details with ease of use.

1. Focus on core capabilities

A business is made up of many interconnected processes, and you won't be able to define them all on the same level. It's best to focus your efforts on the one or two dozen procedures that truly drive the capabilities critical to your business and create your competitive advantage.

2. Start with the standard path

Oftentimes, teams get mired in details and expectations. I suggest you put aside the "what ifs" and first focus on the standard path through your process. Don't worry yet about all the things that could happen. Just define the way the system typically works.

3. Select a starting point

Clarifying your start and end points are important first steps. Get everyone on the same page when a process starts, and define the preconditions and other requirements. Similarly, setting forth your definition of done will help everyone know when a process is complete and closed.

4. List players and departments

Brainstorm all the roles and departments involved and what they do. Consider everyone who has input, approvals, verifications, and notifications. I like making roles and department columns or lanes in my process diagram and color code them so that I can see the flow across the organization.

5. Determine progression phases

Create a few phases between your beginning and end points. These will help people know where something is in the process. For example, if I'm defining a sales process, I might have phases labeled prospect, lead, proposal, approved, and signed contract. This will help people know where an item stands in the process, and it creates a common language and can help with measurement.

6. Create key checkpoints

At various stages of the process, you'll need checkpoints with detailed requirements. At a minimum, you'll need checkpoints at your phases, but you'll also need others to define smaller steps. Each person will define the minimum conditions that need to be met for the process to proceed.

7. Clarify handoffs and integrations

For each handoff, I like to see a checklist for what is being handed off and the conditions that need to be met. For example, if I'm handing off a lead from marketing to sales, I would expect to see a complete profile with confirmed contact information. Both sides should agree to the details.

Similarly, I want to see integrations defined with what is being delivered, how, and by whom. Are you sending it to my email or is it being entered into a database? If you're dealing with physical goods, where is it placed, and how is it labeled? These are the details that make the system work.

8. Identify key decision and approval points

Oftentimes, processes have steps that need input from specific people--things like quality control or approvals for budgets or pricing. While I suggest you minimize bureaucracy and complexity, sometimes these steps are necessary. Mark them in your process with clear owners, guidelines, and timeframes.

9. Consider alternative paths

Once you've mapped out the ideal path, begin to consider alternative scenarios that might reasonably occur and how you want to handle them. Don't try to cover each and every possibility. Generally, I want a standard process to cover 80 to 95 percent of the standard cases. Exceptions can be handled separately. Avoid bloating your standard process with too many "what if" situations, which will just make it difficult to implement.

10. Set timelines and milestones

Once you have a process designed with phases and milestones, you can then attach some expected timeframes and guidelines to the process. This is key to process improvement. Defining a target and then measuring actual times and variances is where you'll find parts of the process that are working well and those that are not.

The overall goal of any process is to make operating the business easier and more consistent. And as the business grows, its processes will change. All in all, the one process every company needs to develop is the process for creating and evolving its processes.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/10-simple-steps-to-define-your-business-processes-and-scale-more-quickly.html

Surrounding Yourself with the Right Leadership Team Is Key to Being a Great CEO

The biggest decision you will make as CEO is who is on your leadership team. Here is how to make sure yours will boost you up, not drag you down.

As a company grows, so do the leaders of the business. And nobody needs to grow and change more than the CEO. In the early stages of the company, a CEO needs to focus on understanding customers, designing products and services, and selling solutions to the market. However, once a company gains traction and begins to grow, the CEO needs to shift their focus to designing and building the organization and culture.

The most important part of this process is creating the company's leadership team. These are the functional heads that will expand and manage the different parts of the business. The team's ability to think strategically and execute with confidence and efficiency will be the driving force to the company's success.

As a business advisor and executive coach, I've worked with dozens of CEOs helping them build and grow their team as they scale their company. When deciding who to bring on, these are some of the important questions I ask.

1. How well do you know yourself?

Before you start selecting who will be on your team, it's critical that you step back and look at your own strengths, weaknesses, style, and habits. The best CEOs are highly aware of their own shortcomings and blind spots, and they make sure that the team they build will round them out and help cover bases they can't.

2. What are the limits of your knowledge and skills?

Many times, I've been brought into a company to work with the leadership team only to discover that the CEO has built a team of "yes people." They add nothing to the conversation and only look to curry favor and avoid criticism. Great CEOs have the confidence and humility to surround themselves with people much smarter than they are. This will expand the capabilities of the team and deepen the team's experiences and insights.

3. What will help you in the future market?

Another consideration is what market understanding or experience will benefit the team. Choosing executives who have been in other companies or have worked in a particular industry or market can be extremely valuable if you lack knowledge or history in a critical area. Bring in people who have "been there, done that" so you can avoid common mistakes.

4. What are the limits of your experiences?

When putting together a team, make sure that you have a range of backgrounds. If everyone's coming out of a startup, you'll have a blind spot for mid-market challenges. Bringing in people with backgrounds in small and large companies will give you different perspectives. Also consider things like products/services, sales cycles, market maturity, and geographies and/or cultures.

5. Where can you increase gender, ethic, and cultural diversity?

You also want your team to have a gender balance and diverse background. A 2015 McKinsey study found that teams who had more ethnic and racially diverse leadership teams had 35 percent higher returns and that teams with greater gender balance had 15 percene higher returns. Creating diversity at the top will more likely drive diversity throughout the organization.

6. What is your natural thinking style?

Another area that diversity is important is thinking style. If you're a shoot from the hip kind of CEO, they you'll want to balance that out with some cautious and analytical thinkers. And while these people may drive you nuts at times, they might also save you from a rash decision that could harm the future of the company.

7. What are your core values?

While diversity in gender, culture, and thinking style are important, you don't want people who have radically different personal or ethical values. Be sure to articulate your company values and your personal values and surround yourself with people who are well aligned with them. If service to the community is important to you and your company, bringing in someone at the top who has never volunteered a day in their life will cause friction and undermine trust.

Creating a great leadership team is not easy. It takes critical thinking, excellent recruiting, and hard decision making. It also takes time and patience. Done wrong, it can lead a company unwittingly down the wrong path and hinder growth. But done right, it can boost a CEO and elevate the company to higher and higher levels of performance.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/great-ceos-surround-themselves-with-best-leadership-team-heres-how-to-create-yours.html

Master These 6 Strategies to Avoid Overcommit and Increase Your Productivity

At the core of productivity is focus. Great leaders know that saying yes to fewer commitments means they can create greater impact.

Many of the business leaders and executives I coach want to be more productive and have a greater impact on their business and their industry. But as their company grows, their workload grows, and they often find themselves feeling overwhelmed and at times ineffective.

Ironically, one of the lessons that leaders in high-growth companies must learn is that to be more productive they actually need to commit to fewer things. It sounds counterintuitive, but it works. By committing to a few things, you allow yourself to really focus and dig into issues. This allows you to understand problems better, develop more creative solutions, and guide implementation with more care. Additionally, by staying out of other issues completely, other people feel compelled to commit more fully and with more focus then you could.

To get this right, leaders need to get clear on where to focus and what to hand off. When I work with executives, we zero in on these six techniques to determine areas they can have the greatest impact.

1. Clarify your priorities.

Before you can make decisions on where to focus your energy, you need to have a clear and limited set of priorities. These priorities surface with clear role descriptions and a clear set of strategic objectives. Every member of a company should know the eight to 10 key metrics for their role and a handful of strategic goals. If something you're working on is not tied to one of these metrics, you're best off letting someone else take it on.

2. Know your limits.

If you don't know your effective capacity and how much you've already committed to, then you'll never be able to manage your time effectively. One of the first exercises I go through with executives is to have them develop an ideal week and then create a defensible calendar.

The process of creating a defensive calendar will show you how to best organize your work, how much time you need to devote to management, and how much time you have for projects. Once you've committed to this capacity, you either need to say no to new work or renegotiate previous commitments to free up space.

3. Pause before committing.

Many times, I see leaders committing to things in the heat of a meeting or an exciting discussion with a colleague, boss, or investor. One effective strategy in these situations is to develop the habit of pausing for a moment before responding to the request. Rather than jumping right to a commitment, ask for a few hours or even minutes to look at your schedule and get back to them. This pause can give you enough time to really consider your workload and priorities.

4. Learn to say no.

Great leaders are masters of saying no, and they do it a lot. In fact, they are so good at it, they actually make you feel good about being turned down. The trick they use is to invoke the higher purpose you both have and show that saying yes to a new request would mean jeopardizing the bigger priority you both have. A great resource for this is William Ury's book The Power of the Positive No.

5. Learn to delegate.

As a senior leader, you need to be hyper focused on key areas of the business. But that doesn't mean that everything else can just be pushed off or ignored. The best way to handle this is to master the art of delegation.

A good delegator does more than just hand off projects. They choose the right people based on skills and desire, and they focus on getting real commitment to the work. They also make sure that their people have the training and resources they need to set up checkpoints to ensure things are staying on track. Just because you've delegated something doesn't mean you're not still accountable for the results.

6. Renegotiate as needed.

Sometimes new things come up that you need to do. But that doesn't mean you need to overload yourself. Instead, you need to re-prioritize and renegotiate your previous commitments. If you go to people early and explain that you need to change your delivery date, push something off together, or delegate it to someone else, you give them a chance to change their commitments. Ultimately, you'll be more respected in your organization if you go to people early than if you leave them in the lurch.

Early in a company, and especially with small teams, everything is dynamic and things happen in a very fluid fashion--commitments and priorities are easy to manage and communicate. But as you move up in management and your business grows, becoming more focused on few things will be key to your success, and the success of the business.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/6-strategies-to-avoid-saying-yes-too-often.html

8 Easy Ways to Completely Unplug During Your Next Vacation

Many executives go on vacation, but too many just bring their work with them. If you want to truly refresh, use these tips to leave the work at home.

As a business and executive coach, I work with company leaders on setting strategic focus and clarifying accountability for results. And while I love working with highly driven people, too often these folks are burned out and running on empty gas tanks.

Vacations are a great way to give your body and mind a much needed break from the stress and routine of the office. The problem is, many executives just take their work with them. Over time, this will stymie long term improvement and will likely lead to lackluster performance and results.

In order to get the most out of your time away, try these techniques. While you might not be able to do all of them, just a few will improve the benefits of the break.

1. Renegotiate your commitments.

In the weeks before your vacation, look at your workload and make sure you haven't committed to do anything that will interfere with your time off. If you realize that you promised a report or a project that would require you to work through the break, ask to change the due date. Most times people will be willing to flex. If you can't, clear your scheduling in the short term and get it done before you leave.

2. Set an auto-responder.

Most of today's email programs have features that will automatically send a response to any incoming email with a defined message. Create one that tells people when you'll be away and who else they can contact for support. I usually explain when I plan on replying to all messages which is typically two to three days after I return. Pro tip: add one or two days' buffer to your dates so that you have some breathing room.

3. Clear your schedule the day before.

Many people pack their schedule with meetings right up to when they leave for the airport. This not only makes things stressful, you'll be stuck with action items and follow ups while you're traveling. Instead, clear your schedule for the day before you leave and use this time to finish up work and get ahead of things that need to be done while you're gone.

4. Clear your schedule the day after.

On the flip side, don't book a day of meetings for when you return. If you run into travel problems and are delayed, it will only cause confusion and drama. Ideally, you'll arrive home on time and will be able to use the day to get to inbox zero and catch up on work before you dive into your regular routine.

5. Establish limited check in times.

If you absolutely need to check in with your staff and/or teams, set a specific schedule and set a specific time limit. By limiting the time, you'll prioritize, and anything that can wait until you return will be put on the shelf. By setting a specific time for calls, your people will hold onto issues until the agreed upon slot, rather than interrupting you throughout the day.

6. Turn off notifications.

I turn all of my application and phone notifications off while I'm on vacation. I promise people I will check email and text once a day, but no more frequently. If you have an executive assistant, have them check your email and texts and have a call with them once a day where they can prioritize the critical issues for you.

7. Do a mindsweep before you leave.

Just like clearing your mind before doing deep thinking, you'll want to clear your mind before vacation. Do a mind sweep a few days before you leave to list out anything that needs to be taken care of before you leave and to create of list of things that can wait until you get back. Having these lists and knowing you'll come back to them when you return can give your brain permission to unplug while you're away.

8. Create a list of vacation goals.

For many driven executives "doing nothing" is not an option. Instead, I suggest they create a separate to do list of goals for vacation. This could include things like reading a book or spending special time with family or meditating in the mornings. Unplugging doesn't mean you need to sit on the couch and watch movies, it means you need to change things up and take a break from the regular routines.

A good vacation can give you the time and space you need to clear the clutter in your mind and boost your morale. While you undoubtedly need to take a break from the office and you'll have to play a bit of catch up when you're back, the renewed energy and productivity will quickly make up for lost ground and allow you to perform better, for longer.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/8-easy-ways-to-completely-unplug-during-your-next-vacation.html

Try This One Simple Technique That’s 100% Guaranteed to Finish Every Presentation on Time

Presentations are a fixture in most businesses, but they often drag on. Here's a simple technique to develop better presentation skills and timing.

For most companies, presentations are a regular part of meetings. Unfortunately most presentations are poorly designed and even more poorly delivered. Slides that are filled with text in 10-point font and presenters who monotonously read through what's on the screen make what should be 10-minute presentations hour-long ordeals.

The problem is that few people are well-trained on how to create impactful presentation slides and how to deliver content in a meeting to keep people's attention. Slides are meant to be visual support for the narrator's spoken word, not a script for them to read. And a presentation should make a point through the telling of a story that has a clear beginning, middle, and end.

When I teach presentation skill in my leadership programs, we use a technique that forces presenters to be sharp, focused, succinct, and to tell a story with purpose. It's something I picked up as a Lean/Agile coach years ago during my study of Japanese management approaches.

It's called PechaKucha and it's a simple structure of twenty slides that are timed at twenty seconds each. Developed by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham as a experimental event format, the style quickly spread especially in the artistic world. The entire presentation is just under seven minutes long.

But here is the trick: the slides automatically advance, regardless of whether the presenter is ready, or not.

There are several benefits and learning takeaways from this approach. And while I've used it in real business meetings, it's usually applied as a learning tool or as a learning event where several people give these style of talks in a row, or even in parallel.

1. Focused presentations

With only 20 slides to work with, it's critical to keep your story short and to the point. One of the downsides of modern presentation tools is that it's easy and free to create additional slides. This results in 'slide bloat' and presentations with far too many slides than necessary. I've seen slide decks with over 200 slides for a meeting that was schedule for one hour. That's over three slide per minute.

2. Simplified ideas

I've seen many presentations where a horribly complicated slide goes up and then the presenter proceeds to rattle of a series of points about what is presented. As a result, the audience is left dazed and confused. The problem is that the presenter knew the content cold and tried to pack all the points they could into each visual. PechaKucha will force you to make one simple point per slide and a point that the audience can easily grasp.

3. Less text

With just 20 seconds on the screen, you can't use a lot of text. In fact, the best PechaKucha usually have very few, if any, words. Many are just just stunning visuals which compliment what the speaker is vocalizing. Even graphs and charts are simplified to highlight key points and takeaways to support the arguments being made.

4. Better content

Presentation tools are so powerful now and have so many bells and whistles that many presenters get more caught up in trying to animate diagrams and designing slick transitions than working on good content. By limiting it to 20 slides and not allowing animations or transitions (general rules in PechaKucha) it forces people to focus on the points being made than fancy designs.

5. Practiced delivery

Too many presenters spend hours creating slides and no time practicing what they are going to say. The limited timing and automatic advance means that presenters are forced to practice what they are going to say and how. If they don't practice, they will either ramble and get cut off, or speed through to be left with awkward silences while waiting for the slide to advance. This also helps people be aware of the natural tendency to speak too quickly when presenting in front of a group. Good presenters know to pace themselves in every situation to hit the advancing slides naturally.

6. Focused learning

The format makes it easy for many people to participate. When I run team off-sites and workshops, I often have each team member do a PechaKucha. Typically I schedule them for right after lunch to keep people engaged and we run them quickly. It's a chance to share learning and practice presentations in a fun and safe way. I use a simple worksheet and presentation template that make it easy for anyone to quickly create a presentation.

While not your typical presentation, and maybe not one I would use with your board of directors, PechaKucha is a fun and easy way to improve your presentation skills and help people focus on the content they are trying to deliver and making their points stick.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/do-your-presentations-drag-on-here-is-1-simple-technique-to-keep-them-pointed-concise.html

6 (Free) Ways to Develop Better Leadership in Your Company

Leadership is critical, yet most companies fail to invest in their people. Here are six ways to develop talent that won't break the bank.

Leadership is critical to a company's success. This is twice as true for high-growth businesses. Without enough leaders, scaling a business is next to impossible. It's easy to find people who want to work, but without people to organize, inspire, and manage people, you're setting yourself up for lots of drama with little productivity.

Many companies try to hire for leadership. This has two big downsides: first, it's expensive. Direct and indirect recruiting and hiring costs will quickly add up. Second, it's risky because a cultural 'mis-hire' can do real damage to an organization.

Instead, the best way to increase your company's leadership is to grow it from within. Developing your current people as the next generation of leaders is your best bet. Investing in them will be cheaper than paying for recruiting costs and higher salaries. And your current team members are much more likely to already be a good cultural fit.

As a business coach, one of my favorite programs to work on is a company's leadership development program, commonly known as an LDP. While each program's content should be tailored to the companies industry and needs, here are six strategies you can use to create an effective program without needing to spend much, if any, budget dollars.

1. Have your senior team mentor.

Your senior folks have a vast amount of knowledge and insight into the business. Tap this resource by having them spend one hour a week with a rising star to help them understand the business and what the leader does to be successful. This could be in one-on-one or small group formats. Keep it mentoring, not training.

Let the junior person drive the conversation around what they want and/or need to know. The best part of the these types of programs is that the senior people often learn just as much, if not more.

2. Offer extra time off for learning events.

For those who are keen to get ahead and are willing to drive their own learning, offer a few extra days off each year to attend a conference or workshop to sharpen their skills. There are many free and inexpensive learning opportunities out there and often employees are paying to go to these events already, just give them the time. To help justify the investment, have them come back and host a morning seminar or lunch-and-learn to share with others what they learned and how to apply it to the business.

3. Hold weekly lightning talks.

Pick one lunch each week where a different person in the company does a 15-minute presentation on any topic they want (within reason). Give 15 minutes for Q&A and then have people score and give constructive feedback on the presentation as well as takeaways. This will not only distribute knowledge, it will help develop presentation and feedback skills. And it's fun too.

4. Invite in outside speakers.

If you do a little searching, it's not hard to find people who would be willing to come in and speak for little or no cost. Look for consultants who would jump at the chance to build a relationship. Another great strategy is to invite your customers and partners to come in and present their expertise and business. You can also reach out to authors and professional speakers who might be willing to do a discounted presentation if they're already in the area.

5. Start a book club.

Many of the leadership teams I coach use this strategy to help them develop new skills as a group. Pick a book a month to reach and then spend 30-45 minutes discussing a few takeaways at your monthly meeting. If a full book is too daunting, find a summary to have everyone read. You can also find articles to read as a group. Many authors (like me) will provide discussion guides with their content for team discussions.

6. Recognize effort and accomplishments.

One of the best things you can do is make sure the people and teams, who are dedicating themselves to learning and showing measured progress, are recognized. This could be privately and/or publicly within the company. Recognizing success will both reward those who are already advancing as well as inspire those who may need a little nudge.

Like many initiatives, the most important thing about a learning program is to try something quickly, learn and get feedback, and then pivot quickly. The best companies succeed because they learn how they learn best and then fuel what works for them.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/6-ways-to-develop-better-leaders-that-wont-cost-you-a-dime.html

Is Your Team Struggling to Agree on Performance Metrics? Here Are 6 Key Definitions That Will Help

Measuring effectiveness is an important aspect of growth. Here are 6 key definitions that will help your team get on the same page.

There are many terms around measuring the effectiveness of management and execution that can be confusing. Without a clear, shared definition, leaders can often get stuck in muddy discussions that result in misalignment. While there are no absolute definitions for many of these terms, these are the ones I suggest for the leadership teams and executives I work with.

1. Key Performance Indicator

Let's start with the infamous key performance indicator, aka KPI. These are often confused and conflated with many of the other terms on this list. Put simply, a KPI is a way of measuring something. It's an evaluation unit regarding some aspect of business performance.

It's important to note that while there are many ways to set KPI's, these settings are simply units of measure, not the actual results your seeking. I like to say that the KPI is the tape measure, not the measurement itself.

2. Critical Number

I often use the concept of a critical number with leadership teams to elevate one or more KPI's. A business has dozens of KPI's across many aspects of the business that give leadership insights into how the business is performing. By elevating one or more KPI's to the status of critical number, it provides focus and priority to areas of the business that need senior-level attention.

A critical number is generally tied to a strategic priority or organizational objective and drives alignment. If larger orders is a key goal, then a critical number might be percent of orders over $50,000 each week. Often this is tied to a theme which can further drive motivation and cohesion.

3. Balancing KPI

Sometimes, when we set a goal and only focus on one aspect of the business, we skew our action to meet the goal, while inadvertently hurting other parts of the business. For example, it's easy to increase the close rate on a sales funnel by lowering the profit margin and selling contracts at a loss. However, that doesn't help the business overall.

A balancing KPI adds a second unit of measure to the strategic focus that prevents people from gaming the system to hit one goal by trading off another goal and hurting the business overall. Think of it as the check and balance to the main goal.

4. Metric

The vast majority of things you can measure in a business are not 'key' to the business but are needed to track or monitor performance. These are simply Metrics. They describe how parts of the business are doing without becoming things that require senior leadership attention. A metric is simply a performance indicator, but it is not a key indicator.

5. Target

If you're a long jumper, the goal is to get as much distance as possible between the line and the back of your heel where you land. Therefore, the KPI is the distance cleared and the units are in feet and inches. The target is what you are striving to achieve. It is specific to an individual and may change over time. If you're a state high school competitor you might start the season with 20 feet and and work your way up to the state record of 25 feet 3 inches. Targets are set based on your strategy and goals.

6. Forecast

Forecasts are similar to targets in that they are specific results or measures related to a KPI. The difference is a target is something that you're trying to achieve based on a strategy and a goal, whereas a forecast is a prediction on future results. The key to any good forecast is not just the number, but also the confidence level of that number from the person/group issuing that forecast.

A forecast without a confidence level is not very useful and can lead to confusion and failures. For example, say the sales team says they are forecasting Q4 revenues to be $1.2 million and the company budgets their expenses based on that number. But then late everyone realizes that the $1.2 million is a stretch goal and the team is only 20 percent confident they will hit that number which puts the company at risk of overspending.

While the difference between all of these terms might seem academic and too subtle to spend time discussing, I've found that executives, who invest the effort, reap the benefits of clarity and alignment when it comes to successfully executing on strategy and management. If you're in a dynamic, high-growth situation, this can often mean the difference between predictable success and a company spiraling out of control.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/6-ways-of-measuring-success-that-will-help-your-team-thrive.html

The three questions you ask to find your perfect customer

Wanting to sell everything to everyone is a common trap for many early-stage executives. Here’s what you should focus on instead.

If you find yourself catering your product or service every time you make a sale, you’re not the only one.

It’s something that many companies do, especially at the beginning. You follow leads, see them through, and offer whatever that person might be searching for at the time.

What’s the big deal? “A sale is a sale.” Right?

Wrong. While the “sale-is-a-sale” mentality might be necessary to get the ball rolling in the beginning, that mindset is no way to scale your company.

To scale, you need to have those tough decision-making sessions.

You need pinpoint how your core customer thinks and be able to pick them out from a crowd.

The bottom line is that in order to scale, you need to be selling to fewer people.

In this video, I outline my tips for core customer strategy. There are three key questions to ask yourself and your team to really nail down who you serve and who your target customer is.

If you want to learn more about the details that go into identifying your core customers, check out the recent inc.com articles I wrote on this topic.

Why You Should Sell To Fewer People to Increase Your Sales

5 Problems Small Businesses Must Fix Immediately to Overcome Growth Plateaus

When you define your core customer and sell to fewer prospects, you’ll be doing your long term growth a huge favor.

Are you selling to everyone and finding it hard to focus?

Narrowing your company’s focus isn’t easy and making decisions can be hard. Let’s set up a call to go over some of the key questions you should be asking yourself and talk about the roadblocks that might be in your way.

Book a call by clicking here.

Bruce “Decision-Maker” 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

Building A Business Doesn’t Mean Sacrificing Your Family Life. Here Are 11 Techniques To Master

Entrepreneurs are often also spouses, moms, and dads. Here are 11 ways to help integrate work and family time.

Some entrepreneurs sacrifice everything to build their business. They eschew relationships, forego friends, and spend all of their time focusing on getting the bigger deal, raising the next round, and securing the next partnership. However, that model is quickly becoming outdated.

Here are 11 techniques that my clients have used to find creative ways to work hard on their business while staying connected and committed to their spouses and kids and also true to their core values and personal priorities.

1. Take a break from work, then go back.

Being home for dinner is important for many people. While you might not be able to wrap up the day by 5pm, you can push pause for a few hours and spend some time with your spouse and kids. The key to this strategy is to truly pause and be present.

2. Leave post-it notes on the mirror.

If you leave the house before everyone wakes up, take 5 minutes and leave a few messages on sticky notes on the bathroom mirror. Don't over think these. You don't need to write a ton to make an impact. If you want to cheat and save some time, once a week write a bunch of notes and just dole them out over the next several days. You'll still get full points.

3. Send random text messages.

Sometimes the most meaningful message is the random and unexpected one. Take a break between meetings to send quick thoughts to your loved ones. Don't over think them, just say what's on your mind and that you're thinking of them. The cheat here is to set an irregular calendar reminder to prompt you to send something. Again, full points.

4. Do a video hangout.

You don't always need a reason to call. And you don't always need to say something. If you're just working at the office or hanging out in your hotel room, do a video call and leave it running. I've done this with my kids while I'm traveling and they are doing homework. This unstructured time can lead to interesting insights and random conversation.

5. Hide notes in random places.

Similar to the post-it notes on the mirror, hide little notes in bags and random place around the house. Let them know that you miss them and are thinking of them even if you're not there. If you want to kick this up a notch, make it a hunt with clues.

6. Have breakfast together.

Many executives I work with find it difficult to get out of work in time for dinner and kids bedtimes. If having a meal together is important to you, try switching it to breakfast. Even sitting down for ten minutes while you have your coffee can be quality time if you're focus on them.

7. Set aside no-device time.

Devices are the killer of quality time. If you really want to be focused and present, turn off your device or put it in another room. Taking a few minutes or even a few hours in the evening and on the weekend will allow you to truly connect with your loved ones.

8. Work side-by-side.

Sometimes you still just need to work. Getting out of the home office and sitting at the kitchen table with your spouse or your kids as they read or do homework still provides a chance to connect.

9. Bring the family on a business trip.

Just because you need to travel for work, doesn't mean that the family can't join you. While you might need to forego the fancy dinners with clients, working during the day and spending time with family at night can be a great trade off between your business goals with your family commitments.

10. Leave video messages.

Today's modern technology makes staying connected easier than ever. Instead of simple voice mail, leave a video message or send them a quick video text. Most of our communication is nonverbal, so seeing your smile is better than just hearing your voice.

11. Ask interesting questions.

Forgo the standard questions such as "how was your day" and ask questions that spur real thinking. Try "what's one thing that surprised you today?" or "who was the most interesting person you met today?" instead.

Life is full of trade offs. And if you want to excel at business you need to work hard and put in quality hours. But that doesn't mean you need to sacrifice everything else. In fact, the most successful executives I know excel in both business and family. And they do that by knowing what matters and making the right tradeoffs to maximize impact.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/struggling-to-balance-your-business-your-family-here-are-11-ways-to-do-both.html

Are You Confused About How to Organize Your Leadership? Here Are 6 Approaches to Consider

Scaling your company involves many careful steps. And choosing how to organize your top teams is no exception.

As a company grows, the top levels of the organization must change. Going from a founder with a few early employees to a billion-dollar company with multiple divisions and operating units involves many intermediate steps in the leadership structure.

As a leadership coach, I work with many different types of companies and different types of teams to help them through these transitions. Below are the some of the main strategies that we use to organize and group the leaders of a growing company, and what each of them focuses on, and how they operate.

1. Leadership team

The leadership team is a general term for the group of the highest leaders in each department or domain of the business. This is also called the C-suite as it contains all of the C-level people in the company: the CEO, COO, CFO, and CMO. Not every company want to give these leaders "Chief" titles, so I tend to just use leadership team to represent this group, rather than C-suit or C-team.

The main focus of the leadership team is to develop company strategy and set the high-level execution targets. They also coordinate the high-level activities of each functional unit (finance, marketing, operations, etc.) and set the parameters for company operations and high-level policies.

In the early stages of a company, the leadership team might only be the founder and one or two key players in the business. As a company grows and the separation of the business functions become more formal and leaders are appointed, the leadership team will expand and grow.

2. Management Team

The management team consists of the leadership team plus any other executives who are directly involved in the implementation of the business strategy. These are the people who are responsible for implementing the strategy, high-level quarterly development priorities, and action items that will drive business initiatives.

The another key role of the management team is to gather data and perspective on issues that need broader input. This group is required when the leadership team doesn't have enough on-the-ground knowledge to handle everything because the company has become bigger and more complex

3. Strategy Team

When the leadership team is large and the strategy work is more complex and nuanced, I will often create a smaller strategy team, using a subset of the leadership team, who can dig deeper into the issues, topics, data, and research.

I generally keep this team limited to three to five key people, selected from the leadership team, including the CEO and COO and often the CFO and CMO. This team could also include the top leaders in sales, product design, legal, and technology. In some cases we've included one or two experts from other parts of the company who are not C-suite such as technical or subject matter experts.

4. Leadership Subcommittees

When topics come up on the leadership team or management team around specific policies and operational parameters, a leadership subcommittee can be a great approach. Keep them to three to five people and give them a clear scope. They should collect data, do analysis, and make recommendations.

5. Board of Advisors

Not to be confused with a board of directors, a board of advisors doesn't have any decision making powers or fiduciary responsibilities. They are purely an advisory group that helps with strategy development and setting priorities. The key to a good board of advisors is to balance and extend the leadership team and to cover gaps and blind spots.

6. Ownership Team

In the case of a privately held company, I will often create a separate ownership team. These are the people who have real equity in the business. The scope of the team can be just advisory, or they can participate in strategy and management discussions. At a minimum they need to handle the governance issues required under the articles of organization including membership meetings and voting on key matters. For family-owned companies, this is also where we tackle issues of multiparty voting rights and succession planning.

Few companies need all of the these teams, and no companies needs all of them at the beginning. It's about iterating and adapting to your changing needs and finding a solution that gets the work done effectively, and efficiently.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/6-ways-of-organizing-your-leadership-to-help-your-growing-company-succeed.html

Are You Excelling At In One Area Of Your Life While Neglecting Others? Here’s How To Find Out

Many people excel in one or two area of their lives, but neglect the others. Here’s how to tell if you’re taking a balanced or lopsided approach.

I get called into to many coaching engagements because one of the leaders of a company is struggling.Often it's because they have taken on a new role or have moved up in the organization, and the new dynamics and context are challenging their skills in some way. As a coach, I work with them to develop better approaches and to help them create a new mindset that will better serve them in their new environment.

However, sometimes I'm brought in, not because a leader is struggling at work, but because they are struggling with another area of their lives and it's beginning to threaten their professional success. It could be a colleague, an investor, a board member, or even a friend who makes the introduction.

The first step in these situations is to pull back and assess what's really happening in that person's life. This allows us to see what they are doing well and where they are struggling. Then we can see where we need to set targets for change and begin to work on goals. This doesn't mean that we need to work on the most troubling area; instead we want to understand what's impacting overall performance and where the root causes of the problems are.

Here are the six key areas that I look at when I'm coaching. These are the major facets in your life which are interconnected and will impact each other in different ways. And if one is out of whack, others will be impacted. By assessing yourself in these areas, you will be more likely to find the core challenges that when overcome will lead to better professional performance.

1. Personal

This includes both body and mind. Someone who is taking care of themself physically and mentally will be able to perform better in every other area. If you're not staying in good health and not practicing good self-care, you're risking everything. Everyone needs exercise, good eating, and activities that feed the soul. Taking time off and spending time recharging and reflecting allow you to sharpen the axe for future work.

2. Family

This includes significant others, children, and immediate and extended family. Unfortunately, this is often an area of neglect for many high-powered executives. And while time can be extremely limited if you're a busy professional, not having an effective strategy for spending quality time with others and maintaining intimate bonds with close family will ultimately have a detrimental effect on your work.

3. Friends

Even the most introverted executive needs a social life. Making sure you have a group of people outside of work, who you connect with and who can provide perspective and support is critical to having a well-balanced life. You don't need a girls or guys weekend every month, but getting away from work and family every once and a while can make you a better leader, spouse, and parent.

4. Professional

At the core of life satisfaction is the feeling and knowledge that you are mastering a domain and making a difference in the world. This doesn't mean that you need to be a CEO or a titan of industry. It could be excelling at a craft or making a social impact. Whatever your chosen focus, spend time setting goals and dedicating time and money to improving yourself.

5. Financial

While you can't take it with you, you also can't live without it. Making sure that your fiscally sound and responsible will allow you to have the resources to achieve your biggest goals. This doesn't mean toiling away at a job you hate so that you can retire and finally have some fun. Just decide what your longer term objectives are and do what you need to invest in your future.

6. Community

Nobody lives in a vacuum. We all depend and benefit from the communities we live in and greater society. Making sure you're being a responsible citizen and giving back to the groups that have supported and enabled you to be successful is a responsibility we must all take seriously. Think beyond money. Volunteering your time and skills can be both more valuable and more rewarding.

As a business coach, I focus on business performance. However, I strongly believe that people are multifaceted and business performance suffers when we neglect other areas of our life. The best long-term business performance comes from executives who are well-rounded and perform well in all areas of their lives.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/how-highly-successful-people-excel-in-many-ways-not-just-one.html

Here Are 6 Ways To Start Your Week Off On The Right Foot

The key to being productive throughout your week is the plan you make at the beginning. Here are six ways you can up your planning game.

As a leadership coach, one of the main things I work on with leaders is their productivity. This is a common problem in many organizations, especially with high-growth companies. The rapid growth of the business and pace of change leave many executives struggling to stay organized and focused, which results in lackluster personal results.

The key to any productivity system is to focus on value, not effort. Executives who focus on checking as many things off their to-do lists as they can each day without thinking about what they put on those lists will get a lot done, but often fail to deliver significant results. Executives who consider what the most important, highest-impact actions are will create long-term value and be exceptionally successful.

One of the best habits that will help you in this pursuit is to develop a personal weekly planning process. By taking the time to plan your week, you can identify the best use of your time and energy and organize yourself for success. Here's how I plan my week on Sunday night so that I can hit the ground running Monday morning with confidence.

1. Do a mind sweep.

The first thing I do anytime I'm thinking about the bigger picture and trying to plan is I do a mind sweep to clear my thoughts. This process walks through a list of prompts in different categories, looking for things I'm trying to remember and commitments I've made (what scientists call cognitive load), and gets them out onto paper. This gets the distractions out of my head so I can focus better on the work at hand. 

2. Review the week to come.

My next step is to review the coming week's schedule. I recommend using a Defensible Calendar strategy, which improves your productivity by organizing your schedule into large chunks of time with tasks grouped by importance and urgency. This will make it easier to organize and manage your work.

If my plan is not well organized, I request changes to free up continuous time in my calendar to create focused time and to optimize travel and logistics. This is also the time to identify any prep work or reviews I need to do for the week.

3. Look forward to three to five weeks out.

Once I have this week under control, I look ahead three to five more weeks for anything that requires me to take any kind of action in the next seven days. I look for things like travel arrangements, larger project work, and creative development. Doing this prevents surprises that create fire drills for me or my team.

4. Reflect on the last week.

Once I have a good grasp on the future, I look back at the last week or two and see if there are any open items or actions from previous events that I may have missed. I look for opportunities to write quick thank-you notes and to confirm any actions or plans coming out of previous meetings. I'll also take this time to reflect on what went well and what didn't, and how I can improve my schedule and planning going forward.

5. Check your longer-term goals.

Next I check my quarterly objectives and key results. Based on where I want to be at the end of the quarter, I check to see where I need to make progress and set tasks for the coming week. I'll also reach out to people with whom I need to coordinate or collaborate to schedule time or set up meetings.

6. Sort by urgency and impact.

Once I have my tasks and reminders written down, I begin to sort and organize. I'll make notes on complexity and size and then sort them by two major criteria. First is urgency, which is how critical the task is to this week. Basically, if I push it off to next week, will it cause problems for me or others? The second criteria is impact, which is how much value this task creates for me in the short and long term.

If I've done things correctly, my schedule will be well-structured and I will have a plan for how the week will unfold. I will have several time blocks for focused work, grouping similar tasks so that I can stay in the same mindset and minimize task-switching.

Of course, life happens, and on Monday morning something unexpected could come up and I'll need to replan everything. And that's fine.

The value of planning is not that a plan will execute perfectly. It's that when it doesn't, you'll understand what's on your plate, what your priorities are, and how you want to re-organize things to stay on plan.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/6-ways-to-revamp-your-weekly-routine.html

The Weekly Routine That Clears Your Mind And Helps You Work Smarter

Having a million things on your mind is no excuse for not doing your best work. A weekly mind sweep might be just what you need.

Before you engage in any focused or creative work, you need to prepare yourself both physically and mentally. Trying to think big and think well is nearly impossible if you're exhausted or distracted.

One of the leading sources of distraction is the act of trying to remember all the little tasks and commitments in your life, which can lead to cognitive overload. By getting these tasks and assignments out of your head and onto paper, you can free up space in your mind to focus and think more clearly.

This technique comes from David Allen and the Getting Things Done system I learned years ago, and still use today. It's called a mind sweep, and it improves your ability to engage in critical thinking and decision making by freeing up your mind from the burden of trying to remember.

Here is the process I use.

I start by getting myself into a calm and quiet space, breathing deeply for a minute or two. Once I'm relaxed, I use the following list of topics as prompts to ask myself what tasks or commitments are on my mind. I reflect for a minute or two after going through each category to allow things to bubble to the surface.

Then I simply write my thoughts on a sheet a paper as they come up. I don't process anything then, but rather set them aside to review later. By getting them out of my head and onto the sheet, my mind is free from the work of trying to remember and is now ready to engage in new tasks with better focus.

The goal of a mind sweep is to get things that are burdening your thinking out of your head and onto paper. You don't need to come up with new ideas and you may not have thoughts for every category. And it's OK if you miss things. Clearing up even a little space will make you more productive for your next task.

Category 1: Core needs and personal wellness

Stress -- sleep, rest, meditation, relaxation, mental focus Diet -- eating, drinking, nutrition, hydration

Fitness -- exercise, strength, stretching, aches and pains, personal care

Health -- medical, dental, eyes, hearing, skin, mental health, exams, tests

Fun -- travel, hobbies, sports, learning, personal development, reading, entertainment, socializing

Category 2: Family and friends

Significant Other -- anniversaries, birthdays, gratitude and appreciation, open items, planning, family events

Kids -- education/school, quality time, birthdays, events, activities, appointments, friends

Relatives -- parents, grandparents, grandkids, extended family, in-laws, upcoming events

Friends -- events, activities, support, planning

Social -- organizations, religion, community, events

Calendar -- birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, school breaks, religious events, reunions, festivals

Category 3: Personal environment and belongings

Home -- cleaning, organizing, improvements, maintenance, protection, supplies

Personal -- clothing, electronics, personal belongings, sentimental items

Property -- real estate, cars, boats, sports equipment, tools, storage spaces/units

Category 4: Career and professional development

Education -- training, certifications, conferences, workshops, online courses

Planning -- goals, mentoring, coaching, resume, bio, online profile

Networking -- targets, follow-ups, events, social, lunches/coffees, social media

Category 5: Work projects and commitments

Management -- status reports, risk management, open decisions, systems, communications, budgets/forecasts

People -- meetings, performance reviews, coaching, compensation, hiring

HR -- compensation, payroll, benefits, enrollments, reimbursements, reviews

Category 6: Finances and long-term planning

Payables -- mortgage, rent, maintenance, insurance, credit cards, loans, utilities, subscriptions, services, taxes

Assets -- real estate, bank accounts, commodities, safety deposit boxes, loans

Investments -- IRA, 401(k), diversification/allocations, tax planning, inheritance, charitable giving

Long-Term Planning -- college/education, retirement, insurance, health care directive, will, documentation

Category 7: Community and social responsibility

Local Community -- neighbors, civic groups, schools, community groups

Elections/Politics -- local, state, federal, school board, judges, law enforcement

Organizations -- religion, social services, food banks, volunteering, charities, education, alma mater

These prompts are based on my life and the world I live in. I'm sure you'll have others you'll need to add and some you'll want to delete. I revise my list as things change and I find items to add or delete. I put this list in a repeating calendar event, which I set up to get emailed to me once a week, so I can remember to go through the process again and stay fresh and focused.

Having this list handy will make your mind sweep easier, faster, and more effective. And once you get into the habit of doing this regularly, you'll find you're more productive and less stressed knowing that you have things organized and under control. This will free you up to think bigger and more clearly.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/how-to-clear-your-mind-so-you-can-do-your-best-work.html

The Major Obstacle That’s Cramping Your Productivity And Creativity

Being unfocused can feel par for the course in our busy and always-connected lives, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s one way to clear your mind and up your productivity.

As a business executive or CEO, it feels like you have about 1000 things rattling around in your brain.

Half-baked ideas, running to-do lists, and seemingly never-ending conversations to have and follow up on are very real requirements of your role.

When you sit down with the intention of being productive and crossing off some of those items in your mental checklist, you have a hard time focusing on the task at hand.

Sound familiar?

This stuff floating around your brain is called cognitive overload or mind clutter and it decreases productivity and destroys creativity.

In this video, I talk all about David Allen’s approach to clearing your mind of this mental clutter. His method is called a mindsweep. It takes between 10-15 minutes and can do wonders for your ability to get things done.

If you want to learn more about the details of doing a mindsweep, watch the video or check out the article I recently wrote about doing a mind sweep on inc.com.

How to Clear Your Mind So You Can Do Your Best Work

18 Simple Ways to Increase Productivity and Focus at Work

If You're Spending Time on Any of These 6 Tasks, You're Killing Your Productivity

Freeing up space in your mind allows creative juices to flow more freely and enables you to focus because you’re not wasting that energy remembering everything else you have to do later today or next week.

Are you finding it difficult to focus?

We live fast-paced lives and they’re getting faster by the day! Let’s set up a call to discuss how implementing a mind sweep into your daily or weekly routine could help you cope with everything on your plate.

Book a call by clicking here.

I’ll end with one of my favorites quotes about productivity from another famous Bruce…

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done” - Bruce Lee

Bruce “Mindsweep Master” 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