Use These 8 Simple Tips to Really 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.

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.

6 Things to Focus on So That You Don't Micromanage Your People

Micromanaging your people will stunt their growth. Here are six things you can do to avoid smothering them.

As a business grows, the need for higher quality leadership becomes critically important. You need a very different mindset and skillset to manage a company of $100 million than you do a company that's trying to reach its first million.

As a strategic coach, one of my most important jobs is to raise the bar on the leadership skills of the top team to help them create an effective management system throughout the company.

One of the most important issues we address at all levels of management is the tendency for folks to want to micromanage their people. Here are six things I helped leaders focus on that will reduce the chance that their people feel overly managed.

1. Focus on the results

Too often I see managers telling their reports how they should complete a task. They write down detailed instructions for exactly how to get the work done, including all of the little techniques and tricks.

Instead, I encourage managers to focus on defining what the end results should look like. By defining the end goal and clarifying expectations, you allow the direct report the freedom to decide the best way they're going to get there. It both encourages them to own the process and allows them to make improvements and innovate.

2. Clarify key boundaries

While you want to give your employees lots of space to explore and try things, you need to give them a clear indication of the limits of their playing field. This will both reduce your concern about the directions they go in and also reduce their fear that they might step over the line.

3. Set deadlines and checkpoints

When delegating work, it's important to clarify exactly when things need to be done and to what level. Establishing clear deadlines will allow everyone to plan to work effectively and to ensure time frames are met. While I encourage managers to provide buffers to schedules, you shouldn't create a false sense of urgency.

It's also important to establish checkpoints along the way that allow you as a manager to confirm that progress is being made and verify that the work is meeting expectations. I always want to see a checkpoint timing set so that, if there are issues, everyone has enough time for a manager to take corrective action and not risk project success.

4. Give constructive feedback

Every project is an opportunity for learning, both as a manager and as a direct report. Giving feedback along the way is critical for professional development and growing your people. If you just take over the task or allow work to be done below standards, you're setting yourself up for problems in the future.

The key to giving feedback is to create the right context, focus on objective and measurable observations, and help the employee to create new strategies that will allow them to be more successful in the future. Making feedback a frequent and regular occurrence will help make it part of the normal process and reduce fear and anxiety.

5. Provide support and resources

One of the most important things that a manager needs to do for their people is to provide support and resources for them to be successful. This might be as simple as transferring your knowledge and insights about the problem. It might also include providing training, tools, and third-party services that will allow them to complete the job. You also want to use your power and authority to remove obstacles and roadblocks that are in your people's way.

6. Incorporate learning time

One of any manager's key responsibilities is to grow their people. You can't do this without making investments of time and money. It's important to look for opportunities in day-to-day work that will challenge your direct reports and help them learn new skills and give them more experiences.

This may include adding extra time and budget to a project so they have the opportunity to learn. While it can be a significant investment, it's one that will provide exceptional returns in the future.

The fact is, micromanaging is a natural tendency for just about every manager. It takes a conscious effort and focus to change that behavior. By focusing on the strategies above, you'll not only empower your people to be more successful, you'll also make your job as a manager much easier. 

Taking Risks Is a Natural Part of Being in Business, Just Make Sure Yours Are Calculated

Growing and scaling your business will involve taking risks. To increase your chances of success, make sure the risks you take are calculated.

Taking risks is a natural part of being in business. As a business coach, one of the main things I do with leadership teams is to help them identify the risks in their strategic plan and help them find ways of mitigating them to increase their chances of success.

The key to dealing with risks in business is to make sure that you're balancing the downsides with the upsides. It's perfectly acceptable and even necessary to take risks to make big wins.

The challenge is that you can err both ways. You can fail to properly assess the downside of a particular decision and find yourself in trouble. You can also miss significant opportunities because you missed the upside.

Here are a few key steps you can take to better calculate the trade-offs in order to make better decisions over time.

1. Brainstorm all possible risks

Once you develop a plan, the first thing is to brainstorm all the possible risks that you might face. This includes internal risks associated with your ability to deliver on your tasks and efforts. It also includes external risks that might impact or influence your ability to successfully complete your plan.

Like all brainstorming efforts, the trick here is to create the right context and mindset to really explore all possibilities. Once you've created a sufficiently long and broad list, you can begin to filter and prioritize.

2. Determine the likelihood of each occurring

Using the list you've brainstormed, determine how likely each one of the events is to occur. I like using a scale of 1 to 5 or a rating of high, medium, and low. Your system should be simple enough to use quickly, yet varied enough to separate out your list in several different buckets.

What most teams get wrong is that, while certain specific risks are highly unlikely, general categories of risks are actually more likely. While the chance of your facility getting hit by a tornado is low, having some type of weather-related event that disrupts operations is quite a bit higher. A solution here is to focus more on categories and types of events than specific scenarios.

3. Assess the impact on your business

Once you've identified the likelihood of each one of these events, you can assess how it would affect your business and your project. Take the impact assessment and categorize it on a similar scale as you did probability. 

Once you have the likelihood and the impact ratings, you can plot each risk to see how they relate together on these two axes. This will allow you to decide which actions you should take for each situation.

4. Ignore all low-impact risks

The first thing I do is ignore anything that's low impact, even if it's a high likelihood. I do this because, if it's low impact, it's something you can just deal with if and when it occurs. Investing time, energy, and money into managing and mitigating a low-impact risk just isn't worth it.

Unfortunately, I see a lot of teams spending time and energy here. Usually, it's because these are easier to deal with and feel good to solve. But in fact, it's not a good strategic decision and will be a waste of your effort.

5. Create a plan of action for low-likelihood risks

For low-likelihood risks that have a chance to significantly affect the business or project, we want to make sure that we have a plan of action. We want to know what we would do should this risk occur and how we would minimize its impact. This could be things like taking out insurance or having a backup plan or an alternate strategy if this risk materializes.

6. Adjust your plans to avoid/minimize high-likelihood risks

High-likelihood, high-impact risks are where you want to spend the bulk of your time, energy, and money. First, you want to look at how to change your plans and strategies to avoid these risks in the first place.

If you can't avoid these risks, you want to have a plan for how to mitigate their impact if they do occur. This could be having backups or redundant systems, finding ways of offsetting the risk to third parties, or alternate plans and paths we can take should they materialize.

The key part of the process for these risks is to set up a system for continuously monitoring and updating the plan. The sooner you know that risk is more likely to occur or specifically when it may occur, the more time you have to respond appropriately and to put your plans into action.

By properly assessing all the risks you potentially face and categorizing them into the appropriate buckets, you can make smart plans to deal with them, or hopefully even avoid them altogether. 

Overcommitment Is the Enemy of Focus. Use These 6 Strategies to Avoid Saying ‘Yes’ to Often

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.

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.

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

Here's how to make sure your leadership team 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.

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 success remains 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 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 requests 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 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 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 bare.

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 a mistrust and confusion.

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

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.

Why Getting Out of The Office As CEO Could Be The Best Change For Company Growth

As CEO, it's easy to let your workload keep you behind your desk all day. Here are eight reasons to see your work in a whole new way.

One of the major shifts a CEO needs to make as their company grows and expands is the shift from being internally focused on process and operations to being externally focused on markets and competition. As a business coach who works with leadership teams of companies who are scaling rapidly, I often see this as a significant challenge for many CEOs.

This is especially true for CEOs who are also the founder of the company. Founders know the business inside and out and can fix just about any problem more quickly than anyone else in the company. The problem is that it's not the best use of their time when the company is bigger.

The core challenges of growth are defining a specific core customer and how the company is going to position itself in the market relative to its competition. The only way to do that is to get out of the office and into the market. Here are eight ways that CEOs can break the habit of spending too much time in the office.

1. Spend time with customers.

One of the easiest ways to get out and learn about the market is to spend time with your customers. Meeting with CEOs and senior leaders will be helpful, but also go visit the company's middle management and walk the shop floor.

Discover what challenges they have both strategically and operationally. Work to understand why they buy from you and what the real value of your product or service is to them.

2. Go see your suppliers and partners.

Many CEOs fail to realize the wealth of information their suppliers and partners can have around the industry. The fact is, they probably also work with many of your competitors or even your customers directly. And if you're a good account for them, they will be more than willing to discuss insights, changes and trends. 

3. Meet with your competitors.

This might seem counterintuitive, but meeting with competitors can be very insightful. And while some competitors might shy away from inviting you in, many CEOs are surprised how open many competitors are to inviting you to visit and see their operations. Taking the view that every company is different and has their own niche allows you to see and share information that can help both parties become more successful.

4. Get involved in industry organizations.

Industry organizations can provide events, conferences, and programs that will give you insight into what's happening in your market. Active groups will put on public and private gatherings of leaders to discuss issues and to share experiences.

If you really want to leverage these groups, get involved by serving in a leadership role and get on the board or volunteer for a committee.

5. Go on sales calls.

Another great way to get market insights is to go on sales calls. Seeing how prospects react to your offerings, hearing what they're concerned about, and learning how they make decisions can tell you a lot about what's happening in your industry.

The trick here is to avoid coaching your sales people and staying in the background. If you start jumping in and selling, you'll miss the opportunity to see the bigger picture.

6. Be on an industry panel.

If you're shy about speaking, panels are a great way to get exposure without the stress and prep work. Many industries have events with panel opportunities. If you want to kick this up a notch, put together your own panel around a topic you're interested in and be the moderator.

7. Visit a university program.

Universities are always looking for professionals to participate in their programs. This can be as simple as being a guest speaker or as committed as running a full course. The goal here is to interact with the professors and the students to see what topics and ideas are being discussed by the next generation.

8. Sit on a non-profit board.

Another great way to interact with other executives in your space is to sit on the board of a related non-profit. They are always looking for people to sit on boards and it's usually a reasonable amount of work if the board is well run. Not only is it good insight, but it's also a great way to give back to the community which supports your business.

CEOs need to develop good insights about what's happening in their market if they are going to create effective strategies for growth. And you can't do this by sitting in your office or in meeting rooms all day. It's important to find the right strategies that work best for your style and schedule. But most importantly, just get out and try things.

Why You Should Throw Out Core Values That Say ‘Honesty’, ‘Integrity,’ Or ‘Ethical’―Here’s What To Replace Them With

Core values are important for a company's culture. However, most companies miss the mark by using words that represent table stakes rather than a strategic choice.

As a business coach, I spend a lot of time with company leaders planning growth and developing strategy. A key part of this process is establishing the fundamentals for why an organization exists and how it chooses to do business. This step includes creating its mission, its vision, and, most important, its core values.

Unfortunately, many companies miss the mark when it comes to creating an effective set of core values. They either create a set of aspirational statements that describe what they wish they were--rather than what they truly are now--or they create values that define basic business best practices, rather than differentiating values that define the company's unique identity.

Core values, like missions and visions, are there to help leaders in a company make tough decisions about how they execute their strategy. They provide guardrails and heuristics about what is the right--and what is the wrong--path to take. A good set of company core values should make it easier for everyone to make tough decisions.

When working on your core values, here are a few things to keep in mind that will improve their effectiveness as a decision-making tool.

1. Focus on who you are, not who you wish to be.

Too often I see core values that are aspirational rather than descriptive. A team declares that "punctuality" is a value, but starts every meeting 10 minutes late, or claims "transparency" is important but then cloaks leadership team meetings in secrecy.

Instead, focus on how your company is unique. If you like to have fun and be silly, own it. If you're brutally competitive, then celebrate it. Values are not good or bad; they are simply who you are and how you see the world. 

2. Avoid platitudes and best business practices.

I'm very wary about core values that use words like "honesty" and "integrity." These are things every business needs to have to operate ethically. They are the foundation and should not be choices you've made. Even values like hard work or teamwork are difficult unless you can make a specific case.

The test for these is to ask if another company could say it is not going to be one of those things. A company would have a difficult time saying honesty wasn't a value, which means is not a value that helps define who you really are. However, a company could say that teamwork isn't a value because it focuses on being competitive instead. I'd give props to a business that was self-aware and bold enough to own that value.

3. Identify what you're willing to give up.

A good way to give your core values some teeth is to figure out what value you're willing to give up. I call these "antivalues." These antivalues reflect what you're willing to sacrifice to truly live your value.

Here's the trick: You need to be able to give your antivalue to another company and have it still make sense. If you're willing to give up privacy to be transparent, that works because another company could choose to give up transparency for privacy.

4. Find stories that demonstrate your values in action.

Values need to guide actions. Collect a handful of stories that breathe life into your values by showing how you've used them to make difficult decisions. You can also find examples of when you didn't use them and how that led to bad outcomes. If you can't find examples of how you have lived out your values, you might be missing something.

5. Incorporate them into your rituals and routines.

It doesn't do any good to spend the time and energy discovering your values to just make a poster for your conference room wall. You need to use them as tools for making decisions and guiding your actions.

Work them into your regular course of business. I have clients who develop quarterly themes around values and create awards for people and teams who best demonstrate them. And while I don't suggest using them in external marketing materials, your internal communications should refer to them often.

6. Hold people accountable for living the values.

The most impactful, but also the hardest, application of core values is to hold people accountable for living them. Working them into the professional development and review processes is critical. And, if need be, you should be willing to let someone go if they repeatedly act in conflict with the values you've agreed to.

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.

Thinking of Hiring a Coach? Make Sure You Choose the Right Kind

Having a coach can help you develop and improve. The difficulty is selecting the right one.

Most executives and business leaders understand the value of having a coach and how coaches can help accelerate change and boost performance. Over the years, I've used many different coaches in various areas of my life including sports, physical training, professional development, leadership, business, even my personal relationships.

I've learned that there are many types of coaches each with their own style and approach. And choosing the right one can be a difficult and confusing process. If you're looking for a coach, one of the first things to understand is the types of coaches that are out there and the types of things they focus on with their clients.

Before you start meeting and interviewing specific coaches, it's a good idea to figure out what type of coach you need and make sure the people you speak to focus on that type of work.

1. Personal coach

If you're struggling with work/life balance or how things in your personal life are affecting your professional performance, consider a personal coach. These coaches are more general and can help with an array of personal and professional challenges and situations. If your really unsure where you need help, I have found these are a good place to start.

2. Accountability coach

Do you create great plans, but put off starting or meeting your deadlines? An accountability coach can be a great option. These coaches focus on setting clear goals and commitments, and they help troubleshoot both the logical and emotional challenges that get in people's way.

3. Career coach

If you're looking to map out their career path or are struggling with a decision around a career change, these coaches can help you get clear on long-term goals and possible professional paths. They will help with creating options and evaluating potential positions. For those who need structure, they can provide plans and accountability as well.

4. Executive coach

As you move up the ladder, your focus needs to shift from "doing the work" to organizing projects and teams and making harder and harder decisions. Executive coaches work with senior folks on everything from communication to critical thinking to personal productivity.

Executive coaches are a great choice If you're stepping into a new, more demanding role or taking a position at a new company. They can give you a higher perspective, help you prioritize, and develop new strategies.

5. Leadership coach

Once you reach the highest level of management, the focus shifts from directing people and projects to developing the strategy and setting organizational priorities. It's not an easy transition to make. And it's one which few people can easily make successful.

A leadership coach helps executives make the move to "leading teams of leaders" and focusing on long-term planning and strategy. Many of the most successful CEOs have leadership coaches who are close and trusted partners. For some great insights into leadership coaching, read the story of Bill Campbell in Trillion Dollar Coach.

6. Strategic coach

For a leader or team who is charged with developing a company or a department business strategy, there are many challenges. Strategy is hard and having a coach who specializes in facilitating the process of defining customer focus, analyzing market needs, and developing strategic plans can help structure and accelerate the work. These coaches are experts at helping leadership teams not only create an effective plan but also communicate and implement that plan throughout the organization.

7. Team coach

The vast majority of business work today requires solid teamwork. Unfortunately, developing a high-performance team is not always a natural or easy thing to do. Team coaches focus on helping define a team's purpose, set goals, clarify roles and responsibilities, and work through interpersonal dynamics that inevitably come up when groups of people are working together in high-pressure situations.

8. Specialty coaches

There are many coaches who specialize in specific areas. Everything from business partnerships, to multigenerational business, to conflict resolution situations. If you have a specific challenge or are in a unique situation, finding a coach with experience in that situations can be highly effective.

Once you've figured out the type of coach you need, you can then focus on style and personal fit. While you're not looking for a friend, it's important to find someone who shares your core values and has a common perspective if you want to build trust and rapport.

In the end, you need a coach that is familiar with your situation and challenges, but also one you are willing to open up to and dig into your issues and challenges with. You need have the difficult conversations if you want to address to root issues that are holding back you and your team.

Increasing Your Business Agility Isn’t Hard, If You Focus on These Principles

Traditional project planning won't work if you want to innovate. Use these six strategies to become a more agile business instead.

The world of business is moving faster with each day. Technology is continuously changing, cultural norms are constantly shifting, and the competitive landscapes are evolving at a rapid pace. Being a successful business in today's world requires you to move fast and adapt quickly.

As a business coach, I get approached by many CEOs who are looking to grow their businesses faster and easily. One thing I get them to focus on is increasing their business agility so we can evolve their business model and create new value for key target segments.

If you're looking to increase your ability to pivot your business and find new opportunities in your market, focus on developing these Lean/Agile business principles within your organization.

1. Define your customer well.

One of the tenets of Lean/Agile is that everything is focused on delivering value to the customer. Everything else is considered waste and needs to be removed from the process. The key here is that value needs to be defined by the customer, not by you.

The problem comes when you don't know your customer very well or you have a very broad definition. This leads to a situation where you are guessing about what is really valuable or you're trying to please too many types of people. As a result, it's very hard to create focus and make good tradeoffs.

2. Increase your understanding of what drives value.

Many companies have defined a core customer, but they fail to truly understand what drives value for them. Many times, I see companies making wild guesses in the hope of creating value. Worse is when they think they know what the customer wants but haven't validated their assumption, so they get it wrong.

Talking to customers is good for insights and data gathering but it's not as good for validation. Customers will often tell you they want something they end up not liking or that they would never use something they end up loving. Instead, give customers prototypes and samples and watch what they do. This is why A/B testing is so powerful and used so often. Far better to have customers choose between two options and then talk abstractly about a product or service they haven't experienced.

3. Take an iterative approach to delivery.

If you're building bridges and skyscrapers, you need an extensive plan that lays out all of the workflows and dependencies. These types of tasks can be managed on a budget and schedule since we can detail the work and quantify the risks quite well.

However, in most businesses, innovation is a bleeding-edge endeavor. This means that the final product is fundamentally not well-defined and the work to be done will almost certainly shift as customer needs and desires are uncovered. This requires a more flexible approach to planning. Lean/Agile embraces changing requirements by focusing on short iterations in which the primary focus is learning and evolving the value you are creating for your customers.

4. Focus on integrated, self-managed teams.

In traditional project planning, you can lay out the work to be done and divide it among specialists who work independently. However, because innovation work shifts and evolves as you learn, it's impossible to fully anticipate the resources you will need and how they will be deployed.

For Lean/Agile projects, create small self-managed teams who have all of the capabilities and expertise the project will likely need. Cross-train so members can flex according to the needs of any one iteration, and let them figure out the best way to organize themselves to do the work efficiently.

5. Develop a culture of continuous improvement.

One of the hardest, but also the most impactful, shifts companies need to make is in their thinking around failure. Most companies strive to avoid failure and often create cultures in which failure is severely punished. They focus on blame and consequences to drive behavior and performance. In a Lean/Agile culture, failure is a tool for learning and not something to be avoided.

That's not to say that all failure is good. You want your failure to come with a healthy dose of learning and validation. But if your culture sees failure as something to be avoided at all costs, rather than as a process for learning and experimenting, then you will have a difficult time adopting a Lean/Agile mindset.

The good news is that it's not hard to start any of these practices and see early gains quickly. The bad news is that mastery is an elusive target. The companies that do the best job with these realize that they can always do better and constantly strive to achieve higher levels of proficiency. For them, agility is a way of being, not a goal.

This One Weekly Habit Will Keep You Stay Connected to Your Team as You Grow

As your business grows it can be hard to stay connected to your team. This one weekly communication habit can help.

Being in a high-growth company is both fun and exciting. As the founder of a five-time Inc. 500/5000 company, I've experienced it firsthand. And as a business coach, I've also worked with dozens of CEOs who have been on that rocket ship as well.

And while it's thrilling, it can also be isolating for the CEO. As the company grows, you spend more time focusing on selling customers, pitching investors, attending conferences, and meeting with suppliers and partners. All of this means less time with your people and hanging around the office.

The result is that you become less connected to your team. And while some of this is just a natural consequence of growth, effective CEOs put in place good habits to minimize the impact.

The best CEOs I work with make a habit of sending out a weekly communication to everyone in their company to keep everyone informed and up to date on what's happening at the highest level. For some it's an email; for others it's quick video, blog post, or Slack message. Regardless of the format and medium, there are several things they all focus on and include whenever possible. If you're a CEO on the go and want to improve your connection to your people, here's what you should include in your weekly message.

1. Start with wins.

The best thing you can do is highlight wins. People love good news, and it sets the tone for the entire company. Keeping things positive while being realistic and acknowledging challenges will keep people motivated and optimistic about the future. The trick here is to be specific and detailed and use recent examples and avoid being vague or using platitudes.

2. Recognize individual performance.

While not everyone wants to be called up on stage to accept an award, it's a great practice to call out individuals for exceptionally good performance. Where you can be specific and explain the organizational impact and benefit. Recognition is one of the most powerful motivators at your disposal. Further, you not only reward the individual for their work, you inspire everyone else to rise to the challenge. And the best part is it doesn't cost you a dime.

3. Reiterate strategy and priorities.

One of your key responsibilities as CEO is to clarify strategy and define priorities. It's not enough to send out a presentation once a year. You need to beat the drum and reiterate the message frequently. Research shows that people need to hear things multiple times before they remember it. Don't assume that just because you mentioned something once in a company meeting that it's on top of people's minds; you need to keep it there.

4. Highlight examples of core values.

Too many companies develop a set of core values, paint them on the wall, and then forget all about them. Core values only work if they are alive and actively talked about. Your weekly communication is a great place to mention people's actions which exemplify your values. Focus on the details and explain why their actions are a good example of each value.

5. Address concerns and questions.

If you know there are lingering questions or concerns in the office, be proactive and address them publicly. Rumors spread quickly and are difficult to correct once they infect the company. Address hearsay with facts and figures. If the concerns are legitimate, acknowledge them and explain what is being done to address the issue and when people can expect follow-up and resolution. Employees do not expect perfection, but they do expect transparency.

6. Ask for feedback and insights.

Communication doesn't just trickle down. Take the opportunity to ask for insights, feedback, information, and input on key company issues and initiatives. Often the people on the ground know more about what's going on than management does. Leverage people's detailed knowledge and perspective. One note of caution: If you ask for and receive feedback, make sure you reply and recognize the contribution and explain how you have applied or will apply it. There is no better way to squelch future feedback than for people to feel like it's going into a black hole.

Every CEO I've worked with who's implemented this habit of weekly communication has complained that it's one of the hard things they've done. When you're trying to close deals, set strategy, and raise the next round of capital, finding the time and energy to send out your weekly note is a significant chore. But these same CEOs also say it's one of the best things they do to keep in touch with everyone in the company and ensure that everyone is aligned around a clear message and direction.

Here Is How to Win the Talent War Using Virtual Team Best Practices

Virtual teams are becoming more frequent. Here's how to make sure yours is highly productive

The expansion of talent networks and the vast improvements in technology and connectivity mean that the search for talent has become a global market. Companies are now competing for the best people everywhere in the world. But to do that, they need to master virtual teams and projects.

Having run many virtual teams over the years myself and now coaching several virtual teams and companies, there are certain best practices that I follow. While working together in the same space every day has significant advantages, getting virtual teams to work well can often be the best and only option.

1. Clarify roles and responsibilities.

While it's true for all teams, clarifying roles and responsibilities for virtual teams is critical. Knowing who is doing what, and what they are not doing, will ensure balls aren't dropped and allow people to work confidently knowing their scope.

I like having a one-page summary of each role on the team describing their key eight to 10 responsibilities. I include key success metrics that show what is expected on a weekly basis. I also include links, examples, and templates to help clarify and set expectations.

2. Define core processes and handoffs.

Every business and every team has a set of critical processes that cut across functional roles. These need to be defined so people understand their roles in the overall system. I also like to assign an owner to the process who is looking across functions and departments to coordinate and optimize the flow. Without a defined way of working and someone to ensure success, balls will get dropped and problems will quickly appear.

3. Establish solid meeting rhythms.

Virtual teams don't have the natural rhythm of people arriving in the office, having lunch, and ending the day together. These natural cycles are important to create a team rhythm. And if your team cuts across multiple time zones, this is an even bigger challenge.

Setting up a weekly team planning meeting and a daily huddle creates a natural team heartbeat that will set a solid pace. Keeping these meetings to the same time every week and day and using a standard agenda and timeframe will help establish them as habits for the team.

4. Formalize informal meeting time.

Virtual teams don't have the benefit of ad hoc time together. There is no water cooler and they don't share the elevator together in the morning. It's easy to forget how important this time is to connect to learn about people outside the office. This informal sharing is what builds team trust and respect, which is the foundation to any high-performance team.

For virtual teams, this informal time needs to be formalized. Start each business meeting with five to 10 minutes of personal sharing and conversational openers. I also encourage teams to have "video lunches" once a week where everyone jumps on a group video call for 30 minutes to have a meal together. Also, consider things like lightning talks and team learning events.

5. Invest in meeting tools.

Virtual teams are highly dependent on technology. Documents, chats, repositories, video conferencing, etc. are critical and without them, the team would grind to a halt. Take the time to consider and select the best tools for the team and then invest in high-quality technology and training. Make sure everyone knows how to use each tool and has the resources to take advantage of it.

Pay close attention to team members with constraints and challenges. The team will be as strong as your weakest links and if you elevate them, you'll elevate the team. I've had some teams ship new computers with everything installed and configured so they are up and running from day one.

6. Meet in-person quarterly.

While it can be a large investment for many teams, meeting in person for a day or two each quarter can go a long way in building better connections and relationships. The nature and depth of a connection that develops after spending a full day together in person is not something you can do online. And that connection will go a long way over the coming months to create trust and respect while people are working together remotely.

The fact is that virtual teams are quickly becoming the norm rather than an exception. As the competition for talent moves to the global stage, the companies who master these techniques will create a significant competitive advantage.

If Everyone on Your Team Is Really Nice, You May Be Underperforming. Here’s Why.

Great decisions come from rigorous analysis and debate. Here's how to tell if your team is reaching its full potential.

As a leadership coach, one of the main things I do is help CEOs build out their leadership roles and train them on how to work as a high-performance decision-making team. It's one of the most important jobs of the top leader and one that has a huge impact on the company's results.

Ironically, one of the main challenges I run into with existing leadership teams is not that they are fighting all of the time. It's the opposite. They are not fighting enough. Often what I find is that everyone is going along the general direction and there is no critical debate or disagreement. My job at that point is to increase the constructive conflict on the team.

Here are some key concepts and ideas that I use to train teams to engage in richer, more productive conversations so they can make better decisions and deliver better results.

Good debate is key to better decisions.

High-performance teams engage in heated debate. The key is they debate issues, not attack other people. They know that by rigorously challenging each other they will push their ideas into new and better solutions. The goal is to advance the conversation, not tear the other person down. 

Getting your ideas heard.

Members of great teams know they need to create space and time for everyone to be heard. Sometimes this means slowing down and giving time for someone to organize their thoughts. It might also mean coaxing comments out of people who might otherwise be silent. And if they themselves haven't spoken up, they rise to the occasion and speak up and be heard, even if what they have to say is contradictory or unpopular to the rest of the group.

Knowing when to push.

Strong teams know when an issue is important and significant and when they need to push themselves to further discussion. They also know when the issue just doesn't matter and they can expedite their work. Too often teams waste time and belabor an issue for too long, while other times they speed over a critical item and fail to address the issue properly only to have it come back in a worse state.

Giving in without giving up.

There are times when an individual on a team disagrees with the direction others are taking. Once you feel like you've been heard, but out voted, consider moving forward with the group's decision. The key here is that you need to embrace the decision as your own. It's important for everyone on the team to give full support, even if you had misgivings.

Noting reservations.

There are times when you are willing to go along with the group, but your concerns are strong enough that you want your reservations to be noted for the record. You are agreeing to the group's direction and to supporting its decision, but you want to be sure that people understand that it's not what you would have voted for. Use this sparingly, but it can be helpful to move forward with a plan.

When to abstain.

In rare cases, your connection to the issue puts you in a difficult or biased position. If you feel your involvement in a discussion would unfairly influence the direction or outcome, you may need to abstain from the discussion of an issue. In some cases you may need to excuse yourself from being involved if you feel that even your presence would have an undesirable impact. I suggest this to CEOs at times when people might not say things to them in the room.

Throwing in the towel.

If you find yourself always at odds and never embracing the team's direction, then you might just be on the wrong team. Teams make decisions based on purpose and core values and if you don't fully embrace and share those ideals, you'll never be in sync with your teammates. While not an easy decision, it's an important one to make for long-term happiness and success for both you and them.

While being on a great team can create a strong and a highly engaging bond, it's important to keep in mind that the goal of a team is not complete coherence. A team who's always agreeing and never seems to have difficulty reaching a decision is mostly likely underperforming. A strong team knows they need to fully engage in constructive conflict to get to the best decisions and outcomes.

The Key to Making Better Decisions: Be a Strategic Procrastinator

Sometimes the best decision is not to decide. Here's how to use procrastination as a strategic tool.

Decision-making is a core executive skill. It's also one that I see many CEOs and leadership teams struggle with on a regular basis, whether it's because discussions run in circles, individuals become attached to options, and discussions evolve into ad hominem attacks. Getting better at making decisions is one of the first things I focus on as a leadership coach.

Process is the first thing I address. Putting in place the rights steps for good decision-making--defining the issues, clarifying success criteria, exploring all options, making a choice, approving a course of action, and informing the right people quickly--will help tremendously for most teams.

Once we get the process right, we then need to turn to timing. The fact is that making decisions as quickly as possible is not always the best strategy. Waiting to make a decision has several benefits. The key is to understand the last responsible moment for making your decision. This is the point in time at which the cost of delaying a decision becomes greater than the benefit of waiting.

You can find your ideal decision time by asking two questions. First is "do we need to make this decision now?" and if the answer is yes, then ask "do we need to make all of these decisions now?" If no, then you just need to set a deadline by which you need to ask these questions again. This will dial in your decision-making timeframe.

By giving yourself more time, you'll create value in a few ways. Here are some of the key ones to keep in mind as you weigh the costs and benefits of waiting to make a decision.

Let issues resolve themselves.

Many decisions will resolve themselves given some time. Often times, leadership teams jump into situations, create policies, and swoop with edicts too quickly. While you don't want a situation to fester or exacerbate, creating some space and time for things to naturally work themselves out can be a good strategy. Leadership teams should use this as the last option on most issues, not the first line of defense.

Define "issue" more accurately.

Teams who rush into making a decision quickly will often be using limited information and perspective. Taking extra time to collect more details, gather more points of view, and dig into the details will add key insights needed to take a more strategic approach. 

Create better options.

One of the most common decision-making mistakes I see is that teams don't create enough options to consider. They race into choosing between a limited set of obvious options that are all non-optimal.

Instead, I suggest teams take the time to develop many options, even options that seem nonsensical at first. Most of the time, the best and most creative options come out after long periods of silence. Waiting a few days or even just a few hours can lead to breakthrough solutions.

Keep options open longer.

Making premature decisions will shutdown other options that might prove more valuable later. While a decision may seem obvious at the time, in another day or week, new information may come up towards it that dramatically shifts the benefit to another approach. But making decisions often means shutting other options down that you may regret.

Focus on bigger, more important issues.

Saying no to making one decision may give you time and resources to address a bigger, more important issue. Leadership teams learn quickly that there are far more decisions to make than they have the time and energy for. Learning to quickly identify and prioritize issues based on impact and risk is a key skill. It's far better for a team to focus on a few key issues and make really good decisions than to quickly process dozens but make mediocre choices.

Save resources and money.

Waiting and making the right decision once, will be much cheaper than rushing into a problem that only needs to be fixed again and again. I've seen many teams be quick to implement a solution only to realize later they were addressing the symptom and not the root cause. Taking the time to dig into the issue and address the underlying challenge will always be the more cost-effective approach in the long run.

Teams that focus on the right decisions and get good at finding the optimal decision-making timeframe will perform better and create more value for their organizations. Teams that react to each and every item that comes up may feel productive, but won't deliver the same results.