RULES TO LIVE AND DIE BY

by: Chief Tecumseh

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.

Love your life, perfect your life, and beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place.

Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

WHY YOUR KEY EMPLOYEE JUST QUIT

If you believe all the headlines on the evening news or in the Wall Street Journal, you’d have to conclude that the US economy is continuing to struggle.  Unemployment remains stubbornly high.  Employers seem to be reluctant to hire new people to their full-time payrolls, even as corporate cash levels are at record highs.

So, you would probably be surprised to know that more Americans are quitting their jobs today than at any point in the past 4 years.  In March 2014, 2.475 million Americans quit their jobs.  This has been steadily increasing recently from a low in late 2009 (just after the financial collapse finally bottomed out) from a monthly rate of 1.7 million quits a month. Why are almost 2.5 million Americans a month these days – or about 30 million a year – willing to quit their jobs?

People Quit Bosses, Not the Company

If you want to keep the most talented members of your team, it’s time you started looking in the mirror and realize the biggest reasons why people quit have to do with You.

1.     Have you overloaded your best people with too many responsibilities?  A lot of companies in America, there have been waves of layoffs over the past 6 years.  In cut after cut, there’s a constant job staffing question: how do we get the same amount of stuff done with fewer employees to do it? The simple answer has been to get the remaining employees to do the jobs of 2 or 3 old employees, in addition to the regular job responsibilities they used to have.  And then a lot of bosses never revisited staffing responsibilities 3 or 4 years later.  It’s time to take a fresh look at who is doing what in your group and probably redistribute how work is getting done on the team.  Your best people need to be doing higher level stuff, not just getting lower level stuff done.  Your best people will quit if they’re just continuing to be asked to do the same boring stuff years later. 

2.     Are you a micro-manager?  A lot of bosses get promoted because they’re perfectionists.  They were able to get a lot of work done in their old jobs to get noticed.  Now, in their new jobs, they keep wanting to make sure that whoever’s doing their old job is doing it just as well as them.  Plus, they are into all their direct reports’ business as well.  Having your fingers on the pulse of what’s going on (or not going on) in your group is good management.  But, at some point, you cross the line into micro-managing.  Your worst people are probably happy for you to tell them what to do constantly.  But your best people will be driven up the wall by this tendency.  They want to know you give them a task and then enough rope to let them do it rather than doing it for them. 

3.     You’re never around.  The opposite of a micro-manager is a drive-by manager.  This is the boss who’s perpetually never in the office.  They’re not around.  They don’t check in.  They give you a job to do and then check back with you 3 months later on if it’s done yet.  Lots of bosses protest that they have an “open door policy” for their people to come in and talk with them whenever they need to.  But, if you’re never around or – when you are – you zip in to grab something off your desk and zip back out or get on a conference call for an hour and then take off to a meeting, that’s not going to invite a lot of your staff to come in and shoot the breeze with you. 

4.     You’re not in touch with how some of your hires or promotions are driving your best people nuts.  It’s human nature to want to be around other people we like and trust.  Why would we choose to be around – and hire – people we dislike and don’t trust?  However, we usually like people who like us.  Even though we think we’re good at spotting people sucking up to us, it’s awfully tough when you’ve got a direct report telling you how great you are.  Big problems arise when we promote based on who we like instead of on merit.  One promotion or hire like that is ok, but two or three can sabotage a team’s morale.  If you’re out of touch with who’s really talented on your team and who you’re promoting or hiring, it’s a matter of time before your best people tender their resignation. Why stick around if the bozos get promoted? 

5.     You’ve never given your people a sense of where they can go in their careers.  Nobody takes us aside out of college or even in business school and teaches us how to sit and talk with our direct reports about upward career progression.  As a boss, most of us just want to make sure all our work gets done.  But how much do you care about getting that next promotion? It turns out that your people care about it just as much. So take the time to talk to them individually. Ask them where they want to go in their careers – it turns out many won’t have a clue but will appreciate you showing an interest.  Talk to them about how they can get there, including what kinds of experiences and successes by them would make them stand out to your bosses. 

6.     You run terrible meetings.  Even one of the most successful CEOs in the world today, Google’s Larry Page, wasn’t born with a keen understanding or respect for being a good boss as this account describes.  Page - a former doctoral student at Stanford, when he started Google – thought the ideal way to run meetings was to instigate a big argument among a team.  Whoever had the best idea, he thought, would rise to the top.  Instead, he created anarchy and a lot of hurt feelings.  There are plenty of other way to run ineffective meetings including never calling them or letting them go on and on with no real action items coming out of them.  All these approaches are tremendously morale-sapping. 

7.     You communicate that you care more about yourself than the team.  As a leader, you’ve got to show your reports that you have done in the past or would be willing to do now anything that you’re going to ask them to do.  If you seem above it, you’re likely going to turn their support away from you.  You’re going to communicate to them that you care more about yourself than you do them.  It’s tough to win back their support after that.  So, show them that you care about their career progression more than your own. Show that you want the team to win more than you want you to win. 

8.     You’ve never given them the big picture vision of where your group is heading or you are constantly changing the big picture.  Some bosses are great at strategy but they’ve got their head stuck in the clouds or like to change the group’s strategy every quarter.  Some bosses are about as strategic as a banana.  Either extreme is bad and debilitating for your staff.  As a boss, you’ve got to tell the group where their North Star is, the direction they’re heading in and why.  Then, you’ve got to give them everything they need to get there.  Sometimes business conditions change and the strategy changes, but that should happen infrequently.  If you worked for yourself as a direct report, what would you think of the strategic direction you’re setting?

SEX, ETHICS AND BOSSES

An AICPA Economic Outlook Survey, which polls chief executives, chief financial officers, controllers and certified public accountants with executive roles in U.S. companies, found that businesses expect an increase in recruitment, staff training and spending in the next 12 months as economic conditions improve. Most of the executives questioned (56 percent) say their companies have the right number of employees, but 15 percent said they planned to hire immediately, up from 13 percent last year. Meanwhile the portion of those surveyed who said their companies had too many employees shrank from 10 percent to 8 percent.

Part of the problem with C level executives when dealing with employees, is that the employees don’t share nor understand the Type A+ personality of their bosses and they judge them harshly for it during tough economic times. Some mentioned that executives were thought to be ‘job slashers’ and lacked concern for their employees.  In fact, based on executives' own survey responses, they agree that they are getting worse at basic human interaction as the economy improves.

What’s the Disconnect?

A survey conducted last year by Booz Allen (BAH) found that executives largely believed the job was out of their hands and that they couldn't help their company achieve its’ goals. A full 64 percent said they had conflicting priorities, while 54 percent said they don't believe employees and customers understand their strategy.

That's bad news for companies where executives' capabilities in no way support the strategy. In that scenario, only 14 percent of such firms report above-average growth. It's particularly troubling when 64 percent of managers don't feel their company's strategy will lead to success.

Being Ethical

A study released last year by the Economist Intelligence Unit, titled "A Crisis of Culture: Valuing Ethics and Knowledge in Financial Services" found that executives in the financial services industry didn't see much to gain by conducting their business ethically. Does anyone remember the economic downturn of 2007-2008 which had a direct correlation from the securitization and purchase of ‘subprime’ mortgage loans?

Although 91 percent of those surveyed placed equal importance on ethical behavior and financial success, more than half (53 percent) think advancing their career would be difficult without being “flexible” on ethical standards. Only 37 percent believe their firm's performance would improve if employees acted in a more ethical manner.

While 97 percent of those same executives feel qualified to handle their job -- and 67 percent have raised awareness of the importance of ethics at their firms -- 62 percent of financial executives admit they care very little about what goes on in departments beyond their own. But many of those same execs think their own departments are an ethical breach waiting to happen.

Sexism

Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg and research associate Robin Abrahams reviewed interviews of nearly 4,000 C-suite executives conducted by the school's students between 2008 and 2013. Of those executives, 44 percent were women.

What is interesting is that 88 percent of male execs were married, compared with 70 percent of women. A full 60 percent of male execs had spouses who don't work full-time outside of the home, while only 10 percent of women did.

Most male executives saw work-life balance as women's work. Each side found it inconceivable that a man could pick up the slack, address work-life conflicts and actually contribute something other than money to the household. Meanwhile, the amount of stay-at-home dads has doubled since 1994.

What this review found is that executive’s contracts are locked-in and 16 percent said their company didn't have a succession plan in place and that it would take up to three years to find their replacement.

Conclusion

Executives have lost the trust and understanding from their employees, and therefore honest and open communication has ceased.  To engage employees, it is imperative that all executives and employees fully understand and embrace the strategic plan for the business.  It is no longer acceptable to point the finger and say it's management, and visa-versa. The real disconnect is the lack of accountablity, with shared core values and a common and shared goal.

THOUGHTS FOR DUMMIES

You likely never heard of Pat McGovern until this week, but the man behind the 'For Dummies' series of books and many other media brands left a lasting legacy.

The world lost a multibillionaire entrepreneur recently--a great leader whom most Americans have probably never heard of. Given that he was the person behind some very successful media brands, that says a lot.

Pat McGovern, 76, began his business career in the 1960s, as the founder and chairman of International Data Group. He was the man responsible for magazines such as Computerworld,  Macworld, PC World, and many other brands in the U.S. and abroad, including the "For Dummies" series of instructional and self-help books.

Think Big / Be First

McGovern wrote an article for Inc. in 2007, in which he talked about the importance of expanding your horizons to be successful. He was one of the first American CEOs to establish a joint publishing venture in China, for example, and his company was a pioneer in venture capital in Vietnam and India. With the establishment of a website operating from Antarctica, IDG became the first company in the world to have a presence on all seven continents.

"When a company ventures abroad, its point person should be its CEO, traveling frequently and acting boldly and enthusiastically," McGovern wrote. "IDG launches businesses in three to five new countries each year, and for virtually all of them I'm first on the ground, meeting with potential customers, government ministers, and management candidates."

Step Aside and Trust

McGovern was thinking globally long before most of his peers. His companies launched titles in Japan and the Soviet Union in the 1970s, and he reportedly spent four months of the year traveling overseas to drum up new business. Yet he was a hands-off leader, allowing the people he put in charge of overseas divisions to make decisions.

"His primary control is financial," Inc. reported in 1988. "His headquarters works as an investment bank, putting money into each unit's worthwhile ventures, denying or withdrawing it from ones that are not worthwhile, while McGovern cruises from office to office like a cheery potentate on a magic carpet, bringing enthusiasm and bonuses wherever he goes."

Get Out of Your Way

Inc.'s Leigh Buchanan started out at IDG as a copy editor in the late 1980s, and she described her surprise when McGovern stopped by her cubicle to hand her a year-end bonus check.

Pat thanked me for my contributions. He asked how things were going and looked vaguely disappointed when all I could muster was an unilluminating "Fine." Then he complimented me on a column I had ghostwritten for some technology honcho. The column was my most substantive accomplishment to date and the thing I was proudest of. But my name didn't appear on it anywhere, so how did he know? After three or four minutes, he handed me my bonus and proceeded to the next cubicle.

When she interviewed him years later, Buchanan said she learned that McGovern made one-on-one visits like that to every single one of the company's 1,500 employees at the time, and that the process took almost four weeks.

Be a Personality, But Be Humble

McGovern was worth an estimated $5.1 billion, but he cultivated a modest image. He lived in a same house in Hollis, New Hampshire, which he bought in 1989. He flew coach and drove used cars, reported The Wall Street Journal. He would show up at employees' 10th anniversaries to take them out for dinner.

"I don't think he did these things because he was naturally outgoing," wrote Harry McCracken, who covers technology at Time, but who spent 16 years working for McGovern at IDG. "If anything, he seemed to be on the reserved side--but...he believed that one of his responsibilities as IDG chairman was to make other staff members feel good about their work. Even when I was a low-level editor, I got occasional complimentary notes from him--always written on the same ultra-cheery letterhead, with GOOD NEWS!  and a rainbow at the top. He must have bought it by the truckload."

Earned a Lot and Give it Away

In 2000, McGovern and his wife founded an institute for the study of the brain at his alma mater, MIT, with a $350 million gift. It was one of the largest donations ever to a university in the U.S. To put it in context, the donation dwarfs the entire endowments of more than 640 American colleges.

BRAND YOUR PURPLE COW

You can have the greatest product in the world, the most superb service, but, if no one knows about it, you will have a warehouse full of excellent products, and you will be sitting around your office, waiting for the phone to ring.

Strategic Positioning

This is where companies make a big mistake with their marketing. It's important to have great products and great services. But too many companies fool themselves by thinking, "If people knew how great our products or services are, they'd buy us every time."

They try to market themselves by saying things like: "We've got the best quality, the best product, the best customer service, and the best people." I've got three words for you: WASTE OF TIME. Yes, all those things are important, but they won't help you be successful with your marketing.

It's not about the product; it's about the positioning. Strategic Positioning or Brand Positioning is a statement of who you are. It is what your target customers think about when they hear your brand name. Red Bull owns the words "Energy Drink." 1-800-GOT JUNK? owns "junk removal." What words do you want to own? What will make you stand out from the herd?

Seth Godin in his book The Purple Cow says that you should stand out from the herd of competitors the way a purple cow would stand out from a herd of cows. That's not just a little different. We're talking "dramatically different," and that takes courage.

The old rule of marketing was playing it safe. So, you created a good product or service, and then you sold it with sales people and advertising. You took out ads, you spent money, and you tried to drive customers to your business that way. That used to work, but it doesn't any more.

Today it is different, you need to create remarkable products or services that your target market customers will seek out and talk about. They will spread word‑of‑mouth about your brand.

It starts with being dramatically different. You're either a Purple Cow of a product or service, or you're a commodity (whereby you sell only on price). But that's only part of the challenge. You must also be dramatically and meaningfully different to your ideal target market customer.

Just being good is not enough. Your competitors are good. Your customers won't even start down the path to buy your product unless they think you're remarkably, distinctively, and meaningfully different. You don't win the marketing battle with the best product or service. You win the marketing battle with Strategic Positioning. So let's think about how you can position your company.

There's no one best way to position your company (or brand) so you appear uniquely different from your competition. You need to choose a position that sets you apart in a way that appeals to your ideal target market customer. There are six basic ways to achieve that:

1. Position your company based on price point.

Walmart, for example, offers "everyday low prices." Price positioning can work the other way, too, when people use a high price as an indicator of high value. Consider this story told by Dr. Robert Cialdini, the author of Influence.

The owner of a jewelry store that specializes in Indian jewelry purchased some good quality turquoise pieces and priced them reasonably, based on her experience. But, even though the store was full of tourists, those pieces didn't sell. That happens in retail.

The store owner did what store owners have probably done since the beginning of commerce. The night before she left on a buying trip, she wrote a note to her staff, directing them to display the turquoise pieces prominently and to cut the selling price in half. She imagined that customers would snap up the jewelry at the low price and she could move on to other things.

When she returned from her trip, she was pleased to note that, as she expected, the pieces had all been sold. Then she discovered that her staff had not done what she had asked. Her assistant misread the note, and, instead of cutting the prices by half, the assistant had doubled them. The jewelry sold better when the higher prices sent the message to customers that the pieces were of higher quality. There are many stories like this that marketers tell each other.

2. Position your company by creating a new category.

That's what Red Bull did. Before them, there was no "energy drink" category.

3. Position your company as something different from the category leader.

In rental cars, the classic Avis advertising campaign, "We're number two, so we try harder," is a great example.

4. Position your company as a specialist.

1-800-GOT-JUNK? is the specialist in junk removal. There are coffee shops all over the country that sell coffee and a host of other things like hamburgers and breakfast, but Starbucks positioned itself as the coffee specialist, the brand you know offers premium coffee.

5. Position your company as the master of a distribution channel.

L'eggs was the first supermarket pantyhose brand and became the largest-selling pantyhose brand in the country. Paul Mitchell became a $600-million hair and skincare brand by focusing on the professional hair salon channel. Ping did the same in golf clubs by focusing on the pro-shop channel.

6. Position your company by being explicit about Who your target market customer is.

Curves is the gym solely for women. AXE cologne positions itself as the cologne that makes young men irresistible.

How to find your Strategic Position

Here are two questions that I recommend to help you identify your Strategic Position:

1.     In what area(s) could you be perceived as the leader of a category or niche in your industry?

2.     In what area(s) could you be perceived as being dramatically and meaningfully different from your competitors?

SALES MANAGEMENT DONE RIGHT

1.  What percentage of your salespeople consistently over-achieve?

2.  Are your salespersons’ order-takers and account managers instead of proactive Hunters and Closers?

3.  Are your sales people effective selling value and trust rather than selling price?

4.  What is the percentage conversion of your pipeline to closed transactions?

5.  Are there enough qualified opportunities to close in your pipeline?

6.  How many steps in your sales process have been properly mapped?

7.  Do you have a formal sales process that everyone follows every time?

8.  Do you have a formal sales recruiting process that consistently yields the ‘right’ salespeople?

9.  Does your sales force execute your strategic plan, and keep it moving forward?

10. Is your sales team aligned with your sales strategies and core values?

11. Are your salespeople coached on a consistent basis?

12. What Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) do you track and test that drive sales?

13. Do you hold a daily short (10 minutes) ‘huddle’ where salespeople are held accountable for their KPI’s?

14. Is everyone using your automation to track clients, sales and the sales process?

15. Have you optimized your selling demographic and geography?

16. Do you have a formal 90 day orientation and professional sale training process that prepares each salesperson for success at your company?

17. Are your salespeople selling consistently regardless of outside influences?

18. How have you optimized your sales cycle and reduced your ‘Cash Gap’?

19. Does your sales management spend too much time over-managing your sales persons accountability?

20. Have you identified and quantified all the value drivers for:  total sales call, closed sales calls, the cost of a bad hire, etc.?

21. Are your salespeople fully engaged?

22. Do your salespeople know exactly what is expected of them at work?

23. Have you supplied your salespeople the necessary materials and equipment to their work right?

24.  Do your salespeople have the opportunity to do their ‘best’ every day?

25. In the last seven days, have you given a salesperson recognition or praise for doing good work?

26. Do your sales support personnel, respect and care about your salespeople?

27. Do you have an active role of encouraging your salesperson personal and professional development?

28. Do your sales people opinions count?

29. Does the company mission/purpose of your company make your salespeople feel their job is important?

30. Are your salespeople committed to doing quality work?

31. Have you, in the last six months, talked to your salespeople about your progress?

32. In the last year, have you created opportunities for salespeople to learn and grow?

IMPROVE YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Gallup’s research shows that few employees are aligned with or empowered to deliver the core elements of their company’s brand identity and promise. Executives must start by engaging their employees and then taking these steps to help their workers become effective brand ambassadors.

1- ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ALL EMPLOYEES PLAY A KEY ROLE IN BRINGING THE BRAND TO LIFE.

Successful branding is not just a marketing or sales function; it is an essential activity for human resources, management, and leadership.

2- AUDIT YOUR INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS.

Thus ensuring that all communications are consistent with your brand identity and promise. Invest in making employees aware of your brand promise, and empower them to act on it.

3- ARTICULATE WHAT YOUR BRAND REPRESENTS AND WHAT YOU PROMISE TO YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Inject the core elements of your identity into the workplace constantly and consistently across time, locations, and channels. Use these elements to define not only how you treat your customers but also how you manage, coach, and treat your employees.

4- DEPLOY SIMPLE PROCESSES

Ensure that you highlight and discuss the core elements of your company’s brand identity every day. Use minute meetings, lineups, or staff gatherings to provide specific examples of how to deliver the brand promise.

5- USE SIMPLE TOOLS

This might include such things as wallet cards as ready references to the brand, and require employees to memorize the key brand elements.

6- REGULARLY ASSESS HOW WELL YOUR EMPLOYEES KNOW AND UNDERSTAND YOUR BRAND PROMISE.

All employees — especially those in customer-facing roles — should believe in and feel they have the resources and permission to deliver your brand promise. Provide additional support in areas that fall short.

7- ENSURE THAT NEW EMPLOYEES UNDERSTAND YOUR BRAND IDENTITY AND PROMISE.

All new employees should be able to articulate what your company stands for and what makes you different within their first 30 days of employment, and your managers should reinforce this message every day.

8- MAKE SURE THAT EVERY EMPLOYEE UNDERSTANDS HOW HIS OR HER JOB AFFECTS THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.

This is particularly important for roles that are not customer-facing. Constantly connect the dots between what employees are paid to do and what your organization stands for.

9- RECOGNIZE EMPLOYEES WHO DELIVER YOUR BRAND PROMISE TO YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Recognition is an important psychological need. Employees who know that they will receive recognition for acting on the brand promise will have a strong incentive to do so.

10- REGULARLY SOLICIT OPINIONS FROM YOUR EMPLOYEES ON NEW AND BETTER WAYS TO DELIVER YOUR BRAND PROMISE.

Convene town hall meetings that allow employees to share their ideas and receive feedback. Demonstrating an authentic commitment to alignment is the best way to embed it in your company’s culture.