1 Question to Improve Conversations

At the drinking fountain in a corporate office of 300 staff members, drive-by “Hello’s” are quite common.

As Cara* walked by, today was no different as I offered up a sincere question (not a statement), “How are YOU doing today?” Her reply as she kept walking was, “Pretty good.”

Turning from the fountain, I asked, “How can I upgrade you?” She had doubled back and inquisitively asked what I meant, where upon I restated, “What can I do that would upgrade you from ‘Pretty Good’ to at least ‘Good?'”

In a more serious, tone she proceeded to share that her limbs have been going numb and it has her concerned, “so if I can fix that she would be good,” she said with a wry smile. I told her I would start by keeping her at the center of my thoughts and prayers beginning immediately. She was sincerely appreciative.

I never cease to be amazed at how the demonstration of authentic care and concern for others can cause even complete strangers to open up. As a result, I learn something new and different about them than I knew before.

As a student of people and human behavior, my best learning about others often comes in the casual and informal settings of hallways rather than meetings. Meetings tend to have agendas, so I take interest in what’s off the agenda.

Therefore, my question to anyone responding to ‘How are you’ with anything less than “Great!” will often bring the, “What can I do to upgrade you?” question.

As you can imagine, sometimes their responses can be pretty fun or off the wall, which provides an opportunity for me to engage for just a few brief seconds of wit and banter whereby we both leave smiling. Other times it’s been quite revealing leaving me with the thought,‘I’m sure glad I asked.’

Two important things to note:

Whenever I ask the question, I am prepared to actually do something about what they share. Without that, my authenticity is compromised.
I am not advising that everyone start asking this same question. That would miss the point altogether, as authentic care is my point here.

I’d love to hear other ideas of how you demonstrate this with others, or stories of what others have done for you that made an impression.

If you don’t have stories of your own, then perhaps try my question as a starting point. I bet you’ll have your own story to share by day’s end!

When Leaders Get It Wrong

Responsibility, Characteristic of Leadership As the childhood song goes, “When you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” What about when you’re wrong?

Thursday, I received a phone call from yet another supplier that had the solution, but had no idea if I had that problem. Here is how the call began…

“Thanks for taking my call, Jeff. Do you have 5-10 minutes?” I replied, “I have no idea with whom I’m speaking, nor why spending 5-10 minutes would be in my best interest.”

SPOILER ALERT: This post is NOT about what he did wrong in the sales call. It’s about what I did wrong in my response.

How Should A Leader Respond?

I won’t go into details on how rude I became through the course of this 90 second call, but let’s just say my response to the rep was certainly punitive. Upon hanging up, I spent the next couple minutes mentally justifying my response and why it was okay for me to “teach him this hard lesson.”

This was the moment of truth for me…the moment in which I recognized something was wrong, and realized how I behaved next would be one of those ‘character-defining’ moments.

Fortunately, I had this sales rep’s email address from a previous attempt he had made, and I had the chance to start rebuilding, what I had so quickly and recklessly torn down. I apologized, taking responsibility for creating the low-point in his week, and for showing a lack of respect for him. Additionally, I committed to work on not treating others the same way going forward.

His response showed great professionalism, claiming that the subsequent interaction was the highlight of his week, not the low-point.

It turns out that this sales rep had learned more about the ineffectiveness of his approach through my respect for him as a person, than he did through my critique and rebuke of him as a sales person.

Leadership Tip

It is easy to critique, and call out problems we see in others. In our zealotry to uphold truth, right the wrongs, and teach a better way, we can leave quite a bit of carnage in our wake when our ‘principles’ trump our respect for ‘people.’

As leaders, our approach matters. While we may seek to ‘teach’ new and better ways, we must be quick to recognize the difference between Teaching and Preaching. As I have said before…

“A person who puts their own PR before [t]eaching is merely [PR]eaching.” (Tweet This)

How would you finish the lyrics to the song?
“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re wrong and you know it…”

The Wrong Question: PowerPoint or Whiteboard?

A question I frequently hear raised in sales forums is whether a person should use PowerPoint or a whiteboard for their presentation.

I would like to suggest a different question, as asking which tool to use places inappropriate focus on the tool.

Lesson from the Woodworker

Imagine approaching a skilled woodworker and asking him, “which tool should I use, a hammer or a saw?” His response would be quite predictable…”What are you trying to build?” Depending on your answer, he may suggest one, both or neither. The key, of course, rests upon what you are trying to ‘build.’ So a better question is, “What are you trying to build?”

The Presentation Trap

Let’s look at a common scenario. A prospect or customer asks you to come and deliver a presentation to their team. We won’t get into it in this post as to why this might be a yellow flag, if not a red flag. For this example, let’s assume it is appropriate for you to meet with their team to present.

The prospect, knowingly or unknowingly, predetermined your communication to be a “presentation.” As a result, you are enticed to look through the lens of “presentation” and subsequently question whether you should use PowerPoint or a whiteboard. If this sounds familiar, you have fallen into the presentation trap.

Reps can get so excited by the opportunity to ‘present’ that what gets emphasized is the presentation, subsequently compromising your opportunity to present the case for change.

Common Mistakes

As a result, sales reps invited to do presentations will often prepare by addressing three areas – The audience, the message and the presentation. The three areas aren’t the problem, but rather the focus within those areas and the amount of time given to each is generally the bigger problem. For example, reps I encounter across a variety of industries often place inappropriate focus and time to each area:

60% on Presentation: Building/designing the presentation, provided the same message isn’t used for everyone
30% on Message: What’s intended to be communicated (e.g., Info about your company, product, solution)
10% on Audience: Identification of audience members (e.g., Who will attend and what is their title/role?)

While the percentages are merely illustrative, not recommendations, I often see even lower time given to the audience with much greater time given to designing presentations.

Change the Focus

Instead of focusing mostly on the presentation and tool, and the least time on your audience, change your focus and amount of time spent in each area. Consider something more along the lines of the following:

60% on Audience: While knowing titles/roles is necessary, it is not the goal. Know your audience well enough that even with a mixed audience of finance, operations, sales and marketers, you can tailor and speak specifically to the problems they face from their respective areas.
30% on Message: The message should clearly demonstrate that the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. The proposal for change should ultimately lead to the areas your organization is uniquely able to solve.
10% on Presentation: Shift your focus from building presentations to building a case for change (i.e., The message). The presentation of your message should heighten the case for change. If the tool doesn’t do so, don’t use it.

Important to note is that if you have not created a core message* that demonstrates the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change that generally addresses the problems of the industries you work with, the percentage of time spent goes up greatly for the message the first time you create that. This is not only appropriate to spend more time here, but is critical to your success.

*By ‘core message,’ I mean that given the industry you work in and the common issues those within your industry struggle with are at the core of the industry. The representative ‘30%’ indicated above is therefore, referring to the amount of time it will take to tailor your core message into a specific message for your prospect, given the audience and unique problems they face.

In Summary

Don’t think and act like your competitors. When they hear “presentation,” they think ‘tool’ or ‘output’ (i.e., What do I want to present and in what format?). Instead, when you hear “presentation,” you think about the unique problems each of your audience members are facing from their respective areas, and ask, “What will be the most effective way to build the case for change that will lead directly, and exclusively back to my solution?”

Upcoming Posts on Presentations

Over the next two days, we will take an unconventional look at the unintended consequences of using PowerPoint and whiteboards for presentations. For quick reads on each, see the posts here:

The Problem with Whiteboard Presentations

Now that we have taken a look at just a few of the Problems with PowerPoint presentations, let’s take a look at three of the problems whiteboard presentations can present if not intentional in design and approach.

Let’s be honest. When we see the work of masters at whiteboarding like RSA, whose work is pictured to the left, we think, “That’s cool!”

The way they marry the work of incredibly competent whiteboard artists, with a compelling story is second to none. But notice the two requisite points necessary for a compelling whiteboard presentation – 1.) Competent Artists and 2.) A Compelling Story.

The absence of either one of the two can compromise the whole presentation. For example, trying to deliver a compelling story with poor whiteboard skills, merely becomes a distraction. This distraction compromises the story by shifting focus from the story, to the clutter on the board (See picture below). On the other hand, even with an incredibly competent whiteboard artist, without having a compelling story, the value of the presentation is merely tied to watching an artist work. The takeaway from this kind of presentation is, “Wow, s/he can sure draw!” This is the wrong outcome.

Three Warnings on Whiteboard Presentations

To be clear, I am not against whiteboard presentations at all. I am quite the fan and personally use them for certain types of presentations, but my use of whiteboards has to meet the criteria I defined in my post on the Wrong Question: PowerPoint or Whiteboard?. Let’s take a brief look at two areas to consider before presenting by whiteboard.

Warning #1: Skills. This should go without saying, but it is amazing how often this point gets overlooked when a sales professional approaches a whiteboard presentation. In fact, it would appear that very little thought is given here at all, as if the rep’s thought is merely, “What’s there to think about…I will simply write on the board whatever I am talking about.”

You do not need to be as talented as the team at RSA to use a whiteboard, but you do need to have competency…and practice…telling your prospect’s story via whiteboard. The team at Corporate Visions have done some great work in helping people think through communicating stories with simple images via whiteboard.

Warning #2: Proficiency. This one is important. If you are not proficient at telling your prospect’s story through whiteboarding, you are likely to compromise the presentation in one of two ways. Either you will take too long to draw the ideas on the board, which creates some really awkward dead air, or you will be too quick to be effectively represent your point in the drawing like you see below.

Regarding my previous point on taking too long, think of it this way. Imagine showing up to your prospect’s meeting with your laptop connected to a digital projector and saying to them, “I am going to build this PowerPoint on the spot while I present to you.”

Warning #3: Message. The last area of caution is with regard to the message. Of course, this is critical regardless of what method you choose for presenting, but the criticality increases with whiteboarding quite simply because you are developing the presentation ‘real-time.’ At least with PowerPoint, people have an image or slide in which to direct their empty stare while they think about what they need to get done once the presentation is over. Therefore, you need to make sure your message is spot on and finely tuned to the prospect’s story, and their focus should be squarely aimed at disrupting their status quo.

Repeatable Success Tip

Whiteboarding can be an incredibly effective way to lead prospects to the center of their own story in a visually compelling way. Like anything in life in which you want to improve, it takes practice. ‘Practice’ falls under the category of being Intentional, which is one of the three characteristics of the Repeatable Success model.

Our profession of Sales is a noble one. Great intentionality must be given on the front end of your presentation…from preparation through delivery. Those that have consistently repeatable success in presentations aren’t scripted, but choreographed. Prepare in a manner worthy of the outcome you are working to achieve. You are worth it…and so are your prospects.

The Problem with PowerPoint Presentations

There is an old adage that warns those ‘speaking’ that no learning about, or from, your audience occurs when you are doing the talking.

The premise for this assertion, of course, is that when a person is doing all the talking, they learn no more than what they already know. This makes sense.

But how does this apply to the sales professional in which presentations are a key part of their sales cycle?

We like to poke fun at PowerPoint and those that use it for presentations, as the cartoon above suggests. The aim of this post, however, is not to admonish against the use of the tool, but rather to point out problems sales and business professionals alike, may create for themselves when choosing PowerPoint for meeting with others.

Four Pitfalls of PowerPoint

In my previous post on ‘The Wrong Question: PowerPoint or Whiteboard?,’ I spoke of determining first, what you are trying to build or create as a result of the presentation, then prioritizing your preparation differently for where to focus and how much time to devote to each category. After this has been firmly settled, you can determine which tool — PowerPoint, Whiteboard or other — should be used.

Assuming you have a solid handle on your objective of the presentation, which should be more than a “closed sale,” as that is a byproduct of behaviors, let’s look at a few of the pitfalls or unintended consequences that PowerPoint can create.

Pitfall #1: Static vs. Dynamic Content. PowerPoint slides obviously need to be created, designed and prepared in advance of doing the presentations. Problem: If the rep’s presentation includes their solution, they are often doing so prematurely without having ever spoken with most of their audience members. Question: How would you respond, if someone approached you and said, “I know we have never met, but I have a solution for you?”
Pitfall #2: Orientation to Screen vs. Status Quo. The rep’s graphic-laden presentation has successfully captured the focus…or at least the place where eyes rest…of your audience. Don’t believe me? Try inserting a blank slide and watch how many people continue to stare at the screen while you speak. Problem: Eyes glued to the screen does not equal engagement. More often it is a conduit for concealed disengagement whereby the audience does not have to confront their biggest issues. Question: Is PowerPoint the most effective way to get your prospect to look at their status quo? Sometimes yes, but more often, not.
Pitfall #3: Defending Your Point vs. Their Point. Let’s face it. Once you put something on writing on your PowerPoint, you’re committed. Problem: If you have posed a point of view devoid of understanding how the prospect may counter, you are stuck to either defend your point of view (the typical course of action), or admit that you hadn’t considered their point of view when creating the presentation. Question: Have you created a presentation without knowing the problems your prospect will present?If so, you have no business presenting at all, especially if your solution is included.
Pitfall #4: Presentation vs. Conversation. I am currently working with a company who is looking to solve why people don’t go to church anymore. One of their key findings in the declining attendance is due to one-way conversations of pastor to congregation. Important to remember is that talking isn’t necessarily teaching, nor is listening necessarily learning. Problem: Research by the University of Texas found that people will only remember about 10% of what they read or hear, but remember up to 90% of what they experience. Question: Are you creating an experience worth remembering through your PowerPoint presentation?

Tips for Presenting with Repeatable Success

We all can fall victim to ‘presentation bias’ as we tend to concentrate more on what we want to say, than what a prospect needs to hear. If we continue to emphasize the presentation vehicle, then the only reason for prospects to choose one supplier over another comes down to whose presentation was best.

There will always be a better presenter, or a better designed PowerPoint. Therefore, if I am to focus on where to be the best, I would rather focus my energy on helping my prospects get to the center of their own story. This is the place where the prospect sees themselves in a situation that is completely untenable, and realizes that their pain of changing pales in comparison to the pain of staying the same.

When I choose PowerPoint as the vehicle best fit for disrupting how prospects see their own circumstances, I do these three things:

Use presentations to tell ‘A’ story and use conversations to tell ‘their‘ story. The difference between the two is often the difference between what their industry faces, whereas THEIR story focuses on them within their industry.
Use an image [and words, only when necessary] in the presentation to enhance the emotional connection to the story. Heads nod in agreement when the story about their industry is on track. This primes them for leading them to the center of their own story.
Keep the presentation to just a few slides to prepare them for the conversation we are about to have and use the blackout function at key conversational points. I aim for one iconic image to anchor our conversation to, that will allow me to point back to something tangible that will resonate with the prospects in grappling with their own story.

In my next post, I will look at The Problem with Whiteboard Presentations.

The Challenger Sale & Sainthood

St. Francis of Assisi, Challenger Sale “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” These are the words ascribed to St. Francis of Assisi when addressing the Franciscans in his Rule of 1221 on how they should practice their preaching.

While there is some debate over whether he made the specific comment as quoted above, or simply addressed the principle through his writings, I believe his point is on the mark.

He is not admonishing those that use words, but rather imploring those following his teachings to demonstrate in life and in action what they were otherwise trying to convince people of through words.

His quote strikes me as being more about sequencing…behaviors followed by words…than it does for being one versus another. Both have their place.

If St. Francis were a Sales Manager…

With more and more sales leaders introducing The Challenger Sale to their team, we can all fall into the trap of ‘talking about’ the principles, traits and behaviors of a Challenger, in hopes that the profundity of our words compel new action.

Sometimes that happens, but more often people exposed to a whole new way of thinking, need to see repeated examples of these behaviors in action, especially when it comes to weighty concepts like ‘Reframes‘ and ‘Commercial Insight.’

If you have recently introduced Challenger to your team and are encouraging them to adopt new behaviors, guess who they’re looking to as their model? That’s right. Sobering, isn’t it?!

With that in mind, consider how the aforementioned quote from St. Francis might sound if he was a Challenger advising his aspiring Challenger Friars? Perhaps it might sound something like this…

Mirror Test…

Question: If you could wave that magic wand and your team would automatically emulate Challenger as well as you demonstrate it to your team, what kind of Challenger team would you have?

Answer: Exactly the team you have right now. For some, this is great news and for others, it is simply a reminder that we need to be as diligent in the practice and execution of Challenger as we ask our reps to be.

Remember, we are held to higher standards. Therefore, let’s step up and re-commit to live out that which we have been proclaiming as being transformative, as we lead our team to the proverbial Promised Land. The rewards are so worthwhile for all involved.

As with any change effort, whether the implementing the Challenger Sale or instituting new governance practices with IT, the leader sets the stage of how each team member should respond, whether implicitly or explicitly. Let’s lead excellently…in a manner worthy of our calling!

10 Principles of Personal Leadership

Image courtesy of Todd Clarke

I was recently working with some of my retail clients on ‘showrooming’ and leadership, and was reminded of some of the great principles Howard Behar spoke of in his 2009 book, “It’s Not About the Coffee.”

Whether you have read the book or have yet to read it, I would highly recommend picking up a copy. Following are just a few reasons I found to be highly beneficial:

• It’s practical, not just theoretical
• It’s actionable, not just anecdotal
• The focus is on People, not Product
• The principles are timeless
• Those you lead will benefit

Following is an excerpt from his book on the 10 Principles of Personal Leadership that I thought would benefit those looking to improve their own leadership.

10 Principles of Personal Leadership

1. Know Who You Are: Wear One Hat
2. Know Why You’re Here: Do It Because It’s Right, Not Because It’s Right for Your Resume
3. Think Independently: The Person Who Sweeps the Floor Should Choose the Broom
4. Build Trust: Care, like You Really Mean It
5. Listen for the Truth: The Walls Talk
6. Be Accountable: Only the Truth Sounds like the Truth
7. Take Action: Think Like a Person of Action, and Act like a Person of Thought
8. Face Challenge: We Are Human Beings First
9. Practice Leadership: The Big Noise and the Still, Small Voice
10. Dare to Dream: Say “Yes,” the Most Powerful Word in the World

[Download printable PDF versions of The 10 Principles of Personal Leadership (annotated) and the Checklist for Individuals, Leaders, and Coaches].

Case Study: Is the Problem Marketing or the Marketer?

The Phone Call…

“Am I going crazy?” Having just answered the phone, I had no idea who was calling and asking such a question of me. I responded with a courteous, but cautious chuckle saying, “Well…I think I’ll need a little more to go on. With whom am I speaking?”

She paused, told me who it was, laughed rather distractedly, then proceeded to dive right into describing her dilemma from today’s meeting with the Marketing Director from her “problem division.” She is the Sales Director of a firm in which I knew a bit about, particularly with the company’s background and this particular division’s struggle.

In summary, sales were strong across all of her other divisions and lines, each of which had their own marketing leader, while she led the Sales across all divisions. Things were great, that is for all but this one division. Sales continued to decline year over year and had high lead dependency from Marketing, thus her concerns.

The Rest of Her Story…

The sales model is B2B with an outbound sales team that sells consumer products ranging from $200 – $1,000. As described earlier, they are highly dependent upon Marketing to deliver leads.

The Division Head and Marketing Director were both new to this division in 2011 and had stepped in with a new, radical, $1M cost-reduction strategy for marketing. The new marketing mantra became for the next two years, “Less Quantity, More Quality!”

This strategy resulted in lead reduction of 60% in 2011 compared to 2010. In 2012, the leads dropped another 40% from 2011. Not surprisingly, sales had correspondingly declined steeply, more so than any other recent period. While sales did have a dramatic decline, it was nowhere near the rate of decline for the lead volume.

The Sales leader saw neither quantity nor quality from marketing, and as she describes it, the numbers supported her version of the story. Despite the numbers, the Marketing Leader and Division Head remained committed to defending their original strategy a year and a half into it with major revenue losses, and subsequently showed no openness to a different, or better strategy.

Towards the end of 2012, she managed to get a commitment from Marketing for substantially more qualified leads in 2013, although to the Marketer, ‘qualified’ apparently meant email, number and “Request for literature.”

Additionally, the Marketer’s commitment was simply to an aggregate number of leads on a monthly basis, but not by geography, firmographic, demographic, product type or other. His tactic? Email marketing….it’s part of the ‘cost-reduction’ plan.

Today, prior to the call and after her meeting with the marketing team, she made her plea for more qualified leads as the current lead quantity left her outbound team with capacity in excess of 60% going into their largest quarter of the year.

After her meeting, she shared that in addition to the quantity of leads being a third of what they needed, 80% of them were for two of their 10 product lines. This meant that they had on average a half-lead per rep to call on each day for the remaining products….not enough to meet the sales plan.

“A Lead is a Lead is a Lead!”

Through frustration, the Marketer responded to her plea for more balanced and qualified leads with saying, “A lead is a lead is a lead. We know that regardless of what product type we market, more than half of the prospects will want something different anyway. We could collect leads on just one of our products and it wouldn’t matter. All that matters is that you have leads of any type, then your team can determine what they really need.”

Again, the sales exec says to me…this time through tears…“Am I going crazy? Do I have my expectations set too high? Is it unreasonable to ask marketing to know the customer well enough to hit who they’re aiming at? Maybe I am the problem. I don’t feel like I am but it just seems like we need to change our approach to marketing.”

I responded, “Being crazy and unreasonable is not your problem, although your 2-year tolerance may be a part of the problem. It sounds to me like there is a much larger issue at play here…”

Change the Marketing, or the Marketer?

I speak with people in Sales and Marketing roles from all over the country. From executives to analysts to reps. Lead generation and qualification is by far, one of the most common frustrations I hear.

No matter who I am working with or from what field, I am pretty quick to keep the responsibility and accountability with each respective group I am working with. Most companies needing my help typically don’t have their respective ‘houses in order.’ Therefore, I keep Sales concentrated on their own responsibilities and Marketing, theirs so I don’t create an all out Game of Thrones. I work with the executive leadership on cross-departmental improvements before circling back to the departments.

For these reasons, offering up an anecdotal recommendation to this Sales executive to “change the Marketer” after merely an hour-long conversation would be ill-advised, no matter how apropos that may seem. There is always more to the story, especially when it comes to Sales and Marketing alignment.

What Advise Would You Give?

Given the very limited facts we all have here, what advice would you give and to whom would you target your comments? The Marketing Director? The Sales Director? The Division Head? Who would you love to spend 15 minutes with and what would you tell them?

Challenger Tip: Practice what you preach when coaching

Sales Leaders were gathered around the conference table to debrief the progress of each respective team’s reps in The Challenger Sale.

There were some great successes shared, with one story of a Relationship Builder who was consistently ranked last, rising to #1 for the last 7 consecutive months. All because she changed her behaviors.

The discussion then centered around those reps that have yet to embrace the Challenger Sale. It was a few minutes into the debrief and diagnosis when we realized we had fallen into the very trap we were advocating against…

Battling the Status Quo
It wasn’t that the sales reps struggling with the Challenger implementation were blatantly resistant to change. They just weren’t sure it was necessary. Their performance was relatively strong, with nearly all achieving quota. Yet there were points in their daily discussions with prospects that were not effective. Their leaders knew it and they knew it.

Reps would approach their respective sales leader with the problem…or vice versa. The leaders would then point to the corresponding Challenger behavior that would address the problem, then coach to the behavior.

Seems reasonable, right? Wrong! We were circumventing the process in order to speed up coaching and performance. They had a known problem. We had the solution. The Challenger Sale!

A New Way
At the heart of the matter was that the reps with their very legitimate problems, were hearing the ‘solution’ from their leaders. In the Challenger choreography, this is the equivalent of going straight from Warmer to Our Solution. See my previous post on the consequences of doing so.

When we don’t adjust our prospect’s thinking (or in this case, our reps), and expose the problems with the status quo, we fail to ripen their appetite for a new way. For these reasons, the Reframe followed by Rational Drowning into Emotional Impact are critical, especially when teaching new behaviors.

Challenger Tip
When coaching, don’t assume you can jump to the solution because reps have sufficient information. What is not needed is more information. What is needed is a different way of thinking about their problems. Therefore, always follow the choreography. The choreography’s brilliance is that it uncovers and exposes faulty beliefs. Beliefs that lead to complacency in the Status Quo zone.

Take the time to do it right by setting a foundation for a reason for change. Then lead them as a Challenger would do. As a leader, you will benefit by reinforcing your Challenger behaviors (not theories). Your reps will benefit from seeing it in action and the effectiveness in bringing about change.

Mother’s Day – A Flawed Model for Leadership

What began 100 years ago, with President Woodrow Wilson signing into law a National Day to honor mothers, has come to represent something of a flawed model for truly honoring those we care about.

In today’s culture, where ‘busyness’ rules the day, we can quickly and easily fall into familiar patterns that look an awful lot like day-to-day survival as we work through our to-do lists. By the time Mother’s Day rolls around, the scramble to ‘show Mom how much you love her’ can simply become another checklist item.

As leaders, we can fall into these same patterns.

‘To-Do List’ Appreciation
Many years ago, working with one of my leaders on this very topic, I had observed an unhealthy tension between the leader (Ron) and his staff members. With one particular staff member (Robbie), it was especially pronounced.

I met with Robbie and asked him why he was so angry with Ron. He proceeded to describe the dysfunction between Ron and the whole staff.

One of the examples Robbie cited was that when Ron would walk in to work every morning, he would walk right past every one of his co-workers without saying a word, much less “good morning.” Hearing these examples, I sat the two of them down to talk about these behaviors in order to bring insight to Ron, and facilitate a healthier work environment.

As Robbie shared his example with Ron about not saying “good morning” when he walked in, Ron wrote a note on his paper, saying aloud as he wrote…”Say good morning to Robbie when I walk in.” Ron’s tone was clearly patronizing. Robbie hung his head in disappointment.

Ron was terminated shortly thereafter for a variety of reasons, including his lack of value for people. He relegated respect and honor to a checklist item.

A Look in the Mirror
We hear stories like the one I just described, and we are appalled. Yet if we look in the mirror, how often do our actions reflect aspects of this very same behavior. For example, if we are marking our calendars in Outlook with reminders to ‘get Mom a card’ are we truly honoring her?

I am not advocating doing away with Mother’s Day. I just believe that we have an opportunity to ‘honor’ differently. If we truly want to honor her, we make it a priority and demonstrate our love and honor through our regular actions.

And so it goes with those we lead. It is easy for us to say we value our staff, but do our daily actions reinforce that our actions match our words? If not, let’s change that.

Let’s use this Mother’s Day, not as an annual reminder of when to ‘honor’ mom, but rather as the beginning of how we will honor those we love and care about each and every day.

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How Should A Leader Respond?

Leadership Tip

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Lesson from the Woodworker

The Presentation Trap

Common Mistakes

Change the Focus

In Summary

Upcoming Posts on Presentations

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Three Warnings on Whiteboard Presentations

Repeatable Success Tip

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Four Pitfalls of PowerPoint

Tips for Presenting with Repeatable Success

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If St. Francis were a Sales Manager…

Mirror Test…

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10 Principles of Personal Leadership

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The Phone Call…

The Rest of Her Story…

“A Lead is a Lead is a Lead!”

Change the Marketing, or the Marketer?

What Advise Would You Give?

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