Business Builders

Leading is about believing in people

May 13, 2013 by Neil Ducoff 8 Comments

Being the leader of a business is perhaps one of the most complex, rewarding, and often brutally frustrating professions. Leaders are constantly held accountable, subjected to relentless demands, and must always be at the top of their game. A true leader works tirelessly to drive the Four Business Outcomes: productivity, profitability, staff retention, and customer loyalty. But when you peel away all of the trappings of leadership, what it really comes down to is believing in people – and that’s where things start to get interesting.

A leader’s job is to achieve results through the work of others. They keep people and teams on task. They maintain order, direction, and momentum. But would you want to work for a leader who is solely driven by the numbers, in an organization where people are simply the means to an end? In turn, would you want to be that kind of leader? You will get your results, but at what cost to those you lead; and at what cost to the work environment, or company culture? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Compensation, Customer Loyalty, Leadership, Productivity, Strategies Notes & News Tagged With: Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership, trust

Six strategies to find more time

May 6, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

Our lives are consumed with deadlines, “to do” lists, emails, deleting spam, meetings, interruptions, urgent problems, family … and that spectacular bucket list of things you want to check off before you check out. We all know that time is precious. It simply ticks by and cannot be recaptured. Nothing drives this reality home better than remembering that our time in this world is finite – not infinite.

It’s virtually impossible for leaders to be immune from time management challenges. Stuff happens and you need to lead in the moment. The world around you relentlessly tries to invade and capture bits and pieces of your time. Guess what? You do the same to those around you. It’s what leaders do. All it takes is for someone to say, “I need to speak to you for a minute,” and before you know it, half a day has passed and you are thrown completely off schedule. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership, time, time management

Six strategies to create a culture of accountability

April 22, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

This Monday Morning Wake-Up is for everyone – not just leaders. In its simplest form, accountability means taking ownership. You take ownership as a leader to grow your company, create opportunities for others, and ensure fiscal health. You take ownership of projects, situations, and outcomes. You take ownership in your behavior and the behavior of others. You take ownership when the wrong outcomes occur – even if not directly involved – because it happened on your watch. Accountability is about getting the right stuff done when it needs to get done. No blame. No excuses.

Take a moment to imagine what your company’s performance would be like if it was built on a culture of accountability. What would productivity look like? What would profitability look like? What would staff retention look like? Most important, what would client loyalty look like? Without a doubt, your company would be leaner, faster, and fiercely competitive. That’s the good news. The bad news is that too many companies give a lot of lip service to accountability but fall short of the level of commitment and execution needed to create a culture of ownership in their companies. As a result, creating distance between status quo and extraordinary performance is painfully and incrementally slow. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: accountability, culture shift, Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership

Six simple questions to test the health of your company

April 8, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

Companies are very much like people. They are born from a union of ideas; they experience all of the awkward phases of learning to walk and develop basic skills; and hopefully, they grow up with much success. Like people, companies can catch colds – they face obstacles in health when it comes to performance issues, cash-flow challenges, and other problems that surface unexpectedly. Companies need to work out to stay strong and lean rather than heavy and lethargic. Companies can get sick and die.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to protect and ensure the health and vitality of your company. That being said, you are also the one who is ultimately responsible for making your company sick through bad decision-making, procrastination, allowing the company’s culture to deteriorate, poor cash management, and a host of other faux pas that leaders notoriously self-inflict.

Companies of every shape and size are susceptible to infection. The question always comes down to whether or not the company is healthy and strong enough to fight the infection off.

Here are six simple, yet intensely profound, no-compromise questions to test your company’s current health:

Are you the system? Systems exist to create predictable outcomes. Building, perfecting, and locking systems are tedious yet essential parts of ensuring the right outcomes. When the leader needs to micromanage daily work, the leader becomes the system. If you’ve ever uttered the words, “Can’t they just do their jobs?” you have become the system – and it’s not working for you, your team, your company, and your customers. If you are the system, your company is not healthy.
What is your company fighting for? People fight for causes they believe in. Fighting for a cause unleashes the most precious energy source a company can possess – passion. Passion drives productivity, innovation, efficiency, and the ability to achieve outcomes that others perceive as unattainable. If the vision, purpose, values, and guiding principles of your company do not ignite the passion of your team, your company is not healthy.
Are you managing cash flow? Cash is your company’s fuel. It’s hard to fight and win in today’s economic climate if your company’s fuel gauge warning light is flashing. Too many leaders don’t pay enough attention to cash management until their fuel tank is critically low. Repeatedly filling your fuel tank with borrowed money is dangerous because debt saps future cash. Maintaining a cash reserve of three to four months operating expenses is not something you dream about – it’s something to discipline yourself and your company to do. If you’re not relentlessly managing cash flow, your company is not healthy.
Is information really flowing? The human body possesses a sophisticated information flow system. The simple act of walking is a coordinated effort of information flow and execution. In most companies, information flow is best described as constipated. Information may flow to some areas, but only trickle or bypass others. Think of information flow as “what, why, how, the score.” The right outcomes occur when expectations are clarified, processes are defined, deadlines established and agreed to, and progress is monitored via feedback or the equivalent of a scoreboard. Invest the time and energy to ensure information is flowing to every nook and cranny of your company. If it isn’t, your company is not healthy.
Is your GPS turned on? I use GPS navigation in my car, on my iPhone, iPad, and the Garmin on my road bike. These days, it’s almost impossible to not know where you are and if you’re on course to your intended destination. Do you know your company’s present location on its three-, five-, or ten-year plan? What are the ten initiatives you plan to complete this year? Which benchmarks and critical numbers are meeting expectations and which ones need focused attention? If you don’t know precisely where your company is, your company is not healthy.
Can it endure? As a human being, your time on earth is finite – so is your time as leader of your company. In contrast, a company can and should endure long after you’re gone. The ability to endure is the ultimate indicator of the health of a company. Are you building a company capable of enduring or a fortress to support your ego? Are you building a company that is growing in value – and does your Balance Sheet prove that it is? Are you grooming your replacement? Are you letting go of the reigns and allowing your leadership team to be accountable? The most important thing for a leader to remember is that he or she is not the company. The company is a living entity with its own vital signs and purpose for existing. If your company cannot endure beyond your leadership, it is not healthy.

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Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership, Productivity Tagged With: accountability, company's health, Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership

Set employees up to win – not fail

April 1, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

Employees get set up to fail more often than you think. It’s never done intentionally – it just happens. Tasks are poorly defined. Desired results are sketchy. The chain of command looks like a pile of broken links. Training is inconsistent and inadequate. There are leaders that actually expect employees to know what they’re thinking … and to execute their nonverbal commands perfectly.

Some employees try their best to deliver what they perceive they were charged to do and get chewed out when their performance doesn’t match unspoken expectations. Others give it half an effort knowing they can’t win. The end result is always a demoralized team and de-powered culture that is capable of so much more. Once a pattern of getting set up to fail settles into a company’s culture, getting things done takes more time, money, and resources. The company springs leaks that it cannot plug up fast enough.

When Strategies does onsite No-Compromise Leadership sessions, we interview employees. That’s when we hear the other side of the story as employees vent about their frustrations with the company and its leadership. Don’t get me wrong – these aren’t “rip the leader to shreds” sessions. Rather, they are open and honest opportunities for employees to express their concerns with the practices, thinking, and behavior of the company and its leader(s). It’s no different than leaders expressing their concerns about employees. Everyone wants the company to be the best it can be – to be set up to win. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership, Staff Retention, Teamwork Tagged With: Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership, win

Leading with blinders on

March 4, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

Leaders have a unique ability to see what they want to see in their companies. They see their people working away yet never see the mounting frustration their approach to leadership is causing. As a result, trust erodes. Fiercely loyal employees begin to lose hope. Contamination spreads through the company’s culture. In coaching, the most difficult task of all is getting a leader to see that he or she is the root cause of what ails the company.

It’s not unusual for me to receive emails from employees reaching out for help with a leader who has run amuck. The following email typifies how quietly destructive a leader with blinders on can be to the very company they and their employees love.

“I have attended the Strategies Incubator Course and am an employee at a team-based company. I value your teachings. Have you ever encountered the issue of a team losing trust in its leader? If so, how do you fix the damage? What happens when your leader is grasping at “shiny objects” and not staying on a no-compromise course? What can the team do to help? What can the team do when it’s clear their leader doesn’t know what direction he/she is taking the company?

I know this is not “MY” business and I could just walk away. I really like the Strategies business model and I can see a very positive future ahead. Unfortunately, that positive future may be too far off for me. I work with a great team … but it’s our leader that has the final say, and he’s off the charts.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Information Flow, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership

Chasing Freedom

February 25, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

If you think about it, it’s a fascinating dichotomy how entrepreneurs throw their blood sweat, tears, and pretty much everything else into building their dream company – all while chasing the ultimate goal of freedom. Lets do a little reality check here: you work an insane numbers of hours, take on inhuman levels of stress, and bet your ASSets, all to be free to do the things you want to do – if you can ever find the time. Sounds pretty crazy when you really look at it, but I’m right there with you chasing my version of freedom.

Contrary to popular belief, this “chasing freedom” thing really isn’t about escaping your company to travel the world, live in a cabin by a lake, pursue your hobbies, or be with family. It’s about the freedom to chase your dreams and reach your full potential. It’s about the freedom to truly test the limits of your abilities – and to do it on your own terms. Yes, this chasing freedom thing is as profound as it is life changing. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: freedom, Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership

There is no app for leadership

February 18, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

There’s an app for just about everything, so wouldn’t it be nice if there was an app for leadership? It could tell when you’re not paying attention, make decisions for you, handle your fierce conversations, and play a special ring tone when you should stop talking and listen. It could negotiate contracts, leases, and other deals for you. It could keep you from overspending so you stay on budget. It could even motivate your team to achieve extraordinary levels of productivity and excellence. An app for leadership would certainly have its advantages, but would you really discipline yourself to use it?

If you think about it, leadership is really more abstract and unique to each individual. Some leaders are quiet while others are loud. Some are deep methodical thinkers while others are all about taking action. Some are extremely disciplined while others are totally out of control. Some are fearless while others live in fear. The only absolute about leadership is that there are no absolutes. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: Leadership, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership

How to turn profit into cash

February 11, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

One of the great mysteries in business is why profit isn’t cash. Well, it’s not really a mystery – profit is more like an abstraction that requires further interpretation to fully understand its meaning. We can all agree that creating profit is a good thing and that negative profit (loss) is a bad thing. However, the mind games begin when there is profit but no money in the checking account. And why don’t you go out of business when your profit and loss statements keep showing negative profit? The answer is simple: profit isn’t cash. Hmmm … perhaps it is a mystery after all.

The most important fact to remember about profit is that it has no connection to how much cash is in the bank. For example, you ring up a sale that’s paid for with a gift card. Your Profit & Loss Statement shows the sale, but the cash from the gift card purchase may be long gone. If you enter an invoice for $5,000, your Profit & Loss Statement shows the sale and resulting net profit, but there isn’t any cash until the invoice is paid. When you make a loan payment, only the interest portion of the payment appears on your Profit & Loss Statement while the principle portion of the transaction occurs on the Balance Sheet. In this case, a portion of profit was used to pay principle. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Financial Literacy, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership, Profitability Tagged With: cash, Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership, profit

The quest for the right decision

February 4, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

As a leader, it’s your job to make decisions – the right decisions. The problem with this statement is that it is inherently flawed. If leaders are supposed to make the right decisions, why are so many decisions bad or riddled with consequences? The process of leadership decision making is subject to a complex array of fears, perceptions, opinions, relationships, egos, bad data, misinterpretations, and other factors. In the end, most leadership decisions fall into a category known as “WAGs” – wild-ass guesses.

Some leaders spew out decisions like a general leading an army while others obsess over every decision to the point where, should a decision ever come, it’s too little too late. Your approach to decision making is unique to you and how you process situations, data, opportunities, threats, and the world around you. Make more of the right decisions and you’ll be recognized as a great leader and businessperson. Make too many bad decisions and you’re out of a job and/or out of business. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: decision-making, Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership