Leadership

How to manage time like money

June 17, 2013 by Neil Ducoff 2 Comments

I was in Livermore, CA, last week doing a private No-Compromise Leadership training session for a client and friend. I stayed over an extra day so we could do a bike ride through the beautiful vineyards and countryside. While riding, we got into a discussion about time management. I said, “Manage time like money. Think of all the stuff you need to accomplish as if they are line items on a Profit and Loss Statement. Income is your time. Now, what would you do differently?”

Time truly is like money. We only have so much of it and always wish we had more. If we are frugal with it, we can maximize our time, invest it wisely, and be incredibly productive. We can squander our time by being disorganized, lazy, and a master of procrastination. Lastly, we can allow our time to be stolen by others simply because we let them. Like money, time will disappear if you don’t pay attention and budget it like the precious resource it is. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Financial Literacy, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership, Productivity, Profitability Tagged With: Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership, time management

How to retire from your own company

June 10, 2013 by Neil Ducoff 9 Comments

Every entrepreneur is a unique mixture of passion, vision, innovation, gambler, salesman, and dreamer. The mixture may vary from one entrepreneur to another, but the common bond they all share is being crazy enough to chase their dreams and test their abilities to lead others. The failure rate of start-up businesses is staggering, but the entrepreneurial warriors that do succeed get to live their dreams and become captains of their own ships for many years to come.

The problem for successful entrepreneurs is finding a way to retire from their own companies. Many have that, “I’ll sell it and cash out one day,” thought tucked way back in their brain. Others have children working in the company and think, “My kids will run the company when I retire.” Still others maintain that, “My employees will run and own the company one day,” thought that allows them to fall asleep at night. These are all great thoughts, but in reality, most entrepreneurs are so caught up in running their companies that they do a pretty lousy job of building a solid exit strategy. Many just avoid it altogether. [Read more...]

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

Why individual incentives compromise team performance

June 3, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

As a leader, you are responsible for harnessing and orchestrating the talents and capabilities of employees into a high performance team. To do so requires an ongoing commitment to training, coaching, evaluating, mentoring, and inspiring individuals to achieve their full potential – so in turn, your team can achieve its full potential. Yes, people work for money, but studies consistently show that money is not the prime motivator for job satisfaction and impressive performance.

Individual financial incentives motivate employees in the short-term picture, but emphasizing financial rewards leads employees to focus on personal gain at the expense of teamwork. Avoiding the short-term and producing the right outcomes over the long-term requires preparation. This means planning, discipline, and execution. Preparation shapes and defines your company’s culture. Preparation pulls a team together into a cohesive entity capable of achieving the extraordinary. It’s about the team, pride, quality, and winning. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Business Builders, Compensation, Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership, Teamwork Tagged With: Leadership, Management, Neil Ducoff, No Compromise, No-Compromise Leadership, staff retention, team-based pay

What it really takes to be the best

May 27, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

Growing a great company has nothing to do with luck. It has to do with your leadership ability to surround yourself with the best players; to innovate, execute, and make good decisions; and to manage cash while capitalizing on opportunities. Throw in a healthy dose of accountability and being the best just may be within your reach. And if you do become the best, you’ll quickly discover that it takes just as much hard work to stay at the top of the game as it did to get there in the first place.

Every company starts out wanting to be the best, but things happen along the way that keep pushing that coveted title further and further beyond your reach. A few years of bad decisions, cash-flow challenges, and dealing with toxic employees can sap a leader’s mojo and self-confidence. When a company’s thinking and behavior is stuck on average – i.e. not actively pursuing the extraordinary – the outcome, as expected, will continue to be average. [Read more...]

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

When trusted employees steal

May 20, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

A coaching client just informed us of their discovery that a trusted employee has been stealing from the company by manipulating and creating false transactions in the company’s business software. Luckily, another employee saw something questionable and informed the owners. After hours of examining and comparing transaction logs, it was clear who the culprit was, how it was done, and for how long it’s been happening. Damn…isn’t running a business difficult enough without having your own employees stealing from you – especially one from your trusted inner circle?

The owners were shocked and devastated to discover just how extensive their trust was violated by this key employee. To learn that thousands of dollars had been siphoned out of much needed cash flow is one thing, but to learn that someone you trusted intentionally stole from the company right under your nose is where the real and lasting damage is done. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership, Staff Retention Tagged With: accountability, employee theft, employee trust isses, Leadership, Neil Ducoff, No-Compromise Leadership, Strategies

Leading is about believing in people

May 13, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

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

Taking responsibility for your actions

April 29, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

A coaching client asked me for advice regarding an issue with a team leader that had been using the company credit card for personal expenses. By the time the abuse of the card was discovered, the charge totals were quite sizable. There were repeated warnings when minor personal charges continued to show up on the monthly statements. The company has a “three strikes, you’re out” rule, and this team leader had used them all. My client said, “This leader is really good at aspects of the job, is valued, and an asset to the company overall. What would you do if you were me?”

I felt this owner’s pain with the no-compromise decision he must make. If it were not for the credit card abuse, this team leader would be perfect. But the bottom line is that this was a classic case of theft. Trust was broken. A team leader who was supposed to be a role model for others knowingly and repeatedly violated company policy. More importantly, this type of personal behavior regarding money and spending raises suspicion that funds could be missing elsewhere in the company. My advice was, “You have a three strikes, you’re out rule – not 3.5 strikes. There is only one choice to make here.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Leadership, Monday Morning Wake-Up, No-Compromise Leadership Tagged With: accountability, responsibility

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 reasons projects and change initiatives fail

April 15, 2013 by Neil Ducoff

There is nothing more common in business than launching a new project or change initiative. That’s how companies strive to remain competitive and adapt to changing market conditions. It’s how companies tweak current systems and build new ones to improve productivity and maximize resources. New projects and change initiatives must occur for a company to remain vital and relevant. However, the other most common occurrence in business is the number of new projects and change initiatives that fail.

As a coach and consultant, my job is to help companies achieve the right outcomes in what I call “The Four Business Outcomes”: Productivity, Profitability, Employee Retention, and Customer Loyalty. To achieve different and more desirable outcomes, new projects and change initiatives must occur. If the company is in dire straights, its ability to execute change with a high sense of urgency is put to the test. Unfortunately, it is the company’s inability to execute change combined with a low sense of urgency that causes it to be in dire straights in the first place. [Read more...]

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