Alicia McKay's Blog, page 21

On micro-influence.

Influencer marketing is the most popular guerrilla marketing strategy of the last ten years. In 2018, 81% of marketers reported that influencer marketing was an effective strategy.

Influencer marketing generates twice as many sales as paid ads.

What makes an influencer?

It’s not all Kim Kardashian types with glossy lips and hair. Influencers are someone who speaks meaningfully to people like them and have the credibility and trust of their audience. The most impactful influencers are niche, not global. They engage and build strong relationships.

By and large, brands are doing a bad job of it:

Large-scale influencer marketing is actually on the decline, as the trust and credibility falls away thanks to a few high profile scandals. However, ‘micro-influencers’ – those closest to their target audience – are bucking that trend, as businesses start to value credibility and deep engagement over reach and quantity.

“Leadership is about influence. Nothing else.” John Maxwell

I think we should all strive to be micro-influencers. This isn’t about a large following or a flashy brand. Anyone can be an influencer, if they’re trusted and respected by the people they need to impact.

Micro-influencers are:

People who’s opinions are trusted and sought after

Someone with the power to affect the decision of others

Someone with a reputation of knowledge and expertise on a particular topic.

In organisations, research suggests that just 3% of people drive 90% of the conversations. That super 3% have more impact, more leverage, more visibility and are significantly more likely to make meaningful progress in their work.

If you need to move others into action, and you don’t know where to start – it might be time to start thinking about your influence.

Are you a micro-influencer in your space?

Is it time to join the 3%?

Act as if.

Goals motivate us

When I started running, I could only motivate myself to train if I had an event coming up. I started at a 5K, and a few years later, I ran my first marathon. With a big goal in mind, I could build a plan, increase my mileage and make sure I was on-track to succeed. It was a great way to stay motivated – until the event was over.

Sometime in the last two years, that shifted. I stopped thinking of myself as someone training for a run and thought of myself as a runner. By acting as if I was a runner for long enough, I eventually believed I was one.

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
– William James

Goals are important. When we’ve got an outcome in mind, we push ourselves to grow and figure out the steps to get there. External drivers will only get us so far though. At some point, we need to dig a bit deeper.

Identities change us

In Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about building identity-based habits. The idea is that when we focus on our behaviour, we create temporary change. But if we focus on our identity – who we are - we’ve got a better shot of building lasting habits that change our behaviour for good.

Who we are is about so much more than what we do or achieve. It’s about how we think, what we see and how we act.

We choose our identity

Our identity isn't static. It's a shifting, changing, complicated thing that belongs entirely to us. If we want to be someone new, sometimes we have to just act as if we already were. Like my running, the identity shift will come.

If you were already the person you’re aiming to be, what would you be seeing, thinking, and doing differently? How would you be acting?
 
..... And what’s stopping you from doing that now?

This is true whether we’re trying to change our direction at work or in our personal lives. It works for teams too. When we shift from a short-term project focus to the big picture, we ask better questions, like: How do we work? What do we focus on? How do we want to be remembered? Most importantly: How would we act if that was already true?
 
What identity do you need to take on, to build change that lasts?

How can you act as if?

Leverage as less.

Welcome to another Wednesday Wisdom. Every week, I share with you what I'm thinking about life, work and leadership. This week we're talking about leverage: is it about doing more - or doing better?

Doing everything with nothing

I love the idea of ephemeralization, the brainchild of clever inventor R. Buckminster Fuller.

Ephemeralization is all about becoming super-efficient, so that we get the same amount of stuff, information and output, while reducing the time, effort and resources we put in.

Fuller was an optimistic dude when it came to technology and society, arguing that we would progressively increase living standards even as the population grew and our resources became more finite. In essence, it’s leverage on steroids.

“To do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing"
– R. Buckminster Fuller

Most of my leadership teams are looking for ways to do more with less. We isolate the most important, impactful and profitable activities and look at ways to streamline everything else, leveraging technology, people and time.

Leverage is one of the key operating principles in my practice too, especially since COVID. We’re always looking for ways to use our expertise to create change, to reach more people, reduce our input and make things happen more easily.

Less stew, more jus

I mentioned last week I’ve been gifted a shoulder injury to help me think differently about my life and work. Luckily, I’m still in a sling as I write this, just in case I didn’t learn enough the first week.

Here's what I've learned: leverage isn’t always about more. For me this week, it’s been about achieving the same or more value, by doing less stuff. I’ve been looking at what’s on my plate so that I can think about my time and energy as less of a stew, and more of a jus.

Stews are full, hearty and complex, with lots of different ingredients. We like a stew. But a jus is a masterpiece. A considered, potent addition that levels up a finished product to something special.

When you're the jus, you pour deep energy into distilling your impact, so you can add the finishing touch to the good stuff that’s already there.

What would you rather be?

Risky business.

Injuries suck. I hurt my right shoulder this week, and it turns out I’m a terrible patient. I don’t rest well – not just because of my personality, but because, like many of you, I have a lot of responsibilities. I’ve got three kids, clients who need me, and a practice that depends on my ability to deliver.
 

It’s easy to misinterpret responsibility as indispensability.

Worse, it’s easy to define our value by how much we do, and how needed we are. This makes sense – how can we demonstrate our value, if things run well without us?

When it comes to real leadership, that’s upside down. The mark of an effective leader is not that the place falls apart without you, but that you’ve created such an effective system and environment that you’re hardly needed.

Leadership can be a key person risk

When we manage people risk, we make sure we aren't too dependent on one or two heroes, so one of our staff leaving wouldn't throw us totally off track. Leaders are familiar with managing this risk in their teams and organisations... but don’t always take the same attitude to themselves.

Last week, I talked about aligning our intentions to reality. In an organisational setting, this is largely the job of our operating model. In a recent strategy off-site with my team, we walked the talk and took a good look at our model. Most of it was pretty easy to get right, but we’ve been struggling to get clarity around some of our roles and responsibilities.

Your value is what you build in others 

Thankfully, the universe has thrown me this timely curve-ball. My focus when I’m back on deck will be reducing my key person risk, at home and at work. Building the right capability in my team and family, getting our systems right and working with my clients to ensure real ownership, so we don't depend on my energy for continued momentum.

Your value isn’t in your indispensability, it’s in what you build in others. For me, that means I should be able to lie on the couch and tend an injury for a few days without the world caving in!

What about you?

Are you a key person risk?

How can you uphold your responsibility, without indispensability?

Nothing important happens by accident.

If I looked at your calendar for the week – could I tell what really matters to you? 

If I looked at your team and decision process - could I tell what you're trying to do?  

If I looked at your budget – could I see what your priorities are? 

Those of us who kept a diary as a teenager will remember how cringy it was to read an entry from the year before. Who was this drama queen and why did they used to think this stuff mattered so much? 

What about how we spend our time as an adult? We do a lot of things that are far less important than they seem at the time. For fun, pick up a to-do list from a month ago. You might be surprised, or slightly amused at how much of it seems irrelevant now. 

Amusing as it might be, it’s also dangerous. Minutiae is the mint plant of your task garden. In small doses it's fine, but it will spread as far as you let it and soon crowd out the best stuff. It's frustrating how hard it can be to make space for the things that really matters to us.

“Your actions reveal how badly you want something." – James Clear 

In our personal lives, it’s often self-care and entertainment to go first – sleep, exercise, nutrition and quality time. At work, it's the big picture stuff – strategy, team bonding, cornerstone projects – while BAU rolls on undeterred. 

Nothing important happens by accident. Having goals and deciding to do things is great, but not enough to make them happen. 

We have to align our intentions to reality. If something that matters to you, put your money, time and energy where your mouth is. 

Schedule it. Systemise it. Spend money on it. Nurture it. Change your process. Change your operating model. Bring new people in. Toss old projects out. Invest in new technology. Cancel time-wasting meetings. Start new relationships. Put it in your diary. Put it on the wall. Buy the right outfit. Make it real.

How can you align your intentions to reality? 

The invisible list.

My middle child is a bit of a sage. Since she was little, she’s had a habit of saying profound things that make you look at her sideways. In the way that only children can, she has a beautiful way of summing up complicated things into one-liners that I really appreciate. 

When things are fraught and tangled, overwhelming and challenging, she will often sum it up in this neat little package: “It’s a lot.” 

I’m working with some really overwhelmed teams and leaders at the moment, and they're telling me exactly that.  

“It's a lot." – Charlotte, 10 

There will always be more things to do than time to do them. When we get stuck in a reactive cycle of worrying about ticking those things off, we get more overwhelmed, even as the ticks add up.  

I work with a lot of good people and teams who are stuck here, without the direction to move forward. They're always busy, always stressed, and always feel behind - even when they're some of the most productive people I know.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of reactive behaviour. It keeps us responsive and on our toes, and gets things moving. When it becomes the default though, we get exhausted. 

I reckon a lot of our reactivity and overwhelm is driven by guilt - that annoying internal story we tell ourselves about not being enough. Guilt has us worrying about letting people down, fearing we're not doing enough and trying desperately to keep control. Guilt is an unwinnable game, and it really flares up when we don't meet our own unrealistic expectations.

“Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth." – Mike Tyson

One of the things I advise my clients to do is to go beyond time planning and do contingency planning. With contingency planning, we anticipate disruption and failure, rather than planning for the best-case scenario. This kind of planning grounds our expectations and soothes some of the guilt before it gets started.

The problem with our plans though, whether they're time-based or contingency-based, is how much doesn't make it on the list. 

I've been thinking about my "invisible list" this week, and how little we value what we don't see. My work planner might start at 9am, but I've been up for hours by then, doing all the invisible things that keep my life, business and household running smoothly. It might end at 5, but I certainly don't stop doing things then!

We value some of our tasks and priorities more visibly than others, but it's doing us a disservice. We can't work with what we can't see. When we don't plan for all the stuff in our life, it weighs on our shoulders instead, and we wonder why we don't feel 'on top of things'. We don't see anyone else's invisible list either, so we get the twisted idea that we're the only ones not keeping up.

It sucks, and it isn't true. The internet's full of inspirational quotes, telling us to just dream bigger and try harder. Just say no.   

“Successful people say no to almost everything.” – Warren Buffet 

But it’s about a lot more than saying yes too often. Many of the things we’re worried about ticking off aren't visible, aren't asked for, and aren't valued.

I don't have the answers, but I've had enough. I'm calling bullsh*t on the invisible list and all the internalised, unfair expectations we set for ourselves. 

What's on your invisible list?

How can we bring the invisible list to light?

The New Zealand way.

Sometimes we don’t really see ourselves, until we look through the eyes of others.

Aotearoa has had unprecedented attention on the world stage over the last 18 months, and this has never been more pronounced than during lockdown. Over the last two months, we’ve rocketed to prominence with one of the most effective COVID-19 responses in the world.

What makes New Zealand so special?

It’s about a lot more than our current prime minister. Political leadership is as much a symptom of our society and culture as it is a driver. What kind of place does it take to elect a progressive, compassionate, decisive leader? One where those values already exist.

In Episode 1 of Strategy International, bestselling author Dr Max McKeown offered an outside perspective on New Zealand’s brand. Our international reputation has shifted from being 'nice people with a good rugby team' to that of a brave, united country with enviable leadership.

“The leaders who have gained the respect and attention of their people, and who have succeeded in dulling the impact of the disease, share certain traits and approaches to leadership worth noting as this pandemic roars on — and for future crises as well. A willingness to take quick and bold action, even when it carries political risk, is surely among the most important hallmarks of leadership in a crisis.”

- NYTimes

This bravery is a high-profile example of the way we make decisions when we're at our best. We have a proud leadership history. On issues such as the suffrage movement, nuclear energy, religious tolerance and human rights, we’ve been small but brave.

We take action, we involve others and we act on principle. We’re early adopters, and quick to take on new technology – from electronic payments in the 1980s, through to first-go on new features from Google and Facebook in the 2010's.

Incredible companies like Air NZ, Icebreaker and Weta attract regular international attention for their game-changing approach to business and innovation.

We have a special culture. Keen travellers and well-connected to the world, our dependence on international business and the integration of Te Ao Maori has laid the foundation for a special kind of local-global diversity.

Our focus on relationships and partnerships, the value we place on knowledge and a knack for innovation – Kiwi ingenuity! - has us pulling ahead in a world more in need of strong change leadership than ever.

While others see this, it can be hard to appreciate what’s special about your normal. Especially when your normal has a strong dose of humble – something we’ve always been proud of.

I reckon it’s time to proudly step into our identity. Time to take our place as the leader of leaders, to move away from our self-limiting ideas and make our contribution on the world stage. To reposition our businesses and economy away from raw materials and primary production, and point them towards innovation and thought leadership.

What do you think?

What does the “New Zealand way” mean to you?

How do we build on our position as the leader of leaders?

Below the surface.

The last couple of months have triggered a shift in our understanding of the world. World wars, the digital revolution, 9/11 and the GFC are other examples of what Nicholas Taleb calls ‘black swan’ events  – gamechangers, that throw everything up in the air.

It's been pretty stressful. But stress isn't all bad. Acute stress can be a catalyst for transformational change, for people, for organisations and for communities. When everything feels a bit much, there's a deeper opportunity buried below the surface: the chance to create something different.

With the right mindset, we can grow from this kind of stress. If we stay curious and open to learning, stressful change feels less like a threat and more like a chance to ask nagging questions. Like most things, I find this most obvious when I'm interacting with my children. The moments when parenting has really given me pause are when I get an innocent “why?” that stops me in my tracks.

A well-timed why can be quite confronting, if our head is in the right space. If I take the space to entertain it, a child-prompted why gets me asking things like: 'does this rule really matter?' 'is it just a default from my own childhood?' and 'what am I trying to teach?'

I've found myself doing that in my practice and lifestyle over the last few weeks. I've been tripping over assumptions I didn't realise I had, questioning things I thought 'had to be this way' and generally trying to stay curious and open to new things. The last few weeks have opened up deeper questions about what we're really trying to achieve and the kind of life we want. I don't want to go back to spending three days a week on a plane. I don't want to keep redoing strategy with teams. I want to support them to build their skills and confidence to make those decisions themselves. It's a whole new frame for us: all about leverage, connection and development.

It all starts with asking better questions. Here are my favourite three:

But why? (ask this one as many times as you need to, until you get to a root cause or a constraint you really can't move. Aim for 5.)
So what? (keeping asking this one until you really understand your needs or drivers or until people become totally exasperated with you. Aim for 3.)
Really, though? (ask this one with the inflection of an obstinate teenager, until you admit how many things you're assuming and taking for granted.)

Those are my favourites- what are yours?
What questions do you ask to dig below the surface?

Back to basics.

I injured my ankle badly in November 2017, when I started training for my first marathon. After a tough uphill slog on a sunny Monday morning, I was careening down a rocky trail at Battle Hill when I lost my footing and popped my right ankle.  

The most interesting thing about recovering from that injury was the focus of my rehabilitation. My physio was clear: I had weak core muscles, which was putting strain on all my other joints. If that accident hadn't taken me done, another would have.  

I had to get to work on stabilising my core. The core is your body’s entire support system – not just for getting strong and running marathons, but for staying upright at all. Core weakness is the single biggest risk for potential injuries. 

I’ve been reading a great book lately, which has informed some of the work we’re doing to reshape our practice, and support our clients to plot a post-COVID reality. In Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today’s Business While Creating the Future, the authors talk about how we become the next version of ourselves. "Transformation A" is about maximising the resilience of our current system to suit our new environment. It’s left me thinking how easy it is to get swept up in the excitement of change – but that it doesn’t work when we start from shaky ground. 

When we’re doing important work, we have a responsibility. We don’t get to just drop everything and change. Transformation A asks us to strengthen and reposition our core activities, while we get busy gearing up for the future.  

This week, I’ve been spending time getting my family – and my leadership teams – back to basics. Clear focus, time management, active communication and meaningful relationships. 

How strong is your core? 

How to spend your Anzac Monday

We get a bonus "weekend" day this week. You might be tempted to treat it as a normal Monday, because what even are public holidays right now? Or, you might give yourself the latitude to slump in front of Netflix for the day.

Both of those choices are a mistake.

Decision fatigue is hitting us like a ton of bricks, and it makes sense. 

The stakes of our decisions are higher than before. We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders every time we think about going out for milk, much less what to do at work

All the stuff that used to be on autopilot keeps requiring us to think 

We used to outsource our children for at least 6 hours a day. The mental and logistical load been brought back in-house

Our normal coping strategies aren't accessible: hitting the gym, meeting a friend for a drink, going to a movie, mountain biking

The lines between work, family and home have blurred so intensely we’re struggling to look after ourselves. 

With decision fatigue, we're more stressed and less productive. We snap at others, have unexplained headaches, tire easily and make impulse choices. Sometimes we're incapable of making decisions at all. It's exhausting.

As NZ moves into Level 3 this week, we face extra decisions: 

Should we extend our bubble to another house?
Can we go to the shops now? Should we?
When will we bring people back to the office?
Should we hit pause on this project, or accelerate it?
Should we send our kids to school?

In this extra uncertainty, we need to be careful.

When we're fatigued, it's harder to self-regulate. Feelings become more intense, so minor frustrations become more irritating, and our impulse to eat, drink, spend and say stupid things to feel more powerful gets stronger.

It gets hard to focus. Self-doubt creeps in for even minor decisions. Worse: we become more selfish, even when we don’t realise it. Feeling mentally depleted and overwhelmed makes it hard to be empathetic.

On Friday afternoon, I found myself standing at the fridge close to tears, incapable of picking out ingredients for a meal. After a long week and a big day, it felt easier to just skip dinner entirely.

I’m holding a lot of space right now – for my practice, my staff, my children, my partner, and the leadership teams I work with. I’m working with big decisions and future planning - and when I find myself snapping at my kids, or struggling to pick a standing desk, I know I'm in the fatigue zone.

This is totally normal and expected. Mental energy is finite. Willpower and self-regulation are the first things to switch off to conserve energy, because they require long-term perspective... and we’re already full with the short-term.

With low mental energy, we default to the path of least resistance; the status quo. But for those of us holding space for the future of others - our teams, families and communities - the status quo won't cut it.

It's going to be a big week. Spend your "bonus day" getting your sh*t together for the week, to make the most of your mental bandwidth. 

On Monday

Visually plan your week. Put your week on the wall. Identify milestones and important meetings, write your list of what needs to happen for each one, and block out the time for preparation. 

Premortem. Look at what might go wrong and which days are overscheduled. Write down how you’ll prepare for and manage those risks.

Make commitments, not decisions. Remove decisions from yourself. When you're tired, deciding when to go to bed or remembering phone calls is wasted energy.  Decide now and schedule it in your calendar.

Prioritise. Long to-do lists make it less likely you will achieve the important stuff. Rank your list, remove at least the bottom third and immediately execute. Write the emails now, explaining why timeframes have moved or things won’t be happening.

Simplify and automate. Do things the same way, at the same time. Have the same thing for breakfast every day. Have your team stand-up at the same time each morning. 

Make self-care choices. Decide what you’re eating, when you’re exercising and how you’ll relax. My 14 year old and I prepped a week’s worth of meals today. I booked in a week’s worth of F45 and I’ve got a nightly bath on the agenda. Do what works for you.

Schedule important decisions early in the day. Avoid complicated or critical meetings after 1pm. If you have tough calls to make, do it before lunch. Use afternoons for creativity and admin. You still have time to readjust your calendar for the week, do it now.

Every day this week

Make decisions the night before. What you’re going to wear, how your day looks, what you’re going to do first, who you’re going to talk to.

Don’t skip meals. Our decision-making improves significantly with level blood sugar.

Talk to people about how you’re feeling. It normalises their own load and leaves you feeling more capable.

Plan for interruptions. Then readjust your timeframes and priorities to be more reasonable.

Be ready to adjust. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. The value is in the planning, not rigid implementation.

You’ll still hear from me on Wednesday. This just felt too important to wait.

Be nice to yourself. You’re doing great.

-A