Howard M. Shore's Blog, page 3
June 1, 2020
How to Increase Accountability
This post is a bit long, but it addresses a topic I am frequently being asked to provide feedback on now that workforces have become remote: accountability.
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May 19, 2020
Adapting for Success: Managing Change
Have you ever wondered why some companies are more successful than others in similar circumstances?
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May 11, 2020
It is advisable to stop humor in your replies.
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May 6, 2020
Howto Manage and Conceal Your Hanging Computer Cables Under Your Desk
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May 5, 2020
Who Are You Today?
When one of my clients asked what they should be doing right now to “look better” in the eyes of their prospective customers, I recorded this video so that everyone could hear my reply.
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May 4, 2020
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The Chronicles of Education Day Celebrated annually on June 6, it is a day to champion the worthiness of high education and to acknowledge all the challenging work which has to be done in order to make certain everyone can share inside. The colleges following the grand success of the yearly day hopes for an additional occasion to come which is an additional exciting day in their view. Each day includes hiking and games. Brooklin Spring Fair’s Education Day is a fantastic prospect for Gr. It’s on...
May 1, 2020
Forward Motion for your Business: The OODA Loop
Are you familiar with the OODA loop?
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August 5, 2019
The Unexpected Path to Greatness
Have you ever had an employee with whom you didn’t get along at all? A person that rubbed you the wrong way in every way? A colleague whose name alone could trigger a fiery rampage inside your mind?
Has that person ever been the colleague you work closest with?
This happened to me once. Oh boy, what a difficult time it was. Nothing—I mean nothing!—infuriated me quite as much as this particular employee. Everything about her drove me crazy: she was disorganized and inconsiderate of other people’s time. She micromanaged her team members but missed all her own deadlines. She gave harsh criticism in front of everyone but wouldn’t listen to a word of feedback herself. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: she was the most challenging person I ever managed.
At the time, all I wanted to do was get rid of her—and quickly, before she destroyed my business! But I went about it the wrong way. I focused only on the negatives (of which I confess, there were many) and spent my time complaining about her disorganization, rudeness, lack of professionalism, and mean disposition. I was so focused on the negatives that I missed a powerful lesson: that I was in perfect control and that everything was made up in my mind.
I can just hear my former self screaming: “What?” Only in my mind? Yes, of course, her actions were real. But the misery and anger were all on me. I alone was responsible for how I interpreted her actions and their effects on me, my other employees, and my business.
I chose a mindset that led to defeat. Instead of focusing on what actions I needed to take to change the situation, I allowed myself to feel stuck in a cycle of complaining and inaction. I’m pretty disappointed by my own attitude of self-pity, in hindsight.
The biggest disappointment was missing this life-changing lesson that could have unlocked my potential greatness years earlier. All it would have taken was four mental shifts to turn the situation completely around. Here are the four things I learned that turn conflict with employees, colleagues, or partners into an opportunity to step onto the path to greatness.
Focus on the Experience.
Working with a challenging person or situation is not a good experience, but it is good experience. Catch that subtle nuance? Difficult people are in abundance, and you will, unfortunately, have personality clashes with colleagues, employees, or partners throughout your life. You will work for and with difficult people. You will manage difficult people. Anybody can sail smooth waters—it takes a seasoned sailor to navigate rough seas. Right now, you are becoming a seasoned sailor. Knowing how to work with difficult people will pay off in the long run. Heck, it might even save your business!
Reassess your motivation.
Moments like these are a great time to pause and reassess our motivation. When we believe that we hate our work because of a particular person or situation we are dealing with, we have to focus on the fact that we chose to do this in the first place in order to get through the ordeal. When we are in adversity, every day that we show up means that we decided that the pros outweigh the cons. The pros may not be at the forefront of your psyche, but they are in your brain somewhere, or else you would have quit as soon as times got tough.
What are the reasons that you are sticking around? Is it because you believe firmly in the mission of your work? It is because there’s a part of you that believes you have the leadership ability to change the structure of the team? Or is it because you like the perks that come with the work? Is it because you like the financial compensation or the flexibility the work provides? If you’re still showing up, there is a reason. Find your motivation and analyze it. Maybe you’ll find that the real reason you’re unhappy is that you’re living out of alignment with your values and need to make a switch. Or maybe you’ll find that you’re living exactly in alignment with your values, but that it doesn’t make you immune to adversity. Whatever the case, this is an opportunity to be more intimately connected to your motivations and desires for your career.
Learn from other people’s mistakes.
Congratulations! If you feel frustrated at someone in your workplace, pat yourself on the back. It means that you care. It means that you are engaged. That’s a big deal, considering the studies showing that more than half of people in their workplaces aren’t engaged. That even applies to business owners. Crazy, right? If you care about creating a happy and successful workplace, then this is your opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes.
Being a leader is challenging. It’s a difficult road of constant learning and frequent uncertainty. Working with colleagues or employees is an amazing opportunity to learn from their mistakes and to learn what not to do.
Keep it in Perspective.
One of the most challenging mental feats is to keep adverse experiences in perspective. So few people are able to keep their cool and keep business as usual when they’re in adverse workplace circumstances. The people that do manage to stay calm have mastered the most important of all the mind-set shifts: that this experience doesn’t matter at all. Like all adverse moments, it will pass. Eventually, you will find a way to resolve the difficult situation or bring on an awesome new person.
The other thing they recognize is that the situation probably isn’t as severe as you believe it to be either. When we are in conflict, our mind hyper-focuses on the conflict and ramps up the intensity of the conflict. We get caught up in the drama instead of focusing on the actions we need to take to end the situation.
The next time you’re dealing with a difficult employee, partner, or colleague, remember this: adversity is an opportunity for learning and personal growth. It’s an opportunity for greatness. This too shall pass, and with the right mind-set, you will be better because of it!
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July 30, 2019
The #1 Reason Your Competitors Are Beating You
Are you a leader struggling to achieve your vision? Are your “winning” strategies good in theory but lackluster in reality? ls your market dominated by a few giants that leave you feeling like David facing Goliath?
You’re not alone if you’ve ever felt this way. I’ve experienced this at many different points in my life—in sports, school, and business.
The first time was in junior high when I tried out for the basketball team. Growing up I was always athletic, reasonably fast, a good jumper, and until this moment a great basketball player. Our team was good but not great, and I felt I would have a great chance of making the team. That was until I showed up for the first day of tryouts.
I was like, “Where did they find these giants?” The first thing they did was weigh and measure all of us. Buzz Harris and I were the only two kids that were not even five feet tall. The rest of these kids looked like seven-footers. Of course, I’m exaggerating, but some of these kids were dunking, and there were a few kids that were 6′7″ in 8th grade. Even the ones who were not so tall made me feel like I was running in place. Sure enough, I choked on the second day, rolled my ankle and used that as an excuse not to show up to tryouts any more. I never even gave myself a chance to make the team. Later, in high school, I again had a chance to try out for a team. Things were different. I was now six feet tall and could jump above the rim. I had real skills. I showed up twice and again convinced myself I was not as good as the other kids on the court.
How did this happen?
My story isn’t unique. The Goliaths always seem impossible to beat until someone does. Most industries have at least 100 companies trying to beat their Goliath, but only one or two ever do. What do they do differently from all the others trying to bring the giant down?
I spent years haunted by that question. Despite never making a school sports team, I still wanted to be an athlete. For years I played intramural leagues and was always one of the better players. For a while, I was convinced that I was the problem: that I wasn’t smart enough, fast enough, resilient enough, strong enough—you name it, I thought it. It wasn’t until my adulthood that I discovered an important truth: my problem was my mindset, not my abilities.
The best-selling authors of Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works would agree. Written by A.G Lafley, the former CEO of Procter and Gamble, and Roger Martin, the dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the book’s main concept is simple: strategy is about winning, and winning is about making choices on how and where to play. They pull on years of professional experience as top managers as they set out to demystify strategy and to coach managers on bringing a discipline of strategic thinking and strategic practice alive within an organization.
Their view is that there are three motivational categories into which every person and organization can be grouped: those that are completely checked out, prevention-focused, and promotion-focused.
Playing to Participate
Playing to participate describes a company or an individual that has completely checked out. They’ve decided that participation is the greatest accomplishment they can achieve. Winning is not even on their radar. They’ve given up before the starting buzzer. They lose every time.
Playing Not to Lose
This mindset is prevention-focused. Prevention-focused people and companies are vigilant and play to not lose. They see their goals as responsibilities and concentrate on staying safe. They worry about what might go wrong if they don’t work hard enough or aren’t careful enough. They hang on to what they have, to maintain the status quo. These companies are often risk-averse and fail to make the tough choices and significant investments that would make winning even a remote possibility.
Playing to Win
Promotion-focused people and companies see their goals as creating a path to gain or advancement and concentrate on the final reward that accompanies achieving them. They are eager, and they play to win. Promotion-focused people and companies are comfortable taking chances, like to work quickly, dream big, and think creatively. They’ll do whatever it takes to achieve their ambitious goals.
I’ve used the authors’ framework for strategy, and it is simple, yet powerful. Your strategy is defined by your answers to five closely interrelated questions that cascade down from the top and filter up to refine and reinforce the choices above. In general, there are fewer choice cascades for smaller companies (in fact there may only be one), whereas in larger organizations there may be sub-levels of choices.
1. What is your winning aspiration?
This is the most important—yet broadest—question you must first ask yourself. Your aspiration states why you exist, what you seek to be, and what winning looks like for you. It will allow you to recognize whether you are playing to win or just playing not to lose, and lead you to define what winning looks like at various levels.
2. Where will you play?
The question of where you will play is the first of the key questions that forces you to refine your strategy. Choosing the industry is like finding the right playing field. You’ll never win a football game on a squash court. Your team will never win the NBA finals if you’re enrolled in a high school league. If you try to play in every field concurrently, you’ll end up underperforming and failing in all sectors. To achieve your winning aspiration, you need to decide where to compete, and where not to compete. You can go for a narrow or broad choice, but you must choose.
3. How will you win?
Once you’ve chosen where to play and defined what winning means, you need to define how to win in the space you selected. You’ve probably already discussed the strengths, model, and value proposition you need to develop to gain a competitive advantage in your industry. Refine these now that you’ve stepped back and asked the big questions that ensure you’ve placed your organization in the right field. There are heaps of strategies available for you to choose. Broadly, you can go for a price- or product-differentiation strategy, or any combination of the two, if that’s what you need to win in your playing field.
4. What capabilities must be in place?
Your core capabilities are the entire set of activities that jointly allow you to implement your where-to-play and how-to-win strategic choices. An activity system is a visual representation of these capabilities. A small business may have one activity system for the whole company, while a large corporation will have different activity systems for each business unit.
5. What management systems are required?
Having a sound strategy isn’t enough. At the end of the day, it takes thoughtful and directed manpower to put your winning strategy into place. To win, your organization needs supporting systems and structures for your employees to do their jobs effectively, as well as key performance indicators that tell you how well you’re delivering on your strategic choices.
I realized after reading this book that I never made a team because I was playing to participate instead of playing to win. What was most transformative was realizing that I’d I spent the first quarter of my life falling short of my goals and letting others take the prizes I pined for because I was playing not to lose. Total paradigm shift!
So I ask you this: Are you going to be one of the hundreds of Davids that fail to take down Goliath? Or are you playing to win?
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July 8, 2019
The Power of This One Thought Can Change Everything
Have you ever felt like your own worst enemy? Have you ever been paralyzed by fear or insecurity? Have you experienced the gripping, gut-wrenching frustration of knowing that you are the only thing standing in your own way?
It’s a simple concept: control your thoughts. Humans do loads of abstract and complicated things on a daily basis—solve complex mathematical puzzles, network with people from completely different walks of life, create dynamic business strategies, learn new technical skills outside of their comfort zone. Controlling our thoughts should be simple, right?
Clearly it is not. It’s one of the greatest struggles that unites all of humanity.
Anyone who has ever dealt with anxiety knows the struggle of overthinking. Overthinkers may concentrate so long and hard on what they want to achieve that sometimes they think themselves right out of action. Guilty as charged? I must, unfortunately, confess to doing exactly that.
You see, when we overthink we have this peculiar tendency to come to a sudden halt. We fail to translate our thoughts into action. Our discussion, brainstorming, and strokes of brilliance never materialize into a concrete and strategic work plan to implement those ideas.
Researchers have said that there are a few reasons why overthinkers rarely act. All ultimately boil down to a lack of confidence.
Lack of Confidence in Ourselves
The first reason why you don’t act is that you believe deep down that you can’t succeed. There’s a little voice in your head whispering, “You’re not good enough. You can’t do this.” So you don’t do it. The voice inside our heads holds tremendous power not just on how we perceive ourselves, but on how other people perceive us as well.
I was once in a bar talking to the guy next to me. It turned out that he was a leadership professor at the local university’s business school and a top dog in many of the largest financial firms in the city. We were watching a sports game on TV, and when the national anthem came on, he stood up and said audaciously: “Let’s all get up and sing along.”
Everyone in the bar instantly stood and sang along. I was astonished. Nobody knew this man nor his important standing in the academic and business worlds. Yet they all listened immediately to his command. Why?
The answer is simple: it was the power of “I Can.” He believed that he could get everyone in the bar to stand up and sing, and so they did. I don’t doubt that anybody would have listened had he whispered to his neighbor questioning whether or not he should do it. Or if he half-heartedly or reluctantly asked the question. The reason he got everyone to listen was because he wholeheartedly believed he could, and so everyone did.
Don’t worry if you’re thinking you could never pull off something like that in a social setting. The power of “I can” manifests itself in different spaces. If you believe you can ace your test (and you put in the hours to study), you likely will. If you think you can climb the corporate ladder (and you put in the hours to prepare yourself), you likely will. Believing in yourself, deeply, is half the battle.
“I can” doesn’t just make us happier or more confident; it makes us unstoppable. Start fixing your internal dialogue to tap into that power today.
Lack of Confidence in the Team
Not believing in yourself as an individual isn’t the only way that our self-destructive thoughts can get in the way of achieving our objectives. We can be perfectly confident in ourselves on a personal level and yet fail to meet targets in the workplace. How does that happen?
In much the same way fixating on personal insecurities can prevent us from proceeding with confidence, we can also get fixated on the business “big elephants” that prevent us from taking action. When tasked with achieving a giant objective, we may fall back on “We can’t!” instead of “How can we?”
Truly great companies and leaders don’t ignore the elephants and pretend they’ve gone away. They actually focus on the elephants. They get started on work plans that break them down into sizeable chunks. They say “no” to other areas so that they can focus on the big elephants.
It can be hard to say no to other important aspects of your business, like your customers, specific revenue streams, market segments, or product lines, but you need to make space for the big elephants. Great companies know when to say yes and when to say “I can’t.” It’s only in focusing on these big elephants that you experience huge explosions in growth.
It goes without saying these two areas where we lack confidence go hand-in-hand, but believing in yourself is the first step to being a helpful team member. That so many of us lack confidence internally hurts us collectively. Especially when we’re the leader.
The world we inhabit is paramount to our success. I love the expression by Marcus Aurelius, who says that “the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” When we believe in our potential and our ability to fulfill that potential, our psyche flourishes and shines brightly. We start to not only feel unstoppable; we become unstoppable.
If you paid deep attention to the quietest of your thoughts, what would you hear? Would it be positive? Negative? Or would you hear the following phrases echoed whenever you struggled with something?
I can believe in me.
I can do anything.
I can stay in the zone.
I can own it.
I can embrace the collective.
Just reading those phrases calms me down and focuses my energy on what really matters. That’s why I challenge you to start your day, every day, with those five sentences as your powerful mantra. It will transform you and your business from the inside out.
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