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July 17 - July 23, 2020
Aubrey C. Daniels, author of Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement
Nothing builds momentum and energy like hitting specific targets. If your company has been through some rough times lately and the culture has taken a couple of body blows, pick some really short-term goals, focus everyone on the same thing, “play to win,” and get back your mojo!!
Every facet of the organization has a person assigned with accountability for ensuring goals are met —
It’s important that the Core Values and the Purpose are given priority when making hiring (and firing) decisions — and when sharing praise and constructive criticism.
It’s also crucial that the leadership team formulate its one passionate stump speech that can be repeated to reinforce the bigger Purpose of the organization.
Employees can articulate the key components of the company’s strategy accurately
it helps drive alignment if all the employees have the same “elevator pitch” they share when asked the question, “What does your company do?”
The fundamental job of a leader is prediction,
Talking weekly with customers and employees and then discussing what’s been learned at the executive huddle is critical.
Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think by Oxford professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier,
Data analysis must be augmented with plain old human intelligence-gathering.
“learn fast; act fast”
Two lessons: 1. Senior leaders need to be in the market 80% of the week, either figuratively or literally. 2. This routine must start on day one and continue through half a trillion in revenue!
Immelt in the June 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review.
it takes only one or two key ideas to fuel a business model.
Smith and his top managers take half a dozen workers to dinner at one of the area’s best restaurants each week.
Walton, back in 1962, saw the value of meeting with employees weekly to seek their ideas for making the business better, which was quite progressive at the time.
we recommend that all executives (and middle managers) have a Start/Stop/Keep conversation with at least one employee weekly.
He takes one employee out for lunch each week to learn more about him. Before the meal, he asks the employee to answer a few questions that are discussed during lunch: What should Markitforce start doing, stop doing, and keep doing? What does the staffer love and loathe about his job? What are his 101 goals in life — both professional and personal? “I tell them to write this stuff down, because if they write it down, it will happen. Things just start to fall into place,”
Ask employees to submit suggestions that will: 1. Increase revenue. 2. Reduce costs. 3. Make something easier/better for the customers or employees.
Gathering employees’ feedback and ideas will backfire on the company if management doesn’t close the loop and act on their suggestions.
we strongly recommend holding a middle-management team responsible for responding to employees’ feedback on all obstacles and opportunities.
we suggest that you track the number of days it takes to implement the ideas gathered from your employees.
“Suggestion Aging Report” tracking how many ideas are 30, 60, and 90 days past due.
We implore all executives and middle managers to have a 4 Questions (4Q) conversation with at least one end user weekly.
The 4Q refers to the four questions that we suggest leaders ask customers in person (not on a survey): 1. How are you doing? 2. What’s going on in your industry/neighborhood? 3. What do you hear about our competitors? 4. How are we doing?
What are their pain points? What are their priorities for the coming year?
for salespeople in a B-to-B situation, find out what the person’s bonus is tied to.
show how your products and services can help them achi...
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Only after you’ve asked your customers these three questions should you ask about their reactions to your offerings,
have all senior leaders connect with their counterparts at customers’ companies
So Hardy and his management team decided to call 30 to 40 customers every Friday for feedback.
Share insights from conversations with customers at the executive team’s weekly huddle.
the “great” companies — which, like Enterprise Rent-A-Car, were growing considerably faster — spent roughly 20% of their leadership team’s meeting discussing feedback from customers.
Whichever competitor has the most market intelligence, and uses it, wins.
It’s particularly important to encourage all your salespeople, distributors, and independent reps (in all of your sales channels) to gather and report market intelligence.
hold a middle-management team responsible for the process of closing the loop on all customer feedback.
Fred Reichheld popularized it in his book, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, and today’s revised and expanded version, The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World.
Every member of the team, from the senior leadership to staffers, needs to be able to answer objectively the question, “Did I have a great day or week?”
The key: Each person must report on one or two KPIs weekly.
dashboard systems, like Align,
Bloomberg Businessweek article titled “The Happiest Man in Detroit,” by Keith Naughton,
“You can’t manage a secret. When you do this every week, you can’t hide.”
each employee has one Critical Number that aligns with the company’s Critical Number for the quarter, illustrating that there is a clear line of sight).
all employees or teams need to set a handful of priorities (known as rocks) that will help them achieve their Critical Number (i.e., each individual/team should have three to five rocks that align with those of the company).
All executives and middle managers should have a coach (or peer coach) holding them accountable for behavioral changes.
Everyone should find a peer coach internally at the company, too.
search for “Marshall Goldsmith peer coach” on the Web,
At a minimum, have your metrics, goals, and plans up big and visible in a place where you host the various weekly meetings
Make sure that the Core Values, Purpose, and Priorities are posted throughout the company.
