“If you act like your wedding day is the greatest moment in your life, it’s all downhill from there.” –Elizabeth Johnson

What looks like a throw-away line actually packs a lot of wisdom.

Any moment you consider the greatest moment of your life sets up the same downhill scenario.

If your college graduation is greatest, what comes next?

If you consider the founding of your company, product launch, revenue or even profitability the greatest day of your life what will its acquisition or IPO be?

If the birth of your children rates as the greatest, what will their graduation, marriage, and their children’s births be?

Instead of setting up a downhill move from your life highlights, you can open the future to more just by removing the ‘est’.

If they are ‘great’ moments instead of ‘greatest’ then you are setting your self up for ‘greater’ moments.

Isn’t that a better life scenario?

It is only when you are dying that you can choose the ‘est’ in retrospect.

And I’m willing to bet that you will be hard-pressed to choose just one.

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Part of the allure of starting a company is the idea of being your own boss and creating the kind of place in which you always wanted to work.

That’s what drives Tony Hsieh and thousands of others.

The problem is that in order to accomplish that goal you will have to go far beyond your comfort zone; much further, in fact, than you would working for someone else.

I just started working with “Tomas,” a new founder, and during our first conversation he described himself as an introvert who preferred not to respond to questions or comment until he had time to process the conversation/information.

OK, it’s frustrating and makes conversations very one-way, but I bided my time to see what the impact would be.

It didn’t take long to find out.

First, I sent an introduction to “Bill” who was willing to share expertise that Tomas badly needed; Bill responded immediately, asking when Tomas was available, but Tomas didn’t write back.

The next day Bill went ahead and called, although he hadn’t heard back. His feedback to me was that it was a non-conversation and he thought he might even have offended Tomas in some way.

None of this made sense to me. I had spoken to Tomas the evening of the day he got Bill’s response and he said he would respond to is as soon as our call ended.

We talked again yesterday. When I asked why he hadn’t sent the email when he said he would he said that he hadn’t had time to “craft the email.”

There was more and after hearing him out I told him the problem (as I saw it) was that along with being an introvert he is a perfectionist and doesn’t want to make a move until he is sure he is right. He also prefers to proceed linearly.

Tomas’ response? He said I knew him well.

I told Tomas that as an entrepreneur he will have to get out of his comfort zone.

He will not always have the luxury of a day or more to process conversations or craft perfect emails.

He needs to practice thinking and responding on the fly—especially on the small stuff.

I said that he will make mistakes and that’s OK; they can be corrected.

Tomas’ vision is brilliant; it solves a problem faced by millions and holds the promise of making their lives better.

I will do everything I can to help Tomas succeed, but only he can choose to leave his comfort zone.

Image credit: JJ Chandler.com

History is interesting, the more ancient the better, but ‘ancient’ means different things by context.

Ancient Internet history dates more to the 1990s and one interesting historical nugget is that the general attitude that everything on the Internet should be free was nonexistent.

Enter Angie’s List, which has always been a subscription service.

Because this was 1995, nobody was yet shouting from the rooftops that information wanted to be free. “Some of the choices we made early on were dictated by the world we lived in,” Ms. Hicks said. “People paid for content.”

Angie’s List went public in November, 2011 at $13, jumped 25% and trades close to that number today.

Angie’s List has over a million subscribers and around three quarters of them renewed in 2011, up from 62 percent in 2008.

The business is built entirely around user-generated content, but differs in a very significant way from other rating sites, think Yelp.

Angie’s List allows no anonymous reviews and the staff goes to great lengths to keep the content authentic.

If you are developing an Internet company counting on advertising revenue is the norm, but the idea of targeted ads is facing a major backlash. The only way to target is to track.

73% say they would…

NOT BE OKAY with a search engine keeping track of your searches and using that information to personalize your future search results because you feel it is an invasion of privacy

The subscription model is making a comeback and it is one you should consider—assuming you are offering something of real value.

Image credit: Angie’s List

“There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.”  --Bill Turpin (quote source)

Although Bill Turpin said this in reference to technical problems at Netscape, I see managers at all levels and across industries spending time looking for silver bullets with which to “fix” their people.

There are two reasons that this is a major waste of time.

First, I can categorically state that there is no such thing as a silver bullet. No matter what you are trying to do there is no tool or methodology that can be guaranteed to work in every situation and under every circumstance.

Second, No manager, past or present, has ever fixed anyone. The best that any manager can do is identify the problem, present the information and offer support, but any change or ‘fixes’ must come from the individual.

Lead bullets, however, are how most problems are solved and behaviors changed.

By some measurements lead bullets are expensive, since they cost time and effort over a longer period, but they typically have the highest ROI of anything a manager does.

So, time spent searching for a silver bullet fix or time spent chipping away at the problem with lead bullets?

As always, it’s your choice.

Flickr image credit: mdanys

Flickr image credit: Wesley Fryer

Grrrr. I hate it when bad human traits are excused based on career choice, position, etc.

A group of experienced small biz owners ranging from late thirties to late fifties described themselves thus, impatient, short on focus, easily frustrated, likely to jump in and solve a problem rather than count on the employee to do it; traits that have no place in good management (or leadership, if you prefer).

The more accurate analysis is captured in a comment citing similarities in the corporate world,

The top managers do delegate (maybe that’s how they get to the top) but the rest stick their noses into everything just like small business owners. Guess it is just human nature and the reason most people are not very good managers.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, manager, worker, parent, whatever, you were you. You possessed a certain MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and embodied certain traits and you took those with you into your career and wider life.

Extreme examples make this glaringly clear, although even these examples are changing,

• Cops who intimidate were bullies on the playground and sought a career in which bully MAP could flourish.
• Pedophile priests were pedophiles long before they became priests and gravitated to a profession with both access and protection.

Careers don’t create traits, although they often magnify them.

“That’s who I am” carries a second, unspoken thought, “so deal with it.”

But “who I am” is your choice, not mine, and there is no good reason why I have to deal with it.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetonveg/4450198083/

An interesting article from Knowledge at Wharton cites several recent studies that help explain the difficulty corporations have tapping creative types for positional leadership roles.

Those individuals who expressed more creative ideas were viewed as having less, not more, leadership potential. The exception, they found, was when people were specifically told to focus on charismatic leaders. In that case, creative types fared better.

The article and associated studies should be required reading for every manager charged with hiring, whether for a so-called leadership position or team member.

Every manager wants to hire creative talent, that isn’t new, but understanding why you might pass on the very talent you need is knowledge worth having.

Creativity, also known as thinking outside the box, isn’t always a comfortable trait to have around; moreover, it requires much more effort to manage.

But make no mistake, while in today’s high stakes global markets those who color inside the lines can maintain the company for a time, it is the creatives who will take it to the next level.

It’s also worth noting that not all creative people are charismatic and those with charisma may not have a creative bone in their body.

Read the article and determine how much applies to you/your organization (team, department, company), and then decide if it’s worth changing.

As always, it’s your choice.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

A call I had today prompts me to repost something I wrote last year.

Choosing Your Audience

Every day we make choices and, as kids, learning to make wise ones is one on the most important things that should happen as we grow.

But it doesn’t always happen.

The great thing is that you can change and learn to make good choices at any time in your life—it is an integral part of leading yourself.

One of the most important choices anyone makes is found in the people they choose to have as part of their life.

Although I could write my own ideas of what that means, I’d like to share something I received from a friend. I can’t find who the author is, so I’ll credit the prolific Anon.

Everyone Can’t Be in Your Front Row

Life is a theater – invite your audience carefully. Not everyone is spiritually healthy and mature enough to have a front row seat in our lives. There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you let go, or at least minimize your time with draining negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships/friendships/fellowships!

Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention to: Which ones lift and which ones lean? Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?

Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?

When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel worse? Which ones always have drama or don’t really understand, know and appreciate you and the gift that lies within you? When you seek growth, peace of mind, love and truth, the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the FRONT ROW and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.

You cannot change the people around you…but you can change the people you are around! Choose wisely the people who sit in the front row of your life.

Copy the last sentence and tape it to your monitor and the bathroom mirror; forward the post to every person you care about—not with a lecture, but with a hug; discuss it’s meaning with your kids—they are never too young to learn this.

Take a long, hard look at who sits in your front row; if you don’t want them there you don’t need to have a major confrontation, just quietly lower their priority in your life and assign them to a seat at the back—even if they have you in their front row.

I know that I’m in the front row of several people who sit in the rear of my audience, but I say nothing, because nothing would be gained. They would be deeply hurt for no reason; they have little-to-no impact on me because they are far back and where they choose to seat me is none of my business.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26881907@N05/2755415480/

There are many ways to consider leadership’s future and I often focus on schools and education (not the same thing) and kids—who are the leaders, actual and positional, tomorrow.

But there is another view of leadership’s future worth considering and that is of leadership as an industry, as opposed to an action or description.

Make no mistake, leadership, directly and indirectly, is definitely an industry.

Consider the standard definition of ‘industry’: A category used to describe a company’s primary business activity, usually determined by the largest source of a company’s revenues.

From individual coaches to major consultants and every size in-between, thousands of people earn their daily bread and pay their mortgages with money made through their activities in the leadership industry. Even those who aren’t paid in money are earning something, whether it’s enhanced reputation, a way to spread their opinions/beliefs, an ego boost or something still more esoteric.

I’m not saying that this is a bad thing or a good thing, but it is a thing worth noting.

In a previous post I warned of the need to digest and tweak expert information as opposed to swallowing it whole and this is even more important when it comes to leadership, considering the vast volume of it and the media’s constant focus and insistence that it is leadership that separates the winners and losers.

Even if you subscribe to that idea you need to develop a definition that is relevant to your world and stands the test of time, not some offered up by the industry.

Leadership terms are casually thrown around, applied by some to any and every action that a person does, may do or should do and by others only to the actions/words of those in positional leadership roles.

Perhaps these two points are worth accepting, although I’m sure many will disagree with me,

1. Leadership is an industry in which people, directly or indirectly, earn their living.
2. Leadership information comes in a multiplicity of forms and the quality varies widely.

Accepting these two ideas results in one conclusion: like investing information, leadership information should be digested, internalized and tweaked for your individual needs at both that point in your life and in your future.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/4582034468/

An angry email berated me for Saturday’s post, saying in part, “Why don’t you ever choose more typical CEOs and cultures to write about? I read blogs to help me manage more effectively and the stuff you talk about is almost impossible to implement.”

The answer, in a nutshell, is that you can’t implement anything at odds with your own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)

Therefore:

• If you don’t believe in a happy workplace where people have fun then there is nothing that Tony Hsieh or anybody else can teach you that will help you create one.
• If you stand on your dignity and can’t laugh at yourself there is no way you can implement The Levity Effect.

I could keep giving examples, but you get the point.

I, and dozens of other experts, have said over and over that people can’t sell something they don’t believe themselves.

Nor can they implement cultural features that are out of sync with their MAP.

This is especially true for managers because they typically hire in their own image, so that their team has similar MAP—and the same problem.

If you find yourself on this treadmill, rather than write an angry email or complain to your buddies look in the mirror and know that you can change if you want to.

It’s your choice.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr