Zane Safrit

Leadership, Love and Caring

Steve Farber tweeted a link to this video last night. It’s a powerful, compact, discussion of leadership, love, execution and caring.

Here’s a few excerpts that wowed me:

Execution in its purest form is about people, relationships and love.

Love’s 3 distinctions for leaders:

• Love at the professional level for ourselves. That’s faith in who we are and confidence as we approach our life.

• Love for each other: That’s trust and mutual respect for each other.

• Love for our work: That’s passion for what we do.

The 2nd one is not an unconditional love, without responsibilities. It’s conditional love with consequences attached to it.

Unconditional love is love for our children and the foundation for our marriage.

But unconditional love is the same thing that gets in the way when we need to provide honest feedback to others to let them live their God-given abilities.

Transformative leaders are demanding and caring.

I had heard something similar. Steve MacGill and Jim Norris generously shared their time as guests on my radio show. (Listen here.)  They have a successful partnership. We talked about that successful partnership. I asked them what were their 3 tips for building and maintaining a successful partnership.

Their response was:

1. Time: face to face or on the phone. Frequent contact is very important.


2. Extreme openness
.

3. Care enough to confront.

I see love and caring throughout their answers.

Frequent contact is only possible if you love, trust and respect, each other equally.

Extreme openness. You’re not going to be open, transparent, if you first lack confidence in ourselves and what we do. That lack of faith in ourselves means we cannot have trust in others. Impossible.

Care enough to confront. This rung home. Caring about someone means it matters what they do. Caring about someone means you see their potential, their God-given potential. Caring about someone means you are willing to...confront them on their behaviors that fail to respect their God-given abilities. Caring about someone means you are obligated to provide honest feedback.

Peter Luongo, the speaker in this video said, to the effect, that sometimes leaders are forced to provide honest feedback by saying “I love you. But you can’t work here.”

The great leaders are able to communicate this in a way that shows they trust the recipient to receive this feedback on the basis of mutual respect. The message is heard. The recipient is able to leave as a whole person, free now to pursue another opportunity where their God-given talent can thrive. And, btw, no longer interfere with others who do live their potential.

I’m writing out loud here. Do you see a bell-curve of possible recipients for this message? At one extreme end will be those able to understand that a demanding leader, is a caring leader. They receive any and all feedback with that understanding. At the other end are those who lack the self-respect to first trust themselves and then trust others with open communication. No amount of communication skills and opportunities to bring out their God-given talents matter. In fact, it threatens them. And in the middle, is the vast group where caring, demanding, leader can lead them to reaching their own personal stars, or at least their own personal moons. That’s where caring leaders have their impact.

Steve Farber once asked his followers this question: what’s your favorite leadership quote? I thought it about it, never answered. Sorry, Steve. I will answer now. Speak the truth, speak the truth sweetly, speak the sweet truth. And when you can no longer speak the truth sweetly, caring leaders are forced to provide honest feedback by saying “I love you. But you can’t work here.” That is the sweet truth. I love you. But you can't work here.

It's your employees' reality that matters.

Stephen Lynch, COO of Results.com offers 5 Warning Signs that Predict Failure.

They are:

• Failure to Confront Reality

• Lack of Trust

• Power Politics

• Wrong People on the Bus

• Lack of an Effective System of Execution. This one makes me laugh...darkly. It says to me that...even if you confronted reality, had built a solid foundation of trust, had the right people on the right bus....if you can't execute effectively, well, what's the point? You can't execute.

As I look back at this list I see that the presence of even one of these items  will likely lead to failure. That's why failure rates for the business projects here in the US start at 60+% and range as high as 90%.

As we're watching the World Series, let's use a baseball metaphor. For business success you have to bat 1.000. You cannot let even one of these exist. Otherwise, you strikeout.

Stephen's post references the stat that 80% of your employees predict those failure. What's that tell you? It tells me that there's one tactic so simple and so obvious it's akin to stealing the pitcher's signal in a slow-pitch softball game:

• Talk to your employees. Ask them. They know.

What do they know? They know they're not engaged. They know their businesses rarely ask their opinion.

Talking with your employees, listening to your employees, asking their opinions, is the first step to:

• Confronting reality

• Building trust

• Eliminating power politics

• Getting the right people on the right bus.

• And inspiring their participation to build a system of execution that's effective.

It's easy to write a blog post that shares the obvious. If your employees are right 80% of the time, why not ask their opinion. The trick is how to have those conversations with AND among your employees.

I bet your shoulders hunched up in tension just thinking about how those conversations would take place where you work now. (My neck's already tightening down. Any more and I'm a turtle looking for safety...)

On the other hand, consider the conversations at your workplace if oh, say, 50% of your projects succeeded/failed. Half-empty, half-full is a lot better than say...80/20 failure/success ratio.

Like that transition from 80/20 to 50/50, I'm building a little momentum, getting excited thinking about the future where 50% of the projects meet with success....what if, ok, what if...80% of your projects succeeded? Hmmmm?

What would those conversations be like where you work?

Now, tell me....with your shoulders hunched (and I'm peeping out from turtle shell, too) is it worth the risk to confront your employees and their reality and ask their opinion?

• Can this going to work?

• How can we reach this goal?&

• Who else do we need on this bus?

• Can we execute this plan in this timeframe.

That's the first step to confronting reality. Your employees' reality.

Duck and Re-Cover: Read It

Duck and Re-Cover: The Embattled Business Owner’s Guide to Survival and Growth.

It’s good. It’s valuable. You should read it.

That’s the bottomline isn’t it?

For me, the bottomline was I read it to the end. As I’ve said here before I rarely read a business book to the end. 5 or 6 books at all times remain unread. I locate them strategically through the house:

• nightstand (2-3)
• my laptop bag (1)
• In the living room (1-2)
• sometimes in the car...

But this book, I read, pretty much, straight through.

Steve Little, the author, does not offer literature. Instead, he offers a conversational writing style that makes it easy to glean the important ideas. These important ideas are ideas, tips and resources, and anecdotes to illustrate them that will help your business duck and re-cover from this recession.

He knows. He knows from experience. He knows a business leader is looking for solutions first, literature later. He delivers that with Duck and Re-Cover.

He divides his book into the same 2 categories you do with your business:

• Pressing Immediacies

• Growth Opportunities

The first chapter in Pressing Immediacies is...What is Your Reality? That’s so simple, so smart. How do you map a path to your goal if you don’t know your starting point? So...what IS your reality.

The first chapter in Growth Opportunities is titled: Get Out of Your Bunker. And he offers specific ways to do that:

• Get face to face with vendors and customers
• Get involved in your community
• Make the most of trade shows
• Gain wisdom through information.

And each of them includes anecdotes, case studies, profiles or data to support his advice.

I’m not going to copy and paste his whole book for you. It’s good. It’s valuable. You should read it. (Get out of your bunker).

Pick one. Do it. Then pick another. Do it. Pretty soon you're past the re-cover mode and back into the growth mode where you wanna be.

He is the former President of 3 fast growth companies. He’s written two previous books, The 7 Irrefutable Laws of Small Business Growth and The Milkshake Moment: Overcoming Stupid Systems, Pointless Policies and Muddled Management to Realize Real Growth. And he’s a highly sought speaker and consultant for small business.

Disclaimer: My copy is a complimentary copy from Cave-Henricks. There’s no obligation to do...anything with it. Not even read it. I read it, kept reading it, because out of all the books left unread in my house, this was most compelling, easiest to read on the fly and kept a stream of ideas and solutions flowing through its pages. And that's what I think my readers here want.

Entrepreneurs: Create, Combat and Conquer

Love this video!

Three Things Our Bosses Deserve

We all serve bosses. Our banks or investors, our board, our customers, our employees, our pets (yeah, sometimes, it seems), our spouses, our children, at times now even our parents, our religion, our military commanders, coaches, captains...all or separately serve as our boss. We serve them. We serve at their pleasure. And at times, we reverse the roles and serve as ‘their’ boss.

We grow, succeed, reach new heights...on the basis of our success serving our bosses.

It’s important we know what they want, what we want when it’s our turn as boss. Chris Brogan’s August newsletter offered Three Things Our Bosses Need.

And I riff’d on his list at this post here.

And as I drove around later that day, I thought three things:

1. I like Chris’s post.
2. I have a similarly, but slightly different, perspective.
3. Bosses...deserve these three things. (If not, then why do they remain your boss?)

Here’s my three things:

Be Clear. Be clear on your purpose, your role, your goal, your strategy and the tactics you’ll use to reach your goals. Be clear how your goals mesh, support, enhance, those of your company. And how they do the same for you. A good boss, ok a great boss, will create the opportunity for you to match those with your company’s goals. But, without your clarity neither will be successful. Be clear.

Bring Solutions. Chris touched on this with his point:A boss needs actionable solutions. Bringing problems to the boss is a mess. Bring solutions with each challenge you find. Maybe, it is not a complete solution. But, bring the first step towards a complete solution. (Otherwise, prepare yourself for the comfortable settings and repetitions of a cog in the wheel...)

Be Adaptable. Change is the game, today, in business. Innovation is the source of growth for business and their stakeholders. Only the adaptable members of a species survive. Smart is a good start; so is energetic. Adaptability keeps them moving in the right direction with the current environment.

Again, we all have bosses. If your boss does not deserve these three things from you...why are they your boss? That's your choice.

3 Things that Build a Winning Workplace...and cost $0 to Do

I asked Mary Corbitt Clark, Executive Director of Winning Workplaces, this question during a recent interview.

What are three things can companies or people do today, with little or no cash to build a winning workplace?

Here's what she answered:

1. Talk to employees. Find out what they are thinking. Ask them about business issues/ideas. They can help you strengthen your business. You want to build a trusting relationship.

2. Share information with employees. The more information they have about the business, the easier you make it for them to help you to improve and solve the problems.

3. Bring people together to solve problems. The best ideas come from multiple minds around problem solving.  One of the things we see is that team-based work ends up with some of the very best solutions.

3 things you can do...today + $0 cost = Your Winning Workplace. That's math you can love.

You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link to our full conversation.

Here is a post with highlights from our conversation.

Radio Show Guest Highlights: Mary Corbitt Clark, Executive Director of Winning Workplaces

Mary Corbitt Clark, Executive Director of Winning Workplaces, joined the show last week. Winning Workplaces is a not-for-profit organization founded by one of the families who owned auto parts manufacturer Fel-Pro, Inc., which was nationally recognized for its innovative people practices and outstanding financial performance.

Mary and I talked about Winning Workplaces, its purpose, its annual conference titled The ROI of Winning Workplaces, and how Winning Workplaces helps clients create the ultimate competitive advantage: A winning workplace.

You can listen in streaming-on demand at this link.

Mary Corbitt Clark, how are you? I’m not encouraging stalkers, but where are you? What are you doing?

We’re in Evanston, IL. We annually host a conference in Chicago to honor the top small workplaces that will be named in the Wall Street Journal and to share best practices, inspiration, networking, with other small businesses that are interested in improving their business results by creating strong workplaces.

Is everybody at winning workplace having as much fun as you are?

I believe they are. Now, in this economy, it is tough, even for the best workplaces. But I do see that those that have effectively engaged employees are doing far better and coming out of the impact of the great recession more quickly than those who don’t have a strong culture or don’t have their employees fully focused on what it takes to be success.

I wish I had found you when I was CEO of a small company. We had some success creating a winning workplace through trial and error.

It takes some understanding to discover the drivers of your business. Most companies get there by trial and error. Most start up organizations with a handful of employees are more concerned with money, defining product or service, how to go to market, and how do we get out there and then how do we keep ourselves afloat with the financial resources they need to solidify and take off. Fairly often they get to a certain stage and they realize they need to focus on the organization, build some infrastructure and attend to those elements that have a very strong impact over time.

Occasionally, an insightful leader with start an organization and define it by being the kind of place they always wanted to work. These types of companies establish the kind of culture they need because they know what they need to do to accomplish their goals and business.

Your background is in maximizing performance in individuals and organizations and you have worked at big consulting firms. I assume that meant working with larger corporate clients. Winning Workplaces generally is more about small to medium size businesses – what about that appealed to you?

I had already migrated –having spent 13 years with large companies. I had already seen that creating change with them was more difficult with an embedded culture. Its hard to move an ocean liner. I could see smaller organizations are more nimble, more adept at creating a strong organization is easier in a small company. I could see the opportunity to create change. I could see the opportunity to have an impact that I couldn’t have at larger workplaces. I could pursue my mission with Winning Workplaces in a broader sense with the brand of a manufactruing entity that had a strong reputation for progressive workplaces.

Winning Workplaces has been around for eight years. Can you share with us more about the history and founders?

Fel-Pro was owned by a family for 80 yrs and 4 generations of family business. It started out as an offshoot of a business that created brake pads for horse buggies. As the automotive industry grew, Fel-Pro grew as well. It focused on creating gaskets for the aftermarket...they just blossomed. They had 2000 employees. In the late 90’s, as the automotive market changed, it become clear that Fel-Pro must change as well. The family knew they couldn’t run the business they way they wanted too. They ended up selling the biz.

They learned that by treating their employees with respect and creating an environment which open communication was highly valued and by celebrating the fact that they could have a successful business together. It was indeed very generous.

They never had to pay to recruit employees. Their tenure was quite long. They brought in their families and friends. They created a community that till to this day talk with great pride for working with Fel-Pro.

Our annual recognition project which began in 2003, we worked with Fortune Small Business magazine to identify The Best Bosses from across the country and that morphed into The Best Small Workplaces. Since 2003 we have been seeking out outstanding small businesses that have created highly engaging workplaces and have been successful businesses as a result. We see leading edge practices, get to know commited and inspiration leaders. I see the small business sector as the most innovative and progressive part of our economy.

What are some of the practices that they brought from their company into the new organization, Winning Workplaces, a winning workplace?

Many of the elements we see in smaller workplaces are elements we try to live to here. The challenge of talking about excellence is that you always aspire to something that is just beyond your reach. Let me talk about aspirations. We do have a good workplace. We have a strong sense of team. It is difficult to speak about ourselves, but what we create in our culture is what we want to see in others.

The top 3 things, the most important things, for a winning workplace are:

1. Organizations with strong vision and shared values - people who come together because they are committed to what the business is about. Virtually all of our organizations can clearly communicate what they are trying to do and the values with which they operate. This is very important foundation. It draw people to the organization.

2. Open and honest communication. This is so fundamental but such a hard thing for an organization to accomplish. Those organizations in which transparency is really how they operate are more innovative, and their members understand what are the drivers and how they can improve efficiencies and how that shows up on the bottomline.

3. They invest in the workforce in lots of different ways. They invest in employee learning, very careful about how they hire, understand the kinds of people that will be successful in their organization, and committed to providing the benefits employees need. More and more are investing in company wellness centers, whether it’s a fitness center membership or a flu-shot. It’s an important piece or companion to providing health insurance.

Let’s talk about this event next week. It’s great. It’s titled: The ROI of winning workplaces. When is it, where is it?

The ROI of Winning Workplaces has been going on 6 years now. It's held in Chicago here. It is held each fall and held in conjunction with the announcement of Winning Workplaces. It is also a great learning event, a tool to help other small businesses towards success. We talk about current issues and topics effecting companies today. The winners not only create winning workplaces but they can sustain growth by creating a winning workplace.

How do they measure their growth?

How do you get to that balance where you allow your busines to thrive but it doesn’t overwhelm you.

24:01

The organizations that fall into our network are sustainable organizations. What we have seen is that good workplaces may have been hit by the recession, but they are coming back quickly. There are also a fair number of them that haven’t been hit as hard. Some have been able to sustain themselves because of their strong workplace practices.

What I noticed and enjoyed about your event is your list of speakers. As you mentioned, they are all previous winners of the awards. They are companies describing their winning workplaces and how they created them.

One of the things we have learned from small business leaders is that they want to hear from others who have been in the trenches and discovered successful methods and cultures. And they want those who have been recognized by 3rd parties. Winning Workplace doesn’t pick these winners.

What results from the conference is that people come and get a lot of new ideas. What I hear at each show is that people think they are alone and here they find other business that think like they do. There’s a lot of camaraderie and companionship with their peers who share the same values. They realize that they are not alone.

My friend and author Erika Andersen coined a term I really like. It’s reasonable aspirations or hoped-for goal. What was your reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal with this event?

We wanted to get the message out, as broadly as possible. We believe that a big piece of our purpose is to draw attention to unsung heroes and to make it within reach, a reasonable aspiration, for small business leaders across the country to create winning workplaces or to improve their workplace to improve their business...to strengthen their business.

So much of the emphasis in business writing is about growing your market niche, how you come up with an innovative product. So little focuses on how do you build an organization that can support you to do whatever your business is about. We believe that it is a critical element in the economy, a pivotal leverage point that is under utilized.

That is our message and we want to get it out to the world. Our aspiration for the conference was to make the information more available and create a network of small business leaders who could support one another to do so.

There has to be research that shows that companies who build a winning workplace have better cash flow, happy customers and employees, better growth rates and so forth.

We have created a benchmarking report for the last two years to compare the top winning workplaces to the rest of the pool of other companies who think they have a great workplace. One of the challenges with small businesses is that they are privately held; therefore their financial information is not made public. What we get is their revenue and whether or not they are profitable. We clearly have good data on employee turnover, retention, employee learning. But to get more detailed information you need access to a public company.

Who should attend this event?

Anyone interested in building a strong workplace. It is most valuable for small businesses, but people in larger businesses who want to build a strong team will certainly benefit. It’s an opportunity to get your arms around the soft stuff. It’s not just one program. It’s a combination of things. This conference offers a great opportunity to get a nice dive into and learn more about what I can do about strengthening my company and its workplace.

What are top three reasons people should attend Winning Workplaces? Or three take aways?

I’m going to go right to the promotional materials that capture this best:
1. Examples of inspirational leadership in chaotic times
2. Best practices from leading small business innovators
3. Networking with small business leaders and the leading edge thinkers about small business

Not only leading edge thinkers, but leading edge doers.

YES!

Your speakers are speaking about the current economy and events. How have you seen this economy impact attitude in business towards creating a winning workplace?

I think many small business people have “panicked” and are trying to cope to get through. I can contrast that with one of our business leaders who will be speaking next week, Larry O’Toole, from Gentle Giant Movers, founded in 1980 and now has 17 operations around the country. The business has always been about building very strong customer relations in the moving business and developing employees within the business so that they don’t just hire day movers, they hire and train people how to do the job properly and make the bet of a stressful experience for people who are making a transition.

This economy hit residential moving very hard. They looked at the fourth quarter of 2008 and knew they had to make some serious financial refinements. Most companies cut the staff. They found ways to become more efficient with no layoffs. They focused on taking out the expense, eliminating costs they had developed.

One of the things that allowed them to grow was the development of employees and to do it right. There was a fair amount of investment and hard work, then, customer relationships then to be a lead on a team, and finally the next step is to open a facility within the network. They are able to hire people with aspirations, who want to learn. They aren’t just people who need a job today. There is a long term goal. 80% of their business comes from referrals or return business!

46:53

How does Winning Workplaces work with small to medium sized businesses to create their own winning workplace?

In 2002, we created a website full of information – there is so much there to help with best practices, case studies to read and many tips as well. We do monthly webinars and consulting/training.

When and why do clients contact you for help?

There are 2 different times clients reach out:
1. They want to do better and improve. A lot of leaders who are trying to make a difference, wanting something different and they know there are ways to improve their organization
2. Of if an organization s has fallen on tough times – they see that they are not being as successful as they could be. They want to understand what they need to do differently

How long do you usually work with a client?

It depends, but fairly often we are brought in for a specific engagement. One of the most common is an employee opinion survey or focus group to understand what's going on in the organization and share that with the leadership to problem-solve the issue. We are not there for the long term – we are there to come in, educate and assist the company towards change and understanding.

The best organizations will periodically call us to help them listen, take a snapshot, help them to identify the issues, and help them to address them.

In the past year, have the client’s motivators changed at all in the past year?

Tough times put in relief the problems your company may have. Good times mask some of the issues. Tough times put organizations in a place where they may have limited resources. One of things we are seeing right now as the economy improves is that companies want to position themselves to move forward, in learning how to become stronger. The companies are investing in the stronger economy.

Winning Workplaces has survived two recessions-can you share with us a profile whose business has thrived through working with you?

There is an organization who has been working with us since 2004 who regularly gathers and measures feedback on its performance. It asks for feedback from all of their stakeholders, creating a scorecard for themselves. Employee feedback is so important. This organization is also weathering the recession very well and looking to expand its service base, work from its expertise and strengths, move into a new market niche and they do a particularly good job of retaining their customers and employees. They gather the data and are attentive to it.

What are three things can companies or people do today, with little or no cash to build a winning workplace?

1. Talk to employees. Find out what they are thinking. Ask them about business issues/ideas. They can help you strengthen your business. You want to build a trusting relationship.
2. Share information with employees. The more info they have about the business, the easier they can help you to improve and solve the problems.
3. The best ideas come from multiple minds around problem solving. Bring people together to solve problems. One of the things we see is that team-based work ends up with some of the very best solutions.

Thanks, Mary. Have a great conference!

The ROI of Winning Workplaces starts tomorrow, October 1. You can still register here.

Leaders: 3 Common Sense Steps to Unite Your Organization

Patti Dragland is President of Strategic Sense, which is more than a name; it’s an inspirational description of [their] work. She recently shared her thoughts on leadership, strategy, execution and inspiration while she was a guest on my radio show. You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

After our show, I was even more convinced...she's an inspiration and a solution for those who seek help leading or developing a strategic process; setting plans of action; communicating a company-wide strategy to your organization.

Being impatient (or is that impulsive), with pre-disposition to act first and review later, and knowing business leaders are pressed for immediate solutions, I asked her:

What are three things a leader can do right now to unite the members of their team or organization and do it in a common-sense way?

Here's what she said:

* Get to know your employees personally – wife’s name, kids’ names, and sports they play in. Meeting with your staff frequently and informally and ask them about themselves. Take a vested interest in those people. As soon as you do, they take a larger interest in helping you achieve your goals.

* Remember – Leadership is not about the leader – you are there for others, not yourself. Recognize it isn’t all about you. It is about the employees, the company, and the customer. These three things need to be the top focus.



* Celebrate little wins in little ways – small celebrations don’t have to cost very much and make a huge difference – SAY THANK YOU when you do. You have an opportunity to have a party to celebrate the end of project. If you can do this, you will change a lot of dynamics with the team.

That last sentence is the key. If you can do [these], you will change a lot of dynamics with the team. And change them in a positive manner with positive results for your organization.

Patti delivered three steps we can do..right now. And we can do them ourselves, with our company, or our team. And their costs are minimal. (Hint: no prior approvals required.)

What are we waiting on?

You can read more highlights from our conversation here.

Radio Show Guest Highlights: Kevin Eikenberry, Chief Potential Officer

Kevin Eikenberry, best-selling author of Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential and Chief Potential Officer of the Kevin Eikenberry Group works with clients to realize with them that every person and every organization has extraordinary potential. Kevin also is the creator and content developer of The Remarkable Leadership Learning System, a continual leadership development process focused on developing the 13 competencies of remarkable leaders with virtually delivered content to leaders worldwide. He spoke with me recently about remarkable leadership, its challenges and opportunities for organizations and how helps individuals and organizations reach their potential as remarkable leader.

You can listen in streaming on-demand at this link.

Can you share with us a recent remarkable story of a company who found a remarkable leader with your help and what that did for the organization?

We have been working with this client for about five-six years and we have been working on changing and redesigning their organizational culture. I started with conversations with the CEO and led to creation of a description of that culture by engaging the organization in that conversation so it wasn’t the CEO’s culture but became the organization's vision. We continue to build this culture and help them live it. We work with everyone in the company.

The bottom line is that every company has a culture, but it just isn’t about the CEO. It has to be created by the entire organization. The CEO’s role is to support it.

What was the particular outcome to this change?

They wanted a better place where people wanted to come to work, did not want retention issues, wanted to create quality work and higher levels of customer and employee satisfaction.

It was about safety, customer service, and enhanced moral. It was to help everyone see what the culture could be.

Are there symptoms that organizations display that show they are ready to bust out with remarkable leaders?

It starts with beliefs and values, whether it is HR, a key person, or a CEO. The belief system starts with:

1. Leaders can be made. In other words it isn’t something we were granted at birth.
2. We believe the people on our team can be those people.

They want to nvest time and energy to help others get on a conscious path to more effective leadership.

How long has Kevin Eikenberry Group existed?

We are 16 years old one week from tomorrow.

Our friend, Erika Andersen, wrote Being Strategic. She coined a term that's remained a favorite of mine:reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal. When you started your business, back in the day, 15 yrs and 51 weeks ago...what was your reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal?

Reasonable aspiration or hoped for goal. The first name of my company was “Performance Partners” and my goal was to create partnerships with clients to help them create partnerships that they wanted within organizations. From the beginning it has been our goal and aspiration to create long-term partnerships with clients to help them reach their goals through learning. 

There is a little more focus on leadership now than when we first began because:

1. Leaders have the biggest impact in organizations no matter what their job title is so there is greater leverage for us to help.
2. I am a firm believer that the skills of leadership are the skills of being a human being. As we become better leaders, we become better human beings.

From a passion perspective, the leadership focus has become more true, but the piece that has always been true is our focus on customers and partnering with them and that our business is really all about learning. We want others to see us as their leadership help button when they have a challenge.

(Laughing...) Where did you get this focus on customers? It sounds facetious. But, it’s so refreshing to hear.

I grew up on a family farm and my father taught me that your business is only as good as your relationship with your customers. What I tell people now is that it is our customers that write our paychecks. They play an integral part in our business. We can not lose this focus! It is just a part of who I am.

Have you reached your reasonable aspiration?

No. Not yet. We have a long way to go- we set the bar high and this keeps us focused on our purpose. We continue to move forwards.

In your best-selling book, Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time, you list 13 core competencies of a remarkable leader. What are they?

Thirteen Competencies:

1. Remarkable leaders learn continually
2. Champions of change
3. Communicate powerfully
4. Develops others
5. Builds relationships
6. Focuses on customers
7. Influences with impact
8. Thinks innovatively
9. Values collaboration and teamwork
10. Solves problems and makes decisions
11. Takes responsibility and accountability
12. Manages projects and processes successfully
13. Sets goals and supports goal setting

20:01

You said learning continually is the most important. Why?

1. It is not generally what people think about.
2. It is foundational to a leader's success.

If you believe leadership is something we can learn and it is complex, then we can identify great strengths and weaknesses in them. You won’t just arrive at being a great leader. It is not possible to be a perfect leader. As something that is complex and learnable, as we get better at it we can become truly successful. Being on a path of learning as a leader is quite important. Secondarily, leaders know that their team needs to continue to improve and there is no better way to show that, than to model that behavior.

Which one of these thirteen competencies has proved the most difficult to bring to your clients?

There are some of the skills that people always want to improve and one of those is Championing of Change. Change is tough. The skills to be good at championing change are difficult to acquire. But change is imperative. It is necessary to do things to improve the likelihood of success.

The leadership of change is at least 3 fold. We need to:

1.Manage change
2. Lead change
3.Champion change

Generally speaking, organizations can manage change, but leading something is different than managing, but where it is really lacking is championing change. It is such a focus.

The other competency that offers the biggest challenge for remarkable leaders is regarding setting goals and goal achievement. The key is that we do a pretty good job organizationally of setting goals, but do a poor job of making sure we are giving people time, resources, energy, encouragement and support to get those goals.

What point in a perspective leader’s development does a client approach you? Is there a standard minimum?

People come to us at various levels and roles in their career. There isn’t a specific pattern. People are attracted to us when they have made a decision that they really want to be effective. We are most successful with those who have the desire and willingness to learn, regardless of their place within the company or their leadership experience.

How do you tell that they are willing to get in there and do the change?

We go on the assumption that they are ready, but we don’t truly know until we get going, applying the skills, doing the work, getting on our conference calls and being part of the coaching process. These things will show us that they are serious. It is the actions, not the words.

You created a learning system to go along with your book, Remarkable Leadership Learning System. It is a continual leadership development process that focuses on developing the 13 core competencies of remarkable leaders. How does this process work? How does it help your leaders find their missing competencies or add to their existing ones?

The process is focused on two very simple ideas:

1. Training is an event.
2. learning is a process. The process is designed to help people integrate leadership skills into their already busy schedules by focusing on one skill at a time, one month at a time.

Of our 13 competencies, if you remove the learning one, as that is what we continually do, there are 12 other competencies for 12 months. We help our members integrate that new skill into what they are already doing at work.

We encourage people to take on a monthly project to apply the skills they are learning and we give them specific ideas to work on. We created an all encompassing tool to help people work on their skills.

If all of the leaders got better 1% per day that compounds to 21% in a month this can have a tremendous impact in companies on an overall yearly basis. 1% better can be doing just one thing better every day. It is a huge improvement.

34:28

We just created what we call the most remarkable free leadership gift ever and we’d love to have people sample that program for two months, there are hundreds of dollars of free webcasts and tools. Just go to Most Remarkable Free Leadership Gift Ever.

What has been the most inspiring story for you where someone got what you are talking about and you saw the results over time?

We get a lot of satisfaction from folks in a variety of methods. We can hear from them even years later when they are in decision-making roles. Being a leader is about making a difference in the world and when we hear back from those in our program, we know we have helped one more person and achieved our goal.

What impact has this turbulent economy had on your business? Are there more people interested in investing in their human assets? Or are they cutting costs?

There are people doing both. We made a choice a year ago that we would not use the word recession – we were going to work harder and a little differently. Do new things so our business would not be affected. The economic changes for us have been minimally.I think we are seeing a turn and that many organizations think the end is in sight.

What are three steps our listeners can take now to begin to improve 1% per day?

1. Make a list of the 3 things that you are best at as a leader
2.Identify 2-3 things that you are not so good at.
3. Identify one step you can take each day on one of the strengths and one of the weaknesses.

In a recent interview at Get Motivation you shared your ingredients for success. You said they’d include:

• Love
• Gratitude
• Desire to be a lifelong learner
• Ability/willingness to collaborate
• Self knowledge
• Ability to focus and prioritize
• Purpose
• Optimism
• Bias towards action
• Ability to communicate

How long have you had this list of ingredients for success?

If we want to be successful, we need to be “other” focused. When we are other focused, rather than on ourselves, more things will come back to us. When I think of success, it is more than just money. You need a sense of purpose, a clear why and a feeling of abundance.

49:19

Remember the pledge of allegiance? We pledge allegiance to those values most dear to us. Are our actions showing our pledge of allegiance to our values and allowing us to be a role model for those values in our businesses?

What if we pledged our allegiance daily to these values, as well, as our leaders, as our organization’s leaders? Would that make us a better human? Better leader equals better human; better human makes us a better leader. Be clear on our values and lead from them. This is a challenge we can all think about everyday.

I remember reading many great inspiration quotes in your tweets. Can you share one with us now?

1. Remarkable leadership starts with the belief that leadership skills are learnable and learned.
2. Leadership is an opportunity and a responsibility. The best leaders possess both realities.

You can follow Kevin Eikenberry online at his

* Kevin Eikenberry Group, website
* Kevin Eikenberry Group, blog
* Twitter: KevinEikenberry

2 Free Gift Reminders:

1. Free Chapter Download with his Latest Best-Seller: Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time

2.Most Remarkable Free Leadership Gift Ever. <

Thanks, Kevin!

The 5 things missing from the Golden Rule

Here’s quick reminder. The Golden Rule is Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You. It’s found as a key principle in nearly all religions. I say nearly all, as I’m not a religious studies expert. ( But, what kind of religion would it be without this as a core tenet?)

As perfect and universal as The Golden Rule reads for me, there are 5 things missing from it. And these 5 are missing from all versions and releases, updates and iterations, in all cultures and religions. Here they are:

1. No exceptions
2. No asterisk
3. No disclaimers
4. No ‘void where prohibited by law’
5. Limited hours of service

Steve Farber reminded me. He also reminded members of Fairfield’s Entrepreneur Association when they attended his presentation.

Maybe, your mission statements is different than the Golden Rule. It's less inspiring, less concise, less universal. Maybe.

But, you can share one characteristic: you can leave out these same 5 things from your mission statement in word and in deed. In fact, it may be easier with your mission statement. Right?

9 Steps to a CEO Customer Conversation Campaign

It’s possibly an over-reach to say the following. But, I’ll say it anyway: Today’s CEOs are pressed with more demands on their time to be leaders, visionaries, tactical masters, execution executives, communicators and cheerleaders and ruthless executioners of tactics and strategy. And that’s for their existing brand, in their existing market, facing their existing competitors. Oh, and there’s a recession right now.

And now, you CEOs are pressed harder these days than ever before to reach out and connect with your customers. Why? that connection, that bond, that knowledge gleaned, with your customers is the source of recurring revenues, testimonials, word-of-mouth, referrals, upselling, lower advertising costs, greater efficiency in your operations as you target accurately your customers’ needs. That connection is the source, the destination, of your competitive edge.

Few actions flatter a customer more than the CEO of one of their service providers asking to speak with them. Nothing is as effective as YOU, the CEO, hearing in their words, what your customer thinks about your company.

So, how does a CEO begin to reach out and talk with their customers?

Here’s a plan I followed to talk to up 50 customers per month.

1. Block out 30 minutes daily. I recommend the first hour of every day. Remember: it’s your most important task. Take a list with you when you travel. It’s a good way to spend time between flights.

2. Prepare a list of 5 customers to call the following day. Why 5? My goal was to speak in person with 2-3 customers. I found phone numbers had changed and contacts had left. My job is to speak to customers, not update your records. Some days, I spoke with 4; other days 0.

3. Search the CRM database. I targeted a specific category of customers:

• biggest billers
• newest customers
• oldest customers
• customers who sent the most referrals (You track the source of your referrals, right? ).
• customers with a recent problem
• etc

4. Review their records first. Know their services; understand their relationship with your company before you call. Touch on any issues or calls with them. It communicates they are important and you are prepared.

• Added bonus: I better understood our CRM application, its features and their abilities (disabilities sometimes) and how it enabled (disabled) our staff from making customers happy. This benefit cannot be overstated.

5. Follow-up after each call with an email. I covered the points in our conversation and ended with my personal contact information that included my cell phone.

6. Note on the customer record the call and any outstanding issues discussed.
 
I made this note even if I reached the customer's voice mail. I noted who I spoke, any changes on the customer record, issues discussed and the date of this contact.

Why? I was a member of the Customer Service team at that point. That information could be important to other members on the next call from that customer.

7. Follow-up with Customer Service or Sales as needed.

• Teaser: 30% those customers I spoke with wanted to hear about our other services. 50 of those customers then added or upgraded their services. Bottomline: It’s worth your time.

Now, I've showed a simple, doable, schedule.

What do you say?

Script:

• I introduced myself.
• I apologized for interrupting.
• I assured them I was not calling to sell them something.
• Then, I explained to them the purpose of my call. I wanted to make sure you were happy with our service or if you’re unhappy, help me understand what we did and how we can change that.

Then I was quiet. I listened. They spoke. In their words.

I followed up with any issues noted in their customer record.

• Had we taken care of this issue?
• Did we handle your needs promptly?
• Have we ever NOT handled them promptly, etc?

I followed up with The Ultimate Question Survey: .

• Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague?
• On a scale of 0-10 how likely would you be to recommend us to a friend or colleague?

Based on their responses, you ask:

• Customer response: 8 - 10. What did you say when you recommended us?
• Customer response: 0 - 7. What do we need to do change your answer to 8 or higher?

Their scores here created their Net Promoter Score. Collectively, they created our corporate Net Promoter Score.

Note: Our company’s size precluded a full-scale, expensive, thrid-party survey firm. Regardless, the results from this step with our other customer data far outweighed any possible data distortion.

The results generated from this modest investment of time include:

• a regular source of inspiration and celebration I could share with everyone for their results with our customers
• regular feedback on steps we could take to improve our service
• more revenues from more upselling, cross-selling
• more referrals
• less dependence on expensive advertising
• better cash-flows
• greater understanding of the story told in our regular accounting reports including those I discussed at this guest post on SmallBizTrends titled Which Report is the Important Report?

 That was worth 30 minutes of my day, regularly. Will it be for you? I am pretty confident it will be worth 30 minutes of your day.

Disclaimer: there were days or even weeks when I would fail to invest this time. Urgent-Urgent activities pre-empted this. And, honestly, I would forget. I always regretted it, too.

3 Ways to Build Your Tribe

I spoke with Ed Welch earlier this year. Ed is the author of 101 Ways to Destroy Your Tribe. You can download it for free at his website Tribe Building. Listen at this link to Ed's thoughts on his book, why he wrote it, what it meant, and Ed's ideas on building sustainable tribal connections with your customers

Ed's expertise in ways to destroy a tribe, a brand, comes from his passion in building tribes and customer connections. Ed's also a keen and humble observer of business. He shared 3 ways to build your tribe.

1. When a customer walks away, make sure they have a good feeling. You want your customers to know and feel that you care.

2. Actively seek out customers to help your business. If you are real honest with your customers, they will share their preferences and thoughts about your company. Call and ask them their opinion. By doing this small, simple gesture, your customer will also feel valued and pleased to provide you with their inner most thoughts about your company. This will help to build your tribe.

3. Do not follow the tips in the 101 book.

Note the ratio of ways to build a tribe of loyal customers to ways to destroy your tribe of loyal customers; it's 3:101. 3 ways to build it; 101 ways to destroy it.

Thanks, Ed. Go OSU!

PS: Just for dark humor, and due diligence, here's Ed's 4 Favorite Ways to Destroy Your Tribe. Read it. Chuckle at them. Audit your brand's promises and your delivery of them. Make sure you're not killing your brand, softly, with them.

Huh. So this is important?

It's Friday. Game day's tomorrow for the U of I Hawkeyes. Weather's warm. I'm ordering a cappuccino at one of my favorite spots in Iowa City. The crowd's bustling, buzzy, busy, almost boisterous. I've come to this place for...a decade...? Or two.

I place my order.

And as the line of waiting expectant customers, those who've already ordered, grows longer I notice a couple of things.

* There are more barristas not barristering than there are customers waiting for their order. Here's what they're doing instead:

* Flirting. Yes. The age-old pursuit is happening in front of me and my colleagues in the waiting line. Young man. Young lady. Talking, smiling, looking down, making eye contact, avoiding it. One's a customer. One's an employee.

* Filling the ice chest. Very important. Obviously. Must be done. Right now. No one's ordered iced drinks. But, the urgency is obvious to the employee.

* Filling the coffee canisters. No one's ordering coffee. We all want espresso drinks that only one employee can deliver. But, still, the urgency to fill the canisters is obvious to the employee tasked with that...task.

* Cleaning the tables. Ok. That WILL be important...in the future. Once orders are filled people will want a place to sit. But only until then.

* Filling the pastry shelf. It's filled. No one's ordering the pastries. But, like the coffee canister person, this person's been tasked to fill the pastry shelf. Even pushing, squeezing a few more in for the anticipated rush at...5PM? I don't know. I do know I have time to ponder when the next rush on pastries will occur. Obviously it will, right. Otherwise, why overstock the shelf?

My cappuccino arrived. It's a single-shot. That's why I ordered it. But it's delicious. Worth the wait? I don't know. It and the wifi together make it worth the wait. The Wifi is free Mr. Anderson, except for the time, my time, I had to wait for the order.

But during the time I waited I was able to compose this post. And now as I type it in, the line to order is now longer. And the one monitoring the coffee canisters is dutifully monitoring them. The flirter has moved on. (He's really not into you...?) The table's are cleaned but no one's sitting at them as they're all in line.

I'm wondering why the growing line of customers waiting to either order or pick up their orders...doesn't connect with the employees. Maybe no one's connected their tasks with a purpose. Your purpose is to serve the customer. If they want coffee, fill the canisters; if they want espresso drinks man-up on the espresso machines. Stay there until the line is gone.

I was CEO of a small company. We had two missions in life. One: answer the lead line. Two: answer the customer service line. All hands, all the time. Sales agents answered roll over calls for customer service. Customer service handled roll over calls for the lead line. And any unanswered calls rang to my desk. As time went on, I was less familiar with the details of all of our services: prices, setup, contracts, etc. I told the caller this. They didn't care, really. They cared that someone at our company cared enough about their call to...pick up our ringing phone. They were flattered that their call was important enough for the CEO to answer.

I'm wondering why that was so clear there and so unclear here? Maybe competition. We had lots. We had lots from big coroproate brands back with ad budgets exceeding a bazillion dollars. But they didn't answer their phones. Our new customers told us. We didn't advertise. We let our competitors spend their bazillions to advertise their indifference to their prospects and customers. (Employees, too, I bet.) Their indifference helped further qualify our prospects. It worked. We had a conversion rate well north of 50% and a customer-churn rate well south of the industry average.

I hope my favorite espresso house in very close proximity to the ped-mall stays in business...forever. The Wifi's great. So's their drinks. And I hope if...they face a competitor in close proximity with a bazillion dollars to advertise...they realize they can compete if they just...stop doing what's not important and do what's important for me, for us, their customers.

A Secret Strategy to Increase Profits by 40%

Shhh. This is secret. It's a secret strategy.  Research from over 300,000 businesses indicates it will:

* increase your profits on average by 40%
* increase customer loyalty by 70%
* decrease employee turnover by 70%

Looking at those stats, I see signs this secret strategy will increase your cash-flows, too. Why?

• Lower employee turnover means lower hiring and training costs.
• Increased customer loyalty means higher rates of repeat purchases, more referrals, more upsells.
• More referrals means the need for less advertising costs. Why advertise for strangers when your customers refer their friends?

What's this secret strategy?

Creating fully engaged employees. It will create a secret energy source for your brand, according to some research from Gallup that's discussed in a post by Eric Brody on his blog, Healthy Conversations:

In a recent article on MarketingProfs, Gallup research of 300,000 businesses indicated that 75-80% of employees are achieving much lessand feeling far less enthusiastic about their work than they could be. If all your employees were “fully engaged,” Gallup reported, your customers would be 70% more loyal, your turnover would drop by 70%, and your profits would jump 40%. Last, Gallup found that great employees also tend to engender “passionate” customers.

Putting aside the fun with writing this post, I am serious this is a secret strategy. It must be. Otherwise, why wouldn't more companies create fully engaged employees? 70% of employees surveyed at these companies report they are not fully engaged.

I guess these companies think we're not in a recession or something.

BlogTalk Radio Guest: Bob Corlett, President of The Staffing Advisors

 Bob Corlett, President of The Staffing Advisors, joins me tomorrow to talk about his leadership and vision and its role in growing his startup through two recessions now.

That's right. The Staffing Advisors was founded 7 years ago at the start of THAT recession.

The Staffing Advisors is a retained search firm that serves the small to medium sized business. It's built on the foundation of innovation, dedication to his customer’s success, a proprietary search process that results in customer testimonials on his website. Bob now incorporates a comprehensive social media strategy to continue to expand his search business during THIS recession. We’ll talk with him about all of this.

Join us tomorrow at 9:30 AM, Central with either of these two listening options:

• Live, streaming, on-demand at this link.
• Call-in and listen at 646-915-9212.

Hope you join us.

I'll post highlighted excerpts by Sunday, August 29. That's possible from the great work of Susan Poirier of Ace Concierge.

You can follow Bob Corlett at either or both of these social media options:
Blog: The Staffing Advisors
Twitter: BobCorlett

6 Tips to a Successful CIDS Interview

You’re interviewing for a job? Fantastic.

And the company will interview you with the CIDS, or Chronological In-Depth Structured, Interview method.

Even better!

Here’s why. A company that uses the CIDS Interview as part of its hiring process has committed to hire only A-players. The CIDS Interview will identify A-Players...quickly. And with a high percentage of success.

That implies the company sees you as a potential A-Player.

The CIDS Interview will allow you to show your consistent history of decision-making expertise, how you have learned and grown, your track-record of growing success and even how you have successfully handled setbacks or quirky bosses.

What is CIDS? CIDS or Chronological In-Depth Structured Interview is a systematic interview method. The goal of a CIDS Interview is a systematic, structured, review of the candidate’s behavior and decision-making patterns throughout their education and business career.

The advantage of a CIDS interview is its ability to discover and showcase those decision-making patterns as they were applied and as they have matured over the years. Those patterns are a key indicator of what is to be expected if that candidate is hired. Other benefits of a CIDS interview include avoiding interviewer blindspots, insuring the candidate is the primary speaker and superficial interviews.

It was created as a tactic and resource for companies who seek to TopGrade their talent. The creator of CIDS is Brad Smart* of Topgrading. He discusses the interview, the questions, the philosophy and more in The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best. He is also the author of TopGrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best.

Here’s how to prepare for this opportunity:

1. Relax.
A. You’re an A-Player.
B. A CIDS Interview should present ample opportunities to address your successes. And even the inevitable setbacks everyone has faced and how you grew from them.

2. Read the Smart Interviewer. The foundation for the CIDS Interview as well as the sequence of questions are included. This is not a cheat sheet for ‘acing’ the interview. A CIDS Interview includes calls to your former managers.
However, you will see the patterns you have used over your career. That will allow you to answer for them.
Remember: you’re an A-Player. This is your time to shine.

3. Tie the threads of your success. These are the threads that have woven your success. Tie them together in a complete understanding. Then you are prepared to present that understanding to your potential employer as an added asset for them.

4. Tie the threads of your failures. Everyone has a mistake or two or three. (I’ve lost count of mine.)
But, you learned from each mistake. That makes you an A-Player.
And you applied that new knowledge in the next opportunity. Tie that thread or those threads in the same way. Show your potential employer what you have learned. And that you have the ability to take responsibility, be accountable, and grow from your lessons. That’s the mark of a leader. A-Players are leaders. This is an opportunity for you to show in meaningful ways you are a leader.

5. Learn. Pay attention during the interview. CIDS Interviews are interviews you can conduct when you are a manager and leader at the company smart enough to hire you.

6. Celebrate. You will learn something about yourself during this process. That should reinforce you are an A-Player. Find a company smart enough to recognize you as one.

* Brad Smart spoke with me on my BlogTalk Radio show last year. You can listen on-demand at this link.

BlogTalk Radio Guest: Steve MacGill and Dr. Jim Norris

Steve MacGill is CEO and founder of Peersight Online. Dr. Jim Norris is CEO of KAART Business Solutions, LLC. They will talk about peer advisory boards, their power and resources for businesses of all sizes to learn from your peers, why in this economy they are more valuable than ever and why they aren't using social media. Ok. We may ask them that. But given their success from the value they bring their clients...they seem quite successful generating word-of-mouth and referrals. Maybe, we should talk with them about how they are so successful generating word-of-mouth referrals. That is more important than how many characters are in a tweet.

Join us tomorrow at 9:30 AM, Central.

There are two ways to listen:

* Streaming on-demand at this link.
* Call-in at this number: 646-915-9212.

Hope you join us.

Blogtalk Radio Guest Highlight Excerpts: Crystal O'Connor, CEO and founder of Fearless Ambition Magazine

Crystal O’Connor, CEO and founder of Fearless Ambition Magazine, joined me Wednesday, August 12. Her purpose with Fearless Ambition Magazine is to empower, educate and enrich. Her site uses success principles of industrialists, diplomats and thought leaders from the world, current and historical.

Her site is clearly organized, pleasing to the eye and offers a great example of how you can use social and digital media to build a valuable resource for your community.

You can listen in streaming mode at this link.

Where are you? What are you doing?

What I'm doing everyday is researching and putting together a plan of action for where I'm going with this magazine. Right now it's an online magazine. But I'm planning to put it in print, soon.

It is an online magazine right now. It's much more engaging. It's almost interactive. But it will be in print. Who doesn't like to take a magazine on the plane with them. Or relax with it in their hands.

When did you decide on this mission? Why this mission?

It was the need for an attitude and of course the educational component.

I have always been blessed with a passion for reading. I took that information that I learned and has chosen to incorporate that into the magazine. There was a strong need to provide these types of tools and information based upon the needs of others. <

That's where I started, seeing the need for educational component, incorporating a lot of the areas of success we need into one site.

I've learned so much from others, reading their thoughts.

I wanted to give back from her own experience and be able to share and inspire others through her own lessons. My experiences I want to give back to help others, even my own kids. If I could teach the important lessons, the lessons, that I learned the hard way...that would be important.

You've decided to take your magazine into print when so many people are poo-pooing print. Why?

Print will never go away. But it will be a struggle. Print will die in different ways. But holding a book in your hands, it's tangible and it's not going away. You can't take a laptop with you into the bathtub... There are places where print is more comfortable.

When you were planning Fearless Ambition, what was your intended audience, the demographic?

It's the person who wants to be a constant learner. You need to be a constant learner. Anyone who wants to thrive, not just survive, should read this magazine. It's the person who no longer wants to struggle, but who wants to thrive.

What needs of theirs aren’t being met? How does Fearless Ambition meet those needs?

Inspiration is a huge part of it.

The entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a little bit in all of us. It's easier now to be an entrepreneur now than ever before. Bringing in good quality marketing knowledge. We need to start preparing our kids to be entrepreneurs. We need to teach them to think, think creatively. That's the mindset of an entrepreneur. Things are changing so fast you need to be able to do that. If we can teach our kids to do this then we have empowered them to thrive in the world they'll live in.

My favorite part is teaching the kids. Some of us are learning now to be an entrepreneur in our 40's and 50's. It's very much an attitude.

What lets you know you are reaching that audience, empowering, educating, and enriching them? What are the metrics?

I know I need to see more of those signs. But I've never been more sure of myself that there's a need for Fearless Ambition. I receive emails and comments thanking me for the site. That's part of the conversation on social media.

I'm just getting started. I have so much more content to share. Feedback is important. I encourage people to visit the site and give me feedback.

Let's talk about ambition. We've met compliments of Mike Sansone. You're ambitious. What or who has helped you, helped ignite your ambition?

My experiences have helped me overall. My sales experiences have been a great asset to my pursuits. The struggle of learning sales techniques and constantly trying to survive in sales has helped me. Those experiences in the sales world led me to take a look at the relationships I had with others and realized that relationships are everything in the sales world and real life: how to become confident, reliable, self-motivated, creative, driven and it leads to independence and THAT is where I want to lead people.

Independence does not mean to not be collaborative though. They go hand in hand. When you are empowered by others and have taken the time to understand relationships, it just feeds your confidence. And, therefor, you become independent. Let’s do away with the entitlement mentality in this country. Those people don’t realize what they are really capable of: giving is really receiving.

Truly, my mentors have been the ones who've taken the time to write down their experiences and share them. You have to realize that one statement can change another person's life. One statement that you make to another can change a whole life. It is part of the butterfly effect. It is the idea that what we do and say can affect someone else and it becomes global. It is powerful that we have the capability to do that.

Some of the authors that affected my life include:

The Go-Giver. He explains the five laws of success and a person has to be ready to understand and accept the advice.

Napoleon Hill wrote the classic “Think and Grow Rich.”He went around the country interviewing those who have succeeded in business and creating a set of laws. This was during the '20's. Those laws of success will never go out of style.

And Robert Kiyosaki and his Rich Dad - Poor Dad series.

Where's the gap in creating Fearless Ambition in those who have the tools but maybe lack the inspiration to be fearless?

I see the gap in the lack of understanding of social media and its power. The power of blogging for instance. The idea of how to market yourself online using a collaborative approach.

This person has the perfect profile but their life didn't offer them this one element. How does Fearless Ambition help?

Everybody needs inspiration. But being a continual learner, wanting to learn, will continue them on this process to success. But the well-organized may need this more than others. But they might be struggling now in the information age more than they have in the past. And they're just realizing now that they have to reach out and learn more than in the past.

Let’s transition a bit to mundane operational details. You launched your site this year, right? How long did it take to build it?

I have the personality trait to jump in, learn as I go. I want to get going. I did take people's advice and it was good advice.

I didn't experiment with Typepad. Wordpress is maybe more effective. But there is a learning curve that I had to go through. I would encourage anyone considering this to first understand what each blogging platform has to offer.

I started instead of investigating which blog site to start with.

What three tips can you share from your learning experience in creating your site?

1. Start with reading a few books. You need to understand the process: the keywords, technicalities...etc. Any of the “Dummies” books are a great asset in helping you choose the right blog, website, or designer. You gain a greater understanding to help you choose the right person to lead you.
2. Think about the direction that you want. You must see the big picture. Think BIG!
3. Realize your fears: what they are and don’t let them hold you back. Learn to be okay with it.

41:48

How have you incorporated social media into your site?

I use Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed to get my message out there. Each has a different audience-there is a little bit of everybody out there and you have to find them.

What is the impact from using Facebook and Twitter with Fearless Ambition?

I can’t believe how many people I have connected with from all over the world. I have learned from them – they want to be a part of it. We connect with people we have never been able to connect with – learning so many different things from one another.

Which social media resource has been the most productive for you?

I am most active with Twitter! It is very fast, quick and brief. It forces people to get to the point in 140 characters.

What has been the most disappointing resource/tool?

Myspace, but only because it wasn’t what I needed, but I am not one that dwells on being disappointed. I do know it is a viable resource for others.

What are your immediate plans for the future with Fearless Ambition Magazine:

I intend to do more speaking about it, overcoming my fear of public speaking. I would like to see a mentorship program. I want to feed the natural open-mindedness to kids-keeping them thinking like an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have an obligation to give back to others and I hope they do this with great joy, helping to inspire others. I am also in the process of writing a book – full of fearless ambition stories and overcoming struggles and obstacles.

Let's say we speak in a year. I hope we do. What will be your biggest achievement you'll share?

For people to know that when they hear fearless ambition, they will know it is an attitude and they can find the resources online and in book form. I have a group of people that are going around the country sharing this message, in schools and in businesses.

I see you as an aspiring role model for others. What are your four tips for building fearless ambition for our listeners?

1. Think big. Dream big. Change your self-talk. Reach out to others. Be around like minded people
2. Realize your fears – you are not alone. Question your fears. Examine them.
3. Educate yourself.
4. Start blogging: discover yourself and find your purpose

You share a lot of inspiration quotes at Fearless Ambition. Can you share an inspiring quote for our audience to help them become fearless in their ambition:

* “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

* You have to do the thing you can not do. You realize you can do it and it will change your life forever.

You can follow Crystal O'Connor on Twitter at:

* YourCrystalBall

* CrystalO'Connor

Host's Note: I need a producer dragging their finger across their throat signaling me to be quiet. I talked too much. That's a good sign. I only start talking when I'm inspired by what I'm hearing.

Thank you, Crystal, for your patience. You could have shared more of your inspiring message had I been...quiet. Next time.

Innovating? 3 Reminders to Help

* Focus on Incremental Innovations. These can be easier and more cost-effective to discover and implement than their bigger, grander, sibling: the disruptive, blue-ocean, innovation.

Note: they're still disruptive. But the disruptions are scaled more for ripples of change, not tidal waves.

* Prepare for the Flood. There's a pentup supply of ideas (and emotions) on how to fix, improve and solve our challenges. Just ask and wait for the floodgates to open and ideas to come spilling forth. Be ready with tools and processes to not only welcome the ideas, but absorb them in a way that maximizes their value. Remember: once you open these floodgates, they won't be closed afterwards.

* Diversity, diversity, diversity. That should describe the makeup of your teams. Include representatives from all the functional areas of your business: sales, marketing, IT, customer service, accounting, operations, shipping, collections...Diversity in thoughts and ideas and backgrounds and skills and values  is the key to generating innovative solutions.

Innovation Tools blog post, 3 Common Innovation Traps, inspired this post.

The middle point, Prepare for the Flood, was a point I discovered as I led innovation at a small company. The firehose of input that was turned on was a surprise, a pleasant surprise but still a surprise. One of the best tools to manage the volume of ideas and their discussions was Basecamp. I highly recommend you use Basecamp to manage your innovation process.

4 Steps for Multitasking Success

Warning: These aren't the results of rocket scientist-like research.

They are, however, steps I've found that work for me.  My hope is they serve as a simple helpful reminder to those treading water, or slowly sinking, with multiple projects. And, you can pick one or two and start heading to shore.

* Go to Bed Early.  There's research, which I can't find now, that shows we sleep better when we go to be earlier. We awake more rested, fresher, clearer.

That's not why I do it, though. I go to bed earlier than most because it works for me.  My most productive days are when I go to bed early and awake early. And I'm on the keyboard early.

* Plan the day, the night before.  I write down 3 projects I want to complete and a quick list of tasks I need to complete...and I do this before I go to bed. That allows me to wake up, get up, and start getting things done...immediately. This starts the day being immediately productive. That starts the momentum.

* Use a Timer.  I set a timer for each project or group of tasks. I work on that exclusively until time's up. I reset the timer and start on another. Right now, I have 15 more minutes for my blog, tweets, and email. 

This keeps me moving through short deadlines all day long. There's a bit of urgency and positive feedback built in. I only have x minutes to work on this project....Urgency. Look how much I've accomplished...positive feedback.

And moving from project to project like this keeps the attention fresh and the ideas (and fingers) moving.

* Close everything else. Browsers, cellphones, email and office door are closed while I work on this project/tasks. And working at home, everyone knows I'll be finished soon and then I'm able to give them 100% of my attention.

That's them. They work for me. I hope they help. Let me know what you use. I need all the help you can share. So do others.