Would you cancel a deal on a customer without notice?

Would you not return a phone call to a partner for a week?

Would you cancel a meeting on a customer with no notice?

If not, then why would you do that with a vendor that serves you or a partner/distributor? Is it just because you can?

Your relationships are critical. All of them. Not just the ones that would get you in trouble if you mismanaged.

We’ve worked with some corporate clients who seem to feel that vendors are a dime-a-dozen and can be treated poorly. It’s arrogant.

Arrogance is a bad habit that can creep into all aspects of your persona.

Be human, even if you have leverage over someone because you’re paying them. It’s just the right thing to do. And of course you never know how your reputation will effect your future.

Help your vendors be successful – it’s in your best interest.

Photo credit: AndyRoberts Photos

In our organization there is only one thing that will get me into an upset boss mode. That is if we do or don’t do something that will have a negative impact on a client.

There are many ways to accomplish a task. When choosing between two options we choose based on what’s best for the client, regardless of cost (within reason), or how much harder it is to accomplish. We build our processes to accommodate the client from the very beginning.

If we do something and it doesn’t feel like it’s best for the client, we re-do it.

We all know how it works around here. I can be comfortable that if I’m not involved the client is still going to win.

Great customer service is a worthwhile goal. What else can this attention bring you as a leader?

We’ve probably all used this phrase – “The customer is always right!”

We know this isn’t always true. In fact customers can be downright unreasonable at times. It’s simply a catch phrase that shows you honor the customer. And, conversely could be perceived to dis-honor our processes and our people if you merely utter the phrase without building the structure to naturally support great customer service.

Be careful. If as a leader you view yourself as a referee between your customer and your employee you have created a natural confrontation and a winner and a loser.

The paradox is that you might think trust is built with your team if you intervene and defend your staff member in the conflict with a customer. This is winning a battle while setting yourself up to lose the war.

The truly successful customer service organizations make it appear as if the customer is always right. This comes from solid process that creates a discipline throughout an organization that guides decision-making without a lot of rules.

That consistency is what builds trust with your team.

Photo credit: University of Salford

The following is a short book preview contributed by the Ohio State University Leadership Center.

75 Principles of Conscious Leadership:
Inspired Skills for 21st Century Business

From:

Michael Schantz
Bandon, OR: Robert D. Reed Publishers (2008)

People respond to your essence as a leader. If a leader’s power is authentic, people believe in the leader and his message. People demonstrate that they believe in their leaders when they follow. They follow where a leader’s principles, values, and actions enact outcomes for the greater good.

People trust and emulate leaders whom they respect. People respect what leaders represent and what leaders mean to them. Leaders serve as living examples and role models. Their leadership is a presence that is felt. That essence is authentic leadership.

Leaders transform organizations by exhibiting forthright and steadfast leadership. The transformation starts within.  Lead from the inside out (Schantz, p. 113).

75 Principles of Conscious Leadership is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

A document for internal Netflix employees was recently released on Slideshare called Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture. This document is a pretty strong culture manifesto. We’ve included the entire 128 pages below and will likely highlight a number of points here in the near future.

One suggested practice is The Keeper Test Managers Use. The question managers should ask is:

“Which of my people, if they told me they were leaving in two months for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight to keep at Netflix?”

You may end up with two lists. Those you would fight to keep and those you are paying, coaching, correcting and developing now that you wouldn’t fight to keep. Next, the action item for those you wouldn’t fight to keep:

“The other people should get a generous severance now, so we can open a slot to try to find a star for that role.”

Could you do that in your organization? Why not? I’ve frequently heard it said that everyone can’t be a star. We need B and C and D players. Is that really true? Why?

Yes, you will have people on your teams with varying degrees of experience and at different spots on their development journey but why can’t everyone be a star or star in the making?

This slight mind-set shift is key to a championship high-performing team vs. a “meets expectations” team. Which do you prefer?

Take a few moments to read through the slides below. All 128 pages are thought provoking.

In this week’s BCS National Championship college football game here in the U.S., Alabama coach Nick Saban was overheard telling his kicker that he would be going to him later and that he needed him. This was just after a field goal was blocked. Alabama’s kickers have had a troubled season, missing key opportunities. Kicker Jeremy Shelley missed two field goals Monday night but made five, accounting for all of the points in the game until a late touchdown.

Jeremy Shelley is not the best kicker in football. He even missed the extra point on the touchdown. Everyone knows he’s not the best. Nick Saban knows it too. A big deal was made of the fact that coach Saban recruited the #1 kicker in the country for next year. He knows how important this position is.

I’ve been in the room with Alabama fans when a field goal is being attempted. You hear swearing, screaming, and groaning. But it was the national championship game and coach Saban needed a kicker. He has more than one. It may have been easy to replace Shelley after his first miss with the other kicker who specializes in longer kicks but Saban stuck with Shelley. Most importantly, he told Shelley he was sticking with him. And then he showed him he had confidence in him.

I’m sure coach Saban wished for a second he had a better kicker. But as a leader he was leading the players he had Monday night. He created a sense of confidence in his kicker in order to allow him to do the best he could. He missed a second one but Jeremy Shelly also kicked a 44 yarder, the longest of his career.

Assembling the perfect team happens over time. Getting the best performance possible from the team you have right now is leadership.

Photo credit: avinashkunnath

Skills are skills. Would you say a mechanic finessing a bolt is using soft skills?

Is a lawyer effective if he only knows the statutes? Is a physician effective if she only treats your child’s tumor without any bed-side manner?

OK, academically I can see why you might want to draw distinctions between hard skills – those needed to complete a specific task, and soft skills – those that have to do with emotional intelligence. However, when teaching a job if you only teach one or the other you will fail.

WARNING: The person with the budget is usually not versed in the distinctions and thinks hard skills are things we can’t do without and soft skills are things we can do without.

• Stop making the distinction.
• Just teach.
• Create curriculum that teaches to achieve results.
• Merge the two.
• Don’t have a soft skills track.
• Ensure that every class is blended rather than leaving the blending to the learner.

Effective leaders create a blended curriculum for their development.

Photo credit: Jesslee Cuizon

One of the top 10 reasons why large companies fail to keep their best talent according to a Forbes magazine article is No discussion around career development. Not a performance review. That’s different.

Rather, we’re talking about specific one-on-one discussions about where the person is going. While asking what the team member wants to do in the future is certainly a part of the discussion it really is a coaching task – drawing out a cogent plan, something many people aren’t able to do on their own.

A real discussion about an employee’s career accomplishes so much:

• Shows you care. (you do right?)
• Provides context for transactional behavior.
• Gives you, their leader, critical information for your planning.
• Creates a targeted development plan fueled by a strong vision.
• Helps both of you understand each other better.
• Brings value to the organization because you better understand their goals and they better understand the needs of the organization.
• You both have something to talk about besides the production tasks.
• Boss/employee morphs into human/human.
• A valuable connection to the organization helps the employee justify staying with your organization.

Talk about career, career path (and how promotions aren’t required to grow), and how to navigate the political waters, regularly. Enhance the relationship between you and your team members and reap the results that all championship teams experience.

Tap into expert Janine Moon here at ELCircle. Her specialty is career ownership for both the leader and the staff member.

Photo credit: Luc Galoppin

The following is a short book preview contributed by the Ohio State University Leadership Center.

Fearless Leadership:
How to Overcome Behavioral Blind Spots
and Transform Your Organization

From:

Loretta Malandro
New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies (2009)

7 Guidelines for Authentic Commitments:

1. Align with the enterprise mission. Does our commitment forward enterprise objectives?
2. Tell the truth. Is this a commitment we are willing to keep, regardless of unforeseen circumstances?
3. Be responsible about your capacity to deliver. Can we deliver on this new commitment given other commitments we have made?
4. Identify possible negative impacts. What unintended consequences could this commitment have on business results and people?
5. State a specific time agreement. By when will this commitment be fulfilled?
6. Agree to include others and commit publicly. How will we include others in our commitment?
7. Agree on how to revoke the commitment should it become necessary. How will we handle a change in our commitment or change in the due date (Malandro, p. 193)?

Fearless Leadership is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

On the web site for Martha Stewart’s book, The Martha Rules, she has a quick quiz. See question 5 where she provides a great description of focus:

“Close your eyes and imagine that there are three optical instruments on your desk. First, you need a telescope, a way to keep an eye on the future. Second, you need a wide-angle lens to keep an eye on the broad landscape, which includes things like the competition and economic trends. Third, you need a microscope, because from time to time you have to look at the finest details of the business.”

This description fits in perfectly with the Personal Brilliance definition of 360 degree focus. Those who score highest in focus on the Personal Brilliance Quotient assessment are labeled Chief Executive because of the ability to shift focus within a given situation.

Ryan Wick	Libelul	xmatt

The following is a short book preview contributed by the Ohio State University Leadership Center.

The Inner Edge:
10 Practices of Personal Leadership

From:

Joelle K. Jay
Santa Barbara: CA, ABC CLIO (2009)

Finding focus is about choosing where to put your time, energy, and attention. It’s a selection process – something like the steps you go through when you take a photograph. Getting the vision for your life is like using the wide-angle lens. It gives you the opportunity to take in a lot at once. Finding focus, by contrast, is zooming in on one specific picture, then another, than another.

Finding your focus moves you from…

• Chaos to control
• Overwhelming to manageable
• Random to strategic
• Complex to simple
• Abstract to concrete
• General to specific

The Inner Edge is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.