The Excitement Progam!...there is nothing like it...

Lead and Manage with "Heart"

Youtube.com has an interesting video" by Dale Dauten, aka "The Corporate Curmudgeon." about "de-hiring" employees. He coined the term in his most recent book, (Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success, and it refers to managing personnel in such a way that unproductive employees leave a business without the pain, suffering, or hassle of a formal termination.

We are of like minds here,as I would hope many are, when he recommends having a one-on-one meeting with new recruits to explain what is expected of them in order for them to become great employees. And setting doable (by great employees) goals. They either blossom into exceptional employees or they fail to meet expectations and they find more suitable employment. 

He speaks to his methods as managing from the heart. That is exactly how I look at creating a great staff of employees. One by one, recruit, attract, or develop developing an entire team of achievers. No one wins when marginal employees remain on a staff. It is unfair for talented personnel to be asked to take up the slack. But is most painful and stressful for poor performers to continue to disappoint themselves and their employers.

A must read: "Frontline Leadership: A Cycle of Engagement"

The Change this manifesto, "Frontline leadership: A Cycle of Engagement," written by George Reavis author of Thanking Customers, is the best  analysis of engagement I have ever read.

"Traditional customer feedback practices are wrapped in programs and are delivered hierarchically from the top down. They provide feedback from colleagues and supervisors who support structure and discipline with an objective of associate involvement. But todays competitive group environments require more than passive involvement. It requires active engagement. Where engagement is defined as 'involved with heart and mind."

This statement begins the manifesto. Right on! The goal of leadership should be an entire team (company) of achievers at every job description in the company. That takes people getting involved with their hearts, minds, and souls. Passion, belief, and extraordinary achievement.

"A consistent quality found in the biographies of great entrepreneurs such ad Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Ray Kroc (McDonald's), and Thomas J. Watson (IBM). Entrepreneurs who know that engaged associated will engage customers who will in turn re-engage those same associates as well as partners. Creating a cycle of engagement."

You can add James Cash Penney to that list. He knew "engaged associates will engage customers." He was the first person to know it. Sam Walton was the second. Sam Walton worked for the J. C. Penney company for eighteen months. The time it took him to complete the acclaimed 18 month J.C. Penney Management Training Course. He quit Penney's immediately after graduating and began his own company with the J.C. Penney management program in his briefcase.

In 1970, decades after Walton took the course, I took the very same management training course. I loved the company. When I began what would be a three-year tenure, I was impressed that It was called the Golden Rule company . From day one I trusted them because how could a company focused on the Golden Rule do anything to hurt me?  It was a great ride for a lot of reasons, but learning how to get people involved in a team effort effort to create great teams was invaluable. 

He lists three primary behavior traits that lead to engagement:

      1. People demonstrate their intentions. They commit themselves.

      2. People are reflective. They continuously learn.

      3. People  pay attention. They are focused.

George Reavis is the real deal. I just stumbled across this, but has a system. Mine is similar to a degree, but the important thing is that we have the same insights and beliefs about employee engagement. We've learned different approaches to creating an engaged work force, but they are based on the same social truths. I am sincerely impressed with this manifesto, but I would add the following to the above list.

      4. People support, often with great passion, what they help create.

      5. People who feel important to the cause, produce important results.

I'm running low on ink, but I'll print this manifesto. If this is a new awareness to you, I'd recommend your printing it also. 

As Seth Godin says, "Why not be great?

I love Seth Godin. his books, blog, and insights. I just finished his most recent book ("The Dip" is due out May 10th), Small is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas. I read it from cover to cover, over the course of a couple of weeks as he recommended. It's the first business book I have read from cover to cover in the past year. While I could write about many other riffs, the one that jumped out at me was about choosing to join the best of the best.

"You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It's never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. It takes only a moment-one second-to decide.

Before you finish this paragraph, you have the power to change everything that's to come. And you can do that by asking yourself (and your colleagues) the question that every organization and every individual needs to ask today: Why not be great?"

It has been my experience-I have asked that question many times in my career-that, despite a wide range of responses to the question, the root of every one of them is that they choose not to be great because they don't know how to transform themselves or their organization into a focus on excellence.

They can't visualize, imagine, or even set a goal to excel because they don't know what to do next. In consumer sales and service they look at a company like Nordstrom and believe it is about everything they can't afford to do as a company. "Well, we just don't have the budget to afford a return policy like they do." When discussing Nordstrom, the extraordinary quality of their face-to-face service is what sets them apart from most other retailers. As the last paragraph of their history (on their website) states, "The company's philosophy has remained unchanged for more than 100 years since its establishment by John W. Nordstrom in 1901: offer the customer the best possible service, selection, quality and value."

I have been shopping at Nordstrom's for decades and I am yet to meet someone who wasn't focused on helping me as if i was the most important person they were going to meet that day. They recruit, attract, and develop sincere highly motivated personnel. Their leaders educate, motivate, and appreciate their staffs daily. Most of how they became great is about simple common sense.

The questions I would ask myself, my colleagues, and my staff would be: How do we become great?, Does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone been great or a part of a great organization? Does anyone know how, other than their great products, Nordstrom became great?

As Seth Godin says, "You get to make a choice." Choose to start a discussion about how you and your organization are going to be great.

In it to win it? You'll need extraordinary team chemistry...

In an interesting article, "Team chemistry and winning share symbiotic relationship," in the Seattle Times, Ted Miller (once again) tries to define team chemistry and how to create it.

"Of course, assessing team chemistry is subjective and imprecise. Some insist good chemistry is a product of winning, not the reverse. It's sort of like arguing which came first, the chicken or the egg.

So which comes first: chemistry or winning?

"Chemistry is always great on teams that are winning," former Mariners reliever Norm Charlton said. "When you're winning, the little BS things get overlooked. If you're losing, those things surface and become a problem."

But good chemistry is more than getting along. It's more than a pleasant atmosphere. There needs to be a spark. There needs to be genuine joy over playing baseball for a living. There needs to be accountability that clicks in at the first hint of complacency or self-absorption."

In sports and business, exceptional teams have great leaders with a system for acquiring (recruiting, attracting, developing) an entire team of achievers, instilling extraordinary teamwork, training their teams daily, and creating team chemistry.

Team chemistry is said to be an uncommon, elusive, and  difficult to create intangible, yet top coaches do it every year, year after year. A few years ago a head football coach who will eventually prove to be a great assistant coach, but not a great head coach, said what many not-ready-for-prime-time coaches say, "If I knew how to create team chemistry, I'd write a book about it and become a millionaire."  (I hope he is right because I'm writing a business book about creating great teams that does will cover the creation of extraordinary teamwork in depth, but it will not offer much that extraordinary sports team leaders are already doing in their team achievement systems.

Tony Donovan does it every year. Locally Mark Few at Gonzaga and Lorenzo Romar at Washington do it annually. All top echelon coaches have a disciplined firm, fair, and fun approach that focuses on the development of exceptional team chemistry. They are respected for their character and the character of their teams.  One by one, player by player, they  make certain all  players are working daily on "doing things the right way."

The formula for team achievement is simple. Leadership, talent, teamwork, training, and team chemistry. I write and speak from experience, not theory. I have created team chemistry many times.

Which comes first, chemistry or winning? Neither. In sports and in business the team leader comes first. Leadership makes it happen. Top flight team leaders do not have laissez fair management styles, they do not hope their staffs will create chemistry. They emphasize it and manufacture it, day after day, year after year, team after team.