Rinsing Your Cottage Cheese

There were many profound conclusions reached by Jim Collins research team that were documented in his bestselling book Good to Great.  The principle of rinsing your cottage cheese received a small amount of space in the book but may be one of the key principles that separate those organizations who merely survive in this economy and those who thrive.

This analogy comes from a disciplined world-class athlete named Dave Scott, who won the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon six times.  Even though he had a training schedule that would burn at least 5,000 calories per day he would still rinse his cottage cheese to get the extra fat off.

From a business planning model this represents the last 10 percent of work that most people are not willing to do or even know exists to make their project or program  the best it possibly could be.  Most people are willing to settle for 75-90% effort and feel that should really represent the best they can produce.

Sometimes the last 10% represents seemingly little things like a spot on the carpet or windows that have not been cleaned.  However that can be the very thing that a customer will notice and come to the conclusion that if you do not care about those areas what else are you not doing to be your best that they cannot see.

Collins writes, “Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn that potential into reality.”  Bottom line they lack the character and the discipline to rinse their cottage cheese.

 

Shut Up And Listen

This phrase is not only the title for one of the chapters in Mark DeMoss’s book on Wisdom but it is also incredibly good advice.  To make his point he uses the confirmation hearings of Justice Samuel Alito where most senators spent almost all of their allotted thirty minutes for asking questions pontificating about their own political bias.  At the end of the day we learned very little about the new prospective judge because he had no time to talk.

Mark has many great insights in this book and on this subject he writes, “It’s safe to say that in my life I have never learned a single thing while I was talking.”  On the other hand his willingness to close his mouth and open his ears has given him a tremendous amount of knowledge from a variety of different people.

In corporate culture today the priority is on participative leadership that makes sure everyone on the team has a voice in the conversation.  For that to happen the people that used to do all of the talking have to discipline themselves to now do most of the listening.  Mark has another great quote when he says, “To dominate a meeting or conversation is not power, informed good judgment is power.”

When someone is a great listener it says several things about them.  First they are learners by nature and they seek out other people who can teach them something.  Second they are also humble because they do not always have to be the expert on everything and they are willing to be quiet and even give someone else the credit.  Finally they are relational because they want the other person to know that what they have to say and who they are as a person is important to them.

Mark believes that when a person is not a good listener, “it’s like standing on a balcony over breathtaking panorama and using the entire time to stare into a mirror.”  OUCH!!

Customer Service That Works

In a day when we tend to have more user identifications and passwords than we do meaningful relationships real customer service that treats you like a person really stands out and separates you from your competition.  There may be nothing worse than to be stuck on a computer phone tree that puts you through twenty selections only to drop your call before you get to a real person.

I love technology but when you substitute the personal touch with a phone tree you have gone too far regardless of what the cost benefit studies tell you.  These are my non-negotiable items when it comes to customer service:

1.       Personal Touch—If you must use automated answering software there must be an option to get to a real person within first ten seconds of call.  If people want to use technology they can go to your website and totally automate the entire transaction but when they make a phone call they need to talk with a highly trained friendly individual who knows how to deliver.

2.      Inside Staff—When you talk with someone and you can tell they are probably several thousand miles away and they are not well trained it is a horrible experience.  I do not think customer service should be outsourced because no matter how much they know about your product they are still not personally invested in your success.

3.      Follow Up—There is nothing better than when the person on the other end of the line lets you know they own your problem and they will not be satisfied until you are as well.  This means they give you their name, an incident report number and a direct phone number if you need to call them back.  They also get your number and call you back later to make sure the problem has been resolved.

There are many areas where it may be prudent and profitable to cut back on expenses to help your bottom line.  This is not one of them because in the end if your customers are not satisfied they will find someone else who gets it.

Resolving Conflict

All of us at some point in time will have conflict and disagreements with someone else either in our personal lives or professionally at work.  These situations can be painful at times but seeking resolution is the only way to maintain positive momentum in your life.

There are at least three critical steps that you must take if you want to restore the relationship and move forward in your own life.

1.       Own Your Part—In every disagreement there are always two sides to the story.  I have never known a situation where there was not some responsibility for the problem with both parties.  If we think the other party is the major offender then we tend to wait for them to make the first move.  Instead we need to take whatever percentage of the problem is ours even if it’s minor and do what we need to do to admit it and ask for forgiveness regardless of what the other person does.

2.      Talk Person Privately—Most of the time when we are having problems with another person we tend to go to other people first and complain or try to find emotional support.  What we should do is go privately to the person who offended us first and tell them in a respectful way why we are offended and give them a chance to respond.  When we are talking about someone else to another person rather than talking to them the situation will only get worse.

3.      Give Benefit Of Doubt—When we sense that a conversation is not going well and we can tell it may hurt us we have a decision to make.  We can either assume the worst about the other person’s motives or we can believe the best.  Many times if we can give them the benefit of the doubt at this critical moment then even though it may still hurt there will be no lasting damage because we give them a pass because we trust their heart.

What’s Next?

This phrase became the mantra on the award winning series The West Wing.  After every serious issue that had to be dealt with not matter how long the conversation or difficult the task the president would always ask what’s next?

That is a very good question that all of us have to answer each and every day regardless of whether we realize it or not.  Inherent within the question is the intention to find the most important things on our must do list and place them at the top.

Most of us allocate a considerable amount of time to plan our weeks and certainly each individual day with pre-determined goals and priorities.  However in today’s wired culture we are constantly receiving new information throughout the day that must be processed.

David Allen is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on time management and personal productivity.  In his book Getting Things Done he list four key criteria about processing new information that help him to answer the what’s next question:

1.       Context—A few actions can be done anywhere but most require a specific location or having some productivity tool at hand, such as a phone or a computer.  These are the first factors that limit your choices about what you can do in the moment.

2.      Time available—When do you have to do something else?  Having a meeting in five minutes would prevent doing many actions that require more time.

3.      Energy available—How much energy do you have?  Some actions you have to do require a reservoir of fresh, creative mental energy while others need more physical horsepower.

4.      Priority—Given your context, time, and energy available, what actions will give you the highest payoff?  This is where you need to access your intuition and begin to rely on your judgment call in the moment.

Pull The Trigger

There may be nothing harder to do as a leader than make the decision to terminate an employee.  To be honest we feel to some degree we have failed and that is hard to accept.

This is especially true if we hired the person in the first place.  Not only have they failed but now our performance as a leader may be in question also.  We cannot let our own emotional need for personal success stand in the way of doing what is right for the organization.

There are three critical things that I must do as a leader before I feel that my responsibility has been completed prior to any termination.  The first is to provide clear expectations of what is required in their job description.  It is impossible for someone to meet your expectations if they have not been clearly communicated early and often.

The second important thing is to make sure the person has had adequate training and resources to complete their job successfully.  It is not fair to ask someone to grow a particular area and not give them the financial and manpower assets they need to be effective.

The last issue for me is a comprehensive and ongoing feedback system that lets a person know exactly where they stand in the area of performance.  It is not right to see someone make mistakes day after day and stick your head in the sand hoping it will go away only to drop a bomb on them at annual review or even worse an unexpected termination.  If you do not have the leadership skills to positively confront someone about what they are doing wrong then you may be the one in the wrong job and not them.

If you have done all of these three things well and given this person every opportunity to improve and they don’t then you should feel no guilt or sense of failure.  Never obsess on the five to ten percent of your staff that may need to go every year. What is extremely important is to remember the ninety to ninety five percent who are doing their jobs well and are watching to see if you have the character as their leader to pull the trigger.

 

Coaching

If you need help in making some major decisions in your life coaching may be exactly what you need.  There are many types of coaches available from executive, life, fitness and even spiritual.

The one major thing you need to understand about coaching is that it is not counseling or therapy.  The major focus will not be your past and the things that have gone wrong but the future and how you want it to look.

Great coaches don’t have the answers to all your questions.  Their role is to help you by knowing how to ask the right questions so you can see why you may be stuck and what your options are as you move forward.

A coach might ask, What is the one major area in your life you would like to change that would improve your life?  Then, What do you want that area to look like six months from now?  Finally, What do you need to do this week to start closing that gap?

Another important aspect of coaching is accountability.  It really helps when you have someone who is on your side and offers the necessary what do you want to accomplish before our next time together type questions.

With this accountability comes encouragement that reminds you of what you said you wanted to do to change your life and gives you the confidence that you can make it happen.

My experience in using a coach was incredible.  So what are you waiting for give them a no charge to you first call and see if it feels like a good fit.

Promises We Make

This is the forth in a series of ten posts on promises we should be willing to make to the people that matter the most in our lives.  A promise goes beyond a mere commitment to do something it carries the clear expectation that we are going to pay the price to do what we said we would do.

The first promise was I will sincerely listen to what you have to say.  Really listening to someone without a personal agenda communicates to them that they have value in your life and that you sincerely care.

The second promise was I will always tell you the truth.  Without this there can be no basis of trust, just ask Elizabeth Edwards how painful that can be.

The third promise is I will apologize when I am wrong.  When someone sincerely and genuinely apologizes we know two things.  They are willing to humble themselves and they want to restore their relationship with us because we still matter to them.

The forth promise is I will forgive you when you hurt me.  There can be no lasting peace in any relationship without the power of forgiveness.  This is even more critical when someone has come to us and sincerely apologized they are asking without saying it will you please forgive me?

Forgiveness does not mean that we have the ability to forget what has happened to us but it does mean that we no longer hold that offense against the other person.  This will allow us to learn from the past and not force us to continue to live in it will all its negative memories.

The key thing about giving someone else forgiveness is that you must first have received it yourself.  You may only see your percentage of the responsibility at twenty percent but you must assume responsibility to seek forgiveness for your part before you can move on and release the other person.

This is a promise worth making to the people you care about the most in your life.

The Power Of Momentum

There are very few things more difficult to deal with in your personal or professional life than a loss of momentum.  It can be brought on by some major tragedy or a series of small compromises over a very long period of time.

Eventually we get to a place where we start worrying about things outside our control and that drains us of what little emotional energy we have left.  Also because we are so focused on the negative we stop doing the things we should and can do and that brings even more despair.

The only way to break this cycle is to start doing what you can do and build some small daily wins into your life.  This principle works with individuals as well as organizations.

With every small win comes movement and that generates confidence that things are finally headed in the right direction.  When we regain our confidence then we attempt even more things that product even bigger wins and the power of the momentum begins to put the wind back in our sails.

It is very ironic that when we get to the places of greatest difficulty in our lives it is the very smallest of things that can break the downward cycle.  We are desperately searching for the big answer that is going to solve all our problems when the solution was right in front of us all the time.

The good news is that the power of momentum works in a positive way to an even greater degree than it does toward the negative.  When you repeatedly do what you can do daily the positive flow of your life moves you beyond all the negative issues that may still be there but now they are in the proper perspective.

Clock Building Not Time Telling

The days of all decisions being made solely at the top with a few people involved are fading fast.  Throughout the Industrial Age of leadership during the last half of 20^th century this was the only model of leadership.  The overwhelming percentage of the workforce was for the most part simply telling time based on the clear instructions that were given for them to follow.

Today we are leading from an Information and Idea Age model of leadership.  The entire development process has been delegated to various teams so that everyone who can contribute will be involved.  In essence people are now being asked to help build the clock.

Most people think the changing role of the top executives is by far the most dramatic shift that has occurred.  In a sense of scope that may be true.  Key leaders today do not have to know all the answers to all the questions they only need to know what are the right questions to ask? 

There primary responsibility today is to make sure they have the best possible people on their team because the quality and success of the clocks they are making will determine the future success of the entire organization.

The most dramatic shift in leadership today certainly from a standpoint of scale is not at the top but in the middle of organizations.  There is a big difference in telling time compared to building clocks.  Today people are daily being asked what do you think and what would you recommend?

Many organizations are caught in the middle of this transition and seem to be stuck.  The problem could be that you are asking people who only know how to tell time to build clocks and they are not capable of making that change.  Don’t give up on clock building just find the right people who know how to build great clocks and you will be fine.

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