Who are you, really?

A few weeks ago, I was in contact with a company which caught my interest. They had developed a model for connecting buyers and sellers worldwide, for a recreational product that involved being outdoors, setting up marketing plans, meeting other enthusiasts and having to opportunity to ride my motorcycle in the daily work. I was very interested.

We each did some due diligence on the other and they agreed to work with me and I with them once I had reviewed their paperwork and had several more of my questions answered. 

I waited a week, then two, and finally got an email describing how their main focus was first class customer service and that for some reason they had not been able to get my questions answered and forward me any formal agreement for me to review.

In business, our reputations, for knowing what we know, using that knowledge to serve our clients, to prevent them from making mistakes, to act as their advocates, protecting their interests...those reputations are ALL we have. Every day, we are either proactively building our reputations or resting on our laurels, hoping that what we've done in the past will be enough to gain the confidence of those we want to interact with today.

My work in organizational development began with discovering some of the organizations I worked with were not who they claimed to be. The promises they made in advertising, or through conversations with prospects were not the promises they could keep.  Really good marketing can only convince prospects to try your product or service one time.  From then on, you better be who you say you are, or the customers will quickly discover the authenticity gap.

The company in which I showed considerable interest, was not who they said they were. Any level of communication and service they claimed to offer was completely overshadowed by the facts of their poor interaction with me.  I chose not to move forward based on our interactions in the past.

Authenticity is the only thing that works today.

A recommendation

“Tom has an excellent grasp of the industry and his business. He is a proven expert for the companies he works with and acts with the utmost professionalism in every way.”

In the time I worked with Tom, I experienced his (and still do) methods to be no less than stellar. Tom manages his client base with an attention to detail and passion.

 Tom Parsons is a leader in his field. He is an example of what professionals should aspire to be. His clients like working with him due to the fact that he actually listens to what they say and makes decisions based on servicing their needs. I recommend Tom to anyone looking to improve their business and professional life.”

Janet Wallace

StaffUp Resources

The professional use of time

   I was fortunate enough to meet with a young entrepreneurs' club recently. We discussed a trait that is prevalent among young entrepreneurs, impatience. One particular "ready-set-go" person  wanted to quit his almost-completed degree program and get on with doing business as a new entrepreneur.
   As New Orleans Saints fans(World Champions) our discussion turned to their MVP quarterback, Drew Brees.
   It must be very stimulating to take a snap as a professional quarterback, drop back into the backfield and have a couple of tons of fast moving humanity, intent on doing you damage, running at you full speed. Yet, professionals like Brees use their 2-4 seconds in these situations very carefully.
   Less experienced and less capable players often work to get rid of the football as quickly as possible just to prevent loss of yards or a tough tackle. Brees, and other similarly qualified quarterbacks, wait until the proper moment, checking their receivers, then allowing them to break into the open where the chances of a completion are at a higher percentage. It's an excellent example of the professional use of time. If the time is right, they will of course, unload the ball quickly, but the right use of their time in these situations gives them a much better opportunity for success.
   Young entrepreneurs could well use this example as insight into their own careers and choices. Just because the opportunity presents itself, does not necessarily mean the time is right to leave school, take on a big project without the funding or manpower, leave a secure but unexciting job for a risky venture with a buddy.
   I often teach that for entrepreneurs, a heartbeat is the measure of an instant. The professional use of time allocates those heartbeats toward only those people, projects and circumstances that are genuinely worthy of the most precious and perishable of our resources, our time.
   There are few accomplishments today that will get you the instant credibility of a good academic background. It's often a worthwhile use of heartbeats and can have a positive affect on an entrepreneur's entire future.
   There are many entrepreneurs who have earned their success without any other credential than intelligence, and diligent work. The dozens I've talked to and worked with still make use of their time from the professional
perspective. And  they act when the time is right rather than when it's just easy or convenient.

How hindsight can become insight

This morning in a conversation with a capable, experienced friend who, due to the significant changes in governmental regulation, was forced to close a very successful business, we discussed hindsight.
The discussion was that he felt inadequate in sharing any ideas that might help those currently in, or wanting to start a business because he felt that his recent failure would taint his credibility.
After talking a while, we did agree that having good hindsight could easily be translated into extraordinary insight to those people who had yet to walk the path he had walked in business.
My comment was that more most benefits, young or new entrepreneurs might appreciate knowing what to avoid in business, as much as they might appreciate stories of success.
I think an important point is that, as Mike Vance of the Creative Thinking Institute says, "We never really know the power behind the principle of influence, who we influence and how deeply."
Do not de-value experiences just because they have not produced the outcome they were intended to produce. The experiences themselves have value as hindsight, and can easily become the insight of those who have yet to experience the same or similar circumstances.
Hindsight + insight = Farsight, and who among us would not want a big double helping of that?

The HUMANEERING Company works to glean hindsight, farsight and insight, from a variety of books, leaders and projects, to insure that we can then offer that wisdom to our entrepreneurial clients. Visit our website to glimpse our insight.
www.hmnrng.com

The Spy Factory

NOVA, the sensational public tv series ran a special on The Spy Factory, detailing how the National Security Agency had enough information to hinder or prevent the 9-11 terrorist attack and yet did not take the steps necessary. In the program, James Bamford, author of 'The Shadow Factory' details how with almost unthinkable technological capability, the NSA had been tracking the 9-11 terrorists many months before the attack, yet due to human characteristics, failed to take what action was possible. Incredibly, although Osama Bin-Laden's satellite phone had been tapped, the details available on the 9-11 attack were not adequately relayed to the US authorities who could act in our own protection.

My point is not to criticize any agency charged with public security. Rather the lesson for us is a clear indication that having cutting edge technology, even knowing how to use it to its maximum, STILL leaves every organization's leadership with the glaring need to understand and effectively influence human behavior.

Personal and Organizational development are the professional arenas where human behavior in the workplace is studied and techniques are developed for leaders to understand and accept their role in influencing that behavior.

I believe the key organizational leadership role is to have the insight, interest, skills, tools and capabilities to positively affect human behavior toward a worthwhile Mission, using a defined set of values as a behavioral guide. However human characteristics like resentment, entitlement, jealousy, power, authority, anger, empathy are all issues that can be well hidden, but which can have profound effects on organizational effectiveness. So it was with the NSA and individual an departmental values may have led to withholding information that may have saved thousands of American lives. Hardly ever do our decisions as organizational leaders hold a life or death result for our followers, but the meaning here can certainly be applicable to all organizations.

In my practice, I do not advocate that leaders need to practice a kind of "C" grade psychology.
Most of us are not qualified, but organizations cannot assume that technology is all that needs good management, because the appropriate behavior will follow. I maintain that the key organizational resource is not people, but more specifically human behavior. The great American thinker, Williams James said, "What we do, matters."

In the NSA, apparently what they did not do also mattered. A great deal.

Total Quality

In a conversation with a Social Media expert, I learned that those people involved in the Total Quality movement, the drive to make improvements in almost everything, work closely with computers and numerical metrics. His view of Social Media usage included measuring the results of Social Media marketing. I agreed about measuring results and those people I've known working in the quality movement tend to be more technically oriented.
I would submit that any movement to define and improve quality must include the element of human beliefs, actions, interactions and relationships. However, the technological counter might be "You can't measure beliefs".
I once worked on a project to help a company improve the interactions between their front line customer service staff and their customers. One organizational leader said, "We want our CSRs to be nice, but you can't train people to nice and you can't measure nice."
But, of course you can define what "nice" means to your organization, and when "nice" is defined in terms of behavior - how interactions and relationships should be conducted between your staff and your customers - you can then train to those behavior requirements. In fact, we created an entire process for being "nice" and called it the Six steps to excellence in customer service.
Leaders must come to realize that a key leadership responsibility is to purposefully affect the beliefs of the people in their organization and which in turn, influences behaviors. "Nice" can certainly be defined in terms of how we behave, and it can be taught.

Total Quality includes more than adding and subtracting easily quantifiable numbers. Total Quality includes investigating and improving high-value human actions, interactions and relationships.

The power of why?

For anyone who has leadership responsibilities or who will or wants to have leadership responsibilities, I strongly recommend viewing this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

It may be the most professionally advantageous 18 minutes you'll allocate to your own development this year.
Part of our leadership and organizational evaluation process includes asking Why, Why Why...because it
eventually leads us both to your beliefs.

And beliefs drive behaviors; yours, your teammates and your customers.