Enjoying Your BAD Boss

Over my career, I’ve been to countless seminars, retreats and training sessions.  Most were excellent and helped me to develop some depth of knowledge about leadership, management and business in general. However, no one thing advanced my leadership and management skills more than having a bad boss.  Over one’s career, it is bound to happen: getting saddled with the worst boss you’ve ever seen.  Here’s a quick list of traits of my worst boss. Maybe you will recognize a few of these: 

1. Intimidating:  he loved making people shake in their shoes.  He would spinout at the drop of a hat, raising his voice in front of others. 

2. Rude:  He was oblivious to basic business etiquette. Whether it was in a business meeting, or at a dinner, he would usually do something to make others less comfortable. 

3. Self-Focused:  He had a knack of making the business revolve around him as opposed to the customer, the owners, or others in the organizations.  I never once saw him perform an act of servant leadership. 

4. Window-Closer:  His favorite tactic when he wanted to scold someone was to call that person into his office (loudly) and then close the Venetian blinds.  If his “closing of the blinds” would have been for privacy, I think I could have accepted it.  However it was obvious it was a “showman” tactic designed to further intimidate the recipient of his wrath.

 

 5. Poor Example:  He would spend the company’s money like it was water, however, would yell at any employee if they spent a little too much for a meal.  On one occasion, he told me I needed to personally chip in on some of our expenses (we were on a trip together) because he had spent too much on dinner the night before (and I wasn’t even at the dinner.) 

6. Shocking:  One time I was on the phone with a very important customer. Spending time on the phone trying to help the customer was going to make me a few minutes late to our weekly staff meeting. In the moment, I decided to stay with the customer to make sure we took care of his problem.  Upon seeing my boss, I apologized for being late, and explained that I was working with one of our largest customers, taking care of their issues.  My boss didn’t even blink and blurted out, “You need to get your #@&# priorities straight!” 

It was at that point I vowed to myself to become the complete opposite of him. In hindsight, he was the best boss I have ever had.  I learned more of what not to do than I did in any seminar, conference or training event.  

I am now a much more caring, compassionate leader, always trying to be the opposite of what I learned from my former boss.  And fortunately, it has served me well for many years, ultimately providing with the opportunity to be CEO of several organizations. 

What lessons have you learned from a bad boss?  I’d love to know.  Share a comment for all to see.  Together we can learn the art of servant leadership.

Written by David Woods. David@giantpartners.biz

From “Good to Great” to “Bad to Worse”

In the groundbreaking book, Good To Great, by Jim Collins, readers discover key ingredients for transforming good companies into great companies. While many good companies populate the business landscape, great companies are still hard to find. Bad companies, however, are readily available on every street corner.

Now, let me offer a few secret habits that are guaranteed to take any bad company and make it worse. A few skilled leaders can take a company from “good to great,” but it takes a special kind of leader to take a company from “bad to worse.” I know these work because, in the past, I have tried everyone of these listed below. Here are my top 10 rules to eliminate profits, lose customers quicker, attract low performing employees sooner, lose leaders faster, destroy company morale overnight and basically make your company a total mess faster than you ever thought possible. 

 1. When something is not working, do nothing. This is guaranteed to get you the same dismal results as you were getting yesterday. Better yet, doing more of a bad thing assures that it will only get worse in the future. This will guarantee you will run off the high achievers within your company as they will be too frustrated to work for you.

2. When things are bad, do not listen to outsiders. Ignore the truth that “no one person is as smart as all of us.” Therefore, no matter what you are tying to do, ignore the high probability that there are others close by who know more about it than you do. Let your pride swell and forget the proverb that says “pride comes before destruction.” Humility and the statement “I have made a mistake” should not be in your vocabulary if you want to go from bad to worse.

3. When you want results, listen to everybody. This is just the opposite of #2 listed above. Let everyone weigh in and provide their input. This will guarantee you mountains of useless points of data that forces you to review and waste countless hours of your time. Becoming truly bad requires you to work on all the wrong things, which will happen when you listen to everyone.

4. Avoid the problem. Stick your head in the sand and kick your ostrich skin boots in the air. Problems, unlike wine, rarely get better with time. So you can guarantee the problem will go from bad to worse with increasing velocity with this surefire technique. Ignore your accountant, legal counsel and your smartest employees who tell you to address a rising problem.

5. Dismiss the warning signs. Determine that flashing traffic lights, tornado sirens and buckets of red ink are only admonitions for weak under-achievers. When you see red flags, ignore them. Anyone who brings them up, call them a naysayer and pessimist. Better yet, you should say this in front of others at a team meeting. This will guarantee the warning signs will never be brought up again and you will be isolated from further relevant information that can help you make better decisions.

6. Don’t delegate or build a team. Instead, believe completely in yourself knowing you are always smarter and more effective than everyone else. So why involve others when no one can do it as well as you? You will never get from bad to worse if you build an effective team. The best part of this habit is that you will never attract or retain leaders. Great leaders work for other great leaders, not followers. To go from bad to worse, you must attract a team of followers that must rely on you for the success of the company.

7. Work harder by doing more of the same thing. This is my personal all time favorite as I have gone from bad to worse faster using this technique than all the others. I am particularly fond of this habit because you will feel like you are accomplishing a lot while going from bad to worse. Nothing beats the feeling of working hard while going broke.

8. Keep the same people involved who are failing. Most problems inside a company can be attributed to people. Remember, ignore the wisdom “be slow to hire and quick to fire.” By keeping low performers on your team, this will attract other low performers who will fit right in to your low performing company.

9. When something is profitable and working, change it. Sticking with a strategy that is working is boring. Where is the fun in this? You want excitement! You will never get from bad to worse while you are consistently making a profit and providing financial rewards and opportunities to your team.

10. I will leave number ten to you. No doubt you have discovered a few ways to go from bad to worse. No one succeeds all the time. Will you dare e-mail me or leave your comment below with your secret for going from bad to worse? Come on! With a little extra effort, you can bankrupt your company in record time.

Sound like a bad idea? I thought you might think so. Even worse, I thought you might be implementing some of these truths by growing your company from bad to worse.

Written by Matthew Myers. matthew@giantpartners.biz

Great Leaders Don’t Multi-Task.

Ever notice that great leaders know how to stay on task? Their ability to focus provides them with more quality time for thought. It’s what makes the difference between a business person and a leader.Somehow, through hype and ego many business people complain that they never have enough time for all that they need to do. It’s true . . . only a large part of the problem lies with the fact that we fill their day with useless and unnecessary activities.It’s time to go on a “Multi-Task Diet”.

A Multi-Task Diet is about getting rid of the flab that fills your working days: all those unnecessary activities that clog up our schedules, weigh us down, and make our day feel longer and tougher to get through. Activities that somehow make one feel more important yet with little or nothing to show for all that extra effort.

Yet in our furious effort to try to get everything done all the time, we occassionally lift up our head and notice a great leader that seems calm, cool and collected. These leaders have the ability to slow down in a conversation and truly provide servant leadership to those around them. They know the importance of taking time for self, time for others and time for their spirituality. They are true leaders.

Here is a list from an article I read recently (called Slow Leadership) that I believe would dramatically improve every business person’s ability to become a great leader. And more importantly, by not multi-tasking, provide the opportunity to be a great SERVANT LEADER:

1. If you have Instant Messaging on your computer, turn it off. Now! Better still, remove the hideous abomination altogether. Do not use IM. You don’t need it, unless you’re a pre-teen geek without a life.

2. Never keep your e-mail software open all the time. Open it to check for e-mails only when you choose.

3. Set fixed times to check for new e-mails and let everyone know when they are. At other times, ignore it.

4. Filter everything coming in, so you can sort out what matters from what doesn’t. For e-mails, use the filtering facility in your software.

5. Give each one a priority and deal with it when you choose. Only respond immediately to genuine emergencies. Make everyone else wait (and I mean everyone).

6. When you send someone an e-mail, make a practice of telling them when you need a response (be specific; say “by Monday at 3.00 p.m.” not “a.s.a.p.”). Ask them to do the same when they e-mail you.

7. When you receive e-mail copies that you don’t want, send a polite note to the sender asking them to take you off the circulation list. Don’t stay on the list from inertia, or “just in case” something important comes along. It won’t. Be ruthless. If they don’t take you off the list, use your filtering software to classify that e-mail as “junk” and ignore it.

8. Only use BlackBerrys and cellphones when you must. Turn them off the rest of the time.

9. Discourage people from calling you on your cellphone, save on matters of genuine urgency. Don’t use it for gossip.

10. Keep cellphone calls short and to the point. Leave anything else for when you have more time.

With this new freedom, comes worry that you’re out of the loop. Get over it. That’s only your ego talking to you. The really important stuff will percolate to the top. Remember, Lincoln didn’t have email, I.M., blackberrys, or even a phone or a car. Yet he was one of the greatest leaders of all time.

Time for servant leadership creates great leaders. Start your Mult-Task diet today.

Written by David Woods. David@giantpartners.biz

Strategic Planning is DEAD.

Do you believe that strategic planning leads to growth, profits and more productive outcomes?  We recently researched approximately 100 CEOs and asked them how many of them had a strategic plan.  Over 70% had completed a strategic planning process.  Yet, this same population of CEOs showed no more profits, growth or less friction than those that did not have a strategic plan. 

Why? The answer is simple.  Traditional strategic planning is a failure.  It does not work because it cannot work.  The idea that a few corporate executives can “go away”, receive massive input, gain consensus about what “to do” (objectives) and then print the document to be executed does not work.  In the same way that buying a cookbook does not makes you a chef.   We overvalue the “to do” part of the event and undervalue the “thinking” process.  Let me challenge you to re-think your strategic planning process.   

Most companies only create and communicate what they  will “do”. Most companies do not understand and can not communicate how they “think and make decisions”. Traditional strategic planning is analogous to following a recipe.  You can not become a chef simply by following a recipe.  You become a chef by learning how to “think” like a chef through shopping, mixing ingredients, cooking, tasting and tweaking the food.  You don’t become a chef by reading the cookbook over and over again. The next time someone tells you that you need to do strategic planning.  Let them know that what you really need to do first is to do some strategic thinking.  It’s the first chapter of a good plan… but unfortunately it’s the chapter most CEOs forget to do.

Written by David Woods.  David@giantpartners.biz

Take Off at Noon for Greater Results

If most leaders and executives worked half the amount of time they are working today, I am convinced they would produce much greater output.  Before, I get a barrage of emails arguing this point, let me explain. 

The reason is simple.  If you had less time to work, you would work on only the things that produced the greatest impact.  You would work less on the things you enjoy and more on the things you should.  You would meet with only selected people, answer fewer emails and attend less events.  Your efforts would be very focused on activities and relationships that produced the greatest return.  Moreover, each interaction through the day would be valued at a greater level than today.  I know hundreds of CEOs and entrepreneurs with organizations from 1 million dollars sales volume to billions in revenue.  They have a universal problem that is not dependent on the size of their company.  Most are extremely busy and their lives can be described as chaotic most of the time.  Moreover, they never have enough time to accomplish everything they want.   However, I have also seen a select few whose lives are very stable that I would describe as peaceful.  I estimate less than 1% fit in this category.  Would you describe your work life as relaxed?  If not, you might try something:

To find out what you should be working on today.  Take off at noon today.  That’s right, stop working and go home.  If you know the day is over at noon.  If you know the day will soon be over, you will gain clarity, focus and priority on the things you should be doing.