1. Provide purpose and clarity. Pull your team together for a biz strategy review. Paint a compelling vision for where the company will be in 1 year and in 3 years, and then outline the roles and responsibilities needed to get there. Everyone has a valuable contribution to make. Show your people where they fit in the plan. If you really do have the right people in the right roles, then assess any skills gaps they have and fill them – asap. Confident leaders with a clear plan and who recognize their team’s contributions create the most profitable companies.
2. Question…just about everything. Try out the Socratic questioning process in your next brainstorming session. Socrates once asked, What’s the benefit of answering a question with more questions? Expanded perspective and greater insight for a start. Instead of asking “What is our company sales goal?” ask “What are we doing or can we be doing, innovatively, to ensure we meet and exceed our goal?” These are two very different questions. The first question requires only simple recall; the second requires reflection, evaluation and prediction – each of which stimulates higher level thinking processes. Asking better questions will produce new perspectives and better solutions.
3. Change industries. You’re a widget maker, a waffle flipper or a systems integrator, but you’re not an expert on everything, despite what your mother told you! You may very well be the smartest software developer in your company or one of the truly elite when it comes to social media acuity, but it doesn’t mean you’re equipped to teach your folks how to sell more, despite economic conditions, or how to think through a rough team dynamic in order to move the company in a better direction. That’s okay. You do what you do well, and trainers and learning specialists do what they do. Step outside your industry and check out how another expert can help you. Bringing two experts together with a common goal ignites brilliance and wonderful profits!

When I sailed to Kiniwata, an island in the Pacific, I took along a notebook. After I got back it was filled with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costumes. But the only note that still interests me is the one that says: “Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father.” And I don’t need to have it in writing. I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn or a man or woman who is beating themselves up for a very human mistake.  I want to say to them, “You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife.” Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on Kiniwata called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo could put me up. If I wanted to fish, he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, Johnny Lingo would bring me the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking. ”Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining,” advised Shenkin. “Johnny knows how to make a deal.” ”Johnny Lingo!” A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter. ”What goes on?” I demanded. “Everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the Joke.” ”Oh the people love to laugh,” Shenkin said, shrugging. “Johnny’s the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands. And for his age, the richest.” ”But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?” ”Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!” I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four of five a highly satisfactory one. ”Good Lord!” I said, “Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away.” ”She’s not ugly,” he conceded, and smiled a little. “But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands.” ”But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?” ”Never been paid before.” ”Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?” ”I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow.” ”Well, I said, “I guess there’s no accounting for love.” ”True enough,” agreed the man. “And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo.” ”But how?” ”No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam Karoo, Sarita’s father, to ask for three cows and hold for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’” ”Eight cows,” I murmured. “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.” I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked “You come here from Kiniwata?” ”Yes.” ”They speak of me on that island?” ”They say there’s nothing I might want that you can’t help me get.” He smiled gently. “My wife is from Kiniwata.” ”Yes, I know.” ”They speak of her.” ”A little.” ”What do they say.” ”Why, just….” The question caught me off balance. “They told me you were married at festival time.” ”Nothing more?” The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more. ”They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows.” I paused. “They wonder why.” ”They ask that?” His eyes lighted with pleasure. “Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?” I nodded. ”And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too.” His chest expanded with satisfaction. “Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.” So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity. And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. “You admire her?” he murmured. ”She…she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata,” I said. ”There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.” ”She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo.” ”You think eight cows were too many?” A smile slid over his lips. ”No. But how can she be so different?” ”Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita.” ”Then you did this just to make your wife happy?” ”I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things happen inside, things happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks of herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth a great deal.” ”Then you wanted–” ”I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.” ”But–” I was close to understanding. ”But,” he finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.” ——————————————————————— I truly believe that to sustain our own happiness in today’s modern world, we must love ourselves, marry ourselves and pay eight cows to ourselves to remind us of our inherent worth and value as a human being on this planet.

The more powerful questions are:

1. What are our customers resisting?
2. What are our customers attached to?
3. What are our customers judging?

(see Aug 25th’s Bizz Buzz with AmyK clip for a real world example of answers to these questions)

When you know the answers to these three questions, then you can answer why your sales are down and what to do about it.  Here are several better business questions that require some mental heavy lifting, in other words, some higher level thinking that will improve your business results.

Question #4: How do you define a great client relationship? How can you replicate great clients if you don’t know how to define them? Too many sales people chase after the ill-defined “great catch” only to spend way too much time reeling in the wrong thing! Once you’ve defined your ideal client, you can more readily find it, and bring it on board!

Question #5: How do you create a healthy company culture? The economy doesn’t determine or even shape a company’s culture…unless the leaders let it. When do must leaders deal with culture? When it’s bad. Take control, now….define the vision you want to create, then purposefully guide the culture you are creating on a continual and consistent basis.

Question #6: How do you define great performance and productivity? Just because you give someone a job description and a paycheck doesn’t mean you have set them up to be a stellar performer. What objectives do they need to specifically achieve? By when? When you turn Job descriptions into Position Performance Profiles with 30, 60, 90, 180 (etc.) day objectives, you set people up to succeed. Not sure how to do it? Call us…we love setting people up for success!

Question #7: How do you define great leadership? Too many people hire on skill and fire on trait. Just because someone was a great achiever in the I.T. department or was great with a spreadsheet doesn’t mean they have the skills to lead others. Leadership has its own set of skills. If you’re hiring managers, or even promoting from within, make sure your people are properly trained in leadership skills. The best players don’t always make the best coaches.

Question #8: What makes for a great team? Ever work on a dysfunctional team?! Understanding the roles/contributions of each person on the team is invaluable.  Additionally, high functioning teams need clear objectives, a defined purpose for getting together and healthy communication and conflict resolution tools. And these ingredients are just for starters!

Question #9: Who influences the influencer? Great leaders cannot lead in isolation. What are you reading? Who are you listening to? Who is listening to you? If you want to be an effective leader you need a sounding board, another brilliant brain on your side. Whether you hire a coach, join a peer group that serves as your think tank, or simply participate in on-going leadership events, you need to expose yourself to innovative and strategic thinking that challenges you, validates when you’re on the right track and steers you back on course when necessary!  Is your brain buzzing? That’s the point of these questions – to ignite your own brilliance!

2 Techniques to Energize Eureka! Moments:

1. 20%. – the amount of time your brain needs to spend in theta mode. What’s theta mode? The opposite of go-go-go mode. Most of us live 80 mph lifestyles, but it’s when we slow down and reflect on what’s going on that we get our best, most innovative ideas. Google allows their employees to spend 20% of their time NOT working on assigned objectives and tasks. So what are these employees doing essentially 1 day out of the work week? Exploring their environment, virtual and real, and “playing” with new ideas together and on their own.  Google’s 20% time culminated in a new $240M division. That’s innovation & productivity!

2. Mix up your brain cells. Literally…sort of.  When you have a challenge or opportunity, first engage your brain by asking it a question. The brain is naturally curious and drives to answer your question.  When you have that BIG question in your head, let it go. Literally…really. Drop the pursuit of an answer and go cycling or surfing (something physical), then read a chapter of a biz book, next spend at least 20 minutes drawing, painting, sketching (with “real” media or with software) and then go back and ask the question again. By forcing your brain to “play” with distinctly different activities, you require different cells to connect creatively. Disparate connections will form and Eureka! moments result. Want to move that Eureka! from moment to effect?

3 Questions to Grow Your Eureka! to Innovation:

1. What skills, information and knowledge do I need to make this idea happen?
2. Where will I find the resources, help, assistance or collaboration I need to sustain my momentum?
3. What are the first five things I need to do to put this idea in motion?

So where do we begin? With our brain. Our brains are hardwired to notice what’s different. The unusual, the unique and the out-of-the-ordinary get detected. This level of uniqueness registers in our brain, and with a little help from repetition, the uniqueness will stick around in our long term memory just long enough to create a recognizable image that gets associated as brand X. If we combine how our brains work with a set of action items that create a brand strategy that can successfully and realistically be executed, then we are well on our way to creating a brilliant brand, and more importantly, getting customers!

There are three critical steps to building a brilliant brand: strategy, execution and evangelism.

Step 1 – Brilliant Brand Strategy

One of the first steps in creating a brilliant brand is often one of the hardest: defining the brand mission. This is a strategic step that will make or break a brand. It involves much more than deciding “who we are” and “what we value” and it certainly demands much more than lofty phrases about brand identity, brand promise and keeping customers happy. We are not creating a mission statement for everyone to pin on their cubicle corkboard and memorize.

When you visualize epic heroes from great scenes of the past, do you visualize these heroes sitting around reading mission statements, or do you see them with swords in hand, pledging their allegiance as they get ready to embark on their mission? Being on a mission, instead of reading a mission statement, is where branding starts. When Luke Skywalker set off to face Darth Vader, he actively picked up his light saber instead of reading a statement that said he should. When Joan of Arc was on her mission to recover her homeland, she threw herself on the back of a horse and set off for battle, rather than reading a mission statement that simply declared she wanted her land back. What you can act on and deliver is your brand, not the statement you frame and post on a wall. Great examples of short brand missions that incite action for employees as well as customers include Nike: Just do it; Apple: Think different; Adidas: Impossible is nothing; Timberland: Make it better; and Adobe: Simplicity at work.

It’s the difference between asking an entrepreneur of a dress shop to define her mission statement and hearing a response of, “To be a premier dress shop offering top-tier textile products and services,” (yawn!) and asking that same entrepreneur to state her brand mission and hear her say, “Define each person’s divine.” Bull’s eye! She uncovered the actionable magic.

Richard Branson, billionaire and brand guru, has incorporated a set of five criteria into every business he has started and every joint venture he has entered. A product or service cannot even hope to bear the Virgin label unless it meets these conditions:

• It must have high quality.
• It must be innovative.
• It must provide good value for the money.
• It must be challenging to existing alternatives.
• It must have a sense of fun.

With these core elements as the common thread, Mr. Branson has entered one business venture after another, and has built a widely recognized and respected brand with millions of loyal customers. Now it’s your turn. Pick up your sword, and think Camera, lights, action! The very first line delivered should be your actionable brilliant brand mission.

Step 2 – Brilliant Brand Execution

Everything communicates and communication is everything. In communicating the mission of the brand, no thing is too small to consider. Our eyes are capable of discerning thirty-three million visual bits of data per second and our brains are capable of comprehending over thirty-three thousand visuals concept per hour. What does this mean for branding? Visuals are critical for logos, icons, taglines, business cards, brochures, collateral, websites and retail & headquarter environments. Why? Because visuals trigger thoughts and thoughts are laden with emotions and historical perspectives that influence decision making. Yes, logo creation is complicated, if not downright explosive, and should be handled with care.

The infamous Google logo went through more than eight variations before settling on multiple primary colors. The founders of Google along with their logo designer, Ruth Kedar, considered a range of possible images to incorporate into the word itself including magnifying glasses, smiley faces and the infinity symbol before settling on a clean, easy on the eye, yet fun font, without added icons. They also chose primary colors, with one subtle difference. Their green “l” is a secondary color on the color wheel, not a primary green, and they purposely chose this one deviance from the structured primary wheel to subconsciously communicate the idea that Google doesn’t follow the rules.

Execution also means communicating your brand through public relations. Public relations should be considered an overarching term to include emails, press releases, brochures, events, and advertising, to name the basics. Each public relations element should carefully craft and deliver a consistent message, look and feel. AND…be prepared to repeat yourself ad-nauseum. Most readers of magazines do not take action on an ad the first time they see it. Repetition in branding is a frequently missing factor. If you compare branding to professional boxing it makes complete sense. A boxer does not typically get in the ring, hit the opponent one time, and have that opponent crumble to his feet. (Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson may be allowed to differ on this point.) More often than not, a boxer has to hit the same target several times before that target is out cold. Additionally, a professional boxer does not get in the ring with twenty opponents and hit each opponent one time hoping for a domino effect. Just as in boxing, with brilliant branding, you need to focus on your target and hit repeatedly. Be prepared, both financially and strategically, to hit your target customer over and over again, until said target crumbles at your feet, begging for your product or service.

Step 3 – Brilliant Brand Evangelism

There is an exciting new concept in the world of branding known as customer evangelists. Evangelists talk. They espouse about a topic and they never stop. Why? Because they are passionate about whatever they evangelize. So passionate, that their excitement, love, adoration and beliefs cannot be stopped from being shared. This is an awesome state to induce in your customers when building a brilliant brand. And your very first customer is your employee.

Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks, always believes that his employees are his partners in creating the Starbucks brand. Brand evangelism begins with those wearing the aprons. Starbucks was reported to have spent 87.7 million on consumer advertising in 2005. A fraction, according to Schultz, of what Starbucks spent on their people development. One example of investing in their people is the thirteen week management training course every manager must participate in without exception. Does it really take thirteen weeks to learn how to make a pot of coffee? No, but it does take time to learn all the nuances of the Starbucks brand.

Even if you don’t have 87.7 million dollars to spend on your employees, you can still apply the concept of your employees as your first customer evangelists. What do your employees think and feel about your corporate culture? Have you invested in their personal development? Is their environment a fun place to work? Are they expanding their capabilities and skills? Do they know, feel, understand and celebrate the company’s goals and values? Are they executing every day, the brand mission, and not just regurgitating the mission statement?

Most leaders and owners worry about their over-trained employees taking their skill-sets elsewhere. If a company creates a culture that allows people to be promoted and to advance in their careers, they won’t need to leave. If those career opportunities aren’t in place, a leader can either create those opportunities or realize that they may actually benefit from this generation’s shorter job attention span. Train your employees, give them the best work environment, treat them well, and if they do decide to leave, you might just reap the rewards from another company that invested the same way you did.

A brilliant brand will function as an engine for customer growth, and employees are your first customers! People rave about people. We fall in love with great service, and we get spoiled very quickly. We want it all the time. Experiences that make us feel terrific are ones we want to repeat, and remember, repetition is huge for brilliant branding!

Building a brilliant brand will not happen over night. Most talent contests take weeks to reach a winner. Too often those winners erroneously think that the blue ribbon pinned upon their chest will launch them as a mega-branded product. Wrong. Realistically, they should consider the contest as just one, successful PR event that launched their brand campaign. Building a brilliant brand requires a strategic mission, an executable action plan and relentless focus and determination for creating customer evangelism, both for employees and customers. How will you know when your brand is brilliantly successful? Your employees and customers will tell you, and trust me, you won’t want to shut them up.

Reflection Questions for Your Brilliant Brand Strategy

1. How do we differentiate ourselves from our competitors in delivering a high-quality product or service?
2. What price point communicates good value for the money?
3. What new innovations and/or values can we deliver?
4. How can our brand create a richer context of living?
5. What about our product or service is fun?

Reflection Questions for Your Brilliant Brand Execution

1. What look, feeling and attitude do we want to create in the mind of our customer?
2. What fonts, colors, symbols, themes and schemes actively communicate our look, feel and attitude?
3. How can we make our customers feel more free, more powerful, and more proactive?
4. What new skills, capabilities, values, sensibilities and attitudes do our customers need?
5. How can our brand become a platform for continuous customer growth?

Reflection Questions for Creating Your Brilliant Brand Evangelists

1. Through our unique combination of product and/or service attributes, how does our brand create the greatest advance in our employees’ personal, social, economic, spiritual, intellectual or creative growth?
2. Through our unique combination of product and/or service attributes, how does our brand create the greatest advance in our customers’ personal, social, economic, spiritual, intellectual or creative growth?
3. What can we do to generate spontaneous celebration of our brand?
4. What will we do to get people talking about our product or service absent any advertising?
5. How can we provide the best, most innovative and fun service or product possible?

Job #1 for a leader:
Inspire and influence three specific areas: people, operations and strategy.

Without your inspiration, without your influence, the ship remains rudderless. Notice too, that my order is specific. People come first. Without humans, the right humans, being lead by you, nothing will get executed and your strategy will become obsolete. People are the backbone of your business. Strength trainers talk about building up muscle, fighting the aging process, and staying at your optimum health levels when you focus on your core, i.e. your back muscles, your abdominal muscles – all the muscles that keep you upright. People are your core. Strengthen them, build them, and they’ll keep your business upright and currently competitive.

Specifics:

1. Role model good thinking. Share your thought process. Ask questions that get your direct reports to think.
2. Coach. Spend time in one-to-ones, asking questions, solving complex issues, and getting your direct reports to engage in dialogue with you.
3. Share your vision. Clearly. Repeatedly. In detail. Enthusiastically. Share it again next week.
4. Conduct less formal performance reviews every quarter. Why wait until the end of the season to tell a player to change his motion?!

Job #2 for a leader:
Delegate.

A leader does not have time to set the compass for the organization’s direction, sit at the helm and scout the horizon, and go down to the galley to make tuna fish sandwiches for the crew. In all fairness, having lunch with the crew, is a great idea, making it for them is just not a good use of your time.

Specifics:

1. What is your job? Inspiring and influencing people, operations, and strategy. Write down everything you currently are doing. Categorize it, prioritize it, and decide which tasks can be delegated immediately and which tasks need to be taught/coached more thoroughly so they can be fully delegated one month, two months, or three months from now.
2. Assess every task you complete to determine if it’s necessary and aligned with your 4 focus areas and goals.  Got more than 4 focus areas? See the article on goals.

Job #3 for a leader:
Embody values.

What do you believe in and stand for? If the almighty dollar is your God, then hire people who embrace this value and get ready to ride the consequences.  If healthy results through good, thoughtful decisions, respect and integrity are the path you want your folks to walk, then walk the talk yourself. Influence and inspire through praise of good behaviors, role-model your values, interview for values, correct when you see the opposite, and keep your values ever present and visible. The brain thrives on visuals and imitates what it sees.

Specifics:

1. Conduct a values assessment and determine your top 5. (These tools exist many places, including a free assessment from AKI). Have your executive team conduct the same assessment. Where do you all align and where do you differ? How can the similarities and differences be utilized to create an even stronger, valued based executive team?
2. Praise your employees for thoughtful, values based decisions.
3. Fire those who don’t foster nor contribute to your culture of values.

A leader does many things, and must do many things well to be successful, but those “many things” should be leadership tasks, not management tasks. And the first thing to do is to get focused on being a leader.

Sitting down with a direct report and conducting a one-to-one discussion about the executive level, short-term and long-term issues affecting the company is one of the most effective ways a leader can use his/her time. And the time of the direct report.

Well conducted coaching sessions allow leaders to:

1. Model behaviors they want emulated;
2. Increase clarity and alignment with respect to vision and prioritized tasks;
3. Better understand the skills and perspectives of their employees;
4. Teach content and skills;
5. Assess the pulse of the organization;
6. Build a stronger relationship by showing how much you value them on your team.

When leaders share their past experiences and help a direct report problem solve current issues by asking great questions, direct reports learn how to reflect, evaluate, predict and execute on future business issues.

The Coach’s Clipboard:

1. Schedule coaching sessions with your direct reports in advance. One a month is the suggested rule of thumb.
2. Both participants bring an agenda.
3. Every coaching session concludes with an action plan. This plan includes mutually agreed upon action items and deadlines.

• 25% long term strategy
• 25% specific issue to explore in-depth
• 25% operational or people issues
• 25% personal

Some coaching questions to get you started:

1. What is the most important thing you and I should be talking about today?
2. What has become clear since we last met?
3. What is the area that, if you made an improvement, would give you and others the greatest return on time, energy and dollars invested?
4. What’s the most important decision you’re facing? What’s keeping you from making it?
5. What roadblocks are you currently facing? How can I help you deal with them? (roadblocks are things that keep you from being more effective or things that they/I/you do that hinder your effectiveness)
6. What topic are you hoping I won’t bring up?
7. What area under your responsibility are you most satisfied with? Least satisfied?
8. Who are your strongest employees? What are you doing to ensure that they’re happy and motivated?