Why?

In nearly every company that I have been privileged to work for, it has amazed me how little forethought is given to the ripples caused by major decisions - something that I take for granted. At first, I thought that it must be a cultural thing - the best leaders are the most decisive ones, right? But over the years it's become clear that few business people have any idea how to think beyond the immediate consequences of an action. In fact, many find the idea so alien that it makes them physically uncomfortable. In short, they squirm like a worm under a magnifying glass.

Doesn't anyone play chess any more? Or Monopoly?

The formal process of the 5 Why's was developed by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation, to find the root cause of product defects. A shortened version (the 3 Why's) was later all the rage for goal-setting and so on, but then seemed to disappear, even though the root idea is the foundation of any successful organization: constant self-examination.

However many you choose, the Why's lead you to the underlying truth of any process, issue, person, goal, and on and on. They require nothing more than a commitment to acting like the average 3-year-old. Here's an example:

• We need a new CRM program.
• Why?
• Because our old CRM program doesn't help us close enough sales.
• Why?
• Because our sales reps don't use it.
• Why?
• Because we don't hold them accountable for using it.
• Why?
• Because we're afraid that, if we hold them accountable, they might leave.
• Why?
• Because we don't know how to lead them properly, and it's hard to do, and we're afraid they'll stop liking us if we do.

The wonderful thing about the question 'Why?' is that it can and always should be asked until it meets bone, because doing anything else is throwing up your hands and admitting that you aren't ready to play at the pro level, and probably never will be. 'Why?' forces you to think as much about the Law of Unintended Consequences as it does about motivation (or the lack thereof).

Here's another:

• We're going to change this process.
• Why?
• Because the old process is inefficient.
• Why?
• Because no one has time to do it that way any more.
• Why?
• Because they are already spending too much time on another process that we recently changed, but which doesn't seem to be working as well as we'd hoped.
• Why?
• Probably because we didn't ask ourselves 'Why?' enough times before making that decision.

Besides telling you the truth, another nice thing about 'Why' is that it's inherently private; no one has to hear you talk yourself out of a bad idea. In fact, if you do it right, you're laying the ground work for rejecting other people's bad ideas by figuring out what's wrong with them (and what the real issue is) in advance.

Don't get me wrong - 'Why?' is not about finding excuses to shoot something down. Any change that is truly needed easily stands up to the scrutiny of 'Why?', plus builds its own framework on the way, no matter how departmentally locked-in things start out:

• We're going to create and launch an expensive new marketing campaign.
• Why?
• Because we have a new product.
• Why?
• Because our research indicates that there is room and a need for it in the market.
• Why?
• Because it will decrease the amount of time that people have to spend cleaning up pet poop.
• Why?
• Because our new product instantly turns any pet poop into biodegradable fertilizer.

Really? Spend away! We're all going to be millionaires!

Remember: Business is not a game. There are sharks everywhere, always, and if you don't learn how to see around the next 3 to 5 corners in advance, you end up as fish food.

You Can't Change Customers

Where did the Muppets go wrong?

If you saw the Muppets' latest TV outing, chances are pretty good that you were repelled. Aside from trying to turn the characters that we grew up with and loved into something that they're not - tabloid-worthy - the show failed because it tried to change us. We don't want to think of Kermit and Miss Piggy as sleazy paparazzi-bait. We want to forever believe that they represent what we really hope we are.

Buried deep in all of us is a hard-wired monkey brain that hates change. When asked what we believe and polled about what we want, we routinely lie. Our response to gun violence is a perfect example: If as many of us were against mass shootings as the polls suggest, there would already be universal background checks.

It's not what we say that matters - it's what we do.

Rod Serling understood that; the Twilight Zone was nothing if not a textbook of human behavior. All of the best storytellers have an innate grasp of what we are - Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, and even Donald Trump. They lead not by trying to steer us in a certain direction, but by finding out where we want to go and pointing the way.

Any venture that contains the words "We'll get them to..." fails. The secret to selling anything, whether it's a product, an idea, a service, or a persona, is to find out where your Customers are already going and beat them there.

Do anything else, and you'll wind up alone in a cul-de-sac.

Generational Businesses

You've got to love entrepreneurs. They're responsible for much of our Gross National Product, most of what makes America great (ie, new ideas) and almost all of the best jobs. They work ridiculous hours, often starve themselves to pay their employees in the early days, take crazy risks, fight fear with enthusiasm, and learn what they don't know by doing. Entrepreneurs are what makes the rest of the world wish they were us (that is, Americans). They may be eccentric (Steve Jobs used to soak his feet in the toilet), they may eventually become self-entitled (two words: Larry Ellison), they might be arrogant (pick your favorites here), but a certain amount of all of these ingredients are required to be the man or woman who says, "I have an idea and I'm going to make it real!"

But piss on their kids.

This isn't sour grapes. Most of us will never be founders, and that's okay. Many of us actually like being the folks who help make the vision happen; we just want someone slightly less mad than Captain Ahab to follow. It can be satisfying to be the person that figures out the 'how' without the pressure of having to come up with the 'what' or the sleepless nights spent pondering the 'why'. An entrepreneur's work is never done, but we get to go home and have lives.

But why do so many seem to mess it all up by leaving the business to their kids?

It's not that they walk into wealth (okay, maybe it is, a little). But if you work as hard as founders do and take the big risks, you should absolutely be comped for that, and making sure your kids have the best of everything that you can afford is the American Way. Send them to the best schools, buy them the best clothes, take them skiing in Whistler and snorkeling in Belize. Do it all. But never, ever leave them your business.

Let's start with the obvious: You understand your business because you had to know everything; there wasn't anybody else. You know how to handle employees, what makes an effective marketing campaign, how to negotiate with vendors, and how to keep Customers coming back.

Now let's look at your son/daughter: Their first job was probably working for you doing some kind of menial job. But they didn't technically report to you - thy reported to the head of whatever department handles shipping, cleanup, moving merchandise around or whatever. But they're your kid. How likely do you think that manager was to rip them a new one when they did something stupid that cost the company money? They probably didn't even tell you. And who else gets to set their own hours?

From day one, they are raised in an environment of resentment.

Now your kid gets older. You send them to college, they take a few classes, but nothing too stressful because they have a job waiting for them at home; their degree is window dressing. And they come back and you give them some kind of management job, their very first, and set them loose. And they suck, because they have no experience actually doing anything, because all of their lives you were the doer.

Trouble is, you don't notice, because everyone still comes to you, just like they always have. You don't know it, but your son or daughter is a joke, and nobody tells you, and they get used to making money - probably more money than anyone but you - for doing nothing very much. Until the day that they do something so monumentally dumb that it can't be brushed under the carpet.

And you fire them, right? Just like you would any manager that did that incredibly dumb thing. You fire them, because you realize that you should have put someone in that job with some experience under their belt, someone who'd worked for several other companies and could actually do what needed to be done. Right? Right?

"Of course not," you say. "This is my child, here. They are beautiful and perfect, even if they are a little dumb sometimes. They just made a mistake. I'll have a talk with them. It will be okay."

So you have a long talk, and they're really embarrassed, just like that time they cut their little sister's hair or put that baseball through the window, but you give them a couple of pointers, pat them on the back and, just so they know that you love them, you give them a promotion. (Tell me that you have not seen this happen.)

Time goes by. Things seem to be going okay. You're working just as hard as always, still making all the big decisions, but you're the president and that's what president means. Meanwhile, your kid has learned that the secret to keeping everyone happy is to let them do pretty much whatever they want, and to spend most of their day chatting with employees about things that have nothing to do with the business, or having meetings where there is a lot of conversation but no decisions.

Eventually, you get old. You spend a little less time at work because your son or daughter is now in a VP role of some kind, and they have to stretch their wings sometime. Everyone in the business seems happy, so things must be going well, right? Your business has become a Name, it's not as hard to fight for Customers as it used to be, and you stopped having to worry about making payroll years ago. And someday, probably much later than you promised your spouse, you retire, move to Costa Rica for part of the year, and your business is in the capable hands of the 2nd Generation, one or two or more of them, but of course they never fight like they did when they were kids, and things are exactly the way you dreamed they would be, with grandkids coming to visit you and afternoons spent fishing or antiquing or traveling with friends.

Until a new competitor with a better idea, better staff, or both moves in and eats your empire alive. Not right away, usually. There's time for your kids to hire expensive consultants to tell them what to do and to endlessly debate whether or not they should do it, and getting second opinions from still more consultants, trying to do what you always did because it always used to work, but the new guy does new stuff and, before you know it, Customers stop coming in the door. Then the layoffs begin, until finally there's no one left. Your kids have money, of course, and they made more on the sale of the business or the land, but you still remember the look on the faces of all of the employees on the day that you or your son or daughter told them when they would receive their last paychecks.

Not all 2nd Generation businesses die this way. Some last long enough to be passed along to the 3rd Generation - kids who want to do something other than work for their folks, who in fact work for someone else and build up some experience, and eventually realize that their parents are running a money machine into the ground. If they come into the business, they're all about numbers, and hire experienced managers to do most of the work. They're more like a ringmaster than a founder, with a keen eye on the books, and they make sure any children that they bring into the business work somewhere else first, just like they did, and walk in the door with ideas of their own.

So if you're an entrepreneur, rather than go through all of this, ask yourself a couple of questions (plus probably a few more), and act accordingly:

1. Did your kid(s) ever ask for your business, or is that your idea?
2. Did you ever ask them what they wanted to be when they grew up?
3. Can you get someone better for less money?

Kick Your Company Out of the Nest

I've talked about hiring friends & family, pocketing & knowledge retention, deciding whether your organization is a club or a business, generational businesses, and chain of command, all of which are difficult changes for the established, non-business-school-graduate. But the difficulty factor doubles if you're an entrepreneur, because of an added element: The business is your baby.

You started your business in your garage, spare room , or attic, but it really began as a dream. Your spouse and kids probably helped you, at first, and then maybe a friend or a neighbor, because you couldn't afford anyone else. As time went on, your growing infant organization ate up more and more of your time. Eventually, things got to the point that you slept only when you fell over, sweated the books (you're still sweating the books), never took a day off or a vacation, and made every sale yourself because there wasn't anyone else. And finally, after all of that work, you join the ranks of the less than 1 in 10: A start-up business that lasts for more than a year.

Year two, you maybe hire a high school kid or two to work part time. You miss your kids' school plays, concerts, and games because you have to work. You always have to work; you no longer even seriously think about doing anything else. But you start to see a little success, so you reinvest that and go to a trade show or a networking event where word of mouth grows. You eventually have enough money for your very first ad, which does nothing, but that's okay because you learned from it, and your next ad gets some attention and pretty soon, you can actually hire a couple of real employees and learn to sweat over payroll.

Another year or 2 or 3 go by, and you have a full-time work force. Each person wears 10 hats because there are no hat stands. Everyone works late (but never quite as late as you); no one claims overtime. You have shared your dream and these people believe it, fearless because they don't know any better, and clueless enough to do everything wrong over and over again until they eventually find a method that works.

And now, 5 or 6 years in, you can finally afford to hire someone who can actually tell you what you're doing wrong: Your very first consultant. It's almost like a first kiss, what we used to call 1st base, in that it promises bigger and better things to come. And then, day of days, you hire your very first employee who has actually done this before, and maybe even many times before, which is the entrepreneur's equivalent to 2nd base, and then another and another pro join up, 3rd base and now the bases are loaded with people who know what they're doing, and...

... you jump out of the back seat and say, "Take me home!"

I understand. Like any new, extremely emotional experience, letting your company go is like sending your son or daughter off to prom or spring break. You had control, and now a bunch of pencil pushers are trying to tell you how to run your own company. Things used to be so much easier, back when you didn't have to get approval or document or assess readiness. And the thing that sends you over the edge is this: The very first dip in revenue.

Panic! Someone is groping your child! All of these people are going to kill your kid!

Stop. STOP! Take a deep breath. You hired these people because they know what they're doing, right? And they've managed not to destroy previous employers. And you agreed that, to make this whole thing work, you have to get the hell out of the way and let them do their jobs. And you know that - you know it - but you don't feel it.

This is the glass ceiling where the 10% who made it through year 1 fail: They can't let go. And while their business doesn't die right away, they begin to lose people by the truckload, because they see it even if you can't: The company has stopped growing because you are standing in the way. That's right: You have become an obstacle for your company to overcome, and there are only 2 ways that things can go from here: You can fight to regain control over your teenage company and lose its respect, loyalty, and love, or you can do what all good parents do:

Trust that you brought it up right, and finally take that vacation you promised your spouse so long ago that you can't even recall doing it. Tell no one where you go. Take no phone. Watch no news. Stay gone at least a week, but preferably a month. If your business really can't live without you that long, you've already failed. But when it does, it will thrive and blossom into a strong, functional adult, stepping right out of its diapers and into its first acquisition, merger, or IPO.

And isn't that what every corporate parent really dreams of?

Fear of Flaying

If you want your organization to be a place that you, let alone anyone else, actually want to go to each day, a key component is this:
Ensure that all stress comes from outside, and never from within.

There are plenty of competitors out there who are even now plotting the death of your company. Plotting, and acting on those plots. Why in the world would you actually destroy it for them? If it's going to die, it's going to die, but make them fight for it, dammit! Make your work environment cohesive and supportive, so that everyone mans the ramparts together, instead of complaining about who got more arrows.

Human beings are interesting creatures, with certain behavior patterns built in. One of these is the herding instinct: When you identify a competitor as the enemy (and actually use that word; I dare you), you create a natural tendency for your employees to focus outward and rally together. If you also provide an environment where a single mistake does not have a punishment but a single success has a reward, and where people are allowed to learn by making mistakes (obviously, not the same mistake over and over again, for those of us who are a little puzzled by the idea of not flogging failure), your employees will feel empowered and actually begin to take risks.

Risks are where growth happens.

This is just as true for an organization as it is for a human being. And you know an easy and cost-effective way to mitigate even those mistakes? Assign a mentor - even from another department or division - who is a neutral 3rd party for your employee to chat with, bounce ideas off of, and commiserate with. Encourage them to participate in networking groups so that they can hear how other people in their role have approached issues. Praise them when they get it right, and force them to break down the error when they get it wrong, so that they are better prepared the next time.

If your grass doesn't grow fast enough, do you yell at it? Of course not! You add fertilizer and you water it. Fear of the lightning bolt from on high is how management worked in the 1950's (unless you worked at Apple during Steve Jobs' tenure, ba-dump-bum). It has been proven time and again to produce more waste than headway, and encourages chaos when you aren't around, because your employees can finally breathe.

Don't be that kind of company. Don't be that kind of manager. Or the people plotting your death may be your own.

Managing Up

Stop me if you've heard this one: "For your organization to be successful, once a decision has been made about another manager's initiative, you must support it - even if you disagree - so that they will support your initiatives. If you can’t do that, you have to leave."

It's hard to respect someone who manages from their knees.

The trouble with going along and not making waves is that it leads to Enron and other organizations that were and are all about doing what pays well in the short term vs. what ensures longevity and what is right. Stealing from Customers - internal or external - is neither. The Customer for Life philosophy dictates that you always do what is right for the Customer, so long as it is within your organization's means. This doesn't necessarily mean doing what the Customer wants. Remember, every good compromise means that both sides get - and give up - a little of what they want.

But how do you deal with the scenario above, where a colleague or perhaps even your boss asks you to do something that you know violates that philosophy, or gets in the way of something else that is more important or more time-sensitive, without violating chain of command?

First, make sure your own bias isn't getting in the way. As much as we'd like to believe that we are independent and objective observers, it just ain't so. If you personally dislike the person who has put forward the new initiative, be aware that human beings have a very difficult time separating the message from the messenger (why do you think messengers hate to carry bad news?). Sit down and make yourself a list of why you object to the initiative, then read it after a good night's sleep. If you can still say you have solid reasons to object to the initiative, and it's not a personal vendetta of some kind, you're ready for the next step.

Welcome to the wonderful world of managing up.

Managing up essentially means managing your manager, and it turns on a very simple assumption: Your boss (or your colleague) is not a moron. If they are, you have bigger problems than the initiative they've put forward, and you really might be better off calling it a day and updating your resume. But if they're not, it's a simple matter of giving them a clear choice, just as you do when making an offer to a Customer.

Here's what to say:
"Just so I understand, are you saying that is more important than ?"

If they say yes:
"Okay. So it's okay to let everything else slide in favor of ?"

This is about when most people's brain starts working. They actually have to think about this question, rather than speak off the top of their head. A lively conversation is likely to ensue. But if they still want to go ahead, at least they're more likely to have assigned the new initiative the priority it actually deserves, rather than the 'anything to put out the fire' priority it may have started with. Plus you now have clear direction on that priority and what may or may not be permitted to slide to address it, which both keeps you from getting in trouble and showcases your skill as a tactical thinker.

Perspective: How to Get Some

One of the truisms of any organization is that organizational growth and/or your ascension through the ranks is in inverse proportion to the amount of communication you receive from the bottom. There are 2 main causes for this. Either one is bad; both together are death:

• People below you in the org chart assume that you already know everything.
• People below you in the org chart know that you don't know everything, but they're A) afraid to be the one to tell you, or B) decide that it's not their job to tell you.

To be effective, a manager must know what's happening at every level of the organization.

So how do you get the perspective that you need?

In every organization that I've ever been a part of, Customer Service was and is the repository of (almost) all knowledge. While they may lack the 'Big Picture' view, CS reps live and breathe issues from outside (external Customers) and inside (internal Customers) every single day. They are the first to hear when there is a problem, and the first to know whether or not a proposed solution actually works. Also, because they are in direct communication with both kinds of Customers, they have their fingertips on the heartbeat of your company.

Even if your relationship with the Customer Service Manager is good, it can be a touchy thing to sit with Customer Service. Wouldn't you feel funny if another manager asked to sit with your direct reports for a few days? To avoid that whole thing, we pay thousands of dollars to consultants to sit with people for us and tell us what they say. Then we tell ourselves that we spent all that money because we just don't have time to do it ourselves, or that it's somehow beneath us. The real reason is that we don't want the confrontation that we think will result.

Everyone's job is to hold everyone else accountable for doing the best job they can, and to help them do that in whatever way you can. If you purposely create a culture where everyone sits with everyone else on a regular basis, it stops being scary. And here's the magic word that you will use to make it happen:

Cross-training.

Rolls nicely off the tongue, doesn't it? And it's even true: You really do want to know how things work in that other department, because then you'll also learn what dumb things you unintentionally do that make their lives hell, along with being able to provide fresh eyes for all of their processes. How can it possibly be a bad thing for everyone to understand what everyone else actually does, and what their challenges are? Getting inside our colleagues' skins is right in line with the whole philosophy of Customer for Life!

If I could, whenever I joined a new company, I would hire in as a Customer Service rep for 2 weeks, and not let anyone know that I was anything else. I'd take a notebook and a bunch of pens and write down everything I saw and heard. At the end of the 2 weeks, I'd think about everything good and hard, and then put together a plan of action the following Monday to address the dozens of things Customer Service assumed I already knew, or that they  (or their manager) were too afraid to tell me.

Since you can't do that, you can at least listen in on calls and watch Customer Service in action as yourself. Bring a big box of good chocolate or cookies with you; it's amazing how people loosen up over a little sugar. What is their process? Look for inefficient workarounds (there are always inefficient workarounds, most of them unintentional). Look for how often calls are transferred as opposed to completed on the spot, and ask why. Look at what extra work the Customer Service reps do (all Customer Service reps perform dozens of tasks that have nothing to do with Customer Service). Should they actually own those tasks, or are they the result of an inefficiency in your own department, or someone else's?

Question everything.

This should be a regular part of your routine, especially after any kind of reorg or process change in your own department, and don't stop with Customer Service (although you should certainly start there). The more often you do it, the less scary it is, and the more it becomes a regular part of your culture. Especially if you take the other department's manager out for lunch and speak in private about what each of you saw and heard (she gets to sit with your team, too, right?). One pair of eyes and one brain are good; 4 eyes and 2 brains are better; everyone's eyes, ears, and brains combined are the first steps on the path to Kaizen (or CANI... Constant and Never-Ending Improvement).

Are They Ready?

Management is essentially working with and through others to accomplish your organization's goals. A leader's role is to raise employees' aspirations for what they can become, and get them to release their energies to try. By now you know that you can't do everything yourself, and you understand the importance of delegating, as well as when to delegate and whom to delegate to. The next question is, how do you know what approach to use, depending upon the employee's readiness?

To talk about readiness assessment, we first have to talk about what employees need from you in order to feel comfortable enough to take on a task. Before anything else, you must have the following:

• A clear direction. 
• Clear communication. 
• The employee's trust. 

Got those? Good! (If you answered no, you have some serious issues that must be resolved before anything else can move forward. Get to it!)

The next step is to identify your leadership style. Your leadership style is your patterns of behavior as perceived by others. There are basically 2 leadership styles:

• Directing behavior: You define the employee's role and responsibility, explain & clarify what to do, when, and how. In a nutshell, one-way communication, all coming from you. 
• Supporting behavior: You set positive expectations, praise, encourage, and listen. All two-way communication. 

Readiness is essentially ability (knowledge, skill, clear on priorities) + willingness (desire, confidence, incentive). Remember, willingness is often a measure of confidence. Before assigning a task, ask yourself if the employee has:

• Task-specific experience 
• Task-specific training 
• An understanding of the priority of the task 
• Desire 
• Incentive (this is usually the opportunity to shine, or to advance at some point down the road - not money) 

There are four levels of readiness:

• R4 = High Readiness (Ability High and Willingness High) 
• R3 = Moderate to High Readiness (Ability High and Willingness Not High) 
• R2 = Low to Moderate Readiness (Ability Not High and Willingness High) 
• R1 = Low Readiness (Ability Not High and Willingness Not High) 

Each of the four levels requires a different delegation style:

• R1 = Directing (Explain and clarify what, where, when, and how.) 
• R2 = Coaching (Instruct and convince via 2-way discussion. Explain the 'why'.) 
• R3 = Supporting (Support them to reinforce their ideas and confidence.) 
• R4 - Autonomy (Follow up and support as needed/as determined by employee.) 

No matter which readiness level an employee is at, defer to their approach, but define the deliverables. Remember that your way of doing things is not the only way, and not even necessarily the best way. There will be mistakes, but your employer should be allowed to make them and to learn from them.

Last but not least, only ask their input about things that have not already been decided. You wouldn't ask your son or daughter where they would like to go to dinner if you've already made up your mind about it, would you? That would only undermine their confidence in their ability to make decisions, your interest in their input, and their trust in you.

Here's a handy readiness reference chart that you can print for your office or cube wall:

Delegate, Dammit!

If you are like many managers, you have a hard time delegating tasks - at least until you are overwhelmed, at which point you may shed tasks that you should keep. You want to make sure to give your company maximum value, but how do you know which tasks should be delegated, to whom, and when?

Here's a very simple flowchart to help you figure out what should be delegated:

The who part is easy: Delegate the task to whomever has the least to do. 

This may sound self-evident, but how many times have you seen someone else assign a task to the employee who has the most going on? Even today, I bet you've seen at least one example. This is because we have a natural tendency to give tasks to the person who seems the most capable. And if they've already got that much going on and they're handling it well, they must be capable, right?

The trouble with this impulse, though, is that the employee who gets all of the tasks learns everything, while other employees languish, never able to test their wings and gain the experience necessary to become more capable. Meanwhile, the person who gets dumped on lives under constant pressure and stress. You know what happens when one employee feels like they're being passed over and another feels like they're being pissed on?

They both leave. And one of them left to go work for your competitor and took all of that knowledge they acquired with them. Now you're short at least two people, maybe more, and no one knows how to do more than the bare minimum.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. But we still do it all the time.

Yes, delegate to everyone. If you don't think they're capable of doing the work, why did you hire them? Yes, make sure that your expectations are clearly spelled out, as well as the timeline and milestones. Yes, meet regularly to assess progress. Yes, give counsel if asked, but only if asked. You may be surprised, not least by the fact that just because someone does something differently than how you would have done it doesn't make them wrong. In fact, they may find a better way than you do.

The last question is the easiest one of all: Delegate tasks soon as they are identified.

Never touch anything more than once. This includes emails, meeting notes, phone calls, and anything else that involves a task. The first time you touch it, apply the flow chart above, and then either do it yourself or delegate it, on the spot. Your inbox will empty out, you'll help all of your people grow, morale will rise, retention will improve, and your organization will get what it's paying for: Your time, doing the tasks that you alone are paid to do.

One Trick Ponies

When was the last time you used a standalone camera? I don't mean your phone or PC or tablet - I mean a camera that only takes pictures. With film. A still image camera.

In 1976, Kodak owned 90% of the film market. It's name was so much a part of our culture that the phrase "Kodak moment" became synonymous with photography. Everyone knew what a "Kodak moment" was. The company was founded in 1889, so they understood how to successfully manage a profitable business. In fact, for decades, Kodak was considered a must-have blue chip stock that no portfolio was complete without. Yet 2007 was the last year that Kodak turned a profit. On 1/19/12, Kodak finally filed for bankruptcy, and no longer makes cameras, digital photo frames, or pocket video cameras.

Lest you think that Kodak didn't try to change with the times, the company actually invented the first digital camera in 1975, and sued to protect its patents. And, even if they had dived into digital cameras full throttle and right from the start, bear in mind that, as I write these words, you can't give digital cameras away.

The real problem wasn't that Kodak changed too slowly. The problem was and is that Kodak is a one-trick pony in a world that demands that gasoline - as "old economy" a product as you can get - serves more than one function (cleaning your engine while powering your vehicle). We live in a time when even toilet paper manufacturers better come up with a few more ideas if they don't want to go down the drain.

The days of the single purpose product are over. Do you really believe that books will still be printed on paper 20 years from now? (Maybe 10.) Cars are another product ripe for a paradigm shift; even the manufacturers ran out of anything new to say decades ago. If it doesn't fly or teleport, a car is essentially a car, and sliding brand loyalties show that Customers know that. (Tupperware, I'm talking to you, too.) Even multipurpose products like Blackberries are falling by the wayside because they aren't multipurpose or intuitive enough.

It's no longer enough to simply buy a smaller, sexier company on the edge of technology to drive your share value. Shareholders understand that it's a ploy, and that you're only going to ignore the acquisition to death while you conduct business in the same old legacy organization way. Even the old mantra "Adopt, adapt, improve," will only keep your doors open for so long.

Spread out to reduce risk caused by downturns in one segment of the economy. That includes spreading out so that you cover more Customer demographics. Don't underfund or overfocus on particular segments, divisions, or departments. And, perhaps most important, don't share revenue.

To be successful, every segment must support itself from day one.

Give each segment the autonomy to make its own decisions and build its own infrastructure. All you should care about is whether or not the segment is profitable. Once you have one or two that are, listen and watch how they do things to see if their way of doing business can be applied to less successful segments. And do your best to make sure that the people who run each segment are new people, not your cronies, and that they come from outside your core industry. (Why in the world would you want to create a line of unsuccessful clones?)

Sooner or later, every market and every product goes away.

Making your products perform multiple functions that increase Customer convenience and that don't require an owners manual because they are instinctive to use as a hammer will increase your company's lifespan, but they won't make you immortal. To do that, you have to keep creating, finding, and funding wildly creative answers to problems that consumers don't even know they have.

And just so you don't think that this concept only applies to the GM's of the world, even if you build funky wooden shelves that you sell at art fairs, how many other out-of-work guys do you think go into that business every year, or women who think they can make jewelry for a living, or couples who think they can make a go of a restaurant? Almost all of these businesses fail. They have no POD's. They are all one trick ponies. But how about some earrings with built-in wireless ear buds or a bluetooth headset, a shelf with a built-in iPad charger/stand you can watch a movie while cooking, or a restaurant that has treadmills instead of chairs?

Take a look at Kickstarter.com to see what John Doe thinks is worth funding. There's a lot of noise, but there are some gems there (not least the whole idea of crowdsourcing venture capitalism). Many of the ideas are already out there.

The secret is not to be first. The secret is to be best.

Mothers & Daughters, Fathers & Sons

We've talked about not hiring (or being hired by) friends and family, yet one of the most common small business types in the U.S. is the family business. Obviously, for many reasons, if you can pass a business on to your children, it can prove to be a good move - provided that it's done right. By now, you've probably seen it done wrong at least once. (And there's no such things as doing it a little bit wrong, is there? Every example that I can think of from my own experience has been spectacularly bad. )

Here are some tips on doing it right. Write these down and chant them for the next month or so:

• First, make sure that your son or daughter wants to take over the business. If they don't, don't push it. Remember: They are not you. Starting this business was your dream. They have dreams of their own.
• Start them early and start them low. I have made it a practice to sit with the Customer Service team for at least a couple of weeks when taking on a new position. Everything, good or bad, eventually flows through Customer Service, and they often know more about what's really happening in an organization than anyone else.
• If you can, rotate them through every department and job function. You learned the business by doing all of these jobs yourself, before you could afford someone else to do them. There is no better way for your son or daughter to learn them than hands on. Not only that: By actually getting their hands dirty, they will earn street cred with employees and open up communication pathways that have long been closed to you.
• Just because you would perform a task a particular way doesn't make their way of doing it the wrong way. From what I've seen, this is the hardest skill for entrepreneurs to master: Shutting up.
• Your child is going to make mistakes. Let them. If they do everything correctly, how will they ever know what to do when things go wrong? You made mistakes. Let them make their own mistakes, too, and profit by the lessons they learn from them.
• Don't call them by demeaning names in front of employees. You know what? Scratch that. Don't call them by demeaning names at all. They are adults, they are employees, they will be the boss one day. Treat them with the same respect that you expect. I've never been "Davy". Would you like for them to call you "Old Fart" or "Evil Stepmother" all the time?
• Let go. Don't hang on forever. Agree on a firm date that you will either retire or expect them to knife you, then stick to it. As long as you are around, employees will still go to you, no matter what title you have or what title you give your son or daughter.
• Never, ever, ever countermand anything that your son or daughter says, ever. Even if it is wrong. Employees cannot for one moment think that they can go to you to get a reversal on a decision, or they will do it all the time - and vice versa. How would you like it if your spouse did that with every rule you set for your children? If you want your children to run the business, you have to be able to let go. If you can't, your son or daughter has to find something else to do for a living.
• Make certain that your son or daughter takes (and passes) classes that are relevant to running a business, including as many management classes as possible. Leading people is a science; it can be learned. Working for you will only expose them to what you know, much of which may be out of date. Let them be exposed to other ideas, and your company will only benefit from the result. 
• The first time your son or daughter has to manage a team, after they have had management classes, make certain that they have a mentor. Most first-time management positions do not include this. As a result, many employees who had excellent management potential floundered in their first management role. The mentor doesn't have to be at another company (although that helps), but they absolutely can't be you. The temptation to tell them what to do is simply too strong. LinkedIn and other networking groups are an excellent place to find mentors. I know that you want to impart all that you have learned, but the time to do that is before they became a manager.
• Be supportive. You'd think this one would be obvious, but it's not. I have been in management positions where the original owner asked me to lie to their child about what they were doing because they knew that their child - who was the CEO (at least in name) - would disagree with it. Holy King Lear!

Betty White, Plato, and the Titanic

There is a natural tendency for any congregation of human beings to become insular. This is just as true for organizations and departments within those organizations as it is for states, regions, countries, religions, political groups, and on and on.

Human beings are herd animals; we always have been. We don't have thick hides, claws, or fangs. We're not particularly fast on foot or when swimming. A 3-year-old chimpanzee can literally tear our arms out of their sockets. What we do have is each other, and the need to communicate and defend each other led to big brains, an amazing aptitude for pattern recognition and, eventually, fully-formed language.

But even now, there are issues regarding the formation of effective new ideas in the face of emerging needs, threats, and appropriate responses to both. There is nothing new about this. In fact, Plato spelled the whole thing out in something called The Allegory of the Cave.

In Plato's story, a man wanders into a cave in which are imprisoned a group of people. These people are chained facing the cave wall, and have been since birth. Because of the chains, they are unable even to turn their heads. In the center of the cave, behind the prisoners, a large fire burns. As people, objects, and people carrying objects pass between the fire and the cave wall, they cast shadows on the wall that the prisoners can see. The prisoners attempt to build an explanation of the entire world, its contents, and its processes based on these distorted shadows.

The man who wanders into the cave, of course, has a lifetime of experience other than being chained to a cave wall, plus the added benefit of being able to see and accurately interpret everything he sees. From an organizational perspective, this is why it is so important to frequently engage outside consultants and to hire new employees from outside your industry. You and everyone in your organization that has been there for any length of time already see things with a very fixed lens.

New eyes are clear eyes.

The natural tendency, of course, when you hear the ideas of these new folks is to say, "That won't work, and here's why: You don't really understand our business." Those words are often the epitaph of the organization. You can only see things one way, because you are chained to the wall of your experience, and cannot see things objectively or from the outside.

Another issue regarding our hard-wired response to threats is that nature plays the odds.

In any group of people facing a mortal danger, a certain percentage will do one of the following:

• Act instantly based on recent information (10% - 15%)
• Panic and go crazy (15%)
• Stand around and do nothing (everyone else)

From a survival of the species perspective, this is a good strategy. Two of the answers will likely always be wrong, but at least one will probably be right. From nature's perspective, having enough members of a species survive to reproduce is a win. (The fact that so many people who survive a disaster tend to feel very close to each other afterward is nature's next step in this process.)

The problem is, from an organizational perspective, it is very easy for the third group to delay action until any decision no longer matters.

A good example is the town that I grew up in. When a mall opened up outside of the city limits, the downtown merchants debated for years about how to address this competition, talking the city into bringing in expensive consultant after expensive consultant with plan after plan until all of their stores closed for want of customers. What was once the center of commerce became a ghost town.

Another excellent example is the newspaper industry. Every month or so a journalist writes a new story that explains how newspapers can save themselves from extinction. The problem is, for everyone outside the newspaper industry and its dependents (such as the wire services), newspapers died a long time ago. As the new NPR CEO once said, "No one under 30 has ever read a newspaper. And they never will".

Newspapers are Abe Vigoda. They are not Betty White.

To avoid this trap, obsessively collect and listen to your metrics. Intelligence gather from your competitors and those in industries that are outside of your own, but who serve a similar Customer, or have similar business models.

Standing still while your ship sinks guarantees that you and everyone around you drowns. It is still going to sink, and an irrational belief that your ship will not sink because it never has and so it can't will not help you any more than it did the captain of the Titanic.

To survive, you must constantly adopt, adapt, and improve based on changing conditions. Action must be swift, decisive, and stem-to-stern.

Just ask T. Rex.

DISC, By Any Other Name

By now, you've likely been in business long enough to recognize that the employees in each department tend to have similar personality traits to other employees in the same department. In fact, despite individual differences, personality traits within one department often seem to be more a matter of degree than anything else. The important thing is to learn why this is, what it means to internal and external communication, and why it's a good and necessary thing.

A psychologist named William Marston created a way to rank personality traits according to 4 main behavior styles. Everyone has all 4, but the degree of each style and the blends between them differ from person to person. Marston called his ranking system DISC, an acronym of the 4 styles:

• Dominance - relating to control, power, or dominance
• Influence - relating to social situations and communication
• Steadiness - relating to patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness
• Caution - relating to structure or organization

I took my first DISC assessment and class in 1984. The class was sponsored by the National Association of Music Merchants, or NAMM. Out of all of the profiling and communication classes that I have taken at dozens of seminars in the years since (some of which took the fundamentals of DISC and simply renamed them), I still consider it the single most important business class I have ever taken, and I have shared it with every team I have managed since.

It's probably no secret to you that individuals with a strong 'C' drive tend to end up in Accounting, high 'S' individuals tend to gravitate to IT, 'I' to Sales and PR/Marketing, and high 'D' to Management, but this is a black-and-white perspective of a shades-of-grey reality. High incidence of these traits make these employees well-suited to their roles. They would not be as good at what they do as they are if their personalities were different. Unfortunately, this often means that communication between different departments is strained, because the personalities and communication styles of the people involved are so different from each other.

Communication with external Customers is just as difficult. Salespeople with high 'I' may actually turn off Customers who are high 'C'. Customer Service reps who are high 'S' may frustrate high 'I' Customers. Every behavior style wants to be spoken to in its own native language. Isn't that what you expect as a Customer? And what's wrong with that?

For this reason, I recommend DISC profiling and training for all employees, beginning with Management, then PR/Marketing (if they haven't already had it), Sales, Customer Service, IT, Accounting, Development, Production, etc. Profiling so that each employee is aware of how they are perceived and what their own needs are, and training so that they understand other styles and learn to communicate with them in their own language.

Be aware, too, that certain behavior styles can have a tendency to bugger advancement and chain of command. For example, people with high 'I' personalities tend to move up quickly because they are social animals and often well-liked. But they also tend not to be detail-oriented or results-driven. Why advance someone into a management position if they are not likely to be any good at it? This does no one any good. By the same token, someone with a high 'D' personality has a tendency to believe that codes of conduct and process do not apply to them. Is that who you want as your CEO?

Again, people are rarely this black-and-white, nor am I saying that a high 'D' person can't be a good CEO (especially if paired with a high 'S' COO). Everyone is a blend. Just be aware of how different behavior styles can influence your thinking when hiring, managing, and promoting.

An overly complicated DISC matrix. (I had a little trouble with the scissors.)

Price vs. Cost

As we've discussed before, language defines culture. Putting a word to something conjures an image and an expectation of the thing named. That's why shamans and occultists put so much store by names - they understood that naming a thing gave them power over it. And for any business that sells any good or service, nothing is more important than the definition of and the distinction between cost and price.

Price is the sticker on that new car. It is a liquid word, and implies flexibility and negotiation. It also identifies the thing to which the price is attached as a commodity... that is, an item that exists in identical form at the business down the street. Anything that is a dime a dozen has a price, and we just named it. (But we'll give you fourteen for that same dime if you buy today.)

Cost is a fixed quantity. In the Customer's mind, it is an immovable object. "The cost of X is Y." There can be no negotiation with cost; it is what it is, and that's what it costs.

Now here's the part where you learn a new language: Everything sold has a cost. Nothing has a price. Ever. This is not a negotiating tactic, nor is it a sales formula. If price has ever passed your lips, you have used the incorrect word. That is a fact, and I can prove it to you:

To have a price, an item must be a commodity - that is, an identical item must be available elsewhere. If you have the only one of a given item that exists anywhere in the world, what you charge for it is not negotiable, simply because it does not need to be. The Customer cannot purchase the exact same item elsewhere, so he must pay what you ask or go without.

"But we sell X," you say, "and the guys down the street have X, too."

To which I say, "No, they don't. No one sells what you sell. And you know why? Because X is not what you sell. X may be included in what you sell, but what you sell is you - your organization and how you do business. Your customer service, your terms, your speed of delivery and accuracy of execution, your satisfaction ratings, your industry awards, your knowledge, and on and on. That is what you sell. And it has a cost."

Make a list of these things (they're called Points of Differentiation, or POD's). Trumpet them. Be the best at them. Don't make anything up or spout half-truths. Make them things that you can say to your kids or your reflection without blinking, looking away, or laughing. Make sure that everyone in your organization - not just the salespeople - knows them by heart. And if you don't believe them, sell your business to someone who does and go home, because you have already given up. Why take everyone else down with you?

One final note: Slap anyone who says that a service has a price, ever. A service is as individualized as you can get - no two haircuts are any more alike than two snowflakes or the services performed by hookers in Vegas.*

*Or so I'm told.

Hiring

Just as directing a film is largely about choosing the correct cast and crew, hiring is the single most important step to ensure that your organization surpasses its goals and thrives over the long term. Nonetheless, many hiring managers treat the interview process and its all-important prep as a chore. Some even put it off until forced, and then often make poor choices that only have to be replaced a short while later.

Employees are your most important asset. If you don't believe that with all of your heart and soul, you will fail. Employees do all of the real work in any organization. They are the public face of your business, day in and day out. They are the lifeblood of every organization. Without them, there is just you, and you can't do what needs to be done alone.

If you hate interviewing and prepping for interviews, imagine what it's like for the person on the other side of your desk. They have a limited amount of time to guess what you want to see and hear and to dazzle you - and that's after they've made it past resume-screening software (which turns away better than 95% of applicants), any headhunters you may work with, and your HR department.

Of course prep for the interview; you should have a set of questions sitting in a file folder at all times, so that you are ready whenever you need to hire someone. And you know the best place to get those questions?

From the people who already do the job.

Let's face it: They probably know the requirements better than you do. You can ask the basics, too, if you want, all of the "What did you do there?" and "What is your greatest strength?" stuff, but know that any applicant that's gotten as far as your desk has already rehearsed the answers to those tired words a hundred times before. You will learn exactly nothing that isn't already the story they've told on their resume.

So: Get 5 - 10 questions from employees that already do the job that you're hiring for. Next, ask the things that matter long-term:

• What kind of corporate culture are you looking for? 
• What do you find is the best way to network? 
• What do you do to relieve stress? 
• Would you rather stay in one position for a long period of time with regular raises, or move up quickly with no change in compensation? 
• Are you interviewing with a competitor? What made you come to us? 

These are questions that help define whether or not the candidate is a match for your culture (or at least the culture of the team that they will likely join). Listen carefully to the responses and think not just about what the candidate says, but how they say it.

There are two questions that you will want to ask at the end of every interview, unless you're already sure that the candidate is a "no":

• You win the lottery tomorrow - $164 million after taxes. What do you do? 
• Tomorrow morning, you find out that you have 6 months to live. What do you do? 

There are, of course, no right or wrong answers to either question, but the applicant's answers and how they answer are revealing. Let's take question one and break it down:

• If the candidate hesitates for an extended period, doesn't answer, or sounds like they are saying what you want to hear, don't hire them. If you hire them and something goes wrong, they will either fail to tell you until you find out on your own, hide it from you, or blame someone else. Trust me on this one. 
• If the applicant says they want to take care of their family and/or friends or give money to charity, and they are applying for a customer service or tech support role, they will likely be a good fit for that role, even if they add other things to the list. 
• If they say that they will quit working and travel, they will likely be a short-term employee. This in and of itself is not always a bad thing, but it depends on whether or not that is your plan for the position. 
• If they say that they would likely start their own company doing X, they may be a potential team lead or manager. 
• Anyone who says lots of different things is likely never to be satisfied in any role. For them, the grass will always be greener elsewhere. 

You can probably figure out the rest.

Question 2 is a different circumstance. Rather than fulfillment of a dream, it presents an opportunity to see what your applicant's priorities are when faced with the grimmest of all realities: Death. Most if not all of your applicants will not have given this question any thought, ever. In fact, some may actively resist answering. If they do, or have a great deal of difficulty answering, they will likely never rise to a higher position. If, however, they are able to accept the question at face value, think it through, and present a cogent answer, they will likely be good planners who are capable of acting on their own without as much supervision as candidates who have no answer. They may even explain their answers to you as they figure them out. Bear in mind that they are probably explaining these answers to themselves, as well as to you.

Any candidate that asks why you asked either question is dead in the water. If they're that suspicious of your motives before they've even had a chance to see how devious you really are, you'll only have to replace them at some point, anyway. Why not choose someone better from the start?

Second Interview
For the second interview - if the applicant is good enough to earn one - invite employees in the department to which the candidate will be assigned to ask the questions. You should do this whether the person that you hire will be their co-worker or their manager. Do not tell them in advance what you think of an applicant; let them make up their own minds. Give each person who volunteers a copy of the applicant's resume.

After they are done speaking with the applicant, sit with them alone somewhere quiet and ask them what they think. Then listen. Then thank them for their input. Do not at any point try to persuade them to think differently or lead them to think what you think.

This process serves several important functions:

• Knowledge. Remember, these employees do this job every day. Who better to kick the applicant's tires? 
• Rapport. Your applicant will ask questions of potential team members that they might hesitate to ask you. This way, they can get a clear picture of what your corporate culture really is - rather than what you'd like to think it is - and whether or not they are likely to be happy there. 
• Ownership. Whether co-worker or manager, each employee has a stake in every new hire, since they will depend on the new person for some kind of support. 
• Buy-in. Because they were an active part of the decision-making process, your employees will more readily accept any potential hire - even if it's not the one they picked. (You, of course, always make the final choice. Never present your employees' thoughts, to them or to anyone else, as anything more than recommendations.)

Club or Business?

Your organization is either a club or a business. You have to decide which, because it can't be both.

Don't ask employees to perform personal tasks for you, such as picking up your dry cleaning, shopping for you, etc. Employees don't work for you - they work for the business, and asking them to perform these tasks - in addition to degrading them professionally - steals time away from the business.

Do you have any employees that you keep simply because you like them, even though their work is sporadic or mediocre at best? You don't have a business; you have a club. And you know what happens when a club competes against a business? It fails, because a business has its eye on the prize, and a club is all about comfort zones. It's not a question of whether or not your club will fail - only when.

That employee that you keep, maybe they're a friend of yours, or someone who's been with the company from the beginning, and you have some notion (or they do) that this accords them some kind of special status. Your other employees, most of whom are more productive and who produce better work, are aware of this and resent it - especially since, because you run a club instead of a business - this friend of yours likely makes more money than they do and may even have some special privileges as a long-standing club member. And you know what happens when those other, more talented employees figure this out?

They leave. And they get jobs with your competitors, because your competitors run businesses, and their businesses reward employees based on performance, rather than longevity or whether or not they play golf with the boss.

A club is a hobby, something to dabble in, but not to be taken seriously. That is why so many new so-called businesses fail: they are run by hobbyists. A business is run by professionals, people who want and expect to work every day, to actively compete, and to produce the best work that they are capable of.

Here's another yardstick to determine whether you have a business or a club: How often do you measure and assess each employee's work, sit down with them, and together plan ways for them to improve? If it's not - at minimum - once a year, you've got a club. And don't think you're off the hook if that annual meeting doesn't have at least a monthly touch-base to measure results against the plan that you and your employee put together. If that annual meeting is the only one that you have each year about their progress toward reaching their performance goals, you're still in a club.

Better start polishing your resume now.

Don't Screw Employees

Okay, you're right, what I really mean is, "Don't fuck employees". And before you click away in disgust, please allow me to explain the reason that this word is the one and only correct choice for this particular subject:

The fellow who deliberately cut you off in traffic, spilling your coffee and nearly giving you a heart attack, was he inconsiderate or an asshole?

There is no such thing, my dears, as an inappropriate word. All words are appropriate, given the proper context and timing. If the usage is apt, the word is appropriate.

Now let me explain why "fuck" is the appropriate word in this situation: It refers not only to the physical act in which you are the aggressor, but also to what happens to the career of the employee in question.

In this day and age, you would think this one would be a no-brainer, but we still see it happen on a daily basis. If you are ever tempted, or one of your managers is tempted, hit the affected individual in the side of the head with a brick until these thoughts go away. Aside from the fact that it may lead to a lawsuit that may cost you your company, consider this:

• If you think your diddling is a secret, you're wrong. At work, nothing is a secret. 
• Because nothing is a secret, all of the other employees at or below the position of the person that you're diddling will automatically assume that every choice assignment, promotion, or benefit that your diddlee receives is only because of the diddling. Even if your diddlee doesn't sue you, chances are pretty good that one of these folks will. Seen through the eye of diddling, everything looks like favoritism. And let's face it - it probably is. 
• Or - because you know how it looks - you withhold promotions or key assignments that the person you're diddling actually deserves, causing them to feel righteous anger, hurt, and sorry that they ever met your sorry ass. Oh - and if they don't sue you, you can bet that they're going to make sure before they leave that everyone in your organization knows what a sleazebag you are. They may even tell your Customers, as they are busy moving them over to their new employer. 
• It's just plain wrong, moron! Putting people below you (no joke intended) in this kind of position (sigh) is one of the worst abuses of power. They used to guillotine kings for this type of behavior, sportsfans, and rightly so.

Your honor, I rest my case.

Execution

At the time of this writing, Apple's market cap is US$500 billion. The public's perception of Apple is a result of a reality distortion field, i.e., that Apple can do no wrong and always turns out gold. A large part of this has to do with how Apple handles the press and its product launches, both of which create the impression that Apple is a religion, rather than a company. But anyone who purchased an Apple 3, a Lisa, a Cube, a Newton, or any one of a number of other Apple products that died in the orchard knows the truth:

Apple has had at least as many failures as successes.

None of these products were bad ideas. Where Apple failed was execution. The best intention, plan, and product in the world will still die a horrible death if not executed perfectly.

Notice my choice of words; I didn't say 'executed well'. Companies that execute well die in front of the competition every day. Today, you must execute perfectly, or get the hell out of the game.

Vision

It is vital that you have a vision, and that you communicate your vision clearly, in your actions as well as your words. How many organizations have you been a part of whose mission statements were just a bunch of words that had nothing to do with you?

The purpose of vision/mission statements is to create culture. Your goal is to make your employees think the way that you think so that, when you're not around, they still act the way that you want them to.

When it's time to define what your organization is and does, don't go all namby-pamby about mission statements and vision statements that use weak, oatmeal-flavored words that don't actually say anything. To embed themselves in your corporate culture, your vision must inspire your employees. Everything that you think, say, and do must constantly refer back to that vision.

Take a look at these:

Example #1
Our goal is to provide value-added services to our defined customer base in order to maximize revenues and return outstanding shareholder value within the parameters of our core competencies. We differentiate ourselves from our competitors with a superior value proposition that is both customer-focused and profitable.

Example #2
We are the greatest company in the world. We live and breathe that every minute of our lives, in everything we think, say, and do. We crush our enemies by thinking, acting, and producing so far beyond their pathetic abilities that they gnash their teeth and take their own lives.

Which company do you want to work for?

How to Lead: Part One

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

The best way to lead people - and the easiest - is to figure out where they already want to go and show them how to get there. Of course, some people don't know where they want to go, and other people want to go somewhere other than where you want to go. The trick in both instances is to show these folks that where you want to go is where they wanted to go all along - they just didn't realize it yet.

Where do people want to go? Well, it varies a bit from person to person, but generally:

• People want to be heroes. 
• People want to be liked. 
• People want to feel valued. 
• People want to grow.

Your job is to show them how to get there, provide the resources for them to get there (this includes any necessary training and support), and sit down with them regularly to measure their progress, offering advice only when asked. (Making their own mistakes is part of the process.)

The perfect employee to apply this to first is the one who, in meetings or in front of their fellows, complains about everything. Often, they are otherwise good employees (or you would have fired them, right?), but they need some help growing. Usually, their real issue is fear of failure. They mastered the old way of doing things, they were perceived as a hero for their skill at it, and now you come along and threaten their status and self-image by proposing change.

Let's call this employee Tim (in my mind, I hear 'timid'). The moment you hear Tim fire up his engines, and in front of as many people as are nearby, say this:

"Tim, I'm glad that you brought this to my attention. You obviously have a strong understanding of the issues involved, and we/I appreciate you volunteering to find a way to resolve it. Let's go talk in my office about what resources you think you'll need to do that, and agree on a timeline."

Then do exactly that, right then. Don't wait.

They will push back, of course - this is well outside their comfort zone, and the complete opposite of where they want to be. But: You've addressed their "want to be a hero" need by acknowledging them as knowledgable and brave. It was in front of other people so, if they back out immediately, they look like nothing but a whiner - the exact opposite of their desired self-image. No one likes a whiner. You have shown that they are valued (again, in front of other people) by giving them an important project. And you have held out the prospect of growth. The obstacle that you will address in your office is fear.

First, no matter what, don't let them wiggle out of it. The moment you do, you have effectively lost a valuable employee. Their self-image will never recover. They will have failed, you and their coworkers will know they failed and, worst of all, they will know it, and it will ruin them from that moment on. Their performance will speedily decline, and you will eventually have to let them go.

They deserve better than that, and it's up to you as their manager to give it to them.

These are the steps that must be completed before Tim walks out of your office:

• Agree on the parameters of the issue. (You can't expect someone to hit the target if you didn't agree on what the target was.) 
• Let Tim tell you what resources he initially needs to address the issue. Be flexible - after all, this is probably his first time having to think this way - but make sure that Tim is the one doing the bulk of the work. And if he comes to you later and says, "I think I'm going to need X, too," and it seems reasonable, give it to him. 
• Break the issue down into chunks - tasks, teams or departments (if it's a bigger issue), components, etc. This will do a lot to dispel Tim's fear. If he's still giving you the wild eye, you can even address just the first item, let him succeed at that, and use his increased confidence to leverage the remainder of the project. 
• Ask him for a completion date. Then strongly suggest a date one week earlier (or one month earlier, if he's just being silly). Set milestones and dates for those milestones. 
• Agree on how often you will meet to assess his progress. Set a day and time and, no matter what, don't miss it or allow him to. 

By the time the project is completed, Tim will have grown tremendously, and his outlook regarding change will have changed (not completely, but it's a step in the right direction). He will also be a lot less likely to complain - and so will everyone else.

Here's the most important part: Once Tim has successfully completed the project, publicly and loudly celebrate his success. This serves several purposes. First, you are celebrating his victory over fear. He will begin to believe that he can do more than he thought he could, and at some point may even ask to take on greater responsibility. Second, his coworkers will see not only his success, but that recognition and value are bestowed on those who define issues and address them. Third, morale and culture grow, because you have shown that you value employees, want to help them grow, and reward them for taking risks.

What if Tim fails? This will happen, and it's most likely to happen Tim's first time at bat. But the worst thing you can possibly do is let him off the hook. Your regular meetings with Tim are about helping him to succeed by making sure that he hits those milestones. If you fell down on your end, acknowledge that, apologize for it, and give him the support that he needs to finish. If the failure was outside of his control, he is likely to want to throw up his hands. Don't let him. Regroup and rethink, then set new milestones to address whatever hit you unawares. If the failure was Tim's, ask him why he thinks he failed. He may hem and haw on this - remember, he doesn't want to see himself as anything but a hero - but you have to define it in order to move forward. Don't criticize him for failing. You have failed plenty of times; tell him so. The important thing is to learn from the failure. Now he has something to prove to you (and to himself), and is more likely to ask you for advice on the way.