Why Leaders Fail

7 Ways To Build High Performance Teams

Are you managing an organization and want to boost your team's performance?

Whether you are heading up a division of a major corporation, leading a governmental agency, coaching a sports team, starting a new company, or just took the position of President from your local Toastmasters, you'll need to know the secrets to building a great team.

Questions new leaders will likely face are:

How do we get people contributing unselfishly?
How do we create unity, a sense of community, and wanting to be part of the team?
What can I do to make an immediate impact?

You must have a plan. You must act. You must be decisive. You must be inspiring.

Fail to do these things and you likely will struggle to achieve your objective(s).

Questions may arise about your leadership capabilities if you do not answer difficult questions quickly. As someone who studies leaders, I recently completed a poll of the actions and strategies of great leaders who build great teams. In this study, I evaluated previous leaders of great nations, head coaches of winning franchises, and interviewed teachers and other local leaders in California. In sharing these qualities with you, the goal is to help each of us create better teams to lead to more empowered and successful organizations.

Here are our seven most successful strategies to build a great team:

1. Build a core nucleus.
2. Raise the bar of expectations.
3. Keep consistency in all things.
4. Have a singular objective, supported by three related objectives.
5. Promote people with performance success to leadership positions.
6. Recruit new winners to build around the core nucleus.
7. Create an atmosphere of fun, success, and being part of something special.

1. Build a core nucleus. If you want to build a fire, you will not succeed with one log. With two logs, you might get a fire to burn for a little while, but the fire will almost always goes out before the full energy of the logs are consumed. Yes, a fire requires three or more logs to burn efficiently. You cannot build a bonfire without three logs. So, start with your three "logs" and build a nucleus around them. Phil Jackson of the Chicago Bulls used the power of three in his "triangle offense" which featured Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippin, and Horace Grant. Pat Riley used the power of three with the Lakers' 80's dynasties with Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy as his "showtime" offense. Bill Walsh and the 80's 49er organization used the power of three with Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, and Roger Craig. The Cowboys used the power of three with Troy Aikman, Emmit Smith, and Michael Irvin in the 90's. The power of three is the key to your nucleus, and it must start there.

2. Raise the bar of expectations. Did people fail before you? Is your organization in chaos? This is a good time for you to implement your program, as people are looking for leadership in times of chaos. In times of failure, we must learn. In times of chaos, we must lead. Leaders raise the bar of expectations. Winning is the objective. Building upon success is usually the strategy. So, find a small goal, set it, and achieve it at all costs. But raise the bar. The first year, set a goal for 30% improvement. The second year, raise it again. The third year, set a goal for 100% success, with 200% effort, and watch your success grow. Jon Gruden, Coach of the Raiders from 1998 to 2002, set a goal to beat division rivals in his first year. He did that in 50% of the games, a marked improvement upon his predecessor's record. The next year, Gruden aimed for the playoffs. He missed the playoffs but his team fought valiantly. The following year Gruden's team won twelve of sixteen games and went all the way to the AFC Championship before losing to the Ravens. The next year, the Raiders lost to the Patriots in a game many felt was a gift from the referees. A step back, Gruden left. The new coach kept his nucleus. He also kept the same workout schedule, the same playbook (with some new wrinkles), and the same great players (Jerry Rice, Rich Gannon, Tim Brown) and took the team to the Super Bowl before losing to Gruden's Buccanneers. Which leads me to our next key: consistency.

3. Many leaders fail because they are not consistent. If you have a plan, and you know it is a GREAT plan, then STICK to your plan. Use consistency to grow your team. In consistency, there are three components to success:

a. consistent habits
b. consistent location
c. consistent people

Consistent habits are important for individual performance, and also important for team performance. If you hold a meeting for your organization on Tuesday at 7pm, keep it at that time and don't change it unless absolutely necessary. Location is also important. My father is a Distinguished Toastmaster, which is Toastmaster's International's top ranking of achievement. He informed me that when he stepped down from President of his organization, the new President changed locations three times in one year. Their club went from twenty-eight members to eight. When the club drops to eight Dad says "that's when they start to fail." Well, I figure a DTM ought to know a key to consistency.

I once had a sales manager who frequently pulled salespeople out of one territory, then assigned them to a different geography. The team struggled under his poor leadership. The new manager assigned both geography and vertical markets to his team, and kept those territories 80% in place for three years. His team succeeded dramatically higher than the previous manager's team.

Consistency in people is the biggest problem organizations face. The pressure to succeed is enormous -- especially when you have been failing (missing quotas, missing playoffs, blowing budgets, etc.). New leaders often have such enormous pressure to win it all in their first season as coach. I've always felt there are two reasons why relationships fail: inability to communicate and unrealistic expectations. It is no different in leadership. Reasonable expectations, clearly communicated, should result in higher success over time. However, organizations with consistently poor performance usually have an unusually high record of "firing" or "replacing" their top leaders. Organizations that succeed keep their top leaders, keep their top players, and through that loyalty attract others to their winning ways. I've noticed the biggest key with consistency in people isn't so much the exact people or the people in what position, but defining the TYPE of person for each position, so that people can come and go, but because the system is established you still succeed. We've seen this success demonstrated with the Super Bowl team New England Patriots. They have a "team" system that creates opportunities based upon a network of inter-related events. When one person drops out of position, the next comes in with knowledge of the system to fill the gap. They're winning a lot of games, so clearly it works.

4. Not knowing an objective can sabotage leaders. Have a singular objective, supported by three related objectives. Great leaders almost always strive for a singular objective. In basketball, it might be to win 50% of games. Or, it might be to attain the playoffs. A winning organization might set a goal to win their top trophy and the big game. In government, an objective might be to eliminate wasteful spending and hit a new budget figure through innovations in organization. Whatever it is, figure out what is most important, and achievable, and set that as your goal. The very best leaders go a step further and implement a SYSTEM of success. Beneath that goal, there are usually three ways to focus on daily or weekly actions, which if succeeded will lead to success of the major goal. I look at it as the singular objective is your mission. The related objectives are the goals. Achieve each goal, mission is accomplished. Fail to achieve goals, you'll know where to adjust the next season.

5. Learn from failure. Promote your successful people and learn from your failures. It is okay to fail. In fact, many organizations do not appreciate the full height of success unless they first experienced the full despair of losing. The previous examples of the Cowboys and 49ers were both preceded just several years earlier with two win seasons, with twelve or fourteen losses. To put it mildly, they were ugly. The new coach first got a quarterback, then a running back, then a receiver. And they were on their way. The way the coach found those great players was by trial and error, at first, and the players who delivered in clutch situations were promoted to those key positions of leadership. It is the same for successful sales organizations. If you wish to achieve sales success, give each salesperson an equal territory. See which one performs the best during a test period of time, and you likely have your nucleus of performers. Or, if the nucleus is established, the way to figure out who will rise above the pack is to encourage each person equally, and place them with mentors. Make sure the mentors are informed as to how to "coach" their mentored teammate. The mentors will then let you know if their teammate will make it, and also help them succeed by teaching them their own secrets to success. If people do not succeed with mentors, they might require special handling, but promoting people who repeatedly fail is not likely to result in success. Learn from failure, promote from wins.

6. Poor recruiting can be costly. Recruit new winners and surround them with winners. Sometimes we cannot promote from within. Either we are growing quickly and we must bring in new people, or the people previously in our organization left for other opportunities. Either way, we must grow from an atmosphere of success. I once was recruited from my college campus for the Businessland College Recruit training program. This program was loosely structured, yet worked on many levels. For one, my manager placed me under the supervision of the top salesperson in his branch. This was invaluable experience, as during my first three months the ace salesperson achieved the highest percentage sales success anyone had ever had in Sacramento. It was phenomenal to see the growth and excitement this success created. Other salespeople started selling successfully. Even the salespeople who struggled eventually broke out and found a way to succeed. Nobody was replaced without first shifting them onto other teams. This system created loyalty. But the old ace moved on to a new assignment. What would have happened if my manager had not recruited new people and surrounded them with winners? His success would have walked out when the ace salesman left. While he was with the branch, my manager also brought in other salespeople, and groomed the younger salespeople for success by partnering them with the veterans. It worked more than I'd have guessed. For when each previous top performer left the firm, the second or third highest performer would step in and succeed just as highly as the predecessor. A key to attract high performers is to let them know they are part of something special. If you're building something special, and the mission statement matters to the recruit, they will join your team.

7. Not having enough fun may cause you to lose top performers. Top performers like to have fun. Create an atmosphere of fun, success, and unique mission (being part of something special). If you want to win, you have to have fun. People don't have fun when they are losing. They also don't have fun if they are blamed for failures, backstabbed in communication, or treated poorly. So, eliminate poor methods of management and replace them with empowering methods of communication.

People will rise to the occasion when you empower them. How do we empower others? Let them know the expectation, create a sense of fun, urgency, and doing something special, and then coach them by letting them know they are believed in, supported, and will be looked after. How many sheep will stay in a flock where the shepherd drives one out from being in a bad mood? Like the good shepherd, look after your strays, bring them back in, feed them, and love them. Yes, love your employees. It goes against popular human resource opinion, but it is a core to ARRiiVEs mission. If we are to create more abundance, we must create more love. And love is an action word. What actions do we show? Care? Concern? Do we listen and know what makes our team want to perform? What are individual needs?

I once gained a new manager when my company merged. The old manager was reassigned to a new territory but left a short while later. Besides being affiliated with an Ivy League school, I never figured out why that manager was successful, because he never did anything to empower me or show me he listened to me or my concerns. For example, the company had failed to pay me rightful commissions because the personal in accounts payable had a bad attitude. She had decided I didn't deserve payment on the sales in question, and with my previous manager, that was as far as it went. This issue was worth $10,000 to me at the time, which was not a small amount of money to me. In my first meeting with my new manager, he asked me why I hadn't been performing much lately with my ability to sell services. I explained candidly that I was holding out on the company because the company wasn't showing me they cared about my efforts. The new manager stopped me, gained clarification, then asked for the name and phone number of the commission accounting clerk who had decided I didn't deserve payment. I then saw him pick up a phone, right then and there, and proceed to chastise this clerk for not paying "his salesperson" and asking "who are you and how could you decide to keep this man from earning his money at our firm?" She had no valid answer. I was paid five days later. My manager took care of my needs, and two months later I was at 500% of quota. I think his needs were met from that success, too.

Another manager could get people to jump through hoops for him. How? He created fun. I remember he once traded computers for box seats at a local sports arena. Yes, we took our clients there. We also took our friends and family to top notch sports events for free. It's fun to have perks from our job. It makes us want to work harder when we have fun on our job. How do we create fun? Through humor, special events, being a little goofy sometimes. The dot-coms were great at creating fun in boring atmospheres. Think about it: what's fun about computers? Not much. But what's fun when you get to work on new technology that helps people do more in new ways, and at the same time, instead of boring break rooms you can play Foosball or table tennis on your break? That's fun for many people. Some organizations launch special events, others install toys and games, others have company parties or bar-b-ques to let people know they're having fun. Sometimes, just being funny creates fun. Try putting up your goal, and explain it with humor, yet seriousness, and watch how much people embrace the new goal. As long as the humor isn't disparaging, it almost always works better than the dry approach.

As a manager of a company, show your employees that they are part of something special. At ARRiiVE, we aim to change the way business is done in the world. It sounds lofty, and people get excited about it. But if you think about it, you don't have to change 10,000 companies to change business. You only have to convince ten to change, and when they are wildly successful and when others emulate them, through the power of the "Jones" mentality, the world changes with them. How would you like to be part of a fun, exciting, successful organization who strives to make a difference? I sure do. So, I'm creating one here at ARRiiVE Business Solutions every day. Make sure to communicate what makes your organization special in each of your meetings and frequently at other times, and see how people respond.

If you are a new manager or have an organization where you want to create a great team, you now have seven tools to add to your bag of success:

1. Build a core nucleus.
2. Raise the bar of expectations.
3. Keep consistency in all things.
4. Have a singular objective, supported by three related objectives.
5. Promote people with performance success to leadership positions.
6. Recruit new winners to build around the core nucleus.
7. Create an atmosphere of fun, success, and being part of something special.

Create something special with your team and let me know about your success. I love to hear about winners and great teams. Make your team great, and you'll be considered a great leader.
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Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.

ARRiiVE Business Solutions helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939.

Copyright © 2007 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. You may republish this article only if you publish in WHOLE with the COPYRIGHT and ALL ACTIVE LINKS intact.

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What Is Collaboration?

People are so junked-up on new catch phrases in business. It seems like "collaboration" caught on as the big buzz back in the late 1990's, but it's re-emerging as something of interest. Why?

Because people will always find collaboration useful when they are building anything new.

Collaboration has been around since the dawn of time. In fact, I think of the Tower of Babel, the story in the Bible, where people from all over the world got together to create this massive tower touching the heavens. If you want to build massive projects, or communicate across various cultures, collaboration seems to be the key to making it happen faster, and more impressively. This may not always be a good thing, but we can hope to make it so. The Wikipedia definition of "Collaboration" drills deeper into the meaning of these teams:

"Collaboration is a structured, recursive process where two or more people work together toward a common goal by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Collaboration does not require decentralization. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources."

Let's look closer at Collaboration. Collaboration may not require decentralization, but to maximize it, a paradigm-shift to a new model of organizational structure is suggested.

Collaboration is another word for teamwork, in a sense. But moreover, a certain type of teamwork can accomplish almost any goal, and seemingly more effectively than people could do on their own, by utilizing the knowledge, talents, and resources of the collective group experience towards a common purpose.

I've been investigating the structure of teams for about ten years now. The most common structure of teams is to build the team from the top-down. This reminds me of the old playground system where two "popular" students pick other favorite students to be on their team from the kids standing there thinking "pick me, pick me!" Why teachers ever thought this was a good idea was beyond me. If you were picked first, you figured you were popular, while if you were picked last, you didn't even want to play (mostly due to the emotional damage to your self-confidence). But, this is exactly what business leaders, organization leaders, and education leaders are still doing to this day:

1. The people at the top of the pyramid get paid the most and have the highest and most "important" rank. 2. The people at the top pick the people under them, and so on, until you get to the ranks of sales, customer service, admin, and the mail room. And it all usually ends up in the mail room, doesn't it? Want to find out the health of a company, start there before reading the annual report. Anyway, looking at the top, everyone else in the pyramid has to answer to their direction, and either "get in-line" with the program or get out. It's not a very empowering situation, unless you're at the top. And, even if you're at the top, the experience is a bit like the Lord of the Flies, as described in the classic by William Golding, where the lieutenants often seek to tear down the chief at their first opportunity in their own greedy thirst for supposed power. As the cliche goes, "it is lonely at the top."

The situation in schools, businesses, and government organizations is much like that of this quote by Shakespeare, within King Lear - "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport". (King Lear Act IV, Scene 1[1]). Isn't that how it feels when we're in a top-down organization?

I recall watching a political debate last week, the concept of "merit pay" for teachers being discussed. My parents, who were both teachers, were watching this debate with me. My mother said, "they were discussing this merit pay thing thirty years ago. It isn't a good idea. The teachers that kiss-ass the most would be the ones promoted to higher pay and administrative positions." Well, that's kind of what happens now, anyway, but it would just make it worse by putting money behind it, wouldn't it?

I've been evaluating a new approach: the concept of turning top-down systems inside-out(SM). I believe that if our spiritual strength is at our core, then that is how an organization ought to be structured. Everything goes out from there. Plus, this allows more natural concentric circles of movement to occur. Jobs become less about the functional descriptions and more about organically and properly distributed use of talent.

I just stumbled across a book that is discussing exactly this situation in schools, called Deep Change: Professional Development from the Inside Out By Angela B. Peery. In this book, Peery makes arguments that all the pressures to "horizontal-ize" teaching methods have come "top-down" or "outside-in" when the profession of teaching is an "inside-out" affair. Is it any different for any OTHER job? It is for me. I've always felt that if I'm not SPIRITUALLY motivated, I'm not that into it. More than that, if it isn't FUN, I'm really not that into it, no matter how much they're paying me.

In a quote from page 15 from this Deep Change book, the author quotes Ann Twigg, a teacher struggling with the movement to standardize teaching. Twigg, who is described as an "exemplary, passionate teacher in her 17th year of teaching," shows uncharacteristic dissatisfaction from the teaching community:

"I'm still tremendously frustrated by my feelings about standardized testing. . . sometimes the angry feelings turn into apathetic shrugs: I never thought I wouldn't care about what I am doing. I've been waking up prior to the alarm, but not wanting to get out of bed just because I don't want to face another day at school. Who wants a teacher with these feelings? I wouldn't. Of course, my teacher self takes over by the time I arrive in the parking lot, and I give it my all. And sometimes I'm not satisfied with that! Where's the fun?"

How poignant.

I felt the same way in my final days at EMC2. I remember feeling, "where's the fun?" I remember feeling distrust in the system and in the organization who employed me. After all, this is the same company that, according to my former CEO at Data General prior to the merger, had promised to keep the company intact, keep the same teams, and move forward with the Data General company as a positive move. Two months later, my entire line of command was eliminated in ONE DAY. I remember not wanting to be there anymore. Those feelings cannot help but overtake us at some point and affect the quality of our work.

It seems that a pressure is mounting from top-down organizations to continue to cling to a broken system. But there is another pressure mounting within these organizations that is aching to be set-free.

It is the system, not the person, who is at fault in the modern organization. Moving into a post-modern organizational era, life has become more chaotic, more unpredictable. The expansive movements of open-source, grass-roots, and global dynamics are making it difficult even for the shadow leaders to control what is really happening. Why?

We've moved into an information era. From the industrial age to an information-age, the shift has occurred to an era where simply "producing something" is no longer the primary goal. It is now about how we share ideas, and how we share what we've produced; with "share" being the operative word. And that is where the model is breaking down.

Pyramid models are excellent for creating marching orders and going off and executing them. Notice my words: they sound like words you'd hear in the military. Because that is how a pyramid feels: like you've been stripped of your individual rights and made to conform to a system for a common purpose. And, last I checked, the military isn't really described by most people as spiritually empowering, or even as fun. But, within the traditional pyramid, sharing isn't a primary directive. And, the nature of rungs in the ladder, along with functional hierarchy, and pay systems that support this pyramid, all reinforce the mistrust in whether sharing is wise or a good idea. Certainly, more than one executive has had an idea stolen by a peer, in order for that peer to get ahead in the system. Other creative-types get stagnated, frustrated, and leave to try to find something better elsewhere (often only to get more frustrated with the next pyramid-system organization). And, this is also why so many women are leaving to start their own companies. Believe me, most women agree that the system is broken. And, this is another reason why we must embrace a new system: women in the workplace need to be women and not have to act like men to get along in that workplace.

Isn't about time someone stood up and talked about the elephant standing in the corner of the room? Forcing women to work a male-dominant model (pyramid) is not healthy to women. Women need a new model, based upon a structure that integrates male and female energy.

This is why it is time for a change. The change we need is to move from top-down to inside-out. I've created a model that makes it easier to facilitate this transition. It takes more than HUMAN RESOURCE buy-in to initiate this process. Sales, Customer Service, or Operational groups can start the movement. But, the core executive must buy-in, too. Truly, it requires an executive approach, as well as human-resource approach, if the organization is to succeed in completing the paradigm shift.

Why is this change a paradigm shift?

Think about it: while trying to write about the change, I am temped to write, "it requires a top executive buy-in..." See the problem? If I wrote, "It requires an inside-out buy-in from the executive to the functional roles of HR, Operations, Marketing, to the outer fringes of Sales, Customer Services, and even the Mail Room, to succeed," that requires you to RE-ORIENT your mental picture, and how you perceive the organization. Literally, this perspective reorientation turns the organization from top-down to inside-out.

So, if you're an advanced, cutting-edge thinker, and you agree with me that "yes, we need this type of model in our organization," then why not engage me to help you implement it? I'd love to help. It is my calling in life to advise world leaders how to create more spiritually aware, more productive and powerful organizations, through facilitating this paradigm shift. I'm working on software to help implement this type of change, and other tools to make it easier for organizations to implement.

Collaboration is a buzz that becomes more important when we find ways to strengthen the circle that swirls through the post-modern organization. Work is becoming defined less and less from a functional role and more and more into ways to harness our talents and resources. This is what I've meant about empowering the individual, and empowering the organization. It truly is an exciting era. We can define how to make this new model even more powerful in the days ahead. The choice is ours to accept the old, outdated model of the pyramid, or to embrace turning the top-down inside-out with the Diamond-Circle Model (TM), and truly build more collaborative, productive, and powerful organizations.
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Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.

ARRiiVE Business Solutions helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939.

Copyright © 2007 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. You may republish this article only if you publish in WHOLE with the COPYRIGHT and ALL ACTIVE LINKS intact.

More useful than a cup of espresso: SUBSCRIBE to our feed to stay "in the know" with articles like this.

Fear or Love?

Today, I spoke with a woman who has offered collaborative leadership team building coaching since 1970. She seemed quite "grounded" and centered in her approach to business and life. She was sharing her past, then I was sharing my model, business structure ideas, and collaboration tools I'm developing. We shared together for about an hour, when all of a sudden the conversation seemed to shift.

To what, you might ask?

To LOVE. She spotted the fact that I CARE DEEPLY about seeing organizations SHIFT.

And the challenge we started talking about is the biggest concern I have with anything I do at AspireNow or here with ARRiiVE Business Solutions:

How do we get organizations to STOP RULING WITH FEAR and START RULING WITH LOVE?

Isn't this our concern when entering new environments? Are they ruling with Fear or Love?

I've been employed in organizations whose leadership team literally made jokes about firing people on a weekly basis. Can you imagine that? I've been in environments where they talked about people hitting their goals or "the bosses would shut the place down" and lock the doors. Guess what? They NEVER DID shut the place down! It was just a fear-based message to try to motivate people.

I remember saying to that manager, "Fear doesn't inspire me. Love, on the other hand, DOES inspire me." He softened a little after that. The next boss sat there, smiling at the team, saying "I am here to help you succeed, make more money, and do good things for the team." The following day he told me, in confidence, that the entire team had to go, because they weren't typical for that industry (meaning, they wanted to stand for ethical business). His new methods involved using bait-and-switch tactics, something I don't condone. He lasted five months, before they brought in the next guy (who was worse, I'll add). This continued to get worse and worse until, finally, I got the heck out of there!

What was the final straw? I came back from vacation and my new boss (called affectionately by my peers, "Hitler") actually had the gall to accuse me of "not caring" about my work or being "lazy" because I'd been on vacation, took one sick day, and subsequently had surgery on an infected toe. This, all in one month. Of course, the day he accused me of these things, I was there at work, with my toe wrapped up in a bandage, on vicadin medicine just to get through the pain, doing my job. The only reason I was wanting to leave early was because I'd been invited to a wedding and it was incredibly important to several people that I be there at that wedding. He had approved my leaving early, then changed his mind as I was walking out the door! When I pointed out that I'd taken a larger share of responsbility than any other person there (I had the numbers to prove it) he told me to "get the hell out of there" and he'd see to it that I never worked there again. Keep in mind that I was his #2 salesperson at the time of this altercation.

I'll never forget how loving they were at the wedding. I said to my partner: I've never seen a more obvious example of the difference between fear and love in all my life!

The upper management later invited me back, "Hitler" later apologized, but it was too late. I never went back -- MY choice.

The type of environment described above is very toxic. At the point when I left that organization, my nerves were shot, I would wake at 3:00 a.m. in a sweat after a nightmare, and started grinding my teeth. It got ugly. If you are in an environment like this, I will encourage you to leave. Make sure you have a strategy to make money so that you don't go broke or hit hard times. But get out of there. Jobs and vocations DO EXIST where you CAN get treated right and make great money. Either start your own company or take one of those jobs. I believe that, ultimately, we'll make more money, and live longer, if we're happier and more loving.

We need to stand up for our right to BE LOVED AT WORK and TREATED WITH RESPECT FOR OUR CONTRIBUTIONS!

Why am I bringing this up? Because I believe we are spiritual beings. We are emotional beings. We are not intellectual robots who don't have feelings. Corporations must embrace this if they are to reinvent and become GREAT. It's what's required of executives to truly begin empowering their people: they must embrace both POSITIVE EMOTION and LOVING SPIRIT as part of the collective work experience.

I've been a believer for quite some time that powerful organizations have VISION. They ask better QUESTIONS. And they take ACTION. I used to describe this as VQA. But I'm going to go a step further and share that we need to add an "L" to the acronym. What does the "L" stand for? L-O-V-E. We need VQAL to have true success.

Does LOVE belong in the workplace?

Think about it. Which boss do you love the most? The boss who frequently threatened to fire you, or the boss who treated you special, listened to you, showed you respect, and led you to greatness through being a coach and a partner in your challenges? Tough question, huh!?

Which employees INSPIRE you the most?

Usually, they're the people who are most PASSIONATE or offer the most SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE. Am I right?

The people at work who've inspired me the most made me laugh. They hit numbers. They did it without lying or cheating. How? By being exceptional. My good friend, Grant Stellwagen, is the greatest salesperson I've ever met. What makes Grant such a great salesperson? First of all, he's funny. Second, he's sharp as a tack. Third, he understands the techniques of selling better than anyone else I know. He knows you have to give clients gifts to build stronger relationships. He knows you have to be creative and surprise people. He understands that you must ask intelligent questions to determine a prospect's needs. And he adds value and offers something different on every call.

Grant also knows that you can't win them all, but if you keep planting, watering, and fertilizing seeds, it is inevitable that at some point you'll grow some plants that will bear fruit. And he grew more fruit than anyone else at my company. To the tune of millions of dollars, in fact.

The last time I saw Grant, he and I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. talking in the hotel lounge and sharing ideas about what we felt was exciting about life at that time. I still remember that talk like it was yesterday. He showed me that he cared about me, my ideas, and what I was up to at that company. That's inspiring, isn't it?

Who inspires you?

I bet they are smart, fun, and loving.

If you're an executive reading this article, can I encourage you to put aside the old fear-based methods and embrace new ways to build more LOVE in your organization? It really is a better way.

In personal life, I will say that LOVE is the answer to what we're looking for.

Is it any different in business? In business, LOVE is the answer, too.
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Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.

ARRiiVE Business Solutions helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939.

Copyright © 2007 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. All Rights Reserved. You may republish this article only if you publish in WHOLE with the COPYRIGHT and ALL ACTIVE LINKS intact.

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The Demise of the Dreaded Office Cubicle - Modern Approaches to Office Design

Cubicle offices are a downer, don't you agree? With wireless networking, we are now starting to see more and more the demise of the cubicle office environments.

In reading an article at Wired Magazine, entitled, "Sorriest Looking Cubicles" the thought occurred to me, "there are NO GOOD OFFICE CUBICLES. All cubicles SUCK! They are ALL sorry-looking!"

Picture (above) from Fotolia under license.

Have I struck a nerve?


Okay, for the C-level managers at companies like DELL, IBM, HP, Google, Time-Warner, AT&T, and just about every other major corporation in existence, they'll probably read this and go "oh my God, how can he say that?" because, you see, the top officers from most companies in the world (at least, the USA) WANT you to like working in cube farms. After all, it lowers their cost of office space. And, believe me, from an Human Resources and Facilities level, Sq. Foot per employee IS an important cost factor at most companies.



But, as both an employee, and as a manager, I've never liked cubicle environments. At least, not for salespeople and creative types. I've put together a list of the problems and possible remedies, here.


The top 7 reasons cubicle environments drain your productivity:



1. I can't hear myself think in a cube farm. Too many other people are talking around me, and their discussions are highly distracting to me working at optimum level. Yes, I'm auditory, and only about 20 - 30% of your workforce is auditory. But, that's 25% of your team who is impacted by the noise/disruption factor.

2. It is impossible to have a focused high-level conversation from a cubicle environment. The CEO will tell the sales team: yes, sell high, sell wide, and you'll have better results selling. I agree. But HOW are your top salespeople (or bottom salespeople, who aspire to become top salespeople) going to get there when they can't focus or hear their conversations? I recall my earliest days selling at Businessland: when I had to make outgoing prospecting calls, I did them from the CONFERENCE ROOM. Why? Because people would walk by my cube and yell things, or conversations would make it hard to hear my critical selling conversations. The problem isn't just outgoing calls, though, as what can you do when a CEO or important prospect returns your call? When you're in a cube, the answer is NOTHING.

3. Privacy doesn't exist in cubicle environments. For people who like to operate in stealth mode, privacy is critical. This can be true for your key developers, idea people, and others who might need more security. There is no security in a cubicle environment.

4. Absence of life! I also can open my sliding window and smell the fresh air - something absent from most corporate environments. How many corporate cube farms have plants of any kind within them? You'll notice lots of cartoons, as employees fight to keep their sanity in a cube farm. I suggest planting more real plants in portable, potted containers.

5. Lack of natural light. Cubicles block natural light. False light has been proven to cause an increase in depression. Depressed employees are less productive. I guess people forget this common sense when planning their offices. How many offices have rows of fluorescent lighting overhead, the little square ceiling tiles that cover the acres of cabling running overhead, and below that is spaced the little crammed-in cubicles that people are supposed to gratefully spend all these hours slaving away for their company? I'll tell you the truth: MOST OF THEM. It's disgusting, how few companies have made the small investment into natural lighting. In my home office, I have installed natural lighting wherever possible, and use my blinds from windows that face the ocean to control my lighting throughout the day. Now, while today is foggy, most days are sunny. I happen to LOVE the sun! How about you?



6. Class-system enforced through square-footage. If the CEO has the large corner office with the conference room, administrator, and special teleconferencing system installed, and you're in a 4x6 cubicle, with one little area for your books, a picture frame, and two filing cabinets, what does this say about your position versus the CEO's position? While I agree that the CEO may have different needs and different visitors to their office, nevertheless there ought to be an office for salespeople and creative types, too. If you want to create a paradigm-shift in how you structure your company, and go from top-down to inside-out (see the Diamond-Circle model I've created and offer consulting to implement), well, you can't do it if you're stuck in the old class systems.



7. A door gives privacy, security, comfort. Cubicles have no door! Talk about the perennial open-door policy. In evaluating every company I worked where I made sales, I experienced my greatest success when I had an office with a door that closed and windows to the outside world. When I didn't have the door and windows, I maintained my success by spending 8 - 12 hours per week working from my home office, even before it was widely accepted to do so.



So, these are the top reasons why cube farms drain productivity.



However, with the advent of "wireless" technology, there is good news for office workers:


According to an article from GovTech.com: The American worker hasn't had much to celebrate lately. Wages and salaries are declining, benefits are getting the ax, unions are struggling. But there's one workplace development likely to bring joy to more than a few: The demise of the dreaded office cubicle.

What's happening in office spaces is actually a bit encouraging: major corporations, like Capital One, Google, and others, are leading a revolution in office-space design. Spaces are becoming more open, more collaborative, even, dare I say it: more ALIVE.


Do you want suggestions for ways to improve your corporate environment?


1. Drop the walls. In environments where people NEED to communicate fast and need the interaction, consider lowering the cubicle walls. This creates a natural space where people can interact together. Another way to deal with walls are to create louvred walls, that can be raised or lowered depending upon the circumstance. According to the GovTech article, employees at CapitalOne found they had 87% more productivity when they dropped the walls. Instead of emailing back and forth, they could simply talk to each other. Certain environments - especially customer support and call center types of environments, thrive with an open room format.


2. Build different offices. Where you have salespeople and creative people who need to be most effective, offer more space for these people to get quality work done. I suggest a small office for a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, and a bookcase, at minimum, for basic offices, then a series of conference rooms that facilitate collaboration. Offer employees the ability to book conference rooms for various team activities and customer-related activities. Create entire centers to spark creativity and design collaboration with customers into your environment.


3. Create revolving-offices. Offer "revolving offices" for people who come and go from remote locations and home-office environments. Just make sure you have the correct number of offices to people. The only way you can know this is to measure the amount of people, the number of hours, and divide by offices. In fact, you might go a step-further and load balance, depending upon PEAK usage.



4. Offer creative "home-office" options. I've always liked having an office to go to, but I also love working from home, because it is the quietest place to work, in my experience. I get the most done there, and can complete most of my tasks in that time, alone, when working for a company. Now that I run my own operation, I still love working from a home-office. This is a good option for companies, because they save a considerable amount on square-footage. Just make sure you create the revolving office for people to work out of when they DO come in to the office.



5. Bring in more "home-style" furniture. I remember visiting Google's office headquarters in 2002. It seemed innovative at the time to see lava lamps and bean bag chairs in Google's corporate headquarters. But, really, I think this is how offices used to be, way back. They got away from it, with cube farms. An office will make you more relaxed and comfortable (read: more productive) if you have more natural furniture to work from. Make sure you have some "comfort" pieces around the office, and make sure your chairs support healthy posture.



6. Consider collaborative spaces. How do kids collaborate? In a play room? At recess? Around conference tables? Why not create similar work environments for your teams?


Additional ideas include the following:



7. Convert fluorescent lighting to natural lighting.


8. Install skylights.


9. Create an outdoor workstation environment as much as possible.


10. Offer more security for employees (lockers, files, etc.).


11. Bring in more natural plants that can live in limited lighting environments.


12. Take brainstorming sessions to a remote environment. Create brainstorming session areas within your office space, if possible.

It is important to take into consideration HOW your team works. Do you need some people left alone? Do you want others collaborating? Do you want some alone sometimes, collaborating other times? You'll need a variety of spaces to accommodate each of these needs.



The cubicle, to me, offers the least attractive office-space option. It isn't very flexible, it is loud, and yet you can't collaborate easily with anyone. If you haven't done it yet, consider dropping the cubicles out of your office environment, create more open space, more "alive" space, and more flexible office space, and see if you don't discover a boost in productivity.



If you have additional ideas on ways organizations can improve work conditions, please contribute your comments (below).


________________________________


Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions.


For more information, contact info (at) ARRiiVE (dot) com, visit ARRiiVE.com, or call us at 1 (805) 459-6939.

Copyright © 2007 by ARRiiVE Business Solutions. References in this article to an article © 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via Newscom. No violation of trademark or copyright intended. All Rights Reserved. You may republish this article only if you publish in WHOLE with the COPYRIGHT and ALL ACTIVE LINKS intact.

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Want To Stop Getting Treated Like A Number?

1324FU#4. Is that how your company sees you?

This article is aimed at employees, as well as employers, to help do something about employees getting treated like a number, rather than a fully-functional, smart, loving, spiritually-based human being. I'm writing this to share that I've been there and I care about changing how business is conducted in the world around me. Here's the burning question nagging at me:

Have you ever worked for a company and felt like you were just a number to them?

Examples of how companies make employees feel like a number include:

1. Your ideas are put-down, stolen, or put aside by management.
2. The company only utilizes you for one core function (sales, HR, engineering, operations, administration, etc.) when you have more expertise and many more talents to contribute. Why can't they see you for who you really are?
3. All the company ever asks you about is numbers.
4. In an annual employee review (if you ever got one), your general contributions were overlooked. Instead, "highlights" focused on how you could improve numbers.

I could go on. I've had each of these things happen to me as an employee. Frankly, it's one of the reasons why being your own boss is pretty cool. Of course, on the flip side, there's the numbers. Being your own boss is great, but you have to make money and often deal with the pressure of bootstrapping to be able to sustain being the boss. So, maybe you're not as excited as others about taking the path of the entrepreneur. And, you know what? That's okay. Entrepreneurialism isn't for everyone. If that's you, what can you do?

QUESTION: How do you make a difference in getting the company you work for now to treat you more as a valuable PERSON than a NUMBER?

ANSWER: By suggesting innovative structure and value of contributions through collaborative teams.

One need I've determined is that we need to build databases of our strengths, and then build teams based around those strengths.

Another problem I've magnified is that top-down management is going to become more and more archaic as people start to grasp the concept of SQ (Spiritual Quotient) in the workplace. When I founded AspireNow in 1999, I was a pioneer in the concept that we are spiritual beings AT WORK and not just AT CHURCH or in our spiritual discipline.

SQ Matters, as much as EQ matters, as much as IQ matters. In fact, to me, SQ means more. Why? Because when CEO's talk about how they made their greatest decisions, most of them will talk about a "gut feel" above the numbers. The numbers mattered, but the GUT mattered more. Q: What is our gut? A: Our body's physical tie to our spirit. We come into the world through our belly button.

A formula to help overturn being treated like a number is to suggest to managers implementing the following mantra in the workplace:

Success = IQ + EQ + SQ.

If our SQ (Spirit) is most important, then we ought to build organizations similar to how we, ourselves, are organized. Gut (spiritual core) in the middle, Heart near the gut, eyes and ears (field, sales, customer service, website, etc.) touching prospects, arms and legs touching customers, and so forth. In other words, we need to build organizations that are INSIDE-OUT, rather than TOP-DOWN. And, sometimes, people who are NOT the C-Level are the heart and soul of a company. Those people ought to be tapped as part of the SQ collaborative team, to make sure more opportunities and challenges are discovered and addressed most efficiently.

I am bringing a model to organizations to help them implement INSIDE-OUT Structure and help create collaborative organizations that recognize the ability to move, shift, and go to the hot-hand in order to capitalize on opportunities and the challenges facing the organization. This type of model will turn Top-Down problems over and demonstrate added value in structuring to capitalize on cross-functional skill sets.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

I believe the time is now to get the word out. If you agree, share this article with as many people as you can - especially those in Human Resources and Upper Management. Let them know they'll have MORE success by being real than by treating you like a number.

Once more people see the light, the shift will take form just as the as the snowball gains momentum down the hill until this concept hits critical mass.

Post by Scott Andrews, CEO of ARRiiVE Business Solutions and host of the ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business radio talk-show. ARRiiVE helps executives improve sales, launch products and services, and build dynamic, cross-functional collaborative teams. For more information, contact info (at)ARRiiVE (dot) com.

Great Leaders: Building An Organization Utilizing The Wisdom of King Solomon

Note: this post is copyright protected Copyright © 1999-2007 AspireNow, and used with permission. Do not reprint unless you've been given specific written permission to do so by http://www.AspireNow.com.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, King Solomon, son of King David (who wrote most of the Psalms) demonstrates wisdom rarely seen among today's leaders. Among Solomon's writing credits are most of the Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and perhaps Ecclesiastes. Solomon ruled the kingdom of Israel during the era of approximately 970 – 930 BCE. He is credited in I Kings 4:30-34 with wisdom greater than Eastern mystics and Egyptian scholars. He wrote more than 1,000 songs (or poems), most of which are no longer available to us. Solomon likely wrote Psalm 72 shortly after becoming King. While the book of Proverbs contrasts wisdom with folly, Solomon reportedly spoke 3,000 proverbs, and various kings all over the earth sought out Solomon for his knowledge. And Ecclesiastes contains some of the strongest philosophical insights into the human condition contained in the Bible. Any number of these writings can serve as inspirational texts for anyone aspiring to leadership positions.

Regardless of one’s beliefs and religious practices, Solomon’s ideas about how to build a kingdom form a relevant metaphor that we can easily apply to society’s secular world. Today, special interest groups, in the name of freedom of speech and plurality of all religions, are intent upon corralling religion into certain religious centers and away from government, business, and society. However, the path to building a kingdom, according to Solomon, is quite different. No matter what religion a person may or may not hold sacred, peeking behind the veil of knowledge possessed by Solomon illuminates ways to lead during a time so desperate for true leadership.

This article describes the methods Solomon utilized in taking power, the political savvy he demonstrated in allying with key leaders and countries, and the swift yet fair way he dealt with dissidents. Learn how to build your own organization with the wisdom contained in this Great Leader series article, by AspireNow.

Read more here: http://www.aspirenow.com/leader_0902_king%20solomon's%20wisdom%20to%20building%20a%20kingdom.htm

Time Wasters in Corporate America?

Every now and then an article comes up that catches my eye. Today, an article on wasting time in corporate environments lit up - because I hate wasting time. Time is the one resource we can never get back once it is gone.

The interesting thing about this report, sponsored and published by AOL and Salary.com, is the disparity between the amount of time employers (or HR) thought employees waste, and the amount of time employees actually admitted to wasting.

The report, originally published in 2006, quotes the following:

Average hrs. American worker actually wastes is 1.70 hrs.
Average hrs. American workers are expected to waste by HR .94 hrs.
Difference between expected and actual time wasted = .76 hrs.

That is 197 hrs. per year wasted MORE than HR people think is going to be wasted. Multiplying that out by the Average American worker's annual salary $16.86 per hour = $3,321 x the total number of American workers (non-farm) 135 million = $448.4 Billion cost to companies.

Wow. Okay, does it really matter? To a lessor extent, in every company, yes, it does.
Time wasted, to me, means one of three things:

1. Employee is bored, lazy, ADD, or underutilized.
2. Manager is not paying attention to how employee spends their time.
3. Employer is not structured to empower their employees.

Number one is somewhat rectifyable. Even lazy people will work harder if they are motivated. It is up to an employer to utilize their people's skillsets. Although, if you're an employee reading this and you're just not giving your best because, well, no reason at all, then shame on you. Get it together, work hard, do your best no matter where you are. But, the reality is, I think most employees actually DO want to contribute.

So, let's look at #2 and #3. #2 Manager is not paying attention to how employee spends their time. Well, if the manager is wasting time, too, this may be part of the problem. But, deeper than that, managers ought to know, at least to some extent, what employees are up to. There are ways to know: telephone reports, cell phone expenses, lunch expenses, customer reports, one-on-one meetings, etc. If a manager doesn't look at these to know that (a) the employee is actually doing work, and (b) the employee is putting the production or not, then the manager is in the wrong job. A manager who is motivating their team and utilizing their talents to the fullest will generally be the most successful manager. So, aim at ways to motivate and empower your team so they can make you the successful manager you want to be.

Last, #3 - Employer is not structured to empower their employees. This is the problem most organizations in America are struggling with today. EMPOWERMENT. Why? Well, they structure like a pyramid -- almost all of them. And, pyramid structures are great for creating an army of robots, but they aren't great for enabling people to be creative and innovative.

The solution to that problem? Structure in a new way. We're working on a structure enabling Semantic Collaboration to occur. Semantic Collaboration is a term we coined after reading about Web 3.0 Search becoming "semantic search" and relating what we're doing to build collaborative teams. Semantic Collaboration builds dynamic teams based upon skills and abilities rather than job description and title. It is a refreshing way to treat people. And, from our research, people respond with more innovation and higher productivity when semantic collaboration is embraced by an organization. So, for many organizations, structuring more creatively would allow far more innovation and productivity. I've published an article on a model of collaboration I call the Diamond-Circle model, which is the first step to implementing semantic collaboration in your organization.

The last key to avoiding waste of time is to promote an atmosphere of collaboration, contribution, and creativity. People ought to be able to waste *some* time if it is how they recharge their batteries, create friendships that allow higher quality of work, and build teams. So, that type of time may actually not be a waste, at all.

If you're in HR and wondering how to deal with these challenges, reach out to organizations focused on improving structure, process, and collaboration. If you're in upper management, avoid focusing solely on numbers. People ought to be rated for their human factor, too. But consider structuring from the inside-out, rather than top-down, to enable more collaboration and go to the "hot-hand" to meet the challenges and opportunities for your organization.

Last, if you're an employee, for pete's sake, either find a job that you love, or create one that you won't want to waste your time away -- after all, your time is your own. And, as Shakespeare once wrote, "to thine own self be true."

Are you struggling with high growth or massive change?

Have you noticed that most organizations are structured like a pyramid?

While the pyramid is useful to get many people following specific orders in a short amount of time, there is a problem with the pyramid stifling innovation and leaving people wondering "what else is there?" about their job.

Have you ever thought up an idea that could make or save your firm a lot of money, then sent that idea to your boss, then only have that boss "steal" your idea and claim it for their own?

I have. I know the feeling.

How are you keeping abreast with change? If you're like most busy executives, you're not able to cope with the massive amounts of information hitting your organization. We studied this and through evaluating usage of a business model we call the Diamond-Circle, we believe our results indicate your organization can not only stay on top of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing you today, but also move from being REactive to PROactive in tackling your biggest obstacles to growing a succesful organization.

How does it work? Well, the Diamond-Circle is quite simple, actually. Much like the "Triangle Offense" utilized by Phil Jackson, Head Coach of the Los Angeles Lakers (winner of SIX NBA titles on two different teams), the Diamond-Circle enables you to build teams around "hot hands" within your company. Your core is in the middle, not the top. Functions and Staff evolve around this core, depending upon skill set, not job title or category. The idea is to build a skills database that allows your team to respond to new opportunities, react to competitive threats, and build new programs based around specialized knowledge, skill sets, and other key contributing factors we've determined are useful in building interactive organization teams.

While the database might need to be tweaked by the type of organization you are operating within, there are basic functions that are always replicated across teams.

The value in utilizing a structure like this is that you build more empowerment. People's ideas on the teams are highly valued, and they can contribute in a safe environment without risk of termination, idea-theft, or other nasty things that typically happen in a pyramid environment.

In addition, your organization's ability to innovate is turned back on. Since when does the "your suggestion here" box work in a modern organization? Every "WIFFM (what's in it for me) meeting I ever intended was a way for a company to determine who was the squeaky wheel and get rid of people, rather than actually gather true innovation. Sound familiar?

I care about making a difference. I care about seeing human resource managers actually DEVELOP their employees, rather than just being the screener/protection/firing agent that HR represents in most organizations today. If you think I'm generalizing, well, then prove me wrong. I've lost count the number of "nice" human resource agents who entered HR to make a difference, only to find that all they do is "process" people, corporate rules, and firings. Isn't it nice to get smiled at when you're being "down-sized?"

Sarbanes-Oxley just made it worse, too. It seems to me that Human Resources managers would jump at the chance to truly make a difference and get teams working in their organization the way they envisioned when they entered their profession. HR isn't alone. Sales VP's struggle to motivate their teams to do more than take orders. CEO's struggle to stay on top of challenges to their organizations. Operations managers struggle with creating new ways to delivering solutions in the face of risk that a competitor will innovate and develop a way to beat them.

Innovation is an organization-wide issue.

By turning your organization from top-down to inside-out you dramatically change the way you can relate as teams. We're developing a software model to make this system even easier to implement. Want to get involved? Email me and I'll send you my non-disclosure agreement. In the meantime, I'm helping organizations build structure that sets-up innovation from the get-go. We've got to get innovative in a global economy. It's the only way to truly succeed in the face of high growth and turbulent change.

What do you think? Could the Diamond-Circle help your organization? Are you struggling with change? High growth? Ways to stay ahead of quick-and-nimble competitors? I welcome your feedback on this matter.