Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Your business reflects you

Michael Gerber, author of 'The E Myth Revisited,' suggests that your business is nothing more than a reflection of who you are.  Most entrepreneurs are a mixture of entrepreneur, manager and technician.

Gerber advocates clarifying what the entrepreneur wants the business to look like in a few years. From that vision (Primary Aim), he makes suggestions as to how to build the business prototype.  The processes that are components of the business development process include:

1. Primary Aim - Your primary aim is what you want your life and your business to look like - it is beginning with the end in mind.

2. Strategic objective - a very clear statement of what your business has ultimately to do for you in order to achieve your primary aim. It is not a business plan but rather a product of your Life Plan, as well as your business Strategy and Plan. Your business strategy and plan provide the structure within which your business is intended to operate over time to fulfill your Life Plan.

3. Organizational strategy - organize around responsibilities and accountabilities. Look at each position as though it were a franchise prototype of its own. Consider it a system, which needs to be innovated, quantified and orchestrated. Produce an operations manual.

4. Management strategy - this is a system designed into your prototype to produce a marketing result.

5. People Strategy - the way you communicate your company's 'game'. It starts with your Primary Aim and your Strategic Objective, and continues through your Organizational Strategy and the operations manual.

6. Marketing Strategy - this is defined totally by what your customer wants.  This is based on demographics (who) and psychographics (why he buys).

7. Systems Strategy  - everything is a system. In a business there are hard systems (colors etc.), Soft Systems (ideas) and Information Systems (inventory control, cash flow etc.).

Get started by knowing you better by taking some online self-assessments at:
www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com

Then discover your Primary Aim and create your Life Plan, by visiting: www.LifeSignature.com

Coping with higher gas prices

As energy prices continue their recent rapid surge, the State of Hawaii is imposing a cap on rising gasoline prices--the first such move in the US since the early 1970s.

Both oil and natural gas are in heavy demand by the fast-growing economies of China and India, and both have supply bottlenecks. Market forecasters are warning that a cold winter could push oil and natural gas prices even higher.  The US government estimates that the average residential bill will be 23% higher than it was a year ago.

Crude oil for October delivery is now above the $67.  Adjusted for inflation, it is the highest crude has traded since November 1982.  Year-to-date, crude is now up 55%.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2005

Why Business Coaching?

In today's fast-paced global economy, companies are finding they need to quickly locate the best person to step in and fix a situation.  Someone who can start this week, stay until the problem is solved and operations are up and operating properly. So, who do they call?

Not consultants who give advise and walk away.  Not recruiting firms who will spend months searching for the right person for the job.  They call an outside business coach or contract interim manager who hits the ground running, works with local managers on the project and stays until the change is complete.

As a recovering management consultant, at some point it seemed to me that solutions for client problems seldom became a permanent fix---especially when local leadership blind spots prevented seeing why the problem arose in the first place.

So, I began doing more business coaching, helping executives and professionals grow and excel in their personal and professional lives.  Yet, few clients seem to know what a business coach is and does; they continue to categorize me as a management consultant.  And that's OK.  The waters get muddy around the roles we play in changing times.

Today, clients want to turn to someone they know and trust, someone who has the experience and political savvy to mentor and coach their managers through their difficult challenges.  The advantage of managers being guided to solve their own problems is: The business coaching learning experience prevents the problem from recurring.

John G. Agno, Certified Executive & Business Coach, www.MentoringandCoaching.com

Leadership Burnout

Confidence and energy are leading indicators of corporate performance.

As leaders become de-energized and lose confidence in themselves, these emotions are transferred to employees.  Employee engagement and long-term improvements in corporate performance can't be accomplished with a burned out, low energy and low confidence leadership team.

Leadership Pulse research shows that, across the board, leaders' energy at work is going down and their confidence is declining. The Leadership Pulse research comes from a sample of over 4,000 executives who participate in short, real-time, eePulse surveys conducted every two months. In the May 2005 survey, the business confidence of worldwide executives in their own personal leadership and management skills slipped to 88% from 92% in the summer of 2004. While the confidence in their firm's ability to change as needed dropped to 56% from 65%.

Compared to scores from last year at this time, the overall energy reported by executives dropped from 6.72 to 6.25.  The percent of people reporting to be in the overall, "high-energy" zones dropped from 62% to 53%.  "We've actually seen over the last year a continuous trend downward in these numbers," said Dr. Theresa Welbourne, president and CEO of eePulse, and an adjunct professor of executive education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  "I think the people issue is starting to come to the forefront of organizations' radar screens. They can't take it for granted anymore, but they don't have the bench strength to really deal with the issue."

What is burnout?  Find out at: http://home.att.net/~coachthee/Archives/burnout.html

Broadband hits critical mass

Today an estimated 36 million U.S. homes have superfast Internet connections.

People want more flexibility in how they get information.  Rather than having to sit in front of the tube at 7PM, most viewers want the option of watching anytime, from anywhere there is an Internet connection. 

While the average TV news viewer is around 60, a much younger audience is tuning in to the Web.  More than 67% of those who use the Internet for news are under 50 and 36% are under 30, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.  And just about all American teens have cell phones to learn what's happening of importance to them through RSS news-gathering services.

Are you receiving our coaching tips by RSS today?      

Housing downturn economic impact

The housing boom has been an enormous boost to the U.S. economy....spurring construction, increasing the net worth of millions of families and allowing Americans to borrow against the rising value of their homes.

In the last three years, from 2002 to 2004, homeowners who refinanced their mortgages took out $400 billion in extra cash which was pumped back into the economy.  Mark Zandi, chief economist at www.Economy.com, a forecasting firm in West Chester, PA, says the housing surge accounts for nearly 40% of the U.S. economy over the past two years.

The question is how much damage will the upcoming housing downturn inflict on the economy and the price of your home?

A study of regional U.S. housing bubbles by Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., an Arlington, VA brokerage firm, found that in the period from 1987 to 1994, bubbles in 42 metropolitan areas lasted anywhere from one to 31 quarters.  Median house prices subsequently fell by as much as 39% but in some areas, like San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Jose, they didn't fall at all.

Edward Leamer, an economics professor at the University of California Los Angeles, thinks a housing downturn could "kick the economy into slow growth and possibly an outright recession."  He counts 10 declines in residential investment since World War II.  Eight of them, he says, provided the early warnings for recessions.

For more on the bursting of the real estate bubble, go to: http://home.att.net/~coachthee/whats_new/index.html 

Source: The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2005

Company founders letting go

It is always a challenge for an entrepreneur to step aside so that professional managers can be hired to take the venture to the next level. 

In high-tech ventures where venture capital money is required, the founder-CEO quickly discovers the cost of external financing includes being replaced by a "professional" CEO.   Here in the fly-over zone (Ann Arbor, MI), when the high-tech venture looks like it will be successful, the East or West Coast venture capitalists force the selection of an experienced professional CEO from their local pool of leadership talent and move the venture to one of the two coasts. 

To reduce the chance of disruption within the company culture, due to a founder-CEO loss, the board may attempt to invent an appropriate non-CEO position.  However, the replaced entrepreneurial founder usually stays here in the fly-over zone and becomes involved in another start-up venture---partially financed with his or her new pile of cash.

Many founder-CEO's decide to die in office because of being emotionally attached to the company they started and the fun they have being in control.   This is true even though the founder agrees that s/he doesn't have the leadership skills required for the CEO job.  That is why the death of a founder can be the best thing that happens to many a company.

For more on the Achilles' heel of small business owners, go to: http://home.att.net/~coachthee/Archives/smallbusiness.htm

Leadership Development Paradox

A survey of 3,000 leaders and associates in 117 organizations reports that 63% plan to increase spending on leadership development programs that 75% of HR executives surveyed don't give a high quality rating to.

The paradox of spending more on what's not working is due to leadership development being seen as a classroom event. Yet, you don't fix people by sending them off to training. Managers need ongoing coaching to get in the habit of being good leaders.

The survey reported that two-thirds of the respondents said leaders at their company exhibited at least one potentially fatal flaw or "derailer"--a personality attribute that interferes with leadership effectiveness.  Derailers are more personality-oriented than skill-based and are more difficult to change than teaching someone a new skill.

For all the money spent on them, we still don't know if leadership programs work.

Bottom Line: Leadership development is self-development.  Learning how to not micromanage, not be overly concrete, not fail to explicitly state expectations and other unproductive inter-personal behavior only happens through the increased self-awareness gained in a personal coaching or mentoring relationship.

“The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)

Sources: Leadership Paradox by Warren Bennis in October 1, 2004, CIO/Insight and Assessment of the state of corporate leadership by Bridgeville, PA-based Development Dimensions International

Happiness

"I'll be happy when...." is the way many people think they are living their lives. Yet, happiness is not something that happens to you. Happiness is inside you now. You are motivated from within. You only have to allow happiness to surface.

Happiness = K (knowing who you are) X D (discovering your life's work) X L (learning not to tolerate what's not important).

That's Coach John Agno's formula for happiness--know yourself, your true calling and that you get what you tolerate.

• As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will.  You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time.
• You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken.  You'll fight with your best friend.  You'll blame a new love for things an old one did.  You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love.
• So take many pictures, laugh often, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

For more on happiness and living a life of passion, go to: www.LifeSignature.com

 www.TestforLove.com

For what is this thing called love, go to: www.WhatisLove.info 

Leadership confidence trends downward

The Leadership Pulse research comes from a sample of over 4,000 executives who participate in short, real-time, eePulse Surveys conducted every two months.  In the May 2005 survey, the business confidence of worldwide executives in their own personal leadership and management skills slipped to 88% from 92% in the summer of 2004.  While the confidence in their firm's ability to change as needed dropped to 56% from 65%.

"We've actually seen over the last year a continuous trend downward in these numbers," said Dr. Theresa Welbourne, president and CEO of eePulse, and an adjunct professor of executive education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  "I think the people issue is starting to come to the forefront of organizations' radar screens.  They can't take it for granted anymore, but they don't have the bench strength to really deal with the issue."

To gain success at work and in life, it is important to build leadership capability. 

Here are some places to start: www.LeadershipTips.info, www.WhatisLeadership.info, www.MentoringandCoaching.com and www.CoachThee.com