5 Top Gurus Talk Innovation Principles, Practices

– Sandy kendall, CIO

August 15, 2001

The 2001 cio-100 honorees represent all kinds of innovation, from new and effective developments in products and business processes to new relationships within and among enterprises. For insights into how companies can weave innovation throughout their businesses, we asked several thought leaders to address issues in their particular area of expertise. We check in with consultant Thomas Kuczmarski on product development teams. Author Gary Hamel comments on strategic approaches to success in a postindustrial era. Boston University professor Anita McGahan speaks on the importance of relationships, and metrics expert Howard A. Rubin addresses the necessity of measuring innovation. Finally, author Michael Schrage shares his thoughts on the effect of the Internet on innovation.

From their different perspectives, these thinkers agree that innovation must be an integral part of every enterprise, undertaken consciously and deliberately, for business success and longevity.

Thomas Kuczmarski

Avoid the five deadly sins of new product teams

INNOVATIVE CORPORATIONS TODAY are often defined as having the ability to develop breakthrough, new-to-the-world products that expand market opportunity and accelerate revenue growth. Unfortunately, 70 percent to 80 percent of new product introductions crash and burn in their first year. How can corporate America avoid a new products future consisting of boring line extensions and "me too" competitor knockoffs?

One of the first steps should be taking a different approach to assembling and managing the teams tasked with developing new products and services. In many cases the failure of new products can be directly attributed to the ineffectiveness of the teams assigned to create them. Based on our experience and those of various cross-functional team experts, we’ve identified five deadly sins of new product teams.

The Visionless Team: It is amazing just how many new product projects are launched with no game plan. Without a clearly defined and agreed on set of goals and success criteria linked to the company’s overall strategy, a new product team cannot determine what success looks like.

The Wrong Team Leader: Many companies still fall into the trap of choosing a project leader based on seniority instead of ability. New product leadership requires a unique skill set, different from that required to run an existing business.

The "Are You Serious?" Syndrome: This is exactly what team members say when they’re tasked with developing breakthrough innovation that will change the future of the company in only two months’ time-with no relief from their day-to-day responsibilities. Companies that take new product development seriously allow at least four months for a new products project and relieve team members of at least half of their daily job functions.

The Revolving Door: It’s a month into the project when a "business emergency" develops that requires the immediate attention of two team members for the next three weeks. But don’t worry, replacement members have been assigned! This is a momentum killer. In successful projects, once the team is selected, it stays intact until the end.

A Motivationless Environment: Developing a rewards and compensation structure to motivate team members is critical to the success of current and future innovation efforts. Sometimes the best motivators are the nonmonetary ones, such as face time with senior management. But that requires senior management involvement. New product success is not solely the task of the project team.

Gary Hamel

Companies need to synthesize industrial and postindustrial virtues

COMPANIES INHERITED AN IMPORTANT SET of virtues from the industrial era: diligence, efficiency, replication, control and operational excellence in general. If you go back before the industrial era, industries were characterized by few economies of scale and mostly small and inefficient enterprises. The great contribution of the industrial era was the invention of the large-scale industrial company. Virtues that characterized those companies will always be important but are becoming proportionately less so. In an age where business models decay with surprising speed, a new set of virtues will be required. These include creativity, imagination, diversity, speed, openness and the capacity for continual right-angle turns.

In recent years some individuals have attempted to characterize these two contrasting sets of virtues as old economy and new economy, but I’ve argued that those are misleading characterizations. Every so-called new economy company is right now trying to master the virtues of the industrial era, and every industrial age company is trying to master the new virtues of creativity, imagination and so on. It seems to me that the real challenge is to build organizations that represent a perfect synthesis of industrial and postindustrial virtues.

While important, most of the virtues that we have inherited from the industrial age bring with them many side effects. For example, in the industrial era, variety was often seen as the enemy-a variant from a quality standard or a production schedule was seen as a bad thing. All too often this kind of thinking led to a completely unhealthy devotion to conformance and alignment.

A second belief we inherited from the industrial era was that a company could be defined by its business model. Xerox sold copiers, Ford made cars, and Coca-Cola sold soft drinks. Yet if a company hopes to capture a disproportionate share of tomorrow’s opportunities, it must learn to continually reinvent its most basic definition of what it is. For example, Coca-Cola has been late to adopt most of the major beverage trends in the last decade-fruit-flavored teas, designer waters, sports drinks and new-age beverages. It seems that Coca-Cola defines itself more as a cola company than a beverage company; it has become imprisoned inside a restrictive definition of its scope and charter.

What distinguishes a postindustrial enterprise from its industrial era predecessors is its ability to build and exploit three new sources of capital. Traditionally we have thought of companies as being composed of structural capital (facilities, networks, factories), intellectual capital (competencies, patents and intangibles) and financial capital. Yet structural, intellectual and financial capital do not create new wealth; they are themselves inert. To create new wealth one must continually reconfigure, redirect and redeploy these resources. For that to happen a company must build three new types of capital: imagination capital (the ability to imagine entirely new uses for the company’s structural, intellectual and financial capital), entrepreneurial capital (the incentives and skills that engender the courage and capability to innovate) and relationship capital (the complex network of social interaction, both within the company and between it and other companies). These catalysts for wealth creation are the only insurance a company can buy against the risk of irrelevancy in a discontinuous world.

Anita McGahan

When adopting new technologies, be careful not to move too slow or too fast

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED IN OUR RESEARCH is that-in many industries-the challenge is not in seeing how trends and dynamics will affect long-term industry structure. Twenty years ago, it was clear that deregulation of financial services, transportation and utilities would radically alter the structures of those sectors. Today, it’s clear that digitalization will eventually lead to the widespread commercialization of radical new products and services across the economy. Many industry leaders will have to invest in a broad range of new capabilities to succeed.

So the difficulty is not in seeing the trends; it’s in getting the timing right. Many chief executives think constantly about the risks of missing a new technology. But it can be equally risky to move too early-you might commit to technology that becomes obsolete, for example. Other early mover risks include overspending on experiments and diluting the organization’s brand image through false starts on new product introductions.

One common approach to dealing with these challenges involves experimenting by setting up separate divisions to take advantage of new technologies. Many retailers have dealt with e-commerce opportunities on the Internet by establishing Web organizations separate from their mainline businesses. The intention is to integrate the Web organization once the return on investment is clear.

A second common approach involves undertaking major initiatives within specific parts of a company. For example, several major automobile companies have created separate intranets to streamline inventory management across dealerships, to improve customer financing operations and to procure auto parts at the lowest possible costs.

Both approaches-separate organization and functional integration-can be either enormously successful or abysmally unsuccessful. The separate organization can be less disruptive to the core business in the short run and can also provide a company with the chance to experiment. As a result, the returns on innovation are typically deferred. Functional integration can lead to shorter-term rewards to innovation, but it can also be enormously disruptive to the core business and can raise the stakes if the technology fails. The most innovative companies cope with these trade-offs by defining objectives and then measuring progress rigorously. For companies experimenting in separate divisions, this requires devising performance criteria that allow for experimental failures that deliver critical information about the viability of new technologies. A failed experiment is a success when it reveals underlying market demand for a new product or when it shows the true costs of a new process. An experiment is a true failure when nothing is learned.

Howard A. Rubin

Companies can measure innovation for competitive benchmarking

THERE IS LIKELY NO GREATER CHALLENGE for businesses and their technology organizations today than to balance the strains of the uncertain economy with the demands for sustainable innovation. Clearly, measures are needed to manage the whole portfolio of enterprise investments of which the innovation portfolio is a key-but not necessarily heavily funded-component.

The measurement of innovation itself requires a balanced view. Innovation cannot be measured simply by looking at the results of innovation: marketplace firsts, ROI, changes to revenue and profitability. The measurement of innovation must cover an enterprise’s full innovation network.

This network includes:
Innovation activity
Innovation management
Innovation performance
Innovation results

The measurement of innovation activity concerns the amount of work that is going on. Its focus is the current level of activity and the rate of change in activity in all innovation areas-from internal R&D to partnership arrangements to separate entities and ventures that are totally external, through the stages of ideation, conceptualization, development, and rollout and benefits capture.

In some ways this is also like a factory model indicating work in progress, work waiting in the queue, and work that has actually rolled out. In other ways the measures are more esoteric, for example, measuring the rate of increase of a company’s innovation capital-ideas, documents and exchange of information within the innovation network itself.

Analyzing innovation management focuses on the operation of the innovation network: How big is it; how many partners are involved; how much is happening internally and externally; how much money, resources and personnel are flowing through the network, and at what rate?

Innovation performance analyses are analogous to measures of yield of an investment portfolio. This essentially involves assessing the total value of innovation (revenue growth, income, market positioning and, most important, shareholder value) against the total cost of innovation. It also has a more ethereal component in that innovation performance also needs to be measured in the realm of impact on the workplace and mind-set of the enterprise.

Innovation results measures are those used to guide the growth and investment in innovation itself. They focus on looking at the mix of activity, management and performance. This is also where the value of innovation comes in. The enterprise must look at the business growth and shareholder value created and attributed to the innovation portfolio versus the standard business portfolio. It is where the results of technology-driven innovation versus process or product innovation must be considered.

Perhaps the ultimate use of innovation measures is for competitive benchmarking. Companies must explicitly manage their innovation portfolio to either outpace, stay abreast of or trail their competitors. It is the ability to support agility in innovation that will likely be the determinant of business success in the early 21st century.

Michael Schrage

How to use the Internet to advance innovation

DECISIONS ABOUT APPROACHES to the Internet were made at a time when there was a market mania. It’s one thing to make understandable mistakes and another to err by the orders of magnitude we saw. "Irrational exuberance," as it was described, was an understatement. Thinking something is twice as good as it really is is irrational exuberance, but thinking it is 100 times better than it really is is insane delusion. There’s something wrong with not testing innovation metrics against common sense.

The fundamental aberration is not just in valuations but in behaviors associated with how businesses want to create and manage value. Pure play? Brick-and-clicks? Spin-offs? Physical and virtual worlds should be complements, rather than one dominating the other. We’ll see that tension and trade-off played out for generations.

A lot of organizations also had difficulty confronting the question of centralizing or decentralizing. In pure, raw, economic and financial theory, private B2B auctions should be the most efficient way of acquiring commodities or services. But in reality, human relationships can still trump economic efficiency. Dealing with one familiar person whom you think you can trust has some economic value. The fundamental tenet that the majority of businesses make the majority of their decisions based on rational criteria is a big, fat lie.

What I am finding now, though, is a new sophistication about the business fundamentals. As companies discover clever, innovative ideas, they ask, "How do we integrate this?" rather than immediately saying, "Let’s spin this off to make a fortune." Here’s an example of how crazy that latter model can be: What happened when everybody in the office got their own phone for the first time? The nature of communications changed. But did we spin off the telephone division and run it separately?

The Internet is a medium that lets organizations better decide what kind of innovator they want to be. Will they keep up with the Joneses, redefine the marketplace or have as many channels as possible? And how are they going to invest-all by themselves? Are they going to draw in customers? Key suppliers? Channels, or not? Independent of technology, these changes are about the culture of the organization.

The more choices you have, the more your values matter. What kind of innovator do you want to be? How do you map that onto the Internet? Those are painfully simple questions that organizations weren’t answering. They preferred to imitate the apparent success of someone else rather than to be introspective about what they should do: monkey-see-monkey-do innovation management.

But now people have to rethink these things or else. Until recently, everybody thought, We’ll fall behind, get crushed. That’s what manias do. After you’ve had a binge you wake up with a headache. Some swear they’ll never have another drink. Others have the hair of the dog. And there will always be a few folks who start frantically searching for the next bar....

© 2007 CXO Media Inc.

Excerpt from Chapter 2 of
Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies

The most effective standards of morality, when it comes to Purpose, are internally consistent. They do not contradict themselves. They are also relevant; they speak to the decisions that leaders are trying to make right now. And they agree with our sensibilities; they appeal to our ideas about what is right and what is worthwhile. As such they create a sense of obligation.

…

Morality is personal. And there are many personal reasons why an individual leader might develop a particular purpose for a business, firm or organization. The four Purposes at the heart of this book are not the only possible purposes one might choose—as we’ll see, there are many others. But these four are by far the most likely to engender success. Different people, of course, are likely to be attracted to different Purposes, and they will be drawn to environments reflecting those Purposes. See which of these descriptions apply to you.

DISCOVERY: ADVENTURE’S CHALLENGE

Discovery put men on the moon, America on the map and the dot coms in business. It involves a love of the new and the innovative, and it animates many technological businesses. At Sony, the “joy of technological innovation” was explicitly stated by its founder as one of the reasons for the company’s existence, and innovation has consistently driven 3M.

Many of the dot com entrepreneurs were driven by intellectual curiosity; they believed they were reinventing their industries, economics and indeed themselves. There were no constraints: as an employee or inventor, what you did was your own decision. You created yourself in every choice you made. Those who remained hamstrung by traditional economics or ways of doing things were not only foolish, but even immoral in their refusal to face the wide range of options open to them. The dot com entrepreneurs genuinely believed in a moral imperative to transform the world though discovery.

This type of Purpose and morality is rooted in the intuition that life is a kind of adventure. We are free and should not be bound by convention. When we live authentically, we are constantly seeking out and creating the new. But this does not mean constantly changing course. Precisely because we are creating something, precisely because we have chosen the course we have embarked on freely, we are committed to pursue that course consistently. The best reason for staying with an action is that we have freely chosen it.

This is the intuition of the existentialist, which was first articulated by Søren Kierkegaard in Denmark in the early nineteenth century. Individuals must take responsibility for their choices and cannot hide behind convention or rules. In the last analysis each individual has to make their own choices, if only to decide which rules to accept.

The emphasis on our complete freedom of choice and our resulting commitment to the consequences of our choices recurs again and again in the writings of existentialist philosophers. It emphasizes the importance of the individual and applauds his constant attempt to break out of conventional ways of doing things. We must “think of each situation afresh,” proclaimed Jean-Paul Sartre, “and try and see . . . what ought to be done for the best. . . . We must really decide for ourselves . . . remembering we could decide anything.”

Tom Watson of IBM would have agreed with this idea: “THINK” was the slogan that he plastered up all around the company’s offices. He recognized that he could not hide behind convention, and he would have to live with the consequences of his decisions – which took the company to the edge of bankruptcy on more than one occasion.

Discovery is a difficult principle to live by because humans tend to want to identify with something else, another group, say, or corporate body. They have a tendency to accept external rules governing behavior and thought. The existentialists recognize this: Sartre writes that the freedom resulting from limitless discovery is unbearable, precisely because we are no longer in a position to say, “I couldn’t help it.” Discovery requires a constant openness, which brings pain as well as joy. Nonetheless, for those who accept this Purpose, there is a morality that transcends the pain, and a keen appreciation for the accompanying freedom and power. In each choice we make, we have the potential for discovering a new world.

EXCELLENCE: VIRTUE’S FULFILLMENT

Excellence built the great cathedrals of Europe and today’s most successful professional and creative businesses. It implies standards, like those of an artist, defined by the craft itself rather than by the customers; it creates a picture of a never-ending struggle to achieve ever higher standards. Medieval craftsmen spent as much time carving angels that would be invisible to spectators on the ground as they did on the cathedral’s more prominent ornaments, because God would see them too. Excellent businesses prefer to turn away customers rather than compromise their quality standards. Publishing businesses such as The Economist, although theoretically interested in the greatest possible profit, are in practice strongly driven by a passion for truth and intellectual integrity.

Not that the pursuit of excellence and profit maximization need conflict: Warren Buffett, who we will consider in detail later, is one of the best examples in modern business of both.

This type of Purpose is rooted in the belief that excellent performance in our role in life represents the supreme good. If you care about excellence, you are automatically part of a community; someone outside of yourself must exist to judge your contribution. If excellence is your priority, you should cultivate your character in such a way that you can flourish in your community.

Aristotle articulated this thought in Athens in the fourth century B.C. His audience was young men who were to become citizens, and the ideal of citizenship and of the “polis” or city-state to which citizens belonged was real and powerful.

In his scheme, the ultimate end of human activity is “eudaimonia,” which is sometimes translated as “happiness,” but is perhaps closer to “fulfillment,” “flourishing” or “success.” Implicit in this idea is the view that man has a function, with eudaimonia as the fulfillment of that function. But we do not achieve fulfillment simply by aiming for it; instead we must cultivate the “virtues.” These are not abstractions of good behavior; rather they are traits of character, which lead us to behave in a way that contributes to our success.

Aristotle has been called the eternal optimist. In his scheme success and virtue are closely entwined, in contrast to the situation common in the modern world where we often draw a sharp distinction between ends and means. For Aristotle, the end (success) cannot be understood in the absence of the means (virtue). To my mind, Warren Buffett is perhaps the most powerful example in modern business of this aspect of Aristotelian morality.

Aristotle identified the following as relevant for the Athens of his day: Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Magnificence, Pride, Good Temper, Friendliness, Truthfulness, Wittiness, Shame, Justice, Honor. In our time, we might choose others; the particular virtues matter less, under the Purpose of excellence, than the commitment to try to reach them.

To every virtue there are usually two vices, corresponding to too much and too little of the virtue in question (the famous doctrine of the “golden mean”). In contrast to the vicious man, the virtuous man adopts a reasonable and measured course of action. This is the Aristotelian balance, the golden mean, which leads an individual and an organization to an excellent life.

ALTRUISM: EMPATHY’S JUSTIFICATION

Altruism lies behind major political movements, charities and a whole range of businesses that exist primarily to serve their customers. In these organizations, altruism may take the form of personal service beyond formal obligation (as at Nordstrom), delivering products at affordable prices (Sam Walton’s Wal-Mart) or using technology and ideas to improve, or save, lives (Hewlett-Packard, and, even Hallmark Cards). A good proportion of small business is animated by this benevolent ethic.

In these examples, altruism is directed at the customer, but it does not have to be. For Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, and other leaders of so called new age businesses, altruism and customer benefit are distinct. In her case the altruism is directed at animals, and to some extent her staff. As she put it, rather brutally, “How do you ennoble the spirit when you are selling something as inconsequential as a cosmetic cream?” The answer is by following certain principles, but the company’s most famous principle (not selling cosmetics tested on animals) is quite unconnected with what Body Shop employees do day to day or with standards of customer service. Another, more traditional, variation on altruism is paternalism toward staff. A good example is the leading British retailer Marks and Spencer (at least in its heyday) whose Jewish founders established a tradition that staff were to be treated as “part of the family.” Service businesses often “care” about the staff, which will in turn care for customers—an approach summed up by Federal Express as “People-Service-Profit.”

Altruism, as argued by Scottish philosopher David Hume in the eighteenth century, is less a principle than an emotion. We care about others’ well-being as well as our own—indeed we maximize our own happiness only by taking into account the happiness of others, trading off our selfish pleasures against those generated by our moral instinct to care about others. The ultimate reason for an action is thus that it increases happiness.

More formally Hume argued that the will is driven, in the last analysis, by the prospect of pain or pleasure; in addition we have a natural sympathy with other humans that results in our emotions being triggered when we contemplate harm and good coming to them: “It is from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises towards any object,” an aversion or propensity that drives action; it follows that “reason alone can never produce any action.” But “morals . . . have an influence on . . . actions [so] it follows that they cannot be derived from reason.” The pleasure and pain we get from contemplating virtue and vice is closely dependent on this natural human sympathy or compassion:

If any man from a cold insensibility or narrow selfishness of temper is unaffected with the images of human happiness or misery, he must be equally indifferent to the images of vice and virtue; as on the other hand, it is always found that a warm concern for the interests of our species is attended with a delicate feeling of all moral distinctions, a strong resentment of injury done to me, a lively approbation of their welfare.

Sam Walton was a highly competitive, tough businessman, but this kind of fellow feeling shines through his own account of his motivations:

Also I think those associates in our company who believe in our ideals and our goals and get with the program have felt some spiritual satisfaction—in the psychological rather than the religious sense—out of the whole experience. . . . Many of them decide they want to go to college, or to manage a store, or take what they’ve learned and start their own business, or do a good job and take pride in that. Wal-Mart has helped their pocketbooks and their self-esteem. There are certainly some union folks and some middlemen out there who wouldn’t agree with me, but I believe that millions of people are better off today than they would have been if Wal-Mart had never existed. So I am just awfully proud of the whole deal, and I feel good about how I chose to expend my energies in this life.

Sam Walton, in other words, was the Hume of American business. His company was powerful and effective precisely because customers recognized that caring about them was the core Purpose of the company.

Later philosophers, notably Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, built on these ideas, eventually producing “Utilitarianism.” This is the view that the right action in any situation is what brings about the greatest possible happiness (or absence of unhappiness) to the most number of people—a more widely known philosophy than Hume’s. It is important in our story because this is the moral system often used to justify capitalism, markets and profit maximization: These are all said to be good because they maximize wealth, which, in turn, maximizes happiness.

HEROISM: POWER’S EFFECTIVENESS

Heroism resulted in the Roman Empire, Wimbledon champions Serena and Venus Williams and many of the most spectacular growth companies, from Standard Oil to Microsoft. Bill Gates’ plan to put his operating system into every desktop was just such an obsession. It is not the “winning” or the specific goals themselves that tap into broader human aspirations, but the ambition, daring or heroism evident in those goals.

Henry Ford was by far the most famous industrial hero of his day. At first sight, his ambition to “democratize the automobile” and his introduction of the $5 day for his workers might indicate a strongly altruistic Purpose, a desire to bring happiness to customers and workers alike. But this is an illusion. The specific social and economic goals he pursued at different times were quite inconsistent—these goals were less important to him than his ambition to use the Ford Motor Company as his “machine.” Ends and means were curiously reversed; the outputs were the means to his ultimate end, exercising his will to improve the world.

Heroic Purposes such as Ford’s gain their force from the Nietzschean intuition that only some people are truly free and have the capacity to lead. If you are one of these people, you realize you must exercise your willpower and your influence. If you are not, you realize you should follow those who are capable of leadership.

Writing in Germany in the late nineteenth century, Nietzsche was repelled by what he perceived to be the mediocrity of the democratic age – he longed for rule by an aristocracy of great men. “The [French] Revolution made Napoleon possible,” he wrote. ‘“That is its justification. We ought to desire the anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilization if such a reward were to be its result.” For him, Christianity and compassion should be shunned: they tame great men like Napoleon, and may tempt us to think there is no fundamental difference in value between the elite and the masses. These ideas have resulted in a “dwarfed, almost ludicrous species . . . something sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.”

Courage, pride and firmness are raw materials of the Nietzchean leader, but the necessary level of these characteristics is found in relatively few human beings. These men are the leaders who can command those without the necessary character. It is easy to see how this moral theory could be used to justify the extremes of fascism. But in less violent forms, adulation of willpower and command also justified the bureaucratic structures emerging as Nietzsche was writing.

SUMMARY

Four possible sources of energy for the company, four sets of moral ideas that can underpin Purpose—and each includes beliefs about the ultimate moral basis for an action. Each set of ideas is associated with a particular philosopher and is exemplified in action in different companies. Each company expresses the idea in its own way: No two excellent companies are alike; nor will companies manifest heroism, discovery or altruism in the same way. But every great company has come to its greatness by drawing on one of these philosophical traditions (consciously or not) and applying it with integrity.

Coaching: An Imperative for Leaders
June, 2007
Josh Bersin , Principal


We recently completed High Impact Talent Management®, a major research study on the business impact of corporate leadership and talent management processes. One of the goals of this research was to understand where organizations could best focus their leadership development and management efforts to drive greatest business results. We call these findings the top 22 high-impact talent management processes.

What we found was very enlightening (and somewhat surprising): the talent process which delivers the single greatest overall business impact is coaching – implementing a process for executive and management coaching throughout the organization. This process scored higher than many of the things we consider sacrosanct: setting goals, aligning goals in the organization, understanding critical competencies, and high performing recruiting.

What does this result really mean?

What is the role of a Coach?

Consider the role of a coach. If you feel that you’ve been successful in your career you can likely trace back your success to two things: first, you had a series of developmental experiences in your career that gave you experience, judgment, and insights; and second, you had a manager sometime in the past that took a personal interest in you – in your work success, your career, and your personal development. This person was a good coach. Most likely, your success as a leader today is largely a result of the time, attention, and focus you received from this person.

All leaders must consider their roles as a coach. Consider the impact of a good coach. Don Nelson, the new coach of the Golden State Warriors, is one of the “winningest basketball coaches” of all time. In a single year he took a team which had not reached the playoffs for 12 years and put them into the playoffs.

What makes such a coach so successful? Does he know more about basketball than anyone else? Does he have some magic secret which prior coaches could never figure out? Or does he have a unique and uncanny ability to identify the skills in each player and align them toward the ultimate goal: winning basketball games? Clearly it is the latter.

This coaching quality is clearly vital to successful organizations. A coach is not necessarily a “mentor” or a “manager” – they are something different. Most coaches know less about the subject matter than the people they are coaching. In fact business coaches often come from different disciplines or different industries. Consider Lou Gerstner, the man who turned around IBM. Gerstner was called “Oreo Cookie Man” when he first appeared at Big Blue (where I worked at the time) – reflecting his experience at Nabisco (and inexperience in technology). No one thought he could figure out the complexities and business issues in a complex global high technology company. But as history proved, Lou Gerstner was in fact a fantastic coach. He applied the business disciplines and leadership qualities which IBM badly needed.

Coaching is an important skill for any leader. A good coach helps people see the ultimate goal. He asks people questions they may not have asked themselves. He gains a deep understanding of the challenges and solutions to an organization’s problems. And through his persistence, listening, and often pointed direction he brings out the best in people. And a good coach inspires people to perform.

What makes a Great Coach?

I regularly meet with business managers and executives as part of our research process. When I meet a high performing leader I always observe many common traits:

1. They have a Clear Direction: They have a crystal clear understanding of where they are going. Good coaches know precisely where you need to go, and they help you get there through clarity of their vision.

2. They are Excellent Judges of People: They have a keen and refined judgment of people. Good coaches know what each individual in the organization is capable of, and they put “the right people into the right jobs” or they change the jobs to reflect the excellence of the people.

3. They Create Winning Game Plans: They have an uncanny ability to take complex problems and decompose them into step by step solutions. They know how to create the “winning plays.” They watch the team perform and when they identify brilliance they “write it into the playbook.”

4. They Know how to Develop People: They develop people. By taking a tough but personal interest in their team, the inspire others to follow, improve themselves, and work hard for success. They usually do this through focus on individuals: their strengths, opportunities, and areas of improvement.

These coaching qualities apply to every leader – whether in sports, academia, business, or government.

Why does Coaching have such High Impact?

Why does coaching create such high impact in organizations? There are many reasons: primarily, however, it indicates an overall focus on the alignment, development, and improvement of people at all levels. Organizations with well-established coaching programs have realized that performance and talent management matters. Leaders are expressing to employeesCoa that they matter.

It also reflects a commitment to invest in performance. Coaching programs require investment - investment in dollars and time. This investment is focused on improving operational and individual performance. These coaches are hired to "win" - not to "improve." Such a focus forces the organization to make sure that each manager, each director, and each project leader is operating at the highest levels of performance. This rigor creates accountability and inspiration.

Applying Coaching to Your Organization

How do you build such coaching skills and success in your organization? Right now executive coaching is becoming a fad: there are more executive, management, and personal coaches than ever before. The Harvard Business Review (2004) believes that the executive coaching industry is a $1 Billion industry. There are university programs dedicated to developing executive coaches. Every major leadership development company now offers executive coaching. Executive coaches can charge $100,000-200,000 per year and most organizations state that they are well worth it.

But how do you develop a coaching program in your organization? How do you implement coaching as a leadership quality in all of your leaders? One organization, NASA, found that its managers (mostly engineers and scientists) were not engaging well with employees. They were very capable of solving engineering and technical problems, but were having a hard time dealing with strategy, planning, and personnel issues. The result was an in-house coaching program, offered through a small set of senior employees who had unique skills in listening, coaching, and development. These coaches quickly became highly regarded and the organization is now trying to figure out how to leverage and grow these coaches throughout NASA.

Ultimately coaching is a skill for any leader. Consider yourself the coach of your team – can you help them win more games? Do you have a clear picture of how to win? Do you have the right people playing the right positions? Do you have a play book? Are you exhibiting enough tough love? Do you drill your team and give them specific areas of improvement?

There are many ways to build and institutionalize coaching in your organization. High-impact organizations build coaching into the performance plans of leaders and managers. Other organizations formally assign coaches to key individuals who have high potential. Some, like NASA, build formal programs with explicit coaching roles. And still others create special 1:1 mentoring relationships with senior executives.

If you can exhibit all these skills and apply them to your organization, then you are likely one of the highest impact organizations in our research. If you are not there yet, then you should probably rethink your role as a leader: think “coach”, not “manager”. Think “building a winning game plan” not “managing the organization.”

http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=lytnhbcab.0.liphmbcab.tzdgfun6.83590&ts=S0256&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bersin.com%2Ftips_techniques%2F07_may_coaching.asp

SUSAN WILLIAMS

S oaring high like the eagle most majestic,
U nstoppable, ready for the challenge!
S ignificance and not just success achieve!
A
"N ever quit" attitude inspiring!
W ith great commitment,
I ntegrity uphold!
L ive, love and learn,
L eaving a legacy!
I gniting
A deep passion for learning!
M aking a difference &
S hape the future!


"You Raise Me Up" tune
June 23, 2007
Editor @Jossey Bass Publishing

Issue Date: June 2007, Posted On: 6/4/2007

From Halo to Hell

Phil Rosenzweig

With the price of oil reaching $78 a barrel, ExxonMobil’s revenues in 2006 surged to $339 billion, making it larger than General Electric and Citibank combined. Its share price of $80 was double the level of 2004. Not coincidentally, in 2006 ExxonMobil was named by Fortune magazine as the world’s “Most Admired Company.” According to Fortune, it was also No. 1 among petroleum companies for quality of products and services and in quality of management, ahead of rivals Chevron, Conoco, BP and Shell.

Is ExxonMobil really outstanding in each and every one of these categories? Perhaps, but a more likely explanation is the Halo Effect. First identified by U.S. psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920, the Halo Effect describes how an overall impression shapes specific judgments. In business, a company’s overall performance—usually defined by tangible financial results—shapes our evaluation of other things that are less tangible. For example, when times were good, Cisco Systems and ABB were both admired for their customer focus, efficient organizations and charismatic CEOs; but when performance slipped, they were criticized for the exact same things.

A look around the business world suggests other companies where excellent financial performance casts a golden glow and shapes our perceptions. In 2006, Fortune rated Starbucks as the fifth most admired company in the world. It was ranked first in its industry in all eight categories—not only the three financial categories, but innovation, social responsibility, quality of products and services, ability to manage talent and quality of management. But does Starbucks deserve all those firsts? A more likely explanation is that Starbucks’ excellent financial record has conferred upon it an aura of greatness that exaggerates our perceptions.

Google: Burning Bright

Nowhere does a halo currently shine as brightly as upon Google. Reporters marvel at Google’s wonderful “anything-goes spirit” where the absence of supervision is said to stimulate creativity and where no one needs to worry about whether projects will be profitable. Co-founder Larry Page is said to praise managers who made million-dollar errors, thanking them for their willingness to take risks. In fact, what’s said about Google is eerily similar to what was said about another New Economy wonder, Cisco Systems, a decade ago. That company, too, was admired for its wild ways—until a sharp downturn led critics to castigate it for those same qualities.
Halos on the CEOs

Perhaps the strongest attributions are made about the chief executive. It’s irresistible to infer that a highly profitable company must have a brilliant person in charge. General Electric’s strong record during the 1990s created an aura around Jack Welch and senior executives, including Bob Nardelli. But as we’ve recently seen, once he was out from under the magical halo of GE, Nardelli was rapidly revealed to be something less than a shining knight. Of course, such attributions also work in the opposite direction. CEOs receive exaggerated criticism when performance falters.
Some Lessons

Wise CEOs are aware of the Halo Effect and know not to be dazzled by its glow. They continually seek to raise performance, never allowing themselves to be lulled by favorable judgments or popular praise. By the same token, when financial performance slips, they know better than to make sweeping criticisms or to dismantle what may, in fact, be a company’s strong points.

Phil Rosenzweig is professor of strategy and international management at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and author of The Halo Effect.

http://www.the-halo-effect.com/articles/index.html

Meet Coach Ruben Gonzalez
Learn more about this three-time Olympian and peak performance expert.
Success Staff

By his own account, Ruben Gonzalez wasn’t a gifted athlete. He didn’t take up the sport of luge until he was 21. Four years later and against all odds, he was competing in the Calgary Winter Olympics, and at age of 39 he was racing against 20-year-olds in the Salt Lake City Olympics. Using examples from his own experience, Coach Ruben will show you how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.

Coach Ruben and his unique story have been featured on ABC, CBS, and NBC. His column “High Achievement” appears in magazines across America. Ruben’s book, “The Courage to Succeed,” has been endorsed by Stephen Covey, Brian Tracy, and Ken Blanchard. Ruben is also the co-star of the movie “Pass It On,” a full length feature film about what it really takes to succeed in life.

Ruben Gonzalez’s client list reads like a Who’s Who of Corporate America; he counts Coca-Cola, Dell, Shell Oil, Continental Airlines, Farmers Insurance, Ortho McNeal, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Wells Fargo, ERA Realtors, and even The U.S. Treasury Department as past clients. He regularly shares the stage with top motivational speakers like Zig Ziglar in huge arenas across the nation.

To learn more about Ruben Gonzalez, visit his website http://www.thelugeman.com and visit his blog www.OlympicMotivationBlog.com.

The Champion’s Creed
Talking Business with Ruben Gonzalez
Success Staff

RUBEN GONZALEZ SUCCEEDED in making his dream of competing in the Olympics a reality. Gonzalez took up the luge, hurling himself down an icy track on a sled at speeds over 80 MPH. While most Olympic luge athletes begin training by the age of 10, he started at 21.

To some, Gonzalez’s dream seemed hopeless, but four years later, he qualified to compete in the Calgary Olympics and again in Albertville. But his most memorable Olympics would be at Salt Lake City in 2002. At age 39, he was so much older than his competitors that some mistook him for a coach! Nevertheless, Gonzalez’s story embodied the Olympic spirit, which is why he was chosen as one of 200 Olympians to carry the torch that year.

Gonzalez is the author of The Courage To Succeed and will be featured in the upcoming film, Pass It On. Now a motivational speaker, he shares his story and provides insight to audiences on how to push beyond their limitations. Success asked the three-time Olympian for his advice on achieving your dreams.

IGNORE DREAM STEALERS
“If I could go back and give advice to myself when I was starting out, I’d say not to listen to the dream stealers. When I first started, I called Lake Placid (home of USA Luge) and the man who answered laughed at me when I told him I was 21. I knew that hanging up wasn’t an option. After awhile he realized I was serious about training. You cannot listen to people who try to keep you from your dreams. What if I had taken that first no? That would have been the end of the story.”

PROBABILITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
In luging, nine out of ten people quit in their first year. These odds would make most wary, but not Gonzalez. “I got excited. I was going to outlast everyone. Most people look at their dreams and start calculating the odds of them ever happening. They can tell you the probabilities and that number keeps them from even getting started. They don’t understand that probability has nothing to do with success. Don’t focus on the probabilities, focus on the possibilities.”

COMMIT TO YOUR GOALS
“In my first two years, I crashed four out of five times. By the third year, I got better and would crash only one out of 100.” When Gonzalez recently taught his 6-year-old daughter, Gabriela, how to ride a bike, he saw history repeat itself. “After the first day she fell. The second day she kept falling and told me that she didn’t want to do this. But I wouldn’t let her give up, and by the third day she was able to stay on. Her third day of learning to ride her bike was like my third year of training. Commitment is what makes success possible.”

FOCUS ON RESULTS
“Whenever you are trying to accomplish something, don’t worry too much about how you go about getting results. Focus on whether you are getting results. If not, change approaches. Be open to new ideas and information. One “ YOU CANNOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO TRY TO KEEP YOU FROM YOUR DREAMS.” new idea could literally transform your life.” HANDLE SETBACKS “Next time you experience a major setback, do what top achievers do: recover quickly. Right away, they force themselves to look at the bright side of things. If you recover quickly, you don’t lose your momentum and your drive.” How you choose to react to something can significantly improve your chances of success.

BUILD A “DREAM TEAM”
“Create your own ‘dream team’ of people who believe in you and who will encourage you when you are going through challenges. My family’s been 100% supportive. Mentors who have done what you want to do are necessary as well. My coach is like the Michael Jordan of luge. Who you surround yourself with will determine how far you go. When these people believe in you, you will begin to believe it too.”

To learn more about Coach Ruben Gonzalez visit: http://www.successmagazine.com/article.php?article_id=78

Add Humor

The most successful sales person is one who can set his or her client at ease. One of the best ways to do that is to add a little humor to your presentation. Here are a few tips to lighten up your presentation style.

1- Use humor that suits your own personality. Use it to make people feel comfortable.

2 - Unless you're a natural wit, plan ahead. Carefully choose what you want to say, then choose the right moment to say it. Practice to add polish to your delivery.

3 - Make your joke appropriate to the circumstances. Stick to humor that's relevant to your presentation and doesn't divert your prospect's attention from what you're saying.

4 - Above all, use humor to bond with -- rather than alienate -- your client. Make jokes at your own expense, never your prospect's. Remember, what's funny to you may be offensive or out of place to someone else.

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Sell on Quality Not on Price

A sales manager at John Deere wears a tie clasp with the initials SOQ NOP across it. They stand for "Sell on Quality, Not on Price."

Once he was bidding for a sale against another competitor. He was called into the office of the buyer and told that Deere would not get the order because they were simply too high on the price side.

He was about to accept the bad news and leave the office. But then he had an inspiration. He said to the buyer, "those are nice looking boots you have on." The buyer was surprised, but appreciative that he had noticed, and they talked for a bit about why the leather made them so practical, as well as fine looking. The salesman then asked, "what made you buy those boots instead of taking a pair off some discount shoe shore shelf?"

The buyer thought for a minute, and then smiled broadly, shook the salesman's hand and said, "the sale is yours."

Remember, when you factor in quality, service, and selection, it is usually more economical in the long run to pay a little more than you'd planned.

Success Tip: always value quality over price in your conversations.

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The Value Of Underselling

Harness the power of underselling to boost repeat business and to get more new customers referred to you. Remember, a happy customer will tell three other people. But, an unhappy one will tell over 20! So, try to boost your customer's satisfaction by delivering a little more than you promised.

For example, if you can deliver it by Monday, promise it by Tuesday and give them a pleasant surprise. Throw in an extra product or service (it doesn't have to cost a lot; it's the thought that counts). Send a hand-written thank you note. Follow up with a phone call to make sure the product was installed properly.

Most of all, if you can't meet the customer's needs, be honest and admit it up front. Nothing hurts your chances for tomorrow's sales more than making a promise that you can't deliver on. In today's competitive environment, good old fashioned honesty and added value will give you the edge over flashy gimmicks and empty promises.

Success Tip: Deliver more than you sell, and then follow up to be sure your customer is happy.

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Take Control of Your Time

The ability to control time rather than allow-ing time to control you is an important skill of a successful sales person. Time management means more productivity, less stress, less anxiety. Experts agree that much of our time is wasted on unproductive activities. Generally speaking, 80% of our results come from only 20% of our activities. Here is a list of common time wasters that we should avoid...

Telephone interruptions
Drop-in visitors
Unscheduled meetings
Crises / Urgencies
Coffee-pot socializing
Lack of clear goals
Ineffective delegation
Procrastination
A cluttered desk
The inability to say NO
Lack of self-discipline
Unclear communication

Success Tip: Frequently ask yourself, "what is the best use of my time right now?" Set clear goals and stick to your plan by avoiding the time-wasters.

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Take Action to Overcome Fear

Fear is the greatest enemy of a sales professional. Fear of rejection causes an otherwise excellent sales person to dread cold calling. Fear of looking silly prevents many from giving an enthusiastic presentation. Statistics show that over half of the sales presentations in America end with no attempt to close whatsoever. Why? Fear of failure. Fear, fear, fear. It can leave us paralyzed and ineffective.

What is the cure for fear? ACTION! If you are afraid of rejection, make more cold calls. If you fear ridicule, make your presentation audacious and dynamic. If you worry about failure, learn some effective closes and use them.

The truth is, most of the things we worry about never come to pass. So why worry?

Success Tip: Take decisive action to cure worry and overcome fear!

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Rehearse!

Frank Bacon was the star of the Broadway stage play LIGHTNIN'. One day while the play was enjoying its record run in Chicago, a friend asked Frank Bacon to play golf with him that afternoon. "I'm sorry," said Bacon, "but I can't make it today. We have rehearsal."

"Rehearsal!" replied his friend. "Rehearsal for what?"

For LIGHTNIN'," said Bacon, "you see, we still hold rehearsals twice each week."

Approximately 2000 performances of the play had already been given in New York and Chicago. At the same time every night for six years, Frank Bacon said the same thing in the same way and got the same response. The story was old and doubtless tiresome to him, but it was new to his "prospects." He told it each time as if it had never been told before, and he never failed to send them away "sold."

There is a moral in this story for salespeople -- particularly those who permit themselves to grow tired of telling the same old story over and over again. -- Paul Ivey

Success Tip: Always present your product with fresh interest, energy, and enthusiasm.

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Never Meet a Quota

It's really easy to organize yourself so that you'll never run any risk of meeting your quota. All you have to do is set your sights on meeting the quota.

How's that again?

What I'm saying is this: if all you try to do is meet the quota, you'll never do it. Why not? Because you'll organize your activity to achieve the quota--which means barely meeting it. Something will always go wrong with part of your action, resulting in at least a small shortfall. "Had it in the bag. Then Mr. Jones fell apart on me."

If you're aiming to be average, this gets you there okay. But you're aiming higher. Begin by organizing your activity so that you can double the quota! This way, when Bart bounces a check, Carl cancels an order, and Dave delays a bid, you'll still do well with what's left.

Success Tip: Don't meet any quota that's set for ordinary people -- demolish it!

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Qualify Your Prospects

Recently, a sales manager met with a part-time sales consultant who had made only 4 presentations but earned over $1500 in commissions the previous month! "What is your secret?" the manager asked. The answer? "I qualify my prospects. I just value my time too much to see people who are not qualified. Here is what I say when asking a customer for referrals: 'Everyone who sees our product wants it, but not everyone can get it. If people don't have the money, or the credit, to get started with our products when they see them and want them, they will feel really bad. I wouldn't want any of your friends to feel that way. So, please only refer people who are stable, who have the money and good credit to be able to purchase our products if they decide they want them.'"

Success Tip:Qualify your prospects. Don't waste their time and yours.

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Audio Learning!

Statistics show that the average American spends 500 to 1000 hours per year in his or her car traveling from place to place. A full-time college student spends less time in the classroom in a year! Just think what you can learn if you will put that time to more effective use by listening to audio cassettes or CDs every time you get in your car. Success Tip: never drive anywhere without a motivational or instructional audio program.

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Third-Person Stories

No matter what industry you are in, there are usually only about 4 or 5 real objections that you repeatedly run up against. Typical objections are might be, "I can't afford it" or "I want to think it over." The trick is to diffuse these objections before they even come up.

Make a list of these common objections and then select true, third- person stories that you can tell about someone who could have used this objection, but who purchased your product anyway and had a positive experience. Or, alternatively, you could tell a true story about someone who used the objection and lost benefits, money, or prestige because of it.
- Select true stories that are interesting and make a particular point.
- Paint word pictures so your prospect can visualize the events in the story.
- Practice telling the story so you can be concise and to the point.
- Don't sound preachy. If used skillfully, third-person stories are effective because the events don't involve your prospective customer.

Success Tip: Use third-person stories to diffuse objections before they come up.

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Pump Up Savings

If your product can save your customers money, here is a great story to illustrate the point . . .

There once was a man who has having a lot of trouble with his car. Every day he would fill the tank with gas, drive one mile to work, and one mile home and he would be out of gas! This happened day after day until finally, he took it in to the dealership." There seems to be something wrong with my car," he complained, "I'm not getting very good gas mileage." The technician put the car up on the lift and examined the car. "Here's your problem," he said, "you have a big hole in your gas tank, you've been spilling gas on the street everywhere you go. "How much is that going to cost to get fixed?" the man asked. "$800," came the reply." Eight hundred dollars," the man exclaimed, "I can't afford that, I'm already spending too much money on gas!"

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Is it Urgent?

One of the most important words you will learn as a sales professional is "urgency." You might have the best product in the world, at the best price, and still be starving for sales if you don't find a way to make the purchase urgent for the customer.

I once walked into a beautiful Lexus dealership --just browsing--and noticed a floor model that they had marked down. It was a beautiful dark emerald green. The price was right, it was available, and I was in the market. Did I buy it? No. I said, I'll think about it, and left.

The next morning, I received a call from the Lexus salesman. It seems that someone else had looked at "my" car the night before and was coming back again today to look at it again. But, I could reserve the car for myself, with just a $500 deposit by credit card over the phone.

Well, guess what happened, it became urgent that I make a decision. So, I whipped out my credit card and made the deal.

Success Tip: Convince your prospect that you have a good product, and they will decide to own it -- some day. Convince your prospect that the decision is urgent, and they will own it today.

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Be a Team Player

If you work in a group of two or more people, chances are you are considered by the management as a "team." The question is: do you consider your self a team member? Are you really acting as a team? Or, do you, at times, think of the other people in your company as competition? After all, if one of them gets the sale, you might not. It's easy to see how some sales people adopt a defeating attitude and begin to sabotage their teammate's work, and, as a result, sabotage their own success as well.

Remember the oft-told example of two horses pulling a load. Two horses, pulling in unison, can pull more than three times the amount that each horse can pull separately. It's called the synergistic effect, and you can make it work for you and your company.

Vince Lobardi once said, "Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." Look for ways that you can contribute to the group efforts of your entire sales staff. Look for way that you can work together. Look for ways to help others in your company--above and beyond what you are expected to do. Don't be afraid to share ideas and techniques that work. Pretty soon, the effectiveness of the entire group will grow--boosting your personal sales and profits along with those of your team and your company.

Success Tip: Be a team player! Look for ways to help fellow workers and bolster your entire team.

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Believe in the Law of Averages

One of the most important attitudes that one must develop in the world of selling is an unwavering belief in the law of averages -- that if we simply see enough people, a certain percentage of them will purchase. Once we have a fixed belief in this fact, we can begin to focus on activity, which always brings results. In Frank Bettger's great book on selling, How I Raised Myself from Failure, we find these words, "After all, this business of selling narrows down to one thing -- just one thing...seeing the people! Show me any man of ordinary ability, who will go out and earnestly tell his story to four or five people every day, and I will show you a man who just can't help making good." Success in sales doesn't mean you close every interview. It means you give enough presentations to sell more than anyone else. In 1994, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's all-time home run record with 715 home runs. But he also had 1,262 strike-outs. In other words, he went through the humiliation of striking out almost twice as many times as he hit a home run. The difference is -- he kept on swinging!!

Success Tip: Remember, each "no" just takes you that much closer to the next "yes." Believe in the law of averages and just keep on working.

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Self Esteem Makes the Difference!

Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a world famous plastic surgeon, noticed that many people who don't really need it would come to him for plastic surgery. Their real problem was not their outward physical appearance, but their inner, hidden self-image. "These people were unhappy and unsuccessful because their hidden self-images compelled them to make mistakes, actually to do the wrong thing. Subconsciously these people were not aware that their self-images were the cause of their failure."

Success Tip: The way you feel comes from inside yourself, not from the way you look or dress. Your appearance is important, but not as important as nurturing a positive feeling about your self from the inside.

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Will it Keep an Old Lady Warm?

I love the story about an elderly grandmother who entered a hardware store and declared she wanted to purchase a new stove for her livingroom. The salesman let loose a barrage of sales patter about his latest-model heating stove. It had non-corroding bolts. It featured a newly patented insulating material. Just look at the guage steel used in the jacket. Manipulate those clever controls! See the ample combustion chambers! All these gadgets, conveniences, and improvements were overwhelmingly convincing, the salesman thought, and he finished his sales talk with a flourish, expecting an immediate and favorable response. But the old lady just looked at him, evidently expecting him to say more. Taken back, the salesman said, somewhat sarcastically, "well, madam, I've told you everything there is to know about that stove. Do you have any questions?" "Yes, just one," she answered, "Will it keep an old lady warm?"

The most fundamental question that could be asked had not even been considered by the salesman. Many are so anxious to make a sale, whether it be an automobile, refrigerator, or a new home, they sometimes fail to answer the basic questions the buyer is asking. The best salesperson should always have the buyer's interest at heart and when this attitude is percieved by a customer, chances are the sale will follow.

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Control Your Emotions

Think about the times when you have let your emotions run away. What was the trigger that caused you to loose control? Was it your spouse? your job? the weather? If you think long enough, you will realize that we seldom get very angry about things that we can control. It is typically those conditions that fall outside of our circle of influence that spark out-of-control emotional responses. In other words, we waste our most passionate energy on things we can't do anything about (like other people's actions). What a waste!!

Next time you feel your emotions getting out of hand, make a conscious decision to focus only on things you CAN influence -- work on you, take time for you, build you -- and forget about everything else. Nothing has quite as much power to help you feel better as the simple decision to do something constructive -- and leave the rest of the world to worry about itself.

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Keep Conversation Interesting

There's nothing more awkward than a boring conversation that keeps dragging on through sheer politeness. Here are some valuable tips for keeping conversations with clients and prospects from dragging...
1. Always keep the conversation at your listener's educational level. Stick to everyday speech and avoid talking over people's heads.
2. Be an animated listener. Allow your body language and facial expressions to reflect your interest in the speaker.
3. Talk about stimulating topics. Ask questions that appeal to the other person's hobbies and interests, or about his or her job or family.
4. Listen, and be aware of the emotional climate. Don't crack jokes that are inappropriate or insensitive. Try to be attuned to other's unspoken moods.
5. As a last resort for a dragging conversation, be prepared to introduce conversation "boosters." To have a ready supply, clip interesting news stories or magazine articles. Keep abreast of television news. Tell a human interest story.
-- from Master Salesmanship, August, 1994

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The Best Closing Question I've Ever Heard

Most people think of selling as an adversarial relationship: you against me. If I get the sale, I win, if not, you win. This is why so many people are afraid of the sales process and do almost anything to avoid it.
What they don't understand is that a truly professional salesperson is not out to "get" them, he or she is there to assist them in making the best decision.
Here is a powerful, yet simple closing question that gets this point across. Look at the customer, smile, and say, "Let me ask you this, do you like it?" That's it, four simple words. If you get a positive answer, simply follow up with "Would you like to own it if we could work it out?" Then, respond by saying, "well, let's see what we can do to help you find a way to make it work."
You see, if your prospect answers yes to both of these questions, it's not you against them. It's not you trying to talk them into something they don't want. They have told you that they like the product, they want the product. From that point on, you are simply helping them find a way to get what they already want. Now, you are on their side of the table assisting them.

Success Tip: Ask these powerful questions: "Do you like it?" and "Would you like to own it if we could work it out?"

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Ask for the Order

You might be amazed to learn that a significant number of sales calls end in no attempt to close whatsoever! The fact is that so many so-called sales professionals are so afraid of rejection, that they don't even ask a closing question. Many give a great presentation and then just sit there hoping that the customer will jump out of their chair and beg to buy. Unfortunately, this seldom happens.

Here are 5 simple closing sentences that you can memorize to help you ask for the order in a non-threatening way.

"Which payment option do you prefer, this or this?"

"The down payment is 10%. Some put more down to make their payment less, others think that's about right. Does that sound about right to you?"

"Wouldn't you agree that now is the best time to start saving money with our product?"

"Is it alright if I put all the details on this invoice so you can see our full offer?"

Would you like it delivered, or would you rather pick it up in person?"

Success Tip: Ask a closing question and then SHUT UP. Don't spoil it by adding one more thing. Wait for the customer to respond. They just may say "YES!"

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Be A Little Early

You can learn an important lesson from boat racers. A professional racer came to a local boat club race. He practiced running at top speed from the starting point along the course. All the other racers were circling together at half speed near the starting point. As the race was about to start, the racers all turned toward the starting point and were beginning to accelerate as the starting gun went off. All the boats were at the starting line together, but the professional racer was already at top speed and instantly passed the others. By the first turn, he was clearly ahead and well on his way to winning the race.

You too need to be at top speed when you hit the starting line. Make it a practice to be a few minutes early to every appointment so you can get ready, physically and mentally, to hit the ground running. Those who race in at the last minute, often spend the first few minutes of the presentation gathering their thoughts and their materials.

Success Tip: Arrive a few minutes early for every appointment to give yourself time to get ready.

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Concentration

One of the great skills of a successful salesperson is their ability to concentrate. The Bible, one of the great sales manuals, says, "No man can serve two masters." To be a success in selling, one must be absobed by it, and devoted to it. He does best who eats, drinks, sleeps and lives selling until it gets into his mind, heart and blood stream. Then it will overflow into his eyes, face, handshake, actions -- and wallet.
Rays of sunshine gently warm the earth. But concentrated through a magnifying glass, they can start a forest fire. Rain, spread over an entire city has little effect, but concentrate the rain in one place, and you have a powerful torrent, able to move anything in it's path. Likewise, a salesperson who becomes destracted by sidelines, errands, and trivial pursuits is of little effect compared to the one who learns to focus his efforts and actions.
The Bible says, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." When a sales person "sees double," he gets into trouble, like the prize fighter who, after a bad licking, said, "Where I made my mistake was that I didn't knock him out in the first round when he was alone."

Success Tip: Supercharge your success with the power of a single purpose. Don't let distractions rob you of your concentration.

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Look for the Positive

Someone once said that if God had been a pessimist, there would be no planet earth. Think about it. Positive people are optimistic about the future and, as a result, often make have positive results. Negative people look at everything with a pessimistic attitude -- looking for reasons why things won't work, the result is they accomplish little of value.

Young adults are usually optimistic and positive, that's why it is so refreshing to be around them. As we get older, and more experienced, however, many of us lose the positive outlook of our youth in favor of a more "realistic" point of view. Yet this kind of attitude spells failure for the sales professional.

Positive people radiate energy, enthusiasm, confidence, and a contagious optimism.

Success Tip: Look for the positive in every situation. Radiate a positive, optimistic attitude and shun those who delight in doubt and gloominess.

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Don't Take It Personally

A challenge that every sales professional has to deal with is rejection. The key is to not take "no" personally. Remember, the customer is not rejecting you, they are simply refusing your offer or product based on the knowledge that they currently have.

Those who take rejection personally soon find that they are paralized by fear. They worry so much about being rejected that they are unable to make the calls necessary to achieve success.

But, professional sales people have learned to accept a negative response without letting it make them feel as though they've failed. Although disappointed, they learn from it and have the confidence to try again. They have learned that a "no" means you are just that much closer to the next "yes!"

Success Tip: Learn to separate your own self-esteem from your product or service. Don't see a negative response as failure, but as an opportunity to learn and grow.

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Enthusiasm

Someone once said that closing is 70% enthusiasm. How could that be? What about product knowledge, persistence, and all of those closing techniques? Yes, they are important. But without enthusiasm, they have little power. They are like the car and enthusiasm is the gas. Nothing gives gusto to your presentation like sincere enthusiasm.

After all, selling, at its heart, is nothing more than a transferal of feeling. Successful sales professionals are able to get their prospect to have the same feeling about their product, the same product conviction, and the same kind of enthusiasm about the product as they themselves do. So, nurture your excitement. Show your enthusiasm. Learn everything that you can to boost your own belief and conviction. After all, if you're not enthusiastic about your product, who will be?

Success Tip: Nurture sincere enthusiasm about your product, your company, and your presentation; and let your excitement show.

Listen With Your Eyes

"When you listen, you do more than listen with your ears. If humanly possible, turn directly toward the person speaking and forget forms, data, product samples, or anything else. Look your prospect in the eye and watch for those nonverbal clues that give insights into the person speaking. Notice the gestures, the way the person sits or stands, the smile or frown -- anything and everything indicating the frame of mind at that particular moment. Listen to "the way" the person is speaking...

"Most important, do not interrupt, and never finish a phrase, thought, or sentence when your prospect pauses."
--excerpt from Ziglar on Selling, by Zig Ziglar

Ten Questions that Catalyze Great Change Leadership, Part One
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Introduction

A good change consultant’s primary job is to catalyze insight and clear thinking in their clients so they are able to lead their organization’s change efforts with greater skill and competency. Sometimes the catalyst for such insight is another executive who knows to ask the questions that promote the right type of thinking and actions to support change.

We begin our consulting interventions by asking a series of briefing questions of the key executives in charge of the change. These briefings provide us with background information about the change, as well as surface high leverage opportunities for adding immediate value. But most importantly, answering our questions expands the executives’ perspective. The more profound and penetrating the questions we ask, the more insightful the executive becomes in answering them. Done properly, such a briefing can and should be a powerful intervention in itself.

In this month’s article, we present five key topic areas for questioning, and next month, five more. As a change consultant, project manager, or executive change leader, you will want to carefully consider these questions as you initiate a change, or help to assess and course correct one that has already begun.

There are, of course, many more questions that can and need to be asked of sponsoring executives than are presented here. We selected these ten particular topics because asking them usually catalyzes critical insights in executives and leads to a more thorough and successful change strategy.

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Instructions

Think about a change effort that you are currently working on as you read through the questions. Consider whether all of the executives in charge of the change, and all of the consultants involved, would answer each question the same way. Very fruitful discussions can occur among change leaders and their consultants concerning their different perceptions of the answers to these questions. If a sponsor has no answer to a particular topic, or discounts a certain area of inquiry as unnecessary, explore what is motivating his or her response. Then, use the information and insight you generate from the discussion to establish the conditions for successful change.

We have included a commentary after each set of questions to provide further insights about the questions and what information and related issues may surface.

THE TEN QUESTIONS: Part One

1. What outcomes and business results do you need to achieve through your change effort? How do you define “success” for this change? If this change were to be wildly successful, what would be happening to make it so?

Desired business results are a powerful driver of change. They can shift the perceptions of a particular change effort from a “nice to do” to a “must do.” Consequently, a key area of inquiry is determining how the change will help meet business objectives and whether there is alignment on this among the leaders. Consistent understanding of why the change is occurring and what benefits it will bring is essential to generating enterprise-wide support.

The definition and measurement of success for the change must include both business and cultural/human criteria. Whether individual change leaders perceive business value in both terms is very revealing of their existing mindset about what they believe is important to business success. Asking about both the business and the human success factors is a powerful way to help executives broaden their thinking. If the executives are not defining success in both arenas, then they will likely not plan for the human and cultural ingredients that are necessary to achieve the business results they covet. Publicly including these factors in the definition of success also gives the change effort more credibility for the people who must make it happen.

2. From your observations, to what degree do the people of the organization understand and buy in to the need for this change? If low, how will you help them understand the case for this change and engage them in ways that are energizing and inspiring, rather than threatening? What is in it for the people of your organization to want to make this change succeed? How will you motivate them?

This topic area is a great way to engage leaders in thinking about the human element in change. The executives will benefit from both observing and then trying to articulate the degree of commitment, excitement, and readiness for change existing within both management and the workforce. Getting the leaders to determine how to wake up the organization to the need to change, especially if people consider the company to be successful already, is essential, and not easy.

When discussing motivation strategies, it is very important to get the leaders to talk about their perceptions of how their leadership style impacts motivation. Ask them if their style is getting them the behavioral and emotional effect they want and need. Inquire about their beliefs regarding human motivation, and what they think works or not. Some leaders believe that workers will do what they are told, and therefore think that giving clear mandates is key. Others believe that workers will naturally resist, so then negative consequences (fear-based strategies) are best. Yet others believe that workers will buy-in if they are able to co-create the change, so participation is critical. Getting these beliefs on the table for discussion is the first step to building a motivation strategy that will work.

3. What major change initiatives are needed in the organization for the outcomes to be achieved? How would you define the full scope of this change? Consider changes in any aspect of the organization: strategy, business processes and systems, structure, leadership and workforce mindset, culture, resources, technology, behavior, etc.

New business directions always trigger a range of change initiatives. Executives typically identify the tangible organizational initiatives, such as re-structuring, reengineering business processes, altering systems, or implementing new technology. They frequently miss the need for changes in culture, leadership mindset and style, working relationships, and new behaviors, which are less tangible yet equally essential to success.

This topic area reveals the leaders’ view of the scope of the change, and again hints at whether or not the leaders recognize--and value--the human and cultural changes as well as the business changes. It also reveals the degree of clarity that leaders have about how the organizational and human changes are interdependent determinants of success. Both are key to success, and must be led consciously from the beginning.

4. What values, behaviors, or ways of working and relating must be in place for the change to occur? What are the organizing principles that lie at the heart of this change and are key to its success?

These questions are perhaps most important of all. They may also be the most challenging to ask and answer.

The intent here is to get the change leaders to think more deeply about the principles that underlie what they are attempting to achieve through the change. You might call these principles the heart and soul of the change, its governing principles. For example, core principles driving ERP and CRM implementations include: 1) the enterprise operating as one integrated system, 2) information sharing across boundaries, 3) people empowered to make decisions, and 4) people contributing in higher impact ways.

Overtly naming these principles enables change leaders to then identify what conditions exist that support them or not. For example, does the executive team act as one entity, or do turf wars divide them? Is information shared openly in your culture, or withheld as a power game? Does your approach to change engage people in decisions, or are you leaving people out of decisions that are most important to them? Change efforts succeed only to the degree to which prevailing cultural conditions support the underlying principles of the change itself.

Once articulated, use the core principles of your change effort to audit both organizational and cultural conditions to see if they already support the change. Where they don’t, you can then formulate change initiatives to alter them to what is required. For instance, we often create an intervention we call “Breakthrough Training,” designed to instill in executives necessary changes to their leadership style, mindset, and ways of working that reflect and accelerate the core principles of their change, and therefore their outcomes.

5. What key aspects of the organization and the culture are critical to protect and preserve because they already support your outcomes and core principles? How can you celebrate and build on them?

This topic area follows #4 intentionally. It focuses attention on both the organizational and human dimensions of the current state that are essential to keep in place, providing the benefits of familiarity amidst change, pride, stability, and confidence to succeed in the change. It is essential to celebrate and strengthen what already works, as long as it directly supports the creation of the desired state. This enables the leaders to identify and communicate respect for the past as well as bring firm grounding into the future. This enhances confidence and security amidst the unfamiliarity and stress of change.

In developmental and transitional changes, this is relatively easy to do. In both of those types of change efforts, you build the future off of tangible aspects of the current organization. In transformational change, this is not always the case, so a focused exploration of this question is a key strategy for mobilizing support, readiness, and confidence in the organization. This is especially true when the desired future—the transformed organization—will be profoundly different than the norm.

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Summary

Because leading transformational change efforts is so radically different from running current operations, their success often requires change leaders to think more deeply and thoroughly about how they will lead the effort and what should be included in it. Asking profound and direct questions can generate the discussions and decisions required to set your changes up for success. Use and adapt the questions above to catalyze such conversations.

And, stay tuned to next month’s issue of “Results from Change” for Part Two of the “Ten Questions that Catalyze Great Change Leadership”!

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THE TEN QUESTIONS: Part Two

6. Do you have an enterprise-wide change strategy for accomplishing your outcomes—and your various initiatives—that people can understand and align behind? Your change strategy would include your plans for catalyzing the changes; telling a unified story that incorporates all of the initiatives; and establishing adequate change infrastructures and resources, realistic timing, communications, and milestone events for achieving your outcomes.

Once your required outcomes for the change are clear, the creation of an enterprise-wide change strategy to deliver them is the most important task for the change leaders. Given all of the various organizational and cultural initiatives required, the leaders must think through a high-level start-up plan—their change strategy—for determining how they will prepare for and coordinate making the changes. Their change strategy must be formulated and communicated in a way that people can understand, find themselves in, and contribute their best to. Its success is an accelerator of your change!

This question opens up several discussions. First, it asks if the leaders have a change strategy, and therefore know what one is. Secondly, in defining the function of the change strategy, you can address its requirements for coalescing, guiding, and course correcting the complexity of changes as they unfold. A good change strategy would also determine realistic infrastructures, resources, communications, and timing for accomplishing the full scope of the changes.

The question also asks if the leaders, managers and workforce understand the change strategy, and are confident in its ability to guide them to change while maintaining ongoing operations. This question can reveal if what is being formulated about how the change is to be led, resourced, paced, and supported is realistic and humanly possible. If it is not, the leaders must course correct their plans now.

7. What change methodology or process roadmap will be used to orchestrate and integrate all of the various initiatives afoot in the organization? If more than one change model is being used in the organization, can they be identified and assessed for meeting the unique requirements of transformational change? Do they accommodate the integration of competing initiatives?

This question focuses on having a common change methodology for planning, designing, rolling out, and course correcting your various change initiatives. For transformational change, a process model is required, because a static change framework or a project management toolkit will not suffice for the dynamic complexity and emotional roller coaster of transformation. Your change model must fit the type of changes occurring! The nine-phase Change Process Model is a likely candidate for this level of complexity. It combines depth of guidance, the human dimension, and the flexibility required for all types of change—a true navigation system.

When multiple initiatives are happening, having a commonly accepted change model can increase the organization's ability to plan and orchestrate its changes. This question raises the need for integration among interdependent initiatives, and a strategy for coordinating resources, actions, and timing to reduce overwhelm, increase efficiencies, and balance the need to keep the organization operating smoothly while it changes. If many change models are in use, you may run the risk of them competing and confusing the organization. Often, this indicates that there is no unified infrastructure and strategy in place to oversee all of the changes.

8. What are you and your team planning to do to prepare the people of the organization, and your key stakeholders, to succeed in making this change as quickly and effectively as possible (i.e., communicating to build understanding and trust, skill development, shifting old mindsets and culture, expanding the knowledge base, increasing readiness, providing emotional support, etc.)?

This question brings the people challenges in change front and center. It causes leaders to think about people's readiness, support required, communications, emotional reactions, training, rewards…any of the actions that increase the likelihood that the workforce—who must make the change happen—will be ready and able to succeed. Significant attention to people is an essential investment in your success.

The delivery of these people-related services can be delegated, but the recognition and strategy for offering them belongs to the change leaders. Change leaders must attend to the people who will create the future state. What issues exist that will block people's willingness or ability to grab hold of the future and run with it? What will motivate and sustain them during the long and uncertain terrain ahead? What do they need from the organization to feel that their extra effort is met with a fair energy exchange?

In this discussion, delve into the leaders' reactions to thinking about the people issues. If they have a knee-jerk reaction to discount or hand off this critical piece of their change strategy, talk through what in their thinking causes them to disregard their people's needs. This can open up a very fruitful discussion of what it takes to lead transformation successfully. When generating ideas for how to support people, drive for specifics.

9. How will you assess your progress and course correct your change plans when you need to? How will you ensure getting truthful, accurate, and timely information from the organization and your customers about how the changes are going, and how will you deal with information that indicates a need to alter what you are doing, the pace, or your outcomes?

This question speaks to the need for staying on top of what is happening in the organization as it changes…in terms of organizational performance, customer service, progress on the change, and any of the myriad human reactions that surface at inopportune times. The question directs the conversation to how the leaders will create the conditions for getting truthful information in a timely manner.

If the leaders' track record for this is poor, they will have some important work to do to reestablish the possibility. Mandating, threatening, or ignoring past political or leadership style consequences will not turn this dynamic around. If the leaders are truly committed to receiving information that may indicate a course correction, they must model this commitment, starting with course correcting their own past behavior.

The leaders must also publicly establish the system for requesting, securing, and responding to feedback for potential course corrections on the change. Their success depends on it! They should be very clear what types of information they want (ANY and ALL information is GOOD!!!), where it should be delivered, how it will be dealt with, and how follow up communication will be handled. This is a high leverage opportunity for the leaders to walk their talk!

10. How are you going to model the required personal changes you are asking of the organization (i.e., changes in behavior, mindset, language, decision-making, work practices)? How do you want to be seen by the senior executives, managers and workforce, and what will you do to wake them up to the need to make these personal changes as well?

When an organization transforms, the leaders must take bold actions to demonstrate that a change in mindset, behavior, and work practices is required—of them as well as everyone in the organization. Personal change is the mandate of transformation, and cannot be delegated or sidestepped.

The issues in this question require self-reflection on the part of the leaders. Transformation demands commitment to their own personal change, and to the development of their leadership capacity. Open the door for this possibility here, and follow it up with a well-paced plan for supporting the executives to do the work they personally need to do to succeed.

Explore with the leaders what they are willing to look at in themselves that may or may not be enabling them to lead the organization successfully to its new future. Based on what is required by the change, explore if there are aspects of their thinking, beliefs, behavior, style, relationships, communications, emotional capacity, and so on, that need changing for them to model the new ways. Explore how to support them to address these personal aspects—coaching, training, observation and feedback? And, work with them to understand the importance of their modeling this type of personal change in the organization—how can they demonstrate the changes they are making in themselves as a leverage point for the rest of the organization transforming itself? How can they create the safe conditions for this to occur?

If your change is transformational, don't hedge on this issue…It's critical to your success!

Good luck exploring these questions with your change sponsors. And remember, once you have asked, be prepared to follow up with the change strategy work to bring all of the insights your questions have generated to life