Of Leaves and Roots

The dynamics of change is curious. I think most people are content with status quo. Change takes effort and for most people life is pretty much o.k. without change.

This is why there will always be Get Rich Quick and Fix It Fast scams - the promise and allure of a quick fix is so enticing. Real change takes effort. Real change costs you something. Real World 101.

Individuals that can engage in real effective change rise to leadership. They are the exception.

*****

An organization began to question why their numbers were dropping. Their product was good but fewer were buying. To grow they knew they had to increase their revenue. The decision was made to formulate a survey and see if they could learn what they were missing.

The survey results seemed to identify some key areas requiring attention; things like packaging and value to the end-user and availability. Surveys can mislead and so can the interpretation of the data collected. The axiom about listening (we have two ears and one mouth) never goes away. Even after we get the survey results.

The key players met to discuss the findings and what should be done about them. Without engaging their clients and potential clients in further discussion (one mouth, one ear with a weak battery in the hearing aid), they began to make decisions.

• Decisions about packaging. Change the font. Instead of square, let's do rectangle. Can't the container be clear? If we package it this way it will look like the customer is getting more. (If we can't change the real value, then we can change the perceived value.)
• Decisions about value. They chose to define value in monetary terms (cost per unit) instead of in terms of benefit to the customer. 
• Decisions about availability. We will put our product in these new venues.

None of the decisions they made were necessarily wrong. All of the decisions increased work load. None of the decisions increased revenue that validated the changes. In other words, they could have done nothing at all and their bottom line would remain basically the same.

It appeared that they were trying to change their harvest by playing with the leaves and ignoring the roots. Leaves are easier to access. You can trim them, rake them into a pile and jump in them, sit back and admire them. But roots are beneath the surface and not so easy to see. They are not as easy to change.

Turns out the company's product itself just did not taste as good as their competition. Changing packaging, pricing or availability did not address the real problem.

*****
Change - effective change - is the arena of Leaders. For effective change to occur Leaders focus their concern on the roots. That's where the real action is.

• Active listening (like radars that never turn off) helps the Leader to hear "through" the answers to its questions.
• Vision casting helps the Leader to take his people from where they are at to where they need to be.
• Priority management helps the Leader stay out of the galley and in the cockpit.
• Reality checks help a Leader to stay fresh and relevant.
• Smart goals and accountability help a Leader to keep moving forward.
• Identifying the root issues and addressing them decisively causes beneficial change.

*****
Put the rake away. Pick up the shovel.

Compelled

A powerful or irresistible effect; influence.

Now there's something I'd like to have in my back pocket. A compelling message-product-service that would cause people to line up and drop money into my checking account!

*****

I remember a story from my Sunday School days of a man who walked through a field and discovered a treasure. Until he found the treasure the plot of land was just some undeveloped real estate - a field of dirt, rocks, worthless trees and bugs.

When I lived in Spain I used to drive away from the city and park my car and go walking out in the Castillian landscape filled with rocks, dirt, scrub trees . . . and sheep droppings. Worthless for most people but for me that barren landscape held value because that's where I could go to retreat from the noise of the "to-dos" and take time to focus. I did a lot of conversating out there with my own thoughts and the Maker of barren fields. But I never hopped back in my car to return home without having made some kind of decision. It might have been a decision about someone I had to talk to, something I had to purchase, a move I had to make, or a course of action that had to be implemented.

Fields have value according to the user.

So the guy from the Sunday School story might have been wandering in the field for similar reasons. Why else would you go out kicking around the dirt and rocks? Apparently he already owned enough stuff to make a life and take some time off. I think he was probably basically happy. After his morning cup of tea he announced to his wife, "I'm going for a walk. See you when I get home."

Out walking in the sun, enjoying the horizon, poking around with a stick until he was interrupted by a hidden something. Brushing away the dirt revealed something he did not already have and once he saw it, he realized he was missing something.

That's when he made a decision that altered his future. Returning home he set about selling everything he owned and approached the owner of the field. "I'd like to buy your field."

The old landowner probably had an interesting conversation. All the intricacies and nuances of bartering and negotiation with his mouth saying, "What field?" and his head thinking, "Oh? How come?" Long story short, he sells. "You want that plot of land, it will cost you." The wanderer walks away and the former land owner with a twinkle in his eye relishes in the deal he just sealed.

But it was the wanderer who found the greater value that the field held and the power it had to alter his life.

****

In a recent coaching workshop the question turned to Our Greatest Talents and how those Talents turned into money in the checking account. These astute professionals seized the moment and turned the tables on me. They asked me about My Talent. What was it? What do people say about their coach?

I tried to change the subject and move on. Nuthin' doin'. They insisted that I say something. *sigh*

"When I have the opportunity to sit down with professionals and business owners I do a lot of listening and a little talking. You all know that. But one thing I invariably hear from everyone is 'That's a good question.' And then I can see their gears turning and their thoughts processing. I know a decision is about to be born."

Around the room a chorus of "Yes, that's what you do" affirmed what we all already knew.

Coaching sessions are like a field. Useless for a lot of people who choose not to go there. But for those who make the choice to break away and focus, the treasure the coach brings is the power of the Question. The Question combined with the owner's desire to see good change in their business and life is powerful. The results are empowering decisions that alter the future.

For those who experience it, it is compelling.

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What is it that makes your product-service-message compelling to your audience?

Look at your calendar: When is your next scheduled breakaway for "treasure hunting"?

7 Good Tips for Developing a Good Vision

Vision is the stuff of leaders. Vision inspires and gives a reason to get up in the morning. Vision is the impetus for change. 

How does a "regular Joe" identify a vision? Here are some good considerations to keep in mind.

1. Get a good grip on what's really going on around you.
While vision makes the incredible reality, vision is not fantasy. Edward Nino Hernandez may conjure up a vision for becoming the world's greatest basketball player . . . but that is pure fantasy. Edward is the world's shortest man. Coca Cola embraces the vision to refresh the world . . . and I was reminded of this as I sat in a Saharan tent hundreds of miles from modern western city life.

2. Take a good look in the mirror.
Understanding yourself - talents and abilities, character strengths and shortcomings, beliefs and values, and all those things that contribute to making you who you are - is key to developing a vision. If you can guarantee that one person is going to take this trip to the future, you can guarantee that it's you. The better you understand yourself, the better you can make #3 a reality.

3. Surround yourself with good people.
Even the Lone Ranger had an inseparable #2. Commanding leadership relies on people to lead. Surround yourself with good people that share your values, embrace integrity, and pursue excellence. They are invaluable in making your vision a reality.

4. Good values are rich soil for growing good vision.
A good vision benefits other people. At the core of any good vision you will find good values. Good values are timeless. They inspire the human spirit to pursue noble character. Good values attract loyalty, sacrifice, and selflessness. A vision which is self serving will not last.

5. Ask good questions.
Good questions do not accept the cliche. They challenge the soul without defeating it. An apt question  will provide insight, clarity and understanding. King Solomon once said, "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of kings to search a matter out."

6. Feel good about it.
If you cannot embrace your vision and feel good about it, get rid of it.

7. Good vision needs a good chance to be developed.
If you have identified a good vision, start making choices today that are in line with it. If for some reason you should make a choice that deviates from your good vision, push the reset button and get back on track. Every athelete trains to win the prize. Every farmer plants seed and patiently waits for the harvest. Every soldier submits himself to the purpose he has enlisted for enduring each skirmish for the sake of winning the war. Stay true to your vision and choose forward.

Passion ... Fruit

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." (Christian Hebbel, German poet and dramatist 1813-1863)

I was once told that no one cares what dead European poets said. That might be true. I have never read a Gallup poll on that topic. But I think Mr. Hebbel nailed it on the head and so maybe I was misinformed about dead poets. Passion and greatness are a great Jerry-McGuiresque couple as in "You complete me."

My wife and I went shopping tonight to feed my addiction: bagels. Don't ask. Just trust me. I get ornery if there are no bagels in the house. If there are bagels in the cupboard then all is well. Bagels aren't a passion of mine. They are just one of my addictions.

But we got sidetracked at the store like I did just now writing about passion. On my way to the bagel shelf we stopped to get bananas. Bananas are one of my wife's unpublicized quirks. She buys them all the time and oftentimes will never get around to eating them. Then they turn spotted and then brown and then black. I am not sure what comes after black except maybe a darker shade of black. If I try to throw them away with the promise that I will buy her some more, she will tell me rather assertively, "Don't throw those away! I'm going to eat them!" I have to sneak black bananas out to the garbage can.

So we are standing at the expansive banana table and I hold up a bunch and say, "How about these?"

"Not those; those are gray." They looked yellow to me but I kept my mouth shut.

We compared bananas. Then I asked the guy who was loading up the table with fresh bananas which ones he would buy if it were up to him.

That's when we had a serendipitous meeting with passion.

This young guy's eyes actually sparkled as he talked about bananas. He explained that all bananas are gassed and that is why they are green. If they did not gas them then the bananas would come even darker green - three times darker - and would be hard like a piece of wood. Once in a while they had to send a case of bananas back because they had not been gassed.

"Do you know which bananas are more nutritious and better tasting?" he asked with the tease of someone who had captured a magical nymph in the backyard.

I did not even have a chance to venture that it depended on what country of origin when he answered his own question. "You look at the stem. The longer the stem, the less nutritious and the less flavor the banana has. Look at this short fat stem," he taught us holding up two different bunches for contrast, "This bunch is full of nutrition and flavor. This bunch with the long slender stems will taste bland like tallow. Look at them. It just makes sense."

Tallow? My taste bud memory program kicked in and I mentally compared the tasteless fat from a rendered cow to some bananas that I had eaten. I understood. I wanted to know more. To avoid that bland tallowy experience I just had to by short stumpy stemmed bananas. Teach me, oh great produce guy; I yearn for more!

"Hey, aren't you the guy who was talking to us about cantelopes a couple of weeks ago?"

"Oh, probably."

I am an unashamed 52 and I still ask my wife how she knows if a watermelon is good or not. Thump it. If I ask ladies nearby thumping on watermelons what they are listening for I get a answer that sounds like they are quoting Farmers Almanac. But after an invigorating conversation with this produce guy, I now know exactly how to pick an excellent melon. I suppose I could have learned it with a Google search, but the internet is not nearly as interesting as a passionate produce guy.

With laughter in his eyes and a smile as wide as the produce table he talked about his passion for produce. Produce! I know, right? This is 2010 suburbia. My wife and I walked away to hunt down my bagels and we laughed and talked about the produce guy. It dawned on me that we did not even know his name. We went back to ask. A new agenda item was to mention our experience to the store manager.

Lawton. The passionate produce guy. You will know him if you ever meet him. He does not just know facts and data about produce; he knows produce.

We paged the store manager. As he approached the counter you could see in his eyes the look of someone getting ready for a Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick from the Irate Customer.

"We just wanted you to know what a great guy you have working for you in the produce department. Lawton."

The manager's eyes lost their edge and the corners of his mouth turned up. "Oh, you met Lawton. We hear that all the time."

**********

A passionate person is blessed with the power of attraction. Passionate people are like magnets. You want to be near them.

A passionate person is blessed with the power to make a difference. Passionate people are like strong acting baker's yeast. They cause positive things to happen in others wherever they happen to be.

A passionate person is blessed with richness of life. Passionate people are like the zest in a key lime pie from Key West. They take the pedestrian and elevate it to a whole new level.

Just imagine what can happen if you add passion to leadership. Wow. Short-stemmed banana leadership.

Swimming Against the Trend to Sell Soon

Twin Cities Small Business Owners Swim Against the Trend to Sell Out Soon 

The Growth Coach Finds Exit Strategies Being Postponed

Anoka County, Minnesota – As the economy remains uncertain, baby-boomer small business owners ages 46 to 64 in Anoka and Hennepin Counties are delaying the process of selling their business, despite national statistics showing otherwise. 

A recent study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers reported that one out of two small to large businesses will change hands between 2006 and 2016. However, according to a survey conducted by The Growth Coach franchise system in which Alan Furst, local owner of The Growth Coach participated in, the recession has caused many small business owners in the Twin City metro area, claiming sales revenue under $5 million and less than 100 employees, to push back their selling plans and delay retirement.  This is due to the negative impact degraded business performance will have on the near-term selling price of their business.

Based on survey responses, less than 10 percent of baby boomer small business owners in the metro area are planning to sell their business in the next five years. That indicates the vast majority of small business owners are planning to delay an exit strategy until beyond 2015. 

“We coach dozens of baby boomer small business owners annually in the area, which helps us analyze various small business trends in the market,” said Furst, owner of The Growth Coach of Ham Lake. “This latest Business Barometer survey indicates that despite what national statistics report, the uncertain economy is forcing small business owners to re-think and delay a potential business sale until bottom-line results improve and are sustained for several years.” 

The Growth Coach survey also indicated that of those baby boomer small business owners in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area thinking about selling their business:

• 25 percent of their business coaches report that the primary reason for wanting to sell their business is to cash out and collect the equity.
• 23 percent simply desire to retire.
• 28 percent agree that small business owners are setting aside at least two years to properly prepare their business for the selling process. 
• 28 percent are looking to sell to third-party buyers that are not competitors
• 14 percent are looking to sell to family members.

The baby boomer generation has been one of the most entrepreneurial generations in U.S. history. During the last 30 years, more than five million businesses with annual revenues ranging from $1 million to $75 million were founded. The majority of these business owners are now 50-years-old or older.  

The Growth Coach specializes in providing affordable group coaching workshops to business owners and executives utilizing its proprietary Strategic Mindset^® process.  In addition, they provide face-to-face coaching, Coaching Club (tele-coaching), as well as coach entire sales teams and management teams to be more effective with a strategic-focusing process.  All initial coaching services come with a 100 percent money-back guarantee. The coaching process helps clients gain clarity about where they want to go, develop continuous action plans to get there, and receive on-going accountability to stay on track. 

Bob

Once upon a time . . .

Bob worked in the corporate world until Pink Slip Day interrupted his routine. He packed up the contents of his desk into a little cardboard box and was escorted by a friendly security officer to the front door. 

Standing on the sidewalk with his little Cardboard Box he wondered what he would do. He grabbed hold of his Bootstraps and marched himself back home where he dropped his Cardboard Box on the kitchen table next to the Honey Do List.

"Well, I might as well get started on this list while I figure out what's next." He fixed the squeak in the front door. He fixed the squeak in the bathroom door. He fixed the squeak in the bedroom door. 

At the end of the day he was smiling and said, "What a good day. I like fixing squeaks." His neighbor heard him through the open window and called out. "Hey, Bob! My door squeaks. Can you help?"

"Sure!" he called back. "I like fixing squeaks."

Word spread and the next thing Bob knew his phone was ringing. People wanted their doors fixed all over town. 

He printed up business cards. "If you know someone with a squeaky door, tell them Bob can help."

He had a sign painted on his car. "Squeak No More Doors, LLC. Call today for a FREE estimate."

He had his daughter make a website. "SqueakNoMore.com" 

He asked his wife to help with bookkeeping. 

Life was good again. 

"I like being my own boss. I like fixing squeaks."

Until the Rainy Day came. 

Bob bent over to pull on his Bootstraps like he had for the past few years. Only he couldn't get back up. "I'm stuck."

Bob wondered how he could conduct business if he was stuck. Who would take care of the squeaks in his Business? If squeaks are ignored, they just squeak louder and louder. He was the Master Squeak Fixer. But lately there were more and more squeaks and less time to focus on them.

He grew tired of trying to pull on his Bootstraps. "If I could just let go of my Bootstraps. But how?" 

Friends and neighbors thought Bob looked Kind of Funny fixing the squeaks in their doors while bending over trying to pull on his Bootstraps. People noticed that it was not as much fun doing business with Bob. His daughter said, "Whatever." His wife said, "We need more." His customers called in more often demanding to speak with Bob because their doors were still squeaking. 

Bob did not like the Phone.

Bob got a headache. "This isn't what I thought it would be. I wanted more freedom but I work more than ever. I wanted to earn more money but my sales are suffering. I wanted to have fun doing what I enjoy but fixing squeaks isn't fun any more."

Then he realized that he did not own his Business. His Business owned him. And it wasn't letting go. 

*******

Many talented individuals have caught the entrepreneurial bug and bought, inherited or started a business related to their technical skills. That very expertise, unfortunately, has a strong tendency to suck you into the nooks and crannies of the business.  The technical day-to-day guts of the business are addictive and tough to escape. Sadly, a technician’s mindset and mode of operation are insufficient for running a business. These technical assets can be real liabilities and traps for an owner.  

Business ownership is all about strategic leadership, not technical doer-ship. It is all too easy to mistake a technician’s orientation for that of an entrepreneur’s.  

• They mistake busy-being-busy activity for accomplishment.  
• They confuse hard work for intelligent work.  
• They have a technician’s addiction to detail work.  
• They work and think like employees instead of owners.  
• They do the wrong type of work.  
• They fail to grasp that running a business is strategic, entrepreneurial, visionary, and requires strong leadership. 

******

For business to change, the first thing that has to change is how you think about owning a business.

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Objectivity and Earbuds

The car window was down and I was enjoying four things at once: sunshine, a gentle summer breeze, a cup of joe and the daily news. In the middle of an article about new efforts to solve a 25 year old crime the voice of someone shouting interrupted my solitude.

"What's that?" I wondered and folded down the paper to see where the shouting originated. To the left was an oil change guy waving a placard at passersby. To the right was an empty parking lot, the oil change place with some cars waiting, and, of course, the Golden Arches where I had purchased my McCafe. The voice sounded far away but I did not see anything noteworthy.

Back to my article.

The shouting started up again and I tried to ignore it.

The voice sounded more urgent. Something's going on right outside my car window somewhere. It was not a conversation - there was only one voice. Someone was yelling to get attention. I re-examined what was in front of me.

To the left was Mr. Placard Waving Guy dancing to himself with his iPod and bouncing the $10 special for all to see. Pan over to the right and the Oil Change Place had about 6 cars lined up for service. Advertising works if you can find the right way to advertise. I momentarily wondered if I could get some guy to stand on the street and wave a placard at passersby, "The Growth Coach offers FREE Consult!" Nah, probably not.

Standing on the edge of an overgrown field of weeds stood another Oil Change Guy. He was yelling.

Ohhhhh. Now it makes sense. He was yelling to Mr. Placard Waving Guy with the earbuds. He was needed back at the shop to help handle the increase in customers. Got it. But Mr. Placard Waving Guy could not hear because he was too busy dancing in his own little world while doing his job of advertising.

Time to go. I folded up my paper, drank the last bit of coffee, started my car and backed up. Very slowly I drove up to Mr. Placard Waving Guy and stopped. "Hey, they're trying to get your attention!" He leaned down, took the earbuds out and said, "What?"

"They're calling for you!"

Turning to look, he heard the shop calling. "Oh."

*******
Not too long ago I was listening to a business owner tell me about his current situation. It became clear as he talked that he was like Mr. Placard Waving Guy. He was so engrossed in doing what he thought he should be doing that he completely could not hear a screaming need in another area of his business.

My trusty pen sketched on the paper in front of him what I was hearing. "It seems to me like you've got a situation over here that needs your attention."

"Oh," he said, "You're right. I better take care of that."

*******
The benefit of objectivity can help a business owner see the bigger picture and address the most important issues. Cut through the clutter and get out of the same old ineffective routines! Start by taking out the earbuds piping in the mental music you are accustomed to and listen to what's really going on in your business.

By the way, the Growth Coach offers a free consult to objectively listen and help you assess what is trying to get your attention.