Go Back to Past Greatness to Improve Your Future

After hearing all the discussions at this morning's Inner Circle meeting, the major thought I want to convey today relates to going back to what you done well in the past, to improve for the future.

The temptation to radically change things when things aren’t going well is hard to resist. It's natural to feel this way. But usually that instinct is wrong and you need to resist that urge.

Research from Jim Collins studies of great organizations going bad (his book How the Mighty Fall) indicates that those that fall stray too far from what made them great. They innovate too much, or take to radical of action to fix everything when everything isn’t broken.

Usually something needs to be fixed but not everything. The change needed might only be renewing your focus on what made you great in the first place. I said it in the meeting, the best corporate turnaround artists, the ones who really turn a company around, are those that go back to what was done good in the past, get the companies to start doing it again, and then tweak it.

No matter what’s going on in your company, you did something good in the past. Get back to it.

What's up. Head's up. Where am I stuck?

After a recent personal coaching session with a client, I had a breakthrough idea. He was talking about the difficulty of team work within his company, mostly executives had a hard time communicating with each other, a common problem in lots of organization. However, this client, unlike most of my clients, isn't the leader of the organization.

Usually I'm working with the owner or CEO. And the solution to this situation for them often involves establishing a disciplined meeting rhythm, including daily ten minute stand-up huddles, where everyone reports "What's up! Head's Up! and Where am I stuck?" (Translation: This is what I'll be working on primarily today, this is what you need to know about what I learned since yesterday, and this is what is slow going for me today.)

It clears the air, allows for intervention, and generally encourages creativity and collaboration. It speeds things up and helps with accountability.

I asked my coaching client, who couldn't call or establish a meeting rhythm in his company, what was likely to happen if he left a voice mail for his superior and teammates each day, providing them with his "What's up! Head's up! This is what I'm stuck on!"

"They would know what I'm producing and what I need help with. And they would probably start sharing the same information with me in return."

"Furthermore, I would be able to hold myself more accountable."

Sounds like a plan. I fully expect communications to open up. And performance to improve. Might even see some face to face daily huddles established in the future.

Checklists Really Make a Difference.

Many of the answers at recent Inner Circle Meetings in Memphis has been the same. Checklists.

Do you have a checklist?
Can you "checklist" this out?
You need to create a checklist.

Checklists are why the number of airline accidents are so low, safer in fact that driving your car anywhere.

Checklists, when implemented, are why the incidence of infections are in the decline at hospitals in Michigan. Check out this article from the Wall Street Journal. After you read it, it you'll wonder why more doctors and hospitals aren't doing this.

Are you not using checklists for the same reasons most health care providers don't? Too proud? Too much work? Don't know any better?

Although not really a business article, it gives great advice on how to get your team to implement checklists to improve quality and process.

Checklists work. Use them.

Teamwork Analogies That Have Nothing To Do With Sports

I generally avoid using sports analogies when advising clients on improving their businesses. They focus way too much on beating the competition when most improvements come by stopping beating yourself.

These analogies work better.

A choral or musical ensemble like a choir or orchestra. Different members of the team contribute different things that add up to something better than the individual contributions of each member. Singing bass usually doesn't sound to good by itself, but it enhances the music made by the sopranos or tenors. Trust me on this, I'm a bass, we almost never have the melody but we add something to everyone else's singing. Everyone is singing different notes. When they do this in the proper order, on the same measure, the outcome is amazing.

Leading or driving a team of pack animals. When you research the words team and teamwork, you'll find that the origins of these words have nothing to do with sports. It comes form getting a "team" of horses to pull a sled, or wagon, or carriage effectively, acting in unison. It's also the origin of the word "teamster", someone effective at getting pack animals to work together and pull the wagon.

Both of these work much better than many sports analogies. When I use them, they change the attitudes of the people I'm working with in a positive manner. The see the need for achieving a common objective and that everyone has a role to play and that they have to be working in unison to accomplish the objective.

Does this work for you?

Michigan Football Failure Through the Eyes of Jim Collins

You'll probably see this as a bit of a stretch, but using Jim Collins' How the Mighty Fall(HTMF) to analyze the demise of the once mighty Michigan Football program might be a good learning opportunity for you and an excellent way to vent my frustrations about things.

You see, I'm a true blue Michigan Fan. I became a fan in 1969 when a less than prominent football coach named Glenn "Bo" Schembechler was hired in Ann Arbor. He turned around a losing team in one season and ended the season by whipping the what many people believed to be the best Ohio State Football team ever, the Rex Kern Buckeyes (undefeated National Champions the season before and undefeated going into the 1969 game season ending game with Michigan).

Thus began the longest string of winnings seasons in NCAA history (40) and the longest string of continuous bowl appearances (30+). I attended and graduated from Michigan ('79). Only one national championship season during that time, but a consistent display of excellence on the field and off the entire time. The Michigan Way of winning was established and sustained. No star system, the team and University always first, senior leadership, tough physical play, and a commitment to excellence all the way around. No cheating, no scandals, no monkey business. And when we lost, it was always close, and the other team always felt like they had been beaten up by the Wolverines and were lucky to win.

This extended beyond Bo through Gary Moeller to Lloyd Carr. In fact, Bo never won a National Championship, Carr did. But the championship culture created by Bo --"Those who stay will be champions."-- carried the program. In my humble opinion the Schembechler Era ended with Carr's retirement.

The last years of the Carr tenure you could see that the program was struggling a bit, losing to Ohio State regularly and looking a bit unprepared at times, and a bit old fashioned as well. And the administration may have been in denial a bit about things (stage three of HTMF, denial of risk and peril). After all, how do you fire a national championship winning coach. The administration fumbled hiring his replacement, two excellent coaches turning Michigan down. Lots of pressure existed to get a new coach who would really change things and make the program more "modern" by bringing in the latest and greatest offense, the spread.

Succumbing to pressure and trying to make a "big" hire, Michigan hired Rich Rodrieguez the current coach. RichRod is an spread offense guru who surely could turn things around. (Stage four of HTMF, grasping for salvation). They hired him quickly and it certainly created a buzz about Michigan Football. The New and Improved Michigan Football program is on the way and a National Championship just around the corner. But it appears the did it without thoroughly checking him out, and without concern about the havoc the hire would create.

Like most guru's coming into declining situations, he cleaned the house. Fired all the coaches, ignored the established traditions and culture, and ran out players that didn't see things his way, the New Michigan Way. And as Collins chronicles in HTMF, the change accelerated the slight decline, making it a big one. Michigan is the doormat of the Big Ten two years running. Michigan is on a two year streak of losing seasons without a bowl game. They play inconsistently at best, and miserably at their worst. They no longer know how to win or even display the desire to win. Unforced errors abound. Teams that haven't beat us at home since the Johnson Administration have beat us, Teams that haven't beat us two years in a row have beat us two in a row. Too many of the wrong kind of firsts.

Collins documents, that in the decline of great to failure, bringing in the guru with his game changing ways, almost never works. What works in going back to what made your great, and making adjustments and innovations that make what you did great even better. It's what works.

It's not going to get any better. The program is in disarray. It's hurting recruiting, always the key to excellence. Next year will be no better than this year. RichRod is starting from scratch to establish a winning culture when he didn't have to. He should have embraced the culture and adjusted his spread offense to match it. He's destroyed the culture in two short seasons because he didn't respect it. It's what superstar guru's do, they know better, they're the superstar. When a company hires the outside superstar guru you should sell your stock in that company as soon as possible, failure is on the way. Does Carly Fiorino sound familar?

To get back to excellence Michigan needs to follow some of Jim Collins' advice from Good to Great: Hire slow and fire fast. Fire RichRod as fast as they can. And go slow in hiring a coach that can go back to what made Michigan great the previous 40 years. Doesn't have to be a Michigan Man, but it needs to be one the respects the culture, and can bring it back and build on it.

Okay, I know that this post is full of sour grapes. My Maize and Blue Blood is boiling. But being an aficionado and disciple of both Collins and Schembechler (I think they would love each other), I really can't see it any other way. And neither should you. Pick up a copy of HTMF. And while you are at it, pick up a copy of Bo's Lasting Lessons. They cover the same territory in different ways. And they might just help you succeed and avoid failure.

Go Blue!
It's Good, To Be, A Michigan Wolverine!

Do you give customers what they need or what they want?

I had an interaction recently with a vendor of mine. Great vendor. Really good at delivering on what we ask for. Can't say enough about that.

The problem occurs when we don't know exactly what we need. And sometimes, more often than I care to admit, we don't know that we don't know (sound familiar?). So we blunder ahead thinking we know what we need and they deliver exactly what we asked for and it's wrong. And everyone is frustrated.

Customer usually know what they want, but are often unaware of what they really need. And in servicing customers we often probe and nail down the first without even addressing the second.

Why is this? Is it because we are anxious to make the deal, don't want to risk offending the client, don't know how to probe about real needs and objectives?

Whatever the reason, we must examine this in our sales process. And learn how to uncover real needs. If we don't were leaving money on the table or losing clients to others that have figured this out.

Who Hears "No" the Most: Salespeople

Who hears the word "No" more than anyone else in your organization. That's right, it's the sales person.

Let's think about this a bit from the "Behavioral Reinforcement" point of view. No is a negative reinforcement at best and punishment at its worst. There is no way around this. Even the best salespeople in the world have to contend with "No." It's certain and inevitable.

Everyone I know wants to avoid punishments, so that's why "no" is a negative reinforcement. Your sales person will go to great lengths to avoid "no" because it's painful. Possibly avoiding the sales techniques needed to get "yes" to avoid "no" Ever hear of or suffer from call hesitation?

--Especially new sales people on your team (even if they are veteran successful sales people previously.
--Especially a sales person in a slump.
--Especially sales people fighting a tough economy.

Good sales people don't accept "no". But the need help from management to fight the onslaught of "no's" they face every day. The need positive reinforcement on a regular basis (beyond basic attaboy's)on the things they are doing well.

That's why weekly sales meetings are important. To give strength and techniques to sales people that help them face the "no's" the face every day.

Are you having weekly and even daily sales meetings to provide this positive reinforcement to your sales associates? If not you are really missing the boat.