Thoughtful leadership and marketing

Is learning from mistakes overrated?

As someone once famously said, “Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be.”  Parts of my book, Celebrating Failure:  The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big, are being questioned with the release of the outstanding book titled Rework by authors Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.  We are kindred revolutionary spirits on nearly every point, save the value of failure.

The authors write, “Learning from mistakes is overrated.”  They then use a mildly edgy approach to make their case.  “If other people can’t market their product, it has nothing to do with you.”  Well who could argue with that?  Except you can go to school inexpensively on other people’s inability to market themselves when you analyze the approach they used and learn from how they failed. 

While there is benefit to analyzing other people’s failures, the bigger benefit comes from using your own attempts at success to take your own big idea to a higher level through a process of continuous improvement.  Most often when people miss the mark and fail they are only a tweak away from success.  Yet because they are often embarrassed by their failure, when they should be proud they had the guts to try, they walk away in defeat.

Then my fellow authors concede, “You might learn what not to do again, but how valuable is that?”  It is extremely valuable if you celebrate it as the first step toward success and use it as insight as to what will eventually work.  But that only happens when you are listening and improving upon your first attempt.  

My leadership soul mates then make the case that success is more valuable than failure when they say, “Success gives you real ammunition.”  Absolutely.  Success is far more valuable than failure, but you still need to apply continuous improvement to whatever you achieved or someone else will come along, improve upon it, and do it better, faster and cheaper. 

It can be challenging to take your new success and real ammunition and replicate it across other disciplines.  How many times have we seen a business strike gold in one area and naively believe that unique idea can be easily transferred to another business?  But, alas, most successes were unique and are not easily replicated or transferable, but they are certainly a great point from which to start.

And to my rescue comes acclaimed book reviewer Robert Morris, “In Celebrating Failure: The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes, and Thinking Big, Ralph Heath explains how the power of taking bold but carefully calculated risks and making mistakes while pursuing what Jim Collins characterizes as BHAGs (i.e. Big Hairy Audacious Goals), can achieve success of a magnitude and value that would otherwise be impossible.  Heath really does not advocate celebrating failure per se; rather, he advocates celebrating the process by which to leverage failure as a means by which to succeed.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Rework is an outstanding book that I would highly recommend.  In fact, what I admire most about Rework is the title.  It would have worked well as the title for Celebrating Failure.

You don't need to tell me twice.

So my friend and his co-workers are listening to their Fortune 500 company president do the quarterly earnings report to investors and the president proudly announces that there will be even more cost savings as the company intends to transfer more jobs overseas from guess where?  That's right.  My friend's job is going overseas.  How is that for a punch to the midsection?

While the president hyped the earnings report to analysts with the cost cutting announcement, which in turn edged the stock to record highs, I can't believe the president did much for long term company morale at his own business.  And is that the best way to tell employees who have worked at your company for 30 years that their job is going away?  Does that have a long term negative effect on the quality of work and the workers that remain?  Or are people more robotic than I give them credit for?  They'll still dig deep, and go the extra mile for you, even if you treat them poorly. 

Call me overly sensitive, but when I had to eliminate someone's job, and it happens sooner or later to most all leaders, I tried to tell the employee first.  It brings a semblance of dignity to one of the worst assignments in the world. And why not tell the employee first?  Is there an advantage in announcing it to the financial press first?  Isn't a one on one with the employee that is going to be terminated a higher road?

But enough about the weak leadership from the president.  He will probably never change.  My friend needs to move into immediate action.  If it is your job being eliminated you do not have time to go through the usual steps of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  Move right to acceptance and do it today.   Get your resume together immediately and spend your spare time searching for a new job.  It is much easier to find a job when you have a job. When you are unemployed you are dealing from a position of weakness.  On average you'll receive less pay compared to the person who negotiates while employed.  HR types will look at you with more skepticism when you are unemployed. 

First and foremost be positive.  Put all bitterness toward your current employer up on a very high shelf and leave it there.  It does you no good.  

Tell your new prospective employer the truth if you choose, "My job has been targeted for transfer overseas."  Or spin it a bit and tell them, " I love my current job but I felt the time was right to try something new and exciting, and that is why I am here today because your company appears new and exciting to me.  And I love a challenge. And by the way, I'm a great listener.  You don't need to tell me something twice."

Helicopter parents are an embarrassment to all.

Last weekend I was providing the race commentary for a criterium bike race in my hometown.  It is a challenging job as packs of 20 to 70 racers go hurdling past the announcing platform at speeds of 20 to 30 miles per hour with their race numbers on the "back" of their jerseys.  Getting it all right and timely is fun and difficult at the same time. 

Five minutes before the start of each race they give me a list of all of the racers and their corresponding numbers.  So I'm determined to try my best to give the racers their moment in the sun and call out the leaders' names and as many other names as I can.  Of course I have no idea how to pronounce their names but the author of Celebrating Failure is fearless about making mistakes and mispronunciations. 

In the Juniors race division there is a young kid named Stephan and he is momentarily in the lead and I mispronounce his name as (Steve-EN) when it is supposed to be pronounced (Stef-EN) or maybe it is the other way around. Please understand I'm still not losing any sleep over it.  I have always believed the time to worry about your name is when they stop talking about you.  Otherwise it's all good.

So little Stephan's mother comes running over to the announcer stand yelling, "No, no, no!  His name is pronounced Stef-EN and he is very sensitive about it."  Little Stephan got passed on the next lap and I'm pleased to report his name never passed my lips again.  I'm not normally a vengeful person so I'm not saying what I would have done if he would have remained in the lead.  I probably would have announced his name as I felt sorry for the kid with the helicopter mother.

Why does my generation continue to do such a lousy job raising children?  I tried to picture my mom or dad running over to the announcer platform saying, "No, no, no!  He is very sensitive about his name...It's Rolf not Ralf.  And don't make 'Ralphing' jokes, he hates that!"  That would happen right after hell froze over.  More likely, after the race, my dad would have asked me why I gave up the lead.  

Today's parents are not doing their kids any favors by butting into their lives and trying to shelter them from the cold, harsh reality of the real world.  If little Stephan is sensitive about the pronunciation of his name, how is he going to react when he is part of a group that just lost a million dollar new business pitch? 

How did we ever get to a place that has helicopter parents?

Painting a vision versus a watercolor painting.

The other day we are at a client meeting and I ask, “So at this gathering (we were planning), who will be responsible for painting the vision of the project.”   And my left-brain client dutifully went over and picked up an actual watercolor 'painting' of the project and said, “It’s right here Ralph.”

Taking me to a meeting can often times be an adventure.  One of my quick-thinking partners quickly recognized a far right-brain guy was attempting to communicate with a far left-brain person and said, “What Ralph meant was, who will get up in front of the group and ‘present’ the overall vision of the project to the assembled masses of people?” 

If you’ve never studied how right-brain and left-brain thinkers communicate with each other it would be worth your while to find a seminar in your area and spend a day learning.  Understanding how people filter their thinking can go a long way toward improving communications between the two groups. 

Right-brain thinkers often 'paint' a big picture vision of a project.  Left-brain thinkers take you through a sequential review of the project.  Very thorough of them but oftentimes not as exciting because some of the less important sequential details may cause you to fall asleep or jump out of any nearby window not caring what floor you are on.  I tease left-brain thinkers.   

Most often the left-brain thinker must tell the story sequentially because that is precisely how they see it.  They are almost incapable of jumping around and hitting the high points much like the right-brain thinker doesn’t have the discipline or desire to look at it sequentially.  Right brain thinkers like to look at the high points from 30,000 feet, use phrases like "paint a vision" and aren't as concerned with each and every mundane detail. Their propensity to leave out details can drive the left brain thinkers crazy. I know this for a fact after performing much research.

Can you guess which side accountants come from?  Easy, they are the left brainers.  They are sequential, logical and numbers oriented.  How about designers and creative directors?  They are, of course, very spatial, big picture people, although I’ve worked with many “whole brain” creative types who comfortably work out of both sides of their brains. 

I confess I have made a hobby of studying the right and the left and how they communicate and it has not only helped me make a more comfortable living but it is mildly entertaining.  And still I’m surprised when I ask who is going to "paint the vision" and someone holds up an actual watercolor painting. 

The power of storytelling.

The mind is a malleable sponge that leaders can mold to greatness and marketers oftentimes abuse.  I was cycling with a friend the other day and he told me about a supplement he was taking that had completely changed his life. 

Since he started taking the special proprietary vitamin formula he claims he is performing at the highest level he has ever achieved, he hasn’t been sick a day since taking it, his asthma is cured and he feels the best he has ever felt in his life.  He is speaking to me from the heart. 

This is a typical story in the athletic world.  There is most often a successful and magical “anecdotal” success story behind the product where legions of people have had miraculous cures for whatever ails them.  While I confess he did punish me on the climb up the mountain that day it was not the vitamin.  It was his preparation and training.

Athletes will train for months on end following an incredible routine of high intensity workouts combined with just the right amount of rest.  They lift weights and eat most all the right foods.

The training is just starting to pay off and someone gives us an ordinary vitamin supplement while telling an extremely interesting and “always anecdotal” success story that claims this product is so good they didn’t have time to do a double blind scientific study to verify its incredible efficacy.  Suddenly the athlete starts performing well, as planned, but attributes all of the success to the “magic” vitamin and gives little or no credit to the intensive months of training, diet and exercise. 

It is a testament to the power of storytelling and the vulnerability of the human mind to the persuasive powers of storytelling.  It is the reason leaders succeed most often when they present new ideas with a unique story that people can identify with.    Leaders need to use powerful storytelling to do great things.  Marketers need to check their moral compass.

Undercover Boss exposes the sad truth about leadership.

I have this running joke with my wife when we fly Delta.  The attitude of the work force and the way Delta treats their customers is so bad that when we have an encounter with one of their glum, depressed and despondent workers I say to my wife, "Doesn't the president of Delta ever fly on his own airline and see how badly some of his workers treat his best customers?"  My wife, aware that I am a customer service evangelist, humors me, looks up from her book and says, "I don't think he does honey."  But I had no clue until I watched Undercover Boss that she was right.

I was watching the prime time TV show at the behest of the nice lady who books my keynote speeches, and I am now convinced the answer is most corporate bosses do not fly on their own airlines or interact with their own employees or customers unless they are forced to do so by a national television production company telling them they want to do a one-hour prime time special watching them actually speak with real life employees.  

Bill Carstanjen, the COO of Churchill Downs went "undercover," a term Bill repeats about 75 times during a recent episode of the show, like he is with the CIA or something, so he can learn what his employees are experiencing.  Undercover, no kidding?  I had always called it MBWA, management by wandering around, a term I first heard from Tom Peters.

Bill was moved by the whole experience, even to tears at one point. He is truly a likable leader but thus far a left brain leader who by his own admission locked himself in his office with spreadsheets and apparently never thought of going out onto the shop floor, so to speak, and talking to his own employees.  And the cut-away shots of his management team in the boardroom, when they heard he actually learned from his employees, was every bit as incredible.  One guy looked at him like, "Really, the employees, no kidding, you spoke with them and it was valuable?"

One of the benefits of starting my own business from ground zero is that I was the first employee.  You learn to appreciate and understand every job in the place as you hire more workers and you develop a lifetime of compassion for the work they perform because you've performed every job yourself.  McDonald's is not a Delta or Churchill Downs kind of company.  McDonald's is infamous for putting their managers through rigorous in-the-trenches type of training.  Sadly, I am learning that McDonald's is the exception and not the rule.

All of the segments on the show are about the president interacting with his employees and the only thing more valuable is interacting with your customers.   No need to go undercover which explains why the TV show doesn't go there.  Take good notes because the stuff they will tell you is golden.  It is the single most important thing a leader should do.  Right up there with talking to your employees and flying your own airline.

Work place flexibility is about empowering workers to take responsibility.

"Only 30% of companies in a McKinsey survey reported offering options for flexible working conditions."  If you are an advocate for worker empowerment, those are depressing numbers.  70% of companies are so set in the way they do business that they want employees to conform to uniform start and stop times.  It somehow stresses these leaders if an employee contributes the same total number of hours, yet spends extra time in the morning getting their child off to school, but stays later in the day.

It is interesting to look back and determine how we form our own unique leadership philosophies. Years ago I worked in the armpit of America in the bowels of downtown Milwaukee as a drill press operator boring holes in metal.  Boring being the operative word here.  It required me to perform repetitive, tedious movements.  However, it was precision work that would cost the company money if and when I screwed up, so it required great concentration (full disclosure here I have the attention span of a 7-year-old).

And for whatever reason I had to "stand" at the drill press while a perfectly good chair was unused a mere 10 yards away.  I'm thinking I'd be more comfortable sitting and better able to perform my job.  A win-win for me and the company.  So by the afternoon of the first day I can no longer control myself and ask the foreman if he minded if I pulled that chair over and really focused on my "precision" job at hand.  He says, "No chairs.  All 'our guys' stand at the drill press."  I of course ask, "Why?"  I'm not making this up. "It looks good," he says with the straightest face I've ever seen. 

We discussed his management philosophy a while longer but I lost the debate. Some factory foremen are reticent to embrace the evolving leadership philosophy of a college student.  We were so far apart philosophically, that I thought it best I quickly find a new job, which I accomplished in six short weeks that felt like six years (always try and have a new job before you quit your current source of income). 

If you can do your job more effectively sitting down it makes no sense to have someone stand just so it looks good.  What matters most is performance and profits and giving workers control over their job environment.  Let the worker decide if they want to stand or sit so they have ownership in their own performance. 

Worker control is critical to the health and happiness of employees.  Many companies won't allow employees to put up family pictures in their cubes.  If you want people to be responsible for doing a great job give them choice and flexibility in other areas and it will translate to more ownership on the business at hand.  Treat them like they can't think for themselves and they most assuredly won't. 

It takes guts to define a narrow niche.

Positioning a company or organization is often counter intuitive.  For example, most often the organization that most narrowly defines its niche attracts more customers as we desire to do business with people who are experts at a specific discipline. 

Attempt to be all things to all people and most people will take a pass as it is not realistic.  We all understand that no one can be good at everything.   

But it can be a painful process to define that narrow niche position because no one wants to leave a potential business opportunity behind.  And admittedly that is a result of narrowing the niche.  But it is still a good thing as it will positively impact your bottom line.

It all starts with the right process and the guts to narrowly define the niche that makes you world class.

To achieve rock star-like status: under promise and over deliver.

I’m not certain who coined the term “under promise and over deliver,” but the first time I heard it used was from Tom Peters.  As a chronic over achiever it was a light bulb moment.  It is a psychologically brilliant strategy.  When chronic over achievers and others of that ilk are asked when we can deliver something, we often feel the need to impress, so we blurt out something ridiculous like, “I can get you the report tomorrow.” 

The person who asked is usually quietly thinking, “I didn’t expect it that soon.  I was thinking a report of that substance would take three or four days, but okay.”  And then we kill ourselves trying to rush the job and miss the miracle one-day turnaround deadline, but instead get it done in a miraculous two days, but it all goes for naught because we missed the deadline and got it there late.  Whereas, if we had promised it in a reasonable three or four days and delivered in two, we would have looked like rock stars.

Conversely, I have found if I need something quickly from a supplier or colleague, the easiest way to get there is to ask the person whose help I’m requesting, when “they” believe they can get it done. 

It gives them ownership in the deadline and it is often a faster deadline than I would have requested.  Partially because of paragraph one and two.  People put more of a demand on themselves than many of the hardest taskmasters.  And they forget the old rule of under promising and over delivering, an effortless way to appear like a rock star.

Have you ever sold Girl Scout cookies door to door?

Many people are fond of proclaiming that they are not sales people.  Huge mistake.  We are all sales people.  When I interview people I always probe about their sales background.  "Have you ever held a sales job?"  And a typical reply is, "No, I'm not a sales person, I'm a graphic artist."  Often surprised and maybe even a tad irritated that I asked.

"Really, you've never sold anything?  Girl Scout cookies door to door or magazine subscriptions to benefit your high school band?"  "Well yes, I was a Girl Scout and did go door to door, and oh yes, I worked at a J Crew store in college.  Do you mean that kind of selling?"  That is precisely what I meant. 

You would be surprised how invaluable even that kind of simple selling can be to a candidates career.  By the way, it doesn't count if you had your parents post a note at work selling your cookies.  You had to make the pitch!  Parents who sell for their kids are performing an injustice to the little darlings and cheating their children out of the best possible education.

Everyone needs to learn how to sell?  HR people need to sell the company to new employees or the new health care plan to current employees.  College professors need to sell their new curriculum to their department head.  Geeks need to sell the new router they want to install to the boss that controls spending. 

That graphic artist that doesn't see herself as a sales person will be creating ads all day long designed to persuade people to make a purchase or take an action.  And she doesn't see herself as a sales person?  Are you serious?

People who have some form of sales experience are light years ahead of those with none and make for more desirable employees.  As a 12-year-old I used to sell newspaper subscriptions door to door for the Milwaukee Sentinel.  Tough way to make money but some of the best training in the world.