Category: business

I have no doubt that my “success” in business is due to my ability to get my ego out of the way and to acknowledge when I need to lead, and when I need to follow. I am not talking about the ego in the Sigmund Freud sense of the word, where he defines it as the mediator between the other extremes of our personality, but instead the ego as the need to be right. The ego is apparent when we begin our sentences with “I want”, or “I need”. It shows up when you say “my” or “mine”. It is so glaringly obvious with toddlers, when you see them fighting over toys, but we carry that into adulthood too. We fight over lanes on the freeway, getting mad when someone is driving too slow. We fight over principles, divorcing friends or family (or the NFL!) for violations of our rules. We fight over boundaries, spending lives and resources to “protect” where we live.

Getting the ego out of the way means that you need to make a shift in the way you think, and at first it will take a conscious decision, a shift in focus, to remind yourself who to be. To help myself I mentally take off my “owner” or “manager” or “boss” hat, put it on the chair, and put on one of the other hats that are on my invisible hat rack. Hats like “listener”, “coach”, “mentor”, or “mom”. It means lowering your fences, opening and softening your heart, and putting yourself in a place where you are able to really hear what someone is saying, and sensing what gets left unsaid. It means believing that you are not better than or more deserving than anyone else. It means understanding that we all have a basic human need to be appreciated, we all want to know that we are here for a reason, and that we matter. This is what true leadership is, connecting with others at a deeper level, and remembering to check your ego at the door.

One letter, big difference. The best case is when you find someone with a great attitude and the aptitude to get the job done. But in the process of searching, recruiting, and developing these momentum makers we are faced with the others. A leader has to look ahead, and although a leader operates under the premise that everyone has unlimited potential, people can only grow to the level that they are willing or able to at this stage in their lives. No matter how hard I try, I cannot be a professional basketball player. I may have the desire and the dedication to learn to play, however as a 50 year old woman, 5’6″ tall, the chances of the NBA even talking to me is slim to none. We are faced with many different types of people, and knowing when to shift our focus of training, to move them to another position, or to transition them out of the organization has been one of the most difficult jobs to delegate.

People who can but have a bad attitude- they often stay too long in a position or organization, especially if they are competent in their skill set. Their performance can hide a bad attitude up to a point, when inevitably it will show up. It can show up with their peers through gossiping, passive aggressive behaviors, tardiness. This person ultimately sabotages the team and needs to be coached or moved to another position or even out of the organization if they are unwilling or unable to change.

People who want to but can’t – they somehow just don’t have the ability to do the job. These are the more difficult ones for an empathetic leader to address. They have heart, they have desire, but for whatever reason, cannot deliver to the level required for the position. It can be hard for a leader to decide that this person is maxed, especially if you have created a relationship and invested training and time. In my organization this decision usually falls on me, and it is usually fuzzy until it becomes clear. It requires me to listen to what is being said, or even more to what is left unsaid, and hearing when someone is telling me with their performance that they cannot do the job. Can they add value in other ways? Absolutely, and with a great attitude we will make it a priority to find a position that fits for them.

My focus is on helping my leadership team understand when and how to identify when someone needs to move. Move shifts, move positions, move locations, move organizations. It begins with looking at the big picture. What is the big picture? For us it is the energy of the team, their ability to work together with momentum towards the ultimate outcome of delighting and brightening the day of the people we interact with. We have many players on the team, and each one plays an integral part of achieving the end result. Understanding that one affects all is the beginning of the process to creating and growing a high performing team, and ultimately creating leaders.

If you leave a bad apple in a bucket of good apples, you will end up with a barrel of bad apples. The absolute importance of identifying any bad apples in your organization is so vital. It can be hard sometimes to label someone as a bad apple, because our interpretation is so subjective. We tend to doubt our intuition, especially if we are working from the belief that people are innately good. The “all powerful” ego won’t miss the opportunity to chime in and tell you that you can change them. I am not saying to throw the apple out without putting effort into training and developing this person, because if they are on your team you really have no other option if you want to grow as a leader. You have to give your best to those you are leading, there is no negotiating on this one.

The bad apple I am talking about is the one who despite your best efforts is not willing or ready to look at things differently. They often times hide out as top performers. They wouldn’t be in your organization or on your team this long unless you are blind(unaware), desperate, or they are really filling a position that you are not ready or willing to replace. I have personally been guilty of all of these things.

I have hired out of desperation, so overwhelmed that I would make impulsive hiring decisions without the necessary step of ensuring they were a fit for our culture and shared our values of service, growth and love.

I have kept people longer than I should because I had not taken the time and energy to develop the people in our organization who were out performing the bad apple but needed more coaching in other areas.

I have unconsciously turned a blind eye to toxic people, the ones who are so sweet and kind when you are around, but once you turn your back they are spreading rumors, sabotaging their team mates, and basically poisoning the culture.

It can be hard work to be present and aware. It takes conscious efforts to see from above, to look with your heart and see who is truly the best fit is for your team.

I believe that the limit to the growth of any organization is limited by their ability to grow and develop leaders. When I first started coming to this understanding, it seemed a long way off. A long way off from actually having a leader who we had coached and helped grow into the position we needed. We had to learn through trial and error, then through deep introspection, what qualities to look for when we select who to mentor. It started with digging deep into my heart, looking for the answer to the question, “Why are we in business?”. I have explored the changing answer to that question many times, and it has evolved as I have grown and matured. What it drills down to at the most core level for us is that we are in business to add value, or in other terms, to spread love and to brighten people’s day.

I had this conversation with one of my leaders just yesterday. Her journey is mirroring my own. As a young leader, she is finding that her position is requiring much more than managing numbers and processes. It is pushing her to learn more about herself as well as the people she is leading. She has had to learn to communicate differently with each one, and is becoming aware of the need to connect first. My coaching was to remind her that we all have a basic human need to be appreciated, to be loved. We have a tendency to take life personally. If you neglect saying hello to someone on your team, many times it is likely they will think you are either mad at them or rude or don’t care. The simple act of walking through the building and saying hello, greeting each by name, touching a shoulder or shaking a hand, can make the difference between a tough day and a great one.

Culture is a living thing, it trumps vision by 10:1. A vision will only get you so far, a vision is what you preach, but culture is what you do. You can remind people of the vision by coaching, teaching, training, but ultimately people do what people see. So my mentoring with my leader, reminding her of our vision, is only a small dose of vitamins to remind her of the direction we are headed. The true path to health for the culture is to live what I see in my vision. To be there for them when they need me while still allowing them the space to grow into the greatness that I see in them. It has to start with the leader, it has to start with me.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”
– Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company

If you are planting carrot seeds and are expecting radishes you are going to be bummed when you pull those green tops out of the ground. One of the challenges some of our growing leaders face happens when they try to make the transition from team member into leader. They get frustrated or confused when they try to enlist people to carry out tasks and they face resistance. It is a classic indicator of the early stages of leadership. You think that because you are in charge, or even because you are simply trying to make something better, that you will have cooperation. But it doesn’t work that way. Everyone has an ego, we all operate with our emotions and with our brains, but mostly with our emotions.

The results we are experiencing today is a result of the seeds planted along the way. The only way to have a better tomorrow is to begin right now by noticing what you are harvesting. The early phases of leadership for a leader who is moving up in our organization yield the fruit of the seeds that were planted before they advanced. The good news is that the seasons of personal growth are not tied to time, but instead tied to a person’s increasing awareness of how to communicate with people. Leadership is all about relationships. You have to connect with the people you are attempting to lead, in other words attempting to influence. They have to know that you will be there for them before you ask them to be there for you. Every interaction is another seed you are planting, so be aware of the seeds you are sowing, and be patient. It is a process, but being aware is the first step to the next step of your growth.

Make it a habit to look ahead. Don’t live there, but the best leaders are always looking up and around. You have to look around the corner, anticipate the next challenge or move, anything that will affect the performance of their team. The most effective leaders are always working to improve the team and mitigate problems, and this can happen only when they take the time to look forward. If you are exclusively coaching from the field, your view is limited to what is directly in your line of vision. It takes rising above, metaphorically, and taking a ride around the field and down the road to see what’s coming next.

In our business the leaders need to always be looking forward to the next week, or to the busy weekend. They need to ensure we have enough product and people to service the clients with excellence. Failure to do this will always result in a lapse when it comes to the final goal- to exceed the client expectations. I spent a lot of my career coaching from the field, I was in the ranks, my finger on the pulse, but my eyes could only see the full circle around me. It took the right message at the right time for me to begin to learn how to heads up.

I was at a business seminar a few years back, and we had to break up into small groups with people we didn’t know. In the process of sharing what I do for a living, and the challenges I was having with growing my company, one of the women had the perfect insight. She said, “It seems like you are too close to the screen, what if you imagine yourself floating up in the sky and looking down at your business. Make the circle bigger, and expand the definition of what you do.” This was exactly what I needed to hear, and helped me to redefine myself as a leader. I was not a baker, well, I was, but not only. I was also a founder, a dreamer, an inspirer, a teacher, a coach…and soon a leader.

I continuously remind myself to look up, look ahead, anticipate the curves and ruts in the road, but also keep my goal in my line of sight. This is the secret to getting from here to there.

When our kids were younger and we had 4 under age 12, one with special needs, people would look at James and I and say “I don’t know how you do it.” It wasn’t only that we were raising our young family, but we also had tackled going into business for ourselves in one of the toughest industries to succeed at. We were well aware of the common belief that there is a 90% failure rate in the restaurant business, but we were committed to doing whatever it took to make it work. Our ambition and motivation stemmed in part from…if not eagerness, then single minded focus.

If I had to answer that query, how do we do it, we just do it. It may seem overly simple, but it really is just that. How do you do anything really? The facts were that we had no money, we actually were pretty deeply in debt and living week to week. We had 5 kids between us. But we were healthy, and we had love, and we had a strong desire to improve our life situation.

We approach our lives with the belief in doing whatever it takes. I know that this is the only way to truly succeed at anything. You cannot make a relationship work if you are thinking “Well, I will love him as long as…or until…” Being in business, or attaining success in anything is the same way. There are always going to be sacrifices, trade-offs. You have to sacrifice eating ice cream every night if you want to be fit. You have to trade off going out every night if you have kids. You have to forfeit guaranteed vacations if go into business for yourself. And you have to give up your time to grow your impact or your career.

This fact, that of sacrifice, holds some people back. They would rather stay in a static world of their own creation, where the sacrifices are convenient, and this is okay. Not everyone strives for greater things. But so many yearn for more, as evidenced by the huge industry that is called franchising. It’s a dream for so many to go into business for themselves. There are literally over 750,000 franchises in the US alone. Is this a guarantee of success? I would say no, the only guarantee is in the mindset of the owner.

So what kind of person does it take to be an entrepreneur? The same kind of person it takes to be a leader. You don’t have to be the owner, you can bring great value and attain great rewards, personal and financial, if you tackle anything you do with the same psychology. What does it take?
-It takes courage to take responsibility while others make excuses.
-It takes being dissatisfied with your current reality.
-It means being open to new ideas.
-It takes a willingness to put yourself at risk and to fail.
-It means seeing possibilities, not limitations
-It takes an all or nothing mentality when thinking of what you will do to make things better.
-It takes sacrifice.

So what now, now that I’ve learned the lesson that the best way to grow my organization and impact is from the inside, by growing my people? I’ve learned about the difference between leading followers, no matter how amazing they may perform:
(10+10+10+10+10=level 50 effectiveness)
and creating leaders:
(10x10x10x10x10=level 100,000 effectiveness).

So my work is done, right? I just need to keep mentoring these leaders and its easy on out from here. Stall. Another lesson. Not everyone you are mentoring and developing will grow into the leader you need to take your organization where you want it to go. There may be good people that have the desire, but lack the ability. Let’s say you have one of your 5 that no matter what you do with them, they are not showing they are able to increase their leadership abilities. Now you have 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 5= level 50,000. This is a 50% decrease in effectiveness for your entire team. This is why you have to be constantly looking at who is in your inner circle.

Not only does your inner circle, or your support crew as we also call it, have to have great talent, but also a good attitude. And like gremlins when exposed to water, attitude will compound when exposed to others. Some things are not contagious, things like skill, experience, talent, but attitude on the other hand is contagious. It’s sad but true though that a negative, or wrong, attitude will spread more quickly than a positive one, that is why it is so imperative to know who is influencing your culture, and to constantly be working to ensure you have the right fit.