One of the hot topics of conversation in business these days is how to effectively use social media for connecting with prospects and referral sources, and for promoting our work. We have all heard about companies leveraging social media as a tool to extend their networks, but how?
This article in McKinsey Quarterly, written by Jacques Bughin, Angela Hung Byers, and Michael Chui, deals with the benefits of planned and targeted enterprise-wide use of social media, we at IMPACT think it is extremely useful to start thinking about getting strategic about the social media game!
Harvey Schachter's article in the Globe and Mail gives three great tips to improve your listening skills.
As coaches, we cannot emphasize enough how important it is to listen, at different levels, to what is said and what is not said. This listening is the key to asking powerful questions- which is the best way to develop people, and to develop business.
Take a minute to give this a read, and think about how you can show others you're listening.
Accounting partners know how to multiply and divide. Unfortunately, they don’t always know what choice to make when it comes to growing their book of business. Seth Godin’s simple example shows the clear choice. I will borrow his language and his logic and tailor my example to the professional services firm.
Let’s say you have a list of 30 prospects (made up of current clients and other potentials with whom you haven’t worked yet but would like to). You have a choice to make.
1)You can create stories and options and benefits that naturally spread from this group to people they know, and your core group can multiply with 30 growing to 60 and then 600 (Some partners succeed in building a name for themselves by becoming a subject matter expert and becoming known through speaking engagements, writing etc. It takes some great stories, options and benefits to make this work).
OR
2)You can put the original group through a sales funnel, weed out the ones that don’t fit your “ideal client” type and monetize the rest. A 30% conversion rate means you just turned 30 prospects into 9 new engagements.
Multiplying scales. Dividing helps you make this quarter’s numbers (and keep your equity partner status!). We know you are great at math but let us know if you need some coaching help on this equation.
You rely on them. You ask them to help you. It is amazing how much this brings people together. Our IMPACT team has always been great. We get along. We like each other. We help each other.
In the past several weeks we have become closer. Why? We have a common goal. We are working on a project that requires all of our expertise. I knew that I couldn’t tackle this project alone. I asked the team to help and, true to form, they stepped up. Guess what? Each day we work through this project, we are more of a team than we were the day before. It makes it all worthwhile.
“Being aware of and celebrating differences and rewarding people for their contributions will go a long way to making sure that ensure that your team will be supportive even in a crisis.”
Read more about my views on the controversy over France’s national Football team in today’s Globe and Mail.
"Too few data points". That was a client's description of a leader in her group. She had just met with him to get to know him and to discuss her own career. I asked her how the meeting went and she said it was "fine". She further went on to say, "I think his instincts are good. I think his values are strong. He sometimes makes poor decisions because he takes too few data points. Sort of like George Bush -- not a bad guy, just took too few data points."
Whether or not you agree with my client on George Bush is not the point here. The point is that great leaders make decisions after taking in lots of data. As I coach leaders, I see that they often go with their "gut" on decisions. The really talented leaders take lots of data points and then go with their "gut".
Where do leaders generally get these data points? In my experience, leaders get the data in three ways:
Through their leadership teams -- Leaders will design meeting agendas so that their teams must prepare and bring data. They will drive conversations in the meetings so that they hear many points of view on a decision. They will ask all members of their leadership team at one time of another (especially those who oppose the leader's point of view) about a decision.
Through reaching down deep into the organization -- the effective leaders I have seen "deep dive" into the organization. They will create opportunities to speak to people at all levels in the organization. They will use these opportunities to ask lots of detailed questions. They don't accept "political" answers. They ask specific questions and wait for specific answers. They keep asking until they get specific answers.
They look at the "business case" -- from what I have seen this is important but not as important as most people think. One of my clients (a particularly talented leader) said to me that as he moves into more senior roles, he makes more decisions based on "gut" rather than on the business case. He feels that as decisions become more complex, the business case becomes less relevant and more easily manipulated. I do personality assessments on my clients. One thing I have noticed as I do these assessments is that the more senior the leader the more likely that he is to have a preference for making decisions based upon what he feels is right rather than on the business case.
Effective leaders will often instinctively know the answers but they will not decide without examining all of these data points. The trick for them is to listen to everything from as many different sources as possible, take what they need, and decide.
Motorola relied heavily on teams to surpass its competition in building the lightest, smallest, and highest-quality cell phones. At 3M, teams are critical to meeting the company's goal of producing half of each year's revenues from the previous five years' innovations. Kodak's Zebra Team proved the worth of black-and-white film manufacturing in a world where color is king.
But many companies overtook the potential of teams in turning around tagging profits, entering new markets, and making exciting innovations happen -- because they don't know how to utilize teams successfully. Authors Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith talked with hundreds of people in more than thirty companies to find out where and how teams work best and how to enhance their effectiveness. They reveal:
The most important element in team success
Who excels at team leadership ... and why they are rarely the most senior people
Why companywide change depends on teams ... and more
A change in your company's strategy should have an impact on all employees. How the change will affect day-to-day behaviors and longer-term priorities is relatively easy to discern at the top. Deeper into the company, it's often more difficult to determine.
To convert your firm's strategy into an actionable agenda for your unit, don't just parrot the strategy. Translate it in a way that brings it to life and makes it real for them. For example, if the new strategy emphasizes improving new products' success rate, lay out how each and every person in your unit can best support that effort. And invite subordinates' input; you'll win their commitment to the strategy and to its execution.
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