Magic, Management, and Logistics
Magic, Management, and Logistics When I spoke at the National Logistics and Distribution Conference earlier this year, I was interviewed by Bob Bowman of SupplyChainBrain.com for an Executive Briefing video. The interview was recently published and they gave me permission to share it with my viewers on my YouTube channel. If you’ve ever wondered why and how I connect my performances with speaking on the concepts of leadership, management, branding, and corporate communication, you’ll enjoy this interview. You might want to pay close attention to the questions surrounding the issues of deception and “lying” to the audience, and how I can still use my kinds of performances to communicate meaningful messages to an audience. Enjoy!
The Atlanta Braves, Cobb County, Leadership, and Unforced Errors
The Atlanta Braves, Cobb County, Leadership, and Unforced Errors Leadership is a risky business. Leadership is a risky business. Sometimes you march through a rain of opposition, only to come out stronger and more connected to those you lead and your former opponents for having led with honor and grace. And sometimes, just as you are about to cross the finish line, you step in a hole, twist your ankle, and end up walking with a cane for the foreseeable future. Every subsequent appearance before your group carries a visual reminder of your misstep. Something along those lines happened this week in Cobb County, where, as you’ve no doubt heard by now, the Atlanta Braves will be moving to a new stadium in 2017. While I am heavily involved in the entrepreneurial and business networking circles within Cobb County, I am not a resident. I love Cobb and think of it as a generally successful example of good leadership at the county level. While I may have disagreements with issues here or there, overall I tend to think of Cobb as the kind of county that many other metro counties could learn from. I leave my encounters with Cobb’s business, political, and social leaders thinking, “These folks get it.” But even the best sometimes stumble. Even the best sometimes stumble. This week, the Cobb County Commission voted 5-0 to approve multiple agreements that form a 30-year partnership with the Braves. As is the usual case with Cobb County commission meetings, they allow citizens to speak on issues before the commissioners by allowing people to sign up for a number of open speaking slots. The supporters of the Braves’ move organized themselves to arrive five hours before the meeting and sign up for all twelve slots. This ensured that no opposition voice was heard at the meeting. I’m sure that the creators of this strategy thought it was a master stroke. “Nobody else will get to speak and put any kind of a damper on the festivities.” “No negative thoughts or visuals will impede the progress of this project.” “We will present a unified view to those who are watching.” It’s not that there aren’t admirable elements to the idea of showing unity and keeping things positive. But it didn’t turn out that way. Opposing voices were led away by authorities. The meeting has made the news all over the country. The commissioners and the advocates of the deal have come off looking really bad. I don’t support the opposition’s attempt to disrupt the meeting, either, but that pales in comparison to the mistake of not reserving a slot or two for the opposing view. Avoid unforced errors. The sad part is that it was completely unnecessary. Even if some of the opponents had received speaking slots, the vote was a fait accompli. This deal was already done and everyone knew it. Despite some reasonable arguments from the opposition, I actually support the Braves’ move to Cobb and am looking forward to the new entertainment venues and development in the area. I personally think the pluses outweigh the minuses in the long run. Others disagree. Fair enough. The commissioners and the community business leaders who supported this outcome got what they wanted. They got their vision, they got their stadium, they got their vote, and they got their speaking spots filled. But what they failed to remember was that they actually have to lead the whole county from this point forward, including those who were escorted out of that meeting and the other people whose views they represent. This episode, spread across media far and wide, is going to make it more difficult than it should have been to lead effectively through the days to come. It will invite ugly comparisons to past mistakes; even when such comparisons are unfounded, the fact that this happened will give credibility to future complaints. In controlling the environment of this meeting and strategically excluding the opposing voices, the advocates have unwittingly strengthened their opponents’ voices. The advocates didn’t need all twelve slots. The commissioners didn’t need to retreat into a “we didn’t pick who got to speak” dodge. They could have reserved 6 slots pro and con, or 10 slots pro and 2 slots con. Almost any other way of handling it would have been preferable to letting absolutely no opposing voice have a speaking slot on the agenda. In leadership, as in baseball, few things are as frustrating as unforced errors. The way this meeting was handled may not change much about the outcome of the game, but it’s going to make it significantly harder for all of these leaders to regain the trust of many talented people whom they will want on their team going forward.
Focus: The Key to Effective Action
The Curse of the Capable You have overcome obstacles. You’ve hired outstanding people, trained them through their skill gaps, and equipped them with amazing tools. You’ve streamlined your organizational structure, your physical environment, and your business processes. You’ve established clear goals, reviewed them regularly, motivated and encouraged and team-built like all the books said. And yet you are still behind on the project. Why are they procrastinating? Why don’t they want to do the work? Or perhaps the scenario is different. Maybe none of this is about your team. Maybe it’s about you personally. You know you want to accomplish more, and you aren’t putting things off on purpose. But obvious tasks languish unfinished. If it’s not a lack of capability or capacity, what is it? If it’s not a motivation gap, what is it? If it’s not procrastination, what is it? It’s the curse of the highly-capable: distraction. The Focus Gap The high-performer’s mind is not avoiding work; it’s amassing more of it. It thrives on stimulation, problems to solve, ideas with which to toy and tinker. The high-performer wants to act; focus is the key to effective action. And so the weakness in the strong armor of the highly capable person is not a skill gap. It’s a focus gap. When you find that your attention is drifting, consider these five tips for achieving and sustaining your focus. Five Focus Tips First things first. Stephen Covey had it right – prioritizing your tasks will help you not only to keep your focus, but will protect your most important tasks from being affected if and when your attention naturally wanes. Outline your outcomes. Clearly define three key achievements for the day. Don’t overload. Challenge yourself. At the same time, don’t set a low bar on the goals for the day. If you have to stretch a little in order to accomplish the task, you’ll stay more focused than if you’re on auto-pilot. Use the tools you have, but use them effectively. You know when your phone, tablet, and browser are not helping your progress. The same goes for your email, your team’s live meetings, and your general time management skills. Take a refresher course if needed. Steady as she goes. The most focused people have cultivated a habit of focus and built the skill of concentration. This doesn’t mean that you don’t take breaks; it means that you are intentional about them. Your goal is to escape the “crunch and cruise” cycle for a more consistent process, knowing that you’ll have to adapt as priorities change.
Change Management and New Shoes
Organizational change initiatives are complex in part because they can succeed or fail based on variables such as human psychology, business agility, economic environments, leadership skills, communication skills, technical capability, and even the occasional lucky break. Managing change is a combination of business acumen, social instinct, and leadership abilities that can’t be reduced to silly, oversimplified analogies. On the other hand, change initiatives are a lot like getting new shoes. Eventually you’re going to need new shoes. You can’t put it off forever – even if you resole the pair you love, you already know that’s a stopgap measure. You know now that one day you’re going to need to get rid of what you’re wearing in favor of something else. If you wait until your shoes have holes in them, then you’ll have a lot less flexibility in looking for replacements. Do you want to be searching for new shoes because you have to have something immediately, or do you want to search for the next pair while you have the luxury of taking your time? Do you think you’ll more easily find the right fit if you search carefully, or if you search while in a state of dire need? In all likelihood, the exact make and model of the shoes you’re wearing now won’t be available when you need new ones. Even classics get changed, updated, or taken out of production. If you have convinced yourself that you can only function in one particular brand, style, or color of shoe then you may find yourself barefoot while looking for the new ones – and that may be a fool’s errand. Is your ability to function going to be helped or hindered by the constraints you have established for the new shoes? Are you certain that the constraints are meaningful? Even if the same shoes are available, your activities and needs may be different by the time you get the new ones. You might have a new job, suit, or fashion taste by the time you’re in the market for that new pair. Maybe you bought an extra pair when you found them. Even so, eventually your supply will run out. Are you willing to bet your future mobility on your hunch that neither your activities nor the environment in which you operate will change? Does that seem like a wise risk to you? You may not be able to afford custom-built shoes. Some folks can guarantee that they’ll never have to wear shoes that were mass produced. Most of the world will have to buy something off a shelf. Can you afford a custom solution for your new shoes? Does your budget make that a realistic option? Or will you get further, faster, by doing a careful search of more affordable options? There may be some discomfort involved. Even when new shoes fit great in the store, when they get put into action in the real world, you might get a blister at first. Eventually both the feet and the shoes adapt to each other. The process of change is inevitably going to bring some degree of discomfort. That doesn’t mean you discard the shoes – it means you may have to stretch them, break them in, and give them time to mold to your physical shape. Are you giving the new shoes a fair trial? Can you think of other ways that organizational change is like getting new shoes?
The Value of a Backward Glance
Mining the value of the clients on last year’s calendar will never completely take the place of developing new business, but the profitability minded performer remembers that it takes less effort and fewer resources to do more work for an existing client than it does to create a new one. Cars have large windshields to make it easy to see the road ahead, but they also have mirrors for very good reasons. So here’s my warning: the value of that client in your mirror is greater than it appears!
