Where's The Money - Peter O'Brien

Peter O'Brien, VP and CFO, Motivate International

Peter is an accomplished executive financial consultant CPA, with over 15 years of experience in finance, accounting, and strategic management. He is a proven leader, able to work fluently throughout all levels of business. He is currently the VP Finance and CFO at Motivate International Inc. and has worked with a wide range of early stage companies.

Where's The Money - Carl Gould

Carl Gould, President, 7 Stage Advisors

Carl Gould is an authority on business growth who advises organizations who want to grow to the next level. He is an entrepreneur and has built three multi-million dollar businesses by the age of 40. Carl has mentored the launch of over five thousand businesses. He has advised over 100 of the Inc. 500/5000 Fastest-Growing Companies, and currently works with the 9th fastest-growing company in NJ. Gould created the farthest-reaching business mentoring organization in the world, and his methodologies are in practice in 35 countries. He has trained, certified or accredited over 7,000 Business Coaches and Mentors since 2002.

Where's the Money - Brett Hickey

Brett Hickey, Founder & CEO, Star Mountain Capital, LLC

Mr. Hickey is the Founder & CEO of Star Mountain Capital, a specialized asset management firm focused exclusively on the lower middle-market. Star Mountain provides debt and equity capital directly to established, growing businesses and also participates in this market as a strategic fund investor. Star Mountain and its partner fund managers represent one of the largest non-bank small and medium-sized business investment platforms in the U.S. with a portfolio of over 200 companies. Prior to his 12 year career as a lower middle-market investor, he was an investment banking analyst with Salomon Smith Barney covering financial institutions. He is a regular investment industry expert speaker, member of select business organizations such as the Young Presidents' Organization and board member of multiple industry organizations, including the Small Business Investor Alliance.

What is a "Defensive Calendar" and How Does it Help With Productivity?

Most executives I work with who struggle with productivity complain that their schedules are overloaded and they can't "find" the time to work on their key priorities. They show me calendars which are full of meetings and phone calls scattered across the day.

While I have infinite understanding, I have little sympathy because one of the best tests of someone's executive skill is their ability to control their time and set their priorities. Executives who excel don't find time, they make time for important tasks. They do this by designing their optimal schedule and protecting themselves from unnecessary distractions.

Over the years, I've developed an approach that has helped many executives in this situation improve their time management. I call it the defensible calendar and it's created by designing an ideal day based on your high-priority tasks and your personal energy flow through your day and week.

Here are the steps to creating a system that will stand the onslaught of perpetual distractions.

1. Understand your natural energy pattern during the day and the week

Start by determining your natural highs and lows during the day and the week. Keep a log or journal for a week or two and track your energy peaks and valleys. Do you think clearly in the morning or evening? What do you do right before and after your best times? What contexts improve your focus and flow? What patterns and correlations do you notice? Understanding how your natural attention and enthusiasm varies over the day is the key to unlocking your higher productivity.

2. Inventory the work that you do and determine your personal priorities

The most productive people focus on the most high-value work that only they can do. To figure this out, first make a list of all of the projects you're working on. Now sort them by two criteria: 1) how much value that project creates, and 2) how critical you are to the success of that project. Your personal priorities should be on those high-value projects that only you can do. High-value projects other people can do should be quickly delegated. Low-value projects that only you can do should be your targets for training others to do as soon as possible. Low-value tasks that others can do should be delegated or outsourced to third parties.

3. Design your ideal day and week based on maximizing your productivity

Armed with your ideal week and your list of personal priorities, create an ideal week by mapping out what type of activities you should do during each hour of each day to maximize your productivity. For example, do you do your best thinking in the morning after the gym? Then that's your time to focus on critical work that requires you to be at your best. Are you braindead after 4:00pm? That's your time to work on non-critical tasks and answer emails.

4. Use time blocks to hold those key spots and defend them

Once you have your ideal map, create blocks of time in your calendar based on the type of work you should be doing during that time. I tell most people to go out one to three months since their calendars are typically full or they have prior commitments that are difficult to move. I suggest that executives have 40-50 percent of their calendars booked with critical work blocks. When someone asks for a meeting or call, the executive can then protect these times and instead slot the meeting or call in the spaces between.

5. Create blocks for distracting, but necessary activities

For things like calls and standing meetings, I suggest separate time blocks. For example, I schedule blocks for phone calls in the afternoons which are my low energy and low productivity periods. I know I don't need to be at my best for phone calls which are naturally engaging, so afternoons are a good time for me. I also create blocks for recurring tasks and meetings like prospecting, following up on social media messages, employee one-on-one meetings, etc.

6. If you must, move it don't delete it

There will be times when something comes up that conflicts with one of your critical blocks. The key here is not to just schedule over them or delete them. Rather, force yourself to figure out where to move them, and, if need be, move other commitments to get that block to fit in another place. The new time slot might be a less ideal time and I might need to cancel a subsequent commitment, but rescheduling that block of time reminds me that the work is important and I still need to do it.

These strategies--mapping your daily energy patterns, setting your priorities based on value, using time blocks, and protective scheduling--are all keys to developing a defensible calendar. Done well, you can dramatically increase productivity and engagement in your work.

These 5 types of good meetings can save your company

I've read many articles that rail against meetings and how they are a waste of time. And I would agree that many meetings held by most business are just that. However, it turns out that meetings are a necessary part of any business operation. People need to come together to develop ideas, discuss issues, make decisions, and coordinate activities. Without these meetings, people and teams would wander aimlessly and work at cross purposes.

Great companies who have grown quickly, easily, and with little drama, have developed not just good meeting habits, but great meeting rhythms. If you want to scale your business and do so with ease and laser focus, work on implementing these five key meeting rhythms.

1. Annual Strategy: 1 to 2 days, once a year.

Once a year take the time and step back from the business and think about your long-term goals. Traditional industries can look out up to five years. If you're in a more modern, faster-pace industry, focus on your three-year goals. For cutting-edge, quick-moving markets, focus on 18-24 months out.

Start by taking stock of the current situation of your business. What's working well and what is not? Then focus on understanding what your competitors are doing. What moves are they making? Finally, look at the industry dynamics. What broader business trends are underway? Use that data to look into the future to see where the new opportunities are likely to be. How you can position yourself to be in the best place possible to take advantage of those?

2. Quarterly Objectives: half a day to 1 day, every quarter.

Once a quarter decide which priorities and objectives will be most important over the next 90-days to move you towards your long-term strategy. The key here is to create focus. Choose the 3-5 things that really need attention from the senior team to drive the firm's strategy forward. This isn't about planning regular work; this is the strategic work that otherwise would not get done without dedicated effort.

3. Monthly Review: 2 to 4 hours, once a month.

The monthly review is simple: it's a status check and course correction forum. Don't make any changes to your quarterly plans unless something is seriously off or you realize that you chose the wrong objectives. The three key questions we ask here are as follows: What's working? What's not? What do we need to do to get things back on track?

4. Weekly Priorities: 30 minutes to 1 hour, once a week.

This is a key meeting for the implementation. This is where people make commitments to what they are going to accomplish over the next seven days. First, the team looks at the quarterly objectives and key results and then team members define--in specific terms--what they will accomplish in the coming week. In this meeting, everyone makes specific commitments for which they know they will be held accountable. Details are captured and written down and everyone leaves the meeting with a clear set of expectations.

5. Daily Huddles: 10 to 15 minutes, every day.

This is an incredibly powerful, but difficult-to-master meeting. The Daily Huddle (or Daily Standup as some people call it) is a very focused coordination and communication tool. Its goal is to let others know what you've recently completed, what you're working on next, and what' obstacles you're facing. Everyone answers three questions in a daily huddle: what did you get done yesterday, what are you doing today, and what's in your way. That's it. Anything else that comes up is taken off line and discussed outside the meeting. Don't be tempted to dig into the details at this time.

If you're having problems keeping your huddle under 15 min, there are a few things you can try. I like to have members write down what they're going to say on a small sticky note so that it's short and sweet. Standing up during the meeting can keep people from getting too comfortable. Also, have an object that each person holds when it's their turn to speak will prevent people from talking over each other.

While making these meetings well-oiled machines takes time and dedication, it takes just a few months most companies start to feel the rhythm. Keeping them short, sweet, and focused on their specific intent accelerates the learning and adoption of the habits until they become second nature. Once you're in the swing you can pick up the pace and use them to accelerate the rate of your business growth.

18 easy ways you can increase your productivity and focus

A recent UC Irvine study showed that it takes up to 23 minutes to recover from a distraction--so it's no wonder that work environments full of social busybodies and rich in shiny objects can drive down productivity.

People are inundated with stimulation and requests for their attention, leaving them with little to no uninterrupted time to focus on their work. In fact many company are now eschewing the open office in favor of less noisy and more focused work environments.

The likelihood of being distracted is directly related to the amount of pull something is having on your attention and indirectly related to the interest you have in your task. When you're completely engrossed in what you're doing, you'll shut out everything around you.

The professional basketball player at the free throw line, for example, can completely shut out the thousands of screaming fans. However, when you are only marginally interested in what you're doing, then you might turn your attention at the slightest prompt. Increasing your ability to focus will come from balancing those two types of interest level.

It's also important to know your triggers. For instance, I know I'm highly visual. I can be intensely focused on a task and not hear a sound, but if there's a television display in my field of vision, I can't help but look. Other people I know can have a wall of screens in front of them and not blink, but someone talking behind them can cause them to use earplugs.

If you're stuck in a distraction-rich environment, here are 18 things you can do to reduce the chance that your attention will get pulled away from the work at hand:

1. Wear headphones, but don't actually play any music. Headphones both cut down the noise and also serve as a deterrent from people bothering you. The bigger headphones, the better.

2. Put a sign on your door or on your desk saying "busy" or "I'm focusing" or "Do not interrupt" to let people know you shouldn't be bothered right now.

3. Hang a signup sheet on your door or next to your desk with your calendar including empty slots indicating when you're free to meet with them.

4. Establish office "focus time" for certain hours of the day or days of the week where everyone agrees not to bother or distract people.

5. Use a white noise system to provide background noise or music without lyrics to drown out other people's conversations and keyboard noises.

6. Turn off the notifications on phones and browsers for a period of time during the day. Use autoresponders to let people know when you'll get back to them.

7. Schedule your day so that you're working on projects that require the greatest amount of focus during naturally distraction-less times. If you have flexible hours, consider coming in an hour early to get some quiet time before everyone else arrives.

8. Use pomodoros to create a natural rhythm to you work and increase your mental capacity for focus.

9. Exercise or take a walk before sitting down to do important and difficult work. This practice increases your focus and energy level.

10. Try using deep breathing and meditation techniques to calm your mind before engaging in focus time.

11. If your mind is swimming with ideas or things to remember, try a mind sweep to get them on paper and free up your thinking space to focus on the important task at hand.

12. Breakdown big or difficult task into smaller and easier first steps to kick start your engagement and focus.

13. Find a partner and do a productivity challenge to see who can get more done in an hour or ninety minutes.

14. Go to a coffee shop or a co-working space where nobody can find you to get a few hours of distraction-free time outside of the office.

15. Get more sleep so you have the mental capacity and focus to stay alert and to focus on your work.

16. Redefine your goals and tasks to be more compelling and motivating so that you're more engaged in the work.

17. Set mini goals and rewards for completing focused work sessions throughout the day. Use completion targets to challenge yourself. See how much you can get done by a certain time.

18. Eat foods that will increase your mental focus and give you the energy you need to stay productive for longer periods of time.

While we can't always avoid every distraction, we can often greatly reduce our exposure to things that pull our attention away from our work. Knowing our weakness and putting in systems and devices to cut them off at the source is the key.

Two Examples of Weak OKRs and How to Fix Them

Seems like everyone is using Objectives and Key Results these days. Ever since Google started using OKRs in 1999, organizations of all sizes and shapes started OKR’ing their goal setting and planning processes. And it’s great people are moving towards using OKRs--I’m a huge fan--but many of the OKR’s out there are not quite up to snuff.

If you don't know what OKR's are, here is an article I wrote a couple years ago that gives a good overview.   This article dives deeper into the process of creating OKR's offering a checklist for well-written Objectives and Key Results.

Objectives define direction and create strategic alignment

First, Objectives define a directional choice and focus. They are qualitative in nature. They say, "We are focusing on this area to develop and to become better in it."

Second, Objectives need to be aligned with and support a particular strategy. By making progress on an Objective, you are implementing a strategy. Objectives certainly shouldn’t run counter to a strategy. The best Objectives are highly aligned and move along a strategy as quickly as possible.

Finally, Objectives need to be motivating. They should have meaning. They need to be interesting, inspiring, and challenging. “Waking up early” is a boring Objective. “Starting each day watching the sun rise and setting your intentions” has meaning.

Key Results define discrete work efforts

First, KRs are “doable”. They have clear definitions of done with completion criteria. A third-person should be able to “see” that a KR has been completed. Could be a checklist, could be a document, could be that they push a button and a light goes on. Conversely, you should be able to tell when a KR is not done.

Second, KRs are independent from one another. KRs shouldn’t be a list of steps in a project. If so, the last one is the KR, the rest are milestones. You should be able to complete one KR without completing the others and the failure to complete one, shouldn’t impede the others.

Finally, KRs shouldn’t include your standard work. OKRs are designed to move strategy forward, not define your day-to-day list of responsibilities. KRs should be above and beyond the day-to-day. They represent the strategy work that needs to be done that wouldn’t get done without this focus.

Here are some examples of poorly written Objectives and Key Results and what you can do to improve them.

Example 1:

Objective: Wake up earlier

Key Results:

• Set an alarm

• Go to bed earlier

• Write down things to do

Let’s start with the Objective, it could be more compelling. Let’s change that to “Wake up earlier so that I can be more productive and focus on my long-term goals.” This gives it more why.

• The Key Results need to be a little more specific and “doable”. Let’s re-write them to these:

• Set an alarm for 5:30 AM and put it on the other side of the room to that I have to get out of bed

• Set an alarm for 10:15 PM to remind me to start my bedtime routine

• Each night, write down the six things I need to do the next day to make progress on my long-term goals

These have more detail and specifics that allow me to track if I really did each of these or not. It’s also more clear how they connect to my Objective and help move it forward.

Example 2:

Objective: Improve customer service

Key Results:

• CSR training

• Improve phone system

• Improve call script

This Objective can use some clearer direction. There are many ways we could improve customer service and we should clarify which one we want to focus on. Both “Improve customer experience so that it reduces that time they take to get their problems solved” or “Improve customer service so that we don’t get as many unsatisfied ratings” would both be better and specify a clear direction. 

The Key Results in this case lack a clear “definition of done. Let’s set up some better measures so that we know we’ve accomplished the task at hand.

• Ensure each CSR has had a least two coaching sessions to review recent problematic calls by EOQ

• Upgrade the phone system to version 4.5 and hold two webinars with staff to review the new functions

• Research and identify the top 10 service complaints and develop one-page call scripts for diagnosing each of these issues

Hopefully these examples give you some ideas on how to improve your OKRs if you’re already using them. And if you’re just getting started, use them as a guide for getting off to a strong start. If you have some that you’re grappling with and would like some feedback on, email them to okrs@eckfeldt.com and we’ll give you our thoughts.
 

Why Grow?

I occasionally run across business owners who questions the need to grow. Maybe it’s because they’re tired of the work or that the organization has become large and unwieldy, or maybe they’re making more than enough money and they just figure that it’s greedy to make even more.

Whatever the reason, they start making the case that a flat year isn’t such a bad thing. Wrong. A flat year is bad. Very bad. In fact, a flat year is a really a “down 10-20%” year. Here’s why.

The key resource in the vast majority of businesses is people. And people can't stay flat. We need to grow. Early in life, that’s physically, but later in life that’s emotionally, intellectually, and socially. People are growing machines and when we stop growing, we start dying. Same is true for your business.

Here are a few reasons why your business needs to grow and what you can focus on to make sure your growth is positive and enriching for everyone. Including you as the business owner.

People Need Career Advancement

Everyone wants to move to the next rung. Beyond financially, people need to be challenged. And as they master their current work, they need a place to go that will give them greater challenges and new opportunities. A business who is not growing isn’t creating new opportunities for the people who work in it. Stop growing for too long and people will find their next challenges somewhere else.

Customers Need New Products and Services

Customer are hungry for things that are better, faster, and cheaper. While your latest and greatest version of your product might thrill the customer today, it might not tomorrow. Giving them the same old products and service will eventually shift from innovative to out-dated.

You Need to Keep Up With Competition

The fact is, everything else is growing. The economy, industrial markets, populations. Everything around your business is growing and increasing. If you stay flat, your share of the market will, in fact, shrink. It’s like inflation. While you might have a dollar in your hand, what that dollar can buy is getting smaller and smaller.

All of these point to the need to keep expanding and building the business. I tell my clients that 5-10% is the minimum they need to grow just to keep up. 15-20% is where you start to move the needle. And if you really want to put the peddle down, stretch to growth 25-50% a year.
Growth is not just a vanity metric, it’s necessary for a business to keep its people and position in the market. Of course, it can make the owners more money too, but college tuitions are growing.

My top reading picks from 2016

Each year I finish with a personal retrospective. It’s a chance to take stock and reflect on the highlights, lowlights, and what I’ve learned last year that I might apply to the coming 12 months.

A key part of this process is looking at what I’ve learned. As a business coach, education and improvement is not only a personal value, it’s my job. And one of the key ways in which I learn is through books. Many of the books I read, and others I listen to. They all provide me with insight, ideas, and perspective.

This year was a good year in the book department. Looking through my bookshelf, my kindle list, and my audible account, I found the top 25 books that influenced me in 2016. The entire list is too many to review in detail so here are five that deserve special mention.

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, by Daniel H. Pink

Dan Pink does it again.. As he’s done with Drive and A Whole New Mind, he takes the subject of selling and turns it into a universal skill that everyone in business, no matter what their role, must master to be successful. By thinking beyond the stereotypical used car salesman, Mr. Pink shows how we’re all selling in all parts of our professional and personal lives. He shows that we not only sell things, but ideas, methods, concepts, and even ourselves just about every day. In the book he also outlines the half-dozen key traits of successful selling and describes how and when to apply them. Check out the book for the details.

The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues, by Patrick M. Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni is widely known for his work on team performance. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is one of go-to texts for making teams great. His follow-up digs into the key individual attributes that make a great team player. By looking for, and developing, these characteristics you can make sure you’re selecting the right people for your teams and finding focused goals for personal development that will make for better team performance. 

Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model, by John Mullins & Randy Komisar

For those of you in the product development space, I’m sure you’ve all read The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries. Some of you may have even read the book that Eric based a lot of his work on, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, by Steve Blank. If you dig one level deeper, you’ll find Getting to Plan B, by John Mullins and Randy Komisar. This book explains why, in early stage ventures, your first plan is guaranteed to be wrong, you just won’t know how. These authors show how to learn from the failings of your plan A so that you can get to plan B faster and make plan B better.

Managing The Professional Service Firm, by David H. Maister

If you’ve ever been in a consulting firm, or owned one like me, you’ll know that professional services industry is its own beast. Finding clients, finding people, and developing services is an art that take time and practice. While many people can make a marginal business out of it, it takes true focus and alignment and discipline to really get it right. David’s book gives you a guide to designing your business and tools to make it operate smoothly.

Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, by Sydney Finkelstein

My favorite book of the year was Superbosses. Sydney Finkelstein does an excellent job at looking at where great managers and great leaders come from and discovers a rare and often overlooked species of boss: the Superboss. These are people who are not just great bosses themselves, but also create many great bosses under them. Sydney shows 20 of the NFL’s 32 head coaches trained under Bill Walsh from the 49ers, and illustrates how 9 of the 11 executives that worked under Larry Paige at Oracle, went on to be CEOs, chairs, or COOs of other companies. If you want to know if you are, or work for, a Superboss, read the book and learn about the key traits—several of which are quite surprising—of these rare and unique leaders.

And with that, we’ll call 2016 a wrap and look forward to making 2017 a similarly good year. If you found those five summaries interesting, check out the books themselves and the rest of the books on my list.

Culture of accountability

Highly effective organizations are able to make the right commitments and follow through on them. They develop a culture of accountability. However, despite being so focused on results, these organization lack micromanagement and overbearing managers. How? By creating a culture of "self-accountability" and making it an intrinsic value for everyone in the organization.

Giving feedback

Feedback is one of the core tools managers have to impact results. The challenge is that feedback can come in several forms and mean different things based on the context. In this episode, learn the best and most effective ways of giving feedback for you and your directs.

Setting clear expectations

Communication research says that it takes six times before someone really understands a communications. Most managers stop at just one. Further, they fail to have a concise and clear definition of success. By clearly defining expectations and effectively communication them, management effectiveness will improve markedly. 

Plan; Do; Check; Act

In the early part of the twentieth century, W Edwards Deming developed the managerial science of statistical quality control and used it to help rebuild the industries of Japan after WWII. His work lead to the science of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Lean Production. At the core of this ideology is the idea of continuous improvement and the PDCA cycle.

Leadership vs Management

In this episode we discuss the difference between Leadership and Management. Put simply, Leadership answers the question of where are we going, and Management answers the question of how do we get there. While both are critical, Management is often the one early stage companies struggle with.

Make better decisions using four simple questions

We make hundreds of decisions every day. Most are made automatically so that we're not constantly having to think and choose.

The non-automatic type of decisions take energy and create what's referred to as 'cognitive load' on the brain. By developing good habits and heuristics we can greatly improve our decision-making, make our lives easier, and our brains less stressed.

Whether you're a new founder deciding when to start your business or you're Nintendo trying to decide if you should fire an employee for their personal views on child pornography, the process you use to make a decision needs to be both efficient and effective.

Throughout all of the obstacles I've faced as a founder and CEO, I learned that deciding what to do and how to do it in each situation is a complex series of problems. Even in cases where a part of the decision is clear--for example, an employee who steals needs their accounts suspended--the questions of exactly how to go about those decisions become very difficult.

There are four basic questions that I've learned to apply in these situations to make them easier:

1. What is the decision I need to make right now?

The first step is always to clarify the decision at hand. Often, this step is glossed over and leads either to "over-deciding" or "under-deciding" both of which can lead to problems.

In one case, I had an employee steal almost $15,000 from the company. Prioritizing the decision of turning off all access to critical accounts needed to be done immediately. Deciding whether to contact the police, however, was secondary and could wait.

This allowed us to gather some information and fully consider our options. Why did they steal? Should they be given counseling? Maybe they are in a personal crisis and they need emotional and temporary financial support?

It's a very different situation if the employee stole to pay for a drug habit than if they stole to pay for their child's chemotherapy.

2. When do I need to make this decision?

If you can refrain from making a decision right away, you leave room for new data or insight to surface that may help you make a better decision.

The trick here is figuring out the last responsible moment for making a decision. If I have time, I'll make a provisional decision and wait until I'm close to the final moment to finalize my decision.

In the case of the employee theft, we figured out we had to report the incident to the police within a week if we wanted to submit it the loss to our insurance company.

3. What are all the options at my disposal?

People tend to think of the two or three options that come to mind first and then they stop. This limits possibilities and outcomes. Once you've really clarified the decision you need to make, brainstorm all of the possible options you can think of and expand your options.

In one case, when someone plagiarized our job description, I took some time to consider my options. Rather than firing off a nasty email, I came up with the idea of reaching out to offer our services. This lead to a multi-million dollar project that lasted several years.

4. What criteria should I use to make the decision?

Once I have the decision clarified and the options created, I consider what criteria I need to apply, and in what weight and order.

After my divorce, when I was picking out a new place to live, I created a spreadsheet with several criteria. Then by monetizing factors such as how much a 10-minute reduction in my daily commute was worth in dollars, allowed me to compare different areas based on average rents.

While not all good decisions will always lead to good outcomes, applying these techniques can maximize your chances and allow you to be more confident in your choices. With practice, you'll become better at making decisions quickly and efficiently.

This article originally appeared on Inc.com: http://on.inc.com/2eGvLe5

What is management

In this episode, we ask the question, "what is management?" Discover the difference between management and execution and leadership and why management is so important. Startups who find initial traction then run the challenge of managing and executing well to grow the business. Failure to manage well will leave even the best strategy stuck on the launch pad.

Overcome feeling like an imposter using three simple strategies

I founded a company in 2003 which ended up on the Inc 500 list in 2009. We started as two guys squatting in an law office building websites. Half a decade later we had over twenty people, a significant client roster, and a reasonable bank balance.

You would think, as I walked from my table at the awards dinner to the stage--to accept our plaque from Norm Brodsky--that I would be beaming with pride and feeling on top of the world.

I wasn't.

Surrounded by hundreds of other award winners of amazing companies I felt completely out of place. Everyone there seemed confident and sure of themselves.

I, on the other hand, was thinking about all of the problems and struggles our growing company was having, despite its financial success. From my perspective, it was obvious that nobody was having these same challenges. After all, they had won an award to prove it

Then, after the awards ceremonies, I had the chance to enjoy a few drinks and talk with some of the other award winners. With our bow ties undone, sitting on the veranda of conference center, I mentioned my thoughts from the ceremony.

One by one, they all admitted that they, too, felt uneasy about the accolades. In fact, they commented that I seemed the most poised and successful of the group.

As we spoke, I realized that my own feelings of self-doubt were minor compared to some of the others' at the table. When we shared some of our war stories, I realized that my company was actually doing fairly well, relative to some of the nightmares I heard that night.

By the end of the night, I was able to remind myself and come to terms with the fact that I am my own worst critic. And taking that sentiment further, comparing my internal assessment of my success to how I see other people's success is a losing proposition.

How to overcome imposter syndrome

Years later, I came across an article in the Harvard Business Review by Gill Corkindale titled Overcoming Imposter Syndrome. I realized what I had experienced was something psychologist have known about for years, it had a title so it must have been more common than I thought.

It set in motion a great transformation in me.

As an entrepreneur, I became much more comfortable pushing new ideas and exploring new territory. I became less worried about how I compared to other people and became more open to sharing my concerns and doubts with others to get help and insight.

As a coach, I learned that one of the best things I can do is to share my own challenges, failures, and uncertainty with my clients. Sharing this vital information breaks down the barriers to deeper sharing and insight. It allows me be to be a true partner in the process and success.

Over time, I've found three easy and effective strategies for overcoming the impostor syndrome trap. These have worked well for both for me and for my coaching clients:

1. Call it out for what it is: bad thinking

The trickiest part of self-doubt is that it can be hard to realize it's happening. Your mind is an expert in convincing you.

The sooner you can catch that you're doubting yourself, the sooner you can start addressing it.

Get good at telling the difference between doubt based on external, objective concerns and those which come from your own inner critic.

2. Remember that even the most successful people have self doubt

Once you're aware of your own self doubt, remember that this happens to everyone. In fact, you can make it a badge of courage.

Knowing that even the greatest minds and most fearless leaders have self-doubt can validate that you're in good company. Try using self-doubt as a sign that you're on to something big and important.

3. Don't strive for perfection and make it okay to fail

Self-doubt is very hard to overcome if your internal expectation is perfection. A zero-tolerance for mistakes and errors will make it impossible to take action.

The solution here is to change your expectations; frame the situation to make failure an acceptable outcome.

One of the best ways to do this it to set up your actions as "experiments". That way, any outcome is a learning opportunity.

Great leaders and successful entrepreneurs need to be critical and careful to exam all options, in every situation, in order to make good decisions.

While you may never completely get rid of your self-doubt, spotting it--and acting despite it--will lead to more success.

(This article originally appeared on Inc.com: http://on.inc.com/2cOjg4a)

The secret to effective delegation

I’ve been running a management training program for the last few weeks and recently taught a session on delegation. Naturally, everyone in the class was excited to learn how to delegate, but they were surprised by my advice.

I taught them that you can’t delegate work to someone else until you are properly organized yourself. In fact, I spent 75% of the class going over organizingyourself, and only 25% on delegation.

This advice wasn’t exactly what they wanted to hear, and I get it. Who wouldn’t rather just delegate a bunch of work rather than trying to get themselves organized?

But here’s the thing: in order to figure out what to delegate, you need to know where you add the most value and what your true capacity is.

You can’t delegate just anything. You want to delegate tasks that are fairly routine for you and that you feel ready to let someone else to take on. You don’t delegate new work, you don’t delegate critical work and you don’t delegate work that you would otherwise add the most value to.

Until you organize yourself, you don’t know what you should focus on doing yourself and what you should delegate. Delegating before organizing yourself is inefficient and potentially dangerous to your career. 

This isn’t just about making a list of things to do. It’s about assessing the value you provide, carefully considering what work you should prioritize and determining your true capacity.

There are two big factors you need to consider in order to decide what work to do yourself and what to delegate.

1. Determine where you add the most value in the business

Do you develop creative ideas? Do you make sure the reports are accurate and error-free? Do you analyze data for insights and opportunities? What is essential in your role and why do you have it rather than someone else?

2. Identify which work is “new” and which work is “optimized”

Optimized work is that which you’ve done for some time and have been able to cut down on the amount of time it takes you to complete. You have a process, and your results are accurate. You know the checklist. You’ve made, and fixed, the mistakes. You’ve worked out all the kinks. What work do you do right now that is considered optimized? What work do you do that isn’t?

Once you’ve done these two tasks, you’re ready to find work to delegate.

Delegate the work to which you add the least amount of value which has also been optimized. Sometimes, none of the work fits the bill. In this case, find a task that you add the least amount of value to, and work on optimizing the task in preparation for delegation. Don’t try to delegate before you do this step. If you delegate before you optimize, you won’t be able to properly manage the delegation, and you run the risk that quality will suffer. You can’t delegate a task that you haven’t honed first.

What to delegate better? Try this...

Create a work delegation matrix making a list all of the work and tasks that you currently do. Next, assess whether each one has high value or low value. Then, assess whether each one is well-honed or not honed.

For those items that are low-value and well-honed, determine what you would need to do to effectively delegate these tasks, and to whom you would delegate them to.

For those items which are low-value and not well-honed, determine what you need to do to hone these tasks in order to make them ready for delegation.

Good luck! Post questions below.

* * * * *

Bruce Eckfeldt is an organizational consultant and business coach. Previously an entrepreneur and a former Inc 500 CEO, he now focuses on advising startups and high-growth companies on leadership and management. He is a long-time member of the New York City Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and a mentor for the EO Accelerators, ERA, and SBS programs. You can reach him at bruce@eckfeldt.com or visit his website at http://www.eckfeldt.com.

Want to improve your management skills? Join 52 Habits and get an email each week to help you better manage yourself, your teams, and your projects.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/52habits

Focus on results, not effort

One summer when I was in high school, I worked for a house painting company to make some extra spending money. I had a bit of painting experience and figured that working outside painting houses was better than flipping burgers at a fast food joint.

One of our first projects was painting a gorgeous, colonial house in the Linden Hill district of Minneapolis. I was given the task of painting the trim on the windows. If you’ve ever painted window trim, you know that it’s not that easy. In order to properly seal the glass, you need to leave a nice bead of paint between the wood frame and the window pane. Otherwise, the freeze/thaw cycle of cold weather will wreak havoc on your stiles, rails, and muntins. (Hey, I was an architect, I have a duty to use the right terms.)

I spent all day painting several windows and sweating profusely in the summer sun. At the end of the day, our foreman − a big Scandinavian guy named Erik − looked at my work and shook his head.

“Not good enough,” he said. “You see these gaps here and here?” he asked, pointing to two sections where the paint didn’t reach the glass. “And these areas, here, you have too much paint,” he continued, finding several spots where I was overly generous with my brush.

I explained that I worked all day on these windows and that I tried really hard to do the best that I could. He grinned as he said something I’ll never forget:

“Well, I guess your best just isn’t good enough.”

There it was. I was crushed! Before Erik had seen my work, I was proud of the time and effort I put into it. And yet, it just wasn’t good enough.

Erik saw my look of dejection and said, “now look here, I can see you put in a lot of work and time. I’m not saying you didn’t. I’m just saying that we can’t leave these windows like this.” He paused, then continued. “We get paid to paint the house and people expect a quality job given what we charge. We don’t get paid for how hard we work. We get paid based on how good the paint job is.”

Grabbing the paint can, the brush and a scrapper, he waved me over to the first window.

“Look, I know you can do better, and I’ll show you some tricks to getting this right.” He used the scraper to remove the paint I just laid down and then dipped the brush in the paint can.

“First, load your brush with a good amount of paint, but not too much. Then put your outside fingers on the window to stabilize your hand as you glide down the pane. Go slowly and watch how much paint is being laid down, and adjust the brush pressure as you go.” Then he handed me the brush. “Now you try!”

After a few attempts, I figured out how to leave a nice bead of paint. The next day, I scraped and repainted all of the windows. And that summer, I went from being a beginner to an (almost) expert level house painter.

But perhaps the most important thing that I learned was what Erik taught me: that in business, people don’t pay you for your effort. People pay you for results.

There are a few things that Erik did when he focused on my results that I’ve found most great managers do.

First, he turned the results into the goal, rather than the effort spent. My goal wasn’t to spend a ton of time. Or to feel good about my work. Or for Erik to feel good about it. Without beating around the bush, my work was just “not good enough.”

By focusing on the results in a neutral way, you remove the drama and vagueries around the message.

Second, Erik quickly acknowledged my effort and explained that he wasn’t making this statement about me personally, but about the results I delivered. He separated the two, which allowed him to be highly critical of the paint job, without diminishing my effort, motivation abilities, or intent. His feedback was about the product, not about me or my character.

This is where a lot of managers get it wrong. When an employee doesn’t perform up to par, they make it personal and they criticize the employee rather than the product. And when managers say things like “you didn’t try hard enough” or “you know better than to think that this is good enough,” that’s personal. Making it personal never leads to desirable outcomes.

The fact is, you don’t know how hard they tried, what they thought or even what they are truly capable of. You only know what you can see: their results.

Finally, Erik immediately helped me fix the problem. He showed confidence in my ability to get better even though he found my results unacceptable. He made specific comments on the work I had just finished. He showed me where it was wrong and how to fix it. Then, he had me do it so that he was sure that I got it right.

The rejection of my paint job was certainly an emotional blow. But that was my issue, not his. Erik’s clear, neutral and fact-based approach to teaching me how to get better minimized the time I spent emotionally reacting to the situation and instead helped me improve.

By focusing on results in the right way, you can ensure that work is done up to your standard and can help your people learn and improve.

Here are a few tips for how to focus on results in a productive and an effective manner:

• Make sure the results that you’re after are clear and objective.

• Point out what was done correctly as well as what wasn’t.

• Be specific and show them examples in their work.

• Only comment on things you can objectively see, hear, touch, taste or smell − anything else is subjective and open to interpretation.

• Explain why it’s not correct and the impact that will have.

• Show them how to make it right and then have them do it.

• Agree on a plan for redoing the work and a reasonable check-in point.

• Try not to use judgmental words like “bad,” “poor” or “terrible” when pointing out defects. Instead, use words like “incorrect,” “needs improvement” or “needs to be changed.”

• Avoid commenting on the person’s intent, character, motivation, intelligence, etc.

What to put this idea to work? Pick a recent time when you reviewed someone’s work. Go back to the situation and answer the following questions. If you answer “no” to any of them, write out how you could have done this differently.

• Did you start with comments on factual results?

• Did you use a neutral and objective tone?

• Did you point out things that were correct as well as incorrect?

• Did you support the person's confidence in being able to do a better job?

• Did you point out specific things that were incorrect and show them how to do it correctly?

• Did you set up a plan for making changes and a check-in point?

* * * * *

Bruce Eckfeldt is an organizational consultant and business coach. Previously an entrepreneur and a former Inc 500 CEO, he now focuses on advising startups and high-growth companies on leadership and management. He is a long-time member of the New York City Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and a mentor for the EO Accelerators, ERA, and SBS programs. You can reach him at bruce@eckfeldt.com or visit his website at http://www.eckfeldt.com.

Want to improve your management skills? Join 52 Habits and get an email each week to help you better manage yourself, your teams, and your projects.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/52habits

Great managers define problems well

The last few weeks I've been running strategy and planning workshops for different organizations. These workshops range from half-day to two-day affairs where senior leaders review accomplishments made over the last year, develop insights around performance and areas for improvements, and then define goals and metrics for the coming quarters.

I truly love these sessions and this type of work. As a facilitator and coach, I have the privilege of learning about really what makes these teams tick and what challenges them. For teams who I work with on a regular basis, we've built trust and transparency that we need to go deep and address core issues which hinder personal and team performance.

My key to my role as a coach is to ask questions. Sometimes my questions are designed to prompt discussion or help the team consider alternatives or possibilities. Sometimes my questions point out inconsistencies or gaps in logic or understanding. Sometimes my questions shine a light on a topic or issue that everyone in fact sees, but nobody wants to bring up.

However, the best questions I can ask are questions that clarify problems. I've found that teams can spend hours, or even days, struggling to find a solution to a problem. Only to realize late in the process that people don't have the same view of what the problem is or why it's important.

Great managers and great teams don't just come up with great solutions,they come up with a great definition of the problem before they start trying to solve it.

Great Managers Define Problems Well

Defining a problem before finding a solution is critical to success. The more complex the problem, the more critical the definition.

Albert Einstein famously once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

While his ratio might seem excessive, I would say that for complex problems, anything from 50-80% of the time should be spent in the "definition" phase of the problem-solving process. Anything less, you run the risk of missing key insights about what the problem really is or coming up with solutions that don't truly address the needs of a solution.

To define a problem well, you need to answer four key questions...

First, you need to define the problem in exact terms. Describe what the problem is in qualitative and quantitative terms. Be specific.

Don't just say "we have a problem with buggy code." Instead try, "we have performance issues with the page load times on mobile devices for six of our product pages."

The key here is to define what the problem is not as much as what it is. Is it all of them, or just some? Is it all the time, or just sometimes? Is it always that bad, or does it vary?

A great technique here is the "Five Whys" developed by Sakichi Toyoda (founder of Toyota) and popularized by Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. Dig further into the problem by asking why several times. Each time uncovering a new layer of insight and progressing to the root problem.

Teams who don't do this well waste a lot of time because individuals are trying to solve different problems. And argue over different paths to take because they aren't on the same page.

Second, clarify the impact of the problem. By defining the impact, you define why the problem is a problem. This will drive the data that will be collected and possible solutions developed.

Building on the example above, "as a result, users are clicking away and we're losing potential sales." Other impacts could be losing repeat customers or getting negative reviews. These could drive different questions and paths for solutions.

Third, define what success looks like. The point here is to agree on the criteria you'll use to measure success and decide that you're finished. Defining this up front clarifies the end point and helps articulate the path towards a potential solution.

For the example we've been using, this could be the load time of the pages under review. Even better would be to define which browsers, running which OS, and during what time of day. All of these could be factors in the problem, and thus should be parameters of the solution.

I'm always surprised how trying to define the solution criteria puts teams quickly back into the previous two steps. And that is the true value of this step. Defining solution criteria further articulates the problem and its impact.

Fourth, articulate the value of solving the problem. This is the step that most individuals and teams often skip. And often this results in a lot of wasted effort.

This step is basically the ROI test for the problem. It defines the potential return on your time invested in solving this problem. Ideally, this is expressed in dollars or time saved for the organization. It can also be expressed in terms of risk and uncertainty. The more quantitative the better.

Why do we bother with this step? It's because there are far more problems than there is time to solve them. We can spend every hour of every day solving problems and we'll always have more.

Successful individuals, teams, and organizations, pick the problems that have the highest return for the time invested. They know their time is a limited resource and they are really good about prioritizing the problems that have a high return. They also know how much time they should spend on a problem and do the minimum work required to hit the success criteria.

Many people make the mistake of spending time on problems that are annoying or get a lot of complaints but don't really have much impact or value in solving. While having a product page load slowly is certainly a problem, if it only affects a small number of users or it's low-margin product then the return would fairly low.

Don't focus on squeaky wheels. Focus on value creation.

Here is a simple mnemonic for the four steps: D-I-S-V.

• D - definition

• I - impact

• S - success

• V - value

Following these four steps before problem-solving will ensure that you're choosing the right problems to solve and zeroing in on exactly what needs to be done to solve them.

If you want a simple one-page sheet that walks you through these four steps, email me at disvtemplate@eckfeldt.com and I'll send one to you.

* * * * *

Bruce Eckfeldt is highly-focused, results-based performance coach. Previously an entrepreneur and a former Inc 500 CEO, he now focuses on advising startups and high-growth companies on leadership and management. He is a long-time member of the New York City Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization and a mentor for the EO Accelerators, ERA, and SBS programs. You can reach him at bruce@eckfeldt.com or visit his website at http://www.eckfeldt.com.

Want to improve your management skills? Join 52 Habits and get an email each week to help you better manage yourself, your teams, and your projects.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/52habits