Beating Out Other Candidates to Land Your Dream Job

Passing a few interview rounds, along with a technical evaluation, might be enough to get you to the final stages of a company’s hiring process. But to actually land the position, you need to win out over professionals with comparable skills.

If you’re faced with strong competition, how can you position yourself as the preferred candidate? Here are some effective strategies: 

Add a New Checkbox

Recruiters and hiring managers typically select applicants who check off the most boxes on their list of requirements. That generally means there’s a lot of parity among the top contenders for any given job. If you want to win out, you’ll need to focus on something that makes you unique; that will separate you from other candidates who boast similar experience.

“Look beyond the job description and the required technical skills to find an attribute that gives you a huge advantage, preferably something that will impact the business or address the hiring manager’s implicit concerns or issues,” said Bruce Eckfeldt, Inc. 500 CEO and business coach for early-stage and high-growth companies.

To understand what distinguishes you from other applicants, put on your marketing hat. Create a competitive map or conduct an attribute analysis (a tool used to identify competitors’ positions and a challenger’s key differentiators). For instance, are you one of those rare developers who is able to communicate with product managers, as evidenced by your track record of successful cross-team collaborations?

Alternatively, can you show that you are in a constant state of adapting and learning, which points to future success? Does something in your record show that you’ll mesh well with your company’s culture? Those kinds of things will make you a “less risky” hire.

You might not boast all of your rivals’ strengths (and you might not even know who you’re competing against, most likely), but you can nonetheless influence the hiring manager’s decision-making if you can emphasize something that makes you the best fit for the company’s specific needs. Just insisting that you’re “skilled” or “experienced” won’t necessarily cut it; show why you’re ideal for the firm at this moment in its history.

Appeal to the Hiring Manager’s Emotions

A recent study revealed that managers tend to base their hiring decisions on emotion; specifically, whether they feel excitement and enthusiasm for the candidate.

That means forming an emotional bond with the hiring manager (and any prospective teammates who appear during the interview process) is key. Let your personality shine through; remain friendly and inquisitive. Demonstrating passion for the company’s mission and people is nearly as important as showing that you have the technical chops for the role.

Draw Subtle Comparisons

Don’t bash other candidates, even hypothetical ones; that only puts you in a bad light, weakening your chances of landing the job. Instead, draw very subtle comparisons by emphasizing your unique strengths. Take the time to describe examples of your previous work that are relevant to the current job, especially if the results were stellar.

For example, you could say something along the lines of: “While most programmers commit an average of three coding errors an hour, my average is less than one. I’ve improved my bug to code ratios through experience and by supporting my manager’s stringent code review process.”

Fix What You Can

If you botched an answer to a technical question, you can attempt to clear that up during the final stages of the hiring process. Don’t interrupt the flow of the interview to revisit a particular instance—that may only annoy the interviewer. Instead, seize any opportunities that arise organically to revisit those previous topics. By providing additional examples or proof statements, you can show that you indeed know your stuff.

Summarize and Close

Connecting the dots between your attributes and the manager’s needs is not only a powerful way to close your job-interview argument, it’s a key differentiator, explained Dana Manciagli, president of Job Search Master Class.

Here’s how to plan for your closing statement: Before the interview, create a document with a two-column layout. Highlight the manager’s top requirements in one column; in the other, list your specific successes (i.e., the results you’ve achieved in your previous roles) and relevant experience. Any requirements that align with your successes/experience are your key talking points.

For example, if the role requires someone who’s skilled in iOS development, and you built an iOS app at your last job that increased the company’s engagement and revenue by a significant amount, that should form a key aspect of your closing argument: You know how to leverage the technology in ways that profit a company.

Whatever talking points you decide upon, make sure to lay out your case in a logical manner. That will increase your chances of landing a job, especially when you face stiff competition.

This article was originally published on Dice.com: https://insights.dice.com/2018/11/19/beating-out-candidates-land-dream-job/

Have you ever felt like a fake?

Have you ever felt that you’re in over your head? Maybe even that if people really knew how much you didn’t know or how unsure you were, they might fire you from your job?

These feelings come up more often than you’d think. Questioning your ability to lead is natural. In fact, it’s one of the most common leadership challenges I run into when coaching executives. This experience is extremely common among leaders in all kinds of roles, but it’s especially common in quickly growing organizations.

It’s so common that psychologists have given it a name: Imposter Syndrome.

It’s that feeling when you’ve found yourself in a role you’re not capable of and everyone is going to find out. You feel desperate to prove them wrong, but also hopeless that any minute now things will crumble to the ground.

But it doesn’t have to be the end. In fact it’s a good sign that you’re pushing yourself out of your comfort zone into your learning zone. And there are a few things you can do to push completely through.

It’s first important to remember here that all leaders have reached a point where they start to question their abilities.

As leaders of quickly growing organizations, you need to be constantly improving and reinventing yourself to keep up with the competition. It’s normal to feel that you don’t measure up from time to time. The trick is to not let it completely derail your progress.

If you want to learn more about the ways to shift your focus, watch the video or check out the article I wrote for inc.com about the topic.

3 Easy and Effective Ways I Overcame Feeling Like an Imposter

Need help and motivation to feel up to the challenge?

From time to time, it can be really difficult to push those negative thoughts out of your mind. If that’s the case, let’s set up a call to discuss ways that you can turn these thoughts into productive action. Book a call by clicking here.

“Great leaders don’t need to act tough.
Their confidence and humility serve to underscore their toughness.” — Simon Sinek

Bruce “Cheerleader” Eckfeldt

bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment

Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive

Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting

Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Core Values Are Not an Airy-Fairy Feel-Good Exercise. They Are a Powerful Decision Making Tool If You Do Them This Way

Many companies create aspirational core values, make posters, and check the box. Here is how to up your core value game and make better decisions.

Business is full of decisions. What products or services to offer, which people to hire, which clients to serve, and what geographies to focus on are all important questions. A successful business needs to make these decisions efficiently and effectively.

Leadership teams navigate these choices in many ways. Previous outcomes give them experience. Processes help them ensure they investigate options, tradeoffs, and risks. However, the most important decision-making tool is developing a strong set of core values.

Unfortunately, many companies fail to get these right. Some create a set of core values which are a list of generic platitudes. Words like honesty, integrity, and ethics are table stakes for being in business, not ways to define who you are.

Other companies create lists of idealized desires for what they wish to be rather than who they currently are. This leaves companies with aspirational goals rather than a tool for embracing their raison d'etre.

As a business coach, I've found several ways to ensure that your values are effective decision-making tools rather than lip service on poster board.

1. Discover, don't decide.

Many teams approach core values as a decision. They look at a list of words and decide which words describe who they are. They debate the pros and cons of different terms trying to determine which one is correct. Values, however, are not something you can rationalize.

Instead, think of your core values as something buried deep within you that require unearthing. Looking at past decisions and behaviors will reveal that which already exists.

2. Values are reality not the ideal.

Often times when I start working with a new team, we review their existing core values, and they describe wonderful ideas. However, when we start looking at recent decisions, policies, and incentive systems, we soon realize that none of these are alive in the company.

The mistake they've made is creating an idealized set of aspirational values that feel nice rather than a list of descriptors that illustrate reality. I like to joke that your values should be fifteen pounds overweight, have a receding hairline, and drink a little too much. If your values look perfect, then they are probably not right.

3. Your values should have a dark side.

One of my personal core values is self-reliance. Usually, this serves me well and by embracing it I'm aligned and in my flow state more often than not. However, sometimes it works against me. For example, I don't like someone taking my bags to my room at a hotel. I'll balance two suitcases on top of a roller just so that I don't have to rely on a bellhop. My method doesn't make sense, but it's the reality of who I am.

I know that a leadership team has nailed a core value when they can point to situations where the value has required them to do something that was difficult or seemingly unnecessary compared to other teams. You should feel compelled to live you values, even when it doesn't make complete sense.

4. Each value needs an anti-value.

Core values are tools for making difficult decisions. And in order to serve that purpose well, you need to know what you are choosing as well as what you're not choosing. A core value reflects a trade off between two equally valid choices. The harder the choice, the more powerful the core value becomes.

I like to call the things you don't choose "anti-values." They are things you're willing to give up in order to live your value. For example, if one of your core values is collaboration, then you might be willing to give up competition. In that case, you won't create individual incentive plans or promote head-to-head challenges and still be true to your values.

My test for anti-values is if you can switch the order and give them to another company and it still works, then you have a good pair. It means that you've given up something of value in your choice.

5. Identify moments in time that illustrate them

One of the most powerful parts of your core values is the stories you tell about them. For each core value, I have the team identify two to three cases when they had to use that core value to make a tough decision. It could have been to fire someone or to continue or discontinue a project. Sometimes the stories are how they didn't follow their core values and how it hurt them.

It's okay if your team prints up a poster of your core values or paints them on the walls of your office, but if that's all you do, then you've missed the point. Core values aren't window dressings; they should be used daily to guide actions and decisions.

This article was originally published on Inc.com : https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/dont-develop-core-values-then-forget-to-use-them-heres-how-to-make-them-count.html

Most Employees Dread Performance Reviews. Here’s How to Make Them Fair, Useful, and Less Painful.

For most companies the review process is confusing and unhelpful to both the manager and the direct. Here’s how to change that.

The annual review season will soon be upon us. With that, comes much angst regarding how to evaluate your people. If bonuses are involved, it gets even more complex as you decide who should get how much of the pie.

As an advisor who works with dozens of companies on performance management strategies, I've seen a few things that work well, and I suggest these when leadership teams are looking to overhaul their review process. Here are a few big ones.

1. Review quarterly not annually.

One of the best changes you can make is to review more often. First, this offers employees more frequent feedback and multiple chances to set better milestones for their development.

Second, by reviewing more frequently, the organization gets better at doing it. Also, meeting more often means there is less to review which simplifies the meeting.

2. Use a role scorecard.

A role scorecard is used to define the scope and responsibilities of a position and how success is measured. Too often people are in roles without a clear sense of what they should be doing or how they will be measured.

Scorecards are as simple as index cards with the top priorities of a given role or as complicated as multiple-page spreadsheets. Personally, I use a one-page worksheet including title, name of reporting manager, key responsibilities, KPIs, targets for below/meets/exceeds expectations, and available resources.

3. Separate the performance and compensation reviews.

I suggest separating the performance and compensation reviews. While money can be motivating, it's typically restrictive and can skew behavior. It's better to keep the compensation review separate, or at least make a clean break in the agenda.

4. Collect multiple points of feedback

Rather than one manager putting their wet finger in the air, collect feedback from three to five people on specific behavior. Don't ask people if someone deserves a promotion or a bonus; that's the managers call.

Collecting input from different people gives managers perspective on their directs' behaviors. It also gives more credibility to results which will help managers during their conversations with their directs.

5. Provide specific examples

One of the best things to do when giving feedback is to provide specific examples of behavior and results. Bring copies of work products or descriptions of actions. Abstract ideas and generalizations can be easily misinterpreted.

6. Talk about what's going right

It's important to reinforce positive behavior. Often we assume people know what they are doing well, but that's not always the case. Call it out, be specific, and explain why it's good.

Avoid the feedback sandwich. People ignore the bread and usually only focus on the meat. Corrective feedback is something to be embraced and valued, not something to be ashamed of.

7. Set clear expectations for new behavior

When giving corrective feedback, it's important to be clear on what the new/different behavior or results look like. Simply telling someone that they are doing something wrong isn't enough. They are left with the 99 thousand other ways to try it. Giving clear examples of the right and/or desired way gives them a clear target.

8. Have them create a plan for change

Once feedback is given and the direct is clear on what needs to change, I suggest having them come up with their own plan of attack. There are two reasons this is helpful. First, the direct is going to own the plan and will be more committed to the process. Second, it means less work for the manager.

9. Ask what support they need

My management philosophy is hire good people who are self-motivated, point them in the right direction, and give them support. If you've given feedback and they created a good plan, let them run with it and simply ask them how you can help. You might be able to offer advice on a decision, an introduction to someone who can help, or a recommendation for materials or training, but let them ask for it first. Keep them in the driver's seat.

10. Establish a check in time frame

Any professional development plan requires milestones. Once you have a plan, establish what the next milestone is and when you'll meet to review their progress. Let them suggest the first plan. If you feel that's too far in the future, ask them to schedule a halfway meeting. If the pace seems slow, give them feedback that the plan doesn't seem to get them where they want to be in time. But let them replan; resist the urge to step in and take it over.

While assessing performance can be a little uncomfortable, it's the best way to drive organizational improvement. Keeping it objective, focused on the future, positive, and supportive will help minimize stress, while maximizing impact and driving real results.

This article was originally published on Inc.com : https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/getting-ready-for-annual-performance-reviews-heres-how-to-make-yours-worthwhile.html

8 Easy to Learn Ground Rules That Will Make Your Next Meeting More Productive and Fun

Good meetings require structure and process. Here are 8 ground rules that will improve your productivity and focus.

Everyone loves to hate meetings. The fact is they are a core part of working within any organization. Gathering to discuss issues, develop options, and make decisions is often the most efficient way to get work done. Done well, meetings can help quickly clarify challenges, advance ideas, and lead to clear implementation plans.

Bad meetings are typically the result of a lack of a focus, agenda, or structure. And one of the best tools you can use to make sure you stay productive is agreeing on a set of meeting ground rules. Here are eight that I use on a regular basis.

1. Use Vegas rules

Like in Las Vegas, what happens in meetings should stay in the meeting. We don't keep this rule because we want to discuss people's dark secrets or talk ill of people who are not in the meeting, but because we want people to speak openly about what they think about the issues on the table. If people worry that something they say will come back to haunt them, they will be less likely to share. Keep things respectful, but agree that what is said will not leave the room without everyone's agreement.

2. Tackle issues, not people

Too often, when things get heated, people fall into the trap of ad hominem attacks. This only leads to people becoming defensive, taking intractable positions, and dragging in unrelated issues to counter attack. Instead, agree that the team should focus on finding solutions to the problem, not assigning blame and doling out punishment. I often use the phrase "don't make things personal, and don't take things personally" when setting the tone for the meeting.

3. Assume positive intent

I like everyone to agree to approach problems with the assumption that everyone involved is doing everything they can to help the organization. Even if their actions or decisions may look bone-headed in retrospect, assume everyone acted in good faith. It will help focus on finding future solutions rather than who's to blame.

4. Speak now, or forever hold your peace

Sometimes people are hesitant to speak up in meetings. As a facilitator, I do everything I can to remove barriers for people to be able to speak their minds, and I use techniques like silent brainstorming to accommodate different thinking styles. In return, I ask that people have the courage to say what they have to say during the meeting. I want to avoid situations where the group reaches a decision and the next day someone brings up a reservation they held onto, unwinding the hard work we put into reaching an agreement.

5. Own your own experience

You can lead a horse to water, but only they can drink. Same with meetings. Just bringing people together will not cause a meeting to happen. Each person needs to actively participate. This ground rule reminds people that if they want a great meeting, they need to engage and speak up.

6. Be present, or be elsewhere

When I come into companies with bad meeting habits, I'll often suggest they adopt a meeting optional policy to shake things up. It does two things. First, it forces the meeting organizer to run a good meeting with important topics so people actually come. Second, it means that anyone who shows up will be fully engaged, otherwise why bother attending.

7. Have one conversation

While I love heated debate and passionate discussion, chaos will ensue if people are having multiple conversations on top of each other. Insisting on one conversation at a time will allow everyone to fully participate and follow along. If you're dealing with a particularly unruly crowd, you can pull out the talking stick and pass it around to focus the conversation.

8. Follow the 40 second rule

Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, explains why some people tend to talk too much in meeting in this Harvard Business Review article How to Know If You Talk Too Much. He says that when someone talks more than 40 seconds, people begin to feel like they are hogging the floor. I encourage my teams to be aware of how long they've been speaking and find a way to hand it off to someone else after a half a minute or so.

While there are many other things that you need to run good meetings, these ground rules are an important place to start. To be most effective, don't foist them on your group. Discuss them and get full agreement on them before enforcing them. Agreement on the ground rules shifts the dynamic from you trying to control the meeting to you reminding others of the agreement they made.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/running-a-great-meeting-is-difficult-these-8-ground-rules-will-make-your-job-easier.html

Ask A Career Coach: How Can I Beat Out Another Candidate In The Final Interview?

Dear Bruce,

I’ve been interviewing for several weeks for a new position. Honestly, I’m a perfect fit for this role. I have the experience, and I’ve hit all of the key points from their job description in my resume. The salary is right in my range, plus I love the company’s culture and values.

I’ve had two in-person interviews, and I’m scheduled to go in for a final interview next week. Everyone I’ve spoken to has loved me, and they’ve all implied that I have the job in the bag. I’ve been treating this last interview as a formality to discuss the details of the job offer and some final compensation negotiations.

Then, when I called yesterday to confirm the interview time, the HR manager indicated that they have one other person also coming in for a final round. I was shocked! I’m not sure what to do. How do I make myself stand out in the final interview round against that one person in these last moments?

Signed,

Fiercely Competitive

Dear Fiercely Competitive,

First, stay calm. There’s no point in letting a little competition throw you off your game. Going in focused on trying to “beat” the other person isn’t an effective strategy. Instead, get clear on your values. Focus on what you can contribute, and express your interest in the position.

The fact is, you’re always competing when there’s an open position: Outside applicants, internal promotions and even the threat of leaving the slot open are all options for the company. In addition, organizations often move multiple candidates to final interviews. Finding out that there’s someone else vying for the role in this stage is to be expected and shouldn’t be seen as a bad sign.

That said, there are few things you can do to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward.

1. Emphasize The Strengths You’ve Previously Covered

First, review your previous interviews and identify the strengths you’ve already covered effectively. Make sure to highlight those strengths again and why they’ll be valuable to the organization. If you’re meeting with new people, mention the discussion you’ve had with others during the process and their positive responses.

“When I was speaking with Gregg about the project management process, he mentioned that my experience in agile software development would be a great asset for the team.”

2. Reposition Points That Were Weak Or Weren’t Clear

Another thing to do is think back to any points that you maybe didn’t nail. Try to restate them in a more clear and direct manner. Don’t draw attention to the fact that you covered them poorly before, just restate them succinctly.

“In my interviews with Sammy and Alexa, they mentioned that teamwork is an important value. While much of my previous work has been individually focused, my most fulfilling and successful professional experiences have been with teams. I’m looking forward to more of that type of work here.”

3. Acknowledge The Competition And Suggest Criteria

Finally, while you may not know the competition’s exact strengths and weaknesses, you can make sure that the scales are tipped in your favor. Acknowledge that the organization has a choice and then suggest the criteria they should use to make a successful hire. By influencing the criteria, you’re indirectly selling yourself without coming across as overly self-promotional.

“Janet, I’m sure you have several good options for this role. It seems to me if you really want to raise the bar on product development capabilities, you should focus on bringing in folks that have both the technical knowledge of lean product development and the experience applying it in the healthcare space.”

While none of these will guarantee you'll get the job, they will help make sure you’re presenting yourself in the best possible light. And, of course, now that you know you’re not being asked in as a formality or to discuss the job offer but to continue to demonstrate why you should be hired, you’ll approach it in the right way. You want to be confident but not overly so. It’s not time to stop hustling, not just yet.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2017/05/15/ask-a-career-coach-how-can-i-beat-out-another-candidate-in-the-final-interview/#79e934077651

You Don’t Need to Pay More for A-Players. Here’s Why.

One of the challenges that I come across when meeting with CEOs is they associate their A-Players to higher salaries and big bonuses.

What if I told you that finding and retaining A-players wasn’t always about the money?

The first step I share with my clients is you need to establish what an A-player looks like for your business. The fact is: an A-player in one company or role might be a B-player in another.

How do you figure this out?

Talent scores are a great way to evaluate your team and to figure out how people are doing in their roles and what’s working and what’s not from a "people" point of view. It’s important to get into the nitty gritty details to be able to evaluate your people. And knowing your people has many advantages when growing and scaling your business.

If you’re familiar with the Top Grading process, you know that we like to talk about the definition of an “A-player.” The technical definition of A-players I like to use is the top 10% of talent for a given salary level and a specific geography.

You can always find better people if you start throwing money at the problem, but an A-player is not the best person money can buy, it’s the best person you can get for your budget.

The thinking here is that if you can get better talent for the same price that your competition is paying--through smarter sourcing, better interviewing, and more effective on-boarding--you’ll be able to beat the competition. If you’re paying more money than the competition, then they have more resources and can outflank you in other ways.

Defining your A-player is not hard, but it takes some work.

There are a handful of parameters--all unrelated to salaries and who I like the most--that I like to use when evaluating people.

If you want to learn more about these key evaluation criteria, watch the video or check out the article I wrote for inc.com about the topic.

A-Players Are Not the People You Like the Most, But They Drive Results. Here’s How to Tell Who Your Best Employees Are

Putting the right people in the right seats has benefits for you, the CEO, and the employee, alike. Taking the time to get this right has significant benefits to the organization and fuel success.

Are you finding it difficult to identify your A-Players?

Sometimes it’s hard to look past the the people you like the most or the people with an impeccable CV. Let’s set up a call to discover ways that you can get into more of the implicit ways your people are helping or hurting your business's success. Book a call by clicking here.

I'll conclude with one of my favorite quotes about talent from Jim Collins in his book Good to Great...

People are not your most important asset...
...the right people are.

Bruce "Talent Scout" Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment
Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive
Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting
Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Not All Attrition Is Bad. Here’s How You Tell Who You Should Keep...And Who You Should Let Leave

Not every employee is an A-player, and the best companies have a clear criteria for knowing who they should keep and who they should

Every company needs to find the right people and put them in the right seats if they want to be successful. And while it might sound easy, figuring out who your good people are and who your best people are is critical to success. A great employee can often be two to three times more productive than just a good employee, yet the difference can be subtle.

Here are eight factors that I use with my clients when doing talent reviews to see who we should be going to all lengths to keep and who we might be okay accepting a resignation letter from. A company who has the vast majority of their key roles filled with people who score very well on these parameters will be a force to reckon with in their industry.

1. They understand the role and expectations.

Your top people know what's expected of them in their role and what's outside their scope. Someone who is given a clear description but still has to ask questions or be reminded of work they need to accomplish is not in the right position. Similarly, someone who repeatedly extends themself beyond their role can create problems and is unlikely getting more important work done.

2. They demonstrate the ability to perform.

The best people can perform their role functions with a high level of skill. While they may have room for improvement in a few areas, they are highly capable and have mastered the majority of their tasks. If someone is struggling for an extended period of time on a core part of the job function, they are probably not a good fit for that role.

3. They are hungry to learn and continuously improve.

Top performers are always looking to improve and get better. They have a growth mindset and are continuously setting new targets and striving for higher levels of achievement. Once they have mastered their current job functions, they will naturally start working on the next higher role and training themselves.

4. They cooperate well with others.

While different roles require different levels of collaboration, all top performers can cooperate with others in a win-win outcome whenever needed. They don't keep score and don't hold out for a quid pro quo deal. They know that in the great game of business karma is more powerful than an IOU.

5. They focus on system--not local--optimization.

Great performers know when they need to rise above their local situation and do something for the good of the team rather than what's just easiest for them. They seek to understand the bigger picture and they work to find improvements to the larger system, even if is means their job gets a little harder.

6. They are easy to manage and coach.

The best people know that feedback is critical to getting better. They welcome observations on their performance and suggestions for how they can improve. And they don't just 'yes' you, they ask clarifying questions and want details.

7. They have passion and desire for the role.

Beyond the ability to execute well, your best employees will bring a high level of energy, excitement, and drive to the role. They celebrate wins and dig deep when there's a problem. And not everyone needs to be an extrovert. Passion can be subtle and private, but you'll find it if you look for it.

8. They live the company's core values.

Last, but not least, your best people will be aligned with your company and your team's core values. They will naturally embody the way your organization works and chooses to make decisions. Someone who likes to be a lone wolf in a company that values teamwork will never be a top performer, regardless of how we'll they execute on their role.

Finding and keeping the best talent is not easy. While attracting and recruiting are key to creating a good pipeline, if you aren't continuously reviewing and topgrading your current team, you are either watering down your talent concentration or you won't have any where to put great people when you find them.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/a-players-are-not-people-you-like-most-but-they-drive-results-heres-how-to-tell-who-your-best-employees-are.html

Here Are 6 Important Questions That Will Decide If Hiring a Coach Will Boost Your Performance or Drain Your Pocketbook.

Whether you're a top executive or a recent grad, coaching could be a huge boost to your career. But it could also be a waste of money.

The professional coaching industry has exploded over the last decade. Today, I hear high-powered executives bragging at cocktail parties that they have not one but two or three coaches who help them with everything from leadership to public speaking to mindset.

As a leadership coach, I'm thrilled that so many people are hiring professional like me. However, like any trend, some people rush into hiring a coach who maybe shouldn't. Here are a few questions I ask people who approach me about coaching and questions I suggest you ask yourself before you hire a coach.

1. How self-aware are you?

While this is a difficult question to ask yourself, it's key to the coaching process. If you're not willing, or able, to objectively look at your own thinking, behavior, and actions, then coaching may have limited impact. Those who get a lot out of coaching are highly aware of how their behaviors impact others and situations.

Check the language in your thinking. When something bad happens, do you immediately start blaming other people and finding excuses of why the external world conspired against you and put you in a bad situation? If so, you might want to first work on seeing how you contributed to the outcomes, too.

2. Are you ambitious?

Coaches can help develop great strategies and paths to success, but they can't do the work for you. If you're not driven to make changes and not willing to put in the hard work to implement the action plans, you might not get much out of coaching. You need to want the outcomes enough to do the hard work. If not, you might be wasting your money.

3. Do you hold yourself accountable?

Many people come to me looking to be held accountable and for me to drive the process. I have to explain to them that I can't make them do anything. I can only help them get clarity on what they want, why they want it, and how they are going to get it. But they need to be in charge of doing the work.

If you're not willing or able to take personal accountability for your commitments, then even the best coach in the world will not be able to help you succeed. That doesn't mean you need to be perfect; failure is part of the process. But you need to "own it" and be willing to be self-critical. Don't blame your coach for not making you do your work.

4. Do you have a growth or fixed mindset?

A lot of research has been done in the last decade regarding how your thinking can impact your ability to create change. Carol Dweck's book Mindset presents this as the concept of fixed vs growth mindset. Which one you have will impact the effectiveness of your coaching considerably.

Put simply, a fixed mindset is one that believes your skills and abilities are innate and determined at birth. A growth mindset believes that while you have many natural gifts, you also have the ability to learn and grow through persistence and focused effort.

If you have a fixed mindset, you will not get much out of coaching. If you have a growth mindset, you will see change and improvement by working with a guide who can help you accelerate your learning process.

5. Are you curious to learn?

As a parent of four kids, I can say that one of the most difficult stages of parenting is going through the why phase. They want to know and understand everything. Ever answer is follow by the same question: ..."but why daddy?"

While exhausting to me as a parent, this attitude in the people and teams I coach is an augur of success. People who are willing to ask why, and then why again, and then why a few more times, are much more likely to find root causes and make fundamental changes to they way they behave and think.

6. Can you keep things in perspective?

A big part of the coaching and development process is getting feedback, often a lot of it. Some of it will certainly be critical, and at times it will be difficult to hear. Your ability to take things in stride will determine if you are able to gain insight or if you close up and get defensive.

While you don't need to answer all of the questions perfectly, know that you'll be challenged in many ways by a good coach and being prepared to do the hard work will help you get the most out of it.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/coaching-is-a-powerful-management-tool-but-not-everyone-can-be-coached.html

One of the most powerful meetings you can run for your team has no agenda. Here’s why.

While most productive meetings need an agenda, an Open Space meeting intentionally doesn't use one.

Many years ago, when I was CEO of the first technology company I founded, we started having all-day quarterly meetings with our staff. Because many of our people worked remotely and on client sites, we rarely all saw each other at the same time, so these meetings became important for maintaining our cultural cohesion.

The first quarterly meeting we held was full of presentations and breakout sessions centered on different topics we knew. While the meetings were successful, we also got a lot of feedback reminding us that we missed several topics and that some of the topics could have used more or less time.

It's important to mention here that our company was one of the first Lean/Agile consulting firms. We were steeped in new ways of building teams and processes. So, when one of our developers came back from a conference where they used a crazy meeting format called Open Space Technology which has no predefined agenda and let's attendees choose the topics. We tried it. And ever since then, it's become one of the most powerful meeting formats I know.

Open Space meetings don't work for every meeting, so you can't do away with agendas forever. However, Open Space meetings are great when you are bringing together a group of people who have many different potential topics to discuss and the priorities are not immediately clear.

I use this format for summits and retrospectives where we need to uncover the topics as a group and prioritize them as we go. Open Space meetings are also great when you suspect new topics will come up during the process and you'll need to re-prioritize them in real time.

Here are a few simple guidelines for running your own Open Space meeting.

1. Choose a theme or a focus

While I keep the agenda open, I do create a general area of focus for the meeting. I've used "sharpen the axe" to focus on process improvement or "stronger bonds" to think more about team engagement and culture. Choose something that identifies a know concern but still leaves the topics open.

2. Set good ground rules

A meeting with no agenda needs good ground rules to stay focused and work well. Here are the three that I use.

"Vote with your feet": If you're not learning or contributing, move to a different topic.

"Yes, and": (No "buts" rule.) Don't tear down ideas; find a way to build on it.

"Tackle issues, not people": Focus on the underlying issue, and don't make personal attacks.

3. Start with a brainstorm

Every Open Space meeting starts with a discussion of the theme and a brainstorming of topics. Make sure you're not being critical at this stage; be open to any potential discussion topic. Don't rush this step; often the best topics come up late in this process and after a long moment of silence.

I have team members write ideas on index cards (one per card) so that we can organize as we go. I keep extra index cards around so we can add new ones as they come up during the session.

4. Select discussion facilitators

The power of an Open Space meeting is that you are empowering people to talk about what they want to talk about. Choose, don't assign, facilitators who are most passionate about the topics.

5. Work in self-organizing teams

I generally set up multiple rounds of meetings in time slots of 30-45 minutes with 15-minute periods for regrouping. For each round, I get volunteers for 3-5 topics and then have people self-organize into meeting groups.

After the round ends, we regroup and each facilitator presents a short summary of the discussion, key insights, and any recommendations for the larger group.

6. Document notes and action items

Make sure to have each team submit a one-page summary of the discussion including the topic, the facilitator's name, names of those who attended, key discussion points, takeaways, and any other recommendations.

This summary can be handwritten on paper and taped to a wall so people can see the results. If you have good connectivity, you can also collect information on an online document as you go.

7. Reflect on the process and learning

At the end of the meeting, take some time to reflect on the process. At the end of the meeting, I like to have each person share their biggest takeaway along with one personal action item. You can also have people rate the meeting and suggest changes for future formats.

Open Space meetings are not a lazy-person's substitute for properly planned meetings. Instead, they are a tool you can use when the situation calls for deeper dives into emergent topics. And remember: like all powerful tools, you need practice to use Open Space meetings. You also need to know when, and when not, to apply them.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/want-to-increase-innovation-drive-change-in-your-organization-try-this-1-simple-meeting.html

The most important part of taking a new job is how you handle leaving your current one

Getting ready to jump ship? Even if you can't wait to leave, don't burn your bridges on the way out.

While company loyalty is important and many companies will reward people for long tenures, switching jobs is part of the normal course of business. However, the fact that there is an expectation that you will leave, doesn't mean you should take leaving lightly.

How you make your exit will have a large impact on your professional reputation, and you want to get it right. Have a plan and make sure you're taking the high road regardless of what other people do or say along the way. Here's what to keep in mind.

1. Don't play games.

For example, going out and getting job offers in order to pressure your current employer for a promotion or more money is a dicey game to play. While it might be warranted when you have clearly been passed over or are well below market rates, you can only play this card once, and you need to play it carefully.

Be completely committed to the process and only stay at your current employer if they give you a big bump. Using this technique to nickel and dime your way to higher compensation will wear your employer thin. Plus, you'll most likely not receive an offer from the new company again, so you'll be burning that bridge, too. f you work in a small industry and people talk, you might be burning others too.

2. Keep doing your job.

It's to your benefit to stay focused on your current job while you're still employed. It's also the right thing to do. They are paying your salary and have every right to expect you to perform well. Until the end of your last day, keep your head in the game.

Another reason to finish strong is you want your current employer to know that you cared enough to give it your all. Sometimes, after you make the move, things go sideways or you realized it was the wrong decision. Leaving on a good note increases the chance they would welcome you back if you were to change your mind.

3. Communicate once you've decided.

Once you've made the final decision to take a new position, be sure to communicate clearly to the right people in a timely manner. You don't want people to find out in the wrong way or from the wrong person. This misstep can lead to hurt feelings and people questioning your intentions.

Generally, I suggest that once you have a final offer letter from the new employer and you've made the decision to accept the offer, let your immediate manager or supervisor know that you are leaving. You're departure will impact them the most and they will appreciate being the first to know.

Depending on the situation, assume a two-weeks' notice, but I might offer an additional two weeks if your current employer asks for it and your new employer doesn't mind. From there, let your current employer's HR department know and then your colleagues and friends.

4. Be appreciative.

Throughout the leaving process and with everyone you speak to, be sure to thank them for the opportunities they've given you and for what you've learned. Venting your frustrations as you head out the door might feel good in the moment, but it won't help your future prospects and you'll likely regret it.

If you want to kick it up a notch, write personal thank you notes or even leave small tokens of appreciations behind for the people who you really connected with and the people who impacted your career. You never know if they will be in a position to hire you in the future or show up in your new company as your new boss.

5. Don't gossip.

It's tempting to show up at a new company and start sharing all of the internal drama and dysfunction from your old company with your new colleagues. It feels powerful and gives you a lot of attention while you're trying to fit in. Resist that urge.

Not only does it lack integrity, it might be in violation of your previous employment agreement. It will also paint you as a gossip and people might reasonable think that you'll spill their beans in your next job.

Interviewing and taking a new position is never easy: it's a mix of emotions and opportunities. Nobody expects you to get everything right, but handling yourself with poise and having a plan to make the transition smooth for everyone will serve you well now and in the future.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/how-to-leave-your-current-job-without-burning-bridges.html

If you don’t have a clear cannabis use policy in your company, create one now. Here’s why.

With many states legalizing cannabis, every business needs to be prepared with a clear use policy.

Today, all but four states in the U.S. allow for cannabis use at some level. Nine states have legalized recreational use, while others have authorized limited use of cannabis products at varying THC levels for specific medical conditions and situations. And the maps are changing quickly as state legislators introduce new bills on a monthly basis.

As the use of legal cannabis spreads, employers need to carefully consider how this will impact their workplace and the working expectations of their employees. Court cases are already starting to appear around the issue, and, it's clear, that the vast majority of businesses will be caught flat-footed if they don't get ahead of the issue.

Complicating matters is the fact that cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, which means that employers need to know what's happening federally and state-by-state if they want the full picture. Employers also need to consider the states their employees reside in not only where their business is located to fully consider the possible situations.

Topping it off is the effects of cannabis are not well understood, and drug tests are not well developed. This leaves a lot of room for uncertainty that can create sticky situations for employers. While there is a lot to be ironed out by regulators and the court system regarding legal guidelines and processes, smart companies are taking action now rather than avoiding the issue.

As a business coach, I strive to create healthy and highly productive work cultures. Here are five things I suggest to my clients, and what I see progressive companies doing to be proactive about cannabis use.

1. Get out ahead of the conversation

First, companies need to make the issue a priority in their discussions with employees. Hiding from cannabis will only lead to problems in the future. Talk about how cannabis use can impact your people and your business and openly engage in the conversation early. Work to clarify your expectations before issues arise.

2. Have a clear, written policy

Every company needs a clear, written policy on cannabis use. With the legalization of medical and recreational cannabis, the use of cannabis will only increase in the coming years. Your people will be using cannabis if they are not already, and you need to deal with it.

Clearly state what you expect around the usage and effects of cannabis. If someone has a medical use permit, can they use cannabis while in the office? Can they use the night before or the morning before they come to work? Do you have a zero-tolerance policy or are actions taken based on the circumstances? Define your guidelines and processes now.

3. Discuss the policy with all employees

Creating a policy is not enough. You need to make sure people know about the policy and understand what's in it. Burying your policy in the back of your employee binder won't pass muster. You can't enforce a policy or process that wasn't properly communicated.

Hold regular sessions to review all new employee policies and changes; include cannabis in these meetings. As the laws change and more people start to use cannabis, you'll need to update, revise, and reconsider these regularly. Start the conversation now.

4. Apply the policy fairly and evenly

Like all expectations and policies, you need to apply them in a fair and balanced manner. Make sure your policies and enforcement processes don't create bias by role or employee. Unfortunately, the enforcement of marijuana law has been significantly racially biased by the law enforcement and the justice system. You need to make sure your approach doesn't perpetuate this problem.

5. Stay up-to-date on changes in local laws

There is new cannabis legislation on a weekly basis as laws are developed and passed. Courts are continuing to sort through cases to establish precedent and applications of these laws. Subscribe to a good news service such as the Marijuana Policy Project to stay abreast of new and upcoming legislation and update your policy as needed.

Many employers are taking a 'wait and see,' or even a 'hide and hope,' approach to cannabis. And while they are avoiding the work of having to deal with the issue now, they are only creating bigger issues in the future. Employers who get out ahead of the topic will not only avoid difficult situations, but they will also attract employees who appreciate working for a company who is proactive and allows them to use cannabis safely.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/cannabis-is-going-to-impact-every-workplace-across-country-how-your-business-can-prepare-for-it.html

Pricing products and services is not easy, and unfortunately most people get it wrong

Pricing your product or service is hard. And most people get it wrong.

Here’s the thing about pricing…if you can raise your price just $1, and don’t have to change your cost basis, you drop that dollar right to the bottom line.

That’s pure profit. Money in your pocket. Cold hard cash.

Yet, many people don’t get pricing right. As a result, they leave a lot on the table. I want to change that by helping you think through your pricing better and, hopefully, find money you can drop right into your bank account.

So why don’t people get pricing right?

First, they think about cost, rather than value.

When most people start thinking about how to price their product or service, they start by figuring out how much it cost them to make or deliver it and then they add some “reasonable” margin. And while I strongly suggest you know exactly how much your product or service costs to make or deliver, it shouldn’t be the basis for your pricing strategy.

Instead, start with how your customer will value your product or service.

How much more money will they make? How many expenses will they be able reduce? How much time will they save? How much easier will their lives be? How much better will they sleep at night?

And then ask: what are these advantages worth to them and that’s the basis for pricing. Focus on value delivery rather than what it costs you to deliver.

Creating a value-focused mindset in your company will have other benefits as well. As you get clearer on what you do that adds value, you also learn what doesn’t add value and you can remove it from your business. This saves you money and makes it simpler for your customers.

I talk through several other points in the video. If you’re interested, check it out here. Or, if you want to see all of the points, check out the article I wrote for Inc.com on this recently…

Most Companies Get Pricing Their Products and Services All Backwards. Here's How to Get Your Right

Need help with pricing strategy?

Let’s set up a call to talk through your product or service and how you can increase your price by focusing on the value you provide. You can schedule a call by clicking here.

I’ll close by including one of my favorite pricing quotes…

“You know you’re priced right when your customers complain—but buy anyway.”
~ John Harrison

Bruce Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment

Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive

Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting

Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Are you the victim, the villain, or the hero?

If you’ve been to my website you’ll know that one of my core promises is “less drama.” While I love a good Broadway play or series on Netflix, drama in the workplace is generally not very productive.

Unfortunately, it’s also rampant in many businesses.

Emotions in the workplace are understandable. We are human and driven by emotions and feelings. We want to have fun, celebrate success, and enjoy ourselves. And we need emotions to do all of those things. Emotions are important and necessary.

The problem comes when emotions pull us into destructive patterns unwittingly. If we’re not careful, emotions can blind us to the bigger picture and suck us into behavior that isn’t productive.

But in many cases, it’s not hard to get unstuck. Here’s how…

The vast majority of drama on teams and in organizations falls into a classic victim-villain-hero pattern. Once you realize that it’s happening on your team, you can disrupt the pattern and reduce the drama by coaching new people into new roles.

If you want to learn more about the patterns, watch the video or check out an article I recently wrote about this on Inc.com...

3 Common Roles Found in Any Workplace Drama, and How to Rewrite the Script

The great thing is that you don’t need to change everyone. Coaching just one person into a new role will often be enough to break the spell and get others to make changes.

Left unchecked however, the pattern tends to be negatively reinforcing and will often cause the team/organization to spiral downward, sometimes to the point of no return.

Do you have a team that’s struggling?

I work with struggling teams a lot, helping them reset their focus and boost their morale. Check out my team launch program, which works great as a “reboot” program.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/team-launch

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or needs. I’m happy to make time for those on my list. Just shoot me an email and we’ll schedule a call.

Bruce “Action!” Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment

Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive

Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting

Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

The best companies do these things to attract the best talent, even in a tight job market

Talent can be tough to find in a tight labor market, but it shouldn't lower your standards.

While a strong economy is great for sales and market expansion, it makes for a particularly tight labor market. If you're like most companies, finding good candidates for your open positions is getting harder and harder.

You might be tempted to lower the bar and take on people you might not otherwise, but be careful. While you can lower the bar on skills and supplement with training and development, lowering the bar on cultural fit will only hurt you in the long run.

Here are the techniques I've seen the best companies use to find the best people even when there are fewer candidates looking for jobs.

1. Define the role behaviors, not experience requirements

Most companies start a job post with a long list of professional experiences, skill requirements, educational degrees, and technical certifications. These are all proxies for the actual work to be done and not always the best indicators. Plus, research shows that women, specifically, tend to not apply to a job if they don't meet all of the stated requirements, which cuts out up to half of potential candidates.

Instead, focus on listing the key job responsibilities and requirements and how these will be measured. Let people make their own call regarding whether they can successfully perform these tasks.

If you need people with licenses, required certifications, advanced degrees, or accredited education, then list those and make it clear that regardless of performance, you cannot consider candidates without these items. Only list requirements that are true deal breakers.

2. Don't try to solve process problems with role definitions

I often see job descriptions that are odd combinations of responsibilities and skills. Typically this happens because the company hasn't designed a clear operational process. They end up with a pile of operational "leftovers" and throw all of these responsibilities into a catch-all role to solve the problem.

Instead, take the time to refine your process to use skills and capabilities that you know your labor market can provide. Make investments in technology to help standardize the work.

3. Look outside your immediate industry

If you're struggling to find talent in your immediate industry, consider related industries you can pull from. You may need to do more training, but if you can find the right core skills, you can often find access to new talent quickly.

Shake off your preconceptions; focus on the core skills and attitudes of the people you need. One company I know who needed people to make marketing cold calls used out-of-work actors who not only loved having the work but also enjoyed the normal business hours.

4. Boost your internal training programs

Most companies now know that hiring for cultural fit is more important than hiring for the technical skills. Making sure everyone you bring on shares a similar set of core values and is passionate about the vision for the company creates long-term value and alignment.

However, many companies are stuck hiring for skills because they have no internal training strategy. If a company doesn't have training processes in place for new hires to utilize, it forces hiring managers to prioritize skills instead of culture fit.

Invest in a good program for teaching role-specific skills as part of the on-boarding process so that hiring managers can recruit people who will be good long-term investments. Then invest in ongoing development so you can retain those people over time.

5. Leverage the power of coaches

A thirst for learning is one of the best attributes you can have in any hire. Feeding that desire will not only allow you to boost their productivity and impact, it will also allow you to attract them in the first place. Ambitious people want to work in an environment that will fuel their growth.

Internal or external coaching can be great at getting the right talent in the door and keeping them there. Coaches not only train important leadership and management skills, but they also build a personal relationships with employees that increase their loyalty to the organization.

6. Focus on culture development

The best way to attract and retain people is to build a powerful organizational culture: figure out how you're different from every other company and what your unique attributes can offer the market.

Being different allows you to compete for talent because you offer something an employee can't get anywhere else. This focus lowers your recruiting costs and avoids increasing compensation in an effort to retain your people.

The best companies are always looking for the best talent regardless of the economic situation. They keep their standards high and trust their processes, even when the competition for talent is fierce. While they could compromise to ease the short-term pain, they know that the long-term costs aren't worth it.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/in-a-tight-job-market-get-creative-with-your-talent-search-heres-how.html

Does your team set great goals but then fail to successfully deliver? Here is the one meeting you need and how to get it right

Teams can set a solid strategy and create great goals but then miserably fail on the delivery. Here is the one meeting that will make a difference.

Nothing is more frustrating than having a great planning session and coming up with a breakthrough plan for the quarter, only to have the team fall short on their targets. This shortcoming not only means lost time and increased risks, it's hard on team morale, too.

Left unaddressed, this accountability problem slows down the team considerably until people leave or management steps in and shakes things up. To break out of this cycle, there is one aspect I focus on that helps rebuild the team's planning and execution capability and morale.

That one thing is the weekly planning meeting.

The weekly planning meeting is when the team looks at its goals and their individual commitments to the team and figure out what they are going to focus on and accomplish over the next seven days. Seven days is the core work cycle of the team and all it takes to rebuild a team's momentum.

The agenda for the weekly meeting is simply five questions:

1. What did you commit to for this week?

2. What did you accomplish?

3. What did you learn?

4. What do you commit to for next week?

5. What is your action plan?

For the first two or three weeks, I just ask the questions. I don't probe too deeply, I just make sure I'm clear on what they are committing to, what they are learning, and what actions they are planning. My goal is to understand the situation and the dynamic. There are a several common patterns I find within these meetings; all of which have simple fixes.

1. Focusing on too many priorities in a week.

This happens when people feel pressure and are desperate for results. They hope that committing to lots of work will offset the lack of delivery. Instead, I try to take the pressure off and just have them focus on a few simple, but highly important, tasks. Once they have success and confidence, we can rebuild to a reasonable volume.

2. Focusing on something other than a key priority.

This can happen because there is an obvious obstacle they don't know how to address or a fear of tackling something highly important and then failing. By refocusing on the main thing, breaking it down to simple set of tasks, and focusing on learning something, rather than finishing something by the end of the week, we can begin to make progress in the right direction.

3. Not having a clear sense of the goal.

Too often people make commitments that are vague and fluffy. Which means that they don't really know what they are going to do or work on which in return means they can't deliver at the end of the week. One of my favorite terms is definition of done. What am I going to see with my eyes or hold in my hands at the end of the week? Only after answering this question can we ask if that work product really helps us advance towards our goal.

4. Not planning time to do the work

This happens when someone hopes to find the time during the week to do the work they committed to, but then gets overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks. In simple cases, I help them set aside time to dedicate to the work. In severe cases, we focus on rebuilding their daily schedule and delegation plan to free them up to make time to work on weekly priority commitments.

5. Starting too late in the week.

This is a common case of procrastination. They push off the work until day five or six and then get caught waiting for someone else to reply or get back to them before they can finish. Here, I suggest the "eat the frog" approach to task management, whereby you start each day tackling the hardest, least fun task each morning so that you can get it off your plate and move on to something easier and more fun.

6. Spinning wheels on an obstacle.

Sometimes people report that they hit an obstacle quickly and then struggled with it for the remainder of the week or just shut down and stopped working. My best advice in these cases is that when you get stuck, raise your hand. One of the main reasons most businesses work in teams is so that you have multiple brains on a problem. By suffering in silence, you're undermining your team. Instead, talk to someone and get some help.

While other situations do come up, these are by far the most common, and the most addressable. Usually after a few weeks of course correction and rebuilding, the team gets back into a productive grove. And, over time, by focusing on good, realistic habits and continuously improving on process, a team can overcome and makeup for lost ground.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/if-your-team-is-struggling-with-accountability-focus-on-getting-this-1-meeting-right.html

Does your team have more drama than you’d like? Look for this plot and these characters

Team drama takes on many forms, but it's rarely effective. Look for these patterns and use these techniques to flip the script.

As a team coach, I often get brought into situations with a lot of drama and dysfunction. Sometimes drama is too ingrained and systemized to resolve and the team needs to be disbanded and rebuilt.

In many cases, however, we can turn the ship around by recognizing patterns and the roles people are stuck in. The most common pattern I see is the Victim-Villain-Hero triangle.

In the late 1970s, psychologist Stephen Karpman identified this common Victim-Villain-Hero pattern in many dysfunctional families and relationships. These roles caused the members involved to get stuck in a downward spiral. As it turns out, we can apply this same analysis to professional team situations.

Team members might switch roles at various times, but these three roles are key to the pattern. The resulting drama triangle between these roles causes the individuals to stay stuck.

The Victim

Feels powerless and feels that everything is happening to them. They act stuck and unable to make decisions or have control over the situation. Generally they are unhappy and ashamed of the situation they are in.

The Villain

Feels they are logically correct and morally justified in their actions. They are generally blaming, critical, and demanding in their behavior. They are generally focused on doing what they feel is right and fair to the larger group or community.

The Hero

Feels the need to rescue the victim from the villain. They will often act in a caring, supportive, and self-sacrificing manner to support the victim. However, the hero is often not addressing their own obstacles or bigger issues and instead diving in to save the victim so they, the hero, can avoid harder conversations and/or avoid addressing the villain.

When I start working with dysfunctional teams, I often see this drama triangle playing out. In complex situations, and workplaces there are often multiple triangles between multiple people and situations where a person can be a victim in one triangle and a villain in another.

The first step in changing the situation is making the team aware of the pattern they are in. I give them feedback on their behavior based on specific interactions, and I help them see how they are playing out a certain role. Sometimes, just this awareness is enough to change the dynamic.

Once we expose the pattern, I can start coaching them on how to react to these situations differently. For each role there is a different, and more empowering approach they can take to improve the situation.

The Victim can help solve the problem. 

When someone feels themselves slip into victim mode, I suggest they shift to problem solving mode. Rather than wallow in their situation, they should brainstorm options. This might include resources they have and people who can help. I also suggest they shift from seeing the other person as the villain to instead seeing them as someone trying hard to live up to a high standard.

The Villain can focus on clear results.

When someone sees themselves becoming the villain, I encourage them to focus on the results they want to achieve and shift the blame and criticism. They should become a champion of higher expectations and desire and assert what they want rather than attacking the other person. I want them to ask for the other person's help and commitment to reach their shared goal. A good champion will make the other person part of the solution.

The Hero can clarify their goals and expectations.

Being a hero can feel great. You get to put on your cape and pull the victim to safety. However, this is a not a sustainable approach. Instead, I encourage the hero to think more like a coach and to help the victim generate options he or she can implement themselves. I also encourage the hero to work with the villain to help them clarify their goals and expectations.

While not all drama is the result of the victim-villain-hero triangle, and not all triangles can be successfully turned around, knowing the patterns and trying these approaches can change the dynamic when you see a team in trouble. More importantly, being aware of the tendency can help you realize when you're stuck in one yourself.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/3-common-roles-found-in-any-workplace-drama-how-to-rewrite-script.html

When all you know how to do is hammer, everything looks like a nail

I’ve been coaching a few very talented young executives in a fast growing company (they’ve doubled twice over the last two years). All three executives have been top performers in their domains (sales, tech, and HR) and have been promoted to run their departments and to be apart of the new leadership team.

They’ve done well overall. But I’ve noticed one thing in all three cases—something I notice a lot with first-time managers that move into leadership positions, particularly when they’ve previously been top performers.

The issue is that they only have one approach to managing their people and their teams.

Regardless of the situation, context, or circumstance, they fall back onto the one way they know how to manage and get things done. It works really well most of the time, but sometimes it doesn’t. As a result, they get stuck, and their people get frustrated.

For comparison, having only one management style is like playing golf with only a 9-iron. It’s great when your within 100 yards of the green, but if you’re trying to reach a fairway 250 yards out or if you’re 6 inches from the cup, you’ll struggle. Better to have a bag of clubs for different lies.

Generally, I find that people who have previously been high performers get stuck in the directive mode of leadership. They tell people what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and even sometimes where to do it.

And while this can be important when the team is new, time is tight, or the stakes are high, it won’t work well if your goal is to build and grow a team’s capability. Ultimately using just one management style becomes a crutch if it’s your only approach.

Fortunately, there are several other options. Good leaders know when to be inquisitive, encouraging, supportive, empowering, and visionary. And while every leader has strengths, I’ve found that all managers can utilize all of these based on situation and context.

To learn more about different leadership styles and when to use them (and when not to), check out this article I wrote for Inc.com...

These 7 Leadership Styles Allow Great Executives To Tackle Any Situation

Want a great, easy-to-use team development tool?

I’m working on creating discussion guides to go along with my articles. These are PDFs of my articles along with some key questions to foster discussion on your team. If you want a PDF copy with the discussion questions (totally free) from this article, just email me at pdf@eckfeldt.com and mention “7 leadership styles” in the subject line.

Know someone who might benefit from some one-on-one executive coaching?

Here is a link to my coaching services overview. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. Happy to offer people on my list a free 30-minute session to see if coaching might help.

http://www.eckfeldt.com/individual

Want a free book?

I’ve been cleaning out my bookshelf and giving away a bunch of hard copy books. Follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn to catch these. I’m even paying for shipping. :)

If you’re in the northern hemisphere, hope you’ve enjoyed your summer. If not, (like my friends in Sydney) enjoy what’s left of winter!

Bruce “Toolkit” Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com

P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:

1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment
Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE

2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive
Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE

3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting
Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE

Want to improve your productivity at work? Take a cooking class

A good cook has a system, and in order for the system to work, everything needs to be in the same place every time.

As I made the transition from company founder to CEO for the first time, I needed to learn many things. Sometimes I learned things from formal training, sometimes from the school of hard knocks. But the most interesting lessons I learned were when I carry sometime over from a seemingly unrelated part of my life.

One such time was when I decided to take a cooking class. It was a knife skills class and we spent several weekday evenings learning how to chop, cut, and fillet everything from shallots to salmon. It was hard work, but it was fun and I learned a lot about how to be proficient in the kitchen.

Cooking was purely a personal passion of mine and I had no intention of apply my culinary lessons to the business world. Yet, I ended up taking several things I learned in class back to the office.

Have a code of conduct and dress

For class, everyone was required to buy a chef jacket, hat, scarf, and apron. If I wanted to learn real culinary skills, dressing the part was step number one. We needed to dress like chefs before we learned how to perform like chefs.

At the office, I realized that while we wanted to create a casual culture and laidback work environment, we had no guidelines or expectations for that desired outcome. People were wearing flip flops and, in one case, T-shirts with outright profanity.

Therefore, we created a new set of norms through a set of team discussions and mutual agreements on what would create a respectful, healthy, and professional office environment. We codified it into a one-page overview which became part of our handbook and onboarding processes.

Start with a team huddle

At the start of each class, our chef would have us gather around the front station. He would hand us the menu for the evening and explain what we were learning. People would ask questions and get clarification so everyone had a crystal clear understanding of the goal and process.

Back at the office, I could now see many situations where people were working frantically on projects for which we hadn’t sat down as a team to discuss the project goals. Once we discussed the goals, several projects changed significantly, and a few were even shelved when we realized the outcomes weren't clear or important.

Set your mise-en-place

After our huddle in cooking class, everyone would go to their station and set up everything they needed for that menu. This included knives, bowls, utensils, measuring cups, raw ingredients, seasonings, etc. Our chef would give us a map of where everything went and how the station should be organized to make the work flow easily, to keep your station clean, and to make sure you and the food were safe. In the kitchen, this is called your mise-en-place.

Thinking about our work space at the office, I realized several areas were not set up for this kind of mise-en-place success. This included my personal desk. I took an hour and cleaned up and created a system for where everything should go. I zip tied and tucked away cables, and I moved anything I didn't need regularly to drawers and cabinets.

Working with our office manager, we created “meeting boxes” for of our conference rooms that had all of the materials we needed for meetings: stickies, sharpies, masking tape, index cards, paper clips, rubber bands, computer chargers, video adaptors...everything.

Once a day, our office manager would check the boxes in each room and make sure everything was in each box. Because of this new system, team members could walk into any room and be confident they would have what they needed for a successful meeting.

Learn from your peers and improve as a team

Some cooking techniques I learned quickly. Others took more time. When our chef came by and I demonstrated that I was able to do the step well, he would ask me to go over to someone else who was having trouble and show him or her how I did it. On the flip side, and if I was struggling, he would send someone over to help me.

At first, I was a little frustrated because I wanted to move on more quickly, but I soon realized that by teaching I was reinforcing my learning and we were keeping everyone in the class at the same learning pace. If he didn't do this, some people would finish quickly and others would fall behind. He kept us learning together as a team.

It quickly occurred to me that back at work, we had several people who were true experts in parts of our business that others were just beginning to learn. We were not learning and growing together.

We set up internal training sessions where the best of our people could present what they knew and help teach others. We had everyone create learning goals and meet monthly in coaching groups. Simply by sharing knowledge we already had internally, we raised the bar on everyone’s performance.

As a company grows, systems and processes become more important. And it’s possible that what worked well at 25 people may not work well at 250. Successful executives are constantly looking for new and better ways of doing things to improve performance and productivity. By exposing yourself to new learning challenges and opportunities, you can often find ideas and solutions to bring back to the office that you probably would not have considered otherwise.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/entrepreneursorganization/2018/08/02/want-to-improve-your-productivity-at-work-take-a-cooking-class/#6594a30f3d17

Confused about the difference between a priority and a goal? Here’s a framework to keep you on track

If you're involved in any goal-setting effort, you're bound to run into a host of terms that all seem to mean the same thing. Here's how to keep them straight.

When working with leadership teams and executives on strategy planning, we often throw around a lot of terms. Some of these terms can seem to mean the same thing, and they often end up meaning different things to different people. Here are some definitions I've coalesced and use in my work to keep things clear.

Purpose

I use this to describe what an individual or organization is meant to do in their heart of hearts. It's something they can spend their entire lives pursuing and has infinite room for success. Some examples are: to rid the world of hunger or improve our lives through technological innovation.

Mission

I like to think of the purpose as the why, and the mission as the what. A mission defines what we want to achieve at the highest level. Some examples are: give every child three square meals a day or make tomorrow's technology available today.

Vision

A vision describes a future state in rich detail. We use a vision to create a compelling view for what our success will look like once we've achieved our goals. Generally, this is written in prose over several paragraphs and provides key details and taps into core emotions.

BHAG

Coined by Jim Collins in his book Built To Last, BHAG stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. I look 10 years in the future, but some people go as far as 30. There are different types of BHAGs, but they are always compelling and time-bound. Good BHAGs will move you into a new league of play and should invoke the slightest bit of fear.

Priority

Priority defines the one thing you are dedicating the majority of your time to. Your priority is the thing you do prior to working on other tasks. It is often helpful to have a list of things that you are deprioritizing in return. Priorities are generally set for a year or quarter and can involve multiple tasks or projects.

Focus

Your focus is similar to a priority, but slightly more general. I think of a focus as a topic of interest or concern for a group or individual. A focus might be customer service, whereas a priority would be reducing the wait time for priority customers.

Initiative

I generally use initiative to describe a group of projects, often across departments, that achieves one or more key results in an organization. Some examples might include: improve safety to reduce shop floor accidents. This one initiative includes human resources, operations, facilities, and logistics.

Objective

Objective is defined as an area of focus that is clearly aligned with the long term strategy, reasonably narrow in scope, and compelling to the team. For example, a quarterly objective might be improve project management skills for all delivery staff.

Goal

A goal is similar to an objective but smaller and more specific; it also has a clear deadline and timeline. If the objective is improve project management skills for all of our delivery staff, then a goal might be have all delivery staff score over 90 percent on the PMI project management skills assessment.

Target

Used in conjunction with a key performance metric (KPI), a target is a specific number or measurement you're looking to achieve. If your KPI is number of orders per day, your target might be over 200 orders a day for five consecutive days.

Key Result

If you're using OKRs, then these are the specific, measurable, actionable things you are doing to move forward on your objective. Each key result is an independent task that adds value, not a series of steps in a project plan.

If your objective is improve project management skills for all delivery staff then your a key results might be 1) run three project planning workshops in March, 2) have two people go to the PMI certification class, and 3) hold a project retrospective on our last three projects.

Action Item

An action item is a commitment to do something. It has a 'who', a 'what', and a 'by when'. With any action item, I want to know what I will have in my hands or see with my eyes that will tell me it's complete. When running my weekly team meetings, I'm focusing on what actions people are committing to for the next meeting so that I can hold people accountable to what they've signed up to deliver.

I'm sure there are other terms that get thrown around in these types of sessions, but the ones above are the core terms that are good to know. While I like mine, they are not gospel. What's most important is that everyone on your team agree to each word's meaning so everyone has the right expectations.

This article was originally published on Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/bruce-eckfeldt/these-12-common-business-terms-seem-redundant-but-they-have-practical-differences.html