Dare to dream your dreams

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Janna

Why are we, as a society, having such a hard time dreaming?  As children, we dream on a regular basis.  We fly, conquer the world, create imaginary friends, and plan to accomplish things never considered by anyone 20 years older.  Then the aging process starts and conformity begins.  We conform not only in our behavior (which is mostly good), but in our ability to dream.  One by one, we are told (and often not outright), that our dreams are impossible. Our dreams are unreasonable, not possible, or even why would you ever try that – you might FAIL!

What this creates is a society of control freaks.  These control freaks become business owners who want it done their way, as that way is the only right way.  What they are losing is the ability to leverage the world to get things done for them.  They don’t hire for new ideas, they hire for fitting into the box the business owner created.  The problem:  business owner wealth creation is often best accomplished by people with the desire to dream in a world without boxes.

 Dream without boxes – what does that mean?  It means stepping out and doing things differently.  A perfect example is Steve Jobs, he created something that was new and different that we didn’t know we needed (actually we didn’t), yet how many of us want to go back to what life was like prior to Apple creations.   You need to get away from the day to day so you have time to dream.  It is learning to always challenge your own thinking and be open.  You also must be willing to let others challenge your thinking – they also have dreams that might just allow you to fly, conquer the world, and accomplish things you were told were impossible.

Dream dreams for yourself, your family, and your business.  Dreams do come true, but only if there is a dream in the first place.

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Do people listen to you?

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Janna

E.F. Hutton was America’s most influential stock market analyst.  He was a leader.  As with all true leaders, people listened when he spoke.  The advertising around the name also helped to make the name more wide known but the concept is still accurate.   People listen because the leader has earned the respect and credibility from those listening.  Margaret Thatcher is quoted as saying, “Being powerful is like being a lady – if you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”  That is true of leaders.  If you need to tell people you are a leader, then you are not one.  In some of my earlier blogs about leadership, I discuss influence and leaders.  True influence is people listening and then following your vision.  However, this leadership is not earned overnight.   John Maxwell lays out the essential steps on leadership in his book The 5 Levels of Leadership.  The first step is Position.  This step is one that many people have.  You are only the leader due to the position you hold.  People have to follow you or get fired.  True leadership is having the people follow you even when they aren’t required to follow.  They listen because they know you are worth listening to and seek out your input.  So where are you on the listening scale?  Who listens to you and who do you listen to?

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Charting the Course of leadership

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Janna

Have you ever been on a ship in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight?   Unless you are the captain of that ship, you need to trust the captain’s knowledge, vision, and ability to steer the ship to your destination.  The captain will have chartered the course, looked for obstacles, and understood the navigation required to ensure safe passage.  Leadership is very similar to being the captain of a ship.  The leader must chart the course for the organization.  The organization needs to know where they are going and where they are headed.  The leader should be able to see the obstacles ahead that will provide a hazard to the organization and make plans for what needs to be done to avoid the obstacles.  Leadership is about preparation and preparation is critical.

As we chart the course, the leader is similar to a navigator. The navigator does the preparation required for the detailed chart to ensure not only the best course, but plan B and C when the best course doesn’t actually work as planned.   The leader listens, judges reactions, and determines the source of the reactions.  The leader must balance optimism with reality.  What I often call the difference between illusion and reality.

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Leadership through Relationships

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Janna

Relationships – do they matter to leaders?  Absolutely yes.  True leadership is relational.  People won’t go along with you if they don’t get along with you.  Will you follow someone you don’t like?  Why would someone follow you if they don’t like you?  The leadership you provide is both horizontal and vertical.  You can lead volunteer organizations, you can lead your peers, and you can lead those above you.  I have loved seeing leadership from those I work with at all levels, be it the Colorado Springs business owner or the non-profit volunteer.  It shows their personal growth, their ability to step up and most importantly their ability to step into the leader’s shoes.  The ultimate compliment for a leader is having a team that can and will step in to your job.  It allows you to move ahead.  If no one wants your job, you are failing as a leader.  You haven’t created an environment for others to grow, you haven’t shared a vision of how they can take over.

We also need to lead ourselves.  As we learn to lead ourselves, we become better at leading others.  Leadership requires relationship.  Leadership is influence.  Leadership is a day by day process.  Great leaders are not created in an instant.  It takes a step-by-step process, working day by day to improve, build relationships, grow, share the vision, help others to buy in, invest in them and create an organization that everyone wants to work with and an environment that many people want to follow you.  Are you ready?

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Leadership Mindset

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Janna

Leadership according to business owners in Colorado means change.  However, change for the sake of change can be detrimental.  True leaders will have a vision for where the organization is heading, how to get there and how to influence the change required.  Managers help to implement and maintain the vision created by leaders.  There are many brilliant people in the world who are not leaders.  They have ideas, they have vision, yet they don’t have the leadership skills to invoke the change, communicate the need, inspire the team, or make it happen.  There are many brilliant CEO’s, but being a CEO doesn’t make them great leaders.  Many leaders are ones without great titles or position.  The mindset that correlates title with leadership will actually sink the ship faster.  If you want to be a leader then lead no matter what your title, position, or age.  Leadership can be seen in teenagers, leadership is often not seen in those decades older.  Knowing what to do and influencing others to do it are very different skill sets.

What is your skill set?  What do you want it to be?  Are you waiting for the right time, title, position, or opportunity to lead?  If so, stop waiting and become a leader where you are today.

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Investment in Leadership

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Janna

Are you a leader?  What makes a business owner a good leader?  What makes an executive a good leader? How is leadership defined?  Enough of the questions.  Each of those questions are at the foundation of understanding where you are as a leader and how to recognize good leadership.  Executives are often criticized for lack of leadership or at least quality leadership.  What most have a hard time determining is: what is true leadership vs. good management vs. not doing what the leader wants done, which is loosely interpreted as: I don’t agree.

Leadership is defined as influence – trusted influence.  The influence you have on others can be determined as good, or not good.  We all influence, it is how influence is used.    Everything rises and falls on the quality of leadership in your organization.  The organization can only rise to the level of your leadership.  If your business isn’t growing or your team isn’t moving forward you need to look at yourself and determine where your leadership needs to change.  Essentially your business won’t surpass your leadership skills.

What areas of leadership do you need to invest?  An investment in yourself has a high rate of return.  You are worth the investment.

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Mindset for Excellence in Life

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Janna

As a business owner, are you comfortable?  Do you challenge yourself every day?  Do you get out of your comfort zone and do things different, in new ways, and with new thoughts?  Here is one – do you go to work the same way every single day?  STOP IT

I challenge my Colorado Springs business clients, with – if you are comfortable, relaxed, and doing things the same way today as 1, 5, or 10 years ago, then look at your business.  Is it where you want to be, or has your business gotten comfortable to the point of not returning to you, your family, your team and your investors the results they want?  There is a book called “If it ain’t broke… break it!” by Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler.  The premise is we need to change.  Marketing must be different today than it was yesterday.  Sales can’t be done the same way they always have.  One of the stories in the book is about football.  In the 1930’s the game was primarily a running game, till one coach decided to try passing.  He was ridiculed, talked about, made fun of – until it started working.  Now football is very much a passing game. 

What do you need to do different in your business?  Do you need to change your mindset so you embrace change?  Do you train your team to look for new ways to do things?  Do you change just for the sake of keeping yourself on your toes, your mind working and those around your guessing?  Your customers are always expecting you to improve and do things better, are you?

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Mindset for Excellence in Business Owners

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Janna

I have seen these mindsets with my Colorado Springs business coaching clients.  Do you recognize them?  When the employee receives the promotion, they will have the clout to act like an executive.  When the business owner gets the big contract they will be successful.  When the sales person closes the deal they will have the confidence to close larger accounts.  Each of these examples starts at the end of the equation. 

When the employee starts to BE the executive in mindset, attitude, focus and results – they will DO the necessary things that will ensure they HAVE the promotion.  BE X DO = HAVE.  In our society, we want the results first and believe the actions will come afterward.  Reality is just the opposite.  We want to BE a business owner of a $5million business, and then we will start acting like one.  That doesn’t mean spend like one.  Set your mindset of where you want to be.  It will take time.  A physicist starts becoming a physicist long before they get the degree.  They start by studying, learning, applying and getting the degree.  It may be years/decades before they have the credentials.

DO:  Hang out with those who do own $5M businesses.  Dress like them, read what they read, go to conferences that other larger business owners attend, ask them to lunch, get them to mentor you.  Create a path.  Most importantly DO, don’t wait, DO.

HAVE:  This will come, it may take time.  Enjoy the journey, learn, BE ready to mentor someone else.  Show them how to DO the things that will make them a success.  You will then HAVE more than you imagined.

Keith Cunningham said “Hell on earth would be running into the person I could have been”

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A Mindset for Business Excellence in Colorado Springs

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Janna

Are you – positioned for growth in your business, ready to enjoy the profits from the year, looking to hire new employees, focused on the goals for my business?  Do those words describe you, your business and your environment?  They should.   Business owners, executives, team members need to have a mindset for excellence.  How do you get there and what does it mean?

Above the line behavior is the first step.  As a Colorado Springs business coach, I see many owners focus on below the line behavior: Blame, Excuses, and Denial, which create the word BED.  Your competition may want to blame the economy, have 25 excuses for why they didn’t make a profit or deny that any of their business challenges start with them.  Above the line behavior has a mindset for excellence that will focus on Ownership, Accountability and Responsibility – OAR.  You own the oar for your ship – your business.  You have the ability to make a difference, to think out of the box, to focus on the positive.  You own the results of your past actions.  What will you change this quarter to make that difference.  Accountability – it isn’t someone else that can make your company profitable – it is you.   You are responsible for your actions – or in many cases – inaction.  To make above the line even more powerful add Results before the OAR – it then creates a ROAR.  That ROAR will be heard throughout your industry, your customers, your employees, and your profit.

Results don’t need to be explained; reasons do (reasons are what you get below the line.)  Are you ready for Results or do you want to stick with all the reasons you aren’t positioned for growth, don’t have profits, can’t hire and don’t know where your business is going.  The choice is yours.

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Do you have the right Team on the Bus?

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Janna

Employees – some business owners love them, some say they will never have them.  Why is that? My Colorado Springs business coaching clients tell me that hiring is the hardest and yet most important thing a business owner/manager can do to affect their business.  Hiring the right employees can allow your business to grow and keep on growing.  Hiring the wrong ones can be VERY expensive, especially if you need to let them go and start the process over again.  Often you have good employees, but just in the wrong “seats” in your business.  So how do you work to ensure you have the right people in the right seat of the bus of your business?  Part of it is art and part of it is science.  Part of it is understanding the person you are interviewing, understanding your own company, and understanding the role of this new person.  So often, bad hiring decisions are made because we really don’t know the job we want them to do, the characteristics of the job, and the characteristics of the individual.  For example, to hire an individual who doesn’t like to talk on the phone to be a telemarketer is a mistake.  However, this type of mistake happens constantly.

 ActionCOACH has a very powerful interviewing process.  Although there is never a 100% guarantee on hiring, it does take the normal hiring process, which at best is a 50/50 chance, and makes it about 75%.  Most people would take those odds to the casino and be very happy.  One of the tools we use is a DISC analysis.  DISC does a great job at assessing (in about 20 minutes) who you are.  There isn’t a right or wrong, but it does show your natural vs. adaptive tendencies.  For example, if you are hiring a new bookkeeper and the DISC profile shows they don’t really like to be detail oriented, but are outgoing, like to organize, and interact with people.  They might not be a great bookkeeper, but they might be a great office manager.

 I can’t tell you how many times I have talked to business owners and they have stated – I used to have employees and it was a total pain.  I am never doing that again!  Well, ok – then you are slated to doing all the work yourself for the rest of your business life, there will be limited growth, limited return on your time investment and just remember that premise when you try to retire.  Instead – maybe look to yourself and determine, were the hires the right ones, did I provide the leadership required and why can the competitor down the street hire, keep staff, and grow when they are in the same business?  We have a saying of “isn’t that interesting” for topics like this.  It should cause us to look within ourselves.

 Now I agree employees can be troublesome. I have hired many, fired many (usually my mistake in hiring) and wondered how to make the process less of an art and more of a science.  I have learned much over the last 25 years and especially the last few years in coaching.  Part of what I do in coaching is look at the organization.  What is truly needed to achieve the goals and what are the personalities.  In many cases, you need to look for attitude far more than what their skills are.  Yes, if you need a scientist they must have the basic skills.  However, I would rather train someone not as qualified but who has the right attitude, then one very qualified with a negative or neutral attitude.  The affect on the business is tremendous.  One of my clients was in the process of hiring someone to help in the office.  They really wanted someone with experience in their industry; however, what they found is someone with a take-charge positive attitude who is willing to think out of the box, but with little industry experience.  That has proven to be a wonderful hire.  Yes, learning the industry has taken a few weeks longer, BUT everything else is providing them what they needed. 

 If you are interesting in the DISC profile, contact me at jannahoiberg@actioncoach.com

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