How would you like that prepared?

The other day at lunch someone was asked that standard question “how would you like that prepared?”

I thought about that question as it pertains to work. The parallels to me were striking (warning: there may be some groan inducing comments below)

- If we prepare just a little and then get the work out the door – our chance of success and improvement is Rare.

- If we prepare the same as everyone else, we should expect the chances of success to be about the same as everyone else or Medium.

- If we take the time and prepare more than everyone else – we have insured that our most likely result is a job Well Done.

So we should take a moment each day, and think about what we have coming up that is key to our success and achieving our goals. Then look at your calendar and check to see if you have set time aside to prepare? We all think to prepare, but if we do not schedule time to do the preparation then life gets in the way, and we scramble just to barely get enough done. Take a moment, look at the major tasks that our key to our success, and make sure that you have scheduled in a ton of preparation time. This is an investment that will pay off.

Whenever you are looking at getting something done ask yourself “have I schedule enough time to over prepare for this?” When you add this to your routine you will have learned a valuable lesson that will lead to continued improvement and success.

The lesson: be prepared, in fact be over-prepared. It is the key ingredient to a job well done.

(sorry…couldn’t resist one last one!)

Question: how can you tell if your customers are satisfied?

Answer: look at your team.

Just wanted to remind everyone of the simple rule that is the key to monitoring and improving the service we give our customers. The more satisfied and loyal our team is, the more satisfied and loyal our customers will be.

Remember, satisfaction and loyalty does not mean that they “like you”. But it does mean that they like working with (and for) you. It means that they know they are appreciated, know how they are doing and know the expectations for them and the whole team. If your team is happy and satisfied, they will treat our customers like gold, if they are not… well you can see where that will lead us.

This is a simple rule that I know we all have heard and thought before, but it bears repeating because it is so impactful.

How we treat our team is how they treat our customers. Every chance we interact with one of our people it is not only a chance to make them better, but it is a moment to vastly improve our customers’ experience. Take a moment and look around at your people. What you see in their body language, their attitude and performance is a reflection to our customers of who we are.

It is powerful, impactful and in our control; so take a moment, think about out it, and take advantage of it.

How we treat our team is how they treat our customers….know it, use it, own it.

Go ahead, make yourself uncomfortable

“Make yourself uncomfortable” is a powerful rule when it comes to excellence and management. When you are in a decision mindset, you must fight the temptation to immediately look for resolution and agreement. Instead you should seek out areas of discomfort and possible conflict and follow that lead. If you are reviewing steps you have to take in getting something done, look to which one you have the most discomfort about and address it first. Now a quick word on what I mean by discomfort. I am not talking about a lack of confidence or certainty that comes from doing something we are not competent at – this is called trying something new and learning. That is a totally different discussion.

Being uncomfortable has to deal with finding conflict, having tough discussions and making hard decisions. And the rule is simple: when in doubt, seek discomfort out. The more you do this, the better you will be. It is that straightforward. That is the good news.

The bad news? Well… seeking uncomfortable situations is not always fun. In fact, it rarely is fun at the moment. But what you achieve by doing this is always better and always pushes you closer to excellence. And THAT is fun. I can tell you in my own life when I follow this rule of thumb, the results always get better. As I said above, it is not always easy, but it is always well worth it.

So take a moment, think and look around, and then go ahead – make yourself uncomfortable. It will not be the easiest thing you do all day, but it probably will be one of the best.

Run your day...

Or it will run you. There are two aspects to running your day that I wanted to touch on briefly. These are attitude and Planning.

Attitude is a very simple idea… a simple idea that is very hard to execute. When things go wrong or get out of control, we all get angry, frustrated, illogical and a whole host of other emotions. These emotions have the ability to completely trample us down if we let them.

“If we let them” is the key phrase. Getting out of control is something that we let happen to us. By definition it means that we have let things get out of our control. So when you feel these emotions coming on there are three things you need to do.

1) Be aware of it. Awareness of emotions is one of the great (and underrated) leadership skills. Learn to recognize when emotions are overwhelming your situation. If you do not spot this coming on, you will not be able to react until too late.

2) Remove yourself and breathe. Whatever is going on, call a timeout. If you can physically remove yourself than you should, if you cannot do that then figure out a way to slow down. Then take a second and take a deep, deep breath. Breathe in for six seconds, hold your breath for a count of two or so, and then breathe out for seven seconds. This is a trick athletes use to get their emotions in control during a game. It may sound hokey and new age-y, but try it the next time you are getting worked up and then you can make fun of it.

3) Small first step. Look around and see what is going on and then take the first, and smallest, positive step towards moving to a solution that you can find. Whether that is writing down possible solutions, listing out the possible causes or even writing down rewards you may enjoy once you have resolved the issue, it is key to take a positive step forward. A simple reminder that you are able to control your situation.

This last point reminds us of the second part of running your day. That is planning.

If you do not have a plan to your day, then – in short – you have no chance. You will get pulled around, and pushed around in every direction, every day. Take 5 minutes over the next few days, and think about how you approach your day.

Do you have a plan of attack? Can you describe a structure to your day? Do you know where you and your people are supposed to be and when?

The more concrete the answer to these questions, the more structure you have to your day. And the more structure you have to your day, the more you can be on top of, get done, and respond to.

We all think we have an approach to our day and time. And many times we do, but I urge you to take a moment and think about what structure and blueprint you bring to your day. When you build a house you have a blueprint and a plan. Our approach to running our days should be the same.

Take a moment and review the blueprint and plan you have for every day. Always good to review how you approach this vital task. Every day we wake up and face the challenge of getting the most out of those 24 hours.

Will you run that 24 hours or will it run you? With the right attitude and plan you know that the answer.

I also wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a wonderful Independence Day weekend. This is always a wonderful time to reflect on the blessings we have in our lives. We live in a country that allows us all to express our thoughts and intentions, not as silent hopes, but as audible and visible actions bound only by our ability to dream and willingness to act. The United States of America allows us the opportunity to act and take on the challenge of building a better life for ourselves and our families.

We should be grateful; grateful that we live in such a nation that allows each and every one of us to act and lead. We are blessed to live in a world that allows us an unfettered option to dream, and act upon that dream. This is an opportunity we should be appreciative of, and work to make it better now and for the generations that follow.

When I say jump...

“How High?”

We have all heard this at one time or another. It is usually associated with someone making it clear who is the boss.

But I have often thought of this quote in parallel to the following famous vaudeville joke:

Q. How’s your wife?

A. Compared to what?

Both of these well-know and overused clichés hit at the same central point. That in order to succeed and improve you must have a standard to compare your performance to.

That is why the correct response to the “boss” who says “jump!” is not bending our legs and powering up, but is instead an emphatic request for clarification on the standard I have to meet to be successful. The same point is made in the old joke. Obviously, this is not the only point either quote makes, but they both point out this vital point.

This vital aspect is the idea that improvement comes from setting a standard. It is the basis for improvement, much like discipline is the basis for morale as we discussed last week. Without a standard, improvement is a haphazard, wandering effort that is difficult to spot, harder to measure and impossible to maintain. With a standard improvement is easy to see, measure and maintain. Which is the world you would want to work in?

So when you look around, stop and ask “if I asked everyone to ‘Jump’ would they know how high”? Anywhere that the answer is not 100% locked down there is a great opportunity to set the stage for continued improvement.

A myth about discipline

I want to address a myth today. Lots of people talk about discipline and morale. If you talk with people or type the words into Google you will see a lot of references to the relationship between the two factors. And the generally accepted wisdom says that the relationship to discipline and morale looks something like:

So in short, the more discipline you have (or create) the less morale you must have in an organization. This comes from the negative connotation of discipline. Resulting largely to the association we have tied to discipline with punishment. I could make comments about this probably starts when we are children … but let’s not get into that. The point here is that people confuse discipline with punishment and have therefore turned it into a negative thing.

However, what discipline is in reality is setting of standards, and working with people to make sure we meet those standards. It is creating the expectations, and setting the conditions to make those expectations happen. It encompasses the entire range of things we do to coach and make our people better.

If we look at discipline we see that, in fact, all of the components of discipline are the key pieces to improving morale – which is the exact opposite of what we have been conditioned to believe! If we have true discipline the relationship looks like:

But we have to remember that discipline is more than just punishment. It is the system for setting, teaching and reinforcing our performance to those standards. But when we approach discipline correctly, contrary to the common myth, discipline CREATES MORALE. Look around your world and see where you think morale could be better. You will see that the discipline in that area is always less than you want.

Therefore the recipe for the solution is simple. Just add a real system of discipline and improved performance and morale will surely follow.

A window to the soul

They say that the “eyes are the window to the soul”. This popular cliché states a simple idea, that what you see in a person’s eyes is the truth.

When we work and lead people the results are a reflection of us. Period. Much like the eyes in the cliché above, the work we produce says who we really are. Our words do not matter when compared to what we produce through our work and leadership.

If we have sloppy work, that is what it says about us. If the work is dull and uninspired, that is a reflection of our leadership. Conversely when we are excited, our leadership and work is exciting. Our work is a reflection of us every day. I know we do not often put it in such stark terms but it is reality.

We spend a lot of time at work producing work and leading others in work. That effort reflects who we are. No matter what we are doing we reveal ourselves to the world. The work we do is a reflection of who we truly are as people.

We have a challenge to make a masterpiece of every day. Because each and every day’s efforts are a reflection of whom we are. When we forget this we are saying something about ourselves. But when we are mindful of this, what a message we can send!

Think about the work you want to produce. How you lead people. What you want it to say about you, about your values and about how you want the world to be. Keep that image in your mind. See what it feels like to understand the message you send with your work and leadership. Imagine what it feels like to you and those you work with. Know the message you are trying to send with your actions. Got that in your mind?

Now go do it.

Imagine the world you would live in every day if you did. The work we do is a reflection of who we are as people. What a wonderful challenge and choice to live up to every day.

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“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse” – Carlos Castaneda

“Make each day your Masterpiece” – John Wooden

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say” – Ralph Waldo Emerson