This is such a juicy topic…Do your clients have a pecking order? You know what I mean…Do you pick up the phone with more urgency when a “special” client calls, or do certain clients get preferential treatment over others? Hmmm…very good question indeed.

I had a meeting last week with a biz owner…someone who is quite successful, and she commented to me about a situation. You see, she had hired a web designer for a project about two years ago. At that time, she was in the middle of a transition, and she was doing fairly well but not well enough to write home to the family about her business.

She hired a web designer to help her through her transition. The designer did a great job for her, and she became a walking billboard for his business. As time moved along, the designer began to get more clients (because of her testimonials) and obviously more “important” clients, because this designer began to promote the “more important” clients over her to the public. Hmmm…interesting that she picked up on that.

You see…this biz owner is someone who thought her web designer was a true partner…someone who would stand by her and support her, because she was a first client. But, as time went on, she became like a puppy who then became an old dog…the shine was gone. She was that first client, but now, she was someone who no longer had the pull of the “more important clients” for the designer. She no longer was famous enough for him. Such a shame (in my opinion, because I know this person and her ability to send thousands of people his way.)

I was raised by parents who always taught me “Dance with the one who brought you.” As you may know, this phrase (probably southern) suggests that we need to always remember the people who helped us get where we are. They are the seeds that we plant early on, and they are (in my opinion), the most important people in our business. They help us plant seeds that yield incredible fruits of our labors (more clients, more connections.) My adivce is…take care of those people, thank them and never forget that they helped you get where you are today. If you forget it, your business will take a big hit. It always does.

If this situation is true for you, I have a few suggestions on the topic:

1) When you make announcements about your clients, do it in alphabetical order. You may be saying “Well, I want John Smith to be first on the list, because he has more credibility.” That is bullshit!. By ordering your clients according to who you think is most important, you send a loud and clear message to your other clients: You are not as important! (I also want to remind everyone that money often buys prestige, position and power, so the person who you think is “so important” may have bought their way to success, which then diminishes the efforts of your clients who are working their way up through hard work, sweat and tears.) By listing your clients in alphabetical order, you take the “preferred client” scenario out of the equation, and you put everyone on a level playing field. If you are ordering your clients according to power, position and prestige, you are essentially “playing favorites.”

2) Each time a client does ANYTHING for your business, thank them over and over again. Your clients can never hear gratitudes enough.

3) On just one occasion, take the client who you “think” is your least influential, and move that person to a prime position. Give that client an MVP award or some type of award of distinction. You will be rewarded forever for that one effort.

4) Each time you decide to move a client to the bottom of your list, stop to consider his or her network and his/her ability to get out and talk up your company. You may be making the mistake of a lifetime by moving this person to the bottom of your “pecking order.”

Walt Disney was well known for the quote “My business is making people, especially children, happy.” This is not just a quote he spoke to the masses, but this statement is a part of Disney’s mission statement.

I don’t know if you have ever been to Disney World
or Disney Land, but it is truly impossible (in my opinion) to be in a bad mood as you move  through the park. The characters are hugging you, the employees are smiling and sweeping up each tiny fleck of dust (I have never seen anything so clean in my life…and cleanliness always makes people happy) and the air is filled with children laughing and some crying…and the crying is even okay, because there’s a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar to soothe the tears.

In both business and life, we all have a mission. My mission in both is to develop leaders. I know that this is what I was born to do. I don’t really connect with having a “life purpose”, because I get all hung up on that, but I know that in some way, I have been called to help, guide and support leaders in changing the world. It’s just that simple. As I write this post today, it is my hope that a leader will stumble upon this and go out and start fully living out his or her mission in life.

My question for you today is “What is your mission?” Once you answer that question, then go out and live it and live it to the nth degree! You will be so fulfilled if you live it!

And…while you are reading this post, click on the links over to Disney World and Disney Land…you will be happier today just by doing it!

There is a great coaching telesummit coming up next week. We are going to be addressing some of the top trends in leadership coaching for the future. I will be speaking on the topic of coaching and leadership development for Generation Y.

To learn more, visit this link.

In just a few short weeks, since putting the challenge to my team to begin taking over their divisions more aggressively, I am seeing dramatic changes among our group. The joy is more intense.  The growth is more expedient.  The results are more frequent.  And all that came from me trusting them more and managing them less.  We still brainstorm together and I still push them in certain areas, but they are enjoying being free to build their own teams around our clients and their brands and the power of that is intense.  They are creating more, bringing more fresh ideas to the table and ultimately, finding their true place within this company we are growing.  Under their guidance, we are building new revenue streams (New Site), creating more value for our clients, and growing our tool box.  When I was micromanaging, the company was only as strong as I was, but now, the company is exponentially more powerful as it expands under the creative direction of the full team. Turns out that the best thing I have done in a long time is to actually do less.

So, I’m doing the obligatory morning drive today, taking my son to school and whatnot. Naturally, I have the iPod going. On comes a song that I haven’t intentionally listened to in years. It’s from a Carly Simon best-of collection. It’s a fun, funky, silly song, as some of hers were. Now, this might seem like a strange beginning to a post about work and leadership, but bear with me… Anyway, some of you may know this song. Some may have danced to it in some club while wearing bell-bottoms. The song is called “Attitude Dancing,” and today it took on a whole new meaning for me, much different than the one it held thirty five years ago when my sister and I were dancing to it on the high-low pile, multi-earth tone shag carpeting in the living room. Hey, I was a child of the 70’s!

I’ll share bits of the lyrics with you….

“…cop a different pose, from the pose your in…shine a different attitude from underneath your skin…” Carly goes into the chorus repeating over and over again, “Attitude dancin…” while the background singers say, “…don’t be afraid to change your attitude…don’t be afraid of a new attitude…free up your spirit with a new attitude…” It picks up again with “It don’t really matter what steps you choose to do. There’s only one thing matters, and that’s your attitude, your attitude, your attitude…attitude dancin’…” The last verse says, “If you’re at a loss, just observe some natural dude…and turn into a mirror of his attitude…”

A song about dancing, you say. Au contraire! There’s a message here about authenticity. About taking responsibility for what you project. About realizing that who and what you are on the inside dictates the “steps you choose to do.” It’s not the steps themselves that you need to think about. It’s being intentional about your “attitude,” about the things that matter to you that you need to consider. Those things determine the steps you take and the moves you make from the inside out. And if you’re “at a loss,” find something or someone you admire to emulate until the steps become second nature to you…until they take on your own signature style. That’s when your work doesn’t feel like work. It’s simply part of your life, part of the mission you are on, another segment of the bigger picture of you as a whole and what you can bring to the world. Dance like that and you’ll never dance alone…

I don’t know a company alive who is not wrestling with this question. The majority of leaders today are being challenged by top talent that jumps ship or gets recruited away, and this trend is going to only escalate in the next few years as Generation Y comes into the workforce. This young group of leaders see job hopping as a necessary step in their career development, and in order to stick around, leaders are going to have to be committed to building an organization that is attractive enough to keep sharp people around.

Today’s careerists are saying that they are usually attracted to a company because of strong brand equity, a great salary and nice perks. But, what keeps them with a company is a creative, collegial atmosphere, pride in the organization, access to the top decision makers in the company, the opportunity for advancement in the company and exposure to the training and development needed to grow their managerial and leadership skills.

I have coached over 800 people and have trained over 10,000, and what I know to be true is that employees leave when they feel they have no other choice. Employees don’t necessarily leave companies…they leave a boss who is making life difficult, or a culture that has become boring and stagnant, or a lack of psychological safety, or when they feel like they are stuck in a dead end job without any type of inspiration from a manger or co-workers. To stop employees from jumping ship, the leader has to be willing to bring a great deal to the company to create an environment that is exciting, one that allows employees the opportunity to engage in open debate and that offers employees challenging assignments that will stretch them both mentally and emotionally.

Leaders will also be required to become dedicated to ongoing learning and development and to create a true learning organization in the culture. They will be challenged to find new and creative ways to capture and then leverage the knowledge of their most critical talent. Through blogs, wikis, company forums and interviews, decision makers can begin capturing and then sharing knowledge so that they grow the company and create a succession plan for future leaders. Leaders of the future who engage in what is known as a knowledge harvest — a systematic, facilitated gathering of information through formal interviews, observations and collection of data so that best practices can be shared throughout the company will have the upper hand in the future.

We are in the midst of one of the most exciting yet turbulent times in history. The companies who can keep talent from jumping ship will be those who take the time to respect, trust and develop their employees. It’s just that simple! We would like to encourage you to comment and share your ideas on this pressing question.

To learn more about how to prevent your top employees from jumping ship and taking their knowledge with them, pre-order EDGE: A Leadership Story today.

Penelope Trunk has a great post from yesterday with a few tips on productivity, and I have a few comments to make.

Her post mentions that a study from Robert Half International shows that we are most productive on Tuesday. One thing I want to mention about this is that I usually have more people show up for my teleclasses on Tuesday, and I have more readers to my blog on Tuesdays. So…this study might be true, and Tuesday may be the best day to market. I know that I usually send out press releases on Tuesday. If I send them on Monday, I miss the people who away for a long holiday, and if I send it later in the week, people are already checked out (I know I am.)

On the subject of decision making…she’s got that one nailed. I find that when I don’t go ahead in making a decision that my mind keeps going through a revolving door. “Should I do this? Should I not?” That question usually results in my spending time online for an hour or talking with people about the decision, and of course, we start talking about other things in the process. I recently decided to hire a company to help pitch me to some national radio stations, and I estimate that I spent 11 hours thinking about this darn decision when it should have been a no-brainer. Hmmm…I could have been lying in the bathtub, watching movies or filing my nails during that time.

On the subject of going to church. My grandmother went to church every Sunday of her life. I loved going with her, because I loved being with her and watching her being so happy about being at church (and we also would walk to a little cafe after church and buy cokes from the bottle…now I am dating myself). But…you know what…my grandmother was the most upbeat, optimistic person I knew (she sang and played the piano constantly), and she would always make something major on Monday…a dress, a great cake, a beautiful flower arrangement or something of beauty. I have to admit that I fight going to church. I would much rather lie in bed or go out to eat (my favorite hobby), but I also must admit that I am in a much better mood when I do go to church (which is about one time per month). My minister is a fabulous speaker, and I always run into someone I haven’t seen in a while, and I just feel better during the day. So, again…this one is probably true.

Treadmill in the office. Good suggestion there…if I just had room. I am an exercise nut. I go to the gym every day (to work off all of the eating out I do.) But really…I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am more productive when I work out. Blood flow and oxygen to the brain can really clear out my cobwebs, and I just move more quickly and get er done!

So…thanks Penelope for the great food for thought.

From all accounts, it appears that it is going to become more and more difficult in the future to stay ahead of your competition if your team is not the best and the brightest in your industry. Intellectual horsepower includes not only IQ (many people believe that an IQ of 130 is needed today to be a top player) but includes transferable skills, the ability to understand and break a complex situation into logical steps and being super sharp, agile and a quick study. Intellectual horsepower also includes being able to embrace paradox and ambiguity and being adept at functioning effectively in the midst of opposing ideas or forces.

If you go back and consider the blog post Is Your Company Truly Designed for Innovation and the topic of mapping the job the customer needs to get done, you will be able to identify the skill deficits in your organization. Each time a customer voices a success, ask yourself “Who worked with this client, and what skills were at play to make this customer experience outstanding?” On the same note, if a customer’s job is not getting done, it’s time to step back and ask “What skills are missing from this process that we need in place?” From there, you can provide your team with the training and development needed to create outstanding customer experiences. Once you have trained your employees, if you have someone on your team who just doesn’t “get it”, then it’s time to replace that player with someone who can “get it” and get it quickly.

I also recommend looking closely at Executive Intelligence. This article from HBS spells this out nicely.

Is your business or organization really designed for innovation?  Are you sure?  Every day I speak to leaders who swear that their businesses are designed for innovation, but in my opinion, this is usually not the case. Why? Because they are stifling open debate, shooting the messenger and making it unsafe for people to voice their opinions.

If your business or company is truly an innovative one, your doors will be open for debate, and your culture will be designed to make it psychologically safe for both employees and customers to voice not only their suggestions, dreams and goals but their concerns, complaints and frustrations.  A recent article in Harvard Business Review: The Customer-Centered Innovation Map is a must read for any business that wants to thrive in the future.  The article comes from the perspective that when a customer buys a product or service from your company, they are actually hiring you to get a job done.  This “job to be done” could be to make more money, look more beautiful, live a more healthy life, move into a dream home, become more credible or build a better relationship.  At each step of the process of the job getting done, both your employees and customers are going to experience both successes and struggle points (and some people will struggle more than others.) By carefully mapping the job a customer is trying to get done, you can find golden opportunities to innovate as you help the customer through your process.   Along the way, you will want to ask questions such as “How can we do this much more efficiently?” and “What struggles and inconveniences are our customers experiencing?” and “How are trends affecting the way the job gets done?” and “What causes execution to go off track?”  As you move through the life cycle of working with a client, looking at each and every compliment, complaint and challenge can open the door for your company to provide a new product, offering or level of customer service that will set you apart from your competition.

For the first time in a long time, Senator Obama is coming across as someone who is presidential and can address the challenges of someone (Wright) who seems to me to be one of the most narcissistic and self serving men I have observed in a while.   I have been wondering how Obama would handle someone like Wright, and I am now convinced that he can draw a line in the sand when needed.  I believe Obama just saved his reputation and his place on the November ballot.