Category Archives: Guest Blogger

Shoot for PAR in Plugged

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Today’s guest blog post comes from Krissi Barr, president of Barr Corporate Success.

In the real world, a crisis can crawl out from under a rock at any time. The bigger the problem, the more important it is to have a swift and accurate response.

Ideas for how to deal with such a crisis can also emerge from an unlikely place, as is the case in my book Plugged. My co-author Dan Barr, senior executive at Cintas, and I created a fast-paced business fable in which the protagonist’s passion for golf turns out to be the mysterious but ingenious source of inspiration.

Only hours after his boss leaves for a weeklong vacation, Chet McGill, the dedicated VP of Sales at AlphaMax Manufacturing, gets thrown for a loop. His company’s biggest client is seriously considering switching to a competitor, and it’s up to Chet to rally the troops. Faced with the biggest crisis in his career, Chet discovers what’s most important to his customer — and his company — through inspiration he finds on the putting green.

At its core, Plugged is about digging out and getting the right things done. The central message Chet learns is that he needs to shoot for PAR. This is not “par” in the golfing sense, but in a simple methodology based on three proven principles:

Prioritize — Focus on what matters most. Chet learns he has to concentrate the entire company’s efforts on the most critical elements in order to hold on to their largest customer.

Adapt — See change as an opportunity. The world is changing rapidly and only those who can quickly adapt to those changes will survive.

Responsible — Take ownership of the outcome. Only when each member of the team accepts full accountability for their actions are they able to turn the tide.

Everyone measures success differently. You may measure success by leading your company to growth and prosperity. Maybe your view of success includes sending your children to college or finally having the lowest score in your golf foursome. However you define it, Plugged is a road map for you and your entire team on how to dig out and get the right things done.

Krissi Barr is president of Barr Corporate Success, a business consulting and coaching firm specializing in strategic planning, implementation, leadership coaching, and training. Visit www.PluggedTheBook.com for FREE tools, including an assessment to see how well you get the right things done and a planning and implementation scorecard.

For more business fables including Patrick Lencioni’s “Silos, Politics and Turf Wars” visit Summary.com.

Why Good Boundaries Make Good Leaders

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From time to time, we like to feature a post from a guest blogger to give our readers a more in-depth look at one of the subjects we feature in our summaries. Today’s post comes to us from Keith Merron, founder and managing partner of Avista Consulting Group. Merron offers us an interesting thought on improving leadership by establishing boundaries.

Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Mending Wall, ends with the statement “Good fences make good neighbors.” 

The poem speaks to the mixed consequences of fences. They define personal space, and they separate.  Good boundaries are like that as well.

Boundaries are crucial for leadership.  Leaders that are not clear about expectations, goals, and values create ambiguous work places and the consequence is often confusion and unnecessary conflict.  Boundaries create a sense of what is acceptable and not acceptable.  They clarify.  They focus.  On the other hand, when held too rigidly, they create tension and a sense that there is no room for play. 

Rules, for example, are boundaries.  When applied rigidly they can be off-putting and people can feel patronized.  Rules, when applied sensibly, can be relaxing. Good boundaries create trust.

One of the signatures of a conscious leader is to know when to apply boundaries and when to relax them in the service of something bigger.  When values become rules, leaders act like “Big Brother”.  When values are principles, they teach us and guide us.  If they are too rigid, we lose our capacity to apply discretion. When they are too lax, they have no meaning.  When decisions become rigid, we run the risk of being unable to adapt in the face of changing circumstances.  When they are too loose, we are confused. 

I believe that one of the key characteristics a leader needs to embody is the ability to be decisive and yet open.  This means that the leader says: “I’m betting my money that this is the way to go, so let’s do it.” At the same time, the leader acknowledges that it may not be the right decision.  A good leader remains open to learning, and discovering new information that calls for an alternative decision.  This is a good boundary for a decision—held firmly but not too tightly.

Good boundaries make good leaders. 

Keith Merron is founder and managing partner of Avista Consulting Group, an organizational consulting and leadership development firm dedicated to helping organizations with bold visions achieve sustainable high performance and industry leadership. Dr. Merron received his doctorate from Harvard University and is the author of Riding the Way: Designing Your Organization for Enduring Success, Consulting Mastery: How the Best Make the Biggest Difference, and he is currently completing his next book, Your Inner Compass: Living the Authentic Life You Were Truly Meant to Live. For more information visit www.remarkableleaders.com.

Visit Soundview at Summary.com and check out our latest leadership summaries, including Brian Tracy’s “How the Best Leaders Lead.”

Great Tips on How To Hire

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One of the most important aspects of an executive’s arsenal of skills is the ability to make smart hiring decisions. I contacted management expert Gerry Czarnecki for more information. He provided this guest blog post with some essential tips on hiring.

How to Hire

By Gerry Czarnecki, author of Lead with Love

Most leaders know that the most important, and possibly most difficult decision they will make is also the first decision they will make: the hiring decision. Unfortunately, most leaders are also simply not well prepared to make that decision. All too often, the bright, articulate and outgoing leader will make one fatal mistake in an interview process: talking too much. In an interview, the leader should spend 5% of the time talking and 95% of the time listening. If not, you’re not interviewing, you’re making a speech.

But assuming you are listening, how do you look for the right qualities in a candidate? My most important technique is to do a behavioral interview and listen intently. I also use aggressive follow-up questions to drill down on the experiences of the candidate. Here are some qualities you want in an ideal candidate:

1)    Values – Does this person share our organizational values? If not, then he or she will eventually be a misfit.

2)    Intelligence – It makes no sense to hire somebody who does not have the intellect to understand and complete the complex task of our modern world based in technology and an expanding base of knowledge.

3)    Desire – You want someone with the drive to achieve.

4)    Communication – In an organization, all associates must possess the ability to communicate complex ideas in a simple way. I always try to distinguish people who talk from people who communicate.

5)    Logic – The application of logical thinking and the ability to look for root cause of results is an essential trait in today’s competitive business landscape.

If you’re hiring a manager, there is one additional, essential quality to consider: the capacity to Love. This trait is in line with my message in Lead with Love. The core concept of the book is essential to a successful leader. Leaders must see their staff as humans first and resources second. Leaders can not allow themselves to be biased by the idea of liking or disliking individuals, they must love all their staff as humans. The well-being of all associates and the ability for the organization to achieve its goals is driven by the team is what creates the jobs and keeps them viable.

With over 40 years of experience as a leader, Gerry Czarnecki has been consistently committed to sharing his experience and vision by coaching organizations to achieve peak performance. Czarnecki helps companies achieve success by teaching effective leadership, focused strategy, superior organization and sound financial management.

For more information visit Gerry online at these sites:

LeadwithLove.com

GerryCzarnecki.com

And don’t forget Soundview’s newest summaries! Click here to see what”s new.

Have Kids? You Have Management Experience

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I recently invited Eric Bloom, author of Manager Mechanics: Tips and Advice for First-Time Managers to join us as a guest blogger for today’s post. Here’s what he’d like to share with everyone:

Have kids? You have management experience.

Believe it or not, caring for your children is good management training. As a parent, you learn to praise and discipline your children, as well as providing guidance, direction, leadership and a pleasant living environment. You teach your children new skills and provide them with additional training via teachers and trainers. You provide them with the supplies needed to perform various tasks, like crayons, scissors and paper. You teach them to minimize unneeded risks, like running with scissors and looking both ways before crossing the street. You learn that each child is an individual with his/her own personalities, likes, dislikes, motivations, skills and abilities. Lastly, you realize the need to treat each child as an individual and the importance of being part of a family and the responsibility that being part of a family brings.

Another thing that a parent quickly realizes (or at least I did) is that you don’t have all the answers. As a parent, you find that you must learn new specific skills, like changing diapers, food preparation and family budgeting. You also learn the importance of decision-making. Questions such as, “What to make for dinner?”, “Does the child need to see the doctor?”, “What school is best?”, “Should a child be punished?”, “Is it ok for my child to go to a party if the parents are not home?” have to be answered. You also have to learn how to properly react when your children whine, yell in restaurants, throw their food and/or complain about their siblings.

Now let’s talk about being a manager. As a manager, you have to lead and motivate your staff, administer praise and discipline, provide guidance, provide work direction and facilitate employee growth through on-the-job training and formalized instruction. Being a good manager also requires good judgment, fairness and the ability to foster teamwork among your employees. Get the message?

Eric P. Bloom is the President of the management training firm Manager Mechanics, LLC which can be found on the web at www.ManagerMechanics.com

For another great management read, check out Soundview’s summary Managing by Henry Mintzberg.