We all do live by selling something—the TV producer, the Presbyterian minister, the youthful IT “nerd” trying to get a user to adopt his pet system.
Accept the fact that, like it or not, you are a “career” “salesperson.”
So … Master your craft.
Initiative
49. Make That “Three-Minute Call”! Today! Now!
Dealing with sticky situations isn’t much fun. Particularly if, as is often the case, you think that the other party is mostly responsible for the stickiness. Hence, there’s an overwhelming tendency to “wait things out,” to hope that they’ll miraculously resolve themselves, to await the other person’s taking the initiative (“as they should”); and in the process of delay, we routinely end up idly dithering as little, salvageable messes fester into big, intractable ones.
Question: How do you stop the festering dead in its tracks?
Answer: Take three deep breaths, stop overanalyzing things, stop thinking, and … make the damn call.
Today.
Now!
Call it “The Three-Minute Call Axiom”:
In short, a three-minute call made today (NOW!) to deal with a “slightly” bruised ego or a “minor” misunderstanding can go a long way toward helping you avoid a trip to divorce court, the loss of a billion-dollar Client (lots of evidence for this), or an employee lawsuit tomorrow.
I’ve learned that when it comes to most “major” “situations,” there comes a moment (or two … or five such moments) when the underlying problem that was eminently fixable slips out of your grasp. But at that crucial, in retrospect, moment, pride or embarrassment or simple unwillingness to further mess up an already-nasty day led to evasion, delay, and “I’ll do it tomorrow …”
Or the next day …
Or the day after …
No!
No!
Do it today! And, not so incidentally, there is good news, even wonderful news:
In 9 out of 10 cases, the call goes far, far better than you anticipated it would. (The fact that you took the initiative accounts for a lot.) Not only does “the call” help “deal with” a thorny problem, but surprisingly often it launches a new and positive trajectory for a fraying relationship.
“CALL” TO ACTION
“Make the three-minute call” works. But even if you agree wholeheartedly with that idea … will you make the call? And, more to the point, how will you make yourself make it?
One answer is simple “self-discipline.” And that will work for some of us. Congratulations if you’re a member of that set.
Another answer, abetted by our desktop and handheld technologies, is Bold Reminders—flashing or beeping messages on a screen: HAVE YOU MADE YOUR “THREE-MINUTE CALL” TODAY?
A third answer is a diary devoted to self-assessment. (Ben Franklin—beating the “day timer” by 200+ years—was a master, year after year, of … formal, written, daily self-assessments. Indeed, he carefully graphed his self-assessment scores for a dozen factors! Yes, I said “daily.”)
A fourth strategy is to develop some type of relationship with a professional “coach” (the good ones are priceless, the bad ones a waste); a peer with whom you discuss such things regularly; or a Support Group that keeps you honest, on the model of Alcoholics Anonymous or Weight Watchers. That last option might readily be seen as going too far, but if the behavioral trait or traits under consideration, such as the three-minute call, are of immense value, then extreme self-enforcement measures may be merited.
And last (but far from least): P-r-a-c-t-i-c-e. It is one of my great bugbears that we think it obvious that practice matters beyond measure if the topic is flower arranging, the piano, or soldiering, but give little or no thought to the idea of practice and mastery if the topic is “merely” the likes of “making the three-minute call.”
I’d argue that “making the three-minute call” is at least as worthy of study and practice as learning to play a cello or build a fine cabinet: Nations rise or fall, battles are won or lost, based on (1) not making the call, or (2) making the call occasionally, or (3) making the call routinely, as a matter of habit, and with abiding skill.
So … good luck!
Wrong.
Scrap “Good luck.”
Instead: Happy hard work and professional practice of “make-the-three-minute-call-now.”
50. Show Up! (It’s a Start.)
While editing and fact-checking one of my latest presentations, my colleague Cathy Mosca came across a slide in which I had written, “Ninety percent of success is showing up.” It didn’t quite ring true. She checked it and corrected it to … 80 percent. Our exchange encouraged me to do some Googling. I immediately confirmed that I was wrong and she was right—no surprise—but also came across a lovely little essay by Brad Isaac at his site PersistenceUnlimited.com:
“80 percent of success is just showing up.”
—Woody Allen
“I often think about that quotation. It may sound easy to shrug off, but not if you look a little deeper. It doesn’t just mean show up for job interviews or to work for an 80 percent increase in success.
“Showing up also means … Starting.
“For instance, did you show up at the gym today? ‘Just showing up’ means you’re 80 percent of the way to a good workout. The hard part of fighting yourself to get dressed in workout gear, dealing with traffic and the worry about pain you might experience is over. Now all that is left is to just do the workout. Pretty simple, huh? Even a child could do it.
“Same thing with opportunity. It’s easier to make significant progress on a project if you simply show up to do it. Candidly, one of my hardest tasks of the day is ‘showing up’ for Development Visual Studio. It seems simple enough … just double click on an icon. But if I think too much about the seemingly 10,000 things I have to do once I launch it, I am much more likely to ‘accidentally’ launch my Web browser or fiddle with email.
“But once I’m in there, the work is typically easy and fun. Some days I can knock out more tasks than I planned. And I feel like a success at the end of the day.
“You can be or do whatever you want just by showing up. If you want to be an author, show up to write your manuscript every day, show up to writing classes, show up to make phone calls to editors. Doesn’t it make sense that someone who arrives at the door of opportunity has more success than someone just sitting at home?
“So increase your chances by 80 percent. Show Up!”
So: Show up!
It works!
Here’s a tip on ensuring that you will, indeed, show up: Make a personal “show-up” commitment—a commitment from which you can’t escape without grave embarrassment. You’re busy as hell, and really don’t have time to go to your Smalltown Theater board meeting on Thursday. But you really ought to go, for a host of reasons. On Tuesday, email or call Mary, your board colleague: “How about I pick you up Thursday, and we’ll chat on the way to the meeting.” Of course, you can stiff Mary, and the world won’t end. Nonetheless, your little … self-set “show-up-or-stiff-Mary” trap … vastly increases the odds of your making the painful effort to go to that meeting.
SMALL STATE, BIG IMPACT
I consider it the Ultimate Proof that Showing Up Matters. Namely, the drafting of the United States Constitution, as reported in David Stewart’s Summer of 1787.
We typically think of the Convention in terms of the Great Men—of Washington and Madison and Franklin. But the facts are very different:
(1) Given this, that, and the other, including a miserable summer-long heat wave, there were on average only 30 folks present on the floor at Independence Hall. Some states, like New Hampshire, didn’t even bother to send delegates; other states’ delegates, like New York’s, were rarely in attendance.
(2) States were allowed to decide on the number of delegates they’d send to Philadelphia. The two biggest states, Virginia and Pennsylvania, sent seven. But wee Delaware sent five! Moreover, all five Delaware dele
gates were in attendance close to 100 percent of the time! Hence, Delaware had an enormous impact on the final document! (Call it the “Constitution of the Great State of Delaware, as used by the rest of us.”)
(3) Delaware’s Big Secret: Showing Up!! More or less “proof positive” of “showing up”—this is one hell of a compelling case with consequences of the utmost significance!
(This story repeats remarks in the introduction. In this instance it’s merited.)
51. Get Up Earlier Than the Next (in This Case) Gal.
I was flying to Boston from London on a Saturday morning. It was a seven-hour flight. A professional woman was sitting in front of me. I duly swear, she did not look up once during the entire flight. She produced more on her laptop in those seven hours than I do in a week. Or a month.
I’m not touting workaholism here.
I am stating the obvious.
She or he who works the hardest has one hell of an advantage.
She or he who is best prepared has one hell of an advantage.
She or he who is always … “over” prepared … has one hell of an advantage.
She or he who does the most research has one hell of an advantage.
I would not have wanted to challenge that woman on that Boston-London flight in whatever presentation venue she was approaching.
Would you?
52. Make an Insane Public Effort.
The late sports superagent Mark McCormack (once voted the most powerful man in sports) condoned and even certified one of my own crazy habits.
McCormack said there are times, not necessarily infrequent … when it is wise-imperative to … travel 5,000 miles for a five-minute meeting.
It was a tactic I started using in 1974, when I was a junior White House staffer working on drug abuse issues. I discovered the startling power of being able to say, “When I was with Ambassador Moynihan in Delhi [or Ambassador Helms in Teheran] just three days ago, he assured me that…” It was, well, a showstopper—even when I was in the presence of people much more senior than I was.
It’s something I end up doing probably once a year. And the power and effectiveness thereof are literally beyond measure. There’s substance to this tactic—you can get a lot done in a short meeting when it’s clear that you’ve killed yourself to be there. But it’s overwhelmingly psychological. The power of making a perceived “insane effort” almost always breaks a logjam—and not infrequently leads to a solution on the spot.
(Incidentally, in an age of instant electronic communication, this tactic is arguably more important than ever. These days, it gets harder and harder to distinguish signal from noise. A 5,000-mile trip for a five-minute meeting … ain’t no tweet.)
Advice: When an issue is of the utmost importance and at a standstill (or in free fall), proactively look for an opportunity to “make a statement” through a gesture that unmistakably indicates great pain and engagement and urgency on your part. (Is this Machiavellian? Sure, to some extent. But to make such an effort, you actually must care. The “insane gesture” simply acts as rock-solid proof that you’ll go to any-length-imaginable-and-then-some to make progress.)
I’LL SEE YOUR 5,000 AND RAISE YOU 7,000
Max Kraus tops Mark McCormack by 7,000 miles—call it 12,000 miles to reseat a couple of screws. Max reports:
“My best ‘walking around’ story took place many years ago when I was running Electro-Nite Company. We sold some equipment to a Chinese steel mill that would help improve their steel quality. This was just after the opening of trade with China, and we had to plow through massive red tape with the U.S. government, get the letter of credit, etc. But we finally made the shipment; it went by air, and we waited to hear if all was well.
“Unfortunately the next word, in those days by teletype, was that it did not work. As a believer in ‘walking around’ sales as well as management [remember Hewlett-Packard’s MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around—TP], and also intrigued by the possibility of a trip to China, I sent a reply saying that we guaranteed our equipment and that if they would provide a visa for me and an engineer, we would come to Wuhan at our expense to see the problem. In those days visas were almost nonexistent, but within twenty-four hours we had a reply accepting our offer. Again, paperwork took a couple of weeks, but off to China we went.
“We were met at the Beijing airport, escorted to our hotel, and offered a car, guide, and interpreter for three days to see the Wall, Summer Palace, etc.—and then flown to Wuhan. The steel mill was massive, with over 100,000 workers, and of course a crowd gathered to see us work on the equipment. Much to my dismay and embarrassment, the problem turned out to be two long screws that were causing a short circuit. I removed the screws and told the group that while I was embarrassed, I hoped that I had demonstrated our commitment to service and satisfaction. We stayed a week to work with them as they put the equipment in service.
“I could go on with more stories of our visit. But the bottom line was that I made several subsequent trips, enjoyed good business and many ‘Chinese Banquets’ for a number of years. ‘Walking around’ does work!”
(Full disclosure: Max is my publisher Bob Miller’s stepfather. Unbidden, Max sent this to Bob, who sent it along to me—knowing I’m always a sucker for a great MBWA story. I read it and was mesmerized—Bob was reluctant, but I told him I’d blow off the book if he didn’t let me use it. Go, Bob! Go, Max! Go, Mark McCormack! Five thousand miles, twelve thousand miles—what the hell! Perceived do-or-die effort, the ultimate sales tool! And, of course, the perverse part of it: A screw-up, responded to in a flash and with “overkill,” usually leads to a better relationship than if nothing had gone wrong in the first place!)
Leadership
53. To Lead Is to Measurably Help Others Succeed.
“Managing winds up being the allocation of resources against tasks. Leadership focuses on people. My definition of a leader is someone who helps people succeed.”
—Carol Bartz, Yahoo!
“The role of the director is to create a space where the actors and actresses can become more than they’ve ever been before, more than they’ve dreamed of being.”
—Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance speech
“No matter what the situation, [the great manager’s] first response is always to think about the individual concerned and how things can be arranged to help that individual experience success.”
—Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know
The “business” of leaders at all levels is to help those in their charge develop beyond their dreams—which in turn almost automatically leads to “all that other stuff,” such as happy customers, happy stockholders, happy communities.
So how do you stack up on the Bartz-Altman-Buckingham scale? I suggest that you measure yourself specifically in terms of the individuals you’ve helped succeed in the last 12 months, and, per Altman, succeed beyond their dreams. That is, review your work with a person who reports to you (that’s pretty much the whole story, eh—you working with people, one at a time); write a short “case study” on her/him, and assess the degree to which you have specifically helped her/him grow-succeed. (Be tough on yourself—please.) (Repeat. Regularly.)
The idea here is to change the employee evaluation process into a two-part formal process, where both parts are given equal billing:
Part ONE, which you doubtless already do, is to evaluate the employee’s performance.
Part TWO, just as formal and important and painstaking, is to evaluate yourself on how well you’re doing in working with that employee—the idea is very granular, not your assessment of “how I do at helping my staff grow,” but “How did I do in, say, the first half of 2010 in helping Sue Chen grow and succeed?”
This is one damned high standard!
(And of the utmost importance.)
54. At Their Service.
Ask yourself daily:
“What did I specifically do today to be ‘of service’ to members of my group? Was I truly a
‘servant’ to them?”
This all-powerful idea derives from Robert Greenleaf’s extraordinary book, Servant Leadership.
Here are two “exam” questions that Greenleaf urges leaders to ask concerning the people on their team:
Do those served grow as persons?
Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?
Message (Unequivocal):
(1) Leaders exist to serve their people. Period.
(2) A team well served by its leader will be inclined to pursue Excellence.
Use the word “Serve.” (That’s what you do.)
Use the word “Service.” (That’s what you provide.)
Use the word “Servant.” (That’s what you are.)
55. Have You “Hosted” Any Good Employees Lately?
Mind-bender: Consider the leader’s primary job to be … a host to her or his employees. That’s precisely the way Jan Gunnarsson and Olle Blohm urge us to think in their provocative book … Hostmanship: The Art of Making People Feel Welcome.
Gunnarsson and Blohm based this idea on their experience with running a hotel. Yet they convincingly demonstrate that the “hostmanship” idea applies … everywhere … and not just in the hospitality biz.
Here’s what they did:
“We went through the hotel [soon after acquiring it] and made a ‘consideration renovation.’ [My italics.] Instead of redoing bathrooms, dining rooms, and guest rooms, we gave employees new uniforms, bought flowers and fruit, and changed colors. Our focus was totally on the staff. They were the ones we wanted to make happy. We wanted them to wake up every morning excited about a new day at work.”
(To annoyingly repeat: Don’t redo the lobby—redo the employee cafeteria!)
The Little Big Things Page 12