Posted by
Ron Price on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 6:42 PM
Categories:
Training & Team Building,
Leadership Development,
Performance
Another Fiesta Bowl victory—another undefeated season. How can anyone not be impressed by the consistent performance of Coach Chris Peterson, his coaching staff, and the Boise State Broncos? Their record speaks loudly from coast to coast. As someone who is dedicated to helping leaders keep getting better, I can’t help but admire the leadership principles employed by Coach Pete and his team. Here are just a few:
Talent management – the Broncos continually bring in talent that is overlooked by larger, more respected schools and then beat those schools on the playing field.
How do they do this?
Undoubtedly, it isn’t a one step formula.
If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
The coaching staff has developed a unique talent profile, they have developed a set of tools that predicts future potential, and they have consistently won the game before the game.
Maybe most important of all, the staff consistently attracts talent that has the intangile capacity to over achieve and introduce the rest of the world to “The Blue”.
A noble purpose – the team unity that is demonstrated year after year can only come because the coaching staff is successful in aligning young men who are all coming from unique and varied backgrounds into one unit that is bonded together by a sense that what they are doing is more important than playing a game.
Call it pride, call it dignity, call it “attitude”—Boise State seems to connect with a sense of destiny in ways that most football teams, even at the professional level, fail to reach.
Strategic thinking with powerful results – there is little doubt that the coaches and players spend countless hours studying film, discussing strategies, and creating game plans while attempting to leave no detail overlooked or ill defined, no matter how small.
Boise State is known for having one of the largest and most complex playbooks in college football.
Yet, after all of this focused effort, when they get on the field, they prove over and over again that winning is about adjusting according to the conditions on the ground.
How do you think about each of these leadership principles in your business? Are you continually learning about how to recognize the intangible in your employees, current and future? Have you turned this into a science or are you still depending on “gut” feelings (which studies indicate are accurate less than 20% of the time). Have you galvanized your team around a single noble purpose, causing individuals who each come with their own set of priorities to be molded into a unit that moves with one heart and mind? Have you studied your options and your challenges with the detail that leads to setting you apart from all others in your field and then monitored your progress toward success to make constant adjustments as your game unfolds?
Thanks, Coach Pete and staff, for reminding us what great leadership is all about.
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Posted by
Ron Price on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 at 5:43 PM
Categories:
Strategic Planning,
Leadership Development
I am re-reading two books concurrently right now. They are
"Presentation Zen" by Garr Reynolds and
"A Whole New Mind" by Daniel Pink. Both books are great treatises about why we need to encourage creativity in communications, business practices, and in developing
strategy.
"Presentation Zen" focuses on more effective presentations (we have a resident expert, Dale Dixon, that is equally as good and he has a great workbook and video called, "Powerful Presentations", available at
www.daledixonmedia.com).
"A Whole New Mind" presents a strong case for why effective
leadership is about both the data and emotions, or as Daniel Pink puts it, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere working together.
The concepts in both books are relatively easy to grasp but, for some reason, rare in application. Reading these books a second time has inspired me to use the current turmoil in the economy and business to keep getting better in the coming year by learning and sharing simple, clear and potent ideas for recovery and success.
One key principle that Reynolds writes about in
"Presentation Zen" is that, contrary to common thinking, constraints and limitations are a powerful ally for strategic clarity. Stated differently, problems are the stuff that creativity and
innovation is made of. So, as the year winds down and we turn our thoughts toward 2010, now is a great time to list your biggest problems and let them inspire you to fresh levels of
insight,
service and
success. It is because every problem is pregnant with opportunity that I can write with enthusiasm and sincerity,
"may you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Prosperous New Year!"
Posted by
Ron Price on Monday, November 02, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Categories:
Talent Management,
Talent Assessments,
Succession Management,
Human Resource Systems
One of our consultants related a story to me recently that was quite surprising, yet important for me to hear. He told me about a close friend and business owner who recently hired someone on the spot because of the last place they worked (a well known Fortune 100 company). No checking references, no probing interviews and no talent assessments to develop a clear picture of the new employee’s true strengths and limitations.
On one hand, this should not surprise me—it is the way people are hired in many businesses. In fact, one study indicated that over 90% of people hired by small business owners are hired based on an unstructured interview and an intuitive decision made by the owner during the first couple minutes of the interview. This same study reported that it does work out to be a good hire—about 14% of the time! I am continually amused by leaders who tell me they have a great instinct for hiring smart, yet when I probe deeper and collect statistics about their truly exceptional employees, I discover they accurately “read” top performers at about the same rate of 1.5 out of 10 times. (We even justify our poor results by giving it a name—the Pareto Principle—which states that 20% of the people you hire will produce 80% of the results.) Of course, if you hire people, you are probably the exception…almost everyone I meet is.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are some HR and hiring managers who are so cautious and bureaucratic in their hiring practices that very few top performers can get through the multitude of filters designed to eliminate candidates. Shamelessly, these folks boast to me about how effective they are at disqualifying candidates. (Funny, I thought their job was to find exceptional candidates, not disqualify everyone.) When I ask how effective they are at finding and landing exceptional performers, I often get a strange look. In some ways I can’t blame them. Our own research indicates that it takes about 200 resumes in today’s internet driven glut of applicants to identify one exceptional candidate.
Then, there are those who say, “I’m not hiring in this current economy.” I feel sorry for them. They don’t understand that true business leaders are always recruiting and, when they find great talent, hiring! Great talent will create results and, if things are tough right now, all the more reason to be on the hunt for great talent to create new results. If things aren’t tough, now is the time to find more exceptional people who can help you take advantage of your favorable circumstances. In other words, it is never smart to quit recruiting!
Hiring smart is about developing a system and an instinct to find the best people as quickly as possible and to bring them on board before someone else gets them. Yes, there are a multitude of applicants in today’s marketplace. However, there are fewer exceptional candidates than ever and the current glut of applicants only makes it more difficult to find those who can take your organization to new levels of success.
Have you developed a system and process to recruit, screen, qualify and capture top talent for the future? Are you actively engaged in recruiting top performers, no matter what other pressures exist in your business? If not, you better get started today.
Posted by
Ron Price on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 7:22 PM
Categories:
Training & Team Building,
Leadership Development,
Performance
Sooner or later, every leader’s journey includes a healthy dose of problems. Why?
A friend once told me leaders are like teabags—you don’t see their true colors until you put them in hot water. Here are some suggestions for responding to the problems you will encounter as a leader:
- Don’t complain! Complaining about the economy, your employees, your competitors, or yourself is the language of victims. The only place you hear excuses is in the locker room of the losers. Complaints and excuses don’t exist in the presence of winners.
- Don’t blame! Blaming others for your problems (or blaming yourself), is a waste of emotional energy. The blame game is filled with frustration, accusation and self-justification (or self-condemnation depending on who you are blaming). Listen to your language—are you logically and professionally critiquing others based on mutually understood expectations or are you venting because things haven’t gone your way?
- Look for opportunity! Problems are pregnant with opportunities. Opportunities to learn new things, to develop new solutions, to discover new markets and customers. Don’t use the economy as an excuse—some of the greatest successes in business have grown out of economic need.
Yes, we live in interesting times.
No, that doesn’t mean we have to be victims.
Get busy using the right words, building strong relationships, and converting problems into opportunities.
Your greatest successes are waiting for your discovery!
Posted by
Ron Price on Monday, October 12, 2009 at 6:06 PM
Categories:
Strategic Planning,
Training & Team Building,
Executive Coaching
When do things start to turn in a down economy? Long before it shows up in the news. We recently learned from the experts that the U.S. recession probably started in December 2007 or earlier. But this wasn’t reported until November 2008!
So when will we learn that the economy is on the way back up? You guessed—long after it has become a reality. Realizing you almost never get good business advice from today’s news, how can a business owner know when it is time to start investing in the future? This is an easy question to answer: When you, as a business owner, start recognizing new opportunities instead of agonizing over the present conditions, your economy is starting to turn.
There is a misunderstanding that most businesses are victims of the macro economics of our times. The reality is that the smaller your business, the less you should be concerned about what is happening at a macro level, whether growth or contraction. Why? Because the smaller your business, the easier it is for you to control your own business destiny. All you need to do is accurately understand the needs of your customers, either present or future, and you are on your way to an upward growth curve for your business.
Don’t wait for the evening news or daily newspaper to make any announcements about leaving the recession behind—if you do, you are too late! Instead, start looking for new opportunities to meet the needs of others. If your customers’ needs have changed in this current environment, find out how you can adapt your core strengths to adapt to those new needs. For small business people, there are a limitless number of ways to take advantage of the current circumstances and, in the process, become part of the answer instead of part of the problem.
I’m reminded of a time when a best friend decided to teach one of my teenage sons how race his car (good friend, eh?) He taught my son to slow down going into the curve, but always speed up coming out of the curve. Is it time for your business to start “speeding up”? If you believe there are viable opportunities to pursue and you get busy becoming the best provider for those needs, you are already on your way out of the recession. Imagine a whole community of businesses responding this way. Instead of getting together to talk about how bad things are, business owners would all be energized by recognizing new ways to serve others and renew their businesses. Sooner or later, you would be reading about them in the newspaper!