That’s not a bad thing
for a manager
as long as that position remains needed.

I have a junior analyst
who never wants to be a senior analyst.
She is great at her job.
I don’t have to worry
about opening a senior position for her
or about her looking for another job.
She is happy doing her current job.

I’m conscious about keeping her current.
I am slowly cross training her
so she has a wider skill set.
I am also careful
about changing her job
too drastically
too quickly.
She doesn’t want that
and I’m happy keeping her happy.

It is difficult for ambitious people
such as myself
to understand
but wow, is it a relief
as a manager.

If your employees are happy
in their current positions,
ask yourself
why you’re pushing them to progress.
Is it what they want
or what you think they SHOULD want?

That surprised me
because I was overjoyed
with this analyst
so I asked how she was coaching her.

Her reply was
“I tell her things again and again
but she doesn’t get it.”

“But how are you COACHING her?”
I repeated.

Telling is quick and easy
and oh so tempting to do
but it is NOT coaching.

Telling is pointing “Go there!”
Because the employee
doesn’t know why or when she should go there,
she ends up having to ask
if there is any variation however small
in the process.

Coaching is creating a map together
and then walking beside the employee.
The employee then has a map,
she can refer to it
when other situations arise.

Telling is quicker short term.
Coaching is quicker long term.
If your employee is a long term investment,
coaching is usually your better option.

As Shaun Rein states
“Clients don’t want
to come to your office.
They don’t want to waste their time.”

You also want to spend
as much time in the customer’s operations
as possible.
The more time you spend there,
the more knowledgable you will be
about their business
and
the more you become
part of their team.

Some of the top consultants
have NO real office
(real = a office you can host client meetings at).
They don’t need one.
They are always consulting.

Hold meetings at
your customer’s place of business.

Perfect solutions
are no brainers.
They require no decisions.
It is easy to lead
when all solutions you have
to choose from
are ‘perfect.’
You can’t lose.

The thing is…
the perfect solution
is a myth.
Any solution provided
will have its pro’s and con’s.

Deciding the best solution
out of a selection of imperfect solutions
requires skill and confidence.

THAT is where leadership comes in.

These are things we can’t control.
I spend very little time on them.
What I do spend time on
is our reaction.
That we CAN control.

Lori Ann LaRocco
talks about this in her Forbes post.

“A great example is
Steve Sadove at Saks.
He said while he couldn’t control
the buying habits
of the consumer
during the height of the crisis,
the one thing he could control
was inventory.
He and his team
then took the necessary steps
to tackle that problem
through discounts and
also cut back on ordering
for the next season.”

Focus on what you can control.

Why?

Because analysts are making
a classic new product launch mistake.
They are assuming that
the competition will do nothing
in reaction to the launch.

They’re assuming the competition
doesn’t drop prices
or launch an improved product
or… or… or…

That’s silly.
Of course, the competition
is going to react.
Of course, the iPad won’t be launching
under the current conditions.

That’s why there’s secrecy around launches,
why change has to be large,
why it helps if that change is ownable
by the launching company.

Assume your competition reacts
to your launch…
because they will.

The results?

“The more creative the work,
the less motivation required
to hit peak levels of performance.
Studies reveal that creativity diminishes
when individuals are rewarded
(externally motivated)
for doing their work.
Why?
The desire to achieve the goal
overtakes the personal interest in the endeavor.
A myopic focus on the outcome
overshadows the intellectual stimulation
of the process.
As a result, risk taking becomes reduced
and creativity vanishes.”

That is why
often companies separate the creativity process
and action taking
(either with different people,
a lag in time between the two parts,
or by some other means).

We come up with ideas, simply ideas.
We test them using concept and idea screeners.
Eventually we take action.
But the two processes are separated.

This is what happens in the writing world too.
An established author will flesh out
several ideas,
pitch them,
and months later, write one or two or all of them.
There is a lag.

Being creative and taking action on the same day
usually means less than original solutions.

But people like to work with him
because he gets results.
His people win Oscars.
His movies make money.

Rebecca Keegan has some great snippets
about his leadership style
in her book
The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron.

“”It’s Avatar, dude,
nothing works the first time,”
read a whiteboard
in the spare Los Angeles warehouse
that served as
the sci fi film’s motion capture soundstage.
Breaking new ground
is Cameron’s raison d’être
— nothing interests this man
unless it’s hard to do.
But innovation has also become
a way of bonding his teams,
both on Avatar
and on his deep sea expeditions.
“We’re out in the wilderness
working far beyond
the borders of the known,”
Cameron says,
comparing his CG and undersea projects.
“We’re doing extraordinary things
that outsiders would not even understand.”"

Are you doing extraordinary things?

You see…
she never quit.
She took a 3 week vacation
to try out the new job.
Turns out,
she wasn’t impressed
so she went back to the old job.

A friend of mine
took a leave of absence
from her current employer
to try out a new employer
for a couple months.
Again, she wasn’t happy with her move
so she returned to her old job.

A week,
a couple months,
a year,
companies are willing
to wait for good people.

Just because you hired that good person
doesn’t mean she’ll stay.
If you want to keep her,
you need to ensure the reality lives up to the hype.

Susan Gunelius outlines
10 of the most common emotional triggers.

They are;
Fear
Guilt
Trust
Value
Belonging
Competition
Instant Gratification
Leadership
Trend-setting
and Time

Some triggers are timeless like fear.
Fear and greed has been used
to sell products
since human history began.

Others are more recent like instant gratification
yet aren’t any less effective.

EVERY marketing message
should appeal to emotion.