The Leadership Matrix

Step #8 - in the 20 Steps to Build a Great Business

The Leadership Matrix - the process for business success and execution.

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"Every result has a process that is perfect for achieving it, good or bad. Thus if you want to change the result you have to change the process."

- Steve Chandler

 

Several years ago I put together a process for leading a business - for taking it from a business that relies on the owner to work, rather than one that works for the owner.

 

Below is the 9 step process and a 40 minute presentation that will take you through each step.

 

 

	Right People	Right Things	Done Right
Clarity	Vision/Goals/Purpose	Actions	Core Values
Focus	Engagement	Accountability	2 Second LEAN/ Process
Execution	Weekly Coaching Conversation	Scorecards/Dashboards	Training

 

Here is the 40 minute presentation that takes you through The Leadership Matrix - the secret to Execution.

A Players in Every Position

Step #7 - in the 20 Steps to Build a Great Business

A Players in Every Position

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"There's something rare, something finer far, something much more scarce than ability. It's the ability to recognize ability."

  - Elbert Hubbard

"A Players in every position? Impossible!", I was once told by a business owner. "I can't afford to have A Players in every position." "Why?", I asked. "My labor costs are already too high and there are not A Players for many of the jobs I have in my company." was his response.

My answer:

1. You have to start looking at Labor as an "investment, not an expense". If you look at it as an investment it doesn't matter what you spend (invest), it is what the return on that investment is that matters. A Players might cost 20-30% more, but they can produce 2-3 times what an average employee will. Which means you can run the company with less people. The Container Store  pays 30% more for an A Player but they run their stores with 1/3 the number of people other retailers do.
2. You have to define what an A Players is. Look for these 3 characteristics: 
   • They are competent at the job - Skill
   • They want to learn and get better - Will
   • They are engaged with the team, your company, they believe what you believe (values)
3. Topgrade. You can't have this team of A Players overnight, you have to slowly, begin coaching, teaching, recruiting and building a Virtual Bench of A Players. Over time you can Topgrade your team like an NFL team does. C Players will leave, B Players will be coached up to A Players, and you can do this with relative ease once you know you have a Virtual Bench in place to draft from.

A Players in every position - think about it. Surrounding yourself with people who are engaged, wanting to learn and get better, accountable for results - a place where you and everyone else likes coming to each day. Productivity will soar, profits will follow. 

The Science of Motivation

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."

- Henry Ford 

The following is the Science of Motivation by Peter Rowe:

Oh the Friday procrastinations, as regular as clockwork. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds Fridays the most difficult day to get motivated on. In an effort to shift myself into gear I decided to do a little research on what Science can tell me about getting motivated. The results were actually quite helpful. This article is a little long, but hey it makes for an effective excuse to procrastinate ;) 

Why are we so good at thinking of what we need to do, but so terrible at actually doing those things?

The problem is you're skipping an essential step. Here's what it is...
 

The Mistake Every Productivity System Makes

Productivity systems rarely take emotions into account. And feelings are a fundamental and unavoidable part of why humans do what they do. We can't ignore our emotions. Because of the way our brains are structured, when thought and feelings compete, feelings almost always win. And we can't fight our feelings. Research shows this just makes them stronger.

Via The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking:

...when experimental subjects are told of an unhappy event, but then instructed to try not to feel sad about it, they end up feeling worse than people who are informed of the event, but given no instructions about how to feel. In another study, when patients who were suffering from panic disorders listened to relaxation tapes, their hearts beat faster than patients who listened to audiobooks with no explicitly 'relaxing' content. Bereaved people who make the most effort to avoid feeling grief, research suggests, take the longest to recover from their loss. Our efforts at mental suppression fail in the sexual arena, too: people instructed not to think about sex exhibit greater arousal, as measured by the electrical conductivity of their skin, than those not instructed to suppress such thoughts.

So what does the unavoidable power of feelings mean for motivation?

In their book Switch, Chip and Dan Heath say that emotions are an essential part of executing any plan:

Focus on emotions. Knowing something isn't enough to cause change. Make people (or yourself) feel something. 
 

We need to "think" to plan but we need to "feel" to act.

So if you've got the thinking part out of the way - how do you rile up those emotions and get things done? Here are three steps:

1) Get Positive

When do we procrastinate the most? When we're in a bad mood.

Via Temptation: Finding Self-Control in an Age of Excess:

So procrastination is a mood-management technique, albeit (like eating or taking drugs) a shortsighted one. But we're most prone to it when we think it will actually help... Well, far and away the most procrastination occurred among the bad-mood students who believed their mood could be changed and who had access to fun distractions.

Meanwhile, research shows happiness increases productivity and makes you more successful.

What does the military teach recruits in order to mentally toughen them up? No, it's not hand-to-hand combat. It's optimism. So how do you get optimistic if you're not feeling it?

Monitor the progress you're making and celebrate it. Harvard's Teresa Amabile's research found that nothing is more motivating than progress.

Via The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work:

This pattern is what we call the progress principle: of all the positive events that influence inner work life, the single most powerful is progress in meaningful work; of all the negative events, the single most powerful is the opposite of progress-setbacks in the work. We consider this to be a fundamental management principle: facilitating progress is the most effective way for managers to influence inner work life.

(More on how to get happier here.)

Okay, so negativity isn't making you procrastinate and holding you back. But what's going to drive you forward?

2) Get Rewarded

Rewards feel good. Penalties feel bad. And that's why they both can work well for motivating you.

Research shows that rewards are responsible for three-quarters of why you do things.

Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People:

Researchers find that perceived self-interest, the rewards one believes are at stake, is the most significant factor in predicting dedication and satisfaction toward work. It accounts for about 75 percent of personal motivation toward accomplishment. - Dickinson 1999

So treat yourself whenever you complete something on your to-do list. (Yes, this is how you train a dog but it will work for you too.)

Having trouble finding a reward awesome enough to get you off your butt? Try a "commitment device" instead:

Give your friend $100. If you get a task done by 5PM, you get your $100 back. If you don't complete it, you lose the $100.

Your to-do list just got very emotional. (More on how to stop procrastinating here.)

So you're feeling positive and there are rewards (or penalties) in place. What else do you need? How about nagging, compliments and guilt?

3) Get Peer Pressure

Research shows peer pressure helps kids more than it hurts them.
(And face it, you're still a big kid, you just have to pretend to be an adult most of the time - and it's exhausting.)

Surround yourself with people you want to be and it's far less taxing to do what you should be doing.

Via Charles Duhigg's excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:

When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real. 

The Longevity Project, which studied over 1000 people from youth to death had this to say:

The groups you associate with often determine the type of person you become. For people who want improved health, association with other healthy people is usually the strongest and most direct path of change.

And the research on friendship confirms this. From an interview with Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence:

Research shows over time, you develop the eating habits, health habits and even career aspirations of those around you. If you're in a group of people who have really high goals for themselves you'll take on that same sense of seriousness.

(More on the science of friendship here.)

So we've got all three methods going for us. How do we wrap this all together and get started?

Sum Up

Got today's to-do list? Great. That means the most rational thing to do now is stop being rational. Get those emotions going:

1.       Get Positive
2.       Get Rewarded
3.       Get Peer Pressure

You can do this. In fact, believing you can do this is actually the first step. What's one of the main things that stops people from becoming happier? Happiness isn't part of how they see themselves so it's harder to change. Think of yourself as a motivated, productive person. Research shows how people feel about themselves has a huge effect on success.

Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People:

For most people studied, the first step toward improving their job performance had nothing to do with the job itself but instead with improving how they felt about themselves. In fact, for eight in ten people, self-image matters more in how they rate their job performance than does their actual job performance. - Gribble 2000

Still unsure if you'll be able to beat the procrastination demon? Then skip right to #3, peer pressure.

Forward this post to at least two friends and start holding each other accountable.

Now you've got something outside of yourself that's watching and motivating you. And everything is easier - and more fun - with friends.

This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Right People, Doing the Right Things, Right - Part 2

Part 2 of Step #6 - in the 20 Steps to Build a Great Business

Right People, Doing the Right Things, Right

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"Goals without Actions are dreams. Actions without Goals are chaos."

- Japanese Proverb

Step #6 is Right People, Doing the right things, Right.  Last weeks post was "Right People" - now we will discuss doing the "Right Things".

One of my favorite quotes (above) - I've been using it for 7-8 years now - provides the best insight I can find as to why most businesses seem to be in chaos all day. Steven Covey called it "the urgent getting in the way of important."

How do we define what ownership and A Players should be working on? What are the Right Actions/Rocks they should be focusing on?

It all starts with Goals, SMART Goals. Let me tell you a quick story.

A client of mine was setting goals with me for the coming year. He was setting SMART Goals - numbers and metrics - for his company. I asked him about new Ideal Customers and he replied, "we brought on 100 this year so next year we

will bring in 120" (notice the commitment to achieving the goal). Before I could say anything, the Sales Manager said, "well to get 120 new Ideal Customers we need to do 1..,2..3..., (Actions/Rocks)", and before he could finish the Operations Manager said, "to support that we need to 1., 2., 3." One goal and we produced 6 or 7 Actions/Rocks that were, suddenly, prioritized. Those are the Right Things to assign one person and make them accountable for each one, and one by one finish, execute.

Warning:

You can't do them all at once. My experience says 2 Rocks per quarter per employee is about the maximum. If you assign more it is overwhelming and nothing gets finished. Each Rock has only one person accountable for it. They can use other resources and people but they are accountable for it being completed. More on how we track this progress and ensure we finish/execute in future posts.

Right People, Doing the Right Things, Right

Step #6 in the 20 Steps to Build a Great Business

Right People, Doing the Right Things, Right

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"Don't send your ducks to eagle school."

- Jim Rohn

The 6^th key to building a great business that works for you vs. relying on you ...to work comes from Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. Great companies can answer yes to the following questions:

Do you have the Right People, Doing the Right things, Right?

We will take the first one this week, who are the right people, how do I know, can I afford them, etc.

Please take 5 minutes and watch this interview with the founder of the Container Store. He explains quite simply the key to 37 years of compounded 24% growth. The Right People. He knows A Players may cost 50% more but produce up to 3 times the average player. Then read how you can evaluate your team, coach and Topgrade your team so that over time you have all A Players, but less employees.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppYh28BMUe8

 

What is a duck? What is a 'C' Player? What's an 'A' Player? How do I know? Well, I just finished a great book by Peter Roe called "The People Puzzle". I took the liberty and pulled the following concepts from his book, while adding a few thoughts of my own to the mix. I highly recommend the book. Read on to answer the questions above and more.

Survey after survey consistently shows that US employees fall into one of these 3 categories:

1. 20% are Engaged Employees - They are committed to doing the right things, right. They are engaged with the purpose, values and goals of the leader and the team. They want to work for the common good of the enterprise, they enjoy coming to work and the work they do.
   
2. 20% are Actively Disengaged - These people are committed to doing the right things only when it furthers their own goals. When it comes to working for the common good they are totally uncommitted. They usually reject any attempt to engage in group purpose, values and goals and are quite prepared to do things against the common good if that gets them what they want.
   
3. 60% are Turning Up and Going Through the Motions - They have a lower level of competence and are not motivated to become highly competent. They also have lower levels of commitment due to lower levels of energy, self-confidence or ambition; don't or won't identify with group purpose or values.

A Players are competent, committed and engaged. Those are the 3 main characteristics you can evaluate your team by.

How does your team sort out?

Here are the 3 main components we recommend accessing when sorting out your team:

1. Competence - (skill) having the ability to perform the tasks, actions and functions to achieve the desired results.
   
2. Commitment- (will) having the willingness to learn and improve and meet their own standards as well as the team's. It is a product of an individual belief system and values.
   
3. Engagement - (thrill) is the response to an invitation to care about someone else's goals, values and purpose. It is seeking an experience and making a contribution beyond oneself. It is a matter of thrill of being part of the team.

The first two are inherent in the person. The latter is your responsibility as a leader to create the circumstances for Engagement.

Some can be coached, some can't and some are already there. Let's look at the combinations.

The following are your 'C' Players:

1) Incompetent, Uncommitted, Disengaged

Why bother? Well, we can invite them to engage with our Purpose, Values and Goals and, if they accept that invitation, then we can determine if they have the commitment to learn and become more competent. But let's face it - do you have the time, patience and resources to take this route? All the while they are actively poisoning your team and many of them resent the fact you keep them around. 

2) Competent, Uncommitted, Disengaged

If competent and uncommitted (to personal development) they can probably "do the job" but can be a grind to work with. They will be far less productive than their counterparts but we keep them around because we hate recruiting and don't know if we can find better. They believe they are great employees because they "do their job". They are hard to coach because they are not committed to their own improvement. They follow a routine and do what they want to do in a manner they like to do it. Any change you suggest will get pushback. They learned their job through routine and don't learn from mistakes. They can't stand being seen as incompetent their ego is too big. They don't care about what you are trying to achieve they only care about their own comfort.

These people are also dangerous to have around, and you're 'A' Players resent the fact you walk by this problem and don't do something about it.

3) Incompetent, Committed, Disengaged

This group will commit to only their own agenda. Maybe they have not been sold your purpose, values and goals so give it a try. If they engage then you have to decide if they are coachable and trainable. If not, you know what to do.  They are committed to improving their competence but will they once challenged?

4) Incompetent, Uncommitted, Engaged

Beware - these people are more damaging than their disengaged peers above! They are enthusiastically bringing down the team and when you don't act on it the 'A' Players will resent it and be ripe to leave.  You must cut this cancer out of the company as soon as possible.

The following are your 'B' Players:

1) Incompetent, Committed, Engaged

These people are engaged with your purpose, values and goals and to developing their skills/competence.

If they are trainable and coachable - great! If they seem to not have the competence for the job, you may be able to find them another position in the company where they can perform competently and add value. 

2) Competent, Uncommitted and Engaged

This is an unusual characteristic, but they exist. These individuals may not have the confidence, energy and/or personal issues that drain them. They are engaged. Working with them one-on-one, setting goals, and helping them achieve them can unlock that commitment they are lacking to improving themselves. You may have to help them to establish a healthy balance in their personal/professional lives.

 

3) Competent, Committed, Disengaged

 

Here you have someone who can do the job, and is committed to personal and professional growth that will drive them to do things well. Engagement is the lacking ingredient. This one is squarely on you. The problem is that they need to be engaged with the company's Core Purpose, Core Values and Goals. You first have to have defined, documented and communicated these items on a weekly basis.

 

 

The following are you're 'A' Players:

 

1) Competent, Committed, Engaged

Finally the 'A' Players. These are the people that are competent, committed to learn and improve and are engaged to the point they care about the business, it's employees, customers and families as much as you do. They will go the extra mile, enjoy their work and get satisfaction from a job well done.

 

These people deserve, and will expect, an excellent leader. If you fall short they may leave. If you tolerate others on the team that are less competent, less committed and/or disengaged they will feel insulted. If they feel you are using them to shore up and take up the slack for others who are not committed and engaged, then they will resent that and may leave. At the very least, they will become disenchanted and less engaged.

Being Your Best More of The Time

Step #5 in the 20 Steps to Build a Great Business

Essentialism/Deep Work - being your best more of the time.

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Every time I call a client and ask "how are you" or "what is happening", I get the same response -  "Man I'm Busy". We have a good laugh because they realize what they just said and they know I'm going to ask good busy or bad busy? In other words, are you Doing the Right Work?

 Remember what we said in Step #2 - You don't have to change who you are to be successful, you just need to be your best more of the time. That means focusing some part of each day on Deep Work, your purpose, Essential things, the Rocks that will ensure you meet your goals.

This is a post by Michael Neill that caught my eye. It incorporates Deep Work, Essentialism, Rocks, Focus and Results into one blog post. Good stuff. Take special note of Simon Cowell's mantra - make one good decision a day!

by Michael Neill | May 2, 2016

Last year, I was chatting with the uber-author Jack Canfield in preparation for the Hay House World Summit and I asked him if he was busy at the moment. He took a few moments to consider his reply. "I've got a lot on," he said, "but I'm not particularly busy."

That conversation came to mind this week while preparing the launch for my newest book, The Space Within. Whereas past launches have obsessed my thinking and monopolized both my time and that of the team of willfully invisible elves who cobble the shoe leather of my writing into beautifully presented blogs and books, this year the whole process has been remarkably low key.

I've already read a chapter of Cal Newport's Deep Work (more on that in a moment), and before my fingers are done for the day they'll have written this blog, a newsletter, several new pages for my website, half a dozen emails, and copy for the book launch that will go out tomorrow.

But even though I've got a lot on, I'm not feeling particularly busy - just productive. And this points to one of the key points in Cal Newport's book - busyness is a proxy for productivity. In other words, according to Professor Newport, one of the reason we spend so much time on email, social media, and "available" to interruption is because it creates the experience that we're continually engaged in activity, leading us to the false conclusion that if we're always busy, we must be being productive.

Yet a more practical definition of "personal productivity" is this:

Your ability to produce results

Notice this has nothing to do with our level of activity, busyness, efficiency, effort, or stress. If we consistently produce quality results over time, we are productive; if we don't, no matter how much time and effort we are putting into the job, we aren't.

One of the most interesting examples of this I have come across is the music executive and television producer Simon Cowell. In an interview where Simon was asked to share the secret of his success, he didn't point to his clearly well-developed work ethic, network, PR team, or any kind of personal genius. He simply said that he tried to make one really good decision each day. If he pulled it off even 100 days of the year, he knew that his career and companies would grow exponentially over time.

In order to cultivate his decision making ability, he tries to stay seriously underemployed when not actively engaged in the necessary activities of running multiple companies and appearing on television hundreds of times a year. So while it may appear that his productivity has led to his ability to "live the good life", living the good life is one of the keys to his astounding productivity.

Now on the off chance that chartering yachts in the South of France or taking a week off each year to think about stuff a la Bill Gates is outside of your current financial capacity, how can we mere mortals take advantage of this lower key approach to higher productivity?

In business, this translates to keeping your eye on the results you and your team are producing, not all the things you think you have to do (or even all the things you're doing) to produce them. This runs counter to the management approach that tracks activity instead of results, counting sales calls vs. sales and hours worked vs. results produced. The difficulty in tracking the intangibles that lead to high level results mean that work ethic often gets elevated above productivity. Which is kind of like rewarding the hare for running three times as many miles as the tortoise in the process of losing the race.

The simple rule of thumb for higher productivity is this:

You get more of what you focus on.

Focus on your to-do list and watch it grow; focus on results and watch them happen.

One caveat:

None of this is to say that if you want to be productive at a high level, you won't have to put in the hours. I don't know anyone who consistently produces quality results over time who doesn't. But whether those hours are experienced as hard work or even busyness is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.

The same teenager who struggles to focus on school work for more than ten minutes at a time can lose themselves for hours in online gaming, making music, doodling in a notebook or traveling through time and space in the pages of an epic novel. The problem is almost never in their brain but rather in the way they're using their mind.

Every Result Has A Perfect Process

Step #4 in the 20 Steps to Build a Great Business

Every result we get has a process that is perfect for achieving it.

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"Every result (good or bad, big or small) we get has a perfect process

for producing it.  So if you want to change the results 

you have to change the process."

- Steve Chandler

 

I, as many of you know, have a lot of favorite sayings, but this one is in the Top 10 for sure. 

Here you are as a business owner or leader of a group of people and you have, like we all have, results you are not happy with. You seem, at times, to be beating your head against the wall and working faster and harder to get the results you want and achieve success in your business.

If you are interested in building that business, the one that is growing, profitable, sustainable and that in the end has true value you will continue to do what is convenient - same processes only faster and more of it. Fooled you huh?You will stay in your comfort zone, hold on to long held beliefs that are not true and have a business that relies on you..... to work.

However, if you are committed to building that business, the one that is growing, profitable, sustainable and that in the end has true value you will do what it takes - learn and execute new processes and best practices. You will question your beliefs, get out of your comfort zone and build a business that works for you.

Here is the 9 step process I have developed, improved, used and proven in over 8 years of coaching that works for those that are committed to learning and taking Action on the learning.

The Leadership Matrix:

	Right People	Right Things	Done Right
Clarity	Vision/Goals/Purpose	Actions	Core Values
Focus	Alignment	Accountability	2 Second LEAN/ Process
Execution	Rhythm/Weekly Huddles	Dashboards	Training/Weekly Coaching Conversation

When you decide you are committed to success, I would invite you to check out my Online Coaching Program where I teach, provide the tools and the actions to execute this process and the processes necessary to build that business you once dreamed it could be. 

  

Sign up for My Online Coaching Course