Traction: A fabulous resource for your business

I've gotten some emails asking why I'm not posting more on the site lately - the short answer? I've been really busy lately! As I mentioned in the past, I've recently taken on a new role in my company - running a new line of business. As part of this move, I've been building a new team and trying to establish new "habits" around the way we communicate, work, collaborate, etc.

As is often the case, some resources showed up at just the right time to help me (I love it when that happens). This time, it was in the form of Gino Wickman's book, "Traction: Get a Grip on your Business." This book is really designed for a someone running an entire business - not just a division like mine. However, the concepts can easily be adapted for a team, a department, or anything larger.

Even more intriguing to me: this book just showed up for me, but it's been out there for about 3 years. Apparently, there is a re-launch going on around this book - Providence, just in time for me.

Write your own EOS

Core to Traction is the 'EOS,' or Entrepreneurial Operating System - a set of practices, principles, and more - designed to help you establish and maintain clarity, accountability, and alignment within your business.

The book focuses on what I believe is the "trifecta" of a successful business:

• everyone is on the same page about what you're trying to achieve, how you plan to get there, and has the right metrics and indicators to track progress;
• everyone is crystal clear on their roles & responsibilities (and there is only one owner for everything);
• everyone agrees how they will work through issues, red flags, and obstacles encountered along the journey.

Wickman's content is crisp, actionable, and supported by a great tool set (the EOS Toolbox, available from the EOS Process web site for free). The book takes you through a lot of essential exercises, geared to help you establish the artifacts you need to align your business. This Toolbox makes the "hard work" of business a Hell of a lot easier. I'm not sure where Wickman got all of this content, but it's good stuff. While it intersects with lots of things I've read already from other authors, Wickman's approach smacks of real-world, tried & true process - not a bunch of theory.

One example is the notion of "Get the right people on the bus, and get people in the right seats," popularized by Jim Collins in his book "Good to Great." I've read this advice before, but have never been quite sure of how to really go about making sure that was happening. Wickman provides a set of tools and techniques to figure this out pretty quickly - using a simple "plus / minus" analysis of people's suitability to their roles. The book provides an example of this evaluation, and a worksheet is available on the EOS Process site.

Leadership Abilities - they're not just for the leader any more

One thing I think you'll like is "The Five Leadership Abilities" in this book:

1. Your ability to simplify.
2. Your ability to delegate & elevate.
3. Your ability to predict.
4. Your ability to systemize.
5. Your ability to structure.

Each of these five areas is addressed as you progress through the book, and you'll get better at every one of them if you use the methodology in the book.

I really like the way all of the techniques drive toward focus and alignment - for example, pushing to get you down to a small number of metrics you focus on to run your business, making sure everyone is focused on "one number" for their job, driving toward small objectives that move toward bigger goals, etc.

The side benefit of this process is that you end up spreading leadership throughout the team - each person gets to own some part of the business, and act as a leader within that area. This is key for scalability, engagement, and keeping people challenged as the business changes. I've worked in environments where I never felt a sense of ownership or empowerment, and I want to try to prevent that within my team.

Test your business - and see if you need Traction

This book is a quick read, but it is jam packed with content, and each aspect of the EOS is a significant project. If I were to detail every bit of the book here, this would probably be the longest post I've ever done. To boil it down: I recommend this book to leaders (and aspiring leaders) without reservation.

If you want to quickly find out whether Traction would benefit your business, why not take an organizational assessment today? It's free, and only takes a few minutes. Then, if you find out you should be better than you are, pick up your own copy of Traction and get to work.

By the way, if you aren't convinced but want a taste of Wickman's work, there is a free ebook called "Decide! The One Common Denominator of All Great Leaders" that you might enjoy.

Books, Leadership, management

Whose is this?

In the new team I'm leading, I'm really beginning to appreciate the value of clarity.

Historically, I've been very comfortable with ambiguity - in fact, I've really enjoyed taking advantage of ambiguity as a means to have more freedom. After all, when nobody is sure what is supposed to be done, how can they challenge what you're doing?

In my new role, however, I am becoming very disciplined about documenting commitments, and ensuring that there is one, clear owner for each item. This is a rusty skill for me, and I've learned a lot over the past few weeks.

One throat to choke

They say, "When multiple people own a problem, nobody owns the problem." I think that's true, based on some fire drills caused when multiple people thought someone else was handling an issue. Quite often, everybody things someone else has the ball, so nothing happens.

I'm being very deliberate about driving to one name as the owner of each issue. This has two effects - both good. One, I always know exactly who to ask when I want to know what's going on. Two, I can "let go" of the task because I have it cleanly docked with someone else - this has greatly shortened my task list.

On a side note - I am tracking all the commitments and owners in a spreadsheet, and mark each one red, yellow, or green to indicate whether they are on track or not. Any task without an owner is automatically "red" until an owner is identified.

Let's be clear

For this to work well, clarity is essential.

1. Be very clear about ownership - I like it when the owner clearly says "I own this." Seems like a small thing, perhaps, but there is power in saying the words.
2. Be very clear about expected outcomes - for most of the things I assign, I have no clue what the solution is. However, I usually know what criteria will be met when the task is "done," or I can articulate what questions I need to be able to answer when things are complete, and when it needs to be done. This avoids the "bring me a rock" frustrations that we've all been part of at one point or another.
3. Be clear about guidelines and protocols - This is the part where you provide guidelines on when the owner needs to check in with you. Some examples:
   • "Your budget is $1000 for this project. Check in with me before you exceed the budget."
   • "I want to know if you hit any roadblocks you can't overcome, or anything that would cause the date to slip."
   • "If you have to do anything that pisses off one of the Sales guys, I want to know as soon as possible."

Respect the boundaries

Another thing I've learned is that people do awesome work if you get out of their way. This is why it's so important to be clear about the expectations and boundaries, but not tell people how to solve the problem. After all, if you stay involved, you get no benefit from delegation. It is also very liberating. Of the 43 open items currently on my tracking spreadsheet, I am the owner of exactly one of them - which means I can spend my time helping people clear roadblocks, working with customers, and monitoring the health of the business. And the people in my team actually like not having me in the details. Other people in my company would benefit from this kind of approach. Which brings me to my last topic...

Don't undermine the trust

The surest way to "unempower" people is to start questioning how they are doing things you delegated. Bad mojo. Especially if you "skip levels" and start digging into the tasks that are owned by the people who work for people you manage (i.e. you've just gone around your direct reports). This erodes trust at all levels in your team. You only get the power of this approach if you honor the boundaries, let people own their commitments, and get out of their way.

If thigns aren't working, I suspect you have an issue with one of the elements of clarity I talked about in the "Let's be clear" section.

Sanity check

OK - how does this match your experience? Am I smoking hope? Any other elements you've learned from your own experience?

Bring it on - let's learn from each other.

leadership, management, micromanagement, Delegation

Phones, PDA's, and Bad Habits

I landed in London today and am happy the volcano seems to be calm for the moment. On my flight over, I read Michael Linenberger's new book and about half-way through writing the review. Meanwhile, I wanted to share an interesting article by Francis Wade on Stepcase Lifehack. The article, "Fight Bad Cellphone Habits for Better Time Management," touches on some interesting points - and some interesting observations.

Francis starts off talking about how a percentage of students in the time management classes he teaches just won't turn off their cell phones, PDA's, etc. for the duration of the class.

None of the people sitting in my classes are emergency room surgeons, firemen or policemen. I am not delivering these programs in a war zone, during a hurricane or in the middle of a tornado.

Yet, they find it absolutely essential to be checking their email every few minutes.

Sounds like an addiction, to me! I know - I've been there - that's why I got the Foursquare monkey off my back a month or so ago (I just noticed I did that on April 1, but it was no joke):

(By the way - haven't touched Foursquare since then and I'm still the mayor of 17 place as of today. Yes, I was hooked.)

Can't get enough...

But it's not just fun stuff like Foursquare, Facebook, and those sorts of things that create compulsive behaviors. Work does just the same thing, and some managers make it worse:

For aspiring micro-managers, it’s easy: simply give the employee the gift of a Blackberry. Then, send them “important” emails at odd hours (5pm is a good choice.) When you don’t get a response within minutes, make a critical comment, and mention their need to improve their time management skills. Praise them for their responsiveness as they inevitably knuckle under in time, and thank them for becoming a good “team player.

I know - I've been on the non-manager end of that, including a written policy from one of my past managers:

It is not my expectation that each person work 100 hours a week, although some weeks may seem like it. I do expect that each of you invest enough hours to get your work done, and done well. I also expect you to ‘check-in’ on e-mail during the weekend, busy periods and when we have critical international activities underway that you may be involved in. We are in a ‘Sun never sets’ mode.

Needless to say, people were obsessively attached to their company-provided Blackberries. And "check in" meant more than that - it meant we were expected to answer within a couple of hours, any time - day or night. Woohoo.

Inspect what you expect

So this article was a good reminder to me to think about:

• What message am I sending when I get caught up in obsessive email management?
• What expectations am I sending to my team with my actions?

We shouldn't have to freak out when we aren't on email for a day - do you?

Personal Productivity

Become a better manager in 5 weeks (and it's free for now)

This week, I downloaded Rosa Say's free ebook "Become an Alaka‘i Manager in 5 Weeks" and transferred it to my Kindle (it's also available in a bunch of other formats - one will definitely be right for you).
Today, I spent all day at a volleyball tournament which gave me a lot of down time to read it between matches. The bottom line: I really liked the book.

So - what does the title mean, and who's the book for? The ebook defines that:

"Alaka‘i is the Hawaiian value of leadership, and thus we refer to those who learn and practice the Managing with Aloha philosophy as Alaka‘i Managers. You have the potential to be an Alaka‘i Manager if you feel you have the calling to be a manager or leader, and you are ready to answer that calling."

As I mentioned recently, I'm in a new role at work and one of the things I want to ensure is that I not only manage effectively, but I also become a better leader - that desire drew me into this book. I'm also very familiar with Rosa Say & her work (she's a friend of mine) and love the fact that her recommendations are rooted in values and principles, which means they can adapt to any situation.

I like the 5 things the book describes as the "Alaka'i Toolbox," as well:

• Don't Add. Replace.
• Be a Finisher; Finish Well.
• Finish Conversations with Mutual Agreements.
• Lessen Task Work. Focus on Partnerships.
• Choose Positive Expectancy.

I don't really understand the nuances of these (especially that last one), but some of the others are things I recognize I need (and want) to improve in my leadership style.

I read this book on the Kindle, but I will order the hard copy (when It's available) anyway. Some of the worksheets are pretty tough to replicate without a hard copy (and they are worth doing).

And I'm going to be a better manager in about 5 weeks. Get the book, and you can too!

Note: The reason I say "...free for now" in the title is that Rosa says SmashWords, the company distributing the ebook, may start charging - so I suggest you get your copy now.

Update: Rosa assures me the ebook will stay free, so don't worry. (But what are you waiting for?)

Books, leadership, management

Rewards and habits

I was visiting Aubrey Daniels’ blog today and saw a fascinating video, below (link here):

This shows the power of “reward” in getting people to change their behaviors.  The challenge:  what is enough to get people to change?  They say that people generally change in order to move toward pleasure, or away from pain.

This is a good thing to keep in mind when motivating yourself and others – is there enough “pleasure” in the change you’re asking people to make?  And is it enough for them to want to bring others along?