Blur - Gaining Focus Through Commitment

Gaining Focus - Through Commitment

The role of marketing was once easily defined based on a discrete set of actions focused on the mass market.  To effectively create relevant mass-market advertising to increase brand awareness and loyalty. 

This charge was vague enough to allow marketing professionals to justify investments in "the brand" despite a lack of quantifiable results. This created a crack in the foundation of marketing that lead to today's chasm. The resulting trend was the outsourcing of marketing strategy to agencies due to the increased blurring definition and role of marketing.

This approach is antiquated and no longer works in today's data-driven, personalized, customer and client-centric environment. The tsunami of content overwhelms marketing teams and confuses customers and clients. The mass market has been dissected, or what I refer to as hyper-segmentation, into discrete customer segments that require targeted and relevant messaging.

Customers and clients expect to be served through multiple channels, with a consistent experience across each.

The transition is proving difficult for marketing teams. Many organizations remain in operational silos, which limit their ability to share data and insights and create a consistent multi-channel customer experience. And cultural perceptions of marketing's role, continue to inhibit its strategic ambitions.

Focus & Commitment - To address this challenge, leadership teams need to increase their commitment to investing in the skills, tools, and processes required to become more customer and client-centric and insight-driven. Only then will marketing be aligned with the rest of the business and in a better position to serve as the catalyst of business growth.

Question - Are you contributing to the blur or are your helping focus your efforts and the organization?

Storytelling - A Universal Tool to Creat Impact

Have you ever considered what do I need to do to make communications more dynamic?  Making your presentations, discussions memorable and relevant to your audience is difficult.  The difficulty manifests in many ways, but none are more prevalent than the different personalities absorbing your information.   Different personality types and generations consume content very differently – So how can you make a significant impact? You need to be agile enough to adapt to these variables at any moment through email, phone conversation or a formal presentation.  Storytelling is a great platform to address the variables as it “connects the dots”, between the rational and the emotional where the audience may not otherwise be engaged on one or the other.

“In a business context, professionals can use these types of stories to influence, educate, engage, inspire and encourage stakeholders.

Stories Generate Mental Images - Visual communication is a fundamental part of human history. Visual imagery can help capture ideas and significantly improve the ability to learn and comprehend a topic. Use and apply visually descriptive words and images.

Stories Persuade in the Absence of Facts - We live in a world where the best storytellers get what they want. They understand that the stories we hear and tell daily influence us on a very deep level. Relying solely on organizational, service or product knowledge, domain expertise isn’t enough in today’s complex business environments. Everyone needs to cut through the complexity when faced with an opportunity to persuade, if you can’t make it meaningful for your audience, what you talk about doesn’t make much difference. Stories are effective as the enable your audience to come to the desired outcomes through their own images which in turn creates relevance.

Complexity in this world is the foundation and catalyst for our reliance on a fallacy – “To mistakenly rely heavily on facts and figures when communicating meaning and context in the workplace.  The truth…no one cares about your facts and figures as much as you do.” 

 

Don’t Catch the Vapors

Don’t Catch the Vapors - Bad meetings aren’t hard to recognize and the results feel even worse. They’re unfocused, resistant to participation, consumed with a single idea, or saturated with indecision and insecurity. What are these vapors I reference - Answer me this how much time is wasted on meetings weekly 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%?

I have a conference call…and while we are on these critical calls we multi-task and miss the areas of contribution then you hang up and uncertain of what you committed to do during the meeting – therefore perpetuating the vicious cycle.

Sometimes I walk out of meetings and think to myself..."I can never get that hour back in my life". Meaningless meetings cause other problems, too, like the “concussion effect.” That’s when people leave a meeting drained, dazed and confused, instead of excited about the work they’ve just discussed, everyone is exhausted  - “Vapors”.

Run meetings where participants actually participate - consider alternatives, solve problems, make decisions, or assess mistakes and successes to further the divisions or group’s overall improvement. Focus on daily operations or on strategy. Separate the two, since strategy often gets neglected because it doesn’t seem urgent. Shorter, more regular meetings on operations and initiatives will keep focus.

I use a phrase constantly, “it is all about the pre-game”, and its focused on being prepared for anything.  This is about being prepared to contribute during a meeting - what do you need to do differently?  Take responsibility and commit to participate and surpass the expectations of the meeting planner.  One other suggestion is when you get a meeting notice why not make recommendations to control mood, drive desired behaviors, and create focus around knowledge sharing and collaboration.  These motivational elements will build momentum and drive towards outcomes. 

Get out of the vapor and focus on meaningful interactions that move people forward.

Breaking Bad - Squash Silos & Tribalism

Breaking the Silos & Tribalism – Big surprise silos exist, so what can we do about it? there are nuances of personalities, defensive plays, insecurities and operational inefficiencies. Rather than boiling the ocean of industrial psychology, six sigma and leadership skills, let's think about the problems it creates - restricted knowledge flow, diminished creative power, reduced outside focus and enabled hiding places that conceal real problems. 

"Breaking down silos… requires looking inside yourself and asking whether your mindset plays a part in propping up the silos.”

Eliminating silos isn’t easy. Target specific groups, and even people within those departments, to help you dismantle barriers, streamline goals, and make improvements.  Let’s get out in front through dialogue and direct conversations with other regional or national leaders.

Consider your own organization - The ultimate goals align, high-level, but methods vary. What if they teamed up with the leadership team to talk about what “stakeholders”, really want and how to accomplish it? Figure out what activities would make the biggest difference and highest impact in your day-to-day work. Call a meeting to air your differences honestly and to learn a few good things about each other. Then, face the problems individually and focus of the perfect remediation. Skip the details at first. Instead, find common ground for what might happen if you work together. Ask provocative questions and choose one project as a test run.

If you can’t get everyone together, try your own “influence plan”, none of the planning tools in the world will help you achieve your vision if all you do is shuffle around the same old tasks and approaches.

Considerations for your personal and leadership brand (as a leader help drive this individually), by finding people inside the organization to persuade. Get to know them personally and to understand them at work. Your influence will grow. As you share information, your work will become more effective and trust is established – hint this aligned with our effectiveness in storytelling.

Overthinking, Leadership and Curiosity

I think there is a tendency to overestimate and overthink the moment we are living in.  The pace of change in everything we do is faster than it used to be and we are often overwhelmed by what everything means. How can we balance multiple expectations and meaning across different stakeholders and priorities? 

Personal leadership is focused on five key elements:

• Simplify, simplify, simplify

• Improve discovery

• Seek out clarity through curiosity

• Balance transactional support with innovative value delivery.

• Be, and work with people that are interested and interesting.

Leadership and personal leadership is a fluid process of influence, enabling value creation through simplification, discovery, curiosity and commitment.

Strategic Mindset and Goals

A strategy is not a strategy unless it creates action.  Organizationally a strategy is different from vision, mission, goals, priorities, and plans. It is the result of choices stakeholders make, on where to play and how to win, to create long-term sustainable value. 

How can a strategic mindset help focus your actions?  Every year goals are documented and thought about for a brief period of time.  A strategic mindset helps to shape your goals and actions but more importantly it creates a certain level of creativity.

Challenge convention of what will change versus what will not change.  Ask yourself in terms of your stakeholders what you will do differently in supporting them this coming year.  You can start by asking what needs to be different then proceed on identifying where you need to change.

What is your strategy? Apply to your daily outlook on your professional and personal life.

Attitude is Everything, Crush Negativity by Thinking!

Personal Brand – Attitude is Everything

Attitude is everything in how you shape your character and personal brand.  How does your personal brand impact the organization, individuals and yourself?  Discover your own potential for leadership. There is so much literature on branding, brand you and other aspects of personal branding out in the web sphere, but I recently found one statement that clearly articulates personal branding in one sentence. I found the biography of Margaret Thatcher interesting in her development as an individual and leader.  One of her many quotes relate to your personal brand and your attitude.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become”.

I have used the statement moving from “complaint to commitment”, so much of today’s business climate and corporate culture is based on who care more about feelings than they do about attitude, thoughts and ideas.  Create a learning environment that moves past mediocrity and focuses on the commitment of thinking, new ideas and positivity. 

When You Can Control or Influence the Negativity

When you can control or influence the situation, use a systematic problem-solving process with the affected employees to improve the identified areas of negativity or complaint. Do this as quickly as you can to determine that negativity exists.

·         Identify any aspects of the situation that you can impact including providing feedback in your organization about the negative impact that is occurring. Sometimes you can influence an issue or a decision if you practice personal, professional courage and speak your mind.

·         Listen, listen, listen. Often people just need a sounding board. Be visible and available to staff. Proactively schedule group discussion sessions, town meetings, "lunches with the manager," or one-on-one blocks of time.

·         Challenge pessimistic thinking and negative beliefs about people, the organization, and the work area. Don't let negative, false statements go unchallenged. If the statements are true, provide the rationale, the corporate thinking, and the events that are responsible for the negative circumstances. Share everything you know about a situation to build trust with the workforce – take the emotion out and drive with facts.

·         Ask open-ended questions to determine the cause, and the scope of the negative feelings or reaction. Maybe it's not as bad as people think; maybe their interpretation of events is faulty. Helping people identify exactly what they feel negatively about is the first step in solving the problem. You can't solve a fog of unhappiness. Help people create options, feel included, and feel part of the communication and problem solving.  

If the negativity emanates from an individual, as a manager or performance leader you can:

·         Inform the employee about the negative impact their negativity is having on co-workers and the department.

·         Take the emotion out of it and use fact - use specific examples that describe behaviors the employee can do something about.

·         Avoid becoming defensive. Don’t take the employee’s negative words or attitude personally.

·         Focus on creating solutions. Don’t focus on everything that is wrong and negative; focus instead on creative options for positive morale. If the person is unwilling to hold this discussion, and you feel you have fairly heard her out, end the discussion.

·         Focus on the positive aspects and contributions the individual brings to the work setting, not the negativity. Help the employee build their self-image and capacity to contribute.

How is your Personal Brand contributing - Recognize Your Potential Part in the Negativity Cycle

·         Know yourself well enough to recognize internally when you are becoming negative.

·         Become aware of work situations in which you typically find yourself becoming defensive or negative. Because you are aware of them, try to recognize when you are reacting and avoid your typical negative reaction.  

·         Take a time-out or walk away by yourself when you have dealt with a stressful situation.

·         Spend some time alone thinking every day about the positive aspects of your work and life. You don't want to spend all of your time focused on negative thinking. If there is nothing positive to think about, examine the life and the brand you are choosing to create.

·         Learn to grow and create a learning environment. Focus on the big picture; don't get bogged down in the day-to-day.

As I have stated in other posts, “control is an illusion”. Recognize that the only thing you are truly in charge of is how you choose to react to and in any situation.  How are you going to breakthrough the clutter of negativity and let your personal brand shine with optimism?

Not So Happy with Happy with Average?

Leadership has often been governed by the aspect of control.  Good leaders elevate their personal brand through influence.  Control is an illusion that elusive for people seeking dominance over a situation.  Influence requires education, empathy and motivation. 

My leadership brand is focused on pushing people to achieve goals they did not think were possible – both as an individual and a group.  This drive emanates from my passion to break through the norms and desire to work with only the best.   The way I characterize the best people and you know this as well…to work with people that are interested and interesting.

The people that are happy with average invest their passions in other aspects of their lives.  I have been using the term “transactional” more than I should over the past two years, but ultimately it relates back to the concept of being happy with average and the acceptance of mediocrity.  Leaders and people of influence need to exude their personal brands to squelch mediocrity and drive people to achieve extraordinary things. I’ve learned over the years that when you have really good people, you don’t have to coddle them.  When you change the culture through your personal brand and leadership style – influence can surpass your own expectations. By expecting your friends, peers, direct report to do great things, you can get them to do great things – it is all in the attitude and perceptions of your brand.

Managers I have spoken with in multiple organizations over the past several years bear witness to the proliferation of mediocrity. Managers are so polite that mediocre people feel comfortable sticking around – something that I call a country club atmosphere.  This is not about being abusive in your management style, but to shape your personal and leadership brand based on influence.

Answer some of these questions:

• What does your personal brand stand for as a leader?
• Do you recognize that every interaction you have either builds or erodes your personal brand?
• Are you skeptical of your own ideas?
• Do you surround yourself with skeptical people to push your own thinking?
• Can you simultaneously look at the big picture and also sweat the details?
• What behaviors do you need to add to your personal brand arsenal to become an influential leader?

Push yourself with passion and focus and watch your personal brand flourish as a leader. In most of life’s endeavors, characteristics like passion, persistence and self-discipline are much more important than “just checking the box”.  Learn to loathe mediocrity by pushing yourself with a no limits mindset.

A Connected World means A Connected You

A Connected World means A Connected You

It’s no secret that social media is intuitive, global, interactive and most importantly real-time.  Based on this context it is changing behaviors with consumers, individuals and groups spanning personal, government, business, consumer and social networks.  With the power of the real-time communication affecting behaviors there is an overwhelming case for how your personal brand is being fueled.

People need to seize the social media social for five reasons.

• Virtual advocacy of your own brand, driving authentic messages 24/7
• One stop shop - Increases the speed of connection simultaneously with friends, peers, professionals, customers, and the broader public.
• Real-time mean increasing your speed to market on your brand presence.
• Low-cost and low barrier to entry - build your personal brand, communicating who you and what you stand for are both within your personal and professional networks.
• Transparency – Allows you to define who you and consistently shape you brand by providing a platform to learn from instant information, transparency and sometimes brutal feedback.

Branding, Engagement & Learning – Foundation to your Brand

Social media (as defined by social media website Wikipedia) are “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.”

Now that you understand the benefits of developing a social media presence, where should you start?

It helps to look at the two areas of social media activity when building your personal brand—personal and professional. Additionally building your brand through key messages; engagement on key topics that drive your brand and learning from feedback and key themes in how you present yourself.

To formulate your personal brand’s social media strategy, you need to answer the following sets of questions:

• Are your goals personal, professional, or both?
• Do you have similar views or different views between how you want to present yourself in the two areas?  
• Think about the three areas of social media: branding, engagement, and learning, what you are hoping to achieve in each?
• What are the characteristics of your brand will drive authenticity?

The answers to these questions can help you choose the right combination of content, platforms and channels decide how much time to devote to each to build you brand.  Social is about connections, meaningful and relevant connections so continuity is important to fueling your brand.  Once you start you must continue the virtual advocacy of your brand.  Breakthrough the clutter and make a name for yourself.

Develop People, to develop your Brand

Advocacy a key component in building your personal brand

Advocacy is critical in developing your personal brand.  You need develop others in order to develop yourself.  This contributes to your leadership brand through advocacy of peers, friends and professionals. So much of what we focus on in our lives deal with the typical command and control approach – control is an illusion it is about influence.  Influence can only be achieved through trust and advocacy in your actions.  Your personal brand is built or eroded based on your actions and interactions.

How many meetings have you attended where the outcomes have not been defined, but it appears to be more of a directive?  The meeting or conversation was really a one-sided directive versus a dialogue and creative discussion.

It is important to be flexible not only in your own plans but also when listening to peers and professionals.  There are too many people who begin meetings with decrees: “This is my view about where this project should head. And these are the steps we need to take.” That gives a meeting a direction and focus, but it may also dishearten participants from voicing concerns.

Gaining Buy-in through Advocacy

Thinking about your personal brand – how do you want to be perceived? Think about creating a catalyst for new ideas and insights to the question.  Make your brand known as an advocate and collaborator.

Consider taking the approach—to encourage debate, ideas, dialogue and innovation. Position the opportunity in a different way to your peers and professionals, “Here is the area where we really need to do something. It is a difficult area, and there are several ways to address the problems. Now, this is my current view of the path we should take, but I could be wrong. I want you to feel free to disagree and offer alternatives.” Then I have to be willing to discard or modify my hypothesis if someone comes up with a better approach.

Make the commitments through all of the discussions – activate. All of the participants need to agree on the deliverables and to set their own timetable to infuse buy-in.

• What are the actions?
• Who is ultimately responsible?
• What are the deliverables associated with the actions?
• Deadlines - when will they be delivered?

Then they will have an ownership interest in the follow-up, rather than just going along with abstract ideas. People often select a more aggressive timetable when people act as a group versus the naval gazing when you ask who is on point.

You can reinforce the principle of ownership in many ways for your personal brand, by driving this entrepreneurial approach to driving new opportunities. When you apply this principle, you must be patient as people need to make mistakes and learn from them.  Become an advocate for people and cultivate growth for others and your personal brand.

It’s all about the Pre-Game

Learn to start thinking more about how you shape your personal brand and effectiveness through small adjustments in your daily or weekly planning.

Mindset and attitude are critical elements for defining and acting upon the future vision of your personal brand.  The challenge more often than not is the consistency of your actions in realizing this vision in the near-term.  I have discussed how we embrace speed as a driver to perceived productivity, versus getting quiet and focusing on what is needed to accomplish your activities and goals.  Many of us dive right into the weekend shedding the activities of the prior week only to come to the paralysis of Sunday night paralysis staring at  a anxiety ridden schedule for the week – I once knew someone who characterized this as Sunday Night Syndrome.  Instead of being frozen with the myriad of tasks, simply and question; what do I need to do this week and how can I get my head around it?

Mental preparation is a broad topic within the arena of sports psychology – people use the term “pre-game” to adjust their mindset. The purpose of daily mental preparation is to create a mindset that lets you consistently perform up to your capabilities and talents in competition.  Preparation requires discipline and a small amount of time at the end of each day.

Near the end of each workday, schedule time for you to think…yes to think.  Reflect on the day and plan your actions for the next day. After a few days, you will be able to identify issues by examining patterns based on your own reflections.

• First focus on the activities you set forth to accomplish today or this week – what was accomplished?
• Then focus on progress and challenges and think about specific events and activities that cultivate, maintain or erode your personal brand or effectiveness. Write them down

o   Which 1 or 2 events today indicated either a small win or a possible breakthrough? (Describe briefly.)

o   Which 1 or 2 events today indicated either a small setback, erosion or a possible crisis? (Describe briefly.)

o   Finally, prioritize for action. The action plan for the next day is the most important part of your daily review: What is the one thing you can do to best facilitate progress tomorrow?

·         Outline activities you need to accomplish tomorrow – consider using the 48-hour rule working on tasks that are due in 48-hours.

Building consistency is critical not only for your personal effectiveness, but for shaping your personal brand.  Take time every day to stop and think – so much of what we do is in accordance to how feel, start thinking and you will see a big difference in how things you work on personally and professionally relate to each other.

How do you prepare yourself mentally and what rituals create a steady focus in your activities?

Future Vision – Breaking the Mind Game

Having a future vision requires a change in mindset, objectivity and passion - I personally want to surround myself with passionate people that are interesting and interested in achieving those things they did not think were possible – to effectively Breakthrough!

If nothing were out of reach, what would you want to accomplish within the next year? Challenge yourself and write down two specific things that have to happen in the next year for you to be satisfied with your progress in life. Put your thoughts into affirmative, narrative sentences that create passion.

Breaking through is about progression, forward movement, not getting caught up in your own head with thoughts of negativity and pessimism – we need to move from “complaint to commitment”.  Constantly innovate and prototype your future vision or what a friend and I say...rapid prototype, road test it.

Don’t forget to reset as you are bombarded – quiet the mind.

Make it a point to read your future-mindset statement every morning and night and speak it out loud as if you were confidently telling it to someone else. When you do this, eliminate fear, negative emotion, and doubt from your thoughts. 

With the daily deluge of emails, meetings, phone calls, homework, music, video and other mass media it is easy to get lost in the static.  Focus the mind and focus your purpose by changing your mindset.

Thoreau said “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler”.  The quote is more than dynamic and inspirational it is hinting at the amount of focus we place on what we should have versus what we truly need.

By teaching yourself to believe in your future vision—you don’t just accomplish one thing; you accomplish everything. When things don’t go your way, you’ll pick yourself up, because more powerful than any failure is this vision you have. Eventually, you won’t even have to plan each day’s activities because you will do the things you should be doing—you’ll be moving toward that vision.

We could sit back and let things just happen to us and live day-to-day however we please. But we were meant to grow—to elevate ourselves. When you determine what you want your future to be, you have decided to grow—to live—not just exist! The ball is in your court. The power to succeed or fail is yours.

Define your future vision, before your future defines you – Breakthrough!

Building a Personal SWOT Analysis

Building a Personal SWOT Analysis getting to the heart of your brand.

Before you can build a brand, albeit a personal brand you need to know what you stand for, represent and the perceptions associated with your name and actions. Before you can do any of this you need an objective view of your strengths and weaknesses.  Think of this as a personal SWOT analysis that could get uncomfortable if you are not ready for objectivity and the truth.  Objectivity is the key word here; ask peers, team members, friends, family and your boss a set of simple questions listed below.

·         Where do I shine, what are my core strengths?

·         What leadership skills do you think are strengths for me?

·         What behavior do I exhibit that could significantly impact my career negatively or lead me to fail if it’s not addressed?

·         What is the one skill or ability that if I mastered, would have the most significant impact on my personal effectiveness with our relationship and/ or organization?

·         What abilities of mine have the most significant impact on you and why?

It is often difficult to listen to the constructive elements if you are not prepared.  Remember this is to build a foundation for your brand both personally and professionally. When seeking clarity on responses make it clear that you’re seeking self-improvement. Tell your friends and peers honestly that you are open to constructive feedback, because there is no way you can address a behavior if you do not know about it.  

Try it out and turn those insights into action. In the context of the Start/ Stop/ Continue feedback framework draft a short list based on the answers to the questions.

Brand New Day, Brand New Way

The blog was designed to address insights into the topic of personal branding through inquiries, existing relationships at work and in my personal life.

Many of the discussions that I have on this topic deal with work in standing out and getting noticed through the blur of activity.  The person you are in the office and the authentic self you are in the rest of your life are one in the same. The images and impressions you make in all contexts of your life relate to your personal brand.  As we march through the stages of life we need to be cognizant of those elements that are authentic to ourselves.

Breakthrough and Attack Your Goals

Breakthrough is about your personal potential and living the life you not only want, but ultimately need.  Standing out of the shadows and building upon the person you are today and who you will become.  Your personal brand is similar to that of the products and services you consume, use and love.  Every interaction you have either builds, maintains or erodes your personal brand.  I say interaction as it could relate to the people you meet, your thoughts and actions.

We spend most of our time externally ruminating over the “how-to” address the daily challenges and opportunities we face life.  The speed in which you address these challenges and opportunities is often valued more than the quality of your actions.  Your actions are critical Very few people ask the question why, often hiding in the shadows or process and prescribed emotions. 

There is no magic bullet, algorithm or solution it requires time and a personal investment to truly understand yourself and who you want to become. It is about focus and goals - What does it mean to you personally of going all in? There is no limit to action - Attack your goals ruthlessly.

Attitude is the key to everything you do both personally and professionally.  We are often overwhelmed by the time, so speed takes over.  There is a natural comfort in being busy as we can delay and ignore the critical elements that will feed our personal brand, passion and goals.

This is the time to stand out, step out of the shadows by going within, quieting the mind asking the questions to ultimately shine.  Take stock in identifying who you are and what you need to assess your personal brand. Getting started should focus on who you are now and who you would like to be.  This requires introspection and basic questions – What’s working in my life and what’s not? What do I want or need? What’s best for me to focus on now?

The question I ask on a daily basis is “how can I breakthrough the static” and achieve my personal best – my brand? Find your passion in every role your have and demand more of yourself to maintain that passion.