In time, I became good at conveying messages effectively. Once that happened, I was able to experience the greatness of talented copywriters and designers. Most people who enter the field of business media have a passion for it, and they thrive in an environment that offers great direction and welcomes not only their talent but also their input.

One type of business media personality, however, has bemused and confused me for my entire career. Sometimes it’s an art director, sometimes an account executive – at any rate, someone possessing authority. They produce a product that is superficially sexy, glossy, purports to be edgy, and is resolutely mundane. No amount of information regarding the intended customer’s needs, wants, or perspectives influences this person’s design direction. Customer awareness is not their concern.

I have theorized many times over the years about what would cause an otherwise talented individual to so completely ignore the customer perspective. I ultimately concluded that the individuals in question were working in a customer segment that bored them. Maybe they were serving jewelry store owners, or video store owners, or moms with small kids, when what they really wanted to be selling was haute couture or Hollywood.

Today I realized that my conclusion was wrong. I spent the day doing fashion trend analysis, and I encountered more mindless, customer unaware, superficially sexy, glossy, and mundane advertising in four hours than I could stomach. If the people actually selling haute couture and Hollywood are behaving in the same way as the people who I thought were behaving that way because they wanted to be selling haute couture or Hollywood, there must be a deeper reason.

I had to take a break from the fashion, so I picked up a business book and stumbled immediately upon a different theory as to why so many marketing communications make sense only to their creators. The book is Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes, and the author is Mark Penn. Penn suggests that many marketing communications don’t make sense because they are based on the faulty premise that consumers are irrational, “misguided scatterbrains” who don’t know what they want or whether or not the promotion they are experiencing is good or bad.

According to this premise the egotistical marketer designs for his or her own pleasure, and any communication that is done solely for the self is just another form of self-abuse (to use a polite – if somewhat Catholic – euphemism). If nobody else is actually involved, then it stands to reason that nobody else actually feels anything.

Unfortunately, the public plays a role in this ongoing farce. It’s a modern-day Emperor’s New Clothes. If you will recall, the Emperor in the Hans Christian Anderson story goes to a pair of con artists for new clothing. The con artists tell the Emperor that the fabric from which they will make his new clothes is so fine and rare that only people of exceptional refinement and intelligence can see it. The Emperor sends his valet to evaluate the clothes before the final fitting. The valet, unable to see the clothes himself, will not admit that he is not refined or intelligent enough to see them. So he proclaims their beauty in his report to his boss. The Emperor is also unable to see the clothing and unable to disclose (pardon the pun) his lack of vision. So he walks naked through the streets, with everyone in the kingdom unwilling to acknowledge their Emperor’s nakedness for fear of exposing their own frailty. Only a child has the courage to shout out the obvious fact that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all.

I don’t watch much television, but a few weeks ago I was watching a movie with my teenage and young adult kids. After watching a few completely incomprehensible advertisements (quick disclaimer – I also saw a lot of great advertising that night), I finally asked my kids to explain what the ads meant. Their response was that they had no idea. My kids are hardly sheltered, and mom-ish pride aside, they seem to be pretty hip.

“Do you think anyone understands these ads?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” replied my son. “They’re just stupid.” Sentiments with which my daughter agreed.

A 30-second ad during American Idol costs $620,000. To run the same ad during Desperate Housewives costs $324,000. Survivor is a bargain at $296,000. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I have a hard time understanding the wholesale waste of those dollars on advertising that discounts the intelligence of the viewers and invites us all to participate in pretending that the Emperor is wearing clothes.

There’s really nothing to be done about it, because for every bright, intelligent, customer-focused advertising director there will be a self-centered, superficial Hollywood wanna-be with vapid ideas. The only value in this observation is for each one of us. When we are tempted to believe that we are smarter than our customers, when we find ourselves thinking that our customers are boring, or irritating, or simply pedestrian, there is a very good chance that we are about to waste a lot of money. Our own.

As Mark Penn points out in his book, the average Joe is actually pretty smart, making intelligent decisions about how to spend their money and regarding who deserves their loyalty. We discount our customers at our own peril.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said the VP in exasperation.

“How many technical writers on staff?” I asked

“Three more,” she said, as she rubbed her eyebrows and slowly shook her head. “And none of the others would have asked any more questions than this writer asked.” The VP (let’s call her Karen – all these pronouns are making me dizzy) leaned back in her chair and asked me “Is this the kind of thing you can fix?”

Karen is dealing with an issue that is frequently experienced by product managers and developers. The people who are responsible for conveying the message about the product – the images, the copy, the education – never quite get to the bottom of what it is the user of the product cares about. The advertising folks may be able to make great images and draft snappy copy, but their message doesn’t sell. And sell is the only thing their message is required to do.

From a consulting standpoint, yes, there are things we can do to “fix” this issue. We’ll work on processes, customer awareness, and technical knowledge. We’ll assess the strengths and weaknesses of their art director to identify needed improvements. If the company is dealing with an advertising agency instead of in-house creative, we’ll spend some time with the account exec and creative team and see if improving the direction will make a difference, or if it’s a new agency that is needed. In the end they will have a more consistent and effective advertising, marketing, and promotion effort and they will sell more products.

But there is one thing I can’t fix. No adult can fix it for any other adult. When it’s missing, it costs businesses a lot of money. When it’s missing, people are actively cheating themselves out of the fun they could be having at work. And it’s nearly impossible to train.

Where the heck did half the work force’s curiosity go?

Curiosity is what was missing from that first meeting. If curiosity had been present, the writer would have been asking questions faster than Karen could talk. She might have even been somewhat annoying with all her questions – which would have been just fine thank you. She would have asked if she could be trained on the new product – even if she couldn’t fully operate it, at least she could picture it. She would have dashed back to her desk to start doing internet research to determine whether anyone else offered a similar product. She would have inquired whether she could speak to customers about the product and how it might help them. She might have asked if she could go observe a customer at work. Lest you think I am making a point about marketing departments, please note. Lack of curiosity damages a business from every department.

A good scientist knows that it isn’t enough to find one or two supporting pieces of evidence. You must try to invalidate your own arguments. You must do the work of uncovering multiple supporting pieces of evidence and multiple contradictory pieces of evidence, and then try to reconcile the differences through further experimentation and testing. That’s curiosity. This discipline is rarely applied to business. All too often business people rely on what worked in the past, what they feel in their gut, or the one piece of evidence they gathered by calling on a sympathetic supporter or reading a sympathetic article. That’s not curiosity – that’s hubris.

A good basketball player knows that it isn’t enough to find one unerring way to make a 3 point shot. They have to consider and be challenged by every possible move that could get in their way – and this has to happen in practice, because if it happens in the game and you’re taken by surprise you’ll miss your shot. It’s curiosity at the bottom of this behavior, and it’s discipline that follows up on the curiosity.

Merriam Webster Unabridged (2007) defines curiosity as 1) desire to know  a: inquisitive interest in others’ concerns : b: interest leading to inquiry.

A common excuse for lack of curiosity in the workplace is that “we just don’t have time. Things are moving too fast. We have to make decisions and move on.” The need to make decisions fast mustn’t supplant the importance of investigation. And in the truly curious, it can’t.  If they are really that busy (most people aren’t, by the way), the truly curious will time-shift and do their investigation at night. They will find ways to automate administrative and managerial tasks and create space to indulge their curiosity. The truly curious don’t let anything get in the way of learning more about, well, whatever it is they need to learn more about.

If that sounds like a lot of work that nobody has any time for, you’re missing the point. If we spend all of our time making unthinking decisions, shuffling mounds of paper, attending eons of meetings, and wading through acres of politics, that’s not fun. What makes work fun is our curiosity. It’s curiosity that creates the opportunity for creativity. It’s curiosity that fuels brain cells starved on a diet of the bland repetitiveness of rote thinking. It’s curiosity that gets us interested, gets us motivated, gets us noticed, gets us promoted.

The paradox is that the truly curious rarely get burnt out on work (though they may get burnt out on a particular job or manager). The incurious complain of morale issues, suffer from lack of recognition, and most horrifying of all, allow themselves to become bored.

If we weren’t tackling the problem starting right now, the writer with the yellow notepad and perfect suit would likely find herself rewriting the promotional brochure five or six times, each time wondering why the product development people can’t make up their minds, or can’t do a better job of describing the product they made. Karen (the VP) would eventually give up, thinking that perhaps her expectations were too high, perhaps her dreams of customer empathic copy were unrealistic (they aren’t).

I’m not sure why some people are more curious than others, because I believe we all are born with the same capacity for curiosity. But I am sure of this. Ultimately, only curiosity saves the company. Everything else is just for show.

(c) 2008. Andrea M. Hill

But small businesses have a distinct advantage that large businesses do not have, and one of the things we must do is exploit this advantage to the maximum extent. What is it? Our ability to be flat, networked, and flexible.

Walk into any large corporate HR department and those three words – flat/networked/flexible – are on the lips of every MBA’d industrial psychologist. Why are these words so important? Because the nature of the business game has changed. Competitive strength used to come from a combination of first-mover advantage, access to capital markets, and the ability to outspend the competition. But the rules are changing (or have they changed already?). Today’s competitive companies are able to run faster than the competition and at least stay in step with, if not ahead of, the changes taking place in the world. They know how to use relevant technology to their advantage, they are able to take concepts from idea to implementation faster, they are more courageous about killing weak ideas and going on to the next one, and they harness human creativity, enthusiasm, intelligence and will to catapult them past their competitors.

Speaking of competitors – those rules have changed too. Leaders who know how to collaborate with sometime competitors while maintaining independence and brand identity take their organizations into new markets, new products, and new economic opportunities.

So just where does a small business get the advantage? After all, the large corporations can employ legions of McKinsey and Mercer specialists who will show them how to flatten their hierarchies, increase lateral communication, deploy technology to effectively enable teams, and engage their employees in ever-shifting flexible organizations (can you count the buzzwords I just used in that paragraph?). Small businesses don’t have large consulting budgets. Heck, most small businesses don’t have any consulting budget.

But in the area of being flat, networked and flexible, small businesses don’t need consultants. They don’t have the stultifying hierarchies and corporate structures that keep the large competitors from being flexible, flat and networked. There is nothing to undo to achieve the fleet-footedness and creativity that larger organizations crave. But small business owners aren’t capitalizing on this advantage, and that’s unfortunate. Too many small business owners start creating the organizational boxes and policies (the ones big businesses are trying to eliminate) the moment they start hiring staff. After all, creating departments and management layers is a sign of success, right? Well, if it ever was, it’s not any more.

A primary small business weakness is the failure to harness technology effectively. Today’s technology makes it possible for small businesses to look big, big businesses to communicate on an individual level, and for all businesses to create the image they want at relatively low costs. Gone are the days when only big companies could produce classy, persuasive advertising materials and marketing promotions. Technology also makes it possible for people in far flung locations to work together as if they were in one office.

There was a time when acquiring good business advice required access to a fantastic public or university library or the luck of having a competent local SBA. These days there is a wealth of business advice available for free or for nominal fees. Yes, you have to do some work to determine the quality of the advice, but it’s out there.

Small businesses are also failing to capitalize on the collaborative opportunities that exist in their own communities. If we can get out of our mental cubby-holes what we find is an abundance of opportunity to trade services, share services, barter for skills, get free advice, co-develop products, open markets, co-market, and even drum up cash. The big businesses are investing heavily in learning how to form and manage teams, how to stop squashing creativity, and how to get ideas from everywhere in their organization. It’s not impossible to do in a large company, but it’s a lot of work. There are a lot of people who are vested in maintaining the status quo, for their own comfort, job security, or lack of imagination. For a large business, creating these types of teams is an uphill battle.

Small business owners can form themselves into teams any time they want, without having to sell the idea to management, get buy-in, share the vision, create new mission statements, or launch a new initiative (yay, more buzzwords). According to the NFIB, there is a list of over 40 issues that are troubling to small business owners (the number of issues related to taxation and federal government regulation is disheartening, but that’s a conversation for another day). A number of the issues on that list could benefit directly from small business owners teaming up in creative ways, including:

1. Cost of Health Insurance

2. Locating Qualified Employees (skilled AND unskilled)

3. Cost and Availability of Liability Insurance

4. Rent/Property Taxes – Physical Facility Costs

5. Utility costs

6. Telephone Costs and Service

7. Keeping Skilled Employees

8. Cost of Outside Business Help

9. Fixed Costs Too High

10. Controlling My Own Time

11. Projecting Future Sales Changes

12. Finding Out About Regulatory Requirements

13. Ability to Cost-Effectively Advertise

14. Locating Business Help When Needed

15. Pricing My Goods/Services

16. Training Employees

17. Environmental Regulations

18. Keeping Up on Business and Market Developments

19. Purchasing and Using Computers and Technology Effectively

20. Sales Too Dependent on Health of One Business or Industry

21. Employee Turnover

Whether the teaming up is as simple as sharing information, or as creative as sharing space, services, or hosted technology, small business owners could be using one another’s support far more effectively than is currently being done.

All joking about buzzwords aside, imagine for a moment you live in India, China, or any one of the dozens of countries emerging into this century with access to technology and therefore the business opportunities of the developed world. Imagine you have an opportunity to do significantly better than your parents and grandparents, even lift yourself out of poverty. How hungry would you be? How creative would you be in seeking business partners? How unselfconscious would you be about asking for help, advice, for something free? How great would it be to have no prior impression about how business should be, only the sense of tremendous opportunity? Big business feels this pressure already, and they’re trying to figure out how to get flat, flexible, and networked enough to stay ahead. They know they are competing with a burgeoning world filled with people for whom taking risk is positive, because it represents food, shelter, and the prospect of some and security. Not just figurative hunger, but real hunger.

For too many of us, risk represents the specter of losing what we already have. That means we aren’t as hungry as those who haven’t had it yet. So the world keeps surging, big business is trying to figure out how to get in the new groove, and here you sit in the catbird seat, small business owner. Flat, flexible, and as networked as you wanna be. How hungry are you?

(c) 2007, Andrea M. Hill

As the business grew significantly over the years (it got to well over 500 people), the challenges of having full consensus became more and more difficult. Many times I wondered if we were doing the right thing, and many times my leadership group expressed discouragement and frustration with the results. But consensus style was the requirement, so we created new and useful methods of enhancing communication and encouraging buy-in and performance.

Looking back on it I believe we did more with a full consensus management approach than any other company I have been able to find information on. And I think the tools we developed will have tremendous application in the years to come. But what I said that surprised my dinner date so much was that I would not do it again.

“But, I thought you were a full supporter of it! I thought it was primarily your idea!” she said. Full supporter, yes. Primarily my idea? Well, the management style was clearly not my idea. A lot (but not all) of the tools were my idea or tools that I incorporated based on others’ ideas. But sometimes we support something because that’s what we’ve been hired to do. I don’t think that’s necessarily a form of selling our souls either. I had no reason to believe that full consensus management was a bad thing, nor did I have enough experience (nobody did, back then) to suggest it couldn’t scale to what we were trying to accomplish. I do believe that with the help of a powerful management team we created tools that will be wildly effective in other environments. But I also think full consensus management can not be successful beyond a few dozen people.

I do believe in collaborative management. In fact, there are three management/cultural styles: control, competitive, and collaborative. Within collaborative style there are two approaches – consensus and consultative. Consensus is where everyone has a voice and the requirement is for the group to work hard to come to full agreement before proceeding. I think this is very important for marriages and partnerships. It’s important for boards of directors. It’s possible among people who are essentially equals in intellect, experience and commitment.

Consultative style is where the people in authority say “I’ll gather your opinions, I’ll take them seriously and learn from them, but then I’ll make the decision because it’s my responsibility to do.” Perhaps the decision will be made by that one authority, and perhaps it will be made with a group of similarly responsible authorities. It’s still collaborative, but with parameters.

Why do I think consultative works where consensus does not? Part of the answer is in the sentence “it’s (consensus) possible among people who are essentially equals in intellect, experience and commitment.” Part of the answer lies in the fact that people want, deserve, and expect to experience good leadership. And part of the answer is that when you try to export democracy into entities that have fundamental constructs that will prevent them from benefiting from it, all you get is anarchy.

People respect responsibility and authority when they are appropriately demonstrated. When a business leader spends all his or her time saying, “well, what do you think?” “Maybe we should let an ad hoc address this,” or “I think the answer will present it self if we have the right discussion with the right parties present,” those are not the messages the people hear. What they hear is, “I don’t know,” and “I’m hoping an ad hoc will bail my ass out,” and “I’m hoping that if we get more people together you won’t find out that I don’t know.” Even if that leader means to be collaborative and show respect for the opinions of others, the result is that they’re being indecisive and wasting time.

I was once told that if you get a group of people together and ask them a bunch of questions they’ll come up with the answer. I was further told that the question-asker didn’t even have to be an expert in that area. Where the heck did they come up with that idea? It’s a complete bastardization of the Socratic concept, preached by someone who never understood it in the first place.

Either the question asker or the question answerers have to know what they are talking about. Otherwise, it’s that old cliché of the blind leading the blind. And that idea that Socrates only asked questions and didn’t outright teach? Well that’s just so much bull**t. Read the dialogues of Plato or of Xenophon and you’ll see that Socrates talked a lot more than he asked! And that’s no criticism of Socrates – it was right that he should talk when he had so much to teach.

When people are being led down a blind alley, they don’t appreciate it. And they shouldn’t. They might get beaten up or mugged. Consensus management in its pure, theoretical form would hold out not just for agreement but for complete understanding. Complete understanding on a broad range of topics (such as one confronts in a business) requires an elevated level of knowledge and thinking skills, not to mention maturity. In the absence of that sort of parity, consensus management descends into the abyss of equalness and fairness, along with a strange tendency for everyone involved to think they know more than they actually do.

I will definitely do collaborative management again. I like collaboration. I like creating an environment in which everyone is encouraged to contribute their ideas and their knowledge and to step out on a limb from time to time with something truly outrageous or from left field. I have always loved the thrill of realizing that person working on the dock is actually on the school board of their town, that the guy in receiving skis Switzerland every winter, and that the woman in the Call Center once owned her own business and sold it for nearly a million dollars. People are interesting and intelligent and a lot more complex than most businesses want to recognize.

Yep. I want to get to know all those interesting people. I want to incorporate their ideas and their knowledge, and I want to include them to the full extent they wish to be included and at the appropriate level of responsibility for their skills and experience. And I’ll do it in a consultative style. Because at the end of the day, people have a right and a desire to know who is responsible for what, and to expect their leaders to be well-informed about the topic at hand. They have a right to expect their leaders to be voracious in acquiring new knowledge. And they have a right to expect their leaders to be teachers, passing that knowledge on every chance they get.

People don’t mind being led, and when they understand the ground rules, they are great about contributing their ideas. What they dislike is being waffled. Don’t you?

(c) 2007. Andrea M. Hill

Stressors are different from person to person, and each stressor affects people differently. So there are lots of reasons people are feeling harassed at work, including too much work as a result of too much downsizing, untalented or egotistical managers, and negative co-workers. When I’m talking with someone and they bring up job stress I always ask what’s stressing them out. And though the list of grievances is fairly diverse, there is one aspect of work that causes more stress than any other, and that’s role ambiguity. If companies want to reduce stress the most important thing they could do is to ensure there is clarity regarding who is supposed to do what, how, and when.

Too many companies put a job description together (half the time they just pulled them from a manual somewhere), slap it into a binder, and never look at it again. Because nobody looks at the job description, nobody knows what training is necessary to be successful at the job. This is true for all jobs. So there’s a manager or supervisor who isn’t quite sure what their role is, and they hire employees who aren’t sure what their roles are. Neither of them receive the training they need, and neither of them really know whether or not they are being successful.

When does the employee or manager get feedback? When they fail to meet expectations (just what WERE those expectations anyway?) or get on someone’s nerves. Result? Stressed out people.

Every role should have a job description that serves as the primary information document for the employee about what he or she is expected to do. That means someone has to pay attention to the document, making sure it is always up to date and relevant. This is NOT HRs job! This is each manager’s job, and it should be done in collaboration with the employees who are IN the job, to make sure it accurately reflects what they do and what they need to be doing.

There should be specific training for each job description. The training can be classroom training, reading a specific book or article, or chapter in a book, it can be OJT. But what they are supposed to learn and how and from whom should be clear.

Each new employee should be given clear expectations from their very first day. At the last company I was with we conducted new employee reviews at the 30, 60, and 90-day thresholds. Each new employee was given the review document that would be used for his or her reviews on the first day of their new job. This allowed them to see what would be expected, and it took a tremendous amount of stress off the table.

Every employee should spend time on their first day with their supervisor or manager, talking about role expectations and how they are to get the help they need to be successful. If a system like the 30/60/90-day review process is to be used, the scoring approach should be clearly discussed and understood on that first day. It might seem to someone who has not used a process like this that it would be intimidating. In fact, when it’s done well, it’s incredibly liberating. No guesswork is necessary to find out how they will be successful.

I think the best way to make sure job descriptions are being reviewed and kept up-to-date is once a year at the employees’ annual review. They should be a scheduled part of the discussion, and both employees and supervisors/managers should have meaningful input regarding whether or not the document is accurate or needs to be updated. Of course, it should be possible to update a job description at any time, but at least if it’s on a schedule you can be confident that attention will be paid once a year.

If more companies would pay attention to role clarity and preparation for role success, a lot of workplace stress would disappear. And the results of less-stressed-out employees with clear understanding of what they are supposed to be doing would drop straight to the bottom line.

(c) 2007, Andrea M. Hill

But sometimes the problem of motivation is simple, and all the organizational psychologists in the world can’t resolve it.

I was speaking with a colleague the other day, and she has been struggling for some time with an unsatisfactory assistant. She was getting some grief from a co-worker for not doing enough training, and for being intimidating. Truthfully, this person probably isn’t the best trainer in the world, and she’s a bit of a dynamo, so I suspect she’s intimidating as well. But I had been at the receiving end of that assistant’s poor performance quite a few times, and I had to take exception to what her co-worker was saying.

“You really think this is a training issue?” I asked.

“Well it must be,” he said, “or otherwise she would be doing her tasks more effectively. She’s not stupid, that’s for sure.”

I asked the colleague (let’s call her Mary, because this is getting confusing), I asked Mary what the tasks were that the assistant was failing in. All of the things she was botching up had to do with detail management. I probed a little deeper to be sure this was correct.

“Does your assistant know all of the steps to do her tasks?” I asked.

“Yes, she does.” Mary replied.

“How do you know she knows all of the steps?” I asked again (the co-worker was squirming at this point, no doubt from boredom – this kind of detail is for lower levels than we).

“Because sometimes she does all of the steps, and when she forgets steps, she doesn’t always forget the same ones. That’s how I know,” an exasperated Mary replied.

And that makes Mary right – the problem isn’t training. It’s discipline. And discipline is a motivation problem that can’t be trained.

Am I saying that someone with a discipline problem can’t change? Absolutely not! I could name numerous wonderful examples of former employees who have made remarkable turnarounds related to personal discipline. But did I train them? No! Because it can’t be trained. Discipline can only be chosen.

In each of those examples I was very direct with the individual. I said something like, “the problem is not lack of ability, or lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of discipline. And discipline is something you have to choose for yourself, and you have to practice it constantly. Without it, not only will you fail in this job, but you will fail in any job. Furthermore, discipline doesn’t take time to grow on you. It starts from the moment you choose it. So I need to see a difference in discipline. On Monday.”

Does that sound harsh? I guess that depends on who you are. I’ve said that to some folks who never got around to succeeding. And I said it to those aforementioned wonderful examples, each of whom took it as a personal challenge to master.

I could write numerous blogs on how damaging it is to fail to train or to provide substandard training. But there is a problem on the other end of the spectrum, and that’s the problem of blaming poor discipline on training. If someone is performing poorly, there are a few quick questions to ask that will get you to the heart of the problem – which is where one finds solutions.

1. Are there others performing the job in a satisfactory manner? If yes, how did they get trained, and was the training different for the poor performer?
2. Does the poor performer consistently do the same things incorrectly (indicative of a training issue), or does he commit acts of random poor performance (indicative of a discipline issue)?
3. Has this person been told specifically what they are doing wrong (if not, shame on you, do not pass GO, do not collect $200)? And if they have, are they still making the same mistake(s)?
4. Has this person ever improved in this area, and then lost their performance improvements?

If the poor performer was trained in a similar manner to others, makes random mistakes, has been told specifically what they were doing wrong, and has improved and then slipped again, you don’t have a training issue. You have a motivation issue. And it’s discipline.

Since discipline can’t be trained, try saying something similar to what I said. Give them until Monday. And if they don’t improve, get them out of your organization at the soonest possible moment. People that lack discipline are fairly democratic about it, and there isn’t another area of your organization that needs that problem more than you do.

Be sure to watch for situations where someone’s skills aren’t a good match for the job, but that will likely present itself as an employee who is consistently struggling with a few specific things (not random acts of ineptitude). And watch for employees who were once great and are now making mistakes. This could be a sign of being overwhelmed, of boredom, of depression, or an indicator that they are considering leaving.

Get really good at figuring out when you have an employee with discipline issues, because they will pull you and the rest of your team down. Train them well, be specific with feedback, and if random errors continue to occur, tell them clearly, kindly, in-no-uncertain-terms one time that they need to fix it.

The other issues of motivation are far more complex, and many of them form the basis for all that is exciting about leadership. Once you get the discipline problems out of your way, motivation is a very fun and challenging area to spend some energy on.

P.S. – If you are committed to discipline, but you’re so overwhelmed that you’re still not keeping it together, I highly recommend a book called “The Other 90%” by Robert Cooper. Everyone I’ve recommended it to has reported getting great value out of it.

(c) 2007, Andrea M. Hill

Over the years, colleagues and I have discussed at great length what is necessary, in terms of critical mass, to effect genuine cultural buy-in. Sometimes the person who initiates the conversation is somebody who wants to make a difference in their company, but suspects their individual commitment is insufficient. Sometimes a new executive wants to create greater cohesion, and is daunted by the task of bringing his or her staff around. I have known the particular joy of working with an entire management team who was committed to one another and to cultural buy-in. But even with an entire management team on board, cultural buy-in is tough to gain.

This article isn’t about the countless issues that get in the way of cultural buy-in, though the list is long: mavericks who eschew committing to the group, senior management who will talk the talk but can’t walk it, dysfunctional players who get satisfaction from disrupting emerging cohesion, and an assemblage of individuals who for a variety of reasons related to intellect, interest, or initiative simply don’t get it. That list will always exist, and focus on eradication of the barriers to cultural buy-in will not lead to success.

No, the only successful approach is to focus on core change, similar to the molecular change that occurs in baking. When you make the filling for a lemon meringue pie, you start with sugar, flour, lemon juice, water, and egg yolks. When you mix these ingredients together they start out pasty, but then they become watery. The first time you make lemon meringue you wonder how you’ll ever achieve that tart filling the consistency of thick jam. As you stand over the stove, stirring assiduously, the heat becomes annoying and you become convinced that you have forgotten an important ingredient – the “gelling” one, whatever that is. Then it happens. Molecular transformation. The hot thin liquid changes – and rapidly – into the translucent gel you have been despairing of achieving.

If you don’t stir it with enough enthusiasm, it burns before it transforms. If you don’t take it off the heat at precisely the right moment, it won’t have that velvety mouth feel. And if you let it cool in the pan instead of putting it into the crust and topping it immediately with meringue, the meringue (yet another molecular transformation waiting to happen) will become watery and weak. All these possible catastrophes without a single substitution of ingredient.

Cultural buy-in is sort of like that. Ingredients are important – if you don’t have the right ingredients you can’t achieve the desired chemical interaction (in baking, that is). Quantities are important too. There is magic in finding the right mix of personalities and talents.  Quantity is important for another reason as well. If you have a business with 20 people, nearly all 20 need to be bought in, because one or two people represent such a significant percentage of the whole – very different mathematics from the business with 500 people, or 1,000, or 45,000.

But what really matters is how the ingredients come together. Whether you are a member of a team, the head of a team, a manager of a department, or the leader of a division, what you try to do is create molecular transformation with a core group. The more willing participants you have, the merrier. But even if you just start with a few people, if you can achieve cohesion, visible purpose and enthusiasm among them, others will be drawn to that energy.

What each organization needs is a nucleus of committed folks. Committed to the company vision, company culture, and one another. That nucleus will attract others to it over time. Not everyone will buy in, but if the center holds, not everyone has to. Is the right percentage 10%? 15%? 35%? It depends on the company and on the dynamism of the group of people who embrace the culture.

Too many people become so overwhelmed at the notion of creating cultural cohesion throughout an entire organization that they never get past thinking about it. Think much smaller. Think much closer to yourself. Molecular transformation begins at home.

(c) 2007, Andrea M. Hill

There are some common objections to doing this, and I’ve been assured they have merit. The most common among them is the customers don’t know what they want until we show it to them. Another is customers aren’t nearly as aware of what the technology can do as we are, so we need to show them what’s possible. Assuming you can ignore the sheer condescension of these positions for a moment, just what is it about not listening to customers that we think might be viable?

While I acknowledge that there have been a handful of inventions in history that have transformed consumer behavior, these events are few, fortuitous, and far in-between. The majority of successful innovations have been due to heightened awareness of consumer preferences and desires, and an ability to skillfully meet real emerging needs faster and more effectively than anyone else.

The best thing about meeting customer expectations is that you don’t necessarily have to have more capital, more employees, or better (heck, any) consultants to excel at it! What you do have to be is more aware, and this requires discipline and patience. Here are a few things you can do to stay on top of customer needs and therefore, on top of your competition. The only requirement is that you learn to keep a notebook and pen in easy reach at all times.

1. Keep a list of every time a customer asks for a product or service you don’t offer, or says ‘it would be so nice if you could provide such-and-such’, or mentions something they like about a competitive offering.

2. Every time you are exposed to an innovative service or particularly interesting offer, jot it down. Take a moment to evaluate whether or not there is a comparable opportunity for your own business. If you come up with something, write that down too.

3. Shop a competitor or spend time observing customer behavior. If you’re a retailer, you can probably do this at the mall. But if you’re in another line of business it may be more difficult. Consider subscribing to internet forums that discuss your industry – you may be surprised to discover how candid forum participants are about their business partners. Look for unmet needs and opportunities.

4. Review your notebook constantly, mining it for insights. Something that was completely uninspiring yesterday may be brimming with possibilities today. Develop lists of potential needs – and don’t restrict yourself to what seems rational, simple, or affordable. Consider the usual to the unusual, the obvious to the obscure. Of course you will come up with some ideas that you can’t afford or which are entirely impractical. But you’ll have the ideas! And occasionally, a great idea is so great that you can figure out a way to fund it and have it pay for itself.

5. Once a week (yes, this often – what is more important as a business person than figuring out what you should be doing?) sit down and develop a list of things you could do to meet potential customer needs. Sometimes this process will be very fun and you won’t want to stop, and other times you will have a hard time coming up with ideas. Your goal is not to come up with a brilliant new business innovation once a week. Your goal is to become so skilled at observing your customers and imagining what they might want from you that you come up with a great idea once or twice a year.

Once-great businesses die every day, and at the heart of each business failure is the failure to figure out what they should have been doing. Sales decline? Then they weren’t selling what they should have been selling, or at the price they should have been selling for. Margin decline? Then they weren’t maintaining the differentiation and competitive advantage they should have been to justify maintaining higher prices. Loss of market share? Then they weren’t doing the work they should have been doing to understand what customers wanted, when they wanted it, at the price they were willing to pay for it.

I suspect the primary reason businesses don’t figure out what they should be doing is that they get caught up in the minutia of daily management. We might refer to this as the crime of complacency. The other reason businesses don’t figure out what they should be doing is that they think they already know and do not have to find out from the customer perspective. Let’s refer to this as the crime of hubris. Neither alternative is as satisfying as hitting a business home run. So put that little notebook and pen in your pocket, and prepare to start paying attention.

(c), 2007, Andrea M. Hill

I have been kvetching incessantly about the missing books and I had a particularly frustrating moment today when I wanted my leadership books to reference pursuant to writing a magazine article on leadership that is due tomorrow.

My better (more practical, less flappable) half suggested that perhaps I was on a toot about nothing. I was told to go upstairs and write what I know, and that rifling through books is my favorite mode of procrastination (which is correct).

So I sat in front of the computer and thought about the good leaders I’ve known, and the ones who couldn’t lead anyone out of a paper bag. I thought of times I have been pleased with my own leadership and times when I knew I’d blown it. And I realized that though being a good leader is hard work, the components are simply common-sense.

A good leader is a student. Of what? Of whatever matters. They are students of their followers, they actively seek teachers, they demonstrate urgency about building expertise. They recognize the importance of being tested, and of submitting to the process of learning. They are not dilettantes – their pursuit of knowledge is serious, persistent, and motivated.

A good leader has mastery. They know their subject matter inside and out, and they never let that knowledge become stale or dated. When they are ready to let their competency slide, they switch fields or retire.

A good leader works harder than everyone else. They respect that the role is a responsibility, not a right, and they work hard to earn it every day.

Leadership requires an individual to be confronted with diverse and numerous challenges simultaneously. Therefore, a good leader must live by a clear value system in order to be consistent.

A good leader is consistent.

A good leader never tries to pretend they are not the leader. The only two reasons I can think of that people do this are gutlessness or a misguided notion that it’s egotistical to acknowledge their leadership, and neither reason is particularly flattering.

A good leader is direct, and is more concerned with being effective than with being popular. The best leaders I have ever had have been unflinching in their criticism of me and extremely demanding of my performance. I have been lucky to have those people in my life. A good leader respects their followers by challenging them tirelessly.

Jim Collins defines a Level 5 Leader as someone who is humble. I agree with his description of humility, and I’ve also seen strangely distorted interpretations of it. This humility has to do with knowing there is always something new to learn, and that it can be learned from anyone. This humility has to do with recognizing that anyone can make a mistake, and that the leader is in the best position of all to make more and bigger mistakes, because they make more and bigger decisions. This humility has to do with being able to acknowledge and learn from mistakes, which requires being vulnerable. But good grief – this humility is not about being free of ego! It takes a lot of ego to take a position of significant responsibility. Having a huge amount of self confidence is necessary to being a good leader, and self confidence and humility are not mutually exclusive. If your ego is healthy enough, you can channel it away from self-interest and into the needs of the organization. A weak ego will spend all its time protecting its flanks out of fear and self-doubt. So a good leader has a strong and healthy ego and focuses their energy on doing what is good for the organization – not their own self-interest.

A good leader understands that it is their responsibility to make decisions, and they make them – despite the risk, despite the fact that nobody else really wants to make the decisions but will happily criticize them in hind-sight.

A good leader has the ability to put people at ease, establish confidence, and inspire motivation. Is this charisma? Sometimes, but not always. Very low-key people can achieve this, and very high profile people can miss the mark. This type of inspiration is not personality dependent, but it is people-centric. Good leaders really dig people in general, and their people in specific.

Good leaders are good teachers. They are not only voracious about learning, they are also ardent about sharing what they know and developing others. Why? Well what the hell – why not?

Finally, a good leader is human. They know it, they don’t pretend to be otherwise, and they also know that a certain percentage of their peers and followers won’t permit it. So they strive to live up to unrealistic expectations every day, and are healthy enough to be kind to themselves regardless.

A leader can be good – can be great – without demonstrating all of these qualities every day. But they are distinguished by the fact that when they fail, they relentlessly pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and resolve to do better.

There are a lot of people out there in positions of leadership who neither demonstrate these characteristics nor the resolve to master them. It would be better if we would recognize them for what they are. They are authorities. An authority can be handed their title and the deference that goes with it. A leader only gets the title – and the commensurate respect – by working for it.

Every. Single. Day.

(c) 2007, Andrea M. Hill

First, the steps of designing an ad, IN ORDER, are:

1.  Express the idea for the ad in one sentence (if you’re working on a catalog or larger advertising work, the advice is different and not our focus today). Why one sentence? One thought is all you can effectively convey in one ad. Examples include:
 
   “This ad will generate traffic by promoting our visit-with-the-expert Thursdays.” 

   “This ad will generate sales for a specific product.” 

   “This ad will engender good will for my business by sharing the results of our community action project.”

   “This ad will generate new service contracts by making people laugh, which shows them how fun we are to work with.”

Each example states what you want to accomplish (sales, traffic, good will) and how you expect to accomplish it. You have only a few seconds of your prospect’s attention, so make those seconds work.

 2.  Always write copy before designing or selecting visuals. Resist the inclination to do the reverse. Graphics and photos are gratifying. They make us feel as if our ad is coming together, they’re creative, and they’re fun. But graphics are intended to do three things: a) capture the prospect’s attention, b) amplify the message, and c) reduce the number of words required by translating them to a visual medium. Most non-professional ad designers only accomplish the first task.

3. Write, rewrite, and rewrite, the words. Any capable writing teacher will tell you the nature of good writing is re-writing. If the words don’t flow from your pen or your keyboard, it’s not because you can’t write. It’s normal. We’ll come back to this step in a moment.

4. Once the words are written and edited, design the graphics. If you’ve done the hard work, you’re probably in love with your copy. Beware! The role of graphics is to further reduce the need for written or spoken words. If a graphic can convey the ad’s mood or personality better than adjectives, drop the adjectives. If a graphic can clearly and powerfully convey action, you might drop a verb or a directive sentence. If you’re too in love with your words, the graphics won’t be allowed to make their full contribution.
So let’s discuss writing and re-writing. If you’ve expressed your idea in one sentence (Step 1), you’re on your way. I recommend you begin by writing the ad without concern for the number of words, if they are the best words, or if your sentence construction and grammar are correct. Say everything you want to say in the expression of your one idea. Self-editing while writing is a common reason for not being able to write at all, so let yourself go. The editing will come next.

 When you have one long, somewhat sloppy, not-quite-publishable thought, stop and get a cup of coffee. Celebrate! This is a big accomplishment.

If you are writing in long-hand, re-write (print not cursive) with enough room between the lines for editing notes and marks. If you are working on the computer, print a double-spaced copy. Editing requires uncluttered thinking. Approach editing with a clean desk and a red pen in hand to prepare your brain for the work you must do. You’ll also need a thesaurus and a dictionary. Now you will take four ‘passes’ through your copy.

Pass one: count your adjectives. I highlight them. Most writers clutter their writing with adjectives, turning a swift run around a smooth track into a jog through soft sand. Eliminate repetitive adjectives. Three adjectives in series are never as powerful as one perfect adjective. Use your thesaurus to develop a list of options and your dictionary to probe precise definitions. Avoid million dollar words. Keep it simple while conveying refined meaning.

Pass two: examine your verbs. Public advertising enemy number one is passive voice. Saying “our business was recognized by the governor for our contributions to state literacy” is passive. Saying “Governor Thomas praised our business for our contribution to state literacy” is active. Purdue’s online writing lab is a good resource for understanding passive and active voice.

Pass three: organization. Make sure your ideas are in the optimal order. Switch the sentences around to smooth flow or escalate energy. An advertisement is an argument for someone’s money. Build your ad as you would build a case, so by the time your prospect arrives at the call for action they’ve been primed to respond.

Pass four: grammar. Do you dread this part? Most people do, because they don’t feel competent. Tackling grammar after the first three passes is surprisingly easy. Read your copy out loud. Your ear will hear grammar and structure problems that your eye did not see. Still uncomfortable? Many online resources can help you. Try the Well Bred Sentence for starters.

If you have followed these steps you are either done with your ad or remarkably close to finishing. Is it perfect? Probably not. But it’s considerably better than it would have been, and you can trump writer’s block when you follow a process.

Advertising is communication. When you want to stop a child from running into a busy street, you instinctively choose abrupt, succinct, loud communication. If you want to convince your spouse to make an expensive but unnecessary purchase, you naturally choose conversational, persuasive communication. You already know how to choose communications styles. Combine the correct communication style with thoughtfully constructed copy that clearly conveys one idea, and your ads will be better than ever.

(c) 2007, Andrea M. Hill