2011 August

Bound By The Chain Of Command

Yesterday, we launched the second EntreLeadership Podcast, and it’s taken off like crazy. Thank you to all who are subscribing and making it the No. 1 business podcast and No. 2 podcast overall. If you haven’t listened to it, click on the image to the right.

As part of the podcast, we’ve invited you to ask questions. Here’s a fantastic one from Tim:

Mr. LoCurto,

I heard your EntreLeadership podcast the other day. Very nice. I enjoy something new to listen to from Mr. Ramsey. Now, where I work I am not a leader, manager or supervisor. I’m just a frontline IT support person. In the first podcast, you spoke about an employee emailing Mr. Ramsey directly about a ted.com presentation.  Did that violate the chain of command at your company?

Where I work, if I emailed the service center VP (someone about four levels above me), I would be written up so fast my head would spin (due to violating the chain of command), and I even know the VP a little bit.  If I wanted to send something to the service center VP, I would have to send it to my supervisor, who would send it to his supervisor, and on up the chain.

Also, when you do the leadership feedback meetings, how do the employees know what they say won’t be later used against them?  I could see an employee thinking they would be marked as a troublemaker or as someone who is not a team player if they bring up something that is too critical.

I’m just looking for your input/feedback based on my experience over my career in the IT industry.

Peace be with you,

Tim

Thanks, Tim, for a great question. First things first, we don’t go by our last names. Just call us Chris and Dave. As for the chain of command, I think it is absolutely vital and Biblical. Jethro saw that Moses couldn’t handle managing all of the people, so he counseled him on setting up leaders over them.

Wisdom says that you can’t have every team member bogging down one leader. We recently discussed in one of our Leadership Council meetings that, for the sake of time, we would not bring up issues that could be addressed by a team member’s immediate leader.

The difference between our culture and yours is that our leaders are accessible, and our team knows it. Our leadership team has to be accessible to our team members. It’s part of our culture. Without it, we would have a lot of suppressed, unappreciated, do-the-least amount-to-get-the-job-done employees. We don’t want that! Therefore, our team members understand the need to respect the chain of command, but they know it’s not law.

As for the leadership feedback, we don’t keep a score of team members as troublemakers for telling leadership of issues. Instead, we fix the issues, or we show why it’s not one.

I’ve seen the environment that you’re in, and I know it makes you scared and cautious like a whipped puppy instead of on fire and ready to run like a thoroughbred. We prefer thoroughbreds around here.

Question: How accessible are you and your leadership team?

How Not To Bomb At Speaking

People consistently rank public speaking as their number-one fear. Why? Because we have a tendency to wonder, and sometimes worry about what our audience thinks of us.

Do they think I’m a dork? Do they hate what I’m saying? Are my gestures too small or too big? Do I sound like an expert or a moron? Do my jeans make me look fat? Okay, maybe not the last one. Our fear of being judged is what makes public speaking so tough. The funny thing is, most of the time people aren’t thinking about the speaker anyway. They’re thinking of the content.

But every now and then, you come across someone who forces you to think of them as a speaker. Recently I had the opportunity to listen to someone present on a subject I consider myself to be advanced in. His presentation wasn’t as strong as it could have been. In fact, I spent a lot of time thinking about giving this person a hug.

Now, if you’re not a speaker, you might have spent your time focused on how bad the speaker was. As a speaker, I spent most of my time wanting to help him. With a few tweaks, it could have been a much better presentation. Here are some of my tips for making a presentation the best it can be—whether it’s in front of a crowd of thousands or simply in your next team meeting:

• Talk to me, Goose – (Yes, that’s a favorite line.) One of the biggest mistake speakers make is being over the top. If you’re not Zig Ziglar, don’t try to be. Be you. Some people try to go so big that they end up sounding like bad salespeople. Instead of selling me, talk to me. Have a high-energy conversation that fits the size of your crowd.

• Clip Art rocks! – Make sure your presentation is up-to-date. It doesn’t cost that much to purchase great presentation software nowadays, and there is a whole world of templates being created every day. If yours looks outdated, it will take my focus away from what you’re saying, especially if I know what a good presentation looks like.

• Heeey, what’s in this? – To me, content is the most important thing. If people are going to spend their time in front of me, then I better deliver something that can change their lives. I say it this way: Everything you say on stage, even if it’s a joke, must have a purpose. Otherwise you are wasting my time. Evaluate your entire presentation, and if there’s fluff, cut it!

• Is this a sleepover? – You have to be cognizant of your time! Unfortunately, I am a repeat offender of this. If you have 45 minutes to speak, tailor to presentation to your time. Otherwise you start losing your crowd at 46 minutes. Plus, if you take too long, you have to cram the rest of your info towards the end.

• Practice really does make perfect – You MUST know your material. Your audience will forgive a couple of bobbles, but if you can’t remember what slides are next, it tells me that I wasn’t important enough for you to practice your presentation.

• You can’t make me do that – Crowd interaction is fantastic . But if it’s forced upon the crowd, it’s annoying. It’s okay to ask for something from me as an audience member, but don’t make me respond. If I’m comfortable enough with you and my surroundings, I’ll react.

• Um…uh…ok – How you say your presentation also depends on how distracted I can be. In How To Speak Gooder I share an exercise I came up with years ago to train myself to speak fluidly by teaching my brain to think ahead while I speak.

• Who are you again? – Make sure that you absolutely understand who it is you’re speaking to. What do they do? Where are they from? Who are their clients? And most importantly, do they already know your material?

There is a lot more to being a good or great speaker, but this should help you avoid the common pitfalls.

Question: What areas do you think speakers need to work on?

Related articles

• How To Speak Gooder (ChrisLoCurto.com)

When A Co-worker Talks Too Much

Here’s another great question from a Twitter follower. I asked @Dustin_Nichols if it would be ok to use his question for a post, and if he cared if I shared his name or not. Obviously he was ok with both. Feel free to send any questions that you would like answered. I can use them for a post and credit you or not. It’s up to you.

Dustin asked what to do with a team member who drives everyone crazy. I asked how and he said the following:

If you’re anything like Dustin, you’ve worked with the person who couldn’t stop talking. They drive those around them crazy with constant chatter about stuff that is usually not relevant to what’s happening at the time. They can’t wait for you to walk in the door so they can tell you just how cute fluffy was last night playing Chopin on the PLAYSKOOL piano. It baffles you that they won’t let you get to your chair and turn your computer on before they’re discussing what happened last night on Big Brother.

While I’m no expert on the psychology of the over talker,  I believe there are a ton of reasons for this persons inability to respect your personal ear space. Some are:

• They have nobody at home to talk to.
• They do have someone at home, but they don’t get the attention they need.
• Their personality style is such that they are a mega people person, but very immature in their growth.

Whatever the situation, you have to remember that they are a person with feelings and needs just like the rest of us. While we all need acceptance and attention, some need it more than others. So how you handle it matters. Getting mad is only going to hurt their feelings and make you feel like a dork. Instead, come at it from the side of Grace.

How would you want to be treated? Or, better yet, how would you want someone to treat your son or daughter if they were the one with the problem? You have to understand that it is imperative you use kid gloves when handling a situation like this. My suggestion is you take them out of the cubicle/office setting and have a calm discussion with them. One where you use the “sandwich” technique.

Start by telling them a few of the things that you appreciate about them most. Seriously, come up with some good stuff. Then gently tell them you have a concern that may make them feel defensive but you hope that it doesn’t. Share that there are some things they are doing that are causing some distractions to team members.

List out the items and let them know that it is perfectly fine for them to have discussion times at lunch, breaks, off hours, but during work hours they need to be cognizant of distracting other team members. It’s important that everybody focuses the time they spend during paid hours doing work. Otherwise it’s stealing from the company. Then follow-up with how great of a job they do and how much you appreciate their work.

None of this will be easy, and it has the potential to upset the over talker, but it’s something that needs to happen. Again, treat them the way you would want your child to be treated.

Question: How would you handle an over talker?

How To Be A Stronger Leader

There are two types of leader: those that are willing to discover their strengths and weaknesses and openly share them, and those who are only willing to share their strengths.

I believe both types know their weaknesses, but only one is mature enough and secure enough to point them out. As far as I have experienced, all leaders go through a time in their lives when they don’t want anyone to know that they aren’t strong in an area. They try so hard to keep up an image of someone who can do anything.

But those that are more mature understand that discovering your weaknesses can only enhance your strengths. How? It’s simple. Once you understand the areas you struggle in, you can support yourself with people who are considerably strong than you in those same areas. The problem is, people become afraid that if a weakness is apparent, then their leadership must be flawed. Which is a view taken only by other immature leaders.

The truth is, if you can stay more focused in your strengths, you can accomplish greater things. I was talking with one of the coolest members of our team, Charlie Allen, about how he has a job because his leader, Michael Reddish, spoke up about areas that he was weak in. As Michael realized that he was strong in being a big picture and visionary guy, and weaker in extensive research, he discovered the best way for him to continue to grow his area was to bring in someone who was really strong in research area and details.

Charlie mentioned that if it wasn’t for Michael’s revelation, Charlie wouldn’t have a job with us. I partially disagree…Charlie’s a champion, he would’ve found his way in. But it really raises a great question. Do you recognize your areas of strength and weakness? if not, here are a few things you can do discover them:

• Write yourself up – Start by writing a lists of both strengths and weaknesses to the best of your recognition. The important thing here is to be brutally honest with yourself. It’s okay to not be great at everything. Trust me when I say that you will be much happier spending your time doing what you love, instead of what you can.

• Humble yourself – Ask your spouse or best friend to weigh in. I know, this is way harder than it sounds for some people. But who knows you better? Let them know what you’re wanting them to do and give them time to process it. Then, when they are ready, LISTEN! Take what they have to say and process it yourself. You may not agree with it all, but as you continue leading, you may begin to see some of those stand out.

• It’s your turn – Talk with team members that you trust and respect and ask their opinion. These are the people who work with you the closest. They get to see your strengths and weaknesses played out everyday, even if you don’t think so. Again, give them time to process the question before they answer.

You’re ultimate goal should be to grow as a leader. If you don’t support your weaknesses with people who are strong, then you’ll continue spending time in those areas. Get some courage and tackle this process as soon as you can. You’ll be amazed at what you find out.

Question: Have you seen leaders do this, or leaders who need to?

How To Attract The Talent You Need

Hiring is always one of the most daunting tasks for a leader. Obviously you have work that’s not getting done, or you’re stretching your current staff beyond acceptable long-term limits. You have to spend a ton of time going through resumes of people who don’t fit the position.

Someone will spend a lot of time making initial calls, calls on past employers, calls on references, etc. And that’s before you begin the process of sitting down with strangers, asking tons of questions, hearing….interesting answers, and hoping that you find a gem! Then, if you’ve made the same mistake as most leaders, you hire someone only to find out later that they weren’t right for the position. Thus starting the process all over again.

If that’s ever been you, you’re not alone. I don’t know of a single leader who doesn’t have some hiring war stories. It happens to us all. The key is to do everything you can to fix the process. Tim Sanders was doing our devotional one day and he said it’s okay to make mistakes, just don’t make the same one twice.

We have a pretty good track record of hiring people at Dave Ramsey‘s office due to the massively long hiring process we have. I’ve written a few posts on how to do it right, but I wanted to take this time to tell you about an important element of your job posting that should save you a decent amount of time. It should be obvious that you need to write your job description in such a way as to attract the talent that you need.

However, you should write your posting in such a way as to attract the personality style that you’re looking for. For example, we have a ton of families that take their vacation to come to Financial Peace Plaza. Some to celebrate getting debt free, some just to get an extra shot of enthusiasm in their arm. Either way, we wanted to do something special for those folks when they came in. Our thought? Taking our book store and expanding it to add a large coffee shop with cakes and cookies and someone incredible to run it.

Now, if I posted a job listing for the person to run that, and I didn’t explain what we were looking for in that person, we would have had a ton of resumes from hard charging driver personalities with a goal of expanding our coffee-house empire by adding five more stores within the first year. But that’s not what we were looking for.

Instead, we wanted to give coffee, cakes, and cookies away for free. Yes, free. If these folks were going to take their hard-earned vacation to come see us, we wanted to bless them in the process. Also, we wanted someone with the heart of a servant, the heart of a host/hostess, not someone who was interested in watching the bottom line. Therefore, we needed to post this listing in a way that asked for someone who had hospitality running through their veins.

Luckily, one person stood out immensely and that was Martha Thompson. If you’ve been to FPP, and interacted with Martha, you know she is the exact fit for what we needed. She bakes the most insanely good stuff, makes a great cup of coffee, but more than anything she treats people like kings and queens. She listens to their financial journeys and tells the stories of how we got to where we are. Again, something we most likely wouldn’t have received with a generic posting.

Question: How have you seen job posting fail?

Help me help others. Pass this along to those in your network.

Related articles

• Why You Must Hire Correctly! (ChrisLoCurto.com)
• First Ever EntreLeadership Podcast! (ChrisLoCurto.com)