Leadership Archives

Top Downloadable Resources from The 100

My book, The 100, was supplemented by more than 25 downloadable templates and checklists to help lead a team, run a business, and manage your life. They are all available for free, and based on downloads, here are a few of the most popular:

START/STOP/CONTINUE/HASSLES SURVEY: A survey for soliciting feedback from employees on what to quit, start, and focus on in the future.

STRATEGIC PLANNING GUIDE AND AGENDA: A guide for execution of a two-day off-site strategic planning session.

HUDDLE AGENDA: A guide for running an effective leadership 15-minute huddle.

An Objective Case for Optimism

For over a decade, I, along with Intertech leadership, get our economic guidance from Brian Beaulieu of ITR Economics. He recently published Economic Recovery and Profits: Know This Trend to Make More Money. In my experience, Mr. Beaulieu has provided reliable insights and a leading indicator with a high correlation to what eventually happens in the economy with enough lead time to take action before a downturn or uptick.

Despite how the current world feels, he believes the economy will grow, and it’s time to act. US Industrial Production in July had a massive surge from June. Based on their guidance, the worst for the economy is behind us. The reasons for optimism are with the lockdown and semi-sequester (e.g., less spent on restaurants, travel, personal services, etc.), we have money to spend, and employment is picking up.

They have some insights on what to do for your business:

Have a plan of how to maximize opportunity and minimize risk
Know where you are in the business cycle
Make sure you have the right team. An excellent team beats an awesome plan, eight days a week

All the above said, a big part of the optimism is an expectation of a vaccine, and governors can safely keep most of their economies open. As leaders, our response needs to match the exponential, not linear, nature of COVID.

How to Best Manage through these Times

There’s been a break in my blogging. Sorry.

Between leading Intertech through this time to being a tutor as my kids take classes through the summer to wrapping up an Audible version of my book, things are busy. Regardless, a big thing that’s keeping our business on track is the daily huddle.

If you’re familiar with the concept of Scrum development, you already know about the value of daily huddles. Our leadership team and individual work teams alike engage in these regular standing meetings, which lasts 15 minutes or less. In this “new normal,” team members join the huddle through a conference call or other platforms like Teams or Zoom.

In a huddle, we share significant updates, metrics, and issues or problems. Since we know we’ll have a chance to touch base at the end of each day; we avoid interruptions as things pop up during the workday. By asking for problems daily, huddles also help with “slaying monsters early.”

The purpose of our huddles is to review anything that requires action from others, to share the good news, and to reveal any stuck items or problems. It also strengthens our culture of open communication and teamwork.

Huddles can also be quickly scaled. For example, in March, when this whole thing started, we upped our huddles to twice per day (noon and end of the day) to make sure we as a leadership team could stay informed and quickly make considered decisions.

We are in unchartered times. If I can help you and your team, from copies of my book to a presentation, please let me know.

Free Consult

For you that follow “The 100” or my past books, I’d be happy to provide a free hour of consulting on whatever area or need you may have in your business (as the joke goes, if it’s not valuable, I’ll give you 100% back).

Just send me a request on this site’s contact form and give me an idea of what you’d like to discuss.

Let’s hang in there together.

May You Live in Interesting Times

The exponential rate of change and response to the virus, or lack thereof on some fronts, has created an environment of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had many socially-distanced discussions on measures to keep business moving forward and employees informed. Here’s a re-cap.

If you don’t have a plan that addresses all aspects of the organization, from classifying top customers by risk level to cash flow projections to potential opportunities in the current environment (think acquisitions of competitors, hiring from distressed industries like travel, or targeting industries going up in the current environment like mortgage brokers), do so.
When you have a plan, communicate it with the organization. We’re all overwhelmed with the 24/7 news cycle. People are craving answers and direction.
If there are actions you’re considering down the road when some triggering event happens, do it now. From employees on the bubble who need to be humanely let go or the customer whose account is overdue and needs a call, act. Don’t wait.
There are tons of articles on how to effectively work-from-home along with how to live well, find some and share with your crew.
With teams working remotely and social distancing, remember we are social creatures. Encourage teams to be connected throughout the day with Microsoft Team, Skype, or other platforms.
Encourage employees to work through this together. For example, in our company weekly newsletter, we have a new section. In this section, everyone is free to contribute thoughts around dealing with the current situation. Ideas range from tips on staying healthy to Audible’s free offering for kids under 18 to using Target curbside pickup and Amazon Fresh to get household essentials without human interaction.

Stay safe and if I can help you, please let me know.