Preview of my new Book: What happens after the sale

This is a preview of my new Book:   What happens after the sale.....Insights about the Business & Personal Journey after the Big Event

It is a case history of one of my CEO members in Vistage.....but a story that I believe will apply to many mid-size firms in the near future.  Would love to receive your comments.

Read the brief preview  here    Hope you enjoy it

    Steve Brody

8 Things Successful Leaders Do!!

Being successful as a leader can be hard. As demands on leaders increase, there is less time to focus on making the changes you need to make to do the job successfully. It’s a significant challenge to overcome because as more is expected of you, you find you have less time for development, and yet, improving your leadership skills is more important than ever.

You have to learn on the job, make the most of your surroundings, and ask those around you for help. You have to enlist their support as you do your best to develop yourself, your people, and your teams. And, this is why I call leadership a “contact sport”.

Leadership Is a Contact Sport is a leadership development model that has worked for hundreds of thousands of people. The original study, published in 2004, included 86,000 people. We now have research from 250,000 people who confirm that this model works. It helps them become highly successful leaders.

How does it work? The Leadership Is a Contact Sport model is just eight steps: Ask, Listen, Think, Thank, Respond, Involve, Change, Follow Up. Following is a short description of each step.

1. Ask:  Ask people "How can I be a better _______ (manager, partner, team member, etc.)?
2. Listen:  Listen to their answers.
3. Think:  Think about their input.  What does it mean?
4. Thank:  Thank people for sharing this valuable feedback with you.
5. Respond:  Respond positively when receiving input.
6. Involve:  Involve the people to support your change efforts.
7. Change:  Change isn't an academic exercise.  Act on what you learn. 
8. Follow-up: Follow up regularly and stakeholders will notice the positive actions you’re taking based their input.

This simple model for leadership development works! If you want to get better, at work or at home, try it for yourself and see. And, if I can help you consider the possibility that despite all of your success to date you might have some things that you can change to be “even better”

The above is from well known Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith.  His full article can be  found here  

Hope you enjoy it......  Steve Brody 

There's only 3 major strategies - Pick One!

One of the challenges of being a CEO is that you must pick and focus the strategy for your firm.  There are 3 major strategies....as much as you may want to claim all three....you can only deliver on one, to be effective.

A tool I like to use to engage in the conversation about strategy comes from a book by Michael Treacy, The Discipline of Market Leaders.  The main premise is that to be great at something.....you must pick one of these three.  The other two,  just be OK....but you can not focus on all three to differentiate your firm.

The three strategies include:

   Product or Service Innovator - someone who likes to be first in the field and have a superior benefit.  Think Apple or Nike or Microsoft as examples of this.  It is expensive to focus on innovation and most of the time....your product or service will be premium priced.

  Operational Excellence -  someone who likes to focus on being the most efficient and reliable in delivering the product or service.  While not always the lowest price....this strategy is a focus on everyday value, at a reasonable cost.  Think Wal-Mart or Southwest Airlines or Dell Computer.  You don't offer a lot of added value but the product or service applies to most people at a reasonable cost.

 Customer Intimate  -  someone who likes to customize the offering and deliver the product or service the way your customer wants it.  These are firms who want to keep the customer happy or experience the best relationship in working with you.  Think Nordstrom's or Ritz Carlton.  They will go out of their way to create satisfaction....this also demands a premium price.

To be effective, you can not focus on all three of these.  You will be trying to be all things to all people and will create a confusing message.   So which area do you focus?  Can you differentiate these?

Here is an interview where I recently described this approach.    click here to view


Hope you find it valuable.
   
    Steve Brody

Why Curious People are Destined for the C-Suite

What is one attribute that CEOs will need to succeed in turbulent times?  Some recent surveys show the answer as CURIOSITY and OPEN-MINDEDNESS.

Is this a surprise to you?  A recent article in the Harvard Business Review explains this trend and the importance of the need.  It is less about having all the answers and more about wondering and questioning.  Leading by curiosity can help generate more ideas from all areas of an organization, while helping to raise employee engagement levels.

A Leader's primary occupation must be to discover the future.  How good are you at this?
People that do this seem to have a penchant for bringing a beginner's mind to the areas of problem solving and dealing with challenges.

Maybe it is worth your consideration.  Read more of the article  here   by Warren Berger, Sept 11, 2015 HBR.org  

Hope it helps..... Steve Brody,  Brody & Associates

What only the CEO can do!!

Peter Drucker famously wrote about....what is the work of the CEO?  Do we really understand this role?
He thought actually...we do not.

Most Executives think they are the Coaches & utility infielders who are called in to solve problems as needed.  In reality...the CEO is the Link between the Inside (the Organization) and the Outside (society, economy, technology, markets, customers.)   Inside is the focus on costs.....Outside is where results are found.

He indicated there are 4 fundamental tasks of the CEO:

  1.  Defining the meaningful outside

  2.  Answering over & over again....what business are we really in & what business are we not in?

  3.  Balancing the yield in the present with investment for the future

  4.  Shaping the values & standards of the Organization  

These are simple in context and definition but much harder to actually implement.  In fact, they are critical to implement properly to lead an Organization.

Read more at this   HBR article

Hope you enjoy......   Steve Brody

People remember what you say when you paint a picture

How well do you do this?  Do you use visual words?

 Communication is really hard to do well. Given the  statistic that 70% of us are primarily visual learners, what are you doing to visually communicate with your people in order to help them to understand and to be inspired?  Do you care enough to do that?  They want you to care enough to inspire them

Read more from this  article 

Hope you enjoy.
   
      Steve Brody

4 Reasons Managers should spend more time on Coaching

4 Reasons to Coach.....if you are not coaching your team.....you may be neglecting an effective tool to develop your talent.


The reasons are:

  - they see Coaching as an essential tool to accomplish business goals

  -  they enjoy helping people develop

  - they are curious

  -  they enjoy establishing connections

Read more from this HBR   article


Hope you enjoy..... Steve Brody

A Trick to Beat Procrastination

Sometimes how we choose to define a problem can make all the difference in solving it. One writer thinks this applies to the challenge of conquering procrastination.  Is this a problem with any of your staff members?  Or yourself?

Read more about it in   this short article 

Hope you find it valuable.

    Steve Brody

The Yes/No question that nails your company culture

Here’s an easy way to learn whether an employer you’re considering joining really values the people who work there, or whether they don’t.  Tells you a lot about how they treat people or think about what is important.

Where would your company fall on this question?

Read more at:   Forbes Mar 2015


   Hope you find it valuable

       Steve Brody

How Steve Jobs trained his brain

It's pretty well known that Steve Jobs was a true pioneer in the world of technology.

 What's less known, though, is that Steve Jobs was a pioneer in what was once a rather esoteric "mind technology"--the use of Zen mindfulness meditation to reduce his stress, gain more clarity, and enhance his creativity.

The concept of mindfulness is a powerful area of meditation.

You can learn how to focus your mind just like Steve Jobs.  Here is an interesting description from Inc. Magazine on this technique.

    Click here to read   

Hope you find it valuable.

      Steve Brody

Daring to Dream...

I recently attended a conference of my peers.....Executive Coaches from around the U.S. and around the World.  A fascinating Keynote presentation dealt with the power and inspiration of creating & stating your dreams.  Here is a description by the Vistage CEO.  See if this just might create some opportunities within your organization.

Daydreaming isn’t something that is normally encouraged in the workplace. But it can be powerful and frankly, a lot of fun, as I discovered last week at our International Chair Development Workshop in New Orleans. Nearly 500 Vistage Chairs from 11 countries gathered there to exchange new ideas, discuss tried-and-true techniques, and make meaningful connections. It was a transformational experience made possible by our outstanding community of Chairs, dedicated staff, rich history, and an unwavering belief in the way our work impacts the lives of so many.

To kick off the event, Candy Chang, an artist and New Orleans local showed us the untapped energy of simply writing out our dreams. Her projects powerfully demonstrate how we can use that energy to widen and deepen our own community involvement and communication.

Her life lessons are provoking and for me, inspiring:

1. Small interventions can lead to better and bigger ones. By honing your ideas through collaboration and inclusion, you gain freedom to develop better ideas. Which for me is the very kernel of what makes Vistage groups so powerful.

2.  What you might consider a weakness can become your strength. By being sensitive to your shortcomings and the moments where you feel out of place, you are taking the time to understand them and you might be able to change them.

3.  The world becomes more rewarding when you let yourself look beyond what you’re searching for.

Candy’s message was the perfect metaphor for this Vistage gathering. We created “Dare to Dream” boards that became the anchor to many of the conversations at the workshop – we had them outside elevators, in the back of rooms, by the coffee stations!  This experience connected us in a way we never imaged possible.  More importantly, we saw that we are not alone as we try to make sense of life and aspirations.

The workshop may be over now, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop dreaming. I encourage you to put up a dream board and watch ideas develop.  Just imagine what you might accomplish…

   by Leon Shapiro,  CEO  Vistage Intl  

          Feb 2015  

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