The 1 Brutal Question every Leader needs to Answer!!

What is the 1 Brutal Question every Leader needs to Answer?  


It is about Prioritization.....it sounds like such a simple thing.  Doesn't it? 
But true prioritization starts with a very difficult question to answer......

   If you could only do one thing......what would it be?    The art of focus 

Steve Jobs talked about this at Apple and turned Priority into their Focus. 

Read more about it   HERE   

Hope you find it valuable.   

5 Top Tips After the Sale

What  Happens  After  the  Sale 

5  Top  Tips

1.     Assemble your Resource team

Experts to include:  CPA, Attorney, Wealth Advisor, Banker, Coach   

 

2.    Clarify the Governance terms

Definition of restrictions, authority (if stay) , Employment contract, Non-compete, etc 

3.      Take a personal  retreat – time for reflection  

4.    Establish a new routine…..find an office

5.    Discover your passions 

Resource reading…..Finishing Well,  Bob Buford

                                    Your retirement quest,  Keith Lawrence

   See more info at  Naviond.com

Answer this simple interview question to predict success!!

A Starbucks former HR Exec says a job candidate's answer to a simple interview question predicts success better than the entire resume review process. 

Read more   here      Hope you find it valuable

     Steve Brody
     CEO Coach
     Brody & Associates 

October Insights 2018

A collection of interesting thoughts, readings for your Leadership.  

“The Excellence Dividend”

If you began your career in the 70’s or 80’s, the business book everyone read was Tom Peters’ “In Search of Excellence” which looked at how successful companies executed strategies in an enduring way.   With several decades of additional study of successful companies under his belt, Mr. Peters is back with a new offering:  “The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work that Wows and Jobs that Last.”   This short blog posting reviews the book and points out five practices that C-Level executives routinely screw up….and  two massively underserved markets that may deserve your attention. 

Days of Disruption: (No.12) : More than Catching a Wave

Netflix comes to mind when we think of disruption of established business models;  in this case the Hollywood Studios.  Netflix’ success seems to some as just being in the right place at the right time and as surfers say, “catching a wave.”   It’s always hard to untangle the relative influence of luck versus skill, and luck had to play some role for Netscape, but this short blog posting from HBR summarizes how the company deliberately, systematically, and intelligently entered 190 companies in seven years.  

Learn about its two-step process of how it decided where and when to expand, and how it worked with each market it entered.  These are challenges every CEO has to face in some form. Is there a process like this in your company?

It's not the Peak, but the Prep

Great performance is seductive because great performance looks easy.  It’s easy to forget that all we see is the performance, not the preparation that went into it. 

In 2017, Alex Honnold free-climbed (i.e. no rope or safety gear)  the nearly vertical 3,000 ft El Capital peak in Yosemite National Park. You may not be contemplating something as physically dangerous as scaling El Capitan but hopefully you have something in your life as important as conquering this cliff was to Mr. Honnold..  In a 12 minute TED talk, hefocuses less on the exhilaration of the  achievement itself, but on the journey of preparation that made it possible.   His experience offers lessons for all of usregarding the price of success whether it’s climbing a mountain, building a business…. or making a life.

If the TED talk whets your appetite for more about this remarkable feat,  currently, there is a 100 minute movie,  “Free Solo”,  of Mr. Honnold’s story playing in theatres across the US.

Econ Recon:

Wholesale Blues?:   Wholesale trade has been enjoying unprecedented strength….andITR Economics President Alan Beaulieu is concerned about it.  Find out why…..and what do to about it in his most recent blog posting.

A Slip or a Slide?:   Recent roller coaster movements in the stock market have many people worried about their portfolios.   Remain calm,  says one of the best market watchers in the world, Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel.   Recent equity market volatility says Dr. Siegel is more “slip than slide”.

Sept Insights

 Some recent insights of interest.  

“A Trillion Here, A Trillion There”

The late Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen is reputed to have characterized the “Great Society” fiscal policy of the 1960s with the wry observation that “ A billion here, a billion there….and after a while it adds up to real money.”   Fifty years later we add a few zeros and we’re talking trillions.   Were it just the Federal Government’s climbing debt and ongoing deficits that would be scary enough.   But before the main event of Federal meltdown manifests itself,  the opening act will be the ballooning pension and healthcare obligations of teachers, first responders and other state and local obligations.  Decades ago these employees traded lower current income for a state guaranteed retirement.  Mismanagement of these pension plans has resulted in a funding deficit which, it is estimated, to be approximately $ 4.4 trillion.   

This may be the defining issue of our times as it will affect everyone, either as a retiree or as a younger member of the workforce paying increased taxes to make up the shortfall. An executive summary of the situation in the Knowledge@Wharton newsletter explains the limited and painful options for remedying this situation. None of them are good.  Most involve more taxes, especially on real estate, and cuts in other government services.. Coupled with an aging population that is living longer we have a “Time Bomb Inside the Public Pension Plans”    Want to know what your share of the shortfall might be?   Read the article.  It may well be more than you have already put aside.

Plan accordingly.  As Tennessee Williams said,  “You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it.”

Models Matter

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"  wrote the Russian novelist Tolstoy.   The same seems to be  true for “happy” (successful) businesses.  Regardless of the nature of the product or service offered,  the most successful companies today can be considered “software” companies in that software is an integral part of the offering and its value.  But no competitive advantage last forever.   What comes after being a software company?   This article from the WSJ suggests that it will be “models”;  data driven continuous learning models to be exact.  Find out why, sooner than later, Models Will Run the World.   Find out what a “model” really is…..and this risks of not being one.

The Problem with Prosperity

There are no unmixed blessings; and this long economic expansion not only makes profit possible, but also makes it more difficult to maintain as the competition for resources heats up.  In an INC Magazine article, Vistage Chief Research Officer Joe Galvin offers four tactics to keep high costs from consuming your company’s profits.  

                                        Econ Recon:

 This past week marked the longest bull market in US history and the coming year, absent a recession, marks the longest economic expansion on record.  But nothing lasts forever.   Columnist George Will, best known for this thoughts on politics and baseball, recently warned that “Another Epic Economic Collapse is Coming.”    Dr. Brian Wesbury begs to differ.  While allowing that the business cycle has not been outlawed, he remains an optimist..  

Follow the Money:   Between the prophecy of near term collapse and that of optimism is ITR Economics’ Jackie Green  who sees a mild contraction for many, but not all sectors…and some sectors may see a more precipitous fall than others. See if yours is one of them.  Check out her short article, “Are Your Profits Following the Crowd?”

Aug Insights

The Care of Our Time

Benjamin Franklin once challenged a friend,  “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”  You’ll love your time more once you realize how much of it you are wasting. Start buying back some of the only resource you can’t buy more of by considering whether the routines that dominate your life may have seduced you into believing that you actually know where your time really goes. 

This short article from HBR shares a simple technique that used for a few minutes each day may ultimately save you months, perhaps years. The late great Peter Drucker also recommended this exercise for senior leaders in his wonderful book “The Effective Executive”.  Once you try it, you’ll realize the truth of another great adage, slightly modified; if you don’t measure it, you won’t manage it.

Days of Disruption (No. 4): The Truly World Wide Web, at last

Most of us have heard of Moore’s law, named after legendary Intel founder Gordon Moore who predicted, correctly, decades ago that microprocessor speeds would double every 18 months and be accompanied by a halving of costs.  Equally impressive is the progress that has been made in the speed of communication between computers.   In recent years, this standard has gone from 3G to 4G (which brought us smartphones and e-commerce) and soon, 5G.

In a recent blog posting Peter Diamandis (founder of the XPrize foundation) writes of the jump from 3G to 4G that  “if you thought that was big, think again.  With plans for wide-scale deployment in 2020, 5G will be 100X faster than 4G, and 10X faster than your average broadband connection.”   Perhaps more important, 5G will enable the entire population of the world to be connected to the internet; a truly world wide web, at last. 

“Diamandis predicts  “And as the population of online users doubles, we’re about to witness perhaps the most historic acceleration of progress and technological innovation known to man.”  Learn more about the implications for you and your business in his short blog posting “Connecting  8 billion by 2024.   

Econ Recon:

Even the Bear Must Eat:   Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the London Times described it as a “third world country with first world weapons.”  Thirty years later, how much has really changed?  Those who fear Russia’s aggressiveness and military might under Putin would do well to remember that an economy is required to “feed the bear.” 

When one looks closely at Russia, it is not only a demographic basket case with early mortality and a plummeting birth rate, it has a very tiny economy in both absolute and relative terms compared to the US.   Brian Beaulieu of ITR economics shares an eye-opening graphic of the relative sizes of national economies and offers ten reasons why there is no equivalency between Russia and the US.    It may change your view of the dynamic between the two countries.

July Insights

Are You A Typical Vistage Member?

What Our Members Want You to Know

Week of July 2, 2018

Happy Fourth of July!

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
Thomas Jefferson

***

“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.”

Albert Camus

***

"My father described this tall lady who stands in the middle of the

New York harbor, holding high a torch to welcome people

seeking freedom in America. I instantly fell in love."

Yakov Smirnoff

Russian born American Comic

FOR YOUR EDIFICATION AND ENTERTAINMENT

The Jerk Fallacy

Independence in Real Time

Five From the Marines

Days of Disruption (No. 2):  Meet Zander Futernick

Econ Recon:  Unintended Consequences

The Jerk Fallacy

It’s said “nice guys finish last.”  Put differently, you need to be a “not nice” person to prevail in life and business.     Marketing and management guru Seth Godin suggests a more nuanced view that he calls the “The Jerk Fallacy.”     Read it and ask yourself the reason for your success

Independence in Real Time

The introduction of the telegraph in the 1830s made news available instantaneously.  Until its invention, news could only travel as fast as a horseman or ship could carry it. 

Were the Declaration of Independence to signed today, the announcement would be shared everywhere at once (assuming of course it hadn’t been leaked first).  This graphic from Smithsonian Magazine tracks how the news of independence made it across the United States in 1776.

                                                                                                            

Five from the Marines

Looking for a short course in leadership?  The United States Marine Corps has been training leaders for nearly as long as there has been a United States for them to defend.  One former Marine Officer (and Vistage Chair) shares his personal take on Five Leadership Lessons from the United State Marine Corps.

Days of Disruption (No. 2):  Meet Zander Futernick

Meet 21 year old Zander Futernick who may be about to teach the airline industry how to run, well, an airline.   Existing businesses are often reinvented by finding an unserved market and/or creating a different business model for an old product.   This short article from Forbes relates how Mr. Futernick is exploiting the market space between commercial air travel and luxury private jets.   

Step one,  he says,  is “getting rid of commercial airports”  That’s REAL disruption. (Let’s hope he succeeds).   

Econ Recon

 

Unintended consequences:  It’s often said that the “road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  To wit, Harley Davidson’s response to the new tariff policy.   Find out why the economists at ITR Economics think the impact on the iconic motorcycle maker should be filed under “Unintended Consequences.”

 

3 Simple Questions to Drive Innovation

These 3 Questions were used by Steve Jobs at Apple to get people thinking.....to drive their curiosity...and push them to create innovation.   Simple and yet effective.  They include:

 -  What's not working? 

 -  Why doesn't it work? 

 - Is this the BEST that you can do? 


You can read more about how this was used from  Inc Magazine  click here 

Hope you find it valuable 


      Steve  Brody 

How to Improve your Interview Accuracy

How to Improve Interview Accuracy?

Interviewing accuracy and success in most organizations is horrific. It doesn't matter what the role is, where it's located, or what level in your organization. Mistakes and errors lead to horrible and costly mistakes in selecting the wrong candidate. One technique that I've been suggesting on the speaking circuit lately as part of my hiring presentation is to get candidates to "show" you want they can do vs. talking about it in an artificial environment answering the 20 standard, stupid, innane, canned interview questions that have no correlation to performance on the job. Here are some examples: If you're hiring a customer service rep - most of that interview should be role-playing with imaginary phones the typical conversations your reps have now with customers. If you're hiring a welder, instead of talking about welding - give them a series of welds that reflect 80 percent of the work they would every day. If you're hiring a junior acccountant or bookkeeper, and one of their primary responsibilities is to do a monthly bank reconciliation - then put them in a room with excel and your bank statement and make them reconcile it. Members who are incorporating this physical element of "putting the candidate in the job" before they hire them are experiencing a tremendous boost in the accuracy of validating the candidate can do the job. EVERY interview at EVERY level in the organization should have at least 25% of the interview be physical tests of "showing" the application of skills, role-plays, situational examples and case studies, and homework assignments. Do you have members who have finally reached the point of frustration, desperation, or despair, when it comes to trying to measure whether a candidate can achieve expectations, performance, or KPIs - then please pass this hiring tip along to them. Don't forget to remind them about their TALK coupon if they've not yet taken advantage of speaking with me about improving their hiring process. Wishing your members much success (not luck) in interviewing and selecting great employees, Barry Deutsch IMPACT Hiring Solutions 310-378-4571

Tapping into the power of Humble Narcissism

Sounds like an Oxymoron.....doesn't it.  Can a CEO or Leader be at the same time Humble and show Narcissism?  Some experts think this is actually a very strong combination.

It was widely known that some years ago, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple.  Then years later he was hired back.  He stated that "I'm pretty sure none of this (Iphones, Ipad, etc)  would have happened if I hadn't been fired.  It was awful tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it." 

Few people would describe Jobs as humble and many feel he was a narcissist.  Perhaps he was a good combination of both traits. 

Read more about the results from a Wharton Professor at :   humble-narcissism

Hope you find it valuable.

     Steve Brody 

How to spot a really good leader

There are 7 things that a really good leader does on a daily basis.  An article from Inc magazine explains these items.  They include:

 1. Never stop giving feedback

 2. Have regularly scheduled planning sessions

 3. Conduct stay interviews

 4. Recognize your employees

 5. Give employees freedom to make decisions

 6. Expose employees to new responsibilities

 7. Have an open door policy

     Read here    for more information

Hope you find this valuable.

    Steve Brody 

8 Steps to a Succession Plan

Many small to mid-size businesses find themselves dealing with the priority of short term urgencies on a daily basis.  It is easy to put off some of the long term needs and say....we will get to it later. 
One of those needs is the creation of a valuable Succession Plan. 

Here are the steps:

1.  Set long term goals for ownership

2.  Establish a set of managerial competencies

3.  Evaluate the Management team

4.  Debrief the assessment

5.  Seek quality legal, tax advise

6.  Create a robust performance management system

7.  Identify Successors

8.  Handcuff your best people 

You can read more about this in the Vistage Research Center  here 

Hope you find it helpful

     Steve Brody