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

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

Albert Camus

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"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

How to be a CEO

Very interesting article from the New York Times where the author interviewed a large number of CEOs over an extended time period.  He found certain consistencies in high performing CEOs.....these include:

  1.  A shared habit of applied curiosity.  They tend to question everything.  They want to know how things work, and how to make them better.

  2.  They loved a challenge.....actually feeling a sense of discomfort is their comfort. 

  3.  How they managed their career.  There was a focus on doing the current job well......not putting too much focus on where they were headed next.

Do these characteristics resonate with you?   Are they helpful? 

Read the full article  here          

Hope you find it valuable.

       Steve Brody 


      Author Adam Bryant,  Oct 2017