Tag: Business

Customer Success:  5 Requirements to Creating Value in Every Client Interaction.

On By Joe DeRosaIn BusinessLeave a comment

 

Today’s buyers are overwhelmed with data points, reports, metrics, and an avalanche of nonstop news whether its from traditional networks, cable news, or social media.  Points-of-view are as infinite as the number of stars in the universe…or are they?  In a world dominated by countless Customer Success models I continue to observe just how complicated we’ve made some basic human interactions, and just how little value some of these interactions deliver.

 

Great Customer Success interactions require 5 crucial elements:

 

  1. It all starts with a clear customer success statement as articulated by the customer.  What does success look like?  When we meet 3 months from now, what would have to be true for you to say this engagement is a success?
  2. A strong understanding of general market conditions (macro), and the ability to connect those dots to your customer’s situation, this is what I call “pulling the thread all the way through”.  It requires solid structured thinking skills.  The ability to define a problem, understand the cause, and create a solution that reduces or eliminates the problem. 
  3. Ability to create insights – combining a fact with an implication or point-of-view,
  4. Strong EQ skills that allow you to connect/relate to your customer/buyer on an emotional level,
  5. Storytelling skills

 

I’m sure someone, somewhere is saying, “yeah, but what about…”, or “Customer Success is so much more than these 5 things…”, or “you don’t know my industry, it’s so different than any other industry…”

 

What does this look like in our daily lives?

 

Think of someone in your network you respect and learn something from every time you speak to him, or her, who would it be?  What characteristics does he/she possess? I’d suggest they made your list because they are proficient at all 5 of these competencies and perhaps expert at some of them.  Certainly, you wouldn’t offer me a name of someone boring who lacks details, confidence, or a clear point of view.  No.  Instead, you’d share a name of an individual that you hold in high regard, or perhaps even aspire to be like.

 

Once basic human needs – food, clothing, shelter, safety – are satisfied, you transition to next-level needs which include the need to be heard, understood, validated, and the ability to succeed.  These next-level human needs address both self-esteem and self-actualization.  Said differently, we all desire confidence and ultimately the need to be seen by others as being successful – that we’ve reached a position of respect, or sought-after expertise.

 

Tying it all together…

 

Customer Success Managers (CSM) are entrusted with managing, and growing client relationships.  The CSM has one of the most challenging roles in an organization as they walk the tight rope between Sales, Service, Marketing, Operations, IT, HR, Finance, and virtually any other functional area that touches the client with the potential of creating an experience be it positive or negative. Understanding macro-economic conditions does not mean going back to school to obtain an Econ degree.  As a result of the diversity of a CSMs interaction with a client it’s imperative for him/her to understand how macro conditions affect the customer’s business.   This doesn’t require an advanced education but rather some basic structured thinking, discipline and commitment.  This is the ability to define a problem, understand what causes the problem, and finally creating a solution(s) that addresses the problem.

 

Client Success Managers (CSM), need to have a general understanding of the market conditions.  What’s happening in the market?  How are interest rates moving?  What’s happening with employment numbers?  How is inflation trending?  Where is consumer confidence?  With one or two apps on your phone you can stay abreast of every major macro metric in real time…in less than the time it takes to sip a cup of coffee.  It requires the discipline to build that habit into your day.  According to an October 2023 survey by Statista, people on average spend 2.5 hours per day on social media.  Using 3 minutes of that time every day to understand market conditions doesn’t seem like a huge change in behavior…but it can be if you let it…you’ve got to commit.

 

I often use the phrase, “pulling the thread all the way through.”  This means, having the capability, or skill to understand these conditions and pull the thread all the way through to how these macro conditions affect your customer through storytelling.  Doing this allows you to clearly define the problem your customer is currently facing, or about to face, and be able to communicate this to them in a way that is both articulate and confident.  Storytelling is not fiction, nor is it fear mongering.  Storytelling involves understanding your client’s current situation, the inputs that affect the situation, and what possible outcomes may exist depending on the actions taken.  Effective storytelling can be summed up in the ability to take multiple inputs and synthesize them into a story that captivates, creates intrigue, and ultimately causes action.  Storytelling is not about scaring the client into taking the action you want, but instead is about causing the client to stop, think, ask questions, and genuinely ponder the possibilities the CSM has presented.

 

Creating insights are something many CSMs struggle to do.  Keep in mind, an insight is combining a fact with an implication, or point-of-view.  A fact could be where current mortgage rates stand, or the current rate of inflation.  An insight would be how a change, up, or down, in that rate could affect your client and what the implication would be in either scenario.  This is a learned skill.  It doesn’t just happen.  Your CSMs need to study macro conditions, practice formulating insights, and role play with sales management in order to improve their effectiveness with their client engagements. 

 

The days of “objection handling” are done.  These old school sales tactics often rely on one’s ability to out-talk, or through smoke-and-mirrors, overwhelm the buyer.  I always disliked old-school objection handling.  Too much emphasis was placed upon having quick come backs, slick words, and one-liners.  Memorize these 3 responses and you’re golden.  Unfortunately, this approach is why Sales as a whole is often viewed in a negative light.  People are reluctant to meet with a salespeople and many salespeople don’t like to tell others they are salespeople.  How can we change this perception?

 

Being insightful is how you earn your customer’s time – their most precious resource.  People are only willing to invest their rarest of resources (time) with those that they can learn something from, and who make them feel validated.  So why is this so difficult?  Why do client engagement professionals still rely on old school objection handling?  Well, I’d suggest it’s because being able to provide real insights and value requires a full-out dedication to learning and understanding market conditions versus memorizing 3 great come-backs when a client raises an objection. 

 

Still today, too many salespeople subscribe to the nonsense of Sales ABC – Always Be Closing.   If this is happening in your company, I’d suggest this is a failure of leadership not leading…not teaching.  If leaders don’t raise the bar and expect a higher degree of business acumen, then their respective teams will fall back upon these ABC rules because they have nothing else.  Leaders need to lead.  This means leaders need to teach.  Further, this means leaders need to get more comfortable with being vulnerable.  Most people dislike role playing as much as they dislike public speaking, leaders included…perhaps more so.  However, role playing is a crucial element to improving your ability to take facts, formulate insights, and tell a story that leads to action, all in real-time.  Role playing for salespeople is the equivalent of a quarterback taking snaps under center at the line of scrimmage.  Defenses unfold in real-time.  We all know that good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.  This is why professional sports teams practice, practice, practice.  The coach creates and environment that allows for real-time judgement based upon real-time changes to the scenario…all with the goal of making these bad judgements in the safety of a practice versus a real game.  As leaders it’s our job to create these types of learning environments for customer success managers to hone their skills.  It also means the leader must risk a wonky role play in front of the team.  No one has all the answers, but the best leaders, are okay with getting it right versus focusing on being right.

 

In conclusion, customer success is about having a clear success statement articulated by the customer.  Great CSMs will provide a blend of facts and insights that address their customers problems which result in earned trust and respect.  These CSMs take chances, formulate insights, role play their delivery, and embrace the outcomes as their own.  They are the game changers, the difference makers, in achieving outstanding customer success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choosing the right Chief Revenue Officer

On By Joe DeRosaIn Business, Leadership, SalesLeave a comment

Recently, I attended a webinar sponsored by Private Equity CXO.  The topic of the webinar was PE Strategy for Revenue Growth; CROs and Value Creation.  Presenting in the webinar were several Private Equity professionals sharing their insights on the impact that having the right Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) can have on an organization’s success.

Let me first say that the webinar overall reinforced my personal experiences and beliefs throughout my career as both a GTM consultant and a CRO with experience working with companies ranging in size from $50M to >$6B in annual revenue.  However, the webinar got me thinking about the challenges involved in finding the right CRO, the process that most private equity firms use to recruit CROs, and the end result…disappointingly low success rates as supported by comments in the webinar as well as in other datapoints I’ll present shortly.

While I could write pages summarizing the content of this webinar relating to how CROs should, or could create value, I will instead focus on one critical topic discussed by the group…finding the right CRO.

Herb Brooks, the famous coach of the United States 1980’s Men’s Gold Medal Olympic Hockey team, has one of the best all-time quotes and probably my personal favorite.  As he was assembling his team, he was asked why he didn’t choose this player or that player because “they were the best”.  Herb confidently, and with unwavering conviction replied, “I’m not looking for the best players, I’m looking for the right players.”  This philosophy will serve as my anchor for why the right CRO may look quite different from the best CRO. 

I believe Coach Brooks could not have been more spot-on.  While I’m sure this comment will strike a chord with some, I stand by the belief that skill is much easier to teach than attitude, let alone chemistry, as it relates to team dynamics.  A Harvard Business Review study showed that 44% of a company’s market value is attributable to its CEO’s reputation. This study further defines reputation as a combination of 3 key emotional intelligence characteristics including humility, visibility, and persuasiveness.  One may conclude that some portion of a CEO’s reputation is a direct extension of the CEO’s executive and senior executive leadership team if you believe that a company’s culture is the sum of its parts.

Throughout the webinar the conversation often returned to the importance of the CRO’s team building capabilities, and leadership skills required to build a sustainable high performing culture. 

From an operator point of view, I would say that while a new (and even existing) CRO certainly has the responsibility to lead and effect change in an organization, a new CRO especially needs to understand the existing culture that he/she is walking into, the runway in front of this them (timing expectations), and as mentioned in the webinar, a list of the “jobs to be done” – the critical items that must be completed within the next 12 months.  Measure twice, cut once, applies to walking into a new role for both sides of the relationship – CRO and private equity partners.  The greater clarity provided at the onset, the greater the likelihood of success and perhaps fewer missed expectations. 

I strongly believe that the “right” CRO has both a track record of successes and failures.  I’m always leery when I speak to any executive-level candidate who positions themselves as having made perfect decisions.  Perhaps I’ve been blessed to work for leaders like Scott Cook of Intuit, who famously pushed our management team to make more mistakes – fail fast – as a barometer for the speed of innovation.  If you’re not pushing boundaries, you’re not growing, you’re not evolving, you’re simply presiding over something that’s fairly vanilla, and hence replaceable.  Basic, or as I like to call them, cut-and-pasted tactics might work when the waters are smooth, but absolutely go out the window when faced with gale force winds that may include a tight job market, raging inflation, or a pandemic that shifted the norm on how we get things done in business. 

A status quo leader, not battle-tested by building and failing, decreases your probability of success and produces a lesser amount of value creation.  It’s just as important to know what not to do, then knowing what the right thing to do is, as both include countless variables, known and unknown.

Case studies or homework assignments are great, but here’s where I slightly divert from the consensus shared on the webinar.  In my own personal experience, focusing on the difficult questions to ask during an interview, combined with an Up-Down-Sideways reference check is another way to gauge the probability of success.  Some folks have a talent to write, research, and/or problem solve in a controlled environment, but rarely do we operate in controlled environments, and case studies and homework assignments are just that…controlled environments.   

In fact, I’d suggest that many sales leaders would have failed the case study in 2008-2009 during the GFC, or during the COVID pandemic.  The test of a strong leader lies in his/her ability to consume information quickly and being comfortable with operating in ambiguity.  According to Zippia, the average age of a Chief Revenue Officer is 49 years old.  When combined with a datapoint from Salesforce indicating the average tenure of a CRO is right at 2 years, you begin to understand why the concept of battle-testing is so important over a variety of different environmental factors relative to creating and sustaining high performing teams.   One could argue that even as case studies and homework assignments have become the norm for recruiting CROs, the success rates are discouragingly low at less than 2 years.  Why is that?  Here I’d suggest that what’s often missed is the softer, and perhaps more difficult skills to assess that include EQ (some of the items from the HBR study), charisma, and empathy, all of which are critical leadership qualities to establishing and maintaining high performing teams. 

As Stephen Covey famously said, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  A leader showing up as the smartest person in the room likely will result in a team that tries to distance itself rather than embrace.  Hence why EQ is so important when selecting a new CRO.  And, with the average tenure of a CRO being 2 years, one possible conclusion that might be drawn is that too many know-it-alls show up day one on the job versus showing up with a learners mindset. 

Of course, the right mix between EQ and IQ is critical.  And while I referenced the criticality of some of the softer skills above, I also want to be clear that an effective CRO must have the passion and capability to deliver tangible tools to the teams they lead.  I have written countless playbooks, personas, and ICPs for the teams I’ve led throughout my career as a CRO.  I study data, identify trends, create hypos to prove/disprove.  I spend a great deal of time in the field with sales professionals running these plays and adjusting them accordingly, perhaps another carry-over from my experience at Intuit with Noel Tichy’s famous “teach, learn, teach” model underpinned our day-to-day operating rhythm in the business.

Often, I see CROs rely much too heavily on outside consultants (I was one of those), to do this type of work.  Why?  Because they either are not close enough to the business to know, or in the worst cases feel that the level of in-the-weeds work is beneath them.  This, however, is exactly the work that moves the needle by building sales effectiveness, team spirit, and a high performing culture where teams recognize that their Sales leader is sleeves-rolled-up, capable, competent, and credible. 

It was mentioned several times during the webinar private equity’s desire for predictability.  Delivering a “flash-in-a-pan” result is easier than producing consistent results over time.  Again, this is why it’s critical to be clear about what is required within the first 12-month period and what resources are available to accomplish those requirements.  The resource discussion is yet another topic that is deserving of its own thought leadership piece.  For now, here’s a simple way to illustrate the importance of having the right resources…

As someone raised in a musical family, and having played drums for many years, I consider Neil Peart to be arguably the best drummer of all time.  So, was it the 54-piece drum kit that made Neil sound so incredible?  Or was Neil’s raw talent such that he’d sound good no matter how many drums he had at his disposal?  While I’d seen Peart amaze enthusiasts on a regular 4-piece Jazz set, the sounds and complex rhythms he played on 54 pieces simply amped things up a notch.  He had the resources to transcend being great to being the greatest.  Now, drop in Phil Collins behind Peart’s 54 pieces.  Would Collins, another great, sound equally impressive?  Or does it suggest that resourcing wouldn’t matter, and that Collins would just “know” how to play, what to play, and when to play it?  As a reference point, Phil’s typical set is (was) a 10-piece kit.  Regardless, it’s clear that talent, plus resourcing, equals output.  The key to success is understanding what that specific talent requires, relative to resourcing, to produce the expected or desired results.

Back to the CRO thing, a CRO must also have the ability to look at data and make inferences…quick assessments of a situation.  Deductions usually come when deeper analysis is done, and oftentimes, the ability to do a deep dive is limited by a company’s systems, platforms, access to the data itself (perhaps it’s never been captured historically), or not having the analysts (talent) available to do such work.  This leaves the CRO in the position of either taking no action as they become paralyzed by fear of making the wrong decision, or the opposite extreme, making knee-jerk decisions as they quickly fire from the hip.  This area of CRO skill must also be contemplated when thinking about culture, timeframes, and expectations.

Finally, the relationship the CRO has with his/her owners/investors cannot be underestimated relative to performance.  Are the company’s owner enthusiastic supporters?  Are they impatient investors who have gone through a series of failed CROs leading them to bring high levels of doubt or skepticism into any new relationship?  Does the CRO have solid chemistry with both the CEO and CFO?  It has always struck me as odd that I’ve personally never interviewed with a CFO while being recruited for the top Sales chair, yet my personal relationship with a CFO, as a CRO, is perhaps equally important if not more important than the relationship between a CEO and CRO.  There’s a ton there to unpack as a topic – the relationship between CRO and CFO – that opens the door for future thought leadership content.

In summary, finding the right CRO begins with an accurate assessment of the future of the asset.  Where are we in the hold period?  What has the last 3-5 years of organic growth looked like for the company?  What’s the tenure of the team?  Is it a complete build, or rebuild?  Is there a VP of Rev Ops in place, and further, how strong is that person relative to all aspects of analysis and GTM tech platforms?  Do any of the CROs previously-built-teams still exist?  Can the CRO demonstrate an example where he/she groomed and promoted their replacement, and where and how is that replacement fairing today?  With the average age of a CRO being 49, what was he/she doing during the dotcom bust, the GFC, the pandemic, and most recently our current period of high inflation and stifling borrowing rates?  Can the CRO candidate comfortably articulate key learnings from each of these periods and demonstrate how those learnings enabled them to better navigate through the subsequent challenges or crises?  What tangible examples can the CRO point to as evidence of something they built new, as a response to their own evolution of thought due to their experiences?    

In choosing the right Chief Revenue Officer, it’s essential to recognize that leadership is not just about past successes, but about the ability to adapt, evolve, and thrive in an ever-changing business landscape. The true measure of a CRO lies in their capacity to turn challenges into opportunities, ensuring that their experiences become the cornerstone for future growth and innovation.

20 Objectives For All Chief Revenue Officers

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment
  1. Be a continuous learner – what got you into the CRO role won’t keep you there.
  2. Create a culture of innovation – willingness to try new things without the fear of failure.
  3. Demonstrate teamwork and camaraderie – people will watch and observe your behavior before they act.
  4. Focus on the people – this means getting to know your colleagues beyond their quotas.
  5. Be authentic – this equals consistency and predictability. Wild mood swings are often due to people transitioning from their “real” self to their created façade.
  6. Be vulnerable – show you’re human, it’s okay.
  7. Confront reality – denial wrecks your credibility. Quotas are huge, don’t act like they’re no big deal.
  8. Provide a path to success – it may be a difficult path but a path none the less. Remember, the leader’s job is to provide the vision…the possibilities.
  9. Be honest – shoot straight, share what you can, not only what you must.
  10. Always have an active ear – listen…actively. People want to know how much you care before caring about how much you know.
  11. Never surprise your boss – understand what’s important to the CEO and how/when to best communicate.
  12. Be deliberate in your actions – an environment of uncertainty is a byproduct of hedging bets. Your team will know if you’re not all in.
  13. Be kind – nothing in this job should justify taking someone’s dignity.
  14. Be gracious – say thank you. Give credit and recognize people consistently.
  15. Look for the good – every day find a good deed, or success from a colleague, and then share it.
  16. Know your numbers – where are you this month to quota, next month, and quarter standings.
  17. Know your business – what external factors may arise to get in the way of achieving your goals and those of your colleagues?
  18. Always be planning – “In preparing for battle I have always found plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
  19. Stay fit – CROs tend to be the heartbeat of a company. Work hard to have and maintain a healthy heartbeat.
  20. Always, always, remember (and thank) those who helped you arrive – family, friends, former bosses, mentors. No one gets to where they’re going totally alone

Measuring the Value of a Partner; Leveraging Disruptive Thinking to Enhance Your Results

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

I maintain a rather crazy schedule. For years I logged up to 400,000 miles as I flew across the globe as a management consultant. Today, as Chief Revenue Officer of SAFEbuilt, my business is contained to the United States, yet I find myself equally as busy, logging 150,000 miles a year even during the pandemic, as we provide essential building and professional services to local and state governments. Between meeting clients and prospects, and leading a national team that sells and manages these services across more than 1,200 client communities, life can get a bit hectic.

Leaders must understand their business at a granular level, primarily because it enables them to increase their situational awareness while gaining much-needed empathy to lead a team down smooth or bumpy roads.

To gain this deep understanding, I work to identify the business’ core competencies. Simultaneously, I am conducting a skills inventory of myself, as well as my team. The result of that assessment leads to the development of my strategic imperatives, or focus areas, as well as identifying what or where to outsource to gain speed, efficiencies, and effectiveness. My days at Paychex and Intuit, while nearly 20 years ago, still serve as a gut check when I think about how to best accelerate revenue growth.

Every business outsources some parts, or pieces, of its operation. Whether it’s payroll, office cleaning, accounting, or back-office processing, the concept of outsourcing has been around, well, forever. Highly effective leaders recognize that if they focus on their core competencies, they can accelerate revenue growth faster than if they get bogged down with having to manage all the minute details. Further, once you have an accurate assessment of your skills, and those of your team’s, you’ll be able to more quickly make determinations as to where NOT to spend your time and attention and find an outsourced solution.

The past decade has ushered in the concept of partnership versus outsourcing. It’s no longer in fashion to simply be a vendor of services…an outsourcer. Today, we must all be partners, or at least that’s what all the rage is about. Of course, you get so much more value when working with a partner. Don’t you? Hmmm.

How do you distinguish between a vendor and a partner? How can you tell exactly what you have? Is your office cleaner a partner? How about your accountant? When you have your payroll processed, is the payroll specialist providing partner services? When you buy a new sofa, is that salesperson a partner?

Chances are that many, if not most, of your business dealings are actually nothing more than vendor-based relationships. And guess what? That’s okay. Every function and every vendor doesn’t need partner status. Sometimes a simple transaction is all that’s required for efficiency. 

Avoid wasted calories by trying to make more of something than what it is. The key is to know which functions within your business would benefit if you had a real partner working with you.

My measure of a partner goes well beyond the work delivered for the dollars I’ve paid. If I get what I’ve paid for, it’s likely a vendor relationship. If I get more than what I’ve paid for, you just might be teetering on partner status. Further, if the vendor I’ve hired pushes my thinking and helps me to innovate, they achieve the coveted status of partner.

An example of a great partner relationship is with our digital marketing agency – Square2. I began my journey with Square 2 back in 2012 and have worked on and off with them across different companies and industries. The co-founders of Square 2, Mike Lieberman and Eric Keiles, are masters of innovative thinking. Sure, I hired Square 2 to outsource my digital marketing needs, but the value we’ve received from working together goes beyond the increase in MQL activity and SQL conversion.

With my crazy coast-to-coast travel schedule, I was struggling to find the time to add yet another meeting to my calendar for progress updates. Many times just minutes before meetings I end up having to reschedule due to a client or associate need, and here is where the partner status comes in.

Rather than trying to stick to a traditional meeting cadence for progress updates, Mike Lieberman, taking into consideration his buyer’s needs (mine), suggested that the Square 2 team provide me with progress updates via a short video that I could watch during flights or Uber rides to absorb and contemplate questions or reactions. This slight adjustment in working together has made a big difference, as it has improved my ability to keep informed while being able to make changes or provide input in near-real time. 

This is a perfect example of meeting your buyer where and how they want to be met, rather than continuing with a “this is how we do things” approach. 

Here’s where the value of a true partnership really begins to accelerate results.

Serving more than 1,200 communities nationwide, with each community having between two and seven personas we interact with on a regular basis, I have adopted and implemented this tactic within my own team. While it certainly isn’t a silver bullet, it does offer clients another avenue for updates. No different than payroll providers offering businesses the ability to phone in, fax in, email, and now launch an app on a smart device to produce payroll, video updates are just another option on the menu to allow clients to choose how they interact with their provider, or better yet, partner.

What’s the last thing you learned from a vendor that went beyond the scope of work you hired them to perform? How often are your vendors collaborating with you to find new or different approaches that help you personally save time, increase your personal efficiency, or resolve a pain point?

Partners go beyond the scope. They focus on the individual they are providing the services to on behalf of the company they are contracted with. Think about that. How concerned is your vendor about your time, your effectiveness, and your ability to improve the running of the business, versus just providing the service they said they would?

Vendors have the ability to improve your business. Great partners don’t just have the ability – they act and add value beyond the four corners of your contract by going deep into your business, making you and your business better.

Leaders are not born, they’re developed

On By Joe DeRosaIn Leadership1 Comment

I recently had dinner with one of my top sales people in San Diego this week and the conversation got around to whether people are born as natural sales people, or leaders.

I’ve never been a believer that people are born into a specific life path. What I believe is that each of us is born with a set of talents, capabilities, and competencies. We are all born with a specific attitude as well. A mindset, a glass half full, versus half empty thinking. A skeptic, an optimist, or pragmatist.

Here’s where the conversation gets fun. Believe it or not there was an interesting life lesson that has stuck with me for years from a rather unexpected movie – RAMBO III. In the movie the character of Colonel Troutman gives a pep talk to John Rambo. He tells the story of a sculpture who finds a perfect stone. He drags it back to his workshop and creates an incredible statue. When his friends compliment him on his creation, he says, he didn’t create anything. The statue was always there…he just chipped away the small pieces.

We are all born with natural talents. Some are blessed with athletic abilities, others with analytical strengths, others with caregiver strengths. The difference between those that achieve their full potential versus those who don’t, is finding a mentor(s) who helps validate and provide direction for your unique set of skills.

What if there was no Earl to Tiger Woods? What if no Joe to Michael Jackson? What if no Kurt to Michael Douglas? There are thousands more of these examples of folks who are not in the limelight but succeeded because they benefited from someone who recognized their talents and provided direction and encouragement. I’ve been incredibly blessed to have had a number of bosses throughout my career who have guided, counseled, and encouraged me to embrace my skills, take chances, and stretch. Without them, I am certain I would not have accomplished what I have thus far. And while I’m now considered “middle age”, my need for their input, guidance, and counsel still remains strong. Being a continuous learner never stops…until the heart does.

So what if you don’t feel like you have a person like this in your life? What do you do to find someone to fill this gap? The answer is easy. Look around. That person is probably closer to you than you think. It could be a spouse, partner, boss, friend, someone at the gym, someone sitting next to you on a plane. In fact, my love for American history was born on a flight I was on in 2004 when I met a gentlemen who asked me what types of books were my favorite to read. Foolishly I said none. He said, how can you spend so much time on a plane and not read. He told me I was missing all kinds of opportunities to expand my thinking. When we landed he gave me a book that became the catalyst for creating my voracious appetite for reading. That book was called His Excellency on George Washington. I can’t count the number of books I’ve given away over the years to people who I just met in similar situations. You never know who, or how you can impact the life of a stranger for the better. It’s incredibly heartwarming and fulfilling.

Life lessons are everywhere. Sometimes you just need to put down your phone, take out your ear buds, and just be…be present. Take an inventory of all the things you’re good at. Jot down what you like to do. Assess the crowd you hang with and identify a few people to approach to help you clear away those stones. Remember, the statue is always there…it’s just how badly you want to chip away at the stones to show your uniqueness and value to the world.

The Leaders List of Critical Books to Read

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

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Curiosity is a key competency for those looking to grow and lead. Curiosity about a business, its industry, people, customers, competitors, investors, are all necessary to excel in today’s high speed world of hyper-competition. There are many ways to satisfy your curiosity including doing, reading, researching, and interviewing.

Unfortunately for many, reading takes the very last seat in the back, with the most common excuse I hear for not reading – “who has the time?” To which my response is, “Apparently only the highest of high performers.”  What exactly are you willing to invest in improving yourself and your skills?  How much time?  How much money?  How much of your freedom?  Why freedom?  Because, when others are using their freedom to golf, ski, hit the bar, head to the gym, or sleep on that cross-country flight, you’re using your freedom to expand your knowledge base and perspective.

Whether you’ve been a leader for a year, or twenty, we all experience ups, downs, wins, losses, triumphs, and failures.  One thing I’d say is that your top reads will almost always be driven by your immediate, or anticipated circumstances. My suggestion is to have a stable of those books identified and ready to go.  In addition, practicing the habit of self-reflection will also super-charge your results when combined with building your arsenal of perspectives through reading.

If you’re wondering how much to read, I simply say, get started.  Everyone’s pace is different.  Some like turning pages, others like reading on a tablet, and still others prefer listening via audiobooks.  No matter your preference, just start.  Set a goal.  Pick a book and set a goal to complete it within 2 weeks.  Two weeks is a good timeframe to get through a book that’s between 250 – 300 pages once placed into your routine.  Make no mistake, a routine it must be.

A few thoughts before revealing the list of critical reads for all leaders…first, all leaders need financial acumen. However, most of us, unless you were classically trained, have learned while doing.  This doesn’t make for a very strong financial foundation. Public companies view the world quite differently from privately held companies, or even more specifically those owned by private equity.

Second, to be a great leader you must learn and understand what it means to follow. This means that all great leaders take the time to learn as much as they can. If you don’t have a very healthy dose of curiosity, then find one quickly.  Your leadership life span will be limited by the depth of knowledge you acquire and accumulate as it relates to your business and the industry.

Lastly, conduct regular assessments on your personal performance. Find a number of folks who will be brutally honest with you about your style, your results, your core competencies. Play to your strengths and stop dwelling on your weaknesses.

Here is a list of the top reads for all leaders:

 

Growing Through Adversity

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

Positive growth can happen even under the toughest of conditions. Perseverance, determination, and the ability to adapt are what’s needed to push through the challenges and capture the growth that’s yours. New skills, new perspectives, new ideas.

As I walked around our property today I saw this beautiful petunia growing in-between some pavers. Oddly this is not a flower we have planted anywhere on our property, yet here it is. With temperatures in the high 90’s this past week, and no rain or water, seeing this thing of beauty grow in the most difficult conditions made me realize how possible growth is in any environment.

It reminds me of the line in Jurassic Park – “Life will find a way.” You really can do anything you set your mind to.

How Sharing Can Accelerate Results

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

In today’s rapidly advancing digital age, information has never been easier to access. We shop for clothes, cars, computers, and countless other consumables and services through the internet. We research our customers, competitors, future employers and employees, and bosses. We share our experiences and opinions about banks, hairdressers, mechanics, and restaurants on sites like Yelp, Facebook and Google. In fact, by the time you finish reading this blog, more than 1 million posts will have been made on Facebook (assuming you can finish this in 2 minutes or less).

With so much information, so quickly accessible, why do businesses still operate in silos? Why do management teams, and executives, feel compelled to withhold information from their teams? Are there still people that believe in Jack Nicholson’s position in A Few Good Men? Perhaps some might not be able to handle the truth but most are far more capable than you may think. In fact, if you consider real-life General Stanley McChrystal, in his book Team of Teams, he talks about transforming the U.S. Military from a command-and-control operation to a “shared consciousness” where there is an organization-wide “understanding of the whole.”

So why do executives hold back? Why do they covet information at all? The answer is FUD – Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Fear of embarrassment, uncertainty of reaction, doubt in the character and tenacity of the people on their teams. Harold MacMillian said, “A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.” This couldn’t be more true.

Sharing for the sake of sharing is a waste of time and effort, however, sharing for the sake of establishing trust is an accelerator of positive results. How do can you tell if sharing is real? If the information the leader is sharing is sensitive, in that it makes him vulnerable, he’s sharing. If the information is sensitive, in that it may make the company vulnerable, she’s sharing. If there is any level of personal, professional, or company risk, this qualifies for real sharing. When real sharing is being demonstrated, a culture of trust can begin to develop and teams begin to form. A leader who shares real stuff is confident, comfortable being vulnerable, and willing (and interested) in learning. Those are the leaders people seek to follow.

Still think sharing is a crock? If you need further evidence that sharing can accelerate growth, look no further than Berkshire Hathaway which currently holds the title as the highest priced stock on the NYSE at more than $320,000 for a BRK-A share as of this blog post. If you, like me, believe that sharing is a critical ingredient to building trust, consider the words of Berkshire’s Charlie Munger, “By the standards of the rest of the world, we over trust. So far it has worked very well for us.” It certainly has.

How much courage do you have to start sharing?

Business – it’s all personal

On By Joe DeRosaIn Business1 Comment

Business exists to serve peoples needs. It doesn’t matter if you work for a B2B, or B2C company. Somewhere downstream in the process, is a consumer who is making a decision to buy a product or service you make, or contribute to making.

Business is very personal. Only people can care, a business cannot. A business may be a culmination of caring people but by itself, a business is nothing more than an idea. People bring ideas to life. People bring passion to their work and workplace. People bring thoughtfulness and caring for one another and a community. That all happens with people. A business can only serve as a conduit to deliver what the collection of these people express.

When I hear “it’s not personal, it’s just business”, I would say, it’s all personal. People give their most valuable asset they have to a business…their time. With that time they could invest it elsewhere to generate different returns. With their families, with other businesses, other ideas, other objectives. It is a trade-off. Yet once that trade-off is made, an individual is committing themselves – their person – to the business. This is how business gets done, and it becomes very personal.

Empathy is a key emotion to bridge the gap between business and personal. Why? Because time is the only thing that binds us all together. We all have a set amount of sand in our hourglass. When it’s gone it’s gone. Take some of your sand, and use it with others at work to demonstrate that you hear them, you understand their challenges, and you have ideas to share that can help them. By doing this you add value. And while no one can put more sand into anyone’s hourglass, we can all put a little value into each other’s lives…in, and outside, of business.

Talent and Innovation

On By Joe DeRosaIn Joe's OpinionLeave a comment

Everyone says they want to innovate. Every company talks innovation. We’re now seeing innovation as a core value for many companies. But are they really innovating?

Innovation is about talent. In the absence of talent there can’t be innovation. The first step to innovation is recognizing the two types of talent required to be innovative.

The first type of talent required to innovate is visionary talent. This is the talent, skill, or competency to see things others cannot see, or are unwilling to accept. Visionary talent is often related to first-movers. Many of the products and services we use on a daily basis started first with a vision. A mobile phone, a smart watch, wireless headphones (or ear buds), technology in the cloud versus a mainframe. These inventions, or innovations, required visionary talent. How do you spot visionary talent? Individuals that possess an insatiable appetite for learning, dreaming, and pondering not what is, but what could be.

The second type of talent required for true innovation is technical talent. This is the talent that is required to bring the vision to life. Think of Steve Wozniak to Steve Jobs. Technical talent tied to visionary talent. Or Charlie Munger to Warren Buffett. Technical talent is what enables our ability to bring dreams into our daily reality.

In 1899, Charles Duell, then Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, said, “Everything that can be invented, has already been invented.” While I personally don’t believe this to be true, let’s for a moment assume it is. If this were to be true, then arguably technical talent would be far more valuable than visionary talent. Why? Because the focus would be on incremental improvements of things that already exist. However, this raises a thought provoking question. What’s invention versus innovation.

In 1849, Italian inventor Antonio Meucci, invented the telephone. It wasn’t until 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device. Fast forward to 1973 when the first phone call was made on a Motorola mobile phone. Was the mobile phone an invention or simply an improvement on something already invented? Remember, it was 50 years after the phone was invented that Duell said everything that could be invented already had been invented.

Regardless, visionary talent and technical talent combined are required to innovate. Combining the creator of dreams with the builder of those dreams allows us to improve our lives in meaningful ways.

What’s your talent pool like? Who are your visionaries and who are your techies? How often do you review your organization for these two types of talent? Your answers to these questions will be the proof point for whether you are building and living an innovation culture.