Tag: coaching

Birds of a feather

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

Today’s article in the WSJ, “Buffett and Munger on Success…” got me thinking…

Success is about surrounding yourself with other high-achievers with whom you share common values. Many people surround themselves with like-minded people. This approach becomes self-limiting as it’s easy to fall into group-think when the focus is to associate with other like-minded folks. Sure, it may feel comfortable, or safer to align with others that think like you do, but that approach is a growth limiter.

Instead, focus on surrounding yourself with people who share similar values, and morals, and you’ll end up with a network of positive, diverse thinkers who can stretch and grow your perspectives.

Another important filter when thinking about your network that resonated with me came from the WSJ interview with Charlie Munger. Success comes from steering clear of toxic people. “The great lesson of life is get them the hell out of your life—and do it fast,” Mr. Munger said. 

Find those that lift you up, challenge you, teach you, coach you, and are courageous enough to be real with you. Those are the folks that will help you grow and become a better human being.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/warren-buffett-on-finding-success-at-work-and-what-matters-in-hiring-43da47c3?mod=business_lead_pos1

Leading Through Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

From What’s In It for Me (WIFM), to Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS), there are countless acronyms we’ve all heard, and used, throughout our careers. Given today’s challenging climate, a leader’s mettle is tested in times of (FUD) fear, uncertainty and doubt. Leading from the front when the wind is at your back is far easier than walking into gale force winds in your face. Said differently, any average leader can lead with tailwinds, but high performing leaders are those that can advance the cause in the face of the strongest headwinds…in the face of fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Many of us are having to do just that today – lean into the headwinds. Macro conditions are reeking havoc on buyers and accelerating the FUD factor. As buyer behavior changes, FUD spills over into our teams…how can it not? As I spend time self-reflecting on the leadership behaviors and attributes that I have experienced during other times of fear, uncertainty and doubt, including Y2K, the dot-com bust, 9/11, and the Great Recession to name a few, it became evident to me that:

  • Leaders must balance confidence and reality with empathy. Too much confidence makes you appear disconnected. Too much reality can create more fear. Empathy makes you human…relatable.
  • Leaders need to be curious. In times of FUD, leaders need to ask questions. Go deep. Get under the covers. Learn first hand what’s going on. Your curiosity is responsible for identifying new paths forward for your team thereby calming the troops.
  • Leaders need to have courage. Not every decision will be right. In fact, many will be flat out wrong…once you have hindsight. You make the best decisions you can, in the moment, with the best available data…and own it.
  • Leaders need to have conviction. The decision is your decision. Right or wrong, you own it. There’s no escape. The art of decision making is knowing when to lean in, and knowing when to admit that a course correction is necessary.
  • Leaders are responsible for identifying and communicating the silver lining. Economic cycles come and go. History tells us that there are bull markets, and there are bear markets. Markets move. Every rain storm is preceded by sunny skies, as well as being followed by sunny skies. It’s the leaders job to reassure their teams that while it may be raining at the moment, the sun will in fact shine again…that’s a fact.
  • Finally, leaders need to be visible, in the trenches, shoulder to shoulder with their teams. Great leaders don’t hide behind Zoom, or a curtain, (we used to refer to the ivory tower), but instead face the same heat/fire their people face with customers, vendors, suppliers, investors, etc. After all, as Stephen Covey said, “people don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care”. Great leaders demonstrate this by being present.

Recently I had a conversation with a colleague. Story telling, analogies, and metaphors have always been my go-to communication style. I got to thinking about our role as leaders as it relates to a ship’s captain…

The waters are rough…it’s beyond your control…

The ship is creaking and rocking…you can’t control that…

As captain you’re not sure whether the boat will stay together or start breaking apart…you can’t control that either…

You embrace the storm knowing you’ve sailed through storms before and made it through…this experience gives you conviction…

You’ve carried your crew through rough waters before and they’re counting on you to get them to solid ground…

You chart your course and sail into the wind…this is your decision…

While your internal doubts may be high, you push those doubts into a corner of your brain and lock them there while you focus on sailing through the storm and delivering your crew to solid ground…

You never give up fighting for your crew. That’s the captain’s job.

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
Featured

Growth Through Adversity

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

Our lives are filled with crucible moments.  Situations that shape and mold who we become as people, workers, managers, and leaders.  These moments, whether we face them in our personal lives, or professional life, shape the core of who we become.  They inform, and direct our future beliefs, habits, and behaviors.  They can strengthen or weaken, improve, or deteriorate.  

Most of these moments are unplanned.  They sneak up on us and force our hand.  They force us to buckle, retreat, or forge ahead.  These moments-in-time, although difficult to persevere, help strengthen our constitution…or weaken us.  The choice really is our own.  How we react to adversity is in fact a choice.  Famous, U.S. Men’s Hockey Coach, Herb Brooks, said, “Great moments are born from great opportunities”.  First let me say I have great admiration for Herb Brooks and his legacy. That said, if I may be so bold, I’d make a minor change to his quote and add that great moments are born from either a great opportunity, or adversity.  After all, it’s friction that creates the most beautiful, and valuable diamonds in the world.  The same can be said about our greatest leaders – past, present, and future.  While not always pretty, the world’s great leaders have experienced their share of friction, adversity, and disappointment.  From Washington to Reagan, from Henry Ford to Steve Jobs, from Sam Walton to Elon Musk, each of these leaders experienced their share of hardships and challenges…crucible moments that shaped their views, perspectives, ideas, and leadership styles. 

Spend some time taking inventory of your crucible moments.  I was first exposed to the concept of life journey lines when working for Lorrie Norrington who at the time was the EVP with Intuit in the early 2000’s.  In fact, Journey Mapping is still very much a part of Intuit’s culture.  Looking back, Lorrie is still one of the most influential leaders in my career.  She taught me the importance of quantifying my capabilities and having the confidence to embrace them and act.  Creating a life journey line is an effective way to identify one’s crucible moments, and more importantly understand how those moments shaped us and the new skills and capabilities we acquired because of those moments.  Taking the time to think about these critical moments in life helps to provide clarity on your capabilities.  Steve Jobs famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward.”  That’s not to say, or suggest, we should live in the past, but rather to understand our ability to endure, preserve, learn, adjust, and succeed.

What are your crucible moments?  How did they shape you?  What changes did you endure?  Positive or negative?  

Every person we encounter on a day-to-day basis has gone through, or is currently going through, a crucible moment.  Our ability to empathize is critical.  How we assess these moments, and learn to adjust and adapt, based on this new knowledge and experience, is what enables our future success…and the success of the teams we lead.

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.

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?

Thoughts on Leadership

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

“He who cannot be a good follower, cannot be a good leader” ~ Aristotle.

Great leaders possess empathy and emotional intelligence. Caring enough to ask, and then listening, is the beginning for all great leaders. Charting a course that depends upon the contributions of others requires courage, fortitude and judgement. Leaders understand they are nothing without followers. Great leaders know that their success depends on the relationships they have with those followers. Trust, respect, and caring are ingredients that strengthen the bond between a leader and his, or her followers.

People want to know how much you care before caring about how much you know. Asking versus telling, guiding versus directing, teaching versus demanding, coaching versus demeaning…these are just some ways to demonstrate great leadership.

Leading others requires the leader to be vulnerable. It requires experience and judgement. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. There’s no shortcutting experience. You make the best decisions you can given the information at hand. Hindsight will always be 20/20, but we must live in the present which means the possibility of making a bad decision exists for each of us every day.

Embrace the learning. Be curious. Engage others and listen…truly listen. Open your mind to new perspectives. Create a list of leaders you admire and the attributes they possess that you strive to emulate. Getting comfortable being uncomfortable is the path to growth. Try many things. Fail fast. Don’t worry about being wrong. Nothing of greatness has ever been created on the first attempt. Diamonds take billions of years to create. The first mobile phone was a brick. The first car came in only black and had no windshield wipers. Progress takes time. The key is to keep moving, observing, doing, learning, adjusting. Trying to live life without failure is a wasted life. Life without failure is a blank canvas.

“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” ~ C. S. Lewis

Kindness – The Greatest Difference Maker

On By Joe DeRosaIn LeadershipLeave a comment

What makes a friend, a friend? What makes a candidate worthy of extending an offer of employment? What makes a great boss? What makes a life-long partnership work – personally or professionally?

In pondering these questions they have led me to other questions such as who do I like spending my time with? If I was stranded on a desert island for a month, who would I want to be with? What type of person? Who do I turn to when I’m happiest? And who do I turn to when I need help?

There are many ingredients that go into making a great employee, boss, spouse, and friend. Yet when all those ingredients are boiled down, there is one that rises to the top…kindness.

Intellect without kindness is arrogance. Discipline without kindness is abrupt. Motivation without kindness is dominating. Persistence without kindness is simply annoying. Determination without kindness is Machiavellian.

Sure, we all need a level of intellect, discipline, motivation, persistence and determination to succeed. And yes, there are many who succeed with these attributes in the absence of being kind. Why is that? Kindness costs nothing. You don’t have to take a graduate course to learn kindness. Maybe that’s the problem? Have we lost the ability to see the simplicity of success when kindness is added as the final ingredient?

Kindness doesn’t mean losing. Being kind doesn’t mean taking the back seat. Kindness does not operate from a position of weakness, but rather a position of strength. Being kind is a conscious choice. Your buyers feel it, your employees feel it, your spouse feels it, and yes, strangers feel it. That random act of kindness from someone you don’t even know that puts a smile on your face and warms the heart. We can all learn from kindness, and kindness is ours free to give. It’s your choice.

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.