8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses

What does it take to become an extraordinary boss? How do you compare to this standard? What can you do to improve yourself? One way to improve is to compare how you operate to the gold standard and then work on closing the gap.

Geoffrey James wrote an article entitled 8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses in a recent entry on the Inc magazine website which is the source for this post. Below are a couple of the beliefs and what Geoffrey says about the beliefs. The full article is worth the read.

A company is a community not a machine. He means, "Extraordinary bosses see their company as a collection of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. They inspire employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to the community–and company–at large."

Motivation comes from vision, not from fear. Here he means, "Extraordinary bosses inspire people to see a better future and how they'll be a part of it. As a result, employees work harder because they believe in the organization's goals, truly enjoy what they're doing and (of course) know they'll share in the rewards."

All of Geoffrey's points have similar insight. Read the article, start to put these beliefs into your management style and enjoy the improvement.

An Inspiring & True Sales Story

This is a blog post from Gerhard Gschwandtner that I could not help but post here. It is the story of what happens when you take action. Get up out of your chair and do something!

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In January 1949, Hugh A. Wedge, sales-training director with Security Mutual Life in Binghamton, NY, offered an unusual account of an all-night sales binge conducted by 29 tireless, life insurance sales professionals.

The group participated in a life underwriter training course and, on a dare, decided to plan "Operation Paul Revere," to be conducted on Friday, the concluding day of the course.

At 7 p.m., they began to canvass the city of Binghamton, determined to find prospects and sell insurance policies. One salesman started out alone and visited people in gas stations, restaurants, bakeries, and any other place he could find open. He wrote four life insurance policies for $20,000. He closed the first sale at 12:30 a.m. at a gas station and his last at 4:30 a.m. at a trucking company. Another agent sold a $50,000 policy to a young doctor in a hospital at 1:05 a.m. and collected a check for the first premium.

"One woman in the group," wrote Wedge, "made it a point to establish herself in the cafeteria of one of the hospitals. Here she could sit under comfortable circumstances and talk with the nurses as they came in for their suppers. She had three interviews and closed three sales. She also got 10 new sales leads."

One intrepid agent canvassed policemen wherever possible. One policeman he approached said that he had been looking for a chance to talk with a life insurance agent because he wanted to go into the business himself. He later was signed up as a new agent for the company, got an "A" on the aptitude index test, and is planning to work full-time for the company.

The group worked until 5 a.m. and then met at an all-night restaurant to compare notes. The waiter who served coffee told one of the alert salespeople that he wanted to buy some insurance but hadn't had the chance to talk with anyone about it during the day. He, too, signed the application and paid his first premium of $107 in cash after producing a roll of bills.

The 29 agents worked a total of 209 hours that night, made 227 calls, concluded 125 successful sales interviews, closed 61 sales, sold $285,608 of life insurance, and earned an aggregate of $3,203 in commissions.

How Do You Inspire Your Staff?

30 Second MBA video from Fast Company. In this video Mike Williams, the CEO and President of the David Allen Company, answers the question posed above. Care about your staff and listen. Enjoy.

Jack Dorsey - Running Twitter and Square

Jack Dorsey runs Twitter and Square. This is an older interview Jack did with Kevin Rose. The conversation talks of entrepreneurship, decision making, trial and error, and the path Jack took that lead to the creation of Twitter and Square.

Secrets of the Most Productive People I Know

How can you know if you are being as productive as you are able? How can you know some techniques for continuing to improve on the productivity front? In a recent article on the Inc Magazine website, Margaret Heffernan shared four ideas for improvement. If you're like me there is no end to learning how to improve, so this is worth reading and sharing.

Margaret starts with writing that highly productive people still have a life. They are not just the people who give their entire lives over to a job or a cause. Often it's the time outside of work that brings the ideas for work. Secondly, she discusses that they take breaks. I for one find that my time away from the office allows my mind to settle down and then add some new ideas.

Third she says they often work in multiple industries. This can mean that they have a job career that spans different industries or it could mean that they "work" at hobbies or volunteer in charity work that gives them exposure to other industries. Lastly she she writes that they often have outside collaborators. This is often a sounding board or a group of friends that bring a totally different perspective. Could Jeff Bezos of Amazon have been able to build the largest online retailer by only talking to brick and mortar book stores?

There is no end to ideas for productivity improve. This article had some great ideas that I thought were worth sharing. Enjoy.

Davos 2012 - John Chambers

In this video the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, answers four big questions that will impact business in the U.S. This video is worth watching because there will be at least a couple of items that can be put into place in almost any business you run. My biggest take away for our company is to keep increasing the use of video in communicating with our people and our customers.

Here are the four big questions:

What great transformation will the world face in the next decade?
What new models will drive change in your industry?
How can organizations build competitive innovation for the next generation?
How can your industry work with other stakeholders to improve the state of the world?

Enjoy the show!

Learning The Softer Side Of Leadership

Learning The Softer Side Of Leadership is a blog post from Fast Company magazine. When I first saw a link to this post, my initial reaction was another soft and sappy article about holding hands and chanting together. I decided to click through anyway and see what the meat of the post was about. Turns out I really enjoyed the read and thought it would be worth sharing.

Our company, Hopkins Printing, has been going through a lean transformation for the last three plus years. It has been a difficult and time consuming process that has resulted in some great gains in productivity, engagement and improvement. One of the pieces we have added is an annual strategy session that results in three top goals that then drive department and personal goals for each person in the company. This is where we are in alignment with "Learning The Softer Side Of Leadership" because it focuses on getting everyone in the company aligned with the strategic goals of the company. The hard side of leadership is the daily activities and the "to do's" that consume so much of our time and energy. The soft side is trying to keep the mood and the attitude of the team moving in a unified direction.

Below is the headline for the blog post - "Leaders' primary objective is to empower others to make decisions and take actions that are aligned with the organization’s vision, purpose, and strategy. These nuances are the softer side of leadership, beyond the technical skills that you have already mastered." This statement gives the overall purpose of the post. Our job as leaders is to get the entire company moving in a unified direction. This is the softer side.