Leadership

Most people that know me know that I am very goal oriented and focused on results. I was not always like this. I had always considered myself a good leader perhaps due to my empathy, perhaps due to my time in the Army… who knows? But actually using this natural leadership to any great effect has been my challenge ever since starting a business 8 years ago.

What I came to discover is that I simply had charisma – I could get people to like and respect me, but that was only half the battle (more like 25% of the battle). It’s what you do when you have this respect that matters. This what I have come to learn as true leadership: deserving the respect of those around you enough to have their confidence to lead them in a particular direction – preferably a productive one – and then actually doing it. The other lesson that I learned early on in business is that people want to be led… expect to be led, and are uncomfortable when there is not a strong leader at the helm.

Armed with this knowledge, I finally began to understand what all of the hoopla was about concerning vision, mission statements and core values. I had been through several exercises on how to develop a vision and a mission statement, but they always seemed more like “wishful thinking”. It wasn’t until I understood the bigger picture, derived from countless books, seminars and a little bit of coaching, that it all made sense regarding how to use these tools.

Vision: An ever-changing horizon affected by changes in economy, your industry personnel, etc., I prefer Kimberly Douglas’ interpretation of vision as not heading towards a single mountain to conquer, but having several mountains in the distance, and you choose which mountain as you get closer it. Kind of like a plan A, B, or C. To much changes too fast in today’s world to have a rigid vision. You need to be open and develop strong skills of adaption. The only exception to this that I can think of is if you have a patent on something so new and innovative that no one else has it.

Mission: Ours is simple “You should be able to expect us to do anything for you that an in house IT technician or CTO would do“. That’s it. It’s easy to remember and speaks to the customer service levels that I demand from my staff. It also saves a lot of time on questions like “Should we do this? Because it’s not specified in the contract“. Most times I just refer them back to the mission statement and ask them to update me as to what they decided later (mostly for my own curiosity and coaching purposes). By the way, if you’re mission statement is more than 1-2 sentences and/or is hard to memorize, it’s too long. Simplify, simplify, simplify. (Thank you, Dr. Bob for this useful bit of advice)

Core Values: Most people think this is what you and/ or the company hold’s valuable, and to some extent it can be. However, what core values really do is apply guide rails to a decision making process. Care values are an invaluable tool for a leader looking to delegate because core values provide a decision framework for your staff to work by. Every time there is a crisis, adhering to the core values that you established should handle 90% of the hard decisions subordinates need to make before ever getting to you. When subordinates make mistakes, you can always counsel them on how what they did conflicted with the company’s core values. When you write out your core values, make sure to also write an interpretation for each.  For example:

Professionalism

Carceron professionals conduct themselves in a business-like manner at all times. They dress sharp and are well groomed and aspire to higher and broader levels of technical expertise and make good ethical decisions.

Of course all of these things can and should change as the business changes, but not so often that people become confused. If you make a change to any of the above, then you should explain why to all of your employees.

Goal Setting

Once all this is in place, you have the foundation for goal setting. Indeed, it is hard to imagine setting goals without a vision, or a mission in place (what would you base your goals on?). When you’re setting company goals for the year, it is very important to involve your staff – your managers at a minimum. This is your front line and they have important information that you will need. Ideally you should spend some time brainstorming off site some where. Get a professional facilitator if it is within your budget  (I recommend Kimberly Douglas of FireFly Faciliation) otherwise have a agenda that runs something like this:

1. Ask for ideas for goals in next year. Try to do so by department – do this even if you don’t have any departments. You don’t need an HR department to set goals of establishing a 401k program or improving benefits
   • Encourage creativity and “out of the box” thinking”
   • Accept all ideas (you’re just brain storming in this phase)
   • No open criticism of ideas should be allowed… yet
2. Discuss and prioritize the goals that you have come up with, remove any that are superfluous or redundant. You may also find that some goals are subordinate to other goals or are tasks to be completed in support of the larger goal.
3. Write all of the goals in a SMART format, which stands for:
   • Specific - Make the goal as specific as possible by making sure it meets the next 4 criteria as well as any other specific criteria you feel is pertinent
   • Measurable - Define the goal line for success. Describe what success looks, smells, tastes and sounds like. Bad Goal: Make more money this year. Good Goal: Make $3,000,000 this year
   • Achievable - Is the goal actually achievable given your current resources (employees, cash, etc.). 200% growth is probably not achievable.
   • Relevant – Is the goal relevant to the vision, mission or core values? If not, then why are you doing it?
     
   • Timely – What is the timeline to complete the goal? Many people work better under a deadline, otherwise, things are too easy to blow off.
4. Now write all of the tasks needed to complete each goal. Make sure to drill down deep here and be as specific as possible. It’s best to have the person that came up with the goal also come up with the necessary tasks needed to complete that goal in most cases. For example, let’s say you that you had a goal of “Upgrade Computer Network by End of 2010″ some of the tasks for that goal might be:
   • Gather computer and network inventory
   • Assess which machines need replacement first
   • Get quotes from 3 different IT solutions providers
   • Create refresh plan with solution provider (don’t be afraid to involve vendors with your goals)
5. Have all goals and tasks in a centrally accessible location such as on a spreadsheet on a server, on your company SharePoint site or using a goal planning web site like LifeTick (this is what my company does).
6. Conduct monthly meetings that focus on goal progress. If you don’t think you’re going to make a goal within a certain time frame, then discuss what you need to do to make that happen (e.g. every one works late one night or on a weekend) or discuss pushing the goal up a quarter (don’t get in the habit of this however).
7. Repeat this process in October or November of each year.

A great resource that I would recommend to you if you plan to run your own agenda without an outside facilitator is a book called The FireFly Effect by Kimberly Douglas.

Best of luck in 2010!