Thoughts to Make You Think

Like most people, I’ve done my share of being amazed at how the solutions to life’s day problems are solved by middle-of-the-night infomercials. Having been a professional speaker for almost 14 years – I’ve often mused at how hiring a speaker is frightening similar to buying the cure to baldness in the form of a spray from some excited guy on the television. Let me explain. Below I have outlined some of the parallels and how to avoid getting burned if you do in fact hire speakers.

To get results in this competitive landscape an organization needs to be stronger, faster, and more efficient. The pitfall that most organizations fall into as they embark along this journey is they get obsessed with correcting their inefficiencies and weaknesses rather than channeling their resources to their strengths. The 10-80-10 Principle is a framework that helps organization strategically navigate through complex situations with maximum results by helping them reduce the time they spend on weaknesses and increase the time spent on strengths. Every organization has internal strengths (Top 10) and weaknesses (Bottom 10). All other actions are considered to be Majority 80; the Majority 80 tends to take the lead of either the Top 10 or Bottom 10, depending on where the attention and resources of the organization is focused. If an organization tends to lead with the Top 10, the Majority 80 follows them and they create a dynamic organization. If the Bottom 10 leads the Majority 80 follows them and they create a static organization. Through time organizations will fluctuate through cycles of being both dynamic and static. The more time an organization spends being dynamic is directly proportional to the performance of the organization – more time being dynamic, more performance, less time being dynamic, less performance. To successfully implement The 10-80-10 Principle it starts with articulating a clear vision of what the organization is trying to do, this desired result forms the basis to successfully implement the remaining steps. Once the organization is clear on the desired results, they need to identify what within the organization is Top 10 with respect to the vision and what is Bottom 10. Top 10 refers to the activities that are currently being done that are working toward achieving the desired result, whereas Bottom 10 is the activities that are being performed that work in opposition to the vision. Keep in mind what is defined as Top 10 and Bottom 10 is NOT absolute. Top 10 does not mean “good” and Bottom 10 mean “bad”, Top 10 simply means it is supporting the vision and Bottom 10 is working against it. Top 10 and Bottom 10 may easily flipflop when the desired result is changed. A company going through a creative process considers rigid processes and procedures to be cumbersome, Bottom 10 weaknesses whereas a company going through a cost-cutting exercise considers the same actions to be Top 10. What defines Top 10 and Bottom 10 is how those actions fit relative to the desired result. A Top 10 behavior is one that currently exists that supports the desired result. A Bottom 10 behavior is one that currently opposes the desired result.

His name was Dan Norman. He was 22 years old and a fresh grad being interviewed for his first job by his first employer. I was sitting on the other side of the table. I along with two of my colleagues was doing the interview. He was polite, he was eager and there was something about him that was very likeable. But, he was nervous, very nervous. The biggest tip off to his nervousness was he must have said he was nervous at least 5 times in the first 10 minutes of the interview. We were looking to hire someone to take the lead on recruitment for a high school business leadership conference we were running. For some reason, there was a perfect storm that day that had poor Dan go through the interview ringer. One of the first questions we asked him, “Dan, you are on the phone about to speak to a high school principal, keep in mind one of your goals is to recruit students to attend this event, he or she picks up the phone, what do you say? Go …” Dan freezes like a deer in headlights. “Dan, what would be your strategy to recruit students to attend the event?” Dan nervously responds, “I’m not sure. I’d need some time to think about it.” “How much time? An hour? A day? A week?” Again Dan goes back to his nervousness comment, “I don’t know, I’m sorry. I’m just really nervous.” “Why are you nervous?” “It’s just … well … there are three of you and only one of me … and I really want this job …” My colleague steps up the pressure, “I’ll make this really easy for you. You don’t get the job!” He then gets up and leaves the room. Poor Dan isn’t quite sure what happened. He pauses a bit and says, “So? Should I go now?” Knowing where my colleague was going with his train of thought I throw Dan a bit of a floatation advice. “No, you don’t need to go. You said you were nervous about being interviewed by three people and about getting the job. What my colleague tried to do is relieve both of these stresses for you. Pretend you don’t get the job, now there are only two of us. So, now let’s talk.”

Like most people, I’ve done my share of being amazed at how the solutions to life’s day problems are solved by middle-of-the-night infomercials. Having been a professional speaker for almost 14 years – I’ve often mused at how hiring a speaker is frightening similar to buying the cure to baldness in the form of a spray from some excited guy on the television. Let me explain. Below I have outlined some of the parallels and how to avoid getting burned if you do in fact hire speakers.

The other day I had a horrible headache and it was one of those days I couldn’t afford to have a headache. So, I didn’t hesitate to pop a couple of Aspirin. The headache cleared up quite quickly. Unfortunately the Aspirin upset my stomach so I ventured out to the pharmacist and he recommended that I take some Gravol. It worked like a charm and I proceeded with my day. The side effect of the Gravol made me very sleepy; so sleepy that I felt it warranted a trip back to the pharmacist at which point Sudafed was the suggested solution to pep me up. The Sudafed worked, I was wide awake. In fact, it worked too well because it made my heart race to such a level that my doctor got involved. After her examination she prescribed a beta blocker. I fulfilled my prescription and was on my way to full recovery. The only problem was the beta blocker lowered my exercise tolerance which on its own isn’t too bad but the lack of exercise threw me off my normal routine and it lead to a mild case of depression. So on a referral from my family doctor I visited a psychiatrist. After his examination he figured some Prozac would carry me through my bout of depression. Unfortunately, the Prozac gave me a headache. So I popped a couple of Asprin … We are a society that is obsessed with “fixing” the symptoms rather than examining the root cause of the problem. As it turns out, my headache was actually the cause of dehydration and could have been easily remedied with a glass of water and I could have saved myself the headache of five drugs and three health providers. Until we can appreciate the causes of why we are where we are, we are destined to return and often in a worst state.

I’m a big believer that one of the single best things you can do for the ones you love is let them fail! To deny someone the opportunity to fail is one of the greatest injustices you can do. Besides, without understanding failure, you can never really appreciate victory. Allowing children (and adults) the opportunity to learn by trial and error is one of the best ways to engrain a skill. Please don’t take what I am writing out of context. I am not suggesting that you let your freshly walking child to roam the highways to learn to fail. But I am suggesting that letting a child learning to walk fall and not always catching him or her could dramatically increase his or her ability to learn to walk at an earlier age. When our little guy was first learning to sit up he had this nasty habit of throwing his head back and flopping to the ground. This was okay when he was propped up with his nursing pillow because it cushioned the blow. However, if he was ever sitting on a harder surface, it was a painful experience. In an effort to help him overcome this, we assisted in letting him fail. We quickly transitioned from propping him with a nursing pillow to using normal pillows which did not cushion him as well. The result, nothing changed. So, we went to the next step, let him fail a little bigger. Instead of a pillow, all he got was a thick blanket on a carpeted surface – definitely harder than pillow, but still plenty soft that he was going to really hurt himself. However, it needs to be hard enough to entice him to change his behavior. End result was, it only slightly modified his actions. So, the thick blanket became a thin blanket – and presto. He was able to fail and realized he didn’t like it. So he changed his behavior. If you constantly bail someone out, that person will never learn to fend for themselves. This is not about tough love. This is about helping people to become independent and playing a role to help empower the people around you. Think back to when you were in school writing tests. If you wrote a test and there were 20 questions and you managed to answer 17 questions correctly – what did you go and review when you got the test back? If you are like most people, the first thing you did is went to the three questions you got incorrect to learn not to repeat the mistake for the final exam. Even if you guessed at some of the answers, our tendency is to go to the ones we got wrong to learn. Don’t deny people the experience of learning from their mistakes. Let people fail! All successful people do!

Many years ago, I was interested in learning about politics with the idea that someday I might consider running for office. I figured that the best way to learn about how the political system works was to immerse myself within it. Through a connection, I met a man who had quite the political pedigree and I joined his election team. What a great learning experience it was, and through it I discovered that successful campaigns utilize a strategy that I later coined the 10-80-10 Principle. I started out canvassing with this man (let’s call him George Smith of Party A) door-to-door and was completely perplexed by our first few encounters. At one house, a woman came to the door and he introduced himself. “Hello, I am George Smith and I represent Party A …” That was all he was able to get out before he was interrupted. “Oh, Party A. Well, I’ve supported Party B for 40 years, and let me tell you just SOME of the things you and your party are doing wrong!” And she started to rip into him. A rookie politician would have immediately defended his party’s position and tried to convince this woman that they are not evil. Instead George did something that I thought was brilliant. His response was, “You’re right. Sorry for wasting your time.” Then he moved on to the next house. For the most part, we received two other kinds of reactions. If the person was undecided, we would offer them a flyer from Party A and say something to the effect of, “We would really like your support. Please let us know if we can do anything to help you with your decision.” But if the person was already planning to vote for Party A, that’s where we spent most of our time. “You are voting for Party A; that is excellent. We really appreciate your support. Have you considered placing a sign on your lawn? They come in two sizes, extra large and super extra large. Or perhaps you would be interested in going door-to-door identifying votes like we are doing?” I used to think that the purpose of canvassing was to try and win people over and get them to vote for you. It has nothing to do with that. When politicians knock on your door they care very little about trying to change your mind. They want to know if you’ve decided to vote for them or not. If they aren’t already your candidate of choice, they aren’t going to try and convince you. George Smith, understood this perfectly. The woman with 40 years of supporting Party B was part of his Bottom 10. Staying with this woman and trying to get her to come around to his way of thinking would take time and effort he simply didn’t want to spend. Instead, George spent.

Krista entered the car dealership ready to buy her first car. She was excited, she was eager and she was scared. We all have a negative stereotypical image of what some car salesmen (or women) can be like – and Krista found one. This guy oozed slime. He was all about the sale. And, he wasn’t about to let Krista’s preferences get in the way of him making the sale. He was the type of guy that likes to listen to his own voice. Silence obviously scared him and he felt that if he talked faster and filled up all lulls in conversation with his attempt at wit and humor that the chances of closing the deal increased. Little did he realize that it actually has the opposite effect. He knew a lot about cars but very little about people. His biggest flaw as an effective salesperson was his lack of listening skills. He figured he knew what was best and if you happen to disagree with him and had slightly different preferences, then obviously you knew nothing about cars and he was have to educate you. Krista found this exchange to be the clincher that made her go to another dealership. She had narrowed down her selection of vehicles to two – both vehicles were at this same dealership. Her goal was to test drive both cars and after that decide which she felt was the better deal. Upon returning from the test drive she was quite happy with how both cars handled and she figured the determining factor would be price. That’s when our salesmen decided that Krista’s best option was the more expensive one and he was determined to convince her of it. He went on and on about how much better the one car was than the other. So what if it was more expensive – it was the better car. “This one has a very nice sound system. It has eight speakers …” Before he could finish Krista interrupted him. “Thanks, but all I want in the car is a simple radio, the rest of that stuff is useless to me.” “But,” he said, “it also has a built in MP3 player.” Again Krista insisted, “All I need is a radio!” “This has a radio and it has a subwoofer …” Krista cut him off, “Perhaps you are not listening to me. I am NOT interested in a fancy stereo. You may think you are ‘selling’ me on this when in fact you are annoying me.” Krista promptly left the dealership and ended up purchasing her vehicle from another dealership.