Leading Those Who Don't Want To Follow

by Mike Myatt

When you reach a fork in the road with those you lead, what do you do? Leading those inclined to follow is significantly less of a challenge than leading those who don't want to be led. Anyone who has ever been in a leadership position has had to deal with the inevitable tough relationship that causes more than its fair share of brain damage. At some point in time we've all been involved (directly or indirectly, willingly and unwillingly) in the coporate politics of turf-wars, empire building, silo-centric ignorance, title inflated ego and arrogance, and the list goes on...

Regardless of the politics in play, it is a leader's responsibility to effectively lead not only those that agree with their position, but they must also lead those that hold dissenting opinions.

There are always those who choose to oppose or undermine authority, but that in and of itself does not remove the obligation of a leader to fulfill his or her duty. While likeability is a great asset to possess as a leader, it is not essential. It is however essential that you command the respect of those you lead. Respect is earned by honoring commitments and doing the right thing regardless of opinion, sentiment, or influence. It is through right acts, good decisions, and honest communication that you earn respect and maintain rapport even with those who are not necessarily your greatest supporters.

A key point to consider when things don't seem to be going as smoothly as you would like is that different perspectives, competing agendas, and opposing positions can sometimes present the opportunity for growth and enlightenment. If differing opinions are looked at as an opportunity as opposed to a set-back then I believe positive steps can be taken. What I like to refer as "positional gaps" are best closed by listening to both sides, finding common ground and then letting the principle of doing the right thing guide the process. When you develop the skill to transform negative conflict into creative tension then you will begin to command respect even from those who don't agree with your positions.

It is absolutely possible to build very productive relationships with even the most adversarial of individuals. Regardless of a person's original intent, opinion or position, the key to closing a positional gap is simply a matter of finding common ground in order to establish rapport. Moreover, building rapport is easily achieved assuming your motivations for doing so are sincere. I have always found that rapport is quickly developed when you listen, care, and attempt to help people succeed. By way of contrast it is difficult to build rapport if you are driven by an agenda that is not in alignment with the other party.

While building and maintaining rapport with people with whom you disagree is certainly more challenging, many of the same rules expressed in my comments above still apply. I have found that often times conflict resolution simply just requires more intense focus on understanding the needs, wants and desires of the other party. If opposing views are worth the time and energy to debate, then they are worth a legitimate effort to gain alignment on perspective and resolution on position. However this will rarely happen if lines of communication do not remain open. Candid, effective communication is best maintained through a mutual respect and rapport.

In an attempt to resolve any conflict, the first step is to identify and isolate the specific areas of difference being debated. The sad fact is that many business people are absolutists in that they only see things in terms of rights and wrongs. Thinking in terms of "my way" is right and therefore "other ways" are wrong is the basis for polarizing any relationship, which quickly results in converting discussions into power struggles. However when a situation can be seen through the lens of difference, and a position is simply a matter of opinion not a totalitarian statement of fact, then cooperation and compromise is possible. Identifying and understanding differences allows people (regardless of title) to shift their position through compromise and negotiation while maintaining respect and rapport. The following perspectives if kept top of mind will help in identifying and bridging positional gaps:

• Respect leads to acceptance.


• Accepting a person where they are, creates an bond of trust.


• Trust, leads to a willingness to be open to:


• New opportunities


• New collaborations


• New strategies


• New ideas


• New products

While I like to think that I have earned the respect of the majority of those I have led over the years, I am not so naive to think that that all have liked or supported my positions. That being said, I have nonetheless had to lead them as well. I have been able to accomplish this by adhering to the following principles:


1. Hit conflict head-on. You can only resolve problems by proactively seeking to do so.


2. Always attempt to understand others motivations prior to weighing-in on an issue.


3. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and follow-through on your commitments.


4. Never be swayed by consensus, rather be guided by doing the right thing.


5. Know that no person is universally right or universally liked, and become at peace with that.


6. Regardless of whether or not perspectives and opinions differ, a position of respect must be adhered to and maintained. Respect is at the core of building business relationships. It is the foundation that supports high performance teams, partnerships, superior and subordinate relationships, and peer-to-peer relationships. Respecting the right to differ while being productive is a concept that all successful executives and entrepreneurs master.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Six Steps of CEO Decision Making

by Mike Myatt

You cannot separate leadership from decision making, for like it or not, they are inexorably linked. Put simply, the outcome of a CEO's decisions can, and usually will, make or break them. Those CEOs who avoid making decisions solely for fear of making a bad decision, or conversely those that make decisions just for the sake of making a decision will likely not last long. The fact of the matter is that senior executives who rise to the C-suite do so largely based upon their ability to consistently make sound decisions. However while it may take years of solid decision making to reach the boardroom, it often times only takes one bad decision to fall from the ivory tower. As much as you may wish it wasn't so, as a CEO you're really only as good as your last decision.

"CEO Decision Making" is a skill set that needs to be developed like any other. As a person that works with leaders on a daily basis I can tell you with great certainty that all CEOs are not created equal when it comes to the competency of their decision making skills. Nothing will test your metal as CEO more than your ability to make decisions. I happen to be the type of person that would rather make the decision than have to live with someone else's decisions. In fact, I absolutely love to make decisions, and whether it is in my role in the business world, or my role as a husband and father, I want to be the one making the tough calls. That being said, nobody is immune to bad decision making. We have all made bad decisions whether we like to admit it or not. Show me someone who hasn't made a bad decision and I'll show you someone who is either not being honest, or someone who avoids decision making at all costs, which by the way, constitutes a bad decision.

For more than 25 years I have either served in the capacity of a principal owner, senior executive, or professional advisor, and have generally been well regarded for my decision making ability. However like everyone else, I have also made some regrettable decisions along the way. When I reflect back upon the poor decisions I've made, it's not that I wasn't capable of making the correct decision, but for whatever reason I failed to use sound decision making methodology. Gut instincts can only take you so far in life, and anyone who operates outside of a sound decision making framework will eventually fall prey to an act of oversight, misinformation, misunderstanding, manipulation, impulsivity or some other negative influencing factor.

The complexity of the current business landscape, combined with ever increasing expectations of performance, and the speed at which decisions must be made, are a potential recipe for disaster for today's executive unless a defined methodology for decision making is put into place. If you incorporate the following metrics into your decision making framework you will minimize the chances of making a bad decision:

1. Perform a Situation Analysis: What is motivating the need for a decision? What would happen if no decision is made? Who will the decision impact (both directly and indirectly)? What data, analytics, research, or supporting information do you have to validate the inclinations driving your decision?


2. Subject your Decision to Public Scrutiny: There are no private decisions. Sooner or later the details surrounding any decision will likely come out. If your decision were printed on the front page of the newspaper how would you feel? What would your family think of your decision? How would your shareholders and employees feel about your decision? Have you sought counsel and/or feedback before making your decision?


3. Conduct a Cost/Benefit Analysis: Do the potential benefits derived from the decision justify the expected costs? What if the costs exceed projections, and the benefits fall short of projections?


4. Assess the Risk/Reward Ratio: What are all the possible rewards, and when contrasted with all the potential risks are the odds in your favor, or are they stacked against you?


5. Assess Whether it is the Right Thing To Do: Standing behind decisions that everyone supports doesn't particularly require a lot of chutzpah. On the other hand, standing behind what one believes is the right decision in the face of tremendous controversy is the stuff great leaders are made of. My wife has always told me that "you can't go wrong by going right," and as usual I find her advice to be spot on. Never compromise you value system, your character, or your integrity.


6. Make The Decision: Perhaps most importantly you must have a bias toward action, and be willing to make the decision. Moreover as a CEO you must learn to make the best decision possible even if you possess an incomplete data set. Don't fall prey to analysis paralysis, but rather make the best decision possible with the information at hand using some of the methods mentioned above. Opportunities and not static, and the law of diminishing returns applies to most opportunities in that the longer you wait to seize the opportunity the smaller the return typically is. In fact, more likely is the case that the opportunity will completely evaporate if you wait too long to seize it.

If you develop the appropriate blend of a bias to action with an analytical approach to decision making your stock as CEO will surely rise. Good luck and good decision making...


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Great Leaders Leverage Great Messaging

by Mike Myatt

Great leaders understand the power, influence, and leverage created by great messaging. Do you ever find yourself sitting back and marveling at those leaders who always seem to have the right thing to say? Contrast this with the feelings you have when you hear an awful sound-bite that makes a leader look either uninformed or unintelligent. The difference between the two aforementioned examples is that great leaders have mastered the art of finding the right message regardless of the medium, market, or constituency being addressed. In today's post I'll share some of the messaging secrets used by the best leaders...

So why is great messaging so important? In the business world, as a chief executive officer or entrepreneur, corporate messaging is the key to both your personal and professional positioning strategy. A leader's message has a direct impact on their personal and corporate brand equity, how they manage a crisis, marketing initiatives, investor relations, press and public relations, team building and employee engagement, and virtually any other mission critical area of chief executive responsibility.

The reality is that your messaging will often times have a greater impact on your career than your performance. I have witnessed on numerous occasions CEOs with average, or even sub-par performance histories fare well because they possessed great messaging skills. Let me be clear that I'm not talking about form over substance here. They simply understood how to message their shortcomings and flaws, while engendering confidence around their planning for corrective measures to critical spheres of influence. By contrast, I have also watched CEOs with excellent performance histories not do so well because they did not possess the messaging skills necessary to keep stakeholders engaged. Simply put, the savvy and sophistication of your messaging will have a direct impact on the sustainability of your tenure as a chief executive.

CEOs who become recognized as great leaders are prepared, articulate, consistent, and crisp in their messaging. They speak with authority, clarity, and certitude. Their messaging engenders confidence and serves to inspire and unify. Perhaps most importantly, a great leader's message is never in conflict with their values. They will not compromise their core beliefs simply to manipulate the outcome of a specific situation. They rest in the comfort that doing and saying the right things will ultimately put them in a favorable position, and if not, they are comfortable in assuming any negative consequences that may come as a result of right thinking and decisioning.

When it comes to the construction of messaging, I have found that people will tend to fall into one of the four following groups:

1. The Medium "is" the Message: People that fall into this camp believe that the medium will do the work for them. They believe in the reach and power of the medium to overcome any flaws in the message. This view of messaging constitutes a numbers based approach where the business logic states that if you reach enough people with the message some acceptable percentage of the people reached will embrace the message.


2. The Market "is" the Message: This view of messaging values the target audience above all else. The message is so targeted and nice specific that it is sometimes almost unintelligible to those who fall outside of the intended target market.


3. The Message "is" the Message: This group believes that content is king. The emphasis here is that if the message is creative enough, or valuable enough, nothing else matters. This view of messaging is all about the teaser, the hook, the calls to action, the design, the concept, etc.


4. The Messenger "is" the Message: This is the branded approach to messaging. If the person delivering the message has enough credibility and influence, nothing else matters. This iconic, ego-centric approach to messaging places a high premium on the spokesperson.

My view of the aforementioned four theories is that their sum total value is greater than their independent stand alone value. Other than in matters of character and principle, I don't tend to be an absolutist. Over the years, and especially in the genres of marketing, branding, positioning, and messaging, I believe a collaborative and cross-disciplined approach to be the key to success. While content can create credibility, credibility can also enhance the view of content. Furthermore, the best content or spokesperson in the world communicating to the wrong audience, with the wrong message, or through the wrong medium is likely to miss the mark. It takes a blending of approach to craft the right message and this will not happen when operating in a vacuum. Following are a few final thoughts for your consideration when crafting your message:

1. It Must Be the Truth: The truth always comes out in the end. If your message won't pass public scrutiny over time, then you have the wrong message.


2. Use a Multiple Medium Approach: Long gone are the days of one size fits all mediums. The best messaging campaigns take place across mediums creating multiple touch points to various constituencies and demographics.


3. Know Your Talking Points: Don't allow the message to get lost in the medium. Remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. You must be consistent and convicted in your opinions and your positions. Be clear, concise and don't compromise on key points.


4. Know Your Audience: All messages should be tailored to the audience being addressed. This does not mean you should compromise your position, rather it means your message needs to relevant, timely, and of significance. While your talking points need to remain the same, they also need to address the concerns and areas of interest of those being communicated to.


5. Don't Forget Your Critics: The tendency is to believe that your audience is comprised of friends and allies. You need to assume that every message given will find its way into the hands of your worst critics, and furthermore, that they will attempt to use your message against you.

Good luck and good messaging...


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Seth Godin, Nobody is Indispensable

by Mike Myatt

There is no shortage of information circulating of late espousing the benefits of making yourself indispensable to your employer. While this mantra has clearly gained some traction, if not actually becoming quite popular, popular thinking does not necessarily equate to sound thinking. Let me be as clear as I can - nobody, and I mean nobody is indispensable. I don't care who you are, what role you play, or what your title is. If you perceive yourself to be indispensable, you are setting yourself up for a very rude awakening. Furthermore, anyone who by design sets out to orchestrate a situation to make themselves indispensable is not operating in good faith. In today's post I'm going to share my thoughts as to why the myth of becoming indispensable is very dangerous thinking to say the least...

A well managed company does not allow itself to become dependent upon the performance of any single individual. Those individuals who attempt to hoard knowledge, relationships, or resources to attain job security should not to be valued or viewed as indispensable, but should be admonished as ineffective and deemed a liability. Corporate talent that cannot be shared, duplicated, distributed, or leveraged is not nearly as valuable as talent that can.

So, where has all this recent self-indulgent, misguided thinking come from? I believe much of it stems from the self-help types that proliferate the concept of self-promotion for self-benefit over the concept of service above self. More distressing is that this concept was recently validated in Seth Godin's new book "Linchpin".

Let me begin by stating that I'm a Seth Godin fan. While I agree with him more often than not, I will from time-to-time find myself shaking my head wondering what in the heck could Seth possibly be thinking? In his recent book "Linchpin", Seth Godin puts forth some great concepts that we should all aspire to. I wholeheartedly agree that each of us should become the best we can be, that our work should become developed and refined to the point where it is viewed as art, and we are seen as the artist behind the masterpiece. So much of what you'll read in between the covers of "Linchpin" is as close to inspirational brilliance as you'll find in a business book, which is why it pains me to have to point out the critical flaw in "Linchpin" that regrettably overshadows the highlights - namely the concept of the linchpin itself.

Seth describes a linchpin as somebody in an organization who is indispensable - who simply cannot be replaced because their role is just far too unique and valuable. Making things worse, he then goes on to say how important it is for all of us to become indispensable, for not to be indispensable is tantamount to economic and career suicide. Encouraging somebody to make the most of their talents and abilities is quite laudable - encouraging them to become indispensable is validating a new level of self worship that I find quite troubling.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that anyone who sets out to make themselves indispensable would be the one committing career suicide for two reasons:

1. Anyone who is "perceived" as indispensable in their current role completely eliminates any possibility of promotion


2. Any good leadership team who finds themselves dependant upon a linchpin will immediately move to mitigate the risk of finding themselves in such an untenable position

It is an organization's ability to collect and convert data into information, turn information into knowledge, and knowledge into an operating advantage that allows an enterprise to effectively address current needs as well as to strategically drive innovation and forward planning. This cannot happen if one person positions themselves as a linchpin. Put more simply, a corporation's employees must be able to acquire knowledge (learning), transfer knowledge (out of the head and into an information system), apply knowledge (from the information system into an actionable event), manage knowledge (execute with focus, timing and precision), and secure knowledge (keep it from evaporating or even worse from walking out the door to a competitor). Let's see if we can bring this issue a bit closer to home for some of you. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Have you ever had a disruption in business continuity because someone who possessed a wealth of experience and/or information retired, quit or was terminated?


• Have you ever lost a deal or had a major operational problem because somewhere in your organization you found yourself dependent upon a single person's expertise and they dropped the ball?


• Have you ever found yourself in the unenviable position of desiring to terminate an employee only to be held hostage by the fear of losing the knowledge that they possess?

While I could go on ad-nauseum with day-to-day operating examples of how a linchpin can adversely affect a business, I think I've probably dredged-up enough painful memories for now. As a CEO or entrepreneur, the fact that you would allow an employee to become indispensable to begin with means that at a minimum you have a lack of transparency and continuity in your organization, and more probably that you lack depth of talent and are weak in process and knowledge management.

How would you answer this question... Is your company talent poor and linchpin dependent, or talent rich or linchpin independent? From my perspective there is a monumental difference between real tier-one talent and a primadonna who thinks of themselves as indispensable. Employees who represent true tier-one talent see themselves as part of the team seeking to make those around them more successful. Contrast this with those primadonnas who are interested solely in their own success without regard to those around them. Any company that bestows a primadonna with recognition as somehow being indispensable, is a company about ready to experience a completely avoidable disaster.

If you want to eliminate unnecessary dependencies, don't allow any individual to create ultimate domain over anything that is considered key or mission critical. Instead create a culture that values transparency, knowledge management, mentoring, coaching, and process. By doing these things you will add both depth and breadth to your organization and increase the overall level of talent across the enterprise. Bottom line... encourage people to be a valuable part of the team, to maximize their contribution to others and the overall enterprise, but under no circumstances allow someone be become the proverbial cog in the wheel.


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Social Media Expert or Wannabe?

by Mike Myatt

Determining whether someone is a social media expert or a just another wannabe can be a difficult task for the typical consumer. There is a tremendous amount of noise out there being created by a plethora of "consultants" professing expertise in what I refer to as the new social sciences: personal branding, social networking, social media marketing, etc. I just did a Google search for the term social media expert and had more than 96 million returned search results... give me a break. So my question is this: what constitutes a "social media expert," and how do you tell the posers from the players? Which of these professed miracle workers are true professionals, and which ones are simply attempting to gravy-train a rapidly growing market niche in pursuit of a quick buck?

Let me begin by dispelling a popular myth oft espoused online - It seems to be fashionable of late to state that there is no such thing as a social media expert. The thinking (albeit flawed thinking) of those who hold this opinion is that social media is so new, and so rapidly evolving, that there simply could not be any real experts.

My answer? Ridiculous... Every industry has experts regardless of maturity of life-cycle. In fact, many of the real innovators and experts are those early adopters doing the heavy lifting and the ground breaking. There are experts in every industry and at every stage of maturation. Some early experts mature as the industry grows, and others fall by the way side because they don't keep pace giving way to new generations of innovators building on what the first generation of experts created. The issue is not whether experts exist, as they most certainly do. The issue is finding them among the hordes of pretenders and wannabes.

I'm going to cut right to the chase and give you six things to beware of when attempting to discern the true professional advisers capable of delivering a certainty of execution, from the rogues and scoundrels simply looking to separate you from your money:

1. Beware the Part-Time Expert: My father has an old saying that I've found to be very accurate over the years: "part-time efforts, yield part-time results." If the person seeking your business has a day job that constitutes something other than the services he or she is pitching, run for the hills. If your potential advisor is moonlighting then they really have no business asking for your business.


2. Beware the Shoemaker without Shoes: Your position should be one of "don't tell me... show me." If your would-be social media guru cannot be found online, doesn't blog, tweet, or is invisible on the major social networking platforms you might want to rethink their qualifications. Important Caveat: the mere existence of a blog, YouTube channel, LinkedIn profile, Facebook account, or a Twitter page doesn't guarantee competence... any idiot can amass thousands of followers on Twitter just by following everybody and their brother, so look for someone who has amassed a quality list of followers, who has more people following them than they follow, and who actively engages with their followers.


3. Beware the Expert without Clients: No referenceable clients equals zero credibility. It's one thing to show you their own work, but quite another to show you demonstrated success on behalf of paying and satisfied clients.


4. Beware the Expert without Industry Recognition: If your so called expert isn't published, doesn't speak, lecture or teach, doesn't have a column, hasn't won any awards, etc., then they might not be a true expert.


5. Beware the Expert too Aggressive in their Pursuit: There is a big difference between professional follow-up and desperation. Let me be blunt... most professionals at the top of their game haven't made a cold call in years. In fact, even in this down economy they typically have more business than they know what to do with. If your world-beater of a consultant is chasing you down like a hungry dog after the meat wagon then you may want to take pause.


6. Beware of Bargain Basement Expertise: In most cases the reality is that you get what you pay for... True expertise doesn't come cheaply, but is well worth the investment. Few things in business will get you in as much trouble as not getting advice and counsel when needed, or worse yet, getting poor quality or incorrect advice. I would much rather pay an expert a larger fee for 30 minutes of their time and get what I need rather than pay someone $50 dollars an hour who is faking it until they can make it... Questionable advisors will take much longer to get from point A to point B (if they get there at all), and will likely cost you more money at the end of the day when contrasted with true professionals.

If you need help in integrating social media into your business I would recommend the following individuals (some you may know and some you may not) as they all pass the litmus test mentioned above. Those listed below are in no particular order of preference and you can rest assured they are not "info-product" sales people masquerading as social media professionals, but they are in fact the true subject matter experts who can get the job done:

• Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) - Chris is smart, approachable, innovative, has a high degree of integrity, probably the hardest working man on the planet, and a heck of a nice guy. I've enjoyed every interaction I've had with Chris, and he has earned my trust and respect.


• Mack Collier (@MackCollier) - I don't know Mack personally, but have enjoyed reading his candid and ever straight foward opinions online. Mack is well respected and his the loyalty of his followers more than speak to his capabilities.


• Lee Odden (@LeeOdden) - I've known Lee for several years (before he was rich and famous). In fact, in a prior life as a corporate executive Lee was the consultant I chose to place on retainer. He is smart, seasoned and delivers on his promises.


• Amy Martin (@DigitalRoyalty) - I guess the moniker Digital Royalty says it all... Amy represents some of the biggest names and fastest growning brands online. Nothing bodes as well for an agency as success, and Amy has plenty of pedigree in that department.


• Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) - Ashton combines his celebrity status, a fascination with social media, and a disarming and ever inquistive intellect to head one of the fastest growing social media agencies on the web.


• Liz Strauss (@lizstrauss) - Liz is well known for her approachability, friendliness and candor. She also happens to be one of the savviest bloggers and social media consultants online.


• And if you're slumming @mikemyatt - nuff said...

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Design Does Matter

by Mike Myatt

So, does design really matter? Let me make my position very clear... design absolutely matters. Whether it is aesthetic, functional, creative, process, innovative, intellectual, technical or applicational... design matters. While I have heard many a professional downplay the value of design, it has been my experience that most business people who espouse this opinion are commenting on something outside of their domain expertise in an attempt to justify a competing agenda or a position of ignorance. While this position may seem a bit harsh, it is nonetheless true. In today's blog post I'll examine why design matters.

What do you think when you experience poor design in your life? Are you likely to adopt a new software application that is poorly designed? When you are handed a business card that was printed at Kinko's are you impressed? Are you likely to read a piece of collateral material that is poorly designed? If a newly implemented business process has design flaws, will employees follow the process or circumvent it? Is poorly designed consumer packaging likely to attract your attention as you walk down the shopping isle? When it's time to purchase your next automobile would you give serious consideration to a poorly designed vehicle? I could go on ad nauseum with similar questions, but my guess is that you get my point...

Now let's examine the flip-side of the coin by looking at the positives associated with strong design. When you think of Apple you immediate think of a company that has built a strong brand around quality design. It started with the Mac, then came the iPod and now we're experiencing the impact of the iPhone. The iPod pioneered innovative design in the mp3 player vertical with great technical design, outstanding functional design, and is in a class by itself with regard to aesthetic design. Largely due to the iPod's strong integrated design qualities it is the dominant brand in its class, commands a pricing premium, and has developed an extremely loyal and satisfied customer base.

When you're evaluating vendors online, and you land on a poorly designed website, how long does it take you to click away from the poorly designed site in search of a better option? You can review virtually any industry, sector, vertical, or micro-vertical and when you examine the dominant brands you'll find quality design at their core. While there are exceptions to every rule, they are few and far between when it comes to design. If you try hard enough you can find an aberration in just about any rule, but it will simply be just that... an aberration.

Also worth noting is that there is certainly a difference between value engineering and arbitrary cost containment. The next time you hear someone question an investment into design solely for the purpose of reducing expenditures, I would suggest that you think long and hard before doing so, as few things in business produce the return on investment that a reputation for quality design can yield.

Think about the marketing and advertising campaigns that get your attention, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the cars you drive, the cell phone you carry, or any number of other decisions you make and you'll find that design plays a key role in your decisioning... Design Matters!


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Exploiting the Competition for Innovation

by Mike Myatt

Whether you want to admit it or not, competition is part of your world, and likely a bigger part than you'd care to admit. Granted, exploiting the competition is not a novel concept. Even so, it is still very common to hear many executives adopt a competition neutral position. These executives simply don't believe competition to be a significant factor in the execution of their business plan.

While this may make for a nice sound bite, I don't buy it, and if they're truly honest with themselves, neither do they. In business you can either choose to deal with your competition (even if that means partnering with them), or you can opt to stand idly by and let the competition eat your lunch. In today's post I'll share my thoughts on the proper way to view your competition and how to identify competitive threats...

While some companies talk a good game with regard to competitive strategy, in my experience very few businesses actually address the issue in adequate fashion. I suppose much of my perspective on competition was formed during my days as a soldier and athlete. In the military we valued intelligence, studied our enemy's strengths and weaknesses, developed a battle plan around a solid strategy, and executed our tactical mission as if our lives depended on it - because they did.

Similarly, in my days as an athlete, our game plan each week was refined based upon the strengths and weaknesses of the team we were playing next. If we didn't study films and scouting reports, develop plays that would exploit match-ups, and execute our game plan we would lose... it was as simple as that. Dealing with competition in the business world is really no different than dealing with enemies on the battlefield or competitors on the athletic field... you either win or lose based upon your state of preparedness, desire and commitment.

How well do you know your competition? No, really... Not how well do you think you know your competition, but how well do you really understand them? Do you have a business intelligence platform? When was the last time you conducted a formal competitive study? Do your R&D and innovation programs evaluate the competitive landscape? Do your marketing, PR and branding initiatives exploit the competition? Do you stack-up as well as you think, or have you just adopted a position out of convenience?

The first step in developing a competitive strategy is to identify your current and potential threats, and then to prioritize said threats based upon perceived risk/reward and cost/benefit scenarios. The following list is clearly not exhaustive, but it is representative of the main competitive threats to a business. As the following list indicates, competition can come in the form of any one or combination of the following potential threats:

1. Existing or potential direct and indirect competitors.


2. Existing clients or end-users that could either become competition or strengthen your competitors if they have a change in loyalty.


3. Current or former employees who could become competition.


4. Vendors, suppliers or distributors that could become competition, or provide an edge to your competition.


5. Competitive innovations in process, management, talent, pricing, efficiency, etc. that can cause disruption in the market.


6. Strong changes in brand perception via news, PR, branding, litigation etc. can create changes in the competitive landscape.


7. Competitive technology innovations that could adversely impact your business.


8. Competitive mergers, acquisitions and roll-ups that could adversely impact your business.


9. Political, legislative, regulatory, or compliance actions that could create a competitive imbalance in the market.


10. Changes in general market dynamics that could create competitive changes in the market.

Once all areas of competitive risk have been identified and prioritized it will be much easier to develop a strategy for stacking the odds in your favor regardless of when, where, or how you encounter the competition.

The key to successfully exploiting competition over the long haul is linking your competitive strategy to the discipline of innovation and the mindset of custom centricity. A sustainable competitive advantage is not found by creating minor advantages in product features. Long-term competitive separation is created by innovating around the needs of your customers and clients with a focus on long-term value creation.


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Importance of Employee Engagement

by Mike Myatt

The topic of "Employee Engagement" is something that many CEOs tend to struggle with. Long gone are the days where the executive leadership of a company can remain sequestered in their offices with an internal focus on hard metrics. Given the current economic climate, it takes far more than cost-cutting to survive. It is the CEO who understands the need for focus on the soft metrics of customer centricity and employee engagement that will create sustainable growth in revenue and brand equity. In today's post I'll examine the need to have a fully engaged work force...

Before you read any further, I want you to stop and ask yourself the following question: How many of your employees are truly passionate about your company, its values, its vision, its mission, and the role that they play within the organization? Don't fool yourself... Conduct a harsh, critical analysis and come up with a true head count of the passionate employees within your organization.

Your answer to the question above should be a very telling sign about the overall health of your business. Are people just showing-up and punching the clock to collect a paycheck, or are they personally consumed and committed to achieving the company vision? Are your employees corporate evangelists serving as a motivating force to be reckoned with, or do they gather in small groups to gripe and complain about all the things wrong with the company and its leadership?

The key to having an engaged workforce is to have a passionate workforce. And the simple truth of the matter is that no single person in the company can instill passion in the ranks like the CEO can. Despite the consensus recognition that employee engagement matters, the enormity of its impact on the company's bottom line and its capacity for innovation, still appears to be misunderstood by most CEOs. I rarely talk to a CEO that doesn't understand this principle in concept, but yet I rarely see chief executives who put theory into practice.

So it begs the question, why are CEOs listening but not taking action? The answer seems to be that CEOs continue to allocate considerable effort and resources toward engineering the corporate strategy, yet they seem to be unaware of what forces can prevent said strategy from being delivered successfully. Not surprisingly, employee engagement is often the critical missing factor.

As the CEO you must also become the chief engagement officer. Operating in a vacuum and being out of touch is never a good position to find yourself in as the CEO. I have consistently espoused the value of walking the floor, dropping in on meetings on an impromptu basis, taking employees of all ranks to lunch, and any number of other items that focus on raising your internal awareness and creating a passionate workforce.

It is your passionate employees that are the franchise talent (regardless of position) that you should be building around. If you can't get employees to see the light and become passionate about the company and their contribution, then seek to replace them as quickly as possible. Just as passion is a positive, contagious trait so are apathy and dissatisfaction. Passionate employees are productive, energized, committed and loyal assets. Apathetic employees quickly become disenfranchised liabilities that will hurt both productivity and morale. To drive home the point of how much I value passionate employees, I would take a moderately talented but passionate employee over a very talented but complacent employee eleven times out of ten.

Truly great companies are built around passionate employees. When you walk into a dynamic, thriving company you can sense the passion. You feel a certain buzz and fervor that pervades everything. Contrast this with a company that feels as if it has no pulse. If you've ever walked into an organization that feels like rigor-mortis has set in, you know what I'm referring to. In today's economy, the old saying that "the only thing worse than an employee who quits and leaves is the employee who quits and stays" has never been more accurate.

As a leader you need to understand that your employees not only want to be led, but they want to be led by a passionate leader. Ultimately employees want to be passionate about what they do; in fact, they'll go to the ends of earth and sacrifice tremendously if passionate about the endeavor. Think of the employees that started off with Gates and Allen at Microsoft, or those that worked with Phil Knight in his garage before Nike even had a name, or those employees that endured the early days with Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google. It was their passion and commitment that helped change the landscape of business, not their starting salaries.

To build an extraordinary company, you must light the fire in the bellies of your workforce. You must get them to feel passion about your organization and to connect with your vision. You must get your employees to engage. As the CEO, your ability to transfer your passion to your employees is the essence of being a great leader. So much so that if you can't accomplish this, you simply can't be a great leader. Think of any great leader, and while you'll find varying degrees of skill sets, intellect and ability, I challenge to name even one that did not have passion, as well as the ability to instill said passion in team members.


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Org Chart Kool Aid

by Mike Myatt

Since Organizational theory is a hot topic these days, I thought I'd poke a bit of fun at that old corporate tradition that is the Organization Chart. Over the years I've seen every type of org chart in existence. Some have come and gone only to come again. Every year or two the latest revolutionary thinking in corporate organizational theory spawns a new form of charting. The dynamics of corporate organization are so revered by B-school professors and management consultants that an entire generation of corporate management has drunk the org chart Kool-Aid. These managers often rush to adopt the latest thinking without any consideration for whether or not the new form of structure is even appropriate for their business. So powerful is this dynamic that entire companies and numerous products have been built to support these latest trends. In the time it has taken to author this musing it wouldn't surprise me if Visio had a new product release.

So, is an org chart a corporate asset or a waste of time? The answer depends on the purpose behind its creation, the process used to create it, and the corporate purpose for the existence of the chart post creation. The following list contains my top 10 reasons not to create an organizational chart:

1. To give the CEO an opportunity to view his name at the top


2. Because you need to beef-up your management presentation and you have room for an extra PowerPoint slide


3. Your management consultant told you to create one


4. The business planning software you purchased has a template for one


5. Your CFO just read a new article on corporate organizational theory


6. You just attended an off-site where someone drew an off-the-cuff chart on a dry erase board and it looked good


7. When reviewing your competitor's website you noticed they had one, and well your website needed updating anyway


8. There wasn't anything better for the intern to do


9. Someone got a promotion


10. It just seems like you should have one

Putting the satire aside, a business should in fact have an organization chart. A sincerely motivated, properly constructed, and actively implemented organizational chart can in fact help refine the operational aspects of any business. The development of an org chart should be a serious initiative born out of solid underlying business logic, process and methodology. Culture and environment are considerations that are often times completely ignored in the design of and org chart while perhaps representing the most critical architectural elements.

The most common mistake made by corporate management is that the organization chart is created way too early in the process before business rules and logic are aligned. Much like the order of operation principles that apply to an algebraic formula, if you get the sequencing wrong you can't solve the problem. An org chart is not where you start the process, but is rather the culmination of many processes helping to insure a certainty of execution and clarity of direction by creating a road-map to be followed.

There's an old joke in business circles that says "every company has two org charts... the one that's put into graphical form and incorporated in the business plan, and the one that never gets published but is actually representative of how things really work." The process of corporate organization is most succinctly and easily understood by using the following order of operation which I developed more than two decades ago:


"Values should underpin Vision, which dictates Mission, which determines Strategy, which surfaces Goals, that frame Objectives, which in turn drives the Tactics that tell an organization what Resources, Infrastructure and Processes are needed to support a certainty of execution." - (Mike Myatt 1988)


The org chart should enter the organizational construction cycle as deep into the cycle as possible to avoid the joke that led off the preceding paragraph. By waiting to create your organizational paradigm until there is at least some level of maturity in the business, a clear picture of who, what, when, where, why and how will begin to develop. It is only at this stage that you can properly align expectations, with process, culture and environment. It is then and only then, that you should address the need for, and deployment of, your human capital assets.

The bottom line is that I have observed all types of organizational structures (in vogue, antiquated and otherwise) succeed, and I have also seen them fail. It is not the "type" or the "style" of chart used that works or doesn't, rather it is the process of design that was used in creating the org chart that will determine its usefulness, functionality and adoption. That said, my personal preference is to build a very flat organization, and where a hierarchical framework is necessary, to drive complex decisioning down as low as possible within the organization structure.


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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Culture Doesn't Trump Strategy

by Mike Myatt

I was checking Twitter yesterday while getting ready to board my flight when a quote attributed to @zappos (Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos) came across my timeline. It read "Culture Trumps Strategy." I did a double-take on this as it just didn't resonate with me. Then my timeline started to get peppered with Retweets of this quote from some very bright people. Okay, maybe I missed something here... I really respect Tony Hsieh, and the people Retweeting this quote are some very smart people, I better read it again - "Culture Trumps Strategy" - it still didn't resonate with me. What did I do next? I Googled the phrase "Culture Trumps Strategy" and found that Stanford offered an Entrepreneurship Lecture by this title, I found several CEOs using the phrase in speeches, press releases, etc., I even found a few blogs espousing the mantra of "Culture Trumps Strategy." Could this just be an issue of semantics? Maybe it's just a nice politically correct soundbite that gets some good play, or is it simply flawed logic?

Since when are a healthy culture and sound business strategy bifurcated? Great corporate cultures are built by design. While I suppose that a great culture could somehow evolve by default or osmosis, I have yet to observe it. Creating a healthy culture is a matter of making it a focus point within the corporate values, vision, mission and strategy. Put simply, a corporation's strategy that ignores, or only pays lip service to culture, will be the beneficiary of the toxic culture they deserve. Back in the dot.com days I watched many a young enterprise suffer from placing culture ahead of strategy, or worse, even focusing on culture in lieu of strategy. When the marketplace began to see through the spin and the vapor, all the fun and games in the world couldn't save a flawed business model. The fun was over and the culture ceased to exist.

Every vibrant, healthy, inspiring, innovative, and positive corporate culture I've witnessed has occurred not because culture has been placed ahead of strategy, but because it has been a key driver of the corporate strategy. Why does everything in today's world have to be framed within an exclusionary either/or proposition? I've consistently found that the best scenarios are the ones that allow you to have your cake and eat it too. Why separate culture from strategy to their mutual demise, when culture is secured, enhanced, and sustained by sound strategy?

So, back to my original source of confusion... How could such bright people seemingly be taking exception to the thoughts Ive shared above? The more I pondered the statement "Culture Trumps Strategy" the more I thought I may understand what it was these bright people, whom I respect immensely, were actually trying to say... I just disagreed with how they were saying it. So I dug a bit deeper and found a New York Times interview with Tony Hsieh in which he described his experience with building corporate culture, and how it impacted his current philosophy. My suspicions were confirmed. As I read the interview I found that contrary to the quote which was attributed to him, culture was actually woven in to the very fabric of his strategy at Zappos. Moreover, the corporate values of Zappos are foundational to creating their corporate vision.

Bottom line: I'm not sure that Tony Hseih and the collective body of those who Retweeted his quote actually disagree with me on anything other than how we chose to express our views. Therein lies my caution... I'm fearful that people who don't have the experience or intuition to read between the lines of a short quote, or a 140 character Tweet, might be misled by the simplicity of the appeal. This is why I took the time to author today's post. In reality, Culture does not Trump Strategy, rather they work together to enhance the success of one another. What say you?

P.S.
Our closet is adorned with many a pair of shoes from Zappos. Their customer service is the best I've experienced anywhere, and I remain a fan of Tony Hsieh.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Do you have an innovation blind-spot?

by Mike Myatt

My experience with most executives and entrepreneurs is that they are totally committed to and focused on success. As a result, many of them tend to have a major blind-spot (translation: weakness) when it comes to the anticipation of set-backs. While this is understandable, it is nonetheless naive, and it constitutes a major flaw in the business logic of most strategic plans. This is so much the case that the most often overlooked aspect of strategic planning is adequately addressing contingencies as part of the planning process. As you get ready to usher in 2010, my suggestion is to take one final look back at your planning and assure that you've anticipated all the ways in which things can go wrong, and what you'll do when the inevitable happens...

The reality surrounding the success of any implementation is found by understanding that no matter how smart you are, things rarely go as planned. Those that plan in advance for changes in circumstances can adroitly address issues when they occur, while those who must deal with "unforeseen" circumstances don't tend to fare as well. Smart leaders view obstacles as a constant rather than a variable, and incorporate that thinking into their planning. Any well crafted strategy anticipates obstacles and factors in multiple "what if" scenarios. Leaders that wait until a problem occurs to deal with it place themselves and their organization at a huge strategic disadvantage.

The two most common outcomes created by a lack of contingency planning are: 1.) watching things grind to a halt as you scramble to evaluate options, and; 2.) having fewer options to assess based upon the new found time constraint. Speed is your friend and should be leveraged to your advantage. Speed is aided by anticipation and slowed by a lack thereof. Smart leaders will do everything in their power to keep a decreae in velocity from becoming a self imposed adversary due to a lack of contingency planning.

It is important to remember that contingency planning is a key to avoiding costly mistakes. In most cases your wins won't put you out of business, but your losses most certainly can. The three most critical items to focus on when conducting your planning are:

1. Insure that personal accountability is present on any major benchmark, milestone or deliverable.


2. Make sure that someone has identified the 5 worst things that could happen with any initiative, what steps can be taken to prevent their occurrence, and what measures will be taken to overcome them if they happen?


3. Make sure that advance warning signs for potential failures are identified and understood so that you have plenty of runway in front of you to implement your contingency plans.

Good luck and good planning.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Keys to Growth for 2010

by Mike Myatt

While today's post is short, it truly merits the attention of anyone still grappling with 2010 budget concerns. I'm going to share something with you that you might not want to hear, and quite frankly, something that will likely send your CFO straight into apoplexy. You don't grow a business by shrinking it. The key to corporate growth is not to fall into decline; hopefully not by default, but certainly not by design. If your 2010 plan is one that involves constriction, contraction, shrinkage or retraction, you should note that this is not what your clients and prospects are looking for.

Do you think your clients will be impressed that you're cutting staff, shrinking marketing budgets, eliminating service lines or any other item that they perceive as a limiting factor in your ability to help or add value? Know this: your clients and prospects will never see any form of bunker mentality as being beneficial to them. One of the great business myths is the theory of "remaining flat" - it simply is not possible. A business grows or shrinks - it gains ground on competitors, or loses ground to them. So my question to you is this: What are you specifically going to do in 2010 to better serve your clients, to continue acquiring and developing talent, to build your brand, and to grow your business? General George C. Patton said it best: "Never defend, always attack."

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Who are the real thought leaders?

by Mike Myatt

Thought Leadership...What is a thought leader, and what does thought leadership mean in today's business world? As much as some people wish it wasn't so, a thought leader is not someone who simply restates someone else's views and positions. Furthermore, beyond uniqueness of thought, a true thought leader's positions also challenge established norms and conventions. Moreover, the true litmus test for a thought leader is when their unique ideas are implemented in the marketplace, they tend to create disruptive innovation, and often change the way we view the world. In today's post I'll examine the subject of thought leadership in an attempt to separate fact from fiction

It is certainly much easier to look back in time at world leaders, Nobel laureates, religious scholars, philosophers, and captains of industry to identify historical thought leaders than it is to identify today's visionaries. This is due to the fact that thought leadership was once a term reserved for a limited few. Regrettably the label of thought leader has evolved to become a self-bestowed title for anyone who has something to say or promote, often without regard for qualitative issues. Some would say that the term thought leader, once synonymous with futurist and innovator, is more closely aligned with snake-oil salesman today. Don't get me wrong, true thought leaders still exist; they are just much harder to spot these days.

Let me begin by stating that authentic thought leaders, the real deals, are not created via great marketing and PR alone. While they are oft published, quite outspoken, and many times represented by marvelous publicists, they are not merely contrived, self-promoted legends in their own minds. Rather true thought leaders are born out of real-world successes, achievements, and contributions that have been recognized by their peers and competitors alike. Their work is widely regarded as being innovative, disruptive, and market altering. They are not the posers, but the players. They are not spin masters trying to make it, but are the undisputed market leaders that have already arrived.

It is also important to draw a distinction between personal or corporate branding and thought leadership. While thought leaders often become well recognized brands, there are many well crafted brands that have messaged thought leadership where none exists. Don't allow yourself to get caught-up in the spin and hype associated with great marketers who will gladly accept compensation, but will leave you woefully disappointed when it comes to living-up to their billing. Look for real results based upon market leadership, and not just brand leadership alone.

The best example I can give you about discerning the difference between brand leaders and thought leaders is that of large consulting companies. I would challenge the brand perception that McKinsey or Bain are the true thought leaders in their sector. I would submit that you will find the true innovation and thought leadership taking place at the smaller consultancies. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that there is almost an inverse relationship between size and thought leadership in the consulting world in that the bigger a firm is, the less likely they are to be innovators. Rather it is those firms chasing the big brands that must innovate to survive, and that often employ today's thought leaders. I have walked into many businesses over the years that were branded as market leaders that hadn't come up with a new idea for years. The fact of the matter is that the more institutional a firm becomes, the harder it is to maintain an entrepreneurial edge driven by a culture of innovation.

While I don't want to belabor the point and unfairly pick on large consulting firms, I think it's important to go a bit further with this train of thought. You see, the legions of twenty and thirty-something consultants employed by Accenture, McKinsey, Bain, Booz Allen Hamilton etc., haven't lived long enough to even form their own thoughts much less become thought leaders. One of the problems I have with large consultancies is that they often label themselves as thought leaders (strike one). They repurpose generic materials across industries and sectors and spin "old" as "innovative" (can you say best practices? strike two). They have regrettably become pimps of mass merchandised mediocrity (strike three).

As noted above, espousing 'best practices' propaganda has nothing to do with thought leadership, but has everything to do with creating mediocrity. What I have witnessed time and again is that these purported thought leaders have in reality weakened businesses, damaged brands, and commoditized competitive advantages for many entities, which ultimately adversely impacts their profitability and sustainability. I know my perspective may appear jaded, but I'm so tired of reading the drivel of people that don't have anything unique to say, who have been deemed as brilliant up-and-comers that I just want to scream.

I have nothing against the term thought leader, however it is my opinion the label should be reserved as an honor to bestow upon a select few, and not a title to be adopted by the masses. Dilution has the opposite effect of scarcity in that it diminishes value. Can you remember when the title of Vice President or Managing Director actually meant something? I can.

Bottom line...judge people on their actions and results, not their rhetoric. Don't accept conventional wisdom as gospel unless you can validate proof of concept, and then only accept it if you can innovate with it, or around it. Challenge everything in business by looking to improve upon the status quo and differentiate yourself from your competition. I don't advise my clients to adopt the practices of their peers, but rather to be disruptive with their innovation such that they create or widen market gaps between themselves and their peers. Lastly, when you run across a real thought leader, you'll clearly recognize them as such for there is something truly unique in both their words and deeds.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Keeping it Simple

by Mike Myatt

One of the most effective ways to order your world is to simplify everything you encounter. However the problem is that keeping it simple often becomes very difficult when our basic human nature is to over-complicate everything we touch. In thinking about the people I respect the most, to the one, they possess the uncanny ability to take the most complicated of issues and simplify them. You will find that the best leaders, communicators, teachers, and innovators have a true knack for taking extremely complex, dense or intricate content and making it engaging and easy to understand. In fact, it was Leonardo Da Vinci who said:


"Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication."


In today's post I'll take a look at the often overlooked benefits of keeping it simple.

While simplicity may have become a lost art, understanding the importance of simplicity is nonetheless critical to your success in business. Consider all the presentations/meetings you've attended in the last few weeks. Was it the people who were able to articulate their positions in a simple and straight forward fashion, or the individuals that made things complex and tedious that got traction with their ideas?

It has been my experience that the more complicated, difficult, or convoluted an explanation is, that one or both of the following issues are at play: 1) the person speaking is a horrible communicator, or; 2) the person speaking really doesn't possess a true command of their subject matter. It is one thing to toss around the latest buzz-words or to have the most complex flow chart, but it is quite another thing to actually possess such a deep and thorough understanding of your topic that you can make even the most complex issues easy to understand.

It is almost as if business people have come to believe that complexity is synonymous with sophistication and savvy. It has been my experience that the only things that "complexity" is synonymous with are increased costs and failed implementations. There is an old saying in the software development world that states "usability drives adoptability" which tends to lend support to my observations. Those of you that know me have come to understand that I prefer to cut to the chase and get to the root of an issue as quickly as possible...this requires the ability to simplify, not complicate matters.

The truth is that simplifying something doesn't make it a trite or incomplete endeavor. Rather simplification makes for a more productive and efficient effort that is often more savvy than other more complex alternatives. As an example I'll use the area of design to prove my point. I can think of no better representation of simplicity at work than the iPod. Apple took something complex, sophisticated, and feature rich and crushed the competition by making it simple. The simplicity of the iPod is exactly what makes for a great user experience. Absolutely nothing is lost in the iPod's simplicity, and it is in fact the simplicity itself which makes it so classically elegant.

Another benefit of simplicity is that it serves as a key driver of focus, which enables greater efficiency, productivity, and better overall achievement. Keeping things simple allows you to focus on one thing at a time without the distractions that complexity by its nature breeds. I would suggest that you break down every key area of your business (operations, administration, marketing, branding, sales, finance, IT, etc.) and attempt to simplify your processes, initiatives, and offerings.

As a C-level executive you must focus on simplifying your day in order to maximize your efficiency. By simplifying everything from the information and reports you view, to your communications protocol, to your agenda, to your decisioning structure, you will be better able to operate in today's unnecessarily complex world.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Playing to Win in 2010

by Mike Myatt

Since we're about to flip the calendar and move into 2010, I thought I'd provide a bit of motivation to help focus your efforts as you prepare for the new business year ahead. Today's message is not likely to please the politically correct. I'm not going to talk about competing or playing nicely, rather I'm going to address the topic of winning. Want to succeed? It's easier than you might think...just don't quit. Strip away the excuses, rationalizations, and justifications and the only thing standing between you and the attainment of your objectives, is what you see staring back at you when you look in the mirror each morning. In today's post I'll examine the benefits of playing to win.

I'm a big fan of the Die Hard movies, and the one thing you have to admire about the main character, detective John McClain (played by Bruce Willis), is that regardless of the obstacles he encounters, he just won't quit. Granted, the aforementioned example of determination against all odds comes from a fictional character, but the fact of the matter is that successful people play to win. They don't indulge themselves in half-hearted attempts destined for failure, rather they choose to focus all their efforts and energies on accomplishing their mission.

My first football coach used to say: "Don't even bother showing up if you're not going to play to win..." Mind you I tend to be a bit competitive, but even so, that phrase has stuck with me my entire life. I don't often bother with taking on an endeavor unless I plan to accomplish the task at hand, and that means not quitting until I meet the objective. It is that "refuse to lose" and "never say die" attitude that I picked-up on the playing field, and had further reinforced during my time in the military that provides me with a competitive advantage.

I have found that dedication, determination, attention to detail, commitment, and focus are the traits that have been most valuable to me throughout the years, and are therefore the strengths that I tend to play to. The good news is this...if you examine the aforementioned traits you'll quickly see that I possess no special skill, and I have no secret tricks up my sleeve. Rather the things that have allowed me to serve my clients well, are things that anyone can harness and leverage if they have one thing...the desire to do so.

I could certainly paint a more complex picture of what it takes to be successful by citing esoteric management theories, but the truth of the matter is that I just don’t quit until I get the job done. I don't spend my time complaining about the challenges and obstacles, rather I spend my time solving problems and creating solutions. If my objective is to get to the other side of the wall, I don't really care if I go over the wall, under the wall, around the wall or through the wall...I just care that I get to the other side. While I might spend a bit of time evaluating the most efficient strategy for getting to the other side of said wall, it will ultimately be my focus on the tactical execution of conquering the challenge that will determine my success. A bias toward action is always a better path than falling prey to analysis paralysis.

I once played an entire half of a football game with a broken ankle, early on in my first entrepreneurial venture I found myself at a critical nexus and chose to liquidate personal assets to meet payroll, I've gone as many as 4 days in a row without sleeping to stay the course and solve a critical issue, I've led teams to achieve things that others said couldn't be accomplished, I've kept my family a priority having raised two wonderful children and having been married for 25 years and the list could go on...My point in describing these actions is not to pat myself on the back for anyone could have done these things, but the reality is that most people don't. They choose to accept defeat...they don't play to win...They aren't willing to do what it takes to be successful...they quit.

Quitting is a temptation that all of us are consistently confronted with. The reason that so many people become a casualty of giving up, is because they can. Put simply, quitting is one of the easiest things to do in life. If you take your eye off the ball, even if only momentarily, all it takes for most people to throw in the towel is a tinge of anger, humiliation, panic, rejection, stress, frustration, hurt, pain, jealousy, sorrow or anguish. Look back on your live, or the lives of others, and you'll find numerous instances of people who took the easy way out and just quit. You'll also find that it is those people who stayed the course, who overcame the challenges and barriers, and who stayed the course that have succeeded in life.

My message to you for as we enter 2010 is simply this: Play to win...Don't compromise your values, define your vision, refine your mission, architect your strategy, identify your objectives, set your goals, implement your tactics and engage in willful, purposeful action. Stay focused and do not quit until you've met your objectives...May your passion become your purpose, and I wish you the best of success in the year ahead.

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.

Do you have a relevant message?

by Mike Myatt

It is simply not possible to have a well received message that is not relevant. Think about it for a moment... when was the last time you bothered to read, watch or listen to a message that wasn't relevant to your needs? Great leaders understand the power, influence, and leverage created by relevant messaging. Do you ever find yourself sitting back and marveling at those leaders who always seem to have the right thing to say? Contrast this with the feelings you have when you hear an awful sound-bite that makes a leader look either uninformed or unintelligent. The difference between the two aforementioned examples is that great leaders have mastered the art of finding the right message (the relevant message) regardless of the medium, market, or constituency being addressed. In today's post I'll share some of the messaging secrets used by the best leaders to keep their message relevant...

So why is great messaging so important? In the business world, as a chief executive officer or entrepreneur, corporate messaging is the key to both your personal and professional positioning strategy. A leader's message has a direct impact on their personal and corporate brand equity, how they manage a crisis, marketing initiatives, investor relations, press and public relations, team building and employee engagement, customer loyalty and virtually any other mission critical area of chief executive responsibility.

The reality is that your messaging will often times have a greater impact on your career than your performance. I have witnessed on numerous occasions CEOs with average, or even sub-par performance histories fare well because they possessed great messaging skills. Let me be clear that I'm not advocating form over substance here. I'm simply pointing out that they understood how to message their shortcomings and flaws, while engendering confidence around their planning for corrective measures to critical spheres of influence. The message was on target, it was relevant and therefore it was believable. By contrast, I have also watched CEOs with excellent performance histories not do so well because they did not possess the messaging skills necessary to keep stakeholders engaged. They did not address the needs or concerns of the audience they were addressing, and therefore the message was irrelevant and subsequently ineffective. Simply put, the relevancy, savvy and sophistication of your messaging will have a direct impact on the sustainability of your tenure as a chief executive.

CEOs who become recognized as great leaders are prepared, articulate, consistent, and crisp in their messaging. They speak with authority, clarity, and certitude because their messaging is relevant. In fact, it is the relevancy of their messaging that engenders confidence and serves to inspire and unify. Perhaps most importantly, a great leader's message is never in conflict with their values. They will not compromise their core beliefs simply to manipulate the outcome of a specific situation. They rest in the comfort that doing and saying the right things will ultimately put them in a favorable position, and if not, they are comfortable in assuming any negative consequences that may come as a result of right thinking and decisioning.

When it comes to the construction of messaging, I have found that people will tend to fall into one of the four following groups.

1. The Medium "is" the Message: People that fall into this camp believe that the medium will do the work for them. They believe in the reach and power of the medium to overcome any flaws in the message. This view of messaging constitutes a numbers based approach where the business logic states that if you reach enough people with the message some acceptable percentage of the people reached will embrace the message.


2. The Market "is" the Message: This view of messaging values the target audience above all else. The message is so targeted and niche specific that it is sometimes almost unintelligible to those who fall outside of the intended target market.


3. The Message "is" the Message: This group believes that content is king. The emphasis here is that if the message is creative enough, or valuable enough, nothing else matters. This view of messaging is all about the teaser, the hook, the calls to action, the design, the concept, etc.


4. The Messenger "is" the Message: This is the branded approach to messaging. If the person delivering the message has enough credibility and influence, nothing else matters. This iconic, ego-centric approach to messaging places a high premium on the spokesperson.

My view of the aforementioned four theories is that their sum total value is greater than their independent stand alone value. Other than in matters of character and principle, I don't tend to be an absolutist. Over the years, and especially in the genres of marketing, branding, positioning, and messaging, I believe a collaborative and cross-disciplined approach to be the key to success. While content can create credibility, credibility can also enhance the view of content. Furthermore, the best content or spokesperson in the world communicating to the wrong audience, with the wrong message, or through the wrong medium is likely to miss the mark. It takes a blending of approach to craft the right message and this will not happen when operating in a vacuum. Following are a few final thoughts for your consideration when crafting your message:

1. It Must Be the Truth: The truth always comes out in the end. If your message won't pass public scrutiny over time, then you have the wrong message.


2. Use a Multiple Medium Approach: Long gone are the days of one size fits all mediums…the best messaging campaigns take place across mediums creating multiple touch points to various constituencies and demographics.


3. Know Your Talking Points: Don't allow the message to get lost in the medium. Remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. You must be consistent and convicted in your opinions and your positions. Be clear, concise and don't compromise on key points.


4. Know Your Audience: All messages should be tailored to the audience being addressed. This does not mean you should compromise your position, rather it means your message needs to relevant, timely, and of significance. While your talking points need to remain the same, they also need to address the concerns and areas of interest of those being communicated to. The message must be relevant to be successful.


5. Don't Forget Your Critics: The tendency is to believe that your audience is comprised of friends and allies. You need to assume that every message given will find its way into the hands of your worst critics, and furthermore, that they will attempt to use your message against you.

Keep the message relevant and real and you'll stand apart from the masses. Good luck and good messaging...

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Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach, author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual", and Managing Director of N2Growth.