Make Business Decisions Quickly

Now I am not saying that as a business leader you should be rash about decisions, however as Jason Jennings and Luarence Haughton say in the title of their book "It's not the BIG that eat the SMALL, its the FAST that eat the SLOW"

Leadership is about making decisions...understanding what are the decisions that need to be made, asking the right questions to find the best answer, understanding what decisions you need to make and what decisions your teams need to make..

Meetings can be such a blocker to speedy decision making, they also can harm the overall decision by diluting the answer to appease people. Successful companies find a way of making speedy decisions, well assessed yes, but knowing that there will always be an element of risk. If there is no risk then you are probably not leading you are following other leaders or companies.

As a modern leader, time is of the essence....as the authors continue

"The fast thinker has a good memory, learns from previous experiences and always learns from failure including the unexpected failures that occasionally take place"

3 Tips on How to Motivate Your Team

Motivation is a key part of improving productivity and therefore achieving your goals. Here are 3 quick techniques that I use to improve motivation

1. Spend a 30 minutes each day walking or talking to your team. Make sure you are asking them about how they are feeling, ask about their life outside of work, ask what is going well, what is their biggest concern. Time invested here is so important to show that you care, that you value them not only as a team member but as a human being.
2. Hold a monthly session with small groups of people who are direct reports of your direct reports.....no agenda...just ask them for their ideas...how can we make our work lives better, what is working well and we want to do more of, ask about their understanding of goals/objectives.....then act on the feedback.
3. Use surprises to break the monotony. Be it holding meetings outside, giving each person a small budget to woo their internal customers, thanking them with a treat, send cards to individuals with personal messages about achievement, go and work alongside during busy times....and understand their issues.
   

To Be Creative Think with No Barriers

A cement company in Qatar has built a cement factory on a ship - to ensure that they can get the cement around the gulf wherever there is a supply shortage.

Imagine the seen at that meeting when someone suggested that as an idea...but it is brilliant. When you want your team to think of solutions allow the whacky, allow them not to think of constraints...allow them to think freely. If the idea would solve the problem then brainstorm how to get round the constraints....

How to make learning part of your company

To move forward as a company it is imperative that you grow the people at the same rate as your company. That means making learning part of your organisational DNA.

At GE - even at simple operating meetings - the leaders ask "What are we learning here" They don't just accept success, they want to learn from the success. They want to know what created the success, how the numbers have grown, what changes they could make and even more powerful how could we make it even better.

Sometimes success can lead to complacency....it does not have to do. The key is to build a learning culture that explores, that encourages people to push the boundaries, that loves success and passionately wants to create it.

Meetings as easy as ABC....

If you struggle with meetings and keeping the structure then here is a format that may help.

This tip is as easy as A,B,C,D which gives you an outline to run a team meeting

A= Achievements. Good way to start and give each individual a chance to shine.

B= Benefits. Good way to link achievements to ensure that they are helping the team, company towards their vision.

C= Concerns. This should be 2-way with both the team member and the team leader expresses any concerns that they have, potential issues, strategy gaps etc

D= Direction. Finish with a look forward to what needs to be achieved before the next meeting.

As easy as A,B,C....or and D!

Brainstorming needs Structure to be Successful

To be successful in brainstorming session you need to structure the sessions. Often people think that in order for people to be creative, you need a clean piece of paper. No matter what creative activity you are doing, people need some structure. A totally clean piece of paper can bring fear to the group, a pressure to come up with that world shattering idea.

Unstructured thinking is rarely successful, so there is a fine balance of providing some structure without stifling ideas.

To be successful

1. Send a clear memo outlining the purpose of the session with a clear sentence which outlines the issue, problem or opportunity. This gives people some time to think and prepare for the meeting.
2. At the start of the meeting, read out the sentence. Set out any limitations that are givens, or areas that must be covered.
3. Within those limits, then make everything else available for discussion - write every idea down....don't allow any judgement on an idea, not at this point. Bring
4. Keep checking that you are staying on track to the initial problem or opportunity.
5. Once all ideas have been captured, stop the session.
6. Then set a new session for looking rationally at all the ideas.

Structure brings a sense of purpose, and also separates the creative from the logical thinking.