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The Leadership Challenge: The 5-Minute Meeting for Better Results!

July 27, 2015 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: After sitting through yet again another painfully boring series of meetings, a leader I work with had achieved his tipping point of frustration. The meeting lacked focus, quality content, important dialog, and action plans for moving forward. If as a leader you are faced with the same dilemmas in meeting mediocrity, this post will share with you are successful game plan for conducting a meeting in five minutes or less for better results… Enjoy!

Meeting Mediocrity… You’re Either Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution!

If you’ve ever sat through a meeting, or worse yet a series of meetings and afterwards you asked yourself “What was that all about?” this post is for you. It’s estimated that in any given month you’ll waste 31 hours in meetings and roughly 70% of your overall time at work. As a leader, meetings that waste time (the one resource that you have which you can never get returned to you) act as a tremendous suck and a severe leadership challenge. However, as the leader, guess what? You can, should, and must do something about meetings that waste everyone’s time.

The 5-Minute Meeting

Could you gain enough information so as to be updated and identify exploration paths to be taken on a topic? That was the goal our leader set out to resolve, and here’s how they did it:

Meetings should be considered “Updates”
These updates should provide a sixty second (1-minute) update on the topic at hand
Attendees will have 4-minutes to ask questions, and the subject matter experts in the room (not always those presenting) will answer
The final sixty seconds (1-minute) will be spent architecting next steps and accountability pieces

Better Results from a 5-Minute Meeting

So you’re probably asking yourself a multitude of questions regarding conducting a 5-minute meeting for better results (as did I!) Here’s a starter list that I had:

Who calls the meetings?
How is the invitation list generated?
Can a topic be thoroughly reviewed in sixty seconds (1-minute)?
Who gets to ask questions… Senior Leadership, Stakeholders, Who?
Who answers the questions, and what repercussions are there for those that “speak up” when perhaps organizational traditions don’t typically allow for such transparency/openness?
How grandiose are these next step tasks?
What if next steps tasks need to be conducted by those not present in the meeting?
Who holds parties accountable (Meeting Caller or Leader)?
And a host of others…

SUMMARY

The bottom line is that our leader was able to significantly shrink the time spent in meetings for himself, as well as organizational stakeholders. This decreased time spent in meetings allowed for greater focus in the meetings, greater attention to details when completing tasks, and ultimately greater teamwork from the organization at large. So you think you can or think you can’t pull off a 5-minute meeting for better results where you work? Either way, you’re right (But if you never try you certainly limit yourself in achieving better results!

Sam Palazzolo

You’re Going to Waste 31 Hours in Meetings – http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/time-wasted-meetings-data

70% of Your Time at Work is Wasted, How to Change That – http://www.fastcompany.com/3033093/work-smart/70-of-your-time-at-work-is-wasted-how-to-change-that

Business Valuation Services: How Can You Get More Money for Your Business?

July 27, 2015 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: If you don’t know where you’re going, any road can get you there. Likewise, if you don’t know what your business is worth through a proper business valuation service, establishing business objectives/goals can be a guessing game. Establish objectives/goals too low, and potential is barely reached. Set them too high, and you may never achieve them even in the best of circumstances. A business valuation service establishes the worth of your organization, and as a leader you’d better know what that value is in the event your exit strategy is to sell. In this post, we’ll look at business valuation services as a roadmap to identifying ways in which you can get more money for your business… Enjoy!

We Have Financial Statements… That Should Be Good Enough

At Tip of the Spear, we recommend to clients who are approaching the conclusion of their business career a solid succession plan or exit strategy. As part of your exit strategy, you’ve decided that you’re going to weigh several options. You may sell the business through a business broker. You could consider providing it for sale to your employees as part of an Employee Stop Option Purchase (ESOP). You might consider handing it down to your heirs as part of a larger success planning moment.

Regardless of the exit strategy you choose, knowing the value of your business can help you get more money. However a fatal flaw that I see many owners falsely create is that their financial statements will suffice. In and of themselves, financial statements do provide a degree of perspective regarding the business and its inherent value. However the same financial statements often omit key organizational pieces that could raise the value. Items such as furnishings, building ownership, geographic location, customer records, intellectual property, etc. account for more business value than a profit/loss statement can reflect. As such, we see business valuation services as a best practice when it comes to selling a business.

Business Valuation Services

Business Valuation Services help you quantify all parts contributing to a company’s value. Identifying the value therein can greatly assist you in establishing both proper asking price for the company as well as accepting the right offer. Typically, we see buyers (External or Internal to the organization) requesting their own business valuation service to collect all pertinent information in an effort to protect them from paying too much for a company.

Purchasing an independent business valuation service can also be used to justify the buyer’s offer to the seller (i.e., Why the offer is coming in at $X instead of $Y as listed). We’ve seen episodes where a bid to purchase is accepted because the business valuation service provided such a thorough report to the seller.

SUMMARY

At Tip of the Spear, we believe that you can and should look to sell your business for as much as possible. Securing a business valuation service as the seller helps establish your selling price as well as acceptable bid to purchase levels. Requesting all potential buyer’s bids be considered serious if they in like kind provide their own is a great move in order to sell and get more money for your business.

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Vacation

July 15, 2015 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: Each year you’re afforded the opportunity to take a vacation. Some do it to unwind, others to see a far off distant land, but the vast majority don’t even bother (See my previous post on Fear of Missing Out or FOMO by CLICKING HERE). In this post we’ll take a look from a leader’s perspective on this whole vacation hubbub and identify if you are better or worse off as a result of taking vacation… Enjoy!

Decrease Vacations = Increase Damage to Relationships

How much time do you take off every year? 1 day? 1 week? 1 month? A new study shows that Americans are taking less vacations than ever before. The study shows that on average Americans take 16 days per year. Furthermore, the study reflects that taking just a few more days per year could lead to making you happier. The study was commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association (CLICK HERE to see a press kit for Travel Facts and Statistics).

The results could be disastrous. Spending more time at work and less time with your family for the majority of us leads to damaging those relationships at home (There also could be parallels drawn to relationships at the office, productivity therein, etc.). So what’s the poor leader to do in such situations? In other words, to vacation or not to vacation?… That is the question!

Meet Leader Mike… He “Vacations”

One of the leaders I worked with on an executive coaching and leadership development program years ago exclaimed proudly on the vacation topic “I vacation. I will bring my laptop and cell to the beach with me and work, while the family frolics in the ocean.” In other words, Mike planned on spending his family vacation working. Mike’s logic (if that’s a good word) for working on vacation stemmed from two primary points:

In order to get/stay ahead he needed to get/stay connected to what was going on back at the office.
It was his tremendous appetite for work that allowed his family to go on vacation in the first place, so they should appreciate it!

I remember trying to imagine what his kids thought of the scenario? I’m certain that they blew it off as “That’s just our Dad and they way he’s wired” or “Quite frankly, we’d rather have him tied up with work rather than engage with us!”

The Benefits of Vacation

I’ll admit, I’m a terrible vacationer. Have lead several ventures the pressure I feel is incredible and I at times can very much relate with Mike. If as a leader you don’t do something, and there is always something to do, you will fall behind. While I’m not saying that you can’t delegate work off to stakeholders in the organization, but we all know that there are certain business moments where no delegation can do.

But a few years ago my wife reminded me that vacations can actually be beneficial for you. Vacations are supposed to provide you with the “down time” needed to refresh your leadership batteries. Vacations are a time that can allow you the opportunity to reunite face-to-face with family that typically you don’t see outside of the Holiday Season. Vacations are also a time or you to be a kid again (Remember those stress free times?)

SUMMARY

So I’m going on vacation! I’m going to take two (2) days off and recharge my batteries. I don’t plan on having this be “down” time for me though. Instead, my refresh/recharge moment is going to come by attending a professional association’s conference. My plan is to come away from this vacation with new strategies, new network relationships, and new methods to take the business higher. I also plan on coming away with great memories created from spending some high quality time with my wife. I’ll report out on my findings… Wish me luck!

Sam Palazzolo

PS – You may enjoy several of the other posts I’ve recently written:

The Leadership Challenge: Motivating Stakeholders

July 13, 2015 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: We all want to get ahead. But how can you get ahead if you don’t get noticed? If recognition eludes you, Ben Parr of DominateFund in his new book “Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention” outlines 7 ways in which you can capture someone’s attention. Here in is a summary of that work… Enjoy!

Attention is Currency (Very Valuable Currency!)

What if you never got noticed for the work you did? What if you walked around your office not as the leader you are, but as a ghost that no one could see/hear/touch? I’m guessing that if you weren’t noticed for even the most trivial of tasks completed, there would be no recognition. No recognition would lead to no job promotion. No job promotion means no leadership assignment. No leadership assignment would make getting out of bed optional!

If you think of attention as currency, then you can quickly surmise that the value of attention holds more than any money, any possession, or just about any thing that you could think of. In Ben Parr’s new book, he culminates 1,000+ studies on how one can captivate attention in others. These studies spanned psychology, neurology, economics, and social studies. Furthermore, he interviewed leading thought leaders in those fields, and even other far-flung fields such as Magic’s David Copperfield. Herein are Ben’s identified 7 triggers which captivate attention from others:

Attention Trigger #1: Automaticity

Think of the actions that automatically cause you to respond by directing your attention. While this used to be someone calling out for “Help!” Today, these automaticity moments are actions that not only draw attention, but cause a lowering of the “defense shields” like extending a warm cup of coffee/tea on a cold day.

Attention Trigger #2: Framing

We are a product of the world around us. What might otherwise be considered the social conditions or proof typically have a way of biasing our behaviors. Calling these moments out are what’s at the heart of framing.

Attention Trigger #3: Disruption

A violation of what we come to know as our expectations or norms is the trigger of disruption. The Expectancy Violations Theory from academia spells this out, and anything out of the norm (or what we expect to be the norm) calls for our attention.

Attention Trigger #4: Reward

There is an old saying that men will kill in order to be rewarded with badges (or buttons, or something like that). The self-satisfaction of receiving awards actually has a deep-rooted physiological base with the neurotransmitter dopamine causing us to feel pleasure. This pleasure pursuit will cause attention to be in the self-satisfaction direction.

Attention Trigger #5: Reputation

Spokespeople that have a high Q score are the ones that typically are chosen to represent products/services in media. Why? People perceive them to be more trustworthy. Similar to the Authority principle whereby we believe those with high (real/perceived) credentials.

Attention Trigger #6: Mystery

I love a good mystery… Ok, truth be told I despise them. As do the majority of my friends (like attracting like, right?) But there is a certain amount of suspense that goes into the not “knowing” what will occur next. This not knowing is exactly what’s behind the mystery trigger.

Attention Trigger #7: Acknowledgement

Our need for validation and empathy from others is cited as one of our most basic human needs. Apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, where this need is not present, we will pay more attention to those that complement than those that do not for example.

SUMMARY

So how can you best motivate stakeholders? In leadership development and executive coaching sessions I would have to agree with Ben’s findings (It would be a shame if we didn’t, after all he spent countless hours researching and writing on the recognition topic! By the way, in case you didn’t notice that was an example of Trigger #7: Acknowledgement). By seeking to implement one or all of the seven triggers identified your stakeholders should soon report off the chart levels of engagement, 360* reviews where you are operating at expert levels as a leader, and the business operation should be spinning like a top.

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

July 11, 2015 By Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director

The Point: I see a lot of different types of leaders at Tip of the Spear (Yes, not all leaders come in one size/form/fashion!) However the one character trait of a leader that I’ve recently I encountered is The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). FOMO can cause you as a leader to head outside of your comfort zone. FOMO can also be the leading cause of crippling you/your organization. So in this post, whether you are leading the charge at a startup, a turnaround organization, or simply looking to lead better we take a look at the Fear of Missing Out… Enjoy!

The FOMO Curse: Often Wrong… Never in Doubt!

I recently interviewed a leader for one of our Centered Executive Coaching programs. By all outward appearances, this leader could be seen as extremely smart, driven, and in the right business place at the right time to succeed. They had taken a startup idea through the creation, formation, launch pad through lift-off phases with success. Granted, there had been a few tree tops clipped at time of departure, but the organization appeared to be flying steady and heading to an apparently great destination.

However the leader sensed a difference. Perhaps she sensed a difference not in the organization that they built, but a difference in themselves. Gone were the days where all-nighters fueled the belly of the business beast. Gone were the days where all-hands were on deck to solve whatever problems arose. Gone was the common thread mentality that we might be “often wrong… but never in doubt!” The leader self-diagnosed themselves with the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

FOMO + Technology: A Deadly Combination

A few behavior “layers of the onion” lower the reasons for her FOMO were more evident. “I feel like I have to be everywhere all the time!” she said. Throw on top of that spread-thin moment her fear that the organization would not be able to capitalize on the latest/greatest innovations or business trends.

“What if we’re building the next generation offerings and no one wants them?” was a fear that kept her up at night. These fears were fueled by her continual checking of technology. We barely made it through an hour and a half together without her checking her iPhone, answering a text, responding to a phone call, looking at the latest KPIs on her organizations dashboard, responding to Facebook or Twitter, etc. It was maddening to witness, let alone be the person these moments were directed at.

Let’s Be Honest About FOMO

In researching the FOMO topic, one thing became abundantly clear to me: Technology might be fueling the fire of FOMO (For a great article on the topic and how Social Media adds to the FOMO plight, view this article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/business/10ping.html). However, the tip of the spear pierces directly at a leader’s fears of disconnection and dissatisfaction. Such fears drive leaders to make decisions they often wouldn’t make or ones entered into blindly. While there certainly can be a tabulation of how such poor decisions impact individuals and organizations, the leaders responsible for them furthermore fear the acts necessary to stop making them.

FOMO is the new/improved version that your mother always warned you about, that being keeping up with the Joneses. You remember the good old days where if the Jones got a new television or car, those that chose to race with them would soon follow suit and make similar purchases (Typically of a bigger/better variety!) There is good news though… If you’re a leader who is aware of what you are doing, you can curtail the tendency. Illuminating the decision to be made, considering potential directions to take with it (as well as contingency planning for what may go wrong), and then determine if the course of action is really worth pursuing at all can help break the FOMO-curse.

SUMMARY

In this post we took a look at the Fear of Missing Out. FOMO can cause you/your organization to stray off course from what made you great. FOMO when coupled with technology can gain a deadly stranglehold. Knowing that a FOMO-moment is at hand and acting appropriately can cure you of the ailment. Perhaps your mother was right (again!)

Sam Palazzolo

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