Small Business Growing

Leading

Success in small business requires leadership.

As a small business owner – or manager within the enterprise – you are in “close proximity relationships.”

The impact of our leadership skills – with team members as well as customers – can be a make or break issue.

And there is a great deal of knowledge about the dynamics of leadership, and the principles and practices of especially effective leadership don’t require special genetic gifts.  But they do require commitment to practice and learn from experience.

In this part of SBG we talk about leadership and small business, going wherever we think old or new insights might be valuable to those in the small business world.

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Small Business Leadership: Listen Better, Grow More

As small business leaders we are in a steady state of dealing with business challenges that require something we have not necessarily gotten good at doing:  skillful listening.

One of the critical skills of exceptional leadership, and certainly of small business leadership, is the ability to listen consistently and skillfully.

You can start improving this skill anywhere, anytime.  And if you do, you will get “hooked” on how satisfying and rewarding it can be to really “hear” and “see” what good listening reveals.

There are dozens of ways to upgrade your listening capability, but here is one simple place to start.

Begin by asking more questions, and after you ask the question, just be quiet and listen.  The truth is, most of our conversational routines happen automatically, without much thought.  When you get aware of better listening, and start by asking more good questions, you are on the road to taking your small business leadership skill to a whole new level.

Small Business Leader: Shaping Your Organizational Culture

Small business owners have a golden opportunity that larger organizations struggle with.

Big organizations struggle mightily to create dynamic, adaptive, agile, and learning-oriented cultures.

Small organizations, on the other hand, have a potentially huge competitive advantage here.

If they are smart and persistent they can consistently improve the way their organizational culture forms.

But small organizations need leaders who understand the basics of shaping culture.  There are many things that small business leaders can do to create a culture that supports business success while valuing and respecting people.  In future posts, we will discuss some of the ways the small business leader can shape culture, and build an ever improving and growing business.

Let’s start with one really basic, but not typically understood reality of small business culture.  It is this:  you, the leader, and the primary shaper of the culture.

The things you do day-by-day are what shape the culture over time..  Culture is made real by the behavior of formal leaders, starting with the person at the top.

A great place to start as a small business owner who wants to shape and build a successful organizational culture, is just to self-observe.  Start by considering what a big advantage you have in this area, and take a look at your own behavior over a normal week. Engage n self -observation…watch yourself as though from the vantage point of a third-person observer.  Consider what you see, and think about how you are forming the culture.

I find that most small business owners are not tuned  in to just how much potential advantage they have to create the culture their business needs.  You can form a culture of learning and success, starting with awareness of your own role.  Start by observing yourself, with a non-judgmental perspective and see what you can learn.

Once you become more aware of how your own thinking and behavior are forming the culture of your business, you will open up a whole new way of thinking, and influencing, the future of your enterprise.

Small Business Leaders Can’t Afford The Luxury of Pessimism

In the current business environment there is no shortage of pessimism.

As a small business owners, if we are not careful, it can become a nearly unconscious and automatic part of our mindset.

And its consequences can be highly damaging. I offer this post as an encouragement and a reminder that pessimism can be as harmful as any competitor. It saps energy, and gives us a distorted view of both the possibilities and potentialities of our business. It pulls us down and carries us out to sea, like a strong undertow.

There are many ways to spot and then stop the grip of pessimism, but I’d suggest the first thing to do is simply to start paying attention to what we are thinking and feeling. When we become conscious of the feelings and thoughts that run through our mind we can start to control and change things.  Pessimism creeps in and before you realize it, takes up residence in your emotional life.  It can be entirely removed but we must start by getting a higher level of mindfulness.

Just begin by paying attention to your current level of optimism vs pessimism. Great small business strategy and execution thrives on optimism. I am not talking about a Polyanna or unrealistic view of current reality. No, we must see things as they actually are, not as we might wish them to be.  But we have lots of choices in how we interpret what we will do, given the realities of our current situation.

Think of pessimism as simply a luxury that small business owners can’t afford. We just can’t afford the cost of pessimism..there are too many things to accomplish, too many strategies to employee, too many creative possibilities, too many constructive ways to solve problems, too many goals to achieve, too many insights to learn, too many interesting and positive people to meet, too many ways to improve how we serve customers…just too many good things that need the time and attention that pessimism drains away.

Just start buy doing a reality check on your current level of optimism vs pessimism. I would suggest that if you are feeling on the pessimistic side, start by recognizing it.  Awareness and recognition are often the first steps to making an intentional choice toward something different.

By the way, if you happen to reside in the Northern Virginia area and are a small business owner, do be aware of a free educational program I lead called The Entrepreneur’s Journey.  It is a free program – a ministry really – that is offered through my home church, McLean Bible Church.  We work through state-of-the-art business strategies  on a foundation of Christian principles.

If you want to know more visit our Journey website, or send me an email.  Our next cohort will begin around October 2011.

Small Business Leadership Skill: Inertia vs Momentum

Operating a successful small business always requires leadership.

Some days our primary challenges is self-leadership.  Other days the challenge is leading our team.

Whatever the situation, and whether we recognize it or not, our level of leadership is ever present.

To grow and improve as small business leaders, one of our primary decisions is the choice between being in a state of intertia vs momentum.

In the inertia state we are not actively taking charge of our own leadership improvement.  We are pretty much doing what we have always done.  There is no active quest to get better.  Many small business owners find themselves in this place.

In the momentum state we are making forward motion.  We are actively engaged in asking and answering important questions about how our leadership is impacting the business.  The momentum state is one in which we “feel” a sense of the excitement and joy of gradual improvement.  It is not like constant fireworks.  No constant “spiritual experience.”  Just that good and secure feeling that we are making progress.

It all starts with “think time” where you the leader take a good look at where you are now, what you see as next for your own development, and then you take some specific action.  Could be something as simple as reading a good book on leadership and putting the ideas into play, or having a conversation with a trusted employee/associate and getting their feedback on how they see your leadership approach.

Two very different states of being and states of leadership.

Inertia is doing the same stuff and feeling like you are in the same place.

Momentum is taking action which leads to more action and a sense that you are getting better as a leader, and as a small business owner.

Momentum is the way to go.  Consider which state you reside in now, and make a choice that you will be pleased with.

One simple action you can take is to receive our free E-Letter.  You will get additional thoughts and ideas on small business leadership that will give you a fresh perspective on your own way of leading.

Critical Small Business Leadership Question: Who Were Our Prime Models?

As a small business owner, it pays to periodically think about who has shaped your way of leading.

When small business owners start dealing with the inevitable “people” issues that are part of having employee/associates, they start to think about their own way of leading.  This can lead to significant improvements when you start asking the right questions.

Spend a little time just working on this question:  Who has helped shaped the way I lead, and specifically the way I deal with people?

It can be a revelation when you start to work on this question, and uncover influences that you were previously not fully aware of.  Often we find negative influences from individuals who were very poor leaders, but for a variety of reasons their impact lives on within us.

I have seen leaders experience some big breakthroughs when they finally identify previous negative role models, and begin to cast off the bad habits and tendencies they “learned” from poor leaders they worked under.

Most of our formal education did not include learning how to effectively lead.  We have picked up a variety of tendencies and unexamined notions about how to work in leadership roles from the “leaders” we have personally experienced, including the good and the not so good.

One way we can break out into a place of much more effective leadership is by identifying exactly who has influenced us, and what we want to retain and discard from those past – or current -  role models.

You are not locked in to your current leadership shortfalls.  With a little effort you can steadily improve your leadership capabilities.  It is happening all the time with effective leaders.  One great place to start is by identifying just who it was (or is) that has shaped your way of leading.

[SmallBusinessGrowing.com is a web site dedicated to helping small businesses become stronger, smarter, and more able to thrive through all market conditions.  Get a free subscription to our E-Letter here.]

Small business owners who talk too much, listen too little.

I offer this respectfully…with full awareness that this is not a problem that is typical of every small business owner.

But if it is a problem in your enterprise, there is a good chance that you are not at all aware of it.  It becomes automatic and unconscious…a normal pattern that is just the way things are done.

But it can hold your business back in a big way.

The problem is simple:  talking too much and listening too little.

As small business owners we achieve success by taking charge and getting things done.  This asset can easily become a liability when it impacts our listening ability, or lack thereof.

I have met many, many small business owners who are out of touch with their people.  And even those who are not as out of touch, can still do more to mine the gold that their team members want to contribute.

One simple place to start is just to self-assess.  Take a look at how many times during the course of a week you get feedback on some relevant business or customer issue from your team.  If you are on top of this, fantastic.  But be careful.   Many leaders think they know their people, but are really not as tuned in as they believe.  They have not taken the time to just listen, without immediate directions and solution generating.

You can do a lot of this without spending much extra time.  It has to do with the quality of interactions and questions you ask, and the quality of how you hear what comes back.   Depending on the kind of organizational culture you have, it may take some work before your team learns to speak without holding back.  It is human to respond in ways that we think others want to hear, especially in boss-employee relationships.

If you are a small business with employees, and you have employees who want to make a difference and are well suited for the work they are doing, you have an ongoing opportunity to engage their creativity and their good will.  It just requires the intent and the practice of good listening.

100,000 Self-Help Books: Summarized!

If you are like many small business owners, you’d like to read more self-help books or listen to more CDs, but you are too busy running the business.

Here is one idea that runs through many a self-help book.  The idea is called “as-if-ness.”

Greatly oversimplified, the concept is this:  we behave “as-if” certain things were true.  STOP right there!  Go back and think about that.

We behave “as-if” certain things were true.

Think about the implications of this day-to-day reality.  It can work in our favor, or it can hamper..even devastate..our best efforts.  Each and every day, in hundreds of ways, your moods, behaviors, and results and being  impacted mightily by the assumptions, perceptions, and beliefs that comprise your as-if-ness.

Oversimplified again, if we go into something “as if” we are unlikely to succeed, or with any number of other “as if” ideas that suggest to us the outcomes we really want are unlikely to happen, we set up a chain of feelings and behaviors that will reduce our likelihood of achieving whatever it is we are trying to do.

We are more likely to set and achieve personally meaningful goals..to be personally effective… if we are in control of our as-if-ness.

Of course, negative events and having things not go our way, is part of life.  But we can reduce the amount of self-inflicted pain by getting tuned into our as-if-ness.

Remember that a good share of our as-if-ness is automatic.  It takes focused attention to see just how much we undercut our own efforts.  You have to bring the automatic into focus, and let it see the light of day.

It is human to have doubts about challenges.  But one of the great things about our mind and heart is that we can make choices and exercise control of our thinking.  And as we practice we can get better at doing so.  Improving “as-if-ness” is very much about practicing.   You can work at getting better, and it will make a potentially dramatic difference in your life.

Here are a few common “as-if” perceptions:
- “I probably am not up to this challenge.”
- “It will be a miracle if this goes well.”
- “I don’t have the resources to get this done.”

So where do you begin to get your as-if-ness working at its next level?

There are a whole set of strategies, and we’ll discuss them from time to time here at SmallBusinessGrowing.com but for now just start with self-monitoring (Bandura, 1997).  If you get clear on this concept and start to look at your day-to-day as-if-ness, you may be surprised at the clutter and unwanted perceptions.  It is a discovery process.

So start with the self-monitoring.  With regard to any goal or project that is important to you now, finish this thought, “I am proceeding ‘as if’ the following things were true, or at least likely to happen:…”

The objective is to identify the “as-if” assumptions or beliefs, and then ask yourself these questions: “How is this assumption or idea helping or hurting me? How is it impacting my behavior?  What is this doing to my ability to proceed effectively in pursuit of this goal?”

Healthy as-if-ness is definitely not unrealistic positive thinking or papering over realistic challenges. It is all about understanding that our beliefs regarding our own capabilities help to shape how well we actually perform.  The idea is to be able to live within an honest and optimistic set of expectations.  Understand that having positive expectations is not a substitute for building the skills necessary to achieve whatever goals you are pursuing.  But also understand that positive expectation is one of the skills needed to have high levels of personal effectiveness.

What positive expectations and healthy as-if-ness will do is enable your other skills to work at their best level, and it will help you to better learn from the things that you do.  It does a number of other good things to your personal effectiveness, but we can get into that at another time.

If you would like future articles on this and the other small business areas we explore here at SmallBusinessGrowing.com we invite you to get our free E-Letter subscription (please note sign-up box on right) along with our latest free E-Booklet, “The Road to Repeat and Referral Business.“

To Grow Your Small Business: Create a “Fear-free” Workplace

As a small business owner or manager, have you assumed that the flow of information from the members of your organization is accurate and represents the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

It is an important question because good information is vital to the success of your business, especially when it comes to customer experiences and customer perceptions.

There is one potentially invisible problem that can harm or even destroy your business in this regard.  It may not be a problem in your business, but then again there may be a measure of this that you are simply not attuned to.  Because we are dealing with a fundamental human emotion, this is worth your attention.

I am talking about the human emotion of fear, and specifically the presence of fear in the relationship between owners and employees as well as managers and “subordinates.”

In the spirit of SmallBusinessGrowing.com let me keep this simple and succinct.  My overall point is that when employee/associates are fearful, their ability to contribute to the business at their highest and best levels is proportionately diminished. I raise this issue because I have seen it a lot in my consulting life, and I know it is present in many a business.

Fear can come from many sources.  The one I’d like to briefly focus on is the usually unintentional fear that the manager or owner/manager is creating in the workplace by virtue of their leadership approach and personal workplace behaviors.  I am not just talking about the stereotypical “guerrilla” who runs the business by fear and intimidation.  They are probably not reading this or any other articles, and some of these people are certifiable or at least borderline “mental cases.”

I am talking about the otherwise pretty decent managers who may not have much awareness that their lack of effective leadership skills creates a workplace where people don’t speak honestly about the realities of the business.  The negative results of this are many, and over time it can take the business down, or at the very least prevent the business from achieving anywhere near its full potential.

The problem of course, is that when people sanitize information and hold back on the truth as they see it, the business is running on incomplete and faulty information.  There are a whole series of negatives that come out of this, and they are all harmful to the financial, operational. and emotional health of the organization.  This is a big topic and we’ll come back to it from time to time here at SmallBusinessGrowing.com but for now I’d like to just encourage you as a small business owner or manager to think about how  “fear-free” your workplace is, and what, if anything you are doing to contribute to either a fearful workplace or a fearless workplace.

In an emotionally healthy workplace in which associates can speak respectfully yet honestly, the problems and opportunities that are part of every small business can be either prevented or solved.  When associates can provide honest responses on customer issues, operational problems, or possible creative innovations, the business can function at a vastly higher level than workplaces where most don’t contribute freely because it is not safe to do so.

Even well intentioned managers can build behavioral habits that incline people to hold back or shut down.  So if you have leadership responsibility, one place you can start is to simply pay attention to this powerful human emotion of fear.  Check you own behavior and start thinking about the level of honesty people have in the organization.  Are problems and issues brought out into the open for rational discussion, or do some issues that need resolution tend to get swept under the rug because there is fear about the repercussions of trying to get the problem solved.

The art of effective leadership includes forming relationships in which respectful honesty is the norm.  Effective leaders are learning to bring people out so that business problems and opportunities can be dealt with in a skillful manner.  I invite you to think about this, and share you observations and solutions.  Your comments are appreciated!

We’ll revisit this topic again.

By the way, if repeat and referral business is important to your business we’d love to send you our brand new free E-Booklet on this topic,  along with our free E-Newsletter.   Take a few seconds to complete the SIGN-UP form and we’ll get it to you.

Coaching Your Team Members: Why Your Critical Feedback May Fail

In the course of being a small business leader you will experience attitudes and/or performance from others in your team that you see as not helpful, and maybe even destructive.

The questions is, “How do you provide critical feedback about behavior that must change, without doing more harm than good?” 

The short answer is that you don’t start with criticism, except for behavior that is so bad it must be addressed immediately.

Where do you start?

You start with building a relationship that will enable you to communicate honestly, about the positives as well as what needs change.

Your criticism and feedback won’t be very effective, and may make matters worse, if it does not occur inside a larger relationship where there is respect and trust.

If your business success depends on good performance from highly skilled people that you will be working with over a significant period of time, you do need to craft a good relationship that will allow you to give and receive honest feedback.  You won’t bring forth your team members best work unless you spend time on the relational aspect of your leadership.  I have seen many leaders try to circumvent this, and it is never a happy ending.  You know the old saying, “Nothing is free.”  It applies here.  To earn the right to have your criticism be accepted and acted on, you will have to do some due diligence.

That said, overtime your will save time by investing in the process of building a good relationship.  Building this kind of relationship does not need to be complicated or difficult.  In fact, having this kind of relationship with the people who work in your business will help to uncomplicate your business life.

But it will take effort and discipline.

Where do you start?  First, just make the simple decision that you will need to invest a little effort to build or enhance the trust and quality of communication with each team member.

But let’s make that more practical.  Exactly what do you do?

Start with what we discussed last time:  establish a routine time to meet with each “direct report” team member, one-to-one.

That will take you some time, but it is “pennies on the dollar” compared to the time you will spend if you don’t engage in the communication, relationship, and skill building that is necessary for most people to improve in their performance over time.

When you have this larger context working, your critical feedback will be received in a wholly different light.

If you are wondering why your critical feedback seems to be ineffective or worse, start looking at the relationship.  You don’t need to be a therapist, you don’t need to be the dearest friend of everyone on your team, and you don’t need to be perfect.  But you do need to know that if most of your communication to your team has a critical flavor, you won’t change behavior, and you won’t see much consistent improvement.

Lay the ground work and you will find that your respectful criticism will work wonders.

There is a lot more to talk about on this topic and we’ll do so in future posts.  We invite you to get a free subscription to our blog.

Coaching Your Team Members as a Small Business Leader: The Art of One-to-One

I’d like to put volumes of research on leadership, and lots of experience from myself and many others, in as few words as possible, in order to quickly make a point that is critical to your success as a small business leader.

If you are not regularly spending time in one-to-one focused conversation with each of your immediate team members, your level of leadership, and the influence you are having to grow the talents and capabilities of your people, is being limited.

The point:  commit to a routine one-to-one meeting with your immediate team members. 

You will work out the details based on your business and what it needs.

You might meet weekly, you might meet monthly.  You can develop a routine set of conversational areas that work for you.  For example, current business challenges, updates on projects, operational issues, people issues, areas of improvement..lots of important things to talk about.

Here is the second point:  many small business owners are not aware that they can have significant positive impact on the professional development of their team members by engaging in the leadership practice of spending focused one-to-one time with their team.

Many also do something else which severely undercuts their ability to be effective leaders and coaches.  They talk too much and listen too little.  I completely understand the need to guide and direct.  But you won’t take your people to their next level of capability if you talk and fail to listen well.

Your capability to be an effective small business leader is directly connected to how well you learn the art of effective one-to-ones.  We’ll talk about the dynamics and the content of these one-to-ones in future posts.  The one-to-one structure runs parallel and in a complimentary fashion to your team meetings. Both are critical.  Both accomplish different but compatible organizational growth and culture building functions.

If you don’t have an established one-to-one routine, start simple.  Meet for a focused session say once monthly.  Three topical areas can be:

• Operational update – what is the most important thing we need to discuss regarding your key job responsibilities?

• Project update – what is the status of your current projects?

• Reality check – what else is important that we should discuss?  And… how can we better serve each other in mutually supportive ways?

Your leadership as a small business owner plays out on several fronts.  One of those is the quality of your relationship with each member of your team, especially your “direct reports.”   With a little effort you can make them much better, and reap the business results that such an effort will produce.

Stay tuned to our ongoing discussion of leadership, team building, strategy for small business, and growing customers, by a free subscription to our blog.

And if you are a small business owner wanting to increase repeat and referral business watch and read this.