Results tagged “leader” from stevenfeinberg.com

Is your boss hungry? If your job is on the line you must make the decision makers hungry. What do hungry people do? They eat. Dinner is served. And you better be serving something they want or you will be sent back or in these times, sent packing.

For Star Trek fans, the analogy is to be Scotty, the Enterprise spaceships’ chief engineer. Whenever the ship was about to blow up, Captain Kirk would ask for, "More shields (or power), Scotty." 

Scotty’s reply was never ‘no problem.’  Rather, 

Scotty would say, “I dunnot (Scottish accent) know if I can do it Captain.”

Captain Kirk: "We need this up in 10 minutes."

Scotty: "It will take at least 30 minutes."

Next scene we see, the ship is saved, once again. Scotty is a hero and lives (keeps his job) for another day.

Just a movie and TV show? Of course, but survivors make themselves indispensable. When your boss discusses issues this is not the time to say ‘no problem’. That may sound strange since most advice would be to think you should say, “Yes, sir/ma’am.” You certainly don’t want to alienate anyone, but your contribution should be positioned as key to the survival of the organization, now and in the future. You must make them hungry (without being obnoxious or foolish) and you are the only one who can feed them. If it really is no problem you are expendable sooner rather than later.

To make them hungry, you must now be adaptable, you must be the one who allays their fears of failure.

Your Advantage-Maker skills must be exercised and refined.

Shift time to produce urgency for your contribution.

Shift interaction to change the game from your need to the company’s need.

Shift perception to take on a winning mindset and influence perceptions to see you as the go to player who can multiply your value to the company.

Shift structure to shape behavior, reducing wasteful inefficiency and cumbersome conflict, this will align and advance the organization for speed, simplicity and ease.

Your talent and contribution matter. Don't forget about quenching their thirst and giving them a dessert as well. Anyone who doesn't think that people aren't spending on sweets in the recession hasn't looked at how waistlines grow in times of stress.

I wonder if you are hungry for knowing how to influence your boss, if so that should confirm that creating desire is most important for you to learn now.

In these recessionary times there are leaders who always meet their numbers, do more with less, and despite this crazy economy are able to compete and come out on top. There are a few key reasons why the big winners are consistently successful, and its worth knowing how the big winners do it.

I've been studying these people, Advantage-Makers, for decades, and have figured out that they do it by asking a few simple questions that no one else asks.  I’ve began the discussion of questions in the previous blog, let’s take it another step forward.

The first question for Advantage-Makers is that they question the givens.

For example, FedEx CEO Fred Smith's, hub and spoke system questioned the routine of how packages should be transported. How did he think that sending packages in the middle of the night to Tennessee and then distributing to the rest of the country would work? It earned him a "C" grade in his graduate school class. The professor never consulted for him. But FedEx is guaranteed overnight delivery and as we know a huge success.

Any of you play golf? Jack Nicklaus, renown golf legend, was asked to design a golf course for the Caymen Islands. One catch. The Island is too small for standard golf courses. He didn’t ask golfers to change there swing, the given he questioned was the ball. He changed the ball so it wouldn’t travel as far. Just the opposite of what was expected. Maybe they just yell 2 when they hit it awry. Never the less, they play golf on the Caymen Islands.

Which brings us to the next question. George Prince, CEO of Synectics, an innovation firm, asked,  “What is the anomaly here?” That is, what is unexpected that seems to be pushing forth. This attention to what isn’t expected has earned the company millions and produced millions more for their clientele including many in the Fortune 500.

 A national Science foundation code breaker and scientist, asks,

“What am I not supposed to notice here?” As we talked at a restaurant he pointed to a series of ceiling chandeliers that were hanging above us. He described his thought process beginning with the notion, “What is attempting to distract my attention.” He pointed out that the chandeliers were attached about 30 feet above, and we weren’t supposed to notice how high the real ceiling was. Our attention was drawn to the light fixture and light, not the ceiling height. If most patrons had looked at the ceiling the restaurant would not have much clientele.

 My friend and colleague, George Silverman, Word-of-Mouth Marketer, asks, “What is obvious that is missing here?” It is his contention that in this information-overloaded marketplace, the product with the easiest decision path tends to win.  He works with companies to make their customers decisions easier.  His question, “What is obvious that is missing here?” leads him to systematically eliminate the most important bottlenecks and provide customers with exactly what they need when they need it.

My advantage-making question is, “How am I taking this ‘situation’ and making it what it could be? It drives counterintuitive solutions that have generated millions of dollars of profitability, created advantages that to others don’t even appear to exist and consistently enabled leaders and their teams to compete more effectively than others and gain credibility others lack. The key is to look for possibility, and shift your vantage point, rather than follow the expected procedure.

Other advantage-Makers have asked, “What is the real driving force, the leverage in this situation? By using this question the path of least resistance was found in a major negotiation that had been overlooked.

Once you ask the question you sort for answers, if you are doing it right the usual answers will be background while foreground will be the new unexpected solution. Just as Fred Smith’s hub and spoke delivery system and JacK Nicklaus’s golf ball for the Cayman Island sized golf course demonstrated. Real world unexpected advantages.

The difference between the managers who survive and those who fail is their ability to create advantages every day with employees, customers and vendors. 
60% of daily advantage opportunities are overlooked and missed by struggling managers, who, surprisingly, seldom ask, "What else should I do?", or "What am I missing". 


Are you providing the daily advantages to employees, customers and vendors that are that are hidden in plain sight? If not, you might want to start paying attention to both what is given, the anomalies and then questioning the givens.