Tag: Business Leadership

Ask Questions – You May Uncover More Than the Answers

Jeremy Larochelle

 

 

I have a new employee who is doing a wonderful job picking up all the nuances of advancing music talent for a cruise ship, which if you don’t know, can be quite intimidating. This is because, in addition to the regular parts of advancing a band for the stage, we also have to deal with the complex intricacies of moving talent around the planet. We constantly navigate the challenges of passports, visas, and the border agents of multiple sovereign nations. If that isn’t enough, we have to follow the rules and document policies set forth by the vessel to make sure our talent can board without issue. In short, it is a lot to learn… especially for someone brand new so it is no surprise that my new employee has a LOT of questions.

 

About a week into our time together, she began apologizing for all her inquiries. She was relieved that I didn’t consider her questions an imposition and quite surprised that I saw them as a blessing in disguise. You see, I (and most of my team) have been on auto-pilot for the past year or so. We have fallen into a nice groove and business has been operating rather smoothly. It wasn’t until our newbie started asking questions that I realized things weren’t operating as smoothly as we thought. Her questions poked holes in our processes. They revealed areas of opportunity to tighten up our operations, streamline our workflow, and make our lives easier in the long run. I went on to explain that with her being new to the game. It gave us an “in” to ask questions across the various departments with which we collaborate. If I, someone with four years in the company, ask a question. I would likely get a less in-depth answer from the recipient. Similarly, if I, a leader in the company, asked a coordinator a question. That person may be hesitant to give me the real story of how things go down “in the trenches.”  Now, if a new person reaches out to those same individuals. They will likely get much more elaborate answers because people love to help. They may also get more truthful answers about how the process is “actually” being done. Both of these responses help us find gaps in our process and are perhaps more valuable than the question itself.

 

One of the greatest minds to ever walk the planet – Marcus Aurelius explained in Meditations. There is nothing so bad that we can’t make some good out of it. We can treat every problem as an opportunity to practice virtue.  While he was focused more on doing the right thing when faced with challenges, the lesson can also be applied to many of life’s everyday moments including one where a new employee is trying to learn their job. Sure, they are facing the “problem” of learning how business is handled but they also hold the “opportunity” to turn that same problem into a grand benefit for the collective whole of the company.

 

So, “YES!”  Ask questions. Not only do you learn by getting your questions answered. The educator is forced to explain the process and in doing so. They will likely learn something as well.

 

 

Micromanagers Kill the Future of a Company

Jeremy Larochelle

 

Micromanaging is one of those business buzzwords. I would say we collectively agree it is a bad thing. Ask anyone if they are a micromanager and they will likely say “Not me.” Yet, the internet is loaded with article after article on the subject mostly focused on how it impacts the employee… but what about the leader?  Is micromanaging bad for the ones engaging in micromanagement?

 

The short answer is “yes.”

 

I have worked under my fair share of micromanagers and non-microleaders alike. Theoretically, I researched a pile of case studies in Grad school on companies that failed due to the phenomenon. So, today. I want to explain why this practice is also terrible for the leader. To help illustrate this point, I would like to share the infamous four quadrants from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – an awesome read any business-minded person should digest.

 

Stephen Covey Quadrants from his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

 

If you are a leader, you want to live in Quadrant Two (or as I tell my team “I live in the future.”) This isn’t an excuse to get out of the daily grind of work so you can daydream about where the company will go and how rich it will make you. No… no… this is the key to long-term success. To illustrate, let’s say it is only me (the awesome leader) and my employees.  We both know we do not want to exist in Q4. We also know that Q3 is a cost of doing business in any work environment where there are distractions galore (have you used Slack?) so we accept it but try to mitigate living there as much as we can. My goal as the leader is to exist in Q4 and I want my employee to exist, as much as possible, in Q3. With that, we create a nice Venn Diagram.

 

Leadership Venn Diagram Using The Four Quadrants.

 

 

With this, we see that the employee is living in the “present” and I am living in the “future.” The overlap represents how we combine to propel the organization forward. I lean into the present to support my employee, learn from their pain points, and capture what they do well. My employee leans into the future to help me establish long-term solutions to our collective challenges. If we maintain this relationship, we will ultimately chip away at many of the issues that create crises and pressing problems in the short term and as such we will see fewer and fewer daily fires over time. This will free up the employee to take on more beneficial work for the company while also allowing the leader more time to focus on big-picture items like capital acquisition, strategy, and partnership building. All items that grow businesses exponentially.

 

Here’s the kicker. This rarely can be done if the leader is a micromanager because when you micromanage. You choose to live in Q3 with your employee. You have abandoned the long view of the business and this creates a snowball problem. Those daily fires continue to burn because nobody is focusing on how to extinguish them at the source. The leader now has less time to focus on the future and finds themself setting up camp in Q3 to solve these daily problems. Likely asking themselves why their employee can’t get it right. The immediate problems persist, but now, with the leader evicted from Q4, the macro-strategy of the business begins to suffer and before too long it is left with both long-term and short-term problems and a future in jeopardy.

 

 

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Jeremy Larochelle

Si vis pacem, para bellum, translated  “if you want peace, prepare for war” is an exceptional mantra to adopt in both your personal and business lives.  While it sounds like something that would come from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It does not.  Rather, the phrase comes from book three of De Re Militari by Latin author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus. A first-of-its-kind war manual for Roman troops.

Business management is often looked at as a militaristic endeavor.  We have the war room, wear suits that dictate our prestige in the company, and even give marching orders. As such, we naturally gravitate to the military leadership and wisdom from war-tested individuals such as Tzu and Renatus.

It is important to note that when you read these manuals you will notice that much of the works are devoted to preserving life and, especially in Tzu’s work, avoiding a battle until absolutely necessary. As he points out, actual battle is costly – you lose both life and wealth in the process.  Tzu is consistent in his message of continually analyzing your opponent, the battlefield, and your position relative to both so that when the opportunity or need for war arises. You are better prepared to end the matter quickly and efficiently.

This is exactly the same in business. As a leader, you should always know what is going on in your battlefield.  Is a long-time supplier suddenly providing materials to a competitor?  Are there signs of your market shrinking… expanding… or disappearing altogether? Are your employees showing signs of complacency? Perhaps, your customers are discussing other options under their collective breath? These are all items a general should not only know but constantly analyze and calculate against the firm’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).

These suggestions are not meant to create paranoid leaders. Rather, they are to remind said boardroom generals that peace in business is not achieved because you defeated a competitor. You will always have new competitors, fleeting customers, changing regulations, and world events that will impact your bottom line. Peace comes from accepting those fates and doing everything in your power to prepare for the wars that may come, so your army can win the battle quickly and efficiently.