My Weblog

The Danger of Influence

Recently I sat down with a group of College Pastors to follow up on their results for the past few months of ministry.  I worked with them a few months back to help provide some guidance for their 1 year goals of the ministry.  I was trying to work with them to figure out how to tackle some of their tough problems.  It was in this group of meetings that I began to identify the different types of killers who are involved in meetings.  So as a quick reference here it is.

For lack of creativity in naming I made them very strait forward [edit: I now have names ].  In the future I'll find a catchy name for the groups.  But I realized how important it is to identify these people because meetings are the place that teams and organizations come to either thrive or die.  A bad or tense-filled meeting will typically mean a sort of death by personality.  But here they are.

Killer 1:  (Typically the main culprit) The NCO's aka Sergeants

This is great if they can bring people together and get ideas going which Sergeants typically do. The danger is when they are unable or incapable of pushing the organization in a positive way.  Could be a result of pride or simply could be a result of lack of training.  I'm idealistic and like to think most times it comes down to lack of experience and training in this area.  They are hard workers but need outside instruction or leadership if they can't handle the responsibility of making decisions for everyone. It's very important to stifle their control in meetings unless they are truly equipped to make the bulk of your decisions.

 
Killer 2: The Assassin

This person may or may not have good ideas but we can never know without them opening up.  A lot of the time they provide some of the best ideas considering their careful, well thought out analysis.  It's up to the rest of the leadership/team to draw the opinions and beliefs of this type of person out to get their input in the decision making process.  It's also important to stifle the assertive types so that they fee like they can contribute.  The killer here is the lost ideas that never get put on the table.  They may feel like a part of the team but functionally they are not performing at their best.
 
Killer 3: The "I dont know's" (Still no name here, Ideas anyone?)

This type of person doesn't feel like they are eye to eye with everyone else.  Typically comes from being new or having a lack of confidence.  Understanding their roll and directing them towards tasks will typically help keep them involved.  This group is best dealt with be giving them confidence in their credibility.  They will need to hear it frequently and will typically turn into one of the above once they get comfortable.  The death here is that often what happens is they will begin to feel resentful or out of place.  Over time they begin to question whether they are actually contributing to the team and never get the chance to open up and confidently contribute.

So where does the danger come? It comes when these people begin to interact with other members of the group who aren't leaders.  When this happens the people they impact will pick up the same problems/habits as they do and can work as a slow poison to your growth.

Another way it hurts is that the organization never gets the benefit of having all ideas out on the table.  It kills innovation and momentum and can create big problems without having them dealt with as soon as possible.

That's it for now.  Be good kids ;)

Mikhail

theHILgroup

India's B-Schools

I read in Businessweek a while ago about the trouble many Indian institutions are having in keeping up with how many students are getting an MBA.  Consider this, there are more than 1600 Institutions offering undergraduate Business Programs and MBA's.  Many Indian students are doing their best to take advantage of explosive economic growth in their home country by getting a higher level degree.  In the United States alone most MBA programs are seeing double-digit increases in the amount of Indian Students who apply for their programs.

With the large growth of forward looking students trying to take advantage of a hot growth period I wonder how many professors are actually equipped to be teaching this next generation of businesspeople to be leaders in the Indian Market.  I recently wrote an article about the various types of authors that we learn from who have either have very bad experience, no experience, or excellent experience in the marketplace.  Obviously the biggest danger is in having a negative person influence what we put in our minds.

Of the other two forms of teachers however, I am worried that too many teachers will come from the "no experience" category giving this country a high number of theoretically intelligent people who have little concept of how to actively work in the field.  Strong decisions making and problem solving skills are important.  A person who has no experience and personal insights should play a very limited roll in how much influence they have over future leaders.  What do the masses think?

Remember your School Fund raisers

Remember your school fund raisers?  The ones where you would sell cookie dough or frozen baked goods.  I was recently writing an article that talked about my ten year old selling experience and realized how poor of a job many sales types do in presenting their product or service to clients.  Here is how I see it, at age ten I would walk up and down my block talking to all my neighbors, and their neighbors, and their neighbors neighbors, and their friends. 

I would say "Hi, how are you?"  If they didn't know me I would give my name and then I would tell them in 3 sentences or less what I was doing.   I never did any sales training, didn't have a workshop to help me stumble all over myself and make my job harder.   I simply gave accurate information up front and asked if they would like to see what I had to offer.  Those who were interested would take a look, some would buy, and a few would tell some of their friends, their friends would buy, the process would keep going, and I would walk away.  At the end of the month my "income" if you could call it that was a direct reflection of how many homes I spoke with.  There was little thought behind the process and very little advanced skill.

I say that to ask this question.  Why is it that many sales types today go through and learn the latest on posturing, closing, opening, opening and closing, opening and closing while posturing when it has very little affect on results?  Some would argue that they do, but are any of the above a reason that people buy from us?  Why don't we focus on being excellent at communicating with people so that everything is natural and we can simply build trust, answer questions, and help prospects come to a decision?  I decided the reason for this isn't because it doesn't work but because it's too simple.  But that's just my opinion.  What do you think?

Mikhail

the HIL group

When good projects go bad

Recently I had some people approach me about a problem they were having in an organization they belonged to.  A small group of people had created a project that was gaining momentum.  The leaders of this organization were very excited to have their members begin to take initiative on this project and decided to take a “hands off” approach.  This left the members in charge of organizing and executing the project, providing the resources, and making all the decisions.  So far so good.  As momentum began to build some of the key members who first got the ball rolling began to disagree on the best direction for this project. 

            The fighting got very bitter and the upper leadership decided to simply facilitate.  What happened?  The issue was never resolved, the project lost momentum, and it took a few months before all the details were ironed out.  This is a classic case of a great idea gone bad. 

            There are several lessons to be learned here.  The first is that as leaders, especially in places where people volunteer their time without any financial incentive, you must ensure that a proper chain of command is in place.  When there is no channel of leadership or communication being followed people won’t often be sure of who to take the problem to and where the problems are occurring. 

            I’m sure we have all been there.  We are moving along in a project, problems arise and the people we need to go to are either gone or not helping.

            When things were going wrong no one had any experience making and committing to decisions.  Very few people in that or group had any experience being leaders in structured environments and the people who suffered the most were the participants who just wanted to get involved with something exciting.

            Second, when you run an organization, provide the guidance to your people who are stepping up.  Give them wise counsel and provide them with resources.  You don’t have to get involved in every aspect of the decision making process but you need to be actively involved behind the scenes making sure that people have what they need in terms of resources and giving them advice to help them learn how to walk through this initial level of management.

            

Finally, only give your new leaders enough rope to hang themselves.  When the chair is getting kicked from underneath them you need to step in.  Don’t watch and say “sometimes you have to learn the hard way.”  If you are the head man (or woman) it’s your responsibility to make sure that when you have momentum on a project you keep it, and that no one is getting burned out or stressed out. This is a sure way to lose good leaders and good potential leaders from a fall out. 

Think back.  Was there ever a time where you had a great project good bad?

Mikhail

www.thehilgroup.com

The Funny thing about Network Marketing

            So I spent over three years working in the network marketing/direct sales arena.  I learned a lot about the industry and about some of the pretty solid companies that are out there.  You may have heard about some of these companies: Amway, Herbalife, Nuskin, Ameriprise, or Xango. There are literally thousands out there, some better than others, some that really stand out above the rest.

            I wasn’t a member of any of these companies but what has been interesting to me as I have since retired from actively building an organization is how misrepresented the industry is.

           It is one of the few places that in theory can become one of the most organic and ethical forms of business.  However, the sad part about this is that it is an excellent lab for how not to run any other type of business or non profit. All of the rules that gave me elite level results in my other ventures are directly ignored by many people in the industry.

            For example a distributor, let’s call her Sally, has been involved in a company for a few years with very little success.  She has made a few minor checks since joining, watched her sponsor drop out, and spent hundreds of dollars on different trainers who says that success is either in a secret ebook, internet leads, going to the mall, or talking with all of your friends, family, and coworkers (yes they actually teach this stuff).

            No one has sat her down and explained that in other organizations you identify your strengths and weaknesses, learn everything about your company, its leaders, and its products, and spend the first part of this new profession learning how to set proper goals, identify the best methods of marketing, and figure out the best communication methods that meet her personality and her consistent game plan for marketing.  In other words, no one told her it actually takes work and management skills beyond a local burger king to make it work.

            I can hear other network marketers saying “well that’s unfair.”  But I have lost many a member to what I’ll call mlm cancer.  It’s the ugly silent stuff that people choose not to talk about because they can’t put a finger on it or train it easily. But don’t feel bad, I see this in other places too.  Currently I am helping to restructure a campus Christian group.  They are moving from a small three man (and woman) operation to a place where they need at least double those numbers to manage their growth.  No one told them over the past year that you can’t get from step 1 to 5 without having steps 2,3, or 4 in place.

            So why does network marketing have such high respect in my book?  Its potential in terms of leadership is amazing.  When done correctly you end up with a core group of people who willingly give you the right to lead them. 

             There are few places where people will pay you to help them change their lives and give you access to their circle of influence.  And probably most importantly, it will punish just as well as it rewards.  A poor job in planning, communication, or execution will equal a poor paycheck at the least and a poisoned organization at the worst.  There is no middle ground in leadership and it very clearly reflects that.  If you dig beneath the hype you get to see people for who they truly are.

Mikhail

http://thehilgroup.com/

How Trust is Valued in Organizations

           Organizations are a funny thing.  If you are reading this I am assuming you are a leader or person of influence in some capacity of the word.  I am assuming that people look up to you, that they trust and respect you, and that they believe in you to help them push their lives forward.  Recall the last time you were simply a member of an organization.  It could be a nonprofit, a church, a sports team, or even a network marketing company.  Do you remember the excitement when you first joined?  Do you remember the passion that you had for the organization?

            I’m sure early on in your experience there was a small group of people who you looked up to, who you were probably a bit nervous around for the first few times that you met them.  These people carried a command presence that would change the atmosphere in a room the minute they came in.  As time went on you began to learn more about them, about their lives, their family, and the many wonderful things they did for your organization or team.

            I remember the first time that happened for me, it was the first organization I had joined through a cadet program by the United States Military.  This person was only two years my senior, and was a member of that organization for almost three years before I jumped on board.  His name was Paul and would one day become one of my best friends.  Paul would walk into a room and conversations would stop.  This phenomenon intrigued me and I began to think about the underlying reason this could have happened.  It was that day that I realized one of the most important things ever about leading an organization.  That first foundation of anything I did had to involve the currency of trust. 

            Trust is a funny thing.  It isn’t very loud, in fact, it’s very subtle and often overlooked but it commands large amounts or respect.  Trust in a person is transferred very quickly from one person to the next.  Looking back on that first experience, I did not know anything about Paul.  I knew of him from what my training instructors had told me.  I knew of his accomplishments that he had done in such a short time, and I immediately knew that because I had trust in my trainers I could immediately have trust in him.  They were a reflection of his leadership and that immediately gained my respect.

            Trust is an organization can be quickly earned for people like this and throughout our terms as leaders, we continue to make deposits in our relationships with the people we work very directly with.  Without it we can not hope to have our followers buy into our ideas, we can not have clear communication, we can not expect them to work up to our standards, we can not motivate them, and we certainly can not hope that they would buy into our clear vision for the future.  Trust is a very important factor in our leadership, and a firm foundation for everything.  So I submit to you, what’s the level of trust in your organization?  Is it high?  Are you exercising it?  If not, why not?  If so, how can you do it better?  Even more importantly, are you aware of it?  Is it hurting your results as a team?  I sincerely hope that for your sake as a leader that you would be well aware of this currency and find new and exciting ways to both gage it and gain it, for the good of your organizations future.

Mikhail Hutton

The

HIL

Group

http://thehilgroup.com/