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Bigg Question

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Renee called us with her bigg question. She’s been a manager for a few months. She’s having trouble getting all of her work done because her employees keep coming to her with problems that they could easily solve themselves. She feels herself getting more and more stressed about this situation. She wants our suggestions.

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Results, not tasks

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Renee, you’re not alone. This is a common problem with first-time managers. I’ve fought this myself. We’re told, “If you want the job done right, do it yourself.” So we don’t empower people like we need to so they feel comfortable making decisions. We need to help our people build their personal leadership skills.

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You do that by focusing on the results, not the tasks. It’s a conversation about the “what”, not the “how”. What are you trying to achieve as a group? Then break your overall plan into who is to do what by when.

Now every individual in your charge knows for what they’re responsible. Be sure they (and their peers) know they have the authority to do what needs to be done to reach the desired result.

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Guiding principles

Let them know you believe in them. Tell them you’re there to help them when they run into something they can’t solve on their own. However, there are two guiding principles when they think they need your help.

1st – If we’ve discussed it before, follow the precedent.

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There’s no need to rehash old turf. I want my people to show me that they can learn. I’ll tell them exactly that!

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You don’t want to hit your head into the same wall again and again. There will be challenges. Let’s make them new ones! I’m here to help you as long as we aren’t just dealing with the same old problem stated in a different way.

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2nd – When you present a problem, offer a solution.

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I remember discovering this principle, for exactly the reason Renee is saying in her question. I had to find an answer for people constantly bringing up problems without taking any responsibility for the solution. This guiding principle took care of that.

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Helping your people develop their personal leadership skills leads to bigg success … for them and for you!

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What have you done to get your people to take a leadership role?

Please share that with us by leaving a comment below, calling us at 888.455.BIGG (2444) or sending us an e-mail at bigginfo@biggsuccess.com.

Thanks so much for the gift of your time today. Please join us next time when we talk with a person who used vision boards to reach bigg success. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00402-052709.mp3

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(Image in today's post from Rbut)

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One of the things we wanted to talk with you about today is that you have declared 2009 “The Year of Leadership.”

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This year was a definite conscious decision to choose a theme. It started about three years ago when I decided that, working alone in my home office, I had really become disengaged from my community – both the tech community that I work in and the community in general. So for my own personal decision, I decided to make that year the Year of Reconnecting and Getting Out. In 2008, I stumbled across the idea of the Year of Visibility, which I also think is very important. It’s about people making visible what they do and how they do it. So when 2009 rolled around, I realized that this was getting to be a great idea for each year. I was already working on a column and a podcast on leadership. If there’s ever been a year in my lifetime when I really needed to exercise leadership and get that out of other people as well, this is the year. We’ve simply been lacking leadership in a lot of ways across the entire world.

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I love that you said you need to do this. When you announced this on your show, you were really clear that it was about personal leadership leading to engaging a community and getting other followers.

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Everything starts at home. Sometimes I think we forget that. I could see in myself areas where I needed to lead more – whether that’s in my business, in my podcast, in my column or whatever. I think a lot of people have gotten the idea that leadership only exists “out there” somewhere. It’s something that takes place in the executive suite, in the boardroom, or in higher levels of government. The fact is that leadership is a fundamental aspect of our lives that we exercise – or should exercise – every single day.

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In your Year of Leadership, what are some of the steps that you’ve been taking? What challenges have you faced?

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I remember when I worked in a corporate office and lunch time would roll around and the question came up about where we were going to go for lunch. And no one would decide! It’s kind of a joke, but kind of not. One of the simplest things you can do is start making decisions. Too many of us abdicate our decision making. We don’t decide and face problems with that down the road. So most fundamentally, it’s just stepping up and making decisions. Now I realize why we don’t make decisions. We’re scared – scared of failing, scared of making the wrong decisions. The fact is there is no wrong decision because each decision you make brings you closer to what you need. If something doesn’t work, you say, “You know what, that didn’t work. We’re going to try this now.” The point is to keep moving forward and to keep making those decisions so you don’t suffer what I’ve heard described as “analysis paralysis.” You spend all your time looking at all the different options out there and never end up doing anything.

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I think one of the scariest things when you’re trying to step up your leadership role is that you might have to challenge the existing leadership. How do you tip toe around that?

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One of the ways is what we’ve already discussed. You start making decisions for yourself. It’s a relatively non-threatening way of pushing those decisions up the silo. One of the best things we can do as a human being is set a good example by our actions. As people see you making decisions, it helps them to take the reins as well and move forward.

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Thanks so much for checking in on us today. Join us next when we continue our conversation with Douglas. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00332-021709.mp3

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With this game, you present your fellow players with a choice. For instance, I asked Mary-Lynn which she would rather give up for a month – chocolate or her cell phone.

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That was a tough question, but I would give up chocolate. My phone is my mobile device; there’s no way I could live without it for a month!

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Hmmm … Mary-Lynn with no chocolate. I’d plan to be away that month!

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A fun way to keep a conversation going

When we discussed conversation continuers recently, we said that games are one way to keep a conversation going. This is a great example of a game you could play to do that. For example, you could ask … 

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Who would you rather work for – a boss who’s super-demanding or a boss who’s never around? Anita posed more great questions in her post.

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If you check out her post, you can see how I answered the questions she asked.

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A fun way to improve strategic decision-making

Decision trees are a great way to visualize possible business strategies, since a business can be thought of as a series of either / or options. Sounds like a ramped-up version of “Which would you rather”, doesn’t it? Question 1 leads to Question 2 and so on.

For example, let’s say you plan to start a restaurant. Play “Which would you rather?”

• Which would you rather open – a big restaurant or a small restaurant? Let’s say you choose bigg … with two g’s of course!

• Which would you rather be – part of a franchise system or an independent? You really want to create your own brand, so you want to be independent.

• Where would you locate – in a strip center or a free-standing building? You could do some research to determine which one seems to work better for restaurants like the one you plan to start.

We could keep going, but you get the idea. The reason you create the decision tree is to see the impact of your choices. For instance, if you chose “franchise” for the second question, they may specify whether you’re inline or free-standing.

A fun way to teach your kids critical entrepreneurial skills

Play this game with your kids and help them develop critical entrepreneurial skills! Just add the “decision tree” dimension one question at a time. So instead of asking your kids to think of one question, ask them to think of three – the initial question and a follow-up question for each of the possible answers. They’ll be thinking like an entrepreneur in no time!

Get the tips and tools you need to be a BIGG success. Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

Next time, we’ll examine a highly-touted way to pay off your mortgage early. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

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George said that’s why he’s never been greedy. A man has to no his limitations!

Bridge over troubled waters
But greed is a bit like confidence and cockiness. Picture a bridge … on this side of the water, we’re confident. But cross the bridge and we’re cocky. We adore confidence; we despise cockiness. And this bridge between the two can be very short. Of course, some people go way over to the other side. 

That’s also true with greed. There’s a short bridge between ambition and greed. It pays to get right up to the bridge … that’s where you’ll find bigg success.

But don’t go over it … that’s where mistakes are made.

This applies to our businesses, our careers, and our personal finances. If your goal is to achieve bigg things, you have to think and dream bigg.

But don’t cross the bridge, because greed is like a drug. Once a person starts, it’s hard to stop. Once they’re in deep, they start to do stupid things because they have to feed the addiction … the greed.

In this context, stupid means that someone isn’t thinking logically. They’re letting emotions rule the day, not making decisions based on the facts. They start thinking like a gambler, just rolling the dice and hoping for the best. 

A recent example
A great example is the most recent real estate boom. George has a friend who invests in real estate. During the boom, George saw some market data about returns on real estate investments. He didn’t think it made sense because the returns were projected at a lower rate than the known cost. So George asked his friend about it. His friend had an explanation that still didn’t make sense. They went around a few times. Finally George’s friend said that you had to count on someone being a bigger sucker than you (those are George’s words), but his friend confirmed it.

Look at what’s happened – a lot of people have lost small (even large) fortunes because of untimely real estate investments. We know the rest of the story. It all came crashing down.

What Warren Buffett says about greed
We’ve said that it’s okay to be ambitious, but don’t be greedy. But it appears that Warren Buffett may disagree with us. Warren Buffett, of course, is the great investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He says,

So, according to Warren Buffett, there are times when it pays to be greedy. And apparently it pays well because he’s built his career (and his fortune) on being greedy when others were fearful. 

So we say it’s okay to be ambitious, but don’t be greedy. Warren Buffett says you should be greedy when others are afraid.

What do you think … does it pay to be greedy? Leave a Comment to share your opinion.

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