Meat Market Vs. Fred Myers (Small Business Vs. Big Business)

Do you prefer to support small local businesses or large corporations?

On the surface, ideally we all want to say we support small local business. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like the choice is not that simple. Sometimes you have to ask yourself questions like... Do I want to support small business even if it lacks competitive pricing, quality, or service?

I went to my locally owned meet market to get some chicken the other day instead of going to the corporate giant, Fred Myers. The young man who was "helping" me had his ear buds in while talking to me. Weather they are on or off does not matter to me; that's disrespectful and unprofessional. Anyhow, I then asked for my meat to be cut into cubes which, had never been an issue at Fred Myers. The young man then asked with an incredulous voice, "You want me to cut it up? No." I was confused. I guess I wrongly expected this transaction to go a lot differently. As I did a mental checklist of my experiences, I found myself hard pressed to come up with reasons to "support" my small local business. Higher prices+ poor service+ unprofessionalism,+ a quality of product just barely higher = not worth it.

It's the same when you walk into the local coffee house and before you have even ordered you're bombarded by aggressive anti customer signage like, No cellphone! Cash Only! We have the right to refuse service to anyone! No refunds! No blank! and so on and so on... Then, when you make it to the counter, the cashier looks at you with disdain because you are keeping them from making it to their Occupy Wall Street Meeting. No please or thank you for the business from them.

I'm sorry my order has offended you because you apparently hate any form of capitalism.

More and more I have to wonder at why small businesses are really going out of business. Is it because the corporate giants are squeezing the little guys out of business? Or, is it because the small business owners are not thankful enough for their customers? I really think that more and more of small business owners go into business for themselves because they probably really suck at working with other people.

I will ignore a lot of things if I'm given great customer service. I will pay more for a product thats not as great if I feel that my money is going to support a person who cares about me as a customer.  But! You are not doing me a favor by being in business or accepting my money!!! I am your customer! I, I AM DOING YOU A FAVOR!!!

Don't forget, this is America, your customers have choices. Yes, I will choose the the corprate giant over the little guy when the little guy treats its customers like trash. Im not trying to impress my friends in Portlandia by accepting crapy service. Oh, and by the way Montage, I don't care how good your spicy Mac and cheese is, your customer service is crap. I don't think it's cute. You're not sticking to the man by treating people like crap.

I think my basic opinion on the matter can be summed up by this Derek Sivers video:

Now, I am not against small business. I want to own a small business someday. Yes, I have had great experiences at certain local businesses. It's just sad to me that that is not my normal experience. Both in Bozeman and Portland I have been underwhelmed by local business and thats really sad. So, before you blame Starbucks for putting you out of business, you may want to ask yourself some questions. How do you treat all your customers? How is your pricing? Is your product good? Is the product and service consistent?

So, what has your experiences been with your local small business? Please, brag about the good ones and let the bad one be put on the wall of shame!

Top 3 Reasons Why I Believe Captain America is a Great Leader

I recently watched The Avengers and one of the many things I was stuck with was that Captain America showed great leadership skills!

(Possible Spoiler Alert.)

So, here are my top 3 reasons I say the Captain is a great leader...

1. The Captain cares. You can tell that he is invested in both the situation, mission, and organization he is a part of. You can tell he is genuinely invested and that he cares for not only his success but his teams as well.
2. The Captain practices what he preaches. He sets the example by HIS attitude and actions. He does not ask anyone to do anything he wouldn't or isn't doing himself.
3. Captain America recognizes the individual strengths of each member of his team and then assigns them to the task that will work well with their talent. "Hulk, Smash!" He recognizes that he can't make Hulk a lookout, or the Black Widow a high powered flying blaster. He does not try to change them or get them to do something they are not suited for because that would jeopardize the mission. No, he lets them shine, utilizing their talents.

So, there you have it. If you're a leader try approaching the situation as Captain America would.  (With his leadership skills, not the spangly blue outfit and shield...)

How do you think you could be a little more like Captain America???

Be the person you want to __________!

Do you want to attract a certain type of person to your organization, business, church, movement, or your self?

You need to do 3 things;

1. Be the person you want to hire, follow, ______. If you want to attract people who are loyal, care for the organization or movement, you have to embody those qualities. If you could care less about the company you manage for, expect the same thing from your employees. If you preach about humility, you had better be humble yourself. 
2. You must spend more time and energy drawing out what is good than pushing back against what is not. You can read more here. 
3. Your actions must line up with your words.You can't start calling your employees "team members" but not treat them as such. If you give a pat on the back for a good job done, think about adding a green hand shake. (Giving cash) You can read more here.

These 3 tips will have the people you want banging on your door. If you find yourself in a position where you just can't find good people, ask yourself these questions:

• Would I hire myself?
• Would I want to work under a person like me?
• Do I hand out more criticism than affirmation? 

Food for thought...

The Push Pull Method

Do you want to be a better leader?

Here is a principle I use. While this may or may not be new and original to you; I think it will make an impact on your management / leadership style if you put in into practice.

The Push; is a challenge. It is the challenge you issue to those under you to do more, be better, and try harder. It is the write up or warning when they are late, under performing, or doing anything else behaviorally that you are pushing against. While this is a valuable and necessary part of leadership, it is vitally important to keep in mind this action also pushes the person away from you and thereby your organization or movement.

The Pull is an invitation. The pull is those things you do and say that remind the person in question you want them there at your organization. The pull is an invitation to be closer to you and to the organization and it is crucial for it to be more obvious and forceful than the push.

In short, think of it like this; The more you push (correct/challenge) the more you are driving that person away from you and your organization. The more you pull (affirm/invite) the closer you are bringing them. The math: Your pull needs to be greater than your push.

It is a well known business fact that performance is directly linked to happiness/morale. People will work harder for a person when they feel they are being invested in and cared for. Those feelings happen through pull/invitation. "I want you to be here. I want to invest in you. I am inviting you inside. I am affirming the good things."

If you just have to mention when your employee is 2 minutes late, you had better mention when they are 2 minutes early the next day! You want to pull your followers in, not push them away.

When have your experienced this concept? Either from the stand point of a leader or follower? 

How to start a movement. (Hint: It starts with the lone nut)

How do you really start a movement? What are the elements that really get the ball rolling? There are a few main elements we will see in the video below.



Take a look at this video:

 

Again, another great clip by Derek Sivers: Here is what I took away from it. 

1. As a leader trying to move something forward, we must be willing to be a lone nut.
2. We must lead by example in an open and transparent way. Both in public and in private.
3. We must make it easy to be imitated. That does not mean the task or moment has to be easy, it means it has to be easy to imitates, to follow.
4. As a leader we must remember it's not about us. Our first follower is what is important in building our movement. We also have to remember that the followers that come after are going to be imitating the first follower, not us the "leader."

One thing that Derek does not go into in this video is what happened afterward. When the concert was over, and everyone had had their fill of fun, they left and went home. The thing that was missing was the glue of relationship. When we start a movement all the above is true but, if we want to sustain it we have to give people an all access pass to our lives. We have to say with our words and actions that there is an open door to my life and that I want to invest in you.

How often have you been invited into someones life? How often have your turned down an invitation to be invested in?

Going from great to mediocre.

What really happened to the big car companies to ruin them? What has happened to a lot of the companies that seemed to be doing great, had employes that loved the job, product, and work place? Accountants.

In a book that I can't remember by a writer who's name I wish I could remember outlined, on a radio interview with Jerry Doyle, what really happened. The big three were definitely having troubles with a bunch of different areas but, the biggest thing they gave up was their identity, vision, and true leadership. You see, these companies were originally started and ran by creative visionaries that loved cars. If you have ever met a car guy, you know how passionate they can get about their ride. Anyhow, we had these guys that loved cars running companies that grew from their vision and passion. Then in the 90's something changed. The leadership was being swapped out not for more car guys but for accountants.

Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with accountants. They play a vital roll within any company. What I would argue though is this. Should a company be lead by a person who is passionate about the product and business or by a person who pours over the metrics? Often times these accountant types are not known for their vision,  leadership, or love of the particular product. What they love is numbers. That's great and there is a place for that, but not behind the wheel of the company.

I used to work for a large transmission parts distributor. The company was started by a man who loved cars, knew allot about transmissions, and saw a need that was not being filled. Because of his passion, and his deep understanding of the product, he grew that company past himself into a large organization with around a 100 employees who loved him and where they worked. The company was very profitable, growing at a steady rate, with a high morale. In under 20 years it become one of the largest transmission parts distributors in America. Then something changed.

After several offers the owner of this company finally sold the business he created from nothing for millions of dollars (more than 10) to a "holding" company. Holding companies normally have little vision but lots of cash. They typically buy already successful growing business. They are typically all accountants who can do crazy figures and graphs and other types of financial metrics. Generally speaking they are not creators. This holding company bought us and we switched hands several times. They eventually replaced the previous manager of the company with a... You guessed it, accountant. Over the past couple of years they have cleaned house of all the previously upper management who were all cars guys without degrees with people who know nothing about the industry but, have master degrees with long names. So they ultimately replaced the people who understood the industrie with people who have theory about the industry. The gain? Productivity down, sales down, the highest turnover rate ever and low moral.

Here is a video that illustrates what I'm saying. 

What I'm trying to get at is this. A company doesn't need a bean counter as its leader, it needs a leader with vision, passion, and compassion. Enthusiasm and love for your product is what pushes a company forward. People want to be under a leader with passion because we get swept up into something bigger than ourselves, we get excited. When people feel they are a part of something, productivity goes up. No one gets excited by the pages and pages of financial metrics, they get excited by a vision fueled by passion.

What do you think? Am I way off base here? Do we need more accountants and less vision people? Have ever experienced what I described above?

"The greatest ideas that made the greatest companies were not started by bean counters. No, they were destroyed by them..."-Eric West

"Being a hard worker does not make you a good leader. But, if you are not a hard worker you are no leader at all..." -Eric West

Putting Power back into Empowerment

Do you work in a situation you feel powerless in? Do you work for a giant corporation? Do you work for a small business where you're micro-managed by the owner. Are you a stay at home mom who feels stuck, not because you don't want to be but because someone stole what made you feel alive in it?

What is power?  Here is the first definition that comes up from the dictionary. 1.ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.
When we have power over our own lives we feel good and alive. When someone can exert unwanted power over us we feel controlled, manipulated and well, powerless. The thing that's interesting about power is like any tool it can be used for good or ill. With power we can force and compel people in a direction that oppresses or we can use it to set people free, to lift them up out of a situation they themselves don't have the power to do.

Now if you're a Christian like me you know and believe in a sovereign God who is in all, though all, and overall. . Here is how Jesus puts it. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Mathew 20:25 In-light of that statement as Christians we have a choice to make. But first a couple of questions. Who has taken away your power and what are you going to do about it? Who have we taken power away from and what are we going to do about it?

As someone who has had managers over me, and have been a manager over others, I have been impacted by being empowered and having power taken away from me. I have also enjoyed the experiences of empowering others and felt the crushing weight of hindering them by taking control and power away.

If you are a leaders this is something we must be cautious of. As a parent or teacher or manager we have all had it within us to either empower those around us or suppress. When your daughter comes to you with an idea do you crush it or do you help her draw out whats good? When an employee makes a suggestion, do you smile politely and tell them why its not going to work or do you invest energy into finding whats good about the idea?

It is incredibly discouraging when you try over and over to make something better, to try and contribute something of use to only have it shot down time and time again. It is frustrating when you feel helpless to change anything around you. What happens then? We stop trying and more dangerously we stop caring. What is the benefit to a household or to a business full of discouraged people who have stopped caring? Now what if we flip this around? What if the people in your organization felt empowered, felt emboldened to care and dare? Can you imagine the impact on the organization and on each other and their community?

Have you ever been entrusted with a responsibility from beginning to end? Have you ever been asked what you thought about something by a boss at work? Have you ever been told you made a difference and your opinion was important? When you were down and hanging back, did someone invite you to the table and remind you that you can do it? Have you ever been told you were trusted and then had that trust demonstrated?

It's hard not to feel empowered in those situations. Not only that but its hard not to care about the unit you are apart of in that situation.The other thing is that empowerment and discouragement are both contagious. If you constantly crush the spirit of those under you they will eventually stay down because its safer and easier. I guess we got to ask ourselves, do we want those under us to feel beaten down or lifted up. When you lift up those around you I believe there are unceasing benefits and blessings.

Caring is sharing

I don't know if you have children or not but if you do, you have probably seen the Carebears movie several hundred times. The multicolored bears go about helping children by blasting all who cause trouble by shooting lazes from their bellies destroying all who oppose their agenda of love. One of their motto's is "caring is sharing."

In some ways we smile and say "aww, what a cute little gimmick for the children." Or at least I do... But as I look at the company I work for now, and the companies I have worked for, and more importantly the type of company I someday want to own, I realize that the caring is sharing statement can be very relevant to leadership in business and really anywhere in life.

We often times glorify the position of leader or manager or CEO. In our minds those people hold lofty positions where they don't have to work but reap the the rewards of all the work of the little people under them. There are some people at the top who would agree with that as well.

I want to assert the idea that if we really care for those who are under us that we would share what we have. Also, as a leader their is a very basic fact that whatever we think we have accomplished as leaders we must admit we did so only by the effort, blood, sweat,and tears of those under us.

I also believe we sometimes forget to ask ourselves and important question about those who are "under" us. Why did they and do they follow me? If you are married, a pastor, or manager of a business, answering with, "because they have to." Is pretty lame. If you know and believe in Jesus I should not have to list his example when it comes to servant leadership. If your don't, or even if you do but compartmentalize your religion from your work, lets look a little more closely at the question I asked.

Why do football players listen to and follow the coach? Yeah, sure they have to but, there is more to it than that. The coach, their leader, is hopefully going to lead them someplace worth going, like the Superbowl. Not only that, but when the team under leadership accomplishes the goal set before them, they all share in the leaders glory and rewards. So when we view it through that grid we say, "yeah, of course." Well, how long do you think the team will train as hard, play as hard, and follow a coach who takes all the glory, spotlight, money, and rewards for themselves? They may hang around for the paycheck but they won't be playing with any heart and thus not "winning"..

If you want your team, family, congregation, employees to work toward your vision you need only show by your actions that you truly care for them. You see, it is almost impossible not to give your all to those who have demonstrated they care more about you than they do about themselves. And their is no better way to show you care than by sharing. You see, if you really care about those under you you will share with them what you have received ultimately from their work and effort. We tend to do this more easily with our direct family. It's common sense for me that my family will directly benefit from my job and success at my job. I naturally share my time, money and energy with them and in turn they are devoted to me and invaluable team members who have enable the success to begin with.

In short, you need to ask yourself if the lack of output from your "team" is really stemming from a lack of caring on your part. You also need to ask yourself, will you prove you really care by really sharing what you got. Words are great but action gives them weight. So, as the carebears say, "caring is sharing."

Leadership, Management, and Business

Here is where I will put my musings on business and what I have learned about leadership in general. I  have managed for Buffalo Wild Wings, Cafe Courier, and have owned and operated two businesses. I have also worked in a supervisor capacity at Starbucks and little Caesars, Papa Murphy, and a movie theater. I have in 30 years of life had 30 jobs and so have been "managed" by many a manager or bossy co-worker. (Not proud of the amount of jobs.) Here is where I will share not just what I've practicly learned through experiences but also where I have failed as well.