leadership Archives - Page 2 of 8 - Excellerate Associates

From Eye Blink to Business Think: The Importance of Being Present

December 7, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

In the fast-paced world of today, being present is an art, and the consequences of not being present can sometimes be as unexpected as they are humorous. Picture this: a typical morning rush, a million thoughts swirling in my head as I prepare for the day.

I’m moving through the motions of my morning routine, reach for the bottle of saline solution to pop in my contact lenses, and confidently squirt the solution into my eyes. A moment of confusion follows as I realize I just used disinfecting solution instead of the gentle saline solution. Cue the immediate stinging and burning sensation, the struggle to open my eye, and the sudden realization that I veered off the well-trodden path of my morning routine.

The painful moment serves as a reminder of the pitfalls of not being fully present. The lesson here is clear: to navigate the complexities of business (and life), one must remain present in each moment.

Anticipating shifts in the market, much like anticipating the contents of the solution bottle, requires a keen awareness. As a leader, you’ll be called to navigate the unexpected, adjust strategies on the fly, and prepare for the metaphorical eye-stinging moments.

As I later laughed at the morning mishap, let’s also chuckle at our humanness. The ability to find humor in our lapses in presence is a valuable trait, one that can help us maintain resilience in the face of business challenges.

So, next time you feel the sting of a market surprise or a poor decision, remember the eye-watering experience of the mistaken contact lens solution. I invite you to consider the following:

-Embrace lessons learned with an introspective view on what you could do differently;

-Navigate the twists and turns of the market with a clear-eyed perspective of how they are and not how you wished they could be; and

-Stay present in your business endeavors taking inspired action consistent with your Contribution not the circumstances.

How Your Leadership Must Change As Your Business Grows

April 6, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

The skills necessary for leadership in a start-up phase versus a growth phase differs significantly. If you’re in the growth stage and wonder why you have more turnover than you did in the start up phase, you may be primarily apply a visionary entrepreneur leadership style that is no longer working.

In the start-up phase, the primary goal is to establish a strong foundation and create a viable business model. This often looks like lofty goals, long hours, and the go-to person for decision making. Employees also work along side the founder.

In contrast, the growth phase is focused on expanding operations and scaling the business. The new skill is working with and through others, engaging and enrolling others, and putting in accountability systems. It’s important as a growth-stage leader that you don’t insert yourself into something you delegated (only to mess it up) leaving your team feeling that they can’t be trusted. On the flip side, delegating so much and never checking in that they don’t feel supported or have a place to go for coaching.

Here are some of the key competencies that are necessary for leadership in each phase. I invite you to consider which of these competencies might be missing in the phase that you’re in:

Leadership competencies for start-up phase:

Visionary thinking: The ability to envision the future of the company and create a clear roadmap for achieving long-term goals.

Adaptability: The capacity to quickly pivot and adjust the business model.

Risk-taking: The willingness to take calculated risks to drive growth and seize new opportunities.

Flexibility: The ability to wear multiple hats and adapt to the evolving needs of the organization.

Resourcefulness: The skill to effectively leverage limited resources and build a sustainable business with limited capital.

In the start-up phase, you’re also doing double duty by working in the business. As your company expands, you will hire a team but are still the go-to person.

As your team becomes experts in their roles, it is necessary for you, as the leader, to learn new competencies and level up your personal development for the growth phase. If you continually insert yourself into the business because you’re concerned about what you’ll do with your time now that your team is handling the operations, it’s time to level up.

Leadership competencies for the growth and scaling phase include:

Strategic thinking: As your team handles the daily operations, you keep your eye on the market indicators, look for trends that may impact your business, and identify ways to expand using the existing resources.

Operational excellence: The skill to optimize processes, systems, and resources to maximize efficiency and profitability. This includes making sure your team has the training they need to level up. This is where Goal setting, Meeting Mastery, Performance

Management Systems, and having an Existence Systems in place are critical. Your team handles the details and you no longer know how to do each and every position in the company, that’s why you hire others.

Talent management: The ability to attract, retain, and develop top talent to support the company’s growth. The skills of engagement and enrollment are more critical than ever in the growth phase. As a leader, it’s critical to not only communicate the strategic direction, but connect the ways each position impacts the company goals. You create a culture where your talent thrives.

Communication: The capacity to effectively communicate the vision, mission, and goals of the company to all stakeholders. As your company expands, your communication should be reinforcing and re-enrolling the team in the company’s greater Contribution in the World. Quarterly State of the Company Address, regular performance feedback, and celebrating successes are critical at this stage.

Leadership development: The skill to build a strong leadership team and foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. Developing leaders should not only be focused at the senior leadership team, but building bench strength in the company. Leaders should also be increasing their personal awareness, which is crucial to leadership effectiveness.

In summary, the competencies necessary for leadership in a start-up versus a growth phase differ depending on the priorities of the organization. Successful leaders in both phases must be adaptable, flexible, and able to effectively manage resources, but those in the growth phase must also possess strategic thinking, talent management, personal awareness, and communication skills to take their organization to the next level.

Invitation to Level Up Your Leadership and Scale Your Business

If you are inspired to scale your business and expand your capacity as a leader, I invite you to our Wake Up Profitable Boot Camp on April 25-26, 2023.

The first step is mastering your inner entrepreneur. You will experience a fundamental shift in your thinking about how to scale. You will walk through our Entrepreneurial Edge System, a systems approach to building a profitable and resilient business model.

You will start connecting areas of your business, expand opportunities to generate revenue, systematize your business for greater freedom, and tap into resources you already have but haven’t used. A systems approach has you create possibilities and design a pathway to achieving them.

As soon as you register, we’ll schedule a Private one-on-one session so that you’re walking into the boot camp already making progress. Register today, take your human wiring assessment, and start the road to scaling with greater leadership and ease at https://www.excellerateassociates.com/wake-up-profitable-boot-camp.

How Do You Manage Others The Way They Need to Be Managed to Increase Productivity?

February 23, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

Managing people is the process of training and motivating others. If you searched on how to effectively manage others, you would see a lot of generic information that is helpful, such as set clear expectations, give feedback regularly, and provide training and development opportunities. Rarely, however, does this generic information get to the root of how to effectively manage others to increase productivity.

With over 30 years coaching leaders, I’ve seen how effectiveness can increase significantly by understanding human wiring. Specifically, the positive changes that occur when a leader understands their human wiring, the wiring of those whom they lead, and the process of leading.

When a leader understands human wiring, that insight can forever change productivity. When one of my CEO clients called me shocked at how one of her employees blew up at her, I asked her to explain objectively what happened. As someone naturally wired lower in patience, she was constantly interrupting her assistant. A thought would pop into her head, and she would interrupt her assistant.

Her assistant who was wired to thrive in a more sequential environment was frustrated by the constant interruptions from her CEO. It finally came to a boiling point. While the assistant was often described at nice and patient, she was frustrated at the constant disturbances.

Manage Others How They Need to be Managed

The CEO never gave it a second thought each interruption significantly impacted the employee’s productivity. The CEO was naturally wired to juggle versus needing a sequential environment. I suggested to the CEO that she needed to manage her assistant differently if she wanted her assistant to be highly effective.

Instead of the CEO constantly interrupting her assistant, we created an accountability process. Each morning, the CEO met with her assistant to identify the priorities of the day and week. If the CEO needed to change direction, she sent an email to her employee to complete what she was working on and to see her.

With this new process in place, the employee had focused time to work on her list, increasing her productivity 40% in 30 days. It’s also important to note that the employee realized that she needs to be fully expressed in communicating what she needs before it comes to a boiling point.

Being mindful of the environment in which someone best thrives is key to increasing employee engagement and productivity. As a leader, what small changes could you make to maximize the productivity in yourself and in others?

Human wiring significantly impacts your company culture, leadership, idea flow, productivity, and engagement. To learn ways to be highly efficient and maximize your team’s natural talents, join us for:

Wired to Win 101: How Are You Hardwired?

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 from 8:30 – 1 pm Eastern Time.

Join us online or onsite.

Register on the link below:

Leadership, Goals and 3 Essential Steps to Turn Around Your Company

January 12, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

When the pressure is high and things may not be going well, getting your team on track can be tricky. Being silent, assigning blame, or barking out orders never works. It makes a bad situation worse.

Early in my career, I was hired into a position where the division was last in employee engagement, everyone complained about the HR Department, and the organization was failing in a number of metrics.

How did we turn around our reputation despite persistent complaints, increase employee engagement from last to first in the company in 12 months, and improve our metrics overall?

These simple but effective steps work wonders:

1. Acknowledge the Breakdowns

First, you must acknowledge that there have been breakdowns. Denying or trying to explain away problems only occurs that you’re not listening. As a leader, if there are known issues, you want to acknowledge that you’ve heard the complaints and are doing something about it now.

There was no mistaking being last in employee engagement. We let others know we heard them, prioritized the concerns, communicated a plan, set timelines, and followed up consistently on the improvements.

2. Create, Clarify and Communicate The Goals

If goals were easy to define, everyone would do it consistently. The majority of people do not know how to set goals. They set action items, they might set objectives, they are not setting goals.
If you’re turning around your company and your team, you must define goals that enroll others. Enrolling others in goals that are descriptive so that others can see it.

Last in employee engagement? Set a goal to be the Best Place to Work by a defined date. Set monthly and quarterly objectives that move you closer to that goal. Set a metric, in this case the employee satisfaction survey, to determine if you met the goal.
It’s not enough to state the goal once. Communicate the goal and your progress consistently and often. That said, it brings us to the last point.

3. Acknowledge Your Team and The Progress

As you communicate the goals often, remember to celebrate the small wins. Celebrating successes and acknowledging others shows your team that you’re taking a stand to change the status quo.

When one of my executive mentoring clients was tasked with a similar declining reputation in her department, she started to shift the perception by hanging a large banner with the new goal. She engaged her team to create a “wins” display, listing of all of the improvements that were making and accomplished. Her team visually sees a new direction. Visitors to her department can see the ongoing progress. Her communication in leadership meetings addresses each improvement.

While these actions seem simple, with consistency, they transform the environment and others see the progress. Setting and communicating the goals along with a structure to fulfill on your newly stated future, will show that you can powerfully transform any situation.

The Art and System of Goal Achievement

January 5, 2023 by Lisa Mininni Leave a Comment

As we start 2023…
• Have you thought about the impact you want your company to have in the next three years?
• Have you clearly articulated the monthly and quarterly benchmarks to your team?
• Do you have a way to hold your team accountable?
• Do you know what you want to achieve by the end of today?

If you answered no to one or more of these questions, you’re not alone. Studies suggest that over 80 percent of people never set goals. Further, most professionals also don’t have a system in place to achieve their goals.

With over 30 years training business professionals, I’ve come to one certain conclusion about goal setting. Goal achievement is an art and a system.

Overcoming Excuses to Goal Setting

Over the years, I’ve heard the excuse from business professionals who said they don’t set goals because of who they become in the process of achieving the goal. They have a history of being intense or forcing an outcome.

In goal setting, you get to choose who you will be in the process of achieving that goal. Rather than be intense, who would you choose to be to achieve your goal? Generous? Calm? Unattached? Intentional?

Notice that none of these ways of being is intense or forceful. Rather, they are preferred ways of being while working toward the goal.

Goal setting should be designed to tap into your greater level of leadership. When you play a bigger game, you also want to expand your leadership capacity.

Be Crystal Clear

Setting goals is also about being crystal clear in your end game. Without a clear view, you’ll be forever changing course.
One of our clients did not have goals for the company, did not have goals for his team, and simply met with his team each day to distribute assignments. He then wondered why he wasn’t achieving the financial goals of the company and why he had a trail of leads that went cold because nobody followed up.

As a leader, if you’re not crystal clear about your goals, do not align each position with the goals of the organization, and don’t review them consistently, you will also fall short of keeping others engaged in playing full out. Your team should know the goals of the company and, most importantly, how their position directly relates to the goals of the company.

Create An Existence System

Setting goals is not complete without an existence system to move the goals from concept to reality. It’s not only important to write down your goals, but have a way to take consistent action, track the benchmarks, establish accountabilities, and continuously communicate the progress and celebrate wins.

So you can see, goal setting is art and a system for achievement. What action will you take today to crystalize your goals this year? Who will you choose to be as a leader to accomplish your goals?

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