Monthly Archives: June 2023

The Non-Consensus Building Entrepreneur

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Here’s a common scenario that is played out every day in conference rooms across the country. Devin is an entrepreneur who has assembled an executive team that consists of the COO, CFO, CTO, VP of Sales and Marketing, and VP of Product Development. The group meets weekly, and the discussions are relatively polite and collegial. Devin works hard to avoid conflict and encourages the group to reach a consensus for decisions that need to be made. He believes that this approach has helped build a strong and positive culture for his organization. Unfortunately, Devin is totally wrong!

There is a time and a place for consensus building, but it’s not right in Devin’s scenario. Instead, what Devin should be seeking is a healthy and robust debate where different arguments are vigorously presented. Then, once everything is on the table and all the questions have been answered, Devin needs to decide. It’s up to him to decide what course of action will be taken. Too often, entrepreneurs are overly concerned about “keeping the peace” among team members. They are allergic to anything that might be perceived as “conflict.”

The problem with encouraging consensus building is that it also encourages a tendency to go along to get along. Author and management consultant Patrick Lencioni calls this “artificial harmony.” A strong organization needs a wide and diverse range of ideas to move forward. The first step is to discard the notion that conflict and disagreement are bad things. I believe that conflict and disagreement can be uplifting and beneficial – IF handled properly. For this to happen, team members must trust each other completely. This means trusting that what is said will remain confidential when required. This means trusting that no one is going to engage in personal attacks. It means trusting that backstabbing and triangulation are out of the question. It’s important to understand that establishing trust won’t happen overnight. It can take weeks or even months for full trust to develop.

Once trust has eventually been established, the leader must set the ground rules for engagement. This likely means that a protocol will be created for exchanging ideas. It likely means that all members of the team will be expected to contribute and participate. It means that debate and disagreement will be encouraged. And it means that everyone agrees to buy-in to the process. 

So how does productive debate and disagreement occur? Each member of the team should present his or her arguments based on the facts. The entrepreneur should allow for a free-flowing discussion but be prepared to call foul if the discussion veers off course into the area of personal conflict. Strong-willed team members should be encouraged to make an impassioned case for their positions. All team members should listen without interruption. These discussions may be intense – that’s OK if participants do not feel as though they are being personally attacked or their ideas denigrated. The lack of intensity during this process could be a signal that “artificial harmony” exists.

When the conversation has concluded, the entrepreneur must step up and show real leadership. This means processing the various facts that have been presented and deciding accordingly. Sometimes these decisions are extremely difficult – and that’s a very good thing. It means that the debate was compelling and strong arguments were made all the way around. It’s possible that the discussion will result in the need for additional information. But eventually when all the facts are in and all the points have been made, a final decision must be made. Ceding such a decision to a “committee” for consensus is not a display of leadership. The entrepreneur must explain the rationale behind the final decision and make certain that everyone feels that what they offered was sufficiently considered. Ultimately, everyone on the team must get on board and fully support the final decision. That doesn’t mean they have to fully agree with it – but they must be totally supportive. If a team member is not supportive, considerable damage can be done to the culture and to the process for making future decisions.

Great entrepreneurial leaders know how to foster healthy debate among team members and then make the final decision. A great team does not need to function with consensus but does need to respect and support the final decision.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

The Sandwich Savoring Entrepreneur

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On October 30, 2002, David Letterman hosted the last appearance of Warren Zevon, an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. You may remember a couple of his most notable hits – Werewolves of London and Lawyers, Guns & Money. Zevon had appeared numerous times on Letterman’s show and the two had become fast friends. Recently, Zevon had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and Letterman spent an entire hour talking openly and frankly with Zevon about his plight. I watched the YouTube video of the show and was amazed at the humor and grace that Zevon displayed. One of the simplest of things he said was so profound, “You’re reminded to enjoy every sandwich.” Of course, he went on to talk about enjoying every minute of playing in his band and playing with his kids. But the notion of enjoying something so mundane as a sandwich struck a chord with me. Tragically Zevon died on September 7, 2003, at the age of 56.

We entrepreneurs are in a constant state of hyper-drive. We all know that we should stop and smell the roses. We also know that we need to maintain work-life balance. And yet we can often find it difficult to carve time out of a packed schedule to do these things . . . or so we think. Part of the problem is the fact that we are so passionate about what we do. We’re obsessed with building our business. And I know for a fact that any entrepreneur who doesn’t have this obsession will either fail or be only marginally successful. But the passion and obsession does not mean that we can’t “savor the sandwich.”  

What if we treated every interaction we have with others as though it would be the last time we would see them? What if every activity – professional or personal – was treated in a similar fashion? The thought of this may seem somewhat morbid and maybe even hard to comprehend. But, what if . . . ? We all have a terminal diagnosis. We just don’t know whether it’s far into the future or right around the corner.

While this has been a difficult subject for me to get my head around, I’ve thought about it quite a bit the older I’ve become. I find that I prioritize differently. I want to make absolutely certain that the most important things on my to-do list are always finished. And at the same time, I have become more and more thankful for the little things in life. I revel in the warm sunshine and find moments of wonder gazing at a full moon. An early morning walk is no longer just exercise, but now a time for inspiration. Dinner at a favorite restaurant with my bride has become less about checking e-mail and social media, and more about the pinch-me feeling that is the result of nearly five decades together. No longer do I quickly scan through photos of my grandkids, but instead take in the twinkle in their eyes and the look of pure joy on their faces. During a meeting, I look around the room and think about how proud I am of the team we have assembled and what they are accomplishing. Of course, there are obstacles that are faced every single day – but the endorphins are going full blast with the anticipation of how we will creatively overcome them together.

Savoring the sandwich means being present in every moment of every day. It means eliminating the “taking things for granted” syndrome that plagues each one of us to some degree. I have worked hard to develop the ability to compartmentalize the challenges we face in our enterprise. In so doing, I’m able to have greater appreciation for the little things that are happening around me. I am more obsessed than ever with scaling our various business initiatives. But I’m equally obsessed with seeing all of life in color. There’s no question that both can be done at the same time. Lending a helping hand to others and expressing appreciation and gratitude to them is also part of the equation.

We can savor each sandwich as though it will be our last. And it doesn’t have to take the diagnosis of a terminal illness to unlock this ability.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

The Insomniac Entrepreneur

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How well are you sleeping? I know many entrepreneurs who aren’t. The reasons are many. A friend of mine has been struggling with this for a while. He has started going to bed earlier each evening because he knows he is going to wake up around 3:30 or 4:00 and won’t be able to go back to sleep. So, he has resorted to getting up at that time and working for a few hours from home before heading to his office.

My friend explains that he is awakened because his mind starts churning. The frustrating thing for him is the fact that he knows he’s obsessing over small stuff – sometimes it’s infinitesimally small stuff. Most of the time the thoughts he is having are about things going on in his business that he shouldn’t even be worrying about. I certainly understand what he’s going through – I’ve been there many times myself. So, what’s the solution?

For starters, my friend knows he needs to delegate. There are others in his organization who should be handling the issues that are keeping him awake. Thus, the first step in fixing his slumber problem is to make sure that he has people on his team who are responsible for handling the nitty-gritty items so that he can focus at working on his business rather than in it.

The next step in my friend’s process is physical activity. He is used to working out but there are days where he blows it off. Physical exercise produces endorphins which help reduce stress and generate positive feelings. A brisk walk or run along with lifting weights for 30 minutes or more each day will do the trick. If I miss a day due to travel, I find myself craving my workout regimen. Generally, I find that physical activity first thing in the morning gets my day started off right. My friend has re-committed to doing the same.

In addition to daily exercise, it’s critical that we spend time becoming centered through meditation. This practice enables us to clear our minds of the clutter that tends to accumulate. My friend has attested to the benefits he enjoys when he meditates for 15 minutes each day. He finds that meditation lowers his blood pressure and pulse rate. He feels calmer as his anxiety melts away.

Journaling is another technique that has been helpful for my friend. He is working to become more disciplined at recording the various aspects of his day in a journal. Notes are made about the high points and the low points – he can then look for patterns that shed light on what might be working in his subconscious to keep him from sleeping.

Each of us has much for which to be grateful. My friend acknowledges this and is working on starting and ending each day in gratitude. I would like to take this a step further. Before making any phone call or entering a meeting, I try to hold a thought of gratitude in my mind. It may just be an image of one of my daughters, my wife, or my grandchildren. But whatever the thought or image, it sets the tone for my encounters with others, and it keeps a smile on my face throughout the day.

I gave my friend another piece of advice that works consistently for me. One way I avoid becoming too wrapped up in daily frustrations is to “get out of myself.” What does this mean? Very simply, I find that when I am doing something for someone else, I forget about my own troubles. There are so many ways to do this – large and small. Turning the focus away from ourselves and onto others can be a powerful sleeping pill. We go to sleep with the satisfaction that we helped make a difference in someone else’s life.

My friend is amazing at creating trust and building relationships with others. His whole face shone as he professed that the high point of his day is when he can make a sales presentation or interact with a prospective customer. I told him that he ought to program his schedule so that he can do this at least once a day. We should all make sure that we are doing what we love and enjoy every single day.

Entrepreneurial insomnia can be cured by a cocktail of physical activity, meditation, maintaining a journal, living in gratitude, getting out of ourselves and dose of doing something we love each day. I guarantee that if you follow this recipe you’ll sleep like a baby. Sweet dreams.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

The Trustworthy Entrepreneur

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Let’s give credit where credit is due. I listened to a podcast by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and an early board member at PayPal. Hoffman made a profound statement that goes like this. “Trust is consistency over time.” As entrepreneurs one of our biggest hurdles is creating trust – trust with our team, our investors, our bankers, our customers, and our prospective customers. Without trust, we will flounder around and never gain traction. And trust is a very fragile thing. It takes a while to build trust, but it can be gone in an instant.

Consistency. We all know what it means. We also know how hard it is to achieve . . . consistently (pun intended). We trust McDonalds because every meal in every restaurant around the world maintains the same standard of quality. Forget whether we like the food – we know exactly what to expect. We trust products from Johnson & Johnson, General Mills, Netflix, Adidas, and Dove because we know exactly what to expect. Our enterprise struggles when our standard of quality is inconsistent, which in turn degrades the trust our customers have in our product or service.

I’d like to take Reid Hoffman’s mantra one step further. Commitment + Accountability leads to Consistency. Commitment is where every member of our team agrees to perform at a level that is necessary to always deliver our product or service at the highest quality possible. It’s critical that we clearly define what this level of quality means. It must be broken down in exquisite detail. Training must be directed to ensuring that each team member fully understands the details and how to execute it. And then the team must practice, practice and practice some more until delivery of the product or service is standardized. The bottom line – we can’t commit to something if we don’t understand it or haven’t been shown how to do it.

Next comes the Accountability part of the equation, and here it gets trickier. Once every member of the team has agreed to deliver the expected level of quality for a product or service, how do we make sure that each person lives up to his end of the bargain? Part of our responsibility as an entrepreneurial leader is to develop some quality control systems and processes. This serves as a backstop for the customer to make certain that something substandard doesn’t leak out into the marketplace. Should we spend time and money to create this redundancy? Maybe not, but if we really care about the customer, we have no choice but to do so. This also becomes a method of accountability. We’re able to spot deficiencies before it’s too late, and we can identify the weak links in our system. This allows us to get to the root of the problem. Is it an issue of training? Is it a misunderstanding? Does someone not have the proper tools or adequate resources? Is it the fact that someone on the team simply doesn’t care about what they are doing? We can take steps to correct all these obstacles which will help to further tighten our commitment.

Our Commitment to deliver a standard level quality of product or service, and the accompanying Accountability gives us a fighting chance to reach the holy grail of Consistency. And it’s this consistency that will build Trust with everyone in our orbit. Team members learn to trust each other. Customers trust our product or service. Our investors and bankers trust us because we are doing what we say we are going to do.

We let our consistency do the talking for us. We’ve all seen marketing that includes phrases like, “most trusted,” “your honest car dealer,” “honest and trustworthy,” and on and on. I’ve always been wary of any business that needs to beat its chest about how honest and trustworthy it is. It somehow feels like they “protesteth” a bit too much. Perhaps they think they need to advertise this way because they don’t deliver consistency with their products and services.

Trust truly is consistency over time. And consistency is the product of commitment and accountability.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.