For those of you who have not read this book… (please do), here are the basics of the Hedgehog concept
I feel lucky when I get to…
Identify something that you have God given talent (or genetically encoded) for…
And, I can make money doing…

Now you may notice that I have put a personal spin on the above versus having a business spin. Well that was on purpose.

If you take the above three items and write down on a separate piece of paper the answer to each of those questions… you will start learning something about yourself.

Heck ask your friends or business colleagues to add to each of the lists.

After time for reflection on what you wrote down on each list. Try to craft a position, a job, and even more importantly, a life around the intersection of those three questions.

You will be good at your job, you will like your job… and heck you will even get paid for it!

Additional steps to becoming a great leader are coming…

As we conducted several breakouts, I watch to see who leads the breakouts and who participates without being asked.  ALWAYS, I repeat, ALWAYS the D’s in the group will grab the marker and take over.  I then coax some others to take the lead.  Difficult but can be effective.

As we got to the last breakout of the class, one individual who had hung back the entire time suddenly stepped up and took the marker.  He led the discussion like a pro- asked questions, recorded responses with clarity, looked the speaker in the eye, etc.  I was awed by his expertise.

Soon after the class ended and I asked him to stay over.  He very quietly walked up (C) and spoke very quietly.  I commended him on the fantastic job he had done and asked whether he had any classes on facilitation.  I noticed him look away as he said he had not.  Then I noticed that tears were rolling down his checks.  I immediately stopped the conversation.  He was so overwhelmed by someone saying something complementary to him that he could not control his emotions!  I had a hard time controlling mine then!  Both of us will never forget the brief conversation.

Never pass up the opportunity to commend someone who has done something you would like to see repeated.

This is not about how many units of production, or how many service calls or how many times the employee did wha i pay him/her to do. This is about unlocking of the knowledge and abilities of the people who come to work every day, do their job and then go home with all the unused capacity. This under utilized capacity is there for the asking, but requires you to do something first.

When you have done things to show that you value the person, the most outrageous employee is often the most valuable in terms of business improvement. The employee who challenges the leadership in public is most likely to be the one who understands our business and knows in his mind that we can be better.

His mantra is “in spite of this we make money”. Almost any change in the way we do business helps to make his day to day job easier.

Who is the only expert on any job? Most likely it is not the college educated person we pay the big bucks to. It is the person who does that job every day. Unleashing this gold mine is simple but difficult.

The secret- ASK!

“But I have asked many times.” How many times did you do anything with the information? This past week saw a very outspoken employee come up with an idea that will generate cost savings 10X his annual salary. We valued him. He told us his idea, we acted, fought the Engineer for him and he proudly told the division President about his idea and how much money it would mean.

ASK ME! I would love to tell you how to protect my job by being more efficient.

When you run a meeting do you have a set of ground rules that everyone must abide?

For example…

Only one person talks at a time.   Or, no one can talk more than 1 minute and then some one else has to speak.

Setting up the ground rules lets everyone communicate.  What happens if you have a slow talker or someone does not like to talk?  What do you do about these folks?

As an informed leader, you need to understand the make up of your team so that you can make sure that everyone’s opinion is represented during the team discussion.

The next time you sit in a meeting take a look around and watch the dynamics in the room.  Is everyone participating and actively engaged?  If not, try to figure out why.

Then develop a code of conduct that will make sure that everyone is engaged and participating.

He told me that he has heard me on numerous occasions that I always try to defer the compliment by giving a bunch of reasons why I was NOT the reason nor deserving of the compliment.

For example, I was helping a team improve the overall yield (how much material was made correctly from the raw materials).  I provided consulting to the team and even some engineering at times.  I acted as the leader when needed but I really tried to make sure that each member of the team had a chance to flex their leadership muscle so that they could develop into great leaders.

The compliment I received was ‘We could not have made that improvement without your services.”

My original response was “Thank you but… it really was the team that made it happen.  They worked long hours and attacked the goal head-on…”, etc.

I really believe that the team was the reason.  Yes, I did help but no more than anyone else on the team.

Don’s coaching comments were “You don’t let people give you compliments and feel good about giving you a compliment.  You always have a reason on why it is not you.  Break this habit.”

So for the last couple weeks, I have been taking compliments and only saying “Thank you’ with no caveats or if’s and but’s.  It has been hard.

Thanks Don for helping me develop into a leader.

DISC reports are very thorough, but for them to be useful to the hiring company, you must know what the job entails. If the job could speak what would it say? Remember that DISC only tells HOW the employee will respond to the task. The closer the person and the job match, the more successful they will be. High D’s like to make decisions and be in a highly visible leadership role. Put them in a room by themselves and they will retire in place- if you can even keep them in the room!

As you Coach the high C, put them in the room. They are thrilled to work on projects alone, in a private area with no interruptions and very explicit rules to follow.

Placing these people in the wrong roles leads to absenteeism, possible drug use and eventually they will leave or you will fire them. In spite of all the costs you have incurred, you have lost of some of your self esteem as a leader by making poor hiring decisions. Use the DISC and PIAV as a hiring tool. You will make yourself successful and contribute to the success of others. Hiring the right people makes you a great leader.

An informed leader knows how to hire the right people using DISC and PIAV. Take 20 minutes and complete one on line.

I did not establish the first rule of coaching-do you want to change? Essentially the manager even at times almost in tears, felt that he didn’t want to change, liked the way he was and let things fall where they may.

Always a part of coaching is creating life balance. He did not help his wife with the two small twin boys. She also worked full time outside the home, but he saw no reason to help her out. After several discussions about this, he agreed to try to improve in the home life area by sharing household chores and being home more often. He reported back to me that his marriage was much improved even as he joked “we haven’t made much progress at work have we?”

Long story short, I could not help the manager in his professional life and he began seeking other employment. He left the company but we were still friends and he stayed in contact. The president of the company and I both felt we had failed him. End of story- we thought. Ran into his wife a few months later. With trepidation, I approached her and we began talking about him and what had happened. Suddenly, out of the blue she said “I know that your coaching did not save my husband’s job, but you saved our marriage. Thank you for that.”

I called the president of the company the next day and told her the story. She almost cried. That was the best money I ever spent then, she said.

DISC reports are very thorough, but for them to be useful to the hiring company, they must know what the job entails. Remember, DISC only measures HOW a person will respond to the tasks. The closer the person is matched to what they like to do and HOW they want to accomplish the task the more productive they will be. High D’s like to make decisions. Put them in a room by themselves with no one to lead and they will either dry up, leave or retire in place.
On the other side of the coin, the high C is thrilled to work on projects alone, in a private area with no interruptions with many rules. Placing these people in the wrong job leads to absenteeism, possible drug use and eventually they will leave and you have to pay for another new hire. You also have done them an injustice by giving them a stop on their career that will be seen as a failure in their eyes.
Match people to the job. You should be able to see what successful people in this role do. How much interaction is necessary? How much time is spend assembling and interpreting data? Do they have to work on routine items each day? Do they have to solve many problems at the same time.
Again, DISC tells you HOW the person would like to accomplish the job tasks. Give them the best chance of being successful by placing them in the proper role based on FACT!

This is not pigeon holeing people. It is putting them where they have the most likely chance of success. EAch of us has certain God given talents. The earlier you recognize these in yourself by using the DISC, the more of your life will be spent on “acting natural”.

The do’s and don’t’s of communication are always the highlight of  the session.  What is a “do” to one party is often a “don’t” to the other.  For example one person’s report said “make an organized presentation and stick to the agenda” while the other said “leave time for relating and socializing”.  This is a great way to teach the DISC profile tools and how we communicate as WE like to be communicated to instead of how the other person likes to be communicated with. 

When we have a new employee, we can try trial and error for the first few months or sit down together with a facilitator and read each other’s DISC profile.  I then know how to adapt a leadership or coaching style that has your full attention.  This is also the most efficient way to run a business.