Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Managing Change

The Quantity/Quality Conundrum

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Measure Of Success

Let’s say there’s a sales guy, working in a sales function in a sales-driven organization.

His company was acquired by a group of investors who are systematically changing the way business is being done. They have metrics for everything and statistics drive every decision.

Our sales guy has been the top producer for many years. He has deep customer relationships and generates significant repeat business.

But you can’t benchmark relationships, so the powers that be decide he must have lucked into a rich sales territory and proceed to carve it up to spread the wealth. They parcel his clients out to the rest of the sales team, leaving our sales guy with a severely diminished book.

Oh, and a mandate to make 35 calls each day.

Off the record, his boss says that it doesn’t matter if the calls are to qualified prospects or not – all the bean counters want to know is that the calls are being made because they have forms to be filled out.

Six months go by.

Sales are way off.

Repeat business is non-existent.

And our sales guy has found another job.

Because he knows that his strongest suit – his true superpower – is the ability to create relationships, and the bean counters who value quantity over quality simply don’t get it.

He knows that he can make one call and generate as much business in fifteen minutes as two other guys could get in a week. How? Because his clients know him, like him and have years of experience working with him – they trust him.

Some of his customers like him better than they like his product – what he sells is less important than how he sells to them. Which is why the guy is going to be successful wherever he goes.

If I were in charge of a sales organization, I’d hire a hundred people with the ability to generate referral business rather than hire a thousand robo-callers.

Because quality always wins out over quantity.

But maybe that’s just me.

Today it seems that so many organizations want their people to be as uniform and interchangeable as widgets.

As if one sales guy is absolutely equal to another sales guy.

That one teacher is as good as any other teacher.

That a 60-year-old surgeon who’s done a thousand procedures is absolutely equivalent to a 30-year-old surgeon who’s so desperate for business that she’s willing to deeply discount her fee to get people in the door.

I don’t think so.

Sure, it’s comforting to think that if you check off all the boxes then you’re less likely to fail. Does our health plan provide access to a surgeon? Check  – yes. The question so few ask: Is that surgeon any good?

Quantity is: We have a 20-person sales team making 35 cold calls every day. Quality is: Are they talking to the right people? Are they taking time to build relationships? To build trust?

There’s not a box to check next to those quality questions because they’re rarely being asked.

It’s likely that you have quantity/quality decisions to make every day in your own life. And all I ask is that you keep a few things in mind:

It’s not the number of brownies you make that’s important, especially if they taste awful. Make good, quality brownies and let that be enough.

It’s not the number of bills you have in your wallet, especially if they are all ones. If you want to sit down, it’s better to have five $100 bills in your back pocket than 250 singles.

It’s not important that you have a whole lot of friends, especially if you have no one to call for help in the middle of the night.

When it comes down to it, real success comes from the things that cannot be quantified – connection, relationship, kindness, appreciation, trust.

I don’t know about you, but I want more of those quality things in my life and work, and I’m consciously working on them every day.

I really like the idea of being un-metric-ifiable.

 

You Have Spinach In Your Teeth

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Spinach Leaf Isolated On White Background

 

Let’s say there are some things you just won’t do. Or you think you can’t possibly do.

For instance, here’s a big one: You can’t tell your boss what you really think because you’ll get fired.

At least you tell yourself she won’t like it and you’ll get fired.

Let’s explore that for a minute, shall we?

Just so happens that I was talking with a boss the other day. Let’s call him Dave just because that’s a fun first name.

Dave was worried about one of his key employees – let’s call her Ginny because that’s also a fun name.

Ginny respects Dave so much that she does whatever Dave says to do.

Dave says, “Let’s make all the widgets purple!”

And Ginny runs around like a crazy person organizing the production of purple widgets.

The next day Dave, who is a self-admitted idea guy with a bad memory, has a blue sky moment where he idly says, “What if we made some yellow widgets?”

Ginny nods and says, “Okie doke, yellow” and moves heaven and earth – and spends quite a lot of money – to build ’em yellow.

The next week, when all the yellow widgets are finished and Dave sees a report about their move to the market, he says, “Yellow widgets? What the hell?”

See, Ginny never once asked Dave for clarification, like: “What about yesterday’s purple widgets? Is yellow in addition to purple, or instead of purple?”

When I asked her why she didn’t speak up and at least clarify what Dave wanted, she was shocked at my suggestion and said, “That’s not my place. He’s the boss and I’m just here to deliver whatever he wants.”

But I talked with Dave, he said, “I need her to tell me when I’m being an jerk, and when I’m costing the company time and money. I’ve got too much on my plate to remember everything and I count on her to keep me in line.”

Well now, people, what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. 

When I talked with Ginny further, I asked, “If you noticed that Dave had spinach in his teeth just before he was supposed to be on the Today show, would you say anything or would you say nothing because he’s your boss?”

“Oh, I’d say something because I want him to look good,” she said.

“So what if whenever you saw him contradicting himself or not remembering accurately, you simply thought of it as if he had spinach in his teeth and said something?” I asked. She laughed and said she’d never thought of it that way, but then she pulled herself up short.

“Wait. Who am I to tell the boss he has spinach in his teeth?” She started to get anxious. “I’ve just never thought of myself as a person with that much power.”

As we coached around her concern, Ginny realized that she kept hearing her father’s voice telling her not to be too big, not to get too big for her britches, to go along and get along at work. She heard her mother’s voice telling her to be a good girl and make everything easier for everyone else. It really had nothing to do with Dave.

It had everything to do with how she saw herself and what she thought was possible.

This was a pretty big moment for Ginny, I have to tell you.

And it was pretty inspiring to see her as she realized that if she could expand herself in this one way – in essence, to ask Dave if he wanted to know he had spinach in his teeth, and then do him the favor of pointing it out – then she could really grow. She could dare to be more of herself. And maybe lower her stress level a little bit.

Today, Dave and Ginny have a strong and true partnership. The organization is stronger, more efficient and clearer – for everyone. Even the folks on the floor who are making the widgets.

And Ginny? Feels pretty strong, efficient and clear, too.

Finally.

 

Holding On In A Crisis

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Distress may express itself in many ways. But if you can keep your eyes and your heart open, you will find that relief comes in unexpected forms, too.”

I scribbled this sentiment on my Facebook page after a particularly tough couple of days for some of my favorite clients.

Stuff was happening. Stuff they didn’t like, and couldn’t control. Stuff that has deep implications for what the future may hold.

I felt for them, I truly did. And as their coach, my biggest job was to challenge their assumptions. And to give them a couple of key things to focus on through their continuing trials.

Like, “you get to decide how you’re going to be in this world – who do you want to be?”

Like, “don’t let someone else’s drama affect your sense of purpose.”

Like, “do something today you can be proud of a year from now.”

Like, “you always win when you play to your strengths.”

I know that if, in the midst of chaos, you can hold on to who you are at your very best – and be it – you’re going to be fine. If, when challenged, you can hang on to your integrity, your kindness, your smarts – it all works out for the best.

And at the very least you can live with yourself a year from now.

Amazing things happens when you are true to yourself in the middle of crisis. Know what the best one is?

You draw like-minded people and useful things to you. Just when you need them most.

This sort of kismet-y serendipity becomes your regular portion when you are in alignment with who you’re meant to be in this spinning world of ours. So, sometimes it may feel like one door closes and all the windows stay shut, too. But when you’re in the right place doing the right thing something unexpected always shows up and points you to an utterly lovely house with all windows and doors wide open to you. And they’re open right at this very moment.

All you have to do is keep your eyes and heart open to the opportunities which come your way. Even the unexpected opportunities.

And there are going to be a lot of ’em.

 

[photo credit: Michele Woodward]

It’s Not How to Lead, But Who To Lead

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There are enough books on leadership to fill an entire university library. A really big state university with branch campuses.

You could read articles on leadership twelve hours a day for a month and still have only scratched the surface of what’s been written.

Cue up the teleclasses, seminars and workshops on the subject and you could be in so-called leadership training for the rest of your career.

Yes, a lot has been written on how to lead.

But very little is written on who you need to lead first.

Because in order to lead others, the first person you need to lead is the hardest-headed, most recalcitrant not listening stubborn jackass you’ve ever met.

Oh, yeah, I absolutely mean you.

And I’m particularly talking about when you get in your own way. When you make things harder than they need to be. When you catastrophize and struggle.

Whether you’re twenty-two years old and in your first job out of college, or sixty-two and CEO of a multi-million dollar business, the most important job you’ve got is to lead your own damn self.

I’ve seen leaders fail when they are deaf, dumb and blind to their own strengths and weaknesses, their resilience and vulnerabilities, their energy and their Achilles heels.

They think that if they ignore knowing themselves fully and pretend that they’ve got all the answers and have it locked, then no one else will notice that at their core…they’re scared out of their wits.

If I told you the number of people confess to me that they are terrified someone is going to find out that they don’t know what the hell they’re doing and making it up as fast as they can, you wouldn’t believe me.

Or maybe you would, because maybe you say that to yourself all the time.

This is what we call The Imposter Syndrome, and it’s widespread and pernicious, which is a total SAT way to say sneaky and harmful. It sneaks up on you when you are so self-deprecating that you say things like, “You know, I’d be better off sorting the mail – that’s really what I’m cut out for”  or “I totally lucked into this job.”

Or when you bluster and rage and create an inner circle of yes-people who shut out any voices saying anything you might not want to hear.

The cure for The Imposter Syndrome is – like many things – information and awareness.  Information about who you truly are when you are at your best – you can get this from self-reflection, the feedback from trusted peers or even careful and objective readings of your past performance reviews.

This leads to the awareness of times you’ve been challenged and persevered. To the times you’ve asked for help and gotten it. To when you’ve expected failure and found success. Or expected success and found learning.

This knowledge makes you a better person – more open, more understanding, more inquisitive, more inspired and inspiring.

And much more confident in and of yourself.

Which is what all the books, seminars and tapes tell us is vital to being a great leader.

You know, it takes a strong person to look themselves in the eye and ask, “Am I the best possible version of myself in this moment?” But when you get to the point of your journey of self-discovery where the answer is almost always “Yes”, then you’ve really done something meaningful and important.

That’s when you really step into your leadership of others.

 

On The Eve

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There’s this restless moment of anticipation.

Something’s about to happen, and you’re not sure about it. But there is no question that you stand right on its cusp.

Waiting.

A little impatient. Maybe a lot impatient.

[You say, “Let’s get on with it already.” Or, “Give me a little more time – I’m not ready.”]

Yes, something new is about to come.

And, darlings, one thing you fear is true: you may not be in total control of every element of the situation. Which is quite uncomfortable for those among us who have an eensy weensy control issue.

There’s a lot we don’t know.

What will it be? Will I like it? Will it be good for me?

Well, sugar, you’re just about to find out.

And I will give you one tip. One helpful thing you need to know to make this new thing the best it can possibly be. Ready?

Whatever energy you bring determines the result you achieve.

Go into this expecting the worst, and guess what you’ll get? But, go into it with your glass half full, and you will love watching your glass fill up completely. Maybe even overflow.

You’re on the edge, my friend, and it’s about to happen.

All you have to do is… let it.

 

On Thanksgiving, Money, Stress & Finding Your Own Recipes

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In 2009, I reflected on Thanksgiving an all its myriad meanings and ended up writing a post I still recommend to clients who are struggling with family legacies that might need to be changed or dropped:

This week I’ve been thinking about money.

And how so many people get all weird and wobbly when it comes to talking about it. Asking for it. Having it at all.

And it’s interesting that they way our parents and grandparents handled money probably affects the way we handle money. I think about the woman whose immigrant parents struggled and sacrificed and lived in poverty. And now, even though she makes a million dollars a year, she hoards paper towels and soup… just in case.

Or the guy whose dad was a dreamer and a schemer. When they had money, they spent it – lavish dinners, fancy trips, stylish clothes. And when they had no money, they fantasized about how they’d spend it once it came back. Today, this guy has no savings and wonders what happens to his cash.

A couple of months ago I wrote When Gifts Become Junk – just because someone gives you a gift, like a legacy around money, you don’t have to take it.

It’s kind of like Thanksgiving.

I remember the first time I had to cook Thanksgiving on my own. I planned to carefully replicate the traditional family menu, but then ran into a little blip. Where my family had bread-and-oyster dressing, heavy on the sage, his family had cornbread dressing with plenty of celery and onion. My family was mashed potatoes, his was rice. Ours was brown gravy. His had hard-boiled eggs floating in a yellow gravy.

We each had our own idea of What Thanksgiving Is and What One Must Consume So It Is Truly Thanksgiving.

Compromise felt like loss.

Oh, I come by the feeling of What It Should Be quite naturally – another family legacy. I remember my mother preparing Thanksgiving when I was a child. She looked at our loaded table and would always say, “You know, my grandmother would have chicken and dumplings, ham, turkey, fried chicken, and four different kinds of pie…this just doesn’t seem like Thanksgiving to me.” The fact that we had ham and turkey and three pies – never lived up to what Thanksgiving Should Be.

What a struggle. It’s the tension between fantasy and reality, really. It’s the tightrope of being present right here and now, and living in a storied and maybe flawed recollection of a “better time.” It’s an oppressive and unrealistic burden because the past you’re trying to match was probably not as wonderful as you recall. It probably wasn’t any more happy than you can make today.

So to be firmly here in the present, and living a happy life, there comes a point when you simply choose to make your own Thanksgiving.

Take a look at the heritage of your forebears and decide what you want to consciously take forward with you in your own life. It is absolutely OK – hey, it’s more than OK, it’s imperative — to decide whether you want to continue with the tiny marshmallows on the top of the super sweet potatoes, or go a bit healthier and replace that traditional dish with, oh, steamed broccoli.

You create your own traditions, not because what your parents and grandparents did was wrong. It may have been really right. For them. At that time. But now, it’s your life. You can create your own way of being in the world, darling, because you are you – not them.

Look at the legacies gifted to you by your parents and grandparents — around money, around relationships, around body image, around holidays – and decide: “Is this what I want for myself? Does this make me happy, or give me stress?”

If a tradition works for you, and makes you very, very happy – then keep it. If a tradition feels like a heavy obligation, and makes you very, very stressed – then it’s time to lovingly let that relic go.

Feel free to make your own menu, and it will be your own Thanksgiving. Every single celebratory day.

From my family – who have happily developed our own Thanksgiving traditions which do not include miniature marshmallows – to yours: Every best wish for a happy, healthy and gratitude-full holiday.

 

 

From Here To There

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I am rather smitten with the idea of transformation. Utterly fascinates me.

It fascinates me how common things like today’s newspaper gets recycled into tomorrow’s paper towels. Like how left over table scraps can become food for tomorrow’s flowers.

Magical things fascinate me, too, like how a little baby grows into a tall adult.

And then there are amazing things like how simple trial and error leads to a new invention that changes the world. Like the light bulb. Or the Internet.

To some of these things we say, “Yes, but…”

Yes, but that’s nature’s way of doing things – has nothing to do with me.

Yes, but that’s somebody like Thomas Edison. That’s somebody like Steve Jobs. Not somebody like me.

Rarely, it seems, do we say, “Yes, but…I can do that, too.”

But it’s more than possible.

You absolutely have the power to transform things.

You.

And you can do it all by yourself, when you think about it.

You can transform the challenge of sickness into the relief of healing, just by talking about it in a different way.

As in, “I am on my way toward remission.”

You can transform the stress of working with a difficult person into calm productivity, just by managing your own energy and being an advocate for yourself.

As in, “I am not jumping into that drama with him. No, I am not.”

You can transform your business from struggling to succeeding, just by focusing on your strengths and what really matters.

As in, “Despite the advice of marketing gurus, I know I am an introvert and not at my best in large networking events. I’m going to meet people my own way.”

It’s daunting and a little confusing to think that you have any power to change anything. Because so many of us have lived our lives believing we’re at the mercy of others. That power belongs to someone else. That we’re small, insignificant, unable.

But we’re not.

I know you’re not.

The power to transform – to shift one thing into another – is your greatest superpower.

And, if you open your eyes and see, you will find that you use this great skill of yours every day, in ways large and small.

Every time you open a door, turn a corner, start a new document, begin a conversation, you have the ability to transform one thing into something else.

And guess what? The more you use this superpower, the stronger it will get.

The stronger you will get.

So begin today. Begin by transforming where you are right now, to where you’d like to be.

And that’s as easy as getting up from your chair and moving some place else.