Thoughts from an 8pm Warrior

I recently watched “Nature’s Most Amazing Events” and found inspiration in the segment about the annual Pacific Salmon run.

The story serves as a great reminder to all who feel stuck on a path to something great.

Salmon are drawn by instinct to swim against the current, jump huge waterfalls, and avoid massive bears to achieve their mission.  Out of every 1000 salmon that are born, only 4 make the round trip from their birth place to the ocean and back again.

It’s the challenge of a lifetime!

However, as if that wasn’t hard enough, sometimes the water levels are too low for the salmon to meet the bears, waterfalls, or heavy currents they’re destined to face. They get stuck before the real battle even begins.

It’s heartbreaking to watch and reminds me of so many brilliant, passionate 8pm Warriors who are stuck.

Then the rain comes.

Just as many of the fish are starting to lose energy and hope, the rainy season begins and allows the fish to resume their epic struggle against all odds to achieve their ultimate life goal.  They can finally begin the fight they were designed for.

Sound familiar?

Many of my fellow 8pm Warriors are on their way to following their dreams.  We all signed up for the challenges of developing new products or services, avoiding competitors, and challenging the status quo.  We’re okay with swimming against the current.

What we didn’t sign up for was the lack of water.

This economy has dried up many options and left many 8pm Warriors wondering, hurting, and weak.

Tonight I urge you to hold on.  Just like those salmon, do not turn back.  Do not forfeit your goal or your path.  Never give up.

The rain is coming!

The challenges we seek will be here soon enough and the days of funding issues and weak demand will be replaced with the challenges of finding the right people, products, and strategies again.

The pain of failure is much easier to take than the regret of quitting early on something great.

Push through.

Have a perseverant night,

Aaron@Biebert

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I admit it.

On Saturday, I wrote Open Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters after watching the news and seeing some of the silly signs the protesters were holding.

It was cold.  I was cold.

I was focused on myself.

I got so caught up in fighting back against these ideas, that I failed to realize my wide swipe at these folks would hurt real people.  People I know.  People that are hurting.

They didn’t need my lecture.  Most just needed my help.

Positive change is not about being right.  Without an understanding, being right does nothing but cause resentment.  When people focus on helping the other side, the real change begins.

We must seek to understand first, then offer help.  Once others see you’re not full of yourself, real dialogue happens.  Suddenly the weapons are put away.

I didn’t do that.  All I did was encourage those who already shared my beliefs and upset those who needed help.  I was wrong.

Please accept my apology.

Have an understanding night,

Aaron@Biebert

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We all stub our toes.

We all want to tell someone about it.

When we’re kids, we go to mom or dad.  In school, we call our buddies.  In a marriage, we have our spouse.

I don’t know many successful organizations with two people at the top, and most leaders sit alone when they get hurt, make mistakes, weigh important decisions and need help.

Who was sitting with Leo Apotheker this week as he waited for his firing?  Who helped Steve Jobs pack his things when Apple’s board fired him in 1985?

Leadership can be a lonely business.

It doesn’t need to be.  When leaders allow themselves to join their team and open up, they find something magical happens.

They’re not alone.

Everyone knows we’re human.  We need to act like it.  People expect it and respect it.

We need to open up when we stub our toe.

Have a great night,

Aaron@Biebert

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It’s always someone else, some other company, some other leader.

The fact remains that most American workers are unhappy with their position.  25% don’t plan on staying at your company.

Since most companies have laid off everyone possible, the reality is that members of your core team may be dissatisfied.

Why?

Do we ask for more each year and give less in return?

As a whole, we’ve laid off middle management and cut support.

• We’ve cut budgets
• We’ve cut benefits
• We ask for more
• We pay less

Have we laid off the joy?  Have we forgotten about people?

What’s the cost of that?

Only you can answer that for your organization.

I know I’ve got work to do…

Have a great night,

Aaron@Biebert

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You must never confuse your business with your own identity.  Never.

If it fails, you are not a failure.  If it grows wildly, you remain the same size.  If it dies, you are not dead.

“You’re not your job.
You’re not how much you have in the bank.
You’re not the car you drive.
You’re not the contents of your wallet.
You’re not your f#%$ing khakis.”

-Tyler Durden in the movie “Fight Club”

Wise words from a movie about recreational fighting, blowing up buildings, and the identity crisis so many people have.  Take them to heart.

My fellow warriors, you are not your business.

You are so much more.

If your business falls down, you can rise up.  But only if you let it go.

Have a great night,

Aaron@Biebert

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Your boss doesn’t know he’s acting like an idiot. Your business partner doesn’t realize she’s grumpy.

They’re on autopilot. You probably are too sometimes…

It’s natural.

All activities can be put on automatic after awhile.  Even leadership.

I drive around in my truck eating, tweeting, singing, and watching out for cops…all at the same time.

Those skills are on autopilot.   The same goes with talking, typing, thinking, and reading while on a conference call.   Even complex skills like leadership can become automatic with enough repetition. That’s why only perfect practice makes perfect.  Every repetition matters.

After a certain number of days, emails, calls or meetings, people are wired to autopilot the activities they’ve mastered.   That’s sometimes a good thing.  Sometimes not.

It depends if you’ve been practicing perfectly or not.

If you’re angry for a long period of time, anger is natural.  If you’re growing, growth is natural.  If you’re respectful, respect is natural.   It’s all in how you train your autopilot.

Are you thinking about your leadership?

Are you letting anger or frustration define you slowly?  Are you letting a bad situation change you?  It’s not worth the autopilot anger.  Every day matters.  The slope is slippery.  The risks are real.

This autopilot leadership problem is exactly why I like social media and blogging so much. It wakes me up.  Sends me alerts.  Slaps me in the face sometimes.

I’m learning a lot from my fellow 8pm Warriors.  Thank you.

Have a perfect practice night!

Aaron@Biebert

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After my Transparency Favors the Strong post, I got several requests to share ways that companies and leaders could win the race to transparency.

Smart leaders realize that hiding relevant information is just not a good idea anymore.

Customers, employees, shareholders, board members, and other stakeholders in your organization are okay with mistakes. They’re not okay with dishonesty or shady practices.

We live in a world dominated by social media, which allows people to share, discuss, and learn about you, your company, it’s products, and the way you do business.

Even if you wanted to, you can’t hide the truth without actually kidnapping, killing people or turning off the internet. Regardless, if you have to hide it, you probably should change business models or jobs.

Here are five ways your company can win the race to transparency:

1) Blog about what you do

Be honest.  Be open.  Be vulnerable.  Share your feelings.  Companies should act like people so that people can relate to them.  No one relates to perfection.

Here are two examples of transparency in action:

Michael D. Harris Jr. at Ardynn PR is writing 365 posts this year while sharing the wins, losses, and ideas coming out of his growing real estate PR firm.  He’s even gone so far as to discuss his own foreclosure crisis.  Here’s one example of his blog posts.

Mike Cox does a daily video blog every business day where he blows the lid off the secretive mortgage industry and it’s pricing.  Since he leads a group of mortgage loan officers, you’d think giving away pricing info would hurt him, right?  Wrong.  He’s building trust and an avid subscriber base that is hungry for honesty and transparency. Check out Rates in Motion.

2) Be transparent on your “About Us” page

Take advantage of the times when people want to learn more about your company. Write something personal, warm, and right to the point of why you’re in business.

People don’t care about stats until they understand your spirit, goals, and direction.

Robert Jones is writing a series of blog posts about successful “About Us” pages and I highly recommend you read some of his stuff.  It’s amazing.  Here’s the first one in the series, and it features 8pmWarrior.com.

Here’s another example of a fairly transparent “About Us” page.

3) Monitor social media platforms

Monitoring what people say about you should be automated.

The first thing you should do is set up Google Alerts for your brand, company name, and yourself.  Then, when you notice someone is talking about you, move to step 4 below.

Besides Google Alerts, here are some other monitoring tools I use:

• twazzup
• socialmention (Google alerts for social media)
• Google.com (try searching your name)
• pingbacks on your blog
• @mentions on twitter

4) Interact on social media platforms

Once you know where you’re being talked about, it’s time to engage.

I highly recommend you follow the lead of the Klout.com team and take a candid approach to responding.  Don’t ignore the obvious.  Answer questions and keep it pleasant.  People will say a lot of dumb things, but it’s your job to engage them in a way that makes friends out of skeptics.

Here’s a case where Joe Fernandez (Klout.com CEO) and Megan Berry (Marketing) are monitored and engaged in an intelligent way on a fairly negative blog post.  Check it this blog post.

Other examples of transparent interaction on social media:

• Using Quora to answer questions about internal operations
• Using Twitter to remain transparent and helpful
• Answering questions and admitting problems on Facebook

One note on Engagement (more to come in a future post)…don’t automatically reply to anyone for any reason unless you are transparent about the fact that it is automated.  It will kill your ability to truly connect.

5) Admit mistakes and offer to fix them first

This is one of the reasons that transparency favors the strong.

The better you are at doing your job, the less expensive transparency is.  This is why some companies face an almost impossible task.  They can’t sell their flawed services in a transparent way, so they get less sales to improve their flawed services.

It’s a death spiral.

I’ll never forget when Best Buy gave me a $100 gift card when Blu Ray officially beat out HD-DVD and my new player from Best Buy was rendered obsolete.  They didn’t have to do anything.  However, they invested some money and made a friend for life.  It’s always worth it to deal with negative situations proactively.

On the other hand, you probably remember when Apple’s iPhone 4 came out with reception issues because our hands were interfering with the antenna (the death grip problem).  I couldn’t believe that they denied the issue when almost everyone I know said there were issues.  Finally, after a media circus, Apple finally gave us iPhone cases to fix the issue they denied having.  This was my first negative experience with Apple and one that killed the myth that they were somehow superhuman.

Summary

Transparency is the new Quality.  Everyone expects it.  If your industry or company is not usually transparent, you may want to be like Mike Cox or consider trying a different line of work.  If you plan on truly leading people, you must be human.  You must be transparent.

If you believe in yourself, this shouldn’t be a problem.  Transparency favors the strong.

Have a transparent night,

Aaron@Biebert

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If you’ve been watching the stock markets the past week, you know what it looks like when hell is breaking loose.

You also know what poor leadership looks like.

As the old saying goes:

If you want something done, delegate it.
If you want it done right, do it yourself.
If you don’t want it done at all, send it to a committee.

Since the year began, there have been zero job creation bills come out of the US Congress.  At the same time, the US credit rating was downgraded after 100+ years at AAA (the highest level), the FAA shut down, and the country almost defaulted on it’s debt.

Yet, there is no vision out of this mess. Uncertainty is everywhere you look. Fear is growing.

We don’t have an economy problem, we have a leadership problem.

Where’s the leadership?

It’s in committee…

This is a teachable point of view for any organization.  When things get tough, one person has to:

1) Come up with a vision

2) Get everyone behind it.

If those two things don’t happen, there is no leadership.

If you’re the designated leader at this point in history, I hope you’re up with me right now at 2am figuring out what your team is going to do.

Hell is breaking loose.

It’s time to lead tonight,

Aaron@Biebert

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