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“Bozo” - A clown with a forlorn look, always finding negative implications in every activity or event. A person who tries to find a way to prevent you from moving ahead, giving excuses such as “we’ve always done it this way, or this is not our culture” when presented a new opportunity or challenge. Normally associated with people who are uncomfortable with learning new techniques, processes, or relationships.

Guy Kawasaki from Garage.Com - a venture capital company, used to have a segment in his presentations called “Don’t Let the Bozos Grind You Down.” This segment discussed how every organization will have a corps of people who simply try everything in their power to stop innovation, new product and service development, and introduction of anything new into the daily job function. These people are “bozos.” If you want to avoid the pain of dealing with bozos in your business planning, you need to develop techniques in identifying and preventing bozos from interfering with potential future activities of your organization or company.

Due diligence on any innovation or change in direction of an organization is a clear requirement - nobody wants to manage a company like a small dog playing with toys - chasing everything that looks fun without following through on any action. A manager must rely on staff to provide a good system of checks and balances to manage risk associated with any change.

However, none of us are immune to the effects of a global economy accelerated by use of global telecommunications networks and business process innovations. With very few exceptions, our organizations must move ahead - offering products and services demanded by a “savvy” consumer market, or run the risk of another company replacing us. Competitive companies are always taking managed risk to innovate and pass your company or organization, offering a better, faster, cheaper, and more modern product. If you lose your place as a market leader due to internal struggles in your attempt to innovate, you will ensure the bozo has successfully accomplished his objectives. If the bozos are successful once, their chances of continuing to hurt your innovation efforts will increase.

Bozos only serve the purpose of dragging down an organization through endless complaints, justifications for refusing change, and comments about the “old days” when “things were better.” We have to limit the Bozo-factor in our planning, while ensuring adequate due diligence is maintained. In a worst case bozos will simply refuse to perform tasks associated with new product development and rollout - sabotaging your efforts to move the company ahead.

Look for the Signs of Bozos in Your Office

Bozos are fairly easy to identify. They are the people who generally use phrases like:

• “Its not my job”

• “I haven’t been trained”

• “We’ve always done it this way”

• “Why should we change?”

• “It won’t work”

• “It is impossible”

• “Nobody else is doing it”

• “I haven’t enough time to learn a new job or technique”

• and many other similar phrases

The bozo is dangerous in other ways. While you are trying to innovate and move your company ahead in the market, Bozos are diligently trying to “rally” the other employees around their justification for not supporting change. Most employees fully understand if they are not always learning and trying to improve themselves, eventually somebody will replace them - but the bozo wants to contribute to their potential unemployment situation by dragging them along into a condition where management must either decide to go around them, over them, or in the worst case “through them” to accomplish company or organizational objectives.

If in your business planning you bypass bozos, use good due diligence, study your market conditions, trends, and futures - you can avoid the bozo factor in business planning. To paraphrase the creed of the French Foreign Legion (March or Die), to survive in the global economy and market place all companies must constantly plan for innovation, providing a product that is better than the competition - where ever that competition may be. Innovate or die - through managed risk.

(About the Author - John Savageau is a managing director at CRG-West, responsible for managing operations and architecture for several of the largest telecommunications interconnect facilities in the US, including One Wilshire in Los Angeles.

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Would you like to Increase Business Performance, Get ahead of your Competition and Effect a Proven Positive Sustainable Change within your Organization - Immediately?
Are you an Organization that engages outside facilitators to motivate, inspire or train your staff? Have you ever wondered if your money is being well spent?

Despite the rave reviews from staff, have you seen any real change take place in the workplace? Would you know how to measure for it if you had? If your answer is NO, then I will share with you the importance of METRICS and why this buzz word is so important for you to understand, and how you can use the information to increase your business performance, get ahead of your competition and immediately effect positive change.

Companies who have introduced performance management cultures into their organizations have been found to have higher profits and stronger market performance. Performance management is the terminology being used in industry today to measure performance against business goals and employee competencies. If what these “facilitators of change” are “selling” is not clearly defined in terms of measurable performance markers or proven sustainable outcomes, then their deliverables are of little use to an organization that is looking for that which can be clearly measured.

Organizations are measuring everything from employees skill levels, how many complaints they receive in a given week to how many sick days does an employee take in a given month if they are engaged in regular exercise and if they are not. Think about this for a moment. If the person you hired to speak cannot report measurable performance outcomes for their performance or training program then this may be where the crux of the problem lies. How can you notice that which you did not plan for? Do you know what success means to you, what it looks like? When it comes to measuring your performance outcomes it is very important that both the company and the facilitator know exactly what deliverables they are looking for and how BOTH of you are going to know if they have been met.

Deliverables need to be determined well before the facilitator reaches an audience. It is vital that you sit down with your trainer, and determine what outcomes the organization is looking for, how they will be measured and what would success look like when achieved! For example, let’s say you hire a speaker who specializes in time management. Some measurable outcomes may look like this:
a.) Work is not piled up on desks, chairs, floors
b.) More work is completed on time-
c.) employees work less overtime and you pay less overtime
d.) employees understand how to use identify what is important
e.) Less time off due to exhaustion

These are the kinds of outcomes that a company would decide on BEFORE the “expert” gets on stage. These results are measurable, and they are sustainable. Are you starting to understand?

If you have been following and/or embracing the industry trend for performance measurement these days, then you may be familiar with the studies that have already been conducted on the effectiveness of training with and without coaching. If not then please pay attention to this, because it is very important What you may not know, is the amazing difference that adding 8 weeks of coaching will make to your bottom line in terms of measuring the implementation of your ideas and training. Organizations that offer training without coaching result in a 22 % improvement, but add 8 weeks of coaching on to that, and the results are a staggering 88% in overall improvement and change.
These days another industry buzz word is ROI or return on investment. In a study conducted by MetrixGlobal, they actually showed that Coaching produced a 529% return on investment as well as significant intangible benefits to the business. When the financial benefits from employee retention were added into the mix, coaching actually boosted the overall ROI to 788%… (Merrill Anderson [merrilland@metrixglobal.net])
Can you imagine my delight at being able to offer you a proven measurement of 88% in performance enhancement and a 788% ROI? I am so excited about this, and you should be too!
No organization should spend thousands of dollars on a speaker or trainer, only to have all that great learning and enthusiasm go out the window within a few days.

For the past 25 years, I have been employed in both private and public sector organizations, working to enhance Leadership and management competencies, envision strategic direction, implement quality service standards, and introduce programs and initiatives that would advance and address organizational wellness and employee morale.

I KNOW why organizations look outside for assistance, because sometimes they are too close to the forest to see the tree. I used to be the one in charge of hiring the facilitators of change. My role was to decide on the learning outcomes for the organization, measure the effectiveness of the speaker and the event, and then deliver these numbers to our senior management committee. Whether or not we had this speaker back or even had a budget for another event, depended largely upon the results reported in my feedback! Let me stress this one more time “No organization should spend thousands of dollars on a speaker or trainer only to have all that great learning and enthusiasm go out the window within a few days”!

Not only is it time for you to begin measuring for success, but by hiring a business coach to help you implement the strategies and changes that your organization now wants to embrace, you have just strengthened your employees retention potential by 88%.
Through the power of Coaching, you can guarantee yourself a proven and effective method that will enhance performance and make it easier for your employees to make the transition.
Challenge yourself to re-examine your business model and think about adding a 12 week coaching component to your workplace, or better yet, add Coach training to the Performance Plans of your Leaders and Managers and have them become in house coaches.
You will be astounded by the metrics, but more importantly your employees and your customers will be pleased with the real changes that are going to take place as a result of implementing your best practices.

According to Hay Group,

To be successful in today’s ever-shifting market, people count for more — they can make or break the best business strategy, be the driver or brake in adopting new technologies. People are not an implementation issue, nor just an operational or strategic asset. People are the raw resource around which business success revolves.

Coaching will increase business performance, it will help you get ahead of your competitor and the effects of it are immediate. Either by itself or as an enhancement to another Training source, adding “12 weeks of supportive coaching” to enhance performance makes good business sense.

Frankie is a Strategic Vision Coach who specializes in the impossible. From Boardroom to Bedroom she is the Strategy Queen. Find out what makes her so unique and what programs and services she offers from her two websites, http://www.conversationwithmyshoes.com or http://www.coachpicasso.com.

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When you are acclaimed for excellence during times of crisis you may not feel so good in a non-crisis environment. You may not shine so bright, perform so well, be quite so acclaimed. If crisis is how you satisfy your personal need to be needed, to feel accomplished, to be respected, to be heard, to be noticed, blah blah blah, then you will naturally seek out, create, attract, be drawn into situations that will allow you to meet this need. Your environments and relationships will be filled to the brim with one crisis after another.

Perhaps there’s a better way to get your need met. Perhaps there’s a way to feel needed and still exist in peaceful, cooperative, and synergistic environments. It’s amazing to watch the content and features of a person’s life break apart and rebuild with almost the same irreverent qualities. People change mates but the essence of the relationship is the same. People change jobs and the same complaints emerge as before. People get out of debt, lose weight, move to different cities, and nothing really changes. It’s a scary thing. I’ve seen the inside view and it’s very scary. This déj vu type phenomenon has left me baffled and disheartened. Here’s the deal; when we treat the symptoms, the root cause remains unaffected and it emerges again and again. Our outer lives tell the same story over and over like a broken record until we finally get it. The outer reflects the inner. The outer is a symptom; the inner is the root cause. The outer is the image in the mirror; the inner is the real object. You would not stand in the mirror with the intention of washing your face and wash the reflection of your face in the mirror, would you? … I didn’t think so. Well that is exactly what we are doing when we focus on treating our symptoms.

A fundamental place to begin transformation is by being responsible for understanding your personal needs and ensuring that they are met in an appropriate context. Get your needs met appropriately and permanently and your life will be transformed for sure.

Robin Harris is a DesignerLife Coach whose focus is to empower self-motivated entrepreneurs and individuals to achieve their greatest potential while discovering and honoring their core values. Contact Robin through her web site http://www.designerlifecoaching.com or by email at robin@designerlifecoaching.com

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PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in
newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to
the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource
box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is
appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

Word count: 777

Summary: Leaders often hamper their effectiveness by focusing on
solving problems that eventually turn out to be the wrong
problems. Here is a tool to help you focus on the right problems
and solve them in the right ways.

The 20/60/20 Rule Of Leadership. Don’t Go Solving The Wrong
Problems By Brent Filson

Several decades ago, a passenger jet approached a Florida
airport with the pilot and co-pilot struggling to fix what they
thought was a malfunctioning landing gear. The landing-gear
light was on, signaling that the gear was deployed; but both men
did not hear it actually deploy.

As the men sought to understand whether they had a defective
landing-gear light or a defective landing gear — the co-pilot
actually taking up a hatch and getting down into the wheel well
– the aircraft kept losing altitude. Too late, a warning alarm
sounded and the plane crash, killing all aboard.

Quite possibly that tragedy has subsequently saved many lives.
For the pilot and co-pilot’s actions have been used in flight
simulation training programs to demonstrate how NOT to
troubleshoot problems in the cockpit.

The incident has become known as the Landing-gear Fix, a
diligent attempt to solve the wrong problem. Of course, they had
a landing-gear problem on their hands. But unbeknownst to them,
they faced a far more serious problem, a pending crash.

The Landing-gear Fix is a leadership lesson. In the quest to get
results, many leaders often focus on Landing-gear Fixes –
putting their time, resources and talents into solving wrong
problems. In fact, it’s been my experience working with
thousands of leaders during the past 20 years that most leaders
are either working on the wrong problems or working on the right
problems in the wrong ways.

In this issue, I’ll give you a tool to avoid getting involved in
a leadership Landing-gear Fix. It’s a tool that will help you
avoid wrong problems and focus on the right ones. It’s called
the 20/60/20 rule. And it will save you aggravation and help you
avoid wasting time.

When you are leading a group of people of whatever size to get
results, understand that roughly about 20 percent of the people
are intractable; they won’t do — or at least won’t want to do
– what is required. Another 20 percent will be your ardent
cause leaders in getting it done. And 40 percent will be on the
fence.

How does this rule help you focus you on the right problem? For
one thing, it gives you a template of where to put your time and
resources.

I wish I had known about the 20/60/20 rule early in my
leadership endeavors. In the military and later in other venues,
I often gave inordinate amount of attention to people at the
intractable end. That people were upset with me and my
leadership and the direction I wanted to take organizations
upset me - more than it should have.

I did not know that if you are not getting a portion of the
people upset with you, you are not challenging them enough as a
leader. I did not know that the anger of the people you lead is
the door prize of leadership.

Apply the 20/60/20 rule to a project you undertook in the past.
(Remember, those are not exact percentages but approximations.)
Which category did you focus your time, attention, and resources
on? Was it the right category to do so? What would you do
differently? How might you have moved people from the
intractable end to the highly motivated end? How did you deal
with the people in the middle, the 60 percent? What category
demanded your best resources and efforts? What could you have
done differently to improve your results?

What are the lessons you learned in applying the rule to a past
project? List at least three specific ones. Now apply the
20/60/20 rule to a present leadership effort. This rule is about
saving you time, money, and resources and getting you more
results to boot. There are several ways to use it. First, as a
straight up template.

How might the lessons you learned in applying the Rule to a past
project now help you apply it to this present one?

Focus on one of the three categories. How will you expend your
time and resources? It does not matter which category you focus
on. The importance of the rule is that you have the option.
Without this rule, most leaders scatter their focus.

Don’t get caught applying diligent solutions to the wrong
problems. Apply the 20/60/20 Rule, and you’ll focus on getting
the right results in the right way at the right time.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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People mean well. Except for the occasional time tyrant, they usually don’t mean to bury you with requests and steal all of your available time - and then some. But they do. And we let them. Then we end up overwhelmed, angry, stressed, and frustrated - emotions that could have been avoided by employing one or more of the following strategies. Try them on for size and see if your schedule doesn’t become more manageable.

1. Get comfortable asking for time to think about requests…
   When someone asks you to do something, take some time to think about how it fits into your overall plan. Do you have the time to do it? Do you possess the necessary skills or information to the task or project? Is it something you could delegate? Just because someone asks doesn’t mean you have to jump in with a “yes.”
2. Modify requests to suit your needs…
   Taking the time mentioned in the point above allows you to decide whether agreeing to the request as offered is the best option. Perhaps you can accommodate their request, but with modifications. If you offer a reasonable alternative and it’s accepted, you’re a team player and everybody wins.
3. Enlist their help…
   If you aren’t in a position to be able to refuse the request (perhaps the request is coming from a superior) but it’s going to be a serious problem to take on the assignment, enlist their help to help you assess and rearrange priorities.
4. Say “no” and lose the guilt…
   Sometimes you just have to say “no”. It’s perfectly okay to do so - in fact, sometimes you must. If you have a handle on your priorities you can decide if the request reasonably fits into your schedule. Many people feel taken advantage of because they can’t say “no”. But no one can take advantage of your time without your permission.

You must be assertive about your time and how people use it. If you don’t control your own schedule then someone else will!

Mary Kutheis (kooth-ice) works with individuals, organizations, and businesses who want to be better organized in the workplace so they can be more focused, productive, and profitable. Through seminars and one-on-one work, Mary delivers real-life solutions to people who are buried in paper and e-mail and overwhelmed by “to do” lists. Visit http://openspaces4me.com/ for free tips, articles and other workplace productivity resources.

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