Is your business remarkable?

Are customers willing to pay a premium, make a selection, or spread the word about the value of your business (Seth Godin)?

If you can’t produce evidence to support your answer to this question, your business is probably headed for or already in trouble. You should have a system to track how remarkable your business is in the eyes of your customers, a system to continuously improve how remarkable your business is, and a system to continuously improve how you know what you know.

I’ve got some bad news for you – if your business is not remarkable, it’s most likely because YOU are not remarkable. Do remarkable employees consistently make an effort to come to work for you because of your leadership? Do your employees sing your leadership praises to their most trusted inner circles – their family, friends, and coworkers?  If you have to hesitate to answer “yes”, then the real answer those questions is probably “no.”

If you are a remarkable leader, you will attract and retain remarkable employees. If you enable those remarkable employees with remarkable systems to do their jobs with distinction, then those employees will impress the socks off your customers. If you impress the socks off your customers, they will tell others what a remarkable business you have. When your remarkable customers continually spread the word about what a remarkable business you have, your business will prosper.

If you and your business are not remarkable, then you are replaceable. When resources are constrained, the defective languish, the ordinary might survive, but the remarkable thrive.

Wishful thinking will never make you remarkable. You have to be willing to do things your peers are not willing to do, have the wisdom to learn from your mistakes, and the grit to treat the pursuit of remarkability as a marathon and not a sprint.

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I got an early copy of Seth Godin’s new book “Linchpin: Are you indispensable” because I made a $40 donation to the charity Acumen. In return, I agreed to review the book in a blog post at my site. Here goes, I hope you find this helpful.

Every once in a while I run across a book that is so important, so compelling, so unique with respect to not only content but also writing style that I can’t put it down until I finish it. This is not one of those books (for me); nevertheless, I am going to recommend it because I concur with his core message and if you have not heard it before from other sources, I think you need to hear it now.

Parts of this book are brilliant – they will change how I talk about my core message. Much of what Seth had to say in this book was not new to me, and frankly I prefer the way others have said it. But Seth has a style of writing that will appeal to many, and I predict many will come away reading this book thinking it is the most important book they have read in a long time.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a BIG fan of Seth Godin, but for this book such claims would be pretentious.

Here is Seth’s bottom line:

I didn’t set out to get you to quit your job or to persuade you to become an entrepreneur or merely to change the entire world. All I wanted to do in this book was sell you on being the artist you already are. To make a difference. To stand for something. To get the respect and security you deserve. If I’ve succeeded, then you know that you have a gift to give, something you can do to change the world (or your part of it) for the better. I hope you’ll do that, because we need you. (p. 230).

I think he succeeded, and if you have never heard this message, then I encourage you to get this book and read it. Seth is right, we need you to make a difference, to stand for something. YOU need you to make a difference.

A linchpin is someone that is remarkable. They bring the emotional labor to their work. They pour themselves into what they do because they know it is the right thing to do, and they become better people for living and working this way. This also makes them very scarce, and that scarcity makes them valuable – indispensable.

Seth defines art as “the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person” (p. 99). I love that. Seth acknowledges that when we give to others, the law of reciprocity kicks in and they will feel indebted to return our favor. But Seth reminded me that when we give to others with no expectation of anything in return, that posture of unconditional generosity changes us. It creates abundance in our lives and in the lives of those we connect with at work and in our communities. I’ve known that for a long time, but is always good to be reminded of it. Thanks, Seth.

I wish this book had been 50 pages and free on the internet instead of 236 pages and $15 on Amazon. Then more people that need to hear this message of remarkable, abundant living might get it. Alas, this book to some extent represents the cog in the system that is the object of Seth’s lament.

The next meditation on followership from Ira Chaleff’s exceptional book “The Courageous Follower” is: By staying true to my values, I can serve others well and fulfill my potential. Our ultimate goal is to fulfill our potential contribution to the purpose of our organization. Beyond being all we can be, we become truly remarkable to the extent we help others at work fulfill their potential.

It’s impossible to help anyone other than ourselves if we are void of values. As we all know, having values is one thing – announcing them publicly and inviting others to hold us accountable so that we can stay true to those values is another thing altogether. We can never fulfill our potential if we compromise our values.

In his new book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?”, Seth Godin defines art as “the intentional act of creating change in another person.” (p. 99). I like that a lot. I think art begins with the intentional act of creating change within ourselves. The capacity to create change in others will always be constrained by our own hearts and minds.

We live in a time of tremendous opportunity to fundamentally change the trajectory of our own lives and the lives of those around us. Be encouraged.

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I had the pleasure of doing an interview with David Burkus a few days ago, which he recorded and posted as a podcast. I’ve been doing my own videos for a while, but this is my first podcast and it was also the first podcast for David’s new project, Leader Lab. I was honored to be his first interview!

David asked me about how theory informs what I tell others about leadership. I’ve written about theory before in my article entitled “Theory of the business“.  As Peter Drucker so correctly pointed out, whether you realize it or not, YOU have a number of theories about your business that are guiding your daily behavior. To fully harness the power of your theories, you should be explicit about what they are and continually work to test and improve those theories. 

You can only reach the pinacle of learning when you understand why things work the way they do.  How is the WRONG question. Guided by theory, you can create a unique future for yourself and your employees, instead of trying to copy what someone else has already done. There is nothing remarkable about competitive parity.  

Click this link to hear the podcast. Thanks, David!

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Last week I spoke at the Sparks Chamber of Commerce  2009 Business Forum.  One of my MBA students, Alicia Gardner, was on hand and recorded some of my presentation.  What I am speaking about here is a combination of what I have written about previously in my articles “Give Yourself Permission,” “Excellence is a Form of Deviance,” and “Become Part of the Conversation,” so what I had to say was inspired by Tina Seelig, Robert Quinn, and Seth Godin.

Thanks, Alicia!

I was pleased and honored today when Dan McCarthy posted an interview with me on his blog Great Leadership.  Dan writes a fantastic blog, which is why it is one of five I am having my MBA students subscribe to this semester. 

Blogging is one of the best things I have done for myself in my career.  Anyone can do it and in my opinion everyone should strongly consider blogging. 

Your personal brand is all about assuming responsibility for identifying and communicating how you add value, either as an employee or as a business owner.  What is it you do that merits compensation?  Why YOU, and why NOW?  Blogging can bring clarity, consistency, challenge, community, and commitment to your brand.

• Clarity: Blogging forces you to think about what you think.  The process of documenting and publishing your thoughts on a topic or issue helps you see even more clearly the careful thought you may have put into it over time.
• Consistency: Blogging about your value platform gives you the opportunity to weave some common core themes through your purpose.  Blogging allows me to document, develop, and communicate the systematic philosophy on leadership that I have espoused for many years.  
• Challenge: Blogging gives you the opportunity to challenge conventional wisdom in your field or profession.  You can bypass the powerful gatekeepers with a vested interest in the status quo and offer your suggestions about how and why things can and should be done differently.
• Community: Eventually, a few people will read your blog and comment on what you have written.  Your response to comments brings further clarity and consistency to your value platform and encourages continued conversation. You will in turn read and comment on blogs that others write.  Over time, you become part of a diverse and highly dispersed community of people with shared interests and passions.  As Seth Godin points out, blogging allows you to become part of the conversation. 
• Commitment: Blogging allows you to make a strong commitment to your value platform.  You can be transparent and authentic about who you are, what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and why people should partner with you now if they are in the market for your value platform.  If anyone ever wants to know about me and how I might be able to help them, I just point them to my blog – it is all there.

And you get all this and more for FREE! 

Blogging does take time, and many view that time as a cost.  I view the time I spend blogging as an investment in myself and my constituents – an investment that produces residual rewards.

I love this short clip by Seth Godin and Tom Peters discussing decency and grace at work.  Seth’s advice for the small business owner is especially insightful.  I hope you will take a minute to watch it.

I think someone that leads with grace is first and foremost generously helpful to others.  They help because it’s the right thing to do and not because they expect anything in return other than the opportunity to advance the shared purpose.  Graceful leaders provide encouragement to other purposeful leaders and followers, patience to those working to become purposeful, and professional but resolute censure to those that subvert the purpose.

Grace is not cheap; it’s priceless.

I love this short video by Seth Godin and Tom Peters on why YOU should blog. I think Seth Godin’s comments are especially insightful.

“What matters is the humility that comes from writing it. What matters is the meta-cognition of thinking about what you are going to say”

Force yourself to become part of the conversation. Do it for yourself.

And…. it’s free

For more advice on blogging and personal branding, see this excellent video by Rebecca Thorman.