Big IDEAS to Big RESULTS

Last week Mike Kanazawa, co-author of Big Ideas to Big Results, joined our 8cr family for two days and keynoted for two events in Wisconsin. One of the stories Mike shared is that of touring an office building. The woman giving him the tour boasted having the longest group of cubicles west of the Pentagon! This city of cubicles was the breeding ground for Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip. His former cube is memorialized by a serial number. That lead into the question of "Is your goal to get the most of people or to get the best out of people?" My guess is you would agree that it's to get the best out of people. That takes an environment and a culture that supports that mission. Easier said than done. I'm paraphrasing Mike here, two suggestions: Do More on Less. It's easy to keep pushing more on the plates of your best employees. Stop. Take projects off their plates so they can spend more time on fewer projects. They'll be able to dedicate the time necessary to grow and complete the project. You (the boss) will be more satisfied with the results, as will be the employee. Delete "buy in." There's this corporate idea of getting people, employees, to "buy in." Buy into an idea, a strategy, whatever change needs to happen. Many times companies wait to implement top-down structures and don't engage employees until after the process is implemented. Instead, work up front on engagement. Involve everyone from the beginning of a new change. Then when you reach the back end, there's no need to sell the idea to anyone in the company and everyone can focus on executing the change. I'm hoping to have some video footage from the event to post here soon. Todd interviewed Mike on the process of writing the book. I hear Mike's on board for a ChangeThis manifesto. Stay tuned! In the meantime, jump over to Mike's blog. Mike, thanks for coming!