Breaking Barriers - Getting “Unstuck”

1. Breaking Barriers- Getting “Unstuck” By Robert Gray

2. Rover Statistics •   SPIRIT • Launch Date June 10, 2003 July 7, 2003 • Land Date January 4, 2004 • Atmosphere Impact Velocity 12,000 miles per hour • Number of Bounces(upon landing on Mars) 27 • Total Distance Traveled(from Earth to Mars) 487 million kilometers(303 million miles)

4. Avoiding the “Serious 7”Causes for Being “STUCK” • Overwhelmed- your stuck because your team doesn’t really know what to do next. Out of time and too many moving parts! • Exhausted mentally-Paralyzed by politics, opinions arising from fear. • Directionless- Team is all thrust and no vector.- People are busy, but aren’t necessarily effective. Everyone is obsessed with their “to-do list”, yet there is no big picture for Alignment. • Hopeless- Your stuck because your team lacks a central purpose. When all hard work seems exactly just like that- hard work.- Lack of inspiration can and will be contagious!

5. Avoiding the “Serious 7”Causes for Being “STUCK” • Battle-torn- Your STUCK because your team can’t get along. Syndrome that leads to internal strife so bad that you never really get to compete against the real Objectives- Driving ALP!- think dysfunctional family trying to throw on a wedding. • Devalued- Your team is unable to recognize what success really looks like. Too many moving targets, poor expectations and ultimately the right actions are not rewarded. *Must guard against disconnected team members! • Alone- Your team has lost its own religion. A sense of belonging has been replaced by the “haze of battle”. Your crew lacks the constant Culture to unite, so its far less than the sum of its parts.

6. Out of balance • All Brains, No Brawn- When everything revolves around Strategy- including your purpose. Actions are louder than words, strategy without execution is just a good plan. • Stuck in your own Lore- When everything revolves around culture- becomes so dominant, you can’t innovate. It’s not about preserving what has been, its about focusing on what can be! Everything and Everyone Must revolve around your Purpose- Why you and your agency exists! *** Remember- Purpose is the driving ambition that shapes what your deal aspires to achieve. My purpose is to be a $4M agency.- Now lets put the Strategy, Culture, Structure & Processes, Metrics and Rewards in place to Achieve it!

7. Balanced Agency Strategy Culture PURPOSE Structure & Process Metrics and Rewards

8. Revolve around PURPOSE

9. Defining a Purpose You have a Passion number, now what? Strong teams have a purpose- a driving ambition to achieve. It’s why we do what we do! Questions: • What must you accomplish before you consider yourself a success? • What is your contribution to the day to day activity and execution? Be specific! These answers will define your Purpose Purpose gives you the clarity to act and the passion to weather downturns. YOU MUST BE ABLE TO ARTICULATE YOUR PURPOSE WITH EASE AND EMOTION WITHOUT HESITATION- EVER!

10. Purpose- define it now! Its your Rudder! • Focus involves a discovery, or at least rediscovery, of what you want most out of your life. That knowledge then must become the focus of your thoughts and the basis for your business decision-making. Unless you know and focus on what more life and more freedom really means to you and only you then you will never be able to go about building a business that delivers it. • Connection Better to find a way to connect your business to your life. Now, in some cases, that may mean making dramatic changes in the way you go about your business, what your business does and who your business serves. • Find what you want out of life, find what you are willing to leave behind in order to get it and then connect that purpose every single day with what you do and you just may of the magic that owning a small business can bring.

11. What’s your “North Star”- what guides you? • It’s your guiding Purpose that remains true over time. • You have to take the time to locate, describe –vividly, and define it! • Create a document, scroll, Poster that explainsyourPurpose (Driving Ambition) and how you intend to use it to drive your business to new levels. Don’t Assume that people around you know your Purpose! Share it and empower them to live it with you.- It benefits all.

12. Communicating your Purpose • Take over the “TV Station”- 1st thing revolutionaries do • Assess all media outlets in your agency ( Agency, Mgr, Team meetings, field training sessions, in house training) bulletin Board material- GET YOUR MESSAGE OUT and Keep it in front of your people.! • All about keeping “Mind Share” of your agency and your “current drive” for that particular week/month! • What dominates your thoughts is what becomes your reality

13. Unifying6 Key Barrier Breaker Elements • Your Purpose- driving ambition that shapes what your deal aspires to achieve • Your Strategy-Specific and measurable way you achieve your purpose.- what is it? Strategy serves purpose! • Your People and the way they interact!- are they assembled and rallied around executing a strategy? Key- how do they treat each other to get work done?- says more about you than anything else! • Your structure and process- needs to be the center of how you drive and execute programs under your systems- it must Unify your people. • Your Metric and Rewards- what you measure is what you value! It says everything about your purpose! and how you reward is a cornerstone to your culture. • Your Culture- the largely unwritten set of rules that govern behavior- “How work gets done when you don’t have to specify how the work should be done! Good culture is a unifying point.

14. Momentum is THE BARRIER BUSTER Also the equation p = mxv We know in sports and business as “Mojo", the "Hot Hand", and being "In The Zone" while psychologists call it Psychological Momentum. But, does it really exist? Is it just a temporary shift in confidence and mood or does it actually change the outcome and Improve skill (key) "the positive or negative change in cognition, affect, physiology, and behavior caused by an event or series of events that affects either the perceptions of the competitors or, perhaps, the quality of performance and the outcome of the competition. When good systems are in place, you can’t succeed without it! Make every “event” and home game- home ice advantage in Stanley cup! Are you playing unnecessary away games?

15. World Champions Boston brought their home ice to Vancouver- literally!- All about mind set!

16. Moving Forward-MOJO • Go forward by zooming out- take a 20,000 foot view of your deal. What’s it look like when your not at ground zero? The actions you need to take will become more clear! – isn’t that way we have others visit our agencies? “Its a lot harder to solve problems (sticking points) with the same mind that created them” • Diagnose exactly where your “sticking points” Minor or major- everything. Many times NOT major! • Become a “systems thinker” – Doctor! ( human body is a formation of systems) Your deal is a living organism that needs to be fed, inspired, protected, disciplined and nourished.- Systems Balance, they create Health. –Agencies that become “out of balance” get Stuck.- Darwinism at best. “Learn to fix the system, not just the symptom- that could be too short term, get to the “root cause”. • Get Wildly Innovative and Intensely Tactical about activating proven systems that work! - what happens when your people don’t execute? Is it the Indian or the arrow?

17. Getting UNSTUCK More Heart and Less Intellect • Spend more time building a common identity and picking a common enemy (unify) and you’ll gain a common understanding. • Getting UNSTUCK involves appealing not just to your team’s rational mind, but also to its Soul. • Emotional Intellect and passion drive more results around purpose than anything else. Be that inspiring leader and free yourself from the chains of stagnation.

18. Why Can’t we get more done Focus on your teams individual strength’s ( resource allocation) Build Synergy with your team by creating Trust and common bonds Key- Minimize process loss. Focus on coordinating activity, clarifying Roles and ensuring efficient hand –offs.

19. Getting Unstuck takes efficiency- TIME MANAGEMENT! • They most neglected (avoided) Element for Success is Detailed schedule’s! • Teams tend to optimize for most everything except time management.- data, resource allocation, game plan & strategy. • Are you running your schedule or is your schedule running you? • Measure your results relative to the time invested to achieve that desired result! That’s efficiency! • Deploy, learn, course correct, but manage your schedule.

20. Getting “Unstuck”Give your Initiatives a Name! It’s all about branding your passion! • Monthly ALP contests (world series, Stanley cup, Safari trips (road trips) • Recruiting Initiatives- Top Builder “magnet”, top team! • Call the board-weekly leaders “king of cash”, top dog etc… A name builds identity while also promoting commitment and cohesion among teams. Group identity and dynamics are built around initative names (operation dessert storm, the big dig, Presidential campaigns/slogans- Bill Clinton’s-“don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”)

21. Getting Unstuck- Create “Think Tanks” Embrace your management team to elect members (ensures their their buy in) to “brainstorm” specific hurdles in your agency. Topics: Recruiting dynamics, field training resource allocation, contest execution, process loss prevention,- any hurdles large or small that you feel is holding your agency back! • Encourages “strategy development” within your ranks • Creates sense of responsibility to get past obstacles and ownership in resolution to overcome them! • * You may already know the solutions, however you will benefit greatly in having your mgt team (can include agts) get to that same end result. -You’ll also pick up a few things you didn’t think of.

22. Getting Unstuck- Face reality as it is and embrace Challenge! • Make your team look in the mirror and evaluate their performance- We can only move to growth mode, once we have faced our demons and exercised them from our bodies! • -its honest, refreshing and eliminates excuses! • Find your courage and expand your comfort zone by having real “Meet Jesus” conversations with your people. • Develop immediate “action plans” for personal improvement within your team and set realistic expectations.

23. Top 10 secrets to getting “Unstuck” • Have a Mind that is Open to Everything and Attached to Nothing. • Give Up your Personal History. • You Can’t Solve a Problem with the Same Mind that Created It. • Treat Yourself as if You Already Are What You’d Like To Be. • Wisdom is Avoiding All Thoughts that Weaken You. • Don’t Die with Your Music Still in You. • You Can’t Give Away What You Don’t Have. • Embrace Silence. • There are No Justified Resentments. • Treasure Your Divinity.

24. MIT business school- 5 Laws of Growth • Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you want it to be! • Control your own destiny or someone else will • Change before you have to • Be candid with everyone, all the time! • If you don’t have a competitive edge, don’t compete- what’s your edge!