Servings of Stone Soup

I have just read the umpteenth ezine/newsletter column about, “Wow, it is so hard to believe that the holidays are here and most of 2007 is gone. Where has all the time gone for this year?” It is such an interesting paradox, we have so many time saving devices and processes, yet we can never harness time. My unofficial poll of clients reflects that 95% of people “never have enough time.” Time to do what? I see calendars that are scheduled to the max with very little if any down time. I hear the agony of leaders rushing to the next task, the next emergency, the next cry of the urgent and yet they never seem to “get it all done.” Will they ever get “it” all done? Do you ever get “everything accomplished?” And another season passes – another year gone by. And there is that feeling deep in your gut, a mix of sadness and sentimentality, “really, where has all the time gone?”

Many people I encounter want me to help them save, find or maximize their time. Over my career, I have changed my strategies and suggestions to focus on more of what matters to the individual, to the business owner. Listed below are questions that need to be answered first, before you’ll ever have enough time. How would you answer?

· In what ways do live each day as an unfolding drama, in anticipation –  or are you going through the motions of living without really connecting?

· In what ways are you internally driven? Externally driven?

· In what ways do your circumstances dictate the flow of your life?

Time will march on, another season will quickly pass. Will you receive it – your life, your uniqueness and make your imprint – or will you focus on managing what only can be received? Maybe that is when you do get it all done.

Receiving my life

Jan Hinton

Stone Soup Coaching

A recent book by Anthony F. Smith, “The Taboos of Leadership” suggests that we the public, have been greatly misled about leadership.  He contends that there are 10 taboos of leadership and that by exposing them loosen their power.  His list of secret taboos are challenging to discuss, personal, revealing, politically incorrect, and yet have tremendous power.  .

Smith speaks of 10 leadership taboos.  Here are mine for the moment – fallacies from my perspective, yet what I see playing out often in the business world.  I plan to keep a running list, so who knows where it will stop . . .

 Taboo 1 – There is one best way to do leadership.  There tends to be an incredible urgency to find the guru/author/consultant/business leader that has done leadership “right” (whatever right is).

 Taboo 2 - Leadership is something you do – something you can master or at least learn the “basics”.  It can fit nicely on a to-do list and be checked off – I did leadership today.

Taboo 3 – If Business X and Leader Y are “successful” then I can copy and implement everything they are doing and be equally as successful.

Taboo 4 - Leaders can’t be authentic.  In fact, true authenticity may be a core quality to great leadership. 

 Taboo 5 – If I can just learn leadership skills and use them in my calling, then everything will go smoothly.  My belief is that anything that involves people is and will always be messy.

 Which Taboo is a part of your mental tape or unspoken beliefs?

 Taboo buster,

Jan Hinton

Stone Soup Coaching

I was trying to pay for a continuing education course at a local, state-supported community college. I was in-between clients and operating on a tight time line. I filled out the necessary paperwork and was writing a check to pay for the course when the woman behind the desk stepped back and said, “Oh, we can’t accept that.”

I replied “what do you mean?”

“We just take the registrations here.”

”Okay, where do I need to go to pay for the course?”

“Here.”

“I must be missing something. Where exactly is ‘here’ – where the payments are accepted?”

“Here where I am standing. The person that takes them doesn’t come in until 10:00 a.m. So, you just have to wait until then.”

I replied, “So you mean that I have to wait, even though you are side-by-side?

“Yes, she is a different department. I can’t touch the money.”

“I am paying by check, there will be a record of it. Could you just attach it to the registration form, so I can leave? It’s 9:45 now, it would just be for 15 minutes.”

“No.”

So, I stand there and wait with about 15 other people who needed to pay. I begin to wonder if I will have to call my client and explain my delay.

At 10:00, the woman that accepts payments comes in to work and gets on the phone. By now, 20 plus people that have gathered. We can hear her conversation. It is personal – not business.

After another 10 minutes of waiting, I clear my throat and say “will you accept payments now?”

She gets up, very frustrated that she has been interrupted, takes my check and attaches it to the registration then sits back down. That was the super technical, highly secure method of accepting payments that the other employee, standing beside her, could not perform.

At this point I am stunned. I look around the room to see other stunned expressions. Then I notice a sign on the wall that reads “Customer Service Center.”

I say out loud, “Customer Service Center, now there is a contradiction in terms.”

To which the original employee – that couldn’t accept the payment – stated (and this is a direct quote!), “Customer Service? We tried that and it don’t work, so we don’t do that no more.”

I was speechless.

What systems or policies no longer work in your business environment? Which have become sacred cows?

What customer service nightmare will you share?

Advocate for Customers Everywhere,

Jan Hinton

www.stonesoupcoaching.com

Radiohead, the British rock group, recently announced they were releasing their newest album online - available to anyone to download - paying whatever you want (or nothing) for the recordings.  No label, no production costs, no marketing, etc.  So whatever the fans are willing to pay goes straight to the bottom-line for Radiohead.  While the recording industry tries to revive itself from the shock - could this be the new trend?

I mention this to challenge business owners that are clinging to survivability on the laurels of “we’ve always done it that way?”  (The last 7 words of any business).  When was your last new idea?  Was it shot down because it was too hard, too costly, or too radical?  In what ways are you looking creatively and innovatively at your strengths to grow and enhance them?  How are you frozen by past successes or failures?

It only takes on Radiohead to shock an industry.  Who will follow them?  Is this the end of the music industry as we know it?  Will you be the Radiohead of your business?