Take magntize as another example. For the longest time we thought we were in the website business. We built personal websites for people. Over time we realized we were actually in the business of introducing people online. Websites were just the online medium (for now) that we used to do that. In the future that may or may not change depending on where technology and the broader culture goes.

What about your business or organization? Is there a difference between the perception and reality of your business offering?

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Sometimes the idea of taking leadership can be scary. We’re stepping out, making a commitment, and asking something of ourselves. All scary things. However, if you’re an aspiring leader who’s mouth goes dry and palms sweaty at the thought of leading, be comforted. The body language of the humans I’ve observed says they’re begging you to.

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First, you avoid it and hope that “time heals all wounds”. Of course the danger with this is that eventually you blow up. Someone does something small and you go ballistic on them. They’re befuddled because it seems so small. What they don’t realize though is that your unleashing the wrath of the previous 10,000 times they’ve done that thing but you just never mentioned it. This isn’t their fault, it’s yours pal.

Second, you talk to other people about it. “Can you believe how they do that?” “He drives me crazy when he says such and such. Does it drive you crazy too?” “She is such an idiot. I can’t believe she would say something so insensitive.” The problem with this is that you’re not helping the situation in any way. In fact, you’re probably making it worse because if the gossip gets back around to the original person trust is broken and your reputation ends up suffering. No one likes or trusts a gossip.

Of course there’s another option out there that unfortunately doesn’t get tried often enough. Talk to the person you have a problem with. What they?! I’m serious, sit them down and talk with them. Be honest and say, “Hey I’m sure you didn’t mean to but when you said such and such that offended me” or “I thought we had discussed x,y,z expectation but then in the meeting it seemed like you didn’t back that up. What was going on there?” This may seem like mamby pamby relational stuff but the reality is it works. Everything is on the table and the air is clear around your team because stuff gets talked about. No one worries that they’re going to get blindsided or that they’ll be the last in the office to hear about their latest shortcoming.

It’s a simple rule but it’s not easy. Just remember to be humble and more often than not people will be grateful that you took the initiative and brought it up.

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That’s why every penny we make from new signups in the month of February is going to the Red Cross to help ease the suffering of those effected by the earthquake in Haiti. Help us help Haiti.

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Thanks for helping us make the world a better place.

-The Magntize Team

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There’s something that the greatest organizations in the world are catching on to that most haven’t picked up on yet: business is theater. Anytime you’re interacting with a customer you have a chance to dazzle and delight them. Why not put a little creative thinking into each of these interactions?

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Do you struggle with prioritizing your day? Do you feel like all you do is rush around putting out fires. Do you end the day and wonder, “what exactly did I accomplish?” Then I’d suggest you break this habit asap. Instead begin each morning by devoting one hour to a long term project. Perhaps it’s that presentation you’ve been putting off, the report that’s going to take more than 10 minutes to put to paper, or a desire to get a jump on a new design due today. Whatever the task, the reality is that the fires can wait 60 minutes while you actually get something done. Trust me.

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I think this unspoken rule stems from the fact that as leaders often times we hire people because we’re motivated by pain. Clients are yelling at us about timelines so we hire a project manager to take away the pain. Employees are yelling at us about getting their paychecks on time so we hire another account to take away the pain. They’re job is to make things smooth and easy for us. People who do their job neatly and quietly are rewarded while more outspoken and controversial employees are criticized and encouraged to get back in line. It’s easy for the culture to become “Sit down, shut up, and do your bleepin job.”

The problem with this is that it’s a sure path to mediocrity. No one wants to stand out. No one wants to innovate because that’s messy. You might fail in a big way.

The best companies in the world hire crazy, talented, ambitious, outspoken, and creative individuals… and let them loose. We need change. We need new ideas. We need new life. Maybe we need to give our people permission to make rule #1 “mess it up.”

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More people means added complexity. This leads to rules and guidelines. Rules are good because they help set expectations. However, they’re also bad because they tend to generic and rigid. No one wants the word “generic” to describe their business.

You’ve been successful so you play not to lose. Have you ever watched a sports team playing not to lose? They usually end up losing. They’re timid and reserved. No on wants the words “timid” and “reserved” to describe their business.

Grown up organizations also tend to struggle with memory loss. They forget why the hell they started doing this. At some point along the way the main thing isn’t the main thing anymore. It becomes about “satisfying customers”. (Who wants satisfied customers? I want ecstatic customers!) It becomes about pleasing shareholders or moving our profit margin up a menial .5% this month over the last. You need a mission, a mantra, a dream, an enemy. No one wants the words “satisfied” or “menial” to describe their business.

The trick is to grow your business without killing it’s soul. That takes leadership.

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Our speech is titled “Making Money off Social Media” but the reality is that we spend about 30 brief seconds mentioning that and the next thirty minutes passionately describing the in’s and out’s of Facebook fan pages. What we didn’t realize is that our topic wasn’t our topic. We would have been better off titling our talk “Why Facebook Fan Pages Rock!” That’s really what we were trying to communicate.

Sometimes we have five points to our talk but it’s really point number three that is grabbing us. Don’t make the mistake of rushing through the other points so you can talk about number three. Make that your speech! We’d be much better off ditching the other four points and focusing in on that thing- it’s actually our topic anyway, despite the title at the top of the PowerPoint presentation.

Clarity is essential for effective communication. It may be the most important thing.

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People are like that sometimes right? Beautiful, insightful, thoughtful, creative, and wise. However, my friend just laughed and said, “The thing that’s stood out to me this past year are how stupid people are.” I don’t know why but I was honestly surprised. The more I’ve thought about it though the more I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re both right. As humans we seem to have this incredible capacity for both beauty and stupidity.

At the end of the day though I’d rather focus on the beautiful stuff in people.

Photo Credit: Bruce McKay’s photostream