Nancy Canada Archives - New Paradigm Advisors

Execution, freedom, future, Leadership, Planning, Value

Best Meeting Ever

Recently we had a meeting totally derailed by one of the participants. train derailed

It turned out to be the best meeting we ever had! This member, who I’ll call “Joe,” was usually an upbeat, confident person, but he was clearly upset about something when he arrived. He said, “I know we’ve got a set agenda for today’s meeting, but I really need your help on a couple issues. If it’s ok with the group, I’d like to throw them on the table.”

The meeting was one of the Business Owners’ Roundtables I facilitate twice a month. Each of the six to eight members is either the owner or most senior executive of their company. Our agendas are typically topic-based around business issues, with a lot of interaction and input among members. Without hesitating, the others agreed to listen and see how they could assist.

Joe had recently begun work on his largest project ever for a client and was nursing it along because it was so complex with a lot of mission-critical elements. He wanted to really impress the client, and he knew the project’s size was going to stretch him and his company. The group had heard about it already and had been encouraging him along the way.

Another development, however, had just thrown a big wrench into Joe’s life and his ability to handle everything going on. His wife had just announced that she was leaving him and the children. The group knew nothing about Joe’s personal life so this was a surprise to everyone.

With two major issues now consuming Joe’s focus – and threatening to overwhelm him, the group became the place for him to vent his feelings and concerns about his family, and his fears and hopes about the new project. In short order, he had to figure out how to be a single dad to two teen age children and balance those demands with his business when it was at a critical inflection point.

These issues don’t have “quick-fix solutions,” but they do benefit from good, strong counsel and a place to get a variety of input. That’s what the group provided. We walked with him through the issues and made addressing his needs the dominant topic in that meeting. He left that day with a little more bounce in his step. Over the following months, we kept tabs on his progress and offered more suggestions to help him on his difficult, but ultimately successful journey.

Why did everyone agree this was our best meeting ever as a group? Because everyone really put into practice a “We live business and we live life together” mindset and felt energized and enriched by it. They had gotten comfortable enough with each other to allow that to happen. Joe also realized the group was a safe place where he could trust the others with his deep, personal concerns and issues, not just with business details.

If you don’t have a group or a friend like this that will let you walk in and throw a personal bomb on the table, then I encourage you to GO GET ONE. If you don’t know where to start, visit one of my Business Owners’ Round Table groups at New Paradigm Advisors. We’re here to help you “live your business and live your life” with others who’ve been there and done that.

Execution, Leadership, Planning, Value

Are You Reacting or Responding to Life?

“Imagine going to the doctor for medication and returning for a follow-up visit. In one case the doctor says you are reacting to the medication, in the other case the doctor says you are responding to the treatment.”
-Zig Ziglar

When faced with anything in life, we have a choice… we can respond or we can react. The key to success is often our reaction or response to life.

What is the difference?

To respond is defined as:
1. To make a reply; answer.
2. To react positively or favorably: The patient has responded rapidly to the treatment.

To react is defined as:
1. To act in response to or under the influence of a stimulus or prompting
2. To act in opposition to a former condition or act

As Zig Ziglar’s quote mentioned above, responses are often seen as positive and reactions as negative.

When we react to a situation, it is often a fight or flight action, more often than not it is a defensive mechanism. It is reflexive with little thought of the action or outcome. Reaction is usually a response to an emergency or a crisis. When people react, it seems to be defensive.

Being responsive on the other hand usually involves some thought and reflection. It often involves being sensitive, but logical in ones actions. While it is still an external spur to a situation, responding is more thoughtful and done with reason behind it. When people respond, it seems to be proactive and positive.

In light of the Coronavirus and a future of uncertainty, how are you doing? Are you responding or reacting? The most important thing for you to do right now is to respond appropriately. The most effective method of doing this is taking a break.

For our EOS clients we recommend scheduling a break called a “Clarity Break”. A Clarity Break is a regularly scheduled appointment on your calendar with yourself. You define what regular is – a half hour daily, two hours weekly, a half day monthly. It’s up to you. The doing it, is what matters. This break is an opportunity to work ON your business.

The characteristics of a good Clarity Break are:
* away from your place of business
* at a frequency that you can afford and is helpful to you
* of a duration that allows you to think clearly and achieve some results, and
* generally done without electronic devices

Gino Wickman, the founder of EOS®, takes them one morning a week in a Starbucks. Just him, his coffee, and a yellow legal pad. He often says that at the start he sometimes finds himself staring at the pad, but almost always ideas, concerns, questions arise from the back of his mind and good thinking starts.

Take a Clarity Break and decide to respond, not react.

New Paradigm Advisors believes you deserve to enjoy the benefits of a profitable, growing and well-run business. We help you break out of the old way of doing things and attack the new economy with a renewed passion and focus. For more information about transitioning your business, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you.

The New Paradigm Advisors Team

future, Planning, Process

Never Waste a Crisis

I once worked for a CEO who would say, “never waste a crisis.” I knew what he meant, but it did not really hit home until more recently with the COVID-19 crisis we are all facing. Whether you are looking for business or have more business than you can handle, you need to adjust now to the “new normal.” What does the world look like post pandemic and how does your business respond? You need to prepare now and be thinking ahead to address next steps and not be caught “flat footed” in the new normal.

I recently read a study done by BCG about the 2007-09 Great Recession and the common traits (five factors) global S&P 500 businesses employed to recover. While this pandemic is different, it is still a valid study to obtain insight into planning for your next steps to thrive and not just survive as you move forward.

The five factors:

Act proactively. Business that weathered the recession and came out stronger, owned the situation and were forward-looking in their thinking, planning and actions. No matter what position you find yourself in, there will be a recovery and you have to be ready. In Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Effective People”, Be Proactive is the first habit. It is about taking responsibility for you and your company. Do not blame the pandemic, the economy or the government. Proactive people recognize that they are “response-able.” They know they choose their behavior and course of action.
Stick to a clear vision. Top performers did not change their vision based on circumstances. To put it in simple terms… your destination stays the same, but how you get there may change. In the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), vision is the process of getting everyone in your organization 100% on the same page with where you’re going. As an EOS Implementer, I help companies craft a vision the does not change with the circumstances but is timeless and also for flexibility to adapt. If you don’t have a clear vision, how do you know where you are going?
Increase demand vitality. Successful companies addressed changes in the marketplace and adjusted accordingly. With the COVID-19 and decreased physical foot traffic, you need to look online and how to adapt to and adjust your model for increased online presence with the ability to market, sell, and service online. Where are trends and what is best option for you to capture the demand? How will you best respond to these demand changes? Assess and then go.
Create supply agility. Businesses that thrived, were able to quickly assess impacts to their supply chains and respond with alternatives. Too much reliance on one vendor can greatly hamper or impact your business. You must build adaptation and agility into supply base and supply chain. Fortunately, new supply chain technologies are emerging that dramatically improve visibility across the end-to-end supply chain, and support companies’ ability to resist huge disruptions. The traditional linear supply chain model is transforming into digital supply networks (DSNs).
Build resilience. The top performers knew that they couldn’t avoid future disruptions, so they worked towards a future that could withstand future shocks and, more importantly, anticipate them. Some questions to ask… did you build a culture of trust and accountability? Did you have enough cash on hand to weather the initial storm? Were you able to cut cost to “race and not chase” the drop-in revenue? Did you have an IT disaster recovery plan in place? As a leader, you must anticipate and plan for these.

These five steps will increase the likelihood you will survive and thrive in the future. Take inventory of where you are now and face reality. Consider your company’s position. Once you know where you are, and you start planning for the futures, ensure that what you are doing today will bring about the end of the crisis tomorrow. How must you transform your business to thrive and succeed in the future?

The New Paradigm Advisors team

Process

Ten Tips to Improve Your Online Meetings

Due to the COVID-19 health emergency and shelter-in-place orders, there have been huge impacts to the way we all do business. One of those is the way we meet: these days it is more than likely via video conferencing. I’m guessing in the last few weeks you’ve had at least one, if not several, virtual meetings. It’s time to make these meetings productive. It’s time to make them great!

In Stephen Covey’s best-selling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, one of the principles is “begin with the end in mind”. With this, the purpose of any meeting is very simple: get things done. You meet to:

Solve problems.
Get everyone on the same page.
Make sure the team is on track.
Move forward.

Based upon these objectives, are your meetings productive?

One report found American businesses hold more than 3 billion meetings per year and 11 million meetings per day. That’s a lot of meetings so they should be worth it. To make the best use of your time, here are a list of 10 tips to make your online meetings as productive as possible and use everyone’s time effectively.

Watch this funny video and then read our list to avoid these common issues.

Have good, reliable internet. Your video should not sputter and/or skip. It’s incredibly distracting, and it’s not acceptable.
Sit on a chair at a table or desk. Don’t sit or lie on a bed or sofa. This is a business meeting. This is the challenge with working from home—it’s hard to transition into work mode. This will help.
Be aware of your background. Avoid busy or distracting backgrounds, including virtual backgrounds. If you can, use the feature to blur your background, pick a neutral area or hang a sheet to keep focus on you.
Stay in front of camera and keep it at eye level. It’s important that no one goes off-screen to do something else. Make sure you are in the center of the screen at a distance of 2 to 3 feet. This will prevent people from leaning in and you will better keep the attention of your audience when speaking.
Test your lighting. Make sure there are no lights behind you and have a light on your face. People need to clearly see you. Lighting is important.
Make sure your microphone works well. Use a good microphone or buy a headset, if needed. When people can’t hear you, they struggle to pay attention.
No looking at your phone. Have your phone silenced or out of your view. Be considerate of others and treat this just like any “in-person” meeting.
Don’t mute. What happens is that someone starts talking, not realizing that they forgot to un-mute. By the time everyone lets them know (with hands waving, you are on mute!) and they finally figure it out, you’ve lost valuable time.
Minimize background noise. Make sure you’re in a quiet room with the door closed… no dogs barking and no family interruptions (tell your family you are at the office).
Use gallery mode. Make sure that you can see all of the faces participating in the meeting, at a glance. Most video conferencing platforms have this function. This helps everyone stay connectedBe safe and productive!

The New Paradigm Advisors team

Value

Your Next Act: Where Do You Go From Here?

Where do you want to be in 10 years?

This is a question I asked a business owner, James, recently.

James has owned a very successful business for over 25 years and starts and ends everyday thinking of the business and what he needs to do to keep it successful. When I asked him where he saw himself 10 years from now, he was immediately stumped. His response to me was, he really hadn’t thought about it. He was just expecting to continue doing what he’d been doing – running the business. But when pressed, he admitted there would be some kind of transition out there in the future; but he just hadn’t put any real thought into it. So, what to do about this?

Immediately, there are four objectives for James:

Consider that there really is a future transition event for him and the business.
Determine an accurate value of the company as it is now.
Determine what that value needs to be to support James’ retirement or what I like to call his next act.
What can be done now to begin increasing the value of the company to meet objective three?

Let’s take these one at a time:

Is there really a future transition event? Understand that there really is a future transition. Pretty obvious but just because it’s obvious, it doesn’t mean we’ve developed a plan for it. Let’s be plain spoken here. You will exit your business one of two ways. Either horizontally, or vertically. It’s best that you do it and plan on it vertically.

Determine an accurate value of the company. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to engage a formal valuation company who will do a review of your company and the market and derive a fair value of your company as it is viewed through similar companies and transactions in recent history. A second way to do this is through a less formal but still in-depth analysis and assessment of the business utilizing a business consultant experienced at growth and strategic planning.

Determine what that value needs to be. What do you need out of the company in order to fund your next act? This is going to take some real personal reflection and planning. It will include collaboration with your spouse and all the other important influencers in your life.

What can be done now? Start now increasing the value of the company? The first thing to do is to change your paradigm from owner/operator to buyer. Step back from your position as the owner and take a look at your business the way a buyer would look at it. What would the buyer see as valuable and worth buying? What would he see as not worth buying? What would he have to invest in immediately to make his investment worth-while?

You’re at a crossroads. Continue on in the direction that you’ve been driving. Or begin looking at your business differently and begin to develop the strategies and tactics that will increase the value of your company so when you reach the major destination of your transition, you’ll be able to afford all the things you’ve always dreamed of.

Call us and let us help you with these next steps. Also, here’s a link to a great short article in Entrepreneur Magazine: entrepreneur – preparing to sell about this topic. See what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.

Leadership

The Opposite of Servant Leadership: Power Leadership

We’ve discussed servant leadership at length, showed you examples and introduced you to experts. But to truly understand the concept, we should really discuss the opposite of this leadership concept.

Meet power leadership.

Leaders who use power as their main motivator, usually rely on negativism, fear and misdirection to guide or direct an organization the way they see fit. They typically are not collaborators or team players.

Power leaders tear down. They thrive in economic downturns because cutting, not adding, is what they do to shape an organization. By cutting budgets, costs and employees, they destroy morale, drain resources and reduce organizations to shells of themselves. They typically are short-term thinkers.

“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.”—Seth Berkley

In the mirror, opposite the power leader, is a servant leader. Servant leaders build up, see downturns as opportunities, and do things up front and in a transparent fashion. To them, power is in the organization and its people and ideals, not in them.

The four elements of servant leadership are in direct opposition to power leadership:

Servant leaders put service before leadership and are focused outwardly; power leaders are focused inwardly.
Collaboration is central to servant leaders and relies on consideration of what others think; power leaders believe there is an “I” in team—them.
Mentorship is important to servant leaders as it helps grow the team and the organization; power leaders believe all starts and ends with them.
To be a servant leader, you must have foresight and that comes from listening; power leaders only listen to themselves.

Where do you begin to develop and build a culture of servant leadership? Start by looking within and taking stock of what you already have. And then consider enlisting the aid of a partner. We are here to help with skills assessments, systems and programs as well as one-on-one advice.

Call or contact us for more information on servant leadership.

The New Paradigm Advisors Team

Leadership

Servant Leadership: Turning the Organizational Chart Upside Down

We all know or have lived the in the typical power structure of an organization. It is all about what you can do for the boss in the current quarter. That is, serving the boss and, in turn, the company.

If you haven’t heard the term “servant leadership,” or, better yet, worked and lived in a servant leadership environment, we want to take a few minutes and expose you to this concept. With roots in both Eastern and Western cultures as far back as the 5th century BC. In more modern times, Robert Greenleaf is credited with furthering the concept with a 1971 essay, “The Servant as Leader.”

One of the most visible 21st century companies to build their culture around the concept is Southwest Airlines. Founder Herb Kelleher put employees first and it paid off for the airline in a highly engaged workforce with low turnover and high profitability.

“Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.”– Herb Kelleher

The “secret” is in putting the workforce first. That is, a leader serves his workers and they, in turn, serve the best interests of the company and the customers. By guiding instead of lording over employees, servant leaders gain an edge in performance.

It’s an active model of employee development rather than relying on the basic transactional model of employee-company.

Call or contact us for more information on servant leadership.

The New Paradigm Advisors Team

Leadership

Words of Wisdom from Live2Lead

Now that some time has passed, we can reflect on the mountain of content from the speakers at Live2Lead. Let’s take a moment and recap the highlights and the lessons from the day.

This list of guiding statements, tidbits and fresh ideas is actually quite helpful when put into the context of our daily lives. Gleaned from the speakers’ (John C. Maxwell, Chris Hogan, Rachel Hollis, Angela Ahrendts, and Marcus Buckingham) speeches that day, here are a number of memorable phrases:

Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
Hope is not a strategy.
Use the ACT approach—what will you Apply, Change or Teach—from new things you learn?
Connection with others is absolutely vital for success.
Old hurt brings new harm to a new day.
Trust, loyalty and unity are each a two-way street.
Work hard and have fun at the same time.
A culture is a living, breathing thing.
Mentor someone every day.
Turn off your head and turn on your heart.
Big isn’t good unless big does good.
Give 60, take 40 in everything.
Look for yourself last in the photo.
A leader doesn’t have two good days in a row.
Be authentic.
Show up.
Give people the tools to change their lives.
Focus on your self-awareness.
Study failure then invert it.
Love is space making.
Culture eats strategy for lunch.
Satisfaction creates energy.
If there is mist in the pulpit, there will be fog in the pews—be clear.
Measure what you manage.

This is quite a list to digest. No worries—over the next few months, New Paradigm Advisors will bring light and substance to many of these homilies and help you put them to good, substantial use.

And please plan on joining us for Live2Lead 2020 on October 20, 2020.

The New Paradigm Advisors’ Team

Testimonial

Awake Restaurants Testimonial: “Focusing on Facts”

As a family run, locally owned restaurant business, my son and wife and I all play various roles. We needed to find a way to sort out who did what within the organization and to have it all make sense.

Discovering EOS

Through Michael Visentine and his New Paradigm Advisors team, we discovered a methodology known as the Entrepreneurial Operating System or EOS. I had been exposed to EOS before, but Michael really pulled it all together for us and made it a practical solution.

A Way to Focus

EOS really helped us focus as a team. Since our team really has multiple personalities, EOS gave us a disciplined success model to help us stay on course. The model takes personal feelings out of the dialog and focuses on facts and people to grow the business. And that is critical in a family owned business. The EOS tools were great:

Three- and ten-year plans
Weekly meetings
Regular discussion of quarterly and annual objectives (or “rocks”)

Great Results

Now we actively meet weekly. There we review our “rocks” on the list of things to complete in a concise and solution-focused way.

We are grateful to the New Paradigm Advisors team for the education and ongoing support!

Rob Colarossi

Owner Awake (formerly The Egg & I) and Dairy Queen Restaurants

Leadership

Live2Lead: The Takeaways

The Live2Lead simulcast is stimulating in itself what with all of the thought-provoking speakers, including and starting with John C. Maxwell.

However, there is more to this day than just watching inspiring speakers on the big screen. It is about interaction with people you might or might not know. And a place you can develop and take away a plan of action.

That’s why New Paradigm Advisors has created an event-within-an-event for the afternoon.

The takeaway workshop is just that: a session that results in a tangible plan you can take back to you company and execute. With results. Now.

Led by Nancy Canada and Michael Visentine, the workshop is part roundtable and part interactive session. Nancy and Michael are both certified facilitators in key areas that support New Paradigm Advisors’ core offerings: Nancy is John C. Maxwell Certified and Michael an expert in implementing EOS®, the Entrepreneurial Operating System®.

In marrying the leadership skill development component of Maxwell with the systemized operational action of EOS, attendees will come away with several things of value, including:

A written 90-day action plan with a clear set of executable tactics and measurable objectives.
Substantive discussion with like-minded businesspeople who will be developing their similar plans alongside you during the session.
Valuable additions to your professional network (your tablemates).

There is something to be said for being an active learner after having spent the morning in a passive, but positive, learning mode watch great speakers.

Look at this day as a place where you show up to learn and depart with a plan.

For more information and where you can buy tickets, click this link. Use the code “kingdom” for a special discount.

One more thing: for those of you wanting to increase your visibility via social media, use the hashtags #beintheroom and #live2lead. See you on the 11^th.

The New Paradigm Advisors Team