Expert mindset and CEO mindset

One of the most important points of balance for business leaders concerns the mindset that you bring to the leadership role.  In another section there will be a discussion of the so-called leadership pipeline, which applies to large organizations that have the luxury to groom people, over time, into leadership positions.  On the other hand, it is the norm in smaller businesses and startups for the founder and owner to be a passionate performer, who starts a business to pursue their passion, without necessarily going through a series of training and promotion experiences to build the mindset and expertise of a CEO or business leader.

Marketing and Sales

The balance point between marketing and sales is important for any business.  Both aspects and processes are needed, although there are differences in balance, from industry to industry, and by individual business, depending on a number of factors.

There are discussions of marketing separate from sales, linked below.  At this point, the topic is balance.  But in simple terms, what needs to be balanced?

In simple terms, marketing is about gaining the attention of potential customers, clients, users of the products and/or services of a business.  Gaining the attention, and creating interest, and hopefully desire, or matching with desires that the audience already has.  In simple terms, sales is getting members of that audience to take action on the fulfillment of their desires by actually making some kind of exchange that gives them access to the product or service.  So it's about education, and then a move to action.

The need for balance arises from the fact that the action won't happen without a potential being identified, or self-identified.  This requires a connection, which needs to be about desires, and the satisfaction of desires.  The buyer needs to be aware of their own desire, and their awareness may arise from exposure to the seller's marketing.  The seller needs to be aware of a potential buyer whose pre-existing or stimulated desire matches well enough to initiate the selling process. 

So we see the important linkage of marketing and selling.  Let's take at a look at each of these separately:  To Marketing   To Sales

To get back to the hub list of healthy business factors, click here.

To get back to the discussion of businesses as living systems, click here.

Leading and Managing

[in progress]

Let's take at a look at each of these separately:  To Leading   To Managing
To get back to the hub list of healthy business factors, click here.
To get back to the discussion of businesses as living systems, click here.

Planning and Execution

[in progress]

Let's take at a look at each of these separately:  To Planning   To Execution
To get back to the hub list of healthy business factors, click here.
To get back to the discussion of businesses as living systems, click here.

Habits of thought and action

Business coaches will often advertise that they help people work less, make more money, make a greater contribution, and have more fun, while falling back in love with their business.  The key to the coaching experience is the ability to form new habits of thought and action.  One approach is the “Not-To-Do” list.  But, while this is a cute idea, there's a good reason not to overly focus on the “not-to-do’s”.  This has to do with how the brain works.

Everyone knows that trying to break a bad habit is devilishly hard.  Of that there is no doubt.  The “Stop smoking” industry, the diet industry, the self-help industry are all built on the fact that it is indeed devilishly hard to break habits that have taken hold in our minds, such that there is a lot of repeat business in those industries.  Because of the recent advances in our understanding of the human brain and how it works, we have a better idea of why this is so hard.

In the 2012 book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg of the New York Times talks about the habit loop, which shows how a reward reinforces habitual behavior, and suggests figuring out ways to achieve the same reward with different behavior.  A lot of this has to do with how the reward is defined.  If the “reward” is itself the enjoyment of a cigarette, then changed behavior to get there will not be much help.  If the reward is an intensive business-oriented visit to Egypt, as with one case study, the behavior required to achieve that higher reward served to overwhelm (if that’s the right word) a number of habits that appear to get in the way of achieving the new (complex) reward.

Another perspective is provided by David Rock’s 2006 book Quiet Leadership.  As Rock points out, reinforcing mechanisms in the brain are what make it so devilishly hard to break a habit.  “The more we focus on a problem we have, the more ingrained we make it”.

Rock suggests that business leaders (acting as coaches) can benefit by helping people focus on thinking itself.   Get employees (or clients) to think about their own processes of thought, and then help lead them into the creation of new habits of thought, and action.  His specific advice on how to help a client or employee form new habits can be summarized by the acronym: CREATE – understand their Current Reality, Explore Alternatives, and Tap into their own Energy for positive change.

We are still in early days of fully understanding the workings of the human mind.  Recent advances in the science of the brain are starting to give us new knowledge of how habits are created, and how they can replace destructive behaviors.  This is giving us, as coaches and managers, powerful new tools to help our clients and employees improve their lives.

One key area to focus on is the habit of happiness.  This is worth some special attention.
 
To get back to the hub list of healthy business factors, click here.
To get back to the discussion of businesses as living systems, here.