Tales from Axonia

5 Sure-fire ways to get fired from a woman-owned business

2008-03-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve owned Axon for going on nine years now. And through all the trials and tribulations, it seems to always be the same things that bug me. There easily could be ten ways, but I only have time for five—right now.

Number one | Say this to the owner:
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to upset you.”
As far as I can tell we progressed from the Edwardian era. I have not seen a woman suffer “the vapors” in my lifetime. If you have information that I could use, tell me. Good, bad, or ugly women rely on information from all sources to make good business decisions and if you are withholding critical information including your opinion, you are not saving yourself or the company any grief.

Number two | Say this to the owner:
“A man would...”
Seriously, don’t finish this sentence unless you have your resume in good shape. Two reasons: (1) I don’t care about what a man would do...I care about what produces the desired result effectively and efficiently; (2) I consider myself to be equal to a man, but I have yet to meet a woman who wants to be the same as a man.

Number three | Say this to the owner:
“That’s not rational...”
If by rational you mean “not thought out in a linear fashion”, rethink your approach—continue to exercise your linear thinking and you will very likely be neither innovative or creative enough to last as this woman’s company.

Number four | Say this to the owner:
“But that’s not my job...”
Woman or man, small businesses need DOers—all the successful women I know DO things for themselves (and others). Whether it’s corporate strategy, billing, marketing, or cleaning before the big meeting, In this woman-owned business, priority one is to focus on accomplishing the task (for our clients and our company)—even if it doesn’t fit your job description.

Number five | Do this:
Leave the toilet seat up in the unisex bathroom.
Don’t do it. Don’t even think about it. Take the argument home to your spouse. There is no question about “up” or “down” in a woman-owned business with a unisex bathroom.

Lisa Phillips: A real Maine native

2008-03-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

There is no easy way to say it…but this week Maine lost a true native in Lisa Phillips. For Lisa, being a Mainer was more than the fact that she was born, raised and lived her entire life in Piscataquis county, it was a state of being. Without conscious effort, Lisa epitomized the quality of character that defines a real Mainer.

Room at the Table: No Strings attached
Lisa, like so many in northern Maine, worked hard to carve out a niche from which she could sustain her family and way of life. And while one might consider her financial resources limited, there was always an extra place at her table. What makes this characteristic unique to a real Mainer is this. The extra place at Lisa’s table was for anyone who needed it, wealthy, poor, old, young, happy, sad, addicted, healthy, infirm. That place at Lisa’s table could just as soon be occupied by Donald Trump as anyone. Because when it came to sharing what she had, Lisa didn’t need to know WHY you needed, just that you did.

Charity starts at home
Before big government-funded entitlement programs, families, neighbors, towns and churches took care of their own. If a family was having a hard time with the necessities, word would get out in the community and soon things like meat, vegetables, clothing, milk, empathy, understanding and care would appear. And it was reciprocated, for you never knew when the family in need might be your own.

For Lisa, this was not just a bit of depression-era sentiment. The well-being of her family and her community was her life’s work. She stepped in to be mother to her three nieces when she was called. She put her heart and soul into her marriage to my Uncle Joe. It’s been many years since I’ve heard family worrying about Joe—as they often did.

Lisa was a source of nourishment—spiritual, emotional and physical for her girls, her husband, her community and indeed anyone who came in contact with her. She wasn’t called far to do the Lord’s work, He kept her busy right here in Maine

Knowing the key to happiness
Real Mainers know that key to happiness is understanding that it doesn't come by having what you want, but by wanting what you have. Lisa may not have had everything she wanted, but if that was true, she never let on to me. She was truly thankful for and passionate about all she had. Her husband, her children, her grandchildren, her involvement in Church and community—and a decent, working kitchen, seemed to be all she ever wanted.

When I think of what makes me proud to be a real Mainer, I think of people like Lisa who do what it takes to get the job done with a smile and a song. I think of people like Lisa who understand the basic common sense and generosity so important to the success of a community. And most importantly, I think of people like Lisa, who live life with a quiet confidence and deep sincerity that immediately transcends our differences and touches our core sameness of humanity.

Our family and Maine lost a great one this week. But Lisa will always be a role model for me, and no matter how crazy, difficult and complicated my life seems to be, I’ll just need to think of her to remember what it means to be a real Mainer—and then everything will fall into place.

The customers are coming, and they’re networked!

2008-02-07T09:36:00.001-08:00

An introduction to RETHINKING your marketing strategy and harnessing the power of Social Networks.

The internet has changed everything…again. Social Networks like Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, 43things, Myspace, and others are changing the way we, as consumers, relate to products, services, each other and ultimately our world. Those sites are made up of millions of individuals. Together, they represent a massive “community of ones.”

This community is changing the way that we, as businesses, will work in the future. Companies that adapt to the new marketplace and take advantage of the opportunity will prosper. Those that cling to the “way we’ve always done things” will face severe challenges.

True story: through an Amazon.com third-party merchant, I recently purchased a “Pea-in-the-Pod” baby bunting for my baby’s first Halloween costume. It’s a long story, and completely my fault… but the costume was sent to an address that, as far as USPS was concerned, didn’t exist.

Panicked that the outfit would be returned to sender and wouldn’t arrive before Halloween, I called the number on the Amazon merchant’s web site. I was on hold for more than an hour. I finally hung up.

Angry and frustrated (as only post-partum, first-time moms can be), I wrote a short, scathing review of the merchant and gave them a “Most Dissatisfied” rating on Amazon.com.

The next day, I got a call from Steve, the merchant’s customer service representative. He was adamant about making sure that I got my order on time. He offered to overnight the costume to me at no charge if I took my bad review off Amazon.com. Fair deal; the costume arrived as promised and the bad rating was deleted.

This illustrates something critically important: the community of ones pays close attention to what others say online about products and services.. What else would have prompted such a reaction from a customer service department that wouldn’t even answer its phone a day earlier?

People really are, finally, starting to “connect” on the Internet, exactly as predicted ten years ago.

You might be thinking, “Holy Cow. How can anyone please everyone all of the time?! There are crazy, unreasonable people who take advantage of situations like this for their own benefit! I’m sunk!” You might even want to hide under the covers until this Internet fad is gone and things are finally the “way they used to be.”

Get out from under the covers. Things won’t go backwards. Besides, there’s hope. There are ways to harness the power of this growing, unruly community of ones. ReTHINKING your marketing strategy, ReTHINKING your message and adapting traditional media, advertising and print to take advantage of these developments is the focus of the remaining five parts of this six part BLOG series.

SuperNanny, The Harvard Business Review and You

2007-11-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

I attended a baby shower last weekend and as I was dutifully observing the soon-to-be-mother opening gifts and reading cards, when one of the sayings on the card struck me. It read something like:

“… being a mother is to have your heart walk around outside your body.”

This BLOG isn’t as much about raising children as it is about leadership in a small business, but it is interesting that the “SuperNanny” web site and the January Special Issue on Leadership of Harvard Business Review have more commonalities than differences.

The “SuperNanny” Web site talks about routine, teamwork, discipline and reward. And I’ve watched the show enough to know that they are not really talking about the kids. In most cases on “SuperNanny” it’s the parents, not the children, that are the target of the lessons in routine, teamwork, discipline and reward. Without saying so, the “SuperNanny” knows the “problems” all start at the “top”.

While the relationship between parent and child is different than the relationship between leader and team in a business setting, the principles a leader and a parent should ascribe to are not so different.

As I compare the January 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review about Leadership to the SuperNanny Web site there are striking similarities. HBR articles talk about Humility, Energy, Intuition, Vision, Perspective, Learning, Control, Guidance and Communication. The overwhelming theme is the same as the “SuperNanny” site: “Leader, know thyself”.

The point is: Success as a leader or success as a parent depends largely on one’s own self awareness. As a leader I feel I must cultivate the ability to look inward and be self-critical in an objective, constructive, and charitable way. When I take the time out to do that, I know I’m better able to effectively evaluate strategy, tactics and guide the team through complex scenerios, difficult relationships, growth and disasters (external, internal, client-related, terrorist-related, nature-related…you name it). The HBR article, “What to ask the Person in the Mirror?” by Robert S. Kaplan (Harvard Business Review, January 2007) mentions seven key questions that help leaders self-assess their performance. A synopsis of the topics and some questions follows:

Vision and Priorities
Are you effectively communicating your vision and priorities for the company?

Managing Time
Is how you spend your time in line with the vision and priorities for the company?

Feedback
Do I give timely, direct, appropriate and actionable feedback to the team? Does my team feel comfortable telling me things I may not want to hear?

Succession Planning
Am I coaching a successor?

Evaluation and Alignment
Is the design of my company aligned with the key success factors for the business?

Leading Under Pressure
What types of events create pressure for me? How do I behave under pressure?

Staying True to Yourself
Is my leadership style comfortable? Does it reflect who I truly am?

I used the questions above to do a self-evaluation. It was very enlightening. One of the things I identified by going through this process that was not mentioned in either the “SuperNanny” site or the Harvard Business Review article was fear. I envy those people that are cool, calm and collected in the middle of a raging fire engulfing the house they spent years building. I would add that to make sure pressure doesn’t turn into downright fear, or, worse yet terror, is important.

Fear is ugly. Terror is, well, terrifying.

My thoughts on fear were crystallized as I worked through the “leading under pressure” evaluation. Fear is behind many of the decisions parents and business owners make that seem crazy to the rest of us. For example, parents sometimes decide to “home school” their kids because they are exposed to sex and drugs in the high school. It seems crazy to me because you can’t “hide” your kid from American culture, it’s all around us. Do these parents take away TV, radio, magazines, the Internet, and friends? And if you do, is that a good decision?

And in business, I had a colleague who felt her business was failing and was contemplating about whether to proceed or not. I asked her what the revenue projection for the next three months was, her answer: “We’ll see.” It is an unacceptable answer for many reasons. It is also a fear-based reaction—or inaction. Ignorance really is bliss when facing an overwhelming fear.

Fear will affect every one of your reactions and actions—it can even turn actions into reactions. Fear will affect the “staying true to yourself score.” Fear also affects sleep, personal relationships, feedback, visioning, and time management in one way or the other.

Managing fear is more critical in the small business sector. The HBR-brand of CEO’s don’t put their money or their kids’ college fund on the line when they become leaders. In fact, more often than not, they are compensated in such a way that it makes the pressure somewhat easier to bear. At the very least their vodka martinis are shaken or stirred with premium “hootch.”

A friend once gave me a set of tapes (that I never returned) called “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.” The book is a self-help classic written by Susan Jeffers. I admit, I never read the book or listened to the tapes, but the title has been a guideline of mine over the years. Every so often I give myself some time alone just to “feel the fear” and quietly have an inner dialogue about what’s causing the fear and whether the fear is reality-based and actionable or irrational and something to let go. It seems to help keep fear at bay, but it is always lurking—waiting for acknowledgement. Fear is like a chronic illness, you can manage it, but there is no cure.

My mother tells the story of my brother when he was two or three. He saw monsters in his room and wanted to sleep with my parents. My mother read Dr. Spock and divined that she and my brother would make the monsters smaller and smaller until they went away. After about a half an hour of shrinking and disappearing monsters, she was very pleased with her success. Pleased, until my brother perked up, pointed at the closet and said, “There’s another one!!” I don’t think the fear ever disappears—you can shrink it or manage it, but never get rid of it.

If you are thinking about starting a business and even think you might lack the ability to manage the fear of personal and financial insecurity, then, please, think again. If the fear of failure sends you to the nearest bar, think again. And if you can’t even face the vision of failure, think again.

But never forget, fear can be a healthy indicator of a threat and…“just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you.”

It may seem grim. This BLOG was written with every intention of scaring you. After reading it, if you still, “can’t not do it,” then welcome to small business leadership.