Michael Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers (from what I understand, a publisher of primarily Christian books). He also writes a blog, From Where I Sit. I started reading the blog when Thomas Nelson published the book of a guy I'm acquainted with. I've enjoyed and learned from the blog.

Michael's post today is entitled 10 Ten Reasons to Send a Letter Rather Than an Email. It is, essentially, a rant against traditional mail with thinly veiled sarcasm masquerading as humor. Having recently taken the time and effort to send Michael a personal note (something many thoughtful people still consider gracious), I was not amused.

Although I don't know him, I suspect Michael Hyatt is a kind man. I suspect his sarcasm is out of character for him and the faith he holds dear. It just goes to show you, everyone makes a mistake now and then. It will be interesting to see if Michael acknowledges or learns from it.

I just finished reading Groundswell. It's an OK book, not really a must-read, but worth reading all the way through. A part of the book got me thinking about how much communication is too much. Here's what I mean:

A few weeks ago I made a purchase at the Johnston & Murphy store. They asked for my email and I gave it to them. And then, what seemed like a barrage started. I don't know how many emails I received from them, but it felt like way too many. I just don't care that much about shoes and socks.

Which might be the point. I've never felt like Apple sent me too many emails. I've never felt like Amazon sent me too many emails. But maybe that's because I care more about Apple products and books than I do about shoes and socks. What I'm thinking is that the number of emails a company sends needs to be contingent upon how important the company's product is to the recipient of the email.

I'd appreciate any comment or insight you might have.

Yesterday I asked, "Would our customers miss us if we were gone?" One way to find out, is to use Frederick Reichheld's Ultimate Question. In his book, The Ultimate Question, Reichheld suggests one simple question can determine your company's future. Here it is:

How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?

The Net Promoter Score is calculated by taking the percentage of customers who are promoters (those who answer 9 or 10) and subtract the percentage who are detractors (those who answer 6 or below). High performing companies will have scores in the high seventies or low eighties.

This is simple, incredibly powerful way of determining how important your company is to your customers.

John Moore runs an occasional feature on his terrific Brand Autopsy blog that asks the question, Would You Miss (Company). It's a great question, turned around just a tad to illuminate our own businesses:

Would our customers/clients miss us if we were gone?

I'm a big believer in the idea that one of the Deliverables of Great Leadership is wildly enthusiastic customers. Is what we do or how we do it so important or impactful for our customers that they'd miss us if we were gone? If the answer is no, I suspect there might be trouble looming.

No sane person would say yes. You can't know everything (although some CEOs act as if they do). You can't create the ideas and insight your business needs without some outside stimulus. So, a few questions to nudge you:

What books have you read this week?

How much time have you spent in quiet reflection about your business this week?

What you don't know could sink your business. The idea that never gets sparked could have grave consequences. Most of the leaders I know would be well served to DO less and learn/think more. Including me.

I've been engaged the last few weeks with a group of fellow entrepreneurs in a leadership study group. We're using If Harry Potter Ran General Electric by the ever insightful Tom Morris as the text book for our current session. Last night I came across this thought in Tom's book:

"When a problem ins hard to see, it's easy to solve. When it's easy to see, it's hard to solve."

I suspect we've all looked away when we saw a small problem. But if the problem is ignored, it grows. Ignored for long enough, the small problem becomes a big crisis. Facing problems as they appear requires diligence, but most of all it requires courage. What small problem do you need to face today?

This one is easy.

Relationship grows when one person acts for the benefit of another.

When was the last time you acted for the benefit of the people you lead? Not for the company, not for your customers – but purely for the benefit of the people you lead? Great leaders are imbued with a deep, genuine concern for their people.

Richard Hall's post Little Steps to Thinking Big contains 25 Success Tips, including the following:

Decide when you need to move on from everything you do. The emancipating effect of knowing that you have an exit plan will be extraordinary.

Try to enjoy your own company. If you are a leader then you’ll spend quite a lot of time by yourself.

It's a worthwhile post, check it out.

In my last post I suggested the heart of good leadership is relationship. I'm not the first person to realize that. The following is from The Leadership Challenge (maybe the best, most comprehensive book on on leadership ever written):

" ...in examining the critical variables for success in the top three jobs in large organizations, Jodi Taylor and her colleagues at the Center for Creative Leadership found the number one success factor to be "relationship with subordinates."

How relationship develops is another discussion. The point here is that relationship matters, very possibly more than anything.

Carl Peterson is the President and General Manager of the Kansas City Chiefs football team. He's currently in the 19th year of his self-professed 5 year plan to take the Chiefs to the Superbowl. News in Kansas City reported yesterday that the Chiefs are interested in trading their star defensive end, Jared Allen.

What's this got to do with anything you care about? Good question. I'll try to explain. In my opinion (an opinion shared by many) the ONLY reason to trade Jared Allen is that he totally distrusts and dislikes Carl Peterson.

Allen is one of the elite players in the NFL. He is one of the precious few KC Chief draft picks that has become a dominating defensive player in the Peterson era. And the team is contemplating trading him for a first and a third round draft pick.

Carl Peterson's utter lack of relationship ability has driven a stake through the heart of the Chiefs ability to be competitive. His utter lack of relationship ability has crippled the leadership of the Kansas City Chiefs.

I apologize for the negativity of this post. But the heart of good leadership is relationship. This is a very public example of what happens when relationships falter.

Nettie Harsock turned me on to the Heart of Innovation blog. The first post I read from Mitch Ditkoff said this,

"Real innovators challenge the status quo. They do not concede to the current reality."

They do not concede to the current reality. That's just awesome. It reminds me a little of Jim Collin's advice to confront the brutal facts without giving up hope. I'm a big, big believer in facing reality. But is it reality or sloth that ties us to the status quo?

Don McLean's rock anthem, American Pie contained these lyrics:

"Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn't take one more step"

Maybe it's always been true, but today we certainly have bad news on the doorstep. A war that might never end, a health care crisis, genocide as a daily occurence – not to mention a recession or looming recession.

But last night, I learned an important lesson about business and about life. I had the profound privilege of gathering with a group of amazing Kansas City entrepreneurs. Barnett Helzberg, former CEO of Helzberg's Diamonds and author of What I Learned Before I Sold to Warren Buffett spoke to the group. He offered this advice:

"Don't think about and don't talk about anything you can't control. Drill this into the head of every person in your company: There will always be tough conditions and bad circumstances in the world, most of which you can't do anything about. But your business still must succeed. So focus like a laser on what you can control. Your success may give you an opportunity to fix some of the other stuff down the line."

Thanks, Barnett.

The Marines built a brand on wanting A Few Good Men. There was even a movie. So what do you want? Here's a suggestion:

A Few Perfect Clients.

Few is subjective. A few to you might be a lot to me. Or vice versa. But perfect is NOT subjective. Perfect means a person or company that has a problem that your product or service can solve in a way the client feels great about.

If you make a sale to anyone else, at best, it's a mixed blessing.

Yesterday, in a conversation completely unrelated to business, I heard someone say, "the problem is that we see ourselves as separate when in truth, we're all connected."

This morning I was thinking about that statement in a business context. Do I see my self as separate from my associates or do I see myself as connected to them? How do I experience our clients – are we separate or connected?

Wouldn't it be more productive (not to mention satisfying) if we were connected? If we gave up the us and them in favor of just us?

Seth Godin has a great post inspired by some spam he received from Jennifer Rosini at Forbes. I'm struck by how clueless Ms. Rosini seems to be in the interaction Seth chronicles. The bemusement value is high, but Seth's advice is priceless:

"You can contact just about anyone you want. The only rule is you need to contact them personally, with respect, and do it months before you need their help! Contact them about them, not about you. Engage. Contribute. Question. Pay attention. Read. Interact."

That is great online advice – but it's also great personal advice, selling advice, relationship advice ... you get the point.

I don't know the answer to this question, but it's worth thinking about. In his book, The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz says this:

"Choice is essential to autonomy, which is absolutely fundamental to well-being. Healthy people want and need to direct their own lives."

OK, that makes perfect sense. But Schwartz also warns of the peril of too much choice. He references a series of studies titled, When Choice is Demotivating. One of the studies shows a tenfold increase in purchases when consumers have less choice.

So how much choice contributes to optimal employee engagement? Any ideas?

This is a true story. I heard it just last night.

A young woman started a new, relatively low-level job in January. After a weekend of heavy drinking, the young woman showed up at work on Monday morning, still clearly intoxicated. Here's what her company did:

First, they took her home. They didn't let her drive, they took her keys and someone from the company delivered her safely home. On Tuesday, an executive from the company flew into town from another city for an intervention with the young woman. The young woman was given a choice:

She could continue to be employed IF she started attending Alcoholics Anonymous. If she didn't think going to AA meetings was intensive enough, the company would send her to a treatment facility and continue to pay her salary while she was in treatment. However, her continued drinking would result in immediate termination.

Keep in mind, this young woman had been employed by the company for only three or four months. And yet the company acted with incredible grace and compassion. They proved without question that they cared for this young woman as a person – not just as an employee or a "human resource".

That's a pretty powerful message to everyone in the company. The simple fact of human nature is that we care most about the people who care for us. We are willing to commit ourselves and extend ourselves to the greatest extent for people who care about us.

This company acted with grace and compassion and heart. And it seems to me that they did so with the purest of intentions. It's possible their actions will help this young woman in a profound way. But there is absolutely no question their actions will increase engagement among every employee in their company that happens to know the story.

A few days ago I suggested one of the deliverables of great leadership is amazingly engaged employees. So I've been thinking about some of the conditions that contribute to employees being amazingly engaged. I think one of those conditions is choice.

Edward Deci is the director of the Human Motivation Program at the University of Rochester. In his book, Why We Do What We Do he says:

"The main thing about meaningful choice is that it engenders willingness. It encourages people to fully endorse what they are doing; it pulls them into the activity and allows them to feel a greater sense of volition ..."

That sounds an awful lot like engagement to me.

I finished Patrick Lencioni's most recent book last night. The Three Signs of a Miserable Job is a terrific little book that shines a light on some simple, yet profound management principles. He organizes the book around what he calls the three signs:

Immeasurement - Admittedly, not a real word. But a useful concept. The idea is that if people aren't making progress, they can't be happy or satisfied and productivity plummets. And no one can know if they're making progress without measurement.

Irrelevance - Lencioni uses this word to describe the feeling that what you do has no impact on the lives of others. And he says (correctly), "Every human being that works has to know that what they do matters to another human being."

Anonymity - Anonymity is the feeling that you're invisible. Lencioni reminds us (again correctly) that, "All human beings need to be understood and appreciated for their unique qualities by someone in a position of authority."

Please don't think I've captured the value of this book in the brief comments above. This is a book every manager should buy and read. As a matter of fact, it's probably a pretty good idea to buy and read every book Patrick Lencioni writes – they're inevitably well written, entertaining and informative.

In our search for a sensational new marketing associate at Opus, I came across these two sentences from an applicant's email:

"I don't want to wake up every day dreading to go to work. I sort of refuse to do that as a matter of fact."

Almost everyone would agree with the first sentence. Sadly, too few have the courage to do the second. But those few are the ones I'm looking for. Those few won't settle for good enough. Those few will change the world. Like Steve Jobs said to John Sculley,

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?"

My friend, Mike, owns a solid, growing distribution business. He made a comment the other day about how he needed to provide his people with better leadership.

Hard to quarrel with providing better leadership – but I wasn't completely clear about what he was really after. So I posed the question: "If you were the best leader on the planet, what would be different in your business." I was asking what results he expected from great leadership.

That question got stuck in my head. After rolling it around for a few days, I've come up with what I'm thinking of as The Four Deliverables of Great Leadership:

1. Amazingly Engaged Employees

2. Evangelical Customers

3. Consistently Solid Financials

4. Growth (Revenue, Profit, Capability)

Can anyone truly be described as a great leader without producing these results? Did I miss anything?

I'm a fan of Fast Company Magazine. I am definitely NOT a fan of FC contributor, Elizabeth Spiers – especially her column in the April issue entitled Library of the Living Dead

In this column, the cynical Ms. Spiers (who I'm guessing wears a lot of black) indicts the entire class of business books. Apparently, according to Ms. Spiers, not one business book and not a single successful executive has ever contributed anything of substance to the business world. Perhaps I'm overreacting, judge for yourself:

"Instead, I'll point you to the modern era's second-worst literary promulgator of intelligence reduction: your local bookstore's business section."

Is every business book a life-changing, career-enhancing miracle? Of course not. But there are also bad novels, bad history books and bad books on quantum physics (although I'm only guessing about the quantum physics).

It kind of makes me wonder if Ms. Spiers has enough experience with business books to have an informed opinion.