Work – Page 5 – Sam Makhoul

October 12, 2015

The Miracle of The Bamboo Tree

After the seed for this amazing tree is planted, you see nothing, absolutely nothing, for four years except for a tiny shoot. During those four years all the growth is underground in an intricate but massive root structure that spreads deep and wide getting to know the earth. But then in the fifth year the Chinese bamboo tree grows up to 80 feet!

The late great Steven Covey reminds us in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” that many things in life are like the bamboo tree. You invest your time and energy into eating well, exercising, nurturing loving relationships, working hard, learning, and you do everything you can to live a great life, AND sometimes you don’t see anything for weeks, months, or even years.

But if you’re patient and you keep at it, that “fifth year” will come around and you will be astounded at the growth and change you see taking place.

August 12, 2015

“Where Is The Love?”

There is a natural tendency for companies to create boundaries between their teams, by optimising within a business unit rather than optimising for a global customer experience. Unfortunately, such boundaries create a “them vs. us” culture where some teams start to feel like corporate refugees as they see other teams being favoured. So when the global customer experience breaks down, the following starts creeping into the vocabulary: “It’s not my teams problem.” (cf. “It is not my countries problem”).

There are two ways to overcoming such boundaries:

By focusing on the “Cognitive Culture” of employees and instilling the values of teamwork, results-orientation and innovation.
The second and most effective way is to cultivate the “Emotional Culture”. That is, by engaging their hearts so they love the customer.

“Love Knows No Boundaries”

Whenever I mention the word LOVE in business meetings, some executives shift uncomfortably. They are thinking: “My performance is measured by tangibles like operational efficiency, not love!” I remind them that, ‘Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that is measured matters’. – Einstein

Almost all senior executives acknowledge that their business is all about the customer experience AND that employees are their greatest asset. Yet they do not realise that the invisible force that connects both, is love. Without it there is no empathy for the customer. And without empathy there is no connection. Without connection there is no customer loyalty; which leads to the coveted 3 R’s of business: Retention, Repeat & Referral.

Where there is NO love, a task is performed, a box is ticked and a KPI is met. The customer feels like a file number. Where there is love, there is compassion for the customer’s anxiety for a transaction and there is a genuine willingness to help.

It is ironic that the most devastating tragedy of the current Syrian refugee crisis unfolded on the shores of Greece. The ancient Greeks appropriately had six words with corresponding meanings describing love. The one that is most relevant for business and for humanity is “Agape”, the love you have for all people on earth, even strangers. C S Lewis referred to it as “gift love,” the highest form of Christian love. It is the only one that fosters natural empathy for other humans. Your job as a senior executive is not only to meet operational efficiency targets but also to cultivate that kind of love in your organisation.

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Opinion on the Syrian Refugee Crisis: I want to live in a world with NO boundaries. As humans we have an innate desire to help others. It should not matter whether that person falls in our arms from across the street or from across a border.

June 12, 2015

3 Things Not To Wear At Work

Your favourite teams jersey
Your rapper gold chain and Ed Harding cap
Your super hero cape and mask

Seriously though, if you work in an office you need to appreciate that there is a strong correlation between your presentation and success. The research is overwhelming. People who dress the part make the most money, Period!

“But how I dress should not matter, it is my performance that counts!”: Wrong. In general, clients and bosses choose people who are well presented over their casual counterparts. The research also shows that people who are well dressed tend to have higher performance. They get results because they are in a ‘work’ frame of mind. They tend to use more professional and appropriate language.

“But I want people to see the real me at work”: I get it, there is more to you than your work persona. But going casual at work is about as dim as wearing a suit to a beach resort. Because the real you is not one-dimensional. You would not go to a black tie event or to church and say, ‘hey I know this is a formal gathering but I am a casual kinda guy.’ So why would you apply the same reasoning at work?

Wearing the same clothes at work, as you do at home is about as much fun as eating at the same restaurant every day.

My opinion: Getting dressed to go to work should be a confidence building ritual every morning. Its ok to be comfortable but rarely casual. Your choice of label or cut should say to the world, ‘hey this is who I am at work’.

And when you do finish work for the day, there is nothing more satisfying than to disconnect from work by slipping into you comfortable jeans and T-shirt or maybe even your Avengers super hero outfit and say to yourself, ‘hey this is who I am at home’.

April 23, 2015

“What Type of Person Are You?”

George asks Jerry this question and Jerry replies with “I am just like you, only successful.” Got me thinking….

There are two types of people that show up for work.

The type with an attitude of “How Can I help?”
The other with an attitude of “What’s in it for me?”

I am not here to pass judgment on the latter even though I am pro the former. I have met many successful people who display either of those attitudes (but never both). Rather, I want to highlight the fact that the type of person you are is relevant when choosing whom you work for, because there are also two types of corporations out there: The ones that are focused on purpose and the others that are focused on profit.

So it stands to reason that if you are person with a “how can I help?” attitude, you belong in companies that are focused on purpose; (that is, companies who are focused on making a difference in society). And if you are a person with a “What’s in it for me?” attitude, then you belong in companies driven by KPI’s, productivity and the ‘bottom line’ profit.

Cultural Schizophrenia

The problem arises when companies and people pretend to be both. Some executives I meet argue that their business is driven by profit AND by purpose. What they’re really saying to me is: “I am just like you, only successful.” But saying one thing (“its about purpose”) and behaving in another (“meet your KPI’s or else”) leads to cultural schizophrenia. It confuses the people that work in the organisation; because you cannot serve two masters of thought.

I am not suggesting for a minute that companies that are focused on purpose go around spreading sunshine and roses at the feet of customers at the expense of profitability. Profit is certainly the purpose ofbeing in business but it does not have to be what drives a business and what motivates the people working in it.

It is at this point that I like to remind my Schizophrenic friends of the study by Wharton Business School titled, “Firms of Endearment” where they found that the companies that were focused on purpose ironically made the most profit. They outperformed the S & P 500 by a ratio of 9 to 1 over a 10-year period. In the first 3 years of comparison they trailed slightly but from the 5th year onwards the firms of endearment streaked ahead on financial performance. These were companies like BMW, Whole Foods, Harley Davidson, and Southwest Airlines.

My suggestion is that if we conduct a similar study on people, I am certain it will show that those who show up with an “How Can I help?” attitude will in the long run outperform their “What’s in it for me?” counterparts, when it comes to salary. It certainly works that way in my company.

March 12, 2015

10 Traits of Fearless Leadership

Fearless leaders do not try and predict the future. They focus on shaping it.In a fast and ever-changing business environment it is futile to try and predict the future, especially when it comes to consumer trends. Fearless leaders know this. Instead they focus on creating and setting the trend.
Fearless Leaders are decisive and act fast. Fearless leaders have a mindset toward making a decision, implementing it quickly, learning, adapting and continuously improving. Fast. It sometimes means accepting risks, forgiving mistakes and learning from everything. Fearless leaders set aggressive deadlines and insist on meeting them. They have no time for protracted analysis, long-winded meetings, and unnecessary reviews and checkpoints. Speed of decision-making. Speed of implementation. They thrive on it.
Fearless Leaders are always right – even when they are wrong. I know this is a contentious trait but fearless leaders don’t care if they are wrong sometimes. Conviction is better than tireless collaboration, which inevitably leads to inaction. Sometimes making a mistake and correcting it quickly is much more effective than impotent collaboration.
Fearless leaders wear their heart on their sleeve. They are intense, passionate and often the most animated in meetings. They do not try and hide their true personality. What you see is what you get – in the boardroom or at the pub. They do not sugar coat anything. They tell it like it is and spare no one. But they are always constructive and never hysterical to the point of spooking others.
Fearless leaders put the business first and ego’s second. Including their own. There is something bigger than all of us in an organisation. And that is the mission. Anyone putting their personal interests ahead of the mission cannot call themselves leaders, let alone fearless ones. Anyone who has seen the movie Braveheart would understand what I mean here.
Fearless Leaders build a team of champions around them. Including their suppliers. They do this by recruiting the best, not tolerating mediocrity and demanding innovation, hard work and round the clock intensity. They recognise that nothing great has ever been created with a 9 to 5 mentality.
Fearless leaders have one-on-one meetings with the right people to get the ‘real’ picture.
Fearless Leaders zoom in and out of their organisation. This is my personal favourite and one that I try and adhere to. Fearless leaders sweat the small stuff. They know that the smallest of details can sometimes mean the biggest difference in setting you apart from your competitors. They can zoom in on a specific issue and mix it with staff at any level. They can re-engineer, re-design and get technical. They also have the uncanny ability to zoom back out and not miss the big picture.
Fearless leaders build a legacy not an exit strategy.
Fearless leaders are fiercely competitive – they hate losing