About Michael McLaughlin

Michael McLaughlin is the principal consultant of MindShareConsulting LLC.

Patrick Lencioni: The Competitive Advantage Most Organizations Miss

April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Patrick Lencioni interview on organizational health

Patrick Lencioni

“Though I  can’t be sure, I suspect that at some point about thirty years ago, a cleverly sadistic and anti-business consultant decided that the best way to really screw up companies was to convince them that what they needed was a convoluted, jargony, and all-encompassing declaration of intent.“

Patrick Lencioni is a consultant, best-selling author, and president of The Table Group, a consulting firm dedicated to building healthy organizations. He speaks and consults to a wide range of companies, including multinationals, start-ups,and non-profits.

His books include Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars, Death by Meeting, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, and Getting Naked: A Business Fable about Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty.

His latest book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, is the culmination of Lencioni’s full body of work. And in the book, he lays out a strong case for why organizational health offers the greatest opportunity for competitive advantage.

Unlike his earlier books, this one isn’t in a fable format. Instead, he uses case studies, his experiences with clients, and his research to define organizational health and offer a path for leaders to achieve it.

The Four Disciplines of Organizational Health

  1. Build a Cohesive Leadership Team. If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified, there is no chance that it will become healthy.
  2. Create Clarity. Leaders create clarity for themselves and others when they are aligned, as a team, in such a way that there is no room for confusion, disorder, or infighting to set in.
  3. Over-communicate Clarity. Be sure everyone in the organization knows the answers to questions like, why does the organization exist? How do we behave? What do we do? And what is important right now?
  4. Reinforce Clarity. Be sure that every human system–every process that involves people–is designed to reinforce the answers to the organization’s most important questions.

You might also be interested in our print interviews with Patrick Lencioni on:

Getting Naked with Clients and The Dysfunctions of Teams

Podcast run time: 20:00
Intro music exluna by Jakub Koter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Filed Under: Managing Your Business Tagged With: ,

Strategies for Leading People, Teams, and Projects

April 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You can be a great marketer and a top salesperson, but if you–or your team–can’t deliver your services with unquestioned excellence, you’re career as a consultant will be a short one.

In this mini-tutorial, we’ve assembled our best interviews and podcasts on the subject of leading people, teams, and complex projects. You can read (and listen to) the leading thinkers on how to get the project results you’ve promised in a timely way–without burning out your team.

Each of our experts has a slightly different perspective on leading projects and people, and you’ll find something you can use immediately on your next project.

Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun

Mastering Project Management

For nearly ten years, Scott Berkun managed projects and teams at Microsoft. He also worked in Microsoft’s engineering excellence group, teaching and consulting with development teams. He’s the author of The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management.

We asked Berkun for his advice on ramping up projects effectively, managing the common issues that arise, and how to finish any project on time and within budget.

Read the interview with Scott Berkun.

William Bridges

William Bridges

Why Change Fails

William Bridges is an internationally recognized authority on managing change in the workplace. For more than two decades, he has been helping clients with mergers, reorganizations, leadership changes, and cultural shifts.

Bridges is the author of ten books, including the best sellers Transitions and Managing Transitions. He is a frequent keynote speaker at corporate meetings and professional conferences, and the Wall Street Journal named him one of the ten top executive development presenters in America.

We had the opportunity to get both practical and inspirational tips from Bridges about how you can improve results for clients in a world of continuous flux.

Read the interview with William Bridges.

Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham

Leading for Success

Marcus Buckingham is coauthor of the bestselling books First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, and he is a well-known voice challenging business leaders to operate in new ways.

In his book, The One Thing You Need to Know…About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Buckingham once again takes aim at the conventional wisdom on leadership, management, and individual performance.

Read the interview with Marcus Buckingham.

Steve Farber

Steve Farber

Extreme Leadership

Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Inc., an organization devoted to the development of leaders in the business community. He is also the co-founding director of The Center for Social Profit Leadership.

A thought leader in management, Farber is a leadership coach, consultant, and a former consultant for the Tom Peters Company.

Farber’s first book, The Radical Leap, introduced the concept of extreme leadership, which led to a Readers’ Choice Award from Fast Company magazine. Farber hasn’t finished exploring the extreme concepts he created. His book, The Radical Edge, is an intriguing fable that connects the lessons of life to the realities of leadership.

Read the interview with Steve Farber.

Rob Goffee

Rob Goffee

Leading Clever People

Rob Goffee is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School, and an expert on leadership, corporate culture, and innovation. He’s also the coauthor of Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People and Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

Goffee explains how leaders should think about working with, retaining, and getting the most from clever people.

Read the interview with Rob Goffee.

James Kouzes

Achieving Credibility

In this podcast, James Kouzes, co-author with Barry Posner of the international bestseller, The Leadership Challenge, talks about the four top traits that people admire most in their leaders (competence doesn’t top the list, by the way) and how emerging leaders can develop those skills. He also discusses why some of the essential aspects of effective leaders, like affirming shared values and sustaining hope, can undermine a leader’s credibility.

Listen to the podcast with Jim Kouzes.

Patrick Lencioni interview

Patrick Lencioni

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Patrick Lencioni is a consultant, bestselling author, and president of The Table Group, a consulting firm that specializes in executive team development and organizational health.

Lencioni’s books include Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars,  Death by Meeting, and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In this interview, Lencioni offers us advice on an issue all consultants face: how to form and develop productive teams.

Read the interview with Patrick Lencioni.

Dan Pink

Dan Pink

What Motivates People?

Daniel Pink is the author of several bestsellers about the changing world of work, including Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind. For his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Pink looked at forty years of research on human behavior and found a mismatch between what scientists know about motivation and what business people do.

We asked Pink about the best and worst ways to motivate people for today’s challenges.

Read the interview with Daniel Pink.

Filed Under: Consulting Skills, Managing Your Business, Project Leadership and Management Tagged With: , ,

10 LinkedIn Strategies for Independent Professionals

April 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
How to use LinkedIn

Michael Zipursky

This guest post is by Michael Zipursky, founder of FreshGigs.ca, Canada’s leading jobsite for qualified marketing, communications, and creative professionals. He is also the author of 5 books on consulting and customer loyalty. His work has been featured in FOX Business, the Financial Times, HR Executive, and other media.

 

With more than 150 million members in 200+ countries, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. But there is more to LinkedIn than slapping up a profile and calling it a day. Here are 10 strategies that will help businesses and professionals make the most of this network.

Profile

This is where it all begins and for many, unfortunately, also where it ends. If your profile is not complete, you may as well not bother having an account on LinkedIn. A professional profile should be up to date, include your work experience, education, and any external websites, such as blogs or social profiles, you have. LinkedIn makes it easy to link your Twitter account as well. Adding your photo to your profile is crucial and not done by enough people.

Skills

A newer feature on LinkedIn is skills. Here you can select from a wide-range of skills such as strategic marketing, lead generation, consulting, and so on, that get associated and added to your profile. When users to go the Skills section in LinkedIn and do a search for a skill that you’ve associated with your profile there’s a chance that your profile will be displayed in the search results.

consultant marketing

Answers

One technique Gary Vaynerchuk used to grow his family wine business to millions in sales was by going into forums and answering questions people had about wine. LinkedIn Answers allows you the same power. Here you can review questions by other members and provide answers. You don’t get paid, instead your answer can be picked as a ‘Best Answer’. When that happens your profile will include a note that you’re considered an expert in the category you provided that answer in. In addition, providing answers helps to establish your authority and credibility in the field.

how to improve your consultant marketing

Groups

LinkedIn has a variety of groups you can join. This allows you a more targeted way to connect with like-minded professionals and engage in discussions relevant to the group’s topic. More powerful however is creating a group which gives your profile prominent positioning and helps to establish your authority once again. The more active you are in Groups the more you’ll get out of them. Being involved in Groups has led to new job opportunities, speaking, and project engagements for many professionals.

use linkedin to improve consultant marketing

Events

Have a seminar, workshop or other event coming up? There is no cost to adding your event to the Events section and can provide additional exposure and awareness. You can also then promote your event through your profile and share it with all your connections.

use linkedin to improve your consultant marketing

Polls

The LinkedIn Polls section gives you the power to create polls on pretty much any topic. This is a great way to collect feedback and data on an issue. As the creator of the Poll it exposes your profile to more people. It’s all about being involved in your scene.

using linkedin polls to improve your business consulting practice

Recommendations

You’re good at what you do? That’s great. I don’t want to just hear it from you, however–I want to hear it from one of your past clients or colleagues. Recommendations provide social proof and credibility. LinkedIn makes getting recommendations easy. You can simply send a request message to any of your connections. They fill in a simple form and you get to review what they’ve written and decide whether you want to publish it or not. The more recommendations you have the more you will be viewed as an authority in your space.

Connections

LinkedIn doesn’t make it easy to connect with people you don’t know. There are creative ways around this. Say you want to connect with Sally but aren’t connected to her currently. You could look to see if you have any mutual connections and ask for an introduction. You could join a group that Sally is part of and then LinkedIn will provide you with the option to send a connection invitation. Just be sure you don’t do anything against the LinkedIn terms of use.

Ultimately, when it comes to growing your sphere of influence and connections, sending a personal message when you try to connect with someone is key. Don’t just use the template text LinkedIn provides. It’s not only unprofessional but shows that you don’t even value the relationship enough to spend a few seconds personalizing the message. When you do personalize a message you’ll be amazed at who you can reach and connect with successfully.

Targeted Advertising

LinkedIn Ads, like Facebook Ads, provide a high level of targeting options. You can create ads to reach people in specific cities, groups, have ‘CEO’ in their title, are 50+ and the list goes on. The challenge with this ad program is the cost. At $2 CPC and $10/day minimums you want to be sure that the numbers on your campaign make sense and can provide a positive ROI. For certain industries and products and services with a high enough price point, LinkedIn Ads can be a viable and profitable platform.

how to use linkedin ad for your business

 

Updates & Management

You don’t need to log in to LinkedIn to keep your profile looking fresh. By connecting it with Twitter or other social media platforms like Hootsuite or Seesmic, you can post links and other updates to multiple accounts all from one dashboard. The main thing to remember with LinkedIn as with other social media platforms and networks, the more you use it, the more consistent you are, the more you’ll get out of it.


Editor’s Note:

how to use linkedin to build your consulting practice If you want to learn more about using LinkedIn to build your business, take a look at Lewis Howe’s course called LinkedInfluence, which offers detailed strategies for improving your LinkedIn presence and your ability to create effective networks with prospective clients and colleagues.

Filed Under: Marketing Your Business, Selling Your Services Tagged With: , ,

Need Graphic Design Help? Consider 99designs

April 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

99esigns graphic design outsourcingAs you start or grow your business, you almost always need some help with graphic design. If you don’t already have a favorite graphic designer, consider trying 99designs–a low-cost, crowd-sourced graphic design marketplace.

The concept of the service is simple: You write a project “brief” and then submit your fixed-price contest for bids on the 99designs web site. Designers create prototypes for your design, which you critique and refine. Within a short period of time (often a week), you narrow your choice of designers to the finalists. You work with those finalists until you have the design you want, and then you choose a winner.

I’ve used this service a couple of times for basic design projects that I needed done quickly, and I learned a few things that might help you.

First, be ready to spend time on the process–or assign someone else who will stay on top of it. For my small projects, dozens of designers submitted hundreds of designs. It was a bit overwhelming, but not unmanageable.

At regular intervals during your contest, you need to sift through the designs and offer specific feedback to designers. 99designs makes the process easy, but you have to be an active participant or designers will be in the dark about what you want.

Second, be decisive. You’re likely to see lots of designs; narrowing the field quickly makes your eventual selection easier. Plus, it’s not fair to ask designers (who are working on spec) to continue creating designs you’re probably not going to use.

Finally, while you don’t have to “guarantee” your contest, that is, promise to award the work, I suggest that you do. You’ll attract higher quality designers if they don’t have to worry about you bailing out partway through the contest and taking the refund 99designs offers.

99designs is great for simple, quick graphic design work. But it’s not the best choice for complex projects, such as conceiving an overall visual identity for your business. For that, seek out a professional marketing and design consultant.

This service can be as effective as you’re willing to make it. If you engage in the contest, are clear about your objectives and guide the designers, you’ll get the outcome you need.

Filed Under: Managing Your Business, Personal Productivity Tagged With:

Michael Katz: Pricing Your Services

April 1, 2012 By 1 Comment
Michael J. Katz

Michael J. Katz

You can offer great services, be an amazing marketer, and know everything you need to sell your services. But if you don’t get your price right, you can find yourself working harder and longer than you planned.

In this podcast, I talk with Michael Katz, founder of Blue Penguin Development, about pricing for professional service providers.

We talk about how you should price your services, the role of measurable value in your proposed price, and the part of the pricing process that most service providers should try to change now.

Also, if you want to read more articles by Michael Katz, check these below:

Stop Trying to Sell

Can Your Business Come Out and Play

Four Must-Haves of an Effective E-Newsletter

Podcast run time: 16:08
Intro music exluna by Jakub Koter.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Filed Under: Managing Your Business, Selling Your Services Tagged With: ,

The Trade-Offs in Consulting

March 31, 2012 By 3 Comments

management consulting newsI hear from many of you about jumping into consulting, either by joining a firm or starting a business.

The good news is that this is a great time to be in the consulting business. In the US, for example, forecasters predict that Business and Professional Services will be the second fastest growing industry in the next ten years.

But consulting is not right for everyone. Over time, I’ve asked countless consultants what they like most (and least) about being in this business. Their answers always involve a discussion of trade-offs.

If you’re considering a career in consulting, here are some of the trade-offs people talk about:

  • Within a few months, you know every consulting joke by heart. In spite of all the wisecracks about the profession, your clients trust you to help solve their most complex problems.
  • You live with uncertainty, never completely sure of your next project. That next project always materializes, though, and it’s often more interesting than you could have imagined.
  • Clients tell you that your price is too high more often than you think is reasonable. Even so, you still win your fair share of profitable work at the fees you want.
  • You often travel to locations that you’d never visit if it wasn’t for client work, but you quickly learn how to appreciate things about new places.
  • You always wish that you had one more week to wrap up your project. As a result, you become a highly-skilled project manager who knows how to hit any deadline.
  • Clients rarely return your calls as quickly as you’d like. When they do call, though, they’re ready to engage with you.
  • You have to make personal sacrifices, including traveling at inconvenient times, missing family events, and working long hours. On the other hand, you enjoy a degree of independence in your work that most people never experience.
  • Your projects get tangled up in clients’ political drama, leaving outcomes in doubt. But, eventually, you watch your clients’ businesses and people change for the better as a result of your work.
  • You die inside when one person’s poor word choice in a meeting sets your client relationship back to square one. But, in the long-run, you develop lifelong business and personal relationships with your clients and colleagues.

Those are the trade-offs consultants mention to me most often. What would you add to the list?

Filed Under: Renewal and Reinvention Tagged With: ,

Building Your Email Subscriber List

March 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

email list buildingYou’ve probably heard claims that, as a marketing tool, email is dying a slow death like so many other 20th century inventions. I think the reports on the demise of email marketing are “greatly exaggerated,” and I’m not alone.

A study by the Direct Marketers Association, for example, says that email marketing has an average return on investment of more than $43 for every dollar spent. And that return is increasing. Now is a great time to redouble your efforts to grow your email subscriber list.

Read the rest of the article in The Guerrilla Consultant.

Filed Under: Marketing Your Business Tagged With: ,

Create and Deliver Your Best Speech Ever

March 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Few skills are more important to your success than being a great communicator, both in writing and as a speaker.

In this series, you’ll find the best advice from the top speech coaches in the world to help you design and deliver amazing presentations.

You can start at the first interview and move through the list. Or you can pick and choose the interviews you’d like to read.

Taken together, the ideas in these interviews offer new ways to think about your next presentation.

I’d like to hear your feedback, so leave a comment with your thoughts.

Jerry Weissman

Jerry Weissman

Jerry Weissman: Telling Your Story

“In preparing any presentation, you need to think about what the audience knows, doesn’t know, needs to know, feels, thinks, and believes about your subject. In shaping your message, you have to keep the audience’s needs in mind as much as your own.”

Read the Interview with Jerry Weissman

Cliff Atkinson

Cliff Atkinson

Cliff Atkinson: Beyond Bullet Points

“We can learn a lot from storytellers by adapting their process and blending it with classical ideas of persuasion and reasoning to produce a contemporary, human-mediated experience.”

Read the Interview with Cliff Atkinson

Bert Decker

Bert Decker

Bert Decker: Communication That Motivates

“When it comes to content, too many people do the exact opposite of what they should: they write their speeches. You should never read a speech, so why write one in the first place? That’s just not the best way to communicate and connect with people. Instead, we should use the best innate ability of our minds, which is to be spontaneous.”

Read the Interview with Bert Decker

Nick Morgan Interview

Nick Morgan

Nick Morgan: Trust Me

“Every communication is two simultaneous conversations—the verbal and the nonverbal. In terms of presence, emotional impact, believability, and creating connections between people, the nonverbal conversation is far more important to us than the verbal one.”

Read the Interview with Nick Morgan

Nick Morgan: 7 Steps to a Great Speech:  Listen to the Podcast with Nick Morgan

Gene Zelazny

Gene Zelazny

Gene Zelazny: Make Your Presentations Compelling

“ KISS, KISS, KISS. I take pride in making this my primary responsibility—to simplify. It’s easy to leave things complicated. The challenge is to simplify.”

Read the Interview with Gene Zelazny

Roger Courville

Roger Courville

Roger Courville: How to Deliver a Great Webinar

“People don’t usually need more data; they need story, and meaning, and application.”

Listen to the Podcast with Roger Courville

 

Dan Roam

Dan Roam

Dan Roam: The Antidote to Blah, Blah, Blah

“We have become so enamoured of our ability to talk that we often delude ourselves into thinking that, if we can talk about an idea, we understand it well.”

Listen to the Podcast with Dan Roam

 

Filed Under: Presentation and Communication Skills Tagged With: , ,

The Futility of Flame Wars

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I recently witnessed a cringe-worthy flame war between two consultants on a blog. You’ve probably seen your share too.

Most flame wars start with a spark: someone leaves a critical comment on a blog or in some other forum, which provokes a response from the author. Then the criticizer adds fuel to the fire with another comment, more strident than the first.

Before long, the author and critic abandon the original disagreement and start sniping at each other. Finally, the exchange deteriorates until the combatants are disparaging each other’s expertise, credibility, or position in the industry.

Here’s my question for the flame throwers: Why do you do it?

Maybe you think a flame war will attract people to your site. But most will come just to watch a fight or pile on–not the readers you really want.

Debate is fine, but you’re not going to resolve a disagreement with a flame war. Once it starts, no one is listening or responding to anything other than the personal flaming. Any legitimate issue goes up in smoke.

Besides, such exchanges make you look petty and petulant to readers and prospective clients. You won’t endear yourself to many clients by insulting your colleagues.

If you’re tempted to start or jump into a flame war, consider this: you’re not as right and the other person isn’t as wrong as either of you think.

And no one wins a flame war–there are only losers.

Filed Under: Managing Your Business Tagged With: ,

Help–I’m Stuck with a Lousy Project Manager!

March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Lousy project managerYou probably have a horror story or two about working with an awful project manager. I knew one such manager who routinely escorted members of his project team to the restroom so he could launch into a red-faced tirade about something that didn’t suit him.

Lousy project managers take many forms. Some micro-manage their teams; others don’t manage them at all. You’ve got egomaniacs, uncommunicative types, and just plain incompetent project managers.

What do you do if you’re stuck with a lousy project manager?

First, even when it seems like things will never get better, try to keep some perspective. Projects end, and at some point, you’ll be free of the person.

In the meantime, you need to take measures to spare your sanity and ensure that your clueless manager doesn’t torpedo the project. I’ve seen managers make decisions that tank the profit of a project, then blame the disaster on the team.

Two other things to remember when dealing with lousy managers: 90% of them think they’re doing everything right; and, most aren’t tracking the important details of the project. Knowing those two things can help you keep the project on track, in spite of the project manager.

Some HR people will tell you that your first step is to hash out the leadership issues with your project manager. That advice looks good on paper, but it can be a fast track out the door if your manager is spiteful.

Instead, consult with your colleagues and mentors (in confidence) about the impact that the project manager is having on the client relationship. Maybe you can’t get the work done on time, or the client is confused about the direction of the project.

Focus on project issues and practical solutions in these discussions, not the performance shortcomings of the manager. If you do a good job framing the issues, people will figure out where the root of the problem lies.

Complaining about a project manager to one of your firm’s bigwigs may be appropriate in some situations. But it’s possible they will shrug off your opinion as a “heat of the moment” problem that will clear up once the project wraps.

If you talk about a threat to the client relationship instead, people’s ears perk up instantly. So focus on the client and the project issues, and suggest solutions to the specific problems you’re facing.

You’ve also got to work directly with the manager to keep the project on track. Be proactive about problems, and be ready with workable solutions, including the reasons for choosing each one. Use your thorough understanding of the client’s business and the project to steer the conversation to a productive place.

If you can show your manager that you grasp the essential issues, you might find that the manager allows you more autonomy in the day-to-day project management activities.

Still, it’s possible that none of these options will help. If so, it’s time to figure out how you’ll finish the project, stay sane, and avoid working with that manager in the future.

Filed Under: Consulting Skills, Project Leadership and Management
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