The IPO craze and bonanza is finally upon us. The dam has broke and the IPO water is finally flowing. The most valued and prized private companies are going public. We’ve seen S1s from Lyft, Pinterest, and Zoom. There is a high likelihood we will see more. These could include Uber, Slack, Airbnb, and many others.
There are benefits to this (but not to the soaring prices of real estate in San Francisco):
1) We will figure out the true valuations of these tech companies. You need an event like this to make it happen.
2) Money from this liquidity event will cycle back into the market creating a whole host of new ventures. Innovation and creativity are back. That’s exciting.
3) Excitement and new-born confidence in the startup market will bring additional funding.
4) Acquisition market will heat up as these newly public companies will make their own investments.
5) Individuals in these organizations will purchase things injecting money into the overall economy.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen the IPO market heat up. I’m glad it’s back.
Many business leaders, managers, and owners want to come up with business breakthroughs that will propel them to new career heights and/or help them their business. I want to discuss today how the greatest people of our time use creativity to create more breakthroughs.
The secret of creativity is that it is combinatorial – made up of a combination of things. Nothing is entirely original. Everything builds on what came before.
We create by taking existing pieces of inspiration, knowledge, skill, and insight that we gather over the course of our lives and recombining them into incredible new creations.
Let me explain with this story about Picasso.
Picasso is sitting in the park working on several paintings. A woman walks by, recognizes him, and begs with him to draw her portrait. He’s in a good mood, so he agrees. A few minutes later, he gives her a portrait. The lady is elated, she cries out about how this masterpiece captures the very essence of her soul and character. She is enamored with its beauty. She asks how much she owes him, “$5,000.” said Picasso. The woman is taken aback, shocked, upset and asks how that’s even possible given it only took him 5 minutes. Picasso looks up and, without missing a beat, says: “No, madam, it took me my whole life.”
“The idea that in order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces to build” new solutions, processes and more.
Think about it like legos. “The more of these building blocks we have, and the more diverse their shapes and colors, the more interesting our castles will become. Because if we only have one color and one shape, it greatly limits how much we can create, even within our one area of expertise.”
Your success, failures, fulfillment and more is based on what you do every day and the diversity of your experiences (people, education, ideas, etc.). It’s not a linear process like school. It’s piecing together a lifetime of concepts, ideas, experiences, beliefs, values, and relationships and creating something new. h
Truth & beliefs are two separate things. Leaders & managers OFTEN get them mixed up and it’s crushes their career because they argue them because they need to be right (or they are closed off from other possibilities). Here is why your beliefs aren’t truth (and goes to epidemic level of poor self awareness).
Truth is 1+1=2. That’s a fact. Belief is true to you, but a belief isn’t necessarily true to me. It’s an opinion (& emotional not logical) even though is may feel or seem to be the truth (such as a particular strategy, process or way of thinking).
If you and I are sitting at a table eating dinner we can both point to the table and say, “Yeah, that’s a table.” How do I know that? Because you’re experiencing it and I’m experiencing it. That’s the truth. We look up at the sky that’s the truth. But you telling me that best TV show is Game of Thrones, that’s not true. That’s just your belief.
I challenge people constantly on what’s true and what’s not true. And then are you willing to give up your old beliefs and accept new ones.
If not, you’ll get stuck (& limit your growth), alienate people, underperform, and find yourself in some very difficult situations that you could have avoided.
“I loved your session in Tubac (at the Sales Leadership Summit), and have been exploring the files on the Google drive (and the Cards Against Mundanity game). Can’t wait to try it out with my team!
Based on your talk and suggestions, I came up with an idea I tried out. I led two sessions last week where reps shared their first concert with an associated memory, and we are now building a playlist of the hits. It is a great team building activity!”
“I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on the show. We actually used your card game in one of our professional development sessions with teachers a few months back and it went really well. Your episode has been doing really well. I have gotten rave reviews from my audience with many feeling as if they received great coaching during your episode.”
Dominic Lawson
Host of The Startup Life Podcast & Owner of Owls (an education consulting firm that tailors professional learning and instructional content to help school and district leaders improve the way teachers and students learn, interact and perform.)
“Trust is the one thing that changes everything.” – Stephen M.R. Covey
All the greatest teams have one thing in common – extremely high-levels of trust, caring and connection that brings out the absolute best in each person and enables the team to acccomplish seemingly impossible feats together.
Why? Trust is THE essential ingredient, lubricant, glue that makes it all work. Without it, you don’t have high performance.
Do you know the level of trust in your company and/or team you are leading (or on)? I bet the answer is no. If the answer is yes, hats off to you. You are in a very select and small category. For the rest, not knowing is costing you $$$.
Ignorance is not bliss! So here’s a quick process to help you measure and assess where you are at. Awareness is the first step.
Here’s a two-question (anonymous) survey to assess & improve trust in an organization or team (which correlates to your level of performance):
1) How would you rate the level of trust in our organization on a scale of 1 to 10? (1=watching your back to 10=feel very safe sharing, asking for help, making suggestions, etc.)
2) What would need to change to raise your rating to a 10 or closer to it? (Meaning what positive actions would you need to see and what negative actions would need to stop).
You could also do this with your customers, board of directors, vendors and other stakeholders.
It will reveal quite a bit. In most instances, you’ll find your organization has work it needs to do. A very small percentage of organizations will score 9 or 10.
You’ll need to make trust building a company/organizational priority.
Fantastic to speak in Raleigh at AA-ISP with the amazing inside sales on how to build the highest performing teams & employee engagement.
We had fun playing my trust- and team-building game, Cards Against Mundanity. People were vulnerable and shared intimate stories on their struggles, successes, lessons learned and biggest fears. It was fantastic to watch.
Vulnerable self-disclosure is THE secret to skyrocketing trust. Nothing else works like it. It’s the #1 ingredient to building the top 1% teams.
1,000 trust falls or LEGO games don’t equal the power of a conversation. Here is why: Think about it: Until you tell someone, “I love you,” they never really know you actually do. It’s saying the words that solidifies it. It’s that vulnerable self-disclosure that creates the bond with another person or group of people.
Does the closest person in your life know how’d you answer the following questions? Do you know the answer to these questions about them? What about the people you work with the closest in business?
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the past year?
Who is your personal hero and why?
Whats your biggest setback, what did you learn from it and how to did you move past?
What’s your biggest regret and why?
Whats your greatest achievement and why did you pick it?
What three things are on your bucket list?
What’s your biggest fear? Why?
99.9% of the people reading don’t have a single person who would know the answers to all 7. Practically no one could say that professionally. That’s huge. Because people don’t know the real you and who you are.
How can you build the highest performing team in business if they don’t? How can you perform at your peak level of you don’t know that information about the people around you?
You can’t and the data/research support that. Underperformance is the norm. But you have the power to change that in minutes.
Vulnerable self-disclosure and sharing is a game changer in business. It’s hardly used and it’s what separates the best from the rest.
While going through my LinkedIn, phone book, text messages and other social channels I realized…I really have built up an AMAZING network! It’s fantastic to see all of the valuable professional & personal connections I’ve made. I’m fortunate to have done so. Can you say the same? If the answer is no, you may want to consider taking action. You never know, you could be one connection and/or “click” away from meeting a person who can change your business, career, and life.
You are one interaction away from getting everything you want. You just don’t know which interaction it will be. It’s time to invest for the long-term)
After speaking with more than 50,000 people on relationship building and business networking (and writing a best selling book, Social Wealth), here are things to keep in mind :
The best relationship builders and “networkers” are ones that are amphibious – they understand how to build successful relationships both online and offline.
They understand how to connect online and move offline to meet “in-person.”
They have a process to build high levels of trust and rapport in minutes by using vulnerable self-disclosures to allow the other person to share things they would only discuss with people in their inner circle.
They understand how to give with boundaries, while being unattached to outcomes. They also know what to ask for and how.
They know influencers and well-known individuals greatest fears and hot-buttons and how to navigate around them.
And that’s just the start…
BOTTOM LINE: There’s no time like NOW to reach out and contact that person you always wanted to speak to, meet in person, mentor you, partner with you, etc.
Don’t be afraid. What’s the worst that could happen? They may ignore you? They don’t respond?
What if they do? What would be possible if one of the 50 people you reached out wanted to engage with you?
It’s a numbers game (so don’t expect every person to respond). Plus, timing is everything.
Get started today!!! Remember, you are only one interaction away from getting everything you always wanted, you just don’t know which interaction that may be!!!
Manager’s emotional state and attitude has a MAJOR impact on a company’s bottom line. Research shows when a manager is negative (or even slightly negative) in their attitude/comments, companies are 7x more likely to have highly disengaged employees. That lowers performance & key metrics.
How many of your managers are negative or create an atmosphere where people are hesitant to speak up? How many are positive, caring, supportive with accountability?
Surveys don’t tell the full story. Have a strategic process and plan. Talk to employees with skip level meetings, observing team meetings, asking questions to determine a manager’s emotional state, prioritizing employee engagement, and much more. How many of these are you currently doing?
In this interactive #Raleigh Chapter meeting, attendees will learn how to “dial in” to the right behaviors to create a feeling of being connected to something bigger with every employee and team in your organization with Jason Treu! Learn more https://bit.ly/2UqM17x
Jason has presented to the Dallas, Austin, NY chapters and was the keynote speaker at the Inside Sales Leadership Retreat in February.
