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Keith Ferrazzi Endorses 'Predictable Success'

True confession: I've always had a problem in developing and maintaining new business relationships. Although I can network with the best of them if I have to, left to my own devices I develop hermit-like tendencies and reach out to others less than I should. As a human being that's problematic in general, but as a consultant, author and speaker it's both dumb and severely limiting.

In recent years I've been blessed with wonderful clients who have provided me with exciting, challenging consulting work of such intensity and scale that my perceived need to build new relationships fell into abeyance. As a result, it was quite a wake-up call for me during the process of writing and preparing to launch 'Predictable Success' to discover that I had to re-learn the importance of reaching out to others for help and support.

So when I fell upon Keith Ferrazzi's work - specifically his two books, 'Never Eat Alone' and 'Who's Got Your Back' - I was both excited and challenged to be pulled well outside my comfort zone and back into a realization that in business, relationships aren't just 'tools' to be used - they're the foundation for career fulfillment.

The principles that Keith espouses in his two books have been of great help in reminding me just what 'relationship-building' means specifically in my circumstances, and how to build business relationships in a way that I'm personally comfortable with.

I'm therefore wide-eyed with pride to share with you that Keith has this to say about "Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track - and Keeping It There":


Keith is an exceptional guy, and on December 26 he'll be in Guatemala helping orphans. If you're a fan of Keith's work (or mine), do yourself a Christmas favor and help Keith's work with a contribution.

Communicating with consistency, predictable regularity, and authenticity.

In a previous post I explained that to retain your top performers in 2010 you must re-establish a shared vision, provide a fresh challenge and use trust to rebuild a sense of 'fit'.

In order to do that communication with your workforce must be consistent, predictably regular and authentic. Here are three ways you can do that:

1. Regular Town Hall Meetings
Use employee-wide town-hall meetings to admit that things have been tough and take responsibility for senior management's failings during this time. Then instill a renewed sense of vision and inject purpose back into your workforce.

Now is not the time for management-speak or sound-bites. Get real with your workforce and address the issues they are facing, their fears and concerns. Then drive home the renewed vision of the organization along with the clear, implementable, measurable actions you are taking to see the fulfillment of that vision.

Schedule these meetings once a month, ensure your entire senior management team is present and, where possible, don't have any 'no-go areas'. And, no matter what happens, don't even think about canceling them! If you do then you can wave good-bye to any trust that has been rebuilt and any ounce of credibility you have left.

2. Meet with your key teams
Communicating with your key teams will serve two purposes. First it will allow them to reignite their vision and passion within your organization and, second, it will help that vision filter further down the organization.

Chances are many of your teams will have lost key members throughout the last few years. It's important to recognize that there may still be bitterness or fear residing within the culture of your teams.

Take each of your top teams for a one day off-site session. Highlight the strengths and recent successes of the team, acknowledging the difficulties they have been facing. Then begin to focus on those areas which will re-define the teams' role and importance within your organization. Allow this to come from within the team rather than pushing it down from the top.

Schedule quarterly follow-ups with your teams. Use these follow-ups to discuss how their new vision and focus can filter down to their employees.

3. Meet one-on-one with your top performers
These will be the toughest encounters of the three. Your top performers will have their BS detectors in full operation. So leave all pretenses at the door. They'll smell inauthenticity a mile away.

Ensure these sessions are wholly focused on the employee. Start with the question "Where do you want to go from here?" Encourage them to get all their frustrations out on the table. Acknowledge their frustrations and make sure you express sincere gratitude for the work they've done in the past and the loyalty they've shown you recently. Now is not the time to get defensive. It will only push them closer to the door.

Work with them to craft a new sense of purpose within your organization as well as a renewed personal vision. This may involve exploring both vertical and horizontal moves that will give them the chance to build trust with new people and re-establish 'fit' within your organization.

Meet with them often, once every couple of months at least, and ensure you both agree on an actionable plan for restoring their vision.

The Top 5 Business Books of 2009

Here are the five books of 2009 that - in my humble opinion - no business leader should miss:

By His Own Rules : The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld
(Bradley Graham)

Not exactly a business book (although Rumsfeld's time as a CEO is included), and not exactly a biography, "By His Own Rules" is an exceptionally detailed, occasionally leaden-footed, but ultimately revealing portrait of the difficulties inherent in managing highly complex organizations. If you work for or with large organizations and wonder how all that bureaucracy gets created - and how to combat it, you should read this book.

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System - and Themselves
(Andrew Ross Sorkin)

The definitive book on the meltdown is yet to be written, but this is the best 'you are there' tick-tock so far. Sorkin's laboriously detailed reconstruction of the endless meetings and negotiations during the Lehman / Merrill Lynch / AIG collapses will persuade you that even the masters of the masters of the universe can be unbelievably incompetent. The degree of moment-by-moment improvisation and post-rationalization is mind-boggling.

How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In
(Jim Collins)

I'm not always convinced by heavily data-driven, research-based business books - there are just too many ways to make data say what you want it to say - but Jim Collins' latest book is not only slimmer than his previous tomes, it also gells with my own subjective experiences and observations. You can read it on one (longish) plane ride - and I suggest you do.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World
(Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow)

Any book - any writing, in fact - by Ron Heifitz is a no-brainer for me. This book is an amplification (a 'field guide' as he puts it) of his concept of 'Adaptive Leadership', providing a host of real-world techniques for business leaders. If you haven't yet read his earlier work Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading, you might want to start there first.


Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good)
(Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey)

I continue to get more from "Immunity to Change" than any other book I've read this year. As a concept, the idea that some organizations are in essence 'immunized' against making positive changes in how they operate resonates entirely with my observations and experiences over the years. If you or your organization has struggled to make positive change stick, then this is a must-read.

...And one for 2010

My prediction for best business book of 2010? *Ahem*:

Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track - and Keeping It There
(Les McKeown)

I'm told by an inside source that it's pretty darn good.

David Allen Endorses Predictable Success

In 1998 I read an article in one of the early issues of 'Fast Company' that changed my entire approach to work. It was an interview with a 'personal-productivity guru' - who, I remember noting, also had a black belt in karate - called David Allen.

The article talked about using lists as a productivity tool. Nothing new in that. The game-changer was this simple, blinding flash of the obvious: Lists only work if they are 100% leakproof. Only if you completely trust the system that produces your 'to-do's' will you release the psychic energy consumed by keeping things in your head. If you don't trust your system, then the lists are worse than useless - you end up having lists and still wandering around trying to remember stuff.

In 2001 David Allen released his fully formed productivity methodology in book form with "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity". When I read it, I realized that he had developed the definitive framework for personal productivity. I read it every couple of years, follow its precepts, and I must have bought 15 copies over the years to give to clients and colleagues. (It's one of only two outside resources that we regularly recommend during Predictable Success training.)

"GTD" as its (many, many, many...many) avid followers refer to the methodology is now a global phenomena, and David Allen's company provides training and consulting to a blue-chip roster of world-class organizations in what he calls "winning at the game of work and the business of life". GTD also both ignited and informed my own pursuit of 'Predictable Success' - I have purchased, consumed, high-lighted and repurposed just about everything David Allen has produced over the years.

It is therefore incredibly humbling - and eye-wateringly exciting - to have received this testimonial from David for my own upcoming book, "Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track - and Keeping It There":


You can (and should) get David's books on his Amazon author page (David has his own Amazon page - how cool is that!?), and read more about David, his business, and how GTD can help you and your organization at his web site here. If you're not using some version of GTD to manage your own personal productivity, do yourself a favor, and get started now.

Comcast buys NBC: Now watch it unravel

Today's announcement that Comcast will buy NBC from GE for $30bn+ is bad news for both organizations.

Brian Roberts - Chairman and CEO of Comcast (as well as being the son of the founder, Ralph Roberts) - has long wanted to combine media content and distribution in a way that will dominate the entertainment industry. On his watch, Comcast has taken stakes in the E! Entertainment network, regional sports channels, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Philadelphia Flyers and the MGM movie studio. He even took a $54bn shot at Disney in 2004 - which nobody liked, not even his own shareholders.

All of this is classic son-of-the-founder stuff - many business scions have a burning desire to demonstrate that they are more entrepreneurial than their founder-parent - but isn't the core of the problem facing Comcast and NBC.

The core problem is that NBC has been so messed around over the last 15 years that it has little or no sustainable culture of its own - despite the protestations of top execs., it would likely collapse from the inside out if it was left to manage itself. One good thing that GE has done for NBC (amongst many bad things) is to have at least held it to a strict financial accountability (part of GE's legacy from spending so long in Predictable Success).

As an organization in self-inflicted and prolonged Whitewater, Comcast is not in a position to do this. Nor can it 'anonymize' NBC post-acquisition (like Microsoft or AT&T would do) by swallowing it up and folding it into the parent company as a rebranded Comcast division.

Consequently, my best estimate of the aftermath of this acquisition is a sequence that goes something like this:

(1) Jeff Zucker, the CEO of NBC who is staying on after the acquisition, will run up huge losses trying to revitalize the flailing NBC brand;

(2) After a year or two of this, he will be reined in by an irritated Comcast board (read: Roberts);

(3) NBC's culture and brand value will have eroded even further by then, to the point of near collapse;

(4) Comcast's investment will be showing a huge loss, and a forlorn separation (a la Time Warner / AOL) will play out over a number of years, leaving Comcast badly weakened and NBC close to irrelevancy.

Not that I wish any of this to happen - quite the opposite - but the reality is that a massive organization in Whitewater, which is what Comcast is, simply doesn't have the systems, processes and discipline to swallow such a huge acquisition effectively and efficiently. Watch this space.

General Motors: Whitacre must change the operating system, not the software

Today's announcement by General Motors that the current CEO, Fritz Henderson has resigned after just five months is no surprise.

The US auto industry has been in The Big Rut for quite some time, and one of the key indicators of any organization in that stage of decline is its inability to self-diagnose the problems it faces. Appointing someone as CEO who has been at General Motors his entire career is as blatant an example of a lack of self-awareness as is possible to exhibit.

In Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey's most recent, remarkable book "Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself" (which, despite it's title, is far from a perky self-help book - it's a phenomenal resource for organizational change), the authors - discussing leadership development - draw a distinction between getting better at what you do, and utterly transforming what you do. They use the metaphor of changing the entire operating system (transformation) instead of just adding more files and software (getting better at what you currently do).

Fritz Henderson was, I'm sure, capable of adding more files and software to GM's already horrendously bloated organizational hard drive. His entire career equipped him to do just that. Unfortunately, what's needed at GM is an entirely new operating system - a completely transformed way of doing business. For the sake of the US auto industry and all its dependents, let's hope GM's Chairman, Ed Whitacre, gets it.

Sadly, his former tenure (more than 40 years with SBC / AT&T) doesn't presage much of an appetite for wholesale transformation.

"Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself" - on Google Books - on Amazon - on 800CEOread