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I thought you'd like to be the first to know...

After 9 months in production, 3 years in writing, and 25 years in discovery, Predictable Success - the book has finally arrived (with me, anyway).

Yes...it's finally here - the hardcover version of "Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track - and Keeping It There" finally arrived with me today. I was overcome enough to record another sappy little video of me unboxing it:



(If you don't see the video embedded above, click here to view it: http://vimeo.com/10584303)

The hardcover will appear on the shelves on June 1. In the meantime, you can buy the eBook version right now, download it immediately, and we'll ship you the hardcover in June absolutely free of charge! Details here:

http://PredictableSuccess.com/order/

How to run highly important meetings

Most managers (and many leaders) spend far too much time and effort trying to plan important meetings.

I don't mean the set-in-stone regular weekly, monthly or quarterly meetings that are part of the 'operations' function - I mean those one-off meetings / retreats / off-sites that are part of the planning process, and are usually put together to address a major strategic issue (a new product offering, an acquisition, a down-sizing).

Detailed agendas are circulated, revised, withdrawn, redrawn, recirculated. Briefing books or decks are prepared, critiqued, rehearsed, redesigned, distributed, withdrawn, revised again and redistributed. Finally, everyone arrives in a suitably appointed room replete with refreshments, and proceeds to either completely ignore the agenda and briefing books so expensively provided, or, on the other hand, follow them so slavishly the meeting becomes an exercise in dry futility.

That's why the outputs from most important meetings suck.

The answer? Simple:

-1-
The more important the topic under consideration, the more important it is to have background information available - but that's where it should be - in the background, ready to inform the discussion, not guiding it.

-2-
The more important the topic under discussion, the less important (and the more disruptive) a fixed agenda becomes. Instead of using an agenda, here's how to set the framework for a highly important strategic meeting:

* At the front, two flip charts and someone who is reasonably competent at facilitation.
* The facilitator asks the question: "What are the most important questions we need to ask and answer about this subject?"
* Go.

Michael Port on the art (and errors) in building a successful business

If I was launching or building a business anew, the person I would turn to for advice is Michael Port.

Founder of Booked Solid University, best-selling author of 4 books including 'Book Yourself Solid' and 'The Think Big Manifesto', Michael is the pre-eminent advisor to small and growing businesses who wish to...well, book themselves solid. Michael's advice to new and growing business owners is fresh, wise and very, very actionable - I just wish he'd been around when I was launching my own businesses in the nineteen-mummbly's.

Now you can get 30 minutes of Michael's best - and at times intimate - advice on growing a predictably successful business in the latest of the Predictable Success Interview series.

Listen to my discussion with Michael on how best to quickly grow a successful business (or download the interview to listen later) here:

http://predictablesuccess.com/interviews/michael-port

Win a copy of Michaels's book 'Book Yourself Solid'.

Want to leverage some of Michael's success principles to grow your own business? I strongly believe in Michael's work and his message, so I've decided to give away a copy of his great book "Book Yourself Solid". In order to win, simply take a moment to submit a comment, question or observation (below) about my interview with Howard and you'll be entered in a drawing for a free copy of "Book Yourself Solid"

You can submit your comment, observation or questions here:

http://predictablesuccess.com/interviews/michael-port#comment

Help me with my speaker reel...

With the help of the fine folks from Result Source Inc, I've been putting together a new speaker reel. (A 'speaker's reel' is a short - usually 7 to 8-minute - clip of selected highlights of a speaker in action which is distributed to speaker's bureaus, used on the speaker's web site, and generally made available to anyone who might be interested in hiring the speaker.)

The clip below is a rough cut (it's missing graphics and some background footage at the end), and I would really appreciate your feedback on it before we start into the final version. (As always with anything like this, I'm personally much too close to the trees to be even vaguely objective).

So tell me what you think, and please - be ruthlessly constructive: too long, too boring, confusing? Good? Bad? Indifferent? I really need and appreciate your thoughts - just use the comment box below the video. And please - it would help me enormously if you can be as specific as possible with any suggestions for improvement.

Comments:

Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks reveals the secrets of his (and Starbucks) Predictable Success

Today we launch the Predictable Success Podcast and Interview series with a fascinating, revealing and inspiring discussion with Howard Behar. Best known as the former president of Starbucks Coffee Company International, Howard is also the author of 'It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks'.

In this highly engaging and detailed interview, Howard shares the secrets of his leadership style, how he developed it, and how he used it to grow Starbucks from just a handful of outlets to over 6,000 stores worldwide.

You can listen to my discussion with Howard (or download the interview to listen later) here:

http://predictablesuccess.com/interviews/howard-behar

Win a copy of Howard's book 'It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks'.

Want to leverage some of Howard's success principles to grow your own business? I strongly believe in Howard's work and his message, so I've decided to give away a copy of Howard's book. In order to win, simply take a moment to submit a comment, question or observation (below) about my interview with Howard and you'll be entered in a drawing for a free copy of It's Not About The Coffee"

You can submit your comment, observation or questions here:

http://predictablesuccess.com/interviews/howard-behar#comment

Why Good Employees Derail

Here are the top five reasons good employees 'go south', how to spot them, and what to do about it.

Essentially all of these boil down to poor manager-employee relationships, as the line manager is the person ultimately responsible for managing top employees

Here are the top five reasons good employees 'go south', how to spot them, and what to do about it. Note that all of these boil down to poor manager-employee relationships, as the line manager is the person ultimately responsible for managing top employees:

1. Inconsistent / frequently changing priorities.

Why It's a Problem:
Nothing irritates a top performer more than 'ditch to ditch' or fad-based management.
How to Spot It:
Employees 'hunkering down' every time a new 'initiative' is introduced. Glazing over at 'strategy' meetings.
What to Do About It:
Set a short- medium- and long-term strategy and stick to them for a reasonable period without being distracted by the newest new thing. See John McCain's campaign strategy for examples of how *not* to do this.

2. Condoning mediocrity.

Why It's a Problem:
The #1 reason high performers leave organizations in which they are otherwise happy is because of the tolerance of mediocrity.
How to Spot It:
Disdain and distance between top performers and others who are not pulling their weight. Dissatisfaction with rewards (compensation, bonuses, awards, etc) given to others.
What to Do About It:
Set high goals for the entire organization, and build in both rewards (for success) and consequences (for failure). Apply both consistently and fairly.

3. Round peg / square hole syndrome.

Why It's a Problem:
High performers like to do what they're good at - not used as a a stop gap in some other way. They view themselves as Ferraris, and get frustrated if they think they are being used as a golf cart.
How to Spot It:
Disengagement from their allocated tasks and responsibilities. Lack of follow-up and accountability. General mopiness.
What to Do About It:
Review (with them) what you want this person to do. Freshen up job descriptions and re-orientate top performers to tasks that only they can do.

4. Underutilization.

Why It's a Problem:
Same as above - when you're a Ferrari (or think you are) you don't want to spend your time idling at the curb.
How to Spot It:
Freelancing in areas that aren't their responsibility. Getting under everyone's feet. Going rogue.
What to Do About It:
Have the employee produce a list of what they could/should be doing to occupy free time. Review and agree on utilization. Look at your own delegation skills - if you have an underutilized top performer, it's a sure sign you're a micro-manager who has problems delegating.

5. Playing favorites.

Why It's a Problem:
Top performers not only believe in a meritocracy - it's their air and water. Start playing favorites and bypassing people despite their results, and your top performers will be out of there before you can say 'Holy second cousin'.
How to Spot It:
Your sister Sarah's son Jimmy seems much happier than your best sales person.
What to Do About It:
If you need to be told, you shouldn't be managing people.

Why March is the Most Dangerous Month (and a checklist to fix it)

As an Irishman (a real one - I was born and lived there for 40 years), I know that March is supposed to be a lucky time - you know, Paddy's day, 4-leaf clovers, all that stuff.

The reality is that March is the most dangerous month for most organizations, divisions, departments and teams: What you do in the next 30 days will most likely determine your success for all of the rest of the year.

Look at this chart to see why:

You have three types of activity going on right now:

1. - The stuff that's taken off and is succeeding (green line)
   
2. - The stuff that's 'just ok' (orange line)
   
3. - The stuff that's going nowhere (red line)

By about now (end of Q1, the dotted blue vertical line), these three types of activity will have made themselves known to you - you should be able to distinguish between them - whether they are revenue targets, hiring goals, fund-raising activities, customer service initiatives, leadership development or installing a knowledge management system, you know at this point which activities have got traction, and which haven't.

The end of the first quarter is a key leverage point for your resources:
See that leveling off of the successful activities (the green line)? That's the result of you spending the rest of the year trying to improve or resuscitate the other (mediocre and/or dying) activities.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Maximize successful activities:

In a typical year, the next three months (or your quarter 2, if you're not working a calendar year) is spent in semi-denial, watching the data, cajoling everyone to try harder, and hoping things will come better in the second half.

As with individual performance appraisals, far too much time is spent analyzing and post-morteming failure, rather than dissecting and repeating success.

You need to ruthlessly analyze your currently successful activities and work out how to maximize them, by (a) making them even more successful, and (b) doing more of the same elsewhere.

2. Cut those activities with no traction:

Get out of denial and just stop those activities that are yielding no return. You have limited resources (you do have limited resources, don't you?), and you need to focus those resources on where you will get a return.

Yes, I know there are very good reasons for continuing to try to 'push through' with these near-dead initiatives (particularly if they were your idea in the first place, or are 'favored sons'), and you're probably rehearsing those reasons in your head right now. Your call...

3. Set clear short-term goals for 'blah' activities:

These are often the hardest activities / initiatives to call - those which haven't really taken off yet, but there is some return, albeit miserly.

With these activities you're probably getting what I call 'the velvet deferral' by now - a regular assurance from the key player(s) that 'all the signs are there' that they will break through shortly - whether it's a salesperson (or team) with few sales but a big list of 'nearly there's', or a project team hopelessly behind schedule but 'on the verge of a breakthrough'.

With these 'orange line' activities, you need to set very clear, non-negotiable short-term goals. The key thing is to stop the resource distraction earlier rather than later. Reframe the sales targets, or the project schedule (or whatever the original objective is) for the next 3 months, and make it clear that if they are not attained, you'll pull the plug and redirect their resources elsewhere.

Business Incubators Don't Need To Fail

Sramana Mitra has another interesting discussion on entrepreneurship going on in her often excellent blog - but it starts from an unsupportable precept. Sramana asks: "Why do business incubators fail"

I co-founded and ran a successful incubation company for many years. We started in west Belfast (Northern Ireland), and by all external measurements we were set up to fail - extremely high local unemployment, an unskilled workforce and next to no sources of capital, all in the context of what was in effect a war zone.

Five years later the program was an outstanding success, had won the European Union Job Challenge Award and we were replicating it throughout the UK and beyond.

I believe there were three main success factors:

1. The program was conceived and delivered by hardened entrepreneurs who were compensated for success;

2. The local government agencies pump-primed initial start-up costs then got out of the way, and

3. We made the first few cohorts exceptionally competitive to get into, carefully selected only high potential participants, and delivered early, headline-grabbing successes - this drove the program virally and produced a great pipeline of motivated applicants for future cohorts, as well as enthusiastic partners and sponsors who wanted to become associated with the program for their own PR purposes.

Short version: business incubators don't have to fail.