Everybody knows that happy people do good work.

It might be true but it’s misleading too. Happy people and good work are correlated but they aren’t cause and effect. In fact, research shows that it actually works the other way around, people who do good work are happy.

Any manager who believes that to get good work out of their staff means making them happy first is looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Managers should focus first on making their staff successful — helping them grow, appreciating their work, making them feel responsible — and they’ll be happy.

Not an end it itself

But neither happy staff or good work are ends in themselves.

The result of all this good work and happiness is better experiences for customers.

Happy people doing good work put more effort into creating better products and providing better service. It doesn’t take Sherlock to work out that customers love the results: products that sing, beautiful design, effortless functionality, smiling service, attention to detail, total presence, focus. You name the measure, anything positive scores more highly with a happy, successful, engaged, and motivated workforce.

Which is good, but still it isn’t the nub — happy customers aren’t an end in themselves either.

All the happiness that’s floating around is useless without the success and sustainability of the business itself.

Start the ball rolling

Leaders shouldn’t challenge themselves just to make customers and staff happy (I’m sure you can do both if you try. Every time). The real challenge is to do it whilst making more money than you spend — which, by the way, lights up owners with success and happiness too.

So here at last is the point: successful sustainable businesses are made with happy and successful customers benefiting from happy and successful staff.

How to start the ball rolling? Make your staff feel successful.

Of course you have to pick your moments, but in general the trick is to do whatever it takes. You might have to set the bar a little low in the beginning, give praise for even the smallest thing and highlight effort rather than results. Whatever it takes.

But when the ball is rolling, use its momentum to climb those hills.

Does it have to be the leader who comes up with new ideas?

It’s certainly part of the job.

Somewhere in every leader’s job description is something about formulating and managing strategy so it’s definitely in the mix, but must it be their job and their’s alone?

No matter how good a leader you are, there’s one cliché you can’t outrun: nobody is as smart as everybody. And nobody can have as many ideas as everybody can have together.

That’s just maths.

The equation? Great stuff is more likely when you have more people dreaming up great stuff.

So if you’re looking for a source of red hot ideas on how to improve service, cut costs, sell more, or any other kind of innovation … don’t just look in the mirror.

Go to the front line, ask a question, and get your pen out.

Most employees deal with more problems, complaints, issues and snafu’s in a day than you’ll hear about in a month. They’ve been struggling against the system for years and are chock full of ways to improve everything from the voice mail message to the value proposition.

If only you’d ask.

And that’s a BIG point.

A my-door-is-always-open policy never really works. People are too busy, too shy, or just don’t think their idea is important enough to cross the boundary – even if it’s as simple as sticking an envelope in a suggestion box.

Innovation isn’t a waiting game. It’s farming — sow the seed that ideas are important, provide a climate that encourages them to show their heads and grow towards the sun. Reward anyone who helps them on their way.

In other words, you have to ask for help and then show — through action and attention — that ideas are worth nurturing. That ideas have value.

The upside is plain to see. Highly engaged employees actively looking to innovate and serve customers better.

As a leader, you probably can’t stop yourself having ideas, but remember that you’re not alone.

Don’t wait. Seek out and encourage your colleagues, cultivate the ground and shower the best ideas with follow-through.

Boiled down to it’s essence, leadership is about looking at the lay of the land and making decisions. From which emails to answer to which investments to make, via hirings and firings and meeting agendas.

As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as the right decision, just a good one — most of which are equal parts analysis, advice, time pressure and honesty, all shaken together with a jigger of gut.

It’s that jigger of gut I’m interested in here.

How do you hone it and how can you help others do the same?

Decision Muscles

Decision making is a muscle. There’s no tissue involved but to get movement you have to contract it all the same. And more contractions make for stronger muscles.

But good decisions don’t come from muscle-bound hubris, they come from careful practice in the school room of experience where you learn lessons along the way. Lessons like: nothing is really black-and-white, everything is a compromise, and any decision is better than indecision.

It’s an old, old story. The fresh young thing asks the wise and successful owl, “How did you achieve so much?”

“Good decisions.”

“And how do you make good decisions?”

“Experience”

“And how do you get experience?”

“Bad decisions.”

Learning Opportunities

Being a dictator may be the fastest way to move things along and it’s certainly the easiest way to slow things down, but that kind of control comes at a cost. Every decision you take is a learning opportunity lost to somebody else.

Of course, some decisions are yours and yours alone. But they’re rare.

More often than you think, somebody else is better placed and better served to make the call. You can give guidance if you like, walk them through options and tease out their thinking, but if you want your people to grow you have put them in play and let them learn.

They’ll make mistakes and choose paths that you wouldn’t. They’ll gain experience too.

A jigger of gut isn’t made of instinct. It comes from exercise, practice and time on the field. Whenever you can, step out of the game and ask somebody else to make the call. You’ll probably get a good decision, and you’ll certainly get a stronger team.

Leaders spend a lot of time in the driving seat.

Even when you’re in great shape — with maps studied, routes chosen and provisions packed — the demands of just making progress throw up an endless stream of forks in the road and decisions to take.

The best place to be? Behind the wheel, correcting the course and carrying on.

And what works for you works for project teams too.

Each project comes with its very own driving seat, and anyone big enough to sit there deserves your support. Most of the time that means keeping out of their way.

Get Out and Push

But what do you do if a key project comes to a juddering halt?

A bit of coaching can go a long way, but when a good team digs itself axle-deep in stuckness, you might have to get out and push!

That’s not a euphemism for taking over.

Putting your full weight behind a project doesn’t have to mean jumping in with size twelve boots. Far better to volunteer your strength, put your back into the job, and give them the boost of motivation that comes from attention.

When I say volunteer, I mean exactly that. Tell the team how important they are to the project and how important the project is to you, then simply offer your services as an additional resource to get things moving again, “What can I do to help?”

If they ask you to get on a plane. Pack your bag. If they need funding. Find some. Political shenanigans? Pour oil.

The Universal Adjuster is Baby Steps

The trick is to show your commitment and get the cogs turning without taking over, undermining anyone or knocking good people out of the way. Nobody wins if you do everything yourself.

The universal adjuster for stuck teams isn’t a hammer, nor is it deep analysis and grand schemes. The answer is baby steps. Little actions that make small but discernible progress. Almost anything you do will rock the wheels, and if you string a few actions together, things will start rolling.

There are times when every thing’s going well. Everyone’s doing their job, you’re doing your job, wheels are turning. Lovely.

And then a fire breaks out.

You jump into the fight to dowse flames and smash problems.

When Thing Go Wrong

Getting involved when things go wrong can be time consuming and draining, yet it’s a perversely thrilling part of leadership. (Don’t tell anyone I said this, but it’s kinda fun.)

Get sucked in too often though, let it become your standard operating procedure, and your team will see you as a professional fire fighter hanging on to a hose — more mess-cleaner-upper than makes-things-happener — and they’ll be right.

But leadership isn’t a fire truck and it’s not about hotspots.

It’s a bus on a journey to some place new.

Sure, every vehicle needs a fire extinguisher and someone who knows how to use it, but it’s only for emergencies. When you gotta use it, you gotta use it, but most of the time you should concentrate on the road ahead.

When you focus your attention on things that drive the bus along, not only do you put more time into making the most difference, you’re also showing everyone what should be at the top of their to-do list.

Get Involved When Things Go Right

A great way to shift emphasis is to get involved when things go right.

Look for anything that contributes forward motion and celebrate every success you see. I’m not saying overdose on awards or go party mad, just sprinkle a little fairy dust to make the good stuff sparkle.

• Go see a customer who’s just signed up for more business. Ask what your company is doing right. Spread the word.
• Sit in on a project meeting. Stay quiet. At the end of the meeting say you’re excited about the project and they should keep at it.
• Talk about progress whenever you can. “Let me take one minute to update you on …”

Leaders must always be prepared to haul on some breathing apparatus and step into the heat, but the most effect you can have (and the most fun to be had), is where things are going right.

I bet you know a ton of stuff.

Stuff that none of your team knows you know.

And I bet your team knows stuff that you don’t know they know.

Useful stuff on both sides? You bet.

Wasted Assets

There’s a bunch of knowledge buried deep in your business. Things tried, learned and done before. Powerful, door opening stuff — if only you knew it was there.

What good is knowledge if no one can get to it? Knowledge not shared is redundant. A hidden strength. A wasted asset.

The gap between what’s known and what’s shared is filled with three kinds of problem.

• Not-invented-here — some people like to work things out on their own. They don’t ask for help or search for existing answers.
• Have-to-be-invited — some stand by the wall, waiting to be asked to the party. They might have more to offer than anyone but they need to be invited to help.
• I-didn’t-think-to-ask — some get so involved in a question that they never raise their head or look for help.

The trick of course is to unplug the dam, release the flow, and turn all that knowledge into a competitive wave.

Part of the answer is to play leader-as-connector. Putting Mary in touch with Paul, pushing project teams to put feelers out, and tapping histories for gold.

But you can only do so much from the top.

Set It Free

Ultimately, the only way to unfreeze knowledge and get it flowing to its most productive home is to to create an environment where it’s not only OK to ask for help, it’s expected.

Where it’s standard practice to ask, Does anyone know about …? How do you think I should ….? Where the Not-Inventeds have to share, where the To-Be-Inviteds are always invited, and the Didn’t-Thinkers have no choice but to think.

By revealing and maximising what you already know, your team becomes more productive, more innovative and more responsive to change. Spending their time adding to the sum of knowledge, not just reinventing it.

Knowledge may be power, but only when it’s free.

Ever suffered the long haul getting your team to change the way they do things?

Most leaders have.

It’s frustrating, but the idea that leadership means you can get your people to do what you want is a myth.

Let me qualify that. Changing simple things is pretty straight forward, but if you want something that involves a change in mindset, life becomes more difficult.

What do you want?

Whether you want something easy or hard, the first step is always to say what you want.

I know it sounds obvious. But the number one reason people don’t do what’s expected of them is … they don’t know what’s expected of them.

For simple changes, just letting the team in on the secret might get things off and running, lickety-split.

Shifting mindsets though – to improve customer service or to be more innovative, say – can feel like a wrestling match. But change isn’t an opponent, it’s something to bring in to your corner.

I don’t think you’ll find motivation is the hurdle. Most people want to do a good job. More often the barrier is a simple lack of understanding. Listen hard, and you might just hear your people saying, “I don’t know what [customer service/being innovative/any other conceptual change] means in my job. How. Do. I. Do. That?”

Show and Tell

In other words, a speech (or ten) that simply urges an abstract change might sound like it’s full of good ideas, but it’s probably just noise.

Put your message in context with home-grown stories that show what you mean. It’s the difference between showing and telling, between parables and commandments.

For example, for better customer service, tell tales about heroes. “Did you hear about Brian? He drove home on his lunch break to pick up a jacket to lend to a customer who’d lost his own in an airport snafu?”

Using parables gives change a human face. They show what you want in real life situations, and they break down complex concepts like “improve customer service” into simple and easy actions.

On-stage

As a leader you have a lot of influence. Inside the bubble, you run the meeting and every head turns as you have the last word, there’s only one person to pick up the bill, important decisions fall to you.

These are the centre-stage acts of leadership you judge yourself by. You know every eye is on you and you play your part — not as an actor, as the leader.

But you’re not just a leader on special occasions. People still pay attention when the stage lights dim and the curtain closes. You may as well live in a follow-spot.

Off-stage

As a leader you have a lot of influence. Outside of the bubble, people notice what you do and the way you do it — like how you get everyone to speak at the meeting, like always saying thank you when the waiter brings the bill, like staying out of the way so others can make decisions.

These are the offstage acts of leadership that your team judges you by and it’s here that you have the most influence, because influence is magnified by time and attention.

GE’s Jack Welch once said that the culture of an organisation is nothing more or less than the way the leader behaves. His point? Everything you do as a leader is seen by, picked up on, talked about and mimicked by those around you. They don’t just judge you, they follow you.

You know that, right? If you walk past litter in the corridor, so does everyone else. If you scream and shout, so does everyone else. And if you give credit, encourage, care and have fun, so does everyone else. The spotlight shines on each nod, shake, tut and smile.

A thousand little things

For every act of authority, tough decision, or hard turn you take as a leader, there are a thousand little things with more pervasive influence.

Every single thing you do influences every single person around you. In other words — from you today, from your team tomorrow. Don’t put on an act, but do pay attention to the things they pay attention to, and use your influence wisely.

A prospect asks, How many other customers do you have? A new recruit asks, What do our competitors do better than us? A board member asks, Why haven’t you met your targets?

When we’re hit with questions we’d rather avoid most of us flannel, bluff or maybe just flounder. Or there’s the politician’s answer that gets us out of the hot seat without saying anything.

If you hear one answer in your head but something else coming out of your mouth you’re giving “published” answers. Something you hope will play to the audience and buy you some credit without giving away the truth.

Doesn’t everyone do it? We’ve all heard leaders get out of jail with bland answers and half-truths. Listen between the lines though and those answers aren’t very far from, “don’t you worry about things like that, everything’s going to be just fine.”

Answers like these might get you out of a hole, but are they wise?

Think about it. When someone rubs flannel in your face, don’t you tune out, respect them less, and move along to the next booth? If that’s how you react, how about the people listening to you?

The best way to deal with difficult questions is to tell the truth. Let’s look at those first three questions again:

• “You already know we’re a start-up. We’ve been working with five pilot sites for the past four months and we’re expecting the first one of those to sign-up next month.”
• “Great question. Our competitors are stronger at A, B and C. We’re closing the gap, although not as fast as we’d like, but the market sees our strengths at X, Y and Z .”
• “We lost our distribution partner when we missed the shipping deadline. We’ve signed a new partner and here’s how we’re now managing our development schedules …”

I’m not suggesting you open your kimono on every question — there are always decisions not taken and secrets to be kept — but those situations are rare. Preparing for difficult questions can mean the difference between a great answer and flimflam, but when you’re hit with a sky-ball be as open as you can and never stray from honesty.

Openness shows confidence and when it comes to the truth, would you rather they heard it from you or from someone else?

Difficult questions are, well, difficult. But as leaders, these are the questions we’re judged by. They may be issues of fact or of feeling, but at heart, every question is a matter of trust.

Telling it like it is shows leadership. Business is a business based on trust, and if you want people to trust you, be confident, show leadership, and always tell the truth.

Some marketing messages just hit you between the eyes.

I was in Philidelphia’s Reading Terminal Market to discover the delights of the famous philly cheesesteak and the sign in the picture had me straight away.

“Pizza & Cheesesteaks” is the simplest kind of marketing message, relying on the idea that if you want a pizza or a cheesesteak, and you want it now, you should stop wasting your time and buy it here. It’s a straight forward tactic that worked well for the cheesesteak that day and for commodity products any day.

But what if your product is a bit more complicated than fast and cheesy food?

Leading a team that wants to skip to market with a reputation for great products means weaving four simple ideas into every part of your go-to-market thinking. The first two often get lost under the heading of marketing — remember the old saying though, marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department — the second two are pure product development, but all four are built from the ground up.

Simple Description

What is in the box? The idea here is to give your customers a simple way to describe what you have to offer, whether it’s cheesesteak, a micro-blogging platform or a jet engine.

If you’re struggling to work out what you’re selling, listen in to what your existing customers already call it. Don’t worry about trying to differentiate here — the in-the-box question isn’t supposed to turn up a unique answer, but a framing one.

Simple Value

Why would I buy it? If I’m in the market for what you sell AND you come up with a great reason to buy, you have a least half a chance of turning me into a customer.

So what’s the value, what will it do for me? Will you fill that huge sandwich shaped hole in my stomach, connect me to the world in less than a minute, haul an aeroplane full of paying passengers/cargo into the sky at the lowest cost per unit?

Of course, the best marketing messages are stuffed full of differentiated offers and compelling thoughts. Marketing communications people spend their day doing this but they sometimes lose sight of the true value. However persuasive the copy, and however sophisticated the message you have to get across, make sure you don’t obscure the simple description and simple value of what you have to offer.

The point of marketing is to ease a customer’s path to your door — good marketing means I’m more likely to try, and even persist with a product for a while — but the success of the product comes when I incorporate it into my daily life and tell my friends about it. And that means it better be simple to use too.

Simple to Use

Don’t make me work (too hard). Marketing may provide customers but the product lives or dies in the hands of the customer.

Any product that’s difficult to use risks a future covered in dust and destroys almost all chance of positive word-of-mouth. Products should be as intuitive as possible but the creators are usually the worst judges — so get out of the building, talk to customers, test, test, test, and then act on the results.

Simple to Extract the Value

Help me be successful. Ultimately, you have to deliver the value you promise. You’re not selling widgets, you’re selling what the widgets can do for the customer.

Send your customers on an unsupported voyage of discovery and they might get to the promised land but more likely they’ll bob around on rough seas. Build a support network around your customers that helps them get exactly the result they wanted when they dipped into their wallet.

The Ultimate Benefit

Of the four simple things, the ultimate benefit is the value that customers extract. Great products, reputations, and word-of-mouth are all built when customers do things more quickly, more easily, more cheaply, or just better than before.

The ultimate benefit means success for the customer and success for you.

The success of my cheesesteak? My stomach complained but my face was smiling.