Love is the Killer App: How to Win Business

Knowledge, network, compassion.

That's what it takes to win in business, says Tim Sanders in Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends.

This book reads like a great inspirational speech, but I don't hold that against it; I feel inspired.

Today, I'm in the Knowledge section, and I couldn't agree more: "I say there is no option. I've looked at all the possibilites, and for the student of business, books are the answer."

Sanders is recommending books over articles (and blog posts :), because books "are the complete thought meal" containing...

- hypotheses
- data
- research
- conclusions
- meta-ideas (statements that give unique perspectives)

Of course I see the value of the above-average blog post. This is where a person can gather those first facts and ideas that make for a larger desire to know and apply. Sanders perhaps sees the value too, when he recommends a reading diet of 80% books and 20% articles.

From my writer and business-person perspective, I can say this sounds about right. I scan articles for quick tips and quotes. These often lead me to read books. And that's where my mind really gets going. That's where I take away bigger concepts like the ones in Get Rich Click that I shared with my dear friend Ann Kroeker yesterday (and I can't wait to see where she takes them).

How to find the best reads?

Sanders suggests searching for keywords in book titles. On the Internet you could do this at Goodreads. (Or ditch the keywords and peek into a friend's Goodreads recommendations. I highly value entrepreneur Claire Burge's reading list. In fact, that's where I found Love is the Killer App.)

If you want to try searching some keywords in Goodreads, here are some keyword ideas from Sanders. When I'm done stealing [borrowing] Claire Burge's book list, I'll probably try this:

for business in general: brand marketing, globalism, the new economy, partnerships, strategic alliances, the future, profit-and-loss

for sales: negotiation, closing, clients for life, making clients happy, persuasion

for entrepreneurs: economy theory, macro-economics, success stories, profit, locating capital, angel investors, raising money, business plans

Of course, you could always just come here for the low-down on the best ideas in business books. And then we could talk about where to take them.

5 Secrets to Making it in Business

Over the past few months, I've been thinking more than ever about what it takes to make it in business.

I come from a long line of entrepreneurs—my father's grandfather was a watchmaker, my grandmother owned a salon and later a yarn shop and a framing business, my father was partner in a chemical company, and my uncles have had their share of boat businesses.

In Rumors of Water, I recall, fondly, my own forays into the agriculture business (a road stand at the end of my grandmother's driveway, where my sister and I would sit in the shade and eat more berries and cherries than we ever sold; needless to say, I have never lived into my Ten Acre Dream).

There is so much to learn from reading about other people's business dreams, and I've been doing that. A few books on my recent shelf are:

Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing—Yours Doesn't Have To

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... And Others Don't

Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

The lessons in these books are many, but when I consider the central messages, I come up with these five secrets:

1. sell what you love or believe in. Tony Hsieh of Zappos didn't believe in shoes so much as he believed in Customer Service (though I'm guessing he enjoys a good pair of shoes.) He built Zappos to be, more than anything, an experience in great Customer Service, and it's not surprising that today his interest has begun to shift into the idea of "delivering happiness," a movement of sorts.

Is it possible to sell something you don't love? Maybe. There are always exceptions to every rule. But since these are *my* secrets, we'll have to stick with love. (I was the only person to sell one dismal stuffed animal in a high school fundraising campaign. I didn't believe in stuffed animals, especially those cheap and unattractive ones, and therefore I couldn't market them beyond Mom—sorry Mom, you shouldn't have bought one either... forgive me?).

2. give everything you have to make it work. Across the board, whether we're talking George Cadbury, Eric Ries, Tony Hsieh, or my dad, we can note a terrific dedication that extends to both time and money. It's as if the business is our life itself. We feed it, clothe it, give it our choice moments. If we can't do this, maybe we don't really love or believe in the business. Maybe it's time to eat the cherries, cut our losses, and close up the stand.

3. Stay humble. In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... And Others Don't, one of the outstanding qualities of the Great companies was a humility in top leaders.

Now this is a tricky one, because we don't necessarily think of a Steve Jobs as being humble. We think *bold.* But humility comes in different flavors. A bold leader might actually be humble when it comes to listening to customers or understanding that a company's, or an industry's, position is never a foregone conclusion.

In Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing—Yours Doesn't Have To, one of the prime reasons for downturn was this very issue: neglecting to humbly understand that a position can be wrested from us by a "lesser" company that *is* paying attention to customers, price points, or new technologies.

4. Know who you are, and who you aren't. Also in Stall Points, a major factor pinpointed in downturn was overreaching and diversifying too much. These days, I am watching Amazon with fascination, because it actually seems to be engaged in excessive diversification. (And yes, the bookseller did acquire the shoeseller Zappos). Yet perhaps Amazon is about something other than books. Maybe it is about E-commerce, the way Zappos was about Customer Service. So it will all work out in the end.

For my own part, I recently decided I'm chocolate (not peppermints), tea (not coffee), hot pink or red (not maroon). Around early June, I hope to be able to show you what I mean. In any case, it has helped me focus, to know who I am and who I am not.

5. Make the hard calls, without burning bridges. Not long ago, I heard from a guy whose business was going down the drain. And he was still trying to be all things to all employees, hold on to the past of what the company had been. The result was that he was losing everything. This is such a delicate matter. We need to maintain our compassion and good-dealings, but if something is "failing," we need to be realistic too, and save the ship by necessary means.

For me, this is one of the biggest challenges, as I never want to hurt people. It takes a lot of vision to see beyond the current circumstances, to understand what is ultimately at stake, and to make the necessary hard calls. This is where *loving* the business will ultimately serve us. And if we find we can't love the business that much, we should probably close the stand, after all.


How about you? Have you tried making your way in business? What are your favorite secrets?

Go Ahead, Criticize Me for Creativity

A few days ago I wrote to a friend, someone I actively work with these days, and apologized. I felt like maybe I'd not been agreeable enough lately.

To my great surprise, she wrote back and said I should not apologize. She loves the way we work together—how we freely criticize each other's ideas, to reach toward a common goal outside of ourselves, to be as creative as we can possibly be and find the best solutions.

I felt a great sense of comfort in her words. To think, she believed that our process needn't be all simple and agreeable. What a relief.

But tonight, reading The New Yorker, I discovered I should be more than relieved. I should be really, really pleased to have a relationship like this.

It turns out that the old idea of brainstorming and being agreeable about all ideas that are put on the table is not the best way to produce optimal creativity and quality solutions.

In a study by Charlan Nemeth, at U.C. Berkeley, it was noted, "Our findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition."

In my world, I'd still like the criticism to be respectful, even playful, but now I can relax and enjoy a good debate, seeing it for the creative possibility it presents.

I might even send this little message to my friend, "Go ahead, criticize me—for our best creativity."


Doll Sculpture by Sara.

I Need a Simple Signal

Signaling is a technique successful leaders use to connect with various audiences— while speaking to what may look like, on the surface, one homogenous audience.

If you ask me, signaling is itself a sign. That a person has learned to work with words in an optimal way. Some people might call this "spin," and I suppose it could be. I prefer to call it wisdom, savvy, and skill.

This week over at TheHighCalling.org, Marcus called us to work with words through the practice of writing poetry. I can't think of a better way to develop a keen sense of language and learn the subtle art of signaling.

So, if you want a simple way to become a better leader, consider writing poetry. (Besides, all the cool business men are doing it.)

Words

stick in our throats,
when we haven't learned
to loosen them
with a little tea
and honey.

Editing My Leadership

"Don't worry, it's going to be okay," I typed.

I read it over, suddenly remembering Henry Cloud's warnings against invalidating people's feelings.

[delete, delete, delete]

"I'm sorry you're feeling frustrated. It must be hard," I typed instead. Then I shared how sometimes I've been frustrated too, especially because of my own frailties and shortcomings. Ensuing conversations focused on what might be done to ease things, in time.

Did it help? I'm not sure. Cloud says that, in addition to being good listeners (validaters), we need to have a balance of...

1. strength
2. "likeness" to others (willingness to say, "I struggle with this too")
3. warmth
4. imperfection that copes

It sounds so simple on paper. Listen, don't invalidate. Be strong, yet vulnerable. Be authentic and imperfect, yet cope and be a person of effective solutions. Don't use force (even verbal force) as a means to change situations; just be competent.

All of this seems to require a lot of trust that things really WILL be okay if we strike the right kind of balance in our interactions. We just need to sit with the discomfort of not having immediately fixed others or ourselves. Which sounds, to me, like a kind of... faith.


Hands photo by L.L. Barkat.


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Can I Do You a Favor?

Can I Do You a Favor?

Once again my kids were crying over their math. I didn't feel much sympathy, though I'm not so keen on math myself. Just do it, was my frustrated answer.

But I've always felt that when kids get to this point, fussing and crying, they're not being rebellious. They're telling us something important. So I had to step back and admit the truth: if they could just do it, they probably wouldn't be crying.

So I did my kids a favor. I hired a math tutor.

In Chapter 5 of Henry Cloud's book Integrity: the Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, he discusses how we can build trust through extending favor. It's the kind of favor that looks out for the other person's interests, not just our own. It is, says Cloud, grace.

"Leaders without grace," he asserts, "set [a] demand and do nothing to help people meet it." Like me, when my kids cried over their math and I said, Just do it.

There's nothing wrong with requiring the do it part. It's the just part we need to reconsider. As leaders, we would do well to drop the just and use these words instead: with, through, by.

My kids now do their math with a tutor. They do it by being with someone who loves math. Through the guidance of a person who has both math-patience and math-passion, they are more than meeting the standard. My Eldest will finish her course almost six months early this year and have time to do Logic and Physics math. My youngest admitted confidentially to the tutor, "I guess I really like math now."

If there's an area in your business or work life where people are "fussing and crying," maybe what they really need is a favor. Maybe you (or I) should just do it.


Chinese Boat photo, by J. Barkat.

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Being Nice is Not Enough

Have you ever met someone who seems to care, who is basically a "nice person," but who doesn't seem to "get you"?

That's how it went with the new president, in a merger situation discussed by Henry Cloud, in his book Integrity. The president was nice. He had good ideas and good intentions, but he didn't "get" people and it eventually cost him his ability to work with the Team.

Here are a few things the president said to various people's questions, in a meeting designed to build trust as the merger began...

"Well, that's not going to be a problem."

"You won't have to worry about that at all."

"That won't get in the way."

"That will work out okay. I think when people get the big picture of what is happening here, they will be happy..."

Essentially, without meaning to, the president invalidated people's experiences. He moved quickly to try to make people feel better, without giving them a chance to really be heard. Says Cloud, "You could feel the air kind of going out of the room." He concludes, "...although [the president] had their attention through his position, he did not have their hearts."

What happens when we don't gain people's hearts?

They become discouraged and unplug. They disconnect, give up, find another place to be heard.

Reading this chapter, I thought of the many times I've said to my kids, "Don't worry about it honey. It's going to be fine." The truth is that everything is not going to be fine if this is how we deal with people's complaints, worries, and hurts. Kids detach. Friends walk away. Employees quit.

Being nice is not enough.

Cloud shares a simple formula for "getting" people (though it may not always be simple in practice! :) ...

They talk >
you experience them >
you share what you've heard and experienced about their experience >
then they experience you as having heard them; they know you are "with" them

None of this may change how you help solve the issue. Or it may totally change how you help solve the issue. Or maybe you'll find that the solution isn't your purview anyway.

The point is connection. And in the end, that's the nicest thing you can do.


Leaf and Branch photo by J Barkat. Used with appreciation. :)

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Why I'm Reading a Book I Didn't Plan to Read (and Talking About it With You)

I walked past my husband's night stand. Usually it is covered with gadgets, receipts, cuff links. I keep moving. Usually.

But a few days ago this book caught my eye: Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality. I wasn't inclined to pick it up. I know what integrity is, don't I? I know when I have it and when I fail to have it. I certainly don't need to read a book that makes me feel guilty about the don't-have times.

Still. I am a sucker for a cool book cover, so I stopped and opened the book.

Since that moment I've been reading it every day. I love it.

It's not like I'm unfamiliar with some of the precepts. It's just the way Henry Cloud talks me through it all. I seem to be able to hear him. It could be the easy tone. The compassionate approach. The clear eye. Or the fact that it's framed in business terms with, surprisingly, a subtle spiritual touch. No matter. Last night I told my husband that I'm actually learning something from this book. Enough that I want to do a series on it.

I hope you'll join me for the next few weeks, and maybe we can learn together. Here's what Cloud promises...

You'll learn about the kind of character that:

1. creates and maintains trust
2. is able to see and face reality
3. works in a way that brings results
4. embraces negative realities and solves them
5. causes growth and increase
6. achieves transcendence and meaning in life

Cloud maintains that these traits "supercede gifts, talents, and ability," allowing the people who have these traits to succeed. People who don't have them often flatline, even though they may have started well.

Are you ready to hear a more nuanced definition of integrity? One that will help you succeed in business, and maybe even at church and home? I am. Let's see where Cloud takes us.


Ripple Photo by L.L. Barkat.