Dan Coughlin's Acceleration Blog

The Leaky Faucet Approach to Leadership

After today I think I'm going to take a week blog free, which is different than smog free.

My great friend, Jeff Hutchison, taught me a term I really like that he called, "The Leaky Faucet Approach to Leadership." Basically, you just let an idea drip very slowly on to the other person. You don't rush it, you don't push it, and you don't drown the other person. You just occasionally point it out and let it go.

I know it works because he's successfully introduced me to a host of ideas this way. He never hoisted them on me, but rather just let them rest in my mind until the time was right for them to connect with some other ideas.

Who are you trying to influence, and how can you use the leaky faucet approach?

Are You Smarter than You Were a Year Ago?

I'm not sure if I'm smarter than a fifth grader. Some days I'm not sure I'm smarter than a first grader. My son, Ben, let me play with his Nintendo DS Mario race game one day. Then he fell on the ground laughing. He said, "Dad, dad, you're going the wrong direction." I was in last place heading the wrong way.

The one thing I'm sure of is I'm smarter than I was a year ago.

I've dedicated a good portion of my time to studying some great books: Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler, The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, The Wizard of Menlo Park by Randall Stross, Obama: From Promise to Power by David Mendell, and Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

I took two great multiple-day seminars by my mentor, Alan Weiss, on strategy, consulting, coaching, and branding.

I immersed myself in the world of keynote speaking and I learned a lot about the nuances and subtleties of effective speaking. And that was after I've give 400 seminars in the past ten years.

I learned about book marketing and writing for a variety of different media.

I learned I liked consistency in my life like coaching sports and teaching confirmation class to eighth graders, who are definitely smarter than I am.

I know that more than anything I love being with my family: Barb, Sarah, my third grader who for sure thinks she's smarter than I am, and Ben. These are the wonder years around here, and I'm trying to soak up as much of them as I can.

What have you learned in the past year?

The Fragile Psychology of an Economy

Did you wake up today feeling different than yesterday? Are you still capable of adding the same or greater value than you did yesterday? Do you have greater or lesser experience than you had yesterday?

Ok, that is what I thought. So you're ready to make a greater contribution to customers today than you did yesterday, right?

So stop all this nonsense about how we have to get prepared for the economy to slow down. The economy slows down when a critical mass of people decide it has to slow down.

Don't buy into this craziness that "the economy is going to slow down in 2008 so we better get ready." It's a ten-trillion dollar economy. Your business demise or surplus isn't going to affect it single-handedly. However, if the virus of expecting the economy to slow down affects enough people, then, voila, the economy will slow down.

But if enough people stay focused on adding value and charging appropriately for the value they contribute, their business results will improve and the overall economy will improve. Grab the economy by the tail and move it forward. It's in your hands and my hands. Don't let the economic psychologists play mind games with you.

Tune into the Frequency of Leadership

In my church we've had three different senior ministers in the past 24 months. Our long-term senior minister retired in January 2006, we had an interim senior minister for 22 months, and now our new senior minister has come on board.

One used a Charlie-Brown, humorist approach to influencing the congregation. One used a highly intellectual approach. And the third used a calm, conversational type of approach.

To hear some folks complain, one was always trying to be too funny, one was trying to be too intellectual, and one was just too calm.

I think all three brought tremendous value. The challenge for the members of the congregation was to find the right frequency with which to understand the individual. If you were looking for big laughs repeatedly during the sermon, you would be disappointed by number two and three. If you were looking for highly intellectual insights, you would be disappointed by one and three. If you wanted a calming influence in the midst of daily dramas, you would be disappointed by one and two.

Instead of being disappointed by people with different styles, try to tune into their leadership frequency.

The Negative Effect of Rudeness

Each year I work with a variety of clients. As I meet a prospective client, he or she is screening me as much as I'm screening them. One immediate turnoff is when the other person doesn't show up on time for the initial meeting, on the phone or in person, and doesn't let me know they are going to be late. I'm not talking two minutes. I'm talking 25 minutes.

In the early days, I would just maintain my patience and try to work with that person. Today that is no longer true. Unless they have an extraordinarily good reason for being so late and so rude, I just end the relationship before it starts. My experience has taught me that rudeness and arrogance simply don't go away over night. Invariably these individuals are the worst to work with, and many times they end up getting fired by their own bosses. I've learned to read the tea leaves and walk away early.

How about you?

A "Throw Yourself to the Wall" Year

Some years you just have to decide this is the year I'm going to swing very, very hard at the ball. In 1984 Apple computers decided to swing as hard as they could to make headway with their company. They had just built the new Macintosh and so they decided to advertise this new machine at the Super Bowl. And it paid off.

In 1937 Walt Disney swung as hard as he could with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He poured everything he had in terms of time and borrowed money and redoing scenes and on and on. And it paid off.

Sometimes hard swings strike out. There's no guarantees. You might put everything you had into it and it might bomb.

I encourage you to select your spots carefully, but when you do decide to swing hard, swing as hard as you possibly can. Stir the marketplace up and demonstrate that you have value to offer to the world. Borrow every dime you can get and make as big a splash as you can. If you swing and miss, you'll have to go take a seat on the bench for awhile. But if you connect, you might just set your business and your career into a whole new trajectory.

The Value of Life-Long Friends

Last night I got together with 9 other people who grew up in Jennings, MO back in the 1960s and 1970s. We get together 2-3 times each year. We had lost track of each other from 1980 to 2005. Then one google after another and suddenly we had pieced many of our classmates and neighbors back togther. So thanks to Ginger, Eileen, Patty, Dave, Tom, Anna, and Tim for spending four hours last night going down memory lanes of long, long ago.

Life-long friends are rejuvenating. They bring you back to a time when life was so much more innocent and uncomplicated. Find the people you grew up with and watch as the memories unfold. I predict you will be reenergized.

New Year's Resolute Actions

It struck me on Friday that the new year is fast approaching. Here are four actions that stood out in my mind as 2008 zooms in:

1. Relax and have fun. Everything seems to go better when I relax and enjoy whatever I'm doing. Working just to work or stressing just to stress makes about as much sense as banging my head against the wall just to say I did it. Relax, enjoy whatever activity I'm doing, and have fun. Spread the fun around: family, friends, health, work, finances, community, etc. Just relax and have fun.

2. Avoid fake stimulants. I have a tendency to load up on caffeine-filled diet soda, chocolate, fried food, and other short-term fixes to keep my energy going. Bad move. I end up tired when the fix wears off. Let that stuff go. Get long-term energy from eating right, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep at night. You know, the old-fashioned ways of getting energy.

3. Exercise consistently. I have a great friend, Jason Jennings, who works out hard four to five days a week every week and has done so for many years. He's amazing. My exercising tends to come in waves, as in up and down. Then I usually end up hurting my back or something by overdoing it on the up wave. Be consistent week after week after week. Over the long term.

4. Improve. Just get better. Each day, each week, and each month, just improve. Improve as a person, father, husband, writer, speaker, businessman, community member, and so on. Just keep getting better.

Ten words: relax and have fun, eliminate fake stimulants, exercise consistently, improve. That's my focus.

I didn't like Chinese food until I tried it.

When I was in college, I used to say, "I don't like Chinese food. It tastes funny. I like meat and potatoes and fried food." Then someone said, "Have you ever had Chinese food?" I said, "No." He said, "How do you know you don't like it?" Now that was a good question. So I tried it. And I liked it.

Recently a friend suggested I read Joel Osteen's books. I said, "Oh, I don't like those preacher types who make millions telling people they will get whatever they want if they just give money to their church." Then it dawned on me that I wrote him off without ever listening to his message. So I tried it. I liked it.

What ideas or approaches have you written off because you don't like them? Have you tried them? You might like them.

The Inspiration in Being Classy

Recently Roger Federer and Pete Sampras played a series of exhibition matches. Federer has been the #1 player in the world longer than any other person in history. Sampras won more Grand Slam titles than any other male player tennis player in history.

Sampras won one of the three matches. Instead of saying that Federer was overrated, Sampras praised him. Federed said that Sampras was still his idol. Federer said Sampras could be the top five players in the world on a fast surface even though Sampras retired five years ago. Sampras said Federer had shots that he never developed.

To watch these two great champions treat each other with class was inspiring.

Do you, and I'm talking to me here as well, treat your colleagues, your friends, your neighbors, your customers, your boss, and your spouse with the same degree of class that these two men treated each other with?