One Simple Phrase That Will Change Your Life.

"If the the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, it’s time to water your own grass." Stop trying to compare yourself to others if you always make yourself feel inferior. Stop trying to yearn for a better job, if you don’t first try to make your current job better. Stop making the same mistake again and again because you focus on others and not on yourself.

Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses in your career. Here are some simple tips to help:

How would you rate how effective you are at your current job?

Not how hard you work, how smart? Remember high school . . . do you get straight A’s? Do you do extra credit to ensure that your GPA is at the top? If not, you won’t do any better at your next job. Take night classes, read books, surf the web for knowledge . . . Start watering this lawn.

How many important people do you know in your company?

Outside of your company? Every lawn needs it’s fertilizer – in addition to watering, you need to add a healthy sprinkling of important connections to make your career grow strong.

Are you adding ‘pizazz’ to the current responsibilities you have?

Take a concerted interest in growing your own lawn first. Take work home and see how you can grow your own plot of land first – who can you influence, who can add fertilizer?

Maybe you need to trim your lawn.

Where can you cut? What activities or tasks can be dropped to focus on the more important responsibilities? Who can you delegate to? Hand off some responsibilities that others might want to do?

Are there old cars or rusting play-sets on your lawn?

Time to brush those errant tasks and hangers-on that tend to waste your time and affect the growth of your lawn. Clear out and retire the obsolete activities and the non-essential meetings that take your eye off your lawn.

Are there idiots at night driving on your lawn, making deep ruts with their truck?

Investigate, isolate, and take care of errant peers, bosses, and subordinates who are sabotaging your efforts to grow a strong and healthy lawn. Shut them out of meetings, don’t talk to them and if need be, escalate to the appropriate areas. Also, put up an electric fence around your property — if they decide to go driving again, they will get a real shock!

Try and take care of your own lawn first . . . you might have the best piece of property on the street and not know it until you take action.

Good Service vs. Bad Service - A Parable.

Once upon a time there was a coach. He woke up every morning at 4:30 AM and worked until 5 PM. Some days he worked at his office in Stamford — some days he worked at his home office.

Some days he coached all day long with wonderful clients — some days he was on the road connecting with old and new friends to build his business.

During these wonderful times, this coach would make a small detour and pick up a few foodstuffs for his family (it's the least he could to to help his ravishingly beautiful and infinitely smarter wife).

This day, he stopped off at a supermarket, let's call it Supermarket 'A'. Everywhere Rich went in Supermarket 'A', if he saw an employee stocking the shelf or walking by, they would greet him with a smile and ask if they could help him find something. Many times, they would comment on an item he was purchasing and offer positive comments on how to use it. The store was clean, well-stocked, and had a homey, comfortable feel about it.

Supermarket 'A' provides a station where one could sample new foods and most of the time, the offerings were incredible where the coach would just have to buy the spotlighted item. And today he would do just that.

The best part of this coach's visit was checking out. First, there were three registers open and one of the employees immediately caught the coach's eye and asked, "Ready to check out? I can take you over here!". As they unloaded his cart and scanned each item, they engaged the coach in conversation about some of the items he was purchasing and how his day was going so far. They profusely thanked the coach for bagging and encouraged him to fill out a ticket (a drawing for a free gift certificate) because the coach brought and used his own bags.

With a hearty good-day from the Supermarket 'A's employee at the register, the coach had an extra spring in his step rolling his carriage to the car.

The next day, the coach had to stop at another supermarket, let's call it Supermarket 'B'. Everywhere Rich went in Supermarket 'B', his aisle was blocked by multiple large, wheeled pallets full of boxes. The employees unpacking the boxes all had a unique air that the coach would describe as 'depressed and angry'. They rarely moved out of the way, grunted when they had to and filled in each aisle making travel a torture course for every shopper. Each aisle was dirty and the lighting resembled the inside of a refrigerator — blinding, florescent white.

When the coach reached the pharmacy to pick up a prescription (no worries - it's an allergy) — he had to wait in line (5 customers deep) and watch the pharmacist work behind the counter, answer phone calls, and ultimately step out and assist the next customer. Where it should have taken the coach 2-3 minutes to complete a simple pick-up transaction, he was in line for approximately 12 minutes. That's a long time to spend standing in line. Honest.

Finally, when it was time to check out, there were only three (out of 15 registers) open and all three had lines 5-6 people deep. The coach chose the self-checkout register, scanned his frequent shopper card to get normal pricing on his items, and began to unload, self-scan, and pack up his items in his bag. Guess what? Three items in, the scanner encountered a problem and required a manager to login, reset, and allow the coach to purchase his five items. Unfortunately, there was no manager to be found, so the coach had to wait until one appeared from their break.

With a hearty FU from Supermarket 'B', the coach had an extra slog in his step and rising, burning anger in his neck rolling his carriage to the car.

All kidding aside, what's going on here?

1. One establishment gets it, one doesn't (or just doesn't care).
2. One has engaged and enthusiastic employees, and one doesn't.
3. One has the layout and logistics of selling food nailed, and one doesn't.
4. One had a comfortable, homey feel and the other a dirty, clinical atmosphere.
5. One had reasonable pricing and great quality, the other high-prices and questionable quality.

Now you might ask, why does the coach shop at Supermarket 'B' and not all the time at Supermarket 'A'? Proximity and convenience. 'A' is far away and takes 30 minutes of drive time. 'B' is five minutes away.

There are a number of lessons to learn here today:

1. Availability and convenience do play a major part in consumer's choice. Time sometimes trumps quality, service, and price.
2. The way you treat your customers, with even the simplest of transactions, impacts their shopping experience. Bad employees do hurt you.
3. Even though people want choice and change, they also like consistency. They don't want to be inundated with 100's of items. Make it easy and simple.
4. Making customers wait should be avoided, not embraced by your organization. Even DisneyWorld makes waiting fun.

What's the moral of the story? The coach should (and will) plan out his shopping each week and endeavor to hit Supermarket 'A' on a regular basis.

A Memorial Day Management Test.

This isn't scientific. Let me state that right from the start. But . . . This test has worked for me during my 20 years of managing large teams in corporate settings.

First, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. Relax. Have fun. Spend it with people you love.

When you get to work on Tuesday, get there early and observe your team members as they arrive. See how they act the first 30 minutes at work.

Are they grumpy? Are they not happy to be at work? Do they miss their long weekend? Are they complaining? Or . . .

Are they energized? Ready to hit the ground running with a smile? Did they have fun on the weekend, but now they are ready to make some money?

Short holidays are great opportunities to better understand your team's appreciation of their job.

If they come in grumpy —

• They might not like their job.
• They might not like what they do.
• They might be hitting obstacles.
• They might be checking out.

If they come in energized —

• They probably like what they do.
• They probably enjoy your role as their manager.
• They are probably crushing it with their responsibilities.
• They will probably stick around.

Again — this isn't scientific. But I've found if you gracefully approach the grumpy team members individually and find out what is missing in their work life, you might turn them around and energize them.

If people don't realize work is a part of life and you have to make the best of it, it's high time to find out if they've bought into this concept. Because if they're not consistently bringing their A-game to the office, you're going to receive sub-standard work and deal with stinky personalities.

And life's too short to deal with stinky personalities.

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