Three Steps to Living Audaciously: Setting Your Lifetime Legacy Mission

My lifetime legacy mission (LLM) is to educate, equip, & empower 100 million entrepreneurs & leaders worldwide to reach their greatest personal & organizational potential.

In my last two speaking engagements, I watched the audience’s reactions as the conference coordinator read my bio aloud. People were taken aback. They raised their eyebrows and smiled in surprise.

During my remarks, I put my lifetime legacy mission into perspective:

• There are approximately 400 million entrepreneurs in the world, so my goal only reflects 25% of that population.
• I’m only 48, so I estimate I have another 40 years ahead of me to make my impact.
• There are so many ways to reach people globally today. Between my writing, speaking, online products (in development), merchandising line (in development), and consulting, I should be able to touch a lot of people.
• Even if I achieve only 50% of my goal, I’m still impacting 50 million people, which isn’t so shabby.

Here is what I know for sure:  If I don’t envision it, and put it out there, it will never happen.

• Elon Musk (Founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla)
• Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon)
• Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook)
• Steve Case & Ted Leonsis (Founders of AOL)

These are just a few audacious thinkers who have committed to changing the world.

Why shouldn’t you think big? Because someone else may find your idea to be grandiose? Because you sound unrealistic? Are those really reasons to limit our thinking?

“Thinking realistically is the quickest path to mediocrity.” ~Will Smith

I can’t remember the exact day when I committed to my LLM, but I do know this: everything changed the day I committed.

When I start to get tired, I remind myself of why the little things matter. When I doubt myself, or question why I am doing what I am doing, I reach back to my LLM, and the possibility of helping so many others live up to their potential.

You can set an LLM too, and here is how you do it.

• Think about what fuels you. What creates a fire inside of you? When an opportunity presents itself, or when you have achieved a specific result, how does that impact you emotionally, physically, and spiritually?
• Think about your success without limits. If you had absolutely no constraints (money, time, resources, energy), what would success look like for you? Think BIG. Think audaciously.

• Craft your LLM using this format:

My lifetime legacy mission is to:

1: Insert Verb

2: Follow that with the number of people you want to impact

3: Follow that with the target population you will impact

4: Follow that with how you will impact them

Your LLM should be connected to what you are doing every day. If it’s not, you need to re-evaluate what you are doing every day, and how you are spending your valuable time.

As a Melanoma survivor, I have a very healthy respect for mortality. Our lives pass by in the blink of an eye. Every day you should LOVE what you are doing. If you don’t, what is holding you back?

Your LLM begins with the mindset that you are capable and worthy of living a life that delivers joy, fulfillment, and impact to yourself and everyone you touch.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson

Your LLM is inside of your heart & spirit right now.  “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world.”

My hope is that as I let my own light shine, I am unconsciously giving you permission to do the same. As I am liberated from my own fears of failure, loss, and disappointment, my hope is that my presence automatically liberates you.

Today, commit to developing your LLM. I would love to hear your mission. Please email me your LLM at [email protected] and indicate if I have permission to share.

The world needs your light!

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Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”

Three Questions Great Leaders Ask Themselves in the 21st Century

I recently designed and facilitated a two-day leadership training program for senior managers in the Air Force. The program objective was to educate them on the mindset and skillset required to lead effectively in the 21^st century. They work in an environment of heavy demands, limited resources, and severe time constraints, and are challenged to motivate a highly-pressured workforce.

My training included 7 interactive and introspective modules. In each module I included a TED Talk on leadership and a discussion worksheet to encourage transfer of concepts from the presenter to the student.

One of the TED Talks I shared was “What it Takes to be a Good Leader” by Roselinde Torres. In her talk, she shared her experiences of working with hundreds of organizations to uncover why leadership ability is declining, even though attention to leadership development is increasing.

She presented three questions that all leaders will need to constantly ask themselves as they hone their leadership skills in the 21^st century:

1. Where are you looking to anticipate change? To answer this question, she recommends looking in one place: your calendar. With whom are you spending your time, and on what topics? What are you reading? How are you distilling?  Great leaders see around corners and shape their future based on what they see. What you read, where you are, and who you are with will shape what you see.
2. What is the diversity metric of your personal and professional stakeholder network? To some extent, we all have a network of people that mirror us. This question addresses your capacity to develop relationships with people that are different than you. Those differences can be biological, physical, functional, political, cultural, socioeconomic. And yet, despite these differences, they connect with you and they trust you enough to cooperate with you in achieving a shared goal. Great leaders understand that having a more diverse network is a source of pattern identification at higher levels, and is an important component in solving problems, because you have people that think differently than you do.
3. Are you courageous enough to abandon a practice that has made you successful in the past? There is an expression: Go along to get along. But if you follow this advice, chances are as a leader, you’re going to keep doing what’s familiar and comfortable.

Great leaders dare to be different. They don’t just talk about risk-taking, they actually do it. The most impactful development comes when you are able to build the emotional stamina to withstand people telling you that your new idea is naïve, reckless or impractical.

When you step out with a new idea, the people who will join you are not your usual suspects in your network. They’re often people that think differently and therefore are willing to join you in taking a courageous leap. And it’s a leap, not a step.

Asking yourself these three questions will force you to have important conversations with yourself, and examine how you are showing up in the world & in your organizations. All great leadership begins with self-awareness. We can only lead others well when we know ourselves well.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”  ~Aristotle

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Why You Must Have That Difficult Conversation – And How To Do It

There are four words that, when we hear them, we stop in our tracks because we know they are going to be followed by a lot of other words we may not want to hear. This happens in both our personal and our professional lives. Those four words are…. “WE HAVE TO TALK.”

Did you just feel a shiver run up your spine when you read them? Did they sneak their way off of the screen, and grip your throat a bit?

I don’t know who is stressed out more by these words… the person initiating the conversation, or the person on the receiving end.

If you are the initiator, you know you’ve been carrying around this conversation for a while now. You’ve role-played how it will go, what the reactions will be, and how you are hoping it will end. You’ve determined when and where you should have the conversation. And, you’ve come up with lots of reasons why you shouldn’t have it.

If you are the recipient, first you may try to brace yourself for what’s coming with some mindfulness techniques, like deep breathing, or you may quickly tell yourself it can’t be that bad. Or maybe you will immediately launch into a defensive mode. Or, maybe you’ll say, “this isn’t a good time,” or you’ll run.

Putting all of the emotional baggage aside that accompanies the conversation, here is the one reason you must have this conversation.

IT WON’T GO AWAY BY ITSELF.

When it’s time for a difficult conversation, at least one of three things happen:

1: The person who needs to talk keeps it inside. It grows, and festers, and takes on many additional lives of its own, until the angst or anger associated with the original conversation overtakes the actual topic.

2: The person who needs to talk talks to others. Rather than having the conversation with the person they need to talk with, they seek out advice and support from others, and fuel the issue with input from people that may or may not be understanding the entire story (and are definitely not hearing multiple perspectives).

3: The person seeks out the other person (the target) to have the conversation. And, usually it doesn’t go nearly as badly as they’ve fabricated in their minds. Although, sometimes it does go badly. But when that happens, at least it’s over, and the people can address the elephant in the room.

A Self-Assessment Checklist

How can you prep and move through this conversation with as little drama as possible? Here is a checklist of questions for you to answer prior to having the conversation.

1. What are your objectives for this conversation?
2. What do you believe is the other person’s position in this conversation? What reactions are you anticipating?
3. Based on your history with this person, how effective are they at pushing your buttons, or triggering you? How safe do you feel with them? Based on this information, how can you pre-empt triggers?
4. How are your feelings about this conversation impacting how you will show up? I remember learning that the mere act of inserting a thermometer into a glass of water to measure the temperature changes the water temperature. Similarly, your disposition in initiating the conversation will impact how the conversation plays out. What is your personal temperature?
5. How have you contributed to the situation leading up to this point? Have you owned that? Have you expressed that to the other person?
6. Can you approach this conversation without blame or ego, and focus only on solutions?
7. How aware are you of your own body language? Can you do a body-language check prior to the conversation to ensure you are not projecting a defensive or offensive message?

Alternative conversation starters

Perhaps you can diffuse the situation with a softer opening. One of these may work:

“I could really use your help with a challenge I am having.”

“I would love your perspective on this situation.”

“Can you please help me to understand something?”

It is also a good idea to schedule the conversation, even if it’s for 15 minutes (although it’s important to not rush, so that nothing goes unsaid or unresolved). This way, both participants are completely prepared, focused, and present. No one feels they have been cornered into a conversation they were not prepared to have. Difficult conversations always flow best when both parties feel safe to have the exchange.

Conversation closers

Alternatively, when the conversation is concluding, both parties should feel that they have had ample time to express, and that they have been heard. Something like this may work:

“I really appreciate you having this conversation with me. Is there anything else you would like to discuss?”

“Are we good now?”

I hope these pointers can take the edge off of your next difficult conversation. It probably won’t be nearly as challenging as you anticipate. And just in case it is, you’ll be fully prepared to manage it from beginning to end.

Good luck!

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10 Cardinal Rules for Working with Friends

Ask any business owner if they’ve ever worked with friends, and you will likely get a yes. How they answer you (with a scowl or with a smile), will determine if it turned out well.

One of my clients is WAKA, an 18-year old company that has put kickball and social sports for young professionals on the map. The three owners  have been friends for more than two decades. They have mastered the art of “working with friends.” This doesn’t mean they haven’t experienced turmoil or conflict. In fact, one of my key roles in working with them was to help them move through some inertia that was stalling their continued growth. They have aggressive growth goals over the next 3-5 years, and decision-by-consensus was slowing momentum.

Nevertheless, these three life-long friends have managed to maintain and strengthen their brotherly bonds as they’ve built their business. So how have they done it? They’ve followed what I have identified as the 10 cardinal rules for working with friends.

1: Alignment of core values regarding life and business. It would seem natural that our friends would share our values, but this isn’t always the case. If we’re going into business with anyone, there must be alignment of values. If you are a high-value service provider but your friend is focused on being a low-cost service provider, you’re not driven by the same outcomes. If you are a workaholic, but your friend is focused on work-life balance, you are misaligned regarding focus. Misalignment of values is a non-starter.

2: Clearly defined roles & responsibilities. What is expected of each person? You would never hire a stranger without clearly defined roles & responsibilities. Clearly spell out what you expect of anyone you work with, and what they can expect of you.

3:No exceptions to any rules: All restrictions/processes apply. When I started my first company Information Experts 20 years ago, I hired a friend as a sub-contractor. She was required to sign a non-compete and a non-disclosure agreement, like all of my subcontractors. If I showed favoritism, this would have set a precedent that rules only apply to certain people in my company. Sadly, she violated both documents. She stole my content, and solicited work directly from my client. Again, I had to set a precedent with this situation. Our attorney issued a cease-and-desist letter, demanding that she cease solicitation. My client broke ties with her, I fired her, and that was the end of the friendship. This goes back to Rule #1: Alignment of core values. She valued money more than our friendship.

4: Respect of financial arrangements. The mixing of money and friendships, especially in business, is a potential landmine.  Should you decide to work with a friend, do whatever is necessary to minimize financial friction. Stay away from loans and promisory notes. Pay your friend on time, in accordance with the agreed upon terms. Working with a friend is not permission to take financial advantage.

5: Respect of the value and worth of each party. This past week, I had conversations with two good friends that own businesses, who are experts in their fields, that feel disrespected, devalued, and taken for granted by friends they’ve worked with. They both chose to charge their friends significantly discounted rates for their services. This is a terrible idea, and almost always backfires. A true friend would not expect another friend to decrease her market rate, which is essentially communicating, “I don’t think you are worth what you are charging others.” Conversely, the friend that discounts her rate ends up feeling as if she’s giving away her services. “I felt bad” or “I felt guilty” is almost always the outcome.

6: Establishment of a way out of the business arrangement. Every business arrangement requires an “out” clause, and this situation is no different. Discuss ahead of time the possibility that one may want to terminate the arrangement. Should that occur, exit gracefully and graciously. Don’t make it personal, and don’t take it personally.

7: Respect of confidentiality. As with any business relationship, do not discuss your business with others. Don’t share proprietary company information, don’t discuss the relationship challenges, don’t gossip. Treat the business part of your relationship with utmost respect and confidentiality.

8: Ability to have difficult conversations. Difficult conversations are stressful. Especially when we blend our personal & professional lives, there is a lot at stake if a difficult conversation goes wrong. However, not having the conversation is even worse. Trust that you can have a respectful, constructive dialogue, and make it happen to move past any feelings of resentment or anger that may be building.

9: Care and feeding of your friendship outside of the business. To preserve the friendship, set aside time to just be friends. Grab lunch, go to a movie or a museum, or text/email/call with no business agenda – just to say hello.

10: Finally, Remember Rule #6 from my last column. Don’t take yourself so seriously. It’s just business. Businesses come and go, but our most important friendships endure.

A Note about mentorship, service donations, and trades

We all have much to contribute to others! Mentorship and pro-bono or discounted services are wonderful ways to help others move forward, especially when we can help socially impactful organizations fulfill their missions. When we agree to mentor someone, or donate our services to a non-profit, we still must spell out the terms so that both parties know what to expect. The only thing missing is the exchange of money.

I have done many successful trades for service as well. Again, spell out all terms & conditions so that there are no surprises. These arrangements are still business relationships.

In Other SC News….

Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

Successful Culture accepts applications for its TransformU coaching program on a rolling basis. All one-on-one coaching spots are currently filled, however, we will open more spots in 2nd quarter. The TransformU coaching program is only for CEOs and leaders seeking a high level of accountability, who are ready to build the right foundation, and move to the next level of growth. All engagements follow a customized road map to move the client from current state to desired state. A mandatory skype interview and online assessment will determine if the TransformU program is a fit. You can learn more about the TransformU program on the Successful Culture website here. Please email me at [email protected] with any questions.

The Annual SC Customer Appreciation Luncheon Was Amazing!

I recently honored about 40 SC clients at our annual Customer Appreciation Luncheon. I spoke about the gifts that each client brings to the world every day in their own business accomplishments, and expressed my gratitude for their trust in my leadership to move them forward to the next levels of growth. Everyone made important connections too! I can’t wait for our Spring community gathering. Will you be engaging Successful Culture to help with your growth, and joining us too?

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Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instragram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.
– In my latest Inc, article, I share The Essential Guide to Avoiding Workplace Text, Email, & Social Media Disasters.
– Learn about the 9 Leadership Behaviors that Lose Employee Trust & Respect here.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”

Four Things Businesses Overlook When Moving Employees to a New Position

So often when we’re thinking of expanding, we turn our attention to the external hiring process. In many cases, however, who we need is already with us. It seems logical to move a proven employee from one position to another. After all, we know their work styles & capabilities, and they know our culture, customers, & products/services. Plus, we trust them.

But wait. Before we make changes, how do we know they will be just as successful in a new role?

A client is going through this process right now. For months, she has struggled with not having enough project management coverage for her government clients. We’ve evaluated potential hires. Rightfully so, she’s hesitant to hire a stranger to care for her most important customer relationships. We’ve also looked at how she and other members of her executive team are allocating their time to determine if they have extra bandwidth for hands-on project management. They don’t.

Our next solution? An existing employee.

In my previous column, Performing & Promoting to the Highest Levels of Incompetence, I discuss how employees tend to rise to their highest levels of incompetence (The Peter Principle) when they are moved from a position in which they excel to a different position. Supervisors “promote” their employees to more demanding positions because they want to reward them for a job well done, and want to give them opportunities to grow, learn more, and earn more.

To prevent Peter from rearing his ugly head at my client’s organization, we are assessing the following elements before moving anyone:

1: The Client Impact. My client’s project manager is currently full-time with a specific customer. Shifting her role will require her to reduce hours for her customer, and take on hours at additional customers.

Action item:

1: Discuss with the client. Gain their buy-in before making any changes.

2: Brainstorm with the employee about a plan to ensure customer service and project management is not impacted. Who on her team that she manages can take on project management responsibilities, since they are on site?

2: The Company Impact. The smallest company change can create large ripple effects. How will this be perceived by others in the company? How will people be personally impacted? What needs to be communicated to the company regarding this change?

Action item:

1: Consider the impact on each employee that works with the movable employee. Will they have a new supervisor? Will they require a different performance review plan?

2: Consider a communications strategy to keep the entire company aware of impending changes.

3: The Employee Impact. Does the employee fully understand the impact of this change?

Action Item:

Provide the employee with the time and space to fully think through the change. How will it impact their daily schedule? How will it impact their home life (More travel? More driving? More hours)?

This brings me to the one question employers must answer before moving any employee to a new position in the company:

4: Have they passed the “GWC” test?  My favorite hiring test – for both new hires, and when you are considering moving an employee around – is the GWC test. Do they Get It, Want It and have the Capacity to do it?

Get it: Do they really understand the job?

Want it: Do they want to do this job more than they want to do anything else?

Capacity to do it: Do they have the required capacities to be successful – intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual – whatever those capacities may be?

I wrote about the GWC Model in my column, Should You Make The Hire? Should You Keep The Employee? Three Simple Litmus Tests.

To thoroughly answer these questions, you must create a job description for the new position, and have your employee follow the same hiring process you would have anyone else follow. They should apply for the job. You should interview them. And they must know exactly what is expected.

Further, it’s important to assume they will need ramp-up time in their new position. While they may be comfortable with the organization, they may need some time getting fully comfortable in their new role.

Moving them over can be successful with the right precautionary steps. You can effectively avoid The Peter Principle from rearing its head while ensuring your top performers are able to learn, grow, and be challenged.

Need Help Assessing an Internal Move?

I love to work with organizations to ensure they have the right people in the right seats. Please email at [email protected] me if you are struggling with finding the right resources, internally or externally.

Good luck!

~Marissa

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Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instragram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.
– In my latest Inc, article, I share The Essential Guide to Avoiding Workplace Text, Email, & Social Media Disasters.
– Learn about the 9 Leadership Behaviors that Lose Employee Trust & Respect here.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”

The Delicate Art of Co-Founder Alignment

One of the most challenging yet rewarding aspects of my role as a growth strategist is working with companies that have multiple co-founders. I often engage with these companies after one of the partners reaches out to me to discuss their growing pains.

Through my 20 years of business ownership experience, my professional training, and my 18 years of parenting, I’ve learned to live by the motto, “trust but verify.” While the partner that contacts me always provides valuable insight, I must gather the perspectives of the other partners to see the whole picture. In addition, I must earn 100% trust & buy-in from all partners to proceed, or we will all be set up for failure.

I’m currently working with an 18-year old company that has three co-founders. I won’t work with any companies that have more than three co-founders. Two co-founders are relatively easy to align. Three co-founders is a challenging situation in a fun way. Four or more co-founders would be very difficult to align.

My client has ambitious growth goals, but the owners have divergent ideas on how to achieve the goals. The most important step to achieving these goals is to get all of the owners on the same page. Through a series of Successful Culture tools and processes, I have each partner work individually – with a promise to not consult with one another – on worksheets that tell me how they perceive themselves and how they perceive the other partners in the organization.

I ask them to follow the same exercise with organizational values, mission statements, and company vision.

The results always show critical disconnects and misunderstandings. In some of my client organizations in which I’ve had executives describe their roles & responsibilities and those of their colleagues, the results have been so contradictory that you would think these “team members” are working for different companies.

Imagine the problems that these disconnects can cause: misaligned and unmet expectations, resentment, disappointment, poor communication, loss of trust, and confusion among direct reports, just to name a few.

The good news is that with open-mindedness, self-reflection, and a willingness to subjugate a personal agenda in favor of the organization’s best interest, the owners can expunge the different perspectives they may have with these critical foundational elements. One of my close friends and favorite mentors is a leader in the higher education space. He has built and sold multiple companies, starting with his first company that he built while a sophomore at U Penn. Every time we talk business, I walk away smarter. He taught me that the best leaders are always willing to sacrifice their own personal agendas for the good of the company. This is especially true in co-founder situations, where multiple egos and agendas may be fighting for dominance or survival.

Business partners must share the same story when building a company. They can’t be telling or living by their own stories. This sounds logical and simple, but it contradicts human nature. The human brain hates ambiguity. It craves a beginning, a middle, and an ending of every story. Even when the ending is false, the brain seeks comfort in knowing the outcome.

Business is unpredictable. For our own comfort, we often project. We write the endings of our stories in our minds, and then act in accordance with that ending. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a single business owner does this, he/she can build out the company according to that ending. If multiple business owners in a single company do this, and they don’t communicate their endings to one another, then they are all chasing down different endings.

One of the most important conversations I have to lead with my clients is the conversation around personal agendas, and the need to sacrifice these agendas for the good of the company. By being able to demonstrate how far apart owners may be in perceived roles, values, mission, vision, strategy, etc., I’m able to gently bring them back in alignment.

Only then can the real work begin to meet the growth goals…creating a clear roadmap to the desired end state that aligns with values, mission & vision; assigning roles & responsibilities; instituting accountability; tracking progress.

When our cars are out of alignment, and we keep driving them, they ultimately pull to the dominant side, and they cause expensive and sometimes irreversible damage. The same thing happens in an organization. Misaligned perceptions, outcomes, and stories will ultimately erode the balance of the company, and can damage it beyond repair.

If you have partners, or an executive team, when was the last time you checked your alignment? Please share your stories about bringing and keeping alignment within your leadership team.

If you’re at the beginning stages of a partnership, you’ll find great value in my previous column, 9 Strategies to Avoid Business Partnership Purgatory.

Good luck!

Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instragram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.
– In my latest Inc, article, I share The Essential Guide to Avoiding Workplace Text, Email, & Social Media Disasters.
– Learn about the 9 Leadership Behaviors that Lose Employee Trust & Respect here.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”

Your Experience is Your Blue Ocean Strategy

One of my favorite business books, alongside Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Steve Jobs by Walt Isaacson, is Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne and part of Harvard Business Review Press. A blue ocean strategy enables a company to create uncontested market space. In a “red ocean,” or a sea of competitors, what is the one thing you offer to the market that no one else can offer? All businesses must have at least one thing that makes them the only, rather than the best. This is something I relentlessly work on with my clients. If all other things are equal between you and a competitor, what is the one thing that will tilt the scale in your favor?

The trick is to make you comfortable with this strategy. How comfortable are you sharing your own value? Others will never value us more than we value ourselves. They meet us at the standards we set for ourselves.  If you diminish your own journey, you can not expect others to value it.

Get Out!! (Of Your Comfort Zone)

We’ve all heard (and said) the sayings, “Growth happens outside of your comfort zone.” “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” “You must get comfortable with discomfort.” Everyone who says it (including me) says it with such authority that you would think they spend every moment of their lives in discomfort.

It’s funny how coincidences occur (although I believe there really are no coincidences… people, events, experiences, and opportunities show up in our lives exactly when and how they are meant to show up.). I intended to write about getting out of what makes us comfortable so we can re-connect with the world around us, and take a temperature check on how we are doing in relation to others. I wanted to guide others on the process because of what’s happening in my client organizations. What happened on Wednesday is that I was unexpectedly pushed WAY out of my own comfort zone, for the first time in years. I’ll share my experience and what resulted.

But first, the column’s original intent.

I have several CEO clients that are REALLY comfortable in their offices…too comfortable. It’s what they know. Even if they know their company isn’t running optimally, it’s safe & familiar. It’s very easy to get comfortable with what’s not working, because change is so painful. So we stay with what we know even when we know it limits us.

What happens is that these CEOs who started these now multi-million dollar companies have evolved into very expensive, highly paid overhead resources. Their titles may say CEO, but they are operating at a much lower level. They are spending days writing proposals, putting out fires, chasing certifications, managing HR functions, and many other administrative or operational tasks that can be outsourced or delegated.

This stems from a lack of self-confidence, and a mindset that they aren’t qualified to be “out there.” I’ve been pushing 3 phenomenal CEOs out of their offices. I’ve been holding them accountable to attend a specific number of events outside the office. I’m forcing them to delegate tasks to other workers. Results have been amazing.

“I had no idea how far along we have come, and how much we have our act together.”

“There are so many other business owners facing the same issues just like me.”

“When I get out of the office, it really makes the challenges I am facing a lot less daunting because I am not focused on them 24/7.”

“I actually know a lot about our industry!”

“I’m seen as a leader.”

“There are so many teaming opportunities with other CEOs.”

When CEOs step away from the office, it gives the office team an opportunity to bond and collaborate in a way that is very different from when they are under the watchful eye of the CEO. They are more empowered to make decisions and solve problems.

As I spent time with one of my clients this week architecting their project management platform, one of the Vice Presidents asked me how the executive team can change employee behavior so that they don’t go straight to the CEO every time they have a question.

I explained that it is the CEO’s job to help current and prospective employees understand that they are not working for the CEO; they are working for the COMPANY. This means the CEO empowers others to do the hiring, and ensures every employee has a boss that is not the CEO. This is one shift that occurs when companies evolve from the initial start-up phase to a more established model.

A CEO-centric business is a business in which the CEO often operates as a highly paid overhead resource. Processes, systems, and other leaders are essential to empower the CEO to spend time away from the office, and serve as the company’s “brand ambassador” or Chief Evangelist Officer. This is what turns a solopreneurship business into an organization.

I know from experience this is uncomfortable. But this is how companies grow beyond the CEO.

Speaking of discomfort, I was unexpectedly pushed WAY out of my comfort zone this week and it was AWESOME! I’m a Founding Member of DC-Based CADRE, a community of high-achieving professionals that have an insatiable thirst for learning & self-development.

Cadre hosted NYT best-selling author and renowned speaking coach Michael Port for a 3-hour workshop. Cadre founder and close friend Derek Coburn (author of Networking Is Not Working) reached out to me to ask if I would be open to being coached in front of 50 attendees. “No thanks, Derek. I’m in more of an observation mindset, instead of a participation mindset.” This was code for, “ARE YOU CRAZY?? NO WAY!! NO way am I getting up in front of 50 members and making a fool of myself.”

At the workshop, Derek approached me. “Marissa, I really would like for you to volunteer to be coached so Michael can do some higher level coaching.” The session starts again, and Michael says, “Marissa I understand Derek asked you to volunteer.” And then 15 seconds later, I am standing at the front of the room with this legend, completely unprepared.

What transpired over the next hour inside and outside of me was electric. Not only did I completely reshape one of my favorite speeches, I was BUZZING from adrenaline. My heart was racing. My palms were sweaty. I was shaking. I was 200% uncomfortable. I was completely vulnerable in front of my peers. I received 60 minutes of “constructive feedback.” I also had a taste of speaker GREATNESS. My friend Jen said, “Marissa, you SHINED.” Michael told me after that I have “it.” I have what it takes to be a great speaker. I’ve always loved speaking for the impact I can make. My own insecurities have held me back. Now that I have looked them in the eye, I’m yearning for more. I’ll be joining Michael in his public training in February.

There is nothing like discomfort to remind you that you are alive. But we can’t experience the thrill of discomfort unless we find the bravery to be vulnerable & open, and to put ourselves out there.

How can you commit to discomfort? What will you do in the next few weeks to push yourself to the limits of your comfort zone?

Please drop me a line and let me know what you do.

Good luck!

Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instragram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.
– In my latest Inc, article, I share The Essential Guide to Avoiding Workplace Text, Email, & Social Media Disasters.
– Learn about the 9 Leadership Behaviors that Lose Employee Trust & Respect here.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”

The One Secret to Holding a Transformational Strategic Planning Retreat

Strategic planning retreats often have a bad reputation. An executive team takes the company or a group of key stakeholders off-site for a few days to share the company vision, and put a plan in place for moving to the next level of growth.

In theory, this is a great idea. In reality, the excitement and engagement that employees develop at the retreat quickly disappears once everyone returns to the office, and they have to focus on their “real work.” The retreat is then seen as an expense and waste of time that felt good in the moment, rather than a smart investment.

I have a secret for facilitating truly transformational strategic retreats. Using a set of tools I have developed for Successful Culture’s TransformU™ system, I guide employees through the process of taking personal responsibility for carrying forth their specific element of the company mission. The CEO may set the mission, but it is the organization’s job to achieve it.

How does this occur? It starts with education about the values, vision, and mission of the organization, competitive differentiators, target customers, and market analysis. Then, through a series of exercises, every employee learns how to craft their own personal mission statement as it relates to the mission of the company. Instantly, the intention shifts from fulfilling someone else’s mission to fulfilling their own mission.

Once each employee has developed their own mission statement, they read them aloud. They publicly commit to their own missions. Then I work with each stakeholder individually to create a personal action plan.

The end result is the development of a Mission Map™ which shows how all employee missions link back to the organizational mission, and how they link to one another.

To ensure these missions continue to drive employee behavior and organizational outcomes, we institute motivational activities back at the office that drive accountability.

The one thing that should never happen at any company meeting, and especially a strategic planning event where leadership is asking for buy-in from employees, is for employees to feel as if they are being “talked at.” I always think about the teacher in the Peanuts/Charlie Brown cartoons. I would never want my employees – or the employees of my clients – to think of that voice when attending a company meeting.

Discussions about organizational growth should always be a two-way conversation. If you’re asking an employee to step up and support your mission, they have the right to be heard. They should feel empowered to own their contribution to mission fulfillment. I’m not suggesting decision by consensus, but employees and key stakeholders bring tremendous vision and value to the strategic planning process, and to the overall process of mission fulfillment.

Empower your team to fulfill their own missions, and you will have loyal & engaged employees for life.

I’m proud to share a testimonial from a client that recently hired me to facilitate their strategic planning retreat. I LOVE this work!! I love helping my CEO clients grow into their greatest personal and organizational potential, and create cultures of high engagement and accountability. Seeing their transformations is the most fulfilling work I have ever done, and I am so grateful for the trust my clients have in me.

I hired Marissa Levin (who is also my business coach) to help me with our annual retreat with my staff. We took off for 1.5 days and went to Middleburg. Marissa facilitated the retreat. She prepped for it by getting staff input on what our SWOTs were. Also- she got a survey out to my team to ask them what they are looking forward to achieving at the retreat. Once we were there, I presented my vision and she did a number of different exercises culminating in my each team member writing out a personal mission statement within the company. It was AMAZING!!!! Everyone- down to our interns had finally taken ownership of their roles. Everyone now knows where they fit in the company. Everyone is embracing the growth. For the first time- I know that my role at my company will be less and less operational and client-work and instead focused on building the company.

The atmosphere at my office has changed drastically because people finally understand my vision and have embraced it and because they understand their role. In the weeks since, there are less cries for help and more ownership and decision making without me. There are a number of meetings that have carried on without me even knowing about them within the smaller teams. The retreat took a lot of planning and was expensive. However, it was worth every penny seeing the transformation my folks had.

As we move into the 4^th quarter of the year, this is a perfect time to re-engage your employees, and set your plan for 2016. Please let me know how I can help you move your organization forward, and help you to reach your greatest leadership potential.

Congrats on your success, and keep growing!

Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instragram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.
– In my latest Inc, article, I share The Essential Guide to Avoiding Workplace Text, Email, & Social Media Disasters.
– Learn about the 9 Leadership Behaviors that Lose Employee Trust & Respect here.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”

Small Changes, BIG IMPACT

My summer mantra was PURGE. I had a mission this summer to get rid of anything that no longer served me. We donated A LOT of goods to various charities. We threw away useless items that were taking up space. We de-cluttered and cleaned.

In my personal space, I wanted to clear out my energy. I wanted to get rid of the noise that bombards us 24 hours a day, which we often unknowingly/unconsciously bring into our worlds. We don’t realize how this noise impacts our ability to focus, innovate, create, and connect with others. It makes us tired, scattered, and weary. Our phones are constantly beeping, buzzing and ringing with countless notifications. The noise is one steady stream of disruptions!

Here are the things I did this summer to reclaim my mental space:

• I purged 7,000 emails from my inbox.
• I unsubscribed to more than 300 subscriptions which are no longer relevant, and used to simply delete. Now they don’t even come into my inbox.
• I changed my search engine default page to http://www.positivelypositive.com/. THIS WAS HUGE!! Now when I log on to search, I get a beautiful page with great messaging.
• I’ve cut back on all of my social media. I’ve removed all of the apps from my phone for all of the social media platforms except LinkedIn.

Every morning, I wake up to a clean inbox…and uncluttered mental space. My messages are relevant to what is happening in my life right now, from the people that matter the most. I’m able to be more responsive, more present, and more productive.

In the morning, how long do you wait before picking up the phone to check your messages, get a news report, or scroll the Facebook feed? How quickly do you jump from the presence of the real world into the online world? When you do jump in, how much of the noise, messaging, and content is truly relevant to what’s happening in your life right now?

You have the power to control your inputs. Are you using it wisely?

Please let me know if you implement any of these strategies, and how they work for you. Have a great week!

Sign up here to receive Successful Culture’s leadership blog every Friday. All posts contain actionable content to make you the best leader you can be, to help you develop your people to their greatest potential, and to help you build your best organization.

About Successful Culture
We work with business owners, CEOs, and leadership teams that want to achieve their greatest personal & organizational potential. Through coaching, strategic consulting, retreat facilitation, and workshops, we equip leaders & emerging leaders with the mindset, tools, strategies, and processes they need to excel.

Ready to move forward? Email us today at [email protected]

Connect with me on Instragram, Facebook, and Twitter. Engage with me during my morning Periscope sessions as well (@marissalevin).

Please check out my Inc. Magazine columns on my Author Page too.
– In my latest Inc, article, I share The Essential Guide to Avoiding Workplace Text, Email, & Social Media Disasters.
– Learn about the 9 Leadership Behaviors that Lose Employee Trust & Respect here.

~Marissa Levin
CEO, Successful Culture
“Taking Leaders from Triage to Transformation.”