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Teaser:

Mike Lednovich has worked with some of the largest organizations and businesses in the United States and has helped them create better policies and procedures to become more effective and efficient.  Learn how to create stronger relationships with the people involved in your organization in Episode 24 of the Defining Success Podcast.

Recap:

Mike Lednovich is the owner of True North Executive Development and has instructed more than 2,000 managers/directors and conducted hundreds of seminars during a 25 year executive career.  Mike heads True North Executive Development serving such diverse clients as the Make a Wish Foundation, Disney, Ruiz Foods, Edwards Life Sciences, the Philadelphia School District and Chapman University.

Mike was an executive with a communications company in Orange County and he was the director of communications and marketing.  Before he got into the executive world he was a journalist and he then went to work for the corporation that owned the TV station and the newspaper.  Mike became very engaged in company strategies, vision setting and helped the CEO implement change in the company.

True North Executive Development was based out of Mike’s experiences at the communications company.  His experience helped him build teams that could successfully complete the tasks at hand.

Many people get caught up in the “whirlwind,” the every day activities that keep the organization running.  When people get so engulfed in the daily activities there is no goal setting and no understanding of how the organization is going to move forward.  Mike helps companies by working with executives and helps them get an understanding of the goals they want to achieve, how they plan to get there and how do they measure success.

Members of an organization need to know what the goals of the business are and how do I help those goals and how will I be held accountable in reaching those goals.  Mike generally works with the management team to help the businesses grow.

Mike says that 90% of the time he goes into a company, all the team members commonly have different goals they feel the organization has.  He really helps develop and establish goals and then works with the organization to enhance their goals and helps team members become attached to those goals.

When Mike gets phone calls, he’s usually coming in to solve a problem.  He usually analyzes the systems to see what is not working.  He then figures out what is not working and tries to correct those problems to make things better.

There is a common symptom which is number 1 in the workplace and that is holding people accountable for an employment contract.  When you work for a company and you agree for a salary, that is a contract between you and a company.  Most employees feel that they are going to give their employers grade B performance which is good work done correctly, then the company feels good about what they are doing and they feel good about getting there paycheck.  In organizations where employees are not held accountable, their performance levels go down to the C, D or F level.

In entrepreneurial companies, it becomes difficult to manage employees as the company grows.  In a family you are rewarded for good behavior and you have negative consequences when your behavior is below par.

The yearly performance review rarely occurs on time when they are done yearly.  Mike recommends monthly performance reviews for businesses to help hold employees accountable.  The yearly performance reviews usually judge their employees on how the acted in the past six months.  Employee engagement is a huge factor in a companies success.

How do you increase performance on a non-performer?  It starts with a conversation that explains how employees are under-performing.  They judged based off of hard evidence and not opinion.  The employer than helps the employee meet their goals, and they make sure they can handle the task, but if they can not meet those goals, it is on them.

Popular culture says that to hold people accountable is to fire them.  Donald Trump is one example where the way he holds people accountable is by firing them, but in the real world employees and employers work together to build a foundation for the future.  People believe they have to be Donald Trump, but in reality, you just need to be able to communicate effectively with your employees.

The most effective way Mike gets clients is word of mouth.  Mike works for the Make a Wish foundation and one of his clients was on the board and Mike was able to come on board to help the Make a Wish foundation.

The best leaders create a culture of collaboration.  They learn and how to figure out how to get the most ideas out of their employees.  The organizations that maintain a strong workforce are the ones that collaborate well.  Listening to people and communication is an area where organizations falter.  In the real world only 8% of the communication is verbal.  The rest of the conversation is conducted through body language and voice inflection and using email and Twitter we miss out on a lot of that communication.

Engaging Discussion Questions:

• What does it take to build a successful team?
• What do you think is the biggest problem large organizations face?
• How important is the management of employees in a business?

Links to Great Stuff:

• True North Executive Development – “Mike has instructed more than 2,000 managers/directors and conducted hundreds of seminars during a 25-year executive career.”
• Make a Wish Foundation – “The Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Orange County and the Inland Empire is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and fulfill the wishes for children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 18 who confront life-threatening medical conditions.”
• Donald Trump – A link to Donald Trump’s Twitter page.

Success Quotes:

• “The key to success in relationship is to get rid of the negative ones.  If there are people in your life that are messing you up, get them out of your life.”
• “If you love something passionately and you can make money from doing it than you have the perfect job.”
• “Success is an individual evaluation of what makes you happy.”
• “You don’t give to get.”
• “The most effective leaders recognize that they are part of a team.”
• “I’m a firm believer that successful people give without ever receiving anything back.”
• “A common denominator is that successful people recognize that they want to give back to the community in some fashion.”
• “The most important piece of that conversation is having data because data doesn’t lie.  Data is objective and most managers will operate on opinion.”
• “When we talk about achieving success we need to follow the true north of our inner focus.”

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