But if you want to build the kind of culture that allows companies to flourish, you need to dig a grave for the private office. Nearly every company that I’ve been a part of or advised as a consultant has adopted an open concept office environment.
At 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, we had three floors of wide-open space. It certainly turned the heads of visitors, but our employees loved it. We saw better communication, better teamwork, better morale and faster learning.

In fact, we were once forced to move into traditional office while a new space was being constructed. At first, staff reveled in their new private offices and the workspace hummed with the quiet of focused work. But slowly, people began to see the shortcomings of these walls. They missed the collaboration, longed for the camaraderie and grew sick of the silence and white noise. After just a few weeks, everyone was in unanimous agreement; private offices sucked and were sucking the buzz out of their jobs.

Private offices throw up physical walls between team members. A conversation that could take seconds in an open-concept environment gets needlessly stretched into minutes by walls and doors. It might sound like a minor inconvenience, but multiply that inconvenience by dozens per day, per year and the waste is staggering.

Of course, it isn’t just physical walls they erect, either—the metaphoric barriers private offices create are undeniable. The lowly cubicle dwellers will inevitably feel resentment toward the office crowd. And all the jockeying, scheming and positioning they’ll do to get in that corner office is energy much better used towards growing your business.

I admit, getting rid of private offices is a tough sell to some clients. Senior executives cry foul at the loss of privacy. “I deal with sensitive information!” some say. “I make important phone calls” or “What happens when I meet with high level clients?” ask others. “That’s what the boardroom is for”, I retort. Really, what they are saying is “Please don’t take away the office I worked so hard to achieve.”

But almost to a man (or woman) they come back after trying out a few weeks outside their walls and they rave about it. They feel rejuvenated, more connected to their employees, and most importantly, have a much better feel for the direction of their company.

During board meetings, keep detailed notes of what each member of your leadership team commits to. Ensure those commitments get kept and that you deliver on your promises, and that you aren’t just placating board members by agreeing to ‘look into an issue’ or ‘confront’ some brutal fact.  If you mean what you say, and say what you mean then the board will see their advice is being heeded, and they’ll work hard to give you even better advice moving forward. If a board feels placated, rest assured they’ll stop caring about the advice they give.

However, I recommend you turn off all the notifications.

You’d don’t need to know when every little email comes in.  You don’t need alarms for every single appointment.  Use it to control your business, don’t let it control you.

Smart phones used properly, literally make companies grow faster. Swallow your ‘I’m not into all that tech stuff pride’ and catch up to speed.  You can’t avoid it forever!

pic: ShinyPlastic

Now the second printing was just done as the fulfillment center had run out of books.

Double Double couldn’t have happened without all the people below who helped with proof reading and content ideas.

It’s now available in:

• Hardcover – in many airports, Hudson’s booksellers, and online here… http://amzn.to/HBkeoA
• in e-Book format for Kindle etc… http://amzn.to/HGNeiH
• in Audio format… http://bit.ly/HBkIez
• and even at GetAbstract… http://bit.ly/nwBmaz

Thanks again for your help – glad SO many companies are using it internally now too…

These are the folks I need to thank…

I was in an Apple store in Portland a few years ago to purchase a laptop bag and when I wanted to pay I was looking around saying, “Where’s the cashier? There’s no cashier!”  My buddy Josh, who was standing beside me (and 33 years old, I might add) said, “They’re different here!”

Josh then instructed me to put my hand up. As soon as I did, two people rushed over with hand-held terminals and asked, “Would you like to cash out?”

They took my merchandise, scanned the tags, swiped my credit card, and said, “Would you like us to email you a receipt or would you like me to print one out right now?”  No waiting in line, nothing.

The 25 year old tech-savvy generation make everything go a little bit faster and more efficient.

Scout for younger people on Facebook, Twitter or Craigslist.  Ask them to teach you little tech hacks to make your business run simpler and faster.  You don’t need to be a 20-something, just make sure you keep up with them.

Who gives a shit cares?

The reality is, if your products were awesome, if your services rocked, if your website was crystal clear, then your customers wouldn’t EVER have to call customer service.  Companies truly doing it right, don’t need teams as large as yours.

One metric to consider.  Start trying to get this number as close to zero as possible – Customer Service Cost / Revenue.  Think of the increased margins you’d have.

How often do you call the customer service group at Amazon…

Perhaps it’s time to start thinking that customer service sucks.  Inspire your leadership team to ask the right questions, and really dig into the core issues.  Perhaps you can really start to inspect what you expect at your product level.  You’ll uncover areas to improve and thereby eliminate customer service teams completely.

Thoughts ?

Often the hardest part of dealing with conflict is removing the emotions and dealing with the issue at hand.

I’ve found these phrases really help communicate effectively when you’re trying to resolve a conflict:

When you … Describe exactly what the person did that you didn’t like, or what doesn’t follow your system, values and so on.  Don’t criticize the person, criticize their actions.  Be descriptive – not evaluative.

I feel … Tell them how their actions make you feel. For example, “I feel upset, frustrated, angry.”  Describe your feelings – and dig deep.  If you can truly get your emotions out you’ll have no problem addressing the problem itself.

I need … Describe what you need the person to do in the future in these situations so the conflict doesn’t return.  By focusing on this, you’ve addressed your feelings and the person realizes you are getting to the meat of the issue and focusing on getting the problem solved.

How do you feel? … Ask the other person to put their thoughts and feelings on the table. They likely have feelings, emotions and their own version of the facts that need to be heard and validated before the conflict can be resolved.

If you don’t allow them to be articulate, and if you don’t pull all of their feelings out, the conflict won’t get resolved.

pic TalkShoe

Here is how I wrote mine – it may not be the ‘perfect’ process, but it worked for me, and it got my book into tons of Hudson’s Bookstores in Airports in the USA & Canada.  So here goes.  Hope it helps…

• I first decided on a theme for the book.  I wanted it to be a practical, how to guide, for all businesses to teach their employees how to double revenue & profit in three years or less.  I wanted it to be easy to implement systems, that didn’t require a bunch of MBAs to figure out how to use them.  And I wanted it filled with real world experience, NOT theory.
• I created a rough Table Of Contents, for all the areas I wanted my book to cover.
• I then created a mini table of contents for each chapter.  I carefully thought about all the key points I wanted each chapter to cover.
• Then, over the course of a few months, I walked around my house and office, wearing a wireless headset and I digitally recorded myself thinking out loud about all the ideas for each chapter.
• I sent those audio files, and the DVDs that I sell for companies to learn from, to a transcriber in Sweden who I found on eLance.com I had her send me all the notes typed up.
• I took all of her notes, and deleted, copied and pasted, and began making each of the chapters into a rough version of the final product today.  This took me about a year.  I should have in retrospect gone offsite to some retreat and bashed through them all in a couple weeks without distractions.
• Once I had the finalized 16 chapters, I sent them out to CEOs who volunteered to proof read & comment on them.  I sent 3 chapters to roughly 5-7 different entrepreneurs.  In all, I had about 50 CEOs proof reading all the chapters for me, and they gave me some really valuable insights.  I thanked them all at the front of the book.
• Then, the 1st round of editing began to include some of their comments.  Some ideas I tossed out.  Some I used.  Once I edited all the chapters, I sent them to a writer, who polished them all up for me and made them sound better than I could.
• Then it was how to get published.  I could self publish, or use a traditional publisher, but luckily I stumbled on a hybrid of those two models in Greenleaf Books from Austin Texas.  I was actually teaching their CEO at MIT’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program the very week I’d finished editing.
• The rest is history…  multiple rounds of editing and design help from Greenleaf, and my book Double Double is now helping thousands of companies grow.

If y0u’ve read Double Double already – I’d love your comments here on Amazon… and I’d love it if you’d email me your comments on the book, and a photo of you with it.

If you haven’t read it… You can get it here in Audio, eBook or hardcover.

Work to

In the early days of College Pro Painters, I learned to get media coverage to attract customers and employees due to the culture of the painting company I was running. While building 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, we worked hard to get written up by the media and bloggers.  We told them about the tours we’d take people on if they wanted to learn about our culture – and they came.  The more we told the media about our tours, the more people started coming to witness the awesome company culture they’d read or heard about.  We fueled the buzz.

I’ve mentored companies like CanvasPop.com and Achievers (formerly I Love Rewards) leverage their culture and free press about their company to generate thousands of media articles.  What have you been doing to generate free PR ?

Here are some tips:

• The best employees aren’t looking for jobs, you have to know where they are, and go find them.  They work for the top companies to work for in your market, or the INC 500 winners, the Top 40 Under 40, Best Workplaces etc.  A Players work at the best companies.  You’ll find them on FaceBook & LinkedIn too.
• A Level employees change jobs for alignment, culture, clarity of roles, and opportunity.  They aren’t going to jump ship to just any old company, so make sure that you’ve set your company up to really attract them.  Ask your current employees for 5 things (that don’t cost money) that would make your company a best place to work, and put them in place now.  It’s a start.
• Job Ads MUST attract – don’t be boring…  Here is one I used (it fits my culture) and was for an Exec Assistant.  The ad helped me find a person who is a perfect fit.
• Behavioral Traits – Think in advance about the key traits the person must possess.  Make a list of them – like: Leadership, Attainment, Tenacity & Introspection…
• Interview Questions – Once you know the traits you’re looking for, come up with 3-5 questions you can ask to probe for answers on each trait.
• Scorecard – Describe in detail the 10 things the person being hired will have to get done during their first two years in the role.  Then interview them in depth to ensure they have done similar work before.  Hire for Experience and Cultural Fit.
• Group Interview – Use a Group Interview to look for cultural fit.
• Reference Checks – Do as many as 10 if you have to.  Draw out names of people to call during the interviews.  Don’t just call the names the candidate gives you.
• Raise The Bar – Every new hire should raise the average skill set of your group.  Just like a sports team, work to keep bringing awesome employees into your company.