Tuesday, June 2, 2009

If you're being looked at...then stare back.

With the onslaught of constant change affecting each and everyday, new shades of colors are being added to your already shaped workday blues. For some, every eight hour period feels like a new beginning. Just because the lights turn on doesn’t guarantee customer satisfaction. There can be no success during these television news media driven bad times if the worker bees have no willingness to succeed.



Everyday life resembles a baseball players strike. While personal contracts and time spent working are renegotiated, the two battle lines sit staring at each other while the rest of a world reinvents what put the original company up on top. The longer nothing is being done the more difficult it’s going to be for GM’s and Department Head’s to get a tighter lock on their view of an assumed presentation.



A lack of trust and reasons to believe the good times are gone has invited fungus to grow on team spirited willingness. That mid-80’s Wall Street fire in ones eyes no longer ignites the shorts that keep our legs warm so we can run wild in fields of dreams coming true. A willingness to achieve high statures of performance has nearly disappeared from projected levels of corporate business. Frightfully so…who wants to be elected king of the fort when decision making truly never belongs to your endeavors yet when the pieces begin to fall it’s you whose dodging paint balls?



Swine Flu has big business competition…apprentice dilemma…the addition of an outsider hired to shake up the joint. In some walks of life they’re described as being upstarts…a new voice and face whose only mission is to generate change without having to take names. It’s all about business improvement and being an outsider means he has no idea who Frank is in cubical twelve and how his tenth grader is the world’s greatest Wii Game master. The new face can’t stand slack and is paid top dollar to eliminate the creases in the way we walk, talk and present ourselves to potential new clients.



I met my first A.D. in 1991…a fairly large gentleman with a cool, calming attitude but one hundred miles from delivering a single ounce of care. His main purpose was to lead his company back to brighter more beautiful times which usually required a hearty eraser to scratch off the faces from the group picture on the wall.



So…how is a common coworker supposed to react? Talk about double jeopardy! The head of base camp is already caught in a major stare down, two more eyes takes the privacy right out of the Do Not Enter sign.



Step one: Analyze the disruption and prioritize the action.



Dr. Gary Ranker believes it’s extremely important to discover exactly what’s intended and how the analysis and change will affect your short term results. Without this understanding, it’s difficult to lead and or perform in ways that best represent you; therefore there is less disruption during the process of change.



I remember my A.D. being extremely firm, truthful and without compassion. He called a full staff meeting, laid it on the line and we all went back to work. During a solo interview he asked, “I need to know, without hesitation or too much thought…are you a disc jockey or a broadcaster?” Knowing of my passion for radio and what it took to get me to market size thirty seven, “I look at myself as being a broadcaster.” “Thanks now leave my office.”



Boom I was gone.



Not from the establishment but shot completely away from the reworking of the vision handed to his job of re-mastering a better plan. I was told to pack my bags and prepare for a three day trip out of town to a morning show boot camp. While away, 80% of the staff was terminated. Before returning the A.D. called me to the side and said, “When you get back to the station you won’t see too many of your friends standing in the halls willing to help rebuild my dreams. I sent you away so you wouldn’t be tainted by my decision to enforce change. Now I need you to become the broadcaster you said you are and set your emotions aside and help me get this job done or you’ll walk through the same door as they did. I need someone who is willing to earn 28 hours of week of pay but give me 80 to 90 hours a week in performance. If you think you can make my dreams come true then I will support you every bit of the way.”



Dr. Ranker believes it’s important to realize that change needs to happen for the performance of any organization to succeed. Working demands and new priorities sometimes lead to conflict…learning its behavior and how to better handle divisions in the sand invites a greater improved performance.



Get your team involved, a restructured path is uncomfortable on bare feet but through incredible second and third level leadership you work as a unit rather than individuals to see your company through these rough times. Dr. Ranker believes open debates should occur because it prepares each player in the way of reducing future disruptions. Political awareness makes one more self sufficient in discovering better ways to promote priorities.



Newer strategies are developed; a new willingness is given birth which builds up your spirit and confidence in ways that reduces damaging disruptions in a plan that three weeks ago had nothing to do with you until given the chance to step up and showcase your ability to lead.



Paychecks and job titles are labels. Business success requires a concerted effort by all members, including those who show up for the job in flip flops at or near 10:30 then spend the rest of the day talking about getting to work but never physically perform until three then its time to start complaining about the work load being way over their head.

Engage your team in the process of exploration and through rare shades of willingness help soothe each others pains created by apprentice dilemma by working with the A.D. and not devising plans that we personally think are better. They’re on a mission and bulldozing down your nice row of trees and blooming flowers means nothing to their hearts.



As for my A.D.? Did he truly support my efforts after sacrificing my family and personal life for his dreams to come true? Andrew went on to become my greatest radio mentor. His vision of constantly being ready for everyday change led me to the 99 to 1 rule. No matter how much hard work, sweat and dedication goes into a single project…there’s always going to be a 99% chance I’ll have to do it over again. Once you take ego out of the game…the end result is always going to be wall to wall success.



Steal his art….



arroecollins@clearchannel.com

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