Category Archives: Grow

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Six P’s to peak meeting performance.

October 27, 2023 Peter DiGiammarino 1 Comment

Transform the way you participate in board sessions, executive reviews, operating meetings, design and code walkthroughs, All Hands meetings, interviews, and more! Adopt the **Six Ps** for enhanced individual and group performance.

Prepare

Read materials sent in advance with enough lead-time to reflect on their content. If you are the meeting owner, make it easy for attendees to prepare, and for you and your team to step-back and develop perspective, by distributing background materials at least two days ahead.

Show uP

Attend! You cannot contribute if you do not attend both physically (even if electronically) and mentally. The most common reason meetings under-perform is that key participants, usually the most senior, are called away at the last minute to attend to urgent matters. There is no better formula for increasing the odds that the matter covered in the meeting they missed will someday cause its own urgency instead of smoothly performing to its highest potential.

Remember that all meetings start before they begin and end well after they are over. Those that come late and leave early may successfully convey how busy and important they are but at the high cost of missing more than they realize in terms of what they get, and what they could give, in order to ensure the best possible results.

Pay Attention

When someone talks: listen. Stay in-the-moment and concentrate to understand fully what is said. Do not allow your mind to wander, check for messages, or go on mute to simultaneously take another call or address other matters on the side.

Once a key thought or two have passed you by, it can be difficult to get back into the flow of what is being said. The more senior you are, the higher the stakes are to paying attention. Doing so ensures you will not waste the group’s time catching you up on what has already been covered when you re-engage and it is the only way to ensure that important opportunities to provide input and guidance are not missed.

To concentrate, it helps to write-down the exact words being said as they are spoken. Do not generalize, paraphrase, or add value; just write what you hear to stay focused. Another method is to play-back silently in your mind words spoken as they are heard. The objective is to hear and understand only what is said.

If what you hear does not make sense or otherwise leaves you with a question, check with the speaker to be sure you heard correctly. Chances are that if it helps you to check it out, it will help others as well. It also encourages the speaker to know they are being heard and listened to carefully.

Clarifying questions generally increase the odds that the group will reach a higher level of insight and understanding before offering recommendations, conclusions, or moving on to another point.

Think Powerfully

Give serious consideration to advance material, what is shared in the meeting, and what is said. Internalize, organize, and consolidate what you take in and compare with your own store of knowledge and prior experience to reach levels of insight and understanding that might help push the group’s work forward.

Develop a Point-of-View (PoV)

Push to go beyond taking in information and analyzing it in order to have a Point-of-View on the matter under discussion. If you need more information, ask for it. On the other hand, do not lock-in to a point-of-view too soon.

Be sure to listen to all sides, ask clarifying questions, think powerfully (i.e., critically), and then develop a Point-of-View. Both developing a PoV too soon and not developing a PoV at all, may signal laziness, lack of self-confidence, lesser ability (and that you may not belong in the meeting), and contribute to your own, and the group’s, under-performing.

Participate

Don’t just sit there … say something! That said, it is not a good use of the group’s time for you to think out loud or to speak just to hear yourself talk. Speak once you have paid attention, asked good clarifying questions, thought powerfully, and developed a Point-of-View worth sharing. Before speaking, edit what you plan to say in order to speak efficiently and not take too much air-time.

There is a lot going on inside the head of every participant at every meeting. No one gets all this right every meeting but it helps to have a plan and a method to consciously follow. Helicopter-up from time to time to reflect on how things are going. If you are not engaged and participating then why are you there at all?

If you wonder how it is that someone like you could be in a position to contribute in such a forum, remember that the meeting organizer asked you to attend because they wanted your input and participation. Give yourself permission to be present and to participate fully. Try it, notice how it feels to participate, learn from the experience, and know that you will get better and find it easier and easier with practice.

Finally, push yourself to share what you have to say in the meeting and do not wait to whisper thoughts to one or two other attendees with whom you are most comfortable after the meeting ends and when it is too late for the group to benefit from what you have to share.

Conclusion: Make Every Meeting Count

Embrace these principles and notice the difference in your participation and the meeting’s outcome. Remember, your input is valued, so give yourself permission to be fully present and engaged.

Share your experiences and tips in the comments below!

Achieve Influence Beyond Your Station: A High Impact Strategy for Emerging Executives

May 4, 2023 Peter DiGiammarino Leave a comment

Emerging executives often find themselves in situations where they must engage with senior sales prospects, clients, suppliers, partners, or colleagues. Typically, their level of comfort determines how they interact, and when facing someone more senior, feelings of anxiety and insecurity can arise. This often results in holding back, saying less, and ultimately achieving less impact in the interaction.

However, reaching higher and engaging at the most senior level possible can yield significantly better results and accelerate career growth. Think of this process as climbing a six-level staircase, with each step representing a higher degree of influence and opportunity.

Take One Step at a Time

The first step represents the most basic level of engagement. While it’s easy to accomplish, it adds minimal value. Each subsequent step becomes slightly easier when it builds on the last, but each also demands progressively more effort and carries greater risk.

Reaching the top step unlocks exceptional value but requires the most courage and commitment—particularly the first time

Take the Steps in Order

By taking each step in order and aiming to reach the highest level possible in each interaction, emerging executives can steadily build confidence and skill. With each successful engagement, they gain valuable perspective, mature in their role, and position themselves for maximum impact and career growth.

Climbing these steps is often easier if the emerging executive is older or holds a higher rank than the other party. For less-experienced professionals, however, the real challenge lies in summoning the courage and determination early in their careers to engage at progressively higher levels.

Instinct may suggest deferring to more senior colleagues, and managers often reinforce this by stepping in, assuming it’s safer to take over. However, encouraging up-and-comers to engage directly with senior prospects, clients, suppliers, partners, and colleagues creates invaluable learning and growth opportunities. Managers should do the opposite of jumping in—allowing emerging executives to step up and lead these interactions to unlock their potential

You Don’t Have to Wait—or Climb Alone

Choosing not to push for the next step may feel like the safer option, but this approach often means reaching the highest levels of impact only after many years. There’s no need for emerging executives to wait until experience accumulates naturally; anyone can begin climbing these steps at any stage in their career, and the sooner, the better.

Aspiring executives often wonder how they can add insights, challenge viewpoints, or offer valuable coaching and advice (steps four, five, and six) with only a few years of experience. The reassuring answer is that no one—no matter how junior—has to do it alone. The collective knowledge and expertise of the entire organization can be leveraged to prepare for every high-stakes interaction, ensuring that each engagement builds on the full strength of the organization’s insights.

Earn the Right to Lead by Drawing on Collective Strength

Those who consistently draw on, internalize, and contribute to their organization’s collective expertise with each executive engagement will drive the greatest impact and quickly earn the opportunity to do even more.

Aspire to approach every situation as the organization’s best and most knowledgeable would. This approach provides a powerful form of leverage, enabling emerging executives to perform at exceptional levels and serving both their personal growth and their organization’s success.

Unlock Your Potential:

IntelliVen Manage to Lead Program for Emerging Executives

The Path to Breakthrough Performance

Conceive, launch, drive, guide, and govern Strategic Initiatives.
Foster and achieve the change you want.
Become a better and more confident strategic thinker and leader.

Grow, Plan Change

Key to Operating Success in a Crisis

April 2, 2020 Peter DiGiammarino Leave a comment

With baby boomers entering their last stages, Private Equity invested in senior residences ahead of the certain increase in demand as an aging population would surely seek community, comfort, support, and safety from communal living. COVID-19 changed the calculus overnight. WeWork and Airbnb represent two more niches that are forever changed…as are many more.

The time-honored formula for managing operations in crisis is simple and straightforward:

Shrink to the size you can afford
Prepare to grow
Grow

Watch this video for an explanation of how to avoid “death by a thousand cuts” and come out strong instead in a crisis!

While shrinking to size takes force of will, it can be done by just deciding to do it. Preparing to grow is harder and takes careful thought and planning.

IntelliVen is management’s guide, especially in a crisis, to maturing operations in sync with stage of venture evolution to create maximum value in minimal time.

In this time of crisis, we want to share what we have learned with you and your team. Join us for a FREE online session.

Grow

The importance of executive leadership team meetings and how to run them

March 3, 2020 Peter DiGiammarino Leave a comment

ELTs Are Critical to Achieving Scale

Executive Leadership Team meetings are critical to a business achieving scale. Even with infinite grit, determination, drive, and brilliance, leadership responsibilities must eventually be assigned such that a system to keep things coming together for collective leadership attention is required.

With scale comes the need for leaders to specialize and focus their span of control. ELT meetings are for leaders to connect and align across their areas of specialization. Even the best run $20M business will plateau on the path to $50M if leaders stick with an ad hoc approach to operations and governance.

The objective of a well-executed ELT meeting is to keep leaders informed, in sync, and aligned.

As a business succeeds and gets larger, so too will the ranks of its top leaders and of the next level of leaders to include junior partners who may be geographically remote. In the face of expansion, the leadership team needs a forum and orderly process for information to flow up to, and out from, the ELT. The insights, agreements and decisions of the ELT flow throughout the organization, and need to be based on accurate and relevant decision making information from across the organization.

Proper Planning, Having Discipline, and Respecting Each Other’s Time Goes a Long Way

Schedule ELT meetings at a regular time that will, more often than not, be safe from the myriad of possible interruptions. Early Monday mornings is usually a good choice because there are usually few distractions at the beginning of the day and the week and it gives the rest of the week to follow up on meeting assignments. Monday mornings also give team members the weekend to reflect and to contemplate agenda items.

During meetings, it is critical to be disciplined. It is especially important for every member, especially the CEO, to make a firm commitment to stay mentally and physically present. That is: show-up and do not allow emails, texts, calls or any other interruptions during the meeting. Respecting each other’s time will go a long way towards building a high-performance leadership team.

Create an Effective Agenda

The CEO owns the ELT agenda, but each ELT member is co-author in that each has the responsibility, opportunity, and the right to add items to the agenda. Consider these tips to running an effective ELT meeting:

Send out a draft agenda a few days ahead of the meeting and invite comment and drive preparation.
Schedule time in each meeting to discuss topics that come up on-the-fly.
Every ELT member should agree to do their best to make meetings effective and to not complain about meeting content or how it is run.
End each meeting with a draft agenda of next meeting and invite members to comment.
Keep a running list between meetings of potential topics for up-coming meetings.

ELT Meeting Best Practices

Members must prepare for agenda items they are to lead. Submit materials in advance to someone assigned to gather and distribute two-days ahead of the meeting to allow time for members to read through and develop a point of view on each topic.

If it is unavoidable, reschedule or cancel a meeting, but do not make it a habit. Only the most urgent matters should disrupt the ELT process. For example, a pending merger or acquisition or an HR catastrophe might justify disruption, but not much else.

Keep meetings to an agreed upon length; 1.5 – 2 hours is plenty of time for a well-run ELT meeting.

Start and end meetings on time. Discipline is paramount, or chaos will reign.

Agenda topics are of two types: Routine and Non-routine.

Routine items: Things that are covered in every meeting with standard advance materials conveying the state of each compiled and distributed in advance:
- Upcoming key events.
- Metrics
- Headcount
Non-routine: One to three of the most important things going on in the business should be discussed in each meeting. Those leading each discussion need to be notified well in advance and have taken the time to prepare and distribute supporting materials in advance. For example:
- ELT member 1 – walk us through the LAP business plan.
- ELT member 2 – walk us through the BD plan for 2020 and 2021.
- ELT member 3 – walk us through the facilities plan.

Invite non-ELT guests to prepare and present to the ELT from time to time to give up-and-coming leaders a forum in which to shine and for them to get input directly from the top team.

Examples:
- Talent Management Program leader – walk us through the Talent Manager program and update us on how it is going relative to plans.
- Researcher – walk us through the research unit’s scale model.
- Project Manager – walk us through the implementation progress and update us on how it is going relative to plan.
Treat guests as guests (just because they are invited to one ELT does not qualify them to be ELT members). Coach them to prepare and to provide details on what they are doing and how it is going. This is a presentation and they need to take preparation and presentation seriously.
Once the organization sees how guests are involved, there will be a step-function increase in performance from the guests. It will be seen as important to be invited to present to the ELT.

Remember: discipline is paramount, or chaos will reign.

About the Author

Eric Palmer has 30⁺ years of outstanding success as a lead operating executive in private, public, private equity owned, and venture capital backed companies. He is particularly adept at strategy formulation, operational execution, International operations, M&A, leveraged debt, IPOs, and working with professional funders.

How to increase the odds of success with a strategic acquisition or alliance

September 19, 2019 Peter DiGiammarino

Most acquisitions and alliances fall well short of their original expectations. However strong they look on paper, execution is far harder than it first appears. The good news is that practical experience shows there are concrete steps that can materially improve the odds of success.

Why Acquire or Ally

The reason for one organization to acquire or ally with another almost always boils down to one or more of the following three:

To obtain new products and services to sell to existing customers.
To secure access to new customers for existing offerings.
To acquire needed new resources such as technical skills, leadership, or industry knowledge.

Why Not Acquire or Ally

There are also three basic reasons for one organization to decide NOT to acquire or ally with another:

Most acquisitions require buyers to pay a premium. In distressed deals, the lower price is typically offset by significantly higher risk.
Integrating people, processes, and systems is slow and difficult. Bridging cultural differences takes enormous effort and often falls short. Without sustained attention from senior leaders, frontline collaboration gives way to turf protection, infighting, and favoritism, undermining the promise of working together.

Acquisitions and alliances demand intense management attention at every stage: evaluation, planning, execution, launch, and ongoing stewardship. After closing, the burden increases as senior leaders must guide the integration of people, offerings, and processes. That effort inevitably diverts attention from other critical priorities.

Watch video of PeterD discussing
Alliance by Design at an Intelliven Learning Community Session.

There are three steps to successfully acquire or ally with another operation with the intent to merge it with existing operations (i.e., as opposed to operating as a separate unit):

Determine whether the nature of the relationship between the two organizations is to be transactional, collaborative, innovative, or identity-shaping where who they are is defined by their relationship to each other.

Develop a picture of the way things will work when operations come together as envisioned, including:
- A multi-year financial plan that lays out the target financials which justifies the terms and to serve as the foundation for performance goals.

- An operating model to show who will do what to deliver the joint entity’s products and services with excellence, on time, and on budget; systematically and programmatically sell the venture’s products and services; and develop its capacity to fuel growth.

- An organization and governance model to show who is responsible for doing (see: post on every top leader getting at least one thing right) and reviewing (see: post on connecting top leaders to the front-line ) what initially and over time.

Assign an individual leader from each organization to work together to identify issues, perform analysis, and recommend actions consistent with the goals of the partnership. Success or failure to achieve targeted results must be a primary component to these individuals’ personal performance assessment and bonus compensation for the performance period.

Success Factors

Three things that dramatically improve the probability that two organizations will be successful as partners in an alliance or acquisition:

Mutual Clarity: It must be clear to people, particularly the leaders, in each organization why they have decided to work together (see: Mastering the Merger). The rationale must be written down and shared with others in both organizations each from their own perspective AND from the perspective of the other. For example, people in Organization A must be able to say why it makes sense for Organization B to have entered into the relationship as well as why it makes sense for their own organization to do the same … and vice versa.

High Stakes: There must be a lot at stake for both parties. This means there must be a lot to win if the goals are met and a lot to lose if they are not.

Accountable Leadership:
Each organization should appoint a senior executive to represent its interests. This person must have real skin in the game, with meaningful financial, career, and professional exposure tied to the venture’s outcome. Their top priority must be the initiative’s success.

They act as the gateway into their organization, clearing obstacles and enabling their counterpart to operate effectively without having to navigate an unfamiliar system alone. The role requires a seasoned, respected leader with the authority and credibility to mobilize resources and make things happen when needed.

IntelliVen

Category Archives: Grow

Six P’s to peak meeting performance.

Prepare