Build a List of 100

We’ve all been in ruts. We all would like an effective technique that allows us to look at problems differently. Recently, Josiah Johnson, the Director of Business Development at ZeroDash1, and I decided to use the “List of 100” to brainstorm ideas on how to gain a larger footprint in one of our key accounts.

For those who are not familiar, List of 100 is a technique to generate ideas, clarify thoughts, uncover hidden problems or get solutions to any specific questions. The technique is very simple in principle: State your issue or question in the top of a blank sheet of paper and come up with a list of one hundred answers or solutions about it.

Our question was, “How Do We Build a More Dynamic and Powerful Relationship with Company X?”

Phase I: First 30 entries or so: where you escape circular thinking

We started building the list with the first 27 answers coming relatively easily. Most of these, however, were ideas that we had bantered around for some time. The first really original idea came at number 28, where we wanted to include the results of our work with the customer in some of our industry blogs.

Phase II: Next 40 entries: where patterns emerge

The next 40 ideas were difficult to come by. At times, Josiah and I were staring at each other across the table wondering why we ever started the list. We would ask each other how many ideas we had after every five new ideas or so. “Are we there yet, daddy? Are we there yet?” Haha. My mind started wandering off to what I would cook for dinner this weekend.
According to experts, this phase is the most difficult because we had to let go of the ideas we had in the first phase in order to come up with new, distinct ones. For us, a pattern emerged around ways to extend our support to the company’s affiliate organizations. These were worthwhile ideas that we will pursue.

Phase III: Next 30 entries: where the gems are

The last 30 ideas were definitely our most creative. We came up with possible ways to leverage our own website for the customer. I was most happy with ideas around giving additional incentives to our staff for providing the customer extraordinary service and increasing business.

The whole exercise took about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Yes, it was difficult at times as we tried to let go of our initial ideas. In the end, however, we both found the exercise beneficial and are excited to implement some of the ideas that came out.

The question can be for business or personal life. Here is a good guide if you want to try it.

Competition Helps to Drive Performance

How much is $2 really worth these days? Yesterday, the $2 that I received from my golf buddy Jeff Gilles was PRICELESS! After18 holes in pleasant mild weather, at a brisk pace of four hours, he had to hand over those $2 for our skins game.

Now, I don’t want to come across as a bad winner, but please understand that Jeff had been taking my money on a weekly basis for the last two golf seasons. After each round, he would remind me that I was younger, in better shape, and had participated in more sporting activities throughout my life. He would do this in his dry sort of way. Ouch.

So, okay, I’m being ungentlemanly after my one-time unexpected victory. For those who know that I can be competitive at times, this obnoxious behavior is no big surprise. Once when losing to my brother down a ski run, I tried to dive and roll into him so he wouldn’t beat me. Luckily, I’ve mellowed out since then, but still do enjoy a good competition.

Most everyone in their own way enjoys some level of competition. It’s in our nature as human beings. Therefore, bringing well thought-out, productive competition to the work place can be very motivating.

Obviously, sales teams have long used competition to motivate their people. Unfortunately, organized competition is less common outside of sales. In a service company, everyone is involved in sales regardless of titles. So, tapping into people’s desire for some competition can be very productive.

One way is to be transparent with the weekly financial performance and the organizational KPI’s. At ZeroDash1, we put all this information on our intranet Sharpoint site. When hitting certain goals and targets, the team wins and gets rewarded.
If you manage assertive, bright people, leveraging competitive contests can improve financial performance, encourage team-building, and produce accountability and ownership of the group’s overall performance by everyone.

Yes, yes, everyone knows this already, but how many managers really take that “strategic” time to come up with constructive competition that motivates desired results throughout the organization? Not many, I would presume.

Try Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping is an effective productivity tool that I’ve been using for about 10 years. I find Mind Mapping really makes note taking more efficient. Also, the visual representation of ideas lets me comprehend the concepts quickly. Frankly, I’m surprised that I don’t see more people in the business world using this method.

In summary, Mind Mapping is useful for:

• Summarizing information;
• Consolidating information from different research sources;
• Thinking through complex problems; and
• Presenting information in a format that shows the overall structure of your subject.
  

Once you get comfortable with Mind Mapping, I think you’ll find it as an extremely useful business tool. There is a lot of information on the web about Mind Mapping, if interested in learning more. Click here for a good article that might get you started.

Father Leads By Example

Meet Ben Chungho Song, my father. I was fortunate enough to spend Father’s Day with him and my two sons.

Although my father was never a businessman, his life story is quite interesting and has many lessons for all leaders – business and otherwise.

My father was the fourth son of six children to an educated government official in a small town south of Seoul. When the Japanese invaded Korea, my grandfather had a choice of either cooperating with the occupiers or being put to death. He chose to live.

After World War II, the locals labeled my grandfather as a traitor, forcing him into hiding. The locals ransacked the family house. Later, my grandmother died from the hardship of her family. She left behind six children, including a five-month old baby girl. Without her mother’s milk, the baby eventually died of starvation despite all the brothers’ efforts to feed her rice water as milk. Shortly thereafter, the family disbanded as the Korean War ensued.

My father was the rebel amongst the siblings, ending up alone in the streets rather than taking handouts from relatives. He survived following the US military camps so he could dig in the garbage for food. He was recruited by local street gangs but had the presence of mind to resist, at great risk to himself. Such fortitude, however, caught the attention of some American missionaries who took him to a Christian orphanage.

A kind, elderly American couple in Los Angeles decided to sponsor him in the orphanage and gave monthly to his benefit. Touched by the kindness of the missionaries and his sponsors, he decided to dedicate his life to God.

After seminary, he went to the US to thank his benefactors. Once in the US, he was disturbed by all the anti-government riots on the US college campuses during that time (1965). He wanted to tell his story about how he was helped by the American people. There was one big barrier, however. He didn’t speak English. He practiced in front of the mirror for days upon days. He first began speaking in churches with his broken English. Later, he ended up speaking in almost every college campus in the state of California, supported by then Governor Ronald Reagan and actors Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. He later worked with a writer, Cliff Christians, to publish a book about his life, “Born Out of Conflict”, which went into 9th printing, I believe.

For his efforts, my father became the first person ever to receive a missionary visa INTO the US.

Once the 60’s gave way to the 70’s, my father moved to Washington state and refocused his support on the influx of new Korean Immigrants who came after the US government repealed the “quota” on Asian immigrants. He started two of the largest Korean-American churches in Tacoma and handed those off to other pastors, before starting the original Federal Way Korean-American church (Federal Way Mission Church).

He’s retired now. I’ve seen him struggle with retirement. He’s never had much interest in hobbies. His passions are his work and his wife.

My father was a tenacious risk taker. He was passionate about his work, and had tremendous charisma. He was incredibly persistent. He was compassionate and liberal in his teachings within the church. The world wasn’t black and white to him, not after all he had been through. He never told me NOT to do something (other than fighting with my brother). He only told me to make decisions that I can live with. Although an accomplished and articulate orator, he always lead by example rather than words when it came to helping others and living modestly.

My brother, Paul, and I have been involved in various business ventures. Whatever success we may have had can be attributed to our propensity for taking calculated risks, being annoyingly persistent at times, emphasizing leadership by example, knowing how to maneuver in all the grey areas of business, as well as having constant passion and enthusiasm for what we are doing. For that, we can thank our father, who used to walk over dead bodies to dig through garbage for food, but was never bitter at the world.