About Brad Farris

You took the time to clearly lay out the assignment. You confirmed with your team member the process they would use to accomplish it. They agreed that the time frame was good and that they had the skills and tools they needed to get it done. But when they deliver it to you, you are disappointed. It’s just not great work! You expected a lot better, and you really believe they are capable of it. Now, what do you do? You don’t want to have a big back and forth about the quality of this work, but you can’t send it to the client like this… I’ve got a simple sentence that will turn this situation around for you. You don’t have to get your shorts all in a knot, just plan a time to … [Read more...]

Her goals were straightforward. Win more new business. Complete projects on-time and under budget. Make more money. Sounds like a formula for success, right? So we worked to fire up her marketing so there were more leads coming in. We instituted project reviews to make sure the work was good quality and was getting out on time. We set her up with a bookkeeper who would keep the books up to date and provide feedback on what needs to be collected, where the cash leaks were, and how profit was shaping up. This should be an easy process to follow, right? But it didn’t work. She hates writing proposals, so leads were coming in, but the proposals were piled up on her desk. … [Read more...]

You know the one. She’s late a lot; not just to the office, and to meetings, but her work doesn’t even show up on time. Usually, when you call her on it she blames someone else. The truth is she’s going in 100 different directions at once, and all the things she’s doing are important. You can never tell what her priorities are. But she works hard and she’s totally committed to the company’s success—in fact—we wouldn’t be here without her. Do you know this person? Is it you? We’ve talked a lot this week about leadership, but the truth is, the hardest person to manage is yourself. How do you think it looks to your team members that you constantly harp on everyone to fill out their … [Read more...]

When you started your business you wore all the hats. But as your business has grows you have to give up some of those hats and instead take on the job of the "manager" or team leader. This is one of the toughest transitions for people to make. You have to change what you do, how you do it and how you look at your self. Managers spend their time differently When your business grows managing is your primary job, so you don’t get to spend much time “doing the work”. So if you were someone who was designing beautiful things, you now lead other people who design beautiful things while you go to meetings to provide input and guidance, talk to clients, and resolve issues. This is the core … [Read more...]

On most Saturday mornings I get up early. My school aged son watches cartoons for a while and I amble into the kitchen to start my batch of sourdough bread. I usually brew up a cup of tea and then start mixing the bread. It takes about 3 hours of on and off kneading and rising for the bread to be ready to proof. During that time I plan meals and order groceries for the week. (I’m a big Amazon Fresh fan.) It’s a slow, very domestic start to my weekend.  I tell you this to illustrate that, for me, Saturday (and Sunday) are times that I don’t work. Occasionally, (as in 4 - 5 times a year) I’ll pop into the office for a couple of hours on a weekend; but I try to spend every weekend off of my … [Read more...]

One of the things I say to new advisors who join our team is that clients always want us to fix “the team”. Clients tell us, “They [meaning their team members] have terrible attention to detail, they never follow through, they are always missing deadlines…” (the list goes on and on).  Of course they are right, the team does have these problems — and those problems are holding the company back from the growth that the owner is looking for. The question is, why do those problems exist? Is the problem with the team, or is the root of the problem higher up? Which is more likely? Have you built a hiring process that successfully screens for out the applicants who don’t follow through … [Read more...]

“How do you know you are doing a good job?”  Early in an engagement with a new client I usually go around and ask this question to each of the management employees in the company. It’s a simple question, but having employees who are clear about the answer is key to driving employee engagement and accountability. If you don’t know what success looks like for your job it’s hard to figure out how you are going to make it happen and it’s hard for you as the leader to know when it is happening.  When I ask employees at the beginning of an engagement they frequently respond with some mix of: “If there’s less yelling I’m doing a good job...” “No one’s complaining so I guess I’m doing … [Read more...]