Cooking to Win ... but not in a kitchen

Is there a secret sauce for business success?? Lots of colorful answers.? A full TED Talks afternoon agenda.? Perhaps it’s a bit like a timed contest on the Food Network.? Come as you are, figure it out, be creative and cook to win.? Of course, it’s easy when watching from the sofa but we all know cooking to win is possible only when you’ve done it before – many times.?

Chefs have experience with customers who, just like you and me, have expectations.? They pay for performance value they can see, smell and taste. ?

It’s no different leading companies both large and small and in-between.?

As a business or functional advisor, I focus on understanding and clarifying the client’s problem or needs, propose the right or best solution (sometimes it includes a bit of teaching), then step back a bit to enable and encourage the organization to advance on plan.? As an interim CXO, I carry those same steps forward, driving on to achieve success, while leveraging my careers of personal and professional experiences.

Of course, there are a myriad of details and nuances in leadership and management (which are definitely not the same) to engage, but I’ve found Emotional Intelligence, or EI, to be a consistent player in servicing clients.? I’d say it’s 40% of the recipe’s ingredients.?

For the curious reader, here’s a thorough (perhaps a wee bit too thorough) description of EI, https://www.simplypsychology.org/emotional-intelligence.html .?

It’s been my hands-on experience that a substantial percentage of CXOs and Boards for mid-size companies have been given a hefty dosage of expensive retread, cut ‘n paste advice and strategy development by agencies that claim, “we are unique” or “we are the best at it.”??

That’s not to say such content isn’t useful but so often lacks essential levels of detail, context and often an accurate grasp of “the bigger picture” to be effectively actionable.? It’s during that process companies are deceived with insufficient achievable goals and moreover “the how” of reaching such goals.??

It’s not intentional, but so often advice is tendered by people who haven’t actually “done it” or “already been there” so that essential underpinning to EI is missing and the client is left in an exposed position.?

So, what’s the remedy??

I contend that EI is a natural characteristic or personal attribute when expressing advice and managing the emotions or sentiments of clients.? A successful advisor or CXO in an operations position must have a true ability to comprehend, diagnose, and successfully negotiate the client’s emotions in order to navigate around established perceptions or prior ineffective counsel.??

It’s not easy to dissuade embedded comfortable or deceptive solutions especially when a client often has only one chance to make the right decision to save or elevate the company.??

In my opinion, applied EI is all about helping clients better understand “the why” of a proposed plan or strategy and “the how” they must manage to achieve success. ?Wisdom and experience do matter when applying the arts of negotiation, teaching and encouraging, all while dissecting an organization from head to toe.?

This can be difficult time in the company kitchen when client leadership lacks EI?which then necessitates the additional challenge of helping such corporate officers to use an EI set of lenses.??

We can’t forget that companies come in many flavors but are all led by people.? Imperfect.? Moody.? Smart (and not so smart).? Far sighted.? Near sighted.? Lean.? Overweight.? Actually, more the same than different … just people.??

To clear the threshold of being retained, advisors or interim CXOs must convey the concise value they offer while also clearly articulating they can solve the perceived problem – two different but richly mingled tasks.?

I believe EI is an essential ingredient in successfully employing that “performance value.”?

It’s not an MBA theory, but a coined term that puts a spotlight on the broader and more practical business attributes of advice that speaks to improved productivity and raising the intrinsic appraisal of the company’s worth rather than what I describe as deceptive solutions which don’t necessarily point to value but actions that give a perception of worth or wellness.??

Companies need solutions to challenges that impede profits and increased share values. I contend that in the mix of applying business acumen, careers of hands-on experience and parceled tech tools, emotional intelligence is the humanly honed software in performance value that makes everything function – successfully.??

It’s how you cook to win.

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