I love building shelves. I start the day with a pile of lumber, some screws and nails, maybe some glue and paint or stain, and a barren wall. At the end of the day, I’ve got shelves. My wife has more room to store more stuff, and I’m a hero. I check it off of my to-do list, and I’ve accomplished something. It feels great, it looks great (maybe), and it is a feeling that I do not often experience as I walk out of my office at the end of a typical business day. Can you relate?

An often frustrating reality of the business world is that accomplishments are incremental and difficult to quantify. Our impact can be governed by constraints, complexities, and dependencies. Aside from simple projects or clear-cut assignments with specific deliverables, it is difficult to say with confidence, “This is how I made an impact today.”

My advice: Shift your focus and change your scorecard. If my focus is on myself only and what I alone can accomplish, then my “impact scorecard” is very simple:

Max contribution = 24 hours/day x 1 person (me)

If, on the other hand, I shift my focus to include both my own personal contribution plus how I lead, influence, and impact others in my workplace, then I have limitless potential to score big every day. This is an adjustment that all professionals can make, regardless of whether we are considered by title or reputation to be leaders. The fact is we can lead wherever we are.

One of the initiatives at Keller Schroeder of which I am most proud is our annual Client Appreciation Event. Over 250 of our clients and several of our vendors converge on our humble headquarters for a cook-out-on-steroids on an October day each year. It’s a great time that gets rave reviews from attendees, and since 2008 it has also been leveraged as a way to give back to our community (to the tune of $10,000+ to the United Way in 2008 and 2500+ items to area food banks in 2009).

One of the things that makes me most proud of this event is that I had nothing to do with it. The idea for the event itself was voiced by one member of our sales team, and then it morphed and evolved out of the creative energies of a whole host of employee-owners at Keller Schroeder. The idea to include a community “give back” emphasis was also initiated by the compassionate spirit of one member of our sales team, and that aspect of the event has captured the hearts and passions of virtually everyone in our company.

Bottom line: Our Client Appreciation Event was birthed by a culture at Keller Schroeder that encourages individual initiative, and it was nurtured by a culture at Keller Schroeder that says each one of us has the privilege and the responsibility to lead from where we are – regardless of position title or job description. To me, one of the greatest thrills of leadership is the satisfaction that comes not from my own achievements or even the collective achievements of our firm. I’m pumped when I see individuals acting on their own initiative to do something without my help or knowledge because they are empowered by a culture to do so.

So, with your “impact scorecard” in hand, I would challenge you with these questions:

1. What are you doing to promote/enable individual initiative as a leader from where you are?
2. What are you doing to develop/inspire/empower those who work for you or alongside you?

The evidence of your contribution may not be as clear and tangible as a nice-looking shelf at the end of the day, but the lasting impact could have far greater benefits!

Larry May, President
Keller Schroeder

The economic turmoil of the past year or so has elevated this question to a leading place among our “standard” greetings, almost to the equivalent of “How ya doin’?” When we ask, “How’s your business?”, we are really asking “How is your bottom line?”, in light of the struggles many businesses and nonprofits are facing right now. It is no surprise that friends and colleagues would want to know about the financial stability of the company you own or work for and how well you have weathered the economic storms of 2008-2009.

Let me propose perhaps a better question: “How are your relationships?” The cycles of capitalism almost ensure an unpredictable “earnings curve” for most organizations, and often the ups and downs of revenues and profits are dictated by factors over which we do not have much control. But relationships are something else entirely.

Unlike economic ebb and flow, the practice of creating and sustaining good relationships is virtually unrestricted and universally positive. Regardless of how your bottom line looks, you can build new relationships and strengthen existing relationships. Regardless of whether your profitability is positive or negative this year, strong relationships will contribute favorably to your future.

On behalf of all the employee-owners of Keller Schroeder, I want to thank you for the relationships we have with each of you, our clients. We are blessed individually and personally by these relationships, and we have great optimism about today and our future because of these relationships. We value them deeply, and we appreciate your willingness to open your doors to us year after year.

The foundation of a good relationship is trust, and the foundation of trust is simply saying what you’ll do and then doing it. We expect you to hold us accountable for that, and we’ll do our part to continue to earn your trust in the months and years ahead.

Meantime, I wish you and your business a promising and prosperous 2010. We look forward to being part of your success story!

Larry May, President
Keller Schroeder