The Power that The Power of Habit Had on Me

I recently finished a fascinating book by Charles Duhigg called The Power of Habit.

It’s a logical discussion about why we develop habits, how researchers theorize that humans may have developed habits for survival and, if you are so inclined, tips on how to break the bad ones.

It is my nature that when I read a self-help or “book of the mind” I tend to LIVE what I’ve learned for days and weeks after (okay…so I obsess).

My friends have always found this trait of mine to be odd and predictable.  What they don’t realize is that despite my gung ho attitude, a thread of the concept or practice does, in fact becomes part of me.

I am so much more understanding that the word “habit” can be a positive one and that it’s not a permanent situation that one has to accept.

I now also know that the chronic knee jerk reaction to situations, events and questions is an example of a bad habit.

Understanding the damage bad habits do to a person and understanding the repair good habits can do really fostered within me the ability to “think out of the box.”

Duhigg’s book allowed me to see with my eyes and my brain so many more things within my daily occurrences.

Reassessing Purpose and Actions

Take for example my daily receipt of direct mail packages Production Solutions has produced for our clients.   As a matter of policy I am seeded on most of the packages we touch.

In a firm producing in excess of 300 million pieces annually, that is a pretty impressive stack delivered to my office DAILY!

Once I received the pile of the day…my habit (very much entrenched) was to sort by client then check (really loose term “check”) for poor quality printing and then turn them over to staff.

That was it.  Why even bother receiving a live sample?  Had my habit allowed me to lose sight of the purpose for getting them in the first place?

Realizing I had developed a habit that had to change, I revisited the purpose for getting them…

Printing was not the only aspect of what I needed to assess.  It was also important to evaluate:

1. Quality of personalization
2. Quality of stock
3. Correct insertion
4. Package weight (if it was mailed first class)
5. Bar codes and scan-ability
6. Correct number of internal components and insertion order
7. Window clearance
8. Correct folds, slits and perfs
9. Checking PURLs and telephone numbers
10. Correct 2^nd and 3^rd lines of the address
11. And finally which list my name came off of (one should always check this on seeds as origination of your name can be fascinating).

Of course I can identify even more things to review, but when you’re faced with 100 seeds a day…you need to focus on certain quality concerns.

What is important here is that I CHANGED MY HABIT to begin reviewing my seeds in a totally different way…and revisited the ORIGINAL PURPOSE of the exercise: in this case, striving for consistency in delivering excellence.

I used to indulge my old habit of allowing the seeds to sit until my inbox until it tipped over and then I’d hastily rush through them, just to get them out of my office!

Now, I have begun to pick out random packages within the stack and carve out 30-minutes per day to focus on this important quality control task.

Now it’s like a “meeting” in my day…a meeting with a crystal-clear purpose.

And it’s working!  I am proactively finding things to bring to the attention of my production team as opposed to being blindsided by a disappointing client complaint.   This allows us to be more proactive and learn for the next time.

Do You Conduct Your Day as One Big, Giant Bad Habit?

The Power of Habit has not only helped me understand myself but it has also helped me realize the collateral damage bad habits can generate.  It has given me permission to revisit the original purpose of each of my activities and has made me realize that I did not want to be “one of those executives” who conducts his day AS ONE GIANT BAD HABIT (where everything is reactive, knee jerk, predictable, lacking creativity, lacking new solutions, lacking depth).

So, when you get a moment, put Duhigg’s book on your reading list…then take a moment and identify your bad habits and your good ones…revisit PURPOSE and in turn, give purpose to those who work for you.

Revisit purpose.  Take action.

- George

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George Lizama, a founder of Production Solutions and its CEO and chief marketing officer, has spent over 30 years in production management. A recognized leader in the fundraising industry, George served as president of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) in 2010 and received its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006. In 2008, he received a Washington Business Journal Philanthropy Award for CEO Leadership, partly in recognition of his longtime support of Northern Virginia Family Service, of which he is a director.

Production Solutions’ Five Ingredient Secret Sauce for Conducting a Brand Refresh
Guest writer: Susan Greco Marchese, Director of Marketing, Production Solutions

I asked my Director of Marketing, Sue Marchese to guest write about her tips and lessons learned while recently refreshing the Production Solutions brand for us. I guarantee that her provocative insights will have you asking if it’s time for a change at your own firm. -George

When Production Solutions created a marketing division and named me the director, my first order of business was to tackle the elephant in the room: clarifying our brand and brand identity. Having worked for PS in another role for over a year I knew well who we were: a dynamic, leading-edge provider of print and digital direct marketing solutions with an incredible and experienced leadership team, a dedicated and valued staff and a passion for innovation and integration that served our clients very well. The problem: Our branding and in particular, our website revealed little, if any, of that. We were not really telling the true “PS Story” in our print or digital materials, nor did our outward facing brand reflect our mission and strong core values enough. Our look, feel and messages were out of line with our solid brand. Further, the true “personality” of Production Solutions was couched under stock photos and corporate-speak. Parameters: a limited budget.

Given the problems and parameters, I recommended a brand refresh versus a complete re-brand, as we had a solid reputation and brand identity, but just were not revealing that to our audiences as well as we could. Our leadership acknowledged the disconnect, and I was charged with taking the vision of the Board to fruition: devise a strategy and implementation plan to refocus our image, refresh our brand and redesign our website to truly reflect who we are, what we do and why we do it. It took six months to plan, execute and launch our brand refresh. We discovered a lot along the way and hope the following five key steps to refreshing your brand will help you start seeing your own brand and website in a refreshing new light.

Five Key Ingredients to Our Brand Refresh Secret Sauce

1). Perform a Marketing and Communications Audit: Ask yourself: What do you have in your current toolkit? How often and how do you get it all into your audiences’ hands? Are you integrating?

It’s important to check your egos at the door and walk into a communications audit open-minded and enthusiastic to learn, improve and grow. That said, be honest with yourselves…don’t leave any stoned unturned and although it may hurt to turn that mirror on yourself, remember to be constructive and forgiving.

2). Look through the Brand Prism and Plan: Kapferer’s Brand Prism will never go out of style. It’s a tool that every brand marketer needs in his/her front pocket. By approaching the Production Solutions brand refresh through this lens, we not only learned a lot, but the information collected expedited the process that allowed us to work with the designers to come up with what really rang true.

Then, put your brand marketing plan together. Map it out and re-map as needed. Course corrections are not the exception, but the norm when it comes to making a brand refresh come together.

3). Select the Best of the Best, But Don’t Get Carried Away: We carefully selected our graphic designer and web programmers based on experience, cost, references and availability…not to mention the all-important gut check. Remember to do your due diligence but don’t over-think the process. Following your gut about the best fit for the job came in handy at this stage in the process.

4). Despite the Lack of Time and Budget, Conduct Focus Groups (No Matter What): The process doesn’t have to be costly nor complicated. We did our homework and were fairly confident about what we needed to do, but following our gut instincts was not enough to bring the brand refresh to the forefront. We invited groups of internal and some trusted external stakeholders to weigh in on the PS brand refresh at different stages of the process and came up with great corrective criticism and buy-in along the way.

5). Just Do It!: Sure, we wanted to be the A-Team, but “Progress, not perfection” was the mantra when we went into this brand refresh with our eyes wide open. For example: we knew that by selecting an inexpensive yet flexible content management system (CMS) for our website that we can tweak in-house (even on a minute-by-minute basis if needed), we were going to strive for the best, but not beat ourselves up for a typo here and there. By investing in a solid designer, we knew we’d get a lot of mileage out of the look and feel of our materials. And by investing in a core of capable and fun-loving writers who enjoy what they do, we would be able to not only maintain, but energize the PS brand regularly. By adopting that attitude, we didn’t proceed with fear in making mistakes, but rather, confidence. And the end result: a dynamic and vital look, feel and brand that we were proud to deliver to the industry… in less than 6 months and on a shoestring budget.

What Do You Think?

So, here we are telling you how great we are, but what do you think? Did we hit the mark? Does the PS brand refresh reflect the well-synchronized firm of print and digital industry experts that we are? When you check us out on www.ProductionSolutions.com, are you finding relevant information that you can use? Have you looked on your mobile device to see our responsive format? Are we B.A. like the A-Team, or more like the B+-Team? Tell us what you think!

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George Lizama, a founder of Production Solutions and its CEO and chief marketing officer, has spent over 30 years in production management. A recognized leader in the fundraising industry, George served as president of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) in 2010 and received its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006. In 2008, he received a Washington Business Journal Philanthropy Award for CEO Leadership, partly in recognition of his longtime support of Northern Virginia Family Service, of which he is a director.

Fifteen Overt and Subtle Signs of Being Inaccessible in the Workplace

Production Solutions has undergone a build-out with major physical changes to our office environment resulting from the recent renewal of our lease.

If you walk along the corridor of offices you can see the different décor arranged by the staff working there.

I realized that at first blush (lighting, arrangement of décor, manner as to how one is seated and where seated) that some offices and colleagues looked inviting and some, not so much.

It triggered memories of years back when I worked for a brilliant woman who, if it weren’t for my raw self-confidence, would have inflicted long-lasting emotional and mental damage on my self-esteem (and that’s pretty bad, having come from a family of all boys where verbal abuse and punching was de rigor).

Such a brilliant woman who could communicate her thoughts in the most magnificent…balanced…organized way…a woman who wrote strategic summaries that were stimulating and comprehensive. However…sadly…it was known throughout the bustling office where we worked that she was, how shall I say this…unapproachable.

Stuck in a “Character Loop”

The saddest part of this was that she was caught in a “character loop.”

Being unapproachable prevents people from being candid, honest and intimate, and so how the hell was she to know she was unapproachable!? No one would dare tell her how off-putting she was and therefore, she was sentenced to being a stereotype stuck in a “character loop.”

Now come on. We’ve all been there. We all have the friend that is completely crazy…but no wants to tell him he is. We all have the friend who talks with his mouth full…spitting away and we don’t tell him that it’s got to stop. And we all have the friend that talks incessantly and we don’t let them know to come up for air!

We allow them to stay in that “character loop.” We do so because deep down we know that even if we tell them, there ain’t no way in hell they will change. Hence, they are sentenced with no parole to the never-ending character loop.

But, I digress. Now, back to approachability…back to my former colleague.

Signs of Unapproachability

Being unapproachable is not a simple thing. There are overt factors and there are subtle signs that can make one unapproachable. They can convey the signal of being unapproachable singularly or in combination which really is, in the end, totally and utterly counterproductive.

The overt signs of unapproachability:

1. Your office door closed at all times.

2. Not turning your office lights on when working.

3. Never lifting your head up from your computer or from behind your computer.

4. Always raising your voice when in a heated conversation (raising your voice does not make it any more credible).

5. A sterile office bereft of plants and pictures.

The subtle signs:

1. Meeting with you behind the desk and me sitting on the other side. (SIGNAL: “I’m the queen/king”).

2. Showing up and using your iPhone at meetings for all to see (SIGNAL: “I’m not into you or what you have to say”).

3. Rigid body language when meeting with others (SIGNAL: “I may as well not even listen because I’m not taking in anything you are saying”).

4. Never saying “good morning” as you come through the offices. (Really?!?)

5. Always looking preoccupied. (I’m busy too, partner!)

6. Not embracing constructive criticism and attacking (Come on…man up and take it).

7. An incredibly messy office or an incredibly neat office (SIGNAL: I can’t relate to you).

8. Passive aggressiveness (not to mention, it’s just out-and-out destructive behavior).

9. Using the pregnant pause, sarcasm or nostril flaring (SIGNAL: “You are totally perturbing me,” or “I have no time for this bologna”).

10. BOTTOM LINE: Understand your power. The higher your rank the harder you must work to foster approachability (“It’s not easy being Prince Harry”).

Unfortunately my colleague had all these overt and subtle signs in abundance. It was a shame as she could have had a loyal following but ended up void of supporters…and even friends.

Approachability and Leadership

As a CEO and the many years I have worked…I have come to learn that being approachable is a very important part of leadership.

People of course know that honesty and trust are aspects of good leadership but don’t discount approachability.

Approachability is integral to positive communication and growth within an organization.

For those of us in production management and direct marketing it is integral in working with suppliers and building solid teamwork.

Certainly it’s tantamount to having your voice heard.

So again I ask…are you unapproachable? I hope not, especially if you have your sites set for that C-suite in the future.

-George

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George Lizama, a founder of Production Solutions and its CEO and chief marketing officer, has spent over 30 years in production management. A recognized leader in the fundraising industry, George served as president of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) in 2010 and received its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006. In 2008, he received a Washington Business Journal Philanthropy Award for CEO Leadership, partly in recognition of his longtime support of Northern Virginia Family Service, of which he is a director.

(This post is dedicated to Vickie, Erica, Ashley, Melissa M., Kate, Shamima and Melissa MC., our class-A Administrative Professionals at Production Solutions).

After a stressful, short commute to my office involving side-swiping teenagers texting while driving, the executive ruminating over something that causes him to not see the light turn green (had to honk) and the young lady who felt compelled to tailgate me all the way to the office, I finally arrive, unscathed and in 1 piece, only to discover that I forgot to wear a tie for a meeting as well as to take my money clip (sitting in a bowl in my bedroom). Thankfully, I walked in to the welcoming smile and warm greeting of my front office staff and suddenly all the stress melted into the background.

How can anyone maintain a frown or bad attitude when the first things you see are two smiling people wishing you the best day ever?! If they have anything to do with it, I know it will be a good day!

And how about one that hands you a tie…she just happened to have it in her drawer (“break in case of emergency”).

Full disclosure: I started my direct marketing career after two uneventful jobs after college, in a crazy-busy fundraising firm. It was a company that believed everyone in the company should do a little front office work, from time-to-time.

“From time-to-time” for me became half-my-time as the full-time reception one day decided to hand one of the partners two Valiums when he asked for “two yellow tablets.” (He really wanted yellow writing tablets)!

Not smart.

In any event, I became the front office for a couple of years… half-time. And guess what? I loved it.

I loved answering the phone on the first ring. I loved greeting our wonderful suppliers and clients representing causes that mattered by their name sans waiting for them to tell me. I loved being a team player and slipping a note to one of the partners suggesting that he “take this call…” and him thanking me afterwards. I loved greeting and thanking the UPS man, the FEDEX woman and the mail carrier for their work.

Most of all I loved how I made all my fellow employees feel at the beginning of the day as I greeted them with a smile, a fresh pot of coffee and, on some days with CINNABONS. (I was goooooood).

My childlike optimism that I bestowed upon my colleagues was due to being basically a simple man, always happy that “God woke me up” and blessed with a whole lot of energy (back then) and loving my job.

Looking back on my days as a first-impression specialist, I know that my style in which I managed the front office really set the tone and temper of the day with my colleagues and led to (many a time) disarming an angry client or supplier to having a responsible conversation with the grateful account executive.

Fast forward to Production Solutions… 27 years ago when we opened our doors as a production management and direct marketing firm; there was, and always will be, a beautiful soul and loving front office person ready for an honest greeting of positivity and hope, ready to represent our company and our mission proudly.

I remain a stalwart regarding certain front office protocols:

1. I steadfastly support a RESPONSIVE, WARM, REAL, LIVE, VOICE when calling into Production Solutions.

2. I steadfastly support the dignity, the respect, the intimacy and caring my company demonstrates to all who visit our place, by having a wonderful soul sitting in the front and receiving all our visitors.

3. I steadfastly support one of the many layers of corporate branding that “a real” front office offers and value how it educates inquiries on what we do and who we are.

Many of my industry colleagues have gone to a virtual or digital front desk and with that I question whether they’ve compromised their uniqueness in order to save money.

Suffice it to say we won’t be testing that notion, no matter how economical it may be. From the feedback I get at least once a week from our suppliers or clients…I know we’ve got a good thing going.

Now mind you…my front office won’t be giving out any Valium anytime soon (no matter how much you may need it!), but we will have laptops, private rooms, pens and yellow writing tablets available for any visitor in need.

“Good morning, Production Solutions; How may I help you?” It is truly our pleasure to make your day.

- George

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George Lizama, a founder of Production Solutions and its CEO and chief marketing officer, has spent over 30 years in production management. A recognized leader in the fundraising industry, George served as president of the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) in 2010 and received its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2006. In 2008, he received a Washington Business Journal Philanthropy Award for CEO Leadership, partly in recognition of his longtime support of Northern Virginia Family Service, of which he is a director.