Category Archives: Uncategorized

One More Giant Step Towards Success 4

Leadership Development, Personal Development, Planning, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , ,

I know there’s no such thing as a perfect world. But let’s suppose for a moment that there is. What would that world look like to you? What would you rather be doing than what you are doing right now? If you knew you couldn’t or wouldn’t stumble and fall where would you rather be than where you are right now? We truly are masters of our own successes – only we get to decide what path to take and what choices to make. Only we get to decide what success and being successful looks like to us. What’s getting in your way from doing what you’d rather be doing? And what are you prepared to do about it?

I know I make this sound simple – but it really is. Life – your life – my life – everyone’s life – is a planned event. And where we  end up is determined by the choices we’ve made. You may not like some of those choices – but – none the less – you do have a choice. You can either choose to sit back and do nothing or you can choose to do something. Each step we take can either move us closer to where we’d rather be or take us farther away. We truly are masters of our own successes. We have the power within ourselves to do those things that make us happy – satisfied and fulfilled or not.

Anytime is a great time to start a new beginning – so why not now? Wishing a hoping won’t make it so. Your past is not your future if you decide to change the here and now. Go ahead – get out of your comfort zone and take one more giant step towards the life you envisioned for yourself. And if you happen to stumble and fall – that’s ok – just take a moment to collect yourself – and then get back up and press on. We all stumble and fall. That’s part of the learning process. If you aren’t stumbling and falling you aren’t stretching enough – you aren’t trying hard enough. Nothing worthwhile comes by chance. If you are willing to put in the time and effort you will end up right where you should have been all along. 🙂

Change The Habit – Change The Result – What New Habit Are You Working On? 4

Leadership Development, Personal Development, Planning, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , ,

When you change the habit – you change the result. Sounds simple enough – right?  Just stop doing one thing and start doing another – and if you do it often enough – it will become you. (Behaviorists suggest that if you do something 21 times in a row – you’ve developed a new habit) Everything we chose to do alters our brain and it fundamentally changes who we are, a process that continues until we die. Dr. Richard Restak – author of “Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain’s Potential” believes that the human brain has the ability to reprogram itself and that most adults have the capacity to learn new things. If you could only pick one thing – that would benefit you the most – what would it be? What one thing is getting in the way of you being more successful at what you do?

Anytime is a good time for a new beginning. So why not start now. Why not make the CHANGE. You’ve got nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain. Do you want to learn how to manage your time more effectively? Problem solve or deal with difficult people and challenging situations better? Do you want to learn how to communicate and interact more effectively with others? You just need to decide what it is you want to improve upon. What one thing do you want to get better at?

C – Commit to a new beginning. If you aren’t willing to give it your all – then don’t bother. No sense wasting valuable time on trying to accomplish something that you aren’t 100% committed to doing.

H – Habit – Stop doing one thing and start doing another. What new habit or habits will you need to learn to accomplish what you’ve set out to do?

A – Action. Start now. Have a plan and then work your plan. Commit your action plan to writing. That way you can refer back to it often to make sure you are still on track.

N – Never ever give up. There will be times that you will revert back to the familiar. It’s human nature. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Just keep going.

G – Goal orientated. Visualize the end result. See yourself in the winners circle. Keep reminding yourself about how much you are going to benefit by making the change.

E – Evaluate your plan and reward yourself. Celebrate small victories along the way. If you aren’t getting the kinds of results that you hoped. Not to worry – time to put a new plan together and start again.

Think it, Act it, Become it. Make this year your best year yet. Commit to a new beginning – make that change.

Leadership Lessons – Fluent in Friendliness? Apply Within

Coaching, Competitive Advantage, Customer Service, Dealing with Difficult People, Mentorship, Personal Development, Personality Types, Soft-Skills Training, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fluent in Friendliness? Apply Within. Hats off to Lowe’s who posted that sign outside of their newest location under construction. I spent 30 years in the retail business both as a general manager and business owner –  so that sign naturally caught my attention. The one-on-one service that you provide to your customer is the only competitive advantage that you have. It’s not your product or service. It’s not your selection or price. The only competitive advantage that you have to set yourself apart from your competition is the level of customer service you provide.

Every time you come in contact with a perspective client it’s a moment of truth. Every time you come in contact with a perspective client they get to decide if they want to continue to do business with you or not. And most often that decision is based upon the way they feel they have been treated. When was the last time you had “Wow” customer service? When was the last time you got “So-So” customer service? I’ll bet the “So-So” out numbered the “Wow” ten to one. (Ten so-so to one wow)

You don’t need to like everyone you come in contact with – But if you want to get repeat business you need to learn how to get along with them. The same holds true with the people you work with.  You don’t have to like them or socialize with them – But you do need to learn how to interact and collaborate with them. If you’re the one who gets to pick who is on your team you need to make sure you’ve surrounded yourself with people who like being around people. Managers and business owners need  to make sure they hire people who like  helping people. You can’t afford to have someone on your team who is turned off and have tuned out. You need to be just like Lowe’s and hire people who are “Fluent in Friendliness” and get rid of the ones who aren’t.  🙂

 

If You Think They’re Listening – Best Think Again

Dealing with Difficult People, Leadership Development, Personal Development, Personal Values, Personality Types, Soft-Skills Training, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do you feel at times that your staff are turned off and have tuned out? Are you finding it difficult to motivate others? How challenging is it for you to attract or retain talent? Well you are not alone. Results of a semi-annual employment engagement index published by the Gallup Management Journal suggested that only 29% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed admitted that they where not engaged – while 17% said that they where actively disengaged. These disengaged employees where busy acting out their unhappiness, undermining what their engaged co-workers where trying to accomplish.

In his book , “Getting Engaged: The New Workplace Loyalty” author Tim Rutledge explains that an engaged employee is an employee who is willing to invest their time and energy to insure that the organization succeeds. He surmised that truly engaged employees are attracted to, and inspired by, their work. They are loyal to each other – committed to doing what ever it takes to accomplish individual and team goals. Engaged employees understand that if the company wins – they all win.

Worth Remembering … “Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the World on your shoulders. The World would go on even without you. Don’t take yourself too seriously” – Norman Vincent Peale

Meaningful change is top down never bottom up. If you want to engage your employee’s heads, hearts and hands it must start with you. You need to invert the triangle and put your people at the top. The phrase “Our employees are our most important asset” must mean something. People hear what they see – not what  you say. You can start the process by applying the three “C’s”

Connect: Managers must show they value their employees. Trust and respect don’t come automatically just because you’ve been given the title of manager. You need to earn both – one employee at a time. Get to know your people for more than the work that they do. You need to establish rapport – in order to build a relationship – that eventually leads to mutual respect. People like to work with people they like. How much fun are you to be around? Would you work for you?

Contribute: Employees want to know that their input matters. That what they are doing is contributing to the organizations success in a meaningful way. You and I both know that there is a number of ways to accomplish the same thing. Solicit their input. People like to put their own personal stamp on things. It doesn’t have to be just your way to get the same result. Resist the urge to micro-manage. Delegate, delegate, delegate. You must give up control to get control.

Collaborate: Great managers and leaders are team builders. Together Everyone Achieves More is not just a fancy sound bite.  Studies show that those teams that are committed to each other out perform individuals and teams who are not.  Good teams don’t happen by chance. You can’t expect to throw people together – call them a team – and expect them to perform that way. Let everyone know what is expected of them. The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing – so tear down those cyloe’s , eliminate the individual sandboxes and build collaborative teams – one team player at a time.

For the first time in our life time we have the potential of working with four different generations in the same workplace. Each generation communicates and interacts differently. Each generation have their own set of values and are motivated differently. But the one thing that will never change is that people are people – and they all want to be treated as people. EQ (Emotional Intelligence) – often referred to as soft-skills – is now considered a more valuable commodity than IQ. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to be the most successful manager or business leader in the room.  You just need to get everyone on side. Applying the 3 C’s is a great start.