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Category: Personal Development

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Growth Management Personal Development Women In Business

Executive Presence is Seen, Not Said: 3 Techniques to Improve How You Show Up

Presence, and how we are perceived, is much more about what is seen, than what is said. As a leader, it’s about how you show up – in every situation.

You have 7-30 seconds* to make an impression. Every time you enter a room, every time you greet an employee, every time you meet a client, the brains of the people watching you are making hundreds of subconscious decisions. And your body language is practically shouting at them. Isn’t it time you brought intention to those interactions?

If one more executive says, “It takes me a few minutes to warm up, but then I’m good,” I’m going to scream. They’ve just squandered the most important seconds of impression they can make. And research has shown that people decide whether or not to like or trust you (in those precious first 30 seconds) based mostly on your body language**. That research also shows that if there is a disconnect between your words and your body – like when you’re saying “Everything is fine!” but you’re looking nervously at your watch and your shoulders are tense – people become even more uncertain about you.

At ImpovEdge, we develop CEOs and their teams to help them see the whole picture of what they are trying to communicate. Focus on these three techniques, and you can instantly add greater confidence and presence to your persona.

1. Get Set Before You Get There – Don’t “warm up” on the people you’re leading. If you’ve come from a stressful meeting, take the time alone to breathe deeply a few times, smile and relax your face, and stand tall again. That “reset” will help you to bring the energy you intend to your next interaction. It also helps you to get your head and tone straight, so that it is appropriate for the setting and the subject matter.

2. Slow Down and Stand Tall – When people hurry, their rushed movements tend to hunch them over, and their pace gives off a sense of stress. Some of the best leaders I’ve seen move through space, through groups of people and through their day without that frenetic energy. If you pull your spine and head up, it immediately allows you to breathe more deeply and move more confidently. You can still exude energy and get a lot done. By adding this focus, and slowing your movements and responses, it brings a sense of thoughtfulness and gravitas to your interactions.

3. Make Eye Contact – There is nothing more appealing than attention. When a person turns away from their screen, looks at you directly, and connects with eye contact, we feel important. By intentionally making eye contact with people, you deepen even the shortest interactions and strengthen the other person’s sense that you are confident.

Focus on being intentional about the non-verbal aspects of presence to strengthen your communication. The more you bring the most authentic, confident and focused you to any conversation, the more people will trust and want to work with you.

(*A Neural Mechanism of First Impressions, Nature Neuroscience, by Daniela Schiller et al. 2009)

(**Nonverbal Communication, by Albert Mehrabian, 2007)

Karen Hough is the Founder and CEO of ImprovEdge, one of the top 1% of women-owned businesses in the US, an Amazon #1 bestselling author, recipient of the Athena Award and the Stevie Award for Most Innovative Company, and a Yale grad. 

Categories
Economics Marketing Personal Development Sales

Five Myths About Price and Discounting

I can’t think of any concepts more misunderstood than price, pricing, and discounting.  An alarming number of businesses price poorly.  We even teach falsehoods about price at the college level.  Let’s discuss five myths about pricing, and its Mr. Hyde alter-ego, discounting.

I usually start breathing fire on this topic, so buckle up.  If this starts feeling a little too close to home, don’t get mad.  Get better.

Myth #1:  Price should be related to your costs.

Price should relate to customer value, period. Cost-plus pricing (your costs, plus some margin should equal price) is only useful to set a minimum, or a walkaway, not your actual price.

Take this one question quiz: Your customer wants a price that is below your costs.  You tell him so.  Question: is the average customer more likely to:

A: Erupt with a sympathetic “Oh, in that case, tell me what you want me to pay!”

B: Let you know, politely or otherwise, that your costs are not his/her problem, and (gently but?) firmly give you some version of “take it or leave it”.

So, if your costs are none of the customer’s business at the low end– and you know it – why should your costs be any of your customer’s business at the high end?

Customers will only pay any price (high or low) voluntarily – at least in the long run.  The reason they pay the price they do is that they find sufficient value in the outcomes your offer delivers.  Figure out your value, quantify it, and then set your price accordingly.

Myth #2:  Dropping your price will increase demand.

This myth is taught in economics classes the world over, up through the college level.  Economists build mathematical models using the law of demand.  Here’s the catch:  The law of demand assumes a few things in order to get the math to work:

  • All consumers and all producers have all information about all alternatives at all times – for free, and without effort.
  • All buying decisions are made without emotion…buyers are all Dr. Spock-like in a world that still uses money.
  • Related to “emotionlessness”, price is merely a number. Offered price does not communicate value to any buyer at any time.
  • All products and services are perfect substitutes for each other. They are absolute commodities, with no differences. There is no such thing as differentiation.
  • It costs nothing to switch vendors. There are no costs to qualify a vendor, and the human bias toward the status quo does not exist.
  • …there are a bunch more, but isn’t any one of these good enough to make my point?

Real life example: If your offer’s ROI is often north of 500% at similar clients, a hesitant customer isn’t going to be motivated by price. Price isn’t the problem with the deal.  Discounting is only going to convince your prospect to doubt the numbers.  Well, OK…not “only”.  There are the financial consequences, too.

Myth #3:  Price is just another feature…no more or less important than any other.

My jaw drops every time (yes it’s happened) a sales “professional” says “It’s the company’s job to make money at the price I sold”.  Then they wonder why nobody in the company invites them to the grownups’ table.

Psychologically, price is the final comparison against value – (value=desirability of your offer’s differentiation). Therefore, it’s the counterbalance against the value of all the differentiated features.  Companies with pricing savvy have proved this for decades, and in many industries – even “commodities” like steel and money.

This is so deeply embedded in the human psyche that price actually communicates value.  Buyers look more favorably at high-priced alternatives – assuming there must be a reason for the price. Dropping price perceptually diminishes every other feature in your offer.  No other feature can do that kind of damage.

If you’re unable to build value in the customer’s mind for the other features, then, sure…go with myth #3.

Myth #4:  You can “make it up on volume”.

The mathematical argument here is that by increasing unit volume at a lower contribution margin, you’ll not only get back to break-even, but get further above it.  (if it isn’t going to end up as more profitable, why work harder for the same – or fewer — profit dollars?).

The mathematical argument assumes your fixed costs won’t rise too.  Let’s think that through.  Say you’re a manufacturing leader and need to double capacity because your company decided  to “make it up on volume”.  The math assumes that you accomplish twice as much using the same plant, equipment, staff, utility bills, G&A, etc.  How many seconds of business school does it take to sniff out the fallacy?  Sure, in an infinite universe with infinite possible realities, it must be possible to “make it up on volume” somewhere, but I haven’t seen it anywhere in this dimension.

Here’s some independent research:

  • McKinsey & Company analyzed the entire Fortune 1000, and on average, a 1% drop in average pricewould cause an 8% drop in profit.
  • Mara and Roriello,in Harvard Business Review, studied an even larger sample, and founda 1% drop in average pricewould cause an 1 % drop in profit.

So…”make it up on volume” disciples:  how much do you discount before down becomes up?

Myth #5:  You can discount for “one time”, or for a “limited time”.

This is the myth of the “limited time offer”.  Your pricing policy is one of the easiest things to train customers on. No reputable company will really give a discount just once, and everyone knows it.  Nowadays, every customer just assumes it .  In fact, it’s actually harder to convince a prospect that an offer really isa one-time thing than it is to simply sell the value in the first place. Plus, the easy option is more profitable.

It gets even worse: customers are very hard to “un-train” on a new pricing policy. Once you go into the discounting tar pit, you might only get out as a fossil.

Worst of all: People change employers.  When one of your customers gets a job elsewhere, they carry knowledge of your discounting behavior with them.  See why it’s a tar pit?

Extra Value Bonus:  

Myth #6: If a customer says “Your price is too high”, it must be true.

Whenever somebody took the time to tell me what they think of my price, they  signaled that talking about my offer and its price was worth their time.  What they are really saying is usually “your value is too low”, or “I don’t understand your value well enough”. The other popular option: “I want your product, but am just checking to make sure I’m not paying any more than I have to.”  This is simply a due diligence step, not an actual price issue.

The customers who really think your price is too high don’t even return your calls.

Bottom Line

As I said, if this article started feeling a little too close to home, don’t get mad.  Get better. If you want to get better, contact me.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

Do You Know How to Stop Your Negative Thoughts?

“Either you control your negative thoughts, or your negative thoughts will control you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

He worried about the worst-case scenario and his stomach became queasy due to his negative thoughts. He thought, “I’m through if this doesn’t work.”

I’m willing to bet that you’ve had such occurrences in your life – I know I’ve had them. Have you thought what causes us to focus on negative thoughts?  Do you know how to stop your negative thoughts from pummeling your mind?

What causes people to have negative thoughts?

Negative thoughts stem from our brain attempting to protect us. Thus, if it senses something that caused us angst in the past, we become guarded. We may do that even if our latest perceived threat is only loosely associated with a past occurrence. If we become obsessive, our thought may become negative.

To thwart the thoughts of past negativity, consider the fact that you survived whatever trauma came from it. More than likely you learned something new, something about yourself, and a new way to cope with negativity. I’m not suggesting that you haphazardly discount negative thoughts, I’m suggesting that you not allow them to debilitate you.

You can prevent negative thoughts from overwhelming you by:

1. Focusing on something more positive.

2. Getting drunk! You’re probably shocked I said that. I’m just joking. But that’s an example of how you can alter your thoughts. You can shock your mind, which will take it off the negative thought. While this may be temporary, you can do this over a longer period. Just keep thinking of more shocking thoughts.

3. Preparing for a worst-case scenario, know that you’re prepared if it occurs, and ridding your mind of the negativity associated with that thought.

4. Focus on what’s positive in your life. While doing so, negativity will take a back seat.

5. Use negative thoughts as a source of motivation. If something is nagging at you, realize that it’s doing so for a reason. Something is probably lurking in the subconsciousness of your mind. Elevate it to your state of consciousness. Then, you can deal with it. Once done, banish it to an island of loneliness.

Negative thoughts are the killer of wellbeing and advancement in life. Once you learn to deal with your negative demons, you will have slain a hidden source that prevents you from moving to higher points in your life … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

If you’re focusing on negativity during a negotiation, you’ll be more likely to play defense. You’ll be less likely to go on the offense and take advantage of momentary openings. The latter will be due to your hesitation to act at that moment. More than likely, you’ll get stuck in an analytical mode. Before you realize it, the opportunity will have passed.

When you find you’re focusing too much on negativity during a negotiation, take a break and clear your head. Assess the cause and source of your thoughts. Create a strategy to deal with negative occurrences. Above all, never negotiate while in a negative frame of mind. Stop your negative thoughts.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Negative #Stop #Thoughts #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

Categories
Growth Personal Development

The 5 Traits We Seek in New Clients

We operate as advisors to help businesses monetize brand equity. Or, in other words, we help a select group of businesses build and sell, after having that same experience ourselves. But how do we choose each client? What traits do we look for?

We look for qualities that we think are crucial in order for these businesses to achieve successful acquisition. many entrepreneurs want to be paid for their innovation. There are a lot of legal services available that are way too happy to sell them trademarks, copyrights, and patents. They’ll even put licensing agreements together and give an introduction! But we’ve learned from experience, in order to make the most on your concept, wrap it inside a product, wrap that product inside a business, wrap that business inside a brand, and then build that brand to the point that it attracts an acquirer

It takes a lot of distressingly hard work and will take longer than you think. The sales cycle alone could be more than your budget can handle. But if you’ve got what it takes, you can do it! And what does it take? Aside from great cash flow management, effective personnel management, persistence, and excellent distribution management, it takes a certain type of company.

We know we can’t help everyone. But everyone we help must succeed. Our reputation is dependent on it. How do we assess our risk ahead of time? How can we tell when a business can and will benefit from our assistance? Here are the traits we look for in our new clients.

Scalability

Is the business scalable? Is their product, application, or serviceable to be duplicated and achieve increasing sales? Is their product widely marketable, mass-producible, and codifiable? Does it solve a previously unaddressed issue or satisfy a market-wide necessity? Have they set themselves apart with a product that doesn’t have much competition?

Coachability

Simply put—are they able to be coached? Will they accept our advice? Will they truly listen, and apply what they’ve learned? Do they want to do what’s necessary even if it’s something they didn’t plan for? Do they respect our experience as a whole? Are they willing to put in long hours and personal sacrifices? And last but certainly not least, are they responsible for both their own actions and those of their business?

Auto-Pilot

Is their business able to operate without them, now or in the future? Are they willing to delegate tasks? Do they understand what they’re good at and what they aren’t? And are they able to admit it? Do they ever consider replacing themselves? Do they take note of everything, including policies, checklists, procedures, job descriptions, and signoff sheets? When they make a mistake, does it teach them a lesson? Do they tweak their documentation to make a reoccurrence less likely to happen?

Seasoning

Do they have any other business experience? Are they experienced in their own market or with their own product? Do they have a positive cash flow yet, or have they broken even? Do they have any reliable customers? Do they understand the changes their product might need in order to be more acceptable?

Acquirability

Are they in business in order to eventually sell? Are they familiar with the top 5 potential acquirers in their field? Do they understand the size they need to be in order to gain an acquirer’s interest? Have they looked into the necessary metrics to achieve before they’d be considered by an acquirer? Will they ever be able to part with their business? Do they want to sell their business in a few years, even if it takes ten? Will they make the necessary steps to gain the attention of an acquirer?

If the business has something that benefits their industry or makes the world a better place, if they can say “yes” to most of these questions above, and if we have chemistry, then we can make a huge difference. We can save them a whole lot of time and money, and we can relieve their fears of the unknown. We want to use our years of experience to help others succeed more quickly!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

What an Orchestra Can Teach Your Company About High-Performance Teams

Do you ever feel like you’re conducting an orchestra? It’s hard to get all the people and parts moving harmoniously, isn’t it?

On a recent episode of Talking Business Now, I talked with Maestro Roger Nierenberg, the founder of The Music Paradigm. Nierenberg believes organizations can learn many critical lessons from orchestras, including insights into team collaboration and how to be more productive.

The Music Paradigm is an immersive learning experience Nierenberg created for business leaders, using actual orchestras. Company participants discover how the orchestra mirrors their company’s own culture.

Nierenberg made his New York conducting debut at Avery Fisher with the Pro Arte Chorale and Orchestra. He’s conducted numerous American orchestras as well as several abroad, including recording with the London Philharmonic and conducting at the Prague Spring Festival and the Beijing Festival. While he was with the Jacksonville Symphony, he made an astute observation after listening to many business and civic leaders: the challenges and opportunities organizations face during times of rapid change could be demonstrated with an orchestra. The Music Paradigm was born.

The format itself is simple enough: customized two-hour sessions consisting of a pre-meeting, the session with the orchestra and follow-up discussions. Nierenberg meets with the leadership team to explore their challenges and goals. He then creates interactive exercises for the orchestra designed to bring the company’s issues to life.

Next, the organization’s participants are seated within the orchestra. As participants observe the musicians, they focus on the dynamics at play. Because the orchestra is mirroring the actual dynamics of the company , participants discover some surprising and fascinating lessons about dysfunction, diversity and leadership.

“I’m asking them to adopt certain behaviors that are very much like the kinds of behaviors that either they want to bring about in their own organization, or else, they don’t want to admit that it’s holding them back,” Nierenberg said. “And so the orchestra becomes kind of a mirror for them to look at themselves and see themselves more clearly than they can in real life.”

Afterwards, Nierenberg conducts a discussion with participants about what they have just experiences and the key lessons that can be drawn.

If you’re interested in more details about The Music Paradigm and what your organization can learn from it, click here to listen to the full podcast.

Categories
Body Language Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

How to Out-Negotiate and Understand Powerful Handshakes

“When someone shakes your hand, take note of what their other hand is doing. Their other hand heightens the meaning of the handshake.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“During our introduction, I felt uneasy. There was something in his handshake that made me think that he was attempting to project himself as being powerful. I wasn’t really sure what that handshake meant but I knew he was sending me a message.” Those were words spoken by a team member when recalling how he felt at the outset of a negotiation.

Handshakes convey hidden meanings. They are one aspect of body language that people should pay more attention to. They can make you feel powerful, be perceived as powerful, or make you appear weak.

Continue reading to discover the hidden meanings conveyed simply by shaking someone’s hand.

Meaning of Handshakes:

  • Hand on Top – One hand on top of the other person’s hand

    • Normally, the person whose hand is on top is signaling superiority. But, allowing one’s hand to be on the bottom can be a ploy to allow the other person to believe he’s in a superior position.

  • Hard – One that appears to be overbearing

    • A hard handshake can be a sign of attempted intimidation. It can also stem from someone that is naturally strong and unaware of the strength they convey when shaking someone’s hand.
    • One’s perception is what denotes the degree that a handshake is strong or overbearing. If you’ve had prior encounters with the other party and have shaken their hand, you have a basis for comparison in the present situation. If you don’t have that comparison, consider what a normal handshake would be like from someone of the same size, gender, and background.

  • Weak – Lacking power, dainty, gentle

    • Weak handshakes convey the exact opposite meaning of those that are hard. Again, don’t necessarily infer that someone is weak because they deliver a weak handshake. It may be the way they wish you to perceive them at the outset of your meeting.

  • Hand/Arm Jerk – While shaking the hand, a quick movement is made that pulls the hand quickly in a jerking motion in one direction and then pushes it backward in the opposite direction.

    • Sometimes, in a playful setting, friends will engage in such banter. In negotiation settings, this gesture is most likely a subtle signal that the one exhibiting it plans to keep the other negotiator off guard. Take note when receiving such gestures and compare it to what follows.

  • Firm – Not too hard, not too soft, both hands parallel to each other

    • In a negotiation, negotiators state through this gesture that they’re equal and respectful of each other.

The person holding the handshake the longest is the one controlling it – they’re stating that they’re not ready to let go. A normal handshake usually lasts for 3 to 5 upward and downward movements. Any more is excessive, which means it’s being done for a reason.

Here’s the rub. Just because someone extends a weak handshake doesn’t make them weak, nor does a strong handshake make them strong.  It can all be a ploy. That means you can use this ploy as a tactic in your negotiations.

By understanding the meaning of handshakes, you understand more of what’s occurring. Thus, when someone shakes your hand, you can respond based on how you wish them to perceive you. That will alter the setting of any negotiation. That will also empower you … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Handshake #Power #Powerful #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Industries Management Skills Technology

An Anticipatory Leader™ Turns Disruption and Change into Opportunity and Advantage

An Anticipatory Leader™ understands that technology-driven change is accelerating at an exponential rate. They have learned from a large list of high-profile Fortune 100 companies that were great at both agility and execution but experienced dramatic downturns. Reacting to problems and digital disruptions, no matter how agile you and your organization are, is no longer good enough.

Anticipatory Leaders know that a high percentage of future disruptions, problems, and game-changing opportunities are predictable and represent unprecedented ways to accelerate growth and gain advantage. They understand that there is no shortage of trends or good ideas, and they ask which trends will happen and which ideas are the best to invest their time and resources in. They have overcome these challenges by becoming anticipatory. This happens by using the methodology of separating the Hard Trends that will happen because they are based on future facts from the Soft Trends that might happen because they are based on assumptions about the future. Then they apply these Hard Trend certainties to their innovation and decision-making processes, allowing them to accelerate innovation and jump ahead with low risk.

Anticipatory Leaders know that it’s better to solve predictable problems before they happen, and that predictable future problems often represent the biggest opportunities. They know that being anticipatory means creating strategic plans that are dynamic and then elevating their strategic plans to keep them relevant and stop them from becoming obsolete before they are implemented.

They have discovered the power of using the certainty of Hard Trends to give the people that report to them the confidence to make bold moves. They know that if what they are saying is seen as opinion, listeners will want another opinion, but if they speak in future facts that are undeniable future truths, there will be far less debate and much more forward progress.

They fully understand that we are at the base of a mountain of increasing disruption that does not happen just once. It comes in waves, giving every organization and professional only two options: to become the disruptor or the disrupted.

By using the Anticipatory Model and methodology to identify the disruptive Hard Trends that are approaching, they now have the opportunity to make a strategic choice to be the disruptor. They know there is no longer a middle ground.

Anticipatory Leaders know that disruption is often seen as something negative, because it happens to organizations and individuals, forcing them to react by changing quickly or face increasingly negative consequences. Disruptors, on the other hand, are creating change from the inside out, giving them far more control of their future. Disruptors are often using technology to eliminate problems or to reduce the friction that creates a less than desirable experience. I refer to them as “positive disruptors” because they tend to use technology to improve a process, product or service. They enhance the customer experience, and in most cases they transform it!

Anticipatory Leaders know the advantage  a shared Futureview® has when it is based on the Hard Trends that are shaping the future – a windshield view versus a rearview mirror view. The Futureview principle states “How you view the future shapes your actions today, and your actions today will shape your future. Your Futureview will determine the future you. ”Change your Futureview, and you will change your future.

For example, it’s clear that Sears, which is closing over a hundred physical stores, has a different Futureview than Amazon, which is opening over three thousand brick-and-mortar retail stores and over a hundred physical bookstores. These two companies’ Futureviews will shape their future.

Anticipatory Leaders elevate their organization’s shared Futureview, based on the Hard Trends and transformational changes that are shaping the future. They know that their Futureview will change, and in many cases they transform the future of the organization for the individuals involved for the better.

Become an Anticipatory Leader™

If you would like to go beyond agility and become an Anticipatory Leader, pick up a copy of my latest bestseller, The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage, and consider our Anticipatory Leader System today.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Stop Telling People What to Do, Ingage their Hearts Instead

I am a CEO, and I have worked with many other top executives during my career. So I speak from experience when I say that this could be the biggest day-to-day frustration many leaders face . . .

“I tell people what to do, but they don’t do it.”

This issue comes up time and time again. It makes being a leader much harder than it should be.

You talk, you communicate, you spell things out, but somehow only a small percentage of your initiatives come to completion. So you bear down, discipline people, or offer incentives, and those solutions don’t work either.

And do you know what could be an even bigger problem? People do what you tell them to do but there was in fact a better or simpler way that you didn’t know – perhaps one that your people could have told you if you were willing to listen.

I have found a solution to this problem, which I call Ingaged Leadership, let me summarize a few of its key points here so you can test it and get it working for you.

What Is Ingaged Leadership?

Ingagement is founded on the belief that when you align people and create an organization where everyone works together in partnership, that organization becomes vastly more successful. It isn’t a single action you take just once. It is an ongoing, dynamic business practice that has the power to transform your organization, your people, you and ultimately, your success.

What Do Ingaged Leaders Do Differently?

Ingaged leaders believe that it is not enough to tell people to do. They understand that if they want to unlock the full potential of any organization and its people, it is necessary to involve people’s minds, creativity and emotions. I called it Ingagement with an “I” because it gets people Involved, Invested and Inspired.

Getting Started as an Ingaged Leader

That all might sound theoretical. But it isn’t. Here are some ways you can start Ingaged Leadership today. I invite you to try them and see for yourself how quickly they can improve your effectiveness as a leader.

  • Set aside personal opinions about what works and what doesn’t and let people test their own ideas. Of course, any good CEO will stop employees from doing things that are sure to be disastrous. But the fact is, too many leaders step in, err on the side of caution, and stifle people’s inborn drive to strive for great things. I would urge you to get your ego out of the mix and let people try things that are unproven or even risky. More often than not, the results they achieve will greatly surpass your expectations.
  • Don’t just listen well, constantly look for nuggets of value in what other people are saying. Early in my career I thought I was a good listener. In fact, people told me that I was because I sat quietly, didn’t interrupt, and paid attention. But a time came when I realized that although I was attentive, I was only listening closely so I could catch faults in other people’s statements so I could prove them wrong and advance my own plans. I turned that around, began to listen for nuggets of high value, then developed them in concert with the person who had suggested them. The result was a quiet revolution in my leadership effectiveness.
  • Build a top management team that is positively disruptive. That means resisting the temptation to surround yourself with “yes people,” “people who are just like me” and people who prefer the comfort of “group think” to shaking things up. Also have the courage to recruit people who are genuinely better than you at doing certain things, and let them. Their efforts will free you and your results will soar.
  • Ask for help and offer help. Both activities are signs of strength, not weakness.

A Case Study of Ingaged Leadership

In case you think that all this is theoretical, it is not, as this story proves. Last year I had a call from one of my clients, a franchise brand. I cannot give the company’s name in this article, but you know them. They have branded walk-in locations in hundreds of cities and towns across America – probably near where you live.

The caller explained that the company had a very specific problem they wanted me to solve, which my contact summarized as, “Our annual conference is coming up in a few months, attendance has been in the low 20% for the last few years, and we would like you to get more of our store owners to attend. We will be rolling out a new store design and showing it to our people and that’s why we want to get most of our store-owners there.”

Our team called a number of franchisees to ask, “How do you feel about going to your annual conference?” Most of them responded by saying something like, “Oh, the conferences are fun and I get to socialize, but I never learn anything that the company isn’t going to tell me later on anyway. So why go?”  Further we found the franchisees didn’t feel like they were involved at the meeting, they felt like they were being talk at and being sold things. Those comments made it clear that the rollout of the new design was going to be a disaster.

I called my contact back in headquarters and suggested that instead of “selling” a completed new design, the company should structure the convention as an opportunity to let franchise owners come out to see the three different concepts, critique them, and give feedback.

All of a sudden, there was real value for people to go. They weren’t going to be talked at, they were going to be listened to. In other words, they were being Ingaged. The event sold out, to the point where no hotel rooms were available in the original hotel or two hotels nearby. In the end, there was more than 85% attendance. The meeting was a huge success.  Currently the new design is in testing in the field, but assuming customer reaction is strong and positive, there’s an anxious group of franchisees who are ready and willing to convert their locations. Involvement and listening where the keys to this success story.  A traditional hierarchical approach would have met with failure.

Putting the Power of Ingagement to Work

I could report more times when Ingagement has achieved great things. But in the end, all the stories I could tell you are not as important as the new chapters you can write in your own leadership journey. I invite you to add Ingagement to your leader’s toolbox as you watch your story unfold.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

How a Competent Writer Can Become Good

Stephen King, in his book, On Writing, lists a hierarchy of writers: bad, competent, good (and sometimes really good), and great, which he also describes as the genius level of writing.

Bad writers, King says, do get published. They may write for your local weekly paper. Some of them write best-sellers. If the subject of a book is sensational or compelling enough, a bad writer can do well.

Competent writers achieve a higher level of journalism. They may write genre fiction, which, again, if the subject is compelling, can do well.

He says little about his category of good writers, but he would probably include himself among them. He does very well.

The last category, the great ones, include Nobel Prize winners, Dickens, James Joyce, and others.

King says that bad writers can’t become competent. Competent writers can become good. Rarely will good writers become great.

I’m focusing here on how competent writers can become good writers.

Read a Lot, Write a Lot

In King’s view, doing a lot of reading and writing are fundamental aspects to being or becoming a good writer. I fully agree. I was Independently taking books out of the library at 4 a clip as soon as I was old enough to ride my bike one mile to the library. (Those were the days when kids could roam around town without fear of kidnapping)

Read doesn’t mean social media. While you may accumulate information, you will also pick up a lot of bad grammar and abbreviations. If anything, your writing may deteriorate from over-exposure. You’ll see such atrocities as “Me and him went to the library.” No.)

Reading does mean both fiction and non-fiction. If you’re planning a writing a non-fiction book, read a lot in the area of your specialty, from the perspective of seeing what’s been written. Make sure your book hasn’t been written, and absorb the style of your particular area of interest.

You should also be reading fiction. Your book may be non-fiction, but you will be telling stories in it. You want those stories to catch readers’ interest. Study how fiction writers write.

King recommends reading both good and bad novels so that you can learn the difference between them. Good writers write economically: no roller-coaster sentences, no nouns preceded by three adjectives. Without consciously knowing it, you will absorb a lot.

The odds are good that competent writers write every day. They may be journalists or technical writers. Your job in the C Suite may keep the words rolling out, but a different kind of writing can help you go from competent to good.

Keep a journal to develop more skill in expressing yourself and to focus on accurately describing what you feel. Write down a story about something that happened to you today or yesterday. Tell a story that’s interesting.

Take risks. (Remember, no one but you has to see this.) If you have an urge to write some seemingly unrelated words and phrases, do it. Write a poem or dialogue. Stretch yourself. to help you leap the gap between competence and good writing. Imagination makes the difference.

Seeing the progress you make during your daily writing will encourage you to continue to take more risks. As regular physical exercise increases your comfort in your body, so regular writing will help you to experience even greater enjoyment from writing than you already do.

Pat Iyer is a ghostwriter who helps busy people share their expertise without having to write a book. She also edits other people’s writing, an activity which she loves. Contact her through her website www.patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Are You Trying to “Keep Up” with Technology, or Ride It?

Across my 40-year career in technology, I have increasingly heard clients and others express to me their greatest fear, which is that they are not “keeping up” with technology. 20 years ago, I would hear that worry expressed a few times a year. Now I hear it a few times a week.

Honestly, at first I wrote it off. I thought that it was just a few Luddites who didn’t want to put in the effort to stay with the pace of change. But then I started to experience that feeling myself, so it became personal. And uncomfortable. I wasn’t “keeping up.”

And, it wasn’t just a feeling. It couldn’t be explained away that I felt like I wasn’t keeping up, but in actuality, I was doing just fine. No, I was convinced that I was in fact not keeping up. Technology was passing me by. And it started feeling worse than uncomfortable. It started to feel downright scary, because my business was about technology. I started thinking about how I rarely saw any 50-year-old programmers. And I started hearing about how venture capitalists would pour millions into a company founded by a 20-year-old, while companies were laying off middle-aged technologists left and right.

No, this wasn’t my imagination. There was a popular perception out their that technology was a young person’s game, and that most people can’t keep up. And the older you get, the more it’s true.

So, I started thinking about this attitude, and I began to realize that it doesn’t actually make any sense to try to “keep up” with technology. No one tries to “keep up” with a car or an airplane. People can’t do what those technologies do. You don’t need to keep up with them–you need to ride them. Technology is a tool that makes you better, not something you need to outdo, like some kind of modern-day John Henry hammering spikes.

That change in attitude changed the way I approached my job. I no longer cared whether I kept up with all the changes. I just focused on a constant search for tools–things that multiplied my effectiveness, making me better. When I found them, I rode them. And I ignored everything else, reasoning that if whatever I was currently ignoring in fact turned out to be important, then they would be brought to my attention again soon enough, and I could ride them then.

That change in focus also changed who I thought I was. In my first few years as a digital marketing consultant, I was named to a couple of lists as one of the “100 Best Internet Marketers” or some such monicker. And then they stopped naming me, which should have been upsetting, but it wasn’t, because my focus had changed.

I no longer wanted to play the game of keeping up and proving that I was keeping up by speaking on every new development or coming out with a new book that “explained everything you need to know” about some new development. Instead, I wanted to find the most important things to ride and teach my clients how to ride them, too. It was at that point that I changed my focus from consulting to software. Instead of manually analyzing problems and telling clients what to do, I started to develop techniques that automatically collected data and analyzed it, eventually using Artificial Intelligence techniques, because AI was the best technology to ride for the problems that I am trying to solve.

And I don’t worry whether I am keeping up with 5G or IoT or blockchain. They might be very important technologies for me to ride someday, but, for the moment, I am ignoring them, because I don’t judge them to be important technologies to ride in pursuit of the problems I am solving. At some point, I might change my mind because i can see how useful they are for the problems I am trying to solve then. And you know what? They will still be there waiting for me.

The truth is that human beings didn’t evolve at the pace that technology evolves, so none of us are designed to keep up. But the entire history of humans show that we invent tools to solve problems, and if you treat everything in technology as a tool that you should evaluate to see if it is interesting as a solution to a problem you have, suddenly it stops being scary and starts being fun.

I hope you go out and have fun with technology. Go for a ride.