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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Growth Industries Management Skills

Cognitive Excellence Is The New Benchmark of Business Performance

By Daniel Burrus and Neil Smith

(In this blog series on how elevating cognitive performance is a game changer for organizations, I’ve invited Neil Smith, CTO at Think Outcomes, to join me in writing on this important topic due to his expertise and the cognitive performance software his firm has created.)

Today, business performance is measured by transactional throughput and is commonly captured in a set of transactional metrics such as revenue, investor ROI, manufacturing capacity, service level performance, available to promise, etc. Commonly, the operations of a business are defined as the transactional activity. Yet, the definition of a business operation encompasses both its transactional operations and its cognitive operations. To break through current ceilings of business performance, the processes in both the transactional operations and the cognitive operations must execute with excellence.

Transactional Operations of an Organization

Commerce activities represent the transactional operations. Professionals are involved in planning and management of tasks to execute customer, supplier and employee transactions. Task-oriented processes occur before, during and after the customer journey. ERP, SCM and CRM software helps professionals responsible for transaction management execute transactional operating processes.

Examples of Transactional Responsibilities

  • Manage sales transactions
  • Manage marketing campaigns
  • Procure products and services
  • Fulfill orders
  • Capture accounting activity
  • Schedule materials
  • Manage inventory turns
  • Plan for distribution
  • Forecast financial performance
  • Service customers
  • Manage human resources
  • Compensate employees

Executives have invested significantly to evolve the processes on the transactional side of their businesses.

Cognitive Operations of an Organization

The cognitive operations comprise teams that think and communicate perspectives for a living. These teams are internal and external to the organization:

  • Senior executives, senior managers and other professionals
  • Management consultants, board members, lenders and insurance providers in the services ecosystem
  • Investors, analysts, supply chain partners and business partners, who are part of the extended enterprise
  • Regulators and educational institutions, who are standard setters

In a cognitive operations, professionals think critically, collaborate, communicate with their stakeholders, make decisions, advise other professionals and monitor uncertainties. As professionals perform mindful work, they often experience gaps in their knowledge that lead to uncertainties. Uncertainties stall decisions. Cognitive processes represent the work that takes place in their minds.

Cognitive operations exist across industries, such as oil and gas, life sciences, private equity, management consulting, environmental management, asset management, space, insurance, banking, aerospace, defense, healthcare, government and education, etc. Below are some examples where critical thinking, stakeholder communications and performance advisory occur in life sciences for their cognitive work:

Examples of Cognitive Responsibilities in Pharma

Chief Medical Officer

  • Develop corporate strategy
  • Brainstorm with clinical key opinion leaders around clinical challenges
  • Create quality control measures for clinical trials
  • Ensure performance among clinical and regulatory teams
  • Collaborate with health authorities
  • Communicate with regulatory authorities
  • Perform due diligence research on business development opportunities
  • Monitor investment in clinical programs

Chief of Staff

  • Improve processes to enhance operational efficiency and effectiveness
  • Identify Hard Trends to strengthen the accuracy of forecasts
  • Prepare CEO for stakeholder meetings
  • Ensure innovative qualitative and quantitative measurements

VP, Drug Process Development

  • Apply anticipatory thinking and new tools to transform processes
  • Demonstrate process reliability
  • Verify process effectiveness
  • Build process control strategy

VP, Drug Manufacturing Process

  • Ensure a stable design environment
  • Assess drug degradation
  • Link material attributes and process parameters to CQAs
  • Demonstrate linkages between process and product reliability
  • Track outcomes for each changing state
  • Establish feedforward and feedback controls
  • Anticipate and monitor failure conditions

VP, Corporate Development

  • Craft risk-managed pricing
  • Evaluate portfolio implications
  • Analyze integrated due diligence

VP, Supply Chain

  • Use new tools to transform supply chain processes
  • Communicate supply chain risks and opportunities
  • Simulate implications of a supplier failure

Professionals in the cognitive operations either accelerate or constrain their cognitive performance based on their mind-set and the technologies they use for their mind’s work.

Professionals in the transactional operations benefit from software architectures for their responsibilities. Yet professionals in the cognitive operations don’t have the same capabilities to perform their jobs. Rather, they have their job descriptions, their experiences and their minds; they utilize multipurpose software in the form of spreadsheets, presentation software and word processing documents. Leaders and managers do not have a software architecture designed to elevate their cognitive responsibilities. Nor do they have a way to think through their uncertainties in a Socratic manner. These issues are critical for a cognitive operation to advance and gain a competitive advantage.

In working across organizations for decades, we’ve seen a theme in which leaders and managers who seldom take enough time to think through uncertainties the first time around is high. Yet there seems to be enough time to revisit the topics a second time as problems arise. Beyond time pressures, confusion persists around how to think through uncertainties. The lack of clarity regarding how to manage uncertainty has led leaders and managers to spend more time managing the crisis and less time managing new opportunities. By learning to identify the Hard Trend certainties that will happen, anticipatory leaders learn to innovate with low risk and have the confidence certainty provides to make bold moves.

What is Cognitive Excellence?

Anticipatory leaders and managers exhibit cognitive excellence through a constant flow of insights and foresights that resolve uncertainties. These professionals become a critical resource to highly effective cognitive operations. They are go-to professionals, whether they exist in an organization, in the services ecosystem or as part of the extended enterprise. Organizations need to instill these anticipatory capabilities in their professionals to achieve greater business performance.

“Past performance is not a predictor of future results.”

This performance caveat is attached to any investment in the stock market, and it applies in business too. Future performance is dependent on anticipatory skills and cognitive excellence. Professionals face change all the time. Some say change is the only constant; in fact, it’s accelerating at an exponential rate, which creates additional uncertainties as well as new certainties! It’s challenging to achieve cognitive excellence in the minds of professionals consistently today without anticipatory skills and software that:

  • Define the cognitive gaps
  • Illustrate aberrations in future performance through measurable evidence
  • Trigger questions of uncertainty in your mind
  • Move you from uncertainty to greater certainty

That’s why cognitive excellence doesn’t just come from experience. It comes from advancing the capabilities of professionals with:

  • Anticipatory leadership skills
  • A responsibility architecture for their cognitive work
  • An agile and anticipatory mental framework to help them address change across situations
  • Software spaces to perform their mind’s work

The ability to nimbly address questions of uncertainty through a repeatable Socratic process greatly enhances leaders’ and managers’ capabilities to perform at a very high level as key contributors to their organizations and their clients’ organizations. This is how professionals can transform the performance of their businesses.

As professional teams elevate their cognitive capabilities toward excellence, their organizations transform into highly performant cognitive factories. Professional teams leverage each other’s thinking through a uniform process to visualize performance patterns for their minds, where they gain insights and foresights. Anticipatory professionals not only pre-experience their own uncertainties, they also help their stakeholders pre-solve their questions of uncertainty, too.

The cognitive era is shaping the coexistence and interdependence between humans and machines. This new era demands leaders to advance the capabilities of their cognitive processes. As machines learn, humans must focus their time and attention in areas where machines are far less effective. Professionals need to redefine and reinvent their business models, markets, products, services and processes to provide the next level of value for their clients. Anticipatory leaders and managers need to focus their time on the layers of both uncertainty and certainty where future state thinking is needed and reassign current state thinking to others. That’s how they’ll continue to differentiate their personal and business brands. Professionals need to accelerate their learning and get comfortable with uncertainty through the use of higher certainty frameworks. It’s imperative for organizations to get on board with elevating their cognitive performance. Waiting will cost organizations the value of cognitive insights and foresights, while your competitors grow their knowledge.

Machine learning is causing a shift in the workforce — an emerging crowd of retrained professionals whose jobs are increasingly occupied by machines. This requires cognitive professionals in their current roles to manage the knowledge gap between themselves and their new human rivals. They accomplish this by advancing their cognitive skill sets, learning to become anticipatory leaders and through the use of technologies built the way they think about uncertainties.

Learn how to elevate your planning, accelerate innovation and transform results with The Anticipatory Learning System and how to maximize the cognitive performance of your team with Cognitive Performance Software.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

5 Steps You Can Take to Reshape Your Company Culture

Executive leaders hear a lot of talk nowadays about the importance of company culture, and I can sense that some people haven’t quite bought into the concept. I’m sure that some see it as a soft, feel-good slogan, but in fact research shows that having a positive work culture is a hardcore business practice.

Say you’ve already bought into the importance of your work culture, it’s still tempting to look for the “hack” or shortcut to creating your company culture. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just click on the ‘download’ button and, after just a few short minutes, (depending on your bandwidth) voila, your new company culture would be installed?

We all know it’s not that easy. Your company culture is a big ship, it didn’t get where it is in the blink of an eye, and it will take some time – and effort – to turn that big ship around.

Those efforts will need to begin with a cohesive, committed, collaborative leadership team. Notice I didn’t say you should start with a strategic plan. That’s where many organizations start, and that’s their first mistake.

If your leadership team is pulling against one another instead of all rowing in the same direction, all of the strategies and all of the plans in the world won’t work.

First, I work with leadership teams to help them to function like a true team so that they can achieve results in a much shorter time frame. Once we’ve accomplished that, then we get to work on strategy.

I encourage executive leaders, managers, and senior level executives to think about what kind of experience they want to create for their customers and then what kind of environment they want to cultivate for their employees. The two are intertwined.

Here are 5 steps that you can take to reshape your company culture:

1. Provide challenging work. Research shows that ease is actually a path to dissatisfaction. In fact, when it gets easy, we tend to check out. Yeah, who knew? So provide work that allows team members to stretch, use their strengths, and feel useful and valuable.

2. Know what business you’re in. Harley Davidson is not just in the motorcycle business and Zappo’s is not just in the shoe business. Organizations like these are all about creating exceptional experiences for their customers. Ensure that your employees and your team members understand the business they’re in and this will drive the company’s work culture.

3. Put people over profits. Your team members will treat your customers no better than you treat your employees. Take an interest in your people. Ask what they’re working on, struggling with. Talk to them about their learning and career growth goals.

4. Don’t assume that no news is good news. Ask for feedback. Ask employees what you could be doing better. Ask how the work environment could be improved. Ask what employees like and dislike about their jobs. Ask, ask, ask. Listen and then take action to make whatever improvements you can.

5. Don’t take yourself or your business too seriously. I recently flew on Southwest Airlines after they’d had a major computer outage. Needless to say, there were delays, passengers were, uh, cranky, and stress was high. Once in flight, our flight attendant had everyone in stitches, served drinks on the house, and literally turned what could have been a nightmare into a pleasant experience. Southwest has worked hard to build a fun company culture. Team members are given latitude and encouraged to express their sense of humor. Build in fun and team activities to your culture wherever you can. Allow time for informal gatherings, even if it’s just for lunch or a fun snack break.

Revamping your company culture can seem daunting, but you can do it by consistently applying these business communication practices over time. The message must come from the top and be consistent throughout all levels of the organization. Oh, and in case you didn’t pick up on that: consistency is the key.

CHIME IN:

  • What would you add to this list?
  • What are some areas where you’d like to improve?
  • How have you created a positive company culture in your organization?
  • Leave a comment below and share your insights with our community.

For more resources on leadership and employee engagement, be sure to sign up for our monthly Ezine and you will receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved.”

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

You might also like:

Four Signs You’re Sabotaging Your Team (and How to Stop)

For Leadership Success – Give Your Power Away

8 of the Best Kept Leadership Communication Secrets

Photo source

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Negotiations Women In Business

Do You Escape Easy Problems by Being Provocative?

“Never run from a temporary problem and allow it to become a permanent solution.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When you’re confronted by problems, how do you handle them? Do you choose to be provocative, running the risk of irritating yourself and others, or do you seek ways to finesse them? The way you address problems dictate the amount of life you give them. In some situations, what you perceive as a problem is an opportunity for greater gains.

Perception of Problems:

When challenged by trying situations, consider both the up and downside of the potential outcome. Then, assign a probability to the outcome. That process will allow you to better address the situation’s occurrence along with the degree of severity that it may possess. Never dismiss a problem out of hand simply due to the classification you assign it. When a problem contains an easy solution and it’s one that will add value to you, address it and embrace the outcome of its gains.

Communication is Key:

When considering how you’ll address a problem, the way you think of it communicates its severity. That occurs to whom you speak about your perception and yourself. The latter is true because as you communicate with others, you’ve already consulted your own perception and then you update that assessment by further discussions. The other perspective to consider is, problems decrease in severity with the passage of time and further movement away from them.

Mental Attitude:

The attitude you possess when examining a problem determines its degree of perceived difficulty; that perception places a weight on your mind as you contemplate how you’ll address it.

A study in the Huffington Post in August 2015, indicated that 85% of the misfortunes we consider never occur. It further highlights that there are lessons we learn to our benefit in the remaining 15% of that equation. That means, we spend a lot of emotional capital worrying about difficulties that never materialize.

Your Persona:

Be cognizant of how you project your persona when mulling over the possibility of calamitous outcomes. If you project a situation as being dire to others and they think it’s easy, you’ll be displaying your fortitude to deal with such situations. That display may lead to you not receiving opportunities in the future for fear of how you might address them. If you remember that you’re always negotiating (i.e. what you do today impacts tomorrow’s opportunities), that should serve as a reminder to be watchful of how you project yourself.

As you can see, there’s a lot you can do to shape the appearance of problems and the way you engage them. If you want to be more successful when addressing situations that are challenging, embrace them with a mindset that they’ll be beneficial to you. Don’t think of any problem as being too large to overcome; that’ll hamper your mind when considering actions to address easy problems. Possessing a conqueror’s mindset will help you achieve more goals and positive outcomes … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations? 

People perceive problem solvers as being more influential in negotiations. Therefore, their thoughts and suggestions are more acceptable, too. To enhance your repute, be known as someone that deals with challenges by your positive demeanor. That, coupled with the implementation of what’s in this article should lead to better negotiation outcomes for you.

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

#Problems #Success #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #liars #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

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Health and Wellness Marketing Technology

AI Automates Tasks, Not Jobs

I keep reading scare-mongering over how AI is going to make everyone unemployed. Some others say that it will give us a life of leisure. Maybe we should all stop to realize that both are saying the same thing–we are just learning who are optimists vs. pessimists.

But both of these points of view gloss over the real truth–AI doesn’t eliminate very many jobs completely. Yes, if self-driving cars come to pass, Uber drivers and truck drivers are at risk. But no matter how much automation is applied to Quickbooks, we will still need accountants–they just might not be entering and analyzing the transactions anymore.

AI, in general, automates tasks, not whole jobs.

The reason for that is that what we have today is called Narrow AI–it can be better than humans at discrete tasks, such as chess or Go or Jeopardy. It can make predictions within small spheres. But we are nowhere near General AI, where the judgement of a human across many spheres is possible. Humans need to be guiding all automation, especially AI, for the foreseeable future. So, while there will be some jobs that get largely automated away, we will likely still need humans to do parts of those jobs and there will likely be new jobs created we don’t even dream of yet.

In 1790, 90% of the US workforce were farmers. 200 years later, in 1990, less than three percent remained on the farm, yet we didn’t experience 87% unemployment. And that doesn’t even take into account the massive growth in population or the major expansion in the workforce as women joined.

We found other things to do.

No one knows what will happen in our AI future, but you can expect that it won’t be as bad as people fear nor as great as they expect. After all, if I had told you 20 years ago that you would willingly carry around a device 24×7 that allows your boss to call you any time of the day or night and know that you could be reached, you’d have labeled me a nutjob.

But we all carry our cell phones religiously and would fight to keep them if pressed. So, we are often better at seeing the downside of new technology than the upside and we should imagine that AI will probably turn out the same way.

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

How to Prevent Negotiator Anger Backlash that Kills Deals

“There are lots of ways to kill deals. Don’t let anger be one of them.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“That offer angered me. They killed the deal by displaying that they had no respect for me. So, I shoved my chair to the wall, slammed my papers into my case, and walked away!” Does any of that invoke memories or stories of a negotiator’s actions that you’ve seen or heard?

Some form of anger is usually the tempest behind a negotiation’s demise. To prevent a negotiator’s anger and backlash that can kill your deal, always be mindful of your point of anger and that of the other negotiator.

Temper:

Losing your cool in a negotiation can make you run hot. That wasn’t meant to be funny. Too many times, negotiators forget to control their temper. When they do, they become irrational, engage in non-progressing actions, and infuse a degree of angst in themselves and the negotiation.

When you feel yourself getting upset during a negotiation, identify the cause. If your anger continues to rise, abate it by departing the environment and thoughts that are giving it life. Also remember that there’s another entity in the negotiation that you’re negotiating against. It’s your negotiation opponent. You should be mindful of your temperament as well as that of the other negotiator during the negotiation.

If the opposing negotiator becomes irate, assess the validity of his mood based on what triggered it; he may be using anger as a ruse. If his anger is genuine, alter the mood in the environment by changing elements in it; that may mean departing the environment that you’re in. Don’t attempt to negotiate in such climates. You may acquiesce when such is to your detriment.

Observe Body Language Signals:

Body language signals can be an omen of anger that’s lurking slightly beneath a negotiator’s mental surface. Such signals expose themselves by the removing of one’s glasses and tossing them aside (i.e. I don’t believe what I’m seeing), pinching the bridge of the nose (i.e. it’s getting stuffy in here; I need fresh air), rubbing palms while frowning or pouting (i.e. I’m warming up in anticipation for battle). During such occasions, whether it’s your actions or that of the other negotiator, note body language gestures that may foreshadow anger. Some will not be as obvious as others (e.g. pounding the table with a fist(s), waving the back of the hand with power coupled with words of dread, sounding exasperated).

Deal Conclusion:

The way a negotiation concludes can be the opening of a deal-killer. If anger has permeated the interactions between the negotiators prior to a deal, there may be a lingering angst promoted by that residue. To enhance the probability that the deal will become consummated, address that residue. Be sure it’s completely abated before departing the negotiation table.

Deal-breakers are always seeking life to kill a deal. By being more vigilant to what gives life to anger, you can prevent its backlash from invading your negotiations. You’ll no longer fall prey to the profound and insidiousness that anger uses to rip at the negotiation process. You’ll be in control of yourself, the other negotiator, and the negotiation … 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/

#Anger #Prevent #Backlash #Improvenegotiation #Power #secrets #HiddenOpportunities #Mistakes #Management #SmallBusiness #Money #Negotiating #combat #negotiatingwithabully #bully #bullies #bullying #Negotiations #PersonalDevelopment #HandlingObjections #Negotiator #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #psychology #NegotiationPsychology

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Skills Technology

Turn Cognitive Challenges into Opportunities With Technology Built the Way You Think

By Daniel Burrus and Neil Smith

(In this blog series on how elevating cognitive performance is a game changer for organizations, I’ve invited Neil Smith, CTO at Think Outcomes, to join me in writing on this important topic due to his expertise and the cognitive performance software his firm has created.)

Technology can function as a key enabler for higher cognitive performance. Technology is as important for cognitive roles as it is for transactional ones, since cognitive work in organizations drives transactional tasks. With performance gains realized through transaction management software, the next game changer is to evolve the cognitive infrastructure in the operating model.

While machines learn, disrupt and occupy the defined and known cognitive tasks of humans across industries, technologies to advance cognitive performance in the mind and with teams have remained relatively stagnant to move uncertainties into higher certainty frameworks.

Professionals utilize many technologies in their cognitive work everyday, but were not built to advance their cognitive performance. These every day technologies include:

  • spreadsheets
  • presentation software
  • documents

The Tools Leaders use for Critical Thinking in your Organization Today

All too often, critical thinking runs through spreadsheets. You may be surprised to discover the collage of spreadsheets your enterprise utilizes in its operating model — hundreds and thousands of spreadsheets (depending on the size of your business).

With spreadsheets, it’s challenging to arrive at informed decisions with 85%+ effectiveness. It’s also challenging to manage future uncertainties with 50%+ effectiveness.

How Leaders Communicate with Stakeholders in your Organization Today

Beyond their voices, leaders and managers communicate with stakeholders primarily through multipurpose presentation software. A tremendous amount of time, money and effort is expended to build presentations as snapshots in time for stakeholders. Presentations to equity investors, lenders, internal management, operations teams and supply chain partners, among many others, do not provide a framework for dynamic communications that shape the thinking in the minds of your stakeholders. Their questions are all too often unresolved during meetings, which delay decisions. When additional meetings are scheduled, you resolve the initial questions from stakeholders without a clear understanding of the impact on outcomes.

Presentation software makes it challenging to communicate perspective and address stakeholder concerns in real time with 90% effectiveness.

How Stakeholder Expectations are Conveyed in your Organization Today

Professionals primarily express their expectations verbally. They also write them in reference documents that are accessed infrequently, such as job descriptions, performance reviews, supplier agreements and annual reports, to name a few.

As documents are not actionable frameworks, it’s challenging to achieve expectations in dependent thinking with 85%+ effectiveness.

Imagine if the Stock Market Operated the Way Business Operates Today

The stock graph transforms how you synthesize information in your mind to arrive at informed decisions. Let’s go back to the time when you couldn’t visualize stock graphs for your decisions. Before stock graphs existed, imagine you met with your wealth advisor who expected you to make decisions to invest your monies and said:

I’m glad you are interested in investing in the market. We have over 10,000 companies in our exchange. To help you make an informed decision, I’ll introduce you to the analysts; there are hundreds of them. Each of them will show you their spreadsheets. Then each will walk you through your options via presentations, while attempting to answer all your questions. I thought you’d want to know this will take time because the analysts structure their spreadsheets their own way; there isn’t any consistency between them. Nor is there consistency among their presentations. After you synthesize all this information in your mind, you should be in a position to arrive at an informed decision about how to best invest your monies.

If decision processes for investors worked that way, individuals could not make high-fidelity decisions effectively. They’d be attending a lot of meetings to gain insight. As a result, many stocks wouldn’t have performed as well and many portfolios wouldn’t have grown. Nor would have the market evolved as it has.

Yet this is Exactly How Decision Processes in Business Work Today

As executives continue to invest in their transactional operations over decades, it’s time they prioritize and invest in their cognitive operations. The technology in the transactional operations is far ahead of the technology in the cognitive operations. Yet the cognitive operations drive activity in the transactional operations.

Is ‘Being Human’ Enough Today in the Cognitive Era?

Historic methods to advance critical thinking and stakeholder communications using human mental models, past experiences, personal networks and fundamental analytics are no longer enough in today’s business world. As machines increasingly coexist with humans, anticipatory tools and advanced performance analytics are needed to survive, differentiate and grow businesses and their professionals.

Learn how to elevate your planning, accelerate innovation and transform results with The Anticipatory Leader System and how to maximize the cognitive performance of your team with Cognitive Performance Software.

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Humble Leaders Have the Greatest Inner Strength

I know that may come as a shock to you, but it’s true.

The dictionary defines humility as the quality of being modest, respectful, or humble. Humble is defined as modest and unassuming in attitude and behavior; feeling or showing respect and deference toward other people; not proud or haughty; not arrogant or assertive.

You may be thinking that definition sounds wimpy or weak. Au contraire, my friend! Humble people are those who actually have great inner strength. They are so secure and confident in their own abilities and worth that they don’t need constant approval or limelight.

As a leader, your job is to get the work done through your team members. And don’t forget, management and leadership are not one and the same. Managers manage things, processes, systems, resources, etc. Leaders inspire, engage, and influence people. Leaders have followers who want to give their best effort. Successful executive leaders cause people to choose to perform at their best.

Use these four strategies to practice humility in your executive leadership:

1. Let the other person shine, be the star. It’s not about you and your accomplishments. Your job is to draw out what was left in, not to put in what was left out. Prepare your team members for success and then step out of their way and let them shine.

2. Try being more interested in the other person than you are in yourself. Ask questions, and show a sincere interest in what’s going on in the other person’s life. Notice I said sincere. People can spot a phony baloney a mile away. Faking interest in someone else just so you can get something you want borders on manipulation, and that is definitely NOT what we’re talking about here.

3. Admit you don’t know everything. This is truly humbling. It can be harder than apologizing or admitting you’ve made a mistake. Allow someone else to have the answer. Be open to learning from everyone, regardless of their title.

4. Look for ways that you can be of service to others. Listen, really listen to what people say. Note their interests, concerns, and anything else that you learn about them. Keep your ears open for ways that you can help them or connect them to someone else who can fill a need.

Case in point:

I once introduced myself to someone at a professional association meeting and enjoyed chatting with him for several minutes. By the time we parted, I knew his name, where he lives, his educational background, what he does professionally, where his kids go to school and their favorite sports teams!

Two months later he was the featured speaker at another association meeting, where he spoke on the importance of humility and authenticity in leadership. Later, he asked a colleague my name and wondered aloud if we’d met before. He had no memory of our conversation! That’s because it had been all about him. He didn’t ask any questions about me, nor did he give a hoot about me. By the way, his presentation went over like a lead balloon. Like I said, people can spot a phony baloney a mile away.

Taking a piece of humble pie is about being able to forget yourself and focus on encouraging and developing others.

CHIME IN! What will you:

  • start doing,
  • stop doing, or
  • continue doing

to develop more humility in your role as an executive leader? Use the comment box below and share your plan with us!

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

For more resources on leadership and employee engagement, be sure to sign up for our monthly Ezine and you will receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved.”

You might also like:

7 Ways Leaders Can Prevent Employee Disengagement

For Leadership Success – Give Your Power Away

8 of the Best Kept Leadership Communication Secrets

Photo source

Categories
Entrepreneurship Personal Development

Why Did You Start Your Business?

We always ask our prospective clients, “Why are you going into business?” This seems like a no-brainer, but many people who consider making the jump don’t really give it the thought it deserves. Your answer to this question can determine business goals, strategy, and even record keeping. We usually get a few standard answers: “Well, to get rich, of course!” or “I’ve always wanted to be my own boss” or “It’s always been my passion”. But none of these answers touch on the three concrete reasons why you can be in business. You can begin a legacy, you can create a job for yourself, and you can make money on your brand equity.

If you create your own job, your “paycheck” is only as much as time spent “on the clock”. You can’t get paid if you don’t work. Yes, you can hire outside help to keep up with things in your absence, but you are essentially trading time for dollars. You may even build equity that someone could pay you for. But this type of business runs on daily profits and income, without considering a long-term plan to make money on your brand equity.

Business owners who go this route usually say they’re “following their passion” and, well, they should! But many of these people also say they don’t ever want to sell their business, thinking they can do it forever. When the time comes, they usually sell because they need to, due to their health or age, or they are finally sick of the work. For them, selling is an afterthought to expressing their passion through a business.

Others who have “no intention of ever selling” think they are creating a legacy. They plan that their children will be a part of their business, and will want to continue this legacy. While this is a nice way to think about your family’s future as far as your business is concerned, only a few of these plans go beyond the first generation.

The last group, one that we consider ourselves a part of, is dedicated to monetizing their brand equity. They want to build a business that attracts acquirers, using their own concepts, ideas, and products. This group takes acquisition very seriously.

And this is the group we can help the most. From the beginning, these businesses are designed to have everything an acquirer wants. They grow into a sellable company. They can run without their owners. And, most importantly, they’ve been set up from the get-go to satisfy their acquirer’s due diligence.

One of the core values of the Barefoot Spirit approach to business is to just ask yourself why you are doing it in the first place. If it’s because you want to build and monetize your brand equity, then you need to think about who would want to acquire your company, when, and why. Organize your records, reports, and books, to replicate your acquirer’s due diligence. Invest your profits into expansion. And carefully decide when, where, and how you’ll grow in order to get your peanut in front of the elephant. This is an art form, and we shared what we learned about it in our Guiding Principles for Success.

From ideation to monetization, we’ve done it all. These are only a few business decisions that are greatly influenced by your choice to eventually sell. If you’re going into business to monetize your brand equity, let us help!

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

Categories
Entrepreneurship Personal Development

What To Expect When You Work with a Ghostwriter

When you think about having a book written about yourself or your business, you may ask: “How do they do it? How does someone who doesn’t know me write a book that sounds as if I wrote it?”

This important question underlines the importance of choosing a talented, empathetic ghostwriter. In order to succeed, the ghostwriter must deliver the kind of authenticity that makes sure your voice is included.

How does the expert do this?

She Asks Questions

Before you begin working together, your ghostwriter will probably ask you questions like these:

  • Describe the book you would like to write.
  • Why does this appeal to you?
  • Have you begun?
  • When would you like to see the book in print?
  • Why are you considering hiring a ghostwriter?
  • What are your publishing plans? Traditional? If so, what kind, i.e., a business press, a more general publisher? Would you prefer to self-publish?
  • Who do you see as your audience? Why will your book appeal to them?

Getting to Know Your Voice

The ghostwriter who does a thorough job will study your online presence. This could include YouTube clips, including speeches you may have given at conferences, tweets, Facebook posts, and any blog posts you’ve written. This will give her a good feel for your voice and speech mannerisms.

During the course of your work together, much of which will consist of phone interviews, she will be constantly honing her awareness of how you express yourself. She will note key phrases you use in speech, whether you speak in long or short sentences, and other characteristic features. She will basically immerse herself in your style of expression.

She Will Do Additional Research

She will carefully study your business, especially your corporate web site. The conscientious ghostwriter will pay special attention to your particular passions and interests. She will read any biographical information available about you. She will learn your areas of expertise.

She Will Get to Know the People Who Surround You

 This doesn’t mean she will have chats with your family members—unless you want that, and you can specify the limitations and boundaries you need there. The ghostwriter is likely, though, to want to talk with your executive assistant and other people who are part of your work milieu. She might want to ask questions to a PR person for your company.

Establishing these connections gives the ghostwriter a much broader picture of who you are.

 By the time the ghostwriter has finished the manuscript, she will have worked hard to create a book that has your personality imprinted within it. If you have chosen an editor to do the final version, introduce them to each other. The ghostwriter can explain the details that make this your book. A good relationship between these two people so important to your book can smooth the path to publication.

Consider the Above a Checklist

 When you’re choosing among candidates to ghostwrite your book, ask them how they do their work. If their answers don’t cover the bases described in this article, you may want to reconsider.

Many factors go into making a good writer, but the career of ghostwriter has some very special demands. Make sure that the person you choose answers your questions—and your needs.

Pat Iyer is a ghostwriter who enables experts to create a book without having to write. Contact her through her website at www.editingmybook.com.

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

Be Alert When Options Are Being Limited

“Limit my options and you limit my beliefs. If I allow you to limit my beliefs, I limit myself.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“What do you believe and how do you arrive at your beliefs? Are you a ‘the glass is half empty or the glass is half full’ person?” Those were the questions posed when two individuals were talking. The ‘half empty or half full’ question was limited by its option. It proposed that there were only two possible answers to the question (i.e. half empty or half full). There was a third possible option not offered. The glass could have been the right size for the contents it contained. Thus, the questioner was attempting to control the thought process of the questionee by limiting the questionee’s options to two possibilities.

“Limit the options of what you want me to believe and I’ll give you my limited beliefs. But by doing so, I may give you insincerity in return.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When given options, consider what’s omitted. Also, assess if what’s omitted is intentional. Consider if it’s done to keep you from focusing on more salient points that might serve you. When someone limits your options, they’re limiting your choices. By limiting your choices, they’re also limiting your beliefs. They’re controlling you! Don’t take that lightly.

That may sound like it’s obvious, but when you’re presented with specific options, your selections become limited. As an example, if I asked you if you’d rather be rich or happy, what might your thought be? Would you consider other options, or would you focus on the choices I presented to you? Most people wouldn’t consider other possibilities. They would focus on the choices presented.

Always be willing to expand your mind by exploring the possibilities contained in options that aren’t presented. Doing so may expose more value. That’s how you can discover your treasure. Seek yours and you’ll become more mentally enriched by knowledge … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

When limited by choices, one becomes limited by the options offered. While that can be constraining for you, it can also be a tactic you employ in your strategies against the other negotiator. You can best deliver it by stating your options in a rushed or calming demeanor; choose whichever is best for the situation at hand. To make it more viable, have a combination of options ready to diffuse any possible push-back you might receive. Follow that up with, “I’ve given you options. What else do you want me to do?” Remember, while you have your negotiation counterpart considering your options, you’re in control of the negotiation.

When negotiating, be alert to the choices you’re offered and the ones you offer. If the premise of those choices doesn’t fit within your spectrum of benefits, reject them while attempting to persuade the other negotiator to consider yours. By doing so, you’ll become more reflective and circumspective in your thinking about the choices you consider and extend. That will lead to more fulfilling negotiations, enhanced by more positive negotiation outcomes.

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/

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