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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Leadership

Self-Care is Not a Perk

It is the foundation for peak performance.

If you think you have to wait to take care of yourself and your needs until you are home from work, you are not alone. I had a boss one time, who told me that he did not need to eat lunch, so neither did I.

Now thankfully I am a Danish girl, who is used to eating lunch, so I told him that he would not want me around, if I did not have lunch. He sort of snorted and huffed at me, but I got to eat my lunch, though admittedly at my desk, while working, to avoid being yelled at.

There is something seriously wrong with our work-culture, when we get yelled at for taking a lunch-break. When I was working at ESPRIT in Europe, lunch-breaks were mandatory.

Everyone had to come to the canteen to eat together. It would not only build better team-work, because people who eat together chat and bond, it would also assure that everyone had the energy to work at their best for the rest of the day. Mind you everyone worked hard there, or maybe I should say focused. See work seems hard when we struggle to focus or have the energy. Or of course if an assignment or project is difficult, but when people say they work hard, it often means they feel drained and they are not having fun.

Not perks, essentials.

Lunch-breaks and health benefits are equally essential, but the difference is that one is preventative and the other we often don’t use until we burn out or get sick. Same thing with being able to pause and go get some fresh air to boost mental energy or take a walk to get rid of feeling stuck, starring at the same sentence in the presentation you are trying to write. These are all essentials for a good work culture. Not something we wait to do until we have time or we simply cannot keep going any longer and need to take a break. Pushing ourselves to the point of burn-out is a culture of struggle at work, a fight and flight mentality, that pushes us into survival-mode.

Survival-mode is not performance.

Being on survival-mode is not the same as performance-mode or the kind of stress that we thrive on to go beyond our comfort-zone for growth. On survival-mode we are hyper focused on getting out of trouble, we are in a fear-based work environment and we are trying to get to the finish-line of a project, because we are scared of what might happen if we don’t. It can be anything from; my client is going to fire me, my boss is going to yell at me, or even just missing a dead-line that is affecting other people if missed. If you add lack of water, food, pauses and rest to the mental state of stress, you are working on the edge of burn-out rather than the edge of creativity, performance and innovation.

Self-care is the foundation for work-performance.

When I consult with companies and leaders about how to shift from a personal and organizational mindset of survival to a mindset of performance, we start with self-care and how the daily work habits support each individual in doing their best work. Nourishment of a healthy work-force happens from the top down. When the leader eats, everyone eats. When the leader is healthy and practicing good self-care habits at work, everyone gets to take good care of themselves at work too. Now this is not just because we want everyone to be healthy, the point here is whywe want everyone to be healthy.

Health is not the goal, it is the foundation for doing our best work and peak-performance, because a healthy business comes from the inside out. A healthy business is about healthy people, happy people.

People who work healthy and go home happy with energy to spare. That is healthy work/life integration. Are you ready to change your work-habits around?

Find more information at jeanettebronee.com or get in touch on email to learn more about how you and your company can get healthy.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Categories
Entrepreneurship Management Skills Women In Business

The “IT Factor” – Do You Have It??

Have you ever seen someone walk into a room and immediately capture everyone’s attention?  Perhaps, it was a business meeting, a networking event or a stage performance.  That person just had such a commanding presence, that you felt drawn into their conversation. That ability to draw people is at times called charisma. In show business and on stage we call the “It factor”, in the business world you call it Executive Presence.

Some say you either have it or you don’t, that you’re born with it. While that might often be the case, I have seen people transform by making changes to their mindset and appearance.  As a result, they changed the way they were seen by others.

Think of your favorite actor, singer or politician. Maybe it’s a leader in your company.  What gives that individual the “It Factor”?

While they may have had the talent they still needed to develop the skillsets.

Here are five things that you can practice in order to increase your own “It factor”

1. Have a made up mind – People are drawn to certainty. After all, every ship needs an anchor. /spending time gaining clarity in what you want. Know what direction you’re moving in. Know your Why, yet, still be open and flexible

2. Be comfortable in your skin – Look the part, express calm energy. Dress for success. Match your company culture with your appearance. Show up clean, groomed, practice good posture, and personal hygiene.

3. Be charismatic – Energy draws people in. If you tend to be more on the quiet side, step out and express more. Practice your communication skills. Exude confidence without arrogance; being a little humble goes a long way.

4. Show genuine interest in others and be approachable, you’re not the only one in the room. Be inclusive and be interested in others and what they have to say. From your handshake and eye contact to your listening skills and body language, be present with others.

5. Know who you are and Be Yourself– people will see a right through you if you’re not authentic. Whether people are aware or not, we all have a “personal radar” and people can often spot when someone is insincere even if they don’t know why they are sensing it.

The more you practice the suggestions above, the more comfortable you will be in your leadership role. As a result, the more your team members will choose to engage with you and seek your guidance.

You will find more tips like the “It Factor” in Dr. Jacobson’s Book “Power Conversations”. For information and to order copies go to https://bit.ly/2tYRo2k

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

What Is an Emerging Leader and How to Help?

When I decided to write my book for emerging leaders, I interviewed people to learn how
others understand the phrase, “emerging leader.” I asked a random sample of individuals the
simple question: “What is an emerging leader?” It was quite illuminating to hear the various
interpretations.

The most popular response was that an emerging leader is a high-performing employee in a
corporation who shows great promise as a leader. Perhaps the next most popular response was
that an emerging leader is a young person who shows leadership potential.

Those definitions are certainly accurate. However, there were other definitions I heard and
others I have experienced in my corporate career. Individuals who are fresh out of college, those
early in their career, and even students are emerging leaders. Also, there is increasingly a new
class of employee who transitions into a completely different career than the one they started in.
They may not fit the traditional definition, but they, too, are an emerging leader. Finally, we might
say that anyone embarking on a leadership opportunity is an emerging leader.

Because there are several interpretations of what defines an emerging leader, I believe it is
important to expand our traditional lens. Let’s examine each word independently.

Emerge

Merriam Webster provides a simple definition of emerge. It means to “become known” or to “come
into view.” That definition is quite fitting in our examination of what it means to be an emerging
leader. If we look at it as “becoming known” as a leader, that means it is far more applicable
than the traditional definition. With this expanded lens, the opportunity is open for many more
people to “come into view” as a leader in the eyes of others.

Leader

What does it mean to be a leader? Many definitions exist. Having followers makes a person a
leader. The act of leading. Having a title or position of superiority. These are basic concepts of
leadership. Leadership, however, is far more complex than these rudimentary definitions.

What good leadership is, what moral leadership is, what transformational leadership is, and
much more needs to be considered when defining leadership at its highest level.

In Adaptive Leadership, the work of Dr. Ronald Heifetz, he explores the roles the words authority and
influence play in relation to leadership. Truly emerging leaders recognize the power of influence
without authority, position, or title in their quest to become known and seen as a leader to others.

How to Help Emerging Leaders

Coaching is a powerful way to support emerging leaders. Coaching helps emerging leaders develop
their leadership potential more fully and faster.

As an executive coach, I have worked with emerging leaders identified as high potentials in their
organization to help them accelerate their performance. I enjoy working with these individuals who
already have leadership titles but are emerging in a new way.

Over the past year, I have had the tremendous privilege of working as an independent professional
leadership coach with a different type of emerging leader: students at Rice University’s Doerr Institute
for New Leaders. Rice has embarked upon what Founding Managing Director General Tom Kolditz
calls, “the most comprehensive leader development initiative at any top-twenty university.” Working
with these young people—starting as early as eighteen, in some cases, and spanning into the late
twenties when working with doctoral graduate students—has affirmed my belief in what an emerging
leader is and why the lens must be broader than traditionally held.

Working with the Rice students and seeing the measurement and results show the value of what can
happen when you use the power of coaching to bend the arch early in developing emerging leaders.
The leadership skills they have acquired are transforming their lives and the lives of those who will
be led by them.

In addition to coaching, I believe using a proper assessment tool to help emerging leaders understand
themselves is important. In working with leaders, I help them understand the difference between
their IQ (intelligence quotient) and their EQ (emotional intelligence). Historically, people were taught
it was important to have a high IQ to be a good leader and achieve success. A growing body of research
suggests that having a high EQ is a better indicator of good leadership and future success.

I am a certified emotional intelligence practitioner. When working with emerging leaders, I use the
EQ-i 2.0® and EQ 360® as my assessment tool of choice to help identify and develop emotional
intelligence.

Conclusion

Everyone, not just a select few, has the potential to become known as a leader. Emerging leaders
recognize the power of influence without authority, position or title in their quest to become known
as a leader to others.

To help emerging leaders continue their emergence, we must help them continue to develop. One of
the best ways to do that is to provide coaching with the use of a proper leadership assessment tool.
The world needs great leaders. Let’s do our part to continue to identify, help, and develop new
emerging leaders!

 

This post is an excerpt from Eddie Turner’s forthcoming book entitled: 140 Simple Messages to Guide Emerging Leaders. Eddie Turner, The Leadership Excelerator™ is a C-Suite Network Advisor ™ and a change agent who has worked for several of the world’s “most admired companies.” Eddie “works with leaders to accelerate performance and drive impact!”™ Contact Eddie at (312) 287-9800 or eddie@eddieturnerllc.com

Categories
Growth Personal Development

How Differentiation Beats Marketing Tactics Every Day

I work with a lot of large companies on their content marketing strategy, and they are always expecting some new technology, a different take on their data, or some exciting new AI technique. What they aren’t expecting is for me to ask them about their differentiation.

Differentiation somehow seems quaint in these modern times. With all the bits and bytes flying around in digital marketing, such old-fashioned marketing seems unimportant. But it’s actually more important than ever.

Here’s why. Content marketing isn’t a victory of technology or analytics or anything else except messaging. Content marketing is the salesperson who never sleeps, who overcomes every objection, and who is there for every prospect who wants to find your product. But you don’t win content marketing on volume. You can’t just make more and more of it and expect people to find it and reflexively buy.

Instead, content marketing is about creating messaging that the people who should buy from you will find. And who are those people? The ones that you are differentiated for.

The problem is that most marketers don’t really understand the full meaning of differentiation–it’s not just more than mere difference. It’s a difference that a particular market will pay for.

And that is where content marketing needs to start. You need to understand your personas, and your buyer journey, but without understanding your differentiation, you won’t know which personas to target. You won’t know what to say at each buyer journey step. And you certainly won’t be persuasive enough to get anyone to buy.

With all the content out there, you can’t just keep creating more messaging targeted at more people with more problems. Instead, you must be more targeted. You must focus on exactly the problems your best customers have. By satisfying them, you create the case studies that persuade even more. Only by doing so can any of the exciting digital marketing tactics make an impact. Your differentiation is the core of your strategy–it drives the tactics.

So, yes, it is important to understand your product. But it is more important to understand how your product is more perfect for your ideal customer than your competitors’. That’s the power of differentiation.

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

In Negotiations Be On the Alert For Setup Questions

“Setup questions can be to a person what a snake charmer is to a snake, mesmerizing. Watch the person that uses setup questions to mesmerize you!” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

“I can’t believe he asked me when I stopped beating my wife. I’ve never beaten my wife; I love her too much to do that! Those were the dejected words spoken by a man that was in the throes of a messy divorce proceeding to the question posed by the lawyer of his soon to be ex-wife.

Are you aware of how and why setup questions are designed to motivate you to a particular thought or action? In negotiations, you should be on the alert for setup questions.

A setup question (e.g. Most people would be horrified if that happened to them, right?) is used to position someone’s response as measured against what is viewed as being normal by others; it can also be used to alter the thought process of an individual.

The challenge to the responder is, if he answers contrary to the norm, he appears to be outside of that norm. That makes him appear to be abnormal. That’s a position that most people attempt to avoid, especially when such is exposed to others. The perception of abnormality can position someone as, he’s not like the rest of us, which can place that person in a squeamish position. It’s another way to apply a sense of unseen but felt leverage upon him.

When this tactic is used to alter someone’s thought process, it can be even more devastating, due to the attack on that person’s mental psyche. Thus, it can also be used to take someone off the offense and put them on the defense.

This tactic becomes more burdensome to the recipient of this ploy when used by someone that’s an aggressive or bully type of negotiator. The reason being, when confronted by an aggressive negotiator, more than likely, you’re already experiencing a heightened sense of anxiety. That may be in the form of just being more aware of your negotiation environment. The point is, you’re not relaxed, you’re on edge. That will prohibit your normal thought process from occurring which could lead to making errant decisions.

To recount, in all of your negotiations, be aware that setup questions may be posed at different times and for multiple purposes. They can be used:

For the purpose of altering your mental state. Once your mental state is altered, you may be more susceptible to falling into a defense that simply keeps you off the offense.

For positioning purposes, a setup question may be used to have you viewed in an unflattering manner, so as to marginalize the perception that others have of you and to disallow them from having empathy to your point or position.

To alter one’s mind, such questions may also be used in an attempt to make you forget, defuse, or confuse the point you were attempting to make.

The more alert you are to the possibility of setup questions being used in your negotiations, and how they might be used, the better prepared you’ll be at defending yourself against them. Doing so will give you an advantage in 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/

#Questions #Setup #control #negotiatingwithabully #bully #bullies #bullying #Negotiations #PersonalDevelopment #HandlingObjections #Negotiator #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #psychology #NegotiationPsychology

 

 

Categories
Growth Leadership Personal Development

7 Ways to Delegate Successfully

One of the most difficult things for Type-A business owners is to delegate successfully. Some people say, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself!” They think, “Nobody can do it like I can do it.” And they may be right, but you must delegate sooner or later. Simply put, there’s just too much to do in a growing business, and it’s impossible to do it all yourself.

It’s a compromise, but we think successful delegation is a two-way street. The business owner must be able to accept less-than-perfect work. At the same time, the contracted individual or employee must develop new habits, accept new responsibilities, and ultimately move out of their comfort zone.

After years of experience, here’s what we’ve learned. Most of it was painful. But maybe it will help you delegate more successfully.

1. Find Extrapolation Learners. Those who are able to extrapolate the fundamental principles from an example and apply that information to a completely unfamiliar example are great candidates for delegation. Since it’s easy to get copy-and-paste examples for pretty much everything online these days, many people don’t bother looking for underlying principles.You’ll find people who respond, “Like what?” to everything you ask, even though they’ve seen the same principle in action before. Do not delegate to these people. Only delegate to those who pull overarching principles from their own experience and examples given in trainings.

2. Seek Integrity. When people keep working on assignments you don’t ask about regularly, voluntarily keep you posted on their projects, and do what they say they will, they are great candidates for delegation. Look for those who take responsibility instead of blaming others. When you have to ask about what happened on that project, don’t delegate to people who say, “They never got back to me,” because they didn’t voluntarily inform you. Avoid delegating to those who have shown they’ll accept minimal responsibility in order to get their paycheck.

3. Find Self-Starters. When seeing the big picture, if someone initiates appropriate action, improves an unstable situation, or mitigates a problem all without being asked, they are a great contender for delegation. They still might need some supervision, but they aren’t as likely to require micro-managing. Don’t delegate to those who’ve shown they need constant supervision and oversight.

4. Seek Coachability. When people apply constructive criticism, show steady improvement, and look for policies and procedures that can help them work more efficiently, they are excellent candidates for delegation.Avoid those who take professional critique personally, or don’t seek help out of wanting to appear all-knowing and self-sufficient.

5. Seek Mistake Learners. It’s necessary to accept that mistakes will be made. Find candidates who learn from them, see them as opportunities to get to the bottom of an issue, write up new documents to prevent these mistakes from reoccurring, and candidates who can improve your business’s policies and processes.Avoid people who try to cover up or hide from their mistakes, or who blame others (finger-pointers). Rid your company of those who keep making the same mistakes.

6. Give Regular Reviews. In the beginning, give more frequent reviews to avoid any misconceptions or potential bad habits. Always return to the principles. Remind the candidate of the importance of growth, sales, and profitability. Review the decisions they have made so far, offer your advice on the ones that need improvement, and validate the right ones.

7. Provide Incentives. Create a bonus structure for anyone you delegate to, and make sure you both agree on the specifics. Use this new plan for just a year, so you can improve requirements in subsequent years as you fine-tune what’s needed to get the results you’re looking for.

 Delegation isn’t an art form, but you can lessen the risk of failure by recognizing attributes in others that will give you peace of mind and confidence. Train your candidates on the operating principles and the process know-how necessary to take on the involved responsibilities. Then, give them regular reviews and clear goals—and let them do it their way.

We like to say, “When the cement is wet, you can move it with a trowel. When it gets hard, you’ll need a jackhammer.” So, really overdo it on orientation, make sure they understand where their pay comes from (sales!), and make sure your candidate understands the underlying principles that will guide them in making decisions. Then, accept that mistakes will be inevitable, and accept that they might make choices that will be different than what you would do. Who knows—some of those choices might even be better! 

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

Categories
Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Management

The Pressure of Stress

Photo by Romain-Peli

I am sure you know the feeling.

Time feels like it is going faster and faster and you cannot seem to control the speed, all you can do is hold on. The more you try to control it, the faster it seems to run. It feels like a rollercoaster or a run-away train and you don’t know where the next turn or challenge is coming from.  You feel as if things around you are getting fuzzy and your vision is getting blurry, all you can do is keep staring ahead of you to stay focused on holding on. It feels as if you are in a tunnel and there is no way out. You keep wondering when the train is going to run off the track and all you can do is…

Pause…

Stop for a moment and check in with your body. Are you holding your breath? Are you feeling the pressure in your chest or in your stomach, or both?

This is what it feels like when your thoughts are running off with you.

Time does seem to go faster these days. Because of technology, we can do so much more in less time than we could years ago. Wait… stop for a moment. Did I just say that because of technology we can do so much more in less time?

Time goes at the same speed as it always has and we all get the same 24 hours in a day. Unless you are orbiting earth, where you in one 24 hour day would experience 4 sunrises and 4 sunsets that is. That really messes with your perception of time, my astronaut friend Steve tells me. But here on earth, we can actually master our time, by becoming aware of our relationship with time and choose what we pay attention to.

The most easily accessible tool that we have to shift the build-up of stress inside of us, is to pause, even just for a moment. To breathe and shift our attention inward. Just noticing the pressure of stress inside of us can help ease the pressure. It is the power of pausing and taking a few mindful breaths, with the intention of giving some kindness, life and movement back to the tightness in our bodies.

Our relationship with time.

The pressure of stress comes from the inside out and so does the solution. We cannot control our surroundings or what happens, but we can only control, or rather master, how we engage and interact with what happens. That is the skill of a leader. To be able to pause, observe, acknowledge, reflect and then choose how to act.

The short version of this method is AAA.

Acknowledge – Accept – Act.

Acknowledge is the pausing and noticing of what is happening. To observe the situation and acknowledge the facts of the situation, not our thoughts about it, -the facts. The thoughts, as you saw above, can drive your stress. You were not on a run away train, you were imagining that you were on a run away train. Our thoughts are that powerful that they can create a sensation in your body, that has you believe you are in the situation that you are imaging. Stress gets worse because of our thoughts – if not we are just busy solving problems.

Accept is to stop resisting what is. Too often, we spend to much time and thought energy wishing it were different. If only… Why did… How could you… These are all a waste of time, energy and focus because it is looking backward. We only want to learn from the past, no need to rehash it unless it carries a lesson. It is the resistance to what could happen or rather the thoughts what might happen, that causes us the most stress. Action is the anti-dote to feeling stuck in this run-away train. And the pressure chamber inside your body.

Act is once we accept what the situation is, we can choose how to act from a constructive and creative, no-stress-induced mindset. We can act based on how to move forward, how to solve the problem and how to re-direct the plan. It is a bit like pulling over on the highway when you realize you are driving the wrong direction and reset your GPS. You would do that, right?

To learn more about how to fuel your performance and company culture from the inside out, contact Jeanette Bronée and let’s figure out if your company needs training, a keynote or if your leaders need coaching. To learn more at JeanetteBronee.com

Photo by Romain Peli via Unsplash.

Categories
Investing Personal Development Sales

Why I Hate the Term “Value Messaging”.

I’ve read the term “value messaging” a lot lately, and it disturbs me.  It’s growing in popularity. Even my own company, CSO Insights, uses it to describe how to communicate value to a prospect.

CEB promotes a combination of commercial Insights (customer value, level of “customer specificity” varies) and helping prospects facilitate their buying journey (decision process value) as characteristics of high-performing sales teams.

RAIN Group extolls value-oriented selling as by far the most effective. They have data that shows that a value-driven sales culture is higher performing, lower turnover, more rewarding, and has happier customers than average sales forces.

All of these experts aren’t wrong, the “M-word” just means the wrong thing to too many people. We all agree that focusing on value is what top-performing sales organizations do.  I just find that particular term misleading.

“Messaging” probably isn’t the right word.

The word “messaging” can mislead people. Most dictionaries define “messaging” as unidirectional (although sometimes back-and-forth serial “telling”) communication methods over electronic media. That’s clearly not what the experts above mean; I imagine that they are attempting to broaden the dictionary definition to include in-person delivery.

Even if we remove electronic medium from the definition, the “unidirectional” part is what bothers me. Broadening it to mean ”formulating a communication for impact” still carries a “telling” flavor.  What many people mis-hear, or mis-define it as:  mass messaging, standardized messaging, scripted messaging.  That kind of communication is not how customer-perceived value (there is no other kind of value than “customer perceived”, of course) is best created.  The word “messaging” can ever evolve beyond that unidirectional message flow.

Worse, there are too many people in the world ready to believe that there is such a thing as a magic pitch, a magic script, that will cause the heavens to open up and rain revenue. Most harmfully, some of these people are senior level executives with little exposure to selling, who think that sales is some (“hire the right person and pray”) black box.  The word “messaging” doesn’t free these people from that misperception.

One part of “messaging” I do like is the intentionality that should precede sending an electronic message. We should retain a sense of intentionality and thoughtful message crafting before delivery, jettisoning the unidirectional baggage that the word also carries.

The term “value” in the phrase should bring us all back on track.

Value means the desirability of a perceived outcome from a course of action (such as a purchase). Value only exists in the mind of a customer. While some portion of value may be common to all customers, full value (the desirability of all achieved outcomes) to a prospect is highly individualized.  Value is personal.  If the prospect does not understand full value, they may buy, but will do so without fully-formed preference, probably not at an optimal price, and almost certainly more vulnerable to a competitor’s discounting behavior.

How can you script or standardize communication about something so individual and personal as value? Especially in complex/consensus business-to-business selling?  When you communicate a high level, extremely predictable (and easy to compete with) value on a standardized/canned basis, world-class selling requires more…much more.

“Value dialogue” is what great sellers and sales organizations do. Not deft messaging.  

Value creation in the B2B world involves dialogue, empathy for a customer, deep listening, and business acumen.

Dialogue is uncovering, developing, and expanding value. Both parties are listening and responding to one another. This is the human art of creating shared meaning.  “Messaging” can create a reason to have dialogue…perhaps even some high-level generic value, but will never result in the prospective buyer realizing full, personal value.

Empathy is placing yourself in the customer’s position.It is the foundation for true dialogue. I’m not sure this is trainable, but it can be uncovered in a (pre-hire?) assessment, and developed further.

Deep listening is what separates serial back-and-forth messaging from true dialogue. This is trainable, assuming a minimum level of customer empathy.

Business acumen helps a seller refine empathy into dialogue about value. You can’t “know thy customer’s business” without knowing about business. Business acumen is 100% a training issue.

CEBs “commercial insights” require sellers to be expert in their customer’s business.  Half of all “Challenger” sellers provide those commercial insights via unidirectional messaging, without empathy and dialogue, and end up being a company’s lowest sales performers.  Without business acumen, those commercial insights are little more than marketing messages – sellers must personalize any insights to each prospect.

Research by CSO Insights and many others indicates that, while many customers bring sellers later in their buying journey than ever before, in after extensive self-education, that they welcome one particular kind of seller earlier: one who can provide perspective:  applying their domain solution expertise to a customer’s unique organizational and business challenges.  This requires dialogue, not messaging.

Don’t be misdirected

Language matters. Unidirectional statements are a far cry from value creation dialogue.  Dialogue isn’t “messaging”, at least by any current English definition of the word.

I work with sales organizations to have great purposeful dialogue.  With intention and empathy.  I can also raise your sales organization’s business acumen.

Are you wrestling with how to improve sales performance, and does any of this resonate with you?  It was a unidirectional message, so I don’t expect magic results. I’m actually interested in hearing your individual story, to see if I can provide another set of eyes on your situation, whether we end up working together or not.  Contact me if you’d like to have a dialogue.

To your success!

Categories
Growth Personal Development

How Do You Get Your First Article Published? My Experience

Having articles published is a definite boost to a career. Getting your first article published stimulates your writing efforts and establishes more credibility with your clients.

My first article published after graduate school

I always enjoyed reading books and creative writing classes I took in high school. When I was in graduate school, I took a course that involved interviewing people with various psychological disturbances. One of the people who came in was a battered wife who had been paralyzed by her spouse. I was intrigued by why she stayed in that relationship and decided to do my paper for the course on domestic violence.

My nursing professor said to me, “This is a great paper. You ought to turn it into an article.” I said, “How do I do that?” The professor explained a little bit of the process: Find a journal in my field, look at the writing style, review the requirements for submitting an article for publication, and send it in to the journal.

Unrecognizable article

After I sent in my article and it was accepted, someone copyedited it to the point that I couldn’t find a single sentence that I had written. I was surprised and found out later that was the style of that particular journal, although, not a universal practice. The journal published my article in 1980. The experience of having my first article published encouraged me to keep writing.

Additional articles

The second article that I wrote flowed from a paper that I presented at the American Diabetes Association Annual Conference on pregnancy and diabetes which was based on work I did in graduate school. The Association’s editor asked me to take the abstract and turn it into an article for the journal.

Next, I poured my heart into a third article about my experiences having a premature baby. I explained the circumstances of my first son’s birth and included advice to parents who were going through a similar experience. I also provided advice to nurses who were taking care of such patients, and that article was accepted for publication. I have continued to write ever since.

People in the C Suite are in an ideal situation to write articles. Today, we can all be publishers of our thoughts and share expertise in blogs, either our own or as a guest blogger.

What can you write about?

What are the innovations making a difference in your business? What can you share that positions yourself as a thought leader? How can you influence your industry by what you’ve learned to be true?

Think strategically and creatively and then start writing.

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Growth Health and Wellness

Put Your Phone Down – WARNING: Attention Fireworks Rant Ahead

If you know anything about me, you will know my most favorite thing in the world, besides my honey, is fireworks. I mean I love them, I’m totally captivated by them.

And what you may also know about me is as an Australian, the only night that I get super homesick for Sydney is New Year’s Eve, because if you know anything about Sydney and New Year’s Eve, it’s summer, and I used to live on the harbor and I had an apartment that looked at the Harbor Bridge. So, can you imagine the fireworks display?

Every year when I’m freezing cold on the East Coast, I get homesick. So, one year my honey and I decided to go back to New Year’s Eve in Sydney, so that I could fix my homesickness. Just recently, I celebrated New Year’s Eve in Turks and Caicos, what a beautiful place.

But let me tell what happened that totally made me crazy. First, you should know,  I’m little.  I’m four ten and a half.  I have to work hard to see above the heads of others in a packed crowd. Can you imagine my horror when I looked up in the sky, only to have my view blocked by people’s outstretched arms holding up their cell phones? Every single person all around me pulled out their stupid devices in a crazy attempt to record the display.

It’s not just that it made me crazy because I couldn’t see, it made me crazy realizing they weren’t being present in that moment. There they were in the presence of the most magnificent fireworks display. I mean in Sydney it was incredible, and this year in Turks and Caicos it was right above me and spectacular. Yet all people did was record it on their cell phones, which, by the way they will probably never watch. And I asked my honey why on earth are they doing this, his response surprised me. “They just want to post it on social media and show off to their friends.” Sad, yes, and likely true.

I mean seriously, this has got to stop. This is crazy. We need to make the most of every moment. Start by putting away devices, be present and make the most of the moment.

So, if you ever watch fireworks with me I warn you now, put away your cell phone. I just want to be with you and experience the joy and the magic of the captivating fireworks. So, this year I challenge you, start paying attention. Join me in the attention revolution and realize distraction decays, but attention pays.