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Category: Personal Development

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

Four Myths and Five Truths About Value and Pricing

Does your price communicate something about your value, or does your value inform your price? Is it either? Or, is it both? Spoiler alert: “both” is closest, but the truth is more interesting than that simple answer.

I’m building a reputation inside my company as “The Pricing Guy”. Actually, I’m the “The Value-driven Pricing Guy”, a difference many of my clients appreciate. Nobody is a hero in his hometown, I suppose. However, the glass is more than half full: it’s good identify a simple-to-close gap. Readers of my blogs and my upcoming book, however, need not wait for internal company perceptions to catch up with reality. I am passionate about helping companies grow more profitably now

Let’s separate some common myths about pricing from facts.

Myths Concerning Price:

Price is just another feature to trade away.  This myth may threaten your company’s future more than any other. Fail to understand how customers actually think about price, and your people may end up donating your company’s profit dollars to your customers profit lines.

You should charge your full value premium. Ask Martin Shkreli (the “pharma bro”) if the still thinks it’s a good idea.  In the long term, customers only pay a price premium willingly; give them a perception of overcharging, and your price premium is temporary. Use caution with pricing consultants (who often charge a “shared profits” fee) with no contractual incentive for retaining customers at a higher margin.

Customers prefer complex calculations when justifying your price.  Has anyone every bought right into the assumptions built into any ROI calculator ever created by the selling company? Rather, is “the battle of the assumptions in the model” a sale unto itself? Humans use shortcuts whenever we can. Use a value/pricing justification that mirrors one of the common shortcuts, and you’re far better off — so are your customers.

Pricing is a useful incentive. Some companies build a sterling reputation for not discounting. Others teach customers to expect profit-killing end-of-quarter and end-of-year discounts. Inside one such company, I and my team developed a reputation for being the ones who produced high revenues and high profitability—with some work, we weaned our customers off of the discounting bottle, and my superiors off of the end-of-period discounting addiction. If you recognize this behavior in your own company, we need to talk: the profits you’re flushing away each quarter are probably far less than you’d pay me in a year…probably less than helping you through the first year of a full sales performance transformation.

Truths About Price:

Price is about differences. Your price level isn’t nearly as important to a customer as your price premium. Similarly, all of the bells and whistles on your product/service are clutter—surrounding your value differences.

Customers weigh the precise vs. the ambiguous, if you let them. Price and price premium are precisely measured in real-world numbers with dollar (or your own currency) signs attached – I’ve even seen prices with precision to the fourth decimal place. Conversely, your value premium exists only inside a customer’s mind, and unless you influence them into forming concrete (even monetized) thoughts around value, that value persists in a nebulous form.

Value is inherently based upon available options: Competitor, do it yourself, do nothing (status quo), do it later. Your proposal’s value must exceed the value of all of these other options.

Pricing communicates value… to customers, price is part of your messaging: Your price tells them what you think you’re worth. A lost deal feedback from my early Miller Heiman days that still stings (after we were told to skinny our proposal way down): “we didn’t think you understood the complexity of our problem, and didn’t think you could possibly do the amount of discovery we need for that price”.  My clients often recognize this ugly truth: when you lower your price, you concurrently send all kinds of bad messages about what you believe you’re worth.

Pricing discipline isn’t just for setting prices of custom and semi-custom products and services. It’s useful for setting and defending standard prices against discounting. Finally, it can become the objective framework used for discussing pricing exceptions (in contrast with “the best whiner wins the discount dollars” systems I encounter occasionally).

In Summary

Because pricing discipline is value discipline, it helps sellers discover full value by probing for all connected value; I use a tool called value network building, to analyze all of the places “where value could land” at the customer. This tool helps inform great conversations about value discovery long before pricing is discussed, and yields the right kind of “pricing courage” to conduct win-win price negotiations.

Want to know more? Ask questions below, or reach out to me privately. I am happy to add value to any issues you’re wrestling with.

To your success!

#MillerHeimanGroup,#MillerHeiman, #MHIGlobal, #customercentric, #customerfocus, #Perspectiveselling, #salesperformance, #valueselling, #valuepricing, #valueculture, #value, #sales, #discounting

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Warning – People Will Always Be Your Competitive Advantage

It doesn’t matter whether you have just developed the best product ever created. It doesn’t matter if your software or technology improvement will promise to change the world. If you don’t have the right people and the right culture, chances are your dreams of success will fall by the wayside as do those of most companies. Stop and consider this -would you enthusiastically rehire all the people in your company?

Right People, Right Seats, Doing the Right Things

In Jim Collins seminal book, Good to Great he talked about having the right people on the bus. What he meant by that was that WHO you have on the bus, the essence of the team, is more important than the skills and experience they have. Put the right people on first and then develop your strategy from there.

Once you have determined who the right people are, the next task is to make sure you have the right “seats” i.e. the right roles to accomplish your goals. One person and only one needs to be accountable for a role. If you have two people in the same role chances are fingers will be pointing to that other person when something doesn’t get done. Filling the right seat means that a person has the skills and hopefully the experience, necessary to accomplish what needs to be accomplished in that role. Lastly, the people in the seats need to be doing the “right things”. Their energy should be spent working on the priorities that best support the company’s goals. Are your people wasting their time and energy on tasks that are not a priority at this time?

How to Find the Right People

Every company has a culture – it’s the way “things are done”. Culture is a very important discussion to have related to finding and retaining the right talent. The two important components are Core Values and Purpose. Many companies find a set of words to describe their values: Integrity, Responsibility and Innovation are three common ones. The test of a real value as opposed to an aspirational one is whether or not stories can be told that support the value. If you can’t tell stories about leaders or employees who exemplify a value, well then – back to the drawing board.

One way to promote values and at the same time have a tool to onboard new employees is to have what we call “Our Little Book of Emails”. Let’s say Samantha did a great job creating the ultimate customer experience. Imagine reading an email from the CEO to Samantha that congratulates her on living a value that is critical to the company – “We strive to offer the ultimate Customer Experience”. On the first day of work, a new leader reads the little book of emails and comes to this page. Isn’t this more impactful than a bullet point on a sign on the cafeteria wall?

Build Your Virtual Bench

Don’t wait until hiring becomes a matter of urgency. Create relationships with potential employees way before you need them. Ask your customers and vendors who they might know who would be a good fit to join your company. Talk to the candidates and let them know you aren’t ready yet, but sometime in the next few months a position might open up that fits their qualifications. Stay in touch and keep them informed.

Hire Slow Fire Fast

Jack Welch was the former CEO of General Electric – Jack was a very successful CEO for many reasons and perhaps one of the most important was his approach to finding, coaching and retaining the best performing business leaders in the world for GE.

When Jack was building his strategy to grow GE, he identified two key areas where he could develop a competitive edge:

  1. Develop a process that would increase the success of hiring the right executives the first time and retain them for several years after they joined GE.
  2. Create an ongoing executive education core competency within GE that would keep GE leaders among the sharpest and highest educated in the world.

Jack Welch engaged Brad Smart to come into GE and help develop a program and process to increase executive hiring and retention success from 50% (industry average) to 90% (GE standard). It is out of this best practices project (and process) that Brad Smart wrote “Topgrading,” and it has become a bestseller and standard in many successful growth companies.

What discourages A players, those employees who are high in Core Values and Productivity, is tolerance for C players – those who are low in both. It is important to regularly assess your talent and remove those who drag down the level of excellence in your company.

Take time to interview carefully and make sure that the core values of the prospective employee matches that of the company. For excellent interviewing practices and questions read Geoff Smart’s book – “Who”.

Learn from the best – and make your people a competitive advantage for your company.

Categories
Best Practices Body Language Economics Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations News and Politics Women In Business

5 Ways to Hack Your Way to Winning Negotiations

“Hacking is a way to discover new value. View the value in what you have for multiple purposes.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When you hack something or a process, you discover new ways to use new insights to obtain new values. In a negotiation, you can hack your way to winning negotiations by using techniques, strategies, and tactics in different ways.

Hack 1: Define your words. In the above statement, I gave the definition of how I was using the word ‘hack’ in this article; it means to uncover ways to negotiate better by using existing techniques and strategies in different ways. Since the word, ‘hack’ can have negative connotations (e.g. “he’s a hacker”; meaning, he’s not good), I needed to define it for you so you’d understand my intent. Thus, even if a word or procedure has an existing meaning, you can alter it to serve your purposes in a negotiation. If you’re successful, that will give you greater control of the negotiation. It’s akin to the wizard behind the curtain changing the color of the day to suit his needs.

Hack 2: Consider how you can spin an outcome to appear favorable to your position (e.g. after losing a point badly – “they didn’t win. we were positioning ourselves so we’d be in a favorable position for the next phase of the negotiation.”) When spinning an outcome know your intent. If not, you run the risk of appearing foolish or completely out of touch with reality, which in some cases can prove to be advantageous for you, too (e.g. “I don’t know if he’s crazy, or crazy like a fox.”)

Hack 3: Depending on the severity of a negotiation, think of how you can frame someone (i.e. how you wish them and/or their position to be viewed/perceived). In really tough negotiations, some negotiators will take their opponent to the school of dirty tricks. By doing that, they determine how the opponent and/or their position will be unfavorably perceived; you see this occurring more in high-level institutional negotiations, but you also see it occurring in negotiations between individuals that have winning as their sole source of motivation.

Hack 4: Confusion will usually lead to inaction. If you find you’re losing a point that’s vital to your position, try confusing the issue. You can do this by citing sources of disinformation; in a best-case scenario, you would have fomented the disinformation prior to the negotiation. If nothing else, confusion will slow the negotiation down. It can also serve as a bridge to a point that’s more favorable to your position. To be effective, plan how and when you might use confusion as a tactic in your negotiation. Hack 4 can also be incorporated into hack 3.

Hack 5: If you’re knowledgeable about reading body language, there are ways you can send nonverbal signals that enhance or detract from what’s been said. You might intentionally want to introduce doubt into a statement made by the other negotiator, even if you believe what he’s said to be true; do this by tilting your head to the side in an inquisitive manner. Then, allow him to convince you that he’s sincere. Psychologically, he’ll feel good about convincing you, which means you can use his good feeling to keep him endeared to you.

There you have it. Five hacks that you can use to enhance your negotiation efforts. Try them out and observe how your negotiation win rate soars … 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 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#hack #hacking #negotiations #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #psychology

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Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development

We’re Not That Far Apart

Recently I was on a sales trip with Scott Good, my partner in one of my businesses. We had a lot of windshield time so as good friends and business partners often do, we got into a few terrific discussions. Since we are in business together, of course we talked about business. And yes, the touchy subjects of politics and religion were also covered. After several hours in the car together, Scott says to me “you know we really aren’t that far apart.” Now Scott is a really, smart guy (would I have a dumb guy as a partner?), but this was really, profound.

I continued to think about that statement over the next few days.

When we are applying for and negotiating for a new job at a new company, what does the company want? The company wants to utilize all your talents, so the company can thrive. Don’t you want the same thing? Don’t you want to apply all your skills and experience, so you AND the company thrive?  So, assuming you are the right fit, what’s keeping you from agreeing to the opportunity? A few bucks in the salary? Another day of vacation? If you and the employer truly communicate, you’ll find “you know we really aren’t that far apart” and you’ll make a deal that makes everyone happy.

When you are negotiating with a potential buyer for your product or service, don’t you generally set down some parameters of what the buyer can expect in terms of performance of the product or service? Of course, you do. Then you get to the final negotiations and both parties find ONE thing they want to take a position on and everyone forgets all the work that went into the discussion up to that point. Let’s all calm down and review each other’s position. Let’s talk honestly and openly of what we each want from the transaction. You will often be saying after that discussion, “you know we really aren’t that far apart”.

Some discussions are traditionally adversarial. Union / company relationships, political discussions, religious discussions, generational divides. How and why did we become so entrenched in our positions that we don’t listen to the other side of the issue? It does not have to be this way. Calm down, be open to learn something new, try to understand the other viewpoint. If we all just take 30 seconds to breath and think, we can most likely smooth out some of our differences, enough to say, “you know we really aren’t that far apart”.

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Marketing Personal Development

The Right Way to Mix Professional and Personal When You Network

Humans like putting things in categories.  Whether it is movies, music, or restaurants, it’s comfortable for us to mentally parse things into different groups. It’s one of the traits that allows us to manage a world of staggering complexity.

We also like to do it with our relationships.  We put people into relationship buckets: he’s my work colleague, she’s my friend, he’s just an acquaintance, etc.  But it’s not always as clear cut as we would like it to be.  What about a long-term client who has become a friend or a friend who you hired to work for you?

This has only been exacerbated by the advent of social networking platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Sure, we like to think that we can keep friends on one and business contacts on the other, but the lines get very blurry very quickly.

Doing Business with Friends

Really, social media hasn’t caused this blurring, it was always there.  It’s just made it much more obvious.

Many of us have created huge, integrated networks online.  Think of your collection of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.  It would be hard to divide these into different categories of personal, business contact, family, work friend, random person I met at a party, etc.

These integrated networks allow for a lot of cross-pollination, and that can be powerful.  In his seminal paper on network dynamics, The Strength of Weak Ties, sociologist Mark Grannovetter found that most value came from the weak connections that people had.  The impact of a relationship didn’t derive from its strength. Rather, it came from the access to new information it created.

In other words, it didn’t matter that you were best friends with everyone, what did matter is that you had a lot of connections with ties to disparate worlds.  These bridges become the conduits for new opportunities.

And many of these weak connections are in areas that aren’t traditionally business-related.  They could be friendships from your neighborhood, a civic or volunteer organization, or the religious group you belong to.  There will be a lot of overlap between your professional and personal worlds, both offline and online, and if you are savvy you can find opportunities in both.

Develop Awareness Online and Outside of the Office

So don’t shy away from having a business conversation with a friend, or feel you can’t talk about music or film with a business colleague.  Just ensure that the conversation is appropriate for the context.

My brother-in-law runs a successful real-estate firm, and I’ve done work with him and his team.  But that doesn’t mean that I walk into his office and start talking about the craziness of Thanksgiving dinner with the family.  Our relationship stays the same, but the topics of conversation vary based on where we are and what we’re doing.

By connecting your professional and personal spheres, it’s critical to ensure that your actions and behaviors work in a variety of contexts.  This is why you hear the warnings to be careful of what you post on social media sites.  You never know who is going to see a photo you post, and more importantly, you don’t know how they are going to interpret it.

When a potential employer, client, or partner can access a record of your behaviors with the click of a button, you need to ensure that your behavior won’t be held against you.  It’s the 21st century extension of the old saying that you shouldn’t talk about politics or religion in polite company.  Whether you are online, at the office, or a backyard BBQ, personal/professional networks require you to be aware of how your actions and words are perceived by a wide cross-section of people.

Be the Best You

Be aware that you have to consistently act your best.  When you are straddling different worlds, you want to be the “you” that fits into any context.  But creating that mindfulness, that awareness of the impact your words and actions will have, is the foundation of a wide and varied network.  And that breadth is the key to leveraging it to move the needle on your career.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Skills

Three High-Performance Listening Skills Great Leaders Embrace

It was a Friday evening and I was out with a small group of my friends at a Happy Hour. We were all seated around a table sharing stories over drinks and appetizers. Throughout most of the evening, one of the guys in our party was on his cellphone working a real-estate deal and talking to one of his team members who was sitting across the table. Andrew was so involved in his business that he didn’t even lift his head up from the phone but would randomly interject a word in here and there, claiming he was totally present and listening.  Of course until he realized that wasn’t 100% true when his wife had to call his name a couple of times to get his attention for a group picture…

How often have you found yourself in a similar situation?

You were engaged in a conversation and the technology had become a distraction during the conversation especially when attempting to establish rapport with another human being.

“Listening is fundamental in building rapport with others.  We all have bad habits that can cause us to break rapport and lose the connection with the other person.”  (From Power Conversations Tip #3 I know You Hear Me)

Let’s look at three common habits that cause us to break rapport and find out what to do instead in order to fix them and become more powerful communicators

  • Interrupting the speaker
  • Making up your mind before all the info is presented
  • Showing Impatience when a person speaks at length

Interrupting the speaker

How many times have you found yourself in a conversation where you, or someone else really, really needed to say something right then, right there and it just couldn’t wait until the speaker was done? Most of us were brought up knowing that it’s important to let others finish their thoughts.                   An interruption is saying “what I have to say is more important than what you have to say.” Ultimately saying “I’m more important than you”.  I would venture to say you probably don’t really think that.

If you have something that you have to say and think you might forget, write it down or politely ask the other person to have them remind you to bring up the topic once they are done speaking.  If you or someone you know happens to be a chronic interrupter, have them busy themselves by doing something else instead in order to break the habit.
I once had a client in a training that was a chronic interrupter. Since she was very high energy like a cheerleader, she decided to drink water every time she felt the need to interrupt. Needless to say while she reported to me that the solution worked, she had become very well hydrated…

Making up your mind before all the info is presented

Somewhere along the line you tuned out the speaker and dove into your own thoughts. That’s what we call an internal distraction.  When that happens, you risk missing out on important information and only hearing parts of a discussion which could lead you down the path of wrong conclusions and assumptions. As a result you could end up in conflict and that does not an example of good leadership.

Instead, be sure to remain present the entire time, focus on the speaker, and ask questions to clarify any points that you are unsure about. Whether you are a quick thinker or a slow processor remain engaged, showing the speaker that they are being heard and valued.

Showing Impatience when a person speaks at length

Let’s face it, different people communicate differently.  While some are story tellers who share every little detail, others might be direct, factual and brief.  Often people who are high-performers want the big idea and quick facts and will show impatience when the speaker goes on and on. That might entail looking at your watch, gesturing someone to hurry with hand motions or even at time flat out saying something like “get to the point”.  Those are all rapport breakers that are offensive to the speaker, yet at times we truly want someone to get to the point. How do we convey that without being rude?

Back when I was in private practice and had to take a medical history on all new patients, I would come across the long story tellers. It was common with those who experienced traumatic injuries like a fall or a car accident and were more of the emotional type. While it was important as a doctor to have empathy and understand their emotional and physical distress, all I needed in order to treat them properly were the facts of the accident like speed, directions, and point of impact.

My solution and was to find the right opening, state their name, repeat something they had said and check for accuracy with a yes/no question. I then moved to the next question. Ex. “Harvey, I want to make sure that I got this correctly, you were making a left at the light and a car came from across the intersection and hit your back passenger side? Is that correct? OK. What happened next?”

By using that technique not only will you able to manage the pace of the conversation but you will be actively engaged in listening to the details making the speaker feel heard and valued, which is the goal.

As an active listener you will use different skills to show interest in the speaker and build rapport with them. As a High-Performer leader you will spend more of your time engaged in Active listening.

While Andrew is clearly a hard working individual he could benefit from improved High-Performance Communication skills, specifically Active Listening to make him an even more powerful leader.
What about you??  Are you ready to uplevel your game and improve your communication skills?

Categories
Best Practices Growth Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Skills Women In Business

Managing Reverse Culture Shock

We’re all familiar with the principle of “culture shock,” reflecting the surprises and challenges of living and working abroad. Comparatively, you’d think it would be easy to move back home after the assignment is complete. Surprisingly, however, readjusting to the home culture and office is often harder than going abroad in the first place, a phenomenon known as “reverse culture shock,” or “reentry adjustment.” I certainly encountered this personally upon returning to the US after spending a couple of years in Japan. Here are some reasons why, and strategies to help ease that transition so that, contrary to the popular expression, you can go home again.

First, whether you’re abroad for a year or a decade, the fact is that, whether or not you realize it, you have changed as a result of your experiences, and your home (and home office) environment has evolved over time as well… but not on the same trajectory. Yet you will both expect the other to be the same as when you left at minimum, or even subconsciously expect them to have changed in the same way that you did – whether or not you recognize exactly how.

Plus, once you’ve adapted to the new language and cultural expectations, there’s a good chance that a lot of those new behaviors and expectations will have become second nature, often because you have learned to appreciate the principles that those behaviors reflect. For me, I was always a very direct speaker, but learned to appreciate and comfortably use the comparatively subtle approach in Japanese, which is the Japanese norm, based on promoting respect and harmony. Unfortunately, when using similar strategies in English back home, I sounded wishy-washy to my American peers.

When you return to your home office, others may respond to these new habits with resistance and skepticism. If you start to recognize this pattern, have a heartfelt conversation with your team, explaining what’s behind the new behaviors. Don’t go into tons of detail, and don’t present it in a way that seems like you’re bragging about your experience abroad. Smile, and let them know that you understand their reaction because it’s exactly how you reacted when you first encountered those patterns when you first arrived overseas. Depending on what the change is, you may just need some time shift back to the original style. Alternatively, once they understand the change, they may decide they appreciate the rationale for it and want to adopt it too.

Another key cause of reentry adjustment is that you expect to be surprised in one way or another when you go to a foreign country, but not when you return home. You know that the new language, culture, and norms abroad – from foods and table manners to what it means to show respect – will probably differ unpredictably from what you’re used to, for better or worse. But you also assume that it should be easy to return home because – in theory – you already know all the rules of the game.

On the contrary, this isn’t always the case. When I went to live and work in Japan, and studied the language and culture, I was very explicitly instructed how to do everything from gift exchange rituals to protocols for conducting meetings. I learned the rules consciously. Then when I moved back to the US, I committed a variety of little faux pas because I realized I didn’t know how to shift back! So many of my original American practices had been learned unconsciously; I had done things a certain way because it’s the way everyone did them, so I was just going with the flow, as it were. I never thought about why I used certain English words, American gestures, or routines. Without being equally able to articulate the “rules,” there was occasionally an awkward feeling of uncertainty.

Part of the solution, simply put, is to expect similar surprises – likely on mundane little things – upon completing an extended stay overseas. More importantly, when they happen, be patient and forgiving with yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes, and when you do, remind yourself that this is normal. If necessary, apologize, but again, share the cause: you were simply on “auto pilot” from living abroad. The best remedy is to have a sense of humor about it and laugh at yourself, which is also an invitation to others to laugh with you. This builds mutual empathy, educates others, and promotes support to help you make the rest of the transition to your new life in the old country.

********

Are you or is someone you know struggling with reverse culture shock? Email me at laura@vocalimpactproductions.com or click here to set up a 20-minute focus call to discuss it with me personally.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development Women In Business

The Enemy of Your Employee Attention

There is a battle brewing in your office over your employees’ attention. The enemy – distraction.

Our workplaces are a littered land mind of distractions. It’s a wonder anyone can survive. Between open concept offices to technological interruptions, employees fight for their ability to pay attention, avoid distractions and say ‘no’ to demands for their attention. They feel overwhelmed, overstressed and overtired, spending countless energy being busy (we know that busy isn’t necessarily productive).

The stress distractions create in the workplace has long term consequences to the individual’s productivity and health as well as the company’s bottom line.

So how do wage war on workplace distraction?

Consider the following aspects and determine where distractions can be destroyed – once and for all.

1. Office Structure: If you’ve hopped on the bandwagon of open-office workspaces. It’s time to consider a change. If that’s not feasible, allow employees to improvise by occasionally working from home or remote locations that will permit them quiet time to focus. Still not an option? Consider permitting noise-canceling headphones for staff in high traffic areas.

2. Do Not Disturb: Utilize apps and technology to defeat technology disruptions. See my previous post for ideas to use on your own devices.

3. Prioritize: Leaders and employees should frequently review department and business priorities. Each time someone requests of your time to accomplish their needs, simply use those priorities as a filter to determine whether the extra work is necessary or can wait for another time.

4. Closed-Door Policy: Even if you don’t actually have a door, schedule time on your calendar each day to accomplish tasks and projects. Turn off your email and phone. Hang a sign on your door telling others to “Come back later – brilliance is brewing.”

5. Clear the Clutter: Use the last 15 minutes of each workweek to tidy up, clear the clutter and prepare for a successful week. A clear space makes a clear mind and prevents distractions throughout the week.

6. Promote Breaks: Encourage employees to take periodic breaks from their work. Discourage them from eating at their desks as well. Promote taking time off for vacation, rest and recovery.

7. Maximize Your Best Time of Day: Everyone has a time of day they focus and concentrate best. Consider loading your toughest, most creative-thinking tasks during that time frame. Mine is early day, so I don’t schedule meetings during that time. When is yours?

8. 80/20 Rule: Stop trying to be perfect. Our attention is challenged, stress is increased and anxiety skyrockets when we are aiming for perfection. Let it go!

Need more ideas to maximize your focus and defeat workplace distractions? Check out my other blogs at neenjames.com/blog or contact us here. We can help you make the most of each workday by paying attention to what matters most.

Categories
Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

It’s Your Attitude – Take Control

Attitude is defined as a mental position about a fact or situation.  The most important aspect of attitude is to know it is a perception you choose.

Viktor Frankl wrote a book titled, A Man’s Search for Meaning.  In this small but powerful manuscript he shares how he survived a concentration camp by understanding his attitude was the one aspect of his life he could control. Attitude is an important piece of your life too.  Many do not even think about. However, not thinking about it creates the inability to control it. When you realize the control you have over your attitude, you create a crucial difference in how you cope with everything that happens. Your destiny can change.

Self-awareness is key in the process of learning.  The next time you have the opportunity to recognize an experience in your day that is different than what you had planned, be aware of how you react. You can only change or celebrate what you notice. If you are annoyed, disappointed or frustrated, take 10 seconds to find an alternative way to respond to the situation. Finally, think about what you have learned.  This ties in with accountability, as the choice is up to each individual.  So why is it important in the workplace?  Imagine your work environment if each individual decided to see an opportunity where they would normally see an annoyance. What would happen if you and your workforce chose to have a different perspective?  Good attitudes raise the bar.  They create less tension and stress, which leads to better health, higher productivity and astute creativity.  Could your company use more of that?

The good news is, better attitudes can be taught to those who want it.  Sadly, some people have not had the experience of what it is like to work or live in a positive environment.  The benefits have to be clearly communicated for them to take advantage of this new perspective and responsibility.  It can be done.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

—Viktor Frankl

Excerpt from Blueprint for Employee Engagement – 37 Essential Elements to Influence, Innovate & Inspire.

Julie Ann Sullivan has the cure for retaining good talent and increasing productivity. Want a free copy of her book? Talk to Julie Ann @724-942-0486.  Julie Ann hosts the Mere Mortals Unite and Businesses that Care podcasts on C-Suite Radio .  For more information go to http://julieannsullivan.com/

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Growth Leadership Personal Development

6 Ways Your Ego Ruins Your Leadership: 6 Ways to Fix It

Whether you are a leader, a senior-level executive, the newest intern at the firm, or if you’re breathing, chances are, you are self-oriented. If you think you’re not self-oriented, think about the last time you saw a picture that was taken of you with a group of friends  – whose face did you look for first? Yup. Thought so. Me too.

Many leaders would prefer to think that they have their ego in check. The reality is that as a human being you are focused on yourself.

A certain degree of ego is natural. Although when it comes to leadership, it is crucial that you keep your ego in check. I’m referring to ego here as an arrogance or cockiness that will get in the way of real growth or sustained success. A jacked up ego is a collaboration killer. Oh, and you can kiss creativity buh-bye.

The most successful leaders strike a balance of confidence and humility. Trying to tell someone that they need to let the air out of their ego balloon is about as easy as taking the King Cake away from a 5-year old (call me if you need details about this delicacy). Those people usually need to experience their own “comeuppance.” In other words, they need to experience some spectacular crash and burn. The more embarrassing, the more likely they are to get the message.

Rather than having to go through such a humiliating experience, and if you’re not sure where you rate on the ego scale, read the following indicators and honestly assess whether they describe you.

6 Ego Indicators

  1. You get the last word.
  2. You want to win and you look at most interactions as a competition.
  3. You are the team problem solver and everyone comes to you to fix their work-related dilemmas.
  4. Whatever you say goes.
  5. You get involved with every issue – large and small.
  6. You feel like you have learned all that you need to know.

If you are humble and self-aware enough to recognize that some of these statements describe you, here are some ways you can rein in your ego and keep it in check.

6 Ways to Rein in Your Ego

1. Back off.

You are in a leadership position because you have skills, talents, abilities that are needed and that no one else brings to the team. Get out of the way and let your employee do his job. Better yet, trust him to do his job, which will free you up to do your job.

2. Choose your sidekicks carefully.

Kids are brutally honest. My great-niece Lucy told me, (quite loudly I might add) “You have pink teeth!” Sure enough, I took a peek in my compact mirror and discovered that I had lipstick on my teeth. You don’t want to surround yourself with bobble head dolls/dashboard dogs who will nod in agreement at everything you say. I think we all need a Lucy at our elbow. Someone who will honestly tell you when you’re doing a “craptacular” job, when your level of suckage is high, or even when you have toilet paper stuck to your shoe. You need someone who will dare to disagree with you.

3. Ask for feedback and input. 

Ask your team questions like, “From your perspective what should I be doing more of? Less of?” And “How do you think we should handle this situation?” By asking these questions and others like them you are not only gaining critical information that will help you to become a more effective leader, but you’re also sending the message to your team member that you value her and that her opinion is important to you.

4. Strive for collaboration over competition.

I’ve been hired to work with many leadership teams because they are functioning like a group of competitors instead of teammates. Set mutually agreed upon goals with your team and then together determine the actions necessary to accomplish those goals. There will be times when each individual will be called upon to sacrifice something for the greater good of the whole team. If a team member is successful, the whole team – and organization – wins.

5. Lead with your ears.

Listening is one of the most important skills you can develop as a leader. And most of us have lots o’room for improvement in this department.

6. Adopt a beginner’s mindset.

In the bayous of Louisiana you may hear someone call a person a tete dur. A tete dur, which translates literally to “hard head” is someone who just won’t listen, whose mind has been made up, or who thinks he knows better. Zen practice states that, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.” When you think you have learned all that you need to know, you essentially shut down the conversation, the creativity, and the possibilities. Instead, be curious about someone’s “crazy” idea, be open to learning new things, and admit that you may not have all of the answers.

One of my favorite sayings is, “Nothing fails like success.” This is especially true when your ego turns into arrogance and cockiness and takes hold of your team members and ultimately your business. Instead of being tempted to send this to your boss, or a team member who gets under your skin, be humble and self-aware enough to analyze how you may identify with one of these signals. Then, use these strategies to rein in your ego.

CHIME IN:

  • Did any of the ego descriptions paint a picture of you?
  • How can you improve a relationship with a team member, a client, or a colleague that may have been affected by your ego? 

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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.