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Category: Personal Development

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Growth Management Personal Development

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to be when you grow up? That is a question most, if not everyone heard when they were kids. Now as adults have you ever asked yourself that question again? Most likely if you have it’s for one of two reasons. Either you found yourself in a career that does not align with who you are at your core or you have reached a level of success that has you feeling “now what”? If you have many days where you are just going through the motions, not feeling engaged or satisfied it sounds like you may no longer be enjoying your work.

Gallup continues to report numbers like 30% for employee engagement and it seems that it is only a rare few who are excited about their work.

If you are part of the 70% who are disengaged at work, you might feel that the other 30% just got lucky and maybe you even feel that it’s not fair. Let me put your mind at ease a bit: it’s not your fault. You can only blame yourself if you continue to do work you don’t like once you understand the paradigm I’m going to share.

A quick caveat, this is not about the people you work with. If you love the type of work you do, but don’t like the people you do it with or the company you work for, that is different from not liking or being disengaged from the work itself. What I’m talking about are those people who are disengaged from the work because of the work itself or the way the work is carried out.

Now let’s get to the new way of looking at the problem and discuss the solution. Most likely, you picked your field of study based on external conditions or pressures vs. an internal understanding of how you are wired. What I mean is that many people go to school and study what they are told to study, what their parents encourage them to do, what teachers encouraged them to do, or in a field that they believe is practical so they can find work after school. That’s what I did, I was told I had to go to college and I picked business and accounting because that meant I would find a decent paying job when I finished, plus at the time it meant that I didn’t have to write many papers. That was a decision that took over 15 years to correct and a lot of disengagement along the way. I won’t call that choice a mistake because I did the best with the tools and knowledge I had when I was 17, but let me tell you, if I knew then what I know now about how I’m wired I sure would have gone in a very different direction.

What do I mean by how I am wired or who you are at your core? What I mean is that you are a unique recipe that makes you like and dislike certain activities, excel or flounder with different skills, and makes up who you truly are. It’s like what Maslow discusses with his hierarchy of needs and self-actualization. Human beings have an inner bent – the innate unchanging part of us that gives us a sense of fulfillment and contribution. Another way to say this is that people have an innate unchanging nature that predisposes them to want to make a certain contribution in a certain way. When you are not working or living in a manner that allows you to contribute in the way you were born to contribute, that can lead to disengagement.

The good news is that regardless of how grown up you are, it is never too late to discover what you are meant do or how you are wired, as long as you want something different. Instead of continuing to live based on chance or what other people think you should or shouldn’t do, you can design the life and career you want.

What would be different for you if you jumped out of bed every morning because the work you do is aligned with who you are at your core? What would be different if you were really excited about your job, your company, and what you contribute?

The first step is to really know who you are and how your innate nature drives you. Are you someone who loves building relationships and teams, and is driven by ideas, but not so much by details? Or are you someone who loves numbers, budgets, research, and all the details? Do you go a little crazy when someone else just wants to wing it? Maybe you like to invent, create, lead, and build; or maybe you like to listen, gather information, and work on creating solutions. These are all valuable, we all have different combinations of these types of energies, and when you get to use the energies that you are wired for, the magic starts to happen.

My personal experience with this comes from the fact that it took over 15 years to align who I am with what I do. I was a very successful information security consultant and I was very good at my job, but it made me miserable. I dreaded Monday and definitely had the Sunday night blues. I had anxiety at times about the work because I knew how much I did not want to write that next report or nit-pick the smallest details with the QA department. The part of the job I liked the most, was the part I got to do the least. When I would get to help my clients actually solve problems and when I got to spend time really getting to understand their businesses and how things work. I did not enjoy the repetitive questions I had to ask every client and the same report that I had to write over and over. I enjoy being creative and fluid, not systematic and sequential. I also know that people assume that I am an extrovert because I am not shy and can talk a lot, but in reality I am really quite introverted. I get drained when spending days on end talking to people and that part of the old job exhausted me. However there were lots of other folks who thrived in that role because they liked and were wired for the tasks and roles that I was not.

It took a lot of trial and error for me to figure this out, but there are lots of tools and ways to go about assessing who you are to better determine what you should be doing. This is not something I can go through in this article. I am writing this for you to start thinking about who you are and the work you do. This is a paradigm shift where you start to understand why you have been disengaged for so long. I want you to know that it’s never too late to do something different, something that lights you up.

So if you are like many people (previously this included me) who wound up in a career where there is little to no satisfaction, then it’s time to discover who you are and make a change to the work that aligns with you. I like to remember that the pain of discipline (or the pain of change) is much better than the pain of regret.

This is one of the services I offer my clients and If I can help support you in making a change or identifying your core values and strengths please reach out to me at sharon@c-suiteresults.com or visit c-suiteresults.com

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Best Practices Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Looking Confident – Even When You’re Not

Over the last several posts, I’ve been sharing strategies on delivering a great performance in front of the camera – and by extension, when in front of a live audience even without a camera. If you haven’t seen them yet, here’s the link to my series of video shorts, “Capturing Your Confidence on Camera.”

This time, I want to share a couple of other great resources for delivering a confident, compelling, engaging performance, as both demonstrated and explained in two of my favorite TED Talks.

The first is more likely to appeal to the part of your brain that likes to read inspiring self-help psychology related books that explain why you do what you do and how to control your own destiny.

It’s your friendly neighborhood Harvard psychologist, Dr. Amy Cuddy, in her TED talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.”

This video had two big take-aways. First are the very-real effects that your posture has on your hormonal balance, which subsequently can influence your psyche and sense of self-efficacy and confidence. If you knew that taking two minutes to yourself to hold a certain pose before giving a presentation or speaking on camera could change the quality of your delivery, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?

Second, her story of needing to project confidence at a time when she didn’t feel it, suffering from what some might call “the imposter syndrome,” (long before she was “THE” Amy Cuddy,) is something everyone can relate to. The way she managed to perform despite that fear, until she had beaten it, is inspiring..

It’s also humbling. After realizing everything she was up against – including severe cognitive damage from a car accident – you have to admit: if she can overcome that, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to overcome your fears too, and learn to speak with true confidence.

In contrast, the second video will appeal to the other side of your brain. The part that doesn’t want to have think too hard. Actually, it kind of reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. Why? Because it’s a whole talk about nothing.

It’s a talk about what academics might call “meta-strategies”… but we won’t call it that, because that sort of sucks all the fun out of it, which shouldn’t be allowed to happen after a perfectly good Seinfeld nod.

In “How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk,” Will Stephen steals the show at TEDxNewYork. He paces the stage and talks as if giving a real talk on some specific topic, all the while really just pointing out all the of his own little gestures, mannerisms, and vocal modulations as he does them, explaining why they make his talk engaging… or at least why they would if his talk actually had a more specific point.

It’s six minutes you’ll need to watch twice. The first time you’ll follow along with each point nodding, smiling, and thinking “oh my gosh, that’s so true!” Then at the end, you’ll realize, “oh my gosh, that IS true… wait a minute, I need to look at that again…”

As he uses each little gesture, and explains its value and its likely effect on you right at that moment, take note. The strategies are so simple, but each one engages, endears, and compels. His talk is entertaining and semi-facetious, but every one of his points is relevant, and easily applicable in any presentation preparation and delivery.

Ultimately, just remember that in any situation, you have control over much more than you realize, including how confident you feel, and how confident you look. Strike your pose. Emulate the characteristics you wish you had (i.e. “fake it ‘til you make it”.) Consider the little gestures and vocal cues that connect with the audience in different ways, and deliver them like you mean it.

Once you put it all together, the confidence will flow outward, and when you see how the audience responds to it, you’ll feed off that response and the confidence will become genuine. And there’s no better feeling than that!

Categories
Growth Human Resources Leadership Personal Development

Can Diversity Go Too Far?

What are we wanting to accomplish with our diversity programs? Do we want to simply reflect the proportion of races in our organization to match those in our culture? Do we want to avoid discrimination law suits? Are we wanting to generate innovative thought? Do we expect improved productivity? According to Harvard Business Review, most diversity programs fail to accomplish their stated objectives of increasing diversity. (Kalev, 2016)

Biodiversity boosts natural sustainability for all life forms. Each species, no matter how small, plays an important role in this goal. The greater the number of plant species means a greater variety of crops leading to robust sustainable survival of all. Isn’t this the main reason we want to have diversity in our organizations as well? We want sustainable survival in a high change environment.

How can an organization optimize sustainable productivity improvement and continuous innovation? One factor must be its ability to attract and retain employees with diverse skills, ideas, and methods of improvement. But diversity programs are often seen as a strategy avoid the appearance of bias and racism. In my opinion this seems unfortunate and unproductive. Is it fair to say all African American’s do not think alike? How about Caucasians? They don’t all think alike either, correct? For me this is what diversity programs can go too far astray and miss opportunities to contribute to sustainable healthy growth in profitability, revenue, and customer experience.

To avoid letting your diversity selection programs go too far, three key criteria should be keep in mind and implemented to create a culture which will contribute to healthy sustainability. First, clarify how everyone must behave to always be respectful. One pitfall with diversity is the danger of disrespect. A good example in nature is the destruction of many native species of plants caused by feral pigs in Hawaii. European domestic pigs bred with the smaller Polynesian pigs. The feral pigs today damage many indigenous plant life and require hunters to control the population. The pigs are a good example of diversity gone too far.

People from different backgrounds can have different definitions (demonstrations of respect) of respect and therefore different expectations. By clarifying how to achieve respect in every interaction and providing everyone with the right and obligation to give feedback, leaders can manage the variation in respectful behavior. This avoids unnecessary damage to the working environment in the form of negative emotional conflicts.

A second pitfall is a lack of appreciation of different communication styles. By adopting insights from a style instrument like DiSC and/or Meyers Briggs, showing how different styles can complement each other and showing how everyone can demonstrate an appreciation for different styles, employees can avoid interpreting differences in styles from demonstrations of disrespect.

A third pitfall is a lack of appreciation for why the organization exists. When the purpose of the organization (mission and/or vision) is clearly stated and reinforced, employees are willing to more easily work through differences in opinion and align on what is best for the organization. This is another reason to avoid rewards for individual performance and to instead reward team or total organization performance. When employees can see how everyone will benefit from cooperative effort (avoiding competitive behaviors) they are more willing to compromise and implement others’ ideas because they know rewards will be coming when the entire organization wins.

The embrace of the typical performance appraisal is a barrier to cooperation because it often rewards individual performance above organizational performance.

We all want sustainable performance, profitability and customer experience. Having diverse ideas, methods, and styles can help achieve a culture which can adapt quickly to change. However, managing the variation in respect, an understanding of why the organization exists, and rewarding team effort will help prevent a diversity program from getting of track.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal. Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP. Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

OptimumleadershipTV

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Self-Confirm the Customer’s Choice to do Business with You

Just imagine zooming all over the world in a private jet. Jordan Zabel, the Director of Sales for Jet Linx, a private jet company that offers their services to corporate and private members, could make that a reality for you.

As you can also imagine, Zabel deals with high-end customers who expect high-end customer service everywhere they go, because anyone that can afford that kind of service has very discriminating taste … and often along with it, sky-high expectations.

But Zabel knows how to do his job well. He knows that he needs to deliver the highest possible level of customer service. Further, once the sale is made, he knows what it will take to keep those customers in their seats, which is to maintain that same level of stellar service he demonstrated through the sales process, while maybe even increasing the altitude a bit.

As you probably expect, high-priced service usually is accompanied by an outstanding customer experience. Just think of the level of customer care that exquisite hotels like the Four Seasons provide. So what is the challenge for people like Jordan Zabel who deal with these high-end clients?

Zabel explains, “Too many times a company’s marketing propaganda just doesn’t match the customers’ experiences after the sale. It’s all just hype. Hot air. At Jet Linx, I always want my customers to know their decision to do business with us was a good one, anytime they think of us.”

To put it another way, Zabel wants to deliver the promises and meet the expectations that were initially promised in the marketing materials he handed his prospects-turned-customers. After the sale, he wants his customers to keep telling themselves that they made the right decision to choose him and Jet Linx in the first place.

As the customer goes through this process of self-confirmation, ask yourself, “What am I doing before, during and after the sale that continuously reinforces the customer’s initial choice to do business with me?”

If you have good sales skills, sure, that can get some people to come through the door. But what about getting those customers to re-enter that door, again and again? What happens after the customer’s buying decision is made is what really counts. That’s the key to continual success and a steady cash flow. You can help to guarantee that success by delivering consistent, amazing customer service after the sale.

Customer experience design speaker and trainer Joey Coleman talks about a concept he calls The First 100 Days. What happens during the first 100 days after the sale can confirm that the customer made a good decision to work with you. We want our customers, at any time, to always be self-confirming their initial buying decision. When they do, it will lead to the next sale, and the next. It will build a stronger relationship. It can potentially lead to customer loyalty and maybe, if we are lucky, even evangelism, where your customers share their positive experiences about you with their family, friends and colleagues. That’s the power of delivering a level of customer service that self-confirms a customer’s choice to do business with you!

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Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development

What does mindset have to do with it?

Have you ever woken up on the “wrong side of the bed” followed by a bad day? Better yet, have you ever felt good for no reason and then had everything that day go perfectly?

Did you know that you created both of those realities? It’s your mindset that creates the world you live in and as Henry Ford said, “whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

You might be thinking, “I’ve heard of this mindset thing, but isn’t it just for yogis and hippies?” The answer is NO! It’s for everyone and for anyone who is serious about taking control of their life. So let’s talk about what mindset is, what the right mindset can help you accomplish, and ways to create a mindset of abundance and possibilities.

This is not a concept I was brought up with, so if that’s true for you as well I’ll tell you this is something that can be learned and mastered.

Simply defined by the dictionary, mindset is an attitude, disposition, mood, intention, or inclination. But in this context what I’m talking about it is the power of your thoughts to create the world around you.

Do you see the glass half full or half empty? While that’s a cliché question, it has a lot of merit when talking about mindset. We all know people (family, friends, co-workers, etc.) that see the negative in any situation and assume the worst. These are the people who think the sky is falling all around them all the time. You also know people who see the good in all situations and really know how to make lemonade out of lemons. Actually they see the lemon as nothing more than the opportunity to make a drink they like. You might call them Pollyanna, but in reality these folks are living much happier lives than their “Chicken Little” counterparts.

Your current mindset, whether a half-full or half-empty belief pattern, has been with you for a while now. Your thoughts have been with you for a very long time and the older you are the longer you have held your beliefs. Your beliefs are the thoughts you have been thinking and if you have been in a negative place for a while now these are deep-seated beliefs.

The more I “play” with mindset the more I find that I have so much more control over my life than I could have imagined. Sure, I always knew I had some control, I can make choices, and do whatever I want, but I didn’t realize that I had actual control to create exactly what I want and have the exact perfect people show up at the exact right time. That is the type of creation I’m talking about. When I choose to have a positive mindset, one of abundance, I find positive people and abundant opportunities. When I choose to feel fear, disappointment, overwhelm, guilt, jealousy, or blame, the world around me provides more situations to match those feelings.

Without going into the science of how your brain works, what I want you to know is that you can start creating new thoughts, new neuropathways, new patterns, and new beliefs. Since your current beliefs are just reflections of your thoughts, then it is completely possible to change your thoughts in order to change your beliefs.

When you go to an event with the mindset that it is going to be boring, be a waste of time, and not be of any value, of course that is what you will receive because your mind will do everything to make that reality happen. Your mind needs the external world to match the internal world you have created through your thoughts. So if you have a mindset or attitude that something will be a waste of your time before you experience the event then your mind will get to work finding all the reasons that the event was a waste of time after it is over so that your outside world matches your inside world.

On the other hand if you go into the event with the simple mindset that “I am going to meet one new and interesting person” I guarantee that you will. You are going to create your reality by the words you use in your mind first.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying you can make a million dollars materialize in your bank account just by thinking about it. I am saying that you get to create the situations, people, interaction, and opportunities that can lead to the million-dollar idea or partnership. In order for that to occur you have to be ready to see those opportunities when they present themselves because they don’t show up with obvious neon flashing signs that say look at me over here, I’m the million-dollar idea you are looking for.

The question is – what are you doing in order to create the life you want? Do you know why you get up every day and go to work? Do you have a purpose behind what you do or do you just do it because “that’s what people do”? Are you allowing life to happen to you or are you making life happen?

The most successful athletes, artists, musicians, and business people have coaches because they know that the investment will help them create the mindset they need to get the results they want. They also invest in personal development, meditate, and focus on what they want rather than focusing on what they don’t want. They don’t just hope for the results they want; they go after the results they want. They understand the power of mindset.

Here’s an example (I love this story): Back in 1992, before his career really took off, Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million and on the memo line he wrote ‘for acting services rendered.’ He dated it for Thanksgiving 1995, approximately three years from that time. He stuck that check in his wallet and it was right before Thanksgiving 1995 that he was offered a role that would pay him $10 million. Watch this 3-minute interview on that story.

Do you want to be like Jim Carey and the elite who understand the power of and utilize mindset for what they want? Or do you want to be like the average person that spends their days letting circumstances just happen to them, focused on the negativity, and letting life pass them by.

You have to decide whether you are getting the results in life that you want. If you are not, its time to think, act, and be different because the only way to get different results is to start doing things differently. So how do you do that? It’s the difference between something being simple vs. easy. This in theory is simple; you don’t need to learn a new language, go back to school, or move to a monastery. However, that does not mean it’s easy.

Start small. There is no need to go big, which can quickly make you feel overwhelmed, say “see, I knew this was too hard,” and then quit. That’s a formula for disaster. You want to see success in this so start small and build. Find one thing every day to be grateful for. It can be the sun, your family, or your job. Even if you don’t like the work you do right now be grateful that you have the job. It puts food on the table, a roof over your head, and supports your family. When you know what you don’t want, you get clearer about what you do want. That means use any dissatisfaction at work to allow you to focus more on what you do want.

Then, once you have your gratitude in focus, make sure to state it in the positive. You will say, “I am grateful to know that I want a job that allows me to be
more creative.” Don’t say, “I want a job where I don’t have to make sales calls.” Always state what you are excited about rather than what you are not happy about. This is a subtle shift but will have you thinking with a different mindset.

Positive affirmations also help with a positive mindset. For some people it is a true affirmation with an I Am statement – I Am happy, I Am healthy, I am abundant. For others it may be focusing on positive quotes or prayers.

One of my favorite affirmations is, “today is a beautiful day full of infinite possibilities.”

If you are having challenges with positive affirmations and really believing what you are saying you can start with more general thoughts. You can be grateful for the abundance of sunshine. You can find something general that makes you happy and focus on that. Sometimes the key is to start small and once you get comfortable with this you will start to see abundance everywhere.

Another idea is to keep a journal, write down your thoughts and when one is negative ask yourself for another way to look at it that is positive.

So ask yourself: What am I grateful for? Start and/or end every day with gratitude, whether spoken aloud or written in a gratitude journal. These simple and small efforts are the first step on a journey to the life you truly are meant to live.

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Best Practices Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Navigating the On-Camera Interview

You’ve been invited to be interviewed on camera for TV, a video podcast or other virtual event. Does the voice inside your head say:

A: “Woohoo, this is a great chance to get some major publicity, I can’t wait!”

B: “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Most people get nervous when being interviewed, and even more people get nervous at the idea of being on camera. Put the two together and you have a combo that makes the fight-or-flight reflex kick into overdrive.

Aside from checking to make sure there’s no spinach between your teeth, you need to have a strategy to get the result you want. Check out this quick video for some proactive measures you can take in advance to direct the interview where YOU want it to go.

On the one hand, there are all of the delivery details I’ve discussed in other videos in this series like body language, voice, and how to calm your nerves when on camera.

But for interviews, it’s all about having a game plan.

Creating Your Interview Game Plan

First, who is conducting the interview, and what is their agenda? Do they showcase leaders whose story will serve as an inspiration for others? Or are they more likely to try to shoot holes in your theory?

There’s a huge difference between being a guest on a weekday morning television talk show and an evening television news program. The daytime interviews tend to be friendly and just want an interesting story that their listeners will enjoy. Evening news programs are more interested in getting “the scoop.” They enjoy conflict and putting people on the spot, particularly if you espouse a principle that their following tends to disagree with economically or politically.

Knowing what their intention is in advance can help you determine your own goal.

• Do you want people to pull out their smartphones and order your product or sign a petition right then and there?
• Do you want to educate more people about a growing problem – and solutions?
• Do you need to debunk some myths?

Depending on your desired outcome, you will decide in advance what stories to tell, what evidence to share, and how explicitly or implicitly you want to invite others to act.

If the interviewer is more likely to play a little hardball and ask a few tough questions, prepare your answers in advance. At this point in your career, you know what objections and challenges people tend to raise, so be prepared with how you want to respond.

Most importantly, remember that an interview is a conversation.
• DON’T just go on a monologue of statistics.

• DO take a conversational approach

• DO engage the interviewer by using his or her name once in a while, and

• DO give short, clear answers to allow the interviewer to volley back and forth with you without having to cut you off to get a word in edgewise.

Of course, that’s only half the battle.

It’s Not (Just) What You Say…

Once you have a sense of what information you want to share, you need to practice how you say it. I strongly recommend writing down a few questions – tough ones and lob balls – and practice answering them, but video record yourself while you do it!

The recording serves several purposes. First it lets you see how you look when you’re answering it. Are you squirming or poised? Do you smile at appropriate times, laugh nervously, or never even crack a smile?

Second, it lets you see how you sound when answering the questions. When you listen to the recording, you’ll realize when you’re rambling, when you’ve left out an important detail, or when you’ve given a great, laser-focused answer. Do you say “Actually” in every sentence (what I call the educated person’s “um”), stutter your way through an answer when you aren’t sure what to say, or mumble so quietly that you have to turn the volume all the way up on your ear buds to even hear what you’re saying?

Ideally, you should record your practice several times until you have figured out what information you want to include or leave out, and can answer the easy AND the hard questions smoothly and confidently.

When you are a good conversationalist with engaging examples and confident delivery, that’s when the wider audience will give you points for acing the interview and taking home the win.

Categories
Growth Leadership Operations Personal Development

Creating Dysfunction, Instead of Engagement, in Three Easy Steps

What if your leadership strategies were damaging performance of your team and you didn’t even know it?

Samuel Johnson once said, fraud dreads examination but truth invites it. In 2010, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority was dreading the next steps in the investigation on safety inspections. In a Wall Street Journal report, the MTA admitted that their workers often failed to do the required tests and maintenance on its subway signals. Furthermore, managers failed to properly manage the workers and failed to put processes in place to prevent them from filing the false reports.

Although the officials could not identify any accidents that may have resulted from the lack of inspection, this dysfunction is serious. Proper functioning signals will prevent delays and PREVENT ACCIDENTS. Proper functioning signals will stop a train if an operator misses a red light.

More recently, Wells Fargo fired over 5,000 employees because of a sales scandal. The bank leadership has claimed that the employees acted alone in opening 1.5 million false bank accounts and 565,000 fraudulent credit cards on behalf of its customers. The truth is the bank leadership created an environment which encouraged the fraud. (Lindzon, 2016)

What would cause a worker to commit fraud on something so important and avoiding accidents or to sell customers false accounts? Workers submitting false reports put passengers, the MTA, and themselves in danger. What would cause workers to be so dysfunctional? Three simple steps can easily do it:

1. Set stretch numerical goals beyond capabilities
2. Hold people accountable to those goals
3. Rely on inspection to catch errors

Many organizations set stretch numerical goals that are often beyond employee capabilities. This causes employees to take short-cuts. This is exactly what the MTA workers and the Wells Fargo sales people did. For the MTA, most of the problems occurred on the highest traffic areas because high traffic makes it much more difficult to do maintenance. Workers needing to dodge trains to ensure their own safety during the inspection tasks. Furthermore, the tasks of inspection and maintenance are arduous and complex.

For the Wells Fargo employees, the pressure to meet unrealistic goals was unbearable. There were constant conference calls and meetings to find out the status of the goals. Employees were told, “I don’t care how you reach the goals, just do it.”

Many organizations attempt to hold people accountable to overly challenging tasks or goals without knowing what the outcome will be. This is exactly what the MTA did. This creates dysfunction because it forces workers to either make short-cuts or to choose nefarious actions. They are often willing to do anything to relieve the pressure. They must achieve what management expects or risk being criticized for not doing their job, receive a lower performance evaluation rating, or worse. This is not the only place where this dysfunction plays out. Our high school (and college) students admit succumbing pressure to perform by cheating. Depending upon the study, 80-95% of students admit to surrendering to the cheating option.

Inspection is important but not as a way to ensure compliance. Inspection should be used to uncover important knowledge about how to improve the processes. It should not be used as a club to threaten employees with punishment. According to the article, the MTA’s inspector general looked for those individuals responsible for falsifying the reports. I wonder how much truth he/she will get with that approach.

Why not develop engagement instead? What should the MTA and Wells Fargo management teams do to improve safety, reduce costs and improve maintenance quality, and increase sales? The short answer is to engage the workers in creating the solutions and stop trying to catch them doing things wrong. Here are a few basic steps:

• Engage the workers to help improve the processes while helping them to feel safe and helping improve their productivity. Make it safe for them to tell the truth without fear of reprisal.
• Take their recommendations and fix their processes.
• Stop using inspection as a club and start using it to increase the knowledge to improve the processes again.
Are you creating dysfunction and then looking for the offenders so you can hit them with the inspection club? Stop. It’s hurting everyone. It is not leadership. It is dysfunction in three easy steps.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal. Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP. Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.

OptimumLeadershipTV

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Investing Management Personal Development

The Most Powerful Skill You Need to Succeed in the C-Suite

Demetri Argyropoulos Avant Global CEO and Founder

Whether you’re CEO of a multi-billion-dollar brand, or a start-up working towards Series A, there is one thing every executive has in common; you want to get to the next level and expand your customer base. Unfortunately, for most companies, it can be extremely challenging to keep up with change.

At the speed of light, corporate cultures are transforming and innovative technologies call for new leadership skills.

The upside is, regardless of how fast the world moves around you there’s one thing that will always stay the same, the most important skill you need to master to prosper in business.

Visionary entrepreneur Demetri Argyropoulos is well-known from New York to Silicon Valley as the king of connections.

His investment firm, Avant Global, has generated over $10 billion in revenue for clients and created strategic relationships for the world’s wealthiest, including Bill and Melinda Gates, Lady Gaga and Bill Clinton.

 

Argyropoulos was an early investor in Twitter, RedBull and DocuSign, and his Venture Capital fund, AG Venture Capital & Investments, has seeded over 50 diverse start-ups.

 

Argyropoulos credits his success to one invaluable skill…Networking.

 

C-Suite TV Correspondent Nicole Sawyer caught up with Demetri to talk about the most powerful skill you need to master to succeed in the C-Suite, and the biggest mistakes executives make when trying to build a strategic relationship.

 

Nicole Sawyer: What is the most powerful skill to have at the C-Suite Level?
Demetri Argyropoulos: The ability to bring value to your clients and your team. Typically, this value is brought forth through introducing and fostering unique relationships. All businesses and CEOs, despite how powerful they may be, depend on access to strategic relationships. These strategic relationships should monetize the company’s ecosystem, strengthen its platform and give a competitive edge over others with sustainable differentiation in the marketplace.

 

Sawyer: What personality traits do successful C-Suite Leaders have in common?
Argyropoulos: The most important trait we all have in common is the ability to know what the market wants before it actually happens. This comes from an innate understanding of one’s customers or clients. From there, you must be able to make decisions quickly, execute that vision, while staying one step ahead of the rest. All great CEOs are forecasters and firefighters.

 

Sawyer: When it comes to managing your own career, how do you prepare yourself to reach the next level?
Argyropoulos: I always have my ultimate end goal in mind. If you understand your end-game, you are able to manifest that into a reality. I always measure progress against this end goal and quantify it along the way with revenue, timelines and objectives.

 

Sawyer: How do you know who the right connections are for different types businesses?
Argyropoulos: The key here is to understand the objective at hand – what are you trying to accomplish? What is the client trying to achieve? Once you understand that objective, you need to dig deeper to understand the context. This is done through research and by understanding the current behavior at hand to figure out the next important introduction to make. And always remember, relationships only work if there’s equal or greater value on both sides.

 

Sawyer: You’ve worked with anyone from Bill Clinton to T-Boone Pickens, what is the secret to get their attention and maintain a business relationships with well-known people who are in high demand?
Argyropoulos: When you bring value to a relationship, even if it’s the busiest CEO on the planet, he or she will still make time for you. However, following-up is key, especially for those who are extremely busy. Most people don’t follow-up, which in business, can lead to distrust. You have to always do what you say you are going to do. It’s that simple.

 

Demetri Argyropoulos, Avant Global Founder with client T-Boone Pickens, Chairman and CEO of Hedge Fund BP Capital.

 

Sawyer: Where do business leaders fail when trying to create a relationship?
Argyropoulos: Oftentimes, their approach may be too aggressive and their message may not be clear enough.

 

Every successful relationship and every failed relationship is a consequence of one thing: how well, or poorly, you communicate. Clear communication is important to set from the beginning.

 

Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and ask the question, “Why do I want to work with this person?” Again the answer comes down to the value you can bring. Deliver value and these problems go away.

 

Sawyer: What are some of the biggest mistakes people make when following up?
Argyropoulos: They’re not entirely truthful. Be impeccable with your word. Just do what you say you’re actually going to do. This is so important when building trust in an influential relationship and so few actually do it.

 

Sawyer: What’s your advice for dealing with people you don’t like? Difficult people ?
Argyropoulos: Try not to. Seriously. I have a no a-hole rule. I’ve fired billionaire clients before because it just wasn’t worth it. At the end of the day, a billionaire is not better than someone starting out, and vice versa. You have to always respect others and the unique qualities and differences we all have.

 

Sawyer: If your personality is more of an introvert and networking doesn’t come natural to you? How can an individual make connections if they really don’t like talking to people?
Argyropoulos: For starters, that’s where companies like ours, Avant Global, come in handy. Sometimes we partner with, or get hired by executives who are not very social so we help to manage new relationships and introduce them to the businesses they need to get in front of. Let’s be clear, we’re not a social firm! But for those who are more introverted, we simply want them to be the best at what they excel at and we’ll do the rest. We can’t all be great at everything.

 

Sawyer: What’s one example of a major acquisition Avant Global made that transformed its valuation and what can business leaders learn from this example?
Argyropoulos: In the case of Owl Biomedical, we took its technology that had been developed and in existence for ten years and formed a new company with this technology in mind and capitalized on it. We sold it to a multi-billion dollar medical device company in Germany called Miltenyi.

 

From this example, business leaders can learn that if you know how to assemble the pieces of a company/deal: IP, human capital, and usually a combination of both, you then have all the key pieces … it becomes about execution and creating value to the market.

 

Sawyer: Your investment portfolio includes more than 50 diverse startups. What sectors are you watching to find value now?
Argyropoulos: We want someone who is ahead of the curve in terms of where the market is heading- who is that next big game changer? Right now we like the sectors of machine learning, data science and big data for startups. We’re also always looking for disruptive investments in high-growth companies in tech, energy, real estate and consumer products.

 

Sawyer: What qualities do successful entrepreneurs have that make them stand out from the herd?
Argyropoulos: All successful entrepreneurs are tenacious and never give up. Stay focused on your mission with your goal in mind. Successful entrepreneurs also aren’t afraid to fail because they have the ability to see things others may not. It’s okay to have bumps along the way, but that fresh perspective is what’s going to set you apart.

 

Sawyer: What advice do you have for a startup to break down barriers when approaching a well-known brand about a strategic partnership?
Argyropoulos: It’s a great time to be a startup. We’ve never seen so many large corporations working with startups. I’d advise a startup to think about how its technology could actually benefit the large brand it’s approaching. Many big companies realize that if they don’t change quickly with the times, and evolve, their number may be up. Startups should appeal to the larger brands to evolve with them.

 

Sawyer: You run a very successful VC Fund, what’s the best way for an entrepreneur to network with you if they are seeking funding?
Argyropoulos: Think to yourself “Why would Demetri and the Avant team want to meet with me? How can I bring value to their firm?” If you can clearly answer those questions, you’re already ahead of the curve.

 

Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear from you. Like us on Facebook, Follow on Twitter @NSawyerTV and comment below.

 

Categories
Growth Management Operations Personal Development

Why Customer Centricity Needs to be Woven Into the Fabric of Your Organization

It seems like everybody is using the term “customer-centric company.” But what does the phrase really mean?
Let’s start off our discussion by turning to the authority when doing online research – Google. When you Google the term customer centric (or centricity), you will find many definitions from many different sources, yet they all are remarkably similar. I like to use the term customer-focused instead of customer-centric. Most people would agree that a general definition of a customer-centric or customer-focused organization is one in which everything that is done is centered around the customer. In other words, before any decision is made, it is the customer who is foremost in each decision maker’s mind. The customer comes first in every new system being developed, every new line of merchandise being designed, every new location that is being discussed, every website change that is being considered – in one word, everything – will first merit a discussion about how it will impact the customer. In addition, all employees understand their role in creating the customer’s experience, even those employees who may never have direct contact with a customer.

Consider the following two examples.

After receiving multiple requests from its customers, a manufacturer decides to add a new splash of color to an existing line of merchandise. Why? It won’t cost much to set up for the new color and it’s a reasonable request. Thus, the customers are pleased because they now have an extra choice. The company’s decision was made easy because they knew their customers were asking for it. The company listened to their customers and then acted. The company knew that the decision to add another color to the line would make a positive customer impact. This one was easy.

But, what about a tough decision that a company knows will not be received well by the customer, such as a price increase? How do you make a decision like this while remaining customer focused?

Raising the price may not make the customer happy, but what might happen if the company doesn’t take this action? If the price doesn’t go up, something else may have to go down. Not raising the price might result in a drop in quality or service. The company may simply need to raise prices, even knowing the customer will not be happy. Or maybe the decision is about something behind the scenes that may be invisible to the customer, but may still may have a negative impact on the customer. An example might be a discussion to switch to an inferior supplier. If the correct decision is not made, it may affect the customer in an even greater way than a price increase.

Customer centricity shouldn’t be a concept that is just given lip service. It needs to be woven into the very fiber of the organization’s culture. The employees need to become the threads of the fabric, which is the culture that permeates throughout the organization. The best companies are like this. So, if you haven’t acted already, make the decision for your organization to be customer-focused. As a result, you will positively impact your customers, your employees and your bottom line.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Management Skills Women In Business

What does Your Body Language Say?


“A blur of blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts … the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere.” – Edward R. Murrow

You may know your content backwards and forwards, inside and out, and be completely confident in your subject, but is your non-verbal communication – i.e. your body language – undermining your authority in spite of your knowledge?

A little while ago, I was working with a client who didn’t realize that he was a “fidgeter.” After a first practice recording, he watched his video, and before offering any feedback, I asked him what he thought about his performance. He paused, and was quiet for a moment before very matter-of-factly declaring: “I’m going to cut off my hands.”

Running his fingers through his hair, folding and unfolding his arms, touching his face, hands in and out of the pockets, scratching his neck, lacing and unlacing his fingers… Not only did it distract the viewer from listening to the message, but more importantly, the “antsy-ness” (as my mother would call it) practically screamed of insecurity and discomfort, and this completely undermined his efforts to establish himself as a confident, competent leader.

What’s most important to realize is that before you even open your mouth to speak, your body has already communicated very specific messages to the audience, and those messages have one of only two possible effects: If aligned with your words, they strengthen your image and reputation; otherwise, they weaken it. That’s it.

The Importance of Alignment

This binary result is because when your words and body language are aligned or congruent, they reinforce each other, which is much more convincing to the audience. But when they are not in alignment – where perhaps your “script” seems confident but the delivery is not, or your words claim that you are caring and want to hear from people but you never smile and your voice is flat – it makes the audience question why, and this casts doubt.

When working with entrepreneurs preparing to pitch in front of investors, I always say, “Before anyone will buy your product or service, they have to buy into you.” Regardless of how well-composed the content of the pitch is, if the delivery isn’t in alignment, this will never happen.

Ultimately, alignment between verbal and non-verbal communication is the foundation of credibility. Lack of alignment destroys that foundation. Let’s look at ways to ensure that you are in alignment, in order to maximize your credibility.
Body Language – Do’s and Don’ts

Just about everyone gets nervous when speaking on camera (or in public without a camera), and in an earlier post I offered some strategies for calming your nerves ( insert hyperlink later). But that nervousness can come across as uncontrolled fidgeting and bad habits like touching your face or waving your arms around without realizing it, or on the flip side, you might come across as stiff, robotic and unfeeling.

In this video on body language, you’ll get a quick checklist with examples of non-verbal cues to watch for when speaking in public or on camera. I use the easy acronym P.E.G.S., which stands for Posture, Eye contact, Gestures and Smile.

Take a look at the examples for each category in the video to see how many of them you’re guilty of doing… then ask yourself how that might influence the success of the video’s overall objective.

In case there’s still a part of you that wants to argue that your position and experience speak for themselves, and your body language shouldn’t make a difference, I leave you with the immortal words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”

When the way you deliver meets up with the words you say you are speaking in unison. That is when your intended message is reinforced and your credibility shines through.