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Adapting to The Norm – What Does It Mean to Your Business Sytle?

August 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Traveling through parts of Europe lately I noticed the slow pace with which everything was done.  There was no one hurrying to help you in grocery stores. In fact, the cashiers sat behind the registers with barely a smile and you bagged your own groceries!  Eating out was slow and deliberate.  You could count on a good hour or more before you were even mid way through a meal.  Drinks arrived slowly, food arrived slowly and so did the bill.

Many businesses closed for a few hours around the lunch hour.  Some shops even had little hand written signs saying they would be back shortly.   Is this good customer service?  How do these businesses stay in business?   Yet, it is the norm for these companies and they don’t seem to eager to change.

We all have to find our norm.  The way we transact business whether we are the owner of the company or an employee that is taking pride in their area of responsibility.  Taking on someone’s norm is not necessarily good for your business.  Be aware of what others are doing and the reactions of their client base.  Are their profits soaring while yours are falling?  What could you adapt from these other businesses while still staying true to your core values?  Things you may consider are:

  1. How quickly do you return phone calls?  Do you see the red light flash and do nothing?
  2. Do you really listen to what people have to say or are you too quick to push your own agenda?
  3. Have you adapted your hours of operation to fit the needs of your customers?
  4. Have you trained your staff appropriately and given them the tools to be successful?  Their success is ultimately your success.
  5. No you go the “extra mile” or do you stop short if you feel there is nothing in it for you.  Remember you customers are looking for the WIIFM as well!  (What’s in it for me)
  6. Do you do all that you promise you will do in the time you promise?  Where can you adapt to be more realistic and not over promise and under deliver?

There is always someone around the corner doing things which may seem better, faster, cheaper, easier.  Your job is to be innovative in your thinking and open minded to the fact that you just might have to change.

Filed Under: Business, Leadership, Training and Development, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Five Ways to Boost The Way Others View You

July 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The way you perceive yourself is the way others will see you.  Think about that statement.   What is your perception of yourself?  Are you confident, are you in shape, and are you helpful, courteous and kind?  Are you self-assured in your knowledge, skills and abilities at work?   If you answered no to anyone of these questions, then you have some work to do.  If there is any aspect of your life – personal or professional that you do not feel good about, then you are projecting that image to others.

Your self-image is vital to the way people view you.  You can give your self-esteem a boost by changing your thinking.  Our minds are powerful and our thoughts have a direct correlation to how we behave.

Labels and titles play into our perceptions.  Perhaps you have heard of some of the altered titles given to the following professions.  The jobs haven’t changed, but the attitude of the people doing them has.

Transparency Enhancement Facilitator – Window Cleaner
Field Nourishment Consultant – Waitress

Garbage Man – Sanitary Engineer

Housewife -Domestic Engineer
Highway Environmental Hygienist -Road Sweeper
Sanitation Consultant – Toilet Cleaner

 I offer these five things for helping you to perceive yourself in a better light.

  1.  Identify the area(s) that you find upsetting.  This will take self reflection and may make you uncomfortable.  You may be avoiding thinking or talking about this area of your life.
  2. Identify  the thoughts you have when thinking about this area.  How many times do you think “what if”, “I can’t”, “It won’t happen” or other negative thoughts?  Notice any feelings or sensations you have while having the thoughts.
  3. Notice any reactions you may have as a result of these thoughts.  Are you over eating, under eating, drinking too much, not sleeping, avoiding people. have a short fuse and become angry, etc.?
  4. Challenge your thoughts.   If you have the “what if’s” play them out in your mind.   Negative thinking causes helplessness.   Recall also how many times you had “what if” scenarios in the past and how what you feared never happened.
  5. Change your thinking – change your life.  Be kind to yourself and change negative words into positive ones.  Avoid the words “should and must”.  Treat yourself with kindness and be forgiving.  Be your own cheerleader.  If you don’t love yourself and believe in yourself, why should anyone else?
Filed Under: brain based coaching, Career, Training and Development Tagged With: , , ,

Intentions to Commitment – What Does It Take?

May 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Want to get something done?  You have all the right intentions, but something is lacking.  What is lacking is the commitment .  Commitment to make it happen.  You have heard the saying “… the best intentions…”.  Well, those intentions mean nothing unless you commit to taking steps or action.

Since you had the  thought in the first place, there is something within you that knows the change or action is needed.  Why do we fight ourselves over these action steps.  More than likely because it means change and accountability for our actions.  We don’t want to fail.  But, unless we put ourselves out there how will we know if we will fail or succeed?  We don’t!

Some of the best failures have resulted in wonderful new discoveries.   No one can say with accuracy how many attempts it took Edison to invent the light bulb but I can tell you it was more than two, more than ten attempts.  He never saw himself as a failure and neither should you.  We learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures.

“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.”

unknown

I would like to direct you to “The Work” by Bryon Katie.  http://www.thework.com/index.php   There are four simple questions you can ask yourself.  Answering these four questions truthfully will allow you to move forward and experience less frustrations and fear as well as the joy of unlocking your potential.

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Planning for Retirement: You Are Truly On Your Own

March 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We speak often of the generations and how groups of people born during a short period of time are influenced profoundly by common events and often by the observations of one’s own parents.  As a baby boomer, I have seen a tremendous change in how we perceive retirement versus my parents and my children’s perspective.  It seems logical that many of our parents had longer periods of employment with singular employers and many achieved pensions.  Today, if you are in the private sector, the pension was replaced by a 401k plan or you just missed the cut-off date as you have had 4 or 5 jobs these past 3 decades.

Observing our parents behavior showed a tradition of savings due to their experience living through the great depression.  Most were prudent savers and shoppers far different from our children who have easy access to credit and only our frequent caution not to overspend.

Individual responsibility for planning for retirement is a reality and as the poor returns over the last 10 years from stocks only places more pressure on us in our 50’s and early 60’s to save aggressively.

I do not coach financial planning, but this is one area that we all should take a moment to consider if we have a plan and not wait or procrastinate.  Too often people gamble to recoup dollars lost or let their emotions take hold of their investment decisions.  One fact is that we should take stock of our current saving strategies and most likely increase it.  Those that live in beautiful California know that it is very expensive and taxes are due to increase.  Our future quality of life will depend on us planning now.

Filed Under: Business, Career, Leadership, Training and Development Tagged With: , , , ,

The Age of Happiness

January 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Do you believe you are happier now than ever before in your life?  What age would you say you were the most happy?  The Economist recently printed an article, “The U-Bend in Life” (December 2010) which answers the question and you may find it surprising.

There are four main factors to happiness, gender, personality, external circumstances and age.    If you fall into these categories changes are better that you are a happy person:

  1. women tend to be happier
  2. those with extrovert tendencies and enjoy being in teams and with people are happier than those that sit behind a closed office door
  3. married, higher education, children that have left the house and riches, people with money are happier than those without
  4. you are in your mid 40′s and higher

“Arthur Stone, Joseph Schwartz and Joan Broderick of Stony Brook University, and Angus Deaton of Princeton, breaks well-being down into positive and negative feelings and looks at how the experience of those emotions varies through life. Enjoyment and happiness dip in middle age, then pick up; stress rises during the early 20s, then falls sharply; worry peaks in middle age, and falls sharply thereafter; anger declines throughout life; sadness rises slightly in middle age, and falls thereafter.”

 


Studies show that people who are happy recover faster from illness, are less likely to remain in conflict and better at handling misfortunes.   They are also less likely to take things personally instead take the adage “you can’t please everyone” and then let the punches roll.

If given the choice, wouldn’t you rather be happy?  Perhaps it is all about the lens we view life through.

Filed Under: brain based coaching, Career Tagged With: , ,

Stand for Something, or Fall for Anything

November 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I teach critical thinking skills to Undergraduate students.   One of the concepts to this class is not only what we think but why we think the way we do.  Of course our upbringing or enculturation has a great deal to do with the thought process.    How we adapt and react based upon the environment and culture shapes our values.   We then take those values into the world and apply them to all situations.  There is one problem with this logic and that is that not all people were brought up with the same values and ethics.

Part of being a critical thinker involves taking the time to understand the differences in others.  Why they think and act the way they do. We may not agree with these actions, but we can at least understand them.    When we have understanding we can then take the next step to bridging  gaps that could lead to conflict.  So many of us put such great effort into pushing our ways onto others that we don’t realize there is another way.   Of course, You have to stand for something, or you will fall for anything .   But, in order to stand for something you need to research, understand and critically think about what it is you are standing for and why.

We follow great leaders, but why do we believe they are great?  What is it about their thought process that resonates with us and allows us to want to take on their attributes and be a follower?   In business there are many leaders at many different levels.  You don’t have to have a fancy title to be a leader.  What you need is to understand people and their thought processes.  You need to help them to see the various views from  various angles and not just your own or their own.

I enjoy seeing how my students evolve from the first day of class when I ask them who taught them to think to the final week of class where they have grown into critical thinkers who can determine for themselves what they believe to be truth.

Filed Under: Business, Career, Leadership, Training and Development Tagged With: , , ,

Life is Like Coffee

November 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I received a link to a short video clip from a friend.  Knowing where my passion lies and how I believe in paying it forward, I am sure that when he viewed this video he thought that it was something that would touch me as it obviously touched him.  There was nothing written in the email, just the link.

I now pass this link on to you and will let you do with it what you wish, take from it what you want and apply it where you feel it is best suited.

http://flickspire.com/m/Lgroup/LifeIsLikeCoffee?sms_ss=aolmail&at_xt=4cebef6d2800d120,0

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Productive Change Takes an Aware Leader

November 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When is change good?  Are your employees on-board with the changes that you are making?  Are they telling you that they are yet you are sensing resistance?   The truth, for the most part is this – people think change is good if 1) they initiate it and 2) it benefits them or they want the change.

Change has phases that can be mapped on a change grid.  It doesn’t matter if the change is by choice or forced upon employees, the same basic change of events occur.   Knowing the signs to look for will help you manage change in a more productive and people centric matter.

The basic stages of change are as follows:

  • Change is introduced  – this is the point where the leader of the change needs to be prepared to handle what consequences may occur from this announcement.  Be prepared for the fact that not everyone will embrace the change with the same enthusiasm as you would hope.
  • Disruption to productivity -  The introduction of change means more work for people as they find their way through the new process.
  • Adapting to the change – the employee makes the decision to either get on board with the change or they will continue to fight the change.  The sooner you can get people on board and remove the negative people from the process, the sooner the change will take hold.
  • Accepting the change – at this point people are on-board with the change and are finding ways to be creative with the change process and their new role within the change.

Obviously the sooner the employee moves through the stages the quicker the organization can return to a productive mode.  However, the process can not be rushed.  Much like the Stages of Grief by Kubler/Ross, the employee may go back and forth between the stages until they finally reach acceptance.  Your job is to be their guide through the change.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.  For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”  unknown

 

Filed Under: Business, Career, Leadership Tagged With: , , ,

What Is the Most Important Quality In a Job? Find Out Here

October 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

CNN Money Magazine has a quick poll on their site.  Each day they ask their viewers another question and then display the results. The other day they asked the question “what do you think is the most important quality in a job?” ( I have posted the results below.)   It wasn’t surprising to me that the number one answer was satisfying work. (43%).

The question now is, what makes satisfying work?  What are the attributes of satisfying work?  For some it may be the following:

Self fulfillment, feeling of expertise and competency, recognition and respect from the people you work with, the ability to be self-directed, enjoying the challenge of being creative in your work processes, being empowered, having the training, tools and resources to do your job well.

I am sure there are many more and this is just a short list, but one well worth thinking about.

QUICK VOTE RESULTS – Money Magazine Poll!

What do you think is the most important quality in a job?

Satisfying work 43%
Good pay and benefits 39%
Flexible hours 6%
Growth opportunities 12%
Total responses to this question: 104959
Filed Under: Business, Leadership, Training and Development Tagged With: , , ,

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

October 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

How many times have you said, “what a small world”?  For the last three years I have been corresponding with a business colleague in Australia via SKYPE.  At least weekly we have been talking.  Sometimes with the video camera on and sometimes with it off.  As you can image the time change has caused us to have conversations at unsightly hours for one of us.  However, on the rare occasions when we were able to hit it just right we allowed the cameras to be on.

If you have ever used SKYPE then you know that the camera provides a good view of not only you but of the things around you.  We found that we had similar books on our bookshelf as well as  going to the same coaching academy and having our certificates hanging on the wall.  Each of us have them hanging to the sides of our desks.

After three years of conversations and getting to know each other both professionally and personally it was no surprise that I was able to pick her out in a group in a hotel lobby.  I walked right up to her and without introduction, she knew exactly that it was me.

We spent the day talking business without the awkwardness of getting to know each other.  We could have been office buddies for the way we were able to get right down to business.  The other wonderful part of this meeting was the cultural aspect.  I never knew what “I have to spend a penny” meant.  It means using the bathroom.

I am taking my colleague and friend around Hollywood and Beverly Hills today before she continues on the New York.  I can’t wait to share and have been told I have an open invitation to Australia which I know I will be taking her up on in the future.

If you have not brought technology into your company I would highly suggest that you do.  It is not expensive to add a video cam to your computer and SKYPE is free.  If your best client or customer does not have a video cam, why not buy one for them?  The holidays are approaching and what better way to invest in your future business goals than to see your clients face to face.

Filed Under: Business, Career, Leadership Tagged With: , , , ,
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