26 Jul
[email protected] Interpersonal Skills

Savvy Relationship Skills

You can’t talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into!
—Stephen Covey

It’s relatively easy to be savvy with those you have a relationship with, but how do you go about building a meaningful relationship?

FYI – For Your Improvement  authors, Michael Lombardo &  Robert Eichinger, share the following tips:

  • Look for and appreciate the differences in others and use those differences for everyone’s benefit.
  • Craft how you approach another person by observing them first.
  • Work on being open, approachable, and put others at ease by listening and sharing and valuing their opinion.
  • Ask clarifying questions, restate what they said, and don’t immediately judge an opinion.
  • Manage your non verbal communication.  Make eye contact, stay focused on that person and nod as others speak to stay engaged.
  • Separate the person from a difficult issue.  Ask what is bothersome to that person or ask what they feel you could do or say to help.

A great goal to strive for is that onlookers shouldn’t be able to tell if you’re interacting with a friend, someone you just met, or a person you have an adversarial relationship with.   That’s not easy but it can be done!

And, when you do experience adversarial relationships, look for common interests and don’t disregard differing thoughts and opinions. Keeping your cool, listening, and allowing others to vent will assist with decreasing stress levels and diffuse tense situations.

Do you invest time and skill in building and maintaining savvy relationships?

The key to getting along with all kinds of people is to hold back or neutralize your personal reactions and focus on others first. – Michael Lombardo &  Robert Eichinger

19 Jul
[email protected] Planning

Visualize and Execute

You could be a great visionary, but if you don’t pair vision with action, it’s just your head in the clouds.—Kim Perell

Would you consider yourself a visionary? Many consider having a vision the key for achieving success, but more is required.

You need a plan, you need goals, and then you need to execute.

How often do you envision the end result? Is it clear in your mind? We frequently share the benefits of writing down what it is you wish to achieve, and will highlight that need yet again. Having them in writing helps narrow your focus, increases awareness, and helps identify action steps to keep you on track (and move the plan along).

Kim Perell, Entrepreneur and author provides the following Best Practices:

Visualize

Follow Your Heart

Just Start

Practice Resilience

Build Strong Relationships

Other tips include:

  • Write down not only your goals, but also specific daily tasks that support them
  • Be clear about what it is you want to achieve and visualize executing your action steps
  • Stay focused; anticipate issues and possible distractions
  • Communicate the value of the work effort  ex. Who will benefit and why

As leaders, it’s up to us to make our vision become reality.

We need to continuously communicate our vision, engage and inspire others to help us, and ensure we execute our plan.

Following these steps will greatly improve the likelihood of achieving success.

Vision is key to action: You have to see, literally and metaphorically, what you’re trying to achieve. –Kim Perell

12 Jul
image of a key on top of a keyboard; development opportunities lead to results
[email protected] Leadership

Advancing Coaching

My best investment, as cliched as this sounds, is the money I’ve spent developing myself, via books, workshops and coaching. Leadership begins within, and to have a better career, start by building a better you.– Robin S. Sharma

When you hear the word “coaching”, what comes to mind? Perhaps sports coaching is the most familiar. What about life coaching, business coaching, executive coaching, e-coaching, and group coaching?

All have a purpose and all make a difference.

As leaders, we must commit to continual learning for ourselves (workshops, seminars, reading, mentors, etc), and if we’re lucky, we’ll have the opportunity to have our own coach.

We must also commit to providing meaningful feedback and coaching support for our staff. The simplest way is via consistent and timely feedback, but more may be needed.

Consider team/group coaching (where the focus is on inclusiveness, trust, collaboration, and leveraging strengths), and it may also include individually developing the skills of high performers and/or helping those that are less proficient realize their potential.

Sometimes our skills are sufficient, and sometimes we must recognize that the help of others is needed to support the attainment of business goals and career aspirations.

For those of you that participated in the Leadership Journey program (within the past 12 months), you have many tips and exercises available to you via QwikCoach.

Another option to get started is to use the GROW Model originally developed in the 1980s by business coaches Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore.  GROW standards for:

  • Goal
  • Reality (where you want to be)
  • Options or Obstacles (that must be overcome)
  • Will (What’s the skill-set and desire for growth)

This model is useful in coaching sessions since it provides both the coach and coachee the opportunity to share what they want to take action against, and make plans to overcome possible challenges. It is then used in follow-up coaching sessions to identify ongoing action steps, and to review progress.

What are you doing to advance coaching in your workplace? How are you helping others GROW?

Leaders empower individuals by building trust and coaching competence in their job roles and networking skills. –Kenneth H. Blanchard

05 Jul
[email protected] Leadership

Independence, Leadership, Courage

Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.  –Harry Truman

The U.S.A. celebrates Independence Day on July 4th.  It began in 1776 when 56 courageous individuals decided it was time for a change.

Did you know that 175+ other countries also celebrate Independence Day? As far back as 1143, Portugal officially became an autonomous state, and as recently as 2006, 55.5% of the Montenegro population voted in favor of Independence.

In most cases these are national holidays and a time for celebration and reflection. It’s also a good time to remember all the courageous leaders that value the need for change and growth, and persist despite resistance.

We all know that being a leader is not easy, that it requires courage and commitment, and the ability to motivate and inspire others. It can also require being a risk taker, and not being afraid of failure.

Here are some notable failures that persisted:

Abraham Lincoln – Experienced 12 major failures before being elected the 16th U.S. President

Albert Einstein – His teachers said “he wouldn’t amount to much”.

Ludwig van Beethoven – His music teacher once said “as a composer, he is hopeless”.

Steve Jobs – He felt he was a public failure when he was fired from Apple.

Walt Disney – Was fired from a newspaper for his lack of imagination.

The Beatles – In 1962 they were told they “had no future in show business” and that “groups with guitars are on the way out”.

Bottom line, are you leading with courage and commitment?

And, what are you doing to inspire change in others?

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.–Winston Churchill