Author archive

Great on the Job!

February 22, 2012

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

Being “great on the job” has more to do with communication than just about anything
else. Well, maybe a few engineers would
argue that point. But I would say that
even an engineer has to state their case.
Technical prowess goes unnoticed unless the engineer can explain the
value of his work. Great communication
can move things forward, heal the inevitable wounds and build an environment of
trust and confidence. Take a look at the
below book summary and you’ll get the picture of how Jodi Gluckman sees the
importance communication in the work place.

Jodi Glickman, communications consultant and author of Great on
the Job, once applied to Cornell’s Park Leadership
Fellowship program, a $72,000 two-year scholarship for Cornell’s Johnson
Graduate School of Management. Glickman was not
offered the scholarship. Undeterred, she phoned the director of the program to
lobby for the award; the next day the program director personally called her to
offer her the fellowship.

Glickman’s life story, which includes time spent as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile and as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs,
is filled with many remarkable triumphs of communication (including ranking
first out of more than 300 Goldman Sachs associates in communication). With
straightforward two- or three-step strategies, Glickman tries to share the
fundamental secrets of her extraordinary communication skills.

For example, Glickman offers the following three-step strategy for managing
expectations:

Step one: Ask for timing/expectation. Get the details, ask for time to
think about it, then either confirm the assignment with the manager or move to
step two.

Step two: Be transparent about your workload. If the timing or
parameters aren’t doable, explain what’s on your plate and ask for time to come
up with an alternate timeline. Don’t accept an unrealistic deadline.

Step three: After serious consideration, present a detailed timeline and
action plan for completing the project.

Many of Glickman’s strategies include “example language” —
hypothetical conversations illustrating the strategy at work. For example, the
following dialogue illustrates the three strategies (shown in brackets) for
asking for time off at a particularly inopportune time:

Susan, I’d like to talk to
you about taking the weekend of July 4th off. My closest friend is getting
married in Maine. [Highlight the Issue]

I wanted to let you know
early so that we can plan accordingly. I will take care of everything I need to
in advance, and I’ll make sure that the team knows exactly where all of my
pages stand. [Cover Your Bases]

Do you think that will be
a problem or can we make it work? Is there anything else you’d like me to take
care of in advance? [Get Buy-in]

The G-I-F-T

Four themes run throughout the book that, according to Glickman, are key to
effective communication. These four themes are summarized in the acronym GIFT:

Generosity. Sharing information, sharing credit, and keeping others’
agendas and schedules in mind will go a long way toward smooth communication
and cooperation.

Initiative. Asking, “How can I help?” is not actually all that
helpful, Glickman argues. Give people choices so that they don’t have to dream
up answers on their own.

Forward Momentum. This is Glickman’s phrase for nurturing and
maintaining relationships that may prove to be vital in the future.

Transparency. More than just a question of honesty, transparency means
volunteering difficult information, whether it’s alerting people to problems
and mess-ups or acknowledging when you don’t know something, writes Glickman.

Be Strategically
Proactive

Transparency is key in many of the strategies in Great
on the Job. It’s also vital to be strategically proactive,
Glickman writes. Excelling at the work you are given is not enough to advance.
Success depends on proactively learning new skills, assisting others and
knowing how to diplomatically redirect unwanted tasks (by accepting the task,
but emphasizing that you are interested in more challenging or valuable
assignments).

In the second part of the book, readers learn how to “move up the learning
curve” by managing expectations, and knowing how to ask for help and
feedback. “Stay out of Trouble” is the third part of the book, and
includes advice on how to raise a red flag and manage a crisis.

The final chapter is on selling yourself. And there is perhaps no better person
to give advice on selling yourself than an author who only needed a casual
conversation to vault over 10 competing classmates and land a prized
internship.

DOUBLE YOUR REVENUE IN THREE YEARS

February 13, 2012

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

While I’m not a Sales guy, the following book illustrates the focus it takes to succeed
in growing the company by “leaps and bounds”.
Whether it’s focusing on growth, as the following implies, or on quality
or on cost or any other business success indicator, an absolute focus on the
goal in hand is a must. Visualizing the
goal is the first step. You need to clearly
define and see the target before you can hit it. Going after it with all your force is the
next step. Things you do every day must
contribute in a major way to achieving the goal. Submit your daily and weekly activities to
this test and you’ll know whether or not you’re on the right track. The best organizations I’ve been a part of
understood this. Cameron Herold clearly
shows how to make this happen in his book.

In Double
Double, entrepreneur and consultant Cameron Herold says
he can show readers how to double their company’s revenue and profit in three
years. “The idea of doubling your business may seem intimidating, but it
only requires growing your business 25 percent per year for three years,”
Herold writes in his introduction. “This is fast growth, but not hyperfast
growth.” And, he adds, it is the kind of growth that he has helped dozens
of companies in 17 different countries to achieve.

While all readers may not reach the “double double” promised by the
author — despite his track record — they will benefit from the solid management
advice in a book that covers everything from vision to technology to work-life
balance. The central theme throughout the book is focus— the “one
absolutely essential discipline” for fast growth, writes Herold. “If
you are an entrepreneur and the leader of a $500,000 to $50 million company,
you have to focus intently on everything you do to grow quickly and
successfully,” Herold explains. “There’s no room for running around
unsure of what you’re doing and why. Everything must be on target and geared
toward that specific growth goal.”

Preparing for Fast
Growth

The first step, according to Herold, is to create what he calls a “painted
picture” of the company. In Herold’s phrase, entrepreneurs must “lean
out into the future” and grab hold of a clear vision of what the company
will look like in three years. One way to lean out into the future and leave
the past behind is to turn off the computer and leave the office. Otherwise, he
writes, the present will keep interrupting — in the form of daily tasks,
e-mails, phone calls and other interruptions and pressures.

The painted picture is detailed, showing not only what the company is making,
but also how the media is covering it, what clients are saying, how the company
is funded, what core values drive the company and so forth. Once the painted
picture is in place, the entrepreneur must “reverse-engineer” the
picture to create a game plan for the future. Here Herold’s methodology
reflects scenario planning, although Herold does not use the term. As with
scenario planning, Herold’s reverse engineering involves starting with your
goals and objectives, then working back to determine what the company needs to
accomplish along the way in order to achieve those goals.

Focused Action

After showing how to prepare for fast growth, Herold lays out a series of
chapters devoted to “focused actions for fast growth.” This includes
sections on hiring, communication, meetings, marketing and other areas.

The suggested strategy in the chapter on focused meetings, for example, is to
end meetings early by allocating less time than leaders think they will need.
Although this may not seem efficient, in truth, meetings fill up the time that
they are given. If 90 minutes is allocated, the material will take 90 minutes
to cover. However, if the meeting is planned for 50 minutes, the material will
be covered in that time.

Herold also lists and describes the different types of meetings that should be
held, including annual retreats, quarterly business area reviews, monthly
profit sharing meetings, weekly “WAR” meetings (weekly action review)
and daily “huddles” — a short (seven minutes in one of his
companies), all-company, stand-up meeting starting at precisely the same time
every day.

The focused marketing chapter offers advice on what Herold calls
“bootstrap advertising” — essentially advertising on a small budget.
One suggestion: “parketing” or parking branded vehicles at
high-traffic locations.

One of Herold’s strategies for focused productivity is the 5/15 reporting
system. Every two weeks, direct reports write a bullet-point memo listing the
status of every project for which they are responsible. The memo should take no
more than 15 minutes to write and 5 minutes to read —hence the name.

A section on leadership, including chapters on personal productivity and dealing
with boards of advisers, and appendices offering interview questions and an
employee goal-setting process closes out this well-written, comprehensive
package of management ideas and strategies for entrepreneurs and business
leaders.

INNOVATION SECRETS FOR EVERY EXECUTIVE

February 6, 2012

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

This book outline reminds me of the premise behind continual improvement. Continual improvement is the backdrop for
quality improvement and waste elimination techniques. We’ve heard them all – from Quality Circles
and Just in Time in the 80s to Total Quality Management and Total Productive
Maintenance in the 90s to Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing in the last decade. The following book outlines the concept that
small discoveries may generate breakthroughs. To me, this describes continual
improvement. Take steps to marginally
improve things and those will lead to breakthroughs not previously thought of.

According to Peter Sims, author of Little
Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries,
there are two types of innovators: conceptual innovators who pursue bold new
ideas and often achieve their success early in life, and experimental
innovators who use slow, iterative, trial-and-error approaches that gradually
lead to breakthroughs. In Little Bets,
Sims illustrates the experimental process of innovation, accomplished through a
series of small bets.

The Growth Mindset

Success as an experimental innovator, Sims writes, depends on a
“growth” mindset, which sees failures and setbacks as learning
opportunities. People with a “fixed” mindset, in which skills,
abilities and intelligence are considered innate and present from the
beginning, are unable to accept and benefit from failures, since failure
challenges their self-worth. Growth mindset people, however, are not afraid to
fail, and are therefore constantly challenging themselves to innovate and
improve. Howard Schultz had a simple idea: bring the concept of the Italian
coffee house to the United States. However, his original shops — with their bow
tie wearing baristas (who hated the bow ties), menus written mostly in Italian
and non-stop opera music — were hardly well received. Learning from the chorus
of complaints from customers, Schultz slowly tweaked and changed his concept to
eventually create the ubiquitous Starbucks coffeeshop now present on nearly
every street corner.

The Affordable Loss
Principle

Innovators using the small bets approach, writes Sims, tend to operate under
the “affordable loss principle” — in other words, focusing on what
they can afford to lose rather than calculating expected gains. When first
purchased by Steve Jobs, for example, Pixar was at once a hardware business,
software business and a digitally animated TV advertising company. The future
of the company, it seemed to Jobs and others, was in the Pixar Image Computer
that helped people visualize complex images. Jobs dedicated only a small
fraction of his investment toward the digital animation section of the company,
but didn’t expect to ever see a return on that money. As Sims explains, had
Jobs based his decisions not on what he could afford to lose, but rather, as someone with
a different mindset might have done, on what he expected to gain from digital
animation, he might have shut down the group early on.

Sufiya and the
Professor

The story of Muhammad Yunus and the birth of micro-lending illustrates another
principle of experimental innovation: the importance of immersion. “One of
the best ways to identify creative insights and develop ideas is to throw out
the theory and experience things first-hand,” Sims writes. Yunus was an
economics professor in Bangladesh theorizing, he
told the author, “about sums in the millions of dollars.” Then he
started wandering through nearby villages and discovered craftspeople such as
Sufiya, all but enslaved to local middlemen because she could not afford 22
cents for bamboo. Outraged, Yunus lent her and others the miniscule sums they
needed, and the world-famous Grameen Bank was born.

Using examples from a variety of disciplines, from architecture to stand-up
comedy, Sims has provided a learned and entertaining how-to guide to
innovation.

Better Under Pressure!

January 30, 2012

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

I was told by a manager at Nortel
Networks in the 1980s that when times were tough, true character in leaders was
revealed. I couldn’t have agreed more…
especially in a politically charged climate for a company approaching $30
Billion in sales. That insight stayed
with me for assignments to follow and it paid off when I focused on being calm
during the storms. The stress of the
situation was always tough enough without adding my own “manufactured” stress
in the moment. The following book summary rings true for me and articulates advice for leaders who find themselves under constant pressure.

According to Justin Menkes, consultant for the executive search firm Spencer Stuart and
author of the best-seller Executive Intelligence, the best leaders are
those who have the ability to realize their potential and the potential of
those they lead — in other words, to perform to the best of their ability and
to get the best out of their people. In his new book, Better Under Pressure,
Menkes presents three specific “catalysts” for realizing potential:realistic
optimism, subservience to purpose and finding order in chaos.

How to Be Optimistic Without Losing Your Head

Realistic optimism is self-confidence without self-delusion or irrationality,
writes Menkes. People who have this trait are not afraid to attack audacious
goals, but are also fully realistic about the challenges and difficulties that
lay before them. To be realistically optimistic, Menkes explains, leaders must
have both “an awareness of actual circumstance” — the ability to see
the world as it is, both positive and negative — and a “sense of
agency” — the deep belief in one’s capabilities to change circumstances or
situations.

Menkes illustrates the ability to see the world as it is through the story of
“Randy,” an insurance company executive interviewed for the top
position at one of America’s leading insurers (Menkes disguised his name for the
sake of privacy). The interview took place soon after the collapse of AIG,
which was in large part due to the company’s involvement with high-risk credit
default swaps. Randy was intrigued by the credit default swaps, but remained
cautious. It seemed to him that there were serious risk issues that his
competitors did not seem to notice. As a result, according to Menkes, Randy set
up “a separate subsidiary unconnected to the rest of the corporation that
did a small trade in these products.” In retrospect, the move might seem
like genius, but for Randy it was simply of matter of “weighing risk and
reward,” Menkes writes. Randy was realistic about both the upside and
downside of credit default swaps. And he also had the humility to admit that he
wasn’t sure where this new market might go. His approach to credit default
swaps reflected realistic optimism — he was willing to give the new product a
try, but didn’t buy into the unsupported enthusiasm in which other companies
indulged, to their eventual regret.

Fighting Back

Subservience to purpose, the second of the three catalysts, means a total
dedication to a goal. “Leaders who demonstrate subservience to purpose put
a particular pursuit — such as their company’s mission — ahead of their own
comfort,” Menkes explains. “Quite simply, great leaders equate
progress toward this goal with emotional satisfaction. They are, ultimately,
servants to their company’s most noble purpose.”

The third catalyst for leaders is to find order in chaos, Menkes writes. This
is the unique ability to cut through multiple or multi-dimensional problems to
find the solutions and resolutions that others cannot see. Maintaining clear
thinking and having the drive to solve puzzles are the two key attributes in
leaders who are able to find order in chaos.

Menkes conducted in-depth interviews with 60 of the best CEOs in America and
draws on research of 200 other CEOs and leaders. The result is a clear
explanation of three core personality attributes that separate the leaders who
can face up to any challenge from the leaders who crumble or are weakened by
adversity. Better Under Pressure
is a valuable book for both experienced and emerging leaders.

A Revolution in Customer Service

January 23, 2012

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

Now here’s
a story of how to “wow” the customer.
Rarely as providers do we put ourselves in the shoes of our customers to
find ways to meet needs they’re not even aware of.

In The Amazement
Revolution, an engaging new book on customer service,
author Shep Hyken tells the story of a Web hosting company named Contegix that
proactively uncovered and prevented an impending disaster for a client while
the client itself was unaware of what was happening. One weekend, the Contegix
director of key accounts was monitoring social media mentions of all his
clients’ companies when he noticed a disturbing trend involving one of those
clients, an online ticket agency. A promotion had led to a tidal wave of demand
for free tickets that threatened to crash the client’s Web site. When efforts
to reach the client for a server upgrade authorization were unsuccessful, the
director of key accounts preemptively called in his engineers, who rushed to
install the additional servers that kept the client’s site functioning. On Monday, Contegix informed the client what had
happened during the weekend, and said that the client could pay for the new
servers or refuse them. Contegix also said the rush installation and
engineering over the weekend would be offered at no cost.

The Contegix story is one of the many case studies that exemplify what Hyken
calls “amazing” customer service — customer service that is
consistently and predictably above average. While a number of the ideas in The Amazement Revolution
may be familiar to readers of customer service books, Hyken (whose previous
book was the best-selling The
Cult of the Customer) offers a framework that translates the key
issues of customer service into seven actionable strategies, supported by more
than 100 specific takeaways (with typical flair, Hyken calls them ARTs or
Amazing Revolution Takeaways).

The Power of
Partnership and FUN

The Contegix case study is a powerful illustration of Hyken’s third strategy:
to cultivate a partnership
with customers that goes beyond the traditional ongoing service relationship.
The monitoring of the client’s social media mentions alone was beyond the duty
of a standard Web hosting arrangement. Most Web-hosting companies would not
even have learned of the problem until after the client itself noticed the
issue — which would have been that Monday morning
after the site had crashed over the weekend.

Another of Hyken’s seven strategies is for companies to “have serious
FUN.” The acronym stands for employees who are motivated in their
interactions with customers by a personal sense of Fulfillment and of being appreciated for
their Unique
needs and skill, and the anticipation of the Next
challenge.

As Hyken explains, if you engage your employees, they will engage your
customers. Hyken’s other strategies include:

Provide Membership: Treat the people served by a company as members with
an elite status rather than customers.

Hire Right: Hire the people whose personalities will best support the
customer service experience. The key is to hire for attitude first, then worry
about developing the right skills.

Create a Memorable After-Experience: Create a memorable, positive and
even unexpected experience for customers after they have done business with
you.

Build Community: Create a community of evangelists by listening to,
supporting and respecting your most loyal customers.

Walk the Walk: Make sure every employee at every level of the
organization consistently and without exception supports your commitment to
customer service.

Enthusiastic
Practicality

The cover of The Amazement Revolution
features a stylized rendering of fireworks, effectively underscoring the
celebration of great customer service in these pages. Some readers may see the
cover illustration as cheerleader pom poms, which would be equally appropriate
given the palpable energy and enthusiasm in this book.

The power of the book, however, goes beyond Hyken’s engaging vocabulary and
style. The detailed organization and structure of the book offers readers easy
access to scores of practical strategies, tactics and ideas, supported by 50
real-world examples.

Managers and employees don’t need sizzle, they need steak, and Hyken delivers.

Leading in the Public Eye

January 9, 2012

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

From news media to social media, every
organization, every leader, every decision is open to public scrutiny as never before.

Imagine if every time you named
employees to a team or task force or made a job assignment, you were blasted by
opinions and counter-opinions. Imagine if every decision had to be explained
(sometimes defended) to multiple constituencies. Also imagine if the measures
of success for you and your organization were moving targets. This is the reality for leaders of today.

How do successful leaders navigate
leading in the public context?

Look out for collateral damage. Don’t underestimate the consequences of your actions and
decisions. You must be thoughtful on a moment-by-moment basis. Ask yourself: Am
I really clear about this situation or decision? Do I need more data, more
input, more time? What if I get this wrong? Do I need to change my
decision-making processes?

While taking more time slows you
down on the front end, it may save you hours or weeks of time and resources in
dealing with the fallout of a preventable problem. Of course, there is always an element of risk
and uncertainty. If you get a decision right for person A, you automatically
get it wrong for person B, and person C is unhappy either way. You need to
learn to live in this reality.

Learn to span boundaries. Leaders must interact with many people and meet the
wide-ranging needs of numerous constituencies. Even in the context of a single company,
a leader is responsible to a huge number of communities that span geographic,
cultural, language, socioeconomic and educational boundaries — as well as ages,
interests and values. Be empathetic when
interacting with anyone about anything.
It seems to be broad, but is critical in this day and age of social media.

Consider your legacy. Leaders are often in
a specific position for just a few years. While they personally move on, the
best leaders leave their employees more energized, more capable and
well-prepared to come back and lead tomorrow, next month, next year. A leader’s
job is to buffer the employees from anything that pulls their focus off of
results, and to invest in them for the future.
As a business leader, what are you doing to ensure your people are
focused on what matters most — for now and for the long-term health of your
organization?

Consider how successful leaders
navigate the challenges that the “public eye” present. Doing so will ensure you’re spending time on
the things that count the most.

Profit Goals Can be Unprofitable?

December 23, 2011

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

Most companies are in it for the money. And
why shouldn’t they be? After all,
without profits, how would the company survive?
Well, I believe that profits come as a result of providing a needed
product or service. Providing it with
high quality, on time and at a competitive cost improves the chances of making
a profit. Now I know that sounds simplistic,
but profits come as a result of meeting a need or doing something. We don’t just create corporations or LLCs and
expect to be profitable. Read on for a
great example to help prove my point.

In the decades after World War II, Boeing had one overriding purpose: to make the
best, most advanced planes. In the words of Bill Allen, Boeing CEO from 1946 to
1968, the purpose of Boeing was to “eat, breathe and sleep the world of
aeronautics.” By the early 1990s, Boeing was the world’s dominant civil
aviation company. Under new CEO Phil Condit, however, the goal of the company
changed dramatically. Success was now defined in terms of profits, not
aviation. “We are going into a value based environment where unit cost,
return on investment, shareholder return are the measures by which you’ll be
judged,” Condit explained. “That’s a big shift.”

In the years that followed, Boeing lost its lead in civil aviation to rival
Airbus, the stock market turned sour on the company and, in 2003, Condit was
forced out. Boeing returned to aeronautics and aviation goals, and, with the
success of the new 777 and with the groundbreaking Dreamliner on the horizon,
the company was soon putting itself once again in position to dominate the
world aviation industry.

In short, when Boeing focused on aviation, it was a profitable and successful
company. When it focused solely on financial measures, its bottom line
suffered.

Why are companies who have the No. 1 goal of making profits often unprofitable?
And why, paradoxically, are companies who have different, more qualitative
goals often quite profitable? The answer, writes London
School of Economics professor John Kay in his new book, Obliquity,
is simply stated: broadly defined or complex goals are best achieved indirectly
— a phenomenon that Kay terms “obliquity.”

For example, in the same way that the most profitable companies are not those
whose goal is to pursue profit, the wealthiest individuals are mostly those who
are less interested in pursuing wealth. Their wealth is a byproduct of a
different mission. Henry Ford was passionate about cars and bringing cars to a
mass market. Sam Walton wanted to build the world’s best retail company. Bill
Gates was fascinated by the potential of computing to change people’s lives.
Their No. 1 mission was not to become rich — although they all amassed
fortunes.

Adapting and Learning

Obliquity is not an argument that goals are useless — that you never reach what
you strive for. Instead, Kay explains, obliquity is the recognition that we
cannot plan and control every step of a path toward a complex goal.

Broad, complex objectives are achieved through a process of risk-taking,
experimentation and discovery, a continuous circle of learning and adaptation.

The direct approach doesn’t work, Kay writes, for a variety of reasons. One
reason is what he terms “pluralism.” There is often more than one
answer to a problem. Also, most real-life, high-level objectives problems are
broadly defined and can’t be broken down in advance into specific goals or
actions. There are many paths to building a successful business or even
becoming financially secure. A third issue with the pre-planned, direct
approach is the unpredictability of interactions with others. Will others react
as we plan for them to react? Probably not.

In the final section of the book, Kay lays out some of the ways we can use the
concept of obliquity to make better decisions and to solve problems more
effectively. For example, make a determined commitment to overall high-level
objectives, but do not stubbornly cling to specific intermediate or basic goals
or actions. Franklin D. Roosevelt achieved two
major objectives: preparing for and leading his country to victory in World War
II, and securing the survival of American capitalism through the New Deal. He
achieved those high-level objectives, Kay writes, “through pragmatic
improvisions in the face of circumstances that neither he nor his outstanding
advisers could predict or control.”

Another application of the concept of obliquity is to admit that we cannot know
everything about a situation. Both Warren
Buffett and George Soros are legendary investors, but both acknowledge that
they cannot plan for investment success. “In many industries,” writes
Buffett, “I cannot be sure if we are dealing with a ‘pet rock’ or a
‘Barbie.’”

Intellectually stimulating and filled with vivid, pertinent examples, Obliquity is a
thoughtful analysis of how the world truly operates. It brings home reality.

Is Creativity a Learned Behavior?

December 13, 2011

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

I think creativity
can be learned. One thing we can do is
to think about creativity on an everyday basis. In other words, it’s just like
cramming for a test. If you’re up against a deadline and you haven’t cracked
the book, it’s hard to do well on the test. If studying is part of your regular
life, then it makes it much easier. What I encourage people to do is to be on
the lookout for creativity along the way. There are some exercises we talk
about in the book to inject creativity as part of an everyday pattern. So then
when you’re on a deadline, you’re not under some crazy burden to produce
something out of nothing, you’ve been creating all along.

I’ve always encouraged my teams to take the Five Percent Challenge. If you work
a 40-hour workweek, five percent of 40 hours is two hours per week. Taking a
Five Percent Challenge is taking two hours per week and instead of working on
your to-do list and transactional type work, you’re going to close the laptop, get
out of the office and just reflect. You’re going to use that as thinking time.
It’s time for imagination and exploration. The other 38 hours, you can do your
to-do list.

What I’ve found is that when organizations try this, every single time there is
a zero percent drop in productivity. In other words, magically people are able
to get their 40 hours of work done in 38 hours. Then, more importantly, that
two hours becomes a gift. It becomes a gift to the organization because now
it’s filled with new, fresh thinking, and it’s a gift to the individual.
Creativity is truly one of the most important sources of human
fulfillment. I believe we all have this
capability to an extent. We just have to
commit to use it.

Talk the Talk

December 5, 2011

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

I really believe that what we say every day really matters. It’s not just because we want to get it right in the moment. It’s also because we want
to get it right for a long time to come.
People working around us will be willing and able to do great things for
us when we “talk the talk”.

Ask any executive what comes to mind when the phrase “business
communication” is mentioned and one would likely receive responses that
include references to client meetings, e-mail etiquette or negotiation. As
author and executive coach Jodi Glickman indicates in her book Great
on the Job: What to Say, How to Say It. The Secrets of Getting Ahead,
these are all segments of business communication that, despite receiving the
most attention, are a fraction of an employee’s daily regimen. Glickman, the
founder of Great on the Job, LLC, brings her expertise in the subtlety of
workplace communication to a workplace that needs laser-like clarity to cut
through the digital haze.

There will be reviews of Glickman’s book that will no doubt label it an
essential read for people at the outset of their careers. The same theory would
likely be held by executives who scan the flap copy of Great on
the Job. It would be a mistake if Glickman’s book suffers
this fate. Any executive, regardless of tenure, should pick up a copy of this
book because it is one of the few titles on workplace communication that can
address the 360-degree aspects of the art of navigating a job. No reader should
assume that he or she is a master of some of the simple skills Glickman describes.
It is a fact to which Glickman is sensitive. She points out that during the
early days of Great on the Job, LLC, several people, including her husband,
raised concerns that some of the communication techniques she taught, such as
mastering “the hello and goodbye” while on the phone, would be
dismissed as time-wasters. Glickman does an excellent job of countering all
naysayers by stating simple facts about the need for the skill. She asks
readers how many times they’ve been interrupted with a phone and have searched
for the best way to quickly terminate the conversation without causing any
residual damage. If readers take a moment to think about their own experiences,
they will end up continuing on to read the solutions Glickman offers.

Those solutions deliver one of the most rewarding aspects of Great
on the Job: the combination of theory and practical examples.
Unlike many of her peers writing about workplace communication, Glickman
provides multiple scenarios for every strategy, and her conversation examples
could be overheard in any workplace regardless of industry. She doesn’t suffer
from the “C-Suite syndrome,” a writer’s crutch in which the author
assumes that every reader is a chief executive within his or her organization.
Her leveling of the playing field gives the book an applicability that would be
difficult for readers to find in another title.

Glickman’s book is as much about achieving success in the workplace as it is
about improving one’s communication abilities. If there is one massive takeaway
that no executive should miss, it’s Glickman’s instructions on how to be a
“can-do” person in a company without falling prey to the pitfall of
saying yes to every person’s request. Regardless of a person’s position in a
company, there is the prevailing logic that saying no to assignment or request
will cause a person to be labeled as ineffective or incapable. As she does in
so many instances throughout the book, Glickman uses clever logic to prove her
point. Executives should consider her notion that no one appreciates a
“yes” person who turns in shoddy work. It is far better to learn
Glickman’s method for managing multiple requests because she teaches readers
how to make turning down a request into a position of strength.

Great on the Job is the obvious product of Glickman’s years of consulting
work, as well as her hundreds of presentations on the subject matter. She takes
steps that other authors do not and the results are rewarding for the reader.
Each chapter includes sections on troubleshooting where she addresses the
legitimate questions that any reader would ask. For example, in the chapter
“Manage Expectations,” she provides some interesting advice for
people who suffer under micromanagers. Even if readers have received similar
advice from other books or seminars, Glickman’s presentation of the information
is such that she will likely get through where others have missed the mark. The
one expectation any reader has of a business book author is that he or she
lives and breathes the principles about which he or she writes. Glickman outpaces
all rivals in the business communication market, even if she didn’t include
numerous examples from her own career, which she does. It’s a testament to her
conviction to the principles and it’s reflected in every page.

I’d work for Jodi Glickman any day. It’s not just about what we’re doing at work It’s
also about how we do things. She’s “hit the nail on the head” with this
book and it’s a worthwhile read.

I’m Sorry

November 28, 2011

Posted by Thomas Despres in Blog, Thought Leadership with no comments

Sorry seems to be the hardest
word… so says Elton John. When was the
last time you said you were sorry? Most
of us avoid it like the plague. The good
news is that we don’t need to make apologies if we don’t make any mistakes or
have the need to say we’re sorry. Right. Making mistakes is an important part of being
human; therefore, we’re obligated on many levels to apologize for things both personal
and business-related.

Personal apologies: We use these because it’s the right thing to
do, but also because we have a moral obligation to do so. When we apologize, it shows that we care
enough about the other person to make the effort. To very few people, it comes easy. To all of us, it’s needed.

Business apologies: Some believe these are also because it’s the right thing to do. I believe it’s more and more because it’s the
smart thing to do. The apology is often offered because the
business relationship can be improved by it.
In other words, it’s in our self-interest to do so.

In either case, the apology must
be sincere. You see, we all have these
built in BS detectors that go haywire when someone is apologizing and they don’t
seem to mean it or really own it.
That can even make things worse. Here’s
a checklist on what I’d consider a good apology:

- Do it right away.
This will serve to get things out there and rebuild the relationship
more easily than allowing it to fester into something bigger.

- Acknowledge the issue and the impact of it. This is the first step toward regaining trust.

- Own the issue. Take responsibility.

- Express sincere and authentic regret about it.

- Explain what you’ll do to make it right. Or sometimes it’s best to ask the other
person for ideas on how you can make it right… then be prepared to do it, no
matter how small. I say small because most people won’t push you
too hard when you’re making an apology.
They’ll normally appreciate the gesture and allow you to “bow out
gracefully”… that is unless it’s a repetitive thing for you.

The apology, after all, isn’t about you. It’s
not to help you with the guilt, although it may help with that. It’s for the other person or the business
partner that’s been wronged. The next time you have the opportunity to
apologize, be empathetic. Ask yourself “how
would I react to this apology?” Then
make the investment in the personal or business relationship and say it like
you really mean it. Or they’ll know
better.

Author archive

Great on the Job!

DOUBLE YOUR REVENUE IN THREE YEARS

INNOVATION SECRETS FOR EVERY EXECUTIVE

Better Under Pressure!

A Revolution in Customer Service

Leading in the Public Eye

Profit Goals Can be Unprofitable?

Is Creativity a Learned Behavior?

Talk the Talk

I’m Sorry

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