The Power of Listening: One Person’s Story

I was in the airport, waiting for my flight to get home.   All day, I had been craving a cheeseburger, so I stopped at the first place that had good cheeseburgers and fries.   Once I got my food, I realized there weren’t any empty tables, so I wandered around like we all do … trying to find someone at a table who looked like he or she would share a space.  I saw an older man, in a business suit, just sitting quietly at a small table and approached him.  “Can I share a piece of your table?”  He nodded, and I sat down and dove into my burger and fries.  I also took out my new e-reader to get caught up on today’s news, and kept my head down so I wouldn’t take over too much of the table.   After just a few seconds, the man said, “My son has a brain tumor.”

It took me a second or two to process that statement.  Then, I decided to close my e-reader and make eye contact with the man.  He was obviously on a business trip, and he smiled when my eyes met his.  All I could think to say, was “I’m so sorry.”  What do you say when someone begins a conversation like that?

After about fifteen minutes of conversation, it turned out that he travels for business often, and that he and his wife have been caring for their adult son ever since he was diagnosed with a brain tumor nine years ago.  The son is now completely bed-ridden and has lost most of his cognitive function.  Whenever his dad passes his son’s favorite hamburger place in his travels, he buys a case of the burgers to take home to his son.  Oh!  That was the connection between my sitting at the table to eat my burger and the brain tumor.

Why do I tell you that story?  Because in that fifteen minutes, I was reminded of some great lessons about listening, about the power of listening to someone who needs us to listen in that moment.  Can I share them with you?

1. You never know when you will meet someone who has something to say, something that you should listen to.  Be open to those moments (even in a busy, anonymous airport).
2. You learn such amazing lessons when you listen.  As a result of that story, I reflected all the way home about my great family and my gratitude for their health.
3. Sometimes, people just need you to listen without an agenda.  Since we were strangers, that was easy for me … but it isn’t always easy to listen without my own agenda.  Can we listen just to listen, without needing to insert our own story, or our own opinions?
4. Asking questions to extend the conversation can lead to exceptional new ideas and understanding.  Probably because I was eating, I simply asked a question periodically as this man spilled out his story.  “When did this happen?” got me to the timeline of his son’s illness.  “How often do you travel?” led him to explain about his career field, the decisions he had made in order to compensate for his son’ condition, and gave me a sense of his commitment to family.  Without those questions, he might not have continued with his story, and I might not have learned a lesson from his experiences.

It seems to me that we spend a lot of time thinking about what we are going to say, and inserting our own experiences into our conversations.  When was the last time you simply listened to someone who needed to talk, without any agenda and with an open mind?   Try it!  You will find your own version of a lesson or an opportunity to learn something new.   Do you have a story like my “son has a brain tumor” story?   Please share it with us.

“Know Thyself” and Your Employees: The Value of Assessments

Since at least the time of Plato and Socrates some 2400 years ago, mankind has been implored to “know thyself,” in life and in business.  Individually, this is often taken to mean knowing your strengths so you can leverage them and knowing your areas of weakness so you can improve them or compensate for them.  But it involves much more than this.  At the business level, many organizations struggle with getting more done with fewer people and less resources.  As your employees have changed roles or added responsibilities, you need to have confidence that you have the right people in the right positions to get the best possible results.

Diagnostic assessments can often help you identify performance gaps and help your company effectively understand and align the talents, behaviors, and motivators of every employee.  Assessments can also be utilized as an important tool for creating skill development as well as attitudinal and behavioral improvement while eliminating employee and organizational resistance to change.

There are a multitude of individual assessment tools available.  When working with clients, we focus diagnostically on the whole person as defined by these three key areas:

1. WHAT natural talents do your employees possess?  An analysis of TALENTS gets at a person’s ability to do things, how they make decisions and interact with the world around them, as well as how they perceive themselves.
2. WHY are your employees motivated to use their natural talents, based on their personal motivators and drivers?  An analysis of MOTIVATORS gets at why people do things.  Everyone has their own unique mix of personal drivers and motivators that help guide them toward success.  Understanding what really drives a person is a crucial element of success.
3. HOW do your employees prefer to use their natural talents, based on their preferred behavioral style?  An analysis of BEHAVIORS gets at a person’s manner of doing things; how they do things.  Since each individual has their own unique preferences and habits for how they like to behave, this understanding is crucial when working with team members as a leader or a manager, or in an environment that requires conflict resolution.

A well-designed process focused on objectives leveraging diagnostic assessments drives long-term change in individuals and organizational teams.  To learn how to achieve these types of sustainable results for your people and your business give us a call or visit www.springboardintl.com.

Motivating the New Workforce….What is it going to take?

Neuroscience research is revealing the social nature of the high-performance workplace.  This reference comes from an article by David Rock entitled Managing with the Brain in Mind.  So what does this have to do with motivation?  According to the researchers of this study and a number of other studies now emerging, one thing is clear: The human brain is a social organ. Its physiological and neurological reactions are directly and profoundly shaped by social interaction.

When you think of this in terms of the workplace, it presents enormous challenges to managers.  Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic transaction in which people exchange their labor for financial compensation, the brain experiences the workplace first as a social system.  It is not a stretch to relate to anyone who has had their job eliminated and found themselves without the work relationships they once had.  As one manager explained just after going through such a process, he felt like he had just gotten through tearing at the social fabric of the organization.  This social disruption accounts for a significant portion of lost productivity following layoffs or unexplained terminations.

Researchers also found that when leaders make people feel good about themselves, clearly communicate their expectations, give employees latitude to make decisions, support people’s efforts to build good relationships, and treat the whole organization fairly, it prompts a reward response.  In other words, people within the organization become more effective, more open to ideas, and more creative.  They are less susceptible to burnout because they are able to manage their stress.  They feel intrinsically rewarded and are more likely to feel motivated and engaged.

As always, we would appreciate your feedback and comments.

Your Comfort Zone Bubble

Imagine that you are enclosed in a see-through bubble. It encompasses you and everything that is comfortable for you to do. All your habits that are convenient are in your comfort zone bubble. How you interact with people in your workplace or your home, the smiles, the intelligent answers, the work that you do, the level of effort you put in, and your attitudes are all in this bubble. All those actions that come easily, those automatic responses, those things that you do everyday without thinking about them, they are all in there. Researchers says that 88% of what we do everyday is done on autopilot. Also included in your autopilot comfort zone are responses where somebody pushes your buttons and you react with defensiveness or anger. Or perhaps you need to eat to make yourself feel better, or you get stuck in status quo thinking.  Deeply entrenched patterns both positive and negative developed over a lifetime are part of your comfort zone bubble.

This bubble is important because if we had to make a zillion choices a minute, we would get really bogged down. The problem is that these patterns have created neurological shortcuts and speedways in our brain. The more we practice these habits the more we strengthen the speedways among the neural connections, so they get even more ingrained. Did you ever watch a child who is learning to tie her shoes? Her fingers fumble and she has to think through each step painstakingly. Little by little the neural pathways get established, each movement gets easier and linked to the prior movement. In a while she is accomplishing the whole sequence of movements, and then the movements get faster and faster.  Then she can do it without even watching, and even while her brain is focused on having a conversation or doing something else.

But patterns developed at an early age are not always appropriate for us to use today. In fact, patterns that dealt with an economic world pre-2008 may not be effective today.  If we want to change and have improved results personally and professionally, we have to reach outside our current comfort zone bubble and develop new behaviors. We have to expand the comfort zone bubble to include new actions. Perhaps we want to think bigger, communicate differently, be more positive, achieve more sales, organize our time better or manage others better.

To develop this new behavior, most people will start with a goal. That goal is an intention to do something new and build a new habit. That means the new habit and, therefore, a new neural pathway needs to be built and used so often that it replaces the old neural pathway. Does this produce anxiety and discomfort? Of course! The discomfort felt is in direct proportion to how ingrained the old pattern is. That is why it is often said that the “breakdown happens right before the breakthrough.” That is why breaking a habit and substituting a new behavior takes practice. It normally takes some time to change the neural pathways to develop new speedways. It takes repetition. It takes commitment to work through the uncomfortable stage till the new behavior becomes part of the comfort zone bubble.

So how does this apply to you? When you determine that you want to achieve a goal, plan on it generating some discomfort. Look at that discomfort as a necessary part of the process. Plan on what you will do or say to yourself when those times of doubt occur. Assess your commitment now. Are you willing to deal with some anxiety and push through it to be successful? Will you need tools? Be realistic about the time frame required to practice and establish the neural pathways. Plan on making mistakes and falling back into old habits occasionally as you strive to change those behaviors.

Creating that neural pathway in your brain to get the new behavior ingrained and internalized is like exercising a muscle. It builds up little by little. It requires your time and attention just like the child learning to tie her shoe laces. Once that new behavior is part of your comfort zone bubble, celebrate. Pat yourself on the back. Feel good and assimilate both your new behavior and your ability to change into your self-image. Feel your self-confidence grow. Then get focused on expanding your comfort zone bubble again with a new goal. You are on a self-growth path that will have a ripple effect on yourself and those around you.

Please comment on how this process works for you. Feel free to give examples that others may be able to relate to.

How to Cure an Ailing Sales Process

“Selling is hard,” she moaned, shoulders drooping.  “I get told ‘No’ a lot more often than ‘Yes’ and I am not sure how long I can keep this up.”  How many times have we heard comments like this from a sales person?  Selling is hard, but for many, it is harder than it needs to be.  With a proper mindset and the right approach, sales can occur much more “naturally.”  So what does it take to be successful at sales?

1.       Sales Requires a Buyer’s Mindset

Many sales people have a selling first mentality, focusing primarily on their products and services.  Their approach is all about the sale, the transaction itself … closing the deal.  A more appropriate mindset is that of an “assistant buyer” which is all about helping your prospect understand their challenges and address their problems.  This approach requires getting to know each other, building rapport, and discovering the prospect’s wants and needs instead of merely “telling them” about your wonderful products and services.  Jeffrey Gitomer says that “People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy.”  If you can help solve their problems versus merely trying to sell them something, your chances of success increase substantially.

2.       Selling Takes Time

Sure, some sales happen quickly, but they are the exception.  Relationships need fostering, trust and credibility developed, and an understanding of each other’s needs and wants gained.  Typically, all of this takes time, and frequently it takes lots of time, involving multiple contacts or “touches,” as shown by these sales statistics (if you are not familiar with them, they might surprise you):

• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

If you believe these numbers, what do they say about your sales process?  If it is true that only one in five sales occur before the fifth contact, what do you need to change?  Are you staying in touch and adding value throughout the entire buying/selling process or are you pushing too hard or giving up too soon?

3.       Selling Needs Tracking

Sales people do not always effectively track their sales activities.  However, there are some fairly simple metrics that can be utilized.  Consider utilizing metrics such as:

• Number of new connections made with targeted decision makers
• Number of meetings and conversations held with targeted decision maker
• Total number of contacts made with targeted decision makers

Tracking can help you pinpoint the problem, analyze it, and take action.  If these particular ratios are not applicable to your business, then I challenge you to identify which ones are.  Whether or not you currently have a sales plan, the numbers you get from these measures might be used to develop sales quotas or targets.

4.       Selling Requires Management

Sales managers need to be hands-on and spend as much time with their sales people as possible.  Regular “one-on-one” meetings are an effective way for both parties to monitor sales activities and targets.  The more knowledgeable sales managers are about progress towards sales goals, the easier it is to adjust priorities and activities to improve results.

5.       Selling Demands Consistency

Most sales people and sales managers are not consistent: they do not do the right things all the time.  It has been said that “Consistent persistence will win out over talent every time.”  Do not let paperwork, e-mails, budgets and all the “office stuff” keep you from doing your job!  Sales requires discipline at prospecting, making calls, meeting with contacts, providing support, issuing proposals when necessary, relationship-building, and getting commitments for sales.  Discipline must be used to perform these activities all the time, not just when sales are slumping.  Have a plan that works for you and stick to it.  Schedule time and put the appropriate activities on your calendar, and then execute on those actions to maintain forward momentum.  Be proactive and constantly measure progress against your goals.

Sales can be relatively easy if we focus on what we want to learn about our prospects and how we can address their issues.  Sales people often have their own way of doing things, but rarely is this done consistently.  Follow the above recommendations to improve the health of your sales process and get better results…right away!

Manage Your State

What is your state of mind as you read this?  Are you tired?  Energized?  Frustrated?  Confident?  Bored…I hope not!

Our state of mind changes dozens of times throughout the day – a boring meeting, a difficult phone call, an accepted offer, a misunderstanding with a demanding client.  We know that all of these things affect our state and, as a result, our performance.  But, do we understand how it affects our co-workers and staff?

As a leader, you cannot afford to let your state manage you – you need to manage your state instead.  Teams tend to mirror, and even magnify, the emotions of their leader…positive and negative.  If you are confident about a situation, they will trust things will work out.  If you are worried about business performance, they will fear for their jobs and business will suffer.

Managing your state is not always easy.  Here are a few ways you might use to change your state:

• Smile – It sounds silly but it works.  The next time you are in a negative state, take a deep breath and smile real big.  You will notice a change in state almost immediately.
• Be Thankful – Think about all the things you could be thankful for – family, friends, home, situations, etc.  Being thankful will help you to forget the problem of the moment and take a longer term view.
• Ask The Right Questions – “Why me?” is the wrong question.  Asking negative questions makes matters worse by causing you to dwell, unproductively, on the problem.  “How can we achieve this goal regardless of the issues?” is the right question.  A positive question will lead to productive, creative answers.
• Pick a Song – After a very difficult situation with an employee last week, a client was incredibly frustrated.  Five minutes after listening to one of her favorite songs, she was a different person.  Pick songs that “pick you up” and use them as medicine for the mind.
• Take a walk – Taking a long walk allows the mind to slow down.  It relieves the stress and you will almost always come back from your walk with a new idea.

Learn to manage your state and you will be surprised at the result in your own productivity as well as your team’s.

What ideas do you have for managing your state?

Luck

Even though St. Patrick’s Day is in March, some of us like to celebrate it all year long. Leprechauns, shamrocks, pots of gold and the luck of the Irish are all part of the folklore surrounding this holiday. Let us talk about luck.

Some people appear very lucky. Opportunities fall into their laps. They “just” happen to meet the right people who take a liking to them and give their careers a boost (example 1). Or the entrepreneur coincidentally runs into someone who wants to produce a show about them and give them free PR (example 2). Or the right person just stops in, gets hired and turns out to be the best employee (example 3).

Is this really just happenstance? Let us look more closely at luck. The saying often goes that “luck is where preparation meets opportunity.” Certainly if the individuals in the above examples had not been in their positions, they would not have been “ripe” for the happenstance that occurred to them. You could even say that if the person had not been prepared, the occurrence would not have even been recognized as an opportunity. Let us look at a few elements of this.

Barbara Fredrickson, the author of the book Positivity, has worked and researched in the field of positive psychology for over 10 years. In the research that she has performed, those who were trained to think positive thoughts on a 3 to 1 ratio over negative thoughts lived a more “flourishing life”. Not only were they happier, they attracted more opportunities for what they desired. This makes sense. Do you like to do more and go out of your way for positive people? Does honey attract more bees than vinegar? Why does someone take a liking to you and want to give you the gift of a career boost if you make his day a better day every time you meet (example 1)?

Secondly, there is power in intention. Did you ever buy a car and then start noticing all the same models on the road that you never noticed before? If you set a defined goal and focus on achieving the action steps leading to the completion of that goal, you become like an icebreaker plowing through the icebergs and creating momentum as you go. A business leader who has passion for her big “why”, the reason she wants to be in business, talks about her mission and draws to her others who feel the same way, who admire her energy and dedication, and who want to help (example 2).

Some things that appear to be luck are just unrecognized capability. In example 3, where a “drop-in” becomes a great employee, who is really responsible for that person becoming a great employee? It could easily have turned out badly if that employee had been belittled, micromanaged, unchallenged, and denied opportunities to excel in alignment with his best talents. Instead the manager most likely placed him in the right role, encouraged him to train and excel in alignment with his strengths, let him develop a sense of mastery and freedom in his role and motivated him toward a greater purpose or company vision. It was not luck. The manager unconsciously set it up that way and did not even realize it.

What do these 3 examples mean for us in our work situations? We have choice. We have more control over our destinies than the “luck of the Irish”. First, we can train ourselves to be positive and appreciative and improve our outlook. It is like a muscle. The more we exercise it, the stronger and more consistent it becomes. Secondly, we can set goals, put intentions and passions out into the world and attract others who want to help us and join us. Is that not a big part of leadership, earning the trust and devotion of followers? Leadership is a skill that can be developed. Thirdly, we can look at our relationships with others to bring out their best. We can adjust our behaviors to draw out the best in others to create the best working environment. When we choose to run our businesses and live our personal and professional lives with conscious awareness of these choices and their potential opportunities, it can lead to more “luck” than any pot of gold, leprechaun or shamrock can provide.

Do you have a comment or example that you can add? We want to hear from you.

Asking the Question, “Why Do I Want To Do This?”

I once worked with a client who was struggling to accomplish the marketing and sales objectives that we had set out together in his plan.  After failing to complete some of the tasks we had outlined from our previous meetings over several weeks, I asked him two simple questions, “Why did you go into this business and what do you like about it?”

He could not answer the question directly and told me he would have to ponder it until the next week’s session.  The next week rolled around and I began the session by asking the same questions that I had left him with.  He still was unable to respond.  We moved through the rest of our agenda and agreed to meet the next week.

The next week I asked the same two questions and he became agitated at the questions because he still had no answer.  We agreed to meet two weeks later. At the beginning of that meeting, I started to ask those two same questions, when he abruptly interrupted me and told me that his father and he had decided to sell the business to the key employee.  He told me that the answers to my questions were that he never really liked the business and that his father had talked him into starting it in the first place.  His father had since lost interest in it and was not spending any time in it.  Therefore, his answer was that he did not like the business and had no motivation to do what needed to be done to make it a success.

The moral to the story is that if you do not really want something, then you probably will not do what is needed to obtain it.  In the case above, the client moved on with his life.  He thanked me for sticking to the question because it brought him clarity and saved him thousands of dollars and who knows how much time pursuing something he did not really want.  So, if you are stumbling at something or failing to take the steps necessary, ask yourself  “Why did I want to do this and what do I like about it?”  If you cannot answer these questions, it may move you to go in a different direction.  It may also help you remember what motivated you to start that journey and get back to that passion that drew you there in the first place.

Are You Aware of the “Leadership Shadow” You Cast?

Many of the Executive Coaching clients we have worked with seem to be unaware of the “Shadow” they cast as a leader.  It is a shadow that reflects what a leader pays attention to, how they respond to crisis, deal with a disagreement, treat those around them, and behave in general.  It all feeds into the cultural fabric of the organization.

We have observed that if a leader treats every unexpected problem or unanticipated roadblock as a major crisis, so will employees.  If a leader takes the view that every problem could have been avoided and therefore when something goes wrong, heads will roll, the resulting behavior will be one of blame and finger-pointing.  If a leader views mistakes as a natural part of learning, exploring, and experimenting, the result is an attitude that supports risk taking and innovation.

Beyond actions, leaders shape the culture through the stories that they tell and the stories that are told about them.  The stories that leaders tell help to inform employees about what leadership considers important.

One story has to do with a new regional VP of Sales.  He walked into a regional sales review meeting where each manager was expected to present their forecast, where they were and why.  After hearing one presentation and the beginning of a second where the managers complained about their products and lamented the lack of technology and product capability of their competitors, he stopped the meeting.  He then got up and moved to the front of the room with what seemed to be a scene from Patton’s Army.  He then said, “I did not come here to listen to excuses about why you cannot sell because you believe the competition has better products, technology or whatever.  What I do expect to hear is how your commitment and strategy to sell our company’s products is producing results.  After that, I am open to discussing what we can all do to improve.  We all get paid to sell the products and services of this company and it requires everyone’s commitment to be successful.  You have a choice to make, which I expect to see at the rescheduled date of this meeting.”  That story became part of the folklore that helped shape the future culture of that company.

A critical element of the leadership shadow is the “Say-Do” factor.  It has to do with having the courage of your convictions.  If you say you are going to do something but act differently when it is not politically correct or represents a risk to you or your position, you put your credibility at risk as a leader and create doubts about what the company stands for.  A recent situation that exemplifies the “Say-Do” factor is when Bill Belichick, the head coach of the New England Patriots, did not allow one of his star players, Wes Welker, to start in the critical playoff game against the New York Jets because of comments he made during a news conference regarding the Jets coach.  Whether you agree or not, it takes courage to maintain a high Say-Do factor.  And, when you consider Belichick’s overall performance as a leader and the consistent results the Patriots have achieved as an organization and business, perhaps it makes sense to examine the Leadership Shadow you cast.

“We can’t solve the problems of today using the same

thinking we used to create them.”

-    A. Einstein

Top Ten Tips for Balance

In my never-ending quest for the perfect balance between work and home, and friends and clients, I have been blessed with many great mentors and the opportunity to learn countless lessons for myself and from others.  Many of these tips are hard-fought for me.   And so, in honor of David Letterman’s famous “Top Ten,” here are my top ten tips on getting to balance.

Number 10:  Use one calendar.   It sounds simple, but put your personal and your business commitments in the same place so you can quickly see what you have going on and make intentional decisions about where you want to spend your time.  How many times has it happened that you inadvertently scheduled a work commitment (or a doctor’s appointment) on top of your child’s school assembly?

Number 9:  If you work from home or have the luxury of a flexible work day, set a specific start and end time for your work day.  Set clear boundaries so that you do not end up doing “that one more thing” that takes you through dinner time.

Number 8:  Never go to bed angry.  Resolve whatever the problem is before you head off for bedtime.  Trust me, you will sleep better and feel better.   Apologize even if you did not start the fight.

Number 7:  Take all your vacation days!  What are you saving them for?

Number 6:  Don’t keep up with the Joneses.   Meaning, don’t worry about what everyone else is doing, or how many committees they are on, or what activities they pack into their days.  Define what balance means to you, and stick to it.  I once had a business owner tell me that I couldn’t run my business in just 40 hours a week – and for him, 60 hours was just fine.  But guess what?  I found a way.  You need to find your own way to achieve your balance, not somebody else’s definition of balance.

Number 5:  Listen to your body.   Really listen.   Your body will tell you when it needs a break.   This tip is particularly hard, because we become experts at ignoring warning signs.  Begin to pay attention to what your body is saying – build that habit of actively listening to when your body tells you it is worn out, or not eating right, or getting sick.

Number 4:  If you don’t block time for exercise or physical activity, it won’t happen.  Make an appointment to go to the gym, or play tennis, or join your son in a pick-up basketball game.

Number 3:  Laugh as often as you can.  Find ways to bring laughter into your day.  Watch a comedy; listen to the comedy station on your radio; call your favorite jokester friend.

Number 2:  Set consistent sleep patterns.  This is not just about the number of hours of sleep you get every night (although that’s important too).  In addition, get in the habit of going to sleep and rising at about the same time every day.  Yes, that includes the weekends.  Try it – you will thank me.

And, the Number 1 Tip for Balance:  Make time for what is most important to you.  Have you ever heard the story of the Mayonnaise Jar, the Rocks, and the Two Beers?  In that story, a professor tells his class about the “big rocks” – those big rocks represent the most important things in your life.  If you fill the mayonnaise jar with all the little things (the “pebbles”) then you won’t have room for the big rocks.  Put the big rocks in first – the rest will find a space somewhere.

If you want a copy of the Mayonnaise Jar story, contact Springboard at info@springboardintl.com.  We would be delighted to share it with you.  And let us know – which of these Top Ten Tips is more valuable for you?  What other tips can you share with our readers?