Jeffrey Gitomer reveals the two most important words in sales and how they can make you into the best sales person you can be.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
How to acheive and maintain a Positive Mental Attitude - Jeffrey Gitomer
Jeffrey Explains how to acheive and maintain a Positive Mental Attitude and the importance of doing it.
Programming Yourself for Success - Anthony Galie
Anthony Galie describes a simple way to program your own Subconscious mind.
Be effective in tough times and win back trust: Stephen Covey
Stephen R Covey has this knack of delivering the goods in a way that others sit up and listen. When the he penned The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in 1989, few imagined it would sell 15 million copies worldwide. Even its audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in US publishing history to sell more than a million copies. With this success, Covey was set for self-help stardom .
Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1996 and ‘The Chief Executive’ magazine named ‘7 habits’ as the most influential book of the 20th century. Covey followed this chartbuster with The 8th Habit where he observes that effectiveness does not apply to the knowledge-age worker.
Instead, he contends “the challenges and complexity we face today are of a different order of magnitude” . So The 8th Habit prods people to “find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.” His other best-sellers include First Things First and Principle-Centred Leadership.
The 76 year old vice chairman of professional services firm Franklin Covey, who will be in India in a few days time, believes a recession is the right time to gain competitive advantage. Though a bit concerned about the argumentative traits of Indians, he is a great admirer of the country’s spiritualism and believes that if channeled properly, it can lead to the country becoming a global powerhouse again.
As a thought leader, Covey today is the toast of many a government and corporation for advice on managing change, and that includes President-Elect Barrack Obama’s transition team. Having worked with ex-Presidents like Ronald Reagen, George Bush Sr, and Bill Clinton, he is now helping foster a more creative culture in Obama’s team. Excerpts from a candid interview with CD:
How can you be effective in time when negativism is so pervasive ?
This is a perfect time to create long-term competitive advantage . It’s in times like these that people can adapt and make sacrifices . This is really an opportunity for creative businesses to gain long-term competitive advantage. Even if we find that we are not in control of anything, one always has the power of choice to do what one can do.
Every management expert says that tough times should be used to build competitive advantage. But is it easy to think about building competitive advantage when all you are thinking of is survival?
It’s tough because everything around people is negative. When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative it starts to affect our creative juices. You have to be creative in these times and take advantage of this ‘valley’ and turn it into a ‘peak’ , a new initiative can make a difference and the key to that is to move away from the industrial age model because the industrial age model is top down and command-and-control.
And tough times help unleash the creative force in people’s own professional lives and that feeds upon itself and the creative juices get going again. It’s not easy but it’s within reach. And it’s the perfect time to do so.
Do you believe it was plain greed that was responsible for the present state of many companies?
Yes. People were being rewarded for the wrong things and that leads to greed. It’s an example of using an Industrial Age model in the new Knowledge Worker Age we are in today. We had a risk reward system that bred greed. Today confidence is pretty low, people are becoming very pessimistic and almost paranoid and it dries up all the creative juices within us.
Hasn’t trust been the biggest casualty in recent times?
Exactly. It’s because of misaligned systems. The system rewards people for the wrong things, for not being creative but more on the lines of getting the numbers. And then that’s all that’s in their minds.
This profits vs principles war is seeing the wrong winner in some cases. Do you think there needs to be a rethink on the ‘hows’ of the business?
I think that’s part of it. People have to look up to themselves to begin with - an inside out approach. They must also learn how to involve other people all the way; to involve the entire organisation to look at these issues; to develop systems and structures which reward the right things.
What’s the new model of openness that you are advocating these days?
It involves being clear and transparent. In taking the reality of what is happening with the people and then asking them: What do you think we can do in this situation? You will find that it will work on the basic underlying forces that produce trust and openness. We have had misaligned systems that rewarded people for wrong things and this has been happening all around the world.
This is the perfect time to unleash people’s creative energies and come up with new creative ideas and companies can do this with suppliers and their customers because everybody is feeding on the paranoia and the fear.
It’s like a cancer that feeds upon itself and people get victimised by all these forces. So they criticise, they complain, they compare, they become cynical, they compete. This is the perfect time to take advantage of this and turn it around. And you have to be creative on how to do that and that will be the main challenge.
Why have you focused on habits to bring about change?
Because people co-relate habits of thought and habits of actions which are completely misaligned with these new realities. And it’s like trying to play tennis with a golf club. The habits, not only of people, but also the structures of the system (Covey calls them habits of organisations) of the organisation are misaligned. The result is that people get negative and pessimistic and discouraged and disparaged and that feeds on itself.
(The Economic Times)
Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1996 and ‘The Chief Executive’ magazine named ‘7 habits’ as the most influential book of the 20th century. Covey followed this chartbuster with The 8th Habit where he observes that effectiveness does not apply to the knowledge-age worker.
Instead, he contends “the challenges and complexity we face today are of a different order of magnitude” . So The 8th Habit prods people to “find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.” His other best-sellers include First Things First and Principle-Centred Leadership.
The 76 year old vice chairman of professional services firm Franklin Covey, who will be in India in a few days time, believes a recession is the right time to gain competitive advantage. Though a bit concerned about the argumentative traits of Indians, he is a great admirer of the country’s spiritualism and believes that if channeled properly, it can lead to the country becoming a global powerhouse again.
As a thought leader, Covey today is the toast of many a government and corporation for advice on managing change, and that includes President-Elect Barrack Obama’s transition team. Having worked with ex-Presidents like Ronald Reagen, George Bush Sr, and Bill Clinton, he is now helping foster a more creative culture in Obama’s team. Excerpts from a candid interview with CD:
How can you be effective in time when negativism is so pervasive ?
This is a perfect time to create long-term competitive advantage . It’s in times like these that people can adapt and make sacrifices . This is really an opportunity for creative businesses to gain long-term competitive advantage. Even if we find that we are not in control of anything, one always has the power of choice to do what one can do.
Every management expert says that tough times should be used to build competitive advantage. But is it easy to think about building competitive advantage when all you are thinking of is survival?
It’s tough because everything around people is negative. When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative it starts to affect our creative juices. You have to be creative in these times and take advantage of this ‘valley’ and turn it into a ‘peak’ , a new initiative can make a difference and the key to that is to move away from the industrial age model because the industrial age model is top down and command-and-control.
And tough times help unleash the creative force in people’s own professional lives and that feeds upon itself and the creative juices get going again. It’s not easy but it’s within reach. And it’s the perfect time to do so.
Do you believe it was plain greed that was responsible for the present state of many companies?
Yes. People were being rewarded for the wrong things and that leads to greed. It’s an example of using an Industrial Age model in the new Knowledge Worker Age we are in today. We had a risk reward system that bred greed. Today confidence is pretty low, people are becoming very pessimistic and almost paranoid and it dries up all the creative juices within us.
Hasn’t trust been the biggest casualty in recent times?
Exactly. It’s because of misaligned systems. The system rewards people for the wrong things, for not being creative but more on the lines of getting the numbers. And then that’s all that’s in their minds.
This profits vs principles war is seeing the wrong winner in some cases. Do you think there needs to be a rethink on the ‘hows’ of the business?
I think that’s part of it. People have to look up to themselves to begin with - an inside out approach. They must also learn how to involve other people all the way; to involve the entire organisation to look at these issues; to develop systems and structures which reward the right things.
What’s the new model of openness that you are advocating these days?
It involves being clear and transparent. In taking the reality of what is happening with the people and then asking them: What do you think we can do in this situation? You will find that it will work on the basic underlying forces that produce trust and openness. We have had misaligned systems that rewarded people for wrong things and this has been happening all around the world.
This is the perfect time to unleash people’s creative energies and come up with new creative ideas and companies can do this with suppliers and their customers because everybody is feeding on the paranoia and the fear.
It’s like a cancer that feeds upon itself and people get victimised by all these forces. So they criticise, they complain, they compare, they become cynical, they compete. This is the perfect time to take advantage of this and turn it around. And you have to be creative on how to do that and that will be the main challenge.
Why have you focused on habits to bring about change?
Because people co-relate habits of thought and habits of actions which are completely misaligned with these new realities. And it’s like trying to play tennis with a golf club. The habits, not only of people, but also the structures of the system (Covey calls them habits of organisations) of the organisation are misaligned. The result is that people get negative and pessimistic and discouraged and disparaged and that feeds on itself.
(The Economic Times)
Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch gave a lecture on Time Management at the University of Virginia in November 2007.
Time ripe for companies to focus on quality management: expert
By Shveta Pathak
Companies should use dampened business sentiment as an opportunity for organisations to review their processes and make improvements that help them reduce costs along with improving efficiency through total quality management (TQM) practices, said quality management professionals.
Adopting TQM practices during this phase could actually help businesses differentiate from others and take care of costs without necessarily cutting jobs, said Sunil Thawani, chairman of the continual improvement subgroup of the Dubai Quality Group, who is country counsellor for American Society for Quality in the UAE.
The subgroup is working towards generating awareness among professionals and organisations.
"The need to adopt TQM is very high in the present scenario. An oganisation, be it in manufacturing, trading or services, with customer focus can see continual improvement in services, costs and delivery by adopting these practices. Dubai is ahead of many other countries in applying these practices but the need is to take it ahead. The present scenario presents an opportunity to do that," Thawani told Emirates Business.
In the ongoing situation when organisations face a pressure on costs, the role of quality management professionals, he said, is to have a re-look on the existing processes. Applying techniques like Lean, Kaizen and Six Sigma and deriving value benefits at this time could help organisations offer better services and survive through the recession.
"Here is an opportunity that needs to be tapped. Cost is an outcome of a process so if you renew the processes you can reduce the costs."
By going in for processes that are efficient, organisations would be in a better position to offer value services to customers.
Many organisations are doing it but you need to do it comprehensively, convert benefits into dollars.
If the processes are inefficient, they ought to realise the consequences, the strategies may not get implemented, budgets may get out of control, customers may get poor services, there could be delivery inconsistencies and a lot of other problems, he said.
"Currently, organisations are still absorbing the impact of the severity of the economic turmoil.
"They need to take it as a wake up call and get out of the mindset that it would be costly to differentiate," said Thawani.
(Emirates Business)
Companies should use dampened business sentiment as an opportunity for organisations to review their processes and make improvements that help them reduce costs along with improving efficiency through total quality management (TQM) practices, said quality management professionals.
Adopting TQM practices during this phase could actually help businesses differentiate from others and take care of costs without necessarily cutting jobs, said Sunil Thawani, chairman of the continual improvement subgroup of the Dubai Quality Group, who is country counsellor for American Society for Quality in the UAE.
The subgroup is working towards generating awareness among professionals and organisations.
"The need to adopt TQM is very high in the present scenario. An oganisation, be it in manufacturing, trading or services, with customer focus can see continual improvement in services, costs and delivery by adopting these practices. Dubai is ahead of many other countries in applying these practices but the need is to take it ahead. The present scenario presents an opportunity to do that," Thawani told Emirates Business.
In the ongoing situation when organisations face a pressure on costs, the role of quality management professionals, he said, is to have a re-look on the existing processes. Applying techniques like Lean, Kaizen and Six Sigma and deriving value benefits at this time could help organisations offer better services and survive through the recession.
"Here is an opportunity that needs to be tapped. Cost is an outcome of a process so if you renew the processes you can reduce the costs."
By going in for processes that are efficient, organisations would be in a better position to offer value services to customers.
Many organisations are doing it but you need to do it comprehensively, convert benefits into dollars.
If the processes are inefficient, they ought to realise the consequences, the strategies may not get implemented, budgets may get out of control, customers may get poor services, there could be delivery inconsistencies and a lot of other problems, he said.
"Currently, organisations are still absorbing the impact of the severity of the economic turmoil.
"They need to take it as a wake up call and get out of the mindset that it would be costly to differentiate," said Thawani.
(Emirates Business)
Peter Drucker - the father of modern management
"The greatness of Peter Drucker"
by Steve Arneson
Throughout the year, I thought it’d be fun to profile some of the giants in the leadership development field, and provide some insight into their best works. Let’s start with a man who is widely considered to be the father of modern management, Peter Drucker. It’s hard to overestimate the influence Drucker has had on generations of leaders; a great deal of the theories and ideas we use today were created by Drucker in the 1950’s. Now that’s staying power!
by Steve Arneson
Throughout the year, I thought it’d be fun to profile some of the giants in the leadership development field, and provide some insight into their best works. Let’s start with a man who is widely considered to be the father of modern management, Peter Drucker. It’s hard to overestimate the influence Drucker has had on generations of leaders; a great deal of the theories and ideas we use today were created by Drucker in the 1950’s. Now that’s staying power!
Peter Drucker was born in Vienna in 1909, and started his career as a journalist in Hamburg and Frankfurt. Drucker fled Germany in 1933, and moved to London, where he worked as the chief economist for a private bank. In the late 1930’s, he and his wife Doris moved to the U.S., and in 1943 he became a naturalized citizen. He also began a long and successful career as a university professor, first at Bennington College (1942-1949) and later at New York University (1950-1971). Drucker moved to California in 1971, where he developed one of the country's first executive MBA program for working professionals at Claremont Graduate University. From 1971 to his death in 2005 he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont.
Drucker's career as a business guru took off in 1942, when his initial writings on politics and society won him access to the internal workings of General Motors. He had become fascinated with the issue of authority during his time in Germany, and when he shared his curiosity with GM executives, they invited him to conduct what amounted to a "social audit" of a complex business setting. For two years, Drucker attended every board meeting, interviewed employees, and analyzed production and decision-making processes. The resulting book, Concept of the Corporation, popularized GM's multi divisional structure, and led to numerous articles, consulting engagements, and additional books. Interestingly, GM hated the book - Alfred Sloan was said to have ignored it as if it never existed. Drucker had suggested that the auto giant might want to reexamine a host of long-standing policies on customer relations, dealer relations, employee relations and more (hmm... think he was ahead of his time?).
Throughout his career, Drucker expanded his position that management was "a liberal art" and he infused his management advice with interdisciplinary lessons from history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, culture and religion. He also believed strongly that all institutions, including those in the private sector, had a responsibility to the whole of society. "The fact is," Drucker wrote in 1973, "that in modern society there is no other leadership group but managers. If the managers of our major institutions, especially in business, do not take responsibility for the common good, no one else can or will."
During his long consulting career, Drucker worked with many major corporations, including General Electric, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, IBM, and Intel. But Drucker's insights extended far beyond business. He served as a consultant for various government agencies in the U.S., Canada and Japan, and worked with numerous non-profit organizations to help them become successful, often consulting pro-bono. In fact, Drucker anticipated the rise of the social sector in America, maintaining that it was through volunteering that people would find the kind of fulfillment that he originally thought would be provided through their place of work. "Citizenship in and through the social sector is not a panacea for the ills of post-capitalist society, but it may be a prerequisite for tackling these ills," Drucker wrote. "It restores the civic responsibility that is the mark of citizenship, and the civic pride that is the mark of the community".
Drucker wrote dozens of books, penned a regular column for the Wall Street Journal for more than 20 years, and wrote extensively for the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and The Atlantic Monthly. If you’re interested in reading some classic Drucker, I’d suggest the following works:
- The Practice of Management (1954) – this seminal work still holds up well today
- The Effective Executive (1966) – a primer on focus and results
- Managing in Turbulent Times (1980) – timeless lessons; could have been written in 2009!
- Managing Oneself (HBR – 1999) – a classic on what’s important
- They’re Not Employees, They’re People (HBR – 2001) – the title says it all
- The Essential Drucker: Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (2001) – a compendium of his best works
- What Makes An Effective Executive (HBR – 2004) – a modern synopsis of his 1966 book
Because he wrote so much, Drucker was also a quote machine. Here are some of my favorites:
- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
- What's measured improves.
- Efficiency is doing better what is already being done.
- The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.
- There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
- Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
In closing, I had the chance to see Peter Drucker speak a conference late in his career, and was mesmerized by the great man. Everything he said dripped with common sense, and it was so cool to hear him talk in that thick Austrian accent about long-standing concepts that had relevance then, and still do today. If you want to trace the roots of our field, pick up a copy of The Practice of Management, and be prepared to be enthralled by the scope of Drucker’s insights and vision.
Friday, January 23, 2009
5 Characteristics of Quality Leaders
As companies around the world struggle to stay afloat, many are turning to their managers when making the tough decisions. A good manager is used to having to deal with these kinds of problems, but probably not on the same scale. Quality leadership can be hard to come by, but there are some things managers can practice daily at work to ensure that they are better, more effective leaders. What follows is a brief list of some of the characteristics of a quality leader.
Earn the Respect of Others
Good leaders don’t demand respect from others, they earn it through their actions and being consistent with these actions. Only a poor leader would demand respect from his workers through fear and intimidation tactics. The situation we now find ourselves in economically is scary enough; there is no reason to add insult to injury. Part of earning the respect of others is intertwined with other characteristics listed within this article.
Knowledgeable and Capable
A quality leader is both knowledgeable and capable of doing the work he asks of others himself. No one will listen to a supposed leader who has no idea what he is talking about. Good leaders demonstrate their knowledge through action, not words. Those who stand behind good leaders know that he is capable of doing any task that he ask a member of his team to do, because they have seen him roll up his sleeves and do the work himself in the past.
Fairness
Fairness is a quality that all good leaders possess. They are able to take the facts of a given situation and render a decision based on all necessary information. Good leaders take all sides into account and make a decision that will be most beneficial to all involved. If a punishment is necessary, it is fitting to the transgression.
Excellent Communication Skills
The best leaders can effectively communicate in all forms, whether it is written or verbal. A good says exactly what he means and leaves no wiggle room for interpretation or ambiguity. Directness with employees and team members is an absolute necessity in ensuring the success of a business, and good leaders make sure to be as precise as possible when it comes to communications.
High Expectations
Successful companies are headed up by successful leaders who have high expectations. This is not to say that their expectations are unreasonable by any means, but good leaders know what their people are capable of and expect them to maintain an optimal level of efficiency. This attribute benefits all parties involved and contributes to the success of all as well.
By-line:
This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of job websites. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com
Earn the Respect of Others
Good leaders don’t demand respect from others, they earn it through their actions and being consistent with these actions. Only a poor leader would demand respect from his workers through fear and intimidation tactics. The situation we now find ourselves in economically is scary enough; there is no reason to add insult to injury. Part of earning the respect of others is intertwined with other characteristics listed within this article.
Knowledgeable and Capable
A quality leader is both knowledgeable and capable of doing the work he asks of others himself. No one will listen to a supposed leader who has no idea what he is talking about. Good leaders demonstrate their knowledge through action, not words. Those who stand behind good leaders know that he is capable of doing any task that he ask a member of his team to do, because they have seen him roll up his sleeves and do the work himself in the past.
Fairness
Fairness is a quality that all good leaders possess. They are able to take the facts of a given situation and render a decision based on all necessary information. Good leaders take all sides into account and make a decision that will be most beneficial to all involved. If a punishment is necessary, it is fitting to the transgression.
Excellent Communication Skills
The best leaders can effectively communicate in all forms, whether it is written or verbal. A good says exactly what he means and leaves no wiggle room for interpretation or ambiguity. Directness with employees and team members is an absolute necessity in ensuring the success of a business, and good leaders make sure to be as precise as possible when it comes to communications.
High Expectations
Successful companies are headed up by successful leaders who have high expectations. This is not to say that their expectations are unreasonable by any means, but good leaders know what their people are capable of and expect them to maintain an optimal level of efficiency. This attribute benefits all parties involved and contributes to the success of all as well.
By-line:
This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of job websites. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com
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