Business Toolkit – Page 72 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

6 Ways to Fail in a Negotiation

January 27, 2014/2 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Steven P. Cohen, author of The Practical Negotiator (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Last Fall’s set-to over continuing to fund the operations of the US Federal government and authorize an increase in the debt ceiling of the United States is an object lesson in how not to negotiate. Here are some rules to follow to make sure a negotiation process fails to work:

– Don’t ask yourself that critical question teenagers often pose to their parents, “And your point is. . .?”
Unless you have a clear understanding of why you’re entering into the process of bargaining with other parties, you have no way to measure whether you’re heading in the right direction. A parallel question to ask is what you think motivates your negotiation partner to negotiate with you. It is only worth negotiating if each party believes the other negotiators can add value and are thus worth the negotiation effort.

– Don’t worry about who’s on the each side – and whether they are empowered to make decisions and fulfill commitments.
In the Federal government crisis, people involved with the situation – and outside commentators – urged folks to negotiate without paying serious attention to the choice of negotiation partners. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives – the top Republican in Congress – was not a credible negotiation partner for President Obama because Mr. Boehner could not credibly claim the capacity to ‘deliver’ the votes of the Tea Party members of the House. One of the questions it raises is, when there is a disagreement within your team, how can you negotiate with outsiders. This happens all the time in business and family negotiations; it is not a problem reserved for political leaders.

Best of thoughtLEADERS 2013: The Greatest Posts EVER

December 17, 2013/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Project Management, Sales, Social Media, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s time again for our year in review list of the BEST posts we’ve published in 2013. It’s time for the 2013 edition of The Figgies which are the awards we give ourselves for writing awesome blog content (here are the 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 editions of those awards).

This is an annual event at the thoughtLEADERS Blog. This list is comprised of our most viewed, most forwarded, quirkiest, most provocative work. There’s also a kicker bonus post on the list just for good measure. Enjoy. Share. We’ve loved writing them. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I don’t ask a lot of you folks so I have two small requests as your holiday gift to me (you are getting me something, right?):

1. Invite all your coworkers, friends, and family to come check out the blog and become readers. The only way we all get better is by raising everyone’s game. I’m not asking a lot here. If you found this blog helpful at all this year, here’s your chance to return the favor for all our hard work. Just email folks and tell ’em to come take a look.

2. Pick up a copy of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful Personal Leadership (especially if you’re looking for last-minute holiday gifts for bosses, team members, or your mom – she’ll love it). I talk a lot about the book because I’m evangelical about the topic. Buy it. Read it. In the words of Roland Smith (former CEO of Wendy’s/Arby’s) “It could change your life.” To get a sense for what the book is about, read this free ChangeThis Leadership Manifesto which is based on the book. If you like the manifesto, you’ll love the book.

Thanks for your incredible support in ’13 and best wishes for ’14! We hope to be a part of your future success!

Enough blahbitty blah. Here’s the best stuff we’ve written all year:

5 Steps for Quickly Reaching Inbox Zero

December 9, 2013/7 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications /by Mike Figliuolo

Email is the bane of our existence. Sure, it’s awesome for funny cat videos, chain letters, and getting awesome blogs like this one (see what I did there?) but it can also cause massive amounts of stress and waste tremendous amounts of time.

One of the first things I do when I take on a new coaching client is what I call “stabilizing the ship” which entails giving the individual a solid foundation upon which to sail forward. Many times I find they’re out of balance because their email inbox is a disastrous vortex that sucks the life out of them. The other challenge they often face is none of their time is their own because the invites on their calendar dictate their daily lives versus it being the other way around like it should.

When you have an inbox with over 500 emails in it, there’s no way you can lead and communicate effectively. At the least, it’s a stressful distraction knowing there’s all that “work” in there you need to do. At worst, it consumes every last bit of your energy thereby taking you away from the more important tasks of leading your people.

The good news is you can get to inbox zero… and stay there. I’m not kidding. It’s not just some bombastic blog headline to get you to read. I personally use this method (I’m at inbox 14 as I’m writing this) and I’ve coached others to use it. They’ve gone from literally 2,000 emails to inbox zero in the period of a month and they’ve done a much better job of staying there. You can do it too. It simply takes a method and some discipline.

So here you go – here are the 5 steps to getting to inbox zero… and staying there!

Building a High Potential Mobile Team by Engaging the Virtual Worker

November 13, 2013/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by John Cardella, Executive Vice-President and Chief People Officer for North American HR Operations, Ceridian HCM.

Technology continues to transform virtually every aspect of the workplace. With an abundance of high performance laptops, tablets, smartphones, VoIP, and with applications such as WebEx and Skype employees can virtually work from anywhere and be as productive as working within an office. Many will argue that the benefits of virtual work abound, and that it is indeed the trend of the future. There is no question that there are many cost savings and environmental benefits to working virtual including reduced overheads, cheaper fuel and lower green gas emissions along with greater employee autonomy. Besides that, who really wants to put up with rush hour?

Realistically however, employers need to fully explore the issues that arise from virtual work and strike a balance that engages and connects the mobile workforce for maximum returns.

Culture – Workplace culture is the heartbeat of any company. It helps define company brands, and attract and retain top performers. What happens when employers allow a large segment of their workforce to go virtual? At what point or threshold does a “virtual workplace” start to affect culture and how do employers protect company culture from deteriorating? While the actual threshold may vary depending on the size of the company, a good rule of thumb is to start asking these types of questions as your virtual workforce climbs to the 15-20% level. Retaining a cultural essence with a large percentage of virtual workers becomes more challenging. Steps can be taken to ensure that scheduled in-office face time occurs at regular intervals for staff meetings, informal get together and other work type events.

What to Do When Goals Seem Too Far Away

August 28, 2013/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Career, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Kelly Gregorio of Advantage Capital Funds.

As the leader of your team, it is your job to forge ahead. When the horizon feels miles away, your team will turn to you expecting enough support to keep them going. However, people (including you) can take for granted that the person in the management position is still human with their own doubts, stressors and anxiety.

Regardless of your mentoring role, you still set goals for yourself in both your personal and professional life. The challenge being, when the going gets tough, there are few assigned to you to give you the motivating push and encouraging perspective that, as humans, we all need. Luckily, with some helpful tools in place, leaders can learn to shine their own light onto their paths of determined improvement.

Ground Some Goals

When your end-goals seem so far away that they are barely in sight, start small. Figure out what you could do today, in this afternoon, in this half-hour and then do it. Complete a task, any task, and recognize that you are now one step closer. How big or small that advancement is does not matter, all that matters is that you continue to engage in forward thinking and movement.

Grounding goals still requires positive and proactive thinking. Prepare your brain for the success that is ahead. Envision yourself surpassing your goal and tie your brain to that vision emotionally. This can be accomplished by imagining the sounds, smells and sights of those events. If you believe that what you proactively thank the world for you will get in return, then do this. If you don’t…well, daydreaming about success can still be fun.

8 Ways to Manage Your Boss

August 21, 2013/5 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Beverly Flaxington, author of The Five Secrets to Human Behavior and Make Your SHIFT (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

One of the most common problems I’m asked to solve in my consulting and coaching work with employees is helping them deal with a difficult or challenging boss. We call this “managing up,” because it involves a set of coping skills that employees don’t normally possess in their role.

Oftentimes a boss may be unpleasant. Or perhaps the boss is a bully or a poor communicator. Sometimes the boss is disorganized and then blames the employee for any ensuing problems. Unfortunately for most of us, we have, or will have at some point, a difficult boss who requires special coping strategies.

Instead of leaping to another job hoping that the next one will be better, it’s important to develop managing-up skills. The more you learn to manage up, the more successful you will be wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.

Here are eight ways to manage up—without the boss knowing you’re doing it.

1. Be proactive in your communication. Learn your boss’s preferred communication mode—email, in person drop-ins, or lengthy memos—and be sure to pass along information to her regularly. Most bosses don’t like to be caught unawares. Even if your boss doesn’t ask it of you, keep them updated. This simple strategy works well with bosses who are disorganized or insecure.

The Secret Formula for Having a Spectacular Day

August 14, 2013/7 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Guest Blogger /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Natasha Golinsky, founder of Next Level Nonprofits.

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve definitely been exposed to the success strategy of getting up early to get a jump-start on your day. Noted by many leadership experts as becoming part of the 5:00 AM club, rising with the birds has been touted as the ideal time to get organized so to set yourself up for a highly productive, proactive day.

Like many of my colleagues, I understood the logic of waking up early but because I was never sure of how to best use that time I had never done it with any consistency nor experienced much benefit from doing so – and so I didn’t. During my annual reflection time at the end of 2012, I realized that while I was an expert at setting goals, I wasn’t quite as strong at consistently holding myself accountable to the accomplishment of them. Wanting to make 2013 an amazing breakthrough year, I considered what could I do to daily keep myself on track and began to research how the world’s top thought leaders start their day.

Within a few weeks I had found my answer in an audio interview between Robin Sharma and Darren Hardy published in SUCCESS magazine discussing what it means to make the first hour of my day your ultimate “power” hour. Although I list these practices in the order (and with the time allotment) that I have found works best for me, please know that these can be done in any sequence (and in any amount of time) – the important thing is that you consistently do them.

1. Read and take notes from an inspirational book (20 minutes). Before you check your email or even look at your phone, pick up your notepad, open a book and kick-start your day with some awesome personal development. Make the first thoughts of your day empowering, uplifting thoughts… CNN can wait.

2. Reflect on your notes (10 minutes). So much of the time we spend learning is wasted because we never do anything with the information. In this short time slot, look at your notes and write out some simple plans for how you can implement these ideas to improve your life.

5 Steps to Fixing the Problems with Your Problem Solving

August 12, 2013/5 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Everyone thinks they’re a great problem solver. I mean – who isn’t? Give me a problem. I solve it.

The problem is you might be working on the wrong problem. Or you’ve missed the entire root cause. Or the solutions you pursue aren’t the highest impact ideas to chase down.

Problem solving is actually pretty simple though. All you have to do is follow five simple steps. I promise if you’re rigorous about the problem solving method you use, you’ll improve your chances of solving the right problem, generate solutions that address the true root cause, and select the ideas to pursue that will have the greatest impact.

How do I know this method works? I’ve personally used it for almost 15 years and we’ve been teaching our clients our Structured Problem Solving course for a long time. And every time we teach it, participants in the program walk out with great new tools they immediately apply to solve the biggest problems they face.

So how can you become a better problem solver too? Easy.

Step 1: Pin the Problem

You’ve got to clearly define the issue at hand. Look at the problem not just from your perspective but from multiple perspectives. What would your CEO say the problem is? Your customers? Your front line associates? Your finance team? You get the picture. Problems look different to different people.

Also look at causality. All of us have solved a symptom before rather than curing the real disease. When you fix a symptom, the root problem doesn’t go away – it simply manifests as new symptoms. Be sure to understand causality. Once you’ve looked through different lenses and found root causes, you should have a clearly-defined problem.

How to Sell Without Selling

July 8, 2013/2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Sales /by Mike Figliuolo

I hate salespeople. I especially hate the ones who doggedly pursue me hocking their wares even after I’ve repeatedly told them I’m not interested. The worst of the lot end up with a special caller ID in my phone so I know what to do when they call: “Don’t Answer,” “Moron – Don’t Answer,” “Clown from New York – Don’t Answer,” and for the worst offender, “DON’T &$^%@*&@!* ANSWER!”

I asked myself the other day if perhaps I have a similar caller ID in a prospect’s or client’s phone. I’m hoping I don’t (and if I do and you’re reading this, I’m sorry I was so pesky at some point and hope you’ll take my call next time). I’d like to think I’ve found a way to sell without selling which leads people to want to pick up and take my calls. Before you stop reading and say “I’m not a salesperson” – keep reading. We’re always selling. Whether you’re out searching for a job (selling yourself), looking to hire someone (selling the role and your company), or convince people to adopt a recommendation (selling ideas), you’re always selling something and the following guidance can help you be more successful in those efforts.

So here’s the trick to sell without selling: stop selling.

Huh?

When you’re selling, you’re pushing a product (product, service, yourself, the role, etc.). When you’re pushing, you aren’t listening for the needs of the buyer. If you’re not meeting their needs with what you’re selling, they’re not going to buy. Period. Or if they do buy, they’ll do so grudgingly and will only work with you that one time. There’s a better way to sell that will get you better results.

Problems Don’t Get Better With Age

June 12, 2013/0 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Maynard Webb, author of Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Here’s Maynard…

In business, as in life, one thing is always certain—you will run into problems. But contrary to popular belief, problems are not bad things. In fact, I think they can be good things—if you look out for them and work to fix them fast.

People fear problems and as a result, they love to ignore them. The irony: that’s really what fuels them. If you can find problems early, you often can solve them when it takes a relatively minor act to fix (and you can get to an exponentially better place fairly quickly). The worst time to solve a problem is when it becomes a major issue and either spins out of control or results in public embarrassment. Think about Netflix going down on Christmas Eve due to AWS issues. I am sure that no one at Netflix was expecting to do damage control on Christmas Eve. It should not have gotten to that point.

The best way to solve any kind of problem is to build into the corporate culture a practice and process that will help to seek out issues early and take care of them. Andy Grove wrote about this in his epic book, Only The Paranoid Survive. Often there is expertise to solve an issue or concern within the company, but people don’t feel empowered (or sanctioned) to do it. Teams need to acknowledge their biggest issues, understand what can be done to fix them, then know it is not optional to let the current situation continue.

When I arrived at eBay people had convinced themselves that availability and scalability issues were okay as what we were doing was “hard” and hadn’t been done before. That’s not acceptable. Problems need to be solved, not supported.

So what’s the process and path to fixing problems early? Read more

Grow Your Business by Not Charging for Your Services

June 3, 2013/10 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Sales, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Want to grow your business? Give it away.

I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Great tunes especially at 3AM on a Friday night. They’ve also got an incredibly relevant message for how you can grow your business: Give it away, give it away, give it away now! (I’ll spare you the repeats).

No. I haven’t fallen and hit my head again. I routinely give away our stuff. Our services. Our content (ummm… yeah, you’re reading a FREE blog full of our intellectual property and the only price I ask is comments and telling your friends – you are telling your friends, right?). But I give it away deliberately and with purpose.

Have you ever been in that “free seminar” that was nothing more than a disguised sales pitch? Infuriating, huh? Did you buy the speaker’s stuff? Didn’t it grate on you when they’d say “so those are the first two steps in our secret ten step process. Buy the other eight steps for just $999.99!”

Those folks aren’t successful long term. They need to learn how to give it away. So do you. Allow me to explain. Read more

3 Ways Leaders Undermine Team Accountability

May 22, 2013/3 Comments/in Books, Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s post is by Roger Schwarz, author of Smart Leaders, Smarter Teams: How You and Your Team Get Unstuck to Get Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Here’s Roger…

Do you see accountability problems in your team? Do your team members need to be more accountable? If so, you may be contributing to the problem.

Here are three leadership behaviors that undermine team accountability. Recognize yourself? If so, there are specific things you can do differently to help the team you lead be more accountable.

You don’t require team members to share their own information.

Eric, one of your direct reports, comes into your office and says, “Janice is driving the project costs through the roof. She keeps changing the standards and it’s delaying implementation.” You and Eric briefly discuss the situation and you say “I’ll handle it.”

How you undermine accountability: The moment you agree to talk to Janice, you’ve shifted accountability from Eric – where it belongs – to you.

How to generate greater accountability: Keep the accountability where it belongs: Start by asking, “Have you talked directly with Janice about it?” If Eric hasn’t, get curious. Ask, “What’s prevented you from doing that?” If Eric doesn’t know how to raise the issue with Janice or has had little success, you can be part of the conversation with them. But if you agree to serve as intermediary, you send the message that team members are accountable to you but not to each other.

You don’t raise and resolve team issues in the team.

Read more