Coach John G. Agno is your own cultural attache; keeping you abreast of what's effective in leadership. People learn better and are positively motivated when supported by regular coaching.
PERSONAL COACHING Leadership onboarding coaching helps the executive adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with their team and develop productive ways to achieve necessary goals.
SELF ASSESSMENT CENTER Leadership skills and style testing. Know how you motivate and coach people to gain success at work and in life.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP? Leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.
LEADERSHIP TIPS “The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)
That is a problem not only for the companies that are experiencing increased skill gaps, but also for the employees themselves.
Nearly half of all companies surveyed (46%) report that skill gaps among their employees cause negative business outcomes. Skill gaps (and the frustration they create) are also found to be one of the main causes of declining employee engagement, which is the top issue facing 87% of HR executives and business leaders.
Play is an immersive process that allows us to ask: "What if?" to break free of the strictures that limit creativity and satisfaction. A look at play: what is it really and how it can be used to change thinking and become transformative.
Byrne examines a way to use the processes that come naturally to us as children, but have been trained out of us, labeled as inappropriate, or otherwise diminished as adults.
The same elements that make a good game also provide the strategic framework for competing in today's marketplace. Games, like business, require a fundamental concept, clear objectives, and a set of rules.
Good games also have three other things in common that are essential to their success: They have clear objectives, are easy to learn, and are different depending on who is playing them. Whether you're communicating internally or marketing, it's important to know who you're talking to as well as you can.
When a new game emerges--which is really what the online world is--this is when the principles of play matter the most.
Companies are using the Internet effectively to re-examine their business in light of this new information. They are creating new models, for instance, for research and interpreting data. They are monitoring interactions with their consumers and responding to comments online, and they are engaged in a process of re-invention that is the essence of play. They are looking for or, in some cases, creating the new rules to accommodate the new game, and at the same time leveraging and preserving that which has worked in the past.
Few organizations truly understand employee engagement or have failed to see improvement in employee engagement in their company. Other organizations have increased engagement but find their employees are drained and depleted. Why is that?
What's the brain science? Our brain does not allot us the resources to do something until we believe we can do it.
Where does this show up at work? Engagement initiatives don't stall because people don't care or because people aren't good. They stall because people are low on self-efficacy: they lack the agency to move things forward.
Why does this matter? You want energized employees and you want that energy to be sustainable. But your employees and managers face obstacles, setbacks, moving targets, and roadblocks on a daily basis. When they lack agency, these challenges seem insurmountable. Low agency dries up courage, stymies ingenuity, paralyzes risk-taking, short-circuits execution and shuts down innovation.
"I am not a neuroscientist. I am an energy architect," adds Wilson. "For more than two decades, I've grappled with and found ways to address the issues that short-circuit employee engagement. My purpose in Beyond Engagementis not to enlighten you with scientific facts, but rather, equip you with an understanding of the amazing results of managing energy."
" Time is what we want most but what we use worst." William Penn
Multitasking has become a significant part of life these days. We scan the Internet while talking on the phone, then get interrupted by call waiting. We schedule appointments when caught in traffic and text friends while standing in line at the bank. The myth that multitasking works has never been stronger.
Earl Miller, a neuroscientist tells us that, "The brain is very good at deluding itself and for the most part, we simply can't focus effectively on more than one thing at the same time. Those things are nearly impossible to do simultaneously. Both involve communicating via speech or the written word, and so there is a lot of conflict between the two of them."
In a Stanford study, researcher Clifford Nass and his team were shocked to find out that high multitaskers actually did worse than the low multitaskers in all three basic aspects of successful multitasking:
The ability to focus on the relevant and ignore the irrelevant.
The ability to keep information organized in the brain.
The ability to switch from one task to another.
For Nass, "Multitasking is a problem and people should not be deluded into thinking that it works. It hurts productivity and it may also be hurting your thinking process, as well.
Like everything else, new mobile technology tools have a downside. It is up to us to use them wisely in serving ourselves and our employers well.
Stay focused. Managing two mental tasks at once reduces the brainpoweravailable for either task, according to a study published in the journal NeuroImage. Up to 30% of U.S. automobile crashes are caused by driver distractions that include mobile communication devices.
Perpetuating the Multitasking Myth. Understand that you can choose to do several things at the same time but know that you are kidding yourself if you think you can do them without cost. Pay very careful attention to how tasks are divided into various subparts.
Perils of Multitasking. If you are engaged in very routine tasks that don't conflict much with each other in terms of their required inputs, outputs and mental processes, then you may be okay. But when multitasking gets tougher, you are better off to concentrate on just one task at a time.
Self-Coaching books to help you and your employees better manage time:
By Guest Author John Oechsle, CEO/President of Swiftpage
As a small business owner, you have a lot on your plate. There’s a lot on your mind and the minds of your employees, too. Some days, it feels like nine a.m. becomes five p.m. in a heartbeat. At times like this, you spend most of your time just trying to keep the ship afloat.
Professional success is largely a mental game, after all. If you believe you are getting things done and doing good work—then you will probably get things done and do good work!
The following are steps you can take to ensure that your team is put in the best possible position to effectively manage their time.
Provide them with tools to manage their time
A great way to help your employees organize their time and increase efficiency is by providing them with a tool to do so. The digital age has created various software solutions capable of managing everything from employee calendars to contacts and customers.
With the right system, employees can plug important data into their daily and monthly schedules—like meetings and engagement reminders. Once an employee finishes a sale or solves an issue, they can record the data from the interaction so that it is easily accessible the next time they need it.
Make sure there is clear communication
Effective communication plays a critical role in managing the time of employees at any small business. If employees are able to seamlessly share and communicate vital organizational and customer information, they will have a clearer understanding of the big picture in any given situation.
Maintain an updated database of shared customer information, hold weekly team meetings, and set the tone by communicating directly with each member of your team on a regular basis. Do whatever it takes to ensure there is an excellent stream of communication within your organization because a little extra effort now can save a lot of time in the long run.
Manage employee time with customers
Another way to help your employees manage their time is by keeping track of their customer service experiences. Your employees are the faces and voices of your business, and you work hard to provide a pleasant experience for your customers.
You want each experience to be beneficial and productive for your team and your patrons. Have a process in place so that your staff knows how to route different problems in order to expedite service. The most efficient way to boost your customer experience is to decrease wait time. When one employee can’t solve an issue, they should have the necessary tools and information to transfer their client to the person most capable of meeting their needs promptly.
Cross-train and delegate responsibilities
Small businesses are better positioned to grow lean if they emphasize the importance of cross-training employees and delegating responsibilities effectively. Employees who are trained to serve multiple functions for the company can be moved around based on current needs as the business grows. Cross-training and properly delegating your workforce to help out where they are most needed is a great way to manage the time of the most important asset a small business has—it’s employees.
Successfully managing your time and the time of your employees will boost efficiency and create new growth potential for your business. Your employees will be able to increase productivity and customer satisfaction by dealing with issues quickly. Be the leader that encourages your team’s success through effective time management solutions.
H. John Oechsle joined Swiftpage in July 2012 and currently serves as president and chief executive officer.
Self-Coaching books to help you and your employees better manage time:
The way we think is conditioned by our life experiences.
If we've spent our life in a classroom, we tend to think as a student or teacher. If we've spent our work life as an employee, we tend to think as an employee.
Many new entrepreneurs talk-the-talk of the entrepreneur — but their thinking is still grounded in their life as an employee. This can be deadly to their goals and aspirations.
Most employees don't think about where the money comes from to pay their weekly wages and benefits. Or how the cash must flow to meet next month's payroll. Or what accounts are becoming payable, or when tax deposits, rent, and loan payments are due. Or where the money will come from to allow the company to deliver a large order just received from its largest customer.
It's difficult for an employee to learn to think "outside the box" — whereas the entrepreneur thinks only outside the box, because the box is the venture, and the entrepreneur needs to keep the box firm, clean, full and together.
New entrepreneurs must learn to continually question their assumptions. The decisions that are most likely to come back and bite them — perhaps put them out of business — are typically NOT the consequence of bad judgment or faulty reasoning — but the consequence of applying perfectly sound judgment to wrong assumptions.
The following are a few all-too-common "wrong assumptions."
Everyone will love my product/service as much as I do.
They will NOT! Period. They will not see ANY of the advantages and benefits you see — until you make them stop and recognize and think about them — each and every one. That's called selling — and that requires a great deal of time and energy, and more than a little money — if only to keep food on the table during that time — which you can safely figure is going to be 10 times longer than your most conservative estimate.
A good product/service will sell itself. ...or... If I build it, they will come and buy it.
Don't let these assumptions trick you into spending most of your resources in "getting ready". At least as much — and probably more — will be required after you are ready. Get that "reality check" early. Get out and talk to customers — not friends, neighbors, or even end users, but the people that you're going to be selling to — distributors, retailers, purchasing agents, etc. — before you spend ANY resource — and then keep talking to them — through development, through test, through manufacture, through delivery — and after.
In this business, I must purchase (build, own, have, rent, show, etc.) _______________.
Not if you can't afford them! And affordability isn't limited to just not having the money. If such acquisitions would seriously reduce your margin for errors, if they would decimate your life savings, or expose you to impossible debt, or put you into business with investors you neither know nor understand — you'd better stop and think hard about whether they really are "affordable". If you decide they're not affordable, that doesn't mean you have to give up. It just means you have to look for "better ways" — ways to do what you want to do with what you CAN afford. And in the process, you just may discover that the new ways you find — albeit through necessity — result in better value — including quality, service and/or price — to your customers.
My competitors have ______________; therefore I must also.
Your customers are looking to buy the best VALUE — from either you or your competitors. If you simply copy your competitors, where's your edge — where's your added value? Going in, your competitors have all the advantages. They're better established. They have more capital, more resources, more contacts, more knowledge... You need an edge. And you find that edge by looking for things they're doing — preferably things that cost them considerable capital or operational resources — that you can "invent" ways of doing as well or better for less.
My customers expect me to have ___________________.
Your customers expect you to own a factory? To have an expensive office? To entertain them lavishly? Don't believe it! Excellence in delivery — in quality, service, and price — will overcome these "handicaps" every time. Yes, you may have to sell a little harder without the expected trappings to buttress your selling, but it's not impossible, nor even particularly difficult — and it beats either of the alternatives of doing nothing or going broke.
My business plan is so good, it just can't fail.
Danger! Great business plans fail every day. Things never happen the way they're planned. Sales will not grow as quickly as you project, costs will be significantly higher, times will be significantly longer... Think of your business plan as a compass — not as a road map. Let it point the way — but don't let it blind you to the "unexpected". Your success — or failure — will largely be determined by how well you see and handle the unexpected.
It's important that I not make mistakes.
Wrong! It's important that you not persist in mistakes — that you recognize your mistakes early and "correct" them (i.e., try a different approach) before they get out of hand and become costly mistakes. You're going to make mistakes. In fact, you want to make mistakes. You learn from your mistakes — not from your successes. If you're not making mistakes, you're suffering "opportunity loss" — which can be just as detrimental to your business as any operational loss.
These are just a few examples of assumptions that can — and have — derailed otherwise viable businesses. Every decision we make is based on assumptions — most of which we're not even aware of until we stop and think them through. The way to minimize bad business decisions is to minimize bad business assumptions. And the best way to minimize bad assumptions is to stay constantly aware of how susceptible we all are to them.
This is CEO Shigetaka Komari's own story of why Fujifilm succeeded where Eastman Kodak failed with hard-won lessons for managers and employees everywhere.
Eastman Kodak was head and shoulders above all the others in the manufacture of photographic film when Fujifilm wasn't in 1963. The difference was not just in sales. Kodak's technology was also far ahead of Fujifilm's. It was true as well of brand recognition and financials. The gap between these two rivals was simply enormous.
After I left Kodak, as a marketing specialist, to take a new leadership position in another industry in 1973, Fujifilm's technology was catching up with Kodak's and by the 1980s Fujifilm had technically surpassed Kodak in nearly all varieties of film. From the 1980s into the 1990s, a persistent struggle with Kodak was waged for world market share....just as worldwide film sales almost immediately began to fall.
It was the beginning of an unprecedented challenge.
In 2000, Shigetaka Komori, author of Innovating Out of Crisis, became president of Fujifilm and said, "The whole of Fujifilm was depending on my managerial skills to make it happen. I was gripped by a strong sense of mission. 'Maybe I was brought into this world to overcome this crisis,' I thought at the time. The hair stood up on the back of my neck."
At the turn of the century, photographic film products made up 60% of Fujifilm's sales and up to 70% of its profit. In 2001, the global demand for color film suddenly plunged. The speed and impact of its descent exceeded everyone's expectations. The photographic film market shrank at the rate of twenty to thirty percent a year.
What happened? What did Fujifilm do? What do businesses today need from their leaders?
Reading "Innovating Out of Crisis" will give you a history lesson on how to engineer transformative organizational innovation and product diversification.
"Middle managers are arguably the lifeblood of any organization, and the butt of many jokes," says Dessau. "There is barely any information available on how to do a good job as a middle manager, how to rise in the middle ranks, and how to handle the day-to-day challenges that make up most middle managers' jobs."
With short and thoughtful insight to helping leaders make better career-impacting decisions and how to succeed in middle management, Dessau appropriately states we are accountable for our own success and recognition. That is why, in 21st Century Executive, he provides readers with tools to inspect their performance, expectations, and fears.
As a leader, how do you free yourself from self-limiting culture and conditioning in exchange for mindfulness, and then beyond mindfulness to higher states of consciousness? How does a visionary create win-win?
We are all hardwired into our DNA with the ability to lead. This doesn't just mean leading in the workplace, but in all facets of life.
Horner reveals that, through this paradigm, there is never a moment when you are not living your life's purpose. If you're already an established leader within the traditional leadership framework, your understanding of what leadership is and does just might flip on its head!
"There is no one exactly like you in the entire Universe," Horner adds. "No one has your unique talent, gifts, and point of view. You are just as vital to the progress of the human race as is any important historical figure you can think of. You were born to lead."
The larger an organization gets, the less likely it is that bad news will travel smoothly up the chain.
The mantra at big corporations is "go along to get along." Stopping work on products vital to the bottom line is often incompatible with pleasing the boss. Engaging in straight talk with those who lead Corporate America is a rare occurrence.
C-level executives tend to be isolated from their corporate stakeholders because most of the information they receive is filtered by subordinates, suppliers, and consultants. "CEO Disease" is a term used to describe the isolation that envelops a leader when subordinates become reluctant to disclose bad news or worst-case scenarios that might trigger a shoot-the-messenger response.
However, that is beginning to change as c-level executives seek a cure for "CEO Disease" by participating in interactive conversations through their personal blogs.
Blogs are personal. They humanize the Web and keep CEOs in touch with what’s going on out in the world.
As a young entrepreneur just starting out, you may have a great product you wish to retail, or a service you wish to provide. Renting a nice office suite, or a retail unit in a busy shopping mall, will help establish a local presence very quickly. Unfortunately, you also have the expense of rent and rate payments, power costs, and staff wages.
Starting online can provide you with an immediate world-wide customer base with the minimum of outlay. Many online businesses start off in the owner’s front room, with stock stored in garage, shed, or the bedroom.
Online businesses tend to fall into one of two categories, selling products or services to the general public, or providing technical assistance to other online businesses.
Online Retailer
As an online retailer, your prime consideration is having a website for potential customers to visit, pick their products, pay for them, and get them delivered. To this end, unless you are very web-savvy, contracting the services of a good website builder is the first thing required.
The website needs building, plug-ins added for shopping carts and email contact, search engine optimization (SEO) needs to be formulated, along with content marketing, and social media exposure, and all need updating on a regular basis. While you’re busy dealing with customer purchases, getting them delivered, and sorting out customer queries; your retained website management team will deal with keeping your site at the top of the search engine pages. Staff requirements in the early days, should be minimal.
Online Services to Businesses
As a business offering web building services to other online businesses, the situation could be somewhat different. Unless you are capable of providing all website services yourself, then employing specialists in the different areas is a must. Programmers, SEO specialists, content marketers and blog post and article writers, are all required to work as a unit if problems with sites you manage are to be avoided.
As your business grows, then greater numbers of staff will be required. Whether they are delivery drivers, packagers, extra personnel to deal with emails, or greater numbers of software engineers, they all become part of the team. Keeping them focused, happy to work, and feeling they are part of the business, is your job.
In this digital age, bosses are becoming younger. The old style boss, sitting in his office all day, issuing orders and checking the accounts, is becoming a thing of the past.
Nowadays it’s all about interaction between management and staff. Arrange to have brainstorming sessions. Discuss the way forward, what’s not working, and how to put it right. Organize team building exercises such as paint-balling. Take your staff on adventure days, where for instance, working as a team they have to build a bridge over a chasm against the clock.
While all must accept the boss is the boss, working with your staff, making them feel they are an integral part of your growing business, is the best way to ensure maximum productivity, from a happy and contented workforce.
