Care

If YOU really CARE about your customers you will succeed.

No matter what business you are in or what you do for a living - if you truly care about your customer it will show through and that will be how you succeed and that is where you feel a sense of accomplishments.

If you are like me I know the difference from someone who is just putting on a face or trying to act all sweet and syrupy and someone who really cares about his product.

I have little patience for those that seem to not even have the time to look me in the eyes and talk to me not at me or if I am on the phone I can tell in minutes if I am speaking to a robot type person or someone who is actually listening to me.
Especially if I am paying for a service or a product.

Do me the common courtesy to at least act like you care.

In our business we have people moving all their belongings, their memories. And they pay good money to move, they deserve our attention and our drivers provide that.
I have seen them in action and I am so proud to witness it first hand.

It's the little things as well as the big things that they appreciate and remember.

A professional shows them within minutes- I gotcha here - you are in good hands.

It is not a huge secret or very hard to succeed... JUST CARE.

10 Things Leaders Should Never Do

What causes executives and business leaders with great potential to self-destruct? Their own behavior.

 

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If you ask 10 CEOs, board directors, and VCs about the most preventable causes of failure for executives and business leaders, you'll probably get 10 different answers. Most will focus on lack of skills, capabilities, or experience.
In reality, the answer has nothing to do with abilities or experience. It's all about behavior.
Now, I'm not talking about the kind of failure we all experience over the course of our careers. In competitive markets, failure is inevitable. It comes with the territory. We gain confidence from success, but we gain wisdom from failure. It's a good thing.
I'm talking about failure that's preventable, that never had to happen, that's intrinsic to the individual, not a result of outside forces.
These are behaviors that executives and business leaders should always avoid. They don't just diminish your leadership ability, your presence, your credibility, your reputation. They will come back to haunt you and, ultimately, be your undoing.
Kowtow to the status quo. Granted, there are examples where the status quo works fine. If you're in the candy bar business and you've got a successful brand like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, you're probably good for a few decades. If not, inertia is your enemy. If you find yourself saying, "That's how we do it here," you're in trouble.
Whine. Few behaviors are less leader-like than whining, making excuses, pointing fingers, or playing the blame game. It shows a serious lack of maturity, self-confidence, respect, and accountability. And it's a very bad sign.
Deceive. The more comfortable you are being genuine, speaking your mind, and being straight with people, the better. Strive to be the best version of you, not someone or something you're not. Deceit is a slippery slope, and once you start down that path, sooner or later, it will come back to bite you.
Act like a dictator. I don't care how high up the ladder you are, you are not the boss. We all serve others. CEOs are appointed by their boards. Business owners have customers. The minute you start behaving like some sort of supreme leader, you can kiss your success goodbye.
Make empty threats. Confident, competent, mature leaders never make empty threats. It's tantamount to a child throwing a tempter tantrum. It destroys your credibility. Be decisive. Do what you say your going to do or don't say it in the first place.
Crave power. I'm always surprised when people who should know better talk about power like it's something to strive for. It's not. It's healthy to seek achievement and wealth. That's how we measure success. It's also how we grow companies and take care of our families. Power is for politicians and bureaucrats. In the business world, if you crave power, it will end badly.
Ignore the truth. There will always be weak-minded yes-men who sugar-coat the truth and tell you what you want to hear. But if you hire and listen to them, that's the same as looking in the mirror and seeing what you want to see. It's living in denial. And it's one of the most common causes of leadership failure.
Make commitments you don't intend to keep. Executives and business leaders who say what they mean and mean what they say usually have a bright future. And while some may achieve some measure of success by blowing smoke up people's you-know-what's, in my experience, it never lasts.
Be grandiose. I've seen and known lots of CEOs with grand visions for their companies that were not supported by anything remotely credible or logical and had no chance of succeeding. Their egos are so overinflated they think their magnificence alone can make it happen. Funny thing is, it never does.
Do what you know is wrong. Whether it's sacrificing principles for greed, cutting corners, or failing to do the right thing out of fear of repercussions, as with deceit, it's a slippery sloop. You might get away with it once or twice, but it will catch up with you. John Lennon called it "Instant Karma." I've seen it in action. It's real; believe me.

More on Emotions from our Road Warrior-

EMOTIONS,and Sensitivity to what we may think is derogatory comments,can be a major problem when dealing with issues.......I just ran into this,it seams someone I hold DEAR,read into a comment I made(was referring to me,20 years ago)and thought I was talking about him....We all need to develop some sort of scar tissue,not let anything get under our skin...UNTIL,we figure out what,when,where and how.....At that point,WORK IT OUT....Communicate,Negotiate,FIGGURE IT OUT.....There's too many problems in our industry to let EVERYTHING bother you...Slough it off and try to find ANYWAY,to make it work...IT'S WHAT WE DO!

Emotions

When you are stressed and over worked emotions can ride high.
I get that, and I understand it.
I certainly have been there.
From what I see and what I have experienced when we do not address a issue or something that bothers us it just festers and grows and that is where the real damage is done.

This week I had several instances where people either blew up and got very angry or were very hurt and ready to quit and in all cases I think it was because they just did not talk things out or they had past feelings with a person and never confronted them.

Like I said I can see it more plainly because I try to look at all sides, and because I have been there myself I can see it better too.

The shame of it is I see all good hard working people that make life more stressful for them selves because they choose to ignore a problem rather than address it calmly and head on.
Sure, I know that sounds so simple and it is not always that easy.
You need to stop and get control of heart rate and be willing to hear out the other person and maybe even concede a point or two but what is the other choice?
Ignore it?
Let it fester?
Talk about that person or the incident with others and just get more angry?

Choose the time that is right and if at all possible try to arrange a face to face if not pick up the phone. Email should be your last resort, it is not the right venue to air your concerns.

Try to remember that in the grand scheme of things these are hard working middle class workers like yourself that just want to go to work and make a living so they can pay the bills and go home to their family.
By biting at each others ankles and stressing each other out we do not help anyone.

If you address it early and head on you may be able to find neutral ground and begin a bridge. Try looking at their side, at their life and where they are and what they might be going through.
Trust me, we ALL have our cross to bear.

What have you got to lose except YOUR burden or YOUR stress.

Talk..we are all in this circus called life together and we are all just visiting.

Emotions can get the best of you or they can help carry you.
Like everything else in life the choice is yours.

10 Things Leadres Must Learn to Do

10 Things Leaders Must Learn to Do

You can get away with a lot and still make it in this world, but there are some corners you simply can't cut.

 

 

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Business leaders don't exist in a vacuum. Success is always relative to the competition. You may have a great product, service, concept, strategy, team, whatever, but if it doesn't rise above your competitors in a way that's meaningful to your customers, you will ultimately lose.
That's rule number one in business: There are no absolutes; everything is relative to the competition.
You can get away with a lot and still make it in this world, but if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, executive, or business leader, there are certain things you simply must learn to do.
The first is to stay on top of the competition. Here are nine more. Try to cut corners if you like, but I'm telling you, it won't work.
Learn from experience. Experience is the best teacher, hands down. Not just your own experience, but insights others share from theirs, as well. Former Intel chief Andy Grove was a mentor to Steve Jobs. Jobs, in turn, advised Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Experience is like an enormous cascading waterfall, an endless source of wisdom and knowledge.
Prioritize and delegate. According to VC Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, a CEO should focus on doing just three things and delegate the rest: "Set and communicate the overall vision and strategy of the company; recruit, hire and retain the best talent; and make sure there's always enough cash in the bank." Your three things will differ, but still, the fewer things you focus on, the better your chances of getting them done.
Act on smart decisions. This may sound simple, but strangely, it's where even successful leaders are most likely to fall down. They get lazy, take shortcuts, listen to yes-men, fall for BS, overreact to a single data-point, or fail to act at all. It's the single most preventable cause of leadership failure.
Engage key stakeholders. A CEO's key stakeholders are customers, employees, and investors. Yours are probably different. No matter. You must engage them on a regular basis. Tell them what they need to know and give it to them straight. Ask leading questions and really listen to what they say. Motivate them. Yes, I know it isn't easy to do all that, but that's what it takes to be the boss.
Promote the winners and fire the losers. Every organization has employees you can't afford to lose and those you can't afford to keep. Learn to identify them. Promote and motivate the former and get rid of the latter. It's called weeding and feeding. The result is a beautiful organization.
Pay attention to the numbers. If your customers love your products and services, your employees are effective and engaged, and you're doing a good job running the business, it will show up in the numbers. Income statements and balance sheets provide key metrics on the health of your business, especially year-to-year comparisons.
Troubleshoot tough problems. Business life is full of really tough problems and difficult tradeoffs. There are product issues, technical issues, organizational issues, customer issues, the list goes on and on. You don't have to be Socrates, but it helps if you're a critical thinker who gets deductive reasoning.
Never give up; never surrender. Courage in the face of adversity, perseverance, stick-with-it-ness, these are qualities that every great leader I've ever known had. They never quit. Granted, there are times when they probably should have and didn't, but on balance, they still came out ahead.
Negotiate effectively. I've heard loads of people say they hate to negotiate, but I've never heard a CEO say it. It's one of the most fundamental aspects of business. Think of it as a challenging game of strategy. Personally, I find it to be surprisingly invigorating and fulfilling.

TOP 9 TRAVEL TIPS

My top 9 travel tips

July 3, 2012 by Paulo Coelho

 

I realized very early on that, for me, travelling was the best way of learning. I still have a pilgrim soul, and I thought that I would use this blog to pass on some of the lessons I have learned, in the hope that they might prove useful to other pilgrims like me.
1. Avoid museums. This might seem to be absurd advice, but let’s just think about it a little: if you are in a foreign city, isn’t it far more interesting to go in search of the present than of the past? It’s just that people feel obliged to go to museums because they learned as children that travelling was about seeking out that kind of culture. Obviously museums are important, but they require time and objectivity – you need to know what you want to see there, otherwise you will leave with a sense of having seen a few really fundamental things, except that you can’t remember what they were.
2. Hang out in bars. Bars are the places where life in the city reveals itself, not in museums. By bars I don’t mean nightclubs, but the places where ordinary people go, have a drink, ponder the weather, and are always ready for a chat. Buy a newspaper and enjoy the ebb and flow of people. If someone strikes up a conversation, however silly, join in: you cannot judge the beauty of a particular path just by looking at the gate.
3. Be open. The best tour guide is someone who lives in the place, knows everything about it, is proud of his or her city, but does not work for any agency. Go out into the street, choose the person you want to talk to, and ask them something (Where is the cathedral? Where is the post office?). If nothing comes of it, try someone else – I guarantee that at the end of the day you will have found yourself an excellent companion.
4. Try to travel alone or – if you are married – with your spouse. It will be harder work, no one will be there taking care of you, but only in this way can you truly leave your own country behind. Traveling with a group is a way of being in a foreign country while speaking your mother tongue, doing whatever the leader of the flock tells you to do, and taking more interest in group gossip than in the place you are visiting.
5. Don’t compare. Don’t compare anything – prices, standards of hygiene, quality of life, means of transport, nothing! You are not traveling in order to prove that you have a better life than other people – your aim is to find out how other people live, what they can teach you, how they deal with reality and with the extraordinary.
6. Understand that everyone understands you. Even if you don’t speak the language, don’t be afraid: I’ve been in lots of places where I could not communicate with words at all, and I always found support, guidance, useful advice, and even girlfriends. Some people think that if they travel alone, they will set off down the street and be lost for ever. Just make sure you have the hotel card in your pocket and – if the worst comes to the worst – flag down a taxi and show the card to the driver.
7. Don’t buy too much. Spend your money on things you won’t need to carry: tickets to a good play, restaurants, trips. Nowadays, with the global economy and the Internet, you can buy anything you want without having to pay excess baggage.
8. Don’t try to see the world in a month. It is far better to stay in a city for four or five days than to visit five cities in a week. A city is like a capricious woman: she takes time to be seduced and to reveal herself completely.
9. A journey is an adventure. Henry Miller used to say that it is far more important to discover a church that no one else has ever heard of than to go to Rome and feel obliged to visit the Sistine Chapel with two hundred thousand other tourists bellowing in your ear. By all means go to the Sistine Chapel, but wander the streets too, explore alleyways, experience the freedom of looking for something – quite what you don’t know – but which, if you find it, will – you can be sure – change your life.

Stand for something

If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.

Stand for something good, do not allow others to pull you down. Be better than that.

You will be tested daily and things will go wrong and your patience will be tried. But know that and be ready for it. Do not allow them to win.

Kill em with kindness.

It is easier to deal with the negative when you know that you are doing the right thing and that you stand for honesty and for hard work and for helping others... no matter what.

Stand up.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwdOUW2abqI

More on what you do not really believe on leadership

#2 – Leaders Pick Themselves.

Okay, leadership starts with picking yourself, but as the ancient proverb says, “A leader without followers is only taking walk.” You have to be picked by others. Online influence is measured by tweets and retweets, shares, clicks and visits. In the real world it’s the bottom line, positive momentum, and popular opinion. However you measure it, for leaders to lead followers must choose the leader they follow. Don’t wait to be picked, but don’t expect picking yourself will be enough. It’s a start. Everything else about leadership is the challenging and worthy goal of persuading others to support your movement, methods and mission. But don’t stop there. Building supporters, finding followers is not enough. The best leaders create other leaders. In other words, become the person someone else can someday point to and say, “They picked me.”

#1 – Leaders Can Change the World

The world is a big place. History is even bigger. The outliers whose stories we tell today will likely be forgotten in less than a generation. The company you build right now will soon be sold or under new management. That cutting edge app you’re about to release on multiple platforms will one-day be as useful as my 8-track of K.C. and the Sunshine Band. Only a narrow few will start the kind of movement that survives cultures, countries and countless ages. As a leader, you will not change the world. But you can change something. You can change someone. You can change you. You can influence those around you. Successful leadership isn’t about scale. It’s about moving from where you are to where you should be and helping others do the same.

More on Leadership

Five Things You Really Don't Believe About Leadership

#4 – Character-Based Leadership is Leading from WHO You Are

Leadership isn’t about position. It’s about leading from who you are. This is a noble idea, even the right idea. But most people don’t really believe it. There’s too much risk in letting someone lead from who they are. Evil people lead from who they are. Dictators and tyrants lead from who they are. That doesn’t make them character-based leaders. More than this, there is a gravity to the positions we hold and the titles we have. People submit naturally to a uniform. In our culture, growing influence leads naturally to growing position and title. Leading from who you are is the starting place of character-based leadership. What comes next is the challenging and noble work of forging who you are into a leader worth following.

#3 – Great Leaders Have Grand Vision

Hindsight makes for great stories of grand vision. But if we take an honest look at many leadership success stories what we discover isn’t grand vision. We see wisdom meet opportunity driven by necessity. Walt Disney didn’t start by dreaming about the Magic Kingdom. Almost bankrupt, he sketched Mortimer Mouse during a train ride home. His wife suggested the name be changed to Mickey. His brother found the money to make a cartoon. Ub Iwerks redesigned Walt’s original sketch into the iconic mouse we know and love. The magic came later. Necessity drove the Disney’s into an opportunity they had the wisdom to shape into the media powerhouse we know today. Vision is important. It is the clear mental picture of what could be fueled by the conviction that it should be. But don’t let a grand vision become the apocryphal mountain that gets in the way of a good idea.

Top Two Tomorrow..

Five Things You Don't Really Believe About Leadership

5 Things You Don’t Really Believe About Leadership

     

I have a friend who often says, “The things we do are what we really believe. Everything else is just talk.”
You would think with all our talk about leadership there would be few ideas left to explore. But the truth is, no matter how many posts you write, books you read, or conferences you attend there will always be a separation between what you say you believe and those actions you take to support those beliefs. That’s why we keep reading, keep writing, and keep searching. We need to be reminded. We look for inspiration.
With that in mind. Here are 5 things you say you believe about leadership but haven’t yet found a way to put into practice.

#5 – Everyone is a Leader

No they’re not. Everyone has leadership potential. But not everyone will lead. Everyone has influence that will move others, but it won’t always be used with intention or for positive effect. That’s not leadership. That’s cause and effect. Potential is not enough. Not everyone wants to lead. Some dread the responsibility. Some would rather surrender their freedom to the hands of others. Genuine leaders start by taking responsibility for themselves and won’t stop until they’ve inspired others to fulfill the potential inside of them.

More tomorrow

Power

Do not give your power away.

You can choose to allow others to influence you and even bully you, you can allow them that power. Or you can understand that your power is yours to give.

It usually happens because you fear your job or you need the money. But when you allow others to take your power you become less of who you are.

Do not confuse that with holding your ground or being stubborn or argumentative. You always are challenged to find that bridge, to try to get a long.
You can do that and not live in fear too.

Your power is yours to do what you want with.

Give and Take

The moving business will always be about relationships.

The relationships employees have with each other and with other employees and agents around the country.
Relationships with our drivers, and packers and crews.
With our account representatives and military bases.
And of course the relationships that we make with all of our customers.

At the end of the day that is how we get evaluated and we can accomplish what we do.

Sometimes and it a lot of give and take.
You help me with this and I can help you with that.
That is how it works, not only in this business but in any business and I guess really in life.

The more you give of yourself and try to help the other guy the more you will receive.
It will always come back to you ten fold....trust me.

Some days you give more than you get and other days it all falls into place.

Give and take.

Speaking of

Speaking of hard work I have not posted because that is exactly what I have been doing.
Working hard.
Crazy days in what has become a very hectic business.

It seems the biggest challenge, or one of, is that everyone not only wants to move on the same 12 weeks of the year but they all want to book this week for this week or at best this week for next week.
This makes for a huge challenge to pre plan properly for operations and drivers through out the country.

This is the challenge before us all and one that I do not see changing anytime soon.

I salute all of hard working packers, drivers, laborers, and dispatch people through out the US and all of our customer care reps. These are stressful times indeed.

As the Industry changes , we must adapt and change with it.

Change is difficult for anyone but that said if you embrace it and try your best to see it for what it is the challenge can inspire you to do things that maybe you did not even know that you were capable of.

Let's face it, that is our only choice ..adapt and work together for better solutions.

Hard work

Nothing will EVER replace hard work.

All the degrees and education in the world will never take the place of good old fashion hard work.

To get ahead and to reap the most benefits you still need to put your head down and dig in and work.
Take pride in what you do and want to do it right for the sake of self satisfaction.
In the end you have to want to do it for yourself, not for your boss or for the money or for what others think or want. YOU have to want it. You have to find where your line is and then push past it.

That is when you begin to grow and learn.
When you accomplish something that you know was difficult and that you had to apply yourself and it pushes your boundary and your patience that is when you grow and appreciate what you do.

You will mess up.
You will lose your patience.
You will look back and possibly see where you could have done better.

That is ok- that is all part of the process-

Separating the electronic umbilical cord

Vacation, vacation, vacation…. I’m going on vacation.  There’s nothing quite like sitting on a warm beach sipping a margarita…or so I’ve heard.  Instead, I’ll be in my backyard digging up the ground to make way for a new patio in what will probably be 90+ degree heat.
It sounded like a good idea a few months ago.  I’d take some time off in July to do some work around the house and in the yard.  Well, it seems that was a boneheaded move on my part to pick one of the hottest times of the year to give my backyard a facelift (I hear Death Valley reached 129 degrees earlier this week).  However, even though I’ll be doing physical labor, I plan on returning from vacation fully recharged and ready to work.  How do I plan on doing that?  It’s simple…
I’m not checking my email.
I’ve made a commitment to stay away from my inbox, no matter how addicting it is every time I see that blinking indicator light on my smartphone that a new email has arrived.
With that addiction comes the side effect of stress.  It’s stress from seeing something that’s being asked of me.  It’s not so much the work that accompanies those email communications that causes it, but rather juggling priorities with fast-approaching deadlines.  It’s the stress of wondering if I can really meet all those commitments within the time frames specified.
It’s why I’m leaving my inbox with accompanying stress at the office.  My fellow colleagues are more than capable to cover my workload while I’m gone.
It sounds so easy to do, but like I said, it’s an addiction.  Over half of workers who take vacation wind up checking their email.  I read one study that pinned a figure as high as 79% who check their inbox during vacation.  As that study pointed out, some do this so that their inbox doesn’t turn into a mountain of requests when they return from vacation.  Even I have been guilty of this for that very reason during previous vacations because I hate playing catch-up.
Some of you might think this is impossible.  Perhaps you have a unique role or skill set within your organization.  Maybe you’re the go-to for specific projects and/or tasks.  The trick to being able to “cut the cord” is to do the necessary prep work before you leave for vacation.   Work with colleagues who can be your back-ups while you’re gone.  Brief them ahead of time on what to expect and train them on any important processes.  Enable your organization to survive without you for a few weeks.
After all, that’s the point of vacation – to be disconnected from your work.  If you can never get away from it, sooner or later, you will find yourself burnt out.  Everyone needs a mental refresher every now and again.
What about you?  Do you make it a point to leave your inbox at the office on vacation, or do you have no choice but to check email?

More Ways to Find Your Own Personal Strengths

7. What makes you proud?

Think about three instances in your life when you really felt proud of the way you acted or responded. What was it about your action or response that left you feeling proud? What values did you display and why do you feel proud of the way you acted?

8. Who are your role models? What strengths do you admire in them?

Most of us have role models in our business and personal lives, and these can provide clues to our own personal strengths. Look for the strengths you admire about your particular role models, then think about whether you demonstrate any of those strengths yourself.

9. What feedback do you notice from people in day-to-day life?

This tip might sound similar to number 2, but there’s a crucial difference: Whereas the second tip involved approaching and asking people for feedback, this tip involves looking for feedback in everyday interactions. This is useful as it can provide a more accurate reflection of how other people truly perceive your strengths, rather their self-reported perception.

10. Which strengths resonate with you?

Take a look at a list of personal strengths and notice which personal strengths stand out to you. We are often drawn to the strengths that we display ourselves, so think about where each o the strengths that resonate show up in your professional and personal life.

Ways to Find Your Own Personal Strengths

4. What kind of work do you do and what makes you good at that work?

Think about what you enjoy about your work and why. If you’re struggling to find much that is enjoyable, consider what’s missing instead.

5. Take an online test

If you want a more impartial reflection of your personal strengths, try taking one of the many available online tests.

6. What leaves you feeling energised?

We’ve already looked at the activities and skills you enjoy, and now it’s time to look at what leaves you feeling energised. Another way of approaching this is to think back to times you were in what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as “flow”. When we are in “flow”, time passes quickly and we feel engrossed in the task at hand. Looking at the skills required for these tasks will give you further clues about your personal strengths.

10 Ways to Find Your Own Personal Strengths

1. Notice what you enjoy

The kinds of activities we enjoy doing are often an indicator of the skills we naturally enjoy. Take a few moments to think about the things you really love to do, and look at the underlying elements that enrich these experiences for you. Can you see any patterns or shared skills among these things?

2. Ask trusted friends and family

Sometimes it can be hard to judge our strengths with accuracy. Many of us come from cultures where it’s polite to be modest, and this can make it hard to identify our own strengths without any outside help. Ask trusted friends or family who know you well what they think your personal strengths are, and see if any of the answers surprise you.

3. What qualities do you like in yourself?

The qualities you particularly like about yourself will give you some indication of your personal strengths. For example, if you like the fact that you stick to your goals and see them through, even when the going gets tough, one of your personal strengths might be discipline or determination

More tomorrow

8 year olds

Do you ever just feel like you are surrounded at work by 8 year olds?

One of the biggest fallacies in life when you are " growing up " is that as adults people put aside the bickering and the clicks and talk to each other rather than about each other.

Wrong.

Once you realize that this is the world we live in and that people actually carry over with them all those teenage worries and fears and prejudices you can at least start to figure out how to maneuver around in it and work in it.

The major stress in our lives is because we get so frustrated that things are the way they are, that people do hold grudges .
 People do not always take people for their word and rather then talk it out it is easier for them to either push the ignore button or get angry and/or retaliate.

That said their are still many people that do care and will help.
The thing is as life gets hard it gets harder to take a breath and to SEE the other person.

It is the same no matter where you go, no matter what occupation you are in and what ever pay grade that you may be. It is the same all over and everywhere.

So - what do you do?

Be better then them...be the bigger person..the adult.

You will be better for it and eventually you may even move a few of them your way.

Play good in the sandbox people.

Walk your talk

Hold strategic conversations with people so people are clear about expectations and direction. Gerard Kleisterlee, Philips' president, is holding strategic conversations with as many groups as he can. "In order to build internal confidence, stimulate cross-boundary cooperation, and spark new-product speed to market, Kleisterlee is sponsoring what he calls ‘strategic conversations’: dialogues that center around a focused set of themes that Kleisterlee believes will define Philips' future."

Ask senior managers to police themselves. They must provide feedback to each other when they fail to walk their talk. It is not up to the second level managers and other employees to point out inconsistencies. (Confronting a manager takes courage, facts and a broad understanding of the organization.) Senior managers must be accountable to each other for their own behavior.

In 1513, Machiavelli wrote, “There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.”

Given these thoughts from Machiavelli - true for centuries – provide leadership and sponsorship through walking your talk. Incorporate these tips and behaviors to ensure the success of your organization.

Walk your talk.

More tips on walking the walk

Do what you say you're going to do. Don’t make rash promises that you can’t keep. People want to trust you and your leadership.

Build commitment to your organization’s big goal. (You do have a big, overarching goal, don’t you?) Other than to make money, why does your organization exist?

Use every possible communication tool to build commitment and support for the big goal, your organization’s values, and the culture you want to create. This includes what you discuss at meetings, in your corporate blog, on your Intranet, in social media, and so forth.

Tips on how to walk your talk

Model the behavior you want to see from others. There is nothing more powerful for employees than observing the “big bosses” do the actions or behaviors they are requesting from others. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Become the change you wish to see in the world." And, it will happen.

If you make a rule or design a process, follow it, until you decide to change it. Why would employees follow the rules if the rule makers don’t?

Act as if you are part of the team, not always the head of it. Dig in and do actual work, too. People will appreciate that you are personally knowledgeable about the effort needed to get the work done. They will trust your leadership because you have undergone their experience.

Help people achieve the goals that are important to them, as well as the goals that are important to you. Make sure there is something for each of you that will result from the effort and work.

From one of our agents on June..

Good Morning,

"Thank you" for sticking to your blogging.  I took some time this morning to catch up on my reading and what a way to reflect on the month of June.  At the end of May I remember telling myself I hope I can get through the month of June, it will be a very long month,  take it one day at a time and you will survive.  Here it is July 1 and I am saying to myself.....where did

June go?   Smiled and said...  You made it.....without the hard work, the

sacrifices and the dedication we would not be able to appreciate the accomplishment that also gives us the motivation to accept the next challenge.

"Paying it forward"  truly is what it is all about.

Have a wonderful day.

Happy 4th of July !!!

How to Handle Negative Feedback At Work

Don’t Always Assume Everyone’s Out to Get You.

 Okay, so you dropped the ball on a project. A performance review looms next week. You start to panic so much and may accidentally let your imagination get the best of you. Conspiracy theories start to set in on why you aren’t entirely to blame, that it was another co-worker’s undoing that led to your poor marks. Don’t play the blame game when sitting down in front of your boss. It’ll only cause more riffs throughout the office and will dampen the spirit behind your company culture because you’re laying down a roadmap of distrust.
If you have to discuss someone’s apparent blunder, talk to that person face-to-face and be done with it.

Take It For What It Is.

Think of all criticism as little words of encouragement instead of a calculated slight against your entire work. Put pride to the side for the time being and understand everyone in that office is working to help the business flourish, first and foremost.

 Do Something With It.

Don’t let someone’s criticism rattle around your brain for the rest of the day. Once you get back to your desk, it’s time to get motivated and make a plan right then and there to work on whatever it is you fouled up. If you received poor marks on how a project was put together, become more detailed how you map out projects and collaborate with everyone. Not being direct enough with others?
 Take a course on how to be more vocal to your team.

 No matter how big or small the issue is, just be proactive to change. -

How to Handle Negative Feedback at Work

Here are a few ways you can deal with negative feedback at work in a clean and professional manner.


 Listening Is An Art Form.

 When your idea gets deconstructed in a meeting, you start to feel the world’s going to collapse and therefore do everything in your power to put your idea front and center again. All the while, you’re not listening. I’ve been guilty of it countless times. I ignore someone’s critique and just think only about what I’m going to say. Never mind that he or she’s point may have some validity – my comment’s going to shake things up.
But it never does.

 Constructive criticism between two people needs four ears, not two. -

Scale Back Your Emotions.

 Being passionate in your work is an endearing quality in the eyes of your boss. But what isn’t so very endearing is getting overly passionate in your defense against negative feedback. If you have the “I’ll show you!” approach any time criticism surfaces, it starts to paint you in an unprofessional light.

 If you feel you have a point to make, you can still be direct about it.

Just do it in a calmer tone

More tomorrow

6 Forces Resisting Change

6 things that we tend to hang on to rather than pursue a greater life. See if any of these ring a bell with you:

Fear of the unknown - “What’s going to happen?” Do you find yourself thinking of the negative outcomes of a new venture or the positive ones? Many people can find the obstacles, few can find the path. Be a pathfinder.

Risk of loss (like power, authority, or money) – “That won’t work for me!” Often closely related to a fear of the unknown and a negative predisposition, we often take the bird in the hand rather than seeing what’s out there for us. In the end, whatever we hold can sink us or elevate us. It’s your choice.

Risk of embarrassment – “What if it doesn’t work?” Lack of confidence and fear of others’ opinion of us can be paralyzing. My plan each day is to screw up early and get it over with. The first failure each day is the hardest. From then on, I’m free to pursue the grandest and stupidest ideas I might have.

Plain old laziness – “I don’t care.” Often this results from the lack of a compelling mission. Most of us have things that we care for greatly. Your place in the world is where your greatest passion intersects with the world’s greatest need. When you get there, you won’t be lazy. Keep looking.

Passivity or Apathy – let someone else do it. Similar to laziness. Focus on the benefit. Give everything you have for the greatest possible outcome. Passivity and laziness and the status quo are so boring in comparison.

Chaos (or the unsettled state of change) – “Why mess with it?” Or “How does that help?” Often this is a desire for comfort, closely related to Laziness or Passivity. Desire for comfort is my greatest weakness. I most constantly rehearse the feeling I’ll have when my dreams are realized

The status quo is a liar. It’s never better than what can happen when committed people serve others. Don’t let the these 6 forces resist your path to a life of impact.