Feb 28 2011
Being sensitive to self is what can shape and drive needs, vision, purpose, and family. Yet, sensitivity can’t stop with self. By being sensitive to your employees’ needs and your customers’ desires you communicate to them a sense of importance and value. Through that you give them incentive to care about your needs, vision and purpose.
Who wouldn’t follow a sensitive and compassionate leader?
Feb 24 2011
Would you follow a leader who tries to be like everyone else or who celebrates his uniqueness? The same holds true with a company. Celebrate what makes you different and forget what everyone else is doing.
Feb 04 2011
Do you remember when you were just starting out in your career? How every word spoken and said got analyzed by you? Do you remember the first compliment you received like “good job” and how much it meant? Words influence greatly when it trickles down from the top.
Now remember how high you are on the totem pole. If you are on the top, you have the power to make the significant difference with the same simple words like “good job”, because now it means a lot coming from you. A kind word, a well placed compliment can do more for motivation than most other job perks. And the harm one stand-alone critical statement can make could possibly last for years.
Choose your words carefully and remember your power.
Dec 06 2010
A professional track runner goes fast and jumps over every hurdle. Each leap is a leap forward. The runner focuses on where she is going…not where she came from.
As you create your action plan to move you closer to your vision, remember, it is more important to move toward where you want to be versus being held back based on where you were.
Eyes fully ahead, now.
Nov 29 2010
In this holiday season when money is flowing into the stores and into bonuses, remember the most valuable gift you can give your employees and customers is respect and dignity.
Remember when you hand out your holiday bonus checks or your customer appreciation gifts, take the time to give it with a smile, for that smile is immeasurably valuable. A jotted handwritten note far surpasses that!
See the people behind the functions they serve in your organization. Acknowledge the person that is there before you, respecting and dignifying them in your acknowledgment.
Nov 24 2010
As I sit in a New York City taxi cab waiting for over five minutes behind an
Access-a-Ride van that transports people in wheel chairs around the city, it strikes me how the fast paced city which I love has no tolerance to go slow. It strikes me, also, that I’ve began ticking as fast as the city, tick-tock, racing the clock, with very little time just to be in the moment and breathe.
Slow and smart is better than fast and reckless. It’s those wheelchair soldiers unable to go fast who remind us that slow and steady can be a beneficial foundation to ensure we are going straight. After all, time spent breathing, is also time spent freeing our minds from the constraints of “what’s next on my things to do.”
So next time you are forced to go slow, take the slow down as a gift to reflect…and to breathe. Ah, expand your patience muscles, as well as your pulmonary ones. You’d be surprised how clear your thinking will become thereafter.
Nov 17 2010
An old fable for new applications:
Two little mice went out to play
And smelled the lure of delicious whey
In they climbed, right in the vat
Lost their balance, going splat
Looking ridiculous all covered in white
But even worse was the drowning fright.
One little mouse cried, eek I give up
and went under with a sickening glup
The other one kicked his paws and swam without cease
Turning the whey into delicious cheese.
Mr. Hershey failed numerous times starting bakeries and coming out with new chocolate recipes. He went through family money until many of his family did not want to be related to him and gave him the cold shoulder.
At the point where most would give up he kept going…and you know the rest of the story.
So in challenging times when you feel like like throwing in the towel because the numbers or day are not going your way, remember, if you persist, you might just be creating your own dream day. Keep going.
What will it be for your business dream? Giving up with a glup? Or turning a near-going-under into a chance to make the most profitable move? Your choice, by virtue of your persistence.
Nov 15 2010
There is the amazing story of one proper gentleman who went to a newstand to purchase his daily newspaper. As he interacted with the newspaper seller, the seller was incredibly rude, and for no reason whatsoever. The gentlemen maintained a cheerful attitude and, when his transaction was completed, politely told the rude seller, “thank you kindly, sir, and have a nice day.”
One observer was flabbergasted and went over to him afterward. He said, “I saw how rude that man was to you — why were you still gracious and nice to him?” Said our hero, “I am a polite gentleman. I will not let the behaviors of others dictate who I am. So though someone might be rude to me, I will still maintain my character, and that is to be gracious and giving.”
When you walk into your office, no matter how hard your night was or who is sick, you can choose to smile. When you go home after a long hard day of work, you can choose to smile and greet your family.
When your financial numbers are low for the quarter, you can still choose to thank your employees for their hard work. You are in complete control of you – your attitude, optimism, thankfulness and appreciation. As the old saying goes there is a time for everything.
Wishing you in this holiday season smiles, thankfulness and the ability to choose your emotions.
Oct 14 2010
An amazing example of human endurance and triumph of spirit is that of Dr. Viktor Frankl, a scientist imprisoned in a labor camp by the Nazis whose loved ones were killed during the brutality of the Nazi Regime. Dr. Frankl, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning gives a clue as to how he survived the hell of a war, by saying, “…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (1963, p. 104) “A human being is a deciding being,” sums up Dr. Viktor Frankl.
Choice. Humans always have choices, no matter what circumstances are thrown at us. And, as humans, having that choice gives us the will to continue to live and thrive. It is when a person feels there are no choices that he can make that is when a person begins to feel detached from human life, when he gives up and eventually sinks.
In the business world, in a company where little choice is given to employees, you can feel apathy, which eventually wears down both employees and company.
To reenergize your business empower your staff and give them choice. Make them stakeholders in the life of your organization, by opening ways for them to choose.
