Archive for the 'Creative Thinking' Category

Mar 04 2010

FIXING BROKEN CASHFLOW

Hold your nose

                             

and dunk under

                                      

 the wave . . . or 

                                     

 ride it to shore!

                                     

     Surfers (not the TV channel kind!) are actually smarter than they look. They know enough to take a deep breath and either dunk under a wave to get out of the way, or stand up and ride it onto the beach. When your business cash flow is outbound, it’s time to make that same decision.

     If you choose to dunk under — like leave town, change your name, and disappear into some cave or head for the islands (until your butt’s hauled back to jail) — go for it! But prepare (at least) for a stiff neck from looking back over your shoulder 16 hours a day … maybe work for a chiropractor?

     My guess is that when payables tip the receivables scale into the stratosphere, most of us will opt for survival instead of surrender. Certa Bonum Certamen say the Latins (“Fight The Good Fight”) and giving our businesses CPR is certainly preferable to filing Chapter 11. Rule of thumb: One first aider beats a full house of lawyers.

     Okay, so where to start? Make the unpleasant calls to creditors; beg for mercy; give them (and stick to) payback plans. Stay in communication with them no matter how awkward, uncomfortable or embarrassing it feels. DO NOT borrow money to pay back loans; it will catch up with you.

     Consider reputable debt consolidation services. Fill in staff-cutback areas with interns. It’s true a recent President kind of ruined that idea, but truth is that if you’re willing to provide the proper guidance and leadership, you can literally build an empire on the enthusiasm and energy of young interns.

     The best source of interns (and usually a structured program that keeps students focused and offers employers recourse) will come from your nearest community college, though some major universities have established highly successful internship (often called “cooperative education”) programs.

     Interns will occasionally work for free, sometimes for commission or bonus arrangements, and often for minimum wage or less. They require ongoing supervision. You may have to fill out evaluation forms and meet with a faculty or administrative advisor once a semester. That’s it. If this is something you want to make work, make it work.

     If you’re a one-man-band, ask family members for hours in exchange for breakfasts or dinners out, or periodic sports or concert tickets … i-tune cards? Be creative.

     One boss I know who’s struggling to get his business back on its feet reports getting productive work hours from his cousin’s teenage son in exchange for covering periodontal work (teeth braces) not covered by insurance. He gets six months of work from another relative in exchange for new tires on two family cars.

     Be creative. Make it work. Ride it to shore!

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT DayGet blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

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Feb 25 2010

“TWITTER Doesn’t Work for My Business!”

If TWITTER

                                

“doesn’t work”

                                         

for your business,

                                         

maybe you don’t either!

                                

     With cha-ching, cha-ching becoming a  sound of the past, many owners have resigned themselves to “try anything” to lift their businesses up out of the muck, get things back on track, make more sales, bring in more customers, pay the bills, and put some money in the bank again.

     A lot of “old-timers” are even giving social media a try. They’re baffled, but are willing to “give it a shot!” They locate www.Twitter.com, fill in the blanks, set up an account, then put up one feeble 140-character post every week or so telling the world how great their business is.

     They wait. No Twitter-types break down the doors.

     They walk off shaking their heads and vowing never to return. “TWITTER doesn’t work,” they tell people. “It didn’t get me any business, and besides, what do I care if somebody in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Honolulu, or Kalamazoo hears about my little local service business in Pleasantville?”

[Pssst! What works for your business will only work for
your business if you make it work for your business.]
                                                     

     You wouldn’t run (and pay for) one ad or commercial and think that’s going to produce droves of visitors. Why would a few Twitter “Tweets” (which of course you’d not pay for)  do the trick? And, by the way, why would anyone — even someone who puts posts on Twitter a few times a day — think that telling Twitterland how great a business is, will send the masses stampeding to their doorstep?

[Pssst! You can only make something work for your business
if you work for your business. It’s called “walk the talk.”]
                                                           

     TWITTER can work wonders for any business that’s willing to put in the effort to make it work. Making the absolute most of 140 characters takes considerable skill; you can’t breeze in and wing it like a car salesman. It takes brains, organization skills and marketing savvy. A psych degree helps. 

     Are the dynamics any different for FaceBook, LinkedIn, or any other social media networks? No. The closer you study these sites and see what makes them click, so to speak, the better your odds for making them be productive for your business. And you can’t beat the price, so the learning curve trade-off is a worthy investment of time and effort.

     Finally, the lame excuse for avoiding social media because it’s worldwide when they only service local customers? Today’s world has shrunk from a basketball to a marble in terms of instantaneous multi-directional communication. Through social media like Twitter and FaceBook and others we suddenly have “friends” we can be in regular daily contact with from our laptop on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, to Greg in Canada, and Pamela in Australia, and Doyle in Dallas, and Jonena in San Diego, and Victoria in Thailand.

     Do you think any of the millions who are exposed to online messages, might have a friend or relative in Brooklyn (or Pleasantville)? Do you think they might refer to one another the same ways you do? So why not be global, even if you are a little local service business. Hey, you really never do know where business can come from. It might even come from TWITTER.   

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting.

Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!

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Feb 21 2010

Lessons From Construction Guys

“Spread out the tools,

then go for donuts!”

 

No, those eight words are not part of what construction guys can teach to small business owners. In fact, those eight words may account for the building industry employment transience we so often hear about.

No, I’m talking about seven (7) magic words!

Did you ever have a house built? (No not those seven words.) If you’ve ever had a house built and asked something dumb like “Gee, when do you guys put in the main water pipe and wire connections?” (“Oh yeah! Plumbing and electric? No problem; we can run those lines after the house is done; we’ll dig the yard up again and re-cement the concrete foundation we’ll have to break, along with maybe a wall or two, but don’t worry!”)

Did you ever have an addition put on your house? (“Uh, what cough, cough, dust is that, cough, cough, that you didn’t expect? I, cough, cough, don’t see any dust!”) Was your builder marching to his own drummer? (“Duh, what blueprints?”) Odds are the lesson you learned was to never do it again, right?

Well, let me tell you that there are two great lessons to be learned from construction guys that can make a life or death difference for small business owners. One, which comes from such an unlikely pair of experts as a carpenter and a heart surgeon — but which probably started with the carpenter since carpenters have been around a lot longer than heart surgeons:

Measure twice. Cut once.

This little 4-word gem of a mantra is the unspoken guideline for many successful small businesses. It’s one way of making sure there’s minimal or no waste of time, money or effort. It’s also expressed as “getting it done right the first time” (or “haste makes waste” as Granny used to say).

It’s the idea that we can actually help ensure maximum productivity with minimum expenses and liabilities. It’s all about making sure there are no rocks under the water we’re diving into. This little piece of reassurance can have untold value and appeal to a small business owner’s wallet and sense of well-being.

And what are the other three words of wisdom?

Chunk it up!

Whether you’re overwhelmed with a ten mile-long “to-do” list or a project with altogether too many parts, or you’re looking for a value-added way to entice customers by offering them a staggered payment plan, construction guys score again!

They don’t kill their customers with the whole monster total price to pay at once, they charge you what? One third up front (to cover the costs of materials), one-third half-way through the job (to cover salaries), and one-third on completion with satisfaction (to cover profits).

If they only get the first third up front, they’ll never wind up on the short end of a parts/supplies bill. If they get the second third halfway, they can only not make a profit, but will have paid for all materials and labor and put money through their bank. This approach works for nearly all business services and most large ticket item products.

The customer is happy to not commit all their money at once and will prefer a pay-as-you-go option to keep more control on the work that’s booked. 7 words: Measure Twice. Cut Once. Chunk it up!

# # #

302.933.0116 Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Feb 20 2010

Are You Lurking In The Past?

Leave “Back To

                                     

The Future”

                                                                  

in the dust and

                               

the old movies!

                                                            

Leadership’s a funny thing, especially when running a small business. The more we try to figure out what went wrong, the less we move forward. Big unionized companies and government agencies can afford the luxury of assigning task teams to look back and determine who did what to whom and why and wherefore.

Small businesses can go broke while their heads are turned.

More than any other organizational entity on Earth, small businesses must remain the most flexible and the least concerned with exploring, assessing, and resolving old problems. In other words, if it’s broke (and not impacting the lifeblood of our business), we need to step over or around it and move on. Fixing stuff takes too much time that is better spent with forward motion … innovative leadership by example!

We need to remind ourselves that anything longer than a minute-old is:

  1. Fantasy (because it’s not in the here-and-now present reality of time and space) and
  2. Over with and impossible to change.

HOW do we keep our minds focused on the reality of what we’re dealing with day to day —  instead of what happened last week, or yesterday, or an hour ago? The fastest and most effective way that tens of thousands of successful business owners and managers use to accomplish this (and, by the way, that’s free, and takes all of 60 seconds!) is to simply take a couple of deep breaths.

     For specific reinforcement on this, take a quick side trip with your mouse and click here to take some deep breaths.

     The bottom line is that no matter what method we use . . . checking our watches, turning up the music volume, pinching ourselves, playing with a puppy or a baby, taking a slug of ice water, rubbing our foreheads briskly or rubbing our hands together briskly, phoning our desk lines with our cell phones and talking to ourselves (well, okay, maybe just let it ring once!) . . . if it works and it joggles our brains into the present moment, it’s a good method. We need to keep using it.

Recalling past incidents, problems and solutions, accomplishments can have a positive effect on our here-and-now decision making as long as we are consciously managing those “Back to the Future” visits from our present existences.

We get ourselves in trouble when we choose to allow ourselves to get lost with past thoughts, reveries, daydreams, nostalgia … whatever we want to call these experiences. Why? Because getting stuck in those mental journeys  is rarely if ever productive and — in a work setting — will almost certainly not help us establish or maintain the forward motion we need to grow our businesses.

   Is it very unlike running down the field carrying the football, and suddenly stopping to think about the circumstances surrounding your last touchdown?

Small business leaders must prompt, promote, and maintain continuous forward movement, be prepared to “turn on a dime” as the expression goes, and stay focused as much of the time each day as possible on the customer, supplier, employee, market opportunity that’s smack dab in front of our faces, not dwelling on history. Save that journey for your accountant.

# # #

hal@businessworks.US

STRATEGY/ CONTENT/ CONNECTION

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——————-

Business Development/ National-Awards/ Record Client Sales

Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

 

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Feb 18 2010

IS TIME MANAGING YOU?

Are You

                              

Juggling Seagulls?

                                     

     Draw a bullseye with two rings around it and label the center space: FAMILY & PERSONAL, then label the innermost ring space: WORK & BUSINESS, and then label the outer ring space: FRIENDS & OTHER ACTIVITIES.

     Copy each heading onto a separate column or separate piece of paper. Then list the most appropriate items/ people/places/ things in each category. Allow yourself one minute per list. 

     Put the list down and walk away. Get some water or a cookie or just stare out the window. (This is like a little ginger between sushi pieces.) Then return to your target and lists. The amount of “blur” between your bullseye and your next two rings will indicate how “fastlane” your life is right now.

I say “right now” because this is a here and now exercise: what goes in each part of the target can change by next week, tomorrow, tonight, or within the next 6 seconds!

In fact, when life gets too hectic, it’s a useful device for daily assessment, for helping you sort out and stay focused on priorities.

                                                   

     Whatever blur does occur, whatever lack of definition exists between the three areas should give you a good heads up on how efficiently or inefficiently you are using your time, as well as the extent of your allegiances to each entity that is taking time and attention from your life.

     Once you’ve done this little diagnostic study on yourself, and have a good overview of your current activities and involvements, you need to decide if these pieces are where you want them to be.

     Are you spending too much time with your business and not enough with your family, for example? Or, are you so caught up in someone else’s problem that you haven’t made time to solve your own?

     I once found myself so sucked into a Chamber of Commerce project to boost town retail traffic, that I ended up working nights and weekends just to catch up with my own business (which was not retail and stood to gain nothing from the initiative).

     The crunch infiltrated my time commitments to my family. The small disruptions that surfaced were clearly the tip of cataclysmic explosion. I extracted myself from the C of C mission and discovered — lo and behold! — the retailers I was knocking myself out to promote didn’t care enough to pick up the ball for themselves.

This is NOT to suggest that voluntary community work is not worthwhile. It most certainly is. But it’s a good idea to look before you leap. For your own good, as well as the cause involved, such engagements are most successful when they are clearly defined, clearly justified, and clearly scheduled.

Plus –realistically — where choice is involved (vs. for example, an emergency), no one should ever commit to helping others who is not coming from a position of strength to begin with . . .

  • A sick teacher is an ineffective teacher.

  • A cashpoor business cannot donate to charities.

  • A business owner who’s preoccupied with family survival issues or debt collection issues cannot be an effective sales leader.

     Draw your target again tomorrow. See if anything changes. Can you make something change? Maybe if you stop juggling one fewer seagull, it will fly away! 

# # #

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  Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

  Open Minds Open Doors 

   Thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

  Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Feb 16 2010

Your Memory Is Malleable

Don’t Trust

                                  

What You Remember!

                                           

     Unless you are one of the 27 other people in America who has not a shred of interest in football, or who found yourself snowed in and powered out as I was on Superbowl Sunday, you probably missed the emergency portable radio static-filled broadcast of the audio for “60-Minutes.”

     Even as many were trying to remember the Colts-controlled first half of the game as they watched the Colts being trounced in the second half, the “60-Minutes” broadcast was focused on the shortcomings of memory.

     Actually, besides the realization that no one ever listens to portable radios anymore (who knew?), the broadcast was wrapped around a cluster of gruesome news stories involving “100% absolutely positive” witness identifications of individuals as criminals who were not.

     A couple of examples involved innocent people who were wrongly imprisoned for many years (more than a dozen I believe I recall hearing in one case). It was only after a slim-chance break in reviewing nearly untestable past evidence that innocence was proven with DNA studies.

     The point of all the par-for-the-course mainstream media sensationalism was to offer newsworthy, scientific proof that the human memory plays tricks on us… that, no matter how absolutely positive we think we are about something we remember, odds are that we are wrong! 

     Okay, so that’s not much of an ego-flattering thing to have to admit… and especially if it has to do with your business and the ways you think you solved problems in the past, which carries a bit more consequential impact than recollecting who threw what touchdown in the 1987 world series (er, sorry, Superbowl).

     What it might say to us, this little touch of dementia, is that it’s not just professors who are absent-minded and that we could all stand to rely less on what we are sure happened in the past. Big corporations wallow in the past, thinking no doubt it will lead them soaring into the future.

     But if remembering the past produces so many inconsistencies and untruths, what good can it all be? How will it ever move us into the future? It will not. If you disagree, you’ve been hanging around too many history teachers and accountants.

     It is the spirit of entrepreneurship that all business most ultimately adopt if we are to heft ourselves upward and out of this mud-clogged economy. There is a genuine need for business leaders to put the past aside and pay attention to what’s going on here and now.

     The past may be interesting and worth much exploration, but not at the expense of what’s in front of our business faces, because present judgements based on past memories will never lead us forward. Before you bet the farm on what you remember that you’re completely certain of, take a deep breath and look instead to the opportunities that are sitting in your lap… appreciate that times and your memory banks have changed. 

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

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Feb 15 2010

Trade Faculty PhDs for Entrepreneurs

Business faculties

                                  

teach rules,

                                        

yet there are

                                     

no rules in business . . .

                                                                       

     If you or someone you know is planning to be a smash-hit success in the business world, and the plan has anything to do with getting an under-graduate or advanced degree from a college or university that offers up business programs and courses run and taught by PhDs and MBAs (and earmarked by curricula that’s been infiltrated by rules and regulations), get outta Dodge!

     Unless you have no brain, no ambition, no gumption, and are willing to embark on a career simply to please your father instead of yourself, the kind of pre-corporate career training you’ll get will simply waste your time and money. How can anyone who knows the truth — that business has no rules (except maybe in accounting and maybe some parts of retailing and manufacturing) — think that there’s benefit to be had from coursework filled with teachers who teach rules?

     Before you jump on the disagreement wagon, take a good hard look around at the economy we’re mired in. Where are the biggest mud-heaps? Where’s the quicksand? What’s needed to turn things around? Who’s leading us in that direction? Who’s not? Who’s talking the talk but not walking the walk? We are slogging our way through an economic swamp largely because too much emphasis has been put on the teaching of rules and regulations of business, where none exist!

     Where do you find the kinds of business courses that make a difference, that are focused on reality, that are taught by people who have been there and done that? Try community colleges. Try private training organizations. But if you think for even a blink that some hotshot School of Business MBA will send you skyrocketing to business success in today’s economy, perhaps you should think again.

  • It’s not worth your money.
  • It’s not worth your time.
  • It’s not worth hearing what textbook academia types who’ve coasted through 16 or 18 years of classroom work think about what it’s going to take to do real work in the real world that they’ve never done — that you’re going to have to do once you get out.

     If you really want to learn business, get a job. Use the job to train yourself. Back up what you learn with some solid community college classes run by people who are in business and have learned in business how to be successful in business by doing it, not by theorizing what might be possible.

     There is no better way to learn the realities of business than to work in a small business and pay close attention to what’s going on, and take courses run by entrepreneurs, not PhDs. Business success is measured by your attitude and by how effectively you apply yourself and what you know, not by where you went to school or what PhD taught you what rules. 

Comment below or direct to Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day Get blog emails FREE via RSS feed OR $1 mo Amazon Kindle. Gr8 Gift 4 GRANDPARENTS: http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

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Feb 02 2010

Your Business’s Psychological Health

Is Your Business

                                      

A Headcase?

                                                                              

The word therapy may sound ominous to the business mind. It evokes the specter of illness, or worse, of craziness. That should not be. Therapy is part of education. Therapy teaches us through personal experience about who we are and how we became that way. Therapy teaches us how personal responsibility plays a role in who we are. Therapy teaches us how we relate to others and how important other people are in the conduct of our lives. And therapy helps us claim our freedom and take charge of our lives. These are all elements of growing up and getting a complete education.”

–Dr. Peter Koestenbaum, in his groundbreaking book of 1987: The HEART OF BUSINESS
                                                                                                 

     If this seems like a strange and out-of-place subject for you, let me assure you that it is extremely relevant. Why? Because every business –like every human– has problems to solve that have been created and nurtured internally. And, more often than not, a great many of these are denied and consciously or inadvertently glossed over by the boss.

     If you were to distill down all my years of diverse career experiences into one defining function, it would be that I have been a reality therapist to businesses. Powerful corporate executives, entrepreneurs, sales and healthcare professionals alike have called me in the middle of the night, reduced to tears. They have called on the verge of lighting fuses to blow up their businesses.

     I’ve seen business temper tantrums where filled file folders, office equipment, and even scalpels were flung in rage across offices and into doors. Because businesses that needed therapy, that were being run by owners and managers who refuted the need for it, had no place else to bury upsets but inside the troubled stressed-out minds of their leaders.

     Every person and every business, I believe, can benefit by some degree of professional therapy engagement at some point, perhaps continuously, in their lives. Therapy need not be as threatening or embarrassing as Hollywood would have us believe, nor as intimidating as the naysayers around us claim.

     The truth is therapy can be extremely enlightening, masterfully empowering, and a magnet for improved mental, physical, and emotional good health — the secret keys to increased sales!                  

     It may be useful to pause here and be reminded that the feelings of being threatened, embarrassed, and intimidated –like those feelings of enlightenment, empowerment, and improved health — are all behaviors and all behaviors are choices. Why choose negative over positive? Because of some fear? If the fear is not genuine, realistic, and physical, it is imagined; it is fantasy; it is also a choice!

     Many businesses fail because the leaders operate under a self-fulfilling prophecy that a business is beyond repair and nothing can be done to save it. The economy. The bank. The landlord. Lousy sales. Lazy employees. Products or services without real benefits or competitive advantages. No future. Poor track-record. They fail.

     The fix? Hire an informed, experienced, fresh, outside perspective to shrink out your business and coach your leaders.

     Savvy business owners and managers recognize that the business needs to be considered a living, breathing organism, and treated as if it were a separate individual entity apart from the paperwork, computer files, and physical workspace.

     In this context, business therapy can be a healthy and productive intervention capable of turning problems into opportunities. The distance from survive to thrive is measured in receptive leadership that’s willing to explore and innovate.

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Jan 27 2010

Are You Growing Your Business Or Killing It?

Are You A Cereal Entrepreneur

                                                  

Or A Serial Entrepreneur?

                                                                       
Special thanks to Doyle Slayton at www.XOOMBI.com for the inspiration   

                                                                                                                                          

In case no one’s put their hand on your shoulder and whispered in your ear for awhile: Psssssst! Life (even business life) isn’t about being a serial killer no matter what you do with, for, or to yourself!

     Think you could name a few prominent athletes, a few Hollywood types, a few businesspeople (maybe even a cousin?) who’ve overplayed their killer instincts and thinking they could do whatever they wanted — whenever and wherever they wanted — to the point of crashing their lives into a wall? Daily news reports will help joggle your brain.

     Serial Entrepreneurs are no different. They charge from one venture to another with nothing in the cross-hairs of their sites but dollar signs. And they simply don’t succeed in life. Thankfully, these profiles are not the majority.

     Unfortunately though, when economic times are tough, there’s a mad rush into the marketplace from those who’ve been cut out or cut back at work to think the grass looks greener on the work-from-home side of the fence and they will typically hurry into a venture they’ve convinced themselves looks promising and plunk their savings into a startup.

     Most of these gold-rush fever serial types will end up making their situations worse than when they started. Why? Because growing and running a business is physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally exhausting. It’s a total brain drain (not to mention the slimming of your wallet).

     I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I’ve learned as most do, the hard way.

     Fortunately, most entrepreneurs act instinctively on their burning desires to achieve something of consequence with the ideas they usher into the marketplace. Getting rich on an idea is not the reason for the pursuit. Making a difference is what counts. Making something happen. 

     If you’ve been fortunate to have inherited entrepreneurial traits, or have learned them from experience, a friend or family member, or through a legitimate hands-on training or academic environment, Bless You! Why?

     Because YOU are one of the people destined to make a difference in both the world and in this economy. YOU are one of the people most likely to build your idea to the point of creating new jobs. And YOU are one of the people who will lead your followers to achieve.

     How can you tell if you’re cereal material or serial material? Do you like to taste a little bit of everything? Experience a lot of different business flavors? Are you challenged by that? Do you thrive on taking an idea and seeing it all the way through to the end?

     Or are you just out to make one quick killing after another? If you answered yes to the last question, be honest in asking yourself if you have a track-record of being realistic.   

# # #

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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Jan 25 2010

COMMUNICATING FOR ANSWERS…

What Kinds of Questions

                          

Do You Ask?

                                                                  

  [Here are 23 for YOU to answer!]          

                                                                                   

Dear Boss: Do you really need some answer you already probably know, or are you seeking some actionable insight about the individual, group, idea, or circumstance you’re questioning?

Did you ever consider that the more disciplined your management approach, the less likely you’ll want to know more than a yes or no answer, and the more likely you are to be a misfit in today’s business world?

Oooh, sorry, are you perhaps one of those exceptions who runs some quasi-military small business? Or you per chance captain a deep-sea fishing boat? Maybe you oversee electrical wiring experts who work on the tops of telephone poles, or workers who paint the top of the Washington or Golden Gate Bridge? You manage a shooting range? [You get the idea?]

Did you realize that the closer you are to the people who are the heart of your organization, and the better you are at exercising leadership by example, the less likely you’ll be to find gratifying results from asking questions that prompt yes or no responses?

Do you think through what you really want to know ahead of time, or simply wing it by firing off rounds of disjointed questions, figuring that  — because you’re the boss — you’ll get answers to everything you ask anyway, and will eventually find out what you want to know?   

Has it occurred to you how much time that wastes? Would you feel aggravated if you were on the receiving end? Do you think others see you this way? Do your family members see you this way?

If you don’t already practice it, did you know that asking open-ended questions will generate much more telling information than yes/no, true/false, and multiple choice questions? What’s a good example?

The best interview question to ask a job applicant is: “If I handed you a million dollars right now, what would you do with it?” Will you learn more from the answer to this question than from 20 questions about what’s on the resume? [Does a bear…?]

Two more examples? “What specific steps would you recommend to solve this problem our business is having?” [Not “WHY did it happen?”] Ask a constantly late employee to drop off a list with you on his/her way home that identifies “what 3 things she/he will do immediately to avoid being late in the future?” [Not WHY the person was late, which only produces excuses.]

Tailor your questions to the situation, the person or group you’re asking, and to generating the kind of answer that will be most productive for you to have. 

……….Visit Hal’s Guest Blog Posts………. 

GOT A SICK WEBSITE? 

WHAT’S YOUR T-SHIRT SAY?  

 LEADERSHIP SEARCH? 

 DOES “NO” BEAT “MAYBE”? 

 # # #               

Hal@BUSINESSWORKS.US 

 Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

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