So you had bad toilet training

as a child. So what?

     Imagine what this world would be like  without hidden agendas. Okay, maybe you can’t change the world. Imagine what your business would be like without hidden agendas? Your life?

“Man is not totally at the mercy of either his heredity or his environment, He can modify both.” It starts with increasing “a person’s awareness of the real power he has to direct his own life, to make decisions, to develop his own ethical system, to enhance the lives of others, and to understand that he was born to win.” 

Excerpts from the Preface of BORN TO WIN by Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward

     Here’s the deal:  Psychological “game-playing” (often unconsciously provoked) has been defined by psychology icons Dr. Eric Berne and Dr. Frederick Perls as a series of transactions or communication exchanges (often repetitive) with a hidden motive or agenda.

     These “game” exchanges,  which may seem innocent and perfectly rational on the surface, can have extremely destructive mental and emotional consequences. “They prevent honest, intimate and open relationships” at home and on the job, say author/therapists James and Jongeward.

     They go on  to point out that we “wear many masks and have many forms of armor” that keep our true selves confined and unknown, even to ourselves. The possibility of encountering our own reality–learning about ourselves– can be “frightening and frustrating.”

     Many of us,  say James and Jongeward, “expect to discover the worst” when we set out on a path of self-exploration, “and a hidden fear lies in the fact that we may also discover the best.”

     To discover the worst  means we must “face the decision of whether or not to continue in the same patterns” of behavior, they say, and “To learn the best is to face the decision of whether or not to live up to it.”

     Because either discovery  may involve change, it is anxiety-provoking, which can be good or bad, depending on how we use the information and exercise the change.

     It all comes down to  making a conscious choice to learn more about what makes you tick so you can minimize game-playing, recognize it in others and not play, be better able to generally run a healthier more productive business… and experience a healthier and happier personal life in the process.

     What have you got to lose?  Finding out you had bad toilet training when you were three years-old? So what? Choose to make the reality of your present moment your focus, and watch the joy that comes to the surface, and stays! 

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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It’s the Lightening Up

of Corporate America!

     You’re a management trainer and corporate economic climates have taken the wind out of your sails. You’re looking around for community college adult education courses to run. You’re doing drips and drabs of HR consulting with some old friends. Times are tighter than your shoelaces. 

     Stop beating yourself up; stop doing all the things you’ve always advised and taught others to not do. Take some of those deep breaths you advocate. The message is this: L-I-G-H-T-E-N    U-P ! Lighten up the programs you’re proposing. Companies do not want any in-depth, heavy-duty, psycho-analytic training programs for their managers right now!

     They want L-I-G-H-T agendas combined with good relaxing fun and team-building. Corporate America may be stupid about growing business and productivity ratios and revenue streams and job creation, but they know when it’s time to lighten up the stress that their loyal managers have been shouldering. 

     And it’s time now.

     I had my own management training company for many years. I ran over 2,000 workshops and training programs, and had over 20,000 participants in 50 different cities and half a dozen different countries.

     It was everything from Maslow’s Hierarchy to Quality Circles, One-Minute Manager, TA, Theory X, TheoryY, Theory Z, Empowerment, Assertiveness Training, Anger Management, and my own inventions: Corporate Entrepreneurship, Doctorpreneurs and Teacherpreneurs.  

     Then is not now. Then corporate executives charged trainers with the responsibility to teach them how to be better, more effective, more efficient, more productive executives and how to be better humans. This took some doing, and tons of analytical diagnostics and psychotherapy.

     Today, the word is L I G H T. As in S I M P L E and having F U N while gaining firsthand leadership and teamwork experiences with fellow employees. A best buddy of mine, Kevin Bousquet, who runs Interlaken Inn Executive Resort & Conference Center www.InterlakenInn.com in Northwest Connecticut, agrees.

     You may have seen my plugs here for Interlaken. It truly is THE premier business escape (2 hours/NYC and 3 hours/BOS) with the finest location, facility, amenities, meals, service AND budget-conscious prices that any management trainer or meeting planner will find. (If you call, tell Kristy I sent you and get a special gift!)

     Kevin tells me that the programs that are having the most success are those with the least stress and the most fun. Not all fun and games, but fun and learning. Interlaken’s Executive Ropes Course, lakefront boating and golf options and gourmet challenge programs are the busiest and most talked-about. Dump the heavy stuff!

Think of it as the Lightening Up of Corporate America!  

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Input always welcome: Hal@BusinessWorks.US

(”Businessworks” in subject line) or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals and God bless you! 

Economic Tsunami?

 Don’t fight it. Float on it!

     There’s no doubt about it, financial stress can overwhelm even the best of business leaders. It takes an unwavering, cock-sure, impenetrable. positive attitude to stand tall while the walls are crumbling.

     Every business owner has been there. Some are getting it for the first time thanks to the economic environment, and–for those–the experience is numbing. How can it be? I’ve worked so hard. We deserve better than this?

     Probably true, but reality dictates that it doesn’t matter. Reality can be awfully cruel and horribly harsh, but reality is where we have to live if we are ever to turn things around. Fantasy is where the losers go.

     First and foremost, when the economic tsunami strikes your business, stop worrying about arranging the beach chairs. Get on anything that floats and plan to ride it out. Focus every waking moment’s energy on where you are, not where you’re going, or even worse, if you’ll get there.

     The more you pay attention to anticipating the other shoe drop, the more you are diverting productive energy and resources away from the places they are most required to ride out the storm, to innovate, to create new revenue streams, to smack yourself in the side of the head and start thinking in new ways.

     The more you worry about the other shoe, the less time, attention, effort, energy and positive forward motion you’ll have available to activate. This will result in the other shoe finding it’s way to thump on your ceiling lickity-split! 

      STOP draining your resources and energy with worry about future fantasy (It’s not here yet, and may never come). STOP draining your strength with dwelling on past screw-ups and who did what to whom (It’s over and past and there’s NOTHING you can do to change it).

START TUNING IN TO THE PRESENT HERE-AND-NOW MOMENT, EVERY PASSING MOMENT, AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE PRESENT. LEARN FROM BABIES AND PUPPIES. 

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Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!

 When “Not Enough”

is “Too Much”

and “Too Much”

is “Not Enough”!

     Partnerships are seldom what many think they are. People without business experience think of two tough guys who both have their shoulders to the wheel and are pushing their business enterprise forward with equal effort and dedication. Reality check: Doesn’t happen!

     First of all, based on firsthand exposure to many hundreds of partnerships — professional as well as menial, glamorous as well as boring, and adversarial as well as loving, business partners are more often than not opposites in personality, financial stability, educational background, and often age.

[“Family Partnerships” will be explored separately in an upcoming blog post]

     In my experience, it’s unusual when partners actually like each other (including many who also share marriage or significant-other relationships), but they almost inevitably defend one another to outsiders.

     Doctors, incidentally, do this instinctively, and will (unlike “HOUSE” and “ER” and “Grey’s Anatomy”) rarely if ever turn on one another when the chips are down, even when one knows the other is wrong. That’s doctors.

     It’s their job to further the causes of humanity and of those who share the Hippocratic Oath. They’ll whine and complain and throw scalpels, but if it’s really called for, they’ll often take one for the team. 

     Lawyers, on the other hand, will almost always –given the choice– go for the throat. It’s their job to be adversarial. The minute they befriend another lawyer, they’ll end up suddenly facing one another in the courtroom the next morning. They may be entertaining as golfers, but stay alert; they don’t always yell FORE!

     Enough of these big money guys. Let’s focus on the down-in-the-trenches partners who run physical labor businesses, or who provide services FOR the doctors and lawyers, or who came together because they both (or more than two) hated the stagnant company or boss they worked for, and one or both or more had a better idea.

     Not pulling enough weight–responsibility–is often too much mentally, physically, emotionally for the partner(s) who carry(ies) the lion’s share (finances, work hours, productivity, sales, customer service, product/service development, etc.).

     The lack of shared commitment or workload easily ends up taxing the relationship(s) beyond where either is (any are) comfortable. You can imagine where things go from there.

     Pulling too much too fast is just as bad.

     Is this any different than how you treat your body? What’s missing in these examples? Balance? Ah, balance. That elusive, invisible, intangible quality that keeps us all sane…or at least a quart or two short of lunacy.

     Without balance, our bodies go into negative stress overload and produce illness, accidents, and death. Without balance, our families become distant and dysfunctional. Without balance, business partners march to different drummers and businesses literally fall apart at the seams.

     So, what can we do to short-circuit lack of balance from taking its toll? Start with ourselves. Figure out where we are so can get a better idea of where we’re going. Decide if where we’re going is where we want (or need, in order to survive) to go.

     Communicate about these ideas to family and friends AND to partners. AND LISTEN! Partners may hate one another, but they share mutual investments in one another and that counts for something. Relationship history alone dictates the need for open discussion with set (not hidden) agendas.

Balance only comes when you can put one foot in front of the other and focus on each step instead of the finish line. 

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Input aways welcome: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in    subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  

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“People go only to places

they have already been

in their minds.”

Roy Williams, The Wizard of Ads

     Just when you think you’ve thought about it all, along comes another thought, but–as the above quote suggests–the human body will only go where the human mind has journeyed repeatedly already. Purchases only happen when people have or believe they have already owned the product or service.

     What does this mean for business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, PR people and publicists, marketers, salespeople, advertisers, branders, website developers, promoters, communicators, media and management consultants?

     First of all, something we’ve said here a hundred times: Repetition Sells! Repetition Sells! Repetition Sells! Repetition Sells! Repetition Sells! (okay, a hundred and five times!) But what else?

Every purchase

is the result of an

emotional trigger!

     In any form of selling, marketing, advertising, communication, if your goal relates to persuasion, then your process is limited to some form or combination of forms earmarked by approaches that hinge on educating, entertaining, boring, screaming, or seducing…engaging the imagination.

     A couple of three-little-words examples: “It’s in you” and “I’m lovin’ it” both sounded like retarded campaign theme messages when they first came out, didn’t they? Do you remember saying: “It”? What the heck is “It”? Ah, but look at what “It” has accomplished. What’s the old expression: “Say something often enough…”? (Spare me saying the RS words 106 times)

     Okay, so where do we start with the imagination seduction stuff? One way may be to take a lesson from stage and screen actors…and WHISPER! What happens next? People lean forward in their seats. What an envious position to have a prospect in, for delivering your sales pitch.

     And what else? Great pictures are great, but they don’t sell! They plant images in the mind that allow words to rush in with for the kill. (With apologies to all my artist and designer friends): One great word is worth a thousand pictures. Think of the artwork/words thing as a one-two punch.

[And if you’re reading this, looking for input about the importance of words in websites, click the 3% tab on the top right of this page!]

     Seduction is the name of the game. Every purchase is the result of an emotional trigger! A past president of Revlon once confided in me that they weren’t selling hair-coloring products, they were selling “the promise of sex to single, young girls.”

     Great, you say, some products can sell themselves anyway; it’s selling intangible services that presents the real challenge. Y’know what? That’s true. And it’s all the more reason that service-based businesses–especially–need professional marketing and professional copywriting help.

     Contrary to the “step-in-and-out-of-the-closet-with-the-magic-idea-and-words” concept that many have, professional marketing and professional copywriting are time-intensive pursuits.

     Both functions require considerable experience and exceptional skill. Don’t cut corners on finding and securing this kind of talent. Not everyone  can make “It” such a big-selling word! 

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Input: Hal@BusinessWorks.US or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!

2nd only to the government,

big business gets an F

All of us who own and operate or manage a small or medium sized business know that the world’s most incompetent excuses for “businesspeople” reside in dark, damp little squirrel holes of government and academia buildings. They are the poster boys and girls for business stupidity.

But right after these poor ignorant, unrealistic souls, maybe not even a full rung lower on the ladder, are the braindead, money-wasting corporate executives who spend half their lives in limos, cabs, commuter train barcars, business class airline seats, and fancy restaurants.

These are the hot-shot 9 to 5 executives who travel better, eat and drink better and live better, higher-income lifestyles than either the government doo-dahs or the academic muckity-mucks.

But that doesn’t make them smart, or productive, or successful.

Most of them are none of those.

It simply makes them people who don’t have what it takes to start and build and grow their own business ventures, but who are not quite as stupid as those who work for those who get elected.

They are also a hair more savvy than those who merely pretend to know what it’s all about, and who instead of doing, end up teaching young people how to do and not do the things they themselves don’t know how to do and not do.

It’s interesting to me, by the way, that so many of these corporate suits seem to think they are Henry Ford’s and Bill Gates’s and Mary Kay’s when they get anywhere near a calculator or Excel spreadsheet.

Reality is that this country is in dire economic straits today because of corporate mentalities that STILL don’t get it, that STILL are unproductive, that STILL squander taxpayer (and stockholder) money left and right. (Actually, I have fresh evidence from today, if anyone’s interested in details.)

What’s wrong with all this is not just the consequences of incompetence but the systems that breed it: educational institutions, government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations.

How do I know this? Before spending most of my career as a small business owner/operator, I was a college professor, a government employee and a Fortune 500 executive. That’s like the been there, done that thing.

Thankfully, I saw early on that none of these (academia, government, corporate) paths held out any promise of a successful life journey for anyone with energy and ambition and common sense and basic business instincts.

And here’s what I conclude: 

. . . when we can ween ourselves from societal dependence on misguided government, fantasyworld academia, and thieving corporate America . . . and put wind behind the sails of small business . . . only then, will we turn this ship around! 

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 Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!  

 Turn up the heat, Mr. Biden!

I’ve been ranting and raving here for over a year that small business has proven time and again that it represents the one and only solution to our continually sinking economy. And just because the temperature hit 94 here today doesn’t mean it’s time to turn down the heat.

     Mr. Biden, you told us this week to “Just look around” and check out the great economic recovery in full swing. Uh, and you’re looking where?

     Mr. Biden, America is emphatically NOT on the rebound track that you have the chutzpah to be delivering sound bites on. You’re flat out wrong about the picture you’re trying to paint of booming job creation scenarios and an economic turn-around that’s rushing us back into high-roller high times.

     It’s simply not true, Mr. Biden, and you know that it’s not. Period.

     In fact, if you’ll pardon my brashness, Sir, perhaps you could better be using the influence of your position to develop some MEANINGFUL small business job creation incentives that go beyond the empty, token proclamations of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

     The SBA is so out-of-touch with reality that it hasn’t had a clue about the trials, tribulations, challenges, and opportunities of small business since the day it was founded. Their latest “incentive” plans prove it!

     I served two consecutive 2-year federal appointment terms on what’s been called the country’s most important SBA regional advisory council (NY/NJ/CT and the USVI. I resigned because the two dozen membership seats were filled with major corporate executives. I and one other member were the only ones who owned and operated small businesses. The job of representing and cultivating small business interests was not getting done.

     It is not getting done now. You are not getting it done. Why have you not surrounded yourself with small business owners, and immersed yourself in the process of their day-to-day existences?

     Do you think that walking through a diner and glad-handing the employees is giving you some great small business insight, or that it’s endearing you to or helping small business?

     Do you think there is some other answer to our economic catastrophes outside the province of small business? I’d love to hear that answer.

     It is waaaaay past time to get involved with the only hope that remains: small business! Do it now. Roll up those white sleeves and get yourself in the trenches.

     Visit the farmers in your own State! Listen to the retailers who are suffering through low tourism. Meet with struggling automotive dealerships who have been thrown under the bus by the same automakers your boss is rewarding for their screw-ups by passing out truckloads of tax dollars in a feeble, misguided attempt at business management.

     When you’re put in charge of running what is arguably the world’s biggest business and you have no business or management experience, and you can easily see that small business  job creation is what turns around economies, why do you bury your head in the sand?

     Why do you choose paths of arrogance and abstinence instead of humility and outreach to bring in the experts. No one knows business like  small business owners. Listen to them. Act on their behalf. Help them create REAL new jobs.     

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Snap your suspenders too hard,

and your pants’ll fall down!

     Every minute of every hour of every day, human beings are making mistakes. Many of these happen at work. The workplace sometimes seems to breed screw-ups! Have you noticed a few in your life? Just here and there of course.

     Well, you may say as you sit back and snap your suspenders, “Ya win some, ya lose some, and some get rained out, but there’s always another ballgame!” Yup. And there’s always another screw-up!

     Now, let’s talk “mistake” vs. “person” for a minute. Either and/or both can be legitimately referred to as “screw-ups,” so it’s often the situation that technically dictates what we mean by the term.

     Oh, right, people we might designate as “screw-ups” are probably the most likely ones to commit the evil errors that cost them their reputations, but so what? In the end, when the deed is done, and damage assessments are rolling in, what’s the difference who did what to whom?

     Getting squared away, you say, returning to normal (whatever that is) is what really matters. That’s certainly a bell-ringer statement, but guess what? It DOES make a difference who did what to whom because knowing the answer sets the table for everyone else to learn something important.

     The standard screw-up who screws up sweeps (shovels?) the screw-up under the rug, slinks off into dark shadows and –once convinced of escaping unscathed– whistles her or his way to lunch hour or the time clock or into commuter rush hour.

     Hmmm, ever see anyone whistling in standstill traffic? Figure it could only mean a screw-up has taken place (or perchance some other type of event has occurred that we shy away from discussing here since loving grandchildren sometimes visit!).  

     Well, here’s the bottom line: Screw-ups are a good thing if they are part of a genuine effort to advance your business, if they can be learned from, AND if the circumstances can be openly shared with everyone else in your business!

     Hey, no way! Sounds nice, says you, still suspender-snapping away, but people don’t own up to mistakes. Well, if that’s the conduct code in your business, you may be actively investing in your own demise as screw-ups get bigger, have greater impact, and are more surreptitiously dispensed with.

     When’s the last time you got away with something you shouldn’t have? Do you really want your business mission wrapped around sneakiness?

I hope that wasn’t you that just tip-toe away from your screen?

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

So go get a new family!

     Do these kinds of situations sound at all familiar, or am I just imagining…???

• The owner’s wife in charge of collecting receivables takes the task too personally because –through her eyes– she can only see that some deadbeat is preventing her from pleasing her husband since she can’t afford to serve him the kind of dinners he most enjoys.    
• The owner’s son is not as business-minded as his mother. She’s constantly berating him for wasting too much time playing around with creating new advertising approaches, and not paying enough attention to customer service, billing, and inventory.
• The two feuding sisters are always trying to outdo one another’s sales accomplishments, and neither is willing to handle growing staff problems.

     Having worked with hundreds of family businesses (from trash collection to surgery practices), I can assure you –since the popular shrink notion is that every family is dysfunctional– that your family business is not unique in it’s breadth and depth of problems.

     It is —on the other hand— unique inasmuch as it takes some very special give-and-take tolerance levels to be able to work day-in-and-day-out with the people you’re related to, and have grown up with.

     Having a history with others can be a positive and rewarding and affectionate experience, but working with those you have a history with can present many challenging opportunities.

     Opportunities? Aha! Therein lies the answer to family business problems. Would it be fair to say that the primary difference between whether someone views any given situation as a “problem” or as an “opportunity” reduces itself to how that person chooses to view it? 

Behavior is a choice… how we view it and how we do it!

     Okay, so some family members thrive on choosing “problems,”  yes? Oh, but you know what? It takes two to tango. YOU don’t have to choose to make a family-problem-chooser’s problems YOUR problems!

     Choose instead to walk away. Or choose to change the channel in your head from a confrontative talk station to easy listening. Or choose to offer choices.

     Above all, choose to be aware that it is a choice! That awareness alone will carry you through some of the rough spots and help keep others focused on what’s important. 

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Input welcome anytime: Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (”Businessworks” in the subject line) or comment below. Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals, good night and God bless you! halalpiar  # # # 

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Food-for-thought

thoughts . . . 

on leadership.

What are yours?

     “Making the right choices,” says America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “is the most important part of leadership. Every other element–from developing and communicating ideas to surrounding oneself with great people–relies on making good decisions.”

     “Humans,” says Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan, “are the only species on earth that will follow a totally unbalanced, unstable leader.” He goes on to say that “Balance comes from all four parts of ourselves–intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and instinctual–in alignment”

     Author/management consultant Marvin Weisbord says in twenty-five years, the leaders he has learned the most from have “certain knacks. They focus attention on valued aspirations. They mobilize energy by involving others. They face the unknown without answers.”

     “The ability to step up to the plate and provide the necessary leadership is the key determinant of achievement in all human activities,” says motivational guru Brian Tracy. “Great business leadership,” he says, ” is characterized by honesty, truthfulness, and straight dealing with every person, under all circumstances.” 

     Leaders, says one of America’s great entrepreneur successes Deaver Brown, “are often like the Pied Piper, turning around to find a group following them wherever they go. They can ignite their followers almost at will.They have the remarkable talent of being able to inspire devotion and loyalty, mustering excellent performances from average people.”

     U.S. President General Dwight David Eisenhower defined leadership as “the ability to get a person to do what you want him to do, when you want it done, in a way you want it done, because he wants to do it!” 

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Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!