Overkill business efforts breed failure . . .

LIKE GREAT MARKETING,

GREAT LEADERSHIP

 DOESN’T TRY FOR A 

HOME RUN EVERY AT-BAT

The best creative marketing talent, plans, and campaigns — and the world’s greatest leaders — are born and inspired not by blood, sweat, tears, and insanely long hours, but by focus.

By adjusting the camera or rifle lens, the stage spotlights, the binoculars, the telescope, the magnifying glass, the microscope, and computerized zoom controls, we increase our visual focus for a moment, a few moments, maybe a few hours.

We do the same by adjusting volume, speaker, bass and treble, balance and other media controls to focus our hearing.

Ongoing mental focus, such as that which is evident in literally every leadership or creative marketing performance, is driven by adjusting and channeling powers of concentration.

It is not the product of (pay attention exam-cramming students!) working deliriously through the night, night after night.

Neither is it the product of entertaining others with razzmatazz and razzle-dazzle. (My father used to say, “Don’t give me a song and dance routine; just answer the question!” My father would have made a good Judge Judy.)

Most assuredly, great leadership and great marketing are not the results of political smoke and mirror acts that we see routinely practiced in virtually every local, state, and (especially) federal government-based and corporate giant-based entity in existence. 

Having a true focus means we can “see” and are aware of the actions and influences on the periphery of our focus targets, but that our minds are keenly tuned to the point of what we’re aiming for.

That demands concentration, but it is not necessarily “hard work.” It is what you choose it to be. And ease comes with practice.

Practice? Like what?

• You’re in New York City? Go sit in the middle of Grand Central Station at rush hour and write a three-page essay about your own leadership challenges and abilities.
• You’re in Delaware? Go sit in the middle of a 1,000-chicken chicken coop and read and digest and summarize two articles on industry issues that affect your business. (No ear plugs allowed. Oh, and I hope you like feathers!)
• You’re in Chicago? 1) Get as close as you legally can to O’Hare Airport (Car windows open! Chilly, huh? Dress warm. Bring coffee.) 2) Read and answer three days’ worth of emails on your plugged-in laptop.
• You’re in San Francisco? (What are you doing there?) Hop on the trolley to Fisherman’s Wharf at lunchtime and –while on the trolley– write (yes, with pen and paper) your own obituary (Now THAT’s an exercise that takes concentration!)
• You’re in Hawaii? Well, we all know about those cliffs over the ocean, and waterfalls, and . . . okay, you’re not reading this anyway. Aloha to you too!  

You get the idea. Challenge yourself (and remember to breathe)

Here’s the bottom line: Wherever you are, if you’re serious about wanting to radically improve your leadership and creative marketing skills, spend more energy learning how to concentrate and focus.

Uh, you DO remember The Karate Kid movies? Well, pay more attention to yourself and stop trying so hard. Working yourself into a frenzy with busyness that you think impresses others, doesn’t. All it does is blockade others by making you inaccessible to them.

If you’re actually trying to be inaccessible, you are not leader material, you will never be a creative marketing star, and you are probably best suited to run for political office or work in some government or corporate-giant dungeon for thirty years.

Hey, it’s your life! (And odds are pretty good that it will only happen once!) Do you really want to make a difference?

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

P A Y     N O W !

F o o l e d   y o u,  h u h ?

(You thought maybe the two words were: %@~&  *#^! ?)

Well, consider this: The last thing small or medium-size professional practice or business owners or managers want, is a surprise!

Nobody wants a management or staffing surprise. Nor an operational or equipment surprise.  And –in my lifetime, and discounting the futile pursuit of a winning lottery ticket– I’ve never met or even ever heard of anyone in search of a financial surprise! 

News Flash . . .

Unexpected, unplanned-for immediate

payment is due on the spot!  “PAY NOW!” . . . OW!  

Unfortunately, with many (normally till-dipping) hands being forced by sputtering national and global economic crises, financial surprises have become all too common going forward from 2008.

The kinds of trigger fingers that pull off high-pressure instant payment demands are big-time stress creators. 

Listen,” he says into the phone, “your 4pm Friday order requested RUSH delivery; it’s 8am Saturday; if you can’t get here to open your business and pay the $742.37 due, I have no choice but to ship it back and you’ll get it in a week or two!” (AAaaack!) 

                                      

I’m sorry no one told you that the minute you sign this, like you just did, you are guaranteeing immediate cash payment of $27,000.

If you can’t come up with that amount by the end of the day, a warrant will be served requiring payment in full in ten days plus $5,000 in interest, late fees, and attorney costs.

So what’s it gonna be? 27 now or 32 big ones a week from Thursday?” (AAaaack!) 

                                             

The good news is that you have no outstanding delinquencies.

The bad news is that you have only until Friday to produce $38,579.46 in back taxes for the IRS Agents who called to say they’ll be here at 9am sharp.

No, the accountant didn’t know that the prior accountant had been withholding the withholding . . .” (AAaaack!)

                                      

Are you getting ulcers just from reading these? Okay, well, maybe at least a little lump in your throat?

How do you think YOUR customers, clients and patients feel about YOUR collection tactics? Are you leaving them breathing room? Have your policies stretched enough to accommodate today’s hard times?

Are you taking full advantage of the opportunities to strengthen your reputation for being a high-trust, integrity-based, good citizen business by helping out those who’ve been loyal patrons?

People who were there for you when you needed customers, who have returned time and again, who have referred others, who treat you and your staff like members of their community. (To borrow an old slogan from the world’s leading experts in product and service consistency and change just one word: THEY deserve a break today!)

You “OWE” it to them? Absolutely.

And when you SHOW it to them, sit back and enjoy the magic carpet ride it puts you on! Your business will fly over the competition and never slow down because everyone appreciates a business that proves its appreciation for the business it gets!

No need to give the store away. Simply do what you can to make it easier for your customers, clients and patients to pay for the goods and services they purchase from you. . . the same way you’d like suppliers and vendors to treat you.

We all need to lean a bit on one another these days, and surprise financial demands and pronouncements serve only to short-circuit those opportunities to cultivate and build a loyal following on human values.

Dignity and respect and helping others go the extra mile accomplishes more than shouts, pouts, threats, and late charges. Idealistic and naive? No, realistic and experienced.  

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Here you are, set to your own music, on a blog platter:

THE GREAT

SPUNK & GUMPTION

RECOVERY INITIATIVE

Looking back into this site’s archives, I ran across a couple of posts I wrote titled, “What Sport Is Your Business?“ and “What’s Your T-Shirt Say?” Both are still timely and both are worthy of your quick review — if you actually get through this post!

An hour later (after looking back on those earlier posts), I found myself sitting in a parking lot playing with my new satellite car radio, and noticed a string of song titles that seemed to accurately (and often humorously) describe many past, present, and future business situations.

Here’s a sampler to kick your brain into gear enough for you to come up with your own songs that best represent your past, present, and future business (and yes, believe it or not, all of these were once big hits!):

• Spooky

• Those Were The Days

• These Are The Days

• Let It Snow

• Let It Rock

• Let The Sunshine In

• Just A Dream

• Dreams

• Dreamin’

• Trouble

• Rescue Me

• Slow ‘n Easy

• Thin Air

• Over My Head

• Sailin’

• Step Right Up

• Animal Rights

• Comin’ Under Fire

• Up Against The Wall

• Gone

• It’s A Grand Night For Singing

• Bad Luck

• Hey Hey Hey

     . . . Add your own here:___________

Good job! Next, let’s start to explore if where your business is right now is where you want it to be. How did it get to this point? When you started it or picked it up or inherited it, did you infuse piles of energy and time and money into it? Are you still doing that? If you stopped somewhere along the way, when? Where? How?

Are you still “stopped”? (or pretending not to be, even though you know you are?) 

HOW are you choosing to stay there— stagnant, dormant, status quo? (In other words, what specific steps have you chosen to take, or are continuing to take every day, that have left your competitors little choice but to pass you by? What are you willing to do about that right NOW? What CAN you do right NOW?)

Where’s that spunk and gumption

that you started with?

It doesn’t take a fat bank account or 20-hour workdays or “breakthrough technology” to be able to pick up most businesses that have grown lethargic or have quietly given in to our stress-breeding economy in order to turn things around and/or get re-focused.

It takes acceptance of where things are, determination to get things moving again, recognition that it’s all a matter of choice and leadership (employee leadership, industry and market leadership, customer service and community leadership), and re-ignition of that burning desire to succeed to make it all work.

Can you? Of course you can. You got this far didn’t you? You’re reading this blog post, aren’t you? You want to, don’t you? Then, do it! Stop listening to negative, woe-is-me songs in your head (and on the radio!), and replace them with positive, upbeat tunes.

HOW?

Just CHOOSE to change the channel!

Disney wasn’t far off base when he had

The Seven Dwarfs sing “Whistle While You Work!” 

~~~~~~~~~

302.933.0116   Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Thank you! I am grateful

for you, for your time, your 

attention, your visits here,

 and your ongoing support!

Please join with me in adding the following to the grace you say at your family gathering Thursday:

… and special thanks for all those whose 

courage and vigilance allow us the freedom

to celebrate this great family day together”

And please click on the link below (and turn your volume up) to enjoy this terrific smile-making (G-Rated) video from Business Week that you can share with everyone (except perhaps devoted vegetarians!)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR0OrgKtgsM    

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend! I’ll be back with some big-time small business observations Sunday night.

In the meantime, please take a cruise through the Archives (or by Search Window topic) here, and be sure to see the scoop on my latest new book, “GOOD LUCK!” by clicking under the  “Literary Agents” heading at the top of the right-hand column. See you Sunday!

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is

not a long-term survival policy!

And here we have the government, forcibly seeking control and injecting its uninformed, inexperienced naivete into private industries.

Here we have federal “leadership” essentially robbing businesses that should instead be receiving tax incentive support to bail out the government’s reckless spending sprees that have accomplished literally nothing except pile up additional deficit burdens.

Once again (or more accurately, “still”), SMEs (Small and Medium size Enterprises) stand quivering on the cusp of business-survival-threatening, ill-conceived, politically-motivated federal healthcare legislation.

This impending healthcare doom affords business owners and managers one of the greatest opportunities for self-destruct since before the Industrial Revolution. But before you jump from the roof, consider how to avoid last-minute meltdowns.

BESIDES the fact that major Medicare funding will be redirected to Medicaid coffers because . . .

(it has been strongly suggested — but not dared to be openly acknowledged — that “Medicare recipients are mostly seniors who will die anyway”)  

. . . the bulk of the program will be supported by contributions from businesses, which will be forced to provide coverage for those who don’t earn it! 

A seven-year-old recently confided that “it doesn’t sound like there’s much care in the healthcare thing!”

Well, there’s most certainly not any “care” for the world of small and medium-size business. Let’s remember, and not incidentally, that entrepreneurial venture job creation is repeatedly pushed to the forefront of economist agendas as the most important key to economic recovery. So why the government’s deaf ear? Politics.

Tax and spend, and more government control, apparently beats life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

So what’s a small business owner to do?

• First, fight back! Work with other businesses and local organizations to promote the need for government to support meaningful job creation tax incentives for small business.
• Do everything you can to influence government representatives to repeal the mandated national healthcare plan and to override any veto of that repeal. Support free-market competition healthcare. It’s the only way to choose your own physician and treatment plan. It’s the only way to keep talented physicians working as physicians.

(A 5-star heart surgeon I know is considering being a horse trainer because he can no longer afford skyrocketing malpractice premiums!)

You need a consequence?  You will pay for it

 many times over in the coming years! 

It offers you no benefits.  Is that enough?

• Second, do NOT rob Peter to pay Paul. Just because Washington is trying to get you to think that way, it is not healthy business. It’s like taking loans to pay back loans.
• You are playing with fire if you decide, for example, to ante up the no-chance-of-winning healthcare dollars you don’t have by cutting back, for example, on your marketing budget. Marketing is (or should be if it’s not) a bottom line accountable expense.

Marketing is your only chance to drive the business in the front door that the government is pickpocketing the revenues of from you and taking out the back door. At this point, economic survival is all about cash flow. Bring it in faster than it goes out!

If you’re forced to cut, take your scalpel elsewhere! Simple, huh?      

~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Oh, yes, just what we need:

another pizza parlor in town

and another business acronym…

I really do need to stay away from search engines more. Every time I go to check something out, I end up sidetracked in 37 other directions. Hours pass, and by the time dinner’s ready or the dog needs to go out, I’ve forgotten what the reason was that started me off Binging and Googling in the first place. 

A recent such excursion was earlier this week when I –someone who prides himself on being totally on top of all the latest marketing twists and turns– went flying into Bing to check on a reference to “Synergy Levers” being billed as “THE latest marketing concept.” After all, thoughts are things.

 Well, not only did Bing bong, but it also clearly demonstrated that –if anything– I might be looking at some re-hash of a remarkably old marketing concept which had been re-packaged as “THE latest.” All of this means that “Synergy Levers” is simply none of the above. As the hot news flash went on to say, however, it (Synergy Levers) has something to do with SMEs. Whew! What a relief!

I was deleriously happy to discover that Synergy Levers didn’t turn out to be some kind of toilet flush handle brand!

So, okay, here I am, relieved to learn that we were not dealing with bathroom fixtures, but oh, are we ever so over-laden with acronyms, or what? 

I don’t mean to sound (ahem) overly sarcastic here, but this news came right on the heels of  the latest EPA reports on CFPA, CPSC, MDL, and FEC. Now, if I tell you that FEC is “Foreseeable Environmental Contamination,” you can probably deduct (deduce?) on your own that the other magnificent acronyms are not terribly critical to your day-to-day operations, unless you’re in a tree-hugging related business. . . or run a government agency (shudder) or corporate giant operation (double shudder!).

So –back to SMEs–who knew?– “Small and Medium-Size Enterprises.” Of course! What else could it possibly mean? Of one thing you can be fairly certain, SMEs are not the acronymical brainchild (You don’t particularly favor “acronymical”? Listen, if James Patterson can advertise his books as “unputdownable”) of someone who owns or manages a small or medium-size business.  

How did we arrive at this conclusion?

Because there’s not enough time in the day to be jerking around with some obviously governmental-birthed word-shortening letter grouping.

Yes, another one of those C-Span specials that means nothing, nada, zero, zip, 0! (Or maybe “z”? Hmmm.) 

Secondly, who (whom) do you know (besides the car rental agency) that refers to her or his business as an “enterprise”? Really.  

Alrighty then, the S in SME, which stands for “Small,” means (according to the bonged Bing: “fewer than 100 employees for “goods-producing businesses” and “fewer than 50 employees for service-based businesses.” The M in SME, for “Medium” according to “White Christmas” crooner Crosby’s namesake, means “fewer than 500 employees.” Oh, but all this “varies by country.” Well, la-de-dah!

Y’know what? It’s a whole lot more than I want to know. It’s also irritating. Who cares if they’re the owner of an SME anyway? The bottom line is –no matter the size or number of employees in your “enterprise”– are you surviving this terrible economy? Are you pushing out sales? Are you making your business work? Need a little help? Call me at TWW (TheWriterWorks)… SB (See Below)      

~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Retail settings make it easy to

cherry-pick examples . . . but

the dynamics are the same in

every business and profession.

This really happened less than 24 hours ago

in a well-known U.S. resort town:

Checker at major-name crafts store cash register rings up $9.99 for a roll of artist’s tape (similar to masking tape, but pulls apart easier and leaves no surface marks (even on paper or cardboard) when it’s removed.

Customer: “Excuse me, but that price should be $6.99. It says $6.99 on the shelf.”

Checker: “Sorry, it’s $9.99!” (She takes the twenty-dollar bill on the counter, puts it in the register, slaps down a ten-dollar bill and a penny, throws the tape in a bag and quickly moves to start ringing up the next customer.)

Customer (to the checker): “Listen, I just told you that the price sign says that this tape is $6.99, not $9.99 and I want my $3 back. On top of everything else, even $6.99 is a rip-off, and if I didn’t need it now, I’d never pay that price, let alone $9.99. If it’s $9.99, why does it say $6.99 on the shelf?” (The checker nods and turns back to wait on the next customer)

Customer (now becoming annoyed and louder): “Excuse me, but I just told you that I want my $3 back, and all you can do is nod at me? Please call the store manager.”

Checker: “You’ll have to wait, Sir; I’ve started the next customer here!”

Customer: “Listen to me: Call the store manager NOW!”

Checker (on loudspeaker system): “Manager to register six!” (three minutes later, the manager shows up)

Manager (to checker): “What’s up?”

Checker (pointing with her thumb): “He says this tape is $6.99, but it’s $9.99 on the scanner!”

Customer (interrupting their exchange): “You’re the manager?” (Manager nods) “I picked this tape off the shelf and the shelf had a sign on it that the price is $6.99. Now your checker who, besides being rude, took my money and charged me $9.99. If this tape is $9.99, then your sign is wrong and I don’t want it for $9.99. Either I pay what the sign says or I want my money back.”

Manager: “Gimme the tape; I’ll go check it out!” (Then to checker: “I’ll be right back, but don’t ring anybody else up ’til we get this straight!” The line of now disgruntled customers grows and no one is around to handle the other registers. The checker hums, stares out the front window, and drums her fingers on the register. The manager walks to the shelf in question, which is all the way to the back of the store, and returns four minutes later to a huffing-puffing crowd of customers waiting not so patiently in line.)

Manager (speaking only to the checker): “He’s wrong! The price is $9.99 the way you had it!”

Customer: “Excuse me! First of all, would you please speak with meand not the checker? I am starting to get very annoyed here. The sign back there said $6.99 not $9.99 and I either want this tape for $6.99 or my money back. If I can’t get either, you can be sure of having a major problem for false advertising.”

Manager: “Sir, the tape you purchased is $9.99. It, and a few others, must have been put on the $6.99 shelf by mistake. There are $6.99 tapes back there.”

Customer: Great! I’ll go get one of those. I suggest you not hold up this line any longer.”

Manager: “Sir, that’s our decision, and we’ll wait for you to get back here.

Checker (after customer returns with a $6.99 tape): “We have to start this all over again, so give me back the $10.01 and I’ll give you back your $20 and then I’ll have to get the manager back here to approve the initial over-ring before…”

Customer (turning to walk out): “Screw it!”

Funny? Maybe if you’re reading it. Not funny if you’re the customer, or someone who’s waiting in line. Not only should the checker be fired on the spot, or at least put on probation, the manager needs a “straighten up and fly right!” warning (and both obviously need training). Every customer is always right all of the time, no exceptions, ever!

You own a business, and don’t agree? Bite the bullet and move on, or sell the business. By ALWAYS following the customer is right guideline ALL of the time, you will lose something sometimes, but the reputation you gain will more than compensate for the losses. People do business with businesses that consistently demonstrate respect and authenticity, that do what they say they will do.  

Surely, you know what SHOULD have happened in the incident described. Of course the checker and the manager were both at fault, but what could they have done differently? What would you have had them do? How would you have fixed the problem? How would you prevent it from happening again? Is YOUR business the next example?

Every dissatisfied customer tells ten other people about his or her bad experience, and each of those ten tell ten others. Can you afford 100 negative impressions? (And of course each of those hundred tell…)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

 Coming soon to your  

expanding consciousness

. . .Two of the world’s three 

most important words!

Besides “Please” (which does not have a special day devoted to it), “Thank You” may be the world’s most important words because –in every language and every neighborship  in every country– they make people smile inside.

You can prove it to yourself just by thinking for a minute that it’s Thanksgiving time: 

• the general business climate begins to relax
• our thoughts turn to family — our “family-families” of course, but it’s also an appropriate time to take stock in and remember our “business families” as well.

And while we’re on the subject of thankfulness, let us not forget all our military and “first responder”  (police and fire and EMS) families. They are, after all, the ones who have given us the freedom and the opportunities to choose and achieve, who make it possible for us to pursue new horizons, and ways to grow our business interests, which support our families.

“Thank you for your service to our country!” with a sincere handshake and straight look in the eye addressed to the occupant of every passing military uniform or veteran hat is a rewarding and meaningful practice all year, 24/7. “Thank you for your service to our community!” is an equally important expression of appreciation to local, county, and state first responders.

If these are not routine practices

for you, try them out this week!

I had the pleasure for a number of years of serving as management consultant to H&H Swiss, a precision metal manufacturing company in Hillside, New Jersey. It was the company’s tradition to send out Thanksgiving cards to customers and friends every year instead of Christmas cards. Their mailings expressed timely thanks for business friendship, and never got lost in the “holiday shuffle.”

With most of us looking forward next week to the annual trekking or hosting of our assorted dysfunctional “family-families,”  it may be appropriate to pause to appreciate not just all the good food and relationship renewals, but also the accomplishments of our “business families.”

Remember that special favor

someone did for you

 this past year? That extra

effort you were too busy

to acknowledge?

No, you needn’t start doling out cash bonuses, or even turkeys. But you might want to hand out, instead, your sincere appreciation for those special contributions of time and commitment that surfaced within your “family-family” as well as your “business family.”

Go ahead. Take the risk. It’s a reasonable one.

Let each person know how much you genuinely appreciate her or him going the extra mile. Nothing to lose. Everything to gain. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Do All Web Designers, Editors,

SEO “Experts,” Digital

Managers, and Webmasters 

Own Stock in Optical and

Eye Surgery Centers?

Speaking of Eyes, here are a few I’s for you — just in case you’re looking for good “I” words to characterize the work performance sections of your resumes (which I hope for your short-term well-being that you have up-to-date!).

Let me not beat around the bush.

Here’s my Top 20 List of Words to describe the efforts(?) of those of you who appear to be part of the vast sea of non-communicative business (and especially BIG -time Corporate) websites:  

Irksome. Irritating. Infuriating. Insulting. Invidious. Inconvenient. Incompetent. Irrational. Insolent. Inapt. Impudent. Immature. Insouciant. Inflammatory. Incorrigible. Implacable. Inconceivable. Idiotic . . . Ignoramus Internet Imbeciles!

And that’s just the I’s.

I dare you to tell me the last website you visited that was physically readable. It’s bad enough you’ve butchered the English language and that you remain out-of-control-convinced that all of humanity speaks only via txtmsg language, now we all read your proudly-designed sites, and need glasses.

Do you really think that:

type this size

. . . is for normal, healthy eyes? And then you have the audacity (we’ll leave the I’s behind for awhile; I like “audacity”) to do the damn type in gray, and Italicized, no less?

like this

What are you all nut cases?

Did you ever consider that site visitors become prospects and prospects become customers and customers’ purchases of the products and services promoted on the site are what pay for your existence?

(Oh, and please don’t start telling me about ways to adjust my screen size to accomodate your lack of customer service and marketing savvy!)

Sometimes, I might expect to see some brand new business attempting –with, obviously, the communication expertise and guidance of one of you– to spout its message with a touch of class that no doubt came from having once visited a high-priced attorney’s office where everything is gray, including the invoices. But I’ve come to expect better from long-established enterprises.

Or, well maybe I’ll give you the benefit of doubt, maybe it’s just that if you use .6 and .7 font sizes, you figure you can get more stuff on a page and jam it into little corners so you can design Internet castles in the air with all that leftover space. And, shoot!, if you make it gray and hard to read, nobody can criticize your attempts at copy content without having to visit their ophthalmologists, right?

What touched off this avalanche? Check around a few corporate giant sites, especially pages with unimportant junk — you know, things that just don’t mean anything, like instructions, or policies, or payment terms. I have.

In fact, I’ll return to the A words for long enough to say that it is beyond ANNOYING to find evidence of work done by people who really should know better (and who are typically commanding huge fees) that fails 100% to communicate. And somewhere up there is a boss who clearly hasn’t a clue about how to be a leader, who has let droves of techie superstars commandeer their own marketing programs.  

So, in case you’re still reading this (and with apologies for catching up the more honorable among you in my wrath), I have this to say to you:

Don’t give up your day job!

~~~~~~~~

www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

PULLING TEETH!

BANGING HEADS!

LOCKING HORNS!

Find yourself doing much of that lately?

Maybe it’s the economy?

When times are tight, people get tight.

When people get tight, they can get worried.

When people worry, they can become defensive, aggressive, manipulative, territorial, and often, job-threatened.

Reaching agreement becomes increasingly challenging, and sometimes it feels close to impossible. It can be especially problematic when working with volunteer groups. http://bit.ly/bLAB9s

When your business or key issues come to a grinding halt, you can:

1. Draw Straws
2. Flip a Coin
3. Go Bonkers
4. Call in the Police

5. Work it Out (Recommended)

Working it out, for two people –as those who are married, engaged, courting, living together, or partnered know all too well– means that someone must give up something.

Working it out for three or more might also mean giving stuff up, but more likely –if it’s to be any kind of meaningful reconciliation of divergent thinking– some type of collaborative compromising of interests is generally desirable.

Reaching consensus involves a synergistic process. It means that everyone within the group (team, task force, department, division, company) must agree at least somewhat with the resolve or conclusion or direction reached. Note “somewhat.”

Consensus-seeking can be a very effective leadership/teamwork method of problem solving because it inherently prevents any one person from “winning” a “competition.” Everyone involved must be able to agree that she or he can live with the way things are worked out.

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As a device for settling disputes, consensus-seeking flies in the face of traditional American brainwashing to win at all costs. It is (sorry, football fans) not the case that there always needs to be a winner and loser, and that there is no such thing as second place.

For those deep, dark, impulsive, no-constraints,

take-off-the-gloves moments,

go for a referee or umpire.

(You can also always call your Mother-in-law!<) 

For issues that will impact working (or living) together, consensus-seeking leaves all involved parties with some worthy scraps to cling to, allows everyone to save face, and usually prompts a process or procedure or product or production (ah, communicative benefits of alliteration!) to occur that is both measurable and accountable. Because it’s a group-effort pursuit! 

As leader/facilitator, Pfeiffer and Jones suggest in the University Associates Structured Experiences for Human Relations Training, you need to establish consensus-seeking “rules” to help ensure productive results by employing the following guidelines: 

• No averaging,
• No “majority rule” voting.
• No “horse-trading.” 

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You need to influence group members to avoid arguing in order to “win” as an individual. Seek instead the best collective judgment of the group as a whole. Conflict on ideas, solutions, predictions, etc. should be viewed as helping rather than hindering the process.

Problems are best solved when individual group members accept responsibility for both hearing and being heard. Tension-reducing behaviors can be useful as long as meaningful conflict is not “smoothed over” prematurely.

The best results flow from a fusion of information, logic, and emotion (feelings). Need a little coaching help? Call me.

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www.TheWriterWorks.com  

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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and God Bless all of our U.S. Troops and Veterans.

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

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