SELF-EMPLOYED?

Defragment and

give your SELF a

stimulus package!

     There’s plenty of unused storage space in your mind, believe me. Even if it’s just a little teeny bit true that Einstein supposedly only used about 10% of his total brain capacity, where does that leave the rest of us? I mean, give that about 27 or 28 seconds of think time right now.

     Think about all that extra (empty?) space in your brain that’s available to put to work. Leave it plugged in tonight and just click on accessories> defragment. By the morning, VOILA! You’ll be ready for anything.

     Maybe we should sort out who’s working where first. That way, when you’re all freshly defragmented, you’ll be in a position to make more of what you’ve got, or jump into something different.

     If you work for a big company, raise your hand and leave the room. If you work for someone else in a small company or you work for an organization of some type, or you’re in school learning how to work for somebody else…or you don’t work (Wow! What’s thatlike?), you’re probably not reading any of this anyway because you’re too busy surfing FaceBook.

This now leaves us with the heart of the businessworld: YOU!

    You run and/or own and/or manage a business,

OR you are self-employed.

     Oh, there’s that nasty hyphenated word again: self-employed. This simply means that you run AND own AND manage a business. I love you for that…but don’t get yourself worked up over my affection because what do I know?

     Federal and state government leaders don’t think you count.

     Obviously they haven’t a clue about how Apple and Microsoft got started in garages by self-employed geniuses. Anyway, don’t hold your breath waiting for some kind of  stimulus package since “self-employed” doesn’t count as a small business in government circles.

     I saw a handful of governor-conference-attending governors on CSPAN last night, including I am sorry to say, Delaware Governor Jack Markell who clearly doesn’t get it…who thinks his small business job creation plan to help established small businesses get bigger is going to have big economic impact.

     Sorry Jack. You need to get real, and talk with (LISTEN TO) some of Delaware’s thousands of self-employed small businesses –the ones that are NOT established, that are struggling to get established to see what they need to get up to 3 or 4 or 11 or 25 employees…and TIP: it’s not more loans!

     Making stimulus package room for startups and struggling self-employed is like making disk space by defragmenting. Clear out the junk, the spam, the space-wasters.

     You see what I’m saying here about brain capacity?  Defragmenting cleans up your harddrive. The same concept will clean up your brain, and help you focus on how to be more productive with your time and energy.

     You can be sure of not getting government support, so what can you be sure of? Your SELF! And how do you make that start to work for you? The same ways that Messrs. Jobs and Gates made their one-man-band garage ventures start to work for them.

     They made the choice. They worked hard at their ideas. They didn’t give up when things looked bleak. They didn’t worry about stimulus packages. They put their heads down and charged. You can do that too! Start tomorrow morning…after you defragment tonight!     

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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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Get this blog FREE by list-protected email: click “Posts RSS Feed” (center column)…or pay $1.99/month on AMAZON Kindle. FEELING CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the 297-day “7-Word Story” (center column). A new Hal Alpiar short story is coming in September in a new book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING…soon at Barnes & Noble @ $19.95 ($24.95 CAD), OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication @ $18.95 plus $3.50 s&h [$22.45 total check only), payable to: TheWriterWorks.com. LLC. and mail to POBox 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include ship-to (U.S. only) address.  REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 13th IS GRANDPARENT’S DAY! 

The Emperor’s New Clothes!

     On the heels of begging Mr. Biden to stop hallucinating with his feebly http://halalpiar.com/2009/07/its-about-small-business-mr-biden/ unfounded economic turnaround braggioso, I turn to yesterday’s summary from U.S. News & World Report, another self-proclaimed mainstream media source of business acumen and salvation, and can only shout HOORAY!

     Now we can finally all stop being nervous and worried (frantic?) about the sick economy that our nation’s financial giants have birthed and nurtured because according to USN&WR, things are in fact getting better, just as Pal Joey would have us believe in his comments earlier this week, telling us to “just look around!” to see all the business rebounds and job creation that’s going on.

     Well, don’t you know, USN&WR has happily substantiated Mr. Biden’s claims with some hard-nosed assessments that all small business owners everywhere must by now be jumping up and down about.

     “We’re seeing some signs of the economy turning the corner” says USN&WR. WOW! I respond, and hungrily devour the article, searching out some hook to hang my hat on. Ah, and what to my wondrous eyes does appear, but six organizations that give me such hope, I had to run to throw up!

     Here, says USN&WR, take this: Positive financial news is surfacing from none other than these six entities that USN&WR no doubt considers representative for all of us:

• Goldman Sachs
• JP Morgan Chase
• CitiGroup
• Bank of American
• CIT
• The Federal Reserve

     Oh, my heavens! Such great news from these six. Can we in small business be far behind?

     Duh. Yes.

     When did the struggling farmer, retailer, transporter, wholesaler, distributor, construction firm, manufacturer, tourism-based business, and all the rest of us who actually work for a living have anything in common with the big business muckity-mucks who own and operate these monster wheeler-dealer corporations?

     When did their revenues and projections ever have anything to do with the reality of making a living based on the price of or market for corn, or shipping, or a decent hotel room?

     Where exactly is small business in this flurry of mixed economic messages? Why is the government sitting on it’s hands? Why is small business, the last remaining hope for economic turnaround through job creation, being disregarded?

     Why is small business seeing nothing more than tokenism fro government?

     Could it possibly be that union purchases of the presidency now need to be repaid in political favors to the exclusion of survival that only small business job creation has the capability of spearheading?

     Have we become so sick a nation that political IOUs have become more important than our hands, our hearts, our minds… our families? Let’s get real, mass media. The government surely isn’t!     

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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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Get this blog FREE by list-protected email: click “Posts RSS Feed” (center column)…or pay $1.99/month on AMAZON Kindle. FEELING CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the 296-day “7-Word Story” (center column). A new Hal Alpiar short story is coming in September in a new book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING…soon at Barnes & Noble @ $19.95 ($24.95 CAD), OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication @ $18.95 plus $3.50 s&h [$22.45 total check only), payable to: TheWriterWorks.com. LLC. and mail to POBox 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include ship-to (U.S. only) address.    

REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 13th IS GRANDPARENT’S DAY! 

 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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“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! 

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!

But working harder

makes you smarter!

I’ve probably heard “Work smarter, not harder” a few hundred million times in my life (yeah, I know, that’s probably a few more than a million times a day or something. Anyway, it seems like it!)

     So, okay I tried this little “Work Smarter” rule of thumb like 75 million times, and blam! Nothing. I mean you couldn’t even BE smarter than I worked, but blam! Nothing. It was like a big empty room and nothing to do but get frenzied and frazzled about having nothing to do except hang out! (How do teenagers do it? Oh, right, txtg 4 fun n games!)

I tried so hard to work smarter that I was working myself to the bone just  trying to work smarter. And for some reason, I couldn’t get myself to think that I was putting myself on some wonderful new brightly lighted cheerful pathway that would pioneer me a new life through the gloom and darkness!

Then I started reading about great leaders I admired, and guess what? They all worked harder than everybody else. I remembered a boss I once had who commuted daily to Manhattan from Pennsylvania (2-hour train rides each way) and who arrived at the office at 7am and left at 6pm; you figure it out. Helluva life! Needless to say, he was not a happy camper most of the time.

     So what am I saying? There needs to be a point of diminishing returns in human productivity and pleasantness? Yah! Okay, so what’s yours? Have you actually pushed yourself to that point, or do you just talk it? Are you a closet workaholic? Or (Horrors!)  a real one?

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s perfectly okay to work like a maniac IF:

A) You enjoy what you do

B) You’re not using it as an excuse to avoid some form of intimacy with family, friends, associates, or significant others

C) You really and truly need to work (and it’s not just so you can afford the $100 wine that your neighbor drinks)

D) You’re a whacko entrepreneur and you know there’s no other way to get ahead in life and have a successful business than to knock yourself out doing whatever it takes…and you have a vacation planned!

E) You aspire to leadership greatness, and know that the best leaders rarely sleep…and you have a vacation planned!

NOTE: If ALL of the above alphabetized items apply to you, start looking up shrinks in your local phone book…you’re going to need someone you can get to, like lickity-split!

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Entrepreneurship & Expansion Coaching    931.854.0474

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

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

“Leaders have to control their

emotions under pressure.”

Rudy Giuliani, Time Magazine’s “Mayor of the world”

     We’re reminded to be kinder than necessary because everyone we meet is fighting some kind of battle. If that reminder is only half true, we’re talking about a lot of pent up stress. Bottled up anxieties = emotions under pressure. Leaders, by virtue of being leaders must rise above that.

     Forcing your brain to functionin ways that are totally opposite of what you are feeling can be a daunting if not overwhelming challenge, but not one that’s impossible. Why? Because you choose your behavior. You choose whether you will reACT or reSPOND to any given situation.

     Being aware that you have that choice and consciously making that choice is a fairly conclusive bit of evidence that you are indeed someone who is in a leadership position. This is not to say that you need to be unfeeling or insensitive about other people and situations. It means you need to control your feelings when you’re in the pressure-cooker!

     The best starting point for this is to follow the 4-step 60-second exercise spelled out at:

http://halalpiar.com/2009/05/4-steps-in-one-minute-zero-stress/

     Next, recognize that not only is the act of leadership a choice, but so too is the designation that empowers the action. Or, as some have more succinctly put it: if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen!

     Remember too that leaders are both born AND made, but that leadership doesn’t fall from the sky! 

     What is this elusive quality all about? TIME magazine (which I don’t think gets very much right in general, but happened to here) had this to say about designating Rudy Giuliani as “Mayor of the World” and as the 2001 “Person of the Year”:

For having more faith in us than we had in ourselves, for being brave when required and rude where appropriate and tender without being trite, for not sleeping and not quitting and not shrinking from the pain all around him.”

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“You’ve got to stand

for something, or

you’ll fall for anything”

— Aaron Tippin, Country Western Performer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hja0XND8Ms 

     The business world seems to have a mission to have a Mission Statement for everything these days…Sales Mission Statements, Customer Service Mission Statements, Corporate Mission Statements, Financial Mission Statements…

     And many of these, I believe, are merely token lip service public relations-type tongue-twisters with no teeth that hang framed on walls and plastered onto every ad and document and website in bordered shadow boxes, flaunted as if they were flags of honor and integrity!

     First of all, any company that has to be boasting about a Mission Statement (no matter how goody-goody it might sound) is simply indulging itself in mental masturbation.

     If your business is as great as the pursuit of its Mission, the people you want to know it, will know it without you having to strut it across every stage. Your behavior and the behavior of your business is what constitutes your “brand” and people will know you by your brand, your conduct.

     That having been said, there is a need in every organization (even sole proprietorships) for an internal “Leadership Mission Statement” that owners, operators, and managers can rally around and bring into daily practice. “You need to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

     It needs to address HOW your business leadership will function and communicate with others inside AND outside your organization. Why? Because –no matter what business you’re in, no matter what quality or value of goods and services you offer, no matter how industrious and honorable you may be– 80% of your business is communication!

     If you don’t have a Leadership Mission that focuses attention on the processes and ways you will strive daily to communicate clearly (including, importantly, active listening practices) with associates, staff, customers, prospects, vendors, community, industry and the rest of the world, you are setting your company up for failure.

     I’m not talking about a PR or media or customer service policy  manual, or some empty suit theory. I’m referring to a genuine statement of leadership conduct that calls on human communication best practices at every level… in letters, emails, on the phone, in-person, in presentations, and in all marketing related materials, publishings and broadcasts all of the time. “You need to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

What’s the guideline to use? Trust and Authenticity.

With special thanks for inspiring tonight’s blog post to a strategic alliance partner of mine, Andrew Jackson, who sent me the link to the music video source of the headline quote above. 

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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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The gun goes off!

     No, I’m not suggesting some form of warfare is needed for starting a business (though, at times it can feel like being on the edge of a military engagement). I’m talking about a starter’s gun, the kind that’s used to start events, that shoots blanks? Whew! Glad we got that straight.

     Starting a new business, or a new venture spinning out of an existing business–in case it’s been a while and you’ve forgotten–is very much like the beginning of a crew race. Okay, you live in the desert or the mountains and haven’t the foggiest idea about a crew race.

     Maybe you saw one once on TV? Crew races take place in rivers, lagoons, bays, and lakes. Skinny, lightweight 62-foot-long sculls (boats) with 8 rowers (each with a two-handed oar: 4 on the port side and 4 on the starboard side). Yes, there are also 4 and 2 and 1-rower sculls.

     Each oarsman/oarswoman has his or her feet strapped in, and each slides forward and backward on little butt-snuggling seats that actually have each rower precariously perched in such a manner as to practically hang out over the boat edges just inches above the water.

     There’s a “coxswain” (usually a featherweight athlete with  heavyweight vocal cords) in the bow (front) who steers the boat with guide wires and pounds the rhythm into blocks on the sides of the boat. This little person does a lot of yelling through a megaphone. Oh, thatcrew race! Sooo?

     Competing boats get positioned on the starting line, standing still, dead in the water. Oars and rowers ready. Let me try that headline again: The gun goes off! Every rower slams their oars as fast and furiously as they can in and out of the water in order to get some starting momentum and get the boats moving from their dead weight standstill positions.

     Once some forward motion is established (and assuming no capsizings or tangled oars with other crew teams), the coxswain starts in with a quick paced rhythm, calling “in” and “out” for rowers to coordinate oar placements in and out of the water.

     This builds the pace of movement in a smoother, more team-coordinated manner. The coxswain eventually calls out “stroke” as the pace lengthens out into longer harder quicker pulls.

     The coxswain is all the while banging on the boat because rowers cannot always hear the shouted ins and outs because of wind, but they can feel the vibrations of the pounding and respond to that.

     Rowers slide forward and back in time with lifting their oars up out of the water, twisting the handles so the oar blade skims back across the top of the water, then plunging the blade back in for the exhausting pull through the water, then repeating the motion again and again.

     Rowers must concentrate on staying in tandem (from a head-on view, an observer should see but one single rower when the team is in perfect sync). They must also focus on working to not “catch a crab” (getting an oar stuck out of rhythm with the other seven oars, going into or coming out of the water, and creating a splashy puddle).

“Catching a crab” can be serious enough to “catch” an oar blade and take the oar that’s fastened into the oarlock beyond the point of recovery. This will likely turn the entire boat over, which –aside from losing the race and likely damage to the expensive fragile boat– is not a fun thing in 50-degree water with a hooded sweatsuit!  

Are you beginning to see why this athletic ordeal reminds me of starting a business? Are you paddling fast and furiously to get some forward motion? Are you trying to row and steer your fragile, expensive boat at the same time? Are you missing hearing the steps you have to take but feeling the vibrations? Have you “caught a crab”? Are you lengthening out? Capsized?

Hey, there’s always another race!

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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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Get your hidden agenda

out of the closet!

• CLIENT or BOSS or PROSPECT: Here’s a project we’d like you to do. Please tell us how you would do it, how long it would take and what kind of budget you’d recommend.
• CONSULTANT or MANAGER: Who’s the project for? What’s the purpose? Who or what’s being targeted? When do you need it done? What’s the budget you have to work with?
• CLIENT or BOSS or PROSPECT: Don’t worry about that stuff. We’re not sure of the target and we have no due date or budget; you tell us what you think.
• A WEEK LATER: “We’ve reviewed your proposal and we don’t like the target you selected, we think it should be done quicker and it’s too expensive.”

Whaaaaaaaaat?

     Every business or organizational group works on two levels: The level of the task represented on the surface, and the level of the “hidden agenda” — the undisclosed needs and motives of individual group members.

     Personal goals, values, attitudes, and fears impact the ways that individuals react to or respond to the group’s surface task. Hidden agendas siphon off valuable energy that can be used to accomplish the task at hand.

     People play power games by withholding information. By not telling the person(s) on the receiving end of an assignment, what the parameters are for a particular project, the CLIENT or BOSS or PROSPECT undermines prospects for success. By assuring him or herself of increased personal control, she or he is simultaneously dooming the project to failure.

     Hidden under the surface, you’re likely to find many individual conflicting pushes and pulls. Group members (according to a University Associates Handbook for Group Facilitators) have personal and subjective needs for belonging, acceptance, recognition, self-worth, self-expression, and productivity.

     The needs of one disgruntled or over-zealous or manipulative or misdirected individual can block the needs of another, or of the entire group, or the entire project. These blockages can be resolved in a minute, or drag on for years…in some rare instances, a lifetime.

     The Pfeiffer & Jones Group Facilitator Handbook suggests:

I wonder if we have said all that we feel about the issue. Maybe we should go around the table and ask for individual comments so that we can open up any further thoughts”

…as being the kind of statement a leader might ask anytime that hidden agendas appear to be threatening progress. 

     When you detect a hidden agenda, get it out of the closet!

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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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WATCH FOR ONE OF HAL’S SHORT STORIES COMING this September in the new Nightengale Press book, THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING…ON SALE HERE!