What one thing

could you be doing better? 

     Before you start accounting for any business downturn you experience by blaming swings in the economy, in the stocks and bonds markets, in real estate, in interest rates, in politics, in government, in international relations, or anything else beyond your immediate control . . . STOP!

     STOP and reassess what IS within your immediate control that you’re not doing as well as you could be doing. 

     The odds are (assuming you’re willing to be honest with yourself) that one thing, if not THE one thing you could be doing better has something to do with communication.  Possible?  Or am I just imagining things?

     If you’re still with me, it seems fair to say that you probably agree that you and your employees could do a better job of communicating.  If that’s the case, then the liklihood is great that you and your employees most need to do a better job of listening.

     When you can become a more active, more effective listener, you set yourself up to be more in control of your business and better equipped to guide it through difficult times.

Take this little test . . . 

If you were the boss, choose one of the four choices offered (only one choice really works!) as to how you would most likely respond to the following situation: 

Disgusted with all the resistence given to suggestions offered, the disgruntled employee storms out of a meeting on how to increase sales, complaining loudly, “What the hell’s the point of coming up with innovative ideas around here anyway?” 

Should your response be A, B, C, or D?

A) “Don’t worry; you’ll come up with another good campaign.”

B) “I understand; I have trouble getting new ideas across myself!”

C) “Sounds like you’re discouraged about trying to change things.”

D) “Can’t you re-think key aspects of the campaign and present it again next week?”

     If you answered A, B, or D, you chose a type of reponse that 99% of managers would have used.  While each shows good intentions (A is reassuring; B is sympathizing; and D is questioning) — they all represent roadblocks to effective communication with the troubled worker. 

     If you chose C, you may have an edge in effectively handling employee complaints.  A, B, and D represent expedient but totally nonproductive responses.  What’s going on?  Most bosses are in too much of a hurry to make the problem go away and aren’t willing to use active listening skills. 

(Test and conclusion from an American Airlines in-flight magazine article by Gage and Beuford)

     Partly because it takes more time, effort and energy to listen carefully and most people find it difficult to believe that it’s worth the effort.  Partly because most people (maybe even more than 99%) have no training in how to be active listeners. 

     When an employee complains, the instinct of almost all managers is to dispense with the problem as soon as possible.  These expedient kinds of responses are natural, but they don’t get to the heart of the issue, and, in fact, often deepen the employee’s feelings of not being understood, appreciated or accepted.

     Experiment:  Take one entire day and try to listen harder.  Make notes to yourself about what you think you really hear.  It certainly can’t hurt; it doesn’t cost a penny; and you might be surprised.    halalpiar 

Tomorrow: Active listening best practices that can impact your bottom line immediately

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See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.  # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 83 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

This is the time

  between waves. 

     Have you ever noticed the utter serenity of the sea in between waves? 

     How much is that like your life and the work you do? 

     Thanksgiving visits and family were here in a tidal wave (perhaps more like a tsunami for some), and gone . . . tiny stones and shells aclatter, scamper down the beach in withdrawal as the tide turns low. 

     Business activity slows incrementally to more of a crawl each day between now and New Year’s when it all grinds to a halt.  Ah, but not for entrepreneurs or manufacturers!  Not for writers!  Not for retailers!  Not for emergency personnel!  Not for those forced out of work by economic uncertainty.   

     This is the time between waves. 

     Now is when small business owners and operators and manufacturing enterprise management can finally take a breather from the year-long pounding of phones, faxes, mail deliveries, media broadcasts, meetings, conferences, emails, text messages, trade shows, endless travel itineraries, and industry reports, and get some real work done.

     Now is when their attentions shift to strategizing, planning, scheduling, catch-up reading, assessing, courtesy-calling, audits and inventories, and getting ready for the next big wave in January. 

     Writers?  Yup!  Now is when writers can drop back from their day-to-day discipline and actually review what they’ve done; this time between waves is the perfect time to edit and polish and prepare to get the manuscript or feature story done, to get an agent, get a publisher, get a direction for developing more freelance work. 

     Retailers?  Let’s not even go there.  This between waves time is “make it or break it.”  No time even to think. 

     Emergency personnel?  We all know that emergencies never stop and, if anything, they increase dramatically during the holiday season . . . and afterward, especially during the depression-heightened month of January! 

     So holidays mean relaxing business ebbs for some, and ulcerous anxieties for others.  Where are you right now?  You’re definitely not a retailer or EMT or ER nurse because you’d never have time to read this. 

     So since you are reading this far, it might be useful to remind yourself to make the choice to take full advantage of being between the waves.  It’s easy to get caught up in nonproductive activities, but you won’t get this valuable “down time” back until –maybe– the end of next year!  DO relax, but don’t fade away.        

     If you’re out of work, don’t count yourself out and head for the bridge.  You have the ability to pull yourself back up, kick yourself in the butt (a bit tricky, but not impossible for most!), and propel yourself forward back into the job market. 

     Remember that every problem that a company has is an opportunity for you to find the job that’s right for you, either in that company or another.  Stop beating yourself up.  Get focused.  And go for it!  Make it happen!  You can do it if you really want to.  All behavior is a choice.  Choose to make it easy

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, crackle-

crackle, POP!, fizzle, HO-HO-

HO, bzzzzzzt, scrape-scrape,

clatter-chatter, ding-dong,

burp, chop-chop, snip-snip,

clink, ZzZzzZzzzz, CRASH!

     IF YOU CAN NAME 10 of the sources of today’s 15 Sounds of the Seasons (Above) and 5 of yesterday’s 10 Sounds of the Seasons (Below) . . . YOU’LL WIN your name in type as big and bold as my post headlines (your choice of colors) PLUS your picture AND an up-to-300-word message from you, posted right here on this site from 12 noon ET New Year’s Eve, 2008, to 12 noon ET New Year’s Day, 2009! 

     Just think, you can New Year’s party your brains out and then  –ZING!–  fling open your laptop and call everyone you know to see your 24 hours of Internet fame, and still have it be there when you sober up the next morning. 

     The perfect way to kick-off the bowl games, propose to your sweetheart (or maybe someone you meet New Year’s Eve!), initiate your first quarter sales program, publicize your Polar Bear Club winter swim schedule, or get your worry list ready for your annual January shrink visits! 

     Imagine the envy and jealousy you can create as your parting shot to 2008.  Think of the hope and positive vibes and well wishes you can send as your welcome message for 2009! 

     If you do a really good job of guessing the Sounds of the Season sources, or if you don’t guess right, but you do it creatively, I will also consider posting your bio (or resume if you’re job hunting — hey, y’never know!).     

     You heard me, even if you guess wrong but do it creatively, you could still win worldwide creative genius acclaim and notoriety, right here in blog city. 

     This site is visited regularly by thousands of people from more than 30 different countries.  We’re not just talking “hits” here; these are quality visitors who stay on this blog site an average of 15-30 minutes each . . . enough time to decide to interview you, hire you, marry you, or just send you cash!

     Here’s your chance to give a sales pitch for yourself, or your business or political or community or organizational cause for FREE. 

     No strings attached.  No one will make sales calls and your email address and name will be kept in a shoebox under my bed — no sales or rentals; no spam; no annoying anything.  That’s a promise. 

     Winners will be notified by email by December 27th, 2008.  I reserve the right to edit any submission for decency, good taste, and overall presentation. 

     GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.  halalpiar    # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 81days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Yep! History In The Making… 

This being a thankful week, I thank you for joining me today.  With anticipation of my blog post #200 coming on Thanksgiving Day, YOU now have the chance to be part of history in the making . . . 

     I am asking all my friends and blog followers to write favorable comments in the window below that I can take with me to Washington. 

     I will print out your comments and hand them over as accompanying support for my request to be granted a real, honest-to-goodness, taxpayer-dollars-paid-for government bailout. 

     This financial relief will enable me to continue writing blog posts that benefit society without putting any compensation burden on me to have to sell advertising banners, or pay myself a salary with money that I’m just not earning right now. 

[Of course the future will be different, and I’ll only need annual bailout money for possibly seven or eight more years until my, ahem, ship comes in!]  

     I don’t think this is asking too much.  After all, I have a great many years under my belt of paying taxes at great personal sacrifice.  It’s probably time to get some of that back, maybe even more than what I’ve paid in. 

     I have also accumulated significant business debt that came about as a result of my focus change to write helpful business and personal growth hints for others instead of to make sales for myself. 

     Being accustomed to a $900,000 a year lifestyle, I imagine it would be awfully hard to get myself under that to qualify for those campaign-promised tax cuts so I wouldn’t have to be paying into the bailout kitty — let’s see, was it a $250,000 level according to one candidate, or $100,000 level promised by his running mate?  Hmmm.  Well, a hundred, two hundred and fifty, not much difference. Whatever. 

     Paying for incompetence with bailouts funded by taxes.  Now that’s a unique idea.  But, hey, that’s what government is for anyway, isn’t it?  I mean, who else could I turn to?  You might find this surprising, but no one I know of has the ability to pump $3,000,000,000,000+ into shoring up sinking businesses.

(Oh, and, don’t kid yourself: considering that absolutely no one on this planet has even the slightest clue about how many billions and trillions are about to get shell-game shifted around, or by whom, and to whom, and what for, and for how long, and where it’s all coming from, it could be the + on top of that three trillion that’s the real kicker!).

     Of course, I’m sure I will need to unionize first to qualify.  It’d be wonderful to add a dozen or so employees to my blog staff (maybe I could write posts twice a day!) just so I could collect. 

     None of the union folks would actually do anything, but what else is new?  They provide qualification clout.  That works.  Why, it’s almost like being able to get more food stamps by adding more kids to the family!       halalpiar     

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 76 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Whew!   

Well, let’s see, in just this one single week, for the recap benefit of those who have been kind enough and masochistic enough to visit my bloggerings regularly, we have:

• slept with the boss

• gotten physical, occupational, speech, and psycho therapy

• ordered $100,000 worth of astronaut tools for Christmas

• Read firsthand witness reports of NASCAR-finalist dump truck drivers on the NJ Turnpike, and been outmaneuvered on the road entering downtown Wilmington by two multi-tasking champion bimbettes, and . . . 

• Re-visited the whole outrageous idea of authenticity! 

Whew!  

What more could you ask for? 

And in the middle of it all, we still managed to continue the increasingly infamous 7-word story [See note below the # # # if you’re not familiar with this ongoing challenge to the clever-witted young-at-heart literary community out there, seeking a publishing venue for their talents] 

Now if ever there was an exciting week down in the blogmines (blogmires?), this has to have been it!  I mean where else can you get all that in one fell swoop, so to speak? 

And where does that leave us off for NEXT week?  Well, I could always suggest, for the more automotive-minded among you, to check out the blog site I do for my friends at I.G. Burton car,  truck, and bus Dealerships in Milford and Seaford Delaware. 

It’s http://blog.igburton.com for all the best and latest new and pre-owned Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Blue Bird Busses to be exact.  In fact, the post before tonight’s for them was offering a FREE MERCEDES!  Now sit there and tell me you could pass this up.  Anyway, see y’all tomorrow with new and exciting stuff!  Off to watch “24”!   halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 75 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Sleeping With The Boss?

A staggering number of U,S, businesses —96%— are estimated to be either family-owned or family-controlled! 

     It’s anyone’s guess how many are family operated, but the bottom line is that it takes a very special relationship or cluster of relationships to work together effectively all day, every day (even every few days!), and still maintain healthy personal lives and separate identities.  Teamwork.  Shared leadership.  Give and take.  Active listening.

     This post comes from firsthand experience. 

     My wife Kathy and I work together, eat together, sleep together and vacation together.  We’ve been doing that every day, pretty much seven days a week, for over twenty years. 

     We’ve nearly killed each other a hundred times, but neither of us would have it any other way, and we’d do it all over again if we could.    

     Noted management professor and author Harry Levinson says “The family is never free of the business; all conversation and relationships seem to be built around it.  Nor,” he adds, “is the business ever free of the family.”

     When you eat, sleep, and drink the business, it’s often difficult to separate personal issues and concerns, to live personal lives, to be preserving your relationships. 

     But keep in mind that because all behavior is a matter of choice, separating business from personal is only difficult when you choose for it to be difficult.  You can choose for it to be easy!

     In entrepreneurship development programs and family business counseling sesions I ran, I would often advise married business partners to paint or tape a brightly-colored line across the doorway to their bedrooms, and not allow any business discussions, or even business thoughts to creep in and cross the divider. 

     One couple reported they enforce a required laugh out loud –even half-hearted– as admission to cross their red lightbulb-lined (on a timer) door frame.

     I guess the thought of that is a laugh by itself, but frankly, this bedroom divider line idea is probably useful advice for any couple, regardless of career. 

     Keeping a pen and paper (and penlight!) next to the bed to record middle-of-the-night bursts of inspiration or jot down to-do lists that keep you awake should provide all the business outlet anyone should need once he or she steps into the bedroom. 

     Bedtime in the bedroom is simply not the right time or the right place to talk about sales, distribution, taxes, accounts payable, collections, irate customers, business investments, R&D projects, bank loans, marketing programs, or employee performance. 

     It’s just not, that’s all.  It’s, in fact, destructive, taxing, unhealthy, and highly stressful . . . like the negative wired-out edge you might expect to get from watching network tv news all night! 

     Besides allowing yourself to jet down, and sleep more soundly, it will help soothe your neurological system to get brainstorm ideas and troublesome thoughts down on paper, and out of your head!  And DO remember the penlight.  No one likes waking up in the middle of the night to glaring lights and her or his bed partner writing up a business storm.    halalpiar 

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 74 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Hey, Home Depot!

Hey, Lowes!

Hey ACE Hardware!

Contractors, Repairmen, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ear!  Pack your tools up safe before you drink beer.  Or if today, on the Milky Way, a grease gun floats by . . . SIGH.

You’ve no doubt heard the news by now that one of our space-orbiting Astronauts lost a bagful of tools in the middle of doing a spacewalk repair.  Priceless.  Well, not quite. 

Actually the tool bag contents are estimated at roughly $100,000 worth of stuff, including a high-tech grease gun.  Hmmmm, whatever will space aliens think when they find out that Earthlings have been at war, shooting grease at one another?

There’s an old movie (name escapes me, but please let me know if this rings a bell): It opens in some desolete, remote jungle clearing occupied by a native tribe (Aborigines?) that has never before been exposed to civilization outside its own primative fire and spear devices of living, when suddenly from a rare passing airplane, a Coke bottle falls from the sky into the sand and ends up wreking havoc on the puzzled tribe members who I seem to recall think it came from God, dropped on them with some deep meaning from heaven.

Okay, now fast forward to the week before Thanksgiving, 2008, and a $25,000 (or $50,000?) greasegun crash lands in your front yard snow bank (if you’re in Maine, Alaska, Minnesota, Buffalo, or Canada, or the Swiss Alps or . . .) or your Southern California, Florida or Caribbean swimming pool, or W H E R E ? 

W H E R E ?

Tell me where it lands? 

What’s the situation? 

Has someone just screamed into the sky for help with the annoying garage door squeak? 

Is it in the middle of a major football game? 

How about you, all you Home Depot and Lowes employees?  Where are your voices, Sears Craftsman, and Black & Decker retailers? 

What would YOU do with a $100,000

bagful of high-tech space shuttle tools? 

Send me some ideas Hal@TheWriterWorks.com (“Space Tools” in the subject line.  I’ll publish your response, even your (decent) photo right here for all to see. 

Be creative or not.  Hard-nosed capitalists are also invited.  I’m waiting!  halalpiar        

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 72 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Straying off the subject of

business life for tonight . . . 

     A whole lot of driving this week leaves me thinking that — for the first time I can ever remember– it’s time to be prejudiced. 

     First off, if you drive a dump truck and –unlikely though it may be– you are actually reading this, you are not going to like what I have to say. 

     You know the vision most people have when you mention certain careers, like road crew flagger and cone placement professionals? 

     Well, it seems to me after a lifetime of driving every conceivable type of road in thirty different states and dozens of different countries that –generally speaking– dump truck drivers are reckless, power-crazed airheads who harbor secret visions of grandeur imagining themselves as NASCAR champions. 

     Judging by the speeds I often see them traveling, the no-signal lane changing they’re notarious for, they place no value on their lives or anyone elses.  These drivers must have to pass a duh test. 

     Is it possible these people could really be as oblivious to the reality of responsibility that accompanies the operation of relatively inflexible, unstable mega-ton vehicles as they appear to be?

     Well, I know, I shouldn’t pick on dump truck drivers.  They have to make a living too. 

     Okay, let’s move on. 

     Ah, but while I’m on it, there is one worse category of drivers.  I know I should get off of this, but having been the centerpiece of a maniacal four dump truck race on the New Jersey Turnpike earlier today . . . well. 

     So what driver group is worse?  But you shouldn’t need to ask.  Just look around you on the roads.  When’s the last time you saw a 20-35 year-old female driver who wasn’t driving while operating a handheld cellphone (speaking or text-messaging!) and either brushing her hair or smoking a cigarette or picking her teeth (or pimples, eek!) . . . and probably decibelling up her CD player, dancing around, chewing gum (they always chew gum!). 

     Yeah, the same ones with the graduation tassels, dice, baby booties, Native American dream catchers, prisms, and other dangling decorations hanging from the rearview mirrors — you know, those sneaky-peeky little vehicle amenities that make things appear closer than they really are, that are used primarily for guy-watching in the cars and trucks behind them. 

     Yup, lucky me, had one on each side of me this week, champion multitaskers, heading into downtown Wilmington.

     Then there was the double-length Rutgers University bus that nearly ran me off the road tonight as I cruised quietly along at the speed limit on Rt. 1 in New Brunswick.  Probably getting in some last-minute practice for Saturday’s football game traffic.  Ah, well, somehow I managed to survive it all so I can drive some more tomorrow.  Be Safe!     Halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 71 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Kick your own butt? 

     Yesterday, we talked some about the importance of being genuine (apologies to all you Ernests out there), and we did a brief inventory to see how obnoxious we were. 

     We touched on some ways to shore up the self-indulgence landslide brought on by trying to impress others, by acting controlling, by exaggerating, by glossing over, by constantly talking and posturing, by trying to act like the boss instead of just behaving like a leader. 

     Being more authentic as a human being earns respect.  Being more of what genuinely makes you tick may feel risky at times but in the end, commands loyalty, sets powerful examples, and delivers sales.  That was the gist of the message.  Of course I tossed in a couple of spoonfuls of my Father for good measure. 

     Today I want to know how much more authentic you can be than you were yesterday?  How much more conscious of your need to grow in this direction are you, or do you need to be?  What will work best to kick your own butt?  Can you start being a more authentic person the minute you click off this screen?

     The point here is that no one can really tell you what you need to do or how you need to do it except you!  YOU are the only human being on the entire planet who knows the REAL you, who knows your real potential.  Are you measuring up to what you know you’re capable of? 

     Or are you feeling like a downed-out failure?  With thanks for the referral to worldclass Internet “HARO” network genius Peter Shankman www.HelpAReporter.com, try this quick-fix for your brain (P.S. Kathy says we should watch it regularly!):   

http://wimp.com/bigfailures/      

     Oh, and on your way to becoming the very best you can be, get in the habit of making something wonderful happen every day before you go to sleep –like right now! 

     No excuses.  What were you planning to do after reading this page anyway?  Take an extra minute.  Think of some outstanding happy thing you could do or say that could make the whole day a great one for you or someone else — some words or action that will make you grin as your head hits the pillow tonight.

     If you already did something wonderful today, congratulations and thank you and go to bed!  You’ll need the sleep.  Why?  Because when you wake up tomorrow . . . you will be facing the greatest opportunity of your entire life!  Halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 70 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

This isn’t the movies and

you’re not in Hollywood! 

     What?  You thought you would be finding more hard core “sales-and-business” stuff here?  Well, working on your authenticity is the most genuine and arguably most important sales-and-business stuff you could ever set your sights on. 

     Businesses (and salespeople) succeed or fail based on how authentically they come across to their internal and external markets. 

     What your employees and suppliers think –for example– of the approaches you take to managing your business, or piece of the business you’re charged with, will positively impact your reputation, sales, and of course customer relations, even R&D projects!

     So, don’t be bashful; let’s take a little inventory.  How much of every day do you waste time and energy “playing the boss role” (making power plays, flexing your internal politics muscle, acting controlling, acting like a know-it-all, exaggerating your accomplishments, glossing over your errors) instead of just “being” the leader? 

     How much, in other words, do you try to influence others by attempting to impress them vs. simply gaining their respect by relating to them at their individual levels? 

     This isn’t the movies and you’re not in Hollywood. 

     Regardless of their stations in life, everyone in your daily path brings a certain energy to bear on each issue.  I grew up in an obscure, dilapidated, 3-room, third floor walk-up apartment next to the railroad tracks in one of America’s richest communities. 

     And if that sounds paradoxical, consider that my father was a mailman, whose advice was sought after daily by mayors, police chiefs, doctors, and Congressmen.  He was confided in by top “Fortune 500” corporate executives, and trusted by well-known authors, columnists, and artists. 

     He was a “closet confidant” to many big-name radio and TV personalities who lived in our low-profile, waterfront village north of New York City.

     How was this possible?  Harry escaped the ravages of genocide and came to America as a six year-old waif with a handful of rice.  He had no formal education, but he considered every encounter everyday as genuine and meaningful. 

     Harry listened carefully, spoke and laughed and cried from his heart, and never pretended to be someone he wasn’t.  He was quick to admit he didn’t have all the answers.  He was a character, all right.  He was the Norman Rockwell style   www.nrm.org/ personification of humility.

     He would have been a smash success at any business venture, but he liked who he was, he liked what he did, and he respected his “customers.”  In spite of his faults, and too much whiskey, he was nonetheless a success at being himself!  And he made sure his two sons grew up to appreciate the values of authenticity.

     In my thirty years of business coaching, consulting, and training, I can attest to this single quality as that which separates successful people and businesses from the wannabees, hasbeens and alsorans: authenticity.  It needn’t be perfect; but it does need to be vigilently practiced and consistently pursued.  How’s yours?  Halalpiar  

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 69 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.