Archive for the 'Listening' Category

Jun 23 2010

DISCRETION COUNTS

“That honorable stop.”

– Shakespeare

“Leaving a few things

                                 

unsaid.”

– Elbert Hubbard
                                                         

     Call it what you like, but having a mature sense of judgment, restraint, prudence, or tact is one of the world’s greatest measures of effective leadership.

     On a day when world news hovers over a General and a President who both apparently lack this quality, we are once again left to our own devices for finding leadership examples in our own businesses and industries and professions.

     We are bombarded today by many “progressive-minded” management gurus, trainers, coaches, consultants and self-proclaimed “evangelists,” with the need to practice “Leadership Transparency.”

     The notion is being hard-sell marketed that business owners and managers must emulate the open-door characteristics of Leadership Transparency in order to make a difference in this world.

     Advocates also suggest that the word, “transparency,” and transparent actions, need to take the high road of fostering full time open-and-above-boardedness.

     Yet it’s no secret that moderation in the form of exercising discretion will almost always cut us out a better, more productive, less hurtful path to take, than one that is completely and 100% clear.

Being able to see through leadership

can often limit its very ability

to produce meaningful results.

                                                       

     It’s an instinctive behavior unique to human beings (and especially to all of us “Men Are From Mars” types) to indulge in analytical pursuits at literally every turn in the road.

     When management leaders spill their guts (beans? milk?) and put everything out on the table, they leave no room for analyzing alternatives. Analyzing alternatives paves the way to innovative thinking.

     Economic growth comes from watering and fertilizing and casting sunshine onto innovative thinking.

     One need not be a brain surgeon to qualify for having the awareness that businesses that nurture and encourage innovative thinking are those that survive and thrive. Those that don’t, don’t.

     Leadership effectiveness is dependent on the ability to motivate. Motivating others requires the right mix of challenges and opportunities. How challenging is it to provide complete access to clear open-door directions? Is that action dishing up an opportunity or quietly investing in the status quo?

     Exercising discretion amounts to holding back a little . . . giving followers their own openings, providing the chances to innovate and excel.

     Nobody said leadership was easy, but do we really think we’ll have booming success stories on our hands when we encourage everyone we work with both inside and outside our businesses to know everything that’s going on all the time?  

www.TWWsells.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

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Jun 20 2010

Happy Father’s Day!

Business Wisdom Stuff

                                           

My Father (“Harry”)

                                       

Told Me 

                                                 

Whether or not these “words of wisdom” actually made a difference is anybody’s guess, but I believe some of it did. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a gem, you’ll have to sort through it all yourself. Just because something did or didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it will or won’t for you. So — take it with a grain of salt? Perhaps, but know for sure that some of this old world advice from an arguably savvy father amounts to the kind of input that can make a difference for almost any entrepreneur and/or business owner.

 HE WHO HESITATES IS LOST!

(This message was delivered repeatedly to my right ear while Dad was teaching me how to “merge” into traffic, then again years later as a new app, when I vacillated between two job offers. “Lost” wasn’t something I wanted to be, so I found this prompt to action useful a few times over.)

                                                                                                               

You always want things to be copacetic,

and the best way to get there is to have

a sense of urgency about all that you do.

(Dad often supplemented this advice with reminders to “be quick like a bunny” and to do what you need to do “in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” I recall as well Harry’s contradictory “Haste Makes Waste” warnings, but eventually figured out a compromise behavior which was something like: think stuff out slowly and carefully then act like lightning to get the job done. Hey, it worked for me. And as it turns out, part of it wasn’t far from the motto for carpenters and heart surgeons: “Measure twice. Cut once.”)

                                                                                                  

NEVER CUT CORNERS

WITH FOOD OR SHOES!

(You need, he would lecture, to take priority care of your appetite and your feet because you only get one of one and two of the other!)

                                                                                           

When meeting others for the first time,

always dress a notch higher

than you think they will.

(Because “clothes make the man” and

“you only get one first impression.”)

                                                                     

To be the best you can be, you have to

practice, practice, practice, practice,

practice . . . and practice some more.

                                         

KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN

(Physically and financially!)

                                             

When all else fails to cheer you up, sing and whistle!

                                                                   

Go with the wind, but

                                           

always be ready

                                      

to turn into it!

                                                  

If you can’t say something nice

about someone, say nothing.

                                                               

ALWAYS give people more effort

and more attention than you think

they ever imagined getting from you!

                                                                                                         

CHARITY STARTS AT HOME . . .

Don’t give up to others what you don’t have for yourself, no matter how needy they are because you can do more to help others when you do it from a position of strength . . . and be more generous than you think you should be when you get to the point where you can afford it!

                                                

And, arriving home as a kid, with a bloody nose, Harry said:

If you didn’t give the other guy a black eye,

I’m gonna give you a sore butt!  

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! 

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless:  You, America, and Our Troops. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

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Jun 14 2010

PLAYING WITH PORCUPINES

The more you

                          

“power-play” 

                                              

the more business

                                 

you lose!

                                                                                                

     Customers, employees, suppliers, investors, referrers, service people . . . your trade, profession, industry, community, neighborhood, and environment, your family. Your SELF! These are your bread-and-butter individuals, groups, attributes, supporters, and biggest fans.  

     They alone determine if your business  sinks or swims. They will not stand around any longer these days (compared to past patience practices) waiting for your other shoe to drop. If you don’t feel you can be respectful and genuine in all of your dealings with others every day of the week, take a government job! (You’ll thrive there!)

     But if making your business work is what’s really important to you, if your associations, integrity, accomplishments, and reputation all play important roles, if your family is the end of your rainbow, you need to make sure that your business is not over-indulging in brute-force power play struggles with those who support your business and life interests . . . or even with competitors.

    Power plays may work in sports, but they don’t have a place in business or family life. The harder you push others or the marketplace, the greater the odds that you’ll be breeding porcupines. No one likes being in a corner. Hard-nosed billing policies and collection tactics that leave no room for reality will agitate a great many quill-throwers.

     A major propane gas company in Delaware makes a practice of tip-toe backyard visits, to slap padlocks on gas pipe feeders when they think they haven’t been paid on time. They don’t bother to tell families that wake up to no heat or hot water that there is no grace period for late payments, and they don’t even have the courtesy to inform them of the shutoff.

     The company is often wrong. But, when they are, they simply send someone back out to unlock the lock when they discover their error. That’s it. No apology. No anything. After all, they’re practically a monopoly. And they’ve already legalized deals that require changeovers to other suppliers carry forced removal expenses for existing underground storage that they struck deals with long-gone developers on years ago. Why should they care? 

     Because customers talk. And many are in the process of finding alternative power sources, even with storage tank removal expenses. And one day, down the road a piece, they’re going to find out the hard way that this is not how reputable people and companies do business . . . that power plays don’t work.

     Acting unnecessarily tough with employee benefit cutback explanations or time-off requests can make you a bad guy overnight. People (especially people who feel disenfranchised) talk. Words you may think you tossed off innocently can come back to haunt you quicker than you can even remember saying them. Sound familiar? You may want to step back long enough to reassess your present policies and re-set your meter (before it runs out!).

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

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Jun 12 2010

GET VOCABULATED!

Can we learn and use

                           

more words that

                                                                            

are more simple?

                                                                                                      

     Could be that nobody’s getting our message, but maybe it’s because we’re just talking to ourselves?

     We need to educate ourselves to think and communicate in simpler terms. Fancy industrial and professional jargon gets us nowhere, except as the old expression goes, tangled up in our own underwear. Our central business messages must be so simple we could recite them to our grandparents and –in a flash– they would “get it.”

     We have to stop trying to impress people with how much we know, and start trying to explain how our product or service can provide them with the solutions and benefits they seek . . . in simple, easy-to-understand words and steps. Tossing off a string of tech talk when we’re not communicating with other geeks is an increasingly common happening. 

     Frankly, I’m convinced that even talking geek-talk to geeks is not necessarily the best way to go! Why? Because “GEEKS ARE PEOPLE TOO!”

     Do we trust a doctor who dumbfounds us with her anatomical references, or one who explains an ailment in ache-and-pain terms we can understand?

     This simplification process is something I call getting vocabulated (actually a word I stole from my inventive granddaughter — thank you, Talley — to use in this blog!). My meaning is to describe an attitude we all need to put into practice with our paid advertising and websites, and then remember not to then leave it (simplicity) standing alone outside the door of meeting and presentation rooms. 

     Do we just rely on public messages to carry simplistic terms, but get down on the heavy duty industry, trade and professional verbiage when we write an email or business plan or ebook or news release?

     Do we use “proximity” for “area”? Do we “mitigate” or “lessen” (or “ease”)? Are we in pursuit of “opulence” or “wealth” (or even more simply, “money”)? Does “SEO” get any simpler when we’re talking to a non-website person (roughly half the business population!) about “Search Engine Optimization”? How about just saying “Help to increase search window rankings”? 

     Are we perhaps afraid of peers looking down their noses (or critics looking over their glasses) at us if we use words that sound too childish? What’s “too childish” if what we have to say makes sense?

     Do we think underlings won’t be sufficiently impressed when we (again with a doctor example) tell a patient’s family that their son has a broken bone in his hand below his pinkie finger instead of informing the parents that he has a fractured fifth metacarpal? 

     When we’re talking with others in our industry and refer to “sustainable manufacturing processes,” we will no doubt be understood, but the general public (and probably 95% of our target markets) will not need to shake their heads in wonderment if instead we talk about “not using dangerous chemicals like lead and mercury to make our products.” 

     The simpler we can explain ourselves and the benefits of what we have to offer, the more others will gravitate toward us, and the more sales we’ll make. Now, there’re a couple of vocabulated goals. Y’think? 

www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

No responses yet

Jun 09 2010

Perceptions Are Facts!

What we perceive 

                                        

is what we believe! 

 

Leadership transparency is more than just another fancy management training term. Most employees haven’t a clue about what you really do. Sure, they see you in meetings and hear you on the phone and pay attention to your messages and emails.

Certainly, your people notice your interactions with customers, suppliers and service providers . . . with the community-at-large. But odds are pretty good that if you ask around, you’ll find that very few if any really know or understand how you spend your days.

  So? So the more your employees are in the dark about your comings and goings, the less visibility you afford them, the more likely they are to doubt and mistrust your leadership. It’s human nature to be suspicious of other’s actions when those actions are intentionally hidden or even inadvertently not apparent on the surface.

The harder it is to see and hear what’s happening at the top of an organization, the greater the tendency for organization members to see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. Imagination creates perceptions. Perceptions trigger rumors. Rumors readily result in perceptions becoming beliefs.

And beliefs become facts! 

So-called “facts” evolve from beliefs which come from perceptions that are triggered by rumors. Rumors are routinely given birth by insecure followers based on their observations of leaders who insist on “playing everything close to the vest” or who frequent the use of “hidden agendas” in their daily routines.

These kinds of rumors have toppled whole companies, whole governments, whole nations. You don’t need those examples listed here; you already know them. A quick check on industry, regional. national, and global news will provide plenty more.

What you may not know is that employees never stop sizing you up — in the workspace, out of the workspace, in the parking lot, on the sidewalk, at community events, in restaurants and stores, at schools and church. It comes with the territory. Business owners and managers are in the spotlight even when they think the lights are out.

The challenge is to gracefully and consistently walk the thin line between A) being totally open and honest with everyone all the time and B) seeking refuge or over-socializing within the ranks.

  In other words, you must always be willing to freely give up information, but — unless company security is at stake — keep your personal opinions to yourself, and always conduct yourself like the example you want to set for others . . . because everything you do and say is an example to others . . .

 . . . and because perceptions are, in the minds of the perceivers, facts. That’s a fact.

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!

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Jun 07 2010

Unresponsiveness is Bad Business

“Like talkin’ to

                                       

  a brick wall!”

                                                                                                                                 

     Remind you of anyone? No, not your teenager or your grandfather. How about that one unresponsive boss, customer, prospect, investor, referrer, supplier, associate, employee? You know. The one who specializes in unanswered calls, unanswered emails, unanswered questions, unanswered charges, and unansdtxtmsgs. 

     Besides that these inactions ring out unprofessional and unbusinesslike behaviors, they just don’t cut it! They insult, frustrate, and aggravate those on the delivery end of the questions that cry out for answers, and the messages that call for some form of acknowledgement.

     Thank heaven most entrepreneurs maintain a sense of urgency in most of what they do. They may be a little rough around the edges by elementary schoolteacher standards (typically measured with “warm and fuzzy” yardsticks) or too gruff or brusk for many country-clubbers (who expect at all costs to be treated like royalty; “Thank you, dawlink!”), but at least they respect the need to get things done.

     What stands in the way of most entrepreneurial instincts to act (instead of just talk about acting, ala America’s empty suit sea of politicians) is the modus operandi of those who choose to think that no response is the best response, and that avoidance makes things go away. These folks, by the way, absolutely hate when someone doesn’t disappear, and continues to pursue an answer.

     Do those who practice shutting down and standing still for a living think they could possibly be cultivating business or making friends by sitting on their thumbs? Do they harbor some idiotic belief that others will gravitate to their aloofness? Probably, they just don’t care, or they’re just plain ignorant. 

     For the benefit of those who may be thinking about printing out this post and are leaving an unsigned copy conspicuously exposed on some unsuspecting culprit’s desk, or dashboard, or nightstand, you may want to save ink and paper and just use the following bulletpoints:

  • Your lethargic, uncaring, ambivalence is a disruption to life and work . . . and so beneath the integrity of those around you . . . If you don’t plan to respond to someone, say so! If you don’t have or know the answer to something, say so! If you need or want more time to reply to a request or question or message, say so!

  • Here’s why. In case it hasn’t occurred to you, most of the world operates in some kind of time zone, and most people will at least nod their heads when spoken to. The fact that you receive a message in writing or voice recording doesn’t mean that it is any less important to acknowledge than face-to-face deliveries.

  • Oh, and if you are, by some miraculous conception, some type of business executive or representative, you may want to give some thought to the fact that “outsiders” (which cer-tainly includes endless prospective customers, clients, or patients) will instantly identify your business attachment as THE business itself.

  • In other words, to the outside world, you ARE your business. Do you really want potential customers, employees, suppliers, investors, referrers to think your business is unresponsive? Of course they will. Don’t even go there. Instead, step up to the plate and start acting like a human being. It’s called respect.

     Trainers, coaches, consultants and creative types can do wonders for businesses by tweaking one thing or another, but tweaking bricks (even for those from Brick, New Jersey) can be a painful process. Let the bulletpoints do the job for you. If you still seek a tweak, however, you may want to explore more of how to . . .

Get TWEAKED at www.TWWsells.com or call 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  
Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

No responses yet

Jun 06 2010

The Missing Business Spark . . .

Been Tweaked? 

     If  you haven’t had a professional examine the words you’re using for your business — to communicate, explain, describe, sell, plan, promote, publicize, print, email, broadcast, and blast across the Internet — you’re missing great potential sales, revenues, and profits.

     And you may be adding untold hidden expenses every day, even every hour.

     You could very well be the best at what you do, but if you’re not trained and experienced as a skilled professional business marketing writer, it won’t matter.

      It takes only one slightly wrong word to UNdo all your years of hard work, to UNdo the strength or promise of your customer or investor bases, to UNdo your employee, supplier, and community relations.

     But here’s the best kept secret of successful businesses and practices in your industry and profession:

They’ve all been tweaked! 

     Every highly profitable revenue-charged business and professional practice is measured by its leadership, reputation, productivity, and the words it uses.

Research proves time and again that what your business says (and the ways that your business says what it says) makes the difference between success and failure

. . . on the Internet; in emails, news releases; promotional, ad, branding and marketing campaigns; mission and vision statements; employee and sales training; supplier, investor, and referrer motivational programs

. . . on the front lines and telephone lines with customers, clients, patients, and prospects.

     How does one get her or his business “tweaked”? Where do you start? You start by submitting rough or revised drafts for professional review and input. The finished product is the revised return of a polished document, ad, release, web page, branding theme line, business plan narrative, layman translation from technical material, ebook, training outline, whatever.

It’s a process that raises your ideas up a notch

and puts you ahead of the competition!

     The good news is you need NOTspend a fortune to get tweaked. Many mid and large size companies that use internal Tweakers, also hire outside firms to tweak and prepare their messages (often at outrageous fees of $10,000 to $20,000 a month!). But this is SMALL business. And no one else can represent your business ideas as well as you.

     You don’t need high-priced outside service firms to tell you what to say. You need a budget-conscious, experienced, professional Tweaker who can take what you’ve done and put it in the right language and context for the market you want to target.

     Some, like having preventive maintenance visits, get a “Tweak Cleaning” twice a year. Some are happy with an annual “Tweak Insurance” Review. Still others want “On-Call Tweakability.” Oh, and if you’ve read this far, you must be interested. So yes, I tweak.

# # #

Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

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

Make today a GREAT Day for someone!

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Jun 05 2010

CALLING ALL REALTORS

When the going

                                               

gets tough,

                                                                                

many Realtors grasp

                                            

at straws!

                                                                                                       

     A post on yesterday’s edition of the vibrant and proactive leading newsletter for Realtor professionals, the ActiveRain Daily Drop was entitled “How To Brand Yourself an Expert and Build a Six-Figure Real Estate Business.” The heading alone represents much of what is  wrong with many Realtors today who seek to quick-fix instead of innovate.

     And the guts of the article drag us deeper into a state of malaise.

     First of all, the posted article was nothing more than a thinly-veiled sales pitch to urge our nation’s poor beaten-upon real estate agents and brokers to rise from the rubble of a collapsed housing market by signing up for and attending a “virtual class” starring a TV “Apprentice show winner.”

    Though favored by Donald Trump himself, this winner may indeed have the “commanding knowledge of investment real estate” that the article proclaims, but my best guess is that this individual doesn’t know any more than anyone else who has ever bought, sold, or brokered real estate.

     Clearly, the enrollment spiel is clueless about branding. Those who understand branding know that you can’t “brand yourself an expert.”

     Branding is all about earning a reputation for authenticity. Self-aggrandizement hardly captures that flavor of genuineness.

     Being viewed and respected as an “expert” is something that comes from others, not from yourself.

     Granted that real estate as a business may host a fair share of egocentric types, but offering self-declarations of expertise is not a practice that most people find to be particularly endearing . . . certainly not property buyers and sellers who I’m quite sure prefer humility and low-profile sales attitudes. Assertiveness does not require aggressiveness. 

     Oh, the fantasy TV show winner also apparently has a book for sale (tell me you’re surprised!) which would seem likely to be implausibly unrealistic if it cornerstones the thinking that what sells best — and makes the most money — is for Realtors to (as my father used to warn against) “toot their own horns.”

     If you’re in real estate sales, and you’ve been fighting to survive this sucky economy, the last thing you need to do is follow some self-serving, self-proclaimed expert into the arena of thinking that you can do the same thing and make untold fortunes. All you’ll make are enemies, and enemies don’t help you make sales.  

     Those who succeed at making a living in real estate sales are those who recognize and appreciate the opportunities they hold in their hands to make a difference in this life by nurturing their matchmaking abilities. They are catalysts of change. Realtors are the entrepreneurial leaders of American small business precisely because they DON’T run around telling everyone how great they are.

     They let their people talents, and their communication and organizational skills speak for themselves. Satisfied clients who brand these real estate pros as experts will advance their reputations light years beyond the kinds of competitors who beat their chests, shout their names from the rooftops, and sign up for quick-fix seminars run by questionably-qualified people seeking to sell books!

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops (“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”- Thomas Jefferson)  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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May 26 2010

The EGOpreneurs

Sounding Important

                                                                                                       

Counts For Nothing!

                                                                                                  

     Yes, even in this “knee-deep-in-muck” economy, when smart people are being more innovative and more customer conscious, there are still pompous idiots floating around the business world with no backs to pat except their own. One would think that at least a sliver of reality might have set in, but there they go, parading by in all their ornamental pomp and ceremonial circumstance: The EGOpreneurs.

     Know any?

     Maybe I’m just imagining things when I check out an online business profile and read about how many years of great experience will come to play when a needy (and the suggestion is, incompetent) business owner is smart enough to engage this person’s consulting services instead of (the only suggested alternative) floundering around on her or his own.

     The consultant of course chooses to completely disregard that Mr. or Ms. Business Owner just happened to have succeeded at bringing his or her business this far to start with. But that’s not important if you’re smart enough to hire this guy because Mr. Egopreneur Consultant here has worked with some of the biggest name companies in existence. Aren’t you impressed?

     Hey, “20+ years” of being a “revenue generation strategist”  is nothing to sneeze at. (He figures out ways to make money; it’s not likely he knows anything about how to implement the strategies but, well, he figures that’s what you’re good for.) Besides, you might want to give Wonder Boy some slack because he’s so highly trained to fit your needs.

     The exampleI cite boasts of degrees in religion and political science (oh, and a minor in anthropology). Hard to imagine anyone not succeeding with that combination. I mean first you can rip people off, and then pray for them when you dig up their bones in a few years. C’mon, relevance and track-record are what count. As the old sports agent movie made famous: “Show me the money!”

     Yes, I have preached long and hard to business owners and sales professionals that you only get one chance at a first impression. The point though is that the best impression anyone can make is the one that doesn’t TRY to make an impression. Proven performance speaks louder than words.

     AUTHENTICITY is the word that comes to mind . . . along with: GENUINENESS (skipping the BS). TRANSPARENCY (no hidden agendas; you see what you get). EMPATHY (putting oneself in another’s shoes). REALITY (not living in or talking incessantly about past or future fantasylands). FLEXIBILITY (being ready and able to avoid expectations and go with the flow).

     These six important qualities are the intangibles that define the difference between success and failure, and that point up the separation between people you choose to do business with over people you choose not to do business with. Use all six to weigh the conviction of your involvement with others.

     If you want to make a difference with your business, in other’s lives and your own, steer clear of EGOpreneurs. They give entrepreneurs a bad name, and all their talking counts for nothing.

Comment below 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!

No responses yet

May 19 2010

3-D LEADERSHIP

Shhhh… it’s Quiet

                                         

Authenticity.

                                                                     

     Charging onto the battlefield on horseback with swords swishing and guns blazing is the Hollywoodized image many have when the word “Leadership” is mentioned. Of course many others draw from contemporary examples of visualizing a lecturing orator telling all how great things are and will soon be.

     But truly effective leaders are not bursting into battle, or on front page stages or the 11 o’clock news. Because they’re quiet.

     The greatest business and healthcare and educational leaders I have known, and I’ve had the privilege of knowing many, have been quiet leaders. They universally avoid shouting, bullying, pushing, complaining, intimidating, prodding, game-playing, undermining, and hidden agendas in favor of what I call 3-D Leadership.

3-D Leaders DESIGN, DEVELOP,

AND DELIVER.

                                                                    

     Strong leaders invest themselves in preventive maintenance, in defusing and sidestepping the nonproductive contentiousness of those who would draw lines in the sand at every opportunity. Yet most, it seems to me, as they “walk” Teddy Roosevelt “softly” also follow his philosophy and “carry a big stick”. . . not unlike Thomas Jefferson’s quest for “eternal vigilance” noted at the close of my blog posts, or Henry David Thoreau’s motto to “Be forever on the alert.”

     Leaders who practice 3-D Leadership are women and men (and yes, some special children) who are consistently tuned in to getting the task at hand done while staying alert to what’s behind the door, around the corner and up the road vs. dwelling on issues that have gone by the boards, or on promising to deliver undeliverables.

     3-D Leaders influence, inspire, and motivate others by demonstrating . . . by setting examples and sharing knowledge and experiences. They communicate clearly. They know just the right amount of information to offer and absorb at just the right times vs. too much or too little too soon or too late.

     To be a DESIGN/DEVELOP/DELIVER-focused leader requires a large and rare repertoire of skills, talents, instincts, values, belief systems, and human qualities that all add up to authenticity. Leaders who put authenticity first in their own lives and in their affiliations are those who exude transparency. There is nothing to hide.

     These are people who are true to themselves and instinctively seek the positive and the good in others. They thrive in 3-D opportunity environments. It’s invigorating to be one, though few who are, I believe, tend to realize they are. It’s invigorating to follow one. And this I know because I have been fortunate enough to have followed a few.

     If you seek to achieve the ends I’ve described, I can only applaud your ambitions, wish you great open mindedness, and suggest you start by being true to yourself as much of the time as possible with every passing hour in your life. When you get there, call me and let’s do lunch.

         

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops 

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

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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