Archive for the 'Meetings' Category

Sep 14 2009

WHERE 9 WORDS BELONG . . .

Analytical

BELONGS TO SCIENCE AND BUSINESS

Kidding

BELONGS TO GOATS

Teasing

BELONGS TO HAIR

Wired

BELONGS TO ELECTRICIANS

Criticism

BELONGS TO THEATREGOERS

Judgements

BELONG TO COURTROOMS

Pushiness

BELONGS TO BULLDOZERS

Lecturing

BELONGS TO CLASSROOMS

Crowding

BELONGS TO SUBWAYS AND SARDINES

Got some thought-provoking additions? Share what you can. They belong to everyone! 

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Input always 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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Posts free via list-protected email: subscribe RSS Feed…OR $1.99/mo AMAZON Kindle. Feel Creative? Add YOUR 7 words to the 345-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go! Get Hal’s short story in new Nightengale Press book: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @ PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address.

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Sep 01 2009

NETWORKING: The contact you never expected

Travel in circles

                        

of authenticity!

 

                                                                                             

     I used to teach  my entrepreneurship students to carry their business cards everywhere. I even suggested that a couple of laminated cards tucked into a bathing suit pocket or workout or yoga bag wouldn’t be a bad idea. They thought I was nuts!

     I’ll tell you what…  you find me someone who is a self-made business success who doesn’t always have a business card available, and I guarantee you that an inheritance played some role. Proactive business owners and managers know that most explosive business opportunities come from where you least expect them.

     I’ve had people  track me down with a ten year-old business card that no longer had the same address and phone numbers. And of course you can find anyone these days on Google. The point is to not discount the value of every contact you make every day.

     Networking isn’t about  a great grip handshake, a business card exchange and a teethy smile. Networking isn’t a flashy passing or a thunderbolt. Networking is all about cultivating the relationships you initiate.  Here are four thoughts, and a bottom line…

One:

Take the time and trouble  to jot down the date, event, and some memorable trait or visual or vocal characteristic or attribute on the back of every business card you collect. “Red hair / wire-rim glasses / unbuttoned collar / infectious laugh” are the kinds of comments that will help bring the individual back into focus after a hundred other cards and a hundred hours pass. 

Two:

Write something personal  on the cards you give out, especially to someone you really want to remember you. Scribble a connecting website or 2nd email address that’s not printed on the card, your cell number, or a book title you recommend.

Three:

Follow up. Follow up. Follow up.  Nobody does it. I’m not talking about being annoying or badgering; don’t waste your time. I mean if someone mentions they have a child with a special interest or need, and you run across information that’s related, send it along: “Saw this and was reminded of our discussion; thought you might be interested.”

Four:

The biggest and/or best business deal  you ever get is likely to come –as they say at the ballpark– from out of left field. It may be a contact you never dreamed of being productive, or one that comes as a second or third person referral from someone else who you never thought even noticed you.

The Bottom line . . .

Don’t write anyone off. 

The world is getting smaller every day.

People who like you and what you have to say

will talk about you and make sales for you . . .

when you least expect.

Oh, and expectations, by the way,

breed disappointment.

                                   

Value and appreciate everyone you encounter

regardless of appearances or stature.

What goes around, I’m reminded,

comes around!

Travel in circles of authenticity! 

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Aug 26 2009

Innovating and Problem-Solving

Has your brain been

                                                  

thunder-struck?

                                                                                            

     We’ve all heard  and probably used the term “Brainstorming” a few times, but when did you last use a formalized “Brainstorming” process? Did you know that the more rigidly structured approach you use, the more free-flowing and better the brainstorming results?

     I’ve probably  run 500 formal brainstorming sessions, and all have produced great results. Here’s my version of a “recipe” I follow. Print it out. Use it. It works!

[Adapted from the Pfeiffer and Jones University Associates Handbook of Structured Experiences for Human Relations Training, Volume III (Revised)].  

     THE GOALS: 

     1)  To generate an extensive number of innovative thoughts or ideas, or solutions to a problem, by suspending criticism and judgment and evaluation.

     2)  To develop skills in creative thinking and problem-solving.

     Group Size:  Any number of small groups (best if composed of 5-6 participants each). Time Required:  Approximately one hour total. Materials:  White board or newsprint pad with markers for each group; stopwatch; bell. Physical Setting:  Movable chairs for all participants. Warm-up Activity:  In 2 minutes –without talking– make something out of one double newspaper page, or one lump of modeling clay; follow with quick show ‘n tell.

     THE PROCESS: 

     1)  The facilitator has each group form a circle and select a secretary, then provides each secretary with markers and board or newsprint pad, and asks each to record every idea generated by the group.

     2)  The facilitator states the following rules: 

  • A)  There will be NO criticism, no judgments, and no evaluations during the brainstorming phase of the activity.
  • B)  Far-fetched ideas are encouraged because they often trigger more practical ones.
  • C)  Many ideas are desirable.

     3)  The facilitator announces that participants are to imagine being cast ashore on a desert island with absolutely nothing but a belt, then tells the group they have 15 minutes by the stopwatch to come up with as many ideas as they can in answer to the question: What can be done with the belt? (Other objects can be substituted– a flashlight / a rope / an oar / a corkscrew– and props, e.g., an actual belt, can often enhance the discussion)

     4)  After 15 minutes, the facilitator rings the bell, and tells the group(s) that the ban on criticism / judgments / evaluations is over, and directs the group(s) to evaluate their ideas and select the best –most feasible– ones. With multiple groups, each group’s “best” list can be shared, then all involved can explore ways to combine “best” ideas. The final (combined) list is posted and participants are asked to rank-order them for practical usefulness.

REPEAT THE ENTIRE PROCESS WITH A REAL BUSINESS PROBLEM OR NEED SITUATION. This can be done on-the-spot, the next day, next week, or periodically. The more disciplined the facilitator is in requiring adherence to guidelines, the better the results that can be expected.  So go beat your brains in, if the storm didn’t already get to you! 

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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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This blog free via list-protected email: click RSS Feed above…$1.99/mo on  AMAZON Kindle. Creative? Add your own 7 words to the 329-day 7-Word Story (under RSS) We’re making it up as we go!  GET Hal Alpiar short story in Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING Amazon, B&N, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication $22.45 total check only (includes s&h), payable & mail to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include continental US ship-to address. Great 9/13 Grandparent’s Day gift!

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Aug 01 2009

Lighten Up Management Trainers!

It’s the Lightening Up

                                     

of Corporate America!

                                                                                  

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

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

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

     And it’s time now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think of it as the Lightening Up of Corporate America!  

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Input always welcome: Hal@BusinessWorks.US

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

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

 

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Jul 29 2009

Save Money AND Reach Your Audience

HOW DISTRACTED

                                        

IS YOUR AUDIENCE?

                                                                                                

Surprising 2009 statistics from a notable professional association:

  • Average work time since 1999 has increased 20%
  • 75% of managers work more than 40 hours per week and must manage 600% more information than 20 years ago
  • Professionals average at least 10 hours per week in meetings
  • Employees spend 18 hours a week dealing with interruptions
  • The US Postal Service processed 203 billion pieces of mail in 2008 (That’s 7,700 pieces each second!)

Sounds like a lot, right? Now contrast that with these two findings:

  1.  The Radicati Group found that the number of emails sent PER DAY in 2008 was near 210 billion
  2.  CTIA reports Americans sent more than 1 trillion text messages in 2008                                                                                                                                                       And research conducted by the ePolicy Institute found that employees spend as much as 20% of their workday reading and responding to email.

 THE BOTTOM LINE?  Today’s audience is starved for time and inundated with information. If you want your message to cut through the clutter, it must be relevant, timely and creative.

Reprinted from The Corporate Communicator, a free e-zine dedicated to helping professionals communicate more effectively with employees, customers and the media. To get the latest industry news, research and best practices at your fingertips, order a FREE subscription at http://www.thecorporatecommunicator.net
                                                                                   

     So what does this mean for the “average” small business owner? Odds are you’ll need to go “outside” yourself and your organization to find a proven and experienced talent capable of understanding your business and your market and your customers and your message.

     It’s generally best to avoid formal “Ad Agencies” or “Marketing Agencies” because they are more likely to pursue industry recognition awards than sales for your company. Be especially hesitant of those that call themselves “full service” unless you have Fortune 500-level budgets to dispose of. 

     Second, ad agencies and marketing agencies (NOTE that many of these now call themselves “Groups” to escape the high-price stigma) are likely to charge excessive fees.

     Their norm is to charge you 15% of all media costs (broadcast time and print publication space and Internet banner fees) they book for you (which of course you can “book” for yourself to bypass that “agency commission.”

     …PLUS 17.65% of all production costs (which include costs of illustrations, photography, printing, studio production, editing, graphic design, list rentals…you name it!)

     …PLUS other fees that are rarely evident until the moment something is needed to be finalized. Don’t you love financial surprises?

     This translates to : SHOP AROUND! There are plenty of good, qualified, experienced freelance writers and small one-man-band and one-woman-band businesses that can provide far better quality creative sales writing and design services for far less money than the big city slicker organizations!

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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. FEEL CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the 305-day “7-Word Story” (center col.). New Hal Alpiar short story Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING…$19.95 ($24.95 CAD) @ Barnes & Noble, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication @$18.95+s&h [$22.45 total check only), payable to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC. @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include ship-to address (mainland US only).  SEPT. 13th IS GRANDPARENT’S DAY! [Details via Blogroll link @ right]

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Jul 26 2009

DOGS & MEETING PLANNERS ALERT!

Budget-Conscious Boss,

                                            

Best Friend, Do Business

                                             

in the Foothills

                                                                                 

     Another day. Another dollar. And here I sit through yet another meeting.

     Only this meeting is different because it involves a whole different breed of people, and this meeting is taking place outdoors! Actually, all the leaders of my company are here, and we’re next to a big beautiful shimmering lake nestled into the foothills of the Berkshires.

      After listening to a little spiel that one of the HR directors just gave, my boss and I are getting ready to climb into a canoe together. We’ll be with a bunch of other partnered-up bosses and underlings in other canoes. I’m not much good at steering these things so I hope he lets me sit in front. “I can canoe a canoe, canoe canoe a canoe?” kinds of chatter starts flying around.

     As if I’m not unnerved enough, my boss starts in with how the best way to see if a marriage is made to last is to take a canoe trip when you’re newlyweds. General agreement seems to be that if you don’t kill each other while canoeing, you’re destined for a relationship of longevity.

     Anyway, this whole paddle around the lake deal is part of what’s called a Management Training Conference. Just yesterday, on the hillside over in the woods, we went on an Executive Ropes Course. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. In truth, it ended up being lots of fun. My boss and I both made lots of new friends with those we didn’t know before, who came from our other offices.

     Tomorrow, some of us are going to the nearby Lime Rock race-track and race-car driving school to learn about safety, risk-taking and something called mental focus. The mental thing sounds like it might be a bit above me, so I might just pass on that session and go instead to an Executive Golf Class that’s being held over by the other lake. Something about objectives, strategies, and tactics is supposed to be demonstrated by hitting little bumpy white balls into holes with flags.

     As for right now, I need to concentrate on not embarrassing my boss by falling out of the canoe as I tip-toe in from the dock. I mean just imagine how red his face would get if he had to hear “Dog Overboard!”

     Oh, did I mention that I’m a Golden Retriever, and that my boss’s Meeting Planner found this grrrrrreat location for a meeting that allows well-behaved dogs like me to go to the company meeting and participate in everything (well, not the dining room, bar, sauna, or heated swimming pool activities)? We can even hang in the library and game room if we don’t chew books or chase dropped ping-pong or billiard balls around.

     The bottom line is that my boss and I are having a wonderful time and we are learning a lot about ourselves and the others we work with. He says we may even stay through the weekend so we could do some hiking and antique shopping.

     Pssssssst! These guys set the standard for complete meeting packages, and you get more for less than anyplace I could find.

     Their rates include a luxurious world-class room, 24/7 business center and wireless Internet, endless coffee, all indoor and outdoor facilities and meeting rooms — plus all service charges, 3 award-winning restaurant meals for him, and a turn-down biscuit for me at bedtime!

     And they’ve been hosting businesspeople there since 1892!

     If you didn’t know better, I bet you’d think I was the one who’s the boss, huh? Hmmmm. Well, try it: www.InterlakenInn.com  (Oh, and take your dog, will you? It’s just 2 hours from Manhattan, 3 from Boston, 3 from Hartford)  Mention this blog for a special treat!         

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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. FEEL CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the 302-day “7-Word Story” (center col.). New Hal Alpiar short story Sept. release book from Nightengale Press: THE ART OF GRANDPARENTING…$19.95 ($24.95 CAD) @ Barnes & Noble, OR order special (signed by Hal) pre-publication @$18.95+s&h [$22.45 total check only), payable to: TheWriterWorks.com, LLC. @PO Box 1236, Millsboro, DE 19966. Include ship-to address (mainland US only).  SEPT. 13th IS GRANDPARENT’S DAY! 

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Jul 07 2009

UNDERMINING LEADERSHIP

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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Jul 01 2009

Is your business urgency an emergency?

Ready to roll your gasping,

                                                     

bleeding business into the ER?

                                                                                                                            

     At a  9AM meeting you asked for a copy of an old 12-page report by the end of the day. That didn’t seem unreasonable, did it?  

     Probability is that your headache only came on when you realized that not only was your request ignored, but that the employee who smilingly agreed to provide the copy actually took a two-hour lunch and then left for home early.

     Of course you needed some icing on the headache cake, so your eager-to-please employee obliged you while you were on a conference call by dropping a “Sorry, the copy machine’s been down all day” note on your desk for you on the way out!

     How many times have you asked someone who works for you to get something done quickly and then discovered that the task ended up in the “SLOW” pile? Okay, every one’s not “Charlie Hustle,” but assuming that you’re making your “RUSH” requests in a reasonable and courteous manner, maybe the person on the receiving end simply doesn’t share your sense of urgency?

     Do you find more evidence of this in your observations of employee dealings with customers and clients? Perhaps it’s time to recruit your people into developing or up-dating your business mission statement and –in the process– to make sure that some key reference is made to “responsiveness.”

     Why not just repremand and push everyone to move quicker? Because you need your people to buy into the way of thinking you want the business to have if you’re interested in having them behave more responsibly than hired temporaries. After all, doesn’t the government aspire to be in a position of simply dictating change?

     Ah, but the government knows nothing about running a business. In fact, the government seems unfortunately destined to experience that rude awakening soon… the reality that change cannot be dictated anywhere with any degree of success by anyone, except perhaps at gunpoint in a dictatorial regime, is not far from discovery.

     People accept change more quickly and more wholeheartedly when they have a hand in designing the ingredients and/or the parameters of what behavior is expected of them. Giving them at least the opportunity to suggest recommendations for inclusion in the revitalized guidelines for conducting day-to-day affairs makes them part-owners.

     People who are business owners and those who have risen to the occasion and accepted at least the conduct–if not the roles of part-owners–are the same people who accept an ownership mindset. These are the people who you can count on to be responsible, to have a sense of urgency about them in all that they do. And businesses with a sense of urgency succeed.    

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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  # # # 

FREE BLOG SUBSCRIPTION? Click on ”Posts RSS Feed” (Center Column), or now on your AMAZON Kindle for just $1.99 a month after a free trial.

FEELING CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the end of the 282 POSTS:  Click under “7-Word Story” (center column)

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Jun 22 2009

SMALL BUSINESS HALTS ECONOMIC PANIC!

What does “business

                                     

as usual” mean to you?

                                                                              

Guess what you are? You get to your desk or worksite by 8:30 to beat the 9am employee rush. You make the rounds  with staff, do emails and phone calls. 12 to 1:30 is a fat lunch with an associate, customer, prospect, or relative who’s in town for the day. You return to a lineup of boring, energy-draining meetings where every attendee feels compelled to advance her or his personal agenda. You leave between 5:15 and 5:30 after most everyone else has cleared out.”

    Answer: Odds are you’re a corporate employee. So don’t waste time here; go to FaceBook, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, the local commuter bar, or whatever floats your boat…and leave the business of straightening out the economy to the only people around who know how.

     I speak of course of those who frequent this blog: small business owners, operators, managers, entrepreneurs, and professional salespeople… those who aren’t conscious of time, who rarely spend more than 20-30 minutes eating anything, and who have no tolerance for time-wasting meetings.

     Their disciplined nature, by the way, doesn’t make these folks numb or humorless; they’re simply dedicated to their pursuits and tend, I believe, to be far more fun to be around than their “Fortune 1000” counterparts.

     None of them live like the “business as usual” guy described above. All of them are busy making their business innovations work because they don’t get corporate bailouts or economic stimulus packages.

     “Business as usual” has been made a thousand times more difficult by the shortsightedness and naivete of our government.

     When history points to small business as overwhelmingly responsible for American job creation, and job creation has been proven to be overwhelmingly responsible for building and strengthening our economy, history needs to be heeded, not re-invented as socialism.

     Sharing wealth and funding corporate and government incompetency doesn’t do it. Channeling staggering amounts of (not yet even available) tax dollars into major corporate entities whose insolent greed put us here to start with makes no sense. 

     The very same small businesses that stand the best chance of being positive economic impact catalysts are the ones being the most harshly drained. This is how to create job creation incentives?  

     “Business as usual” has a prayer attached. We need to pray that small business spirit and entrepreneurial innovativeness can rise up against all odds and once again rescue America’s economy.

     We need to nurture small business and business startups and pray that our nation’s small business owners and managers can make their dreams work in spite of government interference and corporate anchors.

     We need to support small business now more than ever before.    

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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  # # # 

FREE BLOG SUBSCRIPTION? Click on ”Posts RSS Feed” (Center Column), or now on your AMAZON Kindle for just $1.99 a month after a free trial. FEELING CREATIVE? Add your own 7 words to the end of the daily 274 days old growing tale! Click under “7-Word Story” (center column)

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Jun 15 2009

LEADERSHIP TEAMWORK Issues & Answers

T.E.A.M.

Together Everyone Achieves More

–World Renown Olympic Gymnast Coach Bela Karoli

Q. Why invest money, time, and energy in leadership and teamwork training now, in this sucky economy, when everyone knows that management and staff training programs are not bottom-line contributing factors?

A. A rudderless boat in calm seas can drift quietly and aimlessly along for long periods of time and remain relatively safe. The same boat in stormy seas hasn’t a chance. Today’s global economy is anchored in stormy seas.

It takes leadership and teamwork to keep your vessel — even with a rudder– upright enough to conquer raging tides and currents. Without leadership, there can be no teamwork. Without teamwork, there can be no leadership. Training provides the opportunity to strengthen both essential traits.

Oh, and though it may be no more discernible than the many intangible factors that contribute to sales and profits, training does in fact, by the way, add significantly to the bottom line. Look at the businesses that have fallen victim to the economy and you’ll find organizations that discontinued or discounted training or did too little too late. If you find any exception, I’d love to know about it.

Q. Why pay for training people in skills they should instinctively possess anyway?

A. Just because you hire or retain people with leadership and teamwork track-records from good economic times, is no insurance that they’ll evidence these roles when called upon in adverse circumstances. There are probably skills you once evidenced in earlier career situations that you no longer maintain either. It is not true that once a leader, always a leader.

Q. Who is to say what makes for effective leadership and team training?

A. We are. All of us who are involved. Owners and managers as well as staff. We all need refreshers and reminders and positive encouragement to resurrect and polish up the qualities and abilities and attitudes that are instinctively present in our personality and character make-ups. Plus…”No man is an island,” my Father used to say.

Q. Why do some say training must be ongoing?

A. Ongoing efforts serve to refresh, remind, invigorate, teach, and put things in proper and positive perspective. One-night stands do not a marriage make. Remember that the average adult today is reported to have a less than 12-minute attention span. The values of training without follow-up and continuing efforts will dissolve away over a few weeks, days in many cases. We humans need booster shots. And frequent short sessions are more productive than infrequent long ones. Follow up a weekend retreat with some short weekly meetings and reminder efforts.

There are plenty of studies confirming that leadership and teamwork training produce increased productivity and that increased productivity produces increased profits. Training must be viewed as an investment in maintaining a competitive edge. No training is an investment in the status quo. Corporate Entrepreneurship Training is an investment in thinking and doing that’s smarter, quicker, more profitable, more productive, and more fun!

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Hal@Businessworks.US    931.854.0474

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

God Bless You and Thank You for Your Visit!

 

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