What management behavior breeds success and impacts the bottom line more effectively than any other?

What’s the one management ingredient you can do something about today (even before finishing this blogpost) to generate instant results?

What motivates employees, shareholders, customers and suppliers more than incentive programs, perks and bonuses?

     If you answered Attitude to all three questions, you’re probably already practicing “Theory A” and you’re definitely tuned in.  If you answered something different, you may be partly correct, but you’ve overlooked the one back-to-basics management attribute that makes things happen, everywhere, all of the time.

     How complicated is this theory of management?  Negative behavior produces negative responses.  Negative responses produce losses!  Positive behavior produces positive responses.  Positive responses produce profits!  That’s it!  Simple, huh?  Well, maybe on paper (or your monitor), but not much is simple in a complex organization (which is, by the way, part of the rationale for corporate investments in leadership training and team-building)!

Theory A

When an organization’s leaders make a commitment to continuously exemplify and cultivate positive attitudes—for management, employees, their individual companies, and entire industries—increased levels of sales, productivity, customer relations, and overall job satisfaction and performance will follow.*

     For Theory A to succeed, business managers need to initiate an ongoing educational process to both learn and and teach some practical “how to” approaches for positive attitude development.  Being able to promote a positive image and positive industry posture drives consumer and client sales, and (for healthcare) patient volume.

     More on Theory A in upcoming posts.  While you’re waiting, take a look at some archive posts (Click on Archives in the righthand column) that deal with “choice” and viewing “problems as opportunities” and being focused on the “here and now.”

     If turning your business interests around (or strengthening from within) are on your front burner, check out my archive back burners for some important prompts and reminders.  or just pick up the phone and call me: 302.933.0116          halalpiar   

              * . . . Excerpted from “Theory A –The Future of Management” in the Prentice-Hall Executive Action Report, July 23, 1987 by Hal Alpiar

INVENTORY YOUR PARTS

THEN PUT THEM TO WORK

AT WHAT YOU MOST ENJOY! 

     Remembering that integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody else is around to see you, let’s practice doing the right thing –for yourself!– here and now, while no one else is around.  It’s just you and me and your screen.

     Good.  Now, when’s the last time you took stock of yourself and your career directions?  You’re in sales and thinking about being sales manager?  Has anyone told you that these functions are not the same? 

     The world’s greatest salespeople often make the world’s worst sales managers.  Why?  Because “selling” suddenly becomes “managing other people to get the selling done” and managing people is not anything like selling.  In selling, you have no one to inspire, motivate, train and discipline except yourself!

     OR you’re working for a big company, but think you should start your own business?  Hmmm, you probably should talk to the sales manager in the preceding paragraph. 

     There’s a colossal difference between handing in an expense account and paying your own expenses . . . between working weekdays 9 to 5 and leaving your workspace as you found it vs. working everyday 7:30 to 7:30 and turning off the lights and taking out the trash and cleaning your own bathroom and coffeemaker before you leave!

     If you’re just plain not sure where you’re headed, by the way, there’s a wonderful book worth getting, called WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE?  I heartily recommend (even an old edition!) reading it attentively and diving into the exercises! 

     OR you’re struggling with your own business and tired of watching your corporate-type friends have such carefree weekend and weeknight existences . . . not to mention their 401k plans, full dental coverage, annual bonuses, and everything they need to do their jobs, handed to them on silver platters . . . while you have to scrounge up enough petty cash to get a new color cartridge for your printer or replacement bag for your vacuum, or figure out where next month’s rent is coming from.

     Well, sure, we may forget once in awhile, but we all know about where the grass looks greener.  And we know things aren’t always what they seem, and to not judge a book . . . yet, those awarenesses don’t make any of the discontent easier to deal with. 

     So, what does? 

     First, take a deep breath.  Second, recognize that all behavior (even yours!) is a choice.  Third, look yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you are better off than most (probably 90%+ if you’re reading this) of the rest of the world, and that you are THE best there is at doing what you do for your self when you put your mind to it. 

     Then take another breath, and choose to put your mind to it!  No one else in the world has better answers about what it is that you most enjoy doing, than you.  If you’re doing the kind of work that gives you the most pleasure, then you are also performing the best at that job, and quality performance wins every time! 

     If you’re not happy with what you’re doing, get out!  You will never do the job well because it doesn’t make you feel good to do it.  Yeah, that sounds easy, but . . . 

     It IS easy, if you choose for it to be.                  halalpiar   

     HOW’S YOUR SPUNK?

     There will never be enough money available for you to start up or expand a business the way you would like to make it happen.  Never. 

     That leaves spunk. 

     Spunk, determination, tenacious persistence, belief in yourself and your idea, commitment, and a burning desire to make the idea succeed.  When all these ingredients are front and present 24/7, odds are you will succeed by just putting your head down and charging toward the goal of making your product or service idea come to fruition. 

     When you can do that, the money you need to put things over the top will come to you from sources you least expect.  If you doubt this, then consider these two points:

1) If you have doubt, then you do not have the six criteria noted in the first sentence of the third paragraph above, and

2) If you are close to having the six criteria above, but still have a smidgen of doubt, talk with someone who has been successful as an entrepreneur, someone who started a successful enterprise on the proverbial shoestring, and you will hear back the exact same kind of chatter. 

     In other words, people who worry about their ideas making money will not make money; they will, instead, make worry. 

     Those who turn their backs on the making money goals and focus on getting their ideas to succeed will make money.  Weird, huh?  Perhaps, but it’s true. 

     I have helped over 500 successful businesses and business expansions to start up.  I have never seen a single exception to this thinking.  I’m sure there must be some somewhere, but not in my experience. 

     You can take advantage of my experience if you’re thinking about starting a business or expanding one.  For a modest consulting fee, I will serve as your temporary coach and advisor until you get things off the ground.  I work with clients by phone and computer and occasionally, when realistic and appropriate, personal visit.  You can tap into what I have learned the hard way and spare yourself considerable stress and expense. 

     If you’re interested, call me direct at 302.933.0116, and let’s talk.  I’ll give you 20-30 minutes to get me interested.  Have a great day!         halalpiar    

I’m sorry if my plumber

                                                      

is insulted, but I really

                                                                   

don’t care how he fixes

                                                                 

the leak!

     Often, for some curious reason, I’m asked how I write. 

     Two things happen.  One is that I wonder how it is that anyone cares about this.  I never, for example, asked my Father how he delivered mail.  I’m sorry if my plumber is insulted, but I really don’t care how he fixes the leak.  Why do you want to know this? 

     Two, my sarcastic self kicks into gear and wants to snap back little barbs like, “With my fingers!” or “Standing naked on a rooftop, balanced on one foot, and eating spoonfuls of wasabi while listening to reruns of Martha Stewart broadcasts from her prison cell,” or “Brilliantly!”or “With swoops and swirls and dotted bloodshot eyes!” 

     As truth would have it, though, the response I most frequently offer is the truth: “Over and over and over again!”  All writing is re-writing.  No one goes into a closet and comes out three hours later with a clean, first draft final copy of anything . . . FYI, a good seven-word billboard or commercial branding theme can take weeks of re-writing to be perfect.  Yes, even with Google’s help! 

     We don’t know a whole lot about Shakespeare, but we do know he edited and rewrote his masterpieces.  And Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the Constitution, the Magna Carta, even the bible didn’t simply pour out of magic pens.  Contemporary superstar writers John Grisham, David Baldacci, Dean Koontz, E. Annie Proulx, Kent Haruf, Cormac McCarthy, Richard Russo, and J.K. Rawling don’t just spit out final versions of their great commercial works. 

     It’s like anything else in life, Kiddo, I might pontificate to 30-somethings’ questions, you have to practice and perfect what you’re doing to get it right . . . and never–in Winston Churchill’s famous words– never, never give up!  

     Thomas Edison reportedly failed 10,000 times trying to invent a lightbulb (but relished telling his critics that he simply eliminated 10,000 possibilities before finding the answer). 

     Great athletes and performers don’t stroll into the spotlight and break records or ignite thunderous applause without first spending years of unheralded practice and paying of industry dues.

     Something about our instant gratification, quick-fix, disposable society dissuades us from facing reality, from thinking that hard work pays off and that practicing something over and over is a worthwhile endeavor.  But we must face reality, hard work does pay off, and practice does indeed (ask any Olympian) make perfect!  

     We have to fight the instinct to accept the attitude that evolves from a computerized world, to be forever in search of the easy way out, to be constantly taking the course of least resistance.  Water does this by flowing downhill, but people who “flow downhill” get caught up with the masses, and find it increasingly difficult to stand out, to get back up on top, to become the special someones they’re capable of being.

     For a writer, or anyone in pursuit of meaningful creative expression, tenacity, persistence and stick-to-itiveness . . . practice, practice, practice, and re-write, re-write, re-write . . . will win out every time!  Now, stop reading and get back to work!    halalpiar          

Do you have all your

                                                              

marbles, but can’t 

                                                                                                                                                 

find the playground? 

     Do friends and family consider you a “whack-job”?  Do you have all your marbles, but can’t find the playground?  Are people constantly telling you to get your glove and get in the game?  HA!  You must be a  w r i t e r.     

     If you are a business or literary career writer, parttime writer, hobbyist writer, or wannabe writer . . . if you’re a writer of letters, poems, news reports, jingles, journals or diaries, speeches, matchbook covers, legal briefs, books, articles, curricula, business plan narratives, ads, brochures, cribnotes, commercials, short stories, websites, greeting cards, song lyrics, flyers, billboards, booklets . . . ANYthing that requires at least a few bolts of creative persuasion, you’ve come to the right place! 

     Why?  Because all of us writers get stuck in the muckity-mud of mondane monotony once in awhile.  (Hey, what’s a little alliteration between writers, right?)  Oh, yeah, back to the mud.  Sometimes a little finesse will work its magic.  Sometimes, just taking a few deep breaths—or a walk around the block—will do the trick.  But sometimes we need a bungee-cord-rigged tow truck to  T-H-W-A-P  us out of the gooshy swamp!  And sometimes it takes someone to put an occasional firecracker under our collective writer-blocked butts!

     If you live anywhere near the Lewes/Rehoboth Beach/Coastal Rt.1 Highway in beautiful, tax-free-shopping Delaware (there, now THAT got your attention, right?), and you are willing to give up four, two-and-a-half-hour chunks of your life (one chunk each on 11/5, 11/12, 11/19, and 12/3/08), plus $119 payable to Delaware Tech & Community College, guess what?  You qualify to win a fascinating opportunity to have your creativity fuse ignited, and free your imagination from the mud! 

     All levels of writing skills are welcome.  Participants will present one-minute weekly reports and bring a work-in-progress for personalized coaching.

     Stop staring at a blank screen!  Put an end to the dreaded “Writer’s Block” and — believe it or not— suffer no side effects!  Plan to have fun.  Expect to teach your self how to unclog stuffed up writer’s block passages, connect your writing with your dreams!  I’ll be your guide.  Me, Hal Alpiar, MBA, and author of this blog!  (Listen, I’ve stimulated creative writing expression for over 20,000 students, so YOU will be a piece of cake!)

     Limited seating.  Reserve your place now.  Call 302.855.1617 and register for course # ENO 289 231.

     See you on the ceiling!         halalpiar 

YOU WON’T BELIEVE

WHAT YOU CAN TEACH

YOUR  SELF !

     You need not be a writer, creative genius, recording secretary, or shrink to keep an effective, meaningful journal of your ongoing thoughts and experiences.  In fact, the further away you are from a writing career, the more productive and rewarding the practice can be.  (Most writers think too much!) 

     Having set a few thousand students on journaling paths, I can assure you that very few (mental) self-discipline activities can measure up to the rate of return on a journaling investment.  In just a few short weeks, you’ll find yourself producing great new self-awareness levels of satisfaction and personal “aha’s.”  

     Oh, but yes. you do have to be willing to commit to yourself, to keep a daily record of what you see, hear, touch, smell, taste and think about.  Get the blank book, and pen, but realize that that’s not enough.  You need to reach agreement with yourself to make a dated entry of some kind (ANY kind) every single day. 

     I have collected many years worth of personal journals, and picking them up to review from time to time never fails to amaze and amuse me.  I value some of them even more than the classics in my library! 

     I used to tell reluctant students if they couldn’t think of a word to say on any given day, draw a picture, doodle, paste a photo or article or ad on the page . . . or spit on it!  What’s important is to record SOMEthing. 

     One device that helps prompt regular entries, is –after putting the date at the top, which is a truly essential ingredient– to write “WHAT HAPPENED?” across the top of the lefthand facing page and “HOW I FELT?” across the top of the righthand facing page. 

     Besides serving to sort of force your hand, the distinction between the two headings forces your mind to separate fact from opinion.  Keep WHAT HAPPENED? descriptions objective, unemotional, straightforward reportings of what you saw or heard actually take place.  No judgements.  No opinions.  No feelings.  Then put all the good stuff you want to editorialize and offer opinions about under the HOW I FELT? heading.  (Oh, if only major media “reporters” could stick to this formula!)

     Okay, so what happens with WHAT HAPPENED?  You start to see and experience people and events in a more rational light.  With HOW I FELT?, you begin to corral your emotions and gain insights about how much your feelings tend to drive the ways you behave and respond to others, and to day-to-day circumstances. 

     To put a spin on your HOW I FELT? entries, try pretending tomorrow is your last day alive and that no one will ever see your comments, which will inspire you to dig deeper into your emotions.  The more you can learn about what makes you tick, the better you will be at understanding and dealing with yourself and others. 

     Remember that your journal is your journal and not something to be left around for sharing unless that’s really what you want to do.  Give it a try.  What have you got to lose?  Ten minutes?  Some ink and paper?               halalpiar 

Once Upon A Quarter 

     No, not the State Commemorative Series of 25-cent pieces (though my collector set’s still missing New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii!), and no again, neither is this a reference to the homemade pie slice size I most prefer, or to sitting astride that magnificent breed of racehorse, and — not to discount those romantics among you whose fractionalized thinking relates only to the amount of moon showing on any given night.  None of these.

     The “Quarter” I refer to is the one that breaks up the year, not as a business financial measure, but as a season.  In this case, I am speaking of the date of issue period for a number of culturally diverse and literary driven publications . . . and here and now, specifically, the strongest singularly-focused magazine of its time and place: 

Delmarva Quarterly

     . . . Delmarva (Peninsula)’s window to the scenes and stories of the seasons is filled with with tales, tasty tidbits, festival schedules, and observations of life on one of the largest, most productive and most fascinating peninsulas on the planet.  Delmarva is named, not incidentally, for the three states it environmentally hosts, serves and supports (DELaware, MARyland, and VirginiA). 

     You can drive there by the Bay Bridge across the Chesapeake from Annapolis, or the Delaware Memorial Bridge from New Jersey to Wilmington, or the Cape May-Lewes Ferry from Cape May, New Jersey to Cape Henlopen, Delaware, or across and through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel from the Virginia Beach area.  A variety of airports serve the Peninsula from New Castle and Georgetown, DE, to Salisbury, MD, and in between.

     When you land, arrive or sail in, remember to check out Delmarva Quarterly.  Why?  Because it’s the standard-bearer for all things made on and native to the Peninsula, and especially all things that fall into or touch upon the following categories that roll across every quarterly issue masthead: HISTORY – LITERATURE – ART – MUSIC – PHOTOGRAPHY – ARCHITECTURE – NATURE – THEATER – POETRY.  Don’t do Delmarva without it!

     Whenever you live on, visit, vacation, or just pass through Delmarva, you deserve to see and experience the uniqueness of its coastal borders and inland farms, its rivers, wildlife and wonderful products through the eyes of Delmarva natives and of newfound loyalists who’ve moved from other states . . . as can only be recorded by the Peninsula’s exceptional creative community in the pages of Delmarva Quarterly . . . once upon a quarter, every season.   halalpiar   

[To subscribe to Delmarva Quarterly, send your name and address and $12 – $18 for two years – to Delmarva Quarterly, P.O.Box 213, Lewes, DE 19958.  Submissions, letters, and advertising welcome.  Email dnf@capegazette.com for additional information]      

The e-books are coming!

The e-books are coming!

The e-books are coming!

The e-books are coming!

                                                                                                                                    

As I sit here scanning the 38th (and hopefully final) revision of a novel I’ve been working on for the last seven years [See HIGH TIDE synopsis; “Literary Agents” tab on the homepage of this blogsite], my mind is spinning at the latest publishing trend revelation that my musician/composer son Christopher just emailed me. . .

     First, for those with little knowledge of publishing, I must note here that you should know the industry is a giant sloth (or slug, depending on whether you perceive it as asleep or, unlikely though it may be, in some measure of motion).  The point is that “latest publishing trend” is paradoxical to say the least, yet —– well —– 

     Well, e-books are on the way, and –like it or not– will be here to stay! 

     For the moment (like the opening round of consumer pricing for initial sales of TV’s, computers, cellphones, and i-pods), costs for the average Joe are still prohibitive at a few hundred dollars per unit.  Want more details?  Try this link for a video that I found rather astonishing, not to mention the cause for concern it gave me over the incipient obsolescence of my new library shelves!  Go here: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_6369712_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1TDY7EQ37FNCWC7TNQCA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=420983501&pf_rd_i=507846    

     And here, says my son, is “the Sony version”: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-PRS-505-LC-Digital-Reader/dp/B000WP2RC2  (Hey, at least the link is shorter!)

     Finally, he sent me “a nice Forbes article about the whole thing”: http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/03/ebooks-kindle-digital-tech-personaltech-cx_ag_1203ebooks.html

     Oh, and there’s more, like Christopher tells me, a new fiber that lets you make actual pages –kind of plastic, like a thick magazine– he says, that are actually an LCD monitor so you can make a “book” with ten pages, soft or hard back, and get the feeling like you are reading a book but it’s all digital as well . . . still apparently in R&D, but coming soon!  See: http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?IA=US1996012000&DISPLAY=DESC

     And, even more impressive: electronic RE-USABLE paper like, Christopher says, a modern day “etch-and-sketch” that can be printed on electronically, like a digital download, or be used like a “white board” with an electronic pencil:

http://www.prism.washington.edu/lc/CLWEBCLB/electpaper.html

http://www2.parc.com/hsl/projects/gyricon/

     My love of books and worry about crooks stealing my books and replacing them with yet another cyberspace device (that even though it looks like a book and feels like a book and quacks like a book is not really a “book”!) and concerns about my sanity require me to stop here and try to get some sleep, so I can wake up in the morning and find the page I was on before checking all these mind-boggling links!  See you round the corner!        halalpiar 

 Special thanks to Christopher Kennedy Alpiar, Cinematic Composer   www.alpiar.com

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU

KNOW RUN(S) A BUSINESS                                                                     

OR PROFESSIONAL

PRACTICE AND SEEK(S)

    EXPERIENCED, AWARD-

WINNING WRITING

HELP FOR A PASSIVE/

HIGH IMPACT OR

INTERACTIVE

BLOG SITE,

HAL ALPIAR

MAY BE THE ANSWER. 

TECHNICAL, HUMOROUS, EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIVE, PROMOTIONAL, MOTIVATIONAL, SALES, PUBLIC & INDUSTRY RELATIONS, CUSTOMER SERVICES, MARKETING, BRANDING, STORYTELLING, SPECIAL EVENTS, YOU NAME IT . . .                                     

           BLOG POSTINGS            

FOR AS LITTLE AS

$39 A WEEK! 

  SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER

DETAILS: CALL 302.933.0116

 Or email Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “BLOG INFO REQUEST” in the subject line and include your name, title, business or practice name and phone number.

DIRECT EXPERIENCE WITH OVER 2,000 DIFFERENT BUSINESSES AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES, FROM “FORTUNE 500’s” TO STARTUPS!

RE-energizing = Cruise control

     Running your career, business, or professional practice in cruise control requires re-energizing. 

     Groups require re-grouping.  Thinking requires re-thinking.  I know these things because I’m a writer, and every writer knows that respectable writing requires re-writing — always, all the time, no exceptions. 

     It’s RE-writing that marketing, advertising, promotion and public relations clients pay for, by the way.  Because ONLY re-writing can produce writing that’s worthy of reading . . . and responding to!  RE-writing is also what sells book manuscripts, and of course, books.  But how can you re-write something that’s not finished to start with? 

     And how can you get yourself started when you have so little time to do so much that—even as you read this, you’re worried about the time it’s taking to read this—you don’t make enough tiome to rejuvenate yourself?  Yes, that was a question.  It reminds me of the student I once tried to enroll in one of my time and stress management courses who said, “Listen, I don’t have any stress, and I certainly don’t have the time to take a course on time management!”  Uhuh.  

     Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking about that “time to smell the roses” stuff you see on Auntie Madeline’s garden plaques, or taking a 3-day weekend warrior trip to the mountains or the shore and return exhausted or hungover, or both. 

     Though if you’re still reading this, you probably don’t think that even little ventures like these, away from your work, your business or your professional practice, are affordable to your brain or your organization (especially given the one-of-a-kind customers, associates, patients, clients you have; and especially given that sales/claims/cases are so far ahead or so far behind) and you’re just being polite right now, patiently waiting for my lecture to end so you can throw a wet dishrag at your computer screen, and stomp off to your waiting piles of paperwork, snorting “bah, humbug!” (an expression you might ordinarily reserve for Christmastime?).

     “No, it’s the quality thing,” you keep saying; “it’s the quality of the time away from work; that’s all I need, just some quality time . . .” 

     Brrrrrrraaaaaatt!  Wrong again.  No, I’m talking about taking a bunch of days—more than a Monday or Friday tacked onto a “quality” weekend—and taking yourself someplace that, to you, might as well be outer space!  Go hide!  Blend into someone else’s scenery. 

     Take the risk of leaving your merry-go-round in someone else’s hands for a week or two.  When you come back, you’ll be able to make the carousel run more efficiently and more comfortably . . . maybe even get it out of running in nonproductive circles!  Imagine how far you can go on a merry-go-straight?  Stop.  Look.  Listen.  And get the hell out of Dodge!         halalpiar