Heritics, questioners, coaches and agents of change June 24, 2009
We’re almost never wanted, but critical to the success of any group.
We’re the court jester – the only person in the whole court that can call the king (or anyone else) a fool.
We’re the questioner – asking the stupid question that have stupidly profound answers.
We’re the provoker – helping (sometimes hindering) other people ideas meet reality.
We’re the objectors – standing up for our and other people’s ideals.
We’re the sword – cutting the knots people and groups tie themselves in.
We’re the outcasts – Outside looking in, offering those inside a different perspective.
We’re the condemned and cursed – For asking the questions, making the comments, and doing what every group needs.
We’re the aliens – Doing and saying things others find strange.
We’re the black sheep – producing wool that others can’t.
The real difficulty in doing this is not that we do, but when and how we do it. We are needed in every group, tribe, culture or society – we are the ones that notice the emperor is naked. Some groups and people embrace us, others reject us, but they all need us.
In case you haven’t guessed, I’ve done much thinking, talking and teaching around this exact point. One example is right here.
Are you a Heritic? A questioner? A coach? An agent of change? Comment below!
Quick and easy stress relief June 11, 2009
I’ve been teaching this one stress management method for many years. A technique
The method is simple, whenever you want a quick way to relax; sigh. Take a deep breath in and sigh audibly. Your body remembers when you sigh normally, and will respond accordingly. If you do it right now, while you read, notice how your shoulders relax as you sigh. Interesting, isn’t it?
P.S. Of course, if you know me at all, you’ll know I don’t care much for ’scientifically proven’ methods. As long as it works for you, who cares if it works for anyone else?
Four tips on how to motivate a new team. June 3, 2009
Getting everyone in a new team, group, company or organization to work together is a challenge but not impossible. To give you some of the ideas I use, let me start with a metaphor to get a point across.
As a teacher, I teach to specific individuals. Even in a full class, I teach to the individuals. If the individuals get my point, I move on. If half of them do, I restate the case till they all do. Sometimes I even intentionally confuse the ones that get it, to help them learn a different thing.
In short, I have my learning outcome. I know what responses I want from the students. The students also have their out outcomes for learning. As the instructor, I have to match those two up.
Now, just for a moment, consider a team or company a class. How do I navigate through each individual’s needs, wants and desires to reach my corporate outcome? It takes time and attention (your and theirs!). If they don’t want to belong, then you’re kind of stuck. You can’t make anyone learn something they don’t want to learn. In either case you either have to make them want it, ignore them, or expel them from the team. Having a disruption in a new team can be unrecoverable. In an established team, the team itself usually deals with it naturally.
So some specifics as I appreciate them.
1. Ask the team. You might not use everything they tell you, but you have to take the team ‘pulse’.
Ask the individuals within the team a few specific questions.
“Is the team helping you do what you want?”
“What are you trying to do?”
“What do you most value about the team?”
“Other than yourself who do you think the team finds is the most beneficial member?”
“Who do you think the team finds the least beneficial member?”
2. Give the team clear instructions. So many times I’ve watched highly effective teams self destruct because they were given a wishy-washy goal.
These instructions can also be about how to act as a team. Instructions on WIIFT (What’s In It For Them), what they have to do (both individually and as a team), how they contribute, what ‘contribute’ actually means and more.
3. Be an example for the team. They will follow your lead, not knowing anything else to do. If you stifle creativity, you’ll get less of it and the team will begin to stifle it itself. If you foster creativity, it will grow and be nurtured by the team.
4. Following on from point #3, if you notice the team moving in a direction you don’t want, be the example that moves them in the other way. This can be the toughest of all because most of the time we don’t notice the direction the team is heading until it’s already halfway there.
What other tips to motivate a new team can you think of? Comment below!
Accept the events you cannot control April 20, 2009
And that was just the day to day work – it says nothing of the occasional angry and abusive interactions I’d have with other people. One particular memorable occurrence, not long before I finally snapped, is one of the database admins storming up to my desk within minutes of my arrival.
“Why haven’t you done the changes I’ve asked for?” He demanded.
“What, no hello?” Too early and I’d not yet had my morning coffee.
He looked at me as if I was the only one with the bad attitude. “I put the changes through weeks ago, they are still not done!”
“Ok, slow down. Which changes specifically?” Yes, I talked like that even way back then.
“Don’t give me that, you know the ones I’m asking about.”
I was tired from another late night, lacked caffeine, had not yet read my list of important outstanding tasks and this fellow was acting as if my job revolved around him. I rubbed my forehead.
“I don’t.” I replied, attempting to calm him down some, but it was the wrong thing to say.
“Don’t give me that!” He yelled, “This is the second time I’ve come to remind you.”
Now I didn’t recall the first time, I’d forgotten other things in recent weeks. “Did you send me an email last time?” I asked calmly.
“No! You said you’d take care of it.” He replied indignantly.
“Send me an email and I’ll get to it.” I said turning to my monitor and put on a pair of headphones. He stood for a few seconds with him mouth open and then stormed off in a huff.
This story shows two sides of the same coin. One side is me not taking on someone elses responsibility, the other is the DBA being emotionally attached to and effected by my lack of attentiveness.
Both of us describe one key aspect of being in control of your stress. And that key is accepting events that are outside of your control.
For example, no matter how hard you try, you can’t control another human (or even pet)! You can influence them, ask them, plead, yell, scream and complain, but you can’t control them. That database admin would have loved to control me; instead I just made his life more difficult and stressful.
You can control your own thoughts, emotions, choices, influence and behaviour. You can’t control consequences of your actions, other people’s reaction, or the responses to your influence. That DBA had no idea I’d respond the way I did, and wasn’t able to keep himself calm.
If you are trying to control things out of your control you begin to feel directly responsible for other people’s actions. You are constantly trapped thinking their actions are your responsibility, but having no ability to change their behaviour. This is a sure path to a short and stressful life.
That’s all well and good, but how do we let these things go? There is an aspect of artistry to this act: How much do we change ourselves, and how much do we change the world?
Primarily it’s a mental shift and difficult to teach directly. To get that mental shift, the easiest way (at least to start) is to focus entirely on exactly the things you can control. I.e., yourself.
With practice, you can change your emotional responses directly. You can only ever change other people’s emotional responses via influence. The main way we influence anyone is verbally (at least in the beginning). If you could only talk, what would you say to get the result you wanted from someone else? How do you respond? Think about the story above, what would you have done as the DBA to get me to respond differently? (Some tips: I don’t respond to threats, yelling or whining. I sometimes respond to bribes, begging and pleading.) Write your responses in the comments below – there are no incorrect (or even correct) responses, so feel free.
The next step, once you achieve this mental shift, is to fully appreciate that your emotions can be directly seen and experienced by the person you’re speaking to. Being in control of your own emotional response dramatically improves your influence! But I’ll leave details for how to do that for a later date.
P.S. If the DBA in the story happens to be reading this, I hope he accepts my sincere apologies.
How to keep a positive attitude March 19, 2009
Sometimes life gives us lemons. As the old saying goes; make lemonade. While it’s easy to say that while you look at a table overflowing with lemons, it’s sometimes hard to think of making lemonade.
The main asset in remembering to make lemonade is keeping a positive attitude. Regardless of the stress of the situation if you keep a positive attitude you can get better results.
Keeping that positive attitude under difficult situations might be a challenge. Actually, because of today’s busy lifestyle constantly trying to throw us off balance, it might be easier to think of it as regaining or recovering our lost positive attitude. Here are a few tips that can keep help.
1. Say thank you. You, like me, might remember a birthday where your parents didn’t give you the present you wanted, but instead wrapped up underwear and socks. For added embarrassment, you opened all your presents while family and friends looked on. Even though this wasn’t much of a gift, or you didn’t get what you truly wanted, you still say ‘thankyou’.
When you say ‘thankyou’ you don’t have to accept the ‘gift’.
When you say ‘thankyou’ your mind (thanks to years of training) begins to think of how and where to use this gift.
2. Smile for no reason. This releases ‘feel good’ chemicals that, well, make us feel good.
Make others smile and laugh. This in turn naturally makes us smile. If you don’t believe me, walk down a street and smile at the strangers walking towards you. Most of those that notice will smile in return. Even in the most unfriendly cities you’ll still get some responses.
And even if you fake a laugh, this usually becomes funny in itself. Try it yourself with a friend.
3. Forgive others. Forgiveness is a funny thing. It is never about the other person. It’s never about you accepting that what was done to you is ok. It’s not even about making the other person feel better or stopping punishing them (when really it’s just punishing yourself). Forgiveness is simply about allowing you to release the attachment you have to a past event.
4. Hang around positive people. That doesn’t mean dropping all your negative friends, just limiting the time you spend around them. If you only know negative people, you need new friends!
5. Focus on the positive. That doesn’t mean ignoring the negative, just not reliving the negative. At the end of the meeting or day, remember what was good.
If you must focus on the negative, set a short time limit and do it with 100% commitment. No more than 10 minutes is ever needed.
6. Talk to yourself in positive terms. Harder than it sounds, but as a quick introduction start with eliminating the words: can’t, won’t, should, but, try. You will be more positive by simply removing these words.
Personally, when the world gives me lemons, I make margaritas. The best margaritas are made with lime, but when all you have is lemons…
Three kinds of meetings … March 4, 2009
… and one of them is a waste of time, effort, attention and money. The other two are the same thing.
As Seth describes, there are 3 types of meetings. From his post:
- Information. This is a meeting where attendees are informed about what is happening (with or without their blessing). While there may be a facade of conversation, it’s primarily designed to inform.
- Discussion. This is a meeting where the leader actually wants feedback or direction or connections. You can use this meeting to come up with an action plan, or develop a new idea, for example.
- Permission. This is a meeting where the other side is supposed to say yes but has the power to say no.
If you call a meeting simply to inform, there are much better (read more effective) methods to use. Things like: memos, email, word of mouth (the old rumor mill), phone calls, delegation, chain of command, newsletters and much more. Information based meetings are what give meetings a bad name.
The other two, discussion and permission meetings can be boiled down to one thing; decision making. If you pull a bunch of employees together to discuss something, make sure a decision is made at the end of the meeting. Even if that is just to collect more information to enable better informed decisions in the next meeting. A permission meeting is having the other side to decide one way or another.
Meetings are to make decisions. If a decision isn’t made, it’s a waste of everyone’s time, effort, attention and money.
Simple non-verbal communication changes get massive response January 29, 2009
Late last year I spent the week training in
But this post is not about how good
Let me give you an example. The class contained only Koreans. Their primary language is Korean. English is a distant second (or third or fourth!) So on the first day when I asked a question, I would get no response. The first question I asked? “Can everyone speak English?” The response; silence.
Two days later, we are having an interaction, a conversation. Their English is ok. Not perfect but perfectly understandable. They are (and were able to) on the first day understand me. What changed them from silent attention to asking questions?
One specific non-verbal behavioural change on my part.
I play with things – all the time. If I’m not, then I’m thinking about how to. I also test, constantly. I try things in new ways, use tools where they are not meant to be used, push boundaries and edges. Doing so keeps me interested and learning. This is play.
So after lunch on day two, I started playing with facial expressions. Normally, I smile a lot – but I decided to stop and freeze my facial expression. Suddenly the students started asking questions. Confused, I slipped back into my regular smiling and they lost interest with my answers and didn’t ask more. It was like turning on a switch. Freezing my face induced more questions. Back and forth it went.
One ’simple’ change and my results change. What simple thing can you change in yourself to get different results?
What’s more important to you, your work or your health? October 14, 2008
An associate asked me for some advice on how to handle his stress. He felt he was under dangerous levels of stress and fast approaching burnout.
As usual, I asked a question: What’s more important to you, your work or your health?
Answer this question for yourself.
If you say work, then you need to get this stress and burnout handled – as it’s already being a drain on your effectiveness and damaging your work and company.
If you say your health, then you need to get this stress and burnout handled as it’s already adversely affected your health. Worst case, you end up in hospital and both are immediately effected.
By now you know it’s a trick question. If you don’t deal with the underlying issues that cause this stress, they will keep reoccurring. Some of the other ways I know to help take the pressure off and assist in making the changes needed are:
1. Look at your daily schedule. Add 10% to every single item. If you complete all your tasks – Leave work. Resist the temptation to pack more in (doing more because you have time has likely got you in this mess in the first place).
2. When you are doing something that’s on your schedule – do nothing else. No email, no phone, no interruptions. (Invest in a ‘do not disturb’ card for your door!)
3. Schedule some time during every single day where you are un-disturbable. That also means turn off the phone and email. Use this time to think. (Again the ‘do not disturb’ card can help.)
4. Delegate like your life depends on it – because right now it does…
5. Deal with meetings effectively. This is a whole topic in itself.
All these are things you can do right now to give you the breathing room to take a good look at who you are. Those of you who have worked with me in the past may wonder why I’ve only told you 5 things to do, and NOT how to do them. This is intentional I’ve written the specific steps elsewhere.
It’s not an easy road to travel – but there is a comfortable seat in front of a warm fire with plenty of good food, drink and company at the end of it. The trick is to start on this road now, it only gets harder the longer you leave it. Starting on this road will also be disruptive to your current situation and this is good because what you’re doing isn’t working the way you want it to.
If you need more specific help, let me know.
Feel the fear and do it anyway August 28, 2008
A few years ago, I went to get my hair cut. That might not sound like much, but this was my first haircut in about 10 years. My hair was long, I could sit on it. I’d brush it fairly often, and wash it regularly too so it was in good condition.
I liked my hair long, but a good friend relised that my long hair was limiting my potential. He and his wife gave me various reasons to get it cut, but the one that stuck was because it was limiting my professional advancement. Besides their suggestions, I’d had already thought once or twice to cut it all off, but it was a big step.
So for my birthday, this friend and his wife ‘kidnapped’ me. They took me to their own personal hair dresser. Sat me in the chair and hacked off the hair. But that’s just the preamble to my actual point.
Driving back after everything was done, he turns to me and says “You were very brave.”
I laughed at this and told him, “Bravery isn’t something you prepare for. You’re scared, but you do it anyway. Only after the fact is it called bravery. Sometimes it’s also called stupidity.”
Change can be hard. You make it easier by doing it.
Ten Points to help in Selling with Powerpoint June 15, 2008
I’ve talked about PowerPoint before. I don’t like it so much, but many companies insist on using it for everything.
One such company I was recently working with used it for all sales presentations. That’s right; a ‘Death by PowerPoint Sales Pitch’.
I watched one of the presentations, and the sales guy came a distant second to the slides. This destroyed his sales abilities. He was a good salesman when able to interact directly with his clients, but stuck behind PowerPoint, he really struggled. Is it any wonder the companies sales were low?
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t be forced to use PowerPoint in our sales presentations. If we are, there are things we can do to improve the results we get.
So we sat down and devised a new set. This set used his sales skills directly in the presentation, with the slides to back him up. This slide set also used little known persuasion techniques from a variety of sources to improve his sales results.
So what did we do? Here is a list of what and why…
1. Each slide is given a unique headline that describes a benefit to the client in one single sentence. This benefit is then expanded within the slide itself. The only time you’d mention a feature is if in direct reference to the benefit the client gets. Some example titles might be:
- Increase your customer satisfaction by 32%
- How XYZ can increase your IT hardware ROI
- Decrease downtime by at least 22%
2. These headlines are written in an active voice. Drop the cold wet fish of business language and use active, first person language. Doing this actively involves the readers brain, and keeps their attention longer.
3. Make the slides about the client, not about you or your company. How can your product and service help the client directly? They don’t care about you or your product and service. They only care about how you can help them.
4. Each slide is to have no more than 5 bullet points (Each point written in active, first person language). The reason for 5 points only, is because there are volumes of research on how the human mind can only deal with 7 +/- 2 chunks of information. Some people in the room might be able to deal with 9, but the actual decision maker might only be able to deal with 5. Why risk it?
5. Each and every slide and each and every point of every slide must defer to the sales person to explain and expand on. If the points are well written, everyone in the room with is waiting with anticipation for the sales person to discuss it.
6. If you must read the slides out loud, then use a laser pointer so people can follow along. Otherwise they’ll be reading at different speeds, and starting to get annoyed as you fight directly with their own reading style.
7. This goes for every sales situation, but get excited! Your excitement in the slides will be directly transferred to your listeners. If you are sitting at a desk, watching your laptop, it’s hard to get excited. You might have to stand up and move around.
8. Make sure your regular set of objections are covered somewhere in the slides! The more regular, the sooner you cover it.
9. Have different endings to your presentation. There is a well known adage in sales; “When the customer is sold, stop selling”. It’s difficult to do this with another 15 PowerPoint slides remaining. Within PowerPoint you can create a web site like structure, so instead of going from one slide to the next, you can jump around. Giving more details on a direct benefit the client is interested in, and skipping the ones they’re not.
10. On each slide as the last point, ask a question that is answered by ‘yes’. This can help test for closing and uncover objections on each slide.
Bonus Extra
11. Use pictures. If you can’t find a good picture that describes what you want, then use a picture of a face. Humans are hard wired to recognize and respond to faces. Doing so will keep attention focused and make the slides more memorable.
There are a few more subtle methods we used that were directly related to his client’s problems, but these should get you started on redesign.
Any other ideas or pointers you have used to get good results?