“Minnie did a great job in focusing on her teams goals and getting them accomplished. She knew that her goals were challenging and that having a committed and competent staff were critical to their success. She always made sure that her team received the opportunity to improve their personal and professional skills.” December 3, 2008

John Barilla, Vice President & Account Executive, Prudential Insurance
managed Minnie indirectly at Prudential Insurance

Many companies are going to great lengths today to understand future patterns of talent supply and demand, enhancing hiring and retention practices, tapping underemployed resources, utilizing more flexibility with available employees and getting involved in talent initiatives.

Interestingly, the concept of “shoring” is being expanded beyond the regular off-shoring, because the labor costs continue to rise all over the world. Now we have options such as, nearshoring - creating operations in nearby foreign countries, inshoring - using shared services or homeshoring - telecommuting and other alternatives. Be creative and invest in your most important assets, your employees and get the best out of them.

It is important to realize that cost can be reduced, not only through technology improvements, but more importantly through HIGH PERFORMING EMPLOYEES. Therefore, there is a big payback to keeping employees continuously trained and up to date. Employees that receive continuous training know the Company has a vested interest in their success and are committed to their long term well being and give back by planning and executing assignments effectively. As said by SHRM, every night your most important assets walk out of the door, so let’s help you make sure they come back the next morning.

One does not necessarily have to double speed all the time to double productivity; one can increase results by combining complimentary tasks, projects or roles. Plan ahead and look for ways to maximize time, such as, prior to beginning a task, see if there is anything else that could be done simultaneously. By finding a way to do two things in the same block of time, one can achieve twice the results with little extra effort. This makes one more productive and efficient, helping move towards the expected results. Planning is imperative!

We all have dreams and aspirations and we owe it to ourselves to turn those dreams into REALITY. However, if we never get around to taking the necessary action, we will never achieve the results that we want and achieve the success we desire. So turn those Dreams into Goals and turn the goals into Plans and turn the plans into Explicit or Specific Actions.

Having a grand mission, a wonderful attitude, remarkable organizational skills, exceptional time management, physical strength and mental energy without taking action will only leave you wishing and waiting. Be empowered and take control of your destiny and make those dreams real to achieve the success you desire. Will Power to Succeed is pure determination necessary to triumph over fear, uncertainty and doubt as you move towards your most cherished dreams and goals. Training helps put it all into perspective for you, so cease the opportunity and keep learning, make TRAINING or LEARNING a life long practice.

The current economy and the uncertainties in wall street may be impacting your business operations on a day to day basis. At first it may seem like a challenge, but you can turn it into an opportunity and move ahead. One thing we can depend on, is having good employees and leadership that are reliable and would deliver, even in times like this.

As we all know, the financial crisis is not impacting only wall street, it is having an effect on main street as well. This gives us a great opportunity to look at what we are doing carefully and see what we can change quickly to impact our cash flow and bottom line. Some businesses are doing well or okay and others are feeling the pinch, so regroup and look at your priorities.

To keep the business running smoothly, you need well trained, reliable and dependable employees. Keep in mind, there are ways that companies of all sizes can compete for top notch talent and few employees leave their current job solely for more money. If your company pays within a competitive range, most employees will not switch for a salary increase. There are two main reasons why employees stay with you: the work atmosphere and the supplementary benefits the employees have become used to. These are advantages that any size company can use and they can be effective in both attracting qualified new hires and retaining your current employees.

First, it is necessary to provide a competitive base salary; therefore if your salaries are 25% below market, you will lose your employees, so you need to reassess that. A basic medical coverage program at a reasonable cost to the employee is also essential. Any other additional benefits you choose to offer helps and it depends on your business needs and budget. It is important not to extend yourself too much by trying to offer everything, pick those benefits that best meet the needs of your employees and work within your business plan.

The cost for retaining good employees will still be less than the cost to replace and train a new employee. Keep in mind that the only thing worse than losing a trained employee is keeping an untrained one. Therefore, it is imperative that you keep the continuity in training at all times. Ask yourself this question; why do trainers or sport stars for basketball, baseball, soccer, swimming, gymnastics to name a few, train continuously? They have to keep in shape and it is critical for them to keep the continuity if they want to do better. In the same way, it is essential to continuously learn or train your employees or yourselves.

To create a strong brand in your business, you need to understand that your employees are your brand. More than anything else, they build trust or break it, create terrific experiences or terrible ones, or form emotional connections with customers or create a gap. Creating a culture where employees represent your brand requires open communication, respect, trust and the employees need to be inspired by their leaders. Share your mission, vision, values and strategy with your employees and as long as they understand and connect with your corporate vision, they will incorporate that vision in their day to day operations on the front lines.

Your employees are your ambassadors to the public and when there is an emotional bond with your brand, they provide fantastic customer experiences. They WOW your customers. Therefore engage your Employees, and differentiate yourself from your Competition!

This is an interesting article on ten characteristics of winners and we owe it to ourselves to make sure we are accountable for our growth and development if we are interested in advancing in our careers.

1. ENERGETIC: If you want to get ahead, maintain a high commitment to health and fitness. There is a direct connection between sweat and success!
2. PASSIONATE: People with a strong sense of mission and purpose have a strong sense of direction. Perhaps more than any other factor of performance, your passion for your work is a highly visible indicator of long-term success.
3. OPTIMISTIC: To compete successfully in this perform-or-perish global economy requires a positive and enthusiastic attitude. When was the last time you saw a person with a negative, self-defeating attitude get ahead? I have never seen a monument dedicated to a pessimist, have you?
4. SELF-DIRECTED: The ability to connect the dots from your organization’s mission to crystal-clear goals is the hallmark of vision-inspired leadership. People with a poor ability to transform their mission into clear targets spend a great deal of time running in circles, rather than in direct pursuit of the goal.
5. WELL-PLANNED: The ability to make plans to support your goals and objectives is critical the higher up you rise. People with the inability to plan ahead quickly find themselves left behind.
6. FOCUSED: How often do you confuse the urgent with the important? The ability to quickly prioritize projects, tasks and “To Do’s” is a major driver of success, and is a highly visible indicator of your career power. People with a strong ability to focus on getting the right things done, right now, are 8 times more likely to rise to the top of their respective professions than people who are consumed by distractions and urgencies.
7. SUPPORTIVE: The ability to build strong teams and develop powerful interpersonal synergy is a major driver of personal and professional success. If you have strong communication skills, with the ability to share your goals and visions, you are more likely to work at the top than people without those attributes.
8. SYSTEMATIC: It isn’t how hard you work, it’s how smart you produce results that matters. If you frequently confuse effort with results, your career horizons are limited. Find a way to systematically get more done each day, and if nothing else, you’ll drive your co-workers crazy!
9. TIMELY: If you do not have outstanding time management skills, you may want to immediately focus on improving this area of your performance. In an instant-everything internet-driven economy, it is no longer a survival of the fittest model… but a survival of the fastest new world order. A little too little, a little too late might have gotten you by 10 years ago, but is now seen as a fatal flaw.
10. PROACTIVE: If you are frequently seen as someone who is perpetually “getting ready to get ready”, you will not experience the career growth you desire. The key to growth in this action-oriented, hotly-competitive global economy is, in a word, Action! You can quickly rise to the top if you learn to quickly take action, especially in the face of the three great killers of motivation: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

Yes, to successfully compete in today’s results-driven global economy; you need to be Energetic, Passionate, Optimistic, Self-directed, Well-planned, Focused, Supportive, Systematic, Timely and Proactive.

If your performance, day in-day out, could be described with these 10 words, you would not only be the highly successful employee that employers would fight to keep, but have the career of your dreams and would be exposed to opportunities that will even advance your career further.

The line is clearly drawn between people who have the ability to turn their career potential into career power, and those who look outwards for job security and income growth. Therefore, take charge of your career, be the best you can be and be truthful to yourself - get the developmental tools and training needed to become a better you.

E. R. Haas & Kent Madson of ThinkTQ

http://thinktq.com/training/story/tqs_story.cfm?id=706DC54DAED21C266FC9BD9731C747E4

Choosing service over self-interest.

American newspaper commentator Walter Lippmann defined leaders as “the custodians of a nation’s ideals, the beliefs it cherishes, of its permanent hopes, of the faith which makes a nation out of a mere aggregation of individuals.”

Custodians. The word means a keeper, a guardian, or a caretaker. It is a proactive word that implies action on the part of the bearer. Custodians hold something in trust on behalf of others. It is not a behavior motivated out of self-interest.

A custodian then, is an individual who upholds what is best for all people even if it may not be in their own interest to do so. A custodial role must be approached as a temporary role, preserving something greater than the self—principles of enduring and lasting value. This is an attitude of mind that focuses on the task at hand and not on what the leader may gain from the position. It implies a caring and concerned relationship between leaders and followers; individuals motivated by their constituents’ best interests.

This idea seems at odds with what we see happening around us today. In all too many arenas, we see many of our leaders holding nothing in trust for those they purport to serve but advancing only their own ideals and hopes.Today, it is often difficult to tell if our leaders are serving themselves or us. And it is all too common to find leaders simply helping themselves to privilege and power. Mismanagement, deceit, greed, and frying-pan-into-the-fire problem solving all beg the question, “Where are our leaders leading?” “To whom can we look to for the direction we need?” Is Lippmann’s statement merely an idealistic, unrealizable dream?
» Continue reading “The Focus of Leadership”