Perfect Your Pitch

Elevator pitches aren’t just for start-ups. They are helpful in job interviews, networking events, presentations, or any time you need to quickly explain your case.  Instead of stumbling when asked, “What does your company do?”  prepare an effective pitch that outlines win-win goals and launches a deeper relationship.  Grab the listeners’ attention with a smart hook, and then convince them of the mutual benefits you could provide.  End by suggesting a follow-up and converting a chance meeting into an opportunity.  Speak in terms your audience can relate to.  And communicate with the passion that comes from knowing that this opportunity may never come again. 

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from Guide to Persuasive Presentations. 

Create Great Strategy with Stories, Not Plans

Too often the strategy creation process produces options that aren’t any more interesting or creative than the current strategy.  If you find yourself agonizing over which of your carefully crafted strategic options is the right one, chances are you are taking the strategic planning process too seriously.  Give up being right and sensible.  Instead, tell a story about the future.  Make it aspirational and envision your organization in a happy and successful place.  Have everyone participating in the process tell their own story, and together you’ll have created a list of options.  Then start the real work of strategy creation: ask yourselves, for these stories to come true, what would have to happen? 

Adapted from  “Moving from Strategic Planning to Storytelling” by Roger Martin. 

 

Introverts: Network in Your Own Way

Networking is essential to thriving in business.  But if you’re an introvert with a natural aversion to groups and talking with strangers, what can you do?  Try these things: 

• Focus on individuals.  Group interactions can drain introverts. Spend your networking time having one-on-one conversations. 
• Rethink how you reach out.  Introverts often hesitate to introduce themselves, but social media makes it easier. Reach out via LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook to people before events. This pre-introduction may put you at ease. 
• Re-energize.  Take time between networking events to recharge. Take a walk or find 30 minutes alone. 

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “An Introvert’s Guide to Networking” by Lisa Petrilli.

3 Ways to Handle a Colleague You Dislike

Working with a difficult person can be distracting and draining.  Next time a colleague irritates you to no end, try these three things: 

• Manage your reaction.  If someone annoys you, don’t focus on his behavior. Focus on how you react, which is usually the only thing you can control.
• Keep it to yourself.  Emotions are contagious, so complaining about a co-worker can bring everyone down. And it can reflect negatively on you. If you must vent, do it outside the office.
• Work together.  It’s counterintuitive, but by spending more time together you may develop empathy for your colleague. You might discover reasons for his behavior: stress at home, pressure from his boss, etc. 

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “How to Work with Someone You Hate” by Amy Gallo. 

 

Stress Is Not Your Enemy

How often do you intentionally push yourself to discomfort?

I know that sounds a little nutty, but here’s why I ask: Subjecting yourself to stress is the only way to systematically get stronger — physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  And you’ll get weaker if you don’t.

We live by the myth that stress is the enemy in our lives.  The real enemy is our failure to balance stress with intermittent rest.  Push the body too hard for too long — chronic stress — and the result will indeed be burnout and breakdown.  But subject the body to insufficient stress, and it will weaken and atrophy.

Few of us push ourselves nearly hard enough to realize our potential, nor do we rest, sleep, and renew nearly as deeply or for as long as we should.

This is easiest to see at the physical level.  In the absence of regular cardiovascular exercise — a form of stress — the heart’s ability to efficiently pump blood drops an average of 1 percent a year between the ages of 30 and 70, and faster after that.  Likewise, in the absence of strength training — literally pushing weight against resistance — we lose an average of 1 percent of lean muscle massevery year after age 30.

But those effects can be dramatically reversed, even very late in life.  In one of a series of studies, a group of nursing home residents with an average age of 87 were put on a strength training program 3 times a week for 45 minutes a session.  They were given plenty of time to rest between sets and to recover between sessions.  On average, they more than doubled their strength in just ten weeks.

The principle is simple, but not entirely intuitive.  The harder you push yourself, the more you signal your body to grow. It’s called supercompensation, and the growth actually occurs during recovery.  The limiting factor is mostly your tolerance for discomfort.

Think for a moment about attention.  Absorbed focused lies at the heart of great performance.  Unfortunately, our minds have minds of their own — they flit from thought to thought.  It’s also more difficult than ever to stay focused in this digital age.  Never before have we had to deal with so many seductive distractions.

Training your mind operates by the same principle as training your body.  By focusing on one thing for a defined period of time — say by counting your breath, or working at a demanding task, or even reading a difficult book — you’re subjecting your attention to stress.

As your mind wanders, the challenge is to return your focus to the breath, or the task, or the book.  Effectively, you’re training control of your attention.  The more intensely you practice, even for short increments of time, the stronger you’ll get.

The alternative is shallowness.  So much of what we do all day long requires little real effort, but yields only the most fleeting gratification.

For me, writing this blog is one way I intentionally push myself to discomfort for several hours every week.  I don’t relish pain any more than the next guy, and so to get past my resistance, I write at a set time, for 90 minutes at a stretch before taking a break.  Working at a piece of writing forces me to think hard and searchingly, about a subject that matters to me, and then try to compose sentences that are lean, crisp, and clear, and say exactly what I mean them to say.

It can be frustrating and uncomfortable to think hard — especially early in the process.  I often feel compelled to get up from my desk and eat something, or check my email, or do anything but keep writing.

Occasionally I succumb, but mostly I’ve learned to put off these indulgences, comforted by the knowledge that staying the course will ultimately make me feel more alive, more productive, and better about myself than I ever will by flitting between the day’s more trivial tasks.

Completing a challenging piece of work, or a tough workout, or an intellectually demanding book, frees us to truly savor and enjoy the period afterwards — to experience time off not as slacking but as a fully earned opportunity for restoration.

Most of us instinctively run from discomfort, but struggle equally to value rest and renewal.  We operate instead in a gray zone, rarely fully engaged and rarely deeply relaxed.

What practice could you add to your life to regularly push beyond your comfort zone — and then deliberately renew? Increasing the amplitude of your wave — from intense effort to deep renewal — is the surest path to a more fully realized life.

Adapted from: Tony Schwartz, President and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything.

 

 

 

 

You Can’t Get It All Done

If you’re like most people, you’re overwhelmed with how much you have to do and frustrated by all the things you can’t finish.  The reality is that there isn’t enough time to do it all.  Once you admit that, you can explicitly choose what you are going to do. Instead of letting things haphazardly fall through the cracks, you can intentionally push unimportant things aside and focus on the things that matter.  Don’t instantly react to the needs that land on your desk; make deliberate choices that will move you toward your goals.  You also need to make conscious decisions about what not to do. 

Adapted from “The Biggest Myth in Time Management” by Peter Bregman.  

 

Even High Performers Need Feedback

Some managers assume their star employees don’t need feedback.  They’re clearly doing a good job and they don’t need to improve, right? Wrong. Even your top performers need input to stay engaged, focused, and motivated.  Frequently give your stars both positive and negative feedback.  Tell them how much you appreciate their good work. Identify and share development areas, even if there are only a few. Talk with your stars about how they might achieve the next level of performance.  And, don’t miss the opportunity to solicit input on how you are doing as a manager. Ask questions such as “How can I help you improve?” or “What can our organization do to support your great work?

Adapted from Guide to Giving Effective Feedback.   

 

8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses

The best managers have a fundamentally different understanding of workplace, company, and team dynamics.  See what they get right.  

A few years back, I interviewed some of the most successful CEOs in the world in order to discover their management secrets.  I learned that the “best of the best” tend to share the following eight core beliefs.

1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield. 

Average bosses see business as a conflict between companies, departments and groups.  They build huge armies of “troops” to order about, demonize competitors as “enemies,” and treat customers as “territory” to be conquered. 

Extraordinary bosses see business as a symbiosis where the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive.  They naturally create teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with other companies, customers … and even competitors. 

2. A company is a community, not a machine. 

Average bosses consider their company to be a machine with employees as cogs.  They create rigid structures with rigid rules and then try to maintain control by “pulling levers” and “steering the ship.” 

Extraordinary bosses see their company as a collection of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose.  They inspire employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to the community–and company–at large. 

3. Management is service, not control. 

Average bosses want employees to do exactly what they’re told.  They’re hyper-aware of anything that smacks of insubordination and create environments where individual initiative is squelched by the “wait and see what the boss says” mentality. 

Extraordinary bosses set a general direction and then commit themselves to obtaining the resources that their employees need to get the job done.  They push decision making downward, allowing teams form their own rules and intervening only in emergencies. 

4. My employees are my peers, not my children.

Average bosses see employees as inferior, immature beings who simply can’t be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. Employees take their cues from this attitude, expend energy on looking busy and covering their behinds.

Extraordinary bosses treat every employee as if he or she were the most important person in the firm. Excellence is expected everywhere, from the loading dock to the boardroom. As a result, employees at all levels take charge of their own destinies.

5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear.

Average bosses see fear–of getting fired, of ridicule, of loss of privilege–as a crucial way to motivate people.  As a result, employees and managers alike become paralyzed and unable to make risky decisions.

Extraordinary bosses inspire people to see a better future and how they’ll be a part of it.  As a result, employees work harder because they believe in the organization’s goals, truly enjoy what they’re doing and (of course) know they’ll share in the rewards.

6. Change equals growth, not pain.

Average bosses see change as both complicated and threatening, something to be endured only when a firm is in desperate shape.  They subconsciously torpedo change … until it’s too late.

Extraordinary bosses see change as an inevitable part of life.  While they don’t value change for its own sake, they know that success is only possible if employees and organization embrace new ideas and new ways of doing business. 

7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation. 

Average bosses adhere to the old IT-centric view that technology is primarily a way to strengthen management control and increase predictability.  They install centralized computer systems that dehumanize and antagonize employees. 

Extraordinary bosses see technology as a way to free human beings to be creative and to build better relationships.  They adapt their back-office systems to the tools, like smartphones and tablets, that people actually want to use. 

8. Work should be fun, not mere toil.

Average bosses buy into the notion that work is, at best, a necessary evil.  They fully expect employees to resent having to work, and therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressors and their employees as victims. Everyone then behaves accordingly. 

Extraordinary bosses see work as something that should be inherently enjoyable–and believe therefore that the most important job of manager is, as far as possible, to put people in jobs that can and will make them truly happy.  

 

Adapteed from:  Geoffrey James‘ “Sales Source” (formerly “Sales Machine” on CBS) is the world’s most-visited sales-oriented blog.  His best posts, with many extras, are in his new book:  How to Say It: Business to Business Selling. 

End a Mentoring Relationship Before It Dies

It’s easy for a mentoring relationship to outlive its worth. You get into a groove, you enjoy the stimulating conversations, and you’re learning.  But sometimes you have to move on to move up.  Set goals and assess whether you have achieved them.  Once you have, it might be time to find a new mentor to help you with your next set of challenges.  Thank your mentor for all her help and ask permission to use her as a reference when you’re scouting for the next one.  Keep in touch with your past mentors even after the relationships officially end. 

Adapted from Guide to Getting the Mentoring You Need.  

 

Make Service Easy for Your Customers

The notion of going above and beyond customer needs is so entrenched that managers rarely question it.  But delighting your customers may be a waste of time and energy. In fact, most customers just want simple, quick solutions to their problems, and your company should make that possible.  Think about the service initiatives you have underway.  Question whether they are focused on reducing customer effort or adding unnecessary bells and whistles.  Start with frontline employees since they likely interact with customers the most. Make sure they have the skills, permission, and the incentive to reduce customer effort.

Adapted from “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers: The Idea in Practice” by Matthew Dixon, Lara Ponomareff, and Anastasia Milgramm.