Five Ways To Re-invent Yourself In Office

Tired of doing the same work, day in and day out? Do you feel you have reached your potential and can’t  give any more to your job? You have probably hit a plateau, as they say. But quitting, or anything as drastic, may not be the best solution. It’s time to take a step back and figure out how to re-invent yourself at the workplace, says Moresha Benjamin.

Raise the bar
Author and motivational speaker Priya Kumar feels that one, sure-shot way of re-inventing yourself is to double your targets and reassess your goals. A lot of people feel that to re-invent themselves, they must do something different. But you can be the most effective when you raise the bar on your performance. In fact, a new, raised bar will require a new way of thinking and exploring, and certainly new strategies to reach your goal. It will push you to grow and move beyond what you thought was possible. That is real time re-inventing of yourself.

Expand your network
According to Parsh Ramanathan, head (training and development) at L&T Infotech, building an internal network is important. “People in your own company know best what’s going on, what the immediate changes and new vacancies are,” he says. “So speak to them and try to find new opportunities for yourself within the organisation or try to make the shift from your present role into a new one with added responsibilities and skill sets.” If you work better by yourself, chances are you will find yourself stuck in a rut sooner than imagined. The way out is to expand your network by using social media as a tool. Pradeeep Chopra, CEO of DigitalVidya, says you should get online, connect with professionals from your field — not just locally, but also globally — to keep abreast of the developments taking place in your sector across the world.

Ask for help
When you find that you cannot go on in your present role, seek help. Ramanathan advises speaking to a trusted friend or senior at work to get a new perspective on your situation, and bouncing ideas off him or her. In no time at all you will find yourself enjoying your work. The ‘friend’ could be anyone — a senior, your immediate bosses or people in another vertical . Have an open mind and weigh the pros and cons of your present role after exchanging thoughts. Asking for help not only opens up a whole new world of solutions, but also opportunities.

Create a brand image
Building a network, both online and offline, helps create a ‘brand image’ for yourself. Use the same to create opportunities at work. Blog about your situation, says Chopra, or get involved with the extra-curricular activities in the office. Participate in discussions and activities; In short, make yourself acquainted with people not only from your immediate team, but also outside it.

Take a break
This may sound like a radical step, but when you cannot see yourself contributing any more to the company, it's time that you took one, says Kumar. Save on your leave and when the time comes, take a paid vacation. Not doing so can lead to burnout well before you have reached your potential. You could pursue a different field of work , says Kumar. Take a up a new course, hobby, skill or take time out to study your sector better and see what changes are taking place. After doing thorough research, take a call on whether you want to go back at the same level or want to take on a different role within the organisation.

(29-04-2011, Mumbai, The Economic Times)

Five Ways To Ignite Productivity, Power, & Passion In Your Team

Be enthusiastic as a leader. You can’t light a fire with a wet match!” – Author Unknown

Isn’t it interesting that we can light a firecracker on the 4th of July faster than we can ignite a fire in ourselves and our team? I had a client recently that complained they were having a hard time generating enthusiasm and passion from their team. When I started asking them the right questions I could see where the breakdown was coming from. Enthusiasm starts at the top. You get what you put out. So… what are you putting out as the leader of your team? 

Let me give you a few examples of lackluster leadership: 

Do you walk in your office in the morning with a ‘ho hum’ attitude?    Do you look directly at the person when you talk to them? Do you only comment on their performance when they make a mistake? Do you genuinely acknowledge them for their efforts? Do you preach or teach? Do you really listen to what they have to say or contribute? Do you keep doing the same things over and over again expecting different results? Do you have someone on your team that always seems to have a negative attitude?

Are you starting to get the picture? Always remember that change starts with you and filters down to your team. The old saying, ‘Lead by example, not words’ is still valid in today’s business environments. 

Here are 5 simple steps that will help you ignite enthusiasm, passion, and productivity in your followers: 

1. When you are presenting an idea or project, build a vision for them to follow. Show them how the outcome will benefit them and the business. 

2. Stop, look, and listen to your team members ideas. Keeping your head buried in papers while they are speaking does not role model good leadership. People want to know that their ideas are respected and heard so that they feel a part of the team. 

3. Acknowledge your team mates consistently. Don’t just say, ‘Great job Bob!’ People want to be acknowledged for specific contributions. For instance, ‘Bob, your presentation in today’s meeting was very thorough. Thank you.’ 

4. Be specific in your expectations and requests. Don’t expect people to be mind readers. Let them know exactly what you need from them so they don’t have to waste their time and resources guessing. 

5. Find out what lights their fire and then give them the tools and the support they need to succeed. 

Your role is to create a healthy environment where people thrive, grow, and succeed with passion, and not to instantly squash ideas that are not your own. Let your team members know that you welcome their ideas and input.   

It’s okay to let out a big WOO HOO when you reach a milestone or goal. You got to put some passion behind your purpose. How else are you going to get where you want to go AND get your team to come along for the journey? One last thing: always remember to acknowledge your team’s assistance along the way. You’ll find that not only will you accomplish your goals, you’ll also create a willing group of dedicated people who will follow your lead on the next project.

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Cookie Tuminello -

About the Author:

Cookie Tuminello, also known as ‘THE Team Builder of the South’, has been empowering CEO’s, managers, business owners, and team members and igniting productivity since 1999. To find out more about this sassy, savvy and successful coach, get her FREE Report 50 Ways To Take Your Power Back Now and receive weekly Coffee With Cookie success tips, you can visitwww.cookietuminello.com

Top Five Ways To Be A Better Listener

Effective listening skills yield great requirements

The better you are at listening, the more people will want to tell you.

If you’ve ever watched The Actor’s Studio, you’ve heard over and over that the most important skill in acting is reflective listening. A marriage counselor will tell you that step one in solving your problems is to listen. Consulting 101 will reiterate the importance of active listening. Presentation trainers stress good listening skills.Dale Carnegie – listening yet again. Sonar technician. There’s a pattern.

Listening is not enough, however – just being a good listener is important, but not sufficient to assure success. Good listening skills are critical to interaction, compromise, partnership, discovery, and almost every significant component of working with others. And requirements management depends upon having the effective listening skills to learn from other people.

Interviewing is the primary requirements gathering process in any project. Getting feedback from users and other stakeholders is important to validating and prioritizing requirements. Communicating with people is critical to success in managing requirements. And listening is at least half of communicating.

With good listening skills, you not only hear better – people say more. Apply these tips to become a better listener.

Top five ways to be a better listener

1. Use active listening. This is my desert-island* listening skill. When we confirm actively that what we just heard is what the other person just said, we avoid a lot of mistakes – and it encourages that person to tell us more. It also tells our speaker that we are “getting it” and she isn’t wasting her time. This is also known as reflective listening.
2. Have attentive body language. Smile. Make eye contact (not creepy stalker eye contact). Square your body so that you’re facing whoever your talking with. Don’t fidget or look impatient. Don’t check your watch (if you have an important meeting – tell the person before you start talking that you need to check the time – or that you’ve set an alarm on your phone for five minutes before you have to leave). And whatever you do – don’t answer the phone if someone calls. Nothing sends a stronger “what you are saying is important to me” message than sending your phone to voicemail without checking who the caller is.
3. Ask questions. Get clarifications to statements. Ask the person why. There are several questioning techniques we’ve talked about before, and they help us with eliciting requirements. They also give feedback to the speaker that we are interested in what they are saying. Anyone who’s lectured or presented to a room of dead fish knows how tough it can be to not get any questions.
4. 100% focus. Don’t multi-task when you’re listening to someone. No instant-messaging or answering emails. Don’t get distracted by the urgent matter that just came up. We can reschedule the meeting for when we aren’t overwhelmed, or we can take a couple minutes to compose ourselves, focus on the meeting/interview, and relax. We can review our notes about what we want to talk about before we go in – and get our head in the game. If we’re going to talk to Tony for an hour – it’s Tony’s hour.
5. Use non-verbal attends. Nod your head, validate what you hear with a quick glance to the expert in the room, clap your hands, grab a pen and scrawl down some notes. Any reaction to a particular point made by the person speaking is a non-verbal attend. If you give the person this positive, genuine feedback, they will open up, become more comfortable, and talk more. And therefore tell you more.

*In an earlier post, we talked about our desert-island requirements management skill – communication.

Five Steps to Better Listening

Listen More, Speak Less - 5 Steps to Better Listening

By: Guy Harris - Chief Relationship Officer, Principle Driven Consulting

As a coach and consultant, I spend lots of time listening to people describe their situation, their problem, their frustration, etc. My clients expect me to offer insights, knowledge, and perspectives to help them create better results either personally or professionally. In many respects, I am a “professional listener.”

From this experience, I have found that hearing is easy and listening is hard. 

A quick review of some statistics about listening, compiled by the International Listening Association (www.listen.org), yields some insight into why listening is so hard:

• Most of us are distracted, preoccupied or forgetful about 75% of the time we should be listening.

• We listen at 125-250 words per minute, but think at 1000-3000 words per minute. 

As hard as it is to listen effectively, it is still vitally important. Take a look at these additional statistics from the International Listening Association: 

• Immediately after we listen to someone, we only recall about 50% of what they said.

• Long-term, we only remember 20% of what we hear.

• More than 35 business studies indicate that listening is a top skill needed for success in business.

My first thought as I began this article was: “I’m about to communicate an idea that everyone has heard before.” However, my experience as a “professional listener” tells me that the topic carries enough importance to justify the reminder. More importantly, I’ll share five tips to help you improve your skill in this vital leadership competence. 

1. Listen to understand, not to respond

Effective listening goes beyond hearing someone’s words. Effective listening creates an environment where the other person feels that you understand them.

This tip applies to attitude more than it does to behavior. Many people view dialogue like a tennis match where the two parties square off and hit the ball back-and-forth. In this approach to conversation, both parties are adversaries trying to “score the point.”

To listen effectively, I suggest that you view dialogue more like a pitcher and catcher in a baseball game. The pitcher (speaker) throws the ball for the catcher (you) to receive it. The catcher only throws the ball back after he has it firmly in his grasp. 

In other words, listen to receive the meaning. Once you understand, then you can respond.

2. Be quiet

Being quiet gives you the opportunity to hear the words, the tone, and the meaning behind the words. It gives you the chance to observe the speaker’s body language. 

To help you remember this tip, I’ll share two quick statements with you:

• “When your mouth is open, your ears are closed.” 

• “LISTEN and SILENT have the same letters.”

3. Let them finish their thoughts

In other words, don’t interrupt the speaker. From the previous tip, this idea seems obvious. However, I have seen many arguments and misunderstandings that stemmed from interruptions. It’s hard to remain silent. It’s even harder to remain silent until someone has completely expressed their idea. 

4. Maintain eye contact

Effective listening means observing everything about the speaker’s message. People communicate at least as much with their body language as they do with their words. Good listeners learn to “listen” with their eyes as well as with their ears.

If you choose to work on something else (answer e-mail, fill out paperwork, etc.) while someone is speaking to you, they will not “feel” that they were heard.

5. Ask questions to ensure that you understand

Just because you heard the words and observed the body language, don’t assume that you understand. If a particular point is unclear to you, ask a question to clarify it before you respond. 

Even if you think you understand the message, make sure you do by clarifying it with the speaker. You might say something like:

• “Just to be sure I understand you, let me repeat back to you what I thought you said…”

• “I heard you say… Is that correct?”

• “If I understand correctly, your concern is…”

When you clarify, remember to let them correct your understanding. You don’t have to agree with their perspective. You do have to make sure that you understand it.

Good leaders are good listeners. Effective listening helps to resolve conflicts, build trust, inspire people, and strengthen teams. It often requires you to “bite your tongue,” and, from my personal experience, I know that it can be hard work. I also know that the results are worth the effort. 

Copyright 2006, Guy Harris

About the Author:

Guy Harris is the Chief Relationship Officer with Principle Driven Consulting. He helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders build trust, reduce conflict, and improve team performance. You can call Guy at            765-794-4708      . Learn more at http://www.principledriven.com 

Source: http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/contributors.asp?id=718

Five Ways to Listen for Sales

Wouldn’t it be great if every time we had to make a sale, our potential client would lay out the need, understand the terms, accept the out of the box solution and agree to our pricing?

Since order taking is a different discipline than sales, we need to understand how best to capitalize on opportunities rather than waiting for orders to fill. One of the keys to this is effective listening. Making sure we hear what our prospect wants us to hear as opposed to hearing what we want to hear. Here are 5 keys to effective listening when it comes to sales–

1) Listen for the problem– Just because the prospect is talking to you does not necessarily mean you can fix the problem. You can permanently drive someone away from your product by trying to be the solution when it isn’t necessary. Be their advisor, steer them in the right direction, and know they will work with you when your solution fits because you built trust. (And you listened!)

2) Listen for other problems– Consultative relationships are built on hearing problems the client doesn’t understand they have. In order to do this, we have to be able to listen for clues that indicate larger issues. Put the puzzle pieces together for the prospect–make them aware of what you are hearing and that you recognize an outstanding issue.

3) Know your Product and your Pitch– If not, your listening time becomes your “prep” time. While the client is talking and explaining their issue or situation, you are rehearsing your pitch. What you don’t want is an ineffective one way discussion “telling” the customer a laundry list of things that don’t relate to the dialogue you should be engaged in.

4) Mirror behavior of your prospect– Is your prospect quick and to the point? Be the same way. Funny? Inject humor. Match confidence with confidence. Ultimately, hear how the prospect projects towards you and be a mirror. We can reasonably assume that if someone feels it is an attractive quality in themselves, it will be an attractive quality in someone they are talking to.

5) Ask the questions–Don’t wait to simply answer the prospect’s questions–the most important points may never come up! Be prepared to ask the questions that allow you to hear the answers you need to build your case. Creating the dialogue necessitates activity on both sides.

Active listening is needed to bridge the gap between consultative selling and order taking. Make sure that you are using the tool to drive relationship building and ultimately conversion.

Author: Keith Burwell

Source: http://bettercloser.com/5-ways-to-listen-for-sales/

Five Ways To Listen Better

Whether at work or at home, effective listening isn’t always easy. Today’s motley of phone calls, text messages, emails, newsletters and social media updates make it easier than ever to stay connected, but the sheer volume of information can make it more difficult than ever to fight distraction and stay focused on the messages that matter most. In an age of hyper communication, here are the top 5 tips for staying on course and listening effectively:

 

1. Full Attention: Attention is the difference between casual and effective listening. Eye contact is an obvious start; so is displaying open, relaxed body language. But take it a step further. Remove distractions. Minimize windows on your desktop, silence your phone, and most importantly, clear the clutter from your mind and focus on the person you are speaking with. Distractions are especially tempting during telephone meetings. But even though the person on the other end of the line won’t see you checking your e-mails or surfing e-bay, your understanding of the conversation and the quality of your interaction will be diminished by your urge to multitask.

Browser Beware: most webinar software alerts the host anytime you wander away from a presentation by either minimizing the webinar window, or opening a new window on your desktop. So avoid any embarrassing gaffes and just focus.

2. Genuine Interest: Sure, you can fake it. Many do all the time. But if you really want to improve the quality of your conversations and listen more effectively, you’re going to have to get interested. Genuinely. No amount of head-nodding and “mmm-hmmms” can replace genuine interest. Don’t just receive information, hunt for it. Dive deeper by asking questions.

3. Non Verbal: Be mindful of your own body language, but focus on the other person’s. You can learn a lot from how a person is sitting, standing, or occupying their hands. In case you missed Body Language 101, here are a few translations:

• Hands on knees: indicates readiness.
• Hands on hips: indicates impatience or possibly the person is angry.
• Hands locked behind the back: indicates self-control.
• Hands locked behind the head: states confidence.
• Sitting with a leg over the arm of the chair: suggests indifference.
• Crossed arms: indicates self importance, disagreement, or resistance.
• Fidgeting: indicates boredom or nervousness.
• When talking on the phone, pay special attention to the other person’s tone of voice. Also examine the moments of silence. Is the other person daydreaming, choosing words, or biting their tongue? If you’re unclear, ask.

4. Paraphrase: One of the best ways to ensure you’re clear about the message you’re receiving is to say it back. Repeating and paraphrasing not only clarify points of potential misunderstanding, but they show the other person you are actively engaged in understanding what they are saying. It is also important to paraphrase what’s NOT said, and acknowledge ideas or emotions which may be bubbling beneath the surface, “I sense you are feeling angry…”

5. Collaborate: Excluding debates, conversations are not about finding a winner; they’re about finding common ground. Let others finish their sentences and complete their thoughts before you respond. Don’t think about what you are going to say while the other person is talking. It’s not just good manners, it’s essential to understanding.

Source:http://www.xponents.com/article.asp?articleid=6082

Five Ways Social Media Can Improve Customer Service

As Facebook and Twitter begin to play a bigger part in the customer experience, it’s important to understand how these mediums can affect your business. Gone are the days when customer comments or complaints were limited to product or service reviews on their website. With social media’s reach extending even further into the customer experience, companies and brands need to ensure that their service and support are up to par.

With that being said, it’s never been as important as it is now to understand the ways in which your brand can effectively use social media to improve customer service.

Listen

The most important thing social media can do for your company is allow it to monitor what’s being said about your product or service. Fans and followers now take to their Facebook and Twitter accounts to either sing your company’s praises or to bring up a problem.

Social media has made the aspect of listening a little easier by providing filters.

Twitter allows for a quick keyword search to bring up recent tweets containing the search terms. You have the option to filter the search by general tweets, tweets with links or tweets near you. This way, you’re able to see what your followers are saying even if they don’t directly mention (@username) your company.

Engage

After you hear what your customers are saying, it’s important to proactively interact with them. There are different levels of interaction that can occur. If you see that a customer has left a comment on your Facebook Fan Page about how great the service was at your restaurant during her last visit, you can thank her and invite her to return. Add incentive by inviting her to return during a time when a special for drinks might be occurring.

On the other hand, you may have found that a customer recently tweeted about a problem with your product or service. At this point in time, the level of engagement may involve directly messaging that user to inquire more about the issue.

Prioritize

With active engagement should come prioritization. While it’s important to try and interact with all customers, it’s also important to understand which customers are most influential when it comes to your brand. A tweet taking issue with bad customer service might fall on a higher level of importance than a tweet that tells of a good happy hour deal at a bar. As said before, it’s important to respond to as many customer comments as possible, but time may be an understandable factor.

Twitters allows for a user to ‘favorite’ tweets and then return to them immediately, instead of doing another keyword search or scrolling through a timeline. By marking tweets as ‘favorites,’ your company can go through and respond to comments or concerns in a manner in which they feel is best.

Be Transparent

Social media sites make engaging in authentic conversations possible. This opportunity opens the door for transparency. Transparency is very important for Facebook and Twitter. It helps to set your company apart from others. Customers prefer to interact with a company that is real and honest. Transparency ultimately creates stronger connections with fans and followers.

Wow the Customer

If your company can effectively listen, engage and prioritize, social media can ultimately open doors to plenty of opportunities to wow your customer. Listening and engaging goes beyond seeing what your customers are saying about you or your service. It allows for better anticipation of customer needs.

If, when searching for mentions of your restaurant, you come across a tweet from a follower asking for dining suggestions – reply to him with drink or menu specials for that evening.

About the Author:

Barry Chandler works with bars and restaurants to bring more customers in the door through effective use of social media, online tools and customer engagement.

Since 2004, more than 2500 bars, restaurants and hotels have used his tools and services to improve their bottom line.
TheBarBlogger.com contains daily tips and strategies to grow a profitable hospitality business.

source: http://www.thebarblogger.com/5-ways-social-media-can-improve-customer-service/

Employee Communication: Five Ways Leaders Can Communicate Change

A good communicator as a CEO is critical to impact the culture of an organization in a positive way… here are 5 ways to ensure a CEO can communicate with employees & achieve positive outcomes each time.

I am often asked about the role of the CEO or leader of any organization in employee communication. My opinion is that no matter what the issue is, even if it is just business as usual, having a good communicator as a CEO is critical to impact the culture of an organization in a positive way. 

Lets start with looking at some scenarios. These can include a merger or acquisition, an organizational crisis, announcement of annual financial results, corporate social responsibility or even trying to create a culture of innovation.

My contention is that no matter what the issue, here are 5 ways that your CEO can communicate with employees and achieve positive outcomes each time. Most of the methods listed below involve face to face dialogue to ensure the greatest engagement. 

1. Staff Forums 

Otherwise known as "Town Halls" these are opportunities for the CEO and Senior Management team to visit employees in all locations and address the real issues and concerns of staff as well as communicating the big picture. Employee communication tips include handing out cards to attendees so that the questions can be addressed after a break in proceedings, tailoring the presentation in part to the unique situation in the particular region the CEO is visiting and following up any issues that cannot be answered at the time.

2. Site Visits 

These are an excellent employee communication tool for the CEO to find out specifically from the frontline exactly what the issues and concerns are of a particular region or department. The key is not only to spend time with the leadership team but also to sit with employees and find out what they are working on and inviting them to suggest innovative ways of doing things differently. CEOs' rarely spend time communicating with employees and this is one way to break down perceptions and encourage two way communication.

3. Employee Achievement 

Another way the CEO can communicate change is to support and encourage employees personally for their achievements. These maybe directly related to the issue at hand and by taking time out to recognize high achievers or change agents it sends a strong message to all employees that the CEO will reward those who support and are engaged in the change agenda.

4. Leaderships Forums 

One of the smartest things an CEO can do during times of change is to communicate with his / her leadership team. I have always found that employee communication strategies need to be pitched at different levels and with different strategies to suit the role and expectations of the employees. When we think of change it is the leadership team that will drive it, from regional managers, state managers to frontline supervisors it is important that the CEO communicates face to face with the leadership team to be very clear about his or her expectation of them during times of change. One employee communication tip here is that face to face one on one meetings be held with the direct reports to the CEO and the next level down; it is a very powerful tool and has maximum impact.

5. CEO Blog

Finally where would we be if we did not mention some form of technology driven communication tool. A CEO blog is very effective if it is used to support and report on the transformation process whilst the employee engagement strategy is underway. For example the CEO has one on one meetings with the leadership team, he / she then reports in the Blog on the key messages and expectations. The CEO begins visits to each region and reports back on the Blog the key observations and achievements of employees and so on. Employee communication tools to inform are always a back up and support to the real communication taking place, the employee communication engagement strategies as listed in points 1 – 4 above.

The methods suggested above also achieve another goal often neglected in employee communication. As this is the opportunity for the CEO to find out what people at all levels of the organization really think about a particular issue, it will cause the CEO to think differently next time about the importance of employee communication and will ensure that change communication is addressed at the planning phase of any major organizational change.

About The Author:

Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject on employee communication and business transformation and has spoken at conferences around the world. For more information on the types of employee communication strategies you can implement to engage employees visit http://www.employeecommunicationtips.com for a wealth of free informative articles and resources.

Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/employee-communication-5-ways-leaders-can-communicate-change.html