Monthly Archives: December 2014

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Use Your Gifts To Build A Life You Can Be Proud Of

“A man’s gift makes room for him and brings him before great men.” Solomon

This is one of my favorite all time quotes. It is also one of the pearls of wisdom that kept Nelson Mandela inspired with hope while he spent 27 years incarcerated as a political prisoner in South Africa. It is an ancient proverb that is about 3000 years old. I am amazed that this stellar advice was recognized and documented so many years ago and it is just as valid today just as it was way back then.

In today’s world of increasing speed, complexity and globalization it is critical that we understand our gifts or strengths. We need to understand these strengths and leverage these whenever and wherever we can. This takes a lot of work and a lot of honesty. It takes effort to determine where we have strengths and to admit where we are weak. It takes effort to determine how to take our strengths and leverage them properly into the work that we do. It can be painful to admit our areas of weakness and bring people around us to bolster those weak areas. However, if we do not do this then we are selling ourselves and our businesses short. You will never reach your full potential as a person. You or your business will never reach its potential unless you can get yourself and the whole organization operating in their areas of strength and offering their strengths where others are weak.

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How to Wow Your Customers and Increase Your Sales

I’m a big fan of Seth Godin . . . I don’t always agree with everything he says or everything he writes but what he says or writes will challenge me to think or act differently and that has made me better. That’s why when I heard he had a new book out, “What To Do When It’s Your Turn”, I bought it right away (www.yourturn.link). He had a number of deals listed and I chose to buy 3 books which got me an additional 2 copies free. I ordered these on December 2nd and immediately received an email from Godin thanking me for purchasing the books and providing the details of the purchase. I thought the email was a nice touch because it was personalized somewhat and made me feel like a valued customer.

Now, I assumed that because I ordered the books in December and chose normal postal delivery (which is notoriously slow around Christmas) that I would not get the books until after Christmas. However, on December 13th I received a second email from Godin again thanking me for purchasing the books and providing a shipping update. This was obviously a mass email but again it was written in a way that was personalized and made me feel like a valued customer. The email continued to state that most of the Canadian orders were processed and shipped but there were some issues with shipping. However, Godin was paying for enhanced shipping to try to resolve the situation and get the books delivered as soon as possible.

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Does Leadership Need To Be Regulated?

There have been some incredible epic failures in leadership over the years and the rate of the failures seems to be increasing and the seriousness of the incidents seems to be getting worse. We are left in the aftermath of these failures asking a ton of questions;

  • Why are leaders failing so often and in such a dramatic fashion?
  • What has changed in our society that could be contributing to these failures?
  • What sort of training does a leader need to become a leader?
  • Do we need to regulate leaders by implementing certification organizations similar to what exists in North America for medical doctors, lawyers or professional engineers?
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How to Get the Pulse of Your Organization – Part II

Back in May 2014, I wrote a blog post entitled How to Get the Pulse of Your Organization. In this post I described two techniques that can be used to effectively communicate and lead your organization; “Did You Know” emails and a web based employee feedback system. In this week’s article, I will introduce two other techniques that I used to communicate and keep my finger on the organization’s pulse.

  1. Monthly lunch with the leader – Pick a random set of employees each month to have lunch with you. Do not repeat employees until everyone in the organization gets a turn. A group size of 10 to 20 works best. Use these lunches as open mic sessions for employees to ask you whatever questions they may have. Be open and honest with your answers and wherever possible tie the answers back to the organization’s vision, mission, values and goals. Above all else, listen intently to the feedback, take notes and never get defensive. These sessions are your opportunity to hear what your organization is thinking and talking about. If the conversation starts out slowly, you can prompt discussion by asking questions like;