A Better Way to Sell
What’s the secret to communicating effectively when you’ve got something to sell? In survival mode, it’s about persuasion, using whatever language and tactics that can best convince your “prospect” to buy. This is a competition model based on scarcity. The ruling assumption is that there’s a finite pie and we’re all fighting for a piece of it; success means getting the biggest piece for ourselves or our company. Harvard researchers and authors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
How to Know if They're Truly Committed
Do some people tend to let you down? If you’re like most of us, the answer is, “Yes!” So, how do you know if someone is truly committed? How can you tell if they will actually do what they said they will do? Whether it be in our relationships with friends, family, or those in our work environment, commitment is often a tricky subject because it is tied so directly to responsibility and accountability. And because we too often connect responsibility and accountability to blame
Is Empowerment Merely a Myth?
“You do realize that the popular concept of empowerment is a myth, right?” That’s not what a person usually says to their manager, but the frustrated shift supervisor said it anyway. And her manager was stumped. How should he respond? And what exactly did she mean? So how about you? What’s your understanding of empowerment? Is it a myth or some mystical power effective leaders are able to bestow upon those they lead? Of course not, you may say. So, what is it then? Why do we
How a "Feeling Compass" Can Guide You Toward Success
What guides you when you’re faced with a difficult decision? For many of us, our choices are often driven by what we hope to achieve or prefer to avoid. But looking forward—towards something we want—also means that we don’t have it right now. In other words, if we're not paying attention, we might get tangled up in a "lack trap," identifying ourselves as someone who doesn’t have what they want or need. We all know stories about people who achieved incredible things because of
How to Turn Not Knowing into a Super Power
Have you ever found yourself stymied by a lack of certainty . . . by the very real fact that you don’t know what’s around the next corner? Uncertainty, and how we deal with it, some researchers suggest, is one of the greatest predictors of whether we will achieve success and a sense of well-being in our professional and personal lives. In her article for Forbes, Margie Warrell explains it this way, “As much as we may try to do otherwise, it is impossible to chart a certain p
How to Tell If You’re Truly Committed
Imagine for a moment that you’re trying to decide if you can count on a person or not? One quality you’ve likely tried to assess is their level of commitment. Will they stick with it when the going gets tough? Will they find solutions and not get mired down amidst the inevitable problems that will arise? Commitment is absolutely a key attribute to assess during any hiring, promotion, or talent assessment process (or when stepping into any serious relationship). Management exp
Are You Sure You Chose the Right Person for the Job?
Is the person you’re about to select for an important team or project truly ready? Are they fully capable? Have you thoroughly assessed their capability accurately? Are you sure? When asked for their take on assessing capability, Stuart Spencer, a long-standing consulting firm for boards and CEOs, had this to say: “Sometimes the differences between today’s and tomorrow’s leaders lie not in the capabilities themselves, but the level of sophistication of the same capabilities
How Denial Can Quietly Ruin You
Everywhere we turn these days, we hear people decrying the evils of “fake news.” But what about the fake news we create for ourselves; the subtle denial processes we go through to avoid looking at uncomfortable truths? In our consulting and coaching practice, we often deal with clients who have successfully evaded the truth about their own circumstances until the inevitable day when they can no longer avoid confronting reality. By then, the situation has often become so exace
Is the Allure of Success Leading You Astray?
How easy is it to sacrifice your values in pursuit of success? Said another way, what are you consciously or unconsciously willing to give up in order to get what you’re aiming for? In our book, Thriving in Business and Life, we dedicate a chapter to the importance of infusing our values into everything we do, including our vision crafting. Values, ideally, are like a compass that helps keeps us true to our own values-based North Star while we pursue our passions. But, unless
What the Smartest People Do to Stay Smart
Albert Einstein once said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” That quote often takes some people aback . . . especially if they’ve been trained to think of imagination as child’s play. But Einstein went on to say, “Knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress and giving birth to evolution." It was in this spirit, that the creators of the award-winning PBS series, Sesame Street, regularly inserted a feature where a
