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When shareholders are breathing down your neck it may feel that talk of incorporating spirituality into one’s life and work is nothing short of a nuisance. I would like to suggest and try to show however that in fact introducing what I will later define as a spiritual energy into your life and work will help you to enhance your performance, reduce your stress and improve your health.

Let me first start with what I mean by spiritual energy as it may surprise you. Have you ever experienced yourself in what many have called “the zone”? This is often experienced as some or all of the following: a feeling of clarity, energized, alert, self aware, empowered, and joyful, everything feels effortless, in the flow, everything moves in a positive direction as if you are being assisted by some external force, happy, relaxed, uplifted, inspired, and creative and so on.

Would it surprise you if I said that in fact this “zone” experience is actually what I refer to as being fully spiritually present? Many individuals who use the zone concept refer to it as a physiological state of sorts. In my view this is too limiting and actually misses the truth about what is really being accessed here. This is an important distinction because by calling it what it is allows us to take the matter much further.

What does it mean to be fully spiritually present? Well if you have ever had an experience of being in the zone you will recognize that it is an experience of you being more present in your body. It is the result of you being more present that naturally makes your body and your life function closer to its peak abilities. In effect what I am saying is that the reason that you generally don’t function at your peak all the time is because most of the time you, your spiritual energy or presence, is somewhere other than fully in your body.

What’s more, this state of not being fully in, and fully in charge of your body and your life is actually not a natural or normal state. Hence what I’m saying is, is that you are most of the time not fully functional. It’s like trying to drive your car on 2 cylinders when you have 6.

You have however probably become so accustomed to it that you’ve learned to “think” of it as a “normal” state. It’s like thinking that it’s OK to feel your car sputter as it tries to accelerate on the highway on only two cylinders.

You see, what has happened is the following:

1. You have forgotten what your natural functional state is,

2. You have become accustomed to your dysfunctional state,

3. You have come to accept your dysfunctional state as normal,

Hence, another way of saying this is that you have come to believe that your spiritual energy or presence is actually a nuisance that you don’t have the time for because your shareholders are more important. Well if your shareholders really understood the nature of your situation they would likely want a CEO who was fully present running their organization.

As an Executive Coach and Researcher in a new and exciting field called Energy Medicine I have developed a new coaching and healing tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM)(MRP) that helps one re-install themselves fully in their body.

When this happens they notice a spontaneous re-infusion of energy, creativity, passion, inspiration, purpose, joy, resilience, clarity and vision, among other things in their mind and body. What’s more each time an individual experiences the MRP process the gains they make accumulate in such a way that they are never lost. In other words, one finds oneself moving closer and closer to their true and full potential as a spiritual human being.

If you’d like to experience yourself as a fully functioning human being kindly visit the web link below and consider an introductory consultation.

Dr. Nick Arrizza is trained in Chemical Engineering, Business Management & Leadership, Medicine and Psychiatry. He is an Energy Psychiatrist, Healer, Key Note Speaker,Editor of a New Ezine Called “Spirituality And Science” (which is requesting high quality article submissions) Author of “Esteem for the Self: A Manual for Personal Transformation” (available in ebook format on his web site), Stress Management Coach, Peak Performance Coach & Energy Medicine Researcher, Specializes in Life and Executive Performance Coaching, is the Developer of a powerful new tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) that helps build physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being by helping to permanently release negative beliefs, emotions, perceptions and memories. He holds live workshops, international telephone coaching sessions and international teleconference workshops on Physical. Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Well Being.

Business URL #1: http://www.telecoaching4u.com

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Introduction

Last week, I was in Rajasthan (One of the largest state in India), traveling from Jaipur to Jodhpur to Udaipur to Bikaner to Kota. It was not a fun trip but I was adding few more head counts on the roll of the company I am working with. I was in Rajasthan for 8 days, 1800+ people walked-in for interviews; 750 actually interviewed and we extended the offer to 107 people. Whether you refer to it as a ‘talent war’, skill shortage, or ‘employment seller’s market’, it’s threatening the competitive position of many corporations, and the situation is worsening. Over the next 10 years, the demand for talented people will far exceed the availability of skilled workers - at all levels, and in all industries. Before proceeding further, lets have a look at the following figures:

 It is estimated that at least 1/3 of business failures are due to poor hiring decisions and inability to attract and retain the right talent.

 The average cost of replacing a manager or professional is 1.5 to 3 times salary.

 The cost of working around an under-performer can run as high as six figures

 The cost of consistently failing to attract and retain good talent - including declining productivity, morale, culture and reputation - is inestimable.

 Each vacant position costs your organization Rs. 60,000 on average. For some management positions, it can easily run into six figures.

Notwithstanding the economic situation of a country which may affect the job market for a time being, many ‘A-players’ who have not had significant opportunities for growth and advancement change jobs, and the fundamental shortage becomes apparent - especially for those companies who have not developed a reputation as ‘employer-of-choice’, and who have not developed the capabilities and infrastructure to compete effectively to acquire and retain scarce talent resources.

Getting the best talent, and keeping the talent you have is becoming intensely competitive.
Most corporate officers say that the biggest constraint to pursuing growth opportunities is talent.

Few businesses have adequate talent acquisition, retention and development capabilities -

 Acquiring A-players is a both art and science. People who primarily make hiring decisions ‘from the gut’ are rarely consistently successful.

 Employer brand identity is increasingly important to compete for talented people who have numerous options. Rebuilding a damaged employer brand often takes years.

 New technology such as Internet sourcing has not reduced cycle times nor increased effectiveness

 Handing-off to a third party vendor is a transaction, not a process. Organizations that consistently attract players develop an employer-of-choice brand identity, deep capabilities in talent acquisition, retention and development, and the process & infrastructure to support them.

Understanding Talent Acquisition

So what exactly do we mean by the term Talent Acquisition?
Well, just as Customer Acquisition describes the overall strategic process around identifying market sectors, targeting client prospects, running direct marketing campaigns, selling and receiving the order (i.e. acquiring a new customer), so Talent Acquisition involves all the sub-processes around finding, attracting and engaging highly talented individuals into your organization.

Origin of the “Concept” of Talent Acquisition

Let’s take a closer look at the way traditional recruitment is re-emerging as a broader ‘talent acquisition’ concept - An approach that is becoming more and more critical in the ‘War for Talent’. Just exactly how does this differ from ‘plain vanilla’ recruitment? Well, in a considerable number of ways.

First and foremost, ‘talent acquisition’ forms a part of a much broader strategic approach in the corporate quest to gain and sustain a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace. Other aspects include talent development, retention and transition, these are primarily inward facing, whilst the former is outward looking.

The core concept of talent acquisition is to get away from the ‘fill in the box’ thinking to one that is more pro-active and much closer to building the skill sets required to achieve business success. Traditionally, a recruitment need occurs when an individual either leaves or is promoted to another function. That’s when panic can set in, especially if no suitable internal solution is found, a situation that is becoming known as - “under the bus syndrome”. Strong relationship building or networking skills are important here. The key to success in talent acquisition is the unique way that you are able to tap into the ‘top performers’ who are not really looking for another job. They never read the traditional job ads or go to the job boards on the Internet.

Encouraging your own ’star’ players to identify other outside top performers is an extremely powerful tool that is being used more and more. Corporations are offering a wide range of rewards in order to get these names and then act on them.

Once the talent has been identified, the next stage is to start building on-going relationships and look for that all elusive ‘trigger point’ in someone’s career that would get them to change jobs. This can be a number of things but it is often a negative experience or an outstanding opportunity. Gathering intelligence from their ‘friends’ and from previous market research will help in uncovering exactly what excites top players.

Educating line managers that talent acquisition must also be an every day duty is also a success criterion. Most managers, rightly so, look at hiring only when there is a ‘box’ vacant on a purely transactional basis. Today’s top talent has a very short shelf life; therefore you must have a sense of urgency in bringing them aboard, a job opening or no job opening. This tactic is considered very risky by some managers, but at the end of the day not making an offer the day a ‘top’ performer comes to the job market, you will most certainly loose them. Usually bringing in top management (CEO, CFO, COO, etc.) in the relationship building process helps considerably in influencing the ’star’ performer.

Money is of course essential in the talent acquisition quest, but it’s not the only element. Many corporations are using traditional job classification and job grading systems in order to remain competitive in the ‘cash compensation’ side. Being able to mould an opportunity and make it exciting will also attract top performers, the notion of “a la carte” job descriptions is becoming more and more adopted as a way of finding the “hot button”, and excite people enough to make the move. Benefits and perks are at the fore here with long-term incentives such as stock options, being widely used. The work/life concept will also have an impact, a lot of corporations talk about this element but not many have fully embraced it. Others look at it from an investment banker perspective and view potential ‘top performers’ as they would any targeted acquisition, some people are even thinking of attributing P/E ratio values to top talent. Just think for one moment at that analogy, the talent marketplace becomes the equivalent of the NASDAQ or DowJones and the attractiveness of top talent will vary according to their performance relative to peers and the value added they can bring. Perhaps in the future you will see talent ‘indexes’ being used.

That will prove to be more and more essential in giving corporations a leading edge and competitive advantage over others. If you have it you will be one of the survivors, if not then a ‘market correction’ may be soon be coming your way.

What is difference between “Recruitment” and “Talent Acquisition”?

One of the most frequently asked questions is “What’s the difference between
‘Recruiting’ and ‘Strategic Talent Acquisition’?”

The easy part of the answer is to define “recruiting”. It is nothing more than filling open positions. It is an entirely tactical event.

The more complex part of the answer is the definition of “Strategic Talent Acquisition”.

Strategic Talent Acquisition takes a long-term view of not only filling positions today, but also using the candidates that come out of a recruiting campaign as a means to fill similar positions in the future.

These future positions may be identifiable today by looking at the succession management plan, or by analyzing the history of attrition for certain positions. This makes it easy to predict that specific openings will occur at a pre-determined period in time.

In the most enlightened cases of Strategic Talent Acquisition, clients will recruit today for positions that do not even exist today but are expected to become available in the future.

Taking the long term strategic approach to talent acquisition has a huge impact on how an approach is made to a candidate. If the approach is purely tactical in nature, all we ask of the prospective candidate is “are you qualified and interested?”

However, if the approach is more strategic in nature, the intent of the call is to go much further, and the conversation becomes more relationship building. The candidate has an opportunity to explain his/her future career aspirations, and the recruiter gathers enough information to determine if there is a potential fit in the client organization. If during a strategic recruiting call the candidate declares that they are both qualified and interested, then the tactical nature of the call has been automatically fulfilled. If, however, the candidate lacks sufficient experience, or the timing for a career move is not propitious, then they become candidates for the future, and all the recruiter has to do is keep in touch until either they become available, or a position with the client organization opens up.

Most of the money spent on Strategic Talent Acquisition would have been spent in a tactical recruiting mandate anyway. The only additional cost is in collecting data on high-potential candidates and then keeping in touch with them until hire is made. The additional cost becomes insignificant compared to the value of hiring top competitive talent over time.

Strategic Talent Acquisition allows us access to a pool of competitive talent that would otherwise have been missed or even worse, ignored.

Clearly the business case for acquiring talent strategically is far more compelling than simply paying to fill positions today. What we are doing is adding a small incremental effort, in exchange for a huge potential reward.

Importance of Talent Acquisition

• Understanding workforce demographics (current and future)

• Identifying economic issues impacting organizational sustainability

• Identifying organizational and cultural issues impacting talent acquisition

• Knowledge of industry trends and emerging issues

Linking Organizational Strategy to HR Strategy

• Understanding the organizational strategy

• Translating the organizational strategy into a HR strategy

• Reviewing key components of the HR strategy

• Identifying talent acquisition and retention issues

Designing and Implementing a Talent Acquisition Strategy

• What is an Employer of Choice?

• Demystifying the generational implications on recruitment

• Reviewing the base elements of a talent acquisition strategy

• Utilizing talent acquisition tools and templates

• Identifying considerations when implementing a talent acquisition strategy

• Learning from best practices

• Analyzing performance metrics (business impacts, financial considerations, etc.)

• What is meant by Strategic Talent Acquisition

• How HR strategy, policies, and practices support and facilitate corporate strategy

• Key design elements required in an HR talent acquisition strategy

• Practical application of a talent acquisition strategy

• Knowledge of emerging trends and best practices in attraction and retention of talent

Talent Acquisition - As A Strategy

Historically organizations have not treated the recruitment process as one of strategic importance, but latterly many are now waking up to the reality that the world has changed dramatically. No more can the organization pick and choose between several great candidates for one position. Several changes in our connected world have tipped the scales in favor of the highly talented individual looking for a new opportunity.

Firstly, of course, there is the Internet. Never before in the history of humankind, has there been such an enabling technology. Candidates can now advertise their desire to change jobs within minutes of making the decision and receive enquires about their talents within hours.

Potentially, it is feasible that a high quality employee of yours, having received the final ’straw which broke the camels back’ (bad appraisal, inappropriate negative response from boss, extra workload stress etc.) can post their CV/Resume up on a particular jobs board at midday today, receive three interested requests for contact with third party recruiters or headhunters within hours, be interviewed for an outstanding role (at one of your competitors) tomorrow, receive an offer in writing the following day and resign that afternoon (within 2 days). Scary, isn’t it?
But if the Internet has enabled this process for candidates, it has also brought significant advantages for organizations.

Direct access to the candidate market

Now organizations can go direct to the candidate market, thereby cutting the time it takes to find the right people, whilst dramatically reducing their recruitment costs.
However, simply posting up jobs on various jobs boards is not the answer.

Best Practice Process

Instead, based on all the research we have compiled over the last 18 months, we believe that Talent Acquisition needs to be addressed at the most senior levels within all organizations - big or small, public or private. This means that Talent Acquisition needs to fit ‘hand in glove’ with your overall organizational strategy. It needs to have the appropriate level of resources behind it; it needs to be monitored and reported on at all board meetings and it needs to involve many people within the organization who attribute to it the importance that the organization requires.

But don’t despair, given the correct focus we can help ensure that your organization becomes and employer of choice’ in this brave new world.

The realities of today’s demographics have elevated the issue of talent attraction and retention to become a critical leadership concern, receiving significant attention. Given the projected labor market and demographic trends, an organization’s approach to talent acquisition can become a key differentiator and source of competitive advantage. The changing market has revealed that prevailing “one size fits all” HR practices are no longer effective. Organizations must develop specific people strategies for their most critical segments that directly align with and support the business strategy. While individual approaches are customized to the needs of each organization, all approaches are based on key critical success factors. This course focuses on the issues and challenges organizations face in attracting and retaining key talent. While introducing participants to emerging recruitment trends in the industry, this course will also provide participants with a selection of tools and best practices from which to draw as they design their own strategy to win the war for talent.

Bibliography

Interaction with my own friends who are into hiring…from across the globe
Inputs from the Research Team of 07/09 Management Consultants.

Other books referred are:

1. The Talent Management Handbook: Creating Organizational Excellence by Identifying, Developing, and Promoting Your Best People (Hardcover)
by Lance A. Berger, Dorothy R. Berger

2. Recruiting Excellence: An Insider’s Guide to Sourcing Top Talent; by Jeff Grout, Sarah Perrin

3. Ask the Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job; by Nicholas Corcodilos, Nicholas Cordilos

4. Hiring the Best: A Manager’s Guide to Effective Interviewing by Martin Yate

5. Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, by Techies & Nerds

6. The Secrets & Science of Hiring Technical People by Johanna Rothman

By Sanjeev Sharma
E-mail:sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com or ss_himachali@yahoo.com
Blog: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/
You can read my articles on Contact Center and Call Center Industry at http://www.contactcenterworld.com and http://www.bpoindia.org

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Many factories and warehouses today are utilizing old technology lighting in order to illuminate the warehouse or work environment. Factories are primarily using HID Lighting, which consumes 460 watts of energy per fixture. Example: A factory using 100 fixtures that are on 24/7 will spend $22,314.00 in electrical charges per year. By removing the HID fixtures and replacing them 1 for 1 with a fluorescent high bay the company would save $11,448.00 per year in electrical charges, typically with a payback from 12-24 months.

Budget Lighting’s main goal is to reduce electrical demand while increasing ambient light levels. Demand is the maximum amount of energy that a company requires to run their equipment/ machines/lighting/air conditioning etc. By reducing demand the kilowatt-hour charges are significantly reduced saving energy and money!

By reducing demand, the environmental impacts will be pollution reduction and natural resource savings. These projects have cut the production of harmful emissions and reduced the amount of natural resources used in the production of the electricity saves. According to the Environmental Protection Agency each kilowatt-hour usage of lighting translates to the production of approximately 1.6 pounds of carbon dioxide, 5.3 grams of sulfur dioxide and 2.8 grams of nitrous oxide. Lighting retrofit projects completed by BLI within the last 3 years total 59,746,704 kwh’s saved, and 6820.40 kilowatts saved.

Pollution reduction:

Global Warming (Carbon Dioxide, CO2) 95,594,726 lbs

Acid Rain (Sulfur Dioxide, SO2) 7,169,604 lbs

Smog (Nitrous Oxide, NOx) 3,584,802 lbs

Natural Resource Savings:

Coal 561,619,018 lbs

Oil 45,407,495 gallons

Natural Gas 5,974,670,400 cu. Ft

Many utility companies listed offer rebates to the customer to entice them to retrofit to Energy Saving Lighting. The rebates range from $200.00 per kw reduced to $400.00 per kw reduced. With this additional incentive, rebates to retrofit from the HID 400 watt fixture to a fluorescent high bay drawing 224 watts can be as high as $95.00. Most companies offer a flat $75.00 per fixture to the end user.

Each Project has different fixture spacing, heights and foot-candle requirements. If the factories have air conditioning, there will be additional energy saved, because the arc tube of the metal halide fixture (HID) can be as high as 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. The fluorescent high bay fixture lamps run at 95 degrees Fahrenheit with this temperature reduction, the energy can be reduced by approximately 1 ton per 2200 watts of energy saved.

With this ground breaking fixture technology, factories are enjoying cooler summers with less energy used. Other benefits of the fluorescent lighting system are:

50-100% Increased light levels

95% maintained light output over the life

Up to 30,000-hour average lamp life

Instant on, instant restrike

No flicker, ballast operates on high frequency

Sound Rating A, no hum or buzz, silent operation

Excellent color 88CRI with No color shift

Very wide, even light distribution

Natural Color and High color rendering, A quality light source

Jim Coykendall is President of Budget Lighting, Inc. BLI Lighting Specialists owns the business product and information site BudgetLighting.com http://www.budgetlighting.com

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We are all born equal! We all have the same 24 hours in a day as Oprah Winfrey has the difference is how we choose to spend our time. No matter how you dissect this concept, there could only be 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds at any given 24.

We’ve all been there and continue to get caught up in last minute rushes to meet deadlines, meetings that are double booked or achieve absolutely nothing, days that seem unproductive and crisis that spring unexpectedly from nowhere and destroy the most carefully planned day.

Somewhere in our education program, we all learned about the mathematical term “transition property” where if:

A=B and B=C, then A=C

Let’s try to apply this formula to what we’ve read so far.

•Time Management (A) = Planning & Prioritization (B)

•Planning & Prioritization (B) = Productivity & Success (C)

Therefore…

• Time Management (A) = Productivity & Success (C)

14 years ago my family and I moved to Central California from Los Angeles. For us, we were living in a fast-paced world and everything and everybody seemed to be in a great hurry. Long commutes, rush hour traffic, being stressed all the time had a time slot in my day planner with my permission until I realized I was wasting time, a resource that I couldn’t stop or reverse even if I wanted to. The decision to move came in very easy and with it came the abundance of time and the guilty pleasure of “sneaking” or “stealing” a few moments of the day for myself and if you haven’t guessed it by now, I had the recipe for disaster brewing very slowly.

It is crystal clear to me that we all know about how important managing time is but frankly many of us aren’t that good at it.

In this article, we will target 3 specific elements that act as the foundation of time management and give you few specific techniques to manage time and enhance your skills better.

Define time: When we reference time in our daily lives, we talk about wasting time, spending it and needing more of it. Webster’s definition of time is: “The measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues”. Time is a resource you have complete control over that you choose to use consciously and only you decide how you want to spend it will be my definition. What is yours?

Prioritize: Remember you only have 24 hours in a given day. Use the LEAN approach and eliminate that which brings you no benefit whatsoever. Distinguish between what’s important vs. what’s urgent. Doing what’s important will leave you with a feeling of being in control of your life.

Adopt the approach: This is not about a sophisticated tool that you would use to manage your time. I am referring to what’s important to you in life and what values and roles do you want to focus on. Adopt a time management approach to maintain or achieve what you’ve designated as important. If you don’t decide what’s important to you, almost anything can compete for your time and attention.

Earlier in this article, we talked about the three elements that makeup the foundation for “Time Management”. 1) Understand and learn YOUR interpretation of time, 2) Plan smart and distinguish between what’s important and urgent, and 3) Focus on what you want to achieve and how important is that to you in life?

Once you establish the foundation, refer to the process of time management and use these techniques that will allow you the time for pursuit of your goal. The techniques I’m about to share with you are traditional in nature but what separates mediocre results from those which are extraordinary are the principles that take over where the traditional time management skills leave off.

• Are your organized?- Keep an orderly desk with a place for everything. Get rid of clutter and waste. You won’t be wasting time to look for stuff.

• Do you say no?- Avoid asking for forgiveness later for not being able to complete a task on time. Say no in advance to excessive work.

• Do you procrastinate?- Find out the real reason why you don’t want to begin with the task on hand. Motivate yourself to get it done. Start with some actions that are simple and easy and reward yourself for accomplishing them. Face procrastination head- on.
Here are three practices that take over where the traditional time management skills leave off.

• Exercise- Get exercise to fuel your body and nurture your soul. While you have to allocate time to get exercise, getting fit and being decisive will allow you to be more productive in the long run.

• Agile mind- Learn to multitask. We all know we only use a small percentage of what the mind is capable of. Use all of your mind and learn to multitask and get twice as much done in the same period of time.

• Review and Reflect- Step back from all of it and allow yourself to relax. Find an activity that will bring you mental and body relaxation. Careful, don’t confuse relaxing with wasting time. Regroup and allow for what really matters to you in life drive you.

In Summary, effective time management is essential to personal and business success. When people take the time to plan and prioritize, they can increase their productivity and sense of personal satisfaction with their accomplishments.

Take the first step toward mastering the art of time management. When you find yourself overwhelmed by a large list of daunting chores, you will be glad you did.

Vera Haitayan, Principal Consultant of The Leadership Laboratory., a California-based employee development and process improvement consulting firm and is the senior editor of The Stepping Stone Newsletter featuring leadership and process improvement best practices.
http://www.1leadershiplab.com
mailto: vera@1leadershiplab.com

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Though the benefits of implementing the Six Sigma strategy to a business’s processes can lead to far greater successes that could ever have been achieved without it. However, this is only the case when the implementation of Six Sigma has been done properly. Unfortunately, this is not always what happens. Mis-implementing Six Sigma can be extremely damaging to a business.

Because Six Sigma often leads to an entire overhaul of every single process and function within a business, its implementation impacts all levels and employees. When done properly, this means that every employee and process will be used to its fullest potential, creating the highest level of quality, and leading to the most successful bottom line. On the other hand, when implemented improperly, the changes that are made on every level of an organization’s functioning can be detrimental, if not fatal.

This is what makes it so important for companies that are willing to take on wall-to-wall changes that are required by Six Sigma to make sure that they have the correct help in applying the strategies. This is the only way to ensure that it has been done properly.

Unfortunately, this is not the path taken by 80 percent of companies that are attempting Six Sigma implementation. Only 20 percent, therefore, truly benefit from what Six Sigma strategies have to offer.

By making incorrect wall-to-wall changes, they experience the struggle of the transition, and never reap the rewards that are supposed to come afterwards in the vastly improved business processes. Customers are no more satisfied, product and service quality is no higher, and resources are not used any better. Even if the business was able to achieve a similar success level to what it was experiencing before going through the faulty Six Sigma change, it will rarely be able to compensate for the period of struggle throughout the implementation, when dramatic spending occurred, and profits were greatly reduced.

When you make the decision to take advantage of what Six Sigma has to offer your organization, make certain that the necessary employees receive the correct and complete training required. Then, be certain that implementation begins within seventy two hours of the completion of that training, while the motivation and the understanding is still extremely fresh. By waiting too long after the training, details blur, and it becomes too easy to implement the wrong processes.

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Consider and count all of the details - the little steps - to pay attention to that add up to big results - especially with regard to our credibility. In this article I share some of the details that I feel make us more credible as powerful presenters. It does take time and effort, but when we add them all together, our reputations will shine.

Accept the fact that there is no “quick fix” and that “overnight” success may take many years. Yes, we do belong to a society in a hurry. It is common for people to feel that they can lose 30 pounds in a month and/or become a recognized speaker in demand by just deciding to do it. I can’t even number the well known and successful speakers who have told the story of their struggles to reach stardom.

Once you embrace the idea that everything worth achieving will take time, discipline, hard work, patience and attention to details, you will be on your way. Think of these details as the “moments of truth” that have made Southwest Airlines so successful.

Pay attention to communication details. Even if you can wow an audience with your speaking ability from the podium, but you don’t pay attention to other communication details, you will never get a chance to speak from that podium. Here are some communication details to adopt:

• Telephone skills. Return messages with haste. I know that a good number of people do not do this, because so often I hear, “Thank you for returning my call.” Does this mean others don’t return calls? Yes. So when we do, we have varied from the norm and leave a good impression.
• E-mail messages. With the huge amount of SPAM these days, it does take an extra effort to keep ahead of the mail. It is the same, however, as with the telephone. If we are quick and courteous about answering our e-mails we leave another good impression.
• Everyday conversations. Are you in a hurry all of the time? Just don’t have time to talk. I am not suggesting that you waste a lot of time with idle chatter, but I do suggest that you take a few minutes to listen and answer questions. This is also an opportunity for letting others know of your expertise. If you are willing to share information, then you just might be the perfect speaker for their group (and practically everyone belongs to a group).
• Snail mail. It is so seldom that we receive a handwritten note in the mail that when we do, we remember. This is just another communication detail that will add up to setting you apart from the crowd.

Now, I ask you to start making notes of the small stuff. Keep a list of the daily, weekly and monthly details or “moments of truth” that will add up to a huge change. I have only scratched the surface of the many details and steps, but do hope that I have started you thinking.

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Goal setting is an important technique used by athletes, successful business-people, lawyers, doctors, and great achievers in all fields. Goal setting is a very powerful technique that can yield strong returns in all areas of your life. Goal setting can help you grow in life. It can help you achieve more.

So what do you need to do first? You need to define a goal. You need to know exactly what you want, when you want it, and why you want it. What ever your dream is. That is your goal. If you don’t know exactly what your goal is, you will not commit to it. You will not have enough of a desire to achieve it. Successful business-people know exactly what they want to achieve in business and they make goals a top priority.

When you do write your goals down, you need to ask yourself one important question. Is this goal realistic? Is it attainable? Do you really believe that you can reach it? Faith is also an important ingredient that can make or break your goal. If you don’t believe that you can make your goal a reality, then you probably won’t. You need to have faith in yourself. You need to have faith in your goals. You need to have faith that you can reach any goal that you set.

This little girl had a dream to become the queen of England. She told everyone that she was going to achieve that goal. Do you think that she can achieve it since she has nothing to do with the royal family? Obviously not. It was a foolish goal. You need to make sure that your goal is realistic, and attainable. Now, if it is realistic then you need to put the proper date on it. The proper action that needs to be taken. You have to do everything in your power to make that goal come true.

So don’t put unrealistic dates on your goal. That is when you can get frustrated. If you are in MLM, you need to find someone who has reached what you are striving for and do exactly what he or she is doing.

You then need to determine what price, what’s the worthiness of that goal. What level of importance are you going to put on it? Is it a want? Is it a need? Is it, “It would be nice to have it”? You need to make that goal a burning desire. You need to make it a must. It is a “Have to have it no matter what” goal. If you do that then you’re your subconscious mind will look for ways to make that goal a reality. It will give you ideas on how you should go about to achieve it.

Now, short-term goals are usually simpler and easier than long-term goals. Why? Well, writing them can help you have more frequent victories, and building momentum with each one you complete. If you do that, you can have more excitement and more motivation as you reach those goals on time. When you do reach you short-term goals, don’t forget to reward yourself and celebrate. Buy new clothes that make you feel like a million bucks. Make a toast to yourself for reaching that goal. You should be feeling so good that you are telling yourself that you can reach ANY short-term goal that you set.

A word of warning for the long-term goals that you make. It will be harder to achieve it because as the time goes by, you can get discouraged and lose your interest. Try to set short-term goals. It will keep you more focused and motivated.

If you haven’t achieved your short-term or long-term goal, you will need to look at your goal and change the date, and the action that you have taken when you didn’t reach that goal. Remember, if you take the SAME action that led you to failure then you will probably get the SAME results. You need to take a look from all angles to see what you did and what you can change.

Copyright 2004 Tal Fighel

About The Author

Tal Fighel uses the Plug-In Profit Site to earn multiple streams of income from home on the Internet. What about you?…

http://www.talfighel.com/pluginprofit.htm

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If you have ever traveled across country by train, you know that meals are served with community seating. That means you can meet new people with every meal.

In late March I took the train home (to Southern California) from an engagement in Massachusetts. One evening my meal companions consisted of a very nice couple and a teenager. At first, the teenager had little to say. (Parents, does this sound familiar?) But through my questions he told us that he was 16, wanted to be an attorney, and could bench press 325 pounds.

Then I asked him, “What three recommendations would you give someone in 8th grade about high school?” Without hesitation he gave an answer that all of us can use. Here are his recommendations, with my comments on how they apply to leaders:

1) Watch who you hang out with.

Certainly, your friends define who you are.

Leaders know this and thus build organizations that consist of people who reinforce productive work, discourage destructive behavior, and provide a variety of complementary skills.

A wise leader will direct a person’s development by placing the person with colleagues who have beneficial characteristics. Similarly, this explains why some leaders work with a coach who provides a contrast to their preferred style.

You can also manage your personal growth by associating with people who have achieved what you aspire to have. For example, one entrepreneur left a mastermind group of millionaires to join a group of multimillionaires.

2) The next four years are very important.

Actually, every “next four years” will have a significant impact on you. Your actions and decisions during that time will determine everything that follows. And the key to making the most of time is having a vision, setting goals, and making plans.

Most leaders work with a business plan. And some have a business plan for their career and other important aspects of their life.

3) It can be a lot of fun.

Yes, the next four years and the rest of your life can be a lot of fun. If you choose to make it so.

My train ride serves as an excellent example of this.

When I bought my train ticket I decided that I was going to enjoy the ride. And I can report that I had a ball. In fact, I told everyone that I met on the train that I was the happiest guy on the train.

Now, let’s be realistic about this. A train offers some challenges. For example, the train rocks from side to side as it rattles along over old track, switches, and rail crossings. The train blows a whistle, which you can hear all day (and night) long. The train provides limited space. I spent the first night in coach, curled up on my seat and the suitcases that I stacked on the floor between my seat and the one in front. My sleeper (for the next two nights) consisted of a 3.25 feet wide, 7 ft. long, 6.5 ft high space.

And yet I was the happiest guy on the train. Because I decided to enjoy the ride.

Similarly, we can enjoy our ride through life if we decide to enjoy it. And leaders exert a tremendous influence on the culture around them by the energy they radiate. If you act like you’re enjoying the ride, others will enjoy the ride, too. And that leads to greater productivity.

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Steve Kaye helps leaders hold effective meetings. He is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator, author, and speaker. His meeting facilitation and leadership workshops create success for everyone. Call 714-528-1300 for details. Visit www.stevekaye.com for a free report.

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Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
Peter Drucker

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Please return to your seats and make sure your seatbelt is fastened tightly around you. We are encountering some unexpected turbulence. I have no idea what that turbulence will be, the source of it, the cause of it, or the cure for it. But I can guarantee it will come. And like the captain of a 747, your job as the boss, will be to make decisions that help all those on board with you navigate the sometimes unfriendly and uncharted skies of your particular industry. You will make decisions that affect you, but more importantly, you will make decisions that will affect many, possibly thousands of other people. That’s what bosses do. They take charge in turbulent time.

Why would anyone want to be led by you? That’s the question that needs to frame your journey to better leadership. If you have a hard time answering that one, try this one, “Would you want you for a boss?” When someone answers with an awkward silence or a stare similar to a dog watching a ceiling fan, you can infer that the answer is “no.” The next questions are, “What makes you think others want you for their boss?” and “What are you doing that you wouldn’t want your boss to do?” As simple as the exercise is, it is eye opening in almost every case.

To score a leader’s version of the rainbow’s pot of gold, you’ll need to rouse others with confidence in you and inspire them with assurance in themselves. Lou Holtz, famed Notre Dame football coach, captured the essence of this daunting task in three questions that he speculated people always ask about their leaders:

Are you committed to excellence?

Can I trust you?

Do you care about me?
There are many myths about great leadership and just as many pieces of advice to match them. But Lou Holtz’s questions make it all very simple. Can your direct reports answer “yes” to all three?

Are You Committed To Excellence?

People want to play on a winning team, and most realize that hard work and sacrifice make a team win. Football players suit up to practice in the 100 degree temperatures of August not because they like it, but because they know it is part of attaining excellence. Your direct reports are no different. They expect you to demand what it takes to separate your company from the competition.

During his tenure on the speaking circuit, Lou Holtz told stories of inspiring his team by saying that he had called the coach at the University of Michigan to see if he would agree to easy practices for his players so that the Notre Dame players could take it easy that day. Their coach said he wouldn’t agree, so he couldn’t let them off easy either. As he explained, if the competition is doing it, we have to do it if we are going to beat them in the opening game of the season.

From the time we are children, we understand that excellence requires hard work. People won’t grouse about it if they think you are really striving for superiority. What is the essence of excellence? Leo Tolstoy wrote “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” an observation that is probably applicable to top performers too. Successful bosses are all alike in how they commit themselves to the pursuit of excellence by committing to their own improvement, an ongoing and never ending quest to attain new levels of achievement.

The single worst thing that can happen to cause you to cease being excellent is that you will exhaust your intellectual capital and reach your level of incompetence. Early in your career you dedicated yourself to learning, growing, and experiencing. Now, you are bogged down in the perpetual challenges of getting results. Stephen Covey talked about the successful wood cutter taking time to sharpen his saw. Trying to cut with a dull saw keeps you in motion and lets others know you are busy and dedicated, but it’s not the smartest way to operate. You become so busy doing that you forget about learning, the intellectual equivalent to sharpening the saw. You need to learn faster now, so take the time to learn how to learn. It can pay enormous dividends.

The first step is to gather relevant information about yourself. You probably already know most of your strengths and weaknesses, but knowing what others think they are can be truly eye opening. One of the best ways to find out is to ask. That can take several forms, but probably one of the most effective is the multi-rater 360 instrument. A well-crafted survey will capture the opinions of direct reports, peers, and your boss, if you have one. Once you understand what their perceptions are, you will be able to take steps to improve in ways that they think you should. The experience is usually both educational and beneficial. Once you know how your behavior affects your team’s productivity, you will be equipped to make changes and to offer more coaching, all important first steps for building trust.

Can I Trust You?

Once your direct reports are sure that you are committed to personal and organizational excellence, they will want to know if they can trust you. This particular question is, “Can I, your direct report, whose future, job satisfaction, and livelihood depend on your good judgment, trust you?” The answer needs to be “Yes. You can trust me to be open when I can be, to be honest and ethical all the time, to be predictable when I can be, and to admit my mistakes.” Nobody is perfect, and nobody gets it right the first time or every time after that. Your direct reports know you aren’t perfect, they just don’t tell you that they know.

When you try to cover your mistakes, pretend they didn’t happen, or worse yet, blame them on someone else, you can forget about sustaining, much less building trust for a long, long time. Winston Churchill said it best: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” Churchill is a name that lives on because of his successes, but those who know history understand that he was not without his fiascos or his critics. You won’t be either; it’s just one of those nasty realities of being in charge.

Do You Care About Me?

The word “coach” is used throughout leadership books, and indeed has been used throughout this discussion. There’s little argument that a great boss also needs to be a great coach. But an under represented concept is the boss’s role as cheerleader, the person who strives to rally enthusiasm and energy so that the team can play on, even when encountering a tougher team in a dirty fight. Observe the coaches on the sidelines of any high stakes competition. Is there much difference between them and the cheerleaders? The cheerleaders jump more and wear cuter clothes, but they are fundamentally doing the same thing. Like an animated cheerleader, the job of the boss is to be the Energizer Bunny for your direct reports. It’s the boss’s duty to be the power source that others know they can rely on. What if you don’t feel energetic? Fake it.

For so many decades organizational research has been dominated by a desire to understand and ameliorate human dysfunction and problems in the workplace. The emphasis was on motivating disgruntled employees, improving dysfunctional attitudes, overcoming resistance to change, and coping with stress and burnout. Positive emotions, such as hope, were largely ignored. Hope is an attribute that hasn’t traditionally been associated with leadership, but with recent work on the subject, new ways of understanding it are receiving attention. The research results indicated that “high hope” leaders had significantly better financial performance, subordinate retention, and satisfaction scores than the “low hope” participants.

Hope has two dimensions: willpower, or the desire to have a positive outcome, and waypower, the willingness to do what it takes to make constructive things occur. High hope individuals tend to be more certain about their goals and challenged by them. They value progress toward objectives as well as the objectives themselves. They enjoy interacting with others and readily adapt to new and collaborative relationships; they are less anxious in stressful situation; and they are more adaptive to environmental changes.

Instilling hope in your direct reports is one of the single most important gifts you can give them; it doesn’t cost a thing; and anyone can give it at any time in any set of circumstances. Here are three suggestions:

1. Facilitate the willpower component of hope by engaging your direct reports in discussions and empowering them to set specific stretch goals. Communicate your own faith in them so that they can develop their own “can do” attitude.

2. Assist them in developing the waypower component by requiring well-developed action plans for achieving goals.

3. Act as a sounding board for their thoughts, but instead of shooting holes in their ideas, guide them to their own conclusions by asking open ended questions that encourage them to analyze more fully implications of their decisions.

Accomplishing some objectives can seem a little like trying to eat an elephant. The task is huge and the feelings of accomplishment much removed from current efforts to complete it. Therefore, your direct reports may need for you to break down complex, long-term projects into smaller tasks with a deadline for each “step” along the way. Accomplishing each step then builds hope that the next step and the one after that will also be attainable, with the ultimate realization of the objective becoming more realistic with each achievement.

Showing that you care about your direct reports through hope taps a type of positive thinking and action in people that is significantly related to important workplace outcomes. Stimulating the desire to achieve objectives, willpower and facilitating the discovery of paths to achieving the goals, waypower, leads to positive personal and performance outcomes.

Conclusion

Chances are, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be a leader who will be remembered in the history books. Your name won’t be uttered in the same breath as Churchill, Ghandi, Eisenhower, or even Lou Holtz. People won’t write books decades from now and include your quotes, neither will most remember you at all. That only happens to a handful of people who are blessed or cursed with circumstances and characteristics that coalesce in the right combinations during the exact times they are needed, with too many moving parts and variables to control.

Perhaps you don’t have discretionary power to allocate large sums of money to developing all the ideas that you have, but you do have governance over your own behaviors. You can begin with one or two goals that will make small but important moves in the right direction. For instance, you can commit to better listening; you can pledge to others that you will increase the number of performance management conversations you have throughout the year; you can promise to hold better meetings; you can give you word that you will take steps to know your direct reports better so that you understand their strengths and can help to build their hope for the future. Not one of these costs money, yet any one will help you take important steps toward causing your direct reports to answer “yes” to Lou Holtz’s three questions and to becoming the boss that no one wants to leave. So, put on your own oxygen mask first and lead the way to the rainbow’s pot of gold.

Dr. Linda Henman speaks from experience. For more than 25 years, she has helped military organizations, small businesses, and Fortune 500 Companies turn things around by getting the right people in the right place doing the right thing.

Linda holds a Bachelor of Science in communication, two Master of Arts degrees in both interpersonal communication and organization development, and a Ph.D. in organizational systems. By combining her experience as an organizational psychologist with her education in business, she offers her clients assessment, coaching, consulting, and training solutions that are pragmatic in their approach and sound in their foundation. Specializing in assessment for selection, promotion, and development, Linda helps organizations improve their succession and retention initiatives and teaches people to become the boss that no one wants to leave.

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This is a famous story about the use of time. The details vary but the basics are the same wherever you read it.

In America in the 1930’s, Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel, the country’s largest independent steel producer, asked a well-known management consultant, Ivy Lee, for his advice on increasing the company’s efficiency.

The advice was this:

Write down all the tasks you want to do tomorrow, and identify the five most important, listing them in order of priority.

First thing tomorrow morning, start working on the first item and don’t leave it until it is complete or you have gone as far as you can.

Then start on the second item in the same way. If things come up during the day, only deal with them if they are more important than the task you are already working on. If not, add them to your list.

When the top five items have been dealt with, or taken as far as you can, repeat the prioritising process. Don’t worry if you don’t manage to do everything on the list - at least the more important tasks will be completed.

Schwab agreed to ask his managers to put this advice into practice for a month and then pay Lee whatever he felt it was worth.

A month later, Lee received a cheque for $25,000, almost $300,000 in today’s money. Schwab later said that it was the single most useful piece of information he had ever received and he believed it was immensely significant in the success of the company.

I admit I don’t always practise what I preach, but I have tried this and it works!

Andy Britnell specialises in sales and customer service training for both the private and public sectors. Go to http://www.andybritnell.co.uk/ and you can sign up for my FREE short monthly newsletter and FREE e-mail coaching.

I coach corporate and SME clients who wish to achieve better results - see http://www.executive-coaching-for-business-growth.com/

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