InnerActive Consulting – Insights » 2008

Personal Leadership Makes the Right Things Happen

While we believe that People make the difference in organizations more than anything else, we also know that there is something else in the mix. That something else is the factor that separates the high performer from the group. It provides the winning edge – particularly in the face of adversity such as economic downturns.

That key element is “Personal Leadership.” So what is so important about personal leadership? It is the one element that manages emotion, thoughts and integrity. It is the controlling factor in doing the right things during periods when doing the right thing is a hard or tough decision.

Personal leadership is based in the understanding of what makes people tick and doing the things that they tend to do. There is a process that puts the “personal” adjective on the power word of leadership. Without the personal part, leaders will lose support in the long run. Why? Because people are smart and they watch their leaders like a hawk watches its prey. If the leader makes a mistake – like a self interest decision, increasing a bonus or pay while keeping everyone else fixed, cutting costs just for a bonus check, making poor decisions, having selective ethics to favor themselves and/or promoting the wrong people based upon politics rather than performance – others get the bigger picture. Continue reading ‘Personal Leadership Makes the Right Things Happen’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 14, 2008 at 10:33 am under Leadership, Managing Beliefs.
Tags: Personal leadership, psychology of achievement
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Do not Abandon Your Growth Plans

It is amazing to me how fast companies, leaders and sales people are abandoning their growth plans during this time of economic turmoil. Truth is, this is the best time to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace. How? By maintaining a mindset of abundance over scarcity. The chicken little’s of the world are having a grand time explaining how the world is coming to an end as we have known it for the past century.

While it is true that some things have changed and will change in the future – the key is to not panic and join the chicken little club. It is time to stand up for what is right and prepare for a new future. The sky is still above us and we can win. Adversity is a character building opportunity rather than a panic zone trigger.

Personally, I believe that this time can be utilizied to create new opportunities for an organization and clients. The method we are using is to invest in our infrastructure. New technology and the means of serving our clients faster, easier and with more value has become a priority. It is also a time to create new products and services for our clients to use in the future. Most importantly, it is a time to build and rebuild relationships with clients, old clients and potential clients. Continue reading ‘Do not Abandon Your Growth Plans’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 13, 2008 at 2:07 pm under Leadership, Team Building.
Tags: down cycle in economic cycle, Growth, preparing teams
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Purpose of Coaching?

Several people have asked me about coaching and specifically what is the real purpose of coaching an individual? I find it a perplexing question because if a person did any sports activities they would have had a coach at some point. My first experience with a coach came in the junior high days – middle school today. My coach was an outstanding individual who helped establish a sense of purpose and a drive for excellence.

In today’s world, a coach plays the same role, abreit, somewhat different purposes or content specialty. The coach role is to provide a catalyst for excellence and improvement in performance. It can be goal bounded, performance based and time sensitive.

For coaching to work properly for the coachee – it must be goal, process and passion driven.

Goal driven is about time lines and reasons. What factors are in play for the coaching to occur? What positive and negatives motivators are present? And what reasons does the coachee have for taking the time and resources to be coached? Goals create the objectives and timelines for expectations and results.

Process driven means that the system or methods used are flexible based upon the current levels of knowledge, understanding, and experience possessed by the coachee. There must be a level of interaction between the coach and coachee to facilitate the learning and understanding. Experts who can only tell of their experiences or expectations are not necessarily good coaches – I call them “wizards.” Wizards usually do all the work and take the blame or credit for success or failure.

Passion driven is the “want it factor.” People with the passion to improve, a will to learn and a strong need to improve – usually get things done. People without this drive usually give up before the success and understanding comes to them. This is a key component for success in any coaching environment. The old cliche reminds us of this – “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

Watch for these three core elements to be present in any coaching opportunity. Effective coaching is our goal with clients. Determine the objectives, uncover the reasons for improvement, and check the readiness of the coachee to learn, dedicate their focus and persuade the expertise from their point of view.

Contact us if you have a desire to get to the next level of performance.

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 12, 2008 at 3:06 pm under Coaching, Personal Development.
Tags: coaching purpose, drive for excellence, effectiveness
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Leaders are Readers

Getting ready to go to my daughters second graduation and this thought kept coming into my mind. She has been offered a great new job. At a high level within the company – reporting to the CEO. What an honor and how proud I am. So why the thought! Because this week she called me and told me how lucky she was to have me as a role model. One of the more important things she gives me credit for influencing – is her desire to read books. Not fiction, books with meaning that are business related. She took this lesson to heart and has used it to become a true leader.

She now has other people asking her about books she is reading. Why? Because she is knowledgable about business, marketing, economics and leadership due to the books she reads. Then she applies this knowledge in her environment – gaining a competitive edge on others who are waiting to be told or shown the pathway to success.

Enough bragging about my wonderful daughter. Let me share some my real world experience back when I was doing turnaround work back in the early 80′s. I was asked by two different companies to assist them in getting back on track. Both companies, while independent of each other, were in the same industry, different markets with basically the same problem. Continue reading ‘Leaders are Readers’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 10, 2008 at 6:04 am under Leadership, Personal Development.
Tags: knowledge, leaders are readers
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Using Assessments in the Hiring and Selection Process

Many people ask me why they should use assessments – primarily in their hiring process. Many believe that the only tool necessary is the behavioral question model and hiring will be great. My response to these people is that the behavioral question model is an excellent tool and I encourage its use in the selection process.

However, just as assessments are not the only tool you should or can use in the selection process, behavioral questions are not the only tool to use either. Why? Because one tool will only give you one part of the result – not necessarily the right result.

Okay, let me explain why only using the behavioral questioning model is a possible mistake. There are three primary reasons for caution if only using behavioral questions. Continue reading ‘Using Assessments in the Hiring and Selection Process’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 9, 2008 at 8:28 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention, Using Assessments.
Tags: assessment process, assessments, behavioral questions, hiring, hiring people, selection process
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Selling is a Game Rather than a War

Sales is really just a game rather than a war. If we look at sales as a game, maybe we could enjoy the process more, increase our morale, and find more success than ever before. Let’s take a look at the differences of selling as a game rather than a war.

First, as a War someone dies! This is not a good thing. If selling is a war then who dies? Do the Generals know that they are sending off the troops with a high casualty count? If war is a young person’s battle, then are only young people allowed to sell? What happens to the older sales people?

I know that sales (and Marketing) are treated as a war like subject. In fact, one of the best marketing book series was written by a Japanese consultant that actually used a process created by a British genius to show how to win a battle. His theories are still used in the War Colleges in the USA and Great Britain. Using these theories, Japanese used them to take over market after market from the US and other countries in major industries.

Continue reading ‘Selling is a Game Rather than a War’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 8, 2008 at 4:42 pm under Sales.
Tags: enjoy sales, sales games, sales training, sales warfare
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DUH, It’s all about the People in Organizations

This appears to be a very simplistic expression and should be well known within the corporate cultures today. To my continued surprise People are not considered by all to be the most important asset a company has rights to. Notice I did not say “owned” since employees are free to leave an organization anytime they want.

So what is so important about People?

First, they are the creators and doers for a company’s current and future success – or failure. Individuals create ideas for creating products, services, processes, and customers. Seldom have customers rushed the walls of a company to purchase their products or services just because they built it. It is the people within the company that have created a winning product, created a winning marketing campaign and a winning solution for the customer.

Second, they are the primary creators of balancing efficiency and effectiveness for an organization. Once this balance is achieved, the organization benefits from improvement in Productivity. For the most part, the source of this balance comes from experience, wisdom and knowledge used by the individuals. I believe that there must be balance within these three factors of experience, wisdom and knowledge to become truly effective. I’ve seen people with years of experience that have not learned anything new after their first year! Likewise, I have seen very educated people show little practicality or application of their knowledge leading to conflict or lack of results. Wisdom is the ability to apply both knowledge and experience for greater returns in performance.

Third, sales people create the majority of sales – which grow the top and hopefully bottom lines. The ability of sales people to develop trusting relationships with other people – customers – lead to success in selling. The internet will create opportunities for sales particularily in the arena of commodities. Yet, the major, key and large account buyers will relate to the sales person to make the commitment to buy.

So why am I talking about these subjects? Because people create the future and add wealth to organizations. The research shows that great people product greater results than land, building and machinery. If this is true, it would seem that every organization would be investing heavily in developing their people to become more valuable and increase their wealth in the marketplace.

We have been very fortunate during our 20 years of working with organizations to develop their people to these new levels of performance. That is our mission and purpose – to get people -you- to the next level. It continues to be our purpose and we look forward to another 20 years of growing people and organizations. Please check us out. We have been solving issues for our clients and we can probably help you.

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 2, 2008 at 5:15 pm under Leadership.
Tags: create future success, efficiency and effectiveness, productivity, purpose
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Archive for October, 2008

Personal Leadership Makes the Right Things Happen

Do not Abandon Your Growth Plans

Purpose of Coaching?

Leaders are Readers

Using Assessments in the Hiring and Selection Process

Selling is a Game Rather than a War

DUH, It’s all about the People in Organizations

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