Okay, I know that everyone and their brother is doing webinars these days, so who is good and who do you trust? This is a question that I also ask – seems like everyday with the offers we get.

So how do you know which webinars are good?

First, it truly helps if you know the individual giving the webinar and their expertise. Do they have experience in the field they are speaking on in their webinar? Too often, we are asked to pay money to listen to someone who just read a book and wants to do a book review rather than share real life experiences.

Second, if we don’t know the individual, do we know someone that does know the presenter? Here is an opportunity for social networking to work for you. See if the person is one LinkedIn or Facebook (these are the two primary business focused social media sites) and see who are their friends and Connections. If they have no one on there site – they are new to the business and that may be the signal for you. Also, read their information and bio and how many people have recommended them.

Third, contact someone that knows this individual and ask them about the expertise they have and do they know anything about the webinar. If they don’t know anything, that could also be an indication as to the level of expertise involved.

Finally, check the presenter out using Google or any other search engine. How many articles has this person written on the topic? What does the website look like – is it professional or just a common looking site without any professionalism?

An example of a good webinar who be my business associate – Ron Karr. He is a very knowledgeable sales person with both years of experience as a leading sales person and sales manager – he has written two books on the art of sales. I have worked with him on a couple of major projects and he is a sales professional. Most importantly, he gets results for his sales clients using his developmental processes.

He is doing a four part sales webinar with one session over the next four months. Take a look at the topics and if they are important to you – well I can tell you that Ron Karr is very good at developing sales practices. Check out the offer at his website by using this link to gather information on his four part sales webinars. Enjoy the information and the interaction with a true sales professional.

More and more companies are measuring soft skills in their work force and evaluating their impact on performance. Only recently do we have evidence that soft skills may be age- and occupation-related.  This is based on four different studies.  The first two studies were conducted in the fall of 2008.  Nine hundred college freshmen from two Midwest universities were asked to respond to an assessment that measures 23 specific soft skills.  The results from both groups (business and engineering majors) indicated that, as a group, they have almost no mastery in these 23 soft skills. In fact, their lowest scores were in decision making.

In the spring of 2009, a small group of seniors were given the same survey.  The results showed only a slight improvement.

Curriculum or Practice?

Looking at the numbers, it is becoming more and more apparent that certain soft skills cannot be taught in the classroom.  To mention a few:

Interpersonal Skills
Personal Effectiveness
Futuristic Thinking
Self-Management
Diplomacy
Goal Orientation
Flexibility

To support this hypothesis, a group of employed adults (1632) were given the same assessments. Specifically, the research was looking for correlations among people who are passionate about knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Many Ph.D.s fall into this category.  The evidence was very clear on all 23 soft skills:  There were no correlations strong enough to predict a person will actually develop soft skills based on curriculum knowledge.  The assessment used did not measure their knowledge of the skills; it measured their mastery of the skills and the use of these skills in their work.  In other words, Do they walk their talk?

The bookstores are full of self-help books that would lead you to think that buying a book can lead to developing and mastering certain soft skills.  Merely reading a book on how to persuade others will not make you a successful sales person.

So what are we to do? The knowledge needs to be incorporated into activities, experiences and games.  Practicing what you preach is the most promising method of developing soft skills.

First, make a comment if you have some ideas to make this work. Second, contact us if you want to learn about how you rank with your personal soft skills. Our phone number is 901-757-4434.

During this time of high unemployment rates, it seems strange to discuss the six drivers for employee satisfaction. Yet, it is very important to keep your current employees happy and satisfied because you need to retain your best talent.

So here are six key drivers to providing employee satisfaction – which is a key factor in employee retention… Continue reading ‘Six Drivers for Employee Satisfaction’ »

One of the quickest questions to come up (no pun intended) during planning sessions or personal coaching sessions is – How do I/we manage this in a Fast Changing Environment? Well, this is a good question and will occur more often since fast-changing environments is becoming the norm. Increasingly change is becoming the number focal point for every organization and every leader.

These dynamic times require dynamic solutions including processes, people, systems and culture (a leader driven factor). The key is to develop an attitude that change is good for us. The more effective we are at developing a sense of optimistism in responding to the situations, thinking in terms of opportunities rather than threats.

Here is a list of key elements or how to’s to increase the success rate for change… Continue reading ‘How to Manage Fast Changing Times’ »

One of my favorite books on change is John Kotter’s outstanding book – Leading Change. I have listed it as a must read for all my leadership development clients. And, since change has and will become an even bigger topic in the coming years, I felt it would be good to provide you with a quick summary of his book.

First, Kotter’s book – Leading Change – describe a very helpful model and process for effectively leading change now and in the future. He overviews how to understand and then manage change through different stages. He points out the importance of your people in the change process. In fact, he was one of the first to point out that your people must believe in the need for the change before it will happen.

The responses of your people will have more bearing on the success of the change project than any other factor. So here are the eight steps or stages of leading change: Continue reading ‘Eight Steps to Leading Successful Change’ »

Continuing the theme regarding Managing Change and the importance it will take in the coming years – assuming you want to be successful. These five principles are directed to leaders of organizations. Use this these keys as a guideline and your change initiatives will turn out positive.

The five keys are: Continue reading ‘Five Key Principles for Change Management Success’ »

Research has proven that superior performers in all fields bring very specific things to the job. To start, they all are fulfilling their passion on the job.  A good example of this would be a librarian who has a strong desire for knowledge.  Every day they are surrounded by books and people who are seeking knowledge or information.  Another example is a person who is passionate about aesthetics.  They can fulfill their passion in careers such as architecture, interior design or jewelry sales.

In addition, superior performers tend to closely match the behavior necessary to execute the job’s key accountabilities; this is key to eliminating stress. When people are forced to adapt their behavior to perform key accountabilities, it can consume their energy.  When behavior matches the job, energy easily flows to the job and allows the individual to accomplish more.

Personal skills research studies of superior performers showed they all had an abundance of personal skills.  Often we think one or two personal skills make a person unique, and that alone could lead to superior performance.  The research identified that superior performers are unique in that they have above average personal skills in 17 or more clearly defined skills.  The research basically found superior performers to be above average in the following personal skill areas:

Leadership
Teamwork
Conflict Management
Interpersonal Skills
Customer Service
Flexibility
Goal Orientation
Diplomacy
Personal Effectiveness
Presenting
Negotiation
Persuasion
Continuous Learning
Self-Management
Decision Making
Empathy
Creativity/Innovation

If you want to identify how you rank on these personal skills, contact us at 901-757-4434 to learn about your natural strengths and weaknesses. Call today – we can get this information to you using the internet.

So now you are ready to make change happen in your organization. What have you done to improve the skills and knowledge of the people who will be asked to make the change projects successful?

Here is the truth -using more experienced and skilled change managers can reduce the risks of having a troubled or unsuccessful change project. So again, what are doing to enhance the abilities of the change management teams?

A great place to start is the leadership of the change teams. Effective change leadership is critical to the success of the teams. It is an advantage to create dedicated positions of change leaders within your organization – similar to the project management leaders. The project management leader is more common today than in previous decades. The same thing will happen to the change management leadership position in coming years – be an early adopter and gain a competitive advantage.

While having a dedicated change management leader will increase the success factor by a minimum of 20%, an even more important factor is top management sponsorship and close support of change management projects. In fact, top management support is the single most important factor related to successful projects. Top leaders must have a clear understanding of the importance of change and the advantages the organization will attain using a systematic change management system.

Take a moment to reflect upon change projects within the past two years at your organization. What worked and why? What did not work and why? If you take the time to examine the success and failures of these change initiatives – top management support or non-support will have a major relationship to the level of success.

What can you do as a leader to show support for change? That is the major question for you today.

Okay, continuing the theme of change management, one thing jumped out at me. There is a lack of information regarding formal methodology for creating change. When you compare the formalized processes found for total quality processes and even project management – change management systems are lacking or just more unknown.

The reason this is important is because formalized systems allow for complete – wide and deep – coverage of change processes in an organization. At best, today’s change management occurs in the form of improvised solutions using a number of different methods – both proven and unproven relative to getting results. Continue reading ‘Change Management Methodology – the Big Question for Success’ »

Want to improve your change project success rates? Since the average success rate is only 41%, then 59% are failing in some way. Yet, when researching the highly successful change masters of the business world, their success rate was a stunning 80%. That my friend is a high return on investment. If you want to move into the ranks of successful change masters, then the first step is simple…

You must gain insight or true awareness of reality and then launch an action plan.

So how do you make this happen? Early awareness of resistance to change or for that matter – any issues that pop up during the beginning phases of a change project need clear and decisive action plans and steps. Change projects are usually require simultaneous changes in your people’s mindsets, attitudes, culture and complexity issues. Such changes do not happen on there own, they need to be aggressively dealt with by the leaders of the organization. Continue reading ‘Awareness followed by Action leads to Change Project Success’ »