Lessons in Leadership - November 15, 2005

Lessons in Leadership is devoted to helping new leaders learn how to motivate employees and customers to stay longer, complain less, and produce more profits.

In this issue you will learn:

Contagious Leadership Lesson: Leaders Value and Respect Those they Work WITH
Contagious Customer Service Lesson: The One Thing to Do to Keep that Customer
Contagious Confidence Lesson: It's All in Your Head

You are currently viewing a previous issue of Lessons in Leadership. To subscribe to this newsletter and have it sent directly to you, go to www.monicawofford.com. Enjoy!

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Contagious Leadership Lesson:
Leaders Value and Respect Those they Work WITH

Do the employees that report to you actually work for you? Hmmm... Some will say yes, some no. Do you work for the company or organization from which you recieve a pay check or direction? Hmmm... Likely similar answers.

If you have read Contagious Leadership or been to any of my seminars, chances are you know the answer because in truth neither you nor those other people work FOR you or FOR an organization. For those who might not be tracking with me just yet, think of it this way:
Call up each and every one of those folks who work "For" you and ask them to come in tomorrow for free. That's right, absolutely free of charge, gratis, being paid bupkis... you get the idea. See what they all say. In fact, how many of you would have an entire staff of people show up?

If you did not quickly jump in and say me, yes, me, "I would have an entire staff show up", then let's look at this from a bigger picture perspective. Shouldn't that make it immediately clear to you that these folks do not work for the sheer, shining fact of getting to see your smiling face each and every day? No matter how cute you are, the truth is that they do not work FOR you or the organization with which you are affiliated. They work for ... THEMSELVES. Yep, you guessed it, FOR themselves and whatever the paycheck or reward that is doled out allows them to achieve most likely at home or other places outside of work. Thus, these folks do not work FOR you, they work, yep, you guessed it... WITH you.

The use of different words, though it may seem a silly matter of semantics, can make a big difference. A noticeable change occurs when a manager begins to describe employees as those he or she works WITH instead of those who work FOR him or her. Of course, the only way you will know if this makes a difference to those that work WITH you is to give it a try.
(You will enjoy reading the rest of Chapter 1 of Contagious Leadership at http://www.monicawofford.com/resources.php)

Happy Leading!

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"Your business is only as good as the people who work WITH you" M. Wofford
...from Contagious Quotations

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Contagious Customer Service Lesson:
Where is the New Leader's Focus?

You've done it! You've worked hard, paid your dues, worked through the resentment of those who you used to be peers with and are now their boss, and you've been promoted! Congratulations! Before the ink dries on your newly titled business cards, let's take a look at what your focus is and where your efforts lie with regard to your customers. Who are they exactly?

Are your customers those who pay the bills and buy stuff at your store or pay the taxes or pay the insurance bills that keep your hospital running or are they the folks who day in, day out, say hello to those folks, make them feel at home, make them want to buy your product, answer your phones, or any number of other tasks that keep your business alive? It's a tough and long question, admittedly. Yet, without finding the focus of your customer service efforts and where they are best placed, you may find that your best customers leave your organization to serve the external customers of your competitor.


Those that report to you are your best customers and from all the recent motivational material on morale and internal motivation, we all know that. What we tend to do and what we know are different. Spend a day determining who you spend more time with - the external customers or the internal customers.

• Make a list of what you do for the external customers to say thank you for their business
• Make a list of what you do for the internal customers to say thank you for their business
• Compare the two lists and make any needed adjustments
• Walk around and among those you work with and seek their input
• Don't wait for them to come to you only if there is a complaint

Spend as much time, effort, and energy on those who work side by side with you as you do on those who do business with you. It will serve you better, serve them better, and allow you both to serve that external customer better.

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You don't need another quote from me, you need results. What are your hot leadership issues? Give me your best hot leadership problem, issue, or need, and you may find yourself featured in the next issue of Lessons in Leadership. Send your issues or challenges to monica@Monicawofford.com.

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Contagious Confidence Lesson:
It's all in Your Head

Whether your presentation is one on one or one on 50, confidence is something a leader cannot be without. But, where does it come from? Confidence is all in your head and believe you me what is in your head often comes out in your communication. Thus, might it be prudent to look more closely at what is in your head instead of focusing on what is "Supposed" to be coming out of your mouth?

Rather than focusing on what your body language is or where your hands are, focus on the message you want your audience to receive. Consider these questions before you provide your next presentation:

• What do you want them to do different?
• How do you want them to feel different?
• What is it that you want them to learn how to do?
• How do you want them to act once your presentation is over?
• What is the one thing that your learners will know when you are done?
  

Once your message and the benefit you are looking for your learners to receive is solidified, your body language gestures and positioning on stage will come naturally. Once you shift the focus in your head from you and your nervousness to the audience and their benefits, you will find that your presentation will come more naturally.

Much like leadership, delivering a presentation is not all about you, it's all about them and that is a shift that takes place in your head.

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With The holidays coming up and the shopping days counting down, keep in mind just what all you have to be grateful for. If you woke up this morning breathing and have friends to tell that you did, I would say that your list of grateful things is already pretty healthy. Happy Thanksgiving holidays to all of those in the states!
Monica

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The tools that you use to do your job, to lead those you are given the privilege of leading, are important. If you use the same tools that you have always used, you will gain the results that you have always gotten. (Just how many times do we have to hear that to believe it??) What new results are you looking to achieve? Even more importantly, what new tools will you be using to achieve such results?

As a trainer of leadership, customer service, and confidence, I have taught hundreds of people how to lead both their customers an employees. Those learners who take the most initiative also look for ways to practice their new skills long after the training sessions. In order to change old habits, they employ hard work, practice, and new learning tactics.

Some of the ways in which they learn new skills is to listen to Contagious Leadership CDs and Contagious Confidence, as well as to read the book from which it all began: Contagious Leadership. If you have not taken that initiative, the next step you take could change the way employees and customers respond to you in the new year. Spend 15 minutes a day reading or listening to the tools that will give you new skills and watch your progress improve.

Request your personal copy of Contagious Leadership (the book or the 6 CD set) at www.monicawofford.com. I look forward to sending them to you. Not to mention, your shopping days for your boss and co-workers are quickly diminishing.
Give them gift of learning that will last far beyond the holidays.

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Go to http://www.monicawofford.com/resources.php to order your very
own autographed copies today!

Being a leader doesn't happen in one day, it often takes years, yet doing it on your own may take a lifetime. Who wants to make all the mistakes I had to make in order to learn to lead others effectively? If you don' t have a coach, get one. If we had all the answers we would be doing it all without help and I have never met anyone who had all the answers in all the areas and didn't need any help - even if they didn't want to admit it. Fees and structure are based on project.

Monica provides coaching for small business owners, public speakers, and leaders. Outside of those areas, she will gladly refer you to someone who will serve you well. Contact her directly at 407-739-1870 or monica@monicawofford.com.

Also - You don't want to miss out on the coaching program that is all online.

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See you next issue and in the meantime...

Stay Contagious!

Lessons in Leadership - November 1, 2005

This is the archive of previous issues for Lessons in Leadership. The current issue can be sent to you directly on request. Go to www.monicawofford.com to request your current copy of Lessons in Leadership.

Lessons in Leadership is devoted to helping new leaders learn how to motivate employees and customers to stay longer, complain less, and produce more profits. In this issue, you learned:


Contagious Leadership Lesson:
Leadership: It's Simple Really
Contagious Customer Service Lesson:
Are we Making it Easy for our Customers?
Contagious Confidence Lesson:
What if You Simply Did Nothing?

Contagious Leadership Lesson:
Leadership: It's Simple Really

Really, isn't leading new or problem employees an easy thing to do? If you follow three simple rules such as:

• Micro manage until they get it
• Free up those who don't
• Beat up those who don't and won't leave (KIDDING!)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. That last one was just a JOKE. Yet, leadership can be simple, if you let it, but at no time does it involve physically harming anyone, no matter how tempting it might be. Let's look at how you might handle those who are new or those who are posing problems, a bit differently.

Micro management is a task most abhor. With those who are new at performing a task or skill or those who are not performing it well, however, micro management has it's place. The simple Contagious Leadership rule is to Micro manage Only Those Who Need it and Only Until They Prove They do Not. The concepts of hovering, pestering, or bugging to death are NOT synonymous with micro management. What is perhaps more appropriate and more simple is to guide those who are not yet skilled to all the resources and tools to become skilled, give them a way to practice, and then give them feedback on their progress.

With those who are not performing the practice becomes a bit less simple, but not by much. If a person is not performing, find out why with the following questions:

• Is there a reward for doing it right?
• Is there a reward for doing it wrong?
• Is there a punishment for doing it right or wrong?
• Is the person afraid of failure?
• Is the person afraid of success?
• Does he or she lack the competence?
• Does he or she lack the knowledge or skill?
  

Before micro managing a poor performer, solve the above issues. Then, provide a reward or consequence where there is none; address the fear that exists if it does; investigate skill and competence level.

Once you have done each of these, follow the above steps for new employees. If performance still does not change within a reasonable amount of time, transfer or terminate the person accordingly, however, NOT WITHOUT prior investigation and clear answers to the above questions.


It's simple, really.

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"Micro managers find few friends and even fewer talented employees when they overextend their welcome in performance territory."
M. Wofford
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Contagious Customer Service Lesson:
Are We Making it Easy for our Customers?

Who can argue with the simple ease and utility of the search engine that has taken it's place among brands that are now generic, such as Kleenex and Coke. The search engine is Google. Have you "Googled" something lately? Chances are you have and so have hundreds of thousands of other customers of the search engine giant. What do you bet, their success is due in part to the fact that it is just so darn simple?

The November issue of Fast Company happens to agree. The article, (found at http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine - once they update their site for the November issue in my hot little hand) focuses on how simple Google is in the face of all of our high tech gadgets and services in the information age. The lesson is ours to learn. In the age of complication times information equals confusion, are we making it simple for our customers to do business with us?

1. Do they have to search to buy from us?
2. Do they have to go through menu tree mazes to find an answer to a simple question?
3. Or do we frustrate our customers by making it "easier" for them to get what they need without ever interfacing with another human?
   

Consider my experience this week with what may well be the nation's largest computer distributor. The company with a name begins with a big blue D and has perfected the use of the web and the menu tree to solve all our problems as end users. Yet, the problem this week began as I navigated four menu trees and answered a round of rigorous security codes and identifiers before I could ask about my power adaptor problems.

It about as silly as if I had walked into a pharmacy and had to answer twenty questions on my health history, including my immediate family names and addresses, before asking for which aisle the aspirin is on. The response certainly was not an easy one to get and certainly does not make doing business with the computer giant's tech support easy. Then again, maybe that was the point.

In contrast, lately I have noticed that the airlines, though they suffer, have made it easier for the customer to use their web sites. What used to be an experience that I suffered through only if the travel agent had gone home for the day is now a piece of cake. Check out the ease of www.delta.com or www.southwest.com for yourself and then consider how this applies
to your customers.


The key to Contagious Customer Service is to keep 'em coming back. Yet your business can only be contagious, or catching, if it is easy to catch. What are you doing to make it easier for your customers to do business with you...and if the answer is nothing, you may just be getting the results that you asked for.

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"Contagious Customer Service means giving the customer something they catch on to and almost can't get rid of, so that they keep coming back."
M. Wofford
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Contagious Confidence Lesson:
What if YOU Simply Did Nothing?


You step onto the stage, position yourself behind the lecturn, and silence strikes. In fact, the mind blowing, shorter than life, short-term memory, strikes at the same time. What do you do? Well, let's weigh your options, you can't think and you can't speak... try breathing... and then do nothing.


There is little more powerful than doing nothing, particularly when nothing can be done. And doing nothing is actually doing something. For example:

• Simply pause and say nothing
• Simply stand and say nothing
• Simply state when the thoughts come back and everyone will listen.
  

There is power in the pause and the stare and the challenge when speaking often comes in when we say too much, and thus speak too fast. A further challenge occurs when we are afraid to look at any one person and we stare non-committedly at the heads of all.

Stop, say nothing, and look seriously at your audience. Pause, say nothing, and hold your pose. When you do speak, say it simply as though the audience is now clearly listening for the gold that pours forth from your mouth, you are always in competition with the voices in their head and their attention span!

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"Contagious Confidence comes from feeding off the audience's reaction, however, first you have to give them something exciting to react to."
M. Wofford
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- A Word from Our Sponsor -


To be a leader, instead of a manager, you will want Contagious Leadership in its many forms. (that means book and CD set and the new training DVD!) http://www.monicawofford.com/resources.php

To provide contagious service that your customers cannot resist, you will want Contagious Customer Service special reports.

http://www.monicawofford.com/special-reports.php

To give speeches that make you appear to exude confidence, you will want Contagious Confidence, along with Contagious Quotations to give you new and fresh ideas that others will catch on to!

Go to http://www.monicawofford.com/resources.php to order your very
own autographed copies today!


Being a leader doesn't happen in one day, it often takes years, yet doing it on your own may take a lifetime. Who wants to make all the mistakes I had to make in order to learn to lead others effectively? If you don' t have a coach, get one. If we had all the answers we would be doing it all without help and I have never met anyone who had all the answers in all the areas and didn't need any help - even if they didn't want to admit it. Fees and structure are based on project.


Monica provides coaching for small business owners, public speakers, and leaders. Outside of those areas, she will gladly refer you to someone who has more expertise and will serve you well. Contact her directly at 407-739-1870 or monica@monicawofford.com.



Also - Check out the new website updates at www.monicawofford.com. You don't want to miss out on the coaching program that is all online.

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See you next issue and in the meantime...

Stay Contagious!

Message from Monica

The other day I was riding the parking shuttle bus from ORlando's airport to the lot where I park my car. I was absolutely beat and in a fog from having slept on the plane on the way home. Yet, as I rode in the back of this bus and chose, for whatever reason to face the back watching the roads and cars and traffic that was behind us, it occurred to me that I lost track of where we were.

Let me explain. In a town that I know well, in an area of town that I know very well, because I was watching what was behind us instead of what was infront of us, I lost track of where we were.

It made me wonder just how many times in my life and work I had done that to myself. Do we focus so much on our past and what we have done or not done before that we forget to pay attention to where we are going or more importantly, where we ARE? Something to think about...

Monica