Ask More Questions

by Billy Anderson

Bad leaders have all the answers. Great leaders do not.

We live in a world where management is expected to have all the answers, all the time. If an employee comes to you with a question you probably feel you should give an answer immediately (God forbid the “boss” doesn’t know something). Why do we do this? Because admitting we don’t know something means showing vulnerability, which many people assume is a weakness.

If that’s you, you make up the majority of management who underutilizes their team’s potential. As a leader, you will get more from your team when you ask more questions and give fewer answers. Asking them questions leverages their skills while showing them respect, and respect motivates the right people more than anything.
 

Try It

Next time an employee comes to you saying, “I’m not sure what to do about this”, try responding with “What do you want to do about it?” Chances are they’ll be taken off guard the first time, but they’ll get used to using their brain more and they will come to you less often with challenges they realize they can sort out on their own. They will then feel empowered, and empowerment fuels creativity and hard work more than green beer fuels St Paddy’s Day.
 

Goals

Now let’s look at your organizational goals. Every organization (and individual) needs goals: they provide direction, focus, and a strategic filter for decision-making. However, goals and guesswork both start with the same letter for a reason: goals are educated guesses.

We set goals based on what we know about the company, the competition and the market as it stands right now. But all that will change over time. If you follow your five-year strategic plan to the letter for the entire five years, you’ll go out of business. You set goals and targets in order to provide direction, but you have to accept they might change.
 

Next

Once you have your goals and strategy, you need to determine how often you will revisit them to see if they still apply. Put the review dates in the calendar. At this point you’ve figured out what you need to do to get there.

Now you can focus on who you need to be as an organization. Who are your employees being when they’re at their best? This will link to your organizational Values because your company will perform at its best when living true to its Values and Mission (assuming they were created properly in the first place, which most aren’t).

So try not knowing. Ask your employees more questions more often. Have the courage to know when a plan no longer works and needs to be revised. Have the guts to admit you don’t know and follow with “…but I’m confident we’ll figure it out”. That will gain the respect of your team and encourage them to do more.
 

Links

• image courtesy of Paul Moore

Billy Anderson is a Courage Coach & Speaker, and founder of Made You Think Coaching. He helps people get the life they want, because once they have that they perform like superstars.You’ll find Billy’s profile on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

How To Benefit From A Group Blog

by Promod Sharma

When you work for a big company, you have the advantage of a known brand. You gain credence by association. When you're on your own, building a brand is essential but more difficult. You probably can't build awareness through advertising.

If you're part of an established group like Experion, you benefit to the extent the shared brand is known. As a member, you help spread the message. You then get the benefits by association. The other members do too.

The process is simple. Here are the three steps, starting with the easiest.

1. Share links to blog posts
2. Make comments on blog posts
3. Write blog posts (here's how)

1. Share Links To Blog Posts

These days, content circulates by "word of mouth", which means by circulating links.
If you share one link per week with 100 connections, you invite about 5,000 potential visits in a year. If 20 members share, that’s 100,000. If an average network has 200 people, that’s 200,000 potential visits. There’s also traffic from web searches.

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There are two easy ways to share a link.

A. Share Button

When you read an article online, you'll often see sharing buttons on the side, top or bottom of the article (this blog has them at the bottom). Facebook uses "Like", Google+ uses "+1" and Twitter uses "tweet". Click and you share with the network of your choice. Feel free to share with more than one network.

Note: the location and look of the buttons may change over time but the basic functionality remains

B. Actual Link

There is another way. Each web page has a address. By clicking on the address bar, you can copy the link and then paste it using your sharing tool. For instance, let's say you want to share via LinkedIn. Paste the link into a status update, type a brief description and send it out.

This screenshot shows the steps in LinkedIn.



Bonus: You can also post links in LinkedIn Groups or send them out via email or newsletter.

2. Make Comments On Blog Posts

At the bottom of each blog post, you'll see an option to leave a comment. Type in your thoughts and submit them. Commenting anonymously doesn't build your brand. Use your real name.

When you comment, you usually see future comments too. If you wrote the blog post and make a comment, you're notified when others leave messages. It's good form to participate.



Comments here use Disqus, which gives you credit for your comments on Harvard Business Review and other participating blogs. That context lets readers quickly see if you’re credible.



Exercise: As a experiment, leave a comment on this article.

Bonus: wait until your comment goes live before you circulate a link (step 1). Readers can then read what you said too.

3. Write Blog Posts

Sharing content shows that you're good at curating (a parrot). That's good but creating content is even better (a pundit). You then show your current expertise. Isn't that the reason clients hire you?

The process of writing may seem daunting but think of the benefits. Your words remain visible at no cost. Your article gets read and re-read. That’s better than advertising.

As blog traffic grows, you get read by visitors who arrived to read other articles. You're more likely to show up in web searches too. When you help a group blog, everyone benefits.

Momentum

Imagine if 20 members commit to writing one article per month. That’s one post per business day or about 240 in a year. That will bring ongoing traffic and credibility to Experion and you.

Can you spare 10 minutes a week?  That’s enough time to share one link (takes seconds) and make one comment (takes minutes).

Links

• How to start blogging
• Building trust with blogging
• Building trust before meeting in person
• Are you a parrot or a pundit?
• Brand you successful

Promod Sharma is your insurance literacy tutor. Learn about life and health protection online (wiki, blog, Twitter) or at a live event. At Taxevity, get a fee-only insurance review and help updating your coverage. You’ll find more details on the Experion website and LinkedIn.

PS Be sure to subscribe to receive new blog posts by email.

Reasons To Get A Mentor

by Cheryl Crumb

What makes successful people successful? Sure, they’re likely bright. They might have advanced education. Maybe they were even lucky. There’s another hugely important ingredient to add to the mix.

Think about it … what do the following successful people have in common: Sir Richard Branson, Alexander the Great, Oliver Stone, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and David Beckham?

They all had mentors … experienced people who thought, “You are worth my time and effort; I can offer you ways to expand your horizons and increase the likelihood that you will achieve success”.
The Chinese ancients had a proverb:

“A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books”.

Albeit politically incorrect and gender dismissive, this belief was echoed by Dr. Beverley Kay in her recent book “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go” when she said,

“Behind every successful person there is one elementary truth: somewhere, somehow, someone cared about their growth and development. This person was their mentor”.

Enlightened organizations are realizing the truth behind these statements and are orchestrating formal mentoring programs as part of their knowledge management and succession management strategies. Find a wise and experienced individual and team her/him up with an emerging leader.
 

Why A Mentor Matters

Why do you want to have a mentor? Look at this laundry list and select what appeals to you:

• Offer you experienced guidance and support
• Further your professional development
• Share the pros and cons of various career paths
• Offer new and different perspectives
• Be a sounding board to test your ideas and plans
• Expand your personal network
• Provide you constructive feedback on your developmental areas

Boiled down, a mentor’s role is to help you become a better observer of yourself and your blind spots. That let’s you take new actions you didn’t have the knowledge, perspective or courage to take previously.

From a more personal level, a mentor is there to:

• Be someone you can confide in during your darkest hours
• Help you to get back up when you crash
• Help you to accept changes or change what you can’t accept
• Rebalance yourself
• Find your motivation when it’s temporarily lost
• Help you to think outside your box
• Introduce you to contacts
• Step out of your comfort zone

 

Finding A Mentor

But what if your organization isn’t enlightened? What if you’re on your own with no company resources behind you? Take charge and find a mentor!

Keep your eye open for people you respect … people who have enjoyed the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” as ABC’s Wide World of Sports proclaimed decades ago. Since wisdom isn’t gained easily, learning includes spectacular failures! Be bold and ask an individual if they would be willing to be your mentor, that you would be honoured to learn from them.
 

Why Mentors Mentor

Why might mentors willingly invest themselves in you? Past mentors have told me

• mentoring renews their enthusiasm
• they enjoy the opportunity to share expertise
• mentoring enhances their skills in coaching
• mentoring allows them to practice a more personal style of leadership
• mentoring enhances their generational awareness.

 

How To Be A Mentee

Being a mentee isn’t about sitting at the feet of your mentor and waiting for her/him to pontificate brilliance. Instead, actively take ownership, identify your initial learning goals, use your initiative to drive mentoring sessions, be open and coachable, seek feedback, accept criticism graciously, and ask questions.

Contrary to popular belief, the most effective mentoring relationships are ones in which the mentee is relatively proactive and the mentor is relatively passive. In other words … you as mentee need to be in charge!
 

The Process

The mentoring process begins with definition: together, define your boundaries, set your ground rules, clarify your objectives. Share perceptions you think others have of you, and what you see as your strengths and weaknesses. Be honest with your mentor and yourself. The second stage is identifying your developmental needs and priorities. The third stage is action: ask for insights, discuss options, set a plan, practice, do it, debrief.

Remember, mentoring should lead to change. It was Darwin who said,

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”.

Mistakes are inevitable!
 

Get Started

Start by reflecting:

• What do you really want to be and do?
• What are you doing really well that is helping you get there?
• What are you not doing well that is preventing you from getting there?
• What are you willing to do differently tomorrow to meet those challenges?
• How can your mentor help?

Arrangements can be formal or informal. To formalize with your mentor, create a contract including your willingness to be coachable, the number of times you will connect monthly, how long your meetings will last, how you will deal with confidentiality, and how you will periodically assess the value to both of you.

Mentoring is a science and an art. And don’t despair if The Most Respected Individual You Know is 4,000 km away … phone mentoring can be very powerful!

Find a mentor. Be a mentor. Buy the T-shirt!

Links

• Why a private mentor matters (and how to get one for free) (Marketing Actuary, Oct 2012)
• Every woman should have a mentor at work (Business Insider, Dev 2012)
• Why you need a mentor (OPEN Forum, Jan 2012)
• Why you need a mentor (BusinessWeek, Feb 2007)
• 10 good reasons for having a mentor (CIO Update, Nov 2006)
• image courtesy of Studio CI Art

 
Cheryl Crumb helps you get customers for keeps. She is an ISO 9000 accredited trainer, coach, transition consultant and facilitator who designs training programs to fit specific corporate needs. You’ll find more details on her website, the Experion website and LinkedIn.

Structure Your Presentation

by Heather Stubbs

Structure! It benefits both presenter and listener. A clear framework keeps speakers on track and helps audiences follow and remember what is being said. Here’s a method for creating a structure that enables you to guide your audience on a journey from starting point to destination, and helps them stay with you along the way.
 

Premise

Your first priority when planning a presentation is to be clear in your own mind about your purpose. What’s the core idea you want your listeners to take away? Can you state it as a concise headline? The premise of a photographer’s talk might be, “Good composition creates great photos.” For a succession planner the core idea might be, “Advance planning avoids future headaches.” A presentation to a Board of Directors might have “Better customer service will increase profits” as the premise.

Strive to write your premise in eight words or less. If your talk were a house, your premise is the roof under which everything you say is gathered.
 

Opening

As I mentioned in my Tips on Talking article “A Strong Start”, don’t waste your precious opening moments on meaningless fillers like, “Tonight I’m here to talk to you about...” That kind of opening takes the audience’s initial intensity of interest and dials it down several notches.

The first few words of your talk are probably the only time you have the full attention of the entire audience. Take advantage of that attention and dive right in! One way is to open with your headline premise and expand on it in your next sentence or two. Take a look back at the opening paragraph of this article for an example.
 

Three Points

Chances are you know volumes more about your topic than you have time to convey in your presentation. There’s so much you want to tell them! It’s important not to try to “pack it all in.” Your audience won’t remember everything you say, anyway. They’ll probably remember one outstanding point, and perhaps a couple more.

Let’s say you’re planning your talk and you have a host of sticky notes all over the top of your desk, each one with an aspect you could talk about. Think in terms of support for the roof of your presentation house, your headline premise. Pick no more than three points for the walls holding up that roof. The more points you make, the less your audience will remember, so discipline yourself to three. Don’t be afraid to number your points as you talk through them. It helps your audience to follow you.

If they need to know more than three points, distribute a handout.
 

On Track And On Time

Building your presentation around a three point structure gives you a clear sense of direction and keeps your mind on track. If you find yourself getting off on a tangent, structure pulls you back into the right direction. If you’re concerned about forgetting which point comes next, use a 3 x 5 card with key words for each section of your talk. A quick glance will bring your thoughts into focus.

Structure also helps keep you on time. You know you have just so much time for each point, so plan it out. Be sure to allow time for your opener, your conclusion and Q&A. If audience questions threaten to derail your timing, knowing you have one or two points yet to cover allows you politely to move on by suggesting you chat with the questioner after the presentation.
 

Illustrate With Stories

Back up your points with two or three supporting points (no more). Bear in mind that dry data is boring and will instantly be forgotten, so incorporate the human element. The surest way to keep your audience engaged is to illustrate facts with stories. Use analogies to make numbers relevant. If you have data like “At this very moment, there are 600 million stray dogs in the world,” make that number real with “That’s nearly two dogs for every person in the United States.”
 

Conclusion

Conclude your talk by reminding the audience of your three points and then “close the circle” by restating your opening in a way that includes a call to action. Invite your listeners to take the next step.

For your next presentation, let a clear structure keep you moving efficiently from point to point and keep your audience in step with you all the way.

Links

• image courtesy of Gorilla

Heather Stubbs helps her clients discover their own potential as exciting speakers at Skilltime. She has been performing onstage since early childhood as a musician, singer and actress. Heather compiled the lessons learned and mastered over a lifetime into a training program called, “SPEAK UP! How to Talk So People Listen”. She offers workshops, keynote speeches and private coaching. You’ll find more on the Experion website, LinkedIn and Twitter.