Beware the snake oil salesman

February 17, 2009 by janet · Leave a Comment 

I suppose it had to happen, but I still sorry that it did.  Today in a strategiesmeeting with a potential service provider, I was warned to ‘batten down the hatches’.  He waived a book about ‘The Next Depression’ in my face (hot off the presses) and told me about a program of work he has designed to meet the needs of companies like mine and my customers’ who will surely save and benefit from outsourcing services to him.

I wish him luck, but I don’t agree with his approach and thankfully neither do many Australians, as far as I can see.  My day started at a business breakfast where small business owners reported specific examples of both negative and positive impacts of the economy on their businesses.  My next meeting was with a small business owner who had shed a few staff, but reported a greater clarity of his business’ value and purpose as a result.  And, while riding the train, I enjoyed reading the following summary in MIS Australia from the Harvard Management Update – They are the common pitfalls a business should avoid…

Pitfall 1:  Delaying decisions that will improve long-term health

Pitfall 2:  Assuming the way to gear back up is always cautious and incremental

Pitfall 3:  Trying to bulletproof the company by moving into recession resistant businesses

Pitfall 4:  Focusing on broadening your customer base (instead of cherishing the customers you have)

Pitfall 5:  Assuming that a recovery is based on what leaders do, not what they think

‘ “Attutude matters,” economist Wesbury says.  If business leaders don’t expect the recovery to be strong, then “their fears could become self-fulfilling”.  Full story here:  http://tinyurl.com/dyjqa7

I am not suggesting that you take your current business struggles lightly or ignore them while sitting in the corner applying the power of positive thinking.  But, what I am suggesting is this…what we focus on grows.  Perhaps we could all take a lesson from the Twitter community who have started flagging #goodnews items about the economy.   So try this for a resolution…instead of starting your next conversation around fear, try focussing on opportunity.  Which one would you rather talk about over a coffee anyway?

 

Filed under: Business
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Focus on your goals

February 3, 2009 by janet · Leave a Comment 

executive, employee and business coachingIt’s early February and you might be asking yourself  ‘does all of this goal setting and resolution stuff really make a difference?’  The research says it does.  Locke (1996) found (among other things) that goals stimulate planning.*  That might not sound very exciting until you think about the impact.

Setting goals directs our attention to something  in a positive way, as if to shine some light on it and say ‘I would like this to be different’. Our attention, awareness and actions are directed there – where the light is shining. 

I had a chance to see this in action last week.  I was invited back to a company to repeat some skills training for their sales team.  Before we started this training,  I worked with the team members for about an hour to clarify their personal goals around selling – not about what they wanted to get from the training, but what they wanted to achieve in their selling in the next 6 months.  For the rest of the day, I conducted the training.

Guess what?  The students reported that the content was significantly more valuable to them than it had been the first time around.  Guess what else?  The content was the same.  The difference was them.   Setting goals before the training had made the content more valuable to them. 

I love it when something is both simple and powerful.  How might that apply to your own work and life experiences?  Could those experiences improve by linking them to one of your own goals or resolutions?  Why not give it a try?

*Locke, E.A. (1996).  Motivation through conscious goal setting.  Applied & Preventitive Psychology, 5(2).  117-124.

Filed under: Change, Personal Development
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