Archive for the ‘Training and Development’ Category

Get Inspired for 2011

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

The year 2010 has come and gone, and what do you have to show for it? A renewed passion for your job? A workplace free of every dysfunction you can think of? How about a less-stressed, more relaxed, you?
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Who Else Wants to Get More Accomplished in Less Time?

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

People make “to-do” lists. That’s great. But try this tip that successful people do: They make “get-rid-of lists.”

Decide to get rid of the things that aren’t creating the best ROI for every minute of your time and every dollar you invest.

Things that could and should be on your list include: vendors that need to go, products that overstayed the party, employees who make you want to stop being an employer, mindsets you have that hold you back, mindsets your team members have that need to go, old systems that haven’t been challenged—you name it, anything that you wouldn’t want to start over should probably go.

New results don’t come with old methodologies, old thinking, or other clutter that keeps you stuck in yesteryear. Get out the shovel and clean house!

The Company You Keep

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

© Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime.com

Parents are full of advice for their kids. Some of it doesn’t hold up (my face did NOT stay that way, Dad), and some is golden.

A lot of the best advice we give our kids translates just as well into adult life. But too often we fail to apply it to ourselves, as if there’s something magic about the age eighteen that turns golden advice to straw. And that’s too bad.

One of the things I remember Mom drumming into my head is the importance of choosing my friends wisely. Nothing has a greater influence on the person you’ll become, she said. I’m sure I rolled my eyes at the time. But over the years, I’ve come to realize that it’s the single best piece of wisdom she ever gave me.

We’ve all had the experience of reflecting the people around us. If you are surrounded by grousers and whiners, you naturally feel yourself falling into a pattern of grousing and whining, partly because the grousing whiners will reward you for being like them. So how could you not?

On the other hand, when you surround yourself with people who are positive and optimistic and happy to be alive, you can’t help feeling the same.

I have several dear friends now who have that effect on me. When I’m around them, their smiles, their infectious laughs, and their ability to find the joy in life naturally puts me in the same frame of mind. I leave a restaurant or a party with these people and find myself smiling more, opening doors for others, letting people merge on the freeway. The effect is immediate and undeniable.

And it goes well beyond mood. If we want to achieve lasting changes in the way we approach our work and our lives, the very best thing we can do is surround ourselves with people who share those values. Want to be more punctual? Hang out with people who are punctual. Want to see the work you do in terms of service to others instead of a means to support yourself? You know what to do.

Most important of all, you want to choose friends and associates who share the deeper, more fundamental attitudes toward life. Choose to be around people who are enlightened learners, who choose wisdom, who take the high road, who have a heart of kindness, who decide to persevere. Surround yourself with people of strong character because they will hold you to a high standard. Just as the grousing whiners reinforce attitudes and behaviors that are like theirs, so will the decent and wise.

So sure, read all the books you can to improve who you are and how you approach life. But know that the greatest influence of all happens not between the covers of a book, but between people.

Chat with the Experts: Jack Canfield

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

Mark your calendar!  Next week on Wednesday, September 8, at 12:00 PM CT, we will be interviewing Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach and co-creator of the bestselling series Chicken Soup for the Soul®. During the interview we will be discussing his book The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. The Success Principles, co-authored with Janet Switzer, will teach you how to increase your confidence, tackle daily challenges, live with passion and purpose, and realize all your ambitions. Not merely a collection of good ideas, this book spells out the 64 timeless principles used by successful men and women throughout history. And the fundamentals are the same no matter what your profession or circumstances—even if you’re a student, stay-at-home mom or currently unemployed.

This is usually a private teleseminar for The Emmerich Group member clients — we offer these sessions and allow them to invite their prospects and their clients to help them develop business.

Based on the enormous response to our last teleseminars, I knew you would really value another chance to hear from a best-selling author.  So, I’m inviting a handful of non-member organizations again.

This is a great opportunity to bring your whole team together for a Lunch ‘n’ Learn or team learning opportunity.

Join us for the call on September 8, 2010 at 12:00 noon CT for one hour to discover:

  • How to get from where you are to where you want to be.
  • The biggest difference between people who are successful and those who aren’t.
  • How to change the outcome of any event, simply by changing your response to it.
  • Why you should drop out of the “Ain’t It Awful” Club and instead surround yourself with success, positive and nurturing people.
  • How to complete past projects, heal past relationships and process old hurts, so you can embrace the future.
  • How to ask for and get everything you want…from people who can give it to you.
  • How to deal with fear and uncertainty.

A teleseminar like this usually costs $500-1000 dollars or far more, depending on the size of your company. We are inviting you and your team for FREE as a special gift to prepare you for a better 2010—regardless of the economy.

Registration is easy! To sign up, go to www.ThankGoditsMonday.com/jack-canfield.

Space is filling up quickly so be sure to sign up right away!

Clear your schedule and register TODAY!

When the squeaky wheel deserves the grease—and when to just change the tire

Friday, July 2nd, 2010
© Peter Burnett | Dreamstime.com

© Peter Burnett | Dreamstime.com

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  Whenever my mother said that to me, it meant “Stand up for yourself!  Speak up!  Don’t let the world run you over!”

And as usual, she was right.

But there’s another kind of squeak that really shouldn’t get a bit of attention.  It still does, but it really shouldn’t.  It’s the squeak-squeak-squeak of excuses and complaints.

When someone tells you why they didn’t meet their goals, why they missed the meeting, why their productivity is down for the third decade running, THAT’S a squeak worth ignoring.  But too often we rush in with the grease, assuring the squeaker that it’s okay, that everybody has those decades, blah bah blah.  In the process, we enable the next squeak, and the next.  Worse than that, we’ve pretty much GUARANTEED it.  Hey, why stop squeaking if it brings all that yummy attention?

Yes, it’s true—everybody whines once in a while.  It’s part of being human.  But when someone is a serial whiner and a compulsive excuse-maker, it’s usually an indication that the person has not aligned his or her personal plan with the company’s interests and is busily boohooing about how uncomfortable that is.

If someone is a professional and doesn’t have a quarterly plan they’ve developed with specific numbered goals and deadlines for initiatives, all tied into the organization’s objectives, it’s time to get out the jack and change that tire.  Hard to hear but true. Companies don’t have time to babysit and spoon-feed during difficult times.

There’s another kind of squeak, though—one that deserves all the attention you can give it.  It doesn’t come after the fact (“I didn’t meet the deadline because…”) but BEFORE things go wrong.

Let’s call it “positive squeaking.”

Positive squeaking happens when a team member has her eye on the ball so well that she notices a project going off the rails BEFORE it’s too late—and squeaks her team, herself, even her boss back onto the rails in the interest of the objective.

Positive squeaking calls it tight, insists on deadlines, rejects excuses.  Positive squeaking doesn’t say, “It’s not my fault—I sent an email last week and never heard back.”  It picks up the phone.  It walks down the hall and knocks on office doors until it gets answers.  Heck, it camps out on doorsteps.  It won’t take silence for an answer.

Annoying?  Sure it is.  All squeaks are.  That’s why they get the grease. But a squeak that’s insisting on the objective and refusing to take excuses—well, that’s a squeak well worth greasing.