Good advice from a banker

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Attitude and self-assurance dictates the risk we are willing to take to act on our ideas for business development and has so much to do with success in business and relationships.

I liked the message I read in this article http://tinyurl.com/cqlhvf from Jean-René Houde, the CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada from an address he made to entrepreneurs.

I know that the biggest ingredient of success for entrepreneurs is a combination of self-confidence, self-esteem and the ability to influence people to listen to you and act on your ideas.

At the core of this is an understanding of yourself and others because how can you be effective with people if you don’t understand them?

The key element that holds each one of us back from fully using our natural qualities and strengths is fear. When we can identify what drives fear in us and what negative tendencies it causes, we can find ways to resolve those causes and free ourselves to realize our goals.

In an economic crisis our fears become even more heightened and we need to really build our inner resources to protect ourselves from becoming stuck with inaction, which can only worsen things.

On the bright size retail sales in Canada were up in January by 1.9% http://tinyurl.com/dzzv82. I observed this first hand when I went shopping for a gift at the mall on Monday at lunch time and could not believe the shopping activity there.

So think big, positive and take action.

Stephen

Types of people and neuroscience

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This week I delivered a tele-seminar on types of people and explained each type of person according to the system of typology as developed by Fritz Glaus in his book CrazyZoo, know-thyself made easy.

I introduced the three intelligences and the six classic types of people and explained the main motivation, qualities, fears and tendencies of each type.

I also gave examples of how these qualities and tendencies affected a person’s leadership style and they way they worked in a team.

Here is the audio recording of the seminar.

Does your leadership style motivate people for high performance?

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Motivate Teams to Achieve and Perform

The key for creating a high performance organization that produces outstanding results is people. Even in a poor economic climate like we are witnessing now, we can still have high performance in our organizations. In fact we must always strive for this and it needs to be a habit of thinking that we can always improve and do better.

The benefits of striving for a high performance organization is, ORGANIZATIONAL LEANNESS, TEAM AUTONOMY, SPIRIT OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE INTIATIVE AND OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.

This translates into a better work climate, increased employee retention, reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, lower stress and increased profits.

Just the other day a friend dropped by the office and expressed discontent with the organization for which he was working. He said the problem was poor leadership right from the top. Managers do not inspire people and have them participate in decisions. He compared this with a previous employer where he considered the president a great leader. That president knew people by name, was accessible to people and showed charisma.

The style of leadership we use has a tremendous impact on the people we manage and lead, more so than we can imagine. Leaders often do things without thinking about the impact it has on the motivation of employees to fully engage their talents for the betterment of the company.

Leaders need to understand the best style of leadership to use with each person to create a high performance organization. Any type of leader can learn this and put it into action.

I have been working with several companies to help leaders create a high performance organization. The process begins with leadership development. One such company is Prisma Pressure Sensitive Products. General Manager Falk Kyser said that working with me through our Leadership Styles and Team Development program has helped him better understand people and how to use their talents strategically. I have I created a video featuring Falk and manager Dru Davis speaking about the impact improved leadership is having on their organization. You can view the video in a previous post here.

Here are three tips about the best leadership style to use to motivate others to give their best and collaborate with you.

  1. Use the appropriate style of leadership for the situation and person. The style of leadership to use is dependent on several factors; time, urgency, commitment of those involved and the type of person you are working with. You must understand how and when to use each style so you gain peoples’ commitment to action.
  2. Establish unwavering trust with your direct reports. There are a several key things you need to be aware of in your behaviour that either builds or lowers. When trust is low, they will probably resist doing what you want and may lack initiative to improve things.
  3. Know each person well that you work with directly and what motivates them and why they tend to behave the way they do. A simple process is needed to make this easy and effective.

A client specialized in a specific medical practice called me last week and said that after going through the Leadership Styles and Team Development training program with their team, productivity is up 20% over the previous year and the staff are now meeting and making decisions on their own on how to keep things organized and effective.

These are the kind of results we need in our organizations if we are to tackle the huge problems and threats that many of us are facing today. Continuous investment in the talents and abilities of people that we work with enables our organizations to find new creative ways to solve old problems that keep re-surfacing with a new way.

 

Stephen Goldberg