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Listening Skills

8 ideas to increase your ability to listen:

1. Maintain steady eye contact with the speaker.
2. Sit or stand tall.
3. Give the speaker encouraging cues like: “I see” “Tell me more” “That’s interesting”
4. Remove physical barriers. Stand or sit near the speaker.  Turn off your cell phone or pager.  Relocate to a quieter setting if necessary.
5. Paraphrase to demonstrate effective listening. “If I understand you correctly…. “ then allow the speaker to confirm your understanding or offer clarification.
6. Demonstrate empathy
7. Keep an open mind.  You can’t learn less; the opportunity for more is always present.
8. Listen for intent as well as content.   Explore beyond the words spoken by probing for the real meaning.

Strategies For Personal Success

Success means being able to answer “YES” to the following two questions:

• Are you happy with the way you spend your time?
• Are you happy with your relationships?

Six ideas to increase your personal success include:

1. Take responsibility for whatever you are doing; however you are behaving, responding or thinking.  Get out of the reactive mode and into the pro-active mode.  You can always make choices.

2. Develop your confidence by building your self-esteem; as a result, you will increase your productivity.  Tell yourself “five things that are good about you” at least three times every day.

3. Identify attainable and relevant goals.  List the activities necessary to accomplish the goals and complete the activities.  Every accomplishment counts.

4. Communicate with power; assume the body language and the voice of a winner.  Look and sound the part.

5. Build your listening skills.  No one has ever said, “I can’t stand how that person always listens to me.”

6. How you think determines how you act; think positively.  Don’t be so busy “awfulizing” that you miss the best parts of life.  You can be as happy as you make up your mind to be.

Time Management

There is no such thing as time management.  We need to practice the difficult habit of self-discipline during the time we have.

Six ideas to increase success include:

1. Assign all of your “To Do’s” to a specific day in a planner.

2. Identify short and long term goals.

3. Identify activities to accomplish your goals and schedule them in your planner.

4. Start each day working on activities that have to be completed on that day.  Finish all of these tasks before you move on to other tasks.

5. Make sure that every task assigned to you has a specific deadline… either assigned to you or self-imposed.  “As soon as possible” has no clear meaning.

6. Organize tasks that do not have to be completed today by the date they need to be started.

Managing Others

Getting work done through others requires specialized skill and effort.

Eight ideas to increase your success with managing others include:

1. Try to create complete jobs where there is a sense of ownership from start to finish.

2. Give background information and strategic direction whenever you assign tasks.

3. Sell change; demanding it can lead to sabotage.  The approach to take is always to outline benefits to the individual.

4. Allow people to find their own solutions by posing effective questions.

5. Provide positive feedback own its own… not as an introduction to what needs to be done in the future.

6. Focus on facts, not on judgments.  Be specific; avoid any generalizations.

7. Be willing to change your thinking.

8. Remember people work better in a climate where fun is encouraged.

Developing Your Leadership Skills

Your leadership ability could be your greatest asset.

Seven ideas to increase your success with leading others include:

1. Be a work in progress.  Those who think they have arrived have the furthest to go… continue to learn.

2. Listen and look for opportunities to grow as a person and as a leader.

3. Work hard at understanding others intentions, feelings and ideas.

4. Be authentic.  Sincerity is intuited.

5. Follow through with any promises or commitments.

6. Recognize others’ contributions; celebrate achievements; acknowledge effort.

7. Provide positive and negative feedback separately otherwise the positive feedback may only be perceived as “the warm up”.

Increasing Your Productivity

To improve your value, increase your productivity.  The following questions will often help you identify where you should be focusing your effort.

Seven ideas to increase your success with increasing your productivity include:

1. Ask yourself what really needs to be done and then do it.

2. Ask yourself what does your organization really need and then recommend it and/or implement it.

3. Work with action plans.  Know what you want to accomplish each day/week/month.

4. Consider what decisions you need to make and them make them.

5. Consider who you need to contact and then do it.

6. Identify which meetings you need to attend and which you can skip.

7. Identify those who need to be on your team and enlist them.

Building Your Patience

The ability to give a process time is not always naturally inherited.  Waiting for outcomes can be unduly stressful for us as we journey with the ever-increasing speed of modern life.

Eleven ideas to increase your success with building your patience include:

1. Recognize that an attempt may not be entirely successful but it will always provide a learning opportunity.
2. Use waiting situations as conscious opportunities to cultivate your patience… i.e. waiting in line or in traffic.
3. Guard against acting on impulse.  Practice taking more time even when you know you don’t need it.
4. Take at least one minute to gain perspective and consider the big picture.
5. Deal with what is real as opposed to what “could happen”.
6. Avoid picking up the bad habits of impatient people who surround you.
7. Ask yourself… is impatience in your best interest right now?
8. Remind yourself of the importance of respect and tolerance.
9. Use positive visualization.  Picture yourself acting and re-acting with patience.
10. Use positive self-talk.  “I’m working on increasing my patience.
11. Place notes reminding you to be patient all around you.

Networking (Part II)

Learning to mingle and to follow-up with business contacts could be the best thing you can do to promote yourself, your service or your product. 

Nine additional ideas to increase your success with networking include:

1. When meeting someone, repeat their name to help you remember it.
2. Ask questions about what they do; the challenges they face; the changes they are experiencing.
3. Be a great listener.  Listen more than you speak.
4. Spend no more than 5-6 minutes talking with any one person at a networking event.
5. Exchange cards.  Ask for their card if they don’t offer it.
6. Set up a system to manage the details of the people you meet.
7. Follow up within 24 hours of the event.  Call or write.  Try to refer to your conversation and mention something they said.   Arrange a meeting or lunch if they have serious potential.
8. Send them an article about an interest they expressed.
9. Try to build a relationship; recognize that the process takes time and will require multiple contacts as you attempt to build trust.

Networking   (Part I)

Learning to mingle and to follow-up with business contacts could be the best thing you can do to promote yourself, your service or your product.

Eight ideas to increase your success with networking include:

1. Identify the type of person you want to meet; i.e. the purchasing officer.
2. Identify where you would likely encounter them; i.e. what associations would they belong to?  What conferences meetings or trade shows would they attend?
3. Create an objective around how many of these types of encounters you will need to attend in a week, month or year.
4. Review the list of attendees before an encounter so you can search for the people you want to talk to.
5. Be prepared with business cards, a pen, a notebook and a smile.
6. Arrive early so you can start networking when the group is small and less intimidating.
7. Approach people who are standing by themselves.
8. Shake hands.   Introduce yourself in 30 seconds or less. Describe the service you provide to your clients in one or two sentences.

Continuous Improvement

We need to value and find ways to implement the art of continuous improvement.

Eight questions to ask yourself after completing an assignment or project include:

1. What can I learn from this experience?

2. What technology would assist me in the future?

3. How do I need to alter future time lines?

4. What budget considerations should I make in the future?

5. What lessons can I learn from internal or external suppliers or customers?

6. What could I do differently next time?

7. What recommendations would my superior make?

8. What strategy could assist me in the future?