Articles

Differentiate yourself for success!

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Many leaders within big business are not recognized. Many won’t be until they stand up to be counted for promotions, great assignments and leadership opportunities. The reason why? Inside Fortune 500 companies there are only so many seats available at the executive table. If you want one, you have to grab it!

Here are six ways to differentiate yourself in a positive and powerful manner:

  1. Know thyself. Use a qualified assessment and review it with a business coach. Include a 360-degree feedback system so you know when you have gone off-track. The earlier you really learn about yourself the more success you will enjoy.
  2. Learn how to brag in a business savvy manner. Complete the five simple exercises in “It’s Time to Brag!” http://Time2Brag.com
  3. Work with and through others to get the job done. The lone ranger approach rarely works well in larger companies.
  4. Allow yourself the opportunity to work through mistakes and understand their growth potential. A valuable tool is, “5 Simple Steps to Improve your Results,” http://ow.ly/zoOvu
  5. Select an internal mentor to guide you through company politics.
  6. Hire a business coach to have a confidential source to talk with. A business coach gives you the freedom to not worry about exposing your fears or challenges inside the workplace. http://SeibCo.com/contact

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Fail Well for Success

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You’ve often heard the phrase, “Failure is not an option.” The truth is failure does happen and it does happen often. Particularly to people that who take risks, people that focus on expanding their opportunities, implementing bigger ideas, and following their own paths, not paths designed by others.

We’ve all done our best to avoid failure or minimize it – yet, it shows up over and over. Our inability or unwillingness to address these life lessons makes it harder for us to succeed. Every achievement has a story of what didn’t work behind it – unfortunately, media doesn’t often share those struggles and what was learned during the process.

As business leaders, it’s important to learn how to handle mistakes and learn from them. Trying to cover them up, deny they happened, blame others, or allow our confidence to wane are not good choices. There’s no magical way to deal with or get past failure. Each person needs to work through their challenges one day at a time.

Why do failures hang around? There are failures that simply happen (e.g., the economy) and failures we could have prevented (e.g., implementing quality control procedures). We’ve created stories to minimize their impact or excuses to justify why they happened. Emotionally we hang onto the sadness, guilt and negativity, while failing to forgive ourselves and forgive others. Often, we continue to indulge in bad habits or stay in situations that are not healthy. The key is to recognize a potential problem and resolve it proactively.

How can we learn from failure faster? Hire a trusted advisor who can help you clarify what worked and what didn’t work. Take time to acknowledge that things didn’t work out as expected. Many times the actual outcome does not match up with our perceptions of “what should have happened.”

How do we fail well for success?

  • Write down your thoughts and feelings when the incident(s) happens. Don’t share your private journal with anyone. The act of writing can be cathartic when you simply express your thoughts on paper without concerns for grammar, punctuation, and word choices.
  • Walk it out. It’s hard to be depressed when you’re in action.
  • Talk it out with a few select confidants – don’t go it alone. Be clear these conversations are not designed as pity sessions. Their purpose is to help you develop compassion and wisdom from your lesson(s) learned.Remember, there will be more opportunities to fail and succeed – life gives you lemons or lemonade – it’s your choice to work through the challenges or succumb when mistakes happen! The key is to fail well so that you’re not repeating the same life lessons.

 

Jeannette Seibly has been a business advisor and facilitator for over 20 years; she guides the creation of new solutions for business challenges. Learn more about these and other successful leadership techniques by visiting her blogs posts on: http://SeibCo.com and get your copy of, “5 Simple Steps to Improve Your Results (and Enjoy Being a Leader Again)” http://ow.ly/ysgYQ

Avoid getting fired.

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Almost 40 percent of executives today find themselves fired from or sidelined in their new jobs within six to eighteen months! Why? They have failed to acclimate to the company, build relationships, and have unknowingly stomped on sacred cows.

What needs to happen?

  • First, get to know your new coworkers and build relationships. If your boss mandates certain changes, make them happen in a manner that doesn’t get you fired. For example, if the boss requires certain people be removed from the organization, request this be completed prior to your first day on the job.
  • Second, be truly clear of expectations. Both C-suite executives and the applicants they interview lie during the interview process! It happens for many reasons; some stretch the truth knowingly and others falsely believe their own rhetoric. Learn how to probe into what is said—don’t be afraid to play the devil’s advocate to assess the truth. Then, talk with your networks, both internal and external, and use a litmus test to determine the veracity, cost and likelihood of succeeding.
  • Third, if you have made a mistake, hire a coach and be coachable! Urgency is the key. Many times executives become lone rangers who are demanding and control others because of their fear of failure and loss of faith in their own abilities. With the right coach, these perceptions can be turned around. If you are coachable, i.e., willing to change your old ways of doing things, you can succeed at interacting with others and working with your boss. You won’t keep your job on your own! (Read more on this topic is my eGuide “Companies and Executives Need to Vet and Onboard Each Other!” http://ow.ly/sEcSN)

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2014

Are you listening to the criticism?

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It always feels good to get compliments, have others think highly of your interactions with clients, or be lauded for the goals you’ve accomplished. In fact, most of us expect to hear that everything is great and wonderful—even when it’s not.  Unfortunately, unadulterated praise rarely provides you with the inside information you need to advance in your career. Every success has its learning opportunities, such as overcoming poor communication habits, correcting ineffective project management skills, adjusting biased attitudes towards others, and becoming more resourceful.

Climbing the corporate ladder requires being open to hearing what you don’t want to hear from co-workers, bosses, and clients. It’s important to learn from your mistakes and learn how to manage perceptions by seeing yourself from others’ point of view. Instead of thinking people are being super critical or are unaware of what you had to do to achieve results.  Failure to welcome the truth can stymie your upward mobility.

The truth is you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge! 

Successful leaders listen instead of defending themselves. They seek out constructive criticism and learn from others’ perspectives about what is working and what needs to be improved. In addition, they rely on the expertise of an executive coach, a trusted advisor who can help them develop their natural strengths and overcome their inherent weaknesses. http://SeibCo.com

When we listen to criticism, we can hear the gold. When we respond appropriately, we improve our leadership.

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2014

Is our hiring process reactive?

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Today many recruiters and hiring managers simply react when someone quits, retires, or gets fired. We post an ad, interview, and hope we’ve hired the right person.  Usually, hiring mistakes result when we focus too much on the person who left and let our biases lead us astray. We tend to look for someone who is similar or dissimilar to the person we’re replacing, and we fail to base our decisions on objective data.

To make matter worse, as creatures of habit we rely on the same old processes. They’re easy to fall back on when we don’t take the time to strategically assess where we are today and what we need to do to be successful tomorrow.

To become proactive, we need to infuse objectivity into the selection process upfront, before the interview process begins. The better-quality information we obtain from qualified tools, the better our hiring decisions.  Such objectivity requires a new mindset, a mindfulness of what we are doing and why.  For more on this subject, see my article Easily Infuse Objectivity Early in Your Hiring System. (http://wp.me/p2POui-nj)

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2014

Want to achieve your 2014 goals? It requires commitment.

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Setting goals for the new year can be exciting—it’s a time for creating new opportunities. For many, it’s also the time to put aside failed results from last year’s goals. But in about thirty days, our 2014 goals will lack their initial luster too, and we will struggle to stay in focused action.  Why is it so hard to stay on track? Various internal and external business factors may be the culprit. But it’s more likely that we have simply failed to develop the muscles and mindsets to manage the design, planning, implementation, and fine-tuning required of any project.

Follow-through isn’t just a problem for individuals. Organizations struggle with it too. Although many companies create annual goals, few effectively manage the process required to achieve them. It’s a challenge that many business professionals face every year with their employers, or as business owners themselves.

Here are some suggestions that can help you stay focused and continue to chip away at your goals until they’re met:

Be Realistic. Hire a business advisor who can help you blast through your reticence when you get stuck or want to make things too hard. An advisor can also help you create realistic goals and focused action plans, offer tactics and strategies for reaching them, and help you see your progress.  An advisor will encourage you to talk with your co-workers, clients, and boss to share your goals and plans. Be open to others’ insights and recommendations.  They will help you streamline your efforts and avoid lots of effort with little payoff.

Divide Work into Small Chunks. Set up quarterly goals. The immediacy of short-term goals can make all the difference in getting and staying in focused action.  Many people plan for the entire year, but a year can be a long time, and a lot can happen in 12 months to take us off track. Shorter-term goals will also help alleviate detractors, commonly known as the “shiny objects syndrome.”

Celebrate Progress. Too often we focus on what isn’t working and fail to see what we have achieved. Take time daily to recognize your accomplishments and use those successes as motivation to achieve your larger goal.  Appreciate when you have taken responsibility for honoring your commitments to yourself and your company, no matter how small of a step it appears to be to you. It’s one step closer.   Get your copy of 5 Simply Steps to Improve Your Results: https://seibco.com/books/eguides/5-simple-steps-to-improve-your-results/

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2014

When company changes so do you

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The right attitude and action is required during company mergers and sales.

Changes in company business structures can quickly eliminate the need for your job, or you! They may reduce your job responsibilities so that you are no longer part of the core team—most employers don’t need two people doing the same job. If your position is eliminated, the key is to be available and open to sharing your knowledge and experience. Be helpful and provide the training required to the person who will take over your responsibilities. Why? Your positive attitude can change the company’s plans to eliminate you! It may alternatively motivate your boss to provide a glowing reference to your next employer or a valued introduction to your next boss. Have your brag statements ready to share in any interview, formal or otherwise, to let others know how you can be an invaluable resource. (http://TimeToBrag.com)

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Laser coaching requires you to stop managing

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Effective bosses know that everybody has their own learning style. Instead of telling your employees how to get the job done, provide assistance that is focused on a quality process and an intentional end result. As a manager, take time to listen, ask the right questions, and use qualified assessments to become a laser-focused coach with the ability to guide your team and provide the necessary adjustments. Encourage your employees to interact with one another, other teams, and their clients to develop new processes and systems to achieve the required end results:  satisfied customers and a positive return on investment. (http://SeibCo.com/assessments)

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

CEOs achieve their goals easier

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Hiring a coach is a wonderful gift to give to your executives, even when they don’t believe in the value a qualified coach can provide them! It’s a gift that keeps on giving! Hiring an outside business advisor or executive coach can help you achieve your goals easier and with less effort while improving results. Remember, most executive management team members are focused on driving the enterprise’s financial and strategic performance. They are not coaches and don’t have the interest or expertise to be one.

If you are the recipient of the gift of coaching, learn how to be coachable and be open to hearing what you don’t know or new ways to be successful in this ever-changing global market. If a coach is mandated because of your poor performance, ineffective people skills, or failure to achieve intended results, listen carefully and take action faithfully—otherwise, the next step may be termination. (http://SeibCo.com/contact)

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Hiring biases cost you money.

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Today, many recruiters are complaining about not finding qualified candidates. Yet candidates with the credentials and required experience never hear back after applying for opportunities. Or, if they are interviewed, they’re told they are overqualified, don’t have a particular skill set, or don’t have the right pedigree (e.g., industry experience, professional titles, salary history, etc.).

Age does matter. Although the EEO and other agencies frown upon age discrimination, we all know it happens all too often. Recruiters are simply following edicts from their bosses to find someone younger and cheaper. They don’t know how to “sell” a qualified candidate to these bosses. Bosses and recruiters don’t believe they have the time to strategically assess what is truly needed and are unwilling to think outside the box to find the gold. Statistically, younger employees are more job-mobile and will leave a position when more qualified ones will not. More-experienced employees have been through the instability every company experiences and have learned to roll up their sleeves and wait it out.

Here’s a newsflash: Amateurs don’t save companies money! A well-qualified professional who fits the job, regardless of age, can normally do it faster, more thoroughly, and with better quality than someone without experience. The failure by hiring managers to objectively assess for job fit by using qualified assessments can hinder your company’s ability to select the right employees. The truth is poor job fit will create short-term employees or employees who simply do enough to get by and keep their paychecks but no more. It’s a costly status quo with a limited return on investment, because it keeps your company focus in a reactive mode, not on proactive growth.

Filter and invest. Infuse objective data into the process upfront, before the interview, because quality information will make for better decisions. Interviews are inherently biased and can filter out well-qualified candidates because of bias factors (e.g., age, weight, tattoos, gray hair, bald, etc.). Example: If you’re looking for a trainer and have candidates who have done training, talk with them. Use a qualified assessment to determine if they have an interest in presenting the subject matter required. What training and skill development will they need over time? Will they be comfortable in small or large groups? Can they write training content or do they rely on off-the-shelf programs? What will be the best return on investment for the company in the long run? What other skills are currently missing in the company that they can provide?

Remember, using qualified assessments can make a huge difference in vetting the right people, regardless of experience. Hiring qualified people, regardless of age and other biases, and investing in them builds a stronger company faster.

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013