The Benefit Of Coaching

Coaching has become a fad that many leaders and managers still do not fully understand. Yet, when practiced with skill it can have a huge and positive effect on the performance of people in organizations.

By Ian Henderson

Most high performance teams and companies use the principle of coaching. Yet, even today the skills and practice of coaching are much misunderstood by many people.

Put in its simplest form, it is an exercise in collaborative interaction, involving the building of trust, the use of empowering (solution focused) questions, empathic listening and the honest and open sharing of views.

If practiced effectively, it will not only to generate new options for tackling problems but also to reinforce what is working well.

But, coaching should not be seen as a quick fix solution to problems. It takes time but it is a key ingredient of change in culture. Many organizations, particularly those who are owned and led by entrepreneurial people - often with a very direct, telling style - spend much of their time dealing with problems and not learning. This in turn limits the time and energy the leader has to address the key behavioural and performance issues that will ultimately determine the future of the company.

By adopting a coaching style to empower and develop staff, leaders find that not only are staff prepared to take more responsibility, but they will work together more effectively, be more satisfied in their work and more likely to stay with the organisation in the long term.

Coaching may be delivered by leaders or managers within a company or by external consultants. External coaches may be more appropriate at very senior level to address business and strategic problems, or to train internal coaches but most organisations will not perform at their best without coaching.

For most organizations the traditional command and control style of management is a route to organizational suicide in the current climate of rapid change in both technology and attitudes to work when the need to secure the discretionary effort of people has never been greater.

To coach effectively, you need to:

- build and maintain rapport with the person being coached

- be present and focused solely on the person being coached and the process (not easy but imperative)

- be curious rather than judgmental

- ask questions that focus on the solution rather than the problem

- listen to the answers given (often for what is not said)

- be observant

- give effective feedback

The coaching approach encourages continuous learning, stimulates creativity and builds a climate of trust and respect for the individual. Investment in coaching is enlightened self interest as a culture where individuals feel genuinely empowered and accept ownership and responsibility for their own performance can encourage the delivery of superior performance and results.

Ian Henderson is a highly experienced facilitator, trainer, consultant and speaker. In a 20 year career he has worked with thousands of people from a wide range of organisations in the UK, the USA, Europe and Africa. He is the director of training of Eagle Training Ltd, one of the UK's leadingmanagement, leadership and personal development training companies. For more information go to http://www.eagletraining.co.uk

Branding, Publicity and Marketing Success Secrets

Discover the secrets to career and business success using publicity outreach for branding and marketing. Find out how to showcase your credentials, experience, wisdom and expertise using publicity success principles and strategy.

By Annie Jennings

Is there a secret to success? Is there more than one? Yes! Let’s find out what successful people, consultants and business pros believe and do that helps them achieve their optimal potential. What is it that they have in common, whether it’s in their beliefs or in their actions that makes them successful?

First of all they use resources available to them including publicity, self-promotion, branding and marketing to create their outstanding advantage in the marketplace. The rest comes naturally. The major opportunities go to the ones who are visible, making a difference, seen and heard by their target market.

Successful people know that they have to take responsibility and follow it up by taking action. You set you own limits.  You are defined by the intensity of your commitment and the depths of your knowledge. In other words, commitment without knowledge can equal frustration and limit your potential. The idea is to add the right knowledge to your ambition so you can climb the ladder for yourself.

Those who make it big believe certain things and do certain things to back up their beliefs. They are ready to invest in themselves. They believe that they are they best investment. Successful people create a business model that meets the demands of their target market. Successful people are ready for action, they are committed and they are willing to go for it with gusto.

Showcase your knowledge. Showcase your talent using media outreach. Your clients will love seeing you out there in the media sharing what you know and commenting on the issues. They enjoy hiring a tried and true professional who understands how to deliver the specific outcome. By doing publicity, marketing and promotion, you let your clients get an idea of your knowledge, wisdom and experience. You client will want to hire you. Clients want certainty. They want to hire the best. In the end, your clients want to buy outcomes and are happy to pay for your services if you are able to define the return on investment and clearly state how your services can help your clients.

Content is critical when showcasing yourself and your knowledge. The media is your opportunity to shine.  Do an outstanding job, pack your commentary with valuable content and share your wisdom and experience in all of your marketing materials including your email newsletters. Be sure your website helps you educate your visitors and your clients.

Success is in your own hands. Taking responsibility for both the successes and failures empowers you to make the changes necessary to turn the situation around or to expand on your success.  If you feel powerless in both the good and the bad, you will get stuck in your thinking and in your progress.

Have a terrific attitude. Commit to proven publicity, branding and marketing strategies. Do not fight success the whole way. Be optimistic. Success will come easily to you and it will seem as if everything you do has a terrific outcome. Have confidence in yourself. Go with your gut, your intuition and your instincts when making choices. Be high energy. Be ready for success & take action. P.S. Don’t stop until you get enough success!

Access tremendous publicity resources for both your career and your business at Annie Jennings PR. Free publicity, branding and business marketing special reports are available as well as free MP3 audio recordings to empower your corporate communications strategy. Contact Annie Jennings PR at 908-281-6201

Do you Play Positive Politics?

Have you have heard the expression positive politics? Yes, politics in the work environment can be positive!

By Marsha Egan

How many of you have heard the expression positive politics? This is the opposite negative politics and I believe you can see a shift in political positioning and behavior as your move to the higher levels in just about any organization.

As you go up the corporate ladder, or any organizational structural ladder, you’re going to find that the people who are higher to the top are rarely engaged in what I consider to be negative politicking. Negative politicking is where the overt “back stabbing” occurs. That’s where people drop hints about peoples’ shortcomings or mistakes. That’s where people corner others in meetings, without warning. People who are inexperienced in organizational dynamics have not yet learned the risk of tattle tailing, or talking someone down. They mistakenly believe that by knocking their competition down, they will rise. Oh, how untrue.

The people who rise have learned the skill of positive promotion. In other words, they don’t find things wrong with people any more. That’s what the people at the lower levels of the organizations do. Instead, they work at collaboration and doing positive things for others who are deserving.

What I’m talking about is positive politicking. You can recognize it when you see it. As an example, in a group a people who are working together, a valuable project comes available. And all of a sudden, one of those people is given the project by another person that they’ve worked with. This visible project is not only a reward for excellent prior work, it can be the result of collaborative relationships built with the leader of the group.

This is a reality in organizational America, whether it’s corporate or not. What we want to get ourselves in position to do is to award that kind of positive visibility to other people, and we will ultimately be a beneficiary of it as well.

We want to position ourselves to make positive opportunities available to people within our organizations. We want to do this regularly. We want to hand things off instead of keeping it selfishly for ourselves. These kinds things come back tenfold for people who do it.

This strategy is not only project based, it can be as simple as complimenting a job well done to senior executives. Sincere, unselfish and altruistic behaviors are noticed, and most times rewarded.

We rarely forget the time we were uncomfortably cornered and embarrassed in an organizational setting. It breeds a long term reluctance to help that person. The converse is true. I’m sure every one of you can think about a time when somebody did something positive for you and your career and how appreciative you were. And since that time, if that person asks you to do just about anything, you’ll do it for them. Well, this is the way positive politicking works. And this is how we can create our own luck within our organizational structures.

So, out with negative politicking, we don’t want to rat out people for things that they’ve done wrong. That behavior actually makes the “rat” look even worse than “victim.” That behavior happens with the people at the lower end of their organizations.

What we want to do is do positive things for other people. And this is the way that we can further the aims of the organization, and find some luck in it for ourselves. Because, most good deeds are returned.

Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC is CEO of The Egan Group, Inc., a Reading, PA based professional coaching firm. She is a certified executive coach and professional speaker, specializing in leadership development and can be reached at marsha@marshaegan.com or visit http://www.marshaegan.com .

The Secret To Motivation: Recognition!

Recognition and appreciation are not "once and done" events. Learn tips to create a recognition culture both at work and at home. You'll be surprised at the positive results!

By Marsha Egan

If you’d like to have energized and motivated employees or members, people who love what they are doing, and a thriving organization, then ask yourself how much of a recognition culture you have in your organization.

Recognition and appreciation are not “once and done” events. To build a recognition culture in your organization, you need to do it regularly and often. And not only you. If you have a recognition culture in your organization, people at all levels of the organization regularly thank and appreciate others for notable deeds.

And the difference between culture and procedure is huge. It is a procedure to have a performance bonus program; it is a culture to have people regularly high fiving each other, sending emails, and appreciating people publicly in meetings over even the smallest accomplishments.

Most people in business or volunteer organizations agree that they would benefit from a recognition culture. Recognition is one of the easiest, least expensive ways to motivate and energize volunteers and employees. Actually, it is mostly free! Why then, can so few boast this attribute? It might be because showing recognition is an “important but not urgent” action—the crises of the day can get in the way of someone taking a moment to appreciate an accomplishment. It might be because the people in charge believe that their employees are well paid, and that is all the motivation they need. It might be just because they forget.

I like to challenge my executive coaching clients to make recognition a habit. The more you do it, the more comfortable you will feel doing it. And the more recognition you infuse into the organization, the more positive motivation and energy you can generate within the organization. It ultimately circles back, and can actually energize YOU!

Here are some ideas you can use:

- Set a brief time each day to reflect on who accomplished a noteworthy deed. By doing this, you can “force yourself” to get in the habit of recognizing people. I like to do this at the end of my day.

- Send an email or leave a handwritten note for the person who deserves the “attagal” or “attaguy.” - Start your meetings with sincere appreciation for even the smallest accomplishments.

- Compliment people mentioning specific results in front of others.

- Publish a “hats off” column in your newsletter; encourage everyone in the organization to contribute

- Tell a person’s boss what a great job he or she did. Compliment your superior for a task well done. - Celebrate the completion of big projects.

Oh, and this works at home, too. When was the last time you thanked or appreciated your spouse or children for doing a difficult task?

If you remind yourself regularly to actively appreciate the behavior you want to see repeated, you’ll change your habits and embrace recognition and appreciation in your daily routine. And it IS contagious. The more you recognize and appreciate behavior you want to see repeated, the greater chance that it will be repeated. Recognition cultures are energized, proactive cultures. In this day and age, we need to move forward quickly. And recognition can supply the energy for that effort. It all goes to the bottom line, doesn’t it?

Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC is CEO of The Egan Group, Inc., a Reading, PA based professional coaching firm. She is a certified executive coach and professional speaker, specializing in leadership development and can be reached at marsha@marshaegan.com or visit http://www.marshaegan.com .

Shaping Your Team

Whether you are a team of one or hundreds of thousands, your team has a certain shape all its own. Do you have control over how it grows? The answer is yes. However, the key to a successful team lies not in the control, but in the willingness to let the team take on its own shape without your strict direction.

By Karen Kay
Copyright (c) 2007 Karen Kay

Every team has its own shape, no matter how larger or small. Where do you fit in the team mold as the leader? Does it grow with or without your help? It can, if you don’t try to hard to control the shape of the team. Leading without control is the key to your success as a team builder.

Think of each member as contributing him or herself as a bit of raw clay. As our team starts to meld into a unit, we may tend to try to force members to follow our own ideas as to how the group should proceed. The very terms “upline”, “downline”, “sidelines” etc. can damage our self-determination as leaders to our team.

If everyone on my team becomes a leader, then I am at the absolute pinnacle of my game. How can I do that if I try to dictate everything they do? I have found that effective leadership is more in listening, and less in telling.

While one member may be making solid contributions to the shape of the team, another may simply slip through making barely a nick in the surface i.e. the whole concept flows through them with no real substance. Yet another may be that diamond in the rough. The thing is, in order for clay to mold into an attractive vessel, each of these characteristics need to be present. This keeps your team from becoming dry, or too stale, or without shape at all.

Letting yourself be open to your team is what helps the team form its vessel. This is a delicate balance between hard and soft. Raw clay is sensitive, bendable, yet strong enough to hold together.

Some “hardness”, is necessary. Confidence and a thick skin can keep a leader strong. Not allowing the team to form itself however can leave it cracked and brittle.

There is no right and wrong when helping your team to find its shape. This progression is continual. As your team vessel grows, it makes changes that may surprise you in new, even simplistic ways, because you allow members to contribute the best of themselves.

Ask your members to emulate, not imitate, what you and other leaders within the group do…. To invigorate them with your own way of bringing out their best. Be the best “you” you can be, and allow them to find the strength in their own being to get to the best contribution for the good of the team, ultimately, the betterment of themselves.

For more information on team building, please visit Karen's website at http://www.lifeteambuilders.com . There you be able to sign up for her newsletter and visit her team site for more information on team building and leadership. Posts are welcome at the lifeteambuilders forum at http://lifeteambuilders.serenityday.com

Think About Networking In A NEW WAY

If networking isn't about collecting business cards, then what is it?

By Marsha Egan

Instead of thinking about a network, let’s envision a net.

If you place yourself at the center of this net, you can see how your direct links, or connections, extends outward. And each of those links extend outward as well. Yet they are all interconnected. This is what we want our net to look like, and even more, to “work.”

I meet too many entrepreneurs and business people who believe or act as though their selling efforts are all direct one on one transactions with their prospects and customers. What they don’t realize is that when they build a network, much of the selling and prospecting can actually be done by other people. A network helps you multiply yourself.

In my networking workshops, I ask the question, “ How many friends and acquaintances, conservatively, do you think you have?” The answer usually ranges between 200 and 500. My next question is, “How many people do you think each of those people know?” Then we do the math. Conservatively, if each of these people knows only 200 people, that person is “ connected” to 40,000 people, only one person removed! Just imagine the numbers with the second and third levels of connection!

So the first hurdle to overcome in building a network is to recognize how powerful connections can be. This is the very important people side of the business that many have a hard time acknowledging or understanding.

In any business, there are relationships to be built. These enable positive progress. We call these relationships a network. People’s careers rarely progress solely through individual work; there are usually several people involved in an individual’s successful career or business.

Many people cringe at the suggestion of “networking.” They feel that they may be building insincere relationships or compromising their true selves by rubbing shoulders with higher-ups in the organization. So, out of principle, some very capable people don’t network.

So, let’s set the record straight. Networking is not about collecting business cards. It is not about pretending to like someone that you aren’t. It is not about catering insincerely to a boss or potential clients.

Networking is about building reciprocal, synergistic relationships with people throughout your organization, your business community, and your life. It is caring about others’ progress more than you care about your own. It is establishing trustful, supportive bonds with people who share your goals, or your business goals.

The powerful side of building this network comes with your delivering excellent quality and service. As you build your network, and you provide great service, your network will start to work for you. People will talk to people. Satisfied clients will refer you to others. You are net will actually work.

So, when we look at networking as a sincere effort to build mutually beneficial relationships, it can actually be fun! When you take the focus off of yourself, and place it on others, your whole picture of building relationships can change. You become other directed, rather than selfish. You become caring rather than self—absorbed. You become interesting rather than boring. Doesn’t this sound better?

This approach puts a different focus or in how you can build and enjoy your networks. Instead of collecting as many business cards as you can, and writing the obligatory mail merge letter the next day, you can give yourself permission to have one or two more lengthy, other-focused conversations with people at a networking event.

“Other focused” is a key word in this equation. Many people make the error of trying to get the person to know about their business, as their primary objective of the conversation. People see through this immediately. If you show a true interest in the other person, and avoid trying to talk about yourself in the first several minutes of the conversation, you will go a long way to building what can be a mutually beneficial relationship.

The reality is that the strong majority of people will turn around and ask you about your business, after you have shown a true interest in theirs. This is how reciprocal relationships are built.

One word of caution. Reciprocal relationships don’t necessarily mean immediate benefits. You’ve got to be patient. A network is built over years. One person at a time.

And the more sincere, and helpful you are, and the better quality you deliver, the more mutually beneficial (and and fun) your network will be. Yours will be a net that works!

Marsha Egan, CPCU, PCC is CEO of The Egan Group, Inc., a Reading, PA based professional coaching firm. She is a certified executive coach and professional speaker, specializing in leadership development and can be reached at marsha@marshaegan.com or visit http://www.marshaegan.com .

Quick Tips To Get High Powered Publicity For Your Business

Find out the insider secrets to using publicity to empower your business and corporate communications strategy. You'll learn how to stay visible to your target audience, build awareness of your brand and encourage interested prospective clients to take action.

By Annie Jennings

What can business learn from successful businesses that use publicity strategies to stay in front of their clients and customers? Plenty! Getting publicity on your business allows you to create a substantial and compelling competitive advantage for your business. Want to be at the top of your industry? Publicity is the key.

One thing many businesses may wonder about is if accessing the media for publicity and brand name awareness costs a ton of money. The answer is no. You can get publicity for your business easily and within your budget.

In addition to staying visible to your target audience using publicity on radio shows, in newspapers and magazines and on TV shows, successful business go the extra mile for their customers and your clients and customers love these businesses for it.

Clients want to make investments in services that provide a return on their investment and they want guarantees so they don’t wind up wasting financial resources.

Be center stage in your industry. Stay competitive in publicity and promotion and make sure it is you or your business commenting on the issues in the news and not your competitors.

Stay consistent in your publicity outreach as this is important to creating your company’s competitive edge as clients want to do business with the vital companies making a difference.

Get quoted expert media placements, publicity on your company, be seen and heard in media including Radio, TV, Magazines, Online and Newspapers.

Be engaged in the success of your target market. When your business becomes part of the success model of other businesses you have achieved a great goal. Ask yourself, what if I were the client, what woudl I want to see available in products and services to bring my company to its next level of success? Once you discover the answer to this question create products and services that your marketplace and your clients can use to add profits to their bottom line.

One of the best business strategies is to understand what your client needs to go to their next level of success and create these resources for them. Stay cutting edge yourself too so you are always one step ahead of the services your client will need.

As your clients integrate your products and services in their business model, be working on the next higher level product as soon these new products will naturally be in demand. Always strive to create the better mousetrap for your clients to ensure your success!

Business publicity secrets can be yours! Annie Jennings PR is an expert public relations firm that works with individuals, businesses and corporations who wish to stay visibile and create their competitive advantage with publicity. Contact Annie Jennings PR and a national publicist can let you know how publicity can help you achieve your highest level of publicity success.

Branding, Publicity & Marketing Success Secrets

Discover the secrets to career and business success using publicity outreach for branding and marketing. Find out how to showcase your credentials, experience, wisdom and expertise using publicity success principles and strategy.

By Annie Jennings

Is there a secret to success? Is there more than one? Yes! Let’s find out what successful people, consultants and business pros believe and do that helps them achieve their optimal potential. What is it that they have in common, whether it’s in their beliefs or in their actions that makes them successful?

First of all they use resources available to them including publicity, self-promotion, branding and marketing to create their outstanding advantage in the marketplace. The rest comes naturally. The major opportunities go to the ones who are visible, making a difference, seen and heard by their target market.

Successful people know that they have to take responsibility and follow it up by taking action. You set you own limits. You are defined by the intensity of your commitment and the depths of your knowledge. In other words, commitment without knowledge can equal frustration and limit your potential. The idea is to add the right knowledge to your ambition so you can climb the ladder for yourself.

Those who make it big believe certain things and do certain things to back up their beliefs. They are ready to invest in themselves. They believe that they are they best investment. Successful people create a business model that meets the demands of their target market. Successful people are ready for action, they are committed and they are willing to go for it with gusto.

Showcase your knowledge. Showcase your talent using media outreach. Your clients will love seeing you out there in the media sharing what you know and commenting on the issues. They enjoy hiring a tried and true professional who understands how to deliver the specific outcome. By doing publicity, marketing and promotion, you let your clients get an idea of your knowledge, wisdom and experience. Your client will want to hire you. Clients want certainty. They want to hire the best. In the end, your clients want to buy outcomes and are happy to pay for your services if you are able to define the return on investment and clearly state how your services can help your clients.

Content is critical when showcasing yourself and your knowledge. The media is your opportunity to shine. Do an outstanding job, pack your commentary with valuable content and share your wisdom and experience in all of your marketing materials including your email newsletters. Be sure your website helps you educate your visitors and your clients.

Success is in your own hands. Taking responsibility for both the successes and failures empowers you to make the changes necessary to turn the situation around or to expand on your success. If you feel powerless in both the good and the bad, you will get stuck in your thinking and in your progress.

Have a terrific attitude. Commit to proven publicity, branding and marketing strategies. Do not fight success the whole way. Be optimistic. Success will come easily to you and it will seem as if everything you do has a terrific outcome. Have confidence in yourself. Go with your gut, your intuition and your instincts when making choices. Be high energy. Be ready for success & take action. P.S. Don’t stop until you get enough success!

Access tremendous publicity resources for both your career and your business at Annie Jennings PR. Free publicity, branding and business marketing special reports are available as well as free MP3 audio recordings to empower your corporate communications strategy. Contact Annie Jennings PR at 908-281-6201

Why Being A Two-faced Leader Is Okay

Effective leaders must be able to demonstrate competencies in both interpersonal skills as well as a focus on results. They must have high levels of self-awareness, be able to read situations and other people well. They must also be able to use their own emotions in an intelligent way. They must be authentic and demonstrate core personal and organizational values, not just talk about them.

By Phillip Ralph

Copyright (c) 2009 Phillip Ralph

Jan, a respected leader in a bank, was considered to be a results-driven, no nonsense type of leader. She and her division always met their financial targets. In fact she was one of the few of her peer group who was able to achieve this quite remarkable feat. Everyone knew that Jan could be hard with her people, sometimes downright aggressive, but it was largely overlooked because she made her numbers. In conversations with Jan, she openly acknowledged that she knew she wasn’t well liked and that some people had problems with her style. Jan’s justification for her actions was that the Chief Executive didn’t seem to have a problem with it so why change?


Just because the CEO didn’t seem to have a problem with it didn’t mean it wasn’t a problem - there was a cost in adopting her style of leadership. Many people hated working for her and in her division. In fact, turnover was higher than any other part of the bank, with many talented people leaving altogether. It was also getting harder and harder to fill positions within the division, with many people opting to work in other areas even though those areas really didn’t make the most of their knowledge, skills and experience. Engagement scores had also just about bottomed out, indicating some serious problems in the division.


Jan was demonstrating results-driven leadership alright, but it was to the detriment of her people and in the long term, the organisation. In fact, Jan was not results-driven at all, she was numbers driven. Numbers driven leaders are often seen as results driven and good for business, however they are hardly ever good for business in the medium to long term. They effectively burn people. They fail to balance the pragmatic and necessary focus on results with the necessary second face or dimension - people. It is a cliché to say that people are an organization’s most important resource - but even this statement misses the point - people are your organization, not just a resource!


Effective leaders - or more to the point - true leaders - are able to build relationships and high performance teams in service of organizational goals, not despite them. Long term sustainable performance requires people at all levels of the organization to be engaged and focused on the job at hand. They need to feel like their opinion counts, that they have a say in how things are run, and that the organization does have their interests at heart, not just ‘hitting the numbers’. Jan is a leader - and unfortunately there are many - who just doesn’t get it. Jan operates within a command and control framework which is really a carryover from the industrial paradigm where as a society we learn to manage ‘things’ effectively (the mass-production of cars is an example). Unfortunately though, people don’t like being managed and controlled like things - they require a far more sophisticated approach at one level - and far more simple approach at another level.


People need to be able to feel the values and good intentions of those in formal positions of authority. Employees need to know (and see) leaders serving those in the organization who actually do the work - usually those closest to the customer. Senior leaders exist to make others more successful, not the other way around!



Leaders like Jan understand their role to be to get results with what they have, rather than creating additional value for the company through building meaningful relationships, creating high performing teams, and enrolling everyone in the journey. Leaders who are ‘two-faced’ (with a focus on results and people) are not warm and fuzzy with their heads in the clouds. Quite to the contrary in fact - these leaders know how to surface and manage conflict constructively. They create safety for people to talk about the real issues, no matter how uncomfortable this may be at times. In fact, effective leaders sometimes provoke the system, for example a team, to overcome inertia. The must vaunted former leader of GE for example, Jack Welch, talked about when he first arrived at GE, his new management team had an air of ‘superficial congeniality’. In other words, it was an ineffective team that thought being nice to each other was being a high performance team. To provoke the system, Jack Welch used to throw some hand grenades, metaphorically speaking of course to surface the real issues.


A member of our team did this recently with an entrepreneurial not-for-profit organization we were working with. The consultant said to the team, ‘I think you’re more interested in making money than the reason you purport to exist - helping those most in need’. Now, it needs to be said that the consultant didn’t actually believe this statement, but what do you think happened? Firstly the CEO went red in the face and launched an attack on the consultant, closely followed by four more team members. After a few minutes, one courageous (real) leader stood up and said, ‘While we may not agree in the room, the fact is that many people in our organization believe this to be true.’ This then generated a whole debate the team hadn’t had before in its history - and one that generated some very positive outcomes. A simple example was that the CEO realized that many of the ‘good news’ stories were not being told - those stories where the organization had gone beyond its charter to provide great client outcomes, at great financial cost to itself. The problem was that no-one knew about it except those in the executive suite. As a result, the team started to focus on being able to tell stories - not fictional stories, but real live examples of how and where the organization was living its mission.


So in summary, effective leaders must be able to demonstrate competencies in both interpersonal skills as well as a focus on results. They must have high levels of self-awareness, be able to read situations and other people well. They must also be able to use their own emotions in an intelligent way. They must be authentic and demonstrate core personal and organizational values, not just talk about them. Leaders like Jan must be able to build and maintain relationships with factions or groups with different interests and agendas to her own. This is the work of real leadership, and to that extent, is ‘two-faced.’



"Phillip Ralph helps organizations, teams and individuals, create breakthrough performance that will make all the difference. Leaders create the environment and context for people to fulfil the mission and goals which in turn impacts culture, employee engagement, and ultimately, organizational performance. To find out how Phillip can help you and your organization achieve success please go to:" => http://www.theleadershipsphere.com.au/overview_36.php

Business Email Culture: Manage It or Watch Your Profits Slide Away

Have you ever stopped to examine how do your employees use their email? How do they manage it, send it, and save it? The habits they adopt, both good and bad, can be contagious. Learn certain practices you can instill into your employees to create a positive email culture.

By Marsha Egan

Every time you let your email interrupt your productive work, it takes you an average of 4 minutes to get back on track. If in one day you let 15 emails derail you, you’ve just lost an hour of billable, productive time. Multiply that by every employee every day and you can see how office-wide unproductive email use can be an enormous drain on your profits.

Have you ever stopped to examine how do your employees use their email? How do they manage it, send it, and save it? The habits they adopt, both good and bad, can be contagious. Since email touches all of us several times a day, an office email culture evolves quickly.

Here is an example. A boss calls a meeting with 3 of his department managers. He sends an urgent email, needing a response within 15 minutes. One manager, who is working on an important project, does not have his email on, misses the request, and angers his boss.

This manager has just now learned that he cannot turn off his email, ever. But it doesn’t stop there; it rolls down the corporate ladder. All three managers now have “permission” to use email as an URGENT delivery system. They use it in their departments, and very quickly, the entire organization is infected. No one can turn off his or her email for fear of missing something vital. Employees become slaves to the “brinnng” and stop productive work anytime an email comes in.

This is just one example of email mis-use that plagues businesses. Think of the practices of copying everyone under the sun, just so you don’t miss someone. Or how about using email as a chat room with multiple recipients to resolve dilemmas? Or the slippery slope of using email to critique someone’s performance? One person does it, others do it. Culture is changed.

There are, however, certain practices you can instill into your employees to create a positive email culture. It requires strong leadership and change management efforts, but by following these methods, you and your employees will be able to reclaim more time, and improve your bottom line:

1. NEVER use email as an urgent delivery system. If the matter is urgent, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.

2. Have everyone turn off “Automatic Send/Receive” and set “Receive intervals” to a minimum of 90 minutes. If someone is expecting an email, he or she can always hit receive manually.

3. Move everything OUT OF your inbox. Your employees can manage their work better by putting emails in appropriate folders for easy reference later.

4. Make Subject Lines be VERY specific. By including details in subject lines, you will help others sort and prioritize their work.

5. Copy only the people who REALLY need to receive the email. Each superfluous cc will have to open and read the email, adding unnecessary tasks to their already full days.

Marsha Egan,CPCU,PCC, CEO of the Egan Group,Inc., Reading PA. An ICF Certified Professional Coach, she is an authority on email productivity. She works with forward thinking organizations who want a profit-rich email culture. She is the author of Inbox Detox and the Habit of Email Excellence,available on her website and Amazon.com.The last week in January is International Clean Out Your Inbox Week at http://EganEmailSolutions.com/inboxweek.html