Your Social Brand is a Career Tool

Posted by & filed under Accountability, Career Development, career development leadership development, Personal Effectiveness, Professional Presence in a Casual World.

How Social Media Affects Personal BrandingSocial media is transforming business as we know it. This applies to businesses large and small, and to brands – corporate and personal. At Employee Development Systems, Inc., helping employees of every generation raise their awareness of accountability and professionalism lie at the core of our mission.

We’ve entered the age of influence. As it relates to personal branding, we would like to share some guidelines that will help enhance your brand and ensure success through the social media age.

  1. Meet the influence economy. Social media has transitioned our economy.  Some call it ‘social capital’ and some call it ‘social credibility’.  Whatever you call it, we’re essentially measuring how influential you are. Tools like Share and likes and tweets, circles and +1s are the currency of our new economy.
  2. Your personality has value, so be sure you share it.  Social media is about being human and adding that element of humanity to the technology.  Personality is what will help you stand out from the rest, but use caution:  you still need to filter and decide what’s appropriate for sharing and what isn’t.  Sharing your character is considerably different than sharing private information.
  3. Be knowable, likeable and trustworthy. A positive attitude will always serve you better than a negative one.  Keep civility and generosity at the forefront of your mission.
  4. Invest in your own thought leadership. Sharing your knowledge is one of the best ways to become known as an expert. The more you write and speak about your industry, the greater the expert you become.  Be credible, reliable and personable, while you keep your ego in check.
  5. Personal brands compete with corporate brands and win. We still want to buy from people rather than companies. Personal brands tend to be more successful in the social media space. Social media tools have empowered us to build a direct audience and be better at it than many corporate brands, so give it some thought.

Your online profiles, any communications, simple likes, and sharing are what build your influence.  The more you contribute to the good of the community, the more trust and credibility you create.  The more you’re trusted, the greater your social credibility.  Think about it as you check-in, share and comment and think about what you can contribute.

Leaders with the most impact are those who can build and successfully manage great teams. Every day, we help our clients and colleagues achieve their highest levels of professional presence and personal effectiveness. That includes everyone on the ladder, from company presidents to project managers, to staff members. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

Employee Development Systems delivers results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

Two Rules to Create Peak Performance in Your Team

Posted by & filed under Accountability, Actively Engaged Workers, increasing personal effectiveness, Performance Management, Personal Effectiveness.

EDS_MillennialBusiness2As a leader, you probably already discovered that while your specialty skills provide a foundation for your career,  leadership skills come into play every.  How do you keep your employees motivated and enjoying their jobs every day?

The Key to Creating Peak Performance at Work
The key to creating an organization with employees, who willingly give their best effort every day, is to create a high self-esteem environment by removing the fears of failure and rejection that inhibit personal performance. The manager who creates a positive, high-self-esteem workplace will have higher performance, lower absenteeism, lower employee turnover, higher productivity, and fewer mistakes.

To perform at their best, individuals have two basic needs in the world of work:

1) The Autonomy Need. The first is called “the autonomy need.” This is the need to be seen and respected as an individual, and to stand out for one’s personal performance. It is a need to be recognized for individual achievement or the “I am special” need.

2) The Dependency Need. The second need that each person has in the workplace is “the dependency need.” This is the need that people have to feel a part of something bigger than themselves. People want to be part of a team. It is the need to feel recognized and accepted as part of a group of people in the workplace.

A well managed organization creates environments where people feel both autonomous and important, on the one hand, and have their dependency needs satisfied by making them feel as if they are part of a team; part of the whole organization on the other. The reward structures in these organizations are designed to acknowledge not only autonomous performance but also team performance.

Low Self-Esteem Work Environment: Using Positive Reinforcement at Work
The key factor in employee motivation is the connected relationship between the manager and his/her team. It is what takes place at the moment of contact or communication between the manager and the employee that determines the performance, effectiveness, productivity, output and profitability of an organization. The point at which the two people connect, whether positively or negatively, is where the past, present and future performance of the individual and the organization is determined.

When this contact between the manager and employee is positive, supportive and encouraging of self-esteem, the performance, productivity and output of the individual will reach its highest level.

Low Self-Esteem Work Environment: The Worst Way to Gain Employee Satisfaction
If this point of contact between the manager and employee is negative for any reason at all, performance and output will decline. A negative relationship with the manager will trigger fears of failure, rejection and disapproval. If the manager is negative for any reason, people will play it safe, and only do exactly what they need to do to avoid being fired. Almost everyone has worked in a low self-esteem environment. These are usually remembered as the worst jobs the person ever had. Everything you do to improve this intersection or contact improves the overall quality of your work life, no matter where you are on the ladder of management.

The more effective you can become in eliciting “best effort” performance from each of your staff members, the more of the best people you will be given to manage for it. The top managers and leaders of today are those who are capable of eliciting extraordinary performance from ordinary people.

Leaders with the most impact are those who can build and successfully manage great teams. Every day, we help our clients and colleagues achieve their highest levels of professional presence and personal effectiveness. That includes everyone on the ladder, from company presidents to project managers, to staff members. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

Employee Development Systems delivers results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

How to Build a Solid Coaching Program

Posted by & filed under Accountability, Coaching, Communicating To Manage Performance, Communication.

Build A Coaching Program For Performance DevelopmentBusiness magazines from Harvard Business Review to Inc. describe coaching as the management style of choice and the answer to many kinds of organizational ills. It is about making sense of complex experience’s, unlocking a person’s potential to solving their own problems and is more often about asking good questions than giving right answers. If you want a commitment culture rather than simple compliance, coaching may provide a lot of the keys.

At Employee Develoment Systems, our challenge has been to develop a ‘Communicating to Manage Performance’ program that puts equal emphasis on learning and results at both individual and organizational levels. Learning, because we recognize the need to develop capacity for change, for instance, to help new staff get to grips with organizational practices. Results, because our clients have a strong purpose-orientation and no organization can survive long without showing a good return on investment for its stakeholders.

In our performance development program, we identified coaching as a key component alongside goal setting, regular reviews and reward. We provide training in questioning, active listening, giving and receiving feedback, generating options and implementing action plans. However, coaching skills alone are insufficient to engender and support change at individual and organizational levels. The spirit of coaching is about establishing a special quality of relationship and conversation that engenders awareness-raising, learning, responsibility and commitment that extends well beyond simple task achievement. It demands conscious attention to personal intention, ethos, empathy and relational climate.

By fostering a genuine spirit of coaching, developing a deeper level of inquiry and ensuring individuals have the space to find their own solutions, we have found that managers and coaches can make a significant change to the culture of an organization. Individuals will typically experience greater personal satisfaction at work, grow in their ability to deal with complexity, ambiguity and change, and develop emotional intelligence alongside practical skills and enhanced performance.

In order to practice and embed the spirit of coaching, we suggest the following:

  • Engage in personal development to understand and address your own motivations, anxieties, hot spots etc. so they don’t impinge negatively on the coaching process.
  • Establish a coaching relationship that is underpinned by positive intention, empathy and genuine commitment to the coachee’s development.
  • Encourage the coachee to take responsibility for his or her own learning and performance, albeit with your support alongside.
  • Agree on goals and standards together, giving the coachee first opportunity to scope out requirements, explore issues, work out solutions etc.
  • Challenge coachees to grow in awareness of how they are learning and performing, e.g. by seeking feedback from stakeholders and developing the practice of reflection.
  • Review the organization’s culture as a whole to ensure consistency with a coaching spirit.

Leaders with the most impact are those who can build and successfully manage great teams. Every day, we help our clients and colleagues achieve their highest levels of professional presence and personal effectiveness. That includes everyone on the ladder, from company presidents to project managers, to staff members. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

Employee Development Systems delivers results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

How to Embed Active Learning in Your Programs

Posted by & filed under Active Listening, Actively Engaged Workers, Professional Presence in a Casual World.

How To Include Active Learning Into Your Work ProgramPassive learning has weak results for reasons ranging from people forgetting what was taught to never hearing the facts in the first place. Active learning, on the other hand, is stimulating and helps people draw connections in unique ways that aid our recollection. It’s the difference between blank stares and the Aha! of understanding.

Elements for Active Learning

  • Set up the Environment. Visuals and music are stimulating. The room itself can be arranged several ways so be creative when deciding what suits your tone.
  • Invite Participation at the Beginning. Allowing your audience to speculate about handouts, any visuals you created or their expectations prepares them to absorb material.
  • Use Alternatives to Lecturing. Presentations can be given in a variety of ways. Your skills may lie in storytelling, facilitating role plays or brainstorming. Use them.
  • Minimize Mayhem. Managing transitions between activities, including maintaining appropriate energy levels and soliciting feedback are as important for presenters as for school teachers.

Keys to Customizing the Program

  • Who is going to be there? Know your audience members’ job responsibilities or special needs and what they’re expecting to do differently as a result of your presentation. If you can’t get the information beforehand, use an expectations activity or series of questions at the beginning of your presentation to understand their needs.
  • What do they already know? It’s disheartening to hear a presenter lecture to an audience that already knows the content and call to action required. Leverage the expertise of your audience members by discovering what they already know about the content during your opening comments, and inviting them to share their wisdom and experience with the group at appropriate times throughout your presentation. “Mining the gold” in the room is a critical adult learning principle that will increase audience engagement and feelings of ownership.
  • How can you create personal experiences? Always remember that relevant stories that elicit an emotional response will grab and hold the audience’s attention. Consider letting audience members guess the end of the story to increase motivation and track their learning. Stories and activities should be based on the same types of decisions, actions and environment that your audience will encounter on the job.
  • “What’s in it for me?” Your audience will apply this filter to every word. From the moment you start speaking, your listeners will readily engage with information they personally find important. They will also disregard anything they deem unnecessary or superfluous.
  • What happens afterward? Your challenge is both to share your expertise, and to change behavior or offer actionable solutions to a challenge they are experiencing. Identify these challenges in their environment as you prepare your presentation.

For even more practical, tested ideas for improving your presentation skills, look at the Professional Presence in a Casual World program which helps leaders and experts of all levels share their knowledge and inspire action in their audiences.

Leaders with the most impact are those who can build and successfully manage great teams. Every day, we help our clients and colleagues achieve their highest levels of professional presence and personal effectiveness. That includes everyone on the ladder, from company presidents to project managers, to staff members. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

Employee Development Systems delivers results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

Does Business Etiquette Really Matter?

Posted by & filed under Employee Development, Professional Presence in a Casual World.

Know Business EtiquetteWhether you are aware of it or not, first impressions do make a major difference in achieving business objectives. [link here] EDSI’s Professional Presence in a Casual World program has preached the value of knowing proper business etiquette, including practicing good manners, for years. Having good manners will help you regardless of the business you are in. Any time you make contact with a client or perspective client, you are making a mini-presentation of yourself, ultimately representing your company, service and/or products.

How can you mind your manners if you do not know the rules?  It is never too late to take the initiative to begin your own professional development.  Here are some pointers to keep your manners sharp.

  • Address people by their honorific or title: There is so much informality in the workplace today that in many offices business is lost and goodwill is destroyed because of total disregard for properly addressing clients.  The proper way to address a client is to greet them using their honorific or title followed by their last name.  It is up to the client to ask you to call them by their first name.  Remember: In business, the proper way to refer to a woman is “Ms.,” regardless of their marital status. This is more than a passing fad; it was established in the seventeenth century as an abbreviation for “Mistress.”
  • Clearly Speak your greeting: It’s sad but true; we’ve become a nation of name-tumblers when we introduce ourselves or other people; this is major problem especially on the telephone.  We need to slow down and pronounce our names slowly, clearly and distinctly. At first it may feel as if you are exaggerating your name, but you are really helping the other person and improving overall communication.
  • Refer to individuals frequently by their names: Take the time and make the effort to pay attention to the name of the person you are being introduced to.  A person’s name means everything to them. To build rapport with a client, mention their name at least three times during the conversation. It will help you remember their name and make a connection – they will remember you.
  • Make contact: There are few physical contacts that are appropriate in business; the most important and acceptable is your handshake. Your handshake is a non-verbal clue that indicates to the other person whether or not you are a take charge person. The rules for shaking hands are: extend your hand with the thumb up, clasp the other person’s entire palm, give two or three pumps from the elbow, avoiding both the painful ”bone crusher” and the off-putting ”wet fish” shake, smile, and look your counterpart directly in the eyes.
  • Smile: This seems very simple, but it’s amazing how people’s moods and words are misjudged because their expressions are often overly-serious. A smile shows that you like yourself; you like your current place in the world and you’re happy with the people you’re interacting with. No one will say you’re crabby if you’re smiling.  A smile says ‘I’m approachable and confident’.
  • Introduce people with confidence: Most people hate making introductions because they do not know how to properly make them. Introducing people with confidence is a great way to impress your customers.  In business, introductions are determined by precedence.  The person who holds the position of highest authority in an organization takes precedence over others who work there.  For example, you introduce your company’s president to a colleague.The basic rule is: the name of the person of greater authority is always spoken first. The name of the person of lesser authority is always spoken last.  For example, “/Ms. Greater Authority, I would like to introduce Mr./Ms. Lesser Authority.”  A second example would be: the name of the Senior Executive is always spoken first. The name of the Junior Executive is always spoken last.  “Mr. Senior Executive, I would like to introduce Mr. Junior Executive, from the accounting department.  Mr. Senior Executive is our Director of Public Relations.“

Learning the rules of business etiquette is not hard to do, it is not costly and it is the best professional development tool any business person can use to increase their chances of success. People truly desire to do business with those that make them comfortable and know how to best handle themselves in a variety of situations. Practicing good business etiquette is well worth the investment and pays back in spades!

Leaders with the most impact are those who can build and successfully manage great teams. Every day, we help our clients and colleagues achieve their highest levels of professional presence and personal effectiveness. That includes everyone on the ladder, from company presidents to project managers, to staff members. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

Employee Development Systems delivers results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

 

Here’s Why Leaders Are Prioritizing Personal Accountability

Posted by & filed under Accountability, Actively Engaged Workers, career development leadership development, Communicating To Manage Performance.

EDS_Accountability_1_26_16The business of leadership is all about being personally accountable in three different areas: for fulfillment of organizational goals, for staff accomplishments, and for our own self-success. These three aspects are intertwined, dependent upon one another, and thoroughly influenced by the measure of our personal accountability.

The leader who lives by the credo of personal accountability is considered trustworthy, reliable, and committed. Superiors look to this person for successful results; co-workers depend on this individual for valuable advice and guidance; and subordinates, who become loyal followers, hold this leader in high esteem. Great leaders are those who are able to lead in a way that generates respect, confidence, and the feeling that, no matter what, the right thing will be done. They get high marks in the trust quotient for their character, ethics, and credibility, all of which are manifested through behaviors that demonstrate their personal accountability.

  • Character – In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, author John Maxwell tells us, “Whenever you lead people, it’s as if they consent to take a trip with you. The way that trip turns out is predicted by character.” The amount of consideration, respect, and fairness we demonstrate are indicative of our internal values, which guide character. When something goes wrong, or a project does not turn out as originally intended, we should accept responsibility for the results and look inward to explore how we may have impacted the outcome. Rather than directing blame towards others or at external circumstances, the leader of character seeks to understand his or her personal contribution, and to learn and grow in response to challenges. There is less blame on others and more focus on moving forward to achieve the goals of the organization.
  • Ethics and Credibility – The ethical leader consistently role models honesty and integrity in daily activities. He or she never deceives anyone by saying one thing and then doing another because it might be easier, expedient, or self serving. When mistakes are made, they’re admitted. People will tolerate honest mistakes, but if you violate their trust, you will find it very difficult to ever regain their confidence. That is one reason you need to treat trust as your most precious asset. The credible leader—one who inspires belief and trust -openly shares important information with staff; there are no secrets. Employees know exactly what is expected of them. But when we as leaders go the extra mile to establish a clear line between employee behavior and goal achievement, we earn even more credence.
  • Personal Accountability and Communication – The one thread that runs through all aspects of personal accountability is communication. The leader who accepts responsibility for the fulfillment of organizational goals, for staff accomplishments and for self-success is one who should be personally accountable for acquiring strong communication skills. This starts with knowing what real communication is all about. Since it’s estimated that we spend 75 percent of our time at work engaged in some aspect of verbal interaction, this knowledge is extremely important for our success.

Research shows that when we’re speaking to someone, words impact a mere 7%, tone of voice is responsible for 38%, and body language contributes to 55%. What is body language? This most important aspect of communication is the nonverbal—conscious or subconscious—imparting of information by means of gestures, posture, facial expressions, and the like. Body language is a manifestation of our individual behavioral style. Behavior can be thought of as the “how” of our life, apparent in the way we act.

Knowing and understanding what our particular behavior style is will influence how we communicate and will help us be more successful at it. Achievers throughout history have one thing in common—they have self realization. They don’t underestimate what they can do, they don’t sell themselves short, and they comprehend their limitations. Through self-knowledge of their behavior style, they’re able to overcome their shortcomings and take full advantage of their strengths to improve their interaction with people.

Seek first to understand yourself, then to be understood. The knowledge gained, in turn, provides insight on how your intended meaning and communication comes across to others. You learn how to close the gap between intention and perception, then you can adapt and guide your personal behavioral style to connect successfully with others and convey your message effectively.

The bottom line: Be personally accountable for being the best communicator you can be!

Leaders with the most impact are those who can build and successfully manage great teams. Every day, we help our clients and colleagues achieve their highest levels of professional presence and personal effectiveness. That includes everyone on the ladder, from company presidents to project managers, to staff members. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

Employee Development Systems delivers results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

Create a Productive Learning Environment for Everyone

Posted by & filed under Career Development, career development leadership development, Communicating To Manage Performance, Communication, increasing personal effectiveness, Leadership.

How To Create A Productive Learning EnvironmentHow do Millennials learn best? How abut Generation Xers? Our learning priorities and methods shift according to generation, but there are some essentials that will help everyone have a productive learning experience. Start with these tips to ensure that your programs are stimulating and help people draw connections in unique ways that aid in their recollection later.

It’s the difference between blank stares and the Aha! of understanding.

Many factors combine to create the ultimate learning experience. The key is to work toward audience involvement and participation. Here are some questions to consider when deciding how to customize your presentation:

  • Who is going to be there? Know your audience members’ job responsibilities or special needs and what they’re expecting to do differently as a result of your presentation. If you can’t get the information beforehand, use an expectations activity or series of questions at the beginning of your presentation to understand their needs.
  • What do they already know? It’s disheartening to hear a presenter lecture to an audience that already knows the content and call to action required. Leverage the expertise of your audience members by discovering what they already know about the content during your opening comments, and inviting them to share their wisdom and experience with the group at appropriate times throughout your presentation. “Mining the gold” in the room is a critical adult learning principle that will increase audience engagement and feelings of ownership.
  • How can you create personal experiences? Always remember that relevant stories that elicit an emotional response will grab and hold the audience’s attention. Consider letting audience members guess the end of the story to increase motivation and track their learning. Stories and activities should be based on the same types of decisions, actions and environment that your audience will encounter on the job.
  • “What’s in it for me?” Your audience will apply this filter to every word. From the moment you start speaking, your listeners will readily engage with information they personally find important. They will also disregard anything they deem unnecessary or superfluous.
  • What happens afterward? Your challenge is both to share your expertise, and to change behavior or offer actionable solutions to a challenge they are experiencing. Identify these challenges in their environment as you prepare your presentation.

For even more practical, tested ideas for improving your presentation skills and professionalism, take a look at our look at Professional Presence in a Casual World, Communicating to Manage Performance, and Increasing Professional Effectiveness programs.

We deliver results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

Leadership = Relationship: How Do You Measure Up?

Posted by & filed under Actively Engaged Workers, Career Development, career development leadership development, Leadership, Performance Management.

Leadership Is A Relationship

photo credit: Kevin Dooley via Flickr

Typically, personal-best leadership experiences challenge the myth that leadership is something that you find only at the highest levels of organizations and society; it is found everywhere. History also challenges the belief that leadership is reserved for a few charismatic men and women. Leadership is not a gene and is not an inheritance; it is an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us. The ‘‘great person’’—woman or man—theory of leadership is just plain wrong. Likewise, it is wrong to say that leaders only come from large, great, small, or new organizations – from established economies, or from start-up companies.

Exemplary leaders are the everyday heroes of our world. It is because there are so many leaders that extraordinary things get done on a regular basis, especially in extraordinary times. This is inspiring and should give everyone hope because:

  • it means that no one needs to wait around to be saved by someone riding into town on a white horse.
  • there is a generation of leaders searching for the opportunities to make a difference.
  • right down the block or right down the hall there are people who will seize the opportunity to lead you to greatness. They’re your neighbors, friends, and colleagues. And you are one of them, too.

There’s still another crucial truth about leadership. It’s something that we’ve known for a long time, but we’ve come to prize even more today, the message that leadership is a relationship.

Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. It’s the quality of this relationship that matters most when we’re engaged in getting extraordinary things done. A leader-constituent relationship that’s characterized by fear and distrust will never ever produce anything of lasting value. A relationship characterized by mutual respect and confidence will overcome the greatest adversities and leave a legacy of significance.

Even in this nanosecond world of e-everything, opinion is consistent with the facts. In an online survey, respondents were asked to indicate, among other things,

“Which will be more essential to business success in five years—social skills or skills in using the Internet?”

  • Social Skills: 72%
  • Internet Skills: 28%

Internet literati completing a poll online realize that it is not the web of technology that matters the most; it’s the web of people. Leadership is a relationship.

Similar results were found in a study by Public Allies, an Ameri-Corps organization dedicated to creating young leaders who can strengthen their communities. Public Allies sought the opinions of Millennials (18-33 year olds) on the subject of leadership. Among the items was a question about the qualities that were important in a good leader.

  • Topping the respondents’ list is “Being able to see a situation from someone else’s point of view”.
  • In second place is ‘‘Getting along well with other people”

Success in leadership, success in business, and success in life have been, is now, and will continue to be a function of how well people work and play together. Success in leading will be wholly dependent upon the capacity to build and sustain those human relationships that enable people to get extraordinary things done on a regular basis.

Visit us to learn more about how the Five Behaviors program can transform your workplace, just like it has done for thousands of others. www.employeedevelopmentsystems.com. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

We deliver results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

How Do You Express Your Presence?

Posted by & filed under Career Development, Employee Development, Leadership, Personal Effectiveness.

Your future -both professional and personal-depend on how you express your presence.  A professional presence will help you achieve many of your goals, i.e. getting that budget approved, being calm and poised during meetings, and becoming a charismatic good will ambassador for your office and your community.  Professionals that have a ‘presence’ are described as having ‘that something’ or having an ‘aura’. Let’s begin in the spirit of our “Professional Presence in a Casual World” Program by building your own Professional Presence Toolkit with the video and post below.

But wait! This is only the beginning, and a good reminder that you own your presence. You are the author of your identity, and you write the script for managing your credibility and career. Commit to putting into practice the tips described here to show your superb charisma, credibility, and influence.  It’s your biggest asset in defining your career, accomplishing more within your Municipality, and becoming a prominent voice in your organization.

  1. Be flexible – Often, someone’s failure to plan becomes your emergency. Whilst you do not want to become a doormat, you need to be flexible. Learn about other people’s personality styles (and there are many); this way you can better relate to the individual concerned this way. For example, does your manager prefer to communicate in quick bursts via email, or would they rather have a meeting in person? The same goes with your immediate team and the general public. Be flexible, listen first, learn what makes them tick, and be flexible with the most appropriate response that speaks to the individual concerned.
  2. Pursue excellence – to avoid accepting mediocrity as excellence!  Be the person that delivers excellence in everything you do. On the phone, at your desk, presentations, minutes – everything you do, do it with zest. Being known as a person of excellence will take you far within your circle of influence and beyond to make the world a better place and further your career
  3. Listen more, talk less – In an era where people don’t think twice about talking over each other, it is critical to be an exemplary good listener. Practice this with your team and everyone you interact with. After first listening, ask insightful questions to the individual(s) concerned. 
  4. Practice diplomacy and tact – You are tested daily. As a professional, you must remain calm and focused when conflict arises. You may be privy to numerous confidential matters and you may also at times find yourself being the town psychologist.  A professional that is poised under pressure is someone who will be given the autonomy to make critical decisions.
  5. Be a person of character and garner respect – Are you known as positive and pleasant? You interact with many personalities, and need to work with individuals who may not always be at their best. Good will is something that has to be earned and stays with you for a long, long time. Show respect even to people who don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours. Staying composed when dealing with members of the community will go a long way to solidifying your public profile.
  6. Practice “netiquette” – Email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and blogging, are just a few of the social media tools used to interact with the public. Whether you are emailing your boss, colleagues, or constituents, be formal. Compose thoughtful emails and proofread them carefully before hitting send. There are many examples where seemingly private posts from public officials become broadcasted for all to see.

Visit us to learn more about how the Five Behaviors program can transform your workplace, just like it has done for thousands of others. www.employeedevelopmentsystems.com. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

We deliver results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

These 5 Behaviors will Build Your Team in 2016

Posted by & filed under Accountability, Career Development, career development leadership development, Conflict, increasing personal effectiveness.

Using Trust To Build A Productive Team At Work“My team doesn’t need the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team program – In fact, they’ve been together so long, they finish each others’ sentences!”  Over and over again, the word trust is used… and misused.  “Trust” implies something different to everyone!

For highly productive teams – those that perform effectively, consistently over time, trust IS their solid foundation; their competitive advantage. Cohesive teams, however, require more than the ability to predict behavior based on past interactions or experience working together.  Cohesive team members are open to being vulnerable with each other knowing their colleagues always have their backs. There’s no reason, then, for them to be guarded about their weaknesses, less than honest with their constructive feedback or hesitant to ask for help when they need it.  In fact, the transparency of a cohesive team encourages a free exchange of ideas, challenges and diverse perspectives as colleagues have the best intentions for each other as they focus on the collective success of the team.

What are the warning signs that your team lacks vulnerability-based trust and may need your encouragement and support to build or nurture it?  Here are some indicators:

  1. Team members hesitate to ask for help or advice outside their own areas of responsibility.  They often rely on the team leader for answers and resources.
  2. Team members jump to conclusions about their colleagues’ motives, skills or approaches to work or personal issues.
  3. Team members conceal their lack of knowledge or experience, areas of needed professional or personal development and mistakes from one another.
  4. Team members find ways to blame others when the group misses its targets rather than acknowledge personal responsibility. Again; often holding the team leader responsible.
  5. Team members rarely apologize to one another.

What about the team you lead?  How about the team you participate in every day?

Based on the bestselling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and powered by the behavior-based research of Everything DiSC®, the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Program reveals the degree to which a cohesive team expresses each of these five behaviors:  vulnerability based TRUST, healthy, unfiltered CONFLICT, clarity and COMMITMENT, peer ACCOUNTABILITY and a focus on the collective RESULTS of the team.

Visit us to learn more about how the Five Behaviors program can transform your workplace, just like it has done for thousands of others. www.employeedevelopmentsystems.com. Contact us at 800-282-3374 to find out how we can help you impact your own productivity and the productivity of your entire organization.

We deliver results-oriented training programs that increase productivity, effectiveness, & performance.

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