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Adaptability is Genius & Generosity

Posted in Leadership, People-Skills, Soft Skills, Teamwork, Thriving in Change

Adaptability Wins in People-Skills, Leadership, Teamwork, Customer Service, and Everywhere Else!

Adaptability: Image is of the plant mimosa pudica.

Adaptability is genius and generosity. Image of mimosa pudica by: Reinaldo Aguilar

Image by Reinaldo Aguilar via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Adaptability is nature’s genius. Species that can adapt, evolve and survive.

There are those who think adaptability is genius in nature but not in people. They see people skills adaptability as weakness and lack of authenticity. To them, an adaptable person is a chameleon. Yet this is not true. Adaptability doesn’t make you a chameleon; what’s in your heart does.

With a generous heart, adaptability is genius. It is the brilliance in leadership, teamwork, customer service, innovation, career, people skills, personal relationships and much much more.

The Genius & Generosity of Adaptability

Adaptability is the capacity to see differences and changes and the willingness and skill to respond for a positive result. Adaptability is not submission and surrender. Adaptability and authenticity are not opposites nor mutually exclusive.

In Leadership.

Adaptability is the keen sense of what changes will impact the organization and the skill to change appropriately. A changing workforce, competitive products, global markets, educational strengths and shortfalls, laws and regulations, political shifts, human tragedies all create the need to adapt. Adaptability is the organization’s genius to survive.

In Innovation.

Innovation is adaptability in action. It requires leaders and teams to overcome comfort and love of what they previously created. Adaptability is the generosity to overcome habit and the genius to focus on what is needed going forward.

In Teamwork.

Teamwork is the practice of growth and change to achieve a shared success. Without adaptability, it doesn’t happen. Several things can derail team success: personality type differences, various learning styles, conative approaches, communication preferences, goal orientations, etc…

Adaptability bridges these differences into collective success. It requires both the genius of how to adapt and the generosity to put the team ahead of personal preference.

In Career.

No matter how great our plans, our schooling, or our intelligence, achieving career success is rarely a straight line up. Adaptability facilitates career success. Shifting gears when our dream job doesn’t materialize keeps us moving forward. Being open and adaptable to coaching and mentoring creates career fit.

Social networking done with mutual give and take is the generosity of adaptability in action. It is the genius of tapping shared human needs for mutual success.

In Customer Service.

If we don’t adapt to customers, they become another company’s customers. Sometimes when their needs are outside of our company’s mission, this is acceptable. Companies do fail when they try to become everything to everybody. Yet adaptability to customers within our mission is essential for success.

Adapting to customers shows our generous hearts that touch theirs. Adaptability creates memorable customer experiences that keep them coming back for more. This is the genius of shared success.
In People Skills.

People skills are the outward expression of both our identity and adaptability. People skills adaptability doesn’t undermine our authenticity. It truly shows whether we are flexible and open-minded vs. rigid and closed-minded. It shows our genius in spotting others’ styles and needs. It communicates our generosity to interact (not just act).

Mutual give and take — adaptability — is the essence of forming positive relationships with others. Those who won’t and don’t may dominate for awhile yet lose in the end. Our street smarts are a form of adaptability that protect us from those with evil intent!

Adaptability is rooted in a humble heart and an evolved mind that know life is not just about the self. Adaptability is both the genius to see we’re all on earth together and the generosity to truly live that way.

Adaptability is the genius of survival and the generosity of coexistence!

What do you think?
What stops people from adapting to changes and to others?
How can someone develop adaptability?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2013 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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Leadership People Skills Make It Easy to Gather for Success

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills, Soft Skills

In leadership people skills foster team success. Why? Because leaders’ people skills make it easy to gather and interact for success.

No matter what the challenge and the competencies of the team, people must metaphorically and literally gather for success. They will want to gather because of your outstanding leadership people skills.

The unfortunate opposite of this is talent leaving a bad boss with horrible leadership people skills.

Leadership people skills: Image is many hands.

Leadership People Skills Easy to Gather Image licensed via Istockphoto.com.

Image licensed from: Istock.com

Leadership People Skills – Make It Easy to Gather for Success!

Successful leaders draw employees together to mix their talents for unique success. They prevent the following unnecessary and useless obstacles to interaction.

Comparing people to their predecessors.

Avoid statements like “You have big shoes to fill”. They don’t gather people for success. They reflect the leaders’ fear of failure. This is a worthless and unnecessary detour.

Stay on the road to success. Gather everyone today for an even better tomorrow. Leadership people skills: Engage the talent for who they are not for who they aren’t. “We have great challenges and great talent here.” When you express your belief in them, you make it easy to gather for success!

Labeling struggle as childish.

As pressure mounts and employees voice complaints, don’t show your frustration with the statement “Stop whining.” This mislabels and embarrasses adults. How will they save face and gather for success? By avoiding you or shutting up when you’re around? This is another unnecessary obstacle to success.

The truth is complaints and whines are not the same thing. Complaints are the precursor to solutions. Whines are a child’s cry of unhappiness. Leadership people skills: Empathize with the struggle, reaffirm their talent, and elicit their solutions! This is how you make it easy to gather for success.

Using competitive philosophy w/ collaborative types.

Leaders who are motivated mostly through competition often make it hard for collaborators to gather for success. Replace: “Which one of you will come up with the best solution?” with “How many great solutions can we generate?” This makes it easy for competitive and collaborative types to gather for success. Competitors will naturally see the challenge they crave and collaborators will see the connection they need.

Leaders, to ensure your people skills make it easy to gather for success – first check your beliefs.

Successful leaders believe:

Emotional intelligence engages people for success; it doesn’t entangle, detour, and strangle results.
Inspiration brings out everyone’s best; embarrassment and threats stifle the creative spirit and amputate talents.
Collaboration promotes an exchange of diverse views to produce one tremendous result; competition shuts out interaction in the hopes of reaching the best result.

Leaders, what are your beliefs? How comfortable are you abandoning the traditional model of hierarchy and competition? Embrace engagement, collaboration, and emotional intelligence and you will make it easy to gather for success!

Question: Leaders, how have you made it easy to gather for success? Please add your experience in the comments section below.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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People-Skills: Powerful Bonds of Success

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills

People-skills affect every aspect of our lives — work, relationships, and our future. The pool of experience is vast and we can learn much from each others’ similar and diverse views.

To enhance our people-skills, I have …

Created the Peopleskills community on Google + and

The #Peopleskills Twitter chat that will launch on Sunday Jan. 27, 2013 at 10am ET/3pm GMT.

We will explore people-skills for leadership, teamwork, customer service, entrepreneurship, career success, dealing with conflict, emotional intelligence, and social intelligence. We will also delve into the deeper impact of people-skills on trust, personal growth, harmony among diverse people, give/take and happy living.

What people-skills wisdom will you share from your experience and what do you hope to learn?

People-Skills: Powerful Bonds of Success

Save the date – Sunday Jan. 27, 2013 at 10AM ET/3pm GMT — and join in the Twitter chat that will take us all to places of learning that we’ve never explored! If you have never been in a Twitter chat, you may find it easier to log on to Tweetchat.com to participate as it enters the hashtag for you on every Tweet.

I welcome your chat topic ideas, questions and suggestions. The hashtag will be #peopleskills and I look forward to this exciting new exchange!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Leading Superior Customer Experience: Turn Off the Power!

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership

Various comments on my last post — Don’t Fire the Customer, Fire Yourselves! — showed that many use the phrase “fire the customer” as a display of power.

Leadership for Super Customer Experience: Turn Off the Power! Image via Istock.

In the aftermath of abusive customers or the challenge of clients who constantly change their minds, some leaders and business owners use that damaging phrase to validate the organization’s position and use it to re-motivate frustrated and demoralized teams.

Yet, the power playing approach leaves a trail of trouble for the teams, the customer service culture, and the company’s reputation and brand.

Turn Off the Power for Superior Customer Experience!

Power struggles establish the dynamic as right vs. wrong.

Customer experience is about perspective and connection.

Power words, like “firing”, conquer & crush.

Customer experience is about awareness, empathy, uplift, and success.

Power-based motivation like “employees first, customers second” sets up a win/lose mentality.

Superior customer experience is about win/win!

“When you lead and serve for power, get ready for a power failure!” There is no greatness in either/or.

Turn off the power struggles, power words, and power-based motivation. If you want to use power, give it to your customers to give you free feedback — communicated with basic respect.

Turn on the listening and learning. Turn on creative exploration for effective problem solving. Turn on innovative thinking for customer satisfaction. Turn on the honest diplomacy to set limits in abusive situations. Turn on the joy of delivering superior customer service.

Lead a culture of excellence for improved performance based in continuous learning — not in power.

How will you ignite the customer service greatness in your organization?

I welcome your perspective in the comments section below. And I am ready to help you the way I have helped countless others in the last 23 years.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Superior Customer Service: Remove the Threat of One Phrase

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, Tweets

There is a phrase becoming popular in the customer service world that threatens both the customers and all of us in the profession. It’s a phrase we need to decry and banish from our vocabulary especially in the powerful world of social media.

The phrase we need to remove is: “Fire the customer!”

Superior Customer Service: Remove Threat of One Phrase Image by:Quinn Dombrowski

This threatening phrase:

Diminishes our integrity instead of building trust
Undermines our caring purpose rather than succeeding through care
Broadcasts selfishness and greed vs. radiating greatness
Declares customer service to be a power struggle instead of a partnership
Makes all customers who read it more defensive instead of cooperative
Teaches a new generation of customer service professionals a skewed view
Projects a tug-of-war mindset rather than a winning collaboration

Are there times when we can’t meet a customer’s need or expectation? Sure.
Yet how we part company — and speak about — echoes our brand throughout the global reach of social media.

For those business owners proudly using the phrase “fire the customer” all over Twitter, Facebook, and beyond, it’s worth a moment to consider an alternative.

The times I have not been able to continue with a customer, I have said:

“Although I cannot meet your needs and must pass on this opportunity, I wish you success …”

I am not “firing the customer”, as the current threatening phrase likes to power tout. I am firing myself! How we say things in difficult moments affects the future of our brand.

Current customers and social media tell future customers what we believe; they wonder how we will treat them. Every tweet, every post, every statement tells the world what we think of customers as a whole.

Customers talk about us too; what they say is actually up to us!

I vote to give superior customer service — not to be superior over customers. What do you want customers to say about you and your brand?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Leaders: Connecting to Inner Circle Removes These Threats

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

A recent article in Inc. magazine, 9 People You Must Remove From You Inner Circle, offers some solid advice for creating a top notch inner circle — aka leadership team.

Yet one tip it offers could spell failure. It suggests that the need to check in and maintain relationships means the person is needy and therefore a threat to success.

There is a difference between needy people who only produce when you connect with them and those who produce well through maintained relationships and collaboration. I agree that you wouldn’t want truly needy people on the leadership team. Yet, employee engagement with those in your inner circle is not the same thing as catering to the needy.

In fact, connecting with your inner circle on a regular basis removes key threats to success.

Leaders, Connect With Inner Circle to Remove Threats Image by:JimmyMac210

Image by: JimmyMac210 via Creative Commons License

Leaders Remove These Threats by Connecting to Inner Circle

The Threat of Arcs Instead of One Circle. Top leaders love to believe that once leaders in their inner circle understand the vision and mission, all efforts of their teams will connect to reach the goals. The truth is with this approach you can get many arcs of effort that do not unite. As the inner circle leaders lead their teams, the challenges, constraints, diverse work styles and time pressures that surface stop cross-team communication. Inner circle leaders who check in with each other model the value of relationships and replace the threat of these arcs with teamwork and communication.

The Common Sense Threat. Many leaders have failed from the assumptions they live. I call it the common sense syndrome. They don’t communicate and clarify what they mean for they believe it is just common sense. The antidote to the common sense syndrome is two-fold: stronger relationships to ensure all are comfortable questioning what the top leader says and of course, communicating expectations. Regular check ins sustain this comfort and keep the message clear and unified. Related post: Leaders, Common Sense Doesn’t Actually Exist.

The Threat of the Ordinary. No matter how inspired you stay as the top leader, inspiration does not automatically remain high among your inner circle of leaders. Just like a head coach of a major sports team, your regular connection with them removes the threat that daily work becomes ordinary. Inspiration is not a touchy-feely waste of time. It builds and sustains greatness. It fuels success.

The Threat of Protection. People are people no matter how inspired or talented. When you as top leader continue to check in with your inner circle, you develop intuition about them and can spot the littlest change in their behavior. When they are struggling with a mistake and whether or not to tell you, you will prevent the threat of protection by drawing them out. Whether they are protecting you or themselves, you can prevent disaster by ensuring that the threat of protection has no reason or place to hide.

The Threat of the Needy Label. When your leadership approach is “come around when you need something”, your inner circle leaders will be concerned about looking needy when they do come to you. When you check in with them on a regular basis, you define connection as the vehicle for success instead of the sign of weakness.

The Threat of Many Cultures. Top leaders who reach out to their inner circle of leaders and engage their discussions, model a culture of employee engagement that those leaders can use with their teams. Conversely, assuming they know how to engage their employees or that it is the preferred culture to do so, creates the threat of many cultures. People generally lead from their comfort zone. If your inner circle leaders are not naturally comfortable with or do not value outreach to engage employees, they too will lead with the message “come around only if you need something.” You will end up with a less than engaged organization and results falls short of what they could be.

Traditional leadership theory and practice operated on the tenet: “come around when you need something” else don’t bother. Many claim it worked well. Perhaps in more command-and-control static business environments it was effective because it saved time. However, when you look more deeply at leadership inner circles of the past, they did spend time building and maintaining relationships — be it on the golf course, over drinks after work, or at frequent fund raisers.

Nonetheless, the diversity within inner circles today masters diverse challenges and feeds business success. Maintaining relationships in that diversity makes them work well together.

Do not fall into the trap of connecting only when there is a need. In tough times, strong relationships are what speed collaborative solutions to critical challenges with accountability and a unified purpose. In other words, get to know each other. It makes a big difference.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Leaders, Common Sense Doesn’t Actually Exist

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, Listening Power

As leaders, we question why we must spend time and money developing employees and teams to do things that seem like common sense. At the top of the list are issues like: listen, collaborate, do important things first, and treat customers well.

As our frustration rises in our moments of disbelief, the truth about common sense emerges.

Common sense is our set of expectations more than an innate ability.

Leaders, Common Sense is Actually Our Set of Expectations Image via Istock.com

Leaders, From Common Sense to Common Practice

One might actually say that beyond the basics of human survival, the most of what we label as common sense is whatever meets our expectations of others’ behavior. Those expectations are founded in our own knowledge, education, experience, and perspective. When people happen to meet our expectations, by chance, we feel both validated and thrilled.

Yet we increase the chance of organizational and team success by:

Making our expectations explicit vs. implicit
Hiring for as much of it as possible
Identifying what causes the variation in behavior
Engaging employees to develop shared expectations and applicable behavior

The Crux of Variation in Behavior

As we identify what causes variation in behavior, we gain insight to spot it in during interviews, to communicate clearly what we expect, and to engage employees for successful behaviors.

Previous leaders’ expectations. Professors in school, parents, and previous bosses leave a decided mark on our job candidates and employees. It might be the behaviors that we value or not. If their manager was a highly critical micro-manager, then we may not see the common sense we expect like engaged listening, initiative in customer care, or critical assessment skills about the most important activities. All the more reason for us to make our behavioral expectations explicitly clear. Then spot and understand any variation and train/coach for successful outcomes.

Personality types. People view situations and process them differently. Most of us have witnessed much debate in meetings over what is most important to do first. It isn’t common sense that determines the answer. It is understanding the various views around risks and explicit goals that produces a successful result.

Personal motivators. Fear, fame, control, stress avoidance, need for security, craving for progress, are just a few of the forces that impact behavior. As leaders we think we want nothing but high achieving employees with little fear. Yet along with those employee traits come a lower tolerance for bureaucracy, a desire to speak their minds and tell leaders they’re wrong, and an expectation of full resources to ensure success. There are rarely employees that completely match our expectations. The variation is not their lack of common sense; it is the reality of employees trying to cope with conditions that don’t match who they naturally are.

The mystery in the mix. Even if we are fortunate enough to find employees who match our high expectations, they are not identical people. They are different people. Bringing them together for eight hours a day to interact with ease and success uncovers the challenges and mysteries of rapport. Leaders who think team building is a waste of time discover the mysteries the hard way during high pressure and stress — when it is time to produce not build rapport.
Our blind spots. If we want to minimize the variation from successful behaviors, we must start with ourselves. When we are highly self-aware, have our behaviors aligned with the goals, and work on our own demons, employees work in clarity not confusion. They spend less time managing up, second guessing our reactions, and tap dancing around success. They don’t have to guess our definition of common sense; they can engage with clear vision for maximum success.

Leaders, have you fallen prey to unstated expectations, a hope for things to naturally work, and denial of the steps needed to create teams of high performing engaged employees? One simple step to remedy this: Each time you say to yourself it’s just common sense, stop and write down your expectations. Then ask yourself if you communicated those expectations to everyone involved.

It takes clearly defined expectations and discussions to get everyone on the same page. It takes behavioral training to adapt to diverse customers and team building with colleagues to achieve what is often labelled as common sense.

I am your resource and coach and look forward to your ideas on this subject here or in private emails to me — whichever works best for you.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Leadership: Workplace Disharmony vs. Diversity

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership

Many leaders and managers are alarmed when disharmony surfaces in their organizations. Yet what is the difference between disharmony and diversity of thought? When is it discord and when is it discourse?

Can you tell when it is fueling divisive paralysis and when, a spirited exploration of valuable views?

Know the Difference Between Disharmony & Healthy Disagreement

Workplace Disharmony or Diversity of Thought? Image by: Sean Wallis via Creative Commons License

Image by: Sean Wallis via Creative Commons License

Leaders do well to first identify what distinction they themselves make, if any, between disharmony and diversity of thought.

For some, any disagreement is disharmony. Perhaps they are afraid of conflict or they believe people should just follow orders. These leaders get frustrated and annoyed when it takes hold and wish it could disappear as quickly as it seemed to surface. Their common outcry: “Can’t the employees work it out for themselves? We’re paying them to work together.”

Well, wish-craft is not a winning leadership strategy. Some would argue it’s not leadership at all.

For other leaders, harmony represents inaction and impending failure. They thrive on spirited debate and disagreement to the point they do not see when it becomes harmfully divisive.

There is no need to confuse disharmony and diversity of thought.

Diversity vs. Disharmony – Key Distinctions

Diversity of thought is rooted in respect for ideas and for each other. Disharmony grows from fear and disrespect for others, their ideas, and their ways of working.

Diversity excites; it doesn’t enrage. It expands possibilities; it doesn’t limit. Disharmony, with all its disrespect and power struggles, strangles success with resentment, cliques, and self-protection.

The return on diversity of thought is growth, innovation, and stronger bonds through learning. The return of disharmony is less collaboration, lower morale, rampant mistrust and organizational paralysis.

Diversity of thought thrives in hearing each others’ views. Disharmony spikes when people take credit for others’ ideas, forget civility, hijack team time with selfish personal agendas, brutally battle for promotions, use emotional bluntness instead of helpful honesty, and suffocate progress with passive aggressive behavior.

The emotion of disharmony drains the team’s energy and attention from successful behaviors. It’s wise to stop this pernicious force in its tracks. Develop people-skills and emotional intelligence to civilly and respectfully disagree.

Encourage diverse views with sincere, transparent respect for each other and the organization’s vision and you will propel all to dynamic success.

What else causes disharmony? Are there other factors you would add?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Career: 25 Incredibly Valuable Things to Be Instead of Leader

Posted in Careers & Jobs, Hot Topics and New Bits, Teamwork

A Salute to the Second Bananas in the Workplace!

25 Incredibly Valuable Things to Be Instead of Leader

People who strive for a leadership position are held in higher esteem than those who do not. A second-class message lingers about employees who do not strive to move up the ladder — despite their vast contributions to the end goal.

We can work to replace this misguided culture with communication and action that change the dynamic and truly value the entire team.

The benefits to the organizations and employees abound.

Retention of high performing team members and their knowledge and finely honed teamwork.
An abundance mentality rather than a fight for the leadership spots.
A flourishing collaboration as people experience true recognition rather than a skew toward those who strive for the title of leader.

This is the zone of true employee engagement. It highlights contributions not just as tests for future leadership slots but also as a celebration of the employee’s continuing value. People can grow and excel at what they do well rather than feign interest in a leadership position to avoid being seen as an underachiever.

25 Incredibly Valuable Things to Be

In addition to occupational skills and business knowledge, people have natural talents and people-skills abilities that deliver success to the organization.

A great collaborator. Those who have natural collaboration skills or have developed them through years of work are a definite asset to any team.
A memory bank. Even the greatest computers don’t replace someone with a memory for BOTH what has transpired AND the human impact and reaction to it. This memory bank becomes the team’s intuition and collective gut for in-the-moment decisions.
A motivator. Those who inspire themselves and others to higher levels bring every organization to unimagined success.
A velvet truth teller. These naturals at speaking the truth honestly not brutally deliver the soft strength of trust to an organization and its pursuits.
A creative. Having a creative on a team whose function is not primarily creative expands the team’s capacity to work on non-standard requests and its ability to work with creative departments.
An innovator. Those who love and deliver innovation fuel evolution and prevent the failure that comes from inertia and resistance to change.
A supporter. Supporters naturally anticipate needs, fill gaps, and often excel at last minute problem solving. Valuable for any team.
An empathizer. Teamwork needs more than occupational skills to succeed. It needs people with emotional intelligence who can sustain each other. An empathizer does this easily and well and helps all to rise above tough times to reach the goal.
A sounding board. This ability to know exactly when to listen and when to question while allowing others to own their progression uplifts all who experience this gift.
A get-it-done guy/gal. Without action, ideas die. The follow-through champs drive home success.
A healthy skeptic. Skeptics abound and often drown progress. Healthy skeptics challenge assumptions and prevent groupthink to keep progress flowing.
A critical thinker. Often tapped for a leadership position yet not always interested or successful as a leader. Their value to any team is undisputed.
A port in a storm. Those who can keep the calm for themselves and others during unexpected chaos keep the team balanced and performing during the blasts.
A practical philosopher. Philosophical insights can sustain morale, move all beyond obstacles, and even solve problems. When applied with a simultaneous eye for the practical, the practical philosopher sees solutions that others overlook.
A balance beam. Employees that see both sides of every issue, easily give and take, have hope yet still understand despair, love the present and adapt to the future, become the solid base of success for the whole team.
A sprinter. Bursts of winning energy help every team handle sudden changes and requests, jump the hurdles, and win the day.
A marathoner. Picture a grueling project that is not a sprint. Marathoners are an endless pump of energy, hope, and action during the long haul.
A billboard of diversity. An employee who is of mixed culture, has lived in different countries, grew up with parents of different generations, etc… can bring a valuable renaissance of open-mindedness to the organization and resulting success.
A nexus of personality types. Personality type differences can often be the source of discord. People who border the different personality types (and yes they do exist), help smooth the rough edges and blend the diversity into success.
A double cookie. This is a phrase I coined for people who have great capacity to use their left and right brains together. Instead of being heavily left brain or tipping over to the creative right side, double cookies deliver the power of creative analysis and the big picture. They can spot when the team is trapped on either side or in a war between the two. They spotlight the juncture for team success.
An intuitive. Historically, workplace cultures have marginalized the value of intuition. That is slowly changing to embrace intuitives’ gift of the gut to speed team success.
An organizer. The natural organizer clears the path of complexity for all to reach simple success.
A transplant. The employee who has worked in many industries, or professions, or departments in the organization delivers the single greatest advantage to reducing silos. Let us not label them as unreliable. Let us benefit from their broad vision.
A rainmaker. This rare ability to create opportunities and attract new customers is not just for sales departments. A rainmaker fuels cross teamwork. A rainmaker can energize any team to the highest level of spirited performance.
A communicator. Great communication was, is, and will be the essential fuel and necessary glue of any organization. Celebrate those who do it well and let them be the model for the organization.

What must leaders do to salute these talents and their second bananas who have them?

Change compensation schemes that claim there must be some who outperform others and base bonuses on that scheme. When you retain tremendous talent who are feeding success, make sure you give them all the fruits of their labor.

Change compensation schemes that automatically pay more if someone switches into a management/leadership position. This has been discussed for years as the dual track issue and some organizations have made great strides.

Give testimonials on high performers to other departments. Employees who don’t want to climb the ladder may want to broaden their experience by working in other areas of the organization. When a leader praises their talents to other department leaders, that leader is saluting the employee’s talent. The leader is fueling the employee’s career success and the organization’s as well.

I look forward to the day when job interviewees will be respected for answering the question, Tell us a little about yourself, with “I’m a balance beam” or “I’m a velvet truth teller”. When companies change their vertical mindset to a broader talent view, they attract and retain the best.

From your unique perspective, what would you add to the list of 25 to make it a list of 50 valuable things to be? I welcome your contribution in the comments field below.

Many thanks!

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

19 Comments »

Leaders, Are Your Teams Uncomfortable With Generosity?

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills, Teamwork

Leaders, if you interviewed a potential employee with great skills and an exceedingly generous spirit, would you hire them? Would the existing team members be thrilled? Collaborating freely, giving 110%, supporting in difficult times — what’s not to like?

Generosity as a trait sure sounds like a dream come true.

Then why have I witnessed so many negative reactions to generosity in the workplace? This issue is worth exploring. It affects employee engagement, teamwork, talent retention, future hiring, and of course — end results.

Leaders, Are You Uncomfortable With Generosity? Image by:Howard Lake

Image by Howard Lake via Creative Commons License.

Generosity as a personal and professional trait takes those who display it and their organizations quite far.

Generosity lifts others up with ideas, information, resources, empathy and strength.
It paints a portrait of “we” instead of just “me”.
It develops everyone through the shared knowledge of each.
It fills gaps at just the right time to reach any goal.
It should breed the ultimate in collaboration and teamwork.

Uh-oh, back up. How did that should get in there?

Leaders and managers want to believe that a generous spirit breeds positive feelings and similarly generous reactions. And it surely can. But dreaming alone doesn’t make it universally so.

In truth, generosity can also:

Breed mistrust in those who haven’t worked with generous team players. e.g. “Are they for real?”
Ignite envy in those who haven’t yet tapped their own generous spirit or who burned it out. e.g. “Who do they think they are?”
Stir resentment among team members who think the generous ones are raising the performance bar. e.g. “Stop, you’re making us look bad.”
Awaken fear that generous team members will win promotions and perks over them. e.g. “They aren’t generous, they are kissing up.”

Leaders, You Can Cultivate the Benefits of Workplace Generosity

Question yourself. Do you truly believe in collaboration or are you grounded in a competitive spirit? Collaborative cultures fuel generous spirits and generous people sustain a collaborative approach to success. Competitive team cultures can deliver success yet they can stifle workplace generosity and collaboration. Which culture do you want? Which one is your leadership style and your actions creating?

Assess the team’s makeup. How well do the team members balance individual and team needs? Do they each think their main goal is to shine as they do their job? Are they all natural collaborators, competitors, or a mix? These work styles must blend to reach success and your leadership can foster this blend of me and we.

Explore and discuss culture. Don’t assume. Leaders and teams falter when they assume everyone naturally balances me and we. Team building that raises and addresses this issue delivers a boost to team results.

Be generous. Do you have a generous spirit? Do you give employees kudos on a regular basis or live the maxim, no news is good news? Being generous with your insight, knowledge, and feedback does more than model generosity. It spreads the culture as the teams realize how great generosity feels and how much it delivers to morale and to end results. Related post: 12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement

Have the teams define what generosity is and isn’t. Is it offering help? Or is it helping only when asked? Is it jumping in and doing what you can even if it is defined another team member’s responsibility? What is the difference between generosity and intrusiveness? For teams who are learning collaboration, this step is the turning point.

Find and remove the disincentives to generosity. If you want a generous collaborative culture, team rewards must be as significant and individual rewards. Make teamwork a tangible element of performance reviews. If you talk about collaboration, applaud it and decry self-serving actions. If you overlook it or make excuses for it, you will thwart the culture and undermine their trust in you.

From your experience, what is #7?

Generosity in the workplace is not just for non-profits. A culture of generosity magnifies your employee engagement efforts with the daily spirit of giving and collaboration.

Generous spirits break down silos and build bridges to new outcomes. They spread knowledge. Generous leaders and team members create a positive vibe that propels success especially in tough times of change.

Imagine an organization of knowledgeable, experienced, highly engaged, generous teams. Guess what — it can be real! Let’s make it happen together. I am here to help you as I have so many others.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Leadership: Does Data & Objectivity Create Detachment?

Posted in Employee Engagement, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

The business world and the scientific community place great value on data and objectivity. They value clear-headed thinking and quantitative analysis to solve the puzzle and reach success.

When we extend data and objectivity’s gold star status to leadership, teamwork, and customer service, we come up short in all three areas.

Leadership, teamwork, and customer service require connecting objective data with the people involved. When we think the puzzle is solved because the data connects in our minds, do we resort to simply reporting the data and logic assuming that all will cheer?

For employee engagement and customer experience it’s important to ask …

Leadership: Don't Let Data & Objectivity Detach Your Success

Where and When Does Objectivity Create Detachment?

When you don’t think engagement and connection is your job. There are people in diverse professions — from doctors to customer service reps — who believe their work is about the task at hand not about engagement. They are shocked when they get little or no response to their detached objectivity.

When you hope you can get by without connection. Whether it is a particular group of people you find difficult or a general discomfort interacting with others, data and objectivity frequently offer an easy place to hide from connection.

When data and objectivity are the source of your mojo. Some find it in data, others in creative problem solving, still others in communication. If your inspiration is data and objectivity, those you lead, collaborate with, or serve may feel detached when you are in your zone. Assuming that others are as moved by data and objectivity as you are can keep everyone from success.

When objectivity is your sanctuary. Everyone needs and has an activity that is a haven from stress. What’s yours? For some people it’s learning, for some it’s sharing perspectives, and for others it’s blocking out emotion and seeing just the facts. If you are in that group, your retreat to the refuge of objective data may abandon customers, team members, and employees just when they need your connection.

When you believe emotion and/or connection skews or dilutes results. If you have come to mistrust emotion through your formal education, work life, or negative personal experiences, you risk appearing detached as you exalt data and objectivity.

If you were punished or demoted for your natural engagement ability. Were you ever told by your teachers or your boss that you focused too much on people or were too sensitive? You may swing too far to objectivity — all the way to detachment — as you try to find your opposite trait and win their approval.

When you are being rewarded for impartiality. If in your work or personal life, you are regularly applauded, recognized, and even promoted for your objective view, you may be at risk for taking it to the extreme.

When conflicted feelings or a skewed sense of fairness stops you from connecting with anyone. Think of a leader who claims there’s not enough performance data when team members repeatedly report that a top performer is not collaborating well. Consider a customer service rep who falters in service recovery when they don’t want to believe their team member treated a customer poorly. Retreating to the harbor of impartiality feels safe yet simultaneously risks employee engagement and customer loyalty.

Few would dispute that data and objectivity are valuable — as a first step. It’s what you do with that value that creates or blocks success.

If data and objectivity truly nourish you, ask how you can nourish others with the result of it. Many leaders have learned to tell stories with the data to bridge the gap. Yet if we want to truly engage employees, we must learn their stories in order to craft an effective story about the latest data or challenge.

If team members are struggling in difficult times, empathizing with them before tapping our objectivity uplifts them with a human connection while moving everyone toward success.

If we want to engage customers in experiences they will value and cheerfully tell others, greet them as people not as account numbers. Let us see their expectations as welcome diversions from repetitious routines not as difficult customers who mess up our metrics.

One who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment. ~Meister Eckhart
BUT
One who wants to succeed must connect their mojo with others!

Are you ready to assess whether you are using valuable objectivity or getting stuck in the refuge of detachment? I can help you like I have so many others.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

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Leaders, Does Customer Service Fix Failure or Build Success?

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits

The Future of Customer Service & Customer Experience Without Silos

More and more C-Suite executives are seeing the business value of a super customer experience. Because B2B and consumer customers have easy access to more experiences and choices, customer experience is becoming a competitive differentiator.

Leaders, Customer Service -- Fixing Failure or Building Success?

Customer Service Teams

Will this be turning point of recognition that you have long desired?

Historically, leaders have viewed customer service as an expense that fixes company failures instead of brand building moments that contribute to business success.

They have poured resources into other aspects of customer experience (improved product design, redesigned sales channels) all with the view of reducing the need for customer service.

They have also looked for any way possible — from off shoring to automated reps in online chat sessions — to reduce the operational costs of customer service.

Now that customer reactions to those steps have been less than WOW, companies are reconsidering the business value of the culturally focused human touch in building company success. Who better to tap than current global customer service teams?

Customer service teams: Are you ready to embrace the changes needed to fulfill the new role?

Customer Service Leaders: Key Questions to Ready for Success

Metrics.
How many of your metrics are focused on measuring cost and justifying your customer service teams’ existence vs. measuring customer experience? Of course cost is always an issue. Yet in the new success role you will play, it only takes on meaning if paired with what you are delivering that the customers value.

Re-allocating Agent Time.
Customer service operations managers — how would you react if the leadership asked you to allocate agent time to participate in other customer experience activities — product design review, listening to focus group feedback, participating in projects to redesign the online customer experience? Would you want your agents to contribute to these opportunities or worry that that it would drain your department temporarily or permanently?

Networking to Build the New Role.
Customer service managers — are you currently networking with your peers in other customer experience departments? How are you actively working to break the silos and build success for the company with other teams involved in customer experience?

Retraining Agents.
On customer service teams where there has been an extreme focus on cost metrics (e.g. average handling time), you may need to un-train and retrain agents for this broader role. Are you open to this?

Also, if you have also set the culture to be highly competitive between agents by publishing individual agent metrics, you may need to build collaborative skills to work with other customer experience teams and to focus all on unity of purpose.

This change is low risk and high return. There are many customer service teams who have met their performance metrics without agent competition and internal collaboration improves the customer experience.

Reorganization.
OK customer service managers — now for the tough question. If leaders were to float the idea of reorganizing to integrate customer service teams into other customer experience departments, would you resist? This is difficult for it may mean a dramatic shift in your role and career.

Overcome the fear of this change by realizing the potential for your career in having exposure to these new opportunities. Just as your agents will flourish from this cross pollination of professional development, so will you.

Be aware of the signs that you are holding on and resisting change:

Insisting it won’t work because the cultures and goals of the various teams are too diverse. Instead establish the new goal of a seamless customer experience and build one culture to match it.
Foretelling catastrophe in operational performance if these changes are made. Performance has to match the newgoal!
Interpreting the idea of reorganization as a condemnation of all your efforts to date

Address the last one by stepping up and proactively lobbying to replace the old fixing failure view of customer service departments.

Show leaders in your company that you and customer service agents can build bridges between all customer service & experience teams for the success of the company.

If you truly want to rid your customer service teams of the fixing failure role, step up and champion the idea of a seamless super customer experience.

The future of customer service and super customer experience will be built without silos. Customer service managers — why not lead the way?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Leaders, Foresee the Burdens of Needy Customers

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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Leaders’ Dilemma: Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, Teamwork

Six months ago, a leader described this dilemma to me:

A team member who produced results with the other team members had fallen very ill. Let’s call this team member “Reach”.

When the leader approached the team members for a show of empathy, cards, flowers, and other help for “Reach”, many team members quietly avoided the subject and some clearly declined the outreach. The leader was shocked to learn that the team members saw Reach as a self-serving opportunist.

Leaders Dilemma: Self-Serving High Performing Team Member Image by: ErickGonzalez50

The concerned leader asked me to speak with the team members to learn more about the situation, what he had missed, and how to lead better in the future.

I agreed and asked the leader to think about his definition of teamwork in the interim.

Inside the Team Members’ Perspective

Reach was well-known for saying things like: “Always associate with people better than you to achieve success.” The team members wondered who Reach was referring to? Meanwhile, they perceived Reach overlooking them while always (metaphorically) looking up.

Reach helped himself grow — he didn’t help others to grow. He was also well-known for saying, “people give and help because they want to. They shouldn’t expect anything in return.”

Did they ever speak to the leader about Reach’s attitude? Two team members reported they had separately spoken to the leader who refocused the discussion on Reach’s work contribution and results. As they compared notes of the leader’s outlook — which they shared with the rest of the team — they felt is was futile to mention it again.

How had they been able to produce results with Reach while having these negative feelings? Interestingly, they had completely shut out personal feelings for Reach and focused purely on work results.

When the leader approached them for empathy, cards, flowers and other help for Reach, they were shocked. They had accepted the leader’s results only focus and said they felt both confused and betrayed by his call for personal help for Reach — when neither Reach nor the leader had cared about them. They asked me: What is the leader’s definition of teamwork? Getting the job done or caring for and helping each other to get the job done?

I reported my findings to the leader (without identifying who said what). He was stunned. I asked him for his definition of teamwork?

He told me he always believed that teamwork included caring and helping each other to grow.

When I asked him about his results focus with Reach, he confessed he didn’t know what else to do when the team members came to him about Reach’s attitude.

He didn’t see himself as a psychologist and quickly fell back on a traditional results only focus.

People-Skills & Leadership Lessons Learned?

The risk is blindness to plummeting morale that can affect future work results.

Fear can mesmerize and stop a leader from growing.

Awareness and listening are critical leadership skills.

well-known

It isn’t enough for a leader to let the team define teamwork.

The leader’s expectations of teamwork are critical in difficult times.

If you truly believe in a results only focus, be clear and consistent about it.

What Do You Think?

-What other lessons do you glean from this dilemma filled story?

-What does it leave you wondering? What other leadership questions does it raise?

-Are you concerned that you will lose high performing team members if you include more than just results in the definition of teamwork?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service & experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

7 Comments »

Leaders: Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

Posted in Hiring Talent, Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills

Leaders, you and your direct reports have great impact on attracting and keeping top talent. Though you might think it’s only about the money, it isn’t.

There are many behaviors that drive talent away. Talent includes full time employees, contractors, consultants, and even suppliers.

You as leaders and your directors and managers can attract and retain top talent by replacing behaviors that secretly repel them.

Leaders, Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

Image by: Dee_Gee via Creative Commons License

Behaviors repel talent for any of three reasons:

QL: They seriously reduce quality of life or
BS: They make it unnecessarily difficult to succeed or
$$: They indirectly cost the talent money.

Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Talent

Highly disorganized or uncertain. Top talent blossoms when leaders set a clear vision. Wandering through a disorganized morass when deadlines loom, leaves talent wondering if success is possible. They envision more attractive opportunities and yearn for success. Replace disorganization and uncertainty with valuable vision.

Negativity. Top talent wants to hear what is possible. They feed off of a reality of belief, ideas, and action. Negativity drains their spirit for they see it as unnecessary difficulty. Replace this drain with energy and a call to action.

Perfectionism. Top talent see this as a triple whammy. It always comes across as unnecessary stress, it reduces the quality of their work life, and it costs them money. How? By reducing the time they can spend learning or accomplishing other valuable tasks or opportunities. Replace the scourge of perfectionism with the goal of excellence. What a difference!

Fear of failure. It produces behaviors that demoralize others. Even if you as leaders aren’t afraid, those that report to you may be. If you love to delegate, do it wisely. Replace delegation based on occupational skill with delegation based on inspirational leadership ability. Otherwise, top talent will move on to work with project managers and directors who aren’t stuck in fear.

Me-itis. Top talent tend to love a confident humble leader. Non-confident self-absorbed leaders drive top talent from the organization like a fire alarm. Replace the engineered comfort of me-itis with a belief in what the top talent can produce for the organization and thus for you.

Attracting top talent today is quite different than years ago. There was a time when casting doubt about a talent’s skill would make them work harder to prove you wrong and win out over other talent you are considering.

Though there is still some talent who respond that way, there is top talent who will walk away from you and toward positive inspirational leaders that embrace their talent.

Replace competition with collaboration and doubt with a coalition for success!

What other behaviors would you add to this list? What other leadership traits attract top talent?

From professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, customer service, customer experience, and teamwork. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

11 Comments »

What Do Workplace Pit Bulls Do to Accountability?

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, People-Skills, Thriving in Change

Leaders, do you appoint someone the workplace pit bull believing it will make everyone more responsible and accountable? Let’s consider what workplace pit bulls do to accountability.

What Do Workplace Pit Bulls Do to Accountability?

Image by:Vectorportal.com

The Story.
In a meeting with a brand new customer, one of my clients introduced herself to me as the one who pit bulls everyone. The boss had given her that responsibility believing it would make everyone more accountable.

I finished the engagement and for the first time turned down follow on business when they asserted the pit bull approach would remain. Her actions had few positive outcomes and many negative.

The Claim. Driving and pressuring people to the maximum creates accountability.

The Truth. Driving and pressuring people to the maximum creates a flurry of activity and fear of blame. It might create short term productivity but not accountability.

What Do Workplace Pit Bulls Do to Accountability?

Make team members very risk averse. They take the safe approach to avoid the pit bull’s bite. This has little to do with producing the quality outcome and is hardly accountable to the organization’s goals.

Breed a not my fault culture to avoid blame and punishment. This is the exact opposite of responsibility and accountability.

Stress people right out … of their knowledge. Have you ever been so stressed that you can’t even think? How can you be accountable to the organization’s goals if you can’t apply your knowledge, creativity, and critical thinking on a daily basis?

Reduce trust and respect. When a blame culture takes root, people begin to mistrust not only the pit bull but everyone around. Everyone covers their tracks instead of investing in true collaboration and teamwork to reach the organization’s goals. This is not accountability.

Demoralize team members. Workplace pit bulls may produce obedience yet it’s at the cost of morale, spirit, and the desire to be accountable.

Workplace pit bulls (or those who appoint them) are filled with fear of organizational failure and instill fear to prevent it. Ironic, isn’t it, that they can end up producing the very thing they wish to avoid — organizational failure!

Accountability does not foster a culture of fear and blame nor emerge from it. It thrives in learning organizations that empower people within appropriate boundaries.

It rises out of honoring individual accomplishments as well as team successes. It both requires and engenders high levels of achievement by inspiring new possibilities and tapping the team’s current knowledge and ideas.

If you are a leader and aren’t seeing the performance and results you need from the teams, don’t seal your fate by confusing accountability and blame.

Blame won’t change their behavior; a change in your behavior will. Honestly assess your leadership style and make changes to produce change.

Inspire accountability in your teams. Don’t pit bull them into obedience.

What is the greatest approach you have ever used or witnessed that produced accountability?

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Resource for Entrepreneurial Leaders: Something Needs to Change Around Here by Liz Weber, CMC.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change to corporate teams. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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