Interpersonal Skills

Leaders, 12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement

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

Leaders, recognize employees for their individual strengths and talents and spark employee engagement. Plenty of studies support this claim. Plenty of leaders think this means company recognition programs, awards, and celebratory events.

That’s nice yet nothing sparks other human souls like sincere appreciation of their worthy unique strengths.

Let your people-skills shine and applaud the employees’ natural talents with worthy kudos. No matter the age, the gender, the occupation, or the title, the employees connect with the future when you spotlight their present strengths.

Leaders, 12 Incredibly Evident Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement Image by:LexnGer

As you read through this list, think of the potential joy, energy, and engagement these kudos can spark.

12 Worthy Kudos to Spark Employee Engagement

Organized without being rigid. In this day of do more with less, information overload, and enterprise integration of everything, organized people who can flex and adapt are a treasure to any business. Tell them. Applaud it!

Thirsty for knowledge and application. Business is moving fast and furious to fulfill the present and create the future. Employees who are constantly learning and applying it are both the fuel and the ballast for success. There’s a worthy kudo!

Sensing potential and spotting futility. Employees who can accurately sense when to advance an initiative and when to recommend scrubbing it propel the organization forward and prevent it from falling. Laud this worthy talent.

Tough, thorough, and reliable. How often do you overlook those that you can totally depend on? Change it. Tell them how much you truly appreciate their constancy and commitment.

Intuitively strong. Today’s focus on data sometimes minimizes those who use their intuition for everyone’s benefit. They move highly data driven people from stagnation to appropriate risk taking. Applaud their worthy insight.

Analytic and creative. These two talents are often thought of as mutually exclusive. They aren’t. There are employees who can create ideas and analyze to implement it. These dual talents also serve well to bring teams together for project success. How about another round of applause here!

Passionate and restrained. Passion is inspiration that renews itself and energizes others. It takes passion to ignite success and restraint to stay on course. Employees who contribute both make your job as leader easier. Worthy of applause and gratitude!

Positive and realistic. A positive attitude sustains everyone and realism sharpens the vision and prevents being blind sided. Successful entrepreneurs have and value it. If your employees have this, it’s worthy of a compliment!

Grateful. Employees who live their lives with gratitude often minimize workplace drama. Their inner sense of happiness and control filters noise instead of reacting to it. They aren’t doormats yet they easily see what truly matters and let the rest of the baloney fall away. They bring balance to new teams. Offer gratitude for their gratefulness!

Remarkable in people-skills. Great people-skills are the daily life blood of an organization. Interacting skillfully with each other, with customers, suppliers, regulators, auditors, and the media in a multitude of settings delivers success to the business. Don’t drain the lifeblood by ignoring it. Replenish it with an occasional remark of worthy appreciation.

Resourceful. Employees that shine in creative problem solving convert obstacles into pathways of success. Who in your organization is highly resourceful? Tell them how it makes a difference!

Confident. Distinctly different from arrogance, confidence delivers great presentations, strength in new challenges, accountability for results, and willing ownership of mistakes. Show your appreciation for this maturity. It’s worthy of it.

Noticing and applauding employees’ talents and strengths sparks joy and engagement. Who wouldn’t want to commit when they see and hear their value?

Sales teams get to see it in money. Show it to non-sales teams in your reflection, remarks of appreciation and worthy kudos. It’s a no cost and high return investment!

I welcome your additions to this list. What other employee talents and strengths have you applauded?

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

©2012 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 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.

17 Comments »

New Leaders, 10 Gritty Questions to Define Teamwork

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Teamwork

Leaders, what behavior do you expect among team members? This is not a trivial question especially if you are new to leadership.

How you define teamwork shapes how you will inspire, lead, and facilitate or solve team difficulties.

Beyond the expectation that all work together to produce success is often the unstated hidden set of expectations that can silently unsettle or even destroy teamwork.

If you are a new leader, it’s valuable to sit back and admit to yourself your definition of teamwork. With clarity of your basic beliefs, you and the teams can have a better discussion to define teamwork.

New Leaders: 10 Gritty Questions to Define Teamwork

10 Gritty Questions to Better Define Teamwork

Does teamwork mean blunt frankness, diplomatic honesty, or ultimate polite respect? Team members have diverse styles. One blunt team member can offend others. One ultra polite team member can confuse others and fall short. What do you value and expect of them?

Does teamwork require caring for each other personally? If yes, to what extent? What if a team member has a serious illness in their family and amasses debt? Does teamwork mean that all show empathy and donate money to help out? Can a person be a good team member and not do that?
What if people don’t like each other personally but pull together to achieve success? Does that meet your definition of teamwork?

If one team member has a critical specialized skill or achieves more, does that entitle them to extra respect, special treatment, or more recognition from you? It happens and your view of it impacts teamwork.
Do you expect the team to work out their own interpersonal difficulties? There is much debate about this today. Some say yes and others see the leader as a valuable team facilitator.

What do you expect of existing team members when new members join? Would you expect them to actively welcome team members for quick integration? What if they are a bit skeptical and hold back to see what team members have to offer? Is that teamwork to you?

How will your teams work with other teams? Great teamwork within a team can sometimes stifle cross teamwork. What is your view and how would you address this issue?

Tight team member relationships produce one of the toughest teamwork issues – whistle blowing. What would you want a team member to do if aware of unethical behavior, bullying, or major mistakes by another team member? Is whistle blowing a duty or disloyalty to the team?

Disagreements occur. What place and purpose do they have in teamwork? Do you expect high levels of harmony or do you see value in discord?

How will you assess teamwork? By the interaction and end results or just end results? If you view only the end results, the team may think your expectations of their interaction as inconsistent and illogical.

When a leader asks me to improve team function, I ask the leader to paint their view for me and I speak separately with the team members. The comparison unearths the gaps and sketches a road map to high performance and success.

What is teamwork to you? I look forward to understanding your definition and working with you and your teams!

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

Insights on Handling a Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Team Whistle Blowing: Duty or Disloyalty?

12 Comments »

Leaders, Leave Meetings. Get to a Meeting of the Minds!

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Humorous Insights, Leadership

Musings on Effective Meetings from The People-Skills Coach™

In the workplace, leaders and teams still search for ways to hold tremendously effective meetings. Despite years of pundits’ advice, side trips into tangent land, chatty corner conversations, habitually late arrivals, vibrating smart phones and tablets, tunnel vision, resistance, and lack of focus keep everyone from the bulls-eye.

They also leave most people dreading the next meeting.

So I wonder, will we find the Holy Grail if we leave meetings in the dust and instead hold a meeting of the minds?

Leave Meetings! Got a Meeting of the Minds?

Words do matter and the word meeting has always been too vague for me. It has confused workplace teams for decades. A meeting and its 21st century cousin, a meet-up, suggest a free form event to which people can arrive fashionably late.

Whereas the phrase, a meeting of the minds, is packed with clear requirements.

A meeting of the minds,

Sounds the knell of knowledge exchange that calls everyone to be there on time — else there’s no exchange.

Suggests there is a specific topic and purpose. You wonder a meeting of the minds “on what”? It breeds interest and focus.

Prepares the mind to be ready to meet. Most would feel embarrassed to attend a meeting of the minds and say only I don’t know or I’m not prepared!

Inherently requires listening, discussing, and participation of all minds. Unless everyone is telepathic, all must engage else the views stay hidden in the minds.

Engenders all to speak in terms that others understand else the minds don’t meet.

Brings the endless talker up for air to hear what other minds think.

Bends the obstinate else why are they at a meeting of the minds?

Coaxes all to agreement and decision. After all, isn’t that the meaning of we came to a meeting of the minds?

In the workplace today we have multicultural teams, virtual technology, global reach, and still that pesky problem of ineffective meetings.

I say we’ve got nothing to lose by giving meetings a new moniker and seeing if it gets us to the Holy Grail.

Maybe we should even hold a contest to see what the new moniker should be if a meeting of the minds doesn’t hold everyone’s attention!

What say you?

From my professional experience (with a wry twist) 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 »

People-Skills: Be & Perform Like a Ferrari

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

In this day of fast paced connections, it’s smart to fine tune our people-skills to perform like a Ferrari.

We must be quickly aware of and adapt to conditions, select the right speed of interaction, and pick the right words to communicate — all with style. Quite a challenge!

So let’s fast track it with quality components (knowledge) and then road test (practice) and maintain it with continued learning.

People-Skills: Be & Perform Like a Ferrari

Image by:Crystal666 via Creative Commons License

Fast Track Knowledge for People-skills Performance

Make brevity effective not rude. Skip the emotionally inflaming phrases and speak with simple honesty.

Be confident in your knowledge and deliver it humbly. It’s easier to appreciate the knowledge and respect the person when arrogance is not fogging the view.

Influence don’t manipulate. Abandon questions like don’t you think and replace them with open-ended questions that produce true understanding.

Listen don’t label. Labels build barriers; listening builds collaborative success.

Deliver results without running over people. What you ponder, you create. If you think of positive ways to succeed, your communication and people-skills will follow suit.

Express opinions as opinion, not as decrees. There is a time and place for certainty and a time and place to consider other possibilities. You earn great respect for being able to do both.

Opposing views can lead to new discoveries. Opposing each other leads nowhere. Where do you want to go?

Optimism and skepticism are healthy; pessimism is poison. An optimistic outlook and some protective skepticism lift all to tangible success. Pessimism drains the life out of everyone you touch. How do you want to touch others? Choose wisely.

See you on the highway to success as we handle the curves with ease and style!

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

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines, action footage, and customer results.

17 Comments »

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™

7 Comments »

Leaders: 10 Essential Thoughts to Proficient People Skills

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

Leaders, people-skills are critical to success. Yet in a demanding business pace, people-skills are often last on the learning list.

Luckily leaders and teams can build proficient people-skills while attending to critical business. The proficiency starts with attitude and flows into people-skills’ behavior!

Leaders, 12 New Thoughts to Proficient People-Skills Image by:Sean MacEntee

Hold and Use These 10 Thoughts

An open mind creates phenomenal results.

Most people feel respected, honored, and uplifted by an open mind. Both in output and in morale, it produces positive results. There are some exceptions yet overall it is a winning thought. Build proficient people-skills from an open mind.

Teams strengthen a leader’s reality.

When we remember that our vision, understanding, and experience gains momentum with a team’s perspective, we are more likely to respect their input and collaboration. Build proficient people-skills from this awareness.

Understanding people leads to influence.

Most leadership is actually influence in action. To effectively influence others — team members, customers, and even your boss — understand what they care about. Knowledge of others builds proficient people-skills.

Know when your people-skills naturally shine.

Complete this sentence: I am best at people-skills when ____________________________. Identify when you usually interact well with others. Is it when you are happy? Confident? Relieved? Celebrating? Respected? In need? In difficulty? When is it? Capture what you do during these times and apply it across the board. Your natural pattern can build proficient people-skills.

People-skills deliver in tough times.

Contrary to popular belief, people-skills are not a sign of weakness. In tough times you can draw on the good will you have built through people-skills to deliver otherwise unachievable results. “Because of our long standing relationship, I’ll do it for you.” That’s an homage to your great people-skills!

People-skills are not just for extroverts.

If you are more introverted than extroverted, repaint the image you have about people-skills. It is not about gregarious, outspoken, high energy behavior. People-skills is stepping outside of your own perspective to understand and interact effectively with others. High extroverts have just as much adaptation to make as introverts. Both can succeed if they seek to understand.

Bonds are not bondage.

Many leaders having a driver personality crave end results not relationships. In fact, many believe that bonds with others are a detour to success and a trap that stops them just short of the finish line. Yet unless these leaders truly do everything themselves to reach success, bonds with others are the road to the finish line. Knowing the difference between bonds and bondage builds proficient people-skills.

Finding fault stops progress; finding solutions ignites success.

One of the riskiest people-skills moments for leaders is during a crisis or failure. That trigger voice that says: “Who’s at fault?” can bury future collaboration forever. Great people-skills can guide the organization back to success and to a culture of accountability. A focus on success, not blame, can build proficient people-skills.

If you overlook team problems, success overlooks your teams.

Morale matters. It impacts results. Team member people-skills affect morale of the team and the results of the organization. “They are not children. Let them work it out themselves.” These beliefs cost the organization money and sacrifice success. Accept the truth about morale and you build proficient people-skills.

Get over being comfortable; get versatile.

Global business success requires constant growth which means the discomfort of change. Focus on the versatility that people-skills bring to your success and you will build proficient people-skills!

Thoughts drive behavior and create a chain of reactions. Hold these thoughts about people-skills and build valuable bonds that strengthen results.

Which of these thoughts rings loudest to you? Or would you add to or delete something from this list?

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

Related Post: Leaders, 10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

7 Comments »

Are You Too Nice to Lead?

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

The word leader used to mean strong, directive, and sometimes unfeeling. That picture has shifted to less directive and more in touch with employees’ needs.

Yet where is the balance between results-focused and people-focused? In tough moments …

Are you too nice to lead?

Are You Too Nice to Lead, Effectively?

Image by: SeanbJack via Creative Commons License

There are team members who want, welcome, and will only work for a nice leader — until they see that the nice leader won’t address poor performance and cannot negotiate tough issues with other teams and management.

They feel unprotected and at the mercy of slacking team members and other teams. So much for being nice!

Too Nice to Lead

Leaders, could this be you? How or when is this most likely to happen?

With Fear of Conflict. If you tend to avoid conflict and want people to just work things out for themselves, you may be seen as too nice to lead.
Alternative: Get a coach to help you develop your conflict resolution skills. Great leaders move past their fear. They know when to step in and even teach others how to work together.

In Times of Great Change. In everyday work, your teams think of you as a very effective leader. Then the organization announces a major change and you must lead your teams through it. The tension rises and your teams resist. In this moment of truth, do you lead them forward? If you cave in to their objections and resistance, your boss may see you as too nice to lead.
Alternative: Have the courage to draw on the good will you have with your team. Show them you believe in them and in the change. If you don’t believe it, why should they?

When You Require Emotional Support. Being humble and less directive can be good for your team because the void taps their talent and commitment. Being less confident and needing constant emotional support can scare the bejeebers out of them and earn you the label of too nice or weak to lead.
Alternative: Learn and understand the interplay between being confident and being humble. Confidence is strength for your team. Humbleness opens the door to growth. Both are valuable leadership traits. Lack of confidence isn’t.

If You Must Be Liked. Needing to be liked can steer you to many poor leadership behaviors. It can drive you to sacrifice results for the virtual hug. This can earn you the label of too nice to lead.
Alternative: Develop relationships outside of work that can fulfill this deep need. At work, focus on the balance of interpersonal connection and end results.

When You Get Promoted. Picture yourself leading your former peers and maybe even being a peer of your former boss. Guilt or feelings of unworthiness can make you seem timid or too solicitous. This can earn you the label of too nice to lead.
Alternative: Your boss or another leader put their faith in you. You were promoted for a reason. The team you lead needs your courage and talent. Even if some team members grouse in jealousy, the team’s success depends on your willingness to do the job. Embrace the responsibility you were given; don’t trigger the decision maker’s doubt and regret. Believe in yourself, the purpose, and the team. Lead.

If You Own Their Behavior. When you mistakenly believe that you are responsible for a team member’s behavior, you are at risk of giving an errant employee too many chances. You may take their behavior as your failure. If you are coaching one of your team members and they are not making progress, would you be able to tell them they are no longer on the team? If not, you may earn the label of too nice to lead.
Alternative: Afford your team members the adult responsibility of owning their own behavior. Coach, teach, guide — yes. Own their behavior? No.

When Your Career is Paramount. When you care about your career growth more than the current position, you may automatically say yes to other teams or management requests instead of using appropriate assessment and thought. You are busy pleasing everyone else and your current team’s success may suffer. If you are lucky, this may earn you the label of too nice to lead. If you are not lucky, it may earn you a different label that isn’t fit for print. Either way, it’s not what a great leader does.
Alternative: Let current successes, appropriate interactions, and great negotiation pave your career path.

As the definition of leadership has shifted from rough directive behavior to engaging employees, some leaders have veered off course and focused only on happiness.

Rediscover the balance and you foster success for all!

Leadership is not about telling or asking; it’s knowing when to do each.

Leadership is not about people or results; it’s about people achieving results.

Leadership is not one consistent approach; it’s using the best approach for the situation.

You can be liked and fail as a leader; you can be disliked and fail as a leader.

You succeed when you balance purpose and people, encouraging and deciding, listening and speaking up.

I wish you courage and strength and the insight to know how to use it.

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.

16 Comments »

Do Brilliant Minds Breed Bad Teamwork?

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

Brilliant Minds & Teamwork Image by:Chechi Pe

A call came in from the Human Resources Director of a large prestigious law firm. The challenge?

Build more respect and teamwork between the most brilliant legal minds in the law practice and the support staff.

And not just any brilliant minds. These were the elite attorneys in cutting edge and high powered niches, all with double (some triple) degrees.

Support staff felt demoralized. Some had left. Turnover was on the rise. The HR director quipped in exasperation:

Do brilliant minds breed bad teamwork?!

Certainly everyone deserves to be treated with respect. HR and the attorney relations department addressed the few cases of actual verbal abuse. Yet the HR director wanted better daily interactions, teamwork, and morale throughout the organization.

She gave me examples of the interaction between the super educated brilliant attorneys and the support staff. I also spoke with support staff.

There was good news. The hurdles were from different levels of drive for achievement — not from a deeply rooted disrespect for support staff.

Now for the solution. The HR director noted that access to the attorneys’ time was very limited. So we first held workshops with the support staff to rebuild morale and build skill in supporting high achievers.

It was remarkable to see the support staff zealously embrace these basic beliefs of brilliant minds:

Commitment turns intelligence into brilliance. “I am always learning — please do the same.”
Facilitate and sustain my achievement or get out of the way.
The organization expects me to hit the high bar. Please jump higher with me!
Shine at what you do so I can continue to shine at what I do.
Come at me with solutions to problems — not just the problem! Otherwise, get out of the way.

Support staff remarked that this picture was one of continuous striving and learning not a desire to demean. They had never perceived it that way.

From this awareness, we re-mapped how to speak and behave in support of these high achievers.

Some say it is unfair to ask the support staff to learn new support skills instead of asking high achieving attorneys to change their ways.

Yet, high achieving revenue producing professionals respond, “If you ask me to put the feelings of teamwork ahead of results, the organization will achieve less. Why can’t we all step it up and achieve more?”

Success lies in both. Put limits on the demeaning behaviors, like verbal abuse, and train support staff, as we did, to work from the high achiever’s view. It transformed attitudes, performance, respect, and teamwork!

So to answer the initial question — Do brilliant minds breed bad teamwork? No. A difference in expectations, drive, and goals, does.

From 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, customer experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

6 Comments »

People-Skills: The E of Email Does Not Mean Emotion

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

Email is still alive and well. How about the people who received your last email? Was the email clear, concise, and respectful? Or did emotion creep in and rile the issue and people’s sensibilities?

As I teach people skills to corporate teams, they continue to raise one persistent issue – how best to respond to negative emails. Without a doubt, we can diffuse a negative email more effectively through true conversation than through another email.

Beyond that, take steps to ensure that the email we write is not negative — lest we start or feed an e-war!

People-Skills: The E in Email Doesn't Stand for Emotion!

Let us never forget that …

The E of Email Does Not Mean Emotion

Wouldn’t we feel silly saying to a teammate or customer, I will send you an “emotion mail” later today. Yet workplace colleagues write them!

A recent emotion mail sent to me by an online colleague (not a customer) serves up some great lessons. Here’s the original emotion mail and an alternate approach.

Hi Kate,
I find your blog posts to be consistently well-written and valuable. They nicely reflect my own sentiments towards customers too. It’s my hope that by sharing links to them on Twitter and other SM platforms, readers benefit from the insightful material and you benefit from the exposure you clearly deserve.

After reading your most recent post – which I was about to post on Twitter – I noticed this in the footer: “If you want to re-post or republish this post …”. If it were anyone else I would have immediately decided that I don’t have time to address the ambiguity and never post anything from them again.

However, in this case, I’m assuming that I may be misreading your intent. Please clarify: is your statement intended to dissuade people from posting links to your material on Social Media platforms?

The emotion about addressing the amibguity and never posting anything from them again minimizes the compliments of the opening paragraph.

If we were to send this type of email to a teammate or a customer, it could put the relationship at risk.

What if the email were written like this:

Hi Kate,
I noticed the footer on your blog post “If you want to re-post or republish …”. Wasn’t sure what it meant. Is it OK to put the links to your blog posts on Twitter without permission each time? I find your blog posts valuable and love to share them. Let me know! Many thanks…”

Which version of the email would you rather receive — the original or the alternate approach?

4 Tips to Turn Emotion Mails into Positive Emails

Know our purpose for sending the email. In the original emotion mail above, what is the purpose? To clarify the meaning of the footer? or to vent frustration about being confused? If we admit the true purpose to ourselves, we can choose not to send the negative email and send a positive one instead.

Simple and clear beats wordy and emotional. People get scads of emails. We increase the chances that people will read email by keeping it simple and politely getting to the point. The best part of emotion to use in an email is emotional intelligence (EI).

The more emotion we use at someone, the harder it is to effect a change. If we want a teammate to change some behavior, using emotion at them can make it tougher for them to do just that — even if they agree with our requested change! Let them change while saving face. Less is more in this case.

Formal sometimes seems rude. Surprised to read this? When we have something negative to say, couching it in formal language doesn’t make it positive. It sounds like formal negativity and can seem rude to others.
If we have something negative to say to a teammate, best to communicate what we want instead of what we don’t want. State how we want to be treated instead of how we don’t want to be treated. Use I statements instead of you statements. This avoids accusations and still communicates honestly, clearly, and respectfully — in a positive manner.

My advice to corporate teams: “We shine in people-skills when we communicate positively not negatively and forward not back.”

It’s critical in delivering customer service and truly appreciated in teamwork.

What other tips will you offer here to turn emotion mails into positive emails?

From my 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 this blog post in part or in whole, please email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on the ultimate customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

6 Comments »

Profitable Leadership & Team Secrets of Personality Types

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, Leadership, Personality Types, Teamwork, Thriving in Change

Behind the labels of personality types lie the secrets to more profitable leadership and teamwork.

Workplace leaders often assess team member personality types — amiable, expressive, analytic, driver — and then get busy and do little with it. As I work with them and their teams, I highlight the profitable secrets they can tap.

The Profitable Leadership & Team Secrets of Personality Types

Personality type impacts understanding and outcomes of leaders and teams. It guides you on how best to engage employees. It can make or break employee ability to thrive in organizational change.

Secrets of Personality Types:

Employee Engagement

Amiable personality types come alive through personal connection. If you want to tap the profit they can bring to the business, build interpersonal bonds with them. A just the facts approach makes them feel lonely and demoralized. You do not have to be their best friend yet if you skip the bonding you skip the profit. In today’s world of remote technology, remember to connect with amiable types face to face or on the phone. Video conference with remote amiable type employees for a winning solution!

Expressive personality types shine in and through communication. Two-way communication, a critical skill of any good leader, brings these people to full contribution. If you are fast paced, results-oriented and minimize communication, these expressive types feel shunned. You are leaving the profit by the wayside.

Analytic personality types function in an ordered thought process. They have much to contribute if you always allow for some ordered discussion. If you are brainstorming, take a small pause to capture the analytic’s ideas. If you are a highly creative leader, summarize your thoughts in an ordered manner after your creativity. Skip the order and you leave analytic types frustrated and the value they provide, suppressed.

Driver personality types crave end results and achievement. Give them the big picture, highlight critical milestones and risk factors, and then let them deliver. If you micro-manage them or ask them to have lengthy discussions on non-critical factors, they feel trapped and repressed. Although many other types dislike micro-management, driver types resent it for you are keeping them from the brass ring! They may look for a new position that gives them a real shot.

During Times of Great Organizational Change

Double driver leaders intent on pushing through massive change often overwhelm the other personality types because they focus only on the results. They issue announcements instead of holding all hands meetings. They tell themselves it’s all for organizational results. Yet the methods they use are self-serving and fulfill their driver personality type needs. Ironically, they are leaving the profit of personality types untapped and results suffer.

Likewise, amiable type leaders can get caught up in feelings and bonding sacrificing the organizational change goal. It doesn’t have to be that way. I have seen amiable leaders use their incredible bonding skills to rally support for the change and tap everyone’s talent to make it happen.

Analytic type leaders may falter in organizational change if they demand too much information before making decisions. In this case, analytics do well to trust the other personality types on the team and profit from their decision skills.

Expressive type leaders often shine in organizational change because they are natural communicators. They must remember to engage in two-way communcation. Profit from the analytic, amiable, and driver types’ ideas by remembering to let them express!

To engage employees and lead them in tough times of change, tap the profit in their personality types.

If instead you revel in the comfort of your own personality type, you leave the profit for the (next) adaptable leader.

Related post: GPS Your Brain to Work With Any Personality Type

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

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

8 Comments »

The 12 Most Desired Yet Unrequested Forms of Care

Posted in Customer Service, Hot Topics and New Bits, People-Skills, Soft Skills, Teamwork

Have people at work or home ever told you that you are so caring? That you always know how to make them feel better? Those who get this positive feedback understand one thing – people define caring differently.

If you hear the reverse — that you don’t seem very caring when they feel bad — you may want to scream out, “Tell me what you want. I’m not a mind reader!”

When people are lonely, upset, demoralized, angry, or hurt, they want care. Yet what type? Most care is desired yet unrequested and confusion sets in for those around them.

12 Most Desired Unrequested Forms of Care Image by:unloveablesteve

Fear not. I am hear to clear up the confusion. As The People-Skills Coach™, I teach corporate teams how to interact more successfully during tough times. They tell me that they use the information in their everyday lives as well.

From this encouragement, came the idea for this post — the 12 most desired yet unrequested forms of care. With this information, you can increase your emotional intelligence and connect better with others when they are feeling bad.

1.Quiet Listening.

If you have ever given your opinion to upset team members or loved ones and they snapped at you, you have learned that quiet listening is their unrequested desire. Their questions are not questions and they feel better just knowing that someone else has heard their pain.

2.Empathy.

One of the most common desires for care is empathy — the sense that someone else truly knows how they feel. Empathy gives those in pain a needed boost to work through their struggle.

3.Validation.

These people want to know you agree with them. Quiet listening falls far short and can enrage those seeking reinforcement of what they feel. If you truly disagree, do not tell them while they are upset. They won’t hear you and you will seem like an uncaring fool.

4.Support.

By the time most loved ones say they want support, you have let them down. Those who want support yet don’t request it up front, are requesting in their actions when they support you. Many of them find it distasteful to have to ask for it verbally. They believe their supportive actions speak volumes and they don’t understand why you haven’t heard them. Listen to their actions when they help you and follow suit when they are in pain.

5.Encouragement.

Friends turn to other friends when they want encouragement — especially if their family has not learned to encourage even when they have doubts. When they want to ditch the conventional and try something new, they want you to encourage them beyond the fear and doubt.

6.Devil’s Advocate or Tough Love.

Be careful of this one. Ask permission first.
A Short Story: A college friend and I are quite different when it comes to dating. She is more willing to give men the benefit of the doubt. She had been through two relationships where men treated her badly and both ended in break-ups. On the third time around in a bad relationship, she asked me what she should do. Surprised that she would ask me, I said to her “Are you sure you want my opinion?” She replied with an odd chuckle: “Yes, I am asking you because I know you’ll tell me to drop the bum.”

7.Knowledge.

There are people who find knowledge a great comfort. They don’t want your opinion they want your knowledge. Perhaps you have been through a similar situation and they want to hear options they haven’t considered. Perhaps you have professional training they want to tap. Give them your knowledge not your advice.

8.Insight.

Team members and friends that want insight will show both vulnerability and strength. They are starting to move beyond the pain and want you to help them to think it through. They want more than knowledge and less than a solution. A combination of “maybe statements” and questions are the dynamic duo here.

9.Solutions.

Are you jumping for joy now that we have reached this one? Many people, when they hear others’ pain want to offer a solution. They convince themselves that it is logical. The sooner the solution, the quicker the pain goes away. Unfortunately, to someone not ready for a solution –the “get over it quick” approach seems brutishly insensitive. Go back to empathy and validation before you offer a solution.

10.Strength.

When loved ones are scared and in pain, strength may be the greatest care possible. Strength reduces the fear. It gives them a sense of control and empowers them to deal with the pain. Offer your strength without judging. Judging makes them feel weaker. Strength makes them feel stronger.

11.Momentum.

If you are known as action-oriented, colleagues and friends may come to you to help them move forward. This may be the toughest form of unrequested care to give. It takes practice to spot how fast they are ready to move. You may trip if you push them to quickly. Yet you won’t crash and burn if you are not judgmental. Admit your misstep — don’t tell them they are dragging their heals.

12.Outrage.

Perhaps the easiest to see is the desire for outrage. When loved one or friends express their outrage over being wronged, it is a safe bet that eventually they want to hear “You deserve to be treated better.” You don’t have to bad mouth whoever wronged them just show outrage over what was done to them.

Of these 12 desired yet unrequested forms of care, which one do you most often want? If your answer is “it depends”, then you understand why others have varying needs. If you always want the same thing, remember that not everyone is like you.

The biggest mistake you can make is to treat others they way you want to be treated. You must treat them the way they want to be treated.

If you care enough to learn how to care their way, you will succeed. Learn from one instance to the next how to give your professional colleagues, friends and loved ones the care they desire yet don’t always request.

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

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, inspires and trains corporate teams, customer care professionals, call center agents, and technical support teams in the greatest people-skills and emotional intelligence for customer service and teamwork. She combines her natural intuition about people (her human GPS), a Masters degree in Organizational Psychology, and 20 years of gritty real life experience to develop your emotional intelligence.

14 Comments »

Leaders, 10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

Posted in Hot Topics and New Bits, inspiration, Leadership

A recent Twitter chat called leadfromwithin raised a question in my mind that affects every leader and manager especially in times of change. When you attempt to inspire teams with your passion, do you scar them or ignite their greatness?

Use Passion to Ignite Greatness Not Scar Others Image by:fsamuels

Passion that burns others undermines the goal.

Passion that ignites others fuels success.

10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

Keep Your Mind Open. When your mind is open to different ways of reaching the end goal, your passion ignites the team’s ideas and greatness. If you close your mind to ideas, it scars the team’s spirit and douses their passion.

Establish the limits of freedom. That might seem like an oxymoron yet it is true. If there are boundaries, state them and then let innovation, creativity, and great talent surface and develop. If you pretend there are no boundaries and inflict them later, it scars the team’s work rhythm and their trust. When boundaries legitimately change, communicate them clearly.

Become a geyser of goodwill. The more times you communicate the positives (when they are true), the more trust and goodwill you build with the team. This goodwil builds the team’s strength to then hear the negatives with objectivity. The sum ignites greatness.

Be honest not blunt. Honesty that doesn’t insult catapults all to greatness. Bluntness leaves emotional scars that toughen future interactions. Classic wisdom says: Attack the idea not the I. That’s a good start. I add, “Disagree without being disagreeable.”

Question before feedback. Your passion for the vision or goal, will scar others if you give negative feedback before understanding their actions. You also scar your credibility and their trust in you.

Refine your message to critical points. Passion has the power to confuse. It causes you to leave out critical information that can ignite the team’s greatness. Exercise: Write your message as a headline and then the bullet points to support it. It is annoying when you first start. Once you know how, your communication will ignite the team’s greatness.

Show You Are Listening. Ever work for leaders who are so passionate that they keep blazing new trails without showing you they heard your concerns? Don’t be a listening leader who appears deaf. Dialogues ignite actionable greatness.
See Talent in Mistakes. A team’s greatness is harnessed through individual contributions to the same goal. Differences in talent and perspective often produce outcomes that you might see as mistakes in light of the end goal. You can also see the talent that produces those unexpected outcomes to ignite future greatness.

Recognize Initiative and Celebrate Learning. One uncomfortable truth about igniting greatness is that not all team members will want to be great or rise to greatness. Leaders and managers, with heart, mistakenly minimize greatness in the quest for team harmony. The good news is there’s a better way. If you recognize those who are showing more initiative and achieving greatness and also celebrate all that are learning, you preserve team harmony without sacrificing greatness.

What is #10? How do you make sure your passion ignites greatness without scarring others?

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

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

9 Comments »

Bluntness Bombs Out for 5 Smart Logical Reasons

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

As The People-Skills Coach™, I have written before on steps from brutally blunt to helpfully honest. Yet for those who are inspired by logic to change behavior, it bears listing the smart logical reasons why bluntness bombs out.

Bluntness Bombs Out for 5 Smart Logical Reasons Image by:Rupert Brun

5 Smart Logical Reasons Blunt Bombs Out

No Warm-Up. Picture your bluntness as very cold water. If we push someone into a cold swimming pool, they remember the shock. If we let them wade in, they adjust to the temperature and can function. Thus if we want people to function and use our message, we shouldn’t shock them with bluntness.

Punching Dulls the Brain. Punching bags are not known for their performance. They hang and swing. If we are being blunt to effect a change, those we verbally punch may swing away from us yet they are not likely to understand or change behavior.

Bluntness builds barriers. Communication is for connection. Bluntness can create a busy signal — a barrier — between communicator and listener. If someone isn’t listening, your message bombs out.

Bluntness undermines respect and credibility. The strength of the message is weakened by the rudeness of the approach. Who is going to respect and believe the message delivered by a blunt creton?

Bluntness breaks bonds. Unless we each live as hermits, we interact with people to survive and thrive. Many times the same people more than once. Bluntness may get our words out but bombs out by breaking the bonds with those around us. It may even create vengeful feelings and instigate a war (verbal or hidden).

Many people resort to bluntness, out of frustration, when diplomatic honesty hasn’t worked. Others simply lose patience with those of less intelligence.

Yet when we reach the end of the rope, why cut it with bluntness? Unless we need to use bluntness to save a life or prevent death, hold on to the rope!

Take a moment and tap intellect, logic, and smarts to find a way to communicate with honesty and respect.

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

Related Post: Leadership & Teamwork: Honesty May Hurt But Blunt Burns Forever

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

6 Comments »

Emotional Intelligence Starts as Invitation for a Response

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

Do you think that emotional intelligence is hard to learn? The ability to understand how people want to be treated is something you can develop — if you know where to start.

Emotional intelligence doesn’t start with a list of clues. It doesn’t start with psychic strength.

Emotional intelligence starts

as an invitation that waits for a response.

Emotional Intelligence Starts with Invitation for Response Image via: Istock

The heart of emotional intelligence is showing smeone that you honor their choice for interaction even if you don’t know how they want to be treated. It’s like extending an invitation for a connection and waiting for a response instead of ordering someone to interact with you.

When you honor their choice and consent on how to be treated, you will be seen as having some emotional intelligence. Why? Because it shows …

You are thinking of them not just yourself or your goal.
You understand that human differences exist and impact results.
You will listen to both your desires and their needs.
You see value in balancing interests to reach a common outcome.
You know that a person’s needs can vary daily depending on stress level, goal, etc…
You believe they are worth the effort to adapt – in other words, they matter!

And there’s more good news even if you are not highly intuitive. You can honor differences and display some emotional intelligence simply by posing a question instead of making a statement.

For example, in a doctor’s office the nurse can say either: “Please get on the scale.” or “Will you step on the scale please?” The first is a statement that does not invite interaction. The second is a question that honors choice and asks for consent. The bonus is the nurse will start to learn how the customer wants to be treated through response.

Now for the caution. Here are obstacles to your great start in emotional intelligence:

The need to be in full control. You are likely to bark orders vs. invite interaction.
The fear you will appear weak. You are likely to sacrifice connection to protect your image of strength.
You just don’t care. One person told me he chose not to because it was just too much trouble.

Emotional intelligence is a sign of maturity and greatly valued in today’s global business setting. The choice is yours. If you honor others’ choices you will earn their respect and achieve more than you can by yourself.

What else would you add to this list of obstacles to emotional intelligence?

What has helped you develop EI?

From my professional experience to your success,

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on customer service, teamwork, and interpersonal success in business. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

2 Comments »

Do You Hear Urgency Before the Yell?

Posted in Listening Power, People-Skills, Soft Skills

As The People-Skills Coach™ , I often teach others how to deal with people’s anger in the workplace. Does your boss yell sometimes? Has a team member suddenly become edgy with you? Has a customer surprised you with a yell?

Find the Urgency Before the Yell Image: Istock.

If you prefer that everyone calmly communicate and never yell, you need this professional people-skill to find nirvana:

Hear the urgency before the yell.

Quite often when the boss, a teammate, or a customer yells, you have missed the urgency they were communicating before the yell.

Common leadership and teamwork beliefs encourage open honest communication without anger or yelling. Yet this requires something of both the speaker and the listener.

In the face of urgency and a listener who doesn’t hear it, it is likely someone will resort to a yell. I am not speaking about people who yell all the time. I am referring to people who suddenly yell after calmly communicating.

Do You Hear Urgency in Their Calm — Before the Yell?
If not, here are 5 ways to spot urgency and develop this professional listening skill.

Find urgency in the bigger picture. I was teaching a public class. The banquet room was to be setup by 7:30am so I could prepare before greeting the students. I walked in to see a room configured incorrectly and no flip charts. I calmly spoke with the hotel rep about the timeframe and ten minutes later — no change. I then said, “Fix this now!”. He quipped, “that’s good, you woke me up” and quickly fixed the problem. To him, my initial calm voice meant it wasn’t urgent. Had he looked at the bigger picture of my needing to get ready before people arrived, he would have heard the urgency in the calm.

Find urgency in the need to be acknowledged. Urgency is not always a deadline for action. Often people’s urgency resides in their need to be heard. Paraphrase (not parrot) what they have said. Tell them that you hear what they are saying. This simple technique prevents the yell.

Hear urgency in repetition. When they calmly say the same thing twice, hear their urgency and acknowledge it — before the yell.

Urgency lives in their lack of knowledge. Your expertise blinds you to their urgency. As they speak and your knowledge is calmly telling you “no problem”, speak up. Communicate solutions. Else get ready for a yell.

Hear urgency in the painful past or impending future. Many times people’s urgency comes from previous negative experiences that caused them pain or something they are anticipating. Ask great questions while people are calm to uncover their concerns — before the yell.

Bonus Tip: The more you know about people, the easier it is to prevent the yell. You learn their pet peeves, their personality types, their fears and goals, their frustrations, and how best to respond before the yell.

If you believe that people-skills and relationships are fluff, don’t expect to reach the nirvana of calm communication. It comes from knowing people!

What makes you want to yell?

What have surprising yells taught you that you can share with all of us here at Smart SenseAbilities™?

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

Related Post: Why Executives Get Impatient With You

Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

7 Comments »

Older Posts »

KateNasser.com

Smart SenseAbilities™ Blog