KateNasser.com

The world of science has shown us the value of proving over assuming especially where it impacts human life. Scientific discovery has also shown that learning leads to proving. Consider the accidental discoveries from penicillin to microwaves.

So what does this have to do with leadership? A great deal. How much do we as leaders miss when we are out to prove rather than out to discover and learn?

Learning

1. Opens doors to possibilities we couldn’t possibly foresee
2. Engages employees with their learning and for their contribution
3. Develops the next generation of leaders by combining their talent and our experience for the unknown demands of future business

Proving

1. Protects and ensures. Think of child-proof caps, tamper-proof locks, proofing before publishing.
2. Sets high standards. Proving grounds are where ideas are tested for accuracy, impact, and strength.
3. Gives others a safe zone to accept new ideas. Investors often want a proof of concept before investing in a new idea.

 

There is value in both if we find the balance.

 

Lose the Balance When

• Previous experience creates insecurity. Did a bad mentor or previous boss tell you that success was all about proving yourself every day? Balance is lost.
• Switching work cultures. For example, if you worked in a clinical environment where lack of proof can kill people you might misapply that standard to a non-clinical environment where lack of learning kills innovation. Learn to balance!
• Fear and perfectionism rule. When either of these are in control of a culture or a leader’s actions, employee engagement and innovation will suffer. Proving may feel safe yet it is actually eroding the foundation of success.

Finding the Balance

• Self-awareness. Ask ourselves which side do I naturally embrace — learning or proving?
• Understanding. List out why that’s the preference.
• Feedback. Get examples from those we lead on the negative impact of our preference. Where has too much proving caused trouble? When has learning and not enough proving created trouble? Examples provide help facts triumph over emotion.
• New pathway. In collaboration with those you lead, chart a new path to balance learning and proving.

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Demanding proof too early slams the door of discovery shut. Refusing to prove can discredit innovation with the legacy of a just another dumb idea.

Learning opens the door. Proving ensures that what comes through it is not harmful. When we find the balance between learning and proving, we chart a path to success.

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- When is a proving approach most harmful?
-When does the learning approach create the most risk?

I welcome your comments below.

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 this post, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

Many leaders and managers get annoyed with employees’ complaints. Leaders tell me they expect employees to contribute their views and actions to make things better — not complain about what is.

In frustration, some unsuccessfully tell employees to stop whining. Some leaders even hang a no whining sign!

This does not get employees to contribute a positive can-do attitude, their innovative solutions, and full talents and commitment.

What will engage employees to move from complaints to action?

Image by: saschaaa via Creative Commons License.

6 positive replies to transform employee complaints into action:

1. I hear your frustration. I am ready now to hear your ideas/solutions. Validate the feeling. If you don’t, it will continue to crave attention. Once you do, transform the power of the emotion into ideas. You are coaching your employees at this moment so don’t let them slip back into speaking only the frustration. If they can’t break out of it at that point, let them know you will be happy to discuss solutions when they are ready. Then move on with your day!




2. You have talents for solving this. Would you like to brainstorm ideas? This direct approach shows confidence and belief in them and offers them a great opportunity. The reply shows the essence of any organization — a belief in people to contribute to the end result. You as leader/manager guide all on this mission to stay focused on the road to success.




3. Power to move ahead comes from negative and positive poles. You’ve highlighted the negative very well. What’s the positive suggestion to overcoming this problem? Leaders and managers who are either driven for results or hate negativity, often overlook the value of the negative jolt. You can remind yourself and teach your employees this negative/positive balance. It reshapes outlooks and practice.




4. Your feelings and view of the problem are important. Your ideas for solving it — critical. What do you propose?

   If the next couple of statements from them are still complaints: We move forward with solutions. Here are three statements to get you started:

   • We could ________________________________________________.
   • I can contribute ___________________________________________.
   • I am willing to _____________________________________________.

   Take time to think about it and then let’s get started!




5. Let’s take your understandable emotion on this issue and turn it into a power source for solving it. I’d love to hear your ideas. Many employees feel like followers not contributors. Daily reminders that they have power to lead from within their talents help shape the organization and its success.




6. Optimism and skepticism are healthy; endless pessimism is poison to a team. With chronic complainers who offer no solutions or actions, let them know that their endless pessimism can stop success much the same way that blinded optimism can put everyone at risk. As the leader, I will forge ahead on this balanced mission. I want your talent with us. Please bring your balance to this team’s challenges.

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These positive replies will work if you are engaging employees on a daily basis for their ideas and solutions. If you are a directive leader and use these replies when employees complain, they will have little effect.

Complaints without suggestions are an indicator that the employees feel powerless. If you lead daily through employee engagement, you connect with them emotionally by tapping their ideas. This in turn validates their worth and helps tremendously when you all must endure things that cannot change.

Employee engagement generates their sense of power and desire to contribute solutions; it doesn’t give away your power. It actually generates a powerful success for the organization you lead. The exact result you seek!

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


Related posts:
Leaders, Coach and Perform Like a Ferrari

Leaders, Replace These 5 Behaviors to Attract Top Performance & Talent

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. 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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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers consulting, training, DVDs, and keynotes on leadership, employee engagement, teamwork, and customer experience. She turns interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines, action footage, and customer results.

As The People-Skills Coach™, leaders often ask me why they haven’t been able to engage employees.

In many cases, I discover that their attitude and communication is one of several reasons. In fact, there are 5 legacy attitudes to replace for employee engagement.

I see leaders holding on to these legacy attitudes when they are solely focused on results and not the teams who must get there. They also do it when they assume that the people they lead are just like them.

These leaders succeed when they shift their philosophical beliefs. They engage employees much better once they see that people are diverse and that employee engagement does not block, reduce, or delay results.

Employee engagement drives results through inspiration and nourishes commitment to the highest quality, best results.

Your communication, people-skills, and interpersonal connection engage with employees to that end.


Leaders, Replace These 5 Legacy Attitudes to Engage Employees

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• Prove me wrong. Although this sounds like an inspirational challenge to employees, it also smacks of the legacy attitude — “I, the leader, am right until or unless you prove me wrong.” Change the focus from you to the idea in question. Engage employees around ideas and results, not around you.




• “If that’s all you can do.” As changes in business require new skills of employees, they often struggle with how to stay competent and feel competent. On more than one occasion, I have heard managers say to these concerned employees, “well if that’s all you can do … ” (meaning their current skill).

  This legacy attitude of questioning employees’ competence does not make them work harder. The issue is not effort; it’s skill redevelopment. They are already concerned about their continued competence. Lift them up and engage them with diverse opportunities to learn new skills. Disdain does not engage!







The Assembly Line Approach to Leading People

• No news is good news. This not-so-golden legacy nugget is based on the idea that employees should routinely do what they are initially told until further orders arrive. Yikes – the assembly line approach to people! Can’t you just picture the little people widgets rolling along?

  Meanwhile, communicating engages employees for best results. It gives them information about focus and purpose, and it inspires commitment to results. Engage with knowledge on how the company makes money. Offer worthy kudos for their specific talents that contributed to the end results.

Communicating how employees’ contributions advance the company’s greatness, nourishes greatness. Anaerobic bacteria are the only things that grow in a vacuum; people and businesses don’t.




• Work things out for yourselves – you’re adults. Leaders who want to focus primarily on end results often side step team issues under the guise of empowerment. One recent article (the URL for which I cannot find at this moment) claims we should “take the bubble wrap off employees” and let them work everything out themselves.

  Leaders, aren’t you employees too? Why not share your special insight to help reduce conflict and re-engage the team on the end result?

  When you overlook team issues, success overlooks your teams. Abandonment is not a success strategy.
  
  

• If you don’t see me doing it, don’t do it. Wow — the Simons Says approach to 21st century success. Leaders, will this attract top talent to your team? It might get you obedient followers but that burdens you with creating all the success.
  
  If you want collaborative innovators who use their talent and acumen to produce success — replace Simon Says with something at least at the level of Pictionary! It’s much more engaging. (What game would you suggest?)

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If your personality or experience makes you highly engaged and focused on results, you may make the classic mistake of assuming all employees are just as engaged. Yet if they were you wouldn’t wonder why they aren’t.

Focus on the reality of today’s leadership requirements. Engage employees through knowledge of the business, training, appreciation, and accountability to draw out maximum contribution to the best end results.

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


Related Post: Leaders, Take This Pain Free Journey to Engaging Employee Accountability

©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.

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

As I read 7 Horrible Phrases Job Applicants Say That Are Warning Signs, I discovered seriously bad advice that can ruin your customer service hiring.

It suggests that if a job applicant uses the phrase my pleasure or no problem, they will not serve customers well. It claims these are bizarre phrases showing the applicant it out of touch with customers.

Quite the opposite is true.

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In fact, these my pleasure employees deliver super customer experience.

Hiring agents, CSRs, reps, and specialists who find serving a pleasure sustains customer experience in a way that training can’t.

The author and those he consulted have misunderstood this time honored phrase of deep service and civility. The phrase my pleasure is not, as he proposes, a focus on the employees’ needs.

My pleasure is a shortened version of:

• My pleasure to serve you …
• It is a pleasure to serve you
• It is a true pleasure to be in service to you and others

The phrase no problem is a shortened version of no problem doing anything you request.

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Many brands use the phrase my pleasure — from high end hotels to fast food chains like Chick-Fil-A restaurants.

Yet even if you believe that your customers would not like these traditional expressions of civility, employees with naturally giving hearts can learn to say other phrases. The retraining is quite simple. Not hiring this natural service talent would be a serious error of omission and disastrous for customer experience and your brand.

The Bonus of Morale

Employees who feel it is a pleasure to serve have self-sustaining morale. When you have enough of them on one team, the teamwork shines as they unite in this spirit. Their can-do attitudes make the difficult, easy and the mundane, special.

I would hate a simple misunderstanding about these phrases lead you to exclude the very customer service employees that will treat customers with pleasure and deliver super results.

Unless you detect true signs of selfishness or immaturity in the interview, hire this natural talent.

My pleasure and no problem are not red flags in hiring. In fact, they are green lights to super customer experience!

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

Related Post: Simply Great Choices Create Super Customer Experience

©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.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on the ultimate 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.

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.

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

1. 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.




2. 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.”




3. 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.




4. 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.




5. 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?

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Results only focus has at least one benefit and one risk. The short term benefit is clear. The risk is blindness to plummeting morale that can affect future work results.

Fear can mesmerize and stop a leader from growing. The team members had courageously approached the leader; the leader panicked in fear and took the easy way out.

Awareness and listening are critical leadership skills. Reach was well-known for saying things that this leader never caught. Even if Reach hadn’t said them in front of the leader, team members reported it to him.

It isn’t enough for a leader to let the team define teamwork. The leader must contribute to the definition. The leader is part of the team. 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. You will attract team members who believe in it and work well with it. You may lose others who believe attitude impacts morale yet they wouldn’t likely last on your team anyway.

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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™

Related Post: Leaders, 10 Essential Thoughts to Proficient People Skills

©2012 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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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.

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!

Hold and Use These 10 Thoughts

1. 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.




2. 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.




3. 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.




4. 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.




5. 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!




6. 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.




7. 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.




8. 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.




9. 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.




10. 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

©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.

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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.

A great definition of teamwork includes a call to action to build and exercise change-ability skills for optimal teamwork in any situation.

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Picture your organization using this new definition of teamwork:

Growth and change within team members to achieve a common success.

It’s applicable to changing environments, is very clear, and defines teamwork as adapting to reach the common goal instead of working to reach the common goal. 

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This definition of teamwork creates startling results when you use it with these four precious gems.

RUBY. Passion for learning. When you create a learning (not training) culture, the team exercises its change-ability muscles. Learning is change and one that most people welcome since it enhances their careers and no one can fail. 
The startling result is a stream of new contributions because all are involved in continuous improvement.

Creativity increases and critical thinking improves. Athletic teams regularly exercise for improved performance and theater troupes explore new ideas for this same reason. Unfortunately teams focused on production often get locked in daily routines. Create startling new results with a learning culture.

Action Item: Pick one topic related to business, teamwork, service, sales, or technology. Have each team member Google/Bing on the topic and collate those results online.  At a virtual team meeting, take 15 minutes for team members to identify aloud what info they can use and how.  Make this a weekly event and watch the teams create, collaborate, and flex to changing needs.

 

 

EMERALD. Leader with a confident ego. If you have a learning culture, the leader must feel confident even with constructive dissenters and creative strategic thinkers on the team. This confident leader is the emerald gem of teamwork — reminding us all of The Wizard of Oz. Toward the end of the movie the curtain is drawn back to reveal there is no all-powerful wizard. He is instead a wise caring person.  His insights flow from there.

 

 

 

SAPPHIRE. Human bonding on diverse and distributed teams.  The evil of isolation due to distance or differences undermines the full potential of teams. Picture world-wide technology rollout teams who have never met, come from different cultures, and rotate team members. If no bonding is addressed, the teams will fall short of full success. Use video-based virtual meetings to introduce team members. Build understanding on topics of personality type, generational differences, cultural norms, learning style, and pet peeves!

 

 

 

DIAMOND. The I’s in Team. There are several I’s in teamwork – individual initiative and identity committed to the team. Respect and acknowledge individual talents contributed to the whole. It inspires greater contributions and willingness to share and teach. Some organizations call this the essential piece culture where each person knows how s/he contributes to the whole success.

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. For permission to re-post or republish, please email info@katenasser.com. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers team building workshops and innovative solutions for startling team results. See this site for more info and 21 years of testimonials.

Of all the professional workplace people skills, also known as interpersonal skills or soft skills, communication is one that fuels or derails our journey to success. Our words and how people interpret them can determine the results we achieve and the future opportunities we are given.

A few communication smart steps create leaps in our professional workplace results: teamwork, leadership, customer service, and sales.

“Words can woo or wound; create bonds not scars.“

Culled from my experience with corporations and mid-size businesses, I offer you these 3 smart steps for successful workplace communication.

Misstep #1.
Stating someone’s intention as fact. “You are trying to …” Communication is headed for a dead end. The other person can simply say “No, I am not …” and the journey sidetracks into a defensive debate vs. moving forward to a valuable result.

Smart Step. State your intentions; ask about theirs. Remember, you cannot observe someone’s intentions nor can they see yours.
The people-skill lesson: Asking creates bonds. Assuming weakens them.

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Misstep #2.
Using “because you” when negative emotion is possible. I witnessed a Sr. VP say to one of his VPs, “I don’t want to have to lay people off because you don’t know how to budget correctly.”

Smart Step. State the goal and the action needed. “I don’t want to have to lay people off. Please correct this budget item …” or “Let’s change this budget item so I don’t have to lay people off.”
The people-skill lesson: You can be clear and firm and still be respected. Don’t step on people with your communication; step with them.

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Misstep #3.
Letting formality take precedence over connecting. Customer service and sales soar when you connect with customers their way. A new sales rep continued to call a customer “Mr. Hillard” after Mr. Hillard said “You can call me Bill.”

Smart Step. Listening is a sign of respect and care. Pick up on verbal and nonverbal cues to make the communication more than just an exchange of words.
The people-skill lesson: Communication does more than impart information for a purpose; it brings people together for current and future results.


Sales and customer service professionals quickly see the value of the bonds. Scars don’t close deals or build loyalty. Team members and leaders are learning with experience that creating bonds makes smart sense for their interaction as well.

Creating bonds is not a sign of weakness. It shows confidence, insight, and respect for something greater than yourself — the collective result.

What other smart communication steps will you share with us here? I welcome your suggestions, thoughts, and discussions in the comments field below. Add your voice!

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach delivers workshops and keynotes on teamwork, customer service/sales, and leading change across diverse industries and professions. She is well known for taking people from inspiration to action to improved results.

In the continued hunt for financial success, sales and customer service leaders benefit from these 3 green principles.

1. Learn from our customers not about them. Customers do business with those they like and trust.  Customers have greater reason to trust and like us if we bond with them in two-way learning.  The principles of going green focus on learning from the environment for a win/win – preserve it and make our lives better. Biomimicry takes this green principle to great lengths and tremendous innovation. We can innovate for our customers when we learn from them.
   




2. Create sustainable relationships. Going green means giving back.  What can we contribute to our customers beyond what they purchase?  Resource connections, ideas, just-in-time help? We can build the trust and say thank you to customers by volunteering our brainstorming talent to some of their issues. This too is a two-way renewable (green) effort; it allows us to learn more from them which might produce additional business for us (green).
   




3. Inspire customer service & sales teams with purpose. The green movement has gained strength over the years because of people with strong purpose and commitment. They were able to spread and sustain the cause with this purpose. We can inspire our teams with purpose — build sustainable relationships and innovate for the customer — and gain tremendous results in morale and performance for us. Once again a two-way renewable (green) effort with positive financial (green) business results.
   EXAMPLES:
   Ask customer care and customer service teams: “What have you learned from the customers and how do we translate that into improved customer service, better interaction, and innovative services?”
   Give sales teams incentives to bring lessons learned from customers back to design teams and contribute new product ideas.
   

Win/win is not old fashioned logic. It brings people into a trust bond that lasts longer than a one-up event. Learning from the customers, giving back beyond the purchase (the “&)”, and inspiring our teams to innovate, sustains and renews our financial success. That’s very green!

What other principles or lessons from the green movement can we apply to sales and customer service? I encourage your thought-filled comments and discussion below. Add your voice.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers innovative and inspired people-skills keynotes and workshops for customer service, teamwork, sales, and leading change.

Often new leaders, especially those moving from being a peer to being the boss, struggle with feelings vs. results. Some new leaders struggle with feelings vs. results more than others depending on personality type. Nonetheless, a clear focus on the mission, goals, and results is essential — for the leader’s success and especially the peers’ job security.

In fact, a leader’s excessive focus on feelings can cost the peers’ their jobs.

As a coach and consultant, I have seen teams fall short of the required results because leaders put feelings above results.

In two recent cases, the functions of the teams were outsourced because they didn’t show results. How unfortunate that the leaders confused a focus on results with heartlessness. There was no need to choose between results and feelings. Effective leaders breed great results from inspiring team members to care about the results while respecting them as people.

Moving from Peer to Boss

1. From day one as leader, a)Speak clearly about the mission/goals and your passion for the success of the team and b)Listen to their ideas and concerns on reaching those goals.
2. Highlight your former peers’ untapped talents and discuss their development as you all work toward results.
3. Handle jealousy straight away. If former peers are envious of your promotion, let them know that you welcome all positive contributions.  This is not cold. It is truthful.  It helps your former peers move past the envy and on to developing their strengths and talents.  It protects the entire team from a disastrous side trip to the world of fake choices — like the one between feelings vs. results.
4. “You used to complain about things when you were one of us. Now you have changed.”   This plea from former peers is not about you. It is about resisting change. Do not take this to heart or feel guilty.  The answer is quite simply, “Yes, of course. I see a bigger picture now that I am doing this job.  I still care about the issues and welcome your solutions.”
5. Spend time thinking about the type of team you want to lead. Inspired? High Achieving? Respected? If these adjectives do not describe it, what words do? Do your words also describe a team that will reach the needed results? They must gel in order to succeed.
6. Read and learn about inspiring different personality types. Even if your new job description outlines mostly tasks and tangible results, your ability to do those things depends on people-skills and communication.

Honor your promotion and your new position with courage, insight, and knowledge. Honor the mission and business with your clear focus. Honor your team by treating them as adults who will live up to the obligations and responsibilities of the job.

I am here to help you as The People-Skills Coach. Your first consultation with me is complimentary as my gift and congratulations for your promotion. I also continue to learn. What suggestions would you add to the list above?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is well known for her ability to inspire teams to great commitment and success. Whether she is delivering a keynote, a workshop, or a one-on-one session, Kate taps your ability to succeed through incisive questions, humor, truths, and practicality. For more information, email Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach.

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