KateNasser.com

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.

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

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1. 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!




2. 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!




3. 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.




4. 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.




5. 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.




6. 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!




7. 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!




8. 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!




9. 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!




10. 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.




11. 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!




12. 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.

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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™

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

©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, and leading change. Kate turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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.

10 Gritty Questions to Better Define Teamwork

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1. 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?




2. 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?
   
   

3. What if people don’t like each other personally but pull together to achieve success? Does that meet your definition of teamwork?




4. 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.
   
   

5. 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.




6. 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?




7. 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?




8. 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?




9. 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?




10. 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.

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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™

©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.

Related Posts:

Insights on Handling a Self-Serving High Performing Team Member

Team Whistle Blowing: Duty or Disloyalty?

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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.

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?

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,

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




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




3. 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!




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




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




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




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




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

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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.

Related Post: 7 Steps from Brutally Blunt to Helpfully Honest

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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.

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.

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?

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?

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1. 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.




2. 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?




3. 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.




4. 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.




5. 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.




6. 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.




7. 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!

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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.

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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.

Related Post: Leaders, Are Your Direct Reports a Wart on the Arm of Progress

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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.

Leaders have leaders reporting to them. If you are a top leader, do you know if your direct reports are fueling growth, change, and success?

Or are your direct reports a wart on the arm of progress — blocking change despite what they are telling you?

5 signs that your leaders are a wart on progress:

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1. They demoralize teams by speaking about the past instead of the future. Example: Why didn’t you or we should have. No matter how this is spoken, it doesn’t fuel commitment to change. It fuels resentment, fear, and guarded behavior. Progress flourishes with learning and confident exploration.




2. They say they will lead change while claiming there is not yet enough data, time, or resources to make a decision. Their wart may be the fear of failure or inability to see ahead from the current picture. Effective leaders know that progress materializes from incremental steps not a complete roadmap.
   
   

3. They seem like star performers yet can’t rally others to star performance. Their wart may be an unwillingness to stand back for others to shine. They are so headstrong, they listen to nobody and block team input. Teams need to have a voice else they sense progress is outside their grasp. Related Post: Is Our Knowedge Too Noisy to Listen?




4. They crush others with the demand for perfection. Their wart is perfectionism. The quest for excellence breeds progress; perfectionism kills it like the disease it is.




5. They are a lid that fits any pot. Their wart is lack of identity. Teams rarely trust them for they feel clueless. Flexible leaders inspire contribution and progress; nondescript leaders leave teams bewildered without a vision. Without vision, progress falters.

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If your organization is not progressing toward the vision, look at the leaders reporting to you.

Are they inspiring teams, communicating, and breeding excellence? Or do they suffer from any of the 5 warts noted above?


Your mentoring or guidance from a professional coach can remove the warts and get the organization, once again, on the road to progress.

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 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 customer service experience, 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.

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.

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

1. 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!




2. 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.




3. 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.




4. 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.

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During Times of Great Organizational Change

1. 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.




2. 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.




3. 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.




4. 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!

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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™

©2011 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 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.

Teamwork within one team is quite achievable. Cross teamwork (between teams in an organization) remains the elusive brass ring of effectiveness.

Leaders who want to break through an organization’s performance barriers find the greatest — seemingly unsolvable — obstacles in cross teamwork. Much has been studied and tested yet the obstacles persist.

For this reason, it is worthwhile to look at the issues again.

The Greatest Unsolvable Obstacles to Cross Teamwork

Perhaps listing the seemingly unsolvable obstacles here will bring new focus and insight — especially for new leaders and managers in the thick of it.

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1. Shared Goals With Greatly Opposing Pathways. We can all nod our heads and say yes this happens. Experts will chime in with facilitation techniques and processes that can resolve the differences. Wonderful. Yet when this happens in between teams in great volume, it represents a loss of performance.




2. Individual Preservation. An obstacle that surprises many is a rogue individual acting purely from self-preservation.

   An illustration: In an episode of the old television show MASH, the unit calls for ambulances to take the post-op patients away to make room for the new wounded. A corporal at HQ refuses to send the ambulances because he was told to take care of those Army resources. A general finally says to him, I can see you care about the ambulances. Why don’t you drive them up here yourself to ensure their safety! The corporal then releases the ambulances. The general identified the cross teamwork barrier – self preservation — and turned it into a solution.

   Are any team members so risk averse that they are taking actions that actually prevent cross teamwork and organizational success? The first place to look for this is in areas where leaders have stressed security, monitoring, metrics, and strict processes. Has it gone too far?




3. Too Much Change and Chaos. When high volume organizational change creates a feeling of total chaos, the results on cross teamwork can be disastrous. Each team, struggling to grasp the new direction, closes in a virtual huddle to manage the chaos. Reaching out to other teams would feel like increased chaos.

   How steep is your change curve? It might look great in strategy sessions yet if it puts the teams into preservation mode, it creates a performance barrier instead of solving one.




4. Mistaken Empowerment. Many an organization has dipped in performance as a result of mistaken empowerment. When a leader taps someone who is not ready or capable of key responsibility, many teams shut down in response to the incompetence. If it’s within a team, the leader can more easily correct the mistake. Yet when this mistake affects other teams, it affects cross teamwork and organizational performance.




5. Politics and Hidden Agendas. After a leadership strategy session, does each leader send the same message to his or her team? If leaders, consiously or subconsiously filter the strategy through their political or private agendas, the message comes out differently to each team. The obstacles to cross teamwork are enormous in this case because they may be hidden. The teams nod in agreement over stated goals yet each team is acting on the message received from its leader.

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There are other obstacles to cross teamwork including different occupational perspectives, incompatible technology, time zones, cultural differences and so forth. However, concrete steps tend to remove these barriers.

The 5 greatest obstacles noted above take root and the effects spread like weeds strangling organizational performance. They seem unsolvable even though they aren’t. Awareness, vision, commitment, courage, and action can turn it around. Who will initiate it? That’s the question.


What say you? Would you add to this list of 5? Subtract? Or do you disagree?

From my 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 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 that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshop outlines and customer results.

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? 

Passion that burns others undermines the goal.

Passion that ignites others fuels success.

 

10 Ways to Ignite Greatness Without Leaving Scars

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1. 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.




2. 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.




3. 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.




4. 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.”




5. 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.




6. 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.




7. 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.
   
   

8. 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.




9. 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.




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

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From my 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 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 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.

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.

5 Smart Logical Reasons Blunt Bombs Out

1. 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.




2. 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.




3. 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.




4. 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?




5. 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

©2011 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 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.

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?

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.

1. 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.




2. 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.




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




4. 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.




5. 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

©2011 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 that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times of change. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results.

Today everyone is asking business leaders to engage employees. Fuel the passion! Business innovation requires it and long term success hinges on it. I agree that this is half the formula.

It takes two traits to be successful — passion and discipline.

Why has discipline fallen out of favor? Perhaps we are mistaking it for rigidity, dogmatism, and resistance to change. It is none of these things. It does not limit or constrain. It develops and guides.

It’s time for all leaders to fuel the passion discipline duo.

The Passion Discipline Duo

1. Passion starts the journey and discipline guides around the curves.
2. Passion generates new ideas and discipline vets the possibility against tangible reality.
3. Passion creates bonds with teammates and customers and discipline delivers the strength to bond even in tough times.
4. Passion breaks through resistance and overcomes obstacles. Discipline sustains when passion wanes.

The Passion Discipline Duo is in Jeopardy When Leaders

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Are strong in passion or in discipline and don’t honor the other — in others.

Use stressful times or times of decline as a reason to harp only on discipline.

Demand evidence too early in a new venture or ignore evidence to avoid admitting mistakes.

Allow any team member without the passion discipline duo to bully or sway the team to one trait.

Give in to the fear of either trait.

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High achievers of all types — from athletes to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders — fuel the passion discipline duo in themselves and their teams.

What actions do they take?
- Define passion and discipline with their teams

- Brainstorm and use a system to follow-through

- Give passion and discipline equal weight; celebrate both

- Keep the vision/goal always in sight of both

- Honor diverse team members and mentor their duo development


What would you add to this discussion about passion and discipline? What gets in the way of the duo? What fuels it?


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

Related Post: The Weakness of Extreme Strength

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With inspiration to action, Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, turns obstacles to change into your professional success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote features, footage to view, and customer testimonials.

Leaders, who lead change well during tough times, filter out needless noise. Their experience is the filter. It enables leadership without the bullshit.

New leaders, many in middle management, face an ironic challenge. They are building experience — the filter — while trying to filter!

I feel for new leaders and consult on the great challenges they face to give their experience a boost. They deserve a just-in-time filter for needless noise when leading change.

So here it is — a guide to leadership without the bullshit. Help new leaders. Add your experience in the comments section below to strengthen this filter even further.

Image by: Leo Reynolds


10 Point Leadership Experience Booster

Leading change in tough times …

1. The status quo doesn’t really exist. Things are always changing. Don’t debate if change should occur. It is occurring. Communicate, listen, and engage the team to create success together.




2. Convert why questions to what questions to filter the noise. Questions that start with the word what generate tangible dialogue and understanding.
   Rephrase why is this happening to …

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   What conditions have changed and are feeding the need for more change?
   What are we facing in the future and how do we prepare?
   What roads can we take to get there?




3. Acknowledge the struggle don’t encourage it. Acknowledging the struggle that people have with change is helpful if you also ask them how they will get through it. Else they think it is your job to eliminate their struggle and you enable their resistance.




4. Encourage success by moving forward. Don’t confuse endless talk about the struggle with being an empathetic leader. If you want to be a caring leader make the unknown, known, by moving everyone forward sooner than later.




5. Negativity and positivity are both contagious. It’s pretty clear which one will create success. Admittedly people don’t have to be singing and smiling all the time. If they are very engaged in the change and venting some along the way, it’s natural.
   Yet constant complaining will retard progress and ignoring it is a classic mistake. The power of negativity is there even if you deny it. Call it out and note the impact of it. Identify what is needed instead.




6. Morale matters. Celebrate talents applied to the common purpose. You will see untapped potential materialize into unexpected wins. Even if your boss is a results-only person, always remember that morale impacts results. It is needed. It’s not a waste of time.




7. Perfectionism kills momentum. If you or team members suffer from the blight of perfectionism, override it with the motto make it work. It is rare that you will have all the information, optimal conditions, maximum resources, or complete understanding. When team members raise these points as reasons not to proceed, involve them in risk assessment and problem solving.




8. Personality type differences change from obstacles to advantages with simple training. To ensure that your diverse team members mesh even in tough times, hold a personality assessment workshop before the stress hits. Focus on how to adapt to behaviors and avoid using the results as labels. Make it fun and it boosts morale.




9. Hedging on difficult or necessary conversations confuses people; it doesn’t console them. Give employees the gift of being clear. Honest focused dialogue shows respect for them as adults and builds respect for you as a leader.




10. Redirect extremes into critical thinking focused on results. Tough times provoke stress and emotion that yield rigid outlooks and absolute opinions. Facilitate discussions that reawaken a realistic mindset and empower a can-do approach.

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What have you learned from needless bs at work that leaders can use to filter out future noise?

What will you add to this experience booster? What is your #11?

Thanks in advance for adding your insight here.


From my 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 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 that turn interaction obstacles into business success especially in tough times. See this site for workshops outlines and customer results. Fill the gaps of change and diversity with business wins!

People don’t categorically dread conversations the way they dread meetings. But why? People discuss various topics at a desk, in the hallway, over lunch and feel just fine. Have the same discussions in a meeting and watch frustration rise.

So the score is conversations 10, meetings 0. Is it because conversations don’t have the expectation of agreement, decision, and progress that meetings do? Or because conversations tend to be shorter bursts of time with the option to end them at will?

Run your next meeting as bursts of conversations and conquer meeting frustration. Here’s a 3 step approach that includes some lighthearted fun.

Great Conversations Conquer Meeting Frustration

First focus on great conversations then on agreement and decisions. Mire the two together and the frustration will return.

1. For each agenda item, ask all to write a conversation topic on a card at face-to-face meetings or into an e-box at virtual meetings. Benefit: Interest, buy-in, and a chance to be heard.




2. Like speed dating, have short bursts of conversation on each topic. Facts, opinion, and respectful debate are all allowed. After the short bursts, you call for either next steps or a true decision. Do not simply continue conversation — the frustration will return.
   (Note: Use a mix of written and verbal communication to accommodate introverts and extroverts!)




3. For some lighthearted fun, pick a theme that fits your industry, organization, or team. For example, in the healthcare industry you could have the conversation cards look like a patient’s chart and discuss your meeting topics as if you were presenting a patient’s case.
   Related Resource: Business Meeting Theme Ideas at MeetingGeniusBlog.Com.

When you capture and use the positive aspects of conversation, your well planned meeting will be effective, memorable, and most importantly — not frustrating.

Yours in service,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach

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


Additional Resource: 25 Rules for the Perfect Brainstorm on Innovation Management blog.

What successes have you had at reducing meeting frustration? Will you share your ideas with all of us in the comment section below?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to fill the gaps of diversity with teamwork for business wins. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.

Are there people at work or in your personal life that goad and annoy you? They provoke you whether they intend to or not.

You can neutralize the personal invader, the busybody, the micro-manager, the patronizer, the idea embezzler, and those who presume.

Add these 6 great ways to your people skills (soft skills) toolkit and neutralize the effect they have on you.

Used consistently instead of emotional responses, neutral responses become your virtual do not disturb signs that don’t insult or block future communication.

6 Great Ways

1. To very personal questions:
   Silence and look of surprise.




2. To the busybody:
   “Aren’t you full of questions!”




3. To the micro-manager:
   “I’m capable.”




4. To presumptuous remarks or quips:
   “There’s an odd remark.”




5. To patronizers:
   “You must have little ones at home. I can tell.”




6. To those who state your ideas as theirs:
   “I hear an echo.” or “I am glad you agree with me.”

Neutral responses keep your cool while giving others time to realize what they have said or done to you.

To get comfortable using neutral responses, consider that:

1. Detouring to their emotional agenda is not valuable to you, your life, or your work.
2. It’s not rude to hold your own.
3. Inner peace is a gift you give yourself.

Neutral responses show inner strength and inner strength is its own billboard.

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


What responses have worked well for you in emotional moments? I hope you will share your story and voice in the comments section below.

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want 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 workshops, keynotes, and consultations that turn interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. Leaders have been booking Kate for 21 years to turn people-skills extremes into business success. See this site for customer results and book Kate now.