New Book from Art-Incoming!
While both the paperback and Kindle versions of my newest work, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, have been available on Amazon for a few days, I’ve not yet pulled the trigger on a public launch. In fact, when talking to my marketing manager, I suggested that instead of a launch as an event, I would much prefer a rolling launch.
I learned about rolling events from how we treat birthdays in my family. Over time with my wife and two sons, birthdays have elongated to encompass about two weeks of various events, gatherings and activities. Given that we all only have a limited number of these things…(much like the books I’ll be able to write), it’s clear to me that birthdays and book launches are too much fun to limit to one day!
What to Expect from the Well-Caffeinated Launch of Leadership Caffeine:
I’ll try and not be too over-the-top on shamelessly pitching the book, but I am most definitely going to talk a bit…and share a lot. Yeah, and of course, the marketing team is requiring me to give some of these away…which is fun. They are also encouraging me to highlight to everyone the two things that this collection of leadership and professional writings is intended to do:
1. Provide you with ideas and approaches that help you through the bad days and push you constantly to strive for greatness as a professional and a leader.
2. Provide you with a tool to use with your teams, groups, classes, departments on strengthening performance, developing great ideas, making the right decisions and prospering together.
That’s my long way of saying this collection has legs for groups..as well as for individuals.
Look for some promotional activities that focus on both. Oh yes, and we’ll podcast on the book, gain some insights from early reviewers and of course, find ways to get a few free copies in the hands of great people!
A Note to Regular Blog Readers:
Several people have suggested that I’m more concerned about this topic than I should be. Regardless, it is personally important for me to let you, my regular blog readers know that this collection of content is drawn from this site. There’s about a million words here at Management Excellence…strewn over 700+ posts and an e-book. This book distills that down to 341 pages, 83 annotated, edited essays, well-organized for at a glance reading, highlighting and hoped for dog-earing of pages. (Still haven’t figured out how to dog ear a kindle page.) It’s eminently more usable, portable and fun than parsing through a million words looking for just the right idea at the time.
For those who have not been exposed to the work here, this is a non-issue. For you, my valued readers, you are duly informed. Having said that, I think you’ll find the content in a bound or kindle format to be eminently easier to reference and a lot more fun to pass along to your colleagues.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I am excited about an opportunity to provide another tool in a different medium (actually media with the kindle version) to support your success. The intent with this work-product is noble and my hope is that it helps and supports the growth of great people and teams for years to come.
Midweek Marketing: Delta Builds Customer Experience One Detail at a Time
“Success is the sum of the details.” Harvey S. Firestone
I’ve been an unapologetic critic of the money losing and seemingly customer hating airline industry for many years. Anyone who has flown a million miles or more has a good view to the workings of this flying bus business (with apologies to bus companies), and the view is mostly unpleasant. (Not always, just mostly.)
Imagine my surprise when I deviated on my return trip from my normal dealings with United, and flew Delta, and I actually enjoyed the experience. I checked my calendar and it wasn’t April Fools Day or Halloween, so all of the truly good-natured, helpful and smiling Delta employees might have actually meant it.
With more than ample time on my hands in two airports, I decided to go on an anthropological expedition of Delta operations. Here’s what I saw:
7 Details that Made the Delta Experience Delightful:
1. Happy, smiling employees serving customers. From gate agents to the flight crews, I didn’t run into a single Delta employee who didn’t smile and offer help. Yes, I used the “s” and the “h” words here. These people seemed genuinely happy to work with customers. (Related post: Smiles, Sales and Leadership.)
2. A lack of grumpy employees. Yeah I know this is redundant with my first point, but I’m still kind of shocked. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve observed the crews from other airlines (mostly United) bad-mouth their firm when they think no one is listening (sorry, I was walking behind you), or just visibly show the world that they didn’t give a damn. My favorite was the United flight attendant who wore a button that said, and I quote: “This airline sucks.” While some people accuse me of dreaming that one up, I almost needed to go into therapy after seeing that display of callous disregard for firm, clients and self.
3. Readily available help. Traveler help was everywhere, including an abundance of small kiosks offering: “Missed Your Connection? Scan Your Ticket Here for Alternatives.” Getting help when things go bad is one of the more stressful elements of flying, and here was an attempt to ease this burden. Nice. The ground-agents waiting to greet passengers and offer personal success were always there…and always smiling.
4. Easy access to the necessities of travel life. The world of business travel survives and thrives on plug-ins for power, internet access, good food and clean restrooms. A+ in the Delta terminals for these critical travel comforts.
5. Company Pride on Display! Every Delta plane sported a decal indicating that Delta had been named one of the World’s Most Admired Corporations (tops in the airline industry) according to Fortune. OK, a little chest thumping is OK if you can back it up.
6. Employee Pride on Display! Every plane had a decal on it under the Fortune banner indicating an employee who had excelled at their job. Nice…what a badge of pride if your name hits the list. (I seem to recall that this is a long-standing practice, and if so, it’s still a good idea.)
7. Pleasant flight crews who seemed to enjoy their jobs. The banter by the pilots seemed extraordinarily friendly and the rest of the flight crew engaged with customers in way that only Southwest seems to have ever cared about.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
While I’m not certain that my two terminal/two flight experience offers a valid sample set, the experience with Delta yesterday was noticeably different than the gross majority of my other airline experiences. Someone seems to be paying attention at Delta. It almost sounds like good leadership and excellent marketing… and great execution…concepts sorely lacking in much of the rest of this industry. The great experience is most definitely in the details.
I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to see if I was lucky or if they’re truly good. And for executives and marketers everywhere, It behooves you to give your employees reasons to smile and serve. The customers are watching.
Art’s Weekly Leadership Message-Hey Boss: Less Talking, More Listening
It’s amazing what you hear if you exert a little self-control, clamp your jaw shut and focus on trying to understand what your employees and team members are trying to tell you.
You learn about what’s working, what’s not, where you need to step up and offer help, where you need to step in and deliver feedback and so much more.
For some, the elevation to the lofty role of boss, team leader, supervisor or manager of some sort, seems to carry with it an implied obligation to talk more than anyone else in the room. One person expressed it to me as follows: “It’s my job to make sure things get done, so meetings are my opportunity to tell people what to do.” Yeesh.
Being the boss does not carry with it the requirement that you occupy all available airtime during group and one-on-one meetings. To the contrary, success in this role is more a function of how well you listen and then act on or apply what you heard.
For those still in their formative stage of learning to lead or in a need of a tune-up of your boss skills, know that your willingness to pay attention…to actively listen and engage with someone or some group is one of your best ways to show respect to employees and team members.
Your active listening is best broken by the artful use of asking questions to ensure that you understand the messages of your team members.
And yes, you’ve got an implicit responsibility to teach others, however, as the old saying goes, “telling ain’t teaching.”
You teach by the example you set, by the respect you show to everyone and by your willingness to support people in their effort to figure out how to do their jobs the best way possible. Oddly for some, you have to let go of your own prior technical competence and let people flail, fail and learn. Of course, some thoughtful and timely feedback along the way is always appropriate.
The Weekly Leadership Message:
Vow this week to listen more, talk less, and use the time you do spend talking to teach and encourage.
Resist sharing your opinions and encourage others to offer theirs. Even if you know the answer you are better off having others find and form the answer on their own. And don’t be surprised when the answers they start coming up with are better than yours. That’s a sign that you are on the right track.
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Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance.
Art’s second book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, will be announced during the last week of September, 2011. Initial copies are now available on Amazon.com and via the author for team/group orders.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
Leadership Caffeine Podcast #8: Francie Dalton on the Impending Talent Shortage
It’s been awhile since we’ve heard much about impending shortages of talent. Seemingly in a galaxy far, far away, the concerns over the Baby Boomers exiting stage right in huge numbers were fodder for a nearly endless string of articles suggesting that we would all wake up one day wondering how and where we were going to get the talent to run our businesses.
It’s a funny thing about prolonged global downturns, but they tend to push stories of labor shortages to the back of the pile, with new stories of chronic unemployment gaining non-stop attention. Nonetheless, firms march on, technology advances, and at last look, things weren’t going to get any easier for us as we confront the challenges of how to stay profitable, still grow and even win in the face of daunting obstacles.
My recent conversation with Francie Dalton, President and Founder of Dalton Alliances, Inc., served to remind us all once again, that talent is always an issue. And by the way, Francie makes an interesting case that the recently forgotten issue of talent shortages is a very real issue about to bite us where it hurts…in the bottom line.
As I indicate in the opening to the podcast, I had so much fun connecting and talking with Francie here, that someone should have charged me admission. As for you the listener, enjoy Francie’s perspectives…and even on the off chance that you don’t agree with her numbers, stay tuned to the end where she shares her guidance on what we should all be doing to retain and develop talent…shortage or not.
Leadership Caffeine Podcast Episode 8: Francie Dalton on Preparing for the Impending Talent Shortage [ 26:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadShow Sound-Bites:
- While we’ve been wiling away our time managing the global recession, a new look at the numbers indicates the potential for shortages of degreed professionals in many key areas of our economy.
- The shortage in Francie’s words is a real structural shortage of several million professionals, net of the talent we import in the U.S. and the jobs we export.
- The shortage truly represents an opportunity for firms willing to invest in programs to retain and develop their top talent.
- Francie offers 3 Key Questions firms should be asking about this talent situation.
- Even if the forecasts are wrong, the guidance and suggested actions for firms on this topic will still pay dividends.
Franice Dalton is the CEO and Founder of Dalton Alliances, Inc., a consulting firm dedicated to providing clients with a broad range of services in the communication, management and behavioral sciences.
Related Podcast: Kevin Oakes of the Institute for Corporate Productivity on Integrated Talent Management.
About the Leadership Caffeine Podcast:
The purpose of this show is to connect with leaders, management thinkers, authors, educators, entrepreneurs and anyone else passionate about improving and innovating in leadership and management. If you are interested in being a guest on the show, contact Art Petty.
Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Art’s second book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, will be announced during the last week of September, 2011. Initial copies are now available on Amazon.com and via the author for team/group orders.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
The Conversations You Are Not Having Are Killing Your Business
I work a great deal helping people and teams improve their conversations. Whether the focus is on framing, feedback or process, most teams and most individuals are able to relate to and adopt new tools and approaches that help immediately. However, the most important issue that most leaders and teams face is not in what is being said, but rather, it’s the important topics not being discussed.
10 Popular Discussions Not Occurring in Your Organization Right Now:
1. The much overdue “crucial confrontation” with the toxic team member.
2. The brutally honest assessment of your firm’s situation in the marketplace.
3. The fact that you have no visible sort of strategy…you’ve never had one and now that times have turned tough, the absence of this strategy is visible to everyone but the boss.
4. The reality that last year’s pet development project from the CEO is sucking the resources and morale out of the company, when everyone but the CEO knows this project just sucks.
5. How your “goals” and “metrics” connect to what’s important for the firm. Heck, you would settle for goals.
6. What you really think about an employee’s performance. The coating of sugar “sandwiched” between the bread of your watered down feedback is choking off the real message.
7. The painful reality that the last 243 “brainstorming” sessions you’ve participated in, have resulted in just one outcome…hiring the hypnotist for company holiday party. It was darned funny, but you find yourself wishing you could be hypnotized to forget the painful reality that there’s little that ever changes in this slowly eroding business.
8. Why the boss spends her entire life flying around “meeting with customers” but nothing ever seems to come of it, other than the postponement of the already much postponed critical discussions.
9. How the latest reorganization plan, engineered from the top, actually improves anything for anyone who works with people who send money to your firm.
10. Anything resembling a development discussion where you have a chance to share your ambitions and aspirations and the boss actually does something to help you move in that direction. The only direction you feel like moving now, is out.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Chances are that the silence from at least a few of these conversations not happening in your firm is deafening. Feel free to print this out, highlight the “missing” conversation and pass it along to the silent parties. Or, better yet…pick one and start the conversation rolling.
Words, carefully constructed and artfully executed are still the best way to start a revolution.
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Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Art’s second book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, will be announced during the last week of September, 2011. Initial copies are now available on Amazon.com and via the author for team/group orders.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
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