Perspective on the financial rescue
The Washington Post’s business columnist, Steven Pearlstein, published a worthwhile article today. “Pressure is on for Obama, but this Rescue Relies on All of Us” gives some perspective on the tough job the President-elect faces, as well as the responsibilities US businesspeople must face.
“The election of any new president leads inexorably to heightened expectations of what he can accomplish, but that is particularly true at a time like this, when Americans are desperate for someone who can stanch job losses, put a floor under house prices, prevent foreclosures and restore value to diminished 401(k) retirement accounts. There is extraordinary pressure on Barack Obama — from the public, the news media, Congress and even from other world leaders — to move quickly and decisively “fix” the U.S. economy.”
Read the full column here.
Top 10 Skills of Super Salespeople
For the past 17 years, John Asher has been studying the difference between average and top salespeople.
A TEC speaker and former TEC member, he has discovered the top 10 skills of super salespeople. OneAccord supports these tips for super sellers:
1. Ask questions and listen to the customer.
2. Ask for, and follow up on, referrals.
3. Focus on a few top prospects.
4. Use coaches, or insiders to help sellers fully understand customers’ requirements.
5. Thoroughly research prospects and their organizations.
6. Act as a business consultant by helping prospects solve problems.
7. Build relationships.
8. Provide appropriate marketing messages, using:
-killer arguments (we’ve done it before; you can do it too),
-key discriminators (why you should choose us),
-ghosting discriminators (why you shouldn’t choose the competition),
-business case analysis (ROI).
9. Recognize when buyers are ready to buy.
10. Know how to close the sale.
Obama and McCain: A Study in Conflict
Written by: Craig E. Runde and Tim Flanagan
We get it. Presidential debates are organized for the specific purpose of showcasing the differences between the candidates. And it’s a great idea. Our system is built on the premise that voters decide who gets elected. (OK, we know how the electoral college works… but just bear with us on this.) Having the candidates speak openly in a forum designed to highlight their differences is a great way to enable voters to gather information and make their judgments.
At the same time, aren’t you just a little dismayed at some of the antics and behaviors of our candidates? There is no question that John McCain and Barack Obama have conflicting views. Each wants to convince us that his views are better than the other’s. The winner becomes arguably the most powerful person on the face of the earth for goodness sake. What won’t they do to win?
There are many ways to handle conflicts, even between candidates for office. Essentially, there are two broad categories of conflict: constructive and destructive. Constructive conflict enables an examination of differences and disagreements in ways that focus on exploration, dialogue, and curiosity. Most often, constructive conflict results in new ideas and satisfying solutions. Destructive conflict is characterized by blame and criticism. The result is often frayed emotions, indecision, and diminished commitment to outcomes. With these concepts in mind, here are just a few observations from the town hall style debate of Oct. 7.
Both candidates spoke frequently about trust. Unfortunately, in their zeal to win, the issue of trust was reduced to a game of showing why you can’t trust the other guy. It doesn’t matter much who said what. “He voted 24 times to raise your taxes and now he says he’s going to reduce taxes.” “He supported the failed policies of the current administration for the past eight years and now he wants you to believe he’s going to change those policies.” The blame game only serves to demonstrate that there is little trust between these two obviously powerful men and their respective parties.
At the root of most destructive kinds of conflict lies trust issues. Wouldn’t it be amazing for our country if the two candidates could share their differences without criticizing and blaming one another? Is it possible that the two candidates for president could model constructive conflict behavior? Might such behavior actually encourage more trust of our leaders? Open discussion of differences, without blame, provides an opportunity for constructive conflict. That seems like something our country could use these days.
Both candidates also seemed to enjoy pointing out their “fundamental differences.” If only they could stay focused on the differences rather than each other! Every time we heard the phrase “fundamental difference,” we yearned for a true examination of those differences. Unfortunately, the candidates quickly stooped to characterizations of one another as “inexperienced,” “rash,” “unpredictable,” and “irresponsible.” We’d rather they have laid out their perspectives clearly and left the analysis, judgment, and any criticisms up to the voters. Constructive conflict focuses on content issues. Destructive conflict focuses on personal issues. Don’t we, the voters, deserve more focus on content?
One question from the audience provided a glimmer of hope. A woman inquired about the heavy economic burden of taxes and health care. Both Obama, then McCain, addressed the woman with empathy. They used phrases such as, “It’s easy to see your frustration,” and “I can sense your cynicism.” Constructive conflict behavior includes the ability to empathize and understand the perspectives of others. Both candidates demonstrated empathy in their responses. We hope whoever wins the election uses empathy and perspective taking as they maneuver through the many conflicts facing our nation.
As the debate ended, Obama and McCain strode to the center of the stage to shake hands (which interestingly never happened as Obama offered his hand but McCain apparently didn’t notice), blocking moderator Tom Brokaw’s view of the teleprompter. As Brokaw struggled to read his concluding remarks he laughed and motioned for the candidates to move. Obama and McCain, realizing their error, quickly and in perfect synchrony, pivoted away and apologized. Order was restored. In this moment of genuine, human, unintentional misunderstanding and subsequent resolution, we all smiled. Perhaps there is hope.
Elements to Organizational Success
el•e•ment: The situation in which you are happiest and most effective
Would you like to know more about developing momentum towards improving your culture by integrating the “Critical Elements of Organizational Success”? The overriding objective in embracing the following methodology is the creation of a culture where your people live and breathe passion for who you are as well as what you do.
Critical elements are the truths that are so broad in scope that they affect every area of your company. There are other principles that, when applied, affect certain areas of your company. Then there are still other principals that, when observed, solve only one problem in one department. Critical elements solve a wide scope of organizational problems and they should be observed as your companies top priorities. They are the small percentage of your organizational activity that will deliver a majority of your success. The “Critical Elements of Organizational Success” are those factors in which you cannot afford to fail as they can be the difference between “beating expectations” as a company or “re-organization and downsizing.”
In so many companies today, the critical elements aren’t necessarily positive. They are the byproduct of short term tactical decisions rather than a vision cast by the leadership team. If you have a deep political culture where the cancer of gossip or entitlement is squeezing the life out of your company, do you look to your line workers, supervisors or middle managers for accountability? You may want to but the culture is always developed upstream and at the headwaters of that river you will always find the executive leadership team.
A logical question at this time would be “why does a Revenue Acceleration consulting firm want us to improve our culture?” I will answer the question with an analogy. Auto manufactures go to great lengths to mate the performance of an engine to the rest of the car. To achieve great performance the horsepower generated by your sales engine must be married to a chassis or organization that is developed to support it. Operationally, if one is strengthened while the other is weak, the end result is poor performance. My focus in this series will be to provide you key areas in which you can improve or develop your culture to support a more powerful revenue engine.
These four are…
1. Deeply Defining your Unique Ability
2. The “One Corporate Commandment”
3. People as the Project
4. An Emotionally Intelligent Organization
Innovation and Improvement: A Distinction Without a Difference
Written by: David Silverstein for Inc.com
THE PROCESS OF INNOVATION AND IMPROVEMENT ARE MUCH MORE INTERTWINED THAN WE GENERALLY LIKE TO BELIEVE.
My principal business consists of giving commercial value to the brilliant, but misdirected, ideas of others… Accordingly, I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.” — Thomas Edison
Isn’t it interesting that one of the greatest innovators of all time emphasized his ability to improve things much more than his ability to invent them? Or perhaps better said, he considers the process of constant improvement to be a very big part of invention, and of conceiving new ideas.
As the debate about innovation versus improvement (still often called the “Six Sigma versus innovation” debate) continues, I find it increasingly difficult to differentiate the two concepts. In fact,
I’m not sure there is one.
Quite interestingly, if you really study Edison’s history, you’ll find that he didn’t consider himself much of an inventor at all — that characterization was assigned more often by the history books than by Edison himself. Rather, Edison considered himself someone that would relentlessly pursue improvement.
Here’s another famous quote from Thomas Edison: “Your idea only has to be original in its adaptation to the problem you’re working on.”
The reality is that all things in business — and in life — can be boiled down to one simple term: problem solving. This is to say that everything we do is with the intent of solving a problem. In fact, a business doesn’t even exist if it doesn’t have a customer with a problem to solve. Even a not-for-profit organization exists to solve one or more problems. Everything we do, every day, is done to solve a problem.
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