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Remarkable Leadership

Posted on 03.01.18 | Steve Sharon |

Remarkable Leadership Welcome to a deeper look into the Remarkable Leadership Series. This series is designed to help leaders reach their potential, strengthen their leadership talents, achieve goals, and inspire others.

The first topic is about Building Relationships.

Remarkable leaders know how to build and leverage relationships in an impactful way. They need to establish strong working relationships with a variety of people, so that they can get their job done with support and advocacy. You need to develop and deliver upon the interpersonal skills that help advance your ideas, create effective solutions, and get the job done.

Here are ten simple things that you can do to build better relationships as a leader.

  1. Be inspirational. Employees want to follow people with those who inspire. Find your passion and share it with others. Help others to see and understand the bigger picture on what you find to be motivational. Help them tune into the “What’s In It for Me?” message.
    Learn to be a generous listener. There is very little listening in our society anymore. It has become talking not listening. Having a better story or “one-upping” the other person so that you can feel bigger and better. My suggestion is that you will indeed fill bigger and better by giving the gift of your attention, concern, and honoring the other person with allowing them to share what is important to them… then truly listening.
  2. Be aware of your non-verbal messages. These non-verbals (like eye contact, tone of voice, hand gestures) can impact and influence your relationships with others. Many are not even aware of the significance that these non-speaking messages have. Your words may be saying one thing and yet, your body is telling a different story. Learn to read other people’s body language and non-verbal clues, as they will not lie. These clues can share with you whether or not they are connected to you, doubt you, or agree with you. When in doubt… check it out. If you are not sure whether someone is, for example in agreement with you, go ahead and ask them.  It is better to know then guess.
  3. Become a mentor. Relationships are an important part of any career, but all too often, it is about taking and receiving from others to advance oneself. Instead…. Make the choice to take someone under your wing and teach them what you have learned as a leader. You will find that it reinforces the positive qualities of your effective leadership, but it will also bring satisfaction to you, knowing that you have made a difference in someone’s career.
  4. Come from a place of curiosity (not judgment) Let’s face it… no one likes to feel or be judged.  When you criticize or are skeptical, you will not build effective relationships. Seek to understand, so that you can strengthen relationships from the ability to see things from another’s perspective. Be neutral and simply ask them to share their viewpoint. When you come from a place of sincerity and authenticity, you will build strong relationships.
  5. Provide honest feedback to build relationships and improve your ability to lead. Ask for feedback from a committee or other group you help lead. Give members an opportunity to express their thoughts. Create the environment where you and others can reflect on what was spoken and simply say… “Thank you for sharing that with me.”
  6. Learn from others. Make it a habit to look at other leaders and learn from them. Study great leaders. Learn from their mistakes. Repeat the elements that were successful. Identify a role model and model their behavior. Use your (imaginary) role model to help you make decisions and guide you to effective problem solving. Take time to build relationships through listening to their story and by asking poignant questions that demonstrates your admiration and interest in learning from them.
  7. Make it right. While we like to think that leaders get along with everyone… This is not true.  What effective leaders do is identify those leaders who are different and leverage their differences by turning them into strengths. Leaders also know how and when to apologize when a mistake was made and how to repair damaged relationships. Look at your not-so-great relationships and identify what needs to be done to right them.
  8. Provide positive reinforcement. Let others know when they are doing well. Catch them in the right and doing the behavior that you want to see repeated. We remember those times when someone in our life took the time to let us know we did a great job. Too often we don’t deliver positive praise for fear of discomfort, or not wanting to embarrass the other person, or even feeling like you should not have to… “they were just doing their job.” When you are the deliverer of good news, your relationship strengthens.

Be yourself. To build good relationships with others, you need to lead from a place of authenticity. Achievers in history share one thing in common – they knew themselves well and they leveraged their strengths. Bring your full self to work and allow people to see and be led by a leader who is confident, natural, and genuine.

The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

Posted on 02.28.18 | Steve Sharon |

Building A Strong Team is Both Possible and Remarkably Simple.

Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team™ is the official training program based on the bestselling book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team and has a simple goal: To facilitate a learning experience that helps professionals and their organizations discover what it takes to build a truly cohesive and effective team. The central element of the training program is the DiSC-powered Five Behaviors personal profile, which guides teams towards better engagement and higher performance. The Five Behaviors profile, which provides both individual and team feedback, is grounded in the model described in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the internationally best-selling leadership fable by Patrick Lencioni. With this program, participants will learn how, as a team, they score on the key components of the model: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. Additionally, the program is powered by Everything DiSC®, a model that helps individuals to understand themselves and others better. Using these results, participants will be able to create a better, stronger team.

Who is the program designed for?

The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team assessment and accompanying material is designed for an intact team. Before choosing this program, consider the questions: Is the team really a TEAM? A team is a relatively small number of people (from three to twelve) who meet on a regular basis and are collectively responsible for results. The team members share common goals as well as the rewards and responsibilities for achieving them. Not every group is a team. For example, a group that appears to be a team might simply be a collection of people who report to the same manager, but who have relatively little interdependence and mutual accountability. If a group does not meet the criteria of a true team, this process is unlikely to produce the results they expect.

Benefits of our Team Facilitation Programs

This program is highly personalized as your team applies the Five Dysfunctions framework to their own real, demonstrated patterns of behavior. We adapt our approach to fit your team size, timeline, and progress over the course of the engagement to provide the greatest flexibility for your environment. Plus it is cost-effective as a customized, in-house program delivers more value than external, off-the-shelf training.

Available resources include:   Research Report

One size does not fit all… Gen Xers’ vs. Millennials !

Posted on 02.21.18 | Steve Sharon |

Sales managers know that sales coaching is important, yet it is often the very last thing on our list.

I often observe one common challenge among leaders with the way they attempt to coach others.  Sales coaches think the same approach works for all representatives.  They fail to bring generational differences into play.  They lack know-how and understanding of how to apply the Platinum Rule (Coach others how they want to be coached … not how you would want to be coached.)  And unfortunately, sales leaders do not know what is important to each generation and how to apply that in their sales coaching.

Did you know that Generation X’s sales professionals are not usually facing a competency issue, but rather a capacity issue?  If you were to coach a Gen Xer, you need to focus on wit and speed (not depth and abundance), so that they can achieve greater work/life balance.  They know what to do.  Gen Xers’ need support of how to do it efficiently.

Millennials?  That’s a whole different story (and generation).  This generation will make up approximately fifty percent of the 2020 US Workforce and seventy-five percent in 2030.  Sales managers need to rethink their approach and management style to poise and ready themselves.   With “helicopter parents” as the millennials’ influence, this generation needs more guidance and telling.  They value knowledge and experience over power and position.  So, even though you may have Vice President of Sales next to your name, it doesn’t mean very much to them.  Millennials have a need for instant access to you and for instant information that will help them sell better.  What do you mean that you can’t speak to them until tomorrow?  This won’t fly very well with the millennials, so you need to create mutual understanding and agreements for how to work together.  Strange but true.

The secrets above are just scratching the surface of understanding what it means to be a successful sales coach in today’s marketplace.  We’d love to share more with you, if you are committed to learning how to manage and coach the multi-generations.  We have programs, services, and coaching just right for you.

Click Here if you would like more information regarding this program.

The Value of Collaboration

Posted on 01.17.18 | Steve Sharon |

Collaboration concepts from Training EdgeI could start off by giving you a definition of Collaboration and what it is but by now that would be foolish. If your employees or teams are not collaborating, you’ve got some deeper issues than understanding what it is. The fact of the matter is that effective collaboration is essential for today’s workplace. Whether it is because we are playing in a global market or having to be bigger and better than our competition, collaboration is essential to your organization’s survival and being able to thrive. All work is dependent upon the ability to work jointly with others.

The question that I’d like to explore is what is the true value of collaboration? Are two heads really better than one? Isn’t it best to simply direct individuals to do good work and stay focused to bang out a result?

When I ask my clients if they think collaboration is a good thing to do – they immediately say “yes!” Then the answer isn’t as strong when I ask them “why?” Because the value of collaboration is complex and unique to each organization, to truly answer the question of value requires a stop and think moment. The value proposition should be relevant to the potential impact for that particular organization, division, team, and even at the individual level. At the root, the common answer is to produce amazing results. But again I ask, what does that really mean? What specific areas does your organization want (and need) to produce great results?

Most common areas would be:

  1. The Customer – When collaboration works well, the customer wins. They receive a better product, or service, or experience.
  2. Effectiveness and Efficiency – Your organization will be the recipient of better use of resources, which results in saving time and money. Better problem solving, decision making and improved processes also occur. The impact here can be huge!
  3. Employee Engagement – Employees that are deeply engaged significantly outperform those who are not. Employees are feel valued and appreciated will tirelessly work for the cause and do what it takes to make a difference.
  4. Innovation – Collaboration brings about creativity and innovation. When business units are committed to collaboration new ideas and products emerge. There are endless examples of how a small individual idea became grand by collaborating with others.

In today’s economy, collaboration is not just a “nice to have.”  It is a matter of being an essential need.

Now knowing what you know, how good are you at creating effective collaboration around you?  What could you be doing better or differently to achieve the greatest collaboration results?

Investing in Yourself

Posted on 12.20.17 | Steve Sharon |

Training Edge is a career building investmentWhat’s that expression…. The “cobbler’s children have no shoes?” While the origin of this phrase is unknown, the essence is that professionals in many given areas are so busy with their work for their clients or employees or anyone else that they fail to invest in to helping themselves. This is so commonly true for leaders. They fail to invest in their own professional development. The problem with that is that when leaders fail to put energy into their skills they get rusty, they continue bad habits, or they stop growing as a leader.

Top Excuses for Why Leaders Don’t Invest in their Own Professional Growth

  1. No time
  2. Don’t need it
  3. Don’t want to be vulnerable
  4. What can someone teach me that I don’t already know
  5. I’ll do it later.  Not now.

Regardless of the excuse that you have for not investing in yourself, it is more important to understand the ramifications of not taking the time.  Stop and think about the message that you are sending when you send others to training but yet you don’t take time to grow.

There will never be a day when you have nothing else to do, so instead of resisting, embrace it and make it a priority, because you’re worth it!  Think of the benefits for committing to management / leadership development:

Your being a good role model is one of the most influential elements in creating a powerful team.

Your relationship and ability to develop a relationship with your employees is the single most important factor in creating employee engagement.  Engaged employees are happier and more productive.

Sometimes going back to the basics can create magnanimous results. Delivering clear objectives, giving open and honest feedback, and being authentic.  Sharpen the saw. Take a fresh look at your skills.

Well-trained leaders boost morale and create a culture of positivity. Morale improves retention and creates an innovative environment.

When you feel good about yourself, you feel better about other things. There is an incredible result that happens at the end of the day when you can look back at what you’ve accomplished and give yourself a pat on the back. This comes from being the best leader you can be.

Don’t be the cobbler who always has his nose to the grind and fails to invest in what is really important…himself.

Matching People to Jobs

Posted on 11.22.17 | Steve Sharon |

Training Edge offers job matchingMatching People to Jobs is critical for superior performance and retention

It is difficult and aggravating to hire the wrong candidate. Poor job fit results in lost productivity and excessive attrition – both costly issues for today’s organizations.

Why do we so often hire the wrong person for the job?

Often, the hiring manager and the soon to be manager of the candidate is not clear about what is required to perform the job successfully. When there is lack of clarity concerning any aspect of the job or the person needed for the job, managers opt for candidates they like. The manager gravitates to a style they like or with whom they feel most comfortable. We also hire
candidates who seem to know people in the industry best but may not be best suited for the position.

Another reason for hiring the wrong candidate is that they have prepared well and have sold themselves well during the interview. And (unfortunately) far too often managers sometimes know the candidate is not an ideal fit, but place them in the job anyway stating that we don’t have time or there will never be the “right” candidate.   So, the question becomes, “How can you prevent hiring
the wrong candidate in your organization?”

Learn more about how too effectively benchmark the job and match the right person to the job.  Learn about our validated job benchmarking process. See sample reports.  Understand how to best use and leverage this invaluable information.  Job benchmarking is the most important step in a successful selection (and retention) process.  Have you ever hired someone that didn’t meet your expectations?

Have you ever wished that you had a better understanding of what is required for job performance excellence?

1. Define the ‘core’ needs of the job including things like experience, knowledge, training and education.  Of course, a background check needs to be performed.

2. Develop a list of 3 – 6 key accountabilities or goals for this job.   These are those things that must be done and that will impact the business. Key Accountabilities are the reason the job exists. They must be measurable.  Often this essential practice is most often neglected or minimized.

3. Benchmark the job. Use objective information to help eliminate bias. Job benchmarking is more than simply evaluating your
top performers in the job. Identify components like behaviors, motivators, business acumen, emotional intelligence and professional skills necessary for superior performance.  Using the benchmark and the reports generated from the assessment reports, you will have
great information with which to identify and coach top performers into even greater performance or for succession planning purposes.

4. Assess your top job candidates (internal and external) against the benchmark. Using the right process and system,
assessing candidates’ soft skills is easier today than ever before. You can have the candidate complete our assessments from anywhere there is Internet access. And you will have their reports within minutes. The candidate’s reports can then be reviewed for with alignment with the benchmark which makes your analysis easy and quick. In areas that are marginal, the candidate’s reports will guide you in asking interviewing questions that target the soft skills that are most important to success in the job.

Are soft skills really important in jobs?

The answer is YES! We hire for skills and fire for attitudes (soft skills). There was a time when it wasn’t very fashionable in business to focus on soft skills. The trend was to focus on hard skills (Can they DO the task required?). Today, though, we have matured and understand that soft skills (sometimes called personal skills) usually have more to do with success and failure in a job than hard skills. Soft skills comprise a person’s job attributes, their motivators and their behaviors.

The right assessments are the key to successful hiring.

The right assessments can help you objectively understand a candidate’s attributes, competencies, motivators and behaviors. Comparing a candidate’s assessment reports to the needs of the job (benchmark) will help you understand how good – or poor – a fit the candidate will be for the job. Assessments help you get behind the resume and the candidate’s interviewing facade. The right assessments will provide a rich body of information which you can use to help you continue the interviewing process and make your decision. The information you get from the right assessment reports can serve as coaching guides or an onboarding manual for those candidates you hire or incumbents you are developing. Time and time again, our clients using our assessments feel as if they couldn’t effectively make a hiring decision today without the information received from our assessment reports. These reports have saved our clients from making terrible hiring mistakes.

Learn about our validated job benchmarking process.  See sample reports.  Understand how to best use and leverage this invaluable information.

Contact Barbara Ann Sharon, Training Edge at basharon@trainingedge.comor call 610-454-1557.
Visit http://www.trainingedge.com

What Makes for a Great Workplace

Posted on 10.18.17 | Steve Sharon |

I may be showing my age, but many, many years ago when asked what was important to employees; our knee jerk reaction was about the green stuff…. You know…dollar bills!  We, as leaders and stakeholders, believed that if we pay our employees enough money, they will be happy. After much research, we learned that we were very wrong!  Back then (and still today), our employees want to feel as if they matter. They want to feel heard and feel as if they are a significant contributor to their workplace. Employees realize that they are searching for meaning and purpose. They want to feel engaged and committed to making a difference in their job, for others, and even to the world.

Yet, sadly, only a small percentage of employees are fully engaged at work. I have seen numbers as low as 20% of employees feel fully connected at work. We need to invest in learning why that lack of engagement exists and what we can do to change it.  If we pretend otherwise, this disconnect doesn’t do anyone any good.  We have to operate from knowing not guessing or worse yet we can’t afford to operate in denial. For the past few years, I have seen companies come to realize that they need to put energy into allowing their employees to bring the best of themselves to work every day. This includes addressing our employees needs in the area of safety (physical), mental (brain growth and learning), emotional (highs and lows), and spiritual (freedom for expression of diversity, uniqueness, values, and beliefs).

Take a fresh look to see how you and your organization measure up at providing the following ten elements in creating a Great Workplace.

Think for a moment about what would make you feel most excited to get to work in the morning, and most loyal to your employer. I believe that a company should:

  1. Allow  people to be who they are. Celebrate their diverse thought, heritage, appearance, and beliefs. Many perspectives create amazing synergistic results.
  2. Set clear expectations that align with the Corporate Vision and Mission. Help others understand where and how they fit in to achieve those goals.This allows for individuals to experience their “stake” in the company’s success.
  3. Create positive work environments where employees feel compelled to thrive.  Create workspace that is conducive to innovation,  calmness, and collaboration.
  4. Commit to on-going, two way communication. Allow employees to give and receive feedback in a way that is motivating and effective. Regular, on-going communication is often the deal-breaker. It will be the thing that can make or break a company and the people who are employed within it.
  5. Inspire accountability. Give individuals the appropriate levels of authority to make good decisions and feel a sense of accomplishment and responsibility to their work performance. Hold leaders and managers accountable for treating all employees with respect and care, all of the time, and encourage them to regularly recognize those they supervise for the positive contributions they make.
  6. Give positive praise and recognition. People want to know that they are doing a great job.
  7. Develop structure and parameters that encourage consistency, continuity, and  awareness. While employees like flexibility, they still need to understand the rules of the game and how to stay within those lines.
  8. Encourage growth. Give employees opportunities to learn and grow. Investing in your employees is the biggest commitment that will yield the greatest return on investment. Create learning in both hard (technical) and soft (people) skills.
  9. Believe in your purpose. Inspire passion and excitement for the organization, its products, and people. Help your employees to derive a sense of value and worth from that which they create. The greatest compliment is when they refer others to also work for your organization.
  10. Take a pulse often. Be aware of what is happening, how people are feeling, and  the performance that occurs on a regular basis. Too often organizations wait too long to know and end up being too far gone to recover.

How does your company measure up? Is your organization, a Great Workplace? What’s the positive and negative impact on your organization’s performance? If addressed, which element needs would your company have to focus on to become
more fully engaged?

Have you given your leaders and managers the skills necessary to create a Great Workplace? If the answer is no or maybe, then the Great Workplace program is designed for you. If the answer is yes, this program is still a great answer to help you identify and plan for how to continue the growth and employee commitment to being a part of a Great Workplace.

Learn more about the Great Workplace Program by contacting Barbara Ann Sharon at basharon@trainingedge.com or 610.454.1557

Personal Mastery

Posted on 09.20.17 | Steve Sharon |

Personal MasteryPeter Senge identified five learning disciplines that he believed were at the core of leadership in learning organizations. They are:

  • Personal mastery
  • Mental models
  • Shared vision
  • Team learning
  • Systems thinking

What is Personal Mastery?

Personal mastery refers to successfully and consistently working toward our own goals to become as efficient and effective as possible. This is one of those aspects of life that is really about the journey we are on, rather than the destination, since we don’t stop learning or pursuing once we reach our goals. As part of the lifelong learning process, we set new goals and keep going. We also recognize that in order to help grow the organizations that we work with, we must also learn and grow ourselves, and become better at what we do.

The term “mastery” refers to full command or understanding of a subject. Personal mastery, then, means that we have a great deal of understanding of what our own strengths are, as well as where we want to go.

If you are responsible for also leading people in the workplace, it is important to model our own commitment to seeking personal mastery. That means that we must demonstrate our commitment to learning and to setting goals and achieving them. This approach can also help you to support your staff in identifying their own vision, overcoming gaps in knowledge and performance, and finding a way to achieve their objectives.

If you would like more information regarding the programs and services that we provide related to this topic, please contact us at 610.454.1557 or email basharon@trainingedge.com.

Create and Accomplish Your Personal Best…

Posted on 08.16.17 | Steve Sharon |

Blog 1 Leadership PicThis leadership development blog is designed to help you create and accomplish your personal best, and to help you lead others to get extraordinary things done.

At its core, leadership means setting goals, lighting a path, and persuading others to follow. But the responsibility entails much more. Leaders must get their message out in a way that inspires, make the most of their limited time, and build roads to precious resources. They must negotiate alliances, improve their colleagues, and align the ambitions of the many with the needs of the organization.

What makes for a great leader? Is it something to do with inward characteristics, such as confidence and focus? Is it more about outward presence, including charm and compassion? Or is it about the ability to create a vision and get others to commit to it?

The answer is all of the above. By accepting the challenge to lead, you come to realize that the only limits are those you place on yourself.

If you would like more information regarding the programs and services that we provide related to this topic, please contact us at 610.454.1557 or email basharon@trainingedge.com.

Emotional Intelligence: It’s Not What You Think!

Posted on 07.12.17 | Steve Sharon |

How are you feeling today?  Write your emotion here.

Defining emotional intelligence:

The ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of Emotional Intelligence to facilitate higher levels of collaboration and productivity.

  1. EQ  vs.  IQ – IQ is what we use to measure our intelligence.  Everyone has a score and it ranges some higher, some lower.  Average score of 100.
  2. EQ is very different than IQ.
  3. IQ is only responsible for about 10 to 25% of performance / productivity.
  4. 90% of the difference between average and superior performers is EQ
  5. Allows you to interact with others better.
  6. IQ doesn’t change much but the skills for raising EQ can be learned.
  7. You can learn the skills to raise your EQ.  (Good judgments, decision making, etc.)
  8. It is how we make decisions and how / what we decide to do.

cloudy glass and emotional intelligence

Is it clear or cloudy?

Understanding your EQ is similar to viewing water in a glass?

The ability to go from cloudy to clear is the essence of EQ.

EQ then affects your interaction with others.

If you would like more information regarding the programs and services that we provide related to this topic, please contact us at 610.454.1557 or email basharon@trainingedge.com.

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