The number one skill that is essential to achieving greater success

Pho0to Credit: istockphoto.com

Here is an article written by Mary Goodman and Rich Russakoff for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch) If there was just one thing you could improve upon that is guaranteed to make you more successful, would you do it? Well then listen up.

We mean it, really – listen up and listen better.

The better we listen, the more others appreciate us and, in return, the more they listen to us. By listening better, we learn more and misinterpret others less. It seems that some people are just naturally good listeners but the truth is listening is an acquired skill. One that, with any improvement, will yield great benefits.

Let’s take a look at few of the barriers or bad habits that get in the way of effective listening. See which ones you might be guilty of. (We know which ones we’re guilty of.)

• Multi-tasking – Do you ever look at your phone or check emails during a conversation? If you think you can multi-task while listening, then you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s also painfully obvious to the other person when we are distracted.

• Me, Me, Me – If your major concern is how others perceive you, or what you’ll say next, then you can’t focus on what is being said.

• Brain Speed – If our thoughts outpace the speaking style of the person we are talking with, we tend to let our mind wander. Or we interrupt the other person because we believe we know what the person is trying to say but taking too long to say it.

• What did you Say? – Hearing loss can adversely affect every conversation, from missing out on a pleasant exchange to serious safety issues. It is estimated that there are more than 35 million Americans that are hearing impaired. Less than 30% use hearing aids. If you suspect you have a hearing problem, get tested. If you know you have a hearing problem, get hearing aids. If you own hearing aids, wear them.

• Line Butting – You’re bored with the subject so you interrupt and introduce a new topic. Or worse, you start talking about yourself.

So how did you do?

If not as well as you liked, here are a few things that you can do that will dramatically improve your listening skills.

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The advice is rock-solid. Check it out by clicking here.

Rich and Mary help entrepreneurs make more money doing what they do. “We help them make it, get it and keep it.” They’re authors of Make Banks Compete To Lend You Money. To learn more, check out Bottom Line Up by clicking here. You can check out all their articles by clicking here.

The most important productivity tip

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Here is an article written by Dave Logan for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch) I’m a time management nut, and so I am surprised that the most important aspect of personal productivity is rarely discussed. It is to do creative work when you’re naturally creative, and do productive tasks when you’re naturally in “get it done” mode.

Every person I’ve ever met, taught, or learned from, is more creative at some point in the day than others, so much so that they are a creative genius at some times. The same person is a productivity machine at other times in the day (or, a “productivity genius”). The key is to know what your natural daily rhythm is.

First, some definitions. Creative tasks are those that require “invention” — which the Greeks understood as a combination of originality and discovering what’s going on. Writing poetry is creative. So is writing a proposal. And getting ready for a meeting, when you’re getting your facts in order and thinking about how to present them and respond to questions. Answering a tough email is creative, as is offering critiques on a marketing strategy, or preparing a bid.

A productive task is something you try to dispense quickly, where the key is efficiency. Answering routine emails, returning calls, getting through the stuff on your desk are productivity tasks.

So, how do you sync up when you do each? Here’s how:

[Note: Here is the first of three suggestions.]
 
1. Keep a “genius log” for three days to map your daily cycle. During the 72 hours, when you’re at work, set an alarm every 1-2 hours. When it goes off, record these quick data points:

•  The exact time of day.
•  The task you’re working on.
•  Where it is on the creativity-productive continuum, with “100% C” meaning total creativity, “100% P” meaning that you’re doing your best to be a productivity machine.
•  How effortless it is, on a one to 10 scale, with 10 being “completely effortless” and one being “personal hell.”

After making these notations, reset the alarm for a time between 60 and 120 minutes. Repeat until the end of the workday, and for the next two days.

To learn more on how to do the genius log, get some tips to not hang yourself up, and see a sample of my own log, go to my personal blog.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Dave Logan is a USC faculty member, management consultant, and the best-selling author of four books including Tribal Leadership and The Three Laws of Performance. He is also Senior Partner of CultureSync, a management consulting firm, which he co-founded in 1997.

To read his other articles, please click here.

10 big mistakes successful leaders make

Here is an article written by Steve Tobak for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY Executives and business leaders don’t just peak and lose their potency over time, like wine. They change. Oftentimes, success is the culprit. Success affects everyone differently and not necessarily in a good way.

I’ve seen it happen to loads of successful CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners I’ve worked with over the years. It’s not a result of the Peter Principle, since their responsibilities didn’t change. It’s not necessarily a question of the business outgrowing their capabilities, either.

And they don’t just ”lose it.” Rather, they change. Success changes them.

If you know a little about human psychology, that shouldn’t surprise you. You’ve got to really know yourself, possess unusual self-confidence, and be pretty well grounded in reality to withstand the ego-inflating onslaught of winning big in business.

Since we’re all human, we’re all susceptible to the unusual pressures and pitfalls that come from achieving what we’ve always dreamed of. In my experience, these are the ten most common traps successful leaders fall into.

[Here are two of the ten mistakes that Tobak discusses with his usual precision and eloquence.]

Becoming the status quo. Startups often break into the market by challenging the status quo. The problem is when success makes them the status quo, yet they don’t realize it. That was evident when Apple and Google challenged the BlackBerry with the iPhone and Android platform. It’s ironic that RIM’s co-founders forgot that they were once the challengers. Their failure to be proactive or even to react in time was RIM’s downfall.

Tunnel vision. They lose perspective and become rigid, sticking to their myopic vision like glue. Since competitors are unpredictable and markets are always evolving, it can be deadly to a business. If their vision fails to gain traction, they often double down and become even more grandiose. We saw that with former Sony CEO Howard Stringer‘s concept of product synergy. The only problem is it didn’t exist.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Steve Tobak is a consultant and former high-tech senior executive. He’s managing partner of Invisor Consulting, a management consulting and business strategy firm. Contact Steve, follow him on Facebook, or connect on LinkedIn.

5 ways to show authority — without yelling

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Here is an excerpt from an article written by Amy Levin-Epstein for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch) Here’s a sure way to undermine your authority as a manager or competence as an employee: Lose your temper. The ability to get your perspective heard without yelling is imperative to success in the office. Here are five ways to be emphatic while retaining your composure.

[Here are the first two of the five.]

•  Make it impersonal. If you’re disappointed and upset about a situation, focus on the situation, not the person involved. “Human compassion and situation analysis will always serve you much better than yelling or being overly emotional,” says Lisa Quast, founder of Career Woman. A parent might make criticism personal by saying they are disappointed in their child, but at work keep it about the business — not the person — at hand.

•  Change your tone. Even though you’re not yelling, you should use a noticeably tougher tone than you would generally use. “The point of view or criticism needs to be discussed not only in a logical and rational manner, but also in a steady tone of voice that helps demonstrate the seriousness of your comments,” Quast says. A calm, yet urgent, tone will help you communicate your message more effectively than a panicked or angry one.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Amy Levin-Epstein is a freelance writer who has been published in dozens of magazines (including Glamour, Self and Redbook), websites (including AOLHealth.com, Babble.com and Details.com) and newspapers (including The New York Post and the Boston Globe). To read more of her writing, visit AmyLevinEpstein.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MWOnTheJob.

To check out Amy’s other articles, please click here.

What great employees do

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Here is an excerpt from an article written by Steve Tobak for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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This definitely isn’t the first time somebody’s written about what makes employees special. But it may very well be the first time someone’s telling you what will genuinely get your management excited about you and ultimately get you promoted. No kidding.

Look, you’ve got to understand the reality here. People will cite ridiculously esoteric research studies and pull all sorts of popular, feel-good stuff out of their utopian behinds — whatever it takes to get you to click. That’s great for feeding your ego and your addiction to distraction, but it doesn’t do squat for your career.

This is different. It’s not some kumbaya fluff that will get you a big pat on the back, a “Nice job, buddy” from the boss, or a gift certificate for a cheap dinner. This is what employees really do to distinguish themselves in the eyes of management. It’s how up-and-comers become up-and-comers. It’s how you get recognized and moving up the corporate ladder. It’s what today’s top executives did when they were in your shoes.

[Here are the first three of seven defining characteristics of great employees. To read the complete article, please click here.]

1. Take responsibility for hot projects with a fearless attitude. And get this. If it works out, you don’t waste a lot of time basking in the glory, at least not at work. Maybe you go out and celebrate with the other team members. That aside, you’re all about finding the next big challenge. You’re hungry for more. And if it fails, you don’t point fingers. You take full responsibility and learn from it. And you know what? That’s when management will start to see you as one of them. That’s big.

2. Demonstrate natural leadership. That means when you take charge of something, people naturally follow, even though you don’t have the title or the authority. Never mind everything you read; that’s what natural leadership is really all about. There are all sorts of different styles that work, but mostly it comes down to a fearless self-confidence and charisma that people find magnetic. That’s like gold in the corporate world.

3. Say, “Sure, no problem, will do,” and then do it. It’s one thing to have a solid work ethic and get the job done. That certainly key in the real business world. But it’s another thing entirely to always accept challenging assignments with open arms and a simple, “No problem, will do” acknowledgement. And the tougher it is, the more confident you sound and the harder you work to make it happen. That’s the sign of an employee who needs a promotion or two.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Steve Tobak is a consultant and former high-tech senior executive. He’s managing partner of Invisor Consulting, a management consulting and business strategy firm. Contact Steve, follow him on Facebook, or connect on LinkedIn.

Here are 4 ways you can ignite innovation

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Dave Logan for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To read the complete article, check out an abundance of valuable resources, and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch)  Innovation is great fun to study, filled with inspiring stories — 3M’s invention of Post-it note glue, Xerox’s development of the graphic user interface or the many stories about Steve Jobs’ last few years at Apple. Equally interesting is the fact that most approaches to innovation backfire, resulting in the entrepreneurial spirit being broken by people who are trying to make it flourish.

Innovation cannot be managed — a lesson China, and most big companies — need to learn. It can, however, be led, and here are [two of] four ways to do just that:

1.    Focus on the immediate need, not the long-term problem. Airbnb connects people looking for places to stay to those with floor space, rooms and entire apartments or houses to rent. The company had its first major success in Denver during the Democratic National Conference, when then-Senator Obama received his party’s nomination. More people wanted to be in Denver than Denver had hotel rooms. The stories of Obama supporters opening their homes to other supporters, and Airbnb’s role in making the connections, made international news. After that initial success, web traffic and listings dropped to near zero. Soon after, the company needed cash — immediately. They focused on what they knew — how to get stories in the international press, and also Obama supporters. Airbnb deviated from its core business and introduced Obama O’s cereal, which carried the subtitle “hope in every bowl.” They also introduced Cap’n McCains (“a maverick in every bite”), although Obama O’s was a bigger hit. After printing up boxes and securing cereal, they sent sample boxes to reporters, and the story went global. Orders surged – getting the company the cash it needed. Notice that Airbnb focused on the immediate problem — getting cash – not the long-term problem of not enough business for its core operations.

2.    Highlight scarcity. Many people think — erroneously — that innovation results from blue-sky thinking, or people having a lot of free time. The truth is that necessity is the mother of invention, and also of innovation. Said differently, scarcity drives innovation, according to numerous studies. The problem is that many companies wait too long before admitting there’s a problem, not giving innovation enough time to offer solutions. Airbnb illustrates this point — the founders focused on the lack of cash (the scarce resource), and did so in time to do something about it (barely). When caught in time, people will often respond to scarce resources by combining their creativity. Scarce viewers force advertisers to find new ways to reach people, just as wars increase technological innovation, especially on the side facing a disadvantage. The scarcities inherent in sending people the moon famously drove NASA and its contractors to create many technological breakthroughs.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

“Making innovation work quickly is the subject of my personal blog, where you can also download a segment from a course on innovation, based on content from my course in the USC Executive MBA program.”

Dave Logan is a USC faculty member, management consultant, and the best-selling author of four books including Tribal Leadership and The Three Laws of Performance. He is also Senior Partner of CultureSync, a management consulting firm, which he co-founded in 1997.

 

Here are 6 keys to your employees’ hearts

Image courtesy of Flickr user Lara604

Here is an article written by Michael Hess for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Lara604

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(MoneyWatch)  Valentine’s Day has come and gone but it’s always a fitting time to talk about employee love. (No, not the “meet me in the storage room in five minutes” kind.) I’m talking about the things that the best companies do to engender the dedication, loyalty and, yes, even the love of the people who work for them.

Everyone knows that the days of the one-company career are long gone. Depending on what data you choose to believe, the average person will change jobs somewhere around five to seven times in a lifetime. So if you run a business, it is virtually certain you will lose every employee you have (hopefully not all at once). In fact, you might even help some of them move on.

It’s a reality that stinks, because enlightened companies know that employees are at least as important as customers and other stakeholders, and great employees are hard to find and painful to lose. But it’s a reality nonetheless. So, while you may have to accept the likelihood that your people won’t stay forever, you should never stop working at making your company the kind of place that’s hard to leave.

Companies with the happiest and most productive employees, and the lowest turnover, tend to have these six people-priorities (or similar iterations) in common. Compare your own work environment to this list to see if your business is geared towards retention.

[Here are the first three of six. To read the complete article, please click here.]

1. Trust. In both directions. Your employees need to trust you, know where they stand with you, and feel safe with you. And you must show that you trust them, whether it’s with projects, decisions, time or money. The miserable and destructive phenomenon of “office politics,” as clichéd as it may be, really boils down to nothing more than issues of trust.

2. Responsibility. Give your people as much as they can handle, maybe even a little more. It tells them that they and their jobs are valuable and gives them a chance to shine (or fail). It helps you identify star performers, it discourages logjams and gets more done, and it’s good for your business.

3. Culture. I’ve written about it a lot and I can’t write about it enough. Your company culture — both the qualities and genuineness of it — is its heart and soul, the glue that holds it together, the spirit that drives it. Plain and simple, great employees don’t stick around companies with lousy cultures, and all other things being equal, employees perform better within a great culture. And this is an area where smaller businesses can almost always have an edge.

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The employer/employee relationship is much the same as any other relationship: what you get largely reflects what you give.

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Michael Hess is founder and CEO of Skooba Design, and also serves as an advisor to other entrepreneurs. He is “obsessed to the point of insanity” with customer service. To read the philosophies that make Michael and Skooba Design tick, please click here.

7 types of people you never want to work with

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Here is an excerpt from an article written by Steve Tobak for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY Every incompetent employee, lunatic boss and deceitful salesperson is someone’s loving spouse and loyal friend. That does not mean you should hire, work for, trust or do business with them. And yet, we do exactly that, time and again.

Sometimes we get taken; it happens to everyone. But other times we ignore all sorts of red flags. We act against our better judgment.

But why? I mean, why would you or anyone make a ridiculously important decision “against your better judgment?” Because, at that moment, you choose to believe that pigs can fly. That miracles do happen. That universal laws don’t apply to you because you’re special.

You choose hopes and dreams over reason and instinct.

Well, here’s the thing. Pigs can’t fly, miracles don’t happen, the laws of physics do apply to you and hope is always a dumb strategy. Instead of hopes and dreams, learn to listen to your better judgment, trust your instincts, and keep these [three of] seven types of people out of your business.

Trendy self-promoters. There are tons of self-proclaimed entrepreneurs branding themselves as Gen Y consultants, personal branding experts, or both. They’re experts all right — at branding themselves and making money off a trendy stereotype or label.

Salespeople who know their product doesn’t work. Everyone on Wall Street knows that past performance is no indicator of future results and active money management doesn’t outperform the broad market. And yet, money managers make fortunes selling products they know don’t work. How do they sleep at night?

Bottom feeders. When bubbles burst, economies go south and once-thriving industries dry up, enterprising people find other ways to make a living. The worse the economy gets, the more life and career coaches there are. Imagine that. Look, if you need help, find someone who was actually successful at what you want to become.

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Just remember, these are not all bottom feeders you can spot in an instant and steer clear of with ease. Lots of them are highly successful and very wealthy. Some are even senior executives and business leaders. So stay on your toes — it’s a jungle out there.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Steve Tobak is a consultant and former high-tech senior executive. He’s managing partner of Invisor Consulting, a management consulting and business strategy firm. Contact Steve at the firm, follow him on Facebook, or connect on LinkedIn.

 

Why most managers are ineffective

Photo: Courtesy of Flickr user The Accent C.C.2.0

Here is an article written by Margaret Heffernan or CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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Power is the ability to get things done. You could say that management is the art of ensuring that things get done. Yet what’s so striking about most organizations is that so little management is effective.

That’s what academics Heike Bruch and the late Sumantra Ghoshal discovered when they investigated what they called “decisive purposeful action.” Most companies, far from being hives of busy, effective executives, could instead be seen as “a few isolated islands of action amid an ocean of inaction,” the researchers found. Does this ring any bells? It certainly reminded me of many places I’ve worked — and run — where a small number of people always seemed to be doing the majority of work that mattered.

Bruch and Ghoshal’s study quantified my impression. “What we found in our research surprised us,” the authors write. “Only about 10 percent of the managers took purposeful action.” The remainder were busy, just not very effective: 40 percent were energetic but unfocused; 30 percent had low energy, little focus and tended to procrastinate; and 10% were focused, but not very energetic.

No wonder most businesses are so unproductive. What all of this suggests (and there’s plenty of other supporting evidence), is that we waste most of the human resources we hire. The people around us are either unfocused (they don’t know how to use their energy), uninspired (they’ve lost their energy), or distant (they’d rather think than do.) Leadership is about galvanizing this potential and getting it to move effectively in the right direction.

The 40 percent who are energetic but unfocused are the ones you have to work on. They want to do useful work and are up for a challenge. They just don’t know where to start or how to prioritize. When you have a coherent strategy, you give this energy meaningful direction. Unfocused energy is rarely the fault of the individual. Rather, it’s an indication that your strategy isn’t sufficiently understood or being translated into goals.

The 30 percent who have low energy and little focus are tough nuts to crack. Did they start well and just run out of steam? Are they in the wrong jobs or the wrong company? There’s a high likelihood they started out in the energetic 40 percent cohort but became disillusioned and disengaged by their inability to have an impact. Your best hope is that galvanizing the 40 percent creates enough draw within the organization that the best of these get swept along.

I don’t really worry about the focused but less effective 10 percent. In my experience, focus is always valuable, even if it’s slow. In most companies, everyone knows who fits into which category. You probably know, too. The question is: What are you going to do about them?

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Margaret Heffernan has been CEO of five businesses in the United States and United Kingdom. A speaker and writer, her most recent book, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, was shortlisted for the”Financial Times Best Business Book 2011.” Visit her on www.MHeffernan.com.

 

Where do big ideas come from?

Albert Einstein

Here is an article written by Steve Tobak for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching a football game where the kicker is about to attempt a field goal to win the game, my hands grip the chair, I hold my breath, and I wonder what’s going through the guy’s mind.

When Michigan’s Brendan Gibbons nailed a 37-yard field goal to win theSugar Bowl in overtime, guess what was going through his mind? Brunette girls. No kidding, that’s what inspires the guy. And it works.

We can’t all be great athletes, so some of us have to “win the big game,” so to speak, with our intuition, our ideas. Which brings us to a subject of much confusion and debate in the business world. What inspires “big idea” people? Asked another way, where do big ideas come from?

Actually, many so-called “left brain” or analytical people I’ve known over the years, including an awful lot of managers and executives, think the whole concept of some people being more intuitive or inspirational than others is pure mythology. Well, maybe it is and maybe it’s not. But scientists say that intuition can be a powerful factor in human decision-making and idea creation.

For what it’s worth, I agree.

Following your Intuition can be as simple as listening to a little voice in your head, trusting a feeling or sense of warning, or following your own internal “focus group of one,” against the “better judgment” of many.

Where does it come from? Good question. It’s probably a vestige of an evolutionary survival mechanism. An “intuitive” caveman sensing danger, for example, would hide in his cave and avoid being eaten by some blood-crazed saber-toothed tiger. Since he survived, he’d pass that instinct on. At least that’s the theory.

In any case, human intuition has probably been on the decline for some time, owing to an increasing dependence on our overdeveloped neocortex, logical reason, and technology, and not to mention a significant decline in people living in caves with bloodthirsty predators around

Don’t even get me started on our newly found addiction to gadgets, social media, and instantaneous communication. You can’t sense or intuit anything when you’re distracted. Personally, I think that’s sad, considering there’s at least anecdotal evidence that intuition plays a significant role in scientific, technological, and business innovation.

For example, against all logic, Albert Einstein was obsessed with light. That passion for light and his famous thought experiments where he pondered what he would see if he rode on a beam of light led to the special theory of relativity and E=MC2, one of the greatest discoveries in the history of physics.

In his book Idea Man: A Memoir by the Co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen says he came up with the big idea that made Microsoft more money than just about any business in history: Charging per-copy royalties for the IBM PC operating system instead of a flat license fee.

And what possessed entrepreneur Mark Cuban to sell Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.9 billion in stock and then immediately hedge that stock against a market crash at the very peak of the dot-com bubble? All the so-called experts rode the market down and lost trillions in investment capital.

Now, I’m no Einstein, but I have worked together with a large number of innovative entrepreneurs, engineers, and executives over the decades. In my experience, there are five relatively common factors that inspire intuitive people and ultimately lead to big ideas.

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To read the complete article and share Steve’s thoughts about the “five relatively common factors,” please click here.

Steve Tobak is a consultant and former high-tech senior executive. He’s managing partner of Invisor Consulting, a management consulting and business strategy firm. Contact Steve, follow him on Facebook, or connect on http://www.linkedin.com/in/stobak.