Mike Figliuolo's Blog, page 69

How Learning Dance Makes You a Better Leader

How dance makes you a better leader with interviews with CEOs and leaders of industry. Today’s post is by Megan Taylor Morrison, author of Dance Adventures(CLICK HERE to get your copy). Boardrooms and bachata? Lindy hop and LinkedIn? Merengue and meetings? Business and dance seem like uncomfortable bedfellows, but dancing can inform leadership, making your interactions with clients, employees or business partners more effective and fulfilling. I’ve experienced this crossover firsthand. I’m a business and leadership coach and former professional dancer who has used the wisdom I’ve gained from overcoming challenges on stage -from breaking a heel while dancing in front of hundreds of people to having to perform outdoors in the pouring rain – to support my professional growth. I’ve also...



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How well do you practice self-care during stressful times?

Our reader poll today asks: How well do you practice self-care during stressful times? Extremely: It’s a top focus, especially during stress. 8.01% Very: I give it a lot of attention during stress. 23.15% Somewhat: I could definitely do a better job of it. 45.42% Not very: I only practice it occasionally during stress. 17.42% Not at all: I never practice self-care during stress. 6% The most important kind of care. If you don’t care for yourself, it’s extremely hard to effectively care for others. Almost 70% of you report you need to do a better job of it. What’s stopping you? Get some rest. Eat well. Exercise. Put these things on your calendar. In stressful and change-filled times, everyone gets a little crazy — it’s up to you to step outside of that...



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5 Key Methods for Motivating Your Workforce

There are variety of responsibilities that fall under a leaders purview but none perhaps more important than motivating the employees they work with. Today’s post is by Mark Williams. One of a leader’s most important responsibilities is to motivate and inspire employees — both to aspire to fulfill their true potential and to stretch themselves in the service of organizational goals. While a leader makes critical decisions every day that impact the bottom line, creating a culture where employees feel motivated and engaged is an equally weighty responsibility that is sometimes overlooked. Motivating others is a tall task made shorter by focusing on five key methods — recognition, respect, motivation, professional development and empowerment. Recognition I like to say that rewards and...



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How well does your organization stand behind its product or service?

Our reader poll today asks: How well does your organization stand behind its product or service? Extremely well: We ensure 100% customer satisfaction. 47% Very well: We stand behind our work the vast majority of the time. 35% Well: We generally stand by our work but occasionally miss. 11% Not well: We regularly miss customer expectations and standards. 6% Not at all: We don’t back up anything we do. 2% Backing your product matters. 82% of you make pretty strong commitments to backing your product or service. For the 18% of you not in that group, recognize it may not affect that customer sale or relationship today, but it’s costing you dearly tomorrow. It’s far too easy these days to build a bad reputation for your business, given online reviews and the speed of information sharing....



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Authenticity Lies in Your Ability to Cut The Crap

Authentic means getting rid of the B.S. and buzzwords and layers of ‘protective’ crap. Sharing who you truly are is the best way to establish a connection and build trust with your team. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS and author of One Piece of Paper(CLICK HERE to get your copy). The only way I know to roll back the tide of all the meaningless jargon in our world is to say what you really mean. Words spoken from the heart and the gut are clear, concise, meaningful, and genuine. They help ground you and your team. They signal that you are willing to take a stand for something you believe in instead of watering down your beliefs with complicated words so you will not offend someone or so your simple thoughts will sound more...



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How much of a difference do you see between the roles of being a manager and being a director?

Our reader poll today asks: How much of a difference do you see between the roles of being a manager and being a director? There’s a world of difference. They’re completely separate types of roles. 48.84% There’s some difference between them, but not a lot. 36.45% Pretty much no difference — a director is a glorified manager. 14.71% The role is what you make it. If you’re not seeing a big difference between managers and directors, someone is falling short of making that director role everything it could be. Moving to director is where you make the shift to getting things done through others. The other big shift is moving from having the right answers to asking the right questions. Directors need to see beyond the horizon and ask about the things no one...



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How Avoid Mistakes When Doing Analysis and Making Recommendations

Three major mistakes people make when conducting analysis are succumbing to confirmation bias, analysis paralysis, and generating weak results. If you’re mindful of these risks and approach your analysis rigorously and objectively, you can make a recommendation that will be easily approved. Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERSs and author of The Elegant Pitch: (CLICK HERE to get your copy). A hypothesis-driven approach to problem solving and making recommendations can be tremendously efficient. You create a hypothesis (something taken to be true for the sake of argument), conduct analysis designed to prove or disprove the hypothesis, then make your recommendation based on the results of your analysis. Typically your hypothesis is based upon prior...



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Is Your Organization Building Innovation Into Its DNA?

Want to continue to be at the forefront of your industry, trying to get to the forefront, building innovation into the company structure is a must-have. Today’s post is by thoughtLEADERS principal Maureen Metcalf. Change is accelerating on all fronts across all industries. Each organization will be faced with different types of change and at different rates. The commonality is that everyone is facing opportunities and strains because of the current business ecosystem. Companies are regularly facing a broad range of risks, such as cybersecurity attacks, where the question has changed from “Will we be hacked?” to “When will we be hacked?” On the positive side, robotic processes automation, machine learning/artificial intelligence and a wide range of applications are...



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Tips for Hiring Customer Service Staff in Anxious Times

4 Make-Or-Break Customer Service Skills and How to Find Them Today’s post is by Ken Crowell The pandemic and economic and political turmoil has Americans stressed out, making customer service skills more important than ever for businesses to be able to thrive and grow. Even before the latest economic disruption, poor customer service was blamed for costing American businesses billions each year. Meanwhile, ample evidence indicates that companies with friendly and attentive employees keep customers and attract new ones. Customer service personnel are the first point of contact customers have with your company and can make or break your business. A service orientation also helps employees work together and independently to fulfill company goals, and helps create a culture of teamwork and...



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When you’re angry with a team member, how do you approach it?

Our reader poll today asks: When you’re angry with a team member, how do you approach it? I cool off and don’t show any emotion when I speak with them. 45% I wait a bit to talk to them but show them some of my anger. 51% I pause first but let them see a lot of my anger. 3% I unload my anger toward them immediately so they can see it. 1% Pause and compose. The vast majority of you (96%) pause for some period of time before confronting a colleague who has made you mad. Cooler heads can have more rational discussions. The groups seems evenly split, though, on whether to show some of the anger when the conversation does happen. The pro of showing that anger is the person really gets a sense for how much they’ve upset you, but the con is it could inflame the situation. Conversely,...



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